Mistborn/Characters

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Protagonists

Vin

  • Action Girl
  • Anti-Hero: Type II, mostly. She can be ruthless and has a dark streak in her, but at the end of the day she's fundamentally a good person. She does sometimes veer into Type III territory, most notably when she assaults Cett's keep with Zane in book 2.
  • Badass
  • Badass Cape: Mistcloaks are very cape-like and Vin wears one for quite a while. They're the most common symbol of a Mistborn; when you see someone wearing one of these, you look away, mind your own business, and pray to the Lord Ruler that they're not after you.
  • Book Dumb: Vin isn't very well educated and doesn't think very highly of reading and books in general. She is however a quick thinker, a quick learner and good at piecing together information.
  • Broken Bird: She gets better.
  • Career Killers: She thinks of herself as an Assassin, though there's more to her character than that).
  • Chickification: played straight in that she becomes more traditionally feminine as the series progresses; averted in that this in no way makes her less of a Badass Action Girl.
  • Chosen One: Sort of. She's Preservation's chosen successor, but not the Hero of Ages- so she's a Chosen One, but not the Chosen one.
    • In a way she was Ruin's Chosen One since her combination of and insane mother that Ruin could manipulate, a baby sister who was a seeker and fuel for a hemalurgic spike, and her being a mistborn made all added up to person who Ruin could manipulate to his ends.
  • Cute Bruiser: As a Mistborn, she can burn pewter for enhanced strength and endurance. She may look like a scrawny teenager, but she could tie an Olympic weightlifter up in knots without breaking a sweat.
  • Deadpan Snarker
  • Extraordinarily Empowered Girl: Mistborn are rare, but Vin is by no means unique, apart from being an unusually quick learner... and for her ability to penetrate copperclouds, which is shared, for the most part, only by Steel Inquisitors.
  • Guile Hero: She's nowhere near the planner Kelsier is, but don't think that means she's not really good at thinking on her feet.
  • The Hero: She's the main character of the books, and evolves into the Big Good and biggest Badass on the good guys' side after Kelsier dies. Subverted in that she's not actually the Hero of Ages.
  • Heroic Sacrifice
  • Jeanne D'Archetype: How the skaa see her, more or less. Vin herself finds this very bothering.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The ending of The Well Of Ascension. Full stop.
  • One Woman Army: Elend actually refers to her as 'an army' in The Hero Of Ages.
  • Parental Abandonment: Her mom was crazy and tried to kill her. Her dad was high priest of the Corrupt Church and never knew nor cared that she existed. She was raised, more or less, by her half-brother, who wound up abandoning her too.
  • Physical God
  • Pint-Sized Powerhouse
  • Real Women Never Wear Dresses: Averted with a vengeance. Vin's mostly a tomboyish Action Girl in terms of personality, but that doesn't mean she can't take the opportunity to appreciate fancy dresses, dance parties, or other traditionally feminine interests.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Empress Vin is every bit as Badass as Vin the Mistborn insurgent was
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Very, very much on the cynical side. Becomes less cynical and learns to trust others as the series goes on.
  • Street Urchin: At first
  • Taking You with Me
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Vin is almost this ensemble in one person.
  • Waif Fu: Justified by her ability to burn pewter- she may look small and harmless, but she can acquire incredible superstrength pretty much whenever she needs it.

Kelsier

Sazed/ Harmony

  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Near the end of Hero of Ages, Sazed claims Ruin and Preservation and ascends to godhood. By Alloy of Law, he is known as Harmony.
  • Badass Bookworm: He manages to incapacitate a Steel Inquisitor early in the first book; it happens off-camera, but it's the first instance of a Steel Inquisitor encounter being treated as anything other than "run or die".
  • Battle Butler
  • Bling of War: His physical metal minds are rings and earrings.
  • Chosen One: "I am, unfortunately, the Hero of Ages."
  • Deadpan Snarker: Occasionally.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Tindwyl's death hits him very hard.
  • Let's Get Dangerous: He's a polite, kindly servant/scholar who hates fighting. Threaten his friends or his life's work, though, and you'll find out one of the reasons why the Lord Ruler feared Feruchemists.
  • Messianic Archetype
  • Nice Guy: The most consistently nice character in the series
  • Photographic Memory: Variation. He doesn't actually have one himself (though his memory is very well trained) but through the use of his copperminds he can perfectly store a tremendous amount of memory. Basically, he achieves this through magic rather than being born with it.
  • Religious Russian Roulette: During Hero of Ages, while trying to come to terms with Tindwyl's death.
  • Super Strength: When he taps his pewterminds.
  • Yin-Yang Bomb

Elend Venture

  • Badass Bookworm
  • Cain and Abel: he's Abel
  • Heroic BSOD: In Hero of Ages he has a brief one before Preservation manages to snap him out of it.
  • Non-Action Guy: at least until the third book
  • Not So Different: In Hero of Ages he starts to realize his actions as emperor are very similar to what the Lord Ruler did to keep the empire intact.
  • Rebellious Prince
  • Replacement Scrappy: Becomes one in-universe for Kelsier after he becomes king in Kelsier's place after the latter's death.
  • Shallow Love Interest: He doesn't get much development in the first book, though when he becomes a POV character in books two and three, this changes.
  • Took a Level In Badass: Twice. First under Tindwyl's tutelage in Well of Ascension, and then another after becoming Mistborn himself at the end of that book.
  • Unskilled but Strong: As a Mistborn, he's got more raw allomantic power than anyone in the series short of the Lord Ruler himself- but he's also the first to admit that Vin has a far more subtle affinity for her powers. It turns out that his is because he acquired his Mistborn powers directly from the same metal that was used to grant the original, near-godlike Mistborn their powers by the Lord Ruler.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: Politically, at least.
  • The Wise Prince

Supporting Characters

Dockson

Breeze

  • Deadpan Snarker: Especially when dealing with Ham.
  • Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: An arguable and generally benevolent case; he often toys with the emotions of those around him, lessening the effects of negative emotions such as fatigue, fear, or sadness, in order to emphasize the effect of positive emotions the subjects already feel.
  • Good Is Not Nice: As noted below under Jerk with a Heart of Gold, he's overbearing, manipulative... and caring to a fault.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: He's not nearly as selfish as he acts but prefers to downplay this.
  • Heroic BSOD: Suffers one of these After seeing all the suffering and death at the fall of Luthadel. He gets better by the next book, with Sazed's help
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He appears, at first, to be a pompous, selfish, lazy, egotistical, and manipulative scoundrel. All of this is absolutely true, but it becomes clear (especially in the second and third books whenever he becomes a point-of-view character) that at least as much of his manipulation goes toward helping others as toward getting his own way.
  • May-December Romance: With Allrianne Cett
  • Non-Action Guy: Despite carrying around a dueling cane, there's little indication that Breeze is a warrior of any kind.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Claims to be on the cynical side, despite his actions and emotions pushing him toward idealism.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Has something of this sort of relationship with Ham, due to the latter's insistence on submitting philosophical questions for consideration.

Ham

  • The Big Guy
  • Dumb Muscle: Word of God is that he's a deliberate subversion- between his physical appearance and role in the crew, you'd expect him to be this, but he's really an intelligent, thoughtful guy.
  • Foil: He and Breeze are often contrasted.
  • Genius Bruiser
  • Gentle Giant: He may be a hulking professional soldier, but he's also an amiable family man who'd rather not fight at all if he can avoid it.
  • The Philosopher: Though he's more interested in posing questions than answering them.
  • Sleeves Are for Wimps: Ham wears vests rather than shirts if he has any say in the matter- he even rips the sleeves out of his general's uniform to create a makeshift one.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Breeze.

Clubs

Reen

Marsh

OreSeur/TenSoon

  • The Blob: In his true form.
  • Canine Companion: Forced to take a dog's form at Vin's request since she doesn't want to kill a person just to give him a body. He ends up liking it more than he expects after he sees its usefulness.
  • Dead Person Impersonation: His race's ability to assume the form of living creatures after absorbing their bones makes him very good at this, and his Dead Kandra Impersonation isn't too shabby either.
  • Fantastic Racism: Both experiences this from humans and exhibits it towards them.
  • Heel Face Turn
  • The Mole
  • Not So Different: When Vin tells him of her experiences as a member of a thieving crew, he realizes the experience isn't that different from having to follow the kandra Contract. Leads to an Odd Friendship of sorts.
  • Squick: His need to eat someone before he can imitate them really bothers Vin.
  • Talking Animal: When in his dog body.
  • Voluntary Shapeshifting

Spook

  • Ascended Extra
  • Blindfolded Vision: In The Hero of Ages his constant tin burning his enhanced his super senses to such a level that he needs to wear a blindfold during the day to even function.
  • Dark Messiah: Ruin tries to turn him into one in The Hero of Ages. It almost works.
  • Jive Turkey: He speaks a certain dialect of street slang. It is very nearly utterly incomprehensible to both the reader and to anyone in-setting. At least one bit of translation is given in The Hero of Ages, saying that 'wasing' means 'was doing,' and 'wasing the run of there' means 'I was running to that place'. It's still confusing.
    • Hilariously, by the time of The Alloy of Law this once annoying street slang is now known as High Imperial.
  • Overshadowed by Awesome
    • What Measure Is a Non-Badass?: His attitude about himself. It motivates him to try as hard as he can to be useful and he ends up powerleveling in badass in The Hero of Ages.
  • Super Senses: Especially in The Hero of Ages.
  • Tagalong Kid
  • Took a Level In Badass: In The Hero Of Ages. Twice.
  • The Unintelligible: The accent/slang he has at first. He gets better.

Tindwyl

Ashweather Cett

Allrianne Cett

Beldre

  • Action Girl: Sort of. She hates fighting, but because she's a Coinshot, she can still take out most trained soldiers if they're not ready for her.
  • The Chick
  • Glass Cannon: Being a coinshot who isn't a warrior otherwise, she can't take much punishment but can dish out a lot of it if she's in the right mood.
  • Hidden Depths: She may look and act like a sad, rather naive girl- but she's also a Misting, and her brother's hidden bodyguard.
  • Morality Pet: To her brother Quellion and later, to Spook.
  • Wide-Eyed Idealist: She's basically Vin's opposite in this regard; where Vin doesn't trust anybody easily, Beldre wants to trust everybody and thinks she can solve the conflict between her brother and Spook just by talking it out. Actually, that probably would have worked if Ruin hadn't been prodding both Quellion and Spook to act more and more irrationally.

Alendi

  • Angst Dissonance: In-universe- Vin thinks he's far too angsty to have become an Evil Overlord. She's right.
  • The Chosen One: Subverted in that he was killed by Rashek before he did what he was Chosen to do- and then deconstructed to boot when it was revealed he was only chosen in the first place because of Ruin screwing with the prophecies.
  • Expy: Of any number of generic Chosen One types, but in particular he resembles Rand al'Thor- which became Hilarious in Hindsight when Sanderson was contracted to finish Wheel of Time.
  • Posthumous Character
  • Start of Darkness: Subverted, because he was never the Lord Ruler, and though he was heading towards dark territory he never fully jumped off the slippery slope before he was killed.
  • Wangst: His journal is full of it, in Vin's opinion.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Though he apparently became quite ruthless, he always remained dedicated to helping the world and not taking up the power of the Well of Ascension for himself. Which is why Ruin chose him in the first place.

Preservation/ Leras


Antagonists

The Lord Ruler/ Rashek

Shan Elariel

  • Alpha Bitch: She's in a court, rather than school, setting, but otherwise fits the trope to a "t" though she's rather more dangerous than most.
  • Dark Action Girl
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Not Vin's intention, but Shan was Elend's fiancee, and Elend does make a dark joke along these lines in Hero of Ages, mentioning that Vin married him after killing his fiancee, his father, his brother and his god, to boot.
  • Not So Harmless
  • The Reveal: For most of her appearances, she's built up as practically a female Draco Malfoy- arrogant, obnoxious, and annoying, but ultimately harmless. Then it turns out she's a Mistborn nearly as powerful as Vin.
  • Rich Bitch

Straff Venture

Zane Venture

Ruin/Ati

  • Above Good and Evil
  • Anthropomorphic Personification
  • Badass Boast: "I am mountains that crush. I am waves that crash. I am storms that scatter. I am the end. ...I am Ruin."
  • Big Bad
  • The Chessmaster
  • The Corrupter: To people who have hemalurgic spikes, with subtlety ranging from making them hold onto an item to convincing them to do morally dubious experimentation to simply urging them to kill everyone they meet.
    • He's so good at this last one that he sometimes has to force his victims to not kill everyone they meet, as it is slowing them down.
  • Destruction Cannot Comprehend Life
  • Dead Person Impersonation: Pulls one of several people, notably Kelsier (to Spook), the Lord Ruler (to Penrod), and Reen. Vin sees through the last pretty quickly, at least when it's more than just the voice.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin
  • Hannibal Lecture: Loves doing this to Vin.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: When Ruin and Preservation worked together to create the world, they both put part of themselves into humanity, thus allowing humans to both preserve and destroy. Thus, when Vin absorbed Preservation's power (just as planned) she could use that same power to attack and destroy Ruin, unlike Preservation.
  • The Man Behind the Man
  • Names to Run Away From Really Fast
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: He could have prevented his eventual defeat simply by not forcing Marsh to read the message he intercepted from Spook.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: His very nature is the end of all things, and part of the bargain that allowed the two gods to create life at all stipulated that Ruin would eventually get to destroy it all.
  • Our Gods Are Greater
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Two cans. His power is sealed in the Well of Ascension, and his body is atium... also known as the single most valuable substance in the Empire.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: He can't see or directly affect words written in metal- a rather potent weakness, as his greatest success came from altering written records, especially prophecies. He also can't read minds, though he can influence them if the person has a Hemalurgic spike.

Quellion

Yomen

  • Anti-Villain
  • Badass Bookworm
  • The Chessmaster: Barring the Lord Ruler and Ruin themselves, he's probably the smartest "bad guy" in the series.
  • Combat Clairvoyance: Well, he is an atium Misting.
  • Grey and Grey Morality: He and Elend both make good points, and considering the circumstances are both pretty justified in their actions- Yomen just has incomplete information.
  • He's Just Hiding: His opinion regarding the Lord Ruler- since obviously a god can't be killed, he must have let the skaa overthrow him as part of some Plan. Yomen spends a lot of Hero of Ages trying to figure out just what that plan is.
  • Heel Face Turn
  • Not So Different: He's basically Elend, if Elend had been an Obligator.
  • Worthy Opponent: Again, he's Elend's intellectual equal, and the two of them actually enjoy their philosophical sparring, though their larger conflict is very serious.
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