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{{quote|''There's always another secret.''|[[Guile Hero|Kelsier]]}}
Long ago, a conqueror and philosopher was acclaimed as the Hero of Ages and sent to vanquish an ancient evil known only as the Deepness. The nature and character of the threat has been lost to the mists of time, but the Hero was evidently successful in his quest, as the Deepness was destroyed and the Hero returned in triumph, but not without great
The Hero, having unlocked the secret to immortality, installed himself as the Lord Ruler of the world and became their deity. He granted those who supported him in his quest titles and lands of great power and influence, and a magical power known as Allomancy. Those who did not support his rule were turned into the downtrodden peasant race, known as "skaa", who have since worked the fields in virtual slavery for their masters. A thousand years later the ruling class consists of the decadent descendants of the Lord Ruler's ancient companions, who hold massive balls and festivals in their stone keeps as the rest of the world slaves away. The Lord Ruler impassively reigns over both sides as king and god with his bureaucratic priesthood, his army of beastlike monsters known as koloss, and his brutal, near-inhuman enforcers the Inquisitors. The Lord Ruler, immortal, with unlimited power, keeps the world stable and relatively prosperous under his autocratic rule, and has reigned for so long that most people consider him virtually unstoppable, a force of nature.
The main plot begins with a rebel that seeks to overthrow the the Lord Ruler. That man is named Kelsier, who arose from the ranks of the skaa. Kelsier was once a thief, blithely stealing from the nobility for the sheer joy of it, until he was betrayed, captured, and sent to the Pits of Hathsin, the Lord Ruler's most brutal prison, a mine where prisoners are forced to find one piece of the precious metal atium every seven days or face execution. No man had ever escaped from the
Gathering up many of his old friends from the criminal underworld (most of them themselves allomancers), Kelsier begins raising [[La Résistance|the skaa revolution]] once more. Unlike previous attempts at rebellion, however, who mostly tried a purely military strategy and were soundly defeated every time they raised their head, Kelsier plans to hit the Lord Ruler at the place where he's most vulnerable: his vaults of atium. As for the Lord Ruler himself, Kelsier claims to have a trump card: the so-called "Eleventh Metal", obtained on the edges of the world where even the Lord Ruler has no power.
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His plans look more prosperous when Kelsier's double-agent brother detects these powers in a [[Street Urchin]] named Vin. Unbeknownst to her, she ''also'' has the power of a Mistborn, so Kelsier quickly recruits her and begins her training. With two Mistborn and the support of the underworld, the rebellion churns along at a pace it never has before, and slowly the populace begins to believe in them.
Part [[Heroic Fantasy]], part [[The Con|heist novel]], ''
Sanderson plans for another two trilogies in this world. A standalone ''cum'' bridging novel, [[The Alloy of Law|''The Alloy of Law,'']] was released on November 8, 2011. ''Alloy'' is set several hundred years after the conclusion of ''Hero of Ages,'' and draws significant inspiration from [[The Wild West]] and [[The Gay Nineties]].
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A pen-and-paper role-playing game is also in the works, to be released around the same time, and Sanderson is in talks for a film, though nothing concrete has been established thus far. An upcoming video game, titled ''[http://www.mistborngame.com/ Mistborn: Birthright]'', was announced for Fall 2013 (since delayed to Fall 2015 due to studio staffing issues and development for newer consoles).
Sanderson has compiled lengthy annotations for each chapter of the book at [http://www.brandonsanderson.com/annotation/book/Mistborn/ his website], detailing the development of the series and [[Word of God|clarifying various plot points]]. Note that they're chock-full of [[
See also ''[[Elantris]]'', ''[[Warbreaker]]'' and ''[[The Stormlight Archive]]'' for more books by Brandon Sanderson.
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* [[Abusive Parents]]: Straff Venture. More emotional distance (though he is openly disparaging) than actual physical or mental abuse, but when push comes to shove it's quite clear that Straff considers his children nothing more than tools to bring him more power. {{spoiler|And then there's what he did to Zane...}}
** Hell, nobles in general. They will regularly beat their children in hopes of making one experience a ''snap'' and awaken their allomantic potential.
* [[Action Girl]]: Vin, after coming into her powers, takes Action Girl [[
* [[After the End]]: The books are set in a world that is very clearly post-apocalyptic. The third book reveals what happened.
* [[A God Am I]]: The Lord Ruler, {{spoiler|Ruin.}}
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* [[All There in the Manual]]: a lot of things, even things mentioned in spoiler tags on this very page, are mentioned in Sanderson's liner notes on the website, or on forums etc. For instance, the name of the world, the name of {{spoiler|the god-metal which makes mistborn}}, etc.
* [[Alternative Character Interpretation]]: Kelsier is subject to this in-universe. Is he a noble messiah fighting for his peoples' freedom, a vengeance-driven fiend, or a [[Glory Hound]] fighting the Lord Ruler to become a legend? Different characters have different views, but the Kelsier the reader comes to know has elements of all three.
* [[Exclusively Evil]]: The Koloss, which are so violent they can't even be trusted around humans (or each other, really). This turns out to be a [[Justified Trope]]
* [[A Man Is Not a Virgin]]: Inverted by Sazed, who has been a eunuch since soon after he was born and is thus physically incapable of having sex, but still ends up {{spoiler|in a romantic relationship with a woman... and ultimately turns out to be the real Hero of Ages}}. Also appears in Elend's backstory: {{spoiler|when he was young, his father took him to a skaa brothel to cement his "manhood". As per the law to prevent skaa/noble interbreeding, the girl was killed afterward. When Elend found this out, he refused to sleep with another skaa woman, unlike most nobles}}.
* [[And I Must Scream]]: {{spoiler|Marsh in ''Hero of Ages''. Ruin has absolute control over his body, but whenever he's focusing elsewhere Marsh's mind goes back to being Marsh again. However, he still can't control his own body}}.
* [[Angst Dissonance]]: In-universe example: Vin's reactions to reading the Lord Ruler's logbook that she found in Kredik Shaw. She decides that he sounds far too whiny for a man who conquered the world and became a [[Physical God]]. Turns out {{spoiler|she's right. The diary belongs to someone else}}
* [[Anthropomorphic Personification]]: {{spoiler|Ruin and Preservation, and presumably other Shard gods as well}}.
* [[Anti-Villain]]: Yomen, the Obligator leader from ''Hero of Ages'', is a very skilled leader and has very understandable motivations for his
* [[Anyone Can Die]]: ''Countless'' unnamed skaa and nobles, in addition to cast members. In ''Mistborn'', {{spoiler|Kelsier dies}}; in ''Well of Ascension'', {{spoiler|Clubs, Dockson, and Tindwyl die}}; in ''Hero of Ages'', {{spoiler|Elend and Vin die}}.
* [[A Plague on Both Your Houses]]: {{spoiler|The Lord Ruler}} has one of these towards the end of book 1.
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* [[Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence]]: {{spoiler|Sazed. Previously, Vin and Rashek, though both too briefly to completely fix things. Then Vin again, when she became the new Preservation. Even before that, the two guys who became Ruin and Preservation in the first place.}}
* [[Attack Its Weak Point]]: The Lord Ruler deliberately built multiple weaknesses into the races he created via hemalurgy. The shared weakness are {{spoiler|emotional allomancy that will bring a Koloss, Inquisitor or Kandra under the allomancer's control}} and [[Are These Wires Important?|removing their hemalurgic spikes]].
* [[Author Avatar]]:
* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: Averted. Though the Lord Ruler is a [[Physical God]], the most powerful nobles {{spoiler|after his death}} are a [[Super Senses|Tineye]] and a man who is not only not a Misting (much less a Mistborn) but also ''paraplegic''.
* [[Awesomeness By Analysis]]: How Vin managed to defeat {{spoiler|Zane}} despite his [[Combat Clairvoyance|burning of atium]] giving him a huge advantage. She realized she could figure out what future action on her part he was reacting to by his movements and change it at the last moment to surprise him.
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* [[The Chessmaster]]: Pretty much everyone, from Ruin to Kelsier. But the ultimate Chessmaster crown definitely goes to {{spoiler|Preservation}}.
* [[The Chick]]: Lady Allrianne Cett. Vin's first reaction to meeting her is basically "what was that pink thing that just flew past me?"
* [[Chickification]]: Averted. Vin ''does'' develop from a pure tomboy to having more feminine interests (namely balls and dresses), but she ''never'' stops being a
* [[The Chosen One]]: The Hero of Ages, played with in many, ''many'' ways before everything is through.
* [[Combat Clairvoyance]]: Atium causes this, letting one see things a few seconds before they happen. It makes one almost invincible unless the opponent also has atium, which essentially nullifies the effect.
* [[Conservation of Ninjutsu]]: Applies somewhat to the Koloss, and happens later but {{spoiler|is [[Justified Trope|justified]] in Vin's fight against the 13 Inquisitors, due to her tapping into Preservation's power to superfuel her Allomancy once her Hemalurgic earring was taken out by Marsh.}} She was a hair's breadth from dying before that.
* [[Corrupt Church]]: The obligators are an interesting example, in that they're a religious body who's main concern is power in this world rather than honoring
* [[Crapsack World]]: And ''how''.
* [[Creepy Monotone]]: The Lord Ruler has one of these, owing to the general emotional detachment that comes from living for a thousand years {{spoiler|and Ruin messing with his head}}.
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* [[Dark Action Girl]]: {{spoiler|Lady Shan Elariel}}.
* [[Dark Magical Girl]]: Vin has definitely got the personality.
* [[Dark Messiah]]: The Lord Ruler is a very successful one, though it helps that he {{spoiler|really did save the world}}. Kelsier is a heroic
* [[Dead Person Impersonation]]: Kandra are the masters of this.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Several characters, really, but particularly Vin.
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* [[Double Subversion]]: The Eleventh Metal. Kelsier insists it is the key to defeating the Lord Ruler. So when Vin burns it, {{spoiler|it just shows her [[Alternate History|how the Lord Ruler's life ''could'' have become]]. And then [[Awesome By Analysis|she uses the knowledge]] she gained from those images to realize that the Lord Ruler had killed the one everyone thought was the Hero of Ages and took his place.}}
* [[Downer Ending]]: ''Well of Ascension'': {{spoiler|Ruin, the [[Big Bad]] behind everything is released upon the world, and everything's getting darker}}.
* [[The Dragon]]: Each [[Big Bad]] has
* [[Earn Your Happy Ending]]: The end of ''Hero of Ages''. Also Kelsier's philosophy in general.
* [[Epigraph]]: Each chapter is headed with one, taken from a document that exists in-universe and is read by the main characters. Interestingly, in each case they are presented in such a way as to mislead the reader in some way.
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** It could be argued that Breeze is a male version of [[The Chick]] considering that he uses his powers and manipulation to soothe other characters to calm, including {{spoiler|bringing Sazed and Tindwyl together}}, and his lack of fighting skills.
* [[Functional Magic]]: Not one, not two, but ''three'' entire separate-but-related systems.
** Allomancy:An [[Functional Magic|Inherent Gift]] type system. People are born with the knack or they are not.<ref>Subverted once when {{spoiler|Elend becomes Mistborn by ingesting larasium near the Well of Ascension}}</ref>
** Feruchemy: Another [[Functional Magic|Inherent Gift]] system. Feruchemists are {{spoiler|Terrisman}} who are born with a genetic knack. They store certain attributes in metal trinkets, which they later "tap" to boost that attribute. The attributes that can be stored depend on the material it's being stored in, and range from senses to various mental qualities (quickness of thought, emotional resiliency), to physical traits (like speed and strength, but also things like ''mass'' and ''age''). Storing and tapping things works on a 1:1 scale. When you store strength, you become weaker; if you store strength by becoming half as strong as normal for 10 minutes, then you can tap that strength later to become twice as strong for 10
** Hemalurgy: this dread art is a terrible form of [[Functional Magic|pseudo-Equivalent Exchange]] [[Blood Magic]], where a victim's abilities are permanently transferred into a recipient via {{spoiler|metal spikes used to impale both victim and recipient at certain points in their bodies. The victim is killed, but the recipient is unharmed by the spikes -- even if he ''should have been'', as with spikes through the brain or through the heart.}} Like allomancy and feruchemy, the attributes transferred are dependent on what materials are used. ''Unlike'' allomancy and feruchemy, hemalurgy can even {{spoiler|grant the recipient allomantic or feruchemical powers, though only from an allomancer or feruchemist "[[Human Sacrifice|donor]]+", and only one attribute at a time}}.
* [[Full-Frontal Assault]]: {{spoiler|Sazed}} at the end of ''Mistborn'' when he let himself get captured to rescue Vin from Kredik Shaw. He swallowed a pewtermind to tap for super strength when he saw an opening.
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* [[God of Evil]]: Subverted with Ruin. {{spoiler|Though he ''is'' evil by basically everyone's standards but his own -- wanting to destroy literally ''everything'' -- he's not a god ''of'' evil, but of entropy and decay, and was just as vital to creating the world as Preservation was}}.
* [[The Good, the Bad, and The Evil]]: [[La Résistance|Kelsier and the rebellion]] vs. [[Evil Overlord|the Lord]] [[Anti-Villain|Ruler]] and [[The Empire]] vs. {{spoiler|[[Omnicidal Maniac|Ruin]]}}
** The three competing kings from the second book fit this perfectly as
* [[Grievous Harm with a Body]]: If you're a guard wearing a breastplate, the best you can hope for is to get casually tossed aside by a Mistborn. If you're ''not'' lucky, ''you're'' going to be the one tossing aside your comrades. The guards are at least [[Genre Savvy]] about this; they can detach their breastplates immediately if they realize they're up against an Allomancer or Mistborn.
* [[Guile Hero]]: Kelsier. Full stop. Vin has elements as well- she doesn't have his flair for [[The Plan|all kinds of plans]] but she's still ''very'' good at thinking on her feet.
* [[Hannibal Lecture]]: Ruin does this to Vin, trying to convince her that everything she has done over the last two and a half books has ultimately served his purposes. He even gives her a nickname -- "Beautiful Destroyer".
* [[Healing Factor]]: Mistwraiths and Kandra can heal flesh wounds almost instantly, though they can't heal bones. Pewterarms and Mistborn heal faster than normal by burning pewter. Feruchemists can use gold to store health, and then use that as a healing factor when they need to. Inquisitors have a healing factor as well, and the Lord Ruler has this to an insane
* [[Heart Is an Awesome Power]]: Feruchemical atium, which lets the Feruchemist alter their age, is generally considered a pretty worthless power since you'd have to, for example, spend an equivalent amount of time old in order to make yourself young. {{spoiler|It's also the secret to the Lord Ruler's immortality- as a Compounder (hybrid allomancer/feruchemist) he was able to combine his abilities to create essentially a closed loop of infinite youth for himself}}.
* [[Heel Face Turn]]: Played with multiple times. {{spoiler|Lord Cett}} does one near the end of ''Well of Ascension'' not out of any change of heart, but because he thinks his chances are better that way. In ''Hero of Ages'', we get one from {{spoiler|Yomen}} after he decides that Vin is the Lord Ruler's true successor, and from {{spoiler|Quellion}} after his [[Brainwashed and Crazy]] is fixed. {{spoiler|The Lord Ruler}} is an odd example; his eventually-revealed motivations change his characterization from [[Complete Monster]] to [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]], giving him a semi-[[Heel Face Turn]] in the eyes of the audience {{spoiler|well after his death}}.
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** Also happened to the Lord Ruler when he first got the power from the Well of Ascension. In his case, it was a rather bigger deal, as it was his {{spoiler|clumsy use of power that lead directly to the ash-covered brown-planted setting of the series}}. {{spoiler|Vin}} has a similar experience when {{spoiler|she absorbs Preservation; notably, her attempt to stop the ashfalls nearly ''lights half the planet on fire''}}.
** Averted, however, with {{spoiler|Sazed. As he takes in both Ruin and Preservation's power, he dumps the entirety of his copperminds into his expanding mind, giving him enough information to fix everything ''without'' creating unintended side-effects}}.
* [[Humans Are
* [[Humans Are Special]]: Humanity {{spoiler|contains power of both Ruin and Preservation}}. As a result, {{spoiler|humans can both protect and destroy, while Ruin and Preservation are limited to destruction and protection, respectively.}} This is ultimately what allows {{spoiler|Vin to destroy Ruin, as Preservation could not attack Ruin, but Vin, with Preservation's power, ''can''.}} [[The Chessmaster|Exactly as planned.]]
* [[I Am the Noun]]: Kelsier: "I am Hope!"
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* [[Man Behind the Man]]: {{spoiler|Ruin. Preservation ended up being the Man Behind the Man Behind the Man}}.
* [[Man in White]]: Elend in ''Well of Ascention'' and ''Hero Of Ages''. [[Invoked]], since the point was to make him stand out; in a place where constant volcanic eruptions bury the entire country in ash, a white uniform is ''especially'' distinctive.
* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: Breeze is something of a
* {{spoiler|[[Mass Super-Empowering Event]]}}: Surprisingly, the mist sickness in ''The Hero of Ages''. It was an effort on {{spoiler|Preservation's part to get every potential mistborn and misting to Snap and awaken their allomantic abilities}} to give humanity an edge once {{spoiler|Ruin}} escaped his cage.
* [[
* [[Meaningful Echo]]: {{spoiler|Kelsier}}'s dying words are turned into a [[Pre-Mortem One-Liner]] by {{spoiler|Vin against the Lord Ruler}} at the end of the first book.
* [[Medieval Stasis]]: The Lord Ruler deliberately suppressed scientific and technological progress, in order to maintain stability in the land and to protect himself from guns.
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* [[Prophetic Fallacy]]: {{spoiler|Ruin has been changing the wording of the prophecies about the Hero of Ages in order to make them do the exact opposite of what they're supposed to}}.
* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]: The Koloss can be seen as a parody of this. The entire race has only two modes- apathetic (when they just lie around in apparent boredom) and homicidal (when they try and kill anything within reach, including other Koloss if they can't get anything else). The only reason the Lord Ruler was able to use them as shock troops was {{spoiler|because he knew an allomantic trick that let him control their minds}}.
* [[Rapid Aging]]: Happens to {{spoiler|the Lord Ruler without his [[Immortality Talisman
* [[Redshirt Army]]: Most of the rebel army assembled in ''Mistborn''. {{spoiler|They get slaughtered when they attack a Final Empire garrison and expose themselves, letting an army of Empire reinforcements show up and stomp them into the ground.}}
* [[Reign of Terror]]: Quellion sets one up in Urteau in ''Hero of Ages'', to the extent that he's pretty much a Robespierre [[Expy]]. {{spoiler|Of course Ruin was pulling his usual [[Man Behind the Man]] tricks -- this time for both the [[Reign of Terror]] ''and'' [[La Résistance]]}}.
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* [[Schizo-Tech]]: Armies fight with medieval weaponry and the land is worked by state-owned slaves, but there are also canning factories and mills, and large canals stretch across the Final Empire. On a more individual level, people carry pocketwatches, a technology that wasn't developed until well after the Renaissance.
** [[Justified]]. The Lord Ruler suppressed technology that could be inconvenient for him, such as [[Fantasy Gun Control|guns]], while allowing ones which presented no threat.
* [[Science Is Bad]]: Averted pretty nicely, in that one of the reasons they need to defeat the Lord Ruler is that he is choking the world's
* [[Scry vs. Scry]]: Atium vs. Atium. Notably in {{spoiler|Vin's duel to the death with Zane}}. Atium normally gives you the ability to see a couple seconds into the future, causing you to see ghostly images of something happening shortly before it happens for real; when two Mistborn burning atium engage, though, the ability gets scrambled.
* [[Sealed Evil in a Can]]: Double-dipped with Ruin: {{spoiler|the Well of Ascension held his consciousness.}} The majority of his power was held in {{spoiler|the atium cache}}.
* [[Sequel Hook]]: The adventures of {{spoiler|newly-minted Mistborn Spook}}, though Sanderson has said any sequel would be set far in the future.
* [[Shadow Archetype]]:
* [[Shoot the Dog]]: Well, they don't have guns, but otherwise, this literally happens in ''The Well of Ascension''.
* [[Shrouded in Myth]]: The Lord Ruler {{spoiler|and later Kelsier.}}
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* [[Unwitting Pawn]]: Pretty much everyone at one point or another.
* [[Verbal Tic]]: When Sazed offers an observation or opinion, he almost always ends the sentence with "I think". As in "the building is burning down, so we should be leaving, I think". Elend starts with "now, see" whenever he's trying to be forceful or persuasive, which has the unfortunate effect of making him ''less'' so, though Tindwyl cures him of this eventually.
* [[Villain with Good Publicity]]: The Lord Ruler is an interesting
* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: {{spoiler|Zane}} during {{spoiler|his final fight with Vin}} in ''The Well of Ascension''.
* [[Vitriolic Best Buds]]: The refined Soother Breeze and the easygoing Thug Ham are always sniping at each other, but place great value on their friendship.
* [[Voluntary Shapeshifting]]: The Kandra, which can turn themselves into anything with a few
* [[Waif Fu]]: Very much Vin's stock in trade. She's about five feet tall, weighs maybe 90 lbs sopping wet, and she will ''kick your ass''.
* [[Was Once a Man]]: The Steel Inquisitors. {{spoiler|Also the Koloss and the original Kandra}}.
* [[Weak but Skilled]]: Sazed, who is a force to be reckoned with when he gets creative with his Feruchemical abilities even though he can't match Mistborn or Steel Inquisitors in raw power. {{spoiler|For long, that is; one of the tradeoffs of Feruchemy is that all the power has to be paid for, in advance, by the user... but he can use as much of what he's stored up as he wants, as fast as he wants, letting Sazed turn into [[The Incredible Hulk]] for a few minutes and squash a bunch of koloss. Allomancers get their power "for free" just by swallowing metals, but there's a limit to how hard they can push it.}}
* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: {{spoiler|[[Evil Overlord|The Lord Ruler]], for all the many evils he perpetuated, was nonetheless trying to save humanity from an even worse threat}}. Kelsier has shades of this as
* [[What Measure Is a Mook?]]: Kelsier doesn't care about the [[Mooks]] or nobles he kills while performing his duties.
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: OreSeur, in the second book.
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