Mistborn: Difference between revisions

See also ''[[Elantris]]'', ''[[Warbreaker]]'' and ''[[The Stormlight Archive (Literature)|The Stormlight Archive]]'' for more books by Brandon Sanderson.

 

 

* [[Above Good and Evil]]: Ruin explicitly states that good and evil are terms that have no relevance to him. He considers his actions to be both natural and inevitable.

* [[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}}.

* [[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.

* [[BFS]]: The Koloss wield them, and Vin uses one to ''bisect'' {{spoiler|Straff Venture}} in one blow towards the end of ''The Well Of Ascension''. [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|It was awesome.]]

** And his ''horse.''

* [[Black and Grey Morality]]

* [[Black Magic]]: Hemalurgy. For each power you gain from it, you have to brutally murder someone and then ''physically nail a fragment of their soul to your own''. Not only that, but using it also grants [[God of Evil|Ruin]] a degree of power over you.

* [[Cape Busters]]: Many nobles employ hazekillers, normal people trained specifically to fight mistings. But against a full mistborn, ''especially'' Vin, they're [[Overshadowed By Awesome|pretty much useless]]. (Kelsier had quite a bit of trouble with half a dozen, and he's one of the best alive.)

* [[Caper Crew]]: a fairly odd crew. Kelsier is the Mastermind, Yeden is the Backer, Dockson is the Coordinator, Ham is the Muscle and Vin is the New Kid, but Clubs is sort of a Concealer (he uses his copper Allomancy to hide the others' Allomantic signatures) and Spook uses his [[Super Senses]] to be a Lookout. Also, Kelsier doubles as the Distraction, a second Muscle, and the Burglar.

* [[Chastity Couple]]: {{spoiler|Sazed and Tindwyl}}.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: By the end of ''Hero of Ages'', it's more like [[Chekhov's Armory]]. Especially significant ones are {{spoiler|the epigraphs in ''Well of Ascension''}} and {{spoiler|Vin's earring and the religions stored in Sazed's copperminds}}.

* [[The Empire]]: The first book has the heroes attempting to overthrow it. The second and third deal with the aftermath.

* [[Eunuchs Are Evil]]: Thoroughly averted with Sazed.

* [[Evil Overlord]]: The Lord Ruler. {{spoiler|Though he's actually a [[Deconstruction]], and was the only thing standing between mankind and extinction for a thousand years}}.

* [[Evil Versus Evil]]: The Lord Ruler against Ruin. The readership winds up much more sympathetic to the Lord Ruler - at least he was trying to accomplish something ''constructive''.

* [[Fill It With Flowers]]: This was Mare's dream, although nobody in the setting had ever seen flowers. {{spoiler|When Sazed ascends to godhood, he makes her dream come true.}}

* [[First Time in The Sun]]: Happens twice. Early in the first book, when Kelsier is teaching Vin about using tin, she uses it to see the stars through the mist for the first time. In the final book, Vin's duralumin-powered steelpush forces her so high up that she ends up ''above'' the mist, and becomes the first person in a thousand years to see the stars without the mist in the way.

** During book one:

*** [[The Hero]] - Kelsier

* [[Gentleman Thief]]: Kelsier and Breeze both fit the archetype, though neither does much actual stealing for profit's sake during the main plot.

* [[Glass Cannon]]: Coinshots (Mistings who can only telekinetically push against metal) are like this; as their name suggests, they can launch coins and other metal projectiles like bullets, making them incredibly dangerous at long range, but unlike a full Mistborn they're no better at surviving in close quarters than any other human.

* [[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 three competing kings from the second book fit this perfectly as well -- Elend is the good, Cett is the bad, and Straff is the evil.

* [[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.

* [[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 degree -- supposedly not even having him decapitated or burning him down to a skeleton was enough to kill him, though according to [[Word of God]] these incidents were exaggerated.

* [[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}}.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: Multiple examples, particularly in the first and third books, none of which are possible to mention without massive spoilers.

* [[How Do I Shot Web]]:

* [[Insecure Love Interest]]: A double example. Vin thinks she's too [[Book Dumb]] and violent for Elend; Elend feels he's too much of a passive screwup for Vin.

* [[Insistent Terminology]]: OreSeur {{spoiler|1=or rather TenSoon}} does not enjoy eating rotting meat, he enjoys eating ''aged'' meat.

* [[Just Between You and Me]]: {{spoiler|Ruin}} appears to Vin when his victory seems certain, for no better reason than to gloat. In doing so, {{spoiler|he betrays some of his humanity and helps her realise that he has weaknesses.}}

* [[Kill and Replace]]: How {{spoiler|kandra}} operate, by necessity. Oddly, they're also bound by [[Thou Shall Not Kill]], so they have to get someone else to do the actual killing.

* [[Knight Templar]]: Quellion in ''Hero of Ages'', who thinks Kelsier has come back from the dead and wants him to kill all noblemen and any skaa who don't follow the Church of the Survivor. {{spoiler|It turns out that "Kelsier" is actually Ruin, who is just using Quellion as one of many tools to kill people}}.

* [[Last Villain Stand]]: The Lord Ruler gets one in ''The Final Empire''.

** To the point where fans figured out the magical effects of certain metals after the series was over, even though those metals had never been used during the story and it wasn't explained in appendices, just by filling in the gaps in relationships between established ones.

** The allomantic external pushing and pulling powers are a very down-to-earth version. People who burn Iron or steel can push or pull on metal objects (two separate powers; only Mistborn have them both). The force goes either straight toward or straight out from their own body, and it allows very little fine control (making stunts like a [[Bullet Catch]] or forcing one person to shoot another like Magneto does exceedingly difficult). Finally, if the metal object is strongly anchored or heavier than the person doing the pushing or pulling, then the person will be moved, not the metal object (Unless they're also pushing or pulling on something else on the other side of them). These abilities can still be used in lots of impressive ways, but they require a lot more care and thought than similar powers do in other settings, and many uses of [[Selective Magnetism]] are completely impossible.

* [[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 subversion -- he loves manipulating people (and the fact that he's a Soother helps), but he's not malicious about it, being a [[Jerk With a Heart of Gold]], and often winds up using his skills to help people.

* [[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.

** [[Fridge Brilliance]]: One of his concerns might have been that {{spoiler|Ruin could easily spike anyone with the help of guns}}.

* [[No Guy Wants an Amazon]]: Averted by {{spoiler|Elend's}} relationship with the Mistborn Vin. Doesn't stop her from worrying about it, though.

* [[No Holds Barred Beatdown]]: The final battle of the first book, where the Lord Ruler effortlessly wipes the floor with Vin and Marsh at the same time, while casually proclaiming his divinity. {{spoiler|And then Vin got ahold of his [[Immortality Talisman|bracers]]...}}

** Also Spook, to a degree. Though he's pretty tough, having grown up on the streets, the fact that he's a Tineye means he can't really compete with most of the other characters on a physical level and knows better than to try. {{spoiler|He also Takes A Level In Badass in ''Hero of Ages''.}}

* [[No Ontological Inertia]]: {{spoiler|Once Vin rips the Lord Ruler's bracers off, all that age he'd been holding back starts to come back, ''[[Rapid Aging|fast]]''.}}

* [[Not Quite Flight]]: Mistborn can damn near fly by Pushing and Pulling and metals just right; Vin invents a technique allowing her to cross distances extremely rapidly by juggling mid-sized metal pieces, such as a few horseshoes.

* [[Oh My Gods]]: "Lord Ruler!"

* [[Omnicidal Maniac]]: [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|Ruin]].

* [[Orphan's Plot Trinket]]: Vin's earring, given to her by her mother when she killed Vin's younger sister. {{spoiler|Also, it's a hemalurgic spike that Ruin uses to talk to her and is the method by which Vin's bronze allomantic power is strong enough to pierce copperclouds.}}

* [[Our Orcs Are Different]]: Koloss, which are actually {{spoiler|humans who have been transformed into monsters by careful application of hemalurgy}}.

* [[Out Gambitted]]: Several times. Notably, the Lord Ruler is [[Out Gambitted]] by Kelsier, {{spoiler|everybody trying to find/be the Hero of Ages was [[Out Gambitted]] by Ruin, and Ruin himself was [[Out Gambitted]] by Preservation}}.

* [[Person of Mass Destruction]]: Mistborn are generally treated with the same degree of respect as a tactical missile strike. This goes double for Vin.

* [[Physical God]]: The Lord Ruler has learned how to use a combination of Allomancy, Feruchemy, and {{spoiler|Hemalurgy (possibly)}} to become something close to this; combining Allomancy and Feruchemy lets you break the rules of both in some major ways.

* [[Pieces of God]]: Humanity's sentience is explained by each human having {{spoiler|a minute fraction of Preservation's power in them}}.

* [[Planet of Hats]]: According to the annotations for Chapter 78 of ''Hero of Ages'' found on his website, Brandon Sanderson deliberately tried to avoid this trope, specifically citing how boring [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same]] gets after a while. Lampshaded by Sazed in that same chapter when he says, referring to {{spoiler|1=TenSoon}}: "There is a {{spoiler|kandra}} who fits in with his people as poorly as I do with my own."

* [[Plea of Personal Necessity]]: {{spoiler|The Lord Ruler, "You don’t know what I do for mankind." Surprisingly, he was largely telling the truth. On the other hand, he may have no longer had the sanity left to do what needed done.}}

* [[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.}}

* [[What Measure Is a Non Super]]: Straff takes a very dim view on offspring, like Elend, that aren't born with Allomancy.

* [[What Could Have Been]]: In-universe, the allomantic effects of gold and malatium. Gold is something most people only ever try once; it shows you what your life could have been like if things had been different and is described as being unpleasant at best. Malatium does the same thing, but lets you see other people's possible lives rather than your own.

* [[You Are Who You Eat]]: The kandra can take on the appearance of anyone whose bones they absorb. They are, however, literally contractually obligated not to kill humans. Their employers must provide the bodies to be impersonated.

* [[You Will Know What to Do]]: How to use Eleventh Metal.

** {{spoiler|And Sazed in the end, who absorbs the powers of Ruin and Preservation into his body to [[A God Am I|become God.]]}}

* [[You Cannot Kill an Idea]]: The crux of Kelsier's plan to overthrow the Lord Ruler.

** Straff frequently says this to Zane, as well, though he ''doesn't'' mean it in a good way. {{spoiler|It turns out that while Zane actually is unstable, most of the more visible traits of his madness were the result of Ruin's influence on him}}.