Mistborn: Difference between revisions

Part [[Heroic Fantasy]], part [[The Con|heist novel]], ''[[Mistborn]]: The Final Empire'' is the first novel in [[Brandon Sanderson]]'s ''Mistborn'' trilogy.

 

 

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]'', has been announced for Fall 2013.

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 [[Spoiler|spoilers]].

 

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Anti-Villain]]: Yomen, the Obligator leader from ''Hero of Ages'', is a very skilled leader and has very understandable motivations for his actions -- he could very easily have joined the heroes if he didn't hate them for overthrowing his god (Yomen thinks ~He's Just Hiding~). {{spoiler|The Lord Ruler himself qualifies as well, though we only learn it post-mortem}}.

* [[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}}.

{{quote| ''You don't know what I do for mankind. I '''was''' your God, even if you couldn't see it. By killing me, you have doomed yourselves....''}}

* [[Apocalypse How]]: A type X, complete destruction of the planet, is {{spoiler|Ruin's}} immediate goal. {{spoiler|He's stopped with about [[Near Villain Victory|an hour to spare]], though much of humanity had already started dying off}}.

* [[Are These Wires Important]]: {{spoiler|The easiest way to kill an Inquisitor is to pull out a single spike between their shoulder-blades.}}.

* [[Aristocrats Are Evil]]: Kelsier certainly thinks so, though the truth is a bit more complex; some nobles are truly evil (Straff), others are actually quite decent (Elend), still others are [[Lawful Neutral]] but still ruthless (Cett), and most are completely disconnected from reality.

* [[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]]: Elend -- per [[Word of God]], Sanderson shares in particular his fondness for reading at impolitic moments.

* [[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.

* [[Broken Bird]]: Vin, especially early on.

* [[Cain and Abel]]: Elend is Abel {{spoiler|and Zane is Cain}}.

* [[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.

* [[Card-Carrying Villain]]: Subverted with Lord Cett, who is to all appearances an arrogant, self-confessed tyrant who doesn't give a damn about anyone other than himself. His bark, however, turns out to be ''much'' worse than his bite.

* [[Dead Person Impersonation]]: Kandra are the masters of this.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: Several characters, really, but particularly Vin.

* [[Deconstruction]]: Of a lot of [[High Fantasy]] tropes; [[Word of God]] is that Sanderson was aiming at deconstructing the [[Evil Overlord]], [[Chosen One]] prophecies, and [[The Hero]] in particular. By extension, this series is also an example of the [[Deconstructor Fleet]] at work.

* [[The Determinator]]: {{spoiler|Spook}} in his role as Survivor of the Flames.

* [[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''.

* [[Extraordinarily Empowered Girl]]: Vin.

* [[Face Heel Turn]]: {{spoiler|Marsh}}, though this wasn't entirely [[Brainwashed and Crazy|his fault]].

* [[Face Stealer]]: The Kandra, who are essentially smarter mistwraiths have to eat a person's bones to take on their form. Partially to give themselves a skeleton to work with and partially to get the information needed to mimic the body.

* [[Fantasy Gun Control]]: [[Justified Trope|Justified:]] The Lord Ruler was afraid of that guns would make rebellions easier (since gunmen require considerably less training than archers). So, he destroyed them all, killed those who knew how to make them, and then spent a millennium crushing human scientific progress to the point that everyone forgot they had ever existed and were unable to experiment to make more.

** Utterly averted by the time of ''The Alloy of Law.'' Guns are ''everywhere.''

** Kandra who break their Contracts are executed. Kandra who do something ''worse'' are thrown down wells and given just enough food to survive. Since they're immortal but can barely move at all without a set of bones, they ''always'' eventually go insane.

* [[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.}}

* [[Five-Man Band]]: A few different configurations. In all three books, Ham is [[The Big Guy]] and Sazed can be considered [[The Smart Guy]]. Beyond that, the lineup changes:

** During book one:

* [[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.

* [[Gambit Pileup]]: Given that it spans ''all of creation'' and most of people influencing it are [[My Death Is Just the Beginning|dead well before their true impact is felt]], yes this trope is in effect. The ''shortest'' possible explanation is still a textwall covering at least five different instances of someone being [[Out-Gambitted]]: {{spoiler|Preservation outgambits Ruin and seals him in the Well of Ascension, Kwaan outgambits Ruin and has his nephew become the Lord Ruler by taking the power at the Well, Ruin outgambits the Lord Ruler by having Vin kill him and release the power of the Well, the Lord Ruler ''retroactively'' outgambits Ruin with the underground storehouses and the kandra, and finally Preservation ultimately (and also retroactively) outgambits Ruin by getting Elend to destroy all the atium and die which in turn gets Vin to sacrifice herself to finally kill Ruin}}. Whew! And that's just the ''general overview'', to properly explain the specifics and details would take... well, an entire novel trilogy.

** Appropriate comparison; Sanderson is [[One of Us]] and a Magic player.

* [[Genre Deconstruction]]: Of [[High Fantasy]].

* [[God Is Evil]]: Again, the Lord Ruler. {{spoiler|Though he was more [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]] than anything else, if a bit crazy due to Ruin's influence. Ruin is a more straight example, but he's less ''the'' God than ''a'' god}}.

* [[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.

* [[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".

* [[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!"

* [[Imaginary Enemy]]: Vin always hears the memories of her long-gone brother Reen telling her she can't trust anybody. {{spoiler|It turns out that the voice she hears is neither imaginary nor her brother.}}

* [[Immortality Inducer]]: The Lord Ruler's bracers serve this function, though he made them himself. By exploiting a loophole in the magic system, he was able to store his youth and vitality in them and increase its output exponentially- so long as he's wearing the bracers, he's as young as he wants to be, with [[The Ageless|everything that implies]]. {{spoiler|When the heroine rips the bracers off him during their duel, he [[No Immortal Inertia|instantly reverts to his real age]] - of over one thousand.}}

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

* [[Luke, You Are My Father]]: ''Vin'' knew who her father was, but ''he'' thought she (and her mother) had been killed as per the Lord Ruler's law. It's not particularly important to her, but it's eventually used against her father (Tevidian, the Lord Prelan of the Obligators) by the Inquisitors.

** 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 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.

* {{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.

* [[May-December Romance]]: Between {{spoiler|Breeze and Alrianne Cett}} in ''The Well of Acension''.

* [[Offing the Offspring]]: It's revealed towards the end of ''Mistborn'' that {{spoiler|Straff Venture is conspiring with House Elariel to have Elend assasinated, though Vin finds out and foils the attempt in the nick of time}}.

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

* [[One-Gender Race]]: The Koloss. {{spoiler|Because they're an artificially created race and don't reproduce naturally, this is not an issue for them}}.

* [[One-Man Army]]: At the beginning of the third book, Elend promises two armies to the residents of the town. One is {{spoiler|the attacking koloss army, which he takes control of once their leader is down}}. The other? [[Person of Mass Destruction|Vin]].

* [[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.}}

* [[Power of Trust]]: A major theme throughout the entire series generally, but especially with regards to Vin's [[Character Development]].

* [[Power Parasite]]: Called Hemalurgy. By killing a person with a metal spike and implanting that spike in your own body, you can steal one Allomantic, Feruchemic, or human power from them. Some Hemalurgists, like the Steel Inquisitors, might have up to twenty spikes.

* [[Prophecy Twist]]: And how! The Terris prophecy of the Hero of Ages uses a gender neutral pronoun to refer to the Hero, which Sazed takes to mean the Hero could be male ''or'' female, allowing for Vin to be the one. {{spoiler|It actually refers to Sazed himself, who as a eunuch since infancy is technically "gender neutral" himself.}}

* [[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 development -- technology, fashion, and even language have barely changed in the thousand years of his rule.

* [[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.

* [[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]]: Several -- The Lord Ruler to Kelsier {{spoiler|and Sazed}}, Zane to Vin, Straff to Elend.

* [[Soul Fragment]]: {{spoiler|The hemalurgic spikes which empower the inquisitors, koloss, and kandra (and possibly the Lord Ruler) are created from a piece of metal used to kill someone. They retain some kind of strength or ability from the victim, as well as a part of their soul.}}

* [[Spirit Advisor]]: Reen's voice in the first book, and the trope is played with in the other two.

* [[Start of Darkness]]: The Lord Ruler's gets explored, {{spoiler|though the one we're initially led to believe was his was actually someone else's}}.

* [[Suicide Pact]]: {{spoiler|The Kandra}} are bound by one as part of a [[Plan]] from {{spoiler|The Lord Ruler}}.

* [[Super Senses]], [[The Nose Knows]]: Tin grants this.

* [[Super Strength]]: Pewter grants this, along with limited [[Super Speed]] and a minor [[Healing Factor]].

* [[Ten Little Murder Victims]]: One of the [[Treacherous Advisor|trusted heroes]] gets replaced in the second book by an impostor.

* [[Thanatos Gambit]]: {{spoiler|Kelsier}}.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: Once again, the Lord Ruler; justified: {{spoiler|Ruin's thousand years of psychological torment wore on the Lord Ruler pretty badly.}}

** Hemalurgy in general, too. According to [[Word of God|Sanderson's website]], the whole process would best be described as ripping out a bit of someone else's soul and stapling it onto your own. There's no possible way that's good for your long-term mental health.