Mistborn: The Final Empire

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue and Part 1, Chapters 1-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-8

Part 2, Chapters 9-15

Part 3, Chapters 16-21

Part 3, Chapters 22-25

Part 4, Chapters 26-34

Part 5, Chapters 35-38 and Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Character Analysis

Kelsier

Kelsier is a half-blood skaa Mistborn and brother of Marsh. He is described as smiling often and easily, a small act of rebellion against the Lord Ruler’s oppression. Kelsier is confident, skilled in Allomancy, and works only with skaa thieves that he can trust. At the beginning of Mistborn, Kelsier has a deep hatred for the nobility because his skaa mother was killed by them. Eventually, Kelsier’s hatred for the nobility lessens thanks to Vin’s influence and her love for Elend Venture.

Prior to the events of the novel, Kelsier was a well-known and respected skaa thief in Luthadel. He had not yet come into his Allomantic powers. He and his wife Mare dreamed of the pre-Ascension Scadrial of gardens, green plants, and no ashfalls. They planned to rob the Lord Ruler, but they were discovered by Inquisitors and Mare was accused of betrayal. Kelsier was sent to the Pits of Hathsin as punishment and forced to mine atium geodes, resulting in severely scarred forearms. When Mare is killed by the guards at the Pits, Kelsier Snaps into his Mistborn powers and escapes. He trains with the Allomancer Gemmel in the north of Scadrial.

Kelsier’s plan to overthrow the Lord Ruler, set up a skaa government, and take hold of the empire’s treasury is dependent on his secret, secondary plan: that of creating a religion among the skaa passionate enough to motivate them into full rebellion. To achieve this, Kelsier becomes a messiah figure to the skaa and spreads rumors of his invincibility, power, and compassion. When he is killed by the Lord Ruler, the skaa rise up against their oppression as he hoped they would.

In the novel, Kelsier functions as Vin’s mentor. He teaches Vin the art of Allomancy while encouraging her character growth, particularly by reassuring her that there is trust and love in the world. Kelsier’s influence allows Vin to form meaningful relationships with the rest of the crew and Elend.

Vin

As the protagonist of the novel, Vin is introduced as a small, distrustful, resourceful young woman. She has thick black hair she prefers to keep short to not attract men’s attention. Her brother Reen’s instructions often reappear in her mind, reminding her to expect betrayal from those around her. Reen was her sole guardian for several years after their mother tried to kill her. The pair were part of Camon’s thieving crew in Luthadel when Reen suddenly disappeared, leaving Vin to fulfill his debts to Camon. Their father is Lord Prelan Tevidian Tekiel, the leader of the Steel Ministry. Vin hates change and is paranoid that the people in her life will leave her.

When introduced to Kelsier’s crew, Vin becomes curious about whether their trust and friendship is real. She is a powerful Allomancer dedicated to learning more about her abilities. She is the only half-blood Allomancer in the novel that can pierce copperclouds (the others being the Lord Ruler himself and the Inquisitors). As Vin spends more time with the crew and begins her job infiltrating the nobility, her trust for others begins to grow. She falls in love with Elend Venture, the heir to the Venture House, and finds compassion for the noble class.

Vin’s internal struggle throughout the novel focuses on her identity. Creating the Valette persona for noble balls and living at Mansion Renoux with luxuries she never had before begins to influence her sense of self. Even as she has learned to develop trust for Kelsier, the crew, and Elend, Vin’s greatest struggle is finding a way to trust herself and her identity. The narrator says, “Who, then, was she really? Vin the urchin? Valette the lady? Neither? Did any of her friends really know her? Did she even really know herself?” (402). To achieve this sense of identity, Vin must embrace her Mistborn powers; she does this by communing with the mists during her fight with the Lord Ruler and drawing upon their powers.

Eland Venture

Eland is the eldest son of Straff Venture and heir to the House of Venture. He is a static character who, at the beginning of the story, acts as a foil to Vin. But, by the end, the two characters share a common outlook and goals. Eland is a foil in the sense that he is everything Vin is not: noble, wealthy, self-assured, and surrounded by a stable community and trusted friends. Yet as soon as Vin infiltrates the Noble Houses and begins attending their balls, she senses that Eland is different from his peers. Not only is he eccentric (he reads during the balls), but he also seems more genuine and more sympathetic to the skaa than most of the young men of the Noble class.

As the relationship between Eland and Vin develops, she grows to be more like him in many ways. Her sense of self and purpose become stronger, and she begins to see things from the Noble point of view—at least on some matters. For, example, she does not blame Eland for the death of the skaa woman his father made him sleep with. And yet Vin influences Eland as well. Although he opposed the behavior of the Nobles from the beginning, his commitment was lukewarm. By the end, he fully joins the rebellion and becomes the leader of Scadrial after the death of the Lord Ruler.

Kelsier’s Crew (Breeze, Ham, Clubs, Sazed, Spook, and Dockson)

Kelsier’s crew is assembled from thieving experts and friends he knew from the Luthadel underground prior to his incarceration at the Pits of Hathsin. The crew is friendly with one another, banters, and each is a master in their form of Allomancy. Each of these characters plays a symbolic role in the future democratic government they will establish by the end of the novel. They are static characters.

Ham, a Thug able to make himself stronger through Allomancy, is a husband and father dedicated to making enough money from the underground to establish his family in a respectable town far from the center of the empire. He is fond of philosophical and moral questions. Breeze is a powerful Soother able to influence the emotions of those around him. Clubs, an Allomantic Smoker, runs the lair the crew uses as their base and hides their use of Allomancy. Spook, the crew’s Tineye, keeps watch. And Dockson, the only non-Allomancer of the crew, serves as administrator.

Sazed is a Terris Keeper and steward in the empire. He is a eunuch, a result of the Lord Ruler’s forced breeding program for the Terris people. His specialty is religion; he has collected the history and teachings of hundreds of religions that existed prior to the Lord Ruler’s theocracy, taking enjoyment in teaching those to others. His greatest grief is that he does not know anything about the Terris religion. Sazed is also a Feruchemist, an art like Allomancy but with opposite power sources: rather than drawing on the metals for power, Sazed takes physical attributes from his body (age, height, strength, vision, health, etc.) and stores them in metal bracers, rings, or bracelets that he wears. He can then draw from these stores later.