The Great Mistborn Read-along of 2019/2020 *Bands of Mourning*

Ephrem Elpidius

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On the first post of this thread there is a link for each chapter to the annotations that Brandon did as he wrote the books. They are very insightful to the story.

Thanks Thaddius, and your profile picture is having way to much fun! :cake
 

Kassina Tendar

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Notes from the final chapters:
  • Vin saving the palace guards is great. :) And when she infiltrates the palace, she just walks right past the the guards, rather than slaughtering them for no reason like Kelsier did. She knows she's fast and skilled enough to just run through them. And how she tricks the Inquisitors is really cool! Very different style from Kelsier.
  • Elend realizes that the nobility should be allies with the skaa against the Lord Ruler. :joy
  • Vin rubs off on Kelsier and Kelsier rubs off on Vin. Infiltrating the palace like that is very reckless, after all. And then his comment about friendship convinces her to stay with Sazed.
  • Sazed snuck into the palace to save Vin. Sazed is the best! :D
  • Elend is really brave, facing down Inquisitors without flinching! :swordy
  • The Inquisitor gets a lot of pleasure from choking VIn. Is this just because the types of people who become Inquisitors tend to be really creepy? Or does the process of making an Inquisitor change how people think? (not that we see any of that in Marsh)
  • The mists pull away from the Inquisitors, the opposite of Mistborn.
  • Marsh!!! :joy :joy
  • Marsh killing all the Inquisitors in the city is so badass! And he's now the de facto ruler of the church. :rofl
  • In the narrative, Vin refers to the Lord Ruler as 'the Lord'. Is this at typo? Or is it a reference to the fact that everyone sees him as a literal god?
  • The Lord Ruler is strong enough to easily affect metals inside of Vin, even ripping her earring off, which is interesting.
  • The Lord Ruler's ominous warning... it's certainly chilling.
  • Alendi, in the logbook, says that if he fails, another will come to finish his work. :)
  • I can't remember why the Lord Ruler is so strong in Allomancy, but apparently it's explained later? Does anyone remember?
  • Vin receives TenSoon's contract. :)
 

Atarah al'Norahn

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I totally fell off with this and have to start over now :P But I am going to try to power through in the next week or two so I can join in for the next book.
 

Kassina Tendar

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I did think we should possibly wait a week or two before we start the next book to give people a chance to catch up.
 

Leira Galene

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I finished it! Some thoughts:

Vin's speech to the crew in Chapter 31 is just amazing. I love how she calls Kelsier out that he doesn't really know what it's like to live like she did and that his life experience is about as different from most skaa's as a nobleman's. I am actually a little sad she went back on this and just excused it as "Oh I was upset about Elend, sorry." She was right and she should say it!

I forgot that Kelsier was literally backhanded to death. Brutal. Very emotional.

Vin finding out her brother not only didn't abandon her but didn't give her up even under Inquisitor torture! Really great stuff.

Vin's reaction to Elend getting to the palace: "You came back, no one's ever come back for me before." UH BITCH SAZED LITERALLY JUST FACED ACTUAL TORTURE TO COME SAVE YOU. ELEND JUST FREAKING WALKED IN WITH SOME SOLDIERS. Ughhhhhh. Legitimately angry about this. Vin is so frustrating sometimes.

And speaking of Elend, I remember now that is really bugs me that they up and made him a king. It really has always seemed to come out of nowhere for me, and it makes the message of the book fall so, so flat for me. Oh, look, you can have a revolution but you're just going to put another monarchy in place. I'm not a fan of the "well it's ok with a good king" rhetoric. In a lot of classic fantasy with the king returning from exile or whatever, it can be ok, because a revolution and upheaval of the political system wasn't the point of the book. But that was the entire plot of this book. I guess Sanderson thought it would be too "modern" to have a different type of governing system or leader? Although that's silly, because democracy is thousands of years old.

It just really doesn't make sense to me. How did he suddenly get so much clout? I get the point is the nobility thinks they can use him as a pawn or whatever but you're telling me there was apparently no real opposition to him becoming king whatsoever? Even when Egwene was made Amyrlin for the purpose of being a pawn, there was a ton of opposition. This is really just reminding me of why I haven't reread the second two books, which is because I straight up find Elend very annoying. He's too perfect, and Vin puts him on a very giant pedestal. I just really don't find him a compelling character, and I hate how he makes the book really not very revolutionary at all.

I guess maybe now as opposed to when I first read it I have read a lot more fantasy books that are also about dismantling governments and structural oppression (The Broken Earth trilogy immediately springs to mind) and they have a lot more follow-through than this one. Maybe I'm not giving it a fair enough shake, since I don't remember the details of Books 2 and 3 very well. I don't know.
 

Thaddius al'Guy

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I love it when Sazed basically hulks up to do some damage.
 

Leira Galene

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Another to be fair, my feelings about the current state of politics and people in power is definitely informing my feelings about the epilogue.
 

Kassina Tendar

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Vin's reaction to Elend getting to the palace: "You came back, no one's ever come back for me before." UH BITCH SAZED LITERALLY JUST FACED ACTUAL TORTURE TO COME SAVE YOU. ELEND JUST FREAKING WALKED IN WITH SOME SOLDIERS. Ughhhhhh. Legitimately angry about this. Vin is so frustrating sometimes.
Yeaahhh.... I mean, I guess Sazed didn't 'abandon her', though? Like he left, but he did tell her that he'd be back, so in a way it wasn't as big a surprise. Elend actually told her he didn't want to see her anymore and then changed his mind, which is what the big deal was for her. Although, if anything, that should make Sazed's commitment mean more than Elend's, not less. :cheeseeni:

And yeah, even with Sanderson's explanation of Elend being made king in the chapter notes, it still feels too sudden to me. I mean, the final empire has no clear lines of succession because the Lord Ruler was considered immortal, so I feel like it would've been more of a conflict to decide who would lead, even considering the house war and that Elend had helped with the revolution at the end. I feel like the skaa and the other noble houses should have pushed back more on that.
 

Leira Galene

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Yeaahhh.... I mean, I guess Sazed didn't 'abandon her', though? Like he left, but he did tell her that he'd be back, so in a way it wasn't as big a surprise. Elend actually told her he didn't want to see her anymore and then changed his mind, which is what the big deal was for her. Although, if anything, that should make Sazed's commitment mean more than Elend's, not less. :cheeseeni:

And yeah, even with Sanderson's explanation of Elend being made king in the chapter notes, it still feels too sudden to me. I mean, the final empire has no clear lines of succession because the Lord Ruler was considered immortal, so I feel like it would've been more of a conflict to decide who would lead, even considering the house war and that Elend had helped with the revolution at the end. I feel like the skaa and the other noble houses should have pushed back more on that.
Maybe I should read the chapter notes, I haven't been doing that :laugh: And I guess that could be a reason for her reacting to Elend that way? It still just feels very... immature maybe?
 

Kassina Tendar

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That's how I interpreted it. Sazed is very loyal and has proved himself so. Elend was falling in love with her and then rejected her in a really harsh, traumatic way. But then he came back. So from her perspective, that's just amazing. Of course, if you think about it, Elend was really mean to her (even if it felt justified to him at the time) and then came back, while Sazed never turned on her like that. So Sazed is definitely cooler. But Elend's a guy she has a crush on and she's still very young and Elend's the first person she knows who explicitly left and then came back. Sazed never really left, so he didn't really 'come back' in the same sense. :cheeseeni:

I do like Elend, but Vin can definitely be a bit frustrating around him early on.
 

Thaddius al'Guy

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I don't think I properly listed the final week of chapters but that is fine. You all were pretty on top of it. We can take a week break and then start into the next book if that seems fine by everyone? Gives some time to do some other stuff before we start on it. I'll check on how many chapters the 2nd book has and we can divvy it up properly soon.
 

Leira Galene

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That's how I interpreted it. Sazed is very loyal and has proved himself so. Elend was falling in love with her and then rejected her in a really harsh, traumatic way. But then he came back. So from her perspective, that's just amazing. Of course, if you think about it, Elend was really mean to her (even if it felt justified to him at the time) and then came back, while Sazed never turned on her like that. So Sazed is definitely cooler. But Elend's a guy she has a crush on and she's still very young and Elend's the first person she knows who explicitly left and then came back. Sazed never really left, so he didn't really 'come back' in the same sense. :cheeseeni:

I do like Elend, but Vin can definitely be a bit frustrating around him early on.
Yeah, that makes sense.
 

Leala ni al'Dareis t'al'Caleum

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Dudes. Please help motivate me to keep reading Well of Ascension. :laugh: I'm about 1/5 in, and I don't know if my reading slump kicked back in or what.
 

Ignis al'Caleum

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Dudes. Please help motivate me to keep reading Well of Ascension. :laugh: I'm about 1/5 in, and I don't know if my reading slump kicked back in or what.

I don't want to pressure you - but maybe the reread thread will help reignite it.
 

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What's the plan for Well of Ascension? I wanna see if I can get caught up!
 
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