Fiction Fans

The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

• Episode 144

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Your hosts try not to make anyone too mad with their opinions about The Final Empire, Brandon Sanderson's first Mistborn novel. Credit where credit's due, it's got a really cool magic system. They spend some time comparing it to Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey, and also talk about the YA to Grimdark pipeline, sex workers, and fun takes on the Chosen One trope.


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Thanks to the following musicians for the use of their songs:

- Amarià for the use of “Sérénade à Notre Dame de Paris”
- Josh Woodward for the use of “Electric Sunrise”

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License


Lilly:

Hello and welcome to Fiction Fans, a podcast where we read books and other words too. I'm Lily,

Sara:

And I'm Sarah.

Lilly:

and today we'll be discussing Mistborn The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. But first, what's something great that happened recently?

Sara:

Something great that happened recently is, I'm sure there are great things that have happened. We did just do a recording, so, so I've already used up my, uh,

Lilly:

Your go to?

Sara:

go to, yeah. I know, my roses are blooming, and they're very pretty, and they make me happy.

Lilly:

Mine is also plant related. We have a ton of strawberry flowers. Which is very exciting. No strawberries yet. A couple of little baby green ones, but good news for future Lily.

Sara:

Yeah, that's delightful.

Lilly:

And what are you drinking today?

Sara:

I have some green tea.

Lilly:

Very nice. I have made a vitamin bubbly water because vitamins and minerals, I feel like that's as close to metal in water as you can get without actually harming yourself.

Sara:

That's a very appropriate drink for this episode.

Lilly:

The characters in this book are constantly drinking metal filings in potions for their magical energy. And so I'm drinking my vitamins and minerals. It's orange vanilla flavored. I think it probably tastes better than theirs.

Sara:

I think it probably does.

Lilly:

So I have not read anything other than this book because I think I read this book in two days. We're on a podcast sprint right now.

Sara:

We are on a tight schedule. I actually have read something. I read Nightwatch by Terry Pratchett because it was just the 25th of May, which is an important date in the book, and I reread Nightwatch every year on the 25th, or at least I have ever since Pratchett died. And I wasn't going to let our ridiculously tight podcasting schedule get in the way of my reread, so I re read Nightwatch.

Lilly:

You're a machine! That's amazing. I mean, you've read it so many times, it's probably pretty quick.

Sara:

It's pretty quick, but I, I did worry that I was not going to finish Mistborn in time.

Lilly:

Yeah, but now we're recording early, so, joke's on you.

Sara:

I guess so. Really though, it's a win because it means that we don't have to record two episodes on Wednesday.

Lilly:

This is purely scheduling issues. Turns out there's actually only 24 hours in the day. I thought people might be lying to me because who has actually seen all 24 of those hours? But no, alas.

Sara:

Alas. But, we did read Mistborn, not gonna lie, it was a bit of a struggle.

Lilly:

Okay, this is the first Brandon Sanderson book I've ever read. And if you're the type of person who's listening to a book podcast, you're probably aware of his reputation. And I really wanted to go into this with an open mind and not swayed by all of the piles and piles of good things or the three brave humans who have ever spoken out poorly against Brandon Sanderson and lived to tell the tale. I didn't want to let them sway me, okay? I wanted this to be my opinion.

Sara:

I have actually read Sanderson, so I'd read Mistborn probably about 15 years ago, and I remember really enjoying it. I tore through it. I didn't pick up books 2 and 3, I'm not sure if that was because I didn't have them or because they weren't out yet at the time, but I didn't pick them up for whatever reason. And I moved on to read other things, like one does. And then maybe five years after that, I tried to read Mistborn again, and only got halfway through before I just, like, dropped off. So it was interesting to see, for me, whether my feelings corresponded with what I remember of my first reread, where I really liked it, or whether it corresponded with my second read, where I struggled. And I, I did, like I said, I did struggle with this. I'd also read his Wheel of Time books.

Lilly:

Does that count? I mean, they are books he wrote, but they're not his story.

Sara:

not his story in the overall, like, obviously he was using extensive notes left by Robert Jordan and guidance from Harriet, Jordan's wife, but he definitely, like, puts his own spin on things. It's his prose, which is, for me, very jarring from Jordan's prose. They have very different styles. And he does his own thing with some of the characters and brings in his own characters. So I do think that they count as his books, at least partially.

Lilly:

fair enough. I have not read Jordan or Sanderson before, so I don't really get an opinion on that. One thing I did notice, as we were texting each other while we were reading this book, a lot of the issues you brought up with Mistborn were very similar to issues I had with Cushiel's dart.

Sara:

Which, you commented that, and I thought that was very rude, I'll allow it. But, so, hear me out. They both are kind of edgy, right? And I mean edgy with like, you know, the tilde, edgy, yeah.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

But I think, for me personally, Kushiel's Dart feels like it's pushing boundaries. And it feels like it's doing something interesting with the edginess and that it's, it's for a point. It's not just edgy for edgy's sake. And I don't feel the same way about Mistborn.

Lilly:

I think that's fair. Kushiel's Dart commits.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

This book felt like it was really towing the line, right? It's gonna be a basic ass fantasy novel, and I'm gonna throw in just enough graphic depictions of violence for you to go, Ooh, this is a dark book.

Sara:

Yeah, it kind of feels like Mistborn is And maybe this is just because Mistborn is kind of on the edge of YA, maybe. I feel like Sanderson's prose is much more young adult prose than adult novels, but it definitely feels like Mistborn is more aimed at high schoolers and Kushiel's Dart is aimed at an older audience.

Lilly:

I disagree with that. I think Kushiel's Dart is also aimed at late teens.

Sara:

I'd say Kushiel's Dart is college. Which is late teens.

Lilly:

Yeah, okay. Okay. We're really splitting hairs if we're complaining about a two year age difference in the target audience of these books.

Sara:

Yeah. But either way, I think Kushiel's Dart is a good book. I really enjoy it. I didn't enjoy Best Born.

Lilly:

I really wonder how much of that is because you have nostalgia for it.

Sara:

It's possible. I haven't read Cassiel's Servant yet, which is the novel that she wrote recently, or that was published recently, that's the events of Kushiel's Dart from Jocelyn's perspective. We are reading that on the podcast. It is a podcast book. It's on our schedule.

Lilly:

I wanted to look it up. So, Mistborn came out five years after Kushiel Start.

Sara:

Interesting.

Lilly:

Which I think is another comment in defense of Jacqueline Carey, who was actually pushing boundaries five years before this book came out to kind of do the cat thing. You know, when a cat is like, I'm going to nudge this closer to the edge. Are you excited yet? Are you going to come stop me yet? Okay, what if I push it a little farther? Is that far enough for you to get excited? That was really how this felt to me. Anyway,

Sara:

I do think also that like, Cushiel's Dart leans really heavily on some things that you don't enjoy, like political maneuvering.

Lilly:

there's a lot of political maneuvering in this book.

Sara:

But it, it felt very surface level, the political maneuvering in this book.

Lilly:

Okay. I think that's fair.

Sara:

Whereas I think Kushiel's dart, like, goes all in.

Lilly:

I did think Allomancy was very neat. That was the, uh, drinking iron shavings.

Sara:

I will give Sanderson credit. Like, the magic system that he came up with is cool and unique, and I liked it a lot.

Lilly:

I don't know if I needed several detailed chapters to tell me precisely how it works. I think I could have used some, some veil of mystery around some of that.

Sara:

Is it, I mean, but that's the definition between a hard magic system and a soft magic system, isn't it? Where a hard magic system, everything is very explicit, and a soft magic system is a little bit hand wavy.

Lilly:

I think there's a difference between there is a hard magic system and I, the reader, know every detail of that magic system.

Sara:

That's fair. I mean, Sanderson, definitely spends a lot of time making sure that the reader knows every single detail of how the magic system works.

Lilly:

Pages and pages and pages at a time. The only reason why I was able to finish this book in two days, because this is a long ass book, is because I was just like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. Something should happen. Can something happen yet?

Sara:

I will, I will give a shout out to the box wine that helped me finish this book in two days. So I think, I think that it would have been really neat to have all of the details of the magic system in an appendix.

Lilly:

Sure, yeah.

Sara:

But we didn't, I agree, we didn't need it in the text of the novel.

Lilly:

No. And, Like, for Sanderson to know all of these details, for all of the magic to be consistent and to work right, like, yes, super important. I get the appeal of that. You want magic to feel kind of like science, right? Like, there's a balance, a push pull, if you will, of cause and effect. And, like, I get the, I get that. That's wonderful. I didn't need to know everything.

Sara:

Yeah, it just it kind of bogged down the story.

Lilly:

Oh, completely. And it was interesting because there were some other world building concepts around the creatures that we meet in this world. There are Mistwraiths, there are Chondra, and there are Koloss, and those are the three ones that I noted when it was happening, that are very well, like, just kind of hinted at and then sort of explained through the story. You know, prose through things happening in the story as we go along through the whole book. And we don't really know all of the information there is to know about them until the end. Even though we're dealing with them and they, like, have an effect on the story, the information is sort of given to us as little gems throughout the reading process.

Sara:

as needed.

Lilly:

Yeah, and it's always like kind of an exciting discovery. I was waiting for that next bit, like, there was mystery. I was interested to find out what would happen. So Sanderson clearly knows how to do that. But why did he choose not to do it for the magic? Like, I don't understand.

Sara:

Yeah, I don't have an answer for you there.

Lilly:

Yeah, okay. I did, I think, out of all of the different conversations around Sanderson's work, now that I've actually read Mistborn, which, of course, is not all of his work, but I still regularly hear it recommended, so I'm going to assume it's pretty emblematic of his body of work as a whole.

Sara:

Probably.

Lilly:

Homeboy just wants to write video games. Like, now that I've actually read his work, yeah, I kind of think that's true.

Sara:

I believe it. I'm trying to Google if there is actually like, a Mistborn game that he's done. There are a couple of Mistborn games, but I don't know if he's been involved in any of them. Or like, heavily involved in any of them. Presumably, like, they have his seal of approval.

Lilly:

I don't know, uh, was it Ironsight is the one that when you burn iron, you can see sources of metal around you? I think that's the one.

Sara:

I think so.

Lilly:

That felt so much like some of the tracking systems in The Witcher. The, like, I could see, I could see the UI. for this book while I was reading it. And I think that would have been a more enjoyable way to engage with this story. Then all of the detailed descriptions of magic would have been part of the tutorial. It would have been perfect. Why is this a book?

Sara:

I do think it would be a great video game.

Lilly:

I think I would have loved it as a video game. So that's too bad. It's just the wrong format.

Sara:

Yep.

Lilly:

I did. Okay. So, all that being said, I do think if this did get, like, a AAA video game adaptation, there would have to be a couple of updates to some of the gender dynamics.

Sara:

Yeah, some of them were not great.

Lilly:

So, very early on, in, like, chapter one, Vin, our main character, who's a 16 year old girl, I think,

Sara:

I 16, yeah.

Lilly:

In a thieves crew. Tells us, I mean it's not first person, you know what I mean. Through her we learn, immediately, that all of the women in this level of society are sex workers. She's the only girl who's not a sex worker.

Sara:

At least all of the women in cities.

Lilly:

Yeah, sorry, in this level of society. That's what I, that's how I meant that to, to

Sara:

I guess I'm thinking of the plantation ska and the city ska as the same level, just different, like, groupings.

Lilly:

That's fair. Segment of society, instead of level. How's that? Okay. So the Ska are the oppressed people of this fantasy world. And so all Ska women are sex workers. She's the only one who's not, cause she's a thief. She's not like the other girls. First of all, uh, gross. And like, there's so many Ska.

Sara:

They're the main population.

Lilly:

Yes, the nobles are much fewer, right? And they're the privileged class. So, and now this could just be in Vin's experience, she hasn't met a single other female thief who wasn't a sex worker.

Sara:

We do hear about

Lilly:

Kelsier's wife.

Sara:

Well, no, I was gonna say Ham's wife, who's a seamstress in an outlying, like, town.

Lilly:

So there's a couple of wives.

Sara:

either a sex worker or you're a wife.

Lilly:

Yeah. And, like, okay, one of the allomancy powers is the ability to soothe emotions, and a sex worker with the power of soothing would make so much sense. How is that not a character we meet? Well, actually, the problem is, despite the fact that there are plenty of women in this segment of society, they're all sex workers, so we don't actually meet any of them. Sanderson, tell me you don't think prostitutes are people without telling me you don't think prostitutes are people.

Sara:

Yep. A hundred percent.

Lilly:

Like, okay, so in this society, all women are sex workers? Sure, great, let's talk to some of them!

Sara:

mean, you would think that they would be able to provide, well, I guess, I was going to say they could provide insight to the nobility, but one of the things that's made very clear is that if a nobleman sleeps with a ska woman, he has to kill her eventually. So, in that respect, it makes sense that we don't see any of these women included in Kelsier's, like, crew. But also, You would think that they would be able to help with recruitment or anything.

Lilly:

Anything. And, like, Vin often talks about how every single person in the Thieves crew was abusive and mean to me. And I'm like, well, maybe you should have talked to some of the sex workers. I bet they wouldn't have hit you. Maybe you shouldn't ignore half the population, Vin.

Sara:

We, we are going to talk about Vin and her tragic backstory, TM, in the spoiler section.

Lilly:

Also, later, as we learn more about the noble class and more about them, we're told specifically that noble women who have allomancy powers are absolutely trained just as much as men, because allomancy is so rare, you can't just, like, not take advantage of one just because they happen to be a woman. And you're telling me that in this society, where allomancy is just as li Like, we're not told that female allomancers are rare. That is not something that comes up.

Sara:

Right.

Lilly:

So, these powers are just as likely to occur in men as in women. And women with these powers are trained the same and treated the same as men, but only when they're doing secret allomancy stuff. You're telling me these, like, upper echelon, like, top tier assassins are chill with just being treated like second class citizens 90 percent of the time?

Sara:

Apparently they are.

Lilly:

I no. And we don't see any, like, Vin is the only Ska woman we meet with allomancy powers. Well, and Kelsier's wife. We don't meet her, though. She's dead.

Sara:

We don't meet Kelsier's wife. She was a Ska and she did have the power of Burning Tin or whatever. She had some allomancy powers. She wasn't Mistborn, but

Lilly:

Right, so a Mistborn is someone who has all of the powers, and everyone else in the world who has powers can only use one out of the eight. That's the, that's how we're, we're Mistling versus Mistborg. Yeah, so, like, that didn't, that didn't track. Like, I feel like that wasn't really thought through. The consequences of these super special magical powers that are very highly valued being explicitly found in both men and women would then probably mean a society has a little bit more equality between men and women. At least that would have bled through somewhere.

Sara:

you would have thought that you would have seen, like, female inquisitors, female obligators, like, female anyone holding a job.

Lilly:

Yeah. No, well, I mean, they have jobs. They're sex workers. Yeah. Because that's the only thing women can do, except for Vin, because she's special and not like, regular, awful, terrible, dumb women.

Sara:

but I mean, like, not just at the Ska level, but at the Noble level, too.

Lilly:

Yeah, it, I mean, at the noble level, it's less explicit, I think? Because we see men and women at balls, women are doing just as much politicking as men, so I feel like it's less absurd there? But there are no female house leaders.

Sara:

Yeah, there's no female heirs.

Lilly:

You'd think there would be,

Sara:

Mm hmm.

Lilly:

if I was a mis born noblewoman.

Sara:

A lot of the politicking that we get from the women in those scenes revolves around men. At least until the very end. I don't want to spoil a thing, because we're not in the spoiler section yet. But, like, a lot of the politicking seems to come from Sean Illyrio, was that her name?

Lilly:

Sha yeah.

Sara:

Which was Ellen's former,

Lilly:

The love interest's ex.

Sara:

yeah, basically. And up until the very late stages. As far as we get, it all kind of seems to revolve around Elend, like the politicking that she's doing.

Lilly:

Yeah. That's cause he's the most special boy.

Sara:

He is the most special boy.

Lilly:

He's the heir of the highest house. He oh man. When I read the Wikipedia article's summaries for the second two books, I was very upset with what happens with Elend. Not because anything bad happens to his character, because I feel like it undermines everything I liked about him in this book. And I did like him quite a bit, but all of my reasons why are spoilers, so we'll talk about that later.

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

I did, however, really like, again, explicitly called out by the text, there is no difference between Ska and

Sara:

Except there kind of is, because Ska are only Allomancers if they have some kind of connection to the nobility in their bloodline.

Lilly:

That kind of undercuts it, doesn't it?

Sara:

Yeah, so like, there is, there's no genetic difference, but there is a genetic difference. Make up your mind, Sanderson.

Lilly:

Well, I thought it was such a really nice point. And it comes up a couple of times in conversations. There's the thought that Ska are subhuman, they're lesser than. But then, you know, actually no. The book tells us they are exactly the same as nobles. You can't tell the difference visually.

Sara:

Apparently you could, you could tell the difference visually in the beginning, but there's been enough inbreeding, or, you know.

Lilly:

But they're not allowed to do inbreeding. There, any, anyone who's been impregnated by a nobleman is killed. Although, what happens to female, I guess, I guess female nobles just don't visit sex workers because there are no male sex workers that we see, that are, we're told about.

Sara:

at least on the plantations, it doesn't matter if the woman is a sex worker, they're just kind of like, they can be picked out and taken to the plantation owner. Anyway,

Lilly:

Oh yeah, there's so much sexual assault in this book. I,

Sara:

is, there's a, and I don't remember where in the book it is, and I don't think I highlighted it, but there's a conversation that Elend has with his friends, and they're talking about the difference between the nobility and the Ska, and they bring up the fact that it used to be, like, the nobility were taller, and They had a different hair color or something, and now that difference is gone. And it seems like that's happened over the course of hundreds of years, like it's not a recent change.

Lilly:

okay, I kind of interpreted that to be propaganda because it doesn't make any sense. And we know that the histories are highly controlled by the Lord Ruler. Also, that's his name? I, I don't, I can't.

Sara:

I think that, I think that's his title.

Lilly:

Really, just calling him the Lord was too close to God, I think. Even though he is supposed to be a god. So just calling him the Lord would have been fine.

Sara:

I mean, he, he is also a ruler.

Lilly:

Yeah, but you don't need to say both. God King would have been great. Okay, God King is fine. Why you gotta reinvent the wheel? Anyway, I interpreted that to be the Lord Ruler manipulating information.

Sara:

I actually, now that I think about it, I actually kind of think that it's just that the nobility, because we know that the lord ruler has Over the course of many years, he's unified a bunch of different, like, countries into one big empire. So I kind of just think that the nobility came from one country, and the Ska came from another. And that's why maybe, originally, they had some differences.

Lilly:

But how could they have intermingled if that's illegal and they always get murdered? Unless you're saying that that system doesn't actually work very well, and there's a ton of, I don't want to say crossbreed, that feels so dehumanizing.

Sara:

I mean, I don't know. I don't think it works very well because both Vin and Kelsior and all of the crew have Allomancy powers. So clearly they have some kind of lineage tracing back to the nobility.

Lilly:

true. Mistlings aren't actually that rare in the ska population, are they?

Sara:

They're not that rare. Yeah. But also I don't think it's ever specified if this rule has been in effect for the entire duration of the Lord Ruler's, like, rule. It could have been something that he instituted 200 years ago.

Lilly:

It's kind of, I mean, okay, that's possible, it doesn't say, but

Sara:

We shouldn't have to have a headcanon to explain it. I mean,

Lilly:

Everything we find out about the Lord Ruler is that he's very big on eugenics. And there are plenty of eugenics programs that he has explicitly had since the beginning. So I don't think it's a leap to assume that this one has also been. Anyway, yeah, why is this so complicated?

Sara:

yeah. With how, like, well thought out some bits of the worldbuilding are, it's kind of amazing that other bits are just like, Oh no!

Lilly:

So And the other thing that that raised for me is that we find out there's a special cloak for Mistborn that is designed not to keep you warm, but to look badass when you're flying, which, hey, appearances are important, I get it. It's got all these little strips of fabric that fly around, which, cool, great. However, we're told that Mistborn, as being super special people, are not bothered by, like, the watch, they're not hassled, everyone just kind of leaves them alone because they don't want to get tangled up with any of these magic badasses flying around. So they just leave anyone alone who's wearing a Mistborn cloak. And then, if that's true, and there's no visual difference, then how has there not been a system for stealing these cloaks and just, like, walking around and not getting hassled?

Sara:

That's a very good question. I was gonna say maybe it has to do with the fact that Mistborn wearing the cloaks are usually, like, jumping around on rooftops and not on the streets, and so if you saw a normal person walking normally, even if they were wearing the cloak, you'd be like, huh, that's sus. But we do see Finn and Kelsey are wearing the cloaks walking the streets at some point, don't we? So my argument falls apart.

Lilly:

Yeah, I don't know. It's just I would have liked that to be explored, you know,

Sara:

Yeah. Uh,

Lilly:

we've gotten to the part of this conversation where we ask, Who should read this book? And I think that's gonna be more than just a pithy soundbite this time, because I have opinions.

Sara:

my opinion is a little unfair and not in the spirit of this question, so I'm not gonna say no one.

Lilly:

Yeah. Because that's not true.

Sara:

Because it's, it's not true. I mean, this book was not for me, but clearly it's beloved by very many people. It has some redeeming qualities. It's quite possible that you'll read it and enjoy it.

Lilly:

It's too long. It does not justify its length whatsoever. But that's not the question. The question is, who should read this book? And as I was reading this book, I was really struck by, you know, we talked about the edginess, it gets graphic, but not really that. Revolutionarily so. You know, we see inquisitors who have metal spikes driven through their eyes. Fun, creepy images like that. And it really felt like this book is the gateway from YA, you know, young adult novels, to Grimdark.

Sara:

I would agree with that.

Lilly:

Because this book is not grimdark, but it feels like it's kind of sprinkling in some hardcore ness, it wants to sort of borrow that appeal, right? And so I could totally see someone who is sort of graduating from YA as a reader, ready for, you know, a heavier book, literally heavier, and start dabbling in, you know, adult fantasy and like darker themes. And this seems really perfect for that person. I could totally see like a 15 year old who wants to show off how big the books they're reading are. You know, that kind of pride thing where it's like, look at this fat book. That's right. I'm a reader. And it just, I think it fits very well into that place.

Sara:

I'd agree. I agree with that. I will also say, apparently, this fits in with his wider, like, Cosmere system. Obviously, I've not read any of the other Cosmere books. I couldn't tell you how it fits, but it apparently does. So if you're looking for a series that has a lot of different, like, mini series within it, but that all interconnects, maybe this is something that you'd enjoy. I do know that there is a character who shows up in this book who apparently shows up in other Cosmere books. I only know that because I'm on Twitter too much.

Lilly:

I googled it. The Cosmere, ooh, trademarked. Books all share a single creation myth, and all take place in the same literal universe. So, not like the same setting, same world building, but it sounds like literal, like, universe.

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

So, I'm not sure. It does say that there's character overlap. Okay.

Sara:

There is character overlap. We see an informant who apparently shows up in other books. And I believe that some of the events that happen in books 2 and 3, which, I've only read the Wikipedia summaries, I haven't read those books either, but I believe that there are some characters who link back to Cosmere.

Lilly:

Yeah, and I can see that being a really appealing step to take out of YA.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Getting into a little bit more complex, interconnected storylines, getting a little bit more gritty. Inquisitor is really fun. I mean, they're, they're awful and gross and mean, but I really liked them.

Sara:

I mean, there are some really interesting worldbuilding aspects in this series, and to Sanderson's credit, he's a prolific author. I think his prose is a little bland. Maybe he'd benefit from being less prolific, but he's consistently putting out books. So you don't have to worry really about Unfinished Series as much as some other authors.

Lilly:

That's for damn sure. I am, okay, I'm walking myself back a little bit though. I guess, maybe I should say I can see the appeal for this reader. Because I also think that reader is young enough that I don't like all of the sex worker dehumanization for them.

Sara:

Hmm.

Lilly:

now I'm stuck. I've locked myself into a corner.

Sara:

Honestly, I think there are better books to read, but

Lilly:

Yeah. I mean, I'm not gonna finish this series.

Sara:

no, I'm not either.

Lilly:

I barely got through this book, and the fact that there's two more that are just as long Dear god.

Sara:

I do actually want to talk about this a little bit in the spoiler section, so

Lilly:

Okay, let's

Sara:

we should move on.

Lilly:

A huge thank you to Fiona, who is one of our Patreon members. If you support us on Patreon for just 1 a month, you get access to a bunch of fun nonsense. Our most recent post was a game of Shootscrew or Mary, played with characters from the Vinyl Detective series by Andrew Cartmel. So please come support us so that we can continue to make this podcast. The remainder of this episode contains spoilers.

Sara:

So about the books two and three, like I was saying, I did read the summary, the Wikipedia summaries for them. And I do think that it sounds like Sanderson is doing some interesting like trope reversals and playing around with the chosen one trope. And like, it sounds like the series goes in interesting directions.

Lilly:

I don't know.

Sara:

This first book was so bland that I'm not going to be bothered to read books two and three,

Lilly:

I thought each chapter in this book has like an excerpt from a historical text.

Sara:

which I really liked actually.

Lilly:

Yeah, that was fun and like trying to figure out who that is and learning like tidbits about it and how that sort of is relating to the chapter you're about to read was really fun. And then it's also like Imply, well, we find out that it's written by the Chosen One, who was supposed to gain this amazing power. And so we're like, oh shit, okay, that's the Lord Ruler. Like, how does this reasonable guy turn into this awful tyrant? And so I thought it was really cool the way Sanderson was playing with the Chosen One trope, because how often do you see the Chosen One after they've done the thing they were chosen to do?

Sara:

Mm hmm.

Lilly:

And it's kind of that idea of, you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

Sara:

Mm hmm.

Lilly:

And I was like, this is awesome! And then it turns out the Lord Ruler wasn't even the chosen one. So it kind of undoes all of that coolness.

Sara:

does undo some of that. I mean,

Lilly:

The summaries imply that there is further coolness, but we don't get any of that in this book.

Sara:

yeah, like, that's what I'm saying. It does sound like he does interesting things in books two and three that aren't reflected in this book, and this book was not, frankly, good enough to make me want to see if Wikipedia is correct about those interesting things.

Lilly:

Yeah. So, if the Lord Ruler is so all powerful, Which, this book, like, says he is. Even though Vin defeats him at the end of this book, she is still, like, 100 percent he was more powerful than anyone in the entire universe. It was basically a fluke that I figured out, like, where his Achilles heel was. Why is he such an ass?

Sara:

That's a good question.

Lilly:

Like, he is a tyrant. He is awful. He has created this society where the Ska are disposable subhuman people. Not even people, but, I mean, they are obviously people.

Sara:

Well, and not just the Ska, but like the Terrasmen, too, are essentially bred through a eugenics program to be a subservient race.

Lilly:

Yeah, I understand why he did that to them though, because they could have figured out his weakness. So that, that douchiness makes sense. Why is he so mean to the Ska? If he is all powerful, he does not need to rule with an iron fist to maintain his rule. Like, why? He could have just been the god king sitting on a throne, letting the nobles do whatever bullshit they get into, and if anyone tries to rebel, he can just crush them with a snap of his fingers, like he clearly can do. So, why create a society that's gonna be so mad at you? That they want to rebel all the time.

Sara:

Because Brandon Sanderson wanted to be edgy.

Lilly:

I really get that, like, it doesn't make sense. Except because this was the world he wanted to write. Which, like, you had a cool concept. Why ruin it?

Sara:

Yeah, I mean, I genuinely don't think that there's a good answer besides that. Yeah. So one thing I don't get about this book is why everyone likes Kelsier, because he's just a jerk. I mean, I get that, like, he's supposed to be snarky, and I get that he's, at the beginning, he's supposed to be not necessarily a bad guy, but like a little thoughtless, and that he does grow and change over the course of the series, or of the book. But like, everything that he says, both before and after his supposed, like, transformation. Just makes me think he's rude and thoughtless and inconsiderate.

Lilly:

I mean, he's the embodiment of cool guys don't look at explosions.

Sara:

Yeah. Like he has a quote about how if you're always on time, it implies that you never have anything better that you should be doing. And just, no, it implies that you are respectful of people. And obviously sometimes you're not on time for reasons out of your control, but like purposefully trying to be late? Not caring if you're, I don't know. That's just so like anathema to me in my worldview.

Lilly:

I think you're taking him too literally. He's flippant. He doesn't take anything seriously. He's too cool to be invested in shit. He's just throwing out witty one liners. I don't think he believes half the shit he says.

Sara:

He's just a jerk. I mean, even if he doesn't believe it, I don't know, I didn't like him.

Lilly:

I don't think we're supposed to like him. I don't think the reader is supposed to like him.

Sara:

I'm not sure about that.

Lilly:

I think he's supposed to be part of that Chosen One storyline where he turns himself into a martyr to give the Ska something to rabble around. He invents a Chosen One storyline for himself, basically. Very cool PR stunt. But then we're also seeing that, like, hey, he's not actually a good guy.

Sara:

It's possible. I don't trust Brandon Sanderson enough as an author to think that's what he was going for.

Lilly:

Maybe. I mean, of all of the tropes that are in this book, the Chosen One is, like, the only thing that we are pretty damn sure he was playing with. Which Kelsier is 100%, like, part of.

Sara:

He is. And I agree with what you say about making himself a martyr, but,

Lilly:

Well, I mean, that's in the text.

Sara:

well, that isn't, that isn't the text. But like, I think that we're supposed to like him and sympathize with him more than I do.

Lilly:

I think if you were an edgy 15 year old, you'd be like, Yeah, I don't give a fuck either, and I said the F word.

Sara:

Maybe, but as an almost 34 year old, I just could not stand him.

Lilly:

I'm guessing that's why you liked this book more the first time you read it.

Sara:

You're probably right.

Lilly:

you were a teenager.

Sara:

You're probably right. I mean, I think that I was How old must I have been? I probably was like in that 15, 16 year old range when I read it.

Lilly:

Yeah.

Sara:

Actually, when did this book come out? I probably read it in 2007 when I was 17. So I think you're right about that's why I enjoyed it more the first time.

Lilly:

Yeah, it's that devil may care attitude.

Sara:

Yeah. But I just do not have time for.

Lilly:

Now, why did he have friends in the text? I can't tell you.

Sara:

Well, and that's why I think that we're supposed to like him more than I do, because he has friends, he has people who really admire and respect him, and I'm like, but this is the kind of flippant, botless stuff that you're saying.

Lilly:

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like it's supposed to be more of a twist when we find out that he has been running this, like, secondary scheme. Which, like, I'm not gonna brag about all of the bookmarks I have where I was like, oh, so this is gonna happen? And what percentage of the book they were earlier than it happened? Because that would be douchey. I'll just let you all imagine it. But yeah, as I think that was supposed to be a grand reveal that made us think about, oh, well, if the Chosen One was this, like, I mean, maybe supposed to be admirable, but still flawed, Even if you're supposed to like him, he's still very clearly flawed, and that's something that he and Vin, like, kind of deal with together. It changes the, the concept of a chosen one, and I think that would be maybe more of a thought provoking thing if you didn't see it coming from a mile away.

Sara:

Maybe. Like, I have no issue with his schemes within schemes, because that makes sense for his character and what we've learned of him.

Lilly:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm saying if those schemes within schemes were a shocking revelation for you, I think it would make you go back and look at his character in a different light.

Sara:

And reassess.

Lilly:

be thoughtful about it. Instead, we knew what was going to happen. We saw his character for what he was. And so because there was no, like, switch to flip, it's just kind of eh.

Sara:

Maybe.

Lilly:

So Vin, first of all, the only Ska woman in the entire universe who is not a plantation slave or a sex worker. So good for her, she rose to the top.

Sara:

Aside from Kelsier's wife, who's dead.

Lilly:

Right, she's the only alive woman.

Sara:

And Ham's wife, who's a seamstress in some outlying town and we never meet.

Lilly:

I'm not convinced she's real. She doesn't even have a name.

Sara:

His girlfriend who lives in Canada.

Lilly:

Yeah. Her name is Vancouver. She lives in Alberta.

Sara:

But yeah, Vin. So what frustrated me about Vin was how much her tragic backstory was harped upon. It seemed like lazy shorthand for making the reader like her and sympathize with her.

Lilly:

I would have liked it more if it was consistent. Like, she gets this tragic backstory. Everyone's always been mean to her. Her brother abused her and betrayed her just to teach her that everyone would betray her. And so she has trust issues. Girls got major trust issues. And then, a pretty boy smiles at her.

Sara:

She's got major trust issues until suddenly she doesn't, partially because pretty boy smiles at partially because she's just worked through her issues off the page. And we never see any of that character growth, and it doesn't feel deserved.

Lilly:

See, at least with the other people in the crew, for this big, uh, Can we call it a heist? They're trying to heist the kingdom away. It's really set up like a heist, in kind of a fun way, with the like, very elementary, Here's the problem, I'm gonna write it on the whiteboard so the audience knows exactly what's happening. Like, she works with them, and they're like, training her and teaching her, and they've brought her out of this horrible situation, and are like, being kind to her for the first time. It shouldn't have happened off the page, but at least it's implied that they worked to gain her trust.

Sara:

It, it is. It is, but she has so many issues that I really needed it to be more on page.

Lilly:

Oh, no, I'm not justifying that. I'm using that as a counterpoint to how bad it is that then she has one, like, witty, flirtatious repartee with Elend.

Sara:

And she's head over heels.

Lilly:

She trusts him OVER Kelsier! What?!

Sara:

Yeah, that's, that's wild. And especially given that he's, like, nobility and part of this class that has been oppressing everyone that she knows.

Lilly:

Yeah! And she doesn't think, oh, maybe Elend is one of the good ones. No, she thinks, well, clearly that means nobles aren't actually that bad! And it's like, okay, You cannot have described how she spent every day attempting to prevent people from raping her, to, well, maybe it's actually fine.

Sara:

Clearly they didn't do all of these things because they've been kind of nice at these balls that I didn't want to go to but now I suddenly really like.

Lilly:

They're nice to people who they think are one of them. Like, she's 16. She should be old enough to realize that they're being nice to her because they think she's noble, not because they're actually nice. Like, oh, that bothered me so much. She reacts to things, okay, she reacts to things like a high

Sara:

Which makes sense.

Lilly:

so part of me was thinking, like, Well, she's 16, so I get why, like, your first crush is going to be earth shattering and really important. But I was like, no, no. That's how a high schooler would react. A high schooler 16 year old. Not a 16 year old who was raised on oppression and poverty and hardship. She should have some perspective.

Sara:

She should. Yeah.

Lilly:

And so it was really that, like, Flip from, she is so resourceful, and realistic, and damaged, to, I'm just a regular high school girl, and I hope the boy I like asks me to the dance.

Sara:

Yeah, it, it just, there's a lot of assumptions going on, and stuff that we don't see on the page that needs to be on the page to make these scenes work.

Lilly:

I don't know if there's anything that could be done to make her, like, crush make sense. And again, I'm not saying 16 year olds don't have crushes that don't rock their world. I'm saying that it is antithesis with the character we have been introduced to for a crush to rock her world this way.

Sara:

Yeah. I could even see, like, her crush rocking her world, but I don't think that she would react to it in the same way.

Lilly:

That's, yeah, I was using Rock Her World as very short shorthand.

Sara:

Yeah, like, I agree with you that it just is not consistent with the character that we've been introduced to up until now.

Lilly:

Okay, and that's a huge bummer because I really liked Elend. Oh my god, he might have been my favorite character.

Sara:

I think he's kind of, at least in this book, I think he's kind of the best character, actually.

Lilly:

He's amazing, and I'm not saying that he, like, is a good person the whole time.

Sara:

No, he's definitely not.

Lilly:

But he's consistent. He's a privileged douche who thinks way too highly of himself, has a very inflated sense of importance and ego. He is an edgy teenager, I guess he's supposed to be like 20, and the book treats him that way.

Sara:

I thought he was in his, like, late teens, but same difference.

Lilly:

I think at one point he says, he's like, I'm only 21. When she makes a joke about him being twice her age.

Sara:

Oh, you know, I think you're right.

Lilly:

also, a 16 year old having a 21 year old interested in them is so YA like. The older boy likes me!

Sara:

Yup.

Lilly:

Anyway, but that's fine. Like, that's an acceptable fantasy for a book to have. He's very, like, it's funny. The book says he has discovered philosophy and thinks he's very deep, and that's hilarious. The scene at the end, when the Lord, the nobleman that the thieves crew have planted, the fake nobleman, he and all of his staff get captured and are going to be executed. And Elend thinks that Vin is part of that household, because that was her cover, like, strolls up to these grimdark monsters with carts full of people who are about to be, like, slaughtered in the streets. We've seen this happen before. It's supposed to be, like, it's brutal. We're expecting a brutal scene. He just walks up and is like, Who gave you permission? Like, oh my god, kid. Amazing. I love it. He has a crush on Vin. He doesn't know that's her name, but, you know, he does. His friends tease him for it. Like, best.

Sara:

I did like Elend, I'll admit. I don't necessarily enjoy Kelsier's assumption that because Vin uses his first name, she's in love with him. He's not wrong, but like, men and women can be friends too. Just because someone uses a first name doesn't mean that you're automatically in love with them. So that annoyed me just a little bit.

Lilly:

Yeah. If he had seen through her, and been like, Oh, girl's got a crush, for a different reason, I would have totally bought it.

Sara:

Yeah. But, like, just because she used his first name. Like, if he had said anything about the way she was talking about him, her demeanor when she talked, like, anything else. Anything else.

Lilly:

Or, if we had seen more of the conversation, and she had been very, like, detached and cold, and then suddenly was like, Oh, but, uh, Elend.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

Then, yeah. But no, that was,

Sara:

But just using his first name doesn't mean shit. I'm sorry, it doesn't. Completely unrelated to that, going back to the cool, grimdark Inquisitors. I did not understand why the Obligators and Inquisitors were mortal enemies. Like, you could have made me believe that it was politicking if Sanderson had done any work to show that. But just, they're just weirdly antagonistic in one scene, and I didn't get it.

Lilly:

Yeah, I think that was, again, supposed to be a grand reveal of they're just like us. Because until that point, Inquisitors have been superhuman monsters. They're stronger than you, they're smarter than you, they're faster than you. You versus an Inquisitor, you're gonna die. And so suddenly to see them being, like, petty and getting into politics and having a pissing match with the other, like, branch of government. I think was supposed to be like a, Oh, they're people!

Sara:

Yeah, that, that reveal did not work for me. I needed more from it, if that was what Sanderson was going for.

Lilly:

Ooh, the reveal that Marsh, the thief who they had planted to become an obligator and rise up the ranks.

Sara:

Kelsier's brother.

Lilly:

Yeah, Kelsior's brother, and he gets caught and killed, and it's a big deal and very emotional. He didn't get killed, he got turned into an Inquisitor! That was a good reveal.

Sara:

I did like that reveal.

Lilly:

That was a good twist.

Sara:

Yeah, I did like that one. And like, that one felt earned, right? Like, it felt like Sanderson had done the work to make us kind of care about Marsh, to think that he was dead, to be happy when he's not, and it wasn't telegraphed in a way that all of the other reveals have been, that kind of like, make them lose their impact.

Lilly:

But, going back and thinking about it, I can totally see how the actual events fit into what we thought we knew.

Sara:

Yes.

Lilly:

Like, it's not completely out of left field.

Sara:

Right. Like, it's one of those things where if you go back, you see where it's leading up to, but you don't in the moment. And that's what I like, right? Where in retrospect, yes, this was there, but it's not so obvious that you're not impressed when it happens.

Lilly:

Yeah, there are so many little gems like that in this book. Not, not with the twist specifically, but like, there are times when Sanderson does something really cool. Like with the Mistwraiths and the Chondra, he drops the name Chondra really early on. Not the name, but the creature name. And I was like, ooh, excited to find out more about these guys. And then, you like, slowly figure it out over the course of the whole book, and then at the end, it's like, really important. Kelsior's whole plot, like, hinged on a creature that could take his identity after he dies. And, that was just done so well. It's like, why didn't you do this for all the other stuff?

Sara:

Yeah. Sanderson, like, he's got some really cool concepts. He's got some great ideas. But his execution is so uneven. And I also don't like his prose, you know, that's a me thing.

Lilly:

It's not. It's not a you thing.

Sara:

Okay, well, I'm more willing to be gentle on that, as it's more of a personal preference. But like, everything else is so uneven, and I just, I don't understand. Why?

Lilly:

It's like, if everything was blunt and surface level and spoon fed, it would be one thing. But because some of it is more thoughtful than that, it makes me mad, because I'm like, well, you know how to do this, you know it's important, so what happened with everything else, my guy?

Sara:

It's still, I mean, I would say 95 percent of it is blunt and surface level,

Lilly:

Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. But the fact that he knows how to not do that

Sara:

that there's that

Lilly:

didn't you?

Sara:

Yeah. Sometimes I feel like he writes too fast.

Lilly:

I don't know. You were only saying that because you know how often he publishes.

Sara:

Maybe. I mean, but like,

Lilly:

feels like outside information.

Sara:

yes, that's not something I'm getting from the text of this book specifically, but I think it's a fair comment to make. Like, if he spent a little more time with each book, I wonder if we would get more polish.

Lilly:

Yeah. Honestly, I think the problem is that it's just overhyped.

Sara:

There's definitely that too.

Lilly:

Like, if Mistborn was just a fun fantasy novel that a lot of people have nostalgia for, that is pitched as a good, Entry into, like, a more adult fantasy reading atmosphere, then it would be fine.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

But the fact that, like, okay, let's say, theoretically, that there was an objective best book in the entire universe. Even that book would be overhyped with how people talk about Mistborn. Like, they're really doing this book a disservice. I don't know how you can listen to the rhetoric around Sanderson's work and ever not be disappointed

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

It just sets you up for failure.

Sara:

That's very true. And I will acknowledge this about myself, that I have a very strong hipster tendency. If someone tells me that I should like something, I dig my heels in. And I'm sure that there's a little bit of that in my reaction to Sanderson's work as well. But I do think that it's a fine book, right? Like

Lilly:

it's fine.

Sara:

it's, but, but it's not an excellent book. Yeah.

Lilly:

That's not how people talk about it. And that's so, like, I don't know. How,

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

it does the book a huge disservice, I think. And like, there, I think there's a whole conversation around, like, hype and what that does. And it's great that people are excited for books. I'm not saying people shouldn't be excited for books. But when the conversation around a book is so fervent, it's hard. It's just

Sara:

yeah, and also the way that people react to Sanderson as if everything that he does is gold because it's Sanderson. I think also does him and his books a disservice.

Lilly:

Yeah. And there have been some very negative reactions to people saying very level headed things about his work and him.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

I mean, it's hard to forget that article kerfuffle. Was it just last year?

Sara:

It was pretty recent,

Lilly:

Someone wrote an article, they interviewed Sanderson, and all they said was that he's rich. Which is an objectively true fact.

Sara:

I mean, like, it, it wasn't necessarily a very, what's the word I'm looking for? Um,

Lilly:

Ass kissy.

Sara:

yeah, like, it didn't go out of its way to be nice about Sanderson. Like, it, it wasn't

Lilly:

It wasn't flattering. It's not that it wasn't flattering. It wasn't trying to puff him up.

Sara:

Yes, I, but I think flattering actually is, is the right term. Like, it wasn't flattering, but it also wasn't critical.

Lilly:

Yeah, I mean, saying it wasn't flattering implies that it was unflattering, which is a different thing. I don't think it was unflattering. It just wasn't trying to flatter him.

Sara:

Like, it definitely, at least the way that I read it, it was not particularly critical of him, or his books, or his lifestyle, and yet the reaction to it on Twitter was, like, outsized outrage, and it was the worst article that anyone had ever written. How dare this author, like, betray Sanderson by spending time with him and then writing this piece. And that I, I just did not understand.

Lilly:

The guy who wrote it has also written a book, so everyone was like, he's just bitter that he doesn't have the same success. And it's like, the guy wrote a pleasantly neutral article.

Sara:

Yeah,

Lilly:

And so when you have that as the rhetoric surrounding an author, How are you supposed to go into a book and not be biased? How could you possibly?

Sara:

yeah.

Lilly:

I think if Sanderson didn't have fans, we probably would have been like, Wow, can you believe how outdated this book is? Ha! Here's the stuff we liked about it.

Sara:

Mm hmm.

Lilly:

But the fact that to this day, it is recommended as, like, the best book ever. There's a meme. on Reddit, that no matter what type of book you say you're interested in reading, literally you could say you want a dystopian sci fi. Literally anything. Historical fiction, anything.

Sara:

You want a fluffy romance.

Lilly:

Yeah! Someone in the comments will say, Oh, have you tried Mistborn by Sanderson? And they will make an argument for why, Well, there's a romance in it. Oh, well, like, the ruler's kind of a tyrant, so that's why it's dystopian. Or, oh, well, you know, the magic is a really hard magic system, so you could call it sci fi. And it's just this religious fervor for him, and this book in particular. It's not even Aw, it was one of his first novels, and so we love it. Like, people genuinely think that it's the best book ever. And it's like, could you calm down?

Sara:

Read some other books, please.

Lilly:

Yeah. And that's really too bad. I think we would have liked this book a lot more.

Sara:

Yeah, I agree. I mean if it didn't come with all of that baggage I don't know if I would have liked the book, but I would have hated it less.

Lilly:

I think the tone of our conversation would have been different. It would have been like, This is a hilarious outdated book.

Sara:

Yeah, absolutely.

Lilly:

I wonder if he's grown since then. I feel like we would have said at least once.

Sara:

Probably.

Lilly:

I mean, his first book came out in 05. That is as far as I got when I was googling it.

Sara:

I think he decided that this would be a better follow up to Elantris than any of his other Cosmere books that he was considering.

Lilly:

It's his second novel.

Sara:

Yeah.

Lilly:

And like, oh wait, no. That's a list of his awards. Give me a list of books. There we go, okay, it is his second novel. And like, let the man move on. It's almost twenty years later.

Sara:

Yep.

Lilly:

Surely he's written a better book since then. But no, people are like, no, it's Mistborn, it's always Mistborn. Which makes me think he hasn't written a better book since then.

Sara:

Well, I can tell you, maybe he has. I'm not gonna find out.

Lilly:

I, yeah, no, there, there, nothing in this has made me, like, really excited to read more Sanderson. Especially considering how long it was.

Sara:

so long.

Lilly:

If it was half the length, then it would be like, Oh, sure, why not?

Sara:

Yep. Yeah, it was long.

Lilly:

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Fiction Fans.

Sara:

Come disagree with us! We're on Twitter, Blue Sky, Instagram, and TikTok, at FictionFansPod. You can also email us at FictionFansPod at gmail. com.

Lilly:

If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and follow us wherever your podcasts live.

Sara:

We also have a Patreon where you can support us and find exclusive episodes and a lot of other nonsense.

Lilly:

Thanks again for listening, and may your villains always be defeated.

Sara:

Bye!