⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ MAJOR SPOILERS FOR MISTBORN BOOK 1 ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️ ⚠️
Some very minor spoilers for Book 2 also, but nothing big.
Genre: Dystopian fantasy
Pages: 781
Source: Local library
Rating: ★★★★.5
Blurb: Vin, the street urchin who has grown into the most powerful Mistborn in the land, and Elend Venture, the idealistic young nobleman who loves her, must build a healthy new society in the ashes of an empire. Three separate armies attack. As the siege tightens, an ancient legend seems to offer a glimmer of hope. But even if it really exists, no one knows where to find the Well of Ascension or what manner of power it bestows.
At the end of Book 1, Vin has defeated the Lord Ruler, the seemingly invincible God-emperor who ruled the land for a thousand years. The skaa (peasant) people rose up from under crushing oppression to take back the Empire, and now the land is to be ruled by King Elend Venture, with skaa and nobles as equals. But then three armies turn up outside the gates of the imperial city, political turmoil reigns within, as Elend's attempt to foster democracy backfires, and Vin struggles with her place as a Mistborn and feels a mysterious force calling her to determine the fate of the world itself.
For a refresher on how Allomancy and Mistborns work, take a look at my review of Book 1. The other major magic system in the Empire, Feruchemy, gets some time in the sun in this book as well, so basically Feruchemy involves storing things up so you can use them later. For example, Feruchemists called Keepers store thousands of books worth of knowledge in bits of metal (wait, these just sound like computers) so that they can restore lost knowledge to the people. There are many other Feruchemical abilities, like storing up weight so that you become lighter (and later tapping that weight if you need to become heavier), storing up vision by living with poor vision for a while so you can have enhanced sight later, etc.
Character Development:
In my opinion the character development is really good in Book 2. Elend Venture, the new King, gets a lot of the attention, as he develops from dishevelled, idealistic scholar to authoritative king under insanely high pressure. I thought it was really interesting seeing him trying to navigate politics while introducing (semi) democracy to a land that hasn't seen it in at least a thousand years, and I really respected how noble he was in allowing the people to make their decisions even when they weren't good for him, and refusing to find loopholes in the laws he'd written. He's a good man.
Vin changed a lot in Book 1, from a street urchin with barely apparent Allomantic powers to the Mistborn who slew the God-emperor. She's feeling uncertain of who she is, all the while acting as a knife on behalf of Elend's kingdom. One day, another Mistborn comes along, a guy called Zane, and starts sparring with her at night. He's the first equal opponent she's had in a long time, and he starts telling her she's just being used as the kingdom's knife, and that Mistborns like them deserve to be free, not just tools for some ruler. Is Elend using her as a tool? Well, yes. But does he love her? Also yes.
Either way, I related enormously to Vin's identity struggle, though perhaps for a mundane reason. It's that whole idea of being with someone like you and can understand you, or someone who loves you and trusts you even without being the same as you. I loved reading those bits because it's very similar to how I feel about my scholarships and things; hanging out with people at Commons (for Trinity Scholars) or Laidlaw scholar events is thrilling and super intellectually stimulating, and it's cool being with people who love scholarly work as much as you do, but it's nice to come home to something more down-to-earth, to come home and just be you, not what you can do. Both are great.
[There are also fun, chill times with people I know from my scholarships, don't fret. We do talk about other things. And note that I'm not talking about intelligence specifically here; there's a difference between intelligence and loving scholarship.]
I could relate to Vin in other ways, too; you can still see the mark of her traumatic childhood on her, and again it was great to relate so strongly to a character (although she does become awfully morally grey). Now if only I had magic powers...
I think a lot of people didn't like the second book because it had a lot more political maneuvring and soul-searching than the previous one, but I really enjoyed that, perhaps because I could relate to a lot of it so much.
Sazed, the former Terrisman steward and Feruchemist, is a pretty major character in this book, and provides an interesting perspective in contrast to the younger protagonists. After the fall of the Lord Ruler, it's time for the Keepers to travel the land, telling the people the stories from a thousand years ago so they may know the information the Lord Ruler once stamped out - but he is disheartened to learn that the villagers aren't particularly interested in hearing about suppressed religions, and really just want to know how they're going to feed themselves. In fact, a lot of them miss the Lord Ruler. Things certainly aren't perfect after the overthrow of the first book, and it shows how complicated human reactions to things, even things that seem obviously good like freedom, can be. Also, we get to see Sazed being super badass with his Feruchemical abilities, which is a fun thing to read from the subdued scholar.
Plot:
The plot is quite wide-ranging, but mainly focuses on the three armies laying siege to the central city of Luthadel, on Elend's political machinations, and on Vin's identity and gradual realisation of the larger problem facing the world, plus a bunch of other vignettes from around the society told through the eyes of secondary characters like Breeze and Sazed. Breeze's sections are really interesting because he's a soother, i.e. he practises emotional Allomancy to manipulate people's feelings, and so his perspective is a way for us to see how everyone else in the story is feeling.
The ending was a shocking twist, and honestly it annoyed me because I didn't see it coming at all and it didn't feel like we were getting enough foreshadowing for it.
Themes:
I think the major theme of the book is probably trust, and what it means to really love someone by trusting them to do what they need to do. It comes up quite a lot - my favourite way was with Vin's decision about Zane, but for a less spoilery example, there's Vin's relationship with her kandra, OreSeur.
The kandra are creatures created by the Lord Ruler than can digest the bones of an animal (including humans) and take on their form, imitating them perfectly. They're impossible to kill by normal methods, can rearrange their muscles at well to e.g. put a pouch in their shoulder, and they must completely obey the human who has their contract. OreSeur is Vin's kandra and follows her around, obeying her but clearly disliking her. Finally, it opens up and we learn more about the history of the kandra and why they're compelled to obey absolutely, and it's really interesting seeing that trust form.
Another theme is leadership, and what sort of things constitute good, effective leadership. People don't follow you because you are good; they follow you because you are authoritative, and they trust you. Some of the skaa farmers missed the Lord Ruler's oppression, because now their lives and world had lost predictability.
What bothered me:
Sexism - there are so few female characters in this book, it's insane. Yes, Vin is an incredibly powerful warrior, but you still can't have just one. We get a couple more by the end but it's still massively disproportionate. It's strange, because it's not just armies - there are just so few women around at all. the Assembly Elend had elected is entirely made up of men, even though it contains a third nobles, a third merchants and a third skaa peasants, and that really bothered me - if you can make it equal by class, why does equalising by sex always get left out? Similarly, the noble houses are all patriarchal.
It doesn't make any sense, because this is fantasy. People can use magic - why shouldn't there be some matriarchal societies? Why are there zero women in the parliament or (basically) in society in general? Representation really matters, dude.
Secondly, there was kinda a love triangle. It didn't go super far, but I would have preferred if the author had explored the identity issues of being with your tribe or not without making it a semi-romantic thing.
Thirdly, as I explained above, the twist ending seemed to come almost out of nowhere.
In short: Fabulous series, with characters whom I love with all my heart and amazing worldbuilding. On a larger scale than the first book and with fewer up-close-and-personal fights (though still plenty), it's apparently quite unpopular compared to the first book but apart from some niggles I loved it.
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