Mistborn: The Final Empire (Review)

“Our belief is often strongest when it should be weakest. That is the nature of hope.”
I finished reading the Mistborn trilogy. I have only read the first era, and I don't plan on reading further, either at all, or, at least, for quite some time. Either way, I found this series to be incredibly enjoyable to read. Mistborn does an excellent job setting things up for potential cliché before pulling the rug from under you in ways that you rarely catch on to. In this post, I will talk about the first book in the series, The Final Empire.

Summary

In the first book of the series, we have an Empire ruled over by a man called captain redundancy. It's a weird name, but you quickly start to look over that fact as it sinks in just how powerful this man is. He is a terrifyingly powerful man who had ruled over this Empire with a tyrannical fist for a thousand years. And, yes, he is immortal. There is no hope for those who suffer in his Empire. The plebes of society, known as the skaa, are brutally oppressed by this ruler and his nobility. They have known nothing but suffering in life.

All of circumstances change when an eccentric man hatches a scheme to overthrow the Empire.

This man, named Kelsier, is of complicated morals, willing to kill in order to accomplish his ideals, and generally being unforgiving to those who support the Empire, regardless of their reasons. He is a born thief, and so his plan is centered on espionage and trickery, which he would use to scam the nobility in the past. He brings together a crew of thieves who all agree to go along with this absurd plan of his, even as they deny that it will ever work; they simply believe the effort would be worth it, whether because it would be fun, or because it is the right thing to do.

Another character, a member of Kelsier's crew, is Vin. Vin is a young girl who was raised in the underground. She is a skaa who has only ever known betrayal and the cutthroat reality of existence. She joins the crew after it is discovered that she, like Kelsier, is what you would call a Mistborn. This means they have the means to use a kind of magic called Allomancy. An Allomancer has the ability to ingest certain metals and their alloys to "burn" them for powers. You can influence people's emotions, move metals, gain strength, and more, all depending on which metals you burn. Generally, those who can use Allomancy can only do one of these powers. They are called Mistings. However, if you have the ability to use all the metals, then you are a Mistborn. Vin slowly trains over the course of the book, becoming better and better at her powers, showing skill from the very beginning.

Strides (Spoilers)

As the plot progresses, the stakes are continually ramped up. When the crew comes up with the plan to overthrow the Empire, they lay out the series of things that they need done in order to complete the task. And, of course, many of these laid out plans go egregiously wrong. They had a plan to raise ten thousand soldiers, but half of them get killed in an act of foolishness. Kelsier plans on killing captain redundancy, but the reverse ends up happening. But at each moment, despite the worst of the worst happening, Sanderson manages to turn things around again, showing that there is, indeed, hope for the future.

I especially enjoyed how the story ended, with captain redundancy actually being defeated in the first book, but also leaving questions about what could happen next. I liked how his immortality was explained as a clever use of magic that only he was capable of.Even as some things happened without explanation, many things are explained, telling the readers that understanding will come eventually, even if it hasn't happened in this book.

I also enjoyed Kelsier's plan to overthrow the Empire, especially the final twist, where it is revealed that Kelsier had deliberately deified himself in order to inspire the people into rising up against the Empire. This is a unique approach that I found fascinating. I find religion and its importance to humanity to be rather interesting, so I like it when authors take it this route.

I also enjoyed many of the fight scenes. They weren't just boring hitting matches, but had tension and required strategy on the part of the characters in involved. The best fight in the book is the fight between Vin and Shan. Vin's trickery highlights what a clever, quick-thinking girl she is, and she is one of my favorite characters, in general, for it.

Missteps (Spoilers)

There were also things that I didn't like so much. Often, I found myself thinking that the prose was too on the nose for me. Sanderson would often explicitly say things, either in the absence of showing it, or in conjunction with that; either way, I didn't really care for it. An example would be reminding the readers over and over that Vin was strong and determined despite her timid exterior. Fights, like the one she had with Shan show this effectively on their own. Another example would be the many, many statements about how Kelsier had changed after he almost gets Vin killed.

The way in which captain redundancy gets brought down is rather quick, I thought. I think the story could have benefited a bit from a more drawn out fight with the big baddy. Not that it should have been a bloated fight scene, but that there should have been two stages to the fight, where it looked like they would win only to have that struck down in horrifying fashion. A good example that comes to mind would be in the One Piece anime. And, spoilers, if you have a desire to waste your life away watching that show. During the Skypiea Arc, they go up against a man who has the power of electricity. He can't be hit, he can electrocute anyone who touches him, and he rules over everyone like he is a god. There is a moment in the story where one of the characters manages to basically kill this god, stopping his heart. This showed that the man could be hurt, despite previous suggestions. But then this stage of the fight ends when the man literally jumpstarts his own heart with his lightning abilities. While I don't expect Mistborn to be as over the top as this anime often is, I think this scene did a great job bringing the god down a peg while still maintaining the terror of fighting him. Or, perhaps, Mistborn really could have been that over the top. The story does mention that captain redundancy was once burned to his skeleton, but managed to regenerate himself in a matter of minutes. If something like this had been incorporated into the fight—serving as the culmination of the first stage of the fight, and the set up for the second stage—rather than being mentioned as an account of the past, then I think him being brought down would be that much more compelling.

Another point of contention would be that I wasn't sure that I liked how Kelsier's deification was set up. I was left thinking that the set up could have been better laid out than it was. This was only a minor flaw, however. I liked the general idea, as I mentioned before, I just thought the execution could be a little better. I also recognize that this is also very difficult to pull off. This was one of the plot twists of the story, so there has to be balance between set up and surprise twists.

Another nitpick was that the end, where Elend Venture comes into power. I wasn't entirely sure how he could have so easily found the power in the city. The whole Empire breaks up into independent lands ruled over by warlord, and I don't know why things didn't end up as messy within the main city of Luthadel as well. The characters remark that Elend managed to bring everyone together before things got too out of hand, but the specifics were brushed over and I was left to ask questions.

Finally, I was disappointed to learn about the Inquisitors' weakness. I thought it was way too easy to take them down once the secret had been revealed.

Overall, I really enjoyed the reading. I was eager to get to the next book in the series to find out where the story could go from here. I give the book an 8/10.