58 pages • 1 hour read
Brandon SandersonMistborn: The Final Empire
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaPart 1, Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “The Survivor of Hathsin”
Part 1, Chapter 6 Summary
Vin is taken to Clubs’s carpentry shop, a front for the crew’s base. Her room is comfortable, clean, and the first room she has had to herself. The next day, Kelsier holds a meeting for all the crew members. The crew discusses how to implement their plan, with Vin offering the suggestion of attacking the Pits of Hathsin to draw the city’s garrison away from Luthadel and allow Yeden’s soldiers to take over the city. Ham is put in charge of training the soldiers that Breeze will recruit from the skaa. Kelsier and Vin will work on inciting tension between the Great Houses of Luthadel; Vin will impersonate a noblewoman and infiltrate the parties the Houses regularly throw to gain information. Kelsier has killed a nobleman from outside the city, Lord Renoux, and replaced him with a kandra imposter to act as Vin’s uncle. The kandra are a class of creatures able to ingest corpses and assume a person’s identity. Lord Renoux will be responsible for smuggling weapons to the skaa troops.
Vin worries about the religious implications of their plan, as the Lord Ruler is the God who saved Scadrial from the mysterious Deepness “then brought the ash and the mists as a punishment for the people’s lack of faith” (111). Kelsier’s brother, Marsh, arrives to speak with Kelsier alone. Vin stays by the door to eavesdrop.
Part 1, Chapter 7 Summary
In the chapter's epigraph, the Hero of Ages writes of Rashek, one of the packmen guiding him through Terris. He describes Rashek as being full of anger, specifically towards himself.
It has been three years since Marsh and Kelsier last spoke face-to-face and since Marsh gave up his role as leader of the skaa rebellion to Yeden. Marsh presents Kelsier with a list of names of the men that Kelsier killed while stealing Lord Venture’s safe; some of those men were born skaa and worked as guards for Venture. Marsh accuses Kelsier of “hijack[ing] the rebellion” (129) for a con job, suspecting that Kelsier has a secret motive for wanting to overthrow the empire. Still, Marsh agrees to consider the plan and his potential involvement as a mole in the Steel Ministry.
Vin continues to struggle with her brother Reen’s voice in her head, warning her against trusting Kelsier and the crew. Vin and Kelsier go to the roof of Clubs’s shop where Kelsier presents her with her first Mistborn cloak. Kelsier instructs her to regard the mists as her home rather than believe in skaa mythology that fears the mists. While wearing a Mistborn cloak, no guard patrol will bother them, as it is assumed they are of noble blood. Kelsier and Vin practice Allomancy. Kelsier instructs Vin to regard Allomancy as a manipulation of consequences; her weight, proximity to other metals, and trajectory all influence the way she can use her power. Allomancy is dependent on physics. Kelsier brings her to the city wall where Vin practices Pushing on an ingot of metal to send herself flying over the wall.
Part 1, Chapter 8 Summary
With Kelsier’s help, Vin reaches the top of the wall. She struggles to land safely on the opposite side and then walks with Kelsier into the mists. Kelsier explains more about Allomancy, noting that any metal inside her body cannot be Pushed or Pulled by another Allomancer; thus, the earring she wears from her mother is safe from external influence. They encounter a mistwraith, a peaceful yet disturbing creature that consumes corpses and incorporates their skeletal structure into their own body. They reach the imperial highroad and join Sazed, a Terris steward in Kelsier’s employ, in a carriage bound for the city of Fellise. There, Kelsier will introduce Vin to the imposter Lord Renoux.
During the carriage ride, Vin questions Kelsier about his brother Marsh and whether Marsh often beat him as a child as Reen did to her. Vin remains distrustful of Kelsier: “Now that I know your secrets, what is to keep me from running away from you?” (156). Kelsier assures her that he only works with people who truly want to be on his crew; she must decide for herself whether to trust him.
They arrive at Mansion Renoux. Kelsier speaks of how the landscape used to be before the Lord Ruler’s Ascension and the coming of ashfalls and mist—full of green vegetation and arable land. Vin is struck by the cleanliness of the mansion and the happiness she sees in the skaa servants. Kelsier and Lord Renoux speak privately as Vin eats in Sazed’s company. As a Terris steward, Sazed has been trained to be the perfect servant. He speaks to Vin of his interest in learning of and teaching the many religions that existed on Scadrial before the Lord Ruler’s Ascension.
Lord Renoux and Kelsier return. They plan to have Vin act as his niece, infiltrating Luthadel’s noble balls and courtly functions to gain information. Sazed will train her in the manners and social customs of the court. As a final way to earn Vin’s trust, Kelsier gives her the money Camon scammed from the Steel Ministry.
Part 1, Chapters 6-8 Analysis
Marsh does not trust Kelsier’s sense of morality and whether his brother can be fully invested in freeing the skaa people. For Marsh, the oppression of the skaa requires liberation, regardless of whether they are being oppressed by their professed God. He suspects Kelsier has another motive, more mercenary and self-centered than moral rightness: “How dare you use this dream as a way of enriching yourself?” (129). Their plan is marketed as being larger than money, privilege, or revenge, a perception that Kelsier readily perpetuates with the goal of being a savior figure to the skaa.
Vin is Mistborn. She does not have to earn this identity or prove herself in some way, unlike her life in the underground where she was constantly required to prove her worth to those around her. Kelsier’s gift of a Mistborn cloak before she can even adequately use her abilities shocks Vin. Furthermore, Sanderson enhances this identity of Mistborn by setting the scene of Vin’s instruction in the dense nightly mists of Luthadel. The Mistborn identity is obscured, privileged, powerful, and akin to a force of nature, precisely how the people of the empire regard the mists themselves.
Kelsier’s instruction in Allomancy focuses on the consequences of physical laws and the art of manipulating those consequences. The metals themselves focus Allomantic power; they do not create the power, which comes from the individual themselves as they ingest and use specific metals. This fact causes the Allomancer to depend on their environment, with access to metals and the ability to use them on others determining whether the Allomancer can reasonably use their powers. This passage illustrates Sanderson’s theme of community and society—an Allomancer without metal or people to use their powers on cannot fully use their innate abilities. An Allomancer’s significance depends on the society they work in.
Sanderson slowly reveals the characteristics of Scadrial pre-Ascension through Kelsier’s and Sazed’s conversations with Vin. Kelsier’s interest in the past focuses on the arable land and green vegetation that existed before the Lord Ruler instigated the ashfalls and mists—he desires to recreate a physical world that reflects the more prosperous society he wishes to create. Sazed, in comparison, is a Keeper focused on reinstalling cultural beliefs and knowledge that threatens to be lost under the governance of the Lord Ruler. Sanderson creates a strong friendship and working relationship between Sazed and Kelsier to reflect the two qualities needed within a post-Lord Ruler nation: natural prosperity and cultural growth.
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By Brandon Sanderson
