Mistborn: The Final Empire

“Her brother had taught her so many things, then had reinforced them by doing what he’d always promised he would—by betraying her himself. It’s the only way you’ll learn. Anyone will betray you, Vin. Anyone.”

Vin’s brother Reen has betrayed and abandoned her to a life in Camon’s thieving crew. This quote reflects Vin’s deep distrust of other people at the beginning of the novel. The italicized words represent Reen’s voice as it plays through Vin’s mind, a constant reminder of the lack of trust and friendship she expects in her life.

“But you weren’t born an aristocrat. You’re not noble, Vin. You don’t have to play by their rules – and that makes you even more powerful.”

These lines are spoken by Kelsier after he confirms Vin to be a Mistborn. Mistborns are extremely rare, especially among skaa half-bloods. Vin’s mixed parentage of nobility and skaa allows her to burn all the Allomantic metals without the need to strictly follow the nobility’s social codes.

“The trick is to never stop looking. There’s always another secret.”

After Dockson finds hidden bottles of wine in Camon’s lair, Kelsier makes this statement, which reflects the novel’s theme of trust, betrayal, and friendship. Though Kelsier claims to work only with people he can trust, Kelsier himself keeps the secret of his intention to use himself as a religious martyr to inspire the skaa into rebellion.

“As he stood, the mists curled slightly around his body. They twisted and spun, running in a slight, barely noticeable current beside him. The mists knew him; they claimed him. They could sense Allomancy.”

As Kelsier sets out for Keep Venture to steal atium, he notes how the nightly mists in the city respond to his use of Allomancy. The mists are connected to Allomancy and, when accessed by a powerful Allomancer like Vin, can provide additional strength to ordinary Allomantic abilities. 

“He had saved them from the Deepness, then had brought the ash and mists as punishment for the people’s lack of faith.”

As Kelsier’s crew plans to overthrow the Lord Ruler, Vin questions the religious implications of their actions. The Lord Ruler is perceived to be a God that has already saved Scadrial from near destruction as well as controlling the atmospheric phenomena of mist and ashfall.

“‘What’s there to earn?’ Kelsier said, pulling out his own cloak. ‘This is who you are, Vin.’”

Kelsier gives Vin a Mistborn cloak and reassures her that she does not have to prove herself through trial to earn her identity as a Mistborn. This challenges Vin’s entire life experience up to that point, as she has continually had to prove her worth to Reen and Camon to survive.

“Now that I know your secrets, what is to keep me from running away from you?”

Vin struggles to trust Kelsier even as she begins to learn the art of Allomancy. She expects Kelsier to withhold information from her to ensure she won’t leave the crew unexpectedly. This quote reflects Vin’s deep distrust of those she works with while simultaneously suggesting that she is beginning to question her own motives in the crew and whether she might not change into a more trusting person.

“‘We claim to be doing good,’ Ham said. ‘But the Lord Ruler—as God—defines what good is. So by opposing him, we’re actually evil. But since he’s doing the wrong thing, does evil actually count as good in this case?’”

While Vin learns Soothing from Breeze, Ham proposes this philosophical question to the crew. The Lord Ruler’s theocracy implies that their actions to overthrow the empire go against God, for those that believe the Lord Ruler to be God. Vin and the other characters learn to see the Lord Ruler as a political tyrant rather than a religious God.

“It was the shadowed prospect—unlikely and unreasonable, but still seductive—of a group whose members actually trusted one another.”

As Vin begins her training as a noblewoman, she becomes attracted both to the lifestyle of the nobility and the prospect of finding friendship and loyalty among Kelsier’s crew. Having grown up with Reen in a deeply distrustful environment, Kelsier’s crew represents the kind of emotional and social stability that Vin has long wanted.

“I think given the choice between loving Mare—betrayal included—and never knowing her, I’d choose love.”

Kelsier tells Vin that despite Mare’s probable betrayal of him at Kredik Shaw, he continues to love her. Her betrayal means little compared to the love they shared. This level of trust and love is an entirely new phenomenon to Vin, who has not yet experienced such love from another person.

“While she rarely had to sit alone anymore, she was quickly coming to realize that none of the other noblemen has the same [...] depth as Elend. None of the others had his droll wit, or his honest, earnest eyes. The others didn’t feel real.”

As Vin becomes more active in her role infiltrating the nobility’s balls, her interactions with Elend increase. She is falling in love with him. Despite her history of trust issues, Vin follows her instincts in regard to Elend, which tell her that he is genuine. This sense proves to be accurate when, much later, Elend joins the resistance.

“She knew the reason she stayed in the crew. It wasn’t the plan; it was the people.”

As Vin works to infiltrate the nobility and gather information for the crew, she begins to form an attachment to her fellow crewmembers. She trusts them and enjoys working with them. Vin’s character has grown from a distrustful skaa thief into a respected member of a rebellion who is able to trust others in return despite the teachings of her brother Reen.

“‘You know,’ he said. ‘It amazes me sometimes that we bother to try. With everything they’ve done to us—the deaths, the tortures, the agonies—you'd think that we would give up on things like hope and love. But we don’t. Skaa still fall in love. They still try to have families, and they still struggle. I mean, here we are [...] fighting Kell’s insane little war, resisting a god we know is going to slaughter us all.’”

Dockson speaks these words about the resilience of the skaa people to Vin after she asks about his experience as a plantation skaa. Dockson’s words reflect the novel’s discussion of heroism and trust, as skaa continue to pursue love, hope, and friendship despite their persecution by the Lord Ruler.

“She was beginning to trust those around her, and there was no one she wanted to let herself trust more than Elend Venture.”

After Vin confronts Elend about sleeping with a skaa woman who was later executed to prevent a half-blooded pregnancy, Vin is surprised at herself for understanding Elend’s position. Her time in the crew, and especially with Kelsier, has allowed her to confront the lack of trust in others she knew as a skaa thief.

“Who, then, was she really? Vin the urchin? Valette the lady? Neither? Did any of her friends really know her? Did she even really know herself?”

As Vin begins to trust in her crewmembers and Elend, she wonders about her identity and how that identity impacts her current relationships. She has changed drastically since her time in Camon’s crew and no longer identifies with the girl she once was. Similarly, she does not fully feel herself to be Valette. Vin’s struggle to understand her identity corresponds to her character development and the necessity for her to discover trust for herself in addition to trust for herself.

“This is our enemy. There is no quarter here, no walking away. This is no simple job, to be thrown aside when we encounter a few unexpected twists.”

At the public execution of skaa held in retaliation against the rebel’s attack of Holstep, Kelsier makes this speech to his crew to motivate them to continue with their plan. The larger moral implications of their rebellion imply that the crew cannot give up because of their personal feelings of loss or hopelessness.

“But I wish...Well, I actually like my life now, Sazed. I like spending time with the crew, and I like training with Kelsier. I love going to balls with Elend on the weekends, love walking in these gardens with you. I don’t want things to change. I don’t want my life to go back to the way it was a year ago.”

After finishing the translation of the Hero of Ages’s logbook, Vin and Sazed discuss what will happen to the crew after the job is finished. In this quote, Vin expresses the first real happiness in her life and her fear of returning to the person she once was. 

“There probably wouldn’t be room for things like grand balls in Kelsier’s new kingdom, and that might not be a bad thing—what right did she have to dance while other skaa starved? Yet...it seemed like the world would be missing something beautiful without the keeps and dances, the dresses and the festivities.”

Vin attends the last noble ball at Keep Venture before the House War begins. Through her Valette persona, Vin has come to appreciate the artistry and beauty of the nobility’s favorite pastime, though it is hard to reconcile her experiences at balls with her knowledge of a skaa’s daily life. This quote signifies Vin’s appreciation for, and inclusion in, both noble and skaa life.

“‘You don’t stop loving someone just because they hurt you,’ he said. ‘It would certainly make things easier if you did.’”

After Elend breaks up with Vin, Kelsier counsels her that her continued love for the people in her life that have caused her pain is inevitable. Kelsier continues to love the wife who betrayed him just as Vin continues to love her brother Reen despite his abuse.

“Belief isn’t simply a thing for fair times and bright days, I think. What is belief—what is faith—if you don’t continue in it after failure?”

Sazed says this to Vin following Kelsier’s death. Vin struggles to accept Kelsier’s actions, but Sazed reassures her that not only was their friendship sincere but continuing to believe in Kelsier’s dream is a way for Vin to continue to love him.

“You came back. No one’s ever come back before.”

Vin reunites with Elend in Kredik Shaw’s prison. This is the first time that someone who has left Vin’s life has returned, symbolizing the positive effect of Vin’s newfound ability to trust others.

“You don’t know what I do for mankind. I was your god, even if you couldn’t see it. By killing me, you have doomed yourselves.”

The Lord Ruler says these words moments before Vin kills him. His words imply that by betraying the Hero of Ages and taking the power of the Well of Ascension for himself, the Lord Ruler was protecting the people of Scadrial from a worse fate than the Final Empire. This quote foreshadows the plot developments that Sanderson will continue in the subsequent books of the Mistborn series.

“She’d always assumed that the title ‘Mistborn’ had come about because Allomancers tended to do their work at night. She’d never considered that there might be a stronger connection.”

After Vin defeats the Lord Ruler by drawing Allomantic power from the mists, she considers the origin of the term ‘mistborn.’ Allomancy and the mists both originated at the Well of Ascension when Rashek stole its power to defeat the Deepness.