The following is commentary, written by Brandon, about one of the chapters of MISTBORN: THE WELL OF ASCENSION. If you haven’t read this book, know that the following will contain major spoilers. We suggest reading the sample chapters from book one instead. You can also go to this book’s introduction or go to the main annotations page to access all annotations for all books. For those who have read some of MISTBORN 2, any spoilers for the ending of this book will be hidden, so as long as you’ve read up to this chapter, you should be all right.

Chapter Thirty-eight

Vin waits for Elend to reveal his plan before the Assembly

I had to do a couple of drafts of Elend’s “It doesn’t change things” section with Vin. I didn’t want to reveal his plan–I wanted Vin to work through it–but I also didn’t want it to seem TOO forced that he didn’t tell her.

I settled on this, which I think has a nice balance. However, you’re in dangerous territory as a writer any time you have characters conveniently forget to tell each other things–or when you keep viewpoints characters plans and schemes back from the reader.

I have a history of fudging these things a tad in this series. I don’t give myself that much leeway in all of my books–but I figured with the Kelsier “Real Plan” surprise I had in the last book, I have established that the characters don’t always tell the reader every single thing they’re plotting.

Elend reveals that he’s joined the Church of the Survivor

Unfortunately, this entire chapter is a big mallet driving the wedge down between Vin and Elend. The next chapters are why I had to make sure I established their relationship earlier in the book, so that readers would hope for them to stay together as the novel progressed. However, I suspect that at least a few readers are pulling for the Vin/Zane thing to work out.

Either way, it’s better–narratively, and character-wise–to have Vin figure out Elend’s plan on her own. It gives her the chance to show how she’s grown. She sees things like a politician. Though she’s hard on herself, she knows a lot more about these things–and is a better match for Elend–than she gives herself credit.

I actually think this is a clever, clever move. Elend has done a lot of work for the skaa, but he’s never really worked to make himself seem like one of them. This establishes him as on their side, solidly–but also gives him a kinship with them. He doesn’t worship the Lord Ruler. He worships their god. That gives him a lot of credibility with them.

Elend and Vin get attacked by Allomancers

And, yay! A fight scene. It’s been a little while since we had one of those.

I worry that the lack off battles made me go a little extra-crazy with this one. I apologize if there were too many people moving about, too much going on, or too many enemies to keep track of. This wasn’t meant to be a delicate Allomantic dance–this was a brutal, bash people and pop eyes kind of fight. Like I said earlier, I try to give each action scene its own kind of flair and feeling. This one was down and dirty, kill or be killed.

In fact, Vin nearly got killed twice herself. Something I worked hard in book one to establish was that Allomancers, even Mistborn, were not invincible. Both time she’s gotten into serious fights in this book, it’s nearly killed her. Without the edge that Duralumin gives her, she’d have been beaten here twice over.

It’s not that she lacks skill–not at all. This fight was simply designed, by her enemies, to be a real and serious threat. The odds were against her, and she had a lot to worry about. Perhaps she should have just grabbed Elend and fled. However, she figured she could beat them. She was right, in the end–even if she came dangerously close to losing.

Mistborn have a tendency to be over-confident.