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-one

Philen watches Elend enter the Assembly Hall

We get a random viewpoint here. No, Philen isn’t going to be a major viewpoint in the book. He just fills a role that you’ll often see in my books–that of the section given to a random person because I wanted to show a different perspective on things.

In this case, I wanted to show Elend entering the assembly hall, as he would be seen by someone sitting on the inside. This was one of the dramatic scenes that I planned from early on for the book, and it was nice to find a way to fulfill it.

Of course, there’s more to Philen’s viewpoint than that one image. I also wanted to make him a little more memorable so that the next few Assembly meetings would work better. I’ve reinforced Penrod a bit, but I worried that Philen would be forgettable unless I gave him a viewpoint. And, since he is a modestly big player in the next little bit of political wrangling, it felt right to let him take the stage for a few moments.

Finally, it was simply fun to write from a brief–but new–viewpoint. Philen thinks very differently from the other viewpoint characters. His sentences are quick and eager, and his internal narrative has a shallowness to it in both sentence structure and content. He’s not very smart, but he is rather clever, and those things mixing together–along with his native eagerness–made for an interesting viewpoint to write.

Elend Nominates Penrod

I hope that this chapter feels thick with some good political wrangling. Elend pulls of some fairly good maneuvers here, especially considering how far he’s come. True, he was coached in a lot of what he did here, but the fact remains that he’s learning and growing.

Vin and Breeze give him a little TOO much credit for getting Penrod to nominate him, however. While Elend hoped that by nominating Penrod, he would get a nomination in return, he wasn’t counting on it too much. No, in this case, Elend’s basic goodness was simply being manifest. He figured that if not a single one of the Assembly was willing to nominate him to be king, he had no right to nominate himself. Better to let the matter die here than force a vote when nobody was even willing to consider him for king.

Cett’s Appearance

Bringing in Cett like this was dramatic, but I hope it makes sense, too. Explanation is coming in the next chapter.