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-Six

Sazed visits the Refugees, and meets Tindwyl there.

This scene with the refugees isn’t, actually, a new addition to the book in later drafts, though it works wonderfully to remind the readers of the siege. It was in the very first draft.

Tindwyl did wonder if Sazed really cared about the people or not. You see, in her mind, if he DID care about the people of the empire, he wouldn’t be in Luthadel at all—but out doing what a Keeper should. It was good for her to see him here, trying to help as best he could, ignoring his studies to care for the sick. He does care; he’s perhaps the most caring person in this series. He’s just trapped, trying to do what is best for as many people as possible.

Breeze Viewpoint in the Warehouse with the Refugees.

Breeze didn’t want to go with Elend to meet with Cett (for the dinner.) That isn’t only because Breeze didn’t want to see Cett, but because he wanted to go and help the refugees. (That chapter actually happens on a different day, so I brought him back to visit again so that I could show you him working with the people. In the Mistborn novels, unlike Elantris, I keep a strict chronological progression from chapter to chapter and scene to scene. So, if a chapter comes after another one, it’s always later in time as well.)

I realize that I’m in danger of making all of my protagonists too good. Showing Breeze as being somewhat less cynical on the inside than he projects inches me toward this line. However, I LIKE people who are heroic. I try my best to make things rough on them, and to give them some quirks to keep them a little grey, but the honest truth is that I believe most people are good at heart. They WILL help others, if given the chance.

Plus, Breeze likes to study people, and this is a great place for him to do it. He can mix his focus in life with making other people feel better. Of course, there’s also the fact that Kelsier himself manipulated Breeze and made a better man out of him. Put a person in charge of the weak and poor, give him the right motivation and direction, and I think that an many cases he’ll come to love them. Even if that man is Breeze.

Breeze Viewpoint Continues. After speaking with Elend, he visits Clubs.

The friendship between Clubs and Breeze came mostly because I wanted to give Clubs just a little more screen time. I also liked the irony of the pairing—the Soother and the only man on the crew who is completely immune to him. It makes for a nice juxtaposition.

It is good to note that Allrianne did, in fact, seduce Breeze—and not the other way around. She’s a girl who knows what she wants and how to get it. You’ll see a viewpoint or two from her later on.

Clubs lies here in this scene, by the way. He says that “Money” is the reason he joined with Kelsier. He says it so quickly and naturally that even Breeze buys it. But, if you remember the scene in the first book when he joined, you’ll know his real motivation. He wanted to spit in the Lord Ruler’s face. He knew he was going to get caught and killed eventually, and he wanted to do it in a dramatic way.

Thing is, his team actually won. Go figure.

Vin Viewpoint; she and OreSeur listen in on Breeze and Clubs.

Vin gives away a valuable secret here. OreSeur, previously to this, hadn’t know that she could pierce copperclouds. However, the way that she first tells him that Allrianne is a Rioter, while Clubs is there burning his metal, is too big a clue. He just figured out Vin’s secret.

And, by way of reminders, Kliss was the woman that gossiped a lot at the balls, and whom Vin tried to manipulate. Turns out that she was an informant playing Vin the whole time. Shan is Elend’s former Fiancée, a woman he didn’t know was Mistborn, but who tried to assassinate him. Vin managed to kill her in a rather dramatic scene involving arrows, half naked girls, and a big, stained glass rose window crashing to the ground. One of my favorite sequences in the first book.

Error in the Hardcover edition

I forgot to mention it in the appropriate chapter (I think it was way back in twenty-six) so I’ll mention it here. Maybe I’ll move this eventually.

Anyway, the hardcover edition of the book had of the more embarrassing typos in the series. (I think we got it fixed for the softcover.) It relates to Clubs and his Allomantic abilities, which is why this scene made me think of it. Way back in chapter twenty-four, I mistakenly (during one of the very last drafts of the book) mention Clubs as being a Seeker, not a Smoker, and burning the wrong metal.

I knew I’d do this some place in the series. The thing is, Clubs was originally going to be the team’s Seeker, with Marsh being the Smoker. I swapped this before I started writing, but there is still some latent belief on my part that Clubs is a Seeker. And, because of that, when writing quickly and smoothing over rifts made by re-arranging chapters, I wrote the wrong metal down. (And it isn’t just a single word typo; I think I even talked about him being a Seeker, and being able to sense what metals people are burning. Something like that.)

All I can say is. . .whoops!

Vin Follows Demoux

And, this chapter just keeps going! It’s one of the ones that suffered a bit from the rearrangement of some of the sequences, in this case I moved the “Chase down Demoux” scene from an earlier chapter into this one to keep the suspense going.

I wanted this scene for two reasons. The first, obviously, is to round out Demoux just a bit and make spotting the imposter a more difficult problem for Vin. However, an equally important part of it was my desire to show how the Church of the Survivor is evolving.

Those of you who have read Elantris know that I’m fascinated by religion. In this case, I want to show a fledgling religion, and try to postulate how one would develop. A lot of the observations made by Vin here, then, are my attempts at tracing the beginnings of religious movement. Right now, there is no doctrine or ceremony—just belief and hope.

And one of those hopes is that Vin will somehow bring the sun and plants back to the way they once were. I don’t hit the visuals on the world as hard in this book as I did in the last one. Hopefully, it’s present enough in the setting to make you remember that the sun is red because of the haze in the upper atmosphere. Plants are brown, not green, and there are no flowers. The prophesy that Vin will restore these things is new, relating to some of the things that Kelsier used to talk about.

Demoux’s History from Book One

This might be a good place to give you a little bit of Demoux’s history, by way of reminder. He was one of the first recruits to Kelsier’s army, and Ham promoted him to captain almost as soon as he (Ham) took control of the troops who were hiding in the caves back in book one. When Kelsier came to inspect those caves, Demoux led him around a bit. Then, Kelsier used Demoux in a display where he humiliated a dissenter.

Eventually, Yeden took the army and decided to attack a fortified position. Some of the troops thought this was against what Kelsier had told them to do, and these stayed back in the caves. Demoux was their leader.

He’s also named after my good friend and former roommate, Micah DeMoux, who also did the jacket photo of me in the backs of all of my books. Captain Demoux actually looks just like Micah, in my mind, though with the fitness of a soldier.