Below you will read and learn about 7 complicated Mistborn characters. To better understand them, you will learn about their past and how that has shaped who they are in the present. Like real people, these characters are not as straightforward as our first impression may have us believe.
1. Kelsier – The survivor of hathsin
Kelsier is an unbelievably complicated Mistborn character. He is a half-skaa Mistborn who didn’t “snap” gain his powers until after he watched his wife be beaten to death. Before gaining his powers, he was the final empire’s most famous thieving crew leader. He was arrogant, and prideful which was perhaps his downfall. Ironically, it was also what led to his redemption.
As stated above, Kelsier and his wife Mare were the best thieving pair in the empire. Even after they gained their excessive wealth they kept pushing and doing job after job. If they had quit while they were ahead, they could have lived nice, comfortable lives.
For their last job, they tried to break into the lord ruler’s palace. There was a secret building within a building in the palace that the lord ruler spent a few hours in every week. When Kelsier and Mare went to break in, they were confronted by steel inquisitors and the lord ruler himself.
The lord ruler made Kelsier believe that Mare turned them both in. It was plausible that she had because she was the only one who knew they would be there. But was it lie or did she betray him? Instead of death, they were sentenced to work mining atium in the pits of Hathsin.
At the Pits, the skaa workers are forced to brave the deep cracks and cave systems to find the atium bulbs. One bulb carries a small nugget of the precious metal. If you find a bulb, you get to live another week.
Mare lied to Kelsier telling him that she found two bulbs giving him one. Unfortunately, she had only found one. Mare was beaten to death in front of him. She gave her life in return for his. Was Mare trying to atone for her betrayal or did she not betray him at all and just loved him enough to give him life?
After Kelsier snapped, gaining his powers, he left the Pits of Hathsin. He trained as Mistborn and set out to topple the Final empire, because that’s what Mare wanted.
Kelsier loved Mare. Even when he thought she betrayed him, his love for her drove his decision to take the lord ruler down. He became less arrogant though still had a flare about him. He loves to laugh and smile. He sees it as a protest against the empire even when it’s ruining life for everyone.
Ultimately, he gave his life to start the movement that would eventually bring down the lord ruler. It wasn’t an accident, he planned to die to give the people the courage they needed to rebel. His friends thought that he was trying to become a god of sorts. That he was doing all this for attention. Even though that’s what his friends thought, that is not Kelsier’s true character. Kelsier is truly complicated.
2. Vin – Ere of the survivor
What I find most complicated about Vin is her naturally untrusting nature. She is cautious and often paranoid about everyone. This is demonstrated a few times throughout the series. A good example is when she is convinced that Cett is a mistborn even though he is paraplegic. Even with this paranoia, she is willing to trust people quickly. She comes to trust Kelsier, the crew, TenSoon, and Elend quickly when you consider that she grew up her whole life being taught to not trust anyone.
Vin is a complicated person. She has grown up on the streets working for thieving crew after thieving crew to survive. Her only family is her brother Reen. Reen teaches her not to trust anyone. He told her numerous times that he would eventually leave her and that she shouldn’t trust him either. Vin endured years of abuse by her crew leaders and by Reen himself.
When Kelsier finds Vin, He knows that he must get her to trust him. It’s obvious to him what she must have gone through by the way she acts. When Vin Is introduced, not only to Kelsier but to his crew, she doesn’t know how to act. She is an untrusting person amongst a group of good men who are worthy of trust. It seems like it’s a real shock to her system in a sense.
Vin joins Kelsier in his plan to overthrow the government not because she thinks it’ll work, but due to her curiosity. Does this crew trust each other like they appear to, or will they betray each other at the first sight of trouble like all her other crews?
To bring more complication, Vin falls in love with a nobleman named Elend Venture as she is playing her part as a spy amongst the nobles. Kelsier hates all the noblemen based on principle, but Vin knows that there is capacity for good in everyone.
3. Breeze – Kelsier’s Crew Member
Breeze is complicated because he is self-centered but grows to truly not only understand others but to care for them. Breeze is an empathetic man which is unexpected.
Breeze is an interesting character for a few reasons. The first I will mention is that he is a nobleman. He’s a nobleman who pretends to be half-noble so he could gain the protection of the rebellion. He is selfish and spends his time getting others to do things for him that he doesn’t want to do. Despite Beeze’s flaws Kelser chose him to be in the crew not just because he is a great soother, but because he is a good person with integrity and exceptional character.
Breeze is a great soother because he understands how other people are feeling. Because he knows how other people are feeling, he can suppress some emotions and enhance others to get people to feel the way he wants them to. He pretends to be very self-centered, but he often helps others by soothing away their fear and enhancing their courage to do what needs to be done. It’s not until the later books that you find out how good of a person Breeze is.
4. Dockson – Kelsier’s Crew Member
Dockson is the responsible member of the crew that makes everything run. He is well-liked and well-respected but like Kelsier, he hates all noblemen. He grew up working on a plantation outside of the city. This is where his complexity comes from.
Dockson’s hate for Nobleman stems from his falling in love with another skaa worker on the plantation. He used to sneak out at night just to see her which of course wasn’t allowed. The other skaa workers would cover for them. It was a true love story.
Unfortunately, the lord whom Dockson worked for took Dockson’s love to bed. The law in the final empire allows nobles to sleep with skaa women so long as they kill them afterward. After his love was killed. Dockson left the plantation braving the mists that the skaa feared. This allowed him to meet Kelseir and join his crew.
It’s not until Dockson is staring down death that he realizes if they had killed all the noblemen like he and Kelsier wanted to do, they would have been no better than those they hated. In other words, he realizes that not all nobles deserve death and they are as much a product of the final empire as himself.
5. TenSoon – The kandra
TenSoon’s complexity stems from a lack of understanding of the kandra and their religion. The kandra can be controlled by allomancers influencing their emotions. Because of this, the kandra subjected themselves to humans in the form of unbreakable contracts. Once a kandra has a contract, they will rarely break them and will serve their masters even if they must do distasteful things. For example, TenSoon takes the shape of a dog to fulfill his contract even though to the kandra this is very shameful.
TenSoon took the place of Oreseur, the kondra contracted to Kelsier to help overthrow the lord ruler. TenSoon killed Oreseur and took his place to spy on Vin and the crew. His true master is Zane the mistborn son of Straff Venture. Straff is trying to conquer Luthadel, taking it away from Elend, Vin, and the crew.
TenSoon hates humans, as most kandra do. He thinks they are all the same and as a kandra he has served some terrible humans. It’s not until he spies on Vin and accompanies her everywhere that his opinions begin to change.
Vin treats him with respect and kindness. She tries to get to know him, and she shows great trust in him. Because of this kindness, when Vin is fighting for her life against Zane, TenSoon betrays his master, and therefore his contract, to help Vin. He did this knowing that he would be severely punished by the other kandra.
When Vin realizes that TenSoon was a spy the whole time, she quickly forgives him. This impresses TenSoon further. From this point on, his opinion that all humans are the same changes. He is on Vins’ side.
6. Sazed – A Keeper of Terris
Sazed is complex because by his nature he is a believing man. He has much wisdom and is very sure of himself for much of the series. it’s not until the last book, when tragedy strikes him, that he loses himself and must find himself once more. He is as complex as any real person.
Sazed is a keeper of Terris. They are a small group of people charged with collecting all the knowledge that has been lost during the reign of the lord ruler. They are persecuted people whom the lord ruler fears because of their feruchemy.
The lord ruler started a breeding program to breed feruchemy out of the Terris people. Because of this, most Terris men are castrated at birth which makes them docile and obedient. This also allows the lord ruler to control their breeding as he selects who is allowed to reproduce.
The governing body of Terris called the synod has ordered the keepers to collect the knowledge and wait for a time when the lord ruler is no longer emperor. Sazed is a rebellious terrisman who decides to fight against the lord ruler actively. Because of this, Sazed is viewed as a bit of an outcast.
Sazed’s specialty is religion. He knows about five hundred different religions that no longer exist. He believes that each of them contains truth, and he picks religions and tries to convert people to different religions. He has great faith.
Sazed falls in love with another Terris keeper named Tindwyl. Tindwyl in many ways is the opposite of Sazed and yet they fall in love with each other. Tindwyl is killed in battle, and this shatters Sazed. Sazed loses his faith in God and systematically goes through every religion that he knows about trying to find out what happened to Tindwyl. He disproves all his religions. He stops being who he is and doesn’t realize that he is becoming who he thought Tindwyl wanted him to be. He goes through a compelling faith crisis and slowly comes back to who he was. If Sazed isn’t one of your favorite characters, he really should be
7. The lord ruler – Rashek
The Lord Ruler is a complex character. He is an evil dictator who uses a firm hand to maintain order in his empire. Like many bad people, they become understandable when their backstory comes to light. Though this doesn’t excuse his actions, we should seek to understand the lord ruler and his actions.
The lord ruler’s story goes back 1000 years. He is a feruchemist and an allomancer. With these powers combined he couldn’t die unless someone killed him in the right way. Because feruchemy and allomancy could grant one unnatural long life, the lord ruler persecuted the Terris people subjecting them to his breeding program. In this way, he planned on ending their feruchemical abilities.
To gain his allomantic powers Rashek took the power from the well of ascension and became the lord ruler. He took the power because releasing it would also release Ruin, the god being held captive in the well. He knew this would mean the destruction of the world.
With the power from the Well, he created koloss and kondra. He created the nobility, and he created the skaa. He ruled his creations with an iron fist and people feared him, but they loved the order that he brought. He started a religion that saw him as an immortal god who defeated an enemy known as the Deepness.
The most complicated thing about the lord ruler that no one saw coming was how much he cared for humanity. He spent his 1000 years waiting for the power to come back to the Well of Ascension in a state of preparation. He was preparing for what would happen should Ruin escape his bonds and wreak havoc on the world.
He was corrupted by power, but he did care about his people. He wanted them to survive. That’s something nobody saw coming with how he treated everyone. His preparations ultimately helped lead to the destruction of Ruin.
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