I'm so happy I decided to jump into Secret Histories and 11th metal right after Era 1. I figured whatever minor spoilers I would get for BOM would be worth it since I already am familiar with the Cosmere.

To be honest I don't know what the spoiler was but I guess I'll figure it out when I get there. And now I'm excited to look for hints of Kelsier in the Era 2 as promised in the postscript.

Starting the book I enjoyed exploring the 3 realms again ( what I love so much from Stormlight and missed in this triology) but then to actually be immersed in the main story and have some closure with the main characters was, mwah Chef's Kiss . I absolutely think this should be ready while all the details are fresh from Hero of Ages. I would like to reread and look for clues I missed too.

Anyway, it was the emotional closure I wanted while still being lots of fun.

Something about the Alloy of Law prologue isn't adding up for me after finishing Shadows of Self.

Lessie was a kandra the whole time. Blood loss shouldn't weaken a kandra, and a gunshot to the head shouldn't kill one. So why did she let Bloody Tan overpower her, tie her up, and put a garrote on her neck?

A few possibilities I keep going back and forth on:

1. She was staying in character. A "human" Lessie couldn't shrug off a gunshot in front of Wax without blowing her cover.

2. Harmony was controlling her. She still had both spikes then, and she had refused his order to send Wax back to Elendel. Her "death" is exactly what sent him back. Her dying line, "He moved us, even then!", makes this sound almost literal.

3. She only believed Harmony manipulated things, and it was really Paalm's growing instability.

Then there's Tan himself. Right before the shot, he tells Wax: "Someone else moves us, lawman." He also somehow pulls Lessie into the bullet's path, which seems way too fast for a normal man.

Who was he talking about? Harmony? Marsh? Another Shard? Was Tan being influenced, or was he just a madman who stumbled onto the truth?

Has Brandon ever answered this in a WoB, or is it still open?

I loved the relationship between Vin and TenSoon so much!

With how book 2 ended I was expecting more TenSoon in The Hero of Ages but was sadly disappointed! We got his ‘POV’ but he didn’t really end up doing much when it came to the story as a whole.

It hurts me a little that Vin and him never got to reunite. 😭😭

Be a Twinborn (era 2) or full feruchemist (era 1, like Sazed)

I assume everyone would want to be mistborn, so I excluded it from this would you rather, but if either option is more appealing than mistborn, please enlighten me!

I am genuinely disgusted. Three books I slogged through because I foolishly believed the story and characters would improve. They did not. But nothing—NOTHING—prepared me for the actual insult waiting at the end.

Let's recap who Rashek, the Lord Ruler, is: a genocidal tyrant who condemned hundreds of millions—God knows how many—to death, slavery, and rape. A thousand years of the skaa being worked, tortured, brutalized. Children included. And how does the final book choose to remember him?

"Rashek planned very well for this day. He suffered much beneath Ruin's hand, but he was a good man, who ultimately had honorable intentions." A good man? HONORABLE INTENTIONS. Oh, but there's more. Elend—our heroic, noble king—says: "We may not have liked his rule, but I can understand him somewhat. He wasn't spiteful, he wasn't even evil, exactly. He just... got carried away."

GOT. CARRIED. AWAY.

Carried away into a millennium of slavery and rape?? And Elend doubles down: "The longer I've held this throne, Vin, the more I've come to realize that some of the things the Lord Ruler did weren't evil, but simply effective." Effective! My god! This is the finale. This is the moral payoff of three entire novels, and it's a eulogy for a genocidal slaver. What an utterly repulsive and disgusting note to end on.

And that's before we touch anything else: The descriptions: Sanderson, do you simply not want me to visualize anything? The rooms, the architecture, the world itself. so skeletal it's laughable. Lazy, almost. Ruin: a being who can rewrite text and possess minds, and he uses that world-breaking power... only when the plot needs him to. The most terrifying force in the setting, and he fumbles around like a confused toddler and reads like my uncle on a bad day: "Vin, Vin. What is your game now?" Ruin asked, amused. 🫩 I could not take him seriously for a single second. The dialogue: so bland, so lifeless, so cringe that I was physically shaking. Three books of it.

When Vin and Elend died, I felt absolutely nothing. And I hated that, because I wanted to be invested, I really, truly tried. But three books in, the story never gave me a reason. Vin is a textbook Mary Sue: impossibly gifted, mostly right, adored because the narrative insists on it rather than because she earned it. And her warmth has an entry requirement. inside the crew she's loyal and loving; outside it, condescending at best, openly contemptuous at worst. Elend is no better: a king who makes such bad decisions, yet somehow stays in power, because he's handsome, earnest, and the entire cast treats him like a philosopher-king descended from heaven. Two deaths that should have broken my heart instead landed like an obituary for strangers.

I kept waiting for this series to earn its reputation. It never did. An ending that whitewashes a tyrant as "a good man" deserves zero stars.

So I read Secret History between Era 1 and 2. So I’m assuming I missed something. Im confused as to how the Lord Ruler traveled South to Malwish. What am I missing?

The Bad

1. Vin is annoying in this book. I get it, she's young with a bad past but she's inconsistent with her paranoia. She didnt trust everyone new except Zane and ffs, you have probably the most wisest men and women around you; the Terrismen, Kelsier's group, Elend, EVEN ore suer (ik a spy but he wouldve given hints) YET YOU CHOSE TO IGNORE THEM WITH YOUR ISSUES FOR MOST THE BOOK?

2. Fuck Zane. Cool idea but the love angle made it jarring to read, I found it disrespectful to "the best man Vin ever knew". We didnt need any love triangle, if Sanderson wanted to test the relationship - testing it based on ideaology wouldve been better than another man. I never cared for Zane even after his death

3. Dockson was completely done dirty. I forgot he existed in the world twice! Even when I really enjoyed his character in the first book, which in turn made his death feel indifferent

4.The Koloss weakness couldve been found before the battle if Vin was more involved in the politics. It made no sense for the group to ignore her and her findings. Making the end of the battle slightly less satisfying

1. The Spy arc was ignored when Vin wouldve been the most worried about that considering her fear of abandonment and betrayal

2. Lord Straff did nothing other that being the big bad man. Cett accomplished mire than Straff

The Good

1. Amazing ending. Nothing more to say except it saved the book

2. Rip Clubs & Tindwyl. I understand that my boy clubs had to go - he was extremely underrated and no one appreciated his bluntness. Tindwyl, was my favourite new character. Every scene with her was great, wished she had more to give to the crew and was more appreciated

3. Most of the loose ends were tied towards the end. Im amazed how Sanderson can create mysteries, intruiges and twists and yet be not only be able to finish those arcs but also end it in a satisfying way

4. Sazed is still one of my fav characters (even if he is to blame for the Well of Ascension arc since he pushed Vin towards it - but I guess that's why Tindwyl dying was a huge loss)

5. I love the set up at the end. The new villain seems great

Sketch of my two favorite characters so far, Marsh & Sazed. I loved their escapade together. Plus, I feel like they both stand as the representatives of their respective power systems, really neat

So I just finished the well of Ascension and honestly was loving it up until Elend becomes mistborn

I just loved him so much and his transformation to such an amazing king who genuinely believes in giving power back to the people but imo up til this point he was already awesome and it feels like a copout to make him mistborn

Also I just think that it could've been super cool if Zane held an uprising against straff with the rest of the misting half children and joined forces with vin and Elend but yeah

Like I understand that for vin this helps their relationship cause now he understands allomancy and can feel what she feels which is the whole reason why she was interested in Zane but I dunno... It felt unnecessary?

I'm literally just complaining honestly

I haven't really started much of hero of ages so obviously am not privvy to the going ons post book 2 but I just didn't really like this for Elend? Seemed too neat I guess?

(For context, I've been reading a lot of open ended books recently so I'm probably just kind of biased to these endings but I just thought that that would've been a much cooler way to go about it. Like I'm not Sanderson and this isn't my world but I really wished Zane could have had a redemption arc)

Hi just wondering is this a missprint (top 2 lines) I thought bronze is a pushing metal since it's pair copper is pulling? and the table at the end (also shown) shows it is do I have a miss print in my copy? Are others copies of the book the same? Thanks in advance it's bugging me 😁.

I also don't have a table of contents showing what page each part (act) is at

I just finished book2 and to be honest it has left a bitter taste. I kept waiting for the plot to get good. A lot of things felt lazy.
I was hoping for a better story to come out of the Zane angle. But alas!
So here’s my question do we get answers for the conversation between Zane and “GOD” ( voice inside is head) ? Or that’s just it?
Also do we get to know more about what was the spike coming out of his shoulder blades?
Was he a partial inquisitior??
Why does the kandra refer to him in the context of “our secret”
Because Lord ruler made kandra and inquisitors??
Do we get answers in Hero of Ages?
Please don’t spoil the answer I just need to know if I should keep reading. At this point I have lost interest

Vin thinks that one of her friends might have been replaced by the kandra, but by this point, TenSoon had already mentioned to her that kandra are immune to Allomantic touch. So, all she had to do was meet with one of them, tell them she wants to test her Allomancy, and ask them to tell her which emotions she is altering. If they answer incorrectly, they are the kandra.

I think that Spook is being influenced by, and has been listening to preservation.

I mean, what else could bless him with the power to burn pewter.

It might be obvious but idk i just had the realisation

Another thing that might be totally obvious to some of you.
I think that Vins ability to pierce copper clouds is through the earnings that Reen gave her

Elend has been deposed and the assembly has nominated Cett for king.
Earlier, when Elend was discussing the rules for deposition, he said that the assembly had a month to chose the new king. Didn’t he also say the vote had to be unanimous? And Elend is in the assembly? So can’t Elend just not vote for Cett to be king and then Elend gets to stay king for another year?

Edit: I am audiobooking and I thought the name was spelled Set. Well it’s actually Cett

For context, I'm fairly new to the series and am being introduced primarily through the cosmere rpg for a mistborn game my friend wants to run. I had the idea to make a kandra character that was missing one blessing spike and used a journal from a lost loved one to record important memories and information. My dm friend has informed me that losing a blessing spike can be extremely debilitating, but the core rulebook doesn't go into much detail, it just says their mental state becomes tenuous, they lose their blessing, and that the dm can spend complications to make them lose their grip on reality in appropriate ways. This got me curious about the actual extent this goes in lore, so:

What exactly happens to a kandra after they've lost one of their blessing spikes? How fast do they degrade and to what extent does it go?

I know this is a RAFO kind of thing, but I don't think I'll be able to get far enough in the books to answer this question in time for the campaign to start, so spoil away! Thanks to all who respond in advance!

P.S. Apologies to all who saw my first post, which was incorrectly tagged and had my primary question in the title. As I said I'm new to the series and community, so I wasn't aware kandra and the idea of losing their blessing spikes were a part of major events later in the series. I hope I did it right this time <3