This happened some time ago, but it took me a while to calm down enough to be able to write this. As a result, my memory somewhat faded, and I can get certain details wrong. Nevertheless, I hope to at least convey the general meaning.
So, somehow I've learned the name "Brandon Sanderson", and, if I understand correctly, I should've known it long ago. Anyway, I've read the synopsis for his "Mistborn" trilogy, thought it sounded interesting enough, and started reading. I've got through the first book fairly quickly, and, although there were some problems with it, it was an enjoyable experience overall. I'll talk about those problems a little now, but that is not the point of this post, so, I'll make the font size smaller, as those textbooks do when they really want to hurt your eyes. Also, this talk spoils the ending of the first "Mistborn" book, which I do not consider a bad thing, so, here we go.
OK, so the climax of the first book is actually one of the problems. The book follows Vin, a young girl with rare magical abilities, training under a man named Kelsier, a mentor figure for her (yes, he dies), who is also a leader of a certain underground movement. That movement is working to overthrow Lord Ruler, who is basically the Evil Emperor of that book. No, he doesn't have a mark every centimeter or even every inch; instead, he is physically immortal. There were some assassination attempts against him in the past, some successful — in a sense that the assassin would actually strike him in a normally vital area; despite that, Lord Ruler always survived and quickly healed whatever injury he sustained.
Now, when the climactic battle finally begins, Vin goes to confront Lord Ruler. She doesn't know if she can actually kill him, but she is going to try. Fine.
Thing is, earlier in the book Vin discovered that under certain specific conditions she can see a couple of ghosts behind Lord Ruler. She doesn't know what is their deal, but she guesses that maybe — maybe — if she attacks the ghosts, rather than Lord Ruler himself, and manages to destroy them, then he might lose his immortality. As in, those ghosts are the source of his immortality, or at least connected to that source.
It certainly is a nice idea, but it doesn't work — she can't even touch those ghosts. Than another character arrives, and that character also tries to kill Lord Ruler, but goes about it differently. See, Lord Ruler has those lieutenants, called Inquisitors, who are very tough. So tough that many people consider them immortal as well. However, earlier in the book Kelsier kills one of the Inquisitors by snapping his neck. This newly arrived guy figured out that Inquisitors have several pieces of metal partially embedded in their bodies, and, by snapping the Inquisitor's neck, Kelsier also broke one of those pieces, which was what actually killed the Inquisitor. That was the source of his toughness. Kelsier could also pull that piece — or any other — out of the Inquisitor's body, which would also do the trick, but he didn't know it. So, that guy guesses that Lord Ruler's immortality might be of the same kind, and tries to find those metal pieces in the Lord Ruler's body. He manages to rip off Lord Ruler's shirt, and sees that there aren't any, so, that doesn't work either.
And then Vin notices there are two bracelets on Lord Ruler's arms; thin metal bracelets that partially go under his skin. Lacking better ideas, she grabs those bracelets, rips them off and throws far away. And that finally works: Lord Ruler pretty much drops dead then and there.
Here is the problem with it. Normally, in a climactic battle, if there are some things that the heroes try and fail, then each next one should be cooler than the previous one, and the coolest one should actually work. Otherwise it is pretty disappointing. Now, the idea with the ghosts was pretty cool. The idea with metal pieces similar to The Inquisitors could be cool, if not for a small mistake. See, near the beginning of the book it was mentioned that Lord Ruler survived several beheadings, among other things. Since the Inquisitor died from a simple neck snap, this makes it obvious that his immortality is of a different kind. And that character who tried it is of a scholarly kind, he is very unlikely to miss something that obvious.
Still, I could handwave it away — maybe that character realized his plan didn't make much sense, but it was the only plan he could come up with, and he was pretty desperate at the time. Sure, although I would like it to be spelled out explicitly.
And then Lord Ruler is finally defeated by... ripping a couple of metal pieces from his body. Huh? How is repeating the previous idea anywhere near cool? This is pretty much the definition of uncool.
Now let's talk about the other problem. Somewhere in the middle of the book, predictably, everything goes to hell. The rebel's plans are ruined, and most of them just think about running away and hiding in some very far corners of the empire, with a hope that Lord Ruler won't find them. And Kelsier — the leader — shakes them up. He shows them how bad Lord Ruler actually is, and, instead of scaring them even more, it does exactly what Kelsier hoped for: strengthens their determination. They are going to try again. I can understand that.
And then Kelsier says that one thing. He says "I'm glad that we had this crisis and got through it, but from now on there would be no discussing of my orders".
Huh?
If I was one of those rebels, and I felt as inspired as they were to try again, then this is pretty much the only thing that would make me walk out at that very moment. Because it isn't what a great leader says. It's what a tyrant in making says. This would make me certain that Kelsier is no better than Lord Ruler himself. I understand that democracy doesn't really work in a war-like situations, but there are other options, between the democracy and military-like discipline. And a group of rebels is not a military. At the very least, those he is talking to aren't soldiers; you might call them high-ranking officers. And high-ranking officers are expected to discuss their commander's decisions, even if he has the final say. This one phrase completely through me out of the book.
Now that this is out of the way, let's talk about the second book. The thing to know here is that from the very beginning of it Vin has this servant, who is a very special kind of shapeshifter. He can mimic the appearence of anyone whose body he consumed. Not living body, mind you, it's perfectly fine for him to eat a corpse. In fact, this particular shapeshifter gave an oath to never kill anyone. However, Vin, while acknowledging his usefulness, despises him on a personal level, for reasons that I think are pretty stupid, but hey, to everyone their own.
And then Vin gets in a big fight. She is attacked by several people at once, and she kills all of them. She is that good. However, in that battle her servant gets hurt, and needs another body. He proposes consuming the body of one of the assassins Vin has just killed, but she says no. Instead, she goes to a market, finds a guy selling dogs, picks a big, vicious dog he wasn't able to sell because it just attacks everyone who gets close, kills that dog and brings its body to her servant.
What?
OK, that might be a bit unclear. Let me rephrase:
Fucking what?So, instead of using a perfectly viable body of someone who a) tried to assassinate Vin, and b) is
already dead, Vin, essentially, kills an abuse victim. And yes, that's how you get a dog to be vicious: by abusing it.
Now, I know that sometimes good guys do bad things; it's fine. And, given everything that Vin already went through, I wouldn't be surpirsed if that was her "start of darkness" — that actually might make heroes more interesting. However, in such cases there usually are subtle hints, so that an experienced reader can figure out what is going on. And I've picked none of them.
Nonetheless I wasn't sure. But here is another thing: Brandon Sanderson has a sort of author's commentary for his books, available on his website. After finishing the first book I've read his comments for it (I was cautious that they might be a bit spoilery), and, although they didn't actually add much value, some of them were amusing — for example, he confesses that when he chose the name for his main character — Vin — he completely forgot about the existence of Vin Diesel. Which was, of course, the exact moment when I myself remembered that Vin Diesel exists. Sanderson also talks about his writers group and how they helped him with the book; my understanding is that his writers group gets to read his books before they are even sent to a publisher, so if they spot some problem, he gets a chance to fix it.
This time I headed to his commentary right after I've read that scene with the dog. And there I've read this. I'm quoting from memory, so the exact wording might be different, and I'm definitely not going back to his website to find the exact quote, but the gist of it was this: "The scene with the dog was the one that caused the most intense emotional reaction of my writers group. To this day I still have no idea why".
So, that wasn't the start of darkness or anything. That was what Brandon Sanderson himself thinks is a normal, logical, natural thing to do.
I've deleted the book immediately, and I'm never ever touching anything that has Brandon Sanderson's fingerprints on it. That man is a monster. He is a piece of shit.
