#like yeah we're stuck in fadrex city and guess what. the characters are ALSO stuck in fadrex city. we're pissed about it together

[tbookblurbs]

The Hero of Ages - Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn Era 1, #3)

5/5 - Satisfying conclusion, excellent discussions about faith, intensely vivid world-building

Spoilers below!!

This book deserves high praise for its commitment to the plotline alone. Many books (and tv series) that I've read(/watched) find themselves unwilling to commit to the ending that they've set themselves up for. As heartbreaking as it is, sometimes the events set in motion have to result in major character death and despair. Anything else would be unsatisfying.

I can still remember how I felt the first time I read HoA and even knowing the ending, you still feel this sense of dread. How can the characters survive this? How can you fight the end of the world? And yet because I was so used to seeing most of the main characters survive, I remained convinced until the end that Vin and Elend would make it, which makes their deaths all the more heartbreaking. The imagery of Sazed piecing their bodies back together and laying them in a bed of flowers makes me tear up every time.

On the topic of Sazed, I think the bait and switch of Vin or maybe even Elend as the Hero, only to have Sazed fulfill that role is a really earned and satisfying conclusion. It feels good to see that only Sazed could save the world and bring everything back to what it should have been because he's a scholar. Conflict and death couldn't resolve everything in the end.

The journal entries should have tipped me off, honestly. The first time, I thought that maybe Elend or Vin was writing them later on, old and able to look back on these times with more of a curious eye, or maybe that Sazed and the pair were creating it together. But now, reading this for the second time, the hints of Sazed were there the whole time. He's got such a distinctive voice and way of looking at the world.

From a pulled-back perspective, Sanderson is really good at writing the end of the world. I felt similarly reading the Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (which everyone should read!) and that same sort of sadness and hopelessness bleeds through the page here. However, just like in Butler's work, there's this pervading sense of hope. It's desperate and crazy at times, but it's still there. And that's one of the things I really like about Sanderson's novels. He seems to really believe in the potential for people to be good and hopeful and trusting in one another, which I vastly prefer over the "all humans are evil" schtick that a lot of other authors have going (GRRM).

#this book does drag a little bit #but I think it needs to be this long #the desperation wouldn't feel real if it was solved any sooner #like yeah we're stuck in fadrex city and guess what. the characters are ALSO stuck in fadrex city. we're pissed about it together #kinda makes you feel as one with the characters #vin venture #elend venture #literally can't talk about vin/elend in this book without getting so sad. they deserved to live and be happy in peace #sazed #brandon sanderson #the hero of ages #mistborn #mistborn spoilers #mistborn era 1 #book review #fantasy #high fantasy #cosmere