Bands of Mourning Full Book Reactions [Bands Spoilers]

[Chaos]

Use this topic to talk about the book--not just the sample chapters!

This topic will open 12:01am Mountain time, January 26th. It will remain locked until then. When you are able to reply to this thread, that means the Bands spoiler board can now accept full book spoilers, so you can make other topics at that point, too. Please review the Bands spoiler policies too!

[Landis963]

Well then. That was a thing. What in Harmony's name are you doing, Kelsier?

[Curiosity]

I knew it was him. I just knew it was him, as soon as this not-the-Lord-Ruler guy was mentioned by the Southerner. 

 

And I am very gratified to not only seen Khriss, but Nazh as well. 

 

Oh, Steris. You are very dear to me. 

 

Good night all. I'll form coherent thoughts after sleeping. 

[knifleman]

Holy rust. Basically, just holy rust.

 

Some thoughts:

 

So is it just me, or does the description of the Hunters sound very much like Iyatil?

 

Man, Telsin. What a tweest! Did not see that coming, but I liked how it wasn't overplayed too much when it happened. 

 

Given that the 'ettmetal' explodes when wet, I'm guessing it's an Allomantic alkaline metal, which is... new. Something high up on the periodic table, probably. I wonder if it's a God metal alloy, and if so, if it gives hints as to the actual physical metal component of the god metals.

 

Was not expecting to see the Southerners come into the story so soon, or even at all this trilogy. 

 

Now I'm dying to know how the Investiture behind the medallions works.

 

Overall, that was amazing. Now I'm dying for the next one.

Edited January 26, 2016 by knifleman

[Seonid]

That was, to put it shortly, amazing. Nothing more to say right now, other than that I'm glad we've resolved the "is harmony a villain" thread.

[Moogle]

Great book.

 

Wayne scene at the start with Ranette dragged on WAY WAY WAY too long and should have been purged with fire. It was another "torture your victim's daughter by making her physically take your blood money while making yourself up to be a hero" moment, though boring in this case rather than distasteful.

 

Amazing reveals. We've got our red-eyed super-tech planet-wiping Cognitive Shadow(?) body ghost-possession friends too who might be Unmade or something from Autonomy to think on. Red implies Odium, though they seem far too technologically advanced, which implies Autonomy. Could be Dominion, still, since Sel is supposedly rather advanced too by this point.

 

I wasn't feeling too hot on the sudden airships plotline, or the fact that the Bands actually exist, but I might warm up to them.

 

I'm feeling pretty drained. Sleep time, I think.

 

Edit: Oh, but I wanted to add that the situation in the New Seran hotel is probably the funniest thing Brandon has ever written. Steris' parting remark on "framed for murder" had me struggling to breathe.

 

Edit2: The weird red-eyes were all about accepting Edwarn's service and there was talk of the Set having "its full hierarchy" as well as bemoaning how the world could no longer be controlled. Heavy hints of Dominion, though maybe you could work it to fit in with Autonomy.

 

Edit3: No, you know what? Full speed on the Dominion train, there are no stops on this railroad. Dominion vs Harmony cage match is a go! I'm a Trell = Dominion believer!

Edited January 26, 2016 by Moogle

[Landis963]

Dominion's dead, unless some new holder found a way to filter his power away from Devotion's. And those powers have had a long time to intermix.

[ecohansen]

Wow. Wowee.

Second on the New Seran Hotel scene being Brandon's funniest yet...Although was Auntie Gin a Set spy? If so what did she do?

So, were MeLaan and ReLuur a thing?--I'm assuming that that was why MeLaan was so sad that ReLuur would permanently lose his recent memories. Will Wayne have to compete with ReLuur in the net book?

If we assume Devlin is Nazh and Braid-woman is Khriss, did they bump into Hoid at the party? Braid-woman seemed to only be interested in facts but Devlin had an agenda--does that mean he has motives that don't align with hers? Are there any other world-hoppers that either of them could be?

If OreSeur had Kelsier's bones how could Kelsier have been spiked? Could The Lord Ruler's arms have been scarred when Vin ripped off his bracers? Could the person who came to the South Scadrialians still be TLR? After all, Allik said "he told us he was your king first. And your God." Kelsier was briefly God, but I don't recall that he was ever king.

I'm assuming The Deniers of Masks are not one of the Five Nations--would it be safe to assume that they are a second Trellist faction, or something new?

Allik seems to imply that Wax could power the airship fans with steelpushing--are they turbines running on push-flow, or are they rigged up to pistons or something, or is there a better mechanism I'm not thinking of? If they're turbines, what's the maximum efficiency they could have--would it be reasonable to guess that pushing on fan blades would give you as much as half of the forward energy that pushing on a solid anchor would?

Allik's language seems to be germanic-ish, and 'ett' means the number one in Swedish and Norwegian. Any chance that ettmetal is "metal number one"--i.e., lithium, the first element on the periodic table that counts as a metal?  It would be an interesting parallel to our world, where lithium batteries transfer energy from one place to another.

Eh, that's all for now.

Edited January 26, 2016 by ecohansen

[TheOneKEA]

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW

First of all, I really, REALLY did not expect Telsin to survive being shot by Wayne. I expected her to do something nefarious against Wax and his party because tropes, but I didn't expect her to outrank Edvarn and to actually possess Bloodmaker abilities!

I am convinced that ettmetal is either sodium or cesium, mixed with a god metal of some type. And I am VERY interested to learn more about duralumin Feruchemy and the other abilities it grants besides an innate capability to speak a language, and nicrosil Feruchemy and its relationship with the cognitive portions of Realmatic Theory.

I am just in awe at what was revealed to us in the Cognitive Realm around Scadrial. To actually see it for the first time and to see the cognitive representation of the entities laying siege to Scadrial was absolutely incredible, and I will thoroughly enjoy the Theorycrafting on how Harmony has protected Scadrial and what he could be protecting the Scadrians from.

Last but not least, where is the extra piece of Ruin??? Does the man who may be Kelsier, who went south after the reconstruction of the planet, actually possess it? Is that what the spike is? And how does this interplay with the Kendra associated with the Set? Are they mistwraith who were given the mysterious spike? And finally, where did Hoid get that metal mind?

I eagerly await the novella!

[Angsos]

wait we're getting a mistborn novella too.

[Moogle]

Dominion's dead, unless some new holder found a way to filter his power away from Devotion's. And those powers have had a long time to intermix.

 

The Skaze still partially control the Fjordell empire and seem to be pretty active pieces of Dominion. The person who suggested the theory originally was not suggesting Dominion is going to be unSplintered (though it's a possibility), just that it seems like everything Trell has been doing seems like it could be the Skaze exercising the power of the Dominion or something along those lines, and I agree strongly.

 

If OreSeur had Kelsier's bones how could Kelsier have been spiked? Could The Lord Ruler's arms have been scarred when Vin ripped off his bracers?  Could the person who came to the South Scadrialians still be TLR?  After all, Allik said "he told us he was your king first.  And your God."  Kelsier was briefly God, but I don't recall that he was ever king.

 

It's been a theory for a while that Kelsier would come back though Hemalurgy. My suspicion is that he stuck himself in a spike that got put into someone, and his spirit twisted the recipient's body into being like his old one.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Moogle

[Landis963]

I still don't buy the skaze idea. For one, in order to make something as dramatic as the Red Rip, they'd need to be on Scadrial in force, and I don't see them abandoning their holdings on Sel unless absolutely necessary.

[Vortaan]

Anyone else wondering how Hoid is here and on Roshar at the same time? From what I understand Stormlight and this series are taking place roughly in paralell... and we have Hoid's movements in Stormlight right now pretty well mapped out. Unless he's Elsecalling or something, he just isn't fast enough to cover all the ground he covers -and- take a jaunt to Scadrial

[WeiryWriter]

Anyone else wondering how Hoid is here and on Roshar at the same time? From what I understand Stormlight and this series are taking place roughly in paralell... and we have Hoid's movements in Stormlight right now pretty well mapped out. Unless he's Elsecalling or something, he just isn't fast enough to cover all the ground he covers -and- take a jaunt to Scadrial

Mistborn Era 2 takes place after Stormlight 5, so Hoid has had time to get to Scadrial.

[Herdazian]

So let me just scream first

AWESOME.

There were some things that really stood out.

Character evolution of Steris was beautiful and satisfying to watch.

That hotel scene had me spontaneously laughing while my family gave me weird looks.

That final battle. It's pace the actions. The plot twists. It was rusting awesome.

But the best thing for me was the final word of the book.

'Survive'

That was truly shiver inducing.

[FeatherWriter]

Ah, Nazh and Khriss! I had pinned the dancer as a worldhopper, but I didn't put together their identities. Always fun to see worldhoppers!

 

On that note, I'm pretty sure Iyatil is a Southern Scadrian of some kind, and as she tells Shallan that she's Mraize's teacher, I'm guessing she's the one who shows him how to worldhop and such. I love masked societies and I'd really love to see some stuff from Southern Scadrial itself. Fingers crossed for the novella as soon as I can get my hands on it...

 

(Curse you work days, keeping me from Splintercasting!)

 

Currently, I'm leaning toward Marsh as our mysterious Sovereign, as we know one of his eye spikes was damaged in the fight with Vin. Inquisitors can live without certain spikes, as long as they're not the lynchpin, so it serves to make sense that if he removed an eyespike and tapped gold, he might be able to heal his eye back. Mostly, I don't want it to be Kelsier. I spent the last minute or so after reading that line whispering "no, no no no," to myself over and over again. We can't bring Kel back after all this time!

 

It's funny, I threw out "huh, I wonder if Telsin is actually working for the Set" at the very beginning of the book, when the kandra show Wax that she's there. I felt extremely vindicated to have actually gotten it, especially because something seemed to be up with her most of the time. Way too bloodthirsty...

 

I was rooting for Waxteris, WaynLaan, and Marasi/Allik (as soon as Allik came in) so it was very nice to see that those were all coming along, ship wise. Waxteris was utterly adorable all the way through this book and I melted every chapter. Steris in general was breathtakingly amazing. I never would have imagined that I would adore her so much upon first read. I've also decided to adopt Allik as my son, now, so there's that.

[skaa]

Here are just some thoughts I had (some of which were already mentioned by others) while reading:

• We see a kandra with a metallic True Body, but we already knew that was possible as I asked Brandon about it before.
   
• Regarding a recent topic of discussion in the main Mistborn forum, Kandra organ/tissue donors would simply mimic the cells of the patient. That's basically what MeLaan did to Marasi.
   
• Connection can be used to communicate with people of different languages by Connecting to a certain linguistic region.
   
• From the epilogue, the Sovereign is probably Kelsier. The scars were a giveaway. This also fits the fact that the Bands of Mourning was re-forged as a spear-tip, a symbol of Survivorism. So Rashek didn't visit the Southerns after all. The Sovereign claimed to be a god of the Northerners, which is true in a way for Kelsier. The only problem is that he also claimed to be a king of the Northerners. But Kelsier was after all a leader of a large group of people, a concept that might have been translated as "king" in a Southerner language.
   
• I am of the strong opinion that ettmetal is harmonium. It's what powers the "primer cube", the airship, and I'm pretty sure other Southern Allomantic technology, so I'm pretty sure it's not an alien god metal. If ettmetal is harmonium (and I suppose that's a big if), it would mean all my speculations about harmonium were correct except for its composition. Speaking of composition, ettmetal explodes when in contact with water, so could it be lithium? Lithium explodes in water, and it is also used in batteries so it being used in "Allomantic batteries" would be quite fitting.
   
• Ettmetal bombs probably just utilize ettmetal's explosive reaction with water.
   
• Telsin is a villain. I mistakenly thought she would be the villain in Shadows of Self. Turns out I was one book away from the truth.
   
• The Set aren't made of kandra as I speculated before, but they do have their own version of "Faceless Immortals".
   
• From the goldmind with blank Identity that Wayne used, it seems a metalmind with a blank Identity can only be used by people already capable of using its metal type (e.g. only Bloodmakers can access Blank Identity Goldminds). So a nicrosilmind with blank Identity could only be tapped by another Soulbearer, disproving VenDell's theory about the Bands of Mourning. How then do the Bands of Mourning and the Southern medallions work? Do they have a bit of ettmetal as well?
   
• It's interesting that Southern medallions give powers that only work while wearing them. They're kind of like Hemalugric spikes in that way, although the medallions are much safer. On the other hand, the medallions can interfere with each other, unlike spikes.

Edited January 26, 2016 by skaa

[Curious Anamaximder]

The Red Rip is obviously Taln's scar.

[ecohansen]

Two more thoughts.

 

I'm assuming that the passenger who died, and who Mr. Suit promised would be so interesting, was the dead man who Marasi found together with the wounded man at the end of the second-class car.  I'm assuming he was carrying the grenade.  Any speculations on him?

 

Templeton Fig, the albino-animal taxidermist, had a wife who was becoming progressively more gaunt.  It was a very intriguing sentence.  Any speculation on what's up with her?

[TheOneKEA]

So let me just scream first

AWESOME.

There were some things that really stood out.

Character evolution of Steris was beautiful and satisfying to watch.

That hotel scene had me spontaneously laughing while my family gave me weird looks.

That final battle. It's pace the actions. The plot twists. It was rusting awesome.

But the best thing for me was the final word of the book.

'Survive'

That was truly shiver inducing.

YES!!!!

Watching Steris grow and change, and Wax change alongside her, was amazing! Brandon really showed off his growth in character development and plotting with her and I couldn't be happier!

I can easily see Steris Ladrian becoming a woman who is spoken-of in-universe with the same reverence as Vin.

[CaptainRyan]

Loved this book! I was a bit let down by Shadows of Self but Brandon really showed his stuff in this one.

 

I am sad that Wax + Marasi is not going to be a thing but Sanderson did such an amazing job of creating a believable Wax + Steris relationship that I have to concede and accept the inevitable.

 

I am a HUGE fan of the airships! OMGOSH YES!

 

Harmony giving a more detailed explanation to Wax was very comforting. I had pretty much worked it out but it is nice for Sanderson to write it out so that everyone can get back to thinking Harmony (Sazed) is awesome.

 

I will be honest; I wish Telsin was dead. I dislike how often pivotal characters (both in this series and the others) do not seem to stay dead. Also, I think it would have been fitting if Wayne had finished her off in retribution for what he thought she had done to Wax.

Finally... can we PLEASE get the last book sooner?! Finish SA:3 and then jump right back to this! Please!

[Lightning]

Okay, I admit to bawling a few times during this book.  LOVED IT!  Here are my reactions:

 

Cod liver oil?!

 

Poor Aunt Gin!!

 

Red-shift question for speed bubbles...that's just awesome.

 

Steris predicting being framed for murder, on page 17 of her notes...LOL!

 

Apple juice?  Seriously Wayne?

 

"Please"

 

Wax's death may have become my new favorite Brandon Sanderson scene.

 

Totally called Telsin being in the Set.  Did not guess she was the mastermind.  Also could not have guessed how ruthless she is.

 

Okay, now I'm really confused about who Trell is.

[Havoc]

Why do people think Devlin is Nazh? Why would a worldhopper take the time to set up bank accounts in his name? And how would his name have ended up on ReLuur's list?

[ecohansen]

I thought Devlin was Nazh because I was an idiot.  People were mentioning that Nazh was in the book, and Devlin seemed like the only person that remotely fit, even though there were tons and tons of difficulties.  Then someone pointed out that Nazh was the haunted man in the broadsheet, and everything made sense.  Ignore my blithering.

[Havoc]

I'm still confused. What connects the Haunted Man to Nazh? If anything I'd say he was Hoid, given that a white-haired storyteller was found where he landed, but Hoid's personality doesn't quite match the Haunted Man.