I have really unpopular opinion of Mistborn

[AngelDeath]

So i love the Mistborn books. But it seams I like them for much different reasons then most people do. Everyone else raves about the magic system, and world building. To me they're the weakest parts, and no where up to standards set in Brandon's other books.   

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The magic system is so simplest. You drink the metal, you gain the power. I am I fan of video game like 'hard' magic. But all of Brandon's other magic system are much more 'mystical', and 'magical'. Allomancy just feels too much like a video game. 

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And the world building. All of Brandon's other books feature a wide array of different cultures, subcultures, peoples, and religions.   In Mistborn there are skaa, and nobles, no one else. I know there's an in world reason for this; An oppressive government which has enforced the same culture, and religion on everyone. But it still feels like the world is just a back drop for the story. Rather then a living place full of other stories.          

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I do really love Mistborn for it's story and characters. I've read era 1 twice, and will probably read them again. And i think the world building in era two is a lot better.   

[Merrickz]

Of course, your completely entitled to your opinion and you do make valid points however when you say the other systems are more 'mystical' and 'magical' I would disagree with that I think that the only reason that they are so mystical is that they aren't fully explained yet. I saw the early Mistborn as very mystical but as the 2nd era advanced technology and science the peoples understanding of Allomancy increased to the point where most Scadrian School children could name each metal, its grouping and its effects. Feruchemy, on the other hand, is far less explored by the general populous which means effects such as that of Aluminium and Nicrosil are still steeped in mysticism.

Stormlight is a good example of the kind of Magic system that appears mystical at first but as we learn more of it will lose that as we better understand its workings. Surgebinding in Stormlight is (to the people at least) brand new, almost no one in living memory knows about the surges and what they can do but even in Oathbringer we have learned that all Surgebinders have 5 ideals, 1st Ideal: First Power, 2nd Ideal: Second Power, 3rd Ideal: Spren Blade, 4th Ideal: Shardplate, 5th Ideal: Currently Unknown. This shows that any kind of magic is mystical but when you study it and learn more they stop being a form of magic and start to become more like an area of Scholarship.

Although I do agree that Era 2 has far more engaging worldbuilding!

[CaptainRyan]

16 minutes ago, Merrickz said:

in Oathbringer we have learned that all Surgebinders have 5 ideals, 1st Ideal: First Power, 2nd Ideal: Second Power, 3rd Ideal: Spren Blade, 4th Ideal: Shardplate, 5th Ideal: Currently Unknown

This is not a guaranteed progression in all orders. See this WoB:

Questioner

Do you have to have done the third oath before you can convert your spren into a Blade?

Brandon Sanderson

In most orders, yes.

Questioner

What about Shallan then? Did she do it, cause she was a kid when she first--

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, um... you will find out more.

source

[Yezrien]

I think the worldbuilding in Era 1 feels limited because so much of the story is confined to Luthadel and the surrounding area. If we got to explore the Final Empire, I'm sure we'd see more cultural diversity. Even under the Lord Ruler's homogenizing influence, a world without instantaneous communication can't possibly maintain a universal culture. Regions outside the Central Dominance would inevitably drift from the norm, driven by the personal preferences of the ruling Nobles.

It really is a shame that we haven't seen more of that. But it just wasn't relevant to the story Brandon wanted to tell.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Belzedar

[Weltall]

As far as magic goes, Scadrial only looks simple. The way humans interact with it is easier than on some other worlds we've seen but there is so much you can do with the magic and so many ways to apply it creatively that it's a lot deeper than just 'have metal x, gain power y'. For example, we know that A-Electrum is more versatile than we saw in Era 1, but Vin and Elend never really needed to explore its potential because they had atium, so they only used it as a cheaper counter to atium rather than trying to use its power for its own sake. Similarly, Kelsier dismisses A-Gold but as we see in Alloy of Law and Brandon has clarified in WoB, there's actually a lot you can do with it if you're willing to practice, not to mention what you can do by combining systems. And we know for a fact that somehow, the Metallic Arts have a means of creating FTL travel which is a pretty damned impressive accomplishment. And we don't know how it's done yet. There's always another secret...

Another example I could raise is Elantris and AonDor. Yes, it seems more 'mystical' but that's largely because the book in which it appears is one in which the magic hasn't worked for a decade and nobody knows how to use it properly. When you strip away the flashy visual effects however, it's not terribly different from allomancy in its underpinnings, it just uses drawn symbols to channel power instead of metal. In both cases, the power is being drawn from a single external source (Preservation's Investiture versus the Dor, aka the amalgamation of Devotion and Dominion's Investiture) and shaped by the user. The Aons and their modifiers are just doing for the Dor what the metal and the will of the allomancer does for Preservation: Tell it what to do. In fact since AonDor (like all Selish magic) is likened to computer programming, it's even less 'mystical' than allomancy, since the only thing that matters is whether you draw all the symbols properly, while there's a degree of 'unseen' mental effort involved in the operation of many allomantic powers, picking which metal lines to push/pull, deciding which emotions to soothe/riot and how lightly or strongly to do so etc. With AonDor, it should be the case that anyone who knows the system sufficiently well will know exactly what any given Aon drawn will do before it activates, just by looking at it.

16 minutes ago, Belzedar said:

I think the worldbuilding in Era 1 feels limited because so much of the story is confined to Luthadel and the surrounding area. If we got to explore the Final Empire, I'm sure we'd see more cultural diversity. Even under the Lord Ruler's homogenizing influence, a world without instantaneous communication can't possibly maintain a universal culture. Regions outside the Central Dominance would inevitably drift from the norm, driven by the personal preferences of the ruling Nobles.

Case in point: Southern Scadrial which has its own very unique culture (actually, a combination of multiple ones as Bands of Mourning makes clear) which developed completely apart from the Final Empire but was still around the whole time and which Brandon hinted at for years before we got to actually see them. We get the occasional glimmer of regional differences in the Final Empire itself when we see people from other Dominances or hear about things like different architecture styles. Then you have the obviously distinct Terris culture and people aside from that. And Scadrial's past is simply full of a variety of cultures, religions and so on which Sazed and Alendi's journal occasionally give us a glimpse of. It's just that we don't see a lot of this diversity onscreen in Era 1 because Rashek has spent the last thousand years actively supressing as much knowledge and as many of these differences as he could get away with.

[AngelDeath]

Warbreaker,  Elantris, and Way of Kings all take place within pretty confined areas as well. But they don't feel as limited as Era 1 Mistborn. I totally agree that a larger world is hinted at. It's just not hinted at enough. Like I would have loved to see more Spook flashbacks, of what his life was like in a street gang. Also I'm not saying the world building is bad, just that I think it's over hyped.   

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So what I mean by magical feeling is; with surgebinding how the magic works is tide in with the user Ideals, and with their perception of really.  Not only do they have to act a certain way, but they have to view their actions in a certain way as well. Surgebinding is deeply connected with the rest of the world. To me that makes it feel magical. Allomancy, and to lesser degree feruchemy feel disconnected from everything else. Like their just tacked on. Though I think it could definitely get better in later books.            

[Calderis]

@AngelDeath obviously your opinion is yours, and I don't expect this to change it, but just some things to consider.

Scadrial in Era 2, and pre-rashek, is meant to be an earth analog. The worldbuilding there is implicit as its pretty much our own with mists. TFE though... It is less than the other worlds, and in my opinion intentionally so. Unlike the other worlds, which were created by Adonalsium, Scadrial was remade in moments by a mortal wielding the power of a Shard. He did not understand the power he wielded and spent the majority of his time reacting to his own misuses of that power. He world we see in the books is made to be stable and functional... And that's it. It's drab and lifeless and stale by the design of a man who wanted nothing more than to maintain control. 

The magic itself is layered. In Era one it is simplistic, intentionally, again due to Rashek limiting knowledge. In Era two you begin to see more of the interconnection. And the medallions show us that even compounding is no where near the limits of the magic. 

In Eras 3 and 4, as the magic and technology progress, we'll see the ways that it is all interconnected and layered to be far more complex than, I believe, any other system in the Cosmere.

Mistborn is designed as a slow burn. It was always intended to progress from simple fantasy to insane space opera. Because of that, we've barely scratched the surface, and the worldbuilding is the same. Each is a series that builds on what came before. 

[Weltall]

18 minutes ago, AngelDeath said:

So what I mean by magical feeling is; with surgebinding how the magic works is tide in with the user Ideals, and with their perception of really.  Not only do they have to act a certain way, but they have to view their actions in a certain way as well.

This is really only a factor in Surgebinding because that magic system is of Honor who is all about oaths, including not only making and keeping them but the perception of what the oaths mean and whether they've been kept. It's really not a factor at all in any Selish magic, which only cares about whether you draw the right symbols while intending them to 'do magic'. What you think of your actions is functionally irrelevant. Then you have magic systems with no direct human involvment, like Aviar talents and Ashyn's disease-based magic.

It sounds to me like you just really like Stormlight Archive. xD Nothing wrong with that and it's an entirely fair opinion. Not to mention that it's safe to say that Brandon has improved a lot as a writer between starting Mistborn and the publication of The Way of Kings; he's even admitted that his work on Wheel of Time was a huge factor for him.

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Surgebinding is deeply connected with the rest of the world. To me that makes it feel magical. Allomancy, and to lesser degree feruchemy feel disconnected from everything else. Like their just tacked on. Though I think it could definitely get better in later books.            

Allomancy is just as deeply connected to Scadrial as Surgebinding is to Roshar, it's just connected in different ways. It has to do with how magic systems in the Cosmere aren't consciously created by the Shards but are the result of an interplay between them, the worlds they've Invested in and the sDNA of the people who will be using the magic. In the case of Surgebinding, Honor and Cultivation wound up adapting their Investiture to something that had predated the Shattering and which was thus in place when they arrived, so it feels very integrated to Roshar's ecosystem. Other Shards have either not co-opted preexisting conditions or if they have, it's so subtle that it's not obvious to us.

Scadrial is somewhat apart from the other worlds because it was created by the Shards who are Invested in it, and consequently they permeate the world in a way beyond what we see anywhere else in the Cosmere. Allomancy and feruchemy may not be as spectacularly tied in as Surgebinding being linked to a planet-spanning storm and sapient Investiture but it's every bit as deeply connected to its world.

[Devout Pathian]

I do love Allomancy, but that’s not why Mistborn era 1 are my favorite novels ever.  I love the characters and we have a great plot to go along with it.  I honestly feel that some Sanderson fans rave so mucha about the magic (which is fine) that it can turn people off.  All I remembering hearing about Sanderson before I read him, was that he has great plot twists and great magic systems.  That’s cool, but not really why I read books, so I didn’t pick up Sanderson for awhile.  I honestly can love a book, even if the plot is predictable.  I’ve also read some really awful magic systems, but I love the book anyway.  I care about the characters.  Anyway, after reading Mistborn, I thought that people really should have told me about the wonderful characters and I might have read it sooner.