Music in Mistborn

[FantasyFanatic]

So, I was recently listening to a writing excuses podcast on music within fiction and it got me thinking. Wouldn't you think that there would be more music in Mistborn? You see that people inslaved history sang a lot (especially on plantations). Plus people are naturally rhythmic and poetic creatures, so if you really don't have form of entertainment what so ever you would probably start singing, right?

Mistborn: The Final Empire Spoilers!

Spoiler

I understand that in Luthadel since the entire population of Skaa is being soothed continuously, that music might not really be present.

But even so you would expect that there would be at least a little singing or at least some humming and rhythmic drumming. I would love to hear what you think. 

[Honorless]

Workers' songs, you mean? With the frequent balls and the Nobles did have music.

Hmm... I think we don't see any of that because of the cast of characters we follow. As Vin said/roasted, Kelsier's gang led a sort of half-Noble life.

And afterwards, of course there was no time for any of that 

[FantasyFanatic]

3 hours ago, R J said:

Workers' songs, you mean? With the frequent balls and the Nobles did have music.

Hmm... I think we don't see any of that because of the cast of characters we follow. As Vin said/roasted, Kelsier's gang led a sort of half-Noble life.

And afterwards, of course there was no time for any of that 

But we do know that Dockson was a plantation Skaa, but I do suppose that everyone in our cast is from Luthadel.

[Elsecaller_17.5]

The prologue does feature a plantation, so I think we would have seen it if it was there.

[GoWibble]

not entirely relevant or meaningful, but

era 4 is a space opera...

Edited June 3, 2020 by GoWibble

[Shard of Reading]

My theory is the all the skaa listened to ska music.

[jamesbondsmith]

I can imagine the nobility would have stamped anything remotely creative out pretty damnation quick. Considering the whole 'if you really need to rape your skaa at least kill them afterwards' thing they had going, if they noticed (or even vaguely entertained the thought) that this art might be revolutionary (much like how capoeira was supposedly meant to disguise fight training as dancing), they'd probably squash it immediately. That's not even getting into the high likelihood of protest songs, and the crackdown those would bring.

[Friendshipspren]

On 6/4/2020 at 0:05 AM, FantasyFanatic said:

But we do know that Dockson was a plantation Skaa, but I do suppose that everyone in our cast is from Luthadel.

I'm pretty sure breeze was from a novel house tending  a estate in another dominance

[Friendshipspren]

Idk man. Seeing how brutal it was and  the entire climate was so depressing.

I doubt they even had enough food. Like in the Atlantic slave trade , I think very few ppl starved to death in estates , the were worked to death or suffered great injuries but starvation was low on the list  , only during natural famines did they die of starvation. Food wasn't what they were growing. They grew luxury crops like tobacco , cotton and sugar. I guess the free folk grew  enough food to feed all of them and even export to the Caribbean and europe.

Tlr wasn't using the population to grow luxury crops , they were growing necessities like food.

I'm pretty sure it was TLRs oppressive slave economy that prevented a famine from wiping everyone out . I mean tlr was terrible but I always thought a prominent  reason he was so brutal was cause the sunlight had very little energy and the plants much less nutritious. Hence TFE was always in famine like conditions.

Not to mention slaves in our history mostly lived in areas with great biodiversity. They were oft able to hunt and gather foodstuffs like edible wild plants and rats and birds. They also had lots of domesticates like cattle, pigs, etc. 

TFE on the other hand had been through a mass extinction event. The mists pre ascension , the planets movement , the ash the sun's radiation, I'm guessing tlr wiped out a lot pests by  intent too , oblivious of the food chains he was destroying, then u have a 1000 yrs of ppl trying to hunt down everything and anything and the Koloss literally did just that. Hel it seems not many domesticates besides horses and dogs survived. Have we seen any birds , reptiles ,cattle , rodents , etc ??

  I always thought the plot to overthrow slavery was doomed since it was by most of the population being slaves that there was enough food to go around  Although the nobles did get way too much stuff. 

In subsequent yrs , I guess the wars  and mists took too much attention away from the inevitable famine. 

If they didn't have enough to eat I doubt they had the energy to feel good enough to sing . 

There was maybe some fear of mistwraiths too. 

Edited June 28, 2020 by PrinceGenocide
A little polishing

[Elend Venture]

On 6/3/2020 at 5:58 PM, Shard of Reading said:

My theory is the all the skaa listened to ska music.

My thoughts exactly.

[Spren of Kindness]

I figure that drums and hand clapping rhythms would be popular, or at least common.  Those are two of the easiest ways to get a song started, in my opinion.  Maybe whistling, though that doesn't really seem to fit the tone of the story.

Also, I kind of want Kelsier leading the skaa in 'Do You Hear the People Sing' during the execution scene, but that's a different story altogether.