Political and Religious analysis of Mistborn Era 2

[Serity]

Analysis of Mistborn Era 2

I wanted to spend a little time dissecting the political and religious ideas of the series. While this essay is somewhat critical, I hope it isn't taken as a condemnation. I thoroughly enjoyed the suspense, magic, mystery, and emotional drama of the series. However, I didn't feel like I had anything particularly insightful to say about those elements.

Scadrial and American History

The elevator pitch for Mistborn as a meta-series is that it takes a fantasy world and shows how it progresses through history. So what does Era 2 tell us about Sanderson's concept of progress? My argument is that his view of history is informed by his perspective as a white American author.

Revolution

In Era 1, we see the medieval feudal setting common to most fantasy books. The land is ruled by a despot; the heroes are a band of criminals who bring about his overthrow. Then, after averting the apocalypse, God rebuilds the world, and the next Era is inaugurated by the Words of Founding. The heroes of Era 1 are the founding fathers; names and statues of characters from Kelsier's crew adorn the landscape. The government is rebuilt as a constitutional democracy. The parallels with the American Revolution and founding of the United States are straightforward.

Capitalism

By Era 2, the Elendel Basin is coded to resemble 19th-century America. We have industrial capitalism, and inequality of wealth seems to be more important than inequality of title in this society. We have railroad-driven expansion into a barren desert populated with sheriffs and outlaws, which resembles the American West and the Western genre. However, unlike real American history, there is no enslavement of Africans or genocide of Indigenous peoples. In real life, these two elements provided the material wealth to kickstart American capitalism. In Mistborn Era 2, the original accumulation of wealth that got the Basin started was literally a gift from God. Unfortunately, this resembles how some people talk about America, downplaying the role of slavery and genocide and instead talking about America being "blessed."

So we see Sanderson inadvertently creating a world that resembles a whitewashed version of American history in his effort to imagine how another world would change over time. This is interesting because, like many fantasy writers, he seems to want to reject Tolkien's Eurocentrism, as illustrated by his much more diverse characters and settings. However, as an author he is still writing from his own perspective, informed by his own life, and thus can't fully escape Americentrism.

Political Reform

In addition to the above portrayal of material progress, Mistborn Era 2 also illuminates Sanderson's concept of political progress. In the original series, the heroes were all criminals, and they (successfully) sought to overthrow the monarchist system. However, in Era 2, all the characters are instead ruling class and integrated with the liberal capitalist government. Wax, Wayne, Marasi, and Steris are all police officers, wealthy capitalists, aristocrats, and/or political representatives. The kandra also align with the status quo, as they serve the god that created this system.

Therefore, in Era 2, progress is no longer revolutionary. Instead, the heroes' activities consist of defending the status quo and making incremental reforms from the top down, as we see with Wax and Steris' political careers. All reforms, such as the enfranchisement of the Outer Cities, workers' rights, and limitations on police powers, come from within the liberal democratic system. Characters who offer a more radical critique, such as The Marksman or Paalm, are villains. Even Kelsier is ultimately rejected by the main characters. Marasi decides that his method of working from the shadows is no longer valid and that she will instead seek political appointment and election within the Basin government. It seems that Sanderson's view of progress runs from monarchy to liberal democracy, but there's nowhere to go after that. Liberal democracy is the end of history.

It will be interesting to see whether this reading is challenged by anything that happens in Era 3. Given the unresolved conflict with the Southern Scadrians, as well as the presence of aerial bombers, missiles, and weapons of mass destruction, it's possible that Era 3 will continue to follow an American perspective of history into a 20th-century, Cold War setting.

Harmony and the Problem of Evil

The other aspect I thought was interesting was Mistborn Era 2's theology. The portrayal of Harmony seems to elucidate the problem of evil; i.e., that it doesn't make sense for God to be both all-powerful and morally good, and for evil to still exist in the world. In fictional works where God is canonically real, this problem might be restated as: If God is all-powerful and morally good, how can the author preserve the conflict necessary for the plot? Sanderson resolves this problem by making Harmony less than all-powerful and less than perfect.

Indeed, his power seems to vary inversely with his morality. In the early books, Harmony is kind of a dick; he manipulates the characters, withholds emotionally devastating secrets, drives Paalm to suicide, and traumatizes Wax. He justifies this with lines about free will, but that doesn't seem to be a satisfying solution for Wax. By contrast, in The Lost Metal, God has grown as a person. He says things like "I'm trying to be better," keeps fewer secrets from the characters, and even apologizes to Wax. However, this moral improvment coincides with a sharp reduction in his powers. Autonomy's influence blinds and restricts Harmony's ability to act, thereby preserving the conflict.

It's interesting that Sanderson as a writer seems to acknowledge that in order for conflict to exist, God must be either morally flawed or restricted in his powers, despite the fact that Sanderson is not an atheist in real life.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Serity

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Serity said:

In Era 1, we see the medieval feudal setting common to most fantasy books. The land is ruled by a despot; the heroes are a band of criminals who bring about his overthrow. Then, after averting the apocalypse, God rebuilds the world, and the next Era is inaugurated by the Words of Founding. The heroes of Era 1 are the founding fathers; names and statues of characters from Kelsier's crew adorn the landscape. The government is rebuilt as a constitutional democracy. The parallels with the American Revolution and founding of the United States are straightforward.

Strongly disagree. It's far better parallel to the French Revolution, which was very much a spontaneous popular revolt, which directly overthrown and killed the unpopular king, caused chaos across the country, mass executions, multiple government changes, reducing status of nobles and priests, rising the status of peasants and the middle class,  multiple coalition wars, which ultimately ended with Napoleon (Elend!) becoming Emperor of France, bringing monarchy back to France, who forced his political order across whole Europe using his supreme military force. Please, the American Revolution didn't even kill any king!

2 hours ago, Serity said:

Unfortunately, this resembles how some people talk about America, downplaying the role of slavery and genocide and instead talking about America being "blessed."

So we see Sanderson inadvertently creating a world that resembles a whitewashed version of American history in his effort to imagine how another world would change over time. This is interesting because, like many fantasy writers, he seems to want to reject Tolkien's Eurocentrism, as illustrated by his much more diverse characters and settings. However, as an author he is still writing from his own perspective, informed by his own life, and thus can't fully escape Americentrism.

Because there are no slaves in Era 2? There is a reason for this - in the previous 1000 years 95% of the population was enslaved. They don’t want to go back to this. Era 1 already coverd the slavery part of world's history.

2 hours ago, Serity said:

It seems that Sanderson's view of progress runs from monarchy to liberal democracy, but there's nowhere to go after that. Liberal democracy is the end of history.

Which follows Earth's history. Do we have anything better than democracy? Not at this moment, despite democracy being used in our world for thousands of years, this is, for now, the best we can work with.

 

These are just my comments to your essay. I'm open for discussion.

[HSuperLee]

You definitely have some interesting ideas, but I do worry (perhaps that's too strong of a word, but that's the one I'm using) at the foundation you seem to be assuming. It appears you area applying a heuristic to Sanderson, assuming that because he is a white American he must therefore be modeling his writing off of his perception of America's historical development. On one hand, I think you're not giving him enough credit. The man puts an insane amount of time and effort into his work, especially in regards to research, and has a desire to understand other cultures, though that admittedly shows up more in his Stormlight Archive series, even having spent part of his life living in South Korea. On the other hand, how would you differentiate him developing culture based on the logical conclusions of possible developments from the initial setup of the world he has created from following the patterns given to us by history? By that I mean this, you may similarities between Scadrial's development and western nations on Earth, but how can you tell what he's copying and what he's concluding is a logical progression? As Alder pointed out, you can say that the lack of slaves in Era 2 is an attempt by Sanderson to whitewash American history, or you can see that those in the Basin grew from a culture of tyrannical slavery, and didn't want to return to such a society. Yes, there will certainly be parallels between Scadrial's history and Earth's, but that is because our own history is the only example we have by which to imagine another world's.

As for Sazed having power and morality within an inverse relationship, Sanderson has said that one of the themes of the Cosmere is what happens when humans become gods, and an alternate interpretation for the events are not that Sanderson is affirming the idea that God (capitals do matter when using two words that are spelled the same) cannot be both all-powerful and all-good, but that he is exploring how a human would carry their flaws into their apotheosis, and thus a human, not being all-good, would not be able to perfectly wield the powers of a god, even a less than all-powerful one.

[a Faceless Immortal]

An interesting read, however...

13 hours ago, alder24 said:

Strongly disagree. It's far better parallel to the French Revolution, which was very much a spontaneous popular revolt, which directly overthrown and killed the unpopular king, caused chaos across the country, mass executions, multiple government changes, reducing status of nobles and priests, rising the status of peasants and the middle class,  multiple coalition wars, which ultimately ended with Napoleon (Elend!) becoming Emperor of France, bringing monarchy back to France, who forced his political order across whole Europe using his supreme military force. Please, the American Revolution didn't even kill any king!

I am going to have to agree with Alder on this one; to me it seems the French Revolution is a much better parallel, or even inspiration, especially when the text is littered with names like 'Demoux' which seem of French origin to me.

Edited March 20, 2023 by a Faceless Immortal

[AquaRegia]

@Serity very thought-provoking post.  As an upper middle class white male American, it's very easy and comfortable for me to think MY reality is everyone's reality, and it's frequently difficult for authors to escape their "box".  Thanks for the opportunity for me to think outside mine.

As I'm sure you know, Sanderson has created numerous worlds (and dozens of cultures) in his Cosmere works.  He himself has explicitly asserted, multiple times, that of all of them, Northern Scadrial was always intended to be the most "Earthlike" - meaning the most familiar to the audience.  While he certainly boasts worldwide readership, I'm confident that the vast majority of his readers are either American or reside in closely aligned "modern" "Western" countries.  It's no surprise, then, that Scadrial was very intentionally modeled after the Western culture we inherit from the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.  As other Cosmere works show (e.g., Elantris, The Emperor's Soul, Warbreaker, the sprawling patchwork of diversity that is Roshar in the Stormlight Archives), he's quite willing and capable of writing very different, non-Americentric cultures and histories as well.

[Tea Leaf]

On 3/19/2023 at 9:22 PM, HSuperLee said:

The man puts an insane amount of time

Mm.... well... you know how fast he writes... maybe not that insane, but qualitatively the better as someone taking longer...
Not to play down his amazing work, just playing up his insane speed.

[Lost Lobo]

On 3/19/2023 at 2:22 PM, Serity said:

Analysis of Mistborn Era 2

I wanted to spend a little time dissecting the political and religious ideas of the series. While this essay is somewhat critical, I hope it isn't taken as a condemnation. I thoroughly enjoyed the suspense, magic, mystery, and emotional drama of the series. However, I didn't feel like I had anything particularly insightful to say about those elements.

Scadrial and American History

The elevator pitch for Mistborn as a meta-series is that it takes a fantasy world and shows how it progresses through history. So what does Era 2 tell us about Sanderson's concept of progress? My argument is that his view of history is informed by his perspective as a white American author.

 

Respectfully, I think you may be leaning in a bit stronger on this point than is entirely justified.

 

Quote

Revolution

In Era 1, we see the medieval feudal setting common to most fantasy books. The land is ruled by a despot; the heroes are a band of criminals who bring about his overthrow. Then, after averting the apocalypse, God rebuilds the world, and the next Era is inaugurated by the Words of Founding. The heroes of Era 1 are the founding fathers; names and statues of characters from Kelsier's crew adorn the landscape. The government is rebuilt as a constitutional democracy. The parallels with the American Revolution and founding of the United States are straightforward.

 

....and would be equally so with any nation whose current government was the result of a previous major rebellion, especially one that was explicitly ideological.

 

 

Quote

Capitalism

By Era 2, the Elendel Basin is coded to resemble 19th-century America. We have industrial capitalism, and inequality of wealth seems to be more important than inequality of title in this society. We have railroad-driven expansion into a barren desert populated with sheriffs and outlaws, which resembles the American West and the Western genre. However, unlike real American history, there is no enslavement of Africans or genocide of Indigenous peoples. In real life, these two elements provided the material wealth to kickstart American capitalism.

 

In-world the vast majority of the population is enslaved in Era 1, and is free in Era 2, though class differences still remain. In this, they more closely resemble Europe. The Elendel basin appears to be European (England, especially), while the Roughs are made more to resemble the American West. It may be worth noting that slavery did not provide the material wealth to kickstart American capitalism - quite the opposite; the South's political insistence on older social and political structures (they wanted to recreate feudalism) led them to strong opposition to capitalism as a Yankee innovation, and they were much the poorer for it. Slave-based agrarianism turned out not to be much of a growth engine; but the shipping, industrialization, and classic Liberal free trade model of the non-Slave Northern states did.

 

Quote

In Mistborn Era 2, the original accumulation of wealth that got the Basin started was literally a gift from God.

And turns out to also be a bit of a gift with an edge, since the ease of life it creates has hindered innovation and growth relative to the Southern Continent. There is some interesting room here to see how Brandon is playing with "Agriculture" as a Resource Curse.

 

Quote

Unfortunately, this resembles how some people talk about America, downplaying the role of slavery and genocide and instead talking about America being "blessed."

So we see Sanderson inadvertently creating a world that resembles a whitewashed version of American history in his effort to imagine how another world would change over time.

....and this is where I get off the train. You stated that he doesn't have X in his world, and then accuse him of downplaying the role of X... which you already stated don't exist in his world. It would be like complaining about the lack of Confucianism on Roshar, or accusing him of downplaying the role of Middle Ages Islamic expansion into the Mediterranean in Elantris.

 

Quote

In addition to the above portrayal of material progress, Mistborn Era 2 also illuminates Sanderson's concept of political progress. In the original series, the heroes were all criminals, and they (successfully) sought to overthrow the monarchist system. However, in Era 2, all the characters are instead ruling class and integrated with the liberal capitalist government. Wax, Wayne, Marasi, and Steris are all police officers, wealthy capitalists, aristocrats, and/or political representatives. The kandra also align with the status quo, as they serve the god that created this system.

Therefore, in Era 2, progress is no longer revolutionary. Instead, the heroes' activities consist of defending the status quo and making incremental reforms from the top down, as we see with Wax and Steris' political careers. All reforms, such as the enfranchisement of the Outer Cities, workers' rights, and limitations on police powers, come from within the liberal democratic system. Characters who offer a more radical critique, such as The Marksman or Paalm, are villains. Even Kelsier is ultimately rejected by the main characters. Marasi decides that his method of working from the shadows is no longer valid and that she will instead seek political appointment and election within the Basin government. It seems that Sanderson's view of progress runs from monarchy to liberal democracy, but there's nowhere to go after that. Liberal democracy is the end of history.

 

Sorta. They had a brief French Revolution, period in areas in between the death of the Lord Ruler and the Catacendre. This period was cut short by Elend in Luthadel, but ran more of its course in Urteau (which is a more French sounding name, anywho), before Spook was able to end Quellion's Reign of Terror (Quellion, worth noting, went by "the Citizen" and was distinguished by wearing a bright red shirt; both of which are callouts to the French Revolution).

We don't know how The End Of History is going to look in the Cosmere, yet, but, for Brandon's basic take, we can possibly look to his Mormon faith, which has obvious overlap with how he treats Deity. In Mormonism (any LDS out there, please correct me if I'm off, here), they don't refer directly to the Eschaton, but Liberal Democracy is considered more of the current holding pattern. The end of history in terms of Governance is a Theocracy, ruled directly by a returned Jesus (Adolnasium Redux? all the Shards powers recombined like an allomancer on SterHoids?).

 

Quote

It will be interesting to see whether this reading is challenged by anything that happens in Era 3. Given the unresolved conflict with the Southern Scadrians, as well as the presence of aerial bombers, missiles, and weapons of mass destruction, it's possible that Era 3 will continue to follow an American perspective of history into a 20th-century, Cold War setting.

I think (?) Brandon has been pretty upfront that a Cold War, used by Harmony/Discord(/Kelsier?) to drive innovation and technological growth will be the backdrop for Era 3, which sets up the space age for Era 4.

 

Quote

Harmony and the Problem of Evil

The other aspect I thought was interesting was Mistborn Era 2's theology. The portrayal of Harmony seems to elucidate the problem of evil; i.e., that it doesn't make sense for God to be both all-powerful and morally good, and for evil to still exist in the world. In fictional works where God is canonically real, this problem might be restated as: If God is all-powerful and morally good, how can the author preserve the conflict necessary for the plot? Sanderson resolves this problem by making Harmony less than all-powerful and less than perfect.

Indeed, his power seems to vary inversely with his morality. In the early books, Harmony is kind of a dick; he manipulates the characters, withholds emotionally devastating secrets, drives Paalm to suicide, and traumatizes Wax. He justifies this with lines about free will, but that doesn't seem to be a satisfying solution for Wax. By contrast, in The Lost Metal, God has grown as a person. He says things like "I'm trying to be better," keeps fewer secrets from the characters, and even apologizes to Wax. However, this moral improvment coincides with a sharp reduction in his powers. Autonomy's influence blinds and restricts Harmony's ability to act, thereby preserving the conflict.

It's interesting that Sanderson as a writer seems to acknowledge that in order for conflict to exist, God must be either morally flawed or restricted in his powers, despite the fact that Sanderson is not an atheist in real life.

The Problem of Evil is that an Omniscient, Omnipotent God who was purely Good seems incongruent with a universe filled with Bad. Shards are not Omniscient (they retain the need to focus their attention), not Omnipotent,

Spoiler

(they are limited apparently by agreements made with the others, which are woven into their powers)

they are not inherently purely Good (Sazed is a broken human being who struggles with depression, self-doubt, anger, loss, ennui; and of the Shards we've met thus far, he may be the best of them), and their Intent is heavily shaped (controlled?) by the shardic powers they bear (in Sazed's case, Preservation and Ruin).

I don't think I would say that Brandon is implying (or working from the assumption) that the existence of Conflict means that God must be either morally flawed or restricted in his powers - that's not his belief system IRL, after all. You may be projecting your own position a bit, there.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Lost Lobo

[Argenti]

18 hours ago, Lost Lobo said:

I don't think I would say that Brandon is implying (or working from the assumption) that the existence of Conflict means that God must be either morally flawed or restricted in his powers

Besides, this is fiction in which different rules apply. He might imply that gods (notice the lowercase) must be flawed or restricted to make a more interesting plot. An actual Deus Ex Machina would probably weaken the integrity of the story. He has literally said that he refuses to confirm or deny that God is a real thing in the Cosmere because of how important and world-shattering that would be to a story.