Disappointed with Bands of Mourning, Help!

[Luciellav]

Hi! First of all, Im new to the forum. I signed up here since I finished reading last night Bands of Mourning and felt really really disappointed in this last installment. 

 

I need some help, if you can give, to help me understand some stuff that sounds utterly ridiculous to me.

P.D. Sorry if some bad orthography/ grammar shows up now and then, im not a native english speaker.

 

Also I have read all 6 of the Mistborn books and Elantris. With that said...

My problem with this last book is several parts:

 

1. The ascension subjects:

At the very beginning, MeLaan and the other kandra talk to Wax & co about the fact that they "know" only 4 people have touched the power of ascension: Rashek, Kelsier, Vin and Sazed.... WHAT? when did Kelsier did that? I was under the assumption that he was a mistborn thieve, with a vendetta story and he ultimately died to  make himself a martyr/new god to the skaa and ruin Lord Ruler's day/empire (since to me he was under no assumption that he would be able to kill him in combat) . 

When did he took that power?? Since he had no idea the well of ascension actually existed behind Lord Ruler secret room? Makes no sense.

 

2. The Southern peoples:

WHAT? Since when? This to me is a poor device to advance the plot. Never (that I remember) was mentioned that there were more people beside the ones under Lord Ruler's empire. And if there was, I don't manage to comprehend why Rashek didn't care about them like he did about everybody else? Why would he let these people free reign while making slaves of the other people? Makes no sense.

 

3. The bands of mourning: 

To me Rashek was pretty much dead. And pretty desperate to stop ruin. There was no way that he would just pick himself up and grab his bands (from wherever they drop) and run away from world ending, Ruin awakening, disaster he had spent 1k years preventing.

Like wise, I was under the impression the bands were merely feruchemical and he was a mistborn. Not that the bands holded both powers. Since when? makes no sense. 

 

4. The point between life and death:

I really hated this part. When Kelsier died I felt sad. But it was a Song of Ice and Fire moment in which no main character was safe and his death had a good planned out purpose. But now I think Sanderson backpedaled and made up baseless stuff in reviving Wax out of nowhere.  Because, Sazed said at the end of Hero of Ages, that he couldn't revive Vin and Elend...But he could Wax? with a weird out of nowhere walk and CHOICE? 

He said that everyone upon death split in 3 parts, physical body, mind and soul. Soooo...were Elend and Vin already gone beyond his reach so he couldn't bring them back? If thats so...how could he say they were "happy"? Since their bodys stayed in the planet, their minds rejoined cosmere and their souls -somewhere- (maybe being helium fuel for their sun, for all I know) I'm pretty sure that after all their hard ships if they were presented with the CHOICE to go back and live like mistborns or even normal humans and enjoy the fruits of their effort, they would have, insted of being separated in pieces and rejoining "stuffs".

And I don't think these -bands of mourning- really had anything to do with Wax revival, hell are they more powerful than Harmony himself?

It makes no sense. 

 

 

Am I missing something... as to why just stuff popped up out of nowhere??

 

As it is...after reading these 6 books, I call BS on these last book plot points. It felt incredibly lazy writting. 

 

[natc]

1. If you haven't noticed Kelsier has speaking lines at least twice in Hero of Ages. He did it after dying. Read Secret History.

2. Harmony has been mentioning "other" people when saying how behind Elendel is in technology for some time now. Outside of books, we've known from interviews for years.

3. . . . Did you read the very end? That's clearly not the Lord Ruler who saved the South as the Sovereign.

4. Wax's soul wasn't straight up in the afterlife yet. Once that's gone there's nothing you can do. If it's still around you just gotta fix the connection before the body goes byebye and heal it up to not immediately die again. It worked in a different series once before. The bands of mourning contained feruchemical gold abilities, which are capable of healing even spiritual wounds. Harmony didn't actually do anything here. Probably could've, but then again he's Harmony so he basically can't.

Also, read Secret History and enjoy the adventures of you-know-who!

Edited March 15, 2016 by natc

[WeiryWriter]

First of all I would strongly recommend you read the ebook novella Mistborn: Secret History which was released concurrently with Bands of Mourning as it does deal with some of this stuff.

 

Second of all, I'm sorry you found certain events to be unsatisfying.  The thing is that for those involved in the fandom we've known about Kelsier holding Preservation and the existence of the Southern Peoples for years, so for us it is not popping out of nowhere.  (The Southern Peoples are obliquely referenced in Shadows of Self when Harmony is speaking to Wax in the carriage.  He references "while others who were nearly destroyed" or something to that effect)

 

On the Bands and the Sovereign, read the epilogue again because while Wax initially makes the assumption that the Sovereign was Rashek, that is not actually the case.  As such the Bands are something new and not actually the Lord Ruler's metalminds.

 

On not being able to bring Vin and Elend back from the dead.  I would argue that that was because they were already dead and "split into three" while Wax was still in the process of dying.  Harmony just gave him a nudge back towards life, and it was the Bands that actually healed him.

[Straw]

Blasphemy! No Sanderson book can be bad!

[king of nowhere]

others have given good answers. i can add that the resurrection thing is pretty well explained cosmere-wise: after your body dies, your soul goes to the cognitive realm, where it will linger for a short time (seconds to minutes, the more magical power - investiture - you had the more you stay), and during that time extreme healing can still bring you back.

 

as for the bands, it was explained fairly well how they worked: by filling a metalmind with identity, you have no identity and your metalmind can be used by anyone. When you burn a metal allomantically, you are accessing the power of preservation in the form of investiture, and you can store that investiture in a metalmind, which can be tapped to achieve allomantical effects. and since feruchemmy has no hard limitation to how much you can tap, you can "flare" a metal harder than any mistborn.

 

On the other hand, I think this hhighlights a potential problems: for us, the fanbase, who have read the interviews and read the forum for the smaller clues, the southern scadrians and kelsier being around are perfectly well explained and foreshadowed. To those who lack that dedication, they can feel like massive chull pull. that's a problem caused by internet forums, actually: if you make a subtle foreshadowing, somebody will figure it out and post it online, and it will become common knowledge in no time, ruining all the suspence. if you make an even subtler foreshadowing, nobody will figure it out, but you'll need the author explanation to enjoy the story.

[natc]

Also, I don't see the problem of being happy after passing on. Isn't that the basis of afterlife for, well, a ton of religions? That you've done enough and suffered enough in life, and now you can move on? They gave their lives and all their effort to preserve the world, now they can rest in peace together. Unlike a certain meddling fellow.

[IndigoAjah]

Have you (the OP) read Words of Radiance?

[Kingsdaughter613]

I think King made a great point there. I'm not an avid follower of the interviews or forums, but I do read all the annotations and try to keep aware of the greater Cosmere.

[so I figured out early on that the Sovereign was not Rashek, but a certain person who loves to interfere. Knowing that said person had been active during HoA helped a lot. I already knew about the Southern Control group and was only surprised that we were meeting them so early.]

Brandon has explained the difference between brain death and heart stopping, which is the general method to determine how long someone can be brought back. Investiture changes this somehow, at least on Scadrial. (If this is only true of Scadrial it may be due to preservation. We have yet to see if Investiture does this [keeping the person around for a bit] on other worlds.)

Not knowing any of the above would certainly make it feel wrong. What makes this really interesting is that, for those who only read Adventures, those points would not be much of an issue. They would assume it was mentioned in the first series! For those of us who try to keep aware of WoBs this has been hinted for years. For those who only read the various books, but not the outside information, those plot points came out of nowhere.
WHY do spoiler tags never work for me?

Edited March 15, 2016 by Voidus

[natc]

Because you haven't done spoiler tags.

They look like this: (spoiler)(/spoiler)

But with [] instead of ()

[Voidus]

I can only echo what others have said, it may feel like a lot of this came out of nowhere but it has been known here for quite some time. I think it may have actually had a vague reference to the southerners in HoA somewhere.

Because you haven't done spoiler tags.

They look like this: (spoiler)(/spoiler)
But with [] instead of ()

What are you talking about, they did perfect spoiler tags.   

[Kingsdaughter613]

Natc, THANK YOU!!! Hopefully I'll get it right in the future. Thanks for fixing my post.

[Luciellav]

1. If you haven't noticed Kelsier has speaking lines at least twice in Hero of Ages. He did it after dying. Read Secret History.

2. Harmony has been mentioning "other" people when saying how behind Elendel is in technology for some time now. Outside of books, we've known from interviews for years.

3. . . . Did you read the very end? That's clearly not the Lord Ruler who saved the South as the Sovereign.

4. Wax's soul wasn't straight up in the afterlife yet. Once that's gone there's nothing you can do. If it's still around you just gotta fix the connection before the body goes byebye and heal it up to not immediately die again. It worked in a different series once before. The bands of mourning contained feruchemical gold abilities, which are capable of healing even spiritual wounds. Harmony didn't actually do anything here. Probably could've, but then again he's Harmony so he basically can't.

Also, read Secret History and enjoy the adventures of you-know-who!

 

1. I really thought it was Ruin all the time. :/

 

2. Ah, I´m sorry about that one. I didn't put enough attention to that. I do remember Sazed saying something along the lines of that he was disappointed his basin paradise folk grew lazy and they should have had reach certain lvl of tech, which they are decades behind. I really don't remember that reference for the southern people. Tho what throws me off balance is that is never mentioned in era 1.

 

3.I just read a review from amazon about secret history. At the end I though it was TenSoon using Kelsier bones following Sazed orders. Not Kelsier himself!  haha

 

4. But but!! Elend and Vin were just a couple of minutes dead when Sazed ascended. I would have thought It would be in the ideal time frame to heal them (which he did) and bring them back....which he couldn't.....(I'm probably still sour they didn't get a wonderful fulfilling life after all their effort)

 

Yes, I gonna read it next. Kelsier was my fav just after Vin.

 

 

First of all I would strongly recommend you read the ebook novella Mistborn: Secret History which was released concurrently with Bands of Mourning as it does deal with some of this stuff.

 

Second of all, I'm sorry you found certain events to be unsatisfying.  The thing is that for those involved in the fandom we've known about Kelsier holding Preservation and the existence of the Southern Peoples for years, so for us it is not popping out of nowhere.  (The Southern Peoples are obliquely referenced in Shadows of Self when Harmony is speaking to Wax in the carriage.  He references "while others who were nearly destroyed" or something to that effect)

 

On the Bands and the Sovereign, read the epilogue again because while Wax initially makes the assumption that the Sovereign was Rashek, that is not actually the case.  As such the Bands are something new and not actually the Lord Ruler's metalminds.

 

On not being able to bring Vin and Elend back from the dead.  I would argue that that was because they were already dead and "split into three" while Wax was still in the process of dying.  Harmony just gave him a nudge back towards life, and it was the Bands that actually healed him.

 

Thank you too. About this novella I wasn't aware of. Tho isn't it weird that all other books could stand by themselves but...this one needs an extra novella to make sense?

 

I have been a recent fan...of sorts. After I ran out of great sagas and ran out of patience (thanx to George RR Martin and Patrick Rothfuss) I was digging for a new saga around 10 months ago. And that's when I read the first trilogy. I adored it, yet it was so fulfillinmg by itself that I didn't seek anymore info about it. Also I just jumped right in era 2. So, yeah I haven't followed at all the fandom, not like I have done over the years with Song of ice and fire.

Sadly I haven't had the pointers and these plot point just seemed so odd that really made me disappointed. 

 

After reading a spoiler free review on amazon... I assume that Kelsier somehow made those new bands of mourning. Still like I said some lines up there, I thought it was TenSoon instead of real Kelsier...since he was deader than dead to me.

 

I love Vin and Elend.. and I wished they could have lived and loved eachother after the catacendre, still "hero has to die trope" stood in the way...BUT! I still don't get how Harmony knowwwwws...they were happy, if they were already split and beyond his reach.

 

 

Blasphemy! No Sanderson book can be bad!

 

Eh, all writers can have "that one book" But in my case is just my opinion.

 

 

 

others have given good answers. i can add that the resurrection thing is pretty well explained cosmere-wise: after your body dies, your soul goes to the cognitive realm, where it will linger for a short time (seconds to minutes, the more magical power - investiture - you had the more you stay), and during that time extreme healing can still bring you back.

 

as for the bands, it was explained fairly well how they worked: by filling a metalmind with identity, you have no identity and your metalmind can be used by anyone. When you burn a metal allomantically, you are accessing the power of preservation in the form of investiture, and you can store that investiture in a metalmind, which can be tapped to achieve allomantical effects. and since feruchemmy has no hard limitation to how much you can tap, you can "flare" a metal harder than any mistborn.

 

On the other hand, I think this hhighlights a potential problems: for us, the fanbase, who have read the interviews and read the forum for the smaller clues, the southern scadrians and kelsier being around are perfectly well explained and foreshadowed. To those who lack that dedication, they can feel like massive chull pull. that's a problem caused by internet forums, actually: if you make a subtle foreshadowing, somebody will figure it out and post it online, and it will become common knowledge in no time, ruining all the suspence. if you make an even subtler foreshadowing, nobody will figure it out, but you'll need the author explanation to enjoy the story.

 

 

What I argue is that how Sazed knew they were happy if their minds and souls were beyond his reach. I might come as presumptuous in assuming that if Elend's and Vin's minds lingered in the cognitive realm and were given the choice of going back and live "happily ever after with eachother" they would have taken it. Instead of splitting more and maybe appart into realms not even Sazed had an idea of what they are about. 

 

Yeah I was not aware that those bands were not Rashek's, but...a random creation of maybe Kelsier?. I'll find out as soon as I read the  Secret History

 

Yeah I whole heartedly agree. The last 5 books were good of not needing an extra expalnation...to what I would say casual fans like me were satisfied. But, this 6th book raises so many questions that makes me think first in plot holes rather than the need to extra explore the universe.

 

 

Also, I don't see the problem of being happy after passing on. Isn't that the basis of afterlife for, well, a ton of religions? That you've done enough and suffered enough in life, and now you can move on? They gave their lives and all their effort to preserve the world, now they can rest in peace together. Unlike a certain meddling fellow.

 

So it's a heaven? But Sazed said he has no idea what it is. Sooo how he knows they are happy if there are no means of communication? Hell I'm all for them to be eternally happy. Instead of broken in pieces and their mind in cosmere and their soul uh...maybe returning to a some sort of Gaea (spirit of the planet) theory?

 

Have you (the OP) read Words of Radiance?

 

Nope. I'll add it to my ever growing list of books to read

 

 

I think King made a great point there. I'm not an avid follower of the interviews or forums, but I do read all the annotations and try to keep aware of the greater Cosmere.

[so I figured out early on that the Sovereign was not Rashek, but a certain person who loves to interfere. Knowing that said person had been active during HoA helped a lot. I already knew about the Southern Control group and was only surprised that we were meeting them so early.]

Brandon has explained the difference between brain death and heart stopping, which is the general method to determine how long someone can be brought back. Investiture changes this somehow, at least on Scadrial. (If this is only true of Scadrial it may be due to preservation. We have yet to see if Investiture does this [keeping the person around for a bit] on other worlds.)

Not knowing any of the above would certainly make it feel wrong. What makes this really interesting is that, for those who only read Adventures, those points would not be much of an issue. They would assume it was mentioned in the first series! For those of us who try to keep aware of WoBs this has been hinted for years. For those who only read the various books, but not the outside information, those plot points came out of nowhere.

WHY do spoiler tags never work for me?

 

I guess that since I read those 6 books one after another in a lil span of time, I have some things fresher than say in a span of years. So that's whyI didn't assume them but rather questioned them. They did came out of knowhere those plot points to me :/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanx for all your help guys!!!!

Edited March 15, 2016 by Luciellav

[natc]

Well, we don't know what's on the other side, but basically they were fine with going there in the first place.

Just read Secret History.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Since my spoilers should hopefully work now:

[saze does offer Vin and Elend a chance to return. But Elend has all but passed beyond at that point, and Vin chooses to go with him. They seemed quite happy to me...]

Without reading SH; there were a few minutes between Elend's death and Vin killing Ruin. Then a few more before Saze took up the power, and still more as he fixed the world. Brain death occurs in 8 minutes, approximately. Saze also says in his note that he expects he'll get better at bringing people back as he gains experience. 300 years later...

Edited March 15, 2016 by Kingsdaughter613

[Luciellav]

Since my spoilers should hopefully work now:

[saze does offer Vin and Elend a chance to return. But Elend has all but passed beyond at that point, and Vin chooses to go with him. They seemed quite happy to me...]

Without reading SH; there were a few minutes between Elend's death and Vin killing Ruin. Then a few more before Saze took up the power, and still more as he fixed the world. Brain death occurs in 8 minutes, approximately. Saze also says in his note that he expects he'll get better at bringing people back as he gains experience. 300 years later...

 

Well that makes sense. TY! 

[Landis963]

Sorry, my internet connection messed up and double posted... How do I delete this?!

 

There'll be an option to "Hide" next to the edit button.  That'll work just fine.  

[natc]

Really, shards come with an operating manual for how to make specific operations of magic-business (for some reason) and expands your mind so you can control it, but to arrive at specific results still takes some practice. It's like knowing how to chisel a sculpture versus actually making a good sculpture instead of a completely broken lump.

Sazed had actual scientific records and data as a guideline when fixing the world itself, but nobody has actually ever, well, resurrected people before. He didn't know enough about the workings of the three realms yet to realize what steps he needed to take that he didn't take.

Ironically most general healing magics in the cosmere (including feruchemy) can actually do all those steps by default with enough power.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Thank you Landis.

[Voidus]

Since my spoilers should hopefully work now:

[saze does offer Vin and Elend a chance to return. But Elend has all but passed beyond at that point, and Vin chooses to go with him. They seemed quite happy to me...]

Without reading SH; there were a few minutes between Elend's death and Vin killing Ruin. Then a few more before Saze took up the power, and still more as he fixed the world. Brain death occurs in 8 minutes, approximately. Saze also says in his note that he expects he'll get better at bringing people back as he gains experience. 300 years later...

SH spoilers

That's a little spoilery even outside the tags. Not really since it's based on known things but just try to be careful about SH, it's really easy to spoil accidentally.

But yeah, basically your question is addressed in Secret History so I definitely recommend it.

[Kingsdaughter613]

I thought the stuff outside the spoilers was only from HoA? Where did I mess up?

[Pagerunner]

Upvote for you, OP, for the questions you raised. I strongly disagree with the overall point you're trying to make - I don't think they are plot holes or evidences of poor planning. However, the first three points you make are questions that I feel engaged readers are supposed to come away with. Comparing BoM to the past books and saying, "Hey, some of the things as presented in this book don't make much sense!" Which really has to do with where this book fits in with the larger Mistborn saga as a whole.

 

Despite being book 6, Bands of Mourning is actually the second book in a trilogy, which is itself the second trilogy of four planned trilogies. To explain:

• Final Empire, Well of Ascension, and Hero of Ages was the first trilogy. Brandon had two more trilogies planned in different eras of the world (a "modern" trilogy at a 1980s tech level, and a sci-fi trilogy), to have nine total Mistborn books.
• He wrote Alloy of Law as a side-project, which would stand alone while also laying some groundwork for the "modern" trilogy.
• He wound up liking Alloy's characters and setting so much that he reworked the overall plan to include a fourth trilogy. Shadows of Self began that trilogy, Bands of Mourning is the second book, and there will be one last Wax and Wayne book, tentatively titled "The Lost Metal."

Some of these books are designed to have satisfying endings. Final Empire, as the first book in the whole series, needs to be largely self-contained to satisfy new readers. Hero of Ages closes a trilogy. Alloy of Law was not written with sequels in mind. These books can be largely self-contained, as you mentioned above. I suspect that The Lost Metal will not leave us with a lot of unanswered questions, since it will be closing the book on Wax and Wayne.

 

However, "middle" books don't need to answer every question that's raised in them. Well of Ascension doesn't stand on its own by any means - imagine reading that without being able to read Hero of Ages immediately afterward. What's this crazy thing saying it's free? Why are the texts changing? Who's speaking to Zane? What's the Mist Spirit about? All of these unanswered questions point towards Hero of Ages; just because the questions haven't been answered doesn't mean they are plot holes.

 

Same with Shadows of Self; sure, Elendel was saved from the riots, but the greater question of who was behind it all was left unresolved. I was frustrated in Bands of Mourning at how quickly everyone seemed to forget about the unknown metal that Paalm was using for her spikes; it didn't come up at all in the book, despite being a major cliffhanger from the previous book. But it obviously is pointing towards something in the future of the series.

 

So, there are things in Bands of Mourning that point towards the eventual finale of the trilogy. The questions you're asking are great ones, ones that I also wondered about when I was reading through. How could Rashek have survived? The powers attributed to the Bands early in the novel didn't match what we had previously seen from The Lord Ruler; what was the deal with that? How did the Southerners survive when Sazed remade the world? When the heck did Kelsier hold the Power of Ascension? They are not questions that the author is ignoring, or that he is rewriting the in-universe history, but he is laying the groundwork for the future of the series, as he has always done.

 

Specifically with the Southerners coming out of nowhere, that is helping to bridge the gap between the empire-scale stories we've seen thus far and the global-scale stories that will be coming in the "modern" trilogy and "sci-fi" trilogy. We're stepping out of the relatively small world of Mistborn we've seen thus far into a much larger one, where other continents and other gods come into play, and eventually other worlds. The entire Mistborn Saga isn't just building on the events of the original trilogy; there are pieces and concepts that were outside the scope of the Final Empire, and we're beginning to zoom out and see the larger Mistborn world.

 

The Mistborn series has always had unreliable narrators and things coming out of left field. But if you pay close enough attention, you can catch the hints left behind. Vin had a spike through her ear and heard voices. Non-human intelligences (Inquisitors, Kandra) only come about through spikes, so the Koloss must also reproduce using spikes. The Hero of Ages held the future of the world "on his arms," referring to Sazed's bracers. Those are the kinds of things you're picking up on - intentional "errors" in the narrative. Rashek couldn't have saved the Southerners - he was dead! (The mysterious figure might have been TenSoon, Spook, Kelsier.) How did the Southerners survive, and how did they get there in the first place? What's the deal with their cubes and airships? (From interviews, we've learned that the title for the next book is a reference to ettmetal, so we'll definitely be learning a lot more about the Southerners in a few years.) How can the Bands give people Allomancy? (They use the same phenomenon as the Southerner's medallions, which is a new way to use Allomancy and Feruchemy, and we'll be seeing more details in the next book.)

 

So, I don't view them as a bug, but as a feature. You're supposed to ask those questions, you're supposed to catch those "mistakes," because they're not the author's mistakes, but the mistakes of the characters and the in-universe historians. It's something that's also a major aspect of Brandon's other big series right now, The Stormlight Archive (two books published, The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance, and eight more on the way), where the stories and legends the characters believe are suspect, and what is "known" about the world cannot be taken at face value. So, Bands of Mourning almost took over as my new favorite Mistborn novel (still didn't manage to beat Final Empire), in part because so much was left hanging about who Sovereign was and how he did what he did. I'm exicted to see what happens in the next book, because I saw, like you, that too many parts of the "official" story didn't line up. We get to try to catch the lies and mistakes before the answers are handed to us on a silver platter in The Lost Metal. When we find out the details behind the true history of the Bands, instead of saying "Oh, it's cool how the author threw everyone a red herring, and the Bands of Mourning weren't made by The Lord Ruler at all," you get to say "I knew it!"

[king of nowhere]

 

After reading a spoiler free review on amazon... I assume that Kelsier somehow made those new bands of mourning. Still like I said some lines up there, I thought it was TenSoon instead of real Kelsier...since he was deader than dead to me.

 

 

Actually, the "kelsier" that was seen by some city guards in hero of ages was tensoon. kelsier didn't have a body, he survived as a sort of god, but he still had enough power to wisper to a few chosen people at appropriate moments. Notice how he kept spook going in his darkest moment, setting up the events that would lead to the ending of HoA.

 

Also, pagerunner makes good points; while at the moment the book is only fully understandable by those who read the forum, it may be that those explanations will be included in the last book of the alloy era.

[Voidus]

I thought the stuff outside the spoilers was only from HoA? Where did I mess up?

That was actually my fault, I misread something what you wrote was fine.

This is what happens when I'm awake at 3am without my bronze spikes.

[Landis963]

That was actually my fault, I misread something what you wrote was fine.

This is what happens when I'm awake at 3am without my bronze spikes.

 

Why in the world would you ever take those out?  

[Kingsdaughter613]

Oh, good. I'm new to the forums and was worried I'd messed up.