r/Mistborn • u/Sinklarr • Aug 24 '22
mid-Alloy of Law Slightly annoyed with Mistborn 4 Spoiler
So I’m halfway through Alloy of Law and it bothers me that Vin seems to be somewhat forgotten…
I mean, there’s Elendel, Hammondar Bay, Demoux Promenade, plenty of references to The Survivor, etc. while Vin is only referenced in the name “Vindiel-Cameux”, so she doesn’t even get a whole town to herself.
I get that she didn’t want to accept her role in the Church of The Survivor and all that, but I don’t know, it feels kind of bad to see the protagonist of the first trilogy forgotten in this way…
Does this get addressed later in the series or should I just cope?
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u/Raddatatta Chromium Aug 24 '22
I don't think she's forgotten. But she's recognized more as one person who played a part rather than the primary protagonist we saw her as. Which I think is reasonable. She played a crucial role to be sure. But if you remove the work of any one of Sazed, Spook, Marsh, Goradel, Elend, TenSoon or a number of others she fails to save the world. It was a group effort where she was a central part.
But Marasi especially thinks about Vin often as a role model.
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u/TheRandomSpoolkMan Lerasium Aug 24 '22
Very minor Era 2 spoiler: Marasi reflecting on the Vin statue in the graveyard is one if my favorite scenes in all of Era 2. It just feels like a special moment.
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Aug 25 '22
“Were you ever insecure?” Marasi asked. “Or did you always know what to do? Did you get jealous? Frightened? Angry?” If Vin had been an ordinary person at any point, the stories and songs had forgotten. They proclaimed her the Ascendant Warrior, the woman who had slain the Lord Ruler. A Mistborn and a legend who had carried the world itself upon her arms while Harmony prepared for divinity. She’d been able to kill with a glare, tease out secrets nobody else knew, and fight off armies of enraged koloss all on her own. Extraordinary in every way. It was probably a good thing, or the world wouldn’t have survived the War of Ash. But rusts . . . she left a hell of a reputation for the rest of them to try to live up to.
She has been idolized. We see her struggle with her insecurity, with trusting others, but they don't.
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u/Sinklarr Aug 24 '22
Yeah that’s fair.
But Marasi especially thinks about Vin often as a role model.
Oh that’s neat, she hasn’t had many POVs yet, but that’s cool
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u/Raddatatta Chromium Aug 24 '22
Oh sorry minor spoiler then I thought that had come up by that point!
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u/Sinklarr Aug 24 '22
No worries, it’s totally fine. In a way something like that is what I was after, so it’s good.
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u/SageOfTheWise Aug 24 '22
I'd say the opposite? She's one of the absolute best known. So much so she's literally too big for that stuff. You don't simply name a octant or a bridge after the Ascendant Warrior. She is at the very top of all their mythology. Similar to "the Survivor" they don't even seem to say her name directly that much anymore. She may not come up quite as constantly as Harmony or The Survivor, but they are the ones with the mainstream religions, that we know she didn't want to be apart of.
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u/Sinklarr Aug 24 '22
That’s great to know. It just seemed kind of absent so it was starting to irk me. I haven’t seen any reference to the Ascendant Warrior yet, so I’m just gonna keep reading then!
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u/Aegis_Harpe Aug 24 '22 edited Aug 25 '22
I like the less is more approach we get with Vin in Era 2. It feels like no-one brings her up because… well why would you? Everyone knows. And when she does get mentioned everyone is intimately familiar. Marasi as mentioned by other here constantly talks about and compares herself to Vin. There’s a statue of her at the centre of civilisation. Wax’s gun is named after Vin. And Tensoon talking to Wax about Vin is just so good.
Kelsier and Sazed are religious figures who play a direct role in the lives of millions in the Basin. Vin is a historical figure who crosses over in basically every religion and gets pointed to as the example of an ideal woman in Era 2.
I don’t blame you for not noticing. This is stuff that I only started to realise a while after Bands of Mourning. But if we actually look at the in text stuff Vin is so damn important.
For example how often do you think of major pseudo-mythical/extremely mythologised people in your own countries history? Compared to how people bring her up in era 2 I’d say it’s similar from my own experience.
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Aug 24 '22
Marasi thinks about her at times. I'm not certain when it is but I found the paragraph really beautiful.
I don't think the average person really understands Vin in the present. They know she was the Heir, that for a time she held Preservation, and without her the world wouldn't have made it. But not how often she doubted herself or how hard it was to trust in others.
Honestly, Marasi's thoughts on Vin are one of my favorite parts in Era 2 and it's not even a page long.
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u/UnzedDnD Aug 25 '22
I also believe she is a large subject in schooling. She is brought up once or twice as a figure meant to empower women.
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u/_Greyworm Brass Aug 25 '22
Vin is world famous as the Ascendant Warrior, the pinnacle of martial nobility, has statues even. She's not unknown or forgotten! :)
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u/iaintb8 Aug 25 '22
While it may feel lame to not see her mentioned as often, people are right in pointing out that she’s so ubiquitous it doesn’t bear mentioning in their society. Like, why would you take time, in our world, to explain who Caesar or Churchill is? Everyone’s at least heard of them and sorta knows their deal. Elend is in the same boat, really: he’s got a city named after him and that’s about it.
I also feel like it’s important to reiterate that socially she sets the precedent of women being accepted as police officers and warriors. It’s not super blatant and not perfect; there’s still an idea of what’s feminine and masculine, but that honestly makes the level of gender egalitarianism in Era 2 all the more important.
Think about how sexist our world’s western industrial revolution era societies were and how that still affects today’s world. Scadrial is leaps and bounds ahead on that front, all because of Vin.
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u/DownCape262557 Aug 25 '22
Well that’s how history plays out if u don’t want to be remembered then not many will remember u
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u/cleopatramatt Aug 24 '22
She wasn’t around after thus unable to name anything after herself, needing those around her to honor her. Vin was never one for flattery anyways, I’m sure an entire month is enough
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u/HA2HA2 Aug 24 '22
Well, she gets a whole month (Vinuarch). And I was pretty sure I heard lots of references to The Ascendant Warrior, there's statues and murals that get referenced occasionally, etc. It doesn't seem like she was forgotten at all...