Chapter 5
Welcome back to a new week. Five chapters in, roughly a hundred pages and I finally get to see Brandon Sanderson work a fight scene, plus see some major Allomancy at work. This chapter is easily my favorite so far, but before I dive into it, there's something I've been neglecting.
At the beginning of each chapter, there's a bit of text from the view of some hero. I didn't think much of it at first, but now that a second story is starting to take shape, I have a few thoughts on it.
Bur first, the requisite warning. Spoilers:
The alternate story seems to be the traditional hero-tale with legends and prophecies and everything. I can't help but think it's got something to do with Kelsier-- maybe explaining in some way how he became an Allomancer while in the pits. It's hard to know with just a few paragraphs on each chapter, but I'll have to pay a bit more attention to this part as its going forward.
There are a few great things about this chapter. I liked learning a bit more about Kelsier's past-- that he wasn't a Mistborn until after he was sent to the pits. There's a lot of intrigue in that, but it makes me wonder why him-- why not everyone who is sent to the pits? Or maybe everyone at the pits does become an Allomancer of some kind, but since no one survives them, no one really knows about it.
I finally got to see a lot more about the Allomantic powers. Pushing and Pulling metals is cool, but I love that Brandon's introduction to them is with Kelsier mock-flying through the city. The visuals of this sequence are by far my favorite in the book so far. I stopped picturing Kelsier for a while and started only seeing Batman-- cape and all-- grappling through gotham the way he does in the Arkham City game. Grapple, launch, glide, repeat. Kelsier is like that, only his grappling hook is invisible. All we need now are some skyscrapers in the city and he could totally Spiderman his way around.
The fight scene was pretty good, though I started to really lose track of the action with all the Allomancy thrown in. I totally get that it was easily the best way to show off why Mistborn are so much more powerful than Mistings or regular people, and it really showcased the different powers and Kelsier's creativity. But I couldn't help but feel a bit underwhelmed by the whole sequence. It's not that I expected more action or even superhero feats-- I just never felt any kind of genuine peril. It felt like Kelsier was just toying around, even getting hurt he never seemed to be afraid at all. Perhaps that's just his personality, and he seemed to know what to expect long before his foes showed up. I guess it's just the first fight, and it did serve its purpose in showing off the powers. I'm hoping later fights get a bit more tense, with some actual threats.
Oh, and for such a carefree and confident guy, Kelsier's got no bones about killing anyone. I'm determined that there's got to be more to him that I'm just not shown yet-- more about his wife's death, perhaps, or his Snapping in the pits-- something that further explains him.
See you tomorrow. Happy reading.
Jameson
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