Mistborn Liveblog 7

Chapter 6

I've had a few thoughts about what the point of all of this is for me. I mean, for someone who's already read Mistborn, it may not be very interesting to read someone discuss the book chapter by chapter in this manner. And for someone who's not read the book, the bulk of what I've written has had spoilers, so there's not much point for them to be here.

So, what is the purpose, I ask myself. And I think I've come to an answer. You see, I'm an unpublished writer myself. I took over a decade off of writing to explore more "traditional" employment. I currently work as a public school teacher. Anyway, my decade away coincided with a decade of less reading. Now that I'm back into both, I need a bit of extra spurring and commitment to make myself devote the time to reading and writing-- otherwise the rest of life just gets in the way.

So, for me, that's the point. Now, onto the Mistborn Spoilers:
After all the excitement of the last chapter, it fits to have a chapter that focuses on planning and preparation. It makes good pacing sense to me, and I still found the chapter interesting, though I'm wavering on my feelings for Kelsier. I really don't know what to make of that guy. I mean, it's like he wants to have weaknesses and vulnerabilities, but he never shows them, not even when he's alone. He's got an answer, or at least a response for everything-- even if he doesn't have a solution. But I get the feeling he's got a ton of stuff in his mind that he's not sharing. Or at least he's busily steering everyone in this planning stage to the plan he already has in mind.

For this chapter, we're once again in Vin's point of view, though she added very little commentary on what was happening-- in fact she was so little involved at some parts that it was easy to forget it was her from her view. There was a lot of conversations and she was just the camera on a swivel-stand panning from one face to another. Don't get me wrong-- it certainly worked for the scene and she did get involved a bit later on and provided some good ideas to the discussion. I'm just used to the color of her life-lens and it wasn't much there in the chapter.

There was really only on thing I disliked in this chapter: Kelsier's use of the chalkboard. I mean, really? Sure, I got a nice clear visual of the whole scene and the board fit right in, but to what purpose? I can't remember the last time I read a book that wasn't a teaching manual that had such blatant use of a chalkboard. I can understand "Kelsier turned and jotted down a few words on the board behind him" but do I really need to know every word he wrote? It felt so unnecessary and jarring for me that I struggled every time an italicized word appeared on the page.

I'm not going to worry about the details of their plan. It's all going to fall apart anyway-- at least, that's my guess. See you tomorrow. Happy reading!

Jameson