The following is an author’s annotation that relates to a specific chapter of the book MISTBORN: THE FINAL EMPIRE. Note that the following is NOT the text of the actual chapter, but a companion to the chapter, revealing “behind the scenes” information. If you have not read the book up to–and including–this chapter, you risk serious spoilers! Please, if you haven’t read MISTBORN, go visit the sample chapters, or perhaps purchase the book via Amazon.

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Chapter Fourteen Part Two

I don’t spend an awful lot of time here talking about the back-story with Mare and Kelsier. I’ll get to more of it later. However, you know just about all you’re going to know about their failed plan. Kelsier thought there was atium in this room. They tried to sneak in. They got caught.

In a way, Kelsier is indeed reliving his last days with Mare by trying to break into the room again. He’s a Mistborn now, and he wants to accomplish now what he was defeated in earlier.

This chapter is also another example of the hard edge Kelsier has. He kills his enemies without any pause at all. In my opinion, it was the Pits that did this too him. He’s been thought something so horrible that death just isn’t as meaningful for him as it once was.

This altar room is about all you get to see of the actual religious trappings of the Final Empire. As I’ve said earlier, I intentionally gave the religion in this book a bureaucratic feel. I think that with a living God, the people would be less inclined to faith, prayer, or that sort of worship–and it would be more about obedience and loyalty. So, the obligators and Ministry are police more than they priests.

Yet, I did want to hint that there are some ceremonial aspects to the religion–they just aren’t things that the Lord Ruler cares about the public masses taking part in. This little room, with its strange bowl of tiny knives and odd altar, was intended to evoke a kind of mystical, religious feel. Enough to hint that there’s more that the readers don’t know, but not enough to get boring.

Also, if you paused to read this annotation after that chapter ending–without reading on to the next chapter to see what happened next–then you’re some kind of superhuman.