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Chapter Thirty-Two

You know you’re getting to the end of the book when I start to tie up the small plot arcs, leaving room for the big ones to climax. In this chapter, we have two nice little resolutions. First, the Spook/Vin relationship arc. This one wasn’t extremely important, but I think it added a nice human touch to Spook, which is useful since he will get more screen time in later books.

Secondly, we get the final ‘train with a Misting’ scene for Vin. Again, this is a small arc, but it was nice to get it finished, for the sake of cohesion. She’s now gotten tips on all of the basic metals except copper, which is the simple on/off metal.

This is the most overt and obvious of my savior-imagery scenes for Kelsier. I hope you didn’t feel like I was hitting you over the head with it. (I didn’t actually realize the similarity between Survivor and Savior until I was part of the way through the book.) Either way, yes, the Christian imagery is intentional. I didn’t put it in simply because I’m religious (after all, if you look at it, Kelsier isn’t really all that Christian in the way he deals with people.) I put it in because I think that the images and metaphors of Christianity are deeply-seated in our culture, and drawing upon them provides for a more powerful story.

Part of this is to intentionally make people uncomfortable–for discomfort (when used right) leads to tension. The Christians who read this might be made uncomfortable by how strikingly un-divine Kelsier is. He’s acting in some of the same roles as Christ did, but he’s not the man that Christ was. He’s kind of a pale imitation. The non-Christians, in turn, might be made uncomfortable by the fact that Kelsier is manipulating the people in the way that religions often do, giving hope in something that could very well prove to be false.

Either way, he is what he is. The truest Kelsier is the one we see near the end, where he’s standing in the kitchen, smoldering in his black clothing. He is a dangerous man with powerful beliefs.

This is also the chapter where we get the climax of the Pits/atium plot. We finally get to see them first-hand, and see Kelsier go to them and exact his revenge upon them. I worry that I should have foreshadowed this more, pointing out that Kelsier knew of a way to destroy the atium crystals. The problem is, I’ve left the Pits intentionally mysterious.