Mistborn: The Hero of Ages by: Brandon Sanderson

The first Mistborn trilogy ends with The Hero of Ages as its final installment where the stakes are raised and Brandon Sanderson promises that not every character will make it out alive.  While the first two novels in the trilogy include a gradual power incline in terms of their heroes and villains, but this is turned up to eleven in the final novel as the villain is an anthropomorphized personification of the concept of evil itself.  “Ruin” like the other two villains in the trilogy follows the same format of being off the page for much of the novel’s page count, but its effects are still felt by the characters and through their actions.  The world of Scadriel is literally turning to a ruinous state as the mists are invading, ash is falling more than ever, and people are falling ill.  Sanderson sets this book as characters in a time of plague, perhaps explaining why it took far too long to finish reading.  “Ruin” as a character allows Sanderson to explore religious themes as the “Hero of Ages” is eventually revealed to be a literal translation for the concept of a God.  By God, Sanderson explicitly states an omniscient, omnipresent, and all-loving deity through his wordplay, which is where the book perhaps falls down in its theming.  There is a success in the novel where the misdirection on who the Hero of Ages is, as it is a final twist for the story, and at least poking fun at the ‘fantasy hero becomes a god’ trope in fiction, however, it is the weaker apologetics in the book which brings things in The Hero of Ages to leave the reader wanting.

Sanderson does succeed in making “Ruin” work as an amoral force of nature, avoiding becoming an analogy to the concept of Satan.  “Ruin” is a fully fleshed out character who only seems to be tormenting Vin in the second half of the novel because we are seeing its actions through her eyes.  It’s also what pushes Vin to the completion of her own arc: it is only in The Hero of Ages where she really can recover from the abuse that her brother put her through as a child; it is only here where she truly can love Elend, in what is essentially his final moments.  Vin has gained power and much like the Lord Ruler in The Final Empire, she is starting down almost the same path.  She wants to see everyone saved, which is what brought the Lord Ruler into his tyranny, and the reader hangs on to see just how her character arc will conclude.  On the other hand, Elend essentially serves as Vin’s own foil.  His growth to leadership in The Well of Ascension has grown here as he has found himself to be a Mistborn, and he serves, for the first time, as a primary protagonist for the series: leading his troops and acting as a general throughout the novel.

The worldbuilding is also a point where the novel shines as Sanderson really explores the origins of his fantasy creatures as either of “Ruin” or of “Ruin’s” opposite “Preservation”.  Much time is spent with the kandra, eventually culminating in the reveal of how the kandra and koloss came to be.  Sanderson lets his horror muscles fly as there is quite a bit of body horror here as spikes being driven into people to put them under someone’s power are described in detail.  Marsh gets his own point of view which creates a disconnect for the character as he has lost all of his humanity at this point.  He is not acting in his own manner and does horrendous acts, yet is redeemed in the end by being allowed a quick death.  There’s also deeper themes of making men into idols, with apparitions of Kelsier being shown to Spook, implied to either be part of “Ruin” or of “Preservation” in this novel.  Spook is one of those interesting background characters, who Sanderson uses for several purposes throughout the trilogy, from comic relief, to being given his own story of growth.  The Hero of Ages may have more issues than the previous installments in the trilogy, but it does provide a satisfactory end to the story.  Yes, there are more Mistborn novels, but they tell different stories set further in the future.  As a book, it makes the trilogy worthwhile and if you have read the first two there really is no reason as to not pick up this concluding installment.  8/10.