Follow TV Tropes

Following

Trivia / Mistborn: The Original Trilogy

Go To

  • Contest Winner Cameo: The real person Aradan Yomen is named after has the surname Yeoman, thus also making this an example of My Nayme Is.
  • What Could Have Been:
    • Sanderson has been very transparent regarding the writing process of the trilogy, explaining in detail his thought and creative processes in official annotations on his website. Often, this includes revealing unused concepts, beats or developments from original drafts, as well as why they were changed. A few are listed below:
      • The trilogy was originally two separate works - Mistborn, which had the magic system, and Final Empire, which had the basic concept and setting. Sanderson, dissatisfied with both of them, put them together and came up with something he liked a lot more.
      • Vin also went through several concepts. The original Vin was actually male, but got genderflipped when the character just wasn't gelling. The next concept had Vin already being the leader of her own crew when Kelsier recruited her- this was scrapped because the "weak person discovers her own power" aspect of Vin's arc loses a lot of punch if she's already starting from a position of comparative strength. The version immediately before the Vin who made it into the published trilogy was essentially her canonical self, but much more critical of the people around her, even doing a running mental commentary of everything her crewleader, Camon, was doing wrong in her first scene. This was cut because it made Camon look incompetent and Vin more than a little obnoxious.
      • The ending of Well of Ascension had quite a dramatic rewrite from the original drafts. Originally, the Well of Ascension was still located in Terris, as told in legend. Therefore, the original ending consisted of Vin setting out after saving Luthadel, reaching Terris with Elend and Spook, and finding the Well. However, Sanderson quickly realised that suddenly switching gears from the dramatic Siege of Luthadel to essentially a brief travelogue through the mountains would've been very disjointed, jarring and anti-climactic. Thus, the Well of Ascension was moved to Luthadel, with Sanderson having to rewrite lore reasons and foreshadowing for the Well's change in location. In the original ending, instead of Sazed chasing after Vin into Kredik Shaw to stop her reaching the Well, he was convinced by the Mist Spirit of the changes in Kwaan's message, and set out for the Conventical of Seran, fighting Marsh there instead. Four Mist Spirits (one confirmed to be Endowment) appear to drive Marsh away, as opposed to Ham saving Sazed in the published version. Part of the Conventical visit still occurs in the published book, just now moved to the epilogue. The original ending can be read for free on his website here.

Top