Annotation Mistborn Chapter Eleven
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 Eleven
This book is quite a bit more violent than ELANTRIS. I worry about that, sometimes. I hope I don’t put people off who enjoyed my first novel. Several things save me, I think.
First off, though people initially don’t think of ELANTRIS as a gruesome book, it really does include quite a few disturbing elements. The brutality of the people in Elantris, for instance, or the slaughtering done by the Dakhor monks. In chapter one of Elantris, we see a boy with his throat crushed, seeping blood. So, really, there isn’t anything in MISTBORN that stands out THAT much.
The difference is, I guess, that one of the heroes is himself a killer. Also, we have scenes like this one, which are just plain disturbing.
Originally, I had Vin far less emotionally affected by the scene of slaughter. I wanted to imply that she’s seen a lot of death and hardship in her life, and so something like this wasn’t all that shocking to her. Alpha readers, however, found her too callous here. I did a rewrite, and realized that I liked it much better with Vin reacting emotionally to the scene of death. She still puts up a strong front, which is very like her. However, she no longer just walks through it without reacting.
We get another mention of the Deepness here. I am a bit sad that I didn’t get to spend very much time in this novel explaining the mythology behind the Lord Ruler’s rise to power. I get to plenty of that in the next two books, fortunately. So, you’ve got a lot to look forward to.
Oh, and no. I don’t know what Camon’s throat-rope is tied to. You did have a foreshadowing of this kind of execution earlier in the book. (Though, to be honest, I added that in during a rewrite. I didn’t come up with particular method of killing someone until I got to this point in the book. It seemed to me that the Inquisitors wouldn’t just kill Camon. They’d do something more drastic.)
