I just finished Brandon Sanderson’s first Mistborn trilogy. That would include the original Mistborn novel (now subtitled The Final Empire to distinguish it in the series), The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages. Though I have come across some readers who claim that they could tell Sanderson (who teaches a writing course at BYU) is a Latter-day Saint (LDS) and see the influence of Mormonism on his writing just a few pages into Mistborn, I didn’t really pick up many obvious or specific LDS influences in the first novel.
That changed drastically in the second novel. By the time of the third novel I was picking out numerous direct influences of and references to LDS theology, ideology, and even the Book of Mormon. As I started going online, eager to talk with other LDS nerds about these references to our faith in one of the best fantasy present day fantasy series (better by far than Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire), I was dismayed to discover that no one else had picked up on them (or written about them if they had.) To be clear there was some, but most of it was generic, vague, or simplistic. It was unfulfilling to say the least.
This article is my attempt to remedy that.
It is worth noting that as we look at these influences that only a few of them seem like direct references. Most of them are less direct, but the influence seems evident. This is not surprising. Sanderson did not merely dress up Mormonism and LDS doctrine in a fantasy ball gown and try to secretly slip it into everyone’s reading. Nor are the events of the Mistborn trilogy an analogy for LDS cosmology, theology, scripture, or history. The Tales of Alvin Maker this is not. But that doesn’t mean that his beliefs have no effect on Sanderson. It is just the opposite, Sanderson is a devout Latter-day Saint and, consequently, LDS theology, mythology, and values have a deep and profound impact on his life. His faith defines who he is and who he is trying to be. It is no surprise then that his religious beliefs influence what he writes, both in Mistborn and his other books as well. It would be shocking if his faith did not. Sanderson himself explains it this way:
[M]y religion makes up a big part of who I am. Because I am religious myself, I am fascinated by religion. …My religion shapes who I am, and it makes me interested in certain things; it makes me fascinated by certain things; it shapes my sense of right and wrong.
…Most of what people are noticing isn’t so much intentional as inevitable. Just like people see WWII influences in Tolkien (though he denied that there were such parallels) there are going to be LDS parallels in my books.
I don’t seek to expunge them; they are part of who I am. If I’m reaching into mythology and history for my foundations, I’m going to dip into LDS sources more often than others. So, the parallels you are seeing are real things, most likely–though it’s not intentional allegory.
That explains what follows. While there are a few places where the connections between the ideas and events of the Mistborn trilogy and LDS theology/beliefs are stronger (such as the references to the Book of Mormon) most of the connections are based more upon shared themes, ideas, and concepts. It isn’t a direct connection, but a direct influence that we will most often see. While I do not think I have nailed all the places where these influences exist, I have tried to nail down most of the obvious ones (and maybe even a few of the less obvious ones) here. If you know of any others, make a comment and I may add it to the article in the future.
Now, a note before going any farther, there will be spoilers here. The final book in the first trilogy, The Hero of Ages, has been out for over a decade now. Any spoiler embargo upon it expired long ago and, really, in order to discuss a lot of what we will need to discuss I will need to spoil a lot of things. If you haven’t read the books you may want to go and read them and then come back here afterwards.
Book of Mormon Influences
In, The Well of Ascension, the second novel of the trilogy, the larger metaplot for the series kicks into high gear. By the end of the book you’re told that there is a vast force of corruption and destruction called Ruin who is manipulating events in the world to trick the heroes into freeing him from his imprisonment. One of the ways he does this is by manipulating prophecies written down by past prophets about the coming of the Hero of Ages, also called the Savior. (Well, pg.123) Ruin’s two main ways of doing this is either by altering the texts of these holy writings or by removing text altogether from them. As a result, the most important information the heroes need is either lost, misunderstood, or, worse, intentionally changed so that their actions will directly (though unknowingly) serve Ruin and his goal of destroying the world. This happens in a major way at the end of this book and then repeatedly throughout The Hero of Ages.
In order to prevent this from happening to his writings an ancient religious leader and scholar named Kwann wrote his record of the true history of who he had thought was the Savior, the Hero of Ages, a man named Alendi, on metal slabs:
I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.
…I write this record now, pounding it into a metal slab, because I am afraid.
The Well of Ascension, pgs. 4, 60
We will come back to Alendi, whose description bears a striking resemblance to another Book of Mormon personage. For now, I want to focus on these two lines from his writings and the reason why Kwaan wrote on metal slabs.
First, upon reading the quotes lines from The Well of Ascension above, I was immediately struck by how familiar they felt, like I had read something very like them somewhere else before. I started hunting and came across Jacob 4:1-2, which reads:
Now behold, it came to pass that I, Jacob, having ministered much unto my people in word, (and I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates) and we know that the things which we write upon plates must remain;
But whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away; but we can write a few words upon plates, which will give our children, and also our beloved brethren, a small degree of knowledge concerning us, or concerning their fathers
Why does Kwaan write on steel slabs? Because nothing not written in metal can be altered, changed, or lost through the corrupting influence of Ruin. Why does Jacob write on metal plates (not dinner plates, but similar in look to a book page)? Because anything not written in metal will perish and be lost, either through the corrupting rot of mortality or through the actions of Satan (and really, if you believe the Eden account even symbolically, Satan and the rot of mortality are intrinsically linked.) These are thematically the same and the lines sound similar in my ear.
Secondly, does the story of an ancient religious leader writing on metal plates because anything written on anything else will be changed, altered, or otherwise lost because of the influence of an ancient force of destruction, evil, and corruption on his religion sound familiar to my Latter-day Saint readers? If not, read the words of the Prophet Nephi as he describes the way the Bible would be corrupted and who it would be corrupted by:
And it came to pass that I saw among the nations of the Gentiles the formation of a great church.
And the angel said unto me: Behold the formation of a church which is most abominable above all other churches, which slayeth the saints of God, yea, and tortureth them and bindeth them down, and yoketh them with a yoke of iron, and bringeth them down into captivity.
And it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was the founder of it.
[Nephi then sees the Gentiles prosper in the land and a book go forth among them.]
And the angel of the Lord said unto me: Thou hast beheld that the book proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew; and when it proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew it contained the fulness of the gospel of the Lord, of whom the twelve apostles bear record; and they bear record according to the truth which is in the Lamb of God.
Wherefore, these things go forth from the Jews in purity unto the Gentiles, according to the truth which is in God.
And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken away.
And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of men.
Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God.
…For, behold, saith the Lamb: I will manifest myself unto thy seed, that they shall write many things which I shall minister unto them, which shall be plain and precious; and after thy seed shall be destroyed, and dwindle in unbelief, and also the seed of thy brethren, behold, these things shall be hid up, to come forth unto the Gentiles, by the gift and power of the Lamb.
And in them shall be written my gospel, saith the Lamb, and my rock and my salvation.
1 Nephi 13: 4-6, 24-28, 35-36
It is worth noting that the Devil, whose church and followers corrupted what we think of today as the Bible and therefore necessitated Nephi’s record written in metal that cannot be altered, also is named Beelzebub twice in the Bible. This name translates as Lord of the Flies and relates to Satan’s role as the source of corruption, destruction, and sickness in the world. In other words, Satan is the Lord of Ruin. And in Mistborn it is Ruin which is corrupting, altering, and destroying the words of the ancient prophets and thereby corrupting and manipulating the ancient religion and prophecies of the coming Savior, which forces Kwaan to write his record on metal slabs so they won’t be lost or altered and so that a future generation can find the truth. (See Well, pg. 782)
And then there is the description of Alendi, the ancient warrior king who Kwaan thought to be the Hero of Ages:
I met Alendi first in Khlennium; he was a young lad then, and had not yet been warped by a decade spent leading armies. Alendi’s height struck me the first time I saw him. Here was a man who towered over others, a man who—despite his youth and his humble clothing—demanded respect.
The Well of Ascension, pg. 94
That sounds very much like how the Prophet Mormon, the compiler and editor of the sacred history that he would eventually lend his name to, is described:
And it came to pass in that same year there began to be a war again between the Nephites and the Lamanites. And notwithstanding I being young [he was 16], was large in stature; therefore the people of Nephi appointed me that I should be their leader, or the leader of their armies.
Mormon 2:1
I can’t help but wonder if Sanderson subconsciously modeled at least some aspects of Alendi’s character after Mormon’s personality given the similarities in these descriptions. It certainly isn’t the only time that Mormon seems to echo in this series. In The Hero of Ages, the character Sazed is is a scholar who is often forced into conflict against his will, a description that fits Mormon himself after he quits leading the Nephite armies because of their gross and reprehensible evils. (Mormon 3:11) Sazed, towards the end of the novel, finds himself in the underground kandra Homeland where he has access to ancient knowledge preserved by the kandra First Generation who are a millennia old. Once there he sits down and begins to write the information they have to share with him so he can compile all the information on the Hero of Ages, the promised savior of the world, into one place. Here is how he is described doing this:
Finally he removed his book and set it on the table. Some kandra approached with thin plates of metal. Sazed watched curiously as they arranged them for him, along with what appeared to be a steel pen, capable of making indentations in the soft metal.
…The First Generation appeared to have ten members. They arranged themselves on the benches. Out of respect, Sazed moved his table so that he was seated before them, like a presenter before an audience.
“Now,” he said, raising his metal scratching pen. “Let us begin – we have much work to do.”
…Sazed tapped his pen against the metal sheet, frowning slightly.
…Sazed gathered his notes, carefully stacking the thin sheets of metal. Though the metal served an important function in keeping Ruin from modifying – or even reading – their contents, Sazed found them a bit frustrating. The plates were easily scratched, and they couldn’t be folded or bound.
The kandra elders had given him a place to stay, and it was surprisingly lush for a cave.
The Well of Ascension, pgs. 624, 630, 643, 676
The image of Sazed that develops is one of a man sitting at a table with sheets of metal plates that he is scratching words into, partially from his own written records and from others, all in a room that looks like it might be in an underground cave. In other words, something like this:
That is a very popular representation of the aforementioned Prophet Mormon as he abridges the ancient Nephite records and history to create the Book of Mormon, which was etched into metal plates. Notice the room that looks like it could be in a cave, the scrolls and books, the table, the metal pen, and the metal plates that he is etching upon. Shave his head and add more metal jewelry and it would look very similar to most artwork depicting Sazed. In addition, Mormon lives during the apocalyptic collapse of his own civilization due to a fratricidal, homicidal, and suicidal war and Sazed is trying to endure the same thing at the end of The Hero of Ages as the world is literally coming to an end in a gigantic apocalyptic battle outside the cave he is doing his work within. If Mormon wasn’t a direct inspiration for Sazed at this moment in the story it seems hard to deny to influence and impact the idea of Mormon had on the character of Sazed as Sanderson wrote the story of the character.
Another Book of Mormon influence can be seen in the character Sazed’s journey of faith through the last part of The Well of Ascension and The Hero of Ages books. In the former, Sazed’s faith is shattered when the woman he loved was killed during a battle. Having lost the only woman who he had ever loved he cannot understand how any God or Gods would allow someone so good to be killed while so many evil things rampage through the countryside unchallenged. He falls into a crippling depression and loses all hope. He spends most of The Well of Ascension evaluating all the religions he has recorded to see if any of them are without contradictions and explain everything he sees and has experienced. When they do inevitably fail at this he dismisses them as lies or error and falls deeper into his depression, despairing of ever finding the Truth. It is only after meeting the kandra First Generation and speaks to them about faith and religion that his faith is rekindled.
After having the metaplot explained to him in terms of the kandra faith – the battle between the gods Preservation and Ruin for the fate of Creation – the kandra and Sazed have this exchange:
“This is the truth, one of the kandra said.
“That is what every religion teaches,” Sazed said, frustration mounting. “Yet in each of them I find inconsistencies, logical leaps, and demands of faith I find impossible to accept.”
“It sounds to me, young one,” Haddek [one of the kanda First Generation] said, “that you’re searching for something that cannot be found.”
“The truth?” Sazed said.
“No,” Haddek replied. “A religion that requires no faith of its believers.”
The Hero of Ages, pg. 646
At this moment that faith, trust in God or the Gods and the Divine Plan, is beyond Sazed. He either cannot or will not accept that there are some things he must simply take on faith and trust that all will ultimately work out well. But the words of the kandra, like a seed planted in good soil, take root in Sazed’s heart and the more he thinks about these ideas the more they begin to transform him.
What was it Spook said? Sazed thought, sitting in the shadowy kandra cavern. That faith was about trust. Trusting that somebody was watching. That somebody would make it all right in the end, even though things looked terrible at the moment.
To believe, it seemed, one had to want to believe. It was a conundrum, one Sazed had wrestled with. He wanted someone, something, to force him to have faith. He wanted to have to believe because of the proof shown him.
Yet the believers whose words now filled his mind would have said he already had proof. Had he not, in his moment of despair, received an answer? As he had been about to give up, TenSoon had spoken. Sazed had begged for a sign, and has received it.
Was it chance? Was it providence?
…Which would he be? Believer or skeptic? At that moment, neither seemed a patently foolish path.
I do want to believe, he thought. That’s why I’ve spent so much time searching. I can’t have it both ways. I simply have to have to decide.
Which would it be? He sat for a few moments, thinking. feeling, and – most importantly – remembering.
I sought help, Sazed thought. And something answered.
Sazed smiled, and everything seemed a little brighter.
…He would believe. Not because something had been proven to him beyond his ability to deny. But because he chose to.
The Hero of Ages, pgs. 678-679
This experience, and the overall story of Sazed finding his faith and going on to fervently believe in the coming Hero of Ages, the coming Savior, is one that has many layers. For one, this whole thought process reflects Sanderson’s own comments on his faith. For another, Sazed’s journey to a renewed, even deepened, faith reflects the experience of all religiously devout people because to have faith you must first define what it is you have faith in by questioning what it is that you believe, how those beliefs affect you, and the truthfulness of those beliefs. Then, as with all things, you must decide what you will do with what you believe.
But there is an even deeper LDS influence here that stood out to me as I was reading the excerpt above. Sazed’s comments that in order to believe you have to want to believe and then his going through the process of wanting that belief to develop inside of him, influencing his thoughts, conclusions, and actions until he did believe, not because he had indisputable proof that forced him to believe but because he chose to believe, reminded me of a very famous sermon on faith from the Book of Mormon. Here the Prophet Alma teaches people about what they need to do to develop faith in God for themselves:
But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.
Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.
Now behold, would not this increase your faith? I say unto you, Yea; nevertheless it hath not grown up to a perfect knowledge.
But behold, as the seed swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, then you must needs say that the seed is good; for behold it swelleth, and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow. And now, behold, will not this strengthen your faith? Yea, it will strengthen your faith: for ye will say I know that this is a good seed; for behold it sprouteth and beginneth to grow.
Alma 32: 28-30
The sermon goes into an extended metaphor about the seed of faith growing within a person and the blessings it brings to those who allow it to grow and nurture it in doing so. But notice that Alma’s argument here is almost exactly the same as Sazed’s explaination. Alma says “desire” and Sazed uses a synonym, “want,” and in Sazed we see how his desire to believe, something evident not just in the quoted passage but within the entire book, grows within him until he is able to believe. And once he is able to believe that faith changes his heart and in fact prepares him for his ultimate destiny, godhood (a subject we shall return to momentarily.) Sazed’s words and story mirror the teaching of Alma perfectly. It seems clear that this is one of those places where Sanderson’s beliefs so influence his ideas about religion that they can’t help but come out in his writings very clearly, especially as this is not how other churches and religions believe one gains faith.
General LDS Influences
What follows here are LDS themes that I found in the Mistborn trilogy that relate more to general LDS beliefs as opposed to things that relate directly to the Book of Mormon.
Exaltation
One of the unique doctrines of the Latter-day Saints, one we call one of the greatest truths restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, is the truth that all men and women on the Earth are the literal spirit children of God with divine potential to become like Him through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. This doctrine is established in multiple places in Latter-day Saint scripture, especially in the Doctrine and Covenants (D&C), a collection of some revelations given to Joseph and a few of his successors to the prophetic office.
The first mention of this comes from D&C 76, a vision that the Prophet Joseph Smith and another man named Sidney Rigdon had in tandem of the degrees of glories and rewards people will have in Heaven. Those who are given the greatest blessings are described this way:
They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory;
And are priests of the Most High, after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of Enoch, which was after the order of the Only Begotten Son.
Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God—
Wherefore, all things are theirs, whether life or death, or things present, or things to come, all are theirs and they are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
D&C 76:56-59
There are a lot of layers to peel back here that go beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say here that the promise to become kings, priests, and gods who are given all things is an incredible promise. But it is also vague. It isn’t exactly explained what it means for us to have power over all things. One could logically argue that there is a difference between a small g – god and a Big G – God. In trying to understand this the next quotation will help some. The context here is a revelation about what will happen in the Final Judgment to all the different types of people who inherit the differing degrees of glory in Heaven. Of those who gain the greatest glory it is said:
And then shall the angels be crowned with the glory of his might, and the saints shall be filled with his glory, and receive their inheritance and be made equal with him.
D&C 88:107
That would seem to clarify the issue. There isn’t much ambiguity when it says God will make us equal to Him. That would seem to definitely suggest we will be Big-G Gods. This conclusion is only confirmed by the last reference in the D&C to humans becoming gods. In D&C 132, the context is once more about the Final Judgment and the ultimate destinies of the souls of men:
Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.
D&C 132:20
Those exalted, who become gods (and goddesses as this also applies equally to women), will be everlasting, have no end, be above all, and all things, even the angels, shall be subject to them. That last one is important as it references Paul’s description of Christ in Hebrews 1:1-6, which says that Jesus, as the Son of God, has a higher rank in Eternity than the angels. To suggest then that the angels will be subject to those who are exalted is to say that they shall obtain the same rank in Eternity that Christ has – they shall be Gods.
This is also what happens at the end of the first Mistborn trilogy. Without getting too lost in Sanderson’s cosmology, Sazed inherits the powers of two god-like beings, Preservation and Ruin, who oversaw the Creation and possibly the end of his planet Scadrial. With the power of both these beings, Sazed becomes an omnipotent and omnipresent God, something Sanderson says outright:
It wasn’t until that moment that Sazed understood the term Hero of Ages. Not a Hero that would come once in the ages.
But a Hero who would span the ages. A Hero who would preserve humankind through all times. Neither Preservation nor Ruin, but both.
God.
The Hero of Ages, pg. 745
The image of people becoming gods and getting their own planet is often lampooned in the media as something those wacky Mormons believe that just shows how dumb they are to everyone. The irony is that the actual doctrine is even more radical than that. It doesn’t limit you to just one planet. After all, becoming equal to God suggests you can do what He has done, and He created an entire Universe full of life and people. Nevertheless, Sazed here fits the basic image, though not fully. He does become Harmony, the God of Scadrial, getting his own planet in the process. Yet he does not gain a godhood equal to what Latter-day Saints and other Christians think of when they think of God the Father.
Harmony is all powerful, but he is not omniscient. Nor is he perfect in character. Other books in Sanderson’s Cosmere shared universe setting (the larger setting the Mistborn books occur in) talk about other gods on other planets, even rival and evil gods. And there are no rivals to God and Christ, nor any chance that They or Their plans never succeed. Sanderson, briefly talks about why those differences here, which I think can be summed up as the difference between men getting the power of gods and men becoming gods. He also affirms the idea that men can become gods, even Gods, and inherit rulership over their own planet(s) comes from and is influenced by Sanderson’s own LDS religious beliefs and culture.
Truth In All Religions
After achieving omnipotence and godhood, Sazed looks around and realizes that his world is incredibly broken. The last person to hold something close to his power (the villain of the first book) had screwed things up and had only barely been able to fix the world enough that life could survive, if not thrive. But Sazed has something the previous guy hadn’t. Sazed had all the knowledge of all the religions that had been gathered by his people over centuries. In a moment of transcendent insight, Sazed realized that he had been wrong about all these religions, that they all contained pure truth and that by drawing upon these all the truths into one great body of knowledge he could use that knowledge to repair and restore the world.
And in a moment of transcendence, he understood it all. He saw the patterns, the clues, the secrets. Men had believed and worshipped for as long as they had existed, and within those beliefs, Sazed found the answers he needed. Gems hidden from Ruin in all the religions of humanity.
…The religions in my portfolio weren’t useless after all, he thought, the power flowing from him and remaking the world. None of them were. Not one had the whole truth.
But they all had truth.
The Hero of Ages, pgs. 743-744
This is a uniquely Latter-day Saint teaching. While it is a common caricature about Mormonism that its adherents believe they know everything and are better than others, the truth is just the opposite. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does claim to be the “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth” (D&C 1:30), but this doesn’t mean what most critics assume it means. As Apostle Dallin H. Oaks explains here, the church teaches that it has the fulness of the doctrines revealed by Jesus Christ both anciently and modernly, that it has the fulness of the priesthood authority God has delegated to men to do His work, and that they have a uniquely full testimony and understanding of Jesus Christ and His mission, but they do not claim to have a monopoly on all truth or that other churches and religions have no truth and no value.
If anything, the church’s claim is that all religions have truth and that it is the duty of church members to go out to all other religions and beliefs, find what truths are within them, and bring them back to the Latter-day Saints to be incorporated into their practices because all truth, no matter its source, belongs to Mormonism. This is how President Brigham Young, the second prophet of the church, explained it in the mid-19th century:
“Mormonism,” so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to “Mormonism.” The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belong to this Church. As for their morality, many of them are, morally, just as good as we are. All that is good, lovely, and praiseworthy belongs to this Church and Kingdom. “Mormonism” includes all truth. There is no truth but what belongs to the Gospel. It is life, eternal life; it is bliss; it is the fulness of all things in the gods and in the eternities of the gods
Discourses of Brigham Young, pg. 4
and
It is our duty and calling, as ministers of the same salvation and Gospel, to gather every item of truth and reject every error. Whether a truth be found with professed infidels, or with the Universalists, or the Church of Rome, or the Methodists, the Church of England, the Presbyterians, the Baptists, the Quakers, the Shakers, or any other of the various and numerous different sects and parties, all of whom have more or less truth, it is the business of the Elders of this Church (Jesus, their Elder Brother, being at their head) to gather up all the truths in the world pertaining to life and salvation, to the Gospel we preach, to mechanism of every kind, to the sciences, and to philosophy, wherever it may be found in every nation, kindred, tongue, and people and bring it to Zion
Discourses of Brigham Young, pg. 382
I think these passages demonstrate well the Latter-day Saint approach to other religions, one which Sazed ends up coming to understand in his own exaltation – that all religions carry at least some elements of the truth and that it is only when they are brought together into one greater whole that these elements achieve their greatest power. Depsite what some think, that is pure Mormonism.
Gender
There isn’t a lot about gender in Mistborn generally. Vin, the heroine, defies typical gender roles, but gender itself is rarely addressed, except in one place. The kandra are a species of shapeshifters and one would normally think this meant they would have no actual gender – able to be anything they would be nothing. Yet, in The Hero of Ages, Sazed observes this about the kandra True Bodies (their true forms):
Kandra apparently enjoyed human comforts – blankets, cushions, mattresses. Some preferred to wear clothing, though those who didn’t declined to create genitals for their True Bodies. That left him wondering scholarly sorts of questions. They reproduced by transforming mistwraiths into kandra, so genitals would be redundant. Yet the kandra identified themselves by gender – each was definitely a “he” or a “she.” Why? Did they choose arbitrarily, or did they actually know what they would have been, had they been born human rather than as a mistwraith?
The Hero of Ages, pgs. 676-677
First, it should be said that this is Sazed’s observation and we should acknowledge that he could be wrong giving Sanderson room to change this at any time in the future. That said, if Sazed is correct then we can come to some strong conclusions about how gender functions in Mistborn. What are they?
Well, a superficial reading of this passage may leave someone thinking that it affirms transgenderism. The kandra gender is, after all, disconnected from their sexuality and genitalia. Therefore you can have a penis and still be a girl, have a vagina and still be a boy, or have neither and be whatever you want, right?
I’m not convinced. Sazed outright says that the kandra have definitive genders and then implies that kandra gender is definitively binary. Secondly, all kandra identify with the gender binary as either a boy or a girl. They even have definitive genitalia. The implication is that those kandra who wear clothes have their genitalia fully formed and that those who go about naked choose not to form their genitalia until they have clothes on. This is not the same as saying they have no specific gender at all nor that their gender and genitalia aren’t connected. Indeed, the implication is that kandra form their genitalia as soon as they have clothes on because it is a vital part of them and their identity.
It seems that it is just as likely that the naked kandra don’t form their genitalia when naked out of concerns such as personal health and modesty (penises and vaginas are both fragile things that need lots of protection from exposure) as it is anything else. Further, no matter how much kandra change the outward sexuality of their bodies, say by a male kandra shapeshifting into a female human form in order to complete a mission, their definitive gender never changes. A man, even if he looks like a woman, will always be a man. Same for women. And since the kandra are functionally immortal (the First Generation is over a millennia old and while kandra can be killed they don’t just die of old age) this means their definitive binary gender identity is a permanent gender identity.
Further, Sazed suggests that this is also what human gender is like by comparing the kandra and humanity and equating the kandra permanent gender along male-female (he-she) sexuality with the way humans exist. He even suggests that gender is set at birth by implying that kandra could be like humans whose genders are set at birth. This tells us that, at least in Sazed’s opinion, humans also have a definitive gender determined along a he-she gender binary tied to their sexuality. Males are men. Females are women. And they always are such no matter how they change their bodies or language.
This mirrors well the Latter-day Saint doctrine on gender. From The Family: A Proclamation to the World, a document issued by all the leaders of the church as an official declaration of Latter-day Saint doctrine, we find this:
All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.
The Latter-day Saints believe that human gender is an eternally existent truth and not something that can be changed. Just because you altered your body or your genitalia doesn’t mean you have changed your eternal gender. You’ve just surgically altered you body. Also, in LDS theology gender is defined along the binary he-she/male-female axis. Males are men. Females are women. And it will always be that way in eternity.
The Salt Lake City Temple
My final example comes from the description of Keep Orielle in The Hero of Ages. Brandon Sanderson describes his inspiration for the building thusly:
Many of the High Noble keeps I described in the first book are real buildings. Keep Venture, for instance, is based on the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. Well, Keep Orielle here is based on the LDS Salt Lake Temple, only with more stained glass. Go read the description again (I think it’s in this chapter) and maybe you’ll be able to see it.
Here is the description of Keep Orielle he is referencing:
The building was rectangular, with a row of three peaked towers rising from each end. Ornamented white stonework ran around the entire perimeter at the top. And the walls, of course, were lined with beautiful stained-glass windows lit from within.
The Hero of Ages, pg. 234-235
Compare that to these pictures of the Salt Lake Temple:
Just make the present day windows into stain glass windows and it would match the description in the book exactly.
Final Thoughts
I know this was a long article, so I won’t run on and on here. I just want to say that reading Sanderson’s writings and finding so many different ways that Latter-day Saint doctrine, theology, culture, and history effected (and continues to effect) his writing has been delightful, something that has only magnified my enjoyment of Sanderson’s writing in these three books generally. For those really willing to mine his works there is greater depth of ideas to be found that at first appears and, unlike a lot of fiction which just seems to be generally atheistic, Sanderson’s work is deeply embedded in and concerned with religion and faith.
These books aren’t perfect, none are. But they are some of the best fantasy writing there is on the market today. Sanderson doesn’t get enough credit for his storytelling. His characters all act in ways that make sense for their personalities and the events they find themselves within. And he is so good at setting up events and subverting tropes and expectations in his storytelling. Seriously, all the typical tropes you come to expect in fantasy are present in Mistborn: The Final Empire, yet by the end of the series they are flipped on their heads in ways that aren’t only surprising but actually make sense in the story (as opposed to be purely for shock value.) And he manages to do it all in highly enjoyable novels that avoid the unnecessary bloat and slog of many other fantasy writers. (I’m looking at you George R.R. Martin.) To paraphrase Isaac Stewart, if Tolkien is the Shakespeare of modern fantasy then Sanderson is the Charles Dickens of modern fantasy. He is well worth reading.