The Dark Lord of Depression in Sanderson's "Mistborn"

(While I try to refrain from discussing plot points specifically, spoilers lie beyond this point. Please, go no further if you do not wish to uncover the plot of the first Mistborn novel!)

 

I discovered fantasy writer Brandon Sanderson in the ninth grade by route of the Mistborn trilogy. Back then I spent many a lunch hour perusing the shelves of the library, pulling out book after book and imagining that perhaps someday I might read them all. 

So, on one dark and fateful day, I pulled a paperback off the bottom shelf and was immediately intrigued.

 

I remember it was the cover that first attracted me to the book. On it Vin (the protagonist) is truly a force to behold, the look in her eye can tell you that much. She is young, intelligent, fierce, and beautiful, and extremely powerful.

 

While I certainly wasn't new to fantasy at the time, having read The Lord of the Rings two years prior as well as The Inheritance Cycle, this was the first book of this variety that I had ever read. It was Sanderson that made me realize that The Inheritance Cycle wasn't nearly as good as I had once believed. It merely offered a good medium, a stepping stone from children's fairy tales and young adult adventures to the epic and more adult fantasy genre. 

One can credit Tolkien with effectively reinventing the legendary and truly terrible Dark Lord, pulling them straight out of old epics, the dark seas where they had so long lain comatose, and reawakening them into the fantasy genre. Christopher Paolini certainly gave it a good try. But it was Sanderson, I believe, who left us with a Dark Lord of truly devastating disposition. Little more than a shadow for most of the tale, Sanderson's Dark Lord lingers like an overpowering presence from the story's dark beginning. 

 

I must admit, reading Mistborn for the first time was an utterly overwhelming experience. While I had been familiar with The Lord of the Rings prior to reading it, it being like a family heirloom in our household, Mistborn was wildly unknown and totally alien. I had no idea what to expect of it. The complexity of Sanderson's magic systems was fully new to me, as was this style of world building. It was, at the time, astoundingly staggering.

These feelings of suffocation served the plot remarkably well. The sense that I was engulfed in this new dark world made it that much more effective and terrifying. I felt like Vin, a girl in front of a hugely hopeless task, the scale of which I had never seen surmounted and had no reason to believe could succeed.

I confess, some of the images the book gave me still haunt me, though I did not realize it until I recognized its shadows in my own mist-filled fictions. The sickening pollution of a world in which skies rain ash; the cruel light of a harsh red sun; the suffocating mists permeated by peasant's superstitions, inhabited by corpse harvesting monsters: I could practically smell the stench and spoliation. It felt sickening and overwhelmingly heavy in a way that made it hard to breathe. I remember feeling my skin crawl when the spike pierced head of an Inquisitor turned in Vin's direction. I remember feeling bereaved and disturbed when the once familiar face of the contemplative and dependable brother returned to us at the end of the book, his eyes pierced inside his skull. 

I remember all these things like one remembers the stench of a place even after one leaves it. Most of all, I remember the cloud of depression that came with it. 

 

It has been almost ten years since my first reading of the trilogy, and a reread has been a long time coming. The series holds up incredibly, and though I had long believed that The Stormlight Archive was my favourite of Sanderson's series, now I am no longer so sure. 

 

Mistborn has been with me longer, after all. The images have stayed with me from the ninth grade and on. I remember them so much more vividly than the plot itself, just like I remember the feeling of despair that oozes like a black fog from between its pages. 

The book describes this feeling subtly, incorporating it into the details of the world and the suffering in the backdrops; until, that is, the Lord Ruler shows up. It is by his presence that one begins to suspect exactly where this feeling of hopelessness and depression comes from. The Lord Ruler, an immortal emperor who has ruled, polluted, and impoverished this world for hundreds of years, uses his unquenchable powers in Allomancy to suppress anyone near him. His haunting and imposing keep sits over the city, the very shadow of depression, forcing all to be submissive under his despotism. He is the source of their devastation, and thus, it bleeds out from the book, stark and black!

This feeling was so consistent and horrifying throughout the book that it lingered and could be brought up by the mere thought of the novel even long after I had read it. Years later I heard Sanderson compare Mistborn to a version of The Lord of the Rings in which Frodo comes to Mordor, tired, broken, and devastated by his burden, only to find Dark Lord waiting for him at the gates, thanking him for bringing the ring all this way to him. I could not help but laugh, but not because it was funny; only because it was true. Deep down, the hopelessness and manipulation of it still disturbed me. 

Why did you think you could ever succeed, these words suggest. 

I can still hear the Lord Ruler's voice hissing pitifully: You don't know what I do for mankind. I (am) your god...

 

Having now finished rereading the first of the Mistborn books,  something came to me: an idea that served to add an even greater sense of tragedy to an already dark book. 

Before the end, the novel offers us an explanation for the Lord Ruler's extreme power, saying he had the source of both Allomancy and a Feruchemist at his disposal. This, the book explains, is how he had stayed young for so many years, for by storing his youth and his strength in his metals and later burning it, he could use those to the extreme, exaggerating them to the point of exhaustion. Indeed, the image of the Lord Ruler in his old and frail form is no less vivid to me than the young handsome man who arrives to attend mass executions in a black carriage, dressed in black, serving death to hundreds without a flinch. 

 

One is reminded of the effects of the One Ring, which stretches one out till one becomes a horror, a shadow of one's old self. In the same way, the Lord Ruler's powers eat away at him, harvesting from his human flaws of aging and weakness, taking from his fatal feelings and stretching them out into vast, horrid shapes. 

It was only on my second read through that I looked past this shadow of despair and depression and saw another sad form behind the Lord Ruler's black figure. 

 

 

The book doesn't explain the Lord Ruler's overwhelming ability to bring feelings of depravity upon hundreds of people, managing even to pierce those who are meant to be resistant to those forces. He manages to soothe entire crowds into feelings of misery and hopelessness. Yet the explanation is there, beneath the surface of the Lord Ruler's horrid disposition and Sazed's uncertain words: for if things like knowledge, and sight, and age can be stored and burnt and harvested, can depression not be also? 

Why not tether your own despondency to your stores; shackle it to your metals and burn them like a power; thrust them out across your subjects to subdue them; dish out your own despair so you can suffocate them in your misery; suppress them under the weight of your own sorrow.

I cannot say that I have forgotten about corpse-devouring mistwraiths and cold men with metal for eyes, but another image lingers now as I finish reading Mistborn for the second time: that of a dark castle over an ash covered city, its people retching on pollution and poverty, submissive in its shadow; and locked away inside this haunted keep, gone from sight and knowledge, an immortal lord deemed god sits in his tower, binding his own despair into vast stores, enough to depress and rule a world for generations. 

 

Inevitably, I leave this world now feeling no less overpowered than I did before. I only understand it better.

The Adult Shadows in "The Sisters Grimm"

The Sisters Grimm is a series I devoured as a child. The dark world inside this nine book installment utterly engrossed me. Indeed, if a child was ever addicted to a series of books, I was hooked by the nose to this one. 

I remember spending late nights reading them, flipping pages in the otherwise silent house, blinking through tired eyes. Each time I'd get to the end the words to be continued would stare at me, blurry and inconclusive, leaving me hungry for more. 

Never before had I found a series that ended with such twists: with dark faces staring at one from the dark, leaving one at the climax with the epitome of a horrible betrayal, enough to make one's heart twist up inside. Sometimes strange monsters lured one into secret places, offering secrets of the plot. The desire to follow them into the next chapter and so the next book would be maddening.

But, everything is better when you are a child, after all, and so, for a long time, I was hesitant to return to this grim world I once so devoured, fearful that my adult mind would find too many faults within its pages. 

As an adult, it is often hard to be anything more than charmed by the emotions of a protagonist meant to appeal mainly to children.

I was afraid that meeting some of my favorite fictional characters in this adult form of mine would disillusion me. They would become shallow versions of themselves. I would see through their sorrow, neglect to fear or be disturbed by their ugly and heinous ways, and find the once glorious humour bland and childish.   

Little did I know that The Sisters Grimm is an adult's tale full of the vengeful, the cruel, the broken, the abused, and the murderous. The most colourful characters are the children. Puck alone can stand for this. But the most interesting personalities were undoubtedly the adults. There was Mr. Canis with his dark inner demon; Uncle Jake with his own personal addictions and grievances. Even Prince Charming, a character that is usually two dimensional, often utterely annoying, was complex and deeply complicated. 

This, of course, is all obscured by its imaginative story, fully stuffed with fairy tale characters, all beloved and hated in their own way. Still, hidden under its child protagonist's noses are themes of grief, addiction, anger, and intense mental illness, all seen by their innocent eyes, the depth of them always misunderstood, left in the shadows. 

 

The first character we meet that struggles with a dark secret is Mr. Canis, an old man with a monster living in his head. Throughout the series, we watch Mr. Canis suffer under this perpetrators strains as slowly the old man loses himself to the monster inside of him, the Big Bad Wolf. 

Eventually, Mr. Canis is cruelly locked up for his questionable criminality. Yet, while we know that Mr. Canis is not evil, we also know that he is a danger, and so, the issue is, to say the least, complicated. Sabrina, the stories protagonist, is kept up at night worrying about the possibility of what might happen should the Wolf be set free, knowing full well that, according to the popular fairy tale, the has Wolf has eaten someone's grandmother before.

In Mr. Canis' his big watery eyes we see a man in pain. But in the man's shadow the children catch glimpses of a corrupt past that even the love and support of the Grimm's cannot mend.

 

It is often in their descriptions that the narrator cues us into the fact that there is more going on than meets the eye. I remember vividly the way the narrator describes Mr. Canis to the reader: his constant weariness; his frail, weak form and his thin grey skin. More often than not, he retreats to his rooms under presumptions of a headache or a bad nights sleep. Of course, this is not what is really going on.

Yet, while other stories would cast this man into a vile role, perhaps the evil villain's main monstrosity or a cruel schoolmaster with a hidden mental illness, in The Sisters Grimm this is the face of the Grimm Sisters sole protector, a man with a dark past and deep bedded flaws, but a man who would give anything of himself to protect them. 

 

 

Throughout the tale, we see many characters turn to the Scarlet Hand, an evil conspiracy the master of which, for much of the series, remains a mystery. Yet few (if any) of these characters become a part of the conspiracy because they are simply evil. Often, it is much more complicated than that. Time and time again, this series breaks these traditional stories apart, splitting them open with sharp realities, taking fairy tale villains and redeeming them just as it uses once good characters for evil. 

 

So, it is not the story itself that is complicated, but the people.

Evil stepmothers, power greedy princes, even monstrous beings are, in the end, just people in pain. 

When we finally do learn who the master of the Scarlet Hand is it is not the shock that lingers.

I remember the surprise of it all, but in retrospect, I also realized the clues had been there all along. In the end, what made it so effective wasn't just the fact that I, and others who read the series along side me, didn't see it coming, but that we didn't even consider it. Not only did we totally miss the signs, we neglected even to recognize the character as capable of such deep driven pain, and so, the distraught core of their being is the real shock; that, and the total neglect and disregard to the character's suffering which no one, not even the reader, had seen. 

Thus, the twist and betrayal of the master's big reveal didn't sting nearly as hard the fact that I, the reader, had never thought that enough hurt could drive anyone, even the most beloved characters, to such evil intent. The real horrible truth is that we cannot really blame them. When the evil master tells their story, we cannot deny that they are right: we really didn't see their hurt. 

Ultimately, it is a revelation to break your heart. 

 

 

I cannot think of any other children's story in which love interests are killed off and beloved side characters left to grieve them. I cannot think of any children's story in which, looking back, I see drunkenness in the eyes of a man once full of spirit; no where else do I look back and recognize between the lines of the narrative the mark of bitterness in the frail face of an old man who made too many mistakes in his youth.

I do not know of another tale where abused children are disguised as psychopathic villains only to be eventually redeemed and restored to childishness; or where close friends, often enough neglected, eventually turn on you; where good people sometimes do evil for fear of losing those they love. 

I implore you, parents, do not hide books like these away from your children. It would be foolish to think that they do not pick up on these things in the real world, that they do not see snippets of these adult shadows already. Since you cannot hide away the bad realities, please, do not try to refuse them their fictional echoes.

Let them see some snippet-trauma and some fragmented-grief in books like these. It is easier to digest when there is also some magic and wonder in it. 

 

Perhaps some day when they are older, they will return to books like these in their adult form and realize that they let them understand the world a little better: that seeing these things incorporated into a story woven out of fairy tales took away some of the shock of it later. Please, let us give it to them softly. 

Most importantly, let them see that bad people are also hurt people; let them see that wounded children don't always look like weak hurt things. More often, they look like bullies themselves.

 

The world would be a far better place if more people, children and adult alike, realized that there is always more to people than meets the eye. There is always more hurt in the shadows, and people do terrible things when they are not seen. In this real world, there is nothing worse than unseen suffering.

 

Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is see them. I can truthfully say, The Sisters Grimm helped me learn how.

Sherlock Holmes Solves the Mystery of the Lost Boot

It was the very night on which I had shared here on this blog the story of the lost boot which had run off within the realms of my book when I discovered another such precarious shoe in a most unexpected place.

It might have been a thing not at all worth mentioning if the topic of lost boots was not one which had been greatly on my mind. 

I was reading The Hound of the Baskervilles when, almost like an afterthought, Henry Baskerville mentioned to Sherlock Holmes that he hopes that losing a single boot is not part of the ordinary routine of life.

 

 

It immediately peeked my interest, for the casualness with which it was mentioned struck me as strange. 

I of course knew due to recent experiences that losing one boot was indeed out of the ordinary, for boots don't often walk off alone, when they walk at all.

Naturally, Sherlock Holmes knew this as well and proceeded to inquire about the boot of interest. 

Rarely has a clue so interested me on such a personal level. I made it my private mission to keep my eyes peeled for it.

 

 

I am happy to say that I have since found sir Baskerville's boot, though I certainly won't give away its location to the unknowing readers out there. 

As of yet, the boot of my book is still quite content to remain missing. But even so, I could not help but feel that the immortal and ingenious Sherlock Holmes was talking to me when he remarked on page thirty-five with an air of great reassurance that "it will not be long before the missing boot is found."  

 

It was not an altogether unusual thing to say at the time. Yet if anyone could transcend from fiction's shadows and say with utter confidence that a missing boot he could not possibly have known about will be found shortly, well, then that someone can only be Sherlock Holmes. 

I would not expect it of any other. And although I confess that I myself expect that the missing boot will soon be found, it was nice to have a word of encouragement from the ultimate expert.

The Boot Runs Ahead

I left Part One for the last time this week. There will not be another dwelling like such.  

Yet, I found that when I came to its final chapters, I did not want to go just yet. I saw around me a thousand fears and short comings that bid me to stay. 

 

I felt stuck, ironically, very much like a boot in the mud. 

It was then, as if by some chance, that I came across the mark in a chapter very near the end, where, at the beginning, a boot had been carelessly left behind; only there was no boot now, just a footprint deep in the dirt.

The lost boot, it seemed, had gone ahead into pages unread and unedited. Evidently, the thing was up to some mischief, or otherwise late for some plot point I had till now neglected.   

 

 

I couldn't help myself after that, for it seemed the boot was more eager than I, and immediately a million places where the boot could be came to mind. Whether it had been filched or kindled to life, I could only imagine. I know only that it excited me to think of the pranks a single boot might contrive if it were revived and roused to action; or, if it were not such a frisky boot as that, whose mismatched foot I might find it on later.  

And so, I ran off in search of this lost shoe, forgetting altogether to glance back at where I had so long lingered. Like Alice to Wonderland, I jumped down the hole, following the boot out of the familiar pages and into Part Two by the shadow of its laces.

 

As I heard its stomps and romps running ahead of me, I laughed: Now, now the fun begins, I said to myself; all because of some well-placed-disappeared boot; vivified by witchery or a well-timed tidbit left by a thief; just enough to pull the writer through. 

For when boots vanish and run into Part Two without you, anything could come of it. 

 

(Note: Special thanks to Marc who always makes lots of jokes while holding a camera.)