Mistborn: The Final Empire - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

In Luthadel, the capital city of the Final Empire, Vin, a scrawny street urchin, is recruited by a thieving group led by Kelsier, the Survivor of the pits of Hathsin, a place where atium, the most valuable metal in the world, is mined. He has a plan to steal the rumored atium stash from the Lord Ruler’s treasury and to free the oppressed Skaa in the process. When Vin learns that she is a Mistborn – a powerful Allomancer who can burn metals to gain special abilities (just like Kelsier) she becomes part of this scheme.

Kelsier's thieving crew has other members: there are Misting – Ham, a Thug who can burn pewter, Breeze, a Soother who can burn brass, Clubs, a Smoker who burns Copper and Spook, a Tineye burning tin – and Dockson who has no special abilities but is a great administrator. Together they start working on a plan to overthrow the regime established by the evil Lord Ruler a thousand years ago. Marsh, Kelsier’s brother, infiltrates the Steel Ministry and Vin acts as Valette, cousin of Lord Renoux, to spy out what the nobility is doing. Vin falls in love with Elend Venture, the son of Lord Venture, an heir to House Venture.

Kelsier manages to start a House War by assassinating powerful nobles, and Dockson, Ham and Breeze manage to recruit some seven thousand soldiers with which to attack the Luthadel garrison. However, Yeden, the man who originally hired the crew for the job, makes a foolish move leaving the army exposed and majority of it gets slaughtered. The rest covertly moves to Luthadel. House Renoux, the front for getting weapons, is compromised and Lord Renoux with his servants is to be executed. Kelsier and some of the remaining soldiers fight to save them, managing to free most of them. Kelsier is killed in the process, taking a Steel Inquisitor with him. Lord Renoux, who turns out to be a Kandra, a creature capable of changing its body-shape, consumes Kelsier’s body and is able to appear as an apparition to the Skaa. The whole population of Luthadel rises and defeats the garrison and the remaining noble houses.

Meanwhile, Vin, armed with the eleventh metal, malatium, goes to the imperial palace, Kredik Shaw, to kill the Lord Ruler. She is captured by Kar, a brutal Steel Inquisitor and left in a cell to be tortured. Sazed, her faithful Terrisman servant, comes to her rescue. Being a Feruchemist, he manages to break his chains by strength stored in a piece of metal in his stomach, and then helps Vin to recover her possessions and a vial of metals. Vin attacks the Lord Ruler and Marsh, thought to be dead by the crew, rushes to aid her as a Steel Inquisitor. In a fierce fight Vin manages to separate the Lord Ruler from his bracelets that keep him from aging, thus making him age rapidly. Vin then rams a spear through the Lord Ruler’s heart. The Final Empire collapses.