“The Hero of Ages, in its fullest glory, is the perfect ending to a trilogy that has left, and will continue to leave, lasting footprints on the fantasy landscape.”

Genre: Fantasy

---

Rate: 5/5

“It sounds to me, young one,” Haddek said, “that you are 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, to me, is a book impossible to rate. After all, this final installment to the original Mistborn trilogy is an undeniable triumph by Sanderson, expanding the scope of Scadrial, and the potential of fantasy as an genre, to its very limits; there is something so… divine about the story that he has been able to tell here, which I don’t feel like I can do justice. From start to finish, Sanderson shows the readers why he has succeeded in the literary landscape for so long, and you can practically feel his love and passion for this universe dripping from the very pages. Throughout the years, this book has slowly taken a special place in my heart, and I think it will stay there for a long time. 

“Faith means that it doesn’t matter what happens. You can trust that somebody is watching. Trust that somebody will make it all right.”

Now, what makes this book so special? There are so many reasons, from the incredible lore drops of how magic works to the time, and deepening, we get of our (previously) minor characters, that I can gush about. However, for this review, I really want to focus on the sheer skill that Sanderson has exhibited with the plot of this trilogy. There were countless moments where I realized that Sanderson has been obsessively planning and plotting every little part of this world, and every time a detail from the first book became an extremely relevant plot point about a thousand pages later, I would be struck by how amazing it is that an author can pull such a thing off so effortlessly. Take Vin’s earrings as an example. While casually reading, you are led to believe that Reen’s voice in Vin’s mind is simply an aftermath of her traumatic childhood, and nothing more. Despite the little crumbs we get about metal, such as Zane’s insanity and hemalurgy, it would have been almost impossible to connect those dots together in the second book. When it was revealed that Vin’s earrings were Ruin’s way of influencing her through the imitation of her brother, I felt a sort of satisfaction that I’ve never experienced since. The idea that Sanderson was able to plant little seeds like these from the beginning is something that I will always respect, and I consider the ending of The Hero of Ages, how every single plot converges into a single moment, as one of the best I’ve read for that very reason. 

Aside from Sanderson’s masterful weaving of plot lines, one aspect I also want to talk about is the growth of our “minor characters”; although Vin and Elend do go through a fair amount of development in this book, the real highlight was the amount of pages we get of newcomers Spook and TenSoon. I simply loved Spook’s journey of becoming his own person, carving his path and legacy after being ignored and discarded by others. After reading about the capabilities of Mistborns for long, it was rather refreshing to see Spook’s struggles of maintaining leadership and power, something we didn’t see a lot of in this book. I appreciated how Sanderson showed Spook’s bravery and willingness to help people in need, shedding light on characters we haven’t had the opportunity to explore in the last two books. 

In conclusion, The Hero of Ages is the perfect ending to a trilogy that has left lasting footprints on the fantasy landscape. I will miss our cast of characters dearly, and Sanderson has clearly created something special with Mistborn. 5/5

“Somehow, we’ll find it. The balance between whom we wish to be and whom we need to be. But for now, we simply have to be satisfied with who we are.”