Kelsier is the leader of the skaa rebellion in the Mistborn series. He is known as The Survivor for being the only one to have survived the Lord Ruler’s Pits of Hathsin. He is akr skilled Mistborn allomancer and the leader of the thieving crew central to overthrowing the Final Empire.
See below for a table of contents on Kelsier’s character analysis:
Appearance
When we first meet him in Mistborn, Kelsier is described as being tall and “hawk-faced,” with light blond hair. He wears a relaxed nobleman’s suit, his cloak hanging free. Vin thinks that he was perhaps in his mid-thirties. She notes that “he wore no hat, nor did he carry a dueling cane” (1.49).
Notably, he has several scars on his arms from having escaped the Pits of Hathsin.
Background
Before the events of the Mistborn novels, Kelsier was known as the best crew leader in Luthadel, having robbed some of the wealthiest great houses of the city (1.64).
He is the only one ever known to have survived and escaped the Pits of Hathsin, which is the place the Lord Ruler sends his enemies so that they may perish. He and his wife Mare were both sent for trying to rob the Lord Ruler of his Atium, but his wife didn’t make it out. This is how he gets the scars on his arms, using them to climb rocks on the sheer wall of the pits to escape.
It’s this past that haunts Kelsier throughout the novel and shapes him into who he is.
His Mother
Kelsier’s mother had been the mistress of a high nobleman. She was a resourceful and clever woman, and she had managed to hide the fact that she was skaa from her lord for a long time.
Kelsier and his brother Marsh had grown up privileged, considered illegitimate, but still noble, until their noble-born father had finally discovered the truth about their mother. Their mother was then taken away by the obligators and handed over to the Steel Inquisitors.
Mare
When we are first introduced to Kelsier in Mistborn, all we know is that he has had some sort of trauma around a woman screaming in his past:
“The scream waned,” but Kelsier’s anger only built. The yells reminded him of other screams. A woman’s screams from the past” (1.12).
Later, we learn that this woman is his now-deceased wife, Mare.
Mare was a thief like Kelsier. She was a Tineye, which led her to the underground and to Kelsier. In fact, she was the one who had introduced him to Sazed.
We also learn that she was fascinated by pre-Ascension times, collecting pictures and descriptions of how the world was before the Lord Ruler’s ascension. She had always kept a picture of a green plant, for example, which no one has seen due to the ash and mists and the natural topography of the world the characters inhabit.
Mare had also wanted children, although Kelsier didn’t. Kelsier had wanted to become the most famous skaa thief of all time instead, and didn’t have time for things like children that would ultimately slow him down (1.287).
More notably, Mare had wanted a daughter with Kelsier, whom they could teach to walk the line between noblewoman and thief (1.490). Oftentimes, Kelsier looks at Vin like she is this long-lost daughter.
Mare’s Betrayal
Kelsier was captured by the Lord Ruler three years before the Mistborn series begins. He and his now-deceased wife, Mare, had tried to sneak into his chambers and steal his Atium cache. They had planned the job for months, and it should have gone flawlessly. However, they were caught and sent to the Pits of Hathsin.
Kelsier had been led by the Lord Ruler to believe that Mare had betrayed him, and that she was the reason they had been caught. The Lord Ruler had thanked her for betraying him when he caught them.
However, she was sent to the pits as well, which shows that maybe she didn’t betray Kelsier after all. But this may just be Kelsier’s misguided rationalization of the situation. Most of the crew seems to assume that it was Mare who betrayed him. Sazed says, “she was one of the only people who could have done it. In addition, the Lord Ruler himself implicated her” (1.274).
Part of Kelsier’s emotional turbulence with his past is that he doesn’t know whether Mare truly betrayed him or not. In fact, he often beats himself up for even questioning it.
“His arms were bleeding, Mare was dead, and he feared he was responsible, that his lack of faith had somehow taken away her strength and will, that she died knowing that he questioned her loyalty” (1.286).
Despite not knowing the truth, he shows great dedication to his deceased life wife, even if she had ultimately betrayed him:
“Do you stop loving someone just because they betray you? I don’t think so. That’s what makes the betrayal hurt so much–pain, frustration, anger…and I still loved her. I still do” (1.285).
At last, he gets some sort of answer in regards to Mare’s betrayal from Vin. She points out that perhaps Inquisitors are powerful enough to detect Mistborn, even if there is a smoker masking them, which could mean that the Lord Ruler’s men simply detected them, rather than Mare giving them away.
“Then Mare wouldn’t have had to betray you!” Vin said eagerly. “Inquisitors are extremely powerful. The ones who were waiting for you, maybe they just felt you burning metals! They knew that an Allomancer was trying to sneak into the palace. Then the Lord Ruler thanked her because she was the one who gave you away! She was the Allomancer, burning tin, that led them to you” (1.522).
We learn that Mare was killed a year before Kelsier had escaped the Pits of Hathsin, being beaten by the slavemasters in front of him. After her corpse was taken away, Kelsier Snapped and gained his allomantic abilities.
Allomantic Abilities
Kelsier is Mistborn, meaning he has the ability to burn all of the allomantic metals (whereas a misting can burn only one). He Snapped (gained his powers) after his wife, Mare, died in the Pits of Hathsin.
He is quite skilled in allomancy, and it shows with his expertise in his Pushing and Pulling. As he is fighting the inquisitors at the end of Mistborn, Vin thinks:
“I underestimated Kelsier…I assumed that he was less skilled than the Mistings because he’d spread himself too thin. But that wasn’t it at all. This. This is his specialty—Pushing and Pulling with expert control. And iron and steel are the metals he personally trained me in. Maybe he understood all along” (1.569).
Personality
Larger than Life
Kelsier has a larger-than-life personality; he is all at once a troublemaker, known for being grandiose, boisterous, gregarious, impulsive and intelligent, brave and kind, lovable and unpunctual.
When we are first introduced to him, he is living among the country skaa in the outer reaches of the Final Empire, and we learn that he is a sort of thief, conman, and renegade. He is impulsive. He is a troublemaker, and he knows it:
“Troublemaking is about the only thing I’m good at, Mennis. Do you resent what I did there, what I forced you to become?” (1.22).
We also learn that he is grandiose, never content with pulling off “small-time” thieving jobs. “Kelsier never bothers with small-time jobs” (61), says Disten, one of Camon’s head appointments, early on in the novel. We also see his grandiosity in his plan to bring down the Final Empire, which is anything but a small-time job.
He is also perhaps boisterous, or perhaps simply an extrovert who wants to be seen:
“If all went well, there would come a time when Kelsier would want to be seen and recognized” (1.30).
He has a cheery enthusiasm, and his crew loves him”
“Vin had to admit that she had never seen any crewleader welcomed so happily by his men.”
He is not punctual, and quite often shows up late to things.
Impulsivity
Kelsier is a daring risk-taker, often given over to his own impulsivity.
“Even the new, more responsible Kelsier was an impulsive man. Perhaps that was a good attribute in a leader. He wasn’t afraid to incorporate new ideas, no matter where they occurred to him” (1.331).
In fact, he may even be addicted to thieving. At one point, Ham says of him:
“When you’re a crewleader like him, the game can get addicting. Soon, the money didn’t seem to matter to him. Eventually he heard that the Lord ruler was storing some incalculable secret in that hidden sanctum of his. If he and Mare had walked away before that job…but well, they didn’t. I don’t know—maybe they wouldn’t have been happy living lives where they didn’t have to worry” (1.404).
For Kelsier, thieving is not about the money, but the thrill. Life, in its essence, is about the thrill, meant to be lived to the fullest.
Charisma
Kelsier has a lot of charisma, and this helps him in accomplishing his goal of overthrowing the Lord Ruler and stoking the skaa rebellion.
“It appeared that not even Yeden could resist Kelsier’s charisma for an extended period of time” (1.280).
The people’s belief in him acts like a positive feedback loop, further fueling his charisma and building his momentum throughout the first Mistborn novel.
“The men spoke of him in quiet, almost reverent tones…Kelsier took them in stride; his charismatic ego probably just fueled the rumors even more” (1.332).
Even other characters, like Ham, notice how someone like Yeden, a no-nonsense skaa commander, has taken to him.
“I’m serious, Kell…How do you do it? That man practically hated you; now he looks at you like a kid idolizing his big brother” (1.348).
Furthermore, when he is gone, his absence is quite noticeable. For example, when he is away from the crew for too long, they lose motivation. At one point, Vin thinks, “I wish Kelsier would hurry up and get back…The crew, Vin included, seemed less motivated without him around…Kelsier’s snappy with and optimism helped keep her moving” (1.382).
He is special in that he is perhaps the only man that can awaken the skaa to fight backa gainst their oppression. As he makes his speech to the crew about how he’s not in it for the money or the glory, but he only wants to stop the Lord Ruler (as he is committing execution after execution in the town square), Vin thinks to herself that maybe he can do it. That “if there was ever a man who could defeat the Lord Ruler, it would be Kelsier” (1.438).
Intelligence & Planning Abilities
Kelsier is a highly intelligent person and a good planner. When the crew meets to create their plan to overthrow the Lord Ruler, Kelsier breaks down the larger goal into smaller, more workable sub-goals. In this way, he makes the impossible seem possible:
“I have a framework…I know what needs to happen, and I have a few ideas on how to do it. But you don’t gather a group like this and just tell them what to do. We need to work this out together, beginning with a list of problems we need to deal with if we want the plan to work” (1.109).
He skillfully breaks down their plan on a chalkboard, and he utilizes the best talents of the crew, emphasizing the importance of dividing up their labor:
“We can use all of the powers, but we can’t be everywhere. A successful crew leader needs to know how to divide labor, especially on a hob as big as this one” (1.141).
His planning abilities are just one facet that shows his high capability as a character.
Emotional Intelligence
Not only is he a good planner, but Kelsier has good emotional intelligence, too.
When he is making his speech to get more of the commonfolk to join the rebellion, for example, he dresses in a plain outfit, in “mundane clothing.” In effect, he dresses to look like one of them in order to get them on his side (1.191).
His strong emotional intelligence helps him to become one of the most persuasive figures in all of the Mistborn series.
Shrewdness
Kelsier also shows his shrewd nature when he smartly uses Vin and Sazed as informants at the house balls. He notes that they will be useful because they can “overhear vital items that street informants wouldn’t think important” (1.216).
Another example of his shrewdness, or perhaps more rarely, a moment of caution, is when Kelsier asks Ham to post guards to the tunnels of the caves of gathering skaa for the rebellion. He says, “Humor me…a single runaway or malcontent could betray us all to the Lord Ruler.” He is very aware of the threat a single defector can pose, and smartly guards against this threat.
Kindness
Kelsier shows his kindness with Vin in how patient he is with her and in teaching her allomancy. He makes her feel special and like a valued member of the team, and he reassures her that she is an important part of their plan:
“Your decision makes you as much a part of this team as anyone else” (1.167).
Additionally, there are several points where he compliments Vin in an effort to raise her self-esteem. He is always looking out for her and her best interests.
He is also fair to his thieving crew, which is rare for a crew leader. He doesn’t try to screw them over, as he believes the best policy is to have a crew that is fully bought into their mission. He can’t have someone on his team who doesn’t want to work with him.
“What did one make of a world where a crewleader agonized over his people?” (1.269).
He also seems to genuinely care for the skaa he is fighting for. When they go into one of the skaa tenements to check in with them towards the end of Mistborn, Vin thinks:
“He really does seem to care for them…I don’t think it’s just a show. This is how he is—he loves people, loves the skaa, But…it’s more like the love of a parent for a child tahn it is like the love of a man for his equals” (1.539).
Bravery
Kelsier often seems fearless, but he does have to overcome his own fear when he descends into the caves of his gathering skaa soldiers. It’s here that he has to face his fear of the pits, for the caves remind him of the Pits of Hathsin. He shows great bravery and determination at this point. “Let them see my weakness,” he thinks, “and let them see me overcome it” (1.346).
Later on in the novel, he also fights the inquisitors bravely. He had always wanted to stand up to them and fight, in fact:
“He was worried, he was pained, but he was also exhilarated. All of his life, there had been a piece of him that had wished to stand and fight” (1.566).
Self-Loathing
Due to his past, Kelsier has a self-loathing nature about himself.
For example, when Vin nearly gets killed at the Lord Ruler’s palace, Kredik Shaw, he blames himself for it. As he flares his pewter, “the fire within felt good–it gave him a focus for his anger and self-loathing” (1.257).
At this point, he believes he is the cause of Vin’s death, just as he believes he may have been the cause of his wife’s death, Mare.
“You let her die too. First Mare, then Vin. How many more will you lead to slaughter before this is through” (1.257).
He continues to berate himself for the mistake of letting her follow along.
“She’s so small,” Kelsier thought. Barely more than a child. How could I have thought to take her with me? (1.258).
Vin ends up being okay, however. But still, we see that Kelsier’s past continues to haunt him. With Mare having died in the pits, Kelsier’s scars “go much deeper than the ones you see on his arms” (1.274).
Survivor’s Guilt
Kelsier is likely suffering from Survivor’s guilt in the first Mistborn novel. He feels guilty that he had survived the Pits of Hathsin, while Mare did not.
When he escaped the pits, Kelsier recalled having found corpse after corpse in the caves, and that had spurred him on to survive. Each week, he would find an atium geode, and he had avoided executions because of it. In fact, Mare had given him an atium geode, claiming to have had two herself, but this was not true. She had given him the only one she had, and she had been beaten to death the next day right in front of him (1.353).
Because of this, Kelsier feels the guilt of having survived while Mare did not, and he bears not only physical scars from it, but emotional ones, too.
We see the emotional effects of Kelsier’s past when his skaa rebels are struggling in battle. He wants to take on the whole Valtroux Garrison himself, while his men are still getting slaughtered. Vin chastises him for this decision:
“What are you going to do—attack an entire army by yourself? For what purpose? Your rebels don’t have Allomancy–they won’t be able to run away on swift feet and escape. You can’t stop an entire army, Kelsier” (1.417).
Here, Kelsier feels as if he has abandoned the men on the battlefield, even though this wasn’t his fault. He is incredibly frustrated and angry (1.418).
He feels guilty for leading them into this slaughter. He knows that Ham, Breeze, and the others had assumed the Final Empire was invincible, and they followed him because of their faith in him, because he had couched his plans in the form of a thieving job (1.420).
Likely, this guilt stems from Mare’s death; she had been slaughtered while he survived, and now his men and his crewleaders were facing the same fate for something he had planned.
When Vin tries to stop him from fighting again, saying that Kelsier cannot save the whole city when the ministry gets a hold of Renoux and Spook, he says to her:
“You don’t understand what this is all about, do you, Vin? You never did. I let you stop me once before, on the hillside by the battlefield. Not this time. This time I can do something” (1.555).
This plays into his decision to turn and fight one of the inquisitors in the city, instead of running from it. He thinks that he should run, but that, “he couldn’t. He wouldn’t, not this time. He had compromised too many times before. Even if it cost him everything else, he had to free those prisoners” (1.558).
So, again, his past plays a role in his decisions here. He had escaped the Pits of Hathsin once, and run away, but now he was going to stand and fight.
Relationship with Vin
Kelsier has a father-like relationship with Vin, treating her as if she is some long-lost daughter he never had. He is notably protective of her, too. For example, at one point, he asks Sazed to look out for her:
“Protect her, Saze. She might be a powerful Allomancer, but she’s inexperienced. I’ll feel a lot less guilty about sending her into those aristocratic dens if I know you’re with her” (1.184).
He also shows his paternal nature with her as he worries about her going back out to balls after her injury, and initially doesn’t want her to go to the next one. He makes her promise not to use physical Allomancy until Sazed says otherwise (1.282). Here, we see him acting much like a father would towards Vin, making sure that she is safe and having her promise him not to do anything too dangerous.
He is also patient with Vin as he trains her in using allomancy, and he does his best to make her feel special and an important part of the crew. He constantly compliments Vin to help her with her self-esteem, showing that he genuinely cares for her.
Most importantly, Kelsier teaches Vin about friendship, and this is pivotal in her own character arc:
“You still have some things to learn about friendship, Vin. I hope someday you realize what they are…” (1.613).
Motivations
Revenge
At times throughout the first Mistborn novel, it’s hard to tell whether Kelsier wants to take down Lord Ruler because of a personal vendetta (his wife being killed in the Pits), or if he has a grander vision for skaa liberation, like his fellow crew member Yeden does.
Several times in the novel, we are led to believe that his rebellion is nothing more than getting revenge on the Lord Ruler:
“He took Mare from me, and he nearly took my sanity as well. I’ll admit to you all that part of my reason for this plan is to get revenge on him. We’re going to take his government, his home, and his fortune from him” (1.82).
Several of the other crew members seem to think this is the case, including his own brother, Marsh. He describes him as being selfish and only out for revenge:
“This isn’t about a cause, Kelsier. It’s about revenge. It’s about you, just like everything always is. I’ll believe that you aren’t after the money–I’ll even believe that you intend to deliver Yeden his army he’s apparently paying you for. But I won’t believe you care” (1.130).
Revenge is definitely a factor in his motivations, and it’s no small part to ignore. When Kelsier faces off with one of the inquisitors towards the end of the novel, he flares metals in his chest, which are “burning alongside his rage. His brother, dead. His wife, dead. Family, friends, heroes. All dead. You push me to seek revenge? He though. Well, you shall have it!” (1.560).
Despite his motivation for revenge, however, Kelsier frames his vision for the rebellion as something grander to get the crew on board with it.
Skaa Liberation
Early on in the first Mistborn novel, Kelsier emphasizes the gravity of the skaa’s plight to his crew:
“The Pits nearly killed me, and I’ve seen things…differently since I escaped. I see the skaa, working without hope. I see the thieving crews, trying to survive on aristocratic leavings, often getting themselves–and other skaa–killed in the process. I see the skaa rebellion trying so hard to resist the Lord Ruler, and never making any progress” (1.78).
He claims that their rebellion will be different because their success will come from being part of a small, highly-skilled crew, rather than a large rebellion that’s “too spread out” and whose pieces get crushed by the Steel Ministry anytime they get momentum. This shows that he thinks of their plot against the Lord Ruler as more than just revenge, but as a larger movement for Skaa Liberation.
When asked by Sazed, point blank, what he believes in, he says, “I’m not exactly sure yet…but overthrowing the Final Empire seems like a good start” (1.199).
Furthermore, Kelsier seems to genuinely care for the skaa, and he has trouble with not being able to save them all. For example, when he sees skaa beggars on the streets on the way back from the carnage at Camon’s lair, he thinks:
“Stay on track…You can’t save them all, not with coins. There will be time for these once the Final Empire is gone” (1.209).
This internal monologue really drives home that the rebellion isn’t just all about him, as others have suggested.
Finally, we start to get a better idea of why Kelsier wants so badly to liberate the skaa – it’s about creating a brighter future for the world, one which his wife, Mare, had once dreamed about.
Kelsier says that after Mare died, he decided that he’d see her dream fulfilled. That he would “make a world where flowers returned, a world with green plants, a world where no soot fell from the sky” (1.286).
So, the true motivation of Kelsier’s rebellion is in creating a brighter future, rather than some personal need for revenge.
Conflict of Motivation
Kelsier’s crew constantly questions his motivations, thinking that the rebellion they have planned is all about him because of his larger-than-life personality.
For example, after their army is wiped out and Yeden is killed, Breeze lays out what he and the rest of the crew think in terms of Kelsier’s motivations, in a rather confrontational way:
“You’ve been using us. You promised us wealth so we’d join you, but you never had any intention of making us rich. This is all about your ego—it’s about becoming the most famous crewleader that ever lived. That’s why you’re spreading all these rumors, doing all this recruitment. You’ve known wealth—now you want to become a legend” (1.430)
In a way Breeze is right – Kelsier’s ego and desire to become a legend do factor into his motivations, but they are only a small piece of a much bigger whole. As we find outmuch later, he had a very important reason for building himself up to be a legend; he had to create something for the Skaa to believe in.
At a critical turning point, not only for Kelsier, but the whole crew – as the skaa are being executed in spades out in the Luthadel city square, he makes a speech to them, saying what this rebellion is really about:
“It’s time to stop the charade,” Kelsier said, staring at them each in turn. “If we’re going to do this now, we have to be up-front and honest with ourselves. We have to admit that it isn’t about money. It’s about stopping that” (1.437).
He says this as he points to the executions in the square. He tells the crew that their plot against the Lord Ruler is not about the atium, although it will help them support a new government when this is all over – he says it’s about changing things.
“No Breeze,” he says, “this isn’t about boxings or about glory. This is about war—a war we have been fighting for a thousand years, a war I intend to end” (1.438).
He tells them they have to stop questioning his leadership, to give them his confidence again, and to trust that this isn’t about money or his ego, that it’s about stopping evil.
Kelsier then sacrifices himself to the Lord Ruler in Luthadel’s city square, in front of all of the skaa who are watching. We later find out that he had been building himself up to be a legend on purpose all along, and that he had planned to become a martyr since the beginning of their plot against the Lord Ruler.
“He planned all this from the start,” Ham said with wonder. “Kelsier knew that the skaa wouldn’t rise up. They’d been beaten down for so long, trained to think that the Lord Ruler owned both their bodies and their souls. He understood that they would never rebel…not unless he gave them a new god” (1.583).
When talking about his death/sacrifice in his note to Vin from beyond the grave, he says:
“The people needed something to believe in, and this was the only way to give it to them” (1.586).
Morality
Kelsier’s sense of morality is distorted by his past experiences. Because of his past, he believes that if you are a nobleman or a betrayer of the skaa, you are as good as dead. When he kills the first guard on Lord Venture’s balcony while attempting to steal his safe, he thinks to himself:
“The man was likely a lesser nobleman. The enemy. If he were instead a skaa soldier, enticed into betraying his people in exchange for a few coins…well then, Kelsier was even happier to send such men into their eternity” (1.94).
His warped morality is even clearer, here:
“But he felt it still, felt it in the itching of his scars and in the remembered screams of the woman he loved. As far as Kelsier was concerned, any man who upheld the Final Empire also forfeited his right to live” (1.97).
As he leaves Lord Vesting’s with the safe, he thinks to himself:
“No, this night was not a waste. Even if he hadn’t found the atium, any night that ended with a group of dead noblemen was a successful one, in Kelsier’s opinion” (1.103).
When he and Vin talk about the possibility of an all out war between the great houses, Vin says that it could mean the deaths of a lot of noblemen. To which he responds, “I can live with that. How about you?” (1.216).
His morality clashes with his brother’s, when they argue about how Kelsier had killed elevn nobles the night he stole Straff Venture’s safe:
“The names of the eleven men you slaughtered last night…I thought you might want to know.”
“They served the final empire.”
“They were men, Kelsier…They had lives, families. Several of them were skaa”
“Traitors.”
“People…who were just trying to do the best with what life gave them.”
“Well, I’m doing the same thing…and fortunately, life gave me the ability to push men like them off the tops of buildings” (1.129).
He continues to act upon his hatred for the noblemen, when he ambushes Lord Charrs Entrone on the street just outside a skaa slum. Although it’s part of their plan to sew division within the great noble houses, he seems to take great pleasure in it:
“Skaa bloodfights, for instance, were among the true pleasure of this life” (1.312). He thinks to himself that no one will miss this lord.
When Vin asks Ham if Kelsier’s always hated the nobility, Ham says yes, but it’s getting worse. It seems he wants to kill all of them, indeterminately. This obviously contrasts with Vin’s view that not all of them are bad.
Turning Point
It’s not until Vin chastises he and the crew for not being true skaa that Kelsier finally reevaluates his hatred of the nobility. Vin tells him that he and the crew are not true skaa because they eat well, sleep well, and enjoy comforts due to their thieving nature, while true skaa do not get to enjoy these things.
Later, she walks this back, saying that it’s good that Kelsier is not an ordinary skaa, because he has a unique skill set to lead their rebellion – the courage and experience necessary for such a thing. She says that alone makes him worthy of being a Skaa. He responds to her by saying:
“Worhty to be a skaa. I like the sound of that. Regardless, perhaps I need to spend a little less time worrying about which noblemen to kill, and a little more time worrying about which peasants to help” (1.520).
Here, Kelsier hasn’t accepted the nobility as having the potential to be good, but he does acknowledge that he needs to focus more on the skaa and less on his bloodlust for the nobility.
We can see here that Vin is the driving force in getting Kelsier to reconcile with his blind hatred of the nobility. It’s because of her love that he eventually turns on everything that he had once believed about the nobility. This happens at the end of the first Mistborn novel, when he saves Elend Venture, Vin’s love interest, rather than letting him die. He only does this because of Vin’s love for Elend:
“Kelsier hesitated for a mere moment. The Inquisitor raised his axe to strike. She loves him” (1.565).
It’s at this moment that he attacks the inquisitor to save Elend.
Later, he thinks to himself, “Can’t believe I just saved a nobleman…You’d better appreciate this, girl” (1.566).
In his note to Vin from beyond the grave, he says:
“Your original duty tonight was going to be to assassinate the high noblemen remaining in the city. But, well, you convinced me that maybe they should live” (1.586).
Here, we can see that despite being a messianic figure for the skaa and becoming a martyr, Kelsier had a truly flawed sense of morality. He was rough around the edges, and killed people he had determined had had too much in this world. His bloodlust for the nobility, regardless of if they are good people or not, makes Kelsier a gray character, morally speaking.
Character Arc
As Kelsier’s plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler takes hold and the rebellion gains steam, he begins to learn that this whole thing is much bigger than himself. He becomes a better leader, more charismatic, and more responsible, as the story goes on. He also learns that not all noblemen are bad, and that their movement isn’t to attack them, but rather, to raise up the skaa.
Leadership
The fact that he is leading a rebellion, rather than just a small crew of thieves on a job, seems to be changing him for the better. Because it’s bigger, he must act differently – as a true leader, rather than just a basic thief:
“He is also coming to realize that there is a large difference between heading a small crew of thieves and organizing a large rebellion. He can’t take the risks he once did. The process is changing him for the better, I think” (1.275).
In the weeks following Vin’s recovery from their excursion to Kredik Shaw, there is a change in Kelsier. He holds meetings more often, and discusses more plans with the crew, and is overall more thoughtful. Perhaps this is because of Vin nearly getting killed – he is forced to be more careful, more cognizant, with everything now – because everything is on the line with a full-scale rebellion like this. It isn’t just another job (1.279).
As the rebellion builds, he gains momentum. He becomes even more charismatic than he already is, with men speaking of him in “quiet, almost reverent tones” (1.332). Keslier takes this praise in stride, which fuels his charismatic ego even more. He seems to thrive on being in a leadership position; the bigger the moment, the better.
Furthermore, by putting on a fake fight with Bilg in the caves, he is able to rally the troops to his side, and shows his natural leadership by saying to them:
“Do you think I would send you against the Lord Ruler unprepared?…Do you think I would simply send you off to die? You fight for what is just, men! You fight for me. I will not leave you unaided when you go against the soldiers of the Final Empire” (1.361).
Vin and the others often worry about what happens after this rebellion, if Kelsier’s grandiose, larger-than-life personality wants something more than to just defeat the Lord Ruler, but to himself, be in power, when he has defeated him.
However, Vin notes that he was likely reluctant to leave Luthadel behind, when he and his wife Mare were thieving successfully, and that the reluctance had destroyed the old Kelsier, but produced something much better. “A more determined, less self-serving Kelsier” (1.404).
He has a moment of pride when he sees how hard his skaa soldiers are fighting, how they are determined, fighting with passion which seems to unsettle the enemy soldiers. As they fight in the town square towards the end of the first Mistborn book, Kelsier thinks of them:
“This is what happens when you finally convince them to fight. This is what hides within them all. It’s just so hard to release…” (1.565)
Turning Point
At the end of Part Three of the first Mistborn novel, Kelsier’s skaa rebel army gets slaughtered at the hands of the Lord Ruler’s forces, the Holstep Garrison. He blames himself for it, thinking that he was the cause of their demise.
However, a man named Mennis, a plantation skaa who had followed Kelsier in his rebellious path, tells him that he was glad to have followed him. That before Keslier, he had believed his life was over, that he awoke each day expecting he wouldn’t have strength to rise. He told him that he found his purpose in those caves. That, despite there being no chance to defeat the Lord Ruler, just being able to struggle against him was enough.
This new perspective, of giving men a reason to live, to fight, to die, is what ultimately reassures Kelsier that he is doing the right thing, that he must not only continue on, but prove Mennis wrong, that he must show men like Mennis that they can, and will, defeat the Lord Ruler.
“That wasn’t a victory, Mennis,” Keslier whispered. “I’ll show you a victory” (1.423).
Here, Kelsier doubles down on his mission, and this plot to overthrow the Lord Ruler truly becomes about the skaa, and not about himself and his thirst for revenge:
“He forced himself to smile—not out of pleasure, and not out of satisfaction. He smiled despite the grief he felt at the deaths of his men; he smiled because that was what he did. That was how he proved to the Lord Ruler—and to himself—that he wasn’t beaten…No, he wasn’t going to walk away. He wasn’t finished yet. Not by far” (1.423).
Legacy
Broader Legacy
In his martyrdom, Kelsier leaves behind a legacy that rivals how he lived, as a larger-than-life figure. After his death, he becomes a messianic figure for the skaa. He is their symbol of hope.
“Come,” said a skaa man who stood at the front of the group. “Fear not the mist! Didn’t the Survivor name himself Lord of the Mists? Did he not say that we have nothing to fear from them? Indeed, they will protect us, give us safety. Give us power!” (1.580).
He is basically Jesus to the lower classes, and they believe that he is always with them spiritually:
“What did the Survivor say—that the Lord Ruler could never really kill him? Kelsier is the Lord of the Mists! Is he not with us now?” (1.581).
Later, in The Well of Ascension, Demoux, one of his most devout followers, sums up their belief in him well. He says that he was still a man, but with the “hopes of a divinity.”
“Kelsier the man died in those Pits, and Kelsier the Survivor was born. He was greanted great power, and great wisdom, by a force that is beyond us all. That is why he accomplished what he did. That is why we worship him. He still had the follies of a man, but he had the hopes of a divinity” (1.171).
He represents a recurring motif throughout the Mistborn series, and that is the idea of hope.
When Vin kills the Lord Ruler, she tells him that Kelsier wanted him to know that he’d not dead. That he can’t be killed. “He is hope,” she says (1.632).
Impact on Other Characters
After his death, Kelsier casts a large shadow over the other characters, and they are often left wondering what Kelsier would do in any given situation.
In his note to his crew from beyond the grave, he tells them to “remember to smile.” He says,”it was a fun job, wasn’t it?” and that he wants them to remember the fun, when they remember him. He wishes them well by saying “may you rule in wisdom” (1.585).
At one point in The Hero of Ages, Elend asks the crew to describe him in an effort to boost their morale. They each take turns describing him, saying:
[Ham] “Kell was…grand. He wasn’t just a man, he was bigger than that. Everything he did was large—his dreams, the way he talked, the way he thought…” (3.124).
“And it wasn’t false,” Breeze added, “I can tell when a man is benign a fake. That’s why I started my first job with Kelsier, in fact. Amid all the pretenders and posturers, he was genuine. Everyone wanted to be the best. Kelsier really was.”
“He was a man,” Vin said quietly, “Only a man. Yet you always knew he’d succeed. He made you be what he wanted you to be.”
Breeze notes that this was so he could use you, and Ham adds “But you were better when he was done with you” (3.124).
All in all, Kelsier was a larger-than-life character, both in life and in death, and he is one of the more memorable fantasy protagonists.
