Vin
| Vin | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 by Reiyeka
| |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Born | 1005 FE | ||||||||
| Died | 1025 FE | ||||||||
| Abilities | Mistborn, Shard | ||||||||
| Titles | Heir to the Survivor, Empress (of the New Empire), Ascendant Warrior (after death) | ||||||||
| Aliases | Valette Renoux | ||||||||
| Groups | Camon's crew (former) Kelsier's crew (former) House Venture | ||||||||
| Birthplace | Luthadel | ||||||||
| Ethnicity | Skaa | ||||||||
| Homeworld | Scadrial | ||||||||
Vin is a half-skaa Mistborn from the Final Empire on Scadrial. She later becomes known as Heir to the Survivor and the Ascendant Warrior, as well as taking on the alias Valette Renoux. She was born to Tevidian Tekiel's skaa mistress in year 1005 FE in Luthadel, raised by her half brother Reen after he discovered that their sister had been murdered by their mother. The two lived on the streets and worked in the underground, until eventually coming to work in Camon's crew.
Vin trains in and works with Kelsier's crew after he prevents Camon from beating her to death, infiltrating the nobility under the guise of Valette Renoux, eventually helping to save the survivors of the skaa rebellion's army and killing Shan Elariel before fighting the Lord Ruler and killing him. After the Collapse, she marries Elend Venture and sets herself and Elend up as the empress and emperor of the New Empire during the Siege of Luthadel, wherein she kills Zane and Straff Venture, saves the city from rampaging koloss and forces Lord Cett to swear his allegiance to them. In the aftermath of the siege, she inadvertently frees Ruin from it's prison at the Well of Ascension.
Following Ruin's release, Vin helps to secure her and Elend's empire; locating the Lord Ruler's storage caverns, participating in the Siege of Fadrex City, and takes up the Shard Preservation shortly prior to the Battle of Hathsin, wherein she gives her life to kill Ruin. In the years following the Final Ascension, she becomes a mythical figure to the descendants of the survivors, known as the Ascendant Warrior.
Appearance and Personality
Due to a life spent on the streets and in the skaa underground, Vin is relatively small and thinks of herself as scrawny.[1] She has dark hair which she keep cut short until she joins the skaa rebellion.
She is naturally suspicious of others due to the circumstances of her upbringing, and slow to trust people out of fear of being betrayed. She initially tends to attempt to make herself seem irrelevant or hide when she is uncomfortable or anxious, and prefers solitude to the company of others, because of the belief instilled in her that no one can betray her if she is alone.[1]
Often she is alert and watchful, having a tendency to perch on things, or sitting in places where she can best monitor her surroundings. Vin is also uncomfortable with having the attention of others, preferring to go hidden and unnoticed. This puts her in an awkward position with the Church of the Survivor, as she displays obvious discomfort as being revered as the Lady Heir.[2] For this reason, she is also uncomfortable around Demoux. Additionally, she most often forgoes wearing clothing that is not practical, although she does later enjoy wearing dresses, she finds it difficult to reconcile that part of herself, or to justify wearing expensive clothing while so many people are suffering. She initially finds noble dresses uncomfortable and impractical, reflected later after becoming empress of the New Empire when she refuses to wear royal garb in favour of clothing more practical for battle.[3][4]
History
Early Life
Childhood
Vin was born of Tevidian Tekiel, lord prelan of the Steel Ministry[5][6] to a skaa prostitute[5], as well as an unnamed infant sister. They also had an older half brother on their mother's side, Reen.[5] Vin and her sister inherited Allomantic powers from their father, the latter being born a Seeker[7].
Her mother was insane and was driven to kill her infant sister with a bronze pin by Ruin, creating a Hemalurgic spike which the mother then pierced the infant Vin's ear with, giving Ruin access to her mind and allowing it to influence her. Because of the earring's Hemalurgy, Ruin was able to use Vin as an unwitting pawn and get himself released from the Well of Ascension. Vin's Allomantic Seeking ability became twice as strong as typical Mistborn or Seekers, enabling her to pierce Allomantic copperclouds and locate the hidden Well of Ascension. [8]
Her half-brother Reen saved Vin from her mother and after the death of her mother and sister, she lived on the road with him. Reen's lessons and attempts to strengthen her -- like taking her on burglaries to teach her to steal[9] -- and teach her to survive the skaa underground were abusive, beating her for things such as being too friendly with other crewmembers or making a foolish comment and drawing unwanted negative attention[10], but successful in instilling the lessons he believed she needed to survive and work the thieving crews in Luthadel until he apparently deserted her.[1][5] As she later discovers, however, Reen never betrayed her, and was captured by Inquisitors and tortured. Despite this, he never gave her up, swearing that she had died even while he was being tortured.[11]
The Skaa Rebellion
Camon's Crew
Vin continues to work the thieving crews until Camon's crew finishes their latest scam; against the Canton of Finance. Though the crew seem to pull of the scam and get the three thousand boxings without a hitch, unbeknownst to them, Vin's Allomancy alerts the obligators to her abilities, and a Steel Inquisitor is put on Vin's trail. Kelsier notices this as he is following Vin and Camon, and steps in to distract the Inquisitor, making them lose Vin's trail for the time being. During her time working in the crew, Vin grew to somewhat trust Ulef, another member of the crew. Though she did not think of him as a friend, believing that friendship was a gateway to betrayal, he is the closest thing to a friend she has at the time.[1] As Vin gets a foreboding feeling and prepares to leave the crew's lair, she tells Ulef that she's leaving, and asks him to join her. However, Ulef betrays her to Camon, who is at the time drunk and believes that Vin planned to sell him out to the Steel Ministry. Camon flies into a drunken rage, intending to beat her to death, before Kelsier enters the lair and intervenes, saving Vin's life. Kelsier has Milev replace Camon, and has the latter put out on the streets.[1][12][5]
Kelsier's Crew
Vin joins Kelsier's crew and begins her Mistborn training with him.
In her first practical lesson with Kelsier, they venture outside the city walls and are picked up in a carriage by Sazed, who takes them to Fellise, where Vin is tutored by him as it is decided that she will infiltrate the noble court on their behalf.[13][14] She contributes to the plan by supplying a method to infiltrate the Steel Ministry from her old crew: Theron's fake canal convoys.
During the meeting, Ham interrupts, reporting that the Ministry found Camon's lair, where Milev and his crew had continued to operate. The crew move to investigate the lair, wherein Vin's old crewmates had been massacred and butchered by an Inquisitor. The crew realise that the Inquisitors must still be on Vin's trail after Camon's last scam after finding the former crewleader hung from a hook in the streets.[15]
The House War
Vin spies on the noble houses by disguising herself as a noblewoman: Valette Renoux, an identity created as a cover, who is the fourth cousin of Lord Renoux, daughter of Lord Hadren and Lady Fellette Renoux. Kelsier reveals that he chose House Renoux and the Valette cover in part because of their status as weapons merchants, making them valuable to various houses and drawing the nobles that the rebellion needs to focus on to them.[3] Vin attends her first ball at Keep Venture to establish her identity within Luthadel, and she attracts the attentions of several young men, declining their offers to dance on account of her inexperience.[3] She recognises her father and meets Elend Venture, the heir to House Venture, although she only learns who Elend really is after the fact when speaking with Sazed.[3]
Vin follows Kelsier one night, discovering the spikeway between Luthadel and Fellise in the process. After he discovers and confronts her, he introduces her to atium for the first time, and they attempt to raid the Lord Ruler's palace, Kredik Shaw.[9] During the raid, the pair are forced to flee when attacked by the Steel Inquisitors guarding the palace, and Vin is left behind. She recovers Alendi's logbook before she is gravely wounded in her attempt to escape.[16] Sazed, however, manages to save her from the Inquisitors and brings her back to Clubs' hideout.[17] Vin spends the subsequent two weeks unconscious as she recovers from a massive wound in her side, and it takes three more months to recover fully from her ordeal at Kredik Shaw.[17][10][18]
Gradually, Vin grows more comfortable when adopting the Valette persona, but she is give a sobering reminder of the realities of the Final Empire when she witnesses a soldier murder a skaa kitchen boy for begging from a nobleman.[19]
Vin tries to get training from Ham with pewter by watching him spar, but the two find out that the Luthadel Garrison is being called away to quell the skaa rebellion's army led by Yeden in a sudden attack against the Holstep Garrison as a test of their strength.[20][21] After informing the rest of the crew, Vin joins Kelsier on a desperate mission to save the skaa army's survivors. They find the army being massacred in an ambush from the Valtroux Garrison, and Vin stops Kelsier from trying to stop it, reminding him that even though they are Mistborn, they're not invincible. Instead, they return to the caves, finding the two thousand men, lead by Demoux, who stayed behind out of loyalty to Kelsier. Vin and Kelsier lead the remnants of the army back to Luthadel.[21]
Two weeks later, after Vin has recovered from the consequences of pewter-dragging, the executions in the later named Square of the Survivor begin. She discovers her father's identity as the Steel Ministry's lord prelan during the executions after pointing him out to Kelsier. The executions provide Kelsier the opportunity to renew the crew's determination, by showing them what it is that they're truly fighting for.[6]
After the executions in the fountain square, the crew commit even more to provoking an all out house war in earnest, making it the top priority now that the bulk of their army is lost. Vin begins to spread bad information among the nobility, while remaining the crew's primary spy among them.[22] Vin and Kelsier go to meet Marsh in the Twists, and while waiting, she experiences burning gold for the first time, seeing the two versions of herself, the trusting version who lost her street instincts, and the hateful and lonely version. The meeting with Marsh yields the truth about the Ministry Allomancers, that they're used inthe Soothing stations positioned throughout the skaa sections of Luthadel.[22]
In the course of spying on the nobility and spreading her information, Vin learns from Elend that House Venture works the Pits of Hathsin and mines the Lord Ruler's atium. As the house war reaches the point of no return, the noble parties and balls come to a close as alliances are formalised. Elend rejects Vin, but she saves his life shortly after when she uncovers Shan Elariel's plot to kill him. She fights Shan, and her fellow assassins, killing the male Mistborn accompanying Shan. When confronting Shan directly, Vin realises that her atium is about to run out, and extinguishes it prematurely, leading Shan to think that she is vulnerable. Vin burns atium at the last second, taking Shan by surprise and killing her.[23]
Vin and Kelsier discover what they assume to be Marsh's remains during their next meeting with him, and Kelsier decides to retaliate by destroying the Pits of Hathsin and ending the atium production there for the next three hundred years.[24][25] The Lord Ruler orders more executions in response to the attack, and Vin watches as Kelsier interrupts them, rescuing the House Renoux prisoners and killing Bendal, before he faces the Lord Ruler and is killed by a spear through the chest, feeling betrayed by his death after all of his assurances as Ruin returns in Reen's voice to reaffirm her sense of betrayal.[26]
The Skaa Riots & the Death of the Lord Ruler
She is imprisoned in Kredik Shaw after Kelsier's death at the hands of the Lord Ruler, and is forced to burn aluminum to destroy her metals. She is taken to be questioned by the Lord Ruler, and has her earring ripped out while battling him, allowing the mists to invest their power in her, restoring all her Allomantic abilities. Vin kills him by pulling out his metalminds and fatally stabbing him with a spear.
The Siege of Luthadel
After the fall of the Final Empire, she helps Elend establish his ideas for fair and free governance. Whilst the Siege of Luthadel progresses, she practices her Allomancy, courts Zane Venture, discovers duralumin, befriends the kandra TenSoon, and successfully intimidates the two besiegers: Straff Venture and Ashweather Cett.
Zane & the Attack on Keep Hasting
Upon hearing that Elend went into Jastes Lekal's koloss army, Vin experiences a round of uncertainty and self-doubt, uncertain of even her ability to protect one person. Zane takes advantage of her doubt, and convinces her that Elend won't let her protect him, and that she should attack Cett. [27]
Alongside Zane, Vin launches a brutal assault on Keep Hasting, the keep which Lord Cett appropriates as his own residence once he enters Luthadel. In minutes, the two Mistborn wipe out three hundred of the one thousand men garrisoned there and make their way to Lord Cett and his son, Gneorndin Cett to threaten them. Though Vin has suspected ever since she first saw him that Cett is an Allomancer feigning his physical disability, it quickly becomes evident that neither he nor his son are Allomancers, or that they pose any threat on their own, leading Vin to spare their lives. When Zane moves to kill them, she convinces him not to. Following the attack, Cett pulls out of the city and withdraws from the siege entirely.[27][28]
After the attack, Vin hid in an abandoned thieves' hideout, frightened by her own actions until TenSoon and Elend find her and talk to her. She reveals that Kelsier sometimes frightened her with his rationale for killing nobles. During her conversation with Elend, she decides that she has to go north to the Terris Dominance and look for the Well of Ascension.[28]
Zane attempts to convince Vin to leave with him, but she refuses and he becomes upset, attacking her. In the ensuing fight, TenSoon's identity is exposed to her. Zane additionally reveals multiple of his manipulations throughout the siege; placing an Allomancer among Cett's staff, forcing Vin to fight off Allomancer assassins in front of Elend to intimidate him, and attempting to make Vin explore her potential as a killer. Zane seemingly has the advantage, as he is burning atium and blocking her every attack, and in her desperation, Vin attempts to draw on the mists to no avail, because her Hemalurgic earring is not removed during the fight. However, TenSoon tips her off to the Flaw, hinting at it and allowing her to take control of him with a duralumin-enhanced Soothing. Vin uses this to her advantage, attacking Zane with TenSoon's body and retrieving the bead of atium, although the latter turns out to be a fake, a lead ball with a thin coat of atium. Cornered, with no means of escape, Vin is forced to fight Zane, and uses his own foresight granted by atium to predict what he will do and allowing her to react, causing her atium shadow to split. Vin stabs him in the neck, killing him. [29]
Vin goes to find Elend in her wounded condition, and while Sazed tends to her wounds, she marries Elend. Sazed takes the opportunity to convince the couple to flee the city in search of the Well of Ascension, in an attempt to save them, along with Spook.[30]
The Battle of Luthadel
Convinced of the need to find the Well of Ascension, Vin and Elend leave Luthadel, and head towards the Terris Dominance in hope of finding the Well of Ascension. Some time after their departure, the koloss army attacks Luthadel. Vin realises that the Well is located under Kredik Shaw, and returns to find the Battle of Luthadel under way. She utilises a duralumin-enhanced steel jump to kill Straff Venture via bisection with a koloss blade, and stops the koloss assault on the city by controlling them through emotional Allomancy.
The Well of Ascension
She finds the Well of Ascension beneath Kredik Shaw in the aftermath of the battle. Once they enter the Well's chamber, the mist spirit attacks Elend, fatally stabbing him in the hope that Vin would use the power to save him. Believing it to be the correct choice, Vin enters the Well and gives up the power, thus releasing Ruin from his prison. The mist spirit remedies it's actions, showing Vin the final bead of lerasium in the chamber in order to allow her to save Elend by turning him into a Mistborn.
The New Empire
Vin and Elend set about expanding their empire, and bring large numbers of koloss under their control by killing Ruin's Inquisitors. They search for the atium cache and the storage caverns, discovering more about the history of the world. They also read about the metal electrum, which helps to protect them from atium attacks.
The Siege of Fadrex
They besiege Fadrex City, in hope of locating the atium, and the last of the Lord Ruler's plates. Instead Vin is captured and imprisoned by Aradan Yomen. While imprisoned, Vin is visited by an apparition of Reen, who is later revealed to be Ruin. After learning about Ruin, she fights Marsh, and escapes back to Luthadel where she fights the other Inquisitors and destroys the palace in a mist-powered push, finally able to use the mists after Marsh regains enough control over his body to defy Ruin and remove her earring and Hemalurgic spike.
The Battle of Hathsin & The Final Ascension
When Vin absorbs the mists in the fight against the Inquisitors her body is eventually vaporised by the power and she takes up the Shard Preservation and attempts to right the world in similar ways to the inexperienced Rashek. She fails in many of the same ways as Rashek, initially, from unforeseen consequences of each action, as well as Ruin's interference.[31][32] She observes the final fight between Elend and Marsh, fueling Elend's Allomancy with Preservation's power. Marsh beheads Elend, killing him, and removing the last thing binding Vin to the world. She attacks Ruin directly, killing both Ati and herself, leaving both Shards to be taken up by Sazed.[33][34]
In his letter to Spook, Sazed reveals that he had spoken with Vin and she was happy where she was, Sazed also tries to bring her back to life but reveals that merely healing a body does not return souls.[34][35]
Quotes
“Anonymity. Hiding, even when you’re with others. Being quiet, unobtrusive. Forcing yourself to stay apart—emotionally, at least. It’s a way of life. A protection.”
—Vin to TenSoon[36]
“I’m particularly tired, [...] I’m tired of the games. I’m tired of people dying because of arguments between their leaders. I’m tired of good men being taken advantage of.”
—Vin to Lord Penrod[37]
“You brought armies to attack my city. You threatened my people. I won’t slaughter your soldiers, make them pay for what you did, but I will kill you, Cett.”
—Vin to Lord Cett[38]
Trivia
- Vin was originally male in a single chapter of Mistborn before Brandon changed his mind.[39]
See Also
Notes
- ↑ a b c d e The Final Empire chapter 1#
- ↑ The Well of Ascension chapter 5#
- ↑ a b c d The Final Empire chapter 12#
- ↑ The Hero of Ages chapter 15#
- ↑ a b c d e The Final Empire chapter 3#
- ↑ a b The Final Empire chapter 26#
- ↑ The Hero of Ages chapter 73 epigraph#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 31#
- ↑ a b The Final Empire chapter 13#
- ↑ a b The Final Empire chapter 16#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 37#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 2#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 7#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 8#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 11#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 14#
- ↑ a b The Final Empire chapter 15#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 20#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 18#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 24#
- ↑ a b The Final Empire chapter 25#
- ↑ a b The Final Empire chapter 27#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 30#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 28#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 32#
- ↑ The Final Empire chapter 34#
- ↑ a b The Well of Ascension chapter 43#
- ↑ a b The Well of Ascension chapter 44#
- ↑ The Well of Ascension chapter 47#
- ↑ The Well of Ascension chapter 48#
- ↑ The Hero of Ages chapter 73#
- ↑ The Hero of Ages chapter 76#
- ↑ The Hero of Ages chapter 81#
- ↑ a b The Hero of Ages chapter 82#
- ↑ The Hero of Ages epilogue#
- ↑ The Well of Ascension chapter 22#
- ↑ The Well of Ascension chapter 54#
- ↑ The Well of Ascension chapter 55#
- ↑ Vin, in Mistborn, started as a boy.
— Theoryland - 15 April 2013#