Kelsier

Kelsier is a half-skaa Mistborn from Scadrial. He is stern and intense, but always smiling; another act of rebellion against the Lord Ruler's oppression. He hates injustice and takes this hatred to the extreme, which originally resulted in him being unable to see good in any of the nobility. This was changed by Vin who fell in love with Elend Venture. Kelsier went on to save Elend's life from an inquisitor. His late wife Mare collected pre-Ascension memorabilia, and he keeps one piece, a drawing of a flower, to inspire his crew. Kelsier is the younger brother of Marsh, who is disappointed at Kelsier's apparent lack of direction or purpose until Kelsier leads the skaa rebellion.
== Appearance and Personality ==
Kelsier is tall and hawk-faced and has light-blonde hair and hazel eyes; he has a multitude of scars crossing both arms from his time in the Pits of Hathsin. He usually wears a nobleman's suit (a colored vest with dark trousers and a coat), and during the night he wears his mistcloak.
He is almost always late to gatherings, which he attributes to always having somewhere better to be. He always smiles and projects an excited and positive attitude, which is particularly unusual in the skaa underground. He does this in order to fight the Lord Ruler's oppression of all the skaa, wanting to have one thing which cannot be taken away from him. He hates all of the nobility and tends to believe that all of them are to blame for the plight of the skaa, although near the end of his life this attitude changes due to Vin's insistence that Elend is different and that not all the nobles should be fought, although his views did not fully change, and he retained his prejudice and distrust. He has an imposing presence and is a natural leader, easily taking charge and swaying even the downtrodden skaa of Luthadel into joining the rebellion with his charming personality. If Kelsier orders a person around, it is a sign of affection. Kelsier likes heights, a result of what happened at the Pits of Hathsin. After his death, he grew even more fond of heights, and he felt that a part of him still held a grudge against the ground.
Kelsier is a psychopath, or at least has some psychopathic tendencies. He shows little empathy or fear, as well as a high ego, and is frequently quick to resort to using violence—often lethal violence—to solve problems, even when doing so clearly won't actually help the people he is supposedly trying to help. He is arrogant and very driven which, combined with his power, makes him incredibly dangerous; he is willing to go extremely far to achieve his goals—for example, he would be willing to use Hemalurgy on a large scale to create powerful Allomancers if ultimately necessary to protect Scadrial from other forces in the cosmere—though is not quite as utilitarian as Taravangian. Perhaps as a result of his egotism and arrogance, several of his plans involve setting himself up as a powerful, mysterious, or even divine figure. He is a great agent of chaos and is very good at tearing things down and messing with what other people want. There is a darkness to him that other heroes, such as Kaladin, would fight but that Kelsier instead embraces and is so ruthless that, in a fight with other notable people from the cosmere, he would be the most likely to win; even Hoid considers him incredibly dangerous. Had his life gone differently, he could have been an outright evil person and, outside the context of the Final Empire, would likely be a villain.
== Attributes and Abilities ==
=== Allomancy ===
Kelsier is a Mistborn, so he can burn every Allomantic metal, although he is particularly proficient with the external physical metals iron and steel. He is capable of using them with a high degree of precision to control the momentum and rotation of dozens of pieces of metal simultaneously. He once used them in his fight with a Steel Inquisitor, so the metals acted like they were alive, twitching and flying through the air to cut and distract the Steel Inquisitor. He lacks finesse in the external mental abilities of zinc and brass as he tends to create large changes in emotional states as opposed to the more subtle Soothing abilities of Breeze, although he can affect a relatively large mass of people. He is quite proficient at pewter dragging and has enough practice to maintain it for hours and still maintain a fair amount of clarity afterwards. 
He lost his Allomantic abilities in death and has not recovered them as of .
=== Sliver ===
After Kelsier died, he became a Cognitive Shadow through the Well of Ascension, making him able to resist the pull of the Beyond. After Holding and releasing the Shard of Preservation, Kelsier became a Sliver.
=== Preservation ===
Kelsier held Preservation for a short time but could not properly use it because of his recent rebirth as a Cognitive Shadow and his goals did not match well with Preservation's Intent.
=== Hemalurgy ===
Kelsier has a Hemalurgic spike in his right eye socket, which he acquires sometime after the Catacendre. As a result, he has both regular vision and the steelsight that Inquisitors used, allowing him to see via both normal light and trace metals. This spike pins his soul to his bones.
=== Devotion ===
Kelsier has an unknown Seon which he uses to communicate with his Ghostbloods on Scadrial and Roshar.
== History ==
=== Early Life ===
Born to a noble father and skaa mother, his mother kept both Kelsier and Marsh alive by pretending that she was noble to their father so that their children would be considered merely illegitimate noblemen instead of half-breeds; however, their father eventually found out. Thus Kelsier's mother was killed, and because of this, the brothers have a deep hatred of noblemen. Kelsier then made his living as a thief, becoming famous throughout Luthadel. 
He teamed up with the escaped Plantation skaa Dockson and the Tineye Mare, whom he married. They were extremely successful. Kelsier later said that "he had more Money than he could Spend" however, after a failed attempt at stealing from the Lord Ruler in his secret room inside Kredik Shaw, he was sent to the atium mines in the Pits of Hathsin. There he spent his time believing that his wife Mare had betrayed him to the Lord Ruler until he witnessed his wife being beaten to death by guards after she gifted her Atium geode to him. He then "Snapped", becoming a Mistborn. Using Allomancy he was able to escape the Pits. Kelsier was then trained by a Mistborn named Gemmel and they traveled to the far north of the Western Dominance to a city called Mantiz where Kelsier fought and killed the Mistborn Antillius Shezler. From the skaa in Keep Shezler he heard rumors of the Eleventh metal. Kelsier sought and eventually found the Eleventh metal as he believed it would help him to defeat the Lord Ruler.
=== Recruiting his Crew ===
After discovering the Eleventh Metal Kelsier started to prepare his plan by hiring the Kandra OreSeur. Then he killed the noble Lord Renoux and let OreSeur impersonate him. He met with Yeden the leader of the skaa rebellion and made Yeden hire him to bring down the Final Empire. On Kelsier's way back to Luthadel, he made a stop at the farm of Lord Themos Tresting to talk with the farm skaa. When Lord Tresting attempted to rape a skaa girl, Kelsier saved her, killing Tresting and all his servants and soldiers in the process. He burned down the manor and purposely departed in a way that forced the skaa to join the rebellion. When he arrived in Luthadel, he first reunited with his old partner and best friend Dockson.
Dockson told Kelsier about a young Allomancer girl Marsh had discovered whom he suspected was a Mistborn. Kelsier and Dockson went to see her first hand; they watched Vin Soothe an obligator during Camon's scheme, confirming that she was at least a Soother. After Camon and Vin left, Kelsier realized that the ministry had already discovered that Camon was a thief and only played along to find the crew's hideout. A Steel Inquisitor had been present, discovering Vin's Allomancy. The Inquisitor and some soliders followed Camon to find his hideout to wipe out his crew, but Kelsier lured the Inquisitor away by using his own Allomancy while Dockson took out the soldiers. They went to the hideout themselves just in time to save Vin from Camon. Kelsier knocked out Camon with Steelpushes and gave control over the crew to Milev. He forced the rest of the crew to leave, only leaving Vin. Kelsier's suspicions that Vin was a Mistborn were confirmed when he saw that she was able to burn zinc. Kelsier offered to let her to join his crew. Vin didn't trust him but agreed in order to learn how to use Allomancy. Later, Kelsier invited a team of the best thieves in the city to a gathering in Camon's safe house. He introduced them and Vin to Yeden and explained his plan to destroy the Final Empire and kill the Lord Ruler. Breeze, Ham, Clubs, and Clubs' nephew Spook joined his crew. While initially hostile, in the end Kelsier's brother Marsh joined, and together the crew developed a plan to defeat the Final Empire.
The plan was to secretly build up an army of twenty thousand trained skaa soldiers in the Arguois caverns while at the same time causing confusion and distrust in the nobility to cause a house war. Once their army was trained and the houses grew unstable enough, they would send a part of their army to attack the Pits of Hathsin, forcing the garrison of Luthadel to go and defend the Pits. With the garrison gone and the nobility weakened by the war, the rest of the army then could take over Luthadel. Then Yeden would gain control of the city and the crew would receive the Lord Ruler's atium stash as payment. Breeze would recruit men for the rebellion, Ham would train them in the Arguois caverns, Dockson would direct the operation's finances, Clubs would hide the group's Allomancy with copperclouds, OreSeur in the role of Lord Renoux would buy the necessary equipment, Marsh would infiltrate the Steel Ministry posing as an obligator, Kelsier would use his Mistborn power to make attacks on the nobility to create tension between the houses, and Vin would gather information in the noble court posing as Renoux's niece Valette. Kelsier also wanted to try kill the Lord Ruler with the Eleventh Metal as a "voluntary bonus".
=== The Skaa Rebellion === 
To put the plan in motion, Kelsier first targeted Keep Venture, as House Venture was currently the most powerful house in Luthadel and an attack on it would have the greatest impact. Kelsier killed eight Hazekillers, stole a bag of atium, and made sure that it became known that a Mistborn had attacked a Great House, something forbidden by an unspoken agreement between the houses. He gifted Vin a mistcloak and started to teach her Allomancy. Vin expected that Kelsier would use his knowledge to control her, but to her surprise, he openly explained her the eight basic metals. Kelsier let Vin jump over the city walls as an exercise for steel and iron and was surprised how voluntarily she did it, remembering his own training. Outside the city, they saw a Mistwraith. Back at the city gates Kelsier introduced Vin to Sazed. Realizing Vin didn't trust him, he told her that in his crew they trust each other. He offered to teach her about gold and atium, gave her the money he took from Camon, and allowed her to leave, as he didn't want to force anybody into his crew. Vin decided to stay in order to see if he told the truth about trusting others.
In the following months, Kelsier himself took on many roles to further the plan, acting as a beacon to the repressed skaa, assisting in recruitment, attacking many noblemen to increase the tensions between the Great Houses, collecting information by purchasing it from informants, and even posing as an informant in order to provide misinformation to noblemen. He continued training Vin and was surprised by her quick progress. Though they suffered many setbacks, Kelsier's leadership allowed the rebellion to attain an army of sufficient size to hold Luthadel.
=== Death ===
When several skaa from the rebellion were about to be executed, Kelsier attempts to save them. He is confronted by a Steel Inquisitor, which he eventually manages to defeat by beheading him with the Inquisitor's own obsidian axe. However, Kelsier is then confronted by the Lord Ruler, who backhands him across the face and then stabs him in the chest with a spear, killing him. Kelsier later reveals in his letter to Vin that he had intended to use the Eleventh Metal to destroy the Lord Ruler but could not discover how to use it in his fight. After his death, OreSeur takes his bones and appears before several groups of skaa, making them believe that Kelsier survived somehow. This results in the skaa considering him a god, leading to the founding of the Church of the Survivor, which refers to Kelsier as "Lord of the Mists". Vin also became a major religious figure in the wake of his death, as the Survivorists consider her Kelsier's heir. TenSoon learned the location of his bones from OreSeur, and used them to convince the people of Luthadel to hide in the caverns after King Penrod was corrupted by Ruin.
=== Time in the Cognitive Realm ===
Immediately after his death, Kelsier arrived in the Cognitive Realm and met Preservation. He then asked Preservation if they are God, and after being told yes he promptly punched Preservation in the face. Then he found the power at the Well of Ascension and became trapped there with Ruin, though merging with the power of the Well allowed him to become a Cognitive Shadow and resist the pull of the Beyond. While he was in the Well, Hoid passed by and Kelsier essentially challenges him to a fight that Kelsier ultimately loses. He feels Ruin's presence during his time in the Well.
Once he is freed from the Well along with Ruin, he initially travels around through the Cognitive version of Luthadel, seeking out his friends. He finds Vin and Ham near the steps of Keep Venture and also learned that Dockson had died in the Battle of Luthadel. He walks past Luthadel towards the lake of the same name, near which he finds Khriss and Nazh. They question him on Preservation's appearance after learning he has spoken directly with the Shard, and then continue their discussion onto other topics. Khriss mentions the Ire which sets Kelsier onto his next quest of finding their base of operation.
During his journey to find the Ire, he runs into Ruin and has a discussion about Ruin's Intent. After that, he left the area of the Cognitive Realm surrounding Scadrial and moved closer to finding the Ire. When he reaches their base, he moved past their guards and passed the wall into their chambers. He ultimately only took a glass orb from them after thwarting their plan to take over become the Vessel of Preservation after Leras' death.
When he returned to Scadrial he found that Preservation's power was significantly weakened. He also ran into Vin and was shocked to see how far she had come in the time he was away. He stayed with her for a while after that but ultimately had to leave.
When Leras died and Ruin began to Splinter the Shard of Preservation, Kelsier used the Ire's orb to Connect with Preservation and Ascend, allowing him to protect the power and hold it until Vin could take it. Despite Preservation not usually being able to speak into the minds of other, due to some combination of Spook being near death, having a broken soul, and believing Kelsier was a god, he was able to talk to Spook. He used this opportunity to tell Spook to send a message to Vin, warning her that any spiked person could potentially be under Ruin's control. Secretly, however, he knew that Ruin would send Marsh to intercept the message, and was hoping that reading the message would give Marsh the information he needed to remove Vin's earring, which was also a Hemalurgic spike that was keeping her from taking up Preservation's power. When Marsh caught Vin in Luthadel, he attacked Ruin with Preservation's power, weakening Ruin's control over Marsh just enough for Marsh to rip out Vin's earring. With the spike removed, Kelsier encouraged her to take up the power, relinquishing it so that she can do so. After she and Elend are killed, Kelsier spoke with them before they moved on to the Beyond.
After Sazed's Ascension and Spook's rise to political power, Kelsier began to speak with Spook about finding a way to bring himself back to the Physical Realm. As a Cognitive Shadow tied to Scadrial, it is difficult for him to travel to other planets via Shadesmar. He does not yet know the secret to overcome this limitation. His bones survived the Ascension of Harmony, and may have helped him regain physical form.
=== Continued Worship Post-Catacendre ===
Many years after the Catacendre, the cult which started after Kelsier's deception with OreSeur directly following his death has become a fully-formed religion. The Church of the Survivor, or Survivorism, is possibly the most organized of Scadrial's religions in this period, as well as being the clear favorite among the social elite and downtrodden alike. 
Steris and Marasi are both members of this religion, though Marasi admits that it is more because she was raised in it. Its central tenet is simply to survive, by any means, until you cannot survive any longer. Priests in this religion wear robes with stitching up the arms to emulate Kelsier's scars from the Pits of Hathsin.
The "Survivor's Statemark" is one of the symbols of the faith. When Bleeder killed Father Bin by nailing him to a wall, it is described as a parody of the Survivor's Statemark, implying that the Statemark depicts the way Kelsier died, impaled by a spear.
Aside from the Survivorists, there was also a whole civilization of people that worshiped Kelsier far to the south of Elendel, calling him the Sovereign. Kelsier had traveled there several years after the Catacendre, inhabiting a physical body that was spiked in the right eye, and found the Southern Scadrians slowly dying of an unexplained coldness. He helped the people there survive using his knowledge of the Metallic Arts, showing them how to make unsealed metalminds to store attributes like heat in a way that could be shared with anyone. As the Sovereign, Kelsier ruled the Southern Scadrians for a time and formed another religion that deified Metalborn, and then he left.
Before leaving them, he created the Bands of Mourning, a collection of unsealed metalminds forged together and containing all kinds of attributes in extremely large quantities. He hid the artifact away somewhere in the north and then disappeared.
=== Cosmere-wide Activity ===
Kelsier is known as Thaidakar to the Ghostbloods, a secret society that operates on several planets, including Roshar. Kelsier is the leader and presumed founder of the organization, which Mraize calls "the most powerful organization in all the cosmere." He is referred to by Hoid as "the Lord of Scars." Kelsier is Iyatil's master. While he is incapable of leaving Scadrial in person, he uses an "avatar" to visit the Ghostbloods on Roshar. He appears to be using the Ghostbloods to find a way for him to leave Scadrial and is very interested in learning from the Heralds, particularly Kalak, as they are subject to a similar restriction. When assassinated by Szeth, Gavilar suspects Thaidakar of ordering his death. He has also worked together with Khriss. The Ghostbloods believe Kelsier to still have his Allomantic abilities, and he appears to be playing into this lie.
In the months after the formation of Retribution and the beginning of the Night of Sorrows on Roshar, Kelsier met with Shallan over Seon. Shallan informed him that she had killed Iyatil and Mraize, and opposed the Ghostbloods. Despite her opposition, Kelsier formed a reluctant truce with her, although he mentioned that other Ghostbloods might not be so understanding. During his meeting with Shallan, Kelsier expressed disinterest in continuing his endeavors on Roshar. He was growing preoccupied with Autonomy's invasion of Scadrial, and his primary mission on Roshar--harvesting and exporting Stormlight--was no longer possible given that Retribution had consumed all Stormlight. Because Retribution's creation caused severe time dilation around Roshar, Kelsier's meeting with Shallan was experienced over a period of hours for him, while it only seemed like minutes to Shallan.
=== Kelsier and Wax ===
Waxillium Ladrian was a direct descendant of a close associate of Kelsier, Edgard Ladrian. As a Pathian, Wax did not worship Kelsier, but his life has nonetheless been drastically affected by the Survivor.
Marsh decided to give Wax a book explaining Hemalurgy because he believed Wax was doing Kelsier's work. This book proved vital in solving the case of Bleeder. While conversing with Harmony regarding the case, Harmony said that Wax's casual way of talking to him reminded him of Kelsier. Harmony also made vague allusions to the Southern Scadrians that Kelsier once ruled as the Sovereign.
Later on, a group of Southern Scadrians traveled north in search of the Sovereign's Bands of Mourning, but were captured by the Set, who decided to seek the Bands as well. Wax and his friends became embroiled in this incident in opposition to the Set, and Wax was almost killed in an encounter with them. After Marasi solved the riddle of the Bands and wielded it to escape the Set, she gave it to Wax, who wielded it and became incredibly powerful. Wax then used the artifact to defeat the Set and save the Southern Scadrian prisoners, using up a lot of the Investiture stored in the Bands. 
Soon afterwards, Wax accessed a coppermind contained in a coin-like Southern Scadrian medallion that Hoid had given him and saw a vision of what appeared to be Kelsier's memory of discovering the Southern Scadrians hundreds of years prior. The vision, seen from Kelsier's point of view, showed that his spiked right eye viewed the world through Allomantic lines, similar to Steel Inquisitors, while his left eye saw things normally.
=== Resistance against Trell ===
At some point, Kelsier had the Ghostbloods on Scadrial work in order to resist the oncoming threat of Trell. He worked out of a safehouse in Bilming, alongside Moonlight, TwinSoul, Codenames, and Dao. He was twelve hours away, travelling north from Southern Scadrial, when he was informed that the Set, under Telsin, was planning to send a bomb at Elendel as fast as possible, likely within the day. He spoke to the Ghostbloods in Bilming and tasked Moonlight, TwinSoul, and Marasi to take care of it. He also had Codenames send messages to the Ghostblood agents in the Elendel Basin, telling them to help Steris in her evacuation of Elendel.
After Elendel was saved, Kelsier talked with Harmony, asking him to lead Scadrial into a new technological and Metalborn age so they may be better prepared for future threats and Autonomy's return.
== Titles ==
Kelsier is known by many titles, the origins of which vary.
* Survivor of Hathsin - A title given to him by the skaa, as he was the first person ever to escape the Pits alive. Later used as a religious title.
* Survivor of Mists, Survivor of Death, Survivor, Lord of the Mists - Different titles used by members of the Church of the Survivor in reference to him.
* Preservation
* He Who Lived - A title used by Jak
* Sovereign - Used by the Southern Scadrians without knowledge as to his actual identity. Originally assumed by Waxillium to be the Lord Ruler.
* Lord of Scars, Thaidakar - Used by the Ghostbloods.
== Relationships ==
=== Marsh ===
Marsh is Kelsier’s older brother. The two of them have a strained relationship. Marsh resents Kelsier because Kelsier had success with the skaa rebellion soon after Marsh quit being its leader. Marsh doesn’t like a lot of Kelsier’s actions and the way he handles the rebellion. He strongly disapproves of the way Kelsier flippantly kills noblemen and those who serve them without a second thought. 
Despite his disapproval of Kelsier’s actions, Marsh is still willing to infiltrate the Steel Ministry as part of Kelsier’s plan. Despite their strained relationship, Kelsier is still grieved and angry when they find evidence of Marsh’s death.
Marsh is aware of Kelsier’s current activities as a Cognitive Shadow.
=== Vin ===
Kelsier is Vin’s mentor and teaches her to use her Allomantic abilities. Though Vin initially is wary and suspicious of him, she eventually learns to trust him, and he becomes somewhat of a father figure to her. He tries to teach Vin to smile and occasionally look on the bright side of things. They go on several outings together, including fighting Inquisitors; this leads to Vin almost dying, however, and that leads Kelsier to change how he runs the crew. Though he is killed by the Lord Ruler, he watches over Vin as a Cognitive Shadow. He feels guilty for abandoning her but does his best to help her. He eventually plays an important role in freeing her from Ruin’s influence.
=== Gemmel ===
Gemmel is Kelsier's mentor in the allomantic arts, meeting each other after Kelsier escaped from his captivity in Hathsin. Gemmel frequently put Kelsier into life and death situations in order to push him to learn how to use his powers.
Seeing his powers, Gemmel wondered what he unleashed upon the world in teaching Kelsier allomancy.
=== Hoid ===
He and Hoid have a very antagonistic relationship one with one another, stretching back to when they first met and got into a violent fight. Merely interacting with Hoid for a brief amount of time was enough to send Kelsier into a murderous rage. 
Hoid greatly disapproves of Kelsier's interference with Roshar through the Ghostbloods. He considers him to be very dangerous. Hoid has also taken direct action against him, giving Wax an unsealed coppermind containing knowledge that he would rather keep hidden. At the time of meeting, he saw Kelsier as a wild card that he didn't want to deal with.
=== Gavilar ===
He and Gavilar were working against each other to an unknown extent. Their relationship was such that Gavilar was quick to believe that he was the one who ordered his murder.
=== Ati ===
Kelsier is terrified by Ati and the power that he holds, seeing and feeling it through the Well of Ascension.
Ati manipulated Kelsier for many years, grooming him in order to bring about his release. When Kelsier was in the Cognitive Realm after his release, he often would show up to him in order to mock him and his inability to do anything.
=== Leras ===
Kelsier at first hated Leras for claiming to be God, enough to instantly punch him. For a period, he did not fully respect or believe Leras's divinity, but over time he came to respect him more. He nicknamed him Fuzz, due to his unraveled appearance. 
Leras is fascinated by Kelsier due to him being the first to punch him after death, and being the first to attempt to recruit him to their schemes. Thus he decides to go along with him out of curiosity. Despite being mostly cordial with Kelsier, he does disapprove of him to an extent due to how he manipulated peoples faiths during his life, playing with their hearts and treating their faith casually. He also is frustrated with how much Kelsier goes against his Intent, bringing about massive societal change in how he brought about the death of the Lord Ruler, who was perfectly preserved, and played into Ruin's plans.
== Quotes ==
== Trivia ==
* Kelsier was released by Epic Games as a character skin in the game Fortnite on May 27, 2021. The playable character does not have Mistborn powers.
* Kelsier and Hoid do not get along.
* If given the chance, Kelsier would find it "really fun" to punch Honor next.
* Kelsier would understand, but still disapprove of, Taravangian's plans.
* He is more of a coffee person than tea.
* Kelsier would beat Kaladin in a straight fight as he is prone to using dirty tactics. On the battlefield, Kaladin would be more likely to win.
* 
* Kelsier is a cat person.
* Kelsier likes noodles.
* If Kelsier were to ever meet Kaladin, Kelsier would like him because Kaladin is an innately good person who tries to do good, and Kelsier appreciates it and wants to preserve that in the world. He would try to offer encouragement and console Kaladin about not being able to save everyone. Kaladin would not like him back, but Kelsier wouldn't mind.
* Despite what he has told the Ghostbloods, Kelsier does not have a real avatar. Uncanonically, Brandon imagines Kelsier as using a Seon in a trench coat as his 'avatar'. In the Prologue of Wind and Truth, we see the realization of this idea.
* Kelsier considers guns to be inelegant weapons.
* If he were a Radiant, there are three Orders Kelsier might belong to: Edgedancer, Dustbringer, or Willshaper. The reason he would fit well as an Edgedancer is mainly because of what he picked up from Mare regarding restoring the world to the time of flowers and greenery. Dustbringer also fits because of the theme of self mastery and pushing himself. Willshaper is high on the list as well.
* If he were a Returned, his name would likely be Lifeseeker, or something along those lines.
== Notes ==
category: viewpoint characters
es:Kelsier