Spook is a skaa-born Tineye and member of Kelsier’s crew in the Mistborn series. He is Clubs’s nephew and is known for being rather eccentric. He plays a pivotal role in saving the city of Urteau.
See below for a table of contents on Spook’s character analysis:
Background
Spook grew up as a lowly skaa-born child in the Eastern Lands of the final empire. At one point in The Hero of Ages, he reflects upon who he was as a young boy, ten years before the events of the novel:
“He was a dirty, ragged thing—like most other skaa children in the Final Empire. Too young to be put to work in the mines, he spent his days ducking away from his mother’s care and running about with the packs of children who foraged in the dry, dusty streets. Spook hadn’t been that boy for some ten years” (3.208).
We also learn that he grew up with an abusive father. When his father learns that he’s been working as a servant in the Lord Ruler’s army, he pushes his foot down hard on Spook’s neck, and calls him a traitor.
It is around this time that his uncle Clubs shows up, possibly sent for by his mother, and takes Spook away. This is how he comes to be under his uncle’s care (3.210).
According to Spook, Clubs had spent a fortune traveling a long distance in an empire where skaa were forbidden to leave their home cities, and had risked betrayal by Spook’s father to come get him. Spook reflects that Clubs had earned the loyalty of a delinquent child for all that:
“He had earned the loyalty of a wild street boy who—before that time—had run from any authority figure who tried to control him” (3.230).
Name
Spook’s original name was Jedal, after his father. However, he fashions himself a new name after his father disowns him. He calls himself “Lestibournes,” meaning “Lefting I’m born,” which is street slang for “I’ve been abandoned” (3.211).
Kelsier, however, decides that “Lestibournes” is too difficult to say, and so he calls him Spook instead, on account of his odd nature.
Allomantic Abilities
Tin
In the first Mistborn novel, we learn that Spook is the crew’s best Tineye, which means that he is a skilled Tin misting. Because he is so good at burning Tin to enhances his senses, Spook always gets the most important watches of the crew. We also learn that he Snapped (gained his allomantic abilities) at the age of five (1.535).
He shows his deep knowledge of being a Tineye when he gives Vin advice about how to burn tin. He tells her that she must learn to deal with distraction, and that it isn’t about what you can see, but what you can ignore (1.535).
Later, in The Hero of Ages, his excessive Tin flaring ends up causing him physical problems. By the begining of the novel, he has flared his Tin nonstop for a year straight, never letting up, keeping his body in a constant state of super-heightened senses, and this changes him. By flaring tin for so long he has somehow permanently changed his senses to a point far beyond what others could attain (3.134).
Despite being worried about these changes, he still flares his Tin because he wants to help the crew.
These effects have become so extreme that he has to wear a blindfold to sleep, as the starlight is as bright as the sun to him. He also has to wear earplugs because the footsteps in the hallway are as loud as thunderclaps.
“Even with the thick cloth, his ears plugged with wax, and the shutters drawn tight and hung with a cloth, it was sometimes hard for him to sleep (3.152).
Pewter
In The Hero of Ages, Spook also gains the ability to burn Pewter. This happens when he is nearly burned alive in Urteau, and Kelsier’s voice guides him to safety (3.184). Because of this newfound ability, he notes that he is something that shouldn’t exist:
“In Allomancy, people either had only one of the eight basic powers, or they had all fourteen powers. One or all. Never two. Yet Spook had tired to burn other metals without success. Somehow he had been given Pewter alone to complement his Tin” (3.225).
After he starts burning Pewter, Spook gains incredible physical strength. Even Sazed notices this newfound strength, much to his confusion:
“Spook reached over and used a single casual hand to pull off the board Sazed tried to budget. What? Sazed thought with shock. Sazed was by no means muscular—but he hadn’t thought Spook was either. The lad must have been practicing with weights” (3.263).
Moreover, this newfound ability to burn Pewter nicely complements his ability to burn Tin. It gives him a sense of completeness that he didn’t have before.
Initially, he thinks that Tin and Pewter don’t seem to be opposites—one enhanced the body, while the other enhanced the senses. But he realizes that while Tin made his sense of touch so sharp that each step he took felt uncomfortable, Pewter enhanced his body and made it resistant to pain, and so his feet don’t hurt as much when he walks. Furthermore, while light might blind him because of the Tin, his Pewter let him endure far more before needing his blindfold (3.353).
He realizes that Tin and Pewter truly complement each other, just like the other allomantic metals, and that “he felt right having the one to go with the other. How had he survived without Pewter? He had been a man with only one half of an ability. Now he was complete” (3.353).
The Pewter not only makes him physically powerful, but it gives him a newfound confidence that is crucial to his character arc and ensuring the crew’s success in capturing Urteau.
Personality
When we are first introduced to Spook in Mistborn, he talks in a strange eastern accent and essentially sounds like Jar Jar Binks. All we know is that he’s a foreign servant who doesn’t speak very well, and he is under Clubs’s employ. We come to learn that he is both strange and obedient:
“He’s such a fine lad, Breeze noted, accepting the drink. “I barely have to nudge him Allomantically. If only the rest of you ruffians were so accommodating” (1.397).
Women
Spook, as a young adolescent boy, naturally has a fixation on women, and he develops multiple crushes throughout the Mistborn series.
First, he has a crush on Vin, and he shows this to her by giving her a handkerchief of soft lace. In noble society, a handkerchief is the traditional gift a young man gives a lady that he wishes to seriously court (1.371). Unfortunately, Vin rejects his advances and ultimately ends up with Elend instead. In The Well of Ascension, Spook envies Elend for being with her (2.69).
Throughout The Well of Ascecnsion, Spook’s obsession with women becomes more apparent.
For example, before one of their meetings, Elend notices that he is flirting quite unsuccessfully with a drowsy kitchen girl (2.266).
Later, Vin notes his apparent fixation on Allrianne, and on all women in general:
“The blonde noblewoman ahd already gotten Spook’s attention; he was following her with a lively step. Of course, it wasn’t hard to get Spook’s attention. You merely had to have breasts and smell nice—and the second was sometimes optional” (2.288).
Lastly, in The Hero of Ages, Spook develops a crush on Beldre, the sister of the skaa ruler of Urteau.
Ambition & Self-Doubt
Spook is an ambitious character riddled with self-doubt. He is insecure because the rest of the thieving crew was hand-picked by Kelsier, while he was merely admitted to the crew because he was Clubs’s nephew.
Spook very much wants to validate himself and feel worthy of the crew’s respect.
For example, when he is sent with Vin and Elend on their faulty quest to the Well of Asecnsion, Vin notices that Spook has some uncertainty in him and that “he wanted so badly to be useful.” This is a feeling Vin can very much relate to (2.666).
He tells Vin that he wishes he was powerful like her. He seems to think that his skill with Tin is worthless, that if he were Mistborn, he could do great things and be someone important. He thinks he could save people and stop people from dying. “But I’m just Spook,” he says. “Weak. A coward” (2.666).
At this point in the Mistborn series, Spook considers himself a coward, and it’s a trend that continues into the third novel. He feels this way because he agreed to leave with Vin and Elend in an attempt to save himself, rather than die with his friends back at Luthadel.
When Vin and Elend find out Sazed’s plan and Elend asks why Spook didn’t tell them, Spook says, “You would have wanted to go back! I didn’t want to die, El! I’m sorry. I’m a coward” (2.675).
He then cringes at the sight of Elend’s sword, shying away from him. Elend tells him he won’t attack him, but he’s merely disappointed. Spook lowers his eyes, sinks to the ground, obviously ashamed of himself. In this scene, he does seem somewhat cowardly. However, in later events in the series, Spook will redeem himself with many acts of bravery.
Moving into the third novel, Spook still feels terrible about the way he had escaped Luthadel and left his uncle Clubs to die. At this point, he still doubts his value to the crew:
“Perhaps he’d find a way to become useful to the others. Always before, he’d been the least important member of the crew. The dismissible boy who ran errands or kept watch while the others made plans. He didn’t resent them for that—they’d been right to give him such simple duties. Because of his street dialect, he’d been difficult to understand, and while all the other members of the crew had been handpicked by Kelsier, Spook had joined by default since he was Club’s nephew” (3.135).
However, he does start to believe in himself somewhat at this point.
“I may not be Mistborn, and I may not be emperor, he thought. But I’m something. Something new. Something Kelsier would be proud of” (3.136).
He is determined to be useful to the crew. When he begins spying on the Citizen and his sister on his assigned mission in Urteau, he thinks, I won’t be useless anymore (3.141).
Along with this determination comes a sense of ambition. Spook wants to be admired and recognized as a hero, like Vin. In fact, he often compares himself to her:
“While Vin had always worked hard to remain obscure and unseen, Spook had managed to achieve both things without ever trying. In fact, he’d often tried the opposite. He’d dreamed of being a man like Kesls=ier—for even before he’d met the Survivor, Spook had heard stories of him. The greatest skaa thief of their time, bold enough to try to rob the Lord Ruler” (3.160).
Spook wants to be seen yet is unnoticed, while Vin wants to be unnoticed, despite being unable to avoid the spotlight:
“Try as he might, Spook had never been able to distinguish himself. It was too easy to ignore yet another ash-faced boy, especially if you couldn’t understand his thick Eastern slang. It ahd taken actually meeting Kelsier—seeing how he could move people with his words—to convince Spook to abandon his dialect. That was when Spook had begun to understand that there was a power in words” (3.160).
This ambition to be great and feelings of cowardice and self-doubt are constantly at odds with one another throughout Spook’s character arc.
Character Arc
Coming of Age
In the first Mistborn novel, Spook is shy, strange, and obedient. He still has a heavy eastern accent and is hard to understand. However, in the year between the first and second Mistborn novels, Spook has learned how to speak normally, even though his words still bear traces of his Easterner accent.
He has also grown out of most of his clothing, and is well over six feet tall, no longer resembling “the gangly boy Elend had met a year before” (2.64).
At this point, he is becoming more mischievous, or “insolent” as Clubs puts it, after having hung out with Kelsier’s crew for some time (2.63). But still, he has a hint of his former self present, a hint of the “uncertain boy” Elend had known (2.65).
He is also immature. For example, he laughs as Breeze tells of how he delayed Cett’s army from reaching Luthadel too soon by poisoning the water and giving everyone diarrhea.
“I thought you might appreciate that. You still an unintelligible nuisance, boy?” (2.113).
He is also still obsessed with women, as a young adolescent boy might be.
Between the second and third Mistborn novels, Spook notably matures, however, and this is perhaps because of his important mission to secure Urteau, and because of the gravity of having had to leave his uncle to die back in Luthadel.
Insecurity
Spook is someone who constantly doubts himself and his value to the crew, despite wanting so badly to be useful. He has an obvious desire to be great, to be powerful, to be more than just the boy that everyone gives their dirty work to and forgets about.
For example, in The Well of Ascension, he tells Vin that he helped kill the Lord Ruler, too, but no one cares to look at him and take an interest in him the way the common people of Luthadel do with Vin.
“I even got my nickname from Kelsier himself! But nobody cares about poor little Spook” (2.295).
However, in the The Hero of Ages, Spook begins to build confidence in himself, and he steps up to become one of the pivotal characters in ensuring the success of Elend’s new empire.
Kelsier’s Voice
In The Hero of Ages, Spook escapes nearly being burned alive in Urteau. Here, he has a reflective moment, where he notes all the great things the people around him have accomplished, and that the only thing he really took action in doing ever was running away and leaving Clubs to die:
“Most of his life, it seemed that he had been a flake of ash, pushed around by whatever strong wind came his way. He’d gone where people told him to go, done what they’d wanted him to. Even as an Allomancer, Spook had lived his life as a nobody. The others had been great men. Kelsier had organzied an impossible revolution. Vin had struck down the Lord Ruler. Clubs had led the revolutionary armies, becoming Elend’s foremost general. Sazed was a Keeper, and had carried the knowledge of centuries. Breeze had moved waves of people with his clever tongue and skillful Soothing, and Ham was a powerful soldier. But Spook, he had merely watched, not really doing anything. Until the day he ran away, leaving Clubs to die” (3.230).
It’s at this point in the novel that Kelsier’s voice speaks to him. Spook voices out loud that he just wants to be able to help, to which Kelsier’s voice replies, “You can…You can be great. Like I was” (3.230).
Spook then realizes that Kelsier’s words make sense.
“Why did he always berate himself so much? True, Kelsier hadn’t picked him to be on the crew, but now the Survivor had appeared to Spook and granted him the power of Pewter” (3.231).
This is when he realizes he can help the people of Urteau, just like Kelsier helped those of Luthadel. He could do something important—he could bring Urteau into Elend’s empire and deliver to the storage cache as well as the loyalty of the citizens.
He thinks, “I ran away once. I don’t ever have to do that again. I won’t ever do that again!” (3.231).
Later, when a man asks him to help save his daughter from being burned alive like Spook nearly had, he questions what he could possibly do to help him, but then reminds himself to think of what Kelsier would’ve done, and he remembers that he is different now:
‘”What does he expect me to do? He opened his mouth to ask that very question, then stopped. He wasn’t the same man anymore. He wasn’t limited as the old Spook would have been. He could do something else. What Kelsier would have done” (3.327).
Gaining Confidence
After Kelsier’s voice speaks to him, Spook gains a lot of confidence. So much so, in fact, that Sazed notices it when he and Breeze run into him in Urteau:
“He seems far more self-confident,” Sazed said, nodding to himself. “More capable as well” (3.263).
Later, when he meets with the thief-master Durn and tries to gain his support, he feels a growing confidence in himself and that he is doing something bigger than himself now:
“Spook felt as if something were happening round him, something he couldn’t quite decipher. He was becoming more comfortable with Kelsier’s voice, and with his own Pewter…” (3.326).
However, even at this point, there is still a hint of self-doubt present in Spook:
“…but he was still worried he wouldn’t be able to live up the the position he’d fallen into” (3.326).
He wrestles with his self-doubt, and as he gets more used to his newfound Pewter abilities, his confidence and doubt come at odds with one another. Ultimately, the Pewter, along with Kelsier’s voice, helps his confidence to win over.
For example, as he is about to rescue a man’s sister from being burned alive in Urteau, Spook notes how powerful the Pewter makes him feel:
“Spook felt powerful—Pewter lent him an air of invincibility that he’d never before imagined. He had slept barely a few hours in the last six days, but he didn’t feel tired. He had a sense of balance that any cat would have envied, and he had strength his muscles shouldn’t have been able to produce” (3.378).
Yet, he notes that power wasn’t everything. He remembers that he was no Mistborn, no Kelsier or Vin. “He was just Spook. What was he thinking?” (3.378).
However, the voice of Kelsier pushes him, saying he can do it, that he’s practiced with the cane, he’s stood up to the soldiers in the market. They had nearly killed him, but he did well fighting Two Thugs. He tells him he needs to save those people. He tells him to ask himself what Kelsier would do if he was there. Spook says that he’s not him, to which Kelsier says, “Not yet” (3.378).
This bolsters Spook’s confidence once again.
Later, as he’s fighting off soldiers, he begins to think that he can actually be as great as Vin and Kelsier.
“I can actually do this!…I’m like them. Vin and Kelsier. No more hiding in basements or fleeing from danger. I can fight! (3.381).
And then, as he is visiting bars with Durn to rally the people against Urteau’s ruler, Quellion, he notices his confidence is rising:
“Through it all, Spook felt an amazing thing: his confidence growing. He really was a little like Kelsier. Vin might have been the one trained by the Survivor, but Spook was the one who was doing what he’d done—encouraging the people, leading them to rise up for their own sakes.” (3.499).
As the people in the bars cheer him on, he wonders if he will be able to handle adulation like Kelsier, if it would be a good thing to be liked and have people follow him. He thinks about how he could finally break away from his old self, to stop being so insignificant and easily forgotten. He thinks:
“And why should he be respected. He wasn’t that boy anymore. He wore his bandages across his eyes, heightening his mystical reputation as a man who did not need light to see. Some even said that anywhere fire burned, Spook could see.” (3.501).
At this moment, Kelsier whispers to him that the people love him, and that he deserves it.
“It had been a long time coming. And it felt all the sweeter for the wait.” (3.501)
Later on, Kelsier’s voice eggs him on to take power, and Spook ends up starting chaos in Urteau.
“A clock rang in the distance. Goradel’s soldiers rushed the stage. Around him, Spook could feel a glow rising. The fires of rebellion burning in the city. Just liek the night he had overthrown the Lord Ruler. The torches of revoluiont. Then the people had put Elend on the throne. This time it would be Spook they elevated. Weak no more, he thought. Never weak again!” (3.539).
Sadly, we learn it is not Kelsier’s voice that has been speaking to Spook all along, but Ruin’s. The god has been pushing for him cause chaos and to take power, but Spook ultimately refuses.
Refusing Power
After he exposes Beldre as an allomancer, the crowd calls for Spook to be their new king. Kelsier’s voice tells him to kill Beldre. He is straight up offered the power he has desired all along:
“You want power, Spook?” Kelsier said, stepping forward. “You want to be a better Allomancer? Well, power must come from somewhere. It is never free. This woman is a Coinshot. Kill her, and you can have her ability. I will give it to you.” (3.543).
However, Spook takes his blindfold off, and sees the city burning, and feels that its destruction is inherently wrong. However, Kelsier’s voice still goads him on:
“You will take the city, Spook,” Kelsier said. “You will have what you always wanted! You’ll be like Elend, like Vin. Better than either! You’ll have Elend’s titles and Vin’s power! You’ll be like a god!” (3.544).
Later, Spook learns that he was stabbed and implanted with an inquisitor a spike when he fought with Quellion’s men in the market long ago (3.544). This is how Ruin has been able to communicate with him. Right before he rips out his own Inquisitor spike, he thinks:
“Something is wrong. I was supposed to expose Quellion, get him to use his Allomancy, but I attacked instead. I wanted to kill. I forgot about our plans and preparation. I brought destruction to this city. This is not right!” (3.545).
He knows what being like Kelsier truly means – it’s not about taking power, but fighting when you are beaten.
“You want to be like Kelsier? Really like Kelsier? Then fight when you are beaten!” (3.546)
Here, Spook is able to save the city of Urteau by helping to flood it, and he nearly dies in the process, rushing through a burning building to help release the water needed to put out the flames.
“He knew the fires were killing him. Yet he forced himself onward, continuing to move long after the pain should have rendered him unconscious,” (3.550).
In this moment, Spook truly becomes what the people of Urteau have known him as up until this point – the Survivor of the Flames. In the end, he sacrifices the thing he wants most – being admired and powerful – in favor of doing what is right.
Recognizing His Own Worth
A final point that his crucial in Spook’s character arc is him being able to recognize his own worth. He is constantly jealous of the famous heroes around him, like Kelsier and Vin, but throughout the final novel of the series, Spook begins to recognize his own value, and it’s this recognition that truly redeems him as a character.
Spook finally recognizes the value in being a Tineye, despite constantly lamenting that he is not a more powerful allomancer like Vin or Kelsier.
For example, when he wants to talk to the Citizen’s sister as he is spying on them at Urteau, he wants to be brash, like Kelsier, but he catches himself:
“He might be unique, he might be powerful, but—as he had to remind himself again—he was no Mistborn. His was the way of silence and stealth” (3.143).
He also notes that his abilities do, in fact, distinguish himself from Vin and Kelsier:
“He had something Vin and Kelsier could never have had: a blurring array of sensory knowledge that his body could instinctively use. He could feel disturbances int he air and tremors int he floor, could know where people were simply by how close their heartbeats sounded” (3.164).
Later on, he smartly recognizes that he is not Kelsier, and the his leadership style differs from his.
When he is out giving a speech with Durn in the Harrows of Urteau, trying to rally the people against Quellion, he only tells them that tonight, they don’t have to pay for Quellion’s stolen liquor, and that that is his way of keepy them happy and content.
“And that was the only speech he gave. He wasn’t Kelsier, able to impress people with his words. Instead—at Breeze’s suggestion—he stayed mostly quiet. He visited tables, trying to not be aloof, but also speaking little. He adopted a thoughtful expression and asked the people about their problems. He listened to their stories of loss and hardship, and drank with the, to the memory of those Quellion had murdered. And with his Pewter, he never got drunk. He already had a reputation for that—the people regarded it musically, as they did his ability to survive fire.” (3.499).
In the end, Spook finds a way to value himself for who he is, rather than for wanting to be like those he looks up to, like Kelsier and Vin. He goes from feeling unimportant to becoming a true hero of the Mistborn series, living up to the legacies of the people he admires the most.
