In the Mistborn series, Tindwyl is the Terriswoman Sazed sends to help Elend Venture rule the kingdom of Luthadel.
Appearanced
In The Well of Ascension, Sazed describes Tindwyl as being beautiflul, with graying asuburn hair and keen eyes:
“She was beautiful. Auburn hair greying, but kept long and straight. Face marked by a lifetime of hardship that had not borne her. And eyes…keen yes, with the knowledge and love of learning that only a Keeper could claim” (2.455).
Background
As a Terris Keeper, Tindwyl specializes in biographies, having studied the lives of generals, kings, and emperors (2.160). She is a well-respected Terris leader, and it hadn’t taken her a long time to achieve a place in the Terris leadership, the Synod.
Life as a Breeder
Tindwyl was a breeder, which means that she was forced to have several children under the Lord Ruler’s breeding program. This program was a means to breed Feruchemy out of the broader population, as Feruchemists threatened the Lord Ruler’s power (2.366).
She had birthed more than 20 children over the course of her life, each with a different father, and she had her first child when she was only fourteen. Because of the fertility drugs the breeding masters forced upon her, she often bore twins or triplets.
Her backstory is truly sad, for she describes having spent her entire life being taken repeatedly by strange men until she became pregnant. However, Tindwyl says she suffered this indignity because she knew that it was a great service for her people.
Her service was great because Feruchemy is hereditary, and her position as a mother ensured future generations of Feruchemists would be born among the Terris people. Ironically, she was exactly the sort of person that the breeding masters were supposed to avoid letting reproduce.
Personality
Because she has raised a number of daughters, Tindwyl has a habit for treating people like children (2.345). In fact, she is easily able to read into Vin’s emotions because of this, and she has the perspective that “No teenage girl is stable” and that “some are merely better at hiding it than others” (2.573).
With Elend, she is harsh but fair, and an astute teacher in showing him how to be a leader. She teaches him how to command, how to be a king, and Elend gains confidence because of this and becomes a better leader.
Additionally, while many might consider her cold and harsh, Sazed doesn’t see this in her. Noting the trauma from her past, he finds it remarkable that she was so confident, in fact, wondering, “where did she get it?” (2.275).
Beliefs
In terms of her beliefs, Tindwyl is a typical Terriswoman. For example, at one point during The Well of Ascension, Sazed says to her that there may be greater work for him to do other than bringing knowledge and religion to skaa villages in the outer reaches of the empire. To this, she responds, “What greater work could there be?” (2.276). She says that it’s their life duty, the work of their entire people.
In this way, she is a typical Terris Keeper—her belief system is rigid and inflexible, while Sazed’s drastically changes in accordance with the crew’s goals and the destruction they face from Ruin.
Still, she seems to believe that Sazed is only returning to Luthadel because he can’t content himself with ordinary work, that he’s only here because he is afraid of being irrelevant—she can’t see the importance of the mists and the dangers they present (2.276).
We further learn that she is not fond of anything that “smacks of superstition or soothsaying” (2.565). She is an interesting foil to Sazed in this way, whose entire belief system is rooted in religion and the superstitions they support (that is, of course, until The Hero of Ages).
Tindwyl seems to change, however, the more she spends time with Sazed.
Relationship with Sazed
Studying the Deepness with Sazed gives Tindwyl a new sort of vivacity, bringing her both excitement and levity:
“Sazed watched her write. She almost looked young again; he hadn’t seen such overt excitement in her since she had been abandoned by the breeding masters some ten years before. On that day, her grand work finished, she had finally joined her fellow Keepers. Sazed had been the one to present her with the collected knowledge that had been discovered during her thirty years of cloistered childbirth” (2.452).
We can see that something changes in her as she spends more time with Sazed. At one point, Sazed notes that she looks more relaxed than he has ever seen her (2.506).
Finally, before she perishes in the Battle of Luthadel, she tells Sazed that she loves him:
“Do you know why I love you, Sazed?…because you never give in…other men are strong like bricks—firm, unyielding, but if you pound on them long enough, they crack. You…you’re strong like the wind. Always there, so willing to bend, but never apologetic for the times when you must be firm. I don’t think any of your friends understand what a power they had in you” (2.661)
Character Analysis
Ultimately, Tindwyl is a character with both tragic a beginning and a tragic end. As a supporting character, she plays a major role in both Elend’s arc in The Well of Ascension and Sazed’s arc in The Hero of Ages.
She is able to help Elend develop into a better leader, and her tragic death leads Sazed down a long, painful path of self-discovery and ultimately redemption of the world by the end of the series.
