IDK If Well of Ascension is the best or "Weakest" Era 1 Book
Overall: I love the series, currently on Bands of Mourning. So when I say "Weakest" It's not meant to be taken as "trash".
But I'm very split on Well of Ascension in terms of my preferential placement in era 1. Genuinely, it has some of the best moments in the entire series, while also having some of the most under baked moments (In my opinion)
Vin splitting Straff in half? Art.
Vin taking over the Koloss? Amazing.
Elend's fight for the crown? Great!
TenSoon plot twist? Phenomenal!
Sazed and his relationship? Fantastic!
...then you have other moments that... miss the mark for me.
1. Zane - Actually, it's less about Zane's character and more of Vin's "entertainment" of him. The only moment that I felt the urge of tossing this book is when Vin contemplated on going with him and feeling like she belonged with Zane and not Elend. When she was asking Sazed on "how do you know if you love someone?" drove me personally bananas.
1b. Attack on Cett's Keep - This felt like Vin holding the idiot ball (or idiot stick) to progress the plot. The scene in of itself was awesome, but the motives behind it felt bleh to me (again, relating to Zane, and Vin entertaining him)
2. Ruin's Prophetic Rewrites - I love the concept, and I love the call back to "I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted." but the concept overall didn't... fully hit the mark for me. The concept of Ruin being able to alter metal minds and change words on prophecies but not being able to see or read metal kind of came off as "I am a Powerful deity but my weakness is something common among man" and I grumbled a bit about it.
I also wished a little more... sign posting about it. Brandon talks about this a lot in his lectures and I felt that Ruin being able to rewrite prophecies came too much out of left field. If there was one scene that showed a third party person looking at the rubbing once, and then looking at it later again and noticing that there was one word changed; that would have made the reveal all the more sweeter and a little less out of nowhere.
3. Ruin Being Able to Impersonate Preservations Ghost - I had to think hard about this one because it affected numerous plot points and I couldn't figure out what bothered me until I had a chat with my wife. This plot point ties back to the 1st book and goes all the way to secret history. Ruin being able to impersonate preservation in his ghostly/wisp form (and actually 'kill' someone while also throwing Vin off a roof) without the characters being able to distinctly tell the difference in some way came off as a bit of a cheap trick.
Theres a few other nitpicks but overall those were my major issues with Well of Ascension... Maybe I missed some details? or does anyone else have the same feelings as I do?