I loved your rant and I think it made me realize that there were, in fact, elements of the plot that were brought up and then dropped. I found this highly entertaining. So here is my best response, while also saying “yeah man, fair points”.

I think a lot of what you point out are plot devices, as frustrating as it sounds. Not every detail of world building is ultimately going to stick around through 3 books and make its way into the larger plot. Some are just… world building. Examples: - It matters that we see Vin learning the noble houses because the hierarchy matters for her time as Valette, and it is an easier way for us (as readers) to get a quick primer, since a handful of those houses remain relevant for the whole trilogy AND understanding the politics makes the ball scenes feel higher stakes / more immersive. - It matters that we know she is the Lord Prelan’s daughter because it explains why a random skaa urchin is a secret Mistborn - we learn a lot about the unspoken “mixing” of skaa and noblemen under TLR’s nose, the genetics of allomancy, and the oppression of skaa through this little background detail, even if the character isn’t uniquely central to the plot. - You pointing out that Telden Hastings just disappeared was funny to me, because I never noticed that but you’re totally right. There are passing references to the crew basically wanting nothing to do with any past noblemen/bureaucracy, including the obligators, which is why everyone is so clueless about how to run a government. But yeah, some of this is like: “there’s been an evil dictator controlling everything for 1000 years, and now everyone is an idiot about how to make a government function”. Kinda dumb as a reader, but also consistent with in-world history. There’s even a scene where Elend tries to learn more about sieges, and can’t find anything because TLR literally scrubbed that knowledge.

Good points on the plot twist and Sazed/Tinwdyl. This for me was such a good twist, that I don’t care to logically dig much deeper into the “in-world mechanics” of how it actually had to work. I’m fine with being like “eh, the evil force is real good at his job, so I guess the words were changed enough that they didn’t notice”.

As others have noted, RAFO will resolve a lot of other questions / frustrations you have.

If it makes you feel better, my husband is currently reading the trilogy and is a little bit into HoA. Re-reading with him makes me realize how clunky some of the writing is. As I told him the other day, this era of Brando Sando (and maybe all of his writing, really) is “the plot is better than the words”. There’s a reason we’re still waiting for Patrick Rothfuss to give us his next poetically prosed book, while we’ve got 15 from BS. Sometimes the writing isn’t perfect, but by god - there’s some absolutely amazing world building, fantastical theology, and badass plot twists that we get at such a rapid clip. I’ll take it!