My friend TAB left a great comment under yesterday’s post.

I just got my copy of Mistborn today, and I have to compliment you on your maps, especially the world map: it’s kind of small, but it isn’t square. I think this is the first non-square map I’ve ever seen in a fantasy book. I like the three-dimensional globe curve.

The city map is good, too. It looks big and confusing, like a large city should be. I want to ask if there is any significance to the major gates being named for metals. If not, I’ll just have to assume that Sanderson was running out of metals when he named “Pewter Gate.”

Rather than answer this comment with a comment, I decided to make a post about it.

I do agree with that the world map is a little small. I plan on fixing in Book 2, Mistborn: Well of Ascension, which is tentatively scheduled for a release early next year.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with the name “Pewter Gate,” unless you’re implying that the gate is made out of pewter, which isn’t a great metal from which to build something if you’re looking for structural soundness.

There’s no significance (that I know of) for the names of the metals applied to the gates. I don’t think the gates themselves are made of the particular metal that they’re named after either. In the Mistborn world there are eight Allomantic metals, and as there happen to be eight gates in Luthadel, each gate received the name of a metal, going in order of the metals clockwise from the west.

The first eight symbols of the metals shown in the glossary (and in the front of every chapter, except the prologue and the epilogue) correspond to the directions that are on the compass on the Luthadel map. (For example, Tin is the symbol for North.)

There’s plenty of symbolism in the maps and chapter icons. So if anyone has any questions, send them my way! Thanks for the comment, TAB!