Yeah, I never actually got around to finishing reading it, but from what I read even when the POV characters were people who intrinsically believed in the system it seemed like the actual narrative was pretty overtly saying "this is dumb and bad, actually," and showing the ruling class as depraved psychopaths.
Mistborn is pretty great though. I really like how
spoiler
Elend's liberal democracy falls apart because he divides the voting block by Nobles | Rich Skaa | Skaa and then :surprised-pika: the rich skaa all side with the Nobles and fuck him over so they can go back to exploiting the Skaa (who put him in power)
Dude spent his whole life reading nothing but theory written by other Nobles and his best guess fell apart almost instantly because he didn't understand that the Skaa struggle was a class struggle as much as it was a race one. Then in Era 2, they all fetishize his Great Man status and implement the flawed system and re-create all the issues he had,
The books can be annoyingly lib at times, but the eye color caste thing is very clearly represented as a bullshit system you shouldn't agree with.
Yeah, I never actually got around to finishing reading it, but from what I read even when the POV characters were people who intrinsically believed in the system it seemed like the actual narrative was pretty overtly saying "this is dumb and bad, actually," and showing the ruling class as depraved psychopaths.
For what it's worth, the Alethi also have dark skin
Yeah, the only "white" people in the setting are from the nation/culture described as exotic and foreign, or are literally interdimensional aliens.
Mistborn is pretty great though. I really like how
spoiler
Elend's liberal democracy falls apart because he divides the voting block by Nobles | Rich Skaa | Skaa and then :surprised-pika: the rich skaa all side with the Nobles and fuck him over so they can go back to exploiting the Skaa (who put him in power)
Dude spent his whole life reading nothing but theory written by other Nobles and his best guess fell apart almost instantly because he didn't understand that the Skaa struggle was a class struggle as much as it was a race one. Then in Era 2, they all fetishize his Great Man status and implement the flawed system and re-create all the issues he had,
Though, there is the whole thing with Kelsier being a 'bad guy' because he hated the nobles sooo much, when some of them are nice actually!
Nah dog, fuck em'.