Masks of Mistborn

SPOILER ALERT!

This contains spoilers for the 6th book of the Mistborn series, Bands of Mourning.

I'm slowly finishing up this book. It will be the end of the 2nd trilogy of Mistborn. I don't want it to end. It seems like so much new is coming up at the end that there must be much more to come. So how can it end?

Anyway, the part I wanted to write about was this new group of people called Southerners. They apparently all wear masks, though different types and with different customs. It is mentioned that the masks hide their emotions, though I'm not sure if it is the main point for wearing them. And to compensate for the loss of visual cues from the face, the people use their hands a lot to express emotions. Interesting.

This makes me think of how we all wear masks in the online world. We have these personas that are masks, and we can switch them at will. They hide our true emotions. We need to express our emotions using things like emoji instead. Is this a good thing? To be able to choose a mask? It is comforting to me, but is it good? People often parrot the words that of course real life interactions are better. But I don't know if people would actually believe this based on their experiences. I like my masks...