Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, Shallan took further steps to protect her family members from her father’s insanity, despite the probable cost to herself. This week, Kaladin is released from prison, is rewarded for his part in the duel, and displays singularly bad judgement. In my opinion.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Chapter 66: Stormblessings
Point of View: Kaladin
Setting: Kholin warcamp prison
Symbology: Spears, Talenel, Nalan
IN WHICH Kaladin continues to spiral down in depression until he is suddenly released from prison; on his way out, he discovers that Adolin has insisted on sharing the incarceration; the two seem to reach a mutual understanding; Kaladin is rewarded for his part in the duel by being given a full set of Shards; he in turn gives them to Moash; Adolin reluctantly agrees to this disposal; Kaladin and Adolin, accompanied by Bridge Four, leave the prison to the sound of cheers from the soldiers and other bridgemen; as they prepare to return to the barracks for the celebration, Kaladin returns to help Moash with his Plate; Kaladin asserts his judgement that Alethkar will be better off if Elhokar is assassinated, and Moash is delighted with the whole thing.
Quote of the Week
Kaladin jogged up to the man. “Why?”
“Didn’t seem right, you in here,” Adolin said, eyes forward.
“I ruined your chance to duel Sadeas.”
“I’d be crippled or dead without you,” Adolin said. “So I wouldn’t have had the chance to fight Sadeas anyway.” The prince stopped in the hallway, and looked at Kaladin. “Besides. You saved Renarin.”
“It’s my job,” Kaladin said.
“Then we need to pay you more, bridgeboy,” Adolin said. “Because I don’t know if I’ve ever met another man who would jump, unarmored, into a fight among six Shardbearers.”
Kaladin frowned. “Wait. Are you wearing cologne? In prison?”
“Well, there was no need to be barbaric, just because I was incarcerated.”
“Storms, you’re spoiled,” Kaladin said, smiling.
“I’m refined, you insolent farmer,” Adolin said. Then he grinned. “Besides, I’ll have you know that I had to use cold water for my baths while here.”
“Poor boy.”
“I know.” Adolin hesitated, then held out a hand.
I don’t know if that’s the most significant conversation in this chapter—there are a lot of those—but it’s still my favorite. This, right here, is the moment when these two men acknowledge their respect for one another. They’ll still give each other a hard time, but now the sting is gone out of it. This is a wonderful, warm moment in a sea of hard, cold events and decisions.
I needed that.
Commentary
This chapter is an exercise in whiplash. It picks up with Kaladin continuing his depression death spiral, starting to believe all sorts of things that are totally not true. Then… Click. The door opens, he’s free, and all the depression starts to fall away. (Honestly, I have to wonder if there isn’t something else going on here, but I don’t quite know what to suggest. It just seems a little… much—that a few steps, a window, and a breath of fresh air could make quite that difference. Then again, I’ve never been in prison, and I rather like being alone, so… maybe my reaction isn’t worth much.) Anyway…
The next scene is really like that breath of fresh air, in the context of what has felt like so many pages of gloom. I’m pretty sure I laughed like a hyena over finding out Adolin had imprisoned himself, and Kaladin’s reaction to it. It was such a delightful scene, with Adolin totally owning the high ground over everyone. I could have included several pages in the QOTW—the whole thing, from when the jailer first says “Your Highness” to when Moash picks up the Blade. I’ll toss in a couple of the more significant sections, just because they really need to be pointed out for discussion:
… “I’m sorry,” he said. “For ruining the plan.”
“Bah, you didn’t ruin it,” Adolin said. “Elhokar did that. You think he couldn’t have simply ignored your request and proceeded, letting me expand on my challenge to Sadeas? He threw a tantrum instead of taking control of the crowd and pushing forward. Storming man.”
According to Adolin, Elhokar bears the primary responsibility for screwing it up. I think I’d agree, but it does my heart good to see Kaladin acknowledge that he was wrong.
“The things you said about Amaram,” Adolin said. “Were they true?”
“Every one.”
Adolin nodded. “I’ve always wondered what that man was hiding.” He continued walking.
“Wait,” Kaladin said, jogging to catch up, “you believe me?”
“My father,” Adolin said, “is the best man I know, perhaps the best man alive. Even he loses his temper, makes bad judgment calls, and has a troubled past. Amaram never seems to do anything wrong. If you listen to the stories about him, it’s like everyone expects him to glow in the dark and piss nectar. That stinks, to me, of someone who works too hard to maintain his reputation.”
Well, someone taught the boy to think, because that’s downright insightful—one of the many evidences I have for thinking that Adolin is so much more than the dumb-jock type he likes to pretend to be. He’s way smarter than he admits. The thing that hurts most is that this should have done SO much to restore Kaladin’s faith that something could and would be done, but he doesn’t even think about it.
On that subject, then:
“Your father says I shouldn’t have tried to duel him.”
“Yeah,” Adolin said, reaching the door at the end of the hallway. “Dueling is formalized in a way I suspect you just don’t get. A darkeyes can’t challenge a man like Amaram, and you certainly shouldn’t have done it like you did. It embarrassed the king, like spitting on a gift he’d given you.”
I don’t know how you go about learning that what you don’t know can kill you, when you don’t even know how much there is you don’t know, but Kaladin is finally having to realize that he just doesn’t know everything. For all his big ideas, there really are things about the rest of the world that can’t be understood from the perspective of his own life experience. What he did was incredibly presumptuous, but it never even occurred to him that he didn’t know all the rules.
There’s so much more I’d like to talk about here: Kaladin’s gut-wrenched reaction to the Shards, the echo of his earlier attempt when he assigns them to Moash, the distinctly different reaction of Adolin from the way Amaram had responded, Kaladin’s reasoning to persuade Adolin that it would be a good thing. And more: Teft’s confidence that things would be fine, his leadership in Kaladin’s absence, the curiosity about Amaram and Kaladin’s past.
A couple things I will mention, though. When they finally leave the building and go outside:
Adolin moved to join his father, but Dalinar watched Kaladin. What did that look mean? So pensive.
If only they had talked right here. Dalinar has given Amaram four days to find that Blade they hid, retrieve it, and then come talk to him about it… and clearly he’s heard nothing from Amaram about that subject at all. From what we learn later, at this point Dalinar has good reason to suspect that Kaladin might be telling the truth, rather than Amaram, but he’s still waiting for Amaram to make a move.
And so. I don’t know if it would have mattered at this point anyway. Kaladin had already made up his mind that Elhokar was a bad king and ought to be got out of the kingdom’s way. IIRC, last time we talked about this subject, I was thinking that Kaladin showed pretty poor judgement, trusting the Shards to a man he knew was part of an attempt to murder the king, but in rereading I realized that he knew exactly what he was doing: he was giving the perfect weapon to a man in the perfect position to commit the murder, and setting him up with the perfect alibi. What Kaladin did here could, I think, justifiably be called treason.
It’s too bad that this particular decision didn’t get thrown away with the rest of the captivity-induced lies he was telling himself.
Stormwatch
This was Kaladin’s fifteenth day in prison; there are fourteen days left on the countdown. Ba-DUM.
Sprenspotting
There are two notable spren incidents in this chapter. One is the appearance of a veritable cloud of gloryspren around Moash when he picks up his new Blade:
The tall bridgeman walked to the side of the room, reaching out a hand to rest his fingers on the Shardblade. He ran those fingers all the way down to the hilt, then seized it, lifting the Blade in awe. Like most, it was enormous, but Moash held it easily in one hand. The heliodor set into the pommel flashed with a burst of light.
Moash looked to the others of Bridge Four, a sea of wide eyes and speechless mouths. Gloryspren rose around him, a spinning mass of at least two dozen spheres of light.
I know there has been a lot of debate about the terminology of these little guys, but I still like the term gloryspren. It makes use of a less-familiar sense of “glory” but one that really works for me. Besides, it sounds better than “wowspren.” I suppose in a way, “exaltationspren” would be slightly easier to comprehend, but it just doesn’t have the right ring to it.
Anyway. The other incident is more the absence of a spren:
… “I had a lot of time to think, in there,” Kaladin said.
“I can imagine.”
“The time led me to a few decisions,” Kaladin said as the section of Plate locked into place. “One is that your friends are right.”
Moash turned to him sharply. “So…”
“So tell them I agree with their plan,” Kaladin said. “I’ll do what they want me to in order to help them… accomplish their task.”
The room grew strangely still.
I don’t know exactly what happened there, but something did, and I think it was the Nahel bond being stretched nearly to the breaking point.
Ars Mechanica
This is as good a place as any to point out a detail about the Shardblades. At this point, no one in-story really knows for sure whether or not a darkeyed man will become lighteyed if he bonds a Blade, but one thing happens immediately: he becomes fourth dahn. While it doesn’t sound like much on the surface—fourth dahn, out of ten—as Adolin points out, it ranks you above roughly ninety percent of Alethkar… and I suspect the number is actually higher. If only the king, queen, and the heir apparent are in the first dahn, and the second is made up of the highprinces and (presumably) their wives and heirs, that makes a total of at most 33 people in the top two ranks. The third dahn would be made up of the rest of the highprinces’ children, along with their spouses and children, plus an assortment of other landholders. On a guess, maybe a few hundred people? (I wonder how far you can carry the order-of-magnitude progression before it becomes outrageous…) Anyway that leaves Moash ranked equal to or higher than all but a few hundred people in Alethkar. I find this disturbing—but only because it’s Moash. In general, I suppose it makes in-world sense.
Oh, and just for reference, the Blade itself:
… a shimmering silvery Blade. Edged on both sides, a pattern of twisting vines ran up its center.
Do you suppose it’s another Edgedancer Blade?
You Have to Break a Lot of Rockbuds
Rock’s stew sounds… frightening, frankly! (It reminds me of the old Dixie’s BBQ here in Bellevue. The proprietor had a pot of “barbecue sauce” he referred to as The Man and it was literally too hot to eat, which meant that it was a local tradition to take out-of-town business guests there to “meet the Man.” Rumor has it that he never emptied the pot, just kept it simmering, and added more chilies when it started to get low.) This stuff of Rock’s has been simmering for three weeks now; it could be deadly.
Heraldic Symbolism
Talenel, the Soldier, the Herald of War; Nalan, the Judge, the Herald of Justice. I’m honestly not sure why Talenel is used here, other than perhaps the new solidarity of two soldiers or the making of a new Shardbearer. Nalan, on the other hand, I’m reasonably sure is here to “honor” Kaladin’s judgement that the king should be killed for the good of Alethkar and maybe the world.
Shipping Wars
Stop it. They’re like brothers now, or maybe cousins. Friends and comrades-in-arms—or they would be if Kaladin weren’t secretly conspiring to assassinate Adolin’s real cousin.
Just Sayin’
“Enough of this!” Rock said as the armorers began to work, his voice filling the room like captive thunder.
I love this. “Filling the room like captive thunder.” Love this. It’s so perfect for my mental image of Rock.
There. That ought to keep us busy until next week, when we rejoin Dalinar and Navani as they face rumors and lies in the high court. Have a good week, and I’ll see you in the comments!
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader, and is now eagerly counting down to the release of The Bands of Mourning. Not long now… and there will be a spoiler discussion thread ready and waiting. Be sure to join in on all the shouting and screaming. There will be shouting and screaming.
Never. They’re adorable. I will… fail to come up with any original ship references.
Unrelated to the reread, I live in the Seattle area too!
Chris @2 – Cool! Do you go to Brandon’s signings at U Books? We need a meetup thing there next time. (I heard a rumor he’ll be here on February 17 for the Calamity tour.)
It’s bromance. And quite frankly, this is not the first time. IIRC, it was the practice dueling grounds when Shallan visited that we first saw the bromance between Adolin and Kaladin. I love it!!!
This fall on the Alethkar Television Network (“ATN”). Two young males from different ends of society: one, a poor darkeyed soldier from the hinterlands who rose up to be Captain of the King’s Guard; the other, the heir to one of the most renowned Highprinces in the kingdom and the dueling champion. Space is limited, an unknown countdown is on, each has his own secrets and now they must share an apartment. ATN is proud to present the Althekar Odd Couple (cue the RL Odd Couple theme song).
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
What Adolin is demonstrating here is high emotional intelligence (EQ as opposed to IQ). In other words, he is capable of decoding if the gesture, the behavior, the emotions he senses into other beings match their wording or their overall attitude.
He does it several times in book: Sadeas, Eshonai, Kaladin and now Amaram are all people Adolin has rightly called out for not being entirely honest. Each time, he figured out they were withholding information based on his perception of them which was accurate more often than not.
Now most people do this, on various levels, but Adolin goes further: he uses this information to ask himself the right questions in order to reach a conclusion. He trusts his instincts and he uses them to his advantage. It is quite clever.
However, since he reversely presents himself as a superficial dumb fop, nearly everyone, including his own family, consistently, persistently de-valued him in that aspect. Based on his conversation with Shallan, I suspect even he does not think much of his own intellectual skills.
As for Kaladin, yeah, I have to say, Alice you may have a point here. He spent chapters being very depressed, which we all understood even if some of us found it grating and as he is finally free, his mood jumps up immediately. I don’t know what to say about it except I hope someone else has insights on that particular behavior to share.
Bromance all the way! I called out Kaladin, early in WoR, to ultimately end up being the friend Adolin so desperately needed, the one to stand at his back when all ends fail. He did. Bravely. And Adolin returned the favor. Now will Kaladin stand up again for Adolin in his future ordeal? I sincerely hope so. Adolin is going to need a friend to face what is to come.
Good point on the Blade… And I thought Adolin’s was the only Edgedancer Blade we had seen. Though I’d point out his only has one sharp edge and while it is sinuously, it also has crystals on it (and it is blue!). The wine aspect manifest itself when he summons it. I dunno what to make of it.
It could be a case of either seasonal affected disorder (sad) or a side version of claustrophobia. This in addition to having no release valves for the build up stress wether it be Working out or talking with people. If you notice he felt better after hoid visited and he had someone to talk to.
If Kaladin’s depression is heavily influenced by stress, the removal of a stressor could plausibly result in fairly quick improvement. When my anxiety is particularly perverse, it manifests as a bone deep lethargy that disappears as soon as I’m no longer confronted by whatever was freaking me out. It’s *really* annoying.
I continue to most heartily roll my eyes at the whole “kaladin kills syl by making conflicting oaths” thing. Kaladin says it explicitly later on, I believe when he’s down in the crevasses with Shallan, but he’s basically at the mercy of what Syl thinks is right, and she’s not really very stable most of the time. It’s frustrating in character, and frankly smacks me as something of an excuse for Sanderson to take his powers away whenever it’s convenient to the plot.
Kaladin also explicitly calls out how killing Parshendi is still killing, and can’t really reasonably be called protecting anything, and it continues to be super eyerolly to me that he can completely lose his powers and kill his spren by making the conditions for an assassination to happen, even though said assassination isn’t even remotely attempted anywhere near when his powers actually go, but outright killing people is hunky dory. It’s not a morality system at all. The inciting incident for Sylphrena’s death is Sadeas’s betrayal, isn’t it? The bridge being destroyed?
This is why I like Lightweavers and Pattern. They make sense. Sylphrena is easily one of my least favorite characters in the series.
Y’all are doing a good job of covering the other stuff. So for now I’ll focus on an unimportant issue.
I like that Brandon pulled out a reference to a non-standard stone. Most authors would probably used citrine. It’s pretty and now I want one. Guessing this one is more like the faceted type an less the almost amber like heliodors. Of course “Helios” is Greek for “son”, so there is our “translated” word of the day.
Sorry, it comes from being a rock hound and around too many of them. :-D
@9 SunDriedRainbow
I also feel that any system of morality that depends on an unstable fairy’s judgement needs to be reconsidered. No matter what justification the book offers for it, it feels like only named characters matter. All the unnamed Parshendi soldiers Kaladin killed were just trying to protect their loved ones from a genocidal Alethi army, but Syl had no problems with him slaughtering them. When it comes to assassinating an incompetent King with an unfortunate tendency to send innocent old people to their death based on his crony’s lies, suddenly she goes full Quaker.
@9 You’re free to dislike Syl, but I think your assessment of causality here is off. The core of honorspren like Syl is Honor, which has been given several manifestations in the Stormlight Archive. The part most pertinent to Kaladin and Syl in this volume is keeping one’s word – staying true to sworn oaths. It actually has little to do with killing, and everything to do with betrayal. Kaladin has not sworn to protect the Parshendi, but he has sworn to protect the royal family, and is duty-bound to oppose all attempts on the king’s life. It’s not Syl’s “sense of morality” (although she totally is a little Jiminy Cricket for Kaladin) but the core of the shard of Honor that defines the bond between honorspren and Windrunner.
As for the inciting incident for the broken bond, I don’t see it as Sadeas’s betrayal, although that was clearly the setup for disaster – the problem was that as Kaladin was falling, he forced too much Stormlight through the bond he had already stretched to the breaking point. Based on the description of it becoming more difficult for Kaladin to pull Stormlight while he was in jail, this seems to me what Sanderson was getting at. I imagine if instead Kaladin had not fallen and had ultimately followed through with the king’s assassination later, the bond would have also broken at that point.
@9 SunDriedRainbow
I share your frustration with Syl-as-arbiter-of-morality here too, less because of the plot implications than because she’s forcing Kaladin to be who she wants him to be instead of who he wants to be. The implication is always that Syl knows better, and I don’t think that’s necessarily true.
Syl is the classic lawful good paladin character. With her strong sense of morality, many of the things she advocates align with our modern morality. But she’s also stiff and inflexible. There’s no freedom for Kaladin to explore his own thoughts about morality. It’s her way or the highway. Oh, and following your own conscience has the side effect of killing her if oaths are stressed far enough.
@11 dtpullos
The Parshendi leadership bears most of the responsibility for starting the war and for the deaths it has caused. They took a calculated risk in assassinating Gavilar, knowing what the Alethi response would be. That doesn’t mean the lives of Parshendi soldiers have no value, but their own leadership committed them to this course. The Alethi thought they were signing a treaty of friendship and did not attack without reason.
@12 beladee
I might be more inclined to agree with you under different conditions. We don’t have a clear definition of Honor and we don’t know how well Syl’s expectations align with Honor’s own definitions. She’s a separate consciousness from Honor itself with her own understanding.
The portrayal of Syl and Kaladin’s relationship in the story puts most of the pressure on Kaladin to comport himself within the narrow boundaries of Syl’s requirements. Syl faces little pressure from Kaladin to change her nature or to live up to his expectations.
Braid_Tug @10
We’re thinking along the same lines. Citrine isn’t a gemstone associated with one of the Heralds (doesn’t matter), but Heliodor just happens to be Ishar’s gemstone according to the Ars Arcanum. I do acknowledge that said resource may be mostly Vorin legend, but I’m trying to wrap all this up in a neat little package…and coming up empty. If the blade is indeed an Edgedancer blade, as Alice proposed and which does sound plausible given the markings, then I *want* the blade to have an inset diamond to represent Vedel, the patron saint Herald of Edgedancers. I suppose that neat little package is to obvious for our favorite speculative fiction author.
@13 Helian
I agree that the Parshendi leadership is responsible for starting the war. To practically all of the Alethi, it looked like their new allies randomly murdered the King during a feast. This counts as a declaration of war in most people’s eyes, and they followed up by refusing to explain anything, though “had to do it because Voidbringers” wouldn’t really help.
However, Kaladin draws a distinction between the Parshendi leadership then and their soldiers now. Many of the leaders who made that decision turned themselves in after Gavilar’s death, and Kaladin thinks more of them have died in years of warfare. There are Parshendi soldiers who were children when their leaders decided to kill Gavilar, and Kaladin is killing them because of decisions that other people made. The sins of their leaders don’t make Kaladin comfortable about that choice.
Syl, however, doesn’t like thinking about the fact that the Parshendi are just trying to protect themselves. Her neat black and white ethical system can’t really handle handle grey areas. Instead of engaging with Kaladin in a meaningful way, she just insists that it’s different, and that he can’t break his word. She clearly believes that their bond should be more important than his sense of right and wrong, and he has to do as she says or she dies. If all the Windrunners had similar relationships, then they aren’t partnered with their spren so much as serving under them.
@14 Ways
You’re right, it’s too obvious. But I think there’s a couple other reasons beyond that as to why it just wouldn’t make sense: The KR didn’t need gemstones on their blades. They were only ever added later by the men who picked up the dead, abandoned blades so they could bond them and dismiss them rather than having to carry around the giant things all the time.
It’s doubtful that these men would have A. been able to reliably tell which blade belonged to which order and B. would have cared to match gemstones accordingly even if they did. Especially after several generations.
@15 dtpullos
I don’t fault Kaladin for wanting to stop killing Parshendi. He has never been personally invested in the war and he’s not a party to the Vengeance Pact, so it’s easier for him to understand the personhood of the Parshendi. He’s still framing the conflict as a war between the Alethi and the Parshendi while Syl is more likely to see it as a fight against evil. He knows little about the war against the Voidbringers and Odium compared to the other major KR candidates.
I think we, as readers, tend to judge Kaladin more harshly than is warranted because we have knowledge about the framing conflict and its stakes. His relative ignorance allows him to focus on his immediate situation and his personal goals, so he takes a lot of flak for placing them above the needs of the framing plot.
I agree with you about Syl’s perceptions of morality displacing Kaladin’s. She’s taking away his agency and punishing him for behavior that doesn’t conform to her expectations. It’s important to remember that nobody asked Kaladin if he wanted a spren bond. Nobody told him this was the path to knighthood or that there were rigid rules. Syl just showed up one day and started doing her thing.
The thing with Syl though… she has to do it this way else the Nahel Bond will fade and break. She has some flexibility and understanding but Kaladin also has to uphold his own promises (ie Radiant Oaths). The “Words” are not just a collection of empty sounds. They have meaning and effects, whether he likes it or not.
It’s give and take. A trade. He can always chose to go his own way but he can’t do that and be a Windrunner. He can’t get magic powers without cost, not on Roshar.
@18 ChrisRijk
I agree that Syl has constraints based on her own nature and the nature of the Nahel Bond, and that Kaladin has to pay a price for the power he gains. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. What @17 wisely points out is that Kaladin didn’t make much of choice to start this path, and he most definitely hasn’t really been told anything about the cost to himself of becoming a Knight Radiant. It makes the reality he’s in-constrained agency in exchange for power-seem a bit perverse in some ways, because he didn’t know about these constraints. His decision to bond with Syl was not an informed one.
@18
Kinda stole my thunder there. But if I may add something, from what we know about the Nahel bond a spren isn’t just gonna initiate a bond with someone whose personality would conflict too much with their order. For example, Syl wouldn’t attempt to bond with Sadeas or Amaram, Pattern wouldn’t attempt to bond with Dalinar. Even with Lyft and Windle, what looks like a bad fit on first glance actually looks stronger as she is placed in situations where her oaths come into play.
I believe the spren-human relationship is less about molding the human to follow a certain set of arbitrary guidelines and more about spren holding their bondmate accountable for their own moral code. Basically if you want to be a magic user you have to be true to what you say you believe in. You are not allowed to say one thing and do the other. The spren bets their sentience on their choice of partner. Choose unwisely and become stupid.
Lastly, being true to your word is a choice with dire consequences but it isn’t fatal from the human perspective. Using Kaladin as an example, if his bond had broken he would still live. He would still be able to carry out his duties. He wouldn’t be superhuman but he was pretty good with a spear even without Stormlight. Syl is taking the greater risk so she obviously is biased toward Kaladin keeping his oaths, has a vested interest in guiding him to decisions that keep the bond healthy, but nobody ever said Kaladin had to keep a bond he doesn’t want.
wcarter @16
Of course your first point is absolutely correct, I just didn’t have the energy to go into what (I hope) we all know when I was writing the comment. And I’ll happily agree to A and B in the second paragraph. (Wait for it, here comes the “but”)
However, some clever artifabrian added gemstones to those blades to make them useful to non-KR types. There’s some rationale behind the choice of gemstone, IMHO. Allow me to point out again that this is BWS we’re talking about.
Hey, are you going to Jordan Con this year? (I understand Alice is even seriously thinking about going this year.)
Well, I’ve never beento prison, but I spent 17 days in county jail once for a spectacularly stupid mistake. No one came to visit, only one phone call a day, nothing that was MINE to provide any comfort. Yes, the simple act of walking out of the jail can banish all the bad thoughts and feelings immediately. For a while, anyway. They usually come back, especially once you find out some of your thoughts were accurate.
@@@@@ 21 Ways
I’m going to try.
Problem is going to be seeing what kind of week that is work wise and whether I can get off ( I have plenty of vacation time in the bank. Unfortunately, there’s not really anyone else in my department who can do my job).
@17 Halien
One major problem with framing conflicts is that they tend to overshadow characters. We know that the end of the world is coming, so we blame Kaladin for wanting to pursue his own agenda instead of being a good soldier for Team Dalinar. Kaladin doesn’t have the advantage of our knowledge or our outside perspective, so he soldiers on with what he has. Ms. Arneson persistently blames Kaladin for placing so much trust in Moash, but Moash is both part of Kaladin’s bridge family and the closest thing he has to an actual friend. They even have a shared loss, as Roshone murdered both Moash’s grandparents and Kaladin’s brother, crimes that were made possible by Elkohar and the lighteyes power structure. Kaladin shouldn’t just throw that relationship away because his spren tells him to give his friend away to the lighteyes.
@18 ChrisRijk, @20 EvilMonkey
No, spren aren’t going to form bonds with people who are entirely opposed to their ideals. They’re going to pick partners who share their values. But change is part of being human. The human partner may start out fully committed to the Oath, only to feel differently as circumstances and their own beliefs change. I don’t think all of the spren fully understand that. We can see how Syl falters when Kaladin confronts her with the fact that the Parshendi are just protecting themselves, and she never does have an answer for him. She needs to fit everything into the narrow confines of her Words, while he has more than one set of moral rules to follow.
This is the fundamental problem with the Nahel bond. People often have more than one set of Words and commitments, which come into conflict. We can see that honorspren suffer from that conflict, and Syl shows us how they try to resolve the issue by forcing their humans to pick a path. The problem isn’t that Kaladin is untrue to his beliefs, but that his beliefs are sometimes contradictory.
Yes, Syl does have the greater risk. And Kaladin would survive her death. But the simple fact that they can’t “divorce” gives her effective veto power over any partner who doesn’t want to see their friend die. Two humans might split up and go their separate ways; Kaladin and Syl are together as long as she or he is alive, and being together means that she gets her way on the issues that matter most to her.
I can see your point about conflict in morals. Syl has no answers for the complicated nature of humanity. Keep in mind however that spren also change. The more advanced the proto-Radient becomes on the path of the KR the less simplistic the spren’s thought process. Syl is nowhere near her final form. Nor is Pattern, Windle or Ivory. Stormfather probably is but it seems Bondsmiths are a bit different than the other orders. All I’m saying is, just because Syl cannot give more than a simple answer yet doesn’t mean she won’t ever be able to. Spren lose a lot when they transfer from the Cognitive to the Physical. The bond helps them regain everything. Evidence? As we see Kaladin’s bond weakening we see the change in Syl, see her lose her personality. She is much more complex and more of a person when Kaladin bumps his level later on.
Lastly, and I hope I can say it clearly, the KR has a standard, just as many other organizations. If that standard is not followed then you cannot be a part of that organization and thus cannot reap the benefits of belonging. Spren have the onus placed upon them to choose wisely, someone whose core beliefs strongly match the order they belong to. I contend that while people change and opinions change, core values rarely do. That is why Kaladin came through in the end, why he was willing to fight and die with no expectation of his powers returning. Because no matter if Elkohar deserved to die, since Kaladin swore to protect him anything less than that is a betrayal of who he is. If Kaladin had let thw assassination take place he wouldn’t be the same person.
I’m not sure Syl made an informed choice either when she bonded with Kaladin. Perhaps back in the Cognitive Realm she knew what she was getting into, deciding to search for a human to bond with, but by the time she’s actually interacting with Kaladin she is not very aware of what she’s doing. It takes her some time just to realize she’s an honorspren! Kaladin didn’t realize that he was agreeing to follow his oaths or else lose his powers and kill Syl, but Syl likely didn’t realize that she was agreeing to trust Kaladin to follow his oaths or else slowly lose her sentience and die.
Also, it doesn’t seem to me that Kaladin is just at the mercy of Syl’s will. I doubt Syl could decide, “Actually, I think helping Moash is okay,” and then let Kaladin keep his powers and participate in the assassination. I think there’s an ideal of honor out there, out of their control, that both Kaladin and Syl have to work with. Whether it’s some aspect of the bond, or a part of Syl’s nature as an honorspren, or something else, I don’t know. But I don’t think Syl is just imposing her own morality on Kaladin and then refusing to give him powers when he won’t comply. Maybe Kaladin can’t be who he wants to be, but Syl can’t just do what she wants to either; to have the bond, they both need to deal with a separate standard of honor. However, I can’t provide any real proof for this at the moment; I’d need to think about it more to come up with citations.
In the end, though, the system of bonding and oaths works for me. Power comes with restrictions, and restrictions come with relationships that will be broken if you disobey. It would be nice if it were a simple, fair transaction where you agreed to do X to get Y and your spren would agree to provide Y to get Z, with everyone understanding the risks involved and a nice severance agreement tacked on. But relationships, power, rules – life actually – don’t always work that way. It makes sense to me, even if sometimes it’s frustrating.
@6 Gepeto: Good thoughts about Adolin. I suspect his self-image, which so far has only played a role under the surface, will likely come into sharper relief as he deals with the revelations that so many of the people in his life are Radiants. Now he, as a Shardbearer, isn’t as special and significant anymore. How will he respond? How will he see himself and his relationships with Shallan, Renarin, Kaladin, &c? I agree it would be awesome to see Kaladin supporting Adolin during the fallout of Sadeas’s death. Hopefully Kaladin won’t still be busy flying around Alethkar while that all happens…
I’m personally holding out hope that Adolin won’t ever become a Radiant. Not because I don’t want him to have that power, per se, but because I’d enjoy seeing him be a non-magic guy who still plays a very important role. He doesn’t have as flashy and exciting a personality or powers or backstory as Kaladin and co., but he’s a very good, solid, loyal person with valuable skills that round out the team. To me, giving him magic would devalue his other qualities. Surely somebody can be significant and influential even without magic powers, particularly when they have Adolin’s character and skills. But I’m not sure Brandon Sanderson is taking him in a non-Radiant direction. Oh well. Whatever Sanderson does with him will be great, I’m just along for the ride. :)
@6, Gepeto: Thanks for pointing out EQ vs. IQ. And you are right Adolin has a high EQ.
I really think EQ does not get enough attention & respect. Yet without a decent EQ people have no “people skills.” Taken to the extreme lack, and they are true disorders.
But people with extremely high EQ can be very successful.
@11: You said:
If Elhokar had a tendency to do that, Dalinar would not have known who Kaladin was referring to instantly. That means Elhokar only made that mistake ONCE. Was is it a sad, stupid, and totally avoidable action? Yes. At least he learned and never made that mistake again. He is not a great king, but he is not prone to throwing old people into prison all the time either.
Kaladin has taken an OATH to protect Dalinar & kin. Prior to that Kaladin made a promise to protect his bridgemen.
Kaladin never took or broke an oath to the Parshendi. Syl’s all about the oaths and promises. Yes, it is all splitting hairs, but to her and the sprens they are important hairs.
As @12 said.
Yet, he does feel bad about the killings. Which I like seeing in a book about war. It is too easy to vilify the enemy, thus making it seem like you shouldn’t care if you kill them.
@14: But you are (maybe) forgetting, the pommel stones came after the KR. They stones are used so that the current bearers can dismiss their blades. These were discovered after their association with the various KR were dead. I think the tradition of the blades looking a certain way to match a KR order & its god is something that got lost in history long ago.
Where there were KR and the swords were living spren, no stones were included.
Thus some owner long ago stuck the stone in that he had access to. And did not realize he was placing the wrong associated stone into an Edgedancer’s blade.
@16, Wcarter beat me to the point.
Hope you can make JordanCon! I have a job that I’m the “only one” who does it. Thankfully, work still lets me out. They just tell everyone else “it will wait” and ignore another part of my job. But many jobs are not like that.
@26 EvilMonkey
I can see Syl developing intellectually and becoming both more capable mentally and better at expressing her views. Even in the limited time we’ve had, we’ve seen her grow and mature a great deal, and I don’t think she’s reached her full potential. What hasn’t changed, and may never change, is her commitment to the idea of unbreakable oaths and the Words. Syl is getting better at understanding and explaining her position, but that position is still the same as it was in the beginning. Kaladin is stuck with a moral code he didn’t make and that he might not actually want to keep.
In an ordinary organization, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem. The Knights Radiant has its own standards, and Kaladin is free to leave. He’ll lose his awesome superpowers, they’ll lose the investment of Syl’s time that they put into training him, and everyone will go on with their lives. Because of the way the Nahel bond works, though, Syl dies if Kaladin quits. This isn’t her fault or her choice, but it means that Kaladin can’t leave without murdering his friend. Even when he is most willing to assassinate Elkohar, he hesitates because he sees what his choices are doing to Syl. The Marine Corps won’t kill your drill instructor if you drop out, and your mother won’t really die if you marry that unacceptable young lady, but the Nahel bond ensures that your spren friend will pay the price if you go against the Words.
@26 EvilMonkey, @27 sheesania
You both have valid points about Kaladin’s core values, and how Syl doesn’t make the rules any more than Kaladin does. He is committed to protecting, and he is a very loyal person who believes in keeping his word. However, it is easy to imagine a situation where those core values could come into conflict with other fundamental beliefs.
EvilMonkey, you said that “Because no matter if Elkohar deserved to die, since Kaladin swore to protect him anything less than that is a betrayal of who he is.” Imagine if Elkohar wasn’t always a weak, paranoid, and generally incompetent monarch. Imagine that he grew into a capable and intelligent tyrant with a taste for cruelty. Kaladin would still have taken an oath to protect him, and breaking that oath would still kill Syl. Elkohar could be enslaving millions and putting whole cities to the sword, and the oath would be the same. It might be a “betrayal of who he is” to break his word, but I think Kaladin would be willing to betray his word instead of continuing to keep him safe during his murder spree.
Humans understand that right and wrong can be more important than the promises we make. Honorspren apparently cannot. Szeth is sworn to obey the holder of his Oathstone, and he obeys that oath regardless of the consequences to other people. If Kaladin had promised to protect and obey Taravangian, would you want him to keep his Words?
Dptullos @29
Withdrawing a pledge to protect someone unworthy is entirety different than being involved in a plot to assasinate a protectee. Say Elkohar became a sadistic, evil creature. Protecting that guy would actually violate Kaladin’s Third Oath. I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right.
When I say spren choose based on the ideals of their order, I mean that their bondmate’s core values align with that Order’s ideals. You say Kaladin felt guilty about the plot because of how it would affect Syl. I contend that he felt guilty regardless. The plot rubbed against his core values, his conscience nagged him. Maybe subconsciously he knew he was stretching his bond to the breaking point, but he was so far into his depression for lack of a better word that the thought that he was hurting Syl didn’t rise to the level of his conscious mind until after the chasm. He knew the actions he was taking were wrong, but because he couldn’t resolve in his mind the why he was able to rationalize his involvement in the plot.
Basically if a spren picks the right candidate they won’t really have to police their bondmate’s moral code. Now sometimes catastrophic events happen that change people, shaking their very foundations. Sometimes bonds break. It sucks but it happens. Maybe the system isn’t perfect. As for me, I’d like to reserve judgement until we see the full oath set, see how constricting they are. Even so, this is an important organization, saving the world is not a whim, it’s serious business. The consequences of failure should be appropriately dire. Anyone who would be the type to make light of breaking their word or a bond probably isn’t a candidate for Radienthood anyway.
@@@@@ 28 Braid_Tug
Like I said, I’ll try to be there. I have plenty of vacation time and getting time off is only a problem during certain times (the entire month of October is no-go for the whole foundation for instance).
@@@@@ Several
The ongoing debate about Syl her rigidity, the Nahel bond, oaths, etc. is what I believe to be exactly why the KR of old threw up their hands and called it quits.
It doesn’t matter how good a person you are, there are some restrictions and mindsets that are so psychologically taxing that they will either drive you mad or cause you to rebel against them. Even the most disciplined militaries allow their soldiers to blow off steam every once in a while (although the smart ones make sure it happens at a time and place where their won’t be any major repercussions).
The ideals on the other hand come from one of the Shards (or at least pieces of one). They are less person and more personified concept. Whereas people can’t always act only one way, the shards find it difficult to impossible to act outside of their natures.
Beyond that, how does a Knight Radiant retire? Does he or she seriously still want to be active in their old age? But they can’t just sever the Nahel bond, they were told it’s the same as killing their spren.
There’s not way that sort of forced role doesn’t chafe eventually
@31 wcarter: If you’re right and this is indeed the reason why the ancient KR abandoned their oaths, I wonder how things will go this time. Are we heading towards another Recreance once Kaladin and co. cannot put up with their sprens’ demands anymore? Or can something change this time around? Can the spren change? Can the Nahel bond change? Can the nature of the Radiant orders change? Or is something already different because Honor is dead now? If this is truly the reason for the Recreance, it will be a major plot point in the future. So I’ll be keeping an eye on how things develop in this department, as they have significant implications for future books.
Personally, I suspect there’s something more going on with the Recreance and eventually we’re going to get one of those horrifying moments of revelation BWS likes to spring on us. But the rigidity of the oaths could certainly be a factor.
On another subject, I wonder if Dalinar’s pensive consideration of Kaladin after he leaves the prison isn’t just because of the Amaram business – he may already be suspecting Kaladin of being a Surgebinder after Kaladin’s performance during the duel and refusal of the Shards. It isn’t much later (just after the chasm sequences) that he pretty much asks Kaladin if he’s a Radiant.
@27: I don’t think Syl’s choice was reflected as well. It could be she knew what she was getting into, but the decision to bond Kaladin, specifically, seems to have sprouted more from a “love at first sight” event than a true enlightened choice. After all, I somehow doubt killing your spren was once part of the standard path towards Radianhood. This being said, she couldn’t know when she chose him he would end up betrayed and broken so badly he would struggled to maintain his oath.
All in all, as I have said in another thread, I have come to believe Kaladin perhaps is too broken to be a Radiant. I am glad he pulled it of in the end, but it was a close call.
As for the bond breaking part, I think the reason it shattered was due to conflicting oaths Kaladin took. On one side, he promised he would protect Elhokar, but on the other one, he promised he would kill him. As long as he was internally battling with this last idea, the bond remained, but weakened. It is when he committed himself to actually do it that he lost Syl. So protecting Elhokar was right mostly because he said he would protect him and he had no valid reason to come back on his words. Killing the Parshendi also is right because they are attacking people Kaladin has said he would protect: they are the enemy.
It seems it is all about keeping your word, which basically is the definition of honor. Therefore, as long as a Windrunner keeps his words and does not give it too freely, the spren should be happy. Kaladin here stretch it quite far as he dangled with too many contradictory promises. He just can’t promise everything or else he places himself into a position where he will have to act dishonorably.
As for Adolin, we may have to disagree on a few points as I do think he has an interesting worthy to be further explored personality and an interesting past I would love to read more about. There are several reasons why Adolin is interesting, so I’ll toss in a few in there, randomly. He an extroverted character while most of our other characters aren’t: this by itself sets him apart as his reaction patterns widely differs than they. Just this is enough to make him interesting, to me, albeit YMMV. He also is a character which presents himself quite differently than he truly is, in other words, he has a shell or an armor. There is a man inside this which quite isn’t what he portrays on the outside and I want to see more of him. Also while he is a strong warrior, he also is an emotionally very vulnerable one. There is a duality with Adolin: strong on the outside, unbeatable, confident, arrogant, but on the inside he is insecure, doubting and easily disarmed. All in all, many readers react negatively to Adolin because all we see, at first, are his exterior: a dumb arrogant spoiled jock, but as he slowly starts to show his true colors, we see who he truly is: caring, loving, loyal and rather smart. In the story so far, we have had character who hid their pasts (Shallan, Kaladin) because it was too horrible, but in parallel we have Adolin who hides his own self. Why doesn’t he allow the true him to speak up more, to shine more? What is he afraid of?
As for his past, I disagree it isn’t interesting. There is an untold story between him and his mother. I feel as if he was the one the most heavily impacted by her death and I suspect his “issues” with women can be directly linked to his loss. He’s also a child who started sword training years before anyone else, who grew up being completely dismissed by anyone of mark as the nice kid who liked fashion, but not much more. Why is it everybody we have met think Adolin is not someone worth mentioning? Besides all that, his relationship with his warlord of a father he grew up in complete admiration of, with his disabled brother he is rather close to also are aspects I’d like to know more about. Also, the life of a young rich prince evolving within the Alethi court sure would be interesting to read about. Brandon saw there was interest in showing the life of a young darkeyed, a young lighteyed in a rural environment, why not a young lighteyed in the upper spheres? IMO, we are not getting it for reasons, but it does not mean it would not have been interesting.
This being said, Adolin is a very interesting character, to me whether he becomes a Radiant or not, though I do think him not going onto this path would lessen his story arc.
@28: EQ tends to get diminished to “having people’s skills” but it is a lot more than that. What Adolin does here made me think of the watercrafters in the Codex Alera, but to a much lesser extend. He is effectively using the emotions he feels into other people correlating them to their behavior in order to decode if something is wrong or not. In a way, Isana does just the same in the Codex Alera.
Another reason why Adolin is interesting: he is different. None of the other characters we have met have this ability.
@30 Evil Monkey, @33 Gepeto
The Words are “I will protect even those I hate, as long as it is right.” The question is what “right” is, and who gets to decide. I think that EvilMonkey has a point about Kaladin’s internal conflict and feelings of guilt. If I understand their interpretation, then Kaladin is losing Syl because he is breaking his own moral rules, and rejecting the commitment that made the Nahel bond possible.
Gepeto seems to make a different argument, suggesting that honor is all about keeping your given word. In that case, Kaladin would be bound to protect Evil Elkohar, or to serve Taravangian if he vowed to do so. It’s worth noting that Kaladin doesn’t think that killing the Parshendi is right, and doesn’t try to justify his actions by claiming that they’re “the enemy”. Taking an oath to protect some people doesn’t automatically make the lives of other people worthless, and keeping your oath no matter what you have to do pretty much describes Szeth’s worldview. He’s obeying the person who holds his Oathstone, so he’s not really responsible for what they order him to do, right?
EvilMonkey, you said that “Even so, this is an important organization, saving the world is not a whim, it’s serious business.” Saving the world is absolutely serious business. So far, the Knights Radiant have been impressively bad at it. Honor is dead, the Heralds are either insane, in hiding, or both, and we can count the number of surviving Knights on the fingers of both hands. Maybe it’s time for the new Knights to reconsider the wisdom of following in the footsteps of an organization that basically failed and left the world unprepared for Odium’s final Desolation.
Braid_Tug @28
I didn’t forget that point–see my comment @21. There’s just so much we don’t know about artifabrians and how things work. I’d like to see more of Navani’s artifabrian exploits and backstory in future books.
@33 Gepeto: I hope I didn’t say that Adolin’s past isn’t interesting! What I meant is that his background doesn’t have the kind of drama and upheaval we see from, say, Kaladin. Adolin’s is interesting in a more subtle way. Sanderson has planted seeds of many intriguing stories in Adolin’s relationships with his brother and parents, as you point out. I’d be all for a good character study exploring his background and connections with his family.
My hopes for Adolin to not become a Radiant are primarily because I think it would lead to interesting conflicts and development for his character. I think it would bring out the unique skills he has now and his relationship with them. Heading towards Radianthood would also be interesting character-wise, but I’m nervous that it would overshadow his existing traits that I would enjoy seeing developed further.
@34 dptullos: “Maybe it’s time for the new Knights to reconsider the wisdom of following in the footsteps of an organization that basically failed and left the world unprepared for Odium’s final Desolation.” – I think at this point we just don’t have enough information about the Heralds, the Radiants, the Recreance, &c to know if there’s a fundamental flaw in the organization of the KR, or if something else is up. More research is necessary! Particularly before anyone tries to majorly change the structure of such things. Good thing we’ve got several scholars around…
@36 sheesania: We do know that all but one of the Heralds betrayed the Oathpact, but you’re right about the Knights Radiant. We don’t know what caused the Day of Recreance, why the Knights disappeared, or many of the details about the mass breaking of the Nahal bond that gave us Shardplate and Shardblades.
The fatal flaw in the Knights Radiant might have nothing to do with my ideas about the Nahel bond, and there are so many things we don’t know that it’s hard to even guess about it. But while we can’t yet know how or why the Knights Radiant failed, the current state of affairs as of the Words of Radiance epilogue shows that someone messed up pretty catastrophically. The purpose of the Knights Radiant was to defend the world from Odium, and they ended up disappearing and leaving most of the world completely ignorant of the dangers they faced. No matter how that happened, it’s on the people who were in charge of making sure it didn’t.
All magic systems have trade-off’s and problems. What seems to be the flaw in this one is its subjectivity. You asked who determines what is right? The answer is probably the guy who holds the bond in concert with his or her role within the Radient structure. It’s a Skybreaker’s role to judge, a Windrunner’s to protect, an Edgedancer’s to heal, and so on. Thus different Orders approach the same problem in different ways. I assume the Bondsmith’s role is to place the other Knights in positions where they can be most effective while putting the least strain on their Bond. Of course I could be totally off base here but that makes sense to me as a way to mitigate the problems associated with this particular magic system.
As far as this system and its effectiveness, two things. One, consider the opponent. Odium is bad news to put it lightly. It has three shard kills to its name as it stands, not to mention an untold amount of civilizations and population centers; it has no problem with exterminating all life until it stands alone. Any shard, any magic system is gonna have trouble with that one. Harmony could probably take it out, but Sazed stands to lose much of his Godhood in that conflict. For a shattered Honor to hold it off for as long as it has, even with Cultivation as back-up, is nothing short of remarkable. Second, it’s been over 4000 years since the previous Desolation, or nearly the entire span of Human history on our planet. With the amount of change that can take place in a culture over just a couple centuries it is frankly amazing that they have even as much knowledge of what’s to come as they have. I’m not saying it’s perfect or even the best available. I can say that it hasn’t done a horrible job and it is a damn sight better than most. YMMV of course but I say cut the Radients a little slack.
@38 EvilMonkey
Actually, you’re just right about Odium. It may turn out that the Radiants screwed up somewhere along the line, but the mere fact that anyone on Roshar is still alive without being turned into a twisted parody of life means that they’re doing pretty darn well. Your larger point also has merit; however flawed the Nahel bond is compared to an ideal system, the spren seem to choose their partners fairly carefully, and there would be fewer problems if there were more Orders available to handle different kinds of work.
If each Order brings its own viewpoint, then the KR actually have a much more diverse set of worldviews and ideals that we’ve seen so far. The Bondsmith still has the hardest job imaginable, since he has to ensure that everyone else gets the right job, along with managing family feuds between the Skybreakers and the Windrunners, but the rest of the KR can just focus on doing their part.
How does a KR retire? That is an awesome question, one we don’t have an answer to, one we may be in desperate need to find out. Is there any other way to break a bond without killing one or the other bondmate or is it truly till death do they part?
@40 EvilMonkey
Here’s my (almost certainly wrong) theory: the spren takes the old, dried-up KR to Shadesmar where said spren is protected from stupidification–if that’s not a word I’m totally making it one now–then tosses the knight in that sea of spheres thing to drown (similar to the old myths about Eskimo elders being left on ice drifts).
Once that’s done, the now free spren goes back to Roshar’s physical plain to look for another partner.
Of course if there really is a way to sever the bond without negative affects on either party, then it would almost certainly be a function of the Stormfather and/or Bondsmiths.
sheesania @@@@@ 36
I agree. I want Adolin to stay as he is – a normal human, no super powers. I want him to rely on his humanity – his skills and his strengths to survive and to lead his people. As for his weaknesses, I hope for Adolin to use them as inspiration to invent things or think outside the box so that he can overcome them.
The Radiant, though their lives are not easy (cases in point are Kaladin and Shallan) always have their radianthood to fall back to when trying to overcome an obstacle. I don’t want Adolin to think that way. I want him to think of solutions based on what he as an ordinary human can do.
Just my thoughts… :-)
AndrewHB @@@@@ 5 – Love the Odd Couple!!! With Elhokar and Rock’s TMZ show, we have primetime in Alethkar cover.
Somewhat related to the effectiveness of the Radiants – I’ve wondered sometimes if the first five SA books will follow a Desolation that isn’t stopped in time, destroying civilization. But the protagonists are able to leave enough information for their successors in the back five books that these later protagonists are able to finally put a stop to the cycle of Desolations. Given that there’s only going to be ~15 years between the two pentalogies, however, I’m not sure this is very likely. I get the impression there were more years between Desolations. It’s an idea, at any rate.
On Radiants retiring – Is there some reason a Radiant’s bond MUST be severed for them to retire? Can’t they just keep their spren but scale back the active fighting, running around healing people, Lightweaving, whatever?
@39 dptullos: Given the Radiants we’ve seen so far and the information in in-world Words of Radiance, I think it’s pretty safe to think that we will have quite a variety of viewpoints and purposes among the Orders. I think it will be very cool to see so many different people trying (or not) to work together.
Now I’m imagining Dalinar attempting to tell Lift what to do…
@42 sheiglagh: Well, the Radiants can fall back on their Radianthood as long as it’s not what’s causing the problem in the first place – like Kaladin’s struggle with Syl here! But in general they’ve got magic to help them along. Which is fun to read about, but somebody without magic to rely on can be even more fun to read about because they’re more like yourself. This is one of the reasons Adolin is appealing as a character to me – he’s more normal, more relatable even as he is interesting.
Here’s a funky thought. Adolin doesn’t become a Radient but ends up being able to use surges because he becomes Renarin’s squire. Not advancing that as a theory btw, just a crazy thought in response to those who want Adolin to stay normal. It isn’t the course I want his character to take either. I just don’t want him marginalized as a character and I fear that those with powers are gonna be front and center leaving behind those that aren’t bonded.
Shee @43
Old man Kaladin, tired from the wars he’s fought most of his adult life, sitting in his rocking chair surrounded by grandchildren, staring at the fire while he tells his stories. Nice imagery. Problem is, it seems like the lifespan of a spren is much longer than that of a human. Even if Kaladin lives to be 100, is it fair that when his body gives up he drags Syl with him? Syl doesn’t get to say “job well done” and go off into the sunset, sentience intact. She doesn’t get to use that advanced lifespan to guide another generation of country boys and girls with Honor in their soul. Worse yet, she doesn’t get to build on the experience of being bonded with someone to do a better job with the next one, maybe smooth out the bumps in the road that almost got her killed. If that’s what it is so be it, but I would hope that the spren get an out clause in their contract, for both parties sakes. I know I’d hate to have my last thought before going to the Spiritual Realm that my best friend and loyal companion has to die with me.
@EvilMonkey: As far as I understand, a spren doesn’t die when a human bonded to them dies. Presumably Syl could bond somebody else once Kaladin dies, so long as he doesn’t break his oaths. WoB (http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1052):
I think he said more somewhere about the effects. At any rate, it wouldn’t completely incapacitate a spren to have their Radiant die. It would be neat to see a spren we’ve gotten to know bond with someone else after their first Radiant moves on.
Awesome. That makes me happy somehow
@@@@@ EvilMOnkey and sheesania
There’s a more practical reason that both spren and their human partners might want a method for the Knight to retire: scarcity of spren.
We don’t know what the actual population is in terms of the spren for each of the ten orders. Is it thousands? Tens of thousands? Or is it as I suspect, only a few hundred? Spren as a whole seem ubiquitous, but that doesn’t mean the sentient ones aren’t rare. If they are, then having some “wasted” on crippled old men and women too old to actively contribute anymore might actually harm the ranks of the orders.
If this is the case then there are two scenarios, neither of which is pleasant:
The first (and I believe most likely), is that these over-the-hill knights would keep fighting even after their minds and bodies should have given out. Eventually, someone fighting passed their prime will end up getting themselves and possibly others killed because of it
The second, is that even if the old did step back (but their bonds remained intact), then they would actively inhibit new Knights Radiant from coming to be until they dropped dead (whether through natural causes or…expedited methods….) thus freeing up their spren to form a new bonds.
@36: Ah well I disagree with this as well… I disagree a character’s past has to have violent upheavals to be interesting, if anything too violent upheavals make a character less interesting, to me. Probably because I start to feel disbelieving or I end up thinking the author is putting too much stock into it. YMMV, but this is how I personally tend to feel over these things. Kaladin, as a character, is dangerously getting close to that threshold which is why I hope he won’t trespass it for my personal shake. Characters such as Adolin are more interesting to me because I can relate to them better, hence I prefer to read about them. I also think events in his past, while not as tragic, are more interesting because they feel more real. You may entirely disagree as your reading experience may be completely different.
I also do not think Adolin will become a Radiant, if he does, within the first half of book 3… There is enough page time within the next three books to have him explore his own vulnerability due to his lack of super-powers and to come in terms with his new position among the new hierarchy while ultimately have him bond a spren (preferably via his Blade). These plot lines aren’t mutually exclusive, but I fear seeing Adolin perpetually not being chosen by any spren (especially since we know there is an abnormal amount of sprens around the Kohlins looking for knights) while remaining kind-hearten ready to sacrifice himself for those he love person will cheapen the story, ultimately. Why not him?
@42: As I said, Adolin becoming a Radiant does not exclude him having to live through a fair chunk of development without powers… I mean you all wanted me to read Tavi and it’s exactly how it happens with him: he doesn’t rely on furycrafting, but he does get it, eventually, though I am at the stage where it isn’t working in the standard way for him, but he does have it. It could be the same for Adolin, after he made his peace with his “condition”, after he has agreed he just isn’t worthy of a Nahel bond but still tries to do his best at everything, after he has concluded they will always all stand above him: he does the impossible. It happens very slowly. We see him say words akin to oaths all through the story without them meaning anything. He does not realize what he is doing, but when he says the final one (and something else happens), he unlocks the Blade. It thus become clear: sprens stay clear of him because he was already taken, by his Blade. At that point in time, he’s a level 5, with all the power and the strength, but without the experience.
@44: I somehow cannot picture Adolin as a squire to anyone, especially not Renarin.
@ALL: Brandon said somewhere it was possible to pass on your Nahel bond to someone else. It has been done, occasionally. I personally simply think older knights just retire from the battlefield to a less active role. Let’s not forget not all were soldiers: Kaladin doesn’t have to spend his life being one. At some point, he can as Dalinar did he remove himself from direct action.
If Adolin doesn’t bond a spren that doesn’t necessarily mean that he isn’t “worthy”. In this magic system both brokenness and oaths are required. If you don’t want him to have a bad past, that means he can’t be a Radiant.
@48 wcarter: These problems you mentioned, as far as I can see, would only happen if 1) sentient spren are, indeed, rare; and 2) old Radiants are that useless. At least to me, it seems that old Radiants could do many helpful things even after they’re too old to be in active combat or other intense work. (Particularly because, as Gepeto points out, not all Radiants were soldiers.) They could train and mentor, offer advice, possibly lend their Shardblades and Shardplate to others, &c. Or who knows, maybe their spren would just want to take a break and spend some years in a sort of retirement with their Radiant before moving on to the next one.
At any rate, it would be helpful if there was a way for spren and Radiant to part peacefully. But I don’t think it would cause major problems if there wasn’t such a mechanism.
@49 Gepeto: Erm, did I say that a character needs violent upheavals in their past to be interesting? I believe characters can be interesting in many ways. They can be interesting for their tragic pasts – Kaladin has elements of this. They can be interesting because you can relate to them – this is part of Adolin’s appeal. They can also be interesting because they’re unusual or funny or contradictory or complex or for a whole host of other reasons. I enjoy both Kaladin and Adolin as characters, but for different reasons. With Kaladin, I can understand his thought processes and sympathize with his struggles. With Adolin, I can actually like him as a person and relate more closely to his experience.
My main point is that I like Adolin’s non-magical skills and his comparatively normal background. So I would like to see them play an important role in the story, not get overshadowed by new powers.
You have a good point in that there would be room, page-wise, for Adolin to struggle with his lack of powers but still become a Radiant in the end. However – at least for me – it kind of cheapens his development if he winds up getting the power after spending all that time learning to be capable and secure in his place without power. I would get the feeling that, really, you can’t be a significant character without magic. You can come to terms with having no magic, and learn to be happy and effective as you are with what advantages you have. But as far as the story is concerned, you’re not important if you haven’t got magic. That rubs me the wrong way. But others may see it differently.
As for Adolin becoming Renarin’s squire, the idea just cracks me up. It would be very strange.
I can’t imagine that the Recreance could have been the result of all the Radiants suddenly and at once, after several millennia, mind you, finding their Oaths too restrictive. Not to mention, that the Cultivation spren seem to be quite flexible, so that it might be difficult to find their requirements too onerous, IMHO. Also, from Dalinar’s vision the Recreance was performed demonstratively, in front of witnesses, which would be odd, if the problem had been purely between the Knights and their spren.
Taravangian (in his genius phase) also seemed to think that there was some devastating secret that led to it, and I trust him to be right about this, even though I strongly suspect that the new Radiants, with a Desolation staring them in the face, are going to react very differently to learning whatever it is, than he hopes.
As to Radiant aging, that’s a very interesting question, because it touches on something that always annoyed me in fantasy implementations of healing and particularly self-healing abilities. Namely, the inconsistency of just inserting healing (and other magic) into otherwise pop-culture notions of medieval conditions. As such, magical healing of otherwise mortal wounds would happen left and right, but healers would be somehow powerless against disease or death in childbirth(!), and even if they have self-healing, would be susceptible to such things themselves and age normally.
Yet what is aging and disease, if not accumulated damage to our tissues and organs? If somebody can repeatedly and perfectly self-heal massive, fatal wounds as Radiants seem to be able to do, their aging should be, at the very least, significantly slowed down compared to the general population, if not stopped altogether. Sanderson is famous for his consistent and logical magical systems and, I hope that he takes into account the logical world-building consequences of the abilities that he chose to grant to the surge-binders.
re: Moash becoming ranked above 90% of Alethkar: Moash is not ranked above anyone of the 4th dahn, so we can roughly estimate how many other people are 4th dahn by taking the difference between the handful to couple of hundred people at 1st-3rd dahn, and the ~90% of Alethkar that is ranked 5th dahn or lower.
re: healing vs. aging @52: We’ve seen how Brandon handles healing vs. aging in a couple of other Cosmere magic systems. In the Mistborn series, magical healing as granted by gold feruchemy (ideally compounded with allomancy) does not stop the user from aging. It prevents them from feeling many of the effects of age, but the aging will still happen. It takes direct use of shard-metal to effectively halt aging (by reversing it). In Elantris, the Elantrians have magical healing, but again they are not immortal.
@50: That one would depend on how traumatic you believe an individual’s past need to be to open-up to a Nahel bond. I personally believe Kaladin’s past is an extreme example and I have advocate, in the past, he perhaps is too broken to be a Radiant, hence his trouble at keeping his oaths. I certainly do not think violent upheavals are a requirement for the Nahel bond and we can safely speculate other known Radiants pasts likely weren’t as terrible as Kaladin’s.
I’d say what breaks one person strengthen another: we can’t pass judgment on the level of trauma required to break someone. In that optic, there is enough events in Adolin’s past to justify at the very least a crack. Now this being said, I do agree it likely didn’t happen. Yet. I however do think his past will eventually be one major factor into his future “breakdown”. Whether we agree or not where he is going, I do believe most of us will agree he will go through hard times and hard times imply cracking. In other words, Adolin will soon fit this “brokenness” criteria as I don’t believe he can possibly deal with his own desuetude, his lack of powers in front of everyone else he knows without going through the emotional trauma required to open to a Nahel bond. I just don’t see it happening. And I am not even broaching the aftermath of Sadeas’s death: that boy has more than enough on his plate right now.
Hence, considering the abnormally high number of sprens around the Kholins (confirmed via WoB), justifying from a narrative point-of-vue someone in appearance so worthy of a Nahel bond is not getting one (while everyone else is) will be difficult. Unless you sent the character onto a bus ride, it seems practically an impossibility or perhaps it is simply I who is blind.
@51: Ah well my apologies if I misunderstood you. I did take it as if you meant it, so sorry if I misread you. For the rest, I do not think it will cheapen his progression… What if Adolin’s journey is to learn how to be a normal man? What if he needs to lose it all, to accept losing it all in order to progress? Wouldn’t that be interesting to read?
Also, in the case of SA, I seriously think you can’t be a significant character without magic, I have said this often enough. So far, I have not been given enough reason to believe otherwise. Magic-less characters are likely to die when the fighting gets more intense. This being said, perhaps I am getting the wrong impression or perhaps I am analyzing this the wrong way. I simply believe Adolin not making it to Radiant, unless he dies, would be difficult to justify. He does more for others in two books than even known Radiants, so how can he not be worthy of joining them? As I said earlier, I also do not believe he won’t meet the “broken” requirement within the near future. I thus do not think it is an argument explaining it.
This is how I currently see it, I may be wrong, I may be missing some clues, but unless someone can provide me with a rational explaining how the narrative can justify Adolin not becoming a Radiant I will firmly sit on this side of the fence. For a personal stand-point, I want him to keep on playing an important role into the story which I also don’t see happening unless he gets an upgrade. That argument though is probably weak and is seriously impacted by my personal preferences.
@52: I suspect as well Radiants have elongated life span.
@@@@@ 52 Isilel
Perfect, and especially rapid, perfect healing would not increase one’s lifespan under normal circumstances. If anything, it would dramatically shorten it. Human cells can only split and regenerate so many times. Every time cells replicate, your telomeres shorten slightly.
The shorter they are, the poorer the quality the new cells are compared to the old ones. That is why we age. Environmental toxins, diet, exercise (or the lack thereof), and injuries are all contributing factors that speed up the process–some by damaging cells, some by further damaging the DNA inside them–but ultimately the simple act of cell replication is all it takes.
Characters like Marvel’s Wolverine wouldn’t live to be 2-300 years old in reality. The more he regenerated, the faster he would age.
It took compounding of both gold and atium feruchemy and allomancy to give the Lord Ruler a form of immortality. Gold to heal and atium to reverse aging (which I assume regrew telomeres in his DNA). Either one alone would have been insufficient.
Unless raw stormlight does both (which seems doubtful based on the information we currently have), then even the healing it does provide isn’t going to stop the aging process.
Hmm. Moash… I almost forgot that this is the chapter when he received the Shardblade which totally changed his life. Later on, we will see that Moash is just another greedy SOB and probably as bad as Roshone. Because, if Moash is a true friend, he would have offered the shards back to Kaladin when he learned that Syl has left Kaladin. Oh well, Moash was a goner from the very beginning anyway.
Why did I say that? Not to sound religious or anything at all, but fate has set up Moash as the Judas of Bridge 4. Though, to be fair, it seems that he has misgivings about the situation with Kaladin as seen by the end of WoR.
What will happen to him will be very interesting. How will Taravangian react to Moash being a traitor? And what role will Moash has to play in the end game?
@57 sheiglagh
Those are good questions.
Hmm, right now my money is on Redemption Equals Death. Underneath the hate, he still seems himself as Bridge Four, and chances are, he’s eventually going to get himself killed protecting his real, Bridge Four family from his new “friends”.
It may take a while (a book or two at least), but the diagram group will eventually go after someone else. Dalinar again since Szeth failed, or possibly even Kaladin since he’s currently the head bodyguard to the royal family. When that happens…well Moash just reminds me so much of Ingtar sometimes is all I’m saying.
I think it’s also important to remember that in Cosmere worlds it’s not just the physical we need to worry about – there’s also the Spiritual and Cognitive Realms, and we’ve already seen with Kaladin’s tattoos that Stormlight healing is not solely a Physical Realm matter. I do suspect it lengthens lifespans somewhat, but that’s more in relation to how Dalinar seems to react to it: both in that it feels familiar and that he seems (although not perfect) more spry than he would be otherwise. And Dalinar still feels some of the effects of aging, so that could just be him naturally having a hardier body. But I wouldn’t link it to its healing characteristics in a physical sense: @55wcarter used the examples of telomeres, but those are just one of the most apparent limits to aging built into humans.
I think a good example for this is in Nalthis (Warbreaker’s world): iirc the 5th Awakening is the one that grants agelessness as well as immunity to most (if not all) disease and toxin. Now magically you could consider this a case of the Breaths working on the body to take care of all of that stuff…but it’s much simpler (and I think neater) to consider it a case of the magic working on the physical to maintain it to a cognitive or spiritual ideal demanded by having all those Breaths.
As for Moash, I think it’s early enough he could go a lot of ways. We just haven’t seen much of him after his moral event horizon moment by the end of the book (well, what Moash considers a moral event horizon anyways: breaking from Bridge 4). I do think redemption through saving members of Bridge 4 and dying in the process like @57 says is pretty likely, but he could also become completely corrupted by the Diagramists’ dreams. Moash lost basically his two guiding lights by the end (at least temporarily), and I don’t think Graves is a suitable substitute for either.
Re: Magical healing: I was going to point out how Realmatics and other Cosmere stuff have implications for the mechanics of Stormlight healing, but FenrirMoridin evidently beat me to it. Another example of immunity to aging in the Cosmere is the Elantrians – they aren’t immortal, but they do live much longer than normal humans IIRC. We’ve already seen that Stormlight healing can do more than just what an enhanced normal body could – regrowing arms, for instance! So it is quite possible that Stormlight will keep Radiants alive and capable longer than usual.
Re: Adolin not being “broken”: At this point I think we don’t have enough examples to adequately judge what is “broken” enough to allow a Nahel bond. We’ve seen Kaladin and Shallan go through major trauma, but we’re not as clear on what broke Dalinar, Renarin, Jasnah, Ym, Lift…So I hesitate to say people can’t be Radiants for lack of brokenness, or make assumptions about Dalinar’s, Jasnah’s, &c’s pasts because of their brokenness, until I understand what “brokenness” actually entails.
@54 Gepeto: No worries! I can be rather…wordy sometimes. Anyways, I guess you’re essentially saying that 1) you want Adolin to keep playing an important role; and 2) he won’t be able to do this unless he has magic; and 3) he has enough potential to become a Radiant that this is likely. I agree with #1 and #3. #2 gives me some trouble. I can see your point; it’s quite likely that only magic users will be significant enough to merit major story time. But…argh! I want normal people to be important too! And yes, it would indeed be interesting to watch Adolin come to terms with a lack of power, and then see him become a Radiant after that. But…it just rubs me the wrong way. It seems to marginalize those “normal” parts of his character. But that’s really just my personal opinion. In all honesty, I trust Brandon Sanderson to tell a good story regardless of where he chooses to go with Adolin’s character arc or anything else.
About all the spren hanging around the Kholins – I think it was mentioned in WoR that the usual punishment for murdering a highprince would be execution or exile. If Adolin is convicted of murdering Sadeas, which I think is fairly likely, he could be exiled and wind up in a different place from the rest of his family. But on the other hand, I’m not sure Sanderson would cast Adolin out into the world to be by himself like that. It would be a shame to separate him from his family and all the other interesting relationships he has at the moment.
Alice you cited the conversation between Adolin and Kaladin as “the moment when these two men acknowledge their respect for one another.”
Rereading it now, with knowledge of the whole book I can now better enjoy it, but the first time reading it, I was rather pissed at Adolin. (Not so much at Kaladin, but maybe ;) because he is my favorite.)
It starts here with the “insolent farmer”, but worse and so much more disrespectful always felt the “bridgeboy” Adolin uses later. I’m still highly allergic to that term.
—
Re the breaking of the bond:
I don’t have problems believing that breaking his oath and his plans to assasinate cause the weakening of the bond (albeit the killing of Parshendi didn’t) but I (also) still don’t understand why it finally broke when Kaladin fell into the chasm (other than plot convenience). Because then and there he was all in “I protect-Mode”. But the explanation given by beladee @12 that he tried to channel too much through an already stretched bond doesn’t seem right to me.
@59: At this point I think we don’t have enough examples to adequately judge what is “broken” enough to allow a Nahel bond.
I absolutely agree with this statement. We do not know, we can only speculate and I personally advice caution in trying to “invent” terrible past to known Radiants in order to justify their bond (now I am not saying you personally did this, simply I have seen it done often enough). Reversely, I also advice caution into trying to guess who can be a Radiant based on known events. For instance, I disagree with the statement: “Adolin can’t be a Radiant, his life was too easy and he isn’t broken.”, because at this point in time of the story we do not know enough about Adolin to qualify his mental state in that regards. I’d argue it is very likely he does not currently fit the “broken” criteria, but known events of his pass are sufficient to cause hardships: losing a parent is a hard experience for anyone. I would be ill-at-ease to see easy to relate pain such as “premature death of a parent through disease” be relinquish to a no-deal event simply because Kaladin and Shallan lived through worst.
I would also be careful in trying to compare various Radiants past. I have been guilty, in the past, of thinking Renarin was not worthy enough of being a Radiant because his past life didn’t seem traumatic enough to my tastes. In other words, I was comparing him to Kaladin and Shallan which left me finding him lacking. I believe I made a mistake there: what is a true hardship for Renarin perhaps would be easy to deal with for Kaladin, but what matters if how Renarin felt through it. If it was hard for him, then it was hard: no matter how much terribly worst Kaladin’s past is.
Also, I am terribly wordy myself, so no bother :-)
I’ll give you number 2) is rather weak as I stated in my previous post. It simply is my current impression after reading two books, which could be very wrong. However, based on the information I do have (which is incomplete as I do no possess the brain of the master) it does appear as if SA will majorly focus on the various Radiants. In that optics, I do not know if there is enough room within the main narrative to explore “normal” characters. Perhaps there is, I cannot say, I can only say how I currently read the story. I may be entirely wrong here, so do not give such a big weight on number 2), but I also noted no “normal” character are getting flashbacks… So… It is terribly hard not to make the link “normal” characters won’t be important. I fear that, by choosing only magical characters to fill-in the flashback spots, Brandon is making the statement you need to have magic to be important within this story. He is also making the statement only “magical characters” have interesting things to say about their past and a “non magical character” cannot be used to present whatever world-building element he wants to show through these. Again, it can be false impression, but I have a hard time not seeing it this way.
Number 3) is truly the one which bothers me. The problem I have with surgebinding is it isn’t hereditary: you aren’t born with it, you are awarded it based on your own worth (which I think is great, so by problem I do not mean surgebinding is a problem, more that it is a problem for Adolin’s story arc). In other words, any individual worthy enough, in the eye of a spren, can be a Radiant. In that regards, I would personally feel terrible if someone as nice, good and generous as Adolin doesn’t get that chance while everyone else does. How do you justify this? This is what bothers me with Adolin remaining normal: I see no reason why a spren shouldn’t choose him unless he goes down a terrible arc which I hope won’t happen. So from my perspective Adolin remaining normal would cheapen the story as I can’t currently find a decent rational to justify it. Now simply because I can’t find a decent rational does not mean there isn’t one: it simply mean my perspective doesn’t currently allow me to see one. Hence, I prefer Adolin to become a Radiant via his dead-Blade as I think this would make a story I would very much like to read.
I agree with you on the exile: I too do not want to see Adolin far away from his family as his interaction with his loved ones is what makes his character interesting. Also, without him, the family dynamic will be horribly different and I fear it may even be boring: you need Adolin to mess up here and there to keep things spicy.
@60: We may have to read that chapter again soon. I have the same problem. My thoughts are the bond broke when he truly committed himself, both in words and mentally to murder Elhokar. As long as he was debating with himself, the bond lasted, even if weakened, but when he made his final decision, it shattered. I do agree having this event coincide with him falling down the chasm was a plot device, another reason why I dislike the chasm scenes, but we’ll get to talk about it soon.
Oy. Y’all have been busy while I was… busy. Now I have a lot of catching up to do! It’s a good problem.
I’m sure plenty of people will have found this on their own, but Sanderson just placed a brief overview of how Oathbringer is going to be structured on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Stormlight_Archive/comments/41r099/oathbringer_spoilers_stormlight_three_update_2/
I’m sure some people won’t be as happy with certain revelations (sorry every Adolin fan, Adolin won’t be getting much more than he’s gotten relative to the other books and Kaladin will be getting the same by the looks of it), but it’s just cool to see what we’re getting structurally with book 3.
@Edit: Just in case I rewrote a sentence to be clearer. My first phrasing was awkward.
I saw it. While it was great to find out more about the layout and utterly interesting to read, it also was a great deception, for me. I cannot say how disappointed I am. I have come to question why I even chose to invest myself into this fandom so much only to see all my hopes being crushed. This actually hurts. I expected it, but still a small part of me had hoped that for once the character I preferred would be given a decent plot line, but looks like it won’t happen. Tertiary characters just don’t get the spotlight I have wished for.
This being said, I am super happy for those who are excited by it. Jasnah’s fans will be happy to see her back within the main narrative. I envy all of you who are able to appreciate it in its entirety and who aren’t so single-minded as to focus on one sole character.
@64: I expected it, but still a small part of me had hoped that for once the character I preferred would be given a decent plot line, but looks like it won’t happen. Tertiary characters just don’t get the spotlight I have wished for.
He may not get as much spotlight as you’d prefer (at least not in the first 5 books), but that hardly means he won’t get a decent plot line. To circumspectly reference another Sanderson series, book 3 of Mistborn features satisfying plotlines for at least two people (an agent in Urteau and a prisoner) who I would consider to be characters at the same focus level as Stormlight’s tertiary characters. Or, to look at a series that most definitely has influenced Sanderson, the Wheel of Time features satisfying plotlines for quaternary characters, to say nothing of its tertiary and secondary characters.
@@@@@ 64 Gepeto
Read it twice. It doesn’t sound to me like there will be any less Adolin in book three than in books one or two, just more Dalinar than either Kaladin or Shallan.
If anything you will probably have a better chance to see Adolin through his father’s eyes and possibly even a young Adolin in some of Dalinar’s later flashbacks.
No matter how you slice the cake, Adolin is very much Dalinar’s right hand. I wouldn’t be all that surprised if he actually gets more screen time than any other character (just not all of it within his own POV).
So chin up, it could always be worse. Adolin at at least gets some guaranteed POV-time according to Brandon’s post. Renarin on the other hand is supposedly both a KR and eventual MC and Brandon flat out stated he won’t get any direct focus at all until the second set of five books.
@65: But no character in WoT had has much POV time as Kaladin or Shallan and now Dalinar. It was more evenly split or so I seem to recall. I agree however many secondary characters had satisfactory plot lines. I particularly enjoyed Androl in the later books. The problem is I feel the “main” characters take so much page time, anyone else feels diminished in comparison.
@66: You are right, of course. I am sorry for being this emotional over this. I have been hoping for this for two years now… Each time I read those update, my heart nearly stops. Call me out for the most emotional crazy Stormlight Archive fan there is: or just the nut-job. Also, those tertiary characters seem to have so little POV time… For instance, tertiary character number 4 doesn’t have a POV until part 4. Brandon didn’t say which one was Adolin, dare I hope he is, at least, the number one among those?
Book one though didn’t have a lot of Adolin… it would be bad to have him shrink back, but you are right, it could have been worst.
I’d say though that Renarin is a different matter. He currently isn’t a POV character. He never had POV and he always was a more peripheral character than Adolin. It has been stated early on he wouldn’t play a large role until the second arc, though I will admit this last tip-bit about him potentially dying was… sad to read. I had not expected Renarin to be one of the dead flashback characters, but since it isn’t Szeth, it likely isn’t Lift, it probably isn’t Jasnah (as she died once), all that were left are Eshonai, Taln, Shalash and Renarin. So huh… poor kid, but he does say he take an active part into the action despite being dead. I am curious to see how that will work out, but we are more than 10 years down the road before we find out.
I suspect that we’re going to have problems with favorite characters getting sidelined for a long time, unfortunately. Sanderson seems really focused on trying to keep the story tight and focused and avoid POV creep. He’s spoken many times about how he saw this problem in WoT and ASOIAF and is proactively trying to avoid it in his own big series. This will hopefully result in a better story in the end…but also lead to some pain for those of us who really love particular characters. Especially since we have >2 years between books to drive ourselves crazy wondering and speculating! But I think only time will tell how this trade-off between plot momentum and character time will really play out. What do you all think?
This is a consistent stumbling block for me in Sanderson’s books – he prioritizes plot and pacing more than I do. I got frustrated even in the Mistborn trilogy with how characters like Breeze got developed briefly in one book, only to fade into the background again in the next one. I wasn’t even particularly fond of Breeze. But it bugged me that there was a character with an interesting story and worldview who had to get set aside because the plot said so. Ah well. Just so long as Sanderson makes that main story he wants to focus on interesting enough to merit the lack of attention to side characters…
On another note – does anybody want to speculate on who the focus characters in those two novelettes will be? I’m thinking that perhaps one of the bridgeman will get a novelette. If not in Oathbringer, then later on.
@52 Isilel and @53 tiornys, there is a suggestion that the Nahel bond does prevent further aging. The spren invented the bond in imitation of the power that Honor conferred upon the Heralds. One aspect of the Heralds is their apparent agelessness. After all, they had been around for millenia and were still fit for combat with the Voidbringers. Even in ‘present time’, the Heralds, Taln and Nalan, are described as vigorous, powerful men rather than some extremely aged and infirm persons. If the spren duplicated such an effect with their bond, it should produce similar results.
On the subject of plot creep:
IMO I like the idea of an author having a plan and having the discipline to stick to it. I appreciate that because there’s a better chance of the worlds being created having closure in both mine and the author’s lifetime. However, those sprawling stories with heavy detail, the ones that can stand up to the intense scrutiny of a reread by near professionals also appeal to me. WOT, ASOIAF, those book series are awesome despite the runaway plot, maybe even because of it, but that doesn’t make it any less frustrating having been told a series is supposed to be one length and far outstrips that length. I guess I said all that to say I trust the author’s vision even if things don’t go as originally planned or in a direction I don’t necessarily agree with.
@67 Gepeto don’t worry, I’m also disappointed at less screentime for Adolin. He’s also my favorite character, and I was really hoping to get some great character development this next book after the events at the end of WoR. I do find it unlikely he won’t have a viewpoint until Part 4, if only because I think the mystery of Sadeas’ murder is going to be a key plot in Alethi politics this book, and it would be strange not to have the person who committed the deed onscreen not have viewpoints. I’m not very optimistic, though. I won’t lie, while I’m excited for Dalinar’s flashbacks, I’m not too interested in Kaladin’s storyline, so while it’s unsurprising, it’s disappointing he will continue to take up major screentime. I understand why people like Kaladin so much, and I don’t hate him or actively dislike him, but I don’t connect with him like I do Adolin or Dalinar or even half of Bridge 4, so his sections are usually the least exciting unless they involve Kholins (I like me some Kholins, what can I say, and I’m bummed the bloody heirs to the Kholin princedom aren’t major characters) or Bridge 4. So yes, you are not alone in your immense disappointment. I think we are in the minority, though when it comes to liking Adolin so much.
I do find, though, I’m often more interested in characters who are caught up in the blast of events rather than at the center. Dalinar, Shallan, and Kaladin are at the center of the blast, but I’m more interested in the people swept along (I almost always have a fondness for secondary and side characters for this reason precisely) like Bridge 4, the Kholin bros, Shallan’s family, etc. Perhaps I’m not explaining myself well, but for instance, if I’m reading about Henry VIII’s court, I’m more interested in Jane Boleyn’s story than Henry’s or Anne’s because she wasn’t a major player who history had much interest in, but her life was profoundly affected by the court drama, and to me that’s more compelling because it’s more relatable. So people like Adolin or Navani (who I also love–I told y’all I had a problem with less-important characters), who are living their lives and minding their own business but get swept up in the problems because people close to them are at the center are oftentimes my favorites.
I won’t start on Shallan because I have complicated feelings toward the character (I have complicated feelings with the way Sanderson writes his female characters in general. Navani and Jasnah are the outliers, at least in SA, but Vin, Shallan, Siri, and Marasi are just way too similar for my comfort). As a result, I’m waiting to see where her storyline goes–I was bored by her in the first book but engaged in the second book. I’m curious to see what happens in the next book, but I also have major reservations about her characterization that keep me from falling in love like I do others.
tl;dr I’m almost always more interested in side and secondary characters which usually leaves me disappointed as they are inevitably never as fleshed out as I want them to be, and it seems this trend will continue. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson by now.
Blech, sorry everyone, I’m the poster from comment 71. I needed to edit my comment, couldn’t figure it out, and then realized that I’d actually made an account a few chapters back, so logged back in only to find I still couldn’t edit the post since I didn’t make it in my account (which, duh, makes sense now but it’s late and my brain is half-awake). So sorry for the double-post, but I just wanted to say I didn’t mean to include Vin in my list of female characters who are written a little too similarly for my tastes–I initially did, but after further speculation decided I was wrong, but forgot to delete it. So yes, scratch that–it’s Siri, Marasi, and Shallan who I have complicated feelings toward. Again, sorry for the double-post and potential confusion.
@68: You have highlighted was has grown into my greatest worry for the future of the Stormlight Archive. I fear Brandon has designed such a rigid frame for his books he will not allow enough room for important side characters to grow. He has a plan which involves only three main characters at a time and these get an absurdly high number of POV while others get next to nothing. The plan does not allow for characters such as Dalinar, Kaladin and Shallan to give away some of their POV time to allow characters such as Adolin, Jasnah or Renarin more time to grow (as I hoped it would). However, I’d say, in the case of Jasnah or Renarin, it isn’t such a dramatic call as they will get their own spotlight and they will get her time rotating within the main characters.
Adolin just won’t. If you go read the Reddit post a few people expressed a desire to see more of him, some stating he needs his own time into the spotlight. Unfortunately, Brandon seems to have decided he would not get it which means whatever happens with him will forever be a minor sub plot.
This is a great immense deception. I had expected it, but all this time I had hoped I was just dramatizing. Now it is real: all of the tertiary characters have even less POV time Adolin has had in WoR (I was hoping he would get slightly more, not Kaladin more, but just more). The lack of POV time implies important events in his life will continue being used as foils to propel other characters growth and not his own (much like the 4 on 1 duel ended being relevant to Kaladin and not him, the same with Shallan falling into the chasm).
Even worst, in the best case scenario, Part 2 (assuming Adolin is tertiary character number 1 which isn’t sure) is the earliest we are getting an Adolin POV which means I will have to read over a hundred pages before I know how he deals with murdering Sadeas. It was THE cliffhanger in WoR and it won’t be featured into Part 1. Sure, we are going to get Dalinar’s thoughts on the matter, but it is Adolin thoughts which are important here. It is HIM who has to deal with it. What happens to Adolin is one of the most discussed story arcs since the release of WoR and many readers are waiting to see where it’ll go, but it seems as if this isn’t even a priority. We aren’t going to read how he deals with it.
This is a terrible blow and I do not know if my excitement for the Stormlight Archive will remain intact after this. I’ll read the book, of course, but I will significantly lower my expectations as it doesn’t look as if it will meet them. I am sure it will be entertaining and most fans will love it, but I am likely to be frustrated by it.
As to whether Brandon’s plans will allow for a better story, only time will tell. I will however state GRRM habit to divert from his main plot line to explore characters previously known as sides has given us two of my favorite arcs: Jaime and Theon which arrived just as I was getting bored with Arya and Dany. Despite their weaknesses, I wouldn’t change the story, but I would change the layout of the last two books differently.
For the novelettes, Brandon states tertirary characters and novelettes characters are the following: Szeth, Eshonai, Jasnah, Adolin and Navani. He also mentions the first novelette is a character he felt deserved it, but later states anyone not mentioned in the post will not be getting more than one or two viewpoints (he specificaly name Renarin here). So it is still be bit obscur I would say, but I am leaning for Jasnah to have this novelette while being tertiary character 4 (I think).
@71: Thank you for writing this. We are not alone, go read the Reddit thread. Other people demanded more Adolin into the book. I too am not overly interested in reading Kaladin’s story arc which does not mean I will not appreciate it, just I… well… It isn’t him I want to read about. I didn’t mind reading him as long as I got to read Adolin.
We may get Adolin’s POV earlier than Part 4, but we aren’t getting it in Part 1 which is a tragedy if you ask me.
I too tend to prefer side characters, but Adolin had the making of a future main character. The deception is gigantic.
In my case, I do not have lasting issues with how Brandon writes his female characters, but I am getting tired of main protagonist ressembling Kaladin which is probably why I wanted Adolin to step-up so badly.
@63 FenrirMoridin, thanks for the heads-up and link to Sanderson’s book update in Reddit. It clarifies some matters, but mostly still leave us hanging – as intended. it also leaves us with the opportunity for fresh speculation. It does appear that Eshonai didn’t die in that chasm fall near the end of WOR, and may remain as a tertiary character (possibly 4) surviving to the end of the book. Dalinar is clearly the main character appearing prominently in all 5 parts, with flashbacks in the first 4. The secondary main characters are probably Kaladin and Shallan, judging from Brandon’s statements. Character 1 appears prominently in1, 3, 4, and 5 with a smaller role in part 2. Character 2 appears prominently in 1, 2, 3, and 5, with little role in 4. Tertiary character 1, who may well be Adolin, is prominent in 2, 4, and the end of 5. Jasnah may be tertiary character 2 prominent in part 3 and end of 5. Szeth may be tertiary character 3, prominent only in part 2. Lift may be the subject of the novella in part 2 and appear in the middle of part 5. So much for speculation. While I, too, have my favorite character – Kaladin, I’m willing to let the author decide on the plot and character arcs – as if my preferences can sway the author.
@71 April: Your description of why you usually like side characters more was interesting. I tend that way too, partly because I think I can empathize more with characters who – like me – aren’t the center of the action, and don’t have much control over it, but deal with it as best they can with their particular quirks and gifts. They’re more human. They’re more inspiring, because I can be more like them than like a Kaladin or a Vin who is a chosen one with special powers. Certainly in Mistborn I was more emotionally invested in those sorts of side characters – okay, I liked Sazed, but besides that my favorites were Marsh and Spook and Yomen and so on. (Marsh is really, really awesome.) SA is pretty unusual for me in that I like the main characters as much as, or more than, the side ones.
By the way, I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on Shallan. She’s the only Sanderson female lead I’ve really connected with, actually.
@73 Gepeto, I believe that you meant to write ‘disappointment’ rather than ‘deception’ in your phrasing “this is a great immense deception” and “the deception is gigantic”. Obviously, Sanderson is not deceiving anyone with Adolin’s character and plot arc. He may be merely disappointing your hopes for the development of the character and his word count. Even so he may become vital to the story – just not a focus of the story telling. From what we have been told to date, the book begins with Jasnah’s surviving the assassination attempt in the preface and is followed by Kaladin’s difficult journey to his hometown in an attempt to rescue his parents. He will either be successful or not. He may head for the closer royal city, Kholinar, or go back to Urithiru. He may meet Jasnah in his travels, or not (a meeting between these two should yield some fireworks – assuming that Kaladin is not in one of his depressed moods). In any case, the main scenes should be in Urithiru and deal with how Shallan handles the negotiations with the Ghostbloods concerning their goals and her brothers. Primarily, however, it should deal with how Dalinar handles the general situation in this refuge center and more specifically, the killing of a high prince. The primary point of view is likely to be that of Dalinar rather than Adolin. While this may be disappointing to you, I would rather have the story told by a master storyteller than by interested and passionate readers.
@76: Sadly deception was the appropriate word to describe my feelings. I do feel deceived by book 3 outlay because I truly did think Adolin was an important character into the story. I sincerely and naively believed he would grow into a fully fleshed out character. After his ending in WoR, I thought he would take on a more central role into the next book as I did think a large chunk of the action would revolve around the aftermath of Sadeas’s death and how Adolin deals with it. After all, didn’t we just read 4 chapters of Kaladin dealing with being in prison? Adolin crashing down is a plot line I find unbelievably more interesting than it and I did feel it deserved a decent plot line. I will also add WoK presented 4 major viewpoints: Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar and Adolin. WoR presented the same 4 major viewpoints: Shallan, Kaladin, Adolin and Dalinar. Based on this mere fact, I did believe Adolin was just as important as they and he was simply waiting for his development to happen.
So yes, Brandon deceived me. He made me think this character was important, he made me believe he would fleshed him out. He wrote him in a way which gave me the impression he would get a large role into the next book, so to find out this was just a foil and Adolin’s deed will only serve to further develop Dalinar’s character is a deception.
I am sorry but yes I do feel let down. Every single other character will get their turn into the spotlight but Adolin. It is beyond being merely disappointed, I feel deceived. I feel I have been a complete fool to even think he may even be a note worthy character. I feel like an idiot to have wasted so much time talking about him when he is just a minor character when aren’t even going to see his thoughts following a massive event.
For the rest, as I said many times: the story the author wishes to write, no matter how good he is, may not be the story I wish to read. Sadly. Perhaps I will find some enjoyment into book 3 once it comes out, but… I don’t know. I think I loss something yesterday.
Edit: I would also note Adolin is a character many readers wished to read more about. I have read many posts going into this direction yesterday. So it isn’t just me who is disappointed/deceived.
Do you necessarily have to have a POV to get character development? There are many people in the SA fandom who absolutely adore Adolin. We’ve learned so much about his character, especially in WOR, enough to see his fanbase grow by leaps and bounds. We don’t have to be on his head to see his complexity. Sure, being in his head, having him be the focus would give us even more insight into his character but I I’m not sure it’s as necessary as some would make it. Bottom line, Adolin will shine and scene steal no matter where he ends up in the story. Actually, as I think about it, it may actually be a good thing that Brandon doesn’t plan on giving him his own viewpoint. I say that because that means he will always be close to the action. With his skills that means he will never be truly marginalized.
Overall I love this chapter for Kaladin and Adolin’s interchanges alone. I also feel like it’s the fullfillment of Syl’s promise of “this time it will be different”. Kaladin is given a blade and gets to actually do what he wants with it. I only wish that he hadn’t frelled it all up by agreeing to Moash’s friend’s plans. I’m trying to be upset about him giving the plate and blade to Moash in any case because Moash does not deserve them.
While I don’t want a Moash redemption arch (I’d rather they just beat up the traitorous rat when next they meet), I would find it interesting if Moash was someone who was able to revive his blade.
I’m still not caught up on the comments and at this point I probably wont get caught before the next chapter discussion comes but I wanted to say something before I forget. So forgive me if I’m bring the conversation back to something that the general group has moved beyond.
Re: Syl and the restrictions of the Knight Radiant Orders.
Syl being honor spren doesn’t actually care if Kaladin is following the law or not. She says at one point she’s not a Highspren so it doesn’t matter if Kaladin is going to break a law as long as he’s breaking the law for an honorable reason. I also don’t think Syl is the only authority on what counts as honorable. I think its a subconscious agreement between her and Kaladin. To me, it seems like Syl can’t really tell Kaladin if something is “right” or “wrong” unless Kaladin knows that for himself. Even if he wont say it himself. Yes, she says she can but in actuality she only ever confirms something that Kaladin knows for himself and when he doesn’t know she gives maybe as an answer. Syl essentially forces Kaladin to face what he already knows in terms of if something or someone is honorable. Which is good because that means Kaladin can’t lie to himself and trying to justify helping Moash and the others kill Elhokar was a big lie Kaladin was trying tell himself. He knew it had nothing to do with honor and that along with all overwhelming desire to see Amaram punished was I think lead to his bond being strained and ultimately broken.
Okay diving back into comments now.
@75 sheesania (this is user April, just with a different username)–I like Shallan as a character. She isn’t my favorite necessarily, but I am more interested in her and her storyline than Kaladin. I just think she and a few other female characters from Sanderson’s other books are a little too similar in terms of construction–they’re all young, naive, exceptionally bright, sassy, small and slender, very feminine, and come from homes with no mother (or a largely-absent mother in Marasi’s case) and a problematic father figure. This isn’t a bad thing in and of itself–I like that sort of character a lot, which is why I never noticed the similarities initially. It was a friend who was reading through the Cosmere on my recommendation who pointed it out to me, and I’ve never been able to unsee it. I think if you swapped Shallan, Siri from Warbreaker, and Marasi from the second Mistborn series, they would probably make similar choices and follow similar arcs–the story wouldn’t be that different, and for me, that points to a potential flaw in Sanderson’s abilities to diversify his female characters. That’s not to say all his female characters suffer from it–clearly Jasnah, Navani, Vin from Mistborn, and Sarene from Elantris are very different from each other, as well as a plethora of his minor female characters. But of the 5 main female protagonists I’ve read from him (I have not read all his works), 3/5 being that similar raises my eyebrows. It’s not such a big problem where I think he’s a bad author or a sexist or anything like that, but it is something I’m keeping my eye on. Brandon’s writing has grown by leaps and bounds since the publication of Elantris, and I think he will continue to do so.
As far as my own feelings re:Adolin’s storyline and importance, in hindsight, I might have overreacted. I posted my reaction right after reading the update after a long day. I’m still disappointed, and my excitement for the book is slightly decreased, but it is Sanderson’s story and he is in no way obligated to cater to my personal interests and desires. I do think a character, especially in this series, absolutely benefits from his/her own POV. Look at Jaime Lannister from ASOIAF–he was not a fan favorite until we got into his head and understood him better. It’s hard for a character in a series structured like this to be fleshed out without his/her own POV–I think the uptick in Adolin’s popularity is a result from getting into his head more and finding out what drives him, what frightens him–Gepeto has written at length about what Adolin portrays versus how he actually is are very different, and I think a lot of the readers responded well to discovering that. Less POVS will only stymie that character growth imho. Adolin is really a passive character so far–he doesn’t drive any of the major events, only reacts to them, something that changes when he murders Sadeas. To think his big moment where he actually advances and affects the plot will end up being solely about Dalinar doesn’t sit well with me. However, I’m trying not to make assumptions and predictions based on very little information, so I’ll keep an open mind.
@78: Yes and no. You can get character development without POV, but we then aren’t being privy to a character’s inner thoughts. In the case of Adolin, POV is crucial to understand him as he projects a rather different person than he is. POV character also drives their own story arc and the current layout doesn’t allow for Adolin to take the lead in his own murdering of Sadeas, so no it does not sit well with me.
@79: I find it very hard not to make assumptions especially when these confirm fears I have had for a while now. I have stated how afraid I was Adolin would keep on being used as a mere foil to promote other characters such as Dalinar or Kaladin.
So yes knowing Adolin will not get more viewpoints and will not be the main actor of the aftermath of Sadeas’s death is severely impacting my excitement over book 3. Right now, I’d say it is rather low as I have now learn I should not expect anything as expectations are meant to be broken. I thought this time, it would be different.
I wish I had a more open mind.
Also, if anyone reads the Reddit thread, I’d like to point out that, last I check, one of the posters who asked about Adolin got 58 upvotes for it which is rather a lot for this thread. Readers do want to read about Adolin.
@81 Gepeto You said, “POV character also drives their own story arc and the current layout doesn’t allow Adolin to take the lead in his own murdering of Sadeas, so no it does not sit well with me.” Bingo. I think you hit the nail on the head about why I toning back my enthusiasm for this potential arc. I’m personally trying to keep an open mind , but I think I need to lower my expectations in order to do so. At least it’s Dalinar’s flashback book–I’m so keen to read his backstory. I can’t imagine how lackluster it would feel were it Szeth’s like originally planned.
@@@@@ Gepeto: Like I said, I think Sanderson has different priorities than I (and, perhaps, you also) do. I think characters and worldbuilding are preeminent; Sanderson is willing to sacrifice them sometimes to his plotwork. I prefer weak characters or ones with severe limitations; Sanderson often writes very powerful characters that get even more powerful. When I decided to get into the Stormlight Archive, I had to go into it recognizing those differences – but also with a degree of trust in Sanderson to do his utmost to write a good story, and also with a degree of flexibility, that I would try to understand and appreciate his story even when I didn’t like where it was going. That’s the only way I’m going to get through (and, more importantly, enjoy!) a ~10,000 page series over 25 years of my life. So far my trust and flexibility hasn’t really been challenged. But it inevitably will someday because there’s no way my idea of a perfect book and Sanderson’s idea are just the same. Even small differences are going to come out in a saga of this size.
I guess I’m just trying to encourage you to stick this through – I definitely see your disappointment and your reasons for it, but there is also going to be so much more good stuff in the books to come, even if it’s tempered with other disappointments.
By the way…keep in mind that Sanderson often includes bits from other characters within a particular character’s chapters. Even if Adolin is not technically a POV character for part one, he could still get quite a few viewpoint bits within other characters’ chapters. In WoR, for instance, he wasn’t technically a viewpoint character for parts one or four. It’s not ideal – it is still subordinated to other characters – but it is something. You may get to see some of the fallout of Sadeas’s death in part one from inside his head, even if it’s primarily for Dalinar’s arc. So I wouldn’t give up entirely because of that diagram.
@@@@@60 travyl, re: Adolin and Kaladin’s relationship – This chapter strikes me as the moment when they finally like each other. Adolin still calls Kaladin “bridgeboy”, but he means it in a friendly way. Kaladin still takes offense, but he admits that he does like Adolin and is pretty much choosing to be offended. I think there was already mutual respect to an extent after the fight with Szeth, but they were still suspicious of each other. This is where that suspicion is finally broken. Even when Adolin fishes for information about Kaladin’s mysterious powers later on, he does it in a good-natured way – there isn’t that edge of tension to it.
Honestly, I think both of them are rather disrespectful to each other. Adolin calls Kaladin “bridgeboy” and “insolent farmer”, but Kaladin considers Adolin a spoiled prince who likes to show off. Neither appreciates the depth of the other’s character. In this chapter, even though they don’t give up those judgements, they start to move away from them and like each other in spite of them. It’s good to see.
@83
Echoing those statements. Non-POV is not the same as not important. 2 books in and Sanderson has shown us more of Adolin than most of the characters in SA. In fact, only 3 characters have had more development. And though he’s a secondary character, I’ve never seen a secondary character have so much important things to do. I say he’s a scene stealer because his actions drive the narrative again and again. I’m sure he will get his due even if we never fully get in his head. Sanderson will not waste him.
Evil Monkey @@@@@ 84 – Yes, that’s Adolin. He’s a scene stealer alright. :-) But, please don’t take my word for it. I’m a big Adolin fan and I might be totally biased. :-)
@82: Yeah, the only small consolation I get is knowing it will be a Dalinar based book and not a Szeth one, but I have no more great expectations for the Stormlight Archive. The scope of this deception is too big. I truly did think the story would take another tangent, but after three books it is clear. This story will focus solely on Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar and later on Szeth and Eshonai. Jasnah will also have a great role. Of these characters, there are only two and a half I actually want to read about. The only consolation is knowing how many other fans are deceived by it: I have read many reactions going this way.
Many readers wanted more Adolin.
@83: Yes but the plan is so rigid is does not allow room for other characters to grow. Brandon states how Kaladin’s plot line in WoR was intended for book 3. In other words, either Kaladin is going to go on a ride on the bus in book 4/5 or Brandon has created additional plot lines for him.
This does not sit well with me: why create even more plot lines on Kaladin, a character a non negligeable percentage of your readers have said they wish would lay back some but not do the same for a character a non negligeable percentage of your readers want to see more of?
I perfectly understand I, a mere fan, should not critic an author’s creative process, but I feel deceived and disappointed. thought this time, it would be different. It truly felt as if it would, I had faith Brandon would deliver on this non-said promises. Sadly, this tempers my enjoyment of the Stormlight Archive greatly I have nothing to hope for anymore, no character to root for. It was THE arc I wanted to read, all of the other ones are just pale in comparison. And it goes deeper than that, Brandon just proved me he doesn’t wish/want to push forward main male protagonists who do not fall within the Kaladin/Kelsier/Wax/David mold. Adolin was a golden chance to write about someone who was different than your typical fantasy hero.
All I can hope now is I will manage to find some level of enjoyment in book 3, but I am deeply afraid I will go mad at it and start actively hating Kaladin for taking up so much of the plot line.
@84: The problem is failed expectations. For instance, had Adolin occupy the place of a Elhokar or a Renarin in the story, I would not have voiced a complain. I would have accepted a long time ago my favorite character is a rather minor one and I would gadly take whatever scrap the author is willing to give me.
However, Adolin is not a Elhokar or a Renarin: he has quite a lot of POV which lead to believe he WOULD grow into a more prominent character as the story unfolds. It was the next logical step for his character, especially after the events of WoR. To find out it won’t happen and worst previously very minor characters such as Renarin will get their time to shine (albeit rather far down the pipeline, but still it is something) while Adolin gets NOTHING is just downright horrible, painful and hardly justificable.
Learning Brandon wouldn’t do his flashbacks has been harsh, but as Alice kindly pointed out on several occasions, I figured it perhaps simply was a decision based on world-building (though I so strongly disagree these could not have served that purpose). I try to keep on hanging out to the hope Adolin could become one of the main character, with his own spotlight, despite the lack of flashbacks. After all, who says flashback characters are the only ones who get to be main characters? Turns out my initial fears were founded.
I agree Adolin has had character development despite being a secondary character, but it is barely significant when compared to Kaladin or Shallan. We miss his POV on all major events in his life. His trouble with the ladies is mentioned, but not broached on a deepest level. His trouble with tying on lasting relationships is tackled, but it isn’t explored. His youth is barely scrap on the surface and many events are left unsaid. We get he fears greatly for his family, but we barely even started to get that feeling. He can’t control his Blade properly when his emotions are too strong, he gets horribly sick on the battlefield when he loses the Thrill. All of these had such potential for a character! Adolin just needed more POV time to truly grow.
It is agonizing to know I will read MORE of Kaladin’s inner struggles when I have just spent so much time already reading about them while I will get next to nothing about Adolin on the morning following a life changing event.
So yes, my expectations have been deceived.
I had another “what if” scenario pop into my head.
Would Kaladin still have given the Shardblade and Shardplate to Moash if he hadn’t been imprisoned? Kaladin might consider Moash his closest friend but before he was imprisoned, his trust in Moash was very shaken by Moash’s involvement with the other “patriots”. I don’t think Kaladin would have given a blade and plate to someone who he didn’t trust no matter how much he likes the guy. To me, this would mean that Scar would get the Shardblade and Shardplate instead, since it’s been pointed out many times that Scar is the other bridgeman that Kaladin trained who “instinctively gets it”. I wonder how this would have strained Moash and Kaladin’s friendship considering how much Moash covets Shardblades?
Teft might be other option for receiving the blade and plate, since he was also on of the men receiving training on how to handle the weapons, which would also put Yake in as an option as well but other than knowing that he was receiving training from Zahel along with Kaladin, Teft and Moash, I don’t know anything about this particular bridgeman.
@@@@@ rosiej: Siri & Shallan are the same? We’ll have to agree to disagree. And Siri’s father is a polar opposite to Lin. Currently I’m listening to the Warbreaker audio book. They don’t come across to me as the same at all. Other than a use of humor in odd situations.
And let’s see Adolin is : Dalinar’s Son; Shallan’s fiancée, and protected by Kaladin (when he returns). He has lots of opportunity to be in the story.
My guess is:
Jasnah – Ter. Character 1 – returning to the others
Adolin – Ter. Character 3 – dealing with fallout
Szeth – Ter. Character 2 – & Nightblood!!! Don’t really want in Szeth’s head. I was to see Nightblood.
Gepeto, please stop claiming that Brandon deceived you. He did not. You chose to demand that he proceed in a certain way, and when he reveals that he’s not going there – and he was never going there – you insist that he deceived you. You were “deceived,” if you must, by your own persistent expectation that he ought to and therefore would do what you want.
@89: I had expectations when I finished reading WoR. These expectations don’t look as if they will be met in a satisfying way, hence I used the word “deceived” which was perhaps, in retrospective slightly harsh.
Allow me to share another example to better illustrate myself. A Crown of Swords ended with a wall falling on Mat. Many readers had the expectations to read about what happened to him afterwards. However, when Path of Dagger was released, there was absolutely no mention of Mat. Those many readers felt horribly “deceived” as the author failed to rise up to their expectations. Jordan explained himself in stating Mat being injured wasn’t an interesting story, but the readers didn’t care so much for it: they wanted Mat.
So while an author is entirely within its right to write whatever he wishes how he wishes, he cannot help but creating expectations within his readers. Several WoT readers expected to read about Mat’s faith in Path of Dagger. Several SA readers expect to read Adolin’s POV following Sadea’s death. I do not know if “deceived” is the right word anymore, but the fact remains those readers are/were rightfully not pleased by the choices being made. It is not because they feel they are better placed to decide how the story will go, it is because the author created an expectation and didn’t follow-up on it in a satisfactory manner.
@88
I wouldn’t say Shallan and Siri are the same but they are similar. Siri especially felt like she was based of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope when I first read the Warbreaker and there were times I felt like that for Shallan as well in the WoK. Though I think that Sanderson does a good job of subverting he trope if he is using that as base.
I have find reason to smile again. I should avoid those pesky updates, they put me into an impossible to manage state, but I did find a small balm to bind my wounds.
@91: Shallan and Siri strikes me as different as well.
Siri is portrayed as being the outgoing cherished daughter of a kind king who, by fault of being redundant, was allowed to go her own way. She is wild, untamed and frivolous but slowly learn to be poised, elegant and controlled due to the necessity of hiding her feelings while navigating among a see of sharks.
Shallan is portrayed as the overly sheltered, shy and meek daughter of a mean man who, by fault of being the only daughter, is treated as a trophy to be awarded to the highest bidder. She learns to be more outgoing, adventurous and to loosen it up due o the necessity of having to fend for herself.
Simply because they are both outspoken and free with their tongues does not make them identical. Their personality are very different. Shallan also is an artistic scholar while Siri barely managed to recalled her lessons preferring to go pick wild flowers. Shallan loves to learn new things, to dig into puzzles while Siri likes to twirl in pretty dresses.
@Gepeto
I think your exaggerating what I’ve said. I didn’t say that Siri and Shallan were identical. I said that they were similar. Yes they come from different backgrounds and are different characters, I never meant to imply they are the same character, but they do have qualities that give them a small bit of sameness. I would agree with @rosiej that if you swapped the two characters their choices for how they would act in a given situation probably wouldn’t change much. Their circumstances might be different but the underlining character in those circumstances follows the same guidelines. Once again they are not the same character, nor do I think they are the same character. Shallan clearly has a darker background and her happy bubbly-ness is more of outside protection. Siri is more of a generally happy person IMO. Who, like you said, had to learn control and because she never expected to be thrown in her situation and wasn’t prepared.
EDIT FOR LAST MINUTE THOUGHT:
It’s kinda like how you state that many of the male heroes that are in fantasy seem to very much the same. You wouldn’t say that Tavi and Kaladin are the same or that Gauis Sextus and Dalinar are identical. But they do follow a same pattern in general terms so you could say these character are similar in certain ways.
I’ve noticed it in a couple of things Brandon has written, where he’ll re-use the basic premise of an idea but tweak it in a different way that makes it interesting and fresh again. I notice more clearly when I’ve just read two different series from him back to back, so it’s harder for me to think off the top of my head right now. But for example the giant magical sword concept. It’s not something that is new at all to fantasy writing it’s again a basic trope and he used in Alcatraz and used in a different way in Stormlight and Mistborn. Each time he uses it’s differently and makes it fresh and interesting but the underlining concept is a giant magical sword. If giant magical swords aren’t your thing -then for one what are you doing reading Sanderson- and two it’s might not matter that they used differently it’ll still just be a giant magical sword. He’s not afraid to take and idea, rework it and shove it somewhere completely new to see if it works. Which is a good thing. Though it does mean that if you are prone to noticing patterns you might notice the concepts being reused.
One of the jokes that seems to make into every single one of his books is the joke where one character purposely and in a non-serious manner misunderstands a comment about something being larger or heavy or weighty as personal comment on their physical weight and saying “is that a comment on my weight” or “I hope that isn’t a comment about my waistline” or something along those lines. I swear he loves that joke because it makes into every book. Jasanh says in WoR near the begin of the book. Shallan uses it. I’m pretty sure Navani uses that joke to break tension back in WoK. And it’s not just in Stormlight, I know it was used in the Steelheart series. I pretty sure it was used in Rithmatist. I swear it comes up in ever book, I get thrown out of the book for a second now when that jokes comes back up because it came up so often. It’s the only thing in his writing that bugs me because it disconnects me from the story for a second.
Re: Shallan and Siri’s similarities:
I definitely get what you all mean. Like kei_rin said, Sanderson has certain archetypes and tropes that he likes to use over and over again, but with a few differences each time around. His main characters, in particular, I think of as variations on a theme. Raoden, Kelsier, Alcatraz, and Kaladin are all charismatic leaders who struggle with leadership-related problems and have magical powers. Sarene, Vin, Bastille, and Shallan all have sharp tongues and identity/self-image issues. There’s often somebody around who has religion as a key element in their arc (Hrathen, Sazed, Jasnah and Dalinar to some extent) and then there are the clever, sharp-tongued older women who don’t have tons of page time but make things happen (Tindwyl, Shasta, Jasnah). Oh, and don’t forget the non-human magical companions (Seons, TenSoon, Pattern and Syl, Nightblood). They’re all more or less still different characters, but they’re similar. They’re combinations of and variations on and alternate versions of and reactions against each other.
Honestly, I kind of like this about Sanderson books. Perhaps it demonstrates a weaker writing ability that he can’t develop quite as unique characters, but there’s something comfortable about it. Familiar, I guess. I can open up a Sanderson epic fantasy, and I know I’ll find those same tropes and themes and little quirks and fixations – but mixed together in a new, creative way. It’s comfortable and familiar, but new enough to still be interesting. I can also see him reacting against particular patterns in his work, and then reacting against the result, and generally see his style developing. (The evolution of the Sanderson leader, for instance: perfect Raoden to flawed but experienced Kelsier to naive, good-natured Elend to grumpy Vasher to…) It was hilarious to see the seeds of the tropes he uses now when reading old, unpublished works of his like Mythwalker and White Sand. Overall, it’s really fun for me to know an author well enough to trace patterns like that.
Also, I’m sure that his reuse of particular tropes contributes to how fast he can get new books out…
Perhaps I should have been more clear–I don’t think Siri and Shallan are the same, only that they share similar personality traits (along with Marasi) and character construction that I find a little redundant at this point. Clearly Shallan comes from the worst background and uses her peppiness more like armor, but it’s still a similar trait to both Siri and Marasi.
I think Sanderson does use similar tropes across his works (like you mention @94 with main male characters struggling with leadership), but like you also mentioned, he plays against them with each new male character that he doesn’t necessarily do with his female characters, or at least the three I mention. Raoden and Kaladin share a lot of similar traits (tossed into a horrible situation where most people would give up but instead they rally those around them to save the day), but they come from incredibly different backgrounds with very different flaws that help differentiate them as characters in a way I just don’t see happening between those three female characters. Of course, SA is only two books in, so I fully admit he could take Shallan’s character somewhere that will refute what I’m saying
I don’t think it’s a huge flaw in his writing or something that completely deters me, but it is something I’m keeping an eye on. At the end of the day they’re smart, capable women, and that’s really important in literature, especially fantasy, so I don’t want to take that away from him and the characters. But, I think he could do even better than he already does. He’s got a lot of great characters he uses to explore and subvert common themes across his books; I just happen to think this particular character trope is one of his weakest. And now that I think of it, I wonder if my positive reaction to Adolin is that he is a male protagonist who doesn’t fall into Sanderson’s big tropes, so it’s a bit refreshing to read.
@94 and 95
Playing with older ideas and being able to re-work them into something interesting IMO is sign a pretty good writer. When looking for new books or new entertainment in general people want to find something that is both familiar and something that is new. Think about when you are recommending something new to a friend. You tell them at this book series is like another series that they have read. Or this tv show is like Firefly. You’re giving something that they know but you don’t want it to match up exactly to the thing that you’ve already seen/read. I think this also why re-makes of things do really well now. It gives people something familiar but also gives it twist to make it fresh and interesting.
@96 It’s funny you say that, since one of my pet peeves is seeing people describe a book by saying “It’s like X, but with some Y and Z thrown in!” Can’t a book be its own thing and not be defined by what it’s like?! But it’s rather hypocritical of me, since I nevertheless enjoy finding the influences, borrowings, and repeated tropes in the books I read and seeing where each book fits into its literary niche.
Anyways, I would agree that Sanderson’s female characters do exhibit more homogeneity than his male ones. His female leads just feel similar to me. Maybe they have similar senses of humor, ways of looking at things, personalities, I don’t know – but the experience of being in their heads is quite similar. Yet, for whatever reason, Shallan resonates with me much more than her cousins in other books. It probably has more to do with her incidental similarities to myself more than anything else.
I think Sanderson does regularly come up with new characters that don’t fit into his old archetypes – Adolin is one as rosiej said, and Sazed also feels pretty unique in the Sanderson canon. But they’re usually side characters. The main characters still generally follow the Sanderson leader/Sanderson woman tropes. Dalinar, though, strikes me as being quite different from past Sanderson leads, especially because of his greater age and maturity. But I don’t know, he does still have those classic Sandersonian leadership struggles.
Sanderson himself talks about “promises to the reader” in his podcast, but I do not think there is a promise that Adolin becomes a main character. That his reaction to some important events is not shown is a sign that he isn’t a main character. We do not yet know how the consequences of killing Sadeas will be handled in the next book (and I never saw it as a big thing anyway, I was surprised how people on the internet thought it was so important). Not everyone’s favorite character can be a main character.
@93: I seem to have rub you off the wrong way, so accept my apologies. I didn’t mean to insinuate you said both characters (Siri and Shallan) were identical, I meant to highlight the major differences I saw in between the two of them. I also forgot to mention a major one: Siri likely falls onto the extroverted side of the spectrum while Shallan falls onto the introverted one. We could however have the argument both character evolve close to the cross-over line.
As for the male characters, no they aren’t identical, but allow me to expand on the matter. We are going to agree Tavi and Max are two very different characters: one is more thoughful, more introspective, more reserved and more introverted while the other is more outgoing and prone to mess up. The first one clearly is the hero of the story while the second one is generally relinquished to the role of “buffon” or “comical relief”.
A bit like Adolin was in WoK. The fun and friendly character with an empty head who’s a strong fighter, but not much more than that as his personality doesn’t allow for deep secret to be hidden.
Male characters exhibiting personality traits found in both Max and Adolin (even if both character are very different, they do share extroversion, a lack of interest into scholarship and a tendency to get into trouble) are never fully fleshed out within fantasy stories. Too often, they are forced to remain forever side characters who only role is to either support the hero or crack a joke or two to relief the pressure.
In other words, they never get to be explored, this favored treatment being reserved for character more inline with Kaladin, Tavi or Dalinar: introverted male characters.
So yes, to echo other comments, in the wonderful world of fantasy, Adolin is refreshing. He isn’t just refreshing for Brandon, he is refreshing on a larger scale which is likely why many readers reacted positively to him. The best analogy I could come up with is Mat in WoT (even if both character are very different, they share some similitudes) who grew up into a true fan’s favorite. He was different too and it paid of. Unfortunately, there isn’t many Mat or Adolin within fantasy stories: the Codex Alera being the same as it plays forward the male characters falling within the classical trope.
Adolin also is completely different than any other male characters found in any of Brandon’s book: no one gets even close to him. I personally love how Brandon develops his characters which is why I have been hoping he’d take a chance on Adolin as he just falls outside the mold and it happen to be a mold I particularly like. However, the fact Adolin wasn’t planned does play against him. He wasn’t in the plan, so the plan has to be adapted to fit him in, but Brandon will only let the plan change up to a certain level hence he fears he’ll lose control over the story as he feels other authors have.
@98: Hmm what Brandon considers a main character or not is still not obvious to me. I do know he considers Szeth to be a main character, but I also know Adolin is likely set to have more POV than Szeth in the overal series (despite not having his own books which are true POV generator for the chosen character), so what does it make of him? For now, I am happy to know Brandon thinks Adolin is “valuable to the story”, so there’s still that. It means he is unlikely to die in book 3 or to be sent onto a bus ride to far far away land outside the story.
@99
Wording choices can mean a lot sometimes, so misunderstanding happen. It’s all good as long as it gets cleared up and everyone knows what people are actually trying to say. As it’s been said before it’s a limitation of communicating on the internet.
I would say that there are two levels of main character. Main characters for the whole Stormlight series and then the main characters for the particular book. Szeth doesn’t get much space right now but he’s been called out as main character. Same with Lift and Renarin. They are clearly not main characters for the past two books but we’ve been told that they will be for the series as a whole. I fully expect that in second 5 book arch, Kaladin and Shallan will have less of a role. In fact my friend has a theory that Kaladin is going to have to die for plot reasons. (As a Kaladin fan this theory makes me sad and worried.) An argument could be made that Adolin is a main character within WoR but given what Sanderson has said he isn’t a main character for the whole series.
I would say that the main characters for the series as a whole are the ones who are actively driving the story and as fun of character Adolin is he isn’t really driving the story IMO. He’s an important view point to have but (once again just my opinion) he’s reactionary and give the audience a view point to how others react to the situation happening in story, which makes view point important for this particular book.
@100: No big deal, words, Internet, if we were to talk in person, our perceptions would be entirely different.
Well I do know Brandon does not consider Adolin to be one of the main characters of the first five books. However, my interpretation is while the author doesn’t put his name into the box labelled as “main character” does not prevent readers to have an entirely different perspective on him. I sure considered Adolin to be a main character when I read WoR. I have however to agree my definition perhaps does not match the author’s intended definition.
I also know Adolin isn’t part of the initial planning of SA and is therefore not a character around which the action evolves, but he does have his own arc. I figured that’s about how flexible the plan is: just enough to allow for a rogue character to fit in, but not enough to have him take upon a leading role.
I do know Adolin will have an arc in the story, so there’s that at least. He won’t simply be a foil as I feared he would. He is actually going somewhere which isn’t “dead” or “gone on a bus ride”.
I agree his role tends to fall into the “comical relief” which is why I have been wanting him to move away from it. I wish an author, be it Brandon or someone else, would try at taking a character such as Adolin and make him the lead character of a story. He has enough potential for it. I have not, to this day, fall onto such a story and I think it a shame.
As for the second half of SA, Brandon said, somewhere, the character who are still alive will still be around, but with a lesser role. However, some will keep on playing a large role into the narrative such as to keep continuity: I strongly suspect Kaladin will be such character as Brandon did originally planned for a second flashback book for him.
I think one should be cautious about reading too much into Sanderson’s original plans for the SA and what they mean for Adolin’s role, Kaladin’s role, etc. When he first wrote Mistborn, Elend was not going to have a significant role, and look how he ended up! Shallan was not in the 2002 version of TWoK, and she certainly has a big role now. So judging from how Sanderson has acted in the past, Adolin could be quite important in the story even if he got added later on. Also, Adolin has been around since book one. A character who gets added to, say, book six and winds up being really interesting has a lot less room to affect the plot.
At any rate, what I’m trying to say is that Sanderson’s original plans, at least, don’t mean that Adolin won’t be important. There may be other indicators that he’s going to play a lesser role than we would like, but I don’t think Sanderson’s original plans are one.
@100 kei_rin: Yeah, I for one wouldn’t be surprised if Kaladin dies before the next five-book arc. I want to see him around and more mature and…just maybe?…married as much as his next fan. But he’s the kind of character who’d go out in a blaze of drama and glory fairly early on in his life.
I just hope that there’s some character that Sanderson keeps steadily developing through all ten books – one person that we get to know and watch across many years of their life, seeing how they grow and change and mature. I think Kaladin would be a great candidate – we know him and his background quite well, and he has a lot of room to grow especially as his roles shift and he gets older. But others could also be very interesting. (Elhokar, maybe? Ha. He certainly has room to grow.)
@102: Official words from the author came my way recently (I will not post it, it was personal, but I will summarize): Brandon confirms the characters around which the story articulates are the flashback ones. Adolin is not one of them nor will he ever be one: too normal, not tragic enough. He however refers to him as “valuable to the story” and a “pleasant surprise character”. He is well aware the character has been responded to positively and he has already altered his plan significantly to allow him some room, but he won’t change it pass a certain level as he fears he may lose control of the story if he starts doing so. He thus isn’t one of the characters around which the story is built which makes him a tertiary character and not a main one, still from the author’s perspective. This is how he views Adolin, but I figured how readers view him may differ: I never thought Adolin was less important than anyone else and I certainly thought he was more important than Szeth. Many readers consider Adolin to be a main character of WoR, which imply not being one of the chosen ones does not mean no POV time. It probably means there existence likely isn’t crucial to the end climax.
He also says Adolin is likely to have more page time, overall, than Szeth. I assume we can safely add Eshonai as well. In other words, despite not having his own focus book, he still gets more story than main characters Szeth and probably Eshonai (though this one was not mentioned, I am merely extrapolating). This silently implies we are going to keep on reading about Adolin in the next 3 books as he will need a strong presence in all of them in order to beat a lesser focus character in terms of page time or at the very least come close to one.
My understanding is characters such as Szeth and Eshonai are crucial to part of the climax, hence the fact the author considers them as “main character” as they drive the action. Adolin isn’t crucial: his actions likely won’t have a lasting impact, but it doesn’t mean he won’t be around. I personally don’t care if Adolin’s life matters in the overall scene of the Cosmere, as long as I get to read about him.
He also says Adolin does have his own arc which will likely please his fans. Since “death” and “being removed from the story” aren’t obviously going to please any Adolin’s fans, I’d say we can safely scrap those out of the list. I’d also remove “becoming evil” as most readers who love Adolin certainly don’t want this to happen.
There are characters which will have an arc all through 10 books, but I do not know which ones.
@103 Thanks for sharing that. That’s very good to know. It’s a relief to hear that Sanderson plans to give Adolin a good arc!
@104: Yes. He definitely said something along the lines of “Adolin’s fans will like it”. I will not share the exact wording, but suffice to say there was little left for interpretation. So yes, Adolin is getting his own independent story arc and it’s a nice one we should all enjoy reading. I thus truly have something to look forward going into book 3 even if I have to munch through endless Kaladin-centrist chapters to get there. At least, there will be a lot of Dalinar in between those which is another story line I wanted to read.
Brandon it seems rarely talks about Adolin in his podcasts or his interviews mainly because he isn’t one of the driving characters. Professional deformation obliged, he solely refers to those he considers his “main characters”. He however is perfectly aware how positively received the unplanned Adolin character was and he does take it into consideration. Ultimately, we are likely bond to read more of Adolin than of Szeth which is a small consolation for not getting his own focus book.
So all in all, these are very good news for Adolin’s fans. It is not as good as I would have hoped, but it is a lot better than I initially feared.
@56:
If Kaladin were a true friend he wouldn’t have given the Shards to Moash; that was the ruining of the man. I maintain that it was disdain masquerading as principle on Kaladin’s part- he did not like the Shards, he did not feel obliged to consider what his actions would do beyond immediately getting him something that he wanted.
@106
Wow, that is one of the harshest views on Kaladin I’ve read. I think with the fact that culturally Kaladin is an outlier with his dislike of Shardbaldes, he did not know that it would “ruin” Moash. Shard-weapons are an important tool for fighter and even Kaladin does recognize that they give a advantage in the battlefield. It makes sense that the would arm up on of his best men. I will agree that Kaladin chose Moash not so much because Moash deserved the Shards but because he felt like he had greater connection with Moash than with any other of the bridgemen. That connection being wanting revenge on those who hurt him in the past but I don’t think was done with malice aforethought or disdain for the man.
I believe there are many contradicting feelings going on inside Kaladin at this point in time. On one side, he awarded his Shards to his most capable man: a worthy choice, but on the other side he chose to so moments after finally deciding Elhokar indeed needed killing. So was Kaladin giving the Shards to Moash simply because he was the best or was it a sign of silent agreement to the ploy to murder the king?
Kaladin has been avoiding the Elhokar assassination issue since early in the book. He refused to denounced Moash. He was made privy to direct threads being made against the king and while he insisted he would be no part of it: he did not report them. Did Kaladin realize at this point in time his silence made him an accomplice into the deed?
Kaladin made several mistakes here and giving the Shards to Moash was one of them. I don’t however think he did it out of spite. I think he truly chose Moash based on merit, but he also knew they would likely increase the chances the ploy to murder Elhokar would come true. I believe there was a bit of both tied into his decision making. I however don’t think he wanted to destroy Moash. Another part of me also wondered if by giving the Shards to Moash specifically, Kaladin was not trying to built ties between his rebellious bridgeman and the family he sought to protect: this way Moash would owe the Kholins, thus helping settle the blood debt he believes he has with the family.
@107 Meaning Kaladin’s disdain for the shards. He is willing to be ignorant about them and the full implications of his actions concerning them because he disdains them. That isn’t new behavior on his part in specific (the implications of Shards as an Alethi cultural totem), or in general (the implications of the things he isn’t considering when he implements an actions)/(not considering things he dislikes to be worth considering)/(intermittent bouts of selfishness/self-absorption).
Just one facet of how thoroughly he ruining things and just how profoundly odious he is being- Moash would be the first Dark Eyes raised up in living memory (they’re not even sure about if eyes changing thing is literally true of not anymore), the only one referable to, and he’s on schedule for being a royal assassin. They are in the middle of war justified by addressing that very act. Referencing Dalinar’s conversation with Kaladin as to how they would achieve the social change that they desire to establish that Kaladin is aware of not only the spotlight Bridge Four in under but that their conduct has real effects, what happens to the Alethi Darkeyes’ situation when Moash succeeds in that desire? Kaladin ignores this here, and it isn’t odd for him to.
Is anyone else not seeing the new one? Every time I try to read it, it sends me here.
I flagged your post so that it’s seen by websites tech people. I’m seeing the new post, so I’m not sure why you are having trouble.
I had similar trouble the other day with this very chapter thread.
Hey folks, can you let us know what you mean by “Is anyone else not seeing the new one? Every time I try to read it, it sends me here.” The chapter 67 post is in the index (here) and I’m not clear on what’s missing. (And PS – thanks for flagging! We do read every message here but things can get lost in the shuffle so it helps to highlight issues like these.)
What’s concerning here is that Kaladin is freed, gets a taste of sunlight and open air again, and yet there’s no mention whatsoever of Syl. I don’t think Kaladin is as better as he thinks he is.