Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, we sat out the final highstorm of the year in a tiny Shardblade-carved cave, while Shallan and Kaladin exchanged backstories. This week, they finally return to the warcamp, scruffy but triumphant, bringing a gemheart and a perfect map to contribute to the upcoming expedition.
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 75: True Glory
Point of View: Dalinar, Shallan
Setting: the Warcamp
Symbology: Kholin Glyphpair, Jezrien, Vedel
IN WHICH Amaram attempts to intercede with Dalinar for Sadeas as supplies and soldiers are staged for the march; Dalinar refuses to treat with Sadeas, despite Amaram’s chiding about authority; a messenger brings word—Stormblessed has come out of the chasms; Kaladin delivers the gemheart, and Shallan lies about how they got it; Navani arrives and promptly adopts Shallan; Dalinar confronts Kaladin about being a Knight Radiant, but Kaladin denies it; Shallan, having reported to Dalinar & Navani, listens to Pattern report on the conversation they held while she bathed; trying to determine whether she’s Radiant enough to open the Oathgate, Pattern reveals some surprises about spren and the Recreance; Adolin arrives suddenly, and much affection is expressed (!); he promises to protect her forever, and things get tense; Dalinar and Navani enter, and Shallan requests that she be allowed to accompany the expedition; she also recommends that the parshmen be left behind, and Dalinar agrees to both.
Quote of the Week
“I will make sure you aren’t ever hurt,” Adolin said fiercely. “I should have realized that you could be caught in an assassination attempt intended for Father. We’ll have to make it so that you aren’t ever in that kind of position again.”
She pulled away from him.
“Shallan?” Adolin said. “Don’t worry, they won’t get to you. I’ll protect you. I—”
“Don’t say things like that,” she hissed.
“What?” He ran his hand through his hair.
“Just don’t,” Shallan said, shivering.
“The man who did this, who threw that lever, is dead now,” Adolin said. “Is that what you’re worried about? He was poisoned before we could get answers—though we’re sure he belonged to Sadeas—but you don’t need to worry about him.”
“I will worry about what I wish to worry about,” Shallan said. “I don’t need to be protected.”
“But—”
“I don’t!” Shallan said. She breathed in and out, calming herself. She reached out and took him by the hand. “I won’t be locked away again, Adolin.”
“Again?”
“It’s not important.” Shallan raised his hand and wove his fingers between her own. “I appreciate the concern. That’s all that matters.”
But I won’t let you, or anyone else, treat me like a thing to be hidden away. Never, never again.
Well. Talk about communication issues! Shallan has the nightmare of her past fresh on her mind, from having talked it all out last night during the storm… but she was talking to Kaladin. Adolin hasn’t an earthly (Rosharly?), but she rather lights into him anyway. Okay, I don’t blame her for feeling this way, not at all—she spent a good chunk of her life being “sheltered” and “protected,” and it was a prison of constant, terrified anticipation of what would go wrong next. Still, it’s hardly fair to hiss at Adolin about it. For the past two days, she’s been alive and working hard to stay that way; he’s been grieving the “death” of someone he was (IMO) honestly coming to love, and feeling guilty that he was running the other direction (no matter how worthy the cause) when she fell to her presumed fate.
This will come up again…
Commentary
Once in a while, I suspect that I might not be entirely fair to Amaram; my view is colored by Kaladin’s experience. He apparently thinks he’s doing the right thing overall, that all of the wrong things are done in service of the greater good, and so the sacrifice even of his own honor is necessary for the sake of The Cause.
On the other hand… Nope. It’s one thing to recruit people to give their lives in a cause; it’s another to decide to sacrifice them for something that a) they don’t even know about and b) might not agree with. Especially when they joined you for one cause, and you sacrifice them for a different one.
I find him difficult to deal with, especially in this chapter. On the surface of it, he has embraced the task Dalinar has given him and takes his responsibility seriously. He is concerned with unifying Alethkar, and with advising Dalinar well, and he really, really is serious—and correct—about the Voidbringers coming. He even has some good advice: that if Dalinar is going to give people authority, he needs to let it stay given instead of reclaiming it whenever he wants. But. But Amaram has other motivations, and he’s actively trying to deceive the man who gave him his lofty position. And… that’s all I’ll say on that subject until we get to Chapter 76; at this point we didn’t know the test Dalinar had set up for him. For now, I’ll contain my burning desire to cause Amaram severe pain.
So I’ll balance the annoyance with amusement over Kaladin’s “melodrama” and Shallan’s much greater experience with lying. It’s a little bit of a bummer that he gets to present Dalinar with the gemheart of the chasmfiend he killed but can’t tell the true story. But explanations would be distinctly awkward, especially for Shallan. It’s no wonder she lies about it—she’s not supposed to have a Shardblade!—and it’s easy, because the lie is far more believable than the truth. At some point, I think it would be nice if they were able to tell someone the real story of the chasmfiend fight, just for fun, but I doubt it will happen. By the time they could tell the story freely, there are much more important, world-shattering issues to deal with. Oh well.
Jumping forward, I do love Navani. After all the time of grief and denial, Shallan is suddenly and fiercely claimed, and that’s that. Partly, I suspect she first had to come to terms with her loss, and then she needed a stimulus to provoke her to active acceptance. Clearly, the sight of Shallan “in half a filthy dress” (I do love that line!) was enough of a trigger; from there, there’s no going back. I wonder how much of it was to do with Jasnah, how much with Adolin’s obvious grief, and how much simple maternal instinct. In any case, I like the outcome.
Last note. Every time I read this bit, it almost breaks my heart again:
“I’ve been searching for you, haven’t I?” Dalinar said. “All this time, without seeing it.”
Kaladin looked away. “No, sir. Maybe once, but… I’m just what you see, and not what you think. I’m sorry.”
Sigh.
Stormwatch
Yay! It’s the next day, finally! Uh… it’s the next day. There are now only 8 days left in the countdown, and they still don’t know what they’re counting down to.
Sprenspotting
We’ve had the conversation about gloryspren before, and whether or not they are appropriately named. Feel free to have the debate again, if you wish, but I would first remind you that the name is the one used by Rosharans, or at least Alethi, and they aren’t always fully aware of what specifically attracts a spren. They’re called “gloryspren” because they show up when someone is reveling in or being lauded for a major accomplishment; whether they’re drawn to that concept of “glory” per se, or whether it’s the approval (from oneself or others), or… something else, we may never know. But they’re called gloryspren, and they show up to replace Kaladin’s exhaustionspren when he reveals the gemheart he and Shallan brought back with them. One way or another, that really is quite an accomplishment!
There’s something more significant than gloryspren revealed in this chapter, though.
“I was not me when the Knights Radiant existed. It is complex to explain. I have always existed. We are not ‘born’ as men are, and we cannot truly die as men do. Patterns are eternal, as is fire, as is the wind. As are all spren. Yet, I was not in this state. I was not… aware.”
“You were a mindless spren?” Shallan said. “Like the ones that gather around me when I draw?”
“Less than that,” Pattern said. “I was… everything. In everything. I cannot explain it. Language is insufficient. I would need numbers.”
“Surely there are others among you, though,” Shallan said. “Older Cryptics? Who were alive back then?”
“No,” Pattern said softly. “None who experienced the bond.”
“Not a single one?”
“All dead,” Pattern said. “To us, this means they are mindless—as a force cannot truly be destroyed. These old ones are patterns in nature now, like Cryptics unborn. We have tried to restore them. It does not work. Mmmm. Perhaps if their knights still lived, something could be done…”
Stormfather. Shallan pulled the blanket around her closer. “An entire people, all killed?”
“Not just one people,” Pattern said, solemn. “Many. Spren with minds were less plentiful then, and the majorities of several spren peoples were all bonded. There were very few survivors. The one you call Stormfather lived. Some others. The rest, thousands of us, were killed when the event happened. You call it the Recreance.”
I… don’t quite know what to say about this. In one sense, spren aren’t living beings; they’re the personification of ideas. But in another sense, some spren become sentient individuals as well. And now we learn that at the peak of the Radiants’ power, just before the Recreance, nearly every spren who could be bonded, was bonded. It’s no wonder the Stormfather hates and distrusts those who would bond the spren; last time such bonds existed, almost all of the sentient-individual-spren died.
I must admit that I’m a little baffled by the statement that “These old ones are patterns in nature now, like Cryptics unborn.” Is that a reference to Shardblades? It sure doesn’t sound like it to me. Or have some portion of the betrayed spren been somehow released from Blade form, to become non-sentient natural spren again? That would explain why there are less than a hundred known Blades, instead of the many hundreds that should have been left if all the Radiants abandoned their spren in Blade form. Alternatively, on the assumption that the Lightweavers weren’t necessarily primarily fighters, were the Cryptics left in another form? And if so, what other Orders might have left their spren in differing forms?
And of course, at this point in the book, we still didn’t know that the spren became the Blades, so it was necessary to keep things as ambiguous as possible. Even cryptic, one might say.
All Creatures Shelled and Feathered
There’s really nothing new to be said here, other than to point out the rather obvious detail that when Kaladin & Shallan woke up and climbed down from their cubby, they took time to dismantle the chasmfiend far enough to retrieve the gemheart. Also, Shallan must have summoned her Blade again to do so; she’s beginning to get more comfortable with the notion, maybe.
Ars Arcanum
Not a lot of Arcanum going around this time, either, except Pattern’s willingness to function as an intelligent and independently-mobile recording device. That would be downright handy sometimes, but I’d hate to see the capability in the hands of the government. Which… actually makes me view Shallan’s usage of her little spy-spren in a different light.
It’s worth noting, though, that the source of the above-quoted conversation with Pattern was the question of whether Shallan is enough of a Radiant to operate the Oathgate if they find it. While he can’t quite remember what else needs to happen, he’s doing all he can to urge her toward understanding herself better… and that means remembering. Not just the stuff she told Kaladin last night, which IMO she’d never forgotten, but all the way back through her mother’s death and to the time before, when she was newly bonded. When she can remember all of that and face it unflinching, I suspect she’ll be a true Knight Radiant.
Heraldic Symbolism
Jezrien has plenty of reason to be here. Dalinar is exercising leadership, Amaram is parading around in his head-of-the-Knights-Radiant cloak, and Kaladin the erstwhile Windrunner has returned from the chasms. Pick your reason. Vedel, on the other hand, seems most likely to reflect the activity of the surgeons, and perhaps Navani’s change of heart toward Shallan.
Shipping Wars
Adolin and Shallan are just so cute!! Adolin has been out delivering Dalinar’s ultimatum to the other highprinces, in an effort to stay busy and not think too much about Shallan.
I do feel sorry for him; he ran for Dalinar, as the obvious target of an assassination attempt, but he lost Shallan in the process. He couldn’t possibly have known that the bridge would collapse; Kaladin was yelling and running toward someone on the far side of the chasm, and his instinct was to protect his father and highprince from an attack. I’m pretty sure that didn’t make him feel any better; he’d saved his father, but his betrothed and an assortment of other men and women fell to their deaths in the failed assassination. He can hardly be blamed for promising that he’ll never let it happen again, can he?
Just Sayin’
The mother axehound had finally emerged. Shallan was apparently no longer an outsider, but one of Navani’s clutch—and Chana help the man or woman who stood between Navani and one of her own.
“Mother axehound.” “Clutch.” “Chana help them.” These are the fun little world-fitting idioms I love to notice.
Thus endeth the novella comprising Part Four. That ought to keep us busy until next week, when we’ll take a good hard look at the letter which has made up the epigraphs, and see what kind of Cosmere connections may be hidden therein.
Completely unrelated to the chapter, I do have another request for y’all. I’m taking part in some panels for the Sanderson track at JordanCon this year. One is on the Stormlight Archive but with no Cosmere connection, and one is on Cosmere speculation. If you were going attend one of those panel discussions, what particular subjects would you be hoping someone would address?
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader, and soon-to-be panelist for the SanderTrack at her first-ever JordanCon. Woot!
QotW: In the abstract, I understand cutting Adolin some slack. As you said, she just returned from the dead! But, he hit her “trigger point”, so I’m on Shallan’s side. Adolin’s words almost caused her a panic attack. Adolin accidently hit her trigger, and received a verbal warning.
I have a “thing” about someone putting their hands around my neck. I lash out quickly and when a teenager, violently. I told a male friend about this. We got in a silly tickling match, he put his hands around my neck. I nailed him in the balls before I could think. He (I think deliberately) tested my trigger and was hurt in the process.
Amaram: the foreshadow of the next confrontation is so clear on a second read!
Gloryspren: the most interesting part to me was the instant change. One second exhaustion spren were around, then the gloryspren. The creationspren gather over time, but gloryspen instantly appear. Uhm… thinking more on this.
Pattern’s “many spren people are dead” – oh, that hurts. The humans broke bonds, but lived – probably with massive depression. But the spren? Genocide of several types. :-(
Alice, I too am glad that Navani is now able to view Shallan as her own person. It was sad that Navani saw (up until this scene) Shallan as a messenger who brought Navani news of Jasnah’s “death”: a messenger who should be completely dismissed from Navani’s presence forever after delivery of the message. IMO, one of Shallan’s greatest needs is a femal friend/mentor/mother figure who Shallan can go to for support. She lost her birth mother when she was 11. She was not close to her stepmother for most or all of that relationship. Once she found that relationship with Jasnah, Jasnah “died.” (It also did not help that Jasnah was stoic by nature and created a shield around herself that very few if anybody penetrated.). I think this is one of the reasons that Shallan felt she could bond so quickly with Tyn. Even Shallan’s spren is “male”. I am not sure if Pattern viewed himself as a “female” if that would slightly change the dynamics of Shallan’s interactions with Pattern.
Possible panel discussion topic: the different ideas of morality that the different spren “peoples” have. Cyriptics, Honorspren and Highspren all have a different moral standard. This moral standard aligns to the different philosophies and oaths of a particular KR order.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
For cosmere stuff I wonder if Navani came to like Shallan on her own or if she got some sort of message from Jasnah. Not to say that she wouldn’t have reached that peace on her own but it is possible. Also I’m gonna be at Jordancon and should see you at those awesome panels. It would be cool to talk about how symbol magic and realmatic theory fit into the grand cosmere and individual magic systems. For stormlight Spren stuff and Parshendi are interesting. I’m sure it will be really fun no matter what we talk about, can’t wait!
“They come from the pit, two dead men, a heart in their hands, and I know that I have seen true glory.”
That rickshaw-puller made some assumptions on gender, I’m guessing.
Something I’d like to get word of author on is if the specific kinds of surgebinders are “cracked” in the same ways, per category of bond- we’ve got really small sample sizes in the text. I.E. Would all Windrunners have something of Kaladin’s funk, is Jasnah indicative of the Elsecallers back before recreance, etc. ?
Hmmm, suggestions for panel discussion [I will be at those panels btw ;) as a panelist]
Since you go over each chapter in minute detail, I would like to have in-depth discussion about some of the topics that you review, such as what the Heralds are currently up to (both symbolically and as actual in-world characters), and why, plot-wise, for the SA no Cosmere panel. Another good topic would be the relationships between the main players who are ostensibly on the same team though they use different methods that clash with each other, and how they sometimes end up acting counter-productively.
For the speculation panel, it would be fun to talk about predictions for the main characters and plots for Oathbringer, and to try to figure out how the various timelines for the books set on different shardworlds synchronize with each other and what that means for future books.
Cosmere theme – just realized…
Dalinar had to accept the he could not get people to follow the codes, just by living them.
Elend had to become a dictator and force the people to follow him. He hoped there would be a time his perfect ideals of government could work in the future. But that was a future when there was peace.
Both men had to go throw the same fire to learn the same lesson. Will this happen again in the Cosmere books?
The Adolin passage was painful to read, not because he did anything wrong, but because there’s so much unspoken on each side that only the reader knows. Adolin’s is a natural reaction to thinking you’ve lost someone you care about and then miraculously seeing that person alive again.
Pattern’s thoughts about Cryptics being killed in the sense that they lose their individuality but are not destroyed reminds me of the discussion of spirits in the Dragon Age franchise. I wish some of the other spren were more forthcoming about the Recreance and spren history as Pattern. He’s very matter-of-fact about the whole topic, accepting of his own eventual death, that we’re not yet grasping the true impact of this history.
Enough information is withheld that we can’t effectively assign blame for the Recreance. Knowing Sanderson’s style, that’s on purpose. When we finally know what we need to know, the truth is going to be complicated and unexpected. I’m willing to be there won’t be a clear ‘good’ and ‘bad’ side in the event.
We’ve seen the Stormfather’s reaction at the other extreme, and his approach toward the spren in his charge. But he’s as blind and wrong about human beings as they are about spren.
This is exactly why I’m having second thoughts about the Knights Radiant. There isn’t really a point in the process where someone can be fully aware of what’s being asked of them and can refuse before the bond exists.
The new KR, sure, but one hopes the old established Order had a better induction and selection process than the current crop.
On sprenspotting, are spren native to Roshar or are they Shard by-products? They can obviously be influenced by a Shard but I don’t remember if we’ve been told that they predate the presence of Shards on Roshar. So if spren are animist spirits-in-all-the-things type of entities, does something give them the cognitive kick to “have minds?”
Also, in case you thought the Recreance wasn’t awful enough before: it was also a mass extinction event (the Recrecene?).
The new generation is what I had in mind here, although your comment raises the question of just how much training and guidance was available under the old system. If the bond was spren-initiated then (as it is now), would the spren have known to tell the proto-knight to seek out their order in Urithiru? Would cultural knowledge about the KR and their relationship with the spren be enough for budding surgebinders to make the journey on their own?
I 100% sympathize with both Adolin and Shallan here. Adolin’s just pushed one of Shallan’s fracture points by accident, and while Shallan has to deal with one of her greatest traumas being brought up again, Adolin is having to deal with the girl he loves blowing up at him for no reason he can make sense of.
@@@@@ 7: On the issue of the Radiants not getting a choice, remember that they can choose to disconnect the link. Syl offers to do it for Kaladin back in WoK, remember? Also, given how spren bonding works, I’m not sure it’s possible for a spren to bond someone who wouldn’t want to be a Radiant.
Hmmm … cosmere speculation. I think it would be interesting to speculate on the nature of a Shard’s aspect and how it impacts the development on the planets where they reside. Or does it impact the development? It’s hard to say on some planets, seeing as their Shards are shattered. But it doesn’t seem like life on Scadrial is all that harmonious right now, nor is Roshar all that cultivating. There is a distorted sense of honor in Alethi culture, but how much of that is the residual influence of Honor? Something else to consider, what aspects remain to be identified? Honor, Cultivation, Odium, Harmony (Preservation+Ruin), Dominion, Devotion, Autonomy, and Endowment are the ones we know of. Many seem to be related to emotion, but Endowment seems to be more of an action than a feeling and Dominion appears to be more related to territory or domains than to domination. Some of them (Cultivation, Preservation, Devotion) seem to be love related concepts; only one is clearly hate. (Whether Ruin is hateful or not is debatable.)
Anyway, there’s some food for thought.
As long as we are talking about the original Radiants, what I wonder is, just how gone are they. Are they trapped in Shademar to any degree? It is said that when people die, that they go to fight for the Tranquilline Halls. What if that is perfectly literal and true? Otherwise, what is the point of showing us Shadesmar? Is it just one peculiarity in an already strange world, or are we going to see some genuine action there? Perhaps the traitorous original Radiants really have it worse than the spren they betrayed, being stuck in an endless battle with Odium, but no way to defend themselves.
I like the foreshadowing that Pattern uses in regards to Syl.
HMMM, perhaps.
@12: I hope the story doesn’t do a Pern. You know, suddenly go to the past to bring all the dragon riders Radiants forward before their spren and bonds were broken. Not exactly what you said, but the first thing that jumped to my mind. Because gathering a number of trained Radiants is going to be hard. Even with a 5 year jump.
illrede @@.-@ – Oh. My. Stormfather. I’m sure glad someone has been paying attention to these… That’s an awesome connection!! Thank you.
Halien @7 – I certainly see what you’re saying about people being “recruited” as Knights Radiant. In the current timeframe, even the spren don’t seem to entirely know what’s being asked – of themselves or of the humans, and it has created some problems. I assume that five millennia ago, the spren were more aware going in, and the humans who were already bonded could guide/vet the “acolytes” before the bonding process even reached the first stage. Now, though, it’s the blind leading the blind.
(And I see that this is being discussed… oh well…)
Most of us tend to think assume that any human will just be thrilled to get Powers and be willing to be perfectly honorable to maintain and improve them, since clearly these are the Good Guy Powers… but of course Sanderson has to twist it around. Now we begin to question whether they’re indisputably good, and whether the human has, or should have, any autonomy in determining good and evil, and what constraints on that autonomy are allowable. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
noblehunter @8 – I don’t think we know for sure what the origin of spren are. We know there were spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation showed up… but we also know that Adonalsium was there earlier, so the first spren could be a “by-product” of Adonalsium, while some of the others are products of Honor & Cultivation – and later, of course, Odium. My guess is that they’re a result of the interaction of some peculiarly Rosharan aspect and the presence of Investiture. (Did that make sense?)
@many – Thank you for the panel topic suggestions, and keep them coming! I do have some ideas of my own, but I can’t imagine a better forum to ask what people would want to hear discussed. Also, at some point I’d like to find out who from this group will be at JCon so we can plan a meet-up.
(Also… oops. I thought I’d posted this a while ago, and found it still sitting here. *sigh* I have a brain around here somehwere…)
@14: Backwards time travel isn’t a thing in the Cosmere, I don’t believe. Time dilation definitely is, but physically traveling back in time is not. (Dalinar’s visions were essentially recordings, like Half-Life’s version of cutscenes) So “doing a Pern” won’t happen. I think. I’m having difficulty pulling up a proper WoB for it.
If they’re trapped in the Cognitive Realm, not aging, could they get – or be pulled – back into the Physical somehow? Not that I necessarily want this to happen, for a lot of reasons, but would it be possible?
Is it possible for a human to become spren? You know, people who are so famous that they become legendary, people for whom the legend becomes bigger than themselves? Since spren are ideas given animation, is there a pathway for a human to become a specific type of spren? Maybe a Gloryspren?
@18 I’d assume not but I’m pretty sure what we don’t know about spren outweighs why we do know.
@17 Is there a preservative effect for fleshy people in the Cognitive Realm?
Shallan’s reaction to Adolin’s comments frustrated me. While I do understand she has a fear of being sheltered, there was nothing wrong in Adolin’s words: traumatized or not, she should have been able to understand he simply meant to protect her in the good sense of the word. I mean, who in their right state of mind would think your fiance wouldn’t feel guilty over seeing you fall into a chasm by his own fault? She practically brushed the experience away, calling it thrilling: how is it she can’t even understand normal human beings would be traumatized by the event and would not want to drop into a chasm again?
It seems to be a habit of Radiants it seems… being centered on themselves. Shallan in very centered on her own person in this chapter: her needs, her being, her, her and her. Couldn’t she just spare one thought for how difficult it probably was for Adolin to watch her fall to her death? All she seems to think of is herself… It pains me to think nobody seems to give Adolin a second thought: doesn’t anyone care about what it did to him (I mean book characters here, not readers)?
What is a panel board? What kind of questions are to be asked there?
I’m still interested to know whether a shattered/splintered Shard can come back together on its own over time or by outside intervention.
I actually think it was very healthy for Shallan to establish boundaries here with Adolin. To my mind, they are both in love (or at least deep like), but that doesn’t obviate either of their emotional needs.
I still want to know why the Recreance happened. As much as Kaladin might get annoyed with Syl sometimes, he doesn’t seem like he would ever do anything to intentionally harm her. While I can’t necessarily generalize that to all the Radiants, I find it difficult to believe that all of them would come to hate their companions enough to want them dead. I also find it difficult to believe that they would be ignorant of the results of breaking their bond, given that the Heralds and senior Radiants would presumably have seen that sort of thing before.
Basically, the more we find out about the Nahal Bond, the less I understand the Recreance. Whatever provoked it must have been considered worse than the mass genocide of their beloved companions.
As for the “These old ones are patterns in nature now, like Cryptics unborn.” line, I’m assuming that Spren come into existence in a similar fashion to the way objects gain life in the Cognitive Realm. So, presumably, each Spren had some kind of original source pattern/idea that ended up snowballing into a full spren and, just because the spren has “died” doesn’t mean that source pattern is gone. Possibly, under the correct circumstances, it could even be made “alive” again.
That said, I realize that there are issues with this idea. A particular instance of “Glory” or “Protection” doesn’t stick around for very long, so I’m not exactly sure how that could be made to stick around in the Cognitive Realm. Maybe if an event is recorded and kept around in song and story, the concepts associated with that event can retain “life?”
The difference between unborn cryptics and Pattern is like the difference between The Stick and Wyndle.
@20 Shallan is not in a right state of mind; it’s a particularly useful state of unright but she’s still crazy by the colloquial definition of the word. That means while Adolin’s words are not wrong, they also weren’t effective at communicating his intent.
@20 I think Shallan was thinking of Adolin. She had a strong reaction to his words and a flashback to her father, but she does her best to stay in the present and tells him she appreciates the thought. She understands that he cares about her and that he was not attacking her.
Adolin words were so mild.. I can’t fathom it recalled Shallan of her father. The two situations bear so little resemblance the link between them is tedious as best.
This being said, I do agree this will come back…
Gepeto,
You gotta understand that Shallan is a victim of prolonged childhood trauma. What could be considered mild for a normal person does not apply to her. It’s similar to someone with PTSD diving to the floor at a fireworks show. She’s coming out of a situation where her edge hasn’t fully bled off, emotionally frayed, and Adolin unintentionally presses one of her triggers. Her reactions in this instance are completely normal. It would probably be different if they knew each other better, if she was able to be more open about her past with him, even if she was in a calmer state of mind to talk about such things so she could explain why she feels the way she does. But they’ve known each other for a month. And Adolin is empathetic enough to get her to open up eventually. The kids just need time.
Pattern’s talk about spren makes me think of physics. He needs numbers to describe them, they are universal, no beginning, no end. Makes me think of the laws of physics and quantum mechanics. Perhaps spren are just physical manifestations of quantum fields. It would certainly help explain the theorized gravity spren.
I have no problem with Shallan’s reaction to Adolin. No Adolin did not deserve it and could not have understood but this is quite understandably a deal breaker for her and she needed to make Adolin understand that under no circumstances would she ever accept being treated that way. If she had been more tactful in her approach: “Oh Adolin, you really don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine” he would not have gotten the message and would have gone right on trying to protect her anyway. I just wish she had gone even further by whipping out the blade on him. Can you imagine how hilarious it would be if a smiling, only half joking Shallan had challenged him to a duel to determine his suitability as her protector? That would be epic.
I know it’s really cheesy, but I love the little moment of Dalinar just running the entire way there. He may have grown as a statesman since The Way of Kings, but he’ll still do something simple and a bit knuckle-headed when the situation calls.
I also love (in a “this is hurtful but I like it” way) that bit where Dalinar asks Kaladin if he’s a KR (aka I’ve been looking for you), and Kaladin says no. Because emotionally nothing is wrong with the conversation obviously, it makes perfect sense from both of them. But the conversation itself would definitely have raised awkward questions in the future, except Dalinar will be busy up until they revisit this with a powered up Kaladin (sadly, but in a way that’s probably for the best, dispelling the awkwardness).
I wonder if Adolin will remember how his conversation with Shallan here went and if it will inform his actions in book 3. Shallan told him to back off, but it’s clear he still has no idea why…and Shallan is just going to be more confusing from here on out. It’s entirely possible he could lose this part in his general confusion over her suddenly being a Radiant, especially since Shallan seems set on not letting things get awkward so they properly talk about it…at least UNTIL book 3.
I find it interesting that Pattern says in this chapter that Shallan will inevitably kill him. He seems to consider it unavoidable, “but the opportunity is worth the cost.” Is this true? Could it also be true for the other orders? I wonder…Last chapter we were discussing how Radiants continue on despite brokenness, and how that might be involved in attracting a spren. In particular, the idea came up that a proto-Radiant attracts a particular type of spren based on how they responded to trauma. Kaladin responded by protecting people; he winds up with an honorspren. Shallan responded by creating lies; she winds up with Pattern. Dalinar responded by following the Codes; he becomes a Bondsmith. And so on. So maybe your spren is closely tied to how you reacted when put through trauma. But then if that trauma isn’t really healed, if you don’t deal with those coping mechanisms, then it could significantly affect your relationship with your spren…Could that have something to do with why so many spren have been killed?
Also, poor Adolin. He doesn’t realize what he’s getting into with this relationship with Shallan, what with her past, her Radianthood, and her involvement in the Ghostbloods – even though I can understand why Shallan hasn’t shared these things with him. We also have yet to see if Shallan is actually going to try to communicate and deal with these things that are coming between them, or if she will keep avoiding them. Here she tells Adolin that she doesn’t need to be protected, and then near the end she tells him he shouldn’t treat her like glass and be amazed by her even if she’s a Radiant. But she doesn’t really explain why she feels this way, and she doesn’t let Adolin process what she’s telling him. To be fair, they didn’t have much time in either situation. But it concerns me that so far Shallan’s response to these issues has been “drop it, don’t think about it, just kiss me and move on.”
Anyways, here’s a few possible panel discussion topics that occurred to me, though I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a panel discussion…Will these ones be videoed and put up somewhere?
Stormlight-only:
-The racial/genetic history of Roshar. Where did humans come from? Are the Shin people from a different origin? What’s the deal with the hair and the eyes? And evidently some humans mixed with Parshendi…?
-Honor is dead now, but he wasn’t during earlier Desolations. What effects may that have?
-The Recreance is always fun to wonder about, though we have so little information that discussion isn’t likely to be particularly productive…
Cosmere speculation:
-What are the various worldhoppers (17th Shard, Hoid, Khriss) up to?
-Connections between cultures, languages, religions, peoples, &c on different planets, and evidence of migrations between planets.
About Amaram, I often find myself sympathizing with him because he does seem like a good man in many ways – we see him being kind to his servants during Shallan’s infiltration, Kaladin observes how well he treats his soldiers, and he’s offered good advice to Adolin and Dalinar on multiple occasions. He also evidently feels a strong need to justify his less honorable actions. But then I feel terrible for sympathizing with him and wonder how much of his apparently honorable actions had more questionable motives. Perhaps he does all of those small good things (e.g. being kind to his servants) out of guilt or merely to maintain his reputation.
@2 AndrewHB: I was also very happy to see Shallan finally have someone caring for her that she can confide in to some extent. I feel like I keep bringing this up, but Shallan is so alone. She’s had very few friends or stable relationships in her life, and has so many things weighing on her. Now she’s trying to handle a romantic relationship, and her entry into the Ghostbloods, and the impending arrival of her brothers, and the only real confidant she has is Pattern who neither human nor female. So I hope she continues to become closer to Navani, or that she finds other friends who can support her.
@@.-@ illrede: Woah. Seconding Alice. That is very interesting. If that Death Rattle was actually predicting these relatively minor events, what other events could the Death Rattles be foreshadowing? Back to the notes!
@12 ZenBossanova: There are various theories floating around that the Tranquiline Halls actually exist somehow in the Cosmere. It hadn’t occurred to me before that they might exist in the Cognitive Realm (=Shadesmar), but I’ve thought about them being a physical planet. We know Braize/Damnation is an actual planet of some sort, so why not the Tranquiline Halls? Perhaps Rosharan humans initially lived on this other planet, then for some reason they were forced to migrate to Roshar, prompting stories about being thrown out of the Tranquiline Halls. I personally find it interesting that Ashyn (the other inhabited planet in the Roshar system) has no Shard…could that have something to do with it?
On that note…@17, Secret History and Bands of Mourning spoilers!
The end of BoM makes it seem like Kelsier may have come back somehow. I have my reservations and my theories about this, but Sanderson evidently wants us to consider it a possibility. And he’s always been cagey about Kelsier coming back. So it may be possible for Cognitive Shadows to return to the Physical Realm.
Also, Radiants presumably deal with a fair bit of Investiture, so there’s a decent chance that they’re able to hang around in the Cognitive Realm for a while. Upwards of 4,000 years seems like a bit much, though. Maybe there’s power hanging around from Honor’s Shattering that Radiants could use to stick around for longer?
@15 Wetlandernw, about spren on Roshar: We’ve got this relevant WoB:
So yes, the original spren were from Adonalsium. Makes me wonder if they’re still around, or if they’ve gotten “absorbed” into the Honor/Cultivation/Odium spren.
@18 EvilMonkey: Well, humans can become Cognitive Shadows, and Cognitive Shadows could be bonded to like a spren given an “unusual sequence of events”. So there’s that, at least, but that’s not really what you’re getting at…
@21 Luke: I can understand Shallan needing to establish boundaries, but I don’t think this was a particularly good way to do it. She leaves Adolin confused more than anything else, when one of the main points of a boundary is to clarify confusion…
I had a different take on the Adolin/Shallan conversation. I thought it was a great moment and actually shows a healthy relationship, that the ship is really taking off, and that Adolin and Shallan really work together.
Think about it: Adolin says things that make Shallan uncomfortable and she fires back with her true feelings. No hiding her feelings, no cold shoulder, no “you have to guess what I am feeling.” Then she validates his feelings and tells him how much she appreciates him. And he accepts it and even shows he understands when he warns Jasnah not to bring up keeping Shallan “safe.” This is how relationships are supposed to work! Yes, Shallan doesn’t tell him the history behind why she feels this way, but she does tell him how she is feeling. She is not confusing Adolin, she is telling it to him straight. Yes, Adolin knows she is keeping things from him, but he is not confused about what she wants and needs. I think Adolin finds this very refreshing. I am sure he has had a lot of experience with coy, politically correct highborn ladies, and those didn’t work out.
I wish this occurred more often in my own relationships. Too often, I feel I am guessing. Give me a blunt AND affectionate woman any day!
Also, on Pattern’s revelations about the dead spren and “Perhaps if their knights still lived, something could be done…” I immediately thought of Adolin talking to his sword as if it were alive before his duels. I am holding out hope that Adolin is able to bond with his shardblade in a new way and bring that spren back to life.
@20 Panels are for the most part fan-led discussions on various topics. One of the “tracks” at JordanCon is dedicated to discussion of Brandon Sanderson’s books, with panels having specific subjects, like a particular book, or a theme such as Stormlight Plots and Characters, or Cosmere Speculation. Here is a link for a youtube video of a Cosmere panel from JordanCon 3, just to give an idea of the format.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRq-xZVCQOE
For more information, you can also check out http://www.jordancon.org.
My fear of a Pern (@14) was greatly reduced last night. I started thinking about Brandon’s style. Brandon likes to sprinkle clues about the books. If a brining the past Radiants forward thing was going to happen – I think stories of “good / great” Radiants would still be told. So the readers would have a past Radiant to think about. Like Vanyel from the Last Hearld-Mage books. Mercedes Lackey dropped him on the readers right away, even thought he was “history” in the first Valdemar story. He gets his own set of books, and becomes important in future events.
Adolin/ Shallan – yes Gepeto, my first reaction after reading their reunion was “That’s it?!! That’s all we get from him?!” I’ve become resigned to the exchanged. In grief, I like to work to be distracted. Thus Dalinar sending Adolin to “do something” strikes me as totally natural. Adolin also adjusts really quickly. Think of his reaction to Shallan’s powers later – “You’re one too? Can you fly?” That’s a guy who can handle a curve ball.
@29: I think her becoming a Radiant will take care of the “don’t protect me” conversation by itself. But I do hope they have some deep conversations about her family life in book 3. I also hope he talks about his mother.
Panels: Happy that Alice is joining us at JordanCon.
I get to be a panelist on the Sanderson Diversity Panel (on Friday). :-D
I intend to talk about gender roles – and their contract in SA vs. Mistborn. Another panelist is going to focus on the races.
What topics would any of you suggest?
Perhaps religious diversity?
Class structure on cosmere worlds would be a great diversity topic.
Braid_Tug @@@@@ 33 OMG I’m envious. Attending JordanCon and a panelist. :-) I’m turning green!!! LOL Too bad I can’t go to see you and Alice. My work schedule is not cooperating. I just have to watch you on YouTube. :-)
sheesania @30 Your quote about how certain (likely powerful) spren were splinters of Adonalsuim and existed before Honor and Cultivation arrived is the reason I have long thought that the Nightwatcher is one of those spren and not Cultivation in disguise. Also, having an ancient Adonalsium spren be the source of the “Old Magic” makes too much sense to not be true.
@Many It seems like whenever the Recreance comes up in conversation, all of the comments have to do with what the Radiants did and how they could do that to their spren. Why doesn’t anyone ever speculate about the role the spren had in the Recreance? Do you all believe that the radiants wouldn’t have discussed this with their spren? Can you not believe that the spren and Radiants went into it together with an understanding of what would happen? It seems to me that the spren knew exactly what would happen to themselves and went into that sacrifice willingly, but that aspect of the event is never discussed. The spren and the Radiants must have seen some truth together that made their continued existence to be worse than the alternative.
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@37. BoredAgain – Nice musing on the Recreance. I agree, there had to be some sort of mass agreement between Radiants and spren …. OR there was some sort of mass mind control of the Radiants. Some sort of “weakness” that the bond created and was exploited by Odium?
I don’t have the book available now, but my recollection differs from Alice’s assertion that Adolin had no idea that the bridge was in danger. He heard Kaladin shouting about stopping someone on the other side of the bridge, together with a horn signaling a enemy force on his side – where his father stood. He ran to that side to both save his father if the bridge collapsed and to confront the Parshendi. Perhaps he reckoned that he had no chance to save Shallan should the bridge collapse. In any case, Kaladin was the one running towards Shallan in an attempt to keep the belatedly identified Sadeas’ carpenter from collapsing the bridge. He was too late. The collapse occurred and they and others fell several hundred feet into the chasm. That decision of Adolin to save his father rather than Shallan must have weighed on him when he later greeted her in Urithiru. Her abrupt and vigorous rejection of his promise of protection didn’t help salve his conscience.or self esteem. She was not only a Radiant who had saved the remnants of Dalinar’s forces by finding Urithiru, she also appeared to be annoyed with his protective stance. It is ironic, but not unexpected, that Shallan was more open with a man that she hadn’t previously liked (Kaladin) than with the man that she loved but was still fearful of the possible consequences of revealing her family secrets. The 3 characters now have potentially harmful secrets shared with no one. Kaladin is implicated in the assassination attempt at the king, even though he thwarted it at the end. Shallan is involved with those who had presumably assassinated Jasnah, and Adolin has killed Sadeas. What this augurs for their future relationships is still Sanderson’s ‘secret’ to be, hopefully, revealed before too long.
STBLST @@@@@ 40 – Adolin does not know that the bridge was in danger. Shallan and him were talking. They were finally starting to enjoy each other’s company. It’s not a walk in the park obviously, but they had to work with what they had.
It was Kaladin who kept on noticing the carpenter. He kept on thinking that he looked familiar. Then he made the connection. And that was when he shouted Assassin!
Adolin, Shallan and Kaladin are not engineers. Though belatedly they figured out the assassination plan after the fact, there was no way Adolin could have known.
As the saying goes, hindsight has a 20/20 vision. Just clarifying.
Am I the only one who noticed how Radiants seem to think their emotions matter more than others? In other words, both Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar have been seen to act in rather self-centered ways: thinking only their feelings mattered. It probably isn’t much and it probably is garbage as far as theories go, but this chapter struck a sensitive cord.
Shallan doesn’t acknowledge Adolin has feelings, she basically takes him for granted: a nice to have hug and kiss, but how he perhaps dealt with the event doesn’t even begin to broach her thoughts. She can’t even take in the fact he ran to his father instead of her may, just MAY have been a hard one for him to process and that he may, just MAY be feeling guilty about it. I understand she is traumatized and such, but still…. She was being very ego-eccentric in this scene, once again considering she mattered most which is basically why she decided to pursue this relationship, because of what she could personally gain. Never once did she spare a thought for the young man who is obviously crushing on her, never once did she acknowledge he has feelings. Even in the end, while she was determined to “not make it awkward”, she was focus on herself.
Not once did she ask Adolin this very simple question: “Are you alright? How are you feeling about it?”.
Neither did Dalinar ask the question.
Nobody cares. They all take Adolin for granted. Each and every one of them: they take it Adolin will do as he is told and will work to serve their interest, but nobody thinks of him, truly HIM.
Speaking of which, we were talking about fanfics recently and I stumbled on a nice one. It is AU set in a 1800s English background, so you all understand there is no sprens, no Radiants and no magic. It basically follows Shallan (who is the POV character) as she arrives to the Kholinshire (I think I got it right) court to meet her “casual fiance” Adolin. As she gets there, she is greeted by Kaladin, the prince’s personal surgeon, a grumpy man with no respect for social conventions. It is beautifully written and all characters are quite within canon. Of course, since the circumstances are different, all characters have evolved differently… but it makes a rather nice read and a good character analysis. How would Kaladin fare had he become a surgeon and had his life been devout of betrayal? How would Shallan fare if her broken family didn’t try to kill her and without Pattern to blame for everything? How would Adolin fare in warfare without the protection of his Shards and of the Thrill?
It is rather good. You can read it on Archive of our Own and on the 17th Shard. If anyone is interested, I can PM you the links. Also, the author is super nice, taking time to respond to nearly all comments and she makes great art that goes with the story.
So sorry to disrupt to say this.
STBLST @40 – No, Adolin had no way of knowing the bridge would collapse:
It doesn’t really need any further explanation. At the point that Adolin started running, even Kaladin didn’t know what the carpenter was going to do – he just recognized him as a plant from Sadeas’s crews and anticipated trouble.
Grrr rasser frassin’ JordanCon conflicting schedule.
I hate responsibility! I’m a river safety officer for a community canoe trip down one of the rivers in my town each year. The Row Down the River raises money for the local sexual assault center. I can’t get off work two weekends in a row so I’m going to miss you guys this time. It sucks.
As far as Shallan and Adolin and the whole ‘locking her away to keep her safe’ thing goes, no one is to blame there. Shallan is physically, mentally and emotional drained and Adolin couldn’t have been much better (not to mention isn’t psychic). He had no idea how she was treated as a child, and she is very understandably traumatized.
It will only be an issue if she doesn’t open up to him about it. In their case, it means he will need to take the initiative and ask her and actively take an interest in her deeper personal life. I don’t envy him the task of walking the fine line between pushing her to open up and trust him and pushing her too far and accidentally causing her to rabbit.
And that’s assuming he’s smart enough to figure out he needs to. Hopefully, his aunt Navani will give him some helpful advice.
@31 adjbaker: I agree that Shallan’s response here is better than just hiding her feelings and leaving Adolin confused as to what offended her, but I don’t know, I still think it could’ve been better. I don’t blame Shallan for lashing out in the moment because Adolin was (completely accidentally) triggering her, but perhaps later on she could’ve explained a little more. She didn’t need to go into all the details of her history, but I don’t think Adolin was left with a clear picture of what the problem was, and I’d agree with Gepeto that she doesn’t actually show much concern for him. So I guess I don’t see this interaction as healthy per se, but it could have been a lot worse.
@33 Braid_Tug, about Radiants coming back: Good point. There really hasn’t been foreshadowing or other preparation for Radiants to come back and play significant roles as characters. But perhaps the foreshadowing we’ve gotten so far would fit if they just returned to serve a plot or magical function – say, they revived Shardblades, and otherwise didn’t play large roles. At any rate, I think it’s an interesting idea, but I don’t think there’s much evidence yet that it would happen.
@37 BoredAgain: Oo, I like that! I’m not sure it’s the best explanation for the Old Magic given what information we have in the text and from WoB, but that’s a cool theory. Thanks for mentioning it.
About the Recreance: One issue commenters have brought up in the past is, if the Radiants were planning to kill their spren and thus betray their oaths, how come they were still able to summon their Shardblades? Surely the bond would’ve already been broken once they decided to break the oaths? I’m not sure we have enough information about what will actually break bonds, though, to know this for sure.
Also, the Stormfather at least seems to think that the Radiants betrayed them. Do we have evidence that other modern-day spren consider the Recreance a betrayal by humankind? I’m not finding anything solid in my notes. This certainly wouldn’t decide anything for sure, but it would be interesting to know.
@39 adjbaker: Now that’s an interesting idea, that the bond actually creates a weakness that could be exploited…It reminds me of the back of the book:
(Emphasis added.) So…is that talking about actual magical mechanics, or just the character stuff it goes on to discuss like Kaladin struggling with “vengeance and honor”?
I still feel nervous about Dalinar’s vision of fighting a thunderclast, where one of the people fighting with him (the Radiant’s squires?) says, “Once Sja-anat touches a spren, it acts strange.” Sja-anat is evidently bad; is s/he Odium? Can s/he “touch” spren somehow and affect them? Could Odium affect Radiant-spren…?
@42 Gepeto: Shallan has been very…deliberate and purposeful about the whole relationship with Adolin. She has come to like him and care about him to some extent, but so far she’s retained this overarching goal of “I need to marry this guy so I can save my family and have influence in the court. It’s nice if I like him, but I need to marry him regardless.” So she has been rather self-focused the whole time. Even when Adolin confides in her and she helps him with dueling strategy, her main thought is, “Oh good, he’s confiding in me, this relationship is working out”, and when he gets tricked in the duel with four Shardbearers her first thought is not “Adolin is going to die” but “I didn’t act like a good wife!” By the end of WoR, though, marrying Adolin would accomplish neither of her goals: her family has already fled Jah Keved and she’s become very influential simply by being a Radiant. So she’s going to need to reexamine her motives for pursuing Adolin and figure out if she will actually love him for himself. That would be good to see.
@44 wcarter: Oof. If the Shallan/Adolin relationship continues, it would be good for him to push her to open up, but…I just have trouble seeing Adolin being able to prod gently. He’s very nice, very caring, but doesn’t have the verbal cleverness to handle efforts from Shallan at distraction or misdirection.
@39 adjbaker 45 Sheesania
So what…the Nahel bond might have a 13×13 evilfication weakness like channeling did in WoT? Now there’s a scary thought. “Come on down to Big Face’s Spren Emporium. We’ve got big spren, little spren, spren for Windrunners, Skybreakers and even Dustbringers. Just don’t touch the Thunderclasts folks, they might make you rabbid…”
@45 Sheesania
Adolin may not be silver tongued, but he’s not a fool either. As I said before his best bet is getting advise from Navani. And if she continues to take an active interest in Shallan, she will be in the perfect position to give it to him.
Re what really happened in the chasms: I’m picturing a scene, possibly near the end of book 5. The known Radiants plus other key players sitting around a table, laughing, drinking wine and telling stories. Warms the heart.
@2 AndrewB and others: Do Spren have their own gender identity? Seems like this aspect of their being might be fluid, possibly dependent on how the human bonded to them perceives them.
@@@@@42. Gepeto – “They all take Adolin for granted. … nobody thinks of him, truly HIM.”
For Adolin not being a “main” character, he sure is the focus of a lot of the story.
Dalinar’s entire story-line in TWoK is about the conflict of what Adolin thinks he should do versus what Dalinar feels is right. Dalinar is constantly trying to prepare Adolin for command, and is taking all of Adolin’s thoughts a feelings into account. To the extent that Dalinar decides that he is not fit for command and steps down and then after taking Adolin’s feelings into account changes his mind.
In the middle part of WoR, Adolin is once again the main focus of the conflict. He must fulfill his calling and become the greatest Duelist ever, while winning shardblades. Everyone is concerned for him and his plans and trying to help him. Everyone is praying for him, concerned about his state of mind before each duel, and what his strategy will be going forward.
Dalinar only takes Kaladin’s accusations of Amaram seriously, once Adolin fully takes Kaladin’s side by going to prison with him and deciding to give Kaladin a shardblade.
Half of Shallan’s, thoughts are about what Adolin is thinking of her and how she can help Adolin with duels or by farming chasm fiends. In th chasm Shallan and Kaladin’s playful banter is interrupted by thoughts of Adolin, In this chapter, the reunion is all about Adolin … Shallan spends an hour think about him and coming up with a good quip. Then it is all about reassuring him that no one on that bridge would have wanted him to have done anything else. And that she appreciates his concern, but no, she does need his protection. Again it is Adolin’s opinion that pushes Dalinar into accepting that Parshmen should not be brought on the quest to the center. And finally at the end of WoR, Shallan is all about making it so it is not awkward for Adolin.
Dalinar, Kaladin, and Shallan each have their climax moments in SA, but EVERYDAY is “How is Adolin feeling?” Day.
@45: I agree with you the exchange wasn’t healthy. I didn’t read it as healthy as concern was one being expressed one way. Shallan has yet to show me she can care for someone else than her family and herself. You did well to highlight all of the reasons Shallan has to push forward the union and not one of them is “I really like this guy” which makes me very sorry for Adolin. Everyone wants to use him: his father, his fiance, all the girls he courted, his friends…. Isn’t there anybody who actually cares about Adolin? I mean him, truly him? So far every single character we have seen only cares about what Adolin can do for them, but his feelings, his person, nobody ever think twice about it. They take him for granted and it saddens me.
I also do not think Adolin will be able to prod gently… We have to keep in mind we are dealing with Adolin, the insecure bachelor who is afraid to develop relationships with girls, who isn’t opening-up himself, who is always playing a role, the role of Adolin Kholin, Dalinar Kholin’s perfect son. No way he is going to be the one to force Shallan to open up. He may not be broken, but he has his own issues to deal with and these involve exactly what prodding Shallan would require. It would need him to push his own boundaries, to purposefully move into intimacy with someone, the one thing he is deeply afraid of doing.
Adolin isn’t going to commit to a relationship on his own… I think he is going to need someone very forthcoming to commit for him, to force him out of his shell. Shallan may be traumatized, but Adolin is the insecure one lacking self-confidence who is afraid to fail at meeting expectations: he’s the one who needs help when it comes to relationship.
So I dunno how they can work it out, but Adolin isn’t the one to draw things out of Shallan. She needs to assess her own feelings for him, to put aside her selfishness and her little person in order to truly open up to his feelings and decide she needs to share with him if she is ever to enter this relationship on equal footing.
@48: Dalinar doesn’t step down because he took account of Adolin’s feelings.. He changed his mind on his own, but he let Adolin get away with thinking he won the argument…. but not once he stopped and assess how Adolin felt about it. It was all about him and the kingdom. It never was about Adolin.
The dueling spree was simply done in order to fulfill Dalinar’s plan. It wasn’t about Adolin dueling, it never was. It was about a plan…
Shallan may think about Adolin, but she doesn’t think about how he feels. Not once. She thinks of how Adolin could help her, how she could be a good wife, but his feelings?
All in all, none of those arcs were about Adolin, they were all about other characters and Adolin is the one who gets shove around as they need in order to fulfill their destiny.
Alice, once again you sighed because of Kaladin, but like FenrirMoridin @29, I do believe that Kaladin not revealing his “Radiantness” is not deception on his part but a true conviction, because the Stormfather he’d killed Syl.
I think he would have kept his secret if Syl were still with him: before the issue with Amaram is resolved there is no way, Kaladin would trust Dalinar enough to reveal himself. But with Syl “dead” he is actuall quite revealing: His “Maybe once, but…” is highly suggestive, that he is/was no mere normal man. – But in his belief not anymore, so no sense telling.
–
Re the state of the dead spren: I don’t think some of the bonded spren were released:
I think they are “dead/mindless/unborn when being in the Cognitive Realm. They become “alive” Blades when summoned and only as long as the Blade is held in the physical world. So I don’t think there is a contradiction to call them “like unborn Cryptics” in Shadesmar. There should still be a huge stach of dead-spren-Blades somewhere.
#50 Travyl I suspect that the Shin may have a large cache of shardblades. After all, they also hid away the Honorblades.
#45. Sheesania Taravangian had some secret that was key to the Recreance. I don’t think it is a weakness per se. We understand that the Heralds return to fight Odium when they are done on Roshar. What if it is the same for the Radiants, and they betrayed their spren, because they really didn’t want to spend several thousand years in the afterlife fighting, like Taln did. That could really scare people and make them feel like they signed up for more than they planned on.
#30. Sheesania Regarding Cognitive Shadows, what is the deal with Rall Elorim, the city of shadows? Lift made it sound spooky, so something unusual is going on there.
@46 wcarter: Point taken. It would be good to see Navani more involved in Shallan’s life.
@47 Marbelcal: I find it notable that every bonded spren we’ve seen has been the opposite gender of their Radiant: Syl, Pattern, Ivory, Wyndle, Ym’s spren, &c (except for the Stormfather, but he’s a special case in other ways as well). That could have some bearing on the question.
@48 adjbaker: The thing here is that as Gepeto points out, when the story revolves around Adolin, it’s generally Adolin as a plot device or a foil – not Adolin as a character who needs to grow in his own right and have his own arc and climax. Adolin gets a fair bit of page time, and we get to know his personality quite well, but he’s not the focus. That page time is, usually, ultimately about somebody else.
@51 ZenBossanova: Hmm. I believe we should be thinking about possible connections between the Radiants’ apparent betrayal in the Recreance and the Heralds’ betrayal…but I don’t know.
I have no idea about Rall Elorim. Lift did make it sound spooky to Gawx, but she could’ve just been pulling his leg.
Hm… I have kind of assumed that the complex, conscious spren evolved through interaction with humans and that they have achieved their current level of sophistication and apparent societal organization as a result of bondings with humans in the past, that even after the Recreance some few of previously bonded spren survived and… propagated, I guess, whatever it means for them.
But now it seems that all Cryptics and some other types of Radiant spren were completely eradicated and evolved de-novo since? I didn’t notice that previously, since Syl clearly _had_ been bonded before. So, the spren can evolve from very simple, mindless forms into consciousness without human help. And yet, Pattern thinks that there is much to be learned – and, I guess, shared with fellow Cryptics, because it would be pointless otherwise, from the bond with Shallan that it is worth eventual “dying”. Very interesting. Also, it seems that Jasnah did manage to locate and contact survivors from previous bondings during her stint in Shadesmar.
So, maybe wind-spren can become honor spren? Maybe they aren’t “cousins”, but juvenile and mature forms, for the lack of better word? Except that most of them never mature. Axalotl/amblistoma of cognitive realm.
I also wonder about the location of the place where the Heralds get tortured for centuries/millenia without dying or becoming permanently crippled – can it be that their physical, cognitive and physical aspects became disassociated in some way and it was the cognitive aspect that was attacked? Of course, they still seem to be around millenia after their desertion, while apparently in their bodies, so they must have some form of physical immortality/regeneration or something similar… I dunno. But their corruption while becoming perversions of the ideals they formerly represented would align with their being more spren-like than human-like at this point, perhaps?
Re: possibility of Radiant spren becoming corrupted and corrupting their bonded humans – the problem I have with this idea is that the Recreance happened during a very long lull between Desolations, when Roshar was mostly free of Odium’s influence and his spren, apart from the Unmade. You’d think that if true, something like that would have been noticed when Odium’s power over the planet was at it’s height. After all, in Dalinar’s flashback vision it was common knowledge among the soldiers that Odium spren could corrupt “normal” non-sentient spren.
Frankly, I kinda suspect that whatever the dread secret was, it only worked to destroy the KR _because_ their primary reason for existence seemed to be gone, with Desolations allegedly ended for good. And that genius-Taravangian’s non-existent EQ made him completely miscalculate the effect of whatever it was would have on the new Radiants, staring a very real Desolation in the face.
Also, I very much doubt that the old Radiants actually understood the whole reprecussions of their actions. I am not sure if their spren were in on it or not, but if so they didn’t foresee them either, I bet. And the demonstrative way in which the Recreance happened in Dalinar’s vision, before an audience of soldiers whom the KRs seemed to disdain – I dunno. It appears to me that some political disagreement between humans must have been involved too, somehow.
Interesting idea, re: other dead spren being left in non-sword forms. OTOH, it is also possible that Orders other than Windrunners, Stonewards and, I guess, some Edge-Dancers, given Adolin’s blade, had more sense than to leave their shardblades and plate to whoever managed to pick them up first and discarded them in hidden, secret locations.
sheesania @30 – I remember that WoB quite well. I was the one talking with him… :D But we still don’t know why Adonalsium left spren here on Roshar, but apparently not elsewhere – so I think that the development of spren is the interaction of a Shard’s Investiture and something about the planet itself. Something here on Roshar was able to absorb something of Adonalsium – a Splinter – and develop to the point that it became sentient.
Also, ever since that conversation, I have held the theory that the Nightwatcher, and perhaps Cusicesh, and maybe (now that we know about them) the Tai-na, are Splinters of Adonalsium. I could be completely wrong, but that’s my current working theory.
travyl @50 – Sorry, that sigh wasn’t one of exasperation like they usually are. It’s just a conversation that makes me sad, because at this point, I think Kaladin really does believe that it’s over. I do indeed wish he had made better decisions, had more conversations with Syl about the things he was questioning, and not let it come to this point – but in this case mostly I’m sad, because Dalinar needs him to be a Radiant, and he can’t be because Syl is “dead.”
Also, nice take on the “dead/mindless/unborn” spren. It’s certainly as valid a theory as any – and more valid than most!
@52: Your answer to adjbaker: yes. This. The only proper expression I have to describe my feelings towards it isn’t in the right language… I am at lost to figure out the English equivalent, but I’d say this is exactly where it hurts me. Adolin has page time, he is a noticeable character which has gotten discussed abundantly, either here or elsewhere, he’s a subject which comes across rather often, more often than other subjects pertaining more central story arcs or characters. However, while Adolin has a presence, none of his arc conclude themselves into a satisfying climax, all get transferred to another character deemed more important to the main narrative.
Adolin killed Sadeas, but we all know this arc won’t be his: it will be Dalinar’s. The murder will propel character development into Dalinar and this story will be Dalinar dealing with it, not Adolin. So again, Adolin will lose his arc to the benefit of another character. It hurts. He is a strong enough character on its own to carry on his personal arc/climax without having to transfer it to anyone else.
It also illustrates why I dislike part 4 so much… For me it wasn’t just about Kaladin dealing with losing Syl and the chasm scenes: it was about Kaladin stealing away what should have been Adolin’s arc. The dueling spree should have been about Adolin, it is frustrating for a reader to see this great built up ending up being completely irrelevant to its main actor.
Adolin is a foil to this stor
As for those missing Shardblades, does anyone know if we have encountered another Edgedancer Blade or is Adolin’s the only one we have seen? I’m trying to figure out if his Blade is a special case or just an average one…
On the side note, I too felt a pinched in my heart when Kaladin said “not anymore” to Dalinar… It was a sad scene.
@55: Gepeto
I doubt that anybody hates you, as you suggested earlier, but it is comments like this that bug me, and perhaps other posters. Such comments make it seem as if you know better than the author what the story should be and how to tell it.
@53 Isilel: There are some indications that humans had some role (not necessarily conscious) in the spren developing, like this bit from chapter 24:
@54 Wetlandernw: Ha, I should’ve noticed that you were the one asking the question :) It would make sense that the planet had a role in creating spren.
I wonder…I guess on Sel we’ve seen Splinters that still appear to be functioning normally (the Seons) even after their Shard was shattered/splintered. So extrapolating from that, Splinters of Adonalsium on Roshar might retain their natures even after the Shattering of Adonalsium…but then in Sel we don’t have the constant influence (so far as we know) of other Shards.
I have a–well, theory is too strong a word–guess about the Recreance, though I’m not sure if I’ve got all the details correct. Odium is trapped in Roshar’s solar system, right? And the Desolations are his chance to break free of it. The resilience of the Heralds is the only thing that buys time between Desolations. The Knights Radiant are “followers” of the Heralds, in that they identify with qualities and abilities those Heralds had. As far as I can tell, the Recreance could have been caused by the Radiants finding out that the Heralds had lied, and abandoned one of their own to torture; or finding out that their struggle would go on forever unless it was lost. And I don’t know if this is even possible, but: what if it is possible for Odium to be defeated somehow–not just pushed back for a time but eliminated as a threat–but his defeat would also destroy Roshar? I feel stupid even suggesting it, but it was the last step on the staircase of horrible revelations I could dream up–your heroes are false, your fight is never-ending, your victory would destroy the world.
@@@@@ Gepeto: To be honest, I sometimes do find your single focus on Adolin a little annoying, but that’s because I’m guilty of the disgruntled obsession with characters in other fantasy series myself. An example would be Nyaneave–when I tried to read the Wheel of Time series she was the only character I even halfway empathized with, and it seemed like events went out of their way to make her seem stupid, that her good qualities were ignored in favor of bad ones, etc. Eventually I gave up on the series, though not just for that reason–the library didn’t have all of them, there was no way I could buy them, and I was going to move away for college, so it wasn’t worth the bother. Maybe things changed later on, or maybe my perspective was skewed by my age. Another example is the Silmarillion: my favorite character was and still is Maedhros, because he was an eldest child in a truly horrible family, and I thought the things he accomplished were extraordinary given what he had to work with. But his role in the whole story is minuscule compared to Feanor, Beren, Luthien, Earendil, etc., all the good things he tries to do end up accomplishing nothing, and he dies ignominiously. It is sad to see the character you like best overshadowed, especially if you see something of yourself in them. If you live in your head a lot, like I do, it can be hard not to take it personally. It’s kind of like having a teacher you respect tell you that you’ll never master what they’re trying to teach you, but even achieving the average is a remarkable accomplishment, considering your lack of ability. The only solutions I can think of is to create your own story, with your own characters, which of course is so much easier said than done.
I wouldn’t despair too much over Adolin’s future, though. When I got the Warbreaker book, I got the digital version with annotations. Brandon Sanderson puts a lot of thought and detail into even his background characters: there’s a cook whose whole backstory he had come up with, but just couldn’t find a way to fit into the plot, for example. Also, he mentions that he is an elder child himself, so I don’t think he’ll be blind to the issues Adolin would have to face being a perfect son who is not allowed to fail. Although I suspect Adolin’s arc will be slow and gradual, and perhaps not as dynamic as any of the flashback characters, I believe it will be present and satisfying.
Also, I recommend that you read Warbreaker if you haven’t already–I think you’d like Vivenna. If possible, get the e-book version with annotations, I think it will reassure you a lot.
Right, and now that I’ve spilled my stupidity all over the discussion, back to work.
@@@@@58. Naive_misanthrope – “As far as I can tell, the Recreance could have been caused by the Radiants finding out that the Heralds had lied, and abandoned one of their own to torture; or finding out that their struggle would go on forever unless it was lost. And I don’t know if this is even possible, but: what if it is possible for Odium to be defeated somehow–not just pushed back for a time but eliminated as a threat–but his defeat would also destroy Roshar? I feel stupid even suggesting it, but it was the last step on the staircase of horrible revelations I could dream up–your heroes are false, your fight is never-ending, your victory would destroy the world.”
Definitely, this is a good theory. On top of all this, could they have also found out that the Almighty was dead? Do we know when the Almighty died? Could it be at the same time as the Recreance? As a cause OR as a result of?
@56: I didn’t mean to make it sound this way. It is hard to find the right words. From a reader’s point of view, it can be disheartening to read an arc which started up by being about someone only to find the conclusion of it is about someone else. Had I been a smart reader, I would have figured it out early on, but I probably am not a very smart reader, I am an emotional one. As a result, I was sadden to see the lack of conclusion for who I perceived as being the main actor of this particular arc. The author obviously had a different perspective on this arc: it probably was obvious to him (and to many readers) Adolin wasn’t the main character of this arc, but I, as a reader, thought he was.
On a story telling perspective, it made sense. The arc created action, it accumulated into a climax serving to have Kaladin make an important decision only to get push down, once again in an arc which made him take a bad decision. It is even better as he used an interesting character to bring it forward: a foil works better if he is a sympathetic one.
The story is about Kaladin, so narrative wise, the author’s choices were sound, but I am reader, not an author. I got attached to this secondary character more so than the main character: this isn’t supposed to happen. Readers aren’t supposed to prefer a secondary character to the main ones: the author certainly didn’t intend for this to happen with some of his readers. No author in the world must plan for their readers to prefer their secondary characters….
So it isn’t a critic for the author, it simply is a observation. I wasn’t supposed to want this conclusion I wish I had: I was supposed to be enthralled by Kaladin’s arc in Part 4. This was the climax.
The problem isn’t the author, it is myself. I am the one to blame.
@58: You have highlighted why I love WoT so much… I didn’t obsess on any particular character which allowed me to enjoy each and every single POV. Of course, I had my favorites, but it wasn’t to the point where I would get angry at the book or skip chapters in order to reach the one I wish to read. Nynaeve also was one of my favorite: I didn’t think her good qualities were ignored, but seeing how badly trashed most female characters were in WoT, I can see how it may have been painful for some fans. I for one, unlike most readers, really enjoyed reading most of the female characters, my least favorite one being Min (who arguably was everyone’s favorite WoT female character) as I thought she was nothing more than a plot device. Perrin also was a character I enjoyed reading and I tend to get annoyed with Mat while he ended being everyone’s favorite.
You are stating it quite well. I see a lot of myself into Adolin, so it is hard, on a personal level, to see him being overshadowed in favor of characters which resemble my “real-life antagonists” if I may say so. It is also hard to accept everyone gets to be a hero within the Stormlight Archive except the one character who has some of me in him. This is a nearly impossible one to understand though, even if I were to spill out all of the real reasons why I react the way I sometimes do, I fear nobody would actually understand. Some stories just aren’t meant to be told, some viewpoints just aren’t meant to be.
I have read Warbreaker. I recalled I did enjoy Vivienna’s arc even if she was a little thick early on, though I preferred Siri more outgoing personality.
Anyway, next to weeks are going to be crazy, so I likely won’t be around much to disrupt the bee-hive.
@58 Naive_misanthrope: This WoB would seem to indicate that the Recreance didn’t happen only as a response to the Heralds’ lies, &c:
But like I said earlier, I definitely think we should be looking for some connection between the Heralds’ betrayal and the Recreance. It’s too much of a coincidence that both magical groups apparently betrayed their duty. So discovery of what the Heralds were up to could have been part of the impetus for the Recreance, if not the whole reason.
I keep wondering, though…Why didn’t the Radiants try to explain their apparent betrayal? Did they in fact, but their explanation was lost to history for some reason? Or did they not explain, because the reasons were…what? Too embarrassing/terrible/secret/…? Which reminds me: my sister and I were wondering the other day about what happened to the former Radiants after the Recreance. If the rest of humankind thought the Radiants had betrayed them, and they had lots of Shardblades and Shardplate at hand, and the Radiants were finally weak enough to be vulnerable to retribution for any _other_ grievances, too…surely there would’ve been a slaughter. Did the Radiants anticipate it? How did they respond? And how might this fit into theories about Radiants being the ancestors of modern-day lighteyes?
I’m not sure Odium actually gets a chance to break free of the solar system with his Desolations, but it’s a possibility as far as I’m aware. So…evacuate all Rosharans to another planet via Shardpool, let Odium have his Desolation, then live in peace while he bothers other solar systems? Not such a great ending. :)
But yes, after the Mistborn trilogy, I wouldn’t put it past Sanderson to spring a terrible revelation on us like that defeating Odium would destroy Roshar. Given that Odium has been influencing Roshar for a long, long time, it’s likely that his absence would at least significantly change the world. But I doubt Sanderson would go so far as to actually destroy Roshar; it would be up to his protagonists to figure out a clever way to narrowly avoid it…
@59 adjbaker: We do have this WoB:
The phrasing there seems odd to me. I’d have to listen to the recording before I come up with any grand theories based on it, but it seems strange that he wouldn’t be immediately sure of the timeline there. So perhaps the Recreance didn’t play a large role at all in Honor’s death?
Maybe all the Radiants died rapidly after breaking the bonds? I mean, surely it was traumatic for them as well: we keep looking at it from a spren’s perspective, but perhaps it was harsh for them as well. Who knows? It is quite possible he majority of the Radiants committed suicide shortly after and those who didn’t went into isolation, hiding.
It could be there was no one around to get a clear story which left the witnesses to invent one.
Oh, and I just wanted to say, Gepeto, in case it’s helpful…There is not something wrong with you if your emotional reaction to a story doesn’t align with what the author intended. The author thought he was writing to a certain type of audience, and you thought you were reading something for a certain type of audience, and it turned out that they weren’t the same. There wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with how you read or approached the book, just as there wasn’t necessarily anything wrong with how the author wrote the story. You just had different concerns. I don’t think it’s an issue of being a smart reader or not, just as it’s not an issue of being a smart author or not.
I generally find reading YA books set in the contemporary West to be very painful and depressing. They’re perfectly good books, and I believe I’m approaching them with the right expectations and attitude – so I think I can say that there isn’t anything wrong with me or with the books. But I just do not respond emotionally in the right ways. Neither me nor the author is to blame, we just evidently have different concerns and ideas of what makes a character sympathetic.
So, if you would tend to blame yourself for reacting in the “wrong” way to a story…I don’t think you need to feel like you’re somehow inadequate on top of already feeling disappointed.
Poor Adolin. His girlfriend is waaaay more broken than he has any clue about. I think he does a darn good job really, considering he usually sabotages his own relationships well before they’d reach this stage, he responded to having unknowingly triggered Shallan’s dark past pretty gracefully on the whole of it, especially considering he’s got no cultural model for that kind of thing like we do and no concept at all of the darkness in her past. That’s some personal growth for him–rather than being the one to sabotage, he deals reasonably well with the first signs that the woman he’s with has got some issues of her own. (This makes me really curious just how he’s sabotaged his own relationships in the past.)
Shallan’s reaction is very understandable for someone who has gone through the kind of ingrained trauma that she has. Sure, she should open up and tell him more of the truth, but, I just don’t see her taking a risk like that at her current stage of development. I would almost agree with characterization others made above that Shallan is operating her courtship with Adolin as a practical necessity no matter what either of them really feel; and that, understandable though that is considering her circumstances, Alethi culture, and the way she spent her entire life expecting to experience courtship and marriage; it’s definitely not what we would call the basis for a healthy relationship, and it’s unfair to Adolin. But, we do have to mix in the fact that as soon as she saw him she experienced infatuation, something she’d never experienced before nor, more importantly, expected to ever have the luxury to experience. That will introduce it’s own opportunity to be afraid of screwing it up on a truly personal level as well as just a practical one, which, with Shallan, I predict makes her less likely to come to confide in Adolin, rather than more likely.
It’s definitely going to come up again. It’s definitely going to be interesting.
@41 sheiglagh and @43 wetlandernw, of course you’re correct. I apologze for being misled by a faulty memory. I even conflated the 2 greeting scenes between Shallan and Adolin, despite the reread post that clearly identifies the first of the meetings as occurring in this chapter prior to all the action in the heart of the shattered plains. I was also misled by Adolin’s apology for not saving Shallan. “..I mean, you fell. I should have saved you, Shallan, I’m sorry, I ran for father first-“. He, too, appears to ‘misremember’ (That ‘Bushism’ should enter the English language.) the basis for his running from Shallan towards his father. He was reacting instinctively to Kaladin’s running in that direction. He intended to protect his father from whatever danger Kaladin sensed, and had not considered that the bridge was in danger – al least, not until Kaladin shouted, “The carpenter, Adolin… Stop that man.” By that time, it was too late to do anything other than grab his father and leap to safety. After the collapse, his sorrow and guilt at Shallan’s apparent death caused him to assume that he had opted to save his father rather than his fiancee, when he had not initially thought that she was in danger where she stood.
@63: Thank you for understanding. I know I get on many posters nerves, not an easy situation, so thank you for writing this. I once said I wasn’t the intended audience of the Stormlight Archive (despite having read fantasy all my life)… I somehow do not have the same life experiences as your average fantasy fan which probably makes me more prone to prefer secondary characters than the main ones as fantasy as the habit to feature similar-like characters.
Out of curiosity, which were the Western YA books you read but couldn’t connect with? I have personally read YA books I loved and I have read YA books I disliked. For instance, I really loved the Rithmatist by our dear Brandon and I am looking forward for the next installment, but I have disliked the Reckoners by the same author. I will read Calamity, eventually, but my expectations are very low considering I didn’t enjoy Firefight. I tend to treat YA as a genre by itself with good stories and not so good as would be the case for any genre.
@64: We do not know much of Adolin’s sabotaging mechanism: it could be it isn’t triggered at the same moments. We saw it operating with Mashala, the girl he grown distant from after she asked him to go the Shattered Plains with him (she tried to get too close). Other times we know he courted someone’s sister or book dinner dates with two women at the same time… It seems Adolin cannot say no, so he unconsciously invent more ways to get rid of this dates.
Arguably, Shallan is the girl he has let get the closer to him. I suspect it has to do with him actually being in love. He fell for her rapidly before his mechanism had time to kicked in. By now, he truly wants it to work, but I also suspect he is going to sabotage it. He’ll get afraid. He always get afraid, but moreover finding out Shallan doesn’t love him as much as he loves her will hurt. Badly. He may be emphatic, he may understand but seriously, Shallan has hidden so much of her from him, I can’t see him finding out the truth go out smoothly. I also agree with you Shallan may grow more and more afraid to share with him, especially since she actually likes him: it is harder to open-up to someone you like, more is at stakes.
Basically, Adolin is going to hurt. Not making him hurt over it would be an unsatisfying read for me at least.
Knowing Sanderson, that’s pretty much a given. Between Adolin murdering Sadeas and not (for the moment) being a surgebinder and Shallan doing the secret agent thing and trauma and a lifetime’s habit of keeping secrets, things are going to get painful. And that’s before adding in Kaladin and Sanderson gets clever with love-triangle tropes.
@64 writelhd: Yeah, that’s the interesting thing with this situation: we can talk all we want about what they should do, and what a healthy relationship should be like, yet we can understand why Shallan and Adolin aren’t doing those things and likely won’t.
You bring up a good point that Shallan is also experiencing infatuation for the first time, and that introduces a whole new level of complication and emotional danger. I wonder if she’s focusing on the practical aspects of the relationship partly in an effort to control or avoid those feelings. Particularly given her history of ignoring things she doesn’t want to deal with…
@66 Gepeto: I get what you mean. I often have this issue of just not having had the same life experience as authors may assume.
The western YA books I’m talking about are a certain subset of YA that’s usually literary, set in the modern US, focused on teenagers and their psychology and issues. Stuff like The Fault in Our Stars, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe…I can appreciate the craft of these books, but I can’t enjoy them. I also can’t connect with the vast majority of YA focused on romance, fantasy or not. Both of these subsets of YA rely strongly on empathy with main characters that I tend to dislike, and I think that’s often because the author expects me to like the character mostly based on shared experience/feelings…which I don’t have. I’ve never gone to an American high school or had a boyfriend or hated my parents. More action/thriller-style YA I can enjoy more because it’s not so dependent on emotional connection, even though I’m not a big action fan.
So yeah, I’ve enjoyed many YA books (The Rithmatist, Terry Pratchett’s stuff, Ursula Le Guin’s Annals of the Western Shore…) but that certain type of YA very rarely appeals to me.
(By the way, when I say “West” I mean “western Europe, the UK, the United States, and Canada”. Is this how people usually understand the word in this context…?)
sheesania @@@@@ 68 –
Actually, when you said West, as an American I thought of the U.S. West Coast which is California, Oregon and Washington states. :-)
And then I remembered a very good friend of mine from the UK who at one time has a girlfriend from Eastern Europe (both my friend and I classified the country as Eastern European) but his girlfriend insisted that she is from Central Europe. I never figured it out since there were so many changes in Eastern Europe since the fall of the USSR, I have not completed the map on my head yet. :-)
You asked – if the word “West” mean “western Europe, the UK, the United States, and Canada”. Yes, in general if we are in a history class. :-) I have heard certain newscasters refer to us here in the U.S. as the West.But, in the light of changing world mores and of course the general awareness of the world population due to the Internet, major news channels just refer to us here as North America. And the UK and western Europe as the EU. :-) As for the old “Far East” to mean China and Japan. It’s just Asia, Southeast Asia, Indian subcontinent, China or Japan. :-)
@52 “I find it notable that every bonded spren we’ve seen has been the opposite gender of their Radiant.”
You’re forgetting Renarin’s spren: “But Glys, he says . . .” Renarin blinked. “Truthwatcher.”
Why should an author assume anything regarding their readership? I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be contrary or argumentative but what’s wrong with discussing the merits of a book as it’s written instead of how one wishes it was written? I know I don’t participate much in the discussions but I read them faithfully every week. I don’t dislike anyone on this forum, I appreciate all points of view. I do weary of walls of text however, that sound like little children stomping their feet because Brandon didn’t consider what they might want or like while writing his story.
I’m happy to wait to see what an author has in store for me and for the cast of characters. The author, in this case Brandon, has the writing chops to deliver a story that is riveting and exciting far beyond what I can imagine. Why do I want a story that matches my world view or experience? For me, that would be boring.
Mostly off topic!!
Re: “West” – my first thought was “west of the Mississippi” – which I think of when I think western USA. The context, after one blink, shifted to “the western world” – i.e., western Europe (which to my brain includes the UK), USA, and Canada, with perhaps other bits of the world tossed in as appropriate. :) Honestly, though (and this bugs me), I never have quite figured out what to do with most of Africa, or Central America, or South America, when thinking of “the West,” “the East, and “the Middle East.” They tend to seem like their own thing, or they get loosely dubbed “third world.” After some of the things I saw in Brazil, I have a hard time thinking of it as “third world,” but… whatever.
On terminology (also off topic – mostly…until I come back to Epic Fantasy) –
Yeah, this is why there are always issues with generalizations like this, and also why the new terms and categorizations are always being dreamed up by academics somewhere. Language can easily lack nuance. But it also speaks to the way that language gets filtered into common conceptions and can effect the way that we view the world.
So, for instance, the use of Middle East (or Near East) and Far East derived from British Empire days speaking about different Offices covering and controlling those parts. IIRC, Far East developed first – as those areas (China, Japan, East Asia) were the farthest east from the British Isles. Middle/Near East arises after that – but again, lack of nuance/precision as there isn’t a similar name for the Indian subcontinent office.
The categorization of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd world is largely a holdover from the Cold War- with 1st world = the “West” (USA, UK, NATO, etc), 2nd = “East” (USSR and its proxies), and 3rd = the rest of the world that were either not affiliated with either sphere of influence or were not “developed” enough to matter (!). Which of course also reveals the inherent superiority attitudes (all wrapped up with ideas of racial superiority, economic superiority, colonialism, etc).
But, of course, these categories begin to break down when you look at them further. For example, from a political science and economic standpoint, most would include Japan and Australia in the sphere of the “West” even though neither is situated as such geographically.
Terms go through further development – “the developing world” vs “developed economies” or “the global south” (representing the up and coming notions of population, economic, and political power arising in the southern hemisphere – Brazil, etc) – but of course, these all lack their nuance as well.
Either way, it is fascinating to think about the ways in which we talk about things can influence (or indicate) how we feel about them. The terms we develop, in some ways, say as much about us as they do about the things we describe – indicating our biases and our perspectives.
To bring this back to Epic Fantasy – it is something that I have seen done well (i.e. a phenomenon that is represented well) and also done poorly (i.e. the author doesn’t delve into or may not be as well aware of such a phenomenon, it’s too easy to play to the generalizations as if they are truth).
This could prompt a fun discussion: Does anyone see anything like this inherent in the ways that the peoples in SA (or other Cosmere) speak about those around them? Either in geographic terms but also in ethnic, religious, or political terms?
Certainly there are the blatant ones (the way the Shin speak about the Eastern kingdoms, or the ways the Derethi speak about others in Elantris/the relationships of the Shu religions, etc) – but are there any other more subtle “politics of language” going on? For instance, anyone ever asked Brandon what the meanings and etymologies of “nahn” and “dahn” are? Can ethnic descriptors (Makabaki, etc) be read as code for superiority categories?
Alice @@@@@ 72 – LOL at West of Mississippi. :-) I completely forgot all about that. I’ll throw another monkey wrench into the pile. Having lived in New York City (I had to qualify that because the rest of New York state has a different opinion), anything west of the Hudson river is the West. LOL It’s hilarious, but sometimes being a New Yorker makes you think differently from the rest of the country.
That said, having settled in Texas and with my husband being from the East Coast and my own family from the Los Angeles area, both sets of families think of us as weird being Texans. LOL And get these, my in-laws who are Southerners do not want us to be Yankees or Texans. LOL They want us to live in Atlanta or Charleston and be proper Southerners LOL Now, my family, they want us in Los Angeles. For them, New York is too far and too formal, while Texas is too country and western. LOL What do you say to that?
In Germany, the West often means the part of Germany that was the BRD and the East the part that was the DDR, but in an international context I also interpreted the West as Western Europe and North America.
Woah, didn’t expect to start such a big conversation there. :) But interesting thoughts, everybody. I guess by “Western” I generally mean influenced by the culture and society of “Western civilization” that originated in Europe, as a historian might define it. It’s a gross generalization, but a useful one so long as I don’t forget it’s a generalization. So by “Western YA literature” I mean YA literature written by authors who are part of a “Western” culture and society, dealing with subjects that are significant to “Western” culture and society. But even that is a terribly vague category. Storm you, language.
@70 Nazrax: Whoops, I did forget Glys. Thanks for pointing that out. I guess my observation isn’t true after all…
@71 RestlessSpirit: I can’t speak for anybody else, but let me try to explain for myself. I certainly don’t expect an author to follow or even care about my wishes – I want them to write the story they want to, as well as they can. But the issue there for me wasn’t my desires or preferences – I was talking about communication. Stories are ultimately communication. The author chooses particular words, dialog, descriptions, scenes, characters, plots, &c in an effort to evoke the story they are trying to tell. One example Gepeto was discussing: in the end of part three, Sanderson was trying to tell Kaladin’s story. There were particular ideas and feelings about Kaladin that he was trying to communicate through the particular scenes he wrote.
Communication through story, though, is very reliant on culture and life experience, among other things. Tell a story about a teenager defying his parents to make his own identity to many Americans, and they’ll hear a tale of heroic self-determination. Tell the same story to many people from the culture I live in, and they’ll hear a story of shameful dishonor. The exact same tale communicated different ideas and feelings to different people, depending on their culture and experience. (We just saw this happening with that tricky word “Western”!) So in Gepeto’s instance, if I’m looking at this right, how Sanderson wrote the end of part three communicated to him that Adolin (not Kaladin) was the focus of the arc. Maybe that’s because of his life experience or personality or something else; the point is that there was a problem in communication. So when it turned out that Adolin wasn’t the focus, Gepeto didn’t get the emotional resolution (revolving around Kaladin) that Sanderson intended to communicate in the ending.
An author can’t aspire to communicate perfectly with every single human being on the planet, or even every single human being who could read their book. They need to make some assumptions about their audience and how their audience will react to particular devices in order to tell the story they want to. Sanderson has to assume that we aren’t hardcore pacifists if he’s going to use the plot he did to tell a story about Kaladin being noble. A hardcore pacifist might still be able to enjoy the book, but they wouldn’t be getting the story of Kaladin’s heroism that Sanderson is attempting to tell.
It’s the same for me and the YA books, because they often rely on a cultural background I don’t have to communicate their stories. I still read them, and I can still get something out of them, but I’m not getting the story the author wanted me to. I’m interpreting everything differently, and that means the book might not hang together properly. For instance, maybe the book requires that you find rebellious independence appealing for the climax to give you emotional resolution. If my culture and experience has left with distate for rebellion, then I won’t feel that emotional resolution even if I understand in my head that it’s supposed to be there, and the book won’t be so satisfying. I agree with you that Brandon Sanderson writes stories that are riveting and exciting, but I’m sure you could find plenty of people on Amazon and Goodreads for whom Sanderson’s characterization communicates stupidity, prudishness, &c!
So yeah. I’m happy for authors to write what they want and communicate how they want, and I’ll try as a reader to understand and appreciate them. But sometimes what the author thinks they’re communicating isn’t what I’m actually getting, and that messes up the book. What I was trying to say to Gepeto is that just as it’s not the author’s fault, it’s also not the reader’s fault. In many cases, it’s just a miscommunication.
Okay, I hope I understood your criticism properly and that this was interesting for you, not just a whiny wall of text. :) I like talking about this stuff a bit too much…
It’s nothing new to note that people have very different opinions about most everything – including literature. What is a bit unusual, in my experience, is to find people sufficiently committed to a book to devote many hours to both reading and commenting while being critical of the author’s choices and story telling. It seems to me that both an author and a reader are subject to certain expectations. A serious author will not simply strive to satisfy a particular audience, but will try to teach and enlighten them. A serious reader, by the same token, will be taken in by the unfolding story and characterization, or will drop the book as boring or wrongheaded. Attempting to redirect such an author or to simply complain seems to me to be a bit Quixotic. The author usually signals who is to be the main character at or near the beginning of the work. In the original Mistborn trilogy, it was Vin; and in this series it is Kaladin. That may not continue as the series progresses, but it is where we are at this point. While a secondary character may arouse our primary interest, it would be best if it didn’t come at the expense of the main character – or else why the continued interest? For example, I became primarily interested in Aragorn, a relatively late arrival in the first LOTR book (FOTR) because his lonely mission of fighting evil in the world bespoke both heroism and a vision of a better world. That better world could happen if he were successful in defeating the main evil power in the world since he could then assume his rightful status as king. I, therefore wished for more of his backstory in the body of the book. That was a vain hope since the author had already passed on prior to my reading his magnum opus. However, I still maintained an admiration for the storytelling and the depiction of Frodo’s dogged determination to carry out his more specific, difficult, and consequential mission to destroy the ring of power. Kaladin, to me, has a similar attraction. He isn’t a hidden king like Aragorn or Garion in Edding’s Belgarion series, but he has claimed the mission of protecting those in his ever-expanding sphere. He, too, exhibits a towering and selfless heroism. That, for me, more than compensates for his moodiness at his failures and prejudices against the ruling class. Hopefully, Shallan’s example and encouragement will be sufficient to minimize his bouts of depression just as she appeared to have taught him the folly of class prejudice.
“West” as a student of history, when someone is talking about “western culture” my default is US/UK/ Canada & Western Europe. I did a summer study in Vienna, a point more east than many “Eastern European” countries. So the term “west” is very subjective. One of my professors grew up in East Germany, so he had some interesting PoVs about west vs. east.
When I’m on Tor, the larger global picture is my default. I’m not sure the real mix here, but there are enough vocal non-Americans, that the wider picture is forefront. When I’m with family, I know their POV is the Mississippi as the dividing line between West and East.
As a part Choctaw from Oklahoma City who never lived on a reservation – I just read YA to find a good story. I was never going to find a character like me. I just wanted to tell the overly emotional ones to “smile anyway and find a way to cope.”
@71: thank you for making me laugh, in a good way.
@34 – 36: thanks for the suggestions. and Ouch! I forgot about being recorded. Not sure if we will or not. Will have to ask.
Re: The Recreance – I’m starting to believe that the spren were fully aware of what would happen. I think they helped their knights in some manner. Which scares me in many ways. Will need to think more upon it.
But it will be nice when we have more than one example of the spren / KR order pairings. This way the first example of each bond is not the only example. It is too easy to fall into a trap of thinking all equal the one example.
@76: This post perfectly explained in detailed, complete and understandable words what I have been feeling. I do agree with sheesania an author strikes to please to a given audience: no author can expect to please to everyone, they must then target who their intended readers would be. For instance, the intended readers for the Reckoners aren’t the same as for the Stormlight Archive: it doesn’t prevent readers to enjoy both work, but it highlights why I didn’t like the former, but loved the later. I couldn’t relate to the Reckoners main character: not at all.
I thus agree, as an author, Brandon certainly thought Kaladin was a character which would appeal to the majority of his readers and he was right: Kaladin is practically everyone’s favorite character. However, it happens I, as a reader, am not overly attracted to the dark oppressed depressive victimized over-powered under-dog trope. I can’t relate to Kaladin through most of WoR: he hit all of the wrong buttons within me, but when Adolin wondered if, despite being Mr Social Life, he had any real friends, that hit the right cord. So yes, for then on, I have focused more on him, as a character, than Kaladin and it seemed as if I was getting my wish. I unfortunately was wrong, hence the 4 on 1 duel climax felt as incomplete, to me.
To respond to the poster who referred to me as a “stomping child”, I’d say critics are to found for all piece of art. I also dislike the idea a “serious reader” has to be someone completely devoid of emotions and coldly analyzing a book for its merits, independently of our personal appreciation. Without emotions reading becomes a chore and I certainly have no desire, personally, to read for the shake of reading: I read because it procures me enjoyment and yes, as a mere annoying reader, I selfishly hope to find books which would please me specifically. I enjoy fantasy for a various reasons, but the style has made me unsatisfied lately, mostly because I feel as if I am falling outside the intended audience. This entire ordeal over Adolin’s importance within the story illustrates one fact: I am not the kind of reader the author was targeting. My personal background made me emphasize more with Adolin than Kaladin or Shallan or Dalinar or Jasnah or Renarin or anyone else, but clearly characters with his background aren’t meant to be fantasy heroes.
Also, to recoup both @66 and @77, while I read Part 3, Adolin stroke to me as the main character of this sequence, not Kaladin who had, until the 4 on 1 duel, a rather supportive role. @77 claims it is obvious who the main characters are and I disagree. In the case of the Stormlight Archive, it isn’t obvious. I came into this book prior to becoming invested within the fandom: I had thus never read a WoB nor discussed with any other readers. My perceptions were thus being solely influenced on my reading, interpretation of both books. My thoughts were, at the end of WoR, Dalinar was fading away and would become less and less relevant as Adolin would grow more and more important. I also thought he would likely be the next focus character as it seemed logical based on my interpretation and feelings towards the words the author chose to write.
Of course, I was totally wrong, but was it obvious? Not to me, not anymore obvious than Renarin’s autism was. Besides, even then, while stories have definite main characters, most long term stories will see formally minor character raise in importance and become main characters, the reverse being also true. After all, didn’t Rand Al’Thor start to occupy a lesser place into the main narrative starting from book 7? Why did it happen? Because other characters became more interesting than him… It happens. And besides, epic fantasy usually have more than one main characters: my readers perspectives didn’t see why Adolin couldn’t be one of those.
On the side note, for me Western world refers to Canada, US and Western Europe. I do agree with sheesania comments wanting most Western work celebrating the open rebellion of authority, no matter who this authority comes from (parents or system). I don’t feel particularly strongly towards this theme and I don’t recognize myself in most American High Schools. This has never been my reality.
sheesania and Gepeto – I am not surprised that both of you said that you cannot relate to YA books written with an American POV? So, which YA books can you relate to? There are many books coming out of France with YA flavors. And there are also those coming out of the UK. Can you relate to those?
I am not French, but I do love their their literature. My first ever favorite author, Guy de Maupassant is French. Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary is still my all time favorite for realism and how everything is not as it seems. Emma Bovary is a tragic figure in my eyes, despite all her faults. Perhaps that is the reason why up to today, I find contemporary French literature very interesting.
That said, because I am an American, there are nuances that I do not understand in contemporary French literature simply because I am not French. But, it does not stop me from enjoying the book. I see it as just learning more about the French. Same thing with contemporary British literature. I might not understand the nuances simply because I am not British.
Then I arrive to my second question, what is it about American YA that you don’t like. Or is it the YA genre per se that you don’t like? I’m asking this out of curiosity because there are many YA stories out there that is sci-fi/fantasy and it is not about rebellion. It’s just sci-fi/fantasy or paranormal.
Hmm. The Recreance. I have some thoughts on that.
As a preface, let me make clear that I loathe postulating and theorizing when I’m doing so based on very little information (true genius is in recognizing what you DON’T know!), and the Recreance is exactly that type of situation – we simply don’t have enough information about it to accurately guess the cause. And so, please understand that the ideas presented below are not deeply-held beliefs about what is true, but rather are thoughts about what could be true. The last thing I want is for myself or anyone else to become so enamored with a theory based on so many unknowns that we become disappointed with the reality when it’s presented to us. And so, with that warning:
From the Feverstone Keep Vision:
The Radiants were fighting, but they were fighting…who? Likely not Voidbringers, or it would seem unlikely that the men would feel that confident of their success. It seems likely they were fighting mere soldiers. HUNDREDS of Radiants, fighting normal, non-enhanced SOLDIERS?! That…seems terribly unfair. How many thousands of normal soldiers could three hundred Radiants slaughter?
And WHY were the Radiants fighting? Begin speculation: is it possible that this war was a political one? That one group, having an alliance with the Radiants, was using that alliance to procure more power for themselves, using the might of the Radiants as their avenue to power? And upon discovering that fact, how exactly might Radiants – individuals sworn to protect others, to value life before death – react to discovering they were being used to slaughter for no good reason at all? I suspect that might make some of them question whether they should have this power at all, if they can be so easily led to unknowingly breaking their vows.
Moving along, another quote from the Nohadon Vision:
Here, we have clear indication that at least one surgebinder – Alakavish – was attempting to do something that was contrary to what Nohadon perceived as the “common good.” Could it be that the Recreance had something to do with clashes between orders of Knights? Was the battle near Firestone Keep a battle between different orders of Radiants? That seems unlikely, and nothing in the text indicates that, but it wouldn’t be the first or last time we hear hints of discord between the different groups of Knights, or at the very least discord between the spren of different orders.
I’m out of time to explore this further, and once again, drawing solid conclusions from these sorts of explorations is dangerous at best, but to me it seems like one of the likeliest sources of displeasure great enough to cause a large group of individuals to decide to give up their vows. Disillusioned people with great personal convictions? Yes, I could see that as one possibility.
@80: Which book I can relate too? Oh gee. You are asking a hard one. Honestly, I have a hard time answering. I don’t think I ever read a character I actually related too though, in retrospective, I have gotten a harder to please reader than I used to be. Maybe it has to do with phases in life, perhaps it is I am looking for something I cannot find.
What are the French YA books you are referring to? You seem much more well read than I am. I don’t think this particular cultural difference would be much of a challenge for me. I am not sure it is the American POV which bothers so much, but the archetype most stories choose to project. Fantasy heroes all seem so… similar and many seem to follow the “American dream”, in other words, the self-made man, the hero born out of a zero, the reject who becomes extraordinary. These aren’t tropes I currently relate to very well, but then again, these are tropes I did read and enjoy at other times.
Each time I pick a book, it seems the main characters are the same… and I rarely seem to relate to them. Perhaps it is I should be trying to read other kind of books, I’d likely get more lucky, but I really enjoyed the worlds, the magic and such. I also have no idea what else to try.
I don’t think it is YA which I dislike, as I said, it only is a genre. It mostly is the kind of character authors choose to write: I guess I wish to read about a character I would better relate to than those found in most books I have picked.
@77 STBLST: “A serious reader, by the same token, will be taken in by the unfolding story and characterization, or will drop the book as boring or wrongheaded. Attempting to redirect such an author or to simply complain seems to me to be a bit Quixotic.”
I agree that it’s foolish to keep reading a story if you’re just going to complain about what the author’s doing or hope for it to change, but I don’t think it’s necessary to stop reading a book if you aren’t going to enjoy it. Sometimes I think I could still get something out of the book – maybe this is a significant author and I’ll learn something about their philosophy, maybe it’s just a badly written book and I can examine why it doesn’t work. And sometimes I can’t predict how I’ll end up liking the book. I might hate it at the beginning, but by the end, or after I’ve mused over it for a while, I might quite like it.
@79 Gepeto: Ah, that tricky question of whether one should read a book for enjoyment or for intellectual stimulation. For me, it depends on the book. Sanderson writes in such a way that he expects you to empathize with the characters; if you don’t, you’re missing out on much of the point of the work. When I read something more literary, I don’t expect to like the characters and instead look for intellectual stimulation. I think of one book I read, A Partial History of Lost Causes, where I found the characters downright pathetic and irritating. But it was a beautifully written and thoughtful book, and that was the point, so I still found it satisfying. If a Sanderson book, on the other hand, had characters that I found pathetic and irritating, the whole thing would fall apart.
@80 sheiglagh: I’m afraid that I also haven’t read any French YA. I think I’ve read some British stuff but I’m not sure on that. Really, I haven’t read too widely in YA, because I focus my reading on genres I trust I will enjoy/get something out of.
I don’t think my problem is with the YA genre, depending on how you define it. I don’t have an issue with writing stories focused on teenagers and their particular concerns; I think there’s lots of potential for amazing stories there. My beef is more with the American (or perhaps more generally Western) idea of what teenagers and their particular concerns are like. This wouldn’t be such a big problem, except that YA books tend to rely on empathy with the main characters to hold the reader. If the particular book relies more on intellectual stimulation (or other things) to be satisfying, I generally do better.
That American conception of teenagers tends to be especially prevalent in YA set in the contemporary West, but it also pops up in YA spec fic, paranormal, &c. All those dystopian novels, for instance, about rebelling against evil government to bring democracy and love and equality and all that business. Or love triangles with the emphasis being on choosing somebody – love is all about free choice and free will. YA contemporary is just more obvious about its American worldview, and tends to focus more on related issues.
I still like the occasional YA book, as I mentioned earlier, but ones that come steeped in the American worldview and its idea of teenagers are generally not so fun for me to read. There are exceptions, though, and sometimes I read YA anyways just to get an insight into that particular American culture. I am American, by the way, though I’ve grown up overseas. So I still feel a need to understand American teenagers since I am technically one…
Naive_misanthrope @58, STBLST @77
I have posted something about “doomed love” for secondary/bit characters in the comments about the last chapter after the attention moved here, so I’ll just re-post it:
In his defense, we have seen very little of Renarin so far, so it is impossible to determine how interesting he is or could be. The character wasn’t given a fair shake, yet, that’s all.
And something else occurred to me – as a Truthwatcher Renarin has strong clairvoyance, yes? And as we have seen, the process of bonding can be rather lengthy and subtle in it’s effects. So, maybe rather than being spoiled or petulant Renarin _knew_ that he had to become something of a warrior, despite everything that spoke against it? Maybe he had been seeing glimpses of the future or having weird premonitions for some time.
It is also easy to see why people may have become interested and invested in Renarin despite his being just a bit character so far. He is yet another underdog archetype, that we have been conditioned to expect to become a hero, the less successful younger brother, who so often gets propelled into the leading role in (speculative) fiction.
I really loved what Sanderson did with Steris, so here is to hoping that if he sticks with his plan to make Renarin a flashback character in the second half of the series, he’d go for something interesting with him as well.
Personally, my favourite characters were Dalinar and Jasnah in WoK and Shallan in WoR (so glad that Jasnah wasn’t fridged in it!), so yea, not a huge fan of Kaladin, even though Sanderson made a good effort to refresh the trope and make him interesting. I like Adolin a lot, too.
But I do feel for people, who become attached to secondary/teriary characters. Happens to me all the time. In LoTR, I was enamored with High Elves and was burning to read more about Gil-Galad, Glorfindel and Galadriel. It also happened due to various reasons, that I had read the first volume fully 2 years before I could get my hands on the other 2, and all that time I have been imagining all the wonderful stuff that the rest of the work “must” have contained about these characters :). Oops!
Undaunted, I picked up Silmarillion, expecting to read lots of great things about my chosen characters’ history and yea… there was barely anything there, and in addition, High Elves in it were generally less alien, more human-like, and thus less interesting (IMHO). But I have picked yet another favourite from it – Finrod Felagund. Surely, there must have been more about him and my LOTR stalwarts in the extended Tolkien Oeuvre, right? Unfinished Tales, Lost Tales 1 and 2, Lays of Beleriand and so forth. Alas, I was bound to remain bitterly disappointed. Not that I didn’t enjoy Silmarillion and the extended work anyway, but there it is.
Oh, and in WoT my favorite character was Moiraine, so yea. But Rand was my second-favorite, Nynaeve third and there was much more to reccommend the series, so that worked out.
P.S.:
Gepeto @79:
But to be fair, characters like Dalinar and Jasnah are themselves quite unusual fantasy protagonists (if that’s what they are), and it is only fairly recently that characters like them started to appear in such roles. Before that characters like Dalinar would have been constrained tothe roles of “wise mentors” who die or fade into the background early on, and anybody like Jasnah wouldn’t have been present at all.
@84: or Jasnah would have to be “Aunt Jasnah” or some type of mother figure. There was Polgara, or Aunt Pol, by David Eddings, and while she was cool and calm magic user her main role was to be the mother substitute.
I’m happy to see a range in charter age and viewpoints in Sanderson’s worlds. Navani, as the King’s mother, could be pushed aside very easily in other works. Instead, she’s in the middle of everything helping to create new inventions and having a life outside of her children.
Characters:
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating – Kaladin’s story line in WoK bored me. Because it was the classic “hero rise from the ashes” story. We need those stories. Those are good stories. But I want more mystery of what is going to happen. Shallan is who I wanted to know about, because it was more of an unknown. I could not guess the general course of events in her story line.
Honestly, on this reread, I see number of people saying they prefer many of the characters other than Kaladin. Kaladin has his supporters and advocates, but the numbers are fairly balanced. This may not be true in other fandom sites, and that’s fine. The great thing about this space is we are all allowed to have our opinions and be respectful to each other.
Right now: Renarin = Spook
A minor character that Sanderson brought to greater importance in Hero of Ages. He was successful once, I trust his writing and planning to pull it off again.
Whenever I hear “The West,” my first thought is “Valinor” :).
As for questions: I’m curious about whether the materials used in the different magic systems can cross worlds. Things like: Would you find soulstone on any other Shardworld? If you brought a diamond from Scadrial to Roshar, would it capture Stormlight? Or if you had powdered metal from Roshar and a Mistborn drank it on Scadrial, would they be able to burn it? Would silver from another world still ward off a shade from Threnody? It’s not a terribly important question, though, and it may have already been answered.
As for relating to characters: I cannot think of a single character in the SA that I am not interested in. Kaladin is probably my favorite, and not because of the commonality of “amazing agnst-ridden underdog,” which does not quite sum up his character. Part of it is because he is an elder child who felt responsible for protecting his younger sibling–two of my sisters have died in the last ten years, and I raised the last, and my brother is lost to addiction. So I understand that guilt. Part of it is his depression, and how it hangs over him even when he should be happy. It’s hard to explain, but it does not annoy me as do those heroes who only go gloomy when things are going bad, and then easily snap out of it when they fix something or are told something encouraging. (Another part is because he can freaking FLY, which is just awesome.) But I also find Jasnah, Shallan, and Adolin relatable for different reasons. And even Sadeas, Amaram, and Moash are intriguing. The one I expect I will like best before the series ends is Eshonai–as with Kaladin, I knew from her introduction that she would be someone I could relate to on a personal level: doesn’t care for mateform and considers herself a failure as a mate; has a sort of rivalry with her sister; once longed to explore freely and is now constrained by responsibility; hears her true self screaming inside her head as she changes. Characters who I have nothing in common with at all, Dalinar especially, still make me want to know why they tick and how they became who they are. It’s always nice to find a reflection of yourself in someone you’re reading about, but not finding it doesn’t automatically make them unsympathetic and annoying. Some of the best books I’ve read have had main characters who had nothing in common with me besides being bipedal, oxygen-breathing humanoids, and I still loved them.
Gepeto, I suppose that you and I have gone opposite routes. While at first I found it hard to relate to any character I couldn’t see myself in, I became more inclusive; while you at first went along with characters you couldn’t relate to, you became pickier over time. We people are weird.
Re: “West” vs. “East” It’s definitely all relative. My wife was once telling a friend about “My cousin and her husband, who met in medical school on the East Coast.” After a short pause, I said, “Wait a second. Didn’t they go to school in Chicago?”
(My wife has lived in California since she was 6 months old, but still…)
(Apologies to those for whom that story makes no sense.)
@83: I read purely for enjoyment. I have enough intellectual stimulation at work, I yearn, after a day of intense stress being pressed to produce data at an insane speed in order to meet unrealistic schedules while trying to leave (escape) early enough to pick up my kids, to distract myself, to let my mind wander on something else than… work.
So I read. I read books, I read forums. I craft answers. I discuss characters, but none of it is meant to highlight my intellectual capacities, merely to distract me. As a result, I look mostly for stories I capable of drawing me inside my imaginary world. The most efficient ones are those featuring characters I particularly relate to or enjoy reading, but they can alternatively make me feel frustrated when said character story arc doesn’t pan up as I hope/expect it would.
Therefore, whether it is entirely possible story featuring unsympathetic characters may pan out into a satisfying read for “other reasons”, I find I do not have, these days, the patience to go through with it. As I said, it perhaps is linked to phases in life. Perhaps I am in a place where I need/want to read characters I strongly relate to. It hasn’t always been the case… though the characters I usually enjoy the most tend to have more or less the same characteristics: over-achievers, hard workers, pressure and having a hard time dealing with it. I love to read about those who supposedly “have it all” only to find out it merely is an impression or “having it all” comes at a price very few would be willing to pay. I am tired of the… reverse…
@84: I had read your post into the last topic. I wanted to answer but the focus had moved. I am glad to know I am not the only one with a tendency to attach myself more to the side characters than the main ones. In my case I suspect it is because characters exhibiting the traits I am particularly sympathetic to never are those authors choose as the focus of their stories.
Fantasy as whole tend to re-use the same tropes, even our own Brandon re-uses similar themes in most of this books. Somehow, Kelsier, Vin, Kaladin, David, Spook are very similar characters, each with individual differences, but the skeleton remains the same. Which brings me to Renarin and you are right in stating he is “yet another” under-dog. As the younger brother, it is obvious he would be the one the author would choose to explore: as isn’t how it always is in stories? The older brother is either too noble and perfect, so he dies so the awkward younger one could get his chance to shine or he is mean and needs to be defeated by his younger better sibling. The younger sibling always is the disfavored, the disabled, the weak, but the story also highlights how much smarter he is than the older dumb sibling. After I finished reading WoR, I felt as if I was obliged to love Renarin… Are you supposed to prefer him over his brother? Isn’t it obvious he is the important smarter one? I read some of the pre-WoR discussion and nearly everyone agreed Renarin would become a Radiant, even though there was no evidence of it. Why? It was the only step forward for his character considering the trope he was going with, sure it could have been averted, but so far it hasn’t. It doesn’t mean it won’t later on though.
I agree Kaladin was a take on an old trope with a few refreshing twists. I did enjoy reading Kaladin, but I can’t keep on rooting for him now the story introduced a character I can relate to so closely.
I also agree Dalinar and Jasnah aren’t typical protagonists, they however share the same deep introspection tendencies we see with Kaladin and to a lesser extend Shallan. They aren’t however characters I can overly relate to. There are things I like about both characters, but none currently are favorites of mine, though I am very interested in reading Dalinar’s past story: I think it will be good.
@85: For me Spook was another sample of the same character: introverted, close on himself, forgotten but find his inner strength. I like his arc, but TenSoon was by far my favorite read in Heroe of Ages. I don’t know what it was with the fury kandra, but he grew on me badly in the third book.
I agree Renarin is much like Spook… but I have to ask, why is it always the same kind of minor characters who get a future chance to shine?
How about Sam in GOT? The older brother is certainly not the favored one there. His father preferred the younger, more ferocious model instead of the older, bookish, more gently souled one.
@85 Braid_Tug, the comparison that you raised between the Jasnah of the 1st 2 SA books and Polgara in Eddings Belgariad/Mallorean series can be used to differentiate their personalities. Jasnah, as we know her to date, is a powerful woman who is aloof, judgmental, and tends to treat\ people as intellectual inferiors. She has made an exception for Shallan, but is still not maternal towards the much younger woman in the sense of emotional bonding – as opposed to intellectual and strategic. This is why her character leaves me indifferent. Polgara, too, is an extremely powerful wizard who has long accepted the role of substitute mother for many generations of her sister’s descendants – the hidden heirs to the Rivan throne and leadership of the western kingdoms. To hide, protect, and nurture her charges, she has accepted the fate of being an unknown person for many centuries whose power is only mildly sensed by those around her. She is very strong-minded and controls her last charge’s life (Garion), but is very loving to him. Her reward for such self-sacrifice comes at the end, when she give birth, an event marked by the presence of Eriond, the ‘god’ she has unsuspectingly raised and his ‘divine’ family.
@81 brovery: I wonder if Kaladin’s speculations that conflicting oaths were behind the downfall of the Radiants might play into this. Without Voidbringers to fight, the Radiants might start to ally themselves with various other political goals – much as Kaladin was doing when he promised to help Moash and protect Dalinar. Then the political goals start to conflict, and you’re in trouble.
@86 Naive_misanthrope: In case you’re interested…I think we do know that metal works for Allomancy, gems can capture Stormlight, &c no matter what world they’re from. But I can’t speak about soulstone. IIRC it didn’t have any innate magical properties, though (it was just particularly handy for carving soulstamps), so I doubt it’s that significant if it shows up on other worlds or not.
And I get what you mean about seeing how characters completely different from you tick. I find Kaladin very satisfying as a character not because I relate to him (I don’t particularly), but because I feel like I understand him and get his internal logic. Honestly, that’s why I read fantasy. I like to spend time in worlds and with characters I can understand, as opposed to the real world where there’s always something I don’t know. And the more strange or different the world or character is, the more satisfying it is to understand it.
@91 Sheesania: That’s precisely the idea behind what I was (in an overly long-winded manner) trying to point out. The way the Radiants act in the Firestone Keep vision reads to me as if they’re making a point, saying essentially “We’re fed up with all this crap, so we’re done!” Now, I don’t really know that’s what happened – it’s simply what it feels like to me, and I could be completely wrong.
I do know that I get exhausted pretty quickly by people trying to get me to do things for them in an underhanded way. If I were personally to find myself a Radiant, and find that I’d been lied to and was being used for someone else’s not-all-that-altruistic ends, I’d be pretty frustrated. Frustrated enough, perhaps, to throw down my sword and plate and say “Yeah, I’m out. Later!” Especially if I wasn’t aware of the cost for my spren.
Mmmm. Perhaps if their knights still lived, something could be done…
foreshadowing Kaladin’s return.
Do female Radiants bond only male spren? Do male Radients bond only female spren?