Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, everyone threw temper tantrums and Kaladin landed in prison. This week, we jaunt across the continent to Azir’s capital, where we’ll meet with an unexpected style of proto-Radiant. Warning: This chapter qualifies as a novelette all by itself, so the reread is both extra-long, and completely inadequate.
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!
Interlude 9: Lift
Point of View: Lift
Setting: The Bronze Palace, Azimir
Symbology: Copia, Vedeledev, Nalan
IN WHICH Lift and her spren Wyndle enter the Bronze Palace through an upper window, and assist a small group of thieves to enter as well; while the others search for disposable goods, Lift sets off in search of food, followed by the awkward Gawx; he chooses to raid the viziers’ quarters, while she aims for the party food; she succeeds, but is followed and captured by Darkness and his henchmen; she escapes, but they have also captured Gawx and present him as hostage; she calls their bluff, but it wasn’t a bluff; she escapes, but returns to perform her first Regrowth to keep Gawx from dying; Darkness prepares to execute her, but Gawx, now named the new Aqasix, declares her pardoned of her thievery; Darkness departs.
Quote of the Week
“Why… why do you hunt me?”
“In the name of justice.”
“There are tons of people who do wrong things,” she said. She had to force out every word. Talking was hard. Thinking was hard. So tired. “You… you coulda hunted big crime bosses, murderers. You chose me instead. Why?”
“Others may be detestable, but they do not dabble in arts that could return Desolation to this world.” His words were so cold. “What you are must be stopped.”
There were plenty of bits in this chapter that I liked a whole lot more than this, but I had to use it. It doesn’t even have much to do with Lift… but it has everything to do with Nalan and what he’s doing. It’s worth noting that he doesn’t actually answer her question the first time; he merely gives his excuse: “In the name of justice.” Yes, he’s hunting “in the name of justice”—but he’s not hunting to serve justice. He’s hunting proto-Radiants, because he believes that what they do can bring the return of a Desolation. I could be wrong, but I think he really believes that.
Then again, I think he’s also quite, quite mad.
Commentary
Lift is just way too much fun… although I suspect that if I had to be around her for any length of time, my attitude would be much more like Wyndle’s long-suffering restraint. I mean, aside from calling him Voidbringer all the time purely to annoy him, this:
Stealing regular stuff was no fun. She wanted a real challenge. Over the last two years, she’d picked the most difficult places to enter. Then she’d snuck in.
And eaten their dinners.
Naturally. No point in stealing things you can sell and then buying food. Just steal the food in the first place. Oy.
Okay, she does have a point, actually; she breaks into rich people’s places because they have the best food, and then she eats their dinner—but it’s not like she’s taking anything irreplaceable, or even anything she has to worry about fencing carefully. Especially with the rich folk, she’s not even stealing anything they actually value.
Her interactions with Wyndle are generally hilarious—except that I keep getting irritated when she interrupts his lectures. She might not be interested in what he was going to say, but we are! We want to know how things work, but we just get hints, because she won’t let him finish a sentence. Silly girl. (Not that he was telling us anything we hadn’t already more or less figured out, but it was interesting to read his explanations nonetheless.)
After all that insouciance, it was unexpected to read something like this:
“Why did you even come with them?” Wyndle asked, creeping out of the room. “Why not just sneak in on your own?”
“Tigzikk found out about this whole election thing,” she said. “He told me tonight was a good night for sneaking. I owed it to him. Besides, I wanted to be here in case he got into trouble. I might need to help.”
“Why bother?”
Why indeed? “Someone has to care,” she said, starting down the hallway. “Too few people care, these days.”
And this sequence, which in one way seems so out of character, and in another way perfectly in character:
Lift safely reached the upper reaches of the palace, hidden in the shadows there. She squatted down, hands around her knees, feeling cold.
“You barely knew him,” Wyndle said. “Yet you mourn.”
She nodded.
“You’ve seen much death,” Wyndle said. “I know it. Aren’t you accustomed to it?”
She shook her head.
…
Who would cry for Gawx? Nobody. He’d be forgotten, abandoned.
…
“Why do you care?” Wyndle asked again. He sounded curious. Not a challenge. An attempt to understand.
“Because someone has to.”
…
She set Gawx on his back, face toward the sky. He wasn’t really anything to her, that was true. They’d barely just met, and he’d been a fool. She’d told him to go back.
But this was who she was, who she had to be.
And then, at the end:
“I saved him,” Lift said. “I did something good, didn’t I?”
“Goodness is irrelevant,” Darkness said. His Shardblade dropped into his fingers.
“You don’t even care, do you?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
“You should,” she said, exhausted. “You should… should try it, I mean. I wanted to be like you, once. Didn’t work out. Wasn’t… even like being alive…”
Despite whatever her back-story might be—and it sounds horrific—she chose to care. She’s an Edgedancer by nature, I guess.
Also? I really, really want that back story. What is with Rall Elorim, anyway?
In other news, Azir has a most interesting way of choosing a new leader at the best of times. Everyone who’s interested fills out a bunch of paperwork and writes an essay, and the viziers choose the best one. At this worst of times, it’s downright bizarre, with everyone who “ought” to be a candidate doing their level best to be a lousy one. Gawx does have a fair point, though: it beats the bloody-succession-war method. Ironic, then, that he is chosen — as a result of being the only person to bleed.
Stormwatch
The timeline isn’t specific on this one; it just says, “Before the Weeping,” which means it’s roughly concurrent, give or take a few weeks, with the main plot events.
Sprenspotting
Wyndle! Wyndle cracks me up. What a mismatch in personality between spren and human! Due to other recent thoughts on the subject, I specifically noticed his reactions to Lift’s continual references to him as “Voidbringer.” Aside from generally being offended (which is only natural) the tone of his objections really fits with the concept that the Voidbringers are a type of spren, rather than a race of physical beings.
Despite his claim to have holes in his memory due to the Realmatic transition, there’s a boatload of good information in Wyndle’s words. Just a few points:
• He did not choose his bond-mate; she was chosen for him by “the Ring,” presumably a group made up of the Edgedancer-bonding spren. Whether by agreement or because it’s not possible to disagree, he accepts the assignment.
• Lift was chosen because she had “visited the Old Magic” and “Our mother has blessed her.” This has so many possible implications, the most prominent being that Lift went to see the Nightwatcher and (corollary) the Nightwatcher is closely tied to Cultivation. This could be wrong, of course, but it does seem reasonable.
• It seems that Lift’s “boon” was the ability to gain Investiture directly from food… or was it the ability to see and touch things that are only in the Cognitive Realm? Or was it both? That would be unusual, wouldn’t it, to have two gifts from the Nightwatcher? And what was the curse? Or… is one the boon and one the curse? In which case… which is which?!
• In the Cognitive Realm, Wyndle appears like a vine which grows very quickly in whatever direction he wants to go, and sometimes forms a face through which he speaks to Lift. In the Physical Realm, the vine-trail he leaves behind hardens as if briefly becoming solid crystal, which people sometimes see—which sounds to me very like what Ym sees. As noted a few weeks back, Brandon will neither confirm nor deny this theory. (Here’s one case where I’m in disagreement with what I perceive as “most of the fandom”—I think Ym was a proto-Edgedancer, but most seem to think he was a Truthwatcher. Brandon almost promised that we’ll find out… or at least, that we’ll eventually find out for sure what kind of spren creates the effect Ym’s spren did. I suspect we’ll get it from someone who sees either Glys or Wyndle in the Physical Realm.)
• In the Cognitive Realm, he was apparently a master gardener, since “Cryptics and honorspren alike came to see the crystals I grew from the minds of your world.” The minor point is that, despite the political issues which make Cryptics and honorspren tend to not get along well (is that because they’re opposite each other on the circle of Surges/Orders?), they all admired his work. The major weirdity is the thought of growing crystals in the Cognitive world from the minds of those in the Physical world. How does that even work? (I’m afraid my mind just knocked all his pretty crystals down, flailing about to make sense of this.) Also: would the Edgedancer-spren be known as Gardeners, or is that just Wyndle? He notes that his choice of human would have been “an accomplished gardener” Iriali grandmother; again, is that his personal preference, or are all of his “type” gardeners of one sort or another? If they are, I’m betting that their non-sentient counterpart would be lifespren—which would also make sense for Edgedancers.
All Creatures Shelled and Feathered
The poor little larkin… I’m curious as to whether its forlorn appearance is due to its captivity in general—wings bound, and stuffed in a bag—or to the fact that they seem to have a means of preventing it from taking in Stormlight except when they want it to. Is it basically starving all the time, so that when it finds a source of Investiture, it will instinctively suck it all in no matter the consequences to anyone else? Or… How intelligent are these creatures, anyway?
Ars Arcanum
So this is what an Edgedancer does—superslides, supergrowth, and superhealing. Well, this one, anyway… “Darkness” implies that she’s barely an amateur compared to the skills they once displayed, but with no one except a spren with holes in his memory to train her, I think that can be forgiven.
“Abrasion” (friction) is seen mostly in its absence; Lift makes herself frictionless to move quickly and to escape clutching hands. I can’t help wondering if there might be a connection between her climbing the walls with Wyndle forming hand- and foot-holds for her, and using friction to make herself “sticky” instead of “slick”… but we’re not given anything. In fact, Wyndle is seriously puzzled by her ability to touch him and actually use the grips he provides, so it doesn’t seem likely that the Edgedancers of old did anything quite like this.
“Progression” seems to be a relatively new skill, according to Wyndle’s lecture, but it certainly works well! I know a lot of people find it irritating that Lift should be able to make the seeds grow without knowing what to do, and even more so that she can heal Gawx with Regrowth. I have a few theories, though for anyone determined to be annoyed they won’t be enough. One is that some forms of Investiture seem to be more intuitive than others in this grand Cosmere, and Roshar seems a place where that’s the case. Another is that since Cultivation is still alive, and Progression is definitely Cultivation-linked, it may be even more intuitive than some Surges. A third is that with her odd connection to the Cognitive Realm, Lift has a unique ability to just know what to do. Your thoughts on the subject?
Oh, one more thing:
I will remember those who have been forgotten.
I notice that the Coppermind wiki identifies this as the second Ideal of the Edgedancers, but I’m questioning that, myself. Given how much she can already do at the beginning of the Interlude, it seems at least equally probable that this would be the third Ideal, and we just don’t yet know what the second one was. Anyone have a WoB stating that Lift has only said two of the Ideals? Because in lieu of that, I hold to the idea that this is more likely the third.
Heraldic Symbolism
Vedeledev = Edgedancers and Nalan = Nalan. Need we say more?
Just Sayin’
Lift uses “stormin’” a few times, but her favorite cuss-word seems to be “starvin’.” Suitable, for a street waif who needs food not only for survival and the inevitable teen growth spurts, but who needs extra food because she turns too much of it straight into Investiture.
“Kadasixes and Stars!”—a very Azish turn of phrase; Kadasix apparently translates as Herald.
Y’all can have a nice debate over whether “May he lead in wisdom. If he ever stops drooling” refers to “Yaezir, Herald of Kings” or “Gawx, Aqasix of Azir.”
There. That ought to keep us busy until next week, when we join Szeth for some contemplation atop Urithiru. Well, this should be cheerful.
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader. If she seems strangely absent from the comments this week, it might have something to do with the rumor that Bands of Mourning is going into gamma-reading this week.
If it was the third Ideal, would she not have had a transformation sequence like Kaladin did? Or do Edgedancers have more Ideals than Windrunners?
This interlude was released prior to the book’s actual release, so naturally I devoured it ahead of time, which made it a little anticlimactic when I got to it in the full book. I still read the whole thing, but I found myself skipping the interminable written-out-dialects and wishing Wyndle got to talk more about fundamental cosmere rules. I hate incurious characters.
Just a hunch, but I think the curse of Lift’s request to the Nightwatcher is her ability to ability to gain Investiture directly from food rather than Stormlight. Since the larkin was able to negate Lift’s Knights Radiant Powers, it seems that the larkin feeds on Investiture rather than Stormlight. I guess I do not understand the mechanics of Investiture. Apparently Investiture is a state but it has its own source of energy. The energy is not necessarily what causes the Investiture (Stormlight for all KR on Roshar other than Lift; food for Lift). Rather, the food or Stormlight or whatever the source transforms into a new type of energy or force that results in Investiture. It is then that the KR can access a Surge.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Y’all can have a nice debate over whether “May he lead in wisdom. If he ever stops drooling” refers to “Yaezir, Herald of Kings” or “Gawx, Aqasix of Azir.”
Of course that refers to the herald.
Why doesn’t Wyndle understand why Lift cares when that is what her order’s oaths are about and he knows so much about how things work? Does Lift misunderstand and he is trying to get her to say an oath?
I agree with Wyndle that Lift is an annoying kid. He should bond someone like Jasnah who appreciates his knowledge.
Could Lift’s ability to get Investiture from food be from another world? She thinks her mother is from Iri, but maybe she (or Lift’s father) is a worldhopper.
SunDriedRainbow @1 – We don’t really know much about the progression of the different Orders, and what happens at each level. Which is just as much an argument against my expectation as yours; it’s just that she seemed to have a lot more skills than she should, for only having spoken the first Ideal. And it seems funny to me that we should get to see every KR (except Jasnah) speaking every Ideal. ::shrugs:: I’m not hard over on it, but I don’t think we have evidence to be sure it’s the second.
It took me forever to read this interlude on account of all the laughing. I want a spinoff in which Lift and Loppen fight crime.
Regarding Lift’s sudden skill with Regrowth, I think the line “But this was who she was, who she had to be” is the key. It’s not that she suddenly knows what to do. She just does what comes naturally. Later on, Kaladin starts winning the big fight when he stood trying to use his powers and allows himself to be.
Unrelated: I think Lift interrupting Wyndle is Brandon poking a little fun at himself and the genre’s tendency toward over explaining things. How much of the WoK prologue does Szeth spend thinking about how Lashings work?
Oooh, oooh, I have a theory! When Wyndle says “our Mother ” maybe he means it literally when referring to Lift. Lift could be the real child of Cultivation (whoever is currently holding the shard,I mean ). Pure awesome that is.That could explain her ability to see and touch the cognitiv realm!
feel free to shoot the theory down, it was just a random thought : )
Between the prerelease of this story and the book, I have read this one about 3 times, and I get goose bumps every time I read her say the oath. It is such a simple, and profound statement. In a way though (and this total rambling and conjecture), it makes we wonder if there some connection between forgotten memories and the crystals that Wyndle grows. Like, crystals are memories that have been separated from their mind (“forgotten”), and he cultivates them. I also wonder at the similarities between regrowth and the inherent ability of stormlight to heal. Is regrowth simply passing this ability to others temporarily? Of course, that would be a poor substitute for the Windrunner ability to allow whole groups of people to absorb stormlight.
@@@@@ 6. radiantflower
That would be… kinda awesome. I would never have thought of the concept, now my brain is humming.
I would think that touching the cognitive world would be the boon, and eating returning the investment within the food would be the curse. No one except those who have already bonded would likely even know of investiture, and a waif would likely not ask for something related to food they don’t generally have. On the other hand, everyone can see spren, so being able to interact with them could be a boon someone (especially someone young) might ask for.
In fact, that might be a true side effect of her boon, and the curse is something else entirely.
@9 BrowncoatJayson
I think I’m with you on this one. I believe her reward was that her mind and body was somehow more strongly connected to the Cognitive Realm itself (the metabolic investiture and ability to grab Wyndle being outcroppings of this). I don’t think we’ve actually seen her curse.
It could be something completely random since it’s been stated by characters in-story that the boon and curse don’t necessarily have anything to do with one another.
For that matter we still have no idea what Dalinar’s boon actually was do we?
@2 – I think having to eat to gain Investure is the curse. Reminds me of Mistborn. It seems like it would be a big weakness in battle when all the other Surgebinders can take Stormlight from anywhere.
@7 – I agree. I loved her oath. I still think Kaladin’s second is best though. I’m hoping that once we get a few oaths, we’ll start ranking them.
I hope we get a lot more of Lift before her book, whenever that is. I think the interaction between her and Shallan would be pretty fun.
@@.-@ Wetlandernw
I hope that there are different progressions for different orders. We’ve already seen a large amount of diversity in the powers and personalities among the KR, so it makes sense that there would be a different roll out for powers, shardblades, and armor as the proto-Knights take their oaths.
Like you said, we have little to confirm this either way. Is there room for someone like Lift to be a prodigy among the knights? I don’t think everyone we’ve seen so far has to be typical for their intended order.
@11 No way is producing stormlight by metabolizing food a curse. That’s a super-pro advantage as of the end of Words of Radiance, when talk of rationing stormlight comes up – food will be way easier to find than invested spheres in most cases (that is, if and when Lift makes contact with the main cast of Radiants-in-training). Plus, nowhere have we seen that Lift specifically can’t use the stormlight in spheres; it may just be she doesn’t realize it’s an option and Wyndle hasn’t remembered about that option yet. If it turns out she can’t use normal stormlight, then fine, I’ll accept that could be the curse, but I think she’ll still be at an advantage in the long run.
@13 – Part of the system might be interpretation. I like the idea that to a child who has lived on the streets and who may have gone hungry sometimes would see Stormlight from food as a curse. A person accustomed to a regular supply of food would see it differently.
@10 – If the boons and curses aren’t meant to be universal and straightforward, the boon could be so obvious to Dalinar that it would escape his notice when we’re in his PoV or that of someone close to him.
I think investiture through food is a huge advantage even if she can’t do it via Stormlight. Imagine a Radiant in a protracted battle during the middle of a Weeping. All the stored gems run dry. Lyft pops a candy bar and boom! Combat effective again. Also, if the Army needs to retreat in that situation she would be the only one capable of opening an Oathgate.
Has it yet been said what type of investiture Odium’s servants use? Is it like negative Stormlight produced by the Everstorm or maybe fuel from broken Spren?
Ah well, there it is. Why didn’t I get the option to click “next” and why couldn’t I see the new chapter in the listing?
I posted a few relevant WoB into last chapter. I’ll paste them here later on. A few on the nature of the Edgedancers and their position on the chart… A few thoughts.
Oh and speaking of a fewer thoughts, Lift carries a lucky diamond chip.
I had to say it.
I had also wondered about how deceiving it was healing someone required no skill whatsoever and seems as easy as a walk in the park. I’ll come back later.
Edit: Here I take a few minutes to paste it here. I figured most people won’t bother to read back the other chapter.
Me: Were the Edgedancers sort of like social workers?
Brandon: He laughed at this question, and said that was sort of accurate, but they were more like good samaritans than social workers.
In the relation to Syl, Pattern and the fact he have taken them for polar opposite, we had it wrong.
Q: Syl identifies herself as an honorspren.
A: Yes.
Q: Would Wyndle identify himself as a cultivationspren?
A: Yes. I think you could say that he would.
Q: By the same logic, would a voidspren follow the same naming convention, so to speak?
A: Here’s the thing. Certain spren have decided that they are the most pure form of honor, or that they are the most pure form of whatever, where all of them are kind of… Syl’s got a good argument for what she is. But there are other spren that would be like “well, I’m an honorspren too, I’m just this variety of honorspren.” Does that make sense? Syl’s like “I’m an American!” and I’m like “I’m an Alaskan!” Yes, you’re an American. I’m an American too. It’s kind of similar to that. But she would be the most pure… many would view her as the purest form. Wyndle would view himself as the purest form of a cultivation spren.
@Gepeto: sorry about the series link, should be fixed now!
Some thoughts on Lift:
Wyndle said she was blessed by the mother. A lot of people have been given a wish. What they see as a curse isn’t so much a curse as a balance for what they were given (if I understand it right). So, it’s possible that Lift is unusual in that what she asked for and what balances it are both things that, in her use of them, function positively.
Some odd things about Lift. While clearly a child in many ways, there are hints that she’s much older than she seems. The impression I got is that she’s been picking ages that sound good when people ask her for a fairly long time.
Add this to her talking about knowing what it’s like to live not caring and that she has chosen not to be that way.
It’s slight grounds, but I wonder if what Lift asked for was was somehow the chance to be the person who remembers the people who would otherwise be forgotten, to care about them. If she’s an unaging child, she may be staying at the age she was before she began to develop an uncaring attitude to protect herself. By staying a child, she also remembers and is in a weird sort of position to help.
For most of us, this would be a curse. For her, maybe it was the gift she wanted. So, maybe what balanced it was a blessing from the Nightmother rather than a curse (I sit back, waiting for that theory to be shot down in flames by the facts or the story as it unfolds, but I like it right now).
This is quite possibly my favorite chapter in the book. Lift is, heh, quite Awesome and I really hope we see her again. Wyndle is a nice straight man for her and kinda fun in his own right. And the whole thing was just…. Awesome. And heartwarming
I want to know why Nalan is doing this. He helped create Szeth, he’s killing Radiants, he seems to be trying to cause this Desolation. It doesn’t make sense yet.
@2 AndrewHB, @11Keyblazing, @13 beladee & @15 EvilMonkey
I agree that it seems that Lift can’t metabolise stormlight directly, but Nalan certain thought she might be able to – what with the people running ahead and removing spheres and then returning them.
So, did Nalan know about her metabolising food into Investure? Was he just hedging his bets with the spherers, or can she do both but doesn’t realise yet?
Getting into more specifics, given the description of the palace, I’m wondering if it was Soulcast by a Herald for one of the previous Desolations. Plating the ground in bronze and creating bronze tress is, yes, a thing that kings do sometimes, but, from what Taln said about the Heralds Soulcasting bronze for the people to use to make weapons, it makes me wonder.
Lift kinda reminds me of a cross between Wayne and Vin. Which is not a complaint, because I think it works well for her. She’s really just several kinds of Awesome.
I’ve heard people online ask if Lift will eventually get a Shardfork and I really, really, really hope that happens, because it’d be awesome.
Finally. Time for a better comment.
Lift, Lift, Lift, seriously is there any character who’s made such a strong impression with only one chapter? One single POV and little tiny Lift was so awesome she was instantaneously propelled to the rank of a fan’s favorite. I must say, I share the sentient as how can you not love the scruffy thief with a heart of gold?
This chapter also got us our first sneak peak at what has to be one of the coolest order with one of the most interesting surge combo: they can glide, they can move super fast and they can heal. How not to be captivated? Raise your hands those who do not wish to see Edgedancers dancing like ribbon of winds across the battlefield? Raise your hands those who do not wish to see Edgedancers sliding along the edges of the world, unattainable, unbeatable, unstoppable unless… unless they come across an old lady needing a hand to cross the street because it wouldn’t be right not to help her, wouldn’t it?
Frivolous Edgedancers who believe there is such thing as unlucky numbers…
“I ain’t,” she said. “Twelve’s an unlucky number.” She help up her hands. “I’m only this many.”
“… Ten?” Tigzikk asked.
“Is that how many that is? Sure, then. Ten.” She lowered her hands. “If I can’t count it on my fingers, it’s unlucky.” And she’d been that many for three years now. So there.
Superstitious Edgedancers who believe there is such thing as lucky marks…
She had to get out a sphere – a diamond mark, her lucky one – to see properly in there.
These habits sure give credence to Nale’s upcoming speech where he claims the Edgedancers bothered too much on things of little import: carrying a lucky charm and worst believing it actually works, just as refusing to count certain numbers does strike me as right up that alley.
Yet again, they are the ones who would stop to care for others, just because. They are the ones who would endanger their only chances as an escape only to try rescuing a boy they barely knew because it wouldn’t be right not to. Or just simply because. “Because someone has to.”
Edgedancers, so light, so uncaring in all appearances, and yet they are the ones who look twice behind them. They are the ones who would raise their hands to stop the abuse, not because they have something to gain for their personal advancement, but because it would be wrong not to.
Hence Gawx lived, because she cared.
Seriously what’s not to love? I would even turn a semi-blind eye as to how deceiving it is regrowth does seem to work like complete magic. Almost.
So Alice, your question of why Lift’s Oath is considered the second, well…I thought I’d be clever and looking at the oaths and try and notice something but then…well when you look at them
Lift’s Oath: I will remember those who have been forgotten.
Second Oaths:
Windrunner – I will protect those who cannot protect themselves.
Bondsmith – I will unite instead of divide. I will bring men together.
Third Oath:
Windrunner – I will protect even those I hate so long as it is right.
It takes about 5 seconds to realize there’s not much in the way of data, not nearly enough to establish reliable trends for how the oaths may progress. My gut feeling is that it’s still the second oath, but there’s really nothing definitive either way.
I really like this Interlude, but I somewhat disliked Lift at first (and even with time I’ve only grown a mild fondness for her). I think because it was so jarring to see an interlude from a character who just screams future protagonist – for some reason I didn’t like getting our preview of Lift the character, even if I really liked the interlude.
I have made this supposition in passing elsewhere in the earlier comments, but I think this is the time to bring the subject up for discussion. If Nalan was trying to eradicate all proto-radiants, how come he has ignored Jasnah for six years when it seems fairly certain that he knew what she was the night of Gavilar’s assassination? And for that matter, why did he make no attempt to kill Kaladin all that time Kaladin was a slave and he could easily have foundd some crime to accuse Kaladin of and executing him? And Shallan has been a hidden radiant for years … long enough for Wit to seek out the proto-radiant he felt was living in that corner of Jah Keved, yet in all those years she didn’t get a visit from Nalan? By contrast, how come Nalan followed Lift across half a continent determined to find her and kill her, and how come he investigated Ym so thoroughly that he was able to find an incident from decades back to use as an excuse to kill (?) Ym?
So, let me see … Kaladin is a Windrunner, Jasnah is an Elsecaller, Shallan is a Lightweaver, Renarin is a Truthwatcher, Dalinar is a Bondsmith, Lift is an Edgedancer, Ym is an Edgedancer …. wait, wait, is there a pattern here, can that be the answer?
Nalan is not looking to kill ALL proto-radiants, he is looking to kill only proto-Edgedancers!
When he says: “Others may be detestable, but they do not dabble in arts that could return Desolation to this world…What you are must be stopped,” perhaps he was referring to something about Edgedancers in particular and not all radiants in general. I’ll be happy to hear contrary opinions.
@22 Gepeto, I agree entirely. Lift is ‘awesome’ and her repartees with Wyndle are delicious – even if her dismissal of Wyndle’s attempt at instruction can be a bit frustrating for the reader interested in Cosmere matters. She is a saucy young survivor of the mean streets who still cares about people – particularly abandoned and forgotten people, and is willing to risk her life for their survival. Her theft of food is not a significant ethical failing. She is alone in the world with no economic support, and will starve unless she steals food. She is also careful to steal from those who will not miss the loss. As to her blessing and curse from the Nightwatcher, I believe they both involve food. The blessing is that she can transmute food to surgebinding power, while the curse is that she is always hungry. Wyndle thinks that her unique ability to touch and grab hold of him is due to her being partly in the Cognitive Realm. That sounds plausible even if we don’t understand how this can happen. Her abilities are unique to the point that the ‘all-knowing’ and aptly named Darkness (Nalan) mistakenly believes that she must use stormlight for surgebinding and that her eating is irrelevant. All in all, she is a fascinating character whose further adventures and backstory are eagerly awaited.
@24 Alisonwonderland,
Brilliant analysis. I love it. However, when Nalan saw Lift use regrowth he said “It appears that your are an Edgedancer… I had wondered which of the two you would be.”
So at the very least he is looking to kill Edgedancers and Dustbringers.
alisonwonderland @@@@@ 24 and ante @@@@@ 26 – hmmm. Those are interesting thoughts. Nalan does not like Edgedancers and Dustbringer. This might be reaching, but those are the two orders that Adolin might become if he turns out to be a Radiant. And now that Adolin has killed Sadeas and Szeth will be meting out justice with Nightblood, will there be another duel between Szeth and Adolin? And this time, it’s personal! (sorry, can’t resist the Rocky reference. Dang, I am truly embroiled in pop culture, ) LOL
I found Azir’s election to be amusing. Interesting situation when world leaders are having a pesky habit of dying currently – suddenly no one wants to be one. (c:
The Azish certainly do have an interesting concept of elections don’t they.
I’ve heard of essays to get into certain schools or the like, but never politics.
That being said, if I were forced to make an attempt, I think I know what mine would be:
*ahem*
Deer esteamed coleegz,
I am totez the Prim Akwasix cuz I r teh smarterest and I will give all the muneez to every1 so we can can all haz teh stuffs and teh howsez I will b teh bestest awkwasix eva duh
-Will aka teh Awkawsix..duh..
(Give or take a few thousand more “words” and savage butchering of any semblance of language depending upon essay length requirements)
See it’s such an obvious attempt to look stupid that I must be smart enough to not want the job. But (and this is the important part) it’s too obviously an attempt to look stupid, so I must also be not quite smart enough to hide the fact that I don’t want the job.
The real Aqasix would be smart enough to write an essay that made him look insufficent by hiding his skill with only one or two slight spelling and/or grammatical errors that would get him barely passed over for the job in normal times. Both smart enough to look insufficient and to hide the fact he or she was trying to look dumb.
And the lynchpin and final layer of this ruse is that while this strategy is slightly clever, it’s not so clever that other people wouldn’t think of it and use it too. All of which, including my own, the judges would no doubt see through
But that still just makes me average, not brilliant. If I’m only of average or slightly below average skill, I obviously must not be the real Prime Aqasix. Which would suit my altogether not wanting to be assassinated self quite well.
Fun chapter and very puzzling.
It seems implausible to me that the Nightwatcher gave Lift a boon of metabolizing food into investiture for the purpose of surgebinding. Wyndle came to her after her visit to “mother.” So Lift remains a favorite in part because she is something new and a mystery. Its going to be fun to see where her character ends up.
Darkness seemed to be able to invest as well as he might have been glowing and moving faster than he should have. No evidence of him using surges that I could find. If he has his honorblade it would have been simple for him to capture Lift using his expertise with the gravitation surge. What is going on?
How many shardblades does this country have? Apparently if you fill out the right form you can requisition one to use. That could be how Nalan has gathered his shardblades for his cronies.
@24 Alisonwonderland, it seems unlikely that Nalan’s animus towards would-be Radiants is confined to Edgedancers and their KR ‘neighbors’ – Dustbringers. His language in justifying his attempt to kill Lift is more generally worded. Why would only 1 or 2 types of KRs bring on the Desolation? However, the questions that you raised concerning Nalan’s focus on Ym and Lift require an answer. I would say that Nalan, despite my earlier designation of him as ‘all-knowing’ is actually not so. He only knows what he sees. He has seen Ym use the surge of Progression to heal some customers of his shoe shop, and had seen Lift use the surge of friction to escape prior capture. Those are talents available only to proto or actual Radiants (or the holders of appropriate Honorblades). He has not seen Kaladin or Shallan to note their surgebinding abilities. While he has seen Jasnah and looked at her quizzically in the royal palace at the night of the assassination, he had not seen her earlier Shadesmar visitation or her spren. He is merely suspicious of her but can’t yet act on his suspicion. Nor would he get a pass for killing the king’s daughter even had he had some justifying paperwork. Moreover, not even Hoid knew of Shallan’s ability from a distance, as evidenced by his shock on first seeing her. He even intimates to Shallan that he had not realized the significance of his trip to Jah Keved until he met her. As to Nalan not using Windrunner surges to capture Lift, as per @30 notsawerd’s observation, that may be because different Honorblades confer different powers. Perhaps only Jezrien’s blade that Szeth possessed conferred Windrunner powers. Besides, Nalan acts in the guise of a constable – not a Herald or KR. He may wish to keep his powers secret. It’s one thing to move superfast (the glowing may have only been visible to Lift), and another to get people to fly.
@many
I’m going agree with @12 here. I think Lifts curse is Wyndel and being able to interact with him and her boon is being to subsist off Stormlight. Stormlight is very common on Roshar. Lift would probably ask the Nightwatcher to be able to live/survive she doesn’t seem like someone who would care if she could touch the Cognitive world. She just wants to be able to live. We know that many people around her died and her strongest curse is starving because that’s what she never wants to be. We also know that if you have Stormlight you can’t die easily. You can be killed but I think if you holding stormlight it’s very hard to die. If Lift wasn’t using her stormlight she probably wouldn’t have to eat as much as she does because her body just keep going.
I think Lift asked for the boon of survival, which manifests itself in the ability to use food for Investure, and her curse was to be noticed by the spren, which sent her Wyndel.
@24 My understanding is that Nalan is trying to kill proto-radiants from all orders, but that he requires a pretense of “justice” before he does so. They need to have broken their own society’s laws (it’s gotta be there own society’s, right? Otherwise how could he not kill Szeth?).
Anyways, it may just be that he has no justification to kill Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar, etc. because they haven’t broken any laws. Jasnah’s case, on the other hand, is a little more questionable, I’ll admit…
The Azish paperwork is probably inspired by the Chinese system where you had to take exams about Confucianism to become a government employee (but not to become emperor).
Each Honorblade gives the abilities of one of the later Knight Radiant orders, they don’t all give Windrunner abilities.
IIRC the 7th book in the series is supposed to be Lift’s book. I am excited to see what a 30 year old Lift is like…
10 Heralds. Ten Honorblades, 1 for each order of Knight Radiant. Szeth owned Jezrien’s blade, granting him the powers of a Windrunner. If he had the blade of a different Herald he would have gained different powers. Just putting it out there for those that didn’t know.
@25: I found Lift deliciously irreverent when it came to Wyndle’s teachings. The attitude was a defining part of the character as we are left to figure out who such a unseemly kid could ever become one of the elegant and refined Edgedancers.
@24: It is indeed strange. I am leaning towards believing he is not all knowledgeable, so he may not have had enough clues to piece out Jasnah. After, she has been very careful. Or it could be he doesn’t have anything to hold against her… he may have inklings, but he does not have solid proofs. She has hidden her traces quite well.
@27: I don’t think we are going to see an Adolin/Szeth re-match. After all, Szeth has been used as an antagonist to Kaladin in WoR, to see him change his focus on Adolin would be strange. Besides, it has been pretty much confirmed Szeth was becoming a Radiant (we had already guess due to him getting a flashback book), so I doubt he is going to enter a dueling contest with a Kholin.
On the very, very, very, very side note, I have been browsing on the Ben McSweeney AMA on Reddit. Nice guy. For those who do not know him, he is the man behind Shallan’s sketches. Someone asked him which Cosmere character he liked to draw the most. His answer was that, currently, Adolin was his favorite. He said he did not get to draw the characters “officially” very often. Now, I MAY be reading too much into it, but it may look as if we are getting drawings of Adolin into the next book as the wording made me think he has been commissioned to draw him. That would definitely make my day if it were true. I post this here because I figured other commentators would be interested in knowing this.
Gepeto @@@@@ 37 – Wow! That’s great. I’ll finally see what Adolin looks like. :-) Though the girls and I decided that we will choose Douglas Booth to play him if the Stormlight Archive became a TV series right now. :-) Actually it was a toss up between Douglas Booth and Charlie Hunnam. But we decided that Douglas will be better as Adolin with his British accent while Charlie will be better as Kaladin with his bad boy rap. :-) I can’t wait to see the drawing. He did very well with Shallan. :-) S
Hmmm I think Charlies Hunman is too old to play either Adolin or Kaladin, perhaps if we could go back 15 years in the past… Douglas Booth is the right age, but not blond enough to my tastes ;-) Adolin is described as looking youthful (unlike Kaladin who looks older than his 20 years, Adolin looks young), so anyone in his early twenties with natural golden hair (I do want a natural blond head for him), a handsome boyish face, an athletic built could do it. A young man, but not one with the maturity of an older man in his thirties, the kind of young thing you see and think to yourself, how much more handsome he’ll be in 10-15 years.
I honestly do have a mental image, but it does not fit any known actors. I tend to see him as “boys band heartthrob meets school’s most popular quarter-back”…
It is not Ben who drew Shallan, but Micheal Whelan. Ben drew the inner pages and the Szeth image circulating on the Web. Still I am rather excited about this. I knew I would not be the only one :-)
Sorry to all for hijacking the thread.
Thanks, as always, Alice. Your commentary is great.
Some things I personally noted in this chapter: 1) Lift’s ideal is not quoted in the Kindle version. Did she speak it out loud? Or was thinking it enough for her b/c she is so connected to the cognitive realm? 2) Lift’s outlook on life is refreshing and her reasoning/critical thinking skills are streets ahead. “That door was so nice, it had to belong to an emperor. Only super-rich folk built fancy doors. You needed money coming out your ears before you spent it on a door.”
3) Wyndle makes it sound like the Nightwatcher is some form of Cultivation IMO. 4) Gawx’s faculties are sound enough for me to think Nalan is speaking of the Herald Jezrien at the end of the chapter. 5) “I’m pure,” Lift whispered, grunting as she climbed. “I’m a child and stuff. I’m so storming pure I practically belch rainbows.” Cosmere’s puking rainbows meme anyone? anyone? I’ll see myself out.
Crack ship coming: Renarin & Lift in the second half. :-D
Does anyone else think that Lift’s ” someone has to care” is one of her Ideals?
@41 Braid_Tug
Hmm direct, and yet elegant in its simplicity at the same time…could be.
There’s no reason that the structure and syntax of all the oaths of all the orders have to follow the same guidelines. Heck the Lightweavers only have the one oath at all.
But if that’s the case do you think she spoke her second and third ideals at basically the same time?
@@@@@ wcarter, nothing says this isn’t Lift and Wyndle repeating a past conversation. Sounds like he is always trying to teach her stuff. I would not be surprised if he’s asked her the same questions before.
Thus her, “will remember” and ” has to care”, are her repeatings past oaths.
Speaking of crack ships, here is one for you…
Lift and Adolin.
Well, not NOW, but in ten years from now… He’ll be in his early thirties, she will be in her early twenties… The age difference between these two is less than between Jasnah and Kaladin… Think about it, if it doesn’t work out with Shallan…
Laughter being put aside, I do wish for these two to meet up. Imagine, Adoln teaching Lift how to fight, Lift teaching Adolin how to be awesome.
I am not sure I can actually ship Renarin with anyone. I guess I still need to read more about him before I do.
As for Lift having spoken the second and the third ideal at the same time, wow. I had never truly thought about it before. “Someone needs to care” does strike me as a possible oath and it would befit as the second one as “I will remember the forgotten” seems more precise perhaps? Much like Kaladin’s “I will protect those I hate as long as it is right” is more precise than “I will protect those who needs it”. Well precise may not be the right word, but it does seem more serious than “Someone has to care” providing it is indeed an oath.
How many oaths has little Lift truly swore is a great unknown. We are being led to believe she has only swore two, but what if? Brandon did state most Orders got their Blades at oath number 3, but he did specify the rule was not absolute. It could be Edgedancers are not getting a Blade until much later.
Gepeto @44 Shallan had her blade after her first and only oath. And she was still a child at that. The second thing she had to do to grow was accept truth or tell a truth (I forgot the correct wording )
so we really are not sure about the blades especially that Lift whom most of us here is thinking she said her third oath did not get a blade.
Just commening
Lift might not know she’s supposed to get one yet. Just saying.
@45: We do not know when exactly Shallan had her Blade or how advanced she was a child. She regressed in her progression as she was more advanced as a child.
As for when Orders get their Blades, there is a WoB on the matter. Brandon did say most knights get there’s at the third oath, but there was exceptions. The Lightweavers appear to gain Blade access early on, the Windrunners are within the average: it could be the Edgedancers need more oaths.
Nothing precludes Lift from having said a third oath. We just do not know, just as we do not know how many oaths Renarin has spoken. Speaking of which, clues are slowly being put together and the likelihood his visions are from Odium seems more and more probable. Not a Truthwatcher quirk, but let’s just say Renarin may be under evil influences. Nothing solid yet, but I can’t help reading the new WoB as going into this direction.
Birgit @@@@@ 34 – here in the U.S, there is also a civil service exam given every six months if you want to go into government service. I know for s fact that you need to pass it to work in the post office. (How I know this trivia. I don’t have an idea.) I believe you need to pass it also to work for the State Department.
Still, come to think of it, we need to pass so many exams to get into something. Doctors. Lawyers, nurses, engineers, etc, those are given. We need SAT to go to college and entrance exams to get into good high schools.
OMG, the I just realized that we are a nation who loves to test everything. *evil laugh*
Gepeto 47:
Speaking of which, clues are slowly being put together and the likelihood his visions are from Odium seems more and more probable. Not a Truthwatcher quirk, but let’s just say Renarin may be under evil influences. Nothing solid yet, but I can’t help reading the new WoB as going into this direction.
Care to clarify? Did Sanderson recently say something that indicates that Renarin was lying about his Radianthood? After all, Cultivation _can_ see the future and Truthwatchers seem to be one of the orders most heavily influenced by her. Personally, I am not fond of the old ” a physical weakling becomes a villain because he is jealous and unworthy” trope and am quite pleased that it has mostly fallen out of circulation…
As to Lift – she is great. And IMHO she is around 13-14, but small and undernourished. Also, she comes from a hellish place where it is perhaps better to be a child than a young woman, which may be the reason why she “refuses to grow up”, so to speak and claims to be perpetually 10. I’d really like to see Dalinar’s face if she answers his summons, heh. Wouldn’t it be a shock for all the stuffy Alethi?
@49: Here is an amalgam of WoB which gave me the idea… It is not conclusive, nor extremely informative, but it got me thinking.
Me: Are Renarin’s visions compulsive/involuntary?
Brandon: There is an element of that to them, yes.
Me: Are Renarin’s visions Surgebinding?
Brandon: *evil laughter* RAFO!
… later on…
Brandon: Okay, can I ask you a question?
Me: Yes… okay?
Brandon: Do you remember what Vorinism thinks of seeing the future?
Me: Yes! They think it’s evil, of Odium. Hence why I was asking in the first place! I’m very concerned.
Brandon: *laughs*
… still later on ..
Q: About Renarin’s surgebinding. Are they influenced by Voidbinding instead of Surgebinding? [unclear who “they” are-possibly his visions?]
A: That’s a RAFO.
Q: And then if they are influenced by Odium the way that Dalinar’s are influenced by Honor.
A: That’s a RAFO. I’m not going to talk about stuff like that! I have dropped some very blatant hints, and that is enough for me right now.
Someone: I asked pretty much the same thing last time, and you pointed me to a certain page. Can I tell her what the page was?
A: Yes. There are certain things going on with him that I feel are very blatant. He [someone] is going to point them out to you.
No I don’t know the page Brandon was referring to. It is not extraordinarily conclusive, but the whole discussion gave me the feeling Renarin’s visions are tied to surgebinding, but are something else. As for him perhaps not being a Truthwatcher, I recalled one commentator, over here, who openly doubted he was one as the clues we have been presented were thin. It got me thinking… what if Glys is something else? What if he is not friendly? What if Renarin is NOT a Radiant?
So many questions…
As for tropes, I am personally more fed-up with the “sick kid developing himself super powers”. I don’t think Renarin will fall to the dark side, but I suspect someone will end up being manipulated by Odium. He has been one of the candidate I had been thinking about, mostly because he so wants to prove himself, he seems ready to listen to anyone telling him what he wants to hear. I may be horribly wrong, but the whole discussion did give the creepy feeling something bad is going on with him.
Rest assure though. I am quite sure Renarin will turn out fine, in the end.
As for the Lift, the reason she claims to be perpetually ten is not because she refuses to grow, it is because she considers being an age she can’t count on her fingers is unlucky… She is being superstitious. I quoted the passage in one of my earlier post. It was an interesting finding to realize our little Edgedancer believed in such non-sense as unlucky ages or lucky diamond mark… made me think of something else.
@@@@@ 50 Gepeto
Is it superstition to always at least carry around some form of gem when you’re a surgebinder?
Don’t forget a lot of our superstitious traditions permeated from practical origins. It’s more than possible that she was encouraged to carry around a diamond mark because she’s a proto-radiant. Same reason Teft encouraged Kaladin to carry his pay into battle.
We don’t actually know that she cant breathe in stormlight, and even if she can’t, other people wouldn’t necessarily know that.
The saying itself might have also been directed at the general populous because finding people subconsciously breathing in stormlight from gems was once a way to find proto-radiants.
As for unlucky numbers, who knows? There may be something to that too. The Cosmere most definitely has strong number correlations in virtually all aspects of its makeup. You might not want to be too quick to assume a number can’t be unlucky there just because it isn’t in reality.
@51: It is a superstition when you openly claim it is so? Lift clearly states it was her lucky diamond mark. It was not just a diamond mark, it was a special one, so yeah I would call it a superstition. If she simply was carrying it for other purposes, I doubt she would refer to it as “lucky”. The extract also comes a few paragraphs after she clearly explained how being an age she cannot count on her fingers is unlucky.
Clearly, Lift carries a few superstitions.
The reason I am bringing this up is not because I believe some numbers truly are unlucky in their world…. Let’s just say I find it fascinating our one Edgedancers seem to be rather superstitious. Another person would have simply discarded those as foolishness, but to Lift they do matter. There’s a link there I cannot help making.
But Gepeto, it is a lucky diamond mark. She’s never been killed while carrying it, not even once!
What other conclusion is the girl supposed to draw? ; )
I was not speaking of the conclusion she may or may not have drawn… She thinks it is lucky. She thinks it brings her luck. It does not matter why, all that matters if the fact she thinks this specific diamond mark indeed is lucky. Another person would not have think much of it, but she did. She cared. It is the same as an individual refusing to walk under a ladder, or being unsettled when he crosses a black cat or having a strong dislike of Friday the 13th… She linked whatever good luck she may have had to this specific diamond mark. It thus became precious to her and it does highlights the fact she carries a few superstition, a fact strongly reinforced by her claim there s such thing as “unlucky numbers”.
This was the only point I tried to make and I had a very good reason to bring it. I am surprised nobody had caught on it yet…
@@@@@ 54 Gepeto
Im sorry I shiould clarify, I understand perfectly what you’re saying my last post at 52 was just meant to be tongue in cheek.
My only point was simply that we shouldn’t automatically disregard the superstitions of either Lift or Edgedancers in general as mere foolishness. You say it’s all nonsense, and most of the various myths and sayings around them certainly are in our world. However, superstitions are often rooted in knowledge that are, at their cores, practical.
@55: wcarter, my point was not to discard them, far from it. I perfectly understand why some people would carry superstitions. As a teenager I used to read my monthly horoscope stupidly hoping it would tell me I would meet my one true love in the upcoming month. I do agree superstitions have deep root, but not everyone will choose to actively engage in them. Lift clearly does. Later on, Nale as a comment (full of contempt) stating how Edgedancers tended to focus on useless or insignificant issues… Having superstition does strike me as befitting this comment and it led me to think it MAY be an order related thing.
The point I was trying to make had NOTHING to do with the foolishness of her beliefs or to disregard them as such. I had something else entirely in mind. I am just waiting for someone to make the link I do see, either rightly or wrongly, but I can’t help but seeing it.
Gepeto @@@@@ 47 – Shallan was 11 when she killed her mother with a shardblade. It was shown at the end of WoR when Pattern insisted that she remembers so that she can grown as a Radiant. From there, I will assume that Shallan had gotten her shardblade at 11.
Re: superstitions – some superstitions really came from reality but became superstition for whatever reasons. Example – “red sky at morning, sailors warning; red sky at night, sailors delight.” For the longest time, people thought it was just a maritime superstition until one day a meteorologist explained that it is true and explained the science behind it. I can name others, but that is not the point here.
Yes, you are right, there are things which does not make sense like the number 13. Still, wcarter is also correct in saying that there are reasons for what we call “superstition”. Lift’s habit of carrying a diamond mark, which calls here lucky “diamond mark” is because probably sometime ago, the stormlight in the diamond mark saved her. We don’t know. We can only assume.
I understand that you want absolute proof. But again, the story of Lift is an Interlude and actually was published before the release of WoR. Brandon cannot write anything in it that will be a spoiler.
Gepeto, I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m just explaining that there are really times when a superstition has a reason for being.
Eumenes @33:
Jasnah has arranged several assassinations, Shallan is a double-murderer, Kaladin has led rebel slaves … etc.If Nalan wanted a justification (more like an excuse) to kill any of these proto-radiants he’ll certainly have it.
We might note, howver, that Nalan does not need to present proof of a crime to anyone. He told the Azish councillors that he was arresting Lift because she is a thief, but I doubt that theft in Azir carried the death penalty, and yet he was about to murder Lift right then and there; he didn’t care if the councillors accepted his ‘justification’ or not. We also note that he came alone to Ym, mentioned some crime that Ym had committed in his youth, and then proceeded to murder Ym right away. The point is, if Nalan wanted to kill a proto-radiant, he didn’t need to ‘prove’ to anybody that the person has actually committed a crime before trying to kill him or her.
I also find it difficult to believe that he just happened to witness Lift and Ym surgebinding, and that is why he focused on only those two. Not only do I find the coincidence a bit too far-fetched, but he could only have seen Ym surgebind as an adult, decades and perhaps a continent or two away from whatever indiscretion Ym committed in his youth that Nalan cited.
I think Nalan, as an ex-Herald, probably retains some of his former god-like powers, which allows him to identify individuals who are bonding spren. Now, my theory may be wrong, but I don’t think we have enough information to conclude that Nalan was on a crusade to kill proto-radiants. So far, that doesn’t quite fit.
@57: Yes, at 11 she had a Shardblade which means she had, at 11, said whatever number of truths the Lightweavers require to gain Blade access. After that, she regressed. She nearly lost her bond in the same way Kaladin nearly killed Syl. Whatever progress she has made then was nullified. Patterns speaks of how more advanced she used to be.
Again, Blade access has been explained by Brandon. It happens at the 3rd oath for MOST orders but not all. I sincerely do not know why you are insisting so much on Shallan. At which time she had her Shardblade is absolutely irrelevant to the current discussion. It does not tell us at which time an Edgedancer get his. It is not a clue as to how many oaths Lift may or may not have swore.
I believe you are completely misunderstanding all I have said about those superstitions. I do not care where they come from. I do not care whatever good reason she may or may not have behind them. It does not matter. All I care about is the fact she, an Edgedancers, has for special quirk to have these superstitions. I have no idea how else I should phrase it…
Again, I do not care about proof. Proof of what? Of where it comes from? It is irrelevant. I don’t care. Where did I state I wanted to have proof? All I have said is the fact I find it interesting she, particularly she, an Edgedancer, would be superstitious. Doesn’t it ring anyone any bell? Doesn’t it remind anyone of something else? I am trying to put fuel into something… Brandon LOVES foreshadowing, he LOVES to leave tiny little clues laying around a few insignificant pages and he never writes anything for nothing… He loves when his readers figure out things before hand… that’s Brandon.
I really thought others would see the link I am trying to make here and no it has nothing to do with the reason behind those superstitions and no I am not judging Lift: I adore Lift.
@@@@@ Gepeto
I think you need to calm down. No one is attacking you or accusing you of hating Lift. But whether or not you’re judging Lift, you are definitely coming off as being livid at both myself and sheiglagh.
You were trying to draw a parallel between her and Adolin and his medallion. I get it. I got it back then.
But you specifically used the phrase: “believed in such non-sense as unlucky ages or lucky diamond mark…” @@@@@ 50
My only point was that her quirks were not necessarily non-sense. That’s not a reason to get upset. You don’t have to rigidly challenge or defend every time someone replies to something you post.
How can you possibly enjoy this reread or any conversation if you view everything we say to you as somehow being hostile?
@49 Isilel, that comment on Lift not wishing to count her years beyond 10 as an indication of her not wanting to grow up rings true to me. After all, even if she can’t count beyond her fingers, she could say that she is 10 plus 3, and not insist that any number beyond 10 is ‘unlucky’. She also calls herself a child ‘so pure that she practically belches rainbows’. Life in the streets is hard enough for her as an aging child. Becoming a teen with hormonal/emotional issues or being viewed as a sex object by lurking males is not something that she relishes.
@58 Alisonwonderland, Nalan must have heard of and seen Lift’s climbing and/or frictionless performance previously. That’s why he was pursuing her. Similarly, he had heard of and then noted Ym’s remarkable ability to heal customers before that urchin made his appearance. I believe that it is the evidence of surgebinding that attracts his notice and enmity rather than the associated spren, since he never mentions them. His rationale for killing Ym is only an excuse – as you have noted. The reason for his action is his fear and hatred of surgebinders. However, he can only act on the basis of observed behavior. He hasn’t seen Jasnah surgebind and hasn’t seen Shallan and Kaladin at all.
To everyone – I’m confused. If Nalan used to be a herald, why is he killing surge binders, ? And why did he make Szeth a Skybreaker? Or, is Szeth a fake Skybreaker and will just draw power from Nightblood?
sheiglagh @62 – Heh. The things we don’t know yet…
He’s nuts?
He knows something we don’t know?
He’s not really Nalan?
He believes something will happen due to the return of Surgebinding (or Edgedancers) that would be bad?
He’s nuts? :)
We don’t even know what kind of blade he’s carrying. Is it an Honorblade or a Shardblade? If it’s an Honorblade, which one? Did he retrieve his own, or did he grab someone else’s to try a different set of powers? If (as I’ve seen suggested) the Blades themselves were the means of binding the Heralds to the Oathpact, he might not have wanted to get his own Honorblade, because it might tie him to the Oathpact again. But would a different Honorblade have the same effect? Or would having a different Honorblade make him even more wacko than he already was? Also, if it is an Honorblade, it would give him whatever Surges belonged to that Blade; if he’s got his own Blade, he’d have the Skybreaker skillset, but if he’s got a different one, he’d have whatever skillset that Blade bestows.
I personally don’t believe he has the power to make Szeth into a real Skybreaker. That takes a spren, and we’ve seen no evidence that a spren made any connection with Szeth. And honestly, what spren would want to bond with someone who was carrying Nightblood? And of course there’s the question of whether Szeth will be given any Surgebinding ability, either by Nightblood or by some extension of Nalan’s skills (whatever they are).
There’s just too much we don’t know, and all of it worries me.
@@@@@ 63 Alice
And worry you for good reason I’d dare say.
I’m relatively sure Brandon did state that Nightblood itself was technically an shardblade, albeit a very strange one, due it his alien origin. I’ll try and scour around for that exact remark tomorrow when I have more time.
Another question I’d have to throw in to yours is: based on what we currently know, wouldn’t Nightblood actually drain Szeth’s life-force and kill him within seconds if he so much as unsheathes it?
He can’t use stormlight without a spren or at least a proper Honorblade (unless Nightblood can somehow bequeath that ability to him on Roshar). But we absolutely know it drains its wielder and anything else it cuts of breaths/life-force.
Unless Szeth can somehow both draw in stormlight and use that stormlight as viable substitute for breaths, Nightblood should be a death sentence for the man if he tries to use it as anything more than a big metal club.
If anyone can thing of some tidbit I’m missing by all means point it out to me, because as far as I’m concerned “Nalan” if that’s who he really is, seems nuttier than a fruit cake to me.
More than that, I need for him to be Crazy McPsychopath. I really don’t want to consider the implications of him and Shallan’s mother being right. That would mean our current crop of budding heroes actually are liabilities that should be exterminated for the good of the world.
Nightblood is an unusual kind of living shardblade. If Szeth can bond with him the way Radiants bond with normal spren he might get abilities that don’t belong to one of the orders.
@60: Sorry. I got unnerve because I had the impression you were badly quoting me considering how much you insisted on the reason behind the superstitions. It was not the point I was trying to make and it got me frustrated. I was simply trying to draw a parallel without getting into that particular discussion. I had been waiting for this chapter to mention it, casually.
I went to re-read myself and while I did not have the intention to come out as livid (or hostile even), I must admit I did. So again, sorry.
sheiglagh, sorry to you as well. You didn’t deserve the tone in my last post, so I apologize for it. I just didn’t get why you insisted so much on a point I had no intention of making. Not hard feelings.
@ALL: About Szeth. There is a WoB on the matter. Brandon did explain how Nightblood would start to feed on stormlight the second Szeth draws it and since Szeth can’t absorb stormlight, yet, he better not do it.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, he used the word yet. Szeth getting a spren does now not appear as a “if” but as a “when”.
A terrible news for me as I did not wish for Szeth to become a Radiant. Not at all, but it was kinda confirmed.
@66 Gepeto
And I’m sorry if I did a bad job at making it clear I just trying to be light hearted with the superstitious topuc. Lift puts me in a whimsical mood and I often forget that voice to be doesn’t transfer in written text a that well.
On a more depressing note, “yet” huh? He definitely said yet? Well, that’s…frustrating.
I find him an interesting character to read about, but ‘m not really a fan of Szeth. Actually to be blunt, if he were a real, I would feel the overwhelming urge to beat his face in if I ever met him personally.
@67: It’s OK. I got uselessly unnerved and you rightly called me out for it. I deserved it. No hard feelings. Had we have each other’s facial to complement the text, surely we would have understand ourselves better.
As for Szeth, here is the WoB in question, freshly dig out of the new flock of WoB.
Q: If Nightblood feeds on Breath, but Szeth doesn’t have it, will it feed on Stormlight?
A: Nightblood can feed off Stormlight, but Szeth can’t draw in Stormlight right now. So he better not draw that sword, for a while at least.
I misquoted Brandon. He did not say “yet”, but “not right now”, which is worst. Despite the fact I absolutely do not want to be “right” in my interpretation of this specific WoB, I cannot see how else I am supposed to read it. So far, most people who’s read it agree with its meaning: Szeth will become a Radiant.
Sigh.
Count me in with those who don’t have any particular attachment to him. To be blunt, Szeth POV are among my least favorite ones. I thought he made a good antagonist, but I have no desire to see him walk a path of redemption. Redemption is not for every character and I did not wish for this specific one to do it. To be frank, I wished he had remain dead: his backstory could have been explored without him being alive. Since he failed at dying, I then thought he’d do well as a dark avenger kind of character… One that pops in every now and then, never taking a side, doing his own thing, sometimes for the good, sometimes for the bad…. like a rogue agent without any affiliation.
I also dislike the implications stating for all flashback characters to be Radiants… I wished the pattern of book 1 and 2 would not have so readily repeated itself, but it looks like the only books falling out of it will be Taln and Shalash.
I’m confused a bit. Why are we insisting that Szeth becoming a radiant must mean that he must be redeemed? Each order has a very different set of, what I would call, personality traits and those traits don’t all lend themselves to the role of ‘hero’. The skybreakers, in particular, I think can easily fulfill the antagonist role. It’s like the WoT red ajah. The role of preventing male channelers from destroying the world is noble, but easily taken to other…extremes. And spren, as manifestations of the cognative realm, can easily bridge those differing justifications, I’d think. Sure, they’re all supposed to be opposing the Devistation, but there’s lots of ways to oppose something and they can, and likely should, be in conflict.
Alice @@@@@ 63 – Thanks Alice! You’re the best!!! :-)
Gepeto @@@@@ 66 – No hard feelings. :-) I know how it is to be so emotional. I can be emotional too. xoxo
@69: I guess that’s because most of us tend to see the Radiants as the “good guys”, so the idea a “crazy mass murderer who destroyed nation simply because a Shaman told him he had to obey to whoever held his stone” may become a Radiant implies some sort of redemption.
However, it is true Radiants do not have to all be “good guys” so to speak. After all, they are hated and feared all across Roshar (and based on a recent WoB, no it won’t instantaneously change). While most of that perception seemed to have sprouted from the Vorinism attempt to discredit them, the initiative must have had a few true roots to take as it did. It is thus possible not all Radiants were “good”, some perhaps were too “dedicated” such as the Skybreakers: severely punishing any crimes and unable to see how “circumstances” may come into play. For instance, they may insist a murder is a murder while in true there is a difference between a legitimate defense and a cold-blooded planned assassination… It could be they never bothered with such technicalities making them feared and hated. I suspect that, of all orders, they get along with others the least.
So it could be Szeth, as a Radiant, will remain, essentially, a bad guy or a very grey one. At times coming to the help of our friends and at times playing against them… not having any true allegiance. I could forget my dislike of him becoming a Radiant is his story arc follows such a plot, but the last thing I want is to see if Szeth being pardoned for his crimes or him becoming the ultimate good. It would ring false. If he is not to die, then I want him to remain a feared opponent to our heroes. A bit like Magneto in the X-Men who essentially is the antagonist to Professor X, but the two have been seen to work together, at times, when their interests align.
@@@@@ 71 Gepeto that is something we can agree on 100% Szeth has possibility as a character that can drive the plot and conflicts in interesting ways, but never as a true white hat
To Many – Are Radiants good guys or bad guys?
As Syl put it (I forgot the exact quote), “They are all broken.” That’s what she told Kaladin.
So, let us see with our current Radiants.
Lift – a thief
Kaladin – killed so many while trying to escape
Dalinar – the Blackthorne. His nickname says it all
Shallan – double murder of her own parents
Jasnah – murdered three thieves in Kabrant plus had people assassinated.
Renarin – he is a wimp and “creepy” according to Shallan. (Okay, that sounds bad, but since his autism spectrum is not part of the storyline yet, I’ll not put it here because until it is in the storyline, it is just hearsay to me.)
In short, Syl is correct. So, quite frankly, Szeth who is a mass murderer will be in good company if he becomes a radiant. And he was doing the killing because of his oath. He is a tool (as in a weapon). Szeth was used by his masters.
Anyway, Szeth’s situation is a philosophical discussion. And truly, until his book comes out, all of us here will not agree about Szeth.
Now, my favorite part – Adolin. He has killed in battle and those can be said to be honorable because it is war. But when Adolin killed Sadeas, he crossed the line and became a murderer. Ironically, because Adolin committed a crime, his odds of becoming a Radiant actually went up. How’s that for irony?
So, are Radiants good guys? We like to think so. But, their backgrounds show that they are not shining examples of humans either.
So KR have ideals; does that mean they are supposed to be an ideal: the ideal protector, the ideal artist, the ideal prophet or the ideal lawkeeper? That last is the kicker because Szeth is all about the rules uber alles. He becomes a mass murderer on an epic scale not out of supernatural obligation or personal madness but because the rules said he had to do what he was told. Then he went and did it. But he did it under the Stone Shaman’s clearly flawed rule set.
Now in a human context, the rules-obsessed make pretty awful lawkeeper, especially if they can’t be adjusted based on circumstance. But what about in a spren context? They might very well appreciate someone who follows the rules without regard for morality or personal preference.
If the KR adds an ideal mimicking Nalan’s respect for human law, you at least keep the monster on a leash. Even moreso if they develop the self-awareness to avoid situation where strict legalism would be disastrous. It’d be better than just letting those spren drop surges on unsuspecting rules-lawyers without restraint.So I guess I’m repeating what’s been said a bit, but nothing we know of KR prevents them from being monsters. And it would be delicious for Szeth to turn into a KR while in Nalan’s employ.
Regarding Nightblood, Szeth will probably just use it as Vasher tended to: throw it at people and let them kill each other. It’d get him time to sort out the good vs evil thing. One certainly hopes he won’t draw it since it’s a weapon of mass destruction.
@72: Ah well, we finally agree on something!
@73: I think was matters in intend. Each time our Radiants have killed they had a valid motive to justify themselves. Lift, Jasnah, Shallan, Lift, they all had good reasons to break the law… We can argue Dalinar didn’t, but I also believe we have to make the distinction between Dalinar before, but after. He sort of redeemed himself, so his past crimes do not seem to matter anymore.
As for Adolin, the majority of the casual readers would disagree with you as the most popular opinion is the murder precludes him from ever becoming a Radiant. Now, we both know this isn’t true, but it is common misconception. What matters with Adolin is not the fact he killed Sadeas, it is why he did it.
As for Szeth, I have serious issues with his intend. I agree he only tried to obey the law he was given, but under the cover of his stone, he broke every kingdom’s law… He discharged himself from any judgement as he blindly followed those orders claiming he has to because the Shamans said so… I have a very hard time reconciliation myself with this mentality as I think it was horribly wrong.
I’m new here (though not to the books). Is there a place to look up WoB? Or are these just retelling from individuals that have spoken to him that they are relating in their individual posts?
On the superstion thread: Many of us say things that make it look like we believe in a superstion. How often to do you hear people say “knock on wood”? How many of those do you think really believe that knocking on wood will save them from being jinksed by what they just said?
I really hope Adolin gets to become one of the KR. How must he feel as the odd man out? He must be thinking that Shallon certainly has no more need of marrying him and his father now has his brother taking Adolin’s place by his side. I’m glad he killed Sadeous. The man deserved to die.
Gepeto @@@@@ 75 – Re Adolin – oh, it’s a crime of passion alright. He killed him because he was so angry with Sadeas. And Sadeas was egging on him too, saying all those things which were wrong. Here in the U.S., it will be called manslaughter if it is ever tried in court. Not Murder 1, or premeditated murder.
As for Shallan – she killed her mother out of self defense. Her father – it was sort of premeditated. Not like a mobster hit. But, still premeditated because she was able to think about it. Though a good lawyer can get her off to manslaughter or even self defense because Shallan was an abused child,
So, in the eyes of the law, (at least in our world), both Adolin and Shallan are murderers. So, what is the difference? Is it because Shallan is an abused child so it is okay for her to commit patricide? Is it because Adolin is a prince and supposed to be the shining beacon of morality that his murder of Sadeas is worst than Shallan killing her father? Or is it because Sadeas is a high prince.
Again, this is a philosophical discussion Gepeto. And there are no right or wrong answers. I see why others see Adolin’s actions as being very bad. And it is. But, why is it unforgivable? Why do see Shallan’s murder of her father justified but we don’t see Adolin’s murder of Sadeas unjustified.
Side note – Arghh!!! I do hate philosophical discussions. Philosophy 101 was not my favorite subject. Anyway, I’m just throwing it out there because it is hard not to think of the ending of WoR.
Sheiglagh @77. I disagree. A good prosecutor could easily make the case for 2nd degree murder. I personally think Adolin’s killing of Sadeas is 2nd degree murder.
Generally speaking, 2nd degree murder is ordinarily defined as: 1) an intentional killing that is not premeditated or planned, nor committed in a reasonable “heat of passion”; or 2) a killing caused by dangerous conduct and the offender’s obvious lack of concern for human life. (In this case, the second option is not applicable).
Voluntary Manslaughter is generally defined as as an intentional killing in which the offender had no prior intent to kill, such as a killing that occurs in the “heat of passion.” The circumstances leading to the killing must be the kind that would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed.
I would argue that Adolin certainly had the intent to kill Sadeas. Once he saw the opportunity (a fight), he went for the kill.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Just popping in to catch up… but now I have to comment on the “obviously the new WoB means that Szeth will become a Knight Radiant.”
I know there is an assumption that Surgebinding didn’t exist (except for the Heralds) until the spren did their thing to create the Knights Radiant. I’m not yet convinced that is the case, and if it isn’t (or maybe even if it is)… there are Possibilities.
What if there are other spren – like Odium spren, for example – who are outside the structure of the KR but who can grant someone like Szeth the ability to Invest? Could he bond with a stormspren, and be able to suck in Stormlight to feed Nightblood?
I’ll just leave that there…
::ducks back into gamma-cave::
ETA: We do know that there were spren on Roshar before Honor and Cultivation arrived, after all. Just sayin’.
::ducks back into gamma-cave again::
Andrew HB @@@@@ 78 – Thanks. :-) I’m really not a good lawyer. And I thought I knew law because I watch Suits on USA Network. LOL But, really, thanks for defining that for me. :-)
@75 Gepeto I have the same problems with Szeth. He seems like nothing but a moral coward (as opposed to a physical one) and a hypocirte to me.
He can stick to his guns if it means slaughtering untold numbers of innocent people. But it was too hard to do so if it meant standing up to the Stone Shamans in the first place?
In any case, regardless of the exact details, he chose to kill all those people. Him. That stone was nothing but an excuse to not have the guts to face the consequences of truth that he already knew until Kaladin finally gave him no other choice .
@79 I must admit I did not know there were spren prior to the arrival of Cultivation and Honor. Thanks Alice. I kind of like the possibilities that could potentially open up too. Szeth as a what…Gloom Knight? Hmm, that lacks a certain pizzazz, but I don’t think that would really qualify him as a Voidbringer.
@76: Most WoB get published on the 17th Shard in a timely manner. Many end up on Theoryland. It is a good place to start, but bear in mind many WoB don’t end up there. I have seen some on Tumblr that don’t get published. Others come from discussions with fans not readily willing to share their WoB into the official thread. Finally there are those who get publish in the Tor-com web site, mostly in the re-read section, which don’t get publish elsewhere. It is quite a task to keep track of them all and each time I am hard pressed to find out the exact wording of those pesky WoB. Keeping track of them is not an easy task. It took me a while to get to know the most popular ones.
I share the sentient on Adolin… His horse just died, he took a bad beating and when the sun rose again, the world had shifted. Sadly, he was left behind while everyone he knows moved forward. Poor guy. Having the nicest character of all commit the most discussed crime of all is just plain cruel. I hope he’ll pull through.
@77: I agree with all you are saying. I do not consider myself qualified enough to know how Adolin’s crime would be charged of either in American law system or in my own country. However I do know his crime is not the worst of crimes as it was not premeditated and he was provoked. How it would translate in modern day justice is unknown to me.
I too have always been ill-at-ease to see many readers simply disregard Shallan’s cold blooded murder of her father or Jasnah’s “teaching lesson” only to harshly judge Adolin’s crime of passion… What he did does not strike me any worst than Shallan. It seems even a lesser evil as he did not strange Sadeas after giving him deadly poison while signing him a lullaby…That was just creepy with a capital C.
Was it because Shallan was an “abused” child her crime was more warranted? Sadeas sure was a greater criminal than her father ever was. There sure was more life at stakes with Sadeas than with her father, so why is it better? And more importantly, why did she need to strangle him with the chain he gave her? He was dying anyway, why add to it? I do not know law well enough to figure out if a jury would make a difference, but I make do one.
I personally see Adolin’s murder as justifiable, at least as much as Shallan’s murdering her father. I see it was more justifiable than Jasnah’s killings, though this one was confirmed by Brandon. I never understood why so many people took his actions as this terrible… Sadeas was a terrorist responsible for countless of deaths and he has just promised he would never ever stop no matter what they throw at him… It was clear no redemption was possible, it was clear any other course of actions would have yielded in innocent life lost. What was he supposed to do? To all of people thinking Adolin is a rotten apple, what should he have done? As far as I see it, he did not have any good legitimate solutions. I for one am glad he followed his heart here.
@78: Adolin wanted Sadeas dead, but he never plotted to see it done. He was willing to contempt himself with seeing him being publicly humiliated which is why the lost 4 on 1 duel is so terrible. It is only Sadeas’s little speech, a speech he tried to avoid as he tried to walk away, but was prevented from it, that prompted him into action.
@79: Yeah well, the new WoB does heavily imply Szeth will manage to draw on stormlight at some point in the future. Of course, the only mean to do so we currently know of is Radianthood… That, of course, does not preclude any other means yet unknown to us to provide him with the same ability.
@81: I agree he chose to murder those people even while knowing it was wrong. He hid himself behind his stone claiming he had no other choice… What sort of human being completely absolves himself of any responsibilities in committing horrible crimes simply because he was told to do so? How does he even came to the conclusion the Shamans’s law was above every other law in every other land? Isn’t there an absolute law stating killing is wrong?
I certainly cannot picture him as a good guy, ever. Some people are just too far gone. The best he could do, I believe, is positive antagonist alternating between chaotic good and chaotic evil.
Well there’s also a significant age difference at play when it comes to Shallan’s murder of her father: in Rosharan years she would still be a minor under the American judicial system (although I believe in earth years she would be old enough to be tried as an adult, or cutting it close either way) – and this is before the psychological issues that have come into play.
Although (and I apologize if this is incorrect it has been a while since I looked at laws regarding degrees of manslaughter and murder) the fact she used poison is pretty problematic as that generally automatically precludes considering it anything but murder (as it has to be premeditated). And then asphyxiation via strangling doesn’t help the case any.
I wonder about Nightblood a lot: because of how he was awakened/brought to sentience, I wonder if Nightblood is close enough to being a misbegotten spren that he can act like one beyond simply being a Shardblade stand-in – Nightblood is like a “destroy evil” spren, except he doesn’t come from Roshar. But maybe while on there he’s close enough there’s some overlap?
It feels like how Nightblood interacts with the magics on Roshar will have some serious implications for the Cosmere magics, and I’m really interested to see what ends up happening, even if in the end it’s simply a case of he uses investiture from Stormlight instead of Breaths and acts mostly the same. Seeing how the different systems don’t interact can be as edifying as how they do.
@82 – I don’t really get your argument. Yes, Shallan’s murder was “better.” Shallan and Adolin’s circumstances were completely different.
Shallan poisoned her father in order to stop him from hurting others, at that immediate moment – and after he had almost killed / crippled his son. She didn’t expect the poison to leave him alive. She strangled him to put him out of his misery. If I recall correctly, she had looked to her brothers to do it [after realizing that the poison only paralyzed him], but they couldn’t do (for various reasons). So she did. Considering her family situation, she didn’t really have a choice. Someone had to stop her father, it was untenable. Shallan had pretty much everything to lose by killing her father, especially because she was the root cause. Considering how broken she was after her mother’s death and its effect on her family, i can only imagine the strength of character it took to stop her father.
Adolin, on the other hand, had no “reason” to kill Sadeas. Sure, Sadeas was a jerk – to put it lightly – but if Adolin hadn’t tried to killed Sadeas after the betrayal in WotK, then why would he need to kill Sadeas now? Adolin just snapped; you can’t justify that with “Sadeas was worse than Lin Davar.” Adolin didn’t kill him because he wanted to stop Sadeas before he did more evil things, he killed him because he was goaded. He could have walked away; Dalinar had been proven right. There was nothing to gain by killing Sadeas there. The threat of more evil trumps all of Sadeas’ actions in WotK? Or even his wife’s attempt later on? If you can argue that Adolin’s actions were justified, would you argue the same if Kaladin had killed Amaram? When Kaladin challenged him to a duel, that was out of “passion.” Amaram is going to do evil things, it would be better to stop him as early as possible.
Legally, murder is murder here. I would argue, however, that Shallan didn’t have a real choice. And she saved the rest of her family. Adolin’s actions may have saved thousands, but you can’t argue on that basis because that is not actually why he did it. Intent matters here, despite the world being better off without Sadeas.
Shallan’s father had just killed his wife.
He had basically just threatened to kill the fiancee.
He was activity beating his son. One could argue he would have continued until he killed his son.
I think any lawyer worth the title could get Shallan off on self-defense.
I, too, am very unhappy about Szeth’s continued survival and would hate it if he became a Radiant. And I generally love ambiguous anti-heroes/somewhat redeemed villains, etc. as literary characters. But I don’t think that Szeth’s motives in continuing to follow the Stone Shaman sentence on him and murdering all these people were in the least admirable or even sympathetic. Unlike what Nalan claimed, we had it from Szeth’s PoV that he didn’t actually do it all because he revered the law so much that he was unable to break it. No, he just couldn’t handle the threat of lacking an afterlife if he disobeyed. Which is about the most cowardly and selfish motivation for mass murder as one can have, IMHO. And Szeth’s non-death reminds me of the comics super-villain tropes, where no matter what they can’t be really killed. Sigh…
I am with FenrirMoridin @83, though. If Szeth becomes a surgebinder it will be because Nightblood begins to function as an artificial spren and bonds him. Which in Nalan’s view seems to be preferable to the normal Radiant bonds for some reason.
And sorry, Gepeto, but I am with Braid Tug @85 that Shallan’s killing of her father was no murder, as he was in the process of beating Balat to death after murdering his second wife and demonstrated an immediate intent to do the same to his son’s betrothed as well. She was defending lives from the clear and present danger. Now, I am very sympathetic towards Adolin’s killing of Sadeas and don’t think that it in any way signifies his unworthiness, but to claim that Shallan got a pass from the readers because she was “abused” is to seriously misconstrue the situation, IMHO.
Re: Rysn, I would actually like her to become a Radiant. Why not? We don’t have nearly enough female bit characters who could be possible candidates so far. She did get a pet larkin, yes, but aren’t larkin depictions part of the Radiant iconography? For that matter, we don’t know that Nalan’s use of it was the traditional one – the creature did seem starved and abused. Maybe in it’s normal state it can share Stormlight with surge-binders as well as withdraw it. Maybe they bond with certain people the same way the Rishadium do?
Hm… this leads me to an unwelcome speculation re: how Szeth could use Nightblood without dying at first – if they force the poor captive larkin to channel Stormlight into him. Please, no!
Radianthood is NOT the only way to draw in stormlight. There is also squirehood.
Szeth will gain investiture as Nalan’s squire. Then he will be able to wield nightblood to its full effect.
Criminal lawyer here, so here’s my stab (hee hee) at the crimes:
(In my state, degrees of murder are listed differently – 1st degree = an intentional premeditated murder, 2nd degree = a killing while perpetrating a felony, 3rd degree = an intentional killing with malice, but without premeditation (wanted to hurt real bad, or intended conduct that recklessly put lives at risk), voluntary manslaughter = an intentional killing without malice (heat of passion killing, normally), and involuntary manslaughter = unintentional killing without malice.)
Adolin killing Saldeas: Charged as 1st degree, since intent can be formed in an instant. The fact is Adolin stabbed Saldeas through the eye. Under my state law, that makes for intent because it’s a deadly weapon used on a vital part of a human body. He could plea to 3rd degree, arguing that he just wanted to hurt him, but that’d be a stretch. Heat of passion doesn’t cover it, since it’s not a situation where a reasonable person would be expected to lose all control (pretty much limited to walking in on your wife having an affair).
Shallan killing her mother: Charged as 3rd degree, but likely get off on self-defense since, you know, mom was trying to kill her and all that.
Shallan killing her father: Charged as 1st degree. Poison killing is always a first degree murder. You don’t unintentionally plan to poison someone. Add into it that she had to strangle him after the poisoning failed and you’ve got more than enough premeditation. Whether you feel it’s justified or not, well, that’s a different question since the killing wasn’t in direct response to a threat to Shallan’s or someone else’s life. Lin’s second wife was already dead and Balat was still alive after the beating. (I don’t remember where her brother’s beating takes place in chronological order here, and I don’t have access to my book, but even if he was beating Balat I think the poison happened before and the intervening beating doesn’t change that. Correct me if I’m wrong on the chronology.)
Szeth: All charged as 1st degree. That he’s doing it because someone else told him to do it is irrelevant. He intentionally killed a LOT of people. Duress doesn’t cut it since his life was never directly, and reasonably, threatened. (And in some states, duress isn’t a defense to 1st degree anyway.)
Kaladin killing people due to side carry: involuntary manslaughter.
YMMV, but Adolin, Shallan, and Szeth all committed premeditated, intentional killings.
@87
We know that Windancer’s have squires. Do we know that Skybreakers have squires too? (Honestly, I have no clue.)
@84: I feel as if you run on the assumption Sadeas could not have harmed Dalinar anymore. Or perhaps the assumption having found Urithiru and being proven a Radiant will eliminate all opposition to Dalinar.
IMHO, I believe Dalinar’s struggle for power is not even close to being over. I believe most people won’t take it happily to the return of the Radiants, especially since they conviniently end up all within Dalinar’s close guards.
I think Sadeas wouldn’t have needed to raise his little finger very high to discredit Dalinar once more.
I also disagree with the notion saying Adolin murdering Sadeas is equivalent to Kaladin murdering Amaram. Kaladin wanted Amaram dead for personal vengeance and while Amaram did somethimg horrible, there is no proof he would still pursue this line of duty. You can’t trial someone for futur murders. You say Amaram IS going to do evil things, but you don’t know that. Kaladin doesn’t know either. Nobody does. Killing the squad may very be a one time event, a mistake, but it does not garranty the man will keep on being a bastard.
However, Sadeas’s case is different because the man essentially promised he would keep on undermining his father and he would not stop until one of them was dead. He would declare war if need be. There will be casualaties. There was no ambuiguity. These were not false threats. Worst, this was not the first time he spoke in such terms, the previous time, an assassination attempt was made on Dalinar shortly after. Even without actions, launching open threats to civic peace is a crime according to modern law…
Therefore, the second Sadeas made that clear Adolin had two choices: take the man out or walk away. Of course, the near totality of the readers would argue the only right course of action would have been to walk away as murder is never justifiable unless the opponent is actively trying to strangle you personally. The sad part is by walking away Adolin is essentially leaving a threat to the nation unchecked, free to keep with his terrorist attacks. Any future deaths caused by Sadeas are on his hands because he would have failed to act.
This is where Sadeas’s murder is so much different than anything opposing Kaladin and Amaram. In the case of Sadeas, there is nothing they could do to deal with him besides killing him. They tried. They failed. Killing Sadeas right after the Tower would have been wrong because they were not at wit’s end to find a legal way to take him out. They are now. Brandon did confirm Sadeas needed to go and nobody else but Adolin had the means to take him out. It was required work and it is a tragedy Adolin had to be the one to do it because it will cost him everything, but it was moraly right. Amaram could still have been trialed legally, not Sadeas which is why Kaladin potentially murdering Amaram does not compare.
Yes, intend matters and Adolin killed Sadeas to protect his family, which is not so much different than Shallan. We could also argue it would have been better if Shallan had poisoned her father before he killed his wife and attacked her brother… Had she acted before… The same reasoning can be applied to Adolin, had he not acted, who knows what would have happened? Besides, he never did it out of personal vengeance. He only snaps after being told over and over again how there is nothing he can do to prevent Sadeas from hurting his father.
Of course, the greater majority of the readers will argue to no end Adolin killed Sadeas simply because he was an enraged fool falling prey to Odium (which was discredited by a WoB, but I still hear the argument being thrust here and there).
What he did is grey, at best, but defendable. The same as Shallan, grey, but defendable. However, no matter how justifiable he may be, no matter how moraly right he may be, no matter how many life he did save, Adolin will pay a hefty price for his actions. My two cents are the price he’ll pay will be disproportionate considering all the ramifications.
@86: I’d argue the second someone is killed, it is murder.
There are, of couse, different kind of murders. Shallan’s murders are more defendable than Jasnah’s, for instance, and probably of Adolin as well simply because the threat was more palpable, measurable, direct. In the case of Adolin, a lawyer would need to prove the prejudice of letting Sadeas live would have been greater than taking his life away, which is hard in the absence of a witness. There is also the fact I tend to believe a young girl such as Shallan would naturally garner more sympathy from a jury than a young man such as Adolin. I am not an expert on laws, but I’ll advance myself in saying Adolin would likely do prison for his crime, but not Shallan. A bad lawyer would get him a life sentence, a good one, a lighter one while an average lawyer would get Shallan out with little consequences, I think. Correct me lawyers if I am thinking wrong here.
I agree it’d be interesting to have more female characters. Brandon did say Rysn would keep on playing a role in the story, to which extend though I do not know, but I consider this to be good news.
Forgot Jasnah’s murders:
Jasnah would probably be charged with 1st and 3rd degree, though she’d have a pretty good case for self-defense on at least one of them. IIRC, the thugs were charging her when she killed the first one. Also, IIRC, at least one of the thugs tried to start running away when she killed him, so that’d be a 1st degree murder since she was no longer under a reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury.
@@@@@ Gepeto, I think I understand why you use these terms, but I highly recommend you avoid using statements like:
For every one comment, there could be 3-9+ people that don’t comment. Statements like that draw out people to comment that they do not agree with those statements, but typically in a more aggressive fashion then they normally would comment. Edit: So you unintentionally cause people to flair up.
One thing I have learned from being part of 3 different re-reads (and various social club), is that you cannot assume the greater part of any group agrees with anything. Except maybe they love the books being discussed, otherwise why are they there?
Sometimes when a person holds the dissenting opinion, they might not speak out. I’m not sure if you are on Facebook, but often there are posts I see that while I want to comment, it is just not worth the time/ headache/ harassment backlash.
Re: Szeth’s future book
I’m interested in learning more about his culture. Not looking forward to being inside his head. Much like the Eshonai POVs after her transformation. While it is good to know what is going on, it hurts me to be in her head.
But I do hope that the preview Brandon provides for SA3 is fun, like this one was while we waited for SA2.
Alice, “back to gamma?” Sigh. You already can answer the questions I have about Mistborn. Oh well, January is not far.
@79 Wetlander: I too agree that surgebinder does not necessarily equal Radiant, although after Ishi/Ishar made the Oaths and bond this is a lot more difficult for Spren of Honor and Cultivation I guess.
On the other hand we do know through the epigraphs that Radiants can be corrupted (ch. 51 Epigraph), and it’s still not clear if humans can bond Voidspren (I am leaning that they can) which leaves the window open for Szeth bonding a different type of spren.
As for Spren, we know that a) there is one group of Radiants/spren that ‘betrayed’ the other 9 orders during the Recreance, b) we know that most of the intelligent Spren population and their knowledge was lost during this event, c) Jasnah traveled through Shadesmar to find the Skyspren, possibly because she was told/she is led to believe they possess knowledge other spren do not (maybe because they were the lone group that the Recreance did not affect??), d) Jasnah almost does not make it out of Shadesmar alive.
It’s not a terrible leap of faith to believe that the Skyspren and their patron Herald have been influenced by “the unwholesome elements of the enemy”, and they have gone from upholding the law, to hating those that commit crimes, and thus Nalan may allow a Skyspren to bond Szeth later on.
@90 (Thanks Wetlandernw). I’m sorry, but i just can’t agree.
I’m not running on any assumption about Sadeas’ activity here. We know he would do whatever it takes to win. My issue here is that you can’t justify Sadeas’ murder at the specific timepoint, since Adolin and Dalinar had already dealt more aggressive actions from Sadeas previously and had done nothing. The duel, the manipulation of Navani’s writing, the bridge collapse, the betrayal. At any of those points, I wouldn’t have an issue with Adolin killing Sadeas (laws or not). Sadeas’ threats as the breaking point that makes it all okay, doesn’t make sense. It’s not like Sadeas was playing nice before. Dalinar was always going to have to win people over, if not least because not everyone looked to the Radiants as saviors. We have how many groups dabbling in this all? Sadeas’ death doesn’t change that. Maybe Adolin doesn’t know, but we as the readers know.
As for Amaram…considering how he got his shardblade and his attempt at a second, let’s not pretend that he isn’t up to something. But you’re right, we don’t know for sure. We can infer that it is something big though and would likely affect more people than just the Alethi since it involves the Heralds.
“In the case of Sadeas, there is nothing they could do to deal with him besides killing him. They tried. They failed” “It was required work and it is a tragedy Adolin had to be the one to do it because it will cost him everything, but it was morally right.” “Any future deaths caused by Sadeas are on his hands because he would have failed to act.”
I hate nitpicking quotes and I don’t want to come across as aggressive, but I think that you love Adolin too much here. Adolin’s back wasn’t against the wall here. He came across Sadeas unexpectedly. He wasn’t out of options or scrambling to hold things together like Shallan was. He simply lost control. I don’t blame Adolin at all. I actually think it’s a welcome change. I just don’t think that we – as the readers – can say it was a noble act for the greater good. If we could then Moash killing Elkohar would be justifiable, since that would actually reunite the kingdom.
@93 Do we have any more details on the betrayal? I always figured that Taln’s spren were the betrayers since he was the only Herald that remained. Maybe the other spren thought they had something to do with it? I can’t actually remember any direct contact between Spren and “their” Heralds.
Keyblazing @94 – I think your first paragraph is meant to be addressed to @90, rather than @92. Just sayin’… ;)
It seems to me that Nalan would not have resurrected Szeth and given him Nightblood if the use of that animated sword would quickly result in Szeth’s own death. Whether the mechanism is the Stormlight that Szeth would gain through the suggested bonding of Voidspren or the ‘regurgitation’ of such light from Nalan’s captive Larkin, Szeth would survive. Nor do I believe that Nalan’s intent was for Szeth to convene a meeting of all the Shin shamans and simply toss Nightblood in their midst. I imagine that the highly trained shaman’s (presumably, Szeth’s trainers) would quickly assess the situation and flee this mystical sword rather than attempt to counter it, or they could ‘convince’ Nightblood that they were not evil. I agree, however, that it would be difficult ordinarily for humans to bond Odium spren. However, Nalan appears to be possessed by Odium – given his hatred for Radiants, and would presumably have access to Voidspren. Besides, Szeth presumably remembers where he hid Gavilar’s stone that entrapped an evil spren. He need only find it and release the spren. Perhaps that is why Nalan resurrected Szeth rather than dealing with the Shin leaders himself.
Let’s see,
@50 – Re: Renarin being a Truthwatcher – I think you may be referring to some of my posts urging caution in accepting Renarin as a Truthwatcher. I’ve seen the WoB you reference in your post regarding influences on Renarin’s visions. I am still suggesting a “wait and see” approach regarding whatever supernatural things are going on with Renarin. This becomes more relevant near the end of the book so I’ll likely chime in more frequently at that time.
@73 – Your list does identify certain negative attributes associated with each individual (I would also include Ym in your list). I think you could also list positive attributes of each of those individuals (yes, even Szeth). I think the answer to your question is that each listed person could be seen as a good or bad person, depending on who is labeling them and when they are being labeled.
@79 – Good points about assumptions; when it comes to the magic in Roshar we know very little but treat our speculation based off of little evidence as concrete fact.
And thanks again for that reminder about how you have the poor fortune to be gamma reading Bands of Mourning. The suffering you must endure… :-P
@82 – Re “an absolute law stating killing is wrong” – Clearly Roshar does not have such a law, otherwise every POV character in the Stormlight Archive (with the exception of Navani and some of the Interlude characters, maybe) would be guilty. Szeth appears to ultimately be following the law of his homeland over any others. I challenge the statement that he completely absolves himself; he considers himself fairly well damned. But ultimately he’s just a killer, like many other characters in WoR. Actually, Szeth isn’t even the only assassin on Roshar (as shown multiple times in WoR). He just seems to be one of the most effective.
@86 – re: Rysn and the Larkin – I like the theory that Larkin and Radiants may have a positive type relationship. I think a Larkin sharing investiture with its bonded Radiant would be a cool development.
@88 – re: what charge each character would be assessed with for their killings. I appreciate the analysis. I agree that Adolin, Shallan and Szeth committed premeditated killings. I would add Jasnah; even though the assailants in the alley initiated the interaction, she clearly kills someone who is running away from her. Oh, I see you did @91.
@90 – I challenge that killing Sadeas was “morally right.” Sadeas had to go, sure, but it was not morally correct to stab him in the eye in cold blood after engaging him in a wrestling match. Also, I challenge any statement proclaiming what “the greater majority” of the readers would feel or believe, absent any poll that provides me with hard numbers backing such a stance. I see @92 has made a similar point.
@88: Thanks for your input, this is most interesting. Can I ask you more questions? It is very informative to get the inputs of someone with real criminal law experience.
1) If you were their lawyer, what sentence would you plead for Shallan and Adolin? What kind of defense would you try for?
2) Does the fact Sadeas has been threatening Adolin’s family and has been conducting assassination attempt help get him a lesser sentence? Can the words Sadeas told him, in the Highstorm shelter (there was a witness), when he blatantly said he planned to have Dalinar killed in the next months, enough to lower the sentence from 1st degree to 3rd degree?
3) I don’t understand what 2nd degree is… Why are we skipping it?
4) Am I right in thinking Shallan being a young girl would help lessen the sentence as my perspective is the legal system is less favorable towards young men?
5) Had she not strangle her father after poisoning him, would it help craft a better defense for Shallan?
I know this is not relevant as Alethi laws are different, but I have read so many posts where people tried to debate how each crime would be prosecuted. I don’t recall ever reading the analysis from a real lawyer, just people who knows a lawyer or others who try at dabbling at laws without having a full understanding of how it works. Anyway, I’d like to know more.
@92: Oh. I had not notice my wording made for an aggressive post. Thanks for pointing that out. I tried to put emphasis on it to highlight how common is the idea Adolin is going to the dark side. I hardly pass a week without reading someone writing it, somewhere, on the web. I will try to be more careful and I will use a different wording next time.
Yeah, I do have a Facebook account and yes, I do limit my comments such as not to create dissension. In fact, I only comment when I feel my advice will be well received or if I agree with the person. I hardly ever state my disagreement: it never works out when I do. So I do get what you mean.
I know the SA3 excerpt features young Dalinar and tells the tale of how he earned his Blackthorn nickname. It is supposed to finish on a comical note.
@94: That’s the problem: they have done nothing. The duel, the betrayal, the assassination attempts, the threats, all of these piled up on Adolin’s shoulders to the point where he could not deal with it anymore. I think we can agree it was not a reflected action.
Sadeas was the leader of the largest faction opposing Dalinar: without him, they will lose much of their fire power. He also seems to be the investigator of most of the anti-Dalinar feeling laying around, so I am ready to dismiss him as a threat. I do think he still was one and his death do serve a purpose.
Kaladin contemplated murdering Amaram way before the second Shardblade incident happened.
I never said his actions were noble… They weren’t, but they still are justifiable. I personally see his actions as grey, much the same as Shallan. They were both provoked, they both tried to protect people they loved. Shallan had more provocations (though this is disputable), but the strangulation makes it worst. So all in all, I see them as even. Wrong, but defensible. I see Jasnah’s actions as worst as she set of to provoke thugs with the clear un-noble intend to kill them in order to teach a lesson. Had Kaladin murdered Amaram at the menagerie (for instance), it would have been darker because it would have been personal vengeance (Adolin’s snapping was not vengeance). Had Moash murdered Elhokar, it would have been darker as well because you can’t prove Elhokar would have repeated the Roshone incident, much like you can’t prove Amaram still is a danger to society. What makes, in my eyes, the Sadeas murder different is the fact he confessed his intends and uttered threats to a nation. I am quite sure if you threaten to kill the President, you go straight to prison… Amaram has to respond for his past crimes, but can’t be killed for crimes yet to come as he has not spoke of such intends. That’s basically the angle I am going with here.
Ah well, it is true I am overly sympathetic towards Adolin here. I feel horribly sorry for him: he has everything to loose. Shallan’s murdering her father was a liberation… I can’t say the same for Adolin.
mehndeke @@@@@ 88: THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! for explaining all that. I could not have ask for more. Sorry for the caps. But I just wanted to make sure that you saw this post. :-)
Anyway, I’m glad that you explained all that. I believe it is more or less the same in all 50 states with just a slight variation or local flavor like stand your ground and open carry.
I’m not a lawyer. :-) I just watch too much TV. LOL :-) And the news. Somehow, you can’t help but notice these things when the news is covering a trial and all the news channels have their experts on their panel.
Thank you again. :-)
Hundo!
For some reason, I’m not that big on stormin’ Lift. I usually like these kinds of characters too. Huh.
Szeth becoming a radiant would give me the heebie jeebies.
I do hope Adolin becomes a radiant, though, and keeps up the bromance with Kaladin. Bromance ftw!
@93 and 94
I don’t know that Spren have anything to do with the Heralds. We know the Stormfather can influence/order honorspren but other than we don’t know who the spren listen to if they do follow anyone’s orders as a whole. I don’t think that the Heralds get a say on who the spren bond or don’t bond. From what Syl said, it sounded to me like Honor (not the Stormfather) gave access to the surgebinding and some really awesome swords to a couple of humans with out any checks on how they could use their power. Then spren copied him but it was required that they be bonded to oaths. There is nothing stating that the Heralds can effect who bonds those spren. There is nothing saying that Heralds can’t affect this choice either but it just seems unlikely to me.
Also I don’t think it’s the order of the Stonewards who betrayed the others. Back in WoK when Dalinar has the vision of the Recreance; it’s the Stonewards (Taln’s order) and the Winderunners who are breaking their oaths. I think you can’t go back once you break your oath in the way that they did so I don’t think that the Stonewards where using order that used the betrayal of the other orders as cover. I think the Skyspren are the spren for the Skybreakers and thus from this, I think the it was the Skybreakers who used the others breaking their oaths as cover. How else would there still a large number of those Skyspren who can still remember enough to be useful to Jasnah? It makes sense to me.
Re: Nalan
Personally, I think Nalan is cracked. He does seem to brandishing his own Justice. It sounds like he actually thinks he stop what’s coming if he kills the right people but he can’t kill those people unless they break a law. It doesn’t seem to matter what law.
Ym was used to give someone poisoned wine. He had no knowledge that the wine was poisoned and no intention of poisoning anyone. Lawyers of the Stormlight re-read tell me if I’m wrong but I think an argument for involuntary manslaughter can be made here. This shouldn’t warrant death, but for Nalan it’s good enough to allow him to kill Ym. Lift steals food, once again not a crime that normally gets a death sentence. (Maybe a hand chopped off in some old law codes but not death).
Going back to the original post; IMO I think Nalan was talking about Jezrien, as Gawx was up and ordering people about at this time. Nalan is crazy but he cares about what’s happening in the world (in his own murder-y stabby way), Jezrien is drinking himself stupid and probably is drooling on the floor. It sounded to me like a jab at his former friend.
Re: Szeth
It sounds like I’m in the minority here, because I’m okay with Szeth getting a redemption arc. Though I think as long as he’s following Nalan it’s not going to happen. Though in later books I would interested in seeing how our current Radiants do when/if they are forced by circumstance to work with Szeth.
@88: Ah so it was you who advocate carefulness when it comes to Renarin’s status! I must say you have given me food for thoughts with your argumentation… I now doubt.. And those last WoB did give the feeling something is horribly wrong with poor little Renarin. I agree to keep our eyes open: perhaps we can stop the famous clue hidden “somewhere”?
As for Szeth, I think you are right, it does not seem as if Roshar has an absolute stating murder is forbidden, but it does appear as if you can’t kill whoever you want. Szeth killed kings and country leaders which we can safely argue it against Rosharian average law.
I agree “absolving himself” was perhaps pushing it too far. I meant he clearly believes the salvation of his soul via blind obedience to the owner of this stone supersedes any other considerations be it moral or legal. He knows he is doing wrong, but he keeps doing it. For me this is baffling.
As for Adolin, I guess it depends on which moral stand-point you look at it. On one side, stabbing someone in the eye hardly ever is defensible, especially without physical provocation. On another side, letting a mass murder walk free to continue his vile ways also is wrong.
I read a story recently which got me thinking. A school as for rule you are forbidden to hit someone. One day, one kid sees another kid being bullied by a bigger one. He intervenes. He causes conflict and hits the bully. He gets suspended because he hit another kid and it is forbidden. Now, of course, the Adolin’s situation is not exactly the same, but it does highlight how what is moral, what is right is not always easy to figure out. There is an argument to be made with Adolin stating he did right, but there there is also an argument to be made it is inexcusable as it was murder not condone in self-defense.
As for the “greater majority”, well I may have overused the notion of the hyperbole. I don’t have an official poll to bring forward and I’d be hard pressed to run official statistics, but I have read a lot of opposition towards Adolin due to the murder. I have slightly exaggerated the movement though.
@101: A minor correction, the spren attached to the Skybreakers is the Highspren, not the Skyspren.
I’d like Szeth to remain an antagonist, but one who’s path may walk in parallel as that of our heroes. For instance, I’d like to keep on seeing him fight/confront our good guys one a bad day, but flight to the rescue on a good day… A dark/grey character you never truly know if he is good or bad…
@98
1) For Shallan killing her mother I’d go for a full acquittal. She was incredibly young, was defending herself against possible death (likely, really( and she probably didn’t know what her shardblade would do. As for her killing her father, the plea would be an attempt for 3rd degree, since poison is pretty much universally premeditated and intentional. The deal would be the lesser offense for not putting the state through the expense of a trial, not for any real reduction in guilt. (Happens more than you’d think where clear cut 1st degree is plead down to 3rd to avoid the hassle of trial and appeal.)
For Adolin, you’d have a decent chance of getting a 3rd degree plea, since you could say it was a fist fight that got out of hand. This also happens a lot, where there was some sort of fight and someone dies. In my state, that’s the difference between life without parole and anywhere between 20 and 40 years though, so if you’re young you actually stand a chance of getting out someday.
For both, you could go to a jury and hope for jury nullification. That’s where the jury basically says “yeah, s/he committed a murder, but we don’t believe they should be punished because of the circumstances and we believe that the law doesn’t fully cover this situation.” But that’s a really long shot. Like, down by 5 on the fourth down with 99 yards to go with 2 seconds left on the clock.
2) The threat with witnesses might, might help with a self-defense argument. The problem is that proactive self defense really doesn’t exist. For self defense (again, in my state) a person has to be in immediate, reasonable fear of their life, or the life of another, and the force used must be proportionate to the threat. So until Sadeas is actually initiated an attempt, self defense wouldn’t really fly. Sucky, but in the American system threats would really only be grounds for a restraining order and the purchase of a concealed carry permit. Really, in this state, Adolin would have been better off filing a personal criminal complaint and being a star witness for the prosecution (yeah, ideal world, right?).
3) I didn’t really skip 2nd degree, it’s just that it doesn’t really apply (except in Jasnah’s case as I’ll explain). Some states put what I’d call 3rd degree as 2nd degree, or a killing with malice (but not premeditation). What we have as 2nd degree murder is sometimes called felony murder, where someone is killed during the perpetration of a felony. So, for instance, if one of the thugs that attacked Jasnah had lived, he could have been charged with 2nd degree since, as he was robbing Jasnah, someone died (doesn’t matter who did the killing or who died). This happens most frequently when two people try to rob someone, but the victim pulls a gun and shoots a co-conspirator. Other examples are if someone robs someone at gunpoint and the victim has a heart attack from the stress, or if someone is burglarizing a home and the homeowner trips down the basement stairs from shock of seeing someone in their house and dies from a head injury.
4) Age definately plays a role. If Shallan is a minor at the time of the killing, then the sentence may be different. For mom’s death I really think she’d get off scott free due to self defense. For dad’s death, again in my state she wouldn’t get a mandatory life sentence for 1st degree like an adult would, but she could get anywhere from 25-life depending on what the judge feels is appropriate under all the circumstances (age, upbringing, the facts, etc.). Shallan would have a pretty good mitigation argument, but that’s mitigation to sentence not mitigation to guilt.
5) Had Shallan not strangled her father, and had dadnot died, she’d still have an attempted murder charge and an aggravated assault charge. Both very serious, as you can imagine. Attempted murder would net her 40+ years incarceration, while the agg assalt would merge for sentencing (meaning the judge couldn’t sentence her for it since it’s too similar to the attempted murder charge and would essentially be two punishments for one crime).
@99
You’re welcome. :)
@103: Life sentence without parlor? Wow. My country does not have such sentence… The worst you can get is a life sentence with conditional liberation after 25 years. Very few people receive such sentences.
I can’t believe they would both get between 20 to 40 years of prison… that seems so harsh. Suddenly exile does not seem as such a horrible sentence.
Thanks for your inputs, it was most interesting. It was not at all what I expected. Poor kids.
Lovely one people…
1) You mentioned at a previous signing that we have already met a member of every order of the Knights Radiant. Have we met two Edgedancers, and has the Dustbringer been a POV character?
Brandon: Well it depends on whether you consider the Heralds members of their order. They are part of their respective orders, because they are the head of the order. If you take out the Heralds, you actually haven’t met a member of every order yet. I’m pretty sure that you have met two Edgedancers.
2) Have we met a Dustbringer yet?
Brandon: The Dustbringers are a bit of a special case, so let’s shelve that one for later.
The person asked the question in an attempt to find out more about Adolin… so we have met two Edgedancers, though the second one could be Ym.
Dustbringer are a special case.. it gives less credence to the old “Adolin becomes a Dustbringer” theory.
And we have NOT met a character from each order. That’s a new one as I seem to recall he answered differently before, though he may have included the Heralds in his previous answer.
@104
Yeah, different strokes for different cultures. I can’t imagine sentencing some of the people I see to anything that might let them get out someday. I mean, I’ve seen the gamut from killing a friend over an argument about dinner to killing people who witnessed you kill other people who were trying to sell drugs to killing your step-child by abuse and neglect until their little body fails them. Some people just don’t deserve another chance.
What country you from?
On the bright side, Amaram would probably get the death penalty due to the multiple homicides to silence witnesses for personal greed!
I’m betting this would put me in Skybreaker territory…
@103 Do you know if the “battered woman” defence has been tried when poison was the murder weapon? In some ways it seems more appropriate than using a gun but I suspect it’d be a hard sell to the jury. Strangling puts the self-defence argument right out though.
Based on a mash of NY State (thanks Law and Order) and Canadian law, killing Sadeas would be 2nd degree murder. Adolin didn’t intend to kill Sadeas before the fight started but it was by no means an accident or unintentional. I wonder if the local coroner can tell the difference between stabbed in the eye and stabbed in the eye and worked around to make sure the brain is wrecked.
It’d be interesting to see if 1st degree could be proved in Jasnah’s case. Shallan could certainly testify that Jasnah was out hunting and the encounter was deliberately sought. Given that at least one of them could pull a shardblade out of the air, Jasnah didn’t need to kill them to stop them. Pointing a shardbalde at someone is probably a fairly efficient means of arrest.
I wonder if it was deliberate that the most deliberate and cold-blooded of the killings seem to be the ones with the least consequence.
“I wonder if it was deliberate that the most deliberate and cold-blooded of the killings seem to be the ones with the least consequence.”
That’s interesting. True, that seems to be the case. If it is deliberate, it’s a clever point: Anything is going to have less unpleasant consequences if done with cool reason that limits the consequences in the planning stage. It would be surprisingly cynical for the SA though.
@101 kei_rin:
My assumption that the Herald Ishar had some power over the bond is from epigraph in ch 42.:
“But as for Ishi’Elin, his was the part most important at their inception; he readily understood the implications of Surges being granted to men, and caused organization to be thrust upon them; as having too great power, he let it be known that he would destroy each and every one, unless they agreed to be bound by precepts and laws.”
While I never claimed he could directly control the spren and who they bond to/with, it seems he is able to destroy them, thus controls them through fear of destruction.
As for the Skyspren, I also agree they are most likely associated with the Skybreakers, and thus Nalan. There definitely seems something is up with them.
You know, of all the discussions possible from this chapter, the “What type of Murder have all of our characters committed?” was not the one I expected.
But it is fascinating. Living in Texas, this makes me wonder which one would actually get executed.
Amaram & Szeth are the only ones I think a jury would punish with death.
Nalan skybreaker = Anakin Skywalker
Herald who turns to the dark side.
=)
Sorry, autocorrect…
@111 One hopes that Sanderson intended this little thematic divergence. Otherwise one might worry about us.
Shallan might be at risk for execution if the court is sufficiently horrified by patricide to outweigh the leniency generally offered her age and gender.
noblehunter @114 – I dunno. If the jury took into account that Lin had (within the last hour at most) killed his wife, fought and beaten his son, and was in a towering rage, I think a jury would say that poison intended to kill quickly was justifiable, coming from a girl who (seemingly) would have no more direct means to stop him. Before the poison took effect, he returned to beating the son with apparent intent to maim or kill, and was looking at others in the same way; when he seemed to be recovering from the poison, a more direct method (strangling) might still seem… if not entirely justifiable, at least defensible.
Then again, as we have so often noted, these would be our laws and our societal expectations. Veden law and culture would definitely be different.
@114: Patricide with little reason – she would fry.
Patricide of a man who just killed his wife, threated to kill another woman and was beating his son to “death”? One who is rumored to have killed his first wife as well? Whole different ball game.
Much like in the Old wild west. You could shoot a man in the back, and still call it “self-defense.” Jury & judge would give you a pass. But if you stole his horse – You were going to hang.
Filed under: Fun things I learned as a history major.
@106: Oh I certainly do not wish to see a child’s abuser go unpunished or the mother who drowns her three children to not do a satisfactory time in jail… However, I have slight issues knowing young people, who clearly were unsettled at the time of events, for whom there were circumstances, being put into jail for the reminding of their life as if they were mass murderers or child abusers…
How about rehabilitation? How about second chances in life? How about learning from your mistakes? It strucks to me that if Adolin or Shallan gets send to jail for 20 to 40 years, their life is essentially over. There is no life possible after spending so much time in a prison.
Unless the individual is a danger to society, I also wonder about the use of life sentence without parlor or 40 years, which is essentially the same for me. Shouldn’t the law make the distinction between deep rooted criminals and those who simply ended in a bad spot? Wouldn’t a few years in prison coupled with a therapy (anger/emotion management for Adolin, psych ward for Shallan) be more efficient? I agree some people are just wasted, but neither Adolin or Shallan strucks me as such. I am saddened to find out law wouldn’t see it this way :-(
@109: Of course it was deliberately written to highlight just how smart Jasnah is. She knows she may get into trouble if she is caught outright killing people in the street, no matter if they are thugs or no. She therefore crafted a scenario where she attacked first such as to justify her actions by claiming it was self-defense. In true, she deliberatly set herself out to kill those thugs: it was 1st degree murder, but it is impossible to prove. Unless she is willing to testify against her own self, there is no way a jury may come to the conclusion she did it on purpose.
Of all characters, Jasnah scares me the most. You never know what she is up to and once she hits, you are never going to be able to prove it was her…
Which makes me think, there was no witness to Adolin’s actions… Could he plead self-defense by claiming he was attacked first and it was either him or Sadeas? It is impossible to prove he was not attacked first, so it basically ends up being his word against the jury’s perception.
Of all murders, his is likely to carry the worst consequences… We could also talk of Dalinar’s past and how he has been allowed to kill whomever he wished without ever facing any consequences. He may be reformed but I am seriously sickened (unless his story turns out not being the one I expect, we never know) to know, from their world’s perspective, he got a free pass while his son won’t. This seems as the most unfair ploy of all…
@115 I’d think almost enough poison to kill would leave Lin pretty incapacitated for awhile. Enough that it wouldn’t be too hard to convince a jury that she should have waited for him to be arrested.
My impression from the flashback was that she’d strangled him in order to finish what she started rather than as a continuing act of self defence. That’s from being in her head which is an advantage the jury wouldn’t have.
@116 In England, it was forgery. Murder, steal, or rape and the court could show you mercy (since that usually meant transportation to the colonies, it might have been a dubious mercy). Get caught forging cheques? Off to the gallows!
@117 I think you could build a pretty strong circumstantial case with Shallan’s testimony. Not enough to carry a capital sentence but maybe enough to convict.
@several
Shallan’s killing of Lin wouldn’t end her on death row in America. The Supreme Court ruled death sentences for minors as unconstitutional, so she’d be looking at prison. Were I her attorney and looking at the jury knowing all the evidence that we as readers know, then I’d be going for some sort of battered woman defense, trying to bring it down to voluntary manslaughter. But it’s a tough sell due to the strangulation.
@Gepeto
Depends on how practical you feel rehabilitation is likely to actually be, I guess. I’m mostly disillusioned for most of the people I deal with since 99% of them have past crimes where rehabilitation was attempted and failed. That may be a personality problem, an institutional problem, or a whole other problem, who knows, but I really don’t think someone who goes on a killing spree on a youth camp should get a 21 year sentence. I mean, how do you really prove rehabilitation in that case? (Yes, I know it can be extended indefinably, but still. 21 years for 77 deaths? That’s three months mandatory incarceration per person!) Like I said, different strokes for different cultures.
And yeah, Jasnah is the scary one. But the thugs did decide to try to rob her, so I have little sympathy. I’m a big one for personal accountability. (Not that I think they deserved death for it, mind you, but that they decided on their victim and take the consequences with it.)
As for Adolin, my reasoning goes for if the jury knew what we, the readers, know. Based on in world information, you better believe I’d be working to get him off on self-defense or involuntary manslaughter. I’d go with the “Sadeas cornered him and attempted to kill him in a dark alley rather than have to face him on the dueling grounds where he knew he would be toast given that Adolin just finished winning a full disadvantaged duel” angle and prove up that Adolin was able to get the best of him since, as the world knows, he’s a world class fighter and even taking him by surprise is a very risky endeavor. Of course, this also would be dependent on how/if he ends up reporting Sadeas’ death, since an attempt to cover it up or hide the body or whatnot would be evidence of consciousness of guilt, and that’s bad too.
(And I think you mean life without parole, not parlor. Life without parlor would be truly cruel and unusual, since we all need a place to sit and contemplatively drink tea!)
mendheke @119:
Were I her attorney and looking at the jury knowing all the evidence that we as readers know, then I’d be going for some sort of battered woman defense, trying to bring it down to voluntary manslaughter. But it’s a tough sell due to the strangulation.
Um, why? Lin was in the middle of a murder spree, having just comitted one murder, in the process of another, threatening a third and had he recovered there was every reason to think that he would have continued with it. Remember that guards and such answered to him. It isn’t like they could have called police or even tried to leave – there was a deadly storm outside, Balat was dangerously wounded, etc. If that was not “in defense of another’s life”, I don’t know what is.
@120
The battered woman defense is essentially a variation on “heat of passion,” where the woman finally snaps and lashes out, killing the abuser. It fails if the person doesn’t have reasonable provocation (which probably exists in this case) or if the person has a reasonable time to cool down. The initial poisoning can be a “break and lash out” attempt. The strangulation happens after a cool down period. And that period of time kills the defense. I’ll take a look at the passage when I get home from work today, but if I remember correctly, the step-mom was dead and the brother was already beaten. In defense of others has to be an at-the-moment thing, just like self-defense.
I could be wrong on how it went down, I haven’t read that passage for a while, but that’s how I remember it.
Edit: Reread the section.
From what the reader knows, it appears that Shallan really did snap and poisoned her father. The order was Balat and Lin start fighting, Shallan poisons the wine, Lin defeats Balat, Shallan gives the cup and Lin drinks, Balat tries to stab Lin, Lin gets the poker and starts beating Balat, Lin keels over, apparenty dead, They find the soulcaster on his body, Lin starts stirring and looking at Shallan, Shallan takes the necklace off and strangles him.
So yeah, as a reader it looks like she was still under the effects of her snapping. The question is if a juror would look at the break and think it is a cooling down period. I’d be hesitant to think so, but it’s possible.
re:119 – I love it – life without parlor would indeed cause cruel and unusual punishment.
I suspect regardless of gods, laws and men that poor “always tried to be the good guy” Adolin will pay a higher price than the others for his crime. He has already been left behind by the others and I bet he ends up found out and then Dalinar will have to make an example of him. He just seems like the one who will be crushed by circumstances the way that Kaladin was. My hope is that he lives long enough to fight his way back.
@119: Well I have never met any criminals so my views are purely those of an outsider who does not evolve within the penal system. I am, of course, not referring to mass murderers: I feel these are extreme examples. Adolin and Shallan aren’t mass murders. I cannot believe they are cannot be “rehabilitate”. It could be I am too compassionate for this line of work.
I understand hiding the body and the clues sure weights heavily against him. Could you argue he was in shock at the time and thus not responsible?
Yeah I did mean parole, not parlor… Sorry.
@121: So it is the strangulation that weights the more against her… That’s very interesting to see how the legal system would view it. Her life was not threatened, her reaction was not spontaneous enough and the delay between the poison and the strangulation is too long to account for self-defense.
@122: Yeah…. Things are not boding well for Adolin, aren’t they? I know he is responsible for his actions, he did screw up, but considering how much worst other people around him did, knowing he’ll pay the hefty price makes my heart hurt.
mehndeke @@@@@ 121 – We can always hire the Rosharian equivalent of Robert Kardashian and Johnie Cochran *tongue-in-cheek* to defend Adolin and Shallan. They can get them off. Sadly, both lawyers have passed.
Gepeto @@@@@ 123 – Yes, Adolin will pay because he truly personifies the good guy and no good deed goes unpunished to quote a pop culture meme.
Anyway, whatever the fate of Adolin is in the series, the murder of Sadeas will weigh in heavily. But it will also push his character forward. He cannot be the good son forever. Or Shallan’s attentive boyfriend forever.
I see Adolin as becoming a more well-rounded character as an aftermath of Sadeas’ murder. Adolin has never been broken. So, the ending of WoR for him is truly fitting. For the first time in his life, Adolin was insecure. His girlfriend is a Radiant. All of a sudden, him being a Prince and an heir to a Princedom has been trumped by Shallan’s radianthood. He had never been in any situation wherein his girlfriend is higher than him. It is truly a blow to his ego.
Killing Sadeas might be a spur of the moment, but he needed an outlet for that negative energy. He cannot hit someone because the Parshendi had been routed. There are no battles in the near future. So, he took his frustration on Sadeas. :-( It’s sad but that is what all there is to it.
Anyway, I’m still Adolin’s girl no matter what. :-)
Don’t get me wrong, I do love hurt/comfort stories and I have a feeling Adolin’s may be going this way. Murdering Sadeas did make him a much more interesting character, one with failings, one with obvious weaknesses. The entire setup around Adolin’s scenes towards the end is filled with symbolism: a discussion we may want to reserve for the later chapters.
I do love when my little heart squeezes for my favorite characters and right now, I have not even read book 3 yet, and it already is squeezing, because I don’t believe one second whatever will happen won’t hurt. It will. I anticipate it.
I have much more to say, but I’ll stop here. We’ll get to those chapters.
mehndeke @121. Do not forget that before heading to the family room/hall, Shallan went to her room and retrieved the poison. IMO, she know that she was going to use the poison on her father. The first thing she did when entering the hall was to put the poison in the wine and give her father the poisoned wine. I do not know if this fact changes your opinion.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Re: Lift: The Nightwatcher’s curses all seem to be neurological in nature (Dalinar can’t remember his first wife, the one guy who asked for supplies had his vision flipped upside-down), while her boons don’t anyway to have any pattern to them yet. What if the Nightwatcher, trying to game the system a bit, had her “boon” be the curse and her “curse” be the boon?
Do we know that Dalinar’s curse is that he can’t remember his wife? IIRC, it’s never stated clearly – he’s asked, and responds that he knows precisely what his curse & boon are, but it never actually says “his curse is that he can’t remember his wife.”
Just pointing out that a man devastated at the loss of his wife, given the opportunity, in his grief, to have that pain removed from him, just might ask an all-powerful creature to remove that pain from him. And if that was granted by way of removing all memory of her, could that not be considered to be his boon? In which case, it’s his curse that we don’t yet know.
Similarly, we simply don’t know what Lift’s boon or curse are. We can’t even say that we’ve seen both, with any sort of conviction – We know that she can see into the cognitive realm, and that she can metabolize food into…Investiture/Stormlight…but we don’t actually know which – if either – of these is a result of the Nightwatcher. I hesitate to draw any firm conclusion on this until we have more facts.
On Renarin: Similarly, we’re working with limited facts here, and drawing any sort of conclusion is hazardous. We know that he speaks to something that calls itself “Glys,” and that it has *probably* resided in a box that Renarin likes to flip open & closed. We don’t even know that Glys is actually a spren, let alone to which Shard that spren might hold allegiance. With so many possibilities, it’s really difficult to say with any conviction what exactly is going on. RAFO!
On Szeth: I don’t really have a problem with some sort of redemption arc for Szeth. He tried his best, with his limited understanding, to do the honorable thing. He may have been deluded, and he may have been too afraid to fight against the culture that was telling him he was wrong, but that’s not (to me) a necessarily condemning thing. However, I think (and this is pure opinion/speculation) he is probably quite well past the point of no return here. I think his mind is completely, irrevocably broken, and any redemption arc will likely only be a partial recovery.
The mystery involved here is part of what I personally find so exciting about this entire endeavor. The discovery and reveal are going to be amazing, in whatever form it takes.
brovery @128 – I’m enjoying your catch-up comments! Just a couple things on this one that you may not be aware of: Renarin’s little box is not likely connected to Glys at all; it’s just a stimming tool that he’s used for some time. I can’t find the WoB on that, but it’s out there somewhere. :) Also, Glys is more than likely to be a spren, since we have a WoB that “Renarin sees a spren that nobody else does.” As for whether Glys really is the right spren to make Renarin a Truthwatcher, we have only Renarin’s word for it, based presumably on Glys’s word. Personally, I’m inclined to accept it until/unless we get actual contradictory information; so far, what we’ve seen from Renarin fits just fine with what (very, very) little we know of Truthwatchers. So… take that for what it’s worth.
Wetlandernw @129 – Thanks for the input! I was unaware of those WoB’s, but I’ll see if I can’t track them down. Also, this is exemplary of the idea that drawing conclusions that aren’t explicitly stated somewhere can easily lead to incorrect conclusions – even for someone who’s actively trying to avoid them!
I completely agree that it’s probably best to assume that Renarin & Glys are what they claim, but I’m not going to go all-in on that until we have something a whole lot more firm than we have right now. Brandon has flipped my assumptions too many times for me to be very comfortable with any assumptions, really – and I say that with great fondness for the experiences. Anything that helps me to spot & recognize where I’ve made mistakes is welcome.
Edit: I found on Theoryland this WoB that “The box is not his spren.” I don’t think that necessarily rules out his spren being *inside* the box, but I may also just not have found the right quote. But it doesn’t really matter – the point is that my assumption that he plays with the box because his spren is inside is likely false. Thanks again for pointing those two things out!