Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, Kaladin and Shallan acrimoniously began their trek through the chasms back to the warcamps. This week, once Shallan finds a way to distract the chasmfiend from trying to eat them, they plod mistrustfully on together.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Chapter 70: From a Nightmare
Point of View: Kaladin, Shallan
Setting: the Chasms
Symbology: Spears, Chach, Kalak
IN WHICH Kaladin leads a mad dash through the chasms to escape the beast chasing them; Shallan suddenly goes the other way, forcing Kaladin to follow; she leads them back to where they first fell, distracting the chasmfiend with easy food; Shallan sneaks a peek while it’s feeding; they retreat and walk for hours in the darkness, trying to get as far away as possible; when they finally stop, Shallan draws a map of the chasms and begins the chasmfiend Memory drawing; after a few hours of sleep, they continue on, using her map to correct their direction; they continue the badinage, though with less hostility and more honesty; Shallan solemnly promises Kaladin that she means no harm to Adolin or his family; sunlight reveals that they’re going the wrong way again.
Quote of the Week
“All right,” Kaladin said. “Here it is. I can imagine how the world must appear to someone like you. Growing up pampered, with everything you want. To someone like you, life is wonderful and sunny and worth laughing over. That’s not your fault, and I shouldn’t blame you. You haven’t had to deal with pain or death like I have. Sorrow is not your companion.”
Silence. Shallan didn’t reply. How could she reply to that?
“What?” Kaladin finally asked.
“I’m trying to decide how to react,” Shallan said. “You see, you just said something very, very funny.”
“Then why aren’t you laughing?”
“Well, it isn’t that kind of funny.”
Oh, the irony. No, it isn’t that kind of funny at all. *sigh*
Not to thrash the expired steed, but I can’t wait until next week’s QOTW. Just sayin’. Kaladin’s blind assumptions about other people’s lives don’t stack up well against reality, and it’s about time he learned that.
Commentary
Before we talk about this chapter, I just remembered something I left out of last week’s discussion, and it’s bugging me. Who were the Parshendi that showed up just as the bridge was dumped? Were they some of Eshonai’s stormforms out for a practice run? Were they Thude’s company of dissenters who refused stormform? Will we ever know? Does it matter?
Okay, now I’ve got that out of my system…
Here we go, running through the chasms, chased by a nightmare beastie that makes a noise like a thousand horns being blown. That would be… unnerving. Shallan has enough presence of mind to recognize when they’re close to the original landing area, and distracts the fiend with fresh corpses while she gets a good look and a Memory. Kaladin, meanwhile, sticks close to her because he refuses to abandon Adolin’s betrothed, and every time he stands still, he thinks about Sylphrena and how he can’t even feel the Stormlight in the spheres he’s holding.
I do feel sorry for him.
That said, as usual lately, I still want to smack him. He can be so infuriatingly ungracious for no reason. On the bright side, it gives Shallan the “bridgeman grunt language” for a running joke, so there’s that.
The shared terror of the chasmfiend chase, and the resulting exhaustion, seems to have a more salutary effect on them than merely sharing impossible survival from a 200-foot drop did. At least, they’ve stopped yelling, and while they’re still sniping at each other, neither of them is going at it wholeheartedly any more.
And really, they do begin to get on better. Their snark gets more… personal? Not sure what the word I’m looking for is, here, but over these few hours, the things they say are both more individualized and less hurtful—the kind of stuff you toss around when you’re just taking the mickey out of someone. It’s very, very like the best of the times she had with her brothers in the flashbacks, really, when a smart remark would pop into her head and they’d insist that she say it. Odd, in a way, that Kaladin should be the first person she can play this game with since she left home. She played it a little, with the sailors on the Wind’s Pleasure, but other than that, she’s really had to watch her tongue most of the time. Now, probably to distract herself, she’s treating Kaladin very much like a brother.
As their morning conversation reveals, Kaladin’s assessment of Shallan has been limited to a) flaky spoiled lighteyed woman or b) clever sneaky impostor threat. (How he reconciles those two is beyond me, though.) Anyway, down here in the chasms, with her hair frazzled, her dress torn and bedraggled, wearing boots because she put sanity before vanity, toughing it out right alongside him… he’s finally seeing her as a human being, not just an object of suspicion or class hatred. I suspect that Shallan’s ability to draw out a perfect map of where they’ve been—and the obvious value of that skill—is also a step in Kaladin seeing her as an actual person.
The reverse is also true: As they talk, she realizes that not only is he taciturn, he’s a contradiction. He’s clearly had a good education, demonstrated by the way he thinks and the way he speaks, and that really doesn’t jibe with the slave marks or the shash brand. Even though she continues to make jokes of everything, she does begin to see him as a person, not just “Adolin’s grumpy guard captain.”
It’s a start.
Before the chapter’s over, they’ll get downright honest with each other. To wit: He finally tells her point-blank that he doesn’t trust her, and she tells him a little of why she’s actually there, at the Shattered Plains—because of Jasnah’s research. Since the guards reported her asking Adolin about getting rid of the parshmen, that comes up too, and further conversation—actual conversation!—ensues on that subject before it fades back to the snarkfest. And then they have the conversation quoted above, in which Kaladin displays a complete (and unjustifiable, IMO) class-based analysis of her character and her past, telling her how wonderful and easy her life has been. The irony…
We could have a big knock-down drag-out fight about whose backstory is the more tragic or traumatic or painful, but that’s not the point. Both of them have horrible things in their past, and both of them have legitimate reasons to feel that life has been less than kind to them. As far as I’m concerned, the more important question is how they deal with the pain of past tragedy, and in this case I find Shallan stronger than Kaladin.
While Shallan has blocked out the first, worst event, she hasn’t blocked out all the years since then—all the years as her father spiraled downward, her brothers went psychotic, her family split, servants were abused, her stepmother was murdered, and she herself killed her father to try to save the rest. Those events are all in her active memory, and she deals with it by maintaining (some would say exaggerating) her sense of humor and by choosing to do what she can to fix things. It’s probable that she subconsciously holds herself responsible for all of it, without knowing quite why.
Kaladin, meanwhile, deals with his past by overtly holding all lighteyes responsible for everything bad that’s ever happened to him. This… bugs me. No end. It’s totally a realistic behavior, of course—it’s just not entirely valid, either for Kaladin or in real life. But… I’ve said all that before. One thing to add, though, which we’ll hit in more detail next week: Under his surface resentment of lighteyes, he half-unconsciously holds himself responsible for all of the bad things, whether they were really his fault or not.
Personalities. Human nature is just weird, you know?
Stormwatch
Same night, and into the following day. At the end of this chapter, there are nine days left in the countdown. (We’ll just take several months to cover those nine days…)
Sprenspotting
“Those spren,” Shallan whispered, so soft he could barely hear. “I’ve seen those…”
They danced around the chasmfiend, and were the source of the light. They looked like small glowing arrows, and they surrounded the beast in schools, though occasionally one would drift away from the others and then vanish like a small plume of smoke rising into the air.
“Skyeels,” Shallan whispered. “They follow skyeels too…”
Referring back to Shallan’s skyeel sketches from The Way of Kings, the sailors call these “luckspren,” though she doubts that is their true name. So… what is their true name? Predatorspren?
Next question: are they the same as the spren that float away from the carcass of a dead chasmfiend? Those are described like wisps of smoke from a snuffed candle; these are like “small glowing arrows”… until they drift too far away. Then they sound like the same thing, vanishing like “a small plume of smoke.” Huh.
All Creatures Shelled and Feathered
The chasmfiend gets the title for this chapter; it looks like something from a nightmare, according to Kaladin:
The beast filled the chasm. Long and narrow, it wasn’t bulbous or bulky, like some small cremlings. It was sinuous, sleek, with that arrowlike face and sharp mandibles.
It was also wrong. Wrong in a way difficult to describe. Big creatures were supposed to be slow and docile, like chulls. Yet this enormous beast moved with ease, its legs up on the sides of the chasm, holding it so that its body barely touched the ground. It ate the corpse of a fallen soldier, grasping the body in smaller claws by its mouth, then ripping it in half with a gruesome bite.
That face was like something from a nightmare. Evil, powerful, almost intelligent.
Seriously. What kind of mind dreams up critters like this?? I think I agree with Kaladin about the nightmare thing.
Shallan, of course, turns on her natural-history-scholar mode, and observes that although it eats carrion, it’s got all the equipment to be a predator. What it doesn’t appear to have is a reason to be hanging around the chasms after pupating. I can’t help wondering if this will prove to be Significant… Or maybe it’s just something that happens near the Weeping for some reason.
Ars Arcanum
While we don’t see any Lightweaving, we certainly see the effects of Shallan’s bond with Pattern. The only way she kept ahead of the chasmfiend was by using Stormlight for agility, speed, and endurance. The only way they’re getting out alive is by using a map created with her bond-enhanced visual memory. So… I guess that qualifies as magic arts, okay?
You Have to Break a Lot of Rockbuds
Heh. No rockbuds were broken in the making of this chapter. It’s a good thing soldiers tend to be careful about carrying rations everywhere they go, even though chull-jerky doesn’t sound all that appetizing. I guess it keeps body and soul together. That’s not nothing.
Heraldic Symbolism
Chach: Brave/Obedient, Guard. Kalak: Resolute/Builder, Maker. What do they have to do with this chapter? These are not Heralds normally associated with either Kaladin or Shallan, really. Chach-the-Guard represents Kaladin-the-bodyguard once in a while, but he’s not on duty here. Except… he repeatedly thinks of Shallan in terms of “Adolin’s betrothed” and, conversely, as a potential threat/spy/infiltrator to the Kholin family. So I guess Guard makes some sense? As for Kalak, “resolute” probably fits their determination to survive. Maybe? That’s all I’ve got for him.
Shipping Wars
Nah, I’m not gonna go there. Y’all know how I feel about it.
Well, that ought to keep us busy until next week, when we’ll dodge back to the warcamp with Teft, Sigzil, and Dalinar for a bit, before we return to the chasms, a few of my favorite moments, and… the chasmfiend. Big, big chapter next week.
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader. She’s both excited and highly amused that yet another Sanderson book is releasing next week, only three weeks after The Bands of Mourning. This time, it’s Calamity, the final book of The Reckoners trilogy, releasing next Tuesday. If you’re going to the Seattle signing at the University Bookstore next Wednesday, please be sure to say hello! She’ll be the tall master-servant accompanied by the somewhat shorter Mistborn.
I empathize with both Kaladin and Shallan here, but it’s difficult for me to get too angry with either. When you’re living through a nightmarish personal crisis, the world can collapse to just you and those in your care. It’s easy to judge other people’s lives based on limited glimpses. Like we’ve discussed before, Kaladin will eventually get to a place where he can judge people on their individual merits. But he’s also not wrong to be upset at lighteyes as a social institution.
It makes sense for Shallan to be further along in her recovery. She’s had the benefit of a teacher and higher social status. I’m glad we’re seeing the beginning of a bond between these two. They really have more commonalities than differences. We’ve kept the tension of PoVs with separate secrets to ourselves for too long and it’s very satisfying to see some of these start to come out into the open.
Arrow-shaped heads are a common feature of thunderclasts and chasmfiends and they seem so important that they come up in most descriptions of each. There seems to be a strong hint of a link here between these creatures and Odium’s weapons of war.
Arrowhead-spren = huntspren in my mind. Following predators around as they search out their prey.
Alice, much of the pushback in favor of Kaladin’s issues with lighteyes stems from a critique of the institutional privilege and oppression of the series race based caste system. Leaving aside pragmatic concerns of whether his approach can be efficacious for creating positive change do you feel that his belief that all lighteyes are imprecated for institutional buy-in to be unjustifiable?
For my part, this chapter strikes me as an example of how oppressive systems destroy the lives of both the privileged and the disadvantaged. Much of Shallan’s tragic past has a private origin — her mother attempting to murder her and her mother’s subsequent death; however, her father’s response has a lot to do with pursuits of ways to continue and increase their public station. I feel for the darkeyes who are under his rule, but his family is also destroyed by the pursuit of respectability.
Alice, I think you need to revise/clarify your summary. The middle of the summary states that “they continue on, using her map to correct their direction.” The last sentence says “sunlight reveals that they’re going the wrong way again.” The way I read the chapter was that Kaladin did not realize Shallan had a “photographic” memory. Kaladin insisted that he chose the path. It was Kaladin’s inability to set a path to the correct direction (whether be it because of loss of his stormlight or something else unnatural). The way the summary is written makes it seem like by following Shallan’s map, they kept getting turned around.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
On Sprenspotting –
Just to point out – Shallan also sees these same small arrowlike spren in Chapter 1 when she ducks under the water to look at the Santhid –
And, significantly (maybe more so?) – they are included in the artwork – Shallan’s sketch, placed right before Chapter 3 – you can see them swimming among the school of smaller fish surrounding the eye.
So, that is two massive creatures (Santhid and Chasmfiend, who we’ve been told via WOB can only get that big due to gem-hearts, this probably means some sort of Investiture? or at the least biological usage of invested material, i.e. stormlight) as well as the skyeels (I’m trusting Alice on this one as I don’t have a copy of WoK with me ATM – who fly through the air, most likely due to some sort of Investiture or usage of Stormlight) – are these spren some sort of indication of animal life that has found a way to live beyond what is physically possible by Investing/absorbing Stormlight? Do they congregate around those animals/entities whose whole existence and sustained life is dependent upon the ability to utilize/absorb Stormlight? Or are they a bonded spren type that makes it possible themselves (maybe not to the same degree as humans bonding spren, but a similar notion)?
This is some really cool worldbuilding (which I think Brandon is doing on purpose) including the natural and not just economic/political influences of having magic as a phenomenon in the world.
@2 mehndeke
Do we know if skyeels are predators?
@5 sillyslovene
I think what the arrowlike spren are doing is broader than just helping support the mass of large creatures. If they’ve been seen accompanying skyeels, maybe they’re modifying natural laws (by manipulating surges?) to permit these creatures to do things they shouldn’t be able to to do under normal conditions. That can encompass growing to a large size, moving quickly, or flying.
Considering Kaladin’s and Shallan’s past I’m fairly sure that Kaladin had a harder past with his past events. While Shallan didn’t have Kaladin’s loving parents she had her brother’s that she could focus on helping and some outside support. Kaladin meanwhile was hated by almost everyone in the town mostly by association and unlike Shallan his attempts to help people almost always failed such as the young girl fallen off the rock, his failed escapes as a slave, Tien dying. Shallan on the other hand has mostly suceeded with her protecting her family and none of her brother’s dying even if she had to kill her father, she even suceeded in becomning Jasnah’s ward after being exposed as a thief. Kaladin’s failures on the other hand had much harsher consequences with people dying. Compared to Kaladin’s war experiences she truly has experienced a life of “Blossoms and cake.” Her family may have been fractured however they all live and were not killed in front of her eyes as she stood helpless as what happened to Kaladin. With these past experiences I feel that Kaladin has a fair reason to be irritated by someone who to his eyes sees only the bright side of a world he consider’s “Full of corruption” as what she considered pocket change was a veritable fortune to him that could have helped save lives. In my eyes Ksladin will always be the stronger one mentally as he doesnt go into a pretend nothing has happened coping stategy like Shallan does but rather faces it head on albeit with mixed results.
Thanks for the post Alice; it was entertaining as usual. I do have a minor quibble.
I agree that Kaladin was rude, surly and “ungracious.” I even get that most readers would be frustrated with him, and even want to smack him at this point in the book.
But I challenge the whole “no reason” assertion; that seems wildly unfair (and inaccurate). (ETA, I see Halien@1 also touches upon this)
As you alluded to above, Shallan mistreated Kaladin from the get-go:
Of course he didn’t like her! And multiple encounters with her later gave him no reason to think otherwise. The reader has the benefit of being in Shallan’s head. To Kaladin’s point of view, she could be perceived as: a liar; a thief; a manipulator; stuck up; entitled; condescending; etc.
And their experience in the chasm hasn’t really done much to change that opinion. In this chapter alone, Shallan:
…And all of this happened before Kaladin uttered the Quote of The Week listed in the post above.
Clearly, Kaladin had no idea of what Shallan had gone through, and his assessment of her life is laughable to the reader, who does know. Kaladin thus doesn’t think very highly of her and treats her fairly poorly (although, Shallan is rightly accused of the same, and you kind of address that as well)
But to claim that Kaladin does this for “no reason?” I strongly disagree. Even with their playful, sibling-like banter, Shallan continuously gave reasons for Kaladin to act in a less-than-charitable manner.
@6 Halien
I thought that was exactly what I said. I didn’t think I was limiting it only to the idea of growing to a large size. Clearly, skyeels are not huge, but seem to be using something to act in physically unnatural (from our perspective) ways. If I wasn’t clear, apologies.
The mystery spren must be NativeRosharanFaunaSpren. Starspren also put in an appearance in this chapter. Methinks both are very significant and will be heard from again.
Halien @1
I got an Odium-tingle from the description of the Chasmfiend too.
@9 sillyslovene
Sorry, I probably should have been clearer in my earlier comment. I was trying to add intelligence into the mix of physical characteristics we’ve already seen. At least two of our examples, chasmfiends and santhids, are either called out as showing intelligence or behave in ways that suggest intelligence.
To me, that suggests that the spren bond idea is more likely than the spren being attracted to Investiture. Parshendi history points at a symbiotic relationship with spren in the past, and I think that’s what’s going on here.
I’d like to see more examples of native Roshar life, especially Aimians. Do their abilities require spren?
The Reshi “islands” also have a spren.
@6: Shallan’s drawing in The Way of Kings says that they “seek” fish, crabs, and rats, and it also shows a skyeel striking down a rat.
Hello, first post as I’ve finally caught up with the reread. You said that “Now, probably to distract herself, she’s treating Kaladin very much like a brother.” This is pretty ironic as he is the one who killed said brother. I can see their relationship developing more along sibling lines. I worry what will happen when she discovers he is the one who actually killed Helaran.
@7 as Alice said “We could have a big knock-down drag-out fight about whose backstory is the more tragic or traumatic or painful, but that’s not the point.”
Their experiences/tragedies were different but both horrible (and I would guess from your comment that you have never lived through an abusive experience).
@12 birgit
The islands are the biggest crustaceans we know about to date, aren’t they? They seem related to the chasmfiends, but much less aggressive toward people (even though they fight each other).
@13 Torvald_Nom
Good find! So we can’t rule out that the spren have something to do with hunting, after all.
@14 Jason_UmmaMacabre
I’m sure Shallan will be upset when she finds out, but I can’t see her holding Kaladin responsible. He was a soldier on the opposite side of a battlefield. There wasn’t any malice involved and nobody knows what Helaran was really up to there, anyway.
@11 Halien
Sorry, I seem to have misunderstood as well. (Oh, communication, how life would be simpler if I could master you?!?)
That’s a pretty good point about the intelligence factor – meaning Shallan looking into the eye of the Santhid and realizing that it was “seeing” her, focusing on her seems to be the discovery that she is making: “she was looking into a world that, so far as she knew, no scholar had ever visited.” Probably pretty amazing thing to discover that there are other intelligent and sentient beings all around you that you’ve never recognized. Then again, this is also bounded by her categories of people – as was pointed out above, the Reshi seem to know that their “islands” are sentient/intelligent…
As for pursuing the spren bond idea – have they “caught” and/or “bonded”* with a spren that is in their gem hearts (i.e. they are biological fabrials?), and these others are flowing around them similar to the windspren that are attracted to and follow Kaladin when he’s doing really awesome stuff? Or are they somehow in a symbiotic relationship with all the little spren that are surrounding them? I like the first idea better – biological fabrials would be awesome! – but the second could be really interesting as the level of intelligence for the creature could go up the more they bond (probably not necessarily a full Nahel bond, but some other lesser type?) with the smaller spren, an additive type of sentience/intelligence based on bonding with Cognitive beings…
*I put that in ” ” because I don’t think that they are bonded in the same way as the Nahel bond. But more like the way, as Halien brings up, the way the Listeners bond with their spren. Huh, interesting speculation – do Parshendi have gem hearts? You would think that would be known…that would be a crazy reveal…I feel like I’m falling down a rabbit hole though…
@16 Halien, I don’t think that she will hold him responsible, but I do think it will fundamentally change their relationship. One of the reasons she hates Amaram is because she believes he killed her brother, even though she acknowledges that he killed her brother in battle, she still hates him for it. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think this will come between them for a time.
It’s rather amusing to see Shallan point out that Kaladin has two views of her that seem obviously conflicting, and it works to throw him off, when he’s almost as right as he is wrong (if his statements weren’t colored by his racism as much they’d hit more home than Shallan would probably like). It’s rather similar to Dalinar, where Kaladin has a hard time with understanding those people more prone to lying (for good OR bad reasons).
The Quote of the Week…together with what we get with the next chapter, this is both my favorite part and also the part that makes me cringe a bit. Both of the times Kaladin’s says something immensely ignorant to pull out Shallan’s thoughts, they’re…too on the nose for me. It breaks my immersion a bit by revealing the artifice of the whole thing. Which is not to say that it’s not believable they both have that exact discussion – but combined with everything else in the chasm scenes it’s a lot of coincidental “this very small scenario comes about to make this happen.” But I love the results anyways so I don’t mind too much.
And yeah, I agree with “We could have a big knock-down drag-out fight about whose backstory is the more tragic or traumatic or painful, but that’s not the point.” The nature of their past trauma are disparate enough that the only reason it really invites comparison is because, in different but equal ways, they had to define themselves with how they responded to it. As to if Shallan’s or Kaladin’s coping mechanism is better here…I’d argue they’re the same, but acting on two very different levels. Kaladin’s causes him to be very abrasive here, creating drama they didn’t need that almost got them eaten by a chasmfiend. But Shallan’s is still holding her back – she’s got the tools to get them out but still finds it hard to use them. It’s only after Kaladin repeatedly puts his foot in his mouth and has them fully communicate that he (incidentally) draws her out enough that she’s in a better place to save them.
Although in that regard the chasmfiend is probably the MVP: nothing like an obvious, very common threat to light a fire under some people!
Shallan deals with the pain of past tragedy through denial, repression, and ferocious optimism. There are advantages to that approach, but there are real costs. She and her brothers were hardly the only victims of their father’s violence and cruelty. There were other people in the household who didn’t even have the frail protection of social status, and they were the ones who suffered when her father decided to punish Shallan. The highprince’s bastard son came out to investigate her mother’s death, while the servants he tortured weren’t well-born enough to merit the protection of the law. If Shallan spent less time thinking about her future and more time facing the painful reality of her past, maybe she’d understand Kaladin’s viewpoint. Or maybe not. Suffering doesn’t always generate empathy, and Shallan doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the people who are still stuck in the kind of situation she escaped from.
The chasm section is my favorite part of this book. When WoK ended one of my biggest hopes for the next book was the knights radiant interacting. That didn’t really happen in WoR, but the chasm section comes close. I love that Kaladin and Shallan really talk.
I like Shallan and Adolin, more than I thought I would. They’re cute. But I ship Kaladin and Shallan. Kaladin is my favorite character. I think they could both be happy together. I can’t wait for them to interact more in the next book.
As for Kaladin and Shallan’s past traumas. I agree that Shallan is more resilient, but I have a lot of sympathy for Kaladin. He is dealing with his past and he is slowly getting better. I think he deserves to take all the time he needs. I believe that he will continue to get stronger and gain a more positive outlook on life. I mean that he won’t be so often beaten by his depression.
I don’t have too much of a problem with Kaladin’s view of lighteyes. Mostly, because I can see he is getting past his prejudice and recognizing individuals. Not quickly though.
@17 sillyslovene
I really like the biological fabrial idea. I think we were purposely given a very brief, somewhat shallow look at the process of Parshendi interacting with spren to change forms. I’d love to know where the spren went. Inside a gemheart seems like a logical place since we know that you can “trap” spren in gems without physically harming them.
If the Parshendi are a model for how native Rosharan species interact with spren, it makes sense that the relationship changes physical and mental attributes dramatically. The obvious difference is that we see the arrow spren surrounding the greatshells, skyeels, and santhid, but the Parshendi lament the spren’s lack of interest in them.
@18 Jason_UmmaMacabre
It might be a sore spot for a while, but the Knights won’t have the luxury of distrusting or disliking each other for long. I don’t think we’re done with revelations about what Helaran was doing, and those are likely to shape Shallan’s thinking too.
@@@@@7. Shardrunner
As a Kaladin supporter I really want to agree with you but here’s the problem. Kaladin has seen a lot of death, lost loved ones and even killed people himself yet he has never had to personally kill someone he loved. Shallan has had to do that TWICE! I’m pretty sure even Kaladin would have to admit that that is messed up. Especially considering how much love he has for his own parents.
That shouldn’t really change his opinions on the societal problems though. Yes, some lighteyes experience tragedy and hardship as great or even greater than he has but it wasn’t him or some conspiracy of the darkeyes that caused it.
Re: spren interaction with fauna Rosharan
So, the idea here is that spren bring intelligence to shelled creatures when they “bond”? That’s similar to the way spren enhance the Listeners from Dullform to something more, so I’ll buy in for now. Listeners having gemhearts would be the best-kept secret and a strange reveal at this point, imho. But…this is BWS writing, so who knows. Let’s not forget to factor in Larkin and their interaction with the Reshi Isles Greatshells (at least). My brain isn’t up to full speed right now and I’ll have to cogitate on that topic later.
The spren seem to be related to defying gravity.
In a Writing Excuses episode where Brandon talks about Flora and Fauna in Way of Kings he mentions that he wanted massive creatures so he changed the gravity a bit and made some scientific allowances to Roshar, but eventually had to introduce a magical element to make them work.
Given that Skyeels float/fly and the Chasmfiend is too large to physically exist I think the spren are related to that.
Grrrr… I typed up my comment and a computer glitch ate my comment. This is going to be shorter than my original comment.
Okay, one thing that I love about the chasm sequences is that is makes a pretty good case in my mind for Kaladin’s ability as a fighter with or with out Syl. (Of course I like him with Syl better.) Kaladin catches things that are thrown at him in this chapter without any extra-natural senses or agility, etc. To me that’s a small hint that it really isn’t all him bond with Syl.
Also as directionally challenged person myself, I’m actually kinda impressed that Kaladin keeps them going steadily south. Is he like a bird that can feel the magnetic fields of Roshar how is so good at pointing them south?
Re Shipping Wars.
I have a theory that the Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin triangle we are seeing is a re-enactment of the Dalinar/Navani/Galivar triangle but that because players are different we going to see it play out in a slightly different way. Especially when Shallan is effected by the intensity that she in Kaladin. For Navani the intensity she saw in Dalinar was something that she was afraid of and something that kept her away from Dalinar when he was younger. Shallan is different form Navani and I don’t that Kaladin’s passion is going to scare her the way it Dalinar’s did for Navani. This doesn’t mean I think Shallan and Kaladin are going to end up together and if anyone is interested in the parallels and difference here that I’m seeing I can type them up again later
Argh, the time zones have struck again. When I went to bed, there was one comment. When I got up, there were twenty-six. Sheesh.
Re: Greatshells, spren, and gemhearts – I don’t remember ever seeing a WoB that gemhearts were how chasmfiends and other greatshells got so large. There’s this, though:
And this:
That makes it sound like it’s just those three things – spren, high oxygen, and low gravity – that make it possible for chasmfiends &c to get that big.
But I like that idea that Parshendi are trapping spren in gemhearts inside them as part of bonding. Brandon Sanderson RAFOed a question about Surgebinders having gemhearts like greatshells, which I think is interesting. Then there’s also this WoB:
Would the gemhearts be different since spren are primarily Cognitive, not Spiritual? Could this also play into the theory going around that Parshendi are closer to the Cognitive Realm than humans? And oo, if Parshendi do have gemhearts could this be part of why they’re so particular about their dead? Interesting ideas.
Seems like if Parshendi had gem hearts Kals crew would have discovered it in WoK while in the chasms making their Parshendi armor. Sorry. Good theory, otherwise.
I would expect any Parshendi gemhearts to be pretty small, though – small enough to easily miss if you’re not looking for them. Also, I don’t think Kaladin and co. were cutting deep into Parshendi bodies, they were just taking the carapace off the outside. So that at least isn’t an issue, I think. Though I suspect the theory has plenty of other holes.
@22 Halien, Your comment raises a good question for me. You say “If the Parshendi are a model for how native Rosharan species interact with spren”. If they are said model for native species, is it possible that when the Everstorm sweeps over Roshar and converts the Parshendi in its path to Voidbringers, that it will also do so for the rest of the native species? Chasmfiends are bad enough, but one converted with a Storm Spren would be how much worse? I don’t know if this theory has been brought up before. Admittedly, I have not read all the comments on previous posts.
Hey, gang! Looks like there’s a lot of discussion this week. I notice there are a few comments addressed directly to me, and I promise that I’ll respond when I can do so thoughtfully. Just… crazy couple of days full of crazy family stuff. Hopefully I’ll be free tonight to read the comments carefully and make a few of my own.
Later!
Interesting similarities and differences between Shallan and Kaladin’s trauma experiences.
Both center around control.
Shallan’s control mechanisms are inwardly oriented: image management, humor, self-defense, blocks memories, results in disassociative identities. Her intellectual pursuits are her only way of achieving higher social status and saving her family through social means, the only culturally acceptable path for a woman of nobility. What she is only beginning to consider through an alternate identity is that she has quite a lot of physical power at her disposal, but bringing that power into her social world would require her fully assimilate her past memories of killing her parents. So she continues to function as a survivalist. Her inward control issue stunts her outward growth.
Kalladin’s are focused outward: seeks opportunties for advancement, direct environmental shaping through military service, gets burned by cultist nobility, tries to try again, results in depression. His high expectations are instilled by his father and his expectations for light eyes become premeditated disappointments seeing as no person is perfect. Syl keeps trying to clue him in that people under his care are allowed to make their own reasonable sacrifices. So he continues to struggle with functionality and resentment. His outward control issue stunts his inward growth.
@8 KiManiak
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your comment. It is possible to be right without being a jerk. Shallan is right. She is also a jerk.
Yes, she has reasons for being so and yes I forgive her and of course I’m extremely glad she and Kaladin work through most of their tension by the end of the chasm sequence, but I think we could stand to give Kaladin a break. He’s just experienced the loss of the only friend in the world who truly understands him, not to mention the loss of his identity as windrunner (so far as he knows). What more can the world take from him now? Except that this time, he knows it’s his fault, not the Almighty’s.
People are known to lash out irrationally under much lighter stressors. Give the man some room to mourn. Oh wait, he can’t get any room because he’s stuck with this know-it-all lighteyes in the middle of nowhere and both of them will die if they can’t get out soon. Also, there’s a chasmfiend.
(In a way, I wonder if the chasmfiend actually came as a relief to him: “finally, a problem in my life I know how to deal with…”)
@28 kei_rin. I’ve seen the similarities between Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin and Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar. The only weakness in the comparison is we know almost nothing about Gavilar. I don’t believe Gavilar and Adolin have much in common. What I do know about Gavilar makes me think he was an awful person. I’d like to read what you wrote about the two triangles.
@several regarding Parshendi and gem hearts
Although we don’t know if the Parshendi have gem hearts hidden inside there bodies, we do know that they like to weave small gems in their beards. Kaladin noticed the gems in their beards several times, and noted that they were uncut/ unpolished small bits of gems.
@15 @23
I agree that I may have seemed fairly unsympathetic to Shallan and you are correct I’ve never lived through an abusive relationship, however I stand by Kaladin. With all the different things he had been made to do I’m far more impressed that he doesnt have the view that lives are simply something to be thrown away as needed by “The greater good.” After so much killing it is hard to view humans as anything special and I am honestly surprised by the restraint he has shown as he only once decides to kill someone outside of battle and even then later reconsiders. Shallan is still strong and I have respect for her. Kaladin may very well have been unable to kill his parents if he had been in Shallans place and may not have coped. I am convinced though that there is almost no way Shallan could have lived through Kaladin’s experiences adn not been the crying wreck she thinks she should already be. Kaladin, while he may not have loved his men as much as Shallan loved her parents, knew some were going to die then went and saved Amaram. He lost so many people that would have been like brothers to him and unlike Shallan who was saving what remained of her family instead was betrayed by the man he idolized. Perhaps it is just that I prefer his coping methods rather than forcing a smile and have some bias from book one remaining about Shallan. Shallan is strong in her own way and yet I still find Kaladin stronger. Sorry about turning this into “a big knock-down drag-out fight about whose backstory is the more tragic or traumatic or painful”
Woulda-coulda-shoulda moment – I couldn’t help but think that had Kaladin kept his strong bond with Syl he could have progressed as a Wind-Runner while down in the chasm with Shallan. I mean, here’s a young woman he doesn’t like, and he keeps saying he’s just watching out for her for the sake of Adolin. Kaladin, buddy, Shallan is on your side. Get that through your thick skull. She is worth protecting in her own right. Even if you find her exasperating.
@36 Jenesis
I agree that the Adolin/Gavilar comparison is where the duplication is the weakest which is why I think that the end result is going to be different. The only place where we can with any confidence say that Adolin is same as Galivar in this situation is that they are both the more political choice for Shallan to be with. Even with Kaladin being one of the new Knight Radiant. From an outside perspective he’s not the “smarter” choice politically as Adolin still is heir to a Princedom and has the greater reputation which will probably be true even if he doesn’t become a KR himself.
Another connect is that Gaviliar and Adolin are both more straight forward and open and about their courtships. Gavilar was clear to Navani that he was interested in her. Adolin also is very open about the fact that he likes where things are going with Shallan and wants the causal betrothal to become a real one. Dalinar wasn’t open about his feeling for Navani because he knew that his brother was interested in her. Kaladin at first doesn’t even want to consider that he’s attracted to Shallan. Personally I think that he was attracted to her (at least in superficial physical manner) from early on but didn’t allow himself to acknowledge that because she is a Lighteyed Lady. I’m willing to bet that later that he doesn’t bring up his feelings for Shallan because she’s betrothed to Adolin.
Personally I think that on the surface it’s going to look like a repeat of happened with Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar but the reasons why people end up together are going to be different. I feel like Navani chose Gavilar because she wasn’t sure about Dalinar. I feel like even if Kaladin doesn’t bring up his feelings he’s going to end up giving himself away. He’s not really good hiding how he feels. I think that Shallan is still going to chose Adolin though because Adolin is what she needs. She needs the acceptance that Adolin would give her without expecting her to carry the burden of being his happiness. (At least given what I know of Adolin’s personality I think he would be the one to give her that acceptance.) Kaladin without meaning to would that. Kaladin needs someone to pull him from his gloom. Shallan occasionally needs a rest from pulling people from dark places. Shallan’s probably going to work at making sure at some point that Adolin knows that she want him because given that Adolin is always listening for the death noel of his relationship. I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to bow out if he ever thinks that Shallan is interested in someone else.
I wonder how closely Kaladin’s resentment of lighteyes is tied to how he blames himself. If he didn’t feel such crushing personal responsibility for those events, would he be so driven to blame others and shift some of that guilt off of himself?
@1 Halien:
Yes! Both of them, but especially Shallan, have been quite isolated for a while, trying to solve problems on their own and keeping secrets from everyone else. Kaladin has Bridge 4 to some extent, and Shallan had Jasnah for a little while, but they’ve mostly been struggling along by themselves without close companions other than their spren. I hope that in the future Shallan and Kaladin will have friends and others close to them that they can share openly with, whether they do that for each other or other people play those roles. Of course, soon they may be working together extensively with fellow Radiants, which would also be interesting to see.
@7 Shardrunner: What stands out to me about Shallan is that she has been completely alone in her efforts to save her family. Kaladin had his parents and brother while in Hearthstone, a squad of loyal spearman in Amaram’s army, and now Bridge 4. He went through periods of being without companions, but most of the time he’s had others helping him (even if he still lacks close friends like I said above). Shallan, though, tried to keep her family from destruction almost single-handedly. It was her cleverness and willpower that saved Jushu, brought Balat and Eylita together, and helped keep Wikim from death. She killed her father, she came up with the idea to steal Jasnah’s Soulcaster, and she went by herself to find Jasnah and convince her to take her on as a ward. Her brothers have done little to help her, and any other friends along the way – Hoid, Jasnah, even the sailors like Yalb – have quickly disappeared and left her by herself. No wonder she feels such a strong pull to being part of the Ghostbloods and actually having steady companions! So while Kaladin perhaps went through more difficult experiences, he at least had some support from others. Shallan didn’t. She’s had to find her own light, and that has put a tremendous amount of stress on her.
Anyways, I’m not saying all this to try to judge who precisely had a more difficult past – my point is that they’ve both had hard experiences, just different ones. I like comparing them mostly to see the similarities and differences in their experiences and how they responded to them. You pointed out several interesting contrasts, like how the family Shallan tried to save is still around – I’m curious to see what the effects of that will be.
@19 FenrirMoridin: I get what you mean about their conversations feeling slightly artificial, calculated to bring up just the right subjects. On the other hand, that’s part of good dialog writing – keeping it focused enough to move the story forward even while making it natural enough to be believable. Sanderson here decides to lessen the naturalness of Shallan and Kaladin’s interactions a bit in order to better push their relationship forward. In the end I think he pulls it off very well, but he still does sacrifice some organicity to get all that juicy character development.
@28 kei_rin re: Kaladin’s abilities – He’s supposed to have been a very good spearman back in Amaram’s army, too, though I guess there’s a possibility Syl was helping him out there. Also, I can’t find it in my notes (maybe it was at the end of TWoK?), but I remember there being something about Kaladin feeling that Stormlight was primarily enhancing his natural abilities, not giving him new abilities. I.e., if he wasn’t already brilliant with the spear, he couldn’t do all that with Stormlight.
@34 CireNaes: I like your description of Shallan’s coping mechanisms as primarily inward, and Kaladin’s as outward. It’s also interesting to see how Kaladin resists internal change, in comparison to how Shallan keeps reexamining and remaking her identity. As for Kaladin’s expectations, I’d agree that they’ve caused him a lot of pain and disappointment, but at the same time I respect him for them. He continues to believe that people should be honorable and can be honorable despite everything he’s experienced; he hasn’t given into the cynical, mercenary ways of people like Sadeas. His desire for honor is a form of hope. I would like to see him hold onto that hope even while coming to terms with how people actually act.
@37 radiantflower: The gems the Parshendi weave into their beards brings up the question – where do they get those gems? From chasmfiends? Or do they have other sources too?
@40 kei_rin: Ha! My sister and I just realized that parallel the other day. We were talking about bad arguments for Kaladin/Shallan, and one of us proposed facetiously that if you ship Dalinar/Navani you must also support Kaladin/Shallan or else you’re being inconsistent! We were just being silly, but your parallel is certainly valid. Good to hear your analysis of it. A few thoughts:
-I’m not sure what may happen to Adolin’s reputation and standing in society if he’s convicted of murdering Sadeas, so it’s possible that Kaladin may actually become the politically better choice. Or rather, the better of two not-very-good political choices. But Adolin is certainly more politically savvy. (Can you imagine Kaladin schmoozing at a lighteyed party?)
-It’s interesting that you describe Gavilar as being more straightforward, since while he was franker about his interest in Navani, overall he seems to be a more secretive person. Adolin has pretty clear motives and concerns and doesn’t keep lots of secrets, which is more like what we’ve seen of the young Dalinar. Gavilar, though, had a lot of fishy stuff going on with him – similar to Kaladin, who hides a lot from the people around him.
-I think one of the key elements in the Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar relationship that’s missing from this one is the dynamic between Gavilar and Dalinar. Gavilar was the older one, the leader, the one in charge who told Dalinar what to do, and Dalinar seems to have gone along with that and let Gavilar channel his intensity. Correct me if I’m wrong, but IIRC this was part of why Dalinar let Gavilar have Navani: he was used to Gavilar having his way. We definitely don’t see Adolin and Kaladin acting like this. I don’t think Kaladin would naturally just go along with what Adolin wants, even though I don’t think Kaladin would want to challenge Adolin either – he cares enough about Adolin at this point that he’d presumably want to avoid conflict.
-Ha, yes, if Kaladin falls in love with Shallan he’d have trouble hiding it, especially since Shallan and Adolin are both pretty good at reading people. I’m also concerned that Adolin might bow out if he saw Shallan interested in someone else – partly because he genuinely cares about her, but also because of his own insecurity. I would hate to see Adolin break his heart giving up Shallan in an effort to make her happy.
-Finally: One thing that’s interesting to me about this parallel is that we’ll be seeing Dalinar, Gavilar, and Navani’s relationships over a long time spread, through the combination of Dalinar’s flashbacks and the current-day story. We may also see Kaladin, Adolin, and Shallan through many years so long as they stick around enough in coming SA books. That gives Sanderson a lot of room in both cases to develop complex relationships with consequences years down the line.
On Gavilar, Dalinar, Adolin and Kaladin, because other thoughts are interesting, because too many people, here and elsewhere, have made the same links and most importantly because I do believe people got it back-ways. For all of these reasons, I’ll make a small contribution here, if only for lurkers still trying to make up their mind, perhaps this will help shed light in a different way.
I disagree with the classic interpretation of the mirror triangle between Gavilar/Navani/Dalinar and Adolin/Shallan/Kaladin.
I disagree about linking Adolin to Gavilar as both characters, based on what we know, seem to have had little in common. For one, nobody (Dalinar, Navani) ever saw fit to compare Adolin, even remotely, to Gavilar while many do actively compare him to young Dalinar, even if not accurately. Nobody ever exclaimed how similar to Gavilar Adolin was and since quite a few characters observed Adolin, it seems to me as if someone would have made the link, if such link were to exist.
There also is no textual evidence of Gavilar being straight-forward and open (considering how many secrets the man had, it seems as if it were the opposite), but there are quite a few where Adolin’s earnest, bluntly honest personality is associated to Dalinar’s. His tendency to emotionally outburst has also been tightly linked to Dalinar’s youth: Sadeas stating Adolin had passion, like his father, but much less control over it. Even Dalinar observes those same behaviors into his son, which prompts him to enforce the code more strongly on him such as to prevent him from growing up as he did.
Everything about Dalinar’s fathering of Adolin is geared towards preventing his son from following into the Blackthorn’s footstep. Everyone compares young Adolin to young Dalinar: same energy, same lack of emotional control, same battle prowess. The differences in between father and son lie elsewhere, Adolin doesn’t have it in him to become another Blackthorn, he is too kind, he has goals other than warfare, but temperament wise, he is quite similar to Dalinar.
Young Dalinar was known to burst out in anger which scared Navani. Adolin burst out in anger quite a few times, the last time, he murdered a man.
Kaladin, on the other hand, never burst out in anger or lose control over himself which is exactly what Shallan comments on: his control. Kaladin has emotions, but he keeps them inside: casual observer have no idea what goes on with him. This is rather unlike Dalinar and much more akin to what little we know of Gavilar. Kaladin has control, Adolin doesn’t which is not to say emotions aren’t important to Kaladin, but they don’t fly out of him as they do with Adolin. Adolin is an open-book while Kaladin is a mystery.
What else do we know? Gavilar was a born leader, charismatic who subdued the Highprinces into forming a cohesive kingdom under him. Now, who is the self-acclaimed charismatic leader? Kaladin or Adolin?
Kaladin.
Kaladin is the one pictured as the natural leader, he is one seen as a hero, and he is the one rallying everyone under him. Adolin only creates dissention through a mix of jealousy and fear, much like Dalinar used to. People want to follow Kaladin, but people only want to get rid of Adolin: they don’t want him around.
Adolin can lead, well, just as Dalinar can lead, well, but it isn’t their natural inclination. Adolin doesn’t even want to become a leader or a Highprince, but Gavilar wanted to be king. Kaladin wants to lead if only as a mean to better protect his people.
If there is a parallel to be made (I don’t think there is, but for the shake of the exercise, let’s pretend there is), I’d say Kaladin is Gavilar and Adolin is Dalinar. Adolin is the one who is about to get scary, he is the one who lashes out and more importantly, he is the one who can’t speak up his mind to girls. Adolin has NOT been straight-forward as to his intentions to Shallan: he never told her anything. He bottles it up and when she looks elsewhere, he will walk away, just as Dalinar did. He has never told a girl he wanted to marry her, to stay with her, to…. Anything. He is horribly shy, much like Dalinar while Kaladin is everything but shy.
As for Adolin being the best political choice: this isn’t true anymore. Brandon has said Radiants rank higher than anyone else, so there. Kaladin ranks higher than Adolin now: he is the most powerful individual on Roshar while Adolin is about to become a destitute, disinherited prince convicted for murder and treason.
Choosing Adolin would not be the “logic” choice for Shallan, not anymore. She doesn’t need him while tying her faith with Kaladin would turn them into the most powerful union on Roshar, the next power couple, the next Gavilar and Navani.
Adolin has nothing to bring into the union, but himself and shame. Can it be enough?
@41 an 42
Agree that Gavilar seemed to have a lot of irons in the fire when it came to other things. We don’t know how deeply he was involved with the Sons of Honor or for how long and as King there had to have been things that he had to do that probably weren’t so great but from Navani’s point of view when Gavilar was courting her he was straight forward about he he wanted from her. That might have changed later and given how things seemed to gone sour for Navani and Gavilar’s marriage to the point that she didn’t really grieve for his death much, he probably changed a lot In this case I am only comparing one aspect of the man.
Sheesania I would agree with you that the reason that Dalinar wasn’t clear with Navani about his feelings is that he knew of Gavilar’s intentions and even then he wasn’t very good at hiding it. Only his feelings came out in such a way that Navani was convinced that Dalinar must not like her at all. Dalinar was trying deny his feelings for Navani and it came out as anger and sometimes as distrust.
I completely agree that using Dalinar/Navani as argument for shipping Kaladin/Shallan is really weak logic. Firstly these are all completely different characters. This isn’t a case of what’s good for goose being good for the gander.Also who Dalinar and Navani were when they were younger might not have worked out if they had gotten together back then. We don’t know but one of the things that always stuck with me was the fact that young Dalinar is described as being a very intense person, where as older Dalinar is described as being a very controlled person. It sounds to me like he needed to learn how to work with his own emotions before he could have relationship with Navani. He and Navani are in a totally different place in there life than Kaladin and Shallan. If you wan to use Dalinar/Navani as template for a possibility for a relationship between Kaladin and Shallan when they both grow up more, maybe I can see that but as reason for why Shallan and Kaladin should be together now it doesn’t work.
Gepto I see what you are talking about but I don’t agree with you. When I read things in Adolin’s head I don’t see the “man of extremes” that I associate with Dalinar. I see that a lot more when I read Kaladin’s POV. Adolin is more emotionally elastic. He can may get angry but he doesn’t let that anger ride beyond the moment that causes it from what I can see. Kaladin much more emotionally ridged, if he’s angry he’s leashed to it and he has work around his feelings.
Personally I think, Dalinar’s harsh restrictions on Adolin have less to do with Adolin then then have to Dalinar. Those are the kinda things Dalinar wishes that he was given looking back rather than a reaction to how Adolin is. Though you are right that Adolin is not the type of man to grab for power, he’s had many opportunities where he could have made a bid for power but he’s more than happy to support power without the need to grab for it himself. Which isn’t really like either Dalinar or Gavilar. Dalinar also grabs for power and doesn’t let go the only reason he didn’t challenge Gavilar is because he promised himself that he wouldn’t. He loved his brother so he never took anything from his brother that Gavilar claimed for himself but that doesn’t mean that Dalinar wasn’t someone who wasn’t a power house on his own.
I have things to say about Adolin’s murder of Sadeas but I’m going to hold on that until that chapter. Either way we don’t know what’s going to happen to Adolin because of this so we’ll see.
I will say we don’t where Kaladin ranks in Atheli society any more. The KR as an order are distrusted for so long by Vorinism and it was never really answered. Kaladin actually seems to be outside the Alethi social structure even more than normal. This like this like the what is going to happen to Adolin is going to something that we’ll have to find out later. My gut tells me that Adolin is still going to have the higher standing in society but you might be right and Kaladin might out rank him soon. I guess we’ll RAFO.
@43: There is a WoB related to the new Radiants rank in society, but I can’t find it anymore. Kaladin does now rank higher than Adolin, the question remains as to how Alethi people will react to this fact. So unless Adolin becomes a Radiant, he now ranks lower than Kaladin and Shallan and Dalinar and Renarin and basically anyone who is a Radiant. I’ll post it, if I can find it again. I may have to browse through the 17th Shards to locate it again, but I’ll try.
We do not know what will happen to Adolin, true enough, but I believe most of us will agree something will happen. He won’t walk out of it completely unscathed. There will be consequences which are likely to tarnish his shinning star while Kaladin’s is bond to only grow brighter from now on. Once the ordeal is over, I somehow doubt Adolin will be seen as a priced catch anymore, while Kaladin’s new status may make him very desirable to the power diggers.
Dalinar states in WoK how Adolin’s hot head had to be controlled and his impulsiveness had to be channeled in a positive way. He also states his hopes were if he forced his son to follow the codes for long enough, Adolin would see the reason behind them. He explains to Adolin how he wished for him not to have to go through drastic examples to learn what he considers to be “the right way”. All through both books, we see both Dalinar and Renarin trying to control Adolin as he leashes out in anger, going as far as calling Sadeas a coward in front of the king. Dalinar also is persistently afraid Adolin would someday walk into his former footsteps. Everyone comments on how Adolin has the same energy signature as the Blackthorn, the same ruthlessness in battle.
Kaladin may be angry, but he keeps it inside. It doesn’t read this way mostly because we rarely see Kaladin from a 3rd person’s perspective, but all in all, his emotions are for him and while he does struggle with them, he has yet to completely lose control of himself. Even when he acts out of emotion, he does it in a very controlled way. In comparison, Adolin killed a man out of anger. He insulted others, he jumped up on his feet over threads, he was about to punch another at a feast, he unconsciously started to summon his Blade on numerous occasions simply because he couldn’t control himself. He has no control, at all. The only reason he may appears to have more is more linked to the fact he has never truly had any reasons to lash out before. His life has been more stable, occasions to be angry weren’t numerous for him: he’s had the upper hand more often than not which cannot be said of Kaladin.
It also is exactly how Shallan perceives Kaladin: a man who has mastered anger and controlled it. She has not seen this side of Adolin yet, but she has noticed he has a tendency to grow nervous. I’d also point out here one of the arguments in favor of Kaladin/Shallan is the fact Adolin’s emotional side may remind Shallan of Lin… Now I do not agree with this statement, but it has been brought forward before. It therefore has some value to some readers. So if Adolin is in danger to remind Shallan of her violent father, how can he not be linked to angry impulsive young Dalinar? Twisted logic, I agree and not one I agree with, but I post it here to offer reflection.
Adolin also is more impulsive than Kaladin, which another aspect he seems to share with young Dalinar.
If someone is a reminder of young Dalinar, it certainly is Adolin and not Kaladin. Just like young Dalinar, Adolin is happy to follow and does not seek to lead, even if for different reasons. The same cannot be said about Kaladin who wants to lead, who wants to be the one calling the shots, even if he has a hard time acknowledging it. Each time he is reminded he has to follow orders, he gets frustrated while Adolin is more of a “yes man” kind of person.
This being said, I personally don’t believe there is a parallel to be had with both triangles if only because Shallan isn’t Navani to begin with.: both characters don’t even begin to compare, so they can’t be expected to make similar choices are be attracted to similar men. However if we are to make the comparison, I’d say it is worth having a thought or two as to its interpretation: comparing Adolin to Gavilar is tempting because both are the handsome older brother, but it seems to stop right here. As far as I can tell, Kaladin has little in common with young Dalinar, not based on what we have read while I can see some of Dalinar’s former impulsiveness in Adolin which agrees with Dalinar’s personal assessment of his own son, even if it expresses itself in a different manner.
I thus think the classical interpretation of the triangle mirror, which is generally use to push forward the Kaladin/Shallan ship, is not accurate. I do think it is worth trying to reflect some more on the classic ideas wanting Kaladin to be akin to Dalinar.
Gavilar is the big problem if you compare the two “triangles” as of now, but will get to see more of him in book 3. Either way, while people jump on these two sets of relationships for their shipping implications, I think it’s important to remember their literary implications as well. The current largest one being of course whether or not the younger generation will figure out the mistake of not uniting…which as of the end they don’t really seem to be on track for but maybe they’ll figure it out.
Not to mention the spren muddies the comparison up even more. Two (at least for now) of the three members of the younger “triangle” have soul friends who can help them against the worst parts of their character (with wildly varying success so far but it’s still early). That changes a lot of what’s going on. Combine that with the unpredictability of what will happen to these characters over the course of the next 3 books and then a timeskip…while looking at what conspired between Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar is interesting for any parallels with the younger 3, for shipping purposes it’s still pretty much a shot in the dark imo.
Although here’s a thought for people: what if, from a character standpoint, it’s more like a repeat of the past “triangle” but with two different Dalinars – we know so little of Gavilar that it’s still easier to compare aspects of both Adolin and Kaladin more strongly to Dalinar than it is to link one of them and then extrapolate how Gavilar must have been to keep the comparison feasible.
I agree Gavilar/Adolin have courting Navani/Shallan directly in common. I agree Kaladin is attracted to Shallan and unlikely to tell her. The characters in the two triangles are very different and I don’t think there is reason to believe they will reenact Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar’s relationships. Shallan and Navani are not much alike. Shallan is braver (more foolish) and more outgoing/outspoken. Though now that Navani is older she is quite outgoing/outspoken.
Gepeto you brought up Lin. While I don’t think Adolin’s anger is going to remind Shallan of Lin, Adolin already freaked Shallan out by being protective (reminding her of Lin that way),which is possibly worse. Adolin backed off pretty agreeably, but maybe this will be an obstacle for them. Adolin is so easygoing that I can believe this won’t be a problem. I’m bringing it up because I’m a fan of Kaladin/Shallan and obstacles for Adolin/Shallan entertain me.
Re: Triangle parallels:
The fact that we can disagree on who parallels whom in this situation, and that there are so many other diverging factors, seems to indicate to me that there isn’t so much a strong parallel as just echoes. All the characters involved are quite distinct, and we still don’t know that much about Gavilar, how the original events with Navani played out, where the Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin thing will go, etc. So yeah, I guess I would change my initial assessment that there is a strong parallel and just say that there are some overlapping similarities. Thanks for chiming in, Gepeto.
About who parallels Dalinar: Shallan comments on Kaladin’s control, but she also mentions his intensity, which seemed to make her uncomfortable. For me at least, that strongly evoked Navani’s comments about Dalinar’s intensity frightening her. Also, while we have seen Adolin lash out in anger several times, most of the time we see him being pretty calm and easygoing. Kaladin tends to be mad all the time even if he controls it better.
I think we’re dealing with two things here: intensity of emotion, and level of control over it. Our impression is that the young Dalinar was intense and uncontrolled. Kaladin is intense but controlled. Adolin is not as intense but uncontrolled. So if you look at it like that, then you could go either way.
About who’d be a better political choice: Even if Kaladin is a Radiant, he will carry the stigma of having been an enslaved darkeyed bridgeman. And as kei_rin said, we don’t know how people will view Radiants now that the Recreance has happened. So even if Kaladin technically outranks Adolin, Adolin may still practically have more political influence, though his influence is weakened by whatever happens with Sadeas. I guess it depends on how Radiants will be treated in society and what will happen to Adolin, which is a whole different can of worms.
In the end, I think there are – like I said – echoes of Navani’s triangle in Shallan’s. Not enough to draw conclusions about shipping, but enough to have some implications. And to be literarily interesting – I wouldn’t be surprised if Sanderson is deliberately playing the triangles off of each other, especially because Oathbringer will likely feature both.
Re: Lin and Adolin: Even though it came up, it would seem odd to me if Adolin consistently reminded Shallan of Lin. If anyone, Kaladin should, since he’s the protective one who gets worried when he doesn’t know where everyone in Bridge 4 is. I think that when Adolin expressed a desire to protect her and freaked her out, he was just reacting appropriately to the persona she’s shown him of an adventurous but naive young woman. He doesn’t know what she’s been through and how strong she is; it was reasonable for him to think that she needed protection. Once he realizes what she truly is, I would expect him to back off a bit and it wouldn’t be a problem anymore. (Presumably he wouldn’t back off entirely if he realizes that Shallan needs him in other ways.)
@44-47
Yes, this! Thank you for putting it better than I did. For me I guess I put more emphasize on the intensity of the emotions. Yes I can agree that Adolin is uncontrolled with showing with hia emotions but to me it just feels like the follies of youth. I feel like if you just Adolin a couple of years to grow up (without a**hats to needle him) he’d have a good head on his shoulder. Which actually is what happened with Dalinar. A few decades, a couple of kids and boat load of responsibilities and he gained a good head on his shoulders. From Navani I really thought it was the intensity of the emotions that scared her more from a younger Dalinar.
I like FenrirMoridin’s idea that the triangle is actually more like two different aspects of Dalinar because really we’re ascribing the other attributes to Gavilar based on conjectures and small exchange from Navani of how we think a young Gavilar acted in this situation.
Gepeto you also bring up a good point that Shallan isn’t Navani. We’ve gone over how each of the boys is or isn’t an analogy for either of the brothers but other than Shallan being the female of interest we haven’t ‘really gotten into how she doesn’t really fit as parallel for Navani either. Shallan is much braver than Navani. She isn’t one to be scared away either by uncontrolled emotions or intense emotions, she’s dealt with those things before and is probably one of the most capable women when it comes to handing herself on Roshar. WoR proves that in spades, IMO.
I will disagree you that Kaladin doesn’t have things in common with a young Dalinar. Dalinar himself comments that he had “similar lessons pounded into him at various points in his life” (chapter 67) when talking about Kaladin’s punishment. It’s true that nobody says directly out that Kaladin reminds them of a young Blackthorn but then again nobody is looking for those similarities. Why would they be? But they are looking for those in Adolin. Which is why I say that Dalinar’s assessment of his own son has more to do with Dalinar’s assessment of his younger-self as opposed to actually how his son behaves. It feels like someone who had trouble with substance abuse cracking down on there child so that they don’t have trouble with substance abuse. If that makes sense. Yes Adolin has been impulsive but from what Dalinar has seen in front of him (this means not counting killing Sadeas because Dalinar didn’t see that), I don’t feel that Dalinar needed to be as hard on Adolin as he was.
As for Adolin reminding Shallan of Lin Devar. I would agree with Sheesania here again. I think Adolin was just acting in a manner that was in response to what Shallan had shown him of who she was. He still has a lot to learn about her so it was a misstep that I doubt he’ll make again. I think that argument would only hold water if we see him act that way towards Shallan in a habitual manner which so far he hasn’t.
I still think this an interesting topic to discuss, if only to see how it actually highlights the differences that this trio have from the older trio. I would also say that it interesting to see how as you say people will try to find similarities between the main characters that they have greater affinities for. I think this applies both to seeing aspects of Dalinar in both Kaladin and Adolin. For this matter we know Dalinar to be romantic hero of the older trio (a romantic hero is I believe defined by how he changes for love in this case) so people will look for aspects of that in which ever character they like more. I have spent more time thinking about Kaladin’s personality and how he relates. Others would do the same for Adolin because they like that character more and therefore would naturally see more similarities there. It’s all a pattern but not a real pattern, just one we make up because we’ve thought about it too much.
IMO, it’s like how for many readers if a character is described as the hero of the story, he’ll have to be handsome. Even he’s described by the author as having a horrible disfiguring scar on half his face, he’ll still be handsome in the eyes of the readers because he’s the hero of the story. Dalinar is constantly described as slightly unfortunate in the looks department due to a broken nose and lifetime of fighting but if I search of pictures of him as he’s imagined by readers I would say just about every picture he’s drawn like a sliver fox. Older but still what I would call handsome.
Is it just me or does it seem like Adolin and Kaladin feel more like brothers than Renarin? Of the three gentlemen, Renarin stands out as being nothing like either version of Dalinar, Blackthorn or Statesman. It really makes me want to see more of Shhhhhhhh, if only to see if Ren is like her.
As for the Shipping Wars, I think the next chapter is the one where Kaladin realized he was feeling Shallan and her vibe. I don’t think he’ll ever come right out and tell her, plus it seems more one-sided to me anyway. Shallan sees more to like in him than she used to before the chasms but he certainly seems like a friend-zone candidate. Adolin has won the war already; the only way a Kaladin-Shallan pairing would be possible is if Adolin gives up, pushes her away. That’s not outside the realm of possibility. Depends on how he takes having a girlfriend who is so much more powerful than he is, if he feels emasculated or not. If it begins to weigh on him that everyone around him is popping up with KR powers and he’s left out, if he shows resentment then it opens the door for Kaladin. Not sure at this point how the chips may fall. But very interested to find out. Alice, so lucky u are.
One of the aspect of the triangle mirror which is rarely extrapolated on is the comparison between Navani and Shallan.
Shallan is a talkative witty young woman known to bluntly speak her mind when expected to remain poised. She is an artist of exceptional talent and she excels at drawing sense out of mismatched clues. She is disorganized, seeking to find patterns into disarrayed arrangements of facts.
While she seek to become a scholar, her interests mostly seem to lay into arts and biology. She has yet to express any curiosity or inclination towards engineering or fabrial making.
Navani is an elegant poised woman, the picture perfect of everything expected of an Alethi and while she did eventually grow up to be outspoken and bold, she doesn’t exactly have Shallan’s blunt speaking.
She is organized and has a mind who thinks in a rational way. She has no artistic inclination that we could see, being mostly geared towards fabrial and logic. She is an engineer at heart and has drop inklings she would have wished to truly earn the right to call herself one.
Both characters are so widely different I have a hard time finding them any similarities.
Therefore, by bringing forth the argument Shallan should choose Kaladin because Navani should have chosen Dalinar basically is the equivalent of saying: “All women should choose Kaladin over Adolin as any woman fearing his intensity is making a mistake, in the long run, just as Navani did.” So is Adolin doomed to remain single because he doesn’t have Kaladin’s intensity? Does it mean every single woman should never choose him for this simple fact? Does it mean any woman guilty of preferring Adolin over Kaladin making a mistake because Kaladin is the hero of the story and thus needs to be chosen? Does it truly makes for the best story to have it played out this way?
Now, of course, nobody has specifically said any this or probably even think of it in this specific way, but the idea is why should Navani wrongly choosing Gavilar matters into who Shallan should choose? Both women are such different individuals with different upbringings, how can they be expected to desire/need the same characteristics into their partner? Why should Shallan need Kaladin’s intensity? Why should her choosing Adolin necessarily be a mistake, in the long run?
What if it is the opposite? The triangle mirror argument is always used as an argument in favor of Kaladin/Shallan.
What if readers got it wrong in using forth this argumentation?
My goal here isn’t to state who Shallan should choose, it is to dismantle a classic argumentation stating one choice necessarily is the right one based on other characters decisions.
As for Kaladin, based on my readings of the Dalinar excerpt, I’d say he has little in common with young Dalinar. Come to think of it, neither does Adolin, but a lot of people brought forward the fact Kaladin is intense, just as Dalinar.
I’d like to point out a few things which can explain it: upbringing.
Young Dalinar was the youngest, less favored brother who was quite capable on his own, but never quite as dashing as his older brother. He grew up resentful which eventually turned into jealousy and anger. The first generation of Kholin brothers likely were encouraged to compete against one another throughout their youth, a statement which correlates with Dalinar stating how he and Gavilar used to compete for everything. All in all, it was very unhealthy and it created a horde of negative feelings into young Dalinar which he channeled through warfare, becoming a blood lusted monster demanding challenges from everyone daring to step into his path.
Kaladin was the oldest brother of a smaller brother whose talents were unconventional. He was raised to be a surgeon, a passive activity which taught him how to think, but serves to nothing to channel his energy. Kaladin never wanted to be a passive surgeon, being a man of action: his need to spend his energy was denied from him. This denial created his first feeling of injustice. Even before Roshone got to Heartstone, Kaladin felt life was unjust. His anger, unlike Dalinar’s, never sprouted from unhealthy competition (Kaladin isn’t competitive), but from a lasting feeling of injustice. It is unjust other boys would look down on him for having free afternoons. It is unjust other boys should be allowed to learn how to fight, but not him. It is unjust Roshone should pick on his family. It is unjust Tien should be sent to war and die. It is unjust… I could keep going on and on and on and while Kaladin is right to feel life is unjust, these feelings existed prior to his true ordeal, even before Roshone step foot into Heartstone, Kaladin was a angry teenager. So all in all, his anger has very deep roots.
I’s thus say, young Dalinar’s intensity expressed itself through unhealthy competition, a desire to crush people. Kaladin’s intensity expresses itself through a lasting feeling of injustice which prompts him to demand, to confront, but not crush or destroy.
And Adolin?
Adolin is the Golden Child. The perfect older brother who never grew to feel inferior to anyone. His natural energy and desire to compete was satiated at a very young age through dueling. He has been encouraged to pursue this dream, to invest himself into an activity he was abnormally good at which boosted his self-esteem. All in all, Adolin has been given a healthy productive way to channel his own energy: he never developed negative feelings. He can’t be intense, he never had reasons to be. He likely was encouraged to remain carefree for as long as possible: Dalinar has effectively try to keep his son away from the battlefield, claiming how sadden he was the Parshendis forced him to make a soldier out of him.
A lot of Dalinar’s parenting on his sons sprout from his own childhood. Adolin reminds him of himself, so the second his son is plunged into warfare, he is hard with him, forcing him to walk on a straight line, keeping him stable. Adolin has the same temperament as Dalinar, but not the same manner to bottle up feelings. Though, I’d argue Dalinar’s lack of ability to lead in his romantic pursuit is very akin to Adolin’s… Adolin, for all his womanising, isn’t the leading element in courtships: he follows. Shallan is leading him, not the other way around which actually is a reminder of the Navani/Dalinar union… This being said, I have a hard time picturing Kaladin not leading any future union. Adolin also is… nervous, he has a tendency to stress out which isn’t something we have seen into any other male characters, so far, be it Dalinar, Gavilar or Kaladin.
How will he evolve now everything which served to keep him stable has been toppled over? We don’t know yet, but I seriously doubt there is any mirror to be had: too many important differences.
Edit: Renarin has his father’s extreme rigidity, but his mother’s calming effect, serving to Adolin what Shshshsh served to Dalinar. He has a desire to express his talents through warfare which is more akin to Dalinar than Adolin’s healthy dueling. He also has his father’s stern look which contrast with Adolin’s happy personality which in inherited from his mother. I’d say Renarin has more in common with Dalinar than we are led to believe, but it is hard to see as he doesn’t have his temperament. It is more obvious to compare Adolin to Dalinar due to them sharing the emotional impulsiveness aspect. Renarin is more calm, much like I suspect his mother was, but his mind probably works in similar ways as Dalinar while Adolin has his father’s emotive aspect, but his mind works differently, probably more like his mother’s.
Welcome back Gepeto, I missed you.
Re: Triangle discussion – I believe the Kaladin, Shallan, Adolin triangle will be resolved on its own without anyone getting hurt. It’s just my prediction,
Now, the evil part of me, the one who just want the giggles want to see it resolved another way. Of course it will never happen in Stormlight Archive. But, it just feels wicked to think it might. :-)
@51
Well….Ranette has a girlfriend. Ijs.
@@@@@ everyone
Some good theories this week on relationships I suppose. I can’t offer anything constructive because I just can’t relate to them on a personal level, though by no means to I resent their inclusion in stories.
Wake me when the shipping is over.
*Note the only ships wcarter actively approves of The Doctor x TARDIS and Stubby x Enterprise
@51: Thanks.
I am not so positive as to the outcome of this triangle, but we will wait and see. I however think it won’t play out how we expect it to play out…
@48 kei_rin: About Adolin and Lin Davar – Adolin does make Shallan uncomfortable again near the very end (ch 88), when he’s telling her how amazing and important she is, and she insists that he not treat her like glass and not make it awkward. She really wants to make sure that he doesn’t put her on a pedestal, whether that’s by being protective of her or by being in awe of her. I think this issue will come up again, but so long as Adolin handles his sudden shift in position well I think it could be overcome.
Ha. Too true. Not just in this case; throughout my experience as a Sanderson fan. :)
@49 EvilMonkey: Kaladin does seem more attracted to Shallan than vice-versa, even if we’ve seen her mind wandering in that direction a time or two. But like I’ve said before, there’s a lot of things just starting to happen that could affect those relationships. Not just the revelation that Shallan is a Radiant, but also the death of Sadeas, the arrival of the Desolation, and then whatever happens with Kaladin’s parents and Shallan’s brothers. A lot could change. Though I can’t see Shallan ever purposefully pushing Adolin away unless he changes drastically.
@50 Gepeto: Just to be clear…I don’t think any of us are actually trying to argue for Kaladin/Shallan on the basis of the triangle mirror. I brought it up, but only jokingly; you outlined many solid reasons that the parallel may not even be there in the first place, let alone a reasonable argument for Kaladin/Shallan. If people have seriously used this parallel to push Kaladin/Shallan, I’m not aware of it.
Re: Comparing Navani and Shallan: Argh. This dichotomy between the artist and the engineer is one of my pet peeves, since I’ve known so many people who don’t fit into those categories. (Myself included.) Both Shallan and Navani can look at disorganized facts (fabrial techniques, animals, information), find patterns in them, and then creatively use them to create something new (a new fabrial, a drawing, a theory). They are good at intuiting connections, and have a sense for possibilities and applications. They just happen to apply those basic skills in different ways, in different areas. I don’t think Shallan and Navani’s talents are so fundamentally different. Other than that, though, I’d agree that Shallan and Navani are pretty different. Though I don’t feel like I have a strong sense of what Navani is like. Maybe I just haven’t paid enough attention to her so far.
Re: Comparing Dalinar and Kaladin: Hang on. How was being a surgeon a passive activity Kaladin didn’t want, one that didn’t channel his energy? I thought he actively wanted to be a surgeon for some time; after experience with Roshone he specifically chose to be educated and pursue that path. It didn’t work out – for good or for ill – but that is what he seemed to want. Also, I’m surprised that you don’t think Kaladin has a tendency to get stressed. To me he appears to be stressing out constantly over Bridge 4, his commitment to Dalinar, his magic, the business with Moash and the assassins… Syl and his bridgemen are always trying to get him to loosen up a bit and rest.
Anyways, I enjoyed your analysis of where Kaladin and Dalinar’s intensity has come from, and why Adolin isn’t the same way. I agree that it will be very interesting to see how Adolin reacts now that so many of the structures that define him are falling apart.
@51, 54: I really hope the resolution of the triangle won’t leave any of the people or relationships involved permanently damaged. I love the dynamic between Kaladin, Shallan and Adolin, and would hate to watch it be broken up. There will probably be at least a little drama along the way, but hopefully at least the outcome will be good. But I’m hesitant to definitely predict anything at this point, since Sanderson still has tons of room to majorly play with us…or not, if that’s what he wants.
@53 Me, too. All this shipping brings out everybody’s character studies, and those can be interesting to compare, but I don’t really have a horse in this race. I was kinda hoping there’d be more on the arrow-shaped spren–I’d hoped to join in on the discussion of whether they were anti-gravity spren or huntspren, but work and a bad internet connection got in the way. Alas.
@56. Just throwing this out there… The arrow-shaped spren accompany skyeels and chasmfiends because of the fluid and almost graceful movement. Kaladin and Shallan are impressed with how well such a giant creature can move in the chasms and in WoK the skyeel is also described as being graceful with the way it moves. So… gracespren… flowspren. Obviously this is way out in left field, but if my theory is the case, we could end up seeing them around Lift. Maybe as a secondary spren like windspren or ceationspren.
But in reality they are probably predatorspren like Alice said. I can’t wait to meet one in Shadesmar if they are predatorspren.
Oh I have seen many people made the argument before, which is why I tried to flip it around in order to dismantle it. It has been used rather often in the past into other similar discussions. I cannot attest as to the level of seriousness people who tried to make it previously had, but it has come forth often enough for me to call it a “standard pro Kaladin/Shallan” argument.
As for engineers versus artists, both have very different thinking patterns. An engineer will looks at a problem through the eyes of rationality and will define a step by step procedure to solve it. It will work into deconstructing complex problems into smaller more easily achievable ones. Artists don’t typically follow procedures or methodology: it kind of define the purpose of art which is to be free of all bounds. Much of the work of an engineer is to follow good design guidelines and if innovation is encouraged it must not come at the cost of productivity. In other words, if it ain’t broken, don’t fix: if the methodology works, don’t waste your time making a new one unless there is a distinct advantage to be had down the line. Artists would have the complete opposite approach.
This being said, engineers can be artists and vice versa, but they would not approach both facets in the same way. Well, I don’t think they will, but I am not an artist nor do I have any artistic talents, so I may speaking across my hat here.
I said surgery was a passive activity because it doesn’t require physical work: it is a work done inside, sitting. Kaladin needed to be physically active which is likely why he was more interested into soldering than surgery. And yes Kaladin never really wanted to be a surgeon, most of his arc in WoK had him not wanting to be a surgeon. He only reluctantly agreed to it not to leave his father without an apprentice, his heart never was there. A fact he admits later on when he realize he could have used Dalinar as a mean to finish his studies: but he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to be a surgeon.
I have never read Kaladin as a stressed out person. We spend a lot of time into his head and he rarely exhibit symptoms related to it, while in the very few chapters we had of Adolin he speaks of it rather often: stomach ache, nervous tics, failing to throw Blades, anxiety before duels… Adolin is one nervous fellow even when he has no reason to be. That Kaladin may worry for his men is only normal, but he has yet to complain of ills linked to stress. You can be worried without being abnormally stressed out which is what I read out of Kaladin: his reactions are normal. Adolin tends to be too much over the top… This is something I have noticed in his POV.
I think shipping is fun if only for the character discussion it creates.
@58: Um. I may be misremembering, but were you also the person who said they say Kaladin as “calculating?” I remember seeing that and wondering about it, as I am now with the “Kaladin’s not stressed.” I know you’re not a native English speaker, so I wonder if its a translation issue. Swear I’m not trying to be obliquely insulting, I’m just. . .lost.
Re: Kaladin
Kaladin is under stress, he’s either being given more responsibilities or taken more responsibilities on himself because he wants them. Just because he wants it doesn’t mean it doesn’t put stress on him. The difference is in how he manages that stress. He’s not the type of character to pull his hair and complain that he’s so stressed by everything that is going on. Personally I’ve thought it like a surface calm as long as not looking under the surface everything looks fine and placid.
Re: Nanavi and Shallan
One thing I love about both those characters is that they both very creative beings but they go about in different ways. I loved the insight into Navani’s mind when she was talking about her love of warcamps because in order for creativity for flow everything needed to be in it’s place and organized so that when a thought came up it is easy to find the right tools for the job. You can see how Navani’s mind might have influenced how Jasnah organizes her own mind/notes. And then there is Shallan who studies on her bed and has a unique organization style that makes sense to her but anyone else might end up a little lost about why things are where they are. Oddly I’ve worked with more engineers (who I respect this isn’t knock against them) that mirror Shallan’s style of organization than Navani’s. I’ve always felt that there was more crossover between the minds of artist and engineers than is commonly thought of by people but that might just a be a personal conceit of mine.
@59: Stressed and calculating do not mean the same thing… I fail to see the link.
@60: I do not read Kaladin as an individual having issues dealing with stress in a general manner. By this I do not mean he isn’t experiencing stress, I mean he isn’t physically incapacitated by it. Kaladin has been in many various stressful situations and he has prevail without seeming impacted by it. He also doesn’t have a nervous tic, he has absolute confidence in his fighting skill, he never complains of stomach aches, his heart isn’t racing too fast before fights, he adapts easily to new situations even the most dire ones, he hasn’t spend a full night sitting at a doorstep, even when unsettled he hasn’t fail to act and I could go on.
He works hard and feels the strain, but I have not read him as someone having issues dealing with it, in a general manner. If anything, Kaladin strikes to me as a very adaptable individual.
I could be wrong in my interpretation, but I hope not.
On Engineers…
Even the most disarrayed engineers have some level of order (do not look at the desk space, this can be a complete mess, but it is an organized mess, sort of, those papers didn’t end up there by random, this book had a purpose)… You can’t design a system if you completely lack it: you have to keep track of your process, of your design iterations. You can’t just arrange random pieces of paper and wish for inspiration, it doesn’t really work this way. Even brainstorming sessions have order to them. There are concepts, rules to respect, milestones to meet, delivery packages to produce, all in a timely manner. Engineers work on what appears to be different precepts than artists: better is the enemy of good enough. I suspect such a line of thought would be a tragedy for an artist… You can’t press true art. The two vocations aren’t complete opposite, there is a parallel to be made, but I’d say, on a general basis, most engineers are more pragmatic and not all are capable of appreciating art or even understanding it, just as not all artists are capable of comprehending the work of engineers. I suspect many would find it boring: grey cubicles, deadlines, meetings, not having time to truly make a remarkable system, always having to push it forward and steering away from the sand box. This being said, some engineers are big sand boxers, happily shuffling sand to create nice castles, but it isn’t typically the kind of behavior industry encourages. If there is no more hours on the project, then buckle it up and produce something the client will be happy to get (and make sure you have a nice story to tell to explain why the results changed since last time). There is only so much time you are allowed to waste just to have those plots look more pleasant to the eyes and I’d say many won’t even bother if the tables aren’t properly aligned in the package even if it looks downright ugly.
So both vocations aren’t polar opposite, they share some level of similarity, but they are different enough when it comes to comparing Navani and Shallan’s personality. This being said, both characters are probably able to understand each other enough to be appreciated.
@61
I would agree with you that Kaladin does handle his stress pretty well. I just think it’s important to note that just because he’s handling the stress well doesn’t mean that he isn’t under stress. It’s sometimes easy to dismiss a person’s stress level if they aren’t emoting. Kaladin seems to me to be compartmentalizing his stresses more so than Adolin who you are using as an example of someone who doesn’t handle his stresses that well. It is true that in general Kaladin is not incapacitated by his stress.
Though I will say most of Adolin’s stress habits that you discribe I think are shown after Dalinar is attacked by Sezth which makes since he would take that harder than Kaladin. Adolin has never faced on against an enemy he was so disproportional unequipped to fight. He is a Shardbearer everyone he’s fought is at disadvantage against him by being a normal person or is on equal ground with him. Kaladin has faced off with enemies who have Shards before -at at least once with out the direct assistance Stormlight (Hellaran). So he does know what it’s like to be at terrible disadvantage against a foe on the battlefield. Adolin handled that situation by guarding his dad’s door in full armor and couldn’t really think ahead properly. (You can’t be in armor all the time and you can’t stay awake for ever). Yeah not the best answer to that stress. Kaladin went to Zahel and asked to be trained on how to better face down an Shardbearer. It is situation that put Kaladin and Adolin under stress but they handled it in different ways.
As to the engineer topic. I’m once again not disagreeing with you. All I’m saying is that there is a creativity to engineers that is often over looked. I think it’s often seen in those engineers who are in research and development like what Navani does. She doesn’t do production work which is closer to what you have described. No one wants to wast time reinventing the wheel to make a better wheel in production. (On the flip side of this is one of the most dangerous things to a production lines is blind adherence to process just because you’ve always done it that way.) This doesn’t mean that order is thrown out the window. It just means that sometimes for some engineers they get to be more creative in there endeavors and it becomes closer to art. Though I suppose to the outside observer it probably doesn’t look like art. Navani’s fabrial research is a different type of artwork than Shallan’s drawings but I don’t think people see it as artwork. Everything you said about engineering using order and having different design iterations are true but that’s how they use their creativity. Most of the times engineers (even by themselves) are put in this box that everyone just assumes is rule following and uncreative when it’s really just a different way of using their creativity. It is also true that often times engineers aren’t encouraged to be overtly creative in their work, if it’s not encouraged by others in their field and it’s not something that is rewarded by outside people many wont bother. But there are still some who do. As to making things look pretty, usually nobody teaches us the rules for making something look pretty so unless they care to find out themselves they go for what’s pretty to them which is often what’s most practical and which is often not pretty to most people. (Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.) There is no class on creating pretty packaging in engineering school
Also not to be contentious but the idea that art is an expression of complete freedom is more recent view on the question of “what is art”. In the past many schools of art where all about teaching rules for what made good art and there were great masters who followed those rules. Then there are great artist who are the ones who knew when to break the rules. But even for them they at least had to know the rules, you can’t break the rules if you don’t what they are in the first place. Jazz music is like this. Jazz music is all about breaking the conventional rules of classical music but all the great jazz musicians first had to be great at playing classic music on there instruments and then they found out what rules to break to make great jazz music. Ballet dancers often take classes in modern dance because modern dance helps them with there ballet. Ballet is all about dancing essentially to rules and modern dancing is the polar opposite but knowing how to dance well in modern dance helps ballet dancers. The soul of art might be breaking the rules but the core of it is knowing the rules. And from what I can tell the only artist who don’t work on a deadline are artist who aren’t getting paid for their work. Writers often have deadlines form there publishers, visual artist have gallery deadlines, actors and musicians have the most obvious deadline in the form the the day that they have to perform.
Also not to speak for Naive_Misanthrope but I took comment @59 as them asking for you explain more about how you can see Kaladin as someone who is not stressed. Not necessarily connecting the idea that a calculating character is a stressed character. Possibly also asking how you see Kaladin as calculating because they are confused by that description of him and wonder if you mean to use a different word. If I’m misunderstanding what you asking Naive_misanthrope as well I’m sorry. (Also sorry for spelling your name wrong twice.)
On a completely different note:
“better is the enemy of good enough”
I have never heard this phrase before and had to google what it was suppose to means. So now I know a new phrase that I can use next time people are insisting things on reinventing the wheel only with more spokes.
Hi, 60. 61. Sorry if I was confusing–I tend to browse the comments during night shift or in between laundry duty, and I’m still new to posting, so my statement wasn’t well thought-out.
60: What I meant was, seeing Kaladin as a “calculating” character provoked a similar feeling of confusion as the seeing him described as “not stressed.” I’ve been thinking about it, and I think it may be because of the word’s “feel.” Some of the things he does, like the scheme to harbor knobweed or his attempt to inspire Bridge 4 before facing the highstorm, could fit the technical definition of “calculated.” However, to me, “calculating” implies someone who has a degree of control over or knowledge about their situation and a cerebral approach to solving problems, like Jasnah. Kaladin seemed more like someone trying to cross a raging river by jumping from rock to rock–trying to focus on anything but the next foothold would disrupt his concentration and keep him from reaching the far bank. Or maybe that’s just an overworded, overwrought metaphor brought on by sleep deprivation. I was wondering if it’s a language thing–a difference in how we use the words–or just different perspectives.
As for physical indications of stress, to be honest, I can’t really remember any except Shallan’s, and probably only because they were a plot point. I’ll have to look at those again–my critical reading skills are rusty. Could’ve sworn Kaladin was a teeth-gritter, but that could just my imagination. He’s definitely a frowner. And, as 61 says, Adolin hasn’t had as much practice in facing down individual opponents who were as much of a threat to him as Szeth was. Maybe for his first duel, when he won his blade, but even when fighting an overwhelming force or a chasmfiend he wasn’t as. . .outclassed? It’s a wake-up call for all of them, but Dalinar didn’t have plate or blade, so surviving was surprising and impressive enough, and Kaladin is more accustomed to the thought that he could get killed by someone with better weapons. It does shake his confidence in his Windrunner skills, but by now he knows what to do–level up. Adolin hadn’t faced that sort of overwhelming opponent before. I think the next time he’s actually nervous about a fight is right before the uneven duel, and he rallies well enough. And then he fought Szeth across two plateaus without dying. I’m guessing his response was the same as Kaladin’s–train harder, get better–but it took him a little longer to reach it.
I was talking to a friend about engineers and artists with after work and she said something that I just have to share and I’m going to use her exact words here: “Engineers make shit. Artist also make shit. They just use different tool to do so.” LOL. So eloquently put. :D
She also pointed out it’s much easier to become a “cog” in the machine in engineering than it to be “cog” when it comes to art. It does happen, some artist are just there to draw hundreds of Disney characters from 9 to 5 but most of the artists are encouraged to more than be a “cog”. And the cultural perception of what you do as an artist vs what you as an engineer are very different and so attract a different groups of people.
Oh and something that I forgot to say earlier. I was using Shallan’s non-linear note taking process as an example of how some engineers also do their notes for exactly the reasons brought up in @61. Shallan’s method of notes makes sense to her but takes someone like Navani a minute to understand why she would do them the way they do. It’s the same for those “messy” engineers. It makes sense to them to have that clutter exactly the way they put it but it might not for someone walking into the room. It was just an example of some overlap between how some people work. It’s also a common stereotype for university professors and scientist. Which is fun to think about.
For me it’s the similarities between two that strikes me more than the differences. Navani and Shallan are creative people who channel there creativity in different manners. I think actually Jasnah might actually be less creative (if such a thing can be quantified) but more tenacious/stubborn/determined. I don’t think she could have thought the solutions that Shallan did in dealing with the Ghostbloods. I think she would have a lot more straight forward and just tried more assassinations. (Though she might have also tried to have Sadeas killed, which if that worked would have saved so much trouble.) Shallan would look at the big picture and try to find the solution. Navani looks at smaller issues and tries to think up new things to solve them. Jasnah looks to past to try to find the solution based on what others have done. I’ll be interested in seeing how she deals with all her information about the past being not as helpful as she originally thought it would be.
@63
Thanks for clarifying your point. :)
@53 wcarter
I think your safe now. The shipping conversation has moved on to art and expectation. Which we probably should have saved for Wit’s epilogue chapter. :)
Re: Navani and Shallan:
I wrote a bunch of stuff about art and engineering, then realized that a lot of it probably isn’t that relevant to the actual subject of Navani and Shallan…but I’m going to throw it out there anyways just in case. :)
This was my main point – I wouldn’t say that these subjects are exactly the same, but that they have some fundamental similarities. So one can’t conclude that Navani and Shallan are really different just because Navani’s an engineer and Shallan’s an artist. I would characterize both pursuits as creativity within boundaries. As a programmer and a creative writer, I sort of have a foot in either camp. When I program, I start out with an idea of my final goal – what I want my program to do – and then I need to creatively apply the tools, languages, APIs, &c that I know to accomplish that goal. I’m working within the boundaries of what my tools and knowledge can accomplish, but I have to be creative in how I use them. Maybe if I was really brilliant I could come up with a new programming language to solve a task better, but most of the time I just use proven tools I know in new ways. Similarly, if I have an idea for a story and I set out to write it, I can’t just do whatever I want or it’ll be an incoherent mess. I’ll follow certain literary forms and use particular plot elements, character types, &c, and of course I’m also limited by the words and expressions I can use depending on what language I’m writing in. But then after picking these tools for myself, I’m creative in how I use them and put them together within the boundaries they create. Again, if I was a brilliant writer I could invent a new fictional form, or a new kind of English, or a crazy new literary element to tell my story. But most of the time I just use old tools and elements in new ways.
I would echo kei_rin that much of art is full of rules, methodologies, and guidelines. Only a few artists break them, and they can only do so successfully after understanding the rules in the first place. Very little of art is this nebulous inspiration and wild, free innovation. There’s some of that, but much of it is just unromantic wrangling with words if you’re a writer, or drawing/painting/&c techniques if you’re a visual artist, or rules of harmony and instrumentation if you’re a composer. And artists need to be organized too, at least to some extent. For one, you need to be aware of the big picture of what you’re creating, and know how all the little pieces fit into it. And then you need to keep track of drafts of the story you’re working on, or sketches and concepts for a visual work of art, or all the different parts of a piece of music…
Essentially: Engineering has creativity to it in how you choose to use your tools. Art has boundaries to it in that you need to work with specific tools and their inherent restrictions. There are some brilliant innovators in both fields who develop new tools and overcome the old ones’ restrictions. But most engineers and most artists are just creative within set boundaries.
I think one thing that’s confusing this discussion is that there’s some comparison going on of production-line engineers to great innovators in art – they have very different roles within their fields. The artist equivalent of the production engineer would probably be somebody more like…well…Brandon Sanderson. He generally writes within the rules and systems of a particular school of modern fantasy, he has methodologies and systems that he uses, and like the engineer he has to eventually say “good enough” and get the book out the door even if he wants to keep tinkering with it. But he’s still very creative; the boundaries and rules are providing structure to his creativity. More “literary” writers might try to develop new rules and create new schools, and they might spend decades fiddling with a book before they’re willing to publish it. But few writers have that luxury, just like most engineers don’t have the luxury of creating the perfectly elegant system.
So yeah, there are significant differences between these two subjects – the “divide and conquer” that’s central to engineering isn’t so much to art, as Gepeto mentioned. Engineering is more reactive, focused on solving problems; art is creative, focused on making something new. And again, it does really depend on the people involved. But my point is that one shouldn’t assume that two people are very different from each other just because one’s an artist and one’s an engineer. You need to look more closely at the actual people and the actual work they do. In Navani and Shallan’s case, I think the way their brains work is fairly similar, as I described earlier.
Also, ha. I absolutely agree that a cluttered desk doesn’t necessarily mean a disorganized desk. My workspace is strewn with books, papers, pencils, knitting, calculators, &c…because then I can efficiently access everything I need without having to keep getting up and going to a bookshelf or cabinet.
Anyways, interesting thoughts, everyone. I will probably comment more on Kaladin later.
Leonardo da Vinci is now best known as an artist, but he mainly worked as an engineer. Renaissance artists learned their art as a craft and did specific work for other people.
Many traditional art forms have strict rules that have to be followed. Haiku for example had very strict rules. You couldn’t just write whatever you wanted, specific places had to be described in specific seasons viewed from specific locations etc. If you broke the rules, you were not creative, you were an uneducated bad poet who doesn’t know the rules.
On engineers… All comments were fun to read, but too long to respond to, but here are few more thoughts and explanation.
The law I described is called the Edison’s Law: “Better is the enemy of good”. Or here is another sweet one: “Design is based on requirements. There’s no justification for designing something one bit better than the requirements dictates.” I somehow do not think more writers would abdide by these…
For the rest, I was actually describing the design phase, the “creative phase”, not truly the production phase which could be resumed into one word: rush. Though admittably the floor guys have to have some level of creativity to figure out why the thing isn’t working as it is intended to, it’s basically a step-by-step procedure. In fact, there is a released signed and reviewed procedure for just about anything involving actual manipulation.
I wouldn’t classify all engineering work as creative either: there are quite a lot of engineers who automatically moves into project management or sales. It really fluctuates depending on what you actually do. The engineering diploma truly is an open one, though you could arguably state the same for an art diploma.
I guess the real question would be as to whether or not works of engineering can be considered as true art. The problem I foresee is engineering is abstract enough for more people to be unable to comprehend how it is it was creative in the first place while most people are able to appreciate, to various degress, books, paintings, drawings… It thus creates a difference, I would say.
In the end, I think it is kei_rin who nailed it the best: while there may be some common ground in between both fields, both disciplines do not attract the same people. Artists and engineers, as a whole, are very different people. If you were to walk into the engineering faculty than walk into the art one, you’d see a much different crowd. You can be both an engineer and an artist, but you quite often are one or the other. I would also point out engineering is a career typically suggested to youngsters being good in science and math, not typically art even if I have seen some who were good in both.
This being said, I cannot consider Navani and Shallan as similar enough individuals to justify them having the same taste in men which is basically where this conversation started… They may be able to appreciate each other and complement each other, I cannot say Navani being more attracted to Dalinar’s intensity means anything pertaining to Shallan’s tastes or conclusion on the matter.
@61-62: Some of the examples I plucked out were directly drawn from WoK… even before the encounter with Szeth, Adolin has shown issues in dealing adequatly with stressful/new/unexpected situations. He does need to drink yellow wine to sooth his nerves before his unconsequential duel in WoK. He is nervous enough before the easy duel with Salinor for his heart to beat faster than his opponent. He does react with anguish and he does have stomach cramps when Dalinar wants to name him Highprince back in WoK.
Adolin also doesn’t go through any learning curve while facing Szeth: he agrees to sacrifice his life for his father. Period. He got nearly killed and only survived because Kaladin arrived. We have not seen his reaction to this event, but we have seen him wandering, alone, in dusty tunnels wondering where his place was now Radiants were back.
On the reverse, Kaladin, while being overtly worried, has not shown the same signs and symptoms. If anything the guy is hugely adaptable: he is always seeing a path to better things up. When I say he is calculating, I meant he was very pro-active in WoK in trying to save his men. It had an entire plan drafted out, it seemed rather calculated more than impulsive. He gave them confidence and pride, he trained them, he made them follow him just so they could escape as soon as he sees an opportunity. I don’t know if this would exactly fall within the description calculating, but this is what I meant by it.
Okay, I’m finally back… Busy sort of weekend – good, but busy. So now to make a few comments!
First, I’m really loving the steady trickle-in of new commenters. It’s so much fun to see new perspectives and insights, and to have more voices contributing to the discussion. WELCOME!! (I’m not going to name names, because I’d miss someone or name someone who’s been here a while, and then I’d just feel stupid. You know if you’re new. :D And even if you’re not new, I’m still glad y’all are here.)
Second, several have commented on my remark that Kaladin was being “ungracious for no reason.” On reflection, “reason” may have been the wrong term. “Excuse” would be more accurate. We all have reasons to be ungracious from time to time, but I don’t believe there’s ever a good excuse for it. Call me old-fashioned, but basic courtesy is still within our grasp, IMO. Of course we all fail at it sometimes (and yes, this includes me), but that doesn’t exactly excuse it. In this case, though, it’s not just a matter of “he lost it for a minute.” He’s been behaving ungraciously to everyone except (mostly) Bridge Four for the last four weeks in-book, and the last sixteen weeks reread-time. So it’s getting old. Fortunately for me, it will get better soon.
Third, I love all the theories on the spren! I need to review these, and see if I can turn them into a question to ask Brandon tomorrow night. It would be cool if they were “gracespren or flowspren” as Airsicklowlander suggested, and they were the Edgedancer equivalent to windspren… :D Also, the idea that Parshendi might have gemhearts is cool. I might have to ask that. I suspect not; the fact that the crustacean-type critters all seem to have violet blood while the Parshendi have orange blood, implies that they are physiologically quite different. But you never know!
Fourth, I have nothing to contribute to the discussion on shipping triangles. There may or may not be intentional parallels between the two, but there are two characters in one of them that we just don’t know well enough for valid comparisons, IMO.
Fifth, the engineer/artist debate. Nice discussion. My only comment would be a caution against putting people in boxes. As an engineer myself, I’ve worked with engineers who ranged from “not an artistic bone in their body” to “would have been an artist, but wanted to make a living.” Every person is a unique combination of attitudes, aptitudes, interests, and effects.
Finally (and y’all can stop reading now if you want, because this might get real boring real fast), Luke @3 says:
The question is too abstruse to answer directly, so I’m going to rewrite it to clarify what I think you’re asking. If this is not what you’re asking, feel free to correct me. I’m only guessing as to your intent in using “imprecated” in this context.
The short answer is… not entirely short. While I may feel that his position is understandable, I also think that it’s unjustifiable.
The longer answer is… long. Is everyone in the first nahn responsible for the fact that tenth nahn have no right of travel? Is everyone in the second nahn responsible for the fact that one individual in the fourth nahn is being required to work in the fields when he’d actually be a better carpenter? Is everyone in the tenth dahn to blame for being richer than anyone in the first nahn? Oh, wait, that’s not true. There are plenty of wealthy darkeyes, and plenty of lighteyes who are just getting by.
As second nahn, Kaladin’s family wasn’t exactly oppressed. They weren’t seen as oppressors, either, of course, though there was a certain level of resentment from Kaladin’s peers: they didn’t view studying as work, and thought he had a super-easy life. Everyone in Hearthstone, though, had work to do and made a decent living for where they were. No one seemed to really mind any of it, except for the typical boyish enthusiasms of going off to be a soldier and win Shards. Under Wistiow, neither Kaladin nor anyone else in Hearthstone had any serious complaints of oppression or abuse. Had Lirin chosen a different approach to life, he and his family could actually have been quite well-off, and could have lived in any of a number of places. The system was not an inherently oppressive one.
Kaladin had it pretty good, up until Wistiow died and was replaced by a certain greedy, vicious, hateful man who targeted anyone that stood out. Does that make every person who happens to be born with light eyes to blame for Roshone’s persecution of Lirin and his family? If so, why are all lighteyes not equally credited for Wistiow’s favoring of the same family? Kaladin had no particular complaints about the nature of his society until it stopped working in his favor, and then all of a sudden he’s going to jump into an “us vs. them” mentality and use it to justify hating on a whole group of people? Nope.
Roshone was found to be guilty of unjust accusations (against darkeyes, by the way) and abuse of power, and he was punished for it. The punishment was short-sighted, yes; Dalinar and Elhokar are guilty of failing to realize that Roshone would continue to be vicious and abusive no matter where he was, and they should not have placed him in a position of authority over anyone. The fact remains that Roshone was punished; he knew it, and he took out his bitterness on anyone who was a visible target.
Any system of government is subject to abuse, and there will always be vicious, greedy people to take advantage of that. The Vorin system, from what we’ve seen in Alethkar and Jah Keved, has descended from something that (according to Hoid) made sense at one time into something that needs a serious clean-up. Those in positions of influence who see the evil should, of course, do what they can to correct it, starting with themselves – but that’s not the same as bearing the blame. IRL, there’s plenty of this attitude going around. Blame the wealthy, blame the whites, blame the blacks, blame the Asians, blame the cops, blame the immigrants, blame the capitalists, blame the liberals, blame the Muslims, blame the Christians, blame, blame, blame, blame. It’s useless, and it’s unjustifiable.
Sorry. I know this will make some people angry, but I don’t buy the idea that you can hold an entire group liable for the things that are – or were in the past – done by some members of or loosely related to that group. Understandable? Yes. Justifiable? No.
Late to the discussion, have not read all the comments, but I need to add this:
Kaladin vs Shallan’s past – not getting into “who had it worst” there is no winning that game. There should not be an attempt to play the game.
Now what I will say is your past shapes your experiences and your expectations, therefore your personal reaction to events.
While rereading Well of Ascension in part one El and Vin get into a philosophy discussion. Well El does. He basically asked Vin “Didn’t it make you mad how the ska were treated? Weren’t you upset at how unfair the system was?”
Vin just shrugs and says “That’s the way it was.” (no big thing, why be mad about it – was the implied tone.)
Thus you have Elend, who didn’t live the life of a ska, be mad for them. Be mad about how unfair they were treated.
Yet he lived a life privilege and had the energy to be mad. He also had the expectation of better treatment in general.
Yet, Vin, who was a ska, just shrugs as a “that’s the way it was, so that’s how I lived.”
Kaladin lived a very privileged life – for a darkeye in his village – until Roshone showed up.
And again, he earned privileges while an squad leader in Arman’s army.
He has known the privilege, so is mad at the unfairness of it all, like Elend. Take the same experiences for one of the darkeye farm boys from his same town, my bet is their reaction is closer to Vin’s reaction than Kaladin’s. Farm boy has always known life was not fair and just had to accept it.
Shallan is like that farm boy or Vin as well. There was no escaping her world. She knew no other world. Thus, “why get mad”, as Vin implied.
Okay never mind wcarter, apparently we still were having a conversation about ships I had just moved away from that purpose.
So even when I pointing out similarities between Kaladin and Dalinar or Adolin and Dalinar or Adolin and Gavilar or Shallan and Navani, in no way do I mean for these similarities between characters to indicate that I think that the new trio love triangle will go in a similar way that the old trio’s love triangle. I said it before but I think it got lost in the wall of text and maybe not clear enough. Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin are different from Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar in many more ways than they are similar.
Kaladin’s intensity reminds me of what the descriptions of a young Dalinar but Kaladin’s personal backstory and the things he’s been through make him very different from Dalinar that I would never use this one similarity as a bases for a relationship working out between Kaladin and Shallan. As of this book I think that Kaladin has a bigger chip on his shoulder than Dalinar ever did.
Adolin’s might be impulsive like a young Dalinar but also a lot sweeter than a young Dalinar and the fact that he doesn’t have the same “alpha” personality is another thing about his character that is quite different. All of his similarities to Gavilar are superficial based on position of power that are easily knocked down.
Shallan’s creativity is something that reminds of Navani but I would never say that that having a similar sense of creativity means that you will attracted to the same types of people. Along with being and somewhat unfulfilled in her engineering desires Navani is also described as a creature of the court. I could imagine that rank would be more important to her when she was younger and maybe having more of influence on her decision. I don’t think this for Shallan. Even though I brought up rank of her potential love interest I don’t think that Shallan is going use that as a consideration for her.
Essentially I think it comes down to the same caution that Alice gave for about putting people in boxes when it comes to their job, we can’t do that either based on one character trait and then assume we know how a character is going to behave. I actually do like comparing the characters similarities and differences and how the conversation veered off into the conversation about art and engineers. I know I brought up the love triangle this post but by this point I think we’ve collectively as group dismantled it. This doesn’t negate ones ship but I do think as way to support one ship or another it the parallel to the argument doesn’t work. Especially since as far I can see no one is actually making an argument that such a comparison is correct. And Alice correct until we know more about Gavilar beyond the fact that was a pretty good king, a shitty husband, and a Son of Honor we can’t say much. Though who is the other character that we would need to know more about Alice? Navani? I think we get a pretty good picture of the younger people and Dalinar…
I very much enjoyed reading the comments that people had about engineers and artists. Birgit, I think Sanderson used Haikus as a bases for the poem that is the start of each separate part. Though I think he made up his own rules that he has to follow for that but the poems sound very Haiku like when you read them.
Gepto, thanks for bring up the fact that engineers do a multitude of different types of work with. It’s partly why I have never tried to cla.im that all engineers do or have tendencies towards being creative. Just that the possibility is there for it in their work and those who are often find a way to express it. It truly is dependent on the person and they work that they want to do. Those who are creative often will find work with companies that will allow it. Those who want to work on the production lines in manufacturing and not have to worry about it as much can find those jobs as well. Navani often strikes me as one of those creative manger types who would rather in research lab working on something.
I’ve heard the “Design based on requirements….” Quote before. That one always struck me as a reminder that no matter else engineering, in our world, is a business where you are designing for someone and not yourself. For someone in a writing field might take it to mean know your audience and who you are writing for because they are writing for someone other than themselves.
Sheesania you brought up how you think Sanderson is like a production-line writer where he has to say something is good enough and then just give us the product of his work. When I’ve listened to something about Sanderson’s writing process he also talks about how he recognizes that at some level writing is a business he’s writing something that is entertainment but also how he’s making money in order to take care of his family so also has to deal with those deadlines and at some point he has to say that what he’s done is good enough to show to others. This doesn’t mean that he’s giving us anything less than his best work it’s just a matter of letting the work speak for itself. (For a different Fandom Star Wars could have benefited from this IMO. Adding more special effects with every re-release was a bit unnecessary IMO but hey it’s story. I’m just going like a less every time he goes back and changes something that was just fine the way it was. Someone probably should have told him that “Better is the enemy of good enough”.)
I feel like if I wanted to I could probably connect engineering design rules to life lessons for artist. I wonder if artist have anything analogous.
@67 Re Adolin
I can see how your reading of those events makes it look like Adolin isn’t good at handling stress. He not as good at compartmentalizing his feelings away from his actions for sure. This is part of what I think makes Adolin emotionally flexible. To me when I was reading those same passages it was just Adolin allowing himself to fully feel whatever emotion that he has from the situation. I think I focus on the Sezth attack for how actually handles stress because that is one of the two situation that I think actually stick with him beyond the initial feelings of the moment. Nervousness before a duel and having habits before a duel being necessary feel like good luck things that many athletes have. By itself Adolin’s way of handling his stress before a duel are small things that to me shows he feels stress but has found methods of handling it. The physical reactions to a duel could also be keep him from getting too excited and being unable to concentrate. When I read these parts I read as he felt those things and then let them go.
The two situations that I would say have a lasting stressful effect on Adolin are Sadeas’ betrayal because every time after that he mentally distressed by Sadeas presence. He doesn’t have anything that actively calm him from the stress of seeing Sadeas. Then there is Szeth’s attack, which I’ve pointed out before he also doesn’t deal with well. I actually would take the middle road between you and Naïve_Misanthrope. I think that Adolin would try to get better. We see him that his shaken mind needs to be retrained so that he can throw a Shardblade and make it stay without becoming mist. He get back to the level of ability he had before but he’s hampered by the fact that he doesn’t know that there is a next level to ascribe to that is achievable for him. He doesn’t know why Szeth has his power of, if he could use those powers. He doesn’t try to go down that road, instead he just work on his sword work. Kaladin on the other hand does know there is level above what he’s at and that he can achieve that level. Based on what Adolin knows forms the best plan he can.
Another thing about Kaladin is that since was child training to be surgeon with his father, he’s been actively told to compartmentalize his emotions and to keep them outside the situation he’s in. Specifically for when he’s helping his father work in the surgery. I can see this being helpful when he’s spearmen as well. Kaladin possibly has had a lot more practice dealing with stress than Adolin. Though we haven’t seen Adolin’s childhood so I couldn’t say for sure because with many things practice handling stress makes it much easier to handle in later situations.
@@@@@ 70 kei_rin
ZZZzzzZZZ **Huh? Oh ok… **rolls back over** ZZZzzzZzz…
@70: Nobody in this thread used the triangle mirror as a valid fail-proofed argument to justify one ship over the other, but it is an argument I have read in the past which is why I thought it was interesting to elaborate on it. I also loved trying to flip it around as we sometimes get stuck on first impression… I agree it absolutely does not offer any valid conclusion as to who should end up with who, but it was a fun one.
This being said, it is true I would also say young Dalinar and Kaladin strike to me as alpha personalities while Adolin strikes to me as someone being raised to be an alpha, but being too sweet to truly be one. If anything, I have problems imagining Gavilar as anything but another alpha male…
Would Shallan settle for a political marriage? Probably not, though she may see fit to align herself with the next most powerful man if only to create a new reality for dear people… It isn’t impossible she may choose this path even if it seems unlikely.
Overly creative engineers usually have a side-line… some are musicians or visual artists in their spare time. Music and engineer is a combo I have seen often enough. Or for some creativity doesn’t express itself through arts: you don’t need to be artistically inclined to be a good engineer. It isn’t even a requirement, but I assume it can help in certain circumstances.
There are a lot of good ones on engineers….
Murphy’s Law: Anything that can possibly go wrong, will go wrong.
Smith’s Law: Murphy was an optimist.
Designer reality check: “Oh I feel happy and positive today, I haven’t check this parameter, but I’m sure it won’t be an issue. They aren’t really interacting, they are too far away. It’s geometrically impossible.”
Yeah. Right. Go back to Murphy, than Smith. Of course it DOESN’T work.
It’s probably why engineers, on the long run, tend to up being sarcastic and pragmatic. I am not sure if artists have their own saying… would be fun to compare.
On Adolin and Stress
I agree being nervous and going through a steadying routine does not, by itself, indicate a difficulty in dealing with stress. I, however, do think it indicates a tendency. I don’t typically do this, but allow me to share a slice of real life in order to better illustrate what I mean.
When I was younger, I was a very good student. Those grades were massively important to me, to the point where anything below some absurd threshold I had personally fixed made me feel inadequate. I somehow, through the years, built in most of my self-esteem through my ability to pill in straight As. It was reinforced by the fact I seemed to fail at developing meaningful relationships, which was a small tragedy as, being overtly socially inclined, I craved for them. I thus concluded writing out good answers on pieces of papers was all that I was, all that I could ever be as nobody seemed to think much of me anyway.
It wasn’t so much of a problem during my early teens, but the older I got the more problematic it became. What if I fail? I started becoming nervous before tests I knew I had well studied for, tests I knew would be easy, tests I knew I would aced without much trouble and yet, I was ridiculously nervous. Eventually, I even started going through patterns… It how it started slowly… stupidly… One night you have trouble sleeping… Just once. Nervousness.
Then it happens, again. Pattern. You try to mimic exactly what works and yet… Pattern.
One day, the inevitable happened: I missed one. Oh it wasn’t terrible, I didn’t actually fail the class, most people wouldn’t have been bothered by it, but for me it was an epic tragedy.
And then everything crashed as it started to spiral down. How old was I? 23 years old.
Now, I am not saying this will happen to Adolin or that his thought process are the same here, but when I read those passages this is exactly what went into my mind. It was so similar I couldn’t help drawing the parallel. To be frank, it hit me like a ton of bricks when I read it.
Your reading tells you this is a good way to handle stress, my reading tells me he shouldn’t be overtly nervous for something so trivial. By itself, it isn’t enough, but combined to other scenes: the Blade summoning-dismissing tic, the stomach pains, the drastic reaction to the first Szeth encounter tells me perhaps, just perhaps there is more which may or may not further develop.
The story may not go this way, it may spiral down in much different ways, but when I read it: it was just the same. All the thoughts, the manners, the little things which appear so insignificant, at first… in my head, all that’s missing is a catalyst.
Good analysis on Kaladin’s ability to compartmentalize his emotions being a side effect from his training as a surgeon. It makes sense learning to perform precise operations under stress helped him being expose to it in a positive manner and thus be better equipped to deal with it now.
It also struck me in the story: Kaladin’s natural reaction, after a bout of depressive thoughts, was to actively seek a solution. Adolin’s natural reaction was to… over-react and turn the ordeal into a drama, which he did pull through, but the fact remains the event shook him enough he failed to control his Blade.
Alice @@@@@ 68 great explanation on the Vorin caste system. :-)
Re: Engineering and art: Yup, good thoughts. It’s true that some types of engineering aren’t really creative, but then some types of art don’t really have rules. It depends so much on the specific discipline, and of course the specific person. I’d agree that you tend to find different sorts of people in engineering than in art; what I don’t want to say is that these fields are so different that such people don’t have commonalities. So essentially, if Shallan and Navani seem different, I think you need to look deeper than their roles as artist or engineer.
@69 Braid_Tug: Good thoughts! It’s interesting to note that Shallan never really gets angry about how her father sheltered her and kept her away from the rest of society without tutors or friends. But if somebody tried to do that to her now, after she’s actually experienced being free, she’d fight it.
Anyways, here’s a random thought about spren that occurred to me the other day…So, there are some theories that the spren around chasmfiends, skyeels, &c are “anti-gravity spren” that enable them to move how they do. There are also theories that they’re some kind of predator spren. So, Syl’s powers are in the area of gravity, and she’s attracted to Kaladin because, following her idea of honor, he protects people. So can we draw some kind of direct contrast to those spren with anti-gravity powers (as opposed to Syl’s gravity powers) who are attracted to predators (as opposed to those who protect)?
@68 Wetlandernw
Shallan is a slaveowner. It’s very easy to miss this fact, since it is mentioned very briefly at the very end of one chapter. She promises her slaves that she’ll pay them enough to earn their freedom, and then she moves on with the kind of retinue that a lighteyed lady needs to meet her future fiancee.
All of her slaves have their own hopes and dreams. But their lives, like their names, are never actually mentioned, because they aren’t real characters. They’re only there to perform services for Shallan, and to serve as accessories that every lighteyed lady needs, like a nice dress or a safehand. Shallan could set them free, rather than forcing them to work for her until they earn enough money to pay her for the right to be people instead of livestock. She could decide that people aren’t property.
But “correcting the evil” always sounds more attractive when it doesn’t require any sacrifice, when the privileged member of society doesn’t have to give up their wealth or power or status for the benefit of their social inferiors. Once we start talking about actual change, the conversation stops, because all those good, smiling, happy people don’t actually want to lose anything they have.
Oppression isn’t just about Roshone deciding to murder his business rivals, or sending his enemy’s son off to die. It’s about Shallan owning slaves, or Dalinar controlling a government that permits and enforces a system where some people are treated like actual humans and others are treated like cattle. It’s about a system that “punishes” Roshone by sending him away from all of the important people he inconvenienced, and then leaving him to take out his bitter anger on powerless darkeyes in the middle of nowhere.
Of course, the darkeyes are used to this. Uneducated peasants don’t get the opportunity to travel and educate themselves, so they can’t imagine a world where things work differently. They go about their lives, trying to grow crops and raise children, until someone like Roshone shows them what it means to be powerless. After a lesson like that, some of them turn against the system, but most darkeyes just go back to their crops and thank the Almighty that it wasn’t them. They hope that they get Wistiow instead of Roshone, and they never ask themselves whether they might actually have the power to stand up to their rulers, rather than running things through the fascinating system of eye color. Vorinism discourages those kinds of questions, and everyone knows that the lighteyes are chosen to rule by the Almighty. You just take your chances with a system that is effectively government by Russian roulette, and you pray that Dalinar doesn’t dump another petty, murderous tyrant on your little town. Not that you could do anything about it if he did.
Imagine a white man in the Jim Crow South. He’s not a member of the KKK, he doesn’t take an active part in politics, and he tells himself he’s not really part of the system. He’s just an ordinary man on his way back from work. But when he gets on the bus and there’s already a black woman sitting in the front seat, he doesn’t even have to say a word to make her get up and move. That privilege is something he takes for granted, as natural and fundamental as breathing, and he’d be the first to say that he’s not an oppressor. He just wanted something that a member of an inferior race had, and he took it.
No one is automatically responsible for what other members of their social/religious/ethnic group do. They’re responsible for what they do with their own choices, and their own lives. Shallan decides that it’s okay for her to own slaves because there’s nothing wrong with slavery. It might be wrong and evil to enslave her brother Jushu, but not some darkeyes who probably had it coming anyway. They’re a criminal. Or a debtor. Or they offended the wrong person. It doesn’t really matter, because they don’t matter. They’re here to help Shallan accomplish her goals, and anything they might want couldn’t possibly be important next to her needs. She’s not responsible for being lighteyed, or for her dahn, or her family. But she bears the blame for her decision to keep people as livestock, and the fact that we never learn their names or their stories doesn’t make her choice less morally depraved. If anything, it makes it worse.
@74
So for the Odium-spren do you think that there is direct opposite for each of the KR spren?
dptullos @@@@@ 75 – Shallan did set them free. But the decided to stay for their own reasons.
as for their names, there are so many characters in Stormligjt Archive that remain nameless because they are NPC and not because they are slaves
And though I respect your opinion, please do not bring your politics in here. this is a re-read of Words of Radiance not a political forum. Thank you for your future consideration that many readers here are not Americans and chances are they are not interested in our politics.
Alice@68 – that was indeed rather long; we’ve had quite a few Wall of Text comments in this post which is a nice reminder of the good ol days on the WoT reread.
Re: Kaladin being ungracious – based on what you say @68, “excuse” does indeed seem to have been what you meant. Again, I think Shallan easily gave Kaladin several excuses (and clearly acted far worse in the chasm toward Kaladin than he acted towards her, as I demonstrated in my post @8) and often initiated the impolite and unfriendly behavior and atmosphere.
As far as behaving ungracious over an extended period of time, Shallan has lied to Kaladin, manipulated him and insulted him over a long period of time. Shallan acts like a 17 year old spoiled child; which she is. To use your words, her act was also “getting old.” Seems to me that both are guilty of not exercising basic courtesy towards the other, and that both of them should know better. But hey, YMMV.
As to Luke@3’s post, it seems (to me at least) that they were pretty straight forward overall (barring the iffy use of “imprecate;” I think they meant “implicate,” personally): Given the institutional race based caste system (which inherently provides privileges based on whether/not one’s eyes are light, exclusive of wealth, education, etc), is it justifiable that Kaladin believes that all lighteyes hold some type of accountability for buying into or not challenging such a system.
It appears that you feel Kaladin’s belief is unjustifiable. You certainly have a right to your opinion and I appreciate you sharing it and your rationale. I did recoil a little bit at the “Kaladin had it pretty good” comment, as that phrase has been used before to defend an exploitative and unjust system by pointing to a few members of the oppressed class that aren’t suffering or struggling as much as the vast majority of their group.
As for why the system is an oppressive one, and those suffering underneath are indeed oppressed, it’s a fairly straight forward application of the definition of the word in my opinion: Darkeyes are indeed burdened by impositions and/or restraints that are unjust. The impositions/restraints are unjust because they are based on eye-color, and nothing else.
I respect the belief of not wanting to hold an entire group liable for actions done by members of that group (I’m curious about the “loosely related” qualifier and how that is applicable here); however it seems the point of Luke’s comment (and arguably, Kaladin’s stance) was more about holding accountable those who inherently benefit from such an unjust and oppressive system and do nothing to change it while their fellow citizens suffer due solely to a difference in eye color. That stance is both understandable and quite justifable.
@77 – Shallan initially tells her slaves that she will pay them a wage to work off their debt, then she incorporates them into Palona’s household. I don’t remember her actually freeing them (I know she frets about them adjusting to their change as part of Palona’s household, but I’m drawing a blank on her stating that they were actually free); could you provide the reference?
As for @75 bringing their personal politics in here, I admit to being confused. I saw a discussion regarding certain characters in the book and a comparison of a potential mindset in a racially biased system in the book (lighteye/darkeye treatment) paralleling a potential mindset in the racially biased system of the United States Jim Crow South. They could have used another real world example, but I didn’t read it as politics, more so as using a historical reference to expand (somewhat creatively) on an example. Maybe I missed it; could you clarify on what you thought crossed the line in their comment?
@@@@@ 79 when Shallan first freed them, she told them they are free to go.
The crossing the line – re-read theparagraph about a white man in the Jim Crow South. The word inferior race was used.
That should not be here or anywhere for that matter.
and that is the reason I don’t like reading any posts about how the Lighteyes oppress the Darkeyes. Things like that get in the discussion and it should not be here.
Okay folks, thanks for keeping the discussion on this difficult topic civil. I won’t delete or edit the original comment, simply because then most of the other recent comments in this thread won’t make sense anymore, but yes, please avoid prejudiced or phobic language like this, per Tor.com’s moderation policy. Thanks!
Edit: removed one response to the original comment, posted almost at the same time as this one. Thanks for your understanding!
Moderator – No problem. I agree, the conversation here has been rather civil and I commend the various commentators for keeping it interesting yet respectful.
@sheiglagh@80 re: Jim Crow, fair enough. I read the post more as condemning such an individual who may hold that perception, but if the wording was perceived as offensive then so be it; let’s keep it clean.
re: Shallan and her slaves – When did she first free them? When she takes them from Tvlakv she never states that they are free: “You may run if you wish… I will not hunt you. I need servants, however, and I will pay you well.”
She didn’t free them when she wrapped them into Palona’s household, in Chapter 40. She still perceives them as her slaves in Chapter 47, as one of them is doing duty as her footman. FYI, we do get one of the slave’s names: En. Shallan mentions it a few times in Chapter 47.
Please clarify when you believe they were freed.
@76 kei_rin: The Ars Arcanum does mention “ten levels of Voidbinding”, which would imply parallels, but then there’s also this WoB:
So I don’t think there are direct opposites, but parallels are possible.
@84
I forgot about that in the Arcanum. Interesting. Thanks for finding the WoB relating to that.
@many
Shallan didn’t free anyone out right. She just gave them the means to pay down their debt in a timely manner and in end they would free themselves. Given that as far as I can see there no major movement on Roshar to end slavery, is really the best she could do in that society. Also given the term “slave debt”, it sounds like Shallan would have had to pay a fee in order to fee them at a time she had no access to funds. (Though she can promise a payment for a later time, which is essentially what she does.) I don’t think that just waving her hand and saying “you are free” would have worked legally. Though she give the non-legal potion to run away with no consequences from her.
From the passage in the book it sounded like a number of those now in her service were born into debt and would never have imagined that they would be able to pay it down in order to be free. So IMO dptullos, Shallan is doing what she can in order help them. Shallan also does learn names of her servants and on different occasions asks how they are doing and if everything is going well for them and learns about their backgrounds. We as the reader don’t learn about because Sheiglagh got it right they are NPC. They not important to the story that Sanderson is telling. There are more guards in Shallan’s service than Vatha and Gaz but those two are the only we ever hear about really. We don’t hear about a lot of the bridgemen who aren’t Bridge 4 and even within Bridge 4 we don’t here about everyone because the story we are being told isn’t centered around them. I think we only here about En because he’s suppose to act as the example of how Shallan is with others in her service.
I will say this is very uncomfortable for me to write the words “her slaves” and many times I found myself rewording my language in order to avoid using those terms. So yes it hard to think of Shallan as a slave owner because even if she is one of the “better” ones, it doesn’t change the fact that I find slavery to be morally wrong. It’s hard to think of a character that I like being apart of system like that. Same goes with Dalinar. Though with Dalinar we never hear of him owning anyone other than ardents. Ardents being the priest are clearly thought of as people and they have odd place of being thought of being owned by somebody while at the same time being clearly respected as religious guides.
I remember being shocked when I read Shallan’s line that slavery was a mercy for the lower classes. Lighteyes are mostly just killed when they do something unlawful. I think the only way a lighteyes could be made a slave was for falling in to debt. Like what happened to Jushu or what Gaz was running away from. It sounds like the way system is suppose to work is that a person is suppose be able to free themselves in the end and it sounds like Shallan is someone who actually believes this. She pays her slaves 1 mark if they don’t pay down debt and 5 marks if they put 4 towards their debt and considers it to be the most fair way. This doesn’t sound to me like someone who doesn’t care about those who she is responsible for.
All of this only in response to Shallan. Clearly we have people like Sadeas, who rig the system so that people are trapped in slavery. And there is a lot of abuse of the system and over all I would like if by the end of the series for Roshar to find a different way and no longer have slaves. It’s a system that is too easy to corrupt and makes it too easy for people in power to abuse those who have none.
Does Shallan use the privilege of her station subconsciously? Yes. I don’t think she’s ever stopped to think deeply about it. We see that when she expects people to just step out her way in the marketplace. But she doesn’t use it maliciously.
@@@@@ several – I don’t ask you to agree with me. I merely answered the question I was asked and attempted to give some of the rationale behind my answer. It’s a complex culture, and human relations are complex things. You don’t have to like my answer, but don’t try to pretend a situation like this could possibly have a simple solution.
Unless you want to side with Odium, and just destroy all the people. I guess that would be nice and simple. No more class distinction, no more slaves, no more privilege. Yup, that should work. Nice, level playing field. Everyone equally dead.
Does anyone remember how much the bridge crews were paid under Sadeas? Because I think 5 firemarks is a higher rate.
And, in most historical cases, to free a slave – fees and taxes were paid when their paperwork was filed. If the owner could not afford to pay these, they could not free any slaves.
All the former slave bridgemen have paperwork on file. So if they ever leave the army, and their freedom is challenged, the record of their freedom is available. Think of Bridge 4 tattoo. It is not just a thing of unity. It is also a legal mark of “Not a slave.” Thus why Kaladin notes it when one of the guys who was not a slave gets the tattoo. That man took it on as a mark of unity.
So yes, Shallan could have told all the slaves she rescued from Tvlakv – “You are free to go.” But, they were in the middle of no where. She had no way of making their freedom a legal thing of record. Nor did she have the money to pay their “freedom tax” once she reached the Shattered Planes. So if any had walked away, they could be captured as run away slaves without the ability to prove they were freed.
Yes, slavery is a horrible intuition. When it is in place, if the proper legal steps are not taken to register a person’s release from slavery – that person can be kidnapped into slavery again very easily.
So what is the better choice?
Key difference here. Roshar slaves are paid. The thought is they can earn their freedom. I’m guessing some people even sale themselves into slavery to pay off personal or family debts.
I cannot remember if we have meet any slave families. But in the many historical cultures were you can work to buy yourself out of slavery, your children are not automatically slaves.
Slavery where you are: not paid, have no way of earning your freedom, and your children are automatically slaves upon their birth – that is the most horrible type of slave system. Thankfully Roshar’s slave system is not this type.
However, the way the parshmen are treated, strikes me as sickeningly similar to the un-escapable slavery system. So while I hate the parshmen and Parshendi are being turned into Voidbringers – I’m glad their enteral slavery to humans will be ended.
Edit: Err… Odium slavery will be worse, so I need to think on how to word this…
Darn it, I don’t want them to be physical or mental slaves to anything!
I would like to point out being made a slave is a punishment for a crime. Darkeyes found guilty of crimes are turned into slaves; lighteyes are executed.
You aren’t being made a slave on a whim or simply because you are a darkeye: you did something to earn it. Simply because Kaladin’s slavery was unfair, it is foolish to think every single darkeyed slave ended up there because some lighteyed abused of them. Surely many did earn their punishment: thiefs, criminals, murderers, rapists.
One could argue the darkeyes have it better in this specific case as at least they have the opportunity to pay off their debt and earn their freedom again. Lighteyes aren’t given the same. Remember Lamaril who was executed for a failed assault? Had he been a darkeyed, he would have likely been made a slave.
Wetlander@87 – Once again, thanks for your response. It’s been my experience that discussion here tends to be rather civil and respectful and I enjoy following it, even when I don’t contribute to it. I also don’t recall an expectation that all or anyone agree (with such a diverse group of personalities and backgrounds, how could we?), just that commenters discuss fairly and sometimes support and/or defend any opinions submitted (as much as the commenter wishes to support/defend, anyway). For this particular topic, it does not appear that Luke@3 was seeking a simple solution either in what I interpreted him as asking in my post@78 or what you yourself interpreted him as asking in your post@68, so I am unclear as to which situation you are referencing someone suggested had a simple solution.
Also, I (and if I could be so bold, many other readers) believe that there is likely a happy middle somewhere between the existing Alethi system and your proposed Odium-assisted, scorched earth approach. There are likely several better alternatives; I applaud those who believe there is nothing wrong with pointing out the flaws in the existing system and suggesting things could (and should) be better, short of ultimate destruction on Roshar.
Gepeto@90 – Since a strong portion of the discussion has focused on the flaws and exploitation of the Alethi lighteye/darkeye system, to suggest that darkeyes “did something to earn” slavery seems to miss the point that several were making. It also is literally blaming the victim for what happened to them.
As for “One could argue the darkeyes have it better (being forced into slavery) in this specific case,” well, there are too many responses to such a line of thinking. I have a major issue with trying to diminish the horrors of slavery (any form, but for the purposes of this discussion, let’s focus on Alethi slavery) by suggesting that it’s a mercy. But if an argument is needed: pure logic would dictate that if it were “better” it would be reserved for what the Alethi perceived to be the better eye-shade.
It’s also likely that a militarily oriented culture (like the Alethi) would likely perceive death to be a more favorable outcome than to be treated as human chattel; that also seems to align more with Vorinism from what I’ve seen, but that is debateable. But attempting to justify slavery by saying that it’s “better” does not hold true to what we’ve seen so far in the Stormlight Archive (or, what history has taught us in a number of cases)
@Alice and several others:
Heh. I didn’t think I was being abstruse, but will try to avoid such tendencies in the future. You did get the thrust of my question.
As for ‘imprecated’, I meant it in the sense that they are made evil or at least morally culpable for institutional buy-in. Implicated probably would have been better, but I liked how imprecated felt on my tongue.
I want to thank you for your detailed answer, Alice, even if I don’t entirely agree with it. I think it is important and shows a strength of those participating in this conversation to be able to speak both honestly and respectfully of their own views and the views of others.
In that vein, I would like to state my own three positions very clearly. (At least as clearly as my abstruse tendencies will allow. ;-))
1. I want to stress very strongly that we should be respectful and gracious in our comments, but I think it is silly to imagine that art (and these books are definitely art) does not reveal something about the culture from which it emerges. The Stormlight Archive emerges from an American context which has a history of racial genocide, institutional slavery, and a legacy (that still exists) of white supremacy. I read the Vorin system as in part holding up a mirror to this history so that the readers may reflect upon it. Perhaps non-American readers bring different things to the table, but I don’t think it is wrong for those who see the parallels to mention them in a respectful way that keeps focus on the art and not about the real world politics.
2. As a person who grew up in the South, I hear strongly the call to courtesy and graciousness. Even when I’m not practicing them, I always pay lip-service to the ideals. However, I am aware that demands for politeness can be a silencing tactic. (Again, not what I think Alice is doing or supports.) There are some things that polite society doesn’t talk about, and to talk about them — to ask for change — is seen as impolite. I find it difficult to read Kalladin’s point of view. His lack of grace annoys me. He can whine. Nevertheless, when he names the Vorin system as oppression, I think that’s important even if it is not polite.
3. I think it is the moral responsibility of those in a place and groups of privilege to clean up the messes caused by or that caused the privilege in the first place. Again, not every person is equally culpable but everyone can do something. Dalinar can give away his magical sword to free slaves. A person in the tenth dahn has no magical swords to give away, but he or she has the privilege to improve her station more than someone in the highest nahn. At the very least, that person doesn’t have to perpetuate bigotry. Kalladin’s anger inspires Dalinar to think about the Vorin system as a system that perhaps should not exist in the way that it does. Using a real life example:
Some cops do bad things. These people are culpable for their bad actions.
Some cops don’t abuse their authority, but remain silent and/or hide the abuses of other cops and people with authority. They are culpable for their silence.
Some cops don’t abuse their authority and do not remain silent when abuses occur. These people are not culpable for the bad action of the previous two categories. Nevertheless, they have the opportunity (and I believe the moral responsibility) to call out and change the system that enables the bad actions of the cops in the other two categories.
I don’t believe this position boils down to all X are bad. I think it boils down to all X can and should do something to improve the conditions that make their life possible at the expense of others.
Many of the light-eyed characters that we see are nice, but besides for Dalinar I don’t see them really try to grapple with the privilege of their position.
@86 kei_rin
It should be difficult to write the words “her slaves”. Shallan is a character that you like, and you’re right to point out that she doesn’t have any malicious or cruel tendencies. I think you got to the heart of the matter when you say that Shallan just doesn’t stop to think about it. As long as she’s not vicious, as long as she gives people a chance, she can tell herself that she’s treating her slaves well. It’s true enough, but her crime is in using the words “her slaves” at all. “Good” slaveowners are still slaveowners.
@87 Wetlandernw
I agree that the current system on Roshar is better than everyone being murdered by an evil deity. However, your argument reminds me of my own insistence, during an argument in high school, that America’s war crimes shouldn’t be held against us because we were less evil than the Nazis. I was also quite right about America being better than Hitler, but I don’t really think holding America to Hitler’s standards was a good idea, any more than “better than the Apocalypse” works as a defense of a society.
“It’s complicated” is often an accurate and valuable explanation of a difficult problem. It works less well as an excuse for failing to solve that problem. I don’t suppose that there is a quick or easy way to reform Alethi society, but I would give people more credit if they were actually trying. A good place to start would be admitting that slavery was wrong, and deciding not to own slaves yourself.
@88, 89 Braid_Tug
All good points, and on an issue I had not fully considered. However, Shallan could have told the former slaves that she would remain their legal “owner” without requiring them to work for her, and that she would free them as soon as she had the money to pay the fees for their paperwork. Once she gets to the warcamp and extracts a stipend from Sebarial, she doesn’t need cash, and she could free them then without any difficulty. By demanding their labor as the cost of their freedom, she’s choosing to benefit from the system of slavery.
Do you know what kind of historical system Sanderson might have based Alethi slavery on? I tried to think of similar models, but I’m coming up blank so far.
@90 Gepeto
I confess that I never really thought about how lucky slaves are. Ever.
@92 Luke
Yes. I also grew up in the South, and I think one of our region’s better qualities should be our graciousness. It’s unfortunate that good manners are so often used as an excuse for silencing criticism, especially since this teaches dissidents to associate politeness with subservience. It would be nice for Kaladin to live in a society which listened to him when he spoke quietly and courteously, but he doesn’t. Rudeness, like satire, is a valuable form of rebellion against a social code that teaches inferiors to lower their eyes and voices in the presence of their betters.
Sometimes Kaladin can just be pointlessly rude and abrasive. But whenever Shallan uses his rudeness or his negativity as an excuse to avoid addressing what he has to say, I recognize the same tactic that authorities have used from time immemorial to silence dissent. First they tell everyone that the peasants are happy with their lives, then they talk over quiet voices, and finally they denounce loud voices as insulting or rude so they don’t actually have to respond to what they’re saying.
It is stated in the books being made a slave is the standard punishment for darkeyes found guilty of crimes. There has never been any other instance of an individual being made a slave for no reason at all. All the bridgemen were found guilty of something.
@90
What about those born into slavery because there are people who are born into the Rosharan slavery system. (Chapter 24, page 309 according to my Kindle) This is a system that is also used to unjustly punish those who don’t deserve it. I don’t think just unfair to one person, Kaladin doesn’t seem to me to be an outlaying data point of where the system failed.
Although here is problem with this question is that we know how the Roshar’s system is designed to work by how we hear it talked about but we don’t have any numbers for how it fails it. So while we might want to think we might want to think that most of those made slaves are done in response to actual horrible crimes we don’t have any numbers to back that up. Nor to have numbers saying it isn’t the case either but I’m just going bring up again it’s possible for children to be born into slavery. They at least did nothing to earn a slave brand.
The only advantage to being made a slave is that you are alive. Kaladin was on the road to either driving his master to kill him in order to hold on to himself, or losing himself and committing suicide. Going back to the chull thing in a cage at the menagerie. It was fed and protected from predators but it was still caged and taken from the life it should be living. Which is why I’m shocked when Shallan calls slavery a mercy. I think Kaladin would disagree with slavery being a mercy.
Another issue I have with Roshars system is, if we think of Shallan’s slaves holding what is an average slave debt. Shallan can pay of the debt of her slaves in about a year given how much she is paying them. I’m assuming that Shallan is not paying much higher than what might be considered a fair wage but I will grant that she might be paying her slaves bit more than more than what an what is considered a fair wage (it sounds like something she would do). Even then slaves should be able to pay of their debts within a handful of years. Shouldn’t they? Why is possible to have children who are still working off debt inherited by there parents?
Kaladin’s story answers this for us. Slaves are payed nowhere near a fair wage. Even Kaladin who had a violent crime against him, had a slave debt he could work down and eventually see freedom. Shouldn’t he have put his energy towards than instead of trying to run away? He’s not afraid of hard work or stupid and shortsighted; why was running away and being hunted forever a better option to him. It always sounded like he never thought there was any merit to actually trying to pay to it down because what ever he made was never going to actually make a difference against it. He only put all his money towards his debt when he no longer cared to keep trying before Syl went to find the Blackbane leaf. Even then he didn’t believe it mattered. Sounds like a rigged system to me.
Just also want to point out here, Gaz is lighteyed and he was worried about being sold into slavery. The highest crimes get a lighteyes killed but they can be made a slave as well for other crimes. It just not common for them to made into slaves. For darkeyes it sounds just about anything -falling into debt, to crime, to being born to the wrong parents- can take away your freedom. The only crime we’ve heard that can get a darkeyes killed is stealing horses (Horses are the most expensive animal on Roshar and most likely only owned by Highlords/lighteyes). Not all the slaves are in their situation because of terrible miscarriages of justice like what happened to Kaladin but in IMO I somehow doubt most of them are made slaves because they truly “deserved” it. This isn’t only a form of punishment. A darkeyes might need to sell himself into slavey because he’s too poor. In that case I guess you case he’s guilty of not having money.
Minor correction: Gaz is not lighteyed. He’s darkeyed, sixth nahn.
I have a few things to say on the subject of slaves, but not just at the moment. Y’all probably won’t like that, either.
Thanks for the correction Alice. I guess that the only lighteyes we know at risk of being sold into slavery was Jushu.
If you have the time to write them up, I would be interested in reading your thoughts on the subject as well. :)
Thanks kei_rin for clarifying on the children of slaves being automatically slaves. I had forgotten about it. Would you have the exact passage? I have lent my WoK in order to bring new people into the light. My new reader seems enthusiast enough, but I may be unnerving in my incessant questions: “So where are you at?”. So far, her favorite character is Shallan which is unusual, so I am keen on having her impressions as she moves forward.
I seem to recall Kaladin stating being made slave as opposed to being hanged was the one advantage darkeyes had over lighteyes. Doesn’t anyone remember the same passage? I personally can’t consider the death penalty as an advantage over slavery. Don’t get me wrong, neither is right, but slavery strikes to me as a better option. It also seems preferable than life-long imprisonment.
@98
The quote actually in WoR. “They were men with debts or the children of slaves who still bore the debt of their parents.”
The only think I remember even remotely like that was in WoK. After Kaladin did the sidecarry when Kaladin woke up and Syl told him that Lamaril was executed but Gaz was left in his position. Kaladin tells Syl that the reason is because after a disaster the lighteyes are supposed to take most of the blame. So nothing happened to Gaz but his lighteyed superior is killed. Is that the moment that you are talking about? I personally don’t remember a time that Kaladin actually says that being made a slave was a mercy or an advantage. When Kaladin was branded a slave Amaram considers it a mercy and tell him so but nothing in Kaladin’s manner suggests that he agrees.
The slavery system is Roshar’s prison system or at least it’s Althikar’s prison system. Essentially Amaram does sentence Kaladin to what might as well be life-long imprisonment. We don’t know how many slaves actually manage to pay of their slave debts and it’s not unreasonable to assume that Kaladin’s slave debt to be a high cost and he probably never would have been freed under “normal” circumstances. *sarcasm* Good thing the end of the world came along. *sarcasm*
Kei_Rin @97:
I thought that Jushu _couldn’t_be sold into slavery, which is why the loan-shark intended to torture and kill him as a warning to other light-eyed debtors? Though it is kind of interesting that a dark-eye could afford to semi-publicly maim and murder a light-eye of the 6th dahn without reprecussions – a situation that Kaladin certainly couldn’t envision as possible/plausible, while Roshone was an undisputed master of all he surveyed. Was it the difference between Jah Keved and Alethkar social systems, I wonder, or just Hearstone being so deeply rural, whereas nearer the big cities capital can beat caste?
Re: RL societies where slaves were payed and could buy themselves free, Ancient Rome was one, though it wasn’t a requirement, IIRC, just the owners noticing that skilled slaves worked much harder and thus were much more profitable, given such incentives. Skilled and educated men from Greece etc., even used to sell themselves into slavery with the express goal of making a name and career for themselves in Rome and eventually earning manumission and the coveted Roman citizenship.
Kaladin not considering working himself free – the injustice of it was suffocating him, he wasn’t going to resign to spending years/decades to do it. That would have meant accepting Amaram’s treachery as his due.
IIRC, Alethi slaves aren’t normally branded either, only the dangerous ones.
Generally on the subject of subjugation et al. – unfortunately, all human societies so far have been built on some forms of it. I don’t really see how human Rosharan civilization can be believably transformed into utopia lacking class opression (however that class is determined), while also fighting a literal apocalypse. It does seem that at the very least human slaves don’t constitute a large fraction of the population and they don’t have economy dependant on slave labor, which is all to the good. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t want slavery to be abolished ASAP, just that I am not ready to jump on Shallan for keeping those slaves for the time being – on a very generous schedule to manumission.
Wetlandernw @96:
Gaz is sixth nahn? I thought that there were only 5? And also, how could somebody of such low nahn be a sergeant?
@100
Jushu could be sold into slavery it just wouldn’t cover his debt. WoR, Chapter 48, page 561. What he owe to the gamblers was more than what he was worth as a person.
As I pointed out, slavery is also the equivalent to Roshar’s prison system. It seems the two options under law are death or loss of freedom for many crimes. Jail time seems equivalent to a slap on the wrist, like a fine would be for many people IRL. (I’m also thinking of the societies on Roshar who feed their criminals to great shells.) So really the Roshar legal system needs a giant over haul. But like you don’t know if such a thing is possible while the end of the world is going on.
There are ten levels each for dahn and nahn. IIRC, Brandon said there really aren’t very many tenth nahn; those would essentially be serfs tied to the land.
That’s from Chapter 24
(eta) Words of Radiance :)
@100
Some more thoughts:
Shallan and Kaladin both grew up in rural areas. Shallan wasn’t even near a large city and the small country fair of a couple 100 people was a large gathering to her. IMO Shallan and Kaladin superficially have very similar backstories of growing up in Vorin cultures in rural settings. I think the reason Jushu could be treated the way the gambling house owner was saying is because he owed the man money and therefor the man had a legal right to get payment from Jushu, either from his family or the man himself. Kaladin’s family had no legal foot to stand on against Roshone to exact anything similar or even to get him to back off from treating them they way that he did. Kaladin’s father was essentially getting away with thievery because no one could prove it.
My problem with Vorin society actually isn’t that it’s a slave owning society. It’s more that there is IMO too much opportunity for abuse in there society. I don’t condemn Shallan for owning slaves. It’s hard for me to think about because I’m morally opposed to it. But I do see that she sees her slaves as people and treats them as human beings. So with in the bounds of her culture she is doing right by them. If all the people who owned slaves on Roshar were like Shallan, I would call it utopia but one that I would never want to live in. But they aren’t all like Shallan; there are also those who are like Tvlakv who no longer really see people as human but as something that they can sell and Sadeas who sees life so cheaply that he’d rather own slaves to Parshmen. People like Amaram who use the system to hid their own crimes. There are so few checks to keep people in power from abusing it from what I can see and because of that the abuses do happen.
In WoR back in chapter 11, where Shallan calls slavery a mercy for the lower classes. In that same paragraph, Shallan says this:
She was instantly worried about being sold into slavery illegally upon waking up in a slavers camp and had to use logic to tell her that she was safe from this. To me this tells me that it is a known problem that sometimes people are sold into slavery without the proper documentation sometimes. Had Shallan been darkeyes this might have been an actual concern that it could happen to her but because she was lighteyes, she was safe from this. All she did was wonder into the wrong camp in the middle of the night and if she was darkeyes she could have made into slave by being sold to one of those owners who didn’t require documentation of a slaves past. At least that is the implication of her statement.
Perhaps part of the reason lighteyed slaves are so uncommon outside of the ardentia is because slavery is the lowest rung on the hierarchical ladder, and having a lighteyed slave hanging about would undermine the entire thing by putting them below all ten ranks of darkeyes. When a darkeyes screws up or is unfortunate enough to end up as a slave, they serve as an example for the higher castes: “This could be you if you aren’t careful,” but when a lighteyes does, they’re executed instead because even a shamed lighteyes is supposed to be above the whole of the darkeyed. It’s probably not something the Vorin think about a lot, but one of those underlying traditions that are so old no one even thinks about them anymore.
That would sense as subconscious reason for the two different laws.
The ardentia is interesting as well because it’s outside the social structure. Things like eye color and gender aren’t suppose to matter if you want to join the ardentia and as far as I can tell it’s completely voluntary. I haven’t heard of a priest being forced into service. It sounds like they are owned in name only.
The economy is based on parshman slaves. When Shallan wants to get rid of them she is told that isn’t possible because the parshmen would just have to walk away to ruin Alethkar, they don’t have to turn into Voidbringers to make trouble.