I hope you’re all prepared for one doozy of a chapter, because this one’s chock full of questions, theories, death, betrayal… everything that makes one of Sanderson’s “avalanches” edge-of-your-seat events. There’s a lot going on here, as Kaladin and Elhokar finally find Unmade-possessed-Aesudan in the palace and Shallan confronts two different Unmade on the Oathgate platform, and Alice and I are ready to pull it all apart and pick the bones clean of theories, nuance, and… gifs. Of course. So buckle your seat belts and keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times, because the Stormlight Coaster is about to drop clear off the edge of Roshar.
Reminder: We’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the entire novel in each reread. There aren’t any big Cosmere things in this reread to be wary of, but if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done. Because spoilers all the way.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin, Shallan
WHERE: Kholinar palace (not going to bother with a map this week, everything takes place in the palace or the Oathgate platform)
WHEN: 1174.2.3.3 (immediately after Chapter 83)
Kaladin, Elhokar, and a group of guards make it up to Aesudan’s chambers to find that she’s possessed by Yelig-nar, one of the Unmade. They rescue Gavinor, Elhokar’s son, and make their way out to the steps, where they’re confronted by an army of parshmen… ones Kaladin unfortunately recognizes as his friends. He freezes up, unable to kill his friends, and just as Elhokar is about to say the Words which will transform him into a Radiant, Moash appears and kills him. Meanwhile, Shallan manages to drive away the Heart of the Revel from the Oathgate platform, only to be stopped by Sja-anat, another Unmade who claims to be on her side, and warns her that the Oathgate is a cleverly laid trap…
Truth, Love, and Defiance
Title: The One You Can Save
“Elhokar,” Kaladin said, gripping the king’s shoulder. “Be a hero to the one you can save.”
A: Oh, my aching heart… (And yes, I’ll say that repeatedly this week, I expect.)
L: I can’t even imagine how hard this was for Elhokar. It’s pretty clear that he loved his wife, and to have to walk away knowing that Kaladin might be staying behind to kill her… Yeah.
Heralds
Shalash and Jezrien are there for the most obvious of reasons: This chapter is all about their Knights Radiant being Knights Radiant.
Icon
Kaladin’s Banner and Spears icon indicates that the chapter starts with his POV; he trades off with Shallan several times as it goes on.
Epigraph
The enemy makes another push toward Feverstone Keep. I wish we knew what it was that had them so interested in that area. Could they be intent on capturing Rall Elorim?
—From drawer 19-2, third topaz.
A: Yeah, I wish I knew too! There’s something significant about Feverstone Keep, right? Unless this is just a marker for us, reminding us that Dalinar’s Recreance vision took place there, it seems likely that there is something in the area, and quite possibly at Rall Elorim. It can’t be called “the City of Shadows” for nothing.
L: With the number of times that Brandon’s name-dropped this, it can’t not be significant.
Stories & Songs
They passed a corridor lined with statues of the Heralds. Nine of them, at least. One was missing.
A: This isn’t particularly significant for the chapter, but it’s worth noting that this is likely the same passageway that Szeth mentioned in the prologue to The Way of Kings. For what that’s worth. There are a couple of other reminders that this is the same palace that we’ve seen in all the prologues.
L: Which Herald is missing? What’s her name, the one who keeps destroying all the images of herself? That’s Shalash, right?
A: That’s the one. Szeth noticed that her statue was missing back then, and apparently it’s still missing. Or they replaced it and she destroyed it again, I suppose.
Buy the Book
Fate of the Fallen
L: Nice to know that my memory didn’t fail me for once.
“I can hear her,” Elhokar said. “That’s her voice, singing.”
I know that tune, Kaladin thought. Something about her soft song was familiar.
A: I checked with all the smartest people I know and confirmed that we still don’t know why Kaladin recognizes the tune. The main theory I’ve seen is that it’s a Singer tune which Kaladin learned from the parsh he traveled with, on the assumption that Aesudan knows it from having eaten the Yelig-Nar-gem. I don’t find this very satisfactory, because Sanderson is still being very coy when asked about it—and why would he be, if it was a question and answer completely contained within Oathbringer? Someone else had a theory (promptly disproven) that Kaladin’s mother Hesina might be closely related to Aesudan, and Kaladin had learned it from her. Oddly enough, the answer was no, that’s not why he knows it—but yes, Hesina is not closely related to Aesudan. Go figure.
But this is going to drive me crazy until we learn the answer. Why would Sanderson mention that Kaladin recognizes the song??
L: I think the idea that it’s a parsh song, or at least a Rhythm that Kal recognizes, makes total sense. Music seems to be underlying so much in this world. I wouldn’t be in the least bit surprised if the “aliens” (humans) hear and recognize a lot more of the Rhythms that drive their world than they realize.
A: It could be. I mean, I totally agree that it’s quite possible for humans to recognize Rhythms without realizing it. But he refers specifically to the tune itself, so… I don’t know. Well, hopefully we’ll find out soon. (ish…)
This isn’t a human heart, she decided. Maybe it’s a parshman heart. Or, well, a giant, dark violet spren in the shape of one, growing over the Oathgate control building…
So. Time to try what she’d done in Urithiru.
Trembling, Shallan closed her eyes and pressed her hand against the heart. It felt real, like warm flesh. Like in Urithiru, touching the thing let her sense it. Feel it. Know it.
A: Even knowing that it worked in Urithiru, this seems like a horrible idea…
L: Aside from that, I find it curious that Shallan assumes that it’s mimicking a parsh heart. Parsh hearts are gems, so far as we know, and hence it doesn’t seem logical to me that it would look anything like a human one.
A: Well, two things. I believe parsh have two hearts—one that pumps blood, like a human heart, and the gemheart that controls their forms. So there’s that. The other is that I don’t think Shallan knows about their gemhearts yet, does she?
L: Wait, really? Do we have a WoB on that two hearts thing, or is it just speculation?
A: In the Eila Stele, there’s a line referring to humans that says, “They have but one heart, and it cannot ever live.” It seems reasonable that the writer is familiar with having more than one heart. I’m pretty sure there’s more evidence, but I can’t locate it right now.
His voice brought to her an awareness of the city around her. Of soldiers skirmishing only one street over. Of distant drums going silent, one at a time, as the guard posts on the wall fell.
L: This is just… haunting. I’m putting it here because it has to do with drums, but really… it has to do with death. With the city slowly falling, like a tree that’s been cut and is ever so slowly keeling over before it crashes to the ground.
A: This was such powerful imagery, it hurts to read.
She tried Pattern first, stabbing him into the heart as a Shardblade. The mass simply split around the Blade. She slashed with it, and the spren cut, then sealed up behind.
L: Whoa whoa whoa. Wait just a tick. So if Shardblades were made to fight the forces of Odium (???), the fact that this one doesn’t work against the Unmade is a pretty big thing. Did Odium realize that the Shardblades were destroying all his forces and created the Unmade specifically as superweapons that could withstand them?
A: Well, it’s entirely possible. I think. We see them work against a lot of different things, but apparently Unmade are an exception! A few weeks ago, we noticed how Syl as a Shardblade was able to direct Kaladin to find the Fused gemheart and destroy it, and that might be even more widely useful than fighting thunderclasts. It’s almost nice to know there’s something they can’t do. Sanderson’s Second Law: “The limitations of a magic system are more interesting than its capabilities.”
L: So, so true. If they could destroy every threat easily, this wouldn’t be as interesting of a book series.
He passed the remnants of lavish meals only partially eaten. Pieces of fruit each with a single bite taken out of them. Cakes and pastries. Candied meats on sticks. It looked like it should have rotted, based on the decayspren he noticed, but it hadn’t.
L: More of that time dilation going on here? Or is there something more? If the decayspren are there, maybe the food actually is decayed and there’s some sort of illusion happening.
A: This is clearly intended to make us wonder what’s going on, and I honestly don’t know. It’s likely one of the two reasons you mentioned, but it’s also possible that there’s something else bizarre that we haven’t picked up on yet.
L: And then we have this:
Kaladin picked around a pile of musical instruments of the finest wood, sitting in a heap.
L: More excesses, not only of the flesh, but of the mind as well. Gluttony doesn’t only need to refer to food, it’s indulging in anything to excess, and it appears that Aesudan was doing so about many things. Whether or not she was actually playing any of those instruments or simply wanted them just to possess them is up for debate… I wonder if there’s any sort of connection between the musical instruments and the fact that she was singing when they walked in. Maybe she was seeking the perfect accompaniment for the song in her head.
A: We don’t know much about Aesudan. It’s possible that she’s musically oriented and then, as you say, felt the need to possess them all. (Side note… most musical instruments are difficult to play with one hand. Just sayin’…)
L: I’m curious about the overlapping effects of the different Unmade, here. This seems like it’s a Heart of the Revel thing, so is it affecting Aesudan even while she’s possessed by Yelig-nar?
A: That’s a good question. I’m reasonably sure she was affected by the Heart of the Revel before she swallowed the Yelig-nar rock, so it’s possible that this is all leftovers from that time. It’s also possible, and I think probable, that she’s affected by the Revel right up until the moment she’s so possessed by Yelig-nar that she starts growing carapace and her eyes start glowing red.
He passed the balcony to his left. If he remembered right—though the story had been told so often, he had heard a dozen differing versions…
L: I have to laugh at this, because Sanderson is making a subtle little nod to the fact that every book in the series begins with a different retelling of this same event.
A: ::gigglesnort::
“Yelig-nar serves me. Or do you speak of the Heart of the Revel? Ashertmarn has no will; he is merely a force of consumption, mindless, to be harnessed.”
L: Yeeeaaaah I’m not sure how much of that I believe. Yelig-nar clearly has her wrapped around its little finger, so anything she thinks she knows about Ashertmarn is also questionable.
A: ALL the information we have about the Unmade is questionable. For what little we do have, though, Hessi’s Mythica seems to sort of agree with this; she calls it one of the “three great mindless Unmade.” Calling it “merely a force of consumption” is a bit understated, though—it’s like calling Nergaoul “merely a support in battle.”
Oh, also… “Yelig-nar serves me.” Oh, you ignorant, arrogant little twit. She seriously thinks she controls one of the Unmade, rather than the reverse.
L: Yeah. This is really, really stupid. But understandable, seeing as how it’s certainly been whispering in her ear all this time, twisting her mind.
A: I wonder if it was made easier by her time spent under Ashertmarn’s influence. Then again, she’s always been arrogant and power-hungry, so…
Give it all to me, the voices whispered in Shallan’s mind. Give me your passion, your hunger, your longing, your loss. Surrender it. You are what you feel.
L: I mean… in a sense, it’s not wrong. We are what we feel. But we can also control what we feel. Which is, of course, what Shallan’s about to learn.
A: I thought it was quite profound, to have the “force of consumption,” a.k.a. the “lust for indulgence,” urging her to consider herself only in terms of her emotions. It’s one of her biggest areas of difficulty: reconciling truth with feeling and, as you say, learning to control what she feels.
The enormous heart became sludge, then melted away, almost seeming to crawl, sending out runners of dark liquid before itself.
L: I can’t help but imagine noh-face from Spirited Away here. Actually… come to think of it… This Unmade is a bit like Noh-face, isn’t it? Engaging in things to excess, trying to convince others to do the same… I wonder if this was an influence on Sanderson’s work, here.
A: Not being familiar with the work in question, I have no opinion here. Shocking, isn’t it?
“You did it!” Adolin said.
I did?
L: I’m with Shallan here. I’d really like to know exactly what it is she’s doing that’s scaring these things off.
A: Well, in a bit someone else will explain this…
L: I have the memory of a goldfish, and haven’t read this in its entirety for two years now.
A: RAFO… like another page or so. :D
L: (After finishing initial notes on the chapter): Okay, so a trap. Right. I’d forgotten that in this case, that’s what’s going on. It stands to reason that Odium would expect Shallan to try the same strategy, and hence tell the Heart of the Revel to expect that and take a hike once she does.
A: It seems reasonable, and it totally would have worked without Sja-anat’s twisting of her own twists—at least, according to her, and I’m inclined to believe her.
It looked much as the one she’d discovered at the Shattered Plains—though better maintained, and its tile mosaics on the floor were of fanciful creatures. An enormous beast with claws, and fur like a mink. Something that looked like a giant fish.
A: For what it’s worth, the mosaics in the Stormseat Oathgate were of people: “Knights in armor stood before swirling skies of red and blue. People from all walks of life were depicted in all manner of settings…” I wonder if the differences are significant. Also, Dalinar being who he is (i.e. not Shallan) of course he didn’t take any note of the mosaics in the Azir Oathgate.
On the walls, lanterns shone with gemstones—and between them hung full-length mirrors.
L: Considering what she saw in mirrors earlier in this part, you’d think that she’d be a little more wary of these.
Radiant, the thing said, mouthing the words. My name is Sja-anat, and I am not your enemy.
L: I don’t know why I immediately trust her, and yet… here we are.
A: This is the third time we’ve heard someone tell Shallan recently that “I am not your enemy,” and now I believe all three were Sja-anat. The first one was when “Swiftspren” was listening to the cultists, hearing what they could hear, and then one line stands out differently: “Shallan, I’m not your enemy.” The second was when she came up here to investigate the Oathgate, saw the shape in the mirror, and heard the voice saying, “I’m not your enemy. But the heart is a trap. Take caution.” Now this one—where she can actually see the spren talking to her—makes me think all three have to be the same person.
And… I know this is based on not much, but I agree. I do trust her, at least to an extent, and I think she’s going to be the one to break away from Odium, and maybe turn out to help Our Radiants. (I can’t help thinking that we’re going to have all sorts of folks changing sides this time around, so that we have Heralds and Unmade and humans and parsh on both sides of the conflict.)
The queen’s soldiers blinked against the light, as if it were somehow too strong for their eyes.
L: Just another tallymark for the “people under the influence of the Unmade react weird to stuff” list.
They call me the Taker of Secrets, the figure said. Or they once did.
L: Okay, 1. Really cool name and 2. Interesting parallel here with Pattern and his “you have to give me truths” thing.
A: It is indeed a cool name. I just can’t quite figure out what it means, and what it has to do with her abilities! Does she take secrets from your mind and use them against you? Or is it more like the Lightweaver’s truths, where you give her your secret and she gives you… something or other? I badly want to learn more about the Unmade.
We were made, then unmade, she agreed.
L: What the heck is that supposed to mean? Did Odium somehow like… unravel their being and then put them back together differently? So they were made (by god or whatever the creator of the Cosmere is), then Unmade (by Odium, like, rearranging their magical DNA or something)?
A: Oh, the theories!! And we don’t know what this means, except that they were something before they were Unmade. I can’t help wondering if it’s sort of similar to the Heralds—they were ordinary humans, and then Honor gave them extra powers, and they became Cognitive Shadows who could do a lot of really amazing stuff. It’s quite possible that these were originally Singers (or humans, or Aimians, or greater spren), and then for whatever reason, they allowed Odium to give them extra powers but they had to be “unmade” to function. And of course, there’s always my loonie theory that they were somehow “pieces” splintered off of the Sibling…
L: Is it possible that the Sibling has been completely and totally dismantled? Rather than pieces splintered off while the main body/being still exists, that it’s been broken apart entirely and the Unmade are all pieces of it? This would explain the “unmade” thing for sure…
A: I think it’s possible. I hope it’s not. I don’t think that’s the whole explanation, if it’s even partially true, because the Sibling was still known and loved by the Knights Radiant while the Unmade were active. Still, if they are pieces of the Sibling, there’s nothing to say the splintering hasn’t continued to the point where there’s nothing left by now. That would be sad indeed.
Interesting thought… if they were originally bits of the Sibling, that could explain why Sja-anat is starting to claim that she’s not of Odium, and now is only of herself—if Odium couldn’t create anything new but only twist the existing, maybe he couldn’t twist it beyond its ability to revert. (Oops. I guess that could apply to whatever they originally were, whether it was the Sibling or not. Odium unmade something that someone else had made, no matter how you look at it.)
Ask my son. Please.
L: Son? Who? WHAT IS GOING ON?!
A: There’s a popular theory that she’s referring to Glys here, but I don’t think it’s confirmed. There is at least one WoB that sure sounds like he’s hinting that she’s referring to Glys, so… there’s that.
L: Oooooooh that’s a cool theory. I like it.
The queen descended the stairs, wreathed in black smoke, eyes glowing red. She’d transformed, strange crystal formations having pierced her skin like carapace. Her chest was glowing bright with a gemstone, as if it had replaced her heart.
L: Really cool mental image. It’s neat that she’s growing almost a parsh carapace…
A: Too bad for her that she can’t control Yelig-nar as well as she thinks she can. (I don’t actually feel sorry for her. There’s a reason Jasnah was thinking about having her assassinated.)
Relationships & Romances
The queen focused on Kaladin. “New bodyguard, dear one? Far too scruffy; you should have consulted me. You have an image to maintain.”
…
“Dear one,” Elhokar said, keeping his distance from the queen, “we heard that the city has seen… trouble lately.
…
“Aesudan,” Elhokar said, his voice pained. He stepped forward, extending his hand. “You’re not well. Please, come with me.”
“Not well?”
“There’s an evil influence in the palace.”
“Evil? Husband, what a fool you are at times.”
A: There’s more of this, but that’s enough to be going on with. Elhokar has seemed to be genuinely concerned for his wife, to the point of risking his life to retrieve her and their son. He’s deeply reluctant to leave her behind, even though she’s got glowing red eyes. She, on the other hand, treats him like an idiot, and says outright that it was best that he went off to play at war so she could get on with doing the important things. We never saw Aesudan “on screen” before she was deeply under the influence of the Unmade, but we do know that Jasnah never trusted her. There’s a WoB that says Jasnah thought Aesudan wanted to usurp power and was reckless, and the plan to assassinate her was a matter of protecting the throne. What we’ve read of her behavior, between the Lhan Interlude in Words of Radiance and this scene, indicates that Jasnah was not wrong.
L: Yeah. Not a fan of her, at all. A good partner should be helping to advance her husband’s plans and support him, not… this. Yet another example of the influences around Elhokar serving to weaken him rather than strengthen him, which is why it’s so much more impressive that he managed to (start) overcoming that and become a stronger person.
A: I’m almost surprised that she was willing to grant Elhokar the intimacy required to actually produce a child, but I suppose an heir fit well enough into her plans at the time. Quite possibly, she was hoping Elhokar would die in the battles, leaving her as either Queen indeed, or at the very least Regent to the young heir.
L: Yeah, I guess. She might just like sex and not care about who it’s with, too. We’ll never know for sure, I’m certain, because this just… isn’t the type of thing that Sanderson usually elaborates on.
A: True, that. I too have wondered how much of Elhokar’s personal insecurity was deliberately fostered by a wife who wanted power and was happy to turn her young and malleable husband into a puppet. I wonder… we don’t know exactly when they were married, but it was at least six years before the opening of the series. Could they have already been married when the Roshone thing happened (he arrived in Hearthstone “seven years ago”), and might she have been part of the cause for throwing Moash’s grandparents in jail? I’m not saying Elhokar isn’t responsible, since he was acting in the king’s stead, but how much of it was actually his idea? Sheer speculation, of course.
L: I was wondering this same thing. I’m willing to bet that she was behind the decision that wound up setting Moash’s whole awful story into motion.
Elhokar whispered something to his son. Kaladin couldn’t hear the words, but the child stopped weeping. He looked up, blinked away tears, and finally let his father pick him up. Elhokar cradled the child, who in turn clutched his stuffed soldier. It wore blue armor.
L: There’s a wonderful book on writing called Save the Cat (it’s specifically about screenwriting but it has very, very good advice that can be applied to any long-form fiction) that states that any likable character has to have a moment that endears them to the reader (the specific example the author gives is Ripley choosing to save the cat in Alien). A character can be utterly loathsome, but one single moment can win the readers over to their side (the reverse is also true, as we will soon see). And this was Elhokar’s Save the Cat moment, for me. This one moment of tenderness that he shows to his son, this one aspect of true fatherhood and humanity. If it had only been this, I don’t think it would have been enough, but we’ve seen this gradual growth in him from a total pushover into a man who’s genuinely trying to become a better person. And, interestingly, this is almost a perfect reverse image to Moash’s development (and one of the things that makes him such a fascinating character).
A: That’s an excellent observation. There is more to Elhokar’s character development that combined to make me like him, but I agree that this is one of the few moments that can truly be called “endearing.” I liked his efforts to become better, and I liked seeing him draw good maps, and I liked his determination to save his family, but his evident love for his son—especially after seeing how Aesudan was allowed the poor child to be treated—was a beautiful thing.
It’s also worth pointing out that there was something extra going on, because Elhokar knew what to say to make Gavinor trust him, despite the fact that there’s no way a child that age would remember a father he hasn’t seen for… how long? Ever, maybe? He’s three years old at the most.
L: And, side note, but I wonder if that little doll is meant to be Elhokar, or Adolin. Adolin’s armor was blue, wasn’t it? It would be pretty cute if little Gavinor had some hero worship of Adolin going on.
A: That would be fun, though it’s not likely he would know Adolin. Only stories, though Navani might have told him enough to have that effect. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s what Elhokar told him—that he was going to take him to see Navani.) For what it’s worth, both Gavilar and Adolin had their Shardplate painted blue. Elhokar’s was golden, at least in The Way of Kings.
L: I could totally see a little boy looking up to his heroic knight cousin. Adolin must seem like one of King Arthur’s knights to the kids back in the capital, all gallant and talented and upholding all the ideals of what a Good Alethi Should Be.
Bruised & Broken
She became a new person with every heartbeat.
L: Something Shallan is intimately familiar with.
Shallan was a thousand people in a moment.
But which one was her?
All of them. A new voice. Wit’s?
…
You’re all of them, Shallan. Why must you be only one emotion? One set of sensations? One role? One life?
“They rule me, Wit. Veil and Radiant and all the others. They’re consuming me.”
Then be ruled as a king is ruled by his subjects. Make Shallan so strong, the others must bow.
L: Wow. That’s some pretty heavy philosophizing, I love it. But I do wonder if this is really Wit’s voice speaking to her in her head, or just what she imagines he would say to her. I think I would rather imagine the latter—especially since this would be yet another incarnation of the very thing she’s talking about here. On one level, she’s pretending to be Wit just like she does with Veil/Radiant/the rest. But it would reveal a deeper wisdom within her, one she doesn’t even realize she has. When acting, we often say that we can’t bring out something that isn’t already there, buried deep within you. The character mask you wear allows you to have the confidence to let it out. I believe that of Shallan—she’s smart, she’s wise beyond her years. She just needs to realize that she is, on her own, without the masks and illusions she’s hidden behind.
A: I honestly don’t know what Sanderson intended here—if this is Shallan imagining what Wit would say, or if there’s some kind of bond between them that lets him communicate with her. I suspect, though, that it’s the logical application to the immediate circumstance that follows from their last conversation.
Kaladin felt his rage flare, and he lowered the Sylspear. It was time to begin the work of death.
Then he saw the face of the parshman in front of him.
It was Sah. Former slave. Cardplayer. Father.
Kaladin’s friend.
L: And here we go. Poor, poor Kaladin. Stuck between two groups of friends, both of them trying to kill the other. War is hell, but never more so than in a situation like this.
A: Oddly enough—or maybe not—the note I wrote here while preparing for this was, “And so it begins.” This is a horrible moment.
L: Taking a break from the awfulness to note that, awww, Alice. You used a gif! I’m so proud of you!
In that moment, Kaladin lost something precious. He’d always been able to trick himself into seeing battle as us against them. Protect those you love. Kill everyone else. But… but they didn’t deserve death.
None of them did.
L: There are no words. Only this. (And oh how fitting that particular one is, eh, considering the character parallels…)
A: I get so angry at Kaladin for freezing here, but at the same time… what else could he do? What is the right thing to do? They were all his friends—or at least, they were all people he knew, for whom he had felt great sympathy. So I get angry, but I still totally understand.
L: I don’t blame him for freezing. Anything he did would almost certainly result in him killing someone he cared about in an attempt to protect other people he cared about!
A: I hate false binaries—you either kill these people, or you kill those people—but Kaladin’s indecision doesn’t help anyone either. What would have happened if he’d started glowing and floating and knocking people over and acting like the Voice Of Authority? Or something? Weren’t there possibilities besides kill or freeze? ::sniffle::
“Stop!” he finally bellowed. “Stop it! Stop killing one another!”
Nearby, Sah rammed Beard through with a spear.
“STOP! PLEASE!”
L: Ugh. My heart.
A: Oh, my aching heart. And it just goes on. Sah kills Beard, Noro kills Jali and Sah, Khen kills Noro…
L: Yup.
A: …and then that absolute… %@&*$… Moash shows up. I can’t even think of a printable word bad enough for him. I loathe that man.
L: Oh, oh, I know lots of words for him. Let me type the words, Alice.
A: Printable words! I have all sorts of words in my head for him… and all of them unprintable.
L: Guys, this is Alice this week.
A: Since Aubree isn’t here to defend him, I was so determined to try to be fair to Moash in this chapter. And I can’t. I hate him so much. Especially after that endearing moment we just talked about, where all of Elhokar’s progress was capped by his love for his son.
“Moash, no…” Kaladin whispered. He couldn’t move.
A: I think this is the part where I’m most angry at Kaladin. He’s protected Elhokar against Moash before—and gained his Sylblade in the process—and he knows Moash stands against him now. Why did he remain frozen and not at least stand up to the man who had betrayed him?
L: Poor baby’s traumatized, give him a break.
A: Nope.
No, I do understand it. I just… don’t want him frozen right now. This is where it’s pretty clear who he should be defending, and he still can’t break free.
L: Well. Is it clear, though? Moash is his friend, too. And he knows Moash—knows how dedicated to this cause he is. He’s gonna have to kill him to stop him.
A: They fought before without killing each other. He could have at least tried. (I know, I’m being unfair. I’m frustrated.)
L: So… one of the more interesting things I learned when taking Japanese sword lessons was the philosophy of “if you unsheathe your sword, you must be prepared to use it.” Now… I have never been in a life and death battle (thank goodness). But I feel like… if you go into that situation, you have to be prepared for the worst possible outcome.
A: Normally you do go into battle prepared to kill… though usually it’s not your friends on the other side. But it’s a fair point: I haven’t learned sword-fighting, but I have had handgun training, and one of the first rules is that you never point a gun at something you’re not willing to shoot.
L: And potentially kill. I actually remember this as well (I was a game hunter when I was much younger).
A: Now, to be honest, I wouldn’t be at all sad if Kaladin killed Moash here. Or somewhere else. I can’t help thinking that it’s set up: one of them will kill the other somewhere along the line.
L: I’d be sad for Kaladin, because having to kill his friend would destroy him. But yeah. I think it’s probably going to happen, if only because of the age-old trope of “best friends wind up mortal enemies.”
A: ::sadface::
Moash pinned the king to the ground, shoving aside the weeping child prince with his foot. He placed the boot against Elhokar’s throat, holding him down, then pulled the spear out and stabbed Elhokar through the eye as well.
L: This poor kid’s gonna be traumatised for life. After having gone through all that business with the Voidspren, and watching your mom go crazy, then seeing your dad who just rescued you brutally murdered right in front of you… I wouldn’t be surprised if he gives poor Shallan a run for her money.
A: No kidding. I kind of hope he can forget the worst of this. Otherwise it’s nightmare city for the rest of his life.
Squires & Sidekicks
Noro shrugged. “Without the captain, we don’t have a proper platoon leader. Figured we should stick with you.”
Beard nodded and rubbed at the glyphward wrapping his right arm. Fortune, it read.
A: Okay, they aren’t Bridge Four—we haven’t spent enough time with them to know them very well. Still, they’re cool dudes. Also, it’s sadly ironic that for this battle, Beard finally found enough faith to wear a glyphward.
L: I’m surprised they didn’t stick with Azure as she headed towards the Sunwalk, but on the other hand… I’m kind of not surprised, either. When given the choice of hanging around with Azure, who’s clearly competent, or someone who’s practically a god of legend, I’d probably choose the latter, too.
A: Fair point! Especially since they don’t know Azure has a few extra secrets too.
“Good to have you,” Kaladin said. “Try to keep me from being flanked, but give me space if you can.”
“Don’t crowd you,” Lieutenant Noro said, “and don’t let anyone else crowd you either. Can do, sir.”
A: Heh. Keep it simple, soldier.
Glowing Stormlight flooded the chamber as twin Radiants exploded out from the Sunwalk. Drehy and Skar swept through the enemy, driving them back with sweeping spears and Lashings.
A second later, Adolin grabbed Kaladin under the arms and heaved him backward. “Time to go, bridgeboy.”
A: I do love these guys. It’s been fun all along watching Skar and Drehy protecting—and fighting alongside—Adolin. Now the three of them form a team to protect Kaladin when he can’t protect himself. It was a brighter ending to the chapter than I’d begun to hope for.
L: This is a great moment. And what you just said… “protecting Kaladin when he can’t protect himself…” kinda made me tear up a little. Even Windrunners need protecting sometimes.
Weighty Words
Kaladin prepared Stormlight; he could paint the walls with a power that would cause crossbow bolts to veer aside in their flight, but it was far from a perfect art. It was the power he understood the least.
A: I’m quoting this only to link it to a piece much later in the chapter:
Sylspear held high, Kaladin stepped between the two groups and pooled Stormlight into the ground, drawing the bolts downward. He was unpracticed with this power, and unfortunately, some of the bolts still slammed into shields, even heads.
A: It’s interesting to notice that he actually did a better job with this lashing when he was going on sheer instinct back in The Way of Kings. Now that he’s focused on learning how to use his Surges, I’m guessing that this one is harder to understand, maybe? Just guessing.
Elhokar had fallen to his knees. In one arm he held his terrified son, in the other hand he held… a sheet of paper? A sketch?
L: This is Shallan’s sketch of him, isn’t it. Where he’s all kingly and s**t. (I’m too emotionally devastated already to bother moderating my language.)
A: This is such a callback to Blunt in Words of Radiance, where he died heroically with Shallan’s sketch in his hand. It’s heartbreaking. Reading through the chapter in preparation, I was crying right here. Oh, my aching heart. “It depicted Elhokar kneeling on the ground, beaten down, clothing ragged. But he looked upward, outward, chin raised. He wasn’t beaten. No, this man was noble, regal.”
L: ::lower lip quiver::
Kaladin could almost hear Elhokar stuttering the words.
Life… life before death…
The hair on Kaladin’s neck rose. Elhokar started to glow softly.
Strength… before weakness…
“Do it, Elhokar,” Kaladin whispered.
Journey… journey before…
A figure emerged from the battle. A tall, lean man—so, so familiar. …
“Moash, no…” Kaladin whispered. …
Lowering his spear, Moash ran Elhokar through the chest.
L: And there it is. The moment that spawned a million memes, convention ribbons, and arguments on social media platforms. The betrayal (or culmination of an honorable quest, however you want to look at it). I think we all know where I stand.
A: I stand with you.
L: In all seriousness, I get where Moash is coming from and I fully believe that his character thinks that what he is doing is absolutely right. He’s a well developed character and his reasoning for his own decisions is sound. But storm it, I love Kaladin and Kaladin sees this as a betrayal, so I’m on Team!Kal for life. #F***Moash.
A: Yeah. Sanderson is fond of saying that everyone is the hero of their own story, which is another way of saying we all think generally we’re doing the right thing (or at least a justifiable thing, even if we acknowledge that it’s not exactly right) when we do it. Moash presumably felt that Kaladin’s defense of Elhokar at the end of Words of Radiance was a betrayal, since he’d agreed earlier to go along with Graves’s plan. Even so, Moash acknowledged that his own actions constituted a betrayal of Bridge Four—though of course, being Moash, he didn’t acknowledge that he was actually at fault for it. But yes, through it all, he believed that Elhokar was a bad king and deserved to die, one way or another, so he saw his own actions as justified.
L: Also, the reason I put this into this section to begin with was because, obviously, Elhokar was about to become a Radiant. Which order is up for debate. We know from book 1 that he was drawing Cryptics, but just because he was interesting to one group of higher spren doesn’t mean that that’s the only group that was interested in him. He was so close, and the only way we’ll ever know for sure which order he was about to enter is if/when we find out what his little spren (who, presumably, Wit will soon acquire) was.
A: It’s pretty solid—if we’re willing to spoil the end of the book—that his spren was a Cryptic. He’d have become a Lightweaver, and I would love to have seen where he’d gone with that.
L: Interesting to consider what could have been. He’d have had to give up secrets/truths.
A: There’s a WoB that says his first Truth would have been that he’s a bad king.
L: I do remember reading that at one point. Heartbreaking.
A: ::sniff:: Given the chance, do you suppose he’d have become a better king, or abdicated the throne to someone “better” and focused on becoming a good Knight Radiant? We’ll never know, of course…
L: Well, given that Dalinar has mostly taken over the power of rule, I suppose that was making his job a bit easier. He was still the ruler of Alethkar, true, but when someone is over you, you’re not taking the brunt of most of the decisions yourself. I think he might have continued on and tried to make himself into a better king, a more worthy one, as atonement.
A: That was my guess, too. If they could actually implement that business where Dalinar was “high king” responsible for Urithiru, the Knights Radiant, and the Shattered Plains, and stayed out of Elhokar’s way in ruling Alethkar, maybe it would have worked. Maybe Elhokar could have developed into a wiser, stronger, better king.
Also, I think the reason all of this combines so well to build the emotional storm is the drama of Elhokar beginning to haltingly speak the First Ideal. It sets up the hope of seeing a new Radiant revealed in the height of a battle, which is guaranteed to be an awesome visual (as note every one of Kaladin’s level-ups). Blend that with the terrified child he’s protecting, and the regal man Shallan’s sketch showed, and you get a breath-taking moment of awe… suddenly shattered by Moash’s spear.
L: Reminds me of this.
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
“Up the stairs,” he said softly to Syl. “Check for an ambush on each floor.”
“Yessir, commander sir, Radiant sir,” she said, and zipped off.
A: BAHahaha! I adore Syl sometimes.
L: Gotta love the snark.
“Where is Gav, Aesudan? Where is my son?”
“He’s playing with friends.”
…
Kaladin joined Syl and glanced behind the dressing screen, which had been pushed back against the wall to section off a small cubby. Here a child—two or three years old—huddled and trembled, clutching a stuffed soldier. Several spren with soft red glows were picking at him like cremlings at a corpse. The boy tried to turn his head, and the spren pulled on the back of his hair until he looked up, while others hovered in front of his face and took horrific shapes, like horses with melting faces.
L: There’s a lot to unpack here, but I need to start with the fact that I want to simultaneously pick up this child to protect him and slap his mother senseless for allowing this to happen.
A: YES. This was kind of soul-crushing, that a mother could let her child to be treated this way. It hurts so much. “Playing with friends” indeed. You foul… woman. (I have a few unprintable words in my head for her, too.)
L: Okay, so, that out of the way. Exactly what kind of spren are these? Just… generic Voidspren? Do Voidspren not correlate to specific emotions/ideas the way normal spren do?
A: We don’t know much about Voidspren. I think they do correspond to something that makes each “kind” different, but I don’t think we know what those somethings might be. Again, hopefully we’ll learn more about this from Venli.
L: AND. Why horses? Why would they be imitating something that’s not even native to this world? This is very similar to Shallan’s sketch from earlier in the book of the creepy… undead-horse-spiral thing. Is there something more to horses that we’re not seeing, or is this just a coincidence?
A: That… uh… I have no idea. Does Sanderson have nightmares about horses (oh, look, it’s a pun!), or is he doing this on purpose?
L: AND. AND AND AND. Why in the hell is it torturing a child? What could its possible motivation for this be? Is it trying to break his mind, drive him as insane as his mother appears to now be?
A: All I can guess is that, being of Odium, these spren get their kicks from whatever (negative) emotion they can elicit, and a child can easily be prodded into terror. It’s like they’re just playing a very nasty game to pass the time. Foul things.
L: This next quote has no bearing on spren but it leads directly from this conversation, so…
Kaladin reacted with swift, immediate rage.
L: YES. Kaladin, MAH BOY.
A: WOOO!
He drove the dagger forward and caught one of the spren, pinning it to the wall’s wooden paneling. He had never known a Shardblade to cut a spren before, but this worked. The thing screamed in a soft voice, a hundred hands coming from its shape and scraping at the Blade, at the wall, until it seemed to rip into a thousand tiny pieces, then faded.
The other three red spren streaked away in a panic. In his hands, Kaladin felt Syl tremble, then groan softly. … “That… that was terrible,” she whispered, floating over to land on his shoulder. “Did we… just kill a spren?”
L: Talk about a lot to unpack! Okay. So. Is it dead dead, or just dead like the old Shardblades are dead, which means “wandering around somewhere in Shadesmar”?
A: I have no idea. I didn’t know this was remotely possible until they did it, and I don’t even know what they did. Falling back to my “best guess” shtick, I think it’s either completely destroyed, or gone back to Braize. But don’t ask me to defend my guesses, because I’ve got nothing to go on!
L: And why is this something that Syl seems totally unfamiliar with? Has this never happened before, ever, in any of the past battles? If that’s the case (and Syl’s not just forgetting things again) then what makes this time different? Was it because Kaladin was feeling such a strong emotion, one which is often associated with Odium? Is that why he was able to kill the Voidspren, because he was channeling an Odium-emotion?
A: That would be pretty twisty, though this is Sanderson we’re talking about. Syl could be unfamiliar with it because she remembers so little of actually fighting the Voidbringers, or it could be something that is so extremely difficult to do that no one bothers to mention it. Or it could be considered so horrific among spren that it’s a forbidden topic. She’s pretty horrified about it, anyway.
L: AND what emotion or idea is this spren representative of? Does killing it mean that the thing that created it has somehow been destroyed? Like… let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this was a gloryspren. If Kaladin killed it, would that also kill the emotion (glory) that someone was feeling in the moment? If it was a decayspren, would the decay vanish from the real world since its mirror in the Cognitive Realm has been destroyed? Appropriate meme is appropriate. Can Kaladin even kill spren that aren’t of Odium? ??????
A: Maybe they’re torture-spren. Terror-spren? See above gif re: appropriate meme. I have no idea.
“I found the secret, Elhokar. Spren, ancient spren. You can bond with them!” … “Have you seen my Radiants?” Aesudan asked. She grinned. “The Queen’s Guard? I’ve done what your father could not. Oh, he found one of the ancient spren, but he could never discover how to bond it. But I, I have solved the riddle.”
In the dim light of the royal chambers, Aesudan’s eyes glittered. Then started to glow a deep red.
L: Whoa Nelly. This is pretty disturbing in a lot of ways. She’s deluded herself (or the Unmade has deluded her) into believing that she’s got Radiants of her own. Yikes. And Gavilar having found the Unmade… that must be that dark sphere that he had, right?
A: I don’t know if she’s actually talking about Unmade, or just ancient spren—and if ancient spren, does she (knowingly or not) mean the parsh ancestors who bond to make Fused, or does she mean actual spren? I mean, the thing she’s got is an Unmade, but I don’t know if that’s the same thing Gavilar had. Seriously, I don’t think she knows what she’s talking about. She’s been guided by Voidspren (and/or Unmade and/or Odium) despite her claim that she found the secrets. I don’t know whether Gavilar was smarter than her, or if he was also being guided by forces of Odium, but the queen is a seriously disturbed individual. She’s gotten her guards to give up their free will in order to bond/serve a bunch of Voidspren, she’s letting others play with her child, and she’s happy about having three Unmade taking up residence with her. Creepy.
L: Hold up a second. Do you think her Queensguard have actually bonded with Singer souls, like the Fused did? I just assumed they were under the influence of the Unmade.
A: Might be influence of the Unmade, or might be that they’ve bonded Voidspren—like Ulim and Yixli. I can’t see the ancestors lowering themselves to bond a bunch of random guards, which is why I’m more inclined to think they’ve got spren bonds of some sort. I’m not sure how that would work; normally, those bond with a Singer’s gemheart to give them the “forms of power,” but humans don’t have gemhearts to bond with. On a guess, someone figured out how to create a Nahel-type bond between Voidspren and humans, which doesn’t give the human the same level-up powers as a true Nahel bond but which gives the spren more control over the human.
Quality Quotations
He looked at Kaladin, then quietly made the Bridge Four salute, wrists tapped together.
L: Yo Moash, I got a salute for ya.
A: I know our rule is not to talk about these quotations much, but I need to point out the parallel—or the antithesis—between this salute and the one we saw last week, where Adolin gave Kaladin the Bridge Four salute, and Kaladin gave it back. I think Sanderson intended Moash to mean it as a real salute here, but it felt like a mockery to me.
L: Yeah. Since Moash thinks that he’s doing the right thing, he probably sees this as doing Kaladin a favor. “He can’t do this because his honor is holding him back, so I’ll do the hard thing he can’t.” I don’t doubt that his salute is genuine. I still hate him for it though.
The next two chapters are pretty short, so we’ll tackle them together. Join us in the comments, which I suspect will be pretty talkative this week, as hoo boy what a chapter! Please remember that no matter whether you fall on Team!Kal or Team!Moash, to respect one another’s opinions and remain civil.
Alice is still mad at Elhokar MOASH (sorry for the horrible mistyping!), in case you hadn’t guessed. She’s also annoyingly busy for “summer break;” maybe moms don’t get summer break after all, eh?
Lyndsey’s gif game is strong today. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
Wow that was a long recap. I think if the guards really are tied to anything it would be a voidspren, but I think based on their relative effectiveness compared to real radiants and squires that they’re just lightly enhanced/controlled by Yelig-nar.
You could feel the story building to this chapter and see the pieces moving to where they would fall and I could not make myself look away. I hated every minute of it. I loved every minute of it.
The last thing I remember Kaladin being exposed to musically… was Hoid’s flute. Take that as you will.
great series, thank you![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
I have this theory that the Unmade were created by the first breaking of each herald. Which is why there are nine known Unmade as Taln never (up to current events) broke. They each retain some sliver of personality trait from the herald they come from. Perhaps Sja-anat is Shalash’s Unmade as both Sja-anat and Shalash seem the most conflicted.
My personal theory is that the Unmade were originally splinters of Honor. So Honor created them and then Odium came along and corrupted them to his side, thereby “unmaking” them. Best guess.
Oh yeah, F*** MOASH!
Great recap of one of the best chapters in the book. I recall, as I read the book the first time, I refused to believe Elhokar was *really* dead. Jasnah and Szeth turning out not being dead made me assume all dead characters would somehow not really *die*. I was wrong. I am pleased to know I was wrong.
Now, onto the chapter itself. I am angry and infuriated at Kaladin for not doing what needed to be done, him, the man who always did what needed to be done. I understand, but I am still angry. I am angry he felt such a strong connection to those Parshmen he spent a few days with he wouldn’t fight them back when they obviously are the attackers and the aggressors. I am angry he believed he still needed to protect those people when they made their choice. I am angry he feels kinship strong enough to make him freeze after just a few days. Sha isn’t Bridge 4. it is reasonable for Kaladin to be protective of Bridge 4, he made them, but the Parshendis? A few days and a few nice words are all it takes to win Kaladin’s protection? Or was it just the fact he saw them as runaway slaves which drew his instant compassion?
Still, I am angry at seeing Kaladin jeopardize the whole mission, allowing Elhokar to die, just because he wouldn’t raise his spears towards enemies he once fraternized with over a very brief period of time. In a sense, this scene is one which makes me think Kaladin’s next oath will have to do with letting other people make their own choices. Sha and friends chose to fight Kaladin, so Kaladin has to fight back, no matter how much sympathy he feels towards them. He is a soldier, a heavily trained one, a willing soldier, hence this scene always read and will probably always read as wrong.
Soldiers do not freeze over so little. So while yes, I understand, it always seemed to me as if the connection with the Parshendis wasn’t big enough to trigger this reaction. I mean, had Kaladin needed to fight other members of Bridge 4 gone renegade, oh yes, that would have been amazing, but Sha and the rest? Can I, as a reader, believe he really felt that strongly about this group? To the point of letting Moash kill Elhokar? Were they really *that* important?
I love the scene, but part of me disagrees with Kaladin’s reaction here. It was so… alien. It also raised the question as to why this group of specific Parshendis had to be in the palace at this specific moment. How many Parshendis were there? What were the odds?
Ah so conflicting feelings here, knowing I should be understanding while feeling angry.
On Elhokar: I agree this was the chapter which made him sympathetic, at least. I agree one scene can redeem a character, one scene can either make or break one and this definitely was the scene which made Elhokar. Still, his faith was to die tragically. It has always been and I feel his death was very well-written and appropriate. I didn’t need his viewpoints to feel how this man, unsure of himself in a family of over-achievers, thought to choose a strong-minded woman to strengthen his position not thinking he’d likely end up her puppet. I did feel he loved his son even if his son clearly never knew him, not unlike how young Adolin didn’t know Dalinar.
On the side note: I always thought Gavinor’s doll was meant to be Adolin, the King’s Champion. Surely the tale of how Adolin defeated 4 shardbearers in his glistening blue armor has reached Kholinar. I didn’t find it surprising little Gavinor would idolize this far-away cousin he never met. The scene made me think Adolin/Shallan might end up being the ones to adopt Gavinor, but the fandom seems to think Dalinar/Navani or Bridge 4 as a whole are more likely candidates. I guess we’ll see!
@7 What choice have Sha and the others really been given? They were forced by the Fused into the front lines as cannon fodder as a direct result of there association with Kaladin. And was Kaladin’s association with them any shorter than the group he is currently with the Wall Guard? For that matter, if length of time of association and personal connection are the primary motivator he would be helping Moash.
My take on the doll is that it is in Kolinar blue and isn’t meant to represent one particular person. It’s merely a symbol that, whatever is going on with this kids mother, he is his father’s son, and part of his father’s family.
Yes, Kaladin could have done something. Stick then to the ground, lashing them so that they couldn’t move… There were several options actually, to stop them without hurting them much.
Now, I disagree about this resulting in the mission falling. Imagine Kaladin not freezing, and saving Elhokar and Gavinor. What would have changed? The city would have been lost anyway, since rescuing them wouldn’t have made the Oathgate work. The only difference, since Skar and Drehy actually managed to rescue Gavinor, would have been Elhokar. Who wasn’t the actual mission.
I’m angry at Kaladin. And sad for him. Let’s face it, he’s young and all his is and them training has been undermined for a while, since fighting the Parshendi at the end of book one. Poor guy.
So bunch of things!
First, I have a theory that Yelig-nar functions similarly to Nightblood. You have to actively use Yelig-nar’s powers for it to consume you. If you have an external means of investiture, such as stormlight, Yelig-nar will first consume that, and when exhausted, then consume you. The problem is like Nightblood, the consuming gets stronger and accelerates the longer you use its powers. The reason I think this is to me what Aesudean says implies to me she had bonded Yelig-nar before Kaladin and Co even showed up at the city, yet she does not begin transforming for real till she summons the powers to fight them. Amaram conversely bonded Yelig-nar and began transforming immediately because he started using those powers non stop. I think Odium never intended for Aesudean nor Amaram to survive, because he left out that little tidbit of info of needing to feed it investiture. They were just a tool he set in a direction when their usefulness ran its course.
Second, I am glad the line “Be the hero to the one you can save” was brought to attention in this re-read. I wonder if this goes in line with what Kaladin’s 4th oath will be, and he unknowingly said it to Elhokar.
Third, I have a theory that one or two of the other bridgemen will swear the 4th oath before Kaladin. That bridgeman will then help Kaladin come to terms with the 4th Oath and swear it. Finally letting someone take care of him instead of always taking care of everyone else. Just because the bridgeman would be 1 oath further along than Kaladin, does not mean the bridgeman would then become a main character. He or she would still be supporting, but it would allow Kaladin to grow in learning to rely on others, and not always put the weight of the world on his own shoulders.
Fourth, I could have sworn it was mentioned at one point a shardblade was driven into the heart of a chasmfiend to kill it. Then later when carving out the gemheart they say how they have to be careful with the shardblade so as not to damage the gemheart. If I recall that correctly, then that says to me there are two hearts to chasmfiends, and I think that would be a good example of the local fauna, so I would assume the parshendi are the same.
@8: Didn’t Kaladin tell them to walk away from the yellow spren?
@9: The mission was to rescue Elhokar’s family, it wasn’t to save the city. Had Kaladin not freeze, he would have succeeded within protecting Elhokar and son, bringing them out of the city. Mind, Adolin might think they needed to save the city, but this wasn’t the mission. Kaladin’s mission was to protect Elhokar… then to save his family.
I feel sad for Kaladin too. This was a harsh lesson. Still, I am angry. And sad. I think feeling conflicted emotions is normal within this chapter.
My theory on the Fourth Oath: Kaladin will need to weather and accept members of Bridge 4 choosing to endanger themselves and dying. Back in WoR, he insisted Bridge 4 wasn’t to fight because he didn’t want them to risk dying. At Narak, Adolin asks Skar and Drehy is they want to fight despite Kaladin not wanting them to, making it their decision and no longer Kaladin’s. So I think Kaladin will need to accept people he wants to protect have the right to choose to put themselves in danger and may… die without it being his responsibility. He can’t protect people by forcing them to stay out of danger.
Gepeto’s comments @7 reminded me … while writing the above, I was thinking in terms of Elhokar personally, and of Kaladin personally, and that made me miss something critical. Kaladin – realistically or not – failed to remember his mission in this critical moment. He was in Kholinar to achieve two specific objectives: retrieve Elhokar’s family, and unlock the Oathgate so as to bring in the army to defend the city. While I can understand his instinctive desire not to fight his friends, they were part of the invading army. As a vital member of the small team sent on this mission, he allowed his personal feelings to interfere with every aspect of that mission. The impossibility of rescuing the queen was out of his control, but his failure here sacrificed Gavinor and Elhokar, and as far as he could know at the time, also jeopardized their chances of capturing and protecting the Oathgate long enough for Shallan to unlock the gate and bring in the army. He basically risked every person on his team because he “couldn’t” fight against his parsh friends, and he “couldn’t” even try to stop Moash from killing Elhokar. Whispering “no” doesn’t count as trying to stop anyone, in my book. As redgarlic68 points out @9, Kaladin has a whole slew of things he can do that don’t involve stabbing people. How about Lashing them backwards, or upwards, so they aren’t in the middle of things at all? But he was paralyzed by indecision.
So, sure, I understand that for the first time in his life, he’s forced to recognize the actual personhood of the enemy combatants. (This, despite the fact that his early soldiering was often against other Alethi – just not ones that he knew personally.) That doesn’t excuse his failure to execute his mission to the best of his ability. Now I wonder if the fourth Ideal might be something about focusing on the mission at hand instead of trying to protect everyone at the same time.
I do have to disagree on this one, though. “It also raised the question as to why this group of specific Parshendis had to be in the palace at this specific moment. How many Parshendis were there? What were the odds?” The odds are a matter of the writer having set everything up to lead to this moment, when Kaladin had to make a choice and, in his indecision, ended up with more people on both sides dying. So… narrative necessity. The same kind of odds that had Moash ending up with the same group Kaladin had befriended. We were told many chapters ago that these parsh had been given the “opportunity” to be in the front line: “Moash’s group wouldn’t be trained; they were really only waiting until the assault so they could run in front of more valuable troops.” (Chapter 54) Moash trained them with spears, or they’d have just been bodies in the way of the human soldiers, but we’ve known for a long time that Khen, Sah, et al would be in the front.
redgarlic68 @9 – I disagree with excusing Kaladin because “What would have changed?” Sure, the Oathgate was a trap and beyond his control, just like the Queen already joining with Yelig-nar was beyond his control. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference to that. Maybe if he hadn’t locked up, Elhokar still would have died. Maybe lots of things. But he didn’t know any of those things, so it has no bearing on the fact that his indecision caused him to forfeit his mission.
Scath @10 – Your comment about Nightblood made me realize that, without realizing it, that’s exactly what I was assuming. Huh.
A couple things.
The missing Herald statue is obviously Shalash/Ash, who seems to have a compulsion to destroy images of her. I have a theory about that, but that can wait for the interlude chapter where she shows up again.
I think Gav’s doll could be of Elhokar. Remember Navani was in Kholinar before the start of the series, so she could have been doing for Gavinor in regards to Elhokar the same thing Evi was doing for Adolin and Renarin in regards to Dalinar.
@7: I can understand your anger at Kaladin, though I do not share it. I think what you have to realize is that, over the course of the book, Kaladin’s paradigm has been slowly shifting. The question Kaladin has been struggling with is “Can you kill to protect?” For the longest time, his answer was “Yes”, but only in an Us vs. Them situation. In Amaram’s army, he could kill other Alethi (and one unfortunate Veden shardbearer), because he didn’t know them. The same with the Parshendi on the Shattered Plains, until the Battle of the Tower, when he starts to sympathize with them a bit, and loses his will to fight them afterwards (so, actually, his paradigm has been shifting since WoK). When he goes back to Alethkar after the Everstorm, he is expecting to find Voidbringers, Monsters, but instead he finds People. He gets to know them, and even sympathize with them. He can no longer see them as a “Them”. And you can’t continue to use “Us vs. Them” as a rationalization when there is no “Them”. So when he sees the Parshmen that he knows show up and start killing the Wall Guard that he knows, it breaks him. His Paradigm Shift has turned into a full-on Paradigm Schism. I still expect his Fourth Ideal to be something along the lines of “I will accept the fact that I cannot save everyone,” but he is obviously not there yet.
Gavinor’s toy soldier has a blue uniform because that is the Kholin color. It doesn’t have to be anyone specific.
The reason this group of Parshendi was there is that Moash was with them and he wanted to get to Elhokar.
Kaladin was right.
Parshendi are no more or less real than humans. The lives of his Parshendi friends aren’t worth less than those of his Alethi friends. Kaladin made an important moral breakthrough when he realized that there is no magical line between “them” and “us”; everyone is someone’s Tien.
Of course, most Alethi soldiers would have cheerfully massacred escaped slaves because it was their “mission”. They would have murdered whoever their master told them to murder. Kaladin isn’t a good soldier because he’s trying to be a good person. That means breaking away from the “just following orders” mindset of Alethi society and trying to do the right thing. It’s not always easy, but it’s infinitely better than just being a loyal attack dog like Young Dalinar.
Kaladin is fighting against both Alethi society and simplistic, flawed spren morality. He’s struggling to do good rather than simply obeying the commands of his culture or his spren. I agree that there are better things he could have done, such as trying to separate the combatants without harming them, but he did the right thing in refusing to kill his Parshendi friends simply because society told him that it was his “duty”.
Everyone is real. Everyone is important. Kaladin realized this fundamental truth, and I think he might reach the point where he can’t kill another person, human or Parshendi, without remembering that they were someone’s brother or sister. We should celebrate that breakthrough rather than cheering on characters like Jasnah who think that “our” lives are infinitely more important than “their” lives.
I had to stop reading the article in the middle just so I can say that battle fatigue is a real thing that happens to real soldiers, and I was actually very glad to see it depicted with a major character, even as painful as it was to read. People’s reactions to it are interesting, and something real soldiers have to put up with. Ooph, now back to reading…
About Kaladin freezing: he didn’t freeze just because he knew Sah and the others. He not only knew them, he saw himself in them. Kaladin knows what trying to escape slavery is like, and that’s why he couldn’t simply compartmentalize and kill them. And Kaladin knows (because they told him) that the horrors he experienced while being a slave were not as bad as what they experienced as Parshmen.
And I’m happy Kaladin froze. Not that I think it was a good reaction, or that the consequences were good, but I’m glad Kaladin was so horror stricken he couldn’t strike the Singers he spent time with. Of course Kaladin will have to figure out a better way to react, and figure out how he’s going to fight this war, but meanwhile, he’s one of the only humans who’s shown compassion and understanding to the fact that an entire race of people have been enslaved for thousands of years. I think that if Kaladin had simply raised his Sylspear without hesitation and started killing Sah and co., that I would have lost a lot of respect and love for his character.
@15 dptullos & @17 Venren. I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I think Kal’s next oath will be:
I will not kill to protect.
@2 theMattBoard My comment upon finishing this chapter during the beta read was, “I love Brandon. I hate Brandon. I wanna write like Brandon.”
This chapter was a roller coaster, for sure!
I did not see Aesudan bonding an Unmade (Yelig-nar) coming. I guess that since Voidspren can bond with humans and humans can voluntarily side with Odium that is why the Fused were willing to have some humans fight for them. There were those humans the Fused and the Regals knew they could corrupt. Where did Aesudan find Yelig-nar? Gavilar gave the other to Szeth. BTW, what did Szeth do with that gemstone? I cannot imagine that this was the gemstone that Aesudan unlocked.
I hope we learn a bit more of about Aesudan before she married Elhokar? Was her family a vassal of Gavilar or was she a vassal of another High Prince? If I had to guess, I would guess the former.
Lindsey. Great pick up on the subtle shout out to the prologues. Each telling a different perspective of the night Szeth assassinates Gavilar. I never noticed that. I also did not realize how the Heart of Revel split around PatternBlade.
Alice. I am also in the camp that Sja-anat will break away from Odium and wants to help fight against Odium. However, it may not be so easy. Even if she can break away from Odium’s influence (probably will involve something with someone(s) making a great sacrifice to help free her – and by someone(s), I include spren), I think her tougher challenge will be to get out of the clutches of Mraize and the Ghostbloods. From a story telling aspect, I would be disappointed if there is a great struggle to free Sja-anat from Odium’s influence only to have her captured by the Ghostbloods and/or being used but have our heroes quickly save her from the Ghostbloods.
I think the doll soldier was wearing blue because it was depicting a Cobalt Guard. Remember, before Bridge 4 assumed duties of guarding the royal family and House Kholin, the Cobalt Guard had that function.
For me, Moash giving Kaladin the Bridge 4 salute after he killed Elhokar was worse than the killing itself. I do not think Moash used the salute to mock Kaladin. Rather, he used the salute to mean that even though they were on opposite sides of this battle, they were on the same side of the war: kill the present oppressors. The present oppressors being Lighteyes. Not humans as the Regals and Fused tell the Singers. Moash is willing to serve the Parsh because he feels they, like him, have suffered against those previously in charge (for Moash, Lighteyes; for the Parsh, humans in general).
Unlike Dalinar and Kaladin, Moash is willing to give up his remorse so that he can have no remorse when it comes to killing his perceived enemies.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@12: Yes, exactly. Kaladin lost focus on his mission, he lost focus on the task he was given to prioritizing a task, protect the Parshendi, which wasn’t his. We could make the analogy of a few weeks back discussion where we discuss how Kaladin could sometimes prioritize the orders he wanted to follow. This could be one such event as Kaladin definitely forgets what his mission is about and should lose the trust which was put in him. What good is a bodyguard if he allows his charge to be killed because he ends up liking the foes who come at him?
So yes, I agree Kaladin compromised the mission by not seeing to his task and while we know there was no way this Oathgate was going to bring Dalinar’s army to Kholinar, Kaladin didn’t know this: as far as he is aware, the plan is still on. His team trusted him. Elhokar trusted him and he betrayed this trust by prioritizing Parshendis attackers over his mission.
And here lies Kaladin’s biggest dilemma: if he feels sympathy towards people, either deserved or not, he wants to protect them even if it costs the life of other people. Kaladin’s inaction caused everyone to die, everyone!
I find it raises the question as to whether or not Kaladin can be trusted into missions. His task was clear. The line between his enemies and his team was well defined: he screws it up because he was unable to fight people he had sympathy for. Kaladin cannot claim Sah nor any of the Parshendis were his close friends: he barely knew them. If Kaladin gets so easily emotionally compromised in a situation which wasn’t all that emotionally compromising, then how can he be trusted again as a team leader into dangerous missions?
I understand freezing, but it always seemed to me Kaladin should have kept eyes on his mission, on his task and find another way to deal with the Parshendis without killing them. All he needed was enough time to escape with Elhokar and Gavinor.
I like your take on the 4th ideal: first time I hear it, but I find it makes sense. It goes hand in hand with my own version of Kaladin needing to let others make their own choices. He also needs to focus on his own task and stop trying to control everyone’s else.
On odds: Yeah, I get it was a narrative choice made to generate a moment, still. Some readers have argued it made the scene feel contrived as both factions weren’t very likely to cross paths.
What would have changed: Kaladin would have followed his mission to the best of his ability thus confirming he deserves the trust and the fame he has gotten. Now, he failed to execute his task because he let his feelings get in the way. No one blames someone who did the best they could and yet failed (like Kaladin fighting Amaram), but in this scene, Kaladin did not do all he could.
@13: I understand the Kaladin dilemma, I just don’t agree with it. He is a man who chose to be a soldier, a man who could have chosen to go back to surgery, after being freed by Dalinar, and yet, still chose to be a soldier. He was given a task, a command and he didn’t execute them because of how it unfolds tied into his loyalties. What are Kaladin’s loyalties exactly? It is clear, in this scene, who were the enemies. It doesn’t matter if the Parshendis aren’t inherently evil: in this particular moment, they were the attackers Kaladin needed to defend against. And his team died for his inaction.
@15: Kaladin allowed everyone in his team to die because he wouldn’t defend them against attackers. This isn’t a moment of him not wanting to hurt poor fellow slaves, it was a moment where the lines in between friends and foes were clearly defined. Kaladin just didn’t want to see those particular people on the opposite side of the line. This is, however, war and in war, you will have to fight whoever is put against you. Kaladin is too much of a weathered soldier not to know this. He chose to be a soldier. He chose this path. Hence, he doesn’t get brownie points for being morally superior to the average Alethi. He doesn’t get to be a “better person” because he froze instead of killing attackers, not runaway slaves, but armed people trying to kill him and effectively succeeding in killing every single member of his team.
Kaladin messed up. They are at war. There will be enemies and battles. Since Kaladin insisted on being a soldier, yes, he will need to kill whoever stands on the side of the enemy even if this person is someone else’s Tien, even if he feels a kinship towards former slaves. If he finds his loyalties belong more to the Parshendis, then he can go and join their sides, it might be easier for him given how easily he feels sympathy for him, given how he allows Elhokar to die to avoid harming one.
The choice wasn’t difficult in this scene and yet it was one Kaladin couldn’t make. Kaladin got Elhokar killed for a bunch of people he barely knew just because he came to see them as his “us”. Understandable given the character’s mindset, but no less frustrating.
@16: Was it really battle fatigue? Kaladin isn’t tired. He hasn’t been fighting long. He has stormlight to sustain him. The one who is tired is Adolin who didn’t sleep at all and has no stormlight, not Kaladin. I would understand if he’d be fighting for a long time a gruesome battle, but this isn’t what happened in this scene.
@17: I am with Alice here, Kaladin has other means of defense than killing. He could have stuck them to the roof long enough to escape. Killing wasn’t the only option and yes, him being able to see them as people will be important, but in the context of Kaladin’s specific duties, he cannot allow his team to be killed because he sympathizes with the enemy.
@21 Gepeto
“Mission” is not a magic word that excuses any action. Kaladin is a person who makes choices, not a mindless automaton that obeys orders. Kaladin’s duties are what he decides they are, not what Dalinar commands.
Kaladin doesn’t separate people into “members of my military unit” and “people who don’t matter”. The escaped parshmen slaves are just as real and important to him as the soldiers under his command. He refuses to simply take a side and declare that all of the people on the other side are less important. That kind of dehumanization is the first step on the road to atrocity, and Kaladin won’t go there. The slave brand on his forehand is a constant reminder of what happens when you decide someone is less than a person.
You keep using terms like “his team” and “the enemy”, but that’s Alethi thinking, soldier thinking. Divide the world neatly into “us” and “them” to make it neat and tidy. Kill anyone who stands in your way. Kaladin rejects that false dichotomy, and he’ll fight to do what’s right for everyone, not just humans or Alethi.
@12 Wetlandernw
Thanks! The theory started in my head when people were trying to figure out why Amaram seemed to be able to use the powers longer than Aesudean. So out of curiosity i dug into both scenes some more, and that is when things started to come together, and I theorized that technically Aeasudan might have had Yelig-nar longer than Amaram to begin with. Then it flowed from there.
@13 LazerWulf
I am of the camp that the doll was of a generic shardbearer that wears blue because blue is the kholin colors.
@16 nightheron
Interesting perspective!
@17 Venren
Also interesting points! This scene is crucial to Kaladin, how he has come along, and ultimately where he will go. I agree!
@20 AndrewHB
There is a WoB that Gavilar had multiple spheres. Right now we do not know what happened to the gemstone Szeth hid, but it is a mystery I cannot wait to find out!
What if Sja-anat voluntarily joins the Ghostbloods when they offer?
On the debate on what was the “right” thing for Kaladin to do all I have to say is this, “there is more then one path to the truth.” Personally, I think that’s what the different paths to the Knights Radiants are about, different journeys to the same destination
Go Ladies! This week was long but needed to be long. So I’m determined to actually comment before it’s next week and the talk has died down.
1. I was starting to think you weren’t going to cover poor Gav’s torture, then there it was near the end. That poor, poor kid. Some childhood trauma can be forgotten or suppressed. I’m not sure about his.
For the record, I think the stuffed solider is just supposed to be a generic Kholin solider, due to the family color being blue. It might be his grandfather, who is honored by the “Gav” portion of his name.
I seriously doubt the child has much connection to any of his male family members to worship, since they don’t have video calling here, just text messaging.
2. Moash – Aubree has influenced my thinking on him. I no longer say F&%K Moash. From his PoV, the king is a center for a number of ills. Beyond just his grandparents death. Though that was his largest motivating factor for a long time. His time as a slave to the Fused, and his mental break after seeing the human lord acting as a selfish ass – well it broke him a different way.
So I really do think he was giving Kaladin the Bridge 4 salute in the sense of “I just did you a favor, since I know this was not something you could do on your own.” My heart breaks for Kaladin and Elhokar at that moment. When I first read the events, I was fully in the “Oh no he did not! F-U Moash!” But Aubree’s reasons and most time has cooled my reactions.
Thank you Lyndsy for the “Save the Cat” outline of storytelling. I never thought about it in that way before, but it rings all the bells of truth.
3. The litany of Ladder 4 killing the Wall Crew – oh how that hurt! I wish Kaladin could have used a burst of power to stick everyone to the ground to stop them moving. But story wise, him being overwhelmed and freezing reads as more realistic to me with his depression issues.
Oh I want to say more. But I’ve stolen all the time I can for now.
@24 BenW
Jasnah’s path seems to involve a lot more genocide than Kaladin’s path. I see lots of conflict in the future of the Knights Radiant.
Also, I suspect that Kaladin’s destination will involve less slavery and tyranny than Jasnah’s destination. There’s a certain amount of inherent conflict between their visions of a good society, which makes sense when you remember that Jasnah is the daughter of a tyrant and Kaladin is the son of a pacifist surgeon.
@22: Are soldiers doing everything they can to achieve their mission, despite the hardships mindless automatons? When it comes to the army, soldiers have to obey: not executing a mission is not an option unless very specific circumstances are being met. No one ever said it was going to be easy, but choosing to be part of the military implies you will be put in situations where you need to prioritize your mission over your feelings.
Kaladin failed at being a soldier. He got his team killed.
He didn’t have to slaughter the Parshendis, he didn’t have to become the Blackthorn: he had other options. He, however, had to keep the focus on his mission and not to lose sight of what is at stake: thousand of life in the city, Elhokar, his son and his team.
And yes I insist on the military division of the world because Kaladin chose to be a soldier. Kaladin is part of the military which means, yes, I expect him to carry on missions and not to let his feelings towards fleeing slaves having picked up arms against him to sabotage the whole operation thus jeopardizing the success of the mission. Sure, the city would not have been saved had Kaladin not freeze, but Kaladin doesn’t know this. Not yet.
Kaladin didn’t do his job. I personally do not find what is so admirable in getting his whole team killed. Sure, Kaladin avoided raising his arms against people he liked, sure he treated Parshendis as real people, but he got everyone killed for his actions. That is not admirable. That was a failure.
He didn’t need to see the Parshendis as “inferior beings”, just as enemies, once friends, now enemies.
@26 dptullos
As we have discussed in the past, I disagree regarding Jasnah’s path being focused on genocide, slavery and tyranny. I actually went through every single quote regarding Jasnah across all three books, and to me that paints a very different picture of the character. But at the end of the day we can both like a character, and respect another person liking a different character. You are entitled to see her as you wish as I am entitled to see her as I wish.
@28 I think that’s where later in the book comes in “this isn’t logical, but it feels right” I think that’s meant to be the beginning of her paradigm shift
@29 BenW
Actually I would argue that Renarin was not a paradigm shift for Jasnah. Jasnah was always a caring emotional individual, but puts on a fascade to exist and survive in Alethi religious culture as a strong woman and who is an atheist. I could go on for a long time regarding Jasnah, but I would not want to digress this thread as Jasnah is not mentioned at all. I have included below the thread that goes over every single instance of Jasnah across all three books that shows to me a more complete picture of the character if you or dptullos is curious/willing to give it a read
https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/84071-jasnah-more-than-meets-the-eye/#comment-830297
@30 still reading: But side note, have you read the manga Liar Game? It deals with stuff like psychology and game theory (basically logic based stuff :) ) and while if may start out seemingly cynical and pessimistic, by the end (and heck even around the midway point) it becomes a quite optimistic series.
@dptullos, @Venren
Well put! I agree completely regarding Kaladin.
@30, Gepeto
So then Kadash and the others, who watched Dalinar and Sadeas burn Rathalas, are what Kaladin should aspire to? Or better yet, Szeth? I’m not sure why you’re putting everyone else in such passive roles. That Elkohar didn’t make choices? Kaladin didn’t ‘lose focus,’ he froze. Fight or flight is a thing, but so is inaction. Kaladin didn’t exactly hold Elkohar down for Moash. Also they already made the choice to abandon the city when they left the queen.
We seem to forget – on a larger scale – that the parsh are, technically, in the right. For all the talk of morals and doing the right thing, clearly the identity of the true Voidbringers and Honor having to convince his Knights to continue fighting means that this war was never really black and white. As the reader, I’m happier that Kaladin isn’t going around killing parsh. If he had, he would be just as much of a hypocrite as Taravangian is.
I want to get some thoughts down before I read the other comments, so here goes.
First, I think the horse drawing by Shallan was just a reference to the place they find the body of the guy killed like Sadeas. I think he was found in a bathing chamber where the water spouts were horse heads. So, no real connection to that and this spren’s ugliness (with multiple meanings of the word). Also, for why it is being a horse – two possible reasons. Since the first void spren appear to be connected to humans rather than Singers (see Ulim looking like a Shin) then horses are perfectly natural. Further, I think they describe some toy soliders in the room in addition to the one Gavinor is holding, so there were probably toy horses nearby for them to imitate.
I also believe Sja-anat for now and assume Glys is her son.
I think it was clear that the gem hearts are just small gems in their bodies related-to/for changing forms. They have normal hearts, lungs, etc – though apparently of different shapes. I wonder how they are different. Not 4 chambers?
Just after talking in last weeks post about how spren can’t “die” we see a spren get “killed”. I, too, am confused to what actually happened. From the description it seems similar to how a Shard gets “splintered”. So, I wonder if this spren was simply broken up to where it is no longer capable of being whole anymore. As to L’s musings about if an emotion spren is killed, does that remove that emotion from the person, I don’t know, but I would guess not. I feel like it has been implied that spren do not cause emotions or forces, but are attracted to them. “‘Do wind spren create the wind, or do they attracted to it?’ Syl asked.”
Finally, having just finished WoR, one of the diagram epigraphs at the end got me thinking. One of them says “One of them is almost certainly a traitor to the others.” I am wondering what “them” is referring to. I feel like the two most obvious candidates are one of the unmade or one of the orders of the Radiants. If unmade – was he predicting Sja-anat? If Radiant’s, was he predicting/looking for the Dustbringers? Or is it related to how the Skybreakers betrayed the others during the Recreance? Or is it something else completely. Hmm…
Anyway, amazing chapter. That was also horrible.
@32: This is not the same… You cannot compare the massacre of a whole town filled with civilians with the need to defend one’s team against armed invaders trying to kill you. The Rathalas people weren’t armed, they weren’t attacking, they weren’t soldiers.
This whole morality debate has been taken too far. The Parshendis aren’t poor defenseless civilians killed in their sleep: they are armed soldiers attacking a palace with the intent to kill. It doesn’t matter the circumstances into which they were recruited or the amount of real training they got: during this one scene, they are enemy soldiers compromising a mission.
Kaladin isn’t Kadash and the circumstances he faced do not even begin to resemble Kadash’s. No one is asking Kaladin to commit to a mass murderer, only to be able to see he is at war, he chose to be an active participant within this war and, right now, the people on the opposing side may be swell guys, but they are the enemy. It is “them” or “us”, but when Kaladin froze, he got everyone killed.
I don’t even understand how arguing Kaladin shouldn’t have frozen and should have kept his objective in mind, basically what Adolin does within the very same scene, is arguing for Kaladin to become Kadash or young Dalinar.
The Parshendis aren’t in the right. The fact the land belonged to them some thousand years ago doesn’t make them in the right. That was too long ago: no one holds grievances for that long and whoever is responsible for it is long dead and forgotten. What the Parshendis are in the right for is to ask for equal treatment and to no longer be slaves, but the fact they were slighted doesn’t give them the right to invade cities and to enslave another nation. Their war isn’t justified especially not since it is a war to exterminate all humankind. Sure mankind has a chip on its shoulder, but looking at our own real-life history, I won’t be holding a chip over my shoulder for what distant ancestors from thousands of years back decided to do. No one would nor does.
Thus, the Parshendies aren’t in the right when they attack Kholinar. They are the enemy who chose to follow an even greater enemy.
And no one is asking for Kaladin to start killing out Parshendis left and right. All I am arguing over is the fact Kaladin is a soldier who was in charge of part of the Kholinar team and whose mission was to protect Elhokar and help secure the Oathgate to avoid Kholinar being overrun by enemies. However, when said enemy gets there, he doesn’t want to fight them because he likes them. Had those enemies been humans, would we be arguing on how much of a great guy Kaladin is for feeling empathy for the poor persecuted Parshendis? We’d probably be saying he should have fought them back because they chose to follow the Fused. We probably say F***Sah as we say F***Moash, but because they are Parshendis, because they were slighted it makes them automatically in the right and it turns Kaladin into some sort of moral hero when in fact all he did is getting his whole team killed, including his Parshendis friends.
Kaladin dropped the ball. While it is understandable given his character he would drop the ball, he still dropped it and got everyone killed. I would have preferred if he had kept his head cool, found a way to deflect the attack and not get everyone killed. At it stands, Kaladin may be praised for not having raised one finger against the poor Parshendis, but he still got everyone close to him killed, including them.
This has nothing to do with being a hypocrite, this has everything to do with being at war and with needing to pick a side: either you are on Team Human or on Team Parshendis. Kaladin wants Team Human not to put all of the Parshendis within the same basket, great, admirable, but in this very moment, he lost track of who was invading who, who was threatening who and who was causing the war. He lost track of who was the enemy in his need to have everyone he likes to be inside his “us”. Tough luck, they weren’t.
On the side note: This scene explains why Brandon saw fit to change the ending of WoR to have Kaladin not kill Szeth.
Ok, so having read the comments my thought on the discussion about Kaladin freezing is that I am glad he couldn’t kill Sah and Khen and the others. As LazurWolf pointed out, this shift away from Us vs Them has been going on since the end of WoK. But, I am also mad at him for freezing – even though I found it to be very believable. So yes, he failed, and he deserves blame and guilt, but I get it.
Also, this chapter began what I have found to be the most annoying thing in Brandon’s writing! Sylspear?! Seriously? Sylblade, Sylshield. Ugh. Everytime he uses that in this or especially in the final fight it is so jarring! I get it that she isn’t just a spear or blade or shield. This “object” is a “person”. But, just say Syl, then, like how Nightblood is just called Nightblood, not Nightbloodsword. “He held Syl upward, ready to do battle” would work. Or, for the first time, to remind people what weapon she was say “He held Syl as a spear” or “Syl formed as a spear in his hand”, or whatever. Ok… *catching breath*… rant over. I love Brandon’s writing, and almost everything he does works for me, or at least doesn’t bother me (I remember some were bothered when Shallan said “just a sec” or how Lift doesn’t land for some) but this one is my pet peeve.
birgit @14 – The doll is described as wearing “blue armor.” While that doesn’t have to mean Shardplate, it seems a bit more than merely the Kholin uniform, which is what triggered our speculation. It may well not be designed to represent a specific individual, but it’s fun to speculate about who he might be pretending it is.
Paige @19 – Ain’t that the truth! Except I know I’ll never write fiction like Brandon, so there’s that. (I’m nowhere near your level when it comes to fiction, so… yeah.)
Andrew @20 – As far as we know, the stone Gavilar gave to Szeth is still hidden in Jah Keved. I wonder if he’ll retrieve it in SA4, or if we have to wait for “his” book 5 to find out!
Also, that Bridge Four salute – whatever Moash meant by it, it infuriates me every time I read it. He has no right to use it any more. He abandoned and betrayed Bridge Four to follow his own (misguided, IMO) agenda. ::scowls ferociously::
dptullos @22 – Of course “mission” doesn’t excuse all possible atrocities, but this is battle. Kaladin is here as part of a team: Elhokar, Adolin, Shallan, Skar, & Drehy, right now, since Shallan’s people stayed in the city. He’s also here as squad commander for Noro, Beard, Ved, Alaward, Vaceslv, and all the rest of his Wall Guard squad. His refusal to lead them and fight for/with them got the whole Wall Guard squad and Elhokar killed, and he himself only survived because Skar, Drehy, and Adolin came back for him. As far as he knows a couple chapters from now, his indecision also cost them Skar, Drehy, and Gavinor; the fact that Skar & Drehy managed to rescue little Gav and retrieve Vathah, Red, and Ishnah is to their credit, but Kaladin sure didn’t help them.
Gepeto @27 & 34 – Yep.
Keyblazing @32 – “So then Kadash and the others, who watched Dalinar and Sadeas burn Rathalas, are what Kaladin should aspire to? Or better yet, Szeth?” Get real. The situations are not the same, even remotely.
whitespine @35 – Yeah. I understand him, and it’s completely suitable to Kaladin’s character & development that he froze – but I’m still angry at him.
Also, Sylblade/Sylspear etc. I argued against it in the beta, iirc. I get why he’s doing it, because it’s less clunky than saying “Syl as a Blade” or “Syl as a Spear” – to say nothing of Pattern, Wyndle, Ivory, and Glys – and it acknowledges the nature of the weapon, but I still don’t like the nomenclature much. It feels weird to me, but I lost that argument a long time ago.
Kaladin may have failed as a soldier, but he would have failed as a person if he had slaughtered his friends. Why does he always have to be the one who saves everyone, anyway? Maybe his next oath is accepting that sometimes not doing anything is the better way when there are no good choices. Even if Kaladin could have saved Elhokar his friends on both sides of the battle would have continued killing each other as soon as he left through the Oathgate. Kaladin hasn’t been taught to accept military necessities from childhood like Adolin. His father taught him to save lives, not to accept the necessity of killing. Why should he be able to deal with the situation?
I agree with @@.-@ Radhil that this is likely tied to Hoid and the flute tune. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t also a Listener Rhythm (and would be much more interesting if it is).
I didn’t read this as the Heart being immune to a Shardblade, but rather being able to create a void in itself so that the shardblade doesn’t make contact…not withstand, but evade.
My current crazy theory for this is that it ties to the Old Magic and the idea is that they were natives of some sort that Odium could adopt in a way similar to how Cultivation adopted the Nightwatcher and Honor adopted the Stormfather. This also ties to Aesudan’s comment about being able to bond ancient spren.
Plus, with a little play, it ties nicely into the Cosmere as a whole if Adonal(sium) created: 9 Unmade + 3 “Family” (Stormfather, Nightwatcher, Sibling) + 2 Aimain (Dysian and Siah) + Parsh/Listener would be 15 native races/entities. So, maybe there is 1 more to be found (or maybe human or 2 types of Parsh) and then you get the Cosmere significant number of 16.
Everyone can agree that Kaladin is a terrible soldier.
Kaladin doesn’t want to be a good soldier. He wants to protect the people he cares about. Those people are both human and parshman, so Kaladin refuses to be on either “Team Human” or “Team Parshmen”. He’s going to protect people and do what he thinks he right, not what he’s ordered to do.
I suspect that no one here has ever been in a situation where two of their friends were fighting to the death and they had to pick a side. If we had, I doubt any of us would simply march forward and kill the friend who wasn’t wearing the same uniform without the slightest hesitation.
@30 BenW
Thank you for assembling the WoB and giving us a detailed analysis of Jasnah’s character. I enjoy her character, and I think she’s one of the best that Sanderson has written.
I’m not under the impression that Jasnah is a cruel, heartless monster. I think she’s a brilliant, capable woman who thinks deeply and cares about the people close to her.
I also think that she considers Elkohar’s life infinitely more valuable than the life of a parshman slave like Sah, and that she would kill any number of parshman slaves to protect the people who are dear to her. Jasnah doesn’t have to be a monster to prioritize, and her allegiance is with the Kholin family and humanity, not an alien species she doesn’t know.
Kaladin, on the other hand, thinks that the life of a parshman slave is just as valuable as the life of King Elkohar. That’s the fundamental divide between them, and there’s no simple way to bridge those different worldviews.
I believe that Kaladin’s delima is exactly what Brandon wants us to reflect on. What is the moral option when you are in a war? It’s even worse when we have to think that humans are the original problem. I do think Kaladin should have tried non-lethal means to stop the fighting but maybe it wouldn’t have been enough regardless.
Could the “evil” spren have been trying to “break” Gavinor so he would bond with one of them?
Maybe if Kaladin doesn’t want to be a good soldier, he shouldn’t accept command positions in military organizations, where other people depend on him being a soldier. Just sayin’…
@41 Wetlandernw
That’s a valid point. Under ordinary circumstances, Dalinar could simply fire Kaladin and appoint someone who was interested in obeying orders.
However, Kaladin has magic powers that most people don’t have, and the majority of Windrunner Radiants are personally loyal to him. This creates an awkward situation whenever Kaladin disagrees with Dalinar, since he could take the Windrunners and leave whenever he chose to.
Kaladin’s military rank is irrelevant. His real importance comes from his Radiant powers and his personal relationships with other Radiants. Those relationships mean that Kaladin is probably the second most powerful man in the world, though he would never think of himself that way.
Lots of people think Kaladin should follow orders, put the mission first, and pick a side. Kaladin’s choices suggest he isn’t going to do that. The other Radiant Orders don’t have some kind of automatic right to his loyalty, and his allegiance to Dalinar is conditional upon Dalinar making choices that he thinks are right.
If Kaladin had to make the same choice again, I don’t think he would kill Sah. He’s not sorry for what he’s done, and he’s going to keep fighting for humans and parshmen. Other Radiant Orders can make their own choices, but Kaladin isn’t going to “pick a side”, and the Windrunners are going to follow their captain.
@39: If Kaladin wants to have a moral discussion as to who deserves to be protected, then perhaps he shouldn’t endorse the role of a soldier. Perhaps he shouldn’t be a soldier. Perhaps he shouldn’t be trusted to be a soldier. He, however, chose to be part of the military organization. If he only wants to complete missions when every single step along the way doesn’t imply him needing to dirty his hands a little, then perhaps he should have joined the surgeons instead.
I also find the word “friend” is used very loosely on Roshar… Kaladin knew those people for a few days. Does this count as friends? They weren’t his best buddies with whom he had a lasting relationship. They were just a bunch of people he spent some time with and develop instant sympathy due to their shared ordeal. Sure, he doesn’t want to hurt them, but really Sah wasn’t to Kaladin what Jakamav was to Adolin (at least from Adolin’s perspective)…
@41: I agree. No one forced Kaladin to be a soldier, he chose to become one. No one forced Kaladin to lead the Tower Guards, he took up this position on his own volition. He knew Kholinar’s situation, he knew who the enemy was, he knew Sah and company have joined with the Fused. He knew the Parshendis were surrounding the city and would attack soon. He knew all of this. Of course, he didn’t know he’d meet up Sah specifically on the battlefield, but he knew he’d be fighting Parshendis, runaway slaves, or does his sympathy only extend to Sah and his group?
Kaladin is a soldier. He was given field command and a mission. No one asked him to condone immoral actions nor ones which would fall outside the expected. No one asked him to slaughter his friends, but if his allegiance was compromised, then perhaps he should have removed himself from the mission. If his ability to fight the enemy was compromised by his growing sympathy for the Parshendis, then perhaps the right thing to do would have been to bail out of the mission. Or to stay out of the palace attack. To stay with Shallan’s people. To not interfere.
But Kaladin remains a soldier so when he endorsed the inherent responsibilities of a soldier, it is reasonable to expect he is going to do his very best to carry on his mission. This doesn’t mean always succeeding, it means doing all he can and not be confused as to who the enemy is. It was very clear who were the enemies in this scene, no matter how sympathetic they were.
And yes, many people depended on him and he let them down. Every single one of them. For once, Kaladin has real tangible reasons to feel bummed about his inability to protect people because this may be the very first time he really *failed*.
@43 Gepeto
I agree that people shouldn’t trust Kaladin to be a good soldier. As you say, he would probably make a better surgeon. He can’t be relied on to follow orders, respect the chain of command, or carry out the mission assigned to him.
There is no strict definition of friendship, and there is no absolute time limit for how long it takes to make a friend. Kaladin feels a connection with Sah and the other escaped parshmen, and they are important to him. They shared an ordeal together, and he promised to help and protect them.
I suspect that Kaladin didn’t consider the possibility of fighting escaped parshmen. In his internal narration, he focuses on the threat of the Voidbringers, who he has no trouble fighting. His allegiance was compromised, but he didn’t think about it until the moment when he was faced with a choice.
The only person who gets to decide who Kaladin’s enemies are is Kaladin. If he decides that the parshmen aren’t his enemies, then they aren’t, regardless of what Dalinar or anyone else says.
Bridge Four knows that Kaladin froze and refused to fight the escaped parshmen. They don’t seem to feel that he let them down. I suspect that they know how irrational and impractical their captain can be, and they love him for it. After all, it’s only a very unusual man who would decide to fight for a bunch of worthless bridgemen. How could they hate him for refusing to kill escaped slaves?
@@@@@34, Gepeto / @@@@@ 41, Wetlandernw
You are arguing that inaction is and was a choice. Kaladin didn’t walk away and close his eyes. It was clearly not a voluntary action. Yes, he obviously shouldn’t have frozen and clearly could have interfered. But he didn’t and his friends died. That was clearly not a choice or a preferable outcome for him. You can be mad that he failed, but this isn’t an example of him ignoring orders or not caring about the mission. He just failed, but it’s not because he chose to fail. I gave Kadash as an example of a choice. It didn’t happen in the heat of battle. Szeth’s decisions were a choice. The best comparison is Rock’s decision to kill Amaram. That is a true choice. He very well could have froze as well, instead of saving Kaladin, but he didn’t.
@@@@@34, Gepeto
The Parshendi are in the right. Just because it was so long ago doesn’t mean that it can just be forgotten. Otherwise, why else would the Singers want to come back? Why else would Honor have to convince his own Knights that their fight was just, each generation? Of course, Kaladin doesn’t know yet, but we the readers know.
Also the parsh themselves were enslaved and bred just a few weeks/months prior to all of this happening. Considering that they did a lot of labor worldwide, that’s economic ruin coming for the people who used them. You think that the humans would just accept that? I bet you that if they could go back to enslaving the parsh, they would. If it’s not such a big deal to be enslaved, then maybe the other nations should try it. You say this like Rlain doesn’t exist, specifically the chapter in WOR where he confesses his identity.
If you want a real world example, look at the US’s history of Jim Crow law’s or the treatment of black americans immediately after they were freed from slavery. I doubt Sanderson goes that “heavy,” but it’s not like once there is peace, things will be easy or that the nations will share their knowledge or prosperity with the parsh/Parshendi. And it will not be what the individual kingdoms owe the parsh, it’ll be whatever the surviving alliance is – likely the Knights Radiants – that owesthem.
Absolutely F**K MOASH.
This was the most heartbreaking moment in the book for me. Even more than Dalinar at the Rift.
And Kaladin definitely takes the blame here. Moash can go storm himself, but Kaladin was the one who could/should have stopped him. Someone else made this point – I can’t remember who or where – but Kaladin says “Be a hero to the one you can save” and he utterly fails at saving Elhokar.
OP is right- he didn’t have to kill or freeze. He could absolutely have used stormlight and started lashing people around and sticking them onto walls.
He’s going to say the Fourth Ideal at some point – the one that will go something like “I will let go of the ones cannot protect, to protect the ones I can” – but it will have been too late for Elhokar. And it shouldn’t have been.
dptullos @42 – I guess we’re talking past each other a little. I fully agree that in the abstract, parsh lives are worth just as much as human lives, and Kaladin rightly should not advocate genocide based on that particular “us vs. them.” In the specific, I think he was wrong in the middle of a battle, to suddenly not fight because he happens to recognize and feel sorry for the past history of the people on the other side of the lines. This is not about parsh vs. humans, it’s about you’re in the middle of a freaking battle and you’re directly responsible for people who are depending on you to do what you came here to do. Please note that I’m not saying he froze up by choice, nor that he decided to change sides. I’m just… angry that he froze up here, in such a way that he failed the people who had a right to depend on him. His task in the moment is to lead soldiers, and to protect Elhokar and Gavinor as they escape the Unmade who are possessing the Queen and the city.
It’s not like Kaladin decided they were doing the wrong thing in this mission. He’s not claiming that they’re wrong to try to rescue Gavinor, nor that it’s wrong to protect Elhokar while he tries to carry his son out of the sh!tstorm going on around them. He’s not even claiming that the parsh/Fused have a right to take over the city, use thunderclasts to knock over the walls, kill all the soldiers, and enslave the human population. His problem is not with the mission at all, or I might be more sympathetic to him. If he had in any way objected to the mission before they left, or even during the time they were in Kholinar, he would have said so and I might well have agreed with him. I think it’s another case of Kaladin not thinking about the ramifications of his decisions until he’s in the middle of those ramifications, and by freaking out over the realization, he screws up the operation for everyone.
He’s talked about it with others before now. He recognized early on in Oathbringer, and argued in council, that the parsh have some legitimate grievances and are people with “human rights” (you know what I mean) too. If you remember, he got thoroughly angry at Jasnah for suggesting that they kill the Heralds to restore the Oathpact, and then got mad again when she pointed out that she was suggesting it as a preferred alternative to the genocide he had just accused her of wanting to perpetrate. This is one of Kaladin’s character deficiencies: he sees that certain things are wrong, but he’s unable to find a solution that fits with all the “right” choices – and he gets mad when there isn’t one. Or in this specific situation, he freezes up and, in trying to not do a wrong thing, completely fails to do a right thing either.
It’s an understandable human trait, and one I sympathize with. At the same time, I can’t help thinking that he should have considered the likelihood that he’d be fighting parshmen when he took on this mission in the first place; they know the city is under seige, after all. I get that it became a lot more problematic when it wasn’t “generic parshmen” on the other side, it was people he knew and already felt bad about shafting once before. I just don’t think that excuses him standing there yelling at people – or whispering at them – while they kill each other.
And, of course, we’re going to spend the rest of the book listening to him stew about it, because he thinks he was wrong too; he just doesn’t know what “right” should have looked like.
It’s clearly going to be a major factor in his character development for the next book or two, and I think it’s a great narrative choice. So… this is me separating “fantastic writing which pulls on my emotions because it is humanly believable” and “my emotional reaction to a believable but terrible choice made by a character.” I suspect that by the time we get SA4, he’s going to have spent the intervening year in Urithiru trying to sort through these issues and coming down on the side of “I can’t really be a soldier.” (I also suspect that he’s going to try to find Sah’s daughter Vai, and I’d bet good money that she’s going to end up under the protection of either Venli or Rlain, or both.) Obviously, everyone at Urithiru and in the coalition is going to have to figure this thing out, because now they know (some of) the history that they hadn’t heard before – which comes down on the side of “we can’t just kill all these people” – but they also rightly want to avoid their own genocide and/or enslavement.
Speaking dispassionately in the big picture, I think Sanderson has set up a great narrative conflict, and I’m excited to read more. Speaking in the immediate context of this chapter, I think Kaladin screwed up big-time in multiple ways, and Elhokar (at the very least) is dead directly because of Kaladin’s failure. It’s arguable that the Wall Guard soldiers might have died anyway, but that doesn’t mean Kaladin didn’t fail them when he froze.
ETA: Keyblazing @45 – If I’d read your comments before I posted this, I’d have addressed it to you too. Same arguments apply.
Scath @10. I like your theory about one of the other members of Bridge 4 to say his/her 4th Oath. I think that would make a very compelling story – certainly different. In my opinion, it will make for a better read since it will be something we have not seen before.
Gepeto @11. I thought the main purpose of the mission was to open up the Oathgate. Saving Aesudan (which turned out to be impossible) and Gavinor was something that Elhokar stressed. Wetlandernw @12. I guess I was wrong. I thought rescuing Aesudan and Gavinor was only a secondary mission, not the co-primary. Do you have a quote where everybody agrees that the rescue was a co-purpose of the mission?
dptullos @15. I am more than happy to celebrate someone like Jasnah. She knows who side she is on. She knows that even though the other side may have sentient beings, they are the enemy. She is at war with them. (Gepeto @21 and Wetlandernw @12, among others made this point more eloquently than I did.) They are soldiers who are a casualty of war. I find this similar to what happened in the USA Civil War. Sometimes friends fought against each other; occasionally, family fought against family. I guess I am an Elsecaller and you more of a Windrunner. Or at least not one of the KRs who would adhere to Machiavelli’s the ends justify the means.
dptullos @22. I cannot disagree more strongly. This was certainly a military mission. He was part of a small unit that was sent behind enemy lines to perform one or two missions (depending upon whether rescuing Aesudan and Gavinor was a primary mission). A soldier cannot disregard his/her orders (unless they violate accords like the Geneva Peace Accords). If he did not want to follow Dalinar’s commands, he should not have gone on the mission and should resign his Captaincy.
Gepeto @34. Excellent point about Brandon re-writing the ending of WoR so that Kaladin does not actively kill Szeth (by actively, I mean that Szeth’s death is more like suicide by cop; obviously, Kaladin delivers the killing blow).
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
dptullos @@@@@ 44 – Side note: Bridge Four didn’t see this. Skar and Drehy came on the scene when Kaladin was groveling on the ground feeling guilty about Elhokar, and they stayed behind in Kholinar to rescue Gavinor and Shallan’s people.
I feel strongly that Kaladin’s weakness here will be a strength in the long run. Seeing the awakened parsh as people, not just as enemies, is a good thing, and something that no other viewpoint character has done yet. The parsh and the humans have no reason to trust each other, and many, many reasons not to (on the parsh’s side, centuries of slavery; on the humans’ side, the fact that the parsh are largely aligned with Odium). Having a Knight Radiant who sees both sides as people who are equally deserving of protection is a great thing.
As for Moash…killing the man who caused your parent/guardians’ deaths is not, in any meaningful way, worse than the atrocities committed by Dalinar in his younger years. But it’s a heartwrenching moment of disappointed hopes, and I understand why Moash denying Elhokar a redemption arc makes it hard for readers to stomach any possibility of Moash getting one himself.
@47, 49 Wetlandernw
Beautifully written, and fair. Not much I can argue against there.
I agree that I think Kaladin will break off temporarily. I sort of expect him to “wander” during the year’s timeskip in the upcoming book. Whether the Windrunners end up as a sort of neutral peacekeeping force in the short term, I’m not sure, but seems kind of likely. I also wonder if this internal conflict lasts longer than the fourth book and what could be worse* if it doesn’t. He still has to defeat Moash in what has to be the fifth book.
*Is there a Fifth Ideal? The Skybreakers have one.
@47 Wetlandernw
I think you have an excellent point about how Kaladin freezing up led to the deaths of the people who had a right to depend on him.
In this case, the problem was that Kaladin felt that both groups had a right to depend on him; he had promised his loyalty and protection to both the Alethi soldiers and the parshmen. He couldn’t resolve that conflict without betraying someone, so he had a breakdown in the middle of a battle.
Completely agree that Kaladin hadn’t thought things through. It’s a consistent character flaw, from his decision to run the bridge sideways to his attempt to challenge Amaram to a public duel. Kaladin wanted to protect the people in the city, and he hadn’t considered what that would mean.
@48 AndrewHB
Jasnah “Final Solution” Kholin quite calmly considers killing every parshman, down to the children. They may not be soldiers, but they are potential hosts for the Ancestors, and Jasnah is extremely logical.
Kaladin notably disagrees. If he has to pick sides between escaped slaves and their murderous former owners, he knows who he stands with. It’s curious that you would mention the American Civil War, since Kaladin is the one standing for the principles of universal human freedom and equality, while Jasnah thinks ethnic cleansing would be a convenient solution to their problems.
@49 Wetlandernw
Good point! Still, I don’t think Kaladin would have kept his failure to act a secret, especially from his close comrades in Bridge Four. They need to know that he probably won’t be able to fight parshmen.
@50 KatherineMW
Alethi ethics is Social Darwinism with a religious justifiction. The strong survive, the weak get eaten, and it’s all the will of the Almighty. Kaladin is “weak” because he won’t act decisively to crush his enemies, but that rejection of traditional Alethi strength might be the salvation of humanity.
Thank you for the comment about Moash. Elkohar was an armed combatant, not a defenseless child, and the fact that we know his name doesn’t make Moash the worst, evilest person ever. Dalinar killed far, far more people than Moash, and he gets a redemption arc.
Aaaargh THIS CHAPTER. I remember tearing through this chapter, my heart on tenterhooks as Elkohar was about to say his oaths…and then BAM.
As for Kaladin, ultimately, I think he had a major breakthough that I hope will end up driving the narrative/themes of the whole series. YES – he should have acted and made sure he was able to protect those who were counting on him; there were plenty of non lethal ways he could have done that. (Although as somebody with a similar mental profile as Kaladin, I completely relate to the freezing up). BUT – I think the actual revelation he had is what Roshar needs. In any other story, i twould have been the big revelation that leads to a big happy ending, but of course things have to take a bit of a downward turn first…
Re; Jasnah – I still am not sure she was literaly advocating for genocide. I could almost see it something she was discussing from a merely academic point of view, and kind of a non-starter.
Thrice the Unmade, thrice the fun made! Whee!
Joke: Why did Aesudan swallow Yelig-nar’s gemstone? She was practicing Vore-inism. Like “Ol’ Whitehair” jumping in a greatshell’s mouth *giggles at self*
Oh, right, this this chapter involved Bad Things like battle, murder, and child torture. Um. Fictional battles tend to bore me, but this one was pretty engaging.
It makes sense that Ashertmarn’s lure of surrendering to all your emotions made Shallan envision the emotions as many separate selves. I wonder what the experience would be like for someone without her mindset of multiple identitie
Ashertmarn is rather like that phase of Noh-face, now that you mention it. Reminiscint in appearance and as a great symbolic roiling of multiple desirous emotions dominated by gluttony. The dynamic is a bit different. Ashertmarn infects other people with guluttony, lust, and possibly greed, while Noh-face was initially motivated by lust, ate greedy people, experienced their greed as gluttony, and used their greed to lure in more of them and eat them along with food. (I personally think greed and gluttony are very different — desire to possess in excess vs. desire to consume in excess — because Garth Nix portrayed them thusly, but Miyazaki is evidently among those who consider them equivalent enough for substitution; I’m not sure about Sanderson). Now I’m grateful that, as gross and Noh-face-like as Ashertmarn’s deliberate downfall here is, it didn’t involve a vomit storm. Spirited Away is one of my favorite animated films, but That Scene is one of the worst things I’ve ever had to hear (I shut my eyes, but couldn’t leave the room the first time I watched the film). /tangential ramble
I should be unhappy about Kaladin’s time with the Parsh (and/or his time with the Wall Guard), because people died as a result of it. But I can’t. Those chapters, watching his worldview shift and learning alongside him, were so storming good.
Kaladin here unfortunately reminds me of the more amusing scene in Pokemon 2000 when Ash confronts the battling giant elemental-birds by yelling “CUT IT OUT!” I don’t think it helped much there, but nobody died.
@19: Precisely my feelings about Seanan McGuire. #bitterforever
I didn’t think any words were unprintable here on Tor, after the 11 inventively obscene epithets Leigh Butler applied to Lord Walder Frey in her Read of Ice and Fire.
@32 and various other times. I think you are misunderstanding why Kaladin froze. It isn’t because
“the parsh are, technically, in the right. For all the talk of morals and doing the right thing, clearly the identity of the true Voidbringers and Honor having to convince his Knights to continue fighting means that this war was never really black and white. As the reader, I’m happier that Kaladin isn’t going around killing parsh. If he had, he would be just as much of a hypocrite as Taravangian is. ”
It is because they are his friends. He was perfectly prepared and happy to kill off parsh until he saw that he knew them.
“Kaladin felt his rage flare, and he lowered the Sylspear. It was time to begin the work of death.” If they had been random parshmen he would have slaughtered them.
@44: The thing with Kaladin is he *usually* is good at being a soldier, at directing teams, and in this scene, his issues were he did not know where his loyalties lay. What essentially prevents Kaladin from accomplishing his mission is not actually being fully loyal to Team Human, it is being conflicted with Team Parshendis. If his concerns were to be applauded during his scene with Jasnah, right here, he needed to make a choice and stick with it because he can’t stand in the middle of warfare, he can’t be leading the military campaign if fighting is a problem.
As such, I have suggested perhaps Kaladin should go back to surgery. At least, as a surgeon, he’d be saving lives and his allegiances wouldn’t matter as much.
For the rest, I think Alice in @47 said everything I could have said with very good words. I would, however, point out I don’t think Skar nor Drehy nor anyone knows really how Elhokar died. I don’t think they saw the scene… Now whether or not Kaladin will tell them remains to be seen, after all, he didn’t tell Bridge 4 about what happened to Moash nor his thoughts of treachery.
@45: Yes, he froze but freezing it exactly what it is: inaction. Kaladin’s loyalties and allegiances are so conflicted he couldn’t rationalize a way out of the issue. Where I blame Kaladin is in his lack of foreseeing this would be an issue, it is his inability to realize he wouldn’t be able to fight the Parshendis and, as such, he shouldn’t be leading a team effort nor a mission.
I am not arguing it would be easy for the Parshendis to earn their social rights: nothing is ever easy, but wiping out a nation to solve the issue also isn’t a solution. Still, we need to consider the fact those were Alethi Parshendis. The Azish Parshendis wanted to fill in a formal request and the Thaylen ones just wanted to keep on fishing not understanding why they should harm the Thaylens. It has been pointed out, in the narrative, the Alethi Parshendis are inclined towards warfare because they are… Alethi. There is no easy way out of this one, this is true.
@46: I agree this is more heart-breaking than the Rift because Kaladin here, wasn’t trying to murder a bunch of people to satiate his anger, he was just trying to do his job. Unfortunately for him, he oversaw his capacity at fighting people he saw as “us”, not being willing to accept the “them” may be formed up people he liked, the “them” may even be formed up of people having rightful grievances.
The outcome is terrible because it isn’t the one Kaladin wanted and, for the first time, he does fail for real. With Dalinar, the outcome was the desirable one, but he realized too late how horrific it was nor what the real cost was.
@47: I agree, amazing post. It recoups everything I wanted to say. I agree had Kaladin complained about the mission, had Kaladin voiced out opposition, the reactions to the scene would be different, but he didn’t. He agreed with it up until people he liked turned out being “them”. I agree with the greater narrative being super interesting and filled with conflict. As I said above, there is no easy way out of it, but it sure will be fun to read.
@48: I am pretty sure the main objective of the mission was to save the Queen and the Heir: the oathgate was secondary, something they added because they didn’t want the city to fail. I do not have a quote though. I am sure someone will have the proper reference. Or say I was wrong, but either way, saving the Queen and the Heir was part of the mission.
Yeah, it came to my mind this was why Brandon re-wrote the ending of WoR. He wanted to have Kaladin grow up as the character who refuses to kill or, at least, has an issue with killing people he sees as victims. This being said, I do not know how Szeth fits in as a victim, but I think this might have been the intent.
@51: But how are they to ever stand a fighting chance if all of the Windrunners refuse to have field commands nor to act as soldiers? They *need* them out there to fight the Fused… I don’t think Team Dalinar can afford for Kaladin and his Windrunners to not play their part. Now, whether or not Kaladin and his Windrunners will want to follow Dalinar, that remains to be seen.
@52: I agree if Dalinar gets a redemption, then nothing prevents Moash from getting one: I advocated for this a few weeks back except from one tiny problem… Many characters are getting redemption. Moash might be the one character too many just as Adolin ended up being the one character too many to get away with murder.
On the side note: Does anyone think Dalinar will see his support erode within RoW? Many posts seem to argue Kaladin may choose to do his own thing if Dalinar insists he needs to fight Parshendis made me wonder if this was going to be an issue.
Like many others said, the least Kaladin could do was try to pin or stop the fight. Freezing gets everyone killed. And when you commit to a mission, you commit to protecting your comrades. Once the battle starts, the time for indecision and morals is over. You’ve agreed by being part of that force, part of that objective, that you are willing to kill while following it. You can’t break that because people you know are on the other side, pursuing other objectives that will destroy our own.
As for Spren binding humans, we know that the Parishmen are angry that the Spren left them and bound humans. However, the Spren got more out of it. Based on what we have seen so far, it seems like Spren bind to the body, gemheart, of a Parishmen, while they bond with the Spirit of a human. They clearly change the bodies of Parishmen and I think we will learn they have a corresponding effect on the Spirit of a human.
Re: Kaladin – Soldiers freeze up and screw up all the time. Just because we haven’t seen Kal do it, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t happen and/or won’t happen again. I also think this isn’t a simple case of losing site of the mission, or his views on the Parsh. The core of it was divided loyalties and how that works out with the Ideals. Before he hurt Syl because he ignored the Ideals and even actively went against them.
He learned from that mistake, but now he was stuck in a situation where picking either side (in his mind) meant going against one or the other of his ideals. So he did nothing instead, which protected Syl and the bond but didn’t protect any of the others. It also messed him up for a good chunk of the book.
I also feel like this will tie into why the Recreance happened: because most of the other Orders couldn’t keep doing their thing and also keep choosing one side over the other. Which also shows how Kal is more advanced in some ways than you think, because he didn’t have all the information that the Radiants of the day had, but he could still tell deep down that something was very wrong with the way the Radients have been picking sides. It’s also, IMO, more forgiveable because how do you expect an untrained Knight with none of the knowledge those guys had to somehow figure a way to work through this problem, when hundreds of them could not, which is why we had the Recreance.
(Okay, I’ve been dreading this since the beginning, and the time is finally here, so…)
Moash’s killing Elkohar is yet another example of how he is self-destructive, and how his self-destructive nature negatively affects his allies. We see what the action does to Kal, and we can imagine what it will do to Gavinor, but at the end of the book we find that Moash did Team Radiant a massive favour. Jasnah isn’t just a step up from Elkohar, she’s an entire flight of stairs or two.
I concede that Elkohar was starting to fix himself. That was made clear. However, fixing a lifetime’s worth of damage takes hard, intense work over a long period of time. Team Radiant does not have a lot of that right now. They need a competent person on the throne of Alethkar, and now they have that. The fact that she is known and respected by many other rulers is also a big plus. This will help Team Radiant rally the world around them now, and that is a big problem for Team Odium. The same team which Moash has irrevocably joined.
Moash has finally gotten what he wanted. I doubt he will want what he gets.
@Gepeto,
You are correct that Kaladin is a lousy soldier.
I am howevr of the opinion that Kaladin is not a Soldier. He might have the rank and the training and the label. But Kaladin is not a soldier. He is a Protector.
Every action that took him from being a surgeon to becoming a Soldier and slave and finally a Radiant was taken to protect someone.
He joins the military to protect his brother. He fails at that and subsequently becomes an officer to be able to protect other boys who would become cannon fodder. He becomes a slave by protecting Amaram, this backfires but his instinct was to protect.
He protects Bridge Four with his proto-radiant powers. He then protects Dalinar. He protects Adolin by jumping into a 4 on 1 duel. He protects the king he despises against Moash.
He protects.
He couldn’t suddenly decide that people he knew and had spent time protecting were the enemy and had to be killed.
Hes a terrible soldier. But that’s what drew Syl to him in the first place. And that makes him a great windrunner. Unfortunately this particular circumstance was one he wasn’t able to deal with. He needed to protect everyone around him. And they started killing each other.
@Keyblazing: all the orders have a Fifth Ideal, subject to the fact that Lightweavers don’t actually use oaths.
I agree with the comment up higher that Kaladin accidentally told Elhokar to obey the Fourth Oath of the Windrunners here, which leads into him clearly knowing the Words in Shadesmar, but being unwilling to say them.
@31 BenW
I have no read Liar Game, but my wife does enjoy an anime with a similar premise. I appreciate you taking the time to read the thread about Jasnah :)
@39 dptullos
I assume this portion regarding Jasnah was directed at me? Did you have an opportunity to read some of the thread? There are a few WoB, but the vast majority are quotes directly from the three books. From those quotes I feel Jasnah thinks things through before taking actions (delaying assassinating Aesudan and ultimately changing her mind, Shallan mentions to herself that Jasnah would advise her to think things through and find out more information before acting regarding Amaram, and so on), she acknowledges when she makes a mistake (her treatment of Shallan when Shallan first arrives, her reaction to Shallan when Shallan persists and does not leave, and so on), she respects others even when their beliefs are different than her own (Taravangian and Shallan regarding religious beliefs, as well as existing religions on whole. She states you can find wise men and fools in equal measure among all the religions as well as atheists) and wishes for peace and life (her conversation with Shallan regarding Taravangian, and how she wishes the world would extol peace makers as they once did). That does not sound like “Jasnah Final Solution Kholin” to me. I hope you take a moment to give the thread a chance, and feel free to comment in the thread the places you disagree. I went through the trouble of including the quotes for ease of reference. I look forward to hearing your thoughts regarding Jasnah further in that thread! :) Just in case I linked it again for you below
https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/84071-jasnah-more-than-meets-the-eye/#comment-830297
@48 AndrewHB
Thank you! Part of the reason for the theory popping up in my head is that I think each oath could be theoretically harder or easier depending on the person. For instance one person could get through the first three oaths easily, but have a real problem working through the 4th, meanwhile someone could have trouble getting past the first or second oath alone, yet the subsequent oaths flow and make sense to them so once they get past that hump, the others advance easily. So I wondered what if one of the other radiants had an easier time coming to terms with the 4th oath, like how Kaladin helped them with their oaths, this other radiant could help Kaladin with his?
Go Team Elsecaller! lol
@61 Carl
Thanks! Just the way Kaladin says it, and re-hearing it in this re-read (which is why I love the re-reads, always discovering something new!), made me wonder if this was foreshadowing. Maybe another windrunner will say those words back to Kaladin, and it will hit him and get him thinking. Fingers crossed I’m right!
Oh so many words… Such. A. Huge. Chapter. Don’t have time to rehash everything but a couple of things stuck out to me on this time through.
Kaladin freezing up-that’s a normal thing that happens to people. It’s that second-and more-between when something insane happens to you or someone close to you and the time when the adrenaline kicks in (or doesn’t). I wish Kal could have done something about the groups fighting each other. I REALLY wish he’d stopped Moash from killing Elhokar in front of his son. But this is much more realistic; life isn’t like fantasy that much, and that’s also one of the things ‘we’ all say we love about the books-how realistic they are.
Aesudan, wow she’s crazy. And yeah it seems like she’s been there for a while. Winner of the worst mom award for sure, possibly worse even than Shallan’s mom. What’s worse, trying to kill your kid, or keeping him prisoner and getting tortured? For a woman who is so educated and supposedly smart, she did some seriously dumb stuff. How much of the marriage between her and Elhokar was set up by Gavilar and how deep in his counsels was she really? I definitely trust Jasnah, so she’s been a bad egg for a long time. I could go on.. but there’s still more stuff and not much time (for me).
Moash… I hate him so much. Maybe not as much as Alice… but definitely a LOT more than Aubrey. Sure, he thinks he’s doing a good thing. If he was the only main character we saw, we would probably love him sure. But he’s gone a way I can’t follow with my heart so… maybe not F Moash, but probably. Sounds super lame when I type it out like that.
Fwiw, I think Sja-anat is actually on Shallan’s side. I don’t know enough to speculate on where they came from, but I think some of the unmade will be on ‘our’ side, like Nale has gone over to the Parsh from the Heralds.
More to say, but out of time. Summer for moms is not a break or time off. It’s the busy season.
@@@@@ several – I’d like to point out that Jasnah never advocated for genocide. She is committed to the preservation of humanity, and they were strategizing about their options. You can – and she did – acknowledge an option without being in favor of it. She specifically said she wasn’t in favor of it, which is why she thought they ought to search out the Heralds and persuade them (by whatever means necessary) to return and fulfill the Oathpact.
@@@@@ others – I don’t think Kaladin ever made any promises to the parsh group. He liked them, felt responsible for them (rationally or not), and felt guilty for the likelihood that they would be in trouble for having brought a spy and Radiant to Revolar. All valid things, but I don’t think they were the kinds of things that jeopardize his bond – not like making two conflicting oaths as he did in WoR. It wasn’t his bond that was a problem; it was (as the text says) his inability to resolve the “us vs. them” problem in the moment.
Also, Elhokar was unarmed. He was carrying his son in one arm, and was unable to hold his Shardblade with the other due to a spear through the shoulder.
For the Unmade, I always took up the theory that they were Grand Spren so heavily corrupted by Odium, hence the “we were made than unmade” quote. I dn’t think they are special Fused or even old Humans that have lost all traces of humanity, solely because that half of them are only play acting, to understand humanity and are soley focused on the emotion’s, just like Patttern and even Syl are focused on truths and honor. They act more like spren trying to have a Bond than they do humans trying to reconnect with emotions. Now for sja-anat, I don’t say I trust her. why now after all of her service? what would she have to gain betraying Odium?
@65 Steven Hedge
Maybe she is tired? Tired of all the fighting, tired of all the cycles of pain. Maybe after so long revenge lost all meaning? Or maybe if she is purely just an offshoot of Odium, maybe she began to grow a more autonomous sense of self, and would like to explore it without Odium hanging over her shoulder? All of the above total shots in the dark, but thought it was nice thoughts to consider.
@66 Very true. It just doesn’t help we barely know anything about them. Most of them seem mindless, but they still have a instinct to them that makes them just as dangerous. And then theres the purpose of certain Unmade like the one that controls the deathwhispers, how does that one really cause chaos and disorder.
I’m thinking there’s something that Sja-anat may want from Shallan. She was surprised to see her, after all, implying that this perfect trap wasn’t as perfect as it is implied, maybe she think Shallan can give her a real human experience, so that’s why she is betraying Odium.
Ok I have a couple thoughts on this absolute gut punch of a chapter.
If I recall correctly Elkohar does have his own Shardblade right? He can use that weapon one-handed right? He wasn’t some defenseless damsel in distress, this was a trained fighter, a pretty good one if not exceptional. He should not have been so easily overcome against soldiers who received Spears literally a couple weeks ago.
I object the terms Team Parsh and team Human. It shook out like that in this particular scene but if that dynamic becomes standard then Roshar is screwed. It would be in Rosharan’s best interest to unite against the guy who wants the world to burn, regardless of species.
But anyway,Kaladin. I get the impression that he’s both the most qualified for the job and the wrong guy for the job as well. His powers and marketed leadership ability make him a shoe in,but he’s young for command and has a tendency to wanna save everyone. And he’s probably not the only Windrunner that has ever struggled with this. My guess is that the reason they were primarily scouts and not front line soldiers is due to this tendency.
As for Kal freezing up, we all know that Kaladin takes responsibility for way more than he should, it’s unhealthy to be honest. So when two groups he feels responsibility for clash it’s going to be realistic to have trouble picking a side. He’s known both groups for a limited amount of time and he identifies with both groups. It’s something he must work on so he can keep improving. Because he will have to command again whether he wants to or not.
I hated him freezing up of course but I can understand it. And this pain he deals with here will be quite important for his progress.
However Moash meant the salute I can’t see it as anything else other than a snarky sarcastic gesture and it generates a spontaneous thought in me, “Moash, what a perfect asshole!” Talk about twisting the knife.
Good catch to those who talk about a paradigm shift in the thinking of Kaladin since WOK. I kinda think that he’s never been trained properly. That makes sense to me because no one expects a dark eye to be a leader. I will admit that I feel like I’m bending over backwards to give Kaladin the benefit of a doubt because I like the dude. But everyone has their biases right?
Steven @65 – Very good point, that the Unmade are probably not originally humans or parsh; we’ve seen too much (at least from a couple of them) “trying to understand humans” through some very weird methods. That ratchets up the probability of “greater spren” as their origin, though we still don’t know what sort of spren they might have been. So much we don’t know!! As for Sja-anat… I don’t know what she hopes to gain by breaking away from Odium’s control. My hope is that they weren’t “unmade” as thoroughly as Odium thought, and the more intelligent ones are seeking the sort of “independence” they had before. (I’m not sure what “independence” means for a spren, hence the quote marks…)
EvilMonkey @68 – Elhokar does have a Shardblade, though they left their Plate behind. However, Elhokar wasn’t taken out by an inexperienced parshman, but a professional soldier:
Injured in one arm and carrying his young son in the other, wielding a Shardblade may not even be possible; even if it is, he’s got to resummon it first. There’s no evidence the parsh ever touched him; it was the Queen’s Guard first, and then Moash.
Well, yes. But they have to get some of the parsh out from the influence of the Fused first. Hopefully we’ll see this happening in Venli’s POV next book. I think it’s solidly foreshadowed for this go-round, since we (presumably) have Rlain and Venli on “our” side, as well as Moash on “their” side – so there’s already a mix of human & parsh on each side. We know that in past Desolations, there were some humans who chose Odium’s side, and we know that some of the parsh deliberately broke with Odium/their ancestors in the past. Part of the Big Question & Answer going on here, though, is just how to define the teams. There’s too much history we don’t know.
@Scáth Unfortunately Liar Game isn’t licensed nor does it have an anime adaptation, but it’s fully translated by fans and you can find online in various “places” if you search.
Side note: Does anyone have any theories involving the Shin? My guess is that they will be opposite to the Alethi in almost every way for both good and bad.. At first they will probably look idealic in comparison, but then as we go on through Szeth’s flashbacks and so on, their uglier side will show and they will probably seem just as bad, just in a completely different way. That being said this is speculation at this point so I am unsure how into specifics I should go. Especially as I am not very sure on details myself.
Ouch. Poor guy just died and still can’t catch a break.
But.. oh man, this chapter was such a rollercoaster.
We had a long conversation last week about Adolin’s leadership viability and how Kaladin was much better suited to be the general of Team Honor. Then we come to this chapter where, no matter how you slice it, Kaladin choked in the face of enemy combatants and allowed his charge to die. So, a couple questions.
Do we think this failure is a one time thing or will this issue keep popping up with him?
Does anyone’s opinion of Kaladin’s viability for leadership change as a result of this particular action?
Is Adolin starting to look like a better candidate due to his actions here? He did account for himself very well in this action as I recall.
If neither Kaladin or Adolin is the right guy for the job, and with Dalinar too busy to run the war effort directly, who will be the best candidate to be the overall commander?
See, whenever issues of leadership come up I tend to draw from 2 sources when forming my opinions. One is my own military experience at the grunt and middle management level. The other comes from the brilliant if slightly unrealistic perspective of the leaders in Ender’s Game, Ender’s Jeesh in particular. Maybe throw in some Band of Brothers for spice. Drawing from these experiences tells me that Kaladin will recover from his failure here but he’s likely not the best fit for ultimate command. He can and should be an excellent commander given good leadership which up until Dalinar has been severely lacking but he’s not the guy I trust to make the final call. Adolin has been trained to the task and I feel he is the best current choice, though someone else will probably emerge who’s better. My opinion. Time will tell and all that. Also I think there will be a distinction between Radiant forces and regular soldiers.
Some thoughts:
Did Ehlokar actually love his wife? He didn’t seem to find it a great hardship to stay apart from her for years. BTW, are we truly supposed to think that he actually remained faithful to her during all this time? The reticence of the upper classes and even the ex-bridgemen in this area really doesn’t make.
There is an interesting contrast between the effect of a living shardblade on Ashertmarn – which was nil, and on the minor voidspren, that was… killed? Splintered? This makes me all the more certain that Nightblood is on Roshar to be an Unmade-killer. Though, I have to wonder if absorbing of so much of Odium’s investiture in one go couldn’t affect it in unpleasant ways in return. I also think that it will claim the (un)life of at least one of the Heralds – most probably Nale. Had spren ever been “killed” by shardblades previously? One of Dalinar’s visions featured voidspren hunt in Purelake and knowing what we know now, it sure seems to me that they were attempting to trap it instead. Of course, it may have been a spren of a somewhat higher order than the ones tormenting poor little Gav, so it might have been more resistent to shardweapons?
Speaking of the voidspren – they sure seem obssessed with horse imagery for some reason – Re-Shepir also caused Shallan to unconsiously draw skeletal horses and nightmare equines play a prominent part in visions of the Thrill. Does this hint at extra-planetary origins of these particular spren?
Concerning the musical instruments – yes, indeed, even wearing a thin glove should make playing a number of them significantly more awkward, IMHO. But we still saw some highborn female musicians in WoK, didn’t we? Frankly, the whole “keeping the left hand gloved at all times” doesn’t really work with most female-specific or gender-neutral occupations in the series. I’ll bring it up again when we reach the Mem interlude, but Lirin’s new apprentice being female didn’t make sense either – her safehand glove would inevitably get dirty and contaminate people’s wounds. It isn’t like they have sterile surgical latex. For that matter, cooking, cleaning and so on within the household also necessitates getting both of your hands wet and dirty. Oh, and shouldn’t left arms and hands of highborn women get significantly atrophied?
There are a lot of questions remaining about Aesudan – like why Jasnah didn’t find anything justifying her assassination in the years after Gavilar’s death, how could Navani have thought that her daughter-in-law had everything well in hand, when she couldn’t have left for the Shattered Plains more than a few months before Lhan’s Interlude, what was Dalinar’s spy, who left Kholinar still later and delivered Taln to his Highprince in WoR smoking, when he apparently didn’t see anything untoward in how the Queen was handling things either? BTW, I don’t feel the need to blame her for Moash’s grandparents – for one thing, we don’t know if Ehlokar was even married at the time, for another there was no hint of any links between Aesudan and Roshone and also, despite what Moash liked to claim, Ehlokar’s role in the whole sorry affair was very tangential. Yes, he had the aged couple arrested on falsified evidence, but as far as we know that was a honest mistake.
Could Vasher be moved to erase Gavinor’s memories, like he did to that priest’s daughter in Warbreaker? It would be a mercy.
A lot has been said about Kaladin already, but I would like to point out that this isn’t the first time he kinda betrayed the Kholins after regaining Syl – his keeping quiet about Moash’s treachery and even more so, about his co-conspirators’ plot, was a betrayal too. Particularly since certain of Graves’ utterances during the assassination attempt actually hinted at them gunning for Dalinar too, i.e. : “You are too late!”. As far as Kaladin knew, the other plotters remained a clear and present danger, but he was so desperate to cover for Moash, that he would not warn Dalinar about them. And let me reiterate here that it is completely unbelievable that nobody even questioned where the newest shardbearer ostensibly in service to Kholins disappeared to during the whole of OB!
Scáth @10:
This is a great – and ominous idea about the parallels with Nightblood. Because if this is the case then, now that Moash has a Honorblade and can infuse stormlight, _he_ would be able to safely use all of Yelig-nar’s powers. Maybe he’d become Odium’s Champion, after all.
Dptullos @26:
It would be completely illogical for Jasnah to advocate for genocide after the Battle of Thaylenah proved that voidspren can bond to humans too. Nor do I think that she was seriously suggesting it even during that council, rather than just applying the debate tactic of extreme statements that she made Shallan study back in WoK. Nor is there any reason to think that she is a proponent of slavery and tyranny. She herself is a non-conformist whose published views are that everybody should be free to chose their roles in life.
Keyblazing @32:
If the parsh are, technically, in the right, how is it that Honor could bring himself to repeatedly convince the Knights of the righteousness of their cause? He was the Shard of Oaths, after all, and shouldn’t have been able to act against his Intent. There is more to the conflict than what the Elia stele and the Fused would like us to believe. Indeed, it isn’t and wasn’t black-and-white, but whoever sides with the Shard of Hatred isn’t going to usher Roshar into a good future, or, according to Honor’s last vision, any future at all, as far as it’s people are concerned.
@45:
Are humans going to accept the loss of parsh slaves? Well, it isn’t like they can get them back, is it? I mean, one of the greatest assets of parsh slaves was their docility – the restored parsh are going to be anything but. And this world is ripe for a fabrial technology industrial revolution anyway, which should provide “machines” to replace parsh labor. That’s not to say that there isn’t to be conflict, but the problem isn’t anything like insoluble.
@68 EvilMonkey:
Do we know that the Windrunners were “primarily scouts”? This doesn’t sound right to me, because due to having lots of strong squires they surely were the most numerous Order with battle-attuned Ideals and abilities. As we have seen with Kaladin, a single 3rd Ideal Windrunner can have 30-40 squires! IMHO, they also must have fulfilled the roles of skirmishers and cavalry/airborne. With the Dustbringers being artillery, the Stonewards heavy infantry and the Edgedancers as combat medics.
@Isilel
I read it somewhere that the traditional Windrunner role in the order of battle were scouts, but I can’t recall the source right now. They won’t all be scouts, just like all Elsecallers won’t be scholars like Jasnah. Also I don’t expect the new Radiants to organize themselves in the same manner as the knights of old. Similar maybe, but not the same since the vast majority of the spren being bonded now are new, created after the Recreance.
@Isilel
I read it somewhere that the traditional Windrunner role in the order of battle were scouts, but I can’t recall the source right now. They won’t all be scouts, just like all Elsecallers won’t be scholars like Jasnah. Also I don’t expect the new Radiants to organize themselves in the same manner as the knights of old. Similar maybe, but not the same since the vast majority of the spren being bonded now are new, created after the Recreance.
Elhokar might have had trouble using his Shardblade when he was close to swearing his first Oath. Radiants with dead blades are not a good idea as we saw with Renarin.
@73: I spoke at lengths, last week, of my view on Adolin’s leadership and how he wasn’t the man to tie in loyalties nor to inspire others to fight for him, how he merely is the “shoe-in commander” because no one better manifested himself. He, however, isn’t a soldier at heart, unlike Dalinar and Gavilar were and, as such, if keeping on being pushed towards a path clearly not meant for him, I fear his character will sway more and more away from the chance to revive Maya.
So who’s the best person to lead the military effort? I find the answer is surprisingly evident: Dalinar. He is the one who inspires loyalty, the man soldiers will trust to lead them to victory. He is, by WoB, a great military mind, talented even. He has the experience, the strength, the capacities and, moreover, the respect of the troops. Sure, he doesn’t want to lead military operations because he feels it was time to step down to leave the room to Adolin, but if Adolin ought to forced into a position he doesn’t want, he isn’t the best candidate for, then why should Dalinar’s desires not to be a military commander be respected? As of today, he remains the best possible candidate. A 23 years old young man who’s entire military experience came from the Shattered Plain “enhanced hunting” really doesn’t have the curriculum nor the experience to take over larger scaled battles: he’s never even ever been into one! He’s been in skirmishes with the Parshendis, he led men to drop bridges and to secure a gemstone, he never led a war effort against a coordinate army willing to exterminate them. The Shattered Plains weren’t a real war: as soon as the gemheart was taken, both sides retreated. It is just not the same…
To my eyes, Adolin doesn’t have the experience, the respect nor the natural tendencies towards leadership to be this man. I think it is obvious Dalinar *wants* Adolin to be this man, but so far WoB confirmed Adolin is not only lacking, he isn’t walking on the right path.
Kaladin, in this scene, proved he suffered from loyalties issues, but whenever he manages to sort them out, he will remain a better leader than Adolin. Kaladin’s issues in this chapter weren’t tied to leadership, they were tied to not know who he wanted to give his allegiances to, but his skill in the matter remain intact. When Kaladin knows who he is fighting for and is committed, he will be a much better capable leader than Adolin will ever be, in large part because he is inspiring, in large part because he is a man everyone wants to follow, even the enemy.
Granted, it may be Kaladin will choose to remain a scout and to never be involved within conflicts due to an incapacity to determine who the enemy is. There is a WoB which confirms Windrunners were scouts, but I personally believe this is a complete waste of a valuable military power: the largest order is to be wasted scouting instead of defending the troops. This is a non-sense to me, no armies need as many scouts, but still, we have the WoB.
Hence, while Kaladin may not ultimately end up as a military commander, my heart definitely does not want Adolin there. Why? Because this is not his path, this is Dalinar’s path. And I want Adolin to find his own role in life, not to be shoe-horn into one. After all, all the Radiants chose their paths. Why can’t Adolin be allowed the same luxury? Ah yes, urgency. Well, if it is urgent, then Dalinar should move out of retirement because no one is going to be better then him, at least in the short to medium term.
@55, say_wot
I understand why Kaladin froze. My argument was more that we, the readers, should exactly be hoping that Kaladin would the parsh, even if he hadn’t known them.
@74, Isilel
Easy – the Knights’ individual oaths. Just because you have reservations about the other side doesn’t mean that you want your friends to die. Additionally, it’s a lot easier to fight against the Fused as they’re insane / corrupted. They aren’t looking for peace. The parsh themselves aren’t actively calling for war.
And yes, I agree that there is more to the story. That being said, we have Hoid’s recollection about dancing with some of the Fused, which means there was definitely a time where humans and the Singers got along. We also know that humans brought Odium to Roshar in the first place. Based on the “The Girl Who Looked Up” and the Elia Steele, I’m much more likely to think that this is the fault of humans. And that makes my sympathetic, even if the Fused and Odium have to be stopped.
As for your second point, I just don’t think the transition is going to be easy. Sure there will be technology, butit’s going to take awhile. I’m sure just dealing with Surgebinders is going to take adjusting. And where do the parsh go in the meantime? They aren’t Parshendi. The individual nation’s citizens will likely have a hard time adjusting to the parsh as people, rather than slaves. I just think it’s going to be a mess.
Questioner
Is there anything about the Stonewards that you can share that’s not a RAFO? I know they’re coming later.
Brandon Sanderson
They are coming later, so not really. They were more of the Knights Radiant front line troops, as opposed to the Windrunners who were scouts. But you probably already knew that.
Kaladin’s path in this book has been about oaths – what are the right ones, which ones are more important than others, and the conflict of those oaths. This chapter is the culmination of that narrative comming together in one place.
Kaladin knows that not following his oaths can lead to Syl abandoning him / possibly dying. So he has that internal conflict he has been trying to resolve, with Syl.
IMO, Kal did not freeze as a soldier, per se, he froze because the conflict of his oaths could not allow him (at least for him) to act in any way that would not break one (or more) of his oaths.
Kal has oaths to Dalinar, and Elhokar, and Bridge 4, Moashh (who he has not ratted put to Bridge 4), his Parsh friends, the Wall Guard, Baby Gav, and even non-radiant/army related like to his new baby brother (“You, I will not fail.”) – and others. Some of those are formalized, some of them are not, but each one of those oaths currently holds the same weight for Kaladin.
To me, this is a failure in the process of growing as a Radiant in a time where there are no answers to these questions because there have been no Radiants in hundreds of years to pass down information, mentor, and train.
As a similar comparison, I believe Shallan is also going though some of her hardships for the same reason. Some (not all) of her problems are radiant related because of her powers rather than who she is as a traumatized human being (where radiance only helps amplify the problems).
Kaladin froze as a Radiant, not as a trained soldier – perhaps a minor distinction, but I think it is an important one.
I don’t really have anything to add to the Kaladin freezing discussion, so I’d like to bring up something I haven’t seen mentioned. This the the chapter where we get confirmation that Aesudan knew at least something about what Gavilar was doing. And that has always puzzled me. I understand why Gavilar changed his mind about confiding in Dalinar when he became a drunkard, but why tell his daughter-in-law that we don’t hear much of anything good about? Why not his intelligent and capable wife? His brilliant scholar daughter? His son and heir?
@67 Steven Hedge
I think the reason for Sja-anat being surprised to see Shallan, is because they were expecting her to be an elsecaller, not a lightweaver. That could also be the reason why team Odium have started having a greater presence in the cognitive realm. To watch and prevent further travel between the realms. I do agree though that having now seen Shallan, Sja-anat sought her out in particular potentially due to the order she is associated with.
@68 EvilMonkey
I would add from Dalinar’s vision, they seem to play the role of scout/beach head/shock troops. As in they scout the area, they see an enemy incursion. One or more heads back to alert the rest of the army, while a group drops in to hold back the enemy long enough for the main forces to move in, fly in, or teleport in to meet the enemy.
Well here is my little two cents regarding Kaladin and leadership. Correct me if I am wrong, but he is not a general. If I recall correctly the command structure is going to look something like this:
1. Dalinar
2. Radiants/War with Odium
to the side: 1. Queen Jasnah 2. Highprinces 3. Generals 4. then the further military breakdown we found earlier in the re-reads.
So this reads to me that in the field of battle against the voidbringers, Dalinar’s commands. In regards to the radiants and how they comport themselves at Urithiru, again Dalinar ultimately commands. Regarding the governance of Alethkar in exile, the shattered plains, and etc, Jasnah is head. Under her are the highprinces which will govern their portions of alethkar. When the soldiers of Alethkar are needed in war against the voidbringers, the generals and then highprinces and then up to the queen will command, but Dalinar ultimately decides how they are deployed with the overarching war effort. The “grunts” of the humans and of the radiants are still going to have immediately commanders that they serve under. That is the individual whose leadership they concern themselves with. That commander then concerns him or herself with their commander, and so on and so forth all the way up the chain. Will there be “faces” of the war effort? Sure! But that just comes with the territory of the position of power. The Kholin princedom will look to Adolin as he is highprince. Alethkar as a whole will look to Jasnah as she is their Queen. And finally the alliance will look to Dalinar as he is the head of the fight with Odium. An army is not just one person. Everyone will be leading and have responsibility in my mind.
@71 BenW
Thanks for the info!
Well I don’t think the Shin were always the opposite of the Alethi. Brandon recently confirmed during the Shin conquests, they did use the honorblades and the surges associated with them. Makes me wonder how were the Shin possibly stopped?
@74 Isilel
I have a theory that the reason why Aesudan did not ultimately get assassinated is two fold. First, Jasnah does love her brother, and shows his respect and consideration. There is a WoB that part of the reason Jasnah left on her project, was to give Elhokar one less shadow to have to live under. That if the importance of her research kept her at Kholinar, she would have stayed, but I think the fact that she recognized the pressure Elhokar was dealing with, and was willing to step back, in an attempt to let him grow says a lot about her character. She is not power hungry. She is considerate and understanding. Potentially that played a part of staying her hand with Aesudan. She wanted to know more before taking that final step. I think ultimately with the death of Gavilar, and the importance of her research, carried her away and prevented her from finding more info on whether or not to ultimately carry out the assassination. But that is just conjecture on my part.
Thanks regarding Yelig-nar! Well I will say if my theory is true, then no one can truly use Yelig-nar safetly, just like with Nightblood. If you don’t watch your investiture, your power use and how fast Yelig-nar is draining it, you could find yourself ending up like Aesudan and Amaram.
@79 Keyblazing
The problem is, it is hard to separate the parsh from the fused as the fused can possess the parsh. I think once the humans start to listen to Rlain, and maybe get into contact with Venli, they will learn more of the function of the fused possessing the parsh which could go a long way towards trying to turn the parsh to the Kholin side. If the parsh don’t open themselves to Odium, the fused cannot get in. I think that knowledge will be a huge game changer.
@80 Wetlandernw
Thanks for the WoB!
@81 steve-son-son-charles
I do agree, that our latest cast of Radiants do have it harder than those of the past because they are acting without that support system and tradition. I think at the same token, that also opens a lot of possibilities that could have never been considered before. For instance healing the rift between human and parsh by parsh radiants becoming a thing. The future is uncertain and exciting!
@82 Lisa
Maybe Gavilar realized that Navani or Jasnah would try and stop him? Navani apparently was not brought into his confidence for some time, so that could be why. Jasnah remarks in the flashback that her father does not trust her, and that hurt her. Part of that could have been her assertion of her atheism. Perhaps Jasnah’s flashbacks in the back five will reveal much of the mystery.
Consider that Sja-Anat is clearly a “megaspren”, a word I just invented to mean “really important, powerful spren like the Nightwatcher and Stormfather.” Of course the other Unmade are also megaspren.
Consider that when in the Physical Realm, spren gain sapience (which includes free will) by bonding with a human (or parsh). Thus, the Stormfather bonds Dalinar and gains increased insight into humanity, as he says.
If Sja-Anat were to bond a human, would that eventually give her enough free will to break her link with Odium? I draw an analogy between that and the Midnight Mother wanting to replace Shallan’s bond with Pattern.
@Alice, #70 writes: “… since we (presumably) have Rlain and Venli on “our” side, as well as Moash on “their” side …”
I’m always surprised when other people list “line-crossers” in the story but don’t mention the entire order of the Skybreakers, minus Szeth. Will Szeth end up leading a separatist “loyal” faction of Skybreakers? The other mortal ones will presumably notice eventually that Nale is craaaaaazy. I think I’ve posted here that I see Nale as setting Szeth up to kill him off using Nightblood. Suicide-by-cop, in Rosharan analogy.
@83 I know that the Shin weren’t ALWAYS the way they were now. I was speaking about the CURRENT Shin. Speaking of I have to wonder what happened to change the Shin to the way they are now? I bet at least PART of it is a reaction to the way they used to be. But it’s probably a bit more complicated then that.
The Shin went the opposite way from the Aiel.
Birgit@@@@@77:
You are right, of course. Somebody as close to Radiancy as Ehlokar was, wouldn’t have been at his best with a deadblade. He should have given it to one of his guards after he was wounded, perhaps?
Evilmonkey@@@@@75 and Wetlalandernw @@@@@80:
You are right and thanks for the WoB, but somebody should tell Sanderson that it really doesn’t make sense for the fighting-oriented Order, which, if we count the squires, was likely more numerous than all the others combined, counting their (weaker!) squires. I am with Scáth @@@@@ 83 that they were also shock and beach troops during the Desolations.
Keyblazing @@@@@79:
I didn’t mean the Radiants, but Honor himself. As the Shard of Oaths, he shouldn’t have been able to side with the oathbreakers against those who remained true to their vows. There is more to the story than Elia Stele and the Fused chose to share. At the very least, for Honor to be able to support the humans, both sides needed to be equally forsworn, IMHO. The humans didn’t bring Odium either, though it might have looked that way to the natives – but correlation is not causation:
Lisa @@@@@82:
Very true! This is the great mystery, isn’t it – why didn’t Gavilar include his brilliant historian of a daughter in his research? I kinda understand about Navani – it has been hinted that their relationship wasn’t the best in the later years and her self-deprecation concerning her expertise as an artifabrian likely made him think that he needed a “true professional” to figure out whatever was captured in his gems, but Jasnah really should have been his go-to resource as far as hunting down obscure historical knowledge was concerned. And she deeply loved and even mildly worshipped him, too!
Carl @@@@@84:
Could it be what the Ghostbloods are planning? Having one of their own bond with Sja-Anat and take off Roshar, somehow? Or is a Sja-Anat-powered fabrial their true goal? Which they’d also want to be able to move between worlds, which, as Sanderson hinted in one of the WoBs is non-trivial either.
I think that there were singer/parsh “crossers” in the past, given that the Horneaters and the Herdazians are partly descended from them. They just couldn’t become Radiants, for some reason.
I also agree with you about Nale – but it occurs to me that it might not be thebest idea for him to get Nightblooded, because isn’t the Oathpact still connecting the Heralds in some way? Wouldn’t Nightblood just gobble all of them in one go?
And I really, really hope that a good portion or even the majority of Skybreakers split from Nale over his insane interpretation of divine law(s). Crucially, Cultivation is still standing and she was on Roshar first, so his reasoning about Odium’s “right of conquest” doesn’t even apply! Captain Notum’s revelation that Nahel bonds can be dissolved is probably important in this respect too – those unfortunate Skybreakers who swore to follow Nale as their Third Ideal, can still leave him without killing their spren. They’ll have to be willing to cease being Radiants, however. Oh, and the Ghostbloods’ information about how the Skybreakers were sometimes recruited among those very close to bonding some other spren might play into it in some way as well.
@77: Count me in among those disbelieving the Windrunners main purpose was scouting… I worded the same arguments within one of my responses: it makes no sense the largest more military oriented order would be wasted as mere scouts. I never worked in the military but it seems both counter-productive and illogical to have dozens and dozens of scouts for an army numbering about a few tens of thousands.
Historically, the Windrunners have always been the largest order, they have the largest number of squires. Their squires are the most powerful of all squires. Their surges allow them great combat abilities and yet they hide behind the enemy lines only venturing forward to scout ahead? Not only it makes little sense, but it also raises the questions to as why others even accepted the largest strike force to be left unused.
I have seen the WoB, but I never understood it. Does this mean all Kaladin will accomplish within the next books is scouting ahead then hide from the actual battle for fear he may have to kill someone? I can’t say the prospect of reading a character who refuses to kill enemies, while in a direct combat situation, due to a morality dilemma hard to rationalize enthralls me all that much…
Hence, I have thought there might be more to it: if some Windrunners may be scouts, the bulk of them surely must have had other duties and purposes, but the WoB…
Is it possible Brandon is going for a conflicted narrative where an entire order, led by Kaladin, refuses to engage within warfare thus depriving Team Human of their much needed surgebinding? After all, Kaladin doesn’t want his men to fight on the battlefield, he explicitly forbade Dalinar to use his men in combat situation in WoK when they were freed. Could this become a source of conflict? Could regular soldiers start to resent those magnificent Windrunners who refuse to hold weapons against an enemy killing them because they all made the oaths they would never kill again no matter the circumstances?
Just a few ideas… Let’s just say, I can see how the Windrunners insisting on being “just scouts” may cause issues down the line.
Except the windrunners aren’t really militaristic are they, when their oaths are pretty much about protecting people, which would include their enemies. The windrunners aren’t the only ones with the power’s of binding, look at the skybreakers, who are definitely more militiartistic, and the stone wards, where we may not have their combo yet, but the fact they are usually the ones on the front lines implies soliders. The windrunners being scouts make sense, since they are the most agile, and can fly around much quicker than anyone. the fact they have larger numbers makes sense, that back than, they had the oathgates, and would need men to get around quickly. we’ve seen a windrunner go into battle, it doesn’t make them cowardly, scouts are some of the bravest men out there, and with their powerset, it makes sense they would be scouts that could actually surivive and report back quickly.
@62 Scath I’m in the process of reading your thread about Jasnah, and just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate it. She has been one of my favorites for quite a while, but bringing it all together with your comments is giving me a much deeper appreciation for why I am so fond of her. Thank you for doing this.
@84 Carl
Interesting thoughts on Sja-anat wanting to potentially bond with someone to escape Odium. Sounds plausible to me!
@85 BenW
No worries. There is many a mystery to the Shin. Szeth’s book is going to be very interesting indeed!
@90 snsimon
I am glad you are enjoying it and thank you for taking the time to read it! It was a lot of work, but with all I learned, it was very rewarding. I am happy to share it :)
A few observations:
Kaladin: Kaladin froze, and an indirect consequence of his actions was Elhokar getting killed. But Kaladin didn’t kill Elhokar; Moash did. Elhokar’s death is Moash’s fault and it is rather perplexing to read the various opinions that quickly acknowledge Moash’s role but then spend the bulk of their time blaming Kaladin.
Kaladin was placed in a position where he saw multiple people he sympathized with facing off against one another, he didn’t know how to react at that moment in time, so he locked up; he froze. Kaladin didn’t cause Sah to kill Beard, Noro to kill Sah or Khen to kill Noro. And by the time Kaladin saw Moash heading towards Elhokar, all of Kaladin’s Stormlight had bled from him to the point where he was empty and exhausted. Kaladin could barely crawl after that and needed help from Adolin to even stand, so it appears that he didn’t even have the ability to directly confront Moash at that time. Kaladin didn’t kill Elhokar; f***ing Moash did.
“Us” vs “Them”: Part of what makes this scene so powerful, so gut wrenching and so emotional is that Kaladin has the epiphany that there is no “us” vs “them” for all of those in this confrontation. Brandon tells us this scene from Kaladin’s POV, so we’re in his head as it happens:
Brandon is trying to get the reader to reassess (once again) whether the whole “human” vs “other” conflict is as simple as we were initially led to believe. He does it when he introduces us to the Sah and his group in Part one, he does it with Venli and her first exposure to the Fused in Interlude Six (RIP Demid), and he continues to do it throughout the whole book. This whole war isn’t as simplistic as “us” vs “them” when some of “us” are working towards Odium’s interests and some of “them” are (or appear to be) working against Odium’s interests.
The truth of the matter is, the reader still doesn’t really know the stakes in this confrontation. And we only partially know the actors. We can’t be clear who is on which side (Sja- Anat, I want to believe in you, but I’m scared you’ll corrupt yet again), just as we can’t be sure what the sides even are.
Windrunners role: WoB has them as scouts and they are clearly capable of fighting quite effectively, but it’s not clear if they’re soldiers anymore than we’d consider an Edgedancer or an Elsecaller a soldier. Why assume they are shock troops or cavalry or the like?
Our first introduction to Radiants was the Starfalls scene where we saw a Windrunner and a Stoneward defend the village, so it’s logical to initially assume that those are warrior orders. But upon more reflection you notice the Radiants were protecting the villagers; that aligns perfectly with the ideals of Windrunners. Kaladin’s powers don’t work in WoR in the practice grounds when he tries to attack Adolin. Syl directly asks him who he was protecting. Windrunners are meant to protect; not directly attack.
So Windrunners can serve as scouts and protectors/defenders. But it seems that the circumstances have to be somewhat special to have them be first strike or shock troops.
Skybreakers defection: Nale told Szeth that was going to join Odium (and take his followers with him) before Moash “kills” Jezrien (I still am skeptical Jezrien is permanently gone, but whatever). Due to the Herald’s connection, that action led to Ash and Taln both being exposed to excruciating pain before they passed out. Nale was flying at the time, so I’m curious to know if his followers caught him before he plummeted hundreds of feet before smashing into an unforgiving surface, or if his body suffered. And assuming he survived, I’m curious if he still decides to take all of the Skybreakers to Odium’s side. Why should he trust that Odium’s forces won’t do the same to him? If I were Odium or the Fused, why wouldn’t I eliminate one more Herald and weaken the Oathpact that much further? I wouldn’t be surprised if the position of the former Heralds somewhat change in the year between Oathbringer and RoW.
Are Odium and the Fused really the same side or are they just both enemies of the heroes? Just because they were imprisoned in the same place doesn’t mean they are friends.
Odium threatens one of the Fused to take away what he has given. So I guess, the Fused have to be on Odium’s side as otherwise they would cease to exist. I am not sure whether Odium is really able to take back is Investiture that easily, but the Fused are certainly somewhat dependent on Odium.
I also agree with many here that it was not Kaladin’s fault that Elhokar got killed. Freezing in such a way is not a voluntary decision. But I sure hope Kaladin can get over his issues soon.
Steven Hedge @98:
My problem is twofold: that the Windrunners are the biggest Order and it could work with them monitoring vast swarths of terrain for incursions and interfering or fetching help quickly, except that their very strong and numerous squires can’t get more than 30 miles, IIRC, from their Radiant without losing their powers. Which makes the value of the Windrunners’s Resonance rather questionable for the purpose. Also, squires use more stormlight, which may be limited due to gem economy and timing of highstorms, so having them continiously aloft as part of a “sensor net” may not be resource-effective. Basically, if the Windrunners are meant to be scouts, I don’t understand why they have this particular Resonance, which would have been better suited to actual main troops.
BTW, both our current Windrunners and those in the visions seem to be organized in a very military manner.
Scáth:
I read and very much enjoyed your Jasnah thread some time ago – I couldn’t agree more with everything you say there and I can’t wait for her book… in 20 years or so….:(.
KiManiak @92:
I am not entirely certain that “Us vs Them” was always as racially determinative as ithe scant historical sources suggest. But sure, it needs to change completely into “Those opposing Odium vs Odium and his supporters”, where an effort needs to be made to convince the salvageable among his supporters, such as the parsh, etc. not to fight for him.
Isn’t defending civilians against enemy combatants a large part of what soldiers do? Given their Ideals and the fact that a 3rd Ideal Windrunner can have 40 or so very strong squires, I’d have expected this to be their primary function during the Desolations. Particularly since due to the surge-powers of the Fused, it would have been very difficult to make any area, apart from Urithiru itself, secure from devastating raids. But this goes against the WoB about them being mainly scouts, so… And even in Dalinar’s vision the Windrunner is bringing a Stoneward rather than his own squires, yet he is also very clearly in command, so it is all quite muddled.
I have also wondered about what happened to Nale when Jezrien was killed. He didn’t have to be in the air at this particular time, though. I am also not sure that complete breaking of the Oathpact would dissuade him at this point, and he also seems to be seeking the final death, IMHO, so if Odium’s dagger can give him that, he might not be opposed.
Bird @94:
Personally, I also hope that Kaladin reflects on the ways to stop such fights without killing anybody. He has the tools to do it, he just needs to figure out how to and practice it. Not only would it stop his internal conflict from getting everybody he sympathises with on both sides killed, but since convincing the parsh to abandon Odium is essential from both moral and practical standpoints, showing mercy would also be a powerful propaganda tool.
@Isilel:
We know that he just dismissed it, because when Moash kills Elhokar his Blade manifests, and Moash kicks it aside. Interestingly, you just gave me another example of the ketek structure I have been harping on for this book. Parallel Elhokar being too badly hurt to fight effectively and selfishly keeping his Blade, with Adolin later being too beat-up to fight with his Blade effectively and immediately loaning it to a stranger because that is the most effective way to help his side.
Why would they have to do any of that? Nale specifically approves of Szeth not going with him to join the Fused. I doubt he’d forbid any other followers doing the same. Nale clearly knows he’s doing the wrong thing, he’s just crazy and suicidal (IMO). (Could a Fifth Oath Lift heal him?)
@89: My problem with the Windrunners as scouts is who are they protecting? By insisting in picking up a task they are over-powered, over-numbered and over-qualified for, who are the Windrunners protecting?
If we are to follow Kaladin’s example here, they are protecting themselves. They are protecting themselves from needing to make split decisions and perhaps being emotionally challenged, but they sure aren’t protecting the soldiers nor the civilians.
When Kaladin orders Bridge 4 to stay away from combat, who is he really protecting? Himself. He is protecting himself from needing to deal with the death of people he cared about.
In WoR, when Skar and Drehy are asked to stay away from the battlefield, who are they protecting? Kaladin’s emotions. When they choose to engage despite their orders, who are they protecting? Adolin who needed protection.
Hence, the Windrunners as nothing more than scouts raise a lot of problems, IMHO.
Also, Brandon said they were one of the most militaristic order.
@92: I find f*** Moash offers a rather simplistic view on the events which unfolded before our eyes. After all, Moash did nothing less than what he professed he would do early in WoR: he killed the King. Ever since we’ve known him, he has been adamntly straight-forward about his intentions. His perspective on events, while inaccurate, was clear and well understood.
So why should I blame Moash for doing exactly what he said he would do?
When equipement failure occurs, should I blame the defect I knew in advance had a chance of happenstance or should I blame the designe who’s task was to design fail-proof protection to ensure the equipment remains functional even if the defect occus? I blame the designer. Nothing can be done about the defect, it will either happen or it won’t, but its chances of succeeding in ruining the mission can be severily reduced by clever designing.
Moash is the defect. We knew he would try to kill the King. We knew he had a reasonable chance of being in a position to do so. Kaladin was the man tasked to make sure the defect doesn’t win. He was the man entrusted with the duty and the responsibility to protect Elhokar, but he didn’t. When the defect happened, Kaladin got conflicted through misplaced sympathy and dubious allegiances: he failed to prevent the worst-case scenario from happening.
Hence, I must disagree. Elhokar might have died at Moash’s hands, but it was Kaladin’s failure Moash even got close enough to do so. So no, I find I cannot blame the man having been bluntly honest about his end goal, but I can sure blame the man who’s task was to protect the king, but failed to engage an attacking enemy because spending a few days with them made him wish they were one big happy family. They weren’t.
Therefore, Elhokar dying is, to my eyes, most definitely Kaladin’s failure. Moash just did what he was designed to do: kill the King. It was Kaladin’s job to make sure he failed.
@94: Kaladin might not have controlled his freezing up, but this happened because he wasn’t loyal to his allies. And that is must definitely his fault. He allowed himself to feel more sympathy for the enemy he knew he would need to fight than for the ones he was sworn to protect. He is to blame for having created the very moral dilemma which caused him to freeze.
@96: Can you expend on the parallel in between Elhokar and Adolin? I would say Adolin needed to be quite severily wounded before he gave up his Blade. I think the narrative isn’t showing justice to how gravely hurt he was during those scenes. He took more than a wound to the shoulder.
@97 Gepeto, do you know what scouts do? they go out in the battlefield, first. they are usually the ones who encouter and fight the enemies first, and have to get away quickly to report back. they are usually the ones with the most dangerous jobs. They are protecting the villages that only THEY can get to first because of their speed and flying abilities. Look at the one of the first visons from Honor: A windrunnerand another radiant dropping in to protect villagers. The windrunner was fighting dozens of midnight essences to protect just two people, and there was implications there were more windrunners on the way. That’s proteting people, they’re the front lines. they’re not vanguards or soldiers, they’re scouts because they can get there first to asses and assist and to hold the line while the rest are on the way. they’re still protecting.
@98: But scouts do not typically engage in combat… They spy, then they report back and let the soldiers engage. Proof enough, Alethi have women be scouts: they do not fight, they do not even carry weapons! Lyn was a scout… She never saw combat. It is why Alethi allows women to be scouts, because it is relatively safe and it doesn’t require one to actually fight.
That’s why I am bothered by the Windrunner scouts. What you described doesn’t sound like typical scouting work… I mean the whole purpose of scouting isn’t to engage and give away your army’s position, it is to read the enemy lines and bring back the information. Scouts are valuable and required, but IMHO there are too many Windrunners and they power combo seems an over-kill for the task.
I think the misunderstanding comes from you and I having a very different vision of what scouts do… Perhaps someone like EvilMonkey who has military experience can provide insight on the debate?
I think everyone is getting a little bogged down over the term “scout”. In military campaigns across the years, and cultures, scouts did a wide range of activities. Anything from pure reconnaissance, to beach head assaults, to guerrilla warfare. I have included below wiki links to four examples of scout regiments with a little tidbit on each and how they operated:
Blazer’s Scouts: Tracking and engaging Confederate Partisans and guerrilas in West Virginia and Virginia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazer%27s_Scouts
United States Army Indian Scouts: Recon and Guerrilla warfare as a shock force
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Indian_Scouts
Apache Scouts: Recon and Pursuit of Mobile enemies over long tracks of land
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Scouts
Cavalry Scout: Recon and first responder personnel in an area. Gather info, and engage enemy with anti-armor weapons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry_scout
So scouts don’t just look or spy. They do actively engage. At least in these examples they all do.
I have made a post with citations. The links are more than three, so it is pending review. Hopefully it will be approved shortly.
edit: ah great, I see it has been. Thank you!
Now having said that (commenting from mobile atm) I think we also need to keep in mind as per WoB, just because a person is a member of an order, regardless of the powers involved, does not mean that person has to see combat. There are windrunners afraid of flying as per WoB. So just because kaladin is a windrunner does not mean as per his order of radiance he HAS to fight
@95 – I agree that defending against enemy combatants is a large part of what soldiers do. If you’re in the military, you’re some form of soldier, no matter your specialization. I think even military doctors and lawyers would conceivably pick up arms to fight if the circumstances call for it. I’m more arguing that the Windrunners have a specialized role that doesn’t require them to directly attack the enemy; but to conduct reconnaissance and act as scouts. Scouts can definitely fight, and I would suggest that Windrunners as scouts had an additional mandate to enter into direct combat at any time to protect people against any attack they come across. So the WoB can be accurate, yet allow for the Windrunners need to defend and protect while acting as scouts.
@97 – Why should the reader blame Moash for killing Elhokar? Because he’s the character that killed Elhokar. He’s not a defect, he’s not a flawed piece of equipment (and by your own logic, he did exactly what he said he was going to do, so there is no “defect” or “flaw”), he wasn’t the result of a flawed design. (And even if all of that were true, your argument still doesn’t hold water as Kaladin didn’t design, create or build Moash; so why not blame Moash’s parents and grandparents, since they bore and raised him, respectively). Blaming Kaladin for Moash’s actions because Moash was “a defect” that Kaladin was responsible for reads more as a bias against Kaladin then it does as an argument based on fact. Which is fine if that is indeed the case, but just own that bias.
As far as Kaladin failing, sure, the reader can make that argument. The entire Kholinar mission failed; so feel free to blame Kaladin, Adolin, Elhokar, Shallan and their entire entourage. While you’re at it, blame Odium for being the evil mastermind; Sja-Anat for corrupting the Oathgate spren; Ashertmarn and Yelig-nar for influencing the Queen and everyone in the castle and surrounding area; the Fused and liberated Parshendi for picking that exact time to attack; the Thunderclast for breeching the walls and carving a path for the forces to reach the castle; the Queensguard spearman who stabbed Elhokar in the arm and caused him to drop his Shardblade so that he was defenseless; the Wall Guard and Kingsman who couldn’t stop Moash’s advance towards the King; Kaladin running out of Stormlight and therefore being unable to crawl to Elhokar’s side in time; and finally, you could even blame Gavinor for occupying one of Elhokar’s arms so that he couldn’t re-summon his Shardblade in his non-injured arm to defend himself. All of those things indirectly played a role in the failure of the mission and Elhokar’s death, so the reader can argue for any of those.
However, the only person/circumstance that is directly responsible for Elhokar’s death? That would be Moash, shoving his spear in the king’s chest, placing his boot against Elhokar’s throat to hold him down, and then stabbing him with the spear again, this time through Elhokar’s eye.
@98 – Good points. I agree.
@99 – That is how the Alethi chose to deploy their scouts millennia after the Knights Radiant had disappeared. That’s not the only way scouts are used in Roshar (think of Parshendi scouts; Dalinar’s scouts in his flashbacks; hey, even Bluth was a scout for his caravan; etc). Also, those weren’t the only Alethi scouts used in the shattered plains; Dalinar had Bashin and his men, and they engaged in confrontations with the Parshendi.
@100 – Thank you. Great information and citations. As an aside, your Jasnah post is very good (but quite long, so I’m digesting it in bits and pieces). Thanks for linking!
@103: I will summarize my thoughts in a more precise manner.
Kaladin’s task and responsibility were to protect Elhokar against harm coming his way. There were locked in an invading city, said harm would have come no matter what, this was inevitable.
Kaladin failed to protect Elhokar once the harm came not because he was outnumbered, but because he did NOT want to fight this new enemy. This is what makes it so terrible, to me eyes, he could have fought and protect Elhokar, but he didn’t.
Do we blame Kaladin for killing sweet nice Helaran when he was within Amaram’s army? Of course we don’t, Kaladin was just doing his job, so why should I blame Moash for doing his? He isn’t fighting for Kaladin’s side he is fighting for the Fused and yeah, he had this goal to kill the King. It was Kaladin’s task to make sure he failed. Should I blame Moash for picking up the wrong side? Heck, Kaladin is halfway into the other side himself!
And BTW, a defect may not be planned, it may not be design related, it may be environment related. I used the term losely to encompass all which may screw a mission and may be designed against. Moash was a known liability with a distinctive known goal and target. No one could control what Moash would do, but they sure could established a line of defense against him, which they did, but it failed because one person didn’t do his job.
So yes, I do blame Kaladin. I will not blame Moash anymore than I would blame an enemy soldier for killing another enemy soldier during a planned battle even if this enemy soldier chose this target out of personal grudge. Moash did his job, Kaladin didn’t. And Elhokar is dead. Moash however stayed true to his words, Kaladin didn’t. He chose the other side. During this battle, this moment, he chose to protect the enemy.
@95 Isilel
Glad you enjoyed the thread! Thank you for taking the time to read it! Yeah waiting for Jasnah’s book is a supreme exercise in patience lol
@96 Carl
Little tidbit. If I recall correctly the reason Adolin gave his blade away during the Battle of Thaylenah, is because the Thaylen shardbearer only had plate and Adolin felt having plate and blade would work better than just one or the other (speed, strength, and durability of plate with the attack power of a shardblade). So he gave it to the Thaylen to make better use of it.
I do not believe cosmere healing heals mental. Then again we aren’t sure exactly what is the source of the “madness” so if the madness is magical in nature, maybe?
@102 (myself lol)
Including the WoB I mentioned below:
Questioner (paraphrased)
Are there Windrunners who are afraid of heights?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
Yes there are. You can see with Kaladin that a lot of them would see the sky as their domain, but there are some with a fear of heights. It’s like being a left-handed woman in Alethkar, there are some things you just could end up with.
Argent (paraphrased)
Did all orders of Knights Radiants use Shardplate?
Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)
It was available to all of them, and they could (all) use it. Many Knights (not Orders) chose not to. There were Knights who were not soldiers and had not interest in wearing Shardplate.
@103 KiManiak
No problem. Always happy to do a little research. Thank you for the compliment regarding Jasnah!
@104 Kaladin killed Helaran. Of course he is to blame. Shallan (and the reader) may not dislike Kaladin for that action, but he’s clearly to blame for Helaran’s death. He was the responsible party; he jammed his knife through Helaran’s eye.
I’m confused. Are you using “blame” in a way other than “is responsible or accountable for”? Something more like, “I like this character less, because an of action they’re indirectly responsible for happened?” If that’s the case, then fine. But like I said above, that reads more as having a bias against that person, more for the reader’s personal reasons then due to the actual facts. Which is totally your right, by the way. Dislike who you will and blame them for whatever you want, if that’s the case.
(I noticed you continue to ignore that Kaladin had run out of Stormlight (“Stormlight bled from him, leaving him empty, exhausted) and was unable to even move to stop Moash, so he couldn’t have moved against Moash anyways. Is it possible that your opinion of Kaladin’s failure is based off of an incomplete memory of that scene, then? I would encourage you to read the scene again.)
On the chance that your stance isn’t due to personal preference/bias and you are actually suggesting that it is based upon in book evidence, then I don’t think you’ve made that case. So let me flip this: By your logic, it is acceptable to blame someone like Tanalan for the deaths at the Rift since he didn’t successfully stop Dalinar before he could light the city on fire. The details are somewhat different of course, but your ultimate argument is that if the protector of an entity does not stop an aggressor from killing that entity, it is the protector’s fault; not the aggressor. That’s how your argument reads to me, at least. Does that help you understand where I’m coming from?
It is unclear why the fault/blame lays more on the protector than it does on the killer in either circumstance. I choose to blame the killer, as a general rule of habit..
@106: If you blame Kaladin for killing Helaran, then I think I can definitely better understand your point of view. My own viewpoint happens to differ as I do not blame Kaladin for killing Helaran because the circumstances were such he needed to kill him. He was a soldier, Helaran attacked his allies, he reacted. I do not blame him for it nor do I blame Helaran for trying to kill Amaram nor do I blame Moash when acting within a similar context.
Before it comes out, I do blame Adolin for Sadeas because the context didn’t call for murder.
Blame has nothing to do with how I feel towards the character: if it were, then I wouldn’t be blaming Adolin for Sadeas since he is my favorite character, but I do. I do blame him. Worst, I blame his actions for why an entire princedom went rogue which probably is the biggest boo-boo so far.
I use the term “blame” in the sense I will give the responsibility of a given outcome to a given character. In the case of Kaladin/Helaran, no one is to blame really since both characters did their job: it isn’t their fault one of them died. I don’t think either acted in a wrong manner nor failed per say. In the Kaladin/Moash scene, I blame Kaladin more than Moash because Kaladin had for task to protect Elhokar and he didn’t accomplish it to the best of his abilities. He allowed his personal feelings get in the way of his duty, hence he is responsible for the outcome. He is not responsible for Moash attacking, but he is responsible for not stopping him when he had the capacity to do so.
So I find I blame Kaladin for his failure to accomplish his task. On his side, Moash did not fail: he did what he said he would do, he accomplished his “task”. Granted, this isn’t a task we approve of, but it remains Moash didn’t fail at doing what he said he would do.
All this to say, I give blame to whichever character I believed failed at his task or chose the wrong course of action no matter whether I like this character or not. And I can’t blame Moash for wanting to kill Elhokar.
I do not blame Kaladin for Tien nor for Helaran. I even do not blame him for trying to murder Elhokar, it was such an understandable stand, but I blame him for not protecting him adequately in Kholinar.
I blame Dalinar for Rathalas and Evi. I also blame him being having been a drunk for years, but I do not blame him for Alethkar conquest.
I blame Adolin for Sadeas and for wearing rose-teinted glasses when it comes to his father. I blame him for the 4 on 1 duel, but I do not blame him for killing Parshendis during warfare.
I blame all characters for actions they do, indenpendantely of how I feel towards them.
This being said, we all come from difference places. I agree to not have the same perspective as you. Also, I was far from the only one, in this thread, who blame Kaladin…
For the rest, the argument is going too far… It is as simple as Kaladin had one task: protect the King. He didn’t protect the King when harm came his way. He lost his stormlight because he didn’t want to fight. We all had the discussion as to which means Kaladin could have used, but in the end, he allowed himself to be emotionally compromised over his feelings for a group of Parshendis he spent a few days knowing.
I don’t know how else to phrase it. Kaladin had a task. He failed at accomplishing this task because of his personal biais. In the other examples, there were no tasks assigned and the situation was far more complex then dealing with a handful of enemy soldiers.
I do not consider soldiers in a battle are killers.
To me not blaming Moash for his actions here is insane. Of course he’s to blame. If Kaladin has any responsibility in this it is that he didn’t kill Moash after the first attempt. But seeing the future is of Odium…
But in all seriousness, Kaladin failed before Moash ever came into the picture. He allowed himself to lose focus on his mission and left his charge unprotected. This is an issue that many young commanders struggle with and Kaladin’s mindset makes him especially succeptible to this. If he’s to be a leader in this Desolation it’s something he’s going to have to fix or no one will trust him to lead anyone.
So Kaladin failed. That doesn’t excuse Moash in the least. The act itself is bad but it’s as Gepeto said earlier, Moash has chosen his side and it’s not Team Honor. At this point he was an enemy combatant attempting to achieve an objective. He was successful. He didn’t kill the kid or steal the Shardblade so he wasn’t totally reprehensible in this respect. And he didn’t kill a defenseless by that point Kaladin which is also a point in his favor. But that Bridge 4 salute afterwards angers me beyond all reason. The depth of betrayal inherent in that act is what makes him scum. But as I’ve said many times betrayal is a hot button topic for me.
As for the role of a scout, it really depends on the type of army you’re running. The Alethi seem to be running an army that looks similar to the Roman legions. Other than Shardbeareres who need space to operate effectively they generally run in a phalanx. In an army like this a scout unit should be able to engage enemies first, without the support of the main army, and hold them until that support can come. They should also be able to engage behind enemy lines, strike important targets and move on before capture. A Windrunner should excel in both roles and in this context their resonance makes sense. The non-combat role the scouts fulfilled on the Shattered Plains was due to unique circumstances of the Plains i.e. they were looking for chasmfiends not opposing armies. There wouldn’t be any female scouts normally anywhere else in the war effort.
I’m really curious about Stonewards and what a front line Radiant soldier actually looks like, their resonance, all that.
@108 EvilMonkey
I am curious about the Stonewards too! (then again I am curious about the powers for all of them!). I feel like the stonewards are almost like walking tanks. They have cohesion and tension which strengthens or weakens whatever they touch (excluding people. WoB I will add later). So I could see a stonewards lining up as an enemy is running towards them. Then the ground in a wide area around them all is shaped into fortifications (cohesion and tension). Then using their surge of tension, their armor holds up to all sorts of attacks that should cripple or stop them (like how Dalinar’s armor glowed and seemed stronger when the chasmfiend’s claw came down. bondsmiths share tension with stonewards). As to their resonance I have no clue. Upon hearing about windrunners, lightweavers, and so on only about their powers, I honestly could never have imagined their resonances being what they are. Pretty much this whole post is conjecture (except for the supporting WoB). So I am very eager to find out!
Questioner
So far there hasn’t been a lot of the Stonewards in the books. Are they going to come forward in the next few?
Brandon Sanderson
…Yes. One of the reasons I built the structure of The Stormlight Archive the way that I did is because I knew it would be easy to overwhelm with the number of magical abilities, and to let myself get distracted by some of them and not do them justice. So I’ve been very careful, perhaps more careful than I need to be, and when I show like a Fused using a power, I focus more on the ones you know about and things like this, intentionally to keep the reader’s attention on what they know as I expand.
Questioner
Can they shape stone? In one of the flashbacks they kind of melt it and it becomes sand.
Brandon Sanderson
Basically, my original pitch to myself on Stonewards, one of their main powers–I mean, everybody has two–but this power you’re talking about was the ability to grab matter and just kind of– like what if the whole world were clay to you. Not just stone, not just rock, but if you could just pick something up and stretch it, whatever it was, that was my original pitch for that order.
Questioner
So architects or combat engineers fill that order?
Brandon Sanderson
Yeah, stuff like that, but also, just kind of like you need to get out of a room? Well, let’s mash ourselves a doorway here and step through, or just all kinds of stuff.
Questioner 2
Can they do that to living flesh?
Brandon Sanderson
No. That’s the general, the more Invested something is the more it resists, and Stoneward powers are highly resisted by things… Even a small amount of extra Investiture is gonna prevent them. Like if you stuck Stormlight in [an object], say a Windrunner did, a Stoneward wouldn’t be able to change that.
@@@@@ 104
Ultimate responsibility for Elhokar’s death absolutely belongs to Moash. The choice was his, the act was his, the betrayal and morally wrong choices that led to it were his. Regardless of his reasons for wanting to kill Elhokar, Moash was not justified in this chapter or earlier chapters (breaking oaths, attempting to kill Kaladin, betraying Bridge Four).
Kaladin fails, but I do not see his failure as a moral failure, and he is not responsible for the choices made by Moash.
None of the rest of the team succeed; the mission fails. This happens not because any of them decide to take reprehensible actions, but for events out of their control (the invasion, the Fused, the Unmade), and in Kaladin’s case, because he was faced with a moral dilemma he was not prepared for.
While I found Kaladin’s freezing up frustrating to read, I was not angry at him. His dismay is understandable and due to his desire to protect everyone he can. It was a mistake, but it does not make him guilty of Elhokar’s death at Moash’s hands.
Moash is the one who is guilty of Elhokar’s death, and just because he accomplished what he wanted to and said he would do does not excuse him or make Kaladin guilty in any way.
Moral culpability resides in the person who made the choice and then carried it out, not in the man who was unable to stop him.
It was Moash who killed Elhokar, not the parsh Kaladin refused to fight. He didn’t refuse to fight Moash, he was just unable to reach him in time. He had ordered some soldiers to protect Elhokar, they are the ones who failed to protect him, not Kaladin, who had other tasks in that battle than just being Elhokar’s bodyguard. He was supposed to rescue Elhokar’s family (he did fail in that, although it isn’t his fault that the queen went over to the enemy and his squires did rescue the child).
I don’t think anyone is accusing Kaladin of murdering Elhokar. There’s a difference between being the killer (yes, Moash) and failing to do your job because you freeze up (Kaladin). The latter is not a crime, but it’s a failure (as Kaladin is aware, and his defenders here don’t seem to like to talk about).
Moash doesn’t consider himself a traitor, and honestly in that one aspect he has a point. My own nation is founded on the principle that just because someone is a king, he is not entitled to be a selfish, incompetent tyrant … like the Elhokar who stole Moash’s grandparents’ property and arranged their deaths, without even paying attention enough to know he was doing that. Elhokar got better, but by then Moash had already transferred his loyalty to the Fused, on the actually valid basis that at least crazy nonhumans from Hell (literally!) treated their slaves more fairly than his own king had treated Moash’s family.
Once Moash defected, killing Elhokar in the middle of battle isn’t even a crime, just war.
@112
I agree on both counts. Kaladin failed, Moash committed an acceptable wartime action. But he crapped all over his buddy, the one who gave him everything including the skills he used to act on his revenge. And to top it off he gives Kaladin the snarky ass salute. That’s the tipping point for me. You don’t taunt someone who you’d call a friend after he suffers his biggest failure, even if that friend is on the other side of the battle line than you are.
@112 – So there are 2 somewhat related topics, right? 1) Accountability for Elhokar’s death; and 2) Mission failure.
Let’s take them one at a time:
1) Accountability for Elhokar’s death – To @112’s point, I don’t think anyone has literally accused Kaladin of “murdering Elhokar”, instead it’s presented more as Kaladin is to “blame” for Elhokar’s death, “allowed” Elhokar’s death, is “responsible” for Elhokar’s death, or something along those lines. I balk at any argument which is basically saying, “I’m not saying he killed him, I’m just saying it’s all his fault.”
As I stated in previous posts, Kaladin had run out of Stormlight, was barely able to crawl and wasn’t even near Elhokar at the time Moash ran Elhokar through with a spear. To quote the passage from the book “The large, pillared hall became a scene of utter chaos… The king held his son, standing amid a group of soldiers in the very center. Kaladin’s men managed to get down off the steps… It all churned into a melee”
Elhokar’s men surrounded him in the middle of the great hall while Kaladin and his men had barely gotten off the steps. Kaladin was supposed to magically get to Elhokar’s side in time to stop Moash? Even after Kaladin ran out of magic? Seems pretty impossible to me…
2. Mission failure – In the interest of being lazy, I’m just going to requote what I said @103,
“As far as Kaladin failing, sure, the reader can make that argument. The entire Kholinar mission failed; so feel free to blame Kaladin, Adolin, Elhokar, Shallan and their entire entourage. While you’re at it, blame Odium for being the evil mastermind; Sja-Anat for corrupting the Oathgate spren; Ashertmarn and Yelig-nar for influencing the Queen and everyone in the castle and surrounding area; the Fused and liberated Parshendi for picking that exact time to attack; the Thunderclast for breeching the walls and carving a path for the forces to reach the castle; the Queensguard spearman who stabbed Elhokar in the arm and caused him to drop his Shardblade so that he was defenseless; the Wall Guard and Kingsman who couldn’t stop Moash’s advance towards the King; Kaladin running out of Stormlight and therefore being unable to crawl to Elhokar’s side in time; and finally, you could even blame Gavinor for occupying one of Elhokar’s arms so that he couldn’t re-summon his Shardblade in his non-injured arm to defend himself. All of those things indirectly played a role in the failure of the mission and Elhokar’s death, so the reader can argue for any of those.”
Did Kaladin ultimately fail? Sure. Kholinar fell, the king died, the queen and prince weren’t rescued. But that wasn’t Kaladin’s failure alone; the entire team failed in their mission.
Anyway, it just seems like readers are singling Kaladin out re: Elhokar’s death for factors that weren’t fully within Kaladin’s control. Which is their right (whatever floats your boat, and all that), but it isn’t really supported by the text. If folks are just basing their opinions off of memory and the summary in the OP above, I strongly encourage them to reread the chapter. It’s a good one.
I’m catching up after vacation and it seems to me like a lot of this can be summed up in the difference between objective wrongdoing/cause, and moral culpability. Moash doing what he said he did means he succeeded from a technical standpoint, but his actions aren’t morally neutral. And it’s not like he doesn’t have agency. He didn’t just happen to find himself in an enemy army.
Likewise, Kaladin is the one functionally responsible for Heleran’s death, but has little culpability in it given the extenuating circumstances.
As for Kaladin and Elkohar, I do agree he failed in the mission, and even though morally he was in the right place (and some of the ‘freezing’ may have been involuntary, but some of it is based on his ideals/choices), he DID lose sight of the mission. But it’s still not the same level of culpability, either morally or technically. I do think it would behoove him to make sure he knows how he will handle himself in those scenarios and brush up on ways to non-lethally de-escalate if he’s decided he isn’t going to kill the other side. That IS something that is within his control.