Greetings fellow listeners and fused and welcome to another edition of the Oathbringer reread, featuring your hosts Alice, Aubree, and Lyn! In this week’s chapter we’ll be delving deep into Bridge Four’s loneliest member, Rlain. What’s it like to be the only remaining member of your entire race? Come along with us as we try to understand…
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread. There is a brief discussion of Mistborn’s Shards, and Shards in general, in the Epigraph comments this week, so beware of that. As always, if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Rlain
WHERE: Narak
WHEN: 1174.1.9.1 (same day as Renarin’s opening the gemstone archive; one week after the previous Bridge Four chapter)
While Kaladin leads his squires in some training exercises, Rlain ponders a great many things, from racism against the listeners (of which he is the last remaining, or so he believes) to his place in Bridge Four.
The Singing Storm
Title: Alone Together
The title comes from Rock’s admonition to the members of Bridge Four who are feeling uncertain about their culture and their role:
“Life is changing. We will all feel alone because of this, yes? Ha! Perhaps we can feel alone together.”
AA: The immediate context is pretty obvious, and we’ll discuss it more below. In context of the entire chapter, though, it’s extremely poignant from Rlain’s point of view. He’s far more alone than anyone else here, and he has to work pretty hard to feel any of the togetherness.
AP: This chapter is such a great character portrait. It’s such an important look at how marginalized people within a community feel. There were several people of color among the beta readers who thought that Brandon captured this feeling extremely well. Of being the only person in the room who didn’t belong to the dominant culture in the same way, and how it feels to be among friends who still didn’t totally get it.
L: Even when they try to. Sometimes especially when they try to.
Heralds
Kalak is the sole Herald on this chapter. He is the patron Herald of the Willshapers, holds the role of Maker, and is associated with the divine attributes of Resolute/Builder.
AA: On a guess, this is about Bridge Four en masse—not only being resolute in holding together, but also in building their own new culture from a bunch of outcasts and wannabees.
Icon
Bridge Four—pretty self-explanatory by now, eh?
Epigraph
I am the least equipped, of all, to aid you in this endeavor. I am finding that the powers I hold are in such conflict that the most simple of actions can be difficult.
AA: Mistborn spoiler: Sazed is finding that Ruin and Preservation are difficult to harmonize. I find this both interesting and sad, in a way. Ati and Leras were once friends who decided to cooperate in building a system they could share. We don’t know how long it lasted harmoniously, but eventually their Intents overwhelmed their personalities and their good will toward one another. It’s fair to believe that the same is true for any Shard, so… watch for it, I guess? It’s something to consider with regard to anyone who picks up the power of a Shard, at the very least.
AP: And yet at one point, all of the shards were together as one being. So I think that there must be some way to get all these disparate shards to work together.
Stories & Songs
Time to add to our running tally of Listener Rhythms, as we have a new one this week—Longing, which belongs with the “positive” rhythms as opposed to the “negative” Voidbringer ones. So far for this book, we’ve got: Curiosity, Awe, Peace, Pleading, Skepticism, Appreciation, Anxiety, Consolation, Praise, Reprimand, Mourning, Lost, Longing.
For the Voidbringers: Rhythm of the Terrors, Craving, Command, Fury, Satisfaction, Derision, Spite.
He could attune one of several dozen to match his mood, or—conversely—to help alter his mood.
L: That second half is very interesting to me. It makes perfect sense, even with my limited (from a listener point of view) understanding of music. Certain types of music will change my mood for certain. If I’m feeling down, an upbeat song can lift my mood and make me happier, while a song in a minor key can leave me unsettled. While the concept of the Listeners and their attunation of Rhythms is pretty alien and foreign, there are some parts of it that strike a chord (haha get it) even with us dull humans of Earth.
His people had always assumed the humans were deaf to the rhythms, but he wasn’t convinced. Perhaps it was his imagination, but it seemed that sometimes they responded to certain rhythms. They’d look up at a moment of frenzied beats, eyes getting a far-off look. They’d grow agitated and shout in time, for a moment, to the Rhythm of Irritation, or whoop right on beat with the Rhythm of Joy.
It comforted him to think that they might someday learn to hear the rhythms. Perhaps then he wouldn’t feel so alone.
AA: So… we know that several nominally human Rosharan ethnicities have some Parsh ancestry. It seems possible that, through intermarriage, many humans might have some trace as well, doesn’t it? Could it be one of those genetic traits that comes out more strongly in some individuals than others? Or is it just that the ones Rlain has noticed happen to be the ones who are from those few cross-bred ethnicities, and he just doesn’t know that they have Parsh blood?
L: That’s the most probable explanation. Another is that the humans are slowly evolving to this planet, and are beginning to attune themselves subconsciously to the rhythms.
AP: I like the “human evolution” angle. I think that would be really interesting if true. Where do the rhythms come from? Is it from Roshar itself?
Bruised & Broken
He swung a spear to his shoulder, the spear they let him carry. He loved the men of Bridge Four, but he was an oddity, even to them: the parshman they allowed to be armed. The potential Voidbringer they had decided to trust, and wasn’t he just so lucky.
L: I can somewhat understand the cynicism in Rlain’s last sentence here. This is something that I’ve experienced in a small way through some of the things in which I am a minority, but those are things that I can hide if I so choose (religion, sexual orientation). Rlain does not have this choice. I can sympathise with him, but I can’t fully comprehend how difficult it must be to be forever apart, forever outside. To only be included if you’re allowed to be. To be the enemy, the exception to the rule, the outsider not only to Bridge Four but to his own people, now, as well. More than anyone else in Bridge Four, he’s alone.
AP: Oh absolutely. And not only that, but:
His people were gone, now. Yes, parshmen had awakened, but they were not listeners.
AP: He’s completely alone, the last of his entire culture.
They were his friends. It was merely…
How could Rlain be so fond of these men, yet at the same time want to slap them?
L: Been there, Rlain. Been there.
AP: I’ve heard this from a lot of people in marginalized communities. Sometimes people that want to be allies are trying, and genuinely care about their friends and family members that are part of minority communities, but they just can’t fully understand the lived experience.
“I have thing to say,” Rock added. “During last few weeks, how many of you have come to me, saying you feel you don’t fit in with Bridge Four now?”
AA: I won’t quote the whole thing, but this discussion starts with Renarin learning to read, and whether that’s acceptable for an Alethi in Bridge Four. The examples we’re given of those who feel out of place include Sigzil and Skar, whose thoughts we saw in their chapters. Hobber feels like he can’t keep up with the way things are changing. Leyten has nightmares about fighting the Midnight Mother. Huio, for all his Herdazian bravado, is embarrassed by his inability to speak Alethi. Torfin is acrophobic, which has to be tough on a Windrunner squire. Teft refuses to admit the depth of his addiction. Rock refuses to fight. Each one of them feels different, weird, alone even in the company of Bridge Four. (I’d suggest that Lyn, the rest of the scouts, those brought in from other bridge crews, and the sole lighteyed officer—the group training with Peet on another plateau—would all join in the feeling of not quite fitting in. We heard Lyn talk about it once, and I’d bet that drawing in Stormlight, though it certainly helped, would not make them feel like they were 100% of the team.)
L: In the case of Lyn and the other female scouts, there’s also the fact that they’re breaking new ground as women who are allowed to fight, in addition to the fact that they weren’t a part of the group back when it started as a real bridge crew.
AA: Rock’s recognition of this, his understanding of the need to belong, and his willingness to bring it out in the open, is one of the best things about Bridge Four. We’ve talked about this in the Moash discussions, how he turned away from the one group that had accepted him unconditionally. It’s worth noting that many of them feel just as much an outsider as Moash ever did, and Rlain more so—but they’re holding together anyway.
AP: I think it’s an excellent contrast to Moash. Both felt like outsiders, but they handled it extremely differently. Interspersing the Moash novelette in between all the Bridge Four and Dalinar flashback chapters makes such a great contrast in motivations.
Squires & Sidekicks
Soon after he left through the Oathgate, everyone would slowly start to lose their powers. They’d be gone in an hour or two. Kaladin had to be relatively near—Sigzil had placed their maximum distance from him at around fifty miles, though their abilities started to fade somewhere around thirty miles.
AA: And there you have Sigzil’s need to measure All The Things coming to our aid. Of course he’s measured both the time and the distance at which Kaladin’s squire effect fades. Thank you, Sig.
AP: I really like Sig’s obsession with numbers. It’s a great way to give magic mechanics to the reader without being too obtrusive.
Flora & Fauna
He landed with his squad, including Lopen, who juggled an uncut gemstone the size of a man’s head. They must have found a chrysalis from a beast of the chasms.
AP: Do we have any idea what the chasm fiend population looks like now? I know that there was some speculation that they had been nearly hunted to extinction. Are they finding some now because they are travelling further? Or are they able to find the last of an increasingly endangered species?
AA: We really don’t know yet, but not too far back, Dalinar was worrying about the possibility of extinction. In this case, it sounds like there’s a chance they found one already dead—would it perhaps have been killed by the unpredictable (to the animals) Everstorm?—and I think the idea that they found it just because they were able to travel further has merit. However… I’m pretty sure this is going to come up as a Thing before long; Sanderson isn’t likely to set it up this much and then not go somewhere with it.
L: Also, the listeners aren’t around to harvest them anymore, so there’s bound to be some carcasses lying around that no one has touched, even if their population is greatly diminished.
Places & Peoples
“Kalak help them if they have to fight those shellheads,” Eth added, taking a drink from Rock. “Um, no offense, Rlain.”
AP: Argh! This makes me so upset! Because this is also a real thing. People have a token friend in a minority group, and they feel empowered to use a slur, or tell an off color joke, but “oh, it’s not meant toward you, no offense.” So now Rlain would be the problem if he spoke up about it. Because he’s making a big deal over “nothing” and “he didn’t mean it that way”. So frustrating. And brilliant of Sanderson to capture. The perspective here is just great, it continues with the next bit:
He had protrusions on his arms and legs too, and people always wanted to feel those. They couldn’t believe they actually grew from his skin, and somehow thought it was appropriate to try to peek underneath.
AP: Bodily autonomy and personal space is a thing that people of color struggle with. Ask any African American woman you know if someone has tried to touch her hair without asking. Be prepared to get an earful.
L: Same goes for differently abled folks. I have some friends in the disabled community, and the number of times they talk about people just randomly grabbing their mobility aids is horrifying.
AP: To a much lesser extent, this happened to me when I was pregnant. Complete strangers would try to touch my stomach because they somehow felt entitled to be able to touch my body because it was different. It’s one of the most skeevy things I’ve experienced, and I can’t imagine having to deal with it as a routine part of my life.
Apparently, monks came from Jah Keved to preach the Almighty to the Horneaters, and Rock let his children follow any god they wanted. So it was that the pale-skinned young Horneater wore a glyphward tied to his arm and burned prayers to the Vorin Almighty instead of making offerings to the Horneater spren.
AA: This is a fascinating twist on a culture. The Horneaters do have their own religion, though it seems mostly to involve spren, and perhaps Shards, with little “priestly” (such as the Heralds) intervention. It makes sense, actually, since they’re genetically disposed to be closer to the Cognitive Realm. But they don’t seem to have the slightest problem with someone who wants to take a different approach. Roshar seems to have quite a mix of attitudes about religion!
AP: This makes sense to me. The Horneater religion is based on spren worship/reverence and the spren can be from either Honor or Cultivation, and Vorinism is at least nominally devoted to Honor. It seems reasonable that they would be okay if someone leaned more toward one or the other.
L: It does say that Rock allowed them to follow “any god they wanted,” though, not just the Vorin one. I really love that.
Other than Rlain, Sigzil’s dark brown skin was the most different from the rest of the crew—though the bridgemen didn’t seem to care much about skin color. To them, only eyes mattered. Rlain had always found that strange, as among listeners, your skin patterns had at times been a matter of some import.
AA: I really want to know what this is about—and I have some hope that in the next book, we’ll learn more from Venli and/or Eshonai. We know by now that the Fused can alter the pattern of their host bodies’ skin, though physical features don’t change. Is that part of why it matters? Or is it similar to human skin tones—those from certain areas have different color combinations. Am I right, that the Listeners tended to black-and-red, while the Alethi parshmen were more often white and red? Or something like that? And then there’s the tricolor ones, which might maybe only be Fused? Anyway, we’ve been given hints about color combos, and now we know that sometimes it’s important to them. How and why??
AP: I think it’s both. That there are the color combinations themselves, various combos of red/black/white, as well as the rare form where some have all three. But there are also unique patterns that seem more like fingerprints to me, that are unique to the individual. And physical features of the Fused can literally change all the time, as they take different forms. It seems like the patterns are a good way to tell apart individuals who are shapeshifters. If my partner always has a pattern on his forearm that looks like a cat, then I can identify him even when he changes forms.
“But storms … the Plains sure do seem smaller when you’re up there.”
“Yeah,” Lopen said. “And bigger.”
“Smaller and bigger?” Skar asked.
“Smaller,” Leyten said, “because we can cross them so fast. I remember plateaus that felt like they took years to cross. We zip past those in an eyeblink.”
“But then you get up high,” Lopen added, “and you realize how wide this place is—sure, how much of it we never even explored—and it just seems … big.”
AA: I didn’t really have anything important to say about this, but I liked it. The Shattered Plains isn’t huge on the map, but I love the way their perspectives are being challenged by the ability to see so much more of the landscape at once.
It was sad that humans were so burdened by always being in mateform. They were always distracted by the emotions and passions of mating, and had not yet reached a place where they could put that aside.
He felt embarrassed for them—they were simply too concerned about what a person should and shouldn’t be doing. It was because they didn’t have forms to change into. If Renarin wanted to be a scholar, let him be a scholar.
AA: This is such a fun little take on human emotions. We’ve seen it before, but it strikes me every time. He’s got a point…
L: He really, really does. So many things in life would be so much easier if we could just turn that part of our physiology off.
AA: I also find it interesting that no one gets mad at Rlain for failing to understand or accept human sexuality—so very different from the Singer/Listener/Parsh version!—though we readily get irritated at the humans for failing to understand him. Just sayin’…
AP: I think that’s a great point! The difference, as I see it, is that Rlain isn’t treating them differently because he doesn’t understand sexuality. First off, he’s not in a position of power where he could, because of his isolation. But no, he definitely doesn’t understand that it’s not something most humans would want to put aside.
Tight Butts and Coconuts
“Drehy likes guys. That’s like… he wants to be even less around women than the rest of us. It’s the opposite of feminine. He is, you could say, extra manly.”
L: For awhile I was torn on this (it’s a smidge insulting and simultaneously hilarious), but the more I think about it, the more I like it. I like that the Alethi aren’t imposing gendered standards on gay men as we often see happen in our real world—though, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just Lopen who doesn’t, as initially Kaladin does revert to that. (This is a bit of a side note, but once again I’m happy to see Kaladin immediately shift his perspective once he realizes his error, instead of doubling down or getting defensive.)
AP: I do think this highlights how adaptable Kaladin is. Drehy’s bit just before this also shows that because someone is a member of one marginalized group, that it doesn’t follow that they will be able to empathize with a member of another marginalized group. People are messy little bundles of misconceptions and prejudices all around!
Weighty Words
Well, except Lopen, who had snuck away from the group and for some reason was lifting up rocks on the other side of the plateau and looking underneath them. Even among humans, he was a strange one.
AA: Bahaha! Talk about foreshadowing! Lopen is out there playing hide-and-seek with Rua already; we just don’t know what he’s doing until near the end of the book. Too funny.
Buy the Book
The Ruin of Kings
L: Figures that his spren would be super playful, reminds me of how Syl was when we first met her!
Mysterious Motivations
AA: While there are several units where we could talk about Rlain, I wanted to collect it all here, in one place. This chapter is the last we’ll see of Rlain in this book, and it seems worthwhile to consider what he might be doing. We don’t know where he goes after these events, but he seems to vanish. Where did he go? Why? Are there any clues for us here?
L: It’s worthwhile to note that this wasn’t authorial oversight. Sanderson has stated that it was intentional, so Rlain’s off doing something of import. We just don’t know what.
His people were gone, now. Yes, parshmen had awakened, but they were not listeners. No more than Alethi and Vedens were the same nationality, simply because most had similar skin tones.
Rlain’s people were gone. They had fallen to Alethi swords or had been consumed by the Everstorm, transformed into incarnations of the old listener gods.
He was, as far as he knew, the last.
AA: So to start with, he’s alone the way no one else is.
L: Poor Rlain. The world has moved on without him.
AA: He feels no kinship to the awakened parshmen, who had served their ancestors right up until their Connection was broken and they fell into slaveform. Now that they are restored, they’re right back there serving the same ancient spirits. He feels no kinship to those Listeners who accepted the Voidforms brought by the Everstorm; they are no longer his people. Those who accepted the Fused bonds are even less so; they are the old gods now. So far as he knows, the only Listeners who don’t fall into one of those categories are dead. Our one consolation on his behalf is that a few—a thousand or so—rejected the stormform transformation like he did; whether they survived the Everstorm is still in question. He probably doesn’t even know they existed.
AP: I really, really, reallyreallyreally want to know what happened to those thousand!
AA: Really really really. I hope that, with the focus on Venli and her people in the next book, we may find out.
Rlain, though … well, who knew what would happen if he could use Stormlight? Might it be the first step in turning him into a monster?
Never mind that he’d told them you had to open yourself to a form to adopt it. Never mind that he had the power to choose for himself. Though they never spoke it, he saw the truth in their reactions. As with Dabbid, they thought it best that Rlain remain without Stormlight.
The parshman and the insane man. People you couldn’t trust as Windrunners.
AP: Again, this is so well captured. There is a huge amount of internalized bigotry that Sanderson explores so well here, and it has such great resonances with how people in minority communities interact with a dominant culture.
AA: I think Rlain is missing something, though. There’s not a single man in Bridge Four—except maybe Kaladin—who could actually prevent him from becoming a Windrunner. As far as I can see, he hasn’t tried, because he assumes they won’t let him. So the question I have is what would happen if he sucked in Stormlight? Would it be possible for him to become a squire, if he believed he could? Is the belief or acceptance of the others necessary? Lyn struggled in an earlier chapter with feeling like she didn’t really belong to Bridge Four; it was only when she could articulate her reason for wanting to be a squire in a way that fit, that she was able to draw in the Stormlight. Is it the same sort of limitation that holds Rlain back—he not only believes the others don’t want him to, he also doesn’t know why he should be able to, and so he can’t?
L: That would hold true with a lot of the Radiant abilities we’ve seen so far. So much of it seems to be tied to belief or ideas. Look at Kaladin’s scars/tattoo, for example. He doesn’t believe himself to be worthy of freedom, so he can’t seem to lose those scars and his body rejects the tattoo.
Teft led the other four in a streaking wave of light overhead. Rlain looked up, and found himself attuning Longing before he stomped it out. He attuned Peace instead. Peace, yes. He could be peaceful.
AA: This sort of makes me want to hug him and shake him at the same time. While I’m a big fan of learning to be content where you are, I’m beginning to be frustrated with Rlain. He’s a little too ready to seethe inwardly at everyone else’s failure to understand, without trying to do the things he says he wants to do.
L: I don’t blame him. He’s dealing with millenia of prejudice against his kind, here. He’s not going to be able to overcome all that in just a few months, or even a few years. It’s going to be a long process. And when everyone’s still treating him differently… well. That’s just going to make it harder.
AA: As a side note, he attunes Peace here. Peace was the one Rhythm Eshonai avoided after taking stormform, because through it she could hear herself screaming. I don’t know whether that’s significant, but there it is.
Don’t blame them, he thought. They don’t know. They don’t understand.
“Eth, Yake,” Rlain said carefully, “my people did everything we could to separate ourselves from those creatures. We went into hiding long ago, and swore we would never accept forms of power again.
“I don’t know what changed. My people must have been tricked somehow. In any case, these Fused are as much my enemies as they are yours—more, even. And no, I can’t say what they will do. I spent my entire life trying to avoid thinking of them.”
AA: That was a bit of an eye-opener for me: to realize that for Rlain, the Fused are not just “the other side in this particular war.” They are the monsters his people sacrificed everything to escape; he hates and fears them not merely for their ability to kill him, but for their ability to take over his soul. The humans only fear losing their lives; the Listeners fear an annihilation of self, of everything that makes a person … a person. For a people so attuned to the Cognitive realm, and possibly more aware of the Spiritual as well, this would be terrifying beyond anything the humans could comprehend.
AP: Yes. This is so important. The listeners are a distinct subgroup. Just as the humans have separate cultures and we don’t assume all the humans are in accord (we can’t, with all the emphasis on wars between nations), the same is true for the native people of Roshar. To the Alethi, they are literally the “other,” with all the complications it carries. This is hard for us as readers too, because as we struggled with last week, we don’t even have a name for the collective group of native Rosharans, or even just for the awakened slaves.
The others jabbered excitedly, but didn’t think to include him. Parshmen were invisible to them—they’d been brought up that way. And yet, he loved them because they did try. When Skar bumped him—and was reminded that he was there—he blinked, then said, “Maybe we should ask Rlain.”
AP: This is so complex and important. Bridge Four are Rlain’s friends. They want to be allies and are socially progressive. But they don’t know how.
L: They have no touchstones, nothing to guide them. They’re literally in uncharted territory, here.
AP: It’s simultaneously comforting to Rlain that he does have friends who care about him, while frustrating that they are still lacking in so many ways.
AA: This is a personal irritation for me. He believes that none of his friends here are able to understand him because of the species and cultural differences, and he’s right. That being the case, it’s hardly fair—for him or for us—to be angry at them for not understanding.
L: Fair, perhaps not. But realistic? Yes.
AA: I think Rlain has it more right than most of the readers seem to; he accepts their inability and appreciates their efforts—yes, and loves them for trying—even when their effort can’t bridge the unbridgeable gap.
AP: He’s not angry here, he’s irritated, which is much milder. It is an irritation to be constantly having to adjust because people don’t understand you, but he does care for them deeply. As a much milder example—you can be annoyed that your partner doesn’t put their dirty socks in the hamper, but you still love them. The love means tolerating dirty socks.
He belonged here as much as he did anywhere else. Bridge Four was his family, now that those from Narak were gone. Eshonai, Varanis, Thude …
AA: ::sniffle:: Eshonai is dead, and Varanis took stormform. I hope Rlain can be reunited with Thude, at least.
Kaladin squatted down beside Rlain. “Hey. You heard what Rock said. I know how you feel. We can help you shoulder this.”
“Do you really?” Rlain said. “Do you actually know how I feel, Kaladin Stormblessed? Or is that simply a thing that men say?”
“I guess it’s a thing men say,” Kaladin admitted, then pulled over an upside-down bucket for himself. “Can you tell me how it feels?”
Did he really want to know? Rlain considered, then attuned Resolve. “I can try.”
AP: This is how you be an ally. Good job, Kaladin!
L: I’m having trouble finding a gif to express “heart-warming awww” and “good job” at the same time.
AP: It’s not just on Rlain to explain, Kaladin has to really listen to understand. He has to put in the emotional labor here as well to make a connection across not only cultures, but species.
AA: My fond, fond hope is that Rlain really explains the whole thing to Kaladin, and from here goes on a search for Listeners that escaped the Everstorm. And, of course, that he finds them.
That’s really the only thing I can think of to explain where he disappears to after this chapter: a quest to determine if any of his people survived. It occurred to me that perhaps Kaladin saw something of the others which he could tell Rlain, but it would be very unlike Sanderson to hide something that critical. “Let’s just not tell the readers that the protagonist knows something” is too cheap, so I don’t think that’s the answer. At the same time, I think it has to be a decision that Kaladin makes, and something the two of them come up with as a valid option, that sends Rlain off on a mission. Could he go back to where the humans and Parshmen first met, or something? Oh, the mystery!!
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
You had to read their emotion in their expressions and the way they moved, not in their voices. Maybe that was why emotion spren came so often to humans, more often than to listeners. Without the rhythms, men needed help understanding one another.
AA: I wonder… There doesn’t seem to be a difference in intensity of emotion between the two species, so that’s not a reason for the spren to respond differently. It would be fun to know whether he’s right, or whether the correlation is valid but the causation is something else.
AP: I wonder if it’s because the listeners consciously attune a particular rhythm that keeps other spren not of that ‘type’ away? When the listeners attune the rhythms they are in sync with Roshar, so all is as it should be, and no spren attention necessary. But maybe they are coming to the humans because they are effectively a disturbance in the force, so to speak. If the humans are only incidentally touching on the rhythms, then the spren may be checking out these occasional ripples?
Quality Quotations
Rlain sipped his drink and wished Renarin were here; the quiet, lighteyed man usually made a point of speaking with Rlain.
AP: Renarin is making a great start at being a good ally, and a good friend.
Next week we’ll be tackling chapter fifty-six, a Dalinar chapter. (At)tune in then and in the meantime, join us in the comments!
Alice is delighted to finally have Skyward in her hands, with all its pretty artworks. She is also delighted to report that her daughter’s volleyball team has made it to the state tournament, so if she’s absent from the comments for a while this week, it’s because her attention is Elsewhere.
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Aubree is a social justice shardbearer.
I’m glad Kaladin and the rest of Bridge 4 were at least trying to be good allies, even if they weren’t all the way there.
I hope you’re right about Rlain finding the remnants of the Listeners of Narak.
Does anyone think there might have been other enclaves of Listeners hiding somewhere else? If there had been enough of them to start with, it might have made sense to split up so as not to put all of their eggs in one basket.
I kept hoping Venli would somehow bump into Rlain, I think the group with Thude are the last of the Listeners, they all were together before the Everstorm. I really hope they survived!
I think Kaladin’s experience with the Awakened Parshmen puts him in a unique position to sympathize and talk with Rlain. It also makes me curious how Rlain reacts to learning about those others. I’m thinking his mission may be to find former Parshmen and teach them to be Listeners (and, as a side benefit, search for any Listeners who may have survived the Everstorm).
I really hope for more Rlain chapters and I think it can be interesting to explore the tension between the fact that Rlain may never totally understand humans (such as their sexual drive), and humans may never totally understand Rlain’s lived experience – but that’s okay. It doesn’t mean things like casual slurs or patronizing/condescending (when not outright excluding/exploiting) are okay. And I also think there needs to be room for grace when there are well-intentioned mistakes.
Openness to learn/change is key, though. A lot of people, unfortunately, tend to just dig in their heels when such things are pointed out to them and double down, although I’ve also seen it happen where they are responding like that because they got unloaded on and happened to be the recipient of all the pain/anger that had accumulated over the years. Ideally we would be compassionate about that and understand where that pain is coming from, but I also understand why people sometimes just get defensive instead. But some people, honestly, just don’t want to admit that they’re wrong or that they’ve been doing something hurtful, or benefiting from something that works for them, but not for others. I think sometimes all those realities are too hard to face for some people since it can mean giving up a sense of comfort (or even real comfort).
I don’t know – I sometimes feel we’re locked into a vicious cycle as (outside of people who are willfully ignorant and refuse to have any humility) it seems people are at a point where we’re all primed to view the worst of each other and dig our heels in. Which is not helped by the fact there are real extremists that groups need to protect themselves from so I also understand why people just don’t have the emotional energy to give everybody the benefit of the doubt (and honestly this is an area where I think those of us who are not marginalized need to be better about policing that stuff ourselves when we see it in our own circles).
This is super vague, so I’ll just stop now ;) I think Rlain can certainly be irritated and angry at the situation, even if he also understands and appreciates his friends are trying and making the effort.
As for rhythms and music – I actually love that whole idea. Music is one of the few things that keeps me in touch with emotions and so the idea of having something like that ‘inborn’ is really cool to me.
I wonder why Rlain doesn’t accept the awakened parsh – does he feel that after the generations in slaveform they are too far sundered (which is maybe a little distasteful to me)? Or is it just that, since they’ve also gone and started following the old Listener gods, he doesn’t view them as his people?
I do wonder if Rlain will ever take in Stormlight – if there is foreshadowing here, or not. I hope his story intersects with Venli’s in some way.
Renarin <3
An excellent, thought provoking article this week.
I hope Rlain has gone to find the listeners, and that one of those honorspren has followed him.
I have really enjoyed all Bridge Four chapters. I am so happy that Kaladin has gathered such a diverse crew. The other Alethi Radiants are all Lighteyes, so Bridge Four brings much needed perspectives to the table. Dalinar might be the key force to saving Roshar, but it is the prospect that it can be built into a better place that makes me think it is worth saving.
Heh, so there are a lot of aspects of the treatment of Rlain in OB that drive me batty with impatience – I guess that the bulk of insights into Listener culture and history are purposefully being held bacvk for the 4th book, but the omissions sometimes feel very artificial to me.
Like, really, _none_ of the scholars thought to sit Rlain down and pump him for everything he knows? And it is untrue, BTW, that he has no additional insight on the Fused to offer, because we know from the Listener Songs epigraphs in WoR that they are a goldmine of information – and they have to be more or less common knowledge among them.
Also, it makes no sense that nobody is interested in the location of Parshendi gemstone hoard? I mean, they competed with humans for the gemhearts, yet none where found when Alethi took Narak, right? Whatever happened to them?
Finally – something that has been bothering me for a while – where are the Listener children?!!! There had been a hundred thousand of them or so when the war started, just 5-6 years ago – even if they had stopped taking mating form at the beginning of the war – which we know that they didn’t, not completely, there still should have been tens of thousands of kids around. Do singers have significantly longer life-spans than humans? It would mitigate this odd situati9on somewhat, but not completely.
We have seen that Kal’s group of parshmen, which numbered about 70, had a dozen kids among them, which is just about doable if they live and remain fertile longer than humans, but this only underlines the odd lack of the offspring among the Parshendi.
I was also more than a bit disappointed that we didn’t get Rlain’s reaction to confronting and fighting Re-Shepir, which must have been even more frightening for him than for the humans.
And yes, I am very curious where he has gone after this chapter and why. Personally, I tentatively peg him for the future Nightwatcher’s Bondsmith. But it is very understandable that he doesn’t believe that he could infuse stormlight – after all, for some reason, the Singers never became Radiants before.
Lisamarie @@.-@ – I think Rlain’s problem with the awakened parsh is that they never turned away from the old gods the way the Listeners did.
@@.-@ Lisamarie,
I mean the Listener’s aren’t the awakened parsh. It’s essentially the same concepts as 1st generation immigrants regarding 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants. They aren’t the same, even if they “look” the same to people who aren’t parsh. It’s a monumental difference.
Personally, I feel much of Rlain’s frustration. And thing is that Bridge Four will never truly understand. They might empathize or feel sympathy, but that’s not the same as truly understanding how it feels. Rlain needs to find the remains of the Listeners if he’s ever going to feel “whole.”
@6 Isilel
I think they are in that group of missing Listeners. I believe them and a few elders had escaped from Eshonai’s soldiers.
Alice, Lyn & Aubree: Technically speaking, Rlain is not the last member of his race. He race is Parsh. There are plenty of Parsh alive. He (at least in his mind) is the last of a faction of that race: the Listeners. Even Rlain thinks of the differences between Singers and Listeners as one of nationality and not one of race.
What Rlain does not know is that a group of Listeners did not convert to Stormform. We the reader do not know if some or all of those have survived the clash of the Everstorm and Highstorm at the end of WoR. Further, if some or all did survive, we do not know what affect the Everstorm (and subsequent cycles of the Everstorm) had on those Singers. My theory is they some how made it to the Alethi war camps and are hiding in underground caverns that were present before the Shattered Plains shattered. There has to be some reason why the Ghostbloods had Veil meet in one of those subterranean bunkers. The scene would have worked if they had their own private room in a bar. A member of the Ghostblood could have owned the bar and given Mraize a back room to use. The results of the scene would have been the same in a back room as in the subterranean bunker.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
The epigraph is about how Sazed is not able to .. unite two disparate Shards. Wow, think Unity could help him “Unite them!”?
Sigzil is a scholar who loves numbers and is highly motivated to help others. So what you are (meaning “Brandon Sanderson is”) implying is that he might attract a Cryptic and become a Lightweaver.
There’s a lot of discussion in the Stormlight Archive about how Parsh-types don’t attract spren as much as “humans”. it really isn’t explained exactly why, yet.
One of the comments refers to “Awakened” parsh. That’s really the wrong word, IMO, for two reasons. One, they were awake the whole time. One of the former slaves talks about not being able to do anything as family members are sold away, but being completely aware of what was happening. Two, that word has a very specific and different meaning on Nalthis, and most of us have read Warbreaker.
@10 – Rlain himself refers to them as ‘awakened’, although of course he might not know what the slaveform Parsh experienced either (nor is he on Nalthis, so he can use the word however he wants ;) ). I think it’s fair anyway though, since they clearly didn’t have full awareness – I thought Sah mentioned having a vague sense that it was all wrong but not really being able to articulate it. I don’t have the book though.
Speaking of Stormform, where were those guys in OB anyways? I know a bunch were killed at the end of WoR, but there’s still a good chunk left at least.
@12 they were all turned into fuzed, the survivors anyway, there wern’t that many left, maybe a few hundred. almost all the stormform were killed by the alethi i believe.
Perhaps “Released” would be a good word for the former enslaved Parsh.
In other news, I really loved this chapter, how intimate and honest and frustrating and rewarding it was. Specially the end, when Kal took that step forward. I hope we get more of those…especially after the end of OB, and Rock’s sacrifice. I want to see Bridge 4 “carry the bridge together”.
I interrupted my read of Skyward to do this chapter reread quick… and it’s one with so much stuff in it that it can’t be quick. I really appreciate that we get a chapter from Rlain’s POV. As someone who doesn’t identify that much with a truly outside the norm life (just in small ways really) I’d not thought about things like this very much. It’s one thing I love about fiction-that even if it’s fantastical can teach you about real life perspectives. This probably shows that I’m not a good ally or socially aware enough irl, which I should work on.
Anyway… I hope Rlain figures out a way to become Radiant. And not just because being left behind isn’t fun. He’d be awesome, and he (along with Venli) could get the war to be everyone vs Odium instead of Human vs Parsh or whatever they really are called.
Why is the gap unbridgeable? Why does everyone feel so alone? Why does it take Rock and Kaladin to start communicating?
It frustrates me greatly when people and characters spend so much time brooding without opening up to the community that tries to accept them.
“He believes that none of his friends here are able to understand him because of the species and cultural differences, and he’s right.” Can’t he just tell them?
Maybe this is being quite insensitive.
I don’t know if my experiences as someone with Asperger’s here would be helpful or hurtful. My basic response is “of course I don’t understand how you feel, because I’m not you.”
What I mean by this, in case it isn’t clear is that NO ONE can TRUELY understand the pain that goes on in another person’s mind. That doesn’t mean that they can’t try and imagine what they would feel like in their place and empathize with them, but it’s not the SAME THING AS ACTUALLY KNOWING. And that last part is something that is impossible to do. We’re not mind readers after all.
There’s quite a large difference between explaining and thing, and experiencing a thing. Rlain can explain all he wants, and the men of Bridge 4 can sympathize, and maybe even empathize to a certain degree, but they can never actually know what it’s like to be the only person of another race trying to exist with people who 1) enslaved one portion of his people *completely* 2) went to war with his portion of his people 3) are now in a more drastic war with a different portion of his people.
And when you’re constantly exposed to casual “racism” (I use that word because it’s close enough), even in a group who loves and respects you, it’s hard to find the energy to constantly battle that. As frustrating as Rlain appears to be, I completely understand his reticence to reach out and try to teach Bridge 4. Which made Kal’s actions at the end of the chapter so powerful.
This week’s chapter brings in such an interesting discussion on, yet again, the topic of social exclusion seen from the eyes of the visible minority. To make matters worst, this visible minority has been both the enemy and the slaves of the majority while what is left of it seems practically extinct. Hence, Rlain not only feels lonely, he believes he might be the last surviving member of his species… Melancholy is warranted here and completely understandable just as it is understandable no one, really, can understand what it means for Rlain to be… Rlain.
I feel the discourse on whether or not the majority can understand the minority very on-topic and definitely actual. As a member of the majority, I will admit not always knowing how to interact with the minority. After reading this week’s commentary, I felt even more lost… If genuine curiosity is intrusive, if asking questions is not well seen, then how can I improve my mind-openness if there are literally no ways to explore what would be novelty to me? People will always tend to react with fear, apprehension towards what they do not understand and, sometimes, minorities can be difficult to understand. So how to establish healthy dialogue?
In our example at hand, I do not find neither Rlain or Bridge 4 are having this dialogue… Bridge 4 is still not used in having Rlain around and if they accept him, as an individual, they yet haven’t accepted his entire species right to exist. On his side, Rlain seems to have locked himself into a state where he believes it is impossible for anyone to understand him and, as a result, he will not try to engage with others. However, being part of the majority, I wish for Rlain to want to have those discussion with others as, even if they are never going to experience the same hardships as him, they still can improve their understanding. People can’t know their behavior is racist is no one takes the time to explain it to them. A lot of people do not realize they are being hurtful, a lot of people do not want to be hurtful, but often are, out of ignorance and, sometimes, out of fear for novelty.
On Touching other People: Ah I hate to say this, but I can understand… As a person, I have this need to touch things as if merely looking weren’t enough, I need to feel them… As an adult, yes, I am this uneducated person you will reach out to touch the precious vase behind the “do not touch” sign much to my significant other’s mortification who usually keeps me away from actually doing it. Mind, only the knowledge of how unacceptable this would be gives me enough control to “do not touch” things.
This being said, I would never reach out to touch other people… I would never invade other individual’s personal space, but I can understand there are people who just cannot help themselves. I can understand why the compulsion to touch something new and different can be stronger than, well, common good sense within some people.
On Where is Rlain: Going into Oathbringer, I was expecting Thude and the runaway Listeners to make an apparition. In fact, I was expecting lost Eshonai to meet up with them. This didn’t happen, Eshonai is dead and Thude is nowhere to be seen. Hence, where is Rlain? My guess is he went to find them… the Listeners or what is left of them.
@19 – I completely agree about the lack of dialogue (until Kaladin at the end).
Oathbringer is filled with things left unsaid and untried that compound pre-existing problems into something insurmountable.
@Gaz, Sanderson is almost pulling a James Blishian “Idiot Plot”, defined as “a plot which is kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot.” A plot that could be ended by having characters have a halfway-honest conversation is very unsatisfying to me. As I posted in another comment thread, Kaladin is setting up a disaster because he still has not told Bridge Four about Moash’s betrayal.
The Stormlight Archive is not yet an Idiot Plot, because there are people (notably Navani) who are not being idiots. It’s just close enough to be very frustrating.
Writing the above, I had to think about what main and secondary characters are not being idiots. I get Navani, and … Navani. Maybe Cultivation? (There are other non-idiots, but they’re tertiary characters in my mind.) None of them are idiots at all times in all matters, of course.
I understood Kaladin’s remark to Drehy entirely outside a homophobic context. I saw it as more of a “there’s a lot of glass in your house to be throwing stones” sort of thing. The reason Bridge 4 works as a Ragtag Bunch Of Misfits is that we see precisely how each person doesn’t fit into traditional Alethi society. There’s a similar remark for almost anyone who piped up there.
“Rock, you’re a pacifist in the storming army”
“Teft, you’re an addict”
“Renarin, you’re one carriage accident away from becoming king!”
“Sigzil, you’re actually literate!”
And so on.
Sure, the guy with the extra implications was the one to speak up, but I doubt Kaladin meant it that way. IIRC, as far as Alethi society is concerned, Drehy isn’t really a misfit for his romantic preferences at all. Though I wonder about where Kaladin got the prejudice from.
The melting pot of Bridge 4 is essential for understanding the different facets of Rosharan life. Rlain is important to that understanding. It’s like the foriegn exchange program, or the modern military.
On Rlain and being a Windrunner: I’m of the impression that he’ll probably end up as a Squire or a full Radiant. I’m also of the impression that he won’t be a Windrunner. I don’t think that his species is the only difference between him and the rest of the Bridge. Our glimpse into his mindset doesn’t really scream “protector.” He has much more in common with Renarin, who is called out as constantly making an effort where the others don’t. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
On humans and the Rhythms: We know that Lunamor can kind of hear the Rhythms, and I expect that Horneaters in general can do the same. Perhaps interbreeding is the cause.
Drehy and masculinity: speaking as a gay man (and only for myself), I didn’t get the slightest hint of homophobia from Kal’s comment. I’m with @22 about it. Kal was being clumsy, but his underlying point about gender roles seems valid given how Alethi society functions (and, as a side-note, I love the fact that the Ardents are the only ones able to freely cross those boundaries; it’s a nice nod to how some cultures see trans people as sacred). I’m glad that the others called Kal on his clumsiness, and leave it to the Lopen to be so… Lopen about it (and as another side-note, I really want to see him hang out with Lift).
Also, again as a gay man, I completely understand how you can be fond of people and still want to slap them. My straight friends are lovely people who are always trying. Some times very trying.
Rlain’s comment about the Lopen being weird makes me wonder just how long Rua has been present. Someone mentioned, a couple Bridge 4 chapters ago, that they thought the bond was at least at the end of WoR. Could it have been earlier? Rlain hadn’t been with him for a while at the time we see him taking in Stormlight for the first time. Any “Oh, right, he’s weird, don’t ask.” vibe would have come from before the expedition. We know Kaladin had a bond of sorts with Syl for months before he started using Stormlight, at least consciously.
Keyblazing @8:
The problem is that we know from Eshonai’s PoV that there are just about a thousand of dissenters – many of them elderly, but there should be on the order of 10K Listener kids around, when we keeep in mind that there were originally 100K of them or so when the war started. Kaladin’s awakened parsh group had 12 kids out of 70 total, i.e. 1 out of 6 or so, but if the Listeners mostly stopped procreating after the war began, 1 out of 10 of their initial numbers should be reasonable.
There are also 2 additional problems concerning these missing kids – one, that we never saw any in Eshonai’s PoV. And two, that Rlain thinks that he must be the last Listener – yet from Eshonai’s mother’s words when she was confused and thought that her daughters were still children, it sure seemed like changing a spren for the first time is a rite of passage that happens in early adolescence. I.e. Rlain should know that children under a certain age couldn’t have possibly been turned into Stormforms! Ergo, he couldn’t really be the last.
Honestly, it very much seems to me that Sanderson just forgot that the Listeners should have children among them when he wrote WoR – and I very much hope that he finds a way to organically incorporate this missing aspect into the next book(s).
I also think that Rlain’s lack of belief that he could possibly become a squire is very much based on the fact that something like this has never happened before. We have it not just from the Listeners, but from the spren as well – for whatever reason – and it is really difficult for me to imagine what it might be, because surely the whole _race_ couldn’t have meekly agreed to follow the Fused every time – there must have been dissenters in the must, the Radiant spren have _never_ bonded to the singers. So, it isn’t just lack of confidence on his part, like with the humans. It is also probably significant beyond the stuff that has already mentioned in the post and the messages that we have Kalak presiding over his chapter… and the first singer Radiant since ever is one of his.
IMHO, it is an even toss whether Rlain ever becomes Kaladin’s squire or just leap-frogs to becoming a Radiant of a different Order – which I think is going to be Bondsmith, since he’ll need to bridge the gulf between singers and humans and is in the best position to do so – and I think that his spren is going to be the Nightwatcher, because directed change is what needs to be applied to achieve this.
BTW, I am not sure that all of the surviving stormforms have already been recycled into the Fused – IIRC Venli noted that there were a couple of thousands or more survivors – and that the collision of storms killed more of them than Alethi did. I also don’t think that they are unreachable, since when the Last Legion carefully prepared it’s conspiracy to escape, some of them must have been in voidforms. It should be possible to get rid of the voidspren even without a Nahel spren helping you. And I doubt that the stormforms are going to be pleased when they learn about the deception that is being practiced on them to get them to donate their bodies to the Fused. Venli certainly wasn’t.
Speaking of Sigzil’s future spren – my impression was that while the Cryptics often are scientists, the humans they bond with aren’t, necessarily. Personally, I peg Sigzil for an Elsecaller – that is, when the Inkspren could be eventually persuaded to bond again. But it doesn’t make sense to me that he is the only trying to find out and systematize how their powers work – I’d have thought that Jasnah and some other scholars would be all over it! But then, I’d have thought that they would be pumping Rlain for the Listener lore, too…
@17 BenW
I agree with you. Another book I was reading also highlighted the fact that we can never fully “know” anyone – including ourselves. With that in mind, we need to all relax a bit and interact with some degree of trust that intentions are, on the whole, good.
I think this chapter is masterfully done. It succinctly highlights the difficulties of being a minority in a group. But, it also shows that we are all kinda hypocrites. We ALL misunderstand each other, stereotype, judge, etc. Drehy, who is/can be marginalized by some looks down on someone else. Rlain, who is being marginalized/ignored is judging/misunderstanding his friends and has his own questionable views about other parsh. Kaladin is his standard mix of prejudices and compassion. Rock has the heart of it. We are all ultimately alone – but hopefully we can do it together. Every person is a minority in some way. Some by skin color. Others by race. Others by culture. Others by religion. Others by sexual preference. Others by hobbies. Others by sports teams (and if you think that doesn’t matter try living in a town that is passionate about “their” team). Are they all created equal? Maybe not. Are there some who are minorities in more categories than others? Sure. But do we have to get into contests about who has it the worst? Let’s face it, no one ever fully fits in. And, none of us are perfectly tolerant. We all have biases and make judgements. It can be based on incomplete information, lack of experience, or just personal preference. I think that is the heart of this chapter. We are all different in some ways and we all misconstrue/misjudge others in some ways. Hopefully we spend more of our time trying to understand and include others- empathizing with them. Because no one can have everyone else’s experiences (that’s why the One divided itself, right?) so if we can’t accept others genuine attempts at sympathy and empathy we will always be disappointed – and even more alone than we have to be.
Anyway, I feel like Rlain missed this most of the chapter. He discounted Rock’s wisdom and focused on his own problems. And, I know, that is totally normal! But, we yearn for characters we care about to grow and be better than they have been. To respond even better than we know we would. So for me, it was frustrating to see Rlain focus on his pain and why I was so glad he accepted Kaladin’s offer to try to understand. Because while we don’t get to choose our circumstances (and some are far worse than others), we do get to choose how we respond.
@L
I would like to note that how well one can hide their religion depends on both what the religion is and how strictly they adhere to it.
@26 I agree – elsecaller would make more sense for Sigzil. Cryptics seem to focus on artists of some variety. Inkspren seem to prefer scholars.
@24 Thanks for sharing. And I agree with you and @26 that Rlain won’t be a windrunner.
@19 and AP: I think it is very much human nature to “Must.Touch.Shiny.Thing” and we love to feel and experience things that are different. And it definitely is not unique to any one culture. I have heard from redheads and blonds that their hair is popular for touching in different parts of the world. As for me, I agree, don’t touch without asking; and ya probably shouldn’t even be asking.
@21 I also abhor the idiot plotline. A small defense of some moments in this book is that a chunk of Dalinar’s idiocy is magically induced because his missing memories actively handicap how he is interreacting with others. I hope Oathbringer is an important step in clearing much of that up. He also, as Brandon has said, does simply have the tendency to only trust himself to do things- and I think that extends to him being hesitant to share information. We’ll see how it develops, but I expect that true human unity, and even radiant unity, will be slow to develop because of inherent mistrust and betrayals we know are still to come.
About the personal space and rubbing pregnant women’s bellies; when my wife was pregnant and someone did this to her, she rubbed their belly back. Undoubtedly they would eiiher look at her weird or laugh, to which she would say something along the lines of, “Yeah, it’s weird when I touch your belly too.”
Usually worked to both let them know it wasn’t okay and to break the tension of the situation.
So officially back from my trip to Japan with my wife, and finally all caught up with my life that I can now catch up here!
@1 soursavior
Interesting theory and would be cool to see how another group of listeners could have been handling all the changes going on
@6 Isilel
The songs have changed over the ages, which is shown in the epigraphs, as well as songs have been lost over the ages. Eshonai needed to ask her mother to remind her of some songs. I believe Eshonai also commented how they were so focused on survival and not dying they were beginning to forget the people they were. So I do not think Rlain could necessarily provide the degree of info dump you are positing. Just my opinion.
The parshendi were using the gemstones to grow crops. When gemstones are overused, they can shatter or run out. Otherwise the humans would just reuse all the gemhearts they have attained, so I do not believe there would be this great hoard waiting in Narak. That’s my thoughts on the matter at least.
I figure the fact that they could chose to take mateform or not, would result in having children as being more an intentional practice, than “accidental” as can occur with humanity. The parshmen owned by humans were actively bred, which is why their numbers bloomed to the size it did, so I do not think we can conclusively determine what their numbers should be.
@10 Carl
It is a function of the shards that they remain a “king of two separate kingdoms” as per WoB. Over time as they remain together, and begin to see themselves as one entity, that may change.
I have more comments, but will have to catch up further later!
Yeah, kudos to Sanderson for a chapter full of sharp social commentary. Much as we love them, the people of Bridge Four aren’t perfect. They care for each other, but retain a variety of prejudices and bad habits — most prominently the humans’ thoughtless collective treatment of Rlain — that that they’re trying to overcome.
What’s the difference between Longing and Craving? Or human longing and craving?
I seldom envy Rosharans, human or spren. But given my visually-impaired inability to discern emotions from face or body language, it would be really nice if people in my life could label their speech with rhythms of emotion, or “attract” emotionspren as very visible manifestations. I’ve probably said that before.
I know gay men who greatly enjoy spending time with female friends. But point taken.
“I know how you feel.” Kaladin, I thought you had learned not to say that to parshpersons.
@28 – I agree, I don’t think the idiot plotline applied much to Dalinar…there’s not much in his plot that could have been resolved with honest conversation, when he’s essentially experiencing the flashbacks at the same time we are. The Thrill / alcoholism was his problem, not lack of communication.
The #1 culprit is obviously Shallan.
@several, Outsider status:
I think that outsiders are more viable for Nahel bonds. Being one myself (high IQ, asperger’s autism, bullying victim for years, you name it), I think that those people who form “the majority” don’t have the necessary cracks, the required deviation. I can’t rule out that that is cognitive dissonance at work, but I think that there are many people who – either by nature or by choice – do not stand out, are not “special”. Everyone deviates to some degree, but for many, those deviations do not cause friction.
I believe that many of them are happy. That they don’t know the pitch-black despair that I experienced for not fitting in. When I was younger, I would have given my right arm to be like them. Now, I found who I truly am – neither normal nor wanting to be, and not caring. I believe that I am more free than most. And probably my general satisfaction with life is above average, and I am only 31. There are curves that show it’ll still rise.
@27 whitespine has penned down some good points to that as well.
However, there is a song (Delain: We are the others, Goth-Metal-ish, female vocalist, neither depressing nor noisy) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5sc3BJk6BQ . Maybe some of you other not normal ones would like to check it out?
@21, Carl, idiot plotline:
I think Kaladin doesn’t tell anyone because he doesn’t want to burn the Bridge behind Moash. I consider that idiotic as well, because it needs to come out if there’s ever a reconciliation (that Kaladin probably hopes for), but-… well, it’s just in tune with his character.
For people who aren’t idiots, Jasnah is high on my list. I think she’s very smart, and she has probably given a lot of thought to whether or not her secrets should be revealed, especially the big ones (such as the reason for the Recreance).
My candidate for Roshar’s Next Idiot is Shallan, though. Even her Cryptic noticed that she needs therapy… :D
24. Wizard72
I also can’t see a Honorspren chosing him, honestly. Based on gut feeling, but I expect him with one of Cultivation’s. Would fit in with 26. Isilel’s theory.
As a bisexual autistic female in a heterosexual marriage, I’m on a crusade against the word “homophobia”. A phobia is “an extreme fear or dislike of a particular thing or situation, especially one that cannot be reasonably explained” (Cambridge Dictionary), as in “arachnophobia”. It simply doesn’t apply to this (see “I hate the word homophobia. It’s not a phobia. You’re not scared.”, Tweets from God, Twitter, often attributed to Morgan Freeman). So I think if we stop letting people getting away with using this label, we’ve already lost.
(I have formed an opinion on the matter, but don’t want to completely derail the discussion.)
25. KefkaPalazzo
I think Lopen was weird before Rua started to stick around. :D But I can’t recall any behaviour on Lopen’s part that indicates spren interaction in WoK.
I think Lopen doesn’t suffer from insanity, but enjoys every minute of it. I’m not as obviously weird as him, but I think we are similarily free from others’ opinions.
I think that in case of Jasnah and Navani, there are more important things on the agenda, and I think that in case of Bridge Four, people are probably trying to be nice. But it’s not explicitly mentioned, that’s true.
29 Jaconis:
Rubbing their belly back is a brilliant solution. Please convey my cheers.
Personally, I’d never touch a stranger without asking, and I’m also not a social hugger. Something about me makes people respect my personal space, which I am grateful for.
@several
I completely understand how you can be fond of people and still want to slap them
Could those people who do not understand that speak up? :D
On the idiot ball:
Having characters not talk one to another for a list of various reasons probably is one of the most often used narrative ploy to steer drama within works of fantasy. Hence, Brandon is certainly not reinventing the wheel here, but I still did not think he abused of the “idiot ball”. As much as it may be satisfying for readers to have characters who talk one to another, sometimes it just isn’t realistic if they do. After all, aren’t we all withholding information about things we know in order to protect ourselves? I know I am just as I know speaking the truth doesn’t always yield the intended result. So why would book characters be different?
Thus, I didn’t feel neither Dalinar nor Shallan nor Kaladin over-used the idiot ball within SA.
Yes, Dalinar doesn’t talk to other people. This has been a core characteristic of his character since early WoK when he initially refused to explain to Adolin why they were bothering to have a hunt. Once he finally does explain it, Adolin’s inner reaction was: “Why didn’t you say so at first, I would have understand.”. Therefore, Dalinar is a character strongly defined by his absence of communication with other people mostly because he never thinks others need to know the why and the how. He doesn’t trust other people to accomplish anything important so he doesn’t believe they need to know the details, they just need to obey and complete the small task he gave them. The drinking, that was just yet another excuse, another side-effect of Dalinar not talking to other people. Had he actually tell his family the truth about the Rift as he came back, he might have pulled this thorn from his heel much sooner, but he’d rather turn to the first mean he could find to forget everything and never speak of it ever again. Even when he seeks the Nightwatcher, his intend is to stop thinking about the Rift hoping forgiveness would do it: he still doesn’t want to face it. He still has zero intentions of telling his sons the truth.
That’s however not the idiot ball… That’s how Dalinar’s character was crafted. He is just not communicating with people, no matter the topic. This is also why, I suspect, his narrative is always very internal (when I think it should have an external content as Dalinar’s actions have huge consequences on other people, but they are never acknowledged within the narrative). My hopes for book 4 is for Dalinar’s narrative to focus on the consequences his character has had on others. Not on him, we’ve scrap pretty much everything there was there, but on others. This has been one of his major flaws: the willingness to ignore his actions had consequences on others. He still has it as even through his entire narrative in OB, not once does he think of what the truth may means to others. Only to him. So that’s my wish, no more internal arc, more external arc for him.
Yes, Shallan also doesn’t talk to people. She communicates, unlike Dalinar, but she doesn’t speak the whole truth. In her case though, we can understand why she retained some aspect of her past a secret. How does one process to tell her new family in law she killed both her parents? She can barely withstand the truth, much less start to talk about it to others. She does however open up on many aspect of herself to various characters: she tells the truth about her father to Kaladin, she tells the truth about being a Radiant to Dalinar, she tells the truth about Veil/Radiant to Adolin. So she does speak, but slowly. I didn’t feel this was the idiot ball bouncing around either. My hopes for Shallan, going into book 4, is for the arc surrounding her family to be wrapped up. It has been going on for three books now, how it was explored was realistic, but in terms of narrative purposes, it is time to bring it to fruition and to move onto other arcs.
Yes, Kaladin also doesn’t share with other people, but in his case, it comes out of a fear for reprisal as each time he trusted someone, it backfired. Still, Kaladin does tell Dalinar about Amaram. He does eventually tell about his powers. He does not tell about Moash, mostly because of an inane desire to still protect him and/or an inability to deal with what he perceives as a failure. Not really an idiot ball here either, but my wish for book 4 also are to have Kaladin move onto other narrative arcs than those focusing on his inability to accept he won’t be able to protect everyone. His character currently needs… some spicing up. He lost his freshness throughout OB, so I wish for Brandon to toss him into a more active narrative where his inner conflict won’t be core of it.
As for Rlain here and as to why no one is asking him questions… Well… I think they never even considered he might know something or perhaps they do not know how to broach the topic. Speaking to a minority while being part of a majority can be difficult because every words feel like they are the wrong ones. I can understand why it unfolds this way and Rlain is not an important enough character for me to worry about the idiot ball here.
@24: Thank you for giving your inputs coming from one gay man. I also recalled reading a commentary from another gay man who thought Drehy was awesome because he was portrayed as a “masculine gay man” and not following the more usual stereotypes wanting gay men to be “effeminate, frail and liking women’s things”. He argued how being gay did not mean he didn’t love “manly things” such as sports and hunting. It just means he prefers to be with men in a romantic manner, he remains a person. I thought this was one of the most interesting comment I read on the matter of Drehy.
I would also point out how within SA, Brandon had very heterosexual men such as Adolin and Sadeas love fashion whereas within other piece of work, it would have labelled then as “gay”. Mind, I have seen readers make the argument Adolin must be gay because he liked fashion…. which is yet again another stereotype.
@28: LOL on “Must.Touch.Shiny.Thing”. So true.
whitespine @27 – Yes. All that.
Gepeto @34 – Yes, and most of that too.
One of my chief frustrations with this kind of topic is that we are never going to be able to entirely understand another’s position or feelings, because (as was mentioned above) we aren’t them. I’m not you, and I can’t fully understand how you feel. You’re not me, and you can’t fully understand my experience. We really, really need to learn to be okay with that. Accepting one another’s willingness to try needs to become enough. Otherwise, we’ll all sit there in our little bubbles of offense, angry because “no one understands” while at the same time insisting that “you can’t understand,” and we’ll never learn to get along and work together to make it better for everyone.
I also completely disagree with the “Idiot Plot” accusation. Real people don’t communicate very well, and they don’t think of all the possible avenues they could have pursued, and they don’t realize that someone else could benefit from the things they know. They also don’t remember every conversation in perfect detail, under normal circumstances. A book wherein every character somehow realizes just when every obscure bit of knowledge they possess would be useful to someone else, or every character knows just the right questions to ask, or is willing to speak of personal issues because it might help another character understand them… that would be a book full of unrealistic, unrelateable characters, and it would really be kind of boring. Sure, it would lack certain frustration triggers, but it would also lack any level of realism. Being a person who prefers storytelling driven by both plot and character, I know I wouldn’t enjoy that kind of book. Sure, it can be taken to an extreme, but I don’t believe Sanderson has done so. For every time we wish someone would just tell others about whatever-it-is, there’s a valid personal reason (IMO) for them not to talk about it – or a valid reason for them not to realize it needs to be said. YMMV, I guess.
@35, Alice:
I’m mixed here. I’m fully on-board that Sanderson would never use an idiot plot, but I still think it’s idiotic of people to communicate so little, prime culprit here is Kaladin. The fact that he’s not telling anyone about Moash is going to bite him so hard that he’ll develop teeth marks in the Spiritual Realm. So it’s a plot that only exists due to Kaladin being, well, an idiot. Does that make it an idiot plot? :D
Amen. If you find a remedy, please notify me immediately >.<
Or, if they are on the autism spectrum, they fail to notice that information needs to be communicated at all (see the chapter where Renarin heals Adolin, and Adolin’s observation on the matter).
To take this one step further, in my opinion, most people don’t think, period. :D Most noticeable exception from that rule is, obviously, my darling Jasnah, who is just flawless in every regard.
On Idiot Ball Plots:
I mostly agree with Gepeto on this. Usually in Stormlight Archives, I find it makes sense with the character’s personality for them to keep information to themselves. However, I also think it can get unnecessarily frustrating because the Withholding Information plot point is dragged out overlong, going over several books without any headway. Kaladin not telling Bridge Four about Moash is one such thing. My prime culprit (as manavortex calls it) is Shallan not telling anyone about her involvement with the Ghostbloods.
RE: Idiots and Kaladin and Moash:
What are people expecting Kaladin to have said to the rest of Bridge 4? If asked (which I don’t remember happening during the book), all I’d expect is that he’d say they had a disagreement (maybe a falling out) and Moash decided to leave with those friends of his. I don’t expect him to bring up their fight because he feels guilty about that (he did lead Moash to believe he’d support the assassination) and he’s fine (or even better) afterwards, so it’s water under the bridge.
ETA:
I’m trying to imagine the conversation between Kaladin and the rest of Bridge 4 –
“Kal, what happened between you and Moash?”
“Well, you know how obsessed he was around nobility and how Elhokar had screwed over his family, right? Well, he came to me at a bad time, right after I was imprisoned for saving Adolin. So, I agreed to help, or at least turn my back while he and his other friends killed the King. But I realized at the last minute that doing that was WRONG, so I tried to stop them. Moash, being pissed at me for changing my mind and trying to stop his revenge, fought with me and I got crippled by the shardblade I’d given him. But that led me to understanding the next ideal [rp note: I don’t remember if it was the 2nd or 3rd]. So, I was healed and then fought off Moash off his allies. Then, while kicking the ass of the Assassin in White, Moash and friends left the camps.
So, all being said, we parted on bad terms, but I understand why he did what he did and hope he can get over his hangups and rejoin us someday.”
“Captain, a simple ‘we had a disagreement’ would have been enough.”
Brandon is very familiar with WoT, where lack of communication/corrupted information is a major theme. If his characters don’t talk about something, it is deliberate.
Moash betrayed Kaladin, but Kaladin doesn’t betray him by telling everybody that he tried to kill the king. Those who think betraying a friend is worse than slaughtering a whole town should be happy with Kaladin.
So I still am trying to catch up on comments but I read a recent WoB that i think fits this chapter perfectly.
Questioner
As I read about the Parshendi, can’t help but think of indigenous peoples. How do you deal with that and respecting the whole experience of colonization?
Brandon Sanderson
I think of the things I have to do is embrace it. Like, if I just ignore it, It’s worse, and so that’s why I’ve tried to dig into and kind of acknowledge the issues. I mean, it is a minefield, right? I’m wandering into a minefield by writing a story that is based off of….
Questioner
American colonization?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes. But at the same time, ignoring it wouldn’t work. And the thing about it is, most cultures in our world, this is a question they had to deal with. Whose land is it? I mean, we’re still fighting this war – we, I say, we aren’t – but war is still being fought in the Middle East over whose land is it, and it’s both theirs, right, depending on how far you go back. And things like that, and so I think ignoring it is the wrong thing to do. But I also think there’s a danger in trying to present an answer that is too easy, and so that’s the line I have to walk. Embrace it, talk about it, not present an answer that is too easy, and present multiple sides on it. It’s kind of like the same way like the people in Roshar are both incredibly racist and incredibly sexist, right? Writing people who are racist and sexist without the narrative itself bolstering those sorts of those things is really hard. But, you know, we sign up to do hard things, and if I fall on my face, the best thing I can do is just acknowledge that I’ve fallen on my face, as I have done in the past.
@16 Gaz
It takes a lot to open yourself up to someone and make yourself vulnerable in the best of circumstances. Arguably in every instance, Kaladin, Rock, and Rlain all had very good reasons to be hesitant.
@18 Sarrow
I whole heartily agree
@21 Carl
The bridgecrew have a pretty clear indicator something is up considering Moash is gone, and Kaladin is not comfortable talking about it. People have emotions. It is not being an idiot to be upset over something that has hurt you deeply and not being ready to talk about it. When someone has a terminal illness, and the facts of them passing away (what will be done with their effects, the funeral, their last wishes) all need to be discussed, yet those closest do all they can not to talk about it. Does that make them idiots? No. It makes them profoundly hurt and vulnerable.
@25 KefkaPalazzo
People theorize that with Kaladin being back at Urithiru, while Lopen was taking in Stormlight back at the warcamps was a hint he was already on the path to radiancy.
@26 Isilel
Rlain could have easily believed that the young and the old that could not be changed or convinced to change were killed. Also you are assuming just because there is a rite of change, that that means parsh children cannot change at all prior to a certain age. In many countries drinking alcohol is seen as a rite of passage, of which the age varies from country to country. That does not mean it has to be a hard and fast rule. We do not know enough to say. Also during the wartime, more and more of their people took on warform to fight till almost their entire population was in warform. Eshonai remarked on what? Maybe two or four parshendi in mate form? Parshendi can still be intimate regardless their form, but they do use mateform for……mating. I think it is a jump to think just because we have not seen a preponderance of information regarding the state of the parshendi children, that Sanderson just forgot their existence.
As to stormform, Venli does comment how she is the last of her people. The only one left of the parshendi. Now she is assuming Thude and co are no longer among us, but I would assume she would be the authority on the existence of the stormform parshendi.
@35: I do agree if everyone stays within his own corner thinking no one can understand them, then communication cannot happened. However, there are times when it is better if communication doesn’t happened as there are times when we aren’t within the right mindset to have it. Needless to say none of it is eve easy and we sometimes come from positions which make it harder.
I also agree there are numerous reasons why a given individual might not communicate well under given circumstances even if this individual usually does communicate (Adolin, someone?). Granted, some people just struggle with communication, keep everything to themselves and yes, it can be frustrating to read/watch those people, but it doesn’t make it less realistic.
In SA, I felt there was a good balance in between characters communicating and not communicating. I didn’t feel the absence of communication, at times, was the main nor the sole driver of the narrative. Had Kaladin tell Bridge 4 and Dalinar about Moash, what would have happened differently? Nothing except Dalinar may no longer trust him to protect his family which wouldn’t be a good thing. Had Shallan tell someone about the Ghostbloods, what would have happened differently? Nothing, her involvement with them wasn’t a major plot point nor a big narrative driver within OB. She ends the book realizing she needs to tell the truth, at least to Adolin, so I definitely expect she will have told him by the time we start book 4.
Now the one place where the narrative may have unfold differently had characters talked more is with Adolin not telling the truth about Sadeas. I spoke, a few weeks back, how holding back on the truth had been one of the driving element in opening the mind of the Sadeas soldiers enough for Odium to sweep in. Had a culprit been found and trialed, the story might have happened differently. Still, this wasn’t an idiot ball as Adolin had his own personal reason for not speaking up.
Hence, I certainly do not feel the ploy was over-used nor the major narrative driver, but it could have repercussion within the next book. For instance, Dalinar telling the truth about his past to his sons may have an impact and may be a driving element for their character development.
@36: What are the consequences of Kaladin not telling the truth about Moash other than him not being 100% honest with everyone? Moash made his own decisions and Kaladin telling others about his involvement with the ploy to assassinate Elhokar would not have changed anything within the future denouement. Now, what it may change is Moash may have an option to fall back on shall he change his mind, but not knowing about Moash hasn’t harmed Team Dalinar.
I do not believe this makes Kaladin an idiot… Clearly, he is trying to figure out how he should handle the situation and he hasn’t, yet, reached a solution. A part of him is still trying to protect Moash because it is likely he does understand why he did what he did.
This being said, I do agree Renarin is a good example of someone not seeing things should be communicated. I would tossed in Dalinar in this was well as he too seems to suffer from a similar problem though it has different origins.
@37: As I said above, I do think we are likely to get to the end of Shallan’s secrets within the next book mostly because this narrative arc has lasted enough. It was realistic for her to hold on to them up until now. Now, I believe it is more realistic for the truth to finally come out, but we’ll see.
@39: Yes, Kaladin refused to betray Moash. I am sure this will come into play, at some point.
From the Skyward signing in Seattle, based solely on my recollections; we’ll have to get the transcript from 17th Shard for the verbatim on these:
Someone asked Brandon about Adolin getting off too easily for killing Sadeas. He said a couple of things about it that I can’t quite recall – something about being the son of the guy in charge of defining right and wrong, and something else that I’m drawing a complete blank on – but he also strongly implied that we’re not done with the ramifications of that event yet.
I asked if he had a species name for the Singers/Listeners/parshwhatever, and he said he hasn’t settled on anything yet, but will do so sometime soon-ish. (I’m guessing this may be in book 4?) He specifically said that the Singer/Listener divide is cultural, but you can’t use either of those for everyone. [This means that for now, I will continue to use Parsh to reference the species, and Singers or Listeners to reference the cultural subgroups.]
I asked if Bavadin was originally a dragon; RAFO.
I asked if Adolin’s connection with Maya was responsible for him not being sought by spren for the Nahel bond; RAFO.
I had a whole list of questions, but for personal reasons I wasn’t able to stay nearly as long as I usually do. So… most of them went unasked.
Hey Alice, I have been literally DYING to get answer to this Sadeas question! I haven’t seen that WoB, but not all of them have been transcripted. I don’t recall seeing much from Seattle, yet.
I love the answer you do recall: being the son of the man in charge defining right and wrong. Yeah. That’s another reason why I have so much trouble with Dalinar, how come he gets to decide what is right and wrong??? What makes him the authority on the matter? This shouldn’t fall back onto one sole man’s decision making…
I will try NOT to get too excited over finding out we aren’t done with the ramifications of this event yet… He didn’t, by any happenstance, drop any hints as to what those ramifications may be? Did he, at least, say they’d be about Adolin and not about some other characters like what happened in OB?
So he RAFO the question on whether or not Maya was the reason why sprens haven’t been interested in Adolin… A RAFO can mean so many things… but it usually means one of the following: 1) I have the answer but I will not give it to you yet because *spoilers*, 2) I haven’t decided yet. In this case, I’d say it is the later and not the former, though there is no way to know if it is a “yes” or a “no”…
Recently on netflix “Latin History for Morons” has aired. It is a very interesting and funny show that I feel is very informative on prejudice and growing up as a minority in the United States. I do not have the exact quote but John Leguizamo said something to the effect of “if your people are invisible in the world around you, all you will feel is invisible yourself”. I think what needs to happen for individuals like Rlain, is not only to have his immediate group try to understand, but to have the society and the culture at large include him and his people. To be able to look to your leaders, and see yourself up there is a huge part of feeling accepted, feeling seen, feeling like you exist. Representation. I hope through overcoming the divide between people, and this war, in time there will be such representation, and work towards equality.
Gepeto @44 – There’s not much up from the Seattle signing yet. A guy from 17th Shard was recording, but it was going to be a LONG recording to transcribe! There were probably 250-300 people there, and I’m sure it went 6 or 7 hours. I had to leave once my team got through the line, since we had other places to go too. It will be very interesting to see what all was asked! As for the Adolin/Sadeas question… I’m looking forward to the transcription. I was taking pictures at the same time, so I couldn’t listen very attentively. I think I got right what I remembered, but I’m pretty sure he said more about it that I can’t recall.
@46: I have just checked and indeed not much has gotten out from the Seattle signing yet. It may take a while. I wish I had access to the audio, I could skim through it and find the WoB faster since I’d be looking for that one specifically (as opposed to transcribing the whole thing).
So far, this seems to be the first time someone asked about the Adolin/Sadeas narrative arc and since this was one I had issues with, especially upon my first read, I have been dying to hear what Brandon had to say on the matter. I am also very excited as it does appear, based on your recollection, the answer he gave was actually detailed and long (yeah!). The denouement was had never seemed right to me, it was such a big event in WoR and it turned out into such a wet flare in OB: hearing this may not actually be quite done really increases my level of excitement for SA4!
I asked Sanderson about Adolin a couple weeks ago. Someone suggested I can contact him on reddit and ask whatever I want. I wrote him and asked why does he hate Dalinar so much, why does he constantly hurt Dalinar in the books, and why is he the only character who face consequences for his actions while someone like Szeth, Taravangian and Adolin don’t. I wrote about Adolin specifically: he’s a murderer, who is responsible for every death of Thaylen field, he made Sadeas’s troops open for Odium’s influence (like his stupid mother did the same with Dalinar), he technically killed all those people. And he didn’t face any consequences: at the end of the book he marries a girl he loves, he gets a magic sword “just because”, Dalinar didn’t punish him, he’s a spoiled rich prince who has everything people can dream about .More – he doesn’t acknowledge he’s responsible for all deaths. This makes him extremely unsympathetic and disgusting character. Dalinar suffers and hurts constantly. So I asked “why”? Why Dalinar deserved such treatment. Sanderson’s answer was somethin among those lines: Dalinar facing consequences is a good things which put him above those three (Adolin, Szeth and T) who didn’t. That makes Dalinar a better person, because he does change and grow to become someone better. That’s what makes us humans. It’s better to hurt than live without pain. Something like that. He also wrote he finds Dalinar fascinating because of his story and he’s his favorite character (not that I believe him. I don’t get why he treats his favorite character like he does). That among all SA characters Dalinar is the most moral and decent individual. As for Adolin, he didn’t deny he’s responsible for Thaylen battle and deaths of Sadeas soldiers. He did say Adolin didn’t face consequences yet so it may change. I hope Dalinar will execute this little shit.
As for Q&A Alice mentioned, it’s nearly audible. Sanderson said we there were full implications which means this story is over. Sad because Adolin must suffer for what he did. Of course, he is Sanderson’s favorite Mary Sue who avoids everything magically just because “daddy decided so”.
Gepeto, how come Dalinar gets to decide what is right and wrong???
Sanderson did answer your question. According to him, Dalinar is the most decent person within the cast.
@48: I wrote a very long post in answer to this but I have decided not to post it.
I will merely say, if someone from Brandon’s team read this, it truly hurts to find out an individual known for his aggressive behavior and his personal attacks has seen his personal message answered when countless of other readers didn’t get the same opportunity. I didn’t get the same opportunity as my own personal messages were left unanswered.
I will not comment on the rest. Needless to my emotional state is currently complete mayhem.
I hope you have enjoyed crushing the small glimmer of hope I had of having a nice Adolin, this little piece of shit as you call him, character arc (even if small) within the next book.
Once again, the conversation here is becoming overly personal in tone/scope. Comment Review is now on–please keep the discussion focused on the book(s) and Sanderson’s comments, and not on fueling a hostile grudge match between competing character preferences and differing interpretations. Be civil.
@48 lordruler
A couple of things here.
First, Adolin isn’t responsible for what happens in Thaylen City. Saying he is removes the agency from all those who chose to follow the Sadeas family and fight against Dalinar’s coalition. Blaming him for helping open them up to Odium’s influence ignores the fact that it is Odium who is doing the influencing, not Adolin. Treating Adolin as a cause of everything that happens after he kills Sadeas is like the saying “For want of a nail, the war was lost”. Plus, Sadeas probably would have done all that in any case if he had lived.
Second, having talked and listened to a lot of authors over the years, what they do to their characters has nothing to do with how they feel about them. It is about writing a good story. I’ve heard one say that they plot stories based on figuring out what screws with the character the most and then watching how they get out of that trap. Another said it was necessary to kill someone’s wife because watching a life of domestic bliss is boring from a narrative standpoint (where conflict drives plot and change). What they love in the characters is how they adapt and overcome the obstacles thrown at them.
So personally, kinda tired of every week being a “who gets more hate, who has things worse” grudge match between Adolin and Dalinar. Kinda want to talk about the actual chapter, in this case about the prejudice Rlain is dealing with. So I opened my profile to messaging. Anyone want to continue that conversation, feel free to message me.
Lordruler – I’m not sure you’re referencing the same thing I am about Adolin and consequences. Mine is from Saturday, Nov. 10.
Gepeto @49 – I wouldn’t place too much emphasis on what’s paraphrased @48 in terms of letting your hopes be crushed; it’s very much open to interpretation. The next book isn’t written yet.
I would prefer to see the verbatim response instead of the paraphrase, though; things are too easily affected by individual views and expectations. (This is, of course, why I cautioned that we need to wait for the transcription of what I overheard. I no longer have the eidetic memory I once did, and I was distracted by my own task at the time.)
@49: Yeah, well, I may have gotten excited too fast… If it is indeed impossible to transcript the WoB, then we might never get the exact wording. Still, Brandon has warned us repetitively how WoB can be treacherous as readers tend to misinterpret them or get the wrong idea or paraphrased them wrong. This older WoB on Radiants which got many readers believe Brandon had confirmed Adolin as a Radiant (he later confirmed he didn’t) is a good example of how those can be misinterpreted.
Anyway, it was too good to be true. I shouldn’t have gotten so happy about it. I’ll keep my eyes open for the transcript, if they can do it, but I don’t want to get back to where I once was. It would just have been nice if it were true as this would have been something I would have been very interested in reading.
@38 RogerPavelle
About why Kaladin needs to explain what happened with Moash– it is because the assassination plot turned out to be a wider conspiracy, and Graves let on that they were supposed to be distracting Kaladin while the Assassin in White went after Dalinar. Moash did not know about the bigger conspiracy, but Kaladin doesn’t know that Moash didn’t know. However, I do see your point, though, and appreciated your bridge pun.
Anyhoo, back to Rlain. Everyone has convinced me that Rlain should be a Bondsmith. At the end of the chapter Rlain is willing to open up and try to explain how he feels to someone who listens, so there is the potential there for him to continue to try, and be a much needed voice for the Listeners. There is Venli, too, but I would like to see a Parsh Bondsmith, because of the extra power and influence they have.
How should Kaladin know anything about Graves and his plans? If he knew about the Diagram, he would be suspicious of Taravangian.
Kaladin doesn’t know anything about King Crazypants, although Graves does mention the Diagram. In WoR near the end, during the assassination attempt on Elhokar after Kaladin goes all Knight Radiant-y on Graves and Moash, Graves splutters about how they were so focused on separating Kaladin from Dalinar that they overlooked this outcome (though the Diagram had foreseen the possibility). Syl then has the same weird sense she had from the last time the Assassin in White was on his way to kill Dalinar. Kaladin puts the pieces together and flies off to save the day.
I don’t think there is enough for Kaladin to think the word “Diagram” is something of major importance, but there is definitely enough for him to know this was bigger than a small group disgruntled with only Elhokar.
@55: Alice, I just got the transcript from the WoB you mentioned. Here it is:
*****
Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
It kind of felt like you let Adolin off the hook for murder.
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
I would say no, I didn’t. There will be more implications there, but what you’ve gotta understand is, Adolin does not view what he did as murder. His dad is uncertain if it is. And his dad is the ultimate judge of legality. There will be far-reaching implications of this, but kind of the way a society like that works, if you didn’t get caught and you are the son of the king, then you get a little… you know what I mean?
Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]
Is it yet to be resolved?
Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]
Yet to have the full extent of its implications, how about that? I would say that you are perfectly right if you were to say he did something morally wrong. There are many who would agree with you; there are many who would disagree with you. And that disagreement is part of what the story is about.
******
So all in all pretty much in accordance to your recollection. What it means for the future though is really uncertain. The far-reaching implications he mentioned may have nothing to do with Adolin as a character so while Brandon considers he hasn’t let Adolin off the hook, unless there are consequences for him within future books, I would argue he indeed did. Still, given readers haven’t read any future books yet, I wonder what prompt him to say he didn’t let Adolin off the hook. That was one odd response, at least, it was odd as far as I am concerned.
@80 Gepeto
Thanks for posting that. That really makes me think back to Jasnah’s “lesson” to Shallan in TWoK, where she kills the thieves. Of course, her targets were lowborn, and it is likely the law would have agreed with her right to defend herself. Adolin”s target though is someone who is above the law. Sadeas tried to kill Adolin and Dalinar along with the Kholin army, and managed to get several thousand men killed, and Sadeas promises to keep trying more of the same, so he is an active threat. What does one do when someone is above the law? Kaladin has a similar problem with Amaram and Elhokar, and Moash with Elhokar. It does make an interesting question about the morals of vigilante justice,
I think this WoB also serves to illustrate how the Alethi legal apparel is neither fair nor just as consequences for one’s actions are being dispensed based on the free-will of the instance possessing all authority. Hence, Amaram, being an enemy of the Kholin household and having done ill to Kaladin, a friend and ally of the household, isn’t allowed any leeway for his actions (and he shouldn’t), but Adolin, guilty of murder, is allowed to roam free of consequences merely for being Dalinar’s son (and he shouldn’t).
In other words, what Dalinar says or thinks is Law.
Adolin gets off the hook internally because he doesn’t believe what he did is murder (though now I wonder why he refers to it as murder so often within his own narrative). He also gets off the hook externally because Dalinar will not enforce any consequences on him and there is just no one else to do so. No one ranks higher than Dalinar except perhaps Jasnah, now she is Queen, but I suspect she’ll agree with Dalinar here and let it pass.
What bothers me in the answer is Brandon saying he didn’t think he let Adolin off the hook… Well… Yeah. He did. He says there are no consequences both because of Adolin’s position within society and because the character isn’t thinking he did a bad thing. So how isn’t this “getting off the hook”? I just don’t get it.
So while yes Adolin is in a position where Sadeas stands above the law which prompts him to take the matters into his own hands, much like Moash and Kaladin, he does so while knowing he too stands above the law… Like Jasnah who knows she can get away with murdering the thugs she killed even if technically her mental processing isn’t entirely… lawful. It sits right here on the border, but this matters not: Jasnah stands above any accusations providing one can even prove anything at all.
On the matter of Adolin if there is no one having the will nor the capacity to enforce consequences on him, then yeah, Brandon has indeed made him get off the hook. The future ramifications he mentioned will likely play within this theme: those who wish to transform Alethkar into a state of law. This will likely play out from either Szeth, Jasnah or Dalinar’s viewpoint, certainly not Adolin. The far-reaching implications will likely have to do to prevent events such as this one to repeat itself, not in getting Adolin to face the music.
That’s a shame. Just like there perhaps were too many death/revival within WoR, there might have been too many characters getting away with murder in OB. My feelings are Adolin was the one character readers weren’t willing to see walk away unscathed for what he did. He was the one too many, IMHO.
I hope I am wrong with my predictions as I truly have wished for this narrative to have an emotional pay-off for Adolin’s character. So far, I can’t say it did.
Just my thoughts anyway.