Good day (or night depending on your time zone), faithful rereaders! Welcome back to Roshar for a… well, I was going to say “a very special episode of the Oathbringer Reread,” but let’s be honest, there’s nothing too terribly special going on in this chapter, unless you count parental abandonment “special.” We’ll be doing a bit of theorizing about the Thrill as well as lots of discussion about the Kholin family dynamics, so roll up your sleeves and prepare those comments as we dive in.
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread. There are no broader Cosmere spoilers in this particular article, but if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Dalinar (flashback)
WHERE: Somewhere along the southern part of the Alethi-Veden border
WHEN: 1155, eighteen and a half years ago
Dalinar is returning to camp, exhausted after a long battle, when he hears an unexpected voice. Evi has come to visit after not having heard from him in a long time, and she’s brought both of his sons along—Adolin, who is old enough to talk, and little Renarin, whom Dalinar hasn’t even met.
The Singing Storm
Title: After His Father
“Re,” Evi said. “From my language. Nar, after his father. In, to be born unto.”
AA: The title quotation comes from Evi’s explanation of Renarin’s name; poor girl, she tried to make a good Alethi name. In context, though, Adolin is the one who takes after his father. His toy sword, his salute, his desire to win his own Shardblade, all show a child who wants to be like Dad.
Heralds
The sole Herald for this chapter is Talenel: Herald of War, Soldier, patron of Stonewards, with the divine attributes of Dependable and Resourceful.
AA: We need look no further than the first two titles to understand why he’s here; this chapter is about Dalinar as the soldier, and little Adolin who wants to be one. We could throw in “Resourceful” too, given Dalinar’s thoughts about the resources and planning that go into a successful military campaign.
Icon
Kholin Shield, Inverse—reflecting a flashback chapter
Stories & Songs
In fact, through his exhaustion, he was surprised to find that he could sense [the Thrill] still. Deep down, like the warmth of a rock that had known a recent fire.
AA: Such a cozy description of such a hostile entity. ::sighs::
Let’s look at the odd behavior of the Thrill here. Previously, we’ve seen Dalinar actively try to bring on the Thrill, and it dissipates soon after the fighting is over. This time, the fighting is long done, he’s exhausted, his Shardplate is removed, he’s resting… and it’s still there. Not raging, but still there, still connected to him.
That was Evi.
He leapt to his feet. The Thrill surged again within him, drawn out of its own slumber.
AA: Still connected, though he’s now dozing after receiving reports. Did it surge because of Dalinar’s adrenaline rush, or is it reacting directly to Evi? I assume the former, but I’m not 100% convinced. In any case, I think the Thrill is partially responsible for the way he roars at her.
AP: I’m not sure that the Thrill is entirely to blame here. Evi cringes away from Dalinar when she enters the tent, which indicates to me that this is perhaps something she is used to dealing with.
AA: Not entirely, sure, but the way it was described as “surging” makes me think that his reaction is Thrill-enhanced. (I don’t know about you, but I’d cringe away if my husband started roaring at me—not “because I’m used to it” but because it never happens and it would freak me out.) Not that it matters; it’s Dalinar’s lack of self-control either way.
He stood up, feeling … what? … The Thrill, still squirming deep down. How had it not dissipated since the battle?
AA: Still here—after a long conversation, a backrub, and a walk across the camp. Dalinar himself is surprised by it—and I don’t ever recall anyone thinking of the Thrill as “squirming.” That’s bizarre—and I wonder if it’s a reminder to the reader, and perhaps a hint to Dalinar, that it’s an actual entity rather than just a sensation.
Dalinar smiled, then stood up and dismissed Oathbringer. The last embers of the Thrill finally faded.
AA: That took a long time. Why? What is the significance? Why is it different? What has changed? It’s possible that this is coincidentally where Odium decided to set the hook, to form a deeper bond between Dalinar and Nergaoul; within the plot, I can’t think of any other reason. As a literary device, this is obviously setting us up for the way the Thrill stays with Dalinar throughout the Rathalas ambush and battle, since it would be awkwardly convenient to have that be the first time it stays with him for an extended time.
L: I wonder if it’s because he’s physically closer to the Unmade’s “body.” Proximity must play some part in the Thrill, right?
AP: I had the same thoughts about proximity.
AA: It could be. We had evidence from multiple perspectives that it was getting harder to trigger out on the Shattered Plains, and then in WoR we learned that it had flared in Jah Keved during their civil war. Taravangian was convinced that it was a matter of proximity of the Unmade, and thought that it had moved from the Shattered Plains to Vedenar. That wouldn’t be relevant eighteen years ago, though. So… maybe?
Relationships & Romances
This was his warcamp—here he was the Blackthorn. This was the place where his domestic life should have no purchase on him! By coming here, she invaded that.
L: This makes me so angry. It’s like the concept of the “man-cave”—a place where a man can “escape” from domestic life of wife and children. But in so doing, it’s implied that the woman continues to bear the burden she has all along anyway. She gets to clean the house and raise the children and cook the food, and that’s precisely what’s happening with Evi, here. Dalinar gets to go out and be “free” while she stays home to do the work that they should be doing together.
Okay, so… I admit I’m looking at this from a very modern feminist perspective. This isn’t how society would expect things to work in Alethkar, so it’s not really fair to judge Dalinar based on expectations that are entirely outside the norm of his society.
It still grinds my gears, though.
AP: Actually, I think that’s totally valid. He is choosing not to follow Alethi tradition, which would be to bring Evi with him. Even by Alethi standards he’s being a selfish jerk here. Evi’s rightful place is to be in the warcamp acting as a scribe and administrator. He’s not upholding his end of the deal.
AA: Alethi standards wouldn’t call this “selfish,” though. More like “stupid”—because by not having his wife there, he has to rely on other women for things that his wife would normally do. I’m not saying it’s not selfish; just that the Alethi wouldn’t call it that. Here’s his reason in his own words, though:
It would be good to have a wife with him, to scribe as was proper. He just wished that he didn’t feel so guilty at seeing her. He was not the man she wanted him to be.
AA: It’s guilt. He avoids her because of his own insecurity, not because he actually dislikes her. In a way, it’s selfish—in that he doesn’t feel so guilty about not living up to higher ideals, if she’s not there to remind him.
L: Okay, that’s a good point, though I don’t think it’s all guilt.
AP: Why not both? His affront at Evi invading his space is selfish, and he does, in his better moments, feel guilt that he’s not being the person he should be.
AA: Along with insecurity, guilt, and/or selfishness, I doubt it occurred to him that she’d want to be there instead of comfortably at home. She’s not Alethi by birth, and she’s built along much more delicate lines than Alethi women—both physically and emotionally. Toh certainly doesn’t want to be out there on the battlefield (which is a good thing), and Dalinar could readily assume that Evi doesn’t want to either. That’s a big part of Dalinar’s problem with Evi: he rarely thinks about what anyone else might want, except Gavilar. Or Navani, of course.
L: Empathy is most certainly not Dalinar’s strong point. Come to think of it, even present-day-Dalinar isn’t really terribly empathic. He cares about other people, yes, but… does he ever really put himself into their place in order to try to understand them? I can’t think of an instance in which he did. (This isn’t necessarily a critique so much as an observation of his character.)
AA: The single example that comes to mind is a few flashbacks ago when he was angry at Gavilar for ignoring Navani’s excitement about her researches.
“Navani said I should come,” Evi said, “She said it was shameful that you have waited so long between visits.”
AP: Good job, Navani! I think this highlights that even without bringing modern ideas of feminism Dalinar isn’t behaving appropriately here. He didn’t even respond to name his son.
AA: Their early interactions were awful, but from what she’s said in the main timeframe, it’s possible that by now Navani has come to like Evi, or at least wish her well. That said, I still look with suspicion at anything Navani (or worse, Ialai) recommends to Evi. I’m never confident that they’re telling her the whole truth. Did she really think Evi should go, or did she just think it would be a good joke?
AP: Hmm, I’m the opposite. Narratively I trust Navani much more than Dalinar.
L: I’m with Alice on this one, I absolutely don’t trust past!Navani.
“Renarin?” Dalinar said, trying to work out the name. “Rekher… no, Re…”
“Re,” Evi said. “From my language. Nar, after his father. In, to be born unto.”
AP: I like the different takes on Renarin’s name between Dalinar & Evi’s culture. To Evi, she has named him “Re, born unto (Dali)Nar”. From Dalinar’s perspective it’s “Like one who was born unto himself,” which does suit the young man he grows up to be, not really fitting into Alethi society. I hope to see Renarin forge more of his own path.
AA: As noted above, Evi stepped outside her own culture to come up with an Alethi name for Renarin. Rirans seem to have simple names, if Evi and Toh are any indication. (Ym, the Iriali shoemaker, has an even simpler name.) I wonder if she explained her reasoning to Navani and got her approval, or if she just did her best on her own.
“And little Renarin has never even met his father.”
L: It absolutely kills me that Dalinar has never met him. It explains so much about poor Renarin and how he views himself.
AA: Well, he’s only about a year old, so this wouldn’t affect their later relationship—or it wouldn’t, if Dalinar had chosen to handle it differently from here on out.
L: True. IF he’d chosen to. ::eyeroll::
“You didn’t answer,” Evi pointed out, “when I asked after a name via spanreed.”
How had Navani and Ialai allowed this travesty of a name?
L: Way to completely sidestep the question of blame at hand here, Dalinar. Why didn’t you find time to answer your wife’s messages?
AA: This (and the previous) was where I got mad, especially when combined with Dalinar’s earlier thought that he had “several letters from Evi that Teleb’s wife had read to him, with several more waiting to be read.” Not only has he lost track of the time since he was home, he hasn’t bothered to listen to multiple letters from his wife. Evi specifically says Adolin hasn’t seen his father in “over a year,” and Renarin is old enough to be walking. Has Dalinar been back to Kholinar since Renarin was conceived? Obviously he was aware that he had a second child, but that seems to be the extent of it.
“I wish to be a more Alethi wife. I want you to want me to be with you.”
AP: Oh Evi, this is heartbreaking.
L: I know, it’s so sad! It sucks because she deserves so much better. She deserves the man Dalinar becomes, but he could never become that without her loss. Which… huh. I hadn’t really thought of it in these terms before now, but… Evi’s pretty much the definition of a fridged woman, isn’t she? (Warning, that was a TV Tropes link, enter at your own risk.) In case you’re unfamiliar with the term and don’t want to fall down the TV Tropes rabbit hole, a “fridged” woman is a character whose only role in the story is to die (or be horrifically maimed) in order to inspire the protagonist. It’s considered problematic because of just how prevalent it is, and how overwhelmingly it’s women who are the ones to die for no purpose other than to spur someone else on to greatness.
AP: Oh absolutely, Evi’s whole part in the narrative is really sad. And even after everything, Dalinar didn’t really love her, and part of his guilt later is that he got a lot of credit for mourning his wife so deeply, when really he just couldn’t remember. It’s nothing like what he has with Navani, who has her own role in the narrative apart from her relationship with Dalinar. Sanderson has had a fair amount of criticism for how he wrote women earlier in his career, and thankfully most of the women in Stormlight Archive have their own agency, but I do feel like he failed Evi.
L: At least he has other women in the story with agency, who aren’t cardboard cutouts of tropes. I think fridging is marginally more acceptable when there’s a more gender-balanced main cast, but that’s my personal opinion on the matter.
AA: I don’t think Sanderson failed Evi at all. While her primary role (which we only see in flashbacks, mind you) was to set up Dalinar’s trip to the Nightwatcher etc., she was a woman who made her own decisions. We don’t yet know why she and Toh decided to run away with her Shardplate, but they left their home and traveled across the continent looking for sanctuary. Beyond that, IMO she did far more than just “die to inspire Dalinar.” She gave him a different perspective on the world, she framed the character of their sons, and in significant ways she shaped his character, even before her death. Ultimately, she made her own choice to do something she knew Dalinar would hate, when she went to Talanor to try to convince him to surrender. While she couldn’t know whether Talanor would offer parley nor whether Dalinar would accept it, it was her own independent choice to take the risk and go. She died for her decision. Yes, Dalinar did have a significant character shift as a result, but I see Evi as much more than a “fridged woman” trope. Personally.
AP: The point is that none of that is shown. We only have Evi as she exists from Dalinar’s, and Adolin’s, perspectives. She literally only exists in the narrative in the memories of the men whose lives she affected. It may be that in later books we are shown her heroic/villainous actions in leaving Rira with her brother, but for now, she got fridged.
AA: Gavilar only exists in the memories of others, too. Does that make him a fridged man?
Despite his harsh words, she unbuckled the top of his gambeson to get her hands under it, and began rubbing his shoulders.
It felt wonderful. He let his anger melt away.
L: This is definitely reading between the lines because Sanderson just… doesn’t write about this stuff, but they do seem to have mutual chemistry and sexual attraction, based on this and other little (tiny) hints scattered throughout. It appears to be all they have, really, except for Dalinar’s occasional desire to be “better” for her sake.
AP: That’s a lot of reading between the lines. It could also be Evi attempting once again to be a “good” wife.
L: I can’t help it, I was an English major, my entire college career was spent picking nuances out of tiny little hints! I can’t seem to untrain myself.
AP: Which is funny, because I do the same thing, but what I get from Evi are abused spouse vibes. She tries really hard to make Dalinar happy, without understanding what that really means to the Alethi.
L: That’s a completely fair reading of the situation as well. It could go either way, honestly, though basing it solely on textual clues I’d lean more towards your analysis. I’m tin-foil-hatting it.
AA: Well, I’ll disagree with you both, then. I think there are a number of indications that, while theirs is far from a perfect marriage relationship, they do care for each other in a meaningful way. Dalinar is really, really bad at understanding his foreign wife, and Evi is wildly out of her element among these aggressive Alethi, but they do care about one another.
There’s always been a physical attraction on Dalinar’s part; that was one of the first things he remembered when things started coming back. We should also not forget “So long as he could be a hero to this woman.” Her opinion of him, then and now, matters to Dalinar; he just doesn’t know how to balance his addiction to the Thrill, his duty to his brother, his innate enjoyment of battle, and his desire to please his wife. Sadly, the last one has the least leverage, since the first three team up so well against it.
As for Evi, of course she struggles to understand how to be a “good wife” to this Alethi berserker. You don’t simply abandon everything you ever learned because you move to another country; however much you consciously try to comprehend and emulate the culture you enter, there will always be assumptions and expectations that you don’t even think about until there’s a conflict. At this point, they’d only met about seven years ago, and have been married for six. (Correction: I’m not sure where my maths went, but they had met about twelve years ago, and have been married for about seven.) I don’t know about you two, but when I’d been married for six seven years, I had a lot left to learn about my husband, myself, and marriage in general. (For that matter, at 31 years I still have a lot left to learn.)
Which of those three views Sanderson had in mind, we don’t know and he probably won’t tell us. He seems to like letting us interpret these things as we choose. But I’m standing by my interpretation.
AP: Caring for each other and actually having chemistry are not the same. And you can care for your spouse and still fall into abusive patterns of behavior. It’s nothing like the relationship he is shown to have with Navani later where I do think there is a deeper fondness and mutual respect as well as physical attraction. Dalinar and Evi are a poor match.
[Adolin] got down safely, walked over.
And saluted.
L: My heart.
“He asked the best way to talk to you,” she whispered. “I told him you were a general, the leader of all the soldiers. He came up with that on his own.”
L: Sweet little Adolin, wanting to connect to his father so very badly, even this young!
AP: It’s telling that even at a very young age Adolin is able to connect to his father in a way that Evi can’t.
AA: I’m destined for the role of contrarian this week; it’s becoming comical. I think this moment is incredibly cute and all, but I still retain my first reaction to this scene. Dalinar seems nonplussed, and Evi is delighted by Adolin’s precociousness, but I can’t help thinking this is not a healthy greeting from a five-year-old who hasn’t seen his father for over a year.
L: In our society, no. But in Alethi society, where war is so predominant and soldiers are viewed as heroes?
Dalinar waited for the excitement he’d felt before, upon meeting Adolin for the first time… but storms, he was just so tired.
L: Poor Renarin. Always second, always overlooked, always on the outside. I’m so glad that he has Adolin for a brother, because at least he cares about Renarin instead of ignoring or bullying him like most older brothers in stories like this would do.
AP: Agreed, I very much like reading about their relationship.
AA: Yay! I get to agree!
“I’ll win you one in war, son.”
“No,” Adolin said, chin up. “I want to win my own. Like you did.”
L: He so wants to emulate his father—like most children do.
Bruised & Broken
Out here, he had a reward. At the end of all the planning, the strategy, and the debates with generals, came the Thrill.
AP: Dalinar is as much of a junkie as Teft, but he doesn’t realize it.
L: Not yet, anyway.
Places & Peoples
He’d crushed the Herdazians—sending them back to start a civil war, securing the Alethi lands to the north and claiming the island of Akak.
AP: Poor Herdazians. :( But also, this fits with Lopen’s family leaving Herdaz and settling in Alethkar when he was a baby. I hadn’t made the connection that it was Dalinar’s fault.
L: Well, Lopen certainly doesn’t seem to hold it against him.
The land here was lush compared to Kholinar. The thick grass was broken by sturdy stands of trees, and tangled vines draped the western cliff faces.
AA: There’s nothing hugely significant about this, other than that as you go west, vegetation flourishes. After spending most of the first two books on the Shattered Plains, and much of Oathbringer in Urithiru, it’s good to remember that not all of the planet is stark and inhospitable.
Meaningful/Moronic/Mundane Motivations
… he no longer had Gavilar to do the hard parts of this job. Dalinar had camps to supply, men to feed, and logistics to work out.
AA: Dalinar has matured. He used to be impatient with Gavilar, Sadeas, and their planning, and delighted in going rogue on them. Now he’s doing the planning. I like the change in him—but even more, I like the fact that Sanderson deals with it. Logistics as a discipline just isn’t sexy; many authors ignore it unless they need to justify an otherwise stupid delay in the timeline. That bugs me, so I’m glad to see it addressed. Also, Dalinar only has one Soulcaster, which he must reserve for emergencies instead of treating it as an infinite bag of food-holding, and it makes sense. In the “future,” the army took many of the kingdom’s Soulcasters to the Shattered Plains; this far back, though, Gavilar wouldn’t have had many, and couldn’t afford to risk them in border skirmishes.
“Could you not…let them surrender to you?”
AP: Oh Evi, you really don’t understand war. I wanted to include this because of how well it foreshadows what happens later in the Rift.
L: It’s actually really endearing to me how naive she is. Would that life could be that simple, you poor innocent child.
“I remember you. We talk about you every night when we burn prayers. So you will be safe. Fighting bad men.”
AA: I’m going to copy in my beta reaction to this: “Awww. Aside from being cute from Adolin, I love that Evi is teaching her sons to love and remember their father, and to think of him as a hero and a great general, even when on a personal level he’s being a pig to her. I really, really like Evi, and I’m going to ugly-cry all over the where, when she dies. You have been Warned.”
I did, of course. This also foreshadows a later flashback (Ch. 94), when Dalinar rails to himself over “how many lies about him [she had] stuffed into their heads,” only to find out that she’d done just the opposite of what he expected. She’d taught them, indeed, that he was “The only honest officer in the army, the honorable soldier. Noble, like the Heralds themselves. Our father. The greatest man in Alethkar.” Well, okay, maybe she had stuffed lies about him into their heads—but not the ones he thought.
Quality Quotations
The breastplate was cracked along the left side, and the armorers buzzed, discussing the repair. As if they had to do something other than merely give the Plate Stormlight and let it regrow itself.
AA: As if.
He’d somehow assembled “armor” from strings and bits of broken rockbud shell.
AA: Awww. We get to see his early interest in both fashion and fighting. Go, tiny Adolin!
… The boy spoke clearly—and dramatically—as he described his fallen enemies. They were, apparently, evil flying chulls.
AA: I love this child. Also, when do we get to see the legendary evil flying chulls?
L: Closest I can get, though FAR from evil.
AP: Voidbringers covered in carapace?
L: Oh shit, Aubree going for the serious foreshadowing while I go for silly memes. Well done.
Okay, we’ll stop arguing now, and let y’all take over in the comments. Just be sure to argue with the opinions and not attack the people, mmmm-kay? Thanks!
In case you missed it, earlier this week we posted the 1000th-member-celebration questions Brandon answered for the Storm Cellar. It’s at comment #105 in the Chapter 50 & 51 reread. Some interesting stuff there…
Looking ahead to next week, we’ll be reading Chapter 53, joining Jasnah and a flock of scholars, stormwardens, Radiants, and a few oddballs in the basement library again. Confrontations and discoveries, ahoy!
Alice has one small bit of advice for you from a friend’s recent winetasting: “Never yuk on someone else’s yum.” Take it to heart, for it is deep and profound, and tastes good with ketchup. (Oh, oops, that’s about meddling in the affairs of evil flying chulls, isn’t it? Something like that. Sorry.)
Lyndsey finally has a working outline for her NaNoWriMo novel, and not a moment too storming soon. If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
Aubree is. Or is not. Best not open the box to check.
Ah I love this chapter…. Probably one of my favorite too. How many times have I said this already? Well, it is especially true this week. I need to share an anecdote. Prior to starting reading OB, a friend managed to put his hand on a list of the chapter titles and he showed me those he thought might interest me. On the top of the list was the “After his Father” chapter which we both thought HAD to be about Adolin…. I felt so heart-warmed when this turned out being the right guess!
So yeah, this week, I’m with Lyndsey. Young Dalinar is selfish. He always thinks about just himself, about what he wants, about what he needs and never bothers with other people except perhaps Gavilar and Navani, but Evi? Adolin? Renarin? They are way down within his list of priorities and the way I am interpreting the present-day narrative, the boys still are way down his list of priorities.
Dalinar Kholin is a man who failed to prioritize his family. He speaks of feeling guilty for it, but he never tries to correct the behavior, not fully, and when he does try, he only does so grudgingly because he believes he is forced to do so.
And re-yeah, him wanting Evi to be far, far away from him, taking care of domestic life was about the worst commentary he’s ever had. Talk about being selfish, even by Alethi standards.
And re-re-yeah, Dalinar is not an empathic man which isn’t to say he does not care about the “faith of the world”, but the life of the individuals evolving within this world never mattered more to him. He never bothered, even in his more honorable present-day version, to try to understand how others may feel about events, especially not his sons. His complete lack of concerns over what the Desolation, the Radiant powers (or lack of in Adolin’s case), and the truth about his past might do to his sons emotional stability is palpable.
Dalinar is not a man who cares about what you’d want him to care about, at least for me.
So team Lyndsey for me this week.
This being said, I am team Alice for not trusting past Navani.
And re-re-re-yeah, this chapter definitely illustrates my complains on Dalinar’s parenting. He ignored his sons. He didn’t bother with Renarin’s birth, which is downright awful, but let’s not forget he also didn’t bother with Adolin. Little Adolin who does not remember what his father looks like! He’s 4 and he can’t even tell who is daddy is amidst a group of people: this is terrible! Given by the “last time he saw Adolin he could barely talk” and now “he talks fluently”, I’d say Dalinar hasn’t seen Adolin in at least a whole year and a half. The boy is four and half here, he would have been 3 or even less last time his father sees him which works with the “toddler” depiction Adolin gets.
I am team Aubrey however in saying Dalinar never really loved Evi. Nope, I never felt the love, I felt guilt for how she died, but he certainly never missed her. It just so does not help me, as a reader, to feel sympathy for a man who gets loads of sympathy for “mourning” the wife he never loved and accidentally killed through one of his blood lust. Argh. And I need to point out while Dalinar remembers physical attraction (sex), he does not remember love (feelings). So yeah, he thought his wife was pretty and he liked getting under the cover with her, but I stick with Aubrey here, he did not love her. People do not need to love to enjoy the act.
This being said, I think Evi also exists for Adolin’s shake. Was I the only one who noted the numerous wink to Adolin’s Riran heritage in OB? I do not believe Brandon plucked those in for no valid reasons: one of her sons takes after her and it isn’t quiet, solemn Renarin.
And my heart stopped with Lindsey when little Adolin, my little Adolin (it doesn’t help my own son was exactly Adolin’s age when I first read the book), just salutes his father… Oh the poor child. I agree with Alice: this is not a healthy greeting. This one chapter completely fleshes out the Dalinar/Adolin relationship and how unhealthy it is. Would MY five years old great his daddy like little Adolin does here? NEVER.
I wish the Adolin/Renarin relationship was more fleshed out. They care about each other, but I wish to see… more.
On Adolin wanting to win his own Shardblade and not taking one his father would win for him followed by Dalinar saying: “Sometimes, you need to accept help”: This might have been the first smart thing young Dalinar says in book. I alway thought this one was foreshadowing for Adolin to eventually NEED to accept help, at some point. He always wants to do everything by himself, never asking for help, never emotionally processing events, always being strong…. What if his character growth passes through him accepting, sometimes, it is OK to not be strong and to accept a hand which is being offered?
I however have to disagree with Alice on how great it is Evi told her sons their father was an amazing man… All I can see is how Adolin’s worships his father, how much harm it is causing him and I wonder if the blunt truth might not have been preferable. I read a quick fanfic yesterday of Adolin learning the truth about Evi’s death: he punches Dalinar and walks out angry. OK. Not going to happen in the book, but it shows I am certainly not the only one who thinks the whole Dalinar/Adolin relationship needs to break down if it ever stands a chance of becoming healthy again.
On the side note: Little Adolin is an energetic, imaginative and creative child. So many fanfic writers have Renarin be the who’d be interested in fantasy in an alternate AU, but this one scene tells me the opposite. Evil flying chulls. Adolin would totally dig into fantasy if he could read and didn’t have a mental blockage over it. This being said, as a reader who love Adolin, I have often wondered where the “imaginative” side of Adolin went, he’s so serious in OB, he’s trying to hard to be exactly like Dalinar, I fear he has forgotten who he really is and who he is, is this boy. The one scene where we see the real Adolin, almost free from Dalinar’s influence
Very interesting and touches on our discussion of Dalinar’s failings as a parent. I don’t share the suspicions of Navani’s motives – back in WoK she told Dalinar that she grew to like Evi, and I believe her. Certainly, there was great fondness between her and Adolin from the very first chapter when we got his PoV. I trust her opinion on Dalinar’s prolongued absence being “shameful” even by Alethi measure. Not to mention his lack of input concerning his second son’s name.
Also, I think that this is the first time that we have heard about a spanreed in the flashbacks? It seems that fabrial science revolution is in full swing indeed. And since Alethkar seemed to be the center of it, I can’t help but wonder how it’s current occupation will affect things. Sure, the Shattered Plains mutated into the polititical center, but there was probably still a lot of research being done in various temples of the ardentia and in the capitals. And fabrials are one of the few advantages that anti-Odium copalition currently has – hopefully, the Fused and Co. won’t catch up to it in time to coopt the artifabrians among their captives.
Another thing that fascinates me are the Alethi – or maybe general Vorin? naming conventions and meaning of the names of the characters. Here were learned that “-nar” means “like” and very much want to know the meaning of “Gavilar”. I am also very much surprised that the word for “strength”, which I don’t remember, but which we know from translation of the First Ideal Glyphs isn’t very popular in Alethi naming patterns.
I think Evi being fridged would sit less well with me if not for the huge amount of characters of both genders whose deaths motivate our main cast.
Kaladin, Lift, etc.
Definitely an interesting chapter. I’ll be back later, but two quick comments:
1. I’m honestly a bit shocked that there’s criticism about Sanderson’s “early” women characters? Who were the specific names mentioned, because I thought he did a fantastic job with so many of them. Granted I’m male, so my viewpoint is very different and I obviously won’t see the same things, but I though Vin, Shai, Vivienna and Siri were great characters. Maybe Sarene in Elantris was the one, but still.
2. I think we can give Dalinar a bit of slack about empathy. How many people are truly empathetic, let alone the Alethi? Even among our favorites – Adolin wasn’t empathetic to Kaladin back when they first met, complaining about “bridgeboy.” Shallan to Renarin. I’m not excusing Dalinar’s behavior, but his poor treatment of her didn’t stem because he’s not empathetic enough. He was a worse person. As for his empathy now, he’s already put himself in the other rulers’ shoes. He doesn’t really have time to worry about the feelings of others who don’t matter as much.
Evi died because she chose to risk her life trying to make peace. That’s not “fridging”.
Authors need to be willing to kill characters when it fits the tone of the story and the needs of the plot. Some of those characters will die because of the choices they made, while others will die because of the choices of the people around them.
Evi was a woman who accepted many of the traditions and limits society placed on her. She spent most of her life raising her children and trying to build a better relationship with her husband. At the end, she endangered herself in an attempt to save complete strangers, a heroic effort that only failed because her husband was a murder addict.
Women are allowed to die in stories, and other characters will realistically have an emotional response to their deaths.
Does anybody else think of this song when reading Dalinar’s flashbacks? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPlsqo2bk2M
Half or more of the people Kaladin meets in his life are ultimately fridged for his character development. The vast majority male.
@7 John
We should probably stop using the word “fridging” to describe every character death that another character considers meaningful. People die, and their deaths change the people around them. That’s true in life as well as fiction.
Lyndsey. Men are not the only ones with an exclusive sanctuary. Some women develop their own “she-room”.
I wonder what Evi would have thought of post Nightwatcher Dalinar. Would she have been pleased with the man he became? if her spirit could talk to present day Dalinar, what would she say? One thing I think she would say was that she was happy that Dalinar found love again. Evi does not strike me as the type of person who would hold a grudge or wish unhappiness on somebody.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@8 – True. But the difference being that “fridged” is a character only exists in order to serve the storyline of the main character. They basically have no agency of their own in the story. Tien, IMO, is pretty much the definition of “fridged.” His sole purpose in the story is to further Kaladin’s. He had no other role to play.
@10 Austin
All stories are limited by perspective. Since we see Kaladin’s perspective, our focus is on his emotional reaction to Tien’s death and the way it shapes his character. Tien had his own life, but we never got to see it.
If Kaladin had died, maybe it would be Tien seeking to protect others as his older brother sought to protect him.
I think there are legitimate complaints about “fridging”, where women always die to motivate men. I don’t think it’s a bad thing for the deaths of some characters to motivate the actions of others, since that’s true in the real world as well as storytelling. No story has room to explore the lives and agency of all its characters, and it’s okay to focus on a few, even if it means that the roles of minor characters won’t be fully explored.
@@.-@: Adolin’s initial treatment of Kaladin doesn’t originate from a lack of empathy, it originate from a lack of trust and also from looking at him from a position of privilege. He sensed Kaladin was lying to them and, as a result, he mistrusted him up until he realizes he was in the wrong. He’s also dismissive of him, at first, but we see him change his behavior as he gets to know Kaladin better.
We see Adolin strongly emphasizing with other characters on other occasions.
On the other hand, we hardly ever see Dalinar emphasizing with other people’s feelings. I think it was Shallan who put it more bluntly towards the end: Dalinar is a force of nature, he expects you to move when he says move assuming you wanted to move in the first place. I thought this summarized both young/old Dalinar quite well.
My perspective is Dalinar could/should spend more time worrying about other people’s feelings, especially his sons, but he just isn’t this kind of person. He expects to be obeyed, he expected to get what he wants just as he expects Evi to do as he says and, later, Adolin to grow up as he says he should grow up.
In a way, I felt he and Navani deserves each other: both are cold individuals who aren’t being very demonstrative of their love, who aren’t terribly empathic, both of them.
I’ve been absent from the reread for a few weeks, but I can’t miss this chapter.
IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH!!!!!
I felt whiplash from Dalinar. We go from the high of “being better” and the light that is Adolin to this… complete neglect of his children!
My first comments in the beta for the chapter were:
Dude what about being a dad?!
and:
Headdeask! Stop being a warmonger in search of the Thrill you druggie!
This is when I started to question the reality of the overall functional relationship Dalinar has with his sons. By the end of the book, I was pissed and feel the good relationship Dalinar has with is sons is totally a result of both Evi & Sanderson handwave magic.
There is an reason Evi is in the story, outside of Dalinar. It’s ALL about the amazing mother she was to her boys. She may not have seen them as lies, but she feed them so many lies and half truths to raise her boys to see their father as hero. Lies and stories that lasted them through the 5 years he was an even bigger neglectful, raging drunk ass.
Based on my childhood and teen experience – I would not be hero worshiping my father and worried about “letting him down” the way Adolin does in this book. Every time he thinks that I just …
The hero worship would have died in my teens. Mama installed in them a whole pile of … Well, in serves the plot and has them be function adults and helped sell the “Dalinar is a hero” in the early books. But it does not read a realistic to me.
I for one think that one of the unread letters is Evi asking for naming advice. And with the Alethi 500 day year, I think the last time Dalinar was in town was when Renarin was conceived.
Evi as abused spouse: I’m in the neglected camp. He’s obviously physically absent. He’s also been rather emotionally absent. Neglected is not the type of abuse that leaves physical scars. But in my experience, mental and emotional abuse take longer to heal from. Feeling like you are an unwanted and useless burden upon your spouse, is pretty harmful to your mental health.
And No, I don’t think either was behaving in “typical high-Nan Alethi fashion” of parenting. Not when the other high level ladies around are saying his behavior is “shameful.” I’m also very well aware of the Victorian era where children were seen and not heard and raised by governesses more than their parents.
My problem is the seemingly amazing relationship Dalinar now has with his adult children. There are warm fuzzies there and a ton of “don’t want to disappoint dad” – that I feel are unearned by Dalinar. I award most of those points to Evi as a mom.
@13 I agree that Dalinar was a terrible father to his sons when they were young, but I don’t think the current relationship he has with Adolin and Renarin is just handwaving.
Evi raised Adolin and Renarin to think that Dalinar is a great person and that, combined with their temperament, meant that they felt like they had to please him. We see during chapter 66 that Dalinar did spend time with Adolin during his childhood, and it’s mentioned he saw Renarin here and there, though obviously Dalinar spent a lot of time away from them. But having Dalinar’s limited attention would have just made them hungrier for it. Adolin and Renarin would make excuses for Dalinar, when Evi was alive it was, ‘father is a great soldier busy fighting’, and after the rift it was ‘father is so broken up over mother’s death’.
All of this isn’t an excuse for Dalinar’s neglect and horrible parenting. But it did mean that once they got to the shattered planes, Adolin and Renarin, who spent years starved for their father’s presence, had close access to him. And suddenly both of them had a sober father who was more concerned with listening to philosophy books read to him and implementing the old Alethi codes of war than getting drunk or being addicted to the thrill. They spent more than five years together there, before the start of WoK. Here, still, Dalinar is not a great father, but he has been spending more time with his sons. He is willing to have multiple conversations with Adolin about Adolin’s concerns re Dalinar’s visions and about trusting Sadeas, and he does acknowledge Renarin’s desire to fight and promises to get him shards.
I do think Adolin and Renarin let Dalinar off, but from their perspective, living in the present with a father who does try and makes an effort is probably much easier than remembering how Dalinar didn’t make an effort when they were children.
@14 Interesting
Gepeto @1 – “I however have to disagree with Alice on how great it is Evi told her sons their father was an amazing man… All I can see is how Adolin’s worships his father, how much harm it is causing him and I wonder if the blunt truth might not have been preferable.” Keep in mind that my statement was in context of the beta read, so I hadn’t read one word beyond the sentence to which I was responding. I thought it was courageous of her to speak well of their father to her small boys; even though she’d like to have seen some changes in his behavior toward her and them, she refused to allow any resentment to color their perception of their father. The foreshadowing comment merely notes that she continued to do this as the boys grew older, though Dalinar himself expects that she would not have; I didn’t really make that clear. As for the overall effect of what she told the boys about their father… I’m ambivalent. Let’s just say that I’m very much not a fan of one parent disparaging the other to the children; in my opinion, that often does far more damage than what we like to call “blunt truth.” I don’t know if she made the best choices or not; I stand by my admiration of her selflessness and grace.
Isilel @2 – “I don’t share the suspicions of Navani’s motives – back in WoK she told Dalinar that she grew to like Evi, and I believe her.” Oh, I believe her too – I’m just not convinced it had happened by this point, so I won’t take quotes from her at face value.
dptullos @5 – “Evi died because she chose to risk her life trying to make peace. That’s not “fridging”.” Thank you.
@several re: “fridging” – This is one of those “tropes” that makes me snarl, primarily because I think people too quickly assume that “it’s just a trope.” Every character needs motivations within a story, and a good author draws those motivations from real life. (At least if he’s trying to do realistic characters, he does.) That doesn’t make every motivation a trope – or if it does, you’re doing something deeply wrong in how you analyze literature. In any well-written story, a number of events and characters must necessarily be backdrop for the main events and characters. The fact that some writers do it badly doesn’t mean that it’s bad to do it.
Re: Dalinar being unempathetic… yes, I said that, and he is. As Lyn points out, though, that’s an observation of his nature, not a criticism of the writing. I know plenty of people who aren’t very empathetic; it’s just the way they’re built. For that matter, I’m not very empathetic, and I get irritated at people who refuse to apply logic and instead base their evaluations solely on emotion, even though I do it myself sometimes. (Hey, I never claimed to be perfect!) From an immersive perspective, I can be mad at Dalinar, and talk about how his lack of empathy made his relationship with Evi more difficult. From a literary perspective, I have to applaud the author for doing such a great job of capturing not only a realistic personality trait, but also the effect that trait has on other people in his life.
Shoshan @14 – Excellently well said!!
I agree with Braid_Tug that Dalinar himself didn’t really earn much by way of “good Daddy” points right here, and much of the credit for the boys having a positive view of him as adults goes to Evi. However, let’s not forget the culture surrounding this. Dalinar is viewed as a great general: a hero to his friends, a terror to his enemies. The Blackthorn gets a lot of well-deserved credit (or blame, depending on your viewpoint) for the unification of Alethkar. To other nations, to the recently-subjugated princedoms, and to 21st-century Western culture, the Blackthorn did a lot of despicable things while he butchered his way to victory – and to an Alethi, that’s pretty high praise. It’s not just Evi who told the boys that their father was a great man; their religion and culture reinforce it. They don’t know anything different.
On the other hand, I think Dalinar will earn himself some pretty strong “good father” points with Adolin in the next flashback (and the implications for the intervening 7-8 years), so we’ll have this discussion again.
@13: I wish you were commenting more often as I always love to read your posts. You made me also wish I had seen those beta readers discussions as I would have strongly approved of your posts with respect to Dalinar’s parenting. This week, you had me nodding in complete agreement as I was reading your post.
Dude what about being a dad?!
Ah…. I recall how, prior to OB’s release I argued over Dalinar’s parenting, I argued all was not as pretty as it seems within the Kholin family and if the Dalinar/Adolin relationship appeared healthy, upon first glance, I definitely thought it wasn’t. The few introspective lines we got from Adolin spoke of a young man having too much pressure, wanting too much to be like his father, having too many doubts with respect to his self-image for this relationship to be as “balanced” as the majority of the fandom was classifying it.
Hence, I wasn’t surprised when OB proved me right, but I was surprised at how I had under-estimated as Dalinar was a far worst father than I initially thought. So yeah, I am with you here: “How about being a dad?”. I have told this to Dalinar numerous times while reading Oathbringer and not just during the flashbacks.
This is when I started to question the reality of the overall functional relationship Dalinar has with his sons.
I questioned it from the start, though I did not pick up the problems with his relationship with Renarin. I only focused on Adolin as I felt it was far more obvious. A few weeks ago, I commented how Brandon’s chosen narrative did influence how readers were to feel towards the characters. Hence, I did think the fact we meet older honorable Dalinar first helps a majority of readers towards feeling sympathy for him whereas had we meet young Dalinar first, it might have been harder. I think it applies here too: seeing the Kholin family as a functional unit with sons loving their hero of a father so blindly did have for effect it is harder now to view it as it really is, dysfunctional.
a result of both Evi & Sanderson handwave magic.
Mostly Evi, if you ask me, but I’d love to have the opportunity to ask those questions to Brandon. Perhaps someone who’s interested in this part of the narrative could ask?
She may not have seen them as lies, but she feed them so many lies and half truths to raise her boys to see their father as hero. Lies and stories that lasted them through the 5 years he was an even bigger neglectful, raging drunk ass.
I agree. Yes, she told the boys lies because, somehow, it was more important to her the boys blindly loved their father than knowing the truth. I wish we had more insight on Evi, why did she lie to the boys? Why did she paint such a favorable portrait of a man having been nothing more than disrespectful towards her? Why?
I would not be hero worshiping my father and worried about “letting him down” the way Adolin does in this book.
I would also add being willing to die for Dalinar, thinking Dalinar’s life matters more than his own… Is it even reciprocal? Would Dalinar sacrifice himself if it means sparring Adolin’s life? I am not sure he would… still I have argued and argued how it wasn’t normal for a son to value his father’s life more than his own, it is not natural for the young to die for the old. It just doesn’t get into my head this is somewhat “natural”, “normal” and “desirable”.
Well, in serves the plot and has them be function adults and helped sell the “Dalinar is a hero” in the early books. But it does not read a realistic to me.
This is where I do not fully agree with you. Is it realistic? Given the boys personalities, I think it is realistic… Their father is a greater than nature individual, even when he was at his lowest, he was still praised/loved by everyone else, they were told he was merely mourning their mother… by all accounts I sincerely believe Adolin likely ignored his own pain to focus on his father’s. Just as he does with Elhokar. Why? Because within this family, everything is about either Dalinar or Gavilar, the younger ones, they hardly ever had room to grow.
So it is realistic for Adolin to hero-worship his father given what he witnessed? Reading this chapter I would say, yes, it is. Look at him! A boy of four who sees his daddy for “the first time”, well, not the first time, but the first time he remembers seeing his daddy. Who’s to bet this is the earliest memory Adoli has of his father? The one where he sees a hero walking down to him, talking to him, showing him his Shardblade, the hero he saluted, like a soldier. Is it unrealistic to think that boy would close his eyes when time came to re-evaluate how he has viewed this great man? Is it unrealistic for adult Adolin to feel so little next to a father who bonded the Stormfather and creates “tunnels of light”?
Who wouldn’t feel the lesser one? This is why I do think the revelation surrounding Evi’s death is important.
Neglected is not the type of abuse that leaves physical scars. But in my experience, mental and emotional abuse take longer to heal from.
I agree. I have been saying this for a while: neglecting your family can be damageable to said family, not all form of abuse are physical. Dalinar did not care for his family as he should have, he didn’t pay attention to them, he only bothered with Adolin because the boy was interested in the art of war. We saw how uninterested he was for Renarin who couldn’t come to the warcamps. To me, this was a sad story. Not the same kind of sad as Shallan’s, but sad nonetheless.
And No, I don’t think either was behaving in “typical high-Nan Alethi fashion” of parenting. Not when the other high level ladies around are saying his behavior is “shameful.”
Exactly what I said last week: the narrative indicates high born Alethi think Dalinar’s parenting is inadequate. He could have come back home more often, he chose not to. Why? Because he didn’t care about seeing his family, all he cared about was battle and the Thrill.
There are warm fuzzies there and a ton of “don’t want to disappoint dad” – that I feel are unearned by Dalinar.
This was the core of my commentary last week, how I didn’t feel Dalinar earned the love and respect he got from his closed ones, how I felt at least one individual should not think so highly of him, how having close people not react positively to him would have make him more sympathetic, to my eyes because no matter how I shuffle it, I still do not think Dalinar deserved his sons to love as much as they do, but huh they were boys.
And boys will love their father even if he neglects them, just as the examples of abused people who turned out loving their aggressors. Of course, no one likes the words “aggressor” and “Dalinar” within the same sentence and this is a harsh one, I agree. I however do think the fact Adolin/Renarin see their father within such positive light is the tree which hides the forest.
On a more positive note does anyone else want more interactions between the two brothers (Adolin/Renarin)? They warm my heart.
I
Is Lopen that young? If he’s a baby “now” he’s Renarin’s age. I pictured him as older.
So, quite the chapter this week. Dalinar as absent and often uncaring parent/spouse turned me more against him than anything else, except perhaps the Rift. He’s so consumed but by his need for the Thrill that there is literally nothing his family can do to get or keep his attention. Sure, he’s grown up a little since the early days, but it hasn’t all been for the better. I have wondered if Dalinar had done just a little better as a husband to Evi if she would have gone into Rathalas that night. She was so desperate to help him see her side (or any other side really?) that she had to do it. The boys and Evi deserved so much more. Evi was a wonderful mother and I wish we saw more of her in this story.
As for Renarin and Adolin-those boys went through SO much, and seeing them together any time makes my heart sing.
May Aubree be blessed and appreciated for the beautiful self-descriptions.
@16: I am not a fan of disparaging the other parent either, but given the fact Dalinar hasn’t bothered with his family for over a year, I don’t know if I’d be able to sing his praises to my young sons. Was it courageous? I do not know. It certainly was selfless and probably a tad foolish too.
This being said, I don’t think I can claim she made the wrong choice, but she certainly didn’t make the choice I would have made. Another aspect to consider is it may be she had no choice… Had she try to break down Adolin’s hero worshiping of his father, would have young Adolin listened? By putting herself in between her sons and their father, she might have risked them turning on her. Perhaps this was the choice she made.
On Dalinar and empathy: I need to also state when I critic his lack of empathy, I am not criticizing the writing of his character. I personally find the writing absolutely brilliant, but the end result remains a man who struggles with empathy and who, IMHO, doesn’t care enough about the people he should care about.
@18: Yes, please. I do.
We should all clear out for Gepeto to write about Dalinar’s parenting and his relationships with his sons for the next week.
Young Adolin is incredibly cute. He’d be one of those kids all the other young parents go “awwwwwww” over.
@OP – you’re right that its wonderful that Adolin is so good to Renarin. If Adolin isn’t as compassionate as he is, even if he doesn’t actively bully Renarin, Renarin has it even worse. It’s so nice that Adolin gets him.
@23: Sorry… This is one of my favorite topics.
Carl @19 – According to WoB, Lopen is “early twenties.” Dalinar has been “out on campaign” for four years now, spending the first chunk of it on the Herdazians and then moving south to deal with the Vedens. As of this flashback, Lopen would have to be four or five years old – about the same as Adolin or a little younger, maybe. If Lopen’s family moved to Alethkar as a result of Dalinar’s campaign, it had to be within the last four years. If it was at the beginning of Dalinar’s efforts, then Lopen would have been “a baby” by anyone’s standards; if it was nearer the end, that would stretch the definition of “baby” but could possibly still work. ::shrug::
Ok let’s take a look at the pros and cons of our favorite tyrant, Dalinar the Blackthorn. We can start with the cons. He’s a Thrill addict. He has nearly zero empathy. He’s a dick to his wife and kids. He’d rather be out in the field murdering enemies to the crown than being a presence in his family. The pros are that he’s an honorable dude from the Alethi standpoint. He does what he says he will do. He isn’t into treachery. His loyalty is unquestioned. He respects the talents of friend and foe alike. He doesn’t discriminate; he treats his soldiers well regardless of their station. And of course he wins battles. He wins wars. His very prowess on the battlefield serves as much a deterrent to war as a nuclear weapon. And he does this without the slightest bit of subterfuge, without coming off as icky.
I say all this to make a couple points. One, Dalinar’s negative points are internal ones, what you get when you peek behind the curtain so to speak. Only his family would know of most of his faults and only he knows how much his actions are influenced by the Thrill. All his positive attributes are external, something everyone sees, something everyone is influenced by. His negative traits are not extreme enough to counter his glowing public image in the minds of Alethkar. Since he’s not the type of guy that cares much about what people think of him this is him being genuine. That brings me to my second point. The only person that could have exposed his negative image and soiled his reputation at the very least in the minds of his sons is Evi. So why doesn’t she? As saintly as she is portrayed she has no POV’s. We are getting all of this from Dalinar, an unreliable narrator in my opinion due to Thrill addiction and self-loathing. But as sweet and gentle as Evi was she couldn’t be perfect. She was only human. And humans lash out when feeling pain or resentment or bitterness. If the man we see in the flashbacks is all that Dalinar was then there’s no way some of that doesn’t slip out, no way that some of that isn’t passed on to her children. Granted that some of that is Evi putting a good face on an imperfect marriage but IMO there has to be something there for her to put a good face on. There are some indicators that their relationship wasn’t all gloom and abandonment (although this chapter admittedly isn’t a good look for the Blackthorn).
One last thing. Oathbringer and it’s flashbacks come courtesy of a person who both hated and was ashamed of the person he used to be. This goes back to Dalinar being unreliable when speaking of his past. No doubt he was a bad person at least by our standards. How then does Evi fall for him? It doesn’t look like it was by any effort on Dalinar’s part going by the flashbacks we get. How does she not poison her children against this uncaring man who everyone else seems to revere? How does she know enough about Dalinar to realize the best way for her children to relate to him? How could someone so empathetic want to be tied to this warlord murder addict? No POV’s from Evi to give us these answers but something tells me that we don’t have the whole story. Evi’s love makes no sense if Dalinar is telling the whole story. I’m guessing we get more when Renarin’s book comes out.
Evi is annoying. Before this chapter she was clingy and a bit annoying, but this chapter…this chapter is when I started actively disliking her. She doesn’t understand life. She doesn’t understand the meaning of war. She lives in her private fictional fantasy world. And, what is the most annoying, she thinks everyone owes her. She wants Dalinar sitting with her and her children constantly? Well, he doesn’t have to do it. He’s a general at war, he has more important duties. That’s how Alethi couples are. They doesn’t spend much time together. She doesn’t like it? Then she should have married a farmer. She doesn’t respect Dalinar and puts her desires above everything else. So selfish. I’m endlessly sorry for Dalinar who was living with it for years. Listening her hysterics for years…Honestly, I couldn’t. Dalinar is very patient.
I also have a question to you, Alice. If you’re willing to answer. I know, everyone here hates my persona, so I’ll understand if you won’t. Can I?
You and Lyndsey Luther and Braid_Tug and any other beta reader involving in this reread do hate Dalinar. You never have a kind word for him, you are never objective towards him, you constantly demonize and criticize him. You are Beta Readers, people who contact Sanderson and you are directly involved in a writing process. I’m willing to ask something. Is this (what you are writing here) the only response on Dalinar’s character Sanderson gets? You are the face of this community, you are the only people who have an opportunity to share your thoughts with Sanderson. And that’s all he hears about the character? That he’s a heartless monster who neglects his children? No positive response? Do you think it’s fair? He gets this hateful feedback from beta readers team, but he will never get to know that storming Dalinar saved my miserable life last year when Oathbringer came out. When doctor told me I’m losing my eyesight and be completely blind in a couple of years, I was fully intend to blow my brains out. Only this stupid statement about the next step convinced me not to do it. Just a stupid book, but it keeps me alive. Don’t know how long I’ll last, but for now that’s enough for me to wake up every morning and go to stupid useless work. I wish Sanderson knew other opinions on Dalinar’s character. Positive ones. From people who see more than a “mass murderer neglecting “poor” children”. It’s sad he’ll never hear the opposite side. I ask this because the subject of the discussion is something dear for me.
Also, you involved one more person, wo have more positive views on Moash to provide more variety to this reread and make it a bit more objective. Then why every discussion of Dalinar’s chapters looks like pure hate from a group of people who cannot stand the character? Reading this is extremely frustrating.
@26, EvilMonkey – excellent post, once again.
@28, lordruler
When we have weekly chapter analysis, almost word for word, we tend to lose sight of the overarching pattern. That’s why it seems like the analysis is harsh. We did the exact same thing with Kaladin and Shallan, and are going to do that with Szeth as well. It’s almost overexposure of analysis. People who have stronger feeling towards certain characters are going to amplified as a result. That’s obvious to everyone who frequents this reread, and those of us who follow similar events. When this is Dalinar’s book, when we’re talking about his lowest moments – as we did with Kaladin and Shallan – those feelings are going to be stronger.
I don’t think AA, AP or LL* are any more subjective on Dalinar than most other people. It’s his book, his chapter and it’s supposed to be a low point – it’s not like they can say that it’s not a big deal in the context of Dalinar’s personal journey and just ignore it. You can’t talk about the redemption if you can’t talk about why he need to earn it. If you don’t think there is anything wrong with his behavior at certain points, then that’s fine; people disagree all the time. You won’t be the first or last to love a character.
Lastly, let’s not forget that there’s more than three Beta readers and this is Sanderson’s story. Even if they told Sanderson himself that Dalinar was a monster, he wouldn’t change the character just to appease them. Personally, I don’t think they’ve said anything particularly negative or damaging. I can understand frustration if people don’t love a character like you do, but let’s try to avoid the whole “haters” accusations.
@27: Great post: this was very objective. I definitely agree with this: Dalinar does have strengths, but they are external and no one really gets to see his flaws.
On Evi’s motivations: Survival. Whatever, whomever she has been running away from in Rira, it was powerful enough Evi thought the only way she’d be protected were if she married the most feared warlord she could find. It was her choice for reasons still unknown. I can see why she would try to make it work, why she wouldn’t badmouth the man responsible for her protection and perhaps her kids protection…. Who knows what Adolin/Renarin inherited in Rira? And Dalinar put it rather bluntly: “You wanted a warrior to protect you and now you complain I am a warrior”. That by itself is enough to explain Evi’s mindset. She does not love being married to Dalinar, but she had too as the alternative was…. worst. And Dalinar might be a tyrant, but he is benevolent which makes me think whomever Evi escaped from… wasn’t.
@28: I would argue, on average, the community is heads over heels in love with Dalinar. What you see here is about the only place where readers are questioning the characters and dissecting them layers by layers: this involves looking into flaws. Elsewhere, it is all about how amazing and wonderful Dalinar is: he won the Reddit poll for the “favorite fantasy character” of all time. Hence, I think he is quite well-served when it comes to praises.
Also there is this thing about re-reads and book related discussions: not all readers will enjoy the same characters for the same reasons. You speak of how Dalinar positively influenced you within your personal life. Other readers will speak of how Kaladin or Shallan positively influenced them within their life and others, such as myself, will oddly enough end up relating to Adolin and to a lesser extend Moash. We all come into this with our personal experiences and those are going to make us react in a different manner. Dalinar inspired you while you were going through a difficult time? I once crashed down because of self-imposed pressure and feelings of unworthiness, you can almost see those pouring out of some of my posts, hence I relate to Adolin. When Dalinar becomes in part responsible for it, yes, I react negatively to him because just like you, I am protecting myself, but for different reasons.
You hate when I sing the praises of Adolin because you feel I lack objectivity. I hate when you sing the praises of Dalinar because I feel you lack objectivity. Different characters, same debate, but there is a middle ground.
Where does this put us? Should Brandon put more emphasis on Dalinar because a there are readers who personally relate to him? How about the readers who personally relate to other characters? How about I who relates to a character who’s never getting a focus arc no matter how much I’d want him to? Should Brandon listen to me? I can assure you, he isn’t. He doesn’t even know me.
The thing is, the very wise thing Alice once told me, Brandon will write the story he wants to write and this story will not be guided by readers reviews of it. The fact some readers criticize Dalinar is not going to influence the future of books just as the fact a handful of readers love Adolin isn’t going to make the author write more of him. Brandon makes his own decisions outside of readers opinions.
We are just passengers in a story unfolding in front of us and that, that’s something I took a very, very long time understanding.
Keyblazing,
“We did the exact same thing with Kaladin and Shallan”
No. I’ve never seen even a tiny critic of Kaladin and Shallan, only praising. Dalinar is the only character who gets all the hate, most of it isn’t objective. And it’s not even the analysis. Analysis includes both positive and negative aspects. When it comes to Dalinar, all responses his character get are negative.
“I don’t think AA, AP or LL* are any more subjective on Dalinar than most other people.”
Most other people aren’t beta readers and their words don’t reach Sanderson’s ears.
” let’s not forget that there’s more than three Beta readers”
I know nothing about beta readers and how much they are involved in writing process. That’s why I ask them. It bothers me, because all opinions on Dalinar’s character I read on this site are negative. Doesn’t matter what chapter it is, doesn’t matter what Dalinar is doing in this chapter, he is always criticized in any case. I wish Sanderson knew other opinions exist. Unfortunately, people with other opinion has no opportunity to share this opinion.
“If you don’t think there is anything wrong with his behavior at certain points”
Yes, that’s exactly how I think. Dalinar is a tragic character, who was born and raised in the worst circumstances ever. He had no choice in choosing his path, just like I didn’t choose to born with a disease that slowly takes everything from me, and his only fault is that Evil God-Like Entity marked him when he was a child. Lots of shit happened with Dalinar, but despite all circumstances we grew up into a good man. This perspective is completely missed in the reread. They put themselves on Moash’s place, try to view him from different perspectives, both positive and negative, and try to understand why he behave like this and not different. This positive perspective is absent when it comes to Dalinar. Everything he does earns only one kind of response. Negative. Why don’t try to put yourself on his place and see why he is like this? Why he couldn’t be different? Yeah, monster, monster. If the man who tried so hard to please his wife and make this arranged marriage (that he never wanted) work, is a heartless monster, then I don’t understand this world.
Lordruler – I want SO MUCH to respond in full right now, but it will take more time than I have until I get back from dropping my daughter at school. You ask a very fair question, and I will give you a full – and hopefully thoughtful – response. It’s just going to be a while, most likely.
Reposting a moderator comment from a recent thread, in case it was not seen by all, because these conversations are regularly defaulting into the purely personal, and we need to course-correct a bit from here on. No matter how deeply felt your opinions and connections to these books are, this conversation is not meant to be about any one individual: the focus needs to remain on the books/chapters/characters themselves.
Just a note to say that we moderators appreciate the discussion of civility and the recognition that there’s value in learning to listen to differing viewpoints and opinions, and getting to know how different people express themselves, all of which we very much agree with and support. However, we also think it’s important to understand that the purpose of these discussion threads are to discuss the chapters and books in question, and the conversation should always relate back to the fiction in some way. We know that it can be hard not to take/make the discussion personal, at times, but we ask that everyone participating in these discussions keep the site’s commenting guidelines in mind and try to stay focused on the topics touched on in the reread post each week, rather than focusing on purely personal disagreements or conflicts. And of course, if anyone feels that they are being attacked or harassed by another commenter, the best way to deal with that is by flagging the comment and letting the moderators know that there is an issue. Thanks, all.
@31 lordruler
“I will take responsibility for what I have done,” Dalinar whispered. “If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”
Dalinar accepts that he is responsible for his sins. You insist that it was always Odium’s fault, or Evi’s fault, or society’s fault. That’s the same thing Odium tells Dalinar; you’re not guilty, it wasn’t you, I made you do it. Dalinar knows that he is lying.
Neither Kaladin nor Shallan murdered an entire city full of innocent people because they were angry murder addicts. Dalinar thinks Dalinar is a monster when he remembers the Rift. He has a chance to do better now, but he doesn’t lie to himself and pretend that his choices weren’t evil.
I think that you’re missing the main theme of Oathbringer, which is about taking responsibility for our past without allowing it to control our present and future. You seem to believe that Dalinar has never done anything wrong, ever, and that he has nothing to feel guilty about. I don’t think that the text supports that belief, and I know that Dalinar himself thinks that he was a terrible husband, father, and person. He did better, and became the kind of man that his sons could legitimately look up to, but that doesn’t erase the choices he made in the past, and it doesn’t mean that he was magically blameless for what he chose.
Gepeto,
“on average, the community is heads over heels in love with Dalinar.”
I didn’t read it, only hate and negative responses.
” he won the Reddit poll for the “favorite fantasy character” of all time.”
Good to know.
“Where does this put us? Should Brandon put more emphasis on Dalinar because a there are readers who personally relate to him?”
I try not to think about it. Most likely I won’t see next books and I don’t focus on it. But I want to let Sanderson know that some people do love Dalinar.
The problem is we’ve only seen Good Dalinar in this series. At least, we saw Good Dalinar for 2 whole books before seeing the flashes of Bad Dalinar in Oathbringer. The Dalinar we’ve come to know is good, kind, and honorable. He’s the epitome of a hero. But Bad Dalinar was a warmongering butcher, who destroyed an entire city of innocent people. Think about it this way: what if Hitler had survived WWII and then later in life realized the errors of his ways and tried to live an honorable life. How many people do you think would forgive him and think better of him?
Hello LordRuler,
It’s been awhile since I’ve interreacted with the reread, so it is easy to mistake my post in this chapter about Young!Dad Dalinar, as my only opinion of him. This however is a mistaken view. It is hyper close-up on one aspect of my relationship with Dalinar as a fan. Since I read Oathbringer my relationship with Dalinar has changed. It’s become more distant. Because Oathbringer brought to light past behaviors that should affect how you see him as a character. Your personal reaction to him will vary based on your own past experiences, as it should. We all bring our own bias to reading the text and it affects us in different ways. This particular chapter makes me rage at him and is a focus of my anger at him.
For me, Dalinar went from a friend I could trust unconditionally, to one I like as his currently is, with a few barriers in place. Like the friend you had in high school, who you were best buds with. Then as an adult they started making poor choices. You don’t abandon the friendship, but it will never be one of super closeness again.
I mostly wish I could give Adolin and Renarin some emotional therapy so they could see their father with more dispassion and emotional distance.
It’s written into Oathbringer why they don’t. It’s in part 5, but I can’t find the exact text at the moment. The quote is basically: “We edit the past to fit our view of the currently person. We convince ourselves that the past wasn’t that bad, if the current person’s actions don’t match.” We also hear, in book, over and over for 2 books – “We need the old Blackthorn back.”
IMO, no we don’t. We need the guy he’s grown into. But it does highlight how foreign Alethi culture is to me. And I can appreciate the writing and the culture, without wanting to a part of it. I can also be mad at parts of it, again, without hating the story or the characters as a whole.
Yet, the editing of memory is what happened for the boys. Adolin and Renarin were taught to hero worship their father. Adolin was then allowed to be around his dad for 7 odd years to reaffirm this hero worship. Then Dalinar became a horrible drunk. To be fair, he did not seem to be physically abusive. There were hints of the teenage Adolin rebelling and disliking his father. But that was then erased. Much easier than a few other rebellious teenager relationships I can think. Thus the “unearned” part of my dislike of the boys adult relationship with Dalinar.
There were a number of things Young!Dalinar did, that I appreciate. Stopping rape, killing cleaning – not torturing his opponents, collecting talented people around him, etc.
There are a number of things Old!Dalinar does, that I appreciate. Going to the meeting for Renarin’s sake, trying his hardest to form the coalition, owning the pain he caused, not being Sadeas, etc.
Sorry for the wall of text. Dalinar is a complex character as are my feelings about him. As are most people’s, including the beta team.
“I think that you’re missing the main theme of Oathbringer“
Oathbringer narrative doesn’t work well for me, because if Sanderson wanted to show what an awful monster Dalinar used to be, he failed (in my opinion). Maybe it’s because I met far worse individuals in fantasy books, but I don’t see what people write here about Dalinar, in the books. Maybe he should write if differently, because for me it is absolutely clear that Dalinar was brainwashed and influenced by Odium. In any other scene he doesn’t feel the Thrill he acts absolutely normal. Hence, this is the source of all misfortune. And the end feels weird. For me it’s Dalinar taking responsibilities for actions which wasn’t really his fault. That’s for the Rift. As for awful husband and father, he wasn’t because that’s how Alethi family life is. They are absent. Second, Dalinar couldn’t be different. He is a warrior, he was raised as a warrior. By the age of 19, he’s already a veteran of numerous battles. How can this person have…domestic life? With all desire, I can’t imagine it. I cannot imagine Dalinar playing with children and sitting at home with his wife. He’s not that kind of person.
Braid_Tug,
Thank you for answering.
“Since I read Oathbringer my relationship with Dalinar has changed.”
Sad to hear this, because, in my opinion, we do not have to judge people based of their past deeds. I don’t find younger Dalinar a terrible person, but even if you do, it shouldn’t affect your opinion on the person Dalinar is now. That’s how I think. Also, sad to know beta readers opinion on Dalinar are that negative.
37 Austin,
The thing is, I don’t see younger Dalinar as a bad guy, and comparison with Hitler is just a nonsense.
Lord Ruler, there were over 40 really active beta readers for Oathbringer. There were about 60 in total. There is no way the opinions of 4 of us can represent all 60+ of the alpha, beta, and gamma readers.
And I said this one aspect of my relationship with Dalinar is negative. Not my relationship as a whole.
As for not judging by past and current actions, I don’t know how that can be done. People’s relationships are built on their collative interactions with each other. I have a friend that is always going to be late. Even if I tell him to be there an hour before he needs to show up. If he shows up on time ONCE, I’m not going to suddenly think he will always show up on time. Just as I would hope my friends judged me on their collective experience of me. Not on one negative experience when no harm was caused. However, if I punched them, I would expect our friendship to alter, even after I apologized.
As for combat guys not having domestic lives, this comment makes me sad. I know a number of men and women in the military that have experienced combat. They also have active and loving home lives. And yes, some of them struggle and need therapy too. But they are still capable of having a home life.
42@@@@@ Braid_Tug,
“I know a number of men and women n the military that have experienced combat. They also have active and loving home lives.”
But they aren’t Alethi, are they? I think compare fictional society of warmongers and our reality isn’t entirely fair. Too much differences, too different circumstances.
Also, what’s about Dalinar’s parents? Did he even have them? I mean did they raised him? No one ever asks such questions, but me. Dalinar’s situation doesn’t interest anyone, but his parenting skills are constantly critisized. I don’t understnad why people expect him to be worlds number one dad.
@39 lordruler
Every soldier in Alethkar feels the Thrill. All of them do not become vicious murder addicts obsessed with getting their next fix. Using the Thrill as a cheap way to excuse Dalinar’s actions ignores the fact that he deliberately sought the Thrill and wanted to experience it more than he wanted to be a husband or father.
There are millions of soldiers who do have spouses and children, and who manage to have both a military career and a domestic life. Dalinar is entirely capable of being a better husband and father; he just chooses not to be. There was nothing stopping him from bringing Evi with him on campaign as a scribe, which is the proper role for a high-ranking Alethi woman.
The entire climax of Oathbringer is about Dalinar taking responsibility for his actions. If he was nothing more than a robot controlled by Odium, then the book makes no sense.
@40 lordruler
I’m curious about what it takes to be a “terrible person”, since murdering an entire city does not count.
44,
“I’m curious about what it takes to be a “terrible person”, since murdering an entire city does not count.”
Hmmmmm. Murdering an entire city does count. Murdering an entire city while being influenced by Evil God does not count. Hence, Dalinar’s case does not count. You may not response on this. This book made it crystal clear for me: Dalinar was under Odium’s influence. I’m not gonna change my mind on it.
Well, I love Dalinar, who is my favorite Stormlight character along with Jasnah, and OB made me love him more – _because_ it showed his problematic beginnings, as well as the seeds of a person that he eventually became. It also made sense of so many things that in WoK and WoR seemed contrived – like reactions of various worthies to him and his efforts, which back then seemed like pure intransigent stupidity, but make so much sense now. Also, old Dalinar’s own blindness towards Sadeas and their whole relationship was explained in a very satisfying way.
But there is no question that young Dalinar was quite apalling – and his old self is horrified when he regains these memories.
Also, not only is “that’s how the things are” not a good justification for people to mistreat others, but the things aren’t actually that way at all among the Alethi – Alethi themselves think that Dalinar’s behavior re: his family is “shameful”, as does the old version of him.
Young Dalinar is no dark-eyed spearman who doesn’t get leave until his 4-year-long hitch is done and for whom sending a letter home is exorbitantly expensive. Nor is his war half a world away, like happened to some soldiers iRL. He has instant communication at his fingertips and just a series of small border wars to run, but he didn’t bother to find out what his younger son’s name was for more than a year?! Come on.
Personally, I suspect that contributing reason to his desire to stay away was that he was still carrying the flame for Navani and seeing her and interacting with her as his brother’s wife was painful, but that doesn’t absolve him.
Anyway, I have more to say, but I have to run know. But fazit is that OB made me enjoy and appreciate Dalinar more.
“There are millions of soldiers who do have spouses and children, and who manage to have both a military career and a domestic life.”
We don’t have any example of this in the books. So, it’s a pure speculation.
I feel like this thread is about to become moderated. Lordruler has admitted that he was having suicidal thoughts until he read Oathbringer and is crediting the character of Dalinar with literally saving his life. There’s nothing anyone here can say that will change his mind on how he views the character. That’s perfectly OK. I say we switch gears and discuss a different topic. That’s just my opinion, though. If the Dalinar discussion drags on, I’m not going to follow this thread.
@lordruler: Tor.com is only one of the places on the Internet where there is an on-going discussion on the Stormlight Archive. Of all of the SA communities co-existing, this one is the smallest. Look at the names of the frequent posters and you will see the same names, weeks after weeks. How many of us is there really actively engaging ourselves into those discussions? Ten? Fifteen? Less? This is not a lot of readers within the larger group which is the SA fandom.
I can’t speak for others, but I will speak for myself. Why am I posting here and not elsewhere? Because here is where I find the discussion to be the most interesting, the most objective. I find Alice, Lindsey and now Aubrey are doing an amazing job out of summarizing those chapters and I respect the fact those posts contain their personal opinions, just as mine contains mine. I like to read theirs even if I don’t always agree.
Elsewhere, it is more difficult to write the kind of commentaries I want to write. Reddit does not encourage the right format, it does not encourage conversation and it is terribly anonymous. Also, it is a downvote ant farm which is annoying. 17th Shard is no longer the place to discuss characters, they have clicks out there, groups of people who chat together all day long. Sometimes, they talk about characters, often they talk about magic/Cosmere, but it is really difficult to find a “topic” to have the discussion I’d love to have, not without creating one myself, not without attracting negative attention. Their chat room also invite to bullying and disparaging of other posters which I dislike.
Tor.com is a nicer place where conversation, on average, is more friendly. It is better moderated too. It allows for more interesting discussion without being restricted to a given topic. Hence, we can talk about characters, any character which is relevant, any week and also have a parallel discussion on world-building for those who are interested in having it. It allows two, three parallel discussions to co-exist, but it remains a small sub-set of the fandom.
Hence, because it is small, it doesn’t have the same demographic representation other parts of the fandom have. Average age is higher on Tor.com than elsewhere and opinions which are popular here may not be popular elsewhere. For instance, a few weeks back I talked of how Shallan wasn’t such a popular character outside of Tor.com: I see negative threads on her narrative arc nearly every week on places such as Reddit, but you aren’t seeing it here.
The same is true for Dalinar. I can assure you he has tremendous support within the fandom. As I said, he was voted “best fantasy character of all time”, nearly every single reviewer claim he was their favorite arc. Yeah. There’s me who has a different opinion, but I am one individual. I am vocal, true, but I can assure you my voice bear no significance within this fandom or Brandon whatsoever.
Thus, you are welcome to jump in an speak positively of your favorite character just like I do for Adolin as long as you realize your interpretation may not the most prevalent one. Yes, readers love Dalinar, but at the same time, most do believe he is guilty up to various levels, though most are not as harsh on him as I am. I see you have associated Dalinar’s plunge into the darkness to your own health issues, something you cannot control, hence you are attracted to the idea Dalinar didn’t control it either. There is some of this, in his narrative, but there also is a lot of him having made a personal choice.
Sometimes, when a character speaks to us in a personal way, we project into this character. Do not think I do not understand, of all people, I may be one who understands the best because I did the same, I probably still do the same, but not with Dalinar, with Adolin. We however need to be aware not everyone get out of those characters what we get out of them. It is personal and we can’t be angry because other readers have different experiences than our own while reading the book.
I am sorry to hear you will not read the next book. I once toyed with the idea of dropping the series because I didn’t think Brandon would put in “enough Adolin”, but I eventually realized I didn’t really wanted to do this. I eventually came to realize I have been an SA fan long before I was such an avid Adolin fan and that, that’s what matters to me right now.
@37: Yeah. This echoes the thoughts I wrote several weeks back.
@39: I agree on wanting to give Adolin/Renarin therapy just as I agree on rebellious teenagers being worst than what we have seen in book (I would argue Adolin is not really rebelling against Dalinar in-book). I personally once made the argument Adolin didn’t have his teenage rebellion years (while Renarin is definitely having them)… and it may come during his early adult years. We’ll see if I was right or wrong about this one, but some people just shove inside, shove inside, compensate, stay strong up until it all blows apart. Adolin always seemed like the kind of person who’d do this, with his hero-worship complex.
@45 lordruler
The turning point of Oathbringer is when Dalinar confronts Odium and tells him that he cannot have Dalinar’s pain; Dalinar, not Odium, is responsible for his choices, including the decision to burn the Rift. It’s probably the most important part of the entire book, and you can’t just edit it out because you want to blame Odium for something that Dalinar claims responsibility for.
@47 lordruler
I was referring to real life, where we know that there are millions of soldiers throughout history who have managed to be decent husbands and fathers.
In the books, we see that most Alethi officers bring their wives with them on campaign, so it’s not like Dalinar was obeying his culture’s rules when he ignored Evi. Nor was he following some strict Alethi law when he became an alcoholic and ignored his sons. Alethi society is screwed up in many ways, but it does not require husbands to abandon their wives or fathers to ignore their children.
Gepeto,
“I find Alice, Lindsey and now Aubrey are doing an amazing job out of summarizing those chapters and I respect the fact those posts contain their personal opinions”
Personal opinions are a good thing. An excellent thing. But from this reread I wanted more variety, more different points of views. Let’s take Moash chapters. We have three people, one of them plays a role of “devil’s advocate” with different opinion. That’s interesting, it provides variety, and doesn’t allow Moash discussion turning into a pure hate. No let’s take Dalinar’s chapters. All people responsible for the reread dislike the character and the tone of the discussion id very negative. They should invite another person who views Dalinar in more positive light. Or, if they don’t have such a person, try not to that harsh on him. Try to analyze him, try to imagine yourself on his place. That would be more deep view on the series, in my opinion. Reading a harsh critic every week is overwhelming. I chose this reread instead of reddit, because I wanted a series chapter by chapter analysis. Seems like that’s not right place for people who like Dalinar.
“I can assure you Dalinar has tremendous support within the fandom.”
Good, if this is true. I find him very sympathetic. Older version. I understand why some people hate younger version, I disagree (I wish for various perspective), but understand. Older Dalinar however is very sympathetic.
“Sometimes, when a character speaks to us in a personal way, we project into this character.”
Maybe.
“I once toyed with the idea of dropping the series because I didn’t think Brandon would put in “enough Adolin”
I want to read the next books, I don’t want to drop the series. But I won’t be able to read it.
Dptullos,
As I wrote before, this narrative doesn’t work for me. It makes clear that Dalinar was under influence. He acted abnormally for himself, and he would never burn the town in his right sate of mind. As for real life, I wrote about it too. I cannot compare fictional society with real life. As for alcoholism, I cannot blame mentally ill and unstable person.
lordruler @28 – As I said earlier, I think you ask a fair question which deserves a fair answer, so I’m going to reply directly to this before I read any further discussion. Also, “everyone here hates my persona” is going a bit far, but I’ll agree that you come across very abrasively at times. (So do I, so … there’s that!)
I need to say first that I do not hate Dalinar. In fact, he’s one of my favorite characters. I think he’s a deeply flawed person, especially in his younger days (aren’t we all?), but as “the old guy” in the main cast who has lived a lot of life, I relate to him in some ways more than I do the younger characters. Obviously our specific experiences were very different, but I’ve always liked Dalinar. By the time we reach the end of this book, I love him. A lot.
I find his younger self to be a deeply disturbing person, and I’ll freely admit that I don’t exactly relate to him. Obviously part of this is the difference between men and women – what drives us, what bothers us, etc. Part of it is personality, likewise. Part of it is that I’ve never experienced either addiction or combat. So there are aspects of him that I just won’t ever grok. In addition, I understand Evi a lot more, and Young!Alice can relate to Young!Evi in many, many ways. So there’s that.
As beta readers, though, our job is not to tell Brandon how to write the story. It’s his story to tell, and he’ll make the characters who he wants them to be. Aside from continuity issues, our job is to tell him whether or not something had the desired effect on us. Given his purpose in Dalinar’s flashbacks, reactions like “what a monster!” are most likely what he was hoping for, at least from some of us. Authors are horrible people: when you scream in rage at a character, they sit back with an evil chuckle. “Yes, yes, feel the anger. Feel the paaaaiin….” It’s a given that not everyone will respond the same way. For example, I’m one of the few who sees glimpses of affection between Dalinar and Evi. I’m also one who sees certain positive parenting implications in later interactions, even though most of them disappear when he turns into a full-time drunk.
What you see reflected in the three who wrote this article isn’t necessarily representative of the whole; there are actually a lot more men than women on the beta team, but not as many of the men have the time and/or inclination to hang out here. I know that there are a number of beta readers who have close friends and family who have had to deal with PTSD as well as the gamut of physical, mental, and emotional effects of combat. I’ll go back later and look at what some of their comments were.
All of that said, I personally needed to be able to see the most negative aspects of Dalinar’s life. I needed a reason for the rest of the world to distrust him. I needed to understand why some characters drew such a contrast between TWoK!Dalinar and the Blackthorn. Most of all, I needed it to feel the full effect of “You cannot have my pain.” Without knowing where he came from, his journey would not have had the same impact.
As a beta reader, then, my reactions of “Dalinar, you jerk!” and “Dalinar, you monster!” were intersperse with appreciation for who he was and what he did in the main timeline – and all of it culminated in tears and fist-pumping (reflected in comments as best I could) when he realized everything he’d done and been, claimed his failures as his own, and stood up against it.
That sequence couldn’t possibly have the same effect, at least on me, if I hadn’t seen Dalinar as he looks back and sees himself. Because of that, I think our reactions validate what Brandon was trying to do. And from what I’ve seen here and in the facebook discussions, I have to say you’re definitely not the only person who was deeply touched and motivated by “the next step.” I’ve seen many, many people speak of how they found it at just the right moment to give them strength and courage to go on. Brandon knows, and it is one of the things he loves most to hear. It’s great when people like his books and want to buy more, but when it impacts someone’s life, it’s awesome – and I mean that in the literal sense, not the pop-culture-light sense.
One more note on beta reading: The first time I met Brandon in person after having done the beta on Words of Radiance, I sort of apologized that I felt most of my comments amounted to fangirl squealing. His response really stuck with me: “I need those reactions, just as much as I need anything else from beta readers. I need to know if it worked.”
I hope that helps somewhat, to understand at least where I’m coming from and a little more of what we do for Brandon as beta readers. Now I’ll go see where else the discussion has gone, as well as browsing through some of the beta documents to check on the range of reactions.
On Adolin/Renarin interactions I have been doing a complete Stormlight Reread and here’s a bit from chapter 12 of The Way If Kings, where we first meet the brothers and Renarin had THIS to say to Adolin.
“I don’t like you get when you are around Sadeas.”
Well two books later and doesn’t this seemingly throwaway line have new implications for BOTH brothers.
I hope it’s ok, that I bring this up here, because I don’t know where else to bring it
Edit: Forgot about Renarin healing later, so it’s probably not a vision. Still good foreshadowing, as well as showing fow observant of his Brother Renarin is
@@@@@ Gepeto
You wrote “On Evi’s motivations: Survival. Whatever, whomever she has been running away from in Rira, it was powerful enough Evi thought the only way she’d be protected were if she married the most feared warlord she could find. It was her choice for reasons still unknown. I can see why she would try to make it work, why she wouldn’t badmouth the man responsible for her protection and perhaps her kids protection…. Who knows what Adolin/Renarin inherited in Rira? And Dalinar put it rather bluntly: “You wanted a warrior to protect you and now you complain I am a warrior”. That by itself is enough to explain Evi’s mindset. She does not love being married to Dalinar, but she had too as the alternative was…. worst. And Dalinar might be a tyrant, but he is benevolent which makes me think whomever Evi escaped from… wasn’t.”
While survival was the main motivation for her agreement to marry Dalinar and to try and make it work I disagree that it’s her only motivation or that she was stuck in a loveless marriage. Much like Dalinar, there is no indication of fakeness or insincerity to Evi’s character. Part of the reason so many people like her in the fandom is that she is so unlike typical Alethi women whose characterization looks like Mean Girls on steroids. In that context Evi’s actions make no sense if there’s no love there. She could perform her wifely duties in what starts off as a marriage of state without seeking closeness to her husband or the public displays of affection that so embarrass her hubby. She wouldn’t be able to emphasize his good traits so effectively to her sons if those traits were not present somewhat in their day-to-day interactions. I know there are abusive relationships where the victim loves her abuser despite how they’re treated but in those cases it’s usually obvious to outside observers. Victims slip. While Evi fears her husband’s wrath it still doesn’t seem she fits what we’ve come to understand abused women look like. She don’t fit the profile.
@@@@@lordruler
Shallan and Kaladin get plenty of criticism in the fandom I assure you. They just get it for different things. Their issues are different as are their circumstances. Kaladin frustates many readers because of his crushing depression causes him to do dumb, counter-productive shit. And there are readers here and in the fandom who hate Shallan and her issues with a passion that rivals Odium..Hell, on 17th Shard there’s a Shallan disgust thread that’s at least 7 pages long. All our main characters get a turn at the roasting pit.
@@@@@dptullos
I think we have to factor in how much of our opinion of the Blackthorn is colored by Dalinar’s self-loathing. Much like how our image of Jasnah is shaped by Shallan’s admiration and views of her as perfection in the flesh, his opinion of himself skews the narrative. It’s supposed to, and yet without a more nuanced view of the man none of the other characters’ reactions to him make sense. Dalinar has no interest in being fake or protecting his public image so he’s never hidden his monstrous reputation. Therefore to me there must have been some decency in him even in his dark times. This chapter does not display that hidden decency at all though. Just like part of Dalinar’s reason for not going home is his flame for Navani, part of the reason he avoids Evi is his shame at his inability to be a beacon of light, to be worthy of her regard.
Lot to catch up on, and I will write a more comprehensive post in a bit, but I do hope in the next chapter re-read as well as other chapters going forward, that we all focus on the chapter subject matter at hand as seems to have been done with this chapter (being focused on Adolin, Renarin, Dalinar, and Evi). Jasnah is coming up next week and I am quite looking forward to discussing her, and her versitilian friends.
A crazy thought. What if, as bad a parent as Dalinar was. When it comes to stuff like soldiering. He WAS better then most, even with the thrill pushing at him, (at least until the rift). Maybe that’s what the “only true soldier, we’ll hear later on refers to. I mean even early on Dalinar has been shown to be egalitarian, unlike other light eyes who are bound up in class issues. And as Evil Monkey mentioned he isn’t into Treachery. Compared to the rest of the Alethi court where I imagine backstabbing is Common. (If Sadeas, and the way he is able to get away with blatent backstabbing by saying “anyone in my place would do it” is anything to go by.) Again, as previously mentioned, bad parenting aside, I suspect that “only true soldier” was said, AND MEANT. Even if only because the Alethi in general TENDED to be worse. Make of that what you will
@2 Isilel
I agree with trusting Navani. We have seen her time and again play the part of mother hen to the younger generation, and with genuine devotion towards Dalinar. From her own perspective and her own admittance she had come to respect and even love Evi. So I see no nefarious intentions from her side.
I cannot recall if it precedes it or not (when Dalinar first vists the Azir), but there was a mention by Dalinar on how an old soldier’s trick regarding responding to correspondence if a scribe was not present was to flick a span reed on and off as a means of confirmation.
@@.-@ Keyblazing
Brandon has commented on how a standard trap when trying to portray a minority when you yourself are not one is either have them just be there to enhance the main character, make them amazing at everything with no flaws, or make them a stereotype. Brandon was concerned he fell slightly into each of these in his earlier works.
@9 AndrewHB
I think Evi would be proud of Dalinar and still love him. This belief of course is affected by my belief that it was in fact Evi’s voice that forgave Dalinar near the end of the book.
@18 BenW
Honestly just can’t wait for more Renarin. So much is going on behind those eyes.
@26 EvilMonkey
Very insightful post
@37 Austin
Ah Godwin’s law lol. To be completely honest, and I have seen this come up in many documentaries on the Holocaust, a good chunk of the victims would be more focused on educating the world on the horrors they experienced and the failings that brought it about (the culture, the economy, how things were handled after world war 1, etc) so it would never happen again, rather than focused on getting revenge on one man, regardless how much it centered on him. If he then tried not only to live an honorable life, but strove to prevent such circumstances from occurring again, I think he would earn their grudging respect.
@55 Evil Monkey
Very insightful yet again.
@@@@@ OP Very good discussion this week! (Alice, I agree with your contrariness most often, but all made good points.)
@@@@@9, as Scath just pointed out, Dalinar does hear Evi say she forgives him.
Building on what @@@@@26 EvilMonkey said: It seemed implied to me that most (if not all) of Dalinar’s flashbacks were memories that were being returned. With that being said, it seems like these would be the worst of the worst. So, while he forgot all of his memories of Evi as his “curse” the “boon” was forgetting these painful ones – the ones we are getting to see now. My point being we are deliberately being shown his worst moments with Evi and his sons. So, count me as one that sees that there were also good moments and times of true affection.
@@@@@lordruler
I’m with you in that I like Dalinar – and I didn’t react too strongly to his past. I mean, I thought he did some horrible things – but it kinda rolled off of me because it was tempered by who he was now. The stuff with his children (like this chapter) hit the hardest against me. But, the main point I wanted to make was to let you know my reactions to the main three. In book one, I loved Kaladin while both Dalinar and Shallan were diversions that I didn’t react strongly to either way. In book two, I was fed up with Kaladin while really liking both Dalinar and Shallna. This book, I was fed up with Shallan while Kaladin was mostly good and Dalinar was awesome. His journey was fantastic because of the juxtaposition.
Anyway, good discussion this week in both the post and comments. I appreciated everyone’s thoughts this week. All were well expressed.
Lordruler @41. In some ways, you are correct (at least in my opinion). One cannot compare the actions and beliefs of young Dalinar and Hitler. Young Dalinar burned an entire city (including all its inhabitants). But his basis was a military objective. Much the same way that the Allies constantly bombed German cities. Knowing full well the potential for civilian casualties was high. Hitler, on the other hand, attempted to wipe out every single person of Jewish faith from the face of the Earth. The Nazi dogma treated Judaism as a race, not just a religion. Hitler also tried to wipe out others as well, including homosexuals, Gypsies and Communists. This was not done for a military objective.
Nevertheless, I disagree with your argument @45 – young Dalinar is blameless as he was under Odium’s influence and influence by an “Evil God does not count.” This argument is analogous to what lower-tiered members of the SS would argue. They were not guilty as they were just following order. Thankfully, these arguments were shot down and debunked at the trials at Nuremberg and in subsequent years when members of the Nazi regime and other concentration camp operators/guards were convicted of crimes against humanity. We did not excuse the actions of these individuals. Likewise, Dalinar is unwilling to absolve himself of his actions. Just as civilized society required that the Nazi’s and other associated with the atrocities the Nazi’s performed take ownership of their actions, Dalinar believed he had to own his past.
You are entitled to disagree with Dalinar’s decision (that he is not responsible for actions he took when embracing the Thrill. Yet other readers are entitled to agree with Dalinar. As Braid_Tug said @39, each reader brings his/her perspective to his/her analysis of SA and the characters within. That is the beauty of these re-reads.
Thanks for reading my musings
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Lordruler @47: General Khan is an example of a soldier who has a domestic life. If you mean we do not have an example of a darkeye soldier within Dalinar’s army (or any of the other Alethi Highprinces), you are correct. Although, to be fair, there could be. We just do not have met any darkeyed soldiers (not counting Bridge 4 – but they did not start out as darkeyed soldiers).
Gepeto @49. Bravo. Well said.
Thanks for reading my musings
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Dalinar isn’t just that way because he was chosen by Odium. It is the other way around. Most Alethi soldiers experience the Thrill. Dalinar reacted exceptionally strongly to it, that why Odium was interested in him.
@62
Your comment raised a question in my mind that I might go into depth later on. How do Shards pick their Champions? Is there some sort of common criteria or is it individual? I ask because it seems like the 2 champions we’ve seen in the Cosmere have multiple Shards trying to recruit them. Both Preservation and Ruin targeted Vin and throughout Mistborn Era 1 she serves both their interests at one time or another. The relationship was less formal than what takes place on Roshar. Dalinar is Honor’s Champion by virtue of being bonded to a being that has merged with the soul of Honor. But he was the leading candidate for Odium’s Champion because of Nergaoul. Cultivation even throws a hat in the ring with a clandestine recruitment pitch. Wax is Harmony’s Champion. Is Trell going to try and recruit him too? A character comparison of our Champions may provide further clues.
@53 Alice,
Thank you for writing it for me. Truly appreciated.
Do you know Sanderson’s opinion on Dalinar’s character? Positive or negative?
64; EvilMonkey
I don’t think Scandrial counts as choosing Champions. Vin was pure circumstance, from what I remember. Her inclusion into the rebellion as well as her ability to be manipulated by Ruin through her earing. Ruin had other individuals he talked to, but she was the only one who got close to what he needed. Preservation picked her because he was trying to both help her and stop her, as he was dying, because at that point she was particularly influential. As for Wax, I think it was Harmony influencing events as “normal,” but then Lessie went off the deep end due to Autonomy (I think that’s Trell). Since Wax was involved with her and his uncles subterfuge, he seems the natural candidate to help.
I think what’s not being factored in here is that IF the thrill IS like addiction, addiction DOES change the way your mind works. That doesn’t mean you DON’T need to take responsibility to seek help, like Teft does of later Dalinar does when he seeks the Nightwatcher. You do HAVE responsibility in recognizing your problem and getting help. BUT it is NOT as clear cut as in other cases.
There IS A REASON Dalinar’s story of being addictec to the thrill, is interspersed with Teft’s story of addiction to Firemoss. It’s to paint the parallel in our mind. I NOT saying this COMPLETELY absolves Dalinar Of responsibility like Lord Ruler says. HOWEVER, I feel that those who say it is his COMPLETE responsibility are misunderstanding things. And that INCLUDES DALINAR HIMSELF.
There is plenty of blame to go around, and I really feel like we need an expert, or at least someone who has had first hand experience with addiction to know how to parcel out the blame here. IF assigning blame is your goal. But for now I will leave it at this, there is no rehab in Roshar.
This is my attempt to be balanced, not sure if it succeed, but just trying to point out that addiction is a real mental health issue as well.
P.S. This makes me want to see how Teft will react to Dalinar’s book if he gets it read to him. Don’t forget he got family killed then sunk into addiction to escape
@66 Keyblazing
I’m pretty sure both Preservation and Ruin were actively working on Vin. Ruin from the time she was a child (he influenced her mother to give her the earring spike so he would have a hook). So he was very interested/grooming her to be his tool. I agree that there is a difference, though, in that Preservation was looking for a full replacement while Ruin intended to keep his power while only using Vin as his primary “champion” for escaping.
@67 BenW
Well said!
@65 lordruler
Someone can confirm, but I feel like I have seen a WOB that while Brandon loves all his characters, he feels a special affinity for Dalinar.
#66, @Keyblazing: actually Ruin went far out of his way to create Vin, by influencing her mad mother to hemalurgically pierce her as an infant. You can see him do basically the same thing to Spook later on, because Sanderson is a good writer and wanted to give us clues that would only be clear on a reread. We do see from Kelsier’s POV later (in Secret History) that it is hard for a Vessel to influence individual humans and they have to concentrate their efforts. There’s a reason they need Champions.
I wish you all would put some kind of SPOILER warnings when talking about whole other book series. Particularly a /SPOILER, so I know it’s safe to start reading again. I may or may not have missed interesting discussion.As it is, I see an unfamiliar name, and I just end up skipping the entire rest of the post it was in. I doubt I will ever read these other books, but on the off chance my daughter ever hands me one, excited that it’s the greatest thing ever and wanting to share, I would like to be able to not be able to rattle off the entire plot and know which characters live or die.
Or, if this is supposed to be an all spoilers for the cosmere and beyond discussion, at least state so at the top!
@70 – There’s a spoiler warning in the beginning of every article. In this case, there was no broader Cosmere spoilers, but they will state clearly when there is.
@71: I was talking about spoilers in the comment section, not the article. People are very free with spoilers from other series here. Really wish the there was a spoiler tag option for people writing posts about non-Stormlight books.
@55: Evi is a woman who was willing to put her life in danger for the shake of the unknown civilians of Rathalas. The fact she went as far as to surrender to Tanalan, hoping to strike a bargain tells us much when it comes to her personality. Some say it makes her stupid and foolish, I say it makes her courageous, benevolent and selfless. Pushing the analysis farther, I wondered what kind of individual would readily care so much about random people of an opposing armed force enough to do something about it?
Looking at the events at the Rift, I would say Evi is a woman who was willing to go far far to protect others.
Who was she protecting when she ran away from Rira? And if she were willing to do what she did for the Rathalas, then why wouldn’t she be willing to put on a strong face over a disastrous marriage? I don’t think she loved Dalinar, but he was whom she was going to marry, so she tried to see the best in him, the positive side of him, the good in him. Once she was able to find it, she encouraged Dalinar to be this person, to grow into a better man and the man she eventually came to love was this man, not the selfish blood-thirsty man Dalinar was most of the time. She loved the man Dalinar could have been, had he wanted to, but I do not think she loved the man he insisted on being.
None of this however changed the Dalinar was a poor husband, an absent husband more focus on killing than on his family. Brandon confirmed yesterday Dalinar lacks empathy and, even outside the Thrill, loved to kill thus rendering Birgit’s later comment spot on. Dalinar did not become a blood-thirsty monster because of Odium, he was chosen by Odium because he was this man to begin with. Brandon did confirm this.
Hence, while there certainly were moments where the Dalinar/Evi relationship was better than within this flashback (I am convinced he did not force her to his bed, not his style, she came to him willingly), I do believe Brandon chose to show us those scenes for a reason. If he wanted us to believe the union was happy and met a tragic end, he would have written another narrative, but he didn’t. What he showed us was Dalinar not caring for his wife and his family, his wife suffering for it, but still trying, insisting on this “potentially good man” sleeping inside Dalinar.
Was she abused? Definitely not physically, perhaps emotionally, but not like we typically see. Dalinar did not manhandle her, but he was verbally violent and dismissive towards her. He was a terribly father, the kind of father I’d keep way from my children, but given her circumstances, she chose to focus on this glimmer of good she saw. Turns out she was right, but I can’t help wondering why the heck did Dalinar deserve all of this love.
@57: I will agree Dalinar was a better soldier than most, but his lack of empathy always made me struggle with his character. Even within WoK/WoR, I wasn’t Dalinar’s greatest fan.
@62: Thanks.
@65: Brandon has often answered his favorite character was Dalinar, so I would say his opinion of him is overly positive. Dalinar is one of the character with the most page time who’s scheduled to have a lot of additional page time within future books. You will read more of him within extensive details.
On the other hand, I am assured the one character I enjoy the most is never getting a fourth the page time, the attention nor the focus both in-book or with the author as Dalinar. I have made my peace with this fact, I have accepted the Stormlight Archive, as Brandon planned to write it, does not require Adolin to have a bigger role than what he is currently getting and I will gladly take whichever chapter, morsel the author benevolently tosses towards me, no matter how insignificant. It however remains difficult to hear others claim Dalinar is somewhat not getting enough attention…He is. He is well-loved. He is most readers favorite. He is not lacking page time nor attention nor love from both the fandom and the author.
He’s not my favorite, but I am just one reader. My personal opinion should not be taken as the opinion of the fandom.
@67: Addiction is a complexe mechanism, but in light of recent WoB, we can say Dalinar did not seek the Thrill to overcome pass issues (like Teft potentially did), he did it because he enjoyed it. This makes him a thrill seeker who ignored every single signs things were going wrong… who refused to take actions to control his blood-lust before it became a problem despite knowing it was.. a problem.
Hence, the difference in between Teft and Dalinar, to my eyes, is Teft came from a broken background and had much to snuffle out while using his drug whereas Dalinar had no other reasons to indulge than his own selfishness, lack of empathy and love of the killing. Brandon confirmed Dalinar’s love of the warfare and blood-lust do not come from the Thrill, but from him. Him.
Therefore, Dalinar remains guilty of having allowed the Thrill guide his actions when he had the capacity to behave differently and to change. I completely agree with his claims towards the end of OB.
Just out of curiousity, can we have a link to said WOB?
@74: Here is the WoB:
LerasiumMistborn
Dalinar is my absolute favorite character in any book now. During previous AMA someone asked you about character’s mental health and you wrote that Dalinar has had PTSD, alcoholism and “a few other things”. Can you explain what these “other things” are?
Brandon Sanderson
All right, so with Dalinar, I wouldn’t suggest looking for some broad categorization–like, I think there would be an instinct by some people to diagnose him with Antisocial PD during his youth. He certainly has some hallmarks (the lack of empathy, the aggression, and the and willingness to put responsibility for his actions onto someone else.)
But I think more, with Dalinar, it wasn’t some grand schema to diagnose–but a lot of little problems, like most of us have, that were unhealthy ways of seeing the world. Some of this relates to his mix of jealousy/devotion related to his brother, both of which emotions were unhealthy at times. But also his bloodlust in combat, which wasn’t just the Thrill–but a real enjoyment of fighting, and a willingness to ignore consequences to others for that.
These are still all issues he has, though he’s worked through many–but the knowledge that losing control was so bad for him in the past has led him to what I’d call his current biggest challenge, which is the need to be in control at all times. (To the point that he doesn’t completely trust others to see something get done, despite what he claims.)
My interpretation of this WoB is Brandon confirms Dalinar’s blood-lust isn’t Thrill-inducted, it comes from him. He was willing to ignore the consequences of his blood-lust (such as slaughtering his own men). Neither the Thrill nor Odium made him behave this way, he did.
He confirms Dalinar does lack empathy which correlates with the observations of some readers including myself.
He finishes by confirming Dalinar suffers from controlling issues which does make him a rather rigid individual. He does not trust others to accomplish things as well as he would himself.
i have a personal theory that the original Bondsmith, Nohadan (assuming the theory of him being a said orignal bondmsith was true) was different than most bondsmiths, but because it uses headcannon, and private hopes I don’t want to share it until I have more to support it. But IF the theory is true it would explain a lot of what it wrong with a lot of the proto-bond smiths we are seeing.
I don’t know if Dalinar is Sanderson’s favorite. I would say Kaladin or Shallan or even Adolin. He’s too harsh with Dalinar. If I had a favorite character I wouldn’t hurt him like Sanderson did it with Dalinar in Oathbringer. But I am not an author, maybe they see it differently.
@77: Adolin? I cannot be seriously argued Adolin is Brandon’s favorite when he is never going to get more than a handful of chapters within any given book?
Here.
BusinessCress
Do you have a character who is very special for you in a personal way? The one closest to your heart?
Brandon Sanderson
Probably Dalinar. He is one of the first I ever developed, and existed (in a proto-form) in the very first novel I started writing.
That’s only one of the numerous WoB stipulating how much Brandon loves Dalinar. Nearly each time Brandon is asked about his favorite character, he answers Dalinar. He never answered Kaladin nor Shallan and certainly not Adolin.
I don’t know what you mean by “hurting Dalinar”. Dalinar just had one of the most memorable, most emotionally touching and most loved narrative arc within the three books so far. He has been offered comfort and support by nearly every single character close to him. Kaladin had a breaking down moment because he couldn’t go near Dalinar to protect him. Navani fusses over Dalinar during her every scenes. Everyone’s life revolves around Dalinar within Oathbringer.
I sincerely do not understand how it can be argued Brandon does not love nor care about Dalinar nor that Stormlight and its fandom is somehow not giving Dalinar enough attention. Every week we talk about Dalinar. Half of character-related WoB are about Dalinar. Brandon picked himself Dalinar questions to answered. He hardly ever picks up Adolin questions to answer and when he does give an Adolin related question, it usually is because it was directly asked to him in a context where he has to provide an answer. Adolin fans have to be patient, have to wait for an occasion, have to pick up small pieces left here and there while knowing this character they love is never getting the focus within any book. Unlike Dalinar.
Brandon Sanderson loves Dalinar. He is one of his favorites.
@75
Hopefully his future oath will help with that. Like how Kaladin’s fourth oath SEEMS to be about accepting that he can’t protect everybody of something to that affect. , maybe Dalinar’s fourth oath will be that he can’t unite those who don’t want to be united, or about accepting when he needs to let go. Or something along those lines.
Form a song I like, “Some say love is holding on, and some say letting go”
I was struck by this comment in the reread, but have held off on discussing it because I couldn’t quite figure out why. The WoB’s that Gepeto quotes @75 have helped clarify my thoughts. It all ties to Odium’s statement that he is “Passion,” not “Evil” (or whatever word he used).
I’m thinking that Odium and his splinters don’t act “independently” of the person they influence. Rather, they seem to work as magnifiers. Neragul doesn’t create bloodlust in people, but rather dials it up to 11. The Midnight Mother doesn’t create the fears that she manifests, but rather takes them from people and intensifies them to the point of horror.
Odium himself does the same sort thing with Amaram (and maybe even Sadeas). He increases their distrust of Dalinar, their personal sense of importance (sense they know what’s best), desire to save humanity regardless fo the cost (Taravangian), dislike of class/cultural norms (Moash). In all these cases, he seems to be taking an existing emotion and increasing the intensity to an uncontrolled passion.
I think Odium’s problem (and why he created splinters) is that he can’t necessarily control which emotions get increased. This would help explain Dalinar’s actions during the flashbacks. His jealousy of Gavilar gets turned up to the point that he almost commits fratricide/regicide, but his love of his brother is the stronger emotion. When Evi is around, he wants to be the best, most honorable person and husband he can be (and according to HER standards, not necessarily Alethi ones). However, this conflicts with all the “little problems” that are noted in @75, which drives him to separate himself from her and his children. I’d also throw in that his rigid adherence to The Codes in the first two books is both a sign of this increased passion and his need to rigidly control it.
Regarding Dalinar, I’ll just say one of the reasons I like his character/arc so much is because it is a great example of redemption that doesn’t just end in death, but in somebody working to keep taking that next step.
I think technically maybe Evi (and definitely Tien) was ‘fridged’, but I don’t think that has to always be a bad thing. Even TVTropes will be the first to tell you that not all tropes are bad. People die, and their deaths impact people. I think it only gets problematic when it’s the only role women in a story play and they have no other meaningful characteristics. I don’t think that’s the case with Evi and it’s definitely not the case with women in Stormlight as a whole.
Gepeto,
You think, love is reflected in number of pages? I don’t see the connection. Sanderson is overly positive on Kaladin, Shallan abd Adolin. He constantly hurts Dalinar, he’s overly nagative on him and he wtore his story in Oathbringer to make other people hate him too. Seems like it worked.
@82 lordruler
Sanderson said that Dalinar is his favorite character. @78 Gepeto includes the quote.
You write that Dalinar wrote Oathbringer to make people hate Dalinar. Dalinar is a character that Sanderson creates. Being a good writer, he included flaws, and he didn’t make Dalinar a perfect person. Nonetheless, he doesn’t “hate” Dalinar; most of Oathbringer is about Dalinar getting a second chance to do better with his life.
@83
“Sanderson said that Dalinar is his favorite character. @78 Gepeto includes the quote.”
He didn’t say Dalinar is his favorite characters, he did say he’s the first character he ever wrote. That’s different things.
“You write that Dalinar wrote Oathbringer to make people hate Dalinar.”
Yes. Multiple people wrote here they used to love Dalinar, but Oathbringer changed it. Sanderson did it on purpose.
@82: I honestly do not know what to answer to this one. Does love correlate to the number of pages? If we were to ask Brandon, he would say no. He would say he loves everyone of his characters and he tries to treat them fairly within the narrative, but when asked to pick a favorite, yes, he has often said Dalinar. The WoB I posted dates from this week. There has been other older WoB.
As for him hurting Dalinar and wanting the readers to hate him, I think you get the wrong idea. Yes, Dalinar is a character with a dark past who done deeds most people would vehemently disagree with, actions so dark many readers would readily hate his character had not the author done this amazing narrative where we meet an older, honorable Dalinar before we get to meet his younger blood-thirsty self. The end result is, no, readers do not hate Dalinar. As I pointed out, a majority of readers love the character. Do you think people would vote for Dalinar as “best fantasy character” if they hated him? No. However, given the fact this character has done things, it is normal some readers would feel too strongly about him and this is quite fine by me.
There is no such thing as an universally loved character: every single character on this cast gets their readers who aren’t big on them. Kaladin has them, Shallan has then, Adolin has them and Dalinar has them. They just aren’t the same.
Take Shallan who’s character arc was a hit/miss within the readership. Yourself you wouldn’t say the author hates the character, but if there is a character who has attracted hate, it is her and not Dalinar. There is no such thing as a “Dalinar disgust thread”. No one starts their Reddit critic by saying: “I can’t stand Dalinar, I hate him so much I want to stop reading the book”. That’s hate. That’s why, a few weeks ago, I mentioned how I wish for Brandon to turn the tide on Shallan’s character because what I read in the fandom is too divisive, too controversial.
Dalinar is not within this situation. Literally no one is discussing Dalinar in a negative manner. Yes, I, one person, is not his greatest fan. I have been very honest with this, I have admitted I was having problems with his character and, yes, some of my posts can be interpreted as “hate”. I never were Dalinar’s greatest fan, even before OB, so what I read, it made things worst. Does it mean my opinion will never change? NO. I loathed Szeth in WoR, but I found myself really dragged into his narrative in OB. I spoke about angles. It is all about angles: sometimes an author writes a character from a given angle and it works with many readers, but not with abnormal ones such as myself. Then, the author turns the angle slightly and it works.
Brandon just hasn’t found the right angle to make Dalinar sympathetic to me, as a reader, but it doesn’t mean he won’t do it within the next book. And it doesn’t mean the character is hated nor the author wants the readers to hate the character. He has a story to write and Dalinar, he has a dark past. He was the Blackthorn. He burned a whole city for revenge. He killed his wife and then he lied about it, but he eventually decides to change, to become a better man, to get rid of those negative character traits he had. His fight is trying to merge the man he was with the man he now is and to expose the lies.
That’s the character. Some readers will love him for how he grows, some will be bothered by who he was. That, that was part of the narrative Brandon planned, but none of it is a coup to have readers hate Dalinar.
I don’t get where Brandon has said anything negative on Dalinar. He never says anything negative on his characters though he did once say Renarin was more interesting than Adolin because of his secretive nature which was a shot to my personal heart. I don’t think he realized how giving this answer gave the odd feeling people who do not have a secretive nature are somewhat “not interesting”. I felt he was saying “you are not an interesting person” which clearly wasn’t his intend, but yeah. not a good WoB for me.
@83: Well said.
@84: But this was always going to happen. We knew within WoK/WoR Dalinar had a terrible past. What hurt some readers is this past was worst than they anticipated and, as I said, there are readers who didn’t like Dalinar to begin with. I never liked him because I thought he was being hypocritical and I didn’t think he was being a good dad to Adolin. Nearly every reader disagreed with me.
He didn’t do it on purpose: Dalinar has always been this character. We knew. We knew he was dark that’s why he presented him to the narrative as his older self: so that readers wouldn’t hate him. Had he done the opposite, now the readers would hate Dalinar. It is all a matter of perspective: he turned an antagonist into a hero because he wanted the readers NOT to hate Dalinar and it worked. The readers do not hate Dalinar, on average.
Speaking of Shallan and disgust Brandon DELIBERATELY created her to be a controversial character. I believe there are WOBs out there to that affect. I would not be surprised that the same is true with Dalinar.
@Gepeto: “Turns out she was right, but I can’t help wondering why the heck did Dalinar deserve all of this love”
I do. He’s a character in a very Christianity-oriented novel (or series thereof), meaning that he, like every other mortal soul, deserves redemption and love, period.
@lordruler: you seem to be taking what I perceive as two different things and treating them as the same. To love or hate a fictional character is not the same, to me, as loving or hating an actual living person. Many drama geeks love the character of Lear, but presumably (correct me if I’m wrong) you would say that if Shakespeare liked Lear, he should have changed the ending to have him reconcile with Cordelia and live on happily in retirement.
I think PART of the problem is how BROKEN Alethi society is. How do you get a society like this back to working shape? The sad fact is these squabbling high princes won’t respect anything but force. If you look at Dalinar as a leader of a society in TRANSITION I think he makes sense. He represents a BRIDGE between their classist, racist, backstabbing, warmongering ways of the past and the hopeful future. On hand he DOES have the brutality and the warmongering of the OLD Alethi. There is no doubt about it. UNLIKE them however, he respects people based on what they are capable of and promotes off of merit even during his blackthorn days, he doesn’t backstab an ally, and what’s more he sees that while the current highprinces may have to be brought into line, that ALONE is not enough. He has to do better. He may not be the leader of the future. BUT he can PAVE THE WAY. for whoever that leader may be.
@87 Carl,
” you seem to be taking what I perceive as two different things and treating them as the same.”
No, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Sanderson may love Dalinar as his Creation, as a Character in a book, but he hates him as a Human.
I also agree Dalinar deserves love and compassion.
@85 Gepeto,
“I don’t get where Brandon has said anything negative on Dalinar.”
I’ve never read his interviews, but the books he writes represents his feelings towards Dalinar. These feelings are negative, I can feel it. He pities Shallan and cares for her, and for Renarin and for Adolin. He pictures them as a pour souls who deserves all compassions. Dalinar, in his opinion, deserves to be tortured endlessly. He hurt him to much in this book and seems like he enjoys being sadistic to his own character.
There is no such thing as a “Dalinar disgust thread”? This site and this reread is a giant Dalinar disgust thread. And the book, Oathbringer, is Dalinar disgust book. I feel I’m the only one who truly cares for him. I feel Sanderson does not care, but I do.
@90 lordruler,
I don’t know what to tell you then or what exactly you’re asking for. Oathbringer is a redemption book. Everyone gave you their thoughts and reasoning. People have literally said that they love Dalinar the character. No one is telling you to feel otherwise. At some point, you’re going to have to accept that Oathbringer is already written and that people will feel otherwise about Dalinar.
@86: Well, some people have argued saying Shallan is disgusting it pushing the hate one step too far. I tend to agree with the sentient. The thread is badly named, but it does highlight some of the underlining discussions currently happening within the fandom.
@87: Not being a religious individual, I tend to stay away from religious parallel being drawn in between characters and real-world religion. I would pretty useless in having/understanding them anyway. This being said, I understand the purpose of SA is to show no one is beneath redemption. I can however say it has made me struggle with some characters. Yes, I currently struggle with Dalinar but I also struggled with Szeth during the WoR re-read for similar reasons. As for Dalinar, I didn’t mean to say he doesn’t deserve love, but it just seems to me there ought to be those who aren’t so benevolent with him. I understand the context of their world explains it very well, it is just hard to process for me, as a reader.
@88: Dalinar reflects, back in WoR, on how having conquered Alethkar through brute strength was a mistake as it only invites the next strong minded individual to do the same. Any kingdom who is built on the “King of the mountain” game is doom to eventually fail. Dalinar realizes he and Gavilar had not taken the right approach which is why he wants to try another one, but he is unfortunately not well-placed to enforce it.
I have always agreed one of Dalinar’s greatest asset and quality is his ability to recognize and to promote talent independently of his society’s bias. I have always agreed to those statements.
@90: I honestly do not know what to answer to this. I will merely say I am definitely not reading the same “feelings” within the book. On the contrary, part of my personal problem with Dalinar’s character (and I need to emphasis on those problems being personal to me, as a reader, not flaws within the narrative) is I felt the narrative was telling me to pity him and I couldn’t. This being said, Brandon is a smart writer, he knows by writing a given narrative his readers will have various reactions. He loves the fact we don’t all agree as it creates discussions. If everyone agreed on Dalinar, there wouldn’t be any discussion. Shallan’s character, despite being the less liked of the main protagonists, created a lot of discussion. Brandon wants to encourage those, he wants to encourage each reader to get what they want out of this stories. Yes, some readers get something personal within some of the character and each time he was told, he answered how pleased he was this was happening.
And characters such as Adolin have very vocal and strong hate group. The 17th Shard just published a Shardcast having for topic Adolin/Renarin and they start of by saying they want to do Adolin first to avoid the “Adolin haters”. Anyone who tries to write positive comments on Adolin, on Reddit, gets downvoted. The character is not getting compassion or love, he is getting eye rolling behavior and a bunch of readers who call him a Gary Stu. All characters have their haters and, quite sincerely, Dalinar has much less than either Shallan or Adolin have. Gee, talking about Adolin’s character became a “no-no” thing to do because it attracts rants and attacks. Some posters on this re-read will not even engage within those discussions because that’s how uninterested they are about the character, but they will readily discuss other characters.
I love Adolin, but I am only ONE person. There aren’t a lot of other active readers who love the character as much as I do. My opinion doesn’t represent the fandom as a whole.
This thread is not a Dalinar’s disgust thread. Many posters have stated how positively they felt towards Dalinar’s character. We had other discussions a few weeks back and most were highly sympathetic towards Dalinar. I, this is true, I am not, but again, I am ONE reader. How many readers, beside myself, have expressed overly negative feelings towards Dalinar?
I mean, if you feel Oathbringer was a Dalinar’s disgust book, then I don’t know what to answer. A lot of readers care about Dalinar, but they may not care for Dalinar in the same ways as you do. A lot of readers pity him as you do, but pity is not going to be the only emotion the character will attract. I don’t pity Dalinar, but that’s me. I tend not to feel what I am supposed to feel within those books, my reactions are often at odds with other readers. I am not a reference.
@91: I agree, well said. Oathbringer was a book having an amazing focus on Dalinar’s character. If somehow this wasn’t enough for some readers who loved the character, then it may be nothing will ever be enough. That’s character has a dark past. It is realistic to expect readers will have various reaction to the character.
I have mentioned in previous reread threads: many (most?) of the viewpoint characters are murderers (Dalinar, Shallan, Jasnah, Adolin, Eshonai, Venli, Taravangian, Moash). It’s not exactly a distinction, in the Stormlight Archive. It does give (most) readers mixed feelings about the character, as it is meant to.
@@@@@88: Yes! Of all of the societies we’ve seen so far on Roshar, the Althei / Vorin combo seems to be the most “broken” from my PoV as a modern person in the United State. (Yes, we have our own set of issues.) I’m looking forward to seeing how the culture will shift by the end of the last book. I don’t see it totally changing. Yet by the end of book 10, enough time and major events will have happen for the general culture to have shifted.
My hope is that it is away from the dark / light eye divide. And the use of slavery. But I’ve been disappointed in books before in that regard.
@@@@@ Lord Ruler: Authors look at their characters differently. They treat them much worse than a person would treat a friend. Multiple authors have said they come up with plots by thinking “What’s the worse situation / thing I can do to this character?” Sanderson has asked “Who’s the most ill-suited I can choose to do a job? But force them to do it anyways?”
Sanderson has named one of his son’s after Dalinar, you don’t get much more love than that.
You might want to listen to the Writing Excesses: WoK project in-depth episode to hear more about Sanderson’s thoughts on Dalinar from 6 years ago. Honestly listening to the Writing Excuses podcast as whole has given me a new perspective on books and why authors make their choices. I’m not a novel writer, I’m a reader. Yet it has still been really helpful to me to listen to.
The early years were more scattered in theme. Ever since season 10, they have been more structured on how to craft a book or how to fix a character.
If nothing else, I find that all the main commentators and most of the guests have pleasant voices to listen too. I’ve also have discovered more books I want to read due to their recommendations.
To anyone that has a writer in their life – Send them to Writing Excuses and Sanderson’s on-line lecture series.
@60 whitespine
I agree, these are Dalinar’s strongest and worst memories as they are associated with his guilt and pain. Again I do like Evilmonkey’s points about how these are all from Dalinar’s perspective. Considering how he views his past self, it would be natural he would paint himself in the worst possible way. There are glimpses, but those glimpses very definitely show there was affection, there was love between Dalinar and Evi. It wasn’t a healthy love. It wasn’t a wholesome love. But the love was there, grown over time.
@63 birgit
If we look at the Thrill as an addiction to alcohol or opium (I say opium because it was a substance abused heavily in China during the 1800s, so like the Thrill with Alethkar, it was a national issue for that country) then we see just because some individuals may deal with the addiction better, or seamingly better (“high functioning” alcoholics for instance), does not necessarily mean they were model citizens. We do not get to see the personal family life of other light eyes. We do not get to see how other light eyes deal with the thrill, and how they act behind closed doors without the thrill outside of battle. We also do not see any other lighteyes seeming to be possessed by the Thrill even off the battle field. So Dalinar could be supremely unique, or he could be part of a percentage that could vary from 1 percent of the population (which with a country the size of Alethkar would still be significant) to a large chunk. We know what is said in “accepted” circles. Just like we know assassination is “unseemly” by lighteyes in polite circles, as they very readily employ such tactics behind the scenes. So I am not saying Dalinar is an example of typical Alethi, nor am I saying he is blameless. What I am saying is what I feel is more a moderate view regarding Dalinar. He is an individual that is susceptible to addiction. He is an individual who for reasons when he was younger than we do not know, that his baser actions were effective for him, and even beneficial to him. That although he did chose to get into the river and swim it, and that every stroke was his own, the current from addiction surely helped push him further along and made trying to swim back that much harder. The fact that he was able to accept his actions, his responsibility, and stand up to become a better man, speaks miles for his character. And I feel we seem glimmers into this character the times we see love between Dalinar and Evi. That Evi saw the person deep down that Dalinar could one day be and bit by agonizing bit, she helped bring that out in him.
@64 Evilmonkey
I believe it is a combination of things. We know in order for a person to pick up a shard, they have to have a connection to it. Connection has to do a lot with what kind of person you are and how you act. Sazed is a prime example of this, so I will white it out as it is mistborn spoilers.
Sazed was very much of preservation. He was a keeper, all about preserving knowledge and life. It wasn’t till he lost Twindel, and had a crisis of faith, that he gained some connection to Ruin. It is because of that experience and connection, that allowed him to pick up both preservation and ruin to become harmony.
So in Dalinar’s case he has connection to all three shards, Odium, Honor and Cultivation. To me there is a very real chance that Dalinar may take up all three shards depending on things go down with the war on Roshar.
@66 keyblazing
Vin most definitely counts. I think someone mentions it later, but Ruin set up Vin with a hemalurgic spike right after birth. Preservation knew this, and worked his own machinations with her. WoB also confirm she was definitely Preservation’s chosen. It is why she was so naturally skillful with allomancy. Far more than anyone else.
@67 BenW
Agree on all points. I think part of the problem with this is the idea of having to “assign blame” or “pity” Dalinar. At the end of the day none of that matters. The people of the Rift are dead. Nothing done to Dalinar will change that. No amount of anger at him, or pity for him will change the actions Dalinar took in the past, nor the actions Dalinar takes now. Everyone is different. There will always be one person who thinks someone should suffer, while one person thinks they should be helped. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is how Dalinar now chooses to live his life. That is the whole point of the book, and even the oath he took at the end of it. Moving forward, striving to become a better man. Knowing you will continue to falter and fail. Knowing that being an addict means every single day of your life is a battle. Is a risk of falling back into that hole and never coming out. But knowing you still have to fight, and still keep going on. Still have that drive, and want to be better. And that to me is why that scene at the ends becomes so strong, and poignant. No one can be as hard on Dalinar as Dalinar is hard on himself. That may not be the external punishment/torture/torment that some desire, but it is no less as real or painful.
@68 whitespine
Ah, I agree, great minds think alike! (sorry that I basically repeated what you wrote. I am going comment to comment)
@80 RogerPavelle
Very interesting insights on Odium and the Unmade. I agree on all points!
@81 Lisemarie
Very good point. It is far harder to live with your actions, than die because of them. Living with them requires maintaining them every day of your life.
@88 BenW
All very interesting points. I love the image of a fallen ruler, rising again to remedy the sins of the past by ensuring the culture is a better one so that no one in the future need go through what he did.
@everyone
It has been said it is difficult to understand why Navani, Adolin, Renarin, Evi and Jasnah could love Dalinar even when he was an alcoholic. A friend of mine posted this just a few minutes ago, and I think it says a lot
“I have/had a lot of alcoholics in my family and can’t begin to describe how difficult it has been. If anyone out there is Facebookland can relate, I could use some mutually understood discussion/comfort/venting. Please no one tell me to “cut them out.” it isn’t that easy. I think the most difficult part is knowing how amazing and good and kind and intelligent and respected and skilled that person used to be, and trying to explain that to someone else that only sees them as an angry yelling mean pos. It’s heartbreaking on so many levels. Then pieces of them come out, pieces of who they were. Like I said, it’s not easy”
So I think we have to remember that Dalinar is not just a brute at war. Like EvilMonkey said, we are seeing how Dalinar sees himself, and as we have seen in the books as well as WoB, Dalinar is the hardest on himself than anyone else. All he sees is his own negatives, and how he must constantly be on guard to prevent himself from ever going back. But Evi, Adolin, Navani, Renarin, and Jasnah do see the good qualities of Dalinar. That is why Jasnah said he is the best man she ever knows. That’s why Navani loves him. They do know Dalinar at his heart. He is a deeply deeply flawed man, but he is not only those flaws. And they all do truly love and support him.
I don’t know if someone has commented on this, but JFK, Jr. saluted his father’s casket during JFK’s funeral. He was three years old.
https://www.upi.com/blog/2013/11/25/The-picture-of-the-funeral-JFK-Jr-salutes-his-fathers-casket/5681385394814/
In an interview, JFK, Jr. was asked if he was told to do that. He said he barely remember, but was told later that no one told him. And he said, if he did it on his own, it was because he probably felt it was the right thing to do..
I wish I can find that TV interview but I can’t. I just remember watching it.
Anyway, just food for thoughts on why Brandon decided to write Adolin’s scene that way.
@95 Scath
Thanks for the kind words. I tend to worry that posts might get lost in the noise, so having a comment on it really helps.
@98 RogerPavelle
No problemo. It was a well thought out theory that makes a lot of sense to me. Like you said, if that is the case, it would make sense that Dalinar would try to stay distant from Evi. Having two strong emotions warring inside him constantly cannot be easy. He would feel constantly pulled in two opposite directions. By being away from her, he can give in to overwhelming passion of the Thrill but without the warring emotion that Evi inspires. It would also, like you said, explain why he feels he has to be so strictly in control of himself. In his mind, anytime he lets himself be emotional, he goes back to that old Dalinar and people get hurt, not realizing that the Thrill is part of what amplified those emotions to such extreme degrees. This causes him to be afraid of even healthy emotions, such as his renewed love for Navani later in Way of Kings and Words of Radiance
Seconded :) Especially as I tend to get to the OB discussions later and there’s usually 70+ (or sometimes 100) before I even get to it :)
WOOO HUNNY :)
@100 and 101 Lisemarie
No problem, and congrats!
Interesting WoB on Dalinar here.
While this WoB refers to a particular scene, I thought the answer was broader. I feel Brandon here confirms Dalinar’s feelings aren’t just the product of the Thrill. Together with the other WoB I posted, I do feel it is implied Dalinar has a large part of the blame when it comes to his actions. In other words, it wasn’t just the Thrill which influence him. He genuinely wanted to be who he was independently of the existence of the Thrill.
There is this one I also like. I posted it within another thread, but maybe it is too old and no one is going back to read it. So here it is again.
I like this one because it says it is “reasonable” to think Adolin, of all people, will not take it lightly to the truth about his mother which is indeed included within Oathbringer, the in-world book. My interpretation of this WoB is whatever reaction Adolin has, it will not be positive. He will not readily brush it away nor blame the Thrill. I am pleased with this WoB.
Brandon also says it is “reasonable” to think Dalinar having presumably forgiven Adolin is easy to say, but a bit harder to actually do.
He won’t however say if the next book includes denouement with respect to the Dalinar/Adolin relationship.
I hope some will enjoy those WoBs :-) And I hope they are relevant enough to this week’s discussions. They won’t be net week.
Gepeto @103. That WoB has a hole so big you can drive an 18 wheeler through it. Brandon said it is reasonable to think. First, that could mean reasonable to a reader who lives on Earth; not an Alethi. Second, if it were reasonable to an average in world character, it may not be reasonable to Adolin as Brandon views the character. Third, Brandon may decide that Adolin needs to be unreasonable.
I understand you want their to be consequences for Adolin believing one thing for so long and now learning the truth is almost the opposite. But if you cling to Brandon’s statement that the plot will play out as you hope, you may set yourself up to feel the book is a disappointment because it does not meet your expectations.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
Aka the musespren
(Sent from my smartphone)
@104 AndrewHB
I think you are being a bit hyper-critical here. Yes, reasonable does not mean that things will proceed as described, but it certainly implies that, if they don’t, there will be a good (and explicit) reason why they don’t. Quick speculation (with absolutely no basis for the speculations) could include something happening to Dalinar, Navani, Shallan or Renarin that provides a distraction. There could be repercussions to Adolin’s killing Sadeas that affect his reactions. Maya, The Night Mother, The Stormfather, or Cultivation could intervene.
At the very least, it means people who subscribe to that viewpoint aren’t completely off base, even if for some reason things play out differently.
I enjoy the WoBs. I don’t follow the fandom enough to catch them so it’s nice to get a chance to hear them.
@104: Andrew, Brandon RAFO the subsequent question on whether or not this will be explored, in some fashion, within the next book. No one is having any expectation with respect to Adolin besides expecting the least amount of viewpoint humanly possible. Considering we do know Maya is seen “again” in book 4, it seems reasonable to think Adolin will have, at the very least, one viewpoint chapter. Of course, this is a gross under-statement, but I think you get what I mean here ;-)
I will certainly not jump into book 4 expecting some grand amazing Adolin related arc: I have made my peace with the fact Brandon does not plan to write much more than he currently has for Adolin. I wish he would change his mind, but I know it is not going to happen. Still, within what he chose to write, how Adolin reacts to Dalinar has been at the core of his character development. As a result, I certainly do not expect all will be good and clean going into book 4 when it comes to the Dalinar/Adolin relationship. If it is unrealistic for Brandon to make Kaladin/Shallan issues disappear from the narrative all together, it certainly is equally unrealistic for Brandon to do the same with Adolin. Why would Brandon start treating his own character in an unfair fashion when he explicitly stated he would not do so (another WoB)? Adolin’s self-worth issues and hero worship complex with Dalinar aren’t going to be magically hand-waved anymore than Kaladin’s depression or Veil and Radiant.
Of course, all readers are free to make up their own interpretation, but as far as WoB go, this one does confirm it is reasonable to think many people, especially Adolin, will react negatively to the truth. Brandon may decide everyone involved will be unreasonable (and it would be very unrealistic for him to do so), but if he felt the reasonable, rational reaction for Adolin would be to brush it away, as some readers are saying is the case, then I certainly think he would have given another answer.
In other words, if Brandon did think it was reasonable for Adolin to react positively to the news, I am convinced he would have answered differently. He would have said something along the lines of: “Adolin can be very forgiving when it comes to Dalinar” and so on. Brandon does not lie to his readers on WoB. He does not mislead them on purpose. He does not say everything, but when asked about characters he usually tells us the right thing.
Also, it is worth nothing Brandon specifically mentioned the truth was in the book Dalinar is writing. Hence, this isn’t another Sadeas where there had been a chance, from the start, the truth wouldn’t come out: this time around, we have just gotten the confirmation it will come out, unless absolutely no one reads Dalinar’s book which we are all going to agree is not plausible.
Therefore, Adolin will find out. He’ll have a reaction. It is reasonable to think it won’t be a positive one. Brandon said him, specifically, wouldn’t react well. Now how much of the narrative will this take, no one knows. It may happen during the one year gap for all we know, but at least we do know that no, Adolin will not brush it away nor rationalize “it wasn’t Dalinar’s fault”.
@105: Of course, things could not happened as planned. This could be just one sentence within the next book, but I still think it wouldn’t be fair to have Adolin’s issues with self-worth when it comes to his father disappear from the narrative all together. The truth about Evi ties right into this which is why I think it may be a bigger deal than Sadeas turned out being.
And yes, the ramifications following Sadeas’s death may not be over. The truth only comes out at the end of the book though, in this case, we can expect “stuff” to happen during the one year gap. As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dalinar/Adolin relationship starts as strained early in book 4.
@106: I think it gives a very strong argument in favor of those subscribing to this viewpoint.
I am glad you enjoyed the WoB.
IF Renarin stays by Dalinar’s side I Imagine it might have something to do with the nature of a Truthwatcher, whatever that is.
I can only speculate on Truthwatchers, but when we talk about the nature of truth and speaking truth here is something of my own experiences in it.
Many people speak of wanting to hear the truth, but in reality the only want to hear the truth so long as it conforms to their own world views. I have have both learned that about other people and myself.
For example I am a procrastinator who requires a certain amount of structure to function, but rebels against to much structure because of my OCD that imposes forced structure on myself I instinctively rebel against more from outside. (Hmm shades of Jasnah in myself there, perhaps) The FACT that I need a certain amount of structure was a hard truth about myself that took me a while to realize. At the same time because of my Asperger’s Syndrome I don’t see the point in pretending the world is anyway other then how it is. I often use blunt honesty and tell people the truth about things. But I have come to realize that people often say one thing and mean another. One frequent frustration I have is. If you didn’t want an honest answer to that question than why do you ask?
I can bring an example from my personal life into this if you want.
@108 BenW
I think the Truthwatchers will have the same issues that telepaths have in a lot of fantasy novels. They know exactly how you really feel. This can be upsetting because we do not always share the entire truth to others, and despite how much we may love a person, there will always be a time we think something that should never be said and telepaths get to hear it. I think Renarin will know the entirety of the situation. He will understand Dalinar made those actions himself, but he was also influenced by the Thrill. He will know the full bare bones brutality of the situation. I think it will be very hard for him, but time and again we see Renarin overcome great adversity with quiet strength. I think he will be there for Adolin during this time, like he tried to be during Adolin being around Sadeas. During this one year gap I think Renarin will be the one string that keeps the family together. Dalinar’s relationship with his children will definitely change, but I do not feel it will be destroyed.
Feel free to share your example
@108 This may seem silly but I made it my personal mission that whenever people ask me, “How was your day?” to actually take my time and think about it and answer as if they asked that question seriously, rather than as if they just used it to say hello. Because it bothers me (I wouldn’t say hate as that is to strong a term, but just like a pet peeve) how we use it when we don’t actually care how the other person is feeling, but just want to say hello. That being said, I try not to do it in a mean or snarky way either. In fact I often take the time to explain my train of thoughts to people. This is why feel this way, and I am responding to you in such a matter. I am not perfect on the subject either. I sometimes find myself doing it myself out of force of habit. BUT, I have gotten good at catching myself and I rarely ask other people this question unless I genuinely mean it anymore. My biggest problem in holding myself to this rule is probably with my family, because they KNOW why I have this rule, so I sometimes, cheat and ask if it’s ok if I not answer the question.
P.S. That being said a similar convention that I do NOT have a problem with is telling people that I “hope they have a good day. Because I USUALLY DO, hope that people will have a good day.
P.P.S. That being said, me being me, I will often temper with “as good a day as can be expected” if the weather is crummy, as I feel that not taking the affect the weather can have on a day is dishonest. Another thing I will do is just shorten things to “Day or “Bye” and OMIT the “Good” if I am in a bad mood and don’t wish them a GOOD day. This allows me to avoid taking my anger out on them, but I also avoid lieing to them. That being said sometimes I just shorten the phrase for the sake of shortening it and there’s no special meaning.
P.P.P.S.On an unrelated note I am currently doing my own Stormlight Reread seperate from this one, while I am not skipping anything, because I don’t skip. I am paying EXTRA CLOSE attention to stuff that comes up with Renarin and Jasnah to see stuff I might have overlooked or forgotten. I have already found two interesting tidbits in The Way Of Kings, one for each character, if anyone wants me to share. Just thought I should ask first.
@110 BenW
I understand. My original intention is for instance lets say two people who care about each other are having a fight. Normally in a healthy relationship, they would say what they say, talk it out, and come to a resolution. Thing is, when tempers are high, even when you calmly talk it out, your brain is firing at all cylinders. Certain words, terms, or thoughts may pop into your head that you would never say aloud, never act on, or mean. If that person however could read your mind, they get to see like an open book, all your most ugly thoughts. That can be very painful and jarring to a person. Now I am not saying Truthwatchers are telepaths, but I think if their name is indicative of their abilities, being able to see someone at their heart, the absolute truth of a person, can be a very very hard pill to swallow. But given how Renarin is, I think he can come through the other side.
Now I am certainly not enforcing or telling anyone what topics they can or cannot speak about nor when it is allowed to speak of it, but this week’s chapter seems to focus on the interactions between Dalinar, Evi, Adolin and Renarin. I think if your comments are more focused on Jasnah than Renarin, then perhaps they would be better suited for this coming Thursday’s reading. But at the end of the day, feel free to post as you wish.
Well one early bit related to Renarrin that seems weird is the bit where Wit teased Renarin in Chapter 12 for SOMEHOW getting the attention of two sisters (out of three). I have my theories but anything should be interpreted with a grain of salt and heavy bias. ESPECIALLY as I have only JUST STARTED said reread. For Now I just wanted to point out said odd bit.
That being said Renarin denied it vehemently, and this is WIT we are talking about, but by the same token I have to wonder if there is some truth to in it the way “the girl who stood up” true. Like he said “he only mocks those who can benefit from it.
For now I mainly point it out to promote discussion.
I think BenW marks a point in mentioning how, sometimes, people want to hear the truth which is the most convenient to them, not the real one. I do think it is relevant to this current discussion and it is precisely what makes me think, in between both brothers, Renarin might have an easier time internalizing the truth than Adolin.
Why? Because Adolin’s version of the events is already very internalized: he believes what is convenient for him to believe. Sadeas is a Big Bad Guy who purposefully torched the Rift (thought the official version of the event Gavilar released spoke if the fire being accidental). Dalinar is the Honorable Good Soldier who would have stopped him had he not been a Victim of Events, had not been injured, grieving and unable to do so. The official version of the event however never mentioned Dalinar having wanted to stop the fire and failing to do so out of grief, it doesn’t mention Sadeas lighting the fire on purpose: Adolin made this up.
Adolin believes a truth he wants to believe, a truth which works with how he has perceived both his father and Sadeas. He wants to view his father as a Hero and he wants to view Sadeas a the Bad Person (granted he actually is, but the fact remains the fire weren’t his idea).
I however do not think many people will excuse Dalinar based on the Thrill. That’s a few WoB we are getting now which states Dalinar acted on his own feelings and not the Thrill. Blaming the Thrill is an easy way out, but it one Dalinar rejects because, in the end, he knows he had a choice. I doubt he will present the events in a different manner nor that he will try to mitigate the impact by attempting to be pitiful.
He will tell the blunt truth. He always does. And I don’t think Adolin will want to hear this specific truth because it changes everything when it comes to how he relates to his father.
@112 BenW
For myself at least, I think that is one of those times it is exactly what it is. Wit was teasing Renarin about being with women, because he knew it would fluster Renarin, get a reaction out of him, and make him stand up for himself. Renarin tends to retreat back into himself. When it comes down to it, Renarin is a very capable, and strong person. He just has massive amounts of self doubt due to his upbringing. I think Wit wanted to try and poke Renarin to help him see that.
@114 You may be right. If so he probably did it without even trying. While that may seem weird it’s not impossible. I once flirted with someone and didn’t realize I was doing it until it was pointed out to me after the fact.
Still once I finish my reread I will share my crazy theory if nothing comes along to debunk it. That or when we come to the appropriate spot in this reread, whichever comes first. SPOILER ALERT it has to do with a DIFFERENT character.
@115 BenW
Lol, Looking forward to reading it.
I think we do need to be cautious in developing firm expectations based on the WoB quoted @103 from Enasor. When someone asks Brandon if it would be reasonable to expect something, and Brandon says yes, that would be a reasonable expectation, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what will happen. It really does only mean that it’s reasonable, given what we know so far, to think the thing is likely. In this case, certainly it’s reasonable for us to think that Adolin will react poorly to learning the truth of Evi’s death; that doesn’t necessarily mean Adolin will react as we expect him to. What if his reaction is to simply assume that Dalinar isn’t telling the whole truth now? Or that he’s been influenced by Odium to believe lies? What if he blames the Nightwatcher for everything and still believes Dalinar is All That? What if he decides that Evi was in the wrong to try to negotiate with someone who had set her husband up for an ambush? I’d certainly call any of those a negative reaction – but not negative against Dalinar. So, sure, it’s reasonable to think Adolin won’t react well… but let’s not get too sure that our “reasonable expectation” will play out the way we assume is “most reasonable.”
@117: Well, yeah maybe. I just think he would have used other words if he thought the questioner was out in the blue.
Since we are doing a WoB party, here is another one, fresh from today. It comes from my own personal book ordered directly from the Brandon store. I asked for something new with respect to the Dalinar/Adolin relationship which would be relevant to the main narrative. The key word is, well, relevant. I didn’t want some obscure reference to their relationship which was never going to come into play, like another WoB on Adolin/Renarin which was sweet, but turned out being completely irrelevant.
Here is what he gave me:
I thought it tied in neatly to the other WoB from Reddit. Neither Adolin nor Dalinar believes one can be a good person if this person doesn’t correspond to what Dalinar considers to be a “good person”. And this is relevant to the main narrative. It is easy to link it to this other WoB about Dalinar perhaps not having really forgiven Adolin… or maybe he did, but this “new son”, he doesn’t think he is a good person. And neither does Adolin.
So whatever happens within the next book, this little arc doesn’t look like it is over.
And I think we ALL can agree that it’s GOOD that the arc isn’t over.
@119: Yes. This is something I definitely agree with. I worried for a time Oathbringer’s ending closed all issues because I didn’t feel like, well, it did no more than it closes Shallan’s issues with Veil/Radiant. At least now, it does seem like Adolin’s self-worth issues are going to improve within the near future neither does it seem like Dalinar is ready to accept the man Adolin actually is.
@ALL but ESPECIALLY Gepeto Also IF Adolin were to become an edgedancer by reviving Maya how would this sound for HIS VERSION of the third ideal, “I will listen to those that have been ignored, even if the one I have been ignoring is myself.”
@Gepeto: I think that if it is “reasonable” for Adolin to react negatively, then should Brandon write him as not caring that his father killed his mother it will be presented as wrong, as denial, as a huge flaw in Adolin.
I’m sure (based just on my sense of the story) that Adolin will “get” a book in the “Back Five” Stormlight novels. After I’m dead.
(Dalinar unintentionally killed his wife. Shallan personally killed her mother and father, in both cases for fear of her own and/or her brothers’ lives. Venli got her sister killed. Jasnah considered having her sister-in-law assassinated, and in retrospect it would have been better if she had. Meanwhile Taravangian is by all accounts a wonderful father. Brandon’s really not allowing any black-and-white people into this story.)
@121: As Andrew rightly pointed it, there are treacherous ground for me to try to walk on… because I am absolutely in LOVE with it!!! I guess there is nothing wrong in indulging myself into what “might happen” :-)
@122: There are various ways to write a “negative reaction” or just a “reaction”. It needs not be anger towards Dalinar, I would definitely consider denial and a refusal to accept the truth as a negative reaction, it just wouldn’t be one geared towards Dalinar, but towards Adolin himself. I think there more than one way to write this one and it truly depends on where Brandon wants to push both Adolin and Dalinar’s characters, how he wants them to evolve and where he wants them to go considering neither Adolin nor Dalinar think Adolin, by the end of OB, is a good person.
Come to think of it, it ties in neatly to OB’s final chapters. There is a moment where Adolin wonders what is left of him once we strip him of his name, his rank, his money and his Blade: a murderer. That’s all Adolin believes there is to him as anything good in him comes from outside source, if he is a good fighter, that not really him, that’s Maya and so on. His issues were more or less lost in the mist of our Radiants doing their Radiant business, but I definitely there is enough material here to expend, should Brandon wish to.
Also, Adolin is not getting “a book” within the back 5 nor a focus arc within any book. That’s why I said we can’t allow ourselves, I can’t allow myself, to expect much more out of Adolin than what we have gotten so far. Still, within those handful of chapters, there might be enough page time to write some more on his own self-worth issues which are related to himself thinking he needs to be what Dalinar wants him to in order to be a good person. Thoughts shared by Dalinar.
On the fridged woman trope: I agree with AA that Sanderson skirts this trope (narrowly) by giving Evi a lot of agency in her role. She was an interesting, complex character, who yes does not exist in the main timeline because of her death, but in the few interactions we do have of her in the past, as well as some of the ways she is referred to in the present, gives us a clear idea of what an interesting character she is. I also think that Sanderson skirts the trope by the fact that Evi’s death wasn’t enough on it’s own to spur Dalinar into his heroic quest; really all it did was sink Dalinar to his nadir. Galivar’s death is what inspires him to change for the better. So I think the question stands: is Galivar a fridged man? Does the addition of a fridged man make the fridged woman in Evi less of a problematic trope? With everything we actually know or suspect about Galivar and even Evi, can either of them actually be considered fridged?
Evi wasn’t fridged at all, in my head. The original case was a woman killed by the villain to motivate the hero. Here Evi was killed by the hero to show the depths he fell to, because this entire story is about redemption. The plot mechanic is similar but in literary terms it’s almost an inversion.
So does Evi count as subverting the trope?
Question .What are the unmade, unmade from? Are they twisted versions of the heralds? Is the thrill a twisted version of the desire to protect that was able to be made from Jeserin the first time he broke? The reason I bring this up is because there is a fine line between taking satisfaction in a job well done EVEN if that job is being a solider who protects, and realizing the fact that what you ESSENTIALLY took satisfaction in WAS killing another living being. You may have done it to protect someone, but you still HAD TO KILL someone and took satisfaction in it. What was it Kal told Syl in this book? It’s all about perspective?
I don’t just bring up this theory for the sake OF the theory, BUT because IF it is true it is ANOTHER way that the WOB COULD be read. What was it we heard, back int he way of Kings “That Fighting, EVEN FIGHTING against the Ten Deaths can change a person”? On the other hand, there is nothing to say that what we see is NOT exactly what we get.
I just like bringing up alternative perspectives. :D
The twisted version of the Heralds, at least within the magic system, would be the Fused. Both die and are transported to Braize as Cognitive Shadows (basically the spirits of the dead in this context), then return to Roshar and are re-embodied. Both, for that matter, have to varying degrees been driven mad by the millennia of death and rebirth. Both are tied directly to a Shard and don’t run out of Investiture the way Radiants do.
Note that the Regals are a parallel to the Radiants. Bound to a spren (voidspren, not a truespren), gain power that looks like various Surges (but isn’t the same, because of course they’re bound to different types of spren). Thus Venli gains “speak all languages”, which is similar to Dalinar’s “learn language by touching a native speaker” ability, but not the same. In fact, what Odium grants is better.
(Digression: what if Dalinar used his language power on a Singer? Would he be temporarily able to hear the Rhythms?)
I wonder if Regals can heal themselves like Radiants, or if Odium is different enough from Honor and Cultivation that he doesn’t grant spiritweb healing to his lesser servants.
I don’t remember: did the Heralds come before or after the Fused? I’m just wondering which Vessel was copying the other.
Hmm … if a Singer (Venli) can be a Radiant, presumably a “human” could be a Regal? Or does that require having a gemheart?
Regarding Evi and if she’s fridged, my take on it is that she kind of was, but I don’t think fridging is in and of itself a bad trope. It’s just ‘bad’ that it’s so often the only thing that a woman gets to do in a story and sometimes an indication that writers don’t really know what to do with women, or can’t think of any other way to motivate a character or introduce trauma. Sanderson has so many other female characters in various roles and it’s clear they’re not just disposable characters/props so it doesn’t come off as lazy/cheap writing.
@127 BenW
Unfortunately one of the things that runs counter to your theory is if we believe that Taln was the only herald that never broke, then the “missing” unmade should be a reflection of the stonewards, when WoB say what the Unmade are missing are the Bondsmiths.
@128 Carl
Things are pretty confusing right now regarding who came first, chicken or the egg. Spren say they emulated the honorblades, so radiants seem to have come after the heralds. According to the stormfather the heralds formed to stop the fused from constantly coming, yet other lore seems to imply that the singers became the fused in response to the spren bonding humans instead of them and using surges. So I do not think we know lol
@Scáth, #130: you’re assuming that Surgebinders must be Radiants. That’s simply not the case, it was human Surgebinders who destroyed Ashyn and forced humans to move to Roshar. I’ve mentioned my pet theory before: that the Radiant Orders were founded specifically to limit Surgebinding, and that without the Oaths people and spren could do more, not less. Thus when she literally could not remember taking the First Oath, Shallan could actually use the Surge of Transportation and go to the Cognitive Realm back in Way of Kings, but now that she’s more committed to the Radiants, she can’t.
Radiants can do a lot, but even Unity probably could not devastate an entire world like the pre-Radiant Ashyn Surgebinders.
What the spren were imitating to make Radiants was Honorblades, not Heralds per se.
Carl @131 – I totally agree that Surgebinders and Radiants are not necessarily the same thing; Radiants are a subset of Surgebinders. And I agree that the Radiant Ideals were created in order to limit and channel the powers of Surgebinding, to keep the humans from doing the kind of thing on Roshar that they did on Ashyn.
I disagree that Shallan went into the Cognitive Realm physically in TWoK, but we’ve had that discussion before. It was on my list of questions to ask at the Skyward signing, but another of the things I didn’t have time to ask.
@131 Carl
I never said I assumed they were the same thing. We also have no idea what “human surgebinders” who destroyed Ashyn were. We know Ashyn uses disease based magic. We know they did not always use disease based magic. We know the magic that destroyed Ashyn is similar in form but different in function than on Roshar. I said the spren were imitating the honorblades, not the heralds, but the honorblades were created for the heralds and given to them. So if we are to believe (which I am not saying I do believe this, as far as I am concerned, all is suspect) the spren, that they emulated the honorblades, then that emulation by proxy came after the heralds. Yet the listeners feel the bonding came before. Maybe if I put it in list form, it will help
Heralds were given the honorblades in response to the fused never ending returning
Spren emulated the honorblades to provide powers by bonding humans
Listeners went to Odium and became the fused because the spren bonded humans and bestowed them powers
That is why I think everything is confusing, and there is a lot of misinformation. If this order is correct, then the listeners became the fused, traveled back in time, attacked Roshar, causing the Heralds to get honorblades, causing the spren to bond humans, causing the listeners to become fused. To me something isn’t right there lol. Hopefully that clarified things.
@132 Wetlandernw
I agree on all points. Hopefully the above post clarified what I was referring to regarding Carl.
@Scáth, that is not the stated reason for the Listeners becoming Odium’s. The Listeners went over to Odium when humans started leaving Shinovar and invading the rest of Roshar.
I agree completely that we don’t know the full story and that at least some of what we have been told (or rather, what the characters have been told) is still wrong. I’m just repeating what I saw in the story told so far.
(What would have happened if Eshonai’s mission to Alethkar had just told Gavilar the “true” history instead of murdering him? Or if one of the Heralds, several of whom were there at the party, had done so?)
@134 Carl
In one of the songs of the listeners, which if I recall correctly was confirmed by Eshonai, the listeners felt betrayed by the spren choosing to bond with the humans. That while the listeners were broth, the humans were meat to the spren, more “filling”. They literally referred to it as a betrayal. On top of that as Roshar is their planet, and the humans were only in a small part, one would figure the listeners far outnumbered the humans at that time. I could not see the humans taking over Roshar without conflict, from a group that far outnumbered them, unless they possessed powers. I believe there are WoB and in book references to support this, but since I cannot recall them off the top of my head, I will state this portion as my opinion, but the humans coming to Roshar would not have had access to the same powers they did on Ashyn. So they would need to have bonded with the spren to gain powers. Now I am of the belief that the surgebinders of old on Roshar, bonded the spren, but were not subject to the oaths nor restrictions. I agree with you and Alice that the oaths and restrictions came later. Basically the rough order I think happened in my opinion is this:
1 Humans blew up Ashyn with the magic system they had access to on Ashyn.
2 Humans used the last of their abilities to transport to Roshar
3 Listeners welcomed the humans and gave them some land
4 Humans started to expand
5 Listeners fought them
6 Spren began to bond with the humans and powers emerged but without the limitations of the oaths
7 Listeners feeling betrayed by the spren for bonding the humans and giving them abilities as they are being wiped out turn to Odium for powers to fight back
8 Fused start wiping the floor with the humans because they can return neverending
9 Heralds make deal with honor and get honorblades
10 Spren emulating the ideals the Heralds extol, potentially forced or pushed towards from the heralds themselves, result in oaths being required to become a radiant
As to your question regarding Eshonai, I do not think even she knew the entire story. Remember the big “revelation” we got was from a historical document translated while the listeners hold an oral history. The oral history that we see the differences in songs have changed over the generations. So basically there is a whole lot that is confusing lol.
@Scáth, I think your outline is totally consistent with what we know so far.
@136 Carl
Thanks, now if only we could know more! lol. The rest of stormlight can’t come soon enough!
#137, @Scáth: Note that no Cosmere works were published in 2018 and probably none (maybe a novella) are due in 2019. BWS hopes to finish writing book 4 in 2019, but it would not be published until 2020 unless he writes fast enough to finish it, um, next week or so. He isn’t quite that fast.
I’m now convinced Brandon won’t ever finish the Stormlight Archive. Maybe his heirs will hire the next Sanderson to finish it for him.
[Waits for people to get angry at him.]
@138 Carl
Lol, I get your frustration. My thing is I used to when younger experience times where the authors I like, either finish a series and then I never hear from them again, or take such long periods of time between books that I would go months or years without having something to read that I enjoy. So for me, to have an author that continually churns out books has made me feel like a kid on christmas every month of the year. Could he pass away and I never get to know the end? Sure. Could something randomly happen and cut my own life short? Sure. But I figure I will enjoy the ride till then. I wish you luck with your endeavors.
scath, one thing you need to include in your calculations is that the Heralds all came to Roshar from Ashyn, with the possible exception of Ash, who may have been born after the trip. This implies that the initial conflict and the need for the Heralds to bind the Fused to Braize came about fairly quickly. Decades, possibly, but not centuries, unless the humans of Ashyn had extraordinarily long lives.
One thing I’d point out is that the fact that the spren liked the humans so much isn’t necessarily proof of Nahel bonding; that’s jumping to a conclusion. There are two phrases from the Listener Songs that talk about the “spren betrayal”:
There’s also another WoB that tells us Rosharans would consider Shards to be “spren” – so we need to be careful what we assume about what they mean by “spren” and by “giving their Surges” to humans.
It could be that the non-sapient spren simply liked being around humans a lot, because of the greater intensity of feeling in the physical realm vs. the Singer proximity to the cognitive realm. We don’t know, but it’s possible that the spren – even the non-sapient ones – gain something by being drawn into the physical realm by human emotion, and that’s an effect that the Singers don’t create as strongly. Would some consider that a “betrayal”? What if the spren they would normally have bonded with to take different forms were busy following humans around, and were less available when the Singers wanted them?
Pure speculation: One alternative to your timeline would be that the Singers felt betrayed, at least in part because Honor and Cultivation instructed them to allow the humans to come, and then the humans started taking over. Compound that, possibly, with the sprens’ newfound fascination with humans, making it harder for the Singers to choose the forms they wanted. “Betrayed” by both the Great Spren (the Shards) and the subspren (for form-changing), the Singer leaders accepted a deal offered by Odium: he could grant them the power to return to the physical realm and take over a new body when they died, instead of going Beyond. This shifted the balance of power in the war, because now the best fighters could practically throw their lives away, knowing that as soon as they died they could grab a new body and keep fighting.
When the Heralds realized what was happening, ten people got together and offered themselves up to protect humanity from sure destruction: They went to Honor and were given Blades and powers with which to fight, and with them the capacity to send the souls of the Singer leaders to Braize when they died, so long as the Heralds went there when they died as well.
We don’t know for sure when the “truespren” developed. Stormfather, Nightwatcher, and Sibling were probably already sapient when all this went down, but the rest … we don’t know if the other nine “races” of truespren were extant before the humans arrived or not. They may have grown from the personification of the Heraldic powers. We also don’t know how far along things got before the Knights Radiant were developed, but it appears to have been multiple Desolations downstream. Ishar, as the Bondsmith Herald, apparently reined in the truespren and required them to bond only through the Ideals, and we really don’t know much more than that about what kind of Surgebinding the non-Herald humans were given before that. Or how many there were. Or how long the process took. Or… much of anything.
@140 Wetlandernw
Hmmm that is an excellent point, though I did just have a thought. Brandon has confirmed that the Heralds hold abilities outside the possession of the Honorblades. So as far as we know, there could be some residual that caused them to live longer than usual before the oathpact even caused them to return as cognitive shadows. It is a stretch, but it is a possibility. Though I do lean towards what you say that a lot of that seems to have happened in a short period of time with hostilities probably escalating very quickly.
So I re-read your post again, and I am kind of confused. The two songs you posted pretty much say exactly that. That the betrayal was the higher spren bonding humans to provide them surges. So with all due respect, I think it is a stretch to say that the original listeners joined Odium simply because they didn’t appreciate that the “higher” spren “liked” humans more.
“The betrayal of spren has brought us here. They gave their Surges to human heirs (not sure how much clearer it has to be. it literally says that the betrayal of the spren caused this. Then the very next statement is the spren giving the humans surges. That clearly shows the betrayal is giving surges to the humans. Not sure how that could mean its just that the spren liked humans) But not to those who know them most dear, before us. Tis no surprise we turned away Unto the gods we spent out days and to become their molding clay, they changed us. (finally saying no surprise, after being betrayed out of the surges, we turned to the gods (the unmade) and they changed us (became the fused). again not sure how it could be any clearer)
“The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt. Our minds are too close to their realm. That gives us our forms, but more is then Demanded by the smartest spren (this alludes to how the bond a listener holds with its spren gives the listener greater sapience, while the spren itself is contained like a fabrial. Brandon has a recent WoB that speaks to how the spren the listener bond act during the bond. It is no different than Ryshadium, Chamsfiends, and Sky eels. The spren are not the ones to gain anything remarkably greater. It is primarily the listeners that benefit) We can’t provide what the humans lend, Though broth are we, their meat is men” (I take this as pretty much explaining the why regarding the spren betrayal. The spren get more out of the bond with humans than with the listeners. The spren get sapience and a greater presence in the physical realm. Humans get surges.)
This would be before the oaths limited their powers, so imagine a Releaser (edit to fix. I only say releaser to reference the potential powers accessible. I am not saying it was an oathed radiant that did this) pissed that a listener won’t let them have a nice choice plot of land. Not all people are like this, but there are enough. A few misunderstandings with powers involved, and before you know it, there are dead listeners all around. Hostilities grow and grow till all out war. The listeners outclassed then turn to their “gods”.
I could see your alternative, and agree with the feeling of betrayal regarding Honor and Cultivation. So I am with you that far, but I think the two songs you posted show pretty conclusively the main betrayal was the surges being given to the humans by bonding the spren. The songs do not say anywhere about lesser spren refusing to bond them. It specifically mentions “the smartest spren”. The basic spren we see (anger spren, life spren, glory spren, etc) are all sentient, but not sapient. I wouldn’t call the basic spren “stupid” but I would imagine that is what the song is referring to. The sapient spren are the ones that would not bond them and provide surges. Brandon has confirmed that the radiant spren are actual surges, just like how seons are actual aons.
You are right. It is true, we do not know for sure regarding the truespren. We do know the stormfather at the very least was around because Eshonai confirmed he was how the listeners always changed their forms. Brandon has also confirmed the stormfather predated Honor and Cultivation showing up. Just in case things got confused (not saying it has, but I just want to clarify), I am saying the surges the humans got from the spren when they got to Roshar, and used on the Listeners were not oathed radiants. The oathed radiants came after the heralds made the oath. But I think where the confusion comes in with the historical records, is that there were surgebinders bonded to spren on roshar before the heralds became a thing. And I think those two songs you posted support that.
At the end of the day, all of this is conjecture because we are going off of information from faulty narrators on all sides. So I wasn’t writing this to say you were wrong and I am right, and my way is the only way. I was just hoping to clarify my theory better, and respond to your point about the songs. Suffice it to say, I cannot wait to find out the truth from the heralds mouths! lol
@Wetlandernw, consider that for the first time, in Oathbringer, a truespren does bond with a Singer (or whatever Venli calls herself). In the Cosmere, even things thought to be eternal verities can change.
@138 & 139 I can’t see BS failing to finish the Cosmere saga unless something really tragic happens. True there have been no Cosmere books this year due to his writing Skyward (3 books I believe), but Mistborn book 7 will be out next year or early 2020 and at the latest Stormlight 4 will be mid 2021. As for his not completing them all, I don’t think he will actually have a five year break between Book 5 and 6 of Stormlight, I think in a way he is putting that out there just to give him breathing room and avoid a “Winds of Winter” situation. Of course I suppose there could be a 5 year gap between them but there was what 3 and a half years between each already? I am sure you know more about this than I do anyway.
Also from reading various state of the Sanderson’s I thought his plan was to finish Era 2 of Mistborn, bring the front 5 of Stormlight to a close, then write the beginnings of the Cosmere while doing sequels to Elantris and Warbreaker, then begin the back 5 of Stormlight alternating Mistborn era 3 and a book on Silverlight University before wrapping up the Saga. This doesn’t strike me as a scenario where he is not writing Cosmere stories or losing interest in the Saga although it is annoying that we may have to wait 20-25 years to have the whole thing available I agree.
I am aware you probably know all this already, but damn you scared me with talk of his not finishing the Saga, ha.
@supermanmoustache, personally I’m thinking that he won’t stick to that schedule, which officially has not changed despite adding a freaking enormous project in “Dark One”. I’m also assuming that BWS will continue to take on new projects and slow down existing ones that way, because seemingly that’s what he does.
It might also be worth mentioning that Alice and I are older than Brandon (and probably yourself). I am 15 years older, IIRC. Brandon would finish the series when in his late 70s if all goes exactly according to plan, as I understand it. The odds are high that I will have been dead for some time at that point, though of course that is not a certainty. From my personal POV, that means the series won’t end. (In this case “the series” is the Cosmere, not just Stormlight, though I also don’t expect to live until that is finished.) Reality.
Note: according the video-game progress bars on his web site, Brandon hasn’t started Mistborn Era 2 Book 4 yet. He’s a fast writer, but Tor would want some lead time before publication. That’s normally at least six months and often more like a year. Don’t count on seeing it in 2019. Again, that was the plan but plans change.
@144
I am truly sorry to read that you don’t expect to be around to read the end of something you are obviously passionate over and know a great deal about.
On a humourous note, maybe you could grab him at a Convention and get him to tell you the ending. You never know, it could work.
@144: Carl, Brandon said he would focus on SA4 for the greater bulk of the next year and, as such, he didn’t know when he would push for Mistborn Era 2 #4. I personally suspect he’ll either write it if he feels he needs a break (though Skyward #3 may take that spot) or he’ll work on it once he finishes his first draft for SA4.
In all of his updates, he seemed very focused on SA4 for the time being. Maybe he feels really good about his planning and he wants to write it now without further delay.
For the rest, we are all going to agree Brandon’s planning is… intensive. I’ll take the projects as they come, but if someone asks my personal opinion, I would argue it seems realistic to expect potentially sequels such as Nightblood, Elantris 2 and Rithmatist 2 to perhaps bite the dust. Mistborn, SA and Dragonsteel though, I expect to read all of it, eventually.
@Gepeto, I didn’t want to argue with my other correspondent about Mistborn, although I remembered the sequence the same way you did.
However, BWS’s actual history indicates he’ll add projects, not remove them. You are not including, say, the projected Sixth of the Dusk sequel, another story on Threnody, and so forth. Then there’s his threat to stop new work and rewrite White Sand the novel, since the graphic story version isn’t consistent with his vision. (No, of course he doesn’t see it as a threat, but for someone like me who wants new stories that’s what it feels like–a year-long pause in actual output to redo something completed.)
This is why I think he would need to take on at least two other writers as collaborators to have a hope of finishing his Cosmere projections, just as the late Mr. Jordan took on a promising young writer named “Sanderson” to complete his own megastory. However, mentioning that in this context angers some fans (or at least it seemed to the last time I brought it up).
@147 taking on new writers is pretty much what got us the mess that is current White Sands. I think I would rather avoid having more of that.
@147: You are right, I forgot to add the additional projects, but I did not view them as particularly time consuming. I would also toss them in within the “I may write this, if I have the time and the inspiration”, but not as solid planning for the future. So far, the series I consider to be solid plannings are SA, Mistborn and Dragonsteel. Add to this Skyward and potentially new YA trilogies as he seems to have a thing for those.
Even Wandersail, a SA novella, isn’t sure to be written. We all have to remember the one reason we got Edgedancer was because Brandon felt bad at SA3 being postponed for another year, so he took a few months to wrap up Edgedancer to offer to the readers. Now with SA4 starting right now, I do not know if he’ll take the time to write/publish another novella in between now and SA4’s release.
Oathbringer, we have to keep in mind the writing started later after WoR’s release than SA4’s writing is scheduled to start. The writing also took up 18 months and not the 12 months he usually plans for those books. Also, there were many delays with the release of additional books, the two Mistborn, Calamity and Arcanum Unbounded. This isn’t happening this time around unless Brandon stops midway to write additional books which isn’t within his planning, but if he gets inspiration… Well that might happen. So far though the planning seems rather consistent.
Hence, have faith. Oathbringer took a long time writing, but I am unsure if it should be considered the norm or the exception. With this book, Brandon was wrestling with which character to use as the flashback sequences which likely had an impact on the main narrative. He wrote Szeth’s entire flashback sequences, an entire novella, because he wasn’t sure how to write Oathbringer. SA4 may not have the same issues thought Brandon said the challenge was to make this book read like a stand-alone and not as one book being cut in half.
Lately, I have been wondering how Oathbringer might have read had it been the Szeth’s book instead… Perhaps his transformation into a Skybreaker would have seemed less “out of nowhere” with the flasbhacks to back it off, with the additional page time to strengthen his narrative. How would the Dalinar and Odium fight flown down without the knowledge about the Rift? And how about the rest of the book? Would we have gotten so many Dalinar chapters where he is talking to various people to make his coalition or did we get those because it was his book and he needed to have the most page time? I have been curious about that… but book 4 has always been Venli’s book. Well, it was Eshonai’s book but Brandon recently told us he planned to kill her early on. Not at first, but he changed his mind quickly as he felt Venli was the most interesting character to write about. He said Eshonai was too much of the “good soldier” and the narrative already had a few of those: one more wasn’t needed whereas Venli was different.
So all this to say, those other projects, I think they will happen if there is time and inspiration, but I do not see the big opus being delayed or unwritten to make more room for those.
I feel your pain for not thinking you might live long enough to read Brandon’s entire like work, but you also may. And, for the time being, SA4 is next one down the writing pipeline, so this is matters to be happy about (well I am happy about it). A 2020’s release seems very realistic ,right now, so let’s keep our finger’s crossed and wait for the State of Sanderson Update for 2019. Only a few more weeks.
Brandon is an acolyte of the great Robert Jordan. As such, he has studied at the University of Unreliable Narration. Something O haven’t seen considered (although I admit I could have missed it) is, just how accurate is the Elle Steele and the Listeners Oral Histories? They are clues, sure. Pretty strong ones. But the human side of the conflict is nearly unknowable thanks to the Heirocracy and the spren aspects of the conflict are being transmitted by a society or set of societies damaged near irreparably by the Recreance. All the eye-witnesses (Heralds) are insane. With all these obsticles, figuring out the whole story is going to be extremely difficult. Fun ride though.