Well, hello again! Good to see you all back with us today, as we travel back in time to the early days of the Kholin campaign to unify Alethkar. Today we’re reading Dalinar’s first flashback, when he was a terrifying teen. We’ll meet an old friend for the first time, as well as one who was a friend and became an enemy. Oh, and we’ll see where Dalinar got the nickname Blackthorn.
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in the reread and the comments. If you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Young Dalinar
WHERE: somewhere in Alethkar, and probably not in Kholin lands
WHEN: Indeterminate day in 1139 (34 years ago)
We start off Dalinar’s first flashback on a battlefield. Dalinar and his elites charge into battle, Dalinar seeking a challenge—and the elusive Thrill. He finds said challenge in an armored brightlord with whom he engages in a bloody battle. Dalinar loses his shield and suffers a broken nose, but wins the day. As he issues orders to his men, he is struck from behind by an arrow. He manages to capture the would-be assassin and, thanks to the man’s impossibly good accuracy and strength, offers him a place in his elites.
Threshold of the Storm
Herald: Talenel in all four spots: patron Herald of the Stonewards, associated with the Divine Attributes of Dependable and Resourceful, and the role of Soldier. He is sometimes called the Herald of War, or Stonesinew.
Alice: Well, Dalinar plays Soldier for all he’s worth here. He also shows a certain amount of resourcefulness, though I wouldn’t so much say dependable. He seems to be a bit erratic, in fact.
Lyn: Yeah, Herald of War is certainly fitting for this one.
Icon: Inverse Kholin Shield, which we’ll see in the book on each flashback chapter.
A: For anyone new to the rereads who didn’t already pick up on this, the flashback chapters use the focus character’s normal icon, but in the negative. For Dalinar and Shallan, this turns out to be black on white; Kaladin’s was less obvious, since it was only the banner that changed to black on white instead of its normal grey on black.
Title: Momentum
A good fight was about momentum.
A: The word momentum is used four times in this chapter: twice in conscious thought, and twice with regard to an object’s movement. Dalinar is thinking specifically in terms of the battle, but it’s also characteristic of the campaign he and Gavilar are waging on the other princedoms. For this first while, it’s all about momentum.
Stories & Songs
Dalinar danced, shaking off his bloodied blade, feeling alert, excited, but not yet alive. Where was it? Come on.…
An emotion stirred inside Dalinar. It was a fire that filled the pit within.
Something thrummed inside Dalinar, the pulse of the battle, the rhythm of killing and dying. The Thrill.
Dalinar kept moving, fighting off the dull sense of … nothingness that often followed a battle. This was the worst time. He could still remember being alive, but now had to face a return to mundanity.
He was done living for the day. It would be weeks, maybe months, before he got another opportunity.
A: This is clearly not Dalinar’s first experience with Nergaoul, since he’s actively Thrill-seeking in this scene. It seemed apparent from the Midnight Essence vision (WoR Ch. 19) that at one time, the Radiants knew that the Thrill needed to be controlled; still, I’m not sure if that’s evidence that they knew it was related to an Unmade. Even if they did, though, by Dalinar’s lifetime, the Unmade are bogeymen to frighten children, and in Alethkar, the Thrill is something to be eagerly sought. No wonder the princedoms were always fighting and no one wanted to stop. Odium had to be happy about that—an entire nation who adored his minion.
L: The whole concept of Nergaoul and the Thrill is just fascinating to me. I wonder if the Unmade are partially analogous to the seven deadly sins—wrath for Nergaoul, gluttony for Ashertmarn… we don’t really see enough of any of the others to be able to see if there’s more of a pattern, but it’s interesting to consider.
A: Oh, nice! I would bet that concept influenced the Unmade, at the very least. It makes so much sense.
A: As a complete rabbit trail, the affinity of the Alethi for Nergaoul makes me wonder—it seems so logical—if each of the Unmade would find a specially sympathetic home in one of the old Silver Kingdom areas. Doesn’t that seem like a cool theory? Since there are only nine Unmade, the Shin would be the ones without an Unmade “patron,” of course. Then, as a parallel, the same should apply to the Heralds, but we don’t have any evidence for that. And … well… there is actually no evidence for the first part, either, so… So once again, I think I’m on the track of something clever, and then I fall down a rabbit hole, and Sanderson’s gone off the other direction. That man just never does what I expect him to, I tell you.
Bruised & Broken
A: Dalinar is around 19 here, and they’ve been going at this unification gig for… I don’t know, a couple of years now? Dalinar has already developed a Reputation; he’s a fearsome fighter in his own right, but when he gets the Thrill all up in his blood, he’s terrifying. He’s not exactly a sociopath, but he can’t be exactly right in the head, either, the way he loves to kill. Or can he? Is this simply what you get in a society that places soldiers at the pinnacle of religious and social standing?
L: I think it’s to be expected in this society. If violence is revered, then men who cause it will be lifted up and praised. It’s hard to have empathy and understanding for such a society, but if this is all they know, all they’ve been brought up on… They don’t know any better, because they’ve never seen anything else as worthy. They sort of remind me of the Klingons, a bit. It’s all about battle for Klingons. Honor, too, which Dalinar is… lacking… at this point, but the similarities are striking nonetheless.
Squires & Sidekicks
Torol Sadeas—resplendent in golden yellow Shardplate that had already been washed clean—pushed through a cluster of officers. The red-faced young man looked far older than he had a year ago. When they’d started all this, he’d still been a gangly youth. No longer.
A: Interesting to have this episode, where Dalinar and Torol were comrades-in-arms, right after the scene where Dalinar was the only person who was sorry Torol was dead.
Also, does this imply that a) Sadeas was with them from the very beginning and b) they’d only started a year ago? That could answer my earlier question.
L: I always got the impression that Sadeas had been one of the founding members. Which makes his eventual betrayal all the worse. ::whispers:: He was a snake and he totally deserved that knife through the eye.
A: ::whispers back:: I know, right?
“Brightlord!” Thakka said, kneeling, shielding Dalinar with his body. “Kelek! Brightlord, are you—”
A: Thakka shows up here for the first time, and will only appear in one other chapter, but he seems to have been one of Dalinar’s best men. That’s some pretty amazing loyalty, right there.
He seized the archer and hauled the fellow to his feet, noting the blue tattoo on his cheek.
A: Hello there, Teleb. From this day on, every time we meet him, Teleb will be seen as completely loyal to Dalinar. In fact, his wife Kalami is later seen as one of Dalinar’s most trusted scribes, though we don’t know whether that’s because Teleb married one of the Kholin scribes or if she was already one of the family members Thakka would be rounding up immediately following this action.
L: I’ll have a comment about that “rounding up of family members” bit later on.
A: Teleb is identified several times by the blue tattoo on his cheek, which signifies that he’s an Oldblood, descendant of a dynasty that ruled Alethkar before the lighteyes became the designated honchos. (On a guess, that might have been in the time of the Recreance, since it seems probable that lighteyes-in-general came to power because the ones who bonded the post-Recreance Shardblades became the lighteyes.) Anyway, Teleb is descended from kings, but it doesn’t seem to matter any more.
L: He’s also a complete and total BOSS. Shooting a longbow accurately three hundred yards is damn impressive. I’ve seen archers hit targets at a hundred yards at renaissance faires, but THREE hundred? Man’s a beast! I looked up the record for English longbows and three hundred yards isn’t out of the realm of possibility, but to do so accurately? I would have tried to recruit him, too! (I suppose it should be noted that Roshar yards and Earth yards aren’t strictly the same, but… seeing as how I’m not sure how the differences in gravity and such would play out either, I’ll leave that analysis to the mathematicians among you in the comments.)
Places & Peoples
Drive forward and convince your enemies that they’re as good as dead already. That way, they’ll fight you less as you send them to their pyres.
L: Interesting to see a mention of Alethi burial tradition here. It’s very fitting for such a warrior-like culture. Like the Vikings.
A: In such a rocky land, burial in the ground would be virtually impossible on a wide scale, so it makes sense that they’d use cremation instead. But I’ll admit, my first thought was that it would be just like them to find the fastest way to “send them to the Tranquiline Halls.” Poof—up in smoke.
Tight Butts and Coconuts
The archer gasped and stared at Dalinar. He expected he was quite a sight, covered in soot from the fires, his face a mask of blood from the nose and the cut scalp, stuck with not one but two arrows.
“Dalinar, are those arrows? Stormfather, man, you look like a thornbush!”
A: I included the first quotation to give the visual, and the second to give Sadeas’s comment. Keeping in mind that the arrows were black, this is most likely the origin of the Blackthorn. I suppose in one sense, I can see why Sadeas preferred this Dalinar to the thoughtful one who saw visions and followed the Codes. Given Sadeas’s tastes in general, the slaughter-plunder-and-pillage version would be easier to deal with.
L: And, as we stated earlier, would be more in-line with traditional Alethi societal norms.
“Oh, Dalinar. What would we do without you?”
“Lose.”
L: I really appreciate Dalinar’s black humor here. He probably didn’t mean it as such—it comes across as very matter-of-fact. But I chuckled.
A: Hmm. Does Dalinar have a sense of humor?
Martial Motivations
“Why…” the man said from within his helm. “Why us?”
“Don’t know,” Dalinar said, tossing the poleaxe back to Dym.
“You … you don’t know?” the dying man said.
“My brother chooses,” Dalinar said. “I just go where he points me.”
A: So you could call this an amazing, unquestioning loyalty to his adored brother, and it would be mostly true. Given the rest of the chapter, though, it seems obvious that loyalty to his brother is strongly reinforced by his desire for the Thrill. If not for that, would he be so unquestioning about the brutality of the campaign?
L: I don’t think he’s particularly loyal at all. It’s more that Gavilar is giving him an outlet for his bloodlust, so of course he’ll do what he says. He’s the axehound following along after his master because his master throws him meat from time to time. Later on we do see a little loyalty in that Dalinar doesn’t kill him, but even so, it doesn’t read to me as loyalty or brotherly love so much as not wanting the responsibility of rule if he did kill him. Young!Dalinar is a totally different man from the one we know and love.
A: Quite true. He seems to enjoy the fighting and the killing in equal measure, even while he’s still waiting for the “high” that the Thrill will bring, and as you say, Gavilar’s campaign gives him an outlet for that. IIRC, Dalinar really did love his brother, but it’s not loyalty that keeps him from questioning the methods, anyway.
He’d have to talk to the man, reinforce that in striking at Dalinar earlier, he’d shot an arrow at an enemy. That was to be respected. If he tried something against Dalinar or Sadeas now, it would be different. Thakka would already be searching out the fellow’s family.
L: Wow. I have to appreciate how completely and totally ruthless Dalinar is. In war, there can be no half-measures. I’ve studied enough history and strategy to appreciate this. But to so nonchalantly “win” the fealty of those under your command by threatening their loved ones is going a bit far. I guess no one ever told him that you win more with the honey than the stick!
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
Flamespren danced among them. And, like a spren himself, Dalinar charged through the smoke, trusting in his padded armor and thick boots to protect him.
A: I would expect to see the flamespren in a burning field, but please enlighten me as to how Dalinar is “like a spren” here! Unless he’s just romanticizing himself or something, I just don’t see it.
L: Yeah, I don’t see it either. None of the spren we have seen so far have been particularly warlike. Unless… maybe he means that he’s being nimble and agile? Most spren are sort of ephemeral, other-worldly. Moving in ways that defy natural laws.
A: That’s about the only explanation that makes sense!
Anticipationspren—like red streamers growing from the ground and whipping in the wind—clustered around them.
A: These are drawn by the men of the town who are trying to gather up and repel Dalinar’s attack. Seems to me like they might as well be “dreadspren” or “adrenalinespren.” Yikes!
L: I wonder if they were being affected by the Thrill too? Otherwise I don’t see how they could be anticipating (which, to me, has a positive connotation) what is charging towards them! Nergaoul does have a sort of… area-of-effect nature, right? Does it/he need to be somewhere nearby to affect people, or is his presence omnipresent to the whole continent?
A: There’s evidence that it has an area of effect; it’s pretty big, but not half-a-continent worth. We’re shown the effects lessening on the Shattered Plains, and subsequently strengthening in Jah Keved. So there’s a high probability that soldiers on both sides of these battles were affected, but I don’t know how pervasive it is in any given army. I have the impression that not everyone is affected.
A single awespren burst around Dalinar, like a ring of blue smoke. “Stormfather! Thakka, before today, I’d have bet you half the princedom that such a shot wasn’t possible.”
A: I guess he was impressed, eh? (Okay, yes, I was too. I’ll admit it.)
Quality Quotations
They weren’t an honor guard. Dalinar didn’t need guards. These were simply the men he considered competent enough not to embarrass him.
A: Cocky, aren’t we?
L: Well… not without reason. He is that good.
Though some of his men were overwhelmed by the smoke or heat, most stayed with him.
L: Dalinar’s complete and total disregard for the men in his command is a stark contrast to Kaladin’s personality. They’re almost polar opposites here, which is really interesting given that Dalinar in this scene is the same age that Kaladin was when we first saw him protecting the boy he’d just pulled into his squad. It’s a credit to Sanderson’s writing ability that even with this callous treatment of others, we don’t completely hate him. Yet.
A: Yet. Also, good catch on the same ages; I hadn’t thought about that.
L: Well, this week’s chapter didn’t have quite as much meat for us to sink our teeth into as the last few, but next week’s should be fun. We’ll be covering Chapter Four – Oaths. Feel free to join us in the comments here or, if you prefer nested comment format, over on the Stormlight Archive subreddit.
Alice is currently enjoying a midwinter break that actually feels like midwinter, even without snow. It’s cold out there! Staying indoors by the fire to work on various writing projects seems like a fine idea.
Lyndsey will probably be hanging out primarily over in the Reddit discussion thread from now on—her username is Kaladin_Stormblessed there (weird, it’s almost like she’s a huge fan of Kaladin, or something). If you’re an aspiring author, a cosplayer, or just like geeky content, follow her work on Facebook or her website.
I thought Dalinar was like a flamespren in that he was darting through the smoke without worrying about being burned.
Also, was no one else bothered that Dalinar wasn’t bothered by the “weeping women” Sadeas was going to choose from? It seems like stealing their belongings is one thing, but not minding Alethi women being raped is another.
To continue the Seven Deadly sins thoughtline, Envy for Re-Shepnir (Envy of form), Lust for Sja-Anat (Weaker, but she lusts for control of the spren?)
As for Dalinar being like the flame spren, maybe it was less in his appearance and more in that from an outside perspective, he would appear as if from nowhere, ‘dancing’ in the flame, much like a flamespren. Flamespren appear in the flames, and for the enemy, Dalinar appeared in the flames. So less a comparison to the visual aspect of the spren and more a comparison to his appearance?
The first time I read this, I had trouble remembering that Dalinar wasn’t old and didn’t have Shardplate and a Shardblade. It was hard to visualize.
Perhaps I missed something, but the line “Torol Sadeas—resplendent in golden yellow Shardplate” (emphasis added) caught my eye in that this is distinctly different from what he’s wearing in the present day timeline. In the first two books, he’s wearing red Shardplate. Is the golden yellow suit one that he’s borrowing, or did he win a second set later on, or did he simply give it a paint job? Is this explicitly elaborated on anywhere?
@5 – Sadeas is all about fashion. He probably has it re-painted regularly
@5 @6 Yes. In one of Adolin’s early Way of Kings chapters, he thinks about how everyone but Dalinar is always painting their shard plate to look cooler.
And a fun foreshadowing of Dalinars’s second fight at the Rift. Sadeas saying “Storms, Dalinar, at this point I’m not certain a rockslide could kill you”
I have found it interesting how much pain Dalinar is able to withstand and still function with while under the Thrill. Arrows in two shoulders and a broken nose plus a few other smaller injuries is a lot to have and still be conscious, let alone riding a horse. (Also later at the Rift part two, but that’s a different chapter.) It brings to mind the surgeon from the end of WoR that was amazed Dalinar could still function with all the scar tissue. I’m guessing that the Thrill gives some measure of healing power-maybe voidish?-like Stormlight. But I’m not a WoB expert.
Also, no I don’t think Dalinar has ever had a sense of humor. He is way too focused on fighting and drinking to care. Which may explain why Adolin doesn’t get many of Shallan’s jokes. It’s just not in his DNA
@@.-@, The first time I read this, I think I was about halfway through the chapter before I realized this must have been before he got shards at all.
@9, I always thought of the Thrill as an extremely powerful adrenaline rush. People can ignore quite a bit of pain when there’s adrenaline coursing through their bodies.
@9 – My theory had been that in order to grant someone the visions, the Stormfather had to form a nascent Knights Radiant bond with that person. Of course, then in OB he lets a lot of people have visions at Dalinar’s request, so that theory is probably dung now lol. But maybe he did form the beginnings of a bond with Gavilar and then Dalinar and it allowed Dalinar to unconsciously suck in tiny amounts of stormlight. I think in WOR he says something about it seeming familiar. So that’s my theory as to why he could still function with all the scar tissue.
@2 – I am bothered by it as a person living in my current society. But it seems like raping/pillaging is one of those things that people looked the other way regarding until perhaps recent times (and I’m sure there is still plenty of abuse that goes on) even in real life. I imagine in Alethi war-revering culture, soldiers have the same sense of entitlement. So it makes sense that Sadeas would be doing it, and I think Dalinar is just too self absorbed/single minded to really care one way or the other or even consider what the women are feeling.
I don’t recall, is there any indication that what Sadeas is doing is considered out of the ordinary? I would presume that the ardents would officially speak against it (especially as Shallan seems to have at least some ideas about sexual propriety), but it seems like nobody is really held to that standard.
Is there a reason you guys are only posting the image of the Arch in each chapter, and not the icon that accompanies it? Especially since you describe the icon, it makes sense to grab the whole thing. Not a complaint, just curious if there’s a reason behind it.
Others already gave my thoughts on how Dalinar was “like a spren” so I’ll defer to those.
I will add that I have come to think of anticipation spren as being more accurately “nervous” spren. Or at least equally both of those. They seem to be attracted to any time you get impatient or that butterfly/dread feeling. For example, later in shadesmar they are attracted to Kaladin as he is preparing to go into that building with the Shin man, blowing his cover. I guess anticipation may still be an accurate overall description as you can anticipate any future event – good or bad – but like Lyndsey, I tend to think of anticipation as a good emotion.
I did just look up the definition of anticipation and it is interesting that its synonyms are both excitement and suspense. One I would think of as good, one as bad.
I really like the comparison between Dalinar and Kaladin and their ages. Cool dichotomy.
i hadn’t realized that flashback chapters inverse the character’s symbol. That is an awesome tidbit!
Since it was mentioned: people realize that Nergaoul’s name is from Nergal, god of death and pestilence in Sumer? Also Moelach from Moloch, Semitic god that babies were sacrificed to by burning? And is it worth mentioning that there are seven deadly sins in Christianity and nine Unmade, so there can’t a one-to-one match?
Dalinar wasn’t completely honorless even in this period. Sparing Teleb, after Teleb had just shot him, is actually pretty honorable (and notice that the Thrill was gone at that point and did not return).
As for 300-yard archery, even in low gravity I would think this is impossible to make accurate. (It is also prefiguring Rock’s shot at the end of the book, by the way.) I actually wonder about an unconscious Lashing being involved.
@12, Lisamarie mentions that rape was still a problem “… until perhaps recent times …” Until now, in fact. There were a surprising number of executions of American solders in World War Two for rape, for instance.
Stormlightchick @9. Good catch about Dalinar’s healing prowess. When I first read the scene with the field surgeon in WoR, I thought the healing was referring to Dalinar’s preliminary use of Stormlight. But after Chapter 3, I am not so sure. I wonder how many years before the start of WoK did spren start searching for humans to bond with? Shallan began her bonding before Gavilar’s assassination. Does anybody know how long it has been since Nale started hunting prospective Knight Radiants? The answer to that question may give us some clue as to how long the spren resumed searching for humans to bond.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
English longbows are accurate to about 300 meters so I could see him being able to easily make that shot especially given the advantage of the ridge he was on, and the lower gravity of the planet.
My assumption with the “like a spren” bit is that it would be the visual effect of the smoke billowing around him as he runs. It would give him a shadowy, half-obscured form and a bit of an otherworldly look.
300 yards is roughly the Roman measurement of a bowshot. It would be the extreme end of the useful distance that an arrow could reliably be sent, with farther distances mostly being a product of compromises in performance (flight arrows that don’t hit very hard, extremely high draw weights that only one or two archers can manage, that kind of thing). To have an arrow hit at that range with enough force to wound through armor is more impressive, and to have it hit a specific person (more than one time, at that) is some truly superb archery. It’d be hard even to see a specific target at 300 yards (3 football fields end-to-end) among a mass of other people, let alone to hit it repeatedly with an arrow. The wind alone would make that kind of shooting almost impossible.
Conventional Roman practice (according to the military manuals) seemed to suggest that effective archery could only be expected at about half a bowshot, and the heavier the armor the closer the target would need to be for arrows that did hit to do anything useful. For comparison, the Romans used composite recurve bows with a similar overall performance to stereotypical Welsh war bows (longbows as people popularly imagine them). Though there were various differences in specific aspects of the way the two kinds of bows worked, they would not have impacted basic performance enough to make comparisons useless.
@17 AndrewHB
I forgot where it was stated, but the skybreakers are the order that never gave up their oaths, so the implication to me is Nale has been keeping radiants in check since the recreance.
@16 Carl
Easy enough to invent a couple extra deadly sins. I nominate treachery and posting spoilers on social media.
Confession time:
I’ll always have a soft spot for this chapter in my heart. I sent comments on this chapter from Unfetter II to Peter, with the caveat – “I feel weird saying this since I’m not a beta reader.”
Next thing I know – he asks me to join the beta team! :-D
Note: I’d known Peter for a few years at this point, and had established a friendship with him. Random comments from unknown people do not get a reply of “Do you want to beta?”
Momentum: I officially wrote it on the comment sheet as a possible title, but as Alice points out – it was used four times in chapter. So I was really just the one that wrote the suggestion down first as a title. Still makes me happy.
As does the fact that the bow is “black wood of unknown type” to Dalinar. Helps explain why this guy can do a shot no one else has in Dalinar’s knowledge. Guess the Roahar version of yew wood is of limited growth.
@2: The “weeping women” under Sadeas’ review. It bothered a number of people. But most of the beta comments were about how this illustrates what an ASS Sadeas is shown to be. Even while Dalinar is buddy-buddy with him.
Sadly rape is a subset of war, especially any type of medieval style war. Doesn’t make it right, but seeing it referenced in this setting was not surprising. It being a Brandon Sanderson book, the rape is not carried out. Nor do we see signs of it being done at that moment by the rank and file soldiers.
Instead, we see Sadeas lining the women up like a buffet to make a selection. It makes him an ass and a pig. Re-enforcing Poloma’s opinion of “One problem solved.”
@9:
I think Dalinar’s humor is more of the black kind at this point in his life.
Re: Healing powers – Something has to be going on. While under the Thrill, he’s able to ignore too much. Especially in the Rift ambush chapter. And when he does suck in Stormlight for the first time consciously, it has a “familiar feel” to him. Maybe the Thrill gives a type of Voidlight that heals, not sure. But something beyond the normal was going on when he ignored too many injuries and blood loss.
Regarding the rape: I actually read it as showing what an ass Dalinar was. I expected as much from Sadeas, but the fact that Dalinar doesn’t even bat an eye shows much more about his character back then and his character growth over the years.
@@@@@ 21 – That made me laugh out loud. My husband bribed me with dinner for two nights to binge-watch the second season of Stranger Things with him because he knew his friends were going to spoil it at work if he didn’t finish it by Monday.
@@@@@ 22 & 23 – I agree. I know that rape goes along with martial conquest, and I know that it is still a problem both in war and out of war. I was anticipating seeing it (in a negative connotation – I may be in the minority for logically knowing anticipating was a neutral word but personally assigning a negative connotation to it) it in their takeover of Alethkar but that doesn’t make it easier to see. However, I was glad that Brandon didn’t give any details about it or even let it go through this time; that would have been too painful for me to read. One thing I love about his books is that the violence doesn’t seem gratuitous (looking at you, GRRM); there isn’t violence just for violence’s sake. I also agree that this shows how far Dalinar has come, since I believe in the second Rift flashback he thinks that he has spent years training his soldiers not to loot and pillage.
I’m back…
Erin @2 – I’m personally not surprised that Young!Dalinar wasn’t bothered by the women, but note that they were included the “no pillaging” restriction. Sadeas was disappointed, because he had been looking forward to the rape part, and now he wasn’t going to have his fun. ::whispers:: he deserved that knife
ageless @8 – Thanks for pointing out the foreshadowing! I’d meant to mention it, but it slipped through the cracks. Yes, absolutely. Foreshadowing FTW.
stormlightchick @9 – Hmmm. I never thought about a possible healing aspect to the Thrill. I sort of assumed it was like super-adrenaline, but I don’t know that. It would be an interesting question to ask Brandon!
Well, Dalinar might not, but that cracked me up! Evi had some sense of humor, I think, but it was a much gentler sort, and she hated the whole “contest of wits” version of humor that the Alethi women lived by. So… you know, you might be right. I never thought it was because Adolin was stupid, but I like the added support that snarky word battles are really not the kind of humor he was ever taught to value or comprehend. Granted, he’s lived in Alethi society all his life, so he should get some of it, but I suspect he never really cared before.
iguacufalls @13 – Well, color me embarrassed. I never even noticed that the icons weren’t being included! (I don’t put the artwork in myself, except for gifs and memes and stuff like that; Tor has higher-res files than I do.) I’ll ask for that to be corrected, because it absolutely should be there!
whitespine @14 – I’ve noticed before that some of the spren names don’t quite fit my definitions. We had raging debates about “gloryspren” back on the WoR reread, for example. I don’t know if that’s because Brandon is thinking about it differently than I do, or if he’s deliberately naming some of them “as the culture would” rather than as we would. It’s a question…
Scath @15 – Then I’m glad I mentioned it! I didn’t notice it in TWoK, though it’s there, until someone pointed it out on the WoR reread. It’s not obvious… until you know. :D
Carl @16 – Brandon uses a lot of Hebrew for names, language, etc. (He also draws on LDS stories and a lot of Biblical background.) While there obviously can’t be a one-to-one correspondence between a list of seven and a list of nine, I do think it’s entirely possible that the seven deadly sins provided a measure of inspiration for the characteristics of the Unmade.
The almost-400-yard shot would be mitigated by differences in gravity, measurements, atmospheric density, etc., but clearly we’re supposed to understand that this is a record-breaking kind of thing. Teleb is really, really, really good. And strong.
AndrewHB @17 – We don’t know for sure how long Nale has been hunting nascent Knights Radiant, though I have some vague idea that it’s been decades at least, and more likely centuries. I’ll go prowling around later and see if I can find justification for that vague idea, or proof otherwise.
Zodda @21 – BAHAHAHAHA! Nice one.
Braid_Tug @22 – You also, whether you knew it or not, had some good discussions with other beta readers about the historical stuff, and IIRC someone in the beta-chat said, “Hold it, I thought she was a beta reader. Well, she should be!” :D We don’t get to pick, but we do have some influence…
I know, right? Having the privilege to suggest chapter titles was awesome, and seeing your own suggestions upvoted by others and picked by Emily – priceless. I’ve debated crediting the person who suggested each title, but as you say, in many cases that just means “the person who got there first.” So… I dunno. If people want to know, I expect I could include it.
This. So much this.
Evelina @24 – One of the things I love about Sanderson’s writing is that he allows the reader to fill in certain kinds of things according to their own frame; I can recommend them to a variety of people and not worry that they’re being given imagery not suitable to their age or liking. It’s a lot better for me, personally, because I have a very visual imagination and memory; if you describe something well, I see it, and I can’t forget it. That’s one of the reasons I don’t read GRRM; I just don’t need those visuals stuck in my head for the rest of my life. I also appreciates that he hates the over-use of rape as the only really horrible thing fantasy writers ever do to women. Obviously he believes rape is horrible, but as human beings there are plenty of other horrible things women can experience, if that’s what is needed for their character. So you have Shallan, with horrible backstory issues, but no one ever laid a finger on her except that one time her father grabbed her arms in anger. People have speculated that there is rape somewhere in Jasnah’s past, but I doubt it; I think he hates that trope and has something else in mind to explain her attitude toward the Kharbranth thieves.
Yup, I’m back. :D
I didn’t know that tidbit about the blue tattoo being a sign of ancient pre-light eyes royalty. Where else have we seen the blue tattoo and when did we learn what it meant
Izzos @26 – We first learn about the tattoo being the mark of an Oldblood in TWoK Chapter 26. Then in WoR Chapter 51 we learn that “his people had once ruled Alethkar.” The rest of it is from a WoB.
@16 – yes, by recent I meant even more recent than that (although I wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn of assaults happening in even more ‘recent’ wars like our Gulf occupations, etc). But I guess what I was trying to go for was that at least as a society we no longer have the idea that it’s just some expected thing that soldiers can count on getting as a ‘reward’.
Also, I actually forgot that Dalinar had stopped the pillaging, although of course it was mostly for pragmatic reasons. I think the most you can say about his character at this point is that he personally has no real desire to do such things, but he doesn’t seem to bat much of an eye at others doing it.
I guess after what happened at the Rift I shouldn’t have felt so disappointed in Dalinar for his reaction here, but I did. Assuming the people in the village were going to end up slaves, I wonder what rights female/child slaves have in Alethi society? I don’t remember seeing many of them in past books.
LIsamarie @28 – True, as far as Dalinar being okay with it, he totally isn’t bothered. He apparently sees it as a normal part of the looting that happens after such a victory, which is why in this case it doesn’t happen – it’s kind of a package deal. High-ranking officers get their pick of the women, others probably get whoever doesn’t get picked by someone of higher rank, and everyone can take anything of value that they find. It’s sickening to even think of, and another evidence that Young!Dalinar, just like Young!Sadeas and Young!Gavilar, were really not nice people. Their only moral values at this point seem to be centered on “Might makes right.”
Re rape: When something is commonplace, it doesn’t mean you are a bad person because you are a part of that society. Don’t forget, there are real world examples of things like slavery, women’s suffrage, etc. That doesn’t mean you were a bad person if you didn’t blink at those things (nor would it mean you were a good person if you didn’t blink).
I should clarify that my last comment pertains only to observing. If you did those things yourself, that’s bad no matter what society thinks.
To add, it is also a common military practice to train soldiers to view the other side as “us vs them”. So the other side you have to kill are not seen as “people” with loved ones, families and children. Otherwise the soldier would lock up and would be unable to pull the trigger. Now ideally our modern age military does not rape (though as pointed out in another post, apparently it was an issue well into WW2). However I feel the military practice of dehumanizing the enemy would add to how we see the civilians being treated. As pointed out by others, I am in no way condoning rape. Just showing why it seemed to be commonly viewed in that scene coupled with razing and looting the town. I could have sworn there was a WoB that said Brandon based a lot of young Dalinar on Attila the Hun
Wetlandernw @25 said “Well, color me embarrassed.” As long as nobody colors your eyes red. Of course, that expression would have been more appropriate if this was the Warbreaker re-read.
If Dalinar was about 19/20 during the events in Chapter 3, I wonder how old he was when he and Gavilar started to take control of the Kholin princedom. IIRC, Dalinar & Gavilar’s branch of the family was a lower branch before their rise to power.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
When I read about Sadeas looking forward to his “spoils” it just made me hate him even more. I didn’t think it at the time, but since it ha been pointed out, I am indignant that Dalinar was generally ok with what Sadeas had planned. The fact that he stopped it had more to do with his promise to Teleb than his compunctions against rape. So yeah, young Dalinar was a dispicable person too.
I didn’t get the impression though that the Alethi in general were ambivalent about or resigned to the reality of looting plunder and rape by the victors. The fact that Teleb switched allegiances is because he was trying to prevent that horror. I think that even in their society this was viewed as morally reprehensible and that is one reason why the Kholins were despised and feared. Wit’s insult to Sadeas in TWOK about “being in sluts” wouldn’t have had any bite if that sort of behavior were normal and accepted.
@35 Izzos
Dalinar commented to other highprinces (namely the one he fought on a high stone rise) did much the same that Dalinar and Gavilar did to attain power. They were just upset because they were now on the receiving end. So I do not think it is fair to say the Kholin boys were unique in this. Secondly, I do not believe the quote of Wit at Sadeas can really indicate what is normal or accepted considering 1. there is a whole lot not normal about Wit and 2. There are plenty of instances where prostitution is legal and acceptable in all sorts of mediums as well as the real world, and yet those that use such options are derided by friend and foe alike because “you gotta pay just to get any”(despite how uncouth that may sound) or in this case force.
He was done living for the day chillingly sums up the depth of Dalinar’s addiction to the Thrill at this point. But he shows some style in the matter-of-fact way he ‘recruits’ the would-be assassin, and snark in responding to Sadeas’s disappointment at not pillaging that night with “And I was looking forward to breathing through my nose.”
I agree with the interpretations that Dalinar was like a flamespren in showing little fear to go amid the smoke and heat of a burning field.
I like the notion of different Unmade exemplifying some of the Seven Deadly Sins, a trope I’m very partial to, no matter the accuracy of speculations about it.
Tangentially, I’m thinking of an argument I recently saw in a Facebook fan group for a different fantasy series. Someone posted to complain that a certain protagonist never did anything satisfactorily (for that reader) drastic to rescue the women he loved. When given examples and explanations, he irately clarified that he had wanted the character to “LEVEL A CITY for the SOLE purpose of saving THOSE WOMEN.” Dalinar’s reason for burning Rathalas wasn’t to rescue anyone, least of all the woman he loved (or the woman he didn’t love), but I was darkly amused by the apparent belief that city-destroying for a personal reason is required behavior for a fantasy hero.
Thanks Alice and Lyndsey,
This will be the third time that this flashback appears on Tor.com and I don’t (initially) have much more to add than before. Young Dalinar is quite the brute, but also a fearsome warrior. He’s relentless, but he also is able to recognize (and utilize) talented individuals, regardless of eye-color or affiliation.
Quick comment re: Dalinar’s loyalty to Gavilar – he actually demonstrates that loyalty in multiple flashbacks. He warns Gavilar and Sadeas off of the ambushed platform during their assault on the Rift, he protects Gavilar from the assassin during the highstorm, etc.
Finally, good catch on the comparison/contrast of Dalinar and Kaladin and their similarity in ages when we first see them commanding men.
@36 Scath True, it seems that all the Alethi Highprinces were a ruthless lot. I think my general point still stands though, that even though rape and looting may have been a common soldiering practice, it would be considered cruel even among the Alethi. Maybe the other Highprinces would have shrugged and said “Such is war” but IMO I doubt the general populace would be so accepting. So yeah, I agree with Alice and Lyndsey that Young Dalinar was a real piece of work and old Torrol was a particularly sleazy specimen even by Alethi standards
As for Wit, chuckles, yes there is nothing normal about him. But his insults were still…well, insulting to the Alethi nobility which means that he is striking a chord against Alethi sensibilities.
Anyway, these are just my opinions and how I interpret the story. YMMV.
I haven’t had the time to read all of the comments, so I’ll have to catch back on them later. Last week, we spoke of a story arc which didn’t work out for me. This week, we are speaking of a narrative arc which did work. Dalinar’s flashbacks were among mt favorite chapters of the book and if I have my issues with his present day narrative, his flashbacks never disappointed me. I never found them too long nor boring nor redundant nor anything. I loved every part of them.
Now this week, young brutal Dalinar… I personally always felt the narrative of WoK/WoR hinted at Dalinar’s past being gruesome, but I think many readers were surprised by what we read. If we see glimpses of the older Dalinar in the man having the ability to appreciate a man’s talents independently of his allegiance, we also see a young reveling in the art of killing, of murder, of blood. He demands a challenge and when it is offered to him, honorably, he takes the less honorable path and slaughters the man. Sure, it is war and in war, you don’t take the time to be honorable, but Dalinar…
He was the aggressor.
Dalinar, Gavilar, Sadeas, they were the bad guys, the antagonists, the conquerors, the enemy. I think this is important for the future narrative to state how this character wasn’t the good guy, he wasn’t justified in the killing he did. Older Dalinar accepts this, but younger Dalinar just wants more people to kill. He is a hound and he attacks where Gavilar says to attack without asking any questions.
I saw no cunning, no leadership, no military tactics within young Dalinar. I just saw a brute which was so terrible on the battlefield, he got others to follow him, but he was no leader.
@9: The ability to withstand pain while injured is something most authors do within fantasy books. If Brandon rightfully had Kaladin suffer from shock after he injures his arm in WoK, he had him open-up his leg, loss a lot of blood and yet be able to climb 80 feet and walk back to camp. We could also give a strong mention to the numerous head commotion Adolin has throughout WoR/OB without ever having to deal with the sequels. Or the fact he bled to nearly death without ever going into shock in Shadesmar even if his injury is much worst than the one Kaladin got in WoK.
Hence, Dalinar still fighting with two arrows in his back and a broken nose? Totally plausible given the rules of story telling.
According to some online searching, the list of seven deadly sins has varied and there were two others that used to be on it.
One was “acedia.” This is alternately defined as failing to do something you should or the listlessness/despair that leads to inaction. I’m not so much picturing depression (which is a mental illness, not a choice. Besides, Kaladin would have voidspren following after him like puppies) but the kind of despair Denethor gives into in the Lord of the Rings. As such, it may be the sin of a certain king who has managed to justify becoming Odium’s champion if it means saving a little of what he assumes is otherwise lost.
The other sin was “vainglory.” This includes false boasting or stuff that sounds an awful lot like narcissism.
This chapter was when I also began to get a different view of Jasnah killing those men back in the first book. Up until this book, I thought Jasneh and Shallan shared pretty much the same world view. Shallan’s idea of when killing is appropriate, however, is a lot closer to ours. Basically, we don’t see it as being up for discussion unless certain, extreme circumstances justify putting it in play. Even then, we understand if there are a lot of questions asked afterwards.
But, we’re seeing the world Jasnah grew up in. As an Alethi princess who grew up while her father was consolidating power, killing people was already on the table. It was always one of the recognized options.
#25 Wetlandernw and Lyndsey: Some stray thoughts. Good review.
On Teleb blue tattoo, meaning old blood. Does any one think that is an omage to blue blood, a term frequently used to describe the modern equivalent to Noble blood?
On Trill. Lyndsey, someone, maybe Odium says that both sides are affected by the trill, which is why the succession wars in Jah Keved were so bad. The soldiers didn’t want to stop fighting. We saw a little bit of that in a Dalinar flashback.
Information on the English longbow. They were the assult weapons of the Middle ages. In the battle of Crecy in 1346, the English longbow proved more deadly than the French crossbow. It is estimated that it can shot up to 400 yards, however the longest shot recorded was for 345 yards in the 16th century. Of course, how far is depending on arrow size and weight, wind speed, and many other factors. My information came from the wiki.
As far as including art work. I loved that we saw a colored edition of the tower. It made the picture so much clearer. We could actual see what was happening in that picture.
#5 Jeremyguebert: .on Torol Sadaes’s new shards. You should notice that they were washed before he put them on. That was likely because they were full of blood and Gore from the previous wearer.
Well, I found I don’t actually have a lot to say about this chapter that hasn’t been said already, thank you both for writing these articles. :)
There was one language thing I’m curious about though, and I’m hoping to look for it again during the flashback sequence in this book. In the opening of this chapter, Dalinar uses the simile ‘(EDIT:) rockbuds crunching like skulls’. ..I don’t think that’s a common phrase, even in the world of Roshar, with its high-storm evolved flora.
I’m not normally someone who really focuses on specific language, but this was something that really stood out to me. Especially after the mention of ‘blood of my fathers’ as Dalinar’s curse of choice last week, as I haven’t seen Dalinar use anything like it in the current day chapters/WoK/WoR.
@@@@@ 41 Gepeto
I think Kaladin’s shock in that chapter is because he runs out of stormlight, not because his wounds are so severe. We see at several places in the story that running out of stormlight after holding a lot leaves a person in a worse condition than if they received the same wounds/went through the same physical effort, but never had stormlight in the first place.
I’m interested to see in this reread if the Thrill parallels stormlight in this way, except without the ‘healing wounds’ part of it (instead just allowing people to ignore wounds for the moment). Dalinar mentions being empty and dead inside after the Thrill leaves him, but I don’t know if it also leaves people so physically exhausted.
33, Scath:
That would be tricky, since we know almost nothing about Attila. We don’t even know what he looked like with any certainty. For that matter, there’s still debate on whether the Huns were a Turkic people. It may also be worth mentioning that they had very mixed success, conquering modern Hungary but being defeated by both the Sassanid and Roman empires and having their entire nation destroyed within a few years of Attila’s death.
On archery: I don’t doubt that the longbow (or Turkish recurved hornbow) can shoot 300 yards. It’s “hitting a target no larger than 50cm reliably at that range, in battle” that is not plausible to me, without supernatural powers.
@44: The simile there is “Rockbuds crunched like skulls beneath Dalinar’s boots,” not vice versa. I expect he’s more familiar with the crunching of skulls than of rockbuds.
IIRC, Brandon said recruiting the archer who’d wounded him was based on a similar story told about Attila. I don’t recall hearing that it was more than that.
Re: Rape in warfare. A lot of people like to think that armies having rules against rape and looting is a modern innovation, but it was recognized pretty widely among civilized peoples that pillage and rape caused problems. They undermined discipline and readiness, they damaged valuable goods and reduced expected revenues from newly conquered territories, and they left the army vulnerable to enemy action.
Hanging, scourging, and crucifixion would not be uncommon punishments for various kinds of behavior related to lapses in discipline during a sack. The idea would be to make a terrible example of the soldiers who did those things to dis-incentivize that behavior and make it easier to enforce rules in the future.
That said, it was more likely for an army to care about such rules when fighting in civil wars or against peoples who were related in language, culture, or religion, as those would generally be situations where (relatively) peaceful assimilation would be on the table. Against a significantly “other” enemy even normally strict armies might, assuming the context of the campaign means that there aren’t worries about surprise attacks by enemy armies in the middle of a sack, allow for pretty much unrestricted slaughter, rape, looting, and vandalism (the sack of Jerusalem in the 1st Crusade is an example of this, exacerbated by the general lack of discipline in the Crusader army).
Then there are the compromise practices, like the 3-day sack followed by a return to strict discipline that, if I remember correctly, was predominant among Islamic peoples when taking a city by storm rather than by surrender.
What makes Alethi practice (at least assuming Dalinar’s army is not behaving exceptionally) stand out to me is that they are treating other Alethi, presumably coreligionists and sharing both culture and language, the same way that one would expect them to treat foreigners or ancestral foes. If that is how the Alethi treat each other during a war ostensibly intended for unification (where integration and assimilation should be the strategic goals), then no wonder their neighbors are so nervous any time an Alethi army is anywhere nearby (or expresses interest in passing through their territory).
@40 Izzos
I guess what I am going for is not that lawfully it is ok, nor that people in polite society think to themselves “capital raping over there ole chap”, but on the battlefield these things happen (to make very clear I do not condone rape in any shape or form ever). There are soldiers today that do things in battle that we consider horrible in varying degrees, but they think to themselves “you weren’t there. it was war”. Outside the narrative, it does not excuse the action. To clarify I do not excuse the action. I just feel it makes sense in the narrative. it is something you do, but you do not talk of. That’s why everyone thought the Blackthorn was so great, but everyone still looked at him distastefully at dinner, or at meetings. You can do these things, but you leave it on the battlefield. Wit was commenting not on the practice of rape, but on the need of Sadeas to pay or force women in order for anyone to be intimate with him. He “isn’t a man” because he has to take what for others is freely given. At least that was my take on it. As you said YMMV
@45 Carl
When I say based on Attila the Hun I meant more the legends associated with the man than a literal historic retelling of actual events. A character could be based on King Arthur (his rise and fall) without it having to be historically accurate. There are legends aplenty regarding the Hun in question, easily evidenced by the fact we all recognize the name regardless our background.
Regarding the archey, sometimes a jack is a jack and a spade is a spade. Just because magic exists, does not always mean it is the cause of an extraordinary action.
@47 Ellynne
That might be the WoB I was thinking of though I cannot locate it at this time, however as I said regarding Carl, I was meaning it more regarding Dalinar’s personality and how he acted, than specific actual occurances.
While I agree that the Dalinar here is brutal, I don’t accept that he is without cunning, leadership, or military tactics. He clearly states that the hammer and anvil is his favorite tactic; to me it also implies that he uses other tactics as well. The leadership is also aptly on display as his elites would clearly follow him anywhere, a sign of a good leader. Some may not accept that shooting the horse out from under the bright lord is cunning but I do. Letting your opponent keep an advantage like that would be bad tactically. It states that the solider order to shoot the animal didn’t like it, though from a strictly monetary sense. I can’t say if other commanders on the field would of done it but I think that it was a shock to the defenders that he did. So as I see it his cunning overcame a tactical disadvantage and leveled the field somewhat.
Well, I can’t link it because the Arcanum is down at the moment, but IIRC he said the scene with attaching Teleb is based on a story about Genghis Khan. That said, I think he’s also commented that he was drawing on stories of Attila & Khan, as well as some other minor influences. When the Arcanum is back up, I’ll check.
Also re: Young!Dalinar’s leadership, strategy, tactics, etc. etc. – we’ll see that developing more later. There is some innate leadership at this point, though it’s based more on “follow the crazy-but-successful berserker” than any particular charisma. There’s also some basic grasp of strategy, tactics, etc., but he’s not actually interested in it, and refuses to acknowledge that he might be able to do a better job if he learned more. At this stage, he’s all about the whack whack slash slash literal Thrill-seeking.
Okay… I was partly right! :D Check out these two statements: https://wob.coppermind.net/adv_search/?query=Khan
So the Teleb story was based on Khan, but the character himself was more based on a Mongolian general named Subutai.
Also, yes, Shallan is part Horneater…
(and therefore, part Parshendi)
@50 I agree about the leadership and tactics. I think Dalinar’s flashbacks show us that as a young man he was lacking in strategic thinking (hence the quote about not knowing why he was there), but had a firm grasp of tactics and leadership. He obviously knows how to use and counter formations, understands the significance of the positioning of his unit in local terrain and in relation to the rest of the army, and shows a solid grasp of manipulating morale to win a fight. What you call cunning I think of as pragmatism.
@lyn I would argue that we get a glimpse of his strong core of personal honor. He keeps his word to prevent looting and pillaging (standing up to his nominally superior officer in Sadeas even), he doesn’t hold actions taken by enemies during the fighting against them, and gives mortally wounded enemies a quick end. He does order hostages taken, but I don’t remember any order to hurt/kill them. We don’t see him reveling in causing pain because he enjoys making others suffer, just killing enemy combatants. Nothing outside of the indifference to rape make me question his honor and even that only applies if it runs counter to Alethi moral code which seems to be still up for debate. None of it makes him likeable, in fact it is almost a check list of “things fantasy heroes don’t do”. He is just a pragmatic, compassionless, kill happy Vorin Ideal.
I hope I didn’t miss any egregious counter examples.
Also regarding Dalinar’s military tactical skills. It was brought up later in the book how he was the darling of all his Generals. That they were impressed with him in a very short time. There are then later examples mentioned of these tactics(mentioning amphibious assaults, training men to run long distances to keep them mobile for guerrilla tactics, combining horses and archers to flank an enemy infantry line making their shields useless). All of these Dalinar’s ideas. Not his generals. So it may not have been explicitly shown yet, but it definitely is there and at least shown later.
Young Dalinar is pretty badass, I like him
IIRC, I heard Sanderson read this chapter at a con. I think that’s where he said it was based on a story about Attila the Hun or Genghis Khan or someone like that. I think he said the story was historically doubtful, for what that’s worth. But, it makes a great story and it’s obviously true in the Cosmere.
Alice, may I make a small request? Please don’t refer to Genghis Khan as “Khan”. That is not a name, it is the Mongol word for “King”. It’s as if you referred to Hirohito of Japan as “Mikado”.
Doesn’t “Mikado approved the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor” sound wrong?
With regard to the rape on the battlefield, this is such a difficult topic in today’s world. I don’t think that a knight from the Middle Ages would think Dalinar or even Sadeas was particularly brutal. And let’s remember, the Iliad is about a conflict between two men who have a fight over one of them taking the other’s concubine by conquest (pretty much what Sadeas is doing here). Agamemnon is a dick because he steals Achilles’s concubine, not because he has one, at least according to Homer. It is only in the 20th century that war became “civilized” and some of this stuff stopped, at least in some places.
I just completely missed the reason Dalinar was called the Blackthorn. Thanks for pointing that out. The re-reads give me so much more appreciation for Brandon and his writing.
Hmmm. Now I’m thinking about Young!Dalinar’s motivations some more. We really don’t know how he feels about the idea of unifying Alethkar, as a concept on its own. We know he supports his brother’s campaign, but we don’t know all of why. What we see him doing is charging into a battle, enjoying taking the “enemy” by surprise, seeking a challenge, ordering hostages taken, fighting a lot, killing those who stood against him and those who were too badly wounded to survive, capturing Teleb, and stopping the pillage. (Those a most of what we see in terms of action, anyway.)
The hostages were actually a move to stop the fighting – the soldiers would surrender more quickly if they saw their families held hostage.
Capturing Teleb was both practical – acquiring a skilled archer – and (for lack of a better word) artistic – his skill was a thing of beauty and should not be destroyed.
Some of his actions were, for a certain definition, honorable – not leaving enemies to suffer in their death.
Most of what we see in his action is doing all the things that might, just might, trigger the Thrill. Charging, fighting anyone he can, looking for a challenge – all things that might give him that “reward” that makes him feel alive.
Beyond that, what we don’t see is any enjoyment of the suffering of others. It doesn’t bother him much, but he doesn’t enjoy it. He doesn’t torture people (though he probably would if he thought it was the best way to get necessary information, and we might see that later). He doesn’t rape the captured women. He doesn’t even shrug and leave people to die. So… there’s that in his favor. He delights in the contest, not in the suffering of those he defeats.
Sanderson has said that Kelsier is a diagnosable sociopath. (I have problems with that, but they belong in a Mistborn reread.) One of the clinical signs of psychopathy (the profession doesn’t use “sociopath” much any more) is lack of strong emotion. Some psychopaths commit acts of violence just to feel something, because normal human life feels like nothing to them.
BWS being who he is, I’m sure Dalinar pre-Evi’s-death is meant to be an analogy to that.
#62. Carl: Interesting thought, and the evidence is there. Very interesting.
This Chapter was hard for me to read because of all the violence. But, goodness gracious, I can’t help but find Dalinar as a warrior poster boy.
#64 it is funny, all the most popular programs, books, and movies tend to be violent. Stay away from violence and the public gets bored.
@62 Carl
Personally I felt it was more in line with addiction than psychopathy. Dalinar became addicted to the Thrill. Like when a person comes down or is recovering from a high on a hard drug, the rest of the world feels flat and grey. The addict will do anything and everything to get that feeling again. If they cannot get it from the drug again, they will attempt to find things to fill that “void”. In this case I feel it was alcohol. Life is dreary without the Thrill, so let me drink myself to oblivion so I do not have to experience the dreariness till I can feel the Thrill again.
OB is the “Book of Redemption” both the story that BWS wrote and the memoir that Dalinar wrote. Any redemption arc always begs the question of whether everything one did can be redeemed.
We all say that Dalinar “murdered” Evi but he never intended her death. It was the horrible outcome of his revenge. He did, however, kill many many others with direct but somewhat socially approved intent. He is still feared for good reason.
I see what he did to Evi as equivalent to someone driving drunk getting in an accident that kills others. The dead can never be returned but the perpetrator has a choice with the rest of his life, what he does with that choice makes the difference.
@46 AeronaGreenjoy
Whoops, this is a bit of a late reaction, but life caught up to me. You’re right, I completely mixed up several sentences there, and made my first message rather unclear. What I was talking about was how incredibly violent Dalinar’s language is. Stepped-on rockbuds are crushed like the skulls of his enemies. Scratching sounds (firemoss) is like the scraping of a knife on bone. Sniffles are as disturbing as breaking bones. It’s very dramatic, and he does it several times over a long span of years in the flashback chapters. I haven’t seen anything like that in the present-day Dalinar chapters, which is why it interested me.
I wouldnt really say that Dalinar doesnt love his brother, he does, but love for his brother is not why he loves what he does. Gavilar has many faults, but what i got from oathbringer, was that for better or worse, He genuinly believed in the ideal of one unified strong alethkar. everything he did was in hope that he would be able to truely unify his nation(this makes him an awful person in his own right, but for very different reasons that dalinar was) in spirit as well as name.
in comparison, Dalinar lived for only one thing. conquest. not necessarily actual conquering, but simply the feeling of euphoria he got when he won at something. this was for the most part Battle, but as we see later, it also aplied to things like competition. dalinar only truely felt alive when he was truely dominating something. and as we see a lot of times in this book, he destroyed countless lives in his quest for the only times when he truely feels alive. and not only his enemies either, having killed his own men, poor guys who were unfortunate enough to happen to be around when he was in a bad mood in a bar, and tens of thousands of innocents.
Dalinar cared not about alethkar. he didnt care wheter they left behind a stable kingdom. at this early point, im pretty sure he would have welcomed the idea of spending the rest of his life putting down countless rebellions, rather than let the kingdom be at peace. all he cared about was when the next time he would feel alive were.
that being said, i do love that its obvious that this man is Dalinar Kholin. for example, even at this point he was already very meritocratic, as he obviously appreciates great talent(if not exactly taking care of/cultivating said talent) as proven with his recruiting of our poor archer here. at this point though, dalinar simply considers himself completely above them to such a degree that even if he appreciates their skills, he himself is obviously superior in his own mind.
Speaking of Genghis Kahn has anyone seen History vs Genghis Khan on Ted-ED the YouTube channel?
Didn’t Dalinar also kill some of his own men, or was that a later chapter?
Dalinar is indeed shown killing his own men in the grip of the Thrill later.
Okay, I thought I would wait to catch up with the reread before making comments but I have a couple things I want to say about this chapter.
What kind of contest would this be?
“The low town wall had been torn down in a contest a few years back, so the soldiers had only rubble as a fortification”
Here is a part near the end of the book:
“He saw himself stab a poor soldier in the back. A young man trying to crawl to safety, crying for his mother …
“I was with you then,” Odium said.”
After the list Odium says:
“Blame me, Dalinar. It wasn’t you! You saw red when you did those things! It was my fault. Accept that. You don’t have to hurt.”
But we see in this chapter that he wasn’t yet feeling the Thrill when he stabbed the young man. Is this a mistake?
As for general thoughts on this chapter I guess I’m a little naieve. This would be no surprise to my husband. He frequently tells me as much as I usually assume the best possible motivations for other people The first time I read this chapter I didn’t even pick up on what Sadeas was doing with those women. I’m not sure how I clouded myself from that. I think I just saw women weeping for the killing. I also thought they were gathering Teleb’s family to make sure they stayed safe since Teleb was one of them now. Using them as a threat makes much more (brutal) sense. I do not enjoy reading Dalinar’s flashbacks. Evi’s character is pretty much me being inserted into the books. ‘I love the man you can become but please, just stop killing people!’
I think I see a bit of the mongols in the Alethe
#73, @Bellaberry, “But we see in this chapter that he wasn’t yet feeling the Thrill when he stabbed the young man. Is this a mistake?” Odium says he was with Dalinar, not that the Thrill was there. Odium (like Ruin, for instance) can influence people directly, not just via the Unmade.
@BenW, I don’t know that the Mongols are more like the Alethi than any other warrior/soldier culture. The Roman Republic (pre-Octavian) was actually a lot like the Alethi (or rather vice-versa). Gavilar is a plausible Caesar-analog, in fact, seen as a champion of the common folk even as he bloodily conquers everything. The Mongols had lots of differences from the Alethi, notably being a nomadic, pastoral people originally.
@75 Well the burning of the rift reminds me of baghad
@carl 75 I could understand Odium seeing and taking credit for any events in Dalinar’s life that he might have guilt over. I don’t think Odium has any trouble with lying. The thing that gets me is, “You saw red when you did those things!” I thought seeing red refered to the Thrill.
Also to jump into your other response, Brandon did a good job of making this warfare realistic enough that we can recognize similarities to many historical battles. I myself see similarities to Vikings in the pre unified princedoms. The stay at home and have a small kingdom in Norway Vikings and not the “go a viking” ones. Also the religious notion that dying in battle was the best way to get to Nalhalla is similar to warfare being prized by the Alethi and their hope to go battle in the Tranquiline Halls.
#77, I had to look it up. “Nalhalla” is a thing from a Sanderson series I don’t read. (I don’t do YA.) The old Odin cult wanted to go to Valhalla. But yes, I agree that the Alethi aren’t any one Earth culture transplanted to Roshar. BWS is too good a writer to do that.
@carl 78 Oh, that is funny. I did mean Valhalla. I was recently reading both the Evil Librarian books and Viking Tales by Jeanie Hall to my kids.
Yes, I’m coming back to this thread on Halloween (2018).
I found a reference to the story that clearly inspired Teleb. The link is to a YouTube video about the Old Mongolian language and its descendants, just under 10 minutes.