Alice: Hallo out there! Welcome back to the Oathbringer reread for two—count ‘em, two—chapters this week.
Lyn: Huzzah! Double the chapters, double the fun!
A: First, we briefly join Kaladin in his bewildered watching of the “Voidbringers” he finally caught up with. Then we’ll switch back to Shallan and Adolin—and Mr. No-Mating Pattern—as she begins learning swordplay.
Reminder: we’ll potentially be discussing spoilers for the ENTIRE NOVEL in each reread. There are no references to the greater Cosmere in this week’s post, though we make no promises about the comments. But if you haven’t read ALL of Oathbringer, best to wait to join us until you’re done.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Kaladin; Shallan
WHERE: Rural Alethkar; Urithiru
WHEN: 1174.1.3.1 (two days after Chapter 10); 1174.1.3.3 (immediately following Chapter 13)
Chapter 14 begins with Kaladin spying on a group of Parshmen who are, despite Kal’s expectations, playing cards. He swiftly realizes that these people aren’t the monsters he had come to expect. When he’s spotted by a spren and the Parshmen are alerted to his presence, he chooses to be taken captive.
In chapter 15, Adolin and Shallan are discussing the strange copy-cat murder. Adolin insists that it must be a different killer (which, of course, he’d know since he was the original killer), and Shallan is annoyed by his insistence with seemingly no evidence. He swiftly transitions the conversation into one about Shallan’s Shardblade, which makes her uneasy. As Adolin leaves to get blade guards to teach Shallan some swordsmanship, she decides that she must create a new identity to deal with the horrible memories and emotions threatening to overwhelm her—Brightness Radiant. Radiant proceeds to learn stances from Adolin for some time, with him being none the wiser to her growing instability.
Threshold of the storm
Titles
A: “Squires Can’t Capture” comes from the conversation between two of the parsh who are attempting to play cards and discovering that they don’t know the rules very well. The comment that went with this suggestion in the beta was this:
[The phrase] seems to hold more meaning than the game of cards. Squires are untrained, as are these ‘Voidbringers’.
Emily agreed.
“Brightness Radiant” is obviously the new persona Shallan creates here to deal with her discomfort over handling the Patternblade. We’ll deal with that below.
Heralds
A: Chapter 14 gives us Taln, Herald of War; Soldier, Dependable & Resourceful, patron of the Stonewards. Whether this reflects Kaladin as the soldier, the parshmen he expected to be soldiers but aren’t, or… something else, I really couldn’t say. Lyn, any ideas?
L: I’d say that it fits Kaladin well in this instance. He’s scouting ahead, checking on the enemy. Just because that enemy isn’t at all what he expected doesn’t change his duty—he needs to gather as much information on them as possible in order to pass along to his commanding officer.
A: Chapter 14 shows Chana, or Chanarach if you prefer. She is associated with the role of Guard, the attributes Brave & Obedient, and the order of Dustbringers. At one point, I had a theory that Adolin would become a Dustbringer because Chana was so often the Herald on his chapters. I concluded eventually that my theory was likely wrong, and Chana was shown more because Adolin was both brave and obedient in most of those chapters, and sometimes also held the role of Guard for his father. Here, I suspect it’s primarily the Guard aspect, as he’s teaching Shallan to use the Blade she holds.
Icons
A: The icons are no surprise: Kaladin’s banner-and-spears, and Shallan’s Pattern.
Epigraphs
In this record, I hold nothing back. I will try not to shy away from difficult topics, or paint myself in a dishonestly heroic light.
I will express only direct, even brutal, truth. You must know what I have done, and what those actions cost me.
—From Oathbringer, preface
A: The first line could, I suppose, be addressing Kaladin’s willingness to face his wrong expectations, and to surrender to the parshmen in order to learn more about the truth. The second one, in context of Shallan hiding in the new Brightness Radiant persona to escape the painful truth of her past, is almost hilariously opposite. (But only almost, because her issues are too painful to be that funny.)
Stories & Songs
Monstrous terrors from the mythological past, enemies of all that was right and good. Destroyers who had laid waste to civilization countless times.
They were playing cards.
L: I really dig this type of “reversed expectation” humor—probably part of the reason why I love The Gentleman Bastards series so much. But aside from the humor, this is the beginning of Kaladin’s realization that All Is Not As It Seems. This must be such a shock to him—not only is he trying to reconcile this new information against thousands of years of ingrained cultural myth, but he’s also personally been fighting the Parshendi for most of the last year. They’ve tried to kill him. And, even worse from Kaladin’s point of view, they’ve killed and injured his friends and those he’s sworn to protect. I love his arc in this book, because this realization that the enemy isn’t a monster is so real. We’re all the heroes of our own stories, and even those we fight against are still people with their own desires, loves, families, and reasons.
A: This is such Sanderson thing to do, and also one of those things that makes you say, “Well, of course!” after you see it. What else would they be, but … people?
The parshman looked so forlorn, staring down at his card, shoulders slumped.
“This is wrong,” Kaladin whispered to Syl. “We’ve been so wrong.…” Where were the destroyers? What had happened to the beasts with the red eyes that had tried to crush Dalinar’s army? The terrible, haunting figures that Bridge Four had described to him?
We thought we understood what was going to happen, Kaladin thought. I was so sure.…
L: I’m certain that this won’t be the first time Kaladin makes a mistake like this. But the fact that he can actually change his opinion based on new information is one of the things that makes him so likable to me. He isn’t mired in his own beliefs and opinions, unwilling or unable to change them even when presented with evidence to the contrary. He’s willing to listen to other ideas, other points of view. He’s willing to allow himself to be swayed and moved—which becomes something of a problem for him later on, as he’s literally paralyzed with indecision about what the right course of action is. Despite the basis for his name, Kaladin isn’t some stalwart Paladin who’s following his (perhaps misguided) beliefs to the bitter end.
The parshmen seized cudgels made from branches or the handles of brooms. They bunched together and held the sticks like frightened villagers, no stance, no control.
Kaladin hesitated. I could take them all in a fight even without Stormlight. He’d seen men hold weapons like that many times before. Most recently, he’d seen it inside the chasms, when training the bridgemen.
These were no warriors.
A: If I recall correctly, this chapter is the first time we actually see the awakened parshmen on screen, rather than just in the second-hand retellings of frightened villagers. Watching them here, as they try to puzzle through a card game, as they speak like native Alethi, as they seem so confused… This is when the Azish parshmen trying to negotiate, and the Thaylen parshmen sailing off in the ships, all snaps into focus. They’re all doing the normal things that would be done in the cultures where they grew up. What other shaping experience would they have had?
Except for one thing…
“Alarm!” a sudden, shrill voice called. “Alarm! You fools!”
Something zipped through the air, a glowing yellow ribbon, a streak of light in the dim afternoon shade.
“He’s there,” the shrill voice said. “You’re being watched! Beneath those shrubs!”
A: … And now we know why they’re all grouped together and apparently on the march somewhere. There’s a spren directing the group.
L: A spren with a strange way of speaking. Who just says “Alarm!” like that? Maybe language has evolved while they’ve been trapped over in Damnation.
Relationships & Romances
When Adolin returned to the room a moment later, he found a poised, calm woman who wasn’t quite Shallan Davar. Brightness Radiant is her name, she thought. She will go only by title.
L: Yeah, because this is a great foundation upon which to build a relationship, Shallan. ::sigh::
As she was swinging, he grabbed his own Blade and fell in beside her, modeling the stance and the strikes.
L: I really love this. Sharing these physical movements almost feels a little like a dance to me. And Shallan seems to agree:
Sharing these moments with him and drinking of his excitement felt special. Intimate. Even more so than their closeness had been earlier in the evening.
L: This makes a lot of sense to me. Being together physically is one thing, but sharing an understanding of what the other person loves is a deeper form of connection. Anyone can kiss someone else (NO MATING). But taking part in your partner’s joys, the things that make their hearts sing—that’s love.
A: This is a bit of a revelation for Shallan, IMO, and one we should all recognize. If you love someone, it’s well worth the effort to find interest in the things they enjoy. I don’t think Shallan has ever had reason or opportunity to discover this before; she was always too busy being what other people needed, or trying to stay alive and in some measure of control. Now she has the chance.
Bruised & Broken
She could see only before herself, and she wanted to run, go somewhere. Be away.
No. No, just be someone else.
L: Shallan, Shallan, Shallan. My poor, broken dear. I have to admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of her in the first two books. Her sense of humor grated on my nerves, and I really disliked how she treated Kaladin (up until the chasm scene). But her troubles in this book actually endeared her to me, despite the fact that I was constantly shouting at the book because she just. Kept. Making. Awful. Decisions.
A: She did make a lot of terrible decisions in Oathbringer—with a few good ones sprinkled in between—and I know it drove some readers straight up the wall. As I’ve said before, though, I think it was well done. This scene is a perfect example: I so badly wanted her to accept Pattern as her Blade and get on with the awesome. At the same time, it would be totally unrealistic; she’s just recently acknowledged that the first time she used that Blade, she used it to kill her mother. On top of that, the knowledge of that Blade’s existence was the primary thing that kept her father from treating her as badly as he treated her brothers… so that he would hurt others in her place, giving her all the guilt and no means of expiation. So yes, of course she hates the Blade, even though she has used it since then to save her own life, and also to save the lives of the entire human army at Narak.
I can hide, Shallan thought, drawing at a frenzied pace. Shallan can flee and leave someone in her place.
L: I think we can all identify with having memories we wish we could just hide away. And who hasn’t put on a different persona in order to fit in better with a social group? Granted, I doubt most people’s persona shifts are as… ::ahem:: drastic as Shallan’s. But it’s human nature to try to make yourself look better to those you love or admire. And if heightening one aspect of yourself while downplaying others will achieve that end? I think most people will do this unconsciously. Shallan’s taking it to a whole new level, though. The fact that she’s thinking of herself as an entirely new person gives me the shudders, and this moment in particular made me Very Concerned for her:
“Hey,” Adolin said. “That’s not bad.”
“Shallan did spend quite a lot of time drawing you all.”
L: Okay, first of all, how the heck did Adolin not notice that little slip of the tongue? Talking about yourself in third person is never a good sign.
A: I just tell myself that Adolin was focused on how he was going to teach her, and wasn’t really listening. On the more analytical side, though, I like the way this chapter is written. She shifts back and forth between two personalities, and sometimes it’s more of a spectrum shift, e.g. when she needs to stay mostly focused, but still needs to be able to draw. The different speech patterns are a combination of blatant signaling and hilarious inappropriateness. (“Brightlord Kholin” indeed!) Whether or not you like what’s happening to her, it’s brilliantly drawn.
L: Secondly, this was the first moment where I got a legitimate chill regarding the direction her character was heading in.
…whenever the pain of holding the sword started to spike–whenever she really thought about what she was doing–she was able to become Radiant and avoid it.
L: ::sigh:: Yep. Because avoiding your problems has worked out so splendidly in the past.
A: This makes me think about how hard it must have been for her to keep working the Oathgate by herself for, what, two or three weeks? She had to keep blocking this pain every time, poor girl. I guess this setting, with just the two of them and no “job to do” to distract her, was more than she could face. My only question is, did this scene actually break her further, or is it merely demonstrating how broken she already was? I’m with the first option, myself. I think she’s getting worse.
Places & Peoples
“I know it’s not feminine, but who cares? You’ve got a sword; you should know how to use it, and custom can go to Damnation. There, I said it.” He took a deep breath. “I mean, the bridgeboy can have one, and he’s darkeyed. Well, he was. Anyway, it’s not so different from that.”
Thank you, Shallan thought, for ranking all women as something equivalent to peasants.
A: Gah. I’m not sure how to react to all this. On the one hand, I think it’s absolutely hilarious and perhaps a little awesome that Adolin has to really work himself up to saying something so horribly contrary to Vorin Custom. On the other hand, there’s more than a smidge of irritation that the rules of eye color and gender are so strong, though I suspect for me that’s partly influenced by knowing how arbitrary the distinctions are. (Interestingly enough, both can be traced directly to the aftereffects of the Recreance.)
I’m actually more bothered—and I’m not sure this is fair—that Shallan is irritated at him for ranking women with peasants. The reasons for the two customs are vastly different, and her sense of affront makes me want to slap her.
L: I’m kinda torn on this one. On the one hand, I’ve definitely had similar annoyed thoughts when people of privilege have looked down on those they deem as “below them” in similar fashion. On the other, the very fact that she’s thinking of darkeyed people as “peasants” is frustrating. Adolin is usually pretty good about treating everyone the same regardless of social standing, but Shallan’s got a ways to go in that respect.
A: I think that’s what bit me in this scene. Adolin lives with the societal restrictions almost without thinking about them; they’re just the facts of life, and he follows them as expected. But that never keeps him from viewing and treating everyone with whatever dignity and respect they’ve earned; he simply gets along with everyone at their own level. He jokes around with the stable boys as easily as he dines with the highest lighteyes—and he doesn’t think about it. Except for her time on the Wind’s Pleasure, Shallan never has achieved that level of courtesy.
He approached and reached toward her with a thumb and two fingers. She thought he was going to adjust her grip, but instead he pressed his fingers against her collarbone and shoved lightly.
Radiant stumbled backward, almost tripping.
“A stance,” Adolin said, “is about more than just looking great on the battlefield. It’s about footing, center of balance, and control of the fight.”
L: I couldn’t think of a more appropriate section for this, so I guess my discussion about stances and Alethi martial arts is going to go here. Anyone who has ever studied any martial art will recognize this little speech Adolin gives—practicing stances is the first thing that you learn. It’s the base of everything, the foundation. Looking at the sketches in Words of Radiance, I’d hazard a guess that Brandon/Ben loosely based the Alethi Shardblade stances on European longsword stances. Windstance could be Vom Tag, and Flamestance could be a modified Ochs. Vinestance is probably Pflug. I haven’t been learning this martial art for very long so it’s probable that there are others with a broader knowledge base who could make more accurate guesses, but without detailed, labeled sketches it’s all guesswork. Note to self: ask Ben McSweeney if there’s labeled concept art detailing the different stances…
::ahem:: Moving on to the more “mystical” side of things.
“The Blade is part of you,” Adolin said. “The Blade is more than your tool; it is your life. Respect it. It will not fail you—if you are bested, it is because you failed the sword.”
L: This reminds me a great deal of Japanese swordsmanship. I like that Brandon is drawing from several different types of real-world swordsmanship for the Alethi, and not just sticking to one culture.
Tight Butts and Coconuts
What in Damnation’s depths?
A: I just like that line.
He lounged with his back against the wall, coat unbuttoned while tossing a small leather ball filled with dried grain into the air and catching it again.
A: Who knew they played hacky sack on Roshar? Huh.
L: Could be juggling balls too.
By now he’d removed his jacket, standing in only shirt and trousers. She did like how that tight shirt fit him.
A: On the beta, the “r” was missing from “shirt.” Need I say more?
L: My all-time favorite of Sanderson slips. I don’t think any other typo will ever beat it.
“Was it the makeup that tipped you off, or the dress? Oh, it was the breasts, wasn’t it? Always giving us away.”
L: I love that Adolin doesn’t even skip a beat at this.
Moving Motivations
“I still think there might be two murderers,” Adolin said. “You know … like someone saw Sadeas dead, and figured they could get away with killing someone else, blaming it on the first fellow.”
Oh, Adolin, Shallan thought. He’d arrived at a theory he liked, and now wouldn’t let it go. It was a common mistake warned of in her scientific books.
A: Oh, Shallan. He’s wrong about the motivation of the second killer—though who could ever have expected to guess that?!—but he knows there most definitely are two murderers. It makes me think of the times Shallan has thought of him as so easy to read, unable to deceive anyone, etc. Yeah, maybe not so much.
His blue eyes were alight, and Shallan loved seeing that glow from him. Almost like Stormlight. She knew that passion—she’d felt what it was to be alive with interest, to be consumed by something so fully that you lost yourself in the wonder of it. For her it was art, but watching him, she thought that the two of them weren’t so different.
A: We get these little tidbits about Adolin every so often, and it’s such a delight to see him become so alive and unconsciously passionate about something he loves. I don’t think I can explain this, but somehow this makes me see him becoming an Edgedancer even more readily.
A Scrupulous Study of Spren
“It’s because you hate me,” Pattern said softly. “I can die, Shallan. I can go. They will send you another to bond.”
L: WHY IS PATTERN THE SWEETEST THING EVER? Precious spren-baby. If he ever dies I will legitimately cry. A lot.
A: That line. Oh, my aching heart. He just offered to die so she could not hurt so much any more. (It wouldn’t actually work, I think, but he doesn’t know that.)
“Have you considered,” she said, “that your Shardblade was once a living spren, wielded by one of the Knights Radiant? Doesn’t that change how you look at it?”
Adolin glanced towards his Blade, which he’d left summoned, strapped with the sheath and set across her blankets. “I’ve always kind of known. Not that it was alive. That’s silly. Swords aren’t alive. I mean… I’ve always known there was something special about them. It’s part of being a duelist, I think. We all know it.”
L: I wonder if he’s playing this a little close to the chest in order to look cooler, because his actions before his duel in Words of Radiance definitely make me think that he’s believed his sword is alive for a long time:
The Shardblade didn’t respond, but Adolin imagined that it listened to him. You couldn’t use a weapon like this, a weapon that seemed like an extension of the soul itself, and not feel at times that it was alive.
L: And, as we know now, she is alive. Sort of. But we’ll get to that much later.
Arresting Artwork
A: I’m not sure, but perhaps we should have called it “Appalling Artwork” for this one.
L: I can get behind that.
A: You can sort of see how she’s drawn the strata, the passageways, and the ductwork, but it’s very surreal and creepy. Effects of a certain lurker in the depths, as we’ll discuss later, but wow! I’m assuming this is another example of Ben having to work hard to create the twistedness that Shallan feels when she tries to draw Urithiru.
L: Those circular things (vents?) in the ceiling remind me of eyes and it’s creepin’ me out. I would not want to walk down that hallway, and I’ve investigated some pretty creepy haunted places.
Quality Quotations
Then he held his hands to the sides, speaking more loudly. “I surrender.”
* * *
“You’re saying someone happened to kill a highprince,” Adolin said, “by accident? Like … a back-alley murder outside a pub?”
* * *
“I can’t—” she said. “I can’t be this person, Pattern. I can’t just wield the sword. Some brilliant knight on a tower, pretending she should be followed.”
A: That’s sort of foreshadow-y, there, you know? Reminds me of Shalash way out yonder in Chapters 117 and 121. Is this a Lightweaver thing?
* * *
“Should I teach you dueling? Or should I teach you how to fight in an army?”
“I shall settle,” Radiant said, “for knowing how to avoid cutting off any of my own appendages, Brightlord Kholin.”
* * *
That night she slept, for once, in peace.
As usual, there’s far more to be discussed, so we’ll take it to the comments. Join us next week for Chapter 16, in which Dalinar behaves in fairly bizarre fashion.
Alice is likely to be MIA when this post hits the streets; she’ll be playing chaperone to a bunch of eight-graders on a three-day history tour. Wish her luck!
Lyndsey had a fabulous time at her first JordanCon! If you’d like to see her Bridge 4 inspired karaoke performance or the lengths to which her “F*** Moash” badge ribbons stretched, check out her Facebook page. She’ll also be posting a ton of gorgeous cosplay photos from the weekend soon!
Yay I’m first…? Need to read the post in more detail but just wanted to say that this second chapter makes me happy and sad at the same time. Shallan and Adolin spending more quality time together, but knowing what is to come with the whole…Shallan’s mind cracking and nearly ruining her and their relationship thing. I also don’t know if I like Radiant very much, she is almost more ‘Jasnah’ than Jasnah herself, including the bewbies.
Kaladin’s chapter was pretty cool too, we get some major insights into these new Voidbringers that are terrorising everyone. What could his plan be, surrendering himself like that…. we will seeee!
I don’t know if Honor’s intent when he said “unite them” was to refer to humans and listeners, but Kaladin’s chapter here added a whole healing pile of bricks to my conviction that it’s what needs to happen. I’ve felt that way from the very first Eshonai chapter.
Two very different flavors of “oh ****” in these chapters. Parshmen coming back to themselves as ordinary people and Shallan deciding that bad coping habits are worth repeating are both signs things are going to get complicated.
It’s interesting that Shallan using Brightness Radiant as an avoidance method doesn’t appear to have affected her bond with Pattern. In that respect, at least, it’s an improvement over outright forgetting. Though as a reader, having a viewpoint character dissociating is more unsettling than having one be depressed. Oh, Shallan, no.
The Spren screaming “Alarm!” always makes me think of that scene from Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, in the nazi base. Indy and Henry excape the fire into the control room to be spotted by a tech, who smiles at them before shouting a shrill “Alaaaarrrrrm!”
Because of this, this spren Yixli always has that stereotypical nazi accent from the movies when she talks. And Kal and Syl get to be Indy and Henry in this scene.
I’ll have more time later to comment, but one element which caught my interest during my re-read (I am at chapter 28) is how often Shallan says and/or thinks this: Oh Adolin. I believe this chapter was the first instance, but she says it again during the Ialai meeting and later, after Adolin was injured. Each time, it seems to highlight a moment where Shallan felt Adolin was making a mistake by being…. himself. In this case, she thinks he jumps to a conclusion too hastily. In the Ialai’s meeting, he falls into her trap and got all worked up. After he was injured, he diminished the fact he nearly died, preferring to speak of his annoyance at this shirt having been ripped. Each time, it seemed to mark Shallan reading something Adolin is not showing: stubbornness over a given conclusion, eagerness at falling into a mental trap, ignorance of the ordeal he just got through. The term is always used in an endearing way.
I will keep my eyes open to see if other instance of the words are use in the book. Three times however… So far.
So…does anyone else think the artwork looks…umm…well…like a certain organ? *blushes*
@6 I can’t find the original attribution for this joke, but:
Who is this Rorschach guy and why did he paint so many pictures of my parents fighting?
Hm. Something occurred to me reading this. If the Nahel bond first required that you are ‘broken’ in some way, do we know what broke Shallan? We know she had a happy childhood, and that her fathers rage came after she killed her mother. And the broken family after that event is what leads to her “breaking”. Yet she used Pattern to kill her mother, in defence of the fact her mother was going to kill her for developing surgebinding. Which would require the bond. Which came later. Uh oh, have I just unpicked something?
@8 – I think Brandon might be backtracking on the whole “broken” thing:
@8Bandicoot
We also do not know that Shallan had a happy childhood. The family she portrayed in the “play”, she said herself is what she thinks he family could have been had darkness not fallen over them all, and she didn’t have a shardblade. The fact that her mother had a mistress at all, denotes all was not well in the household. Finally there are also WoB that say an Unmade had been influencing her family. At this time we do not know for how long. It could have been the Unmade’s influence that also drove her mother to attack her. So I feel it is too early to assume she had a wonderful childhood.
@6 Austin. Nope, it is just a creepy mouth–cave trying to eat my soul.
@8, 9, 10 The way children tend to feel every single thing turned up to eleven when they’re that young might suggest that a person’s spirit web is a lot more malleable at that age. An adult could need a lot more breaking than a child (but show me an adult who hasn’t already been broken in a thousand different places).
More comments…
I find I am enjoying those short Kaladin chapters much better upon re-read than within my first read. I recall this particular chapter was squeezed in between two amazing Shallan/Adolin chapters and, as such, I didn’t pay it much attention. During my re-read, I appreciate how Kaladin is now allowing his experience with people guide how he feels about them as opposed to following prejudices. Hence, he doesn’t judge the Parshendis, but instead allows his eyes to draw a picture of them which clashes violently with the one he always had. We can sense the conflict brewing… I believe this was discussed prior to OB’s release, how Kaladin is killing people not being so different than the ones he was trying to protect.
Now, the meat, the Shallan chapter which, by all means, was also a very good one. And oh it was discussed. And oh how Adolin was blamed here for causing Radiant to emerge by insisting Shallan practices with him. It has always been a sore point for me, to have Adolin take the blame because he didn’t pay attention to Shallan’s discomfort, he cut her out instead of letting her voices her objections, when really he is not the problem here. Shallan is. Shallan and her past. Shallan and her inability to accept it for what it was and to move on. I am one of those readers who has problems with Shallan in OB. Realistic or not, it is very hard for me to accept Shallan is unable to just try to move forward without being burdened by the past. I would never argue no scars should be seen, by all means those memories should always be painful, but the fact Shallan utterly, completely, totally refuses to event attempt at looking into it, rationalizing it and just shelve it as “something terrible which happened” was hard to deal with for me as a reader. Now, I don’t mean to say she should be fine with it or she should accept it or she should readily succeed at it, but I felt she ought to try which she doesn’t really. In other words, what bothers me with Shallan is her complete lack of desire to deal with her hardships, to face them. I find this hard to relate to, hard to sympathize with even if it was all very well written.
So now, we are stuck with Radiant. In this chapter, I really felt Shallan was putting on a mask more than becoming someone else. In fact, he never felt she really became Veil nor Radiant, I felt she always was Shallan, but somehow, through a trick of her mind, she managed to be in character so much, she didn’t have to think about her past. Radiant, I note, was made to emulate Jasnah and will soon be known as “the one Shallan thinks she needs to be”. Shallan believes she should be Radiant, so she makes Radiants to be her whenever needed. Veil is more who she thinks she wants to be, someone so strong she would never break. Both are attempts at Shallan of being anyone else but herself as she hates herself. It is hard to read someone having so little protectiveness towards oneself. Why should she hate herself? Why can’t she hate her mother, her father?
Bad parenting is a recurring theme in SA, so far and yet, none of the children ever took it out on their parents… Odd. Shallan should hate her mother for trying to kill her, she should hate her father for what he became, but she doesn’t and this.,.. is odd. Just like neither Adolin nor Renarin hate Dalinar for what he did to them.
But the light in this chapter is Adolin. This. Is. Adolin. The real Adolin. Not the stoic emotion-less soldier he pretends to be for most of the three books. Not the imitation of Dalinar he tries to mold himself after. Not the True Soldier Ideal he keeps referring himself to throughout the book. No. Passionate, energetic with a vivid world crafted around him: this chapter goes hand in hand with this adorable later chapter where 4 years old Adolin tells the grand tale of how he slew those evil flying chulls. Or Adolin who personified his Blade, who feels it is alive (thought does not want to admit it to Shallan) and talks to it. Really. Had Brandon wrote a chapter where Adolin had an imaginary friend trailing after him, I wouldn’t have been surprised because I do think he was this kind of child. The imaginative one who likes stories of the impossible, of heroism and great deeds, who plays make-believe, who makes himself his own armor with bits of everything. That’s Adolin. And in this chapter we got to see him, really see him. These moments are too rare in the books. This chapter makes the link in between lil Adolin and grown-up Adolin.
I also recall how, back in WoR, one of the pro Kaladin/Shallan arguments was “Kaladin is more passionate while Adolin wasn’t”. Now, I don’t mean to say Kaladin isn’t passionate, but he doesn’t have the same kind of passion Adolin has. It is hard to say in words, but in here, what Adolin showed Shallan was a side of him she could totally relate to, she could understand and love. There is a lot of passion in Adolin but it usually plays the second fiddle to Responsibility and Duty. And his passion has a creative side which is why, I think, Adolin is so easily able to split into Shallan’s own creative mind. They complement each other here quite nicely or this is how I read it anyway.
@12 Soursavior
I agree. We have also seen that Vin was able to snap in the womb from a traumatic birth. So I could totally believe “snapping” could also deal with the perception of the individual being snapped.
nobelhunter@3, Pattern loves lies, delicious they are. So Shallan is safe for now. He will soon want truths, as he has before.
#13, @Gepeto.
A lot of people get upset because Shallan can’t just move on.
I think that attitude is what a lot real people with real mental illnesses get frustrated by. “Just stop being mentally ill” doesn’t work. I just got over the flu and I couldn’t “just stop having a viral infection.” Why should someone be able to “just stop having bipolar disorder” or whatever?
Shallan is a mentally ill teenager. She can’t just turn into a different person … no matter how many times she tries.
@16 Carl: It isn’t the fact she isn’t succeeding which bothers me, it is the fact she is not trying. I never said I wish it would magically go away, though I do feel Brandon went too far with this arc, but I feel the character would have worked better, for me, had she shown she actually had any desire to face her past, a seer will to move past it, even if she were to fail at doing so. Instead, she does everything she can to avoid dealing with it and this, this is something I have a hard to relate to. And I can’t find it endearing. A mental illness is a condition, a hardship, a difficulty, a limitation, but not an excuse to not try.
Also, I don’t think we can ignore the fact it is frustrating and readers who find it frustrating aren’t bad people. A lot of people also have hardships in their life and they moved on, they found their strength, they got help, they just didn’t content themselves with being miserable. To me, this is very frustrating. I get it, it is hard, I do, I really do, but the fact it is hard is not an excuse to not try to deal with it. To not want to try. That’s where I have problems with Shallan: the absence of a desire to deal with her issues.
Take Kaladin, for instances, yeah, he’s got it bad. Yeah, he’s got depression, but he is trying to deal with all of it. Sometimes it works, other times it bites him back in an awful way, but he still tries. And I like him for trying even if he often fails doing so, even if there are times when he can’t help it. He still tries.
None of it is about Shallan turning into a different person which, funny as it sounds, is exactly what Shallan did: she became someone else to avoid having to deal with it. All of it is about Shallan accepting she needs to face her past and to move past it, no matter how hard, no matter how many times she will fail doing so, no matter how difficult it is. Just trying. And this is missing from Shallan’s character in OB. The end result is a character which I have a hard time to connect with which is sad as I loved Shallan within the previous books.
@17 I think part of it is that Shallan doesn’t realize she needs to “move on.” She’s focused on remaining functional. I think that’s understandable as her non-functional mode is to go non-verbal and semi-catatonic (I think?). The world is ending. As far as she knows, she is one of only four Knights Radiant. There’s no time for her to check out for a few months until she finds a coping mechanism that isn’t a new identity or going non-responsive.
Shallan has found a way to deal with her past, it just isn’t a good way. If you can easily get away from your troubles by becoming someone else, how could that not be tempting? She first has to realize that it is the wrong way to deal with her problems before she can find a better way.
My boss often talks about himself in the third person. Does that mean he is a Lightweaver?
@17 – I feel that perhaps Shallan’s arc is almost TOO realistic for some people, and that is why they feel negatively about it. My eldest sister was diagnosed with Anorexia Nervosa when she was 21, but she had already been deteriorating for several years before the diagnosis. I was just starting high school at that point, so I had a little understanding of what was happening at that time. I see Shallan’s arc as being realistic because running away from her pain is EXACTLY what my sister was doing for several years. Did she recognize that’s what she was doing? Absolutely, but she felt this was her only way of coping. This went on until she realized that she could confront her fears herself, that it is OK for her to feel the way she does without resorting to the control mechanisms she was using (limiting intake of food, excessive exercise, etc.) to avoid things. This is similar to what is happening to Shallan, except with a supernatural/fantastical element. But it took my sister 3 years to finally confront her demons, and another year or so of therapy to get better and find coping mechanisms that worked for her. All of this is to say: I have faith that Brandon will write Shallan a satisfying arc where she WILL get better, and that it will take time just in real life. The fact that her Surgebinding abilities give her another aspect of escape means it might be harder for her to reach that point, but I am sure she will reach it.
@6 Austoin, I see it the same way you did, not as mouth!
@9Austin, that WOB just kills mountains of debate over whether Adolin is “broken enough” to have the bond. He certainly talks to and cherishes his blade.
The Kaladin chapter is really the wake up call that tells us this book isn’t going quite where we thought. Also, as we learn more about this group it makes it more painful knowing what is coming. On the first read I was thinking we’d be saving some folks.
To add, also remember there isn’t an established psychiatry on this world. The extent we know of, is they shove you in a dark room. So Shallan does not even possess the resources or tools to realize what is happening to her. All she has is demands to be functional from every angle, while her spren is saying “i don’t know about this….” (totally not blaming Pattern). So she grasps to the one thing that can make her feel functional, being someone else. As per Sanderson, the lightweaving in this case has only amplified the problems by giving her an outlet to personify the masks. So if anything she has tools and resources to enforce the avoidance. In her mind, making the personas is her trying. It is her trying to be functional for everyone else. As I have said in the past, and WoB support this, Shallan still has a ways to go.
“Okay, first of all, how the heck did Adolin not notice that little slip of the tongue?”: He did not react to it, but he might have noticed. Much later in the book he says to Shallan that he can (always?) tell which persona is in control, and thus when it is really her. Though that may have been something he picked up later as the personae became even more of an issue.
Can I just say, I Love Adolin! He was okay for the first two books, but I love that we finally get to see him shine and he does it SO well. He loves dueling the way my hubby loves watching/playing basketball (church ball mostly-so dangerous!), it’s just so satisfying to see. And good for Shallan to be there with him doing that.
This is the chapter I really started to worry about Shallan. To see her hiding from the realities was so hard. We think she should know better already, but irl things don’t work like that. Like, I know I shouldn’t eat so much chocolate but here I am with a cookie doing the reread. The gap between knowing and doing is huge.
And the Parsh in Kaladin’s chapter… the initial shock that they weren’t alien monster warriors was big but I like the Alethi-ness that they have. Because if they aren’t monsters what else would they be? I like that Kaladin is willing to open his mind and think instead of following his prejudice, but later in the book I’ll take it back when choosing sides becomes to hard
I feel the need to point out that we’re only about 13 days past the scene where Shallan faced the fact that she killed her mother. Since then, she is constantly depended on as the only Radiant with a Blade to work the Oathgate, and is expected to contribute to strategy sessions. I’m not at all surprised that her way of coping with the painful memories is to subsume them in other personas.
@18: This sounds like a fair assessment. I however need to draw the parallel with Dalinar’s story arc. Dalinar too has needed to forget his past in order to move forward and, on the day he remembers, he falls back into his old copying mechanism which is drinking himself to oblivion. He however moves out of it and makes the first steps towards accepting his past, accepting his guilt and taking responsibility for what he has done. Hence, Shallan needed not to revert to the mute ball she once was, but to accept she killed both her parents, to accept it happened, to take responsibility for her actions without thinking less of herself because it did happen.
@19: Your boss sound creepy :-O But good analysis to help us see how Adolin may not have catch the change though we do find out, much later, he actually did.
Granted, Shallan’s magical powers give her such an easy way, I do agree it must have been tempting for her to take it. Still, it would have made her character more sympathetic, to me, if while she did it, while she lost control, she reflected on how it was a bad thing. If she didn’t act as if Veil/Radiant were actually real… because they aren’t. They can’t. How she can believe they are is just beyond my capacity of understanding, unfortunately.
@20: Thank you for sharing the story with your sister. I don’t mean to say facing anyone’s demons should be fast nor it shouldn’t take a lot of time…. It is just the lack of desire to do so which has bothered me. Also, realism into Shallan’s arc (well as realistic as you can get given part of her issues are tied to the fact she has magical powers) isn’t what bothers me… It’s just… It may just be Brandon hasn’t chosen an angle to write the narrative which works for me.
Here is a side story to illustrate my thoughts. I came to know Brandon Sanderson out of his work onto WoT. When news got out a “new” author has been hired by late Robert Jordan’s wife to finish the series, I was both curious, anxious and excited. Who was this Brandon Sanderson and can he pull it out? Obviously, I avidly jumped into the books the second they were out and I was really keen on discovering this new author.
Something magical happened. See, I hated Rand’s character. Oh I liked him well enough within the first books, but somewhere in the middle, I started to strongly dislike him. I couldn’t take the constant whining, the obsession over not killing women, his list, his claims he needed to be hard: it was all too much for me and the character stopped being sympathetic. He unnerved me when he didn’t trigger all sorts of other negative reactions. Then Brandon Sanderson took a plunge and he wrote Rand and…. I started liking the character again.
Why? What happened? I don’t know how he did it, but Brandon found the right angle, the angle to present Rand’s dilemma which worked for me. And everything made more sense afterwards.
Hence. Shallan, it may be it is just a matter of angle: the author chose one, but it works not so much with me. Perhaps another angle will work better. Shallan is one character I am keen to re-read because I feel very negatively about her arc in OB.
One of the intends of my personal re-read is to let the story sinks in and to allow my perceptions… to change. So we’ll see.
@21: I have read this WoB a while ago and, yes, it does raises questions though I felt it mostly explained Lopen.
This being said, I am of the opinion having Adolin become a Radiant through those “other means”, without being broken, wouldn’t be good for the narrative. Why? Because readers already are against him becoming a Radiant. With OB, he is tethering on the edge of being a, oh forgive me for saying it, Gary Stu. How would him become a Radiant without the struggles, without the hardships, just by being “open enough” make up for an interesting, satisfying narrative? I feel it would just get on many readers nerves and it would harm Adolin’s character.
As a reader, I would personally feel all character have been cheated if all it took to be a Radiant was to have a big smile and an easy life. Adolin can’t get the butter and the money to buy the butter.
Just my two cents.
Maybe it’s because I’m military but Adolin talking about hia blade here brought to mind Full Metal Jacket. This is my rifle (Shardblade). There are many like it but this one is mine…
Anyway, both of these chapters are bittersweet considering what we know is coming down the pipeline. Moments of both Pain and Awesomeness have some of their root structure coming from these 2 scenes. Kaladin freezing, Shallan fracturing, Adolin and Maya. This is where I have to remind myself that this is the halfway point of a 5 book arc. More to come and all that jazz.
@26 Gepeto –
On the other hand, I think the narrative will require a large number of new Radiants for our protagonists to lead by the next book. They can’t ALL be messed up wrecks. The scouts (like Lyn) that were recruited to be squires for Kaladin weren’t “broken” by the original definition. They were just willing to try.
I know these are Kaladin and Shallan chapters, but its very interesting that the epigraphs relate directly to one of the JordanCon panel topics this past week about Dalinar’s memoir, whereby the subject was raised of possible fallout from honest revelations about certain hidden facts within his family. We don’t know if Dalinar is actually as honest as he says he will be since we don’t get the juicy details of the book, but I’m hoping that there will be consequences if his secrets all come to light, particularly regarding Evi’s fate.
@27: You made me think of something. When I read this chapter, I thought “something” would happen when Mayablade touches Patternblade……. It never happened, but I really thought this was where Brandon was going with the sword fighting sessions.
@28: Oh I agree but I do feel if it is Adolin who takes the easy road, it will not work out so well into the narrative. He is too important to get the easy way out: he’s had the easy way out way too often. It is one thing to have funny minor Lopen smile his way through becoming a Radiant: the character exists purely for comical purposes. It works for his character, but Adolin?
Here are the reasons why I don’t think it would work:
1) Adolin is a Kholin. Every single one of the Kholin, besides Navani who wasn’t born a Kholin, either is or was on his way towards becoming a Radiant at the time of his death. Dalinar, Renarin, Jasnah, Elhokar, Gavilar. Every single Kholin except Adolin. For a lot of readers, having Adolin become a Radiant too is the straw which breaks the camel’s back. It is too much. Hence, if it does happen, then I do think Brandon needs to sell it to his readers. He needs to make it meaningful. He needs to make his readers CHANGE their mind about it, like he made his readers change their mind about Wax/Steris, different topic, but similar process. Each time I find a topic on the matter, there is little discussion to be had: a majority of readers do NOT want Adolin to become a Radiant.
2) Adolin succeeds at everything he tries. He is Alethkar.s best duelist. Sure, Brandon said he isn’t as good as he thinks he is, but until Brandon actually writes it (similar to how Gawyn ends up losing), then Adolin will remain the unbeatable duelist who nearly took four out. All by himself. He is also a good leader, even if he does not recognize it. He has a good mind for military tactics: he is essentially good at basically everything which matters. And he is also smart, more knowledgeable than he lets on, compassionate, kind and passionate. Can we really take more of “perfect” Adolin? I know some readers like he is this way, but I feel this is a narrative which works as long as Adolin remains in the background, as long as he doesn’t have a narrative. Now he does, with Maya, so can this narrative carry on any emotional weight, feel just as IMPOSSIBLE as we were told it was if ALL Adolin has to do is smile, be nice and want it to happen? Wouldn’t it be more rewarding to watch Maya come back to life if it comes at the end of difficult arc?
3) Adolin already stands at the top of the food chain. He is the Highprince, he would have been the King. The only way up for him is Radiant. So really, do we really want Adolin to be even more powerful? To just rise up without even needing to work for it? How can the readers get the feeling Adolin deserves it?
4) Adolin marries Shallan and solves his relationship issues without even needing to work on his relationship issues. It just works. Because. Can we really muster him revive Maya “just because”?
In other words, given Adolin’s particular spot within the narrative, is it the right narrative move for his character to take advantage of the loop hole which allows non-broken individuals to become a Radiant? And, more importantly, is it a satisfying narrative to read for the readers?
So maybe it works for Lopen, for Lyn and for a few others, but with Adolin, Brandon doesn’t have to go down the Radiant road. If he does though, then giving him the easy one seems like the best way to have his readers eye-roll their way through it. It is also a matter of balance. Having the three main Radiants have horrible awful narratives being counter-balanced by the shinny happy Radiants kind of make for an odd mix. Hitting somewhere in between would work really, IMHO, in the narrative and Adolin is just the right character for it.
@26 While Adolin has a lot of privilege and an easy-going manner, I don’t think one could say he’s had an easy life.
@31: Agreed, but he reads like he had an easy life and compared to everyone else on the cast: he did have an easy life. Nothing he went through was strong enough to break him or even to scar him. Look at Shallan in this chapter: this is broken. Or Kaladin or Dalinar or even, in a lesser way Elhokar.
Whether he has had an easy life or not, Adolin Kholin does not believe he is broken, he does not behave like a broken individual. What he went through: it wasn’t harsh enough to break his spirit or even to scar it even a little.
I still think that there is an odd disconnect between how these Alethi parshmen turned out once awakened and the Azish ones, who were suddenly able to litigate, as well as the Thaylen ones being immediately capable of sailing ships. In this chapter we see that the newly sapient parshmen don’t automatically know how to do things that they have only observed in their prior lives, however frequently – Sah can’t really play cards. So where did the literate ex-parshmen came from? Both in Azir and in Alethkar, as we’ll see a little later? How can they sail, when we know that parshmen were and really could only be used for repetitive and simple tasks? Otherwise, yea, a departure from what looked like a pretty much black-and-white situation.
Concerning Adolin not reacting to Shallan’s odd turns of phrase – he could have thought that she was excercising her often incomprehensible sense of humor? And yea, blaming him for Shallan’s fracturing is rather far-fetched. Perhaps he should have noticed her discomfort and talked about it a bit more before putting her on the spot, but knowing Shallan it probably wouldn’t have changed much. Adolin is right that Shallan needs to learn to handle her shardblade, however. In fact, prior to OB I fully expected that Dalinar would put her in training with Zahel ASAP and that he’d also insist on Renarin resuming his as well. I am still confused that he didn’t do so, even after telling the 2 of them that they need to explore their Radiant abilities. Well, a shardblade is a part of them as well, and every one of a bare handful of the Radiants avaialble at the beginning of the Final Desolation needs to learn to use every tool at their disposal, even if, like in Shallan’s case, it will only ever be a weapon of last resort. I guess, we are supposed to think that Renarin did continue his lessons with Zahel, given his later performance in a fight? It was never explicitely mentioned.
I’d also like to point out that Pattern agrees that Shallan learning to fight with him “needed to happen” and that he really likes Adolin and interacts with him on multiple occasions during OB, even when Shallan isn’t close by. And that Shallan does use Patternblade as herself half the time during this chapter, only occasionally resorting to the Radiant. And yes, I really enjoy how she sees Adolin here.
@32 Except for the part where he lost control and murdered Sadeas in a fit of rage.
A lot of mixed feelings with the Shallan chapter.
On one hand I was happy that Adolin is teaching Shallan the thing he’s most passionate about in his entire life, and Shallan can even somewhat enjoy this emotional bonding moment.
On the other hand, it caused Shallan to fracture even further and was another instance of Shallan choosing a coping mechanism instead of talking about things with her betrothed. Although it’s not like Adolin isnt keeping secrets either.
@20 – that probably means its going to take like 10+ years for Shallan to get better….sigh…
But some of Shallan’s mistakes were born from good intentions. I am thinking about all she did and did not do in Kholinar and Shadesmar. For example, trying to give food to the urchin and the mother with small children. I am not saying that makes the mistakes ok, but the reason somebody does or does not do something is important to the overall context of how to judge him or her.
Shallan’s splintering herself into 3 personas (Shallan, herself; Veil; and Brightness Radiant) did not bother me as much as it bothered others. I look on it as a mechanism that she needs to survive all that has happened and is happening in her life. She is still a teenager. When I was Shallan’s age, I could not have handled what she went through. It would have broken me into a thousand pieces. I would have been the image that Shallan made of herself at the end of WoR when Pattern forced Shallan to relive murdering her mother (huddled in a fetal position in the corner of the room).
If creating 2 other different personas to help her survive and get through everything is necessary, then I do not see a great problem. The issue (which she did suffer somewhat in OB) is if, somewhere deep down in the inner being that truly is Shallan, the true Shallan looses control of her personas. The other personas start to control herself. One such instance was when the Veil persona would take over unconsciously when Shallan sometimes drew. By the end of OB, I believe she was in control of all her personas. Further, I believe that it was Adolin who helped her realize that deep down Shallan was Shallan. The way he looked her in the eyes and squeezed her hands when the Shallan persona came to the forefront.
This was talked about in the last post. Shallan and Adolin each act as a support for the other in certain circumstances. One of the reasons I think a Shallan/Kaladin relationship would not work is that both are too damaged by some of their past experiences in the same way. There is too much similarity (they just handle that damage differently: Kaladin is a pessimist who is constantly depressed; Shallan forces herself to smile at the world and make fun of it, even when she wants to cry and fold up into a fetal position. Although Adolin has been hurt, I think he has a better way of dealing with his issues.
Then again, maybe I am so biased (I am a fan of the Adolin / Shallan relationship & not a fan of Shallan and Kaladin relationship). I am looking for reasons why the Adolin / Shallan works and the other does not.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Gepeto @17. I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. You feel Shallan is not trying to improve her psyche. Splitting herself into 3 personas is running from trying to get better. I believe that Shallan’s creation of Brightness Radiant and Veil is necessary to help Shallan cope with her traumas and put herself back together again.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Since no one else has posted this here, I’ll go ahead. I have no idea if it’s been posted anywhere else by someone else – if so, I’ve never seen it, but I don’t troll the theory boards very much. If someone else thought of it first, kudos to them.:-)
The card game the Parshmen were playing has a rule that “Squires can’t capture” … and the Knights Radiant have squires.
So who else besides me thinks we’ll learn more about how the KR operate (or used to) by someone remembering the rules of the card game? They’ll have gotten garbled through the centuries, but there will be nuggests of truth there.
I think the same thing about the Alethi formal duelling rules and the rules that a Champion would have to follow to duel Odium – nuggets of truth.
This happens IRL, where myths and legends and children’s songs and games contain truths that were once valuable to know – that seems like something Brandon would use in his writing / worldbuilding.
@33: I wondered about Renarin training as well… Did he continue? I agree with you it seems so, but it isn’t mentioned. One sentence to keep tag with it would have been appreciated.
I also agree with you on how odd it was for Dalinar not to make Shallan/Renarin train or, at the very least, keep tab with their progress. He just told them to train, but he did not give them any structure to work with. It made me think Dalinar has very little experience in training people which is an odd thought considering he spent a lifetime as a soldier.
@34: When is it written out as a hardship? Which pain did it cause Adolin? What part of his personality did it cause him to re-evaluate? Which struggle did it generate in Adolin? Where is the inner conflict over his actions? How did it break Adolin? In other words, how is that even a hardship? Adolin agrees he needed to do it and if it were to happen again, he’d take the exact same action.
Snapping and murdering Sadeas is not a hardship for Adolin: he could have been ordering a clam curry and his reaction would have more or less been the same. Adolin is not suffering from any moral qualm nor internal issues following his actions So while yeah, he killed Sadeas in a fit of rage, this somehow ended up being an entirely justified controlled rage which Adolin spends zero second regretting.
@36: I think it is great this fandom has readers trying to find reasons why Adolin/Shallan should work. There has been a lot of readers trying to find reasons why they wouldn’t work. It is good to read the opposite.
@37: My interpretation of Shallan’s character is she does not want to deal with her issues: she is merely looking for a way out. A way not to deal with it. It goes hand in hand with how she “runs away” to Kholinar instead of continuing her training with Jasnah. She will not face it, so she evades it. This is why I am saying I do not feel like she is trying. It may also be a matter of perspective. There are a lot of reasons why I had so many issues with Shallan in OB and one of them is the viewpoint structure Brandon chose just didn’t work out for me: it isn’t so much the story by itself, but the flow of it.
I am really enjoying the reread because all sorts of ideas come to mind that wouldn’t in other circumstances.
In this case, I’m wondering how much difference it makes that Adolin is possibly choosing to bond with a spren rather than the spren doing the choosing. That type of bonding hasn’t been seen yet.
#17, @Gepeto: now you’re talking pacing, and pacing in a projected 10-volume series will be slow. I might prefer different pacing or structure myself, but three books in I’m adapting to Brandon’s system, maybe. Also, one aspect of Shallan’s mental illness is precisely that she handles severe stress the wrong way. She improves throughout OB in this respect. Again, I think you are perhaps not willing to wait 5 years or so to see real progress. (I’m projecting it into Book 5 of the series.)
#30, also @Gepeto: “Adolin is a Kholin. Every single one of the Kholin, besides Navani who wasn’t born a Kholin, either is or was on his way towards becoming a Radiant at the time of his death.” I can argue with that. Navani will be a Radiant, or at least there is one clue pointing that way.
“… Shallan’s odd turns of phrase – he could have thought that she was excercising her often incomprehensible sense of humor?” Really? I don’t think I’ve ever failed to get one of her jokes. Are they meant to be obscure?
I’ve tended to lurk these rereads but I am having particularly strong reactions to some of the viewpoints being shared regarding Shallan and Adolin. First, the community here is understandably frustrated with Shallan (as am I). We all know that she is not responding to her emotional turmoil in the most adaptive way. We all want her to overcome her trauma and be genuine and it is frustrating to see her push further and further away from reality. This is only made harder because in so many ways we see how strong she can be and how much potential she has. Yet, I get the sense that many are truly failing to understand Shallan and are assuming that it is plausible that she would respond in any other way than how Sanderson has written her.
Shallan has been severely traumatized in her life in ways that few people can relate to. Her mother, the person in the world whom a child is supposed to rely on most, tried to kill her for being her genuine self. Further, her father tried to protect her by never acknowledging what really happened and doing everything he can to shield her from that event, driving his family apart in the process and exacerbating Shallan’s misery. Shallan had nobody that she could share her pain with, no social support to buffer the trauma of killing her own mother in self-defense. Naturally, children tend to respond to trauma by dissociating themselves as Shallan did in the months following her mother’s death. She had to be nothing/invisible to survive the pain because nobody was going to help her and sit with her and her pain. Her ability to cope with this trauma is, in fact, remarkable, and it was highly effective as we could see with many of her amazing accomplishments in the first two books. People will continue to do what has worked for them in the past, long after it stops being the most effective approach or even an effective approach. Shallan has been programmed to dissociate and avoid her trauma. She cannot simply “get over it” and accept it. Ironically, dissociating and becoming other personas is who she really is.
I am even more frustrated with this community’s unshakable adulation with Adolin however. Adolin has many great characteristics, true, but he is a good character because these positives are counterbalanced by his shortcomings. Adolin is recapitulating Shallan’s relational patterns and reinforcing her dissociation, even triggering it. There is a reason why he has had countless failed courtships. Adolin is a terrible listener, frequently impetuous, and despite his charming extraversion and agreeableness, he tends to be self-centered (albeit an honorable type of self-centered). He blindly adores Shallan. He fails to see Shallan as she is and has an idolized version of her in his mind. This leads to Shallan having to dissociate further to be this idolized, non-genuine person. He puts Shallan on a pedestal which has the double effect of failing to understand her pain/flaws and never challenging her. Effective love, a healing relationship, involves sitting in and empathically understanding another’s pain and continuing to love them as they are while also helping them actualize and become their best self. Adolin will love her no matter what but he will not understand her nor will he help her become her best self. Adolin facilitates Shallan’s ability to avoid her distress as noted in this chapter as he blindly plunges her into a re-traumatizing act leading to the creation of Brightness Radiant and then is entirely oblivious to the processes going on within Shallan because he is so self-focused and blind to Shallan’s pain. He makes it okay for Shallan to split her identity and reinforces it with his blind adoration. In this chapter, he perpetuates Shallan’s avoidance of her trauma while simultaneously exposing her to trauma cues which she needs to protect herself from.
The reason I believe Kaladin and Shallan are a better fit is because Kaladin is on the same wavelength as her. They match each other in conversation and allow each other to behave genuinely. Further, they see each other as equals free from the burden of being placed on the pedestal or being beneath another. As noted in the chasm highstorm scene, Kaladin creates the conditions where Shallan is able to genuinely share her pain (something Adolin never has and may never be able to do). The healing in this single scene eclipses any healing Shallan has obtained from her relationship with Adolin. Kaladin is a gifted listener and has more capacity to understand Shallan and admire her for who she is and how she is coping with her pain rather than the blind, unhelpful adoration she receives from Adolin. Kaladin’s relationship with her could also be symbiotic. As he helps bring out the genuine Shallan, she has the ability to facilitate positive emotion in Kaladin. On the other hand, I have yet to determine how Adolin is benefiting from his relationship with Shallan and observe how he is in actuality harming her ability to cope effectively. Further, Adolin’s relationship prevents Kaladin and Shallan from connecting due to Kaladin’s propriety and Shallan’s lack of awareness.
One last thing, I would not write Lopen off as comic relief. Sanderson is too good a writer for a mere comic relief character. If Sanderson is heading where I think he is we will see Lopen as a severely depressed individual who copes with his distress with goofiness. He has a tendency to expect that others will perceive him as unimportant and invisible, that he will be ignored or invalidated if he is not The goofy Lopen. I recall a scene in WoR where he is training with Kaladin, Rock, and Sigzil in the chasms. Kaladin leaves him stuck to a wall as he talks with Rock and Sigzil. Lopen finally speaks up to playfully suggest that they are ignoring him. I recall a line following this that is loaded with double meaning “Kaladin let him down”. Literally letting him down off the wall and metaphorically letting him down by ignoring him.
@42 Chris
I would also add that not only is Shallan having to cope with all this, but she has also put on her own shoulders making others be ok. She was there for her three brothers. She inspired and helped the deserters to become better men. She helps both Kaladin and Adolin be better men. All the while the pressures are fracturing her more and more. To me she is putting too much on herself. Making herself feel she has to be all these things for different people. I think the first real step for Shallan’s recovery is realizing she doesn’t have to be a “perfect wife” to Adolin, the “perfect radiant”, the “perfect thief”. What is all the more tragic I think is when she will have to deal with the fallout with the people in her life when she is no longer putting these faces on for them and is truly herself. It will be a test of all the people in her life to see if they will support her even when she exhibits or acts in ways they no longer like.
@42 So you think Adolin is a darker version of Dalinar
I think Adolin puts her on a pedastel, in part, because of his own inadauacy issues. We all know he had this sence of feeling unworthy to live up to the legacy of Dalinar, now he finds out his betrothed is a radiant and his inadauqacy issues start rearing their head again. Only they are directed towards Shallan, it’s probably complicated more by the fact that he genuinely likes her as a person and wants her to be happy. I DO see their relationship having issues. However, one thing that gives me hope is his interactions with Viviana wich led to refusal of the throne. That realization that he doesn’t ALWAYS have to do the dutiful thing that he can go for what he wants occasionally will help take the pressure off him. With this gone the feelings of inadequacy should HOPEFULLY start to lessen, and with that at off the way he can hopefully be a better support. I am not sure if I said that well.
A second possiblity is that Adolin may have a breakdown of his own when Dalinar reveals the truth about Evi. This will (one way or another) lead to Shallan telling him about her parents. The shared confessions and tragedy will perhaps both bring them closer together.
It’s hard to imagine EXACTLY how. Maybe Adolin become disillusioned with his father when the truth comes out, something along the line of, “what kind of monster could kill a loved one(or something among those lines) At some point Shallan snaps under the pressure tells him how she kills her parents. But rather than blaming her he apologizes, he says it was rash of him to speak like that, and after hearing her circumstances he cannot really blame her for doing what she did. And in fact he can’t imagine any thing else happening under the circumstances.
@44 BenW
I would not necessarily say that. However, Adolin is currently my top prospect for Odium’s Champion but I don’t have much solid ground to rest that theory on other than my gut and the degree to which Adolin represents Odium’s core characteristics (particularly his impetuous hotheadedness, but Moash is a character so this is tenuous at best). Kaladin, of course, would be Dalinar/Honor’s Champion.
@43 scath
You makes some good, probably accurate points about Shallan’s role in maintaining her facades.
I hypothesize that Shallan has the fundamental core belief that she is unlovable (she may think who can love someone who killed her parents, lies frequently, has several personas, etc.) and that others will forget about her, or even attack (Mom) her, if she does not live up to their expectations. Yet at the same time she craves love so she becomes who others want her to be. Adolin is not entirely at fault for recapitulating this pattern, as Shallan solicits this response from others.
A significant part of her healing is changing this belief, recognizing that she is lovable as she is and that there are (some) people in her life who will accept her and love her without all the facades. As you say, she places a mountain of pressure on her shoulders to be who others need/want her to be which pushes her deeper into dissociation to be that person. Those others reinforce this (Adolin most of all) which keeps Shallan stuck running away from her trauma and facing the reasons she believes herself unlovable and running toward any tiny glimmer of acceptance she can obtain. Adolin would probably understand her and accept her if she could share herself more openly with him. Yet, he makes that nearly impossible for her and there is no evidence that he will change in a way that will facilitate Shallan’s growth.
A: Oh, Shallan. He’s wrong about the motivation of the second killer—though who could ever have expected to guess that?!—but he knows there most definitely are two murderers. It makes me think of the times Shallan has thought of him as so easy to read, unable to deceive anyone, etc. Yeah, maybe not so much.
This was interesting, the way you’ve phrased this made me realise a connection with Shallan later having to face that ‘Veil’ does not have the experiences to move through the underworld. Shallan is not adopting a persona for this conclusion but she is making the same type of mistake that she puts into her personas, the assumption that she is able to understand how things work despite lacking the experience that matters. She just isn’t as clever as she thinks she is, it is only later that she is forced to face this.
It also reminds me of Liara in Mass Effect. In Andromeda there are recordings of her talking about not making assumptions when studying history then immediately declares how the Protheans must have used cooperation and tolerance to achieve their wonders (not an exact quote…). We know from ME3 how poorly she took actually meeting one and having her illusions crash around her. (She, like Shallan, also could never have guessed the real truth behind the anomaly Reapers/Unmade).
Aggie1@38
Similar to how in WOT, the game of Snakes and Foxes helps Mat rescue Moraine. I can see that the card game may have some significance now that you mention it.
In other news I’m starting to see that these chapters and ones like it are gonna be difficult to comment on. Part 4 will be excruciating on this reread. Not because they aren’t well written (they are) but because it relives Shipping Wars and somebody inevitably gets trashed. Shallan is a bad person, mentally weak and manipulative. Adolin is too perfect, an entitled playboy, Odium’s eventual champion, ect. Kaladin is clinically depressed, chauvinistic, emotionally needy (to be fair, Kal bypasses much of the hate and gets bashed for other things).
@28, I wouldn’t be so certain about Lyn. She’s a woman who wants to do masculine things in a society that all but puts a brick wall around gender norms. I’m sure she has led, if not a painful past, certainly an interesting one, much like that Irish (?) curse “May you live in interesting times.”
Maybe you need someone who is not breaking under stress to “unbreak” a dead Shardblade without being the one who was originally bonded to it. People complain that Kaladin and Shallan are too broken and it isn’t fun to read their stories. Happy characters like Tien and Adolin are a balance for them. Like Kaladin with Tien the happy characters might be necessary to keep the Radiants from breaking completely. Is it “wrong” for Adolin to be “only” an emotional support character for the important people because that is normally a role for women while men do the important stuff?
Adolin is nervous about suggesting something that doesn’t fit the gender roles to Shallan. If he notices her uneasiness he probably misunderstands the cause (of course he isn’t able to understand the real cause because he doesn’t know her past).
@51 Thank You Bridgit. Why does every character have to be coplex indeed. Even Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
Personally I feel an mechanism outside of Adolin (not saying he won’t, I mean something in addition) is required to awaken Maya fully. Brandon has described what has happened to dead spren as if someone had installed a jack in the back of someone’s skull to then plug in a cable. Then someone took that cable and ripped it, the jack, chunks of bone and brain matter all out of that persons head. You can’t just take another jack and install it when there are pieces that were used to anchor and operate the original missing. You have to either find a way to fill those spaces so the jack can be installed in a new housing, or make a new entry point elsewhere on the body. So going through the original motions in my mind just wouldn’t work on its own. An infusion of investiture, or another force acting to restore or aid in the restoration of what was torn away would be needed to help revive Maya in my opinion.
edit: WoB for reference
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/223-words-of-radiance-seattle-signing/#e6053
edit 2: re-listening to that WoB, makes it almost sound like hemalurgy in a way. Having a portion of your spirit literally torn away with a spike.
@52
People are complex and good writing captures that complexity. Also, Freud died of mouth cancer, likely from excessive cigar smoking. Chew on that irony.
@41: I was not referring to the pacing, but to the fact the viewpoint structure chosen for OB made it harder for me to appreciate the book. Arguably, it worked for other readers, but as far as I was concerned, the very strong focus on Shallan did not work out so well for me during my first read. We’ll see how I feel about it once we reach Part 3 which is where I struggled the most.
On Navani: I did not list her because she isn’t, technically, a Kholin. Just like Shallan isn’t a Kholin either even if she will now bear the name. This being said, her becoming a Radiant would exacerbates even more the readers who feel there are “too many Kholins”, especially if Adolin becomes one too. In a general manner, I think readers are fine with Navani as a Radiant: Adolin tends to be a big NO.
@42: I honestly have no desire to discuss as to whether or not Adolin is toxic for Shallan: I find this is an argumentation which is very difficult to defend, so I’d rather stay out of it.
I will however state I am very ill-at-ease when reading this commentary:
Yet, I get the sense that many are truly failing to understand Shallan and are assuming that it is plausible that she would respond in any other way than how Sanderson has written her.
Quite frankly, Brandon Sanderson, as much as I love him, is a fantasy writer, not a doctor, a psychotherapist nor a psychologist. I feel you are putting an expertise into his hands he not only does not possess, but also never claimed to possess. Hence, I honestly do not feel anyone has the ability to state there was not other way for Shallan to behave than the one Brandon chose to write.
And no one is adulating Adolin. He just happens to be a character with very little flaws and little to no failure, so of course ,readers tend to speak of him in positive terms. It isn’t as if we had material to discuss the character in a different manner: he never once made a mistake.
@47: Given what we know of Odium’s Champion and given we know it was supposed to be Dalinar, I find it very hard to argument Adolin has anywhere near the core characteristics to become this man.
@51: You say:
Is it “wrong” for Adolin to be “only” an emotional support character for the important people because that is normally a role for women while men do the important stuff?
I say I find it wrong the moment Adolin earned viewpoints and started potentially reviving Maya. I just cannot find the story wanting Adolin to revive Maya without being broken interesting. Sorry. I just don’t. I feel he Maya arc will never be compelling until Adolin proves he earned it and, so far, he hasn’t.
So while it isn’t wrong for Adolin to be “just” the emotional support, I find this role would be better fulfilled by a more minor character. The moment Adolin started to have a voice of him own, him having no layers stopped being interesting. For me, at the very least, I see this thread thinks differently. Luckily for me, other readers elsewhere have other opinions.
@52: I prefer narrative when all characters are well fleshed out in similar amount of depth. I find Adolin is too important in the narrative to keep on being used into such a casual manner. I also find we have inklings Adolin is more than “just a cigar”, the narrative just never focuses on it.
Why be so against Adolin being better developed? This is an argumentation I never understood… Readers always want characters to be more developed, not less. So why Adolin gets to be the one who isn’t fleshed out?
@55 Gepeto
I think it would help you understand to know these are their opinions based on their reading of the book. Opinions they are perfectly entitled to have without it being against anything (development as you put it), or anyone (you or whoever else). They have every right to state their opinion without it being viewed as antagonistic or contrary to opinions that differ from their own. If someone thinks Adolin will be Odium’s champion, they are entitled to. If they think Adolin won’t awaken Maya, they are entitled to. If they think Adolin is bad for Shallan, they are entitled to. Just like on last chapter’s reading, everyone was entitled to love Adolin, say he is wonderful for Shallan, and the Maya arc is amazing. No one said anything against that. Even though there were numerous comments criticizing anyone who thought otherwise. Still no one said anything and everything was kept civil. So I think these individuals can voice their opinions without it being confrontational.
I have already talked about my feeling regarding Shallan and Adolin (love them together, although I do really hope Kaladin finds a wonderful woman in the future) in previous chapters, so I won’t bore everyone with more of that here today. :)
I just wanted to mention that I thought Alice and Lyndsey were a little hard on Shallan for the ranking women with peasants comment. Excepting Shallan’s time on the ship seems unfair since that is perhaps the time she felt the most free. Her life up to that point had been tightly controlled by her father who didn’t seem to allow her to mingle with dark eyed people (she comments on this in her thoughts on the ship in WoR), and since then she has been largely hanging around the Alethi elite. I can’t really think of a time she was discourteous to dark eyed people on account of their eye color (unless we count that first meeting with Kaladin, but I tend to think that was more Tyn’s doing than Shallan’s). She has spent her whole life being told to equate dark eyed people with peasants, so I don’t find this outlook too surprising or disappointing. If she doesn’t change at all by the end of the series, THAT would disappoint me.
Out of curiosity has anyone else here read Elantris? If so howdo you think Adolin compares to Raoden as a character. If the comparison is unfavorable could it be because the type of story they are in is different
@55: For what it is worth, I am a psychologist/psychotherapist. My intention with “…plausible that she would respond in any other way…” was to convey that Shallan is merely doing what has worked for her in the past following trauma and that changing her coping style would not make sense in my professional opinion whereas maintaining it fits the facts. I recognize that Sanderson is a writer and not a doctor, although I want to acknowledge that his character development tends to follow very closely to what science and theory suggest is most plausible and that is one of the reasons I greatly enjoy his work.
As you stated, there are countless ways Shallan could potentially behave. Alas, the way Sanderson has written her is the most plausible, based on my opinion which is heavily based upon clinical science and what is known about how humans respond to traumatic events and how humans develop/change. I apologize for typing that sentiment too authoritatively earlier or that I conveyed the sense that I was overstating Sanderson’s qualifications. I also want to acknowledge my own limitations, as being a psychologist does not indicate that I can perfectly predict and understand human behavior…especially in this case as there is much about Shallan that only Sanderson knows.
I do want to note however that you indicated that no one is adulating Adolin then, in my opinion, you preceded to blindly adulate Adolin with “He just happens to be a character with very little flaws and little to no failure, so of course ,readers tend to speak of him in positive terms. It isn’t as if we had material to discuss the character in a different manner: he never once made a mistake.”
Perspective is a strong factor in testing whether Adolin has ever made a mistake or if he has flaws. As I listed previously, I observe him as having tendencies to be impetuous, a characteristic many would consider to be a flaw. Murdering Sadeas comes to mind, which can be conceptualized as a mistake or personifying Odium and is an entirely separate discussion. Perhaps more objectively, him impetuously agreeing to a duel that put him in the arena against four Shardbearers which would have devastated Dalinar’s plans had Kaladin not intervened is a clear mistake. In my opinion, it takes a certain level of blind adulation to ignore that blunder and claim he has never made a mistake. I have no problems with readers speaking of him in positive terms because his positive qualities tend to far outweigh his negative. Alas, I admit to being irked when all people can see are the positive. Nobody is perfect. We all have flaws, including Adolin Kholin (and Shallan and Kaladin). Adolin’s flaws are what makes him real and, at the same time, they are also pushing Shallan further away from reality.
@56: My purpose was not to be confrontational: I never said other people weren’t entitled to their opinions and if I conveyed this idea, then I must apologized. I however did say there is one particular discussion I do not want to personally engage myself in: I do not mind it exists, but I do not feel I want to take part in it. Hence, I am putting myself out of it: this isn’t meant as mean to shut down opinions which contradicts myself, it is merely a testimony to my own limitations when it comes to argumentation. I do not feel I can argue certain topics in a peaceful, agreeable way: my failings however should not prevent anyone from posting their thoughts.
I also honestly to not find much arguments in favor of Adolin becoming Odium’s Champion: saying I didn’t feel the narrative I have read, based on how I interpret it, led me to believe this was a possibility. This also isn’t a judgment against someone else, clearly the readers supporting this theory see something I am not seeing. They can certainly voice their thoughts, but I do not have to agree with them just like many readers absolutely disagrees with me on several of my posts. Last I checked, many did not hesitate to voice out how much they disagree with me and I did not jumped to the roof and turned the discussion into a confrontation.
Some topics are, however, more heated than others. Adolin is one, romance is another. I think everyone on this thread is doing their absolute best to keep the discussion friendly and open-minded. I am doing my best, albeit perhaps I am not perfectly succeeding, but rest assure my intentions are not to shut down anyone’s opinions. I react to posts just like others are reacting to mine.
@57: On Shallan and her peasants comment, what I personally noted in this scene wasn’t so much Adolin’s comment nor Shallan’s comment. Instead, I noted how Adolin says something which can easily be interpreted in a very negative way and, instead of getting angry at him, Shallan notes he is trying to be open-minded. She notes the effort he makes here, not the fact he did not quite pull it off. To me, this was an important characteristic of Shallan: she isn’t getting angry over small comments such as this one, instead she read right through the intentions of the speaker and, in this case, notes Adolin didn’t mean to be detrimental towards anyone, even if he kind of was.
@58: They are both handsome, genuinely good, pro-active with a nearly unbreakable spirit characters. I did see a similarity though Raoden eventually does go through his hardships. As a rule of thumb, Raoden comes across as a bit simplistic, lacking the depth Brandon push into his characters within his later book. Just like Adolin feels to me in OB.
@60: Thank you for sharing your background. I will certainly not contradict an expertise I do not myself possessed. I only felt your previous comment was trying to give Brandon an expertise he does not possess even if he does his best to be as realistic as possible. We all agree on this but I think it is important to keep in mind Brandon’s expertise is that of a writer: he writes stories which focuses on a few given characters. While he does so, he sometimes over-looks reactions into his other characters. There is one particular aspect of the narrative which bothered, but this is a discussion for later, much later.
What I was trying to get at is my statement is not “Adolin adulation”. I have one of the first to criticize the absence of visible significant flaws into his character! I am usually heavily contradicted by other readers who like how Adolin has very little flaws. My purpose was to highlight how the given narrative is having readers speak of Adolin in a very favorable light. I mean, when we speak of Dalinar, it is easy to refer to his flaws: they are practically pouring out of his ears. The same is also true about Shallan and Kaladin, but Adolin?
You state Adolin has made many mistakes due to his impetuousness. So while, of course, we could argue agreeing to the 4 on e 1 duel was a “mistake” just as murdering Sadeas was “another mistake”, the truth is none of those events are treated, in the narrative, as mistakes. Take Sadeas: where in the narrative is anyone thinking this was a mistake? Which impact did it have on Adolin’s character? Which lesson did he learn? So while, of course, one could view Adolin’s impetuousness as a “flaw”, it remains a flaw which has little consequences into the narrative. And let’s take OB: Adolin literally makes zero mistakes on this book, he takes the right decision every time and even when he fails, it isn’t really a failure, it never weights on him.
It has become very difficult to see Adolin into anything but a pure white light of goodness: the unbreakable character. The perfect one. And I have consistently argued this had to stopped because I didn’t feel this characterization did justice to the character.
Hence, if isn’t I, deep down, believe Adolin has no flaws: it is more a matter of myself referring to a narrative where he literally has none or none which are significant. OK take our classic Mary Sue character: she is always perfect except for a few insignificant flaws such as “oops I am clumsy”. Adolin gives the exact same impression! He is nearly perfect except for a few minor flaws such as “oops I am sometimes to hot-headed, but this easily excused and, really it has no consequences”.
In other words, what you refer to the Adolin adulation merely is the by-product of a narrative which depicted a character having done little to no mistake, having little to no valid flaws and, when we compare him to Dalinar/Kaladin/Shallan, Adolin is nothing more than a shining beacon of goodness and perfection.
So I like it? Of course not, I’ve spend posts trying to argue why I felt Adolin needs more layers, more hardships, more reactions to events! So he could stopped being constantly depicted and treated in such a boringly positive light where he can do not wrong and always remains the perfect emotional support for everyone without ever needing it himself.
@BenW, that’s an excellent comparison that I hadn’t thought of.
I do see a lot of similarity between Raoden and Adolin, now that you mention it. I think Gepeto would be satisfied by the horrific things that happened to Raoden, though. Adolin’s hardships don’t seem to register for Gepeto (although I’m happy to be corrected, Gepeto, if I’m wrong).
The reason I brought up the Roaden/Adolin comparison is that Brandon Sanderson said that he created Adolin out of a desire to have a character that DIDN’T have a traumatic backstory for once. He also said that he felt he felt like Roaden might not work in another type of story but that he fits the narrative of Elantris well. That’s why I brought up the comparison. With that thought in mind does change the way you guys look at things?
@62: Carl, it isn’t they aren’t registering, it is just I don’t find they are significant enough for his character. It is not he had none, but we can’t say they really broke him nor affected him. His character is just not written in this way. And yes, as I responded myself to BenW, I do see a similarity. I noted it when I read Elantris and yeah, the horrible things which do happen to Raoden do make his character more interesting, IMHO. I actually really enjoyed Elantris even if Brandon’s characterization truly improved since this book. I still found it a really interesting and riveting story.
@63: Well, not every single one of Brandon’s character have a tragic past. Marasi, for instance, doesn’t seem to have much hidden dark skeleton into hers. Sarene, Siri also didn’t have a tragic backstory and so on: Adolin is not the first character Brandon develops without a dark past attached to him. This being said, in a narrative such as SA where half the cast is held back by their past, it is refreshing for Adolin not to be. Though I never thought it meant he should never have his own hardships: I just took for granted they would happen now and not then.
Does it change my mind? Difficult to say. My mind is Adolin remains an unfinished character with lots of very good ideas tied to him, but his narrative never really forms a cohesive ensemble. Many elements introduced in previous books were either contradicted in OB or literally dropped (him losing the Thrill, him not wanting to be a soldier, his friends betrayal, his relationship issues). As a big Adolin fan, my most fervent wish is for his narrative to have the same cohesive complete feel the other characters narrative has, the lose ends being closed as opposed to dropped and him losing the “I can never fail” feel his entire arc gave in OB. This is the knot of the issue and what has grated Chris earlier: Adolin is spoken with in very positive terms as if he had no flaws. My qualms is those flaws aren’t well explored and exploited by the narrative, not yet. My personal feeling are his narrative would be stronger if they were, but other readers obviously disagrees with me.
Other characters flaws, even more minor characters than Adolin, do contribute to the narrative. They are visible and play a role. Adolin is the only one who gives this feelings of “never doing anything wrong”.
This being said, I DID like Raoden quite a lot and he DID make me think of Adolin. He had a very good character arc despite having a positive spirit about everything which do give me hope Brandon will find a way to spin Adolin’s narrative away from, well, the pristine clean perfection feeling he gives, these days.
BTW, an Elantris re-read is a lovely idea. I would like this.
@40.
Indeed, this reminds me of a thought I had recently thanks to the reread – it seems that of the current crop of leading KRs all are special and unusual (or their spren are) in some way:
-Dalinar bonded a new version of the Stormfather, that amalgamates part of Honor’s power/Cognitive Shadow
-Lift can metabolize Stormlight and might be partially in the Cognitive realm
-Szeth’s soul is improperly attached and he has Nightblood as well to deal with
-Renarin’s spren is corrupted….
-I suspect that Malata is a Herald or, at the very least, there is a situation where her spren is out for revenge on the humans or some other such twist
-Shallan is re-bonding with her Cryptic, and I, for one, suspect that she bonded him through the “other” means (I held that assumption ever since reading WoK because Shallan had bonded Pattern prior to killing her mother; now we have the extremely optimistic and non-traumatised Lopen, and, finally, there was a WoB somewhere where he talks that Investiture needs to seep into the Spiritweb, but iirc some situations will “expand the soul” and allow for that anyway. Since we’ve dealt with dystopias and an apocalypse, I guess the other side of the coin- extreme positive emotion or some such, has not been explored yet). Moreover, we have, later on, Pattern commenting on Shallan’s coping mechanisms and Veil/Radiant/Shallan split that this is “wrong”, or is not how it usually goes.
-Rather ironically, we have Kaladin who is, it seems, quite the classical Windrunner. Though Syl’s story is exceptional, and he did manage to almost fully break and then restore the Nahel bond (in WOR, or so I assume), I am not sure how that has any reflections on his Windrunning abilities. Barring personality… No weird magic tricks? (Except later with the “windbreaker” – which I think is a creative application of Plate.)
And, finally, and this is even more amusing, the most normal Surgebinder of them all – the Stump!
Thus, Adolin would fit right into this narrative, having to reawaken his Shardblade to become a Radiant (though given that Maya creates Edgedancers, and we already have one…maybe not). Personally, I’m fine with Adoling becoming a Radiant, as I never bought into “gain through pain” in world view, even with taking Scadrial into account – contrast this with Sel or Nalthis (i.e. this need not be a Cosmere-wide phenomenon, given that, per various WoBs,that Investiture, irrespective of the Shard, needs somehow to “seep” into a person’s Spiritweb). I’m also perfectly fine with Adoling staying non-Radiant for the rest of his life – he is capabale of doing and achieving many important things as is*. I would also be absolutely fine with Adolin reawakening Maya, yet not becoming a Radiant – thus forming a new, in-between, type of spren-human cooperation, allowing Adoling to use her as a Mayblade without forming a Nahel bond. In fact, I would like to see Adolin take the latter path – it would be interesting to explore, imho. Would anyone else be interesting in exploring this middle road?
On a side note, and this is brought on by both the commentary and someone mentioning the quote “unite them”, – I think that, as usual, Brandon is going all “multiple meanings” here (and, like with the definition of Voidbringers or the Hero of Ages, we’ll go through multiple iterations of various plausible interpretations of this, and already have starting this sequence). However, it has recently occurred to me that in a way, this can be interpreted on an even grander scale – seeing how here we are, from different backgrounds, cultures, ages, walks of life, are brought together here and in other places, sharing ideas and reactions to his writing, debating (in quite a civilized and polite manner, compared to many places these days) and discussing both the books, the human condition, and their impact and meaning in and on our lives. Thus, I think “unite them” is, in a way, can be seen as Brandon’s prime direction : the Who is us, and he is, in a way, the “God Beyond” this books, doing what the Bondsmiths do best (and he admitted that he’ll be a Bondsmith), getting his readers to cross all those divides of various shapes (geographic, political, theological, generational, etc), bringing us together. Imho, that is the ultimate iteration of “unite them” interpretation, and I find this idea quite appealing, indeed.
I greatly enjoy these rereads, so thank you everyone for participating and sharing your thoughts and ideas, and great thanks to Lyndsey and Alice for doing this (and Edgedancer) reread!
*Regarding Adolin’s achievements as a non-Radiant, here are my two pennies – I quite like how he is fleshed out as a character, even with relatively limited screen-time, and he has done and achieved a lot of important things (on various battlefields, with the duels, interacting with Radiants, etc). I am a bit surprised though how many people mentioned that he is perfect or flawless, or has few regrets/reflections on his mistakes, or gets few serious direct consequences of his actions, as pretty much during WoK and WoR he makes almost fatal mistakes.I noticed several commenters mention that it has been a while since they read those books, and it’s fresh in my mind as I am doing a reread of them at the moment so I thought I’d highlight a couple of aspects that have not been mentioned as much on here (though might have been discussed extensively on the 17th shard forums).
In WoK, Adolin got Dalinar to question himself and almost leave the Shattered Planes – something no one, not even Sadeas nor public ridicule, managed to achieve. There was a reasonable amount of time dedicated to showing Adolin’s worries and frustrations, and regrets about that – and it was Renarin who suggested they test his visions, ultimately resulting in Dalinar staying in power and confronting Odium in OB. In the background, we get all those shouting matches with Dalinar in public; I guess him “dating” a spy for the Diagram is not really his fault, but that does have some consequences later on with the plot on the King in WoR. I do not rememeber if she stays on in OB as one of the clerks (she was not in the group with Mo*** when they get attacked), but if she does, then she’s the likely source, along of Malata, of finding about Dalinar’s Odium-plagued visions. In WoR, Adolin gets goaded into a duel with four Shardbearers – and only Kaladin’s last minute intervention saves the situation; not to mention the whole T Sadeas fiasco (I think good riddance to the slimeball, but still, Adolin did kill a man in a fit of rage…). Barring that last one, I’m ok with him getting lucky, basically, and getting away with those critical mistakes (Dalinar also got fooled by Sadeas, etc). Admittedly, I am waiting to see the long-term fall-out for deToroling Urithiru post-OB.
Ultimately, I find that a lot of discussion and criqtiue of OB stems from the increase in scope of the occurence of events – going from what happens in a couple of cities around a dozen people, to an almost-global (ok, regional) scope, spanning significantly more locales and individuals; as well as an upgrade in major villains and increase in the cast of the protagonists (thus resulting in reduced screen-time for pretty much everyone bar one or two people). I understand the need for that, though I do hope that Brandon will do more novellas a la Edgedancer, to keep the more “personal” feel of the first two novels (so here is hoping that Wandersail will behappening).
Thanks for reading this wall of text!
@65 KOOZ
I was referring more to the idea that, with I suppose the exception of Dalinar/Stormfather, all the Radiants we’ve seen have been chosen by their spren:
Syl chose Kaladin, Pattern chose Shallan, Windle chose (or was assigned/forced to choose) Lift, etc. And, in all the ones I can recall, the spren is the one who provides some stability to their human, as well as pushes them forward.
However, if Adolin does become a Radiant by bonding with Maya, it will be because he in some way is the more dominant partner, healing her/bringing her back from death. It reverses the pattern we have seen and I’m wondering what the consequences will be.
All that said, I hadn’t realized how different/damaged all the Radiant’s are. It will be especially interesting to see how Szeth can bond a spren, because of both the impediments you mention.
RE: The artwork.
That image makes me think that is what the subject of Munch’s Scream series… In both artistic feel and reaction to strata wall image… is looking at.
@65, to add to your list of currently-seen Radiants who are weird: Nale is a Herald who was rendered effectively psychopathic by centuries of torture.
Note that Nale is also a Cognitive Shadow, meaning that one Cognitive Shadow and Sliver (of Honor?) has Nahel bonded another Cognitive Realm entity, a Highspren. Interesting.
Lopen is unique as a person, but he seems to be a relatively-“ordinary” Radiant.
I loved Kaladin’s revelation that the Parshendi (or the Voidbringers — had he been thinking of them as something separate at that point?) may not be the monsters he believed. And I appreciate that this is genuine, not a deception. The people he watches her are not disguised humans as some readers feared, or “Voidbringers” pretending to be benign, but ordinary Parsh left angry and puzzled with their restored consciousness, not yet knowing the actual evil their spren-guide is taking them to. Er. I didn’t pharase that very well.
Talking about yourself in third person is never a good sign. Well, my years of mind-dominating infatuation with Gollum began around the time he started referring to himself in the third person as “Smeagol,” though not really because of it. But I wouldn’t call that a bad thing. :-p
Shallan’s multiple identities didn’t bother me as a reader. The more the merrier, where interesting characters are concerned. And although I don’t identify with her kind of trauma, I can relate to wanting to be someone else, or multiple someone elses. But as other readers point out, it ultimately wasn’t healthy for her as a person. And her “true” self — the snarky, insquistive, vulnerable artist-scholar — was my favorite of the three.
To echo Shallan, “Oh Adolin!”
When Adolin appears, the discussions are long and becomes quite heated. And I include myself to be among those who is already ready to take the banner for him. And to borrow a phrase from American Gods, “this is for Adolin” as I try to slay a perceived enemy. LOL
Kidding aside, for all the seeming mild temperament of Adolin and many considering him not being broken to be a Radiant, he is always in the middle of controversy in fandom. I don’t know if Brandon created him to be the swoon worthy hero to just make women sigh the way Orlando Bloom was in the Lord of the Rings, or Adolin just came to be that way.
Now, with Shallan with him and the prospect of a story arc with Maya, Adolin just became very important.
And just to set the record straight, Adolin has suffered, just not the blood curling and stupefying ways that Kaladin, Shallan and even Dalinar did. It’s just that Adolin’s suffering is more relatable to us everyday Earthlings.
Adolin lost his mother at a young age. To Earthlings like us, the loss of a parent at a young age shapes us, whether it was due to death or divorce.
Now… someone mentioned Siri (Warbreaker). She did not have any traumatic experience but she was the quintessential middle child who was ignored.
And finally, just remember David Charleston of The Reckoners series. He became who he was because he lost his father when he was a child. That was his only trauma and that shaped him.
Just my thoughts…
I don’t have anything storywise to add, but I do find on a meta level, all the Adolin discussion interesting. For the record, I really like him and Shallan together – I am somebody who enjoys seeing Shallan’s ups and downs and struggles to cope, and a realistic portrayal of what it is like to sometimes ‘try’ and sometimes just have to survive. And I think she and Adolin (who does have his own issues even if to not that extent) balance each other out. But some of the other alternate reads on his character are fascinating to me – I admit to not thinking much of him at all in the first two books (he seemed a bit generic and merely a vehicle to observe the rest of the story though) and let me tell you, I got some flak for that to the point where I had to take a break from the conversation, lol.
That said I’ve certainly written my own wall of texts and spirited discussions about a certain character in another fandom and how I think they should have been done so I really get the general drive :)
@70 Sheilagh
Kidding aside, for all the seeming mild temperament of Adolin and many considering him not being broken to be a Radiant, he is always in the middle of controversy in fandom
One of the problems Adolin’s character has is the fact he doesn’t have a precise defined role within the series. He isn’t a main protagonist, but he isn’t a side-character either: he stands somewhere in between and, as a result, the characterization which some readers find sufficient (for a minor character) seems insufficient for other (for a more major character). Whenever we discuss real minor characters such as Bridge 4, Renarin or Jasnah, the lack of page time often isn’t part of it because those characters tend to have exactly the page amount they need, at this point in time within the series (we all obviously know Renarin/Jasnah will eventually have bigger roles). For instance, if we take Rock, as an example, Rock’s page time is precisely what we needed to get enough of his background story, enough of his present day thought to fit with his later actions: there are no holes, no inconsistencies, no narrative plot which contradict one written in a previous book. The character is minor, but his entire arc is a stand-alone having a size which is proportional to the character’s place within the series. And everyone loved it.
Adolin is just standing into a void… A lot of elements were introduced for his character, but readers rarely get closure on them: they are like little arcs which aren’t complete enough to stand on their own, but are important enough to raise questions. Some readers do not care about those and find Adolin is perfectly fine within the narrative with exactly the right amount of coverage, others however are more or less discontent with how so many arcs were dropped as the story moves forward. What happened to Adolin’s relationship issues? How come it gets resolve without him ever… resolving them? What happened to his friends how betrayed him? Why doesn’t he have a reaction? Why didn’t we get to read his viewpoint on Shallan falling into the chasm? What does he think of Shallan? Does he love her (presumably yes, but where are his thoughts on the matter)? What happened to Adolin losing the Thrill back in WoR? How come it is never mentioned again when the Thrill is such an important part of OB? What are his thoughts on being the only non Radiant within his family? Even if he is fine with it, how come we aren’t reading it? He feels unworthy, how come this gets to be resolved with so little development? Is it realistic for self-worth issues to just disappear out of the blue because some says they want to marry you? How come WoK/WoR insisted on saying Adolin never wanted to be a soldier, how he became one out of necessity, but in OB we found out he always wanted to be a soldier and has been one since his early childhood days? Why the inconsistency? How can OB work with WoK/WoR? How can Adolin be so casual about alcohol given his father was an alcoholic? And so on.
There are so many unanswered questions revolving around Adolin’s character and most of them aren’t going to get answered. Hence, the character stands into an undefined zone with the narrative: a place where many aspects are introduced, but very few are explored. Adolin was given the narrative elements which befit a main protagonist, but he isn’t written as one and, as a result, most of them feel incomplete.
So he has become very polarizing in this never-ending war in between readers who want to know more, who wish there was more and those who say “this is enough, I do not need more”. The two solitude do not often meet in the between which leads to heated debates.
It’s just that Adolin’s suffering is more relatable to us everyday Earthlings.
This is true and this has been one of the reasons I have wished for a stronger Adolin narrative. I always felt his ordeals were more relatable, more concrete and would speak to many readers, if written.
This being said, as I mentioned above, it isn’t Adolin didn’t live through events which our modern days would consider to be hardships. He sure lost his mother, his father sure was a drunk, his brother sure have a disability, all of this is very true. The problem is none of this truly shows within his narrative. If those events impacted Adolin in a way sufficient enough to call them hardships, then his narrative isn’t highlighting it well enough. Hence, in all debates on Adolin I have ever been into, it often came down to the same argumentation: on one side you have those who reason out he most have, at the very least, a little bit broken because of everything which did happen to him; one the other side you have those who argue while those hardships are very real, they didn’t break him because his narrative isn’t the one of a broken man.
Adolin is written out as the normal good guy: Brandon describes him as the strong normal guy. Therefore, whatever did happen to him, neither the narrative nor the author considers it is enough for him to be broken. In OB, Adolin’s purpose was to NOT be broken, to be strong, at all times, to never suffer a set-back, to be positive about everything, to navigate into the new world without any hardships because Brandon wanted Dalinar/Kaladin/Shallan to have the hardships. He did not want Adolin to have them: he is a foil, a contrast. He cannot be broken, he would fail his purpose.
And yeah, it boils down, once again to Adolin’s place into the narrative, this nowhere land where he isn’t a main protagonist or even a secondary character, but also isn’t a side-character.
She did not have any traumatic experience but she was the quintessential middle child who was ignored.
Siri was the third daughter and she also had a brother who, if I remember correctly was older. Hence, she wasn’t exactly the “forgotten” middle child. I would however not rate this as a hardship… plenty of people aren’t the first born into families and they are perfectly happy.
@71: Yeah, well, I tend to get carried away when the topic is Adolin… We got to discuss other characters and we will discuss plenty more in the following weeks :-) Soon, we fall into Part 2: no Adolin, but lots of Bridge 4 and Jasnah to discuss!
I think I would have enjoyed a lot more page-time with Rock, personally. The fact that we spend so little time with him and the rest of the Bridge Four crew was a major disappointment of Oathbringer for me. Not necessarily a failure of the story structure, but a preference.
To add to @73… Where was Rlain? Yeah, we get some of him, but you would think he would have had a larger role to play given the content in this book.
@74
Apparently, the question of “where is Rlain?” is akin to “where is Gaz?” after WoK. It seems we need to be asking it. Iirc in one of the beta readers ama’s on reddit (or elsewhere) it has been brought up before. Could you kindly commment on this, Lyndsey or Alice?
@68
True! Though here I was initially considering the “primary” Radiants in their order (hence excluding Teft and The Lopen), but, indeed, by that logic Nale should be included straight away and the Stump excluded.
I forgot Jasnah! So, from what I understand, Ivory did something absolutely unacceptable to the rest of his kind, but as far as I can tell, Jasnah has not displayed any wonky abilities. Barring references to her somewhat mysterious childhood, I do not see anything special (barring proficiency with Soulcasting) from her at the moment. From WoR Jasnah prelude, I gotvthe impression that she is sometimes able to see, at least partially, into Shadesmar (or was able to do so in childhood). Random thought on this – Jasnah is portrayed as highly logical and smart – could it be that she has, for lack of a better word, a strong “cognitive aspect” which brings her closer to the realm of spren and thus enables her to peek into it.
@75, KOOZ:
Well, in January on Reddit Peter Ahlstrom said about Rlain’s disappearance from the narrative, “Everyone noticed this. I noticed it even before the beta read started. Brandon was well aware, and this was all intentional. I’ll bet you can think of some reasons for it.”
So, on purpose. I look forward to reading the next book to find out why. In about three years.
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/315-general-reddit-2018/#e8981
I think Adolin is still grieving for Gallant, he typically hides his emotions, as is the Alethi way, but his mother showed her emotions and he is having a hard time of it. He may not have had Earth (Roshar) shaking tragedies in his life, but I agree he had enough that any normal person would have a hard time. Is there a scheduled book of Adolin POV? I can never remember the line up!
@77 – minor correction. Adolin would be grieving for Sureblood. He is “not forgetting” about Gallant. I do think the loss of Sureblood would be a break in his soul but it isn’t really discussed.
@76: Thanks for pulling up the Word of Peter.
@74: Yes, several of the Betas, were Very vocal about, “Where is Rlain?” After his amazing chapter in Part 2. And yes, those of us who were the most vocal also identify as “other.”
@60, Chris: Thank you for voicing a professional opinion on Shallan. Some of his thoughts are stated below the link @76 pointed out. But it’s nice to have a real professional weigh in. And as Alice pointed out, while its been 3 years since the readership had to face Shallan’s TRUTH, for her, it’s only been less than 2 weeks.
I’m not sure about others, but when I was confronted with a really dark truth about a loved one, it took me longer than 2 weeks to “deal with it and move on.”
While I disliked some of how she was written, Hello,Veil talking like a 13 yo about Kaladin’s eyes. Shallan behavior here felt true to her character and trauma. It made me Very worried about her.
At one point I was yelling at Veil for being abusive and preventing Shallan from remembering all her accomplishments of WoR. But that is a real aspect of trauma victims too.
@Braid_Tug, good point about in-world time. I think the molasses-through-eyedropper pace of our reading the Stormlight Archive has a tendency to make readers impatient.
That isn’t a criticism of the pacing of the writing itself, just the long, long pauses between books giving us eager readers the impression that since we waited years, the characters have had years to develop.
@78: I think this brings us back to the old discussion wondering what is “enough” to be “broken” and what isn’t. So while I do think losing a beloved pet could potentially be “enough”, I am starting to be of the opinion the hardships which matters are those which actually affect the characters. In other word, a given hardship may break on individual, but not the other. Hence, while it could be losing Sureblood was a tough pill to swallow for Adolin, I didn’t feel it was a hardship nor something which was preventing him from moving forward. So far, nothing he lived through, in the books, seem to have been “enough” even if, by all means, they would have been enough for most people. Adolin never managed to NOT be steady at all times, in all circumstances and, to me, this is a sign of someone who is either very resilient or someone who never lived through significant hardships. Either way, Adolin is not emotionally broken and since nothing has been enough so far, I doubt anything will ever be.
I am thus going to be of the opinion, to be “valid” a hardship needs to be felt by the character, it needs to impact his decision making, to shape his present, his past and his future. If it is just a matter of “this is sad”, then I fear it isn’t enough. Given the context of SA, I don’t feel this is enough.
On Rlain: I didn’t ask myself many questions. I was fine with his one viewpoint chapter. Afterwards, there wasn’t much Bridge 4 action so the fact we don’t really see him didn’t really bothered me. We don’t really see Sigzil and many others outside his viewpoint chapter either.
On Pacing: Well, I finished reading part 1 and I find it reads much easily when you don’t have to wait a full week every three chapters. The Re-Shephir hunt, which in my memories lasted forever, actually took only 3 or 4 chapters. I do think the long waits in between the books is jeopardizing some readers ability to enjoy the next book, I know it definitely impacted mine, but there isn’t much I can do about that besides try not to have ANY expectations for book 4 which is easier said than done.
@80: But at least our years of waiting are only 3 to 4. Unlike some other authors who I don’t need to name here. :-D
I sometimes envy the new WoT readers. They don’t have to wait on the finished story. The “slog” of the middle books, is not as bad to them, because they don’t have to wait 3 years to see what happens next. Or 6 years to hear from Mat again.
Honestly, I didn’t intend to start reading the Stormlight Archives. I didn’t want another 20 year wait. But that’s history now. I’m enjoying the journey. I’m thankful it’s a two story arc of 5 books each. Not one long arc of 10 books.
And finding other books to read in-between. But I will admit – I still shy away from anything unfinished that’s not just a trilogy. Because it seems to be impossible to avoid trilogies. However I can wait until at least book 2 is published.
@81: I hear you. I don’t mean to be complaining: I am not, really. Needing to wait a few years in between tomes is a reality of epic fantasy reading, it is not something I am criticizing, but it doesn’t change the fact it can be hard. I totally get why some readers do not want to start reading unfinished story and I’ll admit the only reason I started SA was because WoR was about to be released and the author said he planned an 18 months delay in between the books.
This being said, when you are passionate about a story, the wait can be very difficult and the expectations you built might impact your enjoyment of the sequel. I had 0 expectations for WoR, I thought it was fantastic. I had expectations for OB, which I kept bringing down, but they were still there and I was disappointed by some elements. Without those, I am confident I would have felt very differently about the book.
I also agree about WoT: I came into the series after the middle books were published, so they didn’t really slugged for me. I did not even notice Mat was missing from one of the books! Granted, I never really liked Mat, but still. I however fully sympathize with those who waited to read what would happen to Mat only to read…. nothing is happening with Mat. No one understands those readers better than I do, even if I felt differently about Mat, specifically.
Long epic fantasy seem to run out fashion these days… Most series tend to be trilogies and more self-contained. Those are my impressions at the very least. Once I am done re-reading OB, I will dig into something else. I’ll to check what there is out there I might enjoy reading.
I also appreciate SA will be two self-contained arcs of five books.
I was spoiled with WoT, coming to it after it was finished (it is actually what got me into Brandon’s writing, for which I am VERY grateful!). I know I am strange, but I kind of love the couple year wait. Sure, I don’t enjoy waiting indefinitely (to be nice and follow Braid_Tug’s lead, I won’t name names!), but Brandon has always been open and honest with his timing in the past, and I fully trust that he will continue to be so. Thus, I get to enjoy the awesome books when they come out, and I get to have fun re-reading and theorizing in the wait time. To me, it is the difference between watching a network show live and getting the fun of the preview for next week’s episode versus binge-watching. Sure, it can be satisfying to not have to wait, but it takes out a lot of the watching experience and ruins all the big cliffhangers.
goddessimbo @78, thanks for the correction, didn’t have my book handy and all I could thing of was Gallant…
So,,, where did I get Gallant from? lol
@86: Gallant is Dalinar’s Ryshadium. Adolin visits with Gallant as part of his grief for Sureblood. And I’m glad he did. Dalinar seems to give little thought to his magical horse companion. But that’s the downside of Brandon not being a “horse guy.”
I actually went on a bit of rant at JordanCon about the lack of pets in the Cosmere in general. And we have more of the Ryshadiums in the published version of OB than the betas had.
Now I don’t think we will ever know the story of how Dalinar bonded Gallant. Because it seems like the guy of pre-Cultivation pruning would not have been worthy of one. Yet we don’t have a timeline of When Adolin or Dalinar bonded their Ryshadiums.
RE: Time
I think the other problem people might have in relation to pacing/how much time passes is that there is no calendar or timeline that people can see. Nothing says “2 days later” outside of the Chapter Recaps in this reread.
I wonder if rereading the old books before starting the new books would help?
@89 BenW
It all depends on how recently you read them, how well you remember them, and how obsessive you are about catching or understanding each nuance. I did reread both, but I hadn’t read them since Words of Radiance came out (and read Edgedancer about a year ago, approximately when Arcanum Unbounded came out).
@Braid_Tug(87): surely Shallan’s family’s axehounds are a key part of this series’ plot? And Sixth’s Aviar are companions, not just tools, right?
@89 I meant if you reread the old books right before starting the new book maybe it won’t seem like it Shaallan as been dealing with the problem for as long. then again I TOTALLY understand the compunction to not reread and just rip into a new book as soon a you get it.
The trick would be to calculate how long it will take to reread so that you finish the day before release.
By the release of Book Ten, you’d have to reread something like 5000 pages and time it perfectly.
If every book has more than 1000 pages, there are more than 5000 pages to reread before book 10. That number is probably too low for a reread of the first 5-book series. A slow reader might be able to start the series again after reading book 9 and be finished when book 10 is published, if Brandon continues to write fast.
I was thinking each book would be “over 500 pages.” I read the ebooks, so I don’t have a handle on actual page counts.
Obviously it should be a full cosmere reread every single book that comes out. Every time you finish a Sanderson, just pick up Elantris and get to work because you are running out of time before the next release.
@96 – the paperbacks all have at least 1100 pages so…it’s a lot of pages :)
I know people who have graduated with a 4-year university degree and read fewer pages than the full Stormlight Archive will contain, then. I mean, in their lives.
There’s an e-book edition of the first 3 books that has 3570 pages.
https://www.ebooks.com/95959601/the-stormlight-archive-books-1-3/sanderson-brandon/
@@@@@ 99 – LOL! My in-laws are visiting to help with the kids this week, and my father-in-law was horrified by the size of my SA books. He said, “What encyclopedia are you reading now?” The fact that it was a 3rd re-read shocked him almost as much as me getting his son (not a typical reader, probably one of those you mention who has never read so many pages in his entire life) to read them via audiobook. :)
Could Adolin’s chapters be the herald of the Dustbringers because he holds a Dustbringers dead shardblade?
Also I love how Adolin has failed at some many of his previous relationships because he fundamentally is naive when it comes to women’s arts and understanding women. So with Shallan being involved in masculine arts it’s bonding them more than he would have with any other.
@102: Adolin’s Shardblade is an Edgedancer’s Blade.
It is also assumed (highlighted by WoB but not in a decisive manner), Adolin’s issues with relationships spur from a lack of self-worth. In other words, he never thinks he is good enough for others: this has been at the core of his character all through OB. He is not a good enough leader (even if he is better than practically everyone else), he is not a good soldier (he obssess over this notion of “True Soldier” and thinks himself lesser even if this isn’t true), he is not good enough for Shallan (he can’t fly, he can’t glow, he isn’t a God), he is not good enough for Dalinar (how can he ever measure up to a God?), so why he couldn’t make it work with other women? He never thought he was good enough, so he usually gave up early on, he never fought for any of the girls and/or he sabotaged the relationships to avoid failing at it.
It also happens with Shallan. He does not fight for her. He does not think he can compete against Kaladin. He gives up immediately. The major difference is Shallan was not willing to give HIM up whereas other girls just didn’t think he was worth the effort. He also angered a lot of them.
Granted, the fact Shallan tries into the masculine arts is sure drawing them closer. It allows her to share his passion with him. Now, what would be fun is Adolin trying into the feminine arts to deepen his bond with Shallan, but this may not happen.
@91: Carl – Aviar as companions or as pets or as plot devices – any way you look at it – they have not gotten much screen time. Sixth of the Dusk, right now, is the story that takes place farthest out in the Cosmere timeline.
We don’t know if any of the other birds that show up on screen right now are just birds or Aviars. If Aviars, how they are showing up possibly a thousand years before the Sixth story is another matter.
Yet, still – none of the animal companions have been developed on-screen much. Calling TenSoon an animal companion is not right. He’s a Kandra that now prefers to use a dog’s body. Which is not the same as having a magical pet.
#104, Braid_Tug: Actually I’m sure “Sixth of the Dusk” happens pretty soon now.
OK, looked it up. Brandon confirms Sixth happens during the Mistborn Era Three period, which is between the two pentologies of the Stormlight Archive. It’s in Oathbringer’s future, but no more than a couple of decades out there.
Agreeing with @Gepeto: Adolin actually does a lot of Edgedancer-reminiscent stuff if you notice it, especially remembering those who have been forgotten. For instance, like Lift he helps the downtrodden (for instance, the random whore in the warcamps). He remembers Dalinar’s Gallant when even Dalinar has no time for him. He doesn’t show the curiosity or destructiveness I’d expect from a Dustbringer. (I suspect that if she hadn’t been pre-empted by the Inkspren, Jasnah could have been a good Dustbringer.)
@1054: Carl, I am curious. Can you expand on how you feel Jasnah might have been a Dustbringer candidate, given what we now know of the order?
Prior to OB, we were going mostly by guesses, first attributes and what we thought the order might be about. I feel this is why Adolin was so often, and IMHO wrongly, associated with the order. In OB, we found out Dustbringer like to break things apart to see what is inside.
So far, apart from Shalash (this is one plot twist which is way too obvious, I hope Brandon will not go there), the only character I remember exhibiting this behavior would be Balat. Remember how he tore the legs apart from what is cremlings? I do not remember all too well, but whenever I read Pattern saying Dustbringer would want to open things, destroy them, I thought of Balat.
On Adolin: He also saves a boy during the thunderclast fight, rushing back to help him, to the risk of his life. Some readers argued anyone would have done the same, but I am arguing it is exactly the same as what Lift did with Gawx. Except it didn’t fuel oaths. We could also add how he took care of Kaladin in Shadesmar despite having failed his city, witnessed his cousin dying and being genuinely afraid of Shadesmar. He pushed all of that away so he could “help” Kaladin. Even when he is the one who probably needs the help, he always tries to do something for someone else.
If he is no Edgedancer material, then I don’t know who else can be and I include Lift in there who’s, well, an Edgedancer. Now, the big question, why wasn’t he picked up by the Cultivationspren? He’s a Kholin, all Kholins were picked, why not him?
@105 Keep in mind Brandon wasn’t originally planing to right the Wax and Wayne books. I am pretty sure he is referring to the future era Mistborn trilogy.
@BenW, 107: fair point. I know he changed the naming of the Mistborn trilogies, so the original “Second” age became “Third” and “Third” turned into “Fourth” age. I just don’t remember if that happened before 2015 when the remarks I linked were made.
@Gepeto: I was just making an offhand comment about how Dustbringers were famously curious and that Jasnah has been pretty darn destructive. No deep analysis this time, sorry.
As for why Adolin wasn’t picked up by the Cultivationspren … consider that to our knowledge (or at least as far as I can remember), almost nobody bound to a dead Shardblade has ever become a Radiant. Exception Dalinar had given up Oathbringer before he spoke the Immortal Words, and had to immediately sever his bond to the nameless sword he had taken from Taln (and doing so was anomalously easy). Anyway, Adolin is bound to a Cultivationspren. She is a deadeyes but Mayalaran is a cultivationspren. It isn’t (it would seem) a Nahel Bond, but it’s a bond.
When I read these Shallan fracturing chapters, I just thought “cool use of powers.”
I get that Shallan’s decision to create Radiant seems illogical and frustrating to the reader, but I don’t think logic comes into the equation when you have that much trauma in your life, and you’ve survived to that point by hiding your pain. Now that she can’t hide from the truth anymore, she does what she has to do to survive. I wished for her to be able to make a different choice throughout the book, to listen to Pattern’s warnings, but I think it is very realistic that she couldn’t.
At some point I hope Shallan can come to understand that killing her mother was an act of self-defense and thus was neither her nor Pattern’s fault. It was her mother’s fault, along with whoever she was working with (Skybreakers if I recall correctly). All of Shallan’s hiding and fracturing seem to revolve around the fact that she can’t face herself for what she did, so accepting that it was not her fault will be a big step in healing (cue Good Will Hunting scene).
Of course, at that point she will need to face the fact that her own mother tried to kill her, which could bring up another layer of buried emotions like anger or sadness. She’ll need to face that also, but she can’t get there until she accepts that she is not to blame for her mother’s death nor what her father became because of it. (Similarly I think Kaladin will need to accept that Tien’s death was not his fault in order to progress in his oaths).
Regarding the controversial “love triangle,” my personal hope was that Shallan would find some stability within herself before making a lifelong commitment to anyone. Both Dalinar and Kaladin have amazing character arcs where they hit rock bottom and were forced to find the inner strength to rise above it to progress in their oaths. They both did this by reflecting on their weaknesses and choosing to do better. I hoped for a similar moment of realization for Shallan, but it never came in Oathbringer. Perhaps deciding to marry Adolin was that Moment of Awesome for her, but I felt a bit of disappointment that she was unable to stand on her own two feet by the end of the book. I am still holding out hope that she will find her inner strength in book 4 or 5, because I think she has wonderful potential once she fully accepts herself.
@artemis, my reaction is to say that this is not a Harlequin Romance. I mean that getting married is absolutely not the end of Shallan’s story. The Stormlight Archive romance elements, but it isn’t a pure romance, and finding a partner doesn’t mean Shallan’s (or Adolin’s, or Dalinar’s) development is over.