Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, a date went in various unexpected directions. This week, Adolin goes forth to fight a duel that was supposed to be spectacular, but turns out to be a very different spectacle than he’d planned.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Chapter 56: Whitespine Uncaged
Point of View: Kaladin, Adolin, Dalinar
Setting: The Dueling Arena
Symbology: Spears, Chach
IN WHICH the entire cast arrives at the dueling arena to watch the big event, with Amaram flaunting the Knight Radiant cloak; Syl pleads with Kaladin not to let Amaram ruin him; Moash is insubordinate. Adolin speaks briefly to his Blade, then joins Navani and Renarin; they discuss the terms of the match; he forgot Mother’s chain, but once arrayed in his Plate, Adolin walks out and awaits his opponents; there are FOUR of them. Dalinar is furious at the fast one Sadeas has pulled on them, but it’s all in the dueling conventions. Adolin agrees to the match, cursing himself for a fool; he hears Zahel’s voice giving him encouragement and advice; he moves to the attack, and it’s clear that all four opponents do indeed fear him; he fights incredibly well, but against four, he is soon bested; as they finally surround him, beating on his Plate and preventing him from signaling surrender, he realizes they intend to leave him dead or crippled. Dalinar asks to borrow Elhokar’s Blade, and Sadeas eggs him on; Elhokar shows unexpected insight in stopping him; Renarin steps into the arena. Relis makes it clear that Renarin will be killed if Adolin tries to surrender; the judge has clearly been Nobbled. She refuses to stop the fight; Renarin begins an epileptic seizure, while Adolin fights marvelously but hopelessly; Dalinar challenges the spectators to help, and turns to Amaram, who looks away like the rat he is; Kaladin takes a spear and jumps into the arena.
Quote of the Week
“They’re scared of you.” Zahel’s voice, drifting again above the crowd. “Do you see it in them? Show them why.”
Adolin hesitated. Relis stepped forward, making a Stonestance strike. Stonestance, to be immobile. Elit came in next, hammer held wardingly. They backed Adolin along the wall toward Abrobadar.
No. Adolin had demanded this duel. He had wanted it. He would not become a frightened rat.
Show them why.
Adolin attacked. He leaped forward, sweeping with a barrage of strikes at Relis. Elit jumped away with a curse as he did so. They were like men with spears prodding at a whitespine.
And this whitespine was not yet caged.
Every time I read it, this scene takes my breath away. As noted in the following paragraphs, it’s one against four, but it’s the four attracting the fearspren. If this were a duel without Shards, Adolin would have won; in the first few minutes Relis would have been dead and Elit maimed, with Adolin still untouched. But of course, they all have Plate, and so they recover. But it almost worked.
Also? The “Whitespine Uncaged” is totally, solely Adolin. There’s no one else in this fight. And he’s awesome.
Commentary
I was actually planning to break with tradition and do two chapters this week, because when I was rereading, I couldn’t stop at the end of the chapter. I figured I’d just do the whole fight at once, because everyone will talk about the whole fight anyway, right? Except I changed my mind. There is a lot in this chapter to deal with, so I’m going to request right up front that we try to hold off on discussing the events of the next chapter until we get there. Give this chapter its due.
To start with, let’s just get Kaladin’s issues out of the way. Every time he sees Amaram, he loses control, to the point that Sylphrena is begging Kaladin not to let Amaram ruin him. Juxtaposed against that unreasoning* antipathy, Moash lets slip that he’s met with Graves & Co. again, against Kaladin’s direct order, because he’s so confident that Kaladin will eventually agree that Elhokar ought to be removed. At this point, Kaladin is angry at Moash for that assumption, angrier that he disobeyed a direct order, disturbed by the implication that he just might refuse to obey further orders, and annoyed with himself for not having dealt with this already. I’m annoyed about that, too, because next time he considers the question, things will have changed. Considerably.
Sigh.
Back to Adolin. The conversation with Navani is unsettling in retrospect. Due to the terms of the duel—that it would go until surrender, rather than specifying a number of broken Plate sections—Navani can already see that they’re going to try to cripple Adolin… and in a few pages, that’s exactly what they attempt to do. When he realized that he forgot Mother’s chain, to my surprise that turned out to me more like a warning that something bigger was going to go wrong, rather than causing Adolin to be off balance. And four opponents was definitely “something bigger.”
I had completely forgotten that Brandon gives us the full explanation of the loophole here, with Sadeas’s tacit admission that he knew all about it, despite his claim to neutrality.
“Two?” Sadeas asked. “When was it said that he would fight two?”
“That’s what he said when he set up the duel!” Dalinar shouted. “Paired disadvantaged duel, two against one, as per the dueling conventions!”
“Actually,” Sadeas replied, “that is not what young Adolin agreed to. Why, I have it on very good authority that he told Prince Relis: ‘I’ll fight you and whomever you bring.’ I don’t hear a specification of a number in there— which subjects Adolin to a full disadvantaged duel, not a paired duel. Relis may bring as many as he wishes. I know several scribes who recorded Adolin’s precise words, and I hear the highjudge asked him specifically if he understood what he was doing, and he said that he did.”
It’s all “I heard” and “they say” but he knows too much about it. I’m convinced that he was involved in putting it together. He was probably the one who bought the judge, too. (Speaking of which, it seems apparent that she had the authority to call the duel any time she chose—for example, if she thought that one of the participants was in danger of injury beyond the bounds of appropriate dueling risk. Like what was happening here. She wasn’t required to stop it according to the conventions, but she could have. She didn’t.)
Back to Sadeas and his probable involvement, he digs in later with that whole “The Blackthorn I once knew” garbage, trying to inflame Dalinar to the point that he’ll just jump in and go for it. That was probably his goal all along. Which brings up one of the rare times Elhokar does anything to show that he has the makings of a king, however well buried he keeps such hints on a normal basis:
Elhokar caught him by the arm, standing. “Don’t be a fool, Uncle. Listen to him! Do you see what he’s doing? He obviously wants you to go down and fight.”
Dalinar turned to meet the king’s eyes. Pale green. Like his father’s.
“Uncle,” Elhokar said, grip tightening on his arm, “listen to me for once. Be a little paranoid. Why would Sadeas want you down there? It’s so that an ‘accident’ can occur! He wants you removed, Dalinar. I guarantee that if you step onto those sands, all four will attack you straight out. Shardblade or none, you’ll be dead before you get into stance.”
Dalinar puffed in and out. Elhokar was right. Storm him, but he was right.
This is one of those rare times that almost seem to justify Dalinar’s confidence in Elhokar’s ability to be a good king.
About the duel itself, it’s amazing. Four against one, and Adolin actually holds his own for a time. Once they manage to surround him, of course, it should be all over; he acknowledges it and tries to yield, and the cremlings refuse to allow that. They’re going to either kill or cripple him, and they’re all four—including his “friend” Jakamav—in on this. The judge is clearly not going to intervene until it’s just too late to prevent some “accidentally” crippling blow. And then Renarin steps in.
That boy. I’ve got nothing but admiration for him, no matter how he feels about his performance. A Blade that screams every time he summons it, no time to put his Plate on, but he walks out there to give whatever aid he can, even if it’s only to distract one of the “duelists” and give Adolin half a chance. I know there are a lot of people who find Renarin grating (including Shallan), but I have a lot of respect for him.
Of course, this brings up the moment of honesty from Relis, wherein he flatly states that this duel is not about honor. He’s out to punish Adolin—presumably for embarrassing his cousin?—and makes it quite clear that if Adolin doesn’t stay out here for the beatdown that will obviously end with him maimed or dead, Renarin will receive that fate instead. Coward. In spite of all his haughty words, he clearly knew that he couldn’t beat Adolin in a fair fight. He had to get two of the best duelists in the country to help him, even though he was supposed to be the dueling champion himself. (As backhanded compliments go, that’s a doozy!) He’s a coward and a bully, and I will love to see it rebound on his head next week.
As for Jakamav… As the old saying goes, with friends like that, who needs enemies? Better yet, the old rejoinder: with friends like that, who needs friends? Wimp. Political convenience overcomes conscience.
Finally, as Adolin’s Plate begins to lose pieces, leaving him vulnerable to the Blades, this:
Dalinar turned upon the stands full of spectating lighteyes. “You can watch this?” he shouted at them. “My sons fight alone! There are Shardbearers among you. Is there not one of you who will fight with them?”
He scanned the crowd. The king was looking at his feet. Amaram. What of Amaram? Dalinar found him seated near the king. Dalinar met the man’s eyes.
Amaram looked away.
Some “Knight Radiant” you are, dude. You couldn’t even begin to be a true Radiant.
It’s really set up so that there’s no good solution for the Kholins—it looks like at least one of them is going to die, no matter what they do, and even the king can’t stop it. Honor is dead.
* “Unreasoning” does not mean “unreasonable,” for the record. There’s plenty of reason for Kaladin’s attitude, but when he sees Amaram, he stops reasoning altogether.
Stormwatch
The day after the menagerie date. Twenty-eight days remain.
Haven’t We Met Somewhere Before?
Well, of course we know who Zahel is, and we’ve met before. It’s not exactly a major issue, but until I can get to that Warbreaker reread, can anyone tell me how Zahel is making his voice audible to Adolin in the midst of all the shouting and clashing? I can’t remember. I love that he’s doing it, though, and that he’s trained Adolin well enough that with so few words, Adolin can sort out a whole new strategy in a matter of seconds. They’re afraid of you. Show them why.
Heraldic Symbolism
Chach watches over this chapter alone, and I can think of half a dozen reasons. I just wish I knew which was the right one. Kaladin is in his role as Guard. Adolin is also Guard, in one sense, as well as being Brave and (again in one sense) Obedient. Chach is so often associated with chapters which focus on Adolin, if it weren’t for that Edgedancer Blade I want him to restore, I’d still insist he’s destined to be a Dustbringer.
Words of Radiants
Twenty-three cohorts followed behind, that came from the contributions of the King of Makabakam, for though the bond between man and spren was at times inexplicable, the ability for bonded spren to manifest in our world rather than their own grew stronger through the course of the oaths given.
—From Words of Radiance, chapter 35, page 9
Well, that’s a mouthful. I’m not entirely sure what the cohorts from the King of Makabakam have to do with anything, but there are two significant truths stated here: (1) the bond between man and spren is at times inexplicable; (2) bonded spren increase in their ability to manifest in the Physical Realm as the Knight-in-training progresses through their Ideals. The second is primarily a confirmation of what we already suspected. The first, though… the first is a 2×4 reminder that we really don’t have anything resembling solid knowledge about what triggers a bonding and what its development will necessarily look like for any of our budding Radiants.
Just Sayin’
In total, he had forty men on duty.
None of them would be worth a drop of rain if the Assassin in White attacked.
There. That ought to keep us busy until next week, when we’ll finish off this duel. You know, one way or another…
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader. She’s also part of the facebook group “Storm Cellar—Brandon Sanderson Fans” which y’all are welcome to join for more generalized conversation.
Bless Zahel – how Adolin heard him is yes, a plot device. But bless Zahel anyways.
Another key sentence (to me) is “Adolin stopped thinking. He let the flow of the fight consume him, let the rhythm of his heart guide the beating of his sword.”
Then the panic once the four guys were able to pile on him. Thus we needed the pull back away from Adolin’s POV. He was trapped in his focus.
So we jump into Dalinar’s head. That was heartbreaking. His worry for both sons. His utter disappointment in his fellow lighteyes and Amaram. Bloody Amaram. You know that was Dalinar’s real moment of disillusionment with him. Wish the cloak was stripped from him sooner. But Dalinar had the lives of his sons to worry about.
How much was Istow paid? Because if she was truly that pissed at Adolin for his pervious wins – wow. Guess the Athinen don’t have a tradition of recusal.
Totally random note:
I’m listening to the audio of WoK. In chapter 3, Shallan is explaining the money system. Blind people are really out of luck if they are alone on Roshar. If all the money coins are the same size, and they can’t see the stormlight charge – they have to trust the people they are paying that the amounts are right.
Alice, I’m glad you stopped with just this chapter. Yes, right there with you. While reading, I couldn’t stop – had to finish the fight.
As you said, there is lots that need to be covered here.
Love your QotW.
I wonder if Zahel regularly attend the duels? Or did he get wind of something and turned up to help Adolin. Of course that makes me wonder, if he knew what was happening why he didn’t talk to Adolin.
Adolin so hosed himself by saying “of course I know what that means.” Guess others thought he was arrogant enough to believe he could defeat more than 2.
The culmination of Adolin-you-idiot! This chapter was agony.
I wonder if this is when Dalinar decided to set up his con of Amaram.
Wow, I have to admit, when I first read this fight, I had wanted Adolin to just sweep the floor and be awesome and all that. I wanted the Kholins to just BE better than the rest and prove to the cowardly, corrupt lighteyes that they wouldn’t be brought down to their level by ANY means. But then Khaladin has to jump in at the very end of this chapter.
queue bromance theme.
Bromance? Ha! More like romance! OTP not BroTP! :p
I’m not sure if it would have been best for the story, but it would have been glorious for Adolin to wipe the floor with those jerks.
Someone should ask Brandon if he wrote this scene to a particular piece of music.
I think you are totally right, Alice. Sadeas set the whole thing up. He’s got an angry Relis excited for vengeance, and others ready to toady to him. He’s a bad bad man. Poor Dalinar and Elhokar and Renarin! Renarin is a good man. And Amaran is still the snake we met in TWoK.
My favorite quote from this chapter (I don’t have my book with me so this is from memory) is:
“Where is your honor” – Dalinar
“Honor is dead, but I’ll see what I can do for your sons. If this goes badly take care of my men”
Then Kaladin jumps into the pit.
This is why I read fantasy books. I love scenes like these.
As for Hearing Zahel, I think it is very possible for Adolin to hear him over the sound of the crowd. I used to wrestle and during the match sometimes the crowd would be pretty loud. But no matter how loud they got I could always hear the sound of my coaches voice issuing instruction. It was a voice I had trained myself to listen to.
“Honor is dead, but I’ll see what I can do.” One of my favorite quotes in this book, gives me chills!
Also, Istow and her haughty “I am the highprince here…have you no respect for the law?”. Says the corrupt official whose on the take…
I hate Amaram. That is all
@3: Bujold reference FTW! Quoted you when I shared the post to the FB group.
Amaram set up: It was probably the seed.
Music – good question. I wonder when his next “ask me anything” is.
@7: Coach’s voice – nice incite.
@8: Variations of such have been said by way too many corrupt officials on the take. Pick your government. Pick your sporting event. Examples are everywhere, sadly.
I find nothing about Kaladin’s responses to Amaram to be “Unreasoning” What should be amazing to us all is that Kaladin shows the restraint and reason that he does when dealing with Amaram … this is the man the that murdered his friends and branded and put Kaladin into slavery. Kaladin’s incredible restraint is the most fantastical elements of this epic fantasy. That Kaladin is still able to trust and protect after Dalinar names Amaram “Knight Radiant” is incredible.
When I read this I didn’t get the impression that he was really hearing Zahel. I assumed that he was thinking to himself about what Zahel would say in this situation and “heard” the response in Zahel’s voice, the way I can hear my mother’s voice anytime I start to do something really stupid. But given what we now know about Zahel (and I can’t believe I missed that initially), he probably would be able to make Adolin hear him even in this situation. Now I have to go re-read this chapter – and the next of course.
The question is – Will that woman ever get to judge so much as a church raffle in the future?
@11
Thank Syl for that. If he didn’t have a literal shard of Honor riding his shoulder his despair would have made him unrecoverable long ago.
@10 In my continuing effort to relate everything to the Vorkosiverse, it occurs to me that Adolin could be a similar focus for plotting that Ivan was, being high up in the succession and more appealing that other possible heirs. He could thus be playing a similar game at being unassuming. He’s also surrounded by the ridiculously competent so it’s hard for him to stand out at anything that doesn’t involve hitting someone with a sword (or stabbing them in the eye [/happy place]).
@11 it doesn’t strike me as too fantastical. If Kaladin abandoned Dalinar, he’d literally have nothing left. Being in a position to protect those who cannot protect themselves is the only thing keeping him from going back to the place he was in that cage in the slave caravan. As we see, not even Syl can stop him from slouching towards there in his grief and hate.
Last week I ranted on Kaladin over-shadowing presence. This week, I will avoid the subject and tackle a new one.
Dalinar, it seems, is a man wearing two hats: Father and Highprince. While he always is the Father with Renarin, he tends to be the Highprince with Adolin. In this chapter, we see him battling with both. The Father in him wants to drag his son out of the danger zone, but the Highprince understands the wager is too big to merely drop it without a fight. The Father wants to end the fight, right now, but the Highprince understands the wisdom to sit still.
Elhokar, on his side, pleads to the Highprince to be reasonable and he obeys. It was nice to see Elhokar display some wits and calm, but the fact he considers his cousin to be acceptable collateral damage to secure their position is scary… It is clear to me the second Dalinar sits back down and agrees with Elhokar, they both also agree to lose him, even if Dalinar hoped for a different outcome.
However, the second Renarin steps inside the arena Dalinar interjects the audience to help his sons. Why not before? Wasn’t Adolin being clearly bested not enough? Once Istow blalanty told him she would not end it (I am with you Alice, she was bought. She could/should have ended it), why didn’t he ask then for help? Why wait only until Renarin gets in there? Coincidence?
That being said, Dalinar’s speech, the crowd’s inaction are what prompted Kaladin to act as honor was dead. A great sentence, despite all my rant against Kaladin: I WAS rooting for him to jump in there. On re-read though, I wonder if Kaladin would have jumped in had Renarin not been there? Would he?
All in all, each characters actions are interesting to read, especially Dalinar. Father first or Highprince first?
Zahel can also call upon Perfect Pitch, which probably helps a bit when trying to cut through the din of an arena.
This scene was complete setup, and Sanderson paced it just right–deliberate enough to get a good feel for the combatants and Dalinar’s anguish, but still fast enough to keep the fight moving and the impression of a ticking clock (or a cracking Plate) counting down.
While I have no empathy for Amaram, the killer and enslaver of his own men for some allegedly altruistic goal, he should still be treated with a bit more sympathy than Sadeas. Sadeas is a conniving, power hungry man even if he had been a loyal follower and companion of Gavilar. Amaram’s unwillingness to enter the 4 vs 1 battle of shard bearers is no more surprising than Dalinar’s following Elhokar’s advice about the futility of an unarmored man entering the fray against such armored opponents. Clearly, he had some inhibition about countering the Sadeas’ ploy, and he essentially admits to that factor later on. However, he was also not wearing shardplate and would not be expected to survive or remain uncrippled from a shard blade cut had he entered on Adolin’s side.
@17 indeed. Perfect Pitch
@16, Gepeto, While you certainly have a point about Dalinar not being willing, after Elhokar’s advice, to throw himself into the fray for pressing political reasons. In this, he was being more of a statesman than a father. However, he also saw his initial response as a futile gesture that would get him killed as well as his son(s). – assuming that Elhokar would be willing to lend him his shardblade. If he showed more vocal anguish at the prospect of Renarin being killed in the arena, it may have been because Renarin was unprotected, while Adolin was still fighting a battle that he had unwisely allowed to happen. As to Kaladin, his sense of honor could have pushed him into the fight even without the presence of Renarin since he had the obligation to protect Adolin from harm. His entry after Dalinar’s appeal to the audience for assistance was both a dramatic device, and a possible signal that Kaladin’s distrust of Lighteyes made him hesitate to enter a battle where Darkeyes were normally forbidden.
I like to get back to the discussion we had two weeks back, where some of us postulated, that Dalinar and Navani all didn’t get the loophole. I think this chapter proves them wrong: Adolin likely informed them that he’d agreed to a 2:1 duel and didn’t say what he’d said exactly. Thus none of them (except Adolin and Shallan) could have caught the loophole.
I agree that Istow was bought and that’s why she did’nt end the fight. But why didn’t Elhokar? He obviously could have. Why did he risk his cousins despite Dalinar’s clear wish against it?
Second question: if Kaladin wouldn’t have gone to help, would Zahel have? Likely he could have managed to turn the fight, right?
The duelers may have been somewhat more hesitant about crippling or killing Amaram Something which he should have known, the two-faced son of a jackal. The duel was supposed to bait Dalinar into reach of a shardblade, not Amaram. It would have been risky but not suicidal the way it would be for Dalinar. It might even have been reasonably safe if the duelers knew whose side Amaram was on.
The duel is a bit fuzzy at this point, since clearly the points don’t matter. But for someone not in Plate to jump into a battle with Shardblades flying around, they’re basically guaranteed to lose a limb or die in the process–Blades don’t give harmless nicks. Even against the combatants wielding “normal” weapons keep in mind that these are magical-power-armor scaled ones, oversize and extra-deadly against non-Plate bearers. It’s basically suicide to try and help, especially since it’s abundantly clear that the fight will not be called early–and by “early” it means before Adolin’s crippling/death.
So even if Amaram deduced that it was a ploy aimed at Dalinar, it wouldn’t be much of a reassurance for his own life and functionality. Even if he “only”lost a limb, he’d be unable to affect the outcome, and therefore would be a gallant but wasted effort. More likely he just saw this as “whoa, too risky” and cut the reasoning short at that.
I mean, you’d have to be some sort of Actual Knights Radiant to have a chance in there.
The thing I love most about this chapter is that of the nascent Radiants in the audience, 3 out of 4 move to help Adolin in very direct ways – Renarin summons his own Blade, Kaladin hops the rails, and Dalinar is only held back by no one lending him a Blade and the knowledge that it was exactly what Sadeas wanted of him. I suspect that the only reason Shallan wasn’t down there within moments of the four coming out was the desire to keep Pattern a secret and the gender roles present in Vorin society. So, really, 4 for 4 for the Radiants present being the ones to take an active step.
Shallan did in fact intervene in her own direct way. She sent Pattern down to the arena to distract the duelist fighting Renarin. She has no training in fighting, so could offer no help there, but distracting someone in a 1on1 dual could lead to a lucky strike from the opponent. So all 4 proto-radiants did involve themselves in the ways available to them.
@20: Of course, Elhokar is right: the duel is bait to lure Dalinar into the arena.
Of course, Dalinar is right to stand down: for political reasons.
However, Sadeas is also right: the Blackthorn would have jumped into the arena with a rock in his hands, if needs be, to protect his son.
I am unsure which conclusions I am willing (or unwilling) to draw here. We have been told, for the longest time, the Blackthorn was an awful person: an angry, jealous blood-thirsty warlord, but it seems he also was fiercly protective of his youngs. It is likely Sadeas is right and the Blackthorn would have never stand still to watch his son being beaten. He would have jumped in front of the danger, even if it meant his death, even if it destroyed whatever political agenda he may have had.
Essentially, isn’t it what we, parents, would all do for our children? I do not know about others, but needless to say I would trust myself in front of a running car if it meant safeguarding any of my children, I would face a snarling wolf with my nails if it threatened one of them… but I would NEVER accept such fate, whether they brought it on themselves or not.
But Dalinar the Bondsmith does and it gives me the creeps. He may try to call out the duel, he may pleed for help, but he is, essentially, standing down. All in all, he does not as hard as a father should have, worst the hardest we see him try is when his youngest son steps in… Renarin may have been Plate-less, but he was not the target of the duel. It is not him they wanted to kill.
What else is there to conclude the agenda of the Bondsmith is more important than a son’s life? My mind can accept this is true, much is at stakes, but my heart cannot. My heart tells me you need to find another solution, one that fufill your agenda AND makes sure your family is safe.
Great comments so far! I hope to have a chance to interact with them all soon. Just the last one (that I see) for now:
Gepeto @26 “My heart tells me you need to find another solution, one that fufill your agenda AND makes sure your family is safe.”
I know, right? This is exactly why I find the scenario so painful, because I can’t see any way to do this. There MUST be a way! But I can’t find it. I’m so torn on what each person could/should have done here, and I just don’t see any way for Dalinar to help. In a way that would, you know, help. :(
The only thing I take comfort in (before Kaladin enters, which I’m NOT discussing yet, no I’m not no I’m not stop stop stop that’s the next chapter…) is that when Dalinar stands down the first time, he hasn’t seen yet that Adolin is being forcibly restrained from yielding. As long as he’s still fighting and still has functional Plate, he’s not (apparently) desperate, and there’s still hope of either someone else joining his side, or Adolin yielding the match.
ETA: Sorry that’s such an incomplete response, but I have to go get kids from school. Later!
More Bujold: Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.
Sanderson Contrast: Honor is dead.Seems to foreshadow Kaladin’s decision about the king.
@27: Yes, I understand… It was not an easy one, but I could have NEVER sat back down… Had it been one of your children, Alice, would you have let Elhokar talk you out of intervening? For my part, I pity the 4 shardbearers who would dare take a hit at MY son.
Agree, Adolin was not yet injured. When he does get injured, at the end of WoR, Dalinar promptly forgets about being a Highprince to be a Father, if only for a mere moment. This scene only gives me hope in the future, but I am slighted. What if we have gotten it wrong all along with Dalinar? What if the new version of him is not better, but worst than the previous one?
@25 I wasn’t sure if that happened in this chapter or the next one, so I was being careful about it.
I understand why Sanderson needed this scene to play out the way he did, but the early part of this fight is too cinematic for me (I feel the same way about any fight scene where one guy somehow holds his own or even beats multiple skilled fighters at once without a force multiplier to his advantage).
Every time one man fights dozens in movies, it’s because he’s really only fighting one at a time. There’s even a term for it: “Tae Kwon Mono a mono.” They only ever throw punches and kicks individually, and they just politely wait while Our Hero dispatches one before the next comes rushing in.
It never, ever happens that way in reality.
Two against one fights are far harder than modern media interpretations lead people to believe, but if the one is a lot stronger and a lot more skilled, it can be done. Sometimes. That being said, 4:1 are completely impossible odds if there is no way to instantly kill or incapacitate at least one.
When everyone is armed and armored, the individual skill levels of the combatants don’t even come into play. Plate or no plate, Adolin should have been dead or crippled before anyone else stepped in given how long they hesitated to help him.
All Relis’s group had to do was have one person engage him from up front, even for only a couple of seconds, while the other three surrounded him.
As soon as they had him surrounded, they could start beating on him with three different blades where ever they wanted. Adolin only has the one Blade he can counter with.
Plate can withstand Shardblade strikes, but we are shown that it can only handle a few direct hits from a Shardblade in any given section. Tap-tap-tap-break Tap. Dead. Even if Adolin tried to jump away, they could have simply grabbed him and slammed him back into the ground.
I still enjoyed this chapter, I just wish Kaladin had jumped in a little sooner.
Gepeto @29 – Would I, personally, be able to watch one of my children set upon by 4 others determined to do permanent damage? Of course not. But my children are a 14-year-old boy with Down Syndrome and a 12-year-old girl without an athletic bone in her body. Even so, I have learned that sometimes I have to have enough trust and respect for my kids to let them take risks. Dalinar’s son is, quite possibly, the best duelist on the planet, barring Zahel. That changes things just a tad.
If my grown son were a fully-trained, expert duelist, AND if I had no compelling reason to assume his opponents were not going to follow the normal, honorable dueling conventions, I might be willing to give him a chance to take care of it his own way rather than walking into an unnecessary and likely fatal trap myself. I mean, if his life were in no danger and all that was on the line was a bunch of stuff, I probably wouldn’t want to deprive even my adult children of their only remaining parent. As an experienced duelist himself, Dalinar might well have a perspective somewhat different than mine.
@32: My children are significantly younger than yours, so perhaps it biases my opinion.
I would not stand in the way of my son trying to achieve a duel, but I would not either watch him being helplessly be beaten while doing nothing. The issue with the duel is, as wcarter pointed out, it was an impossible fight to begin with. I may have tried to let him take a few swings, but the second he started to visibly panicking, he was out of there. I would have stroll through that arena to strangle judge Istow with my bare hands if I had to, but my boy was getting out of harms’ way. I would have launched my entire army into that small arena if I had to in order to drag him out, but nobody was crippling my son and no nation or no future goals would have been worthy enough for me to sit watching, idle.
I sound like an angry tiger……..
Now, I am not saying Dalinar was idle, but he was willing to let it happen, in some way. It was scary. Had Kaladin not jumped in, what would he have done? Would he have broken down and join in when Adolin takes his first serious hit?
On the side note, a few commentator stated they had wished Adolin had defeated them all… I disagree. It would have been too much. I love how the duel made us see his limits when it comes to fighting. Yes, he is good, very good, but not supernaturally good. He can’t fight 4 or even 3. He can fight 2, but it was a close call. It also was more realistic. As wcarter put it, they could have ended it in minutes had they been smart about it. The only reason Adolin manages to survive as long was because they were first scared of him and second, I suspect, pride drove them to each want to be THE one to take him out. Had they used a sound strategy, Adolin was laying crippled on the ground before Dalinar had much time to think about it. I suspect they would not have killed him…. In fact, I am rather convinced they would have let him live, but with lead-laden legs and dead arms. A vegetable, but a live one.
I feel like I’m going to sound so disagreeable with this comment…well here goes.
First, personally I suspect if anything Istow wasn’t bought off…she sold off her services. She clearly has both a power complex when it comes to the duels and a dislike of Adolin as he challenged Shardbearers and disrupted the status quo throughout this book: I wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one who let Sadeas know about the set-up and willingly went along (but of course why turn down a tidy profit if it offers itself?). While this is obviously a set-up, Sadeas probably didn’t have to offer much to get everyone to bite: Adolin represented an obvious threat to the status quo of dueling which, for Relis, Istow and the rest, is their favorite lighteyes “game.” Not to get too far ahead, but I think it’s important we all remember that while Sadeas is most antagonistic, a very large portion of the other lighteyes are more than content with how they currently live their lives and don’t see anything wrong with the faction pushing to disrupt the status quo being hurt/killed. And for Relis specifically this was aggravated by Adolin publicly shaming his cousin – Relis is a snake, but at the same time he’s punishing someone who he sees as flagrantly abusing Alethi social structures (dueling) and who insulted his cousin (in a lot of ways Relis isn’t that far removed from how Adolin was way back in the beginning of the series, back in TWoK).
I disagree, although I’ll put my caveat here – ultimately Adolin probably is meant to be more like the Whitespine (and I’ll say why later). While the text draws the comparison obviously, the whole chapter is under this title – obviously because it’s just a cool little two word snippet (we haven’t seen that much of whitespines but just from what we’ve heard it’s enough to make it an evocative image), but also because the whitespine uncaged can represent, to a degree, all 3 PoVs from this chapter (what? clearly I’m mad, that’s ridiculous! I’m reading too much into things surely…).
My defense for this position starts, I think, where the text itself draws the big comparison that everyone latches onto: when Adolin thinks of himself as a whitespine uncaged and has his spectacular moment in the duel where, just for a few seconds, it looks like he might win. Now before anyone says anything, yes this is the titular moment and the biggest reason why the chapter is titled this. But well, let’s dig a little deeper. First, for being uncaged this moment isn’t as triumphant as it seems to suggest. It’s a badass thought/line, and it wouldn’t have been surprising if Adolin had cut loose and managed to pull off a victory by himself. And yet the reality of facing 4 people in Shardplate sets in and Adolin is set on the defensive where he would have lost and been seriously injured if not for later intervention. Personally, I think part of this is to establish that, while Adolin is really good, here he probably hit the wall of what you can do in dead-Plate and Blade (assuming your enemies at least have some modicum of skill with it obviously). Heck, even Szeth back when he was at the apex of his combat abilities (with his Honorblade anyways) back in TWoK didn’t have to deal with 4 enemies in Shardplate at once (although maybe he could have – we can’t know alas).
So then why do I think Adolin isn’t the only whitespine uncaged here? Well, let me start with how it seems like Adolin eventually falls into relying purely on his instincts…and it’s not enough. Specifically I think it’s not enough because Adolin isn’t fighting naturally – he’s using the Plate and Blade of long-dead men currently. Adolin thinks of himself as a whitespine uncaged yet this entire battle has him in the armor of a dead Radiant. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but if Adolin is going to become a KR in the future (as a lot of people seem to hope/believe), it speaks volumes to me that Adolin thinks of himself as this natural force unleashed, reacts based on instinct and muscle memory, and yet isn’t able to make up the difference. And the chapter ends with Kaladin dropping into the ring, someone whose power isn’t from skill and dead spren but from skill and a living spren bonded to him (something that naturally developed). While I think there’s more reasons later on to see the whitespine uncaged as also referring to Kaladin here, I’ll respect Alice’s decisions and not go into them.
So why do I think it also, partially, refers to Dalinar? Well, first let me say it’s not because Dalinar here represents a whitespine uncaged – he would, in opposition to the two younger men, represent the whitespine being caged. Now, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone comment on this in this chapter’s reread, but Whitespine is practically a perfect mirror for Dalinar’s title of Blackthorn: spine and thorn are both obvious, and Dalinar as a young man seemed much darker than Adolin, but both seem to have been gifted with great skill when it comes to battle. Yet at this point Dalinar has very much caged the Blackthorn (or mostly has): Sadeas tries to call him out but all it takes is Elkohar pointing out it’s an obvious set-up for Dalinar to make the wise decision here, the very-un-Blackthorn decision. And yet down below we see Adolin taking another step towards possibly going down that path – he does try to surrender later on, but first he accepted the duel and makes his valiant attempt to instill in his peers the same kind of terror Dalinar instilled in his youth. With Adolin, maybe the whitespine is being uncaged? That just would be a much less gripping title of course.
I have other reasons of course: how the duel progresses and its fallout (which I’ll leave until next week and thereafter), how last chapter it was around the whitespine where Kaladin and Adolin both had their own reactions (and coincidentally it’s where they are at in the menagerie when Dalinar finds them), etc. But this is already a monster of a comment and I need to get some exercise in before it’s too late, so I’ll just sum up: I think Adolin is the main whitespine uncaged as per the title of the chapter, but as things go both Kaladin and Dalinar have very strong echoes of that in how they act (Kaladin as being one and Dalinar as having been one but now past that), and that Adolin bringing it up in text is yet another example of Sanderson brilliantly misleading with what is directly presented and what thematically lurks beneath.
It’s amazing how so much can happen in one chapter and yet the still feels so short. It just naturally flows into the next chapter. But given how much is going on it’s good not to overload it and start with one chapter.
Brace yourself the wall of text is about to hit.
Okay Alice I’m going disagree with you and probably many others here about who the whitespine is. Actually I’m not fully disagreeing but just adding to it. I think this is one where the title can fit in many different ways and still be valid.
For me when I first finished this chapter and even after a couple read throughs afterwards I didn’t think of Adolin when I thought of the whitespine in the title. When I hear the chapter title “Whitespine Uncaged”. I immediately think back to the whitespine that we saw earlier in the menagerie. I’m seeing that whitespine who is not allowed to act with accordance to it’s nature. When I was reading this chapter and we got the last sentence when Kaladin drops down to the ground of the area floor with his spear,that was the “Oh shit!” moment for me, they let the whitespine out now. I didn’t get that feeling even when Adolin was doing well against the 4 and proving just how good of a dueler he is again. When the chapter begins I get the feeling of restless animal from Kaladin because of Amaram, because of Moash and because he knows that his people aren’t enough if the Assassin in White shows up. But then at the end he has a purpose and direction which makes him deadly when he goes to help Adolin.
This is probably because I as the reader, I am better informed then the characters at this point. I know that Kaladin is not someone to mess around with on the battlefield/dueling ground. I know that he can and has taken on a full shardbarer on more than one occasion. But the 4 people fighting Adolin, and to a degree even Adolin himself don’t know how dangerous Kaladin. (Even though it’s branded on this guy’s forehead for all to see. You’ve been given fair warning people. This might also be the reason why I don’t see Kaladin as the underdog. Maybe he was in the first book for a little while and to other characters in book he might seem that way but he isn’t. He might not be lighteyes but he didn’t have a disadvantaged childhood and now it’s just that others don’t know that he has advantages of surgebinding and generally just being better at fighting. That doesn’t make him a underdog to me. But I digress. )
@Getepo
You asked if Kaladin would still have jumped in if Renarin wasn’t in danger. I think he would have. When he ran on to the field he went to Adolin’s side. That’s where the danger was, that’s who really needed the assistance. This might sound weird but I think Kaladin needed to be invited into the fight. He’s the bodyguard but this is still a sanctioned duel, he might have wanted too but wasn’t sure if he was allowed. Dalinar by asking if anyone would help his sons, invited Kaladin to take his place in the fight.
@travyl
Elhokar could have called the fight or done something to help. I think that’s what eats at Elhokar later on.
While I totally respect Renarin for jumping in can you imagine if he hadn’t and it was Zahel, Kaladin and Adolin in that fight?! That would have been an awesome fight! Two darkeyed non armored men along side Adolin, fighting 4 shardbarers and winning.
@wcarter
I think the fact that most duels are one on one probably helped Adolin out here. Shardbarers by the nature of their weapons, they don’t normally fight with others. When they fight with another Shardbarer ally on the battle field they need room so that they don’t harm each other. These aren’t guy who are used to doing coordinated attacks. This means that Adolin got more of a breathing room than he would have gotten if these were people use to attacking in a group or formation and knew what they were doing. So there are 4 enemies here, who individually are all good but it takes a while before it gets out of Adolin’s control because they aren’t use to working together.
@multiple
Yes it’s dangerous to go into battle against people with Shardblades but the fact that Amaram and other of Alethi didn’t even move help is just shameful really. They didn’t even have to jump in to battle if they couldn’t. There were people who had the capacity to help in other ways. Putting pressure on Istow to call the fight off, for one. Reminding Elhokar of other ways he could have help (like calling off the fight), for another. Tackling Sadeas and breaking his arms. Punching Amaram in face. All are good ways to help.
Everyone who could do something to help did. Zahel called out encouragement and advice. Which might seem small but it rallied Adolin. Dalinar tried every way he could to get his son help. If Dalinar could have gotten his hands on any weapon, I think he would have jumped in but he was completely unarmed. He didn’t even have the rock that Sadeas was taunting him about. (Probably another reason why he chooses to bond a blade.) Kaladin jumps in. (Shallan does stuff in the next chapter). Even if it was small they could have done something. Amaram and the majority of the Alethi nobility did nothing. They should be ashamed.
I feel like my fanon headcanon on Adolin being the actual dueling champion for the Alethi is getting a bit of support by this chapter. Because Relis knew he couldn’t win against him on his own and brought two of the best duelist the Alethi had just to take on Adolin. This leads back to my what if scenario in last weeks discussion on if Jakamav had actually been a friend and had warned Adolin and fought along side him. If Jakamav had fought along side Adolin, Adolin might have been able to pull through. If Adolin had know to ask for one other person to fight along side him, he would be the pants of Relis and whoever he brought. The proof is he did just that once he got just a little support.
It probably didn’t take much if anything to buy off Istow, she was already pissed at Adolin for not following dueling traditions. She, like many of the duelist, takes it as an insult that he’s won so easily. Adolin has challenged her limited authority and now she’s getting her own back.
Sadeas does know too much not to have been in on the planning. And the four who fight Adolin too easily split off once Renarin enters the field. They’ve talked about this. It was planned. They knew that Renarin would enter the field. I think they actually planned to destroy the Kholin princedom this way. I think the plan was to kill Dalinar if he jumps in and kill Adolin or Renarin depending on how the fight goes and then leave the other brother crippled. (Trying to avoid talking about the next chapter here, why is it so hard?) Relis and Sadeas probably wanted the two best Shardbarers (after Relis himself) for this reason as well. If they thought they was going to be facing the Blackthorn on the dueling grounds as well. Dalinar without Shardplate still probably would have been formidable if he just had a Blade.
In the end I’m left with just one question: Does Adolin ever find his mother’s chain after the fight?
The thought of Kaladin being the Whitespine is distressing in ways I will not expand on uselessly. I’ll just say I am with Alice: Adolin is the Whitespine. He is the one who needs to unleash his inner self, not Kaladin. Kaladin has never been caged: even when limited or imprisoned, he was still never truly caged. Adolin is another matter entirely, but I’d say he progressively shakes his own prison in order to emerge and finally kill Sadeas. That was the Whitespine: quick and deadly.
I also disagree Kaladin is not an under-dog. The slave marks he bears does not label him as “dangerous” but “disobedient”. He is a slave who has lost everything and yet manages to rise higher than any darkeyes before. I’d say he’s quite the poster boy for the “under-dog”.
I do not think Renarin was part of the plan. Nobody thinks much about Renarin, the sick child of the Kholin household. He may own a Blade, but they all know he can’t use it. Besides, if they strove to destroy house Kholin, what better than to put he weak kid on the high seat? I sincerely do not even think they would have carried on their threats to harm him, unless Adolin proved too difficult. I don’t think they truly wanted to. Once they had their due with Adolin, they would have likely let him go. The only reason Relis lashes at Renarin is by anger for having lost. So no, I do not think anyone counted on Renarin to join in, but they hoped Dalinar would. Even if he didn’t, they still get to cripple Adolin (I am convinced they would have left him alive to shame his family), which is worthy accomplishment in itself (for them).
That being said, there is lot to think about on the duel… What would have happened had Renarin not jumped in? Had Kaladin not jumped in? I am not sure Kaladin would have gotten involved in time without Renarin being there… Perhaps he would, perhaps he would not: that story was not told. The same goes with Dalinar. Would he have truly watched his son being crippled while staying idle? I fear he would, I hope he wouldn’t, but again that story was not told. All in all, that duel was a huge gamble and Adolin got very lucky.
Still, it showed me a side if Dalinar I had not properly identified before… It is one piece of a puzzle. I don’t know how they all fit, but somehow there is something there. With Dalinar. His behavior with his sons. He is not the same with each of them, he is softer, tender with Renarin, even with Elhokar, sometimes he does it with Kaladin…. but with Adolin, so rarely. I can’t shake the feeling this is somehow, important.
As for mother’s chain, we have no idea what happened to it. It was not mentioned afterwards. People have asked if the chain was magic or anything, but no. It is just a chain and the only person it mattered to was Adolin. I am sure it will come back though. Call it a hunch, but I think Adolin will find his chain in a very crucial moment….
@36 Gepeto, there could always be more to it like you think, but the most probable answer for why Dalinar treats Adolin so strictly is quite simple:
Dalinar’s problems dealing with Adolin have much more to do with his own self-loathing than his true opinion of his son. I think half the time, when he looks at Adolin it’s his younger self he subconsciously sees (even though he knows better). And we all know there is no one harder on us than ourselves.
Adolin is–while smarter and more honorable thanks to older Dalinar–still more like Young Dalinar than anyone else is. Most importantly, unlike everyone else in the series, Adolin is the one who is eventually going to be High Prince of Kohlinar. And it is he who is also going to be his cousin’s right hand and defender.
Dalinar is terrified of letting the Alethi continue in their self-destructive hedonistic ways, but more than anything, he is terrified of his son ever somehow becoming the man Dalinar was before Gavilar died. So, he treats Adolin as a military XO first, and son a distant second.
On the other hand, Renarin, Navani, Elhokar and even Kaladin are not Dalinar and never will be. So he treats them with the love and respect he genuinely feels for those he cares about instead of the the way he thinks he thinks he himself deserved to be treated.
That’s a character flaw I really hope Dalinar gets a chance to grow out of in his own arc.
Shash means dangerous. He might have been disobedient but he was the gylph for dangerous. His last master before Sadeas had branded him with mark after noting that he was “interesting”. He wasn’t just simple disobedient, he lead others and lead them in violent ways to escape and the brand was more of a warning to other slaves than anything else. Also I say he might have been an under-dog for a while in book one but to me he isn’t one now but as other have said YMMV.
It’s not really related to the topic at hand, but you mention the Edgedancer blade vs your expectation that Adolin would become a Dustbringer. My theory is you’re correct about the Dustbringer future, but only because his current blade is going to be destroyed in the next battle against Szeth. We already know Nightblood is orders of magnitude more powerful than a standard shardblade, and there’s essentially no chance at all that Szeth won’t show up again as Naln’s right-hand-man, so to speak.
Perhaps that destruction will be the breaking point necessary for Adolin to bond his own spren?
FenrirMoridin @34. I agree. Like you, I feel that it was Istow and not Relis who first realized the loophole Adolin’s words created. I believe she went directly to Sadeas (or more likely to Sadeas’ wife — but either way it amounts to the same thing) with that loophole. Sadeas then, working through Relis, took advantage of the loophole to create one of two outcomes: the death/maiming of Adolin; or Dalinar becoming involved and then killing Dalinar. In either event, House Kholin is destroyed. Its head is either dead or destroyed (in seeing his heir die), with all of House Kholin’s Shards forfeited; its heir is either maimed or dead, with all of House Kholin’s Shards forfeited.
Alice, tbone5711 @8 and Gepeto @16. What textual evidence is there for your belief that Istow was bought? If she were always an ally of Sadeas, she would have acted the same.
From the plot perspective, it would not have made sense for any other Lighteye wearing ShardPlate and/or who had a Shardblade step into the arena and fight with Adolin? If some character who we had never appeared in text, what would our reaction be. My thought would have been we did he come from. Why is Brandon having him save Adolin’s bacon right now. From a cultural point of view, it made perfect sense that no other Alethi Lighteye would have fought with Adolin. Alethi culture is somewhat like ancient Sparta in that their is no place for the weak. If a house is perceived injured or weak, nobody else will support that house. The Lighteyes in the arena saw House Kholin as a lost cause. There was no benefit to tying oneself to a lost cause (in the Alethi mindset).
kei_rin @35. Excellent point about Sharholders not being used to fighting side by side against the same combatant on the field/dueling ground.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@39
That is plausible given the way Nightblood works. I sorta hope it doesn’t happen that way because I really want Adolin to revive his blade. I love his bond to his blade even though he’s not really bonded to it. He’s respectful of his Blade.
@37: Yes, I think you explained it quite well. Old Dalinar is projecting himself so much into Adolin he has grown hard with him, always staying true to his role as a Highprince and a commander, forgetting about the father.
I don’t know what it’ll take for Dalinar to acknowledge his son is his own person… He was so sure he had succeed in fighting of the ghost of the Blackthorn at the end of WoR, to see it come back in the shape of Sadeas’s corpse will be a harsh lesson. It makes me fear for Adolin though… Will the ordeal chase the father forever? If already, in front of a deadly duel, he hesitates to act, what is he going to do next?
As I said, it is scary. I am scared, but I sincerely hope Dalinar will remember he loves his son before he sacrifices him for his “greater” goals. I sincerely hope the key to uniting Alethkar does not pass by destroying Adolin.
@40: I do not believe there is strong evidence pertaining Istow potentially being bought in advance. The feelings mainly comes from her being obviously deaf to Adolin’s plea to end the duel. He did state she saw him, but turned her head around. Adolin sure thinks she was bought. Her refusal to end the fight when young, untrained and unarmored Renarin step in is also another clue. She had the power to stop the fight if she felt it went too far. That was too far.
So whereas there is not clear textual evidence she was undeniably bought, there is enough clues left for us to conclude she likely was.
Re: Istow being bought: Adolin immediately thinks that’s what happened based on something in her expression, but there’s no other textual evidence that I can see.
As far Dalinar not helping Adolin, one thing to keep in mind is that he’s not just a father—he’s second in line to the throne and quite possibly the most important leader in the kingdom. His life, quite frankly, is more important than Adolin’s at this point Now, emotionally, everything that’s been said about doing anything to protect one’s children is spot on—and note that Dalinar’s first reaction is to do exactly that. Elhokar talks him out of it not because Elhokar is emotionally convincing, but because he’s right: it would be suicide for Dalinar to enter the arena.
Now, that analysis doesn’t excuse Dalinar asking other people to do what he won’t, but I think that under the circumstances, it was the least bad of his choices.
Stormbrother @7 – re: Adolin hearing Zahel, that’s a good point. I’m pretty sure Zahel can get some real volume, and probably project his voice quite well, and as you say, Adolin probably trained himself (deliberately or not!) to hear that voice. It could be that it’s as simple as that.
Or, being Sanderson, there could be something else going on… :)
adjbaker@11 – When I referred to Kaladin’s “unreasoning” response, I was looking at this:
When he lets himself focus on Amaram, his first reaction, completely without thought and without even awareness, is to step toward Amaram with a spear held tightly in his hands. It’s only when Sigzil gets his attention that he realizes what he was doing. Yes, Kaladin does restrain himself once he becomes aware of what he’s doing, and it shows great strength of character to do so. That doesn’t change the fact that his first, unreasoned move was to confront and challenge Amaram, despite the fact that he has only a spear, and Amaram has a Shardblade.
I’m not in the least slighting Kaladin’s ability to control himself or to make deliberate decisions about doing his job. I’m just saying that every time he sees Amaram, the unreasoning (but fully reasonable and justifiable!) gut response is to attack.
ChocolateRob @13 – I kind of hope not, but it’s a question of whether anyone is able to prove she was nobbled. According to my Nook, she’s never mentioned again after this scene. I’d love to find out that she at the very least went back to Althekar in shame, like Relis. I’d like even better for her to admit it all…
Gepeto @16 – I think I maybe said this earlier, but at this point I don’t believe Elhokar and Dalinar are considering Adolin’s life as “acceptable collateral damage” or that they’re agreeing to lose him; they just expect him to have to surrender and lose all six Shards, if no one can/will come to his aid. We’ve been told repeatedly that there are traditions in place that safeguard duelists, especially in Shard bouts, and that the highjudge can call the match any time she thinks it’s gone too far. When Dalinar concedes that running out there unarmored would be a stupid idea, he thinks that he still has to do something, and the logical something is to get the highjudge to call it. As he turns to go to her, he sees Renarin walk out. The way I read it, Dalinar doesn’t change what he was going to do or even when he’s going to do it, though of course it increases the urgency to see his second son in the arena with no armor and inadequate training. (In other words, I don’t think it’s a matter of him sitting around watching Adolin being mauled, and only bothering to do something when Renarin steps out. Things are happening too rapidly for that.)
So he races as fast as he can to the highjudge’s seat, and it’s not until he finally reaches her and tries to concede on his son’s behalf that he realizes that she’s not going to stop it, no matter what he says. At that point, with Adolin’s Plate starting to fail, Renarin going into an epileptic fit, and the highjudge refusing to intervene, he turns to the spectators (and his “Knight Radiant”) and discovers that no one will meet his eyes. IMO, that’s the point where he realizes that Adolin’s life, or at least his limbs, are actually in imminent danger.
travyl @21 – That’s a good point… Adolin probably related what he thought he agreed to, rather than his exact wording, when he told Dalinar and Navani what he was planning. His thoughts several times clearly reflect that he was expecting a 2:1 match. Shallan, of course, heard the whole thing, but she’s probably not sufficiently well versed in the dueling conventions to recognize the difference between what Adolin had said and what he assumed he said.
As for why Elhokar didn’t end the duel – as indicated above, I don’t think he realized yet that they were planning to do far more than merely humiliate Adolin. The spectators didn’t hear Adolin trying to yield, and they didn’t hear Relis tell Adolin that it was about punishment, and that if he didn’t stick it out, Renarin would get hurt. I think by the time anyone could have realized what was happening, it would have been too late – there would have been an “accident” and someone’s Blade would (at the very least) have “slipped” and gone through Adolin’s arm. Obviously the match would have been stopped then, and there would have been all sorts of false apologies – but we have to remember that we’re hearing everything spoken on the floor, and the spectators aren’t. Only Adolin knew the danger he was in.
wcarter @31 – “Tae Kwon Mono a mono” – Heh. Except what really bugs me about that particular term is that pop culture has reinterpreted it as “man to man” or “one to one” when it really means “hand to hand” – no actual restrictions as to how many people are involved, just that they are fighting hand to hand rather than at a distance. Oh well.
In rereading this, I came to the rather startling conclusion that this scene takes a whole lot longer to read than it took to play out. The four tried exactly what you suggest, but Adolin threw them off guard by attacking instead of standing still to be surrounded. The number of blows exchanged wouldn’t really take all that long – it’s just that the fight scenes are interspersed with other POVs and things. On a guess, I’d say that no more than three minutes passed before Renarin entered the arena; probably less. Then there’s a minute or so of conversation/threats, and Adolin responds with an attack. It’s probably less than five minutes from the time the four Shardbearers walk out until Kaladin enters the arena. Still unrealistic? Perhaps. “Err on the side of Awesome.”
FenrirMoridin @34 and kei_rin @35 – I’ll go dig out the “cut scene” from what I wrote last night about the whitespine; things were getting long, and I needed to trim. If I didn’t delete it, I’ll post it later. I stand by “Adolin alone” though… ;)
Also @35 – “There were people who had the capacity to help in other ways. Putting pressure on Istow to call the fight off, for one. Reminding Elhokar of other ways he could have help (like calling off the fight), for another. Tackling Sadeas and breaking his arms. Punching Amaram in face. All are good ways to help.” BAHAHAHAHAHA!! Yes, indeed! :D
And I, too, have wondered about that chain…
@several – I guess I don’t see Dalinar’s relationship with Adolin the way some of you do. There is a certain amount of commander to subordinate, because that’s who they are in the military side of their lives; when Dalinar speaks to his officers as their commander, Adolin responds like any officer to his commander. (At least outwardly…) But to my eyes, there’s also a fair amount of affection between the two. Love, respect, pride – each for the other – are part of the subtext of their lives. So I just don’t see this “Dalinar needs to see his son as a person” side of things. Oh well. Obviously, mileage varies.
Also @several re: Istow – Several good points. Adolin thinks they got to her with a bribe, but y’all are quite correct that the evidence just as readily supports the idea that she was the (or an) instigator, a scenario that probably wouldn’t occur to Adolin. So perhaps it’s not that the highjudge has been nobbled, it’s that the whole duel has been nobbled.
In any case, whether Relis & co. bribed her, or whether she’s been nursing a grudge against Adolin and has found a way to get him, she’s clearly not an unbiased judge. She’s totally a party to an underhanded attempt to bring down House Kholin.
Slight correction. “Later” means “tomorrow.” I got about 3 hours of sleep last night, and I’m about to lose it here. So… tomorrow. Good night!
I remember trying to read through and figure out how short/long this section of the duel could be – it’s so hard to judge because based on media and such we’re not used to fights being as fast as they usually are (as actual combat is not nearly as cinematic – even with power armor and magic swords). While difficult, imo I think Adolin could pull off surviving as long as he did: he’s the best fighter in the ring and iirc his favorite stance, Windstance, is the best stance for his situation. Combine that with knowing a little of where they’ll try to strike (as they need to go for accidental blows) and how they can’t coordinate well, and while exceptional it seems like a feat within Adolin’s ability.
Although I wonder: Zahel calls out to Adolin and drives him to strike – is that because Adolin could have won if he had been aggressive from the beginning? If there’s anyone there I trust to have an immediate grasp of how the battle could go, it would be Zahel…
@45 Wetlandernw: Such a tease, hope you saved it then and we’ll get to see it tomorrow then! I’ll be standing by my not just Adolin position, but I’m always excited to see multiple interpretations of something, it’s part of why fiction is so great. :D
@39 Aegis: I…I really want to see that now, Nightblood just tearing through a regular Shardblade, even though it’d be really sad for that poor spren (spren can’t die but it’d be losing whatever really small chance there is out there for being revived I guess).
@36
I’m not saying that I think Relis and co. knew Renarin was going to join the fight for sure but I’m saying they had a strategy for if he did.
I think that both Kholins, Renarin and Dalinar, were planned for in the 4 on 1 match. Relis and co, with the scheming help from Sadeas and his wife can do the same math at all the Alethi lighteyes did at the match beforehand. No one is going to jump in to help Adolin. 5 fully armored shardbarers and 4 shardblades flying around on the sands. They are going to face the same problem Dalinar did, because they didn’t know this was coming they wouldn’t have their Shardplate ready. Even if people wanted to help they would have to do without getting in the rink because who is fool enough to jump in among that? (Kaladin Stormblessed that’s who.)
Thus the only help Adolin is going to get is from those who truly care for him and who truly cares for Adolin Kholin? His father and brother that who. It’s easy enough to plan in a loose way, even one of them jumping in seems unlikely. In both cases neither will have Shardplate – once again they (the Kholins) couldn’t plan for this situation so they didn’t know to keep that Shardplate handy. In Renarin’s case, it’s even easier to plan for because he’s not known to be a fighter and everyone knows he hasn’t had his Blade for that long.
I don’t think the Alethi make threats they won’t carry out. So if they said they would hurt Renarin if Adolin backed out, they would do it. Adolin could have done something to make it very obvious that he didn’t want the fight and then the king could have called it off. This is the best way to make sure that Adolin stays in the fight. I don’t think they could have made that same threat as easily if Dalinar jumped in first. He would have gotten to Adolin’s side as fast as he could to protect his back, assuming he wasn’t “accidently” killed while dueling before he could get there.
The ultimate goal of the duel was to “punish” (read that word as maim) Adolin. If they had killed Renarin or Dalinar those would have extra bonus to Sadeas. Though Sadeas may have wanted Renarin to inherit. Like you said, who better than the sickly weak child to put in charge if the goal is destroy the Kholin house.
I just a really sad thought. Lopan says that disabled are invisible to Alethi’s. He jokes about it really, but a grain of truth is in that. If Adolin had Blade dead legs, or could no longer hold a sword, I’m not sure he would be keep his position as heir to the Kholin house. Not because Dalinar would choose to replace him but I think Adolin might step down himself.
@Wetlandernw
I wonder if Kaladin and Shallan are being influenced by one of the unmade when they look at Amaram and get angry in the same the unmade influence people by giving them Trill when they are killing. This is really stretching here because I don’t really believe this but Shallan does state that she surprised by how strong her emotions are when she thinks of Amaram.
Also I look forward to your notes on Adolin as whitespin for this chapter.
@39 and 47
Wait, I’ve thought of a way this isn’t super sad. What if, by breaking the Shardblade form it actually frees the spren from the blade and allows the spren to completely return the cognitive realm? This is assuming that going back completely into the cognitive realm heals the spren somehow….
@43: See, for me, the fact Dalinar puts his role as a Highprince before the one of being a father bothers me. It bothers me because it should be the other way around. He claims he will strive to save as many as he could: his son should be number one on that list.
I personally would have qualms at following a man who is willing to sacrifice his own son. Imo, as Alice explained in @44, that did not happen. Dalinar did try even if the whole scene still gives me the creep.
@45: I did not mean to imply Dalinar did not love Adolin: it is obvious in text he does. However, I do think he is guilty of forgetting this from times to times. I do agree he has thousands of good reasons to majorily behave as a war general towards his son, my point is he rarely steps down from this role with his eldest son while he is often doing it with Renarin (always in his case), Elhokar and even Kaladin. There are few dialogues between Dalinar and Adolin where Dalinar allows himself to be… a father. The end scene, at the Plateau fight, was the sweetest moment the two of them had in both books, the one where Dalinar truly was Adolin’s father, for a few short oments at least.
As for Dalinar needing to see his son as a person, I do think it is accurate. He also is guilty of seeing Adolin as a younger version of himself and he tries to raise him to be the man he wished he has been, from the beginning, but he is not letting Adolin have a voice in it. Both father and son, while sharing many traits, also are different. While Dalinar values honor through strict obediance and honesty, Adolin values honor through fair fighting (and honesty as well). Dalinar puts honor as the most important thing to uphold while we do have enough text evidence to claim Adolin doesn’t. Morality, what is right, is what matters more to the son than the rules, the codes and the honor found in upholding them. In that essence, Dalinar is projecting himself too much into his son.
I guess I more or less launch the question wondering who will we see in book 3? The Father or the Highprince?
I also agree the Whitespine is Adolin. I can’t wait to read your commentaries Alice.
@47: I had wondered about Zahel’s instructions. It has struck to me as well he perhaps did think his pupil could have pulled it of. Had Adolin not panicked, could he have managed to remove one opponent, then a second, then fight the remaining two? It seems doubtful, but there has to be a reason why Zahel chose to tutor Adolin all those years ago. I can’t put in my head this was a random decision.
@48: I still do not think anyone planned for Renarin, though I am sure they planned for Dalinar.
I do not know if crippled Adolin would have stepped down. However I do think it would have been a massive ordeal for him to get through. It is likely he would have needed the full support of his family to navigate through it.
There is a nice fic where Adolin is not trained by Zahel, he walks in completely unprepared. He panics more. Renarin steps in, but panics too, not having been trained by Zahel. Kaladin jumps in, but without Zahel’s training, he too panics and he gets slained. Renarin gets killed right after. Dalinar jumps in to avenge his son: he gets killed. Adolin then gets brutally beaten. They allow him to live with lead-laden legs and a dead arm. However, instead of breaking down, he swears to get revenge. Deprive of his limbs, he starts to use his wits and becomes a force to be recgonized. It is one of the good fics I have read. Moash becomes his right hand man. It is short, but not bad. A different take on how Adolin may have copped.
@49 kei_rin: I really like that idea. I have to imagine that being trapped as a shardblade is roughly akin to what the Heralds were going through between desolations; at least, that’s what it brings to mind when I read about them screaming to the holders of living blades.
Don’t tell anyone else, but I’m secretly a big mushy teddy bear inside, and the thought that it might somehow end their pain and/or restore them to full spren status is a pleasing one. Who doesn’t want more Windles in the world, after all?
Dalinar isn’t refusing to save his son, it’s that he can’t. While I understand the urge to do something, it would be as useful as giving mouth-to-mouth to an ebola victim. As far as Adolin’s fate is concerned, Dalinar watching and Dalinar intervening are functionally identical. He isn’t choosing to sacrifice his son because there’s no option he can choose where Adolin escapes. At some point, there has to be an allowance for a reasonable assessment of the situation.
Regarding Istow being bought, she must be getting something for this because she’s about to piss off the Kholins. Even if the plot had gone off as hoped, the King would not be happy. Since she’s clearly not an idiot, she must have some assurance she’ll be okay.
@50: Gepeto, something you might want to consider in regard to the relationship between Dalinar and Adolin is that the latter is a grown-up (in fact, the second-in-command of the Kholin forces); handling him like a child in need of protection could well be perceived as overbearingly disrespectful. Trusting him to be able to take care of his own business (which is a necessity if he ever has to step up as commander) might well be the most loving thing a father could do in their relationship.
@wcarter: Great points about how fights actually happen. And yes, Brandon’s fights read more like a movie. He’s admitted as much. I also agree with Kei_rin @35. Shardbearer don’t practice fighting as teams normally. Adolin thought about how he’s done it in the practice ring, but how many others have trained more than once by doing that?
That lack of coordination hurt them.
As for Renarin, I have to wonder if the 4 decided in advance who would be the one to distract “any opponent” who tried to help Adolin. They had contingency plans. For anything other than a KR, that is. So while Renarin was never a primary target, the 4 + Sadeas probably had a planning meeting or two about the possibilities.
Zahel – watching him join the fight would be great fun! It would also be fan service. While it has not been said outright – my belief is the Ardenitia is forbidden from joining duels. It would result in a complete break of all norms, and probably a forfeit of the fight.
Gepeto:
Renarin = sickly man-child with 1 month of training with Shardplate. And 2 week of training with Shardblade
Adolin = trained duelist & soldier of 7+ years. Considered one of the best duelist in ages.
Watching the two fight adversaries on the dueling field would be like watching a trained Police dog and an eight week old puppy battle 4 rabid dogs. You know the older dog has a chance of winning. The puppy is a goner.
You love each dog equally, but you will feel more hopeless for the puppy.
EDIT:
I think wcarter has it right with his comments @37. Dalinar treats Adolin firmer because he will become the Highprince one day. He will have to carry the weight. And Dalinar is ashamed of being drunk while his brother died. So to prevent the possibly of Adolin even looking at that road, Dalinar is firm.
Dalinar has accepted that Adolin might be hurt every time he has gone into battle for 5 years. Dalinar acts to protect Adolin when it becomes clear the fight is not right. Parents have to accept their children are going into dangerous situations all the time. Think about any military, police, or fire-fighter family. We want to protect them, but if they have the training to protect themselves, we have to accept their choices to fight.
Something else that would contribute to the length of the fight is the need to bait Dalinar onto the field. The duelists have to know they’re dog meat if Dalinar is still in play after they kill or cripple Adolin. Swarming him while he’s not in plate is one thing but in a normal duel? The lot of them would be cruising for burned out eye-sockets.
And let’s not forget about Navani (and Jasnah but she’s supposedly dead [and Shallan but they don’t know about her]).
Dog. Meat.
@51 Aegis
Don’t worry your secret is safe with me. And whoever else would read these comments. :)
@52 noblehunter
I’m not sure anyone is worried about the Kings anger over this.
Lets say the worst happens and they decimated the Kholin house. Adolin and Dalinar are either dead or incapacitated. This would leave Renarin in charge and it’s going years before people would take him seriously as a highprince, even with Navani’s help. Which I think she would give. Navani might be only force that people have to worry about but she often sees herself as a relic of the past who can’t effect the court. It’s going to be a while before she can act in revenge as well.
I don’t the Alethi would worry about revenge that would come at a later date. They would expect it. It’s seems to be the Alethi way to a certain degree. I think that Elhokar would believe that as the King he can’t act unfairly towards these people because it was sanctioned duel. It follows the laws of time, if he’s to maintain the veneer of a fair king he can’t be seen to act against the other duelist involved. No if Elhokar was more a strong king and better at scheming I would believe that Elhokar be able to exact some sort of revenge but given how weak seen Elhokar’s rule is, I don’t think anythign would happen.
This is very long winded way to say: I don’t think Istow needed assurances against the king, as long as she is it looks like she followed the letter of the law. If you can abandon your allies in battle and everyone can know it but as long as it looks like you tried it’s okay. Istow could be corrupt but as long as it looks like she followed dueling conventions I don’t think anything happened to her.
@53: I am not saying Dalinar should treat Adolin as a child, but he is not treating him as a son, most of the time. His behavior is entirely different with his eldest than with his youngest. While that can easily be excused by the fact Renarin is sick, it does not explain why he is seen to be more fatherly with Kaladin or Elhokar than Adolin…
I do not think Dalinar should not trust Adolin or not treat him as an adult, but there is just something missing in their relationships. It could be I am reading too much into it, but it feels of, to me.
@54: Adolin never had a chance to win. It does not matter if he was a Police dog while Renarin was just a Puppy: it front of a whole mutt of wolves, he is equally doomed, more so there was the possibility the wolves would ignore the Puppy to concentrate on the Police Dog.
You love them equally, but it is clear the wolves are going for the Police Dog, not the Puppy.
Let’s not forget Navani was against the dueling spree to begin with. She may not have openly stated it, but Kaladin saw how disturbed she was Adolin would need to duel all of these people. General Kahl also expressed concerns over the idea. It is one thing to let your adult children risk their life for their chosen profession, but Dalinar is doing more than that in WoR. He is using his son as a tool to assess his power, giving him the order to “Win Shards for me son.”. On my side the problem is not the plan itself, it is of all people Dalinar is never expressing any concern whatsoever.
Ialai has stated it rightly: the boy is a tool. Adolin is a tool. Dalinar’s tool, but he also is his son. The lack of reaction from Dalinar when it comes to Adolin is sometimes baffling. Again, maybe there is nothing there, but I keep pin-pointing on how different his behavior is when it comes to his eldest.
@@@@@ 56 I think there’s a difference between worrying about revenge as a political maneuver and revenge being pursued by the Blackthorn who could easily decide he had nothing to lose. Sadeas’ position was secure enough (was! [/happy]) that even though Dalinar slipped free of the trap there wasn’t much the Kholins could do. These duelists aren’t Highprinces with the corresponding protections.
Elhokar isn’t a threat to the other duelists, he’s a threat to the judge. I don’t think we’re clear on the exact limits of the king’s authority, dismissing an official seems within them.
Braid_Tug – I like the dogs analogy. You’re concerned for both, but the trained K9 at least has a chance, while the puppy’s only hope is to be ignored… and he’s not being ignored.
(BTW, the comments @37 were wcarters, not mine… but thanks! ;) )
@several – Obviously our angles on this differ, but I see Dalinar treating Adolin much more like a partner than a tool. Perhaps a junior partner, since he has less experience, but a partner nonetheless. Adolin is included in every strategy session, and not just to take orders. He has input and opinions just like the others – and he takes orders from the highprince just like the others. The big difference is that in private, he gets to argue with his father about it if he wants.
It’s not like Dalinar sent Adolin out to duel against his will. Adolin was thrilled (pun intended) to finally be able to get into real duels again. He lit up like the fourth of July when Dalinar suggested it. He knows exactly why he’s doing it, and he knows exactly why Dalinar changed his mind about following the Codes in this particular time and place. He’s not being used like an oblivious fool – or tool – but is entering into the teamwork needed to fulfill their strategy.
Sure, Dalinar has had the responsibility of training his son, and like any good father, he’s tried to help his son be a better man than he himself was. Isn’t that the goal of good parenting? We don’t just hope for our kids to be as good as us, we want them to stand on our shoulders and be better, by learning from our mistakes instead of just repeating them. So, sure, he doesn’t want Adolin to be the same thoughtless, bloodthirsty brute he was at that age, but to start with better moral values than “might makes right.” And IMO, he’s succeeded. Somewhere in the last couple of weeks, I quoted the scene from TWoK where Adolin suddenly sees the difference between the leadership in the Kholin army vs. the other highprinces’ armies, and realizes that what Dalinar does is not about him, but about the people for whom he is responsible. And from that point on, he stops complaining about following the Codes. It was another growing-up moment for him.
Meh. I’ll stop, and just conclude that from my perspective, while neither man is perfect and therefore their relationship can’t be perfect either, they have a pretty good father-son relationship. It works for me. Oh, and since Renarin is a completely different person than Adolin, his relationship with their father is also completely different. As it should be.
@57
Have you ever considered that Dalinar can’t show that worry outloud for Adolin. He’s the leader here. He has to show support for Adolin because if he doesn’t than everyone is going to worry more by a factor a ten. And it might even affect Adolin trust in himself. Dalinar needs Adolin to be confidant and even if he’s worried he can’t show to others. If Navani is already worried about Adolin and Dalinar might not feel he can tell her he’s worried too because that would make her worry more.
I had forgotten that this fight was broken up into multiple chapters. It’ll be hard to restrain the discussion to this chapter alone.
Kaladin’s line at the end of this chapter is still one of my favourites: “Honor is dead. But I’ll see what I can do.” Not only is it yet another example of Kaladin being awesome, there’s the Cosmere implications.
Kaladin speaks truer than he knows: Tanavast, the holder of the Shard Honor, has been killed by Odium, with everything that implies. Not that there hasn’t been a ton of other interesting things to talk about, but I’m surprised no one has brought this up yet.
noblehunter @58 – “Elhokar isn’t a threat to the other duelists, he’s a threat to the judge. I don’t think we’re clear on the exact limits of the king’s authority, dismissing an official seems within them.”
I think you’re right; Istow actually says as much:
If the authority is granted by the king, logically it can be taken away by the king. Unfortunately, as kei_rin pointed out, Istow is careful to make it look like she’s following the letter of the law on dueling, so Elhokar doesn’t have a lot of grounds for firing her. (On the other hand, he often doesn’t seem to need “grounds” to do stupid things, so there’s that.) The only way I can see for her to be implicated is if someone (Jakamav, in an attempt to redeem himself?) were to reveal that she was involved in the planning, and/or that she had promised not to stop the duel short of blatant violations. That kind of information would at the very least prove that she was not an unbiased arbiter, which would definitely be grounds for removal from her position. We can hope.
@62 The Alethi system does not seem set up to significantly restrain the arbitrary exercise of power. I’ve been assuming that Elhokar doesn’t particularly need a reason to squash her if he chooses to. Even in more restrained systems, her position would not be a good one unless she was particularly protected by law or custom.
It’s one thing to fabricate a fig leaf so she can’t be fired for cause or be arrested for corruption. It’s another to expect her leaf to let her escape without consequence.
I was going to wait until the end of the next chapter to throw in my first ever comments on this re-read, but decided to just jump in now… ’cause this chapter is awesome.
RE: Istow
With respect to those who think otherwise, I do not believe she was bribed / bought / necessarily part of Sadeas’ camp.
I have met people like Istow, who have been given their own part of something to own (whether as part of a business or other organization). Those types of people allow that position and authority to become so intertwined within their identity that they cannot differentiate between themselves and the position. Istow will not accept any criticism or deviance from what she believes is the proper way for duals to be run.
Adolin (and the Kholin faction), by their actions, are disrupting her world in a way she finds an affront to her authority and the way she believes duels should be run (re: remember the way she reluctantly grants Andolin a victory in his duel with Salinor). Istow really has no recourse to address Andolin’s actions – the only person that has the authority she can turn to is the king, who would not listen to her concerns/criticisms.
I do, however, believe Istow played a large part in ensuring Sadeas’ faction was fully aware of the implications of the dual challenge Andolin made, as well as influencing the terms of the fight. I also believe her refusing to call off the match has nothing to do with Sadeas’ faction. Istow is a petty tyrant of her little domain, as as such, she saw the opportunity to rid herself of a problem (Andolin) and in doing so, demonstrating that people who flaunt the rules (her rules) will eventually pay a price.
I really do believe this was a “gift” that just happen to land in Sadeas’ lap, which he tried to take advantage.
It will be interesting to see if Istow will face long-term implications from her actions.
Re: Whitespine Uncaged
While this has been discussed in a number of posts, I’d like to throw in my $0.02 on the subject.
To me, this chapter is really about the last 2-3 paragraphs of the chapter. There is Andolin’s all out assault, there is Dalinar’s reaction to the trap and plea for help, Istow’s rebuke, Araman’s betrayal. All important points in the chapter.
But “Honour is dead” is the key to this chapter.
Araman’s glyphpair is the shape of a whitespine with raised tusks. In refusing to join the fight, he shows his true nature and dishonours the KR title Dalinar has placed upon him.
In joining the fight, Kaladin shows his true nature towards becoming a KR, and as such, unleashes the whitespine Araman would not to prove that honour is not dead.
That is how I see it, at least.
@58 noblehunter
Good point that if Dalinar is left alive and if he felt he really had nothing left to live for, he could pretty easily get his hands on another Blade and take his own revenge. Though I do think that things would have to get really really really bad before he was pushed to that point. Which the death of both of his sons might count as really really really bad.
Although we should remember that as of right now, ever last Kholin Shard is on the line in this battle. As far as the duelist now, once they win against Adolin there are no Shards for Dalinar to use against them. Personally, I don’t think Dalinar coming after with Blade was something that they considered a threat. But maybe they should have.
@66 I was thinking he’d duel them using the King’s shards. It’d be pretty easy to frame refusals to Dalinar’s challenges as pure cowardice, rather than political chicanery that covered them against Adolin.
Headdesk x10: Sadeas, Amaram, Relis, Elit, Jakamav and the 4th fighter. Especially for Amaram and Jerkamav (Adolin’s friend, not). It would have been awesome to see Zahel step in and kick butt, but I honestly don’t believe that could happen (as rationalized by Braid_Tug somewhere upthread). Also, Zahel probably needs to keep a low profile to succeed with whatever plan he has in play.
Wetlandernw @44
Absolutely! But Sigzil had just suggested to Kal that he join Amaram’s KR Crew. Don’t see that ending well if it had happened.
jeremyguebert @61
Wrt. Kal’s comment about Honor being dead–the metaphoric possibility crossed my mind too, but this is the first opportunity I’ve had to comment on this episode.
Trivia (?)
1. Lighteyes don’t cheer for their favorite contestant, but Darkeyes do. Jeez, loosen up a little folks. They need some adult beverages at these duels. Heh.
2. Kaladin observes that the dueling arena is in a crater similar to, but smaller than, those that house the warcamps. Also that the Shattered Plain is completely surrounded by such craters. Now that’s interesting (to me anyway). I think this is the first mention of craters entirely ringing the Plains. Red herring or important factoid?
Re Zahel entering the fray. I agree with the commenter who noted that Zahel is officially an Ardent who may be forbidden to enter such contests. Besides, he has no Shardplate or, ostensibly, a Shardblade. His chances of survival should he enter the fray is not likely to be much greater than Dalinar’s. Great skill can’t really compensate for lack of protection against those 6 foot monstrous blades. Nor do I see Zahel/Vasher revealing his Biochromatic abilities such as changing his appearance to be some ‘divine’ creature. He is obviously on this planet incognito for whatever reason, and may not even have all his Nalthis abilities – other than sensing when anyone is nearby. The stage is well set for Kaladin to enter the arena and show some of his abilities.
@59: Of course, a parent should adapt his parenting to nurture each child’s specific problematic, in that we agree. However, love should always be egalitarian. Simply because a child, now adult, does not have any visible hardships, simply because he is not handicap does not mean he should not receive love and occasional concern from his parents. Adolin loved to have Navani being openly concerned for him… Obviously the fact he is an “adult” has not erased all need for “parental” approval nor for “parental” love. I am a grown-up and I am more than happy to know my parents love me: I have seen enough adults with relationships issues with their parents to figure out they don’t stop mattering the minute you turn 16.
The problem I have with Dalinar is his outside love is not distributed evenly. We know he loves both his sons in equal measure mostly because we are privy to his thoughts, but were I an outside observer, I’d think he dotes more on one son than the other. I’d think he is cold and matter-of-fact with the eldest while he being openly loving and doting with the youngest. While I would understand his protectiveness of the sick one, I would not understand why he seems unable to openly demonstrate love for the oldest, why he seems to never drop the mask of the Highprince whenever he is around him.
That’s it. There is probably nothing of import into it. Adolin sure does not think it an issue. He is a rather selfless individual and he is, in all probability, fine with Dalinar being softer with everyone else but him. He always puts himself last so I do not doubt that’s just another one of those instance where everyone else matters more than him.
@60: It is not I think Dalinar should have voiced his concern, but I would have expected him to have thoughts about it, in his POV.
@70
Can you provide a scene where Dalinar is opening loving and doting on Renarin? I can’t think of a scene like that off hand. In fact the scenes that come to mind are the ones where either Dalinar is worrying about Renarin because he just doesn’t understand his son or the scenes where he’s snapping at Renarin because he just doesn’t understand his son. I get the impression that Dalinar does love Renarin he just doesn’t know what to do with him. Dalinar didn’t train Renarin in war because of Renarin’s blood weakness. Dalinar probably thought that Renarin was going to into the Ardentia for a long time. Nothing that Dalinar’s done has made me think that he would force his sons to follow life paths that they don’t want. He supports Adolin in his career and once he thinks he figures out that Renarin wants to go into war as well he supports him as well. That does not translate to me as being openly doting on him. I’m I just forgetting a scene?
@70: Well, it was mostly in WoK… Each time Dalinar is with Renarin, he is doting and caring. There aren’t many scenes with Renarin to begin with, I do agree, especially not in WoR, but in WoK, father and son do have a few exchanges. These went very differently than any exchange we have had in between Dalinar and Adolin.
Of course, in his own POV, Dalinar loves both sons. He is just more demonstrative with one than the other. As I said, it probably is a non-issue because Adolin probably does not care anyway. I caught into it because had I been Adolin: I would have cared.
@49 and 51: I really like that, it would be nice if Nightblood could be used for something good still…always liked him, I have a weakness for sentient weapons. And the spren being trapped in their broken state, well, that certainly feels like it could be an evil worthy of being destroyed.
Is there anything on Roshar that can break a Shardblade short of Cultivation or Odium itself?
@@@@@ 74 EvilMonkey
Certainly not that we have seen demonstrated so far. In fact nothing we’ve seen has ever even damaged a Shardblade in the least–including other Shardblades.
Personally, I see no reason to believe that Nightblood is capable of doing it either until it actually happens or Sanderson flat out says it can.
Yes, I’ve read Warbreaker and yes, it is capable of a lot of destruction. But frankly, it’s as deadly to its wielder as to anyone else. All it does is devour and corrupt Breaths–and presumable any other form of nascent investment like Stormlight, etc.–until it has been completely drained it from the immediate area killing everything in the process.
That said, it’s never actually done that to a discreet Splinter, which isn’t alive in the normal sense in the first place. Shardblades “living” or “dead” are spren, and therefore, splinters. Nightblood is an awakened made with thousands of breaths, but Sanderson has said that it too is technically a Shardblade, just a highly unusual one.
They work In different ways. But I would hesitate to call either one naturally “more powerful” than the other.
@47: I don’t think Zahel necessarily expected Adolin to win by attacking, but rather he saw that Adolin’s only chance of winning lay in attacking. Given a normal course of events, Adolin will lose 4 on 1. Fighting defensively follows a normal course of events. Attacking introduces enough random elements and complications to increase the odds that his opponents somehow blunder horribly and forfeit their massive advantage.
wcarter @31,
(build on … Fenrir @34, Andrew @40, Wet@45, noblehunter @55 and several others:)
If we believe that the four Shardbearers in concert with Sadeas at least tried to bait Dalinar into joining the fight and thereby expose himself to injury of death, this could account for the fact that Adolin manages to survives as long as he does (aside from his awesomeness ;) )
On top of that Relis really wanted to punish Adolin. With four (even with three) against one they were right to be sure of their success and they intended to prolong the fight as much as possible.
Then there ist the above mentioned argument that Shardbearers are solo fighters and thus even the allied Shardbearers would need to be wary of their allies blade to not be hit by one intended for Adolin, which would give him more room to move as otherwise could be expected.
All those factors contribute that Adolin (good as he is) holds himself at least for a time (until Kaladin joins) against four opponents and makes it (at least in my consideration) a bit less “unrealistic”.
@77: To be fair, he holds it for a few seconds, then he started being brutally pounded on. The only reason he didn’t die in the first moments of the fight was his Shardplate… He took hits over hits over hits and could barely fend himself. For my part, the duel illustrated how hard it is to take down a Shardbearer as the number of hits it took to start cracking Adolin’s Plate was huge. He himself comments on how hard the warhammer hits were, which made me wonder if you can actually get hurt while wearing a Plate… If he feels the blow, then does it mean he gets, at he very least, bruised through the ordeal? I had wondered, but it seems unlikely as Adolin does not appear to carry on any injuries following the fight.
When Kaladin jumped in, he still fought three and Kaladin commented it was too much. He fended some of the blows of, but took many in response. He was losing, slowly, but he was losing.
Had he been fighting with normal weapons, Adolin would have been bleeding to death 30 seconds after the start of the fight.
That being said, I’d like to point out that despite the fact he got hit on repetitively, Adolin does not get hurt during what has to be the worst duel in all history of Roshar. Thanks to his Plate. However it makes me wonder why Dalinar is so keen on forbidding dueling in times of war for fear officers may get injured… Nobody gets injured in duels from what we could see. 4 on 1 and not even a scratch. So why the big fuss over dueling? In comparison, hunting took out 50 men in the matter of minutes and Dalinar does not think badly upon it. This has to be one of the weirdest Dalinar’s behavior we have met so far.
From the text, I’d have to say Adolin holds it for more than a few seconds. At one early stage, he notes that if this had been a fight without Shards, Relis would be dead and Elit maimed (or the other way around?) while Adolin himself was still untouched. So in a very real sense, it’s the Plate (on everyone) that would have made him lose.
@79: Then I suspect they would have all had shields and armor… They would have fought differently… Don’t we have a quote stating how hard it was for former Shardbearers to learn how to fight without their Shards? I’d say Adolin holds his own for the time to swing about four hits, then he takes one and he panics. After that, he was done. So perhaps it was longer than a few seconds, but it was not very long.
RE: Dalinar/Renarin/Adolin
I see a lot of Ned Stark in Dalinar. He DOES love his kids dearly, but sometimes he doesn’t know what exactly to do with them. He sees that Adolin is pretty well-respected by the general public (despite his poor track record with women), and Renarin really isn’t regarded at all. One of Dalinar’s major character flaws is that he’s direct, and takes the direct route to solve his problems. In this case, it means trying to make Renarin into a copy of Adolin. One of the first father/son moments between Dalinar and Renarin is promising Renarin a set of Plate, for the express purpose of making him stronger. The problem here isn’t that he doesn’t love his children, it’s that he thinks they all want the same thing. I’m no parent myself, but I can’t imagine that’s a difficult mistake to make, on smaller scales.
RE: Highprince vs. father
The problem with Dalinar is that he sees himself as a father figure to a lot of other people beyond his biological children. He parents Elhokar in almost every interaction we see between the two. He calls Kaladin “son” all the time. Now, I understand that could just be a little mannerism of Dalinar’s, but the relationship between the two is far deeper than soldier/commanding officer. Kaladin gets away with a lot more than he should, if the relationship was just a working one. Then there’s the conversation at the end of WoK, carrying into WoR, where the entire group of warcamps are referred to as children that Dalinar takes it on himself to teach the right way. He doesn’t have a lack of paternal feeling, he has an overabundance of it.
On a side note, in an early draft of WoK, Renarin was a strategist. Not a particularly good one, if I remember the little snippet we got correctly, but he was still functionally a warrior. I’m a little surprised that it was changed, because I got the impression that Renarin was smarter than the average bear, but a lot of the conflict in his storyline is how poorly Renarin fits in with his family, which would allow for growth in both Renarin and his family. So perhaps that’s why he was changed. Nothing really here, just musings.
Gepeto @80 – “I’d say Adolin holds his own for the time to swing about four hits, then he takes one and he panics. After that, he was done. So perhaps it was longer than a few seconds, but it was not very long.”
I’m sorry, but I can’t bring myself to let that stand unchallenged. Way more than four hits, and way more than a few seconds. And Adolin did not panic the first time he was hit. Taking out all the non-fight bits, and bolding the specifically identified hits, here’s what it looked like:
That’s an absolute bare minimum of nine blows, assuming that every single blow was either called out or did visible Stormlight-leaking damage. At that point, still untouched, Adolin has significantly damaged two opponents and terrified the third. This could hardly have happened in less than 20 seconds, given the movements described; it’s likely to be somewhat more, as I think “barrage” implies more than two strokes, “assault” and “the beating of his sword” also sounds like more than two, and the bit with Abrobadar (again and again… until he heard grunts, curses… see fearspren on the ground) also implies more than two.
Still untouched. When Jakamav hits (damaging his back plate), he spins around to defend, leaving his side open to Elit. At this point he is finally surrounded by all four opponents, and is naturally starting to feel desperate, but not panic. Jakamav doesn’t use his Blade – he’s just charging in and trying to push Adolin off balance, and of course he succeeds at the cost of a couple of blows to his own Plate. At this point, surrounded and with all four of them raining blows on him…
Does that sound like panic to you? It doesn’t to me.
As long as it was a fair fight – if fair can be thought to include four against one, anyway – where everyone was following the accepted dueling conventions, Adolin held his own for at least a minute against all four, and there wasn’t the faintest hint of panic despite receiving a large number of blows. Panic didn’t happen until he discovered that they had no intention of fair play; against all the conventions, he was not going to be allowed to surrender until they had either killed or crippled him.
Conclusion? Way more than four hits, and way more than a few seconds, and not a hint of panic until he realized that they were going to break all the rules and try to destroy him.
@80: To be fair, Dalinar’s first impulse was not to give Renarin a Plate to make him stronger, but to gear him towards Ardentia where he thought he’d be able to use his skill for scholarship. It is only after Renarin blatantly told him he wished he had jumped into the chasm to get the world rid of him he agrees to give him a Plate. Renarin also makes it clear he does not want any other path than soldering. I thus do not see Dalinar as being guilty of raising both children equally or in treating Renarin as he treats Adolin. For me, it is quite the opposite. He dotes immensely on Renarin, he is concerned about him, all the time, but he takes the easy road with him. He allows him to keep on holding onto a dream he can’t achieve, worst he encourages him into doing so. Renarin is not just sick: he is not athletic, not at all. Being sick may have prevented him from learning sword fighting, but it sure did not prevent him from fitting up a bit, which he didn’t. Had he been my son, I would have dealt with the issue differently. I would not have given out the Plate to Renarin, but I would have promised him to do so, IF he proves to me he can be worthy of it. I’ll find someone to design a training program suited to him and I’d monitor his progress (it does not have to sword fighting, just harmless physical exercise). Then, only then, when I am convinced he can do it, I would let him play with the Plate.
The problem I have with Dalinar is not so much he sees many people as his children (Elhokar and Kaladin for instance), it is the fact he treats them better then Adolin. He is softer and easier on them then on Adolin. Kaladin got away with things Adolin could not even dream of doing and he is a simple guardsman. So for me it isn’t he lacks paternal instinct in general, it is the fact he lacks it when it comes to Adolin.
I do not know why Renarin’s original story line was changed. He was put more into the background: I assume there is a reason for it. I get the impression he perhaps thought Renarin was not “pitiful” enough in the earlier version. Back then, he still got to be a Shardbearer and he still got his chance at being a soldier, even if a poor one. In this version, he has nothing going on for him… so I guess we, the readers, are supposed to feel more sorry for him. That could be why the change was made.
@82: Alice, does it sincerely matters if it were a few seconds or a few minutes? It was short. That was the point. In the end, he panics. It does not matter if it was after or before he noticed he couldn’t surrender. As soon as he took a hit, he lost it. He was off-balance and he could not regain his momentum. So perhaps it was not panic right away, but the end game is the same.
Seconds or minutes, it truly is irrelevant. My whole point is Adolin did not held on for very long which was in response to travyl who thought him holding on at all was surprising. I had no intention of creating a polemic on that.
For me, part of the point of this chapter is to finally show us just how good Adolin is. His father thinks he’s good, he thinks he’s good, Zahel thinks he’s good… and everyone else (at least claims) to think he’s not all that, because he hasn’t been participating in the dueling ranking scheme. He did three “real” (for Shards) duels before this one in this book, in which he appeared to be inconsistent, giving creeps people like Relis an excuse to keep insisting that Adolin wasn’t worthy of fighting him.
This time, he goes out against four Shardbearers, including the current champion and two others recognized as among the best, and he does amazingly well against them. Does he get to the point of obviously losing within a couple of minutes? Yes, he does. Would Mr. Reigning Champion Relis have been able to do even that much? Obviously not. Would anyone else? Probably not.
It’s Adolin’s major moment of glory. Why diminish it by saying things like “Adolin holds his own for the time to swing about four hits, then he takes one and he panics”? Yeah, it really bugs me, because implying that Adolin panics at the first hit is just… so far off.
In point of fact, the minute he gets out of that circle and realizes that the break is because Renarin came into the arena, he shoves the panic away and he’s focused on doing his best to destroy them before they hurt Renarin – and that’s knowing that they intend to leave him a vegetable. Adolin deserves more respect than that.
Gepeto @@@@@ 84
Yes it matters and I am siding with Alice on this one. Adolin is an awesome duelist. And he deserves all the glory and respect for this fight.
There is BIG DIFFERENCE if it was seconds or minutes. Ask any athlete, whether they are Olympians or Pro. In all team sports, those last few seconds are so important if it was a matter of winning. I have seen games being won simply because a whole team did not give up and held on up to the last second, that is until the bell rang signaling the game is over. I have seen games lost within the last three minutes simply because a team gave up
For military people, it is a matter of life and death. And believe me when I say that it is very true. Those few seconds count. And if they are three minutes, they can all survive. If they only have seconds left, they will fight until the end so that they can survive.
And before you say it is the entertainment industry, I can assure you, it is not. Movies and books are based on this fact – every second counts. And there is a big difference between 5 minutes and 5 seconds if you are fighting for your life, or fighting for someone’s life like a surgeon doing precision surgery.
So please do not take this away from Adolin. Because he truly deserve the praise. Brandon gave Adolin this scene for a reason. And that is to show how truly awesome Adolin is.
That Adolin held off 4 opponents in more than 5 minutes shows how good he is.
@83
Characterizing Dalinar as a doting father just gets under my skin and doesn’t sit right with me. If you look up the meaning of doting, it’s to be extremely and uncritically fond of someone; adoring. I don’t think that characterizes how Dalinar is with Renarin.Or Adolin for that matter. That might be correct with how he treated Elhokar in WoK (which ended when he beat the snot out of him at the end of the book) but not his own sons. Dalinar as the doting father? It just doesn’t fit.
It makes sense that Dalinar’s concerned about Renarin. Like I said earlier Dalinar doesn’t understand Renarin. If you could not, no matter how hard you tried, understand what your child is going through wouldn’t you worry?
As to holding back on giving Renarin his plate until he’s proven himself. Renarin might not be as athletic as his brother but despite the blood weakness I didn’t get the impression that he’s not fit. He can keep up with his brother and father when riding and during the chasmfiend hunt he insist he can fight. He’s capable just not trained. The worry isn’t that he couldn’t lift the weapons or keep up with battle but that he would have one of his fits during a fight, which would leave him vulnerable. Also, remember that Zahel said that when learning how to use Plate you have unlearn almost everything that you know when it comes to fighting. Dalinar might not have thought it necessary to train Renarin in things that he was then going to have to unlearn if the ultimate goal was to have Renarin in Plate. The shard Plate is an equalizer, Dalinar specifically thinks to himself in WoK, that in ShardPlate is doesn’t matter that Renarin has a blood weakness.
I’m not going to go too far into if Dalinar treats others better than Adolin because “better” is something completely subjective. Personally, I think that Dalinar would prefer to treat Renarin the way he treats Adolin but by this time he knows that doing that won’t actually get the results that he’s looking for. So he trying other approaches to understand his son. It’s also explains why he’s more inconsistent with Renarin. He tries to be patient with Renarin but sometimes he just gets exasperated and snaps at him. Personally I think Dalinar’s “normal” parenting style is how he is with Adolin, and he’s done a good job with Adolin. He’s got a lot to be proud of. Then there is Renarin and Dalinar’s just flying blind when it comes to Renarin.
@@@@@ Several
OK I tried to leave it be after my initial comment. But seconds, minutes etc. You guys really, really don’t understand what I was saying @@@@@ 31 Sanderson’s a brillian writer and I love these two chapters in terms of emotion and characterization. But this “fight” is fundamentally broken to me.
There’s no way Adolin could have lasted minutes if this had been a real fight. “Punishment” or not.
I know Adolin is a talented duelest. It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter if he is the most talented duelest to have ever picked up a blade. He isn’t a god and the fight only lasted as long as it did because it’s a story and Sanderson needed it to.
In real fights your other opponents don’t hold still and do nothing while you’re engaging someone else. But they do in movies and they did so here.
Reread the fight again if you don’t believe me. Seriously what was Abrobadar doing while Adolin engaged Relis/Ellit? He is introduced as being the fourth fighter then not mentioned a single time for the next 13 paragraphs.
He literally disappears from the fight and the dueling grounds for about 30 seconds until Sanderson needs him again. If he had been there, he and Jakamav should have been hitting Adolin in the back and/or his sides as soon as he focused on Relis.
If you tell me he held them off because he attacked. I call BS. The same way I would if you told me a man with no magical powers what so ever jumped off a 300 foot tall cliff with solid rock and stalagmites beneath it, flapped his arms like a bird, and landed gracefully.
Adolin’s only has two arms and two eyes. He can’t block more than one two-handed strike with his own blade at a time, and he can’t pull off a one hit kill against Shardplate at all.
The strategy I described in my initial comment is not complicated. It’s not advanced. It doesn’t require practiced coordination. It is a literally an instinct burned into all humans.
We are pack hunters. We have been surrounding and bludgeoning/spearing larger, more powerful prey to death as long as our species has existed. Armies still do it. gang bangers do it. Even children on a playground do it.
And yet here Sanderson is telling me these men are acting in the exact opposite way that men with spears should treat an uncaged Whitespine.
I’m a trained martial artist. I know professional fighters, police Defensive Tactics instructors, and historical weapons martial artists. I am only a first degree black belt making me the smallest and the least skilled out of everyone in that group. However, we all agree that there is no one–no one good enough to win against four skilled, adult opponents by himself. Especially when everyone has the same arms and armor.
“Oh but they’re used to fighting alone” Or “Oh but they have to make sure they don’t hit each other” etc.
Irrelevant. You can’t tell me that they didn’t plan out what they were going to do before the duel since they were obviously all on the same page. Adolin’s opponents don’t have to fight as one like Roman Legionaries. They just have to all fight at the same time.
As for injuring each other, all they had to do is surround him in a circle loose enough that they won’t accidentally hit each other, but still tight enough to box him in with their blades. They know how long their weapons are.
In other words, as soon as the fight started and Adolin closed the distance with Relis, the others could have surrounded him, and within a couple of seconds there have should be four strikes coming simultaneously against him at the rate of 1-3 per second per person.
That means, even if Adolin somehow successfully blocked every single strike from one of them, the other three people can still literally wail on him over and over and over as fast as they can move their arms while posing virtually no risk to each other.
@88
Just curious, did the 4 on 1 fight aspect throw you out of the story? Destoy your suspension of disbelief? Because there are many stories where heros take on multiple opponents and win in epic fantasy. Just off the top of my head, Rand in WOT taking on 5 people in a courtyard while not using his powers and all his opponents holding swords. No armor.
Just saying, complaining about the plot armor particular protagonists have kinda misses the point to me. As long as it’s not overly egregious (i.e. Supergirls in WOT) it shouldn’t be a problem. The reason most people read fiction is watching normal people doing amazing things. Of course, your mileage may vary.
@several: I think several commentators have the unbelievably wrong impression I do not love Adolin or I do not respect his skill. I need to state you would have an extremely hard time finding a more dedicated Adolin fan than I. In fact, I dare you to find one.
Whether Adolin lasted for a few seconds or a few minutes in his fight is completely irrelevant for me. What matters is he lasted. He should not have lasted, he should not have been able to land even one strike. wcarter is right in that regards, but he is good enough, amazing enough to have managed to cast in a momentum where he did land a few blows before he lost it. And yes, in the end, he panicked. That is not a negative critic, anyone living would have panicked way before he did. It simply illustrated how normal of a fighter he is: he is good, but he is not super-natural good such as Kaladin. This was not a fight a normal man could win on his own.
If anyone thinks I am diminishing Adolin’s talent here, then I have utterly failed at making my point.
@87: I do think the description of “doting father” befits Dalinar’s relationship with Renarin. How else do you explain him giving away powerful Shards to a boy completely unable to use them simply because he is his son? Shards are worth more than a kingdom. You give them to your handicap son and you tell me that does not befit the description of doting? It does. Dalinar is doting with Renarin.
Renarin is unfit. Kaladin comments on it. He states Renarin has slender limbs and hands that never saw work. After a few weeks for Bridge 4, he proudly states to Dalinar: “He is starting to fit up.”, which was ridiculous. Anyone who has ever done the slightest physical training knows it takes more than 2 weeks to start to see results. Renarin is not fit. He is not athletic either. Kaladin comments on how Moash is more apt, after one week of training, than Renarin after several weeks. Each time we see him training, he is awkward. He is not progressing fast either, not as fast as he should. It is not just he has fits which prevents him from joining armed combat, he is not in shape. The fact he kept up while riding proves nothing: you don’t need upper body strength to keep up riding, you don’t need cardio to keep up riding, you just need to be a good enough rider, which Renarin is.
If Dalinar’s ultimate goal was to get Renarin a Plate, he would have gotten him one sooner. He’s won Plates on the Plains. He gave them to the king. He could have given it to his son. He didn’t. He does not consider the idea of giving Shards to Renarin until he threatens to kill himself. That’s when Dalinar decides to dote on him. All in all, while I do not fault Dalinar for the sentient, this is not how he should have dealt with the issue. He should have made Renarin work to earn it. Renarin did not earn his Shards.
Dalinar states in his own POV how he has a soft spot for Renarin. He was the younger son too of a prominent more handsome, more talented, more charismatic older brother and he suffered all his life for it. If anything, Dalinar does not understand how come Renarin does not take it out on Adolin. He is baffled by it, but it also makes him more prone to dote on his younger son as he sees himself in him. He sees himself too in Adolin, but he does not see the same thing. In Renarin he sees what made him miserable, so he tries to mitigate it by being softer. In Adolin, he sees what he hated, so he goes harder on him to eliminate it. Bottom line is what he sees in Renarin makes him sad, so he compensates while what he sees in Adolin makes him angry, so he hardens.
The only, only time Dalinar snaps at Renarin is at the end of WoR, when he refuses to go protect the scholars. That is the only time the Highprince interacted with Renarin. The boy has always had the Father and now he saw the Highprince. All in all, he saw the facet of his father his brother sees all the time.
@88: I find your comments most interesting. What did you think should have happened? For my part, I thought the fight was realistic because Adolin did not last long, but I have not fighting training, so my perspective may not be accurate.
@88
Not being a fighter or martial artist, I honestly felt that the fact that the four didn’t all attack at once was due to the fact that Shardbarers are used to fighting a lone. There seems to be a tradition in Alethi culture of the lone Shardbarer. I agree that the four talked out a plan for what to do but I figured that they wouldn’t have practiced fighting together. And there was no way Adolin could have won the 4 on 1 fight, no question on that.
But Adolin did the right things to prolong the fight as much as he could. He had his back to a wall so they couldn’t flank him and given how long Shardblades are doing that could also have made it so that all four could get near enough without interfering with the other blades (these are ridiculously oversized weapons after all). He tried everything he could to keep the other four limited in how they could attack him. Unfortunately once he started attacking Relis, Elit and Adrobadar that allows Jakamav to get behind him, where he did exactly as you said and attacked while Adolin was engaged with the others. Form there went exactly how you expect and Adolin was trying to yield.
So I have a question for you as someone with a martial arts background. I assume that for most people today the only time that they fight someone else is in sparing and it’s one on one. How much time would a person have to practice fighting with another person in order to fight effectively? This question is coming from someone whose understanding of group fighting is that it’s hard to do effectively. Those examples that you gave of hunters, armies, and gangbangers; isn’t it the case that those groups have practiced that method of fighting? As for children on playground, I assume they are figuring out/practicing this method of group attack on the playground.
@88 wcarter: I have to disagree with how much you dismiss as irrelevant because if this duel comes down to being a “real” battle then Adolin is just outmatched and should be out of it in seconds. Yes, if this was a “real” battle with power armor and magic swords, Adolin would have been severely outmatched. No one in that arena thought of it as an actual fight until Kaladin dropped into the sand and completely changed what they could expect (honestly not even then, it was only after his display in the next chapter, but let’s leave that for now). It was an act: one that Adolin could only resist as much as he could from his sheer instinct to survive. Their plans for Renarin (and likely Dalinar) aren’t contingencies for if they’re interrupted when quickly trying to dispatch Adolin – they’re the plans they have set in motion when their act draws responses they want.
Yes I think Sanderson would err, even egregiously, on the side of what looks cool and cinematic versus what is realistic because it reads better – it’s just more entertaining. But when it comes to this fight, it is grossly out of character for it to be anything *but* a ridiculous spectacle – Adolin’s opponents wanted to make this a punishment everyone would see and remember (exactly like the duel Adolin did before this to bait Relis into accepting his challenge – the kind of vicious turnabout that perfectly fits with the petty Alethi elite).
To put it another way: we the readers know that 1) the 4 enemy shardbearers’ victory is not ensured and 2) there is a purpose to Adolin holding on, because we know Kaladin is there. Without Kaladin, nothing would have saved Adolin – no other Shardbearer was willing to intervene or had Plate ready, and stepping in without would be suicide if you don’t have the powers of a KR. The 4 fighting Adolin have no reason to rush in a try to secure the kill once his initial outburst is quelled – they can’t know that there’s a man about to jump in the ring with powers long-thought dead to help Adolin win. Instead, they probably have a very healthy incentive in the form of Sadeas’s backing to drag it out as long as they can before crippling/killing Adolin in the hopes of catching the bigger fish (Dalinar). Combine that with how the Alethi elite can be prideful and will overtly refuse to cooperate when they can see a better way to compete with one another (like, say, hypothetically, alternating who is attacking him to see which one can get a “good” blow), and honestly, it would be less true to the characters and world we’ve been presented with if this was a “real” battle and Kaladin had to intervene within seconds or Adolin would be dead.
@@@@@ Evilmonkey, Kei_rin and FenrirMorindin
When Rand fights five or Lan six I roll my eyes the exact same way. Worse actually, since they don’t even wear armor.
Don’t misunderstand me. I loved these two chapters. And I loved those fights in WoT. It’s just that when I read them, I attribute the protagonist’s winning or holding on to the Rule Of Awesome. Not to anything that could actually happen in real life. And I’m OK with that. Escapism is a big part of what makes Epic Fantasy enjoyable.
It’s just that I don’t particularly care for explanations about how <insert character name here> won/lasted since he did “this” or “that.” Because truthfully, I have seen skilled fighters take on multiple opponents at once. It’s humiliating.
If you would like to see an example for yourselves, The UFC posted a video on Youtube where several big name fighters try one of the Marine Core’s exercises.These are some of the best athletes and fighters around. Despite that, the same thing happens to them as to everyone else, and that was “only” two on one.
Even if Adolin’s opponents intentionally made the fight last long enough to try and draw Dalinar in, it would have been so obvious that he and the entire crowd would have seen right through it.
Once Kaladin jumps in, all my complaints go right out the window (I wouldn’t even have any objections if he had done so right from the get-go).Two fighters can take on superior numbers. They can cover each other’s blind spots and fight back to back.
The only way one fighter can realistically fight superior numbers is if he has at least one or more force multipliers on his side–better weapons, better armor, a terrain advantage—something. Adolin had none of those things.
So I just read this chapter and enjoy it the same way I do a good popcorn flick.
[Edited for typos I noted later]
@90
I don’t think anyone reading the comments for this re-read can deny that you love Adolin. I’m sure it gets said at least once per thread.
We’re just not going to agree on Dalinar and his relationship to Renarin. Doting is the wrong word to me. It brings to mind a parent who does not see their child’s short comings and who is unreasonable in their belief that their child is the best. Petunia and Vernon Dursley are doting parents, Dalinar Kholin isn’t. Yes he is softer with Renarin but he doesn’t mean he dotes on him. Like it’s been said Renarin and Adolin are different they shouldn’t be handled the same, it does not seem like Dalinar’s softness is excessive in Renarin case to me. YMMV.
I was not saying that Renarin was as fit as Adolin or the bridgemen. Of course Moash was better with his Shards in a shorter period of time. Moash was hardened from bridge runs and training as soldier. This is a long way between being physically fit and the level of fitness that a solder or professional fighter has. The point still is, they never had questions of Renarin being able to keep up or wield a weapon, it was worry that he would have fit on the battle field that kept him from being trained for it. He is starting at the level of an 11 or 12 year old in comparison to someone like Moash.
I re-read the scene where Dalinar promises to give Renarin the next plate and blade he wins. He knows Renarin is brave, he jumped into the fight with chasmfiend to help and we see it again in this chapter were he straight away goes to aid his brother. Also when I re-reading that section; Dalinar says that it’s time to try training again. Which to me is big hint for why Renarin can’t train without plate. They tried that, his blood weakness made it impossible for him to train without it. He never would be able to earn his plate as you want to unless he trains with plate. (At least not until he bonded a spren and used stormlight to negate the blood weakness but that’s not something Dalinar would know about.) Allowing his son access to Plate and Blade so that he train to be soldier is certainly favoritism and if you choose to call it doting that’s a personal call.
The only time we see Dalinar snap at Renarin in WoR is at the end but then there is also the time that the snaps at him in WoK at the hunt. WoR isn’t the first time he’s seen the Highprince as you put it. Personally I’m sure it’s happened before as well, even if we haven’t seen it.
@93
Thanks for link, my own personal google-fu failed to find useful example videos when I tried looking earlier. Though I did find that consensus among fighters seemed to be that you don’t want to fight two people at once ever. It certainly does put Adolin’s ability to hold out for as long as he did down to just Pure Awesomeness when compared real life.
Ok, another question.
Given Adolin’s royal treatment in this chapter as well as other Moments of Awesome he has in WOR, does anyone else get the feeling that Brandon backed himself into making a KR out of what was originally a throw away character? And if he becomes what many of us are hoping, how much does that change Brandon’s vision of how the story progresses? He’s said he has learned from RJ and GRRM in efforts to avoid the bloat from long epic series.
Not questioning his talent or even the the strength of his vision. It’s obviously too early to see full landscape of the story, especially when adding Cosmere elements into the mix. I just wanted to see if you all are seeing the possibilities.
@93 wcarter: Thanks for the video link, it was very informative. And I do agree, in a regular fight it’d be clear they aren’t going full-out, but remember that these were the same people observing who didn’t catch on to what Adolin was doing before in the leading up duels – sure a few people could tell what was happening, and either they acknowledged it and were willing to let it slide (i.e. they were in the Sadeas faction or just thought it was a good political maneuver) or tried to stop it and failed because of Istow not calling the fight. Honestly, most of the people watching are there for a show, so they wouldn’t care if they were playing with Adolin
Again, not trying to say any of your claims about how the fight would go under regular conditions are wrong; just that there is more than enough to the circumstances where I think it doesn’t need to be just Rule of Awesome to explain them (and that doing so is rather reductionist). I think that’s where we’re differing: you’re pulled out of seeing it as a legitimate fight because Adolin would get crushed quickly, so it must be Rule of Awesome, while I see it as deadly theater – the combat is real but overlying it is a clear sense of theatrics, appropriate considering Adolin was doing the same to them in the duels before this.
@95 EvilMonkey: I don’t think he’s necessarily backed into a corner with needing to make Adolin a KR – I don’t think Adolin is doomed to obsolescence if he doesn’t get powers (although if he does, yay for all of you out there hoping for it!). As for how it would change the story, that’s really up in the air. Sanderson works from outlines but he always gives his characters breathing room to deviate if they end up doing so. But well, if Adolin does have a changed role maybe we’re already seeing the change with the third Stormlight book being Dalinar’s flashback – considering the obvious parallels between Adolin and Dalinar (and how he was in his youth) it could be a better fit for a plot where Adolin has a bigger hand in shaping it. Or Adolin’s role could still be within the boundaries of that initial outline. We’ll need to wait and see I guess!
@96 FenrirMoridin
That’s fair I guess. One thing we’re certainly all in agreement in is that the Alethi nobility–male and female (if Istow, Ialai, and Aesudan are any indication)–are in general a conniving, back-stabbing, Machiavellian bunch of vipers.
Oh yes, and Amaran and Sadeas are the biggest scum-sucking tools to have ever sucked scum.
Honestly, there are times I marvel at Dalinar’s patience that he actually considers it worth it to try saving them from themselves at all.
Being a Radiant isn’t the only way a character can remain relevant. It is more interesting if he doesn’t become one and has to deal with everyone else being more powerful than him. It is like Jaime in ASoIaF who saw himself only as a master warrior and only became interesting when he lost that and had to find a new role. Adolin is also used to being a master duelist (even if he wasn’t allowed to duel much, but he still fought against the Parshendi). If suddenly even his love interest is better suited to fight surgebinding enemies or monsters with supernatural powers although in his society women are not supposed to fight, that puts him into a position where he has to find a new role for himself. If everyone is just a superwarrior, that is boring.
I’ll weigh in with a few uninformed opinions.
@93 cool video. I’ll just point out a that the obvious purpose of the video is to show the difference between show fighters and soldiers ways of thinking. A show fighter is fighting within certain confines of rules and expectations (depending on their chosen sport) in order to defeat a single opponent. A soldier is trained to put down a threat as quickly as possible, through whatever means necessary to be ready for the next threat (either alone or as a group).
Sadeas aside, what most lighteyes are invested in about Adolin is that he is fighting ‘dishonorably’ during his duels he’s basically breaking everyone’s expectations of how duels are ‘supposed’ to be fought. When the four team up to fight Adolin they are still trying to fight as duelists with strict adherence to the rules to show everyone the ‘right’ way of doing things. Like his first unconventional duel Adolin is fighting as a soldier/marine in order to ruthlessly put his opponents down as quickly as possible. If they completely swarm in like feral animals from the get go then they show themselves to be too much like him, they may be using underhanded methods but they are fighting the accepted Alethi way (as Sadeas did by abandoning Dalinar’s army). They can surround him but they have do do it respectably. I’m probably putting it poorly but the four are basically trying to win correctly but Adolin takes advantage at first by doing whatever he can.
I’m pretty sure boxing has rules against dropping to the ground with a leg sweep them stamping on your opponent when he’s down, apparently Alethi dueling conventions have never thought of the need. Adolin is not fighting a duel he is fighting a battle.
…Now I’m thinking of quidditch, how they apparently kept having to add new rules forbidding the various outlandish ways that wizards took advantage of them not existing yet. In years to come will young Alethi be reading rules (well, having them read) about how it is now illegal to throw a paint bomb in your opponent’s face ‘Adolin dueling addendum 23’.
@@@@@ Chocolaterob
Regular trainees don’t fair any better on the course. That aside, professional MMA fighters tend to be some of the best athletes on the planet. Their physical conditioning and natural reflexes are far beyond that of the average person.
They fight with rules true, but they train in practical disciplines–Ju Jitsu (most moves are meant to be lethal), Muay Tai (broken limbs galore), etc.
In any case, the “purpose of the video,” if there is one, was undoubtedly publicity for the UFC. The purpose and of the exercise in general is to show the participants that no one is invincible, and the strength of a Marine comes as a part of the whole.
Regardless, all that’s just my mind wandering on tangents while I wait for mid-morning. I see what you’re trying to say, but it still isn’t plausible to me.
Relis’s group isn’t trying to “win correctly.” They used a loop hole to gang up on Adolin (even if he unwittingly handed it to Relis, the man didn’t have to take advantage). They had no intentions of letting him surrender. Most importantly, they fully intended to break the rules by maiming or killing him and/or his father. Those objectives are at direct cross-purposes with the goal of “fighting honorably.”
If they were going to constrain themselves like Sadeas had done, they would have just let Adolin surrender from the get go and taken all of his family’s shards.
At the end of the day the Alethi aren’t honorable. They’re backstabbers, and they hate the Kohlins as a collective for disrupting the status quo.
@wcarter: Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you comparing unarmed fighting techniques with armed ones? Because as far as I can tell, that video mostly showed that somebody not trained with a weapon will easily lose against people who are.
@@@@@ 101 Torvald_Nom
It’s just one video. And one of the UFC guys was himself a trained Marine. Talk to a police officer, especially SWAT, if you want more information on how two or three on one fights usually go. Regardless of whether armed or unarmed, anyone going up against a superior number of equally or near- equally equipped fighters–even if they are less skilled–will always be at at a horrible disadvantage.
At two against one odds, it’s almost never done. I don’t have a clue what the real numbers are but I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it’s less than 1 in 1000 such fights. Unless the one can almost instantly take out one of his opponents he or she is definitely going to lose.
Adolin has four opponents and definitely can’t do that because of the Shardplate protects them.
Oh well, I’ve beaten this chull to death. I’ll lay off the fight. It’s implications for Adolin’s future that EvilMonkey brought up do interest me though. Anyone else have any thoughts on that?
@94: Fair enough. If the word doting makes you think of the Dursley, then I get why you dislike it. It is, of course, not what I meant. So perhaps the word doting is not the right one to describe what I had in mind. Alas, I unfortunately cannot thinkof another word.
My overall problem is not he is softer with Renarin (and rightly so), it is not he behaves differently with his younger son as he tries to help him find a purpose, it is he is NEVER soft with Adolin. Simply because Adolin is the successful one does not mean he does not deserve a bit of softness, once in a while. This was my problem. It had nothing to do with Dalinar and Renarin relationship, but with Dalinar and Adolin. I used Dalinar and Renarin to illustrate how differently he behaves with both son and while this is understandable, it does not excuse, in my book, why he seems to never be able to drop from his position as a Highprince whenever he interacts with Adolin, why he does not allow himself to just be a father with him, from times to times… but not it is always about duty and duty and duty and coldness. That is what’s bothering me, though as I said it likely is a non-issue. Adolin does not seem to care any way.
Renarin being unfit means he does not have enough cardio and upper body strength to actually be of much use on the battlefield even if he were without his sickness. You can’t expect the skinny toneless 19 years old boy to shape up in a warrior within a few weeks. Renarin likely has over a year, at the very least, of training before he’ll even start to built-up some decent muscles. In that optic, giving him a Plate usually awarded to trained soldiers was doting on him. I maintain my point he should have promised it to him, but not before he proves he can keep on a training schedule, he can fit up and he can get the shape of a soldier. Once he proves to me he can do these things, then I would be willing to let him use it. Renarin cannot learn sword fighting, but he could have used his leisure time to train nonetheless. Heck, if the only path in life he is considering is soldering, the fact he has not try to physically take any training is appealing. As a parent, I would think he is not serious enough for it, so I would ask for results before giving a away a priceless artifact.
Considering how valuable Shards are, I’d say giving one to Renarin was more than favoritism, it was doting. Favoritism would have been if he has privilege his son in front of other better soldiers. Renarin is not even a candidate for Shards, so it was doting, for me. I agree to disagree with the wording.
I read the snapping in WoK differently than you. Dalinar was clearly worried for Renarin so his snapping was that of a father who had been afraid for his son. The snapping at the end of WoR is very different: he was the Highprince demanding to a soldier to obey and that soldier’s spontaneous response was no. This scene illustrates the difference between Dalinar’s relationship with both sons. Adolin complains at times, but always obeys. Renarin has never been treated the same, so he does not get he has no choice: he says no. Well, you wanted to be a soldier Renarin. That’s what soldiers do. I love the reality check on Renarin in that scene.
@@@@@ 95 Evil Monkey – why do you call Adolin a throwaway character? Fromm WoK to WoR, he has remained a main character
@several: Concerning Adolin’s future…
I understand why Evil Monkey calls Adolin a throw-away character as he did die in the original outlay of SA. He has never been planned out as a main character. He has been initially planned as a minor character who bites the dust early on. The fact Brandon decided to not kill Adolin in order to enhance Dalinar’s story arc in WoK did disrupt the initial planning. Somehow, somewhere in between the draft versions of WoK, Brandon decided Adolin living made for a better story, but he still was not meant to be a main character.
Back in WoK, Adolin is the fourth character in terms of number of POV. He have not count them, but while he never had his own chapter icon, he may have had as many POV as Dalinar. Yet, everyone calls him a side character, ranking him under Szeth who has less POV time.
In WoR, Adolin has had more POV than Dalinar making him the third character in terms of POV time and yet, most readers still call him a secondary character. He is still considered less important than Szeth, Eshonai, Jasnah, Lift and Renarin, despite having had much more development. He still is, to this day, a character people don’t readily rank as one of the main ones. Worst, many people initial reaction to Adolin is he is going to go evil….
Ever since the release of WoR, Adolin is one of the most discussed character across the fandom. He does have his own fan base which grows larger everyday. He is a character most readers want to keep on reading about and yet… he still is not part of the plan. Brandon hardly ever talks about Adolin when he talks about the future of SA, so what he intents for him is wide open.
We know Szeth, Eshonai, Jasnah, Renarin and Lift will grow as character. This is a certainty. We know Heralds Taln and Shalash will be fleshed out in the second half and will become major characters. This is another certainty. We know we are likely to keep on reading about Kaladin, Shallan and Dalinar up until the end of the first arc, at the very least.
We have no idea what is going to happen to Adolin. Heck, I don’t even know if Brandon will give him POV time in book 3…. What prevents him from giving Adolin’s POV to Renarin? After all, Brandon did say Renarin was the brother who is important to the story… not Adolin. We all expect to read about the fallout after Sadeas’s death, what if we don’t get to see it from Adolin’s POV? What if it ends up being a setting to make Dalinar and Renarin, the important characters, grow? What if Adolin’s growth is over and done? He is not in the plan, nothing stops Brandon from just getting rid of him to get back to the initial plan. It could be there is no place for him in his plan.
As an Adolin die-hard fan I am constantly worried he won’t receive the character development I feel he deserved simply for being outside the mold of characters Brandon typically write. While he has many Kaladin-like characters in his various series, he has only one Adolin-like. He is going to want to write him? I want him to want to, but as people keep reminding me, this is not my story but his.
That being said, what would I want to see? Heck, I want him to become a Radiant, but not before being forced to live through being under-powered. I want him to go through an arc where he won’t know where his place is anymore, him who has always been so certain. I want him to grow outcast from his own family for his actions, I want him to lose his privilege and be forced to see the world under a new eye. I want him to struggle to find support, because nobody ever gives Adolin support. I want him to be forced to reconsider his entire relationship with his father and I want Dalinar’s arc to deal with this. And I also want him to revive that Blade, to go through an arc where we just don’t know what is happening with that Blade. I want it to start behaving abnormally, such as when he struggled to control it. I want more of that. I want Adolin to utterly fail at maintaining his role as a soldier, because he gets so disrupt he fails at controlling his Blade, because he can’t stomach the warfare now he has lost the Thrill, because he is just too unhinged to actually keep it up. I want all of this to happen under the nose of his family who won’t look twice because nobody ever looks twice at Adolin, nobody ever wonders if he is fine, they just assume he is. Ultimately, I want him to become a Radiant because his character is more interesting this way.
Of course, there are a thousand ways to write character development for Adolin that would encompass these thoughts, there are thousand of story arcs which would use pretty much the same theme. However, I can’t help be feeling the theme of the prince who loses it all despite actually being a nice person is a good one. It is not written very often. Fantasy characters tend to be the poor ones who rise up, hardly ever the reverse. Nearly all characters in SA partake this trope. Kaladin is a darkeye who is rising up, Shallan is a poor girl who is rising up, Renarin is a sick child with no self-esteem who will rise up, Dalinar is the former drunk who is rising up to God-like status… If Elhokar gets exploited, he will be a bad king who rises up. Jasnah perhaps falls outside that mold, but Adolin just has this potential that so refreshingly contrasts to most traditional story arcs in fantasy it would be a tragedy to not exploit it. These however are simply my thoughts as a reader. The author may completely disagree with me and it could be he does not think there is room for Adolin in the future of SA.
That being said, I find keeping Adolin as a mere Shardbearer now irrelevant to any fighting boring. It is too static. It deprives him of most growth and it takes him away from the action. It turns him into a minor character whom we would occasionally see, but won’t read much about in a story about Radiants. I love Adolin, so yes I want him to keep on getting as many POV as possible, which I only see happening if the Blade revival story arc is played. Without it, I am afraid he will either be killed or fade in the background.
@100 All true. I suppose what I’m now trying to say more clearly is that while they are all trying to fight him unfairly they are trying to present it in a very Alethi way. They make it look traditional and in keeping with the rules but just as Sadeas can get away with abandoning an Ally and be discreetly admired for it or Amaram makes sure he looks the part of being honorable, none of them are.
It’s the divide between tradition and honor. If something has been a certain way for long enough then it must be honorable to do it that way, Adolin does it differently to shake it up but doing things in a non traditional manner must therefore be dishonorable. They fight him using underhanded tactics but to the crowd their true dishonor is hidden therefore non existent, they just try to make it appear traditional as they put him in his place without using his ‘uncivilized’ methods.
@@@@@ Gepeto
Have you ever read the Codex Alera series?
The main character is literally the only non-superpowered person in his entire country and how he deals with it and becomes a force to be reckoned with is one of the best parts.
Adolin as a KR would be great. I would also like to see him wake up his blade.
But there’s more than one tool in Sanderson’s bag , and he might surprise us all with what he has in store for him.
@107: No I haven’t read it… Do you recommend it? I currently finishing Firefight and I am bound to move onto something else. Brandon’s YA stories are not my favorite, but it could be I am just outside the targeted audience. The story is a good one, but many things bothers me, which are likely all attributed to me not being a teenager anymore.
While what you suggest does sound interesting, I am not sure it can readily be applied to SA. So far, the story seems to be geared towards the return of the Radiants. Each book has, so far, heavily focus on the Radiant journey of both Kaladin and Shallan. In that optic, I fear there won’t be much place left, in the long run, for non-Radiant characters.
Of course, Brandon may have other plans entirely, but we must keep in mind plans regarding Adolin are not the same as plans regarding Kaladin. The author intended to write about one while the other simply happened because Dalinar’s perspective was boring without Adolin’s second regard. How far or how important is he willing to make the character who was supposed to die? It makes his future practically impossible to predict, which incidentally serves to make him even more interesting.
@104
Gepeto explained in 105 why Adolin was a throw away character, at least in the planning stages of both WOK and WOR. I like Adolin, great character for me and I like where he is as of now.
@birgit,
In a super power story, non super powered individuals tend to be marginalized unless they have other skills the main characters need. Sokka in A:TLA was the only unpowered guy in the group but he was not marginalized because he was a tactical genius for example. The problem with Adolin is that so far any skill he has that would keep him relevant without powers has been made obsolete by the rise of KR. He’s a decent tactician but Dalinar is better, with more experience. In a desolation dueling, Adolin’s elite skill, is probably gonna be less important. End of the world = no time for posturing games. As for politics, he does not have the temperment to be as effective as he would need to be to remain relevant and unpowered. Plus, there are better politicians on the team and both are Radients (Jasnah and Shallon). What other important skills does Adolin have to keep him in the forfront? Being Shallan’s boytoy only seems like a waste.
As far as I can see, there are 2 paths for Adolin to stay relevant in the Stormlight Archive. Become a KR and stay with the heroes or be an unpowered evil guy with intimate knowledge of the heroes. The second would certainly fit with some of his previous works where everything falls apart and becomes hopeless before the eventual triumph by the good guys.
Brandon is an excellent writer, that’s why we are all here after all. I’m sure he can cook up something good for Adolin to do. I just don’t know if he will be willing to make more out of a character he was originally going to kill off in the interest of keeping the series the length he originally intended.
@103
Renarin being unfit means he does not have enough cardio and upper body strength to actually be of much use on the battlefield even if he were without his sickness
Not disagreeing, but it wasn’t battlefield fitness that is the minimum requirement. It’s just being fit enough for Shardpalte. Without Shardplate, yes Renarin isn’t at the fitness level of Adolin, Kaladin, Moash, everyother male fighter on the Shatteredplains.
My point is that he never can reach that level of fitness without assistance of Shardplate (before bonding with spren). If you thought Dalinar should wait until Renarin reaches that, then you actually think Renarin should never get a Blade and Plate. Dalinar probably knew this.
Renarin is treated a lot like a soldier/officer who can’t fight. Dalinar tells Renarin to get casualty counts. Renarin also is require to wear the clothes of an officer like Adolin and is given tasks and jobs that a similar to a junior officer from what I can see. No one in Dalinar’s warcamp is idol. Renarin is treated very inconsistently because of this. On one hand he’s expected to do a junior officers tasks, on the other he is pushed away from battle. He’s clearly never been trained on what a mindset for battle should be. He’s apt to run in without a weapon.
If you think of see Renarin as I have described, a junior officer who has no battle experience but happens to be son of the commander. Favoritism and nepotism are the words of the day in my mind. If you see Renarin as the idle second son of the Kholin household, call it doting.
Edit: Accidentally used the idol instead of idle.
@95
Maybe it’s because we have such a large contingent of people who want Adolin to be a part of the story. I feel like Adolin was necessary surprise character. He’s quickly changed form a throwaway character. Given that Adolin is tied by blood to a couple of the books main characters, even if he never develops Radiant powers he’s going to be important to the book.
Personally I hope he does develop powers. Actually my current theories for what I would like to see on Adolin’s storyline are very much like Gepeto’s. (Though usually crazier because I throw theories out based on very tenuous threads.) That’s because that would be the most interesting storyline I could think for him. Though who knows, like @wcarter said, Sanderson could surprise us mightily when it comes to what is in store for Adolin.
@108 Re: Codex Alera
I LOVE the Codex Alera books. Let me put it this way. I own the Stormlight books in all three formats, audio, e-book and hardcover. I also own the Codex Alera books in audio, e-book and hardcover/paperback. I buy the first book for friends so they can read it. Tavi is by far one of my favorite characters in any series. I could say so much more but I’d just be spoiling the whole book if I keep talking. I would recommend you give it a try.
@wcarter
Did you see the AMA Jim Butcher did on Reddit? A fan asked about what would happen if Tavi and Dresden had to team up and Butcher said he need a whole book to answer that question. I’m screaming inside for want of that book. I hope that Butcher actually ends up writing it, after all Codex Alera was written based off a dare.
@109
I don’t think Adolin could go evil, even if he remained unpowered. Even with KR numbers going up, there is going to be need for someone to be in charge of the forces of normal soldiers. I could see Adolin serving this purpose and that would be an important role. I feel like going evil doesn’t fit with Adolin’s character. No I don’t think killing Sadeas opened him up to evil influences, which seems to be the most common argument for Adolin going evil. I also don’t think it fits with Adolin’s character for him to get so jealous that he’d go over to the darkside so to speak. Evil!Adolin doesn’t fit in my mind.
Mine either really. Frustrated? Sure. Feeling ineffectual? Absolutely. But evil? Only if he pulls an Anakin Skywalker and comes back to the light, redemption storyline style. Whatever Brandon does with him is something I’m interested in reading. That’s no question.
My point is whatever Adolin does has the potential to steal screen time from someone he actually planned to develop. If he wants to avoid bloat and keep the series at 10 books, whose development suffers? Lift? Jasnah? Shallon? Or does he strap Adolin’s development to another character, kinda ensuring that they grow together but keeping Adolin in the background?
@102: I’ll have to assume for the moment that those persons you’re referring to are trained in team combat, and used to either very short-ranged melee (knife-fighting) or firefights (as far as I’m aware, between one and two meters is a pretty uncommon weapon length for modern professional fighters). I’m simply not sure how much we can infer from that in regard to sword- and spear-fighting, especially when the parties involved are not used to fighting as a team. Perhaps putting a bunch of fencers into a melee might tell us more?
@109: I agree under-powered Adolin would render his character rapidly obsolete in a story meant to be geared on a bunch of new Radiants developing new powers. Had it been another story, it would have been an interesting twist, but in SA? We currently wonder how Brandon is going to squeeze in all the characters he said he would within the main narrative without removing those we currently love.
I agree with the question: “Can Adolin steel the POV time originally intended towards another character?”. My thoughts are yes, he can. He is an interesting enough character of his own to deserve his own spotlight. He has a large enough fan base and he is genuinely loved enough by the average reader to pull it off, even better, the readers who don’t dwell into the fandom and aren’t aware of Brandon’s planning probably think he is one the next one to be developed. The only reason we are so uncertain about him is because we know he is not part of the plan and we know he is not getting his own book.
That being said, any POV time spent on Adolin is POV time initially intended for someone else. Who should suffer? I can offer a list of “major characters” I am not overly interested to see fleshed out as much as Kaladin. For instance, I would not mind if Eshonai remained a side character, but many readers like the perspective she is having on the Parshendi culture. I personally could do with it outside the main narrative, but this is only me. I would also not mind if Szeth did not get the royal Kaladin treatment in terms of character development: I am fine with the occasional POV from him, but this is only me. His story arc does not currently demand more unless Brandon plans demand more. I would not mind if Jasnah’s development was almost entirely postponed until SA2, but that may be the actual plan. I would be fine with a few POV here and there from her until then, but that is only me. I would be fine with less, much less Kaladin POV time, but that also may be just me…
All in all, I would not mind if any character got less POV time in order to make room for Adolin. By this, before someone calls me out for it, I do not mean to remove all character and center the story solely on him: I simply mean his character is interesting enough to get his own spotlight and if that most come at someone else’s expense, then so be it. I’d rather read SA with Adolin in it as a major character than without him or with him serving the role of a minor side character.
My constant worry is not pertaining Brandon’s story telling skills, it is concerning his willingness to change his plan to accommodate Adolin. The fans want it, well most fans want it, but it disrupts an already very lengthy story.
@110: I don’t believe Renarin is the “idol” of the Kholin household as you put it, but I do believe Dalinar should not have given Shards, without conditions, to Renarin. I also am not convinced Renarin has shown enough dedication towards his supposed goal of being a soldier to deserve such favoritism without proving himself first. By proving, I do not mean to reach Adolin’s level, simply to prove he can: 1) undertake physical training, 2) fit himself up, 3) obey orders as all soldiers. The chasmfiend hunt showed he has not discernment and he is prone to disobedience which are terrible attributes for a soldiers. He was told to stand down: as a soldier, he would have been expected to obey.
Renarin has fits. While they prevent him from joining battle, they don’t prevent him from running laps, from lifting weight, from doing the warm-up kata Adolin is seen doing, from practicing the 10 stances without exchanging any blow. All in all, it is not an excuse for his poor physical shape unless his condition have other implications we are not privy to. From what we have seen, he gets fits on an occasional basis, mostly when he is stressed out, which is why he can’t become a soldier, but he should not have prevented him from fitting up. It sure does not prevent him from trying to lift bridges…. which means he could have physically trained all those years back (by that I mean non dangerous exercise, most training routines are not dangerous anyway). Worst, given he does not want to hear about any other career path, I would have expected him to work himself up to prove he can do it despite his sickness, not to simply give up. Based on this, I would have asked my son to prove me he can actually keep up with the training before I’d give him the Shards. It would still be favoritism, but it would make him more conscious of his responsibilities as a Shardbearer. Right now, we have Renarin playing at being a soldier… which is cute, but ineffective. That’s not the approach I would have had with him, but I did not mean to imply he was the “idol” or “his father’s favorite”.
My whole point in this conversation is not pertaining Dalinar’s relationship with Renarin. It is fine even if I don’t agree with the Shard issue. My point is his relationship with Adolin. Adolin hardly ever gets to see the soft side of Dalinar, always the dutiful one and it makes me sad for him.
Yeah the more Adolin fans there are, the better. He made a strong impression in WoR and I get frustrated he is still treated as a side character: he has MORE POV than Dalinar! How can he still be minor considering how much time we spend with him?
The ideas I listed are general ones. I have, of course, more detailed course of action for Adolin. In fact, I have tried to develop alternate potential story lines which would follow many trajectories…. I have a few favorite story lines for Adolin: those tend to involve quite a deal of angst. I think Adolin would write beautifully as the character who slowly gets more and more unhinged due to his growing inability to cope. My favorite story lines mirror WoR. In WoR, everything was going fine for him, in book 3, everything goes bad for him. He loses fights, he loses the girl (temporally, heart-broken Adolin would nicely add to the mix), he loses his momentum and he is stuck in an endless stray of “off-days”. All in all, it is a downward spiral until he hits rock bottom. In my favorite outlay, Dalinar has something to do with him finding the end of his rope, either intentionally or not. I like the idea he makes peace with his father while being down there and this event helps him bounce back. The Blade revival story usually kicks off for real after the rock bottom part, but there were foreshadowing before something bizarre was going on with that Blade. In all my favorite plot lines, Renarin has a role to play as I love the idea of their role being reversed. I believe being the supportive one would fit Renarin like a glove and it would create some nice brother/brother moments as someone will need to talk some sense into Adolin.
You can throw in all sort of events to make it more compelling, fights, battles, Odium influencing people, bromance with Kaladin…
I have of course, many more ideas…. This encompass most of my favorite ones, but there is just so many ways Adolin story arc can go it would be a waste to not use it.
However, before anyone jumps in and tells me again, it is not my story, but Brandon’s. It surely will be awesome with or without Adolin in it, though in my case the latter would diminish my pleasure into reading it.
@111: Alright, I’ll try the Codex Alera book. I hope I’ll like Tavi.
@112
I don’t think Adolin can go evil either. That is one huge red hearing. If a major character falls prey to Odium: I am convinced it won’t be Adolin.
My mistake I meant idle not idol when I was talking about Renarin. If your Renarin is the idle son of the Kholin house. As in you don’t think he’s been working towards his goals as much as he can.
Also he’s only lifting those bridges after he’s bonded with his spren. Just saying.
@115: Ah OK. It was a weird wording you had…. I thought you thought I meant Renarin was the favored son in the household… I did not mean to say he is idle, he is giving some work, but he is not seen to work much, mostly because there isn’t much he can actually do.
As for training, I am not given enough clues in book to justify why he can’t lift bridges prior to having bonded Glys. Anyway, for his bond to have had any effect on his strength, he would have needed to draw in stormlight which would have made him glow… So I dunno.
@115
Yeah, I didn’t even realize until I read your response that I used the wrong word. It changes the whole meaning of the sentence there.
I agree we haven’t see Renarin put in the work but that could be just a lack of POV from him though. And the fact that we don’t know if he could have lifted bridges before Glys is why it’s all about how a person individually reads Renarin’s character. I think that since we see so little of him it’s equally valid to think he could have put in the effort as he could have as it is to think that he didn’t try. Until we see his POV we don’t know. It’s not time yet in the story to know what’s going on with Renarin so we’re just left with a lot of possibilities and questions.
I know you want to keep the conversation focused on Adolin so I’ll leave it here.
@@@@@ 105 Gepeto and @@@@@ 109 EvilMonkey
Oh yes, I’ve heard that before. It’s actually here at Tor, in this re-read’s other chapters.
Truth is, that explanation does not hold water for me. Before coming over here and just being a normal reader, I saw Adolin’s character as awesome (I’ll why later on). In Way of Kings, I knew that Kaladin is the main character. Partly, I saw Shallan as an important character but Jasnah as the main one. I saw Shallan as a foil to Jasnah. As for Adolin, I saw him as a foil to Dalinar.
Here is why I find Adolin awesome:
I fell in love with Adolin in the Way of Kings simply because he is so good looking that he seemed to me as the quintessential Prince Charming as fairytale goes. But he is such a player that I threw that theory out of the window immediately. I found Adolin a good mix of the prince charming/bad boy. That he is a fashionista is a big plus. And oh, I immediately saw Douglas Booth as Adolin if ever there was a movie to be filmed today.
That said, I saw Adolin as an important but secondary character the same way I found Min in the Wheel of Time the first time she met all the folks from Two Rivers. Of course, WoT fans know what happened to Min later. But, back to Adolin.
The Words of Radiance changed everything for me. That was when I realized that Adolin is a major character and not just a foil to Dalinar or as Evil Monkey said, Shallan’s boy toy. LOL
Okay, back to IRL. It has been a year since Words of Radiance. And I was getting antsy to find out what was going on. One of Brandon’s post at Facebook mentioned the re-read here. So, out of curiosity, I found this group.
And for the first time, I was told Adolin’s character’s background. So, instead of feeling good, it was actually a let down. As an uninformed reader, I enjoyed the book as they were written. These tidbits of information, though very interesting is also bothersome to me to some extent.
Anyway, you can ask me why I keep on coming back if it bothers me so much. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment. (No FSoG innuendo). But the truth is, I’m ready for Book 3 and it will not be out till next year. :-( So, I’m here to fill the gap.
I don’t know what’s going to happen to Adolin. Brandon is a great storyteller. He probably had thought about it and has plans.
Earlier, I wanted Adolin to be a KR. Now, I don’t want him to be. I just want him to be 100% human. :-) I’m reading a sci-fi series from a not so famous author. And what he had done is great. The main characters are enhanced humans in a futuristic earth. Things keep on happening and the pure humans keep on saving these main characters just by being human. LOL These pure humans probably have about 10% screen time in this 4-book series. Yet, their humanity keeps on saving the human race.
Of course, it goes without saying that I want more screen time for Adolin. But, I hope that Brandon continue developing his character as a human without enhancements. His wits, his skills and his humanity in the end will save Roshar because after all, when the Heralds and the KR leave, the humans inherit Roshar.
@117: Fair enough. You had me confused for a while with your “idol”… I thought to myself: “She completely misunderstood me… Where did she get this idea?”. I am glad it was just a dumb typo :-P
For the rest, I do agree. We don’t know enough about Renarin, which is why it would be nice to get a few POV from him. I try to understand him as best as I can, but he is, obviously, a character very far away from myself. It strikes to me he has not done enough prior to receiving his Shards to make his dream to become a soldier plausible. However, there could be a reason for it we don’t yet know.
As for the bridge runs, I mentioned them to illustrate Renarin, despite having a sickness, is able to do physical training. It prevents him form joining warfare, but it does not seem to prevent him from fitting himself up. I hope the future books will give me more insights on this.
@118: It is always interesting to read why you love Adolin as it differs widely from myself. I realized reading WoR I had always loved Adolin, even back in WoK. I was very focused on Kaladin back then, but Adolin had to be my second favorite POV, not because he did much, but simply because I loved to read his thoughts. They are so down to earth and there is much in there I can personally relate to.
Essentially, I love Adolin because he is like me, mostly. He thinks like me, he behaves like me: reading Adolin is like reading my personal diary from when I was his age. I had never encountered a character so close to my own self before, especially not in fantasy. He is a rare happenstance, so of course I want to read more of him.
I agree that, before browsing on the fandom, our perspective may be different. I sincerely lost count of the Adolin discussions there has been in the last year and a half which may be why I sound so certain at times. Many things, I have discussed at length, before, so they seem as acquire.
I am curious however to learn what you dislike about Adolin’s background? Is it the fact we keep on saying he was not planned character? If so, I am not anymore happy about it than you are. I thought Adolin was important, up until I was told he wasn’t. Then, I got angry and sad.
Initially, I did not want Adolin as KR. Now, it is all I want. Initially, I was annoyed at all the Radiants popping out, but I have gotten over that.
@@@@@ 119 Gepeto – What I don’t like about Adolin’s background is that no matter what he had accomplished (or what Brandon had given Adolin in the storyline), people still say that he is a throwaway character or that he is not supposed to be there, that he is supposed to die. To me, it is like second guessing the author.
I have met Brandon only twice – once in Dallas and once in New York. I cannot say I know the man. I can honestly say though that I have read almost all of his work (I think I’m missing one or two books). Somehow, to second guess him seem impolite to me.
Granted, fans are just repeating what had been said during interviews and Q&A. But to keep on harping on things simply because it was said before just do not sit right with me.
I do a lot of interviews and my list is long. From true A-listers like Jack Nicholson to the infamous Kanye and Kim, and even up coming authors who only have one book to their name. From experience, I know that we should not take anything out of context. And that is what I am seeing about Adolin’s background.
So, he was an after thought. Can’t Brandon change his mind? After all, there are many times when a character just write themselves. That is according to other fiction authors I have interviewed.
Closer to home, I have interviewed fashion designers talking about what will be the path that their next collection will be. Six months later, the collection is so different from what the designer told me. Do I keep on talking to others that the designer told me something different from what we actually see on the catwalk? Of course not! That was the past. Telling it to others just does not do the collection justice.
BTW, each fashion collection by any designer is a story. The difference is this – the designer has 15 minutes to tell his or her story using 30-45 pieces of clothing. The designer can write on his press notes the inspiration. But it is up to us, the reviewers to interpret the story.
Going back to SA and actually all the books I have read – I interpret the story based on my experiences. You see differently from me. That is why books are so powerful, more powerful than cinema. It’s because our imagination can conjure so much more.
That’s my soap box. :-)
I think we need to be careful about assuming that, just because of the way Adolin was initially conceived, he cannot be a main character. There are several factors at play beyond his initial role in an earlier draft.
One, we simply don’t know how detailed Brandon’s outlining is for the remainder of the SA. Is it mostly at the level of major events and roughly what has to happen to get from one to the other? Or is it at the level of individual character arcs, so he has to either trade screen time or leave someone out in order to avoid bloat? I don’t know; I haven’t seen his notes. I tend to lean toward the former, at least at this stage of the planning.
Two, in at least one list, Brandon included Adolin as one of his focus characters. That may have been an artifact of answering questions off the top of his head, or just the way he was thinking at the time, or any number of things. More recent answers don’t include Adolin in the list of flasback characters, but that doesn’t make him less likely to have significant character development and POV time.
Three, Brandon has repeatedly emphasized that a flashback character doesn’t necessarily have to still be alive during the “real-time” action in that book. That’s mostly been stated in the context of “don’t assume that Dalinar will necessarily survive until Book Five, just because that’s going to be his flashback book.” (Not any more, I know, but bear with me here.) The part we haven’t acknowledged is that if the flashback character isn’t part of the real-time action, he or she doesn’t get any POVs in that book. So… Adolin’s POVs don’t necessarily have to come at the expense of someone else. For that matter, it would be entirely possible for Brandon to continue to use Eshonai only as an Interlude-POV person, even though he’s planning to give her a flashback sequence.
The point is, I think there are many ways that Adolin can continue to be a main POV character and have plenty of character development (in whatever direction!) without contributing to plot-bloat. The fact that his original role was to die right away doesn’t have that much bearing on what Brandon might do with him in the future. Making him a significant POV character has already changed that. Don’t hang your hopes or your griefs on something that’s been overwritten already.
(No, I haven’t seen anything of SA3 except the Kaladin and Jasnah bits that were posted here, and have only heard the reading that many others have.This is only my opinion. Maybe it’s just because I don’t think Adolin needs a flashback sequence to play a major role, and I definitely want him to play a major role!)
sheilglagh @120 – Umm… Did we just say the same thing at the same time? :D
@119
I have no proof for when Renarin bonded Glys but I suspect that it’s between the time that he got his plate and when Adolin gives him his blade back in chapter 14. He’s bonded to Glys after that point for sure. But in chapter 14 Renarin winces when he’s given his Blade by Adolin. I figure he’s hearing the screams of the Shardblade and he thinks that it’s normal. Which if he thinks that the screams are normal means he’s probably never touched either his father’s or brother’s Blades. As for the glowing thing. Kaladin hold stormlight all the time without obviously glowing. So does Shallan. The bridge runs for sure fall in after he’s bonded Glys though.
@119 and 120 Re: Adolin not being planned.
I think people have to careful about getting attached to much saying to saying that Adolin isn’t a main character because he wasn’t in the original plan. In the ealiest draft that we’ve seen, the one Sanderson released as alternate WoK where Kaladin keeps the Shardblade he won, Adolin is there. That was written years and years ago before he wrote the end of WoT. I think it was written before Elantris but I can’t be sure. Clearly Adolin’s been in the cast for a while. Sanderson has been planning this story out since he was a teenager, so not being part of the “original” cast doesn’t really mean much. Sanderson also said in an interview that Dalinar was the character that he been working with the longest. So if I had to guess, the rough starts that we haven’t seen probably followed Dalinar but Kaladin is the one the first book centers on when he got to publishing. Clearly things change as the story needs. Like Shallan said, Adolin is a nice surprise.
@Wetlandernw
Let me prove that I don’t know how to use the refresh button by writing something very similar. *face-palm*
@120: I may have never met Brandon, but I have read every single WoB or interview he has done since the release of WoR. I have read every single discussion thread ever created on Adolin and partake in most. Never once has Brandon ever named Adolin as one of his major characters. The question comes back very often and is asked in various manners, but his answers are consistent: he never names Adolin. People have asked who were the focus of each books, people have asked who were the flashback characters and he has repetitively given the same list for the past two years or so. So either the flashback characters are the focus characters or Brandon just gave us a generic answer, I have no idea, but I cannot ignore the fact he hardly ever talks about Adolin.
We also have WoB which confirm Adolin was not meant to be developed, that he initially died and that Renarin was the important brother. I am sincerely not inventing anything. I, to this day, wished I had never read those.
And yes, before someone asks, I have also read nearly everything Brandon has written and he tends to follow similar patterns when it comes to characters. Adolin is quite out of the box. I don’t know if it is a good thing or a bad thing: it merely is an observation from myself at this point in time.
That being said, some readers, such as myself, don’t want to get our hopes too high. I adore Adolin, but I don’t want to expect too much because I know I may be deceived. If you truly believes Adolin’s POV time will only increase, then do it. I am not convinced it will, worst I am afraid it will go down to make more room for Dalinar and Renarin who has been identified as more “important”. If I go about the next book thinking it will be an awesome Adolin themed book (as I used to think before I read all the WoB and the interviews and was deceived to find out he was not in the plan), then I know for sure I won’t like it and the last thing I want is to scroll through book 3 looking out for the Adolin’s POV only to find out there are very few of those. I don’t want to read book 3 in anticipation of Adolin’s story arc. I want to read it as I read any book: without any expectations and hoping to be surprised.
I don’t mean to temper anyone’s enthusiasm, but for me, every single WoB I get about the future of SA are difficult to bear because they mention everyone, but Adolin. It could be, as you say, I am taking things out of context or I am reading too much into not much. It is entirely possible and I have never denied this. In fact, I WANT to be wrong, but what if I am not? The emotional backslash from being deceived would be awful: I need to quell it before it hits. I need to prepare myself to not get a strong negative response because it hurts, because it is hard to bear, because it makes my life temporarily miserable and yes just for a book (I do the same for everything really, not just books). I don’t want to have to deal with it. It is not fun, nor rational, nor interesting, especially for “just a book”. I thus need to built in those walls to protect my interest in SA because it is a fun one, but I don’t want to lose it because my favorite character does not turn out how I wished. This is why I make such a big fuss out of it. Besides, every single comments telling me I am wrong are good ones, so keep them coming.
@121: We do know Brandon has redesigned some of SA to make more room for Adolin, which led me to believe he may play a role, but not a large one. His new role is said to be bigger than the original one, but he confirmed elsewhere the original role was to die… So sorry if fans such as I are drawing conclusions here.
The list where Brandon has included Adolin as one of his focus characters dates from 2011. It also includes Navani which we suspect is bond to play a very small role in the overall story. At that point in time, he considered writing a book from her perspective, but decided against it thinking it redundant to Dalinar’s story arc. Since then, he has not once named Adolin in any of his lists, but he has added Taln, Shalash, Lift and Renarin.
It is true not being in the list does not mean he won’t get any decent character development, but it also does not guaranty he will. He may or he may not. However, for instance, I do know Renarin and Jasnah will get some, eventually. With Adolin I just don’t know what to expect. It may be awesome or deceiving. There is no way to tell with the information at hand, but many of us have since lowered our expectations and started to think the lack of mentions of Adolin’s name means he won’t get much. It may be wrong of us to do so, but we work with what we’ve got.
Brandon has stated, again recently, at least one flashback character would be dead at the time of his sequence. Initially, everyone thought he meant Dalinar, but since Dalinar has been moved to book 3, nothing is certain. I do know having a flashback sequence does not mean that character will be part of the main story arc, Brandon has said as much. However, from my mere fan’s perspective, he puts so much emphasis on this line-up in interview, I cannot help to think these are the 10 and there is no more room for an eleventh.
Alice, the reason I rant so much about it is, as I said earlier, I need to not come into book 3 with too high expectations with respect to Adolin’s story arc. This has the potential to ruin the entire series for me. For once, I actually like a character that MAY get development, I don’t want to get my hopes too high only to see them crush down. The fact Brandon has given us those answers tempers my mood greatly in that regards… There is certain things I do expect in book 3, which are reasonable to expect, but Adolin? I frankly have no idea and despite all my love and my hope he’d get a fair chunk of it, I cannot help being deeply afraid he won’t. Because of all these WoB which may mean all that you have said, but could also mean something else entirely.
You also know I personally yearn to have those Adolin’s flashbacks… Brandon said they were the flavor of each book and it saddens to know there is no “Adolin flavored” book to come.
@123: Dalinar heard the screams in his Blade after saying two oaths in a consecutive manner. We don’t know which one triggers it, was it the first or the two? However, Renarin’s reaction to holding his new Blade does not strike me as one where he heard the screams. He would have reacted more violently. I also deemed it impossible he has never hold neither his father nor his brother’s Blade. This is unlikely at best. Whereas I do agree the evidence is not conclusive, I do think he said the first oath somewhere in between chapter 14 and chapter 25. I suspect he said a second one by the end of WoR.
The draft where Adolin died was not Way of Kings Prime, but the actual Way of Kings first draft. In that draft, he died. Brandon received comments Dalinar line of thoughts, where he oscillated in between believing the visions and not believing them was hard to follow and suggestions were to add another viewpoint character to present the other side. He chose Adolin, so he got to survive. Afterwards, another WoB told us Brandon decided to keep on writing Adolin because the character worked well in WoK. So yes, Adolin is not a planned character, but he is a nice surprise. What some of us wonders is how far is Brandon going to be willing to push his surprise?
@@@@@ 122 Alice – yes we did. :-) Great minds. :-)
@@@@@ 125 Gepeto – Ah, this is where the problem lies:
Drawing conclusions from what was said “off screen”, meaning outside of the book.
I can’t help but think of Greek mythology and the Trojan War. Achilles was supposed to die. It was foretold he would die. In fact, he was told that he has a choice – he can stay home and live or go to war and die so that his name will be known for thousand of years.
I don’t remember if Achilles went to war for the glory, or he went just because he wanted to or needed to. He knew what was going to happen. Readers knew what was going to happen. He was going to die. But, it did not stop everyone, including me from enjoying the story up to today.
The difference – Achilles death was foretold IN THE STORYLINE, not outside. All the predictions of Adolin’s death is OUTSIDE of the storyline. And that is what bothers me the most.
I want to enjoy Adolin. I don’t want people whispering all the time that he is not supposed to be there, that she should be dead already because it was said in an interview that Adolin should be dead.
Well, Adolin is still in the storyline. Brandon has not killed him off yet. The ending of WoR is open-ended for him. Will Brandon kill him off by having Adolin executed because of his crime. Or will Szeth do it with Nightblood?
I don’t know the answer. And I don’t want to know until Brandon actually kills Adolin off, if that is truly his plan. One thing I’m sure of is this. I trust Brandon’s story telling style. If Adolin dies, it is because Adolin EARNED that death, not because Adolin was not supposed to be there anymore.
Achilles earned his death. Paris killed him in the end of the Trojan War. It was the only way the Trojans can save their face because they already have lost the war due to the Trojan horse. Now, that is great story telling and I know that Brandon is capable of that. His books have proven it.
Sorry Gepeto if I have been emphatic.
@127: In the game of fandom, fans are always going to draw conclusions based on the clues at hand. The second you step into a discussion, you can’t avoid it. I am sorry if I cannot help myself.
Besides, I have never said Adolin is doomed to die. I said I was worried his place in the story may not be that of a major character. Enough on that subject already. The only reason it started was because of the “throw-away” comment made earlier by Evil Monkey.
@@@@@ 108 Gepeto and 110 Kei_rin
Sorry for the delay in replying. I had been up for over 24 hours due to a nasty quirk with my work schedule and a family function.
I love the Codex Alera series (it’s not YA by the way Gepeto if you’re looking to avoid those). I ddin’t read the full AMA but I have seen quite a bit of discussion on both Dresden and Tavi and how they might interact.
@@@@@113 Torvald_Norm
Shardblades give their bearers an advantage over crowds of enemies on a battlefield because they can instantly kill multiple people in a single swing, can’t be blocked and weigh practically nothing. The Shardbearer still depends on his own soliders staying close behind him so he cant get hit in his blind spot.
If the enemies are wearing Shardplate, and they are in a flat empty sandpit that advantage goes away.
This is a terrible description, but for lack of a better one, a fight between full shardbearers is basically a fist fight with really long arms. They’re not getting cut, and there isn’t any such thing as an instantly killing blow because that armor protects them until it finally takes too many hits and breaks (a knock out if you will).
That being said the disadvantage a single fighter has against a group in close range combat with no terrain advantage has far less to do with the types of arms being used (assuming everyone is armed) or the skill of his or her opponents (assuming it’s not a grown man fighting small children), as it has to do with the unchangeable, natural design limits of the human body.
At best: we only have two eyes that both face forward, two arms that primarily move forward and to the sides, and two legs with only slightly more range of motion than our arms.
We cannot see or move in two directions at once no matter how skilled we are. No matter how fast we are, that will never change. That’s why it’s almost impossible for a single fighter to beat two and it is impossible for him or her to beat a group of four. He or she is just going to take too many blows they can’t block.
Now if you are talking about modern firefights and the like which happen at a distance and incorporate concealment and/or cover, then reaction times and the like play a much bigger part and those rules no longer become absolute.
Though obviously the four armed men are still going to like their odds better than the one guy is his.
Gepeto @125 and several other folks re: Adolin’s status, there are a couple of quotes I want to reference, so I’m copying whole chunks so we know we’re talking about the same thing:
And this one:
I know you’re aware of these, but the point I wanted to make is that in 2011, after TWoK was out, Brandon was not thinking of Adolin as a throw-away, or even minor, character. At that point, he hadn’t totally decided which characters were going to have the flashbacks, but in his mind, those he listed in these two separate comments were “major characters.”
Which is not to say that they won’t get killed, but as sheiglagh said, anyone who dies will have earned it, not just fade away because Brandon doesn’t know what else to do with them or didn’t have a long-term plan.
Other thoughts:
– I don’t personally have the time to spend on the 17th Shard, so my WoB database is pretty much limited to what the guys put in the theoryland database and the Coppermind. That said, I suspect that one of the reasons we haven’t got more WoBs about Adolin is that he’s not the character people are asking about. After finding the limits to what Brandon would say about ramifications of killing Sadeas, there’s not a lot more to ask, right? Anyway, I don’t take the perceived lack to mean that Adolin is fading out of the picture. YMMV.
– Regarding the duel, and how long it takes for Abrobadar and Jakamav to get involved, I can think of several plot-related reasons beyond just the Rule of Awesome. (I’m sure that was the motivation, but given the need for Awesomeness to Happen, there are several reasonable possibilities, IMO).
One is that Abrobadar and Jakamav were deliberately working wide, to make sure that Adolin stayed in the center and faced Relis and Elit. (Adolin was backing toward a wall, not a corner.) Adolin’s charge wasn’t exactly in their plan, and Abrobadar may have taken a few seconds to adjust to what he was seeing. Another is that Jakamav may still have been hesitant about ganging up on someone he’d once called friend – not so hesitant that he refused to take part, but enough to take just a few extra seconds before he jumped in. Others have suggested that they may have planned to draw it out; I’d add that perhaps the original plan was for Relis and Elit to get in their “revenge strikes” first, and the other two were supposed to give them the chance for a little taunting and punishing first. That way, Abrobadar and Jakamav would logically have waited… until they realized (at different moments) that instead of getting their revenge strikes, his allies were getting cracks in their Plate, and they’d better get in there and do something.
While I understand the objection to the possibility that Adolin could even survive for seconds against four opponents, much less minutes, I think there are very Alethi-consistent reasons that the plan would have been something other than “take him down and out as fast as possible.” If they’d been serious about that approach, the scenario we’re given wouldn’t make any sense at all. So… maybe they weren’t taking that approach. Maybe they were taking more of a “toy with him and humiliate him for a while, then bust up his Plate and manage to ‘slip’ and take off an arm or two, a leg or two…” If that were the case, A & J would rightly have held back, until they realized that R & E were getting the worst of the deal.
Wasn’t Elend first planned to be less important, too? Just because Adolin originally wasn’t one of the major characters doesn’t mean he can’t have a larger role in the books.
Interview: Jul 29th, 2006
Mistborn: The Final Empire Annotations (Verbatim)
Brandon Sanderson
I wasn’t planning on Elend getting as big a part in this book as he ended up having. However, the more I wrote scenes with him, the more interested I became in him as a character. He doesn’t exist just to provide a romantic interest for Vin—he exists to show the human side of the nobility. I knew that I needed at least one nobleman who was presented favorably, otherwise Kelsier’s harshness wouldn’t have the contrast it needed. So, I designed a young man that Vin could meet at the balls.
Yet, when I started writing the scenes with Elend, I found them flowing very easily. I really liked his voice and his relaxed affability. MISTBORN, being about such a harsh world an society, threatened to become too dark. I needed another character like Elend to provide moments that were more lighthearted. He also gives us scenes that are interesting in a more thoughtful way, rather than a dark way. He turned out much better than I’d hoped, and is probably the biggest and most pleasant surprise of the novel.
I think this comparison doesn’t work all that well – fighting with long weapons really doesn’t work like fist fighting at all. I’ve only got a little experience from LARP-fighting to go on, but most of the time, and especially against multiple opponents, you’ll not block strikes at all, you’ll dodge them instead. Blocking is simply to time-consuming and wearisome. You’ll also keep moving to stay out of range of part of the opposition, and try to use them to stand in each others way (which is the main reason why getting surrounded is so dangerous).
Regarding Adolin’s fight, it’s worth pointing out that without armor he’d have been dead from that first hit in the back. He might have been able to kill or maim half of his attackers (which is extraordinary) but he’d still be dead.
He survives and succeeds for as long as he did by seizing the momementum of the fight, which the others let him do because they were afraid. Once they get over that, he’s done.
@132 Torvald_Norm
It’s not a good description I know what I was trying to say is, unlike a fight involving blades and no armor, or even a fight with batons, there is basically no way for full shardbearers to substantially injure each other at all until the plate is dealt with.
Oh and it doesn’t actually take that long to surround someone even if they are ducking and dodging. These men are athletes. Google NFL 40 yard dash average times. The Alethi may not be able to match those times on their own, but in Plate? Cut even those numbers in half. Come to think of it, I highly doubt the dueling ring is as big as a full football field. Cut them by more than half.
Also, I’m sorry but if LAARP is the sum total of your experience with actual fighting, then I’m done debating this with you.
@129: Thanks. I’ll check if it is available at the local library.
As for YA, I do not mind reading it, on an occasional basis, though I find it often lacks proper characterisation and it tends to make its heroes be unplausibly competent, despite their young age. There is nothing I hate more than to read about the teenager who has somehow managed to piece it all out, alone, by himself, while teams of scientifics/experts failed to do the same. I hate when the young inexperience kid ends up being right, all the time, and ends up seeing THE thing they all can’t. That annoys me. I sincrely hope Firefight won’t end as I predicted it will (I still have a few more chapters to read).
In that regards, I much prefered Brandon’s Rithmatist (I am sad its sequel got postponed to an undertermine time) to his Reckoners series, though I understand why the latest is more popular. Steelheart was good, but Firefight runs down with the cliche too much to my taste, but I bet teenagers are loving it. Providing they find a decent producer, they will make awesome movies. It’s got everything any teenager in the world loves to see: action, forbidden love, hot chick, cool powers, funky settings…
But hey, I want to read something else now, so I’ll check the Codex Alera story. How many books?
@130: Yes, I have indeed read these a while back. However, when ask more or less the same question, more recently, he has given different answers. I agree I may have the tendency to read too much into these than I should.
I have to clarify a few things pertaining WoB on Adolin… There are quite a few of those and not all have ended up in Theoryland or the Coppermind. In fact, of all characters, proportionally to his current role in the series, he may be one of the most asked about character. People are asking about Adolin, however the fact remains people are not asking many character related questions, on average. There aren’t many more WoB on Kaladin, Shallan or Dalinar either. Those who ask questions and later come to share them mostly ask about the magic system (What would happen if a Shardblade was used as a hemalurgy spike…. etc) or the Cosmere. Therefore, on average, the vast majority of the WoB we do get are in relation to aspects other than characterisation (For instance, if you read the 2000 questions on the AMA, you will see a handfull of character oriented questions and most are currently unanswered.). Among those very few character oriented WoB we do have, ever since the release of WoR, Adolin has a significant few. I did not make statistics, but for a character with a limited role and no Cosmere implication, he has been asked about quite a lot.
What I meant when I said Brandon never talks about Adolin is whenever he is asked questions pertaining the future of SA, he mentions many characters, but never him. I did not mean people aren’t asking about him, because they are. Of course, people are asking about many more things, but as far as character-oriented WoB goes, he is not left wanting.
What will happen to Adolin has been a highly discussed topic. Adolin, shipping wars, Kaladin’s homecoming and Elhokar are subjects I have seen pop by on a regular basis.
@134:
I’m not sure how 40-yard-dashes are supposed to serve as a comparison, seeing as we’re talking about a game of catch (i.e. not straight lines), not running straight at each other.
If you can think of a better comparison for shardblade fighting than LARP fighting, I’ll be happy to look into it; but I’m pretty sure you’re underestimating the relevance of distance to the fighting style (i.e. a shardblade is only effective against shardplate with forceful blows, so there’s a certain minimum distance that all combatants want to keep), which makes applying comparisons from unarmed and knife fighting techniques somewhat hard.
@135 Gepeto
Six books and it is a completed series. The first one is called Furies of Calderon.
Fair warning, Tavi starts out at 15 then ages into his early 20’s. He is good at figuring out things that no one else does (but those things all concern how to do something without relying on the series’ magic which everyone else can take for granted since they have it can use in pretty much every facet of their lives).
That being said all of the major characters in this series good and bad–and they’re mostly in their 30’s and 40’s are highly competent in their respective fields.
@137 Tavi also reads the right books and has access to some useful archeology, IRRC. He doesn’t come up with his toys a priori.
Gepeto @135 – Bah. I knew I left something out @130, and you reminded me. Granted that I haven’t followed every last WoB, but my impression is that, unless people are asking about specific characters, most of the more general stuff tends to focus toward the flashback characters… and by now, we’re pretty sure Adolin isn’t one of those. Another thing that just occurred to me is that Brandon may be deliberately avoiding mention of some characters, the less-obviously-important ones, so that he can blindside us with their stories. It is a thing he would do, IMO.
Again, none of this is based on any knowledge other than my perceptions of how he might be likely to respond to things, which is sketchy at best. If it works for you to convince yourself that Adolin won’t be a big player, so that all your surprises (in that regard) will be pleasant ones, I understand. I do that with some things. Just realize that there are others who don’t feel that need, so they aren’t likely to agree. It doesn’t need a debate, really, because Brandon will write what he thinks is right to write, right? ;)
Wetlander @@@@@ 139 – “because Brandon will write what he thinks is right to write, right?” Ha! Both accurate, and amusing, as always.
@@@@@ Gepeto 36: Kaladin’s brand “shash” does mean dangerous not disobedient.
Re Dalinar’s a bad dad: I think some might be reading too much into this. I think Dalinar is a great dad who obviously cares a great deal about both of his sons. He treats them differently because they are different individuals. I love my kids equally but that love manifests itself differently for all 3 of them. Similarly my relationship with my father is different than that of my siblings. Both my Dad and I are engineers in the rocket industry and often our relationship feels like working with a very kind, loving, and mentoring peer. I can see that relationship with Dalinar and Adolin. I don’t think we’re getting any signs that Dalinar is evil or corrupted or anything of the sort. He was placed in a very difficult position, he still loves his kids, he still treats them with respect. He isn’t overbearing and wanting to control everything they do. He lets them make decisions and then supports them as fully as he can.
Re whitespine: Brandon seems to have multiple meanings for many of his title chapters and I’m positive this is another. The whitespine certainly refers to Adolin, but the dramatic ending of the scene with Kaladin jumping into the fray is another clear uncaging of a whitespine.
@135, Gepeto: Rithmatist sequel is postponed because Brandon plans to have it take place mostly in South America. He wants/needs to do research into the history and cultures of the areas he’s playing around with. So that he can avoid some of the most obvious failures of writing about another culture.
Wow! y’all exploded with the comments this weekend.
Can’t wait to see what is said about ch. 57.
@137: Age does not bother me in characters. In fact, I like them young. What bothers me is when a character is not given appropriate background for his success… It makes me feel as if I were reading a Mary/Gary-Sue. Unfortunately, most YA novels are guilty of this.
I’ll check it up. I can’t tell just on paper if I’ll like Tavi or not. I need to read it.
@139: Yeah…. You are right… The general questions seemed geared towards the flashback characters, though the questions themselves are often not that precise… People are just asking who the focus characters of the next arc will be and Brandon answers by his line-up of flashbacks… I keep on thinking focus and flashback characters are not the same, but Brandon answers the same to both questions… which is on the verge of giving me a headache.
The thought he may be purposefully avoiding to mention certain characters has crossed my mind to… He is always careful in his answers on Adolin related questions. He is never saying much, but never giving out a RAFO. In the end, we find out we don’t know much more than before. It could be he does not want to give it away just yet.
The downside from having three years to discuss the book is we too often end up with a too detailed list of expectations which won’t/can’t all be met. I don’t want to be deceived by the next book because it may not play out as I wish. Back in the time of WoK, several individuals invested themselves A LOT into theories about Renarin and Shallan forming a romantic union. Even when the prelude chapters were released and the news of the casual to Adolin was announced, the same individuals still persisted in thinking Shallan would prefer Renarin. Needless to say their deception was HUGE. Not only Shallarin never set sail and likely never will, Renarin had all but a very small role to play in book 2. This has taught me not to make myself too high expectations as I want to keep on enjoying reading other characters story arc, which is why I keep on lowering my hopes with respect to Adolin. However, I certainly don’t expect anyone to do the same… that would be foolish nor did I want to start a debate. The original post was in response to why certain people called Adolin a “throw-away character”. There is a legitimate reason for it, which may or may not be valid, but storms we are not in Brandon’s head.
So basically, I just want to keep on enjoying reading what Brandon will write, right?
@141: I believe people may have misunderstood my concerns with regards to Dalinar’s parenting skill. I feel I need to make a few clarifications.
1) I do not think Dalinar is a bad parent, but I do believe he has made mistake with both his sons, which makes him realistic as let’s be frank, all parents make mistake, one day or another.
Among those mistakes, there is given out Shards to Renarin without imposing conditions. Dalinar only promises to give Renarin the next set of Shards he’ll win after Renarin admits he wished the chasmfiend had trust him into the chasm. You don’t compensate your child’s emotional distress by giving him over-prized toys. Instead of treating the injury, Dalinar put a pretty band-aid on it and hoped it would disappear. However, Renarin’s problems run deeper than him having a sickness preventing him from becoming a soldier: he does not have the temperament nor does he have the physical aptitudes to become one. This is not a critic towards Renarin: we all have our strengths and his clearly aren’t in the athletic department. Despite this, he hangs up to this childish dream he could become a soldier (and stubbornly refuses to see any other options as valuable) and Dalinar makes him believe he will, providing he receives the proper tools…
I do not blame Dalinar, his behavior is understandable, but it is not make it right. I believe he was wrong.
The other mistake I have seen in Dalinar is the fact he holds a double standard. There is the standard he applies to everyone: Renarin, Elhokar and even Kaladin. Then there is the standard he applies to Adolin which is much higher. Of course, he has unbelievably good reasons to do so, but my main issues is whereas your parental techniques should be adapted to each child’s personality, your affection shouldn’t. You should love your children equally and you should tell them so in whatever manner you see fit, which Dalinar is not, currently doing with Adolin. It would not bother me Dalinar never testifies any open affection towards Adolin if he was not doing so for anyone else. I’d then just think he is one of those men who can’t quite express feelings, sadly he isn’t. He does it with everyone else, but his eldest son. Again, there are a thousand amazingly good reasons for it, but it does not change the fact everyone deserves a bit of affection from times to times, even grown-ups do. However, I fear Dalinar’s approach with Adolin is completely geared towards making him the best possible man, which is again great, but it has subverted his role as a parent.
That being said, as I said earlier, this is likely a NO issue. I care about it, because I grew up on a double standard in a household with a disabled sibling: never being considered worthy of any special attention due to my personal success (and my apparent lack of need in terms of support) has always been a sour spot, so yes when I read Dalinar and Adolin, I think back of how I used to feel all those years ago. However, Adolin is not me, so he may not care where I did.
So again, I do not think Dalinar is a bad parent, but I do believe he has, as all parents, made mistakes.
@142: Thanks for the info on the Rithmatist! At the Spokane signing, he said his focus for the next years was Stormlight, Mistborn and action-packed teenage oriented series. He said projects such as the Rithmatist were postponed to an undermined time. Since I happen to prefer this story to his “action-packed teenage oriented” ones, I was sorry to hear it. I thought the Rithmatist was an adorable YA story with plausible characters who behaved within the limit of reasonable given their background and their world. I really liked that one. The Reckoners made me think of steroids infused story where the main protagonist is an hyper-active know-it-all purposefully allowed to endanger everyone for the shake of a pretty obnoxious girl who is clearly lying…. I rolled my eyes through half of the story, but I understand why teenagers are liking it. I am just not in the intended demography.
@143
Re: Codex Alera
I know what you mean but the phrasing made me smile. Either way I hope you enjoy the book. Personally I think the first book okay and a good read but the second book is where I fall in love with the series.
@139 and 143
“Brandon will write what he thinks is right to write, right?”
“I can’t tell just on paper if I’ll like Tavi or not.”
Seriously? Is this where the bar is set now? I don’t have a head for a word play debate. I’ll never get ahead, so I’m not taking the bait.
@145: Wit would be proud of us…. Or not.
They don’t have Codex Alera at the local library. Sigh. If I want to read it, I’ll need to buy it.
@146, Gepeto: Ask about inter-library loan, it has been my friend. Your branch might not have it, but the library system probably does. Furies of Calderon is the first book of the series.
I believe I heard that about the Rithmatist from listening to the “Writing Excuses” podcast. Since I tend to binge listen to them, I can’t remember what episode. But it should be in Season 9 or 10.
@36 is it possible that of all Dalinar’s children, Adolin resembles his Mother the most?
@@@@@ 148 snaggletoothedwoman – Adolin has blond hair and very handsome. Dalinar, according to Shallan’s POV has an “unfortunate face.” According to Kaladin, Dalinar’s nose had been broken several times and seemingly not set properly (I think).
Based on that, Adolin has to resemble his mother if Dalinar is not a handsome fellow by Shallan’s standards.
@147: That’s what I did. In fact, I was not entirely honest… They DO have it…. just not in English :-P I hate when they do that: I guess nobody ever requested the “original version”. I don’t like reading translations, the naming always is weird.
So I had to buy it… the first two books in order to get access to the “Super Free Two Days Delivery” which perniciously goes with a “free” subscription to Amazon Prime I must not forget to cancel in 30 days.
This thread just cost me 20$.
@148:
I has been hinted Adolin largely favors his mother in terms of physical apparence, which makes him a half-Alethi with the balance tiping heavily on the “half” side.
As for his character, it has also been hinted that whereas he seem to have inherited his father’s honesty and passionate nature, he has his mother’s empathy and sweetnesses. Based on a recent WoB, we can guess his mother likely had a strong influence on him growing up.
While Adolin presumably is the most gifted swordsman in his family, he’s also the one having shown the least desire to become a soldier. He is seen to have keen distaste for hunting which he considers akin to a butchery as the fight is too heavily tip towards the humans Dalinar rejoiced in hunting and does not share these thoughts, worst he does not understand how his son can be so unexcited about hunting. The hunting incident (three times he mentions how much he hates it) combined with the prostitute one tell us he has a strong dislike of bullies or un-even fights. When face upon situation he perceived as unjust, typically one individual being picked on (animal, prostitute, Kaladin, Dalianr, Renarin), he has a strong incentive to simply act, which is assume to have been ingrained in him by his mother and not his father (morality vs honor).
So yes, essentially, as far as we can tell, Adolin inherited many traits, both physical and psychological from his mother. While we have little details about Renarin, it is probable Adolin, among Dalinar’s children, ressemble his mother the most, on all fronts.
@@@@@ Everyone – Someone told me today that Brandon mentioned in one of his signings or in an interview that he will write a Stormlight novella to tide over fans for the third book. My source is not sure either, so he asked me if that is true. I said it was the first time that I have heard about it.
Does anyone know something about this?
Brandon mentioned the possibility, but it’s not promised. I don’t know how he plans to make it available if he does it. Someone will probably link the comment shortly… :)
@151
My understanding is that novella will be something like the Lift interlude. Not saying it’ll be about Lift but that the Lift interlude and believe one other interlude (Taravangian’s IIRC) were released sometime before WoR was released.
@@@@@ 152 and 153 Thanks Alice and Kei_rin :-)
Did you see the series of posts he did on writing the Rysn interlude? It was basically a video screen-capture of him writing, set to music. You watched him type, go back and correct, revise, and work his way through… and then you got to read the full Interlude as it was prior to the beta/gamma reading. He mentioned at WorldCon that he might try something like that again, too. But the one your friend probably saw referenced is from the AMA a few months ago:
The other thing I thought was interesting, and this might be what was still in the back of his mind, was this one:
I could like to read that….
@@@@@ 155 Alice – Oh wow!!! Thank you!!! This is great news!!! And yes, I’ll tell him.
Late to the party, since tor.com’s intermittent problems with loading comments when I am browsing on my Ipad make it much more difficult to follow discussion in a timely manner:
I really don’t see Adolin becoming obsolete, even if he doesn’t become a Radiant. Yes, surge-binders have significant advantages over conventional shard-bearers, however most of the emerging ones aren’t trained in combat and won’t be reaching the fighting prowess levels of Kaladin or Szeth even after they are. There are also currently very few of them. So, while the conventional Shard-Bearers would cease being absolute top-dogs, they would remain very useful and necessary. In Dalinar’s visions the Radiants still needed squads of normal fighters to support them, for instance, so we know that they couldn’t do it all by themselves even at their height.
Further, Adolin is a good general, who may have a potential to become great. I suspect that Dalinar is going to die (sigh), but even if not, Adolin would still be crucial for the massive, prolongued war which the Desolation is going to be, since one man just couldn’t do it all. IMHO, not even Kaladin could compete with him in that area, and he is a heroic front-liner, anyway. Part of Adolin’s maturing could be transition from top fighter into more of a commander/supervisor. Ruler. It wouldn’t surprise me if Adolin becomes the king of Alethkar at the end of the first pentology.
Speaking of Renarin, I don’t think that he really has his “fits”anymore. After all, his eyes were already healed at that point, and it is very clear that he never considered his blood sickness to be an integral part of him. IMHO, he froze in the arena because he got a good screaming from his Blade for the first time. He already disliked it when he got it, yes, but my impression is that the intensity really went up for him at this point. And do we actually know that Renarin used to be physically unfit, apart from his quasi-epileptic spells? I’d have thought that conditioning would play a role even in shardplate. And yes, riding is physically taxing and requires endurance, coordination, etc. Kind of odd that the Kholins weren’t afraid that Renarin would get a fit and fall off his horse. Maybe he didn’t completely lose consciousness in the process?
P.S. when can we get summaries of Sanderson’s Worldcon reading? Was it something new?
P.S.S. IMHO “Codex Alera” is quite mediocre, by the numbers and steeped in cliché. And I am a fan of the “Dresden Files”, though I didn’t much like the latest installment, so it isn’t as if I was against Butcher or anything.
@158: When Renarin has a fit, his arm twitches slightly and he does not lose consciousness. I recall googling it at some point and it appears to be a medical condition often found in autistic children. His seizure are considered partial and not life threatening. Internet say the percentage of autistic children having seizure is considerably higher than in the normal population. Hence, his fits and his autism appear to be link which makes me doubting they will ever heal.
Considering all this, there was little chance of him falling of his horse as he does maintain his grounding, he does not fall to the ground or loses all use of his limbs, just the arm.
As for his physical unfitness, Kaladin describes him as having “slender limbs” and “delicate hands that never saw work”. The slender limbs do imply a lack of physical fitness as were he fit, he would not be so small. Later on, Kaladin tells Dalinar how Renarin is starting to fit due to his time with Bridge 4, an odd comment as one cannot fit up in a few weeks, but it did tell us Renarin’s physical condition was not initially great.
For the rest, Kaladin also comments on how slowly Renarin was progressing with is Plate, especially when compared to Moash, which again implies a lack of physical abilities. All in all, it is not surprising as Google also states most autistic children have physical limitations and coordination issues. Epilepsy also is the leading cause of premature death in autistic children, though Renarin does not seem to have inherited a form that would cause this, but those with his condition are said to be more physically weak.
This being said, he is described as having a fit during the duel, so I’d say my comment stating these have not been heal is likely.
As for Adolin, while it is clear they will still need normal humans to fight the war and he does have the making of a great war tactician, him remaining a mere Shardbearer implies less character development. Some of us want him to play a significant role into the story and I frankly don’t see that happening with him staying your basic Shardbearer… Whatever hardships he may live through would end up being secondary to the plights of the Radiants. It all goes back to one of my most controversial comment stating I felt there was too much emphasis on Kaladin in part 4 and post-duel while I wished we had a few more Adolin in there. If he remains “normal”, then this situation is bond to happen in every book as whatever story line he may have will liekly serve as foil for the Radiants, just as him dueling the 4 Shardbearers ended up being relevant to Kaladin’s character growth and not his. Since I love the character, this is the last thing I want, but it may also be the most plausible outcome.
All in all, my wish for Adolin is for him to get his own story line, to stop having him always ending up fueling other characters growth (Dalinar in WoK, Kaladin in WoR, Renarin in book 3?). I want to read about him and when he has a terrible fight, I want to read the aftermath from his POV and not someone else. When he is struggling with something, I want to read it, just as I got to read Kaladin’s every struggle. That’s what I want, but this requires turning him into a true main character. I have stopped hoping this would happen and have since geared myself I am putting too much expectations here.
I have also thought he may end up king of Alethkar in the second half of SA. I have often said the Kholin dynasty’s future likely passes by him, becoming the king people follow because they genuinely like him as oppose to fear him such as Dalinar.
As for the book, I’ll let you know how I find it. I finally finished Firefight and it has de-throned Warbreaker (and by a fair margin) as my least favorite Brandon’s book. As I said earlier, I adore Brandon, but I couldn’t stand his main character here. He was just terrible.
@158 – co-morbidity issues with autism spectrum conditions can include low muscle tone and both gross and fine motor difficulties, so Renarin would appear to fit in well with those.
@157: I’m having the same problem with spotty access to the comments. Desktop & Andoid phone.
Good points about Adolin. Even if he doesn’t become king, he will be Highprince of a major area.
Hell, there might be a rule from way back about if you become a KR, you remove yourself from your line of succession. Loyalty to the KR before loyalty to your homeland – type rules.
Re: Sanderson’s reading – he has asked that the information not be released until after his next book tour. Everyone who hasn’t heard it or will hear it at signings, will have to wait 2-3 more weeks.
@159 – careful about autism spectrum statements. Articles can only give you general statements. Others on the re-read live with autistic children – and can tell you how they can behave the whole range of behaviors – just like all children. I have a cousin who is autistic, his main issues are social interactions. Physically he is as strong and coordinated as the average 12 year old.
We don’t know where Brandon has placed Renarin on the spectrum, except it is on the high functioning side.
@160: Careful, I did state in my previous post “according to Google”. I consider everyone on this thread to be smart enough to make the difference between a source found on the Internet through random browsing and an expert on the subject. I also stated that, according to the same sources, autistic children often have issues with their physical abilities (lack of coordination) and those prone to seizure typically have a poor health. Often and always are not the same word.
I did not state: All autistic children have poor athletic abilities and are weak.
I stated some did and Renarin, based on the clues at hand, appear to be one of them. My Internet sources have not made the distinction between high functional and low functional autistic children.
I thought it was interesting to state his seizure are likely linked to his autism and his poor athletic performances may also be a side effect of his condition. By no way did I try to insult autistic children other commentators may have.
@Gepto, I apologize. I did not read your comment closely enough.
My habit is to not speculate on Renarin. What is his autism? What is the personality Brandon has written him?
Currently he’s just too flat of a character, to me. I feel I know more about Lift, than I know about Renarin. Yet he’s been in more pages. One of my disappointments with WoR was the lack of information we got about him.
I tend to not speculate on autism in general. It’s too broad of a diagnosis. Until I know more about that person’s diagnosis, there are too many variables. Without the Word of Brand and Peter that Renarin is autistic, I would not have pegged him with it.
Edit:
Gepto, where are you posting from? Your comment about the library’s translations made me wonder if you are from a different country.
Thank you.
Isilel @157 – Good thoughts on Adolin. We tend so easily to focus on the magic-users as if they’re the only ones that matter, but I don’t know that Brandon wants that to be true in his Grand Epic. As you say, on the planetary scale this looks to affect, they’re going to need more than a half-dozen Knights Radiant, especially when only two of them (so far) are remotely trained as fighters! The more I think of it, the more I love the idea of Adolin as “Highprince of War” (in effect, if not title) serving as the commanding general of all the forces – including the few Radiants they have. Not right away, of course, because he’s going to have some ramifications from the Sadeas thing, but it would make a lot of sense. Hmmm… Also, I wonder if Elhokar would continue as king if he became a KR?
Re: Renarin – I wonder if anyone has actually asked about healing his epilepsy specifically. I can’t find any WoB on it, but that doesn’t prove much. There’s been a fair amount of discussion, but I don’t see any answers. I think we’ll have to wait and see.
The WorldCon reading is the same one he’s going to use for the Shadows of Self tour; once he’s finished with that (I think October 25 is the last day) it will be posted somewhere. On a bet, the 17th Shard people have it all transcribed and are merely waiting until he’s done with the tour to push the “print button” as it were; I’m guessing it will also be made available here on Tor.com or on his website, or both. I’ll try to check on that and let y’all know if there’s going to be an official release of the story.
Gepeto @161 – Don’t be so defensive. She didn’t say you did anything wrong, just that we need to be careful about generalizing too much, and basing too much evaluation of a character on generalizations. Brandon himself has some pretty close contact with people who have various disabilities, and that, combined with his research, is likely to make him aware of not only the generalities, but the exceptions.
In case anyone is interested, I recently read a book Brandon highly recommended in a conversation with an autistic man and his mom at a signing. It’s called “The Speed of Dark” by Elizabeth Moon. It’s a fascinating book, especially when you read the background of why she wrote it. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though I found the ending bittersweet. Then again, I’m not sure what ending it could have had that wouldn’t be bittersweet; the only other possibilities would be tragic or sappy, and she’s too good an author to do either.
@@@@@ 157 Isilel and @@@@@ 163 Alice – Yes. I am with you about Adolin remaining just a normal human. In the beginning, I wanted him to be a KR, but while reading Post-Human, a sci-fi series, I realized that being enhanced is not always good. LOL
I know that I’m not making sense especially to those who have read Post-Human, but somehow I feel that our humanity is our salvation. :-)
And Alice, I like the “High Prince of War”. I know that it is a title for Dalinar, but I just thought that maybe Brandon might think of Adolin as the person for that book. Again, this is wistful thinking.
@@@@@several re: Renarin – I agree with Braid_Tug that currently Renarin is a flat character. I cannot relate to him. Quite frankly, I find Vatha more interesting than Renarin up to now.
Why did Vatha desert the army? Why does he have a big bounty on his head. I like it that he watches Shallan’s back and reminds her that though she might have a shard blade, she can still die from an arrow. Why did Vatha stay with Shallan after all of his troop including him were pardoned. What insignia are they wearing?
I really would like to know more about Shallan’s little band of honor guards. :-) I hope Brandon writes a little interlude about them.
Back to Renarin – I am really surprised that there are comments saying that Renarin has lots of fans. I have not seen him do anything spectacular. Szeth has done more and quite frankly, I’ll be a fan of Szeth before I become a fan of Renarin.
Just saying
I like Renarin because he’s so earnest about learning to use his Plate. The swordmaster says to jump off a building and fall on his head? He jumps off the building and falls on his head. He shows a humility that protagonists rarely have reason or opportunity to display. Even when the protagonists is actually good at something, they often have to fake it or just bull through anyways. Renarin knows he has a lot of catching up to do and is willing to be a fool in public if that’s what it takes.
noblehunter @166 – This.
I don’t see Renarin as “flat” at all – but that’s just me. I like him a lot, and whether I’m just extrapolating or “seeing in greater depth” I see a lot to appreciate in him. I’m really glad I don’t have to pick a “favorite character” in the SA; there are so many characters I like!
If I can’t get my Kaladolin, Kalanarin would be just as good. In case anyone thought I wasn’t all shipping all the time.
I do see Renarin as an under-developed character since what I like about him is pretty much all I know. If he seems flat, I figure it’s only because we’re looking at him straight on without a chance to see the depth.
@@@@@ 166 noblehunter –
Why is Renarin considered a main character? Is it because at the end of WoR he became a KR? Is it because in interviews and book signings, Brandon had said that Renarin will get a book?
Up to the end of WoR, Renarin is at the same level of Elhokar in terms of contribution to the storyline. Perhaps, even less than Navani. And yet, we think of Elhokar and Navani as secondary characters, but Renarin as a major character.
Yes, as a secondary character, I like Renarin. He is lovable. I like the idea of a high born being a misfit. But, he has not done anything yet to push the storyline. Szeth has done so much yet he remains in the fringes and actually, an anti-hero to many. Even Amaram has done more.
Perhaps, we will see more of Renarin in Book 3 and I will then revise my opinion of him. Right now, he remains a lovable secondary character with a potential growth since it has been revealed that he is a KR.
Where Adolin and his gifts could support a main character arc without necessarily becoming KR, I would argue that it’s the only way Renarin even becomes interesting. Even his Order seems a little weak to me. Sorry to those that see something special coming from him, but I just need to see more.
The makings of a good character are there I guess. He has some likable things about himself, it’s just that I cannot see what he really adds to the upcoming conflict even powered up. If Brandon has plans for him then I’m sure that will change. It will have to if Renarin will ever be compelling.
Re: Renarin
I like Renarin, but like Alice, I might be reading more into the character than what we are given. I liked his character from the first time we meet him and Adolin on the chasmfiend hunt back in WoK. Though I will say, I think I pay more attention to him because of the interviews than I would if I was just reading the series with no outside influences.
@sheiglagh
It sounds like you are saying that the KR aren’t human but they are human, they are just bonded with spren. And I agree that having powers like the KR isn’t always the best for humans (power corrupts etc etc) but I don’t consider them less human because they powers.
@162: I realize I may have sound abrupt. I have been often accused of insulting autism individuals while talking about Renarin for the simple fact he is not my favorite character. I absolutely did not want anyone to think my earlier comment was meant to be a critic or a based generalization. I thought the comment was interesting in the scope of Renarin being both autistic and epileptic. It is interesting to know the two ailments may be linked which would thus reduced the likelihood he would heal either with stormlight.
For my part, knowing Renarin is autistic is crucial to my understanding of him. Without this fact, I would not think of him in the same way. I know we should not make generalizations, but being autistic seem to be the root cause for most of his in-book issues. I hope Brandon will be able to find an angle where it will become a strength. In other words, I want Renarin to succeed at things because he is autistic, not despite it. I want him to figure it out and please drop all ideas of becoming a soldier.
I indeed do not live in the United States. English is not my native language either which faintly explains the astonishingly embarrassingly high number of grammatical errors I keep on making… Those verb tenses are getting the best of me.
@163: The actual story is so heavily focus on the Radiant I sincerely doubt Brandon will spend much time development non-Radiant characters, except for a few sides. They will be, of course, crucial, but this is not the story of normal human in a super-natural world, but the story of normal humans being reforged into super-natural ones. In that optic, I fear Adolin the human would remain in the background, never having a strong contribution to the overall story arc as most character development will always be geared towards the Radiants.
That being said, I also believe Adolin is an opportunity Brandon cannot miss. If I were a writer, I would want Adolin as a character. Here is why:
1) Two years after releasing my last book, the readers are still talking about him, despite him not being the focus of the story. Even better, they are completely puzzled as to what will happen to him. There is no clear consensus, which makes him completely unpredictable. As I writer, I would know that whatever I decide to write is bond to come as a surprise to a large subset of my readers.
2) He is likable. Despite not being one of the major characters, he still managed to draw in a significant fan base. He is genuinely loved by most readers and more importantly, most readers want to read about him.
3) He has it all. His life is text book perfect, well it is text book perfect in all appearances. I have geared my story towards it being the return of magical knights. Each one of my major characters is a knight and I get to tell how they broke and attract their spren through their flashbacks. It is amazing, it bears an air of tragedy, but it is a bit predictable. Now, I have this completely unpredictable character standing at a cross-road. If he breaks, nobody will know if he’ll bounce back. Readers will still think he may go evil, he may not rise up. In fact, he stands so high, he has so much to lose, sending him through a downward spiral will make a very compelling story. My readers will be heart-broken over it and they won’t have the confirmation he’ll get better. They’ll have to RAFO to figure it out and when he finally rises back up, people will end up rooting for him.
4) I haven’t told how a spren initially gets attracted to a knight… With this character, I can tell the real beginning without any spoilers.
5) He has a special Blade…. Think of what I can do with this… The readers may be expecting it, but it does not change the fact it will make a compelling story arc where one get to do the impossible. Dare iI walk pass this opportunity?
Or, as a writer, I could decide not to exploit this character because he does not fit within my narrative, because the story I want to read does not require him, but wouldn’t I be removing one of the main source of speculation my fans have had in the past two years?
I could also keep him as a standard human, but where to place him? Each book focus on a Radiant, each book is dedicated to a new one exploring his or her power, what am I supposed to do with the human character I have? I guess I can keep writing him as a foil to my other characters…. The interest my readers have in him will likely dwindle as he won’t get enough POV time. He’ll fade in the background, always standing behind my other characters.
So, for my part, Adolin as a Radiant is the best possible story arc for his character. It implies reading him breaking down and rising back up, it implies him falling from grace, but pushing through it. There is no other character path that would be as compelling for Adolin then that one, not for me.
@165: Renarin does have a good fan base, though it has dwindled some since WoR.
I agree he is a minor character nor bearing much more importance to the current story arc than Elhokar or Navani. However, he happens to be exactly the kind of character who is, nowadays, popular, by this I mean the “socially awkward” one. The trope going on with him may not be well exploited, but it has caught the interest of quite a few fans. Since these fans were extremely active in the fandom, Renarin ended up being a frequently talked about character which helped raise his status.
Since then, he was announced as the one brother getting a book which send him to the rank of major character, ahead of his brother who, despite being one of the main POV characters, does not get these honors.
That being said, I do agree the fandom do have the tendency to increase the actual importance of Renarin. However, since I may be guilty of doing the same for Adolin, I may be ill-placed to comment on it.
@166: This is hardly the first time I read this commentary… Renarin falling on his head is nothing extraordinary: it likely is part of the standard training every Shardbearer have to go through.
I do agree he is earnest to learn, which makes me even more mad at Dalinar for making him believe this stupid Plate will solve his issues. It will only result in him feeling even worst about himself as despite owning the strongest tool ever created, he still can’t pull it of.
This being said, I do not think Renarin is a flat character, but he is an undeveloped one. I personally dislike his entire behavior and approach towards his limitations, but I adore his relationship with his brother. I love the fact Renarin has not took it out on Adolin for being better than him at everything. Despite feeling inadequate, he is not jealous. This is his most admirable trait. I also love how both brothers understand each other. Adolin knows how to deal with Renarin, but Renarin knows how to deal with Adolin. Being autistic, reading emotions and non-verbal cues are probably ten times harder for him and yet he reads his brother like an open book. He has also figured out how to talk Adolin out of his emotional impulsiveness which speaks at length of the bond between these two.
I love to imagine them growing up together in a very cloistered environment, being each other’s only friend and thus developing the deep bond we now see.
Edit: I received the books. I’ll kick-start the reading tonight.
sheiglagh @169 – Well, there’s clearly more than one way of reading that… because I didn’t read it as noblehunter making any statement regarding whether Renarin was (or was not) a main character; just that protagonists rarely display many of the characteristics we see in him. Which is true, whether you’re going by the most limited definition of “protagonist” being the main character, or the broader definition of “one of the cast of Good Guys”.
@173
That is probably the reason I have a bit of a hard time figuring out Renarin’s role, because he isn’t what epic fantasy readers are conditioned to see as a protagonist. Nothing wrong with that; breaking tropes is probably the only reason I’ve stuck with ASOIAF despite the long delays. Because he doesn’t fit the profile it makes it difficult to predict his future course. That coupled with the fact that we still don’t really know what makes him tick despite having 2 books. What I have seen of him on screen just hasn’t clicked with me but my opinion only. YMMV.
Gepeto:
I really don’t see how Adolin being or not being a Radiant would in any way affect the importance of his character or the space his PoVs get in the future. Either way, we know that the current plan is that he won’t get a flashback book. I don’t think that his avenues of character developement as a non-Radiant are less interesting, far from it. After all – look at Dalinar. Yes, he is an incipient Radiant, but his character growth had very little to do with his magical abilities so far. On the contrary, he had to grapple with issues of politics, leadership, reform – all of which he could have just as easily done as an unaugmented human. In fact, that’s what he is for all matters and purposes, until the very end of the WoR.
Now, I do think that Adolin managing to wake up and revive his Blade would be very cool, and, in fact, that would be the only scenario where him becoming a Radiant would feel satisfying for me. I don’t need to see yet another variation on “broken down, hits the rock bottom, claws his way up” – been there, done that. And how would it make Adolin an interesting character, rather than a retread of Kaladin/Shallan?
If anybody, I’d rather see Eshonai do that, because her being a Parshendi could add a lot of interesting variation to the already familiar pattern. Conveniently, she has already hit rock bottom too, so we’ll only need to watch her rise up.
Oh, and I don’t subscribe to “augmentation is bad” and “normal humans are the pinnacle of everything and will be the ultimate salvation” Golden Age of SF ideas. I don’t think that Radiants are going anywhere, or that there will be a hoary “magic and other intelligent species depart and humans inherit the Earth Roschar” type of ending. That doesn’t mean that humans are unimportant or that individual humans can’t be absolutely crucial. Magical power isn’t everything.
Speaking of Renarin’s seizures, I still think that he has been cured of them at this point, just as his eyesight has been cured. Dalinar _thought_ that his younger son was having one when he saw him in the arena. IIRC, he’d also think the same a bit later when Renarin would freeze in the field when trying to use his Blade, only for Renarin to explicitly deny this. It would be retroactively clear that he just couldn’t deal with the screaming in his head – and that nobody in his situation could have, really.
It is fairly clear, IMHO, that Renarin didn’t and doesn’t see the seizures as an integral part of his identity, he wouldn’t have stubbornly clung to the notion of becoming a soldier otherwise. I am pretty sure that they are already gone and that this was one of the reasons why Renarin expected to do some good in the arena.
And, yea, so far he is mostly a cipher as a character, which is not surprising, considering how little on-page presence he had. Little dialog, no PoV and other characters have big problems truly understanding him for very good reasons. Readers who like him mostly do so for his potential, IMHO, and promise of future importance. We know 2 big positives about him – that he is not jealous despite the circumstances where it would be very difficult not to be, and that he is brave.
Adolin not being a Radiant already is influencing his role into the story. Why else did the outcome of the duel ended up being tight to Kaladin’s character growth and his own? Why else didn’t we, the readers, get to read his reaction? Why didn’t the fact his friends betrayed him not further exploited? Why aren’t we getting his thoughts after the chasm scene?
Because he is not a Radiant and this is not his story.
So far, it has been Kaladin and Shallan’s story. It also is Dalinar’s story and it will be Renarin’s story, but it isn’t Adolin’s story. Yes, he has a role, but it is not the role of a main protagonist.
I have yet to be convinced a non-Radiant can be a fleshed out character as important as Kaladin into the story. I have yet to see Adolin can get development without making the jump.
I still maintain my point, Adolin as a normal human would rapidly become boring. He would become a static character without any growth. How interesting to read is that? Everyone is broken around him, but for him, everything magically glistened on his back like water on a duck. Everyone has those awful broken life but he is fine. Nothing ever bothers him, even when it should, he is Highprince and that’s that. He launches battles he does not fight due to him being under-powered, but that’s supposedly interesting to read?
I DON’T want to read that. I don’t want to read another book where all of Adolin’s issues are browsed under the carpet as a side story to the more important one. I would rather Dalinar had remained normal.
As for his fall from grace, it is interesting to read because we have not have one yet. Kaladin and Shallan were under-dogs… the slave becoming grant, the poor girl rising up… These are common tropes, but we haven’t got the nice handsome grant prince with his white horse and his shining armor who loses everything. Eshonai is not the same, she was taken over by an evil entity. Her story is not a fall from grace…
I guess I will have to disagree with everyone about this because Adolin staying human is just one of those plot lines I can’t get behind as it equals no character development, secondary fiddle playing in the background, interesting, but never growing.
However, in the scope of my previous comments, I have now grown to expect nothing for Adolin. He’s more likely to remain a secondary character to all Radiants than anything else. Murdering Sadeas will end up being relevant to Dalinar, not him, just as the duel was meant for Kaladin’s story line. Besides, him not getting a flashback does imply he is not one of the main protagonists, which implies limited character development. There is just so much characters Brandon can squeeze in this story and he’s already told us who the story will be about.
This beind said, yes I do know it is Brandon’s story, it will be awesome and nothing I’ll suggest is ever going to be better than what the author has envisioned. It just may not have Adolin in it as a main protagonist. Alternatively, I may not keep on being as passionate about it as I am now if that truly happens.
I meant that Renarin is doing main character-like things even though he’s on the periphery of the books so far. He could be a protagonist and I find it appealing that we get to see him protag from the outside.
@172 It’s that falling on his head is unusual but his willingness to do it. I get the impression Adolin, not to mention most other shard bearers, have issues with how undignified the training is. Jumping off buildings turns shardbearing into a farce which seems at odds with Alethi opinions about battle.
Yeah, pretty much this. Not in a savant superpower-like way but because his spren appreciates and values the traits we define as austistic. It would be a missed opportunity and kinda objectionable if his spren-bond removed his autism or existed in conflict with it.
I think you all might be interested in the “Magical 1%” podcast Writing Excuses. (Season 10, Ep. 6)
It does have some minor spoilers for Max Gladstone’s books. Which, I really enjoy, but can see it would not be everyone’s taste. However he does bring a very different type of world building to the table.
Brandon also states that it is very important to see the world through the eyes of someone outside the magic. It’s around minute 12.
He does not mention SA, but they all talk about world building.
I giggled at this, because the last time we see Eshonai she was just thrown into a chasm. So yes, she definitely hits rock bottom.
I also want to see Eshonai become a KR. I think she would Willshaper or at least she would fit what I think a Willshaper spren would look for.
Re: Adolin and powers
I do think that Adolin could have an interesting story if he doesn’t become a KR but I also think that if he doesn’t he wont get as much screen time to say. IMO, the Stormlight Archive is a story about magic returning to the a land. So if he doesn’t have powers his story will probably be shown in small segments as it relates to the return of magic. It would be used like it’s used now, as a way to show a situation through a second pair of eyes that can throw more light on to the storyline of the other characters. Sometimes that’s what you need for the story to read well.
@177: The assumption all other Shardbearers except Renarin are finding their training undignified is unsupported. In the same scene, Adolin is promptly ask to go help his brother with his jumps which he does with the same eagerness Renarin has shown.
What is said, in book, is that Zahel initially had a few issues with Adolin as a student, not because he disagreed with his training methods, but because he didn’t think he has anything left to learn. In other words, teenage Adolin was being cocky. No doubt Zahel hand it back to him on a golden platter. None of this imply Adolin had any issues with jumping off walls. If anything, that’s exactly the sort of exercise most found amusing.
@178: Yeah well it does not have to be Adolin. It can be a secondary POV such as Navani… Adolin not becoming a Radiant just seems off, as if, despite being such a nice person, he was not good enough for them. This thought leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Everyone else is worthy but not him? Really? The prince who rescues lowly prostitutes, who imprisons himself for a mere darkeye is not worthy of the mighty Radiants??? But Elhokar the whining wimp is? That would be the most baffling story ever. I would feel so sorry for Adolin I’d rather he dies.
Isilel @175 – “Conveniently, she has already hit rock bottom too…”
Bahahaha! Yes, she has that, in more ways than one!
“It would be retroactively clear that he just couldn’t deal with the screaming in his head – and that nobody in his situation could have, really.”
As witness Relis in Ch. 27, where he drops his Blade “as if bitten” and runs screaming out of the arena, and even Kaladin drops the Blade and falls backwards. The fact that Renarin can even stand up is pretty astonishing; that he still attempts to fight is amazing.
Gepeto @176 – “Adolin not being a Radiant already is influencing his role into the story. Why else did the outcome of the duel ended up being tight to Kaladin’s character growth and his own? Why else didn’t we, the readers, get to read his reaction? Why didn’t the fact his friends betrayed him not further exploited? Why aren’t we getting his thoughts after the chasm scene?
Because he is not a Radiant and this is not his story.”
Or because there are other reasons Brandon didn’t want to be in his head at those points. We’ve had plenty of events where we saw all the goings-on from Adolin’s POV, and we’ve had others where Shallan, or Kaladin, or Dalinar, or even Sadeas gave us the perspective, and it worked better that way. For one thing, if we’d been in Adolin’s head after the duel, we wouldn’t have had the fun of the scene where Kaladin discovers that Adolin insisted on going to prison with him, and that’s worth a lot – as is the admission of friendship and mutual respect right there.
As for the betrayal of his friends, that was already set up a while back, when he realized that he didn’t actually have any true friends outside the Kholin camp. Further reflections on the subject may come into play in SA3 with the whole Sadeas mess. Or Adolin might just be the kind of guy who can put it behind him and just go forward with the knowledge that there are about four people he can trust. Not everyone is geared toward wallowing in bitterness, even when they have a “right” to do so.
All I’m really saying is that there are several ways to look at this, okay?
@many – I’m still on the fence as to whether I want Adolin to become a KR. Like Isilel, I still want to see him restore his Blade, and that would imply becoming a Radiant. Otherwise, I think his story would be fascinating, learning to deal with the magic while not using it himself. As an important non-magic-user in the middle of the magic-returns-to-Roshar plot, I think he has the potential for all manner of cool development. I don’t have any idea what Brandon’s going to do with him, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to love it. I’ll let you know if that changes. :P
P.S. I’m rather glad we didn’t get the rest of the duel from Adolin’s perspective; he was rather busy and didn’t have a chance to really observe all the other crazy stuff that was going on. Kaladin was in the position of being repeatedly ignored and therefore instigating the crazy stuff, which makes for better story-telling. It also makes for a better appreciation of what Adolin was up against, and how good he was. YMMV.
My quick two cents (late as they may be).
I don’t quite get the stance of being upset because one couldn’t experience a scene in a book from a particular (and preferred) point of view. To me, that is part of the (epic) story that the author is crafting for us.
If we had seen this duel from Renarin’s point of view, we would have found out sooner about him hearing the screams of the dead Shardblade, but we would have missed most of the action on the field.
If we had seen the duel from Adolin’s POV, we’d see him discover he is getting help from Kaladin, but we would miss most of Kaladin’s actions (Kal cracked a Shardplate with the force of his feet and caught a Shardblade for Stormfather’s sake!)
If we had seen the duel from Shallan’s POV, we’d have the possibility of observing the entire fight from above, but we’d miss out on understanding why Relis runs from the fight when he does. And she would likely have focused more on Adolin’s actions than on Kaladin’s for the vast majority of the time.
Dalinar, Navani, Elhokar, Sadeas, Amaram… all of them could have given us an interesting POV, where we may have received insight on some things but missed the nuance or detail of other things.
That’s not the story Brandon wanted to tell. He is having things unfold in a certain way, for a certain reason. In my biased opinion, he’s done a phenomenal job in telling his story (I’ve reread WoK and WoR more than any novel other than the Wheel of Time books, and I’ll probably reread them again a few times before Oathbringer comes out).
I get the idea of wanting the author to do things a bit differently, but personally I’m a strong advocate in trusting the author and giving them the benefit of the doubt *until* they give you a reason not to. I don’t feel Brandon has done that yet with any character in the Stormlight Archive, and he definitely hasn’t given a reason not to trust him in regards to character development with Adolin (he kills Sadeas at the end of WoR, after-all).
@181: I never said my way was the only way to look at it. However, my point has been, since the beginning, was the focus of both books has largely been on the Radiants. WoR focus character was Shallan, but we could argue Kaladin also is the focus character here. Since it was Shallan’s book, there was not particular reason to keep Kaladin such a prominent character as this was not his book anymore. However, the author chose to massively exploit his character, a Radiant. I am not stating this to dispute whether or not Kaladin should still be such a strong focus character, I am simply stating it as a factual.
Of course, Brandon has likely various good reasons, I never disputed this. I am merely stating that, from where I stand from, it looks doubtful a non Radiant without a planned flashback book would ever be the focus of any book as I hope Adolin would someday be. Again, it is doubtful a Radiant without a flashback would ever be the focus of any book, so I guess we are back to square one, but in with the second option, I have slightly more hope. That’s all (and there is also the fact I believe Adolin’s story arc is much more interesting if he does become a proto-Radiant as opposed to a boring Highprince).
As for Adolin never being grazed by anything, that makes up for a rather boring character… Anyway, we know it is not true. He is affected by things, he just does not wallow into them too much: he always had other more important things to keep him distracted. However, that particular plot line seems incomplete, to me, and yes I do hope it was left this way because it fitted better within book 3’s narrative.
@182: When I read the book, I was left wanting in certain key moments: the aftermath of the duel and the aftermath of the chasm scenes. This is not a critic towards the author, but I, as a reader, wanted to read those POV. I have stated in various occasions I did not wish for it to be very long or detailed or to take over the whole book: just a few more thoughts to wrap it up.
I am sure other readers have other similar comments on other scenes involving other characters.