Jenet

Yes, it is totally possible that the Stormfather is a fakefather, and that Gavilar is even more clueless than I first thought. Fits his character. And the fact that he is tempting Gavilar with becoming a herald, which seems a little outside the Stormfather's "jurisdiction".

Interesting theory that makes a lot of sense. It also gives a believable answer to a question that I have been thinking of: What can make a loving mother suddenly turn to her daughter and try to kill her? But if that daughter suddenly displayed Radiant powers and you were a Herald, and insanely afraid to be sent back to Damnation to be tortured, and you associate the return of the Radiants with a coming Desolation, well, then it suddenly becomes logical that the mother who is described as loving and caring, suddenly turns murderous.

Yeay! Finally a hate thread I can participate in! But, please relax, I will try to behave. I have never liked Gavilar. He was the one playing the great and noble king, sending his brother out to risk his life and reputation. It was not Gavilar who united Alethkar, it was Dalinar. Also, I have always wondered what Gavilar did to Jasnah in her youth. I still do not know if he did, but he seemed so sly. So high and mighty without actually showing any real "kinging" for himself. And Navani says in the Way of KIngs that she had ample reasons to be unfaithful to Gavilar, but she was not. That made me suspicious. And after the prologue of Rhythm of War, I heartily hated the man, with a small opening for the fact that we had not yet got his version of everything. He seemed to be gaslighting his wife intentionally, maybe he was the original cause of her impostor syndrome, or at least he found the tendency in her, and expoited it. It is interesting to compare the two prologues, and see how they see each other, in light of her impostor syndrome and his psychopathic behavior and way of thinking. He takes everyone's victories as his own, and she thinks of all her achievements as somebody else's. As a true psychopath Gavilar manipulates everyone around him. He prefers to talk to people one-on-one instead of grand speeches, because then he can tell different stories to every individual or group, manipulate their minds, and set them up against each other. The Stormfather seems to have realized that the Kholin family is a fitting target for his quest, which is to find somebody powerful enough to show the visions to. Somebody with real power to have an impact. I think it is important to remember that the spren are dependant on bonding with a human to become more sentient and understanding of human values and interaction. And Gavilar is actively trying to manipulate the Stormfather as well. He has found that the Stormfather is unable to read minds. So he tries to behave in a way that the SF will approve of. And the SF becomes confused. He tries to teach and coach Gavilar into becoming a radiant or a Herald, but it does not work because Gavilar is lying. As mentioned in this thread, Gavilar needs to mean the words, not just recite them. In the end, the Stormfather gives up on Gavilar, and the whole family. And that makes it logical that the SF is so distrustful against Dalinar in the beginning of their relation. But he was ordered by the Almighty, so he has no choice. And the Kholins are undoubtedly the best choices. We can also see by how Timbre is coaching Venli, that spren are perfectly capable of inflicting big changes in someone's priorities and behaviour. I think the most important for a Bondsmith spren was to find a person with power to unite. And this person's character would come as a second priority. But Gavilar was so utterly useless that he was discarded anyway. That's saying something. I was also disgusted to learn how Gavilar manipulated his own brother to become an alcoholic wreck. And I admit I gloated quite a bit when I realized that Gavilar was the one who got Dalinar dead drunk on that night, so he was unable to save his brother. Good on him.

1) would like to be friends with most Navani. She is the one that is closest to how I am, and I guess we would have much to discuss and talk about. 2) feel is most believable in terms of motivation I think most of them are believable in their way 3) enjoy reading about most Dalinar 4) find most confusing/intriguing Shallan. I like her a lot, but I find her very intriguing, because of her difficulties and her struggles to develop 5) find makes you laugh the most Pattern. I love his AI way of thinking and the absuridites that comes out of that. 6) would like to punch in the face Moash 7) personally relate to most Navani 8) feel is emotionally most realistic Kaladin 9) shamelessly crush on the hardest Dalinar 10) is most like someone you know IRL Kaladin

Navani or Cultivation

I needed to go back to the text to see what it actually said about the Sibling and whether they were forced to accept Navani. Here it is: To me, it is obvious from this text that the Sibling finds Navani worthy. Regardless of the danger they both are in. Navani understands what the Sibling needs, and gives it to her. I also find this text a sort of extra explanation of the meaning of the first ideal. Navani says the three parts of the ideal in a way that underlines their meaning. And she ends it with "Journey before destination, you bastard". Because the journey is the most important. We fail. We stumble. We make mistakes. But we rise and we become better versions of ourselves. This is something that Moash cannot understand. But the Sibling does. And they understand Navani's worthiness. Addition: Later on, after Navani killed Raboniel, the Sibling says: "You have performed a kindness" Navani says: "I feel awful". "That is part of the kindness", the Sibling says. "I am sorry", Navani said, "for discovering this light. It will let spren be killed" It was coming to us, the Sibling said. Consequences once chased only humans. With the Recreance, the consequences became ours as well. You have simply sealed the truth as eternal.

This in an interesting point. Navani is religious, but also a scientist. Many atheists hold that this is an impossible combination. But it isn't. Not in real life, and not in these books. Sanderson is himself a good example of this in real life. Navani discovers many things that prove that vorin teachings are wrong, but not so far anything that makes her stop believeing that there is someone there who listens to her prayers. We have in fact several examples that imply that there may be someone there beyond the Almighty that is listening. She prayed for Gavilar's death, (and regretted it - a little) and she prayed that Dalinar was alive and that Sadeas lied about the Tower massacre, and she got her answer both times. We know from Mistborn that Shard holders can answer prayers. And who knows what is meant by the God beyond. That remains to be seen. Religion is changing in Roshar, and Navani is one of the people who changes it.

THIS!! Very good point.

I have seen Navani as the obvious candidate for the sibling since I realized there was a Sibling. And Rlain as the Sibling Bondsmith? Why? Is there a specific reason for using him as an example, or did you just pick a person? I agree that one of the bondsmiths should certainly be a singer, but Rlain is a rather shy and reserved man, with no demonstrated leadership experience or talents, and I found his ending up as a truthwatcher very logical and worthy. Also the Nightwatcher bondsmith would be more logical for a singer, as I feel they have a closeness to Cultivation that the humans don't have. The only argument for choosing Rlain as a bondsmith is that he knows both human and singer culture better than most. But his experience is coming from being a slave. True, he may learn, as all the radiants must, but I fail to see why he is an obviously better candidate than Navani, who has specialized her whole life in many of the topics that are required of a Bondsmith as I see it. I addition, after seeing what happened with Navani and Raboniel, I will add a very important part of being a leader at war: You need to be brave. And not only a little intrepid. The only way the coalition could get hold of the knowledge that Navani managed to learn was to befriend Raboniel. And Navani did it while being a prisoner in isolation. I hope and believe that Navani's skill and knowledge will be crucial for the future warfare for the coalition, and that she will be able to construct far more dangerous weapons than the one she had to give away to Raboniel's team. According to Raboniel, Navani's understanding and knowledge is above her own, and Raboniel was the best scientist that the singers had. So despite the slip with the notes, Navani probably has captured some essential information and understanding, and I think she knows it, but she is too modest to talk too much about it yet. And we can gruess that the singers have not got the resources to understand what Navani just did, and then construct new weapons from it. In order to really gain something, especially in dangerous situatons, you need to be brave enough to just grab for it and to hell with the consequences. Because the consequence of doing nothing is worse. You must take the chance when it occurs. Being brave and intrepid in danger does not mean that you will be careless strategically. Navani has proven to be careful and wise in strategic situations. Getting out of a desperate situation and saving your city, your spren, your people, and steal with you crucial pieces of knowledge of Rosharan physics is an impressive feat, and for me, the price she had to pay was bearable. She will be able to make way more powerful weapons with what she now knows. But that remains to be seen, Sanderson is the master of the puppets here. This is just my explanation of why I still root for Navani.

OK. so I will take you seriously again. I thought you were just being delibrately obtuse. But did you really expect Sanderson to start book five without some seriously badass challenges? For me, these books are about facing impossible problems with awesome, but flawed characters. Type: you find yourself facing the end of the world, and you are depressed and revengeful, or you are half crazy from being tricked into killing half the world's monarchs and their families, and you are trusted with a freakishly dangerous magical sword, and you are in doubt who you should pledge allegiance to, but for the time being, it's Dalinar Kholin. Or you are basically a killing machine that was used for killing anyone that your brother wanted you to kill, but you ended up killing your wife, got PTSD, drank yourself out of your wits, was drunk when your brother was killed, almost killed your spren because you were scared your were about to kill everyone around you. Get the picture? This story is not about nitpicking at how people should have done things differently, had they only been wiser or had more restraint. It's about desperate situations, ordinary people with exeptional skills and difficult flaws. It's a huge, complex weave made of impossible challenges and people who see opportunities, not faults. And every time our gang solves impossible problems, there must be created something new and even more terrible, so that they can have something to challenge their even more awesome magical forces that they aquired while fighting. How about Taravangian becoming Odium? Or witless Wit? Or a bondsmith Herald gone crazy. And there you have a bondsmith without checks, because he has no spren that can break his bond because he went crazy. Or Navani finding out the physics behind terribly dangerous weapons, and being forced to surrender her notes to the enemy, so that they can replicate one weapon that she has developed from her new knowledge. Good thing then, that we have got heroes that have experience from being not perfect, who can understand difficulty, what it feels like to have failed. And how to think outside the box to make new weapons, from the insights and knowledge you got from your failure.. We need this to get a good story in the next book. And I, for one, am very happy that Sanderson chose this way to make it exciting. I find it believable and likeable.

She can be a scientist AND a leader, and a Bondsmith should be a leader. I find it tedious to sit here and repeat myself, and I am sorry to say you don't give me anything more interesting to think about, so I will bid you good night.

Hahaha! Oh, well, it's easy to solve a crisis from an armchair. Thanks for the discussion. This does not give me more interesting information, I am afraid.

So, how would you have saved the tower city and the Sibling?

So you think that leaders don't actually do anything? When they use their power to delegate resources to a task? Do you think that a bondsmith's power is personal only? That their ability to get other people to support a task or work together to get something done, then the leader has not done anything?

And so let the Sibling become Unmade and Urithiru lost to the enemy?