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Showing results for tags 'knights radient'.
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I know I’m not alone in struggling to see Skybreakers as not sorta evil, particularly in comparison to Windrunners. Like it seems to come down to Honor vs. the Law, which seems pretty biased. Especially when the easiest comparison is best boy Kaladin vs. dumpster fire Szeth. After some thought here’s my outline for how Skybreakers are actually kinda valid. Skybreakers are their core are about consistency and fairness. It's not so much the law, as a willingness to follow a personal code, that Nale is most interested in (WOB). So it’s not really about following the law. It’s about following a code. It’s not supposed to be about abdicating moral decision making. It’s supposed to be about putting fairness over your own opinion. By swearing themselves to a code, Skybreakers are trying to transcend their own biases. This doesn’t mean Skybreakers can’t be flexible. See Szeth choosing to punish the Warden over prisoners (OB). In fact, the pattern of Skybreaker ideals is about developing and understanding your own set of ethics. Kant would probably be a great Skybreaker. 2nd Ideal: “I swear to seek justice, to let it guide me until I find a more perfect Ideal.” and “I will put the law before all else” It's about making a commitment to justice, a promise to follow a higher authority than your own biases. Notably, unlike the next, this ideal gives the flexibility to try out different codes and rules of ethics. A 2nd level Skybreaker is working to eliminating biases and exploring different ethical frameworks. 3rd Oath of Dedication Here the Skybreaker makes a commitment to a specific external code/authority. It could be a person (Dalinar) or it could be "the law of the land" or anything. The Skybreaker has explored what exists and chosen a code they think is most just. 4th Ideal of Crusade I think this is supposed to function as a test of the code they’ve chosen to follow, like a practical version of thought experiments like the Trolley problem. The Radiant has to see how the code they’ve chosen applies to a real-world situation they have a deep personal investment in. It’s both a test of the Skybreaker (how well can you ignore your own bias to apply a code) and also a test of the law they’ve chosen to follow (does it actually work in the real world). 5th Ideal of Law The Skybreaker has gained such an in-depth understanding of ethics and proven ability to ignore bias that they grow beyond the need for an external guide and ‘become the law’. This is were they synthesize everything learned through the other ideals and formulate their own set of ethics. Side Note: An example of a case where a Skybreaker might make a “better” (at least to my view) decision than a Windrunner would be Kaladin’s WOR dilemma. Both a Skybreakers and Windrunner would have a similar problem: help my friend get justice vs. support the assassination of someone I’m guarding. The Windrunner (Kaladin) is supposed to protect people, and people therefore either fall into the ‘protect’ or ‘protect from’ category. Elhokar ends up getting slotted into the ‘protect’ category and Moash into ‘protect from’. He saves someone’s life temporarily but ultimately does nothing to help the underlying issue. Elhokar never has to confront what he did to Moash and Moash still wants blood. A Skybreakers is supposed to find justice. Elhokar doesn’t deserve to die for negligence and being a bad leader but Moash was truly wronged and has valid complaints. To be just would balance that Elhokar both deserves to live but also to be punished. A good (not modern) Skybreaker could better equipped to take in the grey areas of issues. In short, Skybreakers play the role of the legal system while Windrunners are more like first responders. The Windrunner keeps people from being murdered but a Skybreaker's role is to figure out how it got to the point of murder in the first place.
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I was rereading WoR and thinking about why (and how) the knights radient betrayed their spren. The best idea I had about it was that they did something to make all spren leave their hosts. This would definitely count as a betrayal by a spren. And the reason that they would do this is to stop the Parshendi once and for all. They are tired of fighting the Parshendi again and again, and by giving up all their spren, the parshendi are trapped in Dullform. By losing their powers and responsibilities, they rid humanity of its largest threat and get cool servants! Everyone wins! (Except the spren.) Thoughts? Ideas? Feedback?
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