Oathbringer Prologue (spoilers)

[+Extesian]

21 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Nope. It really is nowhere near "pragmatic".  "Pragmatic" is running around and offing Surgebinders. You are killing individual people, but very few of them, and if this prevents entire countries from being burned out, certain lines of thinking may treat it as pragmatic: it is minimizing the overall loss of life over a long period of time.  The Diagram is the tragedy of an anti-villain turning dark and sociopathic. But Gavilar's approach to saving the world is wistful insanity of a spoiled child who has a sad because Santa isn't real and there is no Easter Bunny.

Let me rephrase for clarity it is a move born out of a philosophy of pragmatism (vs one of idealism). It may not be pragmatic or wise or necessary or balanced but it's an end-justifies-the-means approach.

Look at it this way. If you are sure that the end of the world is approaching, that Odium will be released, that the world is in immediate peril, and you believe the only way that can be countered is by the return of the Heralds and the establishment of the full orders of the Knights Radiant, and you believe that doom is so soon that if the status quo remains there will not be time to train Knights Radiant by the time the crem hits the fan, then it actually makes sense to bring forward the first steps of a desolation to bring forward the return of the KR in time to get them trained up and possibly even force the return of the Heralds.

Now i don't think that's the case and I don't like our trust these dudes. My comment wasn't about morality or correct approach, simply about whether Gavilar's actions are by definition against what a Knight Radiant should be. They may be, but I think not necessarily. Just like Mr T is doing atrocious things, killing people to gain 'intelligence' in the form of death rattles (which are from the Unmade therefore inherently dangerous). But what he's doing may be worth it.

Frankly I despise both of them. But are they inherently evil, unquestionably wrong or necessarily incompatible with every order of the KR? Not necessarily

[Andy92]

Gavilar seems like a WWII general who's tasked with the decision to risk thousands and thousands of lives for a chance to end the war once and for all. It's a touchy call to make, but I think he just seems like the guy who doesn't want to sit on the sidelines and watch the world burn. I think his end game was luring out Odium in an attempt to crush him. 

[RyanEl]

I personally suspect Gavilar was on the path to being a Bondsmith but might have been totally mucking it up with how he was totally misinterpreting his visions, just like how Kaladin almost lost Syl by condoning Elhokar's assassination. 

Also, we now know Eshonai had one black sphere, so where did it go? I'm guessing Venli found it and was influenced in some way, eventually using it to reverse engineer stormform. This is just speculation of course since I think it's one logical leap too many, but if true, Gavilar did inadvertently succeed in his goal of bringing about the Everstorm.

This prologue makes it very clear that the Sons of Honor seem to believe that bringing the Desolations will return the Heralds and Knights Radiant. Idle musing here: the Desolations, Heralds and Radiants are clearly correlated but which causes which? Are the Heralds Odium's wardens, tied to Damnation so they return alongside Odium, or are they along with the Desolations a kind of 'pressure valve' to let Odium blow off a little steam every now and then so he never regains enough strength to break free?

[emailanimal]

2 hours ago, Extesian said:

Look at it this way. If you are sure that the end of the world is approaching, that Odium will be released, that the world is in immediate peril, and you believe the only way that can be countered is by the return of the Heralds and the establishment of the full orders of the Knights Radiant, and you believe that doom is so soon that if the status quo remains there will not be time to train Knights Radiant by the time the crem hits the fan, then it actually makes sense to bring forward the first steps of a desolation to bring forward the return of the KR in time to get them trained up and possibly even force the return of the Heralds.

 

I see where you are coming from, and this makes more sense to me now than before. However, I am still not certain that "OMG, we do not have the time to train! Let's speed up DOOM!" is a pragmatic approach.  This is more of a grasping for straws approach that is borne out of someone reading in some text some obscure reference and coming to Gavilar all like "My lord, it is all clear to me! This ketek here... it says: Nice things happen sooner the sooner they happen to nice things! This can only mean one thing! If we start Desolations NOW, Knights Radiant will magically appear. Totally. The books says it... yes... the book...right here sir..."  and Gavilar is all like "Yeah... Sounds like a plan"

Let's put it this way. Dalinar has seen the same visions. He may, as of yet do something stupid, but so far,  making it easier for the enemy to kill everyone in sight is not something he is keen on doing.

So, I see what you are saying, but I somewhat disagree that Gavilar and his posse acted in a pragmatic way.

My view of pragmatic way is "let's do everything we can to postpone this until very very late".  

So, I am with Parshendi here. They did the pragmatic thing.

 

 

 

Edited February 7, 2017 by emailanimal

[hypatia]

To the topic "Gavilar was on the way..."

Feel free to correct me, but if the visions are the way to become a Bondsmith, we'll have to look at the chosen conception of this visions.

You aren't just an onlooker, you are able to interact with the past, to change - not the past per se - your own vision of the past and with the personal reaction you get different sorts of informations.

Perhaps the way someone acts will decide if you are the special material for a Bondsmith, because this will show your person, your intentions.If - as a example - Gavilar has chosen not to fight for the family or was killed before the arrival of the knight radiants, he wouldn't have the talk about the training.Or perhaps Gavilar had chosen not to leave Feverstone and had ended up with a chat with other soldiers about what was happening.

All in all this can be the reason, why Gavilar ended up dead and Dalinar bonded - because of how each one acted in the visions.

 

As fo unity - I always thought Bridge 4 is like a role model for the right form of unity. There are all kind of people united - Darkeyes, Brightlord, Herdazian (even one-armed), Azish, Horneater....the list goes on until we also get a Listener. As much as I would like to see Dalinar as the Bondsmith of the Cosmere, I think it is more likely for his arc to find a way to unite all the Rosharians, not against the Parshendi, not to continue to enslave them, but to find a way to unite with them against the forces of Odium.

I know that the Listener weren't Knight Radiants in the past, but this is possible the reason why there never was an end to the Desolations - because without the Listeners the unity isn't perfect.

[Pagerunner]

7 hours ago, emailanimal said:

What still makes me wonder is this... I read the story of the last Desolation to be something like this: humans were fighting the voidforms of Listeners and via some feat of Investiture wound up being able to rip spren out of Listeners, turning them into parshmen.  However, *before* this happened, a splinter group of Listeners somehow defeated their voidforms to assume dullform and escape. They became the Parshendi we know now.  So, to me the "capturing very old spren" read like "spren" was in plural, and referred to the act of ripping the voidspren from the Listeners-in-voidform.

Reread the transcription. It's very clear Gavilar is referring to a single ancient spren. Which is brand new information, as far as I'm aware.

[Oversleep]

It's fascinating how some people are already bashing Gavilar based on very little.

Anyway, I want you to consider two things:

1. (Spoilers for WoA)

 

If Ruin was not released at the end of WoA, the world would have naturally wound up and died anyway, even without his direct influence; the next build-up of the Well could have not come fast enough and the world would have ended. So in order to save the world, Ruin must had been released.
Of course, the analogy is not perfect but please consider that bringing back an evil god actually was the right thing to do.

2. God was directly pushing Gavilar to unite the world. I mean, your god, the good god, not the evil one, is telling you to do something. Now for the philospohy problem: are your actions justified, whatever they may be? If human morality is holding you back from doing what god told you to, what does that mean? It's not as clear cut as many would believe.

I wonder if Gavilar realized that the visions are actually god's apocalyptic log, not a conversation. Dalinar only realized that at the end of WoK.

Edited February 9, 2017 by Oversleep

[Blightsong]

4 hours ago, emailanimal said:

 

I see where you are coming from, and this makes more sense to me now than before. However, I am still not certain that "OMG, we do not have the time to train! Let's speed up DOOM!" is a pragmatic approach.  This is more of a grasping for straws approach that is borne out of someone reading in some text some obscure reference and coming to Gavilar all like "My lord, it is all clear to me! This ketek here... it says: Nice things happen sooner the sooner they happen to nice things! This can only mean one thing! If we start Desolations NOW, Knights Radiant will magically appear. Totally. The books says it... yes... the book...right here sir..."  and Gavilar is all like "Yeah... Sounds like a plan"

Let's put it this way. Dalinar has seen the same visions. He may, as of yet do something stupid, but so far,  making it easier for the enemy to kill everyone in sight is not something he is keen on doing.

So, I see what you are saying, but I somewhat disagree that Gavilar and his posse acted in a pragmatic way.

My view of pragmatic way is "let's do everything we can to postpone this until very very late".  

So, I am with Parshendi here. They did the pragmatic thing.

 

 

 

I don't think we can judge what is pragmatic for him to do because we know next to nothing about what his true intentions and the extent of his knowledge were.

[Argent]

I am surprised by how many people are surprised by Gavilar's behavior here. We knew he was in the Sons of Honor, and we knew what they were all about. 

But do go ahead, I find this discussion positively fascinating  

[Jofwu]

@Oversleep, excellent point about Mistborn. But maybe it should be marked as a spoiler?

Wheel of Time is another case where the protagonists face a similar decision.

[dvoraen]

55 minutes ago, Argent said:

I am surprised by how many people are surprised by Gavilar's behavior here. We knew he was in the Sons of Honor, and we knew what they were all about. 

But do go ahead, I find this discussion positively fascinating  

Right?  He's a real pissbag!

#SeraFriendIsBestFriend #dragonage

 

On the serious, I don't think we've even gotten HALF of what Gavilar did to initiate "kickoff" of this Desolation, so to speak, but this reading certainly hinted.

[Siaun Sanche]

I'm confused about the timing. If this is the same night as the assassination (which BS says in his intro), and Eshonai is the one responsible for having Szeth to kill Gavilar (which the chapter seems to say), then the Parshendi didn't plan until they had already arrived at the feast that this was going down. But Szeth came to the feast wearing white because he was going to assassinate the king.

[The One Who Connects]

4 minutes ago, Harry the Heir said:

But Szeth came to the feast wearing white because he was going to assassinate the king.

Two things about this. Liss(WoR prologue) owned Szeth prior the that point and sold him, which I believe is where the Parshendi got him. Secondly, per the transcript of the reading, Eshonai knew that Klade's slave(Szeth) was an assassin, and that Klade claimed that "the voice" led her to him.

These taken together could help with the timing. Liss sold him to Klade, maybe that morning or the day before the treaty because she was getting creeped out by Szeth, and Klade was interested in buying him because of the voice. Perhaps Liss had him wearing white for some reason, or Klade made him wear white once he mentioned his skills as an assassin, since it's part of their customs.

[Siaun Sanche]

1 minute ago, The One Who Connects said:

These taken together could help with the timing. Liss sold him to Klade, maybe that morning or the day before the treaty because she was getting creeped out by Szeth, and Klade was interested in buying him because of the voice. Perhaps Liss had him wearing white for some reason, or Klade made him wear white once he mentioned his skills as an assassin, since it's part of their customs.

Well, Liss says that she sold Szeth a few weeks before. That doesn't mean that Klade bought him weeks earlier, of course, but nothing says that Klade bought him that day either. And Szeth says this about his clothing:

Quote

 

"Today, that included wearing white. Loose white trousers tied at the waist with a rope, and over them a filmy shirt with long sleeves, open at the front. White clothing for a killer was a tradition among the Parshendi. Although Szeth had not asked, his masters had explained why.

"White to be bold. White to not blend into the night. White to give warning.

"For if you were going to assassinate a man, he was entitled to see you coming."

 

To my mind, the most natural way to read that is that Szeth wore that because he was going to kill somebody (hence why he's doing it "today" and not all the time, and also because it has a specific meaning in the context of assassinating somebody, not just being a killer in general). That was my assumption when I first read the prologue. The other reading (that Klade had him wear it today because they just got him today or just found out he was an assassin today) seems a little strained to me.

Having said that, I know it hasn't been checked for continuity issues, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is just the nature of it being a first draft. One or two sentences about how Klade hadn't arrived at the feast yet and Eshonai wanted to rush to convince him to bring Szeth along would do the trick.

[The One Who Connects]

1 minute ago, Harry the Heir said:

Well, Liss says that she sold Szeth a few weeks before. That doesn't mean that Klade bought him weeks earlier, of course, but nothing says that Klade bought him that day either. And Szeth says this about his clothing:

I forgot about that. I just sort-of assumed that he had been bought very recently, since she mentioned it in the prologue. Assassins seem like the type to think more in the here and now and/or the future rather than the past.

I do agree with your interpretation that it might be missing a sentence or two. Our transcript isn't even complete anyway, so perhaps it's both something new and something garbled will solve everything

[dionysus]

Gavilar united Alethkar under his dominance. I am sure those wars were not pretty. His main general was the Blackthorn, who we know was merciless and resorted to becoming a drunk later on, probably because of guilt. I do not see how anything revealed in this prologue is out of character. A prince who subdues 9 other kingdoms, most by force, has a certain megalomania and lack of regard for the very real consequences of his actions.

Disregarding journey before destination seems in-line with all we know about him.

[Oversleep]

On 2/7/2017 at 11:53 AM, jofwu said:

@Oversleep, excellent point about Mistborn.

Thanks

On 2/7/2017 at 11:53 AM, jofwu said:

But maybe it should be marked as a spoiler?

Seriously? 10 years after publication of WoA

Ruin being freed would be a spoiler?

I mean, it's one thing to talk about Shadows of Self or Bands of Mourning without spoiler tags in Stormlight subforum... but original trilogy?

Edited February 9, 2017 by WeiryWriter

[emailanimal]

So....

6 hours ago, Pagerunner said:

Reread the transcription. It's very clear Gavilar is referring to a single ancient spren. Which is brand new information, as far as I'm aware.

 

Fair enough. Here is the wording.

 

23 hours ago, jofwu said:

“The parshmen were like you once. We stopped their ability  [to enter the?]  transformation somehow by capturing a spren. A very ancient, very important spren.”

 

It does indeed suggest one spren.   It also suggests, that this spren was caught in a "very special gem".  So now I have a question. Where the heck is it???

 

 

 

[Pagerunner]

6 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Where the heck is it???

That, detective, is the right question.

[emailanimal]

 

7 hours ago, Oversleep said:

God was directly pushing Gavilar to unite the world. I mean, your god, the good god, not the evil one, is telling you to do something. Now for the philospohy problem: are your actions justified, whatever they may be? If human morality is holding you back from doing what god told you to, what does that mean?

Dalinar saw the same "tonight in the history of Roshar" news reel Gavilar saw.  Dalinar did not get, all of a sudden get a rushing urge to unleash DOOM.

I think we should stop justifying anyone's actions in this world with "God told them to".  Nothing good typically comes out of it. Neither in our world, nor in Cosmere.

 

[Argent]

2 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Dalinar saw the same "tonight in the history of Roshar" news reel Gavilar saw.

We actually don't know that. It's a likely possibility, but we did get RAFO'd on it.

[Oversleep]

23 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Dalinar saw the same "tonight in the history of Roshar" news reel Gavilar saw.  Dalinar did not get, all of a sudden get a rushing urge to unleash DOOM.

Strawman. Gavilar did not get an urge to "unleash DOOM" as you try to argue so badly; what Gavilar wanted to do was a tool, not an aim in and of itself.

The visions are interactive in nature, so we don't know whether Gavilar got the same content from the same visions as Dalinar. Dalinar is still getting new visions; Gavilar may have seen more and we don't know what's in there. We don't even know whether he have seen the same visions or if they were in the same order, as @Argent pointed out.

Furthermore, he may have interpreted them differently. Et cetera, et cetera.

23 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

I think we should stop justifying anyone's actions in this world with "God told them to".  Nothing good typically comes out of it. Neither in our world, nor in Cosmere.

Yeah, usually when God says something, people totally should go "nothing good comes out of it, shut up shut up shut up". When people discovered the sixteen as sign from god, they should totally go "nope, that's god talking, let's not investigate it". Vin could have still succeeded in killing Ruin, the only problem is that Sazed would have died because koloss would tear through humans like a hot knife through butter.

And Returned should totally not listen to their visions, nothing good comes out of it.

What in the Damnation are you trying to argue?

Edited February 7, 2017 by Oversleep

[Jofwu]

25 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Dalinar saw the same "tonight in the history of Roshar" news reel Gavilar saw.  Dalinar did not get, all of a sudden get a rushing urge to unleash DOOM.

Assuming that Dalinar saw the same things (which I think is logical), I still don't think you can compare their reactions. Dalinar barely saw all of the visions and made sense of them before it was too late for him to actually DO anything at all. Dalinar did literally nothing about the visions, except perhaps a confused, misguided attempt to unite the Highprinces.

The sense I get from the epilogue is that Gavilar has been getting these visions for a fairly long time. He's been researching means to contain these "gods". He's planing to ally with the Parshendi against this threat, which implies he's considered steps that need to be taken in order to keep them from being taken.

What makes you think he planned to unleash DOOM on the world for no good reason? You seem to believe that his plan was to bring back the Everstorm and then watch the world burn. That's not what he's talking about at all. He's talking about weapons that can be used to fight back. He's talking about containing and dealing with the threat. It's not just, "Let's open Pandora's Box and cross our fingers that mankind survives the Desolation that follows."

You also seem to believe that the Everstorm wasn't going to come one way or another. Guess what? Gavilar died, and it came anyways. Thanks to meddling Listeners who were being manipulated, mind you. What if Gavilar wasn't going to release the 'gods' for another 10 or 15 years? When mankind is more prepared. After he's had time to weed out the use of Parshmen for example.

I'm not saying Gavilar is definitely clean. I'm saying that you're jumping to a LOT of conclusions about what he was trying to do and how it was going to work out.

[+Extesian]

Would it be frightfully bold of me to suggest somebody starts a 'Morality of Gavilar in the Draft Non-Continuity-Checked Transcription of the Early Reading of the Oathbringer Prologue' thread? Coz there are so many juicy Sanderfan-baits in this I feel we may never discuss them amidst the philisophical debates

Does Gavilar rightly believe the Heralds could come out of hiding? Does he not know they never left but just left their posts or does he know something we don't (like new Heralds can be chosen if the old ones are AWOL)?

Is the light in the black sphere Essence of Odium? Essence of Cultivation? Essence of of Adonalsium? (Surely Odium...). And what does it actually do? Is it the Odium equivalent of Lerasium, turning people (or just Parshendi) into Voidbinders? Where the Braize did Eshonai's black sphere go as she seems so terrified by it then but it's never mentioned in her previous PoVs? And how many more spheres are there?

The Voice. Odium? Cultivation? Autonomy? An Unmade? A Parshendi? Sauron? The Zucchini Beyond? And how long has it been planning all this, was it before or after Gavilar started getting visions in Tanavast-scope?

Or am I spoiling the fun?

[Jofwu]

25 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Is the light in the black sphere Essence of Odium?

Seems like most people earlier in the thread were in favor of this. I liked term "voidlight" that someone used.

But I'm not convinced entirely... Why is it always just a "sphere"? No mention of a gemstone at the center? I feel like there should be mention of a gemstone at the center if it's Stormlight-like Odium-Investiture. Furthermore, what does this "voidlight" do? I didn't get a sense that the Stormform Listeners were using something similar to stormlight, for example.

29 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Where the Braize did Eshonai's black sphere go as she seems so terrified by it then but it's never mentioned in her previous PoVs?

I think it was somebody on Reddit who suggested that the sphere ended up in Venli's hands, and that it was partly what helped her to discover Stormform (either because studying it informing her in some way or just by inspiration of some sort). I really like that idea.

32 minutes ago, Extesian said:

The Voice.

Somebody was comparing the ability to speak in the rhythms to the way Ruin spoke. I'm not convinced it has to be a Shard speaking.

My first thought was that an Unmade is responsible... But I can't think of any support for this.

My next thought was the Heralds. This is based on what the Herald (probably Kalak) says in Jasnah's prologue: “I don’t like this. What we’ve done was wrong. That creature carries my lord’s own Blade. We shouldn’t have let him keep it. He—”. How did they speak to Klade? Who knows, but they're Heralds. If anyone would know, it's them. The Heralds were obviously up to something that night. Or some of them at least. And we have plenty of reason to believe that they don't want Gavilar to succeed. They're the ones who started the present stalemate after all, and Nale (for one) is trying pretty hard to preserve it. This is the most logical answer I can think of.

My backup guess is Taravangian. It's not hard to be suspicious of him. It wouldn't be surprising if he knew how to speak to Listeners in the rhythms, and there's plenty of reason to assume he knew of Szeth. Probably not hard to think of a motive either. (I'm assuming the Diagram exists at this point- can't remember if that's the case.)