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Morality of Gavilar


Seonookim

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Did anybody else notice how horrible Gavilar Kholin is? 

 

I'm not sure how to make spoiler tags...

 

Gavilar apparently wanted to return the Heralds, which is forgivable (even though all the Heralds are psychopaths/drunks/vandals/insane). But he apparently wanted to achieve this miraculous feat by turning the Parshendi into Voidbringers.

This is highly immoral, as nobody wants to transform into orcs, and this just feels like Gavilar did not understand the simple fact that the Parshendi =/= parshmen. To him, the Parshendi were just parshmen that could be sacrificed in order to achieve a greater goal, and he completely disregarded the fact that the Parshendi are people too. In addition, he seems to have forgot the fact that the Parshendi would not just sit around and be monsterfied, my guess is that he just thought that the parshendi were simply docile animals.

 

Conclusion: Gavilar is a callous monster.

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I think it was implied that Gavilar wanted the return, by Amaram and Eshonai's POV.

 

Amaram says that Gavilar would be proud that the Voidbringers returned.

Eshonai says that they assassinated Gavilar so that the Unmade (connected to voidbringers) could not return.

Gavilar thinks Thaidakar (?) assassinated him, and Thai is a Ghostblood, and Ghostbloods oppose the sons of Honor.

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Gavilar also thought Restares might have been responsible for his murder, and Restares seems to be operating with Amaram.

 

Honestly... I don't have time right now to make the full argument. But despite this same line of arguing leading nowhere with Amaram, I'm going to give Gavilar the benefit of the doubt. He had his hands in a lot of plots, given his connections with the Parshendi, the Diagram, the Sons of Honor and wherever-it-was he got his black stone from. I need to make a post sometime to articulate my feelings on the subject, but I suspect that Gavilar was using these forces to achieve his own goal; it's even possible that he named the people he did when he was assassinated because he thought that it must have been one of those organisations exacting retribution for him double-crossing them.

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Also, nowhere is it implied that Gavilar knew that the Parshendi were the Voidbringers. He might have wanted to bring back the Desolations, but I do not think he knew what that would do to the Parshendi. No one except Jasnah did (probably), and she spent several years diving into the most obscure books she could find..

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Aether, on 18 Apr 2014 - 10:33 PM, said:

Also, nowhere is it implied that Gavilar knew that the Parshendi were the Voidbringers. He might have wanted to bring back the Desolations, but I do not think he knew what that would do to the Parshendi. No one except Jasnah did (probably), and she spent several years diving into the most obscure books she could find..

And it's implied by Jasnah that she doesn't have enough evidence for people to believe her, which is one reason why she's been playing things close to her chest.
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Galivar was in the same position before he was killed as Dalinar was in WoR. He had visions of the Last Desolation and the Everstorm, of instructions from the Almighty how to prepare. Presumably, he had the same set of visions.

It seems that Galivar entrusted knowledge of these visions to several people who all interpreted them their own way and believe that they're currently doing what Galivar would want them to do.

The Parshendi believed that Galivar was going to bring back their gods, for which they killed him using a weapon created by King T (the Truthless, whose creation was suggested by the Diagram).

Galivar had a black sphere that seems very Odium-like.

Beyond all that, we know nothing. Galivars intentions are given to us only through the interpretations of others. Unreliable. I'm 100% certain that the truth is something we will have no possibility of guessing. There's a reason every prologue is going to be the night of Galivars death from different PoVs

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Gavilar had the black sphere and bragged to the Parshendi that he was going to bring back their gods:

 

“King Gavilar,” Eshonai said, as if mulling over the name. “He should not have revealed his plans to us that night. Poor fool. He did not know. He bragged, thinking we would welcome the return of our gods.” She shook her head, then turned again and jogged off, armor clinking.

 

There's no point trying to justify his actions. Gavilar was attempting to bring back the Unmade, one of which is responsible for the Thrill, which is responsible for a good deal of death and battle. Gavilar, like Amaram, was an idiot and was trying to bring back the Desolation (probably by justifying it as attempting to return the Heralds - he was "devout even by Vorin standards").

 

Unless anyone wants to argue that returning the listener gods is a good thing?

Edited by Moogle
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Gavilar had the black sphere and bragged to the Parshendi that he was going to bring back their gods:

There's no point trying to justify his actions. Gavilar was attempting to bring back the Unmade, one of which is responsible for the Thrill, which is responsible for a good deal of death and battle. Gavilar, like Amaram, was an idiot and was trying to bring back the Desolation (probably by justifying it as attempting to return the Heralds - he was "devout even by Vorin standards").

Unless anyone wants to argue that returning the listener gods is a good thing?

Perception. Interpretation. Parshendi in dullform interpreted Galivar's plans as they did and killed him for it. How do you know that Galivar knew that what he was planning would return the Listener's gods?

And where does anything say the Galivar showed the black sphere to anyone?

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Galivar was in the same position before he was killed as Dalinar was in WoR. He had visions of the Last Desolation and the Everstorm, of instructions from the Almighty how to prepare. Presumably, he had the same set of visions.

It seems that Galivar entrusted knowledge of these visions to several people who all interpreted them their own way and believe that they're currently doing what Galivar would want them to do.

The Parshendi believed that Galivar was going to bring back their gods, for which they killed him using a weapon created by King T (the Truthless, whose creation was suggested by the Diagram).

Galivar had a black sphere that seems very Odium-like.

Beyond all that, we know nothing. Galivars intentions are given to us only through the interpretations of others. Unreliable. I'm 100% certain that the truth is something we will have no possibility of guessing. There's a reason every prologue is going to be the night of Galivars death from different PoVs

 

Do we have any confirmation that he was receiving the same visions? We know he did have visions and that Mr. T mentions the "I will unite them" which is the same incorrect thinking Dalinar initially had but do we know anything more? The main issue I have is how on earth did Gavilar keep his seizures a secret when it was impossible for Dalinar. I get that Gavilar was way sneaker but surely at least one of his close relatives would have known about the seizures during highstorms. 

 

Looking at Gavilar's actions and the fact that it seems no one "good" actually knew about the visions I'm starting to believe they weren't entirely the same and/or possibly tainted by odium in some way.

 

 

Perception. Interpretation. Parshendi in dullform interpreted Galivar's plans as they did and killed him for it. How do you know that Galivar knew that what he was planning would return the Listener's gods?

And where does anything say the Galivar showed the black sphere to anyone?

 

 

Eshonai specifically says Gavilar shouldn't have told them his plans about returning their gods. He just didn't understand that they didn't want the return of their gods. Unless you mean Eshonai was lied to or didn't understand Gavilar? Feel we should rather trust second hand source until we know more. It also lines up with why he was so interested in the Listeners when no one else was.

Edited by Numb
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Maybe the visions he was receiving from the Almighty told him the same as Dalinar's visions. Gather them, remake the KR. Maybe Gavilar thought bringing the Voidbringers back would bring the heralds and KR back?

 

I realize as I am typing at how stupid that sounds and I basically disagree with my own counter argument/suggestion LOL

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Did anybody else notice how horrible Gavilar Kholin is? 

 

I'm not sure how to make spoiler tags...

 

Gavilar apparently wanted to return the Heralds, which is forgivable (even though all the Heralds are psychopaths/drunks/vandals/insane). But he apparently wanted to achieve this miraculous feat by turning the Parshendi into Voidbringers.

This is highly immoral, as nobody wants to transform into orcs, and this just feels like Gavilar did not understand the simple fact that the Parshendi =/= parshmen. To him, the Parshendi were just parshmen that could be sacrificed in order to achieve a greater goal, and he completely disregarded the fact that the Parshendi are people too. In addition, he seems to have forgot the fact that the Parshendi would not just sit around and be monsterfied, my guess is that he just thought that the parshendi were simply docile animals.

 

Conclusion: Gavilar is a callous monster.

 

What Gavilar understood or didn't makes a big difference as to whether he was a monster or not. I don't think we have enough information to make your conclusion.

 

What do we really know? According to Amaram, Gavilar wanted to return the Heralds. And he wanted to do so by bringing back the voidbringers.

 

We don't know that he understood the link between voidbringers, parshendi and parshmen. In fact, if he had understood this so well, why would he then go and tell them? As I wrote in a different post, there's a lot of unknown about why he told them, but certainly the most reasonable interpretation is that he hadn't figured out that link.

 

To add to the idea that he didn't understand what he was getting into, most of the Heralds were already wandering around already, and as you point out, damaged. His whole goal was misinformed. Do we really have enough to conclude he understood exactly what he was doing? The possible ramifications?

 

 

Also, if Gavilar wasn't a Son of Honor, the Alethi would have ignored the Parshendi, and the War of Reckoning would have been prevented, and the Everstorm would not have occurred. So indirectly, Gavilar caused the Everstorm.

 

Again, are you so sure he wasn't just playing with powers too big for him to understand? Gavilar is yet a mystery carrying a voidsphere. He knew more than we do, and likely less too. It's possible he could be a callous monster. But he could just as easily be an ignorant pawn being used by someone (or something :ph34r: ) else telling him lies.

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I think an interesting and important question is why Gavilar was having those visions. 

 

The Desolation came because of the Parshendi desperation to win the war that began with Gavilar's death. If Gavilar didn't have the visions, the Parshendi wouldn't have killed him and started the same war that began the Desolation.

 

Was it a self-fulfilling prophecy or is there something more? Would a Desolation still have come without the war? Because this is what Gavilar having the same visions as Dalinar implies. Yet the reason behind the Desolation so far seems to be these same visions... 

 

So I am inclined to believe Gavilar didn't see the same things as Dalinar. Why Gavilar never confided in his own brother is also an issue for me, that may or may not be resolved in Dalinar's flashbacks.

 

I agree so far it seems to be implied that Gavilar wanted to begin a Desolation, which likely means he really didn't, because it's Brandon's style to deceive us using unreliable narrators. 

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