Arkennys

Whoops, sorry about the title. Thanks for the edit.

We know very little about how kandra work. Even if they do clearly appear as kandra, instead of being fully in hiding mode, when they are not viewpoint characters, as MeLaan was not in SoS, we cannot truly take anything they say or do at face value. Though of course that was a different era, before Harmony, we should always remember that for a thousand years their very existence was the extreme long-con, them being the ultimate spies not against other people, but Ruin himself. Depending on your personal level of paranoia, MeLaan's comment that she is just showing everyone what they need to see to keep them on mission is either a bit of light-hearted fun, or extremely creepy. Therefore, let me start by saying that is this is all guesswork based on what makes sense and feels right to me. I mostly only have questions, and what few theories I do have lack any kind of proof, but hopefully you will find what I have to say interesting and worth reading. I am only mildly Cosmere aware - I lurk these forums a fair amount, and have read most major theories; however I do not on my own automatically think in Cosmere terms. Furthermore, I intend to find an interpretation that is character driven, not system driven. I certainly appreciate the very consistent and rule based nature of Mr. Sanderson's magic systems, however I consider characters more interesting as people first (e.g. certain behaviour may be a documented result of Cosmere stuff, but if I can find a personal reason for it, I will always prefer that). I believe my interpretation is based on text - albeit by arguably over-analysing things - without adding any speculation that is explicitly external to the books, but it is an interpretation, an alternative reading, and as such has little direct evidence to support it. With this disclaimer out of the way, I will now present everything as obvious facts for the sake of clarity, but do keep these first paragraphs in mind. 1. Background To understand Lessie-kandra, I first need to establish how her mind works. To do that, I will have to go back to TenSoon. This is especially helpful, because Lessie-kandra is compared to him quite heavily - I could of course question that information, but I do not have any reason to, and I think that that bit of insight is key. A very simplistic way to summarise what happened in the first trilogy would be that Vin's friendship allowed TenSoon's personality to manifest. Two things to note about this: a) his personality was there before, he was not actually completely empty - that was what drove him to take all the contracts, resent humans, etc. - it was merely not dominant and on the surface; Vin's actions provoked him to let his personality through, and develop, but it was not like flipping a switch - now you are a blank slate, now you are the real TenSoon. A good comparison - though I do not believe the two are exactly the same - would be to children. A teen has the core of their personality ready, but needs the experience and confidence to fully grow into it. I think I can be very brief here, by simply saying "coming of age". A kandra that chooses TenSoon's path - like Lessie-kandra did, for example - would be like a child, not having the room to become who they are, because their self is being suppressed by the personalities they keep taking on. Kandra, especially the old ones, are very dedicated to their roles. I think that Wayne's viewpoint chapters in both AoL and SoS give a good approximation of this, where he starts thinking like his disguise, to get into the role. Kandra must surely do something similar. Now, I want to point out that even in the case of kandra, I do not mean to go over the top with this, and suggest that they somehow lose their identities, or are truly blank slates; simply that their personal growth is delayed and very slow, spread over a long time - in some cases many centuries. One last thing to note: this is all about their personality, and what can best be described as their own awareness of it, and confidence in it. It is independent of their factual knowledge, or practical abilities. 2. Relationship with Wax I do not believe Lessie-kandra was in love with Wax. That is to say, I do not believe it was as simple as that. While it may not have been Harmony's - or Lessie-kandra's - intentional plan, I think it was logical for the Lessie-persona to fall in love with Wax, and vice versa. This approach is not very romantic, but it makes sense in the story; it is also something that happens in real life as well. Love can be mysterious and special, and all the rest, but also sometimes there are people that make a good couple, and it is easy to see why and how they would fall in love. The complications begin when we realise that Lessie-kandra's actual personality, her core, was also such that this relationship appealed to her. In the prologue, there are two interesting bits of dialogue with Lessie-kandra, that are very telling. First, she says that killing Wax would have been like killing what he stood for. This proves that she knew about him - in reality, very likely knew more about him than just his Roughs reputation; Harmony sent her to be his bodyguard, he must have told her at least something of why Wax was important - and it is a very profound statement. It also reveals an appreciation of Wax, his goals, and his morals. Second, she talks about how she did some things for Granite Joe she is not very proud of. I do not think this foreshadows her turning against Harmony, however I do think she was talking about more than just her cover. We know that she was always somewhat unconventional, and did things most kandra find distasteful. We also know that Harmony made use of this - indeed, this was why she became Wax's bodyguard. Knowing about Wax, and how important he is, she felt she was doing something important and worthwhile in this job, something she could fully get behind. Just for the record, I do not think there is anything inherently unlikely about a kandra falling in love with a human - I only question it in this specific case. In summary, the high regard she held Wax in was genuine, and part of her "normal" personality, however it, and their being in love, was also tied to, and very probably started by, the Lessie-persona. 3. Chain of events - going rogue Here is where things get really confusing. At first glance - and first reading of SoS - the events seem to be: I. Harmony wants Wax to return to the city. II. Lessie-kandra does not approve, believes Wax would be happier staying where he is. III. Harmony pushes Lessie-kandra hard, but without taking control of her. IV. Harmony arranges the Lessie-persona's death. V. Lessie-kandra snaps and goes crazy [more on this in the last part]. VI. Lessie-kandra begins to plan and execute the downfall of Harmony, to free everyone from him. VII. Lessie-kandra gets and uses one or more trellium spikes. VIII. Lessie-kandra removes one or more of her spikes. The order of these events is implied, however not confirmed. In fact, the events themselves are uncertain; IV. especially is questionable. I. and II. are pretty much undisputable and I have nothing to add. III. We do not know what Harmony pushed Lessie-kandra to do. It could be that he wanted her to encourage Wax to return to the city, maybe even return with him. There is some evidence for this, and it is the most benevolent reading. It is also the only scenario which could lead to Lessie-kandra arranging the Lessie-persona's death herself. On the other hand, it could also be that the thing Harmony pushed Lessie-kandra into was IV. More, a possible extension of this would be that Harmony was also the one who prevented Lessie-kandra from coming out to Wax initially. While by the end of SoS, after she becomes unstable and a year passes, I can grudgingly accept that she just wanted to spare Wax because she knew that the truth would hurt him, this does not work at the start. It is very difficult to imagine that Wax would be overly upset if "Lessie" just got up after he shot her and explained things right then and there (or within a few days). IV. This is the biggest issue. Who arranged it? Harmony or Lessie-kandra? I am not going to go into the latter too much, because to me it makes no sense. The Lessie-persona's death was what made Wax return to the city, which is precisely what Lessie-kandra did not want to happen - if she arranged her death, she miscalculated very badly, and that does not seem to fit with her brilliant, extremely methodical nature. Even if Harmony arranged it, though, there are problems. The way Bloody Tan talks seems very in line with what Lessie-kandra thinks. Why would this be the case? If he is just a random criminal who happened to be one they were chasing when the Lessie-persona needed to die - honestly though, how many people on this forum are willing to believe that? - he should not be saying anything relevant at all. But if he is not a random criminal - who is he? His dialogue seems to be counter to Harmony's goals, which makes me believe that even though Harmony arranged to use him, he is not somebody Harmony is directly controlling - either via his godly powers, or just by talking to them and asking them to help, as he sort of does with Wax. However, since this the point where Lessie-kandra is being the most heavily influenced, and her death is not something she wants, I find it unlikely that she would cooperate with Bloody Tam. It is worth consideration, however, that maybe since Harmony was not completely controlling her, once she realised what was going to happen, she gave Tam information, so that it would get back to Wax and be a clue to him. V. to VIII. These are things we know happened, but the order is not determined at all - both just among these four, and their location on the list. It seems likely that Harmony's heavy handed influence was what made Lessie-kandra go crazy and turn on him, but not certain. It could be argued that by refusing to go along with his plans in the first place, warranting such heavy intervention, she was already rogue. Did she go crazy and remove her spike(s) out of madness, or did she go mad because of a lack of spikes? Did she remove her spike(s) and look for alternatives then, finding trellium, or was gaining access to trellium what triggered her to removes her spike(s)? If having trellium made her confident enough to remove her own spike(s), and removing her spike(s) is what made her insane, does that mean the she had access to trellium before she snapped? It has been noted that Harmony seems very troubled by her ability to hide, yet does not directly tie this ability to her lack of spike(s). Further, Harmony implies that the madness is a result of spikelessness, yet I do not think he ever comes out and explicitly states that Lessie-kandra only went insane because some of her spikes were removed. All of this could be made more crazy, if we assumed that she got a trellium spike in her during her time running around in the Lessie-persona. Maybe that spike influenced her, or opened her to influence. Maybe that is why she started opposing Harmony's wishes in the first place, requiring him to step in. This is probably more of a stretch, but we know for certain nothing that would prevent this. Primarily the point I am trying to make is simply that despite SoS seeming like it reveals many things and appearing shocking, we actually know very little of what exactly happened for sure. Any of these variations could be true, or any other combination of these events could have happened, and it would still fit with the tiny amount we can be certain of. Also, it is important to note that Harmony likes to interfere as little as possible, wants to ensure people have independence from him and free will as much as possible, and the idea of personally taking care of things is distinctly unpleasant to him. By SoS, after Lessie-kandra has destroyed a dam, causing who knows how much damage, and murdered a lot of people, he is ready to handle her, but the question is, was he always? I find it entirely possible that Lessie-kandra exploited Harmony's principles. She can very easily be opposed to him, and work against him, and as long as she keeps her actions below a certain level of visibility and wrongness, Harmony would not directly involve himself. For example, could she break into an empty house and steal some jewellery or would that be something that Harmony find offensive enough to prevent himself? Could she rob a bank, if she only used a fake gun and made sure not to hurt anyone, only scare them? Could she murder one person? Two? At what point exactly would Harmony decided to go Old Testament on her? I think murder is a pretty good threshold, but we cannot know for sure, and in all honesty, it does not really matter. The only important thing is: could she start working on her evil plan and by not doing any technically wrong for a while, avoid Harmony's ire? One last thing to note in this area: Harmony is not omniscient. Under normal circumstances he can probably find most people and information that he wants, but he has to work at it. This is my lack of Cosmere knowledge showing, so please do correct me on this point, but I actually think he cannot directly read the minds of non-spiked people - I recall that this is mentioned in SoS at one point and it was a main plot point in the first Mistborn trilogy, though that was only Ruin. The numbering above is what I prefer. I. to III. seem fairly certain, and I think arranging the Lessie-persona's death makes more sense for Harmony than Lessie-kandra. I also think that tying back to 1. and 2. the Lessie-persona's death was what made Lessie-kandra go crazy. The reason she did not go to Wax and reveal the truth initially was that she could not do it. Their relationship was tied very strongly not just for Wax, but for her as well, to the Lessie-persona. On top of that, acting as her true self was not something she was overly used to or comfortable with. When she lost the Lessie-persona, which she grew fond of - she even says at the end she wanted to become her - and which was the core of her connection to Wax, she simply could not take it. I also think that as I mentioned, she did not immediately remove her spike(s). She is ancient and extremely crafty. She fully exploited Harmony's principle's against him. She started planning, and somehow, somewhere along the way, she was given trellium. Armed with that, she only removed her spike(s) once her plan reached the point where Harmony would have stepped in, and after she was certain it would work out for her, thanks to trellium. The only thing I am baffled by is Bloody Tam. I cannot for the life of me figure out a scenario that makes sense. In a way, this makes everything I said so far look weak, because I cannot work everything in - I admit, this does bother me, however I have no choice but to accept it, because no alternatives I could think of, or read on these forums, properly account for his oddity in a way that is fits and works with everything else. Mr. Sanderson's consistency is beyond question, so I am sure there is a logical explanation, but it has not been found yet; or at least it has not yet been presented in a way that I find convincing and acceptable. 4. Insanity Much has been said about Lessie-kandra's supposed insanity. Serious mental health issues aside, I think there are four primary ways in which one can be insane. First, the worst case, is a loss of the ability to think normally. People in this category are no longer capable of making the same logical connections a healthy person does. This prevents them from functioning in many situations, causes their behaviour to be off, and their plans, if they can make them at all, are not workable because the steps do not properly follow each other. Lessie-kandra's pragmatic cognitive abilities have not decayed. Her planning, attention to detail, and execution of said plan prove this. Second, when people lose grip on part of reality. It can be summed up in one word as delusion. This and the first one can occur at the same time, but they are separate things. The first one is about how you connect two points, and this is about what those two points are, to put it simply. In this case, the affected person may make plans that are well structured, logical, may make arguments that are convincing; however the key issue is that one or more part of their reality is wrong. To give a blatant and silly example, if a very charismatic and talented politician suddenly became convinced that aliens [in the sci-fi sense, not immigration] run the government and started rallying people against them, he could have some success, by virtue of his talents - he would still know how to work a crowd, for instance. Lessie-kandra could be considered in this group depending on what you think about her plan against Harmony. I do not think that is the case, however. Needless to say I do not approve of mass murder, but I do not think her conclusions and goals are inherently incorrect. Third, we will often call someone crazy for doing something too far from normal. Serial killers are often in this category - though they can suffer from the first and second version too. A serial killer that kills their victims in a sadistic way for no overall purpose other than the fact that he enjoys it can very easily be seen as crazy, even if the previous two do not apply. This definitely does not apply to Lessie-kandra. At first glance her murders, some of which are quite gruesome might seem to qualify, however there was always a point to them. To repeat, this is not about whether I approve or not, of course, but there is a difference between a killing that serves a rational purpose, and one that is done just for the sake of it. Fourth, which I can best describe as "unreasonable focus". This is not a very good description, to be honest, but I cannot think of a better one. The best way to explain, I think, is via example. A common trope is that close to the final battle, the hero has to do something very difficult. "I will defeat the evil overlord by walking through his maze of doom." "But Bob, that's crazy!" Other variations include the heroic last stand or suicide mission. Many different motivations and circumstances can be the cause of this, but I would argue that very often the underlying mentality is one of "it does not matter how hard this is, if I fail everything is lost, I have to commit myself to this task fully and without any reservation or consideration and concern for any other priorities". Despite the examples, this is of course not a necessarily good thing. Such release of discipline and control can indeed be crazy - and very dangerous, in more ways than one. This is the version that best describes Lessie-kandra. The reason she can be fairly described as insane in SoS is because she has decided on a goal, and has set her mind on achieving it to a truly radical extent.

Shadows of Self is the first story by Mr. Sanderson I neither liked nor enjoyed, even though I still consider it a high quality novella. I will try to explain why, however the first thing I need to tell you about is my approach. The points I am going to make are very small, arguably individually irrelevant, and so what I do can be described quite fairly as nitpicking. Worse than that, they do not tie together very well - you cannot understand my issues with the book through following my arguments as steps in a chain of logic. However, they do combine, and cause my displeasure with the story as a whole. I think a fairly good analogy can be found in video games. A lot of computer RPGs let you create a very specific character, by allowing you to sculpt their face via a collection of sliders, such as "chin height" or "nose length", etc. Imagine that you spend two hours painstakingly getting every setting just right, to build the exact image you want; then somebody knocks every single slider along just by one notch, the smallest step it is possible to make. All of the individual changes are very small, and the new face will still look very similar to the one you made - yet at the same time to you, it would feel awful and wrong. 1. Genre/style/theme This is the biggest shift, the most noticeable, the hardest to argue. At the same time, this is also something that is not a criticism, or really something that can be listed as a problem, when it comes to judging this book. In fact, I think it is a change that makes SoS better. However, it still makes me disappointed, and like the book less. SoS is not a sequel to AoL. As the title of the section implies, I am not just talking about the practical side, that this story does not really deal with the Set, and the missing women - which was the sequel hook last time. In fact, I think the only things that tie the two books together are precisely the practical parts: that we have the same characters and that the plot technically connects to their previous adventure. AoL had four pillars. Let us go through them, and see how they changed. a) Mr. Sanderson's trademark dialogue and magic system The excellent dialogue, and the smart and interesting magic system are both things you can expect in any story by Mr. Sanderson. They were present in AoL, and they are present in SoS. I mention this point because it contributes significantly to the quality of the books, and for completeness' sake, but otherwise we can move on quickly: no changes or differences in this area. Western Even though it was set in the city, not in the Roughs, and even though the technological level was getting very close to the point where it is no longer Western, AoL still very much wore that influence on its sleeve. I believe this is something that does not require much explanation, so I will skip it. SoS is not Western. The plot itself does not have those tropes, the technology in use has now moved past it, and the scenes are set more deeply in the city. For example in AoL the wedding fight could have been in a saloon - certainly the scale was different, but otherwise it fits in style. In SoS, however, we have government agent type bodyguards protecting safe rooms. c) Detective I like crime novels, and detective novels. In terms of quantity, not quality, I read more of those than fantasy. As such, AoL was a very pleasant surprise because it was a detective story. There were many scenes of investigation, deduction, observation. More importantly, that was central to the story. It was driving events. These aspects were meaningful. SoS lost that. This one takes a bit more to explain, because Wax still does a lot of detective stuff. From figuring out what kind of killer to look for based on the bodies' position in the start, to following clues all the way to the Homeland, he cannot be accused of neglecting his job. To explain why it does not work, I have to get off topic for a moment. There are two ways to look at a book: in world, and out of it. Things in a book can occur for both of these reasons. To make a story logical, you have to ensure that the characters act in an internally consistent way. On the other hand, often a writer needs to hit certain plot points. Ideally, these two should line up. The most common situation in which these desync, is when a writer cannot quite motivate events from an in world perspective, which results in characters acting "out of character" or doing odd things, as if "they read the script". A less common situation is when you maintain the internal logic, which forces you to take a longer route to the plot point. Unlike the other option, this is actually a good thing, because it shows that the writer is intelligent. However, if the longer route is too long, it can still be less fun to read. This is what happens with the detective work in SoS. In world, Wax very clearly needs to do the things he does. Sitting around the governor and waiting for the assassin to come is passive and reactive, and just an awful strategy in general. His only real option is exactly what he does: work the city, and try to figure out the opponent's plan, maybe find their base, stop them that way. Regardless, his actions do not drive the story. The absolute best you can say is that following the clues was what allowed him to realise that the clues were left on purpose to distract him, which helped him figure out who the kandra was. Personally, I would argue even this point, but it does not matter. Even allowing for it, the fact is, he played along with the bad guy's plan, which was designed specifically to distract him and waste his time. That in the end this turned out helpful is irrelevant. None of the clues were actual clues, and the end result of his investigation was not what helped him - in a way, his only hint was how pointless everything he is doing is. I dislike this for two distinct reasons. First, this defeats the detective theme. I want to reinforce now that this is not bad writing, poor storytelling, or anything like that. Taken on its own, it is actually rather clever. It is not bad on its own - I only take issue with it in contrast to AoL, which was a detective story, and this is not. Second, to me this was obvious from the start. As a reader, this was not a reveal or a twist at the end, when Wax himself figures out what is going on. I knew all along that he was basically only wasting his time, which seriously cut into my enjoyment of the book. It was the same as watching him eat lunch. Internally consistent, because people need to eat, and well written, because Mr. Sanderson is a talented writer, but ultimately boring and pointless. d) Vitality Vitality is a strange word to use, but I cannot think of anything better. The obvious choices of light-hearted/optimistic/fun do not really work. AoL has a man kill his beloved wife, then suffer from shell shock and depression because of it; has him chase down and old ally and comrade gone bad; has him deal with a cabal that kidnaps women to breed Allomancers - and has him fail to stop them, or save most of the hostages. If you stop to think about it for just a few seconds, it is actually a really depressing book. Even Wayne, who is the most directly amusing character, gets a grim backstory. Despite all this, throughout AoL there is a certain sense of forward looking purpose, of rightness, that means that at the end of the book you walk away feeling pretty okay with things. SoS has none of it. Importantly, I refer to the book as a whole, not only the downer ending. Long before that, the whole thing lacks the same strength. 40k is one of my favourite settings, which has a surprisingly similar feel to this book - when done well, anyway, the curse of a shared universe - so once again, I do not dislike it on its own, just find it jarring after AoL. +1: Comsere Listed differently, this is something that was not in AoL, but features heavily in SoS. Certainly AoL is a Cosmere book, and there are things in it that are interesting from that angle, but at the end of the day, you can basically read AoL without knowing anything about the Cosmere, or even Mistborn, and get a lot out of it. I have made friends who were too lazy to get into the long form Cosmere works read AoL as their first book by Mr. Sanderson, and they enjoyed it a lot. SoS is very heavily Cosmere. I do not believe you can read it and understand it properly without having read Mistborn at the absolute minimum - but ideally you need to have read all Cosmere works to fully appreciate this. For a lot of people, especially on this board, this is a huge plus and cause for joy. I am neutral. I take no issue with it - though I still think this is a difference worth pointing out - but my investment in the Cosmere is fairly low so I take no particular pleasure in it either. 2. Pacing This is the section that is the only real criticism of actual writing in the book, and also, while obviously everything I say is just my opinion, without trying to claim any of this as fact, this bit is the most heavily subjective. The pacing in AoL is spot on. Action, investigation, quiet moments, discussions about philosophy - it had everything, and they were all perfectly balanced. If flowed beautifully and was a joy to read. All of it fit in snugly in world, without any of the discussions feeling inappropriate or forced, or poorly timed, and the technical aspects of the writing were pristine, down to the chapter and section breaks. SoS is all over the place. Parts are too long, parts are too short, some of it needs to go quicker, and some need to slow down. Overall, however, the biggest issue is that several scenes are too long and slow and break the flow of the story. Without wanting to go over the whole book, I will just pick the four most bothersome scenes: a) Wayne's visit to the university I will discuss it in detail in his own section, for now I will just say that it was far too long. Wax's visit to the Village Of the four major scenes I disliked, this is the least troublesome. The logic of Wax going there in world is unquestionable, it is a nice bit of world building, and has enough interesting bits to overall keep my interest. However, it is still off enough to mention - the entire section is just slightly too long and too slow, especially the conversation with granny, that could - and I think should - feel important, but comes across as if they were both high. Probably the "tea" she is using. I feel here that the pacing is intentional, to fit with the Terris people, and it could work, but not in this book, or at least not in this section. This was fairly early on. The tension was still building, we were just getting into the case, excitement was on the rise, and then this section comes, and stops it dead. This is doubly annoying, because through the book there are references to Wax's time at the Village, and how something happened there, which all sounded a lot more interesting to explore in a flashback than this scene itself, or speaking of flashbacks, the next one. c) Wax's flashback to his Uncle I have no idea why this section exists. Yes, Uncle is not a nice man. I got that when he started kidnapping women to use them as breeding stock. (As a side note, him showing up to twirl his moustache for five minutes was stupid too. I am not even convinced by Wax's in world motivation to have that chat. It felt like Mr. Sanderson saying "oh, by the way, the Set is still a thing, stay tuned for the next book".) I was rolling my eyes through the whole thing. Especially when we got into the dynamics of bank loans, the story came very close to being pretentious and preachy. Most authors, I would not give the benefit of the doubt, but I trust the skill of Mr. Sanderson too much, so I will not assume this is intentional. Regardless, it broke my immersion completely, because it is just so unnecessary in the story in the first place. d) Wayne in the pub I really liked the idea that the pub is the temple of the common man. I liked what Wayne did in there too. This is truly purely a pacing issue, unlike some other on this list. The section ran too long. It needed to be about half as long as it was, and I would not think about it twice. As it is, it reached the point of being annoying, though I will admit that this was because of my growing annoyance with Wayne, which I will get to in a moment. 3. Characters I will talk of inconsistencies and changes, however that is because I am lazy. Going through the motions of explaining what I mean exactly every time is pointless, so I will just say this here at the start. All the things I will mention do connect to AoL well enough. Mr. Sanderson is a skilled writer, and he maintains continuity. To my knowledge, there are no actual real contradictions or retcons, or anything of the sort. Factoring in that a year has passed, all things that seem changed are only changed to an extent that is reasonable given the timeframe. I am mostly just talking about things that I feel are different from AoL, and were taken in a direction I did not expect, like, or both. a) Lessie-kandra In the first Mistborn trilogy, TenSoon figures out that using animal bodies, like hounds and horses, or kandra-improved versions of these is actually quite efficient, and insisting on humanoid shapes is silly. I bring this up, because her name always makes me think that she decided to take TenSoon's methods a step further, and so her favourite form that of a particularly taaaaall tree. Then again, her evil name sounds like the name of the lead vocalist of a band aimed at fourteen year old goth girls: "Hello ladies, I am Bleeder and I am so drea-- I mean, dark, dark and mysterious. Buy my new album!" Other than what I say about her in reference to others, I have no particular issues with her, her backstory, or her fate. She can be as dramatic as she wants, once she started nailing folks to the wall all bets were off. There is a chain of events I am curious about, however. Four of the major things that happened to her are: I. Harmony pushed her hard, though without taking control. II. She snapped and went crazy. III. She removed some/all of her spikes. IV. She has one/several new spikes of trellium is what we are calling it for now, I think? What I want to know is in what order did these happen. The way I listed them is what I prefer, however it could be entirely possible, for example, that she only removed one of her own spikes once she could replace it with a trellium one. Also, switching III. and II. is very easy and obvious, since mental problems are a known result of going with too few spikes. On my first reading of SoS, I am not entirely sure the order of these events has been set in stone with absolute certainty. Some things are implied, sure, but not proven. Harmony I will not discuss the questions of what he is doing, and if he should be doing it, and whether he is doing his best. Since we know basically nothing, we cannot make an informed decision about it. Amusingly enough, whether you think he is still at least mostly the old nice "good" Sazed, is a question of faith. One thing I will mention, though, because it is just so odd and stupid and annoying. His stated goal is freedom of will, independence, progress without relying on him, that kind of thing. He tries to not intervene too much, and when he does, he does so carefully and with detailed planning, as a surgical strike, if you will. That is all well and good, until he decides the best way to spend his time is to tell Wax to be nice to Marasi. When I read that, I had to put the book (well, Kindle) down for a minute and process it. I think, I hope, this was intended as a throwaway bit of amusing banter, to show he can deal it out as well as take it (being sarcastic to god, you go Wax!), in which case it just fails. If I try to take it any more seriously, however... It is the most idiotic, annoying instances of micro-management ever. I have no words. (As an aside, where did that come from anyway? It is mentioned later, I think in a Marasi viewpoint, that Wax is less nice to her than before. I have seen no evidence of that in what little interaction they get up to this point. Maybe it is another one of those things that happened in the skipped year. If that is the case, then at least this time we are told about it, I guess.) c) Wax Was changes the least, and I do not really have a lot to say about him. Mostly I am pretty okay with everything with him. I have one tiny thing, and one noteworthy thing to point out. First the small one: In Chapter 2 we learn that Steris has extensively researched his background to get to know him. He thinks: "That was actually kind of sweet. In a bizarre, Steris sort of way." Why the qualification? That is very sweet. I do not find it bizarre at all, and "Steris sort of way" is more offensive than anything else. That is a genuinely cool thing she did. Adding the second sentence makes Wax sound like a bastard. More on this when I get to Steris. Second: his plan to stop Lessie-kandra is to make his earring into a bullet and spike her, so Harmony can control her. That is ice cold. Lessie-kandra's phobia is being controlled. That is her biggest fear and her driving force. So his solution is to ensure that this happens. It would be much better to just kill her. Which she obviously agrees with, given the ending. To be honest, I do not have a problem with it. As I mentioned, once you start nailing innocent old priests to the wall through their eyes you have it coming, and this plan was smart and effective, so go Wax, I just think it is worth pointing out. d) Wayne Shadows of Self, Chapter 12 Alloy of Law, Chapter 4 Do I even need to say anything? I am going to, anyway. I basically liked Waye in AoL, but now I hate him. The above is the primary, though not only, reason. In AoL, Wayne and Steris meet exactly once, when Wayne pretends to be Wax's uncle at the very start. In SoS, this is their only scene together. A year has passed, so there could be any number of reasons for this, but I do not care, because we are neither shown, nor told. If there is going to be a skip, and there is going to be something significant happening during it, tell your readers about, otherwise I am going to assume, I think fairly reasonably, that the books we do get do show or at least mention all the major events we need to be aware of. For the record, the idea that Steris somehow represents Wax having to come to the city and responsibility, and that she should just leave him alone - which is what is said during this scene - is incredibly laughable and stupid. I am not sure if Wayne has a game here, for some weird reason, or if he is actually this petty and stupid. Either way, this is supposed to be our protagonist's sidekick? No. This is not even the only horrible thing he does this book. His university visit is beyond awful. As I brought it up during the pacing section, I do not like how it is presented in the first place. The time it takes him to get inside is wasting paper. It tells us nothing, and it is not interesting. Avoiding campus security and the dorm doorwoman is not impressive or relevant. Then there is the way the narrative goes in his head, like he is a hero facing trials. This may have been meant as amusing, but it is actually disgusting. Paying the girl blood money is not heroic, it is exactly what he should be doing. It is a consequence of his actions, not a challenge he can proudly overcome. Of course, he does the whole thing drunk, so at least we know he is cowardly too. The icing on this cake of despicable behaviour is that he insists that he give the money to the girl personally. Good job forcing her to face her father's killer every month. What the hell? Jumping forward to the pub bit, I already discussed that. Good idea, poor pacing. I have little patience for Wayne at this point, so the section running long just adds to my annoyance and overall dislike of him. Lastly, he figures out that Lessie-kandra is the governor. No. No. No. Wayne's speciality is accents, and I understand that as a main character he needs his moment of awesome, but no. Absolutely not. It is very clearly explained that Lessia-kandra is the truly ancient master of disguises. That already makes me want to not accept Wayne's discovery. Further, he catches her when she is doing a character she has done for a long time. If Lessie-kandra was forced to improvise a new guise during a chase, or something, I would be more inclined to believe it. But the governor has been one of her faces for a long time. Finally, the logic does not really hold up. What tips him off is that she sounds similar to MeLaan. Except we are told that Lessie-kandra spends very little time with other kandra, MeLaan quite young, so their accents would probably be different anyway, MeLaan has been living among humans for a long time, and the situation he compares Lessie-kandra to, is when MeLaan was playing with him imitating others. So Lessie-kandra's normal governor sounds similar to MeLaan imitating something else? What? If you want to show a character is awesome by them being better at something than an other character, who was established as awesome, you have to very careful. If you do not pull it off, you just end up undermining the comparison target. In this case, I am not thinking how good Wayne is, I just hate the whole thing, and makes me question the whole "Lessie-kandra is awesome badass, fear her" setup. Which, incidentally, was not necessary, this story would work just as well, if not better if Lessie-kandra was a younger one. Hyping her up to be the best ever does not increase tension, but rather falls flat and feels stupid when Wayne of all people recognises her. e) Marasi This is not the most divergent change, but the one I like the least. In AoL Marasi was cool, because she was interesting. She wanted to change things, but not by shooting people. Her broken glass theory was awesome, and largely correct. She was not bad at doing the detective leg work, but obviously her main strength was data analysis. At the same time, she was brave and competent. Since she is arguably the least flawed character, all of this may make her too good, really, but it was good. Now in SoS she is a cop. What? It is pointed out that she is not a beat cop, walking a patrol, but that matters little, because even Steris notes that she goes out of her way to go on the most dangerous missions with Wax. She would be at less risk just walking the streets than doing that. Plus this whole thing is spun like a victory, about how she is being brave by going against her mother's wishes and walking her own path, and all that; it is not a direct contradiction, by virtue of having never heard of her mother before, but it feels very strange and different from the enthusiastic young woman we have seen in AoL. The whole "the governor is corrupt and I noticed it in the pattern" bit is too little too late. It almost feels like a token attempt to tie it back to the first book. Her new version is not bad, but it does not feel like the same person we have seen in AoL at all. Which may be the point, actually, but why the jump? It does feel very jarring. f) Steris I liked her in the first book. Her very first scene was brilliant. Not rude, but to the point and straightforward - and the biography was a really fun idea that was unconventional without being crazy or cartoonish. A character that is likeable on a personal level to me is not necessarily the same thing as one that is fun to read about. Let us be honest, Steris would not make a particularly good protagonist. But as a human being, fictional though she is, she is awesome. Of all the people in these books, she is the one I would get along with best, if I were to meet them in real life. All this I mention because even though she does not get a lot of screen time, her awesomeness continues in SoS. She is about the only character whose transition between books I feel completely happy about. My only issue with her is not actually with her. I feel like Wax is not being decent enough to her. I do not want or expect them to fall madly in love, but I get the impression she is putting vastly more into making sure their marriage works as a partnership than he is, to the point where his behaviour is verging being inappropriate and downright rude. In all fairness, this is probably because the scenes where he is making an effort to fit into her world are scenes that are utterly insignificant and not fun to read about, and so they do not make the cut into the book - and what is in the book is them dealing with an emergency, which means allowances have to be made. However, I really feel like having Wax be nice to her just for the length of a paragraph would have made the entire thing more enjoyable, and would have prevented me from leaving their part of the book in a bad mood. The governor's party almost came close enough, be he did not quite manage to bring himself to be decent, instead offering half-insults like "you are bizarre" and "that was actually amusing" - as if the very idea of Steris being anything other than utterly boring and tedious were incomprehensible, to the point where he even openly admits it when Steris asks. Sense of humour is very personal, but Shallan from the Stormlight books is supposed to be funny and witty and all that, yet her I find grating and annoying, having never said anything even approaching mildly amusing during the course of two books; whereas I genuinely find the very few things Steris gets to say quite engaging and they make me want to have her talk more. I only mention this because Wax treats her as if she were a zombie. All in all, I can say the title, Shadows of Self, is very apropos. That is exactly what these characters seem to me, from AoL.

Thanks for the replies everyone. I have to say, I'm grateful to all of you. I'm very shy in general, and afraid of the internet in particular. In terms of forums, blog comments, public chat rooms, reddit, facebook, etc. - so basically anything that's not a private conversation with somebody I know on a personal level - this is literally my third post. I have been lurking without an account here for a while, and I think this is one of the most polite, reasonable, and tolerant places I've found online. This has encouraged me to share my interpretation, and your reaction more than lived up to my expectations. @_Elena First off, saying Syl is malevolent was meant as an extreme worst case scenario, and I don't quite go that far in what I actually believe. To elaborate on it a bit, if she was doing it deliberately, with full understanding of how she manipulates Kaladin, and for personal gain, then that would certainly be a hell of a lot more than just unnerving. Second, I don't consider any of it to be inconsistent; I can find a framework where it fits perfectly. If there are tiny details that perhaps don't work 100% well with WoK, then it is my duty to try to make my 'Syl is scarier than Odium' post account for them. That's half the fun! Third, I'm as sure as I can be, without knowing Mr. Sanderson personally, that this is not what he was going for, but thinking about characters and motivations is my favourite part of literature. Incidentally, I'm with you on Tyrion. @Shardbearer Sure, a spren can't choose to keep the bond intact, but what about the other way? When the bond weakens, does it have to do with the spren's 'opinion'? Can they somehow limit the use the Knight gets out of it if they disagree with their actions? They would probably want to be careful with this, because doing so causes them to die (you know what I mean), but can they still do it? If yes, then what if the bit about honourspren being more discerning is alluding to more than just the choice process? Maybe they are more discerning even after becoming bonded, and are more willing to enforce what they see as right even at great personal cost. @Moogle At this point I find Pattern to be the least disturbing, because of how open he is about everything. The idea that he is doing the least harm on a somewhat wider scale is appealing to me. @Seloun I was considering something very similar with the Recreance. What are the chances that an entire generation of Knights is corrupted, or less worthy than their predecessors, and then suddenly decides to break their bonds? Again, I find your idea of a "broken people farm run by the spren" appealing. @Crysanja Bonded spren are more like people than pets, and while in a pet stage Syl can have less of an agenda. I agree with this completely. However, what bothers me, is that in terms of her actions and words, she appears to be more of a person in WoK, and yet barely has any visible, specific goals. Then in WoR, I feel her 'humanity', for lack of a better word, diminishes (even before the bond weakens), but she now has an ulterior motive. @The Count This is what I'd say is my canonical take. Silly alternate theories aside, this is exactly how I'd describe what officially happens in the book. Several of you mentioned the difference between the knowledge Pattern and Syl have. I have very little to add here, except to say that I agree with the explanation that the way they came to our realm, and the length of time they have been here is the cause. Finally, to the main argument: Syl is Kaladin's conscience, or that is the thing that affects her most. First, the idea that her own ability to judge what is right or wrong comes entirely (or even mostly) from Kaladin bothers me. I must say, there is no in world reason why this couldn't be the case - indeed, I can easily see that there is an implication to this effect. I dislike it purely as a reader. If this is true, that severely limits Syl as a character, and I simply think it's boring. Not a very objective or formally logical argument, but even so. Second, that Kaladin's conscience is key to the bond. As a concept, I like this very much. This would allow individual Knights, even of the same order, to act differently - within reason - in specific situations, and retain their bond. However, either this is not what is in the book, or I have a wildly different opinion on what a conscience means. The way I see it, Kaladin's internal conflict comes precisely from his conscience. All the time he can't decide what to do, all the time he spends effectively paralysed, he is dealing with his heart. You are right that not telling Dalinar about the conspiracy was wrong, and he did a good number of things I don't actually agree with, but the vast majority of what he 'did'... he actually did by doing nothing. He doesn't stop or hinder Moash, but he doesn't help him either. Until the very end, in terms of the plot to kill the king, he might as well not exist for all the impact his presence has. I find it difficult to explain better what I mean. I feel like I'm only repeating myself here: what happens in WoR is Kaladin having, and dealing with, his conscience, his heart. If he decided without hesitation to kill the king because it is better for the country, did it, and slept well that night, he would be either a psychopath if he doesn't truly believe that this is for the greater good, or a zealot who believes the end justify the means. If he decided, with hesitation, to kill king for the same reason, but felt bad about it, he would be acting against his conscience, and I could very much see that breaking the bond. It is vital to understand that he doesn't do anything, and more importantly, he doesn't truly make a decision. He says he does, he even thinks he does, but he never follows it up by any action. His constant worry over it, the obvious attempts to rationalise it away, show that he is struggling with an actual decision. This is apparently enough to break to bond. I find this ridiculously scary. If this is not allowed, if he has to make decisions instantaneously, with no room for temporary uncertainty - that means that in the name of making him follow his heart, his heart is destroyed and he becomes a fanatical nutjob or a robot - depending on whether raw, unchecked-by-morality emotions or logic drives him in the end.

First of all, something of a warning. There is no hard evidence to be had here, as this is an entirely subjective interpretation of a character - one that I feel is almost certainly opposed to Mr. Sanderson's intentions, and contrary to what most people believe. I hope there is room for something like this here. I believe Syl is at worst actually malevolent - and I'm thinking of the indirect, insidious type, not the 'torture kittens and murder everything' version - or at best morally neutral and extremely creepy. As soon as I started reading WoR, I immediately felt something was wrong with her. It took me a long time to put what my problem is into words, and I also find it difficult to make a case for it, due to the nature of the wrongness. You see, my argument is top down, not bottom up. What I mean by that is that I am not finding clues, and then coming to a realisation based on them. Instead, I have a sense of evil that is present in virtually every scene with Syl, but is rather formless. The only thing I can do is to point out what seems off every time. However, taken individually, all of these concerns are weak and very easy to accept, explain, or dismiss. What I consider to be the true picture is only apparent if you take all of it together, in context; this is why I name it insidious. Before I get to the point, I have to make two assumptions about the nature of Syl clear. She is a character in a meaningful way, and she has a level of control over the bond. Everything else is based on this, therefore if I am wrong here, I am wrong in everything. Syl is a character: it is not uncommon in fantasy (typical examples include the sidhe and divine beings, like angels) and science fiction (shackled AI, for instance), that a being is bound by rules, cosmic or otherwise, or their own nature, very, very tightly. Specific examples would be the Mothers from the Dresden files, or Sazed from the Cosmere. The latter holds two shards, so he should be a force to be taken seriously, yet because those shards are opposites, he finds it hard to act. The point here is that these beings will normally have a personality, yet it is practically irrelevant. What they are allowed to do and say is controlled to such an extent, that the personality is little more than a coat of paint. These individuals can be recurring, or supporting cast, if used sparingly, but they can't function as a focus for a story. Based on what we know of how spren work, it isn't impossible that they fall in this category, but I doubt it. To say nothing more, it is mentioned that Syl came to our realm despite what her people thought, which clearly shows she has a certain level of freedom, and that not all honourspren will make the same decisions. Syl's control of the bond: I don't think this is like flipping a switch, or even necessarily deliberate on her part. Furthermore, it seems clear that she can't advance the bond on her own. At the same time, I get the impression that breaking it, or weakening it, is something she can very much do - perhaps through how she views Kaladin. If she strongly disapproves, the bond weakens. There is no explicit mention of this in the text, but several conversations imply it. For instance, at the duelling grounds when Kaladin attacks Adolin for the second time, and Stormlight leaves him, or at the end when Syl speaks about how spren require checks. Finally, though this is an outside view, if this is not the case, then Syl doesn't have agency, which would significantly reduce her value as a character. Lastly, before I get into what I've seen in WoR, I have to point out a few things from WoK. Back then, Syl was by far my favourite character, and the reveal at the end that she is honourspren fit everything perfectly. In no particular order: 1. She was acting in every way like Kaladin's equal. They had conversations, and they even made some decisions together. She advised him, and helped him, but didn't order, or require. 2. Syl genuinely and passionately cared about Kaladin. Not merely about what he was doing, but about the man himself. Her concern for him practically shone through the pages. She 'held off' the highstorm to protect him, and 'fought off' the deathspren. How much practical effect either of those had is irrelevant, the gesture was clear. 3. She had initiative. She was doing things on her own, creatively even. The most obvious example would be fetching the poison leaf for Kaladin. 4. She was considering things, and making decisions. This is very important. She didn't have knee-jerk reactions. With the bribe for Gaz, for instance, she ended up making the obvious choice, but it was a choice. 5. She was fairly tolerant. When Kaladin explained what was happening with the apothecary she accepted it. Kaladin didn't immediately want to go back to help Dalinar on the Tower. When he hesitated, Syl made her opinion clear, yet didn't mind the fact that he had to think about it for a moment. I think at this point it is fairly obvious what I'm getting at, so I won't pick apart every single scene with Syl in WoR, but I will highlight the most important ones. There are three primary changes, once again in no particular order (all of this is before their bond ever starts to weaken): 1. Life leaves her. She largely stops making observations, comments, decisions. She becomes shockingly passive and numb to what's around her. Example: Kaladin attempts to have a serious conversation with her about what is right, most notably regarding fighting the listeners. Syl has nothing to add. The problem here isn't that she can't come up with a good answer, it's that she ignores the issue completely. 2. Her relationship with Kaladin changes. She no longer acts like a friend/companion/partner. She starts to have requirements for Kaladin, without in any way working with him. She declares that he needs to stop being depressed and be happy, yet she doesn't show a fraction of the empathy and understanding she had in the previous book. She doesn't in any way try to help him in this. She makes her will known, and gets increasingly annoyed when it doesn't magically happen. Example: She knows exactly what Amaram has done and what Kaladin feels, but never tries to help him get over it. She wants him to stop dwelling on it and not to seek revenge, which is fair enough in and of itself, but she handles is horribly. She offers no alternative, or support. She tells him how things will have to be, and that's that. This is especially worrisome, because even if he managed, by some inhuman effort, to live up to this, that would definitely harm him more than practically anything else before. 3. Something of a combination of the previous two, yet essential, and deserving special mention. Her passionate concern for Kaladin is gone. She says she is worried, and she says she wants him to be happy, but her actions never back this up. Indeed, she doesn't seem to get nearly as emotional as before. The only time she becomes animated is when she talks of Dalinar. If I wouldn't know better, I could think she is bonded to him, not Kaladin. Example: Syl insists that Kaladin should tell Dalinar about Amaram, however her priorities are in the wrong place. This isn't important to her because she believes this is the best for him, or that this is their best chance to seek justice, but rather it's about how awesome and great and trustworthy Dalinar is. Even after Dalinar dismisses it and pretty much says to their face that he doesn't believe it, Syl still defends him. She clearly isn't interested in helping Kaladin, she is cheerleading for Dalinar. Finally, let's talk about what happens when the bond starts to weaken, and then break. There are three possibilities offered for why this happens, and it is never made explicitly clear which is the real reason. It could be any, or a combination of any. 1. Kaladin betrays his oath to protect. 2. Kaladin has made two conflicting promises, and will have to break one for sure. 3. Kaladin is acting differently from what his conscience says. 2. Either this is not resolved in any way, since he does break one promise, if we look at it this way; or speaking the Words somehow frees him from this issue. The latter option seems more likely, especially since the idea that conflicting promises are a problem is introduced by Syl, who then uses this to push for speaking the Words. It seems clear that Kaladin made a mistake here, but what is more noteworthy is that Syl immediately jumped on this, and used it as leverage to further pressure him towards speaking the Words, which was her agenda for the entire book. As for the other two, we have to consider what Kaladin is actually doing first. Up until the duel when he had to help Adolin, Kaladin showed remarkable restraint, both with Amaram and the king. Asking for a boon was stupid and wrong, yet it must be said that he did this after Dalinar apparently failed him, and he was trying to work within the legal system as much as possible. At this point, the king did something incredibly petty and idiotic - as he himself later admits -, which made Kaladin go into brooding overdrive. In his dark mood, he decided to off the king. At this point the bond starts to break, rapidly. This might sound logical, but it isn't. We need to keep going. Kaladin gets out of prison, tells Moash that he is with them... and then nothing happens. This is the crucial thing to understand. While he was in prison, he was angry enough to seriously consider killing the king, and then made a promise to that effect. Except you have to remember, Moash is his only friend, and by now, as I pointed out, even Syl is acting all wrong. In hindsight, it's clear he is just blowing off some steam. Consider: he never in any way acts on this. He doesn't change guard rotation, doesn't do anything to increase the chance of success of an assassination attempt. More tellingly, he spends the entire rest of the book thinking on this, and trying to rationalise it. It's clear even he knows this is wrong - when Dalinar's force is moving out, and he learns Moash is in charge of the king's guard, he becomes nervous and agitated, and not with anticipation. This is days before he finally fully decides where he stands, by the way. Now that we know this, let's address 1 and 3. 1. This is pretty straightforward, he has some thoughts that go against it, but it never at any point manifests. It could be argued that even internal wavering is too much, but that's part of the creepiness, and I'll address that scenario later. 3. This is even better. All of his wavering, doubt, and attempts at rationalisation are the work of his conscience. This is exactly what it means to have one. The statement 'he isn't doing what he thinks is right' is only possible because of all the uncertainty. If he just 100% decided to kill the king and never thought about it again, that might break the bond, but the not because of what is written in 3. Syl: I don't want to force you to do anything. You have to do what you think is right. Kaladin: That's what I'm trying to do! Syl: No. I don't think you are. This exchange is nonsense. The operative word is trying. Syl isn't saying what is on the page. What she expects isn't for Kaladin to simply do the right thing, he has to do it without doubt, without thinking through the problem to come to a decision, and with utter conviction. And that is what I wanted to get to. That is what I find downright scary, and evil. Just look at what Syl is saying. 'Force' is emphasised. She doesn't want to force him. Forcing him would be wrong, and very similar to what happened to the listeners, but at least it's honest, in a way. No, what is happening here is much worse. His will is being subverted. He has to become fanatical in his compliance with her values, a zealot. He has to be unwaveringly loyal to a set of standards, and it isn't even a rule set he can choose, but rather one that is already determined. With the overall idea in mind, even innocent and supposedly cute scenes become horrifying. At one point she says she is a god, and Kaladin can bow to her. Then she says, stunningly arrogant, 'I'm not the one we've been waiting on'. And it ends with Kaladin trying to praise her and be nice, which she accepts as 'fact' and 'lets it slide'. They had very similar exchanges in WoK, but because the dynamic of their relationship was completely different, these worked. Here, it just seems awful. Worst of all is when she tells Kaladin, 'That's what they all were, silly.', [broken], it sounds straight up psychotic. As I said at the start, I know this is wildly different from what most everybody sees, and I recognise my explanation leaves much to be desired, and isn't convincing at all, but this truly is what I've felt throughout the book, and how it reads to me. As an interesting bit, I have to say, in preparation of writing this post, I reread all the Kaladin bits from WoK, and even now the Syl presented there is my favourite character in the Stormlight Archive. Some final, and rather random, thoughts. These are only slightly related to my point, but thinking on Syl in WoR made me think of these: 1. All the spren we see for any length are creepy. Wyndle says 'the Ring said we should choose you. (...) 'She will be young and we can mold her'. How is that not creepy? Unlike the things with Syl, where I had to think long and hard, this was so bad, it made me put down the book in shock, and then read that paragraph three times to finally accept it. Pattern. Funnily enough, he is the one who took me the longest time to see as suspect, because of his honesty about his values. What made it click finally was stating the situation, which I see as such: 'An impressionable, impulsive young woman, just becoming an adult meets a much older man, who introduces her to the world of lies and deceit, and encourages her to immerse herself in it.' To me, that sounds like a bad thing. 2. Opposing the bad guys doesn't make you the good guys. Being good does. 3. Syl barely acts as a honourspren. The only thing she cares about is that Kaladin doesn't lie to her. Past that, her priority is only the literal, physical protection of everybody. She is more like a proterctionspren. 4. The only thing that changed between books that we know of is that Kaladin took the oath to protect. After that, at the end of WoK, they have no meaningful interaction. What if the oath has a profound effect on the spren, and not just that she can be present in this realm more strongly, but that it is somehow responsible for the change. 5. As far as the honour thing goes, I thought the logic was: Kaladin is honourable -> he wants to protect others, not Kaladin protects other -> he must be honourable. As such, honour should involve more things than just protecting lads. WoR seems to work more along the lines of the second option, which I find strange. This should be obvious, but I love the series and have immense respect for Mr. Sanderson. None of this is meant to imply poor writing or continuity in any way. The vast majority of this is from an in world perspective, and the bits that aren't are general tropes, I guess I'd call them, I picked up, that just influence how I experience fantasy literature.