Asrael

Lezian is the Boba Fett of this book. When he was introduced we all went "oooOOOoOoOoH!!!!" at his menacing aura. But in the end, his jetpack malfunctioned and he fell into the Sarlacc's mouth like a dork. Jokes aside, I liked Lezian. He was fun and menacing and filled the minor antagonist role well, (because there are already plenty of major antagonists in this plot) and Kaladin's final smackdown on him was really really satisfying.

Ya, I'm not feeling any loss of interest or "bloatedness". I was really shocked that the tower was already taken at the end of part 2, and really satisfied to see the developments of part 3. It makes me a little sad to see it not jiving with people.

This part blew me away. The stuff happening here is the stuff I was expecting to happen in Part 4. So. HOW THE HECK ARE WE GOING TO SPEND 700 MORE PAGES?!

ping. But seriously, are we going to get this before the book drops?

Is there another fan wiki for anything that compares to the Coppermind, WOBs, and now this?

If all this honor among the Heavenly Ones is totally legit (and not a clever misdirect, as someone suggested Leshwi being part of leading Kaladin into a Moash trap) I'm calling it now that the Heavenly Ones take some flak from other Fused for their honor. I'm betting that there are those who view it as blasphemous Honor worship in character, and project some of their anger at Honors alleged betrayal onto these Fused.

I think at one point its used several times in a single paragraph. I couldn't help imagining their eyebrows rising up into the air off their heads because the two people just couldn't have any more forehead left

Anyone else notice, and then hate how often people "raised an eyebrow" in this story?

Soooo maaannny bombs dropping at the beginning of this book.

This is what I'm talking about. This is still a plausible possibility on the table, but I see a lot of people being quite decisive before we have all the pieces. He may very well turn out to just be awful. I'm perfectly ok with that possibility, but I'm not ok with jumping to conclusions Would you reject the notion that one could get that impression whether or not those specific words were used? Take this for example: I am extremely comfortable in saying things like that about an abuser, yeah. This is functionally equivalent. Given that words are merely windows to meaning, we need not use the same specific words to be reasonably perceived as pointing at the same meaning But it does leave room for mercy. I'm not trying to excuse wrongs, I'm trying to spare the human. Are people their actions? If Gavilar does something evil, is he evil? If you do something evil, are you evil? (And if the victim is the judge of what constitutes evil, could you ever make the argument with certainty that you aren't evil? And Navani herself wasn't even willing to summarize him as all bad.) And we haven't seen first hand that Gavilar wasn't being influenced. We do know that Gavilar was influenced by the Thrill as well. We also know that Sadeas was a bad influence on him, persuading him to be more brutal. That suggests that he needed persuading. We also know he became less brutal over time, and more interested in peace and stability. We have indeed been shown that Gavilar is not the paragon of virtue Dalinar seemed to think he was, but that was a pretty high standard, and in my eyes he has much farther that he needs to drop before he compares to the likes of Sadeas or Amaram. I'm going to give my last word on this, and then I'm not going to discuss it on this thread any more (it has been rightly pointed out that this isn't the place for it): I'm a Christian, of the same variety as Brandon Sanderson. Thats my disclaimer, so you can write off my biases if you see it that way. It really matters to me to be able to look at a character like Gavilar and regret and condemn his actions without sacrificing the human behind them. I need to give grace to Gavilar because I desperately need grace myself. And I'm terrified at drawing a line without knowing exactly who will be condemned by it, including future me. Bad actions are bad, we all agree on that, but we seem to apply fuzzy lines to how much bad means the person is bad and how much bad is "allowable". Rioters recently went out of their way to destroy local local businesses in protest. Thats definitely bad, maybe even deplorable. But are those people bad? They're certainly angry. I see a lot of defense of those people and their actions. I won't make a judgement call on them, I don't believe I'm qualified. A fictional character says things intended to hurt and belittle someone who needed their protection. Thats definitely bad. But its also par for the course for a great number of people who have been through messy divorces, some I'd even wager that some here might be personally acquainted with, and otherwise think well of. Furthermore, many would be quick even to defend someones hurtful words because they have chosen a side in the argument and they perceive the other person to have "shot first". (In this case Navani, and yet we don't even know what sort of "sharpest knives" shes pulled out on Gavilar, and we don't know for certain that she hasn't done so first on occasion). So where do we draw the line between not-bad-enough and bad-enough-actions? I won't say. I don't know; I'm fairly uncomfortable with the whole idea. I condemn hurtful words. I condemn abuse. I will shelter the abused from abusers whenever called upon to do so. But I won't finally condemn a person for using hurtful words when I don't know what hurtful words or actions were used against him, I don't know how much the actions of the other party may have hurt the person, I don't know if or what ulterior motives might exist, I don't know what sort of evil influences might be present in a world full of evil spren and angry gods, and where at least some pov's even on that same night offer contradictory evidence that weighs into the mix. I'm railing against certainty and finality, not against the evaluation that what he did was bad.

What's the point of defending the Singers if they're running around murdering Rosharans? Murder is worse than abuse right? Can't we sympathize with the Fused who are doing what they're doing out of anger? What they're doing is clearly wrong. I think many would still consider them justified. And they're murdering people. I think declaring Gavilar full stop evil because he does a bad thing is irrational. He could be soooo much worse. And we don't know enough about him to know if he was redeemable. Dalinar did much worse things than Gavilar if we're adding up net bad, but Dalinar felt guilt and lived long enough to do something about it. We are given evidence that Gavilar felt guilt too, but we aren't given the benefit of seeing what might have happened next. The point of these books is to prompt us to have these discussions. These are treatises on philosophy, ethics, and morality. If we determine that Gavilar is an evil monster no questions asked, I think we are rejecting the intent of the author, and rejecting the nuance of the questions.

I agree that he can't be held up as an unqualified "good-guy". But I disagree if what you mean is "there can be no good part of him". Lately I've been seeing him characterized as a full on monster, and I think thats swinging way too hard in the other direction.

The why is still important. Not because it vindicates his actions, but because we can't form a complete picture of his character without it. Gavilar speaks in a way that is calculated to hurt Navani's feelings. Navani alludes to the fact that she has done the same to some to degree to him. So is he retaliating, or is he pure aggressor from the outset? Whats more, the way Gavilar talks to Navani is I think quite common between between breaking couples. Intimacy and healthy relationships are in part founded on the power to hurt one another, but the restraint to not use it. What I see with Gavilar is that the relationship has fractured to the point that hes now abusing that power. But what if Navani is wrong that he doesn't care about her fidelity? Hurt people hurt people. And what if she's not wrong, but she has spoken with the intent to hurt him before as well? There So we have new evidence that Gavilar is not as good as previously portrayed, but my point is we don't yet have proof. I'm just withholding my final judgement until we learn more

I think this is a plausible theory. I'm not yet convinced that Gavilar is as awful as everyone seems to think he is. (Not saying it's not possible, hes clearly not squeaky-clean, I'm just not convinced yet). We know that Gavilar starts out pretty murderous, and is at least complicit in all the pillaging/raping/looting. At some point (I believe it coincides somewhat with the birth of his children) he decides that a stable future is most important, and thinks its not desirable to keep expanding Alethkar on and on. We don't know what his motives here are. They are portrayed as noble. True this is Dalinar's perspective, but if we can't trust the spoken words in flashbacks, we can't trust anything in them. In Eshonai's prologue we know that Gavilar at least seems to have some amount of "greater good" motivation to bring back the Knight's Radiant (which we cannot attribute to simple Son's of Honor motivations related to bringing back the Heralds, as we know that Gavilar is fully aware of the Herald's presence in Roshar already). So Gavilar is a jerk before he dies. Thats true. He almost certainly has a touch of megalomania as well. ....but Navani makes a point of telling us that he wasn't always like that. We could surmise that he has always been like that, but he used to be better at hiding it, but I don't think there's a strong case for that. If we take Navani at face value, he used to be better and has only in recent years become so dark and obsessed. If we don't take Navani at face value, that cuts both ways, and we have to be open to the possibility that Navani is also an unreliable narrator; better than Dalinar, but not totally accurate.

The flying airship is pretty sweet, but they have a long way to go until they're truly viable. The fact that they still work based on paired gemstones is a major weakness. As soon as the Fused grasp how they work, they'll just send some soldiers to the shattered plains to destroy the fabrials. I won't be surprised if it happens in this book. Brandon has already confirmed that you can imitate all of the surges with fabrials, so I'm certain we'll get truly independent flying ships with gravitation fabrials before the series is out.