Jenet

Yes, it is totally possible that the Stormfather is a fakefather, and that Gavilar is even more clueless than I first thought. Fits his character. And the fact that he is tempting Gavilar with becoming a herald, which seems a little outside the Stormfather's "jurisdiction".

Interesting theory that makes a lot of sense. It also gives a believable answer to a question that I have been thinking of: What can make a loving mother suddenly turn to her daughter and try to kill her? But if that daughter suddenly displayed Radiant powers and you were a Herald, and insanely afraid to be sent back to Damnation to be tortured, and you associate the return of the Radiants with a coming Desolation, well, then it suddenly becomes logical that the mother who is described as loving and caring, suddenly turns murderous.

Yeay! Finally a hate thread I can participate in! But, please relax, I will try to behave. I have never liked Gavilar. He was the one playing the great and noble king, sending his brother out to risk his life and reputation. It was not Gavilar who united Alethkar, it was Dalinar. Also, I have always wondered what Gavilar did to Jasnah in her youth. I still do not know if he did, but he seemed so sly. So high and mighty without actually showing any real "kinging" for himself. And Navani says in the Way of KIngs that she had ample reasons to be unfaithful to Gavilar, but she was not. That made me suspicious. And after the prologue of Rhythm of War, I heartily hated the man, with a small opening for the fact that we had not yet got his version of everything. He seemed to be gaslighting his wife intentionally, maybe he was the original cause of her impostor syndrome, or at least he found the tendency in her, and expoited it. It is interesting to compare the two prologues, and see how they see each other, in light of her impostor syndrome and his psychopathic behavior and way of thinking. He takes everyone's victories as his own, and she thinks of all her achievements as somebody else's. As a true psychopath Gavilar manipulates everyone around him. He prefers to talk to people one-on-one instead of grand speeches, because then he can tell different stories to every individual or group, manipulate their minds, and set them up against each other. The Stormfather seems to have realized that the Kholin family is a fitting target for his quest, which is to find somebody powerful enough to show the visions to. Somebody with real power to have an impact. I think it is important to remember that the spren are dependant on bonding with a human to become more sentient and understanding of human values and interaction. And Gavilar is actively trying to manipulate the Stormfather as well. He has found that the Stormfather is unable to read minds. So he tries to behave in a way that the SF will approve of. And the SF becomes confused. He tries to teach and coach Gavilar into becoming a radiant or a Herald, but it does not work because Gavilar is lying. As mentioned in this thread, Gavilar needs to mean the words, not just recite them. In the end, the Stormfather gives up on Gavilar, and the whole family. And that makes it logical that the SF is so distrustful against Dalinar in the beginning of their relation. But he was ordered by the Almighty, so he has no choice. And the Kholins are undoubtedly the best choices. We can also see by how Timbre is coaching Venli, that spren are perfectly capable of inflicting big changes in someone's priorities and behaviour. I think the most important for a Bondsmith spren was to find a person with power to unite. And this person's character would come as a second priority. But Gavilar was so utterly useless that he was discarded anyway. That's saying something. I was also disgusted to learn how Gavilar manipulated his own brother to become an alcoholic wreck. And I admit I gloated quite a bit when I realized that Gavilar was the one who got Dalinar dead drunk on that night, so he was unable to save his brother. Good on him.

1) would like to be friends with most Navani. She is the one that is closest to how I am, and I guess we would have much to discuss and talk about. 2) feel is most believable in terms of motivation I think most of them are believable in their way 3) enjoy reading about most Dalinar 4) find most confusing/intriguing Shallan. I like her a lot, but I find her very intriguing, because of her difficulties and her struggles to develop 5) find makes you laugh the most Pattern. I love his AI way of thinking and the absuridites that comes out of that. 6) would like to punch in the face Moash 7) personally relate to most Navani 8) feel is emotionally most realistic Kaladin 9) shamelessly crush on the hardest Dalinar 10) is most like someone you know IRL Kaladin

Navani or Cultivation

I needed to go back to the text to see what it actually said about the Sibling and whether they were forced to accept Navani. Here it is: To me, it is obvious from this text that the Sibling finds Navani worthy. Regardless of the danger they both are in. Navani understands what the Sibling needs, and gives it to her. I also find this text a sort of extra explanation of the meaning of the first ideal. Navani says the three parts of the ideal in a way that underlines their meaning. And she ends it with "Journey before destination, you bastard". Because the journey is the most important. We fail. We stumble. We make mistakes. But we rise and we become better versions of ourselves. This is something that Moash cannot understand. But the Sibling does. And they understand Navani's worthiness. Addition: Later on, after Navani killed Raboniel, the Sibling says: "You have performed a kindness" Navani says: "I feel awful". "That is part of the kindness", the Sibling says. "I am sorry", Navani said, "for discovering this light. It will let spren be killed" It was coming to us, the Sibling said. Consequences once chased only humans. With the Recreance, the consequences became ours as well. You have simply sealed the truth as eternal.

This in an interesting point. Navani is religious, but also a scientist. Many atheists hold that this is an impossible combination. But it isn't. Not in real life, and not in these books. Sanderson is himself a good example of this in real life. Navani discovers many things that prove that vorin teachings are wrong, but not so far anything that makes her stop believeing that there is someone there who listens to her prayers. We have in fact several examples that imply that there may be someone there beyond the Almighty that is listening. She prayed for Gavilar's death, (and regretted it - a little) and she prayed that Dalinar was alive and that Sadeas lied about the Tower massacre, and she got her answer both times. We know from Mistborn that Shard holders can answer prayers. And who knows what is meant by the God beyond. That remains to be seen. Religion is changing in Roshar, and Navani is one of the people who changes it.

THIS!! Very good point.

I have seen Navani as the obvious candidate for the sibling since I realized there was a Sibling. And Rlain as the Sibling Bondsmith? Why? Is there a specific reason for using him as an example, or did you just pick a person? I agree that one of the bondsmiths should certainly be a singer, but Rlain is a rather shy and reserved man, with no demonstrated leadership experience or talents, and I found his ending up as a truthwatcher very logical and worthy. Also the Nightwatcher bondsmith would be more logical for a singer, as I feel they have a closeness to Cultivation that the humans don't have. The only argument for choosing Rlain as a bondsmith is that he knows both human and singer culture better than most. But his experience is coming from being a slave. True, he may learn, as all the radiants must, but I fail to see why he is an obviously better candidate than Navani, who has specialized her whole life in many of the topics that are required of a Bondsmith as I see it. I addition, after seeing what happened with Navani and Raboniel, I will add a very important part of being a leader at war: You need to be brave. And not only a little intrepid. The only way the coalition could get hold of the knowledge that Navani managed to learn was to befriend Raboniel. And Navani did it while being a prisoner in isolation. I hope and believe that Navani's skill and knowledge will be crucial for the future warfare for the coalition, and that she will be able to construct far more dangerous weapons than the one she had to give away to Raboniel's team. According to Raboniel, Navani's understanding and knowledge is above her own, and Raboniel was the best scientist that the singers had. So despite the slip with the notes, Navani probably has captured some essential information and understanding, and I think she knows it, but she is too modest to talk too much about it yet. And we can gruess that the singers have not got the resources to understand what Navani just did, and then construct new weapons from it. In order to really gain something, especially in dangerous situatons, you need to be brave enough to just grab for it and to hell with the consequences. Because the consequence of doing nothing is worse. You must take the chance when it occurs. Being brave and intrepid in danger does not mean that you will be careless strategically. Navani has proven to be careful and wise in strategic situations. Getting out of a desperate situation and saving your city, your spren, your people, and steal with you crucial pieces of knowledge of Rosharan physics is an impressive feat, and for me, the price she had to pay was bearable. She will be able to make way more powerful weapons with what she now knows. But that remains to be seen, Sanderson is the master of the puppets here. This is just my explanation of why I still root for Navani.

OK. so I will take you seriously again. I thought you were just being delibrately obtuse. But did you really expect Sanderson to start book five without some seriously badass challenges? For me, these books are about facing impossible problems with awesome, but flawed characters. Type: you find yourself facing the end of the world, and you are depressed and revengeful, or you are half crazy from being tricked into killing half the world's monarchs and their families, and you are trusted with a freakishly dangerous magical sword, and you are in doubt who you should pledge allegiance to, but for the time being, it's Dalinar Kholin. Or you are basically a killing machine that was used for killing anyone that your brother wanted you to kill, but you ended up killing your wife, got PTSD, drank yourself out of your wits, was drunk when your brother was killed, almost killed your spren because you were scared your were about to kill everyone around you. Get the picture? This story is not about nitpicking at how people should have done things differently, had they only been wiser or had more restraint. It's about desperate situations, ordinary people with exeptional skills and difficult flaws. It's a huge, complex weave made of impossible challenges and people who see opportunities, not faults. And every time our gang solves impossible problems, there must be created something new and even more terrible, so that they can have something to challenge their even more awesome magical forces that they aquired while fighting. How about Taravangian becoming Odium? Or witless Wit? Or a bondsmith Herald gone crazy. And there you have a bondsmith without checks, because he has no spren that can break his bond because he went crazy. Or Navani finding out the physics behind terribly dangerous weapons, and being forced to surrender her notes to the enemy, so that they can replicate one weapon that she has developed from her new knowledge. Good thing then, that we have got heroes that have experience from being not perfect, who can understand difficulty, what it feels like to have failed. And how to think outside the box to make new weapons, from the insights and knowledge you got from your failure.. We need this to get a good story in the next book. And I, for one, am very happy that Sanderson chose this way to make it exciting. I find it believable and likeable.

She can be a scientist AND a leader, and a Bondsmith should be a leader. I find it tedious to sit here and repeat myself, and I am sorry to say you don't give me anything more interesting to think about, so I will bid you good night.

Hahaha! Oh, well, it's easy to solve a crisis from an armchair. Thanks for the discussion. This does not give me more interesting information, I am afraid.

So, how would you have saved the tower city and the Sibling?

So you think that leaders don't actually do anything? When they use their power to delegate resources to a task? Do you think that a bondsmith's power is personal only? That their ability to get other people to support a task or work together to get something done, then the leader has not done anything?

And so let the Sibling become Unmade and Urithiru lost to the enemy?

Providing help, support and resources is an important task that leaders do.

Navani provided all her scholars and her own help on their way across the shattered plains, and never took any credit for it, nor wished to take over anything.

So you actually think she just gave the enemy this knowledge? Just like that? You don't think the rest of the story is important? The circumstances? Do you only believe in absolutes?

What Navani has done to prove herself: - Taking care of the Alethi kingdom in Gavilar's absence or whenever he chose to not care, solving problems, communicating and smoothing over, while not taking credit for this nor blaming Gavilar publicly. - Staying at Kholinar to help ruling the kingdom while everyone else was away fighting for gemhearts at the Shattered Plains. Not taking any credits for it. - Developing weapons that help winning the battle of Narak. - Helping Shallan with her research that ends up in finding the oathgate and Urithiru. Not taking any credits for it. - Running the coalition while Dalinar was out after getting his memories back. Getting the monarchs to talk, finding solutions to motivate everyone of them to cooperate. Motivating the highprinces to believe in the coalition despite the fact that nobody knew what happened to Dalinar. - Getting Urithiru to function, running sanitation, fixing sewage problems, organising trade and lodging, food, delegating responsibility to Sebarial and Aladar. - Saving Queen Fen and her consort in the battle of Thaylen City. - Writing the essay that convinced the Azish to join the coalition. - Organising the resistance in Urithiru. Keeping motivation up. - Saving the Sibling - Finding out about the war light, anti voidlight, the nature of light and vibrations, learning to sing the right tones in the right harmonies and understand the implications of these powers. - Killing Raboniel - Stopping Moash - Freeing Urithiru Her mistakes: Taking notes so that team Odium could use her findings to make the same weapon that she is able to make.

I am curious. Why is she not likable, and why is she not responsible enough? The only fault I find that she did, was writing down her thoughts as she worked, so that Raboniel could find her notes. That was of course bad, and she regrets it, but many of the other characters have made similar mistakes and still readers can see their value. Personally, I cannot find any other thing she has done that makes her unlikable or unforgivable. She seems very responsible and careful to me, in all her actions before. You cannot hold her to the fire for a mistake she did while being held prisoner in isolation, and forced to do research while watched by another very accomplished scientist? And she actually found new important knowledge that will be valuable to team Dalinar even though her notes were stolen. It seems she got more than team Odium out of the situation in the long run. She got new understanding of the basic forces of Roshar that the humans have never understood before, and she could not have gotten it without cooperation with Raboniel. Even though she had to pay for it by revealing some of it to the singers, the future value of what she learnt is probably higher than the danger of what she revealed.

This baffles me again and again. Kaladin gets away with everything, and becomes more and more popular with the readers the more grumpy and unreliable he gets. We forgive him, we understand. Also we understand and forgive Dalinar. But Shallan and Navani are often picked on for every little detail, and not forgiven even after we have been told the background for their behaviour. Very interesting to me. Is it because of the first impressions?

We are not in a war. We are trying to avoid war. The strategy of avoiding a war and the frenetic tactics of getting out of a life threatening situation when you are already in a battle are two quite different things.

We have heaps of examples of things happening differently now than how they used to be. We can't use rules from ancient times to judge what is possible or not now. And fact is that the Sibling bonded Navani. Like it or not. I find it interesting to wonder what possibilities may come from that bond, perhaps of a kind that has never happened before. One of the interesting factors in the Stormlight Archive, is that many things have changed since last time the magic was around. The rules are not the same. This means new possibilities, and tactics and strategies that the enemy is not prepared for. It seems that team Dalinar has the upper hand when it comes to harnessing the new. Let us not be pissed because they have a chance to turn the magic a couple of degrees and combine everything in a slightly new way. I like the opportunities instead. So the Sibling did not have a long time to consider their bondsmith this time. Or maybe they did consider her cleverness in organising the community in the tower, but did not like the use of spren in fabrials. That does not matter. They chose Navani. Either in panic or after slow but resisting consideration. Much must be risked at war. The Sibling was brave, and took the risk. The alternative was becoming an Unmade, and there would be no bondsmith at all. War is not a time when you can wait until the ideal moment or the ideal choice presents itself. You must go for the best decision you can see at the moment, and make it work. Quickly. The Sibling and Navani did just that. And that is knightly too.

I think many of the objections to Navani's bond are aiming too low. A bondsmith, and especially at war, must aim high, and the stakes are often high and the risk huge. In order to gain the upper hand in the arms race, she was forced to risk much. In a situation like she was in, it is impossible to predict all the dangers of your discoveries. But in this case, Navani actually discovered something very valuable, and team Odium never got their hands on the reasoning and knowledge behind the discovery. This is like stealing the drawings of your enemy's airplane design, but never understanding what laws of nature actually makes it fly. So you will never be able to develop new and more advanced weapons when the enemy uses her new understanding of the forces behind the weapon to develop something entirely new. I have been working as a project manager in engineering R&D for many years, also in weapons, and what many people don't understand is the nature of developing technology. It comes in leaps, often unpredictable, often quite coincidental. New and revolutionary ideas are quite valuable, and often not planned. But the people who are able to come up with ideas like that are the most rare, and thus most valuable. Navani is often the one who is coming up with the new ideas. Many engineers can take an idea and make it work. But not that many can come up with the really new and revolutionary ideas. And these discoveries, like the anti-voidlight, may be a source for an entire new line of weapons that Team Odium will never be able to replicate, because they have a written recipe, but not the understanding behind it. Navani herself falls into the trap of devaluing the creative part, that she is so good at. The coming up with the new stuff. Or the new method. Or the emulisfier. She thinks, like many people do, that the engineer who does the tinkering and produces the final gadget is the real hero. Truth is, everyone is needed. And Navani is the creative force, the funder, and the leader. Leading a group of R&D engineers is never about ordering people about. It is inspiring, dropping ideas, suggesting, coaxing a little here and there, providing more money, reminding people to focus (focus, Rushu), trying (often in vain) to keep the schedule, speaking to other stakeholders to get more resources and time. You can't order people to be creative. Navani is the perfect leader for the kind of R&D I am used to. The one that is getting the best out of a group of people that are in fact very hard to order around. And if you tried, they will stop being creative. Of course, in an environment where everyone is taught that leadership is being an officer, and order people directly and clearly, and requiring total and immediate obedience, it is easy to see oneself as not worthy as a leader, and the reader can easily be misled to think the same, since both Navani, Gavilar, and the Sibling all of them say that Navani is not worthy. This is a trick Sanderson often uses. He tells us what people think, not what the truth is. We must consider how trustworthy the opinions of the characters are. And I think that, considering all this, that neither of the three is trustworthy. Gavilar is angry, jealous and abusive, Navani has impostor syndrome, and the Sibling believes in Navani's opinion. The Sibling is a different type of bondsmith spren than the Stormfather. I think it sound like they need a bondsmith with the Navani type of leadership philosophy. Because you need diversity, also in leadership.

What is worthiness? Did the Stormfather think Dalinar was worthy before Dalinar just about forced the Stormfather to bond him? I think that Navani's underlying feeling of unworthiness is reflecting on all around her. Gavilar knows her, and uses this term because he knows it will hurt. The sibling is very insecure, and is perhaps afraid that a bond with someone who thinks of herself as unworthy must be dangerous. Also, they hate the fabrial tech's expoitation of spren. I think that a bondsmith must be a leader, and must be able to convince. Perhaps a prerequisite to bond a bondsmith spren is to convince the spren to bond you even though the spren really tries to dissuade you. Navani has always seemed a natural bondsmith to me, and I have expected her to bond the Sibling for a long time. My reasons for this is that she has been uniting people in difficult situations all the time. Every time Gavilar or Dalinar has been away, drunk, not caring for their guests, or out waging war, Navani has been there, helping people overcome their differences, their fear, their quarreling or their wish to go to war with each other. And a speciality of Navani's is her interest for sanitation and organising the infrastructure of cities and war camps. We are often told that she is organizing the repairs and structuring of sewage and sanitation, much to Dalinar's surprise and Gavilar's disgust. The Sibling is all about sanitation, ventilation, and making a city function. Everything that we take for granted, and rather don't want to know about. Navani understands all that. She is even interested in it. Discovering how to make anti-voidlight is very important. And impressive. Even though someone obvoiusly has done it before, it needed to be rediscovered. And she did it. Yes, Raboniel also got to know it, and that is dangerous, but nothing can be gained without risk. Navani would never have been able to rediscover the process if she had not cooperated amd united with Raboniel. All research and development is a struggle into the unknown. You need to take risks. Especially when you are in an extremely pressed situation, occupied by a dangerous enemy. However, it do not think that Navani is found worthy because of her technical value as a scientist. She is worthy because of her abilities as a bondsmith. A leader. She actually managed to make a bond to _Raboniel_, the most fearsome of all the fused. Yes, they cheated each other and they were enemies, but they became as much friends that was possible, given the situation. And Navani killed Raboniel for good. One fused less. In war, you seldom gain such enormous new insights and powerful new weapons without risk that the enemy will get to know some of it. But the enemy lost Raboniel, who was the only one who really understood the science. Yes, they got a written down method, but Navani got the understanding. And understanding will lead to more understanding, and even more advanced weapons. The issue of the fabrials expoiting spren will be solved. They will find a compromise. Just as all new technology is accused of exploiting the environment before it has matured. You need time to find out that your methods are not sustainable. And Navani promises that she will find an acceptible compromise and a sustainable solution. The sibling accepts this. And that means she is found worthy. I accept that others may find that she is not, and that the story is flawed because of it, but to me, the story is perfectly logical, even impressively accurate when it comes to how research and development works. And how it should be led. A bondsmith should not be a scientist only. She should be a leader, and one who unites.