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I've been thinking about this for a little while and decided to give my list of the worst Stormlight fathers in order from worst worst to least worst. Obviously Shallan's dad was a literal domestic abuser, but Dalinar, Gavilar, and Lirin have all been hot messes at various times too. My ranking: Gavilar Kholin: Emotionally manipulative, possibly sociopathic, appears to have been a power-mad religious zealot. Even Dalinar in the throes of uncontrolled PTSD and alcoholism was a better parent and leader. Gavilar left his son, a basically decent and intelligent human being who was willing to do unnecessary and socially controversial things for the sake of the lower caste as a group, broken into a thin-skinned paranoid wreck with a massive chip on his shoulder and the self-esteem of a bruised pear; and as for Jasnah, we don't know much but it seems pretty obvious that Gavilar tried to force her to tolerate Meridas Amaram (who I'm about 85% sure hurt Jasnah somehow) and was likely responsible for subjecting her to the locked-room method of "therapy" that seems prevalent in Alethkar. Left every single person in his immediate family with some degree of emotional issues or trauma. Helped precipitate the apocalypse. Lin Davar: Literal domestic abuser. Physically abusive and, with his wife, left his daughter with DID and enough trauma to rival even Kaladin. Dalinar Kholin: I keep having trouble deciding whether to put him or Lirin higher on this list, they're both crap fathers but at least Lirin recognized his mentally-ill son's accomplishments after some browbeating by his wife. Dalinar is an alternately distant and repressive father to Adolin, who he consistently treats in a patronizing and judgemental fashion, not recognizing that Adolin is an adult (who had to grow up too fast thanks to Dalinar's alcoholism and PTSD), making adult decisions, with a far better sense for other people than Dalinar can ever hope to have. Even when making an effort he is dismissive of Adolin's passions and refuses to understand Adolin's most deeply personal choices, as well as being a massive hypocrite about Adolin stabbing Sadeas in the eye when Sadeas clearly and openly stated his desire and intent to worsen the apocalypse just to storm over Dalinar for petty spite. While he is kind to Renarin, he is overprotective and stifling to him when he isn't distant, requiring Renarin to blurt out self-destructively depressed thoughts to realize that he's stifling his younger son. (and even then, he gets Renarin the Plate first, while Adolin is the one to give Renarin the Blade) Only reason Dalinar isn't higher is because he has buckets of trauma and didn't physically or intentionally emotionally abuse his kids. Lirin: A bullheaded, strict moral absolutist who contributed significantly to his son's mental health crisis and realized how badly he'd stormed up too late. It took Dalinar of all people to break Kaladin out of his depressed spiral before Kaladin could do something stupid like kill himself. Simultaneously bullheaded and weak, Lirin is not fully capable of addressing how his own trauma affects his attitudes and thoughts, and his hyper-rigid moral code leaves no room for "but these guys are literally spirits who have sworn allegiance to a god of hate who have murdered people to occupy their bodies". What do you think? How would you rank the Stormlight protagonists' dads?