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Gaz's death


Zas678

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I love the speculation in this thread. Brilliant!

All I can think of is boring and follows CrazyRioter's thought.

I suspect what happened to Gaz had something to do with whatever he was paying Lamaril off for.

The most relevant quote for me is from Chapter 30 (paperback p 587):

Lamaril glanced at Kaladin, jogging past again with his men. "That one has to fall on the field, as he deserves. Make certain it happens. And get me the rest of the money you owe, or you'll soon find yourself carrying one of those bridges."

Gaz isn't just bribing Lamaril to stay out of the bridge crews, but repaying some earlier debt. We also know that he had been a soldier, so he's been demoted (I assume). The obvious explanations, gambling or binge drinking, seem too mundane. But he's got two problems now: this unspecified debt and having failed to kill Kaladin. My completely baseless speculation would be that Lamaril is a go-between to someone higher up. Once the go-between is executed, it's easier just to call in the debt and punish him than find another agent. As for why he owes, slaves are assigned a debt, so maybe he has been jumped up from being a slave using a loan. Alternatively, he could have earned a harsh penalty, and bribed (on credit!) his way out of part of the punishment. It doesn't seem like we have enough information.

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It makes me wonder exactly how old Gaz is. This seems to be a really important thing to be said. I'm not sure that I'm ready to say he's immortal, but it sounds like he feels like he's worthless because he gave up on his honor and he doesn't deserve a better life than he has right now.

Gaz is a Herald!!! You heard it here first folks. Dibs on the wacky illogical hypothesis...

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  • 6 months later...

Szeth could not have killed Gaz because until the end of the books his standing orders were to kill his targets AND to create the biggest disturbance possible whilst doing it. We Hear nothing from Kalidin, Dalinar, or Adolin's view points that suggests that any such disturbance ever took place, so we can rule out Szeth

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Also,

"The only why I can think of is that Hoid can see a little into the future, and if Gaz was still alive would have stopped Kaladin from going out onto the peninsula where he was waiting."

"I don't think Hoid wants to get involved to the degree of killing/spiriting away people. He seems most comfortable simply guiding and informing people."

Perhaps Hoid 'guided' Gaz away, or in other words, he convinced Gaz to flee just in to to avoid having him stop Kaladin from going to the peninsula.

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Honestly, I could see Gaz being a herald. It really depends on what they look like these days. We don't have much of a reference. But if that was Ishi in the prologue, it's not inconceivable that some/all of them have fallen on hard, hard times and become pretty twisted.

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Also,

"The only why I can think of is that Hoid can see a little into the future, and if Gaz was still alive would have stopped Kaladin from going out onto the peninsula where he was waiting."

"I don't think Hoid wants to get involved to the degree of killing/spiriting away people. He seems most comfortable simply guiding and informing people."

Perhaps Hoid 'guided' Gaz away, or in other words, he convinced Gaz to flee just in to to avoid having him stop Kaladin from going to the peninsula.

Maybe Hoid tricked Galladon into kidnapping Gaz instead of him?

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I don't think Hoid wants to get involved to the degree of killing/spiriting away people. He seems most comfortable simply guiding and informing people. I still don't have any idea what happened to Gaz, but it seems clear that this is what Brandon was referring to when he mentioned an "Asmodean's death"-type mystery. Later when we have all the facts we can look at it and say "Oh, that's reasonable." Note: This doesn't necessarily meant that Gaz is dead.

I don't know, man. Hoid's talking about shaking the pillar of the heavens with "our war here" in the epigraphs. He might mean that metaphorically, but he seems like he wants to start a fight. So I think he might be more than willing to take lives to see that his agenda is fulfilled. Why would someone like Gaz matter to someone like Hoid who witnessed the Shattering of Andolasium?

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Guest Zucchini

Gaz is searching for a small black sphere, which when placed in his eye socket, gives him second sight...but while seaching, he discovers Kaladin using stormlight, pays Hoid an Emerald broam for help escaping the military camp so he can report to his masters...The Ghostbloods!

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Guest Jacob Santos

Three theories:

1. He committed suicide by jumping off the cliff.

2. He committed suicide by going out too early during the storm and was killed by the storm.

3. He committed suicide by officer and was sent out with the bridgecrews. A different one than Kaladin.

The new lady being silient on the matter when asked might mean any of the three. Most of the evidence suggests that since he feared 3 and was threaten with 3 that he may have done 1 to prevent 3 and end it sooner rather than later.

It was suggested that since Gaz leaves early to retrieve his gems and that it was dangerous to do so that eventually his luck would run out and he was cast away or he met the Stormfather and found wanting was given his just due.

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Three theories:

1. He committed suicide by jumping off the cliff.

2. He committed suicide by going out too early during the storm and was killed by the storm.

3. He committed suicide by officer and was sent out with the bridgecrews. A different one than Kaladin.

The new lady being silient on the matter when asked might mean any of the three. Most of the evidence suggests that since he feared 3 and was threaten with 3 that he may have done 1 to prevent 3 and end it sooner rather than later.

It was suggested that since Gaz leaves early to retrieve his gems and that it was dangerous to do so that eventually his luck would run out and he was cast away or he met the Stormfather and found wanting was given his just due.

So you're pretty sure he killed himself?

I mean, if the book was real life, all of those things would be likely. However, none of them are narratively interesting enough to 1) happen and 2) happen off page.

I mean, we got a Gaz PoVin WoK. If he was going to be offed by happenstance, we would have been privy to it. There would have been no narrative reason to keep it a secret.

So either 1) he's not dead or 2) his death is related to some situation in Sadeas' Camp/The Shattered Plains that were not yet privy to.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I kind of like the Gaz = Herald idea. Hoid could be traveling trying around trying to gather the Heralds to combat the coming Desolation. On the other hand, Herald = lowly soldier with debt problems seems a bit circumspect at best.

Edited by Voidbringer
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Might be a bit late for input, but I found the passage where Gaz is confirmed missing-

"May I ask? Gaz hasn't been seen for some days now. Is he well?"

"No." Kaladin waited for further reply, but [Hashal] didn't give one.

(WoK, ch. 59, p.1039 paperback, paraphrased. Conversation w/ Kaladin and Hashal.

Call me a bit naive, but I think Hashal knows what's going on. We know Gaz was paying Lamaril so he wouldn't be sent to the bridge crews, but we don't know what he could have done to deserve that- or if he did anything at all. Both Lamaril and Hashal seem spiteful enough to get Gaz killed for little or no cause. I agree that the reason he was bribing Lamaril has something to do with it, whether or not there's a reason at all. Given Sanderson's reputation, though, there's probably always another secret.

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I always figured he got himself disappeared by his superiors for failing to get Kaladin killed. Even his low rank apparently wouldn't make it possible to have him executed for no reason (without anything resembling a fair trial, yes, without charges no) but he'd consistently failed to remove a rather severe embarrassment for his Highprince. Since they couldn't publicly punish him without calling attention to the whole situation, they did it discreetly. If he just died or vanished, it would probably have been mentioned in passing when Hashal took over direct leadership.

Regardless, I am pretty sure Hashal knows what happened to him and is intentionally covering it up. Not even idly mentioning his disappearance strikes me as decidedly suspicious.

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Not even idly mentioning his disappearance strikes me as decidedly suspicious.

This is easily the biggest flag that there is something deeper going on there. I'd be disappointed if WoK was the only book which contained Gaz. I'd like at least one other viewpoint from him.

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  • 1 month later...

I just finished rereading while specifically looking for clues about Gaz and a few other things. Whatever it is, it is certainly not very obvious!

As has already been noted in the thread, the last time Gaz is mentioned before his disappearance/death/illness is when Bridge 4 is in the chasms and finds the emerald broam.

Now, we also know that Gaz was having severe money problems, enough that just a portion of Kaladin's already pathetic pay was enough to make a difference.

It is possible that when Lamaril died, those money troubles went away. I'm not inclined to believe it, though. My guess is that when Hashal said that she and Matal REQUESTED Lamaril's old job, that they weren't lying. They may have known him and heard him talk about the payments he was receiving from Gaz. (Also, I got the impression somehow that it wasn't a straight-up debt that Gaz owed Lamaril, but something more like blackmail, where Lamaril had information on Gaz and demanded regular payment so as to not tell. But I can't recall where or how I got that idea.)

ANYWAY, Hashal & Matal are ALSO minor lighteyes who very likely have money trouble because they want desperately to have the same status as higher-up lighteyes or to differentiate themselves more from the darkeyes. (We have heard in the book that the minor lighteyes are the most dangerous for that reason.) So they actually do request Lamaril's old job in order to take over the job of extracting whatever money they can from Gaz.

So poor Gaz, now in debt to Hashal -- who seems much meaner and more ruthless than Lamaril -- is in a real pinch. When the bridgemen leave the chasms, Gaz is the most likely person to collect their scavange. He is in charge of the bridge crews, after all. And the emerald broam is nearly as much wealth and temptation to him as it was to the bridgemen, so he takes it for himself, rather than passing it on to his superiors.

And with that broam, he either somehow pays off the debt to Hashal and Matal and gets reassigned, now that they have nothing to hold over him, or he uses it to pay his way on some escape scheme -- perhaps as bribes or just as seed money to get restarted somewhere. And Hashal refuses to elaborate on where Gaz is when she's asked because she's quite put out about losing the income stream.

But really, that's all conjecture -- nothing would really surprise me, whether he's dead or incapacitated or whatever.

Edited by SarahfromVA
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  • 1 year later...

The idea below seems like a very good solution to the problem (upvote!).  It also inspired me to think of an alternate solution.

I just finished rereading while specifically looking for clues about Gaz and a few other things. Whatever it is, it is certainly not very obvious!
...
And with that broam, he either somehow pays off the debt to Hashal and Matal and gets reassigned, now that they have nothing to hold over him, or he uses it to pay his way on some escape scheme -- perhaps as bribes or just as seed money to get restarted somewhere. And Hashal refuses to elaborate on where Gaz is when she's asked because she's quite put out about losing the income stream.

The one fly in the ointment that I see is that it would be logical for the salvage crews to be searched by more than one person for security and corruption issues. 

 

A classic in the blackmail genre is the drop-message for protection.  So Lamaril left the information he was using to blackmail Gaz with someone with instructions to reveal it to the most dangerous person in the event something untoward happened to him.  Something untoward happened to him that Gaz was involved in.  The information was revealed to the people Gaz least wanted it revealed to and some consequence befell Gaz. 

 

This is also purely conjecture and involves too many loose ends to feel satisfying. 

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