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First chapter of book 3 with Kaladin


Garfield

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Then why does he go back home to save his parents, possibly others and then, according to Dalinar s request to the capital to save what can be saved.

If there are voidbringers to be fought, he will have to use the blade, so a disguise as darkeyes is pretty inevitably going to fail.

Yes, but he wants to keep it for as long as reasonable. It is such a stretch that while he may be willing to face his new status, he wouldn't like to do it soonar than needed?

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I just read through the chapter that BS has put online of book three

 

 

http://www.tor.com/2014/09/30/brandon-sanderson-stormlight-archive-book-3-first-chapter/comment-page-2/#comment-563594

 

 

and I have to say, if this is how the character arc of Kaladin continues, I'm quite fed up with him.Two books full of it, at the end of book one Kaladin seems to come around and now he again regresses back to the state he was in when he was in those slave wagons or ready to give up and jump into the chasm.

 

 

 

I don't mind at all if Kaladin continues to have his lows, is a bit emo when things go wrong. But repeating the same pattern for three books, THIS is not character development, it’s plain boring and pointless and I completely lose interest in the character.

 

Hmmm this is exactly what I tried to explain into the Kaladin's love thread in my most diplomatic way. I didn't like the Kaladin excerpt because I to felt as if the character was regressing, again. I too felt as if I was reading Kaladin from book 1 or Kaladin during his book 2 low. He ended WoR on such a high note, I expected him to surf on it for a while longer... to find out the first chapter Brandon saw fit to write for the next book was one where Kaladin was depressed, again, depressed ME as a reader, if that is possible.

 

It may be realistic, it may be a true depiction of how depressed individuals truly feel, but it does make for a repetitive story. I personally do not mind if Kaladin needs two steps back to take one step further, but I don't wish for this process to be the sole focus of book 3. I feel as if book 2 revolved a lot on these issues and while I agree it was a good choice of narrative, for WoR, I would prefer if it would now change for the next book. Other characters are dealing with their own issues and I want to read about those. 

 

Hence I have been advocating for Kaladin to not be the main focus of book three, to have him take an important, but not so central role, more akin to Shallan back in WoK. 

 

Oh and by the way, Dalinar was a complete idiot for entrusting Kaladin with this fortune in charged spheres in order to help out back at home.

 

Dalinar is too trusting... Kaladin's decision to leave, spontaneously, 5 days after arriving into Urithiru seemed more like a plot device to have him arrive, unprepared, in a tattered uniform just so people could take him for a thief and a deserter... He knew about the Everstorm 5 days ago, so why did he wait to the last possible minute to leave? Had he left straight away, he would have arrived in time. The entire scenario seems made up to create useless drama revolving, once again, on Kaladin.

 

I thus strongly suspect a large chunk of the first parts of Oathbringer will deal with Kaladin being denounced, refusing to broadcast himself and probably be imprisoned again. I sincerely hope I am wrong... Simply because I am expecting something does not mean Brandon will write it. 

 

Early in WoR, I strongly disliked the first Shallan chapter because she was back being the meal, quiet girl unable to ask for anything and I thought to myself: "Oh boy, this is going to be painful to read.". Guess what? It went away when she was forced to fend for herself, on her own. I was relieved and I enjoyed her arc from that point an onward.

 

It may be the same thing will happen to Kaladin. It may be he won't wallow into self-pity for 20 chapters. 

 

 

Kaladin has had limited character development, because he has already been forced down enough. Depression is real, man.

 

This is a funny sentence... Kaladin has had most character development than all important characters combined together. The fact he didn't progress very far is due to this depression, we all agree. 

 

However, the fact he has been so central to the story can be grating to some readers, realistic or not. A static character also isn't interesting which likely is what some of us are expressing: we understand all that is happening with Kaladin, but we don't find it interesting enough for it to be the major focus of all books.

 

 

Because he left as soon as possible, and neither Dalinar nor the king may have the authority to give him full requisition rights. Not in Sadeas princedom.

Plus, if he sees rampaging voidbringers threatening civilians and probably even soldiers he will summon his blade. Best to play safe at first.

 

It took him 5 days to decide to leave... It sounds too much like a plot device to me. We'll see how it pans out, but it is just too convenient for him to wait 5 days to leave only to arrive late in order to start depressing again...

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It took him 5 days to decide to leave... It sounds too much like a plot device to me. We'll see how it pans out, but it is just too convenient for him to wait 5 days to leave only to arrive late in order to start depressing again...

 

 

 

 

That s what I found odd too.

 

In the book it comes across as if it took them 5 days in Urithiru to hold the meeting where Kaladin finally learns about the significance of the storm and the voidbringers it will spawn. The scene is on page 1095 in my ebook version.

 

Actually, that meeting should have taken place about half an hour after Kaladin arrived from the Plains and they should have immediately made plans for what to do. For example sending Kaladin to the capital to open the Oathgate there to evacuate civilians to Urithiru and bring armed forces from Urithiru to the Capital, as he is the only one who can travel fast enough.

 

5 days after the event on the Shattered Plains, hysteric and desperate messages about voidbringer attacks from New Nathanathan should have arrived everywhere on Roshar.

Edited by Garfield
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Why would the guard even think of him as a threat?  More than likely, the guard has been having a crash course in field medicine over the past day due to all the wounded.  If you someone shows up unarmed at the only place where people are likely to be, you don't treat them as a threat.  You think of them either as another victim to be cared for or as an extra pair of hands to help with the wounded.  The guard probably just thought Kaladin was someone who had been out in the middle of nowhere during the storm and was just stumbling in or something.  Maybe a messenger from a neighboring village.  But not a threat.

 

On top of that, Kaladin isn't being all that excessively mopy.  He's depressed and the fact that he didn't get there in time is really going to knock him down.  I suspect he'll be better off once with the survivors.  He'll still be feeling pretty darn bad about not getting there sooner, but he seems more functional now than he once was.  He didn't give up when the Everstorm beat him there.  He slowed down to a steady, sustainable pace and got depressed, but he didn't just plop down and give up.

 

As for why he didn't have his shardblade out, I feel like it's self-evident...  You've got a bunch of people freaked out already.  They don't need to see a supernatural sword to amplify things.  Also, him showing up in his hometown with a shardblade is going to raise a lot of questions quickly and it's probably best to hold off on that reveal until you're talking to the person in charge.  Given that society's structure would likely largely collapse following such a disaster, getting a meeting with the person in charge shouldn't be difficult since society's stratification will have flattened substantially.  After a disaster, information of the outside world is very hard to come by and can be lifesaving.  All he has to do is say "I have information from the outside world.  I need to speak with whoever's in charge here."  He'll get an audience.  Quickly.  Further, since the person in charge is quite possibly his father (even if Roshone is healthy, Lirin's being a surgeon is likely to catapult him in status in a disaster), assuming Lirin is still alive, he'll have a base to go from.  Heck, once Kaladin got inside, the guard may well have recognized him.  We'll have to see.

 

Regarding Dalinar's trusting of a hoard of spheres to Kaladin, how else was anyone going to get to Kholinar in a timely manner?  Dalinar can spanreed spam as much as he wants, but a flying Radiant with a transforming sword that Dalinar's scribes have been saying is on the way?  That means a lot more and gives him instant credibility upon arriving, allowing him to take control of the situation and act as the regent for both Dalinar and Elhokar until the Oathgate is up and running again.

 

As for why he didn't leave earlier, I don't know.  I can only guess that spanreed networks collapsed due to so many dead leading to miscommunications and missed messages.

Edited by VoltCruelerz
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Ok. As for why he wouldn't go all Lighteyes, not being Lighteyes was a factor (not the main one) for refusing a Shardblade TWICE. There is no way he is getting over that psychological barrier any time soon

 

 

 

He has been practically adopted into a family of lighteyes of the highest rank. Dalinar trusts him almost unconditionally, has even called him son a few times and gives him every support he can, Adolin and Renarin respect, trust and like him and Shallan, Adolin s girlfriend is a Radiant colleage who he shared troublesome childhood memories with. Elhokar, the king who he despised came to him, asking him for advice.

 

Yes, that should get a few cracks into his psychological barrier.

Edited by Garfield
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He has been practically adopted into a family of lighteyes of the highest rank. Dalinar trusts him almost unconditionally, has even called him son a few times and gives him every support he can, Adolin and Renarin respect, trust and like him and Shallan, Adolin s girlfriend is a Radiant colleage who he shared troublesome childhood memories with. Elhokar, the king who he despised came to him, asking him for advice.

Yes, that should get a few cracks into his psychological barrier.

Its is already cracked. It just needs time to crumble completely.

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That s what I found odd too.

In the book it comes across as if it took them 5 days in Urithiru to hold the meeting where Kaladin finally learns about the significance of the storm and the voidbringers it will spawn. The scene is on page 1095 in my ebook version.

Actually, that meeting should have taken place about half an hour after Kaladin arrived from the Plains and they should have immediately made plans for what to do. For example sending Kaladin to the capital to open the Oathgate there to evacuate civilians to Urithiru and bring armed forces from Urithiru to the Capital, as he is the only one who can travel fast enough.

5 days after the event on the Shattered Plains, hysteric and desperate messages about voidbringer attacks from New Nathanathan should have arrived everywhere on Roshar.

The 5 days is weird and doesn't really make sense even in terms of exploring the city. You'd at least expect a broad plan and a debrief from the battle within 5 days. Even if Kaladin has to leave in a hurry before any planning, BS could have had him do all his stuff with Dalinar immediately post battle, fly off the same day and then have the exploration and Adolin killing Sadeas etc continue over those 5 days.

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He has been practically adopted into a family of lighteyes of the highest rank. Dalinar trusts him almost unconditionally, has even called him son a few times and gives him every support he can, Adolin and Renarin respect, trust and like him and Shallan, Adolin s girlfriend is a Radiant colleage who he shared troublesome childhood memories with. Elhokar, the king who he despised came to him, asking him for advice.

Yes, that should get a few cracks into his psychological barrier.

Psychologically these things just don't resolve completely overnight!

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Woah, you're reading way too far into this.  This isn't Kaladin's character arc for the book, this is just Kaladin being in a crappy situation and being a little upset about it.
 
In book 1 Kaladin is dealing with external problems,  but there's this underlying bitterness to him that isn't really evident because of his circumstances.  Then in book 2 once he's conquered the external conflict he can't progress until he's solved this internal conflict with his bitterness and hate (not the depression it's a flaw vs handicap situation).  Now in book 3 external problems are thrown at him once again only without the underlying conflicts he solved in book 2.
 
Sanderson's not an idiot, he's not going to repeat the same arc in every book.  Him doing that doesn't seem like a realistic worry at all.
 
This is just one chapter and you can't really project the whole book from that.  I think hitting the depression so early on in this chapter works in a way for the narrative to show where everyone was coming from in the previous books.  We've seen this before in the WoR where it takes a few chapters that are more similar to the way the characters were in the WoK.  It starts with some chapters of Kaladin happy with the bridgecrew and transitioning to the new way of life before it becomes evident that some of his traits that made him good in WoK didn't suit him so well in WoR and he starts going down a bad path.  We also see Shallan, lighthearted and very dependent on Jasnah, doing scholarly things--she'd finally become her ward in truth and she acts similar to how she acted in WoK, only without the underlying deception that made it interesting.  Then, bam, Jasnah dies and Shallan has to figure out things on her own.  (Ninja'd a little talking about those Shallan chapters).
 
(I suspect these kinds of sequences exist as a result of making the books more self-contained, without feeling too discontiguous.  It wants to show us where the characters came from, so we can appreciate the full arc and tone in that book.)
 
With this chapter we see Kaladin gloomy, this is probably to call back to his previous state so it can be contrasted with his arc for the rest of the book.  He's going back to the core of where all his problems started, and in that way, he can face them and overcome them.  We might see a similar structure with Shallan in this book too (maybe she'll be complying with the ghostbloods for a while, but move to actively fighting against them, something like that).

 

 

 

Is he eager to see, if his parents are still alive? Nope! Not high on his priority list. Wallowing in self pity is more important.

 

It was a high priority for him, it being the reason he went back there in the first place, but more important at the moment was checking for voidbringers and seeing what's left of the town.  He can't just go charging in to the thick of things, he needs to conduct a little investigation so he can see what's happened to the town.  Plus, he probably doesn't want to confront the fate of his parents if they didn't make it.  He's probably pushed those thoughts into the back of his mind so that he CAN function.  People do that kind of thing all the time when their anxious or scared about something.

 

 

 

Oh and by the way, Dalinar was a complete idiot for entrusting Kaladin with this fortune in charged spheres in order to help out back at home.

 
Really?  First off the spheres are only really useful for people who can use the stormlight.  Also, it's a fortune, but they're dealing with several fortunes at Urithiru.  Was Dalinar just supposed to say, "Sorry Kaladin, I won't give you the resources you need to check on your home town when a disaster is about to strike even though you're one of the few people who can make good use of those resources and you just helped save all our lives.  I don't care about your parents, let them die."  Then we REALLY would be dealing with an emo Kaladin again, plus a Dalinar who was a complete jerk.  Really, the choice to visit his parents was Kaladin's to make and Dalinar shouldn't go about infringing upon that.
 
 
 

Guard marches him into the house, another of the men whacks him over the head from behind, robs him while he is unconscious, surprised and happy for what he finds in his bag and they leave him to die with a cracked skull. All because he was too depressed to defend himself, let alone defend others. Life before death? Nope. No stormlight to heal him. End of story.

 

Plus, in a state like that he will break his oath again, anyway, killing Syl out of sheer depression, because he simply can not muster the energy to uphold his oaths, not even the first one. Dalinar, declare him unfit for duty and lock him up in the disabled Radiant loony bin where he gets therapy for his problems.

 

 

 

I'm confused as to where this idea is even coming from.  Why would surviving guardsman just be randomly attacking anyone that comes by, there's no real incentive there.  And Kaladin doesn't have a lot of reason to believe they would, he describes them as the first hopeful sign he'd seen.  Also,where are you getting the idea that Kaldain IS "too depressed to defend himself", I'm not getting that anywhere in the text.  In fact, it says that he approaches the group warily.  He's a trained soldier, if he sees them try anything he'll pull out Syl.  They're expecting some unarmed darkeyes, not a skilled radiant.  If they were to try to kill him they wouldn't need to be so subtle about it, since they wouldn't expect any meaningful resistant.  And they don't seem hostile at all, for Kaladin to act as if they were planning to ambush him would seem incredibly paranoid.  However, Kaladin is trying to scope things out.  Since he's found survivors he wants to find out what's going on, going with them is the best way to do that.

 

 

It seems to me like you're projecting your fears of another emo Kaladin book onto this chapter because there is some depression and finding more of it that isn't really there.  I think if you give it the benefit of the doubt you'll find that there's not much brooding emo Kaladin, and it's more of him responding to things turning out really bad.

 

 

 

 

To respond a little to what maxal said, yeah, the five day thing does seem a little odd.  But, the whole Urithiru sequence of WoR did seem a little rushed, I'm not quite clear on everything that happened then.  The purpose of that kind of section is to give us a glimpse of the new status quo for the coming book now that the main conflict has been resolved.  I'm not sure on everyone's motivations during that time, I could try and come up with some explanations on why it had to take that long for Kaladin to leave, but I'm sure we'll get all the details we need when they recap on those days during Oathbringer.

 

I don't know where the whole strong suspicion of Kaladin being denounced and imprisoned again is coming from.  I don't even know how you can have any sort of strong suspicion about those kind of specific events just based on a preview chapter and one detail from the resolution of the previous book.   This feels more like more of reading your own narrative between the lines.  But, I expect this will turn out like the Shallan thing you mentioned.

 

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yes, kaladin waiting 5 days to go is clearly a plot device. kaladin needed to arrive in heartstone the day after the everstorm. Also jasnah getting "killed" is a plot device, or she would have done everything and shallan would have been reduced at the role of supporting character. And the alethi dueling rules stating that the side with the numerical disadvantage can get help as long as it stays in numerical disadvantage is a plot device to get renarin and kaladin in the arena. plot devices happen. As long as they are not too blatant, they are fine. There is just no way to write a story without a plot device, because everything in a story is a plot device, and a sufficiently savy reader will spot them for what they are.

 

As for the rest, kaladin is suffering from cronic depression. Yes, I also want to throw something at him sometimes, but the way I understand it (i have no direct knowledge of depression, I only go by hearsay) he can't help being that way. Pity stormlight can't fix mental illness, only physical ones. Anyway, kaladin will keep being depressed. He was suffering from depression since his childhood, before anything really went wrong with his life, and the way things have been going downhill since then, he could have taken it much worse.

 

Anyway, I wouldn't say that he has not progressed. He has progressed a lot. He just still has depression. But I don't remember, after book 1, that his depression ever really stopped him. He get depressed, mopes around, then he stand up and do soemthing heroic, and then he goes back to moping again. Yes, it can be frustrating to read, but I learned to love kaladin despite it. That guy deserves it.

 

I'd say, overall, the most inconsistent thing is that dalinar allows kaladin to use all the gemstones they had to go save a flyspeck village; it would have made much more sense to send kaladin to the capital city. Of course, after all kaladin did, dalinar wasn't in any position to refuse him anything, but he should have at least argued about him going to the capital instead.

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I'd say, overall, the most inconsistent thing is that dalinar allows kaladin to use all the gemstones they had to go save a flyspeck village; it would have made much more sense to send kaladin to the capital city. Of course, after all kaladin did, dalinar wasn't in any position to refuse him anything, but he should have at least argued about him going to the capital instead.

I thought the book said Hearthstone was basically on the way to Kholinar anyways?  He probably figured he'd burn out of stormlight along the way anyways, so a pit stop to rest and "refuel" would be necessary anyways.

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Hey guys, just a heads up, this thread needs to be kept respectful. Just because someone may have forgotten a plot detail doesn't mean that gives you license to insult their reading ability. Such posts will not be tolerated.

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Ok sorry about that, true enough, should count to ten and breath before responding.

 

Kaladin didn't leave earlier b/c they didn't find out that the parshmen would be transformed by the the everstorm until after Dalinar bonded the Stormfather. And he didn't do that until they had been there for a week or so.

 

Also I don't think a single pouch full of spheres is going to hurt anything considering the Alethi had been harvesting gem hearts bigger than your fist for years while on the shattered plains.. If there was such a thing as Wells Fargo on this world the Alethi warcamps would be its location.

 

 

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Ok sorry about that, true enough, should count to ten and breath before responding.

 

Kaladin didn't leave earlier b/c they didn't find out that the parshmen would be transformed by the the everstorm until after Dalinar bonded the Stormfather. And he didn't do that until they had been there for a week or so.

 

Also I don't think a single pouch full of spheres is going to hurt anything considering the Alethi had been harvesting gem hearts bigger than your fist for years while on the shattered plains.. If there was such a thing as Wells Fargo on this world the Alethi warcamps would be its location.

Count to ten... HE'S GOT A SHARDBLADE! HIT THE DECK! Jk :)

Ahem. I noticed myself that Kaladin spent the Everstorm in a little Shardeblade-formed cave like the one he stayed in with Shallan, but evidence suggests that his spheres did not fill up. Stormlight is likely a highstorm-only thing. Which means it's only Honor, not Odium's power.

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and I have to say, if this is how the character arc of Kaladin continues, I'm quite fed up with him.Two books full of it, at the end of book one Kaladin seems to come around and now he again regresses back to the state he was in when he was in those slave wagons or ready to give up and jump into the chasm.

 

I don't mind at all if Kaladin continues to have his lows, is a bit emo when things go wrong. But repeating the same pattern for three books, THIS is not character development, it’s plain boring and pointless and I completely lose interest in the character.

 

As other people have said, Kaladin returned to find his hometown in ruins and everyone missing and quite possibly killed by the Everstorm-effected Parshmen. Would you like him to crack wise in this scenario?
 
Even with the gloomspren, comparing this Kaladin to the one in the slave wagons is absurd as well, I'd suggest you have a reread.
 

Oh and by the way, Dalinar was a complete idiot for entrusting Kaladin with this fortune in charged spheres in order to help out back at home.

 

Why? I would imagine Kaladin has pretty decent credit given his new status as a KR, not to mention he seems to have left the honorblade in Ulrithu, which would be rather overkill as collateral.

 

The idea that Dalinar wouldn't lend the spheres to anyone in the new KR circle is frankly absurd.

 

Is he eager to see, if his parents are still alive? Nope! Not high on his priority list. Wallowing in self pity is more important.

 

Maybe he's not eager to find his parents dead?

 

 

 

Guard marches him into the house, another of the men whacks him over the head from behind, robs him while he is unconscious, surprised and happy for what he finds in his bag and they leave him to die with a cracked skull. All because he was too depressed to defend himself, let alone defend others. Life before death? Nope. No stormlight to heal him. End of story.

 

Are you saying two guardsmen who likely haven't even been to the shattered plains are a threat to Kaladin? I mean sure he doesn't have stormlight currently, but he's been fighting for a long time and significant stormlight usage is a new occurrence, not to mention the whole shardblade/spear thing.

 

 

Plus, in a state like that he will break his oath again, anyway, killing Syl out of sheer depression, because he simply can not muster the energy to uphold his oaths, not even the first one. Dalinar, declare him unfit for duty and lock him up in the disabled Radiant loony bin where he gets therapy for his problems.

 

Wow. This is really annoying to read…. And I don’t want him to pull the Radiant heroics after a breakdown to save the day another time around, because we had that. Several times over!

 

What a disappointment!

 

It seems like you're reading entirely too much into this and I don't find this particular conclusion logical at all.

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This might have been brought up in the "Kaladin Love" thread, so bear with me ... 

 

BUT

 

Did anybody ever consider, that Kaladin is just ********* frustrated that he ran out of Stormlight???

 

Imagine, one second you are near allmighty and then *pooof* you are back to foot soldier, and that even in the face of a world threatening danger?

 

This chapter might just lay ground for him in future to use Stormlight in a more economical way :-D

 

 

**** Edited to avoid swear words ... ROTFL***

Edited by Atastor
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As for the rest, kaladin is suffering from cronic depression. Yes, I also want to throw something at him sometimes, but the way I understand it (i have no direct knowledge of depression, I only go by hearsay) he can't help being that way. Pity stormlight can't fix mental illness

 

 

 

Sorry, but I dont want to read a clinically depressed main character, who is unable to overcome the condition at least to some major extent in an adventure novel.

 

This is not some existentialist family drama, where a main character like that is suitable.

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This might have been brought up in the "Kaladin Love" thread, so bear with me ... 

 

BUT

 

Did anybody ever consider, that Kaladin is just ********* frustrated that he ran out of Stormlight???

 

Imagine, one second you are near allmighty and then *pooof* you are back to foot soldier, and that even in the face of a world threatening danger?

 

This chapter might just lay ground for him in future to use Stormlight in a more economical way :-D

 

 

**** Edited to avoid swear words ... ROTFL***

 

This might well have merit too, we've seen Kaladin's internal monologue about the effects of stormlight and what happens when it runs out, Kaladin would have been using a lot of stormlight for quite some time and the lack of it may be influencing his mood. However the fact that it had been over a day since he ran out of stormlight would probably rule this out, unless we're seeing the effects of an addiction.

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Kaladin didn't leave earlier b/c they didn't find out that the parshmen would be transformed by the the everstorm until after Dalinar bonded the Stormfather. And he didn't do that until they had been there for a week or so.

 

 

 

Nope, Shallan knew that, it was what Jasnah suspected after her research in the library, that the parshmen/parshendi are voidbringers in a different form and can turn back into voidbringers. It was this information of supposedly dead Jasnah, that Shallan was so eager to bring to the scholars she hoped to find at the Shattered Plains.

 

The only reason why Kaladin didn t leave immediately was that they had to wait for the other contingents from the Shattered Plains to bring with them more charged spheres. The plans for his departure should have been made in the debriefing, that should have happened immediately after their arrival. In a few days there would have been time to fix him a provisional Captain's uniform at the very least and he should not have gone unarmed, as he can't draw a shardblade on everyone who causes him any kind of minor trouble. And he needed a written authorisation by Elhokar that puts him in charge of generally any action connected to everstorms or voidbringer attacks (if that helps at all).

 

 

Honestly, I'm a person with a tendency for depression, I know what it does, but in a situation like that the stress of possibly finding the parents dead should rather turn to anger and defiance than to depressed self pity.

Edited by Garfield
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Having to walk on his own feet with quite limited speed after rushing with the winds might only add to his frustration with each step. Ever had to walk to the next gas station after running out of gas while trying to reach your date on time?? Believe me, you WILL NOT arrive light hearted at the station ;-)

 

 

This might well have merit too, we've seen Kaladin's internal monologue about the effects of stormlight and what happens when it runs out, Kaladin would have been using a lot of stormlight for quite some time and the lack of it may be influencing his mood. However the fact that it had been over a day since he ran out of stormlight would probably rule this out, unless we're seeing the effects of an addiction.

Edited by Atastor
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Sorry, but I dont want to read a clinically depressed main character, who is unable to overcome the condition at least to some major extent in an adventure novel.

 

This is not some existentialist family drama, where a main character like that is suitable.

I remember sanderson saying something like all the stories he read about a guy with depression are about the guy being depressed, while instead he wanted to make a story about a depressed guy where depression is not the central part of his story arc. It's just something he has, like a more innocent personality quirk.

 

He also stated (I think in warbreaker commentary) that he wants to find plausible flaws/weaknesses for his characters. He mentioned them about vasher not being good with people. The same applies to kaladin's depression, I think. It is a limitation kaladin has, and he must manage to function despite it. just like vasher's lack of charisma. Or like shallan's inexperience about the world and lack of combat skills. or like wayne's inability to use a gun.

 

So, I would agree with you that I don't want to read a family drama. except this is not a family drama. This is an epic fantasy with a guy who does fancy stuff, and by the way he is often depressed. If this was a family drama, kaladin would sit around moping. And then he woould mope some more. Then his dog would die, and he would mope even more, and the critics would praise the book. And maybe his mother would die too, but only if the drama is particularly meaningful - the critics would praise the book extra in that case.

 

Therefore, unless kaladin returns home to find his mother dead, the pet axehound - that his parents took after losing their sons - also dead, and kaladin ends up spending all the book being depressed and doing nothing at all, you should not compare the two genres. I suggest you stop judging a whole book by reading part of a single chapter. It would be like watching the two minutes of star wars where alderaan goes kaboom and concluding that the villain is the protagonist. Or like reading the chapter of the wheel of time where egwene get punished in the tower and mistaking it for a novel about sadomasochism.

Edited by king of nowhere
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He also stated (I think in warbreaker commentary) that he wants to find plausible flaws/weaknesses for his characters. He mentioned them about vasher not being good with people. The same applies to kaladin's depression, I think. It is a limitation kaladin has, and he must manage to function despite it. just like vasher's lack of charisma. Or like shallan's inexperience about the world and lack of combat skills.

 

 

 

Problem is, right now the majority of the Radiant characters have some sort of psychiatric hangup. Renarin, Shallan and Kaladin, all three struggle with some sort of mental condition. And Dalinar is apparently a reformed and recovering Thrill addict. Then we have some nut case Skybreakers on the loose, too, apparently.

 

And don't get me started with the mad king of Karbranth

 

While it s not quite as annoying with Shallan and acceptable for a "seer", I feel like in a Radiant psych ward in those books. It's just too many of the main characters with too severe mental problems, that become too persistently central focus of the story development.

Edited by Garfield
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Well ... being broken in one way or the other seems to be a prerequisite for investiture to take a hold on you, doesnt it?

 

 

Problem is, right now the majority of the Radiant characters have some sort of psychiatric hangup. Renarin, Shallan and Kaladin, all three struggle with some sort of mental condition. And Dalinar is apparently a reformed and recovering Thrill addict. Then we have some nut case Skybreakers on the loose, too, apparently.

 

And don't get me started with the mad king of Karbranth

 

While it s not quite as annoying with Shallan and acceptable for a "seer", I feel like in a Radiant psych ward in those books. It's just too many of the main characters with too severe mental problems.

Edited by Atastor
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Problem is, right now the majority of the Radiant characters have some sort of psychiatric hangup. Renarin, Shallan and Kaladin, all three struggle with some sort of mental condition. And Dalinar is apparently a reformed and recovering Thrill addict. Then we have some nut case Skybreakers on the loose, too, apparently.

 

Ah, that's also part of the plot. There was something about a soul that needs to have cracks for the investiture to enter in it, and that people must be broken in some way before becoming radiants.

 

So, there's nothing to be done about it. the radiant group will keep looking like a psych ward. By the way, I like that analogy.

 

EDIT: ninja'ed

Edited by king of nowhere
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