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Dalinar and the Nightwatcher


jtburrup

Question

Does it explicitly say that Dalinar's lack of being able to remember his former wife or hear her name is a CURSE from the nightwatcher?

 

I ask, because I was discussing it with a friend and I always assumed that it was his BOON. My theory is that he asked the Nightwatcher to take away the pain from the death of his wife, and the form of the BOON was to forget her completely, and that we don't know yet what the curse is. But I wanted to verify if it says it's a curse explicitly. Thanks.

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There was a thread not that long ago about this. Before seeing that conversation I had always assumed (like you) that the loss of his memory was the boon. Apparently most people seem to think it's the curse, from what I've read. But I looked over the text as best I could and didn't see anything conclusive either way. I expect it will be answered in Oathbringer.

My assumption is based on the fact that Dalinar never seems very upset about the loss of his memory. You might say, "How can he be upset if he doesn't remember her." Obviously if all memory of his wife has been stripped away then he can't fully know what he's missing. But that just doesn't fit for me. He doesn't remember her or have any memories of her, but he knows that he loved her a lot and he knows that he loved her well. If someone shows up and tells you that you have a child you have never met then you're probably going to find yourself in an emotional hurricane. Now imagine how it would feel if you know (objectively) that you spent a number of years raising the child before someone erased all of your memories. I, for one, would be pissed. Any time I was reminded of this child that I have no memories about, I would be oozing with bitterness towards whoever took my memory away.

The ONLY way it makes sense as a curse is if the boon is so very vital that Dalinar has come to accept the necessity of the curse. But even then... Just makes more sense to me that Dalinar loved his wife so much that, when she died, he went to the Nightwatcher to ease the pain. Probably didn't expect to loose all memory or the ability to hear her name... But I can see how he would walk away thinking, wow this sucks and I am such an idiot, but I guess I got what I asked for.

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page 1071 in paperback 

"yes" he admitted. Would that day never stop haunting him? Was not losing memory of his wife enough?

(They are questioning dalinars visions)

Wether he accepts it as a necessity or not he still has times where he doesn't like it.

 

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15 minutes ago, tobar14 said:

I just thought of something. Maybe it has been said before, but here ya go.

What if Dalinar asked the nightwatcher to bring his dead wife back to life. The boon was that she was brought back to life, but he can't remember anything about her so he can't find her.

Resurrect a deadman is something beyond even the Gods...I will be really surprised if the Nightwatcher may do something like that.

And much more all the weird effect of the Old Magic seems to be Neurological-Cognitive in their nature

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I just thought of something. Maybe it has been said before, but here ya go.

What if Dalinar asked the nightwatcher to bring his dead wife back to life. The boon was that she was brought back to life, but he can't remember anything about her so he can't find her.

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I recently reread Words of Radiance, and a section right near the end stuck out to me. Dalinar has his dream about when he was younger, and it dissolves into warm light that was familiar and felt so real

My house, he thought. As it was when I was a child. Back before conquest, back before Gavilar…

 

“Gavilar…hadn’t Gavilar died? No, Dalinar could hear his brother laughing in the next room. He was a child. They both were.

 

“Dalinar crossed the shadowed room, feeling the fuzzy joy of familiarity. Of things being as they should be. He’d left his wooden swords out. He had a collection, each carved like a Shardblade. He was too old for those now, of course, but he still liked having them. As a collection.

 

“He stepped to the balcony doors and pushed them open.

 

“Warm light bathed him. A deep, enveloping, piercing warmth. A warmth that soaked down deep through his skin, into his very self. He stared at that light, and was not blinded. The source was distant, but he knew it. Knew it well.”


and he later asks the stormfather what that vision was about. Stormfather says there was no vision sent and it was just a dream, but Dalinar can't shake it.

I've interpreted that to mean that it was a special occasion that was not orchestrated by Honor. Might that be part of the Nightwatcher's boon? Maybe Dalinar asked to be comforted (as Yata said), and that meant he both had to forget her so he wouldn't get triggered, and that the enigmatic 'warm fuzzies' was a dream about her (with her blocked out)? I don't know... I just had the feeling that the dream/vision was connected to his wife.

There's a thread about this by Confused (postulating that the dream was Dalinar seeing into the Spiritual Realm... but it felt different to me)

 

Edited by Darkness
Adding Confused's thread and actual quote from book
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On 9/7/2016 at 10:19 AM, Argel said:

Maybe it's both the boon and the curse.

That's where I was with it too. Kind of like a Monkey's Paw situation. My assumption had been that he asked in some capacity to remove the pain of her presumed death, and got exactly what he wished for. The only way to not feel the pain of memory is to not remember. 

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Thing is that I always thought his boon was related to Gavilar. I remember in WoR that he mentioned that he almost went to war with his brother specifically because there was no one else to fight.

It made sense to me that he went to the night watcher asking to have that feeling removed before it consumed him and got a second "Boon" removing the pain of his wife's passing from her as his curse.
Because spren logic would be "Both these things are hurting you."

I'll find the quote for this when I'm not at work.

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