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[Spoilers: The Thrill] Dalinar flashbacks


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I am assuming that with spoiler tag in the title, The Thrill is fair game on this forum?

At any rate, this is less about the actual things we learn from the flashbacks, and more about Brandon's writing.

 

Has anyone else read the flashback at the dinner party and thought that Dalinar sounded like he was separated at birth from Wayne?

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2 hours ago, Blightsong said:

I didnt get that vibe, but Dalinar certainly was far different from how he is now.

 

Here is how I can describe Brandon's approach to writing Wayne. Imagine a person with a completely consistent internal view of things. Imagine them narrating every other thing that goes on around, and acting on their internal monologue.   Imagine that this completely consistent internal view appears as being TOTALLY OUT OF WACK for an objective observer.

 

Dalinar circa dinnertime was described in EXACTLY THE SAME way.  To him, everything he did was completely natural and internally consistent. To everyone else though....

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I'm surprised there isn't more discussion on these chapters. They were really good and it was interesting to see young, brutal Dalinar. It tells us much about the Aletha culture that Dalinar's fame as the Blackthorn is what he was honored most for, and not just because of PR after Galivar won the crown. Sadeas and Galivar knew the monster Dalinar was and used him to subdue their enemies. After reading this chapter Sadeas and Dalinar's relationship is cast in a very different light. It's also interesting to see Sadeas, Galivar, Navani and Ialai in those chapters. Also to learn about Evi. I hopefully assume this is only the beginning is a very interest story.  

I was not disappointed by Dalinar in these chapters. The Way of Kings hints that this is who the Blackthorn had once been. It makes Dalinar even more intriguing. A man who started as he did, and was praised for those actions, changed so much over the next twenty years into the man we know and love now because he loved his brother. Waiting for Oathbringer will be hard. I wish In knew how to become a beta reader for Tor.

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I'm not sure if it was officially confirmed before, but the final scene of these flashbacks pretty much confirmed for me that the Thrill is one of Odium's ways of influencing people into doing things he wants, a la Ruin. I suspect that Odium (or the relevant Unmade) had a direct hand in Dalinar's urge to kill Gavilar there, likely because they were aware that Gavilar was on his way to becoming a Bondsmith.

I'm not sure if this was old information, but the most interesting thing I learned was that the specific Spren that Ryshadium have a symbiotic relationship with are Music Spren. I still haven't quite figured out the implications of that, but I wonder if it's connected at all to the Listeners.

Edited by Amanuensis
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Agree with the rest of you: This is the Blackthorn we expected, surprised there aren't more comments on the forums on these chapters (almost a week post-e-pub!), and also liked the info re: Ryshadium.

Seeing the Thrill in full-action here makes it very clear that it's evil / of Odium. I wondered if Dalinar "seeing red" is related to the red lightning of the Everstorm and the red-lightning spren that transform Listeners into Stormform.

I was also interested in reading about another one of those "huge glowing figures" that stalk the highstorms. I think we're supposed to wonder if it threw the boulder at Dalinar, but what if it actually prompted him subconsciously to move so he didn't get hit? Some have theorized that the glowing forms in the WoR chasm scene were Unmade, but IMO they just don't feel ominous - in both instances, it seems more like an air of mystery and a little awe. Could they be a different kind of...

Spoiler

Sleepless?

Now the long-but-worthwhile wait till November...

Edited by old aggie
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Where's this business about music spren and Ryshadium coming from? Also, what's this about seeing red and Odium? I've read the archer scene and heard the dinner scene but I'm not sure there's any reference to seeing red, wanting to kill Gavilar, or anything Odium-related.

Edited by Garglemesh
I remembered more questions...
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2 hours ago, Garglemesh said:

Where's this business about music spren and Ryshadium coming from? Also, what's this about seeing red and Odium? I've read the archer scene and heard the dinner scene but I'm not sure there's any reference to seeing red, wanting to kill Gavilar, or anything Odium-related.

There are 4 Dalinar flashback segments in the new "Unfettered 2" anthology, edited by Shawn Speakman - it was in Friday's news here on the 17th Shard: http://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/dalinar-flashbacks-in-unfettered-ii-and-stormlight-fan-film-r309/

IIRC, you can only get "Unfettered 2" as an e-book at this time, because there's a delay in the hardback.

In Brandon's introduction to his chapter, he says that these 4 segments are not 100% final - he has been reading them at signings, but his team hasn't finished analyzing them for continuity. So they might change a little before we see them again in "Oathbringer" next year.

He also says (correctly) that these flashbacks contain no real spoilers for SA3 - they just develop the character Dalinar, showing us how far he has come, and give insight into the Alethi Thrill.

hth

Edited by old aggie
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Oh, right. I actually have a thought on what's walking in the storms. Whether or not the Highstorms are Honor's "mobile Perpendicularity", they do appear to weaken the barrier between the Physical Realm and the Cognitive Realm. I wonder if those figures we see aren't necessarily Unmade, but simply what a pair of Spren actually look like in the Cognitive Realm. The next question would be, what particular Spren are they?

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Massspren? That is an amazing thought on so many levels.

3 consecutive 's's!

This spren is 'massive' ;)

It might actually be a thing, there are gravityspren and pressurespren after all. Makes me wonder if there are accelerationspren.

Those 3 thoughts make me want this to be a thing.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

My husband got me a Kindle for Christmas. Obviously, the first book I bought with it was Unfettered 2 just so I could read The Thrill, which I promptly did while the kids played with their new toys.

I really loved them and here are my thoughts:

Spoiler

 

Dalinar's battle scenes read very differently than Adolin's. It is what stuck to me the most within those chapters. Young Dalinar was a bloodthirsty war machine who not only revealed, but wanted to kill as many people as he could. He is ruthless and nearly demoniac, hardly a man, completely devoid of compassion which isn't something I read in Adolin's battle scenes.

How Dalinar won Oathbringer really threw me out: killing a boy of 6? I did not expect this. What a monster. Did he have to kill the boy? He could have just taken the Shardblade from his hands. I am glad though Brandon did not write the specifics here: it was better left unsaid, just confirmed later on.

Dalinar being so battle frenzied he killed his own men... Another awful moment for me: this man is truly mad. How could he ever keep the loyalty of his men while behaving in such ways? I loved seeing Kadesh here: the former soldier who became an Ardent and is known to have tutored Dalinar's kids.

Evi. I loved Evi. She wanted to be touched, open displays of affection and she yearned to draw the man out of the beast. She made me think of Beauty. I was sadden though to find out Dalinar did not love her. It appears when his memory got erased, what remained has been heavily modified which made me think Dalinar is perhaps no stranger to her death... If he can kill a child to get his hand on a Shardblade which he would have gotten anyway, then surely he can kill a wife whom he does not love. Why? Well, here is my daily bout of speculation: perhaps he thought she was raising the boys to be too soft. It is said Adolin's sense of morality comes from his mother, so it might have been Dalinar thought she was bad influence for the boy, hence he killed her. Just a thought, but my leading theory remains he wanted to cure himself from his desire to kill his brother, from his jealousy.

I loved to read how the various Highprinces fall into place. I am a sucker to know how old everyone is, so I was pleased the last chapter contained many valuable mentions. Hence, we found out Sebrarial is a few years younger than Dalinar, thus making him in his late forties. Ruthar won a set of Shards for his son which makes Relis Ruthar several years older than Adolin (I had wondered how old his dueling buddies were, so now I know for at least one, much older). It doesn't say how old the son is, but when Dalinar gave his new set to baby Elhokar, Gavilar laughs saying he'd be the first baby to own Shards. I thus took it Relis Ruthar probably was a child or even older.

I was also please to read mention of Tanalar winning himself a Blade. We all know who's Blade this will be and it makes him more of a chull bag for trapping a teenager into a fight some 20 years later. Yeah. Great going man. Forty years old man challenges a kid. Gee. It make me want to read this scene so badly: David against Goliath.

 

So here. Totally worth 10$. 

Edited by maxal
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Is this thread meant to be "open spoilers"?

Spoiler

I really, really tried to find some way to conclude Dalinar didn't kill Tanalan's boy. He obviously shouldn't have had to in order to gain the Blade, as the boy couldn't have bonded it so quickly after Tanalan's death made it materialize, and couldn't even lift it, or barely so. But then what is it that Dalinar's ashamed of that he hopes Gavilar doesn't find out about? Would it actually have been shameful NOT to kill the boy, and thus leave the highprince's heir alive with a claim to revive later on? But if the Alethi warrior culture advocated elimination of child heirs, we haven't seen that anywhere else. Sadly the only sequence of events we can reconstruct from this - unless it's a blind - is that the boy did manage to lift the Shardblade and swung/jabbed at Dalinar with it, and since you can't parry a Shardblade with an ordinary one, he fell into training patterns and dodged and stabbed...

I can't believe Dalinar had a hand in killing Evi, either. How would that have in any way alleviated his jealousy for his brother's marriage to Navani? By all accounts, he did (eventually) fall in love with her, and we still don't know why he sought out the Nightseeker's boon/curse, except that it was done shortly after her death. There's definitely something going on there, but I don't see something as direct and brutal as Dalinar offing the mother of his children.

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19 minutes ago, robardin said:

Is this thread meant to be "open spoilers"?

  Hide contents

I really, really tried to find some way to conclude Dalinar didn't kill Tanalan's boy. He obviously shouldn't have had to in order to gain the Blade, as the boy couldn't have bonded it so quickly after Tanalan's death made it materialize, and couldn't even lift it, or barely so. But then what is it that Dalinar's ashamed of that he hopes Gavilar doesn't find out about? Would it actually have been shameful NOT to kill the boy, and thus leave the highprince's heir alive with a claim to revive later on? But if the Alethi warrior culture advocated elimination of child heirs, we haven't seen that anywhere else. Sadly the only sequence of events we can reconstruct from this - unless it's a blind - is that the boy did manage to lift the Shardblade and swung/jabbed at Dalinar with it, and since you can't parry a Shardblade with an ordinary one, he fell into training patterns and dodged and stabbed...

I can't believe Dalinar had a hand in killing Evi, either. How would that have in any way alleviated his jealousy for his brother's marriage to Navani? By all accounts, he did (eventually) fall in love with her, and we still don't know why he sought out the Nightseeker's boon/curse, except that it was done shortly after her death. There's definitely something going on there, but I don't see something as direct and brutal as Dalinar offing the mother of his children.

I think we should keep our specific comments about The Thrill within spoilers as they are part of Oathbringer. We do not have a private topic for it yet and people may read them without knowing nor wanting to. I guess an admin could clarify it, but until it happens, I say we shouldn't be taking any chances. Reading unwanted spoilers really is a massive bummer.

Spoiler

 

I too tried to find ways to not have Dalinar killed the kid, but his POV seems to clearly indicate he did. His guilt afterwards, his non-characteristic melancholia and his statement to Gavilar they should be more careful does heavily implies he did kill the boy, not to forget someone mentions Tanalan and his heir died. Hence, the boy is dead. I do not believe a boy of 6 managed to lift a 6 foot long Shardblade, much less graze a seasoned warrior such as Dalinar. 

I think Dalinar just killed the boy.

About Evi, I do not know. I was surprised to read he did not love her. He did not trust her to write prayers for her. He practically admitted he hated her... but when he talks about her in WoK, he talks of his long courtship, on how he pursued her for three years. In the flashback, we learn he did no such thing. The marriage was delayed because such were the Riran customs. Now, I obviously do not give much credence to this new theory of mine, I still lean towards my initial theory (Dalinar seek the Nightwatcher to cure his sickening jealousy for his brother). Still, the whole sequence showed an image of Dalinar we had not yet seen: a ruthless man who lived and breathed to kill. He killed his own men: his own men. He did not love his wife nor did he want to marry her. 

I now have to ask, did he love his sons? Or was he disappointed in both of them? Was he afraid his heir would grow too soft if he remained under his foreign wife's influence for too long?

 

 

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