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Oathbringer Prologue (spoilers)


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One thing I find interesting is the knowledge that a single spren was needed to enable the forms is not something that fits with our current understanding of spren bonds with the Parshendi. This sounds like a spren that serves as a facilitator, but not a participant in the bond pair.

We know that the Parshendi go out into storms and if they are in the right mindset and maybe a bit of luck that can attract the right spen to enable the form they want. There doesn't seem to be a roll for a third party spren.

Maybe this spren is unique to bonding with the Old God spren....but then why have the current Parshendi been able to get Stormform. More evidence of this is that dullform was not removed from the Parshendi during the event that created the Parshmen. Maybe at the time every Parshendi(not the dullform rebels) was in a voidform from their old gods.

Edited by dionysus
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52 minutes ago, jofwu said:

Seems like most people earlier in the thread were in favor of this. I liked term "voidlight" that someone used.

But I'm not convinced entirely... Why is it always just a "sphere"? No mention of a gemstone at the center? I feel like there should be mention of a gemstone at the center if it's Stormlight-like Odium-Investiture. Furthermore, what does this "voidlight" do? I didn't get a sense that the Stormform Listeners were using something similar to stormlight, for example.

I think it was somebody on Reddit who suggested that the sphere ended up in Venli's hands, and that it was partly what helped her to discover Stormform (either because studying it informing her in some way or just by inspiration of some sort). I really like that idea.

Somebody was comparing the ability to speak in the rhythms to the way Ruin spoke. I'm not convinced it has to be a Shard speaking.

My first thought was that an Unmade is responsible... But I can't think of any support for this.

My next thought was the Heralds. This is based on what the Herald (probably Kalak) says in Jasnah's prologue: “I don’t like this. What we’ve done was wrong. That creature carries my lord’s own Blade. We shouldn’t have let him keep it. He—”. How did they speak to Klade? Who knows, but they're Heralds. If anyone would know, it's them. The Heralds were obviously up to something that night. Or some of them at least. And we have plenty of reason to believe that they don't want Gavilar to succeed. They're the ones who started the present stalemate after all, and Nale (for one) is trying pretty hard to preserve it. This is the most logical answer I can think of.

My backup guess is Taravangian. It's not hard to be suspicious of him. It wouldn't be surprising if he knew how to speak to Listeners in the rhythms, and there's plenty of reason to assume he knew of Szeth. Probably not hard to think of a motive either. (I'm assuming the Diagram exists at this point- can't remember if that's the case.)

A brief point on Taravangian, I did consider this but we have the following WoB/WoP:

Quote
  •  INTERVIEW: Mar 19th, 2014
    WoR Signing Report - darkanimereal1 and luke (Verbatim)
    Question
    Did Taravangian o to see the Nightwatcher before or after Gavilar's assassination?
    BRANDON SANDERSON
    Um, oh man. I'm going to have to look at my timeline. I believe it's before, but I can't guarantee I'm right, because these things are all happening around the same time.
    QUESTION
    Because he says that Gavilar confided in him the night of.
    BRANDON SANDERSON
    Ooooh, you're right. Nope, it's after. It is after. You can send that question to Peter so we can confirm it. There might be something I'm forgetting about Taravangian.
    Peter said by PM: "As far as I can tell from what the book says, he went to the Nightwatcher after the assassination

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But I really like your point about the Heralds 'having done something' in the WoR Prologue. I don't know that we've seen any evidence that the Heralds can link telepathically like the Parshendi, but who knows what they can do. Andthey are all insane.

I figure Venli got the sphere off Eshonai but I still can't figure out why, when she was getting worried about Venli's actions and the potential new spren she wouldn't have 'thought' of her missing sphere. But it is third person limited writing so maybe it was just narrative structure rather than anything deeper.

As for why it's a sphere rather than a gemstone, we have this:

Quote

TERVIEW: Oct 12th, 2015

Shadows of Self-Oak Brook IL

ALTERODENT

With Stormlight, the better the gem is cut, the less Stormlight it leaks, and the longer it holds its charge. If a gem was perfectly cut, on a molecular scale, would it leak Stormlight at all?

BRANDON SANDERSON

In a theoretical flawless gem, then no it would not.

I figure if it is Voidlight, and has lasted perhaps thousands of years, the person who made it made a flawless gem in the form of a sphere? 

Edited by Extesian
Weird formatting problem hope this fixes it
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2 minutes ago, Extesian said:

As for why it's a sphere rather than a gemstone, we have this:

No, I just meant that there's no mention of a gem inside the sphere. Maybe sphere is completely being used in the monetary sense, and a gem at the center is implied... It's just bothering me that it hasn't been mentioned. With such a bizarre artifact, I feel like a gem would be described if it were visible.

Maybe it's just swallowed up by the darkness.

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3 minutes ago, jofwu said:

No, I just meant that there's no mention of a gem inside the sphere. Maybe sphere is completely being used in the monetary sense, and a gem at the center is implied... It's just bothering me that it hasn't been mentioned. With such a bizarre artifact, I feel like a gem would be described if it were visible.

Maybe it's just swallowed up by the darkness.

Sorry for being unclear, I meant that the black sphere is a gem, just one that has been cut in the shape of a sphere. I'm not sure what a flawless gem emails in terms of being perfectly efficient at trapping light but I thought if you have the technology to do so perfectly, cutting a gem into a perfect sphere may perfectly trap the light. In other words it's not a glass sphere with a gem inside, it's a spherical gem.

But that may be wrong from a physics perspective, it was just a thought.

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20 minutes ago, Extesian said:

I figure if it is Voidlight, and has lasted perhaps thousands of years, the person who made it made a flawless gem in the form of a sphere? 

I think someone in The Way of Kings speculates pretty much the same thing (though as a concept, not about Gavilar's sphere specifically). So you could consider that a piece of foreshadowing.

As to why a gemstone is never mentioned, I don't think that's terribly suspicious. My impression is that the gemstones in the spheres are usually mentioned either when the color of the light is relevant (e.g. someone's face being outlined in red), or when the value of the sphere and/or its brightness are relevant (e.g. a sapphire broam would light up the entire room in soft blue light). I think the characters usually just say "sphere", similarly to how we would say "coin" or "bill" (when the value is irrelevant). 

So that could be it. 

I will say though, the omission of any mention of the gemstone is not entirely innocent. If I had seen a sphere like that, and I were native to Roshar, one of the first things I would think would be "huh, this looks like it glows with darkness, I've never seen a gemstone do this, I wonder what's in it." Either way, the characters' disinterest in the sphere is at least a little bit suspicious. 

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3 hours ago, jofwu said:

The sense I get from the epilogue is that Gavilar has been getting these visions for a fairly long time. He's been researching means to contain these "gods". He's planing to ally with the Parshendi against this threat, which implies he's considered steps that need to be taken in order to keep them from being taken.

 

I get a very similar sense - we have not seen the least of the prep work he has done - he did get the voidspren from somewhere, and to listen to him (no pun intended) in the Prologue, he has all but figured it all out. 

However his "alliance" with Parshendi seems weird to me. Either I do not understand something (and this very well may be the place) or what Gavilar was essentially saying to Eshonai there is something like this: we have treaty, we will bring your gods, you will change, become voidbringers, our Heralds will come back, KRs with them, and we will cheerfully duke it out in a war afterwards.  Have I missed something?  Does Gavilar think that the Listeners taking new form would fight alongside Knights Radiant? Against who?

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2 hours ago, jofwu said:

You also seem to believe that the Everstorm wasn't going to come one way or another. Guess what? Gavilar died, and it came anyways. Thanks to meddling Listeners who were being manipulated, mind you. What if Gavilar wasn't going to release the 'gods' for another 10 or 15 years? When mankind is more prepared. After he's had time to weed out the use of Parshmen for example.

Gavilar at least seems to believe that the next Desolation isn't about to happen unless he kicks it off: "This world is trapped," he says, "stuck in a state of dull lifeless transition."

2 hours ago, jofwu said:

The sense I get from the epilogue is that Gavilar has been getting these visions for a fairly long time. He's been researching means to contain these "gods". He's planing to ally with the Parshendi against this threat, which implies he's considered steps that need to be taken in order to keep them from being taken.

Gavilar doesn't propose an alliance _against_ the old gods either, but an alliance "in seeking the return of your gods," which is an interesting turn of phrase. Not "an alliance against the old gods" or "an alliance against Odium", an alliance to bring back the Everstorm and the old Parshendi gods. Bringing back the Everstorm and the old Parshendi gods means that in short order the Parshendi won't be allies of Alethkar but enemies, fighting in a massive battle. Does Gavilar want that? He sure seems to, because he keeps talking about the need to unite his empire, and how much more glorious the humans and the Parshendi were when they were fighting in the Desolations.

2 hours ago, jofwu said:

What makes you think he planned to unleash DOOM on the world for no good reason? You seem to believe that his plan was to bring back the Everstorm and then watch the world burn. That's not what he's talking about at all.

Well, he expresses three reasons for trying to kick off a Desolation:

1) He wants to recapture the glories of a bygone age, when life had more purpose than it does now ("My people were radiant once and your people, the parshmen, were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other and end in squabbles without light to guide them? And your people are as good as worthless.”);
2) He fears that his kingdom will fall apart into squabbles and internecine conflict without an external threat to unite them (" My people need to be united and I need an empire that won’t simply turn into infighting once I am gone."); and
3) He wants to put the whole cycle to an end once and for all. (" I seek for an end to something that we apparently never finished. ")

One thing that strikes me about this--and what is maybe driving Emailanimal's reaction--is that goals (1) & (2) are in conflict with (3). If Gavilar did somehow get his wish and put an end to this war against Odium once and for all, then in short order you'd be back to the same drab world of petty squabbles that Gavilar doesn't find very satisfying. The other thing is that it seems a little bonkers to seek a Desolation in order to preserve the unity of the kingdom when Desolations cause kingdoms to fall and take centuries to recover from. Nohadon lost 90% of his people during a Desolation, and he was lucky because his kingdom was still standing. Is Gavilar really going to do better than Nohadon, when he doesn't have ten orders of the Knights Radiant to support him? So at the very least this seems like a plan that he hasn't really thought through logically.

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13 hours ago, Oversleep said:

The visions are interactive in nature, so we don't know whether Gavilar got the same content from the same visions as Dalinar. Dalinar is still getting new visions; Gavilar may have seen more and we don't know what's in there. We don't even know whether he have seen the same visions or if they were in the same order, as @Argent pointed out.

My understanding was that the major visions were done for with the one where we had "UNITE THEM" in capital letters, and where Dalinar finally realized that he was listening to a recording, not having a conversion...

 

13 hours ago, Oversleep said:

Yeah, usually when God says something, people totally should go "nothing good comes out of it, shut up shut up shut up". When people discovered the sixteen as sign from god, they should totally go "nope, that's god talking, let's not investigate it". Vin could have still succeeded in killing Ruin, the only problem is that Sazed would have died because koloss would tear through humans like a hot knife through butter.

Most of the time, when God says something in someone's head in Cosmere, it has been Ruin. So, yes, let's have a conversation about how useful it has been to be hearing voices in your head in Cosmere.   

The strawman argument you are building is that what Gavilar was doing was a reasonable response to what he has learned from his nightly Almighty messages.  I still think he has seen the same things as Dalinar has. Where in them is the direct message from God to do anything the Gavilar is planning???

Gavilar is reacting to what he learned. But his reaction is not the only one possible. In fact, an argument can be made, that his reaction makes less sense than a lot of other possible courses of actions.  This makes the justification that he was doing it in the name of his God very weak.  He may be trying to justify it this way, but those were not the marching instructions from God.  We have seen the marching instructions. They were in ALL CAPS in Dalinar's visions. We can pretend that Gavilar may have seen extra episodes, but let's stop pretending that Tanavast was sending a different message to him.

 

10 hours ago, Harry the Heir said:

Well, he expresses three reasons for trying to kick off a Desolation:

1) He wants to recapture the glories of a bygone age, when life had more purpose than it does now ("My people were radiant once and your people, the parshmen, were vibrant. Who is served by this drab world where my people fight each other and end in squabbles without light to guide them? And your people are as good as worthless.”);
2) He fears that his kingdom will fall apart into squabbles and internecine conflict without an external threat to unite them (" My people need to be united and I need an empire that won’t simply turn into infighting once I am gone."); and
3) He wants to put the whole cycle to an end once and for all. (" I seek for an end to something that we apparently never finished. ")

One thing that strikes me about this--and what is maybe driving Emailanimal's reaction--is that goals (1) & (2) are in conflict with (3).

 Yes.  This has pretty much been my reasoning.   No matter what the esteemed opponents in this argument are saying about the Voice of GOD, and so on, reason 1 is effectively a spoiled child wanting more fun things for himself.  Voice of GOD or not, Gavilar clearly has a lot of agency in deciding how he chooses to pursue his goals. 

 

13 hours ago, jofwu said:

What makes you think he planned to unleash DOOM on the world for no good reason? You seem to believe that his plan was to bring back the Everstorm and then watch the world burn. That's not what he's talking about at all. He's talking about weapons that can be used to fight back. He's talking about containing and dealing with the threat. It's not just, "Let's open Pandora's Box and cross our fingers that mankind survives the Desolation that follows."

You also seem to believe that the Everstorm wasn't going to come one way or another. Guess what? Gavilar died, and it came anyways. Thanks to meddling Listeners who were being manipulated, mind you. What if Gavilar wasn't going to release the 'gods' for another 10 or 15 years? When mankind is more prepared. After he's had time to weed out the use of Parshmen for example.

I'm not saying Gavilar is definitely clean. I'm saying that you're jumping to a LOT of conclusions about what he was trying to do and how it was going to work out.

I think there is no need to jump to conclusions here. Gavilar was pretty clear about his plan.

  1. Discover who voidbringers are. (Check. He knows it now)
  2. Figure out why they are not voidbringers anymore (Check. The ancient captured spren)
  3. Figure out what needs to be done to turn them into voidbringers (Check. "You can keep this. I have another")
  4. Turn parshmen (and now that they are here, Parshendi) into Voidbringers
  5. ?
  6. Heralds appear.
  7. Knights Radiant appear.
  8. Major battle.

There may be a couple more bullet points to this agenda, but my concern is 5. 

I agree that the Listeners are being manipulated too. (voices in heads are everywhere these days apparently). So, they are no longer off the radar of Odium.

But I still think that there are more sane ways to approach saving the world problem then "let's let eldritch deities into the room".  

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14 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

Most of the time, when God says something in someone's head in Cosmere, it has been Ruin. So, yes, let's have a conversation about how useful it has been to be hearing voices in your head in Cosmere.  

Yeah, let's totally ignore the fact that it's obvious visions are coming from Honor and use a counter-example of an evil god.

15 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

The strawman argument you are building is that what Gavilar was doing was a reasonable response to what he has learned from his nightly Almighty messages.  I still think he has seen the same things as Dalinar has. Where in them is the direct message from God to do anything the Gavilar is planning???

Yeah? Where did I say anything about whether Gavilar's actions are reasonable or not? (Hint: nowhere) Stop putting things I didn't say in my mouth, would you?

I only said you're building a strawman by saying Gavilar's goal is to bring apocalypse just because he feels like it or that he "wants more fun things for himself". That's very clearly not the case, as bringing back Parshendi gods is just a step in his plan, whatever it may be and whatever he wants to achieve.

 

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It has come to my mind, when it comes to character reading and our impressions on said characters, we are often working with incomplete information. Gavilar is not exception and while we have been given additional clues, with the prologue, we are still left to fill out the gaps as we see best. Some readers, such as myself, tend to be more heftily influenced by a given character's morality, decision frame and/or lack of while other readers tend to be more pragmatic preferring to focus on the overall story arc instead of single it out any given character.

Thus, I am left with sharing my perceptions of this specific character based on how I personally react to several triggering items. Unfortunately, none of them are positive, hence my personal reaction to Gavilar is inherently negative. I however need to specify having a negative reaction to a character does not mean I hate this character: it means I hate the individuals this character is personifying and since all stories need their villains, I am rather please to hate Gavilar.

Why did I react negatively to his character?

One of our first introduction to Gavilar's personality comes from Navani, whom I have been mostly partial too up until I read The Thrill. My feelings towards her have since morphed towards being negative as opposed to mild. She might be a gifted scientist and a smart woman, but she isn't a nice person. In any way, she did hint towards Gavilar not quite being the great amazing man Dalinar so loves to praise. She hinted towards him having a "dark side", hence came the first clue Gavilar might not have been as great as man as we were initially left to think.

It is thus, when I read Gavilar stating out loud, he wished to trigger a Desolation because he sees it as the best mean to keep his kingdom united while achieving his personal dream of bringing back both the Heralds and the Radiants, I tend to lean towards the explanation which seems the most consistent with my first impression of the character. I also do not give much credence to Gavilar "obeying the word of God" as I personally do not believe any God should be blindly obeyed. I firmly believe holy visions shouldn't be traded for common sense and my sense of morality dictates launching a civil war and purposefully triggering (or trying to trigger) a mass extinction event should be avoided at all cost. I do believe "because God told me so" is the worst possible excuse for perpetuating what would be qualify, in our modern era, as war crimes. Gavilar might have been left with his visions, he might have had them for a long time (or not), but as far as we know, he had complete freedom as to how he chose to react to them. He could have ignored them, he could as seen them as an incentive to strengthen his rule with peaceful measures, he could have chose various paths, but he chose the one which would end up in a blood bath. And why? Seemingly because Gavilar was deeply obsessed with having his kingdom outlive him, with having his kingdom remain united.

Now, right here, I will post spoilers for The Thrill, because they are relevant, read at your own risk.

Spoiler

 

34 years ago, Gavilar was reading the Way of Kings. 34 years ago, he had started to pester Dalinar about it. Dalinar's own perception was Gavilar was using the book to highlight how everything Dalinar loved was evil and therefore bad while all Gavilar loved was great and magnificent. He doesn't start to warm up to the book until his blood lust combined to his growing jealousy sent him running out to kill his own brother only to stop himself in time. Then, he starts to wonder if perhaps he should maybe read this book for himself. This was 34 years ago unless I am quoting the wrong chapter, but in any way Gavilar has been toying with those precepts for a very long time. For this revelation, it is easy to jump to the conclusion Gavilar launched the War of Unification in an attempt to mimic Nohadon and to obey what he perceived were the rules of his book.

This isn't so bad except when, 28 years ago, we read Gavilar already being worried about his kingdom outliving him. He asks Dalinar why Nohadon's kindgom collapsed to which Dalinar answers it might have been because his children were worthless. Gavilar denied it might be the case instead claiming it was because he never stop conquering. Hence, Gavilar decided to remain the king on one nation and, even before he had managed to unite all of Alethkar, he did worry about keeping it intact.

Hence, when Gavilar, 6 years ago, speaks of how he wish for his kingdom to remain united and not to collapse after he passes away, I think of how he said the same things more than two decades earlier. 

 

I interpret Gavilar's words as those of a man literally obsessed with his kingdom, but not for the right reasons. Just like Elhokar, not once did he mention he wanting to stabilize his rule so his people could prosper and/or live in peace. No, by all means and all indications, he wants it for very selfish reasons and for this I will judge him harshly because his moral frame wildly conflicts with my own.

My perception of Gavilar then remains entirely negative and while I do keep an open-mind for him having had other more worthy intentions, I haven't been currently given enough clues to think otherwise. I also do not abide by the argument he merely wanted to end a war he has been fighting for so long as Gavilar isn't fighting a Desolation: no one is and while it might not be over yet, nobody currently suffers for it. It isn't tangible enough for him to justify wanting to literally cause the death of thousand of innocent just to end it. Had the Desolation been going on, had the context been different, I might just might support the idea, though I would never back such philosophy unless all has been tried to avoid the human cost. As things currently stands: nothing has been tried yet, hence nothing justifies Gavilar's decision and by murdering him, Eshonai might have done the world a favor.

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9 hours ago, Oversleep said:

Yeah? Where did I say anything about whether Gavilar's actions are reasonable or not?

This is how your original post on the topic and the "He hears a Voice of God" apologia reads to me. Apologies, if it is not the case.

 

9 hours ago, Oversleep said:

I only said you're building a strawman by saying Gavilar's goal is to bring apocalypse just because he feels like it or that he "wants more fun things for himself". That's very clearly not the case, as bringing back Parshendi gods is just a step in his plan, whatever it may be and whatever he wants to achieve.

 

Exactly. Apocalypse is not the end, it's the means. Journey  before destination, so to speak.

7 hours ago, maxal said:

It is thus, when I read Gavilar stating out loud, he wished to trigger a Desolation because he sees it as the best mean to keep his kingdom united while achieving his personal dream of bringing back both the Heralds and the Radiants, I tend to lean towards the explanation which seems the most consistent with my first impression of the character. I also do not give much credence to Gavilar "obeying the word of God" as I personally do not believe any God should be blindly obeyed. I firmly believe holy visions shouldn't be traded for common sense and my sense of morality dictates launching a civil war and purposefully triggering (or trying to trigger) a mass extinction event should be avoided at all cost. I do believe "because God told me so" is the worst possible excuse for perpetuating what would be qualify, in our modern era, as war crimes. Gavilar might have been left with his visions, he might have had them for a long time (or not), but as far as we know, he had complete freedom as to how he chose to react to them. He could have ignored them, he could as seen them as an incentive to strengthen his rule with peaceful measures, he could have chose various paths, but he chose the one which would end up in a blood bath. And why? Seemingly because Gavilar was deeply obsessed with having his kingdom outlive him, with having his kingdom remain united.

 

Thank you. I could not have said it better myself.

11 hours ago, jofwu said:

My next thought was the Heralds. This is based on what the Herald (probably Kalak) says in Jasnah's prologue: “I don’t like this. What we’ve done was wrong. That creature carries my lord’s own Blade. We shouldn’t have let him keep it. He—”. How did they speak to Klade? Who knows, but they're Heralds. If anyone would know, it's them. The Heralds were obviously up to something that night. Or some of them at least. And we have plenty of reason to believe that they don't want Gavilar to succeed. They're the ones who started the present stalemate after all, and Nale (for one) is trying pretty hard to preserve it. This is the most logical answer I can think of.

This is a good point actually.  

  • Skybreakers: let's kill all KRs to prevent Desolation
  • Sons of Honor: let's create  Desolation to bring back KRs

Clearly, two opposite agendas. Nin is in the house, and I am sure he knows what Gavilar is up to.  It also explains why Heralds are there in force that night.

 

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20 minutes ago, emailanimal said:

This is a good point actually.  

  • Skybreakers: let's kill all KRs to prevent Desolation
  • Sons of Honor: let's create  Desolation to bring back KRs

Clearly, two opposite agendas. Nin is in the house, and I am sure he knows what Gavilar is up to.  It also explains why Heralds are there in force that night.

I'm torn about this. On the one hand, it explains Kalak's reaction: “I don’t like this. What we’ve done was wrong. That creature carries my lord’s own Blade. We shouldn’t have let him keep it. He—” Sure sounds like Kalak knows what Szeth is about to do, and while he's complaining about it his complaints seem to indicate that he and Nale are in on it somehow.

On the other, it doesn't seem like something that Nale would ordinarily attempt. Szeth is plainly breaking the law in assassinating Gavilar, and there isn't an obvious crime that the king could have been guilty of. And if the Heralds wanted it to happen this way, then they want Alethkar and the Parshendi to be at war afterward.

Edited by Harry the Heir
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36 minutes ago, Harry the Heir said:

On the other, it doesn't seem like something that Nale would ordinarily attempt. Szeth is plainly breaking the law in assassinating Gavilar, and there isn't an obvious crime that the king could have been guilty of. And if the Heralds wanted it to happen this way, then they want Alethkar and the Parshendi to be at war afterward.

There may be other Heralds very interested in preventing a Desolation. This does not have to be Nale's operation.

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9 hours ago, dionysus said:

Gavilar united Alethkar under his dominance. I am sure those wars were not pretty. His main general was the Blackthorn, who we know was merciless and resorted to becoming a drunk later on, probably because of guilt. I do not see how anything revealed in this prologue is out of character. A prince who subdues 9 other kingdoms, most by force, has a certain megalomania and lack of regard for the very real consequences of his actions.

Disregarding journey before destination seems in-line with all we know about him.

Say what I said brother!! that was my main point and the reason I think this is a continuity error...my main question is how is it possible to become a radiant all the while totally disregarding the first Ideal of all ten orders. Sorry I am not buying into the whole evil radiant line of reasoning. And yes I do understand the orders didn't always get along etc etc.. However one thing they all have in common is the first Ideal.

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Gavilar is an Alethi, and their culture is war. He united the princedoms the only way he knew how - by conquering them.

I agree that Gavilar didn't start on his conquest with the best of intentions, but I think for him it was culturally appropriate: all the princes strive for dominance over each other, and we see this throughout the books with how much difficulty Dalinar has keeping the other highprinces in line, with how they constantly engage in border skirmishes at home even though they're technically united as one kingdom. I don't think Gavilar could have united them by anything else other than force, and even Dalinar comes to take a similar view later on.

We also know that Radiants, despite their vows are not morally perfect. In Dalinar's flashback, the man he believes is Nohadon states: "Alakavish was a Surgebinder. He should have known better. And yet, the Nahel bond gave him no more wisdom than a regular man. Alas, not all spren are as discerning as honorspren." 

Perhaps Gavilar believed that a united Alethkar (even if by war) would fare better against a Desolation than separate, squabbling princedoms. We also know that Gavilar behaved oddly by Alethkar standards, especially near the end, that he believed in the Codes on a personal level even if he did not impose it upon his kingdom. Perhaps that was enough to start him down on the path to become a Bondsmith, even though he probably never got as far as Dalinar did.

I agree that Gavilar and the Sons of Honor do appear like scumbags and everything we see them do has been pretty questionable, but I don't think we know enough to cast judgment upon them at this point.

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14 hours ago, Harry the Heir said:

Bringing back the Everstorm and the old Parshendi gods means that in short order the Parshendi won't be allies of Alethkar but enemies, fighting in a massive battle.

 

14 hours ago, emailanimal said:
  • Figure out what needs to be done to turn them into voidbringers (Check. "You can keep this. I have another")
  • Turn parshmen (and now that they are here, Parshendi) into Voidbringers

I'm not convinced he intends to let the Parshmen (or at least the Parshendi) be voidbringer-ed. My interpretation is that he has a plan to protect them or something. The whole point of the alliance is "Hey, let's work together through this. I'd rather have you on our side, united, than as our enemy."

And this voice is trying to stop what Gavilar is doing. So it's one bad versus another bad (possible) unless Gavilar or the voice is on the right track.

Well put @maxal, interesting insight that I haven't been able to read yet.

I don't think Gavilar is necessarily putting destination before journey... He just has a twisted view of what the journey part looks like.

Edited by jofwu
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I will just remind you all real quick that "UNITE THEM" doesn't have to refer to the Alethi princedoms. Gavilar could've interpreted that as a command to unite the world. It is, in fact, the first thing I thought of when I read about that map of the Roshar supercontinent. 

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3 hours ago, jofwu said:

I'm not convinced he intends to let the Parshmen (or at least the Parshendi) be voidbringer-ed. My interpretation is that he has a plan to protect them or something. The whole point of the alliance is "Hey, let's work together through this. I'd rather have you on our side, united, than as our enemy."

I'm willing to be convinced on that point, but Gavilar doesn't actually say that to Eshonai, even as she gets upset at the idea of bringing back the old gods. (And it reads to me as if this is the first time that the Parshendi were told that Gavilar wants to do this.) If he wanted to win her over to an alliance against them he's got a funny way of doing it.

BTW, in your mind is Amaram working from the same playbook as Gavilar? Or is he going off-track in some way?

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27 minutes ago, Harry the Heir said:

 If he wanted to win her over to an alliance against them he's got a funny way of doing it.

BTW, in your mind is Amaram working from the same playbook as Gavilar? Or is he going off-track in some way?

Well, I think he's just really arrogant. :)

Good question about Amaram. Considering how close they seem to be, I imagine they're working together pretty closely. And isn't there some scene where he makes a comment along the lines of "we did it, Gavilar!" Though I guess that doesn't mean Amaram doesn't have his own "style". Or that he was fully aware of everything Gavilar knew.

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13 hours ago, Humpty said:

Say what I said brother!! that was my main point and the reason I think this is a continuity error...my main question is how is it possible to become a radiant all the while totally disregarding the first Ideal of all ten orders. Sorry I am not buying into the whole evil radiant line of reasoning. And yes I do understand the orders didn't always get along etc etc.. However one thing they all have in common is the first Ideal.

There is something different about the first ideal in my opinion. I personally believe the first ideal is not native to the nahel bonding process like the other ideals, but something imposed by the Heralds on surgebinders. No real evidence of this other than the observation that some of the ideals we know of or have speculated don't line up with it. Shallan doesn't even speak 2-5 ideals. The Skybreaker focus on laws is journey independent, and in fact may necessitate small injustices be allowed for the their version of the greater good (uniform application of laws.)  

 

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Remember that being a Radiant is about social structure, not about Oaths. The only difference between a Surgebinder and a Knight Radiant is just how they fit in society. The powers come entirely from the spren, and so the Oaths must be mandated by them too. I suspect that the... rigidity of the First Ideal has more to do with the spren's collective decision to try to imitate what Honor had given his Heralds (Surges, Honorblades) and (maybe) the Oathpact, and less to do with Nohadon and his Orders.

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3 hours ago, Argent said:

Remember that being a Radiant is about social structure, not about Oaths. The only difference between a Surgebinder and a Knight Radiant is just how they fit in society. The powers come entirely from the spren, and so the Oaths must be mandated by them too. I suspect that the... rigidity of the First Ideal has more to do with the spren's collective decision to try to imitate what Honor had given his Heralds (Surges, Honorblades) and (maybe) the Oathpact, and less to do with Nohadon and his Orders.

What?

How is being a Radiant not about Oaths? The only non-Radiant Surgebinders we've seen have had Honorblades. Every other Surgebinder we know about has been a Radiant, and thus said Oaths. Can you please elaborate?

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3 hours ago, Argent said:

Remember that being a Radiant is about social structure, not about Oaths. The only difference between a Surgebinder and a Knight Radiant is just how they fit in society. The powers come entirely from the spren, and so the Oaths must be mandated by them too. I suspect that the... rigidity of the First Ideal has more to do with the spren's collective decision to try to imitate what Honor had given his Heralds (Surges, Honorblades) and (maybe) the Oathpact, and less to do with Nohadon and his Orders.

Your proposition aligns with my thoughts about the First Ideal being unique in some way. I know you have greater knowledge of realmatics than me, but I believe the oaths have to align with the intent of Honor or Cultivation or a combination of the two. (I have no idea how Pattern's Truths fit into this.) By that I mean the Spren can't just give their power away to anyone they take a fancy to, it is inherent in the magic system. I think the First Ideal, like you say, closely aligns with Honor, maybe exclusively. Whether it was forced on the spren or chosen by them, I think it can lead to conflicts with more Cultivation aligned oaths/moral systems. We don't really know what Cultivation's intent is yet, but I believe it in some way encompasses the idea of pruning to obtain a more perfect end state/goal. Another way of saying it, it has an element of destination above all.

I also recognize that Honor and Cultivation are broad concepts and a lot of things can fit under their umbrella, maybe even contradictory things. Ruin and Preservation seem so much easier to understand than Honor and Cultivation and the other shards we know about. One thought I have been kicking around in my head is can two contradictory actions both align with the same shard's intent. For example, let's say I take an oath to do something that I believe should do some good. After I take the oath, I discover that there will be unintended negative consequences. Both keeping my oath and breaking my oath can both be considered honorable. Would Honor have a definitive choice that aligns with his intent, or would both fit under his intent.

Edited by dionysus
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