[OB] on gavilar confirmed son of honor

[king of nowhere Voidbringer]

so, there was some speculation before due to gavilar talking to amaram, but it wasn't of much substance. now the prologue to oathbringer confirms it without doubt. gavilar was of the sons of honor, and he was planning to turn the listeners into voidbringers to unite the world against a common foe. he explained the plan to eshoonai, in detail. and this changes everything.

szeth's assassination of gavilar always had a deep impact on me. gavilar was a wise and magnanimous king, and he got killed. it was more than a crime, it was a worldwide tragedy, made even worse by the fact that everything was going well, and then someone for some unfathomable reason just had to shatter it all. but now, it reads completely different. gavilar, how could you do that to us? turned out you were no better than amaram. so much for reading nohadon and bringing your brother into it. was it all ever an act? ok, nowhere in the alethi war codes did it ever say "don't summon demons just to unite people against a common foe", but hey, one thinks that shouldn't need mentioning.

Two things worthy of mentioning: one, gavilar was receiving visions. they did not stop despite his plan, which was far from honorable. does it mean the stormfather approves? or does it mean that once the visions start, the person stopping to be honorable does not stop the visions? or does it mean that gavilar was well-intentioned enough that he still counted as honorable?

and if gavilar could still count as honorable, I wonder if amaram could earn redemtpion. I'm thinking sacrificing his life to help kaladin would do the trick and be a nice development. I can see the dialogue

"your team was a bunch of nobodies, and i was a general, so it was right to sacrifice them for my sake. but now you are a radiant and i am just a lighteye, so it is right that i sacrifice for your sake"

"wait, you're telling me you actually believe all that rubbish?"

"judge my ideals as you wish, I stand by them. always" goes to commit heroic sacrifice.

probably just wishful thinking on my part, but if gavilar was in league with amaram, then i can expect anything.

I am surprised nobody commented on this before.

[Calderis God Beyond]

I've been talking about it in a few threads actually. It's the reason I think there's nothing barring Taravangian from being a Bondsmith. 

Honor is not moral. Honor is following whatever code of conduct you have decided is correct perfectly. 

It's why Nale praises Szeth. 

It's why the Skybreakers are able to enact the law regardless how cruel. 

And Gavilar was worse than Amaram. Everything that both Amaram and Taravangian are doing is directly inspired by him. 

[Extesian Bondsmith]

From the other thread

Quote

Q: The visions Dalinar gets in WoK always struck me as odd - you don't just look at the past, you are able to act within this experience. Now we know that Gavilar was also on the way to being a Bondsmith - was he acting in a different way? Were the visions only basically the same but different in the end depending on the personal reactions? Is this something like a test?
A: He did see the same visions. They were the same thing. But... I will say that his reaction to them were very different from Dalinar's reactions to them. Anyway it was difficult for the Stormfather without a bond to determine/to tell the difference between very easily. When Spren are bonded, they gain a lot more ability to understand the world around then, so you'll find out soon more stuff about this in the third book.

So the Stormfather basically couldn't tell, it seems, before the second oath how compliant Gavilar was. The next oath is needed to bring Him enough into the cognitive realm. 

I have no doubt Amaram can be redeemed. But even that is subjective. There are people, and spren, that would regards his actions as ok anyway. 

 

[king of nowhere Voidbringer]

9 minutes ago, Calderis said:

I've been talking about it in a few threads actually.

can you show me where? if they were tangential to the thread, then it is good to have a thread dedicated to this, but if there was a thread for this that I somehow missed, then this thread should be merged

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

1 minute ago, king of nowhere said:

can you show me where?

here's one, from the linked post on down

Not sure if there are others, but I knew this one

[Calderis God Beyond]

41 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

can you show me where? if they were tangential to the thread, then it is good to have a thread dedicated to this, but if there was a thread for this that I somehow missed, then this thread should be merged

They were completely tangential to the threads themselves. 

Doesn't start until page 4 of that one. There's some in the last couple pages of the Kaladin and Shallan thread, and another I can't remember. 

It's definitely worthy of its own thread. 

Edit: @king of nowhere 

The way that I see it. We were shown pieces of Gavilar's personality specifically to set up this reaction in us as readers. 

We see Gavilar through Dalinar's opinion mainly, and hear of his transformation near the end of his life, to set up the idea that as Dalinar has changed, so to did Gavilar. 

It's being slowly revealed that while yes, Gavilar changed, he was Galvanized towards a course of action that Dalinar and the Radiants we see would never choose. 

Those who did follow him have tried to continue what he started, and whether through coincidence or direct action, what they wanted is happening. 

We were handed the interpretation of the Oaths as their commonly interpreted through the Envisigera via Teft. The fact that that same oath can be interpreted in other ways is not brought up, I believe intentionally, so that we won't consider the idea of groups of Radiants that do not align themselves with our heroes. 

The reveal of Gavilar for what he is means that, at least in my opinion, we can't assume that "Radiant" means "good" 

Edited July 6, 2017 by Calderis

[maxal Dawnshard]

I have always been wary of Gavilar... something about him just never clicked with me which may be why I wasn't surprised when I read the prologue, I was jubilant over being right. Reading The Thrill cemented those thoughts: Gavilar was a self-absorbed selfish man who wanted a kingdom for his own greatness, he cared for nothing for the people living inside it.

His reasons for wanting unity were self-serving: he had no moral, but as others pointed out, being a Bondsmith is about being honorable, not moral. It may be so Gavilar was honorable, it may be he did keep his word, but he launched a war just so he could be king, he destroyed innocent villages because they were next on the list and all the while he was doing so, he talked of how great their accomplishment was. Also, The Thrill highlighted Gavilar's transformation didn't happen late in his life, he never transformed himself: I think Dalinar's perception of Gavilar changed, not the man himself.

This being said, it does appear it was either Gavilar's intend did not violate the oaths as far as the Stormfather was concerned or the Stormfather, not being omniscient, did not realize what Gavilar's intend was. He might have just been attracted to a powerful man speaking of unity but lack the awareness the notice the rest. 

It may just be "evil Radiants" will be a thing.

[WhiteLeeopard Scadrian Waffle Cook]

It's just very likely too that Gavilar would have never progressed beyond the first oath. Only person we really saw doing things before the second oath was Kaladin, and it just seemed drawing in Stormlight and some very low strength surges. Maybe Gavilar would have been at that level forever, or even the bond eventually broken and the Stormfather moved on. 

Honor in the narrowest sense of the word could be interpreted as just following a code, but there are some powerful links that are closely related too, such as fairness, integrity, standing in for the weak. It seems a bit hard that the Bondsmiths, the leaders of the KR would just be interested in uniting some. We get the impression Syl asks Kaladin to save Dalinar in tWoK because he was a proto-Bondsmith and was pulling Kaladin towards other radiants. From what we have seen of Gavilar he might well have been saved, then given the bridgemen right back to Sadeas as a lowly bunch aren't worth having a fight over with Sadeas. Gavilar also always rubbed me the wrong way. Even worse than Taravangian, and in his case we directly see what he is doing. Even now can't pinpoint why.

I'm not saying I don't believe there could be less honorable, or even evil Radiants, as I do, but I still believe (or want to believe?) they were an anomaly and not the norm. Reasons for backing up this claim are:

• Desolations happened a lot closer together before, and the protocols in place were much stronger.
  • Not going to have as much time for politicking as they do now, and not many with two brain cells will be starting a fight over who controls a piece of land, when said piece of land will be gone if they don't get their act together for the Desolation
• With stronger protocols in place, and less incentives to break the protocols it seems hard to believe a large number of KR will be pulling in different directions
• Heralds were the head of the orders, and the KR would likely just go where the Heralds pointed them with almost zero complaint. Any infighting over what to do would be among the Heralds themselves, and they would likely keep it quiet and low-key

Of course, looking at this it just could mean this new Desolation, which is looking to be a first for many things (such as Radiant Parshendi and no Heralds leading the charge) may also be the first time ever the Radiant Knights truly split up beyond amicable bickering. One of the biggest issues so far is that no-one believed there was anything bigger than business as usual coming, as such they saw no need to change their behaviour. Some people, will likely never believe, and never change it, specially as it is improbably the Heralds will publicly arrive to announce a Desolation any time soon. As such, dissidents will be a major threat to humanity, they will most likely have to get on with the program or be removed *cough-Sadeas-cough*.

 

Edited July 7, 2017 by WhiteLeeopard

[Calderis God Beyond]

1 hour ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

Honor in the narrowest sense of the word could be interpreted as just following a code, but there are some powerful links that are closely related too, such as fairness, integrity, standing in for the weak. 

Honor in this instance (the determining factor of a magic system), should be derived from the Shard of Honor, and I think this is where the problem arises. 

Honor as an attribute is normally portrayed as someone dutifully following a code that they believe is right, and due to this, as you said, mercy and compassion are usually rolled into it. The problem here is that as with Odium, the other attributes that make honor a almost always good thing, are separated out of Honor. 

Brandon uses Devotion as a synonym of Love, so there goes Mercy and Compassion. Without those two, integrity as a part of Honor comes down to just keeping your word. 

So while I want to agree with you, I think that surgebinding as a magic system relies on a completely codified structure without nuance (Honor), and a need for progression and growth within the defined structure (Cultivation). 

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

On 7/7/2017 at 8:27 AM, WhiteLeeopard said:

Honor in the narrowest sense of the word could be interpreted as just following a code, but there are some powerful links that are closely related too, such as fairness, integrity, standing in for the weak.

From Google: (Define Honor)

Quote

hon·or

ˈänər/

noun

noun: honour; noun: honor

1. high respect; esteem.
   • a person or thing that brings credit.  ("an honor to the profession")
   • adherence to what is right or to a conventional standard of conduct.
2. a privilege.
   • a thing conferred as a distinction, especially an official award for bravery or achievement.
   • a title of respect given to or used in addressing a judge or a mayor.

verb

verb: honour; verb: honor; 3rd person present: honors; past tense: honored; past participle: honored; gerund or present participle: honoring

1. regard with great respect.
2. fulfill (an obligation) or keep (an agreement).

It's actually quite an eye-opener for me that I can use all of these definitions of honor on bad people and make it fit easily...

Edited July 8, 2017 by The One Who Connects
misclicked done by accident.

[maxal Dawnshard]

6 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

From Google: (Define Honor)

It's actually quite an eye-opener for me that I can use all of these definitions of honor on bad people and make it fit easily...

Being honorable isn't about being a good person... I think too many people confused being honorable with being moral. Dalinar is honorable, but he isn't moral: he will sacrifice anything to fulfill his codes, even his sons. Kaladin tries to be both, but if he has to choose, he'll be honorable. Adolin also tries to be both, but if he has to choose, he'll be moral which people took as a sign of evil as they interpret being honorable to being good.

An honorable person will only follow what he believes is right, stick to it, follows the societal context as closely as possible. A man such as Amaram is honorable: he does keep his words, he does adhere to the all approved code of conduct, but he isn't moral: he will kill if he thinks his code demands him to. He isn't a good person, but he is an honorable one.

[The One Who Connects Dawnsinger]

Just now, maxal said:

Being honorable isn't about being a good person... I think too many people confused being honorable with being moral.

That was kinda my point in bringing up the definition. I accidentally hit submit early and just added a quick addendum in post. Wasn't as concise as I'd hoped, but I tend to do that.

Nothing in the definition is good or bad. Society has simply made us associate honor with good.

[maxal Dawnshard]

4 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

That was kinda my point in bringing up the definition. I accidentally hit submit early and just added a quick addendum in post. Wasn't as concise as I'd hoped, but I tend to do that.

Nothing in the definition is good or bad. Society has simply made us associate honor with good.

I absolutely agree with you: nothing says being honorable means you being a morally good person. I do think too many readers hung up over those thoughts: they see Kaladin and they think, this is a honorable man, he is great, he is the protagonist, everyone not behaving like Kaladin would is not as good of a person as he. Then they see Dalinar who frees Kaladin, the hero and many think, this is a good man, he freed the slaves, what an amazing individual he is (Dalinar freed the bridgemen, but he didn't free all slaves, he still employs them, this is seldom mentioned), he is so honorable, hence he is a very good person and everyone disagreeing with him (namely Adolin) is evil or in his way to become evil.

Those kind of mental short-cuts do get on my nerves sometimes, I'll admit. Dalinar is not a great man, yes he is trying to do good, yes he is honorable, but he isn't moral. He did say it himself: he would see everyone of his soldiers dead if he thought their death would stop the Desolation. The problem is he could never get this assurance, so is he going to waste human life for an intangible goal, while worthy, unable to grasp? I personally each battle have to be fought individually and human cost has to be lowered as much as possible: nothing says more men dying means the outcome of the war is closer. Let's look at WW1 where thousand of soldiers were sent to their quick death for a 1m advance (which not doubt was thought to be a worthy sacrifice, hey we got 1m over those pesky German, who cares how many died to get it, we are protecting the World from the evil invader) .... Will Dalinar behave like the war generals of old and send thousand of his men to slaughter just to gain a small advance he feels is incredibly important but history tells us was meaningless?

I think the answer is yes, he would, and I do think it is better to be moral than honorable or at least, have a mix of both.

[king of nowhere Voidbringer]

1 hour ago, maxal said:

 Dalinar is not a great man, yes he is trying to do good, yes he is honorable, but he isn't moral. He did say it himself: he would see everyone of his soldiers dead if he thought their death would stop the Desolation. The problem is he could never get this assurance, so is he going to waste human life for an intangible goal, while worthy, unable to grasp? I personally each battle have to be fought individually and human cost has to be lowered as much as possible: nothing says more men dying means the outcome of the war is closer. Let's look at WW1 where thousand of soldiers were sent to their quick death for a 1m advance (which not doubt was thought to be a worthy sacrifice, hey we got 1m over those pesky German, who cares how many died to get it, we are protecting the World from the evil invader) .... Will Dalinar behave like the war generals of old and send thousand of his men to slaughter just to gain a small advance he feels is incredibly important but history tells us was meaningless?

I think the answer is yes, he would, and I do think it is better to be moral than honorable or at least, have a mix of both.

I have to disagree with the definition of "moral" here. A general on the battlefield cannot afford to not sacrifice the lives of his soldiers. Especially when he is fighting against the equivalent of demons. what else should he do? retreat his army to save those precious lives and let the voidbringers rampage freely? only engage battle in the most favorale of conditions, which means never? or conlcude that he's fighting for a goal that may be not attainable and so disband the army and tell everyone to go cower in some basement and hope the voidbringers don't find them?

No, he is in a position where he can potentially stop an enemy that, if left unchecked, would cause much more damage than the lives dalinar is about to sacrifice, and so I call his battling moral and just. I am of the opinion that moral is a lot like newtonian and modern physics: while we leave our comfortable lives in peace and safety, there are some hard rules, like don't kill, dont take justice in your hands but go to the police intstead, that kind of things. but as more and more lives are threatened with premature violent death and society has less and less capacity to provide safety, we shift to a different kind of morals, just like when we approach light speed we find some different physical laws. and stuff that was true and stable gradually becomes uncertain. that's because resorting to violence has a high chance to go horribly wrong, but as the stakes get higher and higher, the risks and collateral damages are gradually less relevant. and so calling immoral dalinar over the lives he wastes is like calling immoral a man who cracked a window to escape from a fire. yeah, we normally don't crack windows, because it creates a damage. but faced with burning, the damage of a cracked window doesn't matter anymore; even more so if we consider that the wondow would have probably been destroyed by the fire. In the same way, while human lives are invaluable under normal circumstances, in the face of the voidbringers the lives of a thousand soldiers don't matter much; even more so if we consider that if those soldiers do not fight, they are probably going to be killed by the rampaging voidbringers eventually. history may eventually tell us that those goals were unworthy and his attempts futile and wasteful, but he has no way of knowing that, and he certainly cannot ask the voidbringers to stop until history has decided which causes are worthy and which aren't.

now, an argument can be made when the listeners were just that. but they did assassinate the alethi king, and what was dalinar supposed to do? pass the message that everyone was free to betray and assassinate the alethi, cause they would not be willing to risk lives to defend themselves? And he was trying to find a peaceful solution.

old dalinar, the one we see in the released flashback chapters, is a pretty bad person instead. honorable, but bad. no questions about it.

as for dalinar supposedly keeping slaves, two things must be kept in mind: first, this is not the "whip and chains" kind of slavery. slaves have some basic rights and a basic pay and they can earn enough to be freed. Ok, we know from kaladin's experience that there are several dishonest slaveholders who will cheat on documents to never free the slaves, but I'd bet good money that dalinar is not one of those. so that kind of slavery is not much worse than a job you cannot refuse (again, I would bet good money that the abuses that happened to kaladin are not sanctioned by dalinar, and probably not by alethi laws either. In particular the killing of a sick slave is almost certainly illegal). ok, slaves live in miserable conditions, but considering the tech level, they aren't much worse than those of your average farming family.

And the second thing to consider is that he lives in a society which considers slavery ok, and he can't be expected to have modern sensibilities. social standards of what is right or wrong change all the time, I am sure that in the future something that our society is doing will be considered wrong and immoral, so we have two alternatives: we can accept that in discussing morals we have to make allowances for times and cultures, or we have to accept that we are all horribly evil people for some reason that we can't grasp but that will be clear to everyone in a few centuries. ok, we can also try to claim that we have the perfect culture and the perfect grasp of morals and everything that came before and that will come after is wrong, but it's not a very logical proposition.

And so we have to accept that people acting within certain cultural boundaries can be excused for some bad deeds because they don't know any better. we have to accept that good people are limited in their capacity to understand what is good, and we can't expect a warlord living in a society with slavery to figure out that slavery is wrong. We can expect him to figure out that mistreating the slaves is wrong, but as long as dalinar gives his slaves decent food and housing and doesn't cheat on their release due, I am willling to overlook the whole issue. The part about the slaves earning freedom is, I think, the most important in the difference between a slavery that can be excused and one that can't. If we accept the definition of Kant that it is evil to use people as tools and not giving them the chance to live for themselves, then keeping a slave for life is always bad, but a few years of indentured servitude are acceptable, because the person can repay their debts and then move on. Incidentally, mandatory military service can be considered as indentured servitude, and modern laws do make specific exeptions for it. We see military service as something that needs to be done and mandatory service as a way to share the burden equally, but who knows, maybe two hundred years from now some people in a forum will argue that president Roosvelt was irredeemably evil for reinstating conscription in 1940. discussing morality over different ages is always tricky.

Now, you have generally proved a better judge of character than I am, and so I would not be very surprised if it turned out you were right after all. But from what we have seen of dalinar in books 1 and 2, I can think of nothing he's done that I would call bad or immoral.

I would call Lift much more immoral than him. with her skills she could easily find an honest job, but she'd rather steal to hard-working people.

But if we are looking for radiants whom we can call honorable but immoral, Nale is really the only truly fitting example so far. And since he's crazy, there's no telling how much that is truly how a skybreaker should act and how much he warped the order. No, I am not rejecting the "radiants can be bad people as long as they're honorable", it is almost certainly correct and we know that orders disagreed on many things, but we do not know how bad those disagreements actually were and how much crap could a radiant actually do while keeping the letter of honorable before his spren deserted him - remember, the two worst cases, szeth and nale, both have no spren, and syl said that no spren would bond szeth, implying that even though he was supremely honorable, that didn't excuse his actions in the eyes of spren.

[maxal Dawnshard]

History is filled with war generals who wasted their entire army to stop threads they definitely thought would annihilate their world: most of the time history proved them wrong. I will always be wary of the man willing to slaughter his own army of a gain which isn't tangible. Dalinar has no idea if winning the Plateau fight will stop the Desolation or not, but he acts as if it will. Mind, he did not waste his men's life, he won the battle, but I thought the tendency was dangerous. He also has no idea if saving Adolin, during the 4 on 1 duel would lead to his death or the failure of his plan (which did fail nonetheless), but he is willing to gamble on it. Those small time decisions are ones which make me doubt Dalinar truly is a great man.

I personally fear the man who never thinks any price is too high to pay for a victory which may not be the final victory. There is no price Dalinar thinks is too high he cannot pay it in order to secure small times victory. I fear his attitude. Yes, he refuses to use bridge carriers, because it is cruel, but he would have seen his son die for a bunch of Shards.

As for the slave thing, I meant Dalinar does have slaves. I don't blame him nor think less of him because of it. I guess he is not mistreating them. The reason I brought it up is because so many readers praise Dalinar so highly for having freed the bridgemen but shames Adolin for not overly being against slavery... Dalinar is not against slavery either, he is against wasting human life to carry on bridges when he can use other means. 

I personally prefer generals who focus onto the battle at hand and are able to call it a defeat is the prices start to get too high. I fear Dalinar isn't this man and reading The Thrill makes me think I may be right. I know it is unpopular to say so, but while I love Dalinar's character, I am not sure he is a nice person.

Lift is a kid... Kids often are immoral, but she grew in Edgedancer, she admitted the world cannot afford for people to be like her, so I expect to see her working towards her studies within the next book. As a child, she is allowed to grow and to reflect on herself.

[Calderis God Beyond]

@king of nowhere I'm on the same page as you. Thanks for taking the time to write that post. 

[TheLordRuler Pahn Kahl]

I'm similarly inclined to @king of nowhere train of thoughts. We cannot take our morals and judge a man who probably has a completely different set of morals. There is no universal constant in regards to a set of morals, they fluctuate in humanities own history, how can we expect them not to differ in a completely different (if fictional) universe?

7 hours ago, maxal said:

I personally fear the man who never thinks any price is too high to pay for a victory which may not be the final victory. There is no price Dalinar thinks is too high he cannot pay it in order to secure small times victory. I fear his attitude. Yes, he refuses to use bridge carriers, because it is cruel, but he would have seen his son die for a bunch of Shards.

 

That's not fair though. You can't blame any part of this on him at all, not even his inability to act. He had a plan. This plan fits in with his desire to unite Alethkar, and create a more honourable society. Adolin committed to this plan because he believed in his father and because he wanted to bring Sadeas down. When it all goes wrong, due to Adolin's own carelessness, you want to blame Dalinar? Adolin made his own decision. He knew what he was getting himself into, knew the risks. Saying that Dalinar was willing to discard Adolin for some Shards means you consider Adolin's own decisions null and deny him his own responsibility.  

Dalinar is one of the few rulers in the area who actually has some sort of higher purpose, beyond material struggle. He has the responsibility of an entire nation resting on his shoulders. The loss of a man who has committed himself to the same purpose doesn't mean you go ahead and kill yourself too, even if that man is your son.

Anyway, it was Kaladin who ended up jumping in to help Adolin win. The man Dalinar had saved, freed and raised to his own bodyguard. So he did have some part in Adolin getting out of there alive and victorious. 

Edited July 9, 2017 by TheLordRuler

[WhiteLeeopard Scadrian Waffle Cook]

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

syl said that no spren would bond szeth, implying that even though he was supremely honorable, that didn't excuse his actions in the eyes of spren.

It's entirely possible Syl was referring to honorspren here, after all Szeth was showing the powers of a Windrunner, and we know from Nohadon Honorspren are the most discerning of all. 

Great post .

[king of nowhere Voidbringer]

thanks for the clarification, @maxal, it makes your stance clearer.

yes, it is true that often in history lives were spent to fact threats that turned out to not really be such. on the other hand, it is easy to judge in retrospect. And considering that roshar has a well-documented history of voidbringer invasions, dalinar has good reasons to take the threat seriously.

regarding the duel, dalinar was not willing to "discard" adolin. there was just nothing dalinar could have done once the duel started. the original plan (adolin dueling for shards) was perfectly reasonable, and mostly risk-free. I would say accepting a duel 1v2 for 2 shards against 6 was a very high risk vs reward; I blame narrative conventions here: the story woul have never let him get away with a good plan that worked as planned without risks involved. once the four people went out to face adolin, the only one who could end the duel was adolin. and he tried, but they stopped him.

[maxal Dawnshard]

3 hours ago, TheLordRuler said:

When it all goes wrong, due to Adolin's own carelessness, you want to blame Dalinar?

Oh no this isn't what I meant. Apologies for not having further developed my thoughts. I do not blame Dalinar for the duel going wrong: this isn't his fault. I blame Dalinar for allowing Elhokar to convince him to sit back down, I blame him for agreeing the gamble, even if not what they thought they were agreeing to, was actually worth Adolin's life. Essentially, I blame Dalinar for not taking more direct actions, for watching his son being hit on, then his other son endangering himself and still remain on his seat. 

Yes, Kaladin jumped in and everything, but if it were my own son who were down there, if I were a reasonably good and terrifying fighter myself, I would have jumped in there, no matter what else might happen. The fact Dalinar is not wiling to risk his life for Adolin, Adolin who constantly risks his life for him, is one of the aspect of their relationship I find terribly unfair. Now, I know for a fact the majority of the fandom strongly disagrees with me, but for my part, I read Dalinar as a two faced man: he demands obedience and loyalty from his son (who is freely given it to him by his own free volition), but he is not willing to give back the same. Adolin would die to defend Dalinar, but Dalinar would not do the same. Dalinar would not endanger himself for Adolin's shake and while the story does say what would have happen had Adolin actually taken a hit, the fact remains Daliner chose not to physically intervene. He asks if anyone in the audience would be willing to fight for his sons, but he, HE, the Blackthorn is not willing to fight for them, how can he ask THEM to do it for him? If he won't risk his own life for his own son, how can he expect other people from other princedoms to do it? And he judges them for it?

That's what I blame Dalinar for. 

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

yes, it is true that often in history lives were spent to fact threats that turned out to not really be such. on the other hand, it is easy to judge in retrospect. And considering that roshar has a well-documented history of voidbringer invasions, dalinar has good reasons to take the threat seriously.

Yes and no, when your first battalion is slaughtered within five minutes, it does not take a historical retrospective to figure out the original plan is not working. WW1 is filled with examples of human life wastes which were done for dubious reasons which is why I mentioned it. Dalinar does know the voidbringers are real and everything, but he does not know how Desolations start, he does not know if it can be stopped and he doesn't know how many fights there will be. He does not know much: he saw glimpses of a fight. He didn't see the whole history, so when he is wiling to watch everyone of his soldiers die for one battle which may not even be decisive, I do start to fear the man and his decision making. It didn't happen: they won the battle, but had the three first waves been slaughtered to a man and had Dalinar insisted on sending more until he has no more men to send, then yes I would severely criticize the man.

When the human cost becomes too extensive, then it is sign your strategy is not working. If you aren't starting to think of how to implement another one, or you stick to it, knowing it is failing, knowing you are dooming your men for nothing, then no you aren't choosing wisely.

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

regarding the duel, dalinar was not willing to "discard" adolin. there was just nothing dalinar could have done once the duel started. the original plan (adolin dueling for shards) was perfectly reasonable, and mostly risk-free. I would say accepting a duel 1v2 for 2 shards against 6 was a very high risk vs reward; I blame narrative conventions here: the story woul have never let him get away with a good plan that worked as planned without risks involved. once the four people went out to face adolin, the only one who could end the duel was adolin. and he tried, but they stopped him.

The duels are not risk-free: it is the one reason why Dalinar banned them. They may injured war officers at a time of war: the risk of injuries is too high to allow them to happen when every soldiers is needed for the war effort. Sadly, the story failed to give us, the readers, the sense the duels actually are dangerous, so I would say I am ambivalent around them. Dalinar and Navani though both seem to think they are dangerous, so I wouldn't say it was a risk-free approach. It was not risk-free, not for Adolin and yes, he agreed to do it, that's not my issue. My issue is when it all goes wrong, Dalinar refuses to jump into the melee to fight for his son, when pushes comes to shove, Dalinar chose not to protect his son.

[TheLordRuler Pahn Kahl]

Great that you took the time to clarify yourself. What you say does make sense, and I understand why you would believe that. It is a callous decision by Dalinar, but he is a war leader, and by the very own principle you stated before (WWI battles where soldiers were spent aimlessly), his only option at that point would have been to minimise his losses. Jumping in as an old man with no Shards at all; yes he is still a great warrior by human standards, but against Shards he would have been more or less useless. I can't remember this clearly, but if he believed Adolin could surrender and get out of there alive (with no Shards), then he may have thought Adolin had a safe exit (which was not true with Renarin hostage). 

Overall, I agree with you that his actions may seem damning if we look at it from an emotional standpoint. After all, he was willing to sit and watch his son risk his body and life and probably could have done more in that situation (at significant risk to his own life). But having these traits (rational thinking, calmness) is what qualifies him for leadership. I have no doubt that The Blackthorn would have jumped in to save his son, and that in his prime, they might have even come away victorious. However, the new Dalinar isn't The Blackthorn. The Blackthorn was a warrior who longed for a challenge. New Dalinar is a vastly different person, with heavy responsibilities.

I apologise if my posts are incoherent in any way. It's very late at night for me, and I'm quite tired.  

[Amaror Noble]

On 6.7.2017 at 2:00 AM, king of nowhere said:

snip

Are you talking about the one unfinished chapter with Eshonai and Gavilar. Or is there a newer version of that chapter around that I haven't seen yet?

I have to say that I found that chapter quite odd, mainly because Gavilar seems so ... dumb. Eshonai is obviously horrified by what he tells her. She even straight up says so. But Gavilar just seems to ignores it saying: "Ah, yes. I knew you would be gratefull. Your quite welcome." Everyone always says about Gavilar how he was such a charismatic guy and how good he was at diplomacy and what we see of him shows him to be so horrible at diplomacy that he gets himself assassinated by his own guests. It clashes horribly with everything we ever heard about the guy. I can accept him being evil, but anyone with half a brain would have tried mask his real motives after seeing the first reactions of Eshonai. Not flound them about even more.

Edited July 9, 2017 by Amaror

[maxal Dawnshard]

4 hours ago, TheLordRuler said:

Great that you took the time to clarify yourself. What you say does make sense, and I understand why you would believe that. It is a callous decision by Dalinar, but he is a war leader, and by the very own principle you stated before (WWI battles where soldiers were spent aimlessly), his only option at that point would have been to minimise his losses. Jumping in as an old man with no Shards at all; yes he is still a great warrior by human standards, but against Shards he would have been more or less useless. I can't remember this clearly, but if he believed Adolin could surrender and get out of there alive (with no Shards), then he may have thought Adolin had a safe exit (which was not true with Renarin hostage). 

Overall, I agree with you that his actions may seem damning if we look at it from an emotional standpoint. After all, he was willing to sit and watch his son risk his body and life and probably could have done more in that situation (at significant risk to his own life). But having these traits (rational thinking, calmness) is what qualifies him for leadership. I have no doubt that The Blackthorn would have jumped in to save his son, and that in his prime, they might have even come away victorious. However, the new Dalinar isn't The Blackthorn. The Blackthorn was a warrior who longed for a challenge. New Dalinar is a vastly different person, with heavy responsibilities.

I apologise if my posts are incoherent in any way. It's very late at night for me, and I'm quite tired.  

I personally feel there are two sides of Dalinar's character: the war general and the father. This is where I usually disagree with many readers as most will generally agree Dalinar treating Adolin as if he were just another soldier is normal and acceptable while I think the fact he is his son ought to weight in for something. Also, in the eventuality Dalinar would have jumped into the melee, he wouldn't have done it bare-handed, he would have done it while borrowing the king's Blade which he has the right to and the king is ill-placed to refuse after promising he would. Sure, Elhokar initially refused, but had Dalinar more strongly reinforced his right to use it, I don't think there is much Elhokar could have done without setting a bad precedent. 

Sure, he would not have had Plate. There was no time to get Renarin's Plate and put it on. Renarin himself didn't have the time to put on his own Plate, but I would like to point out this is exactly what Dalinar demands of Amaram and the other Shardbearers within the assembly. He demands they faced the four Shardbearers, with their Blades only, but he won't do it himself. Now, I don't like Amaram, in fact I hate him, but I quite frankly cannot blame him for not jumping in. Everyone keeps on saying his dishonorable Amaram has been for refusing to help Adolin, even Dalinar was so mad at him he decided Kaladin might have been telling the truth, but the truth is Dalinar would not take the risk he asked Amaram to take. For his own son, not just some random soldier, but his son.

In shorts, Dalinar initially allows Elhokar to convince him Adolin's life is something they ought to gamble on for Shards. Then, he demands others to jump into, unarmored, with their Blades, an action he will not take because he feels it is too dangerous for his person. And it isn't dangerous to the others which might have done something? That's the problem I have with Dalinar: this was his son. His Son. His Child. It does not matter if he is there on his own volition, if he is a grown man who knows the risk, when chull hits the van, I do not think it unreasonable to think his own father would lift more than one finger to help protect him. So while yes, as a war general, Dalinar just cut his losses, but on a more human side, he should have acted on the behalf of his own son's life.

And I will always judge harshly the one which does not think the life of his children is more important than the life of others and/or political games. I however do not expect most readers to agree with me. I just don't think reason should always pass before passion.

 

[king of nowhere Voidbringer]

8 hours ago, maxal said:

 It didn't happen: they won the battle, but had the three first waves been slaughtered to a man and had Dalinar insisted on sending more until he has no more men to send, then yes I would severely criticize the man.

When the human cost becomes too extensive, then it is sign your strategy is not working. If you aren't starting to think of how to implement another one, or you stick to it, knowing it is failing, knowing you are dooming your men for nothing, then no you aren't choosing wisely.

oh, ok, if dalinar had sent his troops to a needless slaughter, then I would have seriously questioned his competence as a general, and yes, it would have been a terrible decision. after all, those soldiers will still be needed later. but that's not what dalinar did. he said something like "if we all die here and stop the desolation, it will be worth it". which is totally true. with the everstorm, i believe the death count is already at millions. Also, with the everstorm and the unexpected highstorm raging, retreat was not an option. had they retreated, they would have died to the last man. fighting and giving everything he had was the only rational decision at that point. I think if dalinar had lost lots of troops and there was no hope of victory anymore and retreating had been an option, I am sure dalinar would have retreated.

6 hours ago, Amaror said:

Are you talking about the one unfinished chapter with Eshonai and Gavilar. Or is there a newer version of that chapter around that I haven't seen yet?

I have to say that I found that chapter quite odd, mainly because Gavilar seems so ... dumb. Eshonai is obviously horrified by what he tells her. She even straight up says so. But Gavilar just seems to ignores it saying: "Ah, yes. I knew you would be gratefull. Your quite welcome." Everyone always says about Gavilar how he was such a charismatic guy and how good he was at diplomacy and what we see of him shows him to be so horrible at diplomacy that he gets himself assassinated by his own guests. It clashes horribly with everything we ever heard about the guy. I can accept him being evil, but anyone with half a brain would have tried mask his real motives after seeing the first reactions of Eshonai. Not flound them about even more.

yes, I'm talking about that chapter. and yes, your objextions are pretty good. I wonder if it will get changed to make gavilar a beetter diplomatic or if something was posssessing gavilar and pushing him to act that way. of course there's always the easier explanation that his judging capacity was clouded by fanatism.

[Calderis God Beyond]

7 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

oh, ok, if dalinar had sent his troops to a needless slaughter, then I would have seriously questioned his competence as a general, and yes, it would have been a terrible decision. after all, those soldiers will still be needed later. but that's not what dalinar did. he said something like "if we all die here and stop the desolation, it will be worth it". which is totally true. with the everstorm, i believe the death count is already at millions. Also, with the everstorm and the unexpected highstorm raging, retreat was not an option. had they retreated, they would have died to the last man. fighting and giving everything he had was the only rational decision at that point. I think if dalinar had lost lots of troops and there was no hope of victory anymore and retreating had been an option, I am sure dalinar would have retreated.

yes, I'm talking about that chapter. and yes, your objextions are pretty good. I wonder if it will get changed to make gavilar a beetter diplomatic or if something was posssessing gavilar and pushing him to act that way. of course there's always the easier explanation that his judging capacity was clouded by fanatism.

Or the simple explanation that he had no intention of being diplomatic, and was merely boasting over what he saw as a successfully executed plan. 

He was a villain monologing.