[OB] Oathbringer chapters 25-27

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Metalrift said:

He could try to cut off his arm, but that would be difficult, if Amaram defended himself.

Taking "disarming" quite literally there, huh?

[Pattern]

5 hours ago, maxal said:

I AM a firebrand myself and after 37 years of life I still haven't figured out how to control it appropriately.

Welcome to my world. But I try not to light up at every spark. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. You are totally right in analyzing that the emotions break through when one feels powerless.

I don't see Adolin as becoming static until now, though he is certainly more in the background than I would like. I am not sure whether I agree with you on Adolin having the wrong image of the ideal person. Obviously Amaram is not that ideal anymore, Adolin has seen through his crem. Acknowleging who he is and realizing what his strengths and weaknesses are would indeed help him. 
I don't want to see Adolin become stoic. That is totally unrealistic and it would also be boring. What I want to see is Adolin owning his feelings and using them at the right time in the right way. For me the characterization would be quite static if Adolin didn't try to work on his impulsiveness. He won't be able to make a 180 degree turn.

He certainly is in a moral trap as you described very astutely.

We also see the stress he is under, beginning at his snappiness toward workers in the first chapters, going on to him talking to Gallant and grieving Sureblood until calling Amaram "bastard" at his elevation to Highprince (which I reacted to with great agreement and satisfaction when reading it). This does not mean he has to break under the stress to make a development. He can also recuperate and learn from his experiences.

On Dalinar wanting to use every resource he can get: I think this is desperate reasoning, and it is tactially unsound. You would usually prefer an army with generals you can rely on. Backstabbing Highprinces are more hindrance than advantage as you would neither want deserters in your army. If that backstabbing Highprince happens to be the Nemesis of your former Captain of the Guard, now one of five known Knight Radiants (Kaladin, Shallan, Renarin, Malata and Dalinar - Jasnah still has not reappeared and Lift has been preoccupied with pancakes until recently), Dalinar's reasoning becomes outright ridiculous.

So here I totally agree with Adolin's assessment of the situation. Adolin does not analyze, I guess it's more a gut feeling for him that Dalinar's decision was crem.

In the end, I trust Brandon not to let Adolin become boring and unimportant. Probably I will be Ok with either possible development, though I have my preferences as you have yours - and I hope you won't be disappointed either.

Thank you for your detailed arguments and elaborations. They are very insightful and do give me another perspective on things.

[Morsk]

I'm not excited about Adolin facing any "consequences" for the murder. The murder was funny. Sadeas was a boring villain, who'd just threatened to spend all of Book 3 doing the same tedious stuff he'd done in Book 2. One page later, he was dead. I laughed.

I'm hoping he talks to Shallan about it, and they work together covering up the murder. Also they're two of the only people who'll understand each other on this, and be able to talk about their murders. And discuss whether trying for Amaram is worth it, or if murder causes more problems than it solves.

[king of nowhere]

on the other hand, I wonder what else could have dalinar done when amaram was elevated highprince. I don't think any of us has a master in alethi law, but I would bet the only way dalinar would have had to prevent amaram from being crowned was an open war against the princedom.

Either that, or he could have threatened. He may have indicated that he would send a radiant to assassinate amaram if he had been crowned, and he certainly would have had the power to do it; dalinar would not use such tactics, however.

Indeed, for all that they are technically part of the same nation, dalinar has virtually no power over sadeas' princedom aside from the power of arms, and the princedom itself is more akin to an hostile nation. if dalinar is not willing to take the assassination shortcut, that's a huge mess

[king of nowhere]

3 minutes ago, Morsk said:

I'm not excited about Adolin facing any "consequences" for the murder. The murder was funny. Sadeas was a boring villain, who'd just threatened to spend all of Book 3 doing the same tedious stuff he'd done in Book 2. One page later, he was dead. I laughed.

I'm hoping he talks to Shallan about it, and they work together covering up the murder. Also they're two of the only people who'll understand each other on this, and be able to talk about their murders. And discuss whether trying for Amaram is worth it, or if murder causes more problems than it solves.

"Shallan, I have a confession to make. I killed a man who deserves it. I am a murderer"

"OMG! Me too! And twice over"

"We have so much more in common than we ever realized!"

"I feel bad for you being less accomplished than me on this field. Do you want help with your second one?"

[Pattern]

On 29.10.2017 at 0:10 AM, king of nowhere said:

Indeed, for all that they are technically part of the same nation, dalinar has virtually no power over sadeas' princedom aside from the power of arms, and the princedom itself is more akin to an hostile nation. if dalinar is not willing to take the assassination shortcut, that's a huge mess

Dalinar is Highking of Urithiru now. He cannot do anything against desicions Elhokar makes concerning Alethkar, but he can decide to banish him from Urithiru.
The problem I see, that @maxal has pointed out, is that Dalinar wants to use everyone he can get.

The question is if and when the declaration of Dalinar as Highking is published.

On 28.10.2017 at 11:22 PM, Calderis said:

Dalinar couldn't have disarmed Amaram. You take his Blade away and he just summons it again. The only way to deal with a Shardbearer is death

Does not destroying the gemstone break the bond?

Edited October 30, 2017 by Pattern

[Calderis]

12 minutes ago, Pattern said:

Does not destroying the gemstone break the bond?

No it doesn't. This was the way Brandon originally wrote it, but it was changed. Smashing the gemstone is purely symbolic. The only way for the bond to break is death, or it being willfully given up. 

Quote

Adontis

I've always wondered, how do you determine where the line between "Word of Brandon" and "Read and Find Out" is? Has it ever caused issues where you've said something, but later that thing changed when it went into a book making your first statement now false?

Thanks so much for writing as much as you do, I'm looking forward to all your upcoming books, keep up the great work!

Brandon Sanderson

Boy, this one is an art, not a science.

I've several times said something that I later decided to change in a book. I've always got this idea in the back of my head that the books are canon, and things I say at signing aren't 100% canon. This is part because of a habit I have of falling back on things I decided years ago, then revised in notes after I realized they didn't work. My off-the-cuff instinct is still to go with what I had in my head for years, even when it's no longer canon.

An example of this are Shardblades. In the first draft of TWoK in 2002, I had the mechanics of the weapons work in a specific way. (If you wanted to steal one from someone, you knock off the bonding gemstone, and it breaks the bond.) I later decided it was more dramatic if you couldn't steal a Shardblade that way--you had to kill the person or force them to relinquish the bond. It worked far better.

But in Oathbringer, Peter had to remind me of that change, as I just kind of nonchalantly wrote into a scene a comment about knocking off a gemstone to steal a Shardblade. These things leak back in, as you might expect for a series I've been working on for some twenty years now--with lore being revised all along.

So...short answer...yes, I've contradicted myself a number of times. I try very, very hard to let the books be the canon however. So you can default to them.

As for what I answer and what I RAFO...it depends on how much I want to reveal at the moment, if I'm trying to preserve specific surprises, or if I just want people to focus on other things at the moment. Like I said, art and not science.

 

[Pattern]

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

No it doesn't. This was the way Brandon originally wrote it, but it was changed. Smashing the gemstone is purely symbolic. The only way for the bond to break is death, or it being willfully given up. 

Thanks for clarifying. Seems I also fell back to old concepts I somewhen read about.

[Harbour]

Shallan and Adolin for a Roshar's Bonnie and Clyde?

Its an interesting idea. Just imagine what happen if Adolin will realize no one gonna shame him or shed a tear about Sadeas, and he will decide to bring the justice in the Unithiru? He will start killing righ and left. Amaram, Ialai, some one else. And what if Shallan gonna tolerate him, at least in the beginning? I doubt that will actually happen but we are 27 chapters in and it doesnt seem Brandon gonna punish Adolin any soon. What if he want to spin his arc this way?

[hoser]

3 hours ago, Calderis said:

Dalinar couldn't have disarmed Amaram. You take his Blade away and he just summons it again. The only way to deal with a Shardbearer is death. 

He had a Shardblade to Amaram's neck, IIRC.  It's pretty simple.  Voluntarily surrender the Shardblade or die.  If someone walks away with it, then Amaram can't make it disappear remotely.  Imprison Amaram.  

[Salkara]

8 hours ago, Harry the Heir said:

Well, Taravangian wants Dalinar to "be the Blackthorn" because he doesn't want an united Alethkar to stand against his efforts to take over Roshar, not because he's Dalinar's life coach.

Objection your honor: conjecture. I agree that it seems like this is what he wants, but we haven't seen enough to say for sure.

5 hours ago, Metalrift said:

He could try to cut off his arm, but that would be difficult, if Amaram defended himself.

Uh, not for Dalinar? The preview chapters have been pretty clear that if the Blackthorn wants to disarm you, you aren't going to have an arm.

[Siaun Sanche]

2 hours ago, Salkara said:

Objection your honor: conjecture. I agree that it seems like this is what he wants, but we haven't seen enough to say for sure.

I'm taking this straight from the Diagram:

Quote

Chaos in Alethkar is, of course, inevitable. Watch carefully, and do not let power in the kingdom solidify. The Blackthorn could become an ally or our greatest foe, depending on whether he takes the path of the warlord or not. If he seems likely to sue for peace, assassinate him expeditiously. The risk of competition is too great.

Do you read that differently?

[king of nowhere]

8 hours ago, hoser said:

He had a Shardblade to Amaram's neck, IIRC.  It's pretty simple.  Voluntarily surrender the Shardblade or die.  If someone walks away with it, then Amaram can't make it disappear remotely.  Imprison Amaram.  

it is possible that alethi law forbids this, though. giving the misticism surrounding those blades, and the general favoritism the alethi laws place on the privileged ones by shifting the burden of proof on the weaker party, I wouldn't be surprised if it was forbidden to force someone to relinquish his until after he was proven guilty in a trial

[Yata]

9 hours ago, hoser said:

He had a Shardblade to Amaram's neck, IIRC.  It's pretty simple.  Voluntarily surrender the Shardblade or die.  If someone walks away with it, then Amaram can't make it disappear remotely.  Imprison Amaram.  

Actually Amaram could re-summon the Blade at any moment.

You can't know for sure he cuts the Bond with the Blade when he leave the Blade to someone else.

It's like the King's Blades, you can't really steal them as Elk could summon them again at any moment. The only way to broke a Shardblade's Bond is to kill the Bearer or made the Bearer release the Bond

[maxal]

On the matter of Dalinar, I wanted to point out how he became the force he is by doing exactly what he has done with both Sadeas and Amaram. We have seen him, repetitively, praise military prowess over loyalty as he tried to turn enemies into allies. When Teleb tries to kill him, he ignores it, instead seeing the man's worth and he turns him into one of his elite. It worked, with Teleb, but not every single worthy enemy can become an ally and Dalinar makes the mistake of thinking war will draw people together. 

As such, Dalinar is putting military skill above loyalty thinking all soldiers will unite to fight a common foe and won't use the opportunity to steer their own personal agenda. It backfired with Sadeas, I suspect it will backfire with Amaram too.

 

14 hours ago, Pattern said:

Welcome to my world. But I try not to light up at every spark. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not. You are totally right in analyzing that the emotions break through when one feels powerless.

And two makes company  Everyone try not to light up at every spark, Adolin included. My point was he will never get rid of his fire: it will always be there. I know when my emotions start to break down and it doesn't seem all too different than Adolin, just our lives are very different and shall I be within his shoes, I'd be a great deal more vocal than he has been so far  But then again I never had an authoritative father like he does. Based on my reading, each time we have seen Adolin spark it was in front of people threatening his closed ones and seeing them getting away with it. However, the more control he feels he has over a situation, the less damaging the sparking is and, within the case of Amaram, I definitely think we are going to move into a situation where Adolin feels powerless.

14 hours ago, Pattern said:

I don't see Adolin as becoming static until now, though he is certainly more in the background than I would like. I am not sure whether I agree with you on Adolin having the wrong image of the ideal person. Obviously Amaram is not that ideal anymore, Adolin has seen through his crem. Acknowleging who he is and realizing what his strengths and weaknesses are would indeed help him. 
I don't want to see Adolin become stoic. That is totally unrealistic and it would also be boring. What I want to see is Adolin owning his feelings and using them at the right time in the right way. For me the characterization would be quite static if Adolin didn't try to work on his impulsiveness. He won't be able to make a 180 degree turn.

He certainly is in a moral trap as you described very astutely.

We also see the stress he is under, beginning at his snappiness toward workers in the first chapters, going on to him talking to Gallant and grieving Sureblood until calling Amaram "bastard" at his elevation to Highprince (which I reacted to with great agreement and satisfaction when reading it). This does not mean he has to break under the stress to make a development. He can also recuperate and learn from his experiences.

On Dalinar wanting to use every resource he can get: I think this is desperate reasoning, and it is tactially unsound. You would usually prefer an army with generals you can rely on. Backstabbing Highprinces are more hindrance than advantage as you would neither want deserters in your army. If that backstabbing Highprince happens to be the Nemesis of your former Captain of the Guard, now one of five known Knight Radiants (Kaladin, Shallan, Renarin, Malata and Dalinar - Jasnah still has not reappeared and Lift has been preoccupied with pancakes until recently), Dalinar's reasoning becomes outright ridiculous.

So here I totally agree with Adolin's assessment of the situation. Adolin does not analyze, I guess it's more a gut feeling for him that Dalinar's decision was crem.

In the end, I trust Brandon not to let Adolin become boring and unimportant. Probably I will be Ok with either possible development, though I have my preferences as you have yours - and I hope you won't be disappointed either.

Thank you for your detailed arguments and elaborations. They are very insightful and do give me another perspective on things.

I see our respective views aren't as opposite as I initially thought they were. I assumed, wrongly, you wanted Adolin to be within this background and I also assumed you advocate for him to remain static. It wouldn't be the first time I read the argument, there always were readers who considered the Adolin we have been reading, the forever supporting son, the "yes sir yes" character who always bounce from anything thrown at him is fine as he is and needs no additional development. I happen to think stories are better, more captivating when characters are evolving, growing and I find this to be true for all characters, not just the 2-3 absolute main protagonists.

To illustrate my point, I will use another better received character, a character no reader has ever advocate against future development. As such, would it be interesting if Elhokar were to remain this whiny practically useless king always reminded us of his existence through his ineptly as a king? Of course not: he would read cartoonist when placed next to the other well fleshed out characters.

The same is true for Adolin but, for some reason, his character has polarized the debate to the point where many readers are now advocating for him to not get any development even if the same readers would never suggest it for more minor characters such as dear Elhokar or Bridge 4.

So this being said, is Adolin's ideal still Amaram? Well, not the individual, an ideal needs not to have a name, but I suspect the vision he once had of Amaram remains his ideal. I would go further and digging into real-life some to theorize opposite personalities always are attractive. As such, the intensely passionate individual with fire in his eyes may admire his exact opposite. When you are constantly gripped with emotions in a world where expressing them is not well thought of, it seems very natural to yearn to be someone who doesn't have the issue. Amaram's cold passionless logic can certainly look attractive to Adolin as I suspect he never gathered what he admires also make people heartless. 

Based on what we read so far, I would argue Adolin is currently trying to be as stoic as possible. He is working towards this ideal, he withdrew himself from the political scene, he tries not get involved as much as possible: he tries to be above it. In the scene we have just read, he was sitting with the soldiers, with the men, not with is family. The problem I foresee is try as hard as he might, Adolin cannot not care, so push away the natural it will bounce back stronger. The way I read Adolin is his emotions usually burst out whenever his closed ones are involved, but not him. He fights everyone else's battles, he's on the front line of every single war, but when it comes to himself, to his own personal battles, he does not fight. Worst, he does not even acknowledge he ought to fight them. Therefore, when it is about him, he is stoic, reaction-less and placid, but I suspect he won't be able to repress his own emotions forever.

So yeah, I too want Adolin to start to own his feelings, every single one of them and not just the ones he has when his family is involved, but his own too. I want to see him learn how to use them and to stop repressing them. He will always remain impulsive, but at least if he stops not processing how he feels about things, he'll have better control.

Amaram being the next Highprince was a delicious plot twist, not because I like the man, but because it will be interesting within the main narrative. It puts Adolin into a very delicate position, one where he put himself on the line to remove an enemy only to see another one arise, one he cannot remove from his position by not sacrificing himself in the process. He has no issue, if he argues Amaram cannot be Highprince and needs to be trialed for the wrong he has done, then he has to accept suffering the same fate.

As I said above, I do think Dalinar is making a serious mistake in thinking military skill is an end by itself and it should come at the expense of loyalty. He should learn to listen to Adolin more, to involve him and to stop wanting to make every single decision. Adolin is right though he hasn't yet realize it condemns him as well.

I do hope Brandon will write an interesting development for Adolin's character. At this point in time within the story, the character suffers from having no defined goal into the book so far. Back in WoK, his goal was to prevent his father from ruining the princedom based on visions. Back in WoR, his goal was to win as many Shards as he could and to protect his family from Sadeas. What are his goals this time around? 27 chapters and Brandon still haven't give us any clue as to what he wanted to do with the character. Adolin's goal so far seem to have merely be to do what is asked of him, but each time he is around, I feel he is getting more and more frazzled and reactive. 

So yeah, Brandon's got to have something planned because I cannot fathom why he would want to keep Adolin static when giving him development is so much more interesting.

[kari-no-sugata]

20 hours ago, WhiteLeeopard said:

I personally hope Shallan gets a fail soon (I'm not against failures, without them story and characters would be boring. I'm against not having failures acknolwedged and learning from them). Shallan did everything too perfectly on WoR. I was actually a bit worried that SA will go down a path some authors are making a lot these days. Which is that everything the female lead does goes perfectly, while more than half of what the male leads do are utter failures. But I don't think so any more, since after the sample chapters we can see Shallan is a total mess. 

Even if we just look at her Surgebinding, Shallan had a number of failures in WoR:

• Chapter 6, on ship - turns the deck green unintentionally - prompted by Pattern.
• Chapter 7, during attack - with prompt from old memory, sucks in Stormlight and shapes it into something vaguely humanoid. Enough to distract the attackers. Soulcasts the ship.
• Chapter 11, fails to Soulcast a stick.
• Chapter 15, with Tvlakv the slaver - unintentionally uses Stormlight to make her clothes look better. Is able to make it fade.
• Chapter 17, manages to consciously breathe in Stormlight for the first time. Tries to do Lightweaving but fails. Notices that the Stormlight is healing her.
• Chapter 20, with deserters - makes herself look like a queen, probably using the drawings she did earlier in the day as a reference. Fails to win over Vathah and he orders her captured but the others don't obey and instead run off to help. Seems clear that holding Stormlight helps propel her to action and feel more confident - the more the better. Not clear if she had any effect on sounds - the battle could still be heard after her Stormlight ran out.
• Chapter 34, when Tyn attacks her she creates a brief diversion - the diversion worked but actual Lightweaving was poor. Shallan does not yet know how to reliably form images.
• Chapter 38, while with the Highprinces creates and older better looking version of herself, presumably based on the sketch she does in chapter 36. Oddly, we don't specifically see when to started/ended the Lightweaving - only Sebarial's comment later suggests that she was.
• Chapter 42, sketches "Veil" and immediately uses Lightweaving from it to create her disguise. This is the first time we see a direct connection between her drawings and Lightweaving and also first time we see her creating something different rather than just enhanced. Shallan was a bit surprised it worked and it had a small defect on her nose.
• Chapter 43, she tries to disguise herself as a large man using a mental image and it fails. She realises she needs a sketch to make Lightweaving work. Sketches a wall and uses Lightweaving of that to hide herself from Iyatil.
• Chapter 47, attempts to change her hair colour with Lighteaving only using a mental image - fails. Sketches herself and this time it works. Pattern doesn't know why she needs to draw the images - it shouldn't be a requirement. Tries to make the Lightweaving vanish deliberately and fails. Sketches Sebarial from a Memory and creates fully realistic but entirely static Lightweaving of him. Figures out she can suck the Stormlight back in while touching the Lightweaving.
• Chapter 52, Shallan has determined via testing that her sketches are useful for Lightweaving for at least half a day and over a day tends to fail. She infiltrates Amaram's area with a messenger boy disguise then as a maid. Creates a Lightweaving of Amaram with Pattern providing audio.
• Chapter 54, visits Ghostbloods as Veil. Disguises herself as a rock to hide from them.
• Chapter 60, creates image of how she thinks she would be without lies - doesn't need sketch because she feels she knows it so well. Tries for hour to make sound work - fails. Finds out that if she separates too far from an image that it weakens and that Pattern's proximity helps, that she can transfer Stormlight to Pattern to keep the image sharp and that she can attach an image to move with Pattern, though not realistically - so she starts to think about solving that.
• Chapter 63, makes a shed appear larger than it is to hide herself for hours. Attaches a Lightweaving of Veil to Pattern, which has an animation sequence - though it has a fixed pattern. Dons Veil disguise. Uses quick removal and re-application of disguise to get past guards without Iyatil noticing. Creates ardent disguise from a quick sketch.
• Chapter 64, turns herself entirely black to hide from Amaram - she didn't have time to create a false wall. Dons Veil disguise again on returning to Iyatil.
• Chapter 72, while turning herself black to hide creates remote image of herself and then Kaladin to distract the chasmfiend.
• Chapter 78, Lightweaves small image of Jasnah from recent sketch for Dalinar.
• Chapter 88, at Pattern's forcing Shallan makes Lightweaving of when her mother died.

[Aleksiel]

@kari-no-sugata Shallan had so many and so large successes in WoR it was barely believable for me. She had no significant failure, all those you mention are minor and she recovered from them quickly. She converted the deserters, handled the alethi court, infiltrated GB, solved the Shattered Plains puzzle, opened the Oathgate and progressed as a Radiant. Dalinar on the other hand suffered some spectacular failures and Kaladin, too. She went from 'but I've never my father's estate' to conning con artists, outspying spies and outscholaring scholars so fast it left a bad taste in my mouth.

[maxal]

1 minute ago, Aleksiel said:

@kari-no-sugata Shallan had so many and so large successes in WoR it was barely believable for me. She had no significant failure, all those you mention are minor and she recovered from them quickly. She converted the deserters, handled the alethi court, infiltrated GB, solved the Shattered Plains puzzle, opened the Oathgate and progressed as a Radiant. Dalinar on the other hand suffered some spectacular failures and Kaladin, too. She went from 'but I've never my father's estate' to conning con artists, outspying spies and outscholaring scholars so fast it left a bad taste in my mouth.

I think it is part of her character arc to become too successful too quickly. She currently is over-confident, she is not being careful, she is wasting her stormlight, she thinks she is invulnerable... I see Shallan as ripe for one massive failure though I have no idea what it will be.

[Steeldancer]

4 minutes ago, maxal said:

I think it is part of her character arc to become too successful too quickly. She currently is over-confident, she is not being careful, she is wasting her stormlight, she thinks she is invulnerable... I see Shallan as ripe for one massive failure though I have no idea what it will be.

Obviously she'll realize that she will never be able to soulcast that stick- despite the fact that the fate of the world will rest on her doing so. 

Edited October 29, 2017 by Steeldancer

[Aleksiel]

1 minute ago, maxal said:

I think it is part of her character arc to become too successful too quickly. She currently is over-confident, she is not being careful, she is wasting her stormlight, she thinks she is invulnerable... I see Shallan as ripe for one massive failure though I have no idea what it will be.

That will be fitting, usually if a character has many successes in a roll the next step an author takes is to make them fail big time  I admit I think her character could use a spectacular failure right now, I won't like it if she continues winning as she did in WoR. May be it will be about the thing that haunts Urithiru, though that doesn't seem particularly grand unless she somehow ruins an invaluable resource in the city or something similar. Or it could be related to her brothers somehow.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, maxal said:

I think it is part of her character arc to become too successful too quickly. She currently is over-confident, she is not being careful, she is wasting her stormlight, she thinks she is invulnerable... I see Shallan as ripe for one massive failure though I have no idea what it will be.

I agree. Definitely looks like it.

I do think a failure could help her develop a bit more. Keep her grounded. ... or make her grounded again...

Edited October 29, 2017 by SLNC

[maxal]

Just now, Aleksiel said:

That will be fitting, usually if a character has many successes in a roll the next step an author takes is to make them fail big time  I admit I think her character could use a spectacular failure right now, I won't like it if she continues winning as she did in WoR. May be it will be about the thing that haunts Urithiru, though that doesn't seem particularly grand unless she somehow ruins an invaluable resource in the city or something similar. Or it could be related to her brothers somehow.

And I also think Adolin is ripe to lose a fight... It may help them bound  I think her failure might have to do with the following: underestimating the creature, the Ghostbloods or Adolin.

[Aleksiel]

2 minutes ago, maxal said:

And I also think Adolin is ripe to lose a fight... It may help them bound  I think her failure might have to do with the following: underestimating the creature, the Ghostbloods or Adolin.

What if Shallan misunderstands the nature of the creatures, sets Adolin to fight it and they both fail spectacularly  With Mraize laughing at them on the background 

[Salkara]

10 hours ago, Harry the Heir said:

I'm taking this straight from the Diagram:

Quote

Chaos in Alethkar is, of course, inevitable. Watch carefully, and do not let power in the kingdom solidify. The Blackthorn could become an ally or our greatest foe, depending on whether he takes the path of the warlord or not. If he seems likely to sue for peace, assassinate him expeditiously. The risk of competition is too great.

Do you read that differently?

I agree it seems to point toward a simple "Mr. T doesn't want competition" plot, but I also acknowledge that Brandon's plots have unexpected curveballs. To me, that quote edges too close to an explicit statement without actually making one. It's the type of epigraph I expect to look back at and think, "Well, that was clever misdirection."

There's just too much missing from it. Why is chaos in Alethkar inevitable? Don't let power solidify behind whom? Sue for peace with whom (other nations, the Voidbringers, Tezim... who?)? "Risk of competition" really gets to me. Risk to whom and from what? Taravangian has been content to be the ruler from the shadows, using everyone else as puppets. Why is that different for Dalinar, a man who has proven quite inept that politics? I expect manipulating Dalinar to be within the Diagram's capabilities.

Much of the Diagram, to me, reads as steam of consciousness where the author choose not to record logical steps he thought were obvious. I don't take it at face value because I don't think every sentence perfectly follows the previous. I think we're getting just enough of the Diagram to draw conclusions but not enough to make the right ones.

Tl;dr I think it's supposed to be read as you read it, but I also think it could be intentionally misleading.

[Siaun Sanche]

My experience is less that female characters do things perfectly all the time; it's that female characters are much more readily accused of being 'too perfect' than male characters are. It seems to me that Shallan's involvement in the Ghostbloods exhibits exactly the kind of fallibility that you see in the other characters. She keeps getting herself deeper and deeper, and it's long past the point where she could easily say to somebody else, "Oh, by the way, this is what I'm doing", without them seriously questioning whether or not they could trust. And to date all of her deceptions have failed after a short time: Jasnah, Tyn, and Mraize all eventually saw through her lies.