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[OB] Fourth Windrunner Ideal


IntentAwesome

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  • I will defend/help anyone who asks for it.
  • I will accept casualties to save more people.
  • I will let myself be helped, I cannot do everything alone.
  • I won't be ashamed to lose, I will stand up again.

I think any of the above can somehow be the 4th ideal. I will re-read the whole book and think on it more. The best thing is that Kaladin already knows it, he just can't say it. Maybe the journey to active it is above the wording or finding an interpretation of it that feels better than the rest.

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33 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

These are all good guesses, and likely very close to the truth but I worry that they sound rather callous.  I agree that from a logical and efficiency standpoint Kaladin would be more effective if he "grew calluses" like his father recommends, but at the same time the fact that he cares so much for his people and the lost is his best leadership attribute.  I would say in the real world there is no better characteristic to have in a leader/mentor, than to know that they truly care about you and your well-being.

Perhaps it will be something like "I will honor the fallen" (in contrast to just mourning the fallen) or even just a re-phrasing of "I will place the lives of others before death, their journies before their destinations".

I think this hits at a very important theme with Kaladin.  Almost all of his "failures" as he sees them, were actually successes.  Sure, he has seen the death of many under his protection, but almost all of them died with more purpose/hope/happiness than if he had not been protecting them.  It was an end, but a better end.  Tien knew his brother was there, his soldiers in Amaram's army felt hope and purpose in a pointless war, his bridgemen felt more alive than ever in a hopeless situation, Elkohar finally felt like a hero etc.  Even Syl says she first sought Kaladin out because of how he made the soldiers under his command feel.  Sizgil makes similar statements in WOK, at first he hated Kaladin for giving Bridge 4 false hopes of survival, but in time came to accept that even if Kaladin couldn't save Bridge 4 he was like a surgeon easing their suffering.

I don't want Kaladin to stop caring, but him being able to see the effects of what he's doing on people's quality of life beyond just lived/died seems the most important revelation he can have.

Agreed. I just think that it has to be something in direct conflict with his "darkness" It isn't callous to move on after loss. It's necessary. Whatever the oath is, it's got to be related to that conflict. That Kaladin cannot let go of the people he's lost. (But he's starting to. His infatuation with Shallan related to Tien, and he managed to see his family. Those factors play into this somehow.)

Which brings up some things we should probably think on. The oaths seem to have an odd structure. I'll need to look at the Skybreaker Oaths Nale swore and figure out that pattern at some point, but the later oaths seem to be about tempering or mastering the second and third oaths. I can't quite wrap my mind around it from memory though. 

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It will be about the serendipity to accept those that you cannot save- key for Kal at the end of Part 3 and Part 4, something he knew was the Words but has never been able to make himself accept, and links into 1) his past experiences esp Tien 2) being a soldier 3) being a doctor/surgeon (and his memories of his father, in fact his issues with this may well starts with the fall out of this aspect and Roshone's son) 4) most importantly a KEY aspect of being a leader (which is where we think the remaining ideals will go)- sacrifice of others and not always just himself.

 

Also pleasingly something he can learn from Dalinar and also his own father which will be nice

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I imagine it may have something to do with letting go in some way. Whether that be letting go of the past, or accepting when he is unable to protect someone, I don’t quite know. 

It seems that he resisted heavily in part because he maybe felt that saying the words would possibly make them lose Adolin? I’m really not sure.

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I believe that Kaladin's Fourth Ideal will be something regarding his being unable to save everyone, but I think there's a more important question. If I understood correctly, Teft is also a Windrunner now, but he spoke an Ideal we haven't read before:

"I will protect those I hate, even if the one I hate most is myself."

This Ideal is closest to Kaladin's third spoken Ideal, "I will protect those I hate, so long as it is right".

Now assuming this is Teft's third Ideal, then that could mean that each Ideal a Radiant says is somewhat tailored to that specific Radiant, so the part after the comma is how the Ideal "I will protect those I hate," applies to each Radiant. Taking Teft vs Kaladin you have Teft who's Ideal also includes protecting/taking care of himself (at least I read it as such), while Kaladin's is more focused on recognizing that he has to protect everyone, even if he doesn't want to. The second part seems to add context/offer a solution to a problem that particular Radiant has when viewed through that Ideal.

Of course this immediately runs into a problem since the second Ideal of the Windrunners didn't have this... tailoring to it. Right now I'm thinking it's something that applies from the third Ideal onward, like the Skybreakers pledging themselves to a code of their choosing, the Windrunners 3rd, 4th, and 5th Ideals tailor themselves to the Windrunner that is speaking them, adding information or conditions to that specific Ideal to help thar Windrunner in particular.

Of course this based only on 2 line of text so it all be completely wrong. Any thoughts?

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So far, the Windrunner oaths have seemed the most rigid of all of them to me. We've always known that some oaths are up to interpretation, though they cover the same basic idea. I don't think the Third Windrunner Oath is really individualized; it's still the same idea. It's just the who Teft hates is himself, while Kaladin hates others.

 

Quote

 

Jeremy (paraphrased)

Is the order of the Ideals fixed? E.g. does Kaladin have to say the Windrunner Ideals in a specific order, or are they situation-specific?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, the sequence is fixed. The oaths for each order are essentially a progression of understanding of the kind of person that each Order of Knights Radiant is trying to produce. The specific wording of each Ideal is not fixed, but the overall idea of each Ideal, and the order in which they are spoken, is.

 

 

From what we've been given so far, I think the Fourth Ideal will need to meet these three criteria:

1. It will need to be an understanding that will help Kaladin resolve the dilemma he faced in the fight in the palace.

2. It will be something so difficult for Kaladin to live by that he couldn't even do it to save Syl, Pattern, Shallan, Adolin, and Dalinar. That's a lot of important people. And we know that Kaladin has a "saving people thing" as Hermione Granger once put it.

3. As the chapter epigraph for 86 implies, it is something that actually goes against a Windrunner's natural desire to help and protect others.

I think Kaladin actually did a fair job already in Oathbringer accepting his weaknesses; in the battle against Amaram, he acknowledge his need to be saved, so I don't think that was difficult enough. Same with protecting just the ones he can; Kaladin expressed the same idea to Elhokar when Kal told him to save just his son and leave the queen. And Kaladin does already get back up every time he fails, though he can't stop beating himself up over it. So I don't think any of those are difficult enough for Kaladin to not be able to swear it.

It would be interesting, I think, to see Kaladin reject the next oath and instead find something else, maybe finding a way for humans and parshendi to work together. But I also want to see Kaladin get his plate.

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I also thought it would need to be something related to not shouldering all of the burden himself. Focusing on the exact words is probably not a good idea, as the wording of the Immortal Words seems flexible, but I imagine something about allowing others to protect themselves? Or, alternatively, letting himself be protected. 

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