[OB] Fourth Windrunner Ideal

[Stromblessed]

So considering chapter 86 epigraph , where it is implied the 4th ideas conflicts with the Windrunner natural tendency to want to protect everyone 

-Tarah saying he needs to start letting go of the dead and prioritise the living 

-Lirin saying he needs to grow calluses 

-Tukks saying he needs to kill to protect his squad who are his family 

     -But Kal secretly says he instead              fears easily he kills

- Kal freezing up in the fight at the palace because he wants to protect everyone/doesn't want to kill anyone

- Then refusing to swear the Fourth ideal (though he knows what it is at this point presumably) even though it would allow him to save Adolin.

 

We can probably narrow it down to 2 principles 

Either the 4th ideas involves him swearing to kill some people to save some others ( greater good or lesser of two evils type dilemma?)

Or it involves him swearing to accept to let some people to die to save others

I'm not able to see a common factor between the various appearances of the windspren though other people here seem to have :/

[Jenet]

12 hours ago, GrooFudge said:

I think the fourth ideal will be like a compliment of the third ideal, and it will lead Kaladin to kill Moash.

"As long as it is right, I will kill those I love".

I am afraid I tend to agree with you.... Yikes..

[Egomere]

I think it could also be something along the lines of

'I cannot protect everyone, sometimes I have to let them protect themselves.'

And it's Kaladin's desire to protect everyone that means he can't say the words. He needs to learn that he can't save everyone. Thinking of all the people he's failed and his desire not to fail, to protect everyone regardless of whether it's his fault or not and learning to overcome his feelings about failing.

[Siaun Sanche]

I'm not sure that Kaladin's fourth Ideal is going to be about protecting himself first, or letting people protect themselves or something. Kaladin's intended to be a heroic character; he doesn't need to learn a lesson about being less heroic so that he can be sure to get to bed at a reasonable hour or something. Dramatically speaking the story requires something that will push him to greater exertions, not something that has him watching his fiber intake and limiting his screen time right before bedtime. Also the second Ideal already says that Windrunners need to protect specifically those who cannot protect themselves, so that would be covered already.

I'm also not sure that I buy that Kaladin needs to learn something about choosing a side. Kaladin's arc to date has been about him widening the scope of his empathy/responsibility. At first it's just the one guy who is sick in the slave pens. Then it's the guys in Bridge Four. Then it's the bridgemen as a whole and Dalinar. Eventually it expands out even further, to include all the new people in Bridge Four and the Listeners and so forth. Is all that going to be undermined by the message that you have to ignore the humanity of your enemies in service of your narrow tribal loyalties? That seems like a big step backward for Kaladin and antithetical to the ethos of the Stormlight Archive as it has evolved to date.

(Also this is more or less what Moash does; he decides that the Listeners are better than the humans, and that it must be their time now. He picks a side and doesn't question it.)

I'm having trouble defining specifically what I think the fourth Ideal would be, but if anything I would think that it would have to do with shedding personal loyalties in service of protecting all life on Roshar. As of Oathbringer, Kaladin has a lot of conflicting loyalties: as an Alethi soldier he's loyal to the Alethkar against the Listeners. As a former slave he's loyal to the downtrodden in their cause for freedom. He's loyal to those who are or were under his command. All of these loyalties are so meaningful to him because they're informed by tragedies that he's endured. Men from Bridge Four have died from Parshendi arrows. Slaves he knew died seeking freedom with him. Transcending those loyalties would be like declaring those deaths meaningless.

I think something similar is holding back our boy in chapter 86. If he thinks of protection in terms of protecting good Veden kids from Thaylen coastal raids, then widening his sphere of responsibility to include the nasty Thaylens sounds like not wanting to help the Vedens. And yet if the Windrunners didn't have an Ideal like this, wouldn't you have Windrunners fighting each other in every major war in Roshar for thousands of years?

[AerionBFII]

Kal has no problem sacrificing himself for others, it made me think about an Oath that doesn't let him get weighed down by his failures or the people who die.

 

(Apolagies, can't think of a snazzy oath )

[TheBrian]

My guess at WR Ideal #4: "I will focus my efforts where they will do the most good."

This utilitarian sensibility would be hard for any protection-oriented personality to accept. It means that you have to necessarily pick people to not help, which would cause a major mental crisis for Kaladin, who believes he can save everyone if he just tries hard enough.

Supporting evidence #1: The first time Kaladin came close to leveling up (using the presence of windspren as an indicator) was when he was trying to protect a specific group of humans racing to stormshelters. He was thinking that there were lots more humans failing to get to storm shelters but that he could only protect the ones closest to him.

Supporting evidence #2: When his human-friends and parsh-friends went all West Side Story on each other, Kaladin froze up because he couldn't prioritize helping one group over the other. It was obvious he should have helped the humans. He was previously committed to saving them and the parshmen were working in service of the unmade and an evil god intent on destruction. His failure to prioritize here based on the big picture predicts his failure to swear the next ideal.

Supporting evidence #3: The next time Kaladin came close to leveling up was between chats with the honorspren captain in Shadesmar. He was arguing that the mission to bring Syl to the honorspren city was less important than the mission to save Dalinar in Thaylenar. He was seeking to maximize the outcome of their efforts.

Supporting evidence #4: When he stumbled on saying the words, they would have had an immediate impact. There was no way to return to the physical realm to save Dalinar, so swearing to a utilitarian oath would mean giving up on the Bondsmith. Failing to do so would almost certainly damnation Adolin, Shallan, and himself to death; but he wouldn't have to write anyone off.

[Bacon]

I think it's something legitimately hard for Kaladin to do, and I don't think anything like vowing to protect more people would be hard for him.

Something like:

"I will abandon those who cannot be protected, to protect those who can"

[Wreith]

Having put more thought into this as a result of this thread, I wonder if the next ideal moves beyond protecting.
If Windrunners follow the ideals their patron Herald is associated with, perhaps the 4th oath would push Kaladin toward being a leader.

I can't think of a sentiment that would follow this line but be inhibited by Kal's recitation of failure, but it's an idea...

[Egomere]

Don't forget

Drawer 10-12, sapphire (Windrunners)

My spren claims that this recording will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people?

This really implies that it's not always about protecting people (or everyone) which is why I made my previous posts in the vein of having to chose not to protect everyone for some reason or another...

 

 

[Siaun Sanche]

2 hours ago, TheBrian said:

When his human-friends and parsh-friends went all West Side Story on each other, Kaladin froze up because he couldn't prioritize helping one group over the other. It was obvious he should have helped the humans. He was previously committed to saving them and the parshmen were working in service of the unmade and an evil god intent on destruction. His failure to prioritize here based on the big picture predicts his failure to swear the next ideal.

It seems weird to humanize those Listeners and establish their broader POV (as distinguished from that of the Forged or the odiumspren) as reasonable if the upshot is that Kaladin should have killed them. It would be like Dalinar's OB story ending with him deciding that the Blackthorn was awesome and he should burn more villages.

[Awesomness]

3 hours ago, Wreith said:

Having put more thought into this as a result of this thread, I wonder if the next ideal moves beyond protecting.
If Windrunners follow the ideals their patron Herald is associated with, perhaps the 4th oath would push Kaladin toward being a leader.

I can't think of a sentiment that would follow this line but be inhibited by Kal's recitation of failure, but it's an idea...

I've been thinking along this line too, but the windspren seem to point in the direction of prioricing the living. Besides, Mal doesn't have trouble leading, on the contrary, he's kind of a force of nature.

Drawer 10-12, sapphire (Windrunners)

My spren claims that this recording will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people?

I interpreted this as an evidence that Honor was losing it. SF said Honor was putting the oath before the principles, and that you needed first be radiant, then reach the stormlight. So I thought this windrunner was having a crisis, but as he had said oath and was supposed to be ready, then he would say the words and step up anyway.

Though what this thread is saying makes more sense...

[Stairdweller]

I feel like the 4th oath for every order is going to be sonething that will seem contradictory to the previous 3.  Something that is legitimately difficult for the Knights, given their previous oaths, but something that is needed to differentiate a leader among radiants from the rank and file.  But maybe I'm wrong - as presumably every knight we see with armor has sworn their 4th ideal.

 

Side note: I've been nursing a theory that the reason Kaladin killed Syl when he fell into the chasm was that he forced something out of the nahel bond that was not allowed by the ideals he swore (and his adherence to them), and I've always thought that thing was shardplate.  

[Elsvette Mintyfresh]

I feel like he was already saying the fourth ideal when he told Elhokar, "Be a hero to the one you can save." He just isn't ready to take his own advice. 

[Fulminato]

14 hours ago, Awesomness said:

I've been thinking along this line too, but the windspren seem to point in the direction of prioricing the living. Besides, Mal doesn't have trouble leading, on the contrary, he's kind of a force of nature.

Drawer 10-12, sapphire (Windrunners)

My spren claims that this recording will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people?

I interpreted this as an evidence that Honor was losing it. SF said Honor was putting the oath before the principles, and that you needed first be radiant, then reach the stormlight. So I thought this windrunner was having a crisis, but as he had said oath and was supposed to be ready, then he would say the words and step up anyway.

Though what this thread is saying makes more sense...

the oath was a system ishar ensured at the start of the KR, the oath was the same since that time. the dying of honor don't had change the immortal word.

12 hours ago, Stairdweller said:

Side note: I've been nursing a theory that the reason Kaladin killed Syl when he fell into the chasm was that he forced something out of the nahel bond that was not allowed by the ideals he swore (and his adherence to them), and I've always thought that thing was shardplate.  

kaldin agreeing in the king's murder was go against his oaths, the effect his the weaking of the bond with syl, he try and fall to drew stormlight from a sphere in that day, whitout the light he will die after the fall, so syl pushed some stormlight in him, but the process was so painful to near kill her.

i think there is a wob explaing that.

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine]

Sorry if someone has already mentioned this, I haven't read this whole thread, I've got to actually get some work done today. Anyone else feel that the release of Oathbringer is probably going to have an effect on global GDP by decreasing aggregate global productivity by a couple of percentage points?

The first ideal is the first ideal, the necessary foundation for leading a moral and principled life.

The second ideal is about protecting those without the capacity to protect themselves (strength before weakness). This is a small circle that allows you to protect just those you are personally attached to.

The third ideal is about protecting even those you hate if it's the right thing to do (life before death). This is a wider circle that causes the radiant in question to evaluate the selfish motivation behind the impulse to protect, it's the beginning of the crack in the protect out of love ethos that Kaladin has had from childhood.

I think that the fourth ideal is "Accept that you can't protect everyone". This is similar to Shallan being who she is because she stood up. This is the greatest internal dilemma for Kaladin, his inability to accept that he fails to protect everyone.

I personally believe that he will be a Radiant without plate, that he will never swear the fourth ideal, and that he will somehow manifest powers that no Windrunner has ever had because of his choice to NOT accept that he can't save everyone.

Love is a finite substance in life, the more it is invested in more than one object the less powerful it becomes, because their are inherent contradictions involved in loving multiple people. At some point Love has to pick a favorite, one must benefit at the cost of another, one must live and another must die. This is something, as far as I read Kaladin's character, he could never accept. Once he sees the humanity in someone, he is fully invested in that person/listener and wants to protect them and will continue to beat himself up if he fails. I personally wouldn't have Kaladin any other way, I think it's his most remarkable trait. 

[dionysus]

How about, "I will lead others to protect what is right, even if it means they will die."

It encompasses a leadership ideal, which we haven't seen yet in the oaths. It also fits narratively with Kal needing to let go of his "failures" and move past the deaths of others he feels responsible for. The weakness of it is it doesn't address the crisis he has in Kholinar. It wouldn't help him decide how to choose a side (or a third path.)

Edited November 21, 2017 by dionysus

[rjl]

I think it's got to be something like: "I will focus on those I can protect (and leave those I can't)"

The leadership related points don't seem to work with him thinking of Tien and not being able to say it.

[TheBrian]

On 11/20/2017 at 6:06 PM, Harry the Heir said:

It seems weird to humanize those Listeners and establish their broader POV (as distinguished from that of the Forged or the odiumspren) as reasonable if the upshot is that Kaladin should have killed them. It would be like Dalinar's OB story ending with him deciding that the Blackthorn was awesome and he should burn more villages.

I think a good analogy for this would be child soldiers.  They don't belong in war.  They shouldn't have to die.  But if they are pointing a gun at your or your children, then you are going to have to do something necessary but distasteful.

The Parshmen are not the enemy, Odium is.  Unfortunately, the Parshmen are his child soldiers.  It is a tragic situation engineered by a hateful god all too aware of the strains he is placing on the oaths of his enemies.  I think the seeds of a singer rebellion (the listeners refers only to Venli's tribe from the shattered plains) have been planted in Oathbringer.

[+Wax]

I thought of this one, 

"I will protect others even when facing some who I care about"

Somehow, I think the Moash bout was about Kaladin facing the fact that he cared about Moash.  He didn't.  So, I think in facing Moash again is where the next ideal going to come.

[aemetha]

"I will protect the right of others to make their own choices and bear the consequences of those choices"

[Subvisual Haze]

After Bridge 4 collectively went "Duhhh, maybe the truth is in the middle" and decided to abandon the people of Thaylen City with the armies of Odium almost on their front door, maybe the 4th Ideal is a focusing ideal like the Skybreakers had in their 3rd Ideal.  Perhaps the Windrunner Chooses one person/group/status of people to protect as their first priority so they aren't constantly devolving into inaction because they want to protect both sides in any conflict.  If you try to protect everyone your rigid neutrality severely inhibits your ability to protect anyone.

[demi]

12 hours ago, dionysus said:

How about, "I will lead others to protect what is right, even if it means they will die."

I really like this.

[Willow]

On 20-11-2017 at 10:11 PM, Egomere said:

My spren claims that this recording will be good for me, so here I go. Everyone says I will swear the Fourth Ideal soon, and in so doing, earn my armor. I simply don’t think that I can. Am I not supposed to want to help people?

This really implies that it's not always about protecting people (or everyone) which is why I made my previous posts in the vein of having to chose not to protect everyone for some reason or another...

The attributes of the Windrunners are protecting and leading. Kaladin has mostly focused on protecting (and leading) a very small group of 30-ish people until now. Leaders don't always have the luxury of limiting themselves to the small details. I think you make a good point here, though it's a horrible choice, especially for Kaladin.

[IntentAwesome]

I've seen a few posts with oaths such as "I cannot protect everyone" or "I will let others protect themselves." I like the ideas these contain. It's a legitimate struggle that Kaladin has. But my problem is that these are oaths that Kaladin automatically has to live. He can't physically protect everyone. Whether he likes it or not, Kaladin will have to let some people go. That's not really a choice that Kaladin will have to make to live the oath. It would be a choice to accept that he can't protect everybody and not let it eat at him, which would lead to a more mentally healthy and happy Kaladin. But I'm not convinced these oaths are about mentally healthy and happy Radiants. Really, they seem to be about aligning yourself so much with an ideal that you become more and more like a spren—an embodiment of an idea. And we've already seen that there are some serious problems with these ideals and their interpretation.

[The Invested Beard]

I will let go of those beyond my protection.