[OB] Kaladin's love life ?

[deacon]

1 hour ago, Sedside said:

None of Adolin's love for Shallan is written in the books too. We have 0 (zero) occurences in his OB PoVs when he thinks Shallan is pretty, he loves her, he wants to be with her or whatever else. But it doesn't prevent people from thinking that Adolin loves Shallan. That's wonderful, I think.

Like I said above, there's a lot justifying it implicitly, and that's not nothing. It doesn't need to be explicit for it to be there. But if you feel so strongly it's not present at all, then I guess there's nothing left to say.

Quote

Judging Adolin's thoughts from Shallan's PoV is a strange thing to do as well. No one can know what other person is thinking about. Shallan thinks Adolin thinks she is pretty, but in Adolin's PoVs we never actually see him thinking so. We never see him thinking that he is afraid of ruining this betrothal. He says it, yes, but, I think I'll never get tired of repeating it, what character says isn't the same what character thinks, you have to look at the wider context of the conversation. We see, how he behaves in their after TCB dialogue - he doesn't sound infatuated to me. He finds endless excuses not to marry, there are like 5 lines from his side expressing different kinds of objections against it, but he falls under Shallan's pressure, because he is overall this kind of guy - undetermined. Judging his feelings by Shallan's thoughts about his feelings is the same as (Warbreaker spoilers):

I guess we'll have to disagree. It felt clear as much as possible, and a lot of other readers felt it was clear enough without needing to be that obvious in Adolin's POV. Like I said above, if you just didn't see it there, I'm pretty sure there's nothing people who read it differently can say to convince you.

Quote

Well, according to Shallan's dialogue with Radiant and Veil after TC battle, she was thinking about the chasms. But we all know, that Shallan has a bad habit of lying to herself and hiding from things. She confronted the truth about Helaran and it was gone in two lines of text and never go out again. Do you think it is really gone? I don't. I think it's just hidden somewhere inside Radiant's or Veil's conscious. Why can't they probably think about it, while Shallan is in her "Shallan" persona? Radiant said "we were dancing around a decision ever since those days we spent in chasms with Stormblessed" - but where is the dancing? I don't see it. Maybe it was off-screen in Radiant all along, but it was there, because Radiant was talking about it. Shallan is hard to understand, that's why this situation is so confusing. And I think it is intentional from Brandon's side to make it so confusing. If he clearly states, how much Shallan actually loves Kaladin, the following subversion of her horrible marriage won't be so surprising for the majority of readers

Do I think it's gone forever? Nah. Do I still think it was taken into account with her decision at the end of OB? Yeah, I do. I think Brandon made it as clear as he could 

Quote

Well, if you think "he is controlling his passion, he dominated his wrath, he is determined, and solemn, you can't change him whatever you do and whoever you are" equals "he is sexy", then what do you think about "oh that hair, oh that smile, oh that voice, oh those stupid arms, oh I want to rip his shirt off"? The first is "she just wants sex with him" and the second is "compassionate love"? You guys really blow my head with that kind of analysis 

Sarcasm isn't a good look when other people are coming in in good faith. It comes off as condescending, and if this is going to continue, I'd rather not talk to you anymore. Anyway, I said in one of my first posts that I agreed Shallan also thought Adolin was attractive (and her to him!) - but that isn't all of how she thinks and interacts with him.

Quote

I will repeat, I think it's all intentional from Brandon's side in order to make a subversion later. Why didn't he show Kaladin and Shallan flying to Thaylen City? Why is there a picture of Urithiru with Kaladin in it, and no story about how he flew her there to draw it? Why so many interactions between them are off screen? We only have 3 (three) dialogues between Shallan and Kaladin in OB, and one of them is when they both are in bad state of minds after their respective failures in Kholinar. Is it a coincidence? I don't think so. If they were really so bad for each other like so many people here say they are - why not write more of their interactions to make it more obvious? Not one dialogue, that went bad (only in the end, I would also notice, it started pretty well, actually) because of their mental states, but two, three, four dialogues, where everything falls apart, and the result looks more convincing? If Brandon really wanted to show Shadolin as something good, why does it look so cheesy then? Why is that "you are beautiful you are beautiful you are beautiful you are beautiful you are beautiful without you I fade"? Is it how he thinks a real compassionate love looks like? Why is Adolin trying to give her up even after her tirade oh how handsome and sexy he is and how much she wants him? Why doesn't Adolin ever think about her, but still thinks Syl is pretty (three times)? Why is that R-V-S dialogue in the end about "we are decided, but we could do better"? Why hasn't she burn a prayer? Why such a haste with marriage? Why, why, why? So many why's. And I didn't mention them all, as there are much more, actually.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's enough to justify it being a subversion. Brandon really does not write spectacular romances. Avoiding spoilers, the main one in Mistborn Era 2 was his only romance that I think surprised me - and even then, it was clear at the end of each book where everyone stood. He hasn't done the big surprise subversion of any romance that I recall. He does write cheesy romances! I rolled my eyes through pretty much all of his books in the main romance.

I agree that it's not a coincidence Kaladin and Shallan only spoke three times. But I think that was Brandon saying not to expect anything else. "I was not satisfied with this" does not mean "this thing you are dissatisfied with is going to change in the next book". Especially when Brandon is pretty straightforward in how he writes romances in his other books, it just... I know what it feels like to try and be optimistic in the face of something I really disliked, and I was pretty dang underwhelmed by Shallan/Adolin in OB... But that doesn't mean I think that's proof of Brandon's intentions to break them up. I am both unenthused with the romantic plot of OB and fairly certain that he doesn't have a plan to change what he did. 

One of the reasons I'm reading this last paragraph of yours and being so sure is just... there were SO many other "missing" scenes in Oathbringer. It wasn't just Kaladin and Shallan's scenes. Kaladin and Shallan's relationship was evidently not special enough to make the cut, just like many others people were complaining about being absent or lackluster. Since I can't see a reason that the absence of a relationship in the text means that that relationship is more special than all the other people who were missing important scenes (like Amaram, or Jasnah, or Szeth at the end), I just can't buy into that reasoning. So I'm just bummed out that this is how the Kaladin/Shallan relationship was left in canon, and hoping that they at least get a couple of nice buddy scenes in SA4 and 5.

Edited March 20, 2019 by deacon

[Sedside]

3 hours ago, deacon said:

Like I said above, there's a lot justifying it implicitly, and that's not nothing. It doesn't need to be explicit for it to be there. But if you feel so strongly it's not present at all, then I guess there's nothing left to say.

I didn’t only say that it’s missing from Adolin’s PoVs,  I also said that in my opinion his other actions and behaviour pretty much contradict of how I think young infatuated man should look like. There are a lot of other examples of people in love even in SA, even two old ardents in the interlude look much more convincing to me, than Adolin. And yeah, I feel strongly about it, because I see Adolin thinking “Syl is pretty”, and I don’t see Adolin thinking “Shallan is pretty”. I see Adolin thinking about Janala, about Malasha, about Danlan, I don’t see him thinking about Shallan in OB. Yes, he was thinking about her in WoR, and I think he was infatuated with her in WoR, but he kind of chilled in OB.

3 hours ago, deacon said:

Do I think it's gone forever? Nah. Do I still think it was taken into account with her decision at the end of OB? Yeah, I do. I think Brandon made it as clear as he could 

That’s good we agree at some point

3 hours ago, deacon said:

Sarcasm isn't a good look when other people are coming in in good faith. It comes off as condescending, and if this is going to continue, I'd rather not talk to you anymore. Anyway, I said in one of my first posts that I agreed Shallan also thought Adolin was attractive (and her to him!) - but that isn't all of how she thinks and interacts with him.

I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.

I actually didn’t say that she only thinks about Adolin in a sexy way. She thinks the other things about him too, but what surprises me is that sexual context is much more present in her perception of Adolin, than in her perception of Kaladin, and still so many people say “she only thinks Kaladin is sexy, whereas with Adolin she has compassionate love”. I really just don’t understand how it is possible. Even her final tirade justifying her decision to marry him starts with his looks (handsome as sin) and finishes with sex (want to rip his shirt off). If we look at the overall dynamic of Shadolin vs Shalladin, we will also see the difference. She sees Adolin and the first thing she thinks is how handsome he is. But she has only started developing any kind of romantic feelings to Kaladin after she understood, what kind of person he is.

3 hours ago, deacon said:

Unfortunately, I don't think that's enough to justify it being a subversion. Brandon really does not write spectacular romances. Avoiding spoilers, the main one in Mistborn Era 2 was his only romance that I think surprised me - and even then, it was clear at the end of each book where everyone stood. He hasn't done the big surprise subversion of any romance that I recall. He does write cheesy romances! I rolled my eyes through pretty much all of his books in the main romance.

I’ve only read Warbreaker so far, but I actually like how Shalladin is written. For me it is very decent and a kind of romance I appreciate a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that in any other fantasy book. Th chasm sequence is one of the best romantic episodes I’ve read so far. Again, I could explain into it much deeper, but it’s not quite the topic.

Yes, maybe Brandon writes cheesy romance, but to me it seems that Shadolin is written cheesy intentionally. This “without you I fade”…

3 hours ago, deacon said:

I agree that it's not a coincidence Kaladin and Shallan only spoke three times. But I think that was Brandon saying not to expect anything else. "I was not satisfied with this" does not mean "this thing you are dissatisfied with is going to change in the next book". Especially when Brandon is pretty straightforward in how he writes romances in his other books, it just... I know what it feels like to try and be optimistic in the face of something I really disliked, and I was pretty dang underwhelmed by Shallan/Adolin in OB... But that doesn't mean I think that's proof of Brandon's intentions to break them up. I am both unenthused with the romantic plot of OB and fairly certain that he doesn't have a plan to change what he did. 

One of the reasons I'm reading this last paragraph of yours and being so sure is just... there were SO many other "missing" scenes in Oathbringer. It wasn't just Kaladin and Shallan's scenes. Kaladin and Shallan's relationship was evidently not special enough to make the cut, just like many others people were complaining about being absent or lackluster. Since I can't see a reason that the absence of a relationship in the text means that that relationship is more special than all the other people who were missing important scenes (like Amaram, or Jasnah, or Szeth at the end), I just can't buy into that reasoning. So I'm just bummed out that this is how the Kaladin/Shallan relationship was left in canon, and hoping that they at least get a couple of nice buddy scenes in SA4 and 5.

I didn’t say that lack of Shalladin scenes in OB points at their romance being special. Actually, it’s the chasm sequence that points to it. My argument was that if you as a writer initiate any plot line (romantic in this case), and want to finish it in a convincing way, then you don’t just drop it from the text with the two lines of thinking in the end, supported by “oh, I’ve just decided that I don’t love him” or something. Brandon has written chasm sequence, it lasted 5 chapters, it started a romantic plot line between Shallan and Kaladin and it seemed pretty storming convincing and good to me. So if Brandon wants to sell me the idea “Kaladin is bad for Shallan” than he probably has to write more than one little piece of misunderstanding in the next book to make me believe it. Otherwise, if he doesn’t want Shallan to end up with Kaladin - why start it in the first place?

I understand, that I can’t express everything I think about the romance “resolve” in OB in this thread and perhaps in one post too. I have much more thoughts about it, than I wrote in my post. I could write a huge essay explaining why I am so certain there will be a subversion. Really huge. But this is not the topic and perhaps also not the community to do it. I just know that I will get overwhelmed by all the Shadolin supporters here, so I think we will just have to RAFO it.

And regarding Brandon and his cheesy romances. SA is going to be his magnum opus. This fact makes me hope, that he will take the romances in it very seriously too. I just hope that Shalladin is meant to be his best romance ever

[+Oltux72]

9 hours ago, Sedside said:

You talk about it the way like the only thing Kaladin lacks is a willing woman, so anyone can offer him his daughter and there we go. He is one of the most eligible bachelors on Roshar, come on. Knight Radiant, Shardbearer, landowner, Blackthorn listens to him an trusts him, he is in command of a thousand men and so on. And just overall awesome.

He has to accept the offer. Sure. But it will be made often. And again I am afraid I will have to point out the obvious. Kaladin will be 21 or so starting Book 4. And some of these women will be pretty and they will genuinely find him heroic and atttractive. Furthermore we have Dalinar and Jasnah. Vorin society is set up so that it is more or less impossible for a professional man to be a bachelor. And they have an interest to bind the Windrunners to Alethkar or prevent an unpleasant surprise.
Actually Dalinar's first target may be Teft. But the notion will exist. There will be, well, dinner parties or the Alethi equivalent thereof.

Quote

I don't think, finding a woman is the problem. I also don't think Kaladin will marry for political reasons. He values his freedom too highly to bond with a woman he has no feelings for. He is quite stubborn, and I think he will rather stay alone. Also, pure political marriage is boring plot-wise. How will it serve Kaladin character progression?

Challenge his racism for once (or do you call that ocularism), as soon as they look each other in the eyes, if you go for character development.

Your points have merit, but they are not the only points to be made. We just cannot look at Roshar and use the criteria of an emotionally healthy 21st century western relationship on Roshar. I am sorry, but that is anachronistic, hopelessly so. For once none of the participants would be emotionally healthy. And these people are just not western. Not even literally.
We need more Jane Austen or War of the Roses. And these are not normal times. So we also need more Thirty Years War, too.

And a bit more Jasnah as a Borgia. She knows these points. And so does Dalinar. He has been dealing with young men and military officers for decades.
You pick a young widow with some spirit, who likes to talk back, from northern Alethkar and a small child that needs protection. And then you assign her to the Windrunners as a secretary. That's what I would do. And I am not a general with experience in such things.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Oltux72
Clarify in which regard Kaladin is a racist

[Guest]

@deacon

If you are willing to see confirmation for one side of the argument through implication, but demand explicit evidence for the other, I'm not sure there is anything more to say.

No, I have no explicit evidence for my claims either. And yet, I believe my case is quite strong considering Sanderson didn't forget to make Shallan infatuated. I believe, that the fact, that while Adolin says many things, that would suggest infatuation, we a) receive a lot of that though Shallan's PoV, who has proven to be quite unreliable at times and really wants, that Adolin loves her and b ) His internal thoughts just don't align, is enough of a reason to critically question how real those supposed feelings are on Adolin's side. And the fact, that he has a big reason to make it work, doesn't make me too convinced of love either. It's a lot of things adding up.

Edited March 20, 2019 by SLNC

[+Oltux72]

7 hours ago, Sedside said:

None of Adolin's love for Shallan is written in the books too. We have 0 (zero) occurences in his OB PoVs when he thinks Shallan is pretty,

We do have his reaction in the conference room before he learns who she is. He does think that she is pretty. He does think that about many women, but the fact is still there.

7 hours ago, Sedside said:

he loves her, he wants to be with her or whatever else. But it doesn't prevent people from thinking that Adolin loves Shallan. That's wonderful, I think.

He spends to much time for him not wanting to be with her. It is the love part we disagree about.
Love is to a certain degree a learned response. The core is universal. To expect from a royal, trained military officer the same pattern of responses as from contemporary westerners may or may not fit in this instance. And to extrapolate from that into the future is very risky business.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

He does think that she is pretty. He does think that about many women, but the fact is still there.

Yup. He does. Once. And then he's intrigued by her exoticness. And then all of that fizzles out into nothing. Nevertheless, your example is from WoR and not OB. Quite frankly, what I remember from OB regarding his opinion of her appearance was his internal comment about her jacket having a well enough cut, but not being very flattering, which is quite critical for someone supposedly being in love with the person he's thinking about.

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

To expect from a royal, trained military officer the same pattern of responses as from contemporary westerners may or may not fit in this instance.

Dalinar is a royal, trained military officer too and I'm not feeling any doubts regarding his love towards Navani.

[Karger]

4 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Dalinar is a royal, trained military officer too and I'm not feeling any doubts regarding his love towards Navani.

That is on you.  The truth you are crafting for yourself.  You define and detect love differently then the rest of us and that is fine.  This does not make anyone else's understanding of love different your's invalid.  Frankly I think if Nightblood's command had been "create love" he would be just as crazy as he is now if not more so.

Someone make a fanfic about that please

Edited March 20, 2019 by Karger

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Karger said:

This does not make anyone else's understanding of love different your's invalid.

Please tell me where I said that. I'd like to apologize if I did.

Edited March 20, 2019 by SLNC

[Karger]

Just now, SLNC said:

Please tell me where I said that. I'd like to apologize if I did.

I am not criticizing I am explaining.

[Guest]

Well, apparently you feel slighted otherwise you'd not have gone all ad hominem on me.

[Karger]

My point is that Dalinar, Shallan, Adolin and Navani are people and that people express love differently.  Whatever Navani and Dalinar do registers on your love meter.  Adolin and Shallan do not.  According to Pattern it would be true for you to consider Adolin and Shallan to not be in love even if many of us would argue otherwise. 

[Bookish Ocelot]

@Karger pretty sure there’s a szeth-Kaladin one a few pages back. Szaladin? Kaleth? 

[Pathfinder]

26 minutes ago, Karger said:

My point is that Dalinar, Shallan, Adolin and Navani are people and that people express love differently.  Whatever Navani and Dalinar do registers on your love meter.  Adolin and Shallan do not.  According to Pattern it would be true for you to consider Adolin and Shallan to not be in love even if many of us would argue otherwise. 

For clarity though, to be considerate of all, please notate that you are presenting your opinion as an "us" vs "the one". As in SLNC is the only one that holds its (using it as I do not know whether it is male or female) view, while stating "us" to imply everyone else agrees with you when there have been other parties that supported SLNC's view. So yes, everyones interpretation is perfectly acceptable and equal in the end as till book 4, we do not know conclusively how things will pan out. 

[Karger]

agreed

[+Oltux72]

2 hours ago, SLNC said:

Dalinar is a royal, trained military officer too and I'm not feeling any doubts regarding his love towards Navani.

No, he isn't actually. Not in the sense Adolin is. Dalinar grew up as the younger son of a remote fiefdom's leader before Alethkar was unified. He became a semiferal warrior, not a military officer. Adolin grew up very differently.

[Guest]

Fair enough, still not sure how much that really affected him in regards to romance though, because I never get the impression, that he applies military discipline on the other parts of his life, but that is just my take.

[+Oltux72]

12 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Fair enough, still not sure how much that really affected him in regards to romance though, because I never get the impression, that he applies military discipline on the other parts of his life, but that is just my take.

For once he can never be sure of the motivation of the people he meets. Are they after secrets, that is spies? Are they after money? Connections?

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

For once he can never be sure of the motivation of the people he meets. Are they after secrets, that is spies? Are they after money? Connections?

So, I'm not sure I completely understand you, because for me it looks like you're implying, that Adolin is like this, because he doesn't trust Shallan?

[deacon]

15 hours ago, Sedside said:

I didn’t only say that it’s missing from Adolin’s PoVs,  I also said that in my opinion his other actions and behaviour pretty much contradict of how I think young infatuated man should look like. There are a lot of other examples of people in love even in SA, even two old ardents in the interlude look much more convincing to me, than Adolin. And yeah, I feel strongly about it, because I see Adolin thinking “Syl is pretty”, and I don’t see Adolin thinking “Shallan is pretty”. I see Adolin thinking about Janala, about Malasha, about Danlan, I don’t see him thinking about Shallan in OB. Yes, he was thinking about her in WoR, and I think he was infatuated with her in WoR, but he kind of chilled in OB.

I mean, you can personally find it uncompelling for whatever reason you like, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The romance between Adolin and Shallan exists, and all the text and subtext support it being a romance. This thing about who Adolin thinks of as pretty is evidently a big marker for you of whether it's a romance, but those aren't the only things that equal caring for another character. I read different markers that Brandon wrote into the scenes, but that's all it is. Two readers catching on two different things. 

Besides, after all the talk about surface level attractions being a negative, I'm fine with him not having that thought in the text if it would just be taken as a sign that he only has a surface-level attraction to her.

Quote

I actually didn’t say that she only thinks about Adolin in a sexy way. She thinks the other things about him too, but what surprises me is that sexual context is much more present in her perception of Adolin, than in her perception of Kaladin, and still so many people say “she only thinks Kaladin is sexy, whereas with Adolin she has compassionate love”. I really just don’t understand how it is possible. Even her final tirade justifying her decision to marry him starts with his looks (handsome as sin) and finishes with sex (want to rip his shirt off). If we look at the overall dynamic of Shadolin vs Shalladin, we will also see the difference. She sees Adolin and the first thing she thinks is how handsome he is. But she has only started developing any kind of romantic feelings to Kaladin after she understood, what kind of person he is.

I mean, that's your take. I went from liking the idea of Kaladin/Shallan - or, Shalladin, yeah - in WoR to really being disenchanted with the idea of them in OB, based on how Brandon intentionally wrote them in this third book. In fact, in OB is when I got really upset at how Shallan thought about Kaladin. In my reading, she went from learning to try and understand Kaladin in WoR to OB where she just... really objectifies him, all that "ooh, he's so passionate and dark and stormy" (and it's even more stomach-turning when it's Veil thinking about Kaladin). In her POV, it's like... it's just so different from (1) how she interacted with him in WoR and (2) how I think about Kaladin. In OB, suddenly she was so shallow about how she thought about Kaladin, and it could have become so deep, but... Like, this is a progression of time. She catches herself thinking about Kaladin in OB and remembering their past connection, and then, no matter what the reasons are, decided to stop trying actually getting to know him. 

Quote

I didn’t say that lack of Shalladin scenes in OB points at their romance being special. Actually, it’s the chasm sequence that points to it. My argument was that if you as a writer initiate any plot line (romantic in this case), and want to finish it in a convincing way, then you don’t just drop it from the text with the two lines of thinking in the end, supported by “oh, I’ve just decided that I don’t love him” or something. Brandon has written chasm sequence, it lasted 5 chapters, it started a romantic plot line between Shallan and Kaladin and it seemed pretty storming convincing and good to me. So if Brandon wants to sell me the idea “Kaladin is bad for Shallan” than he probably has to write more than one little piece of misunderstanding in the next book to make me believe it. Otherwise, if he doesn’t want Shallan to end up with Kaladin - why start it in the first place?

The thing is that both Kaladin and Shallan do think about the chasm scene in OB - but the chasm scene happened in WoR, and is a past event. I thought it was a great moment of connection for these two, a really meaningful, intimate scene. (Though if I'm being honest, no, I don't think it was the most romantic episode I've ever read - only one of Brandon's relationships hits my top ten list and that's the aforementioned main ship in Mistborn Era 2.) Kaladin and Shallan think so, too. It wasn't dropped in two lines of thinking at the end. It was being dropped over the course of every time they thought about each other. 

Like, personally? I was expecting - or at least hoping for - some scenes where they kept connecting in OB. I thought they might learn to understand each other more, in order to support each other and start a real friendship, if not more. But what happened was that even thought they had that one moment, it didn't continue. It wasn't a series of moments. From what Brandon gave us in OB, it was like... they had the potential to be more. They absolutely had the potential to be more, but every time, they didn't pursue it. I don't even think the reason why matters, because at the end of the day, they moved on, and it doesn't seem to be a trick. I think their interactions in OB were definitely trying to tell us something about Kaladin and Shallan, and that is even though they have the potential to be more, that doesn't mean they have to be more. They're given multiple opportunities to grow towards each other in OB. Multiple chances to talk, really talk, and try and support each other, but it doesn't happen. This is where my nice ideas of what they could have been hits the wall of what Brandon is telling us they'd be like - and we have a situation where they both have such a good starting connection point and neither of them choose to do anything about it. Apparently that's the kind of people they are.

I think Shallan was the biggest obstacle here - I think she could have chosen Kaladin if she really wanted to. But that scene at the end where Adolin gives her the opportunity to freely walk away from him with no hard feelings and go to Kaladin if she wants - even if he did it very clumsily - was the scene where I knew Brandon was shutting that door. That's the narrative way of saying given the real option, free of coercion, she still chose Adolin and like... okay, Brandon, alright, you're the boss. I'm okay with the idea of Adolin/Shallan in concept, same as Kaladin/Shallan, I just was annoyed by the whole situation, I guess. I don't have to love it to see that's what Brandon was doing.

It's possible that more may come of it later in a situation where for whatever reason Shallan and Adolin aren't together, and Kaladin and Shallan get together, but it's not because Adolin/Shallan was a mistake. If a canon Kaladin/Shallan happens, it has to take into account the things we learned about them in OB. What happened between them in OB was not an accident. It wasn't an oversight that they barely spoke, and when they spoke, it went badly. Clearly they weren't ready for what could have been right now, but I don't believe that means they must be together for it to be a resolution of this arc. What happened in OB was a resolution of that idea, it just resolved as a not-relationship.

Why Brandon decided to start it when this is the ending? God, I have no idea. I'd love to ask him if I thought he'd give an answer that isn't RAFO. I guess he thinks it'll be more clear to us when we have hindsight of later books.

Quote

I’ve only read Warbreaker so far, but I actually like how Shalladin is written. For me it is very decent and a kind of romance I appreciate a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like that in any other fantasy book. Th chasm sequence is one of the best romantic episodes I’ve read so far. Again, I could explain into it much deeper, but it’s not quite the topic.

...

Yes, maybe Brandon writes cheesy romance, but to me it seems that Shadolin is written cheesy intentionally. This “without you I fade”…

...

And regarding Brandon and his cheesy romances. SA is going to be his magnum opus. This fact makes me hope, that he will take the romances in it very seriously too. I just hope that Shalladin is meant to be his best romance ever

Yeah, the thing about cheesiness is... it's relative. I find almost all of Brandon's romances very cheesy. I also have a few buddies who thought Adolin/Shallan's romantic resolution in OB was the best thing in the world, absolutely starry-eyed over it. So just because you and I find it too cheesy to be real doesn't actually mean it's too fake for Brandon to do that kind of thing. Brandon seems very happy with the way he writes romances, and I don't think he sees the cheesiness as a problem to be fixed. Some people actually like cheesiness; some people see it as a feature, not a bug. To say that "Shadolin is intentionally cheesy and therefore means that it won't last" requires that Brandon think that cheesiness is for sillier, less serious romances, which based on his other works I don't believe is the case. I really get the impression that Brandon likes light, cheery relationships, as a lot of them are. Adolin/Shallan is pretty typical of what you'll see in some of his other works. 

I really think you ought to give his other books a read. It's all really good stuff, but maybe you'd benefit from seeing how little Brandon is focused on romances overall. They always come second to plot. Brandon has very complex overarching plots, but he's a very straightforward writer. He has fairly simple prose - which is something I like - but this also means he's more of a "what you see is what you get" type of person. Everything he's said in interviews says to me that Brandon considers the situation resolved as of the end of OB. 

14 hours ago, SLNC said:

@deacon

If you are willing to see confirmation for one side of the argument through implication, but demand explicit evidence for the other, I'm not sure there is anything more to say.

No, I have no explicit evidence for my claims either. And yet, I believe my case is quite strong considering Sanderson didn't forget to make Shallan infatuated. I believe, that the fact, that while Adolin says many things, that would suggest infatuation, we a) receive a lot of that though Shallan's PoV, who has proven to be quite unreliable at times and really wants, that Adolin loves her and b ) His internal thoughts just don't align, is enough of a reason to critically question how real those supposed feelings are on Adolin's side. And the fact, that he has a big reason to make it work, doesn't make me too convinced of love either. It's a lot of things adding up.

Hmm, I'm sorry, I think there was some confusion here. I wasn't asking for proof of your argument as though we were seriously debating the topic, I asked if there was a WoB because what you said was not in the text at all. Going ahead now with the understanding that it's your interpretation of the text and not a WoB about Adolin's character that I missed:

I see where you're coming from now, but I strongly disagree, and I think that's a misreading of Brandon's intentions.

If you were wanting to convince people who don't already agree with you, you are in the unenviable position of trying to prove a negative. In the philosophical sense of proving a negative, it's much more difficult than the other way around, especially when in this context, it's like you're asking me to pretend I don't see something that seems very obvious. It's a much different proposition than proving a positive, because to prove a positive claim, one only needs a single instance. So the subtext of all the scenes in OB where Adolin and Shallan like each other, care about each other, are consistently there for each other, move from being scared of losing the relationship in Part One to being honest with each other and affirming they want to be together in Parts Four and Five, and then getting married - these are all things that are romance-coded. Shallan is the most unreliable narrator in the Stormlight books, but Brandon has never misled us this badly on anything in her story, and we know that he said OB is her at her worst. I just can't see how he would ever undo the Adolin/Shallan relationship because of her issues, as bad as her issues are.

I'm looking back on this and I'm not sure this is even necessary. We know we disagree on this now, and aren't going to be changing any minds. You don't read Adolin as loving Shallan, I do read him as a man who loves her. At this point maybe it is better to just leave it here.

Edited March 20, 2019 by deacon

[Guest]

17 minutes ago, deacon said:

If you were wanting to convince people who don't already agree with you, you are in the unenviable position of trying to prove a negative.

I already know, that this is an exercise in futility on here. So no, this is not my intent. It is just putting my opinion out there.

Edited March 20, 2019 by SLNC

[deacon]

2 minutes ago, SLNC said:

I already know, that this is an exercise in futility on here.

Oh, haha, I don't know about "on here", I really haven't been here a lot or for very long. What I meant was, you are trying to show that something doesn't exist. That's what proving a negative means, sorry, I should've explained more. In that sense, proving a negative is almost impossible, because there is no evidence of it. 

From Wikipedia: "A negative claim is a colloquialism for an affirmative claim that asserts the non-existence or exclusion of something.[10] The difference with a positive claim is that it takes only a single example to demonstrate such a positive assertion ("there is a chair in this room," requires pointing to a single chair), while the inability to give examples demonstrates that the speaker has not yet found or noticed examples rather than demonstrates that no examples exist (the negative claim that a species is extinct may be disproved by a single surviving example or proven with omniscience)."

Or the line: "Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence." So in this specific case, you might say, there is no proof that Adolin loves Shallan, but that is actually not the same thing as Adolin not loving Shallan.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, deacon said:

What I meant was, you are trying to show that something doesn't exist.

No, what I'm trying to do is find an answer for my question on why Adolin's internal thoughts don't align with what he says. I've given enough examples of that. I'm explaining my theory on why it might be and all I ever get as an answer is, that it doesn't matter, that his internal thoughts don't align.

In the end, we are all theorizing, because we don't have any clear statement of love by Adolin.

[deacon]

2 minutes ago, SLNC said:

No, what I'm trying to do is find an answer for my question on why Adolin's internal thoughts don't align with what he says. I've given enough examples of that. I'm explaining my theory on why it might be and all I ever get as an answer is, that it doesn't matter, that his internal thoughts don't align.

In the end, we are all theorizing, because we don't have any clear statement of love by Adolin.

I guess even this we'll have to disagree on. I suppose you can think we're all guessing if you would like to, but it's your opinion that his thoughts and words and actions don't align and it's my opinion that they do. Maybe someone could ask Brandon on what's going on in his internal monologue - if only I lived somewhere he actually did signings, lol.

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, deacon said:

I suppose you can think we're all guessing if you would like to, but it's your opinion that his thoughts and words and actions don't align and it's my opinion that they do.

That still doesn't mean your interpretation couldn't be wrong. This is what discussion is about, by the way.

[deacon]

1 minute ago, SLNC said:

That still doesn't mean your interpretation couldn't be wrong. This is what discussion is about, by the way.

Yeah, it sure is! I just dislike the statement that it's all guesswork, when I truly believe we have enough in the books without needing to make a guessing game out of it. Everyone thinks they're right, of course...