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Let's talk about Kaladin's attitude in WoR.


eveorjoy

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The hero is injured and all is lost until the hero finds "the secret" is a common trope. Writers are going to use it over and over again, but it is never a rip-off anymore than the hero and heroine falling in love or class-ism in a book is a rip-off.

 

This trope is often used when a warrior-hero needs to learn an important theme or gain and important item in an exciting way.

 

 

I can only agree with this.

 

But

 

As the trope acts as an release valve. Through out the book there is a build up leading to this expected moment. It is suppost to be a "Yes!" and now we "win the day" moment. It works extremely well in meny books, WoK one of the best if you ask me. But there is also books where this does not work as well and I think WoR fits in that category. 

 

For me we have Kaladins story that I got draged through the entire book, I really had to force it at times, since I found in way to long and tedious. If we compare tWoK with WoR in the case of Kaladin. I would say that WoK is a physical book, more emphasis on fighting for survival and the war in general, we see him train his "squad" etc. WoR on the other hand is more of an internal struggle book, trust, who he wants to be, and follow orders, the fighting done is more of "needs be be some action scens else it gets boring". 

 

Now since I already was annoyed with Kaladins arc and then get to the "release" valve, where Brandon uses a for me very "Physical" trope for an interna struggle book, that does not according to me fit Kaladins story to well. The "awesome" and "save the day", "Yes!! Fist pump!" turns in to a "not this again!" feeling. When I first read it I actually was disappointed on the entire scen, somehow I felt cheated/let down. 

 

Al of Kaladins scens in the book are in them self very well done and good scens, in a sens the line of progression is good and well done it is just something I do not like to read. I find it to long drawn out, I do not find the "release" valve to match the internal struggle he faces, I find the focus on his issues/hatred  to be a little bit over the top for what I can stomach. The main fight scens with Kaladin, Areana, Chasmfiend and Szeth where al good in a way but for me they also have big problems and in a way is disconnected from his story, like they belong to a different book.

 

The arena is probably the best of the 3 and it holds up very well until the end, the slap blade and spren screaming, opponent runs out felt out of place and was very anticlimax for the scen. This scen is well connected to the story and what I wrote here is nitpicking really but when adding it to the whole it have an effect in the disappointment feeling i have.

 

The Chasmfiend, I totally understand why the Chasmfiend was there, the entire chams part of the book needs some sense of danger to the deadline that the highstorm gives. The fight it self was good no doubt but here I have Started to be very annoyed in general with Kaladin and the fight somehow provoke the feeling "Yes I know Kaladin is awesome, he is so f**king awesome that he can even kill the biggest chasmfiend ever seen even without sormlight!, you do not have to force it down my throat Brandon!", and yes he had help from Shallan and pattern but still thats the feeling I got. I actually think the fight it self was unnecessary and the sense of danger from the chasmfiend was well enough.

 

The Szeth fight, here I was just bored and could not connect with Kaladin at al, the annoyance levels where just to high in me. For me the scen was not cool it was just a way for brandon to show what could be done by a newbe windrunner as well as give a sens of what the radiant blades can actually do.

 

As I see it the internal struggle that is the main part of Kaldins arc does not connect with he physical parts of his arc. The fights feels forced on the storey (except arena fight).

 

How it is now with: internal struggle, internal struggle .... does it never end.... internal struggle....coated with feeling of "wrong" release valve /trope to solve internal struggle, to finish with the "now we save they day moment" that feels disconnected and is unsatisfactory for me. Not at al of the caliber I expect Brandon to deliver. 

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The climax of WoK was very strong. But I do believe that, for many readers, it set up Kaladin as a traditional power fantasy. This created many expectations that did not line up where Brandon was taking the story.

 

There was a lot of that right here in this forum before the release.  About how awesome it was going to be when Kaladin confronted Amaram (without thinking about how this would affect his relationship with Dalinar).  About how awesome it was going to be when Kaladin confronted Seth. 

 

To say that his story arc is a rehash of WoK is just false.  The lessons he learned are completely different.  The WoK was learning about being a leader. His 2nd ideal is an oath that gives him a position of power, the savior role.  In WoR was learning lessons about being a follower, about being subservient. You see this throughout the book as Dalinar castigates Kaladin for lack of respect.  The 3rd is an oath about being bound by responsibility, and not just your personal feelings.  This is not a lesson that Kaladin could learn as a bridgeman, when there was no lower that he could go.

 

What Kaladin's story lacked is the power that many thought he had gained at the end of WoK (and which he really didn't).  Instead of shifting to an external conflict, his story conflict remained internal. That is the only way in which the two stories are the same.

 

I agree with you. I myself felt at first that my expectations weren't met, but then I paused to think about Kal and realized how easily I had ignored all the pain he suppressed to try and lead Bridge Four to salvation. I suppose if Brandon had spend some time at the end of WoK to show more about Kal's inner struggle and fears starting anew, this wouldn't have happened.  

 

At first I had problem with Shallan as well. In WoK she seemed so naive and annoying that her quick growth and ability to fool the Ghostbloods felt forced. I suppose I should have given her more credit considering how well she'd done with getting to be Jasnah's ward, then stealing her fabrial considering she's never stepped outside home or controlled environment. Yet my expectations of her were different and I had to rethink her story in WoK to really make sense of her in WoR.

 

In a way, this was a challenge to the readers: how well do you know this character and how realistic are your expectations. 

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One thing that I thought of early this morning is the relationship between brokenness and investiture.

 

Conceivably, in order to reach that next level of investiture, one would need to be broken just a bit more, which would provide additional reasoning for Kaladin's need to deal with his depression again.

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As I see it the internal struggle that is the main part of Kaldins arc does not connect with he physical parts of his arc. The fights feels forced on the storey (except arena fight).

 

I disagree. For me the physical fights mixed well with his internal struggle. Still, it is all a matter of perspective. I expected a fight in the chasms with a fiend in book one. Brandon was foreshadowing it back then. So when it showed up in book 2 it wasn't jarring. Also had Shallan not been there Kaladin would have died. She did more than just distract the monster. She gave him a weapon that could kill the monster. Men without stormlight have killed chasmfiends before. The difference between the two fights is that Kaladin came away a lot more injured. Still, I'm not going to argue the realism of Kaladin killing a chasmfiend without stormlight. Kaladin also flies in the book and Shallan and he both survive a drop of over two hundred feet. If you feel that Kaladin's fight with the chasmfiend is spending your disbelief too far, then oh well.

 

Also though Brandon is using that trope again he is not using it in the same way. Besides the details I pointed out in an earlier post, that scene is far more internal than external. It's not really an action scene. Kaladin is in way over his head. He got a lucky shot at the guards at the door and failed to kill one of them. After he knocks out the second guard again, Kaladin doesn't really fight anyone else at the palace. He stands up to Moash, but Moash wipes the floor with him. That scene is Kaladin standing weak ineffective, but doing so because that is who he wants to be. And when he gets powered up he doesn't attack Graves or Moash. That scene is not an action scene. 

 

The fights with Szeth are the power fantasy actions scenes. I will agree those scenes have little to do with Kaladin's arc, other than he is saving a man he trusts and respects. I enjoy them, but if they aren't your thing I understand.

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He annoyed the CRAP out of me!! I wanted to just reach into the book and smack him!!! But, I'm okay with that because I think Brandon fully intended for us to be irritated with him...and I think we did need to see him wrestle with his anger and prejudice against lighteyes, in particular Amaram. 

 

I'm really curious to see how he acts with Roshone in book 3 though. In theory, he's already "accepted" what he needs to do/how he should feel in regards to people/lighteyes he doesn't like. I'll be VERY disappointed if he backslides or has to go through all this stuff once AGAIN in order to progress. 

 

I'd really like to see him deal with his slave brands instead...although those are SUCH an integral part of him, I'm not sure he'll ever want to be rid of them. We shall see :D

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I find sometimes find his attitude annoying and a bit petulant, but totally understandable and completely within character.

 

I think this is what made me really enjoy Shallan during this book. Their walk through chasams and the way they played off of one another really felt very natural to me. And *just* when I was getting to the point where Kal was becoming a bit unbearable Shallan gives him the dose of reality he needed. I thought that was very well done.

In fact, I think Brandon did a great about face here. In book 1 I clearly saw Kaladin as an archetypal hero and I loved him for that fact alone. Shallan was sort of boring and plain jain compared to Kaladin.

Then in book 2 we get this turnaround where we see Shallan coming into her own and learning about her powers and Kaladin moping around and I thought to myself, "Well, maybe I was wrong. Maybe Shallan was the hero all along."

And then it turns out that they're both heros but in such different ways.

I just loved it.

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To say that his story arc is a rehash of WoK is just false.  The lessons he learned are completely different.  The WoK was learning about being a leader. His 2nd ideal is an oath that gives him a position of power, the savior role.  In WoR was learning lessons about being a follower, about being subservient. You see this throughout the book as Dalinar castigates Kaladin for lack of respect.  The 3rd is an oath about being bound by responsibility, and not just your personal feelings.  This is not a lesson that Kaladin could learn as a bridgeman, when there was no lower that he could go.

 

What Kaladin's story lacked is the power that many thought he had gained at the end of WoK (and which he really didn't).  Instead of shifting to an external conflict, his story conflict remained internal. That is the only way in which the two stories are the same.

 

In some ways what you're saying is correct.  If we imagine Kaladin's story arc in WoK being a walk through deciduous trees, then in WoR it's clearly a walk through evergreens; completely different!  And yet, even though the details are different, the big picture is the same--he's still walking in a forest through a bunch of trees.  In WoK he struggled with accepting himself, accepting responsibility, and accepting others; in WoR he struggled with accepting himself and accepting others that weren't Bridgemen.  Maybe the lessons he learned were completely different if you're clever enough to look beneath the surface--but the presentation of them is what was so jarring, boring, and frustrating because it feels like a backslide or rehash.

 

A much, MUCH more interesting way to have presented his struggle with the lighteyes would have been to bring the Parshendi into it; after all, Kaladin says that he felt closer to them, and was uncomfortable fighting them at the end of WoK.  You'd think that he'd make some efforts to learn more about them in WoR, but no.  We see a couple reminders of this, with the comment someone makes about the Bridge 4 bodyguards not fighting, and then when he gives Shen a spear saying (paraphrased) "Others judge me by the color of my eyes, and that's wrong; so I won't judge you by the color of your skin, because that's equally wrong."  So it doesn't seem like that was forgotten at all, but that Kaladin's time on screen was cut down to being unreasonably angry with a chip on his shoulder (he is just as guilty for judging people by the color of their eyes as any lighteyes is, after all) interspersed with action scenes.  Up until the walk through the Chasm, anyway.

 

His final realization that Elhokar is Dalinar's Tien, and his actions saving him, well, it's pretty damnation awesome.  That scene is one of my favorites in the book.  But I still firmly believe that he could have reached that point in a much more interesting, less frustrating trudge through an internal conflict eerily similar to one he already fought through once.

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