Anonymous Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 I've seen it posted places that Dalinar went to the Nightwatcher to ask for a boon and the result was that he was cursed to forget everything about his wife, including not hearing anything specific people say about her. If this has already been confirmed somewhere then I apologize. I'm new to the online community and don't know for certain what has and hasn't been discussed. My theory is that the empty place in his mind where his wife used to be is actually his boon, rather than his curse. We know he gets one of each, and the details of the event remain vague, along with everything related to his wife. It's possible that after his wife died he was so stricken with grief that he thought it would be better not to remember anything about her at all. In this sense, maybe the loss of memories isn't the curse, but the boon, or possibly both, as with Taravangian's variable intelligence. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Observer Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 The problem here is that it would require Dalinar to have a different, mentally-related curse, and from the extensive POVs we've had of him, he doesn't seem to have anything else of the sort. The problem with talking about this is that literally the only time anybody talks about Dalinar's wife that we can hear is around him, which means of course that he can't hear it, and he himself can't think about her. This means that we have no idea when he went to the Nightwatcher, a bit of a problem. If I had to guess, I'd say forgetting was his curse. His boon was related to helping Gavilar take over the highprinces, or something related to that. Sadly, it's just a guess, and only WoB can tell us at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimmingly Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 I wonder, could the boon have been the crack in his soul that allowed the Stormfather to bond with him? So all through the book he knew he had the potential to become a KR? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Observer Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 (edited) The problem with that being that he never once thinks of himself as a Knight Radiant, or even a potential one. He chooses to name Amaram the head of it, and doesn't bother joining himself or even thinking about it. If he had asked for the chance to be a KR, I imagine it'd be on his mind, especially when he starts having visions about the KR. EDIT: Somehow KR became KIA. Go figure. Edited March 26, 2014 by Observer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimmingly Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 The problem with that being that he never once thinks of himself as a Knight Radiant, or even a potential one. He chooses to name Amaram the head of it, and doesn't bother joining himself or even thinking about it. If he had asked for the chance to be a KR, I imagine it'd be on his mind, especially when he starts having visions about the KR. EDIT: Somehow KR became KIA. Go figure. Given their profession, I imagine many of them were KIA. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Star Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 The problem with that being that he never once thinks of himself as a Knight Radiant, or even a potential one. He chooses to name Amaram the head of it, and doesn't bother joining himself or even thinking about it. I don't think that he would have been able to get away with that. Naming Amaram as the head of the radiants was seen as being heretical enough by itself. I highly doubt he could have survived for long by proclaiming himself to be the leader of the radiants. I think that the Amaram thing was mostly symbolic. If there was a reason not to do it, it would have been Kaladin's confession (Why you do this Dalinar?!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Observer Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 Okay, bad example. Still, don't you think we would have at least heard him think about that kind of a boon when discussing the Radiants countless times, both with others and himself? He even says that he seriously doubts the visions of the KR where related to his Boon/Curse, so I don't think it's anything close to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argent Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 (edited) I am disappointed this is not a shipping thread. The title misled me Edited March 31, 2014 by Argent 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrindIf Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 I supposed his boon was to not grief about his wife anymore, and his boon was to totally forgot her. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truthless Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 I supposed his boon was to not grief about his wife anymore, and his boon was to totally forgot her. That sounds very likely to me. Nightwatcher just wrapped the curse and the boon all into one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FlatLine Posted March 26, 2014 Report Share Posted March 26, 2014 I need to go reread some stuff, but I was thinking that his boon was to not grieve for his wife = completely no memory of her, and his curse had to do with Renarin's blood disease. I remember Kaladin saying it didn't sound quite normal. I also read that the boons and curses don't have to be related to one another. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grinachu Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 I don't understand how it can be stated that the Dalinar's boon is to remove the grief of his wife's loss (as some posters have speculated) and the curse is to lose all memory of her. It seems like the boon and the curse collapse into one another- that is if you wish to overcome your grief the most efficient way is to remove all memory of the person whose loss is causing the grief. I would hope that Dalinar's boon and curse would be more original than that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sppipe Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 (edited) Sanderson has kept Dalinar's Boon/curse in the dark on purpose, we don't even know if not being able to know anything about his wife is the curse or the boon, and we don't know anything about the second part of the deal, or even if there is a second part to the deal. However, judging by how curious he is about his wife, that it almost seems he wished he could remember her. This makes me think that losing memory of her is the curse; this is based on the fact that he says that he knows exactly what the boon and curse are, therefore he knows what he got on both sides, and yet he wishes he had not lost the memories, he also seems ashamed of not being able to remember her, and is afraid of somehow offending her memory (whatever that is) This leaves the question of what the boon is. Hopefully it is revealed in the net book, though i have the feeling we will have to wait until we get to Dalinar's book; It just seems like a nice and juicy secret to keep. Also, I don't expect the boon to be something lame and irrelevant to the current timeline like "help me win the next battle so that Gallivar can be king." Thinking about those lines, it also does not seem likely that the boon would be "Help me get over the grief of losing shshshshs" That is just too lame, and lame is not something I usually associate with Brandon's wprk Edited March 27, 2014 by sppipe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thejopen27 Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 (edited) His boon cannot be anything related to his wife because he tells Navani (of course he could be lying) in tWoK that he knows exactly what his boon and his curse are. If his boon were related to his wife he wouldn't remember what it was would he? I don't know, that's how I interpreted it. Also on the nature of the Nightwatcher, we don't know enough about how she works. I don't think she has to give both a boon and a curse. She gives you what she thinks you deserve or what you've earned, or maybe if she is cultivation she gives you what will help advance her strategy. Remember she is Cultivation, she could be slowly moving pieces cultivating some master plan. Lift doesn't really seem to have a curse. Her ability to interact directly with Spren is clearly a boon, although not a very traditional one and her ability to transform food directly into stormlight could maybe be a curse if she can't ever be full because she keeps turning her food into stormlight, but is highly useful to a Surgebinder, especially an Edgedancer who could theoretically grow her own seeds. It appears that the Nightmother had a plan for Lift and gave her two tools for her future. Edited March 27, 2014 by thejopen27 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Observer Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 Almost all of Nightwatcher's curses are mental or cognitive, though boons don't have to be. In that light, I'm almost 100% sure forgetting was his curse. Knowing how long we have until Dalinar's book, I'm willing to be his wife was crazy kinds of important. Is there a thread for who she might be, because I've been compiling quotes about who she was :/ If he was ashamed enough of going to the Nightwatched, whatever he asked for was probably pretty big. Problem is, he won't say when it was chronologically, making guessing kind of hard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trendkill Posted March 27, 2014 Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 Have we even gotten a firm confirmation about anyone's curse or boon? It seems like it's all just speculation at this point. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts