The Lighteyes-Darkeyes-Lighteyes-"Switch"

[Meg]

In the in-world-book The Way of Kings Nohadon said that "lighteyes were beneath the darkeyes."

I am assuming Nohadon had been a Surgebinder or Soulcaster himself and thus had light eyes. It seems peculiar to me that there is no description of Nohadon's eyes in his vision (in the Starfall and Feverstone Keep visions Dalinar explicitly mentions eye colors). I'm curious if we are ever to know this detail.

Nohadon thinks a ruler is a servant of his people. Other lighteyes ("there are Surgebinders and Soulcasters" {from the Nohadon vision, too}) seemed to be in ruling positions, too, and thus were "servants" of the people. This could have been Nohadon's reasoning to say that lighteyes were beneath the darkeyes. I'd say that the Knights Radiant were "servants" as well. So Nohadon's philosophy might have caused a change from lighteyes ruling to darkeyes ruling (as seen in the Feverstone Keep vision).

Then the Recreance happened and lots of the darkeyes got Shardblades which changed their eye color. And with those Blades and Plates they surely continued to rule and -- hopefully -- tried to keep the impacts of the Recreance-event as low as possible, establishing (again) the "god given" rule of the lighteyes.

The Vorin Church -- seeing the Recreance as their failure -- might have interpreted the change of eye colors by simply taking up the abandoned Shards as a sign from the Almighty and thus talked the new lighteyes up as 'the privileged class' while the majority of the darkeyes were put down to the 'lower class.'

edit: typos

Edited May 11, 2014 by Meg

[Aleksiel]

Nohadon could have had lighteyes without being a surgebinder, he certainly never indicated being one when he spoke with Dalinar or in his Way of Kings. There weren't KR in the time of Nahadon. He never mentioned Radiants (even is the passage on Urithiru), spoke how surgebinders should be better people; Teft said the Ideals of the Radiants are based on a book written by an old king whose name he didn't remember. But Nohadon certainly wrote about 'journey before destination'

 

Why do you say darkeyes ruled in the Feverstone vision? And this lighteyes being beneath darkeyes? His book was said to be scandalous because it implied lighteyes should do the serving, but it was more in the manner of doing what's best for the people the way I read it, not that a king should carry around refreshments. 

[Shardmancer]

Jane Elliott's Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise ..

 

 

This is exactly like the experiment done by Jane Elliot.. There are many other like it as well- sounds to me like what your getting at anyway

[Meg]

@Aleksiel

In the Feverstone Keep vision the commanding officer (or whatever his rank would be) was a darkeyes. This fact surprised Dalinar and from this I think that in Dalinar's time a lighteyes would have had such a position.

My idea might be a bit stretched but I could see a change from who had been ruling to who is ruling.

Maybe in Nohadon's days there hasn't been such a restriction; but then I think his idea of lighteyes serving darkeyes could have come from the special abilities of the "surgebinders" that should have served the people instead of installing a reason to reign.

With my idea for what happened after the Recreance I'll stay with my unbased speculation.

Anyways: The whole thing is only speculation.

edit: @Shardmancer: Wow, interesting! Upvote for you. And sad, to see how people are to be influenced, isn't it?

Edited May 11, 2014 by Meg

[Aleksiel]

It's a bit of stretch to say one darkeyed officer meant the darkeyes were the ruling class.

[Moogle]

If Nohadon didn't have light eyes, Dalinar would have commented on it. He did so in the Feverstone vision. It's alien to the Alethi worldview for darkeyes to be in a leadership position. I would have liked to know the color though, since it's possible he was a Surgebinder.

[Shardmancer]

In other parts of Roshar birth rank is what determines, other parts its skin color and even hair color... So its not a stretch to believe in Nohadon day light/dark eye distinctions werent a factor.. but perhaps another one of the many things that now cause rifts throughtout the whole of Roshar..

[Shaggai]

It's a bit of stretch to say one darkeyed officer meant the darkeyes were the ruling class.

Especially during Desolations, when practically everyone would have fought. You're going to need officers from all classes, because there are just so many people to administrate.

[Seloun]

The thing is that the only real 'evidence' of an inversion between lighteyes and darkeyes is the fact the Feverstone Keep commander was darkeyed (and that Dalinar is surprised by that). However Dalinar's description of the troops stationed at the fort indicate that these are reserve, low-quality troops; the real warriors are, unsurprisingly, the Knight themselves, who are certainly lighteyed. Note that the reason why in 'modern' times lighteyes are held in high esteem is almost certainly a carryover from Surgebinders/Radiants having light eyes.

 

It seems far more likely that there was no 'inversion'; instead, lighteyes have always had a privileged position (well, shortly after the Nahel bond was discovered, at any rate). The only difference is why lighteyes were looked up to (early on it's because they're hugely powerful, later because of the KR, then finally due to social inertia/Vorin church). In particular, it's probably not the eyes that actually mattered initially (it's just correlation to being a Surgebinder, so a non-Surgebinder with light eyes probably had no special rank pre-Recreance). I don't think there's really any data to support a role inversion between lighteyes and darkeyes (or more accurately, I don't think there's any evidence of a period of time where one's rank was determined by eye color such that dark eyes were higher rank than light eyes).

[Sphinx]

In the in-world-book The Way of Kings Nohadon said that "lighteyes were beneath the darkeyes."

I am assuming Nohadon had been a Surgebinder or Soulcaster himself and thus had light eyes. It seems peculiar to me that there is no description of Nohadon's eyes in his vision (in the Starfall and Feverstone Keep visions Dalinar explicitly mentions eye colors). I'm curious if we are ever to know this detail.

 

I don't think Nohadon actually said that in his book. We've admittedly seen only a handful of excerpts, but none of them have referenced eye colour at all, even the ones that have an emphasis on kings being the servants of those they rule.

 

The "lighteyes are beneath darkeyes" quote references Dalinar thinking about the phrase the Alethi lighteyes use to dismiss the book as sacrilegious. I can't look up the exact wording just now. Given  the way the Alethi language has adapted so that class rank is synonymous with eye colour (see Rock's difficulties explaining his homeland's nobility), it seems highly probable to me that the "lighteyes are beneath darkeyes" comes from reading cultural norms into "rulers should serve their people" and possibly difficulties with translation (I know there's some discussion of books and translations and ancient copies of Way of Kings surviving, and I think it highly likely that the Way of Kings was not written in modern Alethi, so the "lighteyes" may have snuck into translations, when it wasn't in the original text.)

 

I think this tells us that in Nohadon's time eyecolour was not synonymous with leadership, though as they were coming out of a Desolation without the Knight's Radiant, it is likely that many of the surviving surgebinders had risen to positions of leadership and authority, but that there were still non-surgebinders who held power. The events leading up to the Recreance, and the Recreance itself, may well have been a turning point in the stratification of lighteyes and darkeyes as distinct social classes.