Jump to content

WOB about Kaladin & Shallan...


Auralis

Recommended Posts

Now, that, I'm just not sure about. Kaladin spends so little time thinking about it at all, except for that time he imagines Syl being there...

About the way Brandon often writes about (premarital) sex and the having of it, I just saw a WoB earlier today, let me see if I can find it.

Internet magic, my time searching for it doesn't affect y'all at all! Here we go:

Quote

dragontales3

I know this was a few months ago, but I have a follow up question (huge fan of your work btw!): Do you purposely mention characters having sex to show that they are maybe not "good guys"/"bad guys" are mentioned having sex as a continuation of their lowered morals? Like OP mentioned with rape, of course that would be a sign that someone is a terrible person, but I can think of several other instances in your books were someone engages in consensual sex who later turns out to be more morally loose.

ETA: I mean premarital sex

Brandon Sanderson

I don't personally consider this to be a sign of who is good or bad, but I can't speak for how the morals that shape my own society might affect my unconscious application of morals in my books. That's certainly something for critics to analyze, not for me to speak on.

If it's relevant, though, I don't perceive it this way. More, the people I mention engaging in premarital sex are ones more likely to reject societal mores. (Such as MeLaan.) I also am more likely to do it for characters who are not primary viewpoint characters, for reasons I've mentioned--the ability to allow plausible deniability for readers who wish to view the characters in a certain way. I can see myself unconsciously letting myself say more about villains for a similar reason, though I don't intend it to be causal.

link

So to me, that's saying he wouldn't necessarily confirm it, and perhaps not for main characters. But he's not-not confirming it, either? Maybe this is a big ol' 'if you want it to have happened, then go ahead and think that' thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I’ve heard and said a lot about this already, so I’ll just say this: I’ve heard sooo many people complaining that adding Kaladin into the love triangle did nothing but agitate Shadolin shippers and get the Shalladin shippers hopes up, and they’re right that Kaladin didn’t have an impact. I don’t think Brandon is capable of writing or saying something that isn’t dripping with meaning and foreshadowing, so I think that this triangle isn’t over. Maybe for now, but things will certainly open back up again.

Edited by IGetLIFTed
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/30/2019 at 3:17 PM, IGetLIFTed said:

they’re right that Kaladin didn’t have an impact

I disagree with that.

For Kaladin, I think it chipped away a little bit at his perspective on lighteyes. His relationship with Dalinar has obviously been the biggest factor in Kaladin overcoming his prejudices. And his time with the Kholinar Wall Guard was also pretty significant. But I think his interactions with Shallan, including the slight romantic interest, played into that development.

For Shallan, I think Kaladin was a way for Brandon to highlight the depth of her splintering personalities. At first she's a teenage girl with mixed emotions that she's not entirely sure how to sort through. She's interested in both for different reasons, which is totally normal. Then the next moment she's got different personalities interested in different guys. Not good!

Edit: Oh, and for Adolin it highlighted his feelings of inadequacy pretty well, I think, if nothing else.

Edited by Jofwu
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Jofwu said:

For Kaladin, I think it chipped away a little bit at his perspective on lighteyes.

Yeah, but a romantic relationship isn’t required for that to happen. Things could stay friendly without straying into relationship territory, and still help Kaladin to get over his prejudice against lighteyes.

Quote

For Shallan, I think Kaladin was a way for Brandon to highlight the depth of her splintering personalities. At first she's a teenage girl with mixed emotions that she's not entirely sure how to sort through. She's interested in both for different reasons, which is totally normal. Then the next moment she's got different personalities interested in different guys. Not good!

There are plenty of ways to highlight Shallan’s issues without agitating/exciting fans for no reason. She doesn’t need Kaladin to show her personas. You can look at the different attitudes, mannerisms, interests, etc. It was just uneccessary and disappointing to Shalladin shippers and anxiety-inducing to Shadolin shippers. His being in the love triangle didn’t really fuel character development or do much of anything at all.

 

Edited by IGetLIFTed
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, IGetLIFTed said:

Yeah, but a romantic relationship isn’t required for that to happen. Things could stay friendly without straying into relationship territory, and still help Kaladin to get over his prejudice against lighteyes.

Ehhhh... I don't think my points work out nearly as well if they were just... good friends. The Kaladin point does. The other two really don't as far as I can see.

3 hours ago, IGetLIFTed said:

There are plenty of ways to highlight Shallan’s issues without agitating/exciting fans for no reason.

I don't know if "agitated" is the perfect word for it. That sort of tension ("Oh no! Is it going to work out the way I want it to?") is part of good storytelling. 

That said, I agree it wasn't necessary. But then I don't think it went over as smoothly as Brandon hoped it would.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Jofwu said:

I don't know if "agitated" is the perfect word for it. That sort of tension ("Oh no! Is it going to work out the way I want it to?") is part of good storytelling. 

That said, I agree it wasn't necessary. But then I don't think it went over as smoothly as Brandon hoped it would.

I don't think misdirecting your reader is the best way to go about it. However, yeah, it might have not been exactly how Brandon has intended...

Or exactly like he intended, with it not being over yet :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would like to just take a moment to point out that Brandon has managed to make such a controversial arc in his books that people are always talking about it in like at least three topics at any given point. It’s been this way for over a year since the book came out, and doesn’t look like it’s gonna end anytime soon. That’s at least one way to get people to keep talking about your books.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, SLNC said:

I don't think misdirecting your reader is the best way to go about it. However, yeah, it might have not been exactly how Brandon has intended...

Or exactly like he intended, with it not being over yet :D

Yeah I think he put too much into it for it to mean nothing in the end

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, IGetLIFTed said:

Yeah I think he put too much into it for it to mean nothing in the end

That's just the thing, the way he went about this was completely stupid if he intended to rush to a full stop at the end of OB

+ Don't going into the way she chose adolin at the end, that already had been pointed out countless of times

+ We didn't see the wedding, just Shallan being again unsure about herself until she talks herself into it.

+ And then we know that SA 4 will be 1 year in the future from that very important event we never even see, it's just weird. It doesn't make any sense and if it really resolves that way it's the worst writing of a relationship I've ever seen.

Especially the '1 year later stunt' - that's sometimes a good thing, but now, after the ending of OB it just feels like a very very cheap escape not to have to explain too much.

And usually Sanderson isn't taking cheap escapes but has everything planned out one way or the other.

We'll have to see I guess, but that resolve combined with the one year gap... sorry not buying it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 hours ago, Jofwu said:

For Kaladin, I think it chipped away a little bit at his perspective on lighteyes. His relationship with Dalinar has obviously been the biggest factor in Kaladin overcoming his prejudices. And his time with the Kholinar Wall Guard was also pretty significant. But I think his interactions with Shallan, including the slight romantic interest, played into that development.

I disagree. We see his prejudice against lighteyes fading during his meeting with Roshone. It happened in the very start of Kaladin's arc in OB before he even thought about Shallan, and the reasoning was "he met true evil", not "he met a wonderful lighteyed girl and fell in love with her". There is no single line in OB that points at the idea that his feelings for Shallan somehow affected his attitude for lighteyes. He just develops it all by himself. We can totally throw Shallan away from his head and everything remains the same for Kaladin.

15 hours ago, Jofwu said:

For Shallan, I think Kaladin was a way for Brandon to highlight the depth of her splintering personalities. At first she's a teenage girl with mixed emotions that she's not entirely sure how to sort through. She's interested in both for different reasons, which is totally normal. Then the next moment she's got different personalities interested in different guys. Not good!

And again I disagree. We have a WoB, where Brandon says that he tweaked the romantic arc after beta-read to make different personas love different men. It means that Shallan's part in romantic arc wasn't initially meant to cause or progress her dissociation or deepen the difference between her personas. It was the idea that came to Sanderson later, when the book was already written.

And I totally agree that Kaladin-Shallan romantic arc served absolutely no purpose plot-wise so far. So there is no way it is finished. Just like Sadeas' murder and Adolin's Mary Sueish nature. Payback is coming :ph34r:

Edited by Sedside
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Sedside said:

There is no single line in OB that points at the idea that his feelings for Shallan somehow affected his attitude for lighteyes.

I was referring to their WoR interactions.

Quote

The romantic angle between Shallan/Adolin/Kaladin was tweaked as I more and more referenced the idea that two different personalities of Shallan's were in love with two different people. IE--moving it further away from a love triangle, and instead showing more clearly that that Shallan was splitting further into multiple people, with different life goals.

I forgot about that WoB! This is exactly what I'm saying the relationships do, so I'm confused why you're saying the relationships serve no purpose? Feels like you're arguing the final version doesn't count because it's not what Brandon originally planned... :huh: He wrote what he wrote. :) Unless you're thinking he said this but didn't execute it well? I'm just not sure what you mean.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I could be completely wrong, but I have felt since concluding OB last summer that the Kaladin / Shallan stuff was mostly thrown in there to give Kaladin someone to sort of romantically focus on for a bit while the other pieces on the chess board were being maneuvered as some readers who like to have a romance arc in the books they read would be bored / turned off if they went (3) long novels without any romance stuff for the main character. I think we either haven't met Kaladin's primary romance target yet, or we have, and he simply hasn't had much interaction with her yet for whatever reason.

Edited by Razrback16
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 hours ago, Jofwu said:

I was referring to their WoR interactions.

In WoR I don't see Shallan's influence on Kaladin's attitude towards lighteyes as well. His choice to protect Elhokar was done under influence of Syl, Zahel, and his own reflection of Tien and what's right. Could you please give me current example of any of his choices made under influence of his feelings to Shallan? Because I'm really struggling to find one. Yes, he was thinking some kind of "lighteyes can cry too" once after chasms, but 1) I didn't see him making any choice based on this; 2) why should we bring romance here? Couldn't they just speak as friends?

10 hours ago, Jofwu said:

I forgot about that WoB! This is exactly what I'm saying the relationships do, so I'm confused why you're saying the relationships serve no purpose? Feels like you're arguing the final version doesn't count because it's not what Brandon originally planned... :huh: He wrote what he wrote. :) Unless you're thinking he said this but didn't execute it well? I'm just not sure what you mean.

What I mean is that this WoB proves us the following sequence of events:

  1. BS decides to write Kaladin-Shallan-Adolin love triangle in OB.
  2. BS writes first version of OB with love triangle and multiple personas.
  3. After beta-read BS has an idea to change love triangle a bit to stress the multiple personas, but the triangle was already there.

So the initial purpose of the triangle wasn't to stress Shallan's dissociation, it was tweaked. If Kaladin was initially meant to be just the additional factor of Shallan's dissociation, then BS should have written the triangle this way initially, and not tweaked it later.

Anyway, if Kaladin is there only to dissociate Shallan, then why in Damnation he must be in love with her too? Didn't he have enough of stress in OB already? <_<

7 hours ago, Razrback16 said:

I could be completely wrong, but I have felt since concluding OB last summer that the Kaladin / Shallan stuff was mostly thrown in there to give Kaladin someone to sort of romantically focus on for a bit while the other pieces on the chess board were being maneuvered as some readers who like to have a romance arc in the books they read would be bored / turned off if they went (3) long novels without any romance stuff for the main character. I think we either haven't met Kaladin's primary romance target yet, or we have, and he simply hasn't had much interaction with her yet for whatever reason.

I very much hope it's not the case. Doing so would be very cheap and annoying. Better leave Kaladin with no romance at all. Or, well, could he probably go out with Jenet? They had some chemistry, I think :D I mean I understand that in real life it happens all the time, but this is a book. If something is written in a book it must lead somewhere, otherwise just don't write about it. If something happening with a character isn't followed with some desicions or events, then don't waste page time on it. Characters eat, drink, go to the toilet and do whatever everyday stuff, but unless it affects the plot somehow we don't have to read that Adolin felt a call of nature in his Shardplate and you know what happened then. We only discover it when he tells Shallan about it and it influences the characters' relationship and gives us a better evaluation of their personalities. Bringing in a romatic arc just to keep the reader on a hook and then turn it to nowhere is a bad writing, in my opinion.

Edited by Sedside
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that the Adolin and Shallan relationship is going to take a turn that no one is actually expecting.....I don't think it's going to stay as "simple" as it now seems to be. Heck, i dont even think that Shallan is actually in love with Adolin.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Chaos locked this topic
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...