Kaladin is not racist

[Pathfinder]

7 hours ago, Vissy said:

To go back to the original question, Kaladin does hold genuinely racist attitudes towards the parshmen. The lighteyes-darkeyes split is not exactly a one-to-one comparison to our real-world racism because of a number of factors (race science that has seeped into the structures and dominant attitudes of society doesn't play into it in the same way, for instance), but with parshmen it very much does. The parshmen are suffering under a system of chattel slavery and have been for a long time, and it shows in even Kaladin's attitude towards Rlain even though we know that Kaladin is actually a very empathic personality and is able to empathize to a small degree with Rlain. He notices these racist attitudes, however, and tries to correct them - mostly unsuccessfully at first. The issue is quickly dropped after WoR though. I wasn't entirely satisfied with Sanderson's treatment of the topic, because if you're going to put chattel slavery into the books, you better have something to say about it or else you're just putting it there for no reason at all, right? I would've preferred this angle to become a more central part of the plot because I actually think helping the parshmen and centering their narrative ties in really neatly with the theme of fighting against the literal embodiment of hatred.

Either way, the topic came up and was used mainly to 1) show that Kaladin too held racist attitudes towards those in a lower position than him, and 2) that he was ashamed of those attitudes and eager to become a better person, very much in line with the arguably main theme of the book, that of second chances.

I think, or at least hope that is the purpose of Book 4 being from the perspective of the listeners. Kaladin can certainly sympathize with a fellow abused minority, but at the end of the day their experiences are going to be different, and it should come from the listener perspective to avoid the "white savior" and "noble savage" stereotype in media. I think it is important for them to have their own voice in speaking about the persecution they experienced. We see bits of that, but all from Kaladin's perspective, which is a very human/alethi worldview. To truly understand the centuries of history that the fused are bringing to the present, in order to truly portray that treatment, I do think the listener perspective is crucial. 

1 hour ago, agrabes said:

That is true - it was common toward the end of the era of aristocracy that wealthy commoners could buy their way to titles.  I originally was going to mention that in my previous post, but felt like it got a little long winded so I deleted it.  

My understanding of that is that only in the later periods was it possible to buy your way, after industrialization had basically bankrupted many of the nobility and raised up a new super wealthy class.  The royal families and the nobility were running low on funds and begrudgingly accepted those bought titles because they had no other choice. But, my understanding is that those "new rich" were always sort of treated as less than the old blood families.  I think the reason we don't see this in Alethkar is because they have not had the same kind of economic and societal transformation where the wealth of the old aristocracy (land) becomes much less valuable and allows a new wealthy class to arise.  The lighteyes of Alethkar don't need to accommodate wealthy darkeyes because their own wealth is generally still secure, just like the aristocracy of Europe didn't accommodate commoners until they had to.

The other paths - university training allowing relatively high status is equivalent to the top ranks of the darkeyes.  Someone like Kaladin's father was highly respected and had high social status.  It was only Roshone's jealousy and the whole stealing/not stealing the gems that caused him problems.  That was a situation specific to the people and we're told that it doesn't reflect the overall situation in Alethkar.  I don't know for sure, but it seems like darkeyes could also become ardents and attain relatively high rank there.  I think in the real world of old Europe, you could attain relatively high rank as a commoner in the priesthood, but the highest ranks were still reserved for those who came from noble families.  After all, there were a lot of people with titles like Prince-Bishop, etc.

A lot of the things that the characters do and say can be understood through the lens of the Three Estates.  In a lot of western Europe, the Nobility felt it was their divine duty and role of their class to be leaders and fighters.  They refused to engage in business even when it could have benefited them because it was not an appropriate role for their position.  The Priesthood and the Commoners also had their divinely assigned roles.  You can see this attitude in Adolin's POVs - he feels that based on his religious and cultural beliefs that he and his fellow lighteyes are the only ones suited for the role of being military leaders due to the influence of his religion.  In the same way, they leave the business enterprise to the darkeyes and the control of the church to the ardents.  I'm not saying this is a good attitude to have, but it's not a racist view in my opinion.  It's a distinction based on class that is tied up in religious trappings, just like the old monarchies of Europe.

To add to what Karger was saying, kings and such could gift lands to their people, raising them up to the nobility. Usually it involved a knighthood, but other service also counted. My own family on my mother's side can trace that back to Italy. We have a coat of arms and everything via knighthood. Now it could be said that happens on Roshar with shardblades, but given the apparent rarity of the shardblades coupled with they tend to be heavily guarded to the point that you either have to already be a shardbearer or bring an army with you to entrap them, would seriously limit what a poor darkeyes can do. Kaladin very much is the exception to the rule, and that is due to a lot more going on with him than what is typical. As to the lands, Dalinar waiting till Kaladin was a radiant before he gifted him his own land, raising him up. I do not think Dalinar waited till Kaladin's eyes turned light to do so, but the time is ironically convenient. For all intents and purposes because Kaladin is a radiant, he is a lighteyes. That is why I think radiancy will upset the whole system. But prior to radiants returning, darkeyes had only one real way to be of that level, and that is shardblades. A avenue artificially made practically impossible by the ones in power. 

 

edit: correction, actually it looks like Dalinar did in fact wait till Kaladin was considered a "lighteyes". He did it because Kaladin is a shardbearer now.

 

Oathbringer page 583

"You're a Shardbearer, kaladin. That makes you at least fourth dahn, which should be a landed title. Elhokar found you a nice portion along the river that reverted to the crown last year at the death of its brightlord, who had no heir. It's not as large as some, but it is yours now. "

54 minutes ago, agrabes said:

I do agree the three estates were (like you said) a political idea and not a 100% exact description of life in Ancien Regime France.  I always saw them as one of those things that is both political/classist (I want to make up an external reason for why I can be in charge of you) and legitimately believed.  Really, it's like a lot of things in politics today.  There are people who hold positions seriously based on real beliefs and values and others who hold those same positions for the political expediency.

Either way, though, after I responded to your original post I saw a few of your other replies and I will admit you did put out some good evidence that the lighteyes/darkeyes distinction does have more of a racist element than I originally thought.  I still believe it's not -only- racist, but it does have racist elements.  I would also be interested to know how something like the Caste system in India worked and if lighteyes/darkeyes is closer to that.  

I think you are right that lighteyes/darkeyes is not a 1:1 comparison to real world racism and Sanderson probably did this intentionally to avoid being too much like real world issues faced by a lot of his readers.  I think he did the same with the Parshmen and slavery, it's not a good 1:1 comparison to real world chattel slavery either.  He probably did this intentionally.  There are two main reasons why it's not a great example of racism or slavery:

1) It's not racism, because the Parshmen are not a race of humans.  Therefore, it cannot be racism.  The Parshmen are a different species.  I realize this is kind of a semantics argument, but I think it's an important distinction.

2) It's not chattel slavery as we know it in the real world, because the Parshmen were not of human level intelligence during the time of they were used as slaves.  The closest equivalent would be if we suddenly discovered a wild herd of horses that had human level intelligence.  Then, we found out that humans had intentionally kept the dumbest horses as captive beasts of burden and tried to kill all the intelligent ones.  That would create a similar moral challenge to what the Alethi faced when they discovered the Parshendi.  Was using horses all that time equivalent to chattel slavery?  Is it slavery if we keep doing it now that we know how we got them?  I'm not going to say the Alethi responded well to the discovery of the Parshendi - they didn't.  But, it's not a 1:1 for chattel slavery.  The literal chattel slavery experienced by Kaladin and all the Bridge Crews is a 1:1 comparison to real world chattel slavery.

I think we all used the word racist because it is familiar. What it comes down to is when people are treated differently and negatively due to a physical difference. On Earth it is race, ethnicity, and sex (not ignoring sexual orientation. I am speaking only of physical characteristics. Discrimination due to sexual orientation is very much a problem). On Roshar it is due to the color of your eyes, to a degree the color of your hair, and to your species. But the horrendous treatment still falls in line. It is discrimination based on a physical trait the person has no control over, and the projection of certain characteristics on individuals that share that physical trait. We can call it colorism. We can call it being eyeist. We can call it specist. But at the end of the day, what is being done is the same. It manifests differently, and the abused minority all have their own individual experiences of it. But to me it still involves irrational hatred, animosity, and etc via projecting characteristics that do not uniformly apply to a group that happen to share a physical characteristic. 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Pathfinder

[NameIess]

13 hours ago, Karger said:

He mentions the rank of the lighteyes not the military rank of the person holding it.  He also mentions somewhere else I think in OB that even lower Dahn lighteyes are payed better then darkeyes for the same work.

What Kaladin meant was that he was being paid like a lighteyed officer of sixth dahn whould be if they held the position of head guard for the Kholins. He referenced their dahn not because they were paid more for it, but because that was the rank you would normally have to be in order to be the head of a Highprince's guard.

 

[Karger]

20 minutes ago, Nameless said:

What Kaladin meant was that he was being paid like a lighteyed officer of sixth dahn whould be if they held the position of head guard for the Kholins. He referenced their dahn not because they were paid more for it, but because that was the rank you would normally have to be in order to be the head of a Highprince's guard.

In OB while discussing the conditions of the wall guard Kaladin realizes their are lighteyes who have normal jobs but he states that they are still payed better.  Pay is based on rank in alethkar.

Edited February 25, 2020 by Karger

[+Q10fanatic]

4 hours ago, agrabes said:

1) It's not racism, because the Parshmen are not a race of humans.  Therefore, it cannot be racism.  The Parshmen are a different species.  I realize this is kind of a semantics argument, but I think it's an important distinction.

2) It's not chattel slavery as we know it in the real world, because the Parshmen were not of human level intelligence during the time of they were used as slaves.  The closest equivalent would be if we suddenly discovered a wild herd of horses that had human level intelligence.  Then, we found out that humans had intentionally kept the dumbest horses as captive beasts of burden and tried to kill all the intelligent ones.  That would create a similar moral challenge to what the Alethi faced when they discovered the Parshendi.  Was using horses all that time equivalent to chattel slavery?  Is it slavery if we keep doing it now that we know how we got them?  I'm not going to say the Alethi responded well to the discovery of the Parshendi - they didn't.  But, it's not a 1:1 for chattel slavery.  The literal chattel slavery experienced by Kaladin and all the Bridge Crews is a 1:1 comparison to real world chattel slavery.

1. This strikes me as a distinction without a difference. Unless you are arguing that you think Brandon intends us to believe speciesm is morally superior to racism, these are one group of sentient beings enslaving another group of sentient beings. I believe has Brandon has even indicated that sentience is the key characteristic. Not whether someone is technically human.

2. The Singers were feared and respected enemies able to wage a hundreds-of-years campaign against humanity. Within a short time (1 generation? less?) that entire race was enslaved based almost entirely on the fact that they could no longer resist. They were bred by humans. Their families were separated by humans. They were injured on the job and (presumably) occasionally worked to death by humans. Also, the awakened parshmen in Alethkar told Kal that he remembered his wife being taken away but was unable to voice his objection or fight back. They were alert the entire time. 

Even your own argument shows how terrible things were for the parshmen. You say that the humans should be excused because they didn't know that the parsh had sentience, but that was a key argument used to justify chattel slavery in the U.S. and the colonies before that. Brandon has engineered this storyline to be a direct, intentional callback to those historical real-world arguments. If there are (slight) differences between them, it is only because Brandon is giving his audience a little bit of emotional distance so that we can process this in a more detached manner.

Book 3 exposed us to the reality of the colonialist history of Roshar. Historically, slavery (in the American sense) proceeded from colonialism and the conquest of Africa and the Americas. I believe Brandon wants us to wrestle with this. I expect the planet-wide mistreatment of the parsh to be a huge theme in Book 4, since we will have a larger Listener influence in this book. How can the humans begin to make amends? Will they even try? These are relevant issues in the modern world, which is part of what makes this series so good. 

[Toaster Retribution]

Nale respects humans and parsh.

Darkeyes and lighteyes. 

Men and women.

Be like Nale.

[Karger]

11 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Be like Nale.

Yes.  Do exactly as Nale does.

[+Q10fanatic]

10 minutes ago, Karger said:

Yes.  Do exactly as Nale does.

Unless you swore to follow Dalinar Kholin instead. Then do exactly as the Blackthorn does.

[Karger]

7 minutes ago, Q10fanatic said:

Unless you swore to follow Dalinar Kholin instead. Then do exactly as the Blackthorn does.

Exactly as the Blackthorn says.  Do what I say not what I do.

[Toaster Retribution]

15 minutes ago, Karger said:

Exactly as the Blackthorn says.  Do what I say not what I do.

Unless the Blackthorn tells you to do as he does and not as he says. 

[Robot]

If the blacthorn says to get the zircon fabrials working to produce oil we ask "how many"?

 

 

[Karger]

52 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Unless the Blackthorn tells you to do as he does and not as he says. 

Paradox

[Nuatoma]

1 hour ago, Q10fanatic said:

Unless you swore to follow Dalinar Kholin instead. Then do exactly as the Blackthorn does.

Haha, I just found this ironic that this is brought up in a thread discussing racism...  Whoops.

Be better than Blackthorn.  Do as he does and throw in social reform as well.

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Nuatoma said:

Be better than Blackthorn.  Do as he does and throw in social reform as well.

Exactly!

[Honorless]

On 2/24/2020 at 8:51 AM, Dreamer said:

So, you guys are telling me that you see no difference between slavery or colonialism vs only black people should say the 'n'-word?

To clarify, I meant systematic prejudice and a fervent in-group vs out-group sentiment stemming from said systematic prejudice are completely and fundamentally different things

There's a really big difference between Kaladin's justified anger and what the Vorin societal system did to him. Despite this Kaladin is still the character who's been the fastest and most consistent in grappling with his issues (except depression)

Edited February 26, 2020 by Dreamer

[agrabes]

18 hours ago, Q10fanatic said:

1. This strikes me as a distinction without a difference. Unless you are arguing that you think Brandon intends us to believe speciesm is morally superior to racism, these are one group of sentient beings enslaving another group of sentient beings. I believe has Brandon has even indicated that sentience is the key characteristic. Not whether someone is technically human.

2. The Singers were feared and respected enemies able to wage a hundreds-of-years campaign against humanity. Within a short time (1 generation? less?) that entire race was enslaved based almost entirely on the fact that they could no longer resist. They were bred by humans. Their families were separated by humans. They were injured on the job and (presumably) occasionally worked to death by humans. Also, the awakened parshmen in Alethkar told Kal that he remembered his wife being taken away but was unable to voice his objection or fight back. They were alert the entire time. 

Even your own argument shows how terrible things were for the parshmen. You say that the humans should be excused because they didn't know that the parsh had sentience, but that was a key argument used to justify chattel slavery in the U.S. and the colonies before that. Brandon has engineered this storyline to be a direct, intentional callback to those historical real-world arguments. If there are (slight) differences between them, it is only because Brandon is giving his audience a little bit of emotional distance so that we can process this in a more detached manner.

Book 3 exposed us to the reality of the colonialist history of Roshar. Historically, slavery (in the American sense) proceeded from colonialism and the conquest of Africa and the Americas. I believe Brandon wants us to wrestle with this. I expect the planet-wide mistreatment of the parsh to be a huge theme in Book 4, since we will have a larger Listener influence in this book. How can the humans begin to make amends? Will they even try? These are relevant issues in the modern world, which is part of what makes this series so good. 

1) It is a distinction with a significant difference - people of various races within the same species all have generally the same intellect, physical capabilities, and other biological properties.  It is obviously, and clearly wrong both factually and morally to make claims (as people used to do) that a person from one race was inherently more intelligent, more moral, or better in any way than a person from a different race.  A people of different species have different biological properties and may have significantly different intellect or physical capabilities.  We know that the Parsh do have significantly different biological properties from humans and that they think in a significantly different way because of it.  It would be as if those people in the 1800s and early 1900s who believed in all that racist pseudo-science that one race was scientifically superior to another turned out to be factually correct.  As distasteful as that is for us to think about, the world would be a much different place if that were true.

2) I don't excuse any of the humans who had memory or knowledge that the Parshmen were or might be sentient.  Those in the first few generations knew what they were doing and misled their children to hide their own crimes.  That is vile.  However, for hundreds of years between the time the memory of the original enslavement died out and the time the Parshendi were discovered the humans did not have any way to know or even suspect that the Parshmen were sentient.  We also don't really know the story of how the Parshmen came to be essentially the slaves of the humans.  It may be that originally the humans took them in and simply cared for them out of guilt for what they had done, but over time found they made good servants and workers and eventually started exploiting them.  Or, it may be they were exploited from day one.  But that story makes a significant difference.

I feel like you are drawing in real world history and infusing it into a situation that is similar in some respects but vastly different in others.  Yes, people did make all kinds of racist arguments justifying slavery.  They claimed that people of other races were not truly sentient, or if they were they were culturally so backwards that it was better for them to be enslaved and "protected and guided".  Yes, those things are absolutely horrible.  But, that is not what the Alethi in the time of Dalinar's childhood did.  Anyone who had contact with a real world slave could easily realize that they were in fact sentient humans, because they were.  They displayed all the characteristics of a sentient human.  It was an intentional choice to believe otherwise, motivated by racism.  That is not comparable to the Parshmen.  They were not humans and they did not display any characteristics of sentience.  Their sentience was locked away by magic.  There was no way to discover that they were sentient using the most advanced science of the time.  This is a very significant difference compared to real world slavery and makes the entire situation so different that it really is not comparable, imo.

It's also a pretty significant stretch to say the Parshmen situation is a lot like Colonialism.  There are obvious references, yes, but we just don't know enough about the early history of humans on Roshar to know what happened.  We don't know that the humans ever initiated a war of conquest or ever intentionally started a war at all.  We only know that they left the Shin area where they were supposed to be and that a war started later.  We don't know how the humans behaved during the early parts of the desolations, but we have to suspect they were losing the war badly for the Heralds to have been created.  The humans committed a horrific war crime when they created the Parshmen, there's no doubt about that.  But we don't know the overall context of the wars that led up to that event.  It was probably not the first war crime in the thousands of years of Human/Parsh warfare though it probably was the worst.

All I'm trying to say here is that there is a lot of information we as readers don't know and there is also a lot of information the characters in the story don't know that makes it a huge stretch to say "This is just like Western European Colonialism and the enslavement of Africans in the real world."  There are a lot of reasons given in the book to think otherwise.  I personally see the Parshmen issue as only vaguely similar to real world slavery due to all the real and meaningful differences between the two.  I think that Sanderson intentionally made reference to real world events and concepts, but made the story of his books different enough that he could tell his own story and examine "What if?" scenarios.  I don't think he wants to simply retell the story of slavery in the US or speculate about how the long lasting damage it caused should be handled politically.  I want to be clear that I don't support the perpetrators or seek to minimize the lasting impacts of slavery in the US, but I do have a different opinion on the plot of SA.  With that, I'll bow out of this discussion since it's getting a little too close to current real world sensitive topics.

[Pathfinder]

1 hour ago, agrabes said:

1) It is a distinction with a significant difference - people of various races within the same species all have generally the same intellect, physical capabilities, and other biological properties.  It is obviously, and clearly wrong both factually and morally to make claims (as people used to do) that a person from one race was inherently more intelligent, more moral, or better in any way than a person from a different race.  A people of different species have different biological properties and may have significantly different intellect or physical capabilities.  We know that the Parsh do have significantly different biological properties from humans and that they think in a significantly different way because of it.  It would be as if those people in the 1800s and early 1900s who believed in all that racist pseudo-science that one race was scientifically superior to another turned out to be factually correct.  As distasteful as that is for us to think about, the world would be a much different place if that were true.

2) I don't excuse any of the humans who had memory or knowledge that the Parshmen were or might be sentient.  Those in the first few generations knew what they were doing and misled their children to hide their own crimes.  That is vile.  However, for hundreds of years between the time the memory of the original enslavement died out and the time the Parshendi were discovered the humans did not have any way to know or even suspect that the Parshmen were sentient.  We also don't really know the story of how the Parshmen came to be essentially the slaves of the humans.  It may be that originally the humans took them in and simply cared for them out of guilt for what they had done, but over time found they made good servants and workers and eventually started exploiting them.  Or, it may be they were exploited from day one.  But that story makes a significant difference.

I feel like you are drawing in real world history and infusing it into a situation that is similar in some respects but vastly different in others.  Yes, people did make all kinds of racist arguments justifying slavery.  They claimed that people of other races were not truly sentient, or if they were they were culturally so backwards that it was better for them to be enslaved and "protected and guided".  Yes, those things are absolutely horrible.  But, that is not what the Alethi in the time of Dalinar's childhood did.  Anyone who had contact with a real world slave could easily realize that they were in fact sentient humans, because they were.  They displayed all the characteristics of a sentient human.  It was an intentional choice to believe otherwise, motivated by racism.  That is not comparable to the Parshmen.  They were not humans and they did not display any characteristics of sentience.  Their sentience was locked away by magic.  There was no way to discover that they were sentient using the most advanced science of the time.  This is a very significant difference compared to real world slavery and makes the entire situation so different that it really is not comparable, imo.

It's also a pretty significant stretch to say the Parshmen situation is a lot like Colonialism.  There are obvious references, yes, but we just don't know enough about the early history of humans on Roshar to know what happened.  We don't know that the humans ever initiated a war of conquest or ever intentionally started a war at all.  We only know that they left the Shin area where they were supposed to be and that a war started later.  We don't know how the humans behaved during the early parts of the desolations, but we have to suspect they were losing the war badly for the Heralds to have been created.  The humans committed a horrific war crime when they created the Parshmen, there's no doubt about that.  But we don't know the overall context of the wars that led up to that event.  It was probably not the first war crime in the thousands of years of Human/Parsh warfare though it probably was the worst.

All I'm trying to say here is that there is a lot of information we as readers don't know and there is also a lot of information the characters in the story don't know that makes it a huge stretch to say "This is just like Western European Colonialism and the enslavement of Africans in the real world."  There are a lot of reasons given in the book to think otherwise.  I personally see the Parshmen issue as only vaguely similar to real world slavery due to all the real and meaningful differences between the two.  I think that Sanderson intentionally made reference to real world events and concepts, but made the story of his books different enough that he could tell his own story and examine "What if?" scenarios.  I don't think he wants to simply retell the story of slavery in the US or speculate about how the long lasting damage it caused should be handled politically.  I want to be clear that I don't support the perpetrators or seek to minimize the lasting impacts of slavery in the US, but I do have a different opinion on the plot of SA.  With that, I'll bow out of this discussion since it's getting a little too close to current real world sensitive topics.

So first and foremost, I read and acknowledge your other prior post where you delineate the difference between the Alethi knowledge of the parsh before versus after meeting the parshendi. I agree, prior to meeting the parshendi, the current Alethi did not know the parsh were sapient. My post below is not meant to disagree or argue that point. In fact it is not meant to argue anything. Just further discuss the topics. Hope that clarified my intentions before beginning.

I think the parsh situation is interesting because it is also in line with Kaladin's actions regarding the lighteyes. The current Alethi had a worldview regarding the parsh that was validated. The parsh cannot care for themselves. They are practically beasts of burden. The current Alethi were ignorant, and applied unfair "specist" views upon the parsh as a whole. When the Alethi then met the parshendi, that is when their worldview got challenged. The question then becomes what do they do now? Do they change their worldview and take in this new information? Or do they double down, and ignore it? Unfortunately the Alethi on whole seemed to have doubled down, and ignored it. Elhokar still views them as savages. Now that the parsh have been restored, and can speak of their experiences, again the question becomes will the Alethi take in this new information and change their worldview, or will they again double down and ignore it resulting in further strife? If the Alethi do change their worldview, it does not change the negative worldview and actions they took prior, but they can choose to grow and change. Kaladin showed growth that he experienced other lighteyes that challenged his world view. He then chose to take in that new information and change his world view. 

 

edit: to further clarify just in case, it is not my intention to say Kaladin's views towards the lighteyes equates to the Alethi treatment of the parsh. What I am saying, is both views are problematic, and require the individual holding them to re-evaluate their worldview. Hopefully the individuals involved will then alter their worldview and grow as result. Also growing and change does not erase the problematic actions taken under the problematic view. It gives it context. 

Edited February 26, 2020 by Pathfinder

[+Q10fanatic]

2 hours ago, agrabes said:

All I'm trying to say here is that there is a lot of information we as readers don't know and there is also a lot of information the characters in the story don't know that makes it a huge stretch to say "This is just like Western European Colonialism and the enslavement of Africans in the real world."  There are a lot of reasons given in the book to think otherwise.  I personally see the Parshmen issue as only vaguely similar to real world slavery due to all the real and meaningful differences between the two.  I think that Sanderson intentionally made reference to real world events and concepts, but made the story of his books different enough that he could tell his own story and examine "What if?" scenarios.  I don't think he wants to simply retell the story of slavery in the US or speculate about how the long lasting damage it caused should be handled politically.  I want to be clear that I don't support the perpetrators or seek to minimize the lasting impacts of slavery in the US, but I do have a different opinion on the plot of SA.  With that, I'll bow out of this discussion since it's getting a little too close to current real world sensitive topics.

This is a fair criticism. We certainly have a lot of known-unknowns at this point and I shouldn't overstate my case. I think we may be closer to agreement than disagreement anyways. I certainly expect any "social commentary" aspects of SA books to remain on a meta-level rather than any 1:1 comparisons but I do think it is fair to make comparisons between the two.

[Honorless]

Looking forward to how Dalinar and Jasnah tackle human-Parsh relations

[Frustration]

Here is the thing though why does it matter? If I can like Dalinar who literally murdered children, why does any other flaw a character has make them an untouchable?