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Was Elhokar an Actually Bad King?


Karger

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On 5/30/2020 at 9:41 PM, Karger said:

Very good analysis everyone!  This topic is one of the most interesting to me as I identify with Elhokar more then almost any other character in the SA.  I came across this WoB a while ago and I think it is a good question.

I think his last truth was that he never really wanted to be king in the first place.

The way he describes it as a journey [to the for Truths leading to the Fifth Ideal] as "starting negative" maybe implies that it turns to the positive for the later Truths, hey? Interesting.

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1 minute ago, BrightLordSwageas said:

I thought the same thing. Or that he just wanted the attention of the title rather than commit to the role.

It may have been a little more then that.  I am sure he liked being the most important guy on the planet sometimes but in general I am not sure he was an attention seeker.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another candidate for the final truth could be that he always knew how to be a hero and a great king, but was too afraid to act on it. That he was lying when he asked those around him to teach him how to be a hero or that he wanted to figure out how to be a great king.

Elhokar's story is really one of the most tragic in the Stormlight Archive, in my opinion. A man trying so hard to be better, painfully aware of not just his shortcomings but his failure to rise to be a better man, when all around him are doing just that. Finally, when he has a chance to take a step towards growth and redemption, it's stolen by Moash.

The greatest villainy of Moash isn't his betrayal of Bridge Four. It's what he takes from Elhokar. He kills him just as he's about to become a better man.

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Another potential Truth could be admitting that his father wasn't a good king either - that he didn't deserve to be idolized by him at least - so that he could move on and be himself as a better man and king. 

For the original question I consider Elhokar immature and slowly growing past it until his death, and unfortunately for me that makes him a bad king. Though I certainly think with maturity he would have been good.

Another minor tragedy that always bothered me was if Jasnah had told her family the truth about her becoming a Radiant far earlier on, Elhokar would have wasted far less time being paranoid and may have matured faster / been a Surgebinder by the time Moash comes around.

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On 6/1/2020 at 6:29 AM, robardin said:

The way he describes it as a journey [to the for Truths leading to the Fifth Ideal] as "starting negative" maybe implies that it turns to the positive for the later Truths, hey? Interesting.

That is often how maturity is gained. I have done these bad things. I have grown in these ways. I'm not the awful person I believe myself to be. 

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6 hours ago, Golstar said:

Another candidate for the final truth could be that he always knew how to be a hero and a great king, but was too afraid to act on it. That he was lying when he asked those around him to teach him how to be a hero or that he wanted to figure out how to be a great king.

Elhokar's story is really one of the most tragic in the Stormlight Archive, in my opinion. A man trying so hard to be better, painfully aware of not just his shortcomings but his failure to rise to be a better man, when all around him are doing just that. Finally, when he has a chance to take a step towards growth and redemption, it's stolen by Moash.

The greatest villainy of Moash isn't his betrayal of Bridge Four. It's what he takes from Elhokar. He kills him just as he's about to become a better man.

I don't know - I never read Elhokar's story this way.  Throughout WoK, he seemed like a generally petty and self absorbed guy.  A guy who was happy to watch the world burn as long as he had his champagne and caviar.  A guy who was too dumb to understand he was putting people in danger.  He married a woman who clearly had bad character based on her later actions, though to be fair he may not have had complete freedom of choice in that.  

I always read Elhokar as a crappy king and generally not a good person who realized after exposure to people like Dalinar and Kaladin that he needed to do better.  I think sometime during the events of WoR was when he realized he needed to make a change, but he just kinda... well... was incompetent and couldn't figure out how to do it until OB.  Even if he had become a Lightweaver, I don't think he would have figured out how to be a good king and it would have taken him time to become a good person.  

I think if there was a positive final truth for him, it would have been something along the lines of him figuring out what he is actually good at and using that ability to do good.

 

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6 hours ago, Golstar said:

Another candidate for the final truth could be that he always knew how to be a hero and a great king, but was too afraid to act on it. That he was lying when he asked those around him to teach him how to be a hero or that he wanted to figure out how to be a great king.

That seems a bit negative for a final truth.  That might have been an approximation of a secondary or tertiary truth although I personally disagree.

6 hours ago, Golstar said:

Elhokar's story is really one of the most tragic in the Stormlight Archive, in my opinion. A man trying so hard to be better, painfully aware of not just his shortcomings but his failure to rise to be a better man, when all around him are doing just that. Finally, when he has a chance to take a step towards growth and redemption, it's stolen by Moash.

This I definitely agree with though.

5 hours ago, Requiem17 said:

Another potential Truth could be admitting that his father wasn't a good king either - that he didn't deserve to be idolized by him at least - so that he could move on and be himself as a better man and king. 

That is an interesting point.  Stop using Gavilar as a benchmark he had quite a few failings of his own.

5 hours ago, Requiem17 said:

Another minor tragedy that always bothered me was if Jasnah had told her family the truth about her becoming a Radiant far earlier on, Elhokar would have wasted far less time being paranoid and may have matured faster / been a Surgebinder by the time Moash comes around.

We don't know how long it took for Jasnah to figure things out.  Ivory was also dead set against revealing himself.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that yes, Elhokar was a bad king.  He was an unmotivated king. I think that had he survived, he could have gotten better.  When I think about Elhokar's life, I see a man who was pressured from almost every, if not all, sides.  And that resulted in some serious problems for him.  When I was reading Oathbringer, there were some lines that set off some alarms.  He called himself a screwup at one point, saying he couldn't do anything right.  So he's got some serious self-esteem problems.  On top of that, his paranoia.  I would guess that he was not completely enthusiastic about the idea of being king.  He might have done better in a lower level position, but that wasn't an option.  

Elhokar really shows my problems with hereditary monarchies.  More often than not, it seems like whoever ends up on the throne doesn't want to be there, or isn't the right person.

I would have liked to have seen some more of his family, and learn what his interactions with them were.  It could have been the Unmade's influence, but Aesudan gave me some feelings that her and Elhokar's relationship was not healthy.  

So, was Elhokar a good king?  No.  But he was learning to be better.  Was he a good man?  At the end, yes.  In a different life, I could see him living a quiet, peaceful life with Gavinor, possibly as a guard, or maybe a farmer.

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On 6/12/2020 at 7:33 AM, Requiem17 said:

 

Another minor tragedy that always bothered me was if Jasnah had told her family the truth about her becoming a Radiant far earlier on, Elhokar would have wasted far less time being paranoid and may have matured faster / been a Surgebinder by the time Moash comes around.

I think you're forgetting a very important fact here. We know from hints dropped through the books that Jasnah had some sort of mental problem as a child. At one point Dalinar asks Gavilar if he is upset because of Jasnah's lunacy. Now, given that this is Roshar and I don't they know a lot about psychology this could mean a lot of different things. So basically, at some point of her life, Jasnah's parents believed she was insane. After that experience I doubt she would feel comfortable telling the world that a Spren, somewhat equivalent to animals in this world, is talking to her, letting her teleport to a magical world, and telling her to become a knight radiant.

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34 minutes ago, Nellac said:

After that experience I doubt she would feel comfortable telling the world that a Spren, somewhat equivalent to animals in this world, is talking to her, letting her teleport to a magical world, and telling her to become a knight radiant.

She could demonstrate said powers though. 

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So a few things for context:

1. We don't know when Elhokar started seeing the spren. It could have been as recent as when we see it mentioned in the novels, which Jasnah has already been traveling and researching for some time. So she would not have been around to hear of it. Dalinar also did not seen inclined to mention it in their conversations. Just "oh Elhokar is being Elhokar". So she cannot help with what she does not know

2. We have WoB that part of the reason Jasnah kept a distance is so Elhokar would have one less shadow to live under (the other being his father, the "amazing" king). She understood he had a lot of pressure, and didn't want to add to it. However had her research required her to be around, that would have taken precedent. 

3. As mentioned, Jasnah was not exactly in a situation where she felt she could be open about what was happening to her to her family. Last time she was thrown in a dark room, with the key thrown away. I would be a bit gun shy myself.

4. Radiants are seen as bad by the Vorin church, she didn't know who to trust, Ivory asked her not to speak of a lot of things (which is why she held back from talking about the recreance), and there is also a whole organization gunning for her head so revealing her abilities could be dangerous (Taravangian was actively trying to get her to reveal her radiancy, using the opportunity his endangered grand-daughter gave him to observe, confirmed via WoB)

 

So all of that says, for myself, that Jasnah was actually being very prudent keeping her radiancy on the down low. Also add she felt very isolated, and alone. She had no one to share it with till Shallan showed similar abilities. 

Edited by Pathfinder
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I didn't mean to take this so off of the Elhokar discussion, sorry about that.

I agree that Jasnah had legitimate personal reasons to not tell the truth, but was that the right choice?

1. In TWoK Dalinar references wishing Jasnah would return to the Shattered Plains because he could trust her, and this is well after he's begun reading the Codes.

2. It leads me to believe they had established trust while she was at least a Surgebinder, and she had opportunity to tell him the truth.

3. She knew Gavilar had said "the most important words a man can say" and I believe she's smart enough to realize this may relate to the oaths she's been making, and to explain this to Dalinar who's spending so much time trying to understand that line.

4. Elhokar does mention the Cryptics to Dalinar, and if Dalinar had heard Jasnah's story he could have informed Jasnah himself. 

I still agree she had legitimate reasons to keep them a secret. Things you said, plus potentially others, like wanting more hard facts, etc. 

Kaladin I think is generally said to have made the wrong choice in not telling Dalinar the truth earlier on, or at least Syl thought so. I also think he has legitimate personal reasons to not tell the truth. But how can he be wrong and Jasnah be right to keep the secret? 

I believe the right choice for Kaladin would have been to be truthful with Dalinar, and by that logic Jasnah should have been as well. 

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So before I respond to each point. Just want to make clear not telling you, that you are not allowed to think it would have been better for Jasnah to have told them. Just providing what i believe is context that prevented her from doing so. 

 

54 minutes ago, Requiem17 said:

I didn't mean to take this so off of the Elhokar discussion, sorry about that.

I agree that Jasnah had legitimate personal reasons to not tell the truth, but was that the right choice?

1. In TWoK Dalinar references wishing Jasnah would return to the Shattered Plains because he could trust her, and this is well after he's begun reading the Codes.

Jasnah was working on finding proofs that the parshendi were the voidbringers enough that people would believe her. When she told Shallan her conclusions, she stated that she still needs far more proof to convince people to not only believe her, but to act on her information. Considering she genuinely felt the parsh were voidbringers about to bring the end of the world, she felt her research took greater priority than being at the Shattered Plains with Dalinar. 

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2. It leads me to believe they had established trust while she was at least a Surgebinder, and she had opportunity to tell him the truth.

Dalinar does trust Jasnah. He says as much because he always knows where he stands with her. Now having said that, he did not share his visions with her till much later, and she did not share her research till much later. Both for the same reason. Their claims sounded crazy and were ridiculed by it. So they both hid the information till they could provide something more concrete to back it and not make themselves and their positions vulnerable. Unfortunately Dalinar had less control of his situation, so rumors leaked out. 

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3. She knew Gavilar had said "the most important words a man can say" and I believe she's smart enough to realize this may relate to the oaths she's been making, and to explain this to Dalinar who's spending so much time trying to understand that line.

She connected it to the radiants fighting the voidbringers which is why she was so obsessed with her research. To try and stop them from returning. Jasnah was also operating on the info she got from Ivory, which was that he bonded her contrary to what the other spren felt. Ivory was an outlier that bonded in defiance to the rule not to. She said it herself, she thought she was the only one till she met Shallan. 

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4. Elhokar does mention the Cryptics to Dalinar, and if Dalinar had heard Jasnah's story he could have informed Jasnah himself. 

Elhokar mentions it in passing regarding shapes that do not resemble jasnah's spren. When Shallan began telling Jasnah about her abilities, Jasnah assumed she was also an elsecaller. It was not till later that they realized Shallan was an entirely different order. Also consider this is information told across spanreeds using an intermediary to scribe them. That would leave information vulnerable when she hadn't known at the time it would have been crucial to Elhokar. Basically hindsight is 20/20

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I still agree she had legitimate reasons to keep them a secret. Things you said, plus potentially others, like wanting more hard facts, etc. 

Kaladin I think is generally said to have made the wrong choice in not telling Dalinar the truth earlier on, or at least Syl thought so. I also think he has legitimate personal reasons to not tell the truth. But how can he be wrong and Jasnah be right to keep the secret? 

I believe the right choice for Kaladin would have been to be truthful with Dalinar, and by that logic Jasnah should have been as well. 

I don't think I ever said Kaladin was wrong to keep his radiancy to himself. However, I am focusing on Jasnah because that is the situation I have the most information to draw upon, since I did my thread focusing on all the quotes she is involved with. With Kaladin I would have to go back to the book itself and see. Jasnah on the other hand it is still fresh in my mind due to researching it. 

 

Ah one addition. We do not know necesarily that Elhokar would have benefited from Jasnah being open about her radiancy or not. In Oathbringer Elhokar was surrounded by radiants (Shallan, Dalinar, Jasnah, Kaladin), yet that did not accelerate his radiancy enough to save his life. He was only going to be ready when it was time for him to be ready. When he reached out to Kaladin. When he opened up to Shallan. Then they were able to help. Even when surrounded by radiants, no one considered the figures he saw. No one thought that indicated potentially radiancy. As you said, Dalinar knew, yet that didn't cause him to do or say anything to Elhokar. Shallan is even from the same order as he yet it did not cause her to think to do anything. It was not until Elhokar began to grow as a radiant and seek help that anything started to change. So I do not think having done so in the past would have changed anything. But that is me. I respect that you disagree.

 

edit: to elaborate, just in case for clarity I mean as of the time of Oathbringer when everyone is openly a radiant:

 

Elhokar didn't say "hey guys, I have been seeing people in mirrors. You have little people giving you powers. Maybe that means me too?"

Dalinar didn't say "Hey Elhokar, remember when you said you see people in the mirrors? Maybe it means you are bonding a spren like I did!"

Shallan didn't say "Hey Elhokar, the guys in the mirror you have been seeing before I arrived at the Shattered Plains sound an awful like my spren here Pattern. Maybe you are a radiant!"

Jasnah didn't say "Hey brother, now that everyone knows I am a radiant, Uncle Dalinar told me about the people you are seeing in the mirror. That could be a spren, you could be bonding!"

 

There was a whole lot of space of time from the beginning of Oathbringer, till them traveling to Kholinar that had the information that Radiants existed could have helped Elhokar realize the mirror men were spren, I feel it would have by then. But it did not. So I do not believe having it occur earlier would have changed anything. But to each their own. 

Edited by Pathfinder
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This is what I love about the forums! We have the same information to draw from and draw completely different conclusions! 

I'm not going to refute any of your points on why people didn't share information, I think we're in agreement that it is understandable they did not. 

You say a few times that the other Radiants never said anything to Elhokar / figured out that he may have been on the path, but I take that as just an extension of the tragedy! All these opportunities to have enough information to make educated decisions. 

Thinking from your side of the discussion, this is my favorite point against mine: 

2 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

He was only going to be ready when it was time for him to be ready. ... It was not until Elhokar began to grow as a radiant and seek help that anything started to change. 

And this brings it full circle! I'm back to the original question of "Was Elhokar a Bad King?" or now: If Elhokar had known he was being chosen for radiancy, could he have willed himself earlier on to be a better man? Would he have taken steps to grow on his own before getting examples like Kaladin? Was he too biased against Radiants in TWoK and WoR for it to have made a difference?

Hmmm.

This is interesting because my original comment is me assuming that given more time and knowledge to do so he would have taken steps to improve himself, and thus was a worthy leader and king. But if I look at the questions I just asked, I just don't think he would have made any effort to grow as a person! And that makes him a bad king doesn't it? 

 

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38 minutes ago, Requiem17 said:

This is what I love about the forums! We have the same information to draw from and draw completely different conclusions! 

I'm not going to refute any of your points on why people didn't share information, I think we're in agreement that it is understandable they did not. 

You say a few times that the other Radiants never said anything to Elhokar / figured out that he may have been on the path, but I take that as just an extension of the tragedy! All these opportunities to have enough information to make educated decisions. 

Thinking from your side of the discussion, this is my favorite point against mine: 

And this brings it full circle! I'm back to the original question of "Was Elhokar a Bad King?" or now: If Elhokar had known he was being chosen for radiancy, could he have willed himself earlier on to be a better man? Would he have taken steps to grow on his own before getting examples like Kaladin? Was he too biased against Radiants in TWoK and WoR for it to have made a difference?

Hmmm.

This is interesting because my original comment is me assuming that given more time and knowledge to do so he would have taken steps to improve himself, and thus was a worthy leader and king. But if I look at the questions I just asked, I just don't think he would have made any effort to grow as a person! And that makes him a bad king doesn't it? 

 

The way I see it (and totally acknowledge it can be seen other ways), is if someone goes to see a therapist, they get out what they put in. If the person sits there giving one word answers, nothing is going to be accomplished. No progression. No change. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. For me, it doesn't matter if Elhokar was told he was chosen for radiancy, if he himself hadn't made the work and the growth. If anything it might do more harm than good, because it would satisfy his ego and cater to his insecurities. Potentially preventing him from the level of self realization required. How he could be a bad king if he was chosen by a spren to be gifted with great powers? He is royalty, lighteyes, chosen by The Almighty to rule. Naturally he would be "radiant". See what I mean? It is even "worse" because the order would be a lightweaver. The entire order requires coming to terms with greater and more personal self truths. From my perspective, someone cannot tell you your own deep truths. You have to learn of it, and face it yourself. So as I think this through and type it out, I think I could see telling Elhokar he was chosen to be a radiant might result in his progress slowing or stopping altogether. 

Edited by Pathfinder
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