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RoW Chapter 18 Discussion


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2 minutes ago, earthexile said:

Jasnah can convince stone that it should be smoke. It's hardly surprising that she thinks she can convince people to free their slaves. I mean rust, Alethi slaves already draw wages, albeit crappy wages. It shouldn't be that big of a deal.

I am quite sure that this entry belongs to the former chapter :-)

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On 11/3/2020 at 11:56 AM, Rainier said:

It's not just you. I had similar concerns about the off the cuff proposal to ban slavery and got called a slavery apologist for my troubles. Apparently suggestions that maybe Roshar should have different values than Earth, and that Alethkar should not have the same moral compunctions as the US makes you suspect.

Nobody was accusing you of being a "slavery apologist" and I find it troubling that you dismiss all the arguments against you as if people are trying to personally insult you.  People are allowed to have different opinions and I remind you, once again, that this is how civil discussions tend to play out.

The thing people disagreed with you on was how you called Jasnah's initial proclamation of abolition unrealistic.  People also disagreed with how you were freaking out over a plot point that readers have yet to see how it will play out in the story.  This would be like if someone read the book Dance with Dragons in which: minor spoilers for that book below

Spoiler

Daenerys "Breaker of Chains" Targaryen proclaims that all the slaves are free in Astapor.  Throughout the course of the story, this decision ends up plunging Astopor into chaos, and a cruel despot rises to power in her absence.  The large amounts of displaced slaves also create an unsustainable population, leading to rampant starvation.  And finally, the high concentration of slave refugees allows a plague to completely ravage their population.

I think you would agree that the above plot arc has everything you are seeking in a story were slaves are set free. There are extreme consequences, even if the decision was made with the best of intentions.  So it would be foolish if a reader were to read the chapter in Dance with Dragons (where our hero initially does her thing in Astapor) and they went on to say "ohmygosh, this plot point is ridiculous, I can't believe someone would try to get rid of slavery in a preindustrial world".  I would say that this is a premature, over the top reaction.  NOBODY is saying that there shouldn't be consequences to Jasnah releasing the slaves of Alethcar.  But doesn't mean that the plot development where Jasnah attempts to get rid of slavery is absurd.

 

Edited by SomeRandomPeasant
removed spoilery sections
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5 hours ago, agrabes said:

There is a lot of power concentrated in the High Princes, who are basically a loose confederation of kings who swear fealty to a high king/queen.  Alethkar's culture is very much "might makes right" and a culture of ambition. 

I just want to focus on the "might makes right" of Alethkar. Who is more mighty than Jasnah, ill list a couple of things about her here.

1. Queen of Alethkar

2. Well learned (perhaps one of the most on Roshar) she could be considered a polymath

3. Huge political acumen

4. Elsecaller of 4th or possibly 5th oath and has no issue showing off her surgebinding capabilities

5. only Elsecaller

6. A very practiced, capable and confident debater

7. Her soulcasting ability, she literally soul cast steps out if air.

 

If anyone is mighty it is Jasnah and as such, Alethkar will fold to her will as they closly follow "might makes right"

 

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1 hour ago, Lemiltock said:

 

I just want to focus on the "might makes right" of Alethkar. Who is more mighty than Jasnah, ill list a couple of things about her here.

1. Queen of Alethkar

2. Well learned (perhaps one of the most on Roshar) she could be considered a polymath

3. Huge political acumen

4. Elsecaller of 4th or possibly 5th oath and has no issue showing off her surgebinding capabilities

5. only Elsecaller

6. A very practiced, capable and confident debater

7. Her soulcasting ability, she literally soul cast steps out if air.

 

If anyone is mighty it is Jasnah and as such, Alethkar will fold to her will as they closly follow "might makes right"

 

That's not really what I was talking about in terms of "Might Makes Right" and it's not exactly how that phrase works either.  It's not that people decide who they think might be the most individually powerful person and just let them lead everything unchallenged.  It's a cultural attitude - the idea that whoever wins the duel or the battle was the one who was right.  The Alethi culture is that if a High Prince thinks Jasnah is wrong, then the recourse is to politically out maneuver her, force her to fight them in battle, or challenge her or her champion to a duel.  There hasn't been a battle yet, Jasnah has not been tested as a political leader.  At least not on screen.

The Alethi are ambitious - so if one of the High Princes sees that there is discontent about Jasnah's new laws, then he or she will try to take advantage.  They will work in the background to undermine Jasnah and build up support around him/her self.  Maybe push to say that some of the Princedoms should be allowed to secede and become independent.  The prevailing culture, especially among the top aristocracy, is to do whatever they can to gain the smallest amount of additional wealth, power, or influence.  Some of the High Princes seem to have gotten past that, (Sebarial, Aladar, Hatham) but most are still down for the old school Alethi way.

 

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8 minutes ago, agrabes said:

That's not really what I was talking about in terms of "Might Makes Right" and it's not exactly how that phrase works either.  It's not that people decide who they think might be the most individually powerful person and just let them lead everything unchallenged.  It's a cultural attitude - the idea that whoever wins the duel or the battle was the one who was right.  The Alethi culture is that if a High Prince thinks Jasnah is wrong, then the recourse is to politically out maneuver her, force her to fight them in battle, or challenge her or her champion to a duel.  There hasn't been a battle yet, Jasnah has not been tested as a political leader.  At least not on screen.

Shes had a year time skip, and litterally her entire life as a heritec and princess, whes been politically tested. I also wasnt suggesting the just fold to her  but she is clearly the most mighty and even if they disagree she can and will beat them into submission.

8 minutes ago, agrabes said:

The Alethi are ambitious - so if one of the High Princes sees that there is discontent about Jasnah's new laws, then he or she will try to take advantage.  They will work in the background to undermine Jasnah and build up support around him/her self.  Maybe push to say that some of the Princedoms should be allowed to secede and become independent.  The prevailing culture, especially among the top aristocracy, is to do whatever they can to gain the smallest amount of additional wealth, power, or influence.  Some of the High Princes seem to have gotten past that, (Sebarial, Aladar, Hatham) but most are still down for the old school Alethi way.

 

They  certainly are, like Dalinars complaint, to which Jasnah quickly and confidently reminded him it was her call, she was in charge, you will yield to me. She is leading like an Alethi (confident and powerful) and she can back up her bark both intellectually and physically. 

 

Again im not suggesting they let her do it, im suggesting she will make them accept her rule. We have seen Jasnah not bend to others will and she is both powerful and intelligent.

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The ghostbloods' assassinations of all of the Sadeas-aligned highprinces in the warcamps probably also count. Highprinces are likely to give Jasnah's scheming the credit/blame there, if they don't know what's actually going on. They may well believe that any of Jasnah's proclamations come with an implicit "or else you will be assassinated in the night" threat.

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3 hours ago, ftl said:

The ghostbloods' assassinations of all of the Sadeas-aligned highprinces in the warcamps probably also count. Highprinces are likely to give Jasnah's scheming the credit/blame there, if they don't know what's actually going on. They may well believe that any of Jasnah's proclamations come with an implicit "or else you will be assassinated in the night" threat.

Also, Jasnah has assassins on the payroll, so the Highprinces might be right anyway.

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22 hours ago, agrabes said:

Alethkar is a large nation with huge diversity both demographically and geographically.  There is a lot of power concentrated in the High Princes, who are basically a loose confederation of kings who swear fealty to a high king/queen. 

You appear to be talking about the pre-singer conquest Alethkar that no longer exists and is therefore not relevant to this discussion. As seen in this very chapter, Urithiru has become a melting pot where people are no longer organized and settled by princedoms. The camps on the Shattered Plains have lost their leadership,  are ripe for a take-over, and didn't have the kind of entrenched local customs that you bring up in the first place. We have no clue how things are in the territories in southern Alethkar that are still in human hands. In any case, Alethi society is already undergoing a huge, traumatic change, which distinguishes it from Austrian Empire of Joseph II's time, where people felt that he came and kicked over an anthill that was functioning more or less smoothly.

In the aforementioned diaries of Russian intellectuals, the Tsar et al. were popular even after the disaster that was the 1905. In fact, these people often remained quite loyalist even as late as 1916. And then - what change the next 4 or so years brought!

 

Quote

What Jasnah is doing is a lot more like what happened in Austria - pushing for many radical reforms simultaneously in opposition to large parts of the aristocracy and common people.  She will face strong resistance to this. 

 

The circumstances are so wildly different that it isn't much like what happened in Austria at all. There is no hint of commoners in Urithiru being dissatisfied with Jasnah - in fact, the chapter where Kaladin goes out for drinks with Adolin and Shallan suggests the opposite. There is no hint of Jasnah trying to micromanage and centralise everything, like Joseph II did, or producing thousands of edicts in a short time, etc.

And of course, there was no equivalent to the displacement of a whole nation, an apocalyptic war against another species, and the most powerful and essential people for the military effort coming from the lowest class.

You want slow reforms, or maybe just for Jasnah to fail, but her failing in this particular undertaking doesn't fit the SA setting, IMHO. Alethi being able to successfully  hold out against Odium while practicing human slavery wouldn't be believable. Odium is hatred, and slavery is a very fertile ground for it to grow and fester. 

P.S. I do feel that it was a misstep for Jasnah to say that she was going to do it because of her ethical values, instead of enumerating all the rational reasons for why abolition of slavery is necessary in their situation. I hope that this is being saved for a scene where she wrangles the Highprinces on-screen.

I also feel that there should have been a much larger reaction and pushback to Dalinar's announcement that Almighty was dead, and because of that not worthy of being worshipped as a god (a very dubious idea by RL historical standards) than what we got, but religion is a tricky thing. It is difficult to understand why trying to implement changes to it IRL or coming up with a new one usually didn't work, but in rare cases was spectacularly successful in a short order.

And for that matter I feel that handling masses of refugees should have been a much greater problem for Alethkar -in-exile and featured prominently. Instead we only saw it in the singer-occupied territory.

Edited by Isilel
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7 hours ago, Isilel said:

You appear to be talking about the pre-singer conquest Alethkar that no longer exists and is therefore not relevant to this discussion. As seen in this very chapter, Urithiru has become a melting pot where people are no longer organized and settled by princedoms. The camps on the Shattered Plains have lost their leadership,  are ripe for a take-over, and didn't have the kind of entrenched local customs that you bring up in the first place. We have no clue how things are in the territories in southern Alethkar that are still in human hands. In any case, Alethi society is already undergoing a huge, traumatic change, which distinguishes it from Austrian Empire of Joseph II's time, where people felt that he came and kicked over an anthill that was functioning more or less smoothly.

In the aforementioned diaries of Russian intellectuals, the Tsar et al. were popular even after the disaster that was the 1905. In fact, these people often remained quite loyalist even as late as 1916. And then - what change the next 4 or so years brought!

 

 

The circumstances are so wildly different that it isn't much like what happened in Austria at all. There is no hint of commoners in Urithiru being dissatisfied with Jasnah - in fact, the chapter where Kaladin goes out for drinks with Adolin and Shallan suggests the opposite. There is no hint of Jasnah trying to micromanage and centralise everything, like Joseph II did, or producing thousands of edicts in a short time, etc.

And of course, there was no equivalent to the displacement of a whole nation, an apocalyptic war against another species, and the most powerful and essential people for the military effort coming from the lowest class.

You want slow reforms, or maybe just for Jasnah to fail, but her failing in this particular undertaking doesn't fit the SA setting, IMHO. Alethi being able to successfully  hold out against Odium while practicing human slavery wouldn't be believable. Odium is hatred, and slavery is a very fertile ground for it to grow and fester. 

P.S. I do feel that it was a misstep for Jasnah to say that she was going to do it because of her ethical values, instead of enumerating all the rational reasons for why abolition of slavery is necessary in their situation. I hope that this is being saved for a scene where she wrangles the Highprinces on-screen.

I also feel that there should have been a much larger reaction and pushback to Dalinar's announcement that Almighty was dead, and because of that not worthy of being worshipped as a god (a very dubious idea by RL historical standards) than what we got, but religion is a tricky thing. It is difficult to understand why trying to implement changes to it IRL or coming up with a new one usually didn't work, but in rare cases was spectacularly successful in a short order.

And for that matter I feel that handling masses of refugees should have been a much greater problem for Alethkar -in-exile and featured prominently. Instead we only saw it in the singer-occupied territory.

You definitely bring up some good points.  I still think that some of the High Princes are not happy with how things have gone and have enough remaining support that they could make waves.  But, you're right that there are a lot of factors that would make it tougher for them to actually form a solid opposition.  

And a very good point about Dalinar's "The Almighty is Dead!" announcement.  That does seem like a much smaller reaction than it should have been when you think about it.  He was excommunicated from the church, it seems like that should have cost him a lot more with the common people, if not the other aristocracy.  The only reason in world it might not is because it seems like the Alethi are mostly secular and few were deeply religious.  This is kind of highlighted in some of Shallan's chapters in WoK and WoR where she expects the Alethi ardents to act much more like a traditional priest, and other people say that it's not really like that in Alethkar or other places.  In Kaladin's flashbacks it doesn't seem like the people in Hearthstone are super religious either, though that's probably tainted since Kaladin himself isn't super religious.

Yeah, I guess when you put it like that there's a decent chance Sanderson just won't focus on those kind of story elements.  He's done a little bit of the divided Alethkar thing with Sadeas so maybe he's done with it as a plotline.

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A lot of the Alethi Ardent stuff paints the picture that they, like the lighteyes they serve, also spend a lot of time doing their own thing and letting Vorinism be someone else's problem. It kind of reminds me of some of the cultures on Earth where fundamentalist religion is used to keep people in their place and mollify the underclasses, while the aristocracy and even the clergy are just going buck wild and politicking behind the scenes. Think Borgias, or the Saudi royals.

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13 hours ago, earthexile said:

A lot of the Alethi Ardent stuff paints the picture that they, like the lighteyes they serve, also spend a lot of time doing their own thing and letting Vorinism be someone else's problem. It kind of reminds me of some of the cultures on Earth where fundamentalist religion is used to keep people in their place and mollify the underclasses, while the aristocracy and even the clergy are just going buck wild and politicking behind the scenes. Think Borgias, or the Saudi royals.

The Borgias weren’t any worse than most other Popes of the time. Possibly better; Rodrigo instituted quite a few reforms. Part of the reason he gets such a bad rep is because Rodrigo helped the Spanish Jewish refugees and was possibly born Jewish himself. His successor, a rabid anti-Semite, didn’t like that very much.
 

Oh, and the maybe was born Jewish thing was the ‘proof’ that Rodrigo was evil. And considered one of the worst things about him. Maybe when discussing ‘evil’ people we should excise examples that were painted as such due to anti-Semitism?

Edited to add: I’m not saying he was a good person. He wasn’t. But he was no worse than many of the Popes preceding him. He also seems to have died sincerely repentant.

He was painted as evil by the following Popes because: A: Julius 2 was an anti-Semite, thought Rodrigo was Jewish and didn’t like that Rodrigo helped the Jews. B: As Alexander V, Rodrigo tried to institute some significant reforms in the Church and subsequent Popes didn’t like that. C: So subsequent Popes could draw attention away from their own excesses by using the Borjas as a convenient scapegoat. D: Rodrigo was honest, and admitted his kids were his, instead of claiming they were his ‘niece’ and ‘nephew’ as other Popes did.

Edited by Kingsdaughter613
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4 hours ago, Lidolas said:

Urithiru reminds me of Moya from Farscape.

https://farscape.fandom.com/wiki/Moya

Still hoping for a Gurren Lagann ending.  All the Radiants combine with Urithiru to form a giant mech, spout some nonsense about the power of friendship and determination and fly into space to punch Odium in the face.

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17 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Weirdly Hostile Rant

I did not call anyone evil and I resent the implication that I mentioned the Borgias as an example of high level religious authorities living outside of the moral codes they demanded their peasants adhere to, because I'm anti semitic. Chill.

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On 11/6/2020 at 9:51 PM, Subvisual Haze said:

Still hoping for a Gurren Lagann ending.  All the Radiants combine with Urithiru to form a giant mech, spout some nonsense about the power of friendship and determination and fly into space to punch Odium in the face.

Oddly, Skyward is what gave me Gurren Lagann vibes, but per WoB, he hasn't seen the anime (as of two years ago).

 

Quote

 

Govir

An actual Skyward question: Were you inspired by the anime Gurren Lagann at all for this? That anime starts out with humans living in caves and being attacked in order to keep their population down. The cave dwelling and constant attacks is the only connection so far that I see (the rest of the anime gets pretty crazy and I don't think you'd go that far).

Brandon Sanderson

I'm afraid I haven't seen Gurren Lagann, which is probably an oversight--a lot of people talk about it being great.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 19, 2018)

 

 
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