Lirin Hate Thread

[Frustration]

Lirin to me is an minor character undeserving of any particular emotional reaction.

[NameIess]

On 1/8/2021 at 0:34 AM, Frustration said:

Lirin to me is an minor character undeserving of any particular emotional reaction.

Why would a minor character be undeserving of emotional reaction? Just because Tien doesn't have a single viewpoint chapter doesn't make me not care about his death.

[Kyn]

2 hours ago, Nameless said:

Why would a minor character be undeserving of emotional reaction? Just because Tien doesn't have a single viewpoint chapter doesn't make me not care about his death.

…You’re not likely to get a satisfactory answer from someone who has recently been replying to people/threads just to say they don’t care or to demean a topic.

I kind of figured the biggest purpose for including minor characters who have a big impact on major characters was to elicit an emotional reaction from the audience. Otherwise, wouldn’t they be merely referenced and never shown to us?

I’m sure other people have better ideas.

[NameIess]

19 minutes ago, Kyn said:

…You’re not likely to get a satisfactory answer from someone who has recently been replying to people/threads just to say they don’t care or to demean a topic.

@Frustration is most likely not a spam-bot.

 

[Kyn]

I didn’t mean that, sorry. I just figure if somebody’s in a bad enough mood to go into multiple threads just to smack talk the people or subject in the thread, they’re not likely to be in the mood to give good reasons for it.

[LazarusLong]

On 1/7/2021 at 11:54 PM, Kyn said:

 …Wow, cool, nice to know this isn’t a personal attack against other people in the thread. Oh, wait.

 

You don't speak in clichés Kyn. You're eloquent and make your points well. I did not mean for my quoted statement to refer to you or the thread in general. It refers specifically to the one person who continually responds with nonsequitor one liners in this thread so much so that he reads like a spam bot.

[Kyn]

2 hours ago, LazarusLong said:

I did not mean for my quoted statement to refer to you or the thread in general.

You’re fine. I assumed it was narrowly directed, but a) doubt myself, and b) would prefer to make things clear, especially when potentially hurtful…I keep running into trouble when I inevitably fail to.

Sorry to derail.

Honestly, though, I really just want to vent about Lirin more. I made the mistake of doing a reread, and am trying to parse Lirin’s reaction to Kaladin volunteering so his brother wouldn’t be going to war alone:

Quote

“Why have you done this to me? After all of our plans!”

- TWoK, Brandon Sanderson

The reread made me realize this is why I can’t stand Lirin as a father. I mean, on top of him using exposure therapy to try to inure a sensitive kid to other people’s pain. This comment indelibly colored my perceptions of his ensuing behavior. I get that this is another illustration of Lirin’s capacity to triage even everyday suffering, sometimes callously focusing on who and what he can save. That doesn’t make it any more palatable.

And this is a strikingly narcissistic way of framing a tragedy afflicting other people. As if their suffering is something being inflicted on him. As if Kaladin’s the one doing the inflicting, rather than one of the victims.

Yeah, Lirin undermines adult Kaladin pretty viciously. But to do this to his kids when they were still children? Lirin’s reacting as if Kaladin’s personally attacking him by trying to protect Tien, just because Kal’s going against his plans. And worse, Lirin’s not only dismissing the value of supporting a brother, he’s dismissing Tien and is lashing out at Kal for not doing the same.

Nope, can’t see why you’d want to go off on Lirin. /sarcasm

[Koloss17]

Ooh boy this thread really took a turn for the hurting people, didn’t it? Not the thread’s fault per se, but an easy hole to fall into if you create a thread that attracts negativity in an unobjective way. Y’all need hugs. 

[Zea mays]

Hugs from a koloss?!

Run away!!!

 

Anyway, what is really irksome about Lirin is his smug air of moral superiority. He seems really sure that he knows better than everyone else what is right and what is wrong. 

[SomeRandomPeasant]

I think it is fine if people want to hate on Lirin.  Not every character will resonate with everyone.  However, I do think people are being a bit too hard on Lirin.  It seems that a lot of the arguments against Lirin boil down to two arguments:

1. Lirin is terrible because he harshly condemns the act of Kaladin killing the Regal

I know people seem to be pro Kaladin in this case, but I think Lirin actually brings up a good point.  Lirin had just spent the past couple years in a town that was peacefully occupied by the Fused.  As long as the Lirin didn’t antagonize them, the Fused seemed to be far more fair than the light eyes.  Then one day the heroic Kaladin comes to town and kills a Fused.  Even though Kaladin didn’t intend any harm, his actions would realistically put the lives of the townsfolk at risk as the Fused could easily interpret this as a Radiant attack.  It makes sense that Lirin would see cohabitation as a viable option. 

During the invasion of Urithiru, Lirin’s insistence on yielding to the Fused occupation is by no means foolish.  If the honorable Leshwi was in charge of the invasion, killing a Regal would have made it much harder for Leshwi to peacefully occupy the tower.  If the Pursuer was in charge of the invasion, the Radiants would be dead before their bodies hit the floor.  We as readers know that Raboniel would have killed them eventually.  But Kaladin and Lirin didn’t have that luxury.  In that moment, Kaladin and Lirin both had no way of knowing what the best option was.  Lirin knows that the Fused aren’t all sadistic monsters, so handing Teft over would not only save most lives, but it would also save his family from attack.

I don’t think this decision is black and white enough for Lirin to be hated for his philosophy.  

2. Lirin is terrible because he suggested that Kaladin should act like a “good slave”.

Lirin wasn’t supporting slavery as a concept.  He is simple of the opinion that working within the system will yield better results than actively opposing it.   It would be nice if a poor dark-eye could challenge the status quo without repercussions, but honestly, that usually isn’t the case.  Especially in a feudal society where eye color matters.  

I know people like to romanticize living in poverty, but in reality, if you are low on the totem pole, you simply don’t have the option to fight against the system.  If someone doesn’t have the power to change their station, their first thought usually isn’t “we need to fight the system!”.  Their first priority is survival.  People have mouths to feed, whether that be their family or themselves.  You can’t be productive when you're out of a job or in jail.  Openly rebelling against slavery would never be the safest option in the short term.  And a lot of the time, the short term is the only thing that matters.

Lirin in particular understands the price that usually comes with fighting against a corrupt system.  Lirin simply spoke out against greedy Roshone and the ensuing conflict ended with his two sons being killed.  I am not blaming Lirin for Tien’s death, I am simply emphasizing that, realistically, a poor dark-eyes would not stand a chance against a rich light eye like Roshone. I personally think Lirin’s approach is far more relatable and honest than Kaladin’s.

---------------

I just want to stress that I really like the Kaladin and Lirin relationship, even though these characters aren’t the nicest.  Their disagreements make each other's beliefs more layered and interesting. 

Edited January 15, 2021 by SomeRandomPeasant

[Kyn]

1 hour ago, SomeRandomPeasant said:

It seems that a lot of the arguments against Lirin boil down to two arguments:

1. Lirin is terrible because he harshly condemns the act of Kaladin killing the Regal

2. Lirin is terrible because he advised Kaladin to act like a “good slave”.

Oooo, actual argument. I’m in. Also, a bit of a Devil’s Advocate, sorry. And even more sorry for the length, but this is fun. For me.

I’m not sure those are the main two arguments – it seems like most of the hate stems from how Lirin was as a father.

Spoiler

Which makes sense, considering how triggering it is for empathetic people to watch someone take steps almost guaranteed to drive a depressed person deeper. And how relatable it must be to see this overly controlling, dogmatically inflexible, or straight-up emotionally abusive parent trying to live vicariously through a kid who’s being guilted for taking a very different path. He’s a realistic character with an unfortunately believable relationship with his son. But anyway.

It’s not that I hate Lirin, it’s that I hate what he does to his son. He gave Kaladin a lot of useful moral and practical positions, but could be a terrible father despite (and sometimes because of) this. However, your points suggest there’s more to his unpalatability.

2. Lirin is terrible because he advised Kaladin to act like a “good slave”. 
No, Lirin is selfish and shortsighted because he thought being a good slave could not only be enough for his son, but also for his people. Being a good slave doesn’t ensure any kind of life, not even mere survival…but it often ensures you’ll continue to be a slave if you do survive. Even if you are given freedom.

Spoiler

Quote

“What would have happened, son, if instead of trying so hard to escape all those years, you’d instead proven yourself to your masters? What if you’d shown them you could heal instead of kill? How much misery would you have saved the world if you’d used your talents instead of your fists?”

Lirin, RoW ch. 43

These might seem like reasonable questions to someone in Lirin’s position, who has never been a slave, likely has had little interaction with them (except maybe as patients whose care is paid for and overseen by their masters), and certainly hasn’t studied them. But we live in a world where we can see the historical record of what happened to slaves.

There are stories of slaves earning freedom, but they all take place in special circumstances, very rarely, and potentially just as stories to motivate continued diligence. A particular owner with a skilled warrior slave in an Ancient Rome that permitted a path to citizenship. The child of slaves who marries into a citizen family in the same society much later. These tales tend not to occur in societies where the slaves are different races from the citizens. So yeah, Lirin’s words make no sense if we’re talking about actual slavery.

It’s almost like he’s delusional (because basically never in recent Earth history has being a good slave worked on more than the most brief and personal scales, and it doesn’t look much different in Alethkar) and apathetic (by choice, because it’s better than trying and failing, even making things worse). I suspect he’s actually just too downtrodden to look at the longterm sustainability and consequences of his detachment.

But let’s ignore how being good at their work got the Parshmen treated as extremely expensive chattel, and check in with general American history.

Good slaves might live longer and more comfortable lives in the short term (although usually not, it tended to get them sold to harsher masters for more money), and the ones who ran away or fought back might invite on themselves and those around them a lot of pain in the immediate term. But early slaves being such hard workers and not fighting back just convinced overseers and owners to get more of them and treat them worse for generations. Eventually, escaping and fighting for freedom is what enabled freedom be won. However much it cost, particularly for those who resisted. 

If you’re considering a more feudal system instead of slavery, I don’t think that helps Lirin’s position any.

Spoiler

Such systems were entirely dependent upon having good lords, who looked out for their people’s needs and honored the contract of protection in exchange for service. In cases when this contract was not honored, remaining in the status quo tended to mean slow starvation, death by disease or war, and degeneration into actual slavery.

Obviously somebody without power cannot do anything to fix this. But Lirin is the father to Kaladin, someone with power, yet Lirin uses this position to try to quash Kaladin’s efforts to do something that might buck the system. It would be one thing if he were trying to get Kaladin to do something else to change things, but he’s explicitly trying to make somebody with the power to change things refuse to do so. That’s going to chafe to a lot of people who don’t like seeing people support oppression. Like Kaladin.

But back to Lirin. He wasn’t just taking the path of least resistance, he was also demeaning the one person trying to do something to resist.

Spoiler

And frankly, expecting his son to work within a system Lirin doesn’t even understand makes no sense. Especially when what he has seen of it includes his son’s friends being taken captive and his son being hunted. 

No, there’s nothing unusual about an individual only looking toward their personal short-term situation; and yes, poverty (for instance) actually inhibits long-term planning capacity in addition to making it hard to seek anything beyond mere moment-to-moment survival. Most people need to focus on this in such a situation, and lack the energy to do more.

But an individual who pushes others down, undercutting their efforts to seek more, is not merely exhaustedly buckling to the system – they are exerting excess energy in repressing their fellows who might be trying to fight the system. 

Lirin is propagating the oppression. Sure, supporting the extant system even against one’s own (group, and often personal) interest is by far the more common, and therefore potentially “relatable and honest”, human reaction.

But heroes are the people who stand against oppression. They are the people who don’t sacrifice one group for the convenience of the others or the stability of the existing system. And Lirin shouldn’t have expected a son who never could get over losing a patient to be able to give up on his home and his friends.

1. Lirin is terrible because he harshly condemns the act of Kaladin killing the Regal

No, Lirin is a hypocrite for violating his oaths against doing harm by knowingly calling someone suffering from battle fatigue a murderer, a monster, and someone who was looking for an excuse to kill. Lirin commits violence on a less bloody, but more intrinsically damaging level. When most of what a character has going for them is their pacifism, them violating it in this manner is particularly galling.

Spoiler

 

I wouldn’t have had the same knee-jerk nauseated reaction if Lirin had merely accused Kaladin of killing, and I doubt Kaladin would have been so crippled by that, either. It’s a fact. It could even be a dispassionate one, if no my used for name-calling.

But then we get Lirin in RoW ch. 43:

Quote

“How dare you!” Lirin whispered, his voice hoarse.

Kaladin hesitated, shocked.

“How dare you kill in this place!” Lirin shouted, turning on Kaladin, angerspren pooling at his feet. “My sanctuary. The place where we heal! What is wrong with you?”

This is not merely Lirin reacting to Kaladin killing instead of healing, this is Lirin trying to hurt Kaladin for violating Lirin’s sanctuary and his ideals for his son. This is Lirin signposting how broken they both know Kaladin is, and making it another accusation that Kaladin is now something monstrous because of his history as a killer. Then it gets worse from there.

This is also why I doubt Lirin is as effortlessly good a person as his son thinks, and why I know he’s not as good of a father. Which is fine. He’s allowed to be a human being, not the perfect selfless surgeon his son idolized, and to make mistakes.

It just isn’t surprising when readers who gravitate toward the Windrunners’ oaths of protection don’t feel all warm and fuzzy toward a man who uses his surgeons’ knowledge to targetedly inflict this level of pain on someone he should most be trying to protect – someone who is both a patient and his own son.

Anyway, (relatively…or at least slightly less un-) objectively, Lirin went too far for numerous reasons by attacking Kaladin like this.

Spoiler

The first of which is the obvious, that Kaladin’s actions don’t fit reasonable definitions of murder. Sure, some people see all killing this way, and others would say that it counts as murder to fail to take any action that could have avoided being the one to draw blood, even if by said action you left people to actually be murdered.

Lirin seems to buy into the unreasonable definitions, and you’re probably right that he saw Kaladin as responsible for every fight with the Fused that broke his beloved peace. Lirin saw his son at Hearthstone and immediately thought that Death had come. He certainly seems to blame Kaladin for deaths just for being seen, let alone for defending himself. Hmm, I wonder why Kaladin feels responsible for pretty much everything.

But you’re also right about the situation not being black and white. Kaladin had no way of knowing what would be done to Teft. However, he had to suspect that the Radiants would be disposed of, if not immediately, then eventually. One assumes Lirin (not being an idiot) suspected the same, but triaged this as an acceptable potential future casualty in favor of maintaining the current peace.

In the real world, there are reasons it is often specially punishable for an infirm or helpless person to be hurt by neglect or failure to act, particularly when there were signs that something bad might happen and action was not taken to prevent it. Where I live, someone in Lirin’s profession would be required to intervene to protect Teft and the other Radiants, even if that meant calling on someone more capable of employing aggressive means. We are extra responsible for those who cannot protect themselves.

According to the Windrunners’ Second Oath, Kaladin is even moreso. Lirin may not have known that, but he had known Kaladin to feel guilty for not saving people even as a child. Yet he still berated Kaladin for not simply doing nothing despite feeling he was needed to save his friend.

In RoW ch. 6 we already saw from Kaladin’s POV that:

Quote

The hardest thing in the world for Kaladin to do was nothing.

…He couldn’t simply watch. He couldn’t.

Kaladin is in no emotional state to stand by and let Teft be taken. He can’t take the only alternatives that prevent the enemy from attacking him and result in him killing them. Unfortunately, for somebody who seems to buy into negative responsibility (feeling guilt for things he failed to prevent) as heavily as Kaladin, anything that might happen to Teft if Kaladin did not keep him from falling into enemy hands would have felt like Kaladin killed his friend himself.

Which brings up my next point, and hearkens back to the bad parenting. Kaladin seems to view himself even more negatively because of Lirin’s teaching that there are only people who save lives and people who take lives, discounting any good he does if he also hurts. Kaladin has already referred to himself as murdering Parshendi when he was saving Dalinar back in WoK. He clearly has issues with killing even in battle, one of the situations the Alethi seem to most respect as justifying causing death.

So then, what does it do to him to be called a monster, what he called Moash after the man slaughtered helpless prisoners along with Roshone?

Lirin’s insistence on healing:good, killing:bad, has at least intensified the dissonance between what Kaladin views as good and what he sees himself as. By accusing Kaladin the way he did, Lirin struck a nerve, aggravating – by targeting with the precision of a surgeon who knows the symptoms he’s seeing and the vulnerabilities  of his patient – Kaladin’s preexisting self-perceptions of being a killer who deserves to die.

That might not make Lirin a terrible person, but it certainly makes him a person who has done some despicable things to his son. It’s probably more “relatable and honest” to hate him for something as human as that.

[Frustration]

@Nameless sorry I wasn't able to respond earlier, I don't know if I'm just unusually emotionally dead or if everyone else forms unreasonable emotional attachments to characters, but I'm neutral to most of them, in fact in the entire Cosmere I can only say I truly like Hoid, Lift, Szeth, Kaladin, and Dalinar and Kelsier but the last two only a little bit. And I only truly dislike Shallan. Lirin hasn't done anything to deserve any particular reaction from me.

 

17 hours ago, Kyn said:

Lirin’s insistence on healing:good, killing:bad, has at least intensified the dissonance between what Kaladin views as good and what he sees himself as. By accusing Kaladin the way he did, Lirin struck a nerve, aggravating – by targeting with the precision of a surgeon who knows the symptoms he’s seeing and the vulnerabilities  of his patient – Kaladin’s preexisting self-perceptions of being a killer who deserves to die.

 Lirin doesn't know Kaladin like we do, he probably only has seen him a handful of times since Oathbringer, and for that Kal will put on a brave face. Roshar is way behind us in terms of mental health, Lirin was not making an attack, at least not intentionally.

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by Frustration

[Kyn]

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

I don't know if I'm just unusually emotionally dead or if everyone else forms unreasonable emotional attachments to characters

Both, minus the emotionally dead part? I mean, if “everybody else” is unreasonably emotionally attaching to characters, then whoever isn’t would be unusual. “Neutral” doesn’t mean emotionally dead, though. A lot of intense people limit their emotional attachment targets so they don’t burn out on caring too much.

Besides, each person connects differently, and if written words don’t do it for everybody, that has to be even more true with characters we’re not expected to invest in as heavily. Personally, I get really caught up in fictional characters, and many other things, so disparate perspectives are vital in approaching any semblance of objectivity.

10 hours ago, Frustration said:

Lirin was not making an attack, at least not intentionally.

Oh, I agree with all of this. For me, though, that makes it worse. Human minds rely heavily on heuristics, mental shortcuts that can enable us to act and react without having time to make an informed, or even rational, decision. We act first, and only have time to justify later. In this situation, Lirin was relying on what he already held as a belief, and what he felt. The pain he inflicted was instinctively calculated from these, then doubled down on when he had time to think about it.

You’re right, Lirin didn’t know Kaladin the way we did. Lirin’s hardwired mental shortcuts for the person in front of him included the sensitive boy he had known for so long, and a patient he obviously recognized as suffering from battle fatigue. To say what he did to someone he viewed through either of those lenses meant Lirin’s subconscious, at least, wanted to inflict severe pain on the child who betrayed him by going off to kill or the soldier who betrayed him by killing in Lirin’s sanctuary.

…Which means Lirin’s dogma of not killing was more important to him than either his son or his patient.

[God of Mischeif]

I've only just read Wok now, but I seriously hate Lirin. I mean, in the book he's all like 'look at me I'm so smart. I'm not going to use the money but I'm going to pretend I am using the money.' Although he's just using the money. He won't leave Hearthstone even though every body hates him. Like, it makes zero sense! If Lirin just left ages ago Tien wouldn't have been conscripted. He just wanted to flex on Roshone and ended up ruining both his son's lives.

 

Like honestly, that man needs to grow up

[Frustration]

33 minutes ago, God of Mischeif said:

I've only just read Wok now, but I seriously hate Lirin. I mean, in the book he's all like 'look at me I'm so smart. I'm not going to use the money but I'm going to pretend I am using the money.' Although he's just using the money. He won't leave Hearthstone even though every body hates him. Like, it makes zero sense! If Lirin just left ages ago Tien wouldn't have been conscripted. He just wanted to flex on Roshone and ended up ruining both his son's lives.

 

Like honestly, that man needs to grow up

this is the RoW thread, if you haven't read that you should probably go to the standard Stormlight thread to avoid spoilers

[Jash]

On 11/19/2020 at 3:00 AM, Leuthie said:

Lirin is an extremely good man.

The problem is, we always see him from the point of view of his son. A son breaking away from a strong father is one of the most difficult things to watch, much less be a part of. If the break isn't managed properly and both participants are strong, hard headed and bad communicators, the breakaway might never be completed and the two end up carrying the fight for the rest of their lives. When you see this battle from a single point of view, the other side can look almost evil. I've been on both sides. None of us were evil or even bad people. 

Lirin is trying his best for the only son he has left; a son that he doesn't really know very well anymore and is horrible at dealing with people he loves. Cut the man some slack.

This. My father is a great man and a good person. If a book was written from my perspective though, everyone would hate him lol. Father-son relationships, particularly when the father thinks his son should absolutely do as he did/said, can be volatile. 

[jamesbondsmith]

I feel like a bunch of people who 'hate' Lirin would find themselves making many of the same choices if they were in the same position. Everyone wants to believe they'd be the badass flying around and beating up the bad guys, but a lot of us would end up being the ones trying to stop a bad situation getting worse. 

Also, Radiants seem to be functionally indestructible with enough Stormlight, so they have much better chance against the Fused and a Singer invasion than a squishy doctor in a backwoods village.

[Medium]

Started RoW for the second time yesterday, realized how much I really hate Lirin. Like bruh, we get it, you're trying to survive, you want to help everyone, but dude, there's people who think in the bigger picture, it's not always about you or your patients, i'm just like ouaoeibaoudwdoaewi lirin calm down geez

[Letryx13]

On 9/25/2021 at 1:20 PM, jamesbondsmith said:

I feel like a bunch of people who 'hate' Lirin would find themselves making many of the same choices if they were in the same position. Everyone wants to believe they'd be the badass flying around and beating up the bad guys, but a lot of us would end up being the ones trying to stop a bad situation getting worse. 

Also, Radiants seem to be functionally indestructible with enough Stormlight, so they have much better chance against the Fused and a Singer invasion than a squishy doctor in a backwoods village.

You're probably right. But then again, how many people have the ability to resist in such a situation? And how many people would gamble with their children's lives the way he did? 

[ConfusedCow]

What bothers people about Lirin is not his actions or philosophy.  Rather we are bothered by the way in which he projects his morals.  Who is Lirin to condemn our fight, to judge us? Well in the book he's our father.  What father does not get preachy and judgemental occasionally?  Mothers give so much, flesh, warmth, food, songs.  Fathers give what, pale words, cold coins? Forgive our attempts to make our feeble offerings seem grandiose, we mean well.