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Adolin Alone


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4 hours ago, kaellok said:

The fight ended minutes before the others arrived.

True, but they were much closer by then, not still far away at the camp. They'd have to finish Adolin off and then get back to Notum, or carry Notum off. A few minutes is really pushing it at that point, especially given how many Adolin had taken out. Do you just assume Adolin was the only competent one at that point, or assume you might have a tough fight on your hands if you stick around?

55 minutes ago, FollowYourMuse said:

If he is getting a benefit, it may be more along the lines of having an edge in speed, agility. 

Thanks, I was thinking along those lines as well.

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1 hour ago, FollowYourMuse said:

I do not know that we have not seen it before or that it is different. Looking at the early Kaladin flashback chapters, he was getting benefits without knowing it. He speaks specifically with Syl on whether he ever was as good as he thought or it was her being around.  Adolin took on multiple opponents and then a shardbearer, without an actual bond yet.  I do not see how Adolin could not also have similar fights.  
He has always been an expert with the sword, dueling and at battle, add in that he had Maya at his back for most of the fight.  If he is getting a benefit, it may be more along the lines of having an edge in speed, agility.

Lots of good points here, too!  In the 4v1 Duel that Renarin and later Kaladin joined, it still seems to me that we were mostly seeing the upper-limits of what is possible with someone trained with Blade and Plate from a young age.  This could just as easily be because of the Bond between Adolin and Maya somehow granting him limited powers in a way that we haven't precisely seen before.  I keep waffling on whether I think that is or is not the case, partially because it's not a way that we've been introduced to a magic system before and partially because I'd like to see Adolin continue to be a big lovable goofball that's deadly with a sword but not superman. 

@Argel The thing that I'm not okay with in the scene is that, best case scenario, 3v20 resulted in 10+ dead on one side and a wound nobody worried about on the other, from someone we're supposed to believe has no supernatural powers.  And that happening in the same scene where Adolin straight thinks at us about how that sort of thing absolutely never happens in reality.  Which, I guess, means that it pretty much has to be a giant glowing clue in twenty-foot tall letters that he's not just a normal well-trained human but something more, and my disappointment is from being confronted with that combined with that not being confirmed.  So my choices are 'Adolin is not supernaturally enhanced, and the writing in this great scene failed to stick the landing and retroactively makes it worse for me' or 'Adolin is supernaturally enhanced and so they will be exploring a path that I personally find much less interesting.'  And while my subconscious went with the sub-par writing option, the discussion in this thread has led me to see what's really going on lol.

I really do appreciate the discussion, and I have been trying hard to not be too negative about stuff because it's all about perception.  The last thing I want to do is make someone feel worse about the book or the scene if they enjoyed it.  I'm still stuck in the post-read feels, and talking through some of this stuff helps.  I had similar negative feelings about large swathes of WoR and OB that I now enjoy, or at least don't bother me, so I'm sure that these will change with time, too.

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40 minutes ago, kaellok said:

I keep waffling on whether I think that is or is not the case, partially because it's not a way that we've been introduced to a magic system before and partially because I'd like to see Adolin continue to be a big lovable goofball that's deadly with a sword but not superman. 

I have the same feelings, I think back to the 4-1 Duel, and think that then there may not have been any additional benefits he was getting, if there were it would have been subtle (Like Kal "moving like the wind" pre-Syl). There were moments in OB where he was fighting the thunderclast, and the amount of damage he took that I thought maybe he was getting some benefits, or if all his instincts to duck, move were his alone. 

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I think it is worth noting that Adolin likely has some sort of (slightly enhanced healing and senses). Like Kaladin when he was a slave. Feeding on trace amounts of stormlight that stops internal bleeding. And Sanderson's use of these thugs always having easy victories and then watching a few of their buddies just die I thought was very effective. The whole thing likely lasted under 5 minutes. 

 

As far as Adolin. I see no reason why he wouldn't break all sorts of rules. He is already doing that with the Reshadium. He has a reverse Nale bond with Maya and he may form a normal Nale bond too. What would he do with two sets of plate.... One for the Reshadium, shard blade and shard shield for the win. 

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On 11/23/2020 at 2:22 PM, Truthless of Shinovar said:

As for myself, I’m firmly in the Adolin-should-not-be-a-radiant camp. To be honest, I was even a little bit annoyed when Navani bonded the Sibling (though she definitely earned it, so it’s a really minor complaint. Overall I’m happy with the bond, I just liked having more non-Radiants). I just like knowing and seeing people go through and overcome their problems without the supernatural nature of the nahel bond. Honestly, I feel like it makes Adolin more unique without the bond than he would be with it. But of course, that’s just me. Brandon may take it in a totally different direction, and I trust him to write a good character.

Yes! There need to be some characters that aren't radiant, or else being radiant become a little boring. It just feels too convenient that all the main characters become radiant, when most people in Roshar aren't. However the arc with Adolin reviving Maya is interesting and unique, so if this is leading up to him bonding Maya, that would be interesting to see too. I think his bond with her would still be different from other Radiants of the same order though. 

 

I could also see book 5 including some new discoveries about the recreance and why the Radiants and spren made that choice that makes being Radiant a liability, and/or a situation where the Radiants are unable to act and he's the only one who can save them because he isn't Radiant. But that's just a theory. 

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On 11/23/2020 at 0:32 PM, Winds Alight said:

I've always liked the idea of Adolin becoming a Radiant and by now I'd almost be disappointed if it didn't happen tbh. "Token normal guy" isn't a trope I particularly enjoy.

I 100% can NOT see him ever bond a spren that isn't Maya. They already DO have a bond after all and I'd think it extremely OOC if he decided to take another spren. Not gonna happen. And Edgedancer fits him perfectly imo. (If only because their abilities basically make them figure skaters and Adolin would LOVE fancy figure skater costumes but uhm not the point)

Me either!  And that's a big part of why I think he's a perfect fit for an Edgedancer.  He was given plenty of chances to abandon her for "something better" (i.e. a living spren) and flatly refused.  He's completely loyal to someone that everybody else has effectively written off as either a lost cause or something to be addressed way down the line, simply because he sees value in all people.  

Also he consistently defends the little guy at personal cost--as early as TWOK he was willing to escalate to drawing Maya when some asshole got aggressive with a prostitute, when he was in Sadeas's warcamp during a delicate political situation, and implicitly missed a meeting with an important officer to make sure she was taken care of.  Kaladin blew up his and Dalinar's entire plan to stop Sadeas, which Adolin had minutes before nearly died for, and Adolin's immediate reaction was to lock himself up in protestof the injustice.  He was running from a thunderclast in Thaylen City and stopped to run back and grab a kid who he heard crying in the middle of battle even as the thunderclast was specifically targeting him.  And he already has some level of heightened bond with Maya, enough so that she can convey thoughts to him and vice versa.  

Also...Edgedancers are Awesome.  Dramatic.  Flamboyant.  Elegant at their most refined.  Catastrophic dorks  more often.  And, uh, Adolin is a dramatic flamboyant catastrophic dork who is also awesome and an elegant duelist.  I can 100% see him taking awesomeness lessons from Lift and enjoying every second of it.  

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23 hours ago, Inkspren_K said:

Yes! There need to be some characters that aren't radiant, or else being radiant become a little boring. It just feels too convenient that all the main characters become radiant, when most people in Roshar aren't. However the arc with Adolin reviving Maya is interesting and unique, so if this is leading up to him bonding Maya, that would be interesting to see too. I think his bond with her would still be different from other Radiants of the same order though. 

I don't get this POV as a reader. How can "everyone important becomes a Radiant" be "boring" when there are TEN ORDERS of Radiants, not counting the fact that the three Bondsmith spren are very different from each other, and also not counting the fact that we now have two "standard issue" Truthwatchers bonded to mistspren and two "warlight" Truthwatchers bonded to Sja-anat "Enlightened" spren (and presumably she could "Enlighten" other spren as well, unless mistspren are for some reason particularly open to her touch - which may be the case)? Or that when listeners bond with a Radiant spren, they "have room" in their gemheart to bond a Voidspren (Venli) and therefore, possibly another Radiant spren?

There shouldn't be a forced reason for a main character to become Radiant, but since it seems the spren tend to cluster around groups of people anyway, it would seem more unnatural and forced if Adolin and others close to the Kholins didn't bond one. It would feel like they were somehow unworthy, which none of them seem to be, or being discriminated against, as Rlain was (when he and Dabbid alone of Bridge Four had not bonded one).

Yes, there are certainly a lot of people on Roshar "worthy" of Radiant spren bonds - why are they all going to Kholins? Because that's how it works. It snowballs. Maybe if Kaladin had stayed in Hearthstone, that would have become Windrunner Central. But he didn't. And the nature of the Radiants is to somehow gather together, like Shallan seeking out Jasnah. (Sure she thought it was because she wanted to rob her of the Soulcaster, which seems on minimal reflection to be a ridiculous idea - how would they get away with using it, as Jasnah pointed out? - but it was really the "banding instinct" of Radiants at work.)

I personally want a Gaz POV, now that we know he's actually bonded a Cryptic and is not simply a Lightweaver squire to Shallan. Going back and re-reading TWoK, he really was kind of a cowardly cremhole, who knew it and felt bad about it. If you want to complain about "so what's character X done that's worthy of gaining a spren, other than hang around a Main Character Radiant?", it'd be someone like him, not Adolin.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I don't think Radiancy is the path for him. Whatever Bond he and Maya share, it's not the Bond between Shardblade and wielder or the Nahel Bond. It's almost a mirror image of the Nahel Bond, where the human fills in the cracks in the Spiritweb of the spren, instead of the reverse.

So clearly in the next book Maya is going to discover new Words and summon Adolin as a Shardblade! Adolin will be very confused about this development but very supportive.

On a more serious note, what they're discovering could be a way to reverse what happened in the Recreance, not just reviving the dead blades but digging into the cause of it with Ba-Ado-Mishram and the fact that a bond with humans would be the way to heal Deadeyes would go a long way in bettering human-spren relationship.

Plus, I've said this many times but again, not every character needs to be a Radiant to be awesome.

It's the Stormlight Archives, not Keeping Up With The Kholins.

and is Maya even ready to Bond again? Surely she would need some time to heal.

P.S. Love the Avatar-themed thread title!

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On 11/23/2020 at 8:32 PM, Winds Alight said:

I've always liked the idea of Adolin becoming a Radiant and by now I'd almost be disappointed if it didn't happen tbh. "Token normal guy" isn't a trope I particularly enjoy.

I 100% can NOT see him ever bond a spren that isn't Maya. They already DO have a bond after all and I'd think it extremely OOC if he decided to take another spren. Not gonna happen. And Edgedancer fits him perfectly imo. (If only because their abilities basically make them figure skaters and Adolin would LOVE fancy figure skater costumes but uhm not the point)

If Brandon stays true to the premise that "broken" people become Radiant (similar to Mistborn), then it's not likely to happen.

It was described at one point something like this: The Stormlight fills the cracks (of broken people), but if left unchecked it can also widen them. (Something that almost happens to both Shallan and Kaladin in RoW.)

Adolin is pretty much the only main character who isn't broken. Even Navani, who generally acts very healthy, was presumably broken by Gavilar's verbal abuse even if it's not so emphasized as with the others. Jasnah, too, was likely broken by something in her childhood - mental illness, or maybe what her parents thought was mental illness and got her locked up (bc she says she learned then that "even people who love you can hurt you").

Makes me wonder what was going on in Brandon's early family to make him so focused on those themes. In OB, he repeatedly calls Adolin (from Shallan's point of view, even): "too clean-cut, too bland, too predictable". (And while I try to avoid presumptions, it is often true that people who had it easy in life can end up less thoughtful and more emotionally simple that those who did not.)

But with Maya, he has a chance to play a huge role even without being a Radiant, which I like. Imagine finding a way to revive deadeyes, half of the trouble of the previous books would instantly disappear.

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I mean, it's not like Adolin had a perfect life.  He lost his mother fairly young, and the father he idolizes was first distant, then a drunk disaster, and then a viral joke to the Alethi elite.  Just going by timelines, he clearly spent a good chunk of his childhood and adolescence protecting Renarin from every awful thing the Alethi elite were capable of saying and doing, and he almost certainly had to do that while also doing what Man Of The House things Alethkar has to do (and finding someone to do the traditionally female tasks, too, since his mother was dead, he was a notorious bachelor who according to WOB is afraid of romantic relationships (which I believe is due to his subconscious's extremely clear picture of Alethi court society), his aunt was busy being the greatest scientist on Roshar, and his cousin was busy pissing off the establishment).  

In other words, Adolin was forced to grow up fast and his formative years consisted of a bucket of cold water being repeatedly dumped down his back until he gained a level of clear-sightedness that only the Sebarials have about the society he inhabits.  That's not exactly an easy childhood, and it definitely left some cracks.  You don't have to be a walking DSM-V entry to have had trauma or to have lingering resentments/issues that affect your mental state.  

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On 11/22/2020 at 5:10 AM, Stormfather's Beard said:

I am reasonably sure that Maya is waking up because Honor's power is coalescing in Dalinar - all the dead-eyes are becoming more aware

That may be but adolin is the only one who is doing therapy for a deadeyes and it's working; now she can talk. He is helping her so i think they will bond. none of the other deadeyes are like this.

On 11/24/2020 at 8:36 PM, Master Silver said:

As far as Adolin. I see no reason why he wouldn't break all sorts of rules. He is already doing that with the Reshadium. He has a reverse Nale bond with Maya and he may form a normal Nale bond too. What would he do with two sets of plate.... One for the Reshadium, shard blade and shard shield for the win

So you're saying he'll double bond. This was a RAFO if such a thing will happen.

Edited by Hoid the Drifter
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33 minutes ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

That may be but adolin is the only one who is doing therapy for a deadeyes and it's working; now she can talk. He is helping her so i think they will bond. none of the other deadeyes are like this.

So you're saying he'll double bond. This was a RAFO if such a thing will happen.

I mean I think it would be awesome if he went from feeling sort of inferior, ok everyone has super powers but me, I've made my peace with that, to being the only guy with 4 surges. I could see Dalinar reviving Oathbringer, and perhaps Shallan reviving her dead-eye. So, I think we may see three cases of a double bond. Shallan's a double bond with spren of the same type. Dalinar's a double bond, one with a Bond spren who is living, the other with a dead-eye revived (Oathbringer). Adolin could do the opposite, revive a dead-eye and then bond a living spren. 

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14 hours ago, GroundPetrel said:

I mean, it's not like Adolin had a perfect life.  He lost his mother fairly young, and the father he idolizes was first distant, then a drunk disaster, and then a viral joke to the Alethi elite.  Just going by timelines, he clearly spent a good chunk of his childhood and adolescence protecting Renarin from every awful thing the Alethi elite were capable of saying and doing, and he almost certainly had to do that while also doing what Man Of The House things Alethkar has to do (and finding someone to do the traditionally female tasks, too, since his mother was dead, he was a notorious bachelor who according to WOB is afraid of romantic relationships (which I believe is due to his subconscious's extremely clear picture of Alethi court society), his aunt was busy being the greatest scientist on Roshar, and his cousin was busy pissing off the establishment).  

In other words, Adolin was forced to grow up fast and his formative years consisted of a bucket of cold water being repeatedly dumped down his back until he gained a level of clear-sightedness that only the Sebarials have about the society he inhabits.  That's not exactly an easy childhood, and it definitely left some cracks.  You don't have to be a walking DSM-V entry to have had trauma or to have lingering resentments/issues that affect your mental state.  

In real life, I'd totally agree (except maybe that Adolin's happy early childhood - he was loved by both parents (Dalinar might have been away a lot, but he still loved Adolin and treated him well) and fawned over by all of his environment - and not very sensitive temperament could help him overcome challenges in teenage years and after without being actually broken).

But since this is fantasy work and by default can't be 100% realistic, I prefer to go by the book, and the first 3 at least don't give any hint of him being broken. Only the last, maybe, shows his need to prove himself to Dalinar - whether that would count as broken or not, I guess we'll see in future.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello everyone, Shard of Theory hopping in. So, Adolin. He's great. Radiant or Reverse Radiant or just the guy with good hair, we love him and he's awesome(@Dalinar, c'mon bud). I've been divided since forever on Adolin becoming Radiant or not, and if he did, I still think he'd become a Dustbringer. But now, I think he won't. I cooked up this crazy theory and I'm reveling right now in its amazing glory.

Drumroll, please, for a (hopefully) really cool theory. Spoilered, FYI, because I made it that way.

Spoiler

Here it is :)    If there are any inaccuracies or flawed reasonings, lemme know, k?

Spoiler

Adolin becomes a Shard.

 

Heh heh. Not joking. Or cremposting. Or whatever. I'm not Whimsy.

I'm not going to shoot around in the dark at Spiritwebs and Stormlight and character traits, etc. I'm skipping that, because I don't think it matters. I think that it's going to be some kind of reverse Bondsmithy thing(which, yes, is technically Radiance) but with Maya as the Bondsmith and Adolin as the "spren" to a real spren. It's weird, but I've heard Maya swears the Words, so...

So here's the reason: Adolin, as we've seen, has really embodied every Rosharan Shardbound trait we can see. Gosh, that was fun to type. We've seen Passion(Odium), Honor/Loyalty(Honor), and we've seen Helpfulness/Growing(Cultivation).

Examples: 

Passion: Killing Sadeas(yay), protesting Kaladin's imprisonment, marrying Shallan, etc

Honor/Loyalty: Doing mission into Shadesmar for Dalinar, ig marrying Shallan, trying to be a generally helpful guy, Renarin, friendship with Kaladin, etc

Helpfulness/Growing: Mayalaran, Shallan, Kaladin, just his general helpfulness to people here too, Dalinar, etc

 

So yeah. There's that for the Shards. We also know that he looks good in several of the Radiant Orders, as opposed to just a single glaring "right here" sign.

Adolin tries his best, every day. His character can, IMO, reasonably be outlined by lining up the Radiant Orders' Divine Attributes. He's also been a kind of back burner character, and while SA isn't "Keeping Up With the Kholins" it is about the Journey, Life, and Strength of beings on Roshar.

 

IK this is kind of a short one, and it's definitely got more work, but I had this idea and wanted to share it with all y'all. Have a nice late Winter Festivity, Sharders.

I'll be making a new topic for this post so that this thread stays about Adolin in general, and not any one facet of him.

Smiley for long post :) 

Edited by Vessel of Theory
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