Realization: Kelek is responsible for Kaladin's enslavement!

[+Czernobog]

Quote

It took hours to decide, but Restares is right-this is what must be done. For the good of Alethkar.

Amaram from WoK, right after killing the four survivors from Kaladin's squad, and before having Kaladin branded. 

[Alcatur]

Maaaaybe. It doesn't say strickly that Amaram was ordered by Restares or even advised, but it is quite vague. Note that with Kelek problem being extremely indecisive, it is unlikely that he would say "do it", it may have been Amaram overinterpretation, or relying on a particular interpretation. 

It is something that buggers me. Kelek wanting to bring back the Desolation doesn't make much sense. He wants out - and new Desolation and return of Odium is not something he would want, he is afraid of precisely this thing. Unless he hoped that it would somehow break his bond (and it probably shouldn't). It looks to me like me that goals of  Amaram were probably quite not the goals of Kelek and may have been the result of older plans of Gavilar, and Kelek indecisiveness prevented him from taking the SoH back.

[Toaster Retribution]

Brandon defenitely needs to go more in-depth on Kalak as Restares, because both the enslavement of Kaladin, the hunt for Urithiru, and the attempts to bring back the Desolations, are not at all something that feels in character for Kalak. Either there is more to him than there seems to be, or there was another Restares earlier, and Kalak took his place after he died, for some reason. 

It still doesn't make sense though. I can't really think of a viable reason for Kalak to want to lead the Sons of Honor. 

[IndigoAjah]

10 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Brandon defenitely needs to go more in-depth on Kalak as Restares, because both the enslavement of Kaladin, the hunt for Urithiru, and the attempts to bring back the Desolations, are not at all something that feels in character for Kalak. Either there is more to him than there seems to be, or there was another Restares earlier, and Kalak took his place after he died, for some reason. 

It still doesn't make sense though. I can't really think of a viable reason for Kalak to want to lead the Sons of Honor. 

He's probably mad, so it doesn't have to be a good reason 

[+Czernobog]

It seems equally unlikely for a Herald to take any active role in the False Desolation, yet Kelek says he was there for the capture of BAM.

Lotsa fun mystery to unravel. 

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Brandon defenitely needs to go more in-depth on Kalak as Restares, because both the enslavement of Kaladin, the hunt for Urithiru, and the attempts to bring back the Desolations, are not at all something that feels in character for Kalak. Either there is more to him than there seems to be, or there was another Restares earlier, and Kalak took his place after he died, for some reason. 

It still doesn't make sense though. I can't really think of a viable reason for Kalak to want to lead the Sons of Honor. 

Kalak is not sane. He may very well have given those orders (which I could easily see him doing) and performed actions leading to the return of the Desolations one day, and the next done something entirely different. It would depend on who he was influenced by that particular hour.

[Karger]

It is possible he wanted Kaladin killed for the same reason as Nale.  Amaram seems to have been the one who cooked up the brand him a slave and get rid of him.

[Ramona Tehradin]

I think Kelek's main ambition after everything is to free himself from Rosharan system. Cognitive Shadows have some weird attachment (metaphorically speaking) to their respective systems. We can fairly assume that Sons of Honor are a brand new organization like Diagram compared to GBs and Skybreakers. What's more interesting is...heralds are having influence in forming these organizations save for GBs. 

• Nale led the Skybreakers after recreance and reclaimed his honorblade. 
• Diagram was formed because Batter aka Dova warned Taravangian of upcoming Desolations. 
• Kelek is/maybe founder/leader of Sons of Honor 

It's fair to assume that while Nale's goals remain stuck in his 'justified' way to prevent Desolations, we aren't clear about Battar's ambition. Why would she go and speak to Taravangian about Desolations after Gavilar's death? We haven't been given a clue about that except whispery mentions of her presence. 

Coming back to Kelek. Yes, there's a lot of mystery surrounding this guy but it's possible to assume that he's directly/indirectly responsible for Kaladin's enslavement. I have seen Amaram doing Restaras' bidding all along, including writing him letter. He also happens to be aware about tones and their influence to form anti-lights (remember Shallan seeing collection of flutes in Amaram's room), so that anti-voidlight sphere Gavilar gave to Szeth was perhaps discovered in such methods. But if we remember, Everstorm was long before brewing in Shadesmar for centuries. There's inconsistency and the theory that Taln didn't break but Sons of Honor screwed up big time could be accepted. 

When Kaladin killed Helaran, I believe Kelek was already at Honorspren's stronghold. It could be possible that he ordered Amaram to have that Shardblade siezed and kill the man as a favor to Honorspren who have been already bridled for Syl's decision to join him. Maybe it was the reason they got him accepted in their home? A possibility. Also during when Amaram was writing his letter, he was thinking about Kaladin with anger. Clearly whatever happened to Kaladin was a foil in his plans. 

But that still leaves a lot of questions behind!

• If Nale wanted to prevent Desolations and SoH wanted to bring them back, why would Nale and Kelek work together with Gaviliar? Maybe their intent was to use anti-voidlight to kill Odium and make themselves free of Rosharan system. But would it actually free them? 
• They seem to be interested in 'Investiture' because Hoid had told them it would cure...I think they were looking for Breaths in this case and freeing themselves from Roshar would take them to Nalthis. Remember one of them mentioning that 'Ash is getting worse'. 
• Kelek believes their madness is related to imprisonment of BAM. I think her influence was expansive enough that it ripped a Connection directly from Spiritual Realm. 
• Is Kelek still leading SoH now that their goal has been fulfilled? 
• Would it be possible to also assume that Restaras' wanted to bring back Desolation for two main purpose: To kill Odium and free BAM so that he could free himself from system?

[Raven Wilder]

Kalak may have thought that the thing keeping him bound to Roshar was the Oathpact, which was still technically in place so long as Taln held out on Braize. The Oathpact wasn't completely undone until Taln returned to Roshar and the Last Desolation began; Kalak may have been assuming that that would at last free him to leave for other worlds. That it didn't is him not understanding this stuff nearly as well as he thinks he does.

[Subvisual Haze]

That entire battle was a pawn of Nale (Helaran) fighting a pawn of Kelek (Amaram).  Oh those nutty Heralds.

[coolsnow7]

On 11/29/2020 at 5:36 PM, Czernobog said:

Amaram from WoK, right after killing the four survivors from Kaladin's squad, and before having Kaladin branded. 

I can’t believe I forgot about that. Great call!

[Awesomness]

It is mentioned that Kelek/Restares founded the Sons of Honour, but is not involved any longer.

My guess is he started the organization to find a way out of Roshar, and used the excuse of bringing back the Heralds as an excuse to manipulate a bunch of people into helping him with whatever plan he had.

The plan backfired when his allies came up with the idea to usher a Desolation to bring back the Heralds. So he left the organization.

[Toaster Retribution]

14 hours ago, Awesomness said:

The plan backfired when his allies came up with the idea to usher a Desolation to bring back the Heralds. So he left the organization.

Mraize refers to the Sons as "Restares cronies" in WoR, and Amaram writes him a letter in that same book. So I think Restares led them during the books as well.

[Kingsdaughter613]

I have the crazy idea that Kalak switched sides.

He was convinced back in the Prelude that Odium would find a work around and he’s TERRIFIED of being tortured again. How better to avoid it than to join forces with the torturer? Now he won’t be hurt.

Plus, Odium admits to being able to free a CS in this book. The exact thing Kalak wants. I can see him creating his own deal with Odium in exchange for freedom.

Not to mention, “Never trust anything a Herald says ever.” If a Herald is telling me we should free an Unmade, I have serious reservations.

And it would be SUCH a Brandon twist for Kalak to be a traitor.

 

 

[StanLemon]

I could imagine Kalak saying something along the lines of "it might be good for you to gain Shards" and Amaram justifying his actions toward Kaladin with that.

[WasingtheWhy]

The Heralds madness isn't something that can be wholly blamed on their torture on Braize. (Though I am sure it was a large contributing factor.) I think that Taln's current state of mind is directly because of his millennia of torture, though both he and Ishar display moments of complete lucidity, which to me suggests that there might be an outside factor influencing their state of mind. I could be wrong, of course, but the moments of lucidity seem too deliberate to be just for effect. Even Kelek isn't as mad as he seems when Shallan finally confronts him. And there are still plenty of Heralds that haven't gotten any page time, so who knows how they are acting. The Stormfather says they are all mad, but we only have actually seen a few of them in action, so it is hard to guess on how it is that they have held up over the years.

Though, personally, I think that being alive for thousands of years would drive just about anyone completely batty, but that's just one opinion. 

[Crimson_Russ]

Given what we see of Kalak in this book, something tells me he said nothing of the sort.

Amaram claimed he did what he did for the good of the army, then he claimed he did it for the good of Alethkar, then he claimed it for the good of Roshar.

Amaram did everything he could to justify his actions so that he wouldn't have to admit that he was wrong. If Kalak did mention taking the shards for himself, I don't doubt that he stated it as an option given Kalak's penchant for indecision.

Amaram's betrayal came because he wanted power and he refused to admit that he had no right to it. At the end of the day, it was Amaram who chose to, in defiance of all custom, law and tradition, murder men who tried to save his life by placing themselves in harms way and enslave the man who fought on alone because Amaram was 'trained in the sword'.

Amaram's sense of honour was not about doing what was right because it was right, Amaram's sense of honour was simply a facade of convenience so that his outward image could remain spotless.

 

Any one who can kill a shardbearer in a one on one contest without the advantage of any shards doesn't need to be 'trained in the sword', the man simply deserves the shards and anyone who tries to claim otherwise is an idiot. Amaram's skill compared to that of Kaladin was like a competent swordsman against a weapons master. The difference in ability between the two, as Elhokar would put it, could hold a kingdom.

However, I think the main reason was that Amaram was a jealous coward who was embarrassed by the fact that it wasn't his honour guard who defended him but a group of lowly dark-eyed spearmen who proved themselves more capable and brave than any man in Amaram's army and he simply couldn't let them have the glory for their actions. He wanted what he wanted and, instead of claiming that they were sent off as a reward, he slandered the entire squad as traitors. Amaram deserved worse than he got in my opinion, far worse.