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Does anyone still want a Moash redemption arc?


Elsecaller_17.5

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1 minute ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Because he’s already said Nightblood kills on all three realms simultaneously?

If stabbed by it. He could just say that Moash was just invested enough to survive. Or he could bring Moash back from the Beyond. He writes the books, so he gets the final say.

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2 minutes ago, Ookla the Unnamable said:

If stabbed by it. He could just say that Moash was just invested enough to survive. Or he could bring Moash back from the Beyond. He writes the books, so he gets the final say.

Brandon has said that he'll never confirm the existence of the Beyond, so no. He can do what he wants, sure, but he sets boundaries for himself to keep himself from cheapening the effect of his stories. He's extremely careful with breaking these boundaries, which is why there will never be backwards time travel in the Cosmere, or parallel universes. I'm sure Brandon knows that adding random exceptions for Nightbloods destructiveness would weaken the impact of Nightblood as a weapon in the story. It wouldn't be as effective anymore, not as scary. So I doubt he'd do anything like that. Especially thinking that even Hoid is afraid of Nightblood, as per WOB.

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2 minutes ago, Elegy said:

Brandon has said that he'll never confirm the existence of the Beyond, so no. He can do what he wants, sure, but he sets boundaries for himself to keep himself from cheapening the effect of his stories. He's extremely careful with breaking these boundaries, which is why there will never be backwards time travel in the Cosmere, or parallel universes. I'm sure Brandon knows that adding random exceptions for Nightbloods destructiveness would weaken the impact of Nightblood as a weapon in the story. It wouldn't be as effective anymore, not as scary. So I doubt he'd do anything like that. Especially thinking that even Hoid is afraid of Nightblood, as per WOB.

I know. I'm merely saying that if Brandon wanted to, he could do anything he wanted to. Or he could come up with some sort of explanation that explains why Moash didn't die, such as saying that Moash only held Nightblood instead of being stabbed by him, and Nightblood ate the connection to his body before his spiritual or cognitive were consumed. I am aware that Brandon has said that he will never confirm or deny the existence of the Beyond.

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On 12/14/2020 at 5:22 PM, Autobrecciation said:

I was super anti Moash redemption arc before RoW, and while I don't want him to get like, a Venli level backstory and redemption, I really feel like he could have a Darth Vader moment with Kaladin right as he dies, despite him having killed Teft. I know Brandon could do it. And it would really fit thematically with the series, that no one is so far gone they can't be forgiven.

It could also go the other way and give us some vengeance against him too and I cheer for that, but I know if Moash somehow died saving Kaladin, I'd probably cry still.

See I’m weird and don’t consider Darth Vader actually redeemed. Moash saving Kaladin, then immediately dying feels the same to me. Like does one good thing really atone for many many more misdeeds? What would they have done next? Actually tried to be better (like Dalinar? And yes I know he is controversial.)? Allow justice to take it’s course (like Szeth?)? Or were their motivations more guided by selfishness in a moment and they’d go back to being crem the moment it was over. I think Moash works better, as others have said, staying a bad guy and acting as a foil for other characters. Not everyone wants to be redeemed. Moash seems “happy” to not feel anything or care about anything ever again. Why would he care to change?

On another Moash note. This total unfeeling Moash can feel a little two dimensional character wise. We understood where he was coming from in WoK and WoR. Now he is just flat. But I think that is the point. He literally gave up an entire dimension of himself when he chose to stop feeling anything. I think long term this could have some very interesting implications. 

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4 minutes ago, Philomath said:

See I’m weird and don’t consider Darth Vader actually redeemed. Moash saving Kaladin, then immediately dying feels the same to me. Like does one good thing really atone for many many more misdeeds? What would they have done next? Actually tried to be better (like Dalinar? And yes I know he is controversial.)? Allow justice to take it’s course (like Szeth?)? Or were their motivations more guided by selfishness in a moment and they’d go back to being crem the moment it was over. I think Moash works better, as others have said, staying a bad guy and acting as a foil for other characters. Not everyone wants to be redeemed. Moash seems “happy” to not feel anything or care about anything ever again. Why would he care to change?

That's not weird! For example, Brandon himself agrees with you in his interview with Dusty Wheel.

I understand that the original Star Wars trilogy is a 6 hour story and they didn't have time for anything more, so it doesn't bother me much. But if the super-indulgent and character-heavy, soon 2 million words long Stormlight Archive doesn't deliver on thorough, meaty redemption arcs as soon as it does those, I'm going to be disappointed. Because that's the standard Brandon set and the style that he chose. If you make 3000 pages of intense Moash hatred end in "well, I saved my ex-best friend, guess I'm redeemed now", that's not a good look.

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23 minutes ago, Elegy said:

That's not weird! For example, Brandon himself agrees with you in his interview with Dusty Wheel.

I understand that the original Star Wars trilogy is a 6 hour story and they didn't have time for anything more, so it doesn't bother me much. But if the super-indulgent and character-heavy, soon 2 million words long Stormlight Archive doesn't deliver on thorough, meaty redemption arcs as soon as it does those, I'm going to be disappointed. Because that's the standard Brandon set and the style that he chose. If you make 3000 pages of intense Moash hatred end in "well, I saved my ex-best friend, guess I'm redeemed now", that's not a good look.

Wow. I love that you shared that interview. Ha ha. I feel a small amount of personal satisfaction being indirectly validated by my favorite author. And I agree with you about anything in Stormlight regarding a redemption needing to be really earned and delivered well so it doesn’t feel cheap. 

(On a really side note, if I ever do any writing myself, one of my ideas focuses heavy on the idea of redemption by going one of two ways. A character goes for the redemption save someone suicide in order to die seeming like a good person. Succeeds in the dying part, but the rest of the book is people he knew vs strangers dealing with whether or not that makes them good. The other way is trying the save someone suicide plan, failing to die, trying again and again and actually ending up redeemed by learning to be a good person who cares about other people.)

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Nope, and I don’t think it’s really possible. This is what I think’ll happen to Moash.

Odium will be destroyed, or Moash will for some reason no longer be under his power. He won’t have any of Odium’s emotion suppressing magic thing on him, and he’ll go completely insane. We’ve already seen hints of that in RoW, where Moash feels emotion for just a few seconds and is screaming in agony. So Moash will go insane, and then he’ll kill himself in guilt. And it will be so satisfying. 

In a way, that almost is a redemption arc. He’ll suffer for his sins, but unlike most redemptions, nobody will be there to offer him mercy. Instead he kills himself. 

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RoW part 1 spoiler?

Spoiler

after he goads Kaladin to kill himself, I think that's pretty very awful. 

We already know why Moash is the way he is, because he loved his grandparents and they got killed.  I don't know that there's another layer.  Also Row part 1:

Spoiler

Though it was good for someone to kill Rashone.  

I don't think every villain has to be redeemable. examples from mistborn:

Spoiler

Mr. Suit, for instance.  Straff Venture.  Ruin.  The 2nd generation.  Though in this respect I think Moash is more like Miles.

he's not just plain bad, but the things he's done from twisted intentions make it really really hard to unknot.  

Edited by GeoMantrix
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I'm really not a fan of redemption through death/sacrifice, it's too easy and really weak.

I don't know if I want redemption, but I just want something interesting to come out of this character. Something to justify all the viewpoints he's gotten, something to make his development from slave to monster to... whatever happens next worthwhile instead of just ending up the same as Amaram. If he's just a voidbringer in the truest sense, then I don't understand why he didn't just die on that mountain.

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On 12/16/2020 at 5:39 PM, Philomath said:

See I’m weird and don’t consider Darth Vader actually redeemed.

So...completely off topic, but did you watch the Clone Wars? I think for me, its the extra characterization he gets from that series that makes him more empathizeable - something that was incomplete with just the prequel movies. It's too the point that it makes Return of the Jedi better (Where previous to watching the clone wars, it was my least favorite of the OT).

On topic, I think you are right that it feels shallow to just let someone sacrifice themselves to save someone, and that redeems them. It really depends on the arc we are given for Moash. I'm on my reread, just finished the part where Moash kills Leshwi and is spared for being passionate. I don't really feel like Moash / Kaladin's friendship was well developed in tWoK and WoR; certainly not nearly as well as Adolin / Kaladin. In fact, Moash in tWoK is kind of the last cremling that doesn't trust Kaladin. Take that to where he goes on OB and RoW - He gives his feelings over to Odium, seems completely uncaring - I honestly don't understand how Odium likes him while he feels so uncaring / passionless. For the future, if you want to go biblical analogs, his current moment really feels a lot like Saul/Paul - including having now been struck blind. He kind of acted like a prophet of Kaladin for parts in RoW, just trying to get him killed. I have previously posted about how I think Moash is going to be Smeagul somehow, and I keep coming back to him giving up his feelings - feeling nothing is the opposite of Passion. We also now have T-Odium, who may or may not care about Moash at all.

Off the rails prediction: Moash, feeling betrayed by old Odium, now stuck with his pain as a servant to T-Odium, has an arc: escape Odium, finds Dai-Gonarthis (Not a real unmade?), who takes away his pain (As per deathrattle). Moash ends up bonding it and becoming some sort of anti-Radiant, and a more powerful bad guy (Rather than kind of pathetic).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Post OB (even mid chapter when he kills Roshone), I could get behind the idea of Moash redemption. He killed the people who caused the deaths of the only family he knew. Sure, Elhokar became much more sympathetic, but Moash didn't know that. Then he killed a friend in order to devastate another friend enough to commit suicide, and now I want him to cop it very painfully.

A trend I've noticed in fiction and fandom lately is that trauma (particularly during youth) is used to justify anything (*cough* Killmonger *cough*). A traumatic past doesn't justify giving others a traumatic present, and so many people don't seem to understand that.

I'm sure BrandoSando would do it in a better fashion if he did decide to go down that route (and we've seen it with Dalinar), but if Moash is redeemed it had better be more substantial than 'you had a sad childhood and you did one good thing, everything is forgiven now'.

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No. Moash should continue to fall. He should gain and lose powers and abilities as the story requires. He should have some successes and some losses and continue into the back 5 books. He should always be a secondary antagonist with bigger and bigger asperations.

His final act should be to accidentally save everyone he tried to hurt and undermine everything he ever accomplished. Basically, Padan Fain with a more consequential ending.

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3 hours ago, jamesbondsmith said:

Post OB (even mid chapter when he kills Roshone), I could get behind the idea of Moash redemption. He killed the people who caused the deaths of the only family he knew. Sure, Elhokar became much more sympathetic, but Moash didn't know that. Then he killed a friend in order to devastate another friend enough to commit suicide, and now I want him to cop it very painfully.

A trend I've noticed in fiction and fandom lately is that trauma (particularly during youth) is used to justify anything (*cough* Killmonger *cough*). A traumatic past doesn't justify giving others a traumatic present, and so many people don't seem to understand that.

I'm sure BrandoSando would do it in a better fashion if he did decide to go down that route (and we've seen it with Dalinar), but if Moash is redeemed it had better be more substantial than 'you had a sad childhood and you did one good thing, everything is forgiven now'.

Personally, as someone who is interested in seeing Moash move beyond the villain role, it's not so much that I feel bad for what happened in his past, but I kind of agree with some of his gripes. I think Killmonger is actually a good example, because with him, it's not his traumatic past that made him sympathetic, but how that motivated his actions moving forward. He was a bad guy that needed to be stopped, but he wasn't wrong about the fact that the people of Wakanda were wrong to not use the resources they had to help people outside of Wakanda. At the end of the movie, T'Challa decides that Killmonger was right, and that Wakanda can't keep acting in isolation when so much injustice happens outside of their country and they have the power to help. This is what makes him an interesting villain.

As for Moash, he's not trying to make anything right, but he does have valid reasons for wanting revenge in the first place. The system of giving lighteyed people power at the expense of darkeyes is stormed up. It doesn't matter that not all of them abuse that power because the fact that their society works that way empowers people to abuse it by design. I think the scene where he criticizes Navani for doing nothing while people like he and Kaladin suffer is particularly interesting, as it sort of gets at that idea. As of now, Jasnah's really the only lighteyed character to even suggest that a system that gives certain people greater privileges at the expense of others is inherently unjust.

That being said, I don't think that's Moash's purpose in the story. I don't think Sanderson is interested in that sort of criticism towards the lighteyed characters, particularly since we're meant to see Elhokar as blameless in the Roshone affair. Moash is just a one dimensional villain who didn't like his lot in life and wants to take it out on everyone else. I think it's kind of a shame, because he could have had a more nuanced role in the story. That's basically reason I'd like a Moash "redemption", because I'd like him to just be a more interesting character.

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6 hours ago, Dannex said:

It should be noted that the Blackthorn was a much worse person than Moash currently is, and look where he ended up....

He needed several books as a main character - among them his own flashback book - and a Nightwatcher curse for that. I wouldn't say that Moash as a person is irredeemable. Just that the books have let the opportunity pass for it to happen in a satisfying way. Rhythm of War had so little interest in setting up a redemption for him, it's clear that it won't happen within ten days. And after that there's an immense time skip that would cut off the evolution that such an arc would have to be.

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Moash can go die alone in a dark hole that is moist. 

But I really want him to get a good redemption arc because it will make me feel so many emotions that I don't want to feel, but I low-key love feeling. I would love Moash to become a protagonist that does good, heroic things because I would hate him to his guts. I love feeling conflicted when reading. I want his redemption arc more after RoW compared to Oathbringer because Teft's death was a pike to my heart and it made me want to kick Moash till his guts exploded, but this just means that my emotions I'll be even more heightened if his theoretical redemption arc is pulled of well. 

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