Bad Stormlight fathers ranked?

[GroundPetrel]

I've been thinking about this for a little while and decided to give my list of the worst Stormlight fathers in order from worst worst to least worst.  

Obviously Shallan's dad was a literal domestic abuser, but Dalinar, Gavilar, and Lirin have all been hot messes at various times too.  My ranking: 

1. Gavilar Kholin: Emotionally manipulative, possibly sociopathic, appears to have been a power-mad religious zealot.  Even Dalinar in the throes of uncontrolled PTSD and alcoholism was a better parent and leader.  Gavilar left his son, a basically decent and intelligent human being who was willing to do unnecessary and socially controversial things for the sake of the lower caste as a group, broken into a thin-skinned paranoid wreck with a massive chip on his shoulder and the self-esteem of a bruised pear; and as for Jasnah, we don't know much but it seems pretty obvious that Gavilar tried to force her to tolerate Meridas Amaram (who I'm about 85% sure hurt Jasnah somehow) and was likely responsible for subjecting her to the locked-room method of "therapy" that seems prevalent in Alethkar.  Left every single person in his immediate family with some degree of emotional issues or trauma.  Helped precipitate the apocalypse.  
2. Lin Davar: Literal domestic abuser.  Physically abusive and, with his wife, left his daughter with DID and enough trauma to rival even Kaladin.  
3. Dalinar Kholin: I keep having trouble deciding whether to put him or Lirin higher on this list, they're both crap fathers but at least Lirin recognized his mentally-ill son's accomplishments after some browbeating by his wife.  Dalinar is an alternately distant and repressive father to Adolin, who he consistently treats in a patronizing and judgemental fashion, not recognizing that Adolin is an adult (who had to grow up too fast thanks to Dalinar's alcoholism and PTSD), making adult decisions, with a far better sense for other people than Dalinar can ever hope to have.  Even when making an effort he is dismissive of Adolin's passions and refuses to understand Adolin's most deeply personal choices, as well as being a massive hypocrite about Adolin stabbing Sadeas in the eye when Sadeas clearly and openly stated his desire and intent to worsen the apocalypse just to storm over Dalinar for petty spite.  While he is kind to Renarin, he is overprotective and stifling to him when he isn't distant, requiring Renarin to blurt out self-destructively depressed thoughts to realize that he's stifling his younger son.  (and even then, he gets Renarin the Plate first, while Adolin is the one to give Renarin the Blade)  Only reason Dalinar isn't higher is because he has buckets of trauma and didn't physically or intentionally emotionally abuse his kids.  
4. Lirin: A bullheaded, strict moral absolutist who contributed significantly to his son's mental health crisis and realized how badly he'd stormed up too late.  It took Dalinar of all people to break Kaladin out of his depressed spiral before Kaladin could do something stupid like kill himself.  Simultaneously bullheaded and weak, Lirin is not fully capable of addressing how his own trauma affects his attitudes and thoughts, and his hyper-rigid moral code leaves no room for "but these guys are literally spirits who have sworn allegiance to a god of hate who have murdered people to occupy their bodies".  

What do you think?  How would you rank the Stormlight protagonists' dads?  

[Honorless]

Hmm... Gavilar probably wasn't a religious zealot, he just used the Sons of Honor's zealotry to manipulate them. It's possible that the organization started out that way though. He only saw his children in terms of how they reflected on him, so yeah, he's the worst.

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a basically decent and intelligent human being who was willing to do unnecessary and socially controversial things for the sake of the lower caste as a group

Uh... what? Elhokar was willing to execute Kaladin for besmirching a Lighteyes by accusing them of crime. He was embarrassed by his and Roshone's imprisonment of Moash's grandparents and basically waited for them to die in there. So nope on that front. The better Elhokar we see is from the influence of the rest of the family. I doubt Gavilar paid much attention to his children, given their distant PR-approved impression of him.

Dalinar basically wasn't even a father to his children when they were young and was almost always away on war. He showed blatant favouritism towards Adolin because of Renarin's sickness. He was influenced by an Unmade and wasn't mentally sound, so that's something. He does care but he's very overbearing.

Lin Davar and the rest of the Davar family was also influenced by an Unmade:

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Questioner

Was Shallan's family, during her childhood, being influenced by an Unmade?

Brandon Sanderson

Um, yes.

Questioner

Was it the corrupting--

Brandon Sanderson

I'll RAFO that, but yes, there is some external influence there. 

JordanCon 2018 (April 22, 2018)

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Questioner

There's a scene where you can see from the perspective of Nan Balat, Shallan's brother, where he's maiming an insect. It's described as soothing his aches. Is that in any way related to how Kaladin feels depressed and down during the Weeping even in his early childhood?

Brandon Sanderson

What's happening to Nan Balat is magically enhanced. What's happening to Kaladin is mostly just chemical depression. Be he is really too young to be diagnosed with depression during some of these events, but he's got the seeds in there. So Kaladin is not magically depressed. Kaladin is just legitimatly a person with depression. Nan Balat... What's up with him is... ah... being exaggerated by certain forces moving in on Roshar. (last bit is a bit indistinctive)

Leipzig Book Fair (March 24, 2017)

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Macen

Is her [Shallan's] father affected by Odium?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Words of Radiance Omaha signing (March 13, 2014)

There's still a lot to uncover from Shallan's past. But yeah, Lin was very physically abusive towards his sons, that one alone elevates him on the rankings of bad dad. Kind of tried to make Shallan feel whenever he beat his new wife, sons or staff, it was her fault. Though he apparently tried to take the blame for Shallan killing her mother, so he might've been a good person once, deep inside.

Lirin is... good god, he's the Asian parent meme extreme. "You doctor now", and oh hey, Kaladin was actually pre-pubescent when he became a surgeon, congrats Lirin! Joking aside, he might as well have been singing "mother knows best", I mean "father knows best" to Rapunzel, I mean Kaladin throughout RoW without as much as pretending to consider Kaladin's side or mental state. He was very obtuse and obstinate.

 

So 1st place goes to Gavilar

2nd place goes to Lin Davar

Lirin and Dalinar are tied for 3rd place

Edited January 14, 2021 by Honorless

[Dancer]

You've also got Teft's father. A religious zelot that thought live sacrifice and other atrocities would bring back the KR. 

[GroundPetrel]

41 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Uh... what? Elhokar was willing to execute Kaladin for besmirching a Lighteyes by accusing them of crime. He was embarrassed by his and Roshone's imprisonment of Moash's grandparents and basically waited for them to die in there. So nope on that front. The better Elhokar we see is from the influence of the rest of the family. I doubt Gavilar paid much attention to his children, given their distant PR-approved impression of him.

Dalinar basically wasn't even a father to his children when they were young and was almost always away on war. He showed blatant favouritism towards Adolin because of Renarin's sickness. He was influenced by an Unmade and wasn't mentally sound, so that's something. He does care but he's very overbearing.

Lin Davar and the rest of the Davar family was also influenced by an Unmade:

Ehlokar is well-known--Dalinar mentions this as early as TWOK--for reserving seats for darkeyes at the dueling arena and otherwise making concessions to the common people that men like Sadeas sneer at.  He does care, in an inept sort of way, he's just thin-skinned, shortsighted, had a horrible education on leadership, never was that great a leader anyway, and is trying to live up to the example of an evil man.  He's also not stupid, he's smart enough to see things that Dalinar overlooks in WOR and Dalinar admits in both TWOK and WOR that he underestimates Ehlokar's intelligence and competence, which is an impressive feat considering how often Ehlokar messes up.  And his judgement of Roshone was motivated by compassion, albeit severely misplaced; Dalinar's testimony IIRC implies that  Ehlokar realized he screwed up, called Dalinar for backup, Dalinar said "off with his head", Ehlokar said "wait shouldn't I be merciful if I'm going to be king someday?  Kings should be merciful, right?", Gavilar said "yeah don't execute the lighteyes, he has powerful buddies", and Dalinar said "well, OK, I don't like this but I do think Ehlokar should learn to be merciful". Ehlokar's got horrible judgement and is easily bullied and browbeaten, but he's not evil or even, by Alethi lighteyes standards, particularly bigoted.  

I don't think Dalinar really shows favoritism towards Adolin?  He definitely coddles Renarin more but he treats Adolin like a ticking time bomb who must be strapped tightly to a Dalinar-shaped mannequin at all times lest he start murdering people for fun, and that gets consistently worse over the course of books 3 and 4 even as he starts trusting in Renarin's ability more.  

[Honorless]

9 minutes ago, GroundPetrel said:

I don't think Dalinar really shows favoritism towards Adolin?  He definitely coddles Renarin more but he treats Adolin like a ticking time bomb who must be strapped tightly to a Dalinar-shaped mannequin at all times lest he start murdering people for fun, and that gets consistently worse over the course of books 3 and 4 even as he starts trusting in Renarin's ability more.  

Oathbringer flashbacks. He spared no time for Renarin, almost actively avoided him, Evi calls him out on it.

[GroundPetrel]

37 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Oathbringer flashbacks. He spared no time for Renarin, almost actively avoided him, Evi calls him out on it.

Ah, thanks.  He does seem to try to do better in TWOK and WOR but boy howdy is he overprotective and accidentally smothering.  

Poor Adolin's the one who gets Judgemental Dalinar and Actively Stifling Dalinar.  

The way my buddy put it is like this.  "Dalinar is good at "I don't get it more more power to you" with most people, but Adolin is too close to him for him to accept "not getting it".  So he has to invent a version of Adolin that he does get."  Which definitely fits with Dalinar's fears of Adolin being a mini-me.  It's just that Adolin is SO different from Dalinar and Dalinar doesn't understand that he ends up crushing Adolin's passions and treating him as a disappointment for not abandoning Maya to do the practical thing and get himself a hotter, younger spren.  

[Honorless]

16 minutes ago, GroundPetrel said:

get himself a hotter, younger spren.  

Don't say it like that

[GroundPetrel]

6 hours ago, Honorless said:

Don't say it like that

Dalinar might not but I'm pretty sure that's how Adolin hears it.