Does anyone else think Mraize is the most annoying character?

[Gnmish]

For all his posing and 'subtlety' he has never actually done anything interesting or useful that I can see. Every plan we have seen of the Ghostbloods on Roshar has been a dismal failure with the exception of Shallan's operations.

Without Shallan's record, the Ghostbloods would be one of the most ineffectual organisations on Roshar, racking up failed operations and dead operatives at every turn.

And yet Mraize struts about bragging that he is some bad-ass 'hunter'. The only prey he has ever caught appears to be a 14 year old girl. The one time he gets confronted with any real danger he scampers off like the miserable little cremling he is.

One can only hope Mishram rips off his face as soon as she is freed and he tries to control her.

Edited November 6, 2024 by Gnmish

[Alcatur]

Thank you, though he may have had some minor success.

 

Still I see the ghostbloods as a plot tumor growing on the healthy tissue of the books. And just as a normal tumor it keeps getting worse and worse for the organism. 

[+Child of Hodor]

Mraize has got to go in this book. He has outlived his usefulness to the plot. Mraize isn't even really the boss of the local Ghostbloods he's basically an apprentice being trained by Iyatil from Corporate HQ to run things eventually. Now it turns out those trophies are Iyatil's too. 

They are still a more imposing and Cosmere-aware group than the Sons of Honor. I'll give them that. 

SA has a lot of people who seem interesting and formidable then it turns out they weren't that good at what they did after all. Gavilar, Rayse, Amaram and Mraize off the top of my head. It wouldn't shock me if Taravangian gets owned in this book as well. 

Edited November 6, 2024 by Child of Hodor

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

On 11/6/2024 at 2:21 AM, Gnmish said:

For all his posing and 'subtlety' he has never actually done anything interesting or useful that I can see. Every plan we have seen of the Ghostbloods on Roshar has been a dismal failure with the exception of Shallan's operations.

Without Shallan's record, the Ghostbloods would be one of the most ineffectual organisations on Roshar, racking up failed operations and dead operatives at every turn.

And yet Mraize struts about bragging that he is some bad-ass 'hunter'. The only prey he has ever caught appears to be a 14 year old girl. The one time he gets confronted with any real danger he scampers off like the miserable little cremling he is.

One can only hope Mishram rips off his face as soon as she is freed and he tries to control her.

Well...we need to be careful about getting too meta here, but he's mostly serving as a plot device that connects stormlight archive to the greater cosmere in order to setup the basis for their future wider confrontations and challenges.

If they're too successful at stifling the off-worlders now, Rosharns might not be prepared or informed when the one's above show up later. The ghostbloods are on Roshar to lockdown guarantees of future riches and then to try to leave alive, not free the planet or ensure unity or change or not change anyone's government. I think the best solution here is that some ghostbloods escape and get rich, and some get lost, sacrificed, captured and converted, or defect and go to ground during the conflict. Just an opinion though.

Edited November 7, 2024 by hwiles

[TheOtherDave]

On 11/5/2024 at 11:21 PM, Gnmish said:

For all his posing and 'subtlety' he has never actually done anything interesting or useful that I can see. Every plan we have seen of the Ghostbloods on Roshar has been a dismal failure with the exception of Shallan's operations.

I think the key phrase there is “that we have seen”. If they never accomplished anything at all, they’d probably be a smaller, less-feared group.

 

Also, it’s not really true. The Ghostbloods got that soulcaster from somewhere, and the only reason they didn’t manage to kill Jasnah is they didn’t know she could teleport away and heal herself from being stabbed through the freakin’ heart.

[Slayd_07]

Something to keep in mind is that right now, the Ghostbloods have been facing some POWERFUL opposition. Their opponents are third or fourth oath Radiants, monarchs, and even Hoid himself is pretty directly opposing them. Plus, because of their nature as a secret organization, we likely only see the plans of theirs that go awry. 

I mean, just in the last couple chapters, we've found out that they placed an informant in the coalition's inner circle, AND stolen anti-stormlight from Urithiru. That's pretty impressive!

[Stark he/him]

As of today? Yes.

[alder24]

Personally, I love what he did today. 

[Gnmish]

On 11/12/2024 at 10:20 AM, TheOtherDave said:

I think the key phrase there is “that we have seen”. If they never accomplished anything at all, they’d probably be a smaller, less-feared group.

 

Also, it’s not really true. The Ghostbloods got that soulcaster from somewhere, and the only reason they didn’t manage to kill Jasnah is they didn’t know she could teleport away and heal herself from being stabbed through the freakin’ heart.

Getting a Soulcaster is not exactly an impossible feat, a 17 year old Shallan managed to steal Jasnah's albeit fake one without using a single power, and the Wandersail picked up a half dozen just as an afterthought to the expedition.

Also, if the Ghostbloods were that ignorant of Jasnah's powers, I would consider that an even larger indictment of their incompetence, their 'secret' knowledge is their only real asset, and it failed on even that most basic level of knowing your enemy (or prey)

Edited November 18, 2024 by Gnmish

[Kfish]

We have literally only seen two operations outside of Shallan's missions - both attempts to kill Jasnah. This seems weirdly judgmental of the group as incompetent when all that we've seen from them has ended up largely successful.