Is Lirin right?

[MasterK-Bob he/him]

I'm rereading WoK, perhaps obviously. I'm wondering if Lirin is right that Wistiow would have given Kaladin's family money to pay for him to become a surgeon in Kharbranth. If he cared about his people, this would be a good investment, but it would be better to draw some kind of contract that Kaladin has to stay in Hearthstone for a certain amount of time.

[Returned he/him]

It's not stated outright, that I recall,  but my feeling is that Lirin was right about Wistiow's intentions not just to pay to send Kaladin to Kharbranth but also to arrange for him to marry Laral. I think it was for the same reasons you describe, that it would have been good for Hearthstone (it was an amazing amenity that they had a surgeon of Lirin's caliber in a smaller, out-of-the-way village) but with the marriage to Laral it suggests something bigger. A darkeyed citizen, even one of the second nahn (possibly first, with the citylord's wealth to support it) marrying a lighteyes would be at least a minor scandal, and her position as almost-inheritor of the citylord position would make it an even bigger deal.

I think that being with Laral would have been a pretty strong incentive to stay in Hearthstone, on top of which Kaladin seemed to truly like living there before Roshone came. My impression of the whole situation was that Lirin leveraged how much better his presence made Hearthstone with a relatively open-minded Wistiow to foster a concrete example of social change and make life better and fairer for everyone in the city. I don't think the right of travel was at the forefront of anyone's minds, though perhaps it should have been, but the idea seems to have been (I think, at any rate) that Kaladin would have been woven into Hearthstone pretty soundly by all of this. Had any of Kaladin's and Laral's children been lighteyed they might even have become the citylord or citylady (to be wed to some guy later), making Kaladin a higher status citizen than even the first nahn would permit.

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

7 hours ago, MasterK-Bob said:

I'm rereading WoK, perhaps obviously. I'm wondering if Lirin is right that Wistiow would have given Kaladin's family money to pay for him to become a surgeon in Kharbranth. If he cared about his people, this would be a good investment, but it would be better to draw some kind of contract that Kaladin has to stay in Hearthstone for a certain amount of time.

Yeah, I think, unfortunately, lirin and wistiow had pretty darn good and viable plans for their children to follow. The winds of fate are fickle things though, and plans are ever the first casualty on any field of battle. =/

This type of thing is why looking into the spiritual realm is dangerous for one's mental health if you ask me...