Why so much hate on the debate?

[agrabes]

I realize I'm a bit late to the party but wanted to throw in my two cents here.  This debate scene was one of my favorites in the book, and I was surprised to see that a lot of people didn't like it.  After reading some of these replies - I think for most people the reason comes down to how much you liked Jasnah prior to this debate.  I frankly strongly disliked Jasnah prior to the debate, but by the end of the book I liked her quite a bit.

Prior to this debate, Jasnah had portrayed herself as not only a very smart and logic based individual, but also as someone who acts based on cold hard logic.  The books mostly seemed to back this up - Jasnah is a super genius who can do no wrong and all her actions are morally justified because she's just smarter than everybody else so she knows the moral arguments and she had to deal with trauma so it's ok for her to go killing people.  Many fans also shared that opinion.   My personal view on her leading up to this book was that while she was definitely a very smart person she was not omniscient and even the best people make mistakes - I disagreed with many of her stances.  I also felt she did a lot of things that were morally questionable and often just full on wrong starting in Way of Kings (baiting people into attempting a minor crime and then murdering them) and continuing on through Oathbringer (her actions with Amaram - though as we learn more those may be justified, her proposal to kill all Parshmen/Parshendi/Singers/Etc) and RoW (murdering her Alethi political opponents).  You also have instances where she clearly acts on emotion rather than logic - sometimes positive (Renarin), sometimes negative (Amaram - had she acted based on cool logic and not had an emotional outburst against him, our heroes may have been able to bring him back into the anti-Odium camp, though again her extreme reactions seem likely to be justified in future flashbacks).  At the time, I felt Sanderson was portraying all the things I saw as negative as positive and justified.

During and after the debate, Sanderson makes it clear we as readers should be viewing Jasnah as an imperfect person just like the rest of the heroes.  He shows us that she's smart but not omniscient.  He shows us that her moral behaviors are often bad and alienate people who would otherwise be her allies - her behaviors made Fen feel that Odium of all people is more trustworthy.  And he shows us that she was clearly not just acting out of pure logic.  And Jasnah herself finally takes time to self-reflect and she realizes all these things.  She realizes that she needs to change because what she was doing was not self-consistent with her own professed values and more importantly, it's just not a winning strategy.  And I also think (while a bit clumsily done) Sanderson was right to separate her personal ethical philosophy from her atheist beliefs.  Overall, just one of the best moments in WaT and if Jasnah continues to grow then I really look forward to reading her sections in the back 5 novels.

In terms of the actual debate itself - it was a classic philosophy debate about utilitarianism mixed in with practical real-world (ok, book-world) decision-making.  I took a few philosophy classes in college so I'm familiar with the basic pro and anti utilitarianism arguments.  The truth is that Odium had her beat twice in the debate.  First, in pure logic he had her beat.  Odium offered Fen a better deal from a utilitarian perspective.  In order to beat Odium here she would have had to argue either 1) Odium's not calculating the "utils" right and we need to add more value in the equation to things like the suffering of others - but that's really hard to do and how do you convince someone of that in a 30 minute debate? or 2) Abandon the utilitarian philosophy argument, which would come off as totally insincere and likely turn Fen against her.  Second, he had her beat in the practical decision-making front.  Both parties demonstrated themselves unreliable - Jasnah and the Alethi in general in that they looked out for themselves first and foremost even after promising very profusely and very recently that they wouldn't.  Odium is Odium, I think enough said there.   But with Odium, you start off with a better deal and you do at least have the fact that he's bound to the letter of his oaths by magic.  You don't have that with Jasnah, she can murder you 5 minutes after the deal is done.  And like someone else said, ad hominem is not a fallacy in this context.  It's relevant information for making the decision.  And let's not forget that Jasnah also engaged in it.  Both parties told the truth about the bad deeds each other had done, but Jasnah's problem was that everyone knows Odium is a snake and expects to deal with him in that context.  Jasnah was supposed to be trustworthy.  Fen learned that Jasnah was not trustworthy - that's a big emotional blow.

Ultimately, I think people wanted Jasnah to defeat Odium with the power of pure logic and are upset she wasn't capable of that.  For one (as others have said) this is just the start of her arc so narratively it just doesn't make sense for her to have "super logic" already just like Kaladin couldn't win every fight early in his arc (or even later in his arc).  But beyond that, I think you have to be really careful with winning by "super logic" as a plot device in general.  It is really, really easy to come off as preachy or just logically flawed.  I personally think Sanderson would be wise to not have Jasnah's crowning achievement be defeating (insert final big bad here) in a logical debate.  I'd like to see her show off her intelligence by wise governing, teaching others, and making society better.

[Shaukan-son-Hasweth he/him]

Yes I agree so hard!

Jasnah is one of my favourite characters ever, because of her unique flaws. Flaws female characters are not often allowed to have.

With every physical fight scene we have I never feel any tension in the stakes.

I feel I always know beforehand how this is going to play out. 

But when Taravangian came to argue I felt like "Oh crap, this might go badly. And in unexpected ways no less"

 

[Nitpicking]

It isn't that Jasnah should have won. It's that she's presented as suddenly incompetent at the exact things she should be good at. My mom was a philosopher. She would have effortlessly out-debated Taravangian. Jasnah was like a freshman who took one course on general philosophy and never had an argument in her lift.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 1/11/2025 at 2:29 AM, Nitpicking said:

She would have effortlessly out-debated Taravangian. Jasnah was like a freshman who took one course on general philosophy and never had an argument in her lift.

If you were an Alethi woman, would you challenge Jasnah Kholin on philosophy? She is the sister of the king, respectively the queen. That would be a high-risk move. You may be exactly right on how experienced she is.

[Nitpicking]

32 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

If you were an Alethi woman, would you challenge Jasnah Kholin on philosophy? She is the sister of the king, respectively the queen. That would be a high-risk move. You may be exactly right on how experienced she is.

To be fair, Jasnah has spent lots of time debating non-Alethi scholars (sometimes via spanreed).

[RefusesToElaborate]

I appreciate the whole Debate, differently than most, I think.

Jasnah in a lot of ways, to me, presents Sandersons flawed understanding of atheism and really a caricature of what some younger and more radical atheists think of as a role model. Which is to say, Jasnah presents to me with lot of cringe memories of myself.

And it is good, that now, as a man staring down the barrel of his thirties, to see a fragment of what I once thought was the ideal all people should strive to (intelligent, merciless, dispassionate) being utterly humbled. Reminds me I kind of pulled myself out of a singularity of needing to be right more than needing to hold to a moral standard.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

3 hours ago, RefusesToElaborate said:

Jasnah in a lot of ways, to me, presents Sandersons flawed understanding of atheism and really a caricature of what some younger and more radical atheists think of as a role model.

Why? What role did her atheism play? Her fundamental flaw was not living up to her own standards. That is not a shortcoming atheists display more often than religious people, for it is too common for that.

[RefusesToElaborate]

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Why? What role did her atheism play? Her fundamental flaw was not living up to her own standards. That is not a shortcoming atheists display more often than religious people, for it is too common for that.

Oh God, it's time to show my Nale.

Look, in terms of moral philosophy, I don't exactly have the most well rounded knowledge. However, her argumentation, to me, a person who agrees with her fundamental stance on where morals come from (ie. Not god), I simply am not convinced and I find it go be part of the 2010s Cringe Atheism mindset.

I believe morals come from us, more than that they are fallible.

Jasnahs morality presents a world where rather than deciding upon standards of justice through moral reasoning (ie. A law, a Skybreaker attitude) you look at a decision, analyse which action you can take that will minimise harm and maximise good.

The problem that I have with this Utilitarian philosophy is, simply, that it depends on your ability to predict the outcome and consequence of your actions. We can predict the future with only slightly more accuracy than a guess.

Utilitarianism is a philosophy that tends to attract people who think themselves much better at foresight than any person who has ever or will ever exist.

In the interest of saving my own time I won't get into how easy it is to justify bigotry and false imprisonment in a utilitarian mindset. Just know that is a concern.

I am much more convinced by Standards of Justice. Like, this is how we act, do not kill, do not steal, do not lie at someone else's expense to increase your own standing, even if you believe doing any of these things may lead to a positive outcome. If we have these standards in place we have a solid moral baseline and when it is violated we can have more standards to deal with how we respond there. It's just rules and laws until we hit someone who repeatedly violates moral standards and refuses to accept corrective measures. Then we can talk about possible executions if you're willing to present a convincing case for why this person is truly lost to morality.

So... that's my problem with Jasnahs mindset. It is a moral philosophy I saw as too common in atheistic spaces during the euphoric fedora phase and I'm glad it's by and large vacating atheistic spaces and mostly shifting to twitch political streamers I don't watch. I don't like how a morality that functions at its best when you can predict the future to a Supernatural level is held up by people who deny the existence of any Supernatural phenomenon. 

 

Edited January 12, 2025 by RefusesToElaborate

[bmcclure7]

On 1/9/2025 at 8:29 PM, agrabes said:

I realize I'm a bit late to the party but wanted to throw in my two cents here.  This debate scene was one of my favorites in the book, and I was surprised to see that a lot of people didn't like it.  After reading some of these replies - I think for most people the reason comes down to how much you liked Jasnah prior to this debate.  I frankly strongly disliked Jasnah prior to the debate, but by the end of the book I liked her quite a bit.

Prior to this debate, Jasnah had portrayed herself as not only a very smart and logic based individual, but also as someone who acts based on cold hard logic.  The books mostly seemed to back this up - Jasnah is a super genius who can do no wrong and all her actions are morally justified because she's just smarter than everybody else so she knows the moral arguments and she had to deal with trauma so it's ok for her to go killing people.  Many fans also shared that opinion.   My personal view on her leading up to this book was that while she was definitely a very smart person she was not omniscient and even the best people make mistakes - I disagreed with many of her stances.  I also felt she did a lot of things that were morally questionable and often just full on wrong starting in Way of Kings (baiting people into attempting a minor crime and then murdering them) and continuing on through Oathbringer (her actions with Amaram - though as we learn more those may be justified, her proposal to kill all Parshmen/Parshendi/Singers/Etc) and RoW (murdering her Alethi political opponents).  You also have instances where she clearly acts on emotion rather than logic - sometimes positive (Renarin), sometimes negative (Amaram - had she acted based on cool logic and not had an emotional outburst against him, our heroes may have been able to bring him back into the anti-Odium camp, though again her extreme reactions seem likely to be justified in future flashbacks).  At the time, I felt Sanderson was portraying all the things I saw as negative as positive and justified.

During and after the debate, Sanderson makes it clear we as readers should be viewing Jasnah as an imperfect person just like the rest of the heroes.  He shows us that she's smart but not omniscient.  He shows us that her moral behaviors are often bad and alienate people who would otherwise be her allies - her behaviors made Fen feel that Odium of all people is more trustworthy.  And he shows us that she was clearly not just acting out of pure logic.  And Jasnah herself finally takes time to self-reflect and she realizes all these things.  She realizes that she needs to change because what she was doing was not self-consistent with her own professed values and more importantly, it's just not a winning strategy.  And I also think (while a bit clumsily done) Sanderson was right to separate her personal ethical philosophy from her atheist beliefs.  Overall, just one of the best moments in WaT and if Jasnah continues to grow then I really look forward to reading her sections in the back 5 novels.

In terms of the actual debate itself - it was a classic philosophy debate about utilitarianism mixed in with practical real-world (ok, book-world) decision-making.  I took a few philosophy classes in college so I'm familiar with the basic pro and anti utilitarianism arguments.  The truth is that Odium had her beat twice in the debate.  First, in pure logic he had her beat.  Odium offered Fen a better deal from a utilitarian perspective.  In order to beat Odium here she would have had to argue either 1) Odium's not calculating the "utils" right and we need to add more value in the equation to things like the suffering of others - but that's really hard to do and how do you convince someone of that in a 30 minute debate? or 2) Abandon the utilitarian philosophy argument, which would come off as totally insincere and likely turn Fen against her.  Second, he had her beat in the practical decision-making front.  Both parties demonstrated themselves unreliable - Jasnah and the Alethi in general in that they looked out for themselves first and foremost even after promising very profusely and very recently that they wouldn't.  Odium is Odium, I think enough said there.   But with Odium, you start off with a better deal and you do at least have the fact that he's bound to the letter of his oaths by magic.  You don't have that with Jasnah, she can murder you 5 minutes after the deal is done.  And like someone else said, ad hominem is not a fallacy in this context.  It's relevant information for making the decision.  And let's not forget that Jasnah also engaged in it.  Both parties told the truth about the bad deeds each other had done, but Jasnah's problem was that everyone knows Odium is a snake and expects to deal with him in that context.  Jasnah was supposed to be trustworthy.  Fen learned that Jasnah was not trustworthy - that's a big emotional blow.

Ultimately, I think people wanted Jasnah to defeat Odium with the power of pure logic and are upset she wasn't capable of that.  For one (as others have said) this is just the start of her arc so narratively it just doesn't make sense for her to have "super logic" already just like Kaladin couldn't win every fight early in his arc (or even later in his arc).  But beyond that, I think you have to be really careful with winning by "super logic" as a plot device in general.  It is really, really easy to come off as preachy or just logically flawed.  I personally think Sanderson would be wise to not have Jasnah's crowning achievement be defeating (insert final big bad here) in a logical debate.  I'd like to see her show off her intelligence by wise governing, teaching others, and making society better.

I really like the debate actually it was well played on both sides but it would be unrealistic for Jasnah to win not only was going against a somewhat with excess to nearly infinite knowledge and can see the future but was also a talinted politician, philosopher and debater

[bmcclure7]

22 hours ago, RefusesToElaborate said:

Oh God, it's time to show my Nale.

Look, in terms of moral philosophy, I don't exactly have the most well rounded knowledge. However, her argumentation, to me, a person who agrees with her fundamental stance on where morals come from (ie. Not god), I simply am not convinced and I find it go be part of the 2010s Cringe Atheism mindset.

I believe morals come from us, more than that they are fallible.

Jasnahs morality presents a world where rather than deciding upon standards of justice through moral reasoning (ie. A law, a Skybreaker attitude) you look at a decision, analyse which action you can take that will minimise harm and maximise good.

The problem that I have with this Utilitarian philosophy is, simply, that it depends on your ability to predict the outcome and consequence of your actions. We can predict the future with only slightly more accuracy than a guess.

Utilitarianism is a philosophy that tends to attract people who think themselves much better at foresight than any person who has ever or will ever exist.

In the interest of saving my own time I won't get into how easy it is to justify bigotry and false imprisonment in a utilitarian mindset. Just know that is a concern.

I am much more convinced by Standards of Justice. Like, this is how we act, do not kill, do not steal, do not lie at someone else's expense to increase your own standing, even if you believe doing any of these things may lead to a positive outcome. If we have these standards in place we have a solid moral baseline and when it is violated we can have more standards to deal with how we respond there. It's just rules and laws until we hit someone who repeatedly violates moral standards and refuses to accept corrective measures. Then we can talk about possible executions if you're willing to present a convincing case for why this person is truly lost to morality.

So... that's my problem with Jasnahs mindset. It is a moral philosophy I saw as too common in atheistic spaces during the euphoric fedora phase and I'm glad it's by and large vacating atheistic spaces and mostly shifting to twitch political streamers I don't watch. I don't like how a morality that functions at its best when you can predict the future to a Supernatural level is held up by people who deny the existence of any Supernatural phenomenon. 

 

The problem with utilitarianism is the same problem with nale you take one aspect of morality and exalted above all other parts of morality ignoring the morality is not just one thing. This is why there is not just one radiant order but many.

 

morality isn’t just about doing good any more than it’s just about keeping your word.

Retribution confronted her, supposing that her morality had more aspects to it than utilitarianism. It also had loyalty loyalty to her country loyalty to her family. These things have no place in her philosophy, though, so her argument fell apart.

Edited January 13, 2025 by bmcclure7