Dalinar and Navani's mistake

[christianrapper]

Sanderson basically took off a few points off of all the main characters’ intelligence stats in this book. Dalinar went to the spiritual realm for what turned out to be absolutely no reason. He didn’t learn anything that could help him defeat Taravangian. Heck, going there secured Todiun’s victory. Dalinar didn’t show any sense of urgency at all. The dude had 10 days until his final battle and he spent it learning useless information in the spiritual realm. What he learned was good backstory for the reader, but useless to Dalinar. He could have gotten all that information from Wit. That spiritual realm side quest was just a huge waste of time.
It was lucky for Todium that Dalinar went to the spiritual realm because he would have been hard up for a champion. This book was just the most contrived piece of writing just to get Taravangian to win. The dude is a god and supposedly a genius. At least let Todium earn the victory. He doesn’t need any help from the author. Don’t have characters doing dumb stuff when they have been smart all along. This book had some great character moments with Kaladin, Adolin, and Szeth. However, for a midpoint book with an almost 10 year break Sanderson made some odd choices imo. 

[a Faceless Immortal he/him]

We seem to have read very different books.

52 minutes ago, christianrapper said:

Dalinar went to the spiritual realm for what turned out to be absolutely no reason.

Dalinar and Navani went to the Spiritual Realm as an absolute last resort. They knew that either outcome of the contest simply played further into TOdiums hand by giving him time to prepare for his eventual conquest of the Cosmere on a Roshar that is mostly under his control. They went specifically because they wanted to find out more about Honor, a goal they succeed with and turned out to be vital in making things go the way they did. Without spending their time there, Dalinar would never have been able to ascend, and never would have been able to develop his plans.

53 minutes ago, christianrapper said:

Heck, going there secured Todiun’s victory.

It most certainly did not. Because of what they learned Dalinar was able to force Taravangian into a situation where a) he has no time to prepare when he would have had millennia (in fact, the time bubble means that the other shards have the prep time now), and b) he has Shards that will actively oppose him when they would have otherwise left him alone. Not only that, but Dalinar was able to plant the seed of change in the Shard of Honor itself, setting it up to eventually oppose Taravangian and potentially cripple him in a way similar to how Sazed finds himself.

1 hour ago, christianrapper said:

It was lucky for Todium that Dalinar went to the spiritual realm because he would have been hard up for a champion.

TOdium was thrown into the contest after Rayse had agreed to it and likely wouldn't have been sure about his champion anyway. And besides, holding the power of a Shard gives incredible foresight and mental capacity so he doubtless could have predicted the situation occurring, and had several options running at once (Moash and El are some options that come to mind, either of which would have been just as solid of a champion) should any not pan out. To call it luck seems silly.

1 hour ago, christianrapper said:

This book was just the most contrived piece of writing just to get Taravangian to win. The dude is a god and supposedly a genius. At least let Todium earn the victory.

If you see it as his victory, how was it not earned? Nearly everything went exactly as he planned.

Honestly I would recommend reading the book again, maybe at a slower pace.

[earthexile]

Without the Spiritual Realm quest, Dalinar can't take up Honor, because Mishram stays imprisoned, and Odium doesn't become Retribution, therefore the other Shards continue to ignore the situation. There was no version of participating in the contest of champions that would be an actual victory, because another thousand-plus years of race war isn't victory. Maintaining a disgusting status quo isn't victory.

Imagine if Dalinar and Navani had spent those ten days refilling Stormlight for the troops at the battle fronts. Hell, imagine they win. They hold the Shattered Plains, they don't lose nearly as many people at Azimir, perhaps they even keep Thaylenah. They get Alethkar and Herdaz back. Cool. So now half the world is human lands purging singers and half the world is singer land, probably enslaving humans. The Listener nation remains in exile. The Heralds keep going even more insane. Dalinar continues working with a Stormfather who's consciously deceiving him and probably more convinced than ever that it's right to do so. Odium begins the process of creating his Space Conquest Army, and the human nations can either watch in horror or blow the truce and attack, and it probably wouldn't take them long to decide they need to, because they'll be seeing singers get their hands on offworld tech and magic, building spacecraft or whatever, advancing and growing.

The only thing that makes sense is to flip the table. This game sucks, we can't really win, and the longer it goes on the more pointless suffering there is. 

[Bnaya]

I think that exchanging rayse with taravanguan was wrong and it caused some of these feelings. In hero of ages, ruin was a terrifying force that cannot be defeated to me as a reader, and this book is trying to play along the same theme, but taravangian is too known for me to be really intimidating. I dont buy him as a threat and therefore dalinar quest doesnt feel urgent as vin's, even if the book is trying to tell us he is urgent.

Sorry for the english, i am not a speaker

[christianrapper]

On 12/20/2024 at 7:06 AM, Forged Herald said:

I disagree. She doesn't have to argue loyalty, she has to refuse to argue and just trust. I know it's antithetical to who she is, that's why she lost.

 

10 hours ago, a Faceless Immortal said:

We seem to have read very different books.

Dalinar and Navani went to the Spiritual Realm as an absolute last resort. They knew that either outcome of the contest simply played further into TOdiums hand by giving him time to prepare for his eventual conquest of the Cosmere on a Roshar that is mostly under his control. They went specifically because they wanted to find out more about Honor, a goal they succeed with and turned out to be vital in making things go the way they did. Without spending their time there, Dalinar would never have been able to ascend, and never would have been able to develop his plans.

It most certainly did not. Because of what they learned Dalinar was able to force Taravangian into a situation where a) he has no time to prepare when he would have had millennia (in fact, the time bubble means that the other shards have the prep time now), and b) he has Shards that will actively oppose him when they would have otherwise left him alone. Not only that, but Dalinar was able to plant the seed of change in the Shard of Honor itself, setting it up to eventually oppose Taravangian and potentially cripple him in a way similar to how Sazed finds himself.

TOdium was thrown into the contest after Rayse had agreed to it and likely wouldn't have been sure about his champion anyway. And besides, holding the power of a Shard gives incredible foresight and mental capacity so he doubtless could have predicted the situation occurring, and had several options running at once (Moash and El are some options that come to mind, either of which would have been just as solid of a champion) should any not pan out. To call it luck seems silly.

If you see it as his victory, how was it not earned? Nearly everything went exactly as he planned.

Honestly I would recommend reading the book again, maybe at a slower pace.

Please, Dalimar didn’t do anything except release Odium. He could have done that from the start. It’s literally stated in the book that the only reason that the other shards ignored Odium is because he was trapped on Roshar. All Dalinar did was make Todium twice as strong.  Both Dalinar and Navani going to the spiritual realm crippled their armies because it cost the armies their access to stormlight. It gave Odium a champion. It also gave him time to make deals with all of Dalinar’s allies across the world and basically win even if Dalinar did find a way to somehow win that fight without killing his grandson. 

[christianrapper]

7 hours ago, earthexile said:

Without the Spiritual Realm quest, Dalinar can't take up Honor, because Mishram stays imprisoned, and Odium doesn't become Retribution, therefore the other Shards continue to ignore the situation. There was no version of participating in the contest of champions that would be an actual victory, because another thousand-plus years of race war isn't victory. Maintaining a disgusting status quo isn't victory.

Imagine if Dalinar and Navani had spent those ten days refilling Stormlight for the troops at the battle fronts. Hell, imagine they win. They hold the Shattered Plains, they don't lose nearly as many people at Azimir, perhaps they even keep Thaylenah. They get Alethkar and Herdaz back. Cool. So now half the world is human lands purging singers and half the world is singer land, probably enslaving humans. The Listener nation remains in exile. The Heralds keep going even more insane. Dalinar continues working with a Stormfather who's consciously deceiving him and probably more convinced than ever that it's right to do so. Odium begins the process of creating his Space Conquest Army, and the human nations can either watch in horror or blow the truce and attack, and it probably wouldn't take them long to decide they need to, because they'll be seeing singers get their hands on offworld tech and magic, building spacecraft or whatever, advancing and growing.

The only thing that makes sense is to flip the table. This game sucks, we can't really win, and the longer it goes on the more pointless suffering there is. 

Taking up Honor did absolutely nothing but make Todium twice as strong. He would have been better just leaving Honor to its own devices. Dalinar lost 90% of the rest of the world. I am not talking about breaking the truce. Dalinar could have blown the truce without making Odium Retribution. Heck, he could have done that from the start. The book literally says that the only reason that Odium was ignored was due to the fact that he was stuck on Roshar. The heralds going crazy and the stormfather deceiving Dalinar had nothing to do with him just handing Taravangian the power of Honor and making him a Cosmere level threat and making up for Taravangian’s lack of experience with Odium’s Shard. That was some contrived writing. Dalinar could have broken the truce and kept Honor until after Todium was forced to flee. Honor didn’t immediately leave Tanovast even though it was angry at him for his betrayal. I am not doing mental gymnastics to make this ending make sense. Sanderson needed Taravangian who was new at being a shard to be a threat to the rest of the Cosmere. The only way that he could do that was to give him Honor. 
The world wouldn’t have gone on a singer purge. They were already trying to negotiate peace as far back as book 2. The only reason peace was impossible was because of Odium’s and the unmade’s influence. 

Edited December 25, 2024 by christianrapper

[#1 Taln Fan he/him]

@christianrapper Just a heads up, new topics appear on the forum home page, so it's best to keep topic titles spoiler free. I've gone ahead and changed this topic's title. 

[Kaymyth she/her]

So, there are a couple of points I'd like to counter here.

1. Dalinar could not have retained Honor after breaking the truce. The Shard has already yeeted one Vessel for breaking promises, it wasn't gonna tolerate its brand-shiny-new one doing the same thing in the first fifteen minutes of holding it.

2. Taravangian had no intention of announcing his freedom to the wider Cosmere*. He planned to stay right where he was. His intent from the start was to get free and then keep it quiet, looking to all the other Shards like he was still trapped so he had time to scheme and prepare.

Combining Shards is many things, but quiet ain't one of them. He might as well have erected a neon sign over the system that flashed "COSMERE-LEVEL THREAT HERE" in bright gold letters. It was like blasting an air horn in the middle of your six-year-old's piano recital. Imagine a rainbow of nearly a dozen Eye of Saurons swiveling directly toward Roshar. Dalinar got exactly what he was aiming for: Nobody Is Ignoring This Anymore.

Heck, we're likely to see otherwise-antisocial Shards willing to forge alliances with each other to handle T-man.

Had he remained a single Shard, I would not have been surprised if when, eventually, rumor leaked out that Odium wasn't trapped any longer, the other Shards would have each put their own personal plans into motion to counter him. I have doubts as to the efficacy of those theoretical plans. (Endowment's plan likely hinged on Nightblood and we all saw how that turned out. After taking out his predecessor with that sword, I doubt Todium is dumb enough to allow himself to fall into similar circumstances.)

In fact (Mistborn Era 2 all):

Spoiler

Given that we now know that all of Era 2 happened in basically one chapter, I strongly suspect that Autonomy's shift from "take over Scadrial" to "destroy if possible" to "okay, sunk cost fallacy, I'm outta here" was driven by events on Roshar. They'd been working very hard toward infiltrating the planet for an unknown-amount of time, and for them to drop it like a hot potato indicates that they're much, much more worried about Retribution than Harmony/Scadrial now.

There's nothing quite like an existential threat to everyone to get folks onto the same page.

 

*Well of Ascension spoilers:

Spoiler

unlike some eedjits like Ruin who shrieked out "I AM FREE" at the top of his fool lungs. I swear, some gods...

 

[christianrapper]

3 hours ago, #1 Taln Fan said:

@christianrapper Just a heads up, new topics appear on the forum home page, so it's best to keep topic titles spoiler free. I've gone ahead and changed this topic's title. 

Ok. Thanks 

[nehalem]

On 12/25/2024 at 3:20 PM, christianrapper said:

Taking up Honor did absolutely nothing but make Todium twice as strong. He would have been better just leaving Honor to its own devices. Dalinar lost 90% of the rest of the world. I am not talking about breaking the truce. Dalinar could have blown the truce without making Odium Retribution. Heck, he could have done that from the start. The book literally says that the only reason that Odium was ignored was due to the fact that he was stuck on Roshar. The heralds going crazy and the stormfather deceiving Dalinar had nothing to do with him just handing Taravangian the power of Honor and making him a Cosmere level threat and making up for Taravangian’s lack of experience with Odium’s Shard. That was some contrived writing. Dalinar could have broken the truce and kept Honor until after Todium was forced to flee. Honor didn’t immediately leave Tanovast even though it was angry at him for his betrayal. I am not doing mental gymnastics to make this ending make sense. Sanderson needed Taravangian who was new at being a shard to be a threat to the rest of the Cosmere. The only way that he could do that was to give him Honor. 
The world wouldn’t have gone on a singer purge. They were already trying to negotiate peace as far back as book 2. The only reason peace was impossible was because of Odium’s and the unmade’s influence. 

This is incorrect.  Taking up Honor made Todium twice as strong AND made him a clear threat to all the other shards.  This would make it so that the others shards would ally an oppose him.

If Odium by himself was NOT considered a biggest enough threat for the other shards to oppose.

[earthexile]

20 hours ago, nehalem said:

This is incorrect.  Taking up Honor made Todium twice as strong AND made him a clear threat to all the other shards.  This would make it so that the others shards would ally an oppose him.

If Odium by himself was NOT considered a biggest enough threat for the other shards to oppose.

In addition, adding Honor to Taravangian's substance has severely hobbled his capacity for senseless violence and destruction. He's already struggling to balance the desires of Honor against his desires as Odium, they are compatible in many ways but incompatible in others. Dalinar has infected the god of hate with a divine sense of justice, and it's pointed out that Honor has gained a measure of sentience and personality that makes it even more resistant to misuse. The very weakness that ruined Tanavast is a part of Taravangian now, his might depends on keeping promises and playing fair. And we already know, based on what he's done with his own city, that at the end of the day our boy Vargo is an emotional man who would break his word to save people he loves. You can shove a lot of god into the man, but you can't take out the man.

[Treamayne]

20 hours ago, nehalem said:

Taking up Honor made Todium twice as strong AND made him a clear threat to all the other shards.  This would make it so that the others shards would ally an oppose him.

If Odium by himself was NOT considered a biggest enough threat for the other shards to oppose.

Technically, twice infinite power is still just infinite. As Harmony shows, two shards might make a Vessel technically stonger, but really it also makes them twice as restricted as every action has to comply with two, separate intents. 

Also, it was not that Odium, alone, wasn't enough of a threat to oppose - it was that Odium, captured and bound by Honor,  wasn't "worth" opposing because he was "contained" (he is no longer contained).