I don't get some of the hate

[Nitpicking]

30 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Absolutely.

Yes. Gavinor, whatever be the excuses, is a traitor. He deserves death.

Retribution? How did you get to posting here, Taravangian? Is this where you're hiding while you prepare to confront the Cosmere?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

43 minutes ago, Nitpicking said:

Retribution? How did you get to posting here, Taravangian? Is this where you're hiding while you prepare to confront the Cosmere?

This is a case of mistaken identity. I am the spren Cultivation has created to replace the Nightwatcher. In her infinite wisdom aided by her Futuresight the Great Mother had recreated the 17th Shard outside the Cosmere to serve as a refuge.

Yet her purpose must be served everywhere. Those that inhibit the growth of their own tribe must be smitten, for they poison the field they grew on.

[Knuti]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

No, I am sorry, but that is not true. Ultimately the humans are the invaders. The Stormlight Archive cannot be reduced to a tale of good versus evil.

Well, I do not contest that. But if that is the case, why should Gavinor be dubbed traitor and slain? I do not see the morality there. And does the obligation Dalinar has to his people outweigh his obligation to his sibling?

[Soccorro]

4 hours ago, Knuti said:

Especially if they identified with Dalinar who was until the end part Blackthorn

What did change in the end? Dalinar bullied Elhokar and Highlrinces (I disagree that it was a bad thing but the book does portray those actions as something bad) into submission and ended book 5 bulling Shards to force them to do what he wants. Dalinar has zero character development in the books

But BS tells readers that billing Elhokar and princes was Blackthorn-ish and bulling Shards is new-and-better-Dalinar-ish while those actions are absolutely the same

[+Oltux72 he/him]

2 hours ago, Knuti said:

Well, I do not contest that. But if that is the case, why should Gavinor be dubbed traitor and slain? I do not see the morality there.

He took up arms against his own people. That is treason.

2 hours ago, Knuti said:

And does the obligation Dalinar has to his people outweigh his obligation to his sibling?

Not necessarily. But the point is moot by Gavinor being a traitor. The obligation is mutual. Gavinor has broken it.

[AsherCrane]

6 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

He took up arms against his own people. That is treason.

Not necessarily. But the point is moot by Gavinor being a traitor. The obligation is mutual. Gavinor has broken it.

Technically, a child was raised to think he father was a monster, and that he'd gain Alethkar if he killed Dalinar. Raised from a very young age to think that way, and only shown what would reinforce it. As far as he knew, he was saving Althekar from Dalinar.

[Nitpicking]

9 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

He took up arms against his own people. That is treason.

Dalinar beat the crap out of his own king and threatened him into obedience.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

4 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

Dalinar beat the crap out of his own king and threatened him into obedience.

Yes. Elhokar was a weak king. That is the very point. Had he been a king who would have executed his uncle for that deed, Dalinar wouldn't have needed to do it.
Note that I never argued for Dalinar being a good man, let alone a saint.

7 hours ago, AsherCrane said:

Technically, a child was raised to think he father was a monster, and that he'd gain Alethkar if he killed Dalinar. Raised from a very young age to think that way, and only shown what would reinforce it. As far as he knew, he was saving Althekar from Dalinar.

He betrayed mankind. There can be no excuse for that.

[AsherCrane]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

He betrayed mankind. There can be no excuse for that

Ignorance? All it would take is Taravangian convincing Gavinor that his way is more noble and helps the most people (a fact Taravangian himself believes, so it's not even a lie), and showing him only the things that would reinforce the idea that Dalinar was actually worse for *everyone* than Taravangian would be. With the right spin, (easy enough with complete control of Gavinor's whole situation), Gavinor could easily end up with the belief that this is better for all of mankind. 

Do you believe Gavinor needs to die for only seeing half the picture, framed in such a way that he has no idea half the picture is even missing?

[king of nowhere]

On 3/16/2025 at 1:06 PM, Oltux72 said:

Absolutely.

Well, no. I, for one, have no problem with releasing Odium. If i were Rosharan, I would see no valid reason for shielding the rest of the Cosmere from Odium under horrendous cost to Roshar.

me too. those shards doing nothing makes them accomplices of odium

Quote

No, I am sorry, but that is not true. Ultimately the humans are the invaders. The Stormlight Archive cannot be reduced to a tale of good versus evil.

i disagree. those events were 7000 years old, you can't pass judgment on that.

i mean, 7000 years is more or less the same time frame when the indoeuropean people moved from india to europe. they conquered europe, supplanting the local people, with the exception of sami reindeer herders, who lived in too cold a climate for the indoeuropean.

now me, a modern european, am a descendant of those indoeurpean invaders. I have a strong sense of morality, but i really do not believe that it would be right for me to give up my home and all my possession to a sami reindeer herder - descendant of those people that my ancestors wronged. and let's not even get started on me getting deported back to india, where i would legitimately belong under this crazy interpretation.

i don't get why the revelation that humans were the original invaders was so shocking. it was 7000 years ago. it was a different time. everyone invaded everyone else a dozen times since then.

even the reveal of BAM betrayal, while a very bad action, doesn't reflect in any way on the current humans on roshar - because those people have no relation whatsoever to those who did the deed.

 

22 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

He took up arms against his own people. That is treason.

Not necessarily. But the point is moot by Gavinor being a traitor. The obligation is mutual. Gavinor has broken it.

He betrayed mankind. There can be no excuse for that.

I disagree also on that. this kind of sectarian "my side, right or wrong" mentality leads to an endless cycle of war. it is important that one be willing to object against actions taken from his own side, and defect from it in the worst case.

imagine what star wars would have been if darth vader in the end had said "the empire is my people. there is no excuse for betraying it" and had executed luke. or if the protagonist of avatar had said "well, i can see that the humans here are doing imperialism and war crimes, but they are my people, and there can be no excuse for betraying them", and had destroied the na'vi.

i don't think you would have called those actions moral or just.

4 hours ago, AsherCrane said:

Ignorance? All it would take is Taravangian convincing Gavinor that his way is more noble and helps the most people (a fact Taravangian himself believes, so it's not even a lie), and showing him only the things that would reinforce the idea that Dalinar was actually worse for *everyone* than Taravangian would be. With the right spin, (easy enough with complete control of Gavinor's whole situation), Gavinor could easily end up with the belief that this is better for all of mankind. 

Do you believe Gavinor needs to die for only seeing half the picture, framed in such a way that he has no idea half the picture is even missing?

on the other hand, i also disagree here.

oh, i agree that gavinor did nothing bad - except perhaps trusting odium*. However, that applies to the vast majority of soldiers in any battlefield. most of them see things from their perspective.

radiant dalinar ordered the death of thousands of enemy soldiers whose only fault was seeing only half of the picture. that's war. gavinor has no faults of his own, but he is supporting the cause of odium. he must be treated as an enemy at war**.

actually, i blame dalinar for being unwilling to kill his nephew. he would have killed any other soldier or fused without thinking much of it. that other soldier or fused would have been no less innocent than gavinor. it's just that dalinar would have killed someone else, but he made an exception for his family; in that, he was hypocrite, though of a very understandable variety.

 

* I mean, if your father figure is focusing your whole education into instilling a deep hate and is raising you to fight someone else, you should question his methods and intentions and wonder that maybe he's manipulating and using you. but then, gavinor never had anyone explain those basics to him.

** notice, this doesn't make taravangian right on morality. there is a lot of nuance between "no end justifies the means" and "you can do whatever as long as you claim it's for a greater good".

[AsherCrane]

25 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

oh, i agree that gavinor did nothing bad - except perhaps trusting odium*. However, that applies to the vast majority of soldiers in any battlefield. most of them see things from their perspective.

True. I suppose my argument was more against Oltux saying Gavinor deserved death as though the guy specifically chose to betray humankind out of malice toward humanity itself, rather than making an argument against whether or not Dalinar had moral stance to kill him.

Edit:

24 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

even the reveal of BAM betrayal, while a very bad action, doesn't reflect in any way on the current humans on roshar - because those people have no relation whatsoever to those who did the deed.

Actually, to add onto this... it was pointedly one person, not even humanity who did this. And unless he had children before he died (which is possible, idr), Melishi's line might not have even lived past that.

Edited March 17, 2025 by AsherCrane

[ParaTulip fae/faer (declines as she/her)]

I am assuming that you want to understand where people are coming from with these positions, instead of wanting to rant against people who didn't like a book you enjoyed. I actually came to this forum looking to see if other people had similar reactions to me about this stuff, and it is funny that you seem to have found most of my issues, but without understanding why I have them.

On 1/10/2025 at 1:12 AM, Wind and Truth apolgist said:

"Bad pacing"? This book is a literal countdown to destruction where some people are having a nice walk in the countryside with occasional fights, some people are fighting an all-out war against a suicidally aggressive enemy, and some people are having a completely hallucinatory experience. 

This book has an obvious thing to get to, the confrontation between Dalinar and Taravangian that was set up by the events of the prior book. The stuff about Mishram that Shallan is headed for and whatever Kaladin and Szeth are off to do in Shin was also something to look forward to, but I have this horrible problem where I don't actually like Kaladin that much.

The pacing issue arises when other stuff becomes so much of what the word count of the book actually is. Between Adolin and Sigzil, the largest portion of the wordcount ends up being about these elaborate battles, discussing strategy, and exploring the character of these men as leaders. This is not what I was looking forward to in this book, and it failed to convince me that I am better off with the surprise.

Adolin getting put through the "this is what it is to be one of the nameless spearbearers in someone else's epic" was still good, but it took so long getting there. Rehashing Adolin's problems with his dad again felt tedious. Adolin making friends with people was really slow feeling, and the way the battle would go was telegraphed so much that I started to consider skipping Adolin PoVs out of sheer lack of interest. Not to say there is nothing good there, I actually like Maya as a character, and the whole "Azimir has done the state admin stuff of trans rights" is interesting, but it was like too little jam spread over far too much toast.

On 1/10/2025 at 1:12 AM, Wind and Truth apolgist said:

"Shallan sucks"? She's a cruel, narcissistic, melodramatic, vindictive bully whose definition of accountability for herself is "forgiving and accepting myself". She's liked only by Hoid, who she hugged once, and by Adolin, who managed to offend every single woman in the warcamps despite being the heir to Kholinar which you might think would make girls pretty tolerant of him, and who has such a hard time saying "no" to women that when he had to tell a girl she couldn't fight on the front lines, he all but adopted her.

Yeah, so I actually like Shallan being a messed up fujoshi. The fact she responds to her family being threatened with "Well, I don't want to actually be around them to keep them safe. I'll just play the sith rule of two game with my murdering teacher." is so cool of her. What actually bothers me about her is something of the modern prose issue: She explicitly has begun thinking about her "mental health". This phrase is very much a modern feeling one. There is also that she is spending a lot of time re-treading stuff that I thought she just did in the last book, which was set less than a week before this one. I get that people lose ground on their struggles, I know I have had this happen to me, but this gets back to the pacing issues: I was not looking forward to more of Shallan waffling on how much murder she should do. I thought she figured this out last book.

On 1/10/2025 at 1:12 AM, Wind and Truth apolgist said:

"Modern prose"? This book is a translation into English. Complain about the puns if you will, and nobody did that before, but if you think the slang and words they're using are too "modern", look at the Pompei graffiti and tell me if you think that, translated to english and rephrased in modern syntax, they wouldn't sound insanely modern.

I don't know if it is the particulars of the prose, but there are points where I felt like the characters were thinking much more like I would expect a modern person to and not someone who had lived in a pre-modern world that has only been cast out of its traditional patterns for less than two years. If you have ever looked into the history of psychology, then you know the actual way people would think of a lot of stuff is as demons. This is treated as silly now, but imagine being Kaladin: Rotspren and painspren are extremely real to you. Why wouldn't he think about his depression as being a kind of wicked spren that he has been drawn to him by the mix of events he has experienced and his personal nature? He instead thinks of these feelings as being parts of his brain, which is the way that is more correct, but it is less interesting. There was a similar problem with Jasnah and her argument against Taravangian: She completely fails to think like someone who has lived in a feudal structure all of her life. Even I, who only thinks sometimes about what feudalism was like, was thinking as I was reading "The response to Taravangian saying 'what about your children and grandchildren?' is to offer to adopt a child of Fen's choosing as your heir and child or to propose a marriage of Gavinor to whatever person Fen chooses" and this never even seems to cross her mind because she's thinking like someone trying to win an argument on the internet instead of as a person who grew up with the threat of being married off to secure an alliance looming over her from the moment someone decided she was a girl and a noble.

 

I worry that the Cosmere stories are losing the aspect of fantasy where these stories let us imagine thinking about problems and situations in genuinely different ways, such that we might understand how we ourselves see things. Characters seem to be getting shaped to avoid them being offensive to modern sensibilities, not just about what is morally true but even how such things ought to be expressed. To put this another way, I respect The Beatles because they got weird with their music once they knew they had it made. Wind and Truth felt too safe.