Ok, I Guess I'll Kick This Off For The Back 5

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

Vyre (or as many refer to him, &%$#@ moash) is alive and..uhh unwell..for the back 5. I realize that he's had some very strong plot armor up to this point, and that if anyone could kill him, it would've been Kaladin, who hasn't because of unresolved traumas and feelings towards his friend and whatnot. I am pretty sure Kaladin still sees him as his friend, despite the horrors he's committed. Not that he likes him or excuses him, he clearly doesn't, but I think he still feels the connection and that still hurts him so much.

BUT...hopefully Kaladin will return in the lifetimes of all our favorite Rosharans, and will return much healthier and capable (mentally and physically), and hopefully will put that dude down for good. That's what I'd like to see happen. Super Herald Kaladin not having any of moash's nonsense and killing him all the way dead..preferably by dropping a mountain on him or something equally definitive (anti-light explosion...lash him into a star...make bacon bits out of him with his honorspear..etc).

Anybody else think this is likely to happen? I'm not even saying that it will, I just want it to because I'm lightyears past done with moash and his nonsense.

[Nitpicking]

In my version, Moash's death should have been in WaT, and it should have been an anticlimax. He flies in and attacks Sigzil, and Sig just casually stabs him with a Raysium dagger, smashes the Radiant-suppressing fabrial, and Shardblades his soul right out of his body, all in one second. Then everyone forgets about him and the story moves on.

[AlmightyGir]

4 hours ago, Nitpicking said:

In my version, Moash's death should have been in WaT, and it should have been an anticlimax. He flies in and attacks Sigzil, and Sig just casually stabs him with a Raysium dagger, smashes the Radiant-suppressing fabrial, and Shardblades his soul right out of his body, all in one second. Then everyone forgets about him and the story moves on.

I'm with you.

Moash deserves the most ignoble, uneventful death one could conceive.

[MagicMaggot]

As he is now I wouldn't care, if the only thing we heard about him in the future was a WoB telling us that he fell down some stairs and broke his neck.

I don't hate the guy, I'm just baffled every time he is there to eat up some pages, since Odium took an interest. I don't understand what's interesting about Moash as a character, I don't understand what motivates him after he killed the king, and I don't understand why not one, but two vessels of Odium thought it would be a great idea to invest in that guy. As things are going, he'll probably be invested at Herald-level when he gets to meet Kaladin again. Not that that would make the two meeting more interesting. I see how hung-up Moash is on Kaladin, but I don't see Kaladin still having hang-ups about Moash, so if it's gonna be a personal moment, it will be of the "stalker-meets-victim"-kind, which doesn't sound that appealing to me. 

That's why I really don't care to see the guy again, until Sanderson is ready to do something interesting with him. And just throwing powers at him, or making him randomly kill recognizable side-characters, isn't making him more interesting. 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

Ok, now all three of you make me want to see moash monologuing about how he can see investiture and how special he is, and then Navani walks up with some silent fabriel shoes in an aluminum skin suit and stabs him in the face, and then just walks off like, “I think I’ll have some tea.”

[Elegy he/him]

I think it's still possible that this is the character that Brandon said made the opposite decision. As in: The original outline had him rot in self-pity and reject any power upgrade out of self-hatred - but Brandon felt like there was still more of that sweet fandom hatred sink to milk and made him stay a threat instead.

Imo, the most logical ending to his arc would have been him learning of Kaladin's presumed death and suddenly noticing how much that hurt him, then - since he's already in the Shattered Plains - he goes to the Honorchasm and jumps. Creating symmetry with Kaladin's decision not to do it at the same place on the other end of the 5 book arc. That said, I always knew that Brandon wouldn't actually do that (since he shies away from giving characters genuinely tragic deaths), although I genuinely believe that the story called for it.

[Returned he/him]

It's hard for me to see him having any real relevance like that any more. It's not even really clear why he's still a threat. I can accept that he's a great fighter, but it strains credulity that he's always fundamentally better than every Bridge 4 member, even in combination, and yet he easily outclasses everyone that encounters him.

I maintain my position that Moash is now just a generic anti-Radiant. His character exists to show the inverse of Radiant progression (he gives in to his problems every time in order to stay the same, while Radiants struggle against their problems and grow to become different). His big thing now, with the crystal eyes, is that he can reliably kill spren and thereby sever Radiant bonds.

But that's a stagnant position. He's nursing the same resentments he started with thousands of pages ago, even after getting what he wanted (killing Elhokar). He doesn't really pursue new things, his new gimmicks aren't all that interesting or flexible (Odium's favor, controlling Kaladin's dreams, the crystal eyes, the "shift" from being backed by Odium to by Retribution, etc.), and he's now become sort of a Cosmeric chimera where he gets a new gadget once in a while but he's still just the same old obstacle to the same people for the same arbitrary reasons. He doesn't do much, he doesn't drive much of any plot, he doesn't really want anything in particular, and lingering over his resentments makes it very hard for him to change, narratively. He's overstayed his welcome and I can't think of anything that might involve him at this point that I would find satisfying anymore-- even Kaladin striking him down (which would have been fine with me all the way through RoW) would feel flat and pointless to me.

I wouldn't really mind if the books just never mentioned him again or there was a disjointed line to lampshade it like "Note: Moash died on the way back to his home planet". He's a dead end of characterization and narrative, and if Sanderson has been trying to do something else with him I don't think it's been working. It seems like even Sanderson is tired of him and bored with what he can offer. Maybe there's something that will recover things in the works but I feel that featuring more Moash is just compounding the errors already made and it would be better to just move on. Time we spend with Moash is time that could have been spent with an interesting or meaningful character instead.

Edited January 25, 2025 by Returned

[Nitpicking]

The thing is, I'm bored with Kaladin and his endless-repeat-setting playlist of the same damned character arc. Moash's whole purpose is to be the anti-Kaladin, making him extra-boring.

[LuckyJim]

Considering Kaladin started this book saying he wanted to kill Moash so Teft could spit on him in the afterlife, I don't think there's a lot of sympathy there.

Anyway, I don't think Kaladin's going to kill Moash. For one, "revenge bad" is a pretty strong idea in these books, especially in the case of Kaladin and Moash. Kaladin didn't even get to kill Amaram, so it would be weird if he just straight up killed Moash. I also don't think he's going to get a redemption arc though, I think Sanderson has spent too much time making him hateable to do anything complex with him. It's hard to imagine what will be done with him, actually. As others have pointed out, he's just kind of played out as a character and there's not much interesting going on with him. Since he's still alive, I guess he'll have to meet up with Kaladin one last time but die soon after. Maybe Kaladin somehow inspires him to do one decent thing but he immediately gets killed for it.

 

Spoilers for The Lost Metal

Spoiler

I think at this point he's so Invested by Odium that he's sustained by him, similar to what was going on between Telsin and Autonomy. Perhaps Kaladin, "Herald of Second Chances" will inspire him to reject Odium even though it causes him to die.

 

[MagicMaggot]

4 hours ago, LuckyJim said:

It's hard to imagine what will be done with him, actually

Well, I can't really imagine the destination where he ends up, but with Odium changed and unable to supervise, Moash sound like quite a wild card to be loose within the singer empire. I think there is potential in having him clash with pragmatics like El, and creating fault lines that resistance against Retribution can use. Depending on what exactly conflict within the empire will be based on, he might actually be resisting himself. While I have a hard time seeing him as a redeemed character, I do think a redemptive death for the right cause is always in the cards. Or the opposite, I guess, with him dying to make stuff so much worse, because the hateful nihilist has decided that everything should end. 

Apart from that, there is the larger cosmere. I might not be interested to see him interact with Kaladin, Bridge 4, Navani and the rest anymore, but what about offworlders that aren't prejudiced against him yet getting to know him, either as a powerful antagonist, with his surgebinding powers, or as a (possibly temporary) ally? His powers might be common on Roshar, but they aren't outside of it, and the SA cast might not be interested in his version of the story anymore, but strangers might be. With someone to talk to except Odium, he might even change. 

Let us also not forget that Moash's path to hatred was basically motivated by a passion for social justice. I would kinda like to see him interact with those renegade Skybreakers we heard about, and that could happen on Roshar or offworld. They are supposed to be all about helping the common men find justice especially in flawed systems that stack the deck against them, aren't they? Sounds like there could be something in there that could remind Moash of who he was, and his reaction to that might be interesting.

I guess in the end the story has to double back to Kaladin and Bridge 4 somehow, and I can't see how that will be satsfying, but well... journey before destination, and all that. I can see a journey for him that I might not hate. If it is done well.

[RedBlue]

I disagree that Moash and the situation surrounding him is static in this book. There’s a lot less Moash development compared to WoR through RoW, which I think might be adding to a sense that nothing happened. But it’s not the he has ground to a halt, it’s that he wasn’t a major character in this book. He has significantly less screen-time and takes a back seat to other villains in the plot.

Even with the small amount of material he gets, there have been significant changes in Moash’s mindset, and other characters’ mindsets regarding Moash. I’ll do a quick rundown.

From WaT chapter 12:

Quote

They finally quieted. Kaladin searched among them, finding so many familiar faces—and painfully feeling the lack of others. Teft, Maps, Dunny, Rock …

Not Moash. He no longer missed Moash. Kaladin’s hatred had eased—he’d accepted there would always be those he couldn’t protect—but he had not given up his right to take Moash to task. Kaladin would see that Teft got a chance to spit on Moash in the afterlife, if such a thing actually existed.

That’s definitely a shift in Kaladin’s feelings compared to where he was in RoW. (Also worth noting that Teft’s death took place only ~2 days before this scene. Kaladin has not had a lot of time to process.)

From chapter 31:

Quote

This wasn’t the cartographer, but the other Isasik: a shorter man with an excitable demeanor. Both he and Breteh were former bridgemen from Bridge Thirteen, the group that had become Teft’s squires. She thought that was why they wore red glyphwards on their arms—something about a pact relating to Moash and vengeance.

Apparently Bridge Thirteen also have it out for Moash. Between them, Kaladin, the rest of Bridge Four, and Gavinor, people are going to have to form a queue.

In Moash’s interlude, we get the shift from where he was at the end of RoW (apparently he’s been laying in bed feeling awful about having killed Teft for days) to his new status quo:

Quote

They took mallets and pounded spikes of light through his skull. He screamed. But this time the screams were in defiance of the pain, both outside and in. They were in rejection of the guilt, for he had been working for a greater world. How dare they fight against him?

How dare Kaladin claim to protect, when he defended the highborn who murdered? He was a pawn. How dare he not admit it? How dare he serve them?

Moash can’t offload his pain onto Odium anymore, so he drowns it out with bigger, louder emotions. In a way, it’s a return to an old coping mechanism — he dealt with the grief of losing his grandparents by burying himself in anger and hatred directed at the king, and when he felt horrible about what he did, he embraced emotional numbness and drove himself forward with trying to prove himself ‘right’ by dragging Kaladin down the same path.

But this time, Moash can’t rely on numbness, so he’s using his emotional pain as fuel. He blames Kaladin, and the rest of Bridge Four, for the guilt and grief he doesn’t want to feel. So, instead of addressing or even examining those emotions, he feeds them to his anger, hatred, and self-righteousness. His violence, directed at his former friends, makes him hurt more, and that drives him to further violence against them. He’s set up a feedback loop for himself, at Taravangian’s suggestion.

(Incidentally, I think this is what the ‘he who quiets’ title is about. Moash suppresses — quietens — the emotions that hurt too much for him to bear. But no matter how much he hates, rages and scrambles for justifications, those painful emotions are still there underneath. Not gone, not silent. Just quiet.)

 

Moash was one of my favourite characters in WoR through RoW, so I was hoping to get more from him in this book. Having said that, one of the things I love about the series as a whole is the scale and scope of the world and conflict. I love that there is a huge, vibrant, diverse cast of characters. And an inherent part of having a large cast is that not every character can have a large role in every book. Sometimes, a favourite is going to get shuffled to the background so that other parts of the story can be told. And that’s okay, because those characters will come back to the spotlight later.

I’m anticipating a lot more Moash in the back half. There’s a list of people who want revenge on him. He wants to bring retribution against what he sees as the wrongs of society. (And wouldn’t you know it, it looks like retribution is going to be a major theme going forward, placing Moash squarely in the middle of the thematic point.) There’s also El, who held and rejected the ‘Vyre’ title before it was passed to Moash, suggesting that El might have once been where Moash is now, and I’m sure they will both have thoughts about that.

In short, there’s a lot going on with Moash, and lots of set-up for conflict with other characters. (Also, if there weren’t plans for Moash in the back half, he would have been killed off at the end of RoW.) I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

On 1/25/2025 at 1:53 PM, Returned said:

I maintain my position that Moash is now just a generic anti-Radiant. His character exists to show the inverse of Radiant progression (he gives in to his problems every time in order to stay the same, while Radiants struggle against their problems and grow to become different). His big thing now, with the crystal eyes, is that he can reliably kill spren and thereby sever Radiant bonds.

But that's a stagnant position. He's nursing the same resentments he started with thousands of pages ago, even after getting what he wanted (killing Elhokar).

Having read all these comments, it helped me coalesce some thoughts about him. I feel that moash is now more in alignment with Taravangian (maybe even Retribution, depending on how the Intent settles in) than he ever was with ROdium. He lives to proove to Kaladin that his decisions were the right decisions and Kaladin's were the wrong ones. Taravangian still wants to proove that to Dalinar, and I assume he's going to try that with Dalinar's SR doppleganger. Both moash and Taravangian are wrong, and they both know that they are wrong, and they both forge ahead with the lie, as if it would give them any peace if they managed to achieve that stupid goal.

I am curious if moash is told what happened to Kaladin or not. His plans and motivations will likely shift wildly depending on if he finds out or not. If he doesn't, I could see him going offworld due to lack of an emotional anchor, in Kaladin. If he does know Kaladin is alive, I'd assume he'd work towards bringing about a return of the Heralds so that he can get back to annoying Kaladin. Honestly, he would have the potential to be interesting again, if he went offworld. Potential doesn't gaurantee anything, but it could happen. Either way, he's lockstep with Taravangian's nonsense at the moment, as well. 

[LuckyJim]

4 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I am curious if moash is told what happened to Kaladin or not. His plans and motivations will likely shift wildly depending on if he finds out or not. If he doesn't, I could see him going offworld due to lack of an emotional anchor, in Kaladin. If he does know Kaladin is alive, I'd assume he'd work towards bringing about a return of the Heralds so that he can get back to annoying Kaladin. Honestly, he would have the potential to be interesting again, if he went offworld. Potential doesn't gaurantee anything, but it could happen. Either way, he's lockstep with Taravangian's nonsense at the moment, as well. 

Moash will probably just believe that Kaladin is somehow alive regardless. Even if everyone on Roshar believes he's dead, Moash will insist he hasn't died until the day he shows up again.

I don't think he'll go off world. There's the whole mess with the time dilation and I don't think Taravangian will be sending out any agents just yet. Regardless, his whole character is tied pretty firmly to Roshar, I don't think he's going to get much development outside of there.

[RedBlue]

I don’t think Moash is fixated exclusively on Kaladin by the end of WaT.

Based on his interlude, Moash sees himself as a bringer of justice, charged with violently casting down the highborn and punishing them for their perceived crimes against the common people. That’s the narrative he has latched onto to combat his feelings of guilt and worthlessness. This requires him to work within the framework of Taravangian’s plans, which is why we see him fighting on the Shattered Plains rather than go haring off after Kaladin.

I’m sure he’ll still have hangups about Kaladin when the two end up in the same place again, but I highly doubt Moash is going to wander off-world just because Kaladin isn’t around.

[MagicMaggot]

40 minutes ago, LuckyJim said:

There's the whole mess with the time dilation and I don't think Taravangian will be sending out any agents just yet.

Wouldn't the time dilation be all the more reason to send them out, where they can get years of action and experience in much less Roshar time? Training where time passes faster is kind of a trope for that reason.

Though I don't really expect Moash to go worldhopping offscreen, either. That's what the Blackthorn is for. If Moash leaves, we'll probably get to see it happen, since his character development for some reason is still supposed to be relevant in SA. 

Edited January 27, 2025 by MagicMaggot

[Returned he/him]

4 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I feel that moash is now more in alignment with Taravangian (maybe even Retribution, depending on how the Intent settles in) than he ever was with ROdium. He lives to proove to Kaladin that his decisions were the right decisions and Kaladin's were the wrong ones. Taravangian still wants to proove that to Dalinar, and I assume he's going to try that with Dalinar's SR doppleganger. Both moash and Taravangian are wrong, and they both know that they are wrong, and they both forge ahead with the lie, as if it would give them any peace if they managed to achieve that stupid goal.

I'm not sure I agree that Moash is more in alignment with Taravangian/Retribution now than he was with Rayse/Odium before, I'll have to think about it more. I'd think that old Moash was all about retribution (his grudge against Elhokar, which sort of bled out to include lighteyes generally, though loosely), but after killing Elhokar he hasn't really been looking for payback against anyone. He does want to prove to Kaladin that his own views and decisions were right (which he did most pointedly during Rayse's tenure in RoW), which lines up with Taravangian's behavior around Dalinar and Jasnah. I definitely don't agree that Taravangian and Moash know that they're wrong, or that they even admit the possibility, but that seems tangential to the thread.

Regardless, Moash continuing trying to prove his actions from three books ago were and are right is a plot that strikes me as prone to stagnation. It's literally the same argument as was there in the middle of WoR, and as Kaladin has thoughtfully progressed in his attitudes and sense of morality he's moved far from the persuade-able figure who bought into and then rejected Moash's whole position. That's how I read the whole drive-Kaladin-to-suicide plot in RoW: Moash knew he'd lost the argument and Kaladin would not be persuaded, so the only alternative to the suffering Kaladin's wrong position would cause himself would be Kaladin's suicide.

And that's where my concerns about Moash really come in. It's not that he for some reason fundamentally could never do something interesting again, it's that the circumstances of his existence have narrowed so much that it's hard for me to see him latching on to something new rather than filling the implacable antagonist role. Like, he doesn't have any activities of daily life any longer, nor any social interactions nor interests, so what new experiences will he have or things will he see that might give him a new goal, a new motivation, or a new perspective?

"I hate Kaladin" or "I work for Retribution and do what he says" are fine to move him through future story events, but those look to me like rehashing his old hits again and don't give him much agency or scope for action outside of what he's already done for more than half of the books. I liked Moash in the early books, but the current iteration reminds me of Lezian and Abidi: serviceable, but kind of flat.

I agree with @RedBlue that a big part of Moash lately has been how little screen time he's had, but I differ in that I don't think Moash had more to offer than that since early RoW. Vyre didn't have much to say to anyone about anything. Things do seem more open for him now that he's no longer directly enthralled by Odium, and so maybe in the future we'll get some POV sections that will breathe some life back into him and round him out again but I'm not going to hold my breath.  At this point I don't feel I'd get more out of a Moash revival than I would out of a totally new character who could express the same themes and ideas without the narrative baggage.

[LuckyJim]

I suppose its entirely possible that Moash's minor but significant development in Wind and Truth could lead to a new, interesting direction and arc for his character... but that's what I thought going into Wind and Truth in the first place. And four years ago when I picked up Rhythm of War. Quite frankly, I really don't want to get my hopes up only to be disappointed a third time.

It's why I'm hesitant to imagine that his new purpose in life will result in anything particularly interesting. If I had to make a prediction, I think he'll function as sort of an enforcer for the lands that have sword fealty to Taravangian, cutting down any rulers that get too bold, imagining that this makes him some kind of hero for the downtrodden. He probably won't have much direct conflict with the main characters, since they are at something of a ceasefire at the moment and he has to respect the contract. Not to mention, most of them will still be confined to Urithiru. So he will probably be restricted to mostly Interludes. Well, I guess he'll have to find a way to kill at least one more Windrunner.

Another possibility is he could serve as a foil to Lift. Lift is going to be very important in book 6, fittingly as it is her flashback book, and as an Edgedancer her oaths are all about helping the disenfranchised. I expect they will be contrasted as Lift actually being what Moash thinks he is, someone who actually cares about the downtrodden. Most likely with Moash's violence being shown to create more problems for the people he thinks he's helping while Lift actually improves things for them.

I dunno, maybe I'll be surprised, but at this point I feel like I have a good idea of what to expect from Moash.

Edited January 28, 2025 by LuckyJim

[ShatteredDiamond She/Her]

I just want him dead and buried. Obviously the character himself is despicable, but I'm tired of how he just. Keeps. Coming. Back. Like a mosquito in human form.

On the other hand, he definitely could go somewhere interesting, so I probably shouldn't say that. 

But still.

[MagicMaggot]

10 hours ago, Returned said:

At this point I don't feel I'd get more out of a Moash revival than I would out of a totally new character who could express the same themes and ideas without the narrative baggage.

I feel the same right now, but there is also a lot of sunk cost here, which isn't exactly irrelevant, when it comes to our feelings about the series. Yes, I don't really want to see Moash again. But I'd much rather see him get a new and undeserved arc than leaving open why 2 vessels decided to grant him superpowers, or what he was supposed to do with those powers. Moash's baggage wouldn't vanish, just because he vanished, so we kind of have to deal with him either way.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

18 hours ago, LuckyJim said:

Moash will probably just believe that Kaladin is somehow alive regardless. Even if everyone on Roshar believes he's dead, Moash will insist he hasn't died until the day he shows up again.

I don't think he'll go off world. There's the whole mess with the time dilation and I don't think Taravangian will be sending out any agents just yet. Regardless, his whole character is tied pretty firmly to Roshar, I don't think he's going to get much development outside of there.

I hate how accurate this is  Honestly, that's entirely in line with his character, and with the feelings of members of Bridge 4..even with his "dead body" discovered in Shinovar.

 

17 hours ago, Returned said:

I'd think that old Moash was all about retribution (his grudge against Elhokar, which sort of bled out to include lighteyes generally, though loosely), but after killing Elhokar he hasn't really been looking for payback against anyone. He does want to prove to Kaladin that his own views and decisions were right (which he did most pointedly during Rayse's tenure in RoW), which lines up with Taravangian's behavior around Dalinar and Jasnah.

From the moment that Moash attacked Kaladin in Elhokar's palace, he has been trying to make Kaladin admit that there are some actions, so terrible, that a person has forfeited there life, and that they need to be killed (morbidly hilarious coming from moash, but yeah). I would argue that moash is more upset about Kaladin telling him that he's wrong for wanting to (and then following through) kill Elhokar. He considers Kaladin to be his best friend, and the person who was going to give him a pass at murder, and how dare he tell me no. He's been increasingly butthurt about that ever since. He freaked out without his emotion-draining from Odium about killing Teft, but Odium never stole his freewill. He didn't have the emotional baggage at the time, but he knew full well that he was going to murder a windrunner and their spren. It wasn't worse because he killed Teft over any other member of Bridge 4, and he went knowing he was going to strike down one of Kaladin's men in pursuit of his punishment for Kaladin. To "teach" him a lesson Arrested Development-style, "This is why you never tell Moash that he can't murder the people he thinks should be murdered." Taravangian is waging the same campaign with Dalinar, and that's now been extended to Jasnah as well. I also think he is adding her to that obsession list because Jasnah is considered to be one of (if not the) smartest people on Roshar. He's still butthurt over the doctor's prediction at his birth, so in the style of a 12 year old bully, who goes and beats up a kindergartener, he used all of his godly powers to set Jasnah up to fail and then to gloat over it. Before and after the fact, he's hoping he can abuse her into servitude. Moash would love nothing more than for Kaladin to break down and tell him that moash was right, and Kaladin was wrong, just as Taravangian would love to hear that most from Dalinar, and now apparently from Jasnah as well.

17 hours ago, Returned said:

I definitely don't agree that Taravangian and Moash know that they're wrong, or that they even admit the possibility, but that seems tangential to the thread.

Perhaps I misread or am misremembering, but I thought the entire interlude with Taravangian in the SR version of Kharbranth, was about him admiting that Dalinar was right and that he'd always keep Kharbranth a secret? As for Moash, he's known he was wrong since Kaladin first told him. He knew it was wrong because he hid it from Kaladin, and he knew it was wrong because he'd made Kaladin his stand-in gauge of morality..as long as he went along with what moash wanted. And I do think that ties in with your comments about trying to drive Kaladin to off himself in RoW, because he wanted to break Kaladin, and that would somehow mean he wins. What he would win though? Nothing in actuality, but moash needs to feel like he's right, and he's basically turned himself into a murderous Sisophus, who will never achieve his goal, no matter how much effort he puts into it. You called that stagnation, and I think you're right, but I believe that Brandon his written him that way on purpose, to fester and rot. It's not very fun to read, and I'd rather he be all the way dead forever, but alas, I'm pretty sure he'll stick around for decades.

Honestly, as I sit here writing and processing, I wonder if Brandon isn't setting moash up as a rival of Taravangian's for the Shards. BAM is already a clear favorite of Odium, and she was betrayed by Tanavast, so she is already a clear and present threat to Taravangian the Shard vessel. She honestly is a much better vessel than Taravangian every thought about being. In that line of thought, moash could represent a twisted option that Odium and Honor could be tempted by. I am convinced that Taravangian will not be able to hold onto the powers indefinitely. He is a walking contradiction, and we've already seen how the powers respond to that.

7 hours ago, MagicMaggot said:

I feel the same right now, but there is also a lot of sunk cost here, which isn't exactly irrelevant, when it comes to our feelings about the series. Yes, I don't really want to see Moash again. But I'd much rather see him get a new and undeserved arc than leaving open why 2 vessels decided to grant him superpowers, or what he was supposed to do with those powers. Moash's baggage wouldn't vanish, just because he vanished, so we kind of have to deal with him either way.

As I said above, maybe it was so two Powers could be tempted to give him eternity? 

Edited January 28, 2025 by JohnnyKaizen

[Returned he/him]

16 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

He freaked out without his emotion-draining from Odium about killing Teft, but Odium never stole his freewill. He didn't have the emotional baggage at the time, but he knew full well that he was going to murder a windrunner and their spren. It wasn't worse because he killed Teft over any other member of Bridge 4, and he went knowing he was going to strike down one of Kaladin's men in pursuit of his punishment for Kaladin.

My impression was that Teft was special to Bridge 4-- he was one of the first to get behind Kaladin and so was important in forming Bridge 4 in the first place, and as the irascible sergeant with previous military experience he was directly involved in overseeing their development from slaves into individuals again. Sort of like a beloved uncle, although I don't recall Moash having any special affection for him.

But he was especially important to Kaladin, and my feeling in RoW was that Moash wanted to kill him specifically because that would hurt Kaladin the most, though that may just be plot structure (Moash had to test the dagger, and he didn't really have a lot of choices at the time besides Teft). I think you're right that Moash didn't target Teft when he set out that day but was fully prepared to kill anyone from Bridge 4.

1 hour ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Perhaps I misread or am misremembering, but I thought the entire interlude with Taravangian in the SR version of Kharbranth, was about him admiting that Dalinar was right and that he'd always keep Kharbranth a secret? As for Moash, he's known he was wrong since Kaladin first told him. He knew it was wrong because he hid it from Kaladin, and he knew it was wrong because he'd made Kaladin his stand-in gauge of morality..as long as he went along with what moash wanted.

I think that the section you're referencing in the spiritual realm with Karbranth was for the readers, not necessarily Taravangian, but it should work out the same either way. The key section that leads me to think that is Taravangian's discussion with Dalinar about the hogmen in Oathbringer: he describes Dalinar's solution (a compromise in imprisoning the guilty and the innocent for a while) not as wrong, but as Dalinar being unwilling to commit. He suggests that it's not a morally defensible solution but rather a sop to Dalinar's conscience

One of the most common human issues in moral reasoning that I have observed is that most people have a hard time accepting that they would choose an action and be immoral in that choice. I don't think that Taravangian has that issue, and he would be willing to admit that what he did doesn't match his moral system. But the conclusion would not be that his moral reasoning is incorrect but simply that he was unwilling to fully commit to it. And even that I'm not sure would come up because all the Kharbranthians actually are dead and the city actually destroyed (that's how he blunted Cultivation's threat), and the sort-of preservation he undertook doesn't actually affect anything else and so doesn't impact his utilitarian outlook and goals.

I think that your description of Moash in the quoted section above is on-target but reversed. The key item here is that Moash places what he wanted (revenge against Elhokar) above all else, and his respect for Kaladin was subordinate to that. Kaladin could only be right to the degree that he agreed with Moash in the first place, and Moash himself was always perfectly righteous. He returns to following his gut instinct to identify what's right again and again, sometimes bothering to justify it and sometimes not. But because he judges morality by his knee-jerk satisfaction or dissatisfaction he can't actually engage with the topic, or Kaladin on it. Killing Elhokar felt right to Moash and he never examined it beyond observing that feeling in himself, so Kaladin was wrong but Moash couldn't express (or even really conceive) why. I do think that there was/is potential for Kaladin to inject some doubt into Moash but that thread seems to have been dropped (and dropped pretty explicitly after killing Teft) so I'm unsure if the story will ever revisit the topic for him.

I'm interested to hear more about your thoughts on why you feel Taravangian and Moash know that they are behaving in ways contrary to their moral values-- why they are wrong (even bad) but continue to behave in those ways.

[MagicMaggot]

2 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

As I said above, maybe it was so two Powers could be tempted to give him eternity? 

That might be Sanderson's plan, but how would that make sense for Rayse or Taravangian? They both singled him out for investment. I doubt they did it to be undermined by him later on.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

47 minutes ago, Returned said:

I'm interested to hear more about your thoughts on why you feel Taravangian and Moash know that they are behaving in ways contrary to their moral values-- why they are wrong (even bad) but continue to behave in those ways.

I am planning a re-read relatively soon of SA 1-5, and I will pay particular attention to both of them. I have thoughts about it, but I don't always remember correctly. I'll most likely be taking notes as I go, for just such discussions.

9 minutes ago, MagicMaggot said:

That might be Sanderson's plan, but how would that make sense for Rayse or Taravangian? They both singled him out for investment. I doubt they did it to be undermined by him later on.

For Rayse, that's pretty easy, he wanted moash to kill Teft specifically, so that Kaladin would get so furious with murderous hatred, that he would become his (Odium's) champion. He failed in that, but that was the why.

Taravangian wants a useful idiot. He delights in manipulation, and see moash as an easy mark to have someone "volunteer" for the Rosharan version of hemalurgy. In manipulating moash into consenting, he's made a very specific kind of weapon, an effective weapon against BAM. I know that he can kill spren by seeing them with those stupid eyespikes and using anti-investiture, but there's really only one spren that Todium/Retribution really wants to destroy and/or Unmake, and that's BAM. I don't doubt that Taravangian cares as much for moash as we do, but a controllable tool, is a useful tool, and nobody is as big of a tool as moash.

[MagicMaggot]

4 minutes ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

For Rayse, that's pretty easy, he wanted moash to kill Teft specifically, so that Kaladin would get so furious with murderous hatred, that he would become his (Odium's) champion. He failed in that, but that was the why.

Taravangian wants a useful idiot. He delights in manipulation, and see moash as an easy mark to have someone "volunteer" for the Rosharan version of hemalurgy. In manipulating moash into consenting, he's made a very specific kind of weapon, an effective weapon against BAM. I know that he can kill spren by seeing them with those stupid eyespikes and using anti-investiture, but there's really only one spren that Todium/Retribution really wants to destroy and/or Unmake, and that's BAM. I don't doubt that Taravangian cares as much for moash as we do, but a controllable tool, is a useful tool, and nobody is as big of a tool as moash.

Yeah no, I'm hoping for something better than that, because as far as I'm conderned that just reads like what you implied before: The author had plans for him, and thus made it happen. Taravangian thinks he can manipulate anyone, Moash isn't special in that. And Moash didn't need an Honorblade for anything he did to Kaladin or Teft in RoW. You might be right that that's all there was to it, but even if that was the original plan, I hope Sanderson can find something more satisfying in the 6++ years until it will be relevant. I'd take any "the futures I saw showed me that Moash was the one who needed to do xyz" or "shard X actually did something to make Moash seem more interesting, because it played in their long-term plans" over your version, cheap as those would be. I'm not buying what I've seen so far, so I want justification that wasn't in the text yet. 

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

1 hour ago, MagicMaggot said:

And Moash didn't need an Honorblade for anything he did to Kaladin or Teft in RoW.

Rayse didn't particularly need moash at all. Other than the fact that he was useful as a backup plan. Part of moash's whole deal is that he's always been an afterthought to almost everyone in his life. The only person to really welcome him in, was Kaladin. He's never going to be welcome anywhere again, and that's on him. He'll flee to the ends of the Cosmere to hide from that truth.
That said, he had a direct Connection with Kaladin, and was useful to Rayse in trying to turn him. That's just a fact. He did need the windrunner honorblade, because it added more Connection and also whatever weird stuff Brandon has done to it. All he said was that it's "corrupted" which is the over simplistic way Brandon describes any complicated thing he's not going to explain in the book he first introduced it in.

Taravangian can manipulate anyone, you are correct, but he went out of his way to get moash's concent for some reason(s). Nothing Taravangian does is on a whim. I don't like moash, don't need him alive, and really don't care what happens to him as long as he doesn't get the chance to torture/maim/kill any ofther characters I care about...but Taravangian wants his consent for a reason, and if anything was convenient about him in WaT, it was that he was Brandon's tool to separate Sigzil from Vienta so that he and Aux can bond. But whatever Retributions plan(s) is for moash, they aren't nothing unfortunately. You asked why two different vessels of Odium would use moash, well there are legitimate answers, despite how boring and trying he is as a person and a character.

Edited January 28, 2025 by JohnnyKaizen