Wind and Truth was just too darn sad.

[bmcclure7]

On 2/25/2025 at 11:37 AM, KelsierApologist said:

Were we meant to recognize the oaths as good? I certainly didn't. Many times, in fact. When, in WoR, we heard about what Elhokar did to Moash's parents, I admit, I didn't like him. I thought he deserved to be at least deposed for someone better. When Kaladin suffered consequences for that, I was angry. I thought the oaths were unfair, and that the book would end with some sort of demonstration of their flexibility. Additionally, when Kal struggled with being unable to protect people, I definitely thought the oaths weren't perfect. They forced him to fight a losing battle, time and time again. If you had different insight though, I would love to hear it. 

That maybe your thoughts but clearly given the way it is presented but Brandon doesn’t think that way and doesn’t think his readers think that way and give some exceptions like yourself it would appear he was right 

[OoklaApologist She/her]

5 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

Brandon doesn’t think that way

I hate to put the burden of proof on you, but I'm away from my books rn, and I'm curious as to what events point to that. When I have more time, I'll prepare something a bit better, sorry.

6 minutes ago, bmcclure7 said:

and give some exceptions like yourself it would appear he was right

Can you rephrase this? It might just be me being evening-brained, but I'm not catching your drift here.

[bmcclure7]

1 hour ago, KelsierApologist said:

I hate to put the burden of proof on you, but I'm away from my books rn, and I'm curious as to what events point to that. When I have more time, I'll prepare something a bit better, sorry.

Can you rephrase this? It might just be me being evening-brained, but I'm not catching your drift here.

1. It’s obvious by the fact that oaths always portrayed as good in text text. Even when they are criticized, they are criticized because they are oaths not because of their content. 
2. Im saying that one you think that it was wrong for him to save someone he hates because it is right. Brandon and most of us disagree with you. 

[QuantumAce]

On 3/3/2025 at 7:35 PM, bmcclure7 said:

1. It’s obvious by the fact that oaths always portrayed as good in text text. Even when they are criticized, they are criticized because they are oaths not because of their content. 
2. Im saying that one you think that it was wrong for him to save someone he hates because it is right. Brandon and most of us disagree with you. 

Just to be clear, these are your feelings. Presenting them as facts without supporting evidence is not a valid argument. I firmly believe the text does not support the idea oaths are inherently good, and I do not believe Brandon intends us to read it that way. This thread provides examples of several people who agree. 

On 2/27/2025 at 12:14 AM, Ashbringer said:

For one, I think Adolin came to the same conclusion that Dalinar to some degree did - that the spirit of an oath is more important than the letter, while Honor really only cares for the letter.

But the other one - a Rosharan Oath is something that is sworn on something. Oaths to spren for Radiance are judged by the spren, and to some degree the Stormfather. Oaths of power are judged by Honor. Adolin doesn't want his promises to be oaths, where they are enforced by some outside power or threat if he breaks them. He just wants to keep his promise solely because it's his promise.

I think this is well put. A Rosharon oath is a formal commitment enforced by gods and fundamental forces of nature. It is more restrictive than a written contract because the consequences of breaking it are automatic. A promise is more dependent on personal accountability. Adolin may keep his promises as strongly as any oath, but it is his choice.  Its a nice counterpoint to Szeth, who struggles with trusting himself to make the right choices. 

 

[AsherCrane]

I would argue that the text seems to be presenting them as positive, at least in books 1-4, because the  characters were presented as having grown as a result of them. The characters, at least, seemed to see the oaths as positive, since no one I can recall resented swearing an oath. More than that, the more dramatic moments of swearing an oath were all presented to look like cathartic climaxes for the characters. When Kaladin swore to protect even those he hated to protect Elhokar for example, the book did not really present any regret or idea that it was poorly done, but portrayed it as a dramatic acceptance of a healthy thing.

Edited March 6, 2025 by AsherCrane

[LeondeBowa]

I'd fully agree Asher, and a common writing practice in a long running series of books is to first introduce a concept as a theme in early books and then in later books show flaws in the initial concept and arguments against.

This can create a narrative which questions if the initial concept was even a good thing in the first place.

We will have to wait for Sanderson to finish the series to see if he will come down on oaths being good or not in the end, but I have to say he brings up good arguments as to why they are sometimes not in the latest book

Edited March 6, 2025 by LeondeBowa

[AsherCrane]

1 hour ago, LeondeBowa said:

I'd fully agree Asher, and a common writing practice in a long running series of books is to first introduce a concept as a theme in early books and then in later books show flaws in the initial concept and arguments against.

This can create a narrative which questions if the initial concept was even a good thing in the first place.

We will have to wait for Sanderson to finish the series to see if he will come down on oaths being good or not in the end, but I have to say he brings up good arguments as to why they are sometimes not in the latest book

That's a good point, and I look forward to that bearing out. I will say, the book right before a 6 year break and the end of the second half seems a strange place to put it though, since we're not going to get a lot of development on it for a while.

Edited March 6, 2025 by AsherCrane

[Ashbringer he/him]

I will say, outside the strict concept of Oaths, the concept of Honor is something where it was originally presented as Good, then uncovered to be not so much.

WoK and WoR Honor was portrayed as something that had been lost, then regained to some degree (or similarly to the Codes or Alethi society, something that was paid lip service but largely ignored in favor of conquest).

OB started the idea that Honor may not have been entirely in the right, with the Dawnsingers being the initial people of Honor and humans stealing and betraying them, and the Radiants all breaking their oaths because of this. RoW to some degree left the topic of Honor be, but showed physically that perhaps Odium and Honor were not as different as they might seem.

Then WaT obviously dispelled the ideas of an infallible Honor.

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

8 hours ago, Ashbringer said:

Then WaT obviously dispelled the ideas of an infallible Honor.

Agreed. A major theme in all Cosmere works is that none of the shards are truly good or truly evil. They are all parts of the same whole, and they are each incomplete without the balance of the other shards guidance/influence. Each has it's own intent that drives it like a compulsion, ignoring the other intents as even factors to consider. Honor by itself can be horrific: honor killings, for example. 

Quote

Questioner

Do you believe that Preservation is inherently good and that Ruin is inherently evil?

Brandon Sanderson

No, good question! I would say no. I don't think any of the Shards are inherently good or inherently evil. I think that Ruin can be (and was for many years) in the cosmere presented as the necessary force of progress, right? Things need to decay in order for life to exist. And I think entropy is just a necessary aspect of life. And Ruin doesn't have to be evil; but Ruin is hard to control. And Odium is even harder to control. And because of that, there is a higher likelihood that Ruin or Odium are going to, if left unchecked, be very dangeorus.

Dragonsteel Mini-Con 2021 (Nov. 23, 2021)

In the Stormlight archive specifically, Brandon started by giving us the 'good guys' and then has slowly flipped the narrative one piece at a time to show us that those good guys weren't always the good guys, and sometimes it's more of a matter of perspective. You have two groups - humans and singers - who have been fighting a war for generations. Each side has immortal parties who typically run the show and continue the conflict in the same cycle. The people who are not immortal and have not been involved in the conflict for millenia are understandably not inclined to give their lives to this conflict. Especially when they learn that they are actually the invaders who took over the land and enslaved the other group. 

Brandon is literally putting the nuance on display. Even in the beginning when it is more 'black and white', there were always little things like Kaladin feeling it was wrong to fight the parshendi. Little tidbits of doubt that Brandon planted along the way. We are exploring a theme of the value of oaths and a question of whether it is more honorable to keep an oath and therefore create a negative outcome or to break an oath in order to bring about a better outcome. It's a study, an opportunity to consider hypotheticals and to think deeply. 

How boring would this series be if it was just a black and white 'oaths are always good and we must always keep our ideals no matter what'?

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, CognitiveShadow said:

You have two groups - humans and singers - who have been fighting a war for generations. Each side has immortal parties who typically run the show and continue the conflict in the same cycle. The people who are not immortal and have not been involved in the conflict for millenia are understandably not inclined to give their lives to this conflict. Especially when they learn that they are actually the invaders who took over the land and enslaved the other group. 

It's even a bit more nuanced than that, as Rayse incited war on Ashyn to draw Tanavast out, then while Tanavast was focused there, slid over to Roshar to tell the Singers "Honor abandoned you, but I won't" and turned the Singers against Honor so that when the Ashyn survivors showed up there was already mistrust and betrayal fomenting on all sides - ensuring a war would start when otherwise they might have cohabited peacefully from the beginning. 

[QuantumAce]

20 hours ago, AsherCrane said:

That's a good point, and I look forward to that bearing out. I will say, the book right before a 6 year break and the end of the second half seems a strange place to put it though, since we're not going to get a lot of development on it for a while.

I think it started before WaT. At first I did see oaths as part of character growth and cathartic climaxes. The connection of oaths to ideals required to advance through radiant orders reinforces this idea. Then I did a re-read before RoW. Eventually I shifted to viewing oaths as more of transactions that unlocked the positive outcome, than part of the positive outcome itself. Swearing an oath to do something good is a positive only because of the "something good" part. It took a re-read for me to "step out of the action" enough to recognize that, before WaT really leaned into it. 

 

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

On 3/7/2025 at 8:22 AM, CognitiveShadow said:

How boring would this series be if it was just a black and white 'oaths are always good and we must always keep our ideals no matter what'?

Heh, I might be the one person to whom such a thing isn't boring.  Then again, I read dictionaries and phone books for fun, and it would be entirely silly to go all "hey, I think that Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, Ninth Edition is a very compelling read, the best in the series, even better than Seventh Edition" and expect people to go "Ah, yes, that makes sense, I will buy a copy for my nephew even though he asked for Watership Down".  If you're reading this and haven't read Watership Down, go and read it.  It's amazing.

On 3/7/2025 at 8:22 AM, CognitiveShadow said:

Agreed. A major theme in all Cosmere works is that none of the shards are truly good or truly evil. They are all parts of the same whole, and they are each incomplete without the balance of the other shards guidance/influence. Each has its own intent that drives it like a compulsion, ignoring the other intents as even factors to consider. Honor by itself can be horrific: honor killings, for example.

Mr. Sanderson has been writing a colorful and grey and sophisticated vision of existence since Elantris, and never made any pretense that he was going to write black-and-white morality.  Preservation isn't the same thing as Good, as much as I might want it to be.  Honor isn't the same thing as Good, either.  As early as Words of Radiance, there was exploration of how Sylphrena can't say whether things are morally right, just whether or not they are honorable.

But, that doesn't mean that Preservation and Honor and Devotion aren't among the virtues, and aren't worth striving for.  It means that they are pieces of something more.

I don't unquestioningly accept that Mr. Sanderson intends the sophisticated practicality of the "oh, cool, let's all enslave the spren because screw the Horneaters and their deities, our Alethi protagonists say it's okay, and while we're at it, let's all achieve self-actualization by thinking whatever those protagonists say our own true thoughts are" tone of Wind and Truth to be more morally satisfying than the almost unthinking, uncompromising, no-reason-to-expect-a-good-result absolutism of "Storm it, we have to go back", more interesting than the question of "Does Szeth truly have free will if he genuinely doesn't believe he has free will?", or more inspiring than "Life Before Death.  Journey Before Destination.  Strength Before Weakness".

I think that, if anything, Mr. Sanderson might be setting up this materialism, this results-obsessed thinking, this it's just a rock willingness to change and adapt and compromise, as a temptation for the second half of the series, one that asks whether the survivors will move forward... or whether they, at the moment of truth, will say "We have to go back.  Storm it, we have to go back.".

[MagicMaggot]

9 hours ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

But, that doesn't mean that Preservation and Honor and Devotion aren't among the virtues, and aren't worth striving for.  It means that they are pieces of something more.

 

That's still saying a lot though, isn't it? If you bring virtue into it, a lot of the classical positions on virtue ethics insisted that you actually cannot (fully) master one virtue without mastering the other virtues that give it context, so this might actually be a good comparison here. Obviously the shards aren't exactly the aristotelian or stoic virtues, but I would agree that at least some of the shards are meant to reflect properties that a moral person should master. But the person won't be fully good, if they don't master the other good things that are reflected by other shards as well. And reading them as virtues, it makes a lot of sense that honor without reason or mercy isn't very close to complete as a moral guide. And if your moral guidance is incomplete, and you don't already know what is lacking, you can never be certain it is correct in a specific case.

That's how I understood the shard-problem at least. And well... I agree that this isn't exactly morally satisfying. How could it be? It's a problem, not an answer. But I don't honestly expect fantasy novels to give me moral clarity, nor am I likely to accept their moral framework any more, if it is complete, than if it isn't. I am quite happy watching Sanderson and his characters explore the topic, while making my own conclusions, and I don't feel pressured to agree with the characters, just because they are treated as right. Indeed, actually morally complete gods that gave answers to moral questions that would be as objective as it presumably gets would be likely to ruin it for me. I don't trust any author to give me the moral truth as the enlightened and basically omniscient gods see it.

The closer we get to the ending of the cosmere, the more likely we are to see Sanderson try to give us answers instead of the explorations we are getting here. And this will very likely be distasteful for readers that disagree with his view. Reforming Adonalsium to get a perfectly balanced moral God again to watch over humanity could be seen as a heavy-handed religious message, while mortals splintering all the shards and using their magic energy to bring on an utopian post-scarcity cosmere would be just as heavy-handed in the materialist direction. And well, everything in between he might do probably won't make people happy, either, because they don't like fence-sitters on important topics, or something like that. But I honestly don't think we are ín far enough yet to divine what the cosmere's (or even SA's) message will actually be in the end.

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

On 2/12/2025 at 7:07 PM, Treamayne said:

Seanan McGuire had an awesome essay on her OCD in the Altered Perceptions anthology. The exerpts this remind me of (bolding mine):

  Hide contents

One in fifty Americans lives with OCD. I won’t say “suffers from,” because not all of us are suffering; I am not suffering. I am no more or less normal than anyone else. It’s just that I start from a different position on the field. Some people with OCD do suffer, because it can be a crippling condition. It’s the luck of the draw, the same as anything else. We learn to work around it. We learn to cope.

I will be coping for my entire life.

Because I am very functional, I do occasionally have to deal with people assuming that I’m exaggerating. I don’t compulsively vacuum my floor or clean my kitchen, I’m definitely not a germophobe, and if I re-type books completely between drafts, well, that’s just a quirk. But obsession and compulsion both take many forms, and while I have found peace with mine, and consider them a vital part of who I am, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. (Why I would joke about having something that is considered a mental illness, I don’t know.)

The dominant idea of OCD is still Adrian Monk or Hannelore, or Emma from Glee. I’ve been in tears over her many times since the show began, because it breaks my heart a little when I see her struggling to control something she never asked for, never did anything to earn, and has to deal with all the same. Most people with OCD aren’t these stereotypes. They’re your friend who always has hand sanitizer, or your cousin who never leaves the house until seven minutes after the hour. They’re the guy you went to college with who has a collection of lawn gnomes in his bathroom, and buys a new one every six months. They’re your favorite football player. They’re that composer you like.

They’re me.

Remember that just because someone is a functional, relatively normal-seeming human being, that doesn’t mean they’re wired the same way that you are. I have to remind myself that not everybody wants their day broken down into fifteen-minute increments, because for me, that is the norm. The human mind is an amazing thing, full of possibilities, and each of us expresses them differently. I am a cybernetic space princess from Mars, and that’s not a choice I made; that’s the way I was made. I can get an address on Earth, but Mars will always be my home.

I made a comment on Twitter not long ago that I was an “odd duck,” because I wanted to dance to a Ludo song at my wedding (no, one isn’t planned, I just like to think ahead). A friend of mine replied, “You’re not an odd duck, you’re a normal platypus.” I think I’m going to roll with that. So the next time someone wants to be early, or can’t leave the house without checking that the toaster is unplugged, or does something else you can’t understand but that doesn’t actually hurt you, please try to remember that it’s a big ecosystem. We have room for ducks and platypi.

I see a lot of myself in Szeth. I, too, follow many rules because they are rules for a reason. I like having defined standards. There is one primary difference between us - when I find a specific technique or method for doing something that is more efficient or makes more sense, I use that (if possible) - and I trust myself enough to trust when I devise those techniques and methods. I do not think that Kaladin understood that Szeth started from a different position on the field, so he could not adjust his advice to account for Szeths needs that were different from his own. Much of that is because Kaladin was barely starting to understand his own state of mind; and psychology as a science and art is in its infancy for Roshar - so it's not like he had any references from which to realize those facts.

 

Dang.  Dang.  I liked relating to Szeth.  I liked it a lot.

Never realized that it was supposed to be that kind of thing.

[Treamayne]

17 minutes ago, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

Dang.  Dang.  I liked relating to Szeth.  I liked it a lot.

Never realized that it was supposed to be that kind of thing.

Just because that's my interpretation - does not invalidate your interpretation or how you related to Szeth.

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

I never said I couldn't relate anymore.  I just said I wasn't going to.  I'm the sort who would rather have no cookie than break the cookie in half and share it.  You can have the character.

 

I'm just a little cheesed that what I had interpreted as a spiritual and religiously motivated character struggling with matters of the soul was intended to be a brain-type thing all along, and I was too stupid to realize it.

 

There are lots of characters who I relate to on the level of brain-type things, but very few who have felt that same "I want to hide in a hole and never die so the justice that I desperately need to exist can't find me because I refuse to accept any mercy for myself" thing, and reading about someone else feeling that helped me deal with it and get to a place where I could stop feeling it.

Edited March 19, 2025 by Aliroz-The-Confused

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 2/15/2025 at 12:45 AM, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

I do not think that Mr. Sanderson will ever portray Reason (or, most likely, Invention) as flawed or show it to be unequal to morality in the way that he has for Preservation and Honor, or, for that matter, Autonomy.

I would say that he already has. Odium's defense of passion as a necessary motivation would apply just as well for Reason.

On 2/15/2025 at 12:45 AM, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

I hate that it's always, invariably, and in every case proven to be the right thing to do, and that any character who thinks like me either ends up learning such thought-patterns or ends up destroyed by the narrative.  It feels like "think for yourself" always refers to the same thought process.

Jasnah? Dalinar? Hoid? They fail monumentally due to thinking for themselves.

On 2/17/2025 at 4:23 AM, The Stick said:

Rather, my issue is with this book's definitions of oaths and Honor. To be clear, I liked the book, but I did not like the portrayal of oaths. Throughout the entire series, oaths are built up as honorable and noble. The entire point of the radiant orders is to live by oaths. They are of monolithic importance to the series. Yet, this book, it feels like there was a 180 and suddenly oaths were being undercut totally.

I think you are missing a fundamental feature of the book and the Knights Radiant.

This book is the story of a defeat. The Knights Radiant lose the war. That is in accordance to their ideals. They'd rather lose honorably than win dishonorably. Well, in that case testing them on that is fair.

On 2/17/2025 at 9:34 PM, Knuti said:

Let us discuss Fen. I think it can be equally said, that Jasnah betrayed Fen by admitting she would stab her under certain circumstances. But that is not the point. Fen is a politician, Taravangian is a politician and Jasnah is a scholar playing at politics. And made the error to concede that the rules of politics aka the best for Your country apply to this discussion.

There is the basic issue with most of the oaths. Whom do they apply to? Whom is Kaladin to protect? Which law do you enforce? Who is locked up unjustly?

On 2/18/2025 at 12:52 AM, The Stick said:

They do sometimes contradict. They all have different interpretations of what is right. The issue is, there is no absolute moral standard in the Cosmere. This does mean the whole point of Honor, the whole point of oaths is to live by a set of codes that best approximate what is right, what is moral.

Well, I am afraid I have to contest that. Absolute morals can be divided

1. It is objective. That is, one could compute for any given individual the most moral action if one knew all relevant facts
2. It is universal. That is, it comes to the same conclusion for all individuals

What that means in practice it may mean that person A needs to do action X and person B must prevent action X and both are objectively right. The fact that Shards do have Intents and that oaths can be accepted by some exterior force and that oath pacts enforce themselves point to the Cosmere having absolute morals in the first sense.

That is not strange. This used to be implicitely understood until the early 20th century. It was clear that fighting for your king and country in a war was the moral and noble thing. Though obviously the contrahents in a war have incompatible goals.
Or look at the Bhagavadgita if you want. If it is your duty, killing relatives will be moral.

[RedBlue]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

This used to be implicitely understood until the early 20th century. It was clear that fighting for your king and country in a war was the moral and noble thing.

Out of genuine curiosity: what do you make of Hamlet? Was killing Claudius, the king, an ‘objectively immoral’ course of action? Do you believe that Shakespeare intended to present this as a genuine moral quandary, or is that just something audiences have projected onto the play since the early 20th century, in your opinion?

[CognitiveShadow he/him]

On 3/18/2025 at 8:45 PM, Aliroz-The-Confused said:

I'm just a little cheesed that what I had interpreted as a spiritual and religiously motivated character struggling with matters of the soul was intended to be a brain-type thing all along, and I was too stupid to realize it.

I think brain-type things and religious/spiritual motivations can actually have a lot of overlap. Again, from my hyper religious background, as a kid I developed an obsession with obedience and making sure I did everything exactly right and was always panicked when I didn't know what the 'right' choice was. I didn't/don't have OCD naturally, but that environment and the nurture aspect of my development (as opposed to the nature parts) eventually led to me develop religious scrupulosity. Which is something I identify with Szeth on for sure - maybe more than I'd like to haha but my point is that it's still very possible that Szeth's brain-type and religious/spiritual motiviations were both present and intertwined in a very complex way.

Since leaving the religion I was born into and developing more of my own self and my own internal moral guidings, I've learned to shed most/a lot of the religious compulsions/shame/guilt complex stuff that I was dealing with. It's still difficult and I'm learning to piece my self-confidence and self-love back together in a healthy way, but it's not easy to leave a mind set that is so black and white.

Perhaps that is a large part of why I enjoy seeing the examples of nuance in WaT compared with the black/white oathkeeping perspective. My former self identifies strongly with Szeth and the skybreakers and my new self can recognize many different aspects of each character and order of knights radiant that I connect to in different ways and under different circumstances. So I'm learning how to embrace the nuance in my life instead of trying to ignore it and outsource my decision-making to other people/organizations.

So obviously coming from that perspective, this book and the way the series is headed definitely exciting and very very interesting for me personally. But I can understand how it would not be as enjoyable if I was still in more of that 'black and white is always right' mindset that I used to have.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 3/19/2025 at 12:18 PM, RedBlue said:

Out of genuine curiosity: what do you make of Hamlet? Was killing Claudius, the king, an ‘objectively immoral’ course of action? Do you believe that Shakespeare intended to present this as a genuine moral quandary, or is that just something audiences have projected onto the play since the early 20th century, in your opinion?

I hesitate to answer this, as I am not familiar with Hamlet.
That said I have a hard time imagining that an author writing in the 17th century had any issues with avenging a relative.

[Aliroz-The-Confused]

So, an update.  I was considering never reading any more of mister Sanderson's books, because I was feeling as though they were written not for me, but for people whose thoughts are the opposite of mine.

I'd considered doing this a few years back, but, as a last gesture of thanks for what the books had given me, recommended Mistborn to one of my cousins, who is as a sister to me.  Her love of the works reignited mine, and reading new ones as they come out and texting each other and having long phone conversations about them has been a delight through the years.

Here's what she told me over text, when I told her I was considering dropping the Cosmere.

 

I get it.  Wind and Truth was A LOT.  It left me pondering.  Thinking.  Crying.  Laughing.  Considering.

I'm still processing it.  I'll be processing it for years.

Each Stormlight book has helped me heal a part of my heart that desperately needed help.  This one was no exception.

That even in failure and darkness, we deserve healing.  We deserve love.  Our journey is worth taking.  We can be redeemed and forgiven.  Our choices matter.  Our agency matter.  Our hearts matter.  That which is broken can heal.  There are no easy answers, but there is a way forward even in uncertainty and darkness, the light will always find a way to guide us.

 

Lopen's cousins ain't got nothing on mine. 

I'll be reading mister Sanderson's books until he stops writing.