SA characters you liked--until they did something you can never forgive them for

[kaellok]

I was typing up a response to a thread, when I realized that the OP was asking if they should read SA--and I realized it would be bad to post this response in that thread.  So, now I create a new thread!  A place to rant and rave about characters that you liked or loved, until they did something that pissed you off so much you can never see them the same way again.  

 

I'd also like to make special mention that I don't waste my time with characters that don't speak to me.  Even though I may disagree with virtually their entire outlook on life, they are still vibrant and lively enough that I can't simply ignore them.  And that speaks to good writing.

 

For me, there's two of these miscreant characters!  Spoiler tags for what they've done.  They were also two of my favorite characters from WoK.

 

Kaladin

 

I could probably get past him being a whiny, self-righteous hypocritical brat in WoR.  Out of every character I've read, and everyone I've ever known, he has the strongest case to be allowed that leeway.  So, while I grump on him (and Sanderson) for that, quite a lot, I can still never forgive him for killing Syl.  I don't care that he brought her back by living up to his Oaths.  I don't care that Syl forgave him.  I also don't care that Sanderson in some WoB or other tries to walk back the extent of the death she faced.  The narrative that I read indicates, fairly clearly, that she was effectively dead.  And why did she die?  Because Kaladin was in the middle of a giant pout, but in need, and so she killed herself to save him.  So, I guess that's why I can't forgive him.  I'll still like him as a character, but he'll never be one of my favorites again.

 

Szeth

 

I've had discussions about this before on the boards.  I'm very, very big on personal responsibility and ownership of problems that you create.  I'm equally big on "don't murder people just because some dude with a rock told you to kill them."  Short of actual mind-controlling (or body-controlling) magic, there is absolutely no way for Sanderson to write Szeth in a way that he will be redeemed in my eyes.  He knowingly, willingly slaughtered hundreds of innocents in a way that he knew would cast the world into chaos.  He could have let one person live the massacre, and told them who was behind it all.  Or he could have let everyone live.  But he chose to do what the guy with the rock said.  My feelings are likely due to severely incompatible/different cultural expectations and experiences.  

 

No oath, or Oath, that I can give would ever make me do what is wrong/evil, save that I felt like doing it.  I've been talked into doing plenty of wrong-headed things in my past, and it frequently didn't take much, but Szeth seemed to let it consume himself.  He even fought Kaladin, and then when he confronted Mr T, bought the flimsiest of lies.  At the very end, with the proof all around him, he decided to bask in his own folly and further it, rather than turn back.  All he did, in the end, was cast the world in chaos, bring it to the tipping point, and then commit suicide.  And he wasn't even allowed to get that part right, but that's Darkness for ya.

Edited June 9, 2015 by kaellok

[Curious Anamaximder]

I agree with you about all of those. Upvote.

[CHOUTAGOD]

Elhokar for me, let me explain. For me there is no worse sin than incompetence especially if there is obviously a candidate superior to yourself in EVERY way. At first I could deal with his paranoia, but he pushed it to the point that it affected EVERYTHING to the point that it almost got his own family members killed! The fact that he is easily manipulated doesnt help in the least. EVERY decision he has made has his Kingdom worse. Not to mention his wife who is either equally incompetent or selfish and uncaring. I digress, the fact is that Elhokar is an absolutely horrible leader... There is nothing else for me to say really.

[emilylime]

Honestly, when I gain a favorite character, I kind of adopt them... and they become my child.... in a weird sort of way. So even if they do something terrible, they're still my favorite character. Even though I nearly died when

Kaladin decided to help assassinate Elstinkar, he is and always will be my favorite character.

 
For me, though, Moash is close to what you're describing. I really despise what he did. He beat up Kaladin. He almost killed him!!!! All over a stupid plot for vengeance against an innocent man. grrr. So, I'm really angry at him, but I still like him just as much as I did pre-WoR. It's just that now, I also hate him. If that makes any sense.

[Adamir]

You're going to all hate me for saying this, but before his betrayal, I thought Sadeas was the most complex and well-rounded character present, and a clear favorite. To me, Sanderson should have thought of some other way to raise the stakes; but I'll admit that only the unexpected betrayal has any impact.

[maxal]

I was typing up a response to a thread, when I realized that the OP was asking if they should read SA--and I realized it would be bad to post this response in that thread.  So, now I create a new thread!  A place to rant and rave about characters that you liked or loved, until they did something that pissed you off so much you can never see them the same way again.  

 

I'd also like to make special mention that I don't waste my time with characters that don't speak to me.  Even though I may disagree with virtually their entire outlook on life, they are still vibrant and lively enough that I can't simply ignore them.  And that speaks to good writing.

 

Love this.. However this is dangerous... I am in the "hate zone" sprouting out of intense jealousy mode for most characters  , but here is a few.

 

Eshonai

 

I know, I know, I know. You are unbelievably important. There is a comet-like spren that flew out of you which Brandon confirmed was related to one of the orders, so you are most likely going to become the first Parshendi knight. Yeah! You were trapped into morphing with a Voidspren or an Odiumspren or whatever, I feel you pain. You are our main viewpoint characters for the Parshendi folks, you are getting a mightily precious flashback and I am sure you are rather relevant to world-building, BUT I just find you POV so boring it is annoying. I am sorry, but you have failed to move me. For some reason, I am just not overly interested in getting much more of you. I get it you may become the most intriguing character in the whole universe, but I still, currently do not like reading your POV so I am incredibly angry you will getting all of this special attention because it means I will have read through some more "signing" and "attuning" which is just peculiar and does not render good character dialogues. So sorry. Do not take it personal. I may come to love you in the future nothing is ever impossible.

 

Hoid

 

I do not like you. I do not care how relevant you are to the Cosmere, I still do not like you. Why? Because you know things and you purposely refuse to share them. You talk in charade just for the fun of sounding clever and this is annoying. You also dot too much on Kaladin and Shallan, so I am jealous. What business did you have to plant the idea into Kaladin's head he should court Shallan? Why would you be so mean to Adolin who has never been anything less than your greatest fan? You are just obnoxious and I do not like you. 

[hoser]

This is very interesting.  I want to be careful to say this in a way that is not offensive or invalidating of others' opinions, so please accept my apology in advance if I fail. 

 

I see all three of these characters as victims of Brandon's plotting.  I love the story, but there are places where characters do things that make no sense to me.  As such, I just chalk it up to the man behind the curtain and don't really hold it against the characters. 

 

Elhokar

He is paranoid, self-centered and insecure to multiple faults.  Sadeas is the biggest threat to his survival and has been flouting his authority.  They have planned the whole scenario out in advance.  He suddenly gets distracted by his jealousy of Kaladin and gives up on the plan in favor of punishing a babbling darkeyed spearman.  I don't see it as credible.  The self-centered and paranoid Elhokar would be so determined to eliminate the threat that Sadeas represents that he would not focus on Kaladin, who is not a threat to him.  I think this lack of credibility is part of why the scene occurs off-camera.

 

 

Szeth

He has heretical information.  If he believes this information, he knows that his punishment is wrong.  If he doesn't believe this information, he would not report it so strongly that he would be punished as a heretic.  Even more, he is portrayed as adhering so strongly to a code that he is willing to do things he hates and knows to be wrong.  The paradox at the root of his role as truthless makes his accepting the truthless punishment an unbelievable plot device to me.  As such, I totally agree with Kaellok's condemnation of him, but am willing to look at what has come before as prologue.  Brandon needed this to have happened, so Szeth got stuck with the baggage.  I just hope that his actions become more credible from here on out.

 

 

Kaladin

Here is what has to happen:

• His life has to be in immediate danger
• Syl has to be far enough away that he can't access stormlight naturally, but close enough to be able to force it to him at the cost of her awareness
• Elhokar has to act unbelievably as described above.
• It has to be in the window between when he makes the conflicting promise to Moash and when he resolves the issue. 

I see it as a setup.  Kaladin has no intention to harm Syl and has taken no action that he knows to be harmful to her.  Brandon wanted to show us this aspect of the bond in a gripping way.  It really worked.  I love the story and don't hold it against Kaladin. 

Edited June 9, 2015 by hoser

[DreamEternal]

damnation. Szeth and Elhokar are some of my favorite characters .

[maxal]

damnation. Szeth and Elhokar are some of my favorite characters .

 

At least with Szeth, you are assured to have plenty of POV time and an awesome flashback. 

[DreamEternal]

Please, I expect that Shallan and Kaladin will recieve more viewpoint chapters than him in his own book. Plus, if you are talking about Adolin not being one of the main ten, I expect him to become more relevant, not less, and his lack of flashbacks being necessary to avoid redundance with Renarin and Dalinar.

[kaellok]

Call me a crazy, madcap jester dancing on top of an elephant riding atop a turtle, but i love how we can come together to intelligently discuss why fictional characters have made us angry, while remaining calm and civil about it.

Edited June 10, 2015 by kaellok

[ljósmóður]

I'm not a huge fan of Shallan - I found her somewhat irritating in WoK. But, she was growing on me in WoR when she seemed to be growing up somewhat and her flashbacks did a lot to contextualise her and make me feel a lot of sympathy towards her. Plus, her humour seemed more natural in the second book. But, just as I was warming up to her properly:

 

She hired a poor carriage driver and two parshmen to take her to a meeting with a bunch of people she knows to be unsavoury at best and murderous at worst. She sends the carriage back without her and then seems surprised when the carriage driver and parshmen are slaughtered by the Ghostbloods. I know she's is upset and I know she feels guilty but I can't quite forgive her lack of foresight in this instance. I never did quite recover the same level of interest in her for the rest of the book (apart from the chapters in the chasms where I felt she came close to redeeming herself.)

[Varyn]

I don't know whether it's just me, or I am just particularly susceptible to betrayal, but I am honestly really surprised that no one has mentioned Moash yet.

Hear me out; I actually liked Moash in the Way of Kings, and throughout the beginning of Words of Radiance, because I felt that he was one of the most well-rounded and believable characters in Bridge Four. Unlike Rock, and later Teft, Moash actually initially refused to accept Kaladin as leader, because he was like the others and didn't consider Kaladin worth anything, as life would surely have ended in death for them all. This gave me a grudging respect for him, and it also did to Kaladin. Then, he turned out to be eventually loyal and extremely competent, which, as Brandon has pointed out in one of his lectures, is one of the things that makes us love a character. As such, I began to like Moash.

That was, until, he ushered Kaladin into the plot to kill Elhokar, which led to Kaladin very nearly killing Syl, and then betraying Dalinar's trust, his own morals, and the oaths of the Knights Radiant. I understand that Moash bears a burning hatred within that he places over nearly everything else to avenge the wrongdoing of Roshone that Elhokar begged mercy for, but I cannot see Moash in the same way anymore, and I sincerely hope that he either comes to his senses and pleads mercy from Bridge Four, or is somehow removed without Kaladin's interference - it would kill Kaladin to have to kill Moash, betrayal aside.

Edited June 10, 2015 by Varyn

[kari-no-sugata]

Maybe I can bit a bit detached and view them as fictional characters but there hasn't been anything I felt "unforgivable" about characters I liked from the start or even didn't like. Particularly for a long running series, if the characters didn't make mistakes, even big ones, then it would be quite boring... and that's the thing I really can't forgive in a book.

 

I can forgive being stupid. I can't forgive being boring.

Edited June 10, 2015 by kari-no-sugata

[maxal]

Please, I expect that Shallan and Kaladin will recieve more viewpoint chapters than him in his own book. Plus, if you are talking about Adolin not being one of the main ten, I expect him to become more relevant, not less, and his lack of flashbacks being necessary to avoid redundance with Renarin and Dalinar.

 

You do not know this... next book may not be Szeth anyway, but he is going to get more and more page time. If not, then it does not make sense to refer to him as "one of the mains" as Brandon do. So basically, I base myself on multiple WoB where Brandon mentioned over and over again who will get a bigger part as the story unfolds. Also, the featured character and the flashbacks may not always be the same, so you may get a very Szeth centered book, but get his flashbacks only in the next one. 

 

The argument of redundance... personally as I have stated in the other thread, I'd rather read about Adolin's past from Adolin's POV, not Renarin or Dalinar. Besides, their flashbacks will be about them, not Adolin. He will be nothing more than a side character into theirs, much like Balat was to Shallan's. When you like a character, this is not the same, not at all. 

 

In any advent, if you like Szeth, then you are quite assured to have more of him and not less simply because Brandon said you would. I wish Szeth was my favorite character any of the ten, so I could stop angsting about book 3.

[Patrick Star]

Elhokar.  Kaladin fights off the Assassin in White (by tackling him out of a window 200 feet up, no less) and suffers no injuries.  He then literally SENDS A FULL SHARDBEARER RUNNING OUT OF THE ARENA and likely saves his cousin's life.  But then Elhokar gets pissy when Kal accuses Amaram and sentences Kal to death.

 

Yeah, I'm not forgiving that.

 

Edit:  This is basically what Kaladin did in the Arena.  There's no way anyone could forget it.

 

Edited June 10, 2015 by Patrick Star

[CHOUTAGOD]

Amen Star of Patrick! AMEN!!! Elhokar can burn in Damnation!!!!

[Patrick Star]

I'm definitely able to forgive Kal if he finally moves on in Stormlight 3.

 

The whole point of book 2 was that he killed Syl without realizing that he was killing her.  By now, though, he should know better.

 

I'm reserving judgement for Szeth until Stormlight 3.

 

But I'm still pretty pissed at Dalinar for his awful handling of the Kaladin-Amaram situation.  I can forgive him, but ALL HE HAD TO DO WAS TELL KALADIN THAT HE BELIEVED HIM.  After all, he did at the point where he spoke to Kaladin in the prison.  That's it.

[Mckeedee123]

I don't know whether it's just me, or I am just particularly susceptible to betrayal, but I am honestly really surprised that no one has mentioned Moash yet.

Hear me out; I actually liked Moash in the Way of Kings, and throughout the beginning of Words of Radiance, because I felt that he was one of the most well-rounded and believable characters in Bridge Four. Unlike Rock, and later Teft, Moash actually initially refused to accept Kaladin as leader, because he was like the others and didn't consider Kaladin worth anything, as life would surely have ended in death for them all. This gave me a grudging respect for him, and it also did to Kaladin. Then, he turned out to be eventually loyal and extremely competent, which, as Brandon has pointed out in one of his lectures, is one of the things that makes us love a character. As such, I began to like Moash.

That was, until, he ushered Kaladin into the plot to kill Elhokar, which led to Kaladin very nearly killing Syl, and then betraying Dalinar's trust, his own morals, and the oaths of the Knights Radiant. I understand that Moash bears a burning hatred within that he places over nearly everything else to avenge the wrongdoing of Roshone that Elhokar begged mercy for, but I cannot see Moash in the same way anymore, and I sincerely hope that he either comes to his senses and pleads mercy from Bridge Four, or is somehow removed without Kaladin's interference - it would kill Kaladin to have to kill Moash, betrayal aside.

 

Agreed. Moash is just ridiculous. He's everything that went wrong with Kaladin during the 8 months with none of the good qualities to make up for it.

 

"Would you do that? Would you betray a member of Bridge Four?"

 

C'mon, Moash. Do you really not understand that you were the one who betrayed them?

Edited June 11, 2015 by Mckeedee123

[Unhinged]

Am I the only person here who actually liked Moash? I mean he did go overboard by dragging Kaladin into his plans (I can't forgive him for that) but I can see why he did it. Hatred can eat you up inside, especially if you keep holding onto it and you can clearly see that the object of your hatred is not being punished by karma for his actions. So while I can't forgive Moash for letting himself be manipulated by Graves into getting Kaladin involved with his revenge I can agree with him trying to kill the king even if it would probably have some very negative repercussions.

 

While she hasn't done anything that I truly despise yet I can't stand Eshonai her parts in WOR were some of the slowest and most boring in the book. but then again Shallan was just as boring in WOK but when she grew up and actually started to act for herself I really began to like her so there's hope for Eshonai yet.

[CabbageHead]

Stick. He was a likeable stick. Doing stick things, in his own inimitable stick way. He was the stick of all sticks.

 

Then... He had the chance. The chance to be FIRE. Or maybe stone. Fire would be better, but stone is good too. Or maybe water. Water has a slushy charm. Or even a breezy atmosphere of air.

 

But no. Stick is a stick. Stick wants to stay a stick. A boring sticky stick, sticking it out to the end of time as a stick.

[Adamir]

Call me a crazy, madcap jester dancing on top of an elephant riding atop a turtle

Discworld?

[kaellok]

Discworld?

Well, it IS turtles all the way down.

 

 

Stick. He was a likeable stick. Doing stick things, in his own inimitable stick way. He was the stick of all sticks.

 

Then... He had the chance. The chance to be FIRE. Or maybe stone. Fire would be better, but stone is good too. Or maybe water. Water has a slushy charm. Or even a breezy atmosphere of air.

 

But no. Stick is a stick. Stick wants to stay a stick. A boring sticky stick, sticking it out to the end of time as a stick.

I...somehow, someway, I completely missed that Stick could have been FIRE, but chose not to.  You don't know me irl, so this means nothing to you.  But I'm not allowed to play with fire.  The last time I did, it was safely, under supervision, next to a rather large pond in a woods.  We nearly lost the woods because of the fire.  I don't even know what happened...I was just there, and zoning out gazing at the fire, and the next thing I knew it was...bad.  And I was sad, because I knew that I couldn't be allowed or trusted to play with fire ever again, because the next logical step is lighting an entire state on fire (first was self, then house, then woods, so it's an exponential growth pattern.)

 

So now, damnation you, now my heart is broken.  I loved Stick.  But Stick could have been so much more.

[CabbageHead]

Well, it IS turtles all the way down.

 

 

 I'm not allowed to play with fire.

If it makes you feel better, I am a bona fide pyromaniac. When I was a child in the US, we made paper turkeys in school for thanksgiving. There was a large scorchmark on our livingroom carpet where I carried a flame from the kitchen to that paper turkey. Later, here in Ireland, my obsession with fire managed to allow me burn to down our garage as a child. Fire is good, but in only the hands of a responsible adult.

[FeatherWriter]

Ah, this thread for me is Shallan. 

 

For those who listened to the Splintercast podcasts, Shallan's reaction and treatment of Renarin at the end of WoR was both shocking and horrifying to me. This is probably a scene that didn't bother too many other people, but Renarin has a very special place in my heart and I'm very protective of him. Considering one of the things that I had originally loved about Shallan was her kindness and empathy -- to the point that I considered her to be a possible good friend or match for Renarin -- seeing the way she reacted to him was... physically painful to me.

 

A character that I thought was kind and understanding looks at my favorite charact and decides he's "creepy and weird." Beyond that, when he starts to show signs of extreme distress from his visions, Shallan treats him like he's an annoying inconvenience. Seeing someone I cared about say "Shut him up. Gag him if you have to." to my favorite character, at a time when he most needs someone to support him? It hurt. A lot.

 

Yeah, I get it, she was under a lot of stress. There was a lot of pressure on her to get this done and Renarin's breakdown was getting in her way, but the things she said and thought about him felt unnecessarily harsh and cruel. I don't know about you, but if someone around me (even someone I didn't really care about) started showing signs of an involuntary reaction, especially screaming in fear and possibly pain... I'd maybe... feel a little bad? Try to help? Be worried about him, even if I couldn't help? I certainly wouldn't ask someone to "gag him!"

 

Though I'm starting to learn how to forgive her, every time I think about it, I just get angry all over again and have to go calm down.