Amaram, the "Radiant"

[VoltCruelerz he/him]

While the idea of Kaladin being a radiant didn't occur to Dalinar doesn't really seem that unrealistic, the fact that he just kinda went along with it without questioning is very strange.

Kaladin survives the death point. Repeatedly.

Survives being strung up in a Highstorm.

Drops his bridge's casualty rate to the lowest in the army.

Holds off the Parshendi hoard at the Tower

Survives a duel against full shard bearers. Even if no one saw him kick apart shard plate, he still survived.

Instinctively knows about an imminent supernatural assassin attack.

Knocks a supernatural assassin out the window, surviving a hundred foot drop, missing only a sleeve, and somehow scaring them off.

I kinda get the stuff before Szeth. But after he is one of three people who fought off the deadliest person on the planet who is supernatural? A reevaluation is in order. At absolute minimum, you ask if he's been to see the Night watcher.

Edited January 5, 2016 by VoltCruelerz

[Edgedancer he/him]

Actually, didn't Dalinar suspect Kaladin of being a Radiant after the chasm scene but droped the topic after Kaladin gave him a kind of vague negative respone?

[The Invested Beard]

Yes he did.

Edited January 5, 2016 by The Invested Beard

[Femme she/her]

I agree it was weird, but I think in Dalinar's case, doing something was better than doing nothing.

 

He was basically grasping at straws to figure out what the heck to do, and like previous posters pointed out, Amaram was widely known for his virtue and honor, so if he were to nominate any normal human, he would probably choose the best of the best: a lighteyes of high rank, with a high reputation, with shardplate and blade.

 

Also in retrospect, had he not started up the faux-radiants, two things wouldn't have happened:

1. Kaladin wouldn't have opposed the wrongness of the appointment, and he wouldn't have had all those conversations with Syl about him being/becoming a radiant, and thus him accepting that he was one once it happened.
    
2. Talk of the reforming the radiants wouldn't have been the talk of the town and it wouldn't have easily convinced the masses to accept Kaladin and Shallan as radiants. Acceptance from the majority and normalizing their positions of authority is probably going to be important for the new radiants. Dalinar basically paved the way for their arrival.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Femme

[TheLerasNosed he/him]

While the idea of Kaladin being a radiant didn't occur to Dalinar doesn't really seem that unrealistic, the fact that he just kinda went along with it without questioning is very strange.

Kaladin survives the death point. Repeatedly.

Survives being strung up in a Highstorm.

Drops his bridge's casualty rate to the lowest in the army.

 

These can be explained by not being in Dal's army. The only non-bridge 4 person who notices Kal won't die is Gaz, until the Highstorm.  After that people do look at him weirdly, but again that's in Sad's army and communication between the two aren't the best.

 

Holds off the Parshendi hoard at the Tower

Survives a duel against full shard bearers. Even if no one saw him kick apart shard plate, he still survived.

Instinctively knows about an imminent supernatural assassin attack.

Knocks a supernatural assassin out the window, surviving a hundred foot drop, missing only a sleeve, and somehow scaring them off.

I kinda get the stuff before Szeth. But after he is one of three people who fought off the deadliest person on the planet who is supernatural? A reevaluation is in order. At absolute minimum, you ask if he's been to see the Night watcher.

These can be explained by being a very, very talented fighter, which he's always been. It's rare, but Shardbearers have lost to ordinary people before.  As for the 100 foot drop, he did provide a valid-ish reason, which was that Szeth accidentally lashed him.

 

Now after saying that, let me agree with you in that individually, all these can be explained, but eventually you need to look at his actions as a whole and see that something strange is happening 

Edited January 5, 2016 by TheLerasNosed

[Garfield]

but eventually you need to look at his actions as a whole and see that something strange is happening 

 

 

That s the point of it. Every single one alone can be explained away with talent, luck, good training etc.

 

But collectively, after a while there is this "oh, has that Kaladin guy with the slave brand again pulled it off" effect.

[Garfield]

These can be explained by not being in Dal's army. The only non-bridge 4 person who notices Kal won't die is Gaz, until the Highstorm.  After that people do look at him weirdly, but again that's in Sad's army and communication between the two aren't the best.

 

 

I guess the news that someone was strung up in the highstorm and survived would make it to the news through all the camps. The camps do not only consist of loyal soldiers, but also civilians, and the camps are in too close proximity that there are no contacts.

 

After all, being judged by the highstorm is a type of trial by ordeal, someone surviving it must be seen as divine intervention. In a society that is so superstitious about the will of their god that should be a big deal!

Edited January 5, 2016 by Garfield

[king of nowhere]

Actually, didn't Dalinar suspect Kaladin of being a Radiant after the chasm scene but droped the topic after Kaladin gave him a kind of vague negative respone?

actually, if i remember correctly, dalinar suspects kaladin of being something more than a talented fighter already after the duel. Or maybe it was just his son asking if kaladin had some secret? don't remember exactly.

 

Anyway, let's look into it:

- kaladin rescues dalinar at the tower

can be explained by kaladin being really good at fighting and leading

- kaladin survives szeth

can be explained by kaladin being also lucky

- kaladin fight several shardbearers

we already established he's very good, but this seems to stretch belief. Some doubts start to pop up

- kaladin survives the chasm

dalinar now strongly suspects something is odd about kaladin, so he cconfronts him. kaladin let him down. What else is dalinar supposed to do at this point? He still had suspects, because he wasn't too surprised when kaladin rescued him from szeth.

 

So, when kaladin survived once or twice against incredible odds, there was no real reason to suspect. when kaladin keeps doing it, dalinar actually starts suspecting. seems fairly reasonable to me.

[VoltCruelerz he/him]

actually, if i remember correctly, dalinar suspects kaladin of being something more than a talented fighter already after the duel. Or maybe it was just his son asking if kaladin had some secret? don't remember exactly.

 

Anyway, let's look into it:

- kaladin rescues dalinar at the tower

can be explained by kaladin being really good at fighting and leading

- kaladin survives szeth

can be explained by kaladin being also lucky

- kaladin fight several shardbearers

we already established he's very good, but this seems to stretch belief. Some doubts start to pop up

- kaladin survives the chasm

dalinar now strongly suspects something is odd about kaladin, so he cconfronts him. kaladin let him down. What else is dalinar supposed to do at this point? He still had suspects, because he wasn't too surprised when kaladin rescued him from szeth.

 

So, when kaladin survived once or twice against incredible odds, there was no real reason to suspect. when kaladin keeps doing it, dalinar actually starts suspecting. seems fairly reasonable to me.

It would.  If those were the only things about Kaladin that defied the odds.  Yet once you factor in everything he did with the bridge crews (which Dalinar basically adopted, so his camp is going to be buzzing with talk of Bridge 4 and Kaladin's exploits and survival of a highstorm which itself implies divine intervention), you start wondering what took Dalinar so long to question him.  Dalinar himself had been to the Nightwatcher.  He was a full shardbearer.  He had visions.  He fought an assassin that could walk on walls and stuck Adolin to the ceiling.  The supernatural was not exactly outside his purview.

 

What I don't get is what took him so damnation long to figure out there was an overarching theme.  He would have heard of Kaladin's exploits from his guards who were direct witnesses.  True, they'd have covered up the parts of the stories where Kaladin glowed, but he would have been famous beyond reckoning in the camps.  The men of the other bridges would hail him as a hero for getting them out from under Sadeas's thumb.  Survive impossible odds once (survive a highstorm), you're lucky.  Twice (the deathpoint repeatedly), you're damnation lucky and you at least comment on it to the person.  Three (hold off the Parshendi hoard), you start seriously questioning how the hell the person is living through all this.  In a world with the supernatural, you'd likely ask if they had visited the Nightwatcher.  Four (survive the duel against full shardbearers), you're entering into the realm of the truly impossible without some outside force or the most absurd luck of all time.  Five (surviving Szeth), and it should be a foregone conclusion to anyone around you that's even slightly religious that there's divine intervention involved.  It wasn't until the sixth (the chasms) that Dalinar even considered it.

 

Think about what would happen in our world if someone won the lottery twice.  Their life would be ripped apart as people looked for proof of rigging it.  Three times?  Four times?  FIVE times?!  Or think about what would happen if someone from Salem during the witch trials got struck repeatedly by lightning.  Once?  Maybe a freak accident, but probably a witch.  Twice?  God is angry.  Three times?  God is doing something.  Four?  Five?  You see the point?  Vorinism is the dominant religion there.  To be perfectly honest, now that I think about it, I'm surprised the Ardents didn't start treating Kaladin as some kind of saint since the first impossible act he did is directly linked to their god choosing him as worthy of life.

Edited January 6, 2016 by VoltCruelerz

[Guest]

I disagree it was this easy to figure out what Kaladin was. Dalinar is a pragmatic man who tends to trust himself before he trusts others. In other words, he won't jump to hasty conclusions until he has all the pieces of the puzzle.

 

So far, in Dalinar's POV, we have not seen anyone behaving out of the ordinary concerning Kaladin, nobody hails him as a hero and nobody talks of him. Nobody ever mentioned in his vicinity the Highstorm incident, everything leads to believe Dalinar has not heard of it. Implausible? Not really. Kaladin was a slave and a bridge runner: nobody talks of bridge runners. Nobody knew who he was. It is not such an implausibility he wouldn't have a complete portray of Kaladin's background. Dalinar also didn't run a complete background check on Kaladin.

 

Dalinar also wasn't in a prime position to notice anything out of the ordinary concerning Kaladin and the Assassin in White. He fend some blows? So did he. Adolin couldn't? Adolin was targeted from the start, disarmed and knocked down on the ground. Dalinar didn't witness the arm slaying incident: from his point of vue, Szeth fell out of the window with Kaladin. Kaladin landed on Szeth and Szeth got away. Why would he question more? 

 

Surviving the 4 on 1 duel isn't such a big feat: all eyes likely were on Adolin. Nobody probably looked twice at Kaladin. Sadeas looked at Kaladin and couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. To everyone, he simply distracted the Shardbearer long enough to allow Adolin to maintain the upper hand. Courageous? Yes. Magical? Not quite so. Kaladin was careful in his stormlight use. It isn't implausible Dalinar didn't pay much heed to him. Heck, his SONS were fighting for their life, why would he spent even one second to look twice at his guard? 

 

The fact is the only one who had all the pieces necessary to solve the puzzle and its Adolin. He's the only one who witnessed enough, who asked himself enough questions to figure it out and he does, to a certain level. Dalinar does not have enough information and even in the face of the improbable, people are always bond to keep to the logical. Kaladin being a Radiant isn't logical or it isn't until the chasm scene, but he denies it.

 

It think we should not overestimate the importance nor the fame of Kaladin within the camp: it is much less then we think. However, now he is acknowledge as a Radiant, things are bound to change.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

I'm still trying to figure out how nobody realized that Kaladin was a radiant.

First, the Szeth fight. Kaladin through himself out of the window, and the other characters (definitely Adolin, possibly others) noticed that his sleeve was cut off.

And second, HE SENT A FULL SHARDBEARER RUNNING OUT OF THE ARENA!!!!

Seriously, how did that NOT raise any red flags?

Several possibilities- 1) very few people necessarily believe in radiant powers per say

2) it's a fundamental truth of human existence that we warp our perceptions to what we want to and/or expect to see. Lighteyes would neither expect nor want to see a darkeyes rebel as a being of power

3) everyone bar Dalinar seems to think Radiants are had

4) idiot ball for the sake of plot

5) several people ARE suspicious of Kaladin. Adolin for one pretty much did suspect it. Hoid KNOWS he is. Dalinar suspects it albeit a bit late. King T knows he is. The person who probably should have guessed but didn't was Shallan tbh, though she was probably thrown off when Kal couldn't heal himself.

6) finally for now, Kaladin deliberately didn't use his powers in a very obvious way- nothing overt except in front of his crew who are too loyal to blab. As for the fights, he already has a reputation as skilled from the tower rescue, and he DID beat a shardbearer before any active surgebinding powers manifested (so Amaram for example, who knows some arcane stuff is coming back in his own secret society, could believe his skill without attributing it to surgebinding). Adolin is also very skilled with a different weapon but nobody thinks he is a radiant.

Once it became known to most characters that Radiants were back, (and to some of those who knew they might be and anything about them) the dots would be easy to join, but before then the idea of Radiants returning would have seemed impossible, with their powers seemingly thought of as mythical.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Actually, didn't Dalinar suspect Kaladin of being a Radiant after the chasm scene but droped the topic after Kaladin gave him a kind of vague negative respone?

Yeah. I think he would have pursued it soon after but he was VERY preoccupied at the time and then things started to happen very quickly. Same after Adolin tried to work out why he was superhuman, things escalated and other people Adolin loved came first when they got back from yhe chasms

[AerionBFII he/him]

I don't dislike Adolin but I'm not that fond of him either but i have to give him props for noticing how despite Dalinar being the best man he new had a few rough patches and Amaram having none what so ever seemed like a man who takes a lot of care of his own reputation.

That struck me as amazingly observational also how he seemed to be the only one who clocked Kaladin as unusual.

 

I actually thought Amaram could eventually be a Knights Radiant. I new what he did to Kal was horrific and he is my favorite character but i understood the logic, who really would believe Kal didn't want the Shardblade it was a bad but a highly pragmatic thing to do but around the time when Shallan broke into his house and he summoned his Shardblade i realized it was just a facade. It was just greed and Restares suggestion was all the excuse he really needed.

 

After that little scenes started popping out at me giving me hints what his true nature was truly like. Don't get me wrong i never liked him or anything but i just sympathized with the logic of it. Also resurrecting the Voidbringers back is a deal breaker.

 

 

Dalinar had an unusual trust in Kal and vice versa. I think they could both sense the potential for the Nahel Bond in each other.

When you have that level of trust in somebody i think that also played a part in Dalinar not growing suspicious in Kal.

[Garfield]

I To be perfectly honest, now that I think about it, I'm surprised the Ardents didn't start treating Kaladin as some kind of saint since the first impossible act he did is directly linked to their god choosing him as worthy of life.

 

 

 

That I had been wondering too. Stringing out people in the highstorm is not an ordinary punishment, It is a trial by ordeal, and so far nobody seems to have survived it.

 

Either you are guilty and perish or god's will and intervention makes you survive it because he works a miracle for you. Pious as they are, he ardents of all war camps should be totally beside themselves if that ever happens. A miracle of god, that should be the talk of the day.

Edited January 6, 2016 by Garfield

[Stormgate he/him]

Basically, the highstorm punishment is a death penalty with few potential repercussions. If someone doesn't survive, you can always claim that the Stormfather simply didn't think the victim was innocent. And do you really think Sadeas would want anyone paying attention to the rebellious bridgeman that survived the highstorm? The ardents are really less religious leaders and more sycophants for the lighteyes, so they don't have that much power.

[king of nowhere]

how unlikely is survival of a highstorm? i was inclined to believe that is was hard, but not miracle-like hard. hystorically, most trial by ordeal have a good chance of survivability anyway; if everybody subjected to the trial dies, you think something is wrong with it.

sadeas going out of his way to stack the odds against kaladin also make me think that the chances of survival are not so small. especially if you receive medical care afterwards. as for the other details, like the miracolous recovery, we all know stories grow in the retelling. everybody probably just assumed the stories exaggerated how badly kaladin was wounded afterwards and how quickly he recovered.

Edited January 6, 2016 by king of nowhere

[Stormgate he/him]

Nobody survives a highstorm. Kaladin's injuries were such that he wouldn't have survived if he hadn't been given gemstones. The small sphere he was given was probably the only reason he didn't die during the end of the highstorm.

[Kaazi he/him]

Well, Ardents do need to be complient to the lighteyes. While they are religous leaders/monks they are still property. Though they seem to be more focused on callings then religion.

[Pathfinder]

how unlikely is survival of a highstorm? i was inclined to believe that is was hard, but not miracle-like hard. hystorically, most trial by ordeal have a good chance of survivability anyway; if everybody subjected to the trial dies, you think something is wrong with it.

sadeas going out of his way to stack the odds against kaladin also make me think that the chances of survival are not so small. especially if you receive medical care afterwards. as for the other details, like the miracolous recovery, we all know stories grow in the retelling. everybody probably just assumed the stories exaggerated how badly kaladin was wounded afterwards and how quickly he recovered.

depends on how you are out in a highstorm. Kal was hung, upside down, high-ish up, facing east where the storms originate. But if someone finds even a small lait, and covers it (like the pole scouts do) there is a good chance of surviving. 

[Shardbearer he/him]

As to the original question: Dalinar was looking to refound the KR. He had no idea he should be looking for surgebinders to do this. From his visions, he probably only had vague ideas of what surgebinding was and what it could do. He may have assumed that the KR's strange powers came directly from their Blade and Plate, so only someone wearing glowing Plate would have been an obvious candidate for his new KR.

[Yata he/him]

As to the original question: Dalinar was looking to refound the KR. He had no idea he should be looking for surgebinders to do this. From his visions, he probably only had vague ideas of what surgebinding was and what it could do. He may have assumed that the KR's strange powers came directly from their Blade and Plate, so only someone wearing glowing Plate would have been an obvious candidate for his new KR.

This is indeed possible, after all He saw KR left their Shards and lose their powers.

[DreamEternal]

Yes, and he may also have assumed that if he found the right person, the powers could eventualy come, if he spoke the First Ideal and followed it completely. After all, the Almighty didn't say much more than "speak the ancient oaths and return to men the shards they once bore" or something like that.

[Patrick Star]

Here's the thing about Kal's luck, though.

 

Kaladin sending Relis literally running home to his highprince is NOT explainable by luck or skill.

 

I find it hard to believe that nobody followed up on it.  A shardbearer climbing out of and running away from the battle while screaming at the top of his longs is pretty conspicuous.

 

And with how shaken up Relis appeared, I don't think they would have kept the screams a secret.

 

And if Kaladin's unlocking some secret about the shardblades (well, Renarin did first, but he wouldn't tell anyone), that would raise some suspicions at the very least.

[IndigoAjah he/him]

Here's the thing about Kal's luck, though.

Kaladin sending Relis literally running home to his highprince is NOT explainable by luck or skill.

I find it hard to believe that nobody followed up on it. A shardbearer climbing out of and running away from the battle while screaming at the top of his longs is pretty conspicuous.

And with how shaken up Relis appeared, I don't think they would have kept the screams a secret.

And if Kaladin's unlocking some secret about the shardblades (well, Renarin did first, but he wouldn't tell anyone), that would raise some suspicions at the very least.

Yeah Relis running off is a big flaw for me

[Pathfinder]

Or it could be viewed as cowardly and utterly humiliating and his family would do whatever they could to avoid speaking of it