Halfway through WoK, will there be any true darkeye champions on Roshar? (spoilers)

[Jebaited]

I decided to pick this up to give myself a break after reading a bunch of Malazan having heard a lot of good things about Brandon Sanderson. For the most part I really do like it very much so far.  I even really liked the whole lighteyes vs darkeyes thing, very interesting way of sorting highborns and lowborns, until I learned that being a shardbearer automatically makes you a lighteyes.  So from what I've learned of how the magic in Roshar works and what it takes to become traditionally "powerful" (binding a shardblade or being a Knight Radiant) will automatically make you lighteyes, leaving no real true powerful darkeyes seemingly and we know that the step above Shardbearers, the Knights Radiant, had very light eyes as well.  What I'm honestly hoping for is some great equalizer.  There's no benefit from what I can see to being a darkeyes or any great power that would make somebody a darkeyes.  You're just a peasant, and if you become smart, strong, and/or clever enough to become a shardbearer, you're no longer a darkeyes anyways, so yeah...

Spoiler

I was hoping that equalizer would be Kaladin, but I saw some fanart of him with light eyes, so I assume he probably become a shardbearer or a Radiant or something.  Whatever, I don't feel like it's spoiled any plot points or anything else I really wish I hadn't known.

I just want to know if there is something like this, because I thought I'd be in for something a little less dreary after 4000+ pages of Malazan in a row, but it's kind of almost more depressing in a far more existential way.  So just wondering if I should really hold out for anything to change, at least in WoK or WoR.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Jebaited

[DeTess she/her]

So, obviously, there are some spoilers below. I've tried to keep them to an absolute minimum, and it shouldn't give you more clues to upcoming developments than you already had through the fan-art you've seen.

Spoiler

Kalladin, at the end of WoR (though this is made more clear in a preview of oathbringer), is still the champion for darkeyes. He does get the light eyes you've seen in fan-art, but this is a temporary transformation that only occurs while certain conditions are met.

 

[Spoolofwhool]

Words of Radiance spoilers

Spoiler

It's suspected that the lighteyes are only special because the KR were all lighteyes due to their powers. Therefore, the story is not going to focus on darkeye champions, but more the upset of the societal boundaries when a lot of darkeyes become lighteyes, and more important than them.

 

[Jebaited]

to me it seems more that they're the focus because all the shardbearers are going to be lighteyes, so therefore all the rulers and powerful, rich and influential characters will all be lighteyes.  it seems more a product of the world and the way the magic system works.  what i was hoping is that there's some wrinkle, something i've not yet been exposed to that will prove to turn this on it's head.

because while lighteyes aren't objectively any superior than a darkeyes on paper (unless they're bonded to a shardholder or radiant), a society left to its own devices would not correct for this, because the world, as it's been described so far, favors lighteyes.

even if you take a bunch of rosharans, wipe there memory and drop them on another continent with shardblades.  the ones that grab them will become more powerful, their children will be lighteyes and all of the sudden within a few generations, this will happen again.  it's more than simple discrimination on earth, i feel like it'd be much more powerful of an effect and the darkeyes are doomed to be forever subjugated... unless there's some wrinkle to the magic system, and therein is what i'm curious about

[Humpty he/him]

Spoiler

Also the Herald of war has Darkeyes.. Hard to get much higher in class than that..

To bad we can't get a scene with Wit and Kruppe going at it huh Of course that would be the one person who would get the better of Wit...

Edited February 10, 2017 by Humpty

[Spoolofwhool]

Unfortunately, surgebinding does seem to be biased towards representing the lighteyed people as being superior.

[Rasha]

46 minutes ago, Humpty said:

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Also the Herald of war has Darkeyes.. Hard to get much higher in class than that..

To bad we can't get a scene with Wit and Kruppe going at it huh Of course that would be the one person who would get the better of Wit...

 

storm no, I would give anything to have a scene between Shadowthrone and Hoid.

[gruntle he/him]

how about hoid and tehol & bugg

[Krandacth]

One of the quirks I would have thought you would have come across already, @jebaited, is from the in-world book The Way of Kings, which is interpretted by the Alethi elite as claiming that Lighteyes should serve Darkeyes. As such, most current Lighteyes shun the book... But there are quirks in there.

However, yes, on Roshar light eyes are closely coupled with a form of magical power.

[nervousnerd he/him]

I really think the eye color thing came after the Radiants became defacto rulers (they might not have all been kings but they were the most powerful people in the world). People saw them all running around with light eyes and decided that it was a good way to choose who should be in power because surely those with light eyes were closer to Radiants than those with dark eyes. I'm not 100% on that though because I'm not sure that I think of that as a good reason and Hoid says:

Quote

That crazy man happened to have blue eyes, which let him get away with all kinds of trouble. Perhaps Wit should have been bemused by the stock these people put in something as simple as eye color, but he had been many places and seen many methods of rule. This didn’t seem any more ridiculous than most others.
And, of course, there was a reason the people did what they did. Well, there was usually a reason. In this case, it just happened to be a good one.

I was also under the assumption that if Kaladin keeps continually using stormlight then his eyes may turn blue permanently. If that is the case then I assume that once a bunch of darkeyed people become Radiants (there are likely more darkeyed people than light eyes and therefore more become radiants), it will have to cause a shift in the caste system even if their actual eye color changes.

[Phaedra Yulahnis]

Spoiler

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that at some point Dalinar offered Kaladin a shardblade and he refused for that exact reason: because it would make him a lighteyes. I could have hallucinated that, though, it's been a while since I read the books.

8 hours ago, nervousnerd said:

I was also under the assumption that if Kaladin keeps continually using stormlight then his eyes may turn blue permanently.

Where'd you get that idea?

[Jebaited]

17 hours ago, gruntle said:

how about hoid and tehol & bugg

That's actually just where I stopped, recently just met them.  More recently met "the Betrayer" wondering about his identity,  I swear that series is so storming creepy and insidious and then randomly hilariously absurd in the best way, but I need a break I think!  The way Stephenson writes is mezmerizing, but difficult and very tiring to read after awhile.  Very much enjoying the focus on just a few characters and Sanderson's more approachable style right now though.

16 hours ago, Krandacth said:

One of the quirks I would have thought you would have come across already, @jebaited, is from the in-world book The Way of Kings, which is interpretted by the Alethi elite as claiming that Lighteyes should serve Darkeyes. As such, most current Lighteyes shun the book... But there are quirks in there.

However, yes, on Roshar light eyes are closely coupled with a form of magical power.

Dalinar later explains this a little more, that what he thinks its saying is that the lighteyes, being so powerful should be the protectors of the darkeyes and dedicate their lives like the Radiants did to more protect and serve, but not to be "servants" below that of the darkeyes.

16 hours ago, nervousnerd said:

I really think the eye color thing came after the Radiants became defacto rulers (they might not have all been kings but they were the most powerful people in the world). People saw them all running around with light eyes and decided that it was a good way to choose who should be in power because surely those with light eyes were closer to Radiants than those with dark eyes. I'm not 100% on that though because I'm not sure that I think of that as a good reason and Hoid says:

I was also under the assumption that if Kaladin keeps continually using stormlight then his eyes may turn blue permanently. If that is the case then I assume that once a bunch of darkeyed people become Radiants (there are likely more darkeyed people than light eyes and therefore more become radiants), it will have to cause a shift in the caste system even if their actual eye color changes.

 

8 hours ago, Phaedra Yulahnis said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that at some point Dalinar offered Kaladin a shardblade and he refused for that exact reason: because it would make him a lighteyes. I could have hallucinated that, though, it's been a while since I read the books.

Where'd you get that idea?

First, I'm glad that Kaladin is still a darkeyes when he's not surgebinding or whatnot.  I feel like he's the common-man hero Roshar deserves and it'd honestly be kind of depressing I think if he just turned into a lighteyes.

Second replaying to nervousnerd, I don't think lighteyes are the rulers because people looked up to the Radiants 4500 years ago.

Like I was saying earlier.  Imagine you took a big population of darkeyed Alethi, wiped their memory and moved them to another place for a fresh start.  They no longer have any knowledge or lighteyes vs darkeyes, the heralds, radiants, shardblades, etc.  You let them do their thing, they develop their own society anew, and then you give 100 of them shardplate and shardblades...  Those shardbearers become lighteyes and become hugely powerful.  Naturally most of the shardbearers would take over and this cycle would just start again.  They'd pass down the blades or forfeit them when they were defeated.  Naturally these lighteyes would probably form royal marriages, and have children with other powerful lighteyed allies.  In less than a hundred years you'd probably have another society where lighteyes would become the aristocracy and darkeyes would again be the peasantry, hoping one day to win a shardblade and cast of their inferior darkeye racial identifiers and become a superior lighteyes.  to me this is how i think of roshar and it seems to me that no amount of cultural enlightenment would be able to counteract the prejudices that this would continue to be created in peoples minds as a result of this system. this is also why I kind of meant that this is oddly, in some ways, more depressing than the deep dark fantasy of malazan (where genocides seem like they're a dime a dozen).

 

Edited February 11, 2017 by Jebaited

[nervousnerd he/him]

Yeah. You're right. I forgot that this likely only started after the Recreance.

[CalaCrisp88]

23 hours ago, Phaedra Yulahnis said:

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I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that at some point Dalinar offered Kaladin a shardblade and he refused for that exact reason: because it would make him a lighteyes. I could have hallucinated that, though, it's been a while since I read the books.

 

Spoiler

Adolin offered Kaladin a Shardblade. Kaladin gave it to Moash.

 

[Guest]

54 minutes ago, 8giraffe8 said:

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Adolin offered Kaladin a Shardblade. Kaladin gave it to Moash.

 

This isn't a spoiler in this sub... no need to keep it as is. 

Kaladin refused the Shardblade for a mix of various reasons. One of them was it would turn him into something he hates passionately, a lighteyed. The other one is he also passionately hates Shardblades as he saw one kill his men. We can also guess his Nahel bond combined to Syl's open disdain towards any Shardbearer, no matter how honorable, added an additional level of disgust which made Kaladin bluntly refuse a gift worth more than kingdoms. 

I personally think Adolin proved his worth when he managed not to sound offended over seeing Kaladin refuse an artifact others would be willing to launch wars for for reasons which, from his personal perspective, must have sound rather trivial.

[SnopyDogy]

I'd recommend that you skip ahead and read all the interludes, especially the one with Lift in it. If you want to avoid spoilers then skip the interludes featuring Sezth.

Spoiler

reason I recommend you do this is that the interludes show other parts of roshar. It's really only the vorin (I.e. Eastern) states on roshar that have this fascination with eye color. The western starts have different religions and different ideas on how to select rulers and how to manage shard blades.

 

[cometaryorbit]

On 2/10/2017 at 2:20 AM, nervousnerd said:

I really think the eye color thing came after the Radiants became defacto rulers (they might not have all been kings but they were the most powerful people in the world). People saw them all running around with light eyes and decided that it was a good way to choose who should be in power because surely those with light eyes were closer to Radiants than those with dark eyes.

It may be more direct than that. Eye color on Roshar seems to be different than on Earth -- there's a WoB that suggests heterochromia (one dark and one light eye) is the most likely outcome for the child of a darkeyed and a lighteyed parent, whereas on Earth it's pretty rare and not of that origin.

And there's apparently a clear distinction between "brown" (darkeyed) and "tan" (lighteyed) eyes, and there are green lighteyes and green darkeyes.

So I'm thinking that all lighteyes are descended from Radiants or Shardbearers, and that the blue, green, etc. eye colors of lighteyes probably are much more vivid/bright/distinct (maybe even slightly luminous?) than the equivalent colors on our world. Eye colors are often pretty hard to distinguish except very close, on Earth.

[Darkness he/him]

Just a minor thing to add: kaladin grapples with the exact same problem of lighteyed superiority for a good part of the books. I found his thoughts and resolutions helped me come to terms with it too. Not support the system by any means, but at least accept that it is the current reality for the Alethi. You should enjoy the inner philosophical musings Kaladin has :-)

[Rasha]

On 02/10/2017 at 2:40 AM, gruntle said:

how about hoid and tehol & bugg

 

Deal, as long as we get Fiddler somewhere along to kill the discussion with some of his realism.

[Arraenae]

I've always imagined that Rosharan eye colors are a little anime-esque. Lighteyes would have very bright eyes.

I think the situation would depend on how long it takes people to realize that the Lighteye--Darkeye thing is hereditary, and that owning a Shardblade/being a Radiant is what causes it.