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What did Gavilar do to Navani?


robardin

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I was speed re-reading The Way of Kings for no reason earlier today (totally unrelated to any desire to uncover the Secret Page About Renarin That Only Argent Knows About, really!), and got to the part where Dalinar up and kisses Navani (bolding mine, of course):

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"I need you," Navani said. "I'm terrified, Dalinar, and I need you. Gavilar was not the man everyone thought him to be. I was fond of him, but he --"
"Please," Dalinar said, "don't speak ill of him."
"Very well."
...
"Gavilar is dead," Navani said, resting her head back against his chest. "I was never unfaithful while he lived, though the Stormfather knows I had ample reason. ..."

 

Hrm? 

Whatever Gavilar did that made him "not what everyone thought him to be" gave Navani "ample reason" to be unfaithful to him, even if she did not choose to do so.

Did he cheat on her? If this were many another fantasy series, a suggestion that King Gavilar may have sired bastard children would be something of a bombshell, but I don't see that being the case in Stormlight Archive. There's no special power inherited through the Kholin bloodline, and no apparent political power to be gained from someone suddenly claiming to be Gavilar's bastard, so what could be getting set up here?

Or is it that Gavilar had... other preferences that left Navani wanting, despite having Jasnah and Elhokar by him? That's not something I'd expect from Sanderson, not just out of a concern for prurience, but because there doesn't seem to be any plot element yet introduced over 2,000 pages that would be filled by such a thing.

It could just be as simple as setting Navani up to be a virtuous type woman, but that didn't need an especial knockdown of dead Gavilar's character to achieve, did it?

 

Edited by robardin
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1 hour ago, robardin said:

(totally unrelated to any desire to uncover the Secret Page About Renarin That Only Argent Knows About, really!)

lol- i think i'm more interested in this to be honest.... i've not heard about this.

 

but- regarding your main topic- i just always took it more as of Gavilar being fallible, being someone who makes mistakes. He may have been a jerk. Maybe he told Navani she looked fat, or talked down to... nothing full on like abuse- but, just someone who didn't appreciate Navani for who she was, and who, with the arrogance we've seen him to have, just wouldn't have been an ideal husband.

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