[OB] Adolin-Shallan-Kaladin Discussion

[aemetha he/him]

I'm not an expert, but I do study it as a requirement for counselling co-morbid addictions with mental disorders. What I said is my opinion, and I certainly didn't say it to stifle discussion. I am more than happy to debate a dissenting opinion on the subject if you have one. I have perhaps more access to literature on the subject, but that doesn't make my assessment any more valid for a fictional character, nor my interpretation of Brandon's intentions for the character any more correct.

My only point I had hoped to make was that it is plausible, in my view, to attribute Kaladin's problems to seasonal affective disorder without an additional assignment of major depressive disorder.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, aemetha said:

to attribute Kaladin's problems to seasonal affective disorder without an additional assignment of major depressive disorder.

Hm. It is plausible, but I don't think, that his general depressive episode in Shadesmar was caused by SAD, but rather because he felt like he failed again. Though SAD could have amplified those feelings.

And at the beginning of TWoK, I'd definitely have called Kaladin as majorly depressed. He did get better though over the course of the books, so you might be right, that his currently worst problem is SAD, which definitely would make sense for him to have.

[aemetha he/him]

Now that is something I could get on board with. That would be a case of depression that went into remission, and while that often does reoccur, it tends to be with an intervening period of several years. The period between episodes that Kaladin experiences is more consistent with bipolar, however Kaladin doesn't experience periods of mania or hypomania so that isn't a valid diagnosis for him.

I don't think any of the subsequent periods of depressed mood lasted for long enough to be considered recurrences of a disorder, outside of the weepings of course.

[gawwyt]

Slightly off topic and possibly answered already but...

Does anyone know why we didn't get what probably have been most of a chapter of Kal and Shallan practicing flying in front of a highstorm? I legitimately thought I had missed a chapter.

 

I feel like it would have been hard to write in a way that they wouldn't get intimate and thus throw the whole triangle to kal. At the very least I'm pretty sure its the only point in the book that they’re alone together. Why omit this!? GAH

 

 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, gawwyt said:

I feel like it would have been hard to write in a way that they wouldn't get intimate and thus throw the whole triangle to kal. At the very least I'm pretty sure its the only point in the book that they’re alone together. Why omit this!? GAH

Because the point of the book was to get Shallan and Adolin together... atleast for the time being. Brandon said something about how this whole triangle was to be used to show how a woman can love two men and to emphasize Shallan's personality split. I think, Veil (and thus so is Shallan) is still into Kaladin, which I hope will be a future point of conflict. I agree with you though, the complete lack of alone time between Shallan and Kaladin is jarring. It is like, the other angle wasn't even explored!

Edited December 6, 2017 by SLNC

[Darvys]

Or maybe because you can't really talk when you're flying in front of a Highstorm and all we would get is a chapter of one of them fawning over the other in their head ? Can't get your fixation on this guys.

If you want to be outraged over a missing scene why not the one where he took her to a mountainside off screen to ler her make her drawing of the tower ? She even had time to include a sketch of him ...

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Darvys said:

If you want to be outraged over a missing scene why not the one where he took her to a mountainside off screen to ler her make her drawing of the tower ? She even had time to include a sketch of him ...

Another great example of how the other angle was completely ignored. Thanks.

Look, it is not the point which scenes we choose, but rather the general lack of scenes between them.

Edited December 6, 2017 by SLNC

[PhineasGage]

12 hours ago, GoddessIMHO said:

I am saying that she would also have wet nurses, nannies and guards for any child she had. We have already seen that Evi left Renerin at home to follow Dalinar.

If she keeps handing the kid off to others to raise it, then can we really say she is fulfilling motherhood? Evi was with Renarin half of each year. She had Adolin with her almost all the time from my understanding. If Shallan has to keep giving the baby to others to look after it, is this actually looking at the very real situation where a woman has to juggle motherhood and a working life? Most real women don't have the "luxury" of letting their kids be raised by someone else - they have to manage their own work and the raising of their children (ideally with the support of their partner, but many women manage without that too). 

To suggest that we would be getting an interesting take on a working mother in the KR then saying she can just palm the kid off to some nanny negates the idea that we'd be looking at motherhood in a fantasy setting. We wouldn't be - the kid would be dealt with off-screen and Shallan wouldn't need to worry about it. What does that do for the story? What conflicts does it raise?  It isn't a realistic portrayal of motherhood for the vast majority of people - both in-world and IRL. No matter what anyone says Prince William and Kate are not raising a normal family - they are royals and thus those kids are getting nannies all the time. And they aren't trying to save the world. 

If Shallan has a baby, the most interesting way (imo) to take it is for her to take on the primary carer role. This means she has to commit a huge amount of time to her kid. That is normal. She also has a 24/7 commitment to the KR - she is their only known LW at present. And what about her doing stuff for the Ghostbloods? How will they react to her not dealing with Sja-Anat because she's pregnant/nursing? What about her wardship? She can't continue her wardship and her commitments to the KR and have a kid. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Particularly when she also has a mental disorder.  And, as I said, if she just gives up care of the kid to someone else, then (from the story perspective) why have it in the first place? Plenty of couples don't have kids in their first year of marriage, so if they don't get pregnant it wouldn't be completely unrealistic.

I suppose one other option would be for Adolin to be a working dad, but I am not sure that will be an option from a Vorin perspective. This could be an interesting twist but we have no idea about Adolin's attitudes to parenting. Indeed, I am not sure we know much about his attitudes to all sorts of things that are actually important when starting a life together. It might be interesting to look at a male caregiver but the issue is that if Adolin does it poorly, people will say it is a stereotype and if he does it well then people will resent him for being too perfect. It would be a difficult line to tread imo.

11 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

a practical absence might not affect the upbringing as much

Actually it does. Shallan's OSDD is likely a result of pooly formed attachment to her family unit that occurred during her very earliest years. If you don't have stable parental figures around, it massively impacts personality and attachment and thus affects all relationships going forward. Shallan may already have passed on some risk of poor attachment (some personality types may be more prone) so doing this could be very bad for her kid. If they have one person acting as a replacement parent then it can work - but then she won't have a real relationship with her kid. Think Victorian era royalty - there's a reason all the European royal families could essentially sell of their kids to gain political power - they weren't attached to them.

11 hours ago, Ailvara said:

I'd rather see this as a source of disagreement between Shallan and Adolin

I can see it working from a literary perspective, but it would also make me really dislike Shallan if she is prepared to get pregnant (when we have some evidence that thereis some family planning available on Roshar - most people not having huge families being the evidence) but then just gives it all up for her career and doesn't care. I am not sure Sanderson can pull that off and still keep her sympathetic. If she wants to do both roles then she has to embrace both fully to remain sympathetic. If she doesn't think she is ready for motherhood (which is a reasonable stance no matter your age) then she shouldn't have a baby if she wants to focus on other things for now.

11 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

11 hours ago, SLNC said:

it would feature child neglect.

Not necessarily.

If neither parent is regularly involved in the parenting there is neglect - the child might be raised by others in a safe way and be happy and healthy. Thats fine, but then we lose the conflict the child storyline should bring because the true "parents" would be those who raised the kid, not Shallan and Adolin because they might not be around that much. With only a year time-skip the baby would be very small if they had to go elsewhere to do whatever needs to be done.

 

9 hours ago, Dreamstorm said:

Let me know what you think.  There are two extremely obvious places where Adolin is overtly referenced as a whitespine, so that does say to me this is something intentional.  However, I don't know how much I believe it unless Adolin is going to go dark...

This. Is. Amazing. Really great analysis. I had totally missed how much Adolin is linked to the whitespine. It is fascinating because I think of Kaladin as being more like the chasmfiend in more senses and there are some interesting things we could point to regarding this as well (I'll probably post something on this later if anyone is interested). So what I want to think about first though is what the whitespine represents to Shallan and how they are seen both as creatures that exist in an ecological niche (ie how Shallan the naturalist would see them) and how they are viewed in their anthropomorphic setting (ie how Shallan the artist would see them).

So here is a non-exhaustive list of what we know about whitespines:

• Top predator
• People go on hunts for them as they are "trophy" kills
• They are very dangerous
• They like to predate scavengers as well as other prey 
• They need to go dormant during their lifecycle (and form a crysallis/crystal when they do so). It is unclear whether this is seasonal, age-related, sex-related or part of a lifecyle where they can pupate into something else (last one seems unlikely)
• They do poorly in captivity (reasons unclear- may be food types, lack of space, prevented from going dormant, others also likely)
• They are (likely - certainly implied) solitary animals
• They (probably) have a gemheart - but we have seen no spren associated with them at this point. 

Can we relate this to Adolin in more thorough ways? Probably tho I expect this to cause some debate

• Adolin is basically "top" predator now - he is a highprince, but was always top of society (the alethi court is the most ferocious in the world according to Shallan (WoR)
• Adolin could be considered a "trophy" as he was the most eligible bachelor in Alethkar (even ROshar). I think this is even more true when we see how Shallan objectifies him throughout her narratives in OB and WoR (NB Adolin doesn't objectify her nearly as much - his objectification is pretty much limited to the beginning of their acquaintance)
• Well Adolin is dangerous - Ialai Sadeas calls him a "weapon" and Torol agrees - saying you rarely get hurt by a weapon you are holding. He wasn't holding Adolin tho (he was a whitespine uncaged after all)
• Adolin doesn't like hunting (this is a reach I know)
• Er.....not sure how this might relate? Perhaps his trip to prison was more of a dormancy period than captivity?
• We haven't seen Adolin in true captivity - he weathered his time in prison fine (Kaladin tells us this) - but then it was essentially entirely optional and he was given access to the outside world via spanreeds etc. He even got his cologne in....
• Well Adolin was not good at relationships prior to Shallan - we have yet to see if it will work out because they've only known each other a few months. Not clear how long his previous courtships lasted - it is thought he may have been engaged previosuly (Tyn said so) but have no further confirmation. It seems most of these relationships failed as a result of his actions/boredom.
• Can't see a link here either unless no spren for whitespine = no spren for Adolin?

If we think we can use the whitespine as an allegory for Adolin, I am not sure that Shallan is hugely invested in them. She seems much more fascinated by the chasmfiend but then it was wild/free and the only chasmfiend we see her see is caged and thus not terribly inspiring. She doesn't seem to think of whitespines with quite the same reverence though. 

9 hours ago, Dreamstorm said:

I don't have many opinions in the Shallan baby fight (maybe just because I feel like it's so unlikely?  I feel this way about the Syladin stuff too), but I wanted to point out that so far Brandon hasn't gone this route.  Vin and Elend marry end of WoA, there's a one-year time skip and then all of HoA and nary a mention of possible baby or a baby made.  That's two years of sex!  Same for Breeze and Allariane (who Brandon notes in annotations are married in spirit since Scadrial at that time didn't really have marriage - neatly avoiding premarital sex, lol), and we've got three years of sex going on there.  It may be a natural progression IRL, but so far (that I've read) it doesn't seem to be something Brandon has explored or necessarily even sees as the assumed next step after marriage.

Good point. I think it is safe to say he might choose to go there because this is his magnum opus but at the same time it would be a departure from his normal pattern. If he did want to explore it more he might feel more comfortable doing it in the gap between the front and back fives.

 

7 hours ago, Awesomness said:

I think this issue about Sadeas´s murder and responsability mirrors Rock´s feelings about killing Amaram. He knows he was justified, but doesn´t make him feel any better. Adolin avoiding his responsability, in the context of Odium tanking away the fault and guilt can´t be coincidence. The only other characters that we see avoiding responsability are Moash and Amaram...

Great point. I have felt uneasy about Adoli killing Sadeas right from the start but he made me actively dislike him for a moment when he said he was "proud" and that he'd "do it again" - Rock clearly felt awful about killing Amaram, Kaladin killing Szeth was retconned out, Dalinar has taken the responisbility for killing all those people, including Evi but Adolin seems to feel that he isnt  responsible. It is very odd. It also feels like he is avoiding responsibility on multiple fronts because he also avoided being king. It isn't analogous to Vivenna either - despite what she said to him. She tried to take resposnibility and couldn't - by the time she was in position to take it, she realised she didn't need to. Adolin didn't have a suitable alternative in mind.

7 hours ago, Awesomness said:

This is how it used to be in the past, when peopla had many children and some of them died before adulthood...

Actually, it is a sign of reduced autonomy of women. Even in areas with high infant mortality, provision of contraception that women control (eg the pill) tends to reduce birth rates. Reduced birth rates --> reduced death rates because small populations are less prone to disease spread and each child can get more resources to live and grow. Have a look at Gapminder https://www.gapminder.org/ignorance/

3 hours ago, Meghan1Q84 said:

I find it strikingly ominous that at no point does Shallan appear to be head over heels in love... in a fantasy novel... written by a notoriously incurable romantic. It's just not a good sign when the voices in your head sternly remind you that you could do worse...and that you probably couldn't do *much* better than him. That particular moment made me physically winc

Yes I agree. We are supposed to be able to infer something. It isn't like that IRL because even if you could watch inside a real person's head during their wedding, the thoughts will be much less clear, more varied, and you'd get to see the ceremony etc. We didn't see Shallan and Adolin after the wedding - so we only have her pre-wedding thoughts. To assume that they can be pushed away because IRL it is fine to have a moment like that to help yourself get over any nerves (eg like @maxal said - thinking "I look gorgeous" makes you feel good and then look even better - and everyone wants to look good on their wedding day) but you probably had some other feelings either on that day or possibly the next (weddings are stressful so I can see people just being too exhausted to be over the moon initially) - we don't see that from Shallan, and we likely never will.

3 hours ago, SLNC said:

I think, that Vin and Shallan have more in common, than you might think

Yes I can definitely see the similarity - their second personas being particularly important as part of their story arc. I was hoping for some kind of name thing but I can't find one - de Valette is the surname of the grandmaster of the Knights of St John (the Hospitallers) who founded Valletta (capital of Malta) but i can find no meaning behind it. Anyone got any ideas? 

 

3 hours ago, SLNC said:

but for that we still have Oroden and Gavinor. It is not like, that we don't already have children, that have connections to our MCs.

Yes this - and we can see Navani and Hesina deal with working motherhood - I am not sure what Hesina does but we know Navani has a significant role in the court of Urithiru.

 

2 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

I'm mostly thinking 'what does it serve to the narrative for Adolin and Shallan to get married in the middle of the books?'. We've already witnessed young children being introduced in the story (Elhokar's son, Kaladin's baby brother, an abandoned child in Kholinar) so if there will be a huge time lapse between books 5 and 6, is the narrative leading us into a new generation of characters? If yes, I'd love to see Shallan's baby a part of it, although looking at all the foreshadowing surfacing about Adolin, I'm not sure how much he will be part of it.  

Not sure this is going to be that important - based on a 10-15 year gap they will all still be in their teens. So far the youngest we have is Shallan - the rest are in their 20s now.  Perhaps Gavinor will be old enough to take the crown from Jasnah then, but a new baby born in the 1 year timeskip between OB and SA4 will only be 14-15 years old - and we don't know for certain that the gap is guaranteed because we didn't expect big time gaps within the front 5 but they've come in anyway. On top of that, it means introducing them as clean slate characters because we won't have seen them grow up so they will essentially strangers to us. Childhood - especially as very small children, can't accurately predict adult personality.

1 hour ago, aemetha said:

My only point I had hoped to make was that it is plausible, in my view, to attribute Kaladin's problems to seasonal affective disorder without an additional assignment of major depressive disorder.

As a side note that I think fits with this idea from a purely literary perspective - Kaladin looks for "light" - he is attracted to Shallan's "light" and lives off Tien's "light". It fits that Tien and Shallan can therefore both make him smile even when the weather is awful. Obviously not a real situation, but it highlights that his mood is very weather dependent. 

 

1 hour ago, aemetha said:

I don't think any of the subsequent periods of depressed mood lasted for long enough to be considered recurrences of a disorder, outside of the weepings of course.

True - iirc you need persistently low mood for at least 3 weeks for it to be called a recurrence of MDD. And as he definitely has SAD then those instances cant really be counted because they occur due to a different factor -you'd have to see if the low mood lasted beyond the end of the weeping to see if it could be considered a new episode of depression.

19 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Look, it is not the point which scenes we choose, but rather the general lack of scenes between them.

The memories have been shunted off to Veil and Shallan is blocking them so she wouldn't tell us about them  I am not saying I'm right but Shallan is very unreliable so it is totally possible that she is suppressing them and pretending it didn't even happen. We don't see her think about it at all and we don't get anticipation about either episode either. 

 

Sorry guys, another long post. Oh, and if we do go down the Shadolin baby route, I will be calling that baby Damien!

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, PhineasGage said:

The memories have been shunted off to Veil and Shallan is blocking them so she wouldn't tell us about them  I am not saying I'm right but Shallan is very unreliable so it is totally possible that she is suppressing them and pretending it didn't even happen. We don't see her think about it at all and we don't get anticipation about either episode either. 

Hm. Good point, but if something would have happened there, wouldn't atleast Kaladin mention it to us? Especially when he reflects about how Shallan is acting towards him and his confusion about it?

[FuzzyWordsmith]

3 hours ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Yep. Society highlights the wedding day so much that people have raised their expectations on what to expect about it. In real life, it's nothing like a fairy tale ending. It's just another day, a formality, you go through to establish that your relationship with the person you are already set upon is someone you are willing to spend the rest of your life with. The wedding day itself isn't the day you decided you love that said person, but it takes a process to reach that point. Also, even if you do have the most perfect of days on your wedding day, just because you feel 'the happiest day of your life' it doesn't mean that you'll have a happy marriage.

So, this really struck me. Because I feel very strongly that that is exactly what Shallan is doing on her wedding day. The marriage is not a formality to her, it seems like the marriage is when she makes the decision to spend the rest of her life with Adolin. Sorry if I didn't explain that very well.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

So, this really struck me. Because I feel very strongly that that is exactly what Shallan is doing on her wedding day. The marriage is not a formality to her, it seems like the marriage is when she makes the decision to spend the rest of her life with Adolin. Sorry if I didn't explain that very well.

Well, she is basically convincing herself, that Adolin is right at every point a decision has to be made. It is so absurd in my eyes to call that a happy and secure marriage like some want to. Let alone call it love.

Edited December 6, 2017 by SLNC

[PhineasGage]

27 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Hm. Good point, but if something would have happened there, wouldn't atleast Kaladin mention it to us? Especially when he reflects about how Shallan is acting towards him and his confusion about it?

So I think he is kind of thinking about this deleted scene then as well. He also tries to push this kind of thought about Shallan away - he never really believes she might actually be considering him so any interactionduring that flight was probably less odd than her behaviour later when she starts being more erratic. She was probably much more like she had been in the chasm and he doesn't dwell on that much either. Also, I was actually joking, I hadn't put that much thought into it!

[insert_anagram_here]

22 minutes ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

So, this really struck me. Because I feel very strongly that that is exactly what Shallan is doing on her wedding day. The marriage is not a formality to her, it seems like the marriage is when she makes the decision to spend the rest of her life with Adolin.

Thank you! That is exactly why I think Shallan isn't making the right decision in marrying Adolin. She is deluded in what she expects to find on the other side and she has convinced herself that she loves him, because frankly she didn't trust her own self in making that decision. (because of Kabsal)

On the other hand, if we analyse Dalinar's wedding, we can see that he is contemplating on the ceremony's formalities, proving the point that he did think of his union with Navani very very seriously. (he had plenty of time)

 

54 minutes ago, PhineasGage said:

Not sure this is going to be that important - based on a 10-15 year gap they will all still be in their teens. So far the youngest we have is Shallan - the rest are in their 20s now.

If there is a 15 year gap between 5 and 6, maybe there would be another year or two gap between 4 and 5. That would make the characters who are children now around the same ages as our main characters in the first 5 books. I'm not saying that is how things are going to be, I'm just entertaining the idea maybe?

 

54 minutes ago, PhineasGage said:

If she keeps handing the kid off to others to raise it, then can we really say she is fulfilling motherhood? Evi was with Renarin half of each year. She had Adolin with her almost all the time from my understanding. If Shallan has to keep giving the baby to others to look after it, is this actually looking at the very real situation where a woman has to juggle motherhood and a working life? Most real women don't have the "luxury" of letting their kids be raised by someone else - they have to manage their own work and the raising of their children (ideally with the support of their partner, but many women manage without that too). 

Why is raising a child treated as either a success or fail case?

success : (a) 100% attention of two parents, where they live in a peaceful happily ever after environment, dedicating all of their attention and time on parenting

fail: (b) child neglect, both parents not present as the child is raised by nannies, multiple personalities of a mother cause severe trauma to child

 

It's definitely not as simple as that and I'd ask that we try and look at this prospect on an objective point of view and not projecting our own life experiences on it.

Sometimes raising a child is something in between (a) and (b) and children are raised to be very interesting characters. A lot of people raise kids even if they are not living the most ideal life circumstances. Some people raise children during warfare, others are single parents, other people are foster parents, other manage to have a career in parallel just fine. Just think the possibilities of it because that is exactly what could make this an interesting path for the narrative and a new level of challenge for BS.

Edited December 6, 2017 by insert_anagram_here
typo

[FuzzyWordsmith]

So, someone pointed me to this link, which is about as WoB as it gets.

http://faq.brandonsanderson.com/node/253

Here's the last sentence of that bit, but I do recommend reading the whole thing.

Quote

So, I consider that my charge. I don't sugar-coat my stories; I show cause and effect. A person cannot kill, in my opinion, even for good reasons without it leaving them scarred.

So, that suggests that stuff is going to happen regarding Sadeas. If it isn't resolved, than he is just going back on what he has said.

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, PhineasGage said:

She was probably much more like she had been in the chasm and he doesn't dwell on that much either.

Yeah, she's always the most natural around Kaladin, when they are alone at least.

Ech, it is killing me, that we're supposed to cope with this shade of Shallan, when we know, that she can be so much more.

7 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

It's definitely not as simple as that and I'd ask that we try and look at this prospect on an objective point of view and not projecting our own life experiences on it.

Sometimes raising a child is something in between (a) and (b) and people are raised to be very interesting characters. A lot of people raise kids even if they are not living the most ideal life circumstances. Some are single parents, other people are foster parents, other manage to have a career in parallel just fine. Just think the possibilities of it because that is exactly what could make this an interesting path for the narrative and a new level of challenge for BS.

Okay, objective and literary point of view.

This is a heroic epic fantasy novel series. A heroine of the story is supposed to do heroic things, like being a Radiant and saving the world. This is not a life simulator. And before someone tells me I'm trying to shove Shallan into a strict role again. I'm not. I wouldn't dare. The problem I see is with time and, more importantly, pagetime. We have so many viewpoints and a limited number of pages. If we give Shallan and Adolin another secondary storyline, that takes up more pagetime, while not adding anything to the main narrative (The conflict against Odium), that would be just wasteful. If Shallan and Adolin are not involved in raising their child, we'd have situation (b), which would also be bad.

[PhineasGage]

1 minute ago, insert_anagram_here said:

It's definitely not as simple as that and I'd ask that we try and look at this prospect on an objective point of view and not projecting our own life experiences on it.

Sometimes raising a child is something in between (a) and (b) and people are raised to be very interesting characters. A lot of people raise kids even if they are not living the most ideal life circumstances. Some are single parents, other people are foster parents, other manage to have a career in parallel just fine. Just think the possibilities of it because that is exactly what could make this an interesting path for the narrative and a new level of challenge for BS.

I'm not. I am thinking that we already have limited space for the actual story which we all want to read (ie the handling of the desolation and the KRs/magic usage etc) - and I don't want to see loads of time devoted to an obvious side arc. If Damien's childhood is sufficently complex to lie between your a and b scenarios will have to be given loads of screentime (parental concerns, parental time commitment etc). your two scenarios are the simplest and therefore the easiest to include without taking over the book. If every time we open a Shallan or Adolin chapter and we have to read exposition about time they spent with their child or time they spent worrying about it (thus explaining why the kid is essentially growing up in a safe happy situation with 2 working parents) then we lose time that could be spent on other things that actually change. Once the kid is on the scene those worries/commitments aren't going anywhere - they will be with us for at least the next 2 books. Its realistic, but like I said before, how much realism is too much realism for a fantasy book?

27 minutes ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

The marriage is not a formality to her, it seems like the marriage is when she makes the decision to spend the rest of her life with Adolin.

Good point. Even tho Kaladin says "you can see she's made her choice" when he says it to Syl.

6 minutes ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

So, someone pointed me to this link, which is about as WoB as it gets.

http://faq.brandonsanderson.com/node/253

Here's the last sentence of that bit, but I do recommend reading the whole thing.

So, that suggests that stuff is going to happen regarding Sadeas. If it isn't resolved, than he is just going back on what he has said.

Also, yikes. Not a good sign for Adolin. Interesting that Kaladin has actual scars that he wont let heal but Adolin chooses to scar his own soul by lacking remorse. I am thinking Harry Potter here - healing from horcruxes requires remorse because only that can heal the soul.

[aemetha he/him]

19 minutes ago, insert_anagram_here said:

Why is raising a child treated as either a success or fail case?

success : (a) 100% attention of two parents, where they live in a peaceful happily ever after environment, dedicating all of their attention and time on parenting

fail: (b) child neglect, both parents not present as the child is raised by nannies, multiple personalities of a mother cause severe trauma to child

Option b here is not a certain cause of an undesirable infant attachment pattern. Infant attachment is dependent on a safe, loving relationship with its primary caregivers. Those primary caregivers do not need to be its parents, so long as it is given the security it needs to properly develop a secure attachment pattern. Shallan and Adolin could quite conceivably hand off a child to a competent and loving nanny and have a child grow to be well adjusted. Of course, that would make it difficult for said child to follow in Mummy's footsteps as a radiant.

[Guest]

Just now, aemetha said:

Of course, that would make it difficult for said child to follow in Mummy's footsteps as a radiant.

And to even accept its real parents as its parents or make it feel unloved, when it is old enough to realize, that the nannies aren't its actual parents.

This is no good solution to parenting.

[insert_anagram_here]

Just now, aemetha said:

Option b here is not a certain cause of an undesirable infant attachment pattern. Infant attachment is dependent on a safe, loving relationship with its primary caregivers. Those primary caregivers do not need to be its parents, so long as it is given the security it needs to properly develop a secure attachment pattern. Shallan and Adolin could quite conceivably hand off a child to a competent and loving nanny and have a child grow to be well adjusted. Of course, that would make it difficult for said child to follow in Mummy's footsteps as a radiant.

You are missing my point completely. I'm not saying it will be either (a) or (b), I'm saying it can be something else entirely.

For example, having in mind that Adolin might go completely darth vader on her, Shallan could become a single devoted parent with a lot of help from her family and friends in order to balance KR responsibilities. That could open the opportunity to possibly include another person as a foster parent.

[aemetha he/him]

2 minutes ago, SLNC said:

And to even accept its real parents as its parents or make it feel unloved, when it is old enough to realize, that the nannies aren't its actual parents.

This is no good solution to parenting.

Might make for some interesting teen angst.

"You were NEVER around when I was growing up!"

"You're right, I'm sorry. Next time the world you have to live in is being assaulted by the forces of hatred incarnate, I'll ask them to stop so I can come home and make sure the 10 very expensive tutors we got for you are helping you with your homework!"

[Guest]

1 minute ago, aemetha said:

Might make for some interesting teen angst.

"You were NEVER around when I was growing up!"

"You're right, I'm sorry. Next time the world you have to live in is being assaulted by the forces of hatred incarnate, I'll ask them to stop so I can come home and make sure the 10 very expensive tutors we got for you are helping you with your homework!"

What? Are we now talking about bad young adult novels?

If this is where this series goes, then I'll drop it. Almighty help me.

[FuzzyWordsmith]

3 minutes ago, SLNC said:

What? Are we now talking about bad young adult novels?

If this is where this series goes, then I'll drop it. Almighty help me.

I'm pretty sure it was a joke XD

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

I'm pretty sure it was a joke XD

Pretty hard to pick up this stuff in text, sorry.

[PhineasGage]

17 minutes ago, aemetha said:

Option b here is not a certain cause of an undesirable infant attachment pattern. Infant attachment is dependent on a safe, loving relationship with its primary caregivers. Those primary caregivers do not need to be its parents, so long as it is given the security it needs to properly develop a secure attachment pattern. Shallan and Adolin could quite conceivably hand off a child to a competent and loving nanny and have a child grow to be well adjusted. Of course, that would make it difficult for said child to follow in Mummy's footsteps as a radiant.

I agree but then from a story perspective it doesn't add any interest. The main arguments in favour of a child within the story seem to be:

1. It is a normal progression after marriage
2. It may provide possible conflict between Adolin and Shallan
3. It may provide internal conflict between Shallan's alts
4. It will help Shallan consolidate

Well the argument can be countered

1. Yes.... and ? This is a fantasy setting so "normal" rules don't have to apply. It doesn't work as a "good" argument anyway because it is equally normal for people not to have kids in their first year of marriage. 
2. Fine, but then we presumably have one of them not doing a good job of parenting = possible problems for kid. And even if kid is fine, how does this get resolved? children grow up slowly so the problems wont be going anywhere.
3. Fine, but then we have problems for the kid because their mother is struggling to cope. Again, how does this get resolved? 
4. Not necessarily - especially if not all the alts are on board - it would cause major intrasystem disruption. And this also causes problems with resolution. And it is a dangerous road for a male author to write a female character who magically gets better from a serious psychological problem because "baby". 

On top of that, there are plenty of other currently unresolved arcs that may manage each of those goals mentioned above without adding yet another element to the story. Heleran's death, the return of Shallan's brothers, Sadeas' murder, the Maya arc. They are all in the air at the moment - unless we are happy that they will just be dropped in favour of a baby?

I just can't see the point of a baby if we are assuming it goes well for the kid, and I am not massively keen on the idea of watching two likeable characters screw up someone else's life just to have an interesting story. And as I said, the inbetweens need exposition to explain why their child rearing is working. I'd rather read more Renarin or Jasnah frankly. Thats a personal preference though and I know others feel differently. 

[aemetha he/him]

@PhineasGage would agree with most of that from a literary standpoint yes.

2 minutes ago, PhineasGage said:

two likeable characters

Not sure I'm quite ready to get on board with this bit .

@SLNC it was indeed intended to be a joke.