[OB] Moash

[Korbin]

Hi guys. So I've seen a lot of people talk about Moash in threads so far. So I decided to start one on him. Here you can talk about what you think about his charachter. Weather what he has done is morally right.

Moash, to me, represents what Kaladin could have become. They are both so similar and one of their biggest differences is a choice. Kaladin chose not to let his past rule him. While Moash let what Roshone and the king had done rule him. He let his past control him. I am of the opinion that Moash should be killed in this book. He has already had his second chance but instead of taking it he turned against bridge four. And later he joined the voidbringers and killed Elhokar. He let vengeance become his life. And when he fulfilled it he felt less fulfilled.

What do you guys think?

[eshu]

Interesting, I do agree that Moash acts as a mirror to Kal and because of that I have to disagree with this:

9 hours ago, Korbin said:

I am of the opinion that Moash should be killed in this book. He has already had his second chance but instead of taking it he turned against bridge four. And later he joined the voidbringers and killed Elhokar. He let vengeance become his life. And when he fulfilled it he felt less fulfilled.

If Moash's literary function is to provide contrast to Kal's assent into heroism then his descent into "villainy" needs to be as equally involved. Moash's lack of fulfillment and self-loathing at his betrayal of bridge 4 echoes Kal's bouts of depression and provide an explanation for his increasing sense of nihilism. To quote a meme this is not Moash's "final form", as I hope Mr Sanderson plans to give him an inverse hero's journey. SA has killed off a fair amount of its antagonists and I wouldn't be surprised to see Moash be the beginning of a new trend were the true enemies of the series are built up over several installments.

Besides his literary function I just like Moash's story. Your criticisms of him are valid and morally correct but are unrealistic, all the same. "Letting" the past rule you, is a quizzical way of looking at the effects of trauma and general life experiences on a person. What Kalladin is doing is exceptional, a fact that I feel gets lost by his story being a classic heroes narrative. We are so familiar with the concept of a protagonist rising above hate and circumstance that we lose the ability to relate to characters who are so fundamentally scarred by their experience they can't do the same - which is the truer experience. 

Moash can't move past his pain because the loss of his family is the psychological equivalent to the loss of a limb. A part of him is permanently gone and what is left now has to navigate life with one less appendage (psychically speaking). It takes a special person to push through such pain but it doesn't take a bad/weak one to succumb to it.

Edited December 19, 2017 by eshu

[Hero of the Rev]

It's worth noting that Moash isn't wrong and he isn't evil nor even a villain. The Alethi caste system is criminal. And that's even before we get into enslavement of the Parshmen. Vorin civilization in particular is pretty heinous - it's a chauvinistic, militaristic, caste-based slave society. Frankly, Elhokar deserved what he got. The Parshmen may be tools of Odium but that hardly justifies their enslavement.

This is one of the things that bothers me most about Stormlight. We're supposed to cheer Kaladin putting aside his pursuit of justice to fulfill his oath to protect a crown. Part of this is that most of the POV characters are themselves Vorin lighteyes - Dalinar, Jasnah, Navani, Adolin, and Shallan. It's the story of a ruling family who have benefited from that caste system most of all and Kaladin, who's now their loyal retainer. I hope there will be some sort of twist on this trope later in the series.

[Song]

2 hours ago, Hero of the Rev said:

 

This is one of the things that bothers me most about Stormlight. We're supposed to cheer Kaladin putting aside his pursuit of justice to fulfill his oath to protect a crown. Part of this is that most of the POV characters are themselves Vorin lighteyes - Dalinar, Jasnah, Navani, Adolin, and Shallan. It's the story of a ruling family who have benefited from that caste system most of all and Kaladin, who's now their loyal retainer. I hope there will be some sort of twist on this trope later in the series.

I suspect light/dark will matter less and less to everyone as the books go on, but it won't be the big focus, because the more important relationship being challenged is listener/human.

[Korbin]

2 hours ago, Hero of the Rev said:

Frankly, Elhokar deserved what he got. The Parshmen may be tools of Odium but that hardly justifies their enslavement.

I would strongly have to disagree with this. Elhokar may not have been a good king but that doesn't mean he deserved to be killed. He was earnestly striving to change and grow. And he never had bad motives. Just because he lives in a twisted society doesn't mean he should die because of it. Just because the government is bad doesn't mean the king is evil.

[hypatia]

I don't think Kaladin fights because of the system or  Lighteyes - if you look he defends people who don't deserve to die.

He sees the individual behind the color of their eyes, be it human or listeners.

That's one point I can't stand with Moash - his thinking in categories.

He was hurt as a child, coming back with his uncle and finding his grandparents dead, but he projects this on every lighteye.

The same in OB - this one episode with the brightlord and his minions and for him every human is corrupt.

 

[Hero of the Rev]

16 hours ago, Korbin said:

I would strongly have to disagree with this. Elhokar may not have been a good king but that doesn't mean he deserved to be killed. He was earnestly striving to change and grow. And he never had bad motives. Just because he lives in a twisted society doesn't mean he should die because of it. Just because the government is bad doesn't mean the king is evil.

But the thing about absolute monarchies like Alethkar is that the king is the government. There is no way to change that absent constraining his power through constitution or deposing the ruler. In this case, Elhokar rules over an apartheid slave state. Whether he was a nice guy or not doesn't really matter. Moash was in the right.

17 hours ago, Song said:

I suspect light/dark will matter less and less to everyone as the books go on, but it won't be the big focus, because the more important relationship being challenged is listener/human.

I'll be curious to see how this is handled. Will characters decide that the inequality of Alethi society or the treatment of the Parshmen are the lesser of evils in the face of Odium? Is it really winning if you only win by forcing your enemy into centuries of slavery? It's an inverse of the questions asked in Mistborn, where the Lord Ruler could have easily been viewed as the "lesser of evils" because he kept Ruin at bay despite ruling over an oppressive caste society and self-inflicted environmental apocalypse.

One thing this debate shows is how easy it is to be manipulated by whose point of view a story is told from. Stormlight has, to this point, been mostly told through the eyes of the Kholins, the ruling family of Alethkar. That most of them are characters we're rooting for doesn't change the fact that they're the beneficiaries and enforcers of a deeply unjust society. Are the Radiants really a shining force of morality if they're being used to bolster that kind of society and exterminate the listeners? Would we have a different view of Mistborn if it had been told from the point of view of the Lord Ruler?

(I recommend Kirill Eskov's The Last Ringbearer for a real thorough examination of point of view in fantasy. It's Lord of the Rings from the point of view of Sauron - here a liberalizing, industrializing ruler of a multicultural state facing off against the deeply reactionary, racist elves and their unwitting puppets.)

I have faith that Brandon will twist this trope well. The revelation that humans were the original Voidbringers and the Listeners were the ones defending their homes was great because it throws some moral ambiguity on the humanity-good, listeners-bad narrative that had been established through the first couple books.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Hero of the Rev

[Korbin]

55 minutes ago, Hero of the Rev said:

But the thing about absolute monarchies like Alethkar is that the king is the government. There is no way to change that absent constraining his power through constitution or deposing the ruler. In this case, Elhokar rules over an apartheid slave state. Whether he was a nice guy or not doesn't really matter. Moash was in the right.

Lets be honest here. Elhokar was NOT the government. He didn't have any control over his highprinces. He was born into king hood. Are you saying that Moash should have killed him because he had no control over a corrupt government?

[Hero of the Rev]

56 minutes ago, Korbin said:

Lets be honest here. Elhokar was NOT the government. He didn't have any control over his highprinces. He was born into king hood. Are you saying that Moash should have killed him because he had no control over a corrupt government?

It wasn't just the "government" that was corrupt. It's an apartheid racial hierarchy. It's a deeply and fundamentally unjust society. There is a strict division between lighteyes and darkeyes, and the lowest lighteyes is always above the highest darkeyes. Somehow worse, until the Everstorm arrives, there's a slave caste of parshmen who are owned as property. There is no free parshman in all of Alethkar. It's apartheid South Africa and the antebellum American South all in one, with a healthy heaping of feudalism on top of it.

In a perfect world, Elhokar would have been deposed without the need to kill him, but rarely do monarchs or the unjust societies they lead go quietly. The Kholins are not good guys. They're just as morally ambiguous as all the rest. That some are starting to realize that, or that they are playing in a role against the Big Bad in Odium, doesn't excuse their position in Vorin society.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Hero of the Rev

[eshu]

2 hours ago, Hero of the Rev said:

Stormlight has, to this point, been mostly told through the eyes of the Kholins, the ruling family of Alethkar. That most of them are characters we're rooting for doesn't change the fact that they're the beneficiaries and enforcers of a deeply unjust society. Are the Radiants really a shining force of morality if they're being used to bolster that kind of society and exterminate the listeners?

Reading this put a smile on my face as I've always been far more interested in the culture/fate of the Parshendi. Alethkar being analogous to middle-age/colonial western cultures likely aids in it being a relatable POV for most of the readership (which either come from said cultures or have a strong understanding of it via indoctrination through global media) but it just bores me. The lighteyes' role as traditional leads and the primacy of the Kholin story (though Jasnah is a personal fav) have almost been a turn off. 

Which is why I appreciate a character like Moash whose "villainy" allows for a more severe exploration of the moral failings of the Alethi and Knights Radiant. OB has already begun examining the objective morality of the radiants, with Kal and Szeth in-particularly coming to the conclusion that the ideals are inherently subjective. I wouldn't be surprised to see Moash found his own version of bridge 4 with his parshmen colleagues to further drive home the role of perspective in warfare (i.e. Moash maybe a villain to our protagonists and readers in the main but he's also seen as a rebel hero for those the Alethi have wronged and the radiants have failed to protect). 

Edited December 19, 2017 by eshu

[aemetha]

5 minutes ago, Hero of the Rev said:

In a perfect world, Elhokar would have been deposed without the need to kill him, but rarely do monarchs or the unjust societies they lead go quietly. The Kholins are not good guys. They're just as morally ambiguous as all the rest. That some are starting to realize that, or that they are playing in a role against the Big Bad in Odium, doesn't excuse their position in Vorin society.

Morally ambiguous by the standard of our society you mean. Morally the Kholins aren't particularly ambiguous by the standards of Alethkar as it relates to the caste system in Alethkar.

I think the point trying to be made is that killing Elhokar would not make any difference whatsoever to the caste system of Alethkar. The suggestion that it is morally right to remove the head of state because the state employs an unjust system only has validity if removing the head of state changes the system. In this case it would not. The motivation for removing the head of state is that the person doing the removing is angry and wants to take it out on the person who most visibly represents the thing they are angry about. Nothing to do with change.

[slydog75]

1 hour ago, Hero of the Rev said:

Somehow worse, until the Everstorm arrives, there's a slave caste of parshmen who are owned as property. There is no free parshman in all of Alethkar. It's apartheid South Africa and the antebellum American South all in one, with a healthy heaping of feudalism on top of it.

 

Until the Everstorm, the Parshmen were basically very intelligent animals. They did not have a free will of their own.  They seem to me like they were much more like a horse or a chull, than a slave.  Yes, at some far point in the past, humans did this to them, but by Elhokar's time, they have no idea of this.  

[Korbin]

5 minutes ago, slydog75 said:

Until the Everstorm, the Parshmen were basically very intelligent animals. They did not have a free will of their own.  They seem to me like they were much more like a horse or a chull, than a slave.  Yes, at some far point in the past, humans did this to them, but by Elhokar's time, they have no idea of this. 

This is very true

[eshu]

14 minutes ago, slydog75 said:

Until the Everstorm, the Parshmen were basically very intelligent animals. They did not have a free will of their own.  They seem to me like they were much more like a horse or a chull, than a slave.  Yes, at some far point in the past, humans did this to them, but by Elhokar's time, they have no idea of this.  

 

9 minutes ago, Korbin said:

This is very true

In OB Kal was talking with a Parshmen who asked a question I feel and hope will be explored for the remainder of the series, just because they couldn't disagree was it okay for them to be made slaves?

[Korbin]

25 minutes ago, eshu said:

In OB Kal was talking with a Parshmen who asked a question I feel and hope will be explored for the remainder of the series, just because they couldn't disagree was it okay for them to be made slaves?

A parshmen was no different from a horse. They were animals that served a purpose. They had basic instincts and intelligence but nothing more. Humans didn't even know they WEREN'T animals. And every great nation was built on the back of slaves. Including America. Just because they started that way doesn't mean they can't change.

[eshu]

5 minutes ago, Korbin said:

A parshmen was no different from a horse. They were animals that served a purpose. They had basic instincts and intelligence but nothing more. Humans didn't even know they WEREN'T animals. And every great nation was built on the back of slaves. Including America. Just because they started that way doesn't mean they can't change.

Okay, first off not American, I'm Nigerian so slavery is not a thing that I need to be educated about (and the great nations argument, not really as strong an excuse as you think it is). Secondly I'm not picking a fight, all my points are focused on themes I'd like to see explored (declaring any particular side morally superior holds no interest to me).Third point, they knew the Parshendi were cogent and from the few times they talked and brought up the Parshmen it became clear that they weren't just horses. 

Again my interest lies in what makes the story more interesting, the more ambiguity the better in my book, and like you inferred in the end just because a nation has sinned doesn't mean it can't become better.  

[Korbin]

18 minutes ago, eshu said:

Again my interest lies in what makes the story more interesting, the more ambiguity the better in my book, and like you inferred in the end just because a nation has sinned doesn't mean it can't become better.  

I agree completly but bringing this back into what I was saying originally. The Government was corrupt. Not Elhokar. Elhokar could die a million times and it wouldn't change the government. It could possibly just make it more corrupt. And Parshmen to me were treated like being of lesser intelegence. No I don't think that it is moral or justified. But understandable? I would say it is understandable.

[Hero of the Rev]

3 hours ago, aemetha said:

Morally ambiguous by the standard of our society you mean. Morally the Kholins aren't particularly ambiguous by the standards of Alethkar as it relates to the caste system in Alethkar.

I think the point trying to be made is that killing Elhokar would not make any difference whatsoever to the caste system of Alethkar. The suggestion that it is morally right to remove the head of state because the state employs an unjust system only has validity if removing the head of state changes the system. In this case it would not. The motivation for removing the head of state is that the person doing the removing is angry and wants to take it out on the person who most visibly represents the thing they are angry about. Nothing to do with change.

Yeah, the moral relativism argument isn't going to win me over. For one thing, apartheid and slavery are simply never justified. Second, it's not nonfiction. It's a fantasy novel meant to be consumed by modern audiences. There's an expectation that we'll read characters through our own moral lens rather than through a fictional system of morality.

Your second point is fair enough and valid. Moash's blind pursuit of vengeance over justice leads to his own fall. Perhaps that's the difference between Kaladin and Moash. However, contra Moash, I'd like to see Kaladin work to change the system from within in that case. As it is, I worry a bit he's come to accept his new place in the hierarchy a little too readily, though there's obviously a great deal of anxiety there. That he's unable to choose and ends up breaking down rather than simply picking a side when Moash and the parshmen surround Elhokar and the Wall Guard because he saw that everyone was justified in some way is probably the best indication that Kaladin is the best person in the series, even if it nearly cost him his life.

[Toaster Retribution]

 

On 2017-12-18 at 9:03 PM, Hero of the Rev said:

It's worth noting that Moash isn't wrong and he isn't evil nor even a villain. The Alethi caste system is criminal. And that's even before we get into enslavement of the Parshmen. Vorin civilization in particular is pretty heinous - it's a chauvinistic, militaristic, caste-based slave society. Frankly, Elhokar deserved what he got. The Parshmen may be tools of Odium but that hardly justifies their enslavement.

That Elhokar deserved what he got since he was the head of a government supporting slavery is a pretty dangerous thing to say. Why kill Elhokar? Because he is the king? Well, how much power does he really have? Dalinar is the real guy in charge, and the Highprinces basically do whatever they want as well. And why did Elhokar end up as king? Because he was born into the system, as the son of Gavilar, the former king. He hasn´t really chosen his position, just as he didn´t choose to enslave people. Why should the slavery be blamed solely on him? Dalinar and the other highprinces are guilty as well. Should they be killed too? And they have highlords and other slave-owners under their command. You can kill those as well. And then we have town-lords like Roshone. They keep slaves. Do they deserve death as well? When do you stop? In fact, you can probably kill every single lighteyes, with the argument that were supporting slavery. But that just doesn´t hold up. We can not punish people by death, and Elhokar is no more deserving of punishment than Dalinar or the highprinces, or Jasnah, Navani, Amaram, etc.

Then we have the fact that the slavery of Alethkar has been a thing for generations. The lighteyes are used to it, and most likely fail to see the issue, simply because slavery has been a thing since they were born. Just like people today would find life impossible without a car, a phone or a Brandon Sanderson-book, the Alethi can´t see a society without slavery. Changing a thing that is so deeply grown into the system is a very, very hard thing to do. There is a reason to why we haven´t stopped driving our cars, despite the fact that the ice is melting up north, and killing all the fluffy polar bears. It is such an important part of our lives.

As for Moash, I agree. He is not evil. I think he is wrong in giving up hope for humanity. I can see why he does it, but I think it is the wrong decision. I agree with you about points of view as well: I have basically stated the same thing in discussions surrounding Amaram. People are more likely to agree with, and forgive, a main character who they like. This means that people will always be pretty forgiving towards Dalinar, Kaladin, Jasnah and other fan-favorites, and very hard on the characters who wrong them, out of which Moash is admittedly one. 

 

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by Toaster Retribution

[Vissy]

5 hours ago, Hero of the Rev said:

But the thing about absolute monarchies like Alethkar is that the king is the government. There is no way to change that absent constraining his power through constitution or deposing the ruler. In this case, Elhokar rules over an apartheid slave state. Whether he was a nice guy or not doesn't really matter. Moash was in the right.

I'll be curious to see how this is handled. Will characters decide that the inequality of Alethi society or the treatment of the Parshmen are the lesser of evils in the face of Odium? Is it really winning if you only win by forcing your enemy into centuries of slavery? It's an inverse of the questions asked in Mistborn, where the Lord Ruler could have easily been viewed as the "lesser of evils" because he kept Ruin at bay despite ruling over an oppressive caste society and self-inflicted environmental apocalypse.

One thing this debate shows is how easy it is to be manipulated by whose point of view a story is told from. Stormlight has, to this point, been mostly told through the eyes of the Kholins, the ruling family of Alethkar. That most of them are characters we're rooting for doesn't change the fact that they're the beneficiaries and enforcers of a deeply unjust society. Are the Radiants really a shining force of morality if they're being used to bolster that kind of society and exterminate the listeners? Would we have a different view of Mistborn if it had been told from the point of view of the Lord Ruler?

(I recommend Kirill Eskov's The Last Ringbearer for a real thorough examination of point of view in fantasy. It's Lord of the Rings from the point of view of Sauron - here a liberalizing, industrializing ruler of a multicultural state facing off against the deeply reactionary, racist elves and their unwitting puppets.)

I have faith that Brandon will twist this trope well. The revelation that humans were the original Voidbringers and the Listeners were the ones defending their homes was great because it throws some moral ambiguity on the humanity-good, listeners-bad narrative that had been established through the first couple books.

Alethkar is governed with what is, essentially, a feudal system. The King only has direct control over his own lands, and as we've seen in the books, the Highprinces won't just do anything you ask of them. In Elhokar's case, he was never in full control of his own lands either - he was a puppet, a weak ruler. In addition, it's false to state that the King is the State in absolute monarchy. In any example of an absolute monarchy you can dig up, absolute monarchies could exert no more control over their subjects than any non-absolute monarchies, and that is to say "a lot, but strictly limited". When it comes to huge groundbreaking changes, like abolishing the caste system, you'd probably spark another civil war in the process of trying to do so. And you'd probably lose, and lose badly.

As far as unjust societies go, though, the Kholins are all good people - but they're terribly out of touch. And as any real-world example of an out-of-touch rich politician in power will tell you, they just tend to serve themselves and their own economical class, if not out of selfishness then out of sheer ignorance and naivete. 

And I absolutely disagree about Elhokar. He did not get what he deserved - Moash is a complete scumbag. Siding with Odium against someone like Elhokar is like siding with genocidal terrorists to take down an out-of-touch banker-president of Whateverland. What Moash did is the antithesis of justice, of civilization, and of humanism. I word this very strongly, but really, I can't see myself agreeing with Moash.

 

Edited December 19, 2017 by Vissy

[aemetha]

2 hours ago, Hero of the Rev said:

For one thing, apartheid and slavery are simply never justified.

Unfortunately, history disagrees. Slavery has been a part of human civilisation for millennia longer than it hasn't been. Even situations that were not explicitly called slavery were functionally slavery. Peasants in the middle ages did not have freedom of movement, did not have the means to move, and were not paid for their produce. They were allowed to keep a portion of the food they produced. That's it. It is wrong by our standards, with the benefit of our technologies, and with the benefit of systematic education.

People couldn't just be allowed to wander off in those times, because people didn't produce enough excess resources to allow that, they produced just enough for people to not die. People couldn't be acknowledged as all equal with a right to vote for the leader, because people lived their entire lives within 10 square miles of their homes. Entire lives of around 30 years at best. You can't just ignore all of the things that make modern civilisation work on a more equitable manner. Like it or not, slavery was an essential part of feudal systems that allowed for civilisations to exist without falling into anarchy.

Not dying is a perfectly valid justification for a system of functional slavery in the absence of the technology and expertise to implement a better system. The thing that changed systems of slavery to an immoral enterprise is the lack of necessity for it anymore - the industrial revolution. Nowhere is that better illustrated than the industrial economy of the Union against the slave labour economy of the Confederates in the US civil war. If the north had not industrialised there would have been no war, because both north and south would have needed their slaves.

[Vissy]

Slavery wasn't necessary for civilizations to exist though. It might've accelerated or helped, but it wasn't what enabled these civilizations to exist. This is especially true for the industrial revolution. American slave-grown cotton for example. Was it necessary for the industrial revolution? Probably not. It accelerated the process, but it wasn't necessary. Just so for Alethkar. 

Edited December 19, 2017 by Vissy

[aemetha]

47 minutes ago, Vissy said:

Slavery wasn't necessary for civilizations to exist though.

Functionally it was. It just wasn't called slavery in name. This is what I meant about medieval peasants. They weren't and still aren't called slaves. The weren't paid though, they weren't allowed to leave, they weren't allowed any say in issues of governance, and they were required to hand over their produce to their feudal overlords and keep just a portion of it. What would you call it if not slavery? And what alternative did they have? If peasants were just allowed to do what they wanted, there would be no action from the lords part of the feudal contract - protection. That was a cause of large issues with robber barons, and the peasantry suffered even more than they did in the functional slavery of the feudal contact. At the end of the day, the peasants were often better off in slavery than they were without it. It certainly was more morally ambiguous than it is in modernity.

Life in those times was just not good at all. Slavery didn't make it a whole lot worse, there's not really a problem with not being allowed to move if you don't have the means to move. There isn't really a problem with not being paid if you don't have anything to spend it on. In many cases slavery imposed a measure of stability that allowed a better standard of living than would otherwise be the case. Viewing slavery in the modern context of morality ignores the fact that the effects of slavery weren't stacked so heavily in the negatives column, or rather had more stacks in the positive column than is the case today.

There were of course instances where slaves were treated far more harshly than was reasonable, and the mistreatment of a human being in that way may be seen to be immoral more convincingly than the institution itself, because there was a different level of necessity for the act.

 

Let me give an example.

You are a Baron, recently granted your Barony by the king. The Barony consists of one village with 100 villagers. You have the choice to allow your peasant subjects freedom, or to functionally enslave them.

If you allow them freedom, 50 will give you a portion of their food. 25 will wander off and leave your barony. 25 will keep everything they own. You won't be able to protect them properly because you have only half the income you would have through slavery, and half of them will be killed by bandits.

If you enslave them, none leave, and all give you a portion of their food. You are able to protect them all and lose none to bandits.

Which is the moral choice?

Edited December 20, 2017 by Greywatch
Remember to edit and not double-post.

[Vissy]

Just because that was how things ended up turning out isn't equivalent to it being necessary. Theoretically, and I'm speaking theoretically, you didn't need peasants living in misery in order to form civilized societies during the middle ages. And just so Alethkar doesn't need to enslave parshmen in order to thrive and prosper. In any case, peasants were treated as better than slaves. They weren't even functionally slaves. Especially considering that the difference between peasants and slaves was even ordained in the Bible, which was a big part of society at that time. 

Edited December 19, 2017 by Vissy

[Korbin]

I am of the personal opinion that slavery happened. I don't support it and never will. But it did serve a purpose in accelerating society and I am personally grateful to have a heater. I think the fact that the parshmen were enslaved saved so many humans from being enslaved. (Though there were still human slaves.) I don't hold anything against the parshmen but if I had to choose between a human and a parhsmen as an alethi lord to to put into slavery I would pick a parshman just because that means not having a human slave.