A Better Ending for Eshonai

[+ILuvHats he/him]

I know it's a little late to be picking beefs with Oathbringer, but I just finished a re-read and have been giving it some thought.  The way Brandon dealt with Eshonai's death was distinctly... unsatisfying.  I mean, we came to love this character and after seeing her struggle throughout Words of Radiance, we just find out she's dead all of a sudden, with no foreshadowing.  Honestly, it just left me feeling empty, and a little bit annoyed at Brandon.  And anytime I start thinking about the author for a reason other than "Wow, they're amazing," it's bad because it pulls me out of the book.  I think Eshonai's demise could have been much more satisfying, and I thought of a way to make it so without changing much about Oathbringer.

So, my idea is this.  What if, after the current prologue of OB ends, there's a scene break and it jumps ahead to Six Years Later.  We see Eshonai just after being thrown into the chasms, raging about being defeated in the battle.  And then something, breaks her out of Stormform and free her from the grip of the Voidspren.  Maybe something triggering her memory of the flashback that is the current prologue, or something else causing her to realize what's happened to her.  And just after gaining freedom, she killed by the highstorm floods.  And her last moments are what propels us into the beginning of Oathbringer.  

It may be a little unorthodox and breaks the expectation set by previous prologues only focusing on the night of Gavilar's death, but I think this ending would have accomplished a lot.  It would add to the prologue and make it more engaging, because the actual one Brandon used wasn't as compelling as the previous ones.  It didn't contain many easter eggs or show us much we didn't know other than giving us another vague and tantalizing glimpse of the ever esoteric black spheres.  Adding something like this would have made for a more gripping start to Oathbringer and would give it more momentum.  Also, it would have given us the cathartic experience we all wished Eshonai's death could've been.  It would have given us closure, and brought forward some strong feelings.  I mean, obtaining freedom and seeing what a monster she'd become only to die immediately after, that's agonizingly heartbreaking.  Last, it would have complemented Venli's scene when she realizes her sisters dead.  Making Eshonai's death a total surprise without foreshadowing didn't add anything to the story.  But if we knew ahead of time Eshonai was dead, it would have added a lot of dramatic irony to that sequence with Venli, and Brandon wouldn't even have had to change Venlis chapter that much.  Seeing Venli call out to her sister and try wake her up would be more heart wrenching if we already knew she was dead.  And this in turn would help us bond with Venli quicker, who up to this point, we've seen as a narcissistic and despicable individual.  

Overall, I think this change would have made for a better Oathbringer.  What do you guys think?

[Calderis he/him]

The overall tone and feel of OB... I don't think her death was meant to be satisfying. OB seems to be all about failure and disappointment, and overcoming those feelings, and I think that Eshonai's death served dual purposes as written. 

The first, was to help turn Venli into a sympathetic character instead of the apparent villain she seemed to be prior. 

It did that by the undermining the expectations that Venli, and the reader had. Everyone expected Eshonai to live. So did Venli. It was meant to shock, and to hurt, and in Ulim's case, even insult both Venli and the reader. This line definitely breaks the fourth wall a bit. 

Quote

“The … Plate,” Venli said softly, numb. “You wanted the Plate.”
“Well, the Blade too, of course. Why else would we be hunting a corpse? You … Oh, you thought she was alive?”

I think it did exactly what it was supposed to do, and making her death satisfying would have undermined that. 

I was shocked when she was confirmed dead. I was even a little angry. I think that was the point. 

Edited September 17, 2018 by Calderis

[+ILuvHats he/him]

Your probably right, but I'm still butt hurt about it.  Eshonai was awesome!!  And then it turns out she wasn't going to be important as I thought she would.  I think part of the problem is that I'm not used to Brandon making character deaths random.  I mean look at Hrathen, Dockson and Clubs, Vin, Elend, Sadeas even.  Their deaths didn't come out of nowhere.  I mean you could argue about Sadeas, but he actually needed to be removed from the plot.  There was significance behind they're deaths.  And before you say so did Eshonai's death, let me say that cognitively, I realize Eshonai served a purpose in Venlis arc, but emotionally I don't.  That's the difference between her death and pretty much every other I've read in cosmere works.  It feels too much like a George R.R. Martin style "oops I guess this characters dead." You know what I mean?

 

[Calderis he/him]

I do. But I think that's more our fault than Brandon's. 

She played her part. She was amazing and drew Timbre's attention. She resisted stormform enough to ensure that some of the listeners made it out. And she died at the end of WoR. 

The assumption that she was alive, and anything more, was our doing. We built Eshonai up into something more than she was. And we'll still see more from her in the past. 

Brandon warned us about flashback characters being dead... And in that way it's kind of a double edged sword. We get to see more of her, but we also will keep being reminded she's gone. 

Edited September 17, 2018 by Calderis

[Borio Singaldi he/him]

Honestly, I prefer it when a character death comes as a surprise rather than it being visibly set up beforehand. We know there was significance to the deaths of characters like Vin, Hrathen, even Sadeas. And that made their deaths predictable. Having a character such as Eshonai turn up dead upends that completely. There definitely was insignificance to her death, because we were all so sure she would live through the end of WoR because we "knew" she needed to live, which would have been predictable, making it so that her surprise death really oomphed the shock factor. It was a genuine plot twist surprise we couldn't have seen coming, and that was the genius of it. It wasn't meant to be a satisfying death. From a narrative viewpoint, it wasn't even supposed to happen (or so we had convinced ourselves). That's what made it such a huge shock. That's what makes it a genius stroke of writing. We got the outcome we least expected because we were fooling ourselves into a pattern of predictability. Other deaths in other books had relevance to them and setup, and Eshonai dying was, in my opinion, Brandon's way of breaking that very trope he has been using for so long. I believe her death was a brilliant writing maneuver, even if I myself was initially shocked, dissatisfied, and disappointed with it. Brandon isn't just going to give us what we want. He's going to give us the story that he will write. I believe Eshonai's ending as it is... is perfect, in that it is comparatively unsatisfying and shocking for us. Literary genius.

Plus, Eshonai dying is important for Venli's character arc, so hey, it turns out that it does have credence and relevance now.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

First off, The Last Jedi spoiler:

Spoiler

Eshonai is like Snoke

Second, I think her death fits her character. She was meant to be tragic. Her whole WoR story is incredibly tragic, and is basically her making sacrifice, after sacrifice to ensure her peoples survival, and she keeps on failing. It ends with her dying unceremoniously like a villain, despite the fact that she always was and kept on being a hero. That storyline is greater than the one where she frees herself of Odium and becomes another KR. Eshonai is a brilliant character because of her death, not in spite of it. Of course, seeing it happen would have made an impact, but that might have worked better at the end of WoR in that case. 

The one thing I really think would have improved the experience would have been to put her prologue in WoR and held off on Jasnahs until OB. That would have made Eshonais story more coherent, I think, just as Szeths prologue added to his character in WoK. 

[Swaggy-G]

I'm sad that she died too, though this does make me wonder... We know book 4 is going to focus on Venli, with Eshonai as the flashback character. Brandon has said that he has no problem with doing flashbacks for dead characters, but I wonder what the story would gain by having Eshonai flashbacks? First three books' flashbacks all contributed to and complemented the arc of the character in question. So why not just make Venli the flashback then? I don't know where I'm going with this. I'm pretty sure Eshonai really is dead, but I also have a feeling her story's not over.

[Yata he/him]

I found the Eshonai's death truly brilliant.

I liked Eshonai and I was shocked to see her dead in the first Interlude.

The point is, I (and you all) was biased by the old (and abused) stereotype of the "if there is no corpse, the character survived" when honestly, the chances of Eshonai to survive were almost none.

She fall into a chasm with a badly injured leg just before an highstorm.

Maybe You don't like it, but you can't say her death wasn't foreshadowing.