Why the 4th WR Ideal cannot be about sacrificing some to save many

[Sedside she/her]

I liked the idea of the Windrunners' 4th Ideal to be related to accepting other's sacrifices, if they are willing to do it. We have that memory of Nalma, when he couldn't leave her and go save himself. Also that moment when he fails to say the Words Adolin tells them to run and also asks Kaladin to give him his knife. I think it fits the pattern of leadership too, that leader can't do everything by himself, sometimes people will die. But it is not the same that sacrificing someone, if they are willing to do so. Kaladin struggles so much with the idea of someone sacrificing him/herself, because he thinks he is worthless, that he is the one who should die, he must always sacrifice himself, not others. So his 4th Ideal is strongly tied to his depression and lack of self-esteem.

My guess is something like "I will respect others' will to die for me, even if I love them". It's also kinda opposite to his 3rd Ideal, which was not easy as well.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Sedside

[Ulthwithian]

 For myself, I expect the 4th Ideal to be

"I cannot help everyone."

You can word this any number of ways.  Most in this thread would probably qualify, and it is readily apparent that the Intent behind the words (other than the First... maybe) are more important than the words themselves.

Kaladin's struggle throughout Oathbringer is driven home at the climax of the Kholinar arc (Part 3, I believe).  He literally goes into a BSoD precipitated by the fact he cannot accept the quote above.  The fact that his failure feeded his downward spiral makes the positive feedback loop even more destructive.  Kaladin's back story and clinical depression makes it very difficult for him to accept this statement.

(I should note that the quote also is an important statement for leaders to grasp.)

[Alderant she/her]

1 hour ago, Ulthwithian said:

"I cannot help everyone."

1 hour ago, Ulthwithian said:

Kaladin's struggle throughout Oathbringer is driven home at the climax of the Kholinar arc (Part 3, I believe).  He literally goes into a BSoD precipitated by the fact he cannot accept the quote above.  The fact that his failure feeded his downward spiral makes the positive feedback loop even more destructive.  Kaladin's back story and clinical depression makes it very difficult for him to accept this statement.

Mmm, I'm not sure I 100% agree with this statement. Kaladin does a very good job of helping others, but what Kaladin struggled with in the scene in question was that in order to protect or save someone, he had to hurt someone else he loved. He was stuck in a situation where people he loved were butchering each other, and the only way for him to do his duty here would have been to assist one faction against another.

For Kaladin, who hates the thought of causing pain to others (the only reason he's able to do so in war is because of the us and them mentality), his freeze here is completely reasonable. The singers/parsh in question had stopped being the them and started being the us to him. He'd given of himself to both parties, helped both parties, and grew to love both parties. The awful sight of what happened caused him to freeze, to be shell-shocked into inaction, which then kept him from being able to save the King from Moash.

To be simply put, Kaladin failed because he cared too much. He didn't have the callouses necessary to wade into the fray and kill those he loved to protect those he needed to. He didn't have the emotional fortitude to do what was necessary in order to protect those he must. The point about the positive feedback loop and destructive cycling is accurate, but I guess what I'm objecting to is the motivational factor involved--the issue here isn't that he can't help everyone. It isn't even that he couldn't save everyone. It was that in order to save anyone, he had to hurt, to kill someone he loved.

I honestly think the fourth oath will have something to do with this concept--after all, it's also one of Kaladin's core character tenets as introduced in The Way of Kings, and since the other oaths have in some ways been tied to those character tenets as well, I see no reason to believe that the trend won't continue. One of Kaladin's big questions since his youth is regarding the concept of "killing to protect". This is easy when the one you have to kill is the enemy and the one you have to protect is helpless: the second ideal. It's a bit harder when the person you have to protect is someone you hate: the third ideal. It's even more difficult when the person you have to fight is a friend--which is what I believe the fourth ideal for Windrunners has to be, and it ties well into the ideas presented both Oathbringer (the scene in question) and Words of Radiance (protecting Elhokar against Moash & Graves).

Kaladin wasn't able to accept this concept in Oathbringer, so he couldn't swear the ideal, and couldn't progress. And Syl is probably the only one right now who understands the gravity of that ideal, which is why she was so sympathetic to him, even with so much on the line.

At least, that's my two cents.

EDIT: I'd like to amend that the fourth ideal imo is not simply fighting a friend. That was just an example. It's that sometimes you have to let those you love die, or even kill someone you love, in order to protect. This doesn't necessarily mean in a one-to-one fight, either--it ties into leadership, in being willing to send those you care about to their deaths to achieve a greater, necessary objective. About being willing to put your friends' lives on the line because the cause you fight for is greater than all of your lives together. It's easy to do if it's just you. It's harder to be willing to sacrifice your friends. That's what I meant.

Edited February 5, 2019 by Alderant
Additional thought/clarification

[Luinedhel he/him]

Do not discuss any further. The 4th ideal for the Windrunners is clearly the following:

"I will wait until Stormlight book 4 to swear the fourth ideal, to keep the mistery about Shardplate".

[+Oltux72 he/him]

16 hours ago, Alderant said:

Mmm, I'm not sure I 100% agree with this statement. Kaladin does a very good job of helping others, but what Kaladin struggled with in the scene in question was that in order to protect or save someone, he had to hurt someone else he loved. He was stuck in a situation where people he loved were butchering each other, and the only way for him to do his duty here would have been to assist one faction against another.

But his job is not to help. He is a Windrunner. He is supposed to protect. Not avenge or judge, that is a thing for Skybreakers. Nor to help, that is a thing for Edgedancers.
Nor is he supposed to help only those he loves. Though it is the obvious trigger for him to notice the contradictions in his oaths. Indeed, what if people fight each other.

16 hours ago, Alderant said:

For Kaladin, who hates the thought of causing pain to others (the only reason he's able to do so in war is because of the us and them mentality), his freeze here is completely reasonable. The singers/parsh in question had stopped being the them and started being the us to him. He'd given of himself to both parties, helped both parties, and grew to love both parties. The awful sight of what happened caused him to freeze, to be shell-shocked into inaction, which then kept him from being able to save the King from Moash.

Indeed. And he needs to regain the us vs. them mentality.

16 hours ago, Alderant said:

To be simply put, Kaladin failed because he cared too much. He didn't have the callouses necessary to wade into the fray and kill those he loved to protect those he needed to. He didn't have the emotional fortitude to do what was necessary in order to protect those he must. The point about the positive feedback loop and destructive cycling is accurate, but I guess what I'm objecting to is the motivational factor involved--the issue here isn't that he can't help everyone. It isn't even that he couldn't save everyone. It was that in order to save anyone, he had to hurt, to kill someone he loved.

Well, no. This really does not help him or us. Whom does he need to protect against whom? Yes, he loved both sides, sort of. But if you take his oaths literally, that should not matter. In fact the 3rd oath is about exactly that. That mixes triggers and reasons in a manner that leads to an error.
The Windrunners are close to Honor, who is about promises and duty. Hence this is not about callousness or choosing the lesser evil. The 4th ideal is going to be a version of "right or wrong - my country"

21 hours ago, Sedside said:

I liked the idea of the Windrunners' 4th Ideal to be related to accepting other's sacrifices, if they are willing to do it. We have that memory of Nalma, when he couldn't leave her and go save himself. Also that moment when he fails to say the Words Adolin tells them to run and also asks Kaladin to give him his knife. I think it fits the pattern of leadership too, that leader can't do everything by himself, sometimes people will die. But it is not the same that sacrificing someone, if they are willing to do so.

Premature. There has to be something left for the 5th ideal.

[Alderant she/her]

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

Well, no. This really does not help him or us. Whom does he need to protect against whom? Yes, he loved both sides, sort of. But if you take his oaths literally, that should not matter. In fact the 3rd oath is about exactly that. That mixes triggers and reasons in a manner that leads to an error.
The Windrunners are close to Honor, who is about promises and duty. Hence this is not about callousness or choosing the lesser evil. The 4th ideal is going to be a version of "right or wrong - my country"

I think you might have misunderstood my point, because what you just said is exactly the general point of my post. It's a "my people, my goals" problem--Kaladin couldn't protect Elhokar or the wall guard (my people, my goals) because the people he was fighting were people he loved--and the paragraph you quoted in question has more to do with how his character development is tied to his oath progression. It's not taking his oaths literally--it's the principles behind the oaths and how they are expanded with each passing oath, a line-by-line understanding, if you will. Anyway, the take away is that our points are not mutually exclusive--my point had nothing to do with "the lesser evil" as you put it.

That said, I don't think that what Kaladin needs is to return to the "us vs. them" mentality--that's the exact problem that he's currently facing, that it's too easy for him to put people into the "us" category. It's that he needs to be willing to sacrifice or allow the deaths of some of the "us" to achieve the goal or principles he has sworn to uphold. The scene in question is not where his inability to speak his oath comes into play, it's a defining character moment where his arc drops because events have progressed faster than his own progression--Kaladin has made great strides, but letting people die that he has placed in the "us" category is still a very, very difficult thing for him to do.

Coincidentally, if I'm even close to right on this, it adds a layer of depth to the later scene in Shadesmar where Adolin lay wounded and Kaladin couldn't speak the oath. If the fourth oath is indeed about letting others die, letting others be sacrificed for the greater cause, then by professing that oath at that moment Kaladin would have been acknowledging that it was okay for Adolin to die in that moment--something that Kaladin was not ready to admit (he was yearning to speak the oath so he could save Adolin, wasn't he?), and something he wouldn't have been able to say in front of Shallan, who was very dependent on Adolin even then. But that's a tangent.

[Sedside she/her]

20 hours ago, Alderant said:

I'd like to amend that the fourth ideal imo is not simply fighting a friend. That was just an example. It's that sometimes you have to let those you love die, or even kill someone you love, in order to protect. This doesn't necessarily mean in a one-to-one fight, either--it ties into leadership, in being willing to send those you care about to their deaths to achieve a greater, necessary objective. About being willing to put your friends' lives on the line because the cause you fight for is greater than all of your lives together. It's easy to do if it's just you. It's harder to be willing to sacrifice your friends. That's what I meant.

Yeah, this makes sense. Also, if we remeber Syl and Kaladin's dialogue about Elhokar and Parshendi, Syl said that Ideals are about what's right. Third Ideal was about protecting those he hates as long as it's right, the Fourth then is probably "I will let those I love die, as long as it's right". And the Fifth should be about defining what's right then. Perhaps. Like Skybreakers' is about defining the law?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

30 minutes ago, Alderant said:

I think you might have misunderstood my point, because what you just said is exactly the general point of my post.

I am not sure. We obviously differ in the proposed conclusion. I am unsure about whether we diagnose the problem in the same way. Maybe we see the facts as the same, but the causation differently.

30 minutes ago, Alderant said:

It's a "my people, my goals" problem--Kaladin couldn't protect Elhokar

At the first attempt against his live or during the battle Elhokar perished?

30 minutes ago, Alderant said:

or the wall guard (my people, my goals) because the people he was fighting were people he loved--and the paragraph you quoted in question has more to do with how his character development is tied to his oath progression. It's not taking his oaths literally--it's the principles behind the oaths and how they are expanded with each passing oath, a line-by-line understanding, if you will. Anyway, the take away is that our points are not mutually exclusive--my point had nothing to do with "the lesser evil" as you put it.

Yes they were fighting each other. He could not stop that fight. He could at most pick a side. Yet his inability to safe everybody is not new. It started with Tien. The reason may be new. But I am not sure about that. He did not love Elhokar when he defended him against Moash. It was the right thing to do for a Windrunner. He already fought people he loved: Moash
So I cannot see this as a new development which caused him to freeze. Granted you may say that the scale was new or that the problem finally caught up with him.
I don't think so. I think that the critical difference was that when he protected Elhokar against Moash, Moash asked him to act in a manner inappropriate for a Windrunner. That motivation was missing in the battle at the palace.

30 minutes ago, Alderant said:

That said, I don't think that what Kaladin needs is to return to the "us vs. them" mentality--that's the exact problem that he's currently facing, that it's too easy for him to put people into the "us" category.

How so? It seemed to me that his stay with the Parshendi caused him to lose the ability to put people in "us vs. them" categories.

30 minutes ago, Alderant said:

It's that he needs to be willing to sacrifice or allow the deaths of some of the "us" to achieve the goal or principles he has sworn to uphold.

But he already knows that. He is a trained medic. He knows triage. He does not like it, but he knows it. And he has lost people in battle before.

30 minutes ago, Alderant said:

The scene in question is not where his inability to speak his oath comes into play, it's a defining character moment where his arc drops because events have progressed faster than his own progression--Kaladin has made great strides, but letting people die that he has placed in the "us" category is still a very, very difficult thing for him to do.

It should be.

However:
"Kaladin's will to fight evaporated.
He'd been stoked with energy, ready to enter the battle and protect his men. But ..."
...
"In that moment, Kaladin lost something precious. He'd always been able to trick himself into seeing a battle as us against them."
...
"... but they didn't deserve death."

And that is the point. This is not about accepting losses and failure. This is about a failure to know whom to protect (or fight).
Kaladin saw battles as ethically justified. He was wrong. Obviously people who just fight to escape slavery don't do wrong. If you go by pure ethics Kaladin should switch sides and defend the Parshendi.
This is not about letting die. This is about duty demanding actively killing the innocent. People who just fight to save their children from slavery. Us vs. them. To accept that you are still bound by honor to fight for your side even thouigh you are the monsters.

In fact it felt a little bit like Sanderson chanelling the Mahabharata about doing your duty even if that means killing your relatives.

 

[Pathfinder]

This is not directed towards anyone. Just was re-reading Way of Kings for the 100th time, and came across this scene:

Way of Kings page 161

"I failed them. They're dead now."

"They would have died more quickly without you. You made it so they had a family in the army. I remember their gratitude. It's what drew me in the first place. You helped them"

Personally I think it is about Kaladin learning when he has done enough. He cannot protect people from themselves. I posted elsewhere how I realized had Kaladin been in the right frame of mind, he could have used adhesion to keep the two sides apart, and then the gravitational pull lashing in case any of them tried to throw spears at each other. But again that would be like trying to stop a storm by blowing hard. The rest of the parshmen army would show up and kill the guards, or the rest of the guards would have shown up and killed the parshmen. Kaladin did what he could for the parshmen. In the end events beyond his control led them to this place to be on the opposite side of the battle. Same thing with the guards. He did not fail both sides because they died. He succeeded by protecting and helping them while they lived. Same thing happened trying to protect the people when the highstorm came. Actually as I write this, he literally did try to stop the highstorm by blowing hard lol. Syl and the Stormfather tried to explain to him, that sometimes it is just what happens. Stormwinds blow. People get hurt. It happens. You do what you can to mitigate it, but at the end of the day the whole world and everyone in it is not your sole responsibility. They are people with thoughts, and feelings of their own and they are going to do what they are going to do. You can try and nudge them, but like a mother learning to let her children live for themselves, you have to learn to let go and trust in yourself, what you have done for them, and trust in them. Just some thoughts that popped into my head when I read that scene that I felt was applicable to this thread. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Pathfinder

[Alderant she/her]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

At the first attempt against his live or during the battle Elhokar perished?

...

Yes they were fighting each other. He could not stop that fight. He could at most pick a side. Yet his inability to safe everybody is not new. It started with Tien. The reason may be new. But I am not sure about that. He did not love Elhokar when he defended him against Moash. It was the right thing to do for a Windrunner. He already fought people he loved: Moash
So I cannot see this as a new development which caused him to freeze. Granted you may say that the scale was new or that the problem finally caught up with him.
I don't think so. I think that the critical difference was that when he protected Elhokar against Moash, Moash asked him to act in a manner inappropriate for a Windrunner. That motivation was missing in the battle at the palace.

You could say it's the same problem in both, though as I said before, the battle against Moash the first time was more of a "I hate the person I'm supposed to protect," whereas when Elhokar dies its "I love the people I'm supposed to kill". It's a reversal of the same issue, kind of. That said, as you say this isn't a new development, and in the original situation with Moash, there was also an antagonistic third party involved: Graves. And by siding with Graves, combined with Kaladin's decision only moments prior to side with the King, Moash removed himself of his own volition from the "us" category--in fact, Kaladin even says "You're not Bridge Four" in the confrontation, showing a clear delineation between "my guys" and "the enemy".

In the scene of Elhokar's death, both sides of the conflict were people Kaladin had invested in and cared about. Moash is excluded from this situation in both instances, making the conflict between Moash and Kaladin in Words less about fighting a friend, and more about protecting someone he didn't like, while in OB the situation is very much a fight against people he cared about--and you make this same point about it being a critical difference about a motivating factor missing.

Again, the problem here isn't Kaladin's ability to save everyone--as @Pathfinder noted, Kaladin had the ability to save everyone. But up until this point the enemy had always been the enemy--you can respect an enemy on the battlefield, and still not be anguished about having to kill them. That wasn't the situation here, as I've said, and the sheer shock of watching those he cared about butchering each other stalled him to the point of inaction. More on this in a second.

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

How so? It seemed to me that his stay with the Parshendi caused him to lose the ability to put people in "us vs. them" categories.

This isn't exactly true, and not all Parshendi had been placed by Kaladin in the "us" category. True, he didn't want to slaughter the Parshendi army--such an action went against his very core as a surgeon and a windrunner. But he was still perfectly willing to go to Kholinar to try to take it back from the Parshendi, and that certainly would have meant fighting and killing the Parshendi in turn. His ability to distinguish "us" and "them" isn't lacking here.

However, there was a specific group of Parshmen that he did put in the "us" category--the ones he'd saved and taught to survive after Hearthstone, and it's these Parsh that Moash led into battle against his men from Kholinar. Thus, the fight wasn't a "us vs. them" situation, it was an "us vs. us", which is something he'd never really been forced to confront. This view is supported by the text you quoted, in the passages you left out

(personal additions bolded):

Spoiler

Quote

Kaladin’s will to fight evaporated.

He’d been stoked with energy, ready to enter the battle and protect his men. But …

Sah recognized him and gasped, then grabbed his companion—Khen, one of the others Kaladin knew—and pointed. The parshwoman cursed, and the group of them scrambled away from the steps—leaving dead human soldiers.

In the opening provided, Kaladin’s men pushed down off the steps into the grand hall. They surged around Kaladin as—stunned—he lowered his spear.

The large, pillared hall became a scene of utter chaos. Azure’s soldiers rushed in from the Sunwalk, meeting the parshmen who came up the stairs from the back of the palace—they’d likely broken in through the gardens there. The king held his son, standing amid a group of soldiers in the very center. Kaladin’s men managed to get down off the steps, and behind them rushed the Queen’s Guard. (Note the general description is pretty standard here)

It all churned into a melee. Battle lines disintegrated, and platoons shattered, men fighting alone or in pairs. It was a battlefield commander’s nightmare. Hundreds of men mixing and screaming and fighting and dying. (Same here)

Kaladin saw them. All of them. Sah and the parshmen, fighting to keep their freedom. The guardsmen who had been rescued, fighting for their king. Azure’s Wall Guard, terrified as their city fell around them. The Queen’s Guard, convinced they were loyally following orders. (And then it becomes somewhat personal by the inclusion of names)

In that moment, Kaladin lost something precious. He’d always been able to trick himself into seeing a battle as us against them. Protect those you love. Kill everyone else. But … but they didn’t deserve death.

None of them did.

He locked up. He froze, something that hadn’t happened to him since his first days in Amaram’s army. The Sylspear vanished in his fingers, puffing to mist. How could he fight? How could he kill people who were just doing the best they could? (Note also the similarity to the language used to justify his protection of Elhokar--that Elhokar tried, that he did the best he could, just like Tien, since you mentioned it)

“Stop!” he finally bellowed. “Stop it! Stop killing each other!”

Nearby, Sah rammed Beard through with a spear. (Note beginning here how each named death reads like a punch. Succinct. Precise.)

“STOP! PLEASE!”

Noro responded by running through Jali—one of the other parshmen Kaladin had known. Ahead, Elhokar’s ring of guards fell, and a member of the Queen’s Guard managed to ram the point of a halberd into the king’s arm. Elhokar gasped, dropping his Shardblade from pained fingers, holding his son close with his other arm.

The Queen’s Guardsman pulled back, eyes widening—as if seeing the king for the first time. One of Azure’s soldiers cut the guardsman down in his moment of confusion.

Kaladin screamed, tears streaming from his eyes. He begged them to just stop, to listen.

They couldn’t hear him. Sah—gentle Sah, who had only wanted to protect his daughter—died by Noro’s sword. Noro, in turn, got his head split by Khen’s axe.

Noro and Sah fell beside Beard, whose dead eyes stared sightlessly—his arm stretched out, glyphward soaking up his blood.

Kaladin slumped to his knees. His Stormlight seemed to frighten off the enemies; everyone stayed away from him. Syl spun around him, begging for him to listen, but he couldn’t hear her.

The king … he thought, numb. Get … get to Elhokar …

 

 

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

And that is the point. This is not about accepting losses and failure. This is about a failure to know whom to protect (or fight).
Kaladin saw battles as ethically justified. He was wrong. Obviously people who just fight to escape slavery don't do wrong. If you go by pure ethics Kaladin should switch sides and defend the Parshendi.
This is not about letting die. This is about duty demanding actively killing the innocent. People who just fight to save their children from slavery. Us vs. them. To accept that you are still bound by honor to fight for your side even thouigh you are the monsters.

And this may be where we disagree most, because to empirically state that one code of ethics is justified and another is not is inherently wrong. By pure ethics, who was at fault? Was it the former slaves who were ransacking and terrorizing the innocent inhabitants of Kholinar? Who had laid siege to it for months? Was it the men on the wall, who only tried to defend their homes from an invading force? Was it the Queen's Guard, corrupted by otherworldly powers so much that they couldn't recognize their own King? There is no clear-cut answer here with regards to ethics. Every battle was ethically justified--because there is no empirical ethical standard by which to judge (one of the defining differences between Windrunners and Skybreakers, I believe).

Because of this, Kaladin could not act. He could not pick a side because he affiliated and understood all sides. There's a quote from Ender's Game that always comes to my mind when describing this scene, and it's how Ender describes his ability to destroy his opponents. Ender says that he destroys his opponent because he understands and loves them, and because of that he knows how to keep them from every fighting him again. Kaladin's problem here is similar to Ender's statement, but where the two differentiate is that Kaladin as of yet lacks the will to see his own goal through no matter the cost--he doesn't have the fortitude to hurt someone he understands and loves.

Further, "people who just fight to save their children from slavery" also applies to both sides here. This is one of the great moral questions presented in Oathbringer, and the Stormlight Archive at large: do two wrongs make a right? Is returning a wrong done to you or your ancestors a justified action?

But regardless, that's also a tangent. This discussion isn't about the ethics or morality of the greater story--it's about Kaladin, and in this case, we can agree to disagree if that's what's necessary.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Alderant

[+Oltux72 he/him]

39 minutes ago, Alderant said:

And this may be where we disagree most, because to empirically state that one code of ethics is justified and another is not is inherently wrong. By pure ethics, who was at fault? Was it the former slaves who were ransacking and terrorizing the innocent inhabitants of Kholinar? Who had laid siege to it for months? Was it the men on the wall, who only tried to defend their homes from an invading force? Was it the Queen's Guard, corrupted by otherworldly powers so much that they couldn't recognize their own King? There is no clear-cut answer here with regards to ethics. Every battle was ethically justified

I do not disagree with anything of this.

39 minutes ago, Alderant said:

--because there is no empirical ethical standard by which to judge (one of the defining differences between Windrunners and Skybreakers, I believe).

I disagree with this. The Skybreakers know that no empirical standard (well no codified law at least) is inherently superior. They just don't care. They pick one. Nale is very clear on this.

The Windrunners are not about ethics. They are about honor. Which includes doing what is wrong, if you promised it, even if you know it is wrong.

39 minutes ago, Alderant said:

Because of this, Kaladin could not act. He could not pick a side because he affiliated and understood all sides.

Exactly. And it rendered him ineffective. But that is what the fourth ideal deals with.

39 minutes ago, Alderant said:

There's a quote from Ender's Game that always comes to my mind when describing this scene, and it's how Ender describes his ability to destroy his opponents. Ender says that he destroys his opponent because he understands and loves them, and because of that he knows how to keep them from every fighting him again. Kaladin's problem here is similar to Ender's statement, but where the two differentiate is that Kaladin as of yet lacks the will to see his own goal through no matter the cost--he doesn't have the fortitude to hurt someone he understands and loves.

I absolutely agree about Ender. Good example. But a Windrunner of higher rank is essentially a military officer. He doesn't set goals. He executes them. That is more than a semantic difference. Because the Windrunners are in the end a military force. A military force is supposed to follow legal orders.

39 minutes ago, Alderant said:

Further, "people who just fight to save their children from slavery" also applies to both sides here. This is one of the great moral questions presented in Oathbringer, and the Stormlight Archive at large: do two wrongs make a right? Is returning a wrong done to you or your ancestors a justified action?

But regardless, that's also a tangent. This discussion isn't about the ethics or morality of the greater story--it's about Kaladin, and in this case, we can agree to disagree if that's what's necessary.

Partially. The basic idea behind the fourth ideal is shared among all Windrunners. We can discuss why Kaladin has a problem with it. That far we are talking about Kaladin. We are also talking about what the fourth ideal is. In that regard we are no longer talking about Kaladin.

As I said the Windrunners are a military force. They were on Honor's side. Military forces are not law enforcement. Their actions are not to be justified by ethics. They fight for their side because it is their side, whether it is right or not. Hence this is what I think the fourth ideal is about: Doing your duties even if ethics demand the opposite.

[Alderant she/her]

10 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

The Skybreakers know that no empirical standard (well no codified law at least) is inherently superior. They just don't care. They pick one. Nale is very clear on this.

By picking one, they make the ethical or legal standard they choose the empirical standard. For Nale's case, it's that the Parshmen are in the right and humanity is in the wrong--therefore, it is the Parshmen's laws that are absolute. To Nale's ethical code, Kaladin should have switched sides, but Kaladin doesn't follow Nale's ethical code (and yes, Nale is specific about this because it is his code, and he said as much to Szeth when Szeth suggested binding himself to Dalinar).

But when you're talking about ethics (you brought up ethics, mind), you can't decisively say that one code is better than another, which is the point I was opposing--Kaladin's ethics shouldn't have demanded he switch sides, because to him each side was right. To Kaladin, each faction was in the right from their own vantage point--none of them deserved to die, simply because they were "the enemy". Whether or not Kaladin's view is true is debatable.

16 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

I absolutely agree about Ender. Good example. But a Windrunner of higher rank is essentially a military officer. He doesn't set goals. He executes them. That is more than a semantic difference. Because the Windrunners are in the end a military force. A military force is supposed to follow legal orders.

Windrunners aren't inherently a military force any more than any other Order of the KR. Kaladin's Windrunners are a military force, yes, and Kaladin is the "general" over them, but there are a plethora of examples throughout history where military forces follow a cause or a goal, even in spite of legality. The point here isn't that Kaladin makes the goals--that wasn't what I was saying. It's that Kaladin lacked the will to see the goal (as set by Dalinar and Elhokar) through.

26 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Exactly. And it rendered him ineffective. But that is what the fourth ideal deals with.

Which was my exact point. The fourth oath has to do with being willing to fight even someone you love to achieve your goals--whether they're set by you or by your King, you made an oath to see something through and you follow through, even when it hurts you to do so.

19 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

As I said the Windrunners are a military force. They were on Honor's side. Military forces are not law enforcement. Their actions are not to be justified by ethics. They fight for their side because it is their side, whether it is right or not. Hence this is what I think the fourth ideal is about: Doing your duties even if ethics demand the opposite.

And this paragraph is where I again think we are debating semantics, but saying the same thing. Because I agree with you--a military force (and a leader especially) must be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their side's goals. They can't sit and debate about whether the opposite side is in the right or is justified. The debate here isn't acting against what ethics demands--but rather that they have to be willing to make necessary sacrifices in the pursuit of those goals, even if those sacrifices are those people close to them, if the sacrifice means the difference between victory and failure. This isn't a lesser of two evils scenario or even a "sacrificing the few to save the many" scenario. It is being willing to do whatever you have to to protect those you've sworn to protect. If that means you have to fight someone you love because they've gone off the deep end, then so be it. And this is where Kaladin failed. He failed to protect Elhokar because he couldn't hurt those he loved.

To quote another pop-culture example (spoilers for Mass Effect 1):

Spoiler

In Mass Effect 1, the player has to make a choice to leave one of their party members behind to blow up a facility, because the ramifications of not doing so have potentially disastrous consequence. Kaladin would have difficulty making this choice, because it means that one of the people he loves has to die to see the objective through.

What we are talking about (you and I), I think, isn't the ethics of what he has to do, but rather whether or not he has the will to do what's necessary. I don't think you and I are disagreeing as much as it might seem. But Windrunners are not a "national" entity, they have their own goals and beliefs and things to follow, and those oaths mean something slightly differently to every Windrunner--take Teft vs. Kaladin, for example.

I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right.

Versus

I will protect those I hate. Even if the one I hate most is myself.

Both of these oaths at their core embody the concept of "protecting those I hate". But one is "as long as it's right" and the other is "even if that means I have to protect myself." So like I said, I think the fourth is something along the lines of "I will protect, even if that means those I love are hurt." It's an extension of and build-on of the previous oaths, as I laid out in the original post.

Am I getting any clearer, or am I just muddying the waters further?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

11 hours ago, Alderant said:

By picking one, they make the ethical or legal standard they choose the empirical standard. For Nale's case, it's that the Parshmen are in the right and humanity is in the wrong--therefore, it is the Parshmen's laws that are absolute. To Nale's ethical code, Kaladin should have switched sides, but Kaladin doesn't follow Nale's ethical code (and yes, Nale is specific about this because it is his code, and he said as much to Szeth when Szeth suggested binding himself to Dalinar).

Indeed.

11 hours ago, Alderant said:

But when you're talking about ethics (you brought up ethics, mind), you can't decisively say that one code is better than another, which is the point I was opposing--Kaladin's ethics shouldn't have demanded he switch sides, because to him each side was right. To Kaladin, each faction was in the right from their own vantage point--none of them deserved to die, simply because they were "the enemy". Whether or not Kaladin's view is true is debatable.

Yes. I am afraid ethics is necessary to bring up, as the oaths are partially ethical (most for the Skybreakers).
It seems to me that up to now Kaladin convinced himself that the other side was the enemy because they deserved to die. And not that they deserved to die because they were the enemy. And I think the direction of causation is important here.
Note that I am not saying that he was right. In fact he discovered that he was wrong. Just that he used to think so.

11 hours ago, Alderant said:

And this paragraph is where I again think we are debating semantics, but saying the same thing. Because I agree with you--a military force (and a leader especially) must be willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their side's goals.

Right. And the oaths of the Windrunners are designed to remove obstacles, in increasing order of difficulty (to a spren close to Honor)

2nd - cowardice
3rd - personal relationship to the mission

We know that the 4th ideal (by implication also the 5th) are about whom not to protect. Hence we need to think about what could stop a warrior.

11 hours ago, Alderant said:

They can't sit and debate about whether the opposite side is in the right or is justified. The debate here isn't acting against what ethics demands--but rather that they have to be willing to make necessary sacrifices in the pursuit of those goals, even if those sacrifices are those people close to them, if the sacrifice means the difference between victory and failure.

And here I think we disagree. Or rather you are right, but I think you have found what the 5th oath is about.

11 hours ago, Alderant said:

I will protect those I hate. Even if the one I hate most is myself.

Both of these oaths at their core embody the concept of "protecting those I hate". But one is "as long as it's right" and the other is "even if that means I have to protect myself." So like I said, I think the fourth is something along the lines of "I will protect, even if that means those I love are hurt." It's an extension of and build-on of the previous oaths, as I laid out in the original post.

The thing is, why would he love the Queen's Guard, for example? He had never ever seen them and they served a queen who opprosed and killed people like him and his family.

Quote

In that moment, Kaladin lost something precious. He’d always been able to trick himself into seeing a battle as us against them. Protect those you love. Kill everyone else. But … but they didn’t deserve death.

None of them did.

He talked about deserving death. Not about loving everybody. Because he didn't. He loved some of the people fighting each other. That left him in a conundrum. And it made him think. But that is the trigger and only the trigger. It destroyed an illusion. After that he saw a truth he could not handle and it made him stop fighting.

And when he saw the truth his qualms were ethical. Let me give an example:

A group of rangers is hiding observing the enemy. A couple of young lovers in search of a secluded place stumbles upon them. Do you slit their throats to silence them?
What would stop you is not love. You have never seen them before. It would be pity and on a higher level ethics. They do not deserve to die. You love your comrades. Following love would mean killing them.

As opposed to another example:

You are commanding a retreat and pass a narrow gap in a valley. You order a small section of your men to hold that place for as long as possible so that the rest can get away.

I would say that Kaladin faced the former example, not the latter. And they are distinct situations.

11 hours ago, Alderant said:

Am I getting any clearer, or am I just muddying the waters further?

No I think I get you, and I am sorry for being unclear.

[Sedside she/her]

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

A group of rangers is hiding observing the enemy. A couple of young lovers in search of a secluded place stumbles upon them. Do you slit their throats to silence them?
What would stop you is not love. You have never seen them before. It would be pity and on a higher level ethics. They do not deserve to die. You love your comrades. Following love would mean killing them.

As opposed to another example:

You are commanding a retreat and pass a narrow gap in a valley. You order a small section of your men to hold that place for as long as possible so that the rest can get away.

I would say that Kaladin faced the former example, not the latter. And they are distinct situations.

I don't agree with you here. Killing innocent people without straight life threat from them is somewhat Amaramy. Or Taravangiany. It's not their fault they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. If your scouting mission is so bad at picking observation place and observing surroundings that they could get in such situation, two young lovers definitely shouldn't pay such a cruel price for your mistakes. This is in my opinion straight death before life thing.

The other thing I have to note also is that you are focusing on the Kholinar Palace battle, though the point, where Kaladin couldn't say the words was sitting above wounded Adolin and remembering his deceased friends. It is exactly the latter example of yours.

All right, my final wording for the 4th Ideal is the following, just for the history:

"I will let (some) people die as long as it's right, even if I love them".

Edited February 7, 2019 by Sedside

[+Oltux72 he/him]

Just now, Sedside said:

I don't agree with you here. Killing innocent people without straight life threat from them is somewhat Amaramy. Or Taravangiany.

Yes, it is. I need to remind you that Honor is Honor, not Justice. Honor would rather die than break an Oath. Slaughtering the innocent. That, however, is within the pale.
The Sons of Honor were not totally outside the realm of the reasonable.

Just now, Sedside said:

It's not their fault they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. If your scouting mission is so bad at picking observation place and observing surroundings that they could get in such situation, two young lovers definitely shouldn't pay such a cruel price for your mistakes. This is in my opinion straight death before life thing.

Honor is doing what you said you'd do. That includes making good on threats, like executing hostages, and loyalty at all cost.

Just now, Sedside said:

The other thing I have to note also is that you are focusing on the Kholinar Palace battle, though the point, where Kaladin couldn't say the words was sitting above wounded Adolin and remembering his deceased friends. It is exactly the latter example of yours.

Yes, because it started at the palace.

 

[Sedside she/her]

3 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes, it is. I need to remind you that Honor is Honor, not Justice. Honor would rather die than break an Oath. Slaughtering the innocent. That, however, is within the pale.
The Sons of Honor were not totally outside the realm of the reasonable.

Honor is doing what you said you'd do. That includes making good on threats, like executing hostages, and loyalty at all cost.

Oh, we have a big difference in understanding Honor, I guess. I thought, it was about doing what's right and honorable. Doing exactly what you said for me looks much more like Skybreakers, following the letter of the law. Slaughtering the innocent for someone who is meant to protect and lead? I really hope this is not the case.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

17 minutes ago, Sedside said:

Oh, we have a big difference in understanding Honor, I guess. I thought, it was about doing what's right and honorable. Doing exactly what you said for me looks much more like Skybreakers, following the letter of the law. Slaughtering the innocent for someone who is meant to protect and lead? I really hope this is not the case.

The Skybreakers may have a crazy leader. But he is a Herald and the spren still accept their oaths. Their attitude is unlikely to come from Cultivation. Why would it be surprising if the only surviving order reflected the original state most closely?
Honor built his Oathpact on thousands of years of torture, just because they had agreed, once, before they truly knew what they would face. Honor is honest. He is not merciful or benevolent. Note that he did nothing for the people of Roshar between Desolations. When he needed them to fight, then the Heralds would return. In between he owed them nothing, so nothing they got.

[Shardbearer he/him]

I believe the 4th and probably 5th Ideals will play into two themes that have been playing out all through Kaladin's life, even back into the flashbacks.

First is the idea of knowing when to care and when to let go. And the other is over the question of whether you can kill to protect.

In the battle at Kholinar, Kaladin froze because he saw different groups fighting and killing each other to "protect" (or secure/advance) something they believed in. I think Kaladin will need to accept that he might have to fight people, even people he cares about, if they are fighting for something that brings them into opposition with him.

Later, right as he's about to say the 4th Ideal, his struggle isn't so much about people fighting each other. He's remembering times he failed to protect people. He can't let go of those deaths. He can't let go of the idea that he can't fail Dalinar, but also can't protect him. That's when he admits he can't say the Words.

So I think that the 4th Ideal will be something like "I will forgive myself for those I couldn't protect. I will let go of the responsibility to save those who are beyond my help."