Gavilar and the Sons of Honor

[Kon-Tiki he/him]

Alright, yon Shardlings, maybe you can help me make sense of something that's been bothering me for years and particularly this past month or so since I re-read SLA last. You'll have to bear with me through what will certainly be a large wall of text as I present the facts as I see them, the conclusions I've drawn, and some tangential speculation (cause this is my thread dammit and I'll speculate if I want).

 

If reading the Stormlight Archive has taught me anything about Brandon's writing, its that to find where the big secrets are you should look at what he writes around. Look at the elephant in the room. And here in the first half of the series I don't think there's a bigger elephant in the room than Gavilar and, by extension, the Sons of Honor. For a man who we spent two books fighting a war over (20% of the series) we know remarkably little about him. He was certainly a man of secrets. Of all the secret societies we're aware of on Roshar, the Sons of Honor are the most secret to us, the readers. Gavilar gets very little screen time and much of that is early in the timeline of OB flashbacks.

So what do we know about Gavilar Kholin, beyond the blindingly obvious (king of Alethkar, Navani's first husband, was assassinated by Szeth, etc)? I see Gavilar's life as taking place in 3 acts.

Very early on (probably sometime before the first Dalinar flashback), Gavilar graduated from tribal warlord to aspirant King. Something, possibly the birth of Jasnah, inspired Gavilar to look beyond his own generational aspirations toward founding an Alethkar that would maintain continuity for generations. He did not want to Alexander the Great his way through life, choosing instead to Wilhelm I of Germany and organize and consolidate power in Alethkar, ostensibly for the first time in generations. I'm not sure how I feel about going around conquering your neighbors in the simple name of unity but as far as pre-Industrial warlords go Gavilar seems fairly forward-thinking, even if some of his philosophizing about dynasty and stability is after-the-fact justification for actions taken earlier in life.

After uniting the Alethi under the Kholin banner, Gavilar spends much of the rest of his life attempting to politic his way into legitimacy, both among the highprinces and internationally. From here on out Gavilar effectively abandons the battlefield, choosing instead to tactically deploy the Blackthorn to prove a point when simple words fail. Judging purely by results, he is not very good at this, though we only really have one result to go by. When Tanalan and the Rift go into rebellion, Gavilar stalls them purely with his own politics, then later by deploying Dalinar to the Vedan and Herdazian borders to prove a point, then by using Dalinar to smash the rebellion outright. Not very politic. But the attempt was made and Gavilar was at least able to divorce himself from his younger warlord persona by shoving that onto Dalinar while adopting the airs of a politician himself.

Somewhere in this time is where the third act of Gavilar's life begins, however, and where things relating to Gavilar start to get a little hazy.

Quote

The day Adolin is born, Gavilar says this about Dalinar's bloodlust: "You've merely been trying to restrain yourself -- you've tried casting out the bloodthirst, but you haven't replaced it with anything else. Go do what I command, then return and we can discuss further."

Then later by spanreed, as he's preparing to redeploy Dalinar to Rathelas, he says this: "I would like to speak in person at length about [my kingship and your generalship over the last few years] -- indeed, I have important revelations of my own that I would like to share. It would be best if we could meet in person... Unfortunately, our meeting will have to wait a few storms longer."

We know at some point, almost certainly after the unification of Alethkar, that three things happen concerning Gavilar: he joins the Sons of Honor, he starts receiving the Bondsmith visions, and he starts reading The [In-Universe] Way of Kings (in case it becomes relevant, I will hereafter refer to the in-universe Way of Kings by full name and to the book on my desk as TWoK). We do not know the order of occurrences here. We also do not know how many of the visions Gavilar received or if he actually swore any Bondsmith oaths, unless there's some WoB I'm unaware of. However, given the quotes above and their contexts, as well as clues given to us about how Gavilar went "strange" later in life, I suspect that he must have joined the Sons of Honor before he started receiving his visions. The first quote implies some purpose found, and the Sons of Honor would supply that while newly received visions would probably provide more questions than clarity. As to the second quote, I believe the visions qualify as "revelations" to be shared.

It is worth noting that Gavilar was a lot less cagey than Dalinar about his visions. Mr T tells us directly that he'd been told of Gavilar's visions. And Amaram's response to the leaked visions at the feast in WoR... you know what I'm just gonna quote it.

Quote

"What do you think, Amaram?" Dalinar said. "Of the things that are being said of me."

Amaram met his eyes. "They are obviously visions from the Almighty himself, given to us in a time of great need. I wish I had known their contents earlier. They give me great confidence in my position, and in your appointment as a prophet of the Almighty."

"A dead god can have no prophets."

"Dead... No, Dalinar! You obviously misinterpret that comment from you visions. He speaks of being dead in the minds of men, that they no longer listen to his commands. God cannot die."

Amaram speaks with the air of having read the vision in question, despite it being one of many released just prior to the conversation and not actually being able to read the women's script. I realize that he could have had it read to him, but he's still really quick off the cuff with his spicy take on "And now I am dead, Odium has killed me. I am sorry." Almost as if he'd already known and parsed what Tanavast had said. This, combined with the fact that he conveniently shows up in the warcamps shortly after Dalinar having fits during the highstorms becomes public knowledge, leads me to believe that he had knowledge of Gavilar's visions and their contents. If Amaram knew their contents, it is likely that the body of the Sons of Honor knew their contents as well. Indeed it is possible that Mr T had associations with these guys prior to visiting Cultivation/Nightwatcher and that's how he knows about it too, but this is baseless speculation.

The one person who does not know anything about these visions who, it seems to me, definitely should have is Navani. Failing to confide in Jasnah is understandable, to a degree. But is Gavilar really spending every highstorm apart from Navani after this starts happening? Even if there's not something more sinister going on, this illuminates exactly how rough their marriage was by this point. And if, as I believe, Gavilar's visions started before sending Dalinar to Rathelas, then he was ditching Navani every highstorm for at least five years before his death. Not that there are that many visions, necessarily, but my point is more that this was not attached to some shortly pre-death strangeness associated with Gavilar. His and Navani's issues, whatever they were, were not new when he died. This entire paragraph presupposes that Navani is not concealing information about Gavilar from Dalinar, and indeed her mention of Gavilar's black spheres seem to indicate that she's being up front with Dalinar.

At this point I will move off Gavilar directly and address the Sons of Honor more directly. As I said in the opening of this (already horrendously long) post, we know next to nothing about the Sons of Honor. Mraize tells Shallan that Gavilar was a "driving force" in the expansion of the Sons of Honor. We know that Amaram was recruited by Gavilar into the Sons of Honor. I believe that Gavilar intended to recruit Dalinar especially after he started distinguishing himself on the Alethi frontier, but it was impractical while Dalinar was on the front lines and Dalinar became extraordinarily unreliable after Rathelas. I further believe that Amaram's presence on the Shattered Plains was specifically to recruit Dalinar, especially since his fits in the highstorms became public knowledge.

As to the Sons of Honor's relationship with the other secret societies, I believe both the Skybreakers and the Ghostbloods opposed the Sons of Honor's attempts to usher in a Desolation. Obviously the Skybreakers tried to kill Amaram, and Gavilar expected assassins from the Ghostbloods. Incidentally, I think this is what set Jasnah at odds with the Ghostbloods: the Ghostbloods were trying to prevent Gavilar from starting a Desolation, and Jasnah was counter-assassinating their assassins, making a target (and an enemy) of herself. I think in a way, the Diagram is kind of an offshoot of the Sons of Honor. Gavilar and Mr T were friends, and Gavilar made Mr T aware at some point of his visions, but Mr T ended up taking a different path than the the Sons of Honor.

The only other confirmed member is Restares, who on the one hand Amaram writes to as a superior in his letter to him at the end of WoR, but on the other Gavilar fairly easily suspects as being behind his own assassination after Thaidakar is eliminated as a suspect. Beyond these two tidbits we really know nothing about Restares.

I also believe that Aesudan was a member of the Sons of Honor. My evidence is shaky but not nonexistent. My first supporting piece is the fact that Gavilar desperately wanted to marry Jasnah off to Amaram, and I suspect he was following the same behavioral pattern that Jasnah shows in trying to get as many Knights Radiant tied into House Kholin as possible. Elhokar says that Jasnah opposed his marriage to Aesudan, but there appears to be no opposition to it from Gavilar's corner. The second supporting piece are Aesudan's own words (of which we have precious few):

Quote

"Oh Elhokar," the queen was saying. "You were ever so oblivious. Your father had grand plans, but you... all you ever wanted was to sit in his shadow. It was for the best that you went off to play war."

"So you could stay here and... and do this?" Elhokar said, waving towards the palace.

"I continued your father's work! I found the secret, Elhokar. Spren, ancient spren. You can bond with them!"

"Bond..." Elhokar's mouth worked, as if he couldn't understand the very word he spoke.

"Have you seen my Radiants?" Aesudan asked. She grinned. "The Queen's Guard? I have done what your father could not. Oh, he found one of the ancient spren, but he could never discover how to bond it. But I, I, have solved the riddle."

Not only is Aesudan clearly aware of what Gavilar was up to in his later days than us readers are, she's gone totally next level with it. If it is true that Gavilar was attempting to bond an Unmade, and bear in mind here that I take everything Aesudan tells us with a pinch of copper, then this to me is strong evidence that Gavilar never progressed beyond proto-Radiance.

And this leads into the problem what's been bothering me all this time. Mraize tells us that the entire mission of the Sons of Honor was to ignite a Desolation. Gavilar's words to Eshonai on the night of his assassination corroborate this, only extending that Gavilar and the Sons of Honor knew exactly what they were about. And again, if Gavilar really was trying to bond an Unmade, then he really really knew what he was about.

Here's the thing: I get not understanding what Tanavast's visions were trying to show. They're fairly arcane and for a long time Dalinar takes them in the context of the life he's living. Dalinar spends two whole books thinking that he's being charged to unite the Alethi against the Parshendi, when in reality the scope is so much larger. He's supposed to unite the world against the void. This is an understandable misunderstanding. Its a mistake of scale, not of intent.

But how in Damnation does Gavilar talk himself into thinking these same visions mean that he should take an active hand in kickstarting the Desolation? For the purpose of bringing back the Heralds and strengthening the Vorin Church? This is a massive gamble based on layers of misunderstanding. Firstly, the visions themselves are incompatible with modern Vorinism, and not just the part about Honor being dead. Secondly, like Nale and Ishar, they seem to be putting the cart before the horse in terms of how a Desolation starts based on a wild misunderstanding of the Oathpact. Nale and Ishar seem to think that the return of the Knights Radiant are somehow causal to the Desolation instead of being responsive to it, and the Sons of Honor seem to think that they can shepherd in a Desolation and that the Heralds and Knights Radiant will return, rather than a Desolation starting as a result of a weakening or breaking of the Oathpact. But regardless of what they thought they knew, if your conclusion is "yes let's start a Desolation" it seems pretty apparent to me that your reasoning has strayed somewhere.

So, am I missing something somewhere that we know already? From what information we've been presented so far in the text, Gavilar's motives make less than no sense to me. Causing an event known to cause 90% extinction and risking 100% extinction in the name of Alethi and Vorin unity is not the act of a sane group of people. In fact, if you take the phrase "voidbringer" at face value, that is, someone who brings the void, then Gavilar and the Sons of Honor are by definition Voidbringers. Sure, Amaram goes full Voidbringer at Theylan Field, but on the face of things as we have it he's been a voidbringer for the better part of a decade by the time Theylan Field rolls around. This is what he was working towards. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.

[Dalakaar he/him]

Double-post party!

[Eris she/her]

Maybe... like Nale.... wants to return the land to the Singers.... then wanted to or thought he could dominate them...... Odium plays for both sides. I wouldn't be shocked if Gavilar thought he was protecting his family if he caused a peaceful desolation. 

[+Invocation]

Quote

Ted Herman (paraphrased)

Has Dalinar been on the Bondsmith path for a long time? How about Gavilar?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes to both.

Brandon said that Gavilar had been on the Bondsmith path for longer than Dalinar has been.

source

If Gavilar managed to swear an Oath, which I doubt, because the Stormfather said no one had bonded him in a long time, then he would have probably made it to where Dalinar is now.

Quote

Questioner

The visions Dalinar gets in WoK always struck me as odd - you don't just look at the past, you are able to act within this experience. Now we know that Gavilar was also on the way to being a Bondsmith - was he acting in a different way? Were the visions only basically the same but different in the end depending on the personal reactions? Is this something like a test?

Brandon Sanderson

He did see the same visions. They were the same thing. But... I will say that his reaction to them were very different from Dalinar's reactions to them. Anyway it was difficult for the Stormfather without a bond to determine/to tell the difference between very easily. When Spren are bonded, they gain a lot more ability to understand the world around then, so you'll find out soon more stuff about this in the third book.

source

As to how he interpreted the visions as needing to restart the Desolation cycle, Gavilar...had an odd thought process. He tried to be too subtle with it, searching for a meaning that wasn't there and overlooking what the purpose was, and with all of the visions focusing around the Desolations and their effects, he thought that meant he needed to prepare to not have everything destroyed by forcing a Desolation along because the humans never started (that the visions would have let him know about), and thus were always on the offbeat from the very beginning. He wanted to reverse that and perhaps end it forever with an unequivocal victory for his side.

[Kon-Tiki he/him]

31 minutes ago, Invocation said:

As to how he interpreted the visions as needing to restart the Desolation cycle, Gavilar...had an odd thought process. He tried to be too subtle with it, searching for a meaning that wasn't there and overlooking what the purpose was, and with all of the visions focusing around the Desolations and their effects, he thought that meant he needed to prepare to not have everything destroyed by forcing a Desolation along because the humans never started (that the visions would have let him know about), and thus were always on the offbeat from the very beginning. He wanted to reverse that and perhaps end it forever with an unequivocal victory for his side.

So he played 9 dimensional chess against himself and lost?

[+Invocation]

Just now, Kon-Tiki said:

So he played 9 dimensional chess against himself and lost?

Yeah, that pretty much sums that up nicely.

[Use the Falchion]

 

3 hours ago, Kon-Tiki said:

Alright, yon Shardlings, maybe you can help me make sense of something that's been bothering me for years and particularly this past month or so since I re-read SLA last. You'll have to bear with me through what will certainly be a large wall of text as I present the facts as I see them, the conclusions I've drawn, and some tangential speculation (cause this is my thread dammit and I'll speculate if I want).

 

If reading the Stormlight Archive has taught me anything about Brandon's writing, its that to find where the big secrets are you should look at what he writes around. Look at the elephant in the room. And here in the first half of the series I don't think there's a bigger elephant in the room than Gavilar and, by extension, the Sons of Honor. For a man who we spent two books fighting a war over (20% of the series) we know remarkably little about him. He was certainly a man of secrets. Of all the secret societies we're aware of on Roshar, the Sons of Honor are the most secret to us, the readers. Gavilar gets very little screen time and much of that is early in the timeline of OB flashbacks.

So what do we know about Gavilar Kholin, beyond the blindingly obvious (king of Alethkar, Navani's first husband, was assassinated by Szeth, etc)? I see Gavilar's life as taking place in 3 acts.

Very early on (probably sometime before the first Dalinar flashback), Gavilar graduated from tribal warlord to aspirant King. Something, possibly the birth of Jasnah, inspired Gavilar to look beyond his own generational aspirations toward founding an Alethkar that would maintain continuity for generations. He did not want to Alexander the Great his way through life, choosing instead to Wilhelm I of Germany and organize and consolidate power in Alethkar, ostensibly for the first time in generations. I'm not sure how I feel about going around conquering your neighbors in the simple name of unity but as far as pre-Industrial warlords go Gavilar seems fairly forward-thinking, even if some of his philosophizing about dynasty and stability is after-the-fact justification for actions taken earlier in life.

After uniting the Alethi under the Kholin banner, Gavilar spends much of the rest of his life attempting to politic his way into legitimacy, both among the highprinces and internationally. From here on out Gavilar effectively abandons the battlefield, choosing instead to tactically deploy the Blackthorn to prove a point when simple words fail. Judging purely by results, he is not very good at this, though we only really have one result to go by. When Tanalan and the Rift go into rebellion, Gavilar stalls them purely with his own politics, then later by deploying Dalinar to the Vedan and Herdazian borders to prove a point, then by using Dalinar to smash the rebellion outright. Not very politic. But the attempt was made and Gavilar was at least able to divorce himself from his younger warlord persona by shoving that onto Dalinar while adopting the airs of a politician himself.

Somewhere in this time is where the third act of Gavilar's life begins, however, and where things relating to Gavilar start to get a little hazy.

We know at some point, almost certainly after the unification of Alethkar, that three things happen concerning Gavilar: he joins the Sons of Honor, he starts receiving the Bondsmith visions, and he starts reading The [In-Universe] Way of Kings (in case it becomes relevant, I will hereafter refer to the in-universe Way of Kings by full name and to the book on my desk as TWoK). We do not know the order of occurrences here. We also do not know how many of the visions Gavilar received or if he actually swore any Bondsmith oaths, unless there's some WoB I'm unaware of. However, given the quotes above and their contexts, as well as clues given to us about how Gavilar went "strange" later in life, I suspect that he must have joined the Sons of Honor before he started receiving his visions. The first quote implies some purpose found, and the Sons of Honor would supply that while newly received visions would probably provide more questions than clarity. As to the second quote, I believe the visions qualify as "revelations" to be shared.

It is worth noting that Gavilar was a lot less cagey than Dalinar about his visions. Mr T tells us directly that he'd been told of Gavilar's visions. And Amaram's response to the leaked visions at the feast in WoR... you know what I'm just gonna quote it.

Amaram speaks with the air of having read the vision in question, despite it being one of many released just prior to the conversation and not actually being able to read the women's script. I realize that he could have had it read to him, but he's still really quick off the cuff with his spicy take on "And now I am dead, Odium has killed me. I am sorry." Almost as if he'd already known and parsed what Tanavast had said. This, combined with the fact that he conveniently shows up in the warcamps shortly after Dalinar having fits during the highstorms becomes public knowledge, leads me to believe that he had knowledge of Gavilar's visions and their contents. If Amaram knew their contents, it is likely that the body of the Sons of Honor knew their contents as well. Indeed it is possible that Mr T had associations with these guys prior to visiting Cultivation/Nightwatcher and that's how he knows about it too, but this is baseless speculation.

The one person who does not know anything about these visions who, it seems to me, definitely should have is Navani. Failing to confide in Jasnah is understandable, to a degree. But is Gavilar really spending every highstorm apart from Navani after this starts happening? Even if there's not something more sinister going on, this illuminates exactly how rough their marriage was by this point. And if, as I believe, Gavilar's visions started before sending Dalinar to Rathelas, then he was ditching Navani every highstorm for at least five years before his death. Not that there are that many visions, necessarily, but my point is more that this was not attached to some shortly pre-death strangeness associated with Gavilar. His and Navani's issues, whatever they were, were not new when he died. This entire paragraph presupposes that Navani is not concealing information about Gavilar from Dalinar, and indeed her mention of Gavilar's black spheres seem to indicate that she's being up front with Dalinar.

At this point I will move off Gavilar directly and address the Sons of Honor more directly. As I said in the opening of this (already horrendously long) post, we know next to nothing about the Sons of Honor. Mraize tells Shallan that Gavilar was a "driving force" in the expansion of the Sons of Honor. We know that Amaram was recruited by Gavilar into the Sons of Honor. I believe that Gavilar intended to recruit Dalinar especially after he started distinguishing himself on the Alethi frontier, but it was impractical while Dalinar was on the front lines and Dalinar became extraordinarily unreliable after Rathelas. I further believe that Amaram's presence on the Shattered Plains was specifically to recruit Dalinar, especially since his fits in the highstorms became public knowledge.

As to the Sons of Honor's relationship with the other secret societies, I believe both the Skybreakers and the Ghostbloods opposed the Sons of Honor's attempts to usher in a Desolation. Obviously the Skybreakers tried to kill Amaram, and Gavilar expected assassins from the Ghostbloods. Incidentally, I think this is what set Jasnah at odds with the Ghostbloods: the Ghostbloods were trying to prevent Gavilar from starting a Desolation, and Jasnah was counter-assassinating their assassins, making a target (and an enemy) of herself. I think in a way, the Diagram is kind of an offshoot of the Sons of Honor. Gavilar and Mr T were friends, and Gavilar made Mr T aware at some point of his visions, but Mr T ended up taking a different path than the the Sons of Honor.

The only other confirmed member is Restares, who on the one hand Amaram writes to as a superior in his letter to him at the end of WoR, but on the other Gavilar fairly easily suspects as being behind his own assassination after Thaidakar is eliminated as a suspect. Beyond these two tidbits we really know nothing about Restares.

I also believe that Aesudan was a member of the Sons of Honor. My evidence is shaky but not nonexistent. My first supporting piece is the fact that Gavilar desperately wanted to marry Jasnah off to Amaram, and I suspect he was following the same behavioral pattern that Jasnah shows in trying to get as many Knights Radiant tied into House Kholin as possible. Elhokar says that Jasnah opposed his marriage to Aesudan, but there appears to be no opposition to it from Gavilar's corner. The second supporting piece are Aesudan's own words (of which we have precious few):

Not only is Aesudan clearly aware of what Gavilar was up to in his later days than us readers are, she's gone totally next level with it. If it is true that Gavilar was attempting to bond an Unmade, and bear in mind here that I take everything Aesudan tells us with a pinch of copper, then this to me is strong evidence that Gavilar never progressed beyond proto-Radiance.

And this leads into the problem what's been bothering me all this time. Mraize tells us that the entire mission of the Sons of Honor was to ignite a Desolation. Gavilar's words to Eshonai on the night of his assassination corroborate this, only extending that Gavilar and the Sons of Honor knew exactly what they were about. And again, if Gavilar really was trying to bond an Unmade, then he really really knew what he was about.

Here's the thing: I get not understanding what Tanavast's visions were trying to show. They're fairly arcane and for a long time Dalinar takes them in the context of the life he's living. Dalinar spends two whole books thinking that he's being charged to unite the Alethi against the Parshendi, when in reality the scope is so much larger. He's supposed to unite the world against the void. This is an understandable misunderstanding. Its a mistake of scale, not of intent.

But how in Damnation does Gavilar talk himself into thinking these same visions mean that he should take an active hand in kickstarting the Desolation? For the purpose of bringing back the Heralds and strengthening the Vorin Church? This is a massive gamble based on layers of misunderstanding. Firstly, the visions themselves are incompatible with modern Vorinism, and not just the part about Honor being dead. Secondly, like Nale and Ishar, they seem to be putting the cart before the horse in terms of how a Desolation starts based on a wild misunderstanding of the Oathpact. Nale and Ishar seem to think that the return of the Knights Radiant are somehow causal to the Desolation instead of being responsive to it, and the Sons of Honor seem to think that they can shepherd in a Desolation and that the Heralds and Knights Radiant will return, rather than a Desolation starting as a result of a weakening or breaking of the Oathpact. But regardless of what they thought they knew, if your conclusion is "yes let's start a Desolation" it seems pretty apparent to me that your reasoning has strayed somewhere.

So, am I missing something somewhere that we know already? From what information we've been presented so far in the text, Gavilar's motives make less than no sense to me. Causing an event known to cause 90% extinction and risking 100% extinction in the name of Alethi and Vorin unity is not the act of a sane group of people. In fact, if you take the phrase "voidbringer" at face value, that is, someone who brings the void, then Gavilar and the Sons of Honor are by definition Voidbringers. Sure, Amaram goes full Voidbringer at Theylan Field, but on the face of things as we have it he's been a voidbringer for the better part of a decade by the time Theylan Field rolls around. This is what he was working towards. And I can't for the life of me figure out why.

Awesome theory! I'm totally on-board with the Jasnah-Ghostbloods "failure to communicate" thing (which in turn could lead to them ending their feud, or even scarier, Jasnah joining them). 

Maybe he didn't know that the Parshendi gods were bad?* How much did Galivar know about the Parshendi society before his assassination? And how much did he know about the Knights Radiant? If he knew the Parshendi gods were spren, and he needed to bond to a spren to become a Radiant, his actions make terrible, terrible sense. 

On the other hand, it could have simply been hubris. If the order is changed a little, I think it makes more sense:

Galivar, as he's uniting Alethkar, starts to receive visions about uniting the world and reviving the Knights Radiant. He wonders how to do that and ends up joining the Sons of Honor, as their plan coincides with what he is seemingly called to do (a desolation needs Heralds and Radiants to fight it). After all, the world needs to unite under a banner. What greater banner than religion (read: something that reaches farther than a single human could)? He starts to research the Radiants, which in turn leads him to The Way of Kings. 

*I'm doing most of this off of shady memory and speculation, as my major re-read won't happen until next year at the earliest.

[Kon-Tiki he/him]

8 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

Maybe he didn't know that the Parshendi gods were bad?* How much did Galivar know about the Parshendi society before his assassination? And how much did he know about the Knights Radiant? If he knew the Parshendi gods were spren, and he needed to bond to a spren to become a Radiant, his actions make terrible, terrible sense. 

On the other hand, it could have simply been hubris. If the order is changed a little, I think it makes more sense:

Galivar, as he's uniting Alethkar, starts to receive visions about uniting the world and reviving the Knights Radiant. He wonders how to do that and ends up joining the Sons of Honor, as their plan coincides with what he is seemingly called to do (a desolation needs Heralds and Radiants to fight it). After all, the world needs to unite under a banner. What greater banner than religion (read: something that reaches farther than a single human could)? He starts to research the Radiants, which in turn leads him to The Way of Kings. 

I'm not sure we can absolve Gavilar this way. Aesudan tells us he was trying to bond Unmade. Mraize tells us that he was actively attempting to start a Desolation, and while we can't necessarily trust Mraize's interpretation of an enemy organization's intentions, his interpretation is corroborated by Amaram's letter to Restares at the end of WoR. That's three distinct sources telling us that the Sons of Honor were trying to start a Desolation and one of them tells us Gavilar was on the same page. I made the flippant comment to @Invocation about 9 dimensional chess above, but I don't really believe that. The facts as I see them tell me that Gavilar, for whatever reason, was actively and knowingly on Team Void. I should have been more explicit about this I think. His motives for being on Team Void, as we have them so far, don't make a ton of sense to me. Aesudan, sure. She's a minor character who's characterized by her ambition, so her ending up with Yelig-nar and the other Unmade at Alethkar makes sense so far as we understand her character. Amaram, sure. Sadeas apparently has known his character for a long time and we all know what he did to Kaladin and how he dealt with it. We know what he was willing to do for a cause. He's a Destination Before Journey kind of a guy. Some people don't buy that he'd flip sides, but my contention is that the Sons of Honor has more or less always been on Team Void even if they didn't realize it. But Gavilar? We know that he was extremely devoutly Vorin -- Szeth characterizes him as maybe "too devout" -- but we've seen enough of the visions to know that what Gavilar was seeing does not match up with modern Vorinism's understanding of the past. It'd take some industrial grade self-deception to believe as Gavilar did and use the visions as justification for starting a Desolation to bring back the Heralds. And this, I guess, is the piece we're missing: why does he feel the need to engage in that kind of self-delusion? I imagine the reason is big, given how Brandon has tiptoed past it for three books now and likely will for at least one more. I think we'll get fully filled in on Gavilar in SLA5. Doesn't mean that this won't keep driving me crazy in the meantime

[Use the Falchion]

2 hours ago, Kon-Tiki said:

I'm not sure we can absolve Gavilar this way. Aesudan tells us he was trying to bond Unmade. Mraize tells us that he was actively attempting to start a Desolation, and while we can't necessarily trust Mraize's interpretation of an enemy organization's intentions, his interpretation is corroborated by Amaram's letter to Restares at the end of WoR. That's three distinct sources telling us that the Sons of Honor were trying to start a Desolation and one of them tells us Gavilar was on the same page. I made the flippant comment to @Invocation about 9 dimensional chess above, but I don't really believe that. The facts as I see them tell me that Gavilar, for whatever reason, was actively and knowingly on Team Void. I should have been more explicit about this I think. His motives for being on Team Void, as we have them so far, don't make a ton of sense to me. Aesudan, sure. She's a minor character who's characterized by her ambition, so her ending up with Yelig-nar and the other Unmade at Alethkar makes sense so far as we understand her character. Amaram, sure. Sadeas apparently has known his character for a long time and we all know what he did to Kaladin and how he dealt with it. We know what he was willing to do for a cause. He's a Destination Before Journey kind of a guy. Some people don't buy that he'd flip sides, but my contention is that the Sons of Honor has more or less always been on Team Void even if they didn't realize it. But Gavilar? We know that he was extremely devoutly Vorin -- Szeth characterizes him as maybe "too devout" -- but we've seen enough of the visions to know that what Gavilar was seeing does not match up with modern Vorinism's understanding of the past. It'd take some industrial grade self-deception to believe as Gavilar did and use the visions as justification for starting a Desolation to bring back the Heralds. And this, I guess, is the piece we're missing: why does he feel the need to engage in that kind of self-delusion? I imagine the reason is big, given how Brandon has tiptoed past it for three books now and likely will for at least one more. I think we'll get fully filled in on Gavilar in SLA5. Doesn't mean that this won't keep driving me crazy in the meantime

And here's where I disagree a little. I think with what we know it makes a kind of terrible sense. It's like doing the wrong thing for the right (or in this case stupid-but-understandable) reason. The voidbringers are coming back as told from the visions, right? And the visions Gavilar received didn't have a clear meaning other than "get ready" and "unite them". If even Dalinar wasn't so sure he could trust the visions until Navani helped translate them, why would Gavilar?

So Gavilar starts to receive visions he doesn't understand, and goes out to understand them, eventually finding the Sons of Honor. The visions say the Radiants (and maybe the Heralds? Again, my memory is fuzzy) need to come back, and the Sons of Honor want Vorin powers and the Heralds back. What brings them all together? A Desolation. So, like many villains in today's pop culture, Gavilar wants to use a potential world-ending threat to bring people together. Is it a good idea? NO. But it does make sense. Galivar's problem was most likely that he couldn't see why people would disagree with him. He knew they would, but he was so caught up in himself and his goal he didn't see the why.

As for matching up, a Desolation answers that too. The Heralds are all but deified in modern-day Vorinism. And they're supposed to come back with every Desolation. So you start receiving visions from a being who claims to be God warning you about the apocalypse (when the final one was thought over), you've got your faith stating something else. Dalinar goes the path of "is this me? Am I insane?" while Gavilar goes the path of "how can I reconcile these two differences?" and his path takes him to the Sons of Honor. After all, if the apocalypse is really coming, and you're having a crisis of faith (while trying to secure your own legacy), why not call back Jesus and get all the answers while uniting the world?

Also, quick Q about the Aesudan quote, which chapter is it from? Because from the quote above, it could be misconstrued as Gavilar knew that Radiants had to bond to ancient spren, but he didn't know which or how. Unless Aesudan said "Gavilar was trying to bond an unmade" she could have just as easily assumed that Unmade = High Spren/Bondable Spren. Aesudan's words lend to that too in a way; calling her guards Radiants, talking about bonding with spren. Gavilar's last words being about "The most important words a man can say," something he seeming to only focus on at the end of his life (hinting that he himself didn't really have the answer).

It feels like Galivar had all the pieces to the puzzle, but arranged them in a way that was ultimate detrimental. I don't think Gavilar was 100% Team Void. I don't think he could be, if he was really on the path of being a Bondsmith. I think it's a little more nuanced - and in turn far scarier - than that. 

[Kon-Tiki he/him]

3 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

Also, quick Q about the Aesudan quote, which chapter is it from?

Chapter 84. Its page 813 in my copy.

3 hours ago, Use the Falchion said:

It feels like Galivar had all the pieces to the puzzle, but arranged them in a way that was ultimate detrimental. I don't think Gavilar was 100% Team Void. I don't think he could be, if he was really on the path of being a Bondsmith. I think it's a little more nuanced - and in turn far scarier - than that. 

Gavilar had been receiving visions for years and all evidence shows that he did not swear any Ideals. Dalinar had been receiving visions for months before he cornered the Stormfather and swore his first two Ideals. Sure, Dalinar had the advantages of 1) being able to see other Radiants and get their advice on how this all was supposed to work, and 2) the Everstorm had just come and he was able to see first hand what was going on in a way Gavilar never could have. Despite that, I feel fairly confident in saying that what Gavilar was doing was likely preventative in him advancing out of proto-Radiant-ness and into an actual Radiant. I think your remarks about him acting like a pop culture supervillain is exactly what I'm trying to say. Any good villain thinks they're doing the right thing, but it often comes with some level of self-deception. I just think unifying Alethkar under Vorinism and killing 90% of them are not really the same thing unless you squint real hard, and that appears to be what Gavilar did

[mosaab]

My theory, Gavilar found ba-ado-mishram and they made a deal. He binds her to him and frees her, by freeing her he restores the minds of parshmen around Roshar and she gives them powers just like the false desolation. Powers not directly from odium. The peace treaty act as a base for equal cooperation. If one unmade can defect, why not two? I think the more sepiant unmade are coming to the realization that an Odium victory is not in their best interest, because it means they cease to exist.

Gavilar is not a vorin fanatic, you can observe this in the oathbringer prologue where he talks about the history of roshar, yes he talks about glory and Destiny but not in vorin terms, he even knows about the almighty dying & the heralds abandoning their duty. a knowledge that broke a devout like amaram but doesn't seem to bother Gavilar in the least. 

Gavilar got the visions, sought knowledge, discovered and joined the sons of honour and used them, he knew to much and didn't share with them becouse their goals didn't align, the same with aesudan and all the people he named as he was dying. 

Gavilar saw the big picture that we all have to  acknowledge that this isn't about humanity defeating the forces of evil (odium), this is about humans and singers coming together to defeat Odium. Shards dont hold ground, and neither do fused & unmade. Odium needs the singer to willingly join him, becouse if he can't that's game over. He can't win against a United Roshar with just several hundred fused and nine unmade. And...and...

sorry went on a tangent there.