Enough with the Moash thing

[Honorless he/him]

Somewhere after finishing WoR, I remember going online and seeing a thread on Reddit about creating a new thread called r/stormmoash. I was vaguely amused, I most certainly did not expect it to become what it has become today.

Stormlight has had some less than True Hero™ characters. This complexity has always been part of what made me love the series. Some characters, like Shallan and Adolin as well as Elhokar are quite notably polarizing. I would count Dalinar in that group too post-Oathbringer. Some are more reviled: Sadeas, Amaram and Moash.

To my surprise, opinion on Kaladin too seems to be quite divisive, mostly due to the existence of the previous characters. He is pointed out as being more traditionally heroic, in contrast to the other characters, on top of being depressing. He seems typically moral than the more complicated history of Dalinar and less fun to read or interact with than Adolin and Shallan. Some people have also taken issue with Kaladin's view of Lighteyes.

Dalinar: I feel already tired of explaining my views on him. There are two new threads where I have put forward my views on him "moral miscalculations of Mr Sanderson in Oathbringer" by Parallax and "Dalinar's Genocide" by Hakusho Slick.

Shallan and Adolin mostly come under heat because of their casual racism. Many seem to be thoroughly incensed by Adolin referring to Kaladin as "bridgeboy" as well as his comments on "the world changing" when "even darkeyes have access to Shardblade", the fact that he makes that comment about women having Shardblades also tends to draw frowns (although it is notable that he makes that comment in a positive manner, offering to teach Shallan how to properly wield a Shardblade)

One of the most quoted things for hating against Shallan is the same scene with Adolin, where he makes the comment mentioned above about Shallan's worry about seeming feminine while lugging about a Shardblade. She responds by thinking "thank you for comparing all women to peasants".... Oof. There is the infamous boots scene with Tyn where she bullies Kaladin into giving her his boots. Before that, once again with Tyn, they both try on something (I forget, eye drops? lens? I think it was the former) to darken their eye colour so they could move about freely. Shallan is very excited to shed lighteyes propriety. Then she suddenly gets really worried that there might exist something to make darkeyes seem lighteyes.

 

The point I'm trying to make by going on a spiel about these characters' various controversies is that these things are discussed. Negative opinions and accompanying evidence are examined, others' point of view seen as valid, arguments and counter-arguments are made, and so on.

I'm not saying Moash isn't discussed. I've seen the threads and topics. For example, the Vyre discussions.

I'm pointing that a disproportionately large amount of disliking Moash seems to have become popular simply due to trending.

Oh yes, what he did was not okay but we have characters like Sadeas, Amaram and Roshone right there beside him. Moash killed Elhokar at a pivotal moment. Elhokar did genuinely try to change and was close to swearing his Ideals. Moash succeeded where the others (except Roshone, RIP Tien) didn't, as Sadeas failed in his Battle of the Tower plot and Amaram failed to dispose of Kaladin.

But there are no threads or discussions simply dedicated to only hating on any of these other characters. I mean discussions like Shallan Davar disgust thread do exist but the Moash thing has gone out of control.

Moash has the aforementioned very famous hashtag on reddit, where people simply drop in to say that they hate him with almost the same frequency that they say "I am Stick".

There are discussions dedicated to simply hating on Moash. As well as various other such threads on who would kill Moash, etc. People casually drop "I hate Moash" or variations thereof, which get upvoted a lot. These comments often seem to be there for the sole purpose of getting upvotes. There has a become a cycle of *positivity* around the activity of dissing on this character.

Here's the meat of the matter though, the name Moash actually doesn't seem to generate as much hatred as Sadeas or Amaram. It creates amusement. He isn't hated nearly as much as he is associated with lighthearted online banter. People make a "dynamic entry" with a post about how they hate Moash, generally get positive feedback and that's it. This is especially popular on forum games. (I have to admit to having dropped Moash's name in a similar manner but I did it to gauge receptiveness to disagreements against popular opinion during one of my first posts on this site. I had just come from reddit, I wanted to see how people would react. With burns or actual arguments. Thanks to AonEne for providing the latter.) People seem to find hating Moash funny.

I'm genuinely curious (read: very worried) if someone will come and comment "I hate Moash, lol" or "this guy is #Moashdidnothingwrong" or just go "storm Moash"

If you feel strongly about it, try to keep your comments restricted to Moash's actions against Elhokar and Kaladin.

 

Edit 1: I forgot about the Shard's policy on cursewords. I think the real name of the reddit thread is obvious though

Edit 2: minor grammatical corrections

Edit 3: thank you for the upvotes, guys!

Edit 4: I explain my rationale for creating this topic here:

Edit 5: @AonEne's response to the same

 

Edited February 16, 2020 by Honorless

[Calderis he/him]

I agree. The Moash hate is... Weird. 

Everyone reacts so strongly to the Elhokar thing.. And I mean I get his motivations there, even if I disagree with them. They make sense in a very human way. 

What always get me with that is that At the end of WoR, no one cared much about Elhokar. Even in OB, his strides forward were motivated by bad reasons, and Hoid comments on it when talking to Shallan (before his death). He cares more about what people think of him as king then actually being a better man... But you've got to start somewhere and with time (and Truths) that probably would have led to a more genuine change. 

But Elhokar's transformation to everyone's favorite sob moment was intentional. It was a masterwork in Brandon's writing because he made everyone furious about Moash's "betrayal" in... Doing exactly what he has said he wanted to do... Against a character who's death wouldn't have bothered anyone a book before. Good work Brandon. 

Where I actually take issue with Moash is with his killing of Jezrien. While his motivations with Elhokar were flawed in basis and morality, with Jezrien he had no personal stake. He knew nothing about the man. He just stabbed where he was pointed. He's given up his autonomy to become a dog on a leash. 

All that said, if he were to snap out of it and want to change, I wouldn't reject that arc... I just dread the idea of a Vader moment in which he has a change of heart and dies saving everyone, because that feels cheap. 

Whatever happens, the "storm Moash" crowd is... Weird, and as long as it's just jokes, whatever... But in the events that people actually insult and verbally attack people for liking Moash that's intolerable. 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Calderis

[Aon Tia she/her]

I dislike/really actually hate Moash, yes because he killed Elhokar but i understand why. What really gets me, is that he kicked a little 3-4 year old kid in the stomach who was lying in his fathers lap, then killed his father and then he has the audacity to look at Kaladin and give him the bridge four salute!! oohhh.. too much. 

I always want to know what went through his head, when he saw Kaladin there before killing elhokar, did he not wonder if he can just go to kaladin and ask for forgiveness or understanding or something. 

And then he got a fancy sword and was told to kill "your God" and no questions asked he just did it! He is one scary mean angry depressed dude right now. He really believes that he has no way to come back now. Which would be very interesting to see where his story goes from here.

I hate Sadeas way more than either Amaram or Moash though, but it has been a whole book since he has been killed and amaram died only recently in OB but Moash on the other hand, is only getting more and more powerful. I think that is the reason for the Moash Hatred online. He is the only one left alive out of the big three. 

Edited October 14, 2019 by The traveller

[Quantus he/him]

I think the reason Moash gets so much more hate than others who are arguably as bad or worse is that Moash is more of a direct Foil of Kaladin.  Moash represents Kaladin's Road Not Taken, they both have very similar motivations, hangups and personal growth arcs.  But we are along for the Ride for Kaladin, specifically, so we are repeatedly faced with a dilemma and given Kaladin's internal conflict to understand why he chooses what he does, then we kept seeing Moash choose the opposite.  We are made to sympathize with one Choce and then given a character that always seems to choose the opposite.  All that to say I dont think Moash would get as much hate if he roles had been reversed and we'd been given his internal perspective throughout, or even if he had been his own story rather than so directly a Kaladin comparison.  

Edited October 14, 2019 by Quantus

[ND103]

Controversial opinion time, I actually respect (grudgingly) the character of Moash. In a way, even more than the character for whom he is a foil i.e. Kaladin. 

Personally, I'm an atheist, and one of the reasons for that is the fact that religion as I was exposed to it at a young age, focused heavily on morality, and on an objective morality that exists whether or not we are here to experience it. That doesn't sit right with me and if anyone's interested, DM me I'll explain my views. 

But given I don't believe in an objective good and bad, I can look at Moash's actions and say - yeah that's fair. He said he wanted to kill the king, he explained why. his reasons, at least in a society where certain types of murder are at best frowned upon, make sense. And then he killed the king. Well yeah. Good on him. Get him a pint on me lad!

Kal on the other hand. Says he wants a world where your eye colour doesn't matter. Proves himself loyal in ways that money (or shard blades) can't buy. And then gets thrown into jail cuz he's a dark eyes accusing a light eye. And upon being challenged by Dalinar for his actions says yeah ok I'll stay in jail cuz orders. That just makes me go - nope. This boy will be exactly the sort of guy that when faced with a choice between a world where eye colour doesn't matter but odium gets to win for a day or three, and a world where the human civilization can defeat odium so long as the eye colour dynamics stay exactly the same will end up saying yeah we'll fight that fight another day but you go down today Odium. 

And that is not my kinda hero. No sir. 

All of this is to say - these books have beautifully crafted a world in which the lines between heroes and villains is so subjective as to be divisive. And two people could agree on a certain 'hero' while disagreeing on other 'heroes'. The beauty is that we are forced to ask - is it so wrong that Moash did as he did. Or anyone else for that matter? And are we really applying a consistent standard for everyone or just making it up to what we want to see in the world. 
 

I guess that's the beauty and the price of writing such a genius story. We will all never agree on any individual aspect of it. 

[Borio Singaldi he/him]

People like to have a character to hate. Moash just happens to be the perfect scapegoat for many, and once it caught on, it just became trendy. The Moash hate probably looks worse than it is because people simply enjoy hating on a character. I wouldn't read too deeply into it, a lot of it seems to be a joke anyway. So long as no one is mean to each other because of this, I think it isn't something one should worry about too much. Moash hate is simply trendy, and people like to bandwagon on hating their scapegoat character.

However, harassing people who do like Moash is wrong and simply takes things too far. That is a no-no.

[Winds Alight she/her]

14 minutes ago, Firerust said:

People like to have a character to hate. Moash just happens to be the perfect scapegoat for many, and once it caught on, it just became trendy. The Moash hate probably looks worse than it is because people simply enjoy hating on a character. I wouldn't read too deeply into it, a lot of it seems to be a joke anyway. So long as no one is mean to each other because of this, I think it isn't something one should worry about too much. Moash hate is simply trendy, and people like to bandwagon on hating their scapegoat character.

However, harassing people who do like Moash is wrong and simply takes things too far. That is a no-no.

I absolutely agree with you here.

I somehow took all my negative emotions from OB out on Moash (after all, he caused the worst of them). If you make Kaladin sad, I WILL be angry at you!
I spend a lot of time in the SA fandom on Tumblr and yes, it's kinda funny of someone writes a lengthy post about how great everyone in SA is and hoe they love the character development and how layered everyone is and then end it with "except for Moash. Storm Moash".

Should Moash decide to allow some sense return to his mind and reflect on the bullcrem he's done I am willing to follow him on his way to redemption and back to B4, but for now, I'll gladly hate him.

[Ahriman he/him]

I've never paid much attention to other people's feelings on the matter, but I dislike Moash more than anyone else because he's just as whiny and self righteous as Kaladin without any of the redeeming qualities. My hope is for a good part of the series to consist of those two torturing each other.

[TheWadehart he/him]

Something that i always find weird about all this dislike of Moash, as well as Sadeas and Amaram, is that no one is acknowledging the million ton elephant in the room.  Odium.  The guy was having a huge influence on people.  Don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying that they have given up agency,  but no one seems to talk about the influence of being subjected to Nergaoul for years on end or of having a voice whispering in your head that "it wasn't your fault".  These guys are bastards, true, but were they pushed further into the darkside than otherwise they would have been?  Hell, it took the intervention of Cultivation herself to stop Dalinar from becoming Odium's champion.  Moash could have done better, true,  but keep in mind his choices were not completely made of his own free will.

Edited October 14, 2019 by TheWadehart
mistakes

[Winds Alight she/her]

13 minutes ago, TheWadehart said:

Something that i always find weird about all this dislike of Moash, as well as Sadeas and Amaram, is that no one is acknowledging the million ton elephant in the room.  Odium.  The guy was having a huge influence on people.  Don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying that they have given up agency,  but no one seems to talk about the influence of being subjected to Nergaoul for years on end or of having a voice whispering in your head that "it wasn't your fault".  These guys are bastards, true, but were they pushed further into the darkside than otherwise they would have been?  Hell, it took the intervention of Cultivation herself to stop Dalinar from becoming Odium's champion.  Moash could have done better, true,  but keep in mind his choices were not completely made of his own free will.

Well, this does not count as an excuse just as Nergaoul's influence over Dalinar doesn't count as an excuse for Rathalas.

[TheWadehart he/him]

12 minutes ago, Winds Alight said:

Well, this does not count as an excuse just as Nergaoul's influence over Dalinar doesn't count as an excuse for Rathalas.

That's not my point, though.  OK, yeah it does sound a teensy bit like i'm trying to excuse their behavior/actions.  .  I'm just trying to point out  that you have this god level being lining up his pawns and no one seems to acknowledge it.  Look at it this way.  Scadrial.  You have a 1 ton jerk walking down the street about to pass Mr. Bystander.  A Rioter steps out of the shadows, riots the jerks anger, who then turns that anger on Mr. Bystander.  Now how much fault do assign the jerk and how much the Rioter?  If you assigned more fault to the Rioter than to the jerk, then why not more fault to Odium?

Edited October 14, 2019 by TheWadehart
mistake

[+ILuvHats he/him]

Personally, I’m not too bothered by the #stormmoash trend. To be quite honest, when I first started seeing it, I was just glad that something, anything, was starting to replace “I am a stick” as the go-to meme. But yeah, I have to say I enjoy Moash as a character, and while I get the whole trend bashing on him, I don’t partake in it. His story in OB was a tragedy, with a moment of being deliciously hatable after killing Elhokar. Especially because I think Elhokar was on his way to becoming one of my favorite characters after pulling off the most ridiculous redemption arc ever. But even still, Moash’s actions were perfectly understandable considering his past! That’s proof of how well-crafted a character Moash is, and I hope he’ll keep getting the narrative attention he needs. Unlike Amaram .

 

[+Child of Hodor]

Moash is at maximum jerk levels when he kills Elhokar. He kicks a toddler out of the way, he jams Elhokar through the eye to make sure he's dead for good, he does the Bridge 4 salute to Kaladin right after. 

He was also a huge jerk in tWoK. 

I sympathize with him a bit and I find his chapters more dull than angering in OB. They are like Kaladin's opening chapters in tWoK, but with no Syl.  

I'm interested in seeing where it goes with Vyre, but I get the hate in general. Guy's a jerk.

Sounds like maybe people have taken it too far on here and made it personal in some cases. 

[Calderis he/him]

I swear I am the only person in existence who read the Elhokar scene and in no way interpreted him as kicking a baby. 

Quote

Moash pinned the king to the ground, shoving aside the weeping child prince with his foot. He placed his boot against Elhokar’s throat, holding him down, then pulled the spear out and stabbed Elhokar through the eye as well.

He pushed the kid out of the way with his foot. The entire point being that his focus was to kill Elhokar and not harm the kid. 

This has always seemed like one of those "let's make things worse in memory" moments to me. 

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

On 4/10/2019 at 8:17 PM, AonEne said:

Can we just stop making fun of people who like Moash? Regardless of our opinions on his character, we're Sharders just like all of you. I think you guys are weird for having such intense hatred for someone whose only fault was killing the person who he considered the murderer of his family. Kelsier did worse. Dalinar did worse. We don't blame either of them; their circumstances were unique to them, just like Moash's. Despite that, you don't see me asterisk-killing anyone who mentions a smoldering fury toward him or making memes about how much his haters suck. It just doesn't seem nice to me. You're entitled to your opinion, but SO ARE WE, and I detest the implication that we're lesser, monstrous, or deserve to die, among others I've seen tossed around. Expressing a dislike for a character, that's fine. But as far as it's gotten for this specific character? Out of hand. Unacceptable. I've tried to type more and mostly repeated myself, so I'll stop; but I wanted to make this clear. My thoughts about Moash matter just as much as all of yours. 

 

On 5/1/2019 at 8:00 PM, Ark1002 said:

 

On 5/1/2019 at 9:16 PM, AonEne said:

Okay, again, if you’d put Moash there, that's one thing, but people who like him? Thanks for saying I should get hit by a train, Ark, I really appreciate that. *sighs*

The above encapsulates my thoughts on the matter. Everyone’s opinions are valid, but it is never okay to be mean to someone else because of it - and there’s been a ton of memes and jokes about hating or killing people who don’t hate Moash. I think a lot of people overlook how bad it’s gotten. Maybe it’s just me, but being routinely insulted or people joking about obliterating me for my PERFECTLY FINE AND INOFFENSIVE opinions? Not. Okay. 

Most of the time this community is so nice, it always shocks me when they’re not. 

1 minute ago, Calderis said:

I swear I am the only person in existence who read the Elhokar scene and in no way interpreted him as kicking a baby. He pushed the kid out of the way with his foot. 

Same. At the worst, it was a hard push. It certainly wasn’t a kick, and he didn’t intend to hurt the kid, I’m sure. 

12 hours ago, Honorless said:

Thanks to AonEne for providing the latter. 

You’re welcome. I’m not much for in-depth discussions all the time, but every now and again I’ll do it. And I would never react with a condemnation of you, not unless what you said was genuinely rude to someone or a group. 

I’m not gonna get into my thoughts on the characters involved, I’m just here to bring some fury about the social stuff. Who knows, maybe I’m the only one who feels uncomfortable or attacked. But either way I am going to keep on making myself known. 

[Guest Edonidd]

Did you just say you're tired of people saying storm Moash, and then create a whole thread with a giant wall of text essentially daring people to say storm Moash?

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

1 minute ago, Edonidd said:

Did you just say you're tired of people saying storm Moash, and then create a whole thread with a giant wall of text essentially daring people to say storm Moash?

No, he didn’t. He made a thread to talk about how people are reacting to Moash. 

[Brightness Warrior she/her]

@AonEne, I don't hate those who condemn Moash. I don't agree, but I don't despise other opinionated people. May we have a calm, rationally-minded discussion about the ethics and logic of the matter?

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

3 minutes ago, Brightness Warrior said:

@AonEne, I don't hate those who condemn Moash. I don't agree, but I don't despise other opinionated people. May we have a calm, rationally-minded discussion about the ethics and logic of the matter?

The ethics and logic of what I talked about, or of Moash’s actions and character? 

[Rushu42 she/her]

I have to say, Moash was never one of my least favorite characters when I read the book. I mean, I was hardly rooting for the guy, but there were even moments when I kind of liked him. He provided an interesting contrast of perspective to Kaladin and the rest of Bridge Four, which only grew more pronounced as he began to fully side with the Parshendi. The action of his that I hated the most was killing Jezrien, which struck me as hugely tragic, and even then I blamed Odium more than Moash himself. When I showed up here and saw all the Moash hating, it legitimately confused me. 

I think I can understand why it's such a big thing, though. Kaladin is many people's favorite character, which is understandable. His is the first viewpoint we're introduced to, and, as has already been mentioned on this thread, he's the most clearly heroic character that we've got. And the thing with Moash is that he comes the closest to taking that away from him. With Moash, we see what Kaladin could have been, and we don't like it. And, as Kaladin begins to listen more to Moash's influence, we begin to fear what could happen to our hero. In a way, it's a relief when he turns fully villainous and we're free to outrightly hate him. So we get a fandom full of people saying, "Yeah, Moash is awful! We hate him so much! Kaladin could never be like him. ... Right?"

[Vindo]

I dislike Moash because he constantly makes the wrong choice and uses weak justifications 

• He compromises the integrity of bridge four to pursue revenge (Potentially putting their position in the Kholin army at risk)
• He contributes to Kaladin's breaking of his ideals that lead to the temporary death of Sil 
• He almost kill's Kaladin with Graves and then flee's when Kaladin revives his ideals. 
• He Kill's Elhokar and then salutes Kaladin with the bridge four salute
• He murder's Jerzrian without question 

His justifications are along of the lines of human's are inherently broken so there is nothing wrong with what I'm doing (at least that has been my impression). My Dislike of Moash comes more from words of radiance, where he is shown more as someone who pursue's his own selfish desires over the safety and freedom of bridge four who suffered along side him. Certainly if someone from bridge four was found to be an assassin who killed the king at the time of words of radiance book. There would be ramifications for both Moash and bridge four.

[AonEne he/him in an enby way]

1 hour ago, Vindo said:

...then salutes Kaladin with the bridge four salute... 

I’m not even going to touch the rest of your post, but this - why the heck does everyone keep saying that like it makes everything worse? “He killed Elhokar and that sucked, BUT THEN HE SALUTED KALADIN AHHHHHHHHHHH” I don’t get it. 

[Aon Tia she/her]

Yes but when you really think about it, There are other people who have done far far worse. 

I mean, taravangian and what he did, I think is much worse. 

Moash has tried to elhokar, then killed him then killed jezrien but that’s it really

think of the number of deaths taravangian has orchestrated. I am also surprised that szeth does not try to condemn him in public or something. He is still in the coalition even! 

 

[Calderis he/him]

11 minutes ago, AonEne said:

I’m not even going to touch the rest of your post, but this - why the heck does everyone keep saying that like it makes everything worse? “He killed Elhokar and that sucked, BUT THEN HE SALUTED KALADIN AHHHHHHHHHHH” I don’t get it. 

Agreed. Everyone takes that like Moash was saying a big "storm you." I see it differently.

Moash has at that moment achieved exactly what he set out to do. He fully believes that that is possible because of the training that Kaladin gave him. As much as he's made his mistakes, he respects Kal, and still thinks of him as a friend (as Kaladin does in return, hence what he says when he punches Roshone).

That salute wasn't an insult, as much as it may have felt like a gut punch to Kal and the reader on that moment. It was a genuine sign of thanks and respect. 

Kal was sitting on the ground paralyzed by his internal conflict. If Moash had wanted to, he could have struck at Kal, but he didn't. He made his salute, and he walked away. 

Edited October 15, 2019 by Calderis

[Brightness Warrior she/her]

4 hours ago, AonEne said:

The ethics and logic of what I talked about, or of Moash’s actions and character? 

The latter.

It's difficult to converse in a dignified manner with the 'general populous' about; should we share a pm for the sake of civilized discussion?