Enough with the Moash thing

[Karger he/him]

8 minutes ago, Dreamer said:

When did I say that?

You did not I was clarifying the difference between your points of view.

[Honorless he/him]

Be careful with gross oversimplifications

[Frustration]

On 2/25/2020 at 2:44 AM, Dreamer said:

Be careful with gross oversimplifications

says the lightweaver.

[AonEne he/him]

9 hours ago, Booknerd said:

says the lightweaver.

...not all Lightweavers are the same, you realize...they do have separate personalities... 

[Honorless he/him]

22 hours ago, Booknerd said:

says the lightweaver.

Excuse me?

[Frustration]

4 hours ago, Dreamer said:

Excuse me?

Lightweavers are mostly artists what is art but a gross oversimplification

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, Booknerd said:

Lightweavers are mostly artists what is art but a gross oversimplification

Well, sometimes art is gross over-complication (and pretty much everything in between, to be honest)

[Honorless he/him]

6 hours ago, Booknerd said:

Lightweavers are mostly artists what is art but a gross oversimplification

Art is much more than that. And back to the topic, what I've been trying to say is much more than what others tried to boil it down to near the end.

[Valigus]

On 10/14/2019 at 2:51 PM, ND103 said:

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. 

I really do not understand why that’s a problem odium winning is far far worse even for a little bit then the eye color dynamic staying the same he will kill millions shatter their world. Or business as usual crappy business as usual but you and everyone you love have not been crushed into the floor by a thunderclast 

[Valigus]

On 10/15/2019 at 7:04 PM, ND103 said:

To add to what you said @Honorless - what do we even know of jezrien as a character? That he was like a divinity to humans. So? 

Now I'm not saying odiums the good guy in any of this. But just cuz you're opposed to him doesn't make you any better. At that point in the story jezrien is basically a drunk homeless guy who has the power to maybe do something but is wilfully, knowingly ignoring everything that's happening. Why is his death such a tragedy? Because he had a [redacted] life filled with torture? Boohoo. Moash had a crap life too. Why is jezrien's pain any worse? Because he had it for longer? Well he volunteered. Moash didn't volunteer to have his only family be killed. He didn't volunteer to be in the bridge crews. He was put there. He dealt with it anyway. 

Sorry but I don’t think it’s in any way fair to compare literally being tortured for thousands of years to what happened to moash

[Frustration]

@Valigus Preach brother!

I so agree like wow, good job.

(although maybe don't double post.)

Edited September 29, 2020 by Frustration

[Valigus]

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

@Valigus Preach brother!

I so agree like wow, good job.

(although maybe don't double post.)

Sorry but I don’t know how to combine them and those are from posts like 2 pages apart

[Frustration]

1 minute ago, Valigus said:

Sorry but I don’t know how to combine them and those are from posts like 2 pages apart

The + next to the quote button adds the quote to a list that you can put in all at once when you're done.

[Honorless he/him]

Funnily enough, you've described exactly what I'm afraid of. That these problems will not be dealt with, but simply swept away in the face of a greater threat. How unsatisfactory.

[Valigus]

So I never ever liked moash because he refuses to accept any responsibility for his actions and betrays kaladin but I never hated him not like I’ve hated similar characters in the past namely wars from agents of shield who is very similar in that we get one whole season of him not just being a good guy but the coolest good guy before he betrays them and begins systematically trying to kill them all.

but for moash I do hate him now quite a lot because of the rhythm of war chapters

Spoiler

Trying to convince kaladin to commit suicide is beyond evil I didn’t hate him before I do now he has now not only betrayed and tried to kill the person who saved him and his best friend he tried to convince him to commit suicide that’s beyond low beyond horrible, at this point I cease to believe he can be redeemed.

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

The + next to the quote button adds the quote to a list that you can put in all at once when you're done.

Thanks

 

thats not sweeping it under the rug it’s a bigger issue that needs to be solved first just like i think climate change needs to be mitigated before we start dealing with social inequality because one is existential and we can’t fix the other if we aren’t around to fix it

Edited September 29, 2020 by Valigus

[Honorless he/him]

You say that like the two irl problems aren't intertwined. But let's leave irl politics elsewhere.

Tell me, what do you think of Gaz? 

[Valigus]

3 minutes ago, Honorless said:

You say that like the two irl problems aren't intertwined. But let's leave irl politics elsewhere.

Tell me, what do you think of Gaz? 

While I agree those problems are intertwined and we can try and find a solution to both we really should be putting most off the effort toward the existential threat, but yeah no politics that’s just an example.

 

i don’t have a problem with gaz honestly just a guy who had a job that in his society was perfectly ok, he is just a normal person he isn’t evil he isn’t a great guy he is a bit of a coward that’s the worst I can really say. Kaladin bullies him but gaz also tried to get him killed and his crew so I understand why bridge 4 hates him.

[Frustration]

*Me wondering how on earth the temerature is connected to people being treated different*

 

[Valigus]

13 minutes ago, Frustration said:

*Me wondering how on earth the temerature is connected to people being treated different*

 

It’s just an example and I’d say is a pretty good since the guy time responded to was saying he’d rather kaladin stand by his goal of fixing Vorin social structure instead of beating odium if he had to, and that’s pretty similar to my example basically saying it’s better to fix an important but lesser problem before the existential one because morality is not a fixed point that doesn’t really make any sort of sense to me

 

id also argue any philosophical or moral framework that makes that claim has this very example as solid grounds to dispute it but that’s not what this is about

Edited September 29, 2020 by Valigus

[Honorless he/him]

1 hour ago, Frustration said:

*Me wondering how on earth the temerature is connected to people being treated different*

It's a bit complicated and this thread is already plenty flammable, sorry but there's no way I'd want to condense so much history into a post, you'll have to look it up (don't worry, it's actually plenty interesting). It's also a bit off-topic. I wouldn't mind if anyone wants to discuss politics so long as its more directly related to the subjects of this thread.

 

While talking about Moash's actions (and getting my own interpretation in on the issue) was one of the reasons why I created this thread, the biggest issue, as I've clarified multiple times was to address the hatred going around in any discussions of the topic (as well as the frankly tiresome amount of memes). Almost everytime someone tries to say anything related to Moash that wasn't (you know the name of that subreddit, and so do I) people jumped straight down the throats of the people and started questioning their sense of morality (so rude!). So I was asking people to stop that.

As for the Moash issue, the thing is, people are vengeful creatures. You're already at least mildly miffed or irritated that I like Moash, aren't you? And if you're not, then scroll up, see how many people were! And that's fine! That's my point! Kaladin's reactions are almost unreasonably heroic in a sense. Oh it's still a very human reaction, yes, though mankind has valourized these characteristics in our stories for ages now. We've all sought petty revenge in our lives, dealing with petty annoyances, it's very rare and difficult and even counter-intuitive to take the higher road. We're not Kaladin (case in point: ugly arguments on the internet). And that's fine, people have a right to be angry! Especially when they're wronged! Elhokar destroyed Moash's life and easily turned his eyes away and forgot all about it just for the sake of avoiding embarrassment! Frankly speaking, most people in Kaladin's situation would've stabbed Elhokar right there if they had gone through half of what Moash & Kaladin went through! Anger, riots, rebellion, hopelessness: these things exist in real life for the very same reason! It wasn't all personal decisions, Moash didn't have any reason not to go through with it unlike Kaladin, and most often it's that which stops people from taking revenge. Moash didn't just decide to be the bad guy, he was kicked to the ground and then buried into it by the social hierarchy of Roshar and he's suffered enough! So, if you're angry at him, congrats! As of RoW, Moash is 

Spoiler

literally suicidal and completely nihilistic!

I brought out Gaz because Moash was not in any better of a place than Gaz, in fact, he was worse off! What way out did Moash have? Servitude towards the group, the very one person who wronged him! Would anyone reading this really be capable of defending a person who wrongfully imprisoned your family where they died and then enslaved you? When such an occurrence is so very common that an entire economic system exists because of it? Which itself is built into your very culture because of which you could never aspire to a higher station in life? Could you? Really? If you can, I'm sure you could also muster some forgiveness in your heart for me if I irritated you with any of my posts in this topic, since you're such forgiving people.

I'm not saying that Elhokar was evil and was out to get Moash. I understand that he was a product of his society- that's exactly the problem. He didn't do what he did because he wanted to target Moash in any way but simply because he could and get away with it, he had that much power and next to no accountability. His actions came with very little consequences for himself.

 

And this kind of portrayal in literature matters! It's easy to see these things play out within the pages of a book, disconnected and only see the how-people-should-act, it's not so easy to act how we morally should in real life when we're wronged.

Seeing social issues being a driving plot point in a story, then being swept aside for a magical calamity which humanity has to face with a united front is very problematic! This kind of unification drive has happened in real life (well, aside from the magical nature of the thing people had to show a united front against) and said social issues continue to exist or have evolved into entirely new beasts.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Honorless
Sorry about how long it took to post this, I had to go eat, & also lost two paragraphs before posting this so I had to rewrite those bits. From now on, I'm writing all my long posts elsewhere & copy-pasting them here on the forums, I've learned my lesson

[Valigus]

1 minute ago, Honorless said:

It's a bit complicated and this thread is already plenty flammable, sorry but there's no way I'd want to condense all of that into a post, you'll have to look it up (don't worry, it's actually plenty interesting)

 

@Valigus, 

Ugh wait, I accidentally hit post a bit too soon, I'm still typing

Interesting it is, it’s also interesting to learn why colder countries are generally wealthier, I’d recommend economics explained who has an interesting video on the topic.

[Aspiring Writer]

@Honorless The Moash hate certainly confused me, as I felt he would be one of those antagonists that maybe you didn't root for, but we're invested in. He is a good foil for Kaladin's character (Which I'm sure is why they are both Windrunners, so that they are equally matched). The same goes for Adolin and Shallan hate, which shocked me the most. Yes, both of them are racist, but that's the time. We don't hate George Washington for having slaves because that was the time period. It makes sense why they talk like that as light eyes. Now, I'll admit, I'm maybe not the best person to ask. The reason is, as my name suggests, I like characters that are well written and it is really hard to make me despise a character. Even with Sadeas and Amaram, I will call them a dick and smile when they die, but I don't despise them with all my heart (If I met them in real life, I would stab them). Honestly, the character that annoys me more will be characters that make no sense and have such odd logic that it makes my head spin and frustrates me to no end every time they end up doing something that makes me scream, no stop, think like a normal person for five seconds! *Cough* Lift *Cough Cough*

[Frustration]

29 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

We don't hate George Washington for having slaves because that was the time period.

Unfortunatly some people do, even though they where his wifes slaves.

30 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

*Cough* Lift *Cough Cough*

*blinks*

no, why

Lift is perfect

[Valigus]

*syl is perfect 

there fixed it for you 

Idk why but I seriously am kinda obsessed with like weird alien/inhuman sidekicks, it’s just so inter to watch them try to understand human nature and comment on it and the character. Another good one is sapphira from inheritance cycle not the greatest series but she was amazing.

[Frustration]

33 minutes ago, Valigus said:

*syl is perfect 

there fixed it for you 

no, Lift

33 minutes ago, Valigus said:

Another good one is sapphira from inheritance cycle not the greatest series but she was amazing.

*chokes in Tolkien rip off*