[Discuss] Windrunner 5th Ideal

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

2 minutes ago, Being of Cacophony said:

I will find you and commit war crimes. I will be so mad you don't understand

I will use this special self defense move.

[Immortal Platypus]

Just now, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

I will use this special self defense move.

is it a rick-roll? I refuse to click on the link. Oh wait, I know how to check without clicking it! That's not the normal link, but... probably a rick-roll

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

3 minutes ago, Being of Cacophony said:

is it a rick-roll? I refuse to click on the link. Oh wait, I know how to check without clicking it! That's not the normal link, but... probably a rick-roll

It's not a disguised link to 3:33(the rick roll) this. 

[Subvisual Haze]

"I will lead them" or some variant.

Kaladin's character arc is to become King.  The people want to follow him and if given the opportunity would happily swear allegiance to him.  Windrunners have a natural leadership aura from spiritual adhesion.  Their patron Jezrien was the King of the Heralds and his two divine attributes were listed as: Leading and Protecting.  Windrunner oaths have mostly focused on protecting so far but I suspect they'll end with an oath to take on the burden of leadership.

[Immortal Platypus]

24 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

It's not a disguised link to 3:33(the rick roll) this. 

i can see the links, I know how to check what they are. And they aren't the same link, but it is a link to that one short, isn't it?

17 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

"I will lead them" or some variant.

Kaladin's character arc is to become King.  The people want to follow him and if given the opportunity would happily swear allegiance to him.  Windrunners have a natural leadership aura from spiritual adhesion.  Their patron Jezrien was the King of the Heralds and his two divine attributes were listed as: Leading and Protecting.  Windrunner oaths have mostly focused on protecting so far but I suspect they'll end with an oath to take on the burden of leadership.

i see where you're coming from, but we see Syl talk about how her Radiant retired, so I don't think it will be like that. He would provide some leadership to the common people, but i don't see his plot arc going towards him becoming a king.

[Torres]

Hi y'all ! If you don't mind I just wanted to share a theory taking the 5th Ideal discussion in a different direction:
I think that as Kaladin swears his last ideal he'll unlock yet another piece of his Knightly "kit".
He has his powers, Shardblade, his Armor... what is our knight missing?
A badass mount of course! I think along with the 5th Ideal Kaladin will bond a Ryshadium.

The one thing I can't seem to square off is that Ryshadium are said not to often go into the Western part of Roshar, hence how would Kaladin find one while in Shinovar?
So maybe, given the Shin have some horse breeding, Kaladin will instead learn how to "create" a true Ryshadium. Perhaps an enhanced version with flight or Plane hopping. 
Wit gave Kaladin his Flute and cryptically told him that he'd have to learn to play it. Might be related to how Ryshadiums are often seen being followed by Music Spren. 
Somehow bonding it to Music Spren to a normal horse to make a Ryshadium, perhaps via the Rhythms of Roshar? I don't know, but it sure is fun to theorize

Could that somehow inform/relate to the content of that 5th Ideal?
Sort of like the armor and blade did to the others (in a roundabout way)

[Mason Wheeler]

14 minutes ago, Torres said:

He has his powers, Shardblade, his Armor... what is our knight missing?
A badass mount of course! I think along with the 5th Ideal Kaladin will bond a Ryshadium.

On the one hand, that's kind of a cool idea.  On the other... who needs a horse when you can fly?

[JohnnyKaizen]

On 9/26/2023 at 3:20 PM, Subvisual Haze said:

"I will lead them" or some variant.

Kaladin's character arc is to become King.  The people want to follow him and if given the opportunity would happily swear allegiance to him.  Windrunners have a natural leadership aura from spiritual adhesion.  Their patron Jezrien was the King of the Heralds and his two divine attributes were listed as: Leading and Protecting.  Windrunner oaths have mostly focused on protecting so far but I suspect they'll end with an oath to take on the burden of leadership.

This makes me think it will be something along the lines of "I will lead those I protect, even though I don't think I can/deserve to/etc." We all know how many excuses Kaladin has given for why anyone else but him should be in charge..only to be ignored by his followers who just keep following him.

[Lord Spirit]

It might be something like "I will not kill to protect".

I mean, the windrunners second Ideal seems to match the skybreakers 5th, but this would take it a step further. protecting by killing is something that's already been debated between Kaladin and Lirin as being contradictory, so this might clarify that.

 

on the other hand, this feels like Kaladin would swear pretty easily, so it can't be right.

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ]

On 10/3/2023 at 7:28 AM, Lord Spirit said:

It might be something like "I will not kill to protect".

I mean, the windrunners second Ideal seems to match the skybreakers 5th, but this would take it a step further. protecting by killing is something that's already been debated between Kaladin and Lirin as being contradictory, so this might clarify that.

 

on the other hand, this feels like Kaladin would swear pretty easily, so it can't be right.

Again, I think it will be a build off of one of Lirin’s  sayings. I like this idea.

[Rallohir]

On 9/28/2023 at 6:44 AM, Mason Wheeler said:

On the one hand, that's kind of a cool idea.  On the other... who needs a horse when you can fly?

What if the horse can fly, food for thought

[Aredor]

On 10/5/2023 at 10:42 PM, Rallohir said:

What if the horse can fly, food for thought

But again, why would he need a horse when he can fly? I think the perk could be something like he doesn't need stormlight in gems, he can just reach in to the spiritual realm somehow and hold a bunch of stormlight instantly, but how, why... I don't know. 

[Bacon]

I will protect those who were written to be protected.

[Shadow of Electrum]

On 10/3/2023 at 9:28 AM, Lord Spirit said:

It might be something like "I will not kill to protect".

I think this idea is counter intuitive. I see that many people have identified a connection between Lirin's wisdom and the windrunner oath's but my problem with this is the nature of windrunner's in the for place. Windrunners are used as soldiers, before and after the recreance, so for their last ideal to be about not killing seems unlikely for that alone. There is also the fact that the knights radiant were formed to fight in planetary wars, so again, moving away from fighting doesn't seem very likely. Then the final nail in the coffin for me is the fact that Kaladin's affinity for combat comes from his resonance with his order, so to me it seems like windrunners are supposed to fight.

As for what the ideal could be, I've already said what I thought was possible earlier in the thread but it got shot down pretty quickly, but I still think that we can extract more information from the sky breaker's fifth ideal. The Skybreaker oaths have a theme of dedicating yourself to the law more and more, and then the final oath kind of flips this on its head by becoming the law. Maybe if we can find the inverse of the trend of the Windrunner oaths we can easier predict the fifth one.

[Zapata]

17 hours ago, AvonZapper said:

The Skybreaker oaths have a theme of dedicating yourself to the law more and more, and then the final oath kind of flips this on its head by becoming the law. Maybe if we can find the inverse of the trend of the Windrunner oaths we can easier predict the fifth one.

Except I'm not so sure the Skybreaker oaths do that. The second one is intended to be about following the law, (Szeth's was not though) the Third Ideal is about following a code of the Radiant's choice, and the Fourth Ideal is about completing a just quest of the Radiant's choice. The Fifth, which is about actually becoming the Law (which I believe is about having the confidence to create justice yourself). Essentially, each Ideal trains the Skybreaker to have the Confidence to create Justice themself, rather than seeking it elsewhere

[jaelre]

I'm also in the camp that predicts that it will be along the lines of "I will teach/help/lead others to protect themselves".

I think there a few supporting points:

• It's well within the Leading/Protecting attributes;
• It follows through on Kaladin's story line about leaving direct command and leaning into the surgeon training, while keeping him on his oaths;
• It follows through on all the previous oaths;
• It can be assimiliated to the the Skybreakers' fifth ideal, as by enabling others to protect themselves the Windrunner should ideally be left with no one to protect, thus making protecting others (and oneself) redundant, which sounds a bit like the Skybreakers and the law would in their path.

[NH2316]

On 4/23/2021 at 11:58 AM, Forms of mind said:

I agree kaladin has had trouble fighting to protect others. in book 2 kaladin doesn't want to fight listeners. book 3 kaladin doesn't want to fight singers. kaladin asks sill about the oaths when escaping singers in book 3. he asks why he has to fight to protect. Kaladin at end of book 4 has had trouble fighting. My guess

I will fight to protect until I can find a better way

Playing off of this, I think a really nice and on-theme 5th ideal would be an acknowledgement (and commitment to) a more proactive approach to "Protection".  Right now, the forms of protection that Kal and the windrunners have showcased are just a minority of what "protection" can really mean. Specifically, their actions in the name of protection have all been decidedly "reactive" (rather than proactive) and occur at the time of an active threat (as opposed to before a potential threat, or after a threat has passed).   Kal et. al are always jumping in to defend someone who is actively in harms' way right now, both for obvious external threats (war, physical violence) and acknowledgement of more subtle internal threats (Kal's mental health, and helping those already struggling with trauma). Protection can be/is far more than that though, and I see two really intriguing and opposing possibilities for the 5th Ideal stemming out of that observation.

 

First, it is arguable that preventing conflict and harm in the first place is a much more effective form of protection than waiting to act until harm is imminent.  The analogy here would be the difference between giving antibiotics to those who contracted a disease vs. vaccinating (or applying other other preventative/public health measures and public health) to prevent the disease in the first place (note these aren't mutually exclusive....just different focuses of protection). In practice, this would be an ideal to lead by brokering peace between opposing factions (to prevent conflict), building resilience in communities and people before they suffer harm, and even a recognition that sometimes your efforts to protect people might harm others (and that therefore you need to step back to prevent further harm, like the prior radiants did).  So, the Oath would be something like this:  "I will lead us into a world where people no longer need protecting".    The whole saga of Stormlight 1-5 is based around an endless cycle of violence destined to forever repeat itself and put generation after generation in harms' way....and how the inevitability/cyclical nature of that horror just grinds the worlds' protectors beneath the ever-turning wheel of despair until they have nothing left to give (the Heralds walking away when they can no longer take another cycle of torture, the radiants walking away when they learn that the singers are victims and that humans are essentially an invasive species, and Kal's own personal journey from SA1-4.).  Thus, a 5th ideal embodying a more proactive vision of protection, changing the world to prevent the sources and root causes of harm, really fits the overall series arc.  It's a kind of "I will break The Wheel" reckoning, which in turn could lead to some very interesting (and not all necessarily positive) places.  Note it also nicely builds off the 4th ideal - in recognizing you can't save everyone (i.e. your 1st through 3rd ideal version of protection is insufficient), you then naturally look to how you can prevent people from coming to harm in the first place (to address the insufficiency by swimming "upstream").

 

Second, there's also a sort of "opposite" way a 5th ideal could cause the windrunners to re-interpret and expand their mandate of protection compared to how they've approached it thus far.   Besides stepping in to fight active threats to people now (the status quo of "protection"), or seeking a preventive approach to change the root causes of harm in the world and protect future generations (the new more proactive, and arguably "healthier" approach to "protection"), the remaining possibility is acting on behalf of those who have already been irreparably harmed by avenging them.  "We will avenge those we could not protect", or "I will defend the Honor of those I failed to protect".  It's certainly not as poetic, but it would be a very interesting and dark approach to the 5th ideal because it takes the Intent of Honor to its' most extreme conclusion.    Namely, the most extreme adherence to lower-case "h" honor demands you defend honor, and an oath to protect the honor of those experiencing harm would dictate a need to seek vengeance on behalf of those who were harmed and we could not save.  Thus, it would be a bit of a heel-turn for the Windrunners, since implicitly they would be mandated to disperse vengeance or rectify debts based on the decidedly subjective nature of honor (i.e. how does one decide what honor "demands"?  And how do you prevent perpetuating a cycle of never-ending retribution and violence?). In a dark way, this would also build off the fourth ideal ("if we can't save them, then we will avenge their honor").   It would also be a a pretty strong mandate once you've sworn it - I can imagine a few interesting ways TaravOdium could co-opt an Oath to protect honor (i.e. by righting the worlds' wrongs). Odium could leverage the subjectivity to (lower-case) honor in order to capture the windrunners' aims for their own designs (never-ending cycle of violence-retribution-retribution for retribution).  Or, less overtly, Odium could position things so that honor (or Honor) demands those swearing this dark possibility of the 5th Ideal have to direct their retributive violence at Odiums' enemies even if they don't support Odium's goals ("avenging" the Shattering of Adolnasium by attacking the remaining Shards, maybe?).  In these kind of ways, Odium would effectively achieve final victory over Honor by perverting their Intent to its' darkest possible conclusion.  I don't know if this second possibility is overall very likely, given that at some point this conception of the "dark side" of Honor/honor starts to overlap with the more obvious dark side of the Law (defending/enforcing an unjust law), and especially since we've seen multiple Skybreakers but no Windrunners in the "space age".  However, it'd be an interesting - if incredibly tragic and dark - twist.

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by NickH

[MerlinArcane]

I think Kaladin’s fifth would be based around teaching others how to protect themselves. It fits with the old radiant Syl had who travelled around and taught (with the assumption he’s 5th). It’s a more leadership role, a more of a step back. It’s a mentorship, a way to help without coming into conflict. Without hurting others 

[RandomSpren]

Just happened on this thread now and I really like the theories so far! One thing I’ve been thinking of as a potential 5th ideal is similar to what NickH mentioned above:

Thinking of the progression of ideals so far, it has been about protecting an expanding number of people within reasonable limits:

- first the weak

- then even people you hate

- and then accepting you might not be able to save everyone
 

The next step could be about bringing peace to the world / protecting peace over individuals (to save the biggest amount of people possible). This would also go thematically in line with non-lethal applications of windrunner powers but would not exclude violence when necessary. (Comparing this to the real world, they would aim to be something like police or peacekeepers)

Alternatively, maybe it could be something more abstract about the greater good? Something like ”I will protect the world”, which might mean you accept even big losses to protect everyone else. 

[Belgarad]

My guess would be something about accepting that others can protect themselves.

[Master Silver]

I have started my re-read of the series. It is so long that it will take me at least 6 months. But the on going argument throughout the series between Kaladin and his day about how best to protect could be a theme and the root of the fifth ideal. I think different Wind Runners could come to different conclusions. Some might say, "If I must, I will kill to protect, so long as it is with honor." Others might say, "I will not kill to protect, so long as I live/lead with honor." 

 

I do really like the idea others have put out. "I will lead others to protect themselves." But since every idea seems to be harder to say and in a sense it helps fill holes in the spirit-web, it could be, I will protect those that/whom honor/Honor demands. Or I will protect with Honor. The capitalization is on purpose. 

[strmblsd]

On 11/21/2020 at 6:47 AM, Czernobog said:

The Windunner ideals seem to be progessing from more external to internal, i.e. from protecting others, to more internal epiphanies related to that first oath.

My guess is that the Fifth will be something along the lines of a mirror of the First. Perhaps "I acknowledge that others can protect me, and I am worth protecting."

Yeah I agree with this it has to do with him personally and his depression. 'i will protect myself ' that seems like the most basic version that can be adjusted to the specific person.