Raboneil: How the Inverse Elsecaller Upended the War

[Karger]

The standard(and really only) complaint about Raboneil is that her scientific/scholarly capacity is not on par with her reputation.  This is the femalan whose discoveries could easily be responsible for more deaths then the Blackthorn yet makes a considerable number of rookie or low level mistakes in regards to even basic scientific theory.  However doing what Raboneil herself would do.  Lets take a step back and try and figure out the Lady of Wishes. 

Flaws

It is only fair to start with her flaws.  Raboneil is very limited in some ways.  She had seven thousand years and access to government support along with the favor of a deity and yet could not manage to kill these pesky humans.  Yes she was opposed by a group of immortals and a couple of deities herself but it still seems strange that she could not get the upper hand on what would eventually be cave people.  Her ability to think critically while good is not exactly up to par either.  After this I can only really think of one other problem.  This last flaw maybe be an advantage at times but it is also worth noting.  Raboneil is not really loyal to anyone unless she decides to be.  She serves Odium but she has priorities before him and even before the welfare of her own people.  It is not a wonder that Leshwi does not trust her.  Her actions are motivated by what she decides is the best course rather then any guiding principle.

Now we get to the things I actually want to discuss.  What are Raboneil's skills.  What makes her so feared and admired?  To start with I would like to talk about her metacognition.

Metacognition is, put simply, thinking about one’s thinking.  More precisely, it refers to the processes used to plan, monitor, and assess one’s understanding and performance. Metacognition includes a critical awareness of a) one’s thinking and learning and oneself as a thinker and learner.

One of the first things we see her do is talk about the differences between human and singer artwork.  This is a bit odd.  Why would you do such a thing when conquering an enemy stronghold? 

Raboneil is one of the few fused who goes beyond even Leshwi in terms of her understanding of the conflict.  Lezrian fights for his own sake and according to Venli many of the fused are nearly as bad.  However Raboneil herself is the one to acknowledge the reality of the war and make a rational decision based on the outcome.  Rather then getting bogged down purely in details of how to win the war she assess logically weather the war is winnable along with the costs(just like Jasnah would).  The methodology allows her set clearly defined and obtainable goals rather then spend time attempting impossible ones.  If your interested her victory conditions are

Spoiler

In order

1. Death for fused possible - singers win.V
2. Death for fused possible - humans win V
3. Death for fused impossible singers win V L
4. Death for fused impossible humans win L
5. Continued fighting forever ABSOLUTE L

Once done with that she is also the one who notes the limitations of singer methodologies.  Raboneil knows that she has had seven thousand years and no one on her team has cracked this.  She also knows that she can't expect any help from the new singers.  Thus she correctly concludes that they need human input for either of her victory conditions to be possible so she goes to find some. 

I personally doubt that the timing of her arrival on screen was accidental.  She shows up just after the report on a fantastic new fabrail, bridge four, is made public knowledge.  This gives her the means to locate the humans she wants and present her plan to a favorable(not to mention desperate) audience. 

Raboneil's Inductive Reasoning and Foresight

Inductive reasoning is a method of reasoning in which the premises are viewed as supplying some evidence, but not full assurance, of the truth of the conclusion.  It is also described as a method where one's experiences and observations, including what are learned from others, are synthesized to come up with a general truth.

Foresight is the ability to predict or the action of predicting what will happen or be needed in the future.

One of the worst mistakes that authors make when writing smart people is not getting this right.  Some treat these skills like deductive reasoning requiring full proof before coming to a conclusion.  Others portray them as a kind of magical ability whereby the "intelligence" of the individual is treated as some kind of divination whereby they always make correct judgements regardless of what kind of information they have.  I could probably spend days going on about who does this badly but the point is that Raboneil is always on point with using limited information to make decisions and is several steps ahead of everyone else at all times(or I am just crazy).   

Lets look at her tower assault.  Raboneil's goal is to capture human scholars.  She has IDed the probable location of several of them.  Now comes the tricky part.  Firstly she needs the other fused to support her.  Secondly she needs to create an environment where the humans can be tricked, coerced or otherwise made to help her.  The first she manages by timing her suggestion correctly but the second is exceptionally difficult.  Any human Raboneil captures must be in some respects more capable then she herself to be of use.  At the same time she needs the cooperation of the human she catches.  Much is beyond her control.  What she can and does control expertly is the assault itself. 

She has Odium and Taravangian to thank for the loss of most of the A team but a determined defense by still powered radiants could be an enormous problem.  She carefully chooses to enter the pillar room with selected forces through the tunnels allowing her assess to the pillar itself along with an escape if necessary.  Equally important is her chosen team.  While we don't know all of he members but I can, looking back over her work, tell you why all of them are there.  The masked one is a potential spy who can be entered even if the plan goes south.  They also determine that the sibling is still semi-active.  The deepest ones are perfect for surprising any defenses or pulling ambushes during a retreat.  They can also locate spesific personages who Raboneil wants neutralized or captured(threats and scholars respectively).  Venli's position is the most obvious, if least important.  She is there because it will make Leshwi slightly less nervous to have a spy watching Raboneil.  However it is Lezian who interests me most.  Raboneil knows exactly whats going to happen with him and why.  She also knows how to manipulate him(it is not exactly hard).  He is of himself her controlled chaos.  If things are looking too good for her side and Raboneil needs to sabotage team Odium having Lezian around makes it way easier.

Raboneil's Comunication

This one is the most subtle but Raboneil's communication skills are excellent.  Her subtle encouragement of Navani.  The fact that she often tells her the truth and picks up on small details.  I love when she says this line

Quote

Navani, you can still defeat me

Because she really means it.  Their goals are not quite mutually exclusive.  She always picks up on what other people say and has a nack for cutting through to what they mean.

Quote

“A lie you must tell,” Raboniel said. “I do not begrudge you it

Anyway my rambling has gone on too long as it is.  I will really miss her.

[theTruthshaper]

Let me just say, that I love Raboniel's and Navani's meta-communication. They way that they understand how the other's goals are opposite to their own in many ways and still manage to work together, is awesome.

[Bigmikey357]

I agree with you about her strengths but I have a slight disagreement regarding her weaknesses.  Any scholar or scientist is going to look dumb if the direction of their research is based upon a flawed foundation. Her people probably were not naturally scholarly,  their natural defenses made survival easier,  thus making scholarly pursuits less vital. She doesn't start off with much scientific rigor so her base knowledge was already shaky. Then she spent 7k years reinforcing and building off flawed assumptions.  The fact that she ends up recognizing that her reasoning was insufficient to accomplish her goals and that she needed a human to pour fresh blood into her research is IMO an excellent indicator of her brilliance. 

Her people management skills are beyond par. 

[Leuthie]

I have no idea what the Fused were able to do while they were stuck on Braize, but I assume they can't spend their downtime doing scientific research. This leaves only the Desolations as time that Raboniel was capable of doing any type of research. Desolations were, from all descriptions, constant war. So Raboniel's entire 7000 years was spent in stasis or in war.

So any weaknesses Raboniel has on the scholarly side would come from her limited opportunities despite such a long time period.

[Honorless]

Everybody's pretty happy with Navani and Raboniel, was anybody else looking forward to Venli researching how to attain the Forms of Power in her flashbacks? 

[Lightdancer]

You just blew my mind, Karger. That makes me appreciate her character even more.

20 hours ago, Honorless said:

Everybody's pretty happy with Navani and Raboniel, was anybody else looking forward to Venli researching how to attain the Forms of Power in her flashbacks? 

I honestly didn't think much of it; but it was interesting to see how it did play out.

[trav]

Raboniel was the one thing that kept me interested in the book.

I think the reason for the slow progress of the Singers is cultural. they are more tribalistic than scholarly. with some exceptions. even Raboniel gives theological answers to scientific ones.
we don't know (or do we?) what is going on when they are send back to Braize. what can they test there. can they only really progess when they are on Roshar?

the limiting factor for both parties were the Desolations.
the humans had 4000 years to advance while the Fused where locked up on Braize and couldn't.

on the plus side for the Fused the humans also lost their strongest allies and forgot much about the Bonds.
the Spren are also reluctant now.

considering the humans normally had Heralds and an abundance of Spren I really wonder how the Fused and Singer even managed to fight back and did not get completely wiped of Roshar. cavemen or not.
especially that since with every passing oath the Radiants would grow even more powerful.
the Fused numbers dwindled while the Radiants became stronger by the day.

Edited December 16, 2020 by trav

[+Oltux72]

On 15.12.2020 at 8:59 AM, Honorless said:

Everybody's pretty happy with Navani and Raboniel, was anybody else looking forward to Venli researching how to attain the Forms of Power in her flashbacks? 

Yes.

And those flashbacks made Venli into a usful idiot just doing as Ulim told her to, without making decisions and real research. The idea that the Listeners were in a desparate situation that required Forms of Power was very defensible. A chance to make her more complex than just a fool needing to repent has been lost.
And I would have liked to see more Regals.

Frankly, the book would have been better without flashbacks. The only really interesting interlude was Sja-Anat's.

[StanLemon]

I think her mistakes and scientific flaws come down mostly to not really having a scientific peer. Very intelligent people in real life have progressed work off wrong assumptions which were found to be wrong after the fact by others. Navani has centuries of scholar studies to draw on with peer reviews and later studies whereas Raboneil was mostly on her own without much to bounce ideas off of. We've only seen two Singers with scientific mindsets so far. Even in Urithiru it didn't seem like Raboneil had anyone working with her other than Navani.