Was preserving Idris an error?

[+Oltux72 he/him]

To put it bluntly, why are we supposed to rejoice at the preservation of a backwards monarchy promoting superstitions that keep people from using a unique ability that could improve their lives? Why support people who make money from tolls at everybody's expense? Why are we supposed to like the idea, that thousands of zombies with a rudimentary mind left just doing their jobs are betrayed by their own country?

[Ixthos Luke/Luke]

Because those zombies would have killed everyone, soldier and civilian alike. Those zombies would have murdered children, women, the sick, the helpless, and begun another war. Idris may be backwards in many ways, but saving Idris wasn't just for Idris's sake, but for the sake of everyone in the region. Remember, Idris had allies - the attack would have created another Manywar.

As for the Lifeless, it sucks for them, I do feel sorry for them. Yet if I had to choose between the survival of ten Lifeless and one child, I would choose the child. And we aren't just talking about one child's life for many Lifeless, but a few Lifeless for many children.

Edited June 29, 2021 by Ixthos
corrected spelling and added to initial paragraph and first point

[Honorless he/him]

While the social and religious policies of Idris are questionable, getting rid of their entire country I think would be even more morally questionable. That's... genocide. War over border expansions for access to better trade routes or resources is one thing but keep in mind the participants in this conflict, would the Lifeless be capable of enough higher reasoning to accept terms of surrender? Wouldn't they just put everyone to the sword?

I also doubt the Lifeless felt patriotic, they were kinda programmed that way. There's also the fact that the Lifeless men are already dead, the ones they'd have been going to kill however weren't.

Hmm... the phrasing of Ixthos' answer... male disposability hypothesis intensifies

[Quantus he/him]

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

To put it bluntly, why are we supposed to rejoice at the preservation of a backwards monarchy promoting superstitions that keep people from using a unique ability that could improve their lives?

Had there been a Bloodless option to pass the power and/or remake the culture of Idris, then sure we could argue the merits of one nation's style over the other. The closest option on the table for that would have been a full surrender from Idris though, which apparently the rest of the nations did not think was called for or Proper (as they were recognized as an independent nation otherwise).

But what happened was a Zombie army was sent to exterminate the entire population by a third actor that just wanted to use it as an excuse for another Manywar, and a second zombie army was sent to stop it. And that's actually all that happened; since there's a very strong possibility that the Helandrian plan to absorb Idris through Siri's Marriage will/did work as intended to unify the two Nations, Idris wasnt nessesarily saved, just the lives that would have been sacrificed to get the Pahn Kahl rebellion and/or the Manywar Pt.2 rolling.

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Why support people who make money from tolls at everybody's expense?

Tolls and Taxes are basic elements of international economics, I dont see that as a particularly evil trait for a nation; it's how most commerce and trade-based states operate and what Port Cities are all about.  

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Why are we supposed to like the idea, that thousands of zombies with a rudimentary mind left just doing their jobs are betrayed by their own country?

Id argue that we arent supposed to like it.  Two armies (zombies or otherwise) churning themselves into a meat grinder is never the preferred route.  Hell, anything even resembling War should really never be an idea we "Like".  But we're supposed to hate the idea of Soldiers dying slightly less than civilians (because they Chose the career, I guess?) and the idea of Lifeless slightly less (since they already died and theoretically feel little to no pain).  

2 hours ago, Honorless said:

While the social and religious policies of Idris are questionable, getting rid of their entire country I think would be even more morally questionable. That's... genocide. War over border expansions for access to better trade routes or resources is one thing but keep in mind the participants in this conflict, would the Lifeless be capable of enough higher reasoning to accept terms of surrender? Wouldn't they just put everyone to the sword?  I also doubt the Lifeless felt patriotic, they were kinda programmed that way. There's also the fact that the Lifeless men are already dead, the ones they'd have been going to kill however weren't.

^This.  I dont think there is anything fundamentally unsalvageable about Idris itself, or even its people.  I dont personally like the Austrism that so strongly characterizes it, but I dont really like the Helandrian equivalent either so Im not taking sides in the religious debate (If I did I'd be on Lightsong's Side).  

The Lifeless would definitely not be able to accept a surrender unless their Orders included that clause, but I really dont think they'd have enough comprehension or agency to make a judgement call.  At best I think it would be a Hold Condition along the lines of "Pause and Regroup when you see the White Flag" sort of thing.  

2 hours ago, Honorless said:

Hmm... the phrasing of Ixthos' answer... male disposability hypothesis intensifies

Huh?

[Honorless he/him]

11 hours ago, Quantus said:

Had there been a Bloodless option to pass the power and/or remake the culture of Idris, then sure we could argue the merits of one nation's style over the other. The closest option on the table for that would have been a full surrender from Idris though, which apparently the rest of the nations did not think was called for or Proper (as they were recognized as an independent nation otherwise).

But what happened was a Zombie army was sent to exterminate the entire population by a third actor that just wanted to use it as an excuse for another Manywar, and a second zombie army was sent to stop it. And that's actually all that happened; since there's a very strong possibility that the Helandrian plan to absorb Idris through Siri's Marriage will/did work as intended to unify the two Nations, Idris wasnt nessesarily saved, just the lives that would have been sacrificed to get the Pahn Kahl rebellion and/or the Manywar Pt.2 rolling.

Tolls and Taxes are basic elements of international economics, I dont see that as a particularly evil trait for a nation; it's how most commerce and trade-based states operate and what Port Cities are all about.  

Id argue that we arent supposed to like it.  Two armies (zombies or otherwise) churning themselves into a meat grinder is never the preferred route.  Hell, anything even resembling War should really never be an idea we "Like".  But we're supposed to hate the idea of Soldiers dying slightly less than civilians (because they Chose the career, I guess?) and the idea of Lifeless slightly less (since they already died and theoretically feel little to no pain).  

^This.  I dont think there is anything fundamentally unsalvageable about Idris itself, or even its people.  I dont personally like the Austrism that so strongly characterizes it, but I dont really like the Helandrian equivalent either so Im not taking sides in the religious debate (If I did I'd be on Lightsong's Side).  

The Lifeless would definitely not be able to accept a surrender unless their Orders included that clause, but I really dont think they'd have enough comprehension or agency to make a judgement call.  At best I think it would be a Hold Condition along the lines of "Pause and Regroup when you see the White Flag" sort of thing.  

Huh?

I checked, and I think the Lifeless act on Commands that they were Awakened with, with separate activation Commands that act as keys and are changed regularly, divided into the hands of separate gods in the Court of the Returned. So, they definitely would not be able to negotiate or accept surrender.

I've been hilariously wrong about Warbreaker stuff before, so please correct me if I'm off here! 

Something I was recently reading and was on my mind so I was noticing it's presence in language, but nvm off-topic.

[Quantus he/him]

5 hours ago, Honorless said:

I checked, and I think the Lifeless act on Commands that they were Awakened with, with separate activation Commands that act as keys and are changed regularly, divided into the hands of separate gods in the Court of the Returned. So, they definitely would not be able to negotiate or accept surrender.

I've been hilariously wrong about Warbreaker stuff before, so please correct me if I'm off here! 

Something I was recently reading and was on my mind so I was noticing it's presence in language, but nvm off-topic.

To clarify, they have (or sometimes have) Key phrases that let their owners issue commands (lower-case) in any given moment without needing to ReIssued the actual Awakening Command (as we saw with their use of Clod around the HQ).  What I dont really know is the limit to how abstract those commands can be.  "Fight" can actually be pretty complex depending on the skill levels involved and Clod kept some of it.  Even Lightsong was surprised that the Squirrel could execute a relatively complex command (and it was just a Squirrel).  Somewhere there's going to be a line where a Lifeless just fails to comprehend the orders enough to turn them into specific actions, but its hard to say where that line is.  Especially since it will likely vary based on the skill of the Lifeless relative to the task as well as the skill of the Awakener.  

Edited June 30, 2021 by Quantus
Awful spelling...

[Frustration]

Well for starters Yesteel would have made an army with type IV biocromatic entity weapons to anihalate everything.

On 6/29/2021 at 1:05 PM, Honorless said:

Hmm... the phrasing of Ixthos' answer... male disposability hypothesis intensifies

Well historically war has been a man's responsibility, so the deaths of women and children as being civilions was seen as worse.

As well as other reasons, notions of male self-sacrifice, and female and child purity etc.

[Mage he/him]

On 6/29/2021 at 3:20 PM, Quantus said:

If I did I'd be on Lightsong's Side

Amen.

Yeah neither religious group is great, but neither is horrible. Despite all that religion should never be a reason to wipe out a country. 

I agree with @Oltux72 that a unified Idris/Hallendren would probably be better but a slaughter by zombie army is probably not the way to go. 

[Olmund]

"Superstitions" is a rather strong word when we know (via the text and WoB) that people of Nalthis do give up something significant when they give away their breath. The magic system may help some people, but it makes life measurably worse in many small ways for those who choose to give (or sell) their breath. 

Allowing the sale of breath is like legalizing the sale of kidneys in the real world -- it won't kill the donor, but it does make life more difficult for them (in both the short and the long term) and it incentivizes those who are willing to take advantage of the poor and desperate. Applying religious pressure to sell your kidney to the theocracy in order to keep religious figures alive would be considered a particularly abhorrent practice in our world. You can argue that banning breath transfer (and thus condemning all returned to their second death) is equally abhorrent, but we're definitely in a moral grey zone when comparing the practices of the two nations.

I'll also say that given the current real world parallels between China (Hallendren) & Taiwan (Idris), where the larger, more powerful nation is poised to destroy and/or absorb the smaller one due to the smaller one posing an inherent challenge to the current regime's claim to authority -- I'm more willing to side with the underdog.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Olmund

[Shinwarrior]

I'm under the impression that at some point Vasher will come back and claim all the breaths that the God King has stored up over 300+ years. I think that it will be quite a dramatic event and be totally awesome and is why the current system was set up in the first place. Now, in a non-fantasy setting do I think that taking advantage of the less fortunate (regardless of if it is an improvement on past life) is to be the correct system? No, neither do I condone actions that further spread systematic discrepancies between different parties/groups/people. That being said, I will return to the fact that in a fantasy setting it's pretty cool and intriguing and hopefully Siri and Susebron and do some good while they're there.   

[Narcoleptic Axolotl he/him]

Alright, so it looks like all my points have been covered, but I already wrote them down and I feel like they're decent arguments, although after reading what everyone else said, I'm gonna expand on my first point a little more.

First of all, does awakening really improve everyone's lives? Sure, there's some pretty incredible stuff you can do with it, but a lot of people have to sacrifice their breath in order to do anything at all. It won't kill them, but it sucks to live without one. Making a lifeless is a lot less of a sacrifice, especially if you do it so it only costs one breath, and it's arguably more useful than an awakened cloth or rope, but a sacrifice nonetheless. People in Idris live very happy lives without selling breaths. Their superstitions may sound silly, but they're founded on principles that help people enjoy life for what it is rather than seeking satisfaction in rich possessions. I think what we have is an example of two nations that have it wrong in different ways; Idris is so focused on being 'prim and proper' that they don't notice their own pride. They think everyone else is just wallowing in carnal indulgences and they're too far gone. To some extent, they're right, but we're not talking about Hallandren's problems yet. They also take things too far by kinda sorta discouraging people from showing emotion, which probably leads to some mental health issues.

Hallandren goes completely the opposite direction. They buy other people's souls just to show off how rich they are. Everyone's trying to show each other up. It's another kind of pride, more honest than that held by the people of Idris, but still a flaw. The poor have very little hope of finding a way out of their poverty, even when they seek the help of their Gods, the Returned. Allmother is seen helping her followers, as Calmseer and others supposedly did, which is a major point in favor of Hallandren, although they spend a lot of money keeping the Returned around, just in hopes that they'll eventually decide to sacrifice their life to perform a miracle for one person or family. I get it; they see these people as deities, but they're wasting a lot of resources they could be using to help those very individuals and families. Does awakening help these people? They can sell their breaths without society shaming them, but what does that get them? At most, a few years' worth of food. Not a prize to be scoffed at, but for most people that'll just mean more time to be exploited by crime bosses, or even the priests. Do the awakeners use their breaths to help them? No. We get the impression that most who hold a great deal of breath don't use it awaken, it's just a mark of wealth. And those who do are more focused on elevating themselves than helping anyone. It's that pride again.

The Idrian ideology is certainly flawed, but as I said earlier, they're happier without trading breaths. They needn't be so uptight about it, but staying away from it is better than what Hallandren is doing.

As for the monarchy, I don't think they're backwards. They rule from a humble palace, and (at least in Dedelin's case) genuinely love their people. What's backwards about that?

Why support people who make money from tolls at everybody's expense? The tolls on the mountain passes are far from questionable. Idris doesn't have to let anybody through at all if they don't want to. But they know trade routes are best for everyone, so they allow passage for a price, most likely cheaper than what people would have to pay to go around the mountains. Everyone benefits.

Finally, I wouldn't consider it a betrayal that Susebron sent Kalad's army to destroy the lifeless. They're . . . lifeless. They're not alive, they're just tools. Would you consider it a betrayal if someone was about to drop your toaster in your bathtub and you quickly snipped the cord? No. It's a toaster. Slaughtering lifeless is even less of an atrocity than killing animals, and I'd kill 40,000 animals too, if they were headed for a kingdom of innocents with instructions to destroy everything they see. It would've been an unjustified massacre leading to a terrible war where hundreds of thousands would've died. Of course you'd want to prevent that, and at the cost of only several thousand reanimated corpses. Besides, at that point they were effectively enemy soldiers. They had orders from the Pahn Kahl, the real bad guys. 

[The Sibling she/her]

Although Idris's religion is extreme and biased, they may have a point in being wary about awakeners. Awakeners use other people's breaths, and losing your breath makes you irritable and weakens your immune system.

[Hatman he/him]

Both sides need to make more of a point of having people pass on their breathes when they are on their deathbeds. 

[Firesong she/her]

As everyone said, I feel you missed the nuance of the ending. It wasn't that "Idris as a state" survived, it was "Idris as a people" survived, that we were supposed to be finding joy in. They survived an attempted mass-scale genocide. I feel it is terrible to say the right thing to happen would be for everyone, men, women, children, and everyone inbetween, to be massacred simply due to the evils of their government. 

Furthermore, if such a massacre were to occur, so would a new Manywar, which would result in even more deaths. It would be a global conflict with hundreds of thousands of deaths. 

Like, Idris is still shown as bad, the book doesn't deny that. But killing every single citizen is still bad. It is all far more complicated than you seem to be making it out to be. Kind of uncomfortable you consider genocide to be the morally right decision, as a response to people having a corrupt government, even if it is fictional. 

 

(Oh dear, didn't notice how necro this was when typing this, Hatman, try not to necro such old Threads) 

Edited August 15, 2023 by Firesong