Siaun Sanche

I don't think this is how duels work. Dueling contracts are witnessed before a judge. The time, place, and stakes are pre-established in public. And everybody knows that Sadeas didn't want to duel any time soon, and wouldn't agree to an impromptu duel to the death in an Urithiru stairwell.

Arguably the risk of Re-Shephir isn't just the deaths that it causes directly, but the deaths that it causes indirectly. The monster takes a second life in the same fashion as the first, and as a result a second family or group of comrades is inspired to take revenge, which means another act of violence, which means another duplicate act of violence, and on and on it goes. I think there's something to this. It makes sense to me Odium's forces haven't been in fighting shape for the last few thousand years either, and that they will only grow stronger and more singular in purpose as the series progresses.

It's not _that_ much like the parable. There's no reason to believe that anybody with Kaladin has committed murder, IIRC. There's a chance that they may become murderers later. But there's a chance that anybody may become a murderer later, and indeed a number of people have been let into Urithiru who became murderers later. (Some of them, like Amaram, were known to be dangerous murderers already, in fact.) So maybe I'm reading too much into your use of the word 'dilemma', but I don't see it as a dilemma because to me there's one obvious right answer. Failure to act is not normally seen in the same light as deliberately acting in a harmful fashion.

I live in Philadelphia, but I got my copy of A Dance With Dragons from Amazon.de because German posters on the ASOIAF message boards started saying that their copies were arriving two weeks early by mistake. It took me all of about thirty seconds to get an order in for an extra $42 in shipping costs, which is good because the publisher caught the error later that day and shut it down, shipping only 180 copies. I then spent a couple of anxious days refreshing the Amazon.de order page and translating the status updates from German using Babelfish, trying to make sure that Amazon wasn't pulling any orders that were already being prepped for shipment. The upshot of this is that I paid more than twice the price to get a book ten days early, and I don't regret a thing so I certainly don't think that you're crazy.

It's not going to be Dalinar, I don't think, because he's the primary main character; and Shallan's right there in Urithiru so I don't think it'll be here. To my mind, it's most likely that Kaladin goes off the grid for a while because he's with the parshmen and unable to get in touch with anybody, which will set up a dramatic arrival at some point later in the story.

I took off work on Nov. 15 because Oathbringer was coming out and I plan on being up all night reading it, and I don't regret a thing.

I agree with this. A lot of characters have been accepting Dalinar's leadership on the basis that Dalinar is better than your average light-eyes, that he holds himself to a higher standard. Kaladin and Bridge Four give up their freedom in a very real way to serve under Dalinar because he's a good man. Elhokar bent the knee to him. Aladar will follow him "to the ends of the storms themselves." He's now married to the woman he always loved. In a sense, Dalinar's been getting off easy. He's faced a lot of physical danger, of course, but he's faced that his entire life, and it hasn't ultimately hurt him. He gave up a Shardblade, but he was still more powerful at the end of tWoK then he was when he started. So far Dalinar's principles have paid off for him very well. (What about the loss of his men in the end of TWoK?, you may ask. That was about Dalinar's trust in Sadeas, but the decision to trust or not trust Sadeas is a not a _moral_ decision; a man who distrusted Sadeas from the start would not be immoral for doing so.) I'm not say that Dalinar's life has been nothing but rainbows and sunshine. I am saying that Dalinar hasn't really had to confront himself in a real way over the course of the books to date. In a metaphorical sense, he, like Nohadon, hasn't had to decide what to do with the four hog-men; it's just a provocative parable to him. What I think the story needs from him is to see him sticking to his principles when it hurts him in a very deep way, to really dramatize that this new principled stance of his isn't just affectation to him but something real that he's willing to pay a cost for. This is a big reason why I think that Dalinar is going to have to exile Adolin, and why I think he's going to have to find a way to 'unite them' that doesn't rely on aggressive conquest. But whatever happens specifically in the plot, I think this dramatic objective needs to be (and will be) achieved in some fashion. What I think the story does not need from him is for him to become the Blackthorn again and unleash the beast within. I think that would undermine a lot of people's stories, not just his. If other people were sacrificing to serve Dalinar, while Dalinar got to do the same old crap as any other Alethi warlord, then those other people start to look like a bunch of chumps. If Dalinar gets to go around conquering nations under some thin world-saving rationale, then what makes him so much better than the others that Bridge Four gave up their freedom to serve him? Doesn't it change Elhokar's speech about what a better person Dalinar is from a moment of mature self-appraisal to the sad delusions of a naif? I'm not often a person who requires protagonists in a story to be likable or wise or principled. But I think the Stormlight Archive in particular is powered by an ever-growing sense of communal obligation among the protagonists and a strong sense of mutual sacrifice for the greater good. Take away the mutuality of that and the edifice crumbles.

Real people don't need to internally differentiate which roles they adopt for the benefit of a reader. Fictional characters do.

I've been thinking a bit about Malata, and since nothing seems like a better use of my time than coming up with a long post that will likely be invalid in ten hours, here goes: I think Malata is doing exactly what Taravangian wants her to do, and that she's off-putting to the protagonists for a good reason. I base this on the supposition that Taravangian probably doesn't offer rides through the Oathgate to just anybody, particularly if it's somebody who might help his enemies. Let's take a step back and examine where Taravangian's plans vis-a-vis Alethkar are. The Diagram is clear: Alethkar must not be allowed to unite under another's leadership, and if Dalinar seems likely to do it, then Dalinar needs to be assassinated. However, Szeth failed (twice!) to kill Dalinar, and now is beyond Taravangian's grasp. What's more, the next assassin would need fight multiple Radiants at once plus whatever Shardbearers that Dalinar had at hand, and only one Radiant was sufficient to defeat Szeth at the height of his powers. So the idea of Taravangian sending another assassin after Dalinar seems a little unlikely. He'll need to find another angle of attack. Meanwhile. Dalinar's made big strides in consolidating his power in Urithiru. Elhokar has acknowledged his leadership, three other Highprinces joined forces with him, his most implacable enemy is dead and his living rivals are on the defensive at the moment. Taravangian needs to rebuild Jah Keved from the civil war, so he can't move against Alethkar now, and by the time that he's ready to do so, he could be facing Dalinar with the full support of the Alethis behind him. That would mean trouble. So if killing Dalinar isn't an option and war isn't an option, then what is? Political opposition. Hence, Malata. Malata seems off-putting to Dalinar and Shallan because she radiates contempt for their mission and doesn't buy into the whole Desolation business at all. That's no way to win over Dalinar or anybody who likes Dalinar, to be sure. But there are people in Urithiru who would love to have an honest-to-god Knight Radiant saying that there's no Desolation, this is just Dalinar ginning up a story for his own purposes. It lends them credibility--this isn't just the House Sadeas line, here's a Veden Releaser who knows all about this sort of thing, an honest broker who can (allegedly) look at things impartially. She also could help to shape their opposition in ways that would best serve Taravangian's plans, and serve as valuable muscle when violence is required. All of this would be to keep Alethkar divided until such time as Taravangian was prepared to make an overt move against them. At the moment, I take her to be feeling out the others to see who might be serve as the locus of opposition in Urithiru. Hence why she tried to make friends with Shallan, who is the only non-Alethi and who put herself off to the side. Next I imagine she'll try sounding out the local brightlords and highprinces, and soon enough find her way into Ialai's orbit. There she'll make no end of trouble.

Part of me wonders if there's any connection to the fact that there are three moons of Roshar and the fact that there can only be three Bondsmiths. (And can you break up the other 9 orders of Knight Radiant to three groups of three?)

The idea of a writhing black mass showing up at your door trying to convince you to commit suicide has a certain darkly comic appeal. Like, would it even speak Alethi? Or would it try to say depressing things in some dead language? "On the plus side, Brightness Navani, we've figured out how to say 'Your wife is never going to take you back' in Dawnchant."

I'll say this about Shallan's arc; I personally would have taken out either the deserters or the slave-traders, because it's the same basic concept and it feels pat because each time it's a pure win for her. The stuff with Tyn and the Ghostbloods read differently to me because her lies get her more and more enmeshed in this dangerous conspiracy that she doesn't have any control over. If there was a pat resolution to that, then I think a lot of her arc in WoR would feel less satisfying in hindsight. And WL, I appreciate you clarifying where you're coming from. I hope you didn't feel called out. That wasn't my intention.

I have no interest in rendering your opinions invalid, simply in offering my own.

I don't mean to insult anybody, and I don't think that people criticize Shallan "only" because of her gender. But we all live in a world in which women's accomplishments are seen as less deserved then men's, and in a bunch of different fan communities I've seen a dynamic play out where the successes of a female character are seen as less believable than more successful male characters. I think unconscious assumptions about gender (which we all have, me included) play into that.

There's something interesting there. Part of the issue, perhaps, is that Shallan is much less likely to dwell on her feelings of misery than (say) Kaladin is. She's more likely to put on a brave face, even for herself. But the other thing is that the "mistakes" that bother Shallan the most--killing her parents--were 100% justifiable and necessary under the circumstances. So her uncensored feelings about herself would be more like "I'm a monster, I killed my mother," not, "I should probably tell somebody that I'm spying on the Ghostbloods."

I dunno if Sanderson's apparently sunny, optimistic disposition affects the fandom, but there is a strong "can't we all just get along" vibe here sometimes that I don't remember from my days on the ASOIAF boards.

The gems are responsible for the lighteyes? I didn't know that either. Is that in a WoB, or was it mentioned in one of the books?

Oh, I don't think that Amaram will die in the immediate future. I was just speculating about the possibility that Adolin might try to kill him. That's a different thing. Adolin could easily fail. Kaladin killed Syl for a little bit and then got his head on straight and wound up more powerful than the feared Assassin in White. While a lot of people died at the tower, Dalinar himself had more authority at the end of tWoK then he did when he started. (Also, I wouldn't count Kaladin's slavery or Jasnah's assassination as resulting from his own failure.) Shallan is objectively less powerful than either of them, so I don't know why you would single her out as overpowered in particular. She's not the Highking of Urithiru, she's not backflipping through the sky in kung fu battles against Szeth, she's living in a studio apartment and trying to deal with the attentions of a world-hopping psychopath. And yeah, she was a prisoner in her own home, where she spent her time... lying all the time. So it turns out that she's good at lying. She's had access to Jasnah's notes and the writings of the Sons of Honor, so she knows things that conventional scholars don't. She has a supernaturally eidetic memory and is a practiced artist, so she draws good maps. None of that is hard to buy for me.

My experience is less that female characters do things perfectly all the time; it's that female characters are much more readily accused of being 'too perfect' than male characters are. It seems to me that Shallan's involvement in the Ghostbloods exhibits exactly the kind of fallibility that you see in the other characters. She keeps getting herself deeper and deeper, and it's long past the point where she could easily say to somebody else, "Oh, by the way, this is what I'm doing", without them seriously questioning whether or not they could trust. And to date all of her deceptions have failed after a short time: Jasnah, Tyn, and Mraize all eventually saw through her lies.

The Diagram also says, "You must become King. Of Everything." Taravangian's unlikely to want Dalinar to be a strong king of anywhere, because Taravangian should be the king of everywhere.

Here's my thinking. The Diagram says that he needs to prevent a rival power center from solidifying in Alethkar, and he has repeatedly attempted to murder Dalinar in order to achieve this. So when he shows up at Urithiru saying that he wants nothing more than to help Dalinar, that's simply not credible. Based on the Diagram and his previous actions, what he wants to do is undermine Dalinar and what Dalinar's building in Urithiru, so that it doesn't threaten what he's trying to do himself. And we know that Taravangian is willing to murder a lot of innocent people to get what he wants. And he brought with him Malata, and presumably he wouldn't bring her if he didn't think that her presence would help him achieve his ends there. So (a) either he conspired with Malata to bring down Dalinar; or (b) he believes that she'll achieve this end by virtue of who she is. So Taravangian must believe that Malata, for one reason or another, is a threat to Dalinar. That's why I would be suspicious of her. But of course, he could be wrong about her, because he's been wrong before.

@Calderis Thanks for posting those WoBs. I didn't realize the backstory, and that's very interesting. It makes more sense to me than the idea that this is just a weird eccentricity that the Alethi has. It makes me think about the Sons of Honor assumption that once a Desolation starts and the Heralds return, then that will lead to a resurgence of the Vorin church and generally a more conservative society. But how reasonable is that? Here's something that we've seen with spren, from Pattern to the Stormfather: they don't care about (or always understand) human social classes or status, and will visit supernatural abilities on atheists and thieves and humble tradesmen and branded slaves. All that matters to them is whether the person involved will say the Oaths and live by them. Before the Recreance, the Vorin church and the nobility would have had to co-exist with a constantly replenishing class of warriors, diplomats, and so forth that would come from all religious and cultural background. (One imagines that conservative elites hated the Knights Radiant long before the Recreance.) This would have made elite society much more fluid in those days than it is now. It seems to me that the conservative moment in Alethi society didn't happen until after the Aharietiam and the Recreance: only once the Knights Radiants left were they able to enact the strict laws of gender segregation that exist now. The bright young darkeyes who would have taken the Oaths and become influential Elsecallers or WIndrunners remained ditch-diggers and stablehands, so presumably class stratification greatly increased. I don't have a strong sense of how long the Hierocracy was after the Recreance, but presumably that would have only been possible in a post-KR power vacuum. So the notion that bringing back a Desolation and the Heralds will bring back the glory days of the Vorin church seems ahistorical to me; if anything, Amaram should be trying to _stop_ the Desolation from ever happening, because nothing is more dangerous to the orthodoxy that does exist.

I'm taking this straight from the Diagram: Do you read that differently?

Yeah, I think her appearance at the right hand of Taravangian is more sinister than her being a Dustbringer. But she may be perfectly sincere in saying that she just hitched a ride with him for convenience's sake, in which case her constant questioning of everything could well be an asset.

Yeah, that's implicit in my thinking too. He had to really be pushed to kill Sadeas, and did it in a blind fury. But now that he's done it once, it will be easier to do again.