Starla

I don't think so. I'm pretty sure there were flying Fused amongst the attackers when Bridge Four went to check on the caravan in Part 2. Kaladin watched them fly away. Also, Moash fought a flying Fused when they took his shardblade and plate, and Graves was killed. I am a little bummed we didn't see Thude's group in this book. I hope they show up in future books and help bridge the gap between humans and parshmen, along with Rlain and Venli. As a side note, it's funny you call him "Food." I also thought that was his name the first time I listened to the audiobook... I went and looked up the spelling in the ebook because I thought it was too weird to have a Parshendi named "Food."

Came across another relevant WOB on this topic (link). I think our thread here proves it to be true.

I debated between Moash and Amaram. I enjoy reading Moash as a villain, whereas Amaram makes me grit my teeth every time he's on screen. I think it's because he outwardly pretends to be noble and acting for the greater good, while he is inwardly a total scumbag. Moash on the other hand, is a scumbag and doesn't pretend otherwise. That said, I voted for Moash for three reasons that are unforgivable: he betrayed his friends, he kicked a child out of his father's arms, and he gave the Bridge Four salute after killing Elhokar. That's way worse than any other villain, in my opinion. I do love reading his chapters though, and look forward to seeing where he goes from here. I also had issues with Shallan this book, though I didn't consider voting for her. While while her chapters are tough to read, she isn't a bad person so she doesn't come anywhere near to the other villains. I think my problems with her are that I can't put my finger on who she is as a character. This is a side effect of her identity issues. She doesn't know who she is, so therefore I don't know who she is. I started out liking her a lot in the first book, so I'm a bit bummed that I no longer relate to her as a character.

So for the sake of completeness of potential love interests who have already popped up in the books, we might consider our friendly ardent from Hornhollow. Consider this scene, slightly edited for length and clarity: She is probably bald, and not a kick-butt fighter chick, but at the very least she might be the founding member of the Windrunner Fan Club.

I think the point of his whole arc through the first three books, including his surgeon training as a child, is that he hasn’t grown a thicker skin. Note this quote from Oathbringer Chapter 7: I think his progression as a radiant, with his next ideal, does not involve him growing calluses, but rather, to continue to care without letting it destroy him. How do you fully embody empathy, compassion, and a deep respect for all life without being frozen by guilt and grief at every loss? It comes back to embracing your pain and forgiving yourself for the losses, similar to Dalinar’s realizations in this book. I don’t think he needs to become harder and grow a thicker skin, I think he needs to learn how to process the pain of the losses he feels. It is common for people to put aside pain to function in the moment. Note Adolin’s “grieve later” comment and all of Shallan’s “don’t think about it” defense mechanisms. That works for them, but I don’t think this will work for Kaladin. He is a deeply caring person who feels everything, and he simply cannot turn away from suffering and death. It is not in his nature. Rather than trying to push aside his pain and grief, he needs a “you can’t have my pain” moment, and fully embrace it without letting it consume him. I have a sense that his future growth will move away from killing, rather than choosing sides and becoming more tough. If you follow his internal thought processes and discussions with Lirin and Syl through the three books, there is an ongoing motif of should you kill to protect, and who is truly the enemy when everyone is trying to survive. We know that his father is a total pacifist and has had a huge influence on Kaladin. Is it possible to proceed in the current conflict without a blanket "kill all the enemies" mentality? Can you stand your ground and find solutions that are not all killing and mass destruction? I think he's a good character to explore these ideas, and the groundwork has been laid with his healing background and the notion of "do no harm."

@Windseeker I don't think he made a conscious choice to abandon his duties in the palace. As @SLNC noted above, he had a combat stress response, which is a real problem that soldiers face in battle when their mind cannot compute what is happening around them. See this from Wikipedia (full article here): His mind could not handle his friends suddenly killing each other, so he had an automatic shut down. It is a realistic response to an awful situation. It might be disappointing that he didn't swoop in and save the day at the last minute, but the story will get boring and repetitive if the same thing keeps happening over and over. Also, just because he had some setbacks in this book, doesn't mean he won't make forward progress in the future. I think he's set up nicely to make forward progress with his fourth ideal and the singer/human dilemma in the next book.

These are both cases to support my hope of a radiant power couple who can work out in the field and fight together. She doesn't need to be a damsel in distress or a scribe left behind in Urithiru. I'm sure the battle orders contain both male and female members, so there will be strong women radiants who are not in constant peril and can take care of themselves. Look at Jasnah in the Thaylen City battle, she kicked serious chull butt. Also note the male and female radiant pair in Dalinar's vision who travelled together to defend the townsfolk from the midnight essences. Really, I just want to see a girl-radiant with serious fighting skills and big Moments of Awesome fighting voidbringers. If she's a companion to Kaladin and they can do really cool things with their combined surges and fighting skills, all the better.

I'm curious what makes you think this. Isn't his problem that he cares too deeply and gives away too much of himself to others, and doesn't look after himself? One of his character revelations in this book was that sometimes he needs to let people take care of him, instead of him trying to take care of everyone else. We haven't seen him in a real-time romantic relationship yet, but I don't see any reason to think he would be any different with a romantic partner than he is with his friends, family, and the people he works with. Plus there is this awesome quote by Rock in Chapter 37: "The captain seemed intimidating to many outsiders. A perpetual storm for an expression, an intensity that made men wilt when it turned on them. But there was also an astonishing tenderness to this man. Kaladin gripped Hobber on the arm, and almost seemed to be tearing up." I don't see any evidence in the text that he attracts a certain type of woman and can't hold them. We've seen three women he's been attracted to: Laral, a lighteyed girl who ended up in an arranged marriage with the city lord without much say in the matter. Tarah, a darkeyed scribe who took a job that was good for her family, and Kaladin chose to stay in the army with his men. Shallan, a lighteyed radiant who was betrothed to a prince and chose to proceed with the betrothal, while Kaladin realized she reminded him of his brother. Each of these women and circumstances seem fairly unique, so I don't think we can conclude that he attracts a certain type of woman. I also don't see any evidence that suggests he would be "breaking down all the time" trying to protect his partner. I'm not really sure what that means, unless you are referring to him freezing in battle when all of his friends were being killed. I don't think we can compare that to how he would behave in a relationship with a woman. Apologies if this sounds too serious... I don't mean it to be! I'm trying to understand how you arrived at your conclusions. And I sometimes have an uncontrollable urge to take up for my man Kal. I've been having a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that this could happen. It seems to be a popular theory and I'm trying to brace myself just in case. Kind of puts a damper on discussions of happy romantic storylines when your beloved characters are sent to another planet to be tortured for years...

But what is considering breaking the oaths? If a radiant has sworn an oath to protect those who cannot protect themselves, and he discovers that his surgebinding abilities, and those of his fellow radiants, are in danger of destroying the planet, isn't it his duty to stop it however he can? If breaking the nahel bond protects thousands or millions of people, is that what he needs to do? I still feel like there should be another way beside breaking the bond. @StormingTexan mentions releasing the bond. I think this is possible. See this WOB (link): So why didn't they do this rather than killing the spren?

She also took the form of a rock in that scene in Revolar where she's hiding from the voidspren. That was really cute. I think he was referring to Tien in this particular scene though. I do think Kaladin and Syl have a particularly deep bond that goes beyond the other radiant/spren relationships we've seen. It seems more like a deep friendship than a business partnership. If you look at their discussions about how she found him, it seems she was looking for him specifically, not some random Windrunner. I think somewhere in OB she said he called her, and she ran away to find him. That seems quite different from the "selected by a committee" method of the other spren bonds. That said, I don't expect it to turn romantic. You can have a romantic relationship without physical contact, but... hmm. There would always be a separation that wouldn't exist with a human partner. If he has a relationship, I'm holding out hope for a super powered battle order radiant woman to come and be in a warrior duo with him. It's a little late in his arc to introduce a new person we haven't met yet, but if you think of Wheel of Time, Mat's love interest showed up in book 9 or 10 and that worked out okay. Kaladin is currently 20. He was born in late 1173, and turned 20 while he was a bridgeman. It's now early 1174 so he has a few more months before he turns 21 (it's somewhat embarrassing that I pay attention to these things. I'm obsessed with timelines). Sadly, I don't particularly like this pairing. My first "reading" of WOK was via audiobook, and Kate Reading's voice for Rysn is awful. She sounds like a snotty brat. Unfortunately this has tainted my view of the character and now I can't shake it! I am starting to come around on her a little more after Oathbringer, but not to the point where I can see her with my man Kal.

Witnessing some massive destruction could trigger breaking the bonds, though if that's the case, I find it curious that the spren are so angry about it. If the radiants had to break the bond to prevent some planetary catastrophe, I would expect the spren to understand the reasoning behind it and agree to it willingly. For example, an Honor spren would expect their radiant to do whatever is necessary to protect people, even breaking the bond. However now, hundreds/thousands of years later, the Honor spren forbid their kind to bond anyone, so that Syl had to run away to form a bond. Likewise, the Willshaper spren seem to only want to bond Singers, and the Dustbringer spren hate the other radiant orders. I find it surprising that some amicable agreement between radiant and spren couldn't be reached to prevent the impending catastrophe. Perhaps the spren expected the radiant to sacrifice themselves, rather than the spren (i.e. suicide).

Regarding the recreance, rather than the KR breaking their bonds and killing their spren, couldn’t they have made an agreement with the spren to stop forging new nahel bonds from that point forward? The current batch of KR would keep their bonds. They would all eventually die, but their spren would return to the cognitive realm and live on. It would take several decades, but the KR had already been around for a long time, so whats a few more years? Perhaps there was an imminent disaster in the works, but letting the knights die out naturally seems preferable to killing all of their spren in a mass bond breaking ceremony.

I cried in a bunch of places. I'm a big emotional softie when it comes to books and characters I love. A few off the top of my head: Elhokar dying while holding his son and the picture Shallan drew of him, saying the first ideal (big tears) Renarin giving Dalinar a hug in his flashback Jasnah reading Way of Kings to Dalinar Kaladin and little bro Jasnah sparing Renarin's life Evi dying while trying to make peace and save lives Teft's third ideal Skar and Lyn glowing Kaladin breaking down and not saying the fourth ideal, and Syl hugging him and saying it's okay Pretty much all of part 5, especially Taln, Dalinar, and little Gavinor showing up alive at the end. I had been reading straight through and was mentally and emotionally exhausted, and the tears were flowing in all the parts.

I don’t think a new oathpact is a long term solution, but it could be a temporary fix until a more permanent plan to defeat Odium is found. Perhaps our heroes are losing the battle by the end of book five, with masses of people dying across Roshar. The radiants and their allies may not yet be advanced enough in skill and number to defeat the agents of Odium. Dalinar, as a bondsmith, could forge a temporary oathpact to hold back Odium and his minions for a few years until the radiants grow in strength and number, and a more permanent plan is in place for Odium’s ultimate defeat. This plan could be the arc for the back five books. I think it would be interesting to see some action on Braize, though I don't love the idea of seeing any of our current radiants tortured.

Regarding whether the “Shallan” we've seen so far in the first three books is the real Shallan, I came across this quote in my reread near the end of Part 1, when Shallan is fighting Re-Shephir: I remember when I read this for the first time, I cheered out loud that Shallan’s fierce inner warrior was coming out. She growled. I looked forward to seeing more of this as the book progressed. Alas, we didn’t get more of it. Perhaps Veil and/or Radiant embody some of these raw grittier aspects of Shallan’s nature, but I don’t think we saw it this close to the surface again before the end. Maybe this is part of why I feel a little disappointed in her progress in this book... I really want to see more of the Shallan that is not so nice and sweet and clever, and can send an Unmade fleeing in terror. @Stormlightning I haven’t had much time to post the last couple of days, but I wanted to thank you for responding to my questions a few pages back about whether Shallan was ready for marriage, and how she was doing at the end of the book. I don’t agree with all of your points, but I like getting different perspectives on how people interpret the text. I hope you continue to post, it’s nice to have a variety of view points. As a random side note, I am really happy to finally know where @SLNC avatar comes from. That has been driving me nuts. How could I forget that movie? Johnny Depp might rival Adolin for perfection.

Okay I can see this as a potential direction. I can certainly see that her bond with Pattern is something only she can repair. If the bond is in danger it will force her to face things on her own. At the same time I can imagine readers complaining that her identity crisis is stretching on too long and becoming tedious, similar to complaints about Kaladin's extended brooding. I thought he made good emotional progress in Oathbringer, but many readers were annoyed by his breakdown in Kholinar and subsequent melancholy, that it was the same old problem being strung out across multiple books. People who understand depression know this is realistic, but many find it annoying. Hopefully Brandon will go for realistic rather than a quick and easy fix to a serious issue. I'll keep my hopes up.

@FuzzyWordsmith and others... Based on where Oathbringer ended (without you I fade, marriage, etc), what would you consider a satisfying direction for Shallan at this point, so that her mental illness is handled with the care and respect it deserves? I'm curious what our options are here. Looking for hope really. @Dreamstorm Thank you for posting that quote. It actually gives a little hope that there is more to Shallan's healing we haven't seen yet.

@FuzzyWordsmith @SLNC (and others who have replied in the last few minutes)... I hope you're right and there's more to it than what we've seen so far. Perhaps I'm looking too much at feedback from other readers, who think it is a satisfying conclusion for Shallan. However, at this point I'm not seeing what the other options are. The line "without you I fade," and the implication that Adolin somehow brings her back to herself and makes her whole, seems to be the "answer" to her struggles at the end of the book. I don't expect that she will be 100% healed in the next book, but I expect she will be better and he will be helping her find herself. Maybe the story will go in completely different direction that we haven't foreseen, and we'll be blown away. Going into Oathbringer I certainly didn't foresee Dalinar opening a perpendicularity or Moash killing a herald or Syl having a bounty on her head. I do trust Brandon as a writer, so I'll try to keep an open mind, but I'm not setting my expectations too high for Shallan to find herself outside of her relationship. I think the implication here is that Love Conquers All (which oddly enough, I normality like as a trope, so long as it doesn't interfere with the individual character growth. I am a romantic at heart, but not at the expense of inner strength.)

Wow you guys are prolific. There is a lot I want to respond to it's hard to keep track of it all. @PhineasGage I am highly impressed with your ability to multi-quote and respond to so many people! I’ll focus on this for now: @insert_anagram_here Thank you for listing these out. The authorial intent of this particular storyline is something I've been considering and struggling with. Unfortunately, I think the answer is C. The reason being: if you look at the reactions of the majority of readers, (those outside this thread and on reddit and other places), they seem to feel this particular storyline has come to a satisfying conclusion. They feel that Shallan has gotten better by the end of the book and that the marriage is good for her. Combine this with the romance plots in Brandon's other books, and it feels like a familiar conclusion to a sub-plot used to highlight and resolve a particular character’s weakness or dilemma. Many have brought up the Mistborn triangle. Heroine meets and is instantly attracted to handsome, charming guy from prominent noble house. Heroine later meets dark, broody “bad" guy and is tempted by a certain mystery and freedom he represents. Heroine is confronted with conflicting feelings within herself and must make a choice between happy and stable or dangerous and free. Heroine chooses happy and stable, they get married, are super awesome together, and save the world. Flowers grow. The end. Perhaps there is more to it than that and I will be pleasantly surprised in future books if Shallan is not miraculously healed by a relationship. But at this point it looks like a completed plot to me. I hope to see her become her full awesome self, but I think that will happen through her marriage rather than through her own individual growth as a character. As a reader who loves super strong female characters, it feels like an unsatisfying conclusion, but it happens sometimes. Fortunately there are tons of other storylines in SA that are fully satisfying and rewarding. I am in awe of Brandon's genius in worldbuilding, lore, magic, and those are the areas where Stormlight really shines. Like several others have pointed out, my issues here are related to Shallan’s character development rather than shipping. I’m not on team Shadolin or Shalladin, but rather on Team “Shallan being awesome." If there were a Shallan character thread, I would post my thoughts there. @Stormlightning I would be curious to hear your thoughts on Shallan's character growth throughout Oathgringer. Do you feel that she progressed or regressed in her mental health and in her development as a radiant by the end? Do you feel that she is healthy enough to enter into a long-term relationship? Do you think her marriage will help resolve her identity issues? Is she closer to saying her next ideal/truth? I would love to hear from more folks who are happy with her progress this book.

This topic reminds me of a question I have about the nahel bond spren. I’m confused about the status of the sprens' shadesmar body when they're bonded to someone in the physical realm. I was under the impression that they come fully into the physical realm when they make the leap to find a candidate to bond. This means that their "big body" is no longer in Shadesmar, causing them to forget a lot about their former life in the cognitive realm. However, in the stick scene in WOR, when Shallan peeks into Shadesmar while trying to transform the stick to fire, she sees big Pattern there, with his head of twisting lines. He coaches her on how to transform the stick. Does he transition from the PR to the CR when she soulcasts, or is she mentally projecting Pattern in addition to herself? Or is he always there in Shadesmar following her around, sort of like the deadeye spren following their shardholders around?

Oh, you're pushing in the knife in even deeper! Part of what makes this so hard to take is that Shallan is being rescued by Captain Awesome (anyone remember Chuck?), and I actually like him. I've been captivated by his charm just like Shallan and everyone else. If I didn't like him it would be easier to write them both off characters in a cheesy fairy tale romance, but I can't be upset with Adolin at all. I think he genuinely loves her and I most feel sorry for him for taking on this huge responsibility. @PhineasGage and @DimChatz you bring up some interesting points that I'd want to respond to, but alas the world outside needs try attention for awhile. More later ...

@Dreamstorm I agree that Shallan is the issue in this storyline. Over the last few days I’ve been pondering what bothered me so much about her character in this book, and it boils down to the fact that she feels like a damsel in distress who was rescued by a knight in shining armor in the end. It takes the power away from her and gives it the person she commits to in a relationship. Wherever she goes from here, I feel like she is diminished somehow. If she is now able to heal, it is because Adolin has helped fix her, not because she found healing on her own. If she doesn’t heal, or if the healing is an illusion based on a false sense of security, then she will not have the opportunity to work on herself as an individual. She is married to a Highprince and all the duties and responsibilities that go along with that, and there probably won’t be a lot of time for self-reflection. In considering the author’s intent, I get the sense that he is suggesting that this is a good step for Shallan. I expect that in the next book Adolin will help her heal, and she will get better. That seems like a good thing on the surface, but I was hoping for more from Shallan as a character. She started out as a shy, awkward country girl who I could relate to in book 1. I have been so excited to watch her grow and develop into a strong, confident, independent Knight Radiant who is fully in control of her own destiny. At the end of OB she seems like a broken girl who took “the road more travelled” by attaching herself to a strong man for stability. My issue is not who she chose in the end, but that she didn’t realize that needed to to get herself together before making a huge life decision like marriage. Perhaps I'll be surprised in a future book and the story will take an unexpected turn that allows Shallan to come to her own rescue, but I'm not holding out much hope at this point. As of now, Jasnah has become that strong female character for me. I don’t relate to her nearly as much as I did Shallan in the beginning, but she’s an interesting character in her own right and we don’t have many other options for great female protagonists. @sylian I agree with your assessment that Kaladin made progress at the end with his realization that he’s going to be alright. I'm kind of bummed he got used as a tool for Shallan’s identity issues in this book (that comment about Veil having terrible taste in men still irks me), but at the very least it should provide some good opportunity for growth in the next book, related to his depression and next ideal. Apologies to everyone for droning on and on about my issues with Shallan in this thread. I’m trying to make peace with it so it doesn’t spoil what is otherwise a really good book, and it’s probably getting tedious. Probably time to move on... yeah right.

@PhineasGage I am with you on the Kaladin love. He had me at book 1 chapter 1 and will always and forever have my heart. I also love Syl, Pattern, and Dalinar, and they all remained at the top of my list of favorite characters. I went up and down with Dalinar, he had extreme highs and lows in this book, but the net result at the end is that he remains an amazing character that is never boring or stagnant, with some very real struggles that he overcomes in the end. Several other characters shifted place for me. Jasnah went way up. She had two of my favorite scenes: reading Way of Kings to Dalinar and the wonderful "I love you, I will not kill you" scene with Renarin. Who knew Jasnah could be so loving? Not to mention she is a strong, independent warrior woman, which is needed in this series. Szeth is also steadily on the rise. I need to see more interactions with the other characters, but I can foresee him becoming on of my favorites in future books. My Adolin appreciation also continues to rise in this book. He doesn't carry the depth of emotion that some other characters do, but he is light and steady and a reliable friend, which is a much needed contrast to the angst and drama of all of the other characters. His love of fashion could be seen as frivolous, but I quite enjoyed it as a way to lighten up all the heaviness of everything else going on. Lift is also in this category... not the most profound of characters, but fun to read in the midst of the world coming to an end. Shallan unfortunately took a fall in this book. I liked her in part 1, especially the fight with Re Shephir took control of the situation and kicked butt, but the personality conflicts became tedious to the point that I couldn't relate to her at all. I felt unnerved that I disliked her so much by the ends and hope she can stabilize in future books so I can like her as a character again.

One other thing that points to Tien's possible lightweaver status is his fascination with the patterns and colors in rocks. Compare this with Shallan's constant commentary about the strata in Urithiru. This is something I have thought about relating to Shallan. Could Pattern have been attracted to her because she had a vivid imagination as a child? I believe there is a WOB that says the cracks needed to form the nahel bond do not all need to come from trauma. Perhaps some cracks can come from a creative mind, where there the inner world and outer world do not always sync up. I could see Tien in this category, in his own little world creating horse sculptures, and a cryptic being drawn to that.

@SLNC I thought that at first, but then wondered why they wouldn't lash everyone to the Shattered Plains oathgate if they can surgebind. Kaladin could use gravitation after the second oath, and they've been practicing, so it should be possible if they have stormlight. Maybe there were too many people to carry. @Kurkistan Interesting theory about keeping a connection to Kaladin when he's in Shadesmar. It's not truly another place. I guess he would have travelled out of range after a few days, but it might have worked for long enough to get them out of Kholinar. I was also wondering why they travelled down toward the sea in Southern Alethkar. It seems like a random place in the middle of nowhere.