Jebaited

That's actually just where I stopped, recently just met them. More recently met "the Betrayer" wondering about his identity, I swear that series is so storming creepy and insidious and then randomly hilariously absurd in the best way, but I need a break I think! The way Stephenson writes is mezmerizing, but difficult and very tiring to read after awhile. Very much enjoying the focus on just a few characters and Sanderson's more approachable style right now though. Dalinar later explains this a little more, that what he thinks its saying is that the lighteyes, being so powerful should be the protectors of the darkeyes and dedicate their lives like the Radiants did to more protect and serve, but not to be "servants" below that of the darkeyes. First, I'm glad that Kaladin is still a darkeyes when he's not surgebinding or whatnot. I feel like he's the common-man hero Roshar deserves and it'd honestly be kind of depressing I think if he just turned into a lighteyes. Second replaying to nervousnerd, I don't think lighteyes are the rulers because people looked up to the Radiants 4500 years ago. Like I was saying earlier. Imagine you took a big population of darkeyed Alethi, wiped their memory and moved them to another place for a fresh start. They no longer have any knowledge or lighteyes vs darkeyes, the heralds, radiants, shardblades, etc. You let them do their thing, they develop their own society anew, and then you give 100 of them shardplate and shardblades... Those shardbearers become lighteyes and become hugely powerful. Naturally most of the shardbearers would take over and this cycle would just start again. They'd pass down the blades or forfeit them when they were defeated. Naturally these lighteyes would probably form royal marriages, and have children with other powerful lighteyed allies. In less than a hundred years you'd probably have another society where lighteyes would become the aristocracy and darkeyes would again be the peasantry, hoping one day to win a shardblade and cast of their inferior darkeye racial identifiers and become a superior lighteyes. to me this is how i think of roshar and it seems to me that no amount of cultural enlightenment would be able to counteract the prejudices that this would continue to be created in peoples minds as a result of this system. this is also why I kind of meant that this is oddly, in some ways, more depressing than the deep dark fantasy of malazan (where genocides seem like they're a dime a dozen).

to me it seems more that they're the focus because all the shardbearers are going to be lighteyes, so therefore all the rulers and powerful, rich and influential characters will all be lighteyes. it seems more a product of the world and the way the magic system works. what i was hoping is that there's some wrinkle, something i've not yet been exposed to that will prove to turn this on it's head. because while lighteyes aren't objectively any superior than a darkeyes on paper (unless they're bonded to a shardholder or radiant), a society left to its own devices would not correct for this, because the world, as it's been described so far, favors lighteyes. even if you take a bunch of rosharans, wipe there memory and drop them on another continent with shardblades. the ones that grab them will become more powerful, their children will be lighteyes and all of the sudden within a few generations, this will happen again. it's more than simple discrimination on earth, i feel like it'd be much more powerful of an effect and the darkeyes are doomed to be forever subjugated... unless there's some wrinkle to the magic system, and therein is what i'm curious about

I decided to pick this up to give myself a break after reading a bunch of Malazan having heard a lot of good things about Brandon Sanderson. For the most part I really do like it very much so far. I even really liked the whole lighteyes vs darkeyes thing, very interesting way of sorting highborns and lowborns, until I learned that being a shardbearer automatically makes you a lighteyes. So from what I've learned of how the magic in Roshar works and what it takes to become traditionally "powerful" (binding a shardblade or being a Knight Radiant) will automatically make you lighteyes, leaving no real true powerful darkeyes seemingly and we know that the step above Shardbearers, the Knights Radiant, had very light eyes as well. What I'm honestly hoping for is some great equalizer. There's no benefit from what I can see to being a darkeyes or any great power that would make somebody a darkeyes. You're just a peasant, and if you become smart, strong, and/or clever enough to become a shardbearer, you're no longer a darkeyes anyways, so yeah... I just want to know if there is something like this, because I thought I'd be in for something a little less dreary after 4000+ pages of Malazan in a row, but it's kind of almost more depressing in a far more existential way. So just wondering if I should really hold out for anything to change, at least in WoK or WoR.