analyticaposteriori

On 30. 1. 2018 at 3:28 AM, Vissy said:

I think it is a rushed plot to have them marry right now, but not necessarily unrealistic, and it felt like a good moment to make a decision like that in terms of just how the decision was executed, on part of writing. When Adolin x Shallan continues down the line it will need more work and attention though, to avoid a complete flattening of an interesting plot in my opinion. If it will be treated like a normal marriage in Book 4 I would be disappointed - I'd expect there to be a lot of difficulties at first, especially from Adolin's POV, adapting to a life like that. I'd be disappointed if Adolin just took it all in stride or with minimal effort and never struggled again. I guess for me it's that I want to care about Adolin and Shallan as a pairing, but I only have a lukewarm opinion of it because they never struggled for that relationship, and the hardships they did face were superficial and hardly any of their relationship was explored beyond the "you complete me" and "he gets me / she's so different and wonderful" tropes. At least with Shalladin I felt as if they had clicked on a deeper level, but maybe that's just because the chasm sequence was miles better than any single Shadolin scene I've ever read. 

Speaking of why it was rushed

Quote

Fortunately, Veil was running this operation. Shallan … Shallan got lost in things. She’d get focused on details, or stick her head in the clouds and dream about the big picture. That comfortable middle, that safe place of moderation, was unfamiliar ground to her.

edit: Love that @wotbibliophile @Dreamstorm - just another example of something that clearly belonged to Shallan once and was pushed onto Veil.

28 minutes ago, wotbibliophile said:

I am with you @DeployParachute. I am not interested in rereading OB. That is because I found it to be very depressing. The end of Part 3 stuck with me for the rest of the book. There was nothing really satisfying for me to make up for all the sadness.

 

I was wondering what people think of Shallan's line "She has bad taste in men." Shallan is talking to Adolin about Veil liking Kaladin. I was offended by this line and was wondering why Shallan thinks this. I thought it might have to do with Helaran in which case I am not offended. It is hard to think of Kaladin as a good guy when he killed your brother. This makes sense to me. But Helaran is not explicitly tied to this line since Shallan has so completely repressed her reaction. Is there some other reason Kaladin = bad for Shallan? Is it in the text? If it is for any reason other than Helaran I am offended because Kaladin is a catch.

I thought of one other reason that Shallan may have said that line. Maybe she said it to manipulate Adolin. She was like "Don't worry Adolin, I'm not interested in Kaladin. Everyone knows he would make a bad partner. I'm only interested in you."

That's pretty much where I am even though I think it was more about further manipulating herself than Adolin. "Yeah, Veil is stupid. Absolutely nothing to do with me tho! Nothing at all." The line is harsh because she is overcompensating.

38 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

One, actually Shallan has known both of them for the same amount of time - she met Kaladin first, even.

It's not about how long they have known each other but about how much time they actually spend in each other's company. Unlike Adolin and Shallan, Kaladin and Shallan hardly ever interact after they first become aware of the other one's issues in the chasms (in fact after the healing tent they don't talk to one another for like 800 pages). That's not really surprising - they have no business to interact with one another in Urithiru (Kaladin is a guard captain in the Kholin quarters who still very much sees himself as a darkeyed, lower class man, while Shallan is a lighteyed noblewoman in Sebarial camp who is bethroted to the Kholin heir; the societal expectations are rooted far too deep for the factor of them being KR to play any significant role in such a short timeframe), in Kholinar they each take up a different task and after that there is not much of a time for anything - but it's how it is.

Once again - between coming out of chasms and ending of OB Kaladin and Shallan have maybe half an hour of cumulative face to face time (I'm ignoring the two offscreen scenes because I am not going to judge characters on something the author can't be bothered to write about - I'll just assume that there was no interaction between them on the drawing Urithiru/Thaylen flights).

The notion that in that ridiculously small amount of time they should've come to some sort of deep understanding of one another's extremely complicated psychological issues and because they did not, they are incompatible, is ridiculous. Quite frankly Adolin and Shallan may be even worse off in that department considering their "time spent with each other/level of understanding (which is still very far from complete)" ratio.

Shallan and Kaladin spent enough time with one another?

Man, I need whatever copy of OB you people have.

5 minutes ago, Vissy said:

Seems like a pretty scheisse world where a divorce (e.g breaking an oath) literally means that you're a shitty person, and the universe says so. I don't exactly believe that that's the kind of universe Sanderson wants to write. 

Agreed. Quite frankly if Alethi really held to oaths in such ridiculously absolute manner the society simply could not practically function.

Just now, Alderant said:

Believe it or not, I agree with you too. It's not that I think Shallan takes her oaths seriously, but rather I believe that she is too desperate to cling to what she has to risk jeopardizing her new marriage over it. We haven't even seen her accept her last Truth about her family, but that Truth, I think, would stand in the way of the possibility of divorce. Adolin is now part of her family.

As Greywatch said, Shallan breaking her oath would sour not just her relationship with Adolin (which she desperately clings to), but probably the rest of the main cast as well, since many of them hold to their word and believe others should as well.

And yes, while her Truths are more important to her spren than oaths are, I don't think Shallan is the type of person to place so little value on a promise. I do, however, think she jumped into the marriage a little too hastily, and that that was an act of desperation, rather than careful consideration of her own feelings and analysis of her true desires.

Well, I don't expect her to remain this clingy, meek self for the rest of the series. That would be quite disappointing as her character has so much more potentional.

6 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

And yet Shallan still took the marriage oaths and treated them seriously, and knows that everybody in her life takes oaths seriously and she'd definitely break the oaths holding her in good standing with people she cares about just to show us that she can. Definitely would fly well with Kaladin who himself is extremely close to the oath-keeping side of the Radiants. It would damage her relationships and personal/family reputation but I'm sure it's fine.

She takes these oaths while still living in massive self-denial

As for the rest of the post... surely Shallan would never take a self-destructive course of action /s

I agree with @Rainier - by Shallan's very nature the truths will be far more important to her character arc than oaths. Every character (Kaladin, Dalinar, Szeth too) being an "oaths person" would be pretty boring. And even oaths characters like Kaladin are learning that the world is not black and white.

I could get over 'liking' - it would be only natural for two people who were thrown into their respective situations and a mere 'liking' does not really lead anywhere most of the time. I've certainly had a fare share of 'liking' relationships that stopped exactly there, lol.

The problem is that 'liking' is a very weak word for how Kaladin clearly feels towards Shallan (the hamfisted denial at the end of OB notwithstanding).

There certainly isn't much space in Shallan's thoughts for Adolin himself (or his well-being outside of what is useful to Shallan). Her two main motivations for jumping through with the marriage are sex (she's positively horny by the end of OB... it's probably not going to last) and anchoring Shallan so she can stay away from facing her old truths. She told Adolin about her fracturing but that's not something she ever tried to hide from herself - in context of her mental health the truths she tells others are meaningless in comparison to what she has to accept herself.

15 minutes ago, Rainier said:

How is Veil a subsidiary of Shallan when she, in her own thoughts, represses the idea of abandoning Veil, describes her as too vital to abandon, and then immediately says Shallan would be easier. It seems like it's obvious, and that's actually what made me read it again.

I just want to note since I remember I brought this quote up somewhere - these are Veil's thoughts so she may be a bit biased for herself.

edit: I still think it's very valid in the context of this conversation though.

7 hours ago, SLNC said:

I'm still not quite convinced, that Shallan is a lie, but rather just a part of her real self, but it could be correct... I mean Pattern should know the real Shallan, right? He knew her before the incident with her mother.

I would definitely say that Shallan is very much her base self, even if much of that core has been splintered and a bigger part of it may now reside in Veil.

It makes sense with the one year gap, doesn't it? Almost too much.

But well, that's the moment I'm dropping the book.

Yeah, I certainly wouldn't call maskShallan the best version of herself. She may consider herself that at the moment but I think it's safe to say that she is wrong.

She has stripped so much of herself away and locked it up in boxes that the only thing that remains is a barren husk. Heck, she's starting to remind me of Kvothe. All she needs is a big, fat chest in her closet.

43 minutes ago, Vissy said:

As a sidenote, it's very interesting how this thread started as a general criticism (and perhaps ultra-optimistic) view on the romantic arc / love triangle, and grew into a general criticism of Oathbringer from the massive disappointment and (IMO) failure of writing a good character arc also known as Adolin, to the of course titular love triangle failure. I really don't know if Brandon meant this to be so divisive. What if he genuinely thought that this was a good way to write their arcs? I'm not sure if we can trust him to follow his foreshadowing if that is the case. 

Well, much of this thread can be boiled down to questioning Brandon's intentions.

However some of the structural choices he has made for the entire series (the need for changing flashback PoVs, the messy structure of "3 novels + flashback novel, a novelette and a bunch of short stories all in one book", the planned timeskips) are starting to bite him in the chull and I imagine it's only going to get worse. Personally I can't imagine a world in which I am going to care about Eshonai or Szeth flashbacks and if those books are as structurally messy as OB...

These choices naturally make me question what I should expect from BS in other aspects of his writing too - should I pay attention to the foreshadowings shown in this and other threads or is their presence in the text unintentional, merely a result of sloppy writing that came out of the same place as the sloppy structural mistakes?

15 minutes ago, Vissy said:

I've been browsing other Stormlight communities, like the one on Reddit (and even reviews of Oathbringer) and it's kind of disappointing that nobody else has seen any of what we've talked about here. Most commenters I've seen are either praising the resolution of the book to the heavens or disappointed with it entirely, due to being boring in the middle section.

Well, reddit is reddit - that place is more conformist than a communist party convention - once somebody gets the ball rolling for one side the other will be crushed.

Most people in general don't really delve beyond the surface in their reading (I think it's safe to say that many of us here sometimes avoid it too) and that's the problem here since much of Shalladin hides in indirect literary devices while pretty much everything Shadolin is spelled out for you directly in thoughts these two have of one another or in their direct interactions.

1 hour ago, MonsterMetroid said:

Nice add! What chapter is this in?

OB 78

The interesting thing is that these thoughts come up when Veil gets exposed as "Swiftspren" - in that context reversing the line of thinking into "abandoning Shallan" doesn't make any sense so this could probably point towards some deeper resentment Veil feels towards maskShallan.

Quote

But Veil is a false face, a part of her said. You could always abandon her.
She strangled that part of her, smothered it deep. Veil was too real, too vital, to abandon. Shallan would be easier.

9 minutes ago, Vissy said:

God, I hope Shallan and Adolin won't have a kid by the beginning of the next book. It would be so, so, so stupid.

and yet - what better reason to do the time skip other than to bypass the plot-inconvenient pregnancy 

1 hour ago, DimChatz said:

What I meant by forced was that Kaladin kinda forced himself to think that as a reason to repress his feelings, just to feel agreement and accept the situation, as @DeployParachute suggests, and not have to make a choice.

 

It's certainly forced seeing as Syl doesn't buy it and she pretty much partially functions as an extension of Kaladin's unconscioussness.

OB skips quite a few scenes you would think would be shown. I have no idea why and I really didn't get this feeling with the previous 2 books.

Yeah but Veil is obviously not in love with Kaladin anymore since Shallan told her to drop it

1 hour ago, Ookla the Feathered said:

Shallan's feelings for Kaladin are "whoa that's hot" which... relatable. She shoved that off into Veil because it was inconvenient and she didn't want to deal with it, but at the end of the day, Shallan feels a physical attraction to Kaladin, but not much more. I particularly liked the comment about appreciating a nice piece of art without wanting to pull it off the hook and get intimate with it. Veil certainly didn't seem to be interested in anything resembling commitment with Kaladin, and neither did Shallan.

Shallan acknowledges that her feelings toward Kaladin weren't actually romantic when she's reassuring Adolin at the end. And Kaladin admits that he too, was not in love with her, though he was confused about that for a while. That seems to me pretty well wrapped up in a nice plot bow.

It's really interesting how much opinons can difer. You think those lines wrapped up the plot nicely while I think those are some of the most contrived excuses I have ever read. The "artwork" line especially, if it is indeed to be taken as a final rejection of attraction to Kaladin and in the context of everything that preceded it, may in fact be in the running for the worst line ever penned.

7 hours ago, Ammanas said:

Although I would never argue with people who don't like Oathbringer I wonder if part of the problem is unrealistic expectations. I think when each book takes over three years of waiting, it is easy to hype the book up into something it will never be able to fulfill. I think this will continue to be a trend, for some, regarding this series and book six will have the most, of all ten books, people upset with it upon the first read. 

I don't know - I was just as hyped for WoR and it still exceeded my expectations. OB just has so many glaring structural mistakes and its heights don't quite reach the heights of TWoK and WoR - Shadesmar sequence can't compare to the chasm in WoR and the final battle (by the way this ending is maybe becoming a bit predictable) isn't as good as either of the previous ones. For me the prose got better but pretty much everything else felt worse.

It's pretty clear that it's a giant mix with no actual corresponding ethnicities on Earth. There is always some little quirk that makes these people just off and Brandon himself doesn't really seem to have a clear idea either - for example he first says that he pictures Alethi as Arab-East Asian but then mentions Indians in the next sentence (which in itself tells you nothing since India's an incredible diverse country where you can find people who could pass as natives of pretty much every other place on Earth). But then the Alethi are also all tall while the average male height in India is like 5'5...