agrabes

Right, sorry I should have clarified. He does say the line about Tien out loud to Syl. But just before that he thinks in his mind that he is not upset at all that Shallan and Adolin have gotten together. His first reaction is to say something like how he found he couldn't be bitter about it, as in he thought he should be upset but realized that he wasn't. I dunno, this last several posts of this thread has been cathartic for me on this topic I think. I'm starting to come around to the point where I could accept that Sanderson's intent was to show that Kaladin did some thinking and realized he really didn't love Shallan. Nothing leading up to that one scene showed that he was thinking like that, but I could accept that was the intent and if it was the intent it's an acceptable end to the triangle. For it to work for me, there would have needed to be at least one additional Kaladin/Syl talk scene about this, but I also don't see where or how that could have been added realistically in OB. Maybe Sanderson will throw us (me, selfishly lol) a bone in SA4 with a short scene where Syl says to Kaladin, "Hey are you really sure you never loved her??" and he actually thinks it through and expresses real feelings of how he came to that conclusion.

Well, to me the issue was that he thought that, not that he said it. If he said it, I totally get that he's gotta put a good face on things and let it drop. Plus, let's face it there wasn't enough of anything between him and Shallan to give him a right to make a big deal over it with her. He just failed to win her over and that's it. The issue is that he didn't say it, it was his internal thoughts and feelings. So, it's not that he's sort of a little upset but dealing with it in a good way, it's that he was never upset at all. I'm cool with the fact that Adolin and Shallan ended up together, but what really bugs me the most is the way it's sort of retconned that Kaladin never liked her to begin with. I personally felt there was a lot of depth to his feelings, so to me it felt like a big disconnect from what had been built up. But that's me, the unrequited love stories are the ones that resonate with me the most. In the end though I think you're right - Sanderson didn't want to write the kind of story it would have to be if the triangle really played out in a more satisfying way, probably for a lot of reasons. It's not really that kind of story and there's not room in it to dedicate the page time that would be needed to make it feel right so he probably decided to cut it off.

Yeah, I was around here in the early days after OB was released. I sort of took a hiatus for a year or so in between releases, but over the last few months I've posted occasionally. There were definitely a lot of people unsatisfied with the conclusion, but it seemed like most people were mostly upset based on shipping interests not necessarily about the actual structure of how it ended. At least, that was what I took from it back then. I've wondered too if the triangle arc didn't get cut or drastically reduced due to bloat or other editing reasons in OB. Like I said in another thread, I wonder if he had to make late changes to the structure of OB that made some of the later parts of the book feel a little less cohesive or something like that. I know he has said that he had originally planned for book 3 to be Szeth's book and I think you can see a lot of things in the set up that would have made more sense if we spent more time with Szeth. So if he had gone a long way with the book as Szeth's book and then had to redo it as Dalinar's book it would make a ton of sense if certain things had to get cut or drastically changed to make room for Dalinar's story to work. Back in the first few months after OB's release, there were a lot of posts with theories like yours that turned into huge shipping wars. I've intentionally stayed away from talking about it to this point because I don't really want to restart a shipping war. People have discussed who is really the right guy or best guy for Shallan to death and there's no real definitive answer other than who she ends up with at the end of OB. I'll just say that I have two thoughts on this: 1) I agree it seems like there is something fishy going on with the interactions between Shallan and Kaladin. There have been hints from Sanderson that he may be setting up for something like the Dalinar/Navani/Gavilar triangle, not necessarily with the Kaladin/Shallan/Adolin triangle but he has hinted there will be a parallel to it in the future. This has led people to speculate that Adolin will die or Shallan and Adolin's marriage will fail. You can probably go back and find the thread with dozens of pages discussing this from back then and there are a lot of people who posted WoBs to support the idea. 1b) Personally, I think the most likely resolution to this is that later on Shallan will realize she actually did have stronger feelings for Kaladin than Adolin or equal feelings for both, but it's too late to do anything about it and she decides not to act on them. I say this based on Sanderson's typical writing style and themes, but it's a total guess. 2) That said, if you read the section at the end of Oathbringer where the resolution occurs, Kaladin thinks to himself in his mind that he is not at all upset that Shallan and Adolin have finalized that they will definitely get married. He thinks that he isn't bitter or sad in any way, that his feeling is "agreement." I don't see how you can interpret this as anything other than a Deus Ex Machina from Brandon Sanderson saying it's over. This was my biggest issue with the resolution of the triangle. I think the door is pretty firmly closed from Kaladin's side. 2b) You can also look at some of the sections from OB where Kaladin thinks about Shallan and you can find hints that it is being implied the reason he feels better around her is not romantic attraction but actually her lightweaver magic. This is something Karger pointed out earlier in the thread that I didn't realize before. Lightweavers apparently have an effect that makes people around them feel happier - Tien is known to have been on the path to becoming a Lightweaver and hence the comparison to Shallan. I'm not sure if I totally agree that all of his feelings toward Shallan were always just side effects of Lightweaver magic, but I think it's pretty clear that at least some of them are supposed to be attributed to it. Also, if you look at Syl's advice to Kaladin, if you interpret it from this lens then she is not acting as matchmaker she is actually telling Kaladin he needs to go see a therapist. If this turns out the be the case, it takes Sanderson's (imo) best written romance arc (Kaladin's feelings for Shallan in WoR and OB) and turns into a non-romantic arc.

I think that's a fair interpretation - they do seem to get along well in early OB, better than the rest of the book. I could see how someone could get that feeling, especially relative to her interactions in the rest of the book. The main reason I'm asking this is because earlier in the thread a lot of people said they felt there was a good and satisfying build up of a relationship between Shallan and Adolin leading to their decision to get married. I personally think that Sanderson intended for there to be one, but failed at it due to his weakness in writing romance. At least to me, Shallan's decisions at the end of OB felt sudden and not supported by her earlier interactions with Adolin. I seemed to be the odd one out with that impression and sort of came to the conclusion that it must just be something in their story arc that didn't click with me. But, I'm always interested in trying to figure out how other people see things. The resolution of the whole love triangle thing really pissed me off when I read OB, not necessarily because of the results but because of how it happened. So every now and again I come to these boards and try to talk w/ other people to figure out if I'm the only one dissatisfied with it or if I'm just looking at it a weird way. I feel like it's been enough time now that people can discuss it without it turning into a shipping war. Anyway, thanks for putting out your opinion on this.

It's nice to find someone who has a very similar view on Shallan and her arc as of Oathbringer. Sometimes I feel like the only one on this board who believed that she was really peaking in early OB and then regresses significantly in the rest of the book. I'm glad there are at least two of us! Regarding Kaladin/Shallan compatibility that's an interesting way to look at it. I had never really thought of it from that angle, but it makes a ton of sense. Their scene together in OB where he says he wishes he could do what she does was an interesting one to me. I don't think I go as far as you do in believing she's totally irresponsible as a core aspect of her personality. I thought that scene showed that she knows she shouldn't be pushing things off the way she does, but she can't figure out a way to get a grip on things. I think she went quiet after that because part of her was expecting Kaladin to tell her she has to face up to her problems. She knows him as the guy who is really strong, resolute, and never looks away from a challenge even if it breaks him and I think that is what she really admired about him. I think part of her expected him to sort of become an anchor for her and tell her he could help her face the truth and she was really upset that he didn't. They didn't talk about it after that, but it's one of those common romance tropes that if they had talked about why she got upset they would have easily worked out all their differences. If she had explained how she's creating personas to deal with her problems for her and feels like she's losing control of herself and if he had explained how he can barely keep himself together with all the mental burdens he's bearing and wishes he could figure out how to set down some of them, that's the basis of a friendship or relationship of mutual support. But it didn't happen and that's OK. So I guess to sum it up, I didn't see that scene as a sign that they are incompatible, I just saw it as two people who want the same thing but got into a misunderstanding that made everything worse. But, I could easily see it from your perspective too. Out of curiosity, what is it that makes you believe Shallan cares a lot about Adolin (or at least more that we're saying now)? I know this was discussed up thread, so no need to rehash it if it's already been discussed ad nauseum. There are definitely some things we may just disagree about, but I don't remember anything that suggests that Shallan has deep feelings for Adolin as an individual beyond those final few scenes of OB leading up to the wedding. That's not to say it's not there, it could easily be that is there (or is intended by Sanderson to be there) and I'm just not picking up on it.

Agreed, Kaladin learned by experience that Shallan doesn't need anyone to take care of her. It seems like to me so far in the series Shallan has not expressed much of any real deep feelings for anyone. Like you said, her bigger interests seemed to be political betterment. It feels like she has the strongest feelings about Jasnah (not romantically, imo) of anyone. I do think that in future books, we are going to find out just how messed up her mental state was in OB. We can only see so much of it from the inside and there are hints that she's been suppressing a lot of things. We know she suppressed her memories of her childhood, but I think we are getting hints that she is suppressing more recent events. Something I think you were getting at too is that she might be just completely trying to shut out genuine emotional development and thoughts about what she actually wants for herself in a personal context. Like you said, she never really considers Kaladin seriously as a romantic option probably because she is suppressing that in her mind as something she sees as unworthy of the person she is supposed to be. Not that she would get together with him if she wasn't (she might or might not), but she's completely blocked the possibility out of her mind. She also never really thinks about whether she actually wants to be with Adolin until the last handful of scenes in OB, or what position she really wants to hold in the leadership of the Radiants and the Alethi government. She kind of thinks about this when Jasnah shows up - she had sort of been coming into her own in WoR and early OB but when Jasnah shows up she feels like she is being put back into a subordinate positions and she sort of shuts down. She just tries to focus in on her work and latches on to learning how to be a spy as an escape. It's like she created the personas to do what she thought she was supposed to do at a moment in time and she takes comfort when taking on those personas because she doesn't really have to think about what she should really be doing with her life. I think sometime in SA4 or SA5 she is going to have to face up to all the things she's been suppressing. Not necessarily in a shipping way, but I think as far as her actual role in society and taking ownership/agency over her own actions.

I think in addition to that - he still views himself in some respects as a slave - a lowly person in society who is not deserving of praise. I'm not sure if swearing the fourth ideal will make the brands go away, but it's definitely going to have to be some event where he can let go of his past and accept his new place in society. I think that it's going to have to be something like reuniting with his family for the long term or finding (or starting his own) new family where he feels like he really belongs in society and has worth again like he did before he was made a slave. I think forgiving himself is part of it, but not the only component of him losing his brands. I wonder if he will ever lose them. His time as a slave (and the cause of his slavery) has left a huge mental/emotional scar on Kaladin. It feels to me like the slavery and everything leading up to his time in the bridge crews has left a deeper mark on him than Tien's death. It felt like in his WoK flashbacks that he had found a way to deal with that grief. I think it might be that he can't get rid of the brands and they stay as an outward sign of all the pain and loss he has experienced and that no matter what else changes that is always going to be the core of his personality. It seems to fit with the character and his depression issues too. Some days or even some months or years he may forget about it but it's still there.

I think this is a good point to bring out, and as far as I can tell it's a new idea no one has mentioned before. It's a reasonable idea of why a Shallan/Kaladin relationship might not work. From my perspective, I think that while Kaladin does get overprotective toward a lot of people he does it selectively. He gets overprotective of people that he feels aren't capable of protecting themselves. He's wrong about this a good chunk of the time and it gets him in trouble, but he seems to be slowly learning. That said, ever since he got to know Shallan better in WoR I don't think he's taken that protective approach toward her. It seems to me that after their time trapped in the chasms together and seeing her capabilities, he realized that Shallan can take care of herself.

I generally agree with everything you said, and it would be fun to see a Kaladin/Tarah meet up in Urithiru. I do personally like the Laral idea because it (imo) has a lot of potential for character growth for Kaladin. The scene in OB is used as a way to point out to Kaladin that she's not now and never was a damsel in distress, even though he thought she was. I don't think Kaladin really understood that from their interaction in OB, he seemed more confused than anything. I agree she isn't particularly interested in him at the moment (or at least didn't express interest) and I don't know that Kaladin is particularly interested in her. I just think if they are put together in the right circumstances a woman like Laral could teach Kaladin a lot. I could imagine a lot of fun scenes like that where he thinks he needs to do something for her or help her out and she's just like "Dude, already done!" From her end, I think Kaladin could help her by demonstrating he is also competent, that she doesn't have to do everything herself. I could really see her becoming a larger player over the next few books. She's pretty much singlehandedly kept her town together in the face of Roshone's failures. People like Jasnah/Navani/Dalinar, etc will take notice of good leadership like that and promote her. She also seems like she is ambitious, since it's kind of implied she married Roshone to take his power as the leader of the town. Then again, she might just stay in the background. *shrug*

I wanted to let this drop completely and let this thread die of natural causes, but since others have written on this I'll just add that it's not my intent to shut you down or tell you you are being overly argumentative. I personally felt you were telling us that we could not (or should not) speculate about how the Kaladin/Jasnah ship could happen in a way that would feel natural in context of the story and I didn't appreciate that. I wanted to point out to you in good faith, with the assumption that you had good intentions, that it felt like you were trying to shut down discussion on that topic. I didn't intend to derail the thread over it and I also don't intend to tell you you're a bad person or anything like that. I really hate that we've even gone down this weird sidebar discussion. I personally felt you were discussing a different topic than we were and were not realizing it. I wasn't trying to call you out, I just wanted to get us all on the same page so we were discussing the same things in the same context. It seems like I did a bad job of conveying what I wanted to say to you in the right way and it ended up with this rabbit hole and I will take the blame for that. So, all that said let's move on and talk about new things. Regarding the Kaladin/Azure ship - based on their personalities and interactions in OB I sort of like the idea, but I'm hesitant about it for a few reasons. The first issue to me is the apparent age gap. I don't have an exact source on this, but isn't there 100+ years in age gap between Kaladin and Azure? I got the sense that her life was extended significantly because of her magic and also the process of worldhopping and that the events of the Stormlight Archive take place longer than a normal human's life span after Warbreaker. I may be totally off on this. Another point is that I don't think Azure intends to stick around on Roshar, I got the sense in OB that she was planning to leave the planet.

No one says that in words in a discussion. You said several times that things you extrapolated from my posts would never happen. That is equivalent to saying that someone else needs to see things your way. And that's ok - it's perfectly fine to disagree with me and argue why I should see things the way you do, that's what makes it fun to come on these boards. The problem here is you're arguing about one thing and I'm trying to talk about something else. This thing has gotten way off the rails. So let's just leave it there.

Yeah, I think we're mostly debating about nothing here. We're in agreement about the Kaladin/Jasnah ship. The way you have worded your replies makes it feel like you are telling me I need to stop believing that Kaladin and Jasnah would get together, but I don't believe that they will get together. That may not be your intent, but it comes off that way. I'm just engaging in a thought experiment to figure out why people do ship them and how it might happen because I don't see it. That was what my first post on this topic was about - talking with someone who was a Kaladin/Jasnah shipper and trying to understand their viewpoint. Then, a lot of other people took the conversation in a totally different direction. My follow up responses have been to try to clarify what I said originally. So, I guess if you're interested in debating what I said, I wanted to make sure you have it in the right frame of reference. I'm fine with debating about whether the scenario I presented is or is not plausible - assuming Sanderson has decided Kaladin and Jasnah will be together starting in SA4, what is the most logical way for that to happen. I'm not making any arguments about whether I think Kaladin/Jasnah should get together, or what I think of Jasnah as a character, nor am I advocating for Gavinor to play a major role in SA4, etc. To sum it up in terms of what seems to be your way of thinking: I don't believe there is a need for Kaladin and Jasnah to get together. I don't believe they have been shown to be attracted to each other. I don't believe that anything we have seen in the books up to this point suggests there is a reason they were to get involved. I disagree with your assertion that there's no possible way a relationship between Kaladin and Jasnah could provide any significant benefit to the other, but I don't think they will get together and don't particularly want them to get together, so that point is mostly irrelevant to me. I enjoyed speculating about how it might happen if they did get together, but this discussion has gone way off the rails and isn't fun anymore.

I just want to be clear, I don't personally ship Jasnah and Kaladin together. I agree with you that there is no real reason to believe Jasnah is interested in Kaladin. I'm just trying to come up with a way that I could personally enjoy it as a plot arc if they did get together. I really don't think that anything has to happen with Gavinor. Most likely he will not get much if any more screen time at least in the first five books. I am only mentioning him because his parenting could be a possible reasonable way for Jasnah and Kaladin to spend time together if things were to go that way. Even if it did go that way, the arc is not really going to be about Gavinor and he would only be a very minor part in it. I agree that Gavinor doesn't absolutely need a father figure to be raised. Plenty of children have been raised successfully without fathers. But, (real world) data shows that children tend to do better statistically if they have a positive male role model in their life that can spend time with them. I'm going to assume that this is also true in the Cosmere. As a person who thinks with logic and analysis, Jasnah is likely to recognize this and make sure that any child she raises has a positive male role model. There's no reason it has to be Kaladin. It could be Dalinar if he has time, or if Gavinor is pretty much just raised off screen then it could be any random background person. I'm sure there are plenty of good men that Jasnah knows that aren't important to the story so they stay off screen. Renarin is a good person, but wouldn't be a great role model for a king based on his personality type. The same with Adolin - he's a good person but doesn't really have a king's temperament - he refused to be king after all. Kaladin does, so does Dalinar. So again, I don't think it will go this way but it wouldn't be crazy if Jasnah did ask Kaladin to be a father figure or positive male role model for Gavinor. You seem to have really strong feelings about Jasnah as a character, but I don't. In my view, right now she is just one of several secondary characters. I believe she is fine on her own and also fine with someone else. Based on comments from others in this thread about Kaladin's love life I'm just engaging in a hypothetical scenario to see if in my own mind there is a reasonable way she could get together with Kaladin. In my view, it's possible, but unlikely.

This was what I was going at when I first mentioned it. If Kaladin and Jasnah are to get together there has to be a significant plot event to make it so they actually get to know each other. Though I think you are all looking at it from the perspective of Kaladin -guarding- Gavinor. That was not the perspective I was looking at it from. Gavinor has lost his parents in a traumatic fashion. Most likely, he will be raised by either Jasnah, Dalinar, or Adolin as next of kin. For the sake of figuring out ways that Kaladin and Jasnah might spend time together, I assumed that Jasnah will be the one to raise him as his adoptive mother. This would make sense considering that she is Queen and he is the heir to the throne, so she would want to have the decision making power in how he is raised. Following from that, Jasnah is an intelligent person. She is going to want a strong father figure for the boy that conforms to her ideals of how a king should act. It's reasonable to think she might choose Kaladin - he's intelligent, morally sound, and probably less busy than Dalinar. He's also got that strong nurturing and protective tendency, making him a good father figure. Adding all these things up, you could see that it would be a reasonable possibility that Jasnah might ask Kaladin to stand in as a father figure for Gavinor to help teach him how to grow into a good man capable of ruling the kingdom someday. Then, add in the shipping interest. I think we all agree that as of right now Kaladin doesn't have any romantic interest in Jasnah. The people who ship Jasnah/Kaladin would argue that she has shown some interest in him. If they are right and Jasnah is interested in Kaladin romantically, that adds another reason for her to try to get him to spend time with her. It would actually be a classic romance plot - people forced to act like they're in a relationship by various circumstances while one has a crush on the other and secretly wants the relationship to be real. It gives Jasnah a chance to open up a little bit and show her more sentimental side. I think it could be a fun side story if it were to happen. In reality though, this is all speculation. I don't think it's super likely for something like this to happen just because it would have to take up a ton of screen time to be done well. I think Sanderson is not going to want to focus on this kind of story in SA4 and SA5.

Is that right though? I don't recall Kaladin being made captain of Jasnah's guard, just like he was not captain of Elhokar's guard. He was captain of Dalinar's guard and sometimes assigned to protect Elhokar. With the changing roles of the Alethi government vs. the Knights Radiant, I got the strong impression Kaladin was no longer pulling regular guard duty as of early/mid Oathbringer. I could be totally off on this, but I seriously don't remember any implication that Kaladin would be regularly guarding Jasnah. Not that it couldn't happen, just that there's no reason we should expect that it does.

I do agree with your perspective of what love is - not a feeling but a decision, a commitment, and an active effort. I just don't see that any of that was built up in the Shallan/Adolin plot. Throughout WoR and most of OB the relationship was sort of coasting along based on expectations of the engagement and not based on deep feelings or emotions for each other. It also did not seem like either had a strong desire to be married to each other for less romantic reasons like family honor, etc. They enjoyed each other's company and were physically attracted to each other, but never seemed like a pair that would have gotten together if it weren't for the fact that they were in an arranged engagement for political reasons before they ever met. Shallan in particular seemed to care very little about her relationship and seemed to place it very low on her priority list. She was never against it, but she was never trying to actively advance the relationship either. The sudden choice of getting married which Shallan seemed to justify to herself based on deep feelings that Adolin was the one for her felt out of place. There weren't any strong feelings shown on screen except in one scene and really only from Adolin's side. It felt wrong and unearned to me. Had Shallan's choice been justified based on the fact that she believes marrying Adolin is the right thing to do based on all the logical reasons (politics, already engaged, etc) and that they enjoy each other's company and can make the marriage work, then great. That would have felt right and in context. I didn't get that sense. By contrast, Kaladin's feelings toward Shallan were well developed and built up slowly. They were not simply placed together before they ever met, Kaladin made the active choice to pursue her at a meaningful cost to himself (at least in terms of romance) and developed feelings toward her completely of his own accord. Shallan never had romantic feelings for Kaladin and that was also well written. She actually actively thought about him and figured out how she felt over time on multiple occasions. But, now that a month has passed on this one, I'll just say to each their own on this. Different people pick up on different things and it seems like to some people they felt like there were a lot of hints and clues that Adolin and Shallan really wanted to be together. I never got that sense, but that could just be my own tastes. As for the Jasnadin ship, I can't say I'm on board. Jasnah just seems like someone who is uninterested in romance. I also have never had any sense of any kind of attraction from Kaladin to Jasnah. You could argue a possible interest from Jasnah's side, though that's still a stretch. I think they will become friends, but the significant age gap and the fact that their roles in society will probably keep them from spending much time together makes it feel like romance is unlikely. Who knows though, we may find out that in the year gap from OB to SA4 the two of them have been working together to raise Gavinor and spend tons of time together. I could see it working under the right circumstances, but think it's pretty unlikely. I'd rather both of them end up alone than in a situation where they are shoehorned together just because they need to have a romantic partner.

This was the point I was trying to get out, thanks for finding the WoB on it. Kaladin thinks things are worse than they are because he's had one of the worst experiences of anyone in terms of betrayal and losing things he has earned because of class/eye color prejudice. There's definitely systematic problems out there, but I take Alethkar as something like Europe during the early phases of the enlightenment. We have absolute rulers with way too much power over people and they are just now starting to realize that peasants and people like serfs in particular are being impacted way more than they think. Now that they are understanding more about philosophy they are realizing that the serfs aren't just going to be happy to be locked down to the land. So, over time things are changing (slowly) for the positive for the lower classes and darkeyes can and do have independent power similar to the bourgeouise of 1600/1700 Europe. However, just like the Europe of that time, in the military old habits die hard and you've got a lot of the nobility who perceive themselves as having a god given right to command troops even when they are terrible at it when in the rest of society the lower classes are being rewarded for their skill and starting to get ahead. Anyway, good discussion on this topic. These kinds of things are interesting to me - the society, rights and laws, and the economy. I think Sanderson puts a lot into this stuff, more than we know.

I think it's fair to say that Elhokar in particular was biased. The argument I'm making though (and I probably haven't articulated this very well) is that while it is true that by rule/law the highest darkeyes is lower than the lowest lighteyes, in practice that is not the case. It's pointed out in the books that there are plenty of light eyes who are just as low as darkeyes and in a lot of cases worse off than the middle to upper darkeyes. Kaladin meets them in WoK and is amazed because he always assumed that even though he knew there were lower ranked lighteyes, he had always assumed before that even the lowest of them still got special privileges. When he got to the war camps, he saw the lower ranked lighteyes in conditions nearly as bad as his. At least, that's what my memory is telling me, haven't looked at the books in while. If you want to go to the military example, the youngest commissioned officer straight out of training technically out ranks the most senior and highest ranking non-commissioned officer. However, don't expect that new Lieutenant to be able to order around a Sergeant Major. It's not shown directly in the books and I may be reading too far between the lines here, but it seems to be implied that there are plenty of dark eyes in positions of power and respect in their own right. They may not be allowed to be political rulers or military commanders, but in wider society they are powerful through their economic power and their skills or knowledge (such as Kaladin's father). Kaladin is not one of these darkeyes, among darkeyes he is the lowest of the low due to his reputation as a rebellious slave which everyone can immediately see because of his brands. In WoR, he was made the captain of Dalinar's bodyguards which gives him (for a dark eyes) a high military rank but not a high reputation and class in society because his reputation was so badly tarnished before. He's seen as a sign of Dalinar's madness - promoting a former slave who was totally undeserving (in their eyes, who know nothing about who Kaladin really is or what he has really done) to the captain of his guard. My argument here is that if there was a darkeyes who did not have Kaladin's history, who had been a model citizen and earned the rank of Captain, that darkeyes would have been treated differently than Kaladin because his/her social status would have been much higher. The legend/tradition that Adolin quoted is probably not absolute. It says that any lighteyed warrior could do this, but I don't believe that a lighteyed warrior who has a low social status and no prior relationship with the King would be granted a boon. I also think that a darkeyed warrior could have been allowed a boon, if that warrior was viewed very highly by the king and enough of the highlords. So, while Kaladin did get in trouble, I think that a low ranking lighteyes would have gotten in similar trouble. I think that "high ranking" darkeyes would have gotten in less trouble than Kaladin did for pulling the same stunt.

Even the sections you highlighted seem to suggest otherwise though. It wasn't primarily because a darkeyes challenged a lighteyes. It was based primarily on the fact that someone from among the lower classes was rising above his station. I would also point out that Elhokar is shown to be one of the more "eye discriminating" members of the Alethi leadership. Dalinar points out that he and other leaders had to correct Elhokar on this with the example of Roshone's banishment. I wouldn't use Elhokar as an example of the culture at large, he's described as a petulant child who was given everything by his father. He's the kind of King who doesn't understand the importance and responsibilities of his position, only the power and privilege. He starts to learn better in OB, but he never makes it all the way. Also, the reason why what other people know and don't know is important is because it informs us on the context of the reactions of the general ruling class of Alethkar. Is the entire group (all lighteyes) extremely biased against the darkeyes? Or is it just a few? We can say that Elhokar is bad, but even he isn't extremely terrible specifically in terms of this issue. If all the lighteyes knew that Kaladin was falsely accused, if they knew his true role and ability and they still sided with Elhokar then (and only then) could we say that most lighteyes or the culture as a whole is extremely oppressive. It seems unlikely that anyone other than Elhokar, Dalinar, and Adolin knew that Kaladin was anything other than a former slave with an attitude problem. Elhokar knew less than Dalinar and Adolin, but still knew enough. Complaints Based on Eye Color: I still don't agree with letting a dark eyes duel Shardbearers Complaints Not Based on Eye Color: He insulted a highlord in front of the entire court" He dared challenge a man so high above his station, the gap between them could hold a kingdom Common soldiers challenging our highest and most important generals? It is madness putting a slave in charge of our guard It is punishment for slandering a highlord Anyway, not that this is a hill I want to die on. I'm just saying that Alethi society, while discriminatory, is not as bad as other societies that Sanderson has written (The Lord Ruler, Steelheart, etc). Alethi society is more like "Enlightened Despotism" - all powerful ruling class that holds all the privilege in society, but most of them genuinely try to do what they think is best for the lower classes. The only problem is, they're so far removed they don't understand what is best and they end up doing bad things anyway.

He did save the Kholins, but that's probably not widely known or at least not widely believed. That's why I say that Adolin and Dalinar should (and do) stick up for him, but no one else is going to. The rest of the nobility/lighteyes are not going to believe reports that a former slave darkeyes is the one saving everyone. Even if Dalinar was telling everyone about it (which I'm not sure he did) people thought he was half crazy. Kaladin fought well in the arena and had he not done what he did he would have probably built up a much better reputation for himself after that. He wouldn't have won everyone over, but he would have started the process. Instead, he got impatient. Adolin is a person in the highest class of the society who is also well liked by everyone because he is so good in the arena. He is definitely going to get his chance to win the boon. Kaladin is a nobody with everything going against him except for his performance in this duel who has called out one of the lighteyes who has the best reputation and is one of the most well liked. Kaladin as an individual in his actions made things worse. I wouldn't guarantee that any other darkeyes would have been able to get the boon of a duel with Amaram because that is too high a bar, but if they had asked for a different boon I think they would have gotten it. I also don't think that if some random lower lighteyes asked for a duel with Amaram or Sadeas that they would have gotten it. My point is that while lighteyes vs. darkeyes did play a factor there are other factors that played a much bigger part in the ultimate results.

I think we probably feel about the same way about the incident - I wouldn't say I lost respect for Kaladin there but I was not happy with what he did. It was good writing by Sanderson though - it definitely felt in character for Kaladin to do what he did. I personally did expect him to get thrown in jail or otherwise severely punished for what he did. I wouldn't put it quite that this was strictly a darkeyes vs. lighteyes thing or lighteyes hypocrisy. It's not that a darkeyes talking in a loud voice to a lighteyes would get them jailed or beheaded. I think it's that Kaladin is a person with a very checkered past in the official records - made a slave, then given the shash brand for being dangerous and leading armed revolts, eventually being put on a bridge crew for Sadeas' army. We know that he was falsely accused, betrayed, etc but other than Dalinar, Adolin, and the crew of Bridge 4 no one else knows or has even been told the true story. So, if you were the average lighteyes and suddenly a darkeyed former slave stands up and tries to piggy back on Adolin Kholin's duel victory while accusing Meridas Amaram who has a very strong reputation at this point in the story, then of course you're going to think that he is just a trouble maker. That's not really lighteyes/darkeyes discrimination, it's just Kaladin's bad reputation working against him. If a lighteyes with similar reputation had done the same thing, I would imagine that he/she would be treated the same way. I would also argue that if a darkeyes with an average or good reputation had done what Kaladin did, especially against someone other than Amaram, then they would not have been thrown in jail.

This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, but why do you choose to call Gavilar a misogynist rather than a sexist? This probably isn't something about you in particular, since in popular culture over the last several years this has also been done. A misogynist means a person who hates women. This is the term you use for a wife beater or someone who lives their life consumed with hatred and conspiracy theories about women. Gavilar doesn't seem to fit this description. A sexist means a person who discriminates based on sex. Gavilar does show some possible tendencies of this, such as choosing to pass on his inheritance through the male line and of seemingly underestimating Navani's intelligence. Though I also think all of those things you mentioned are circumstantial. He doesn't ID his daughter as a Radiant - we don't know for sure that he doesn't, we also don't know what level of interaction he has with his daughter. It may be that he rarely sees either of his children due to his duties as king and therefore has no real chance to see this. That would make him a neglectful father, but not a sexist or misogynist. He chose Elhokar despite Jasnah being the better choice in terms of capability - This is likely a sexist choice based on societal biases and cultural norms (women were likely not easily accepted as political rulers, we see very few in Alethkar) though you could also take Isilel's argument and say he wanted to name her but felt he couldn't for political stability reasons. His behavior toward Navani is not good - This could be sexism or even true misogyny, or it could be a personal grudge or dislike toward Navani as an individual. We don't know enough about their relationship to say.

That depends on your goals and the political climate of the nation and the world. Sure, no one has just said "Here, have some rights." But sometimes, if you say "Hey, please give me some rights," they actually give them to you. Or, you can use the system to become powerful and use your own power to influence things for the good. I could list real world examples of how the path of moderate reform has succeeded and how the path of radical revolution has failed or succeeded in a pyrrhic victory where the nation is destroyed and can't recover economically for decades or even centuries, but that gets away from the point I'm trying to make related to the SA and WoR. If you have radical views and goals that are far out of line with the prevailing attitude of the establishment, then yes the only way you can successfully achieve your goal is to be extreme and radical. Sometimes your cause is just, moderate reform has been tried and failed, and civil disobedience is the the way you have to go like Ghandi or the American civil rights movement. That's not the situation for Kaladin. 1) Kaladin's goals have never been to liberate the darkeyes from the oppressive reign of the lighteyes. He resents the way he has personally been treated and believes the lighteyes are mostly bad people, but he has never expressed a desire to overthrow the lighteyes or reform the government so that they no longer have special privileges. It would be out of character for him to start a hunger strike, etc. Also, while it is true that Rosharan society discriminates against people based on eye color and grants privileges to the lighteyes, there is not widespread oppression and abuse of the darkeyes. We see isolated incidences, but those are generally self policed by the other lighteyes (for example, Roshone). It's not just that Sanderson doesn't want to go that dark - in Mistborn the skaa are oppressed much more heavily than the darkeyes of SA. So the situation is bad, but not so bad as to be unbearable. Frankly, if Kaladin had started a hunger strike it would have felt more like a temper tantrum than a battle for justice. 2) There is a large societal value to political stability (and free or mostly free society) which you are completely discounting. Obviously, sometimes the oppression and injustice is great enough that something needs to be done right away. Haiti pre-revolution is a great example of that - something had to be done right then and there because things were extremely bad and getting worse. But that line is a lot harder to define than you are making out and it's not just the suffering of the unfortunate vs. the comfort of the moderates that is being balanced, it's the possible suffering of the nation as a whole for several decades or even centuries that can come after a civil war. 3) That is why both Kaladin and Dalinar accept the imprisonment even though neither likes it - both are wise enough to see that the value of keeping the government stable is much greater than the hurt pride of one darkeyed soldier. Dalinar had the power and continued to work to get Kaladin free legally. Dalinar has worked to make gradual positive changes in the Alethi society throughout all three books and has been successful with minimal negatives. That's the model I prefer to see.

If you look at this WoB it's directly stating that the names of the shards are often not accurate or objective. They are often charged with unflattering (or overly flattering) connotations based on how people perceive them. Ruin would be more objectively called Entropy, Preservation more objectively Stasis. Odium's shard name is again likely to have been given a charged connotation based on how people feel about it. He may not truly be "Passion" but he is also almost certainly not "Odium" (from the word odious - extremely unpleasant or distasteful) either. The description of Odium as "God's own divine hatred" is from a character who we know almost nothing about in canon and what little we do know is that he merely believes that he and Hoid should not intervene in the wars between the shards, not that he doesn't have any opinions or biases about Odium. He could still hate Odium even he doesn't believe he should actively be fighting against him. Odium is much more interesting if he isn't just hate, so I personally hope that's the case. It's also kind of a Sanderson trope that the people we thought were the good guys and the villains aren't exactly who we thought they were at the start. It's possible that Odium is hate, but it's also possible he isn't and it's honestly annoying to say there is absolutely no chance of him being anything other than hate. Every WoB that has been quoted in this thread ends with Sanderson intentionally leaving Odium's true nature up to interpretation.

If that's your belief, then so be it. I don't think anyone can change your mind. I disagree that he is irredeemable or even particularly heinous in terms of successful generals throughout real world history or Rosharan history. If you're the kind of person who can't forgive someone's past crimes, then you're just going to have to deal with it. I personally believe that if someone has sincerely changed his or her self such that they will not repeat the crimes of the past then they should be forgiven. I don't believe that a person who has committed a crime needs to make some kind of restitution before they can be forgiven, but it seems like you do. I believe they can be required to make amends, but that is separate from forgiveness, reformation, and redemption. Leaving out the real world, in this fantasy novel we can see that Dalinar would never commit a war crime again because we can see inside his head. We, as readers, should be able to forgive Dalinar because he has truly changed his ways. The characters in the story should be (and are definitely shown to be) a lot more hesitant and skeptical.