fro23n
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Does the Nightwatcher actually give curses?
So I haven't read edgedancer but other than lift the only 2 characters we see that have a detailed interaction with the nightwatcher and then their "boon and curse" are Dalinar and Taravangian. And like both of their curses really just seem like a pathway to their boons. I get that Dalinar got his stuff from Cultivation not the nightwatcher but like given that one is the splinter of the other they probably don't operate on fundamentally different principles just like magnitude of power? And that kinda just gel's with their splinter trait too: they "cultivate" the people who seek boons from them to grow and change into what they wanted, and the processes of cultivation are interpreted as curses (e.g. tiger mom lol). That seems to make more sense than a kinda arbitrary here's a boona and here's a curse we think is "appropriate for you". Like the appropriateness means they don't always directly grant the boon which is in line with how the "curse" is supposed to bring about the boon. Anywho details below
SpoilerLike I think Dalinar's curse actually being a boon is pretty clear. Yes explainable as something done by cultivation and not nightwatcher, fine.
Taravangian - so he asked for capacity to save the world, and his curse is either that rust is variable or he is too callus or too empathetic depending on which side you think is the "curse". But all aspects seems like a boon to me. Intelligence is useful obviously. He callus in that he's utilitarian, like maybe you (and i) disagree with eugenics on principle of caring for individuals but it's not necessarily bad from all perspectives. Also just given the stakes he needs to be callus in order to not lose everything. And this callousness is a good complement to when he's intellegent and needs to make very specific decisions about trade-offs. On the other hand the variability and stupidity have already shown themselves to be useful at the end of OB when he is confronting Odium, it protects his mind. It is probably that the dumb empathetic form is the one intended to face odium since odium will always pick this state to face. The empathy is important here because it makes him strive for more when bargaining with odium or facing him. Passion will drive him to action, whereas cold intellect with help him set out the plan. also odium likes passion which i'm not sure is relevant but mentioned in that encounter
EDIT: lol so I realized not really sure what was cultivated in Taravangian but like no curse as far as I can tell
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[OB] Nightwatcher's Curses?
in Stormlight Archive
Posted · Edited by fro23n
So like Av's father is a second hand account right? like it's kinda just mentioned in passing as the first clear introduction to what is popularly believed to be the MO of the Nightwatcher. The lack of context also makes it hard to determine why they were given the curses they were given, from which we could derive that the curse is actually a positive. Unless the contention is just that it's arbitrary which just feels like a missed opportunity and boring. Also Lift's curse being unknown supports my point?