Honorless

You are pointing at stuff that happens in the real world as though I have power over them. My moral values aren't going to be a consideration for any irl military commanders, I'm afraid. If you're asking me about my stance on these things then well, I'm relatively anti-military. I think conscription is a violation of fundamental human rights. I think the same about a lot of stuff involved in military training. Yes, I'm aware of the many ways wars might become inevitable and how much doing these things become a necessity in those cases. Something becoming a necessity does not make it right. Don't forget this topic isn't in the RoW boards mate. What Dalinar did does not go against my moral philosophy, Dalinar does consider these things, read that chapter again. I'm not against his judgement in letting morals fall by the wayside to preserve the entire species, I understand his viewpoint. As you just said, he prioritized, I'm not against that. He did prioritize certain people above others, but that's a very human reaction, I'm not holding that against him, so you don't need to justify his saving of Kharbranth to me. "We can assume that if Taravangian thought that would work he would have done it, he didn’t and we can infer from their that it wouldn’t have worked." We do see things working out over the course of the story that he did not see working out in the Diagram but as far as he knew, he was working with complete information, so I'm not too mad about that. Taravangian didn't even try to give other people any info. He had enough insight that he could've used as proof. He actively tried to topple Jah Keved, Alethela, Azir, the Coalition of monarchs. He saw the things that he predicted not working, somehow working, and he just still went on his merry way. He did not reconsider anything. He continued to work at other people's expense. And that says something about him.

*tropical sympathy* Granted, your bane is 5 mins of hot water shower I wish for an end to this goddamned pandemic already

You nearly gave me a heart attack

I hope that was a thought experiment?

Frustration wth

What is god to you? The answer is going to be different for every person, even those of the same faith and denomination. What about those who don't believe in god? There's lot of things in religious texts that can be called morally questionable. Asking someone to kill their own child is for some reason present in every religion, extinct and extant. That is definitely immoral. (I suspect that the segments are used to justify sending your sons off to war but I haven't read any papers on it yet). Morality can be based on religious beliefs but also cultural, philosophical and scientific principles. You can argue that for you religious morality falls into objective/universal morality but I'd argue that's subjective morality, because I don't share the same beliefs as you, but doesn't that still leave some fundamental notions of right and wrong? No matter how you try to define & classify morality some principles remain the same, where do they come from? The most logical argument is that they come from the sum of human experience or are hard-wired in our biology via evolution. Religious people can argue that they don't believe in evolution but creationism, I suppose. But again, different religions exist. You could argue that they all venerate the same god. But at that point we'd have moved on from provable. Regardless, we've gone beyond the scope of this topic.

This has come up in all the Jasnah atheism topics ever. If god is good and good is god. That's... circular reasoning. Good, by itself, has to be concept independent of god otherwise it's not really a quality that can be applied to god, it would become just a synonym. Religious perspectives have also evolved over the course of human history, what is considered good has also changed. People have a consciousness about morality & ethics outside of their religious beliefs. Are you saying atheists are not good simply by not being religious? There have been religions which existed before yours. There are other religions in the world right now. To declare your own religion as the right one would be a bit presumptuous. There's plenty of moral questions which have not been answered by religion, what about them?

Yes, morality is independent of religious beliefs

Okay, from a religious perspective, there's an afterlife, so the people aren't really gone, and you haven't sinned by getting people killed. I don't like that perspective because I'm not religious and where's the guarantee of souls and afterlives but yes, that's one perspective to look at it. I'm not particularly well versed in arguing scriptures but I don't think most religions look upon letting evil happen favourably.

You're citing religious conscientious objection?

Well... they'll all have each other at the end *looks at current events* maybe that's not a good thing I understand the sentiment though. It's like the distance of letting something horrible happen vs doing it yourself. This can also be argued to be selfish, even with the reason that you couldn't bring yourself to harm someone else. One could argue that the only thing you're doing is avoiding dirtying your own hands. Ideally, what I'd want Taravangian to do is give the maximum no. of people a fighting chance rather than get the highest chances of survival for whatever no. of people possible. That and include more people in the decision-making. Distribute some information or hints to other powers if possible. Maybe send others to plead with the Nightwatcher. He feels very... "mother knows best" with a side dose of I choose who gets to live

*Looks at cheeky WoB again* Definitely possible

Frost is also a character present in Dragonsteel Prime https://www.brandonsanderson.com/dragonsteel-prime-chapter-25-bridge-four-1/

That is a role that I would like to see filled too, but not by Amaram. Darkeyed Radiants, the Listeners or hey, maybe even the Voidbinding Orders or Corrupted / Enlightened Radiant Orders could fill that role in the future, hopefully.

This WoB really makes me wonder about the possibility of Trell being Odium, especially with Taravangian's thoughts in Broken Gods

Oh there's definitely something more, but it's not just extra Investiture

I don't think he's using the Investiture from the Honorblade itself as fuel for his Surges? It's what grants him access to the Surges, but he's using Light to fuel it, same as the Radiants. Well, almost same as the Radiants, the Heralds did not need to store Light in gemstones as they had a direct Connection to Honor to get Investiture from. Ishar's powers seem to be special because of how the Surges that he has access to seem to manifest effects that are more Spiritual than Physical or Cognitive. And because Honor's death apparently lifted the restrictions on Bondsmith powers (unknown if restrictions on other Surges are also lifted, books seem to hint other Surges were directly altered rather than suppressed?). He apparently had enough of a Connection to Honor (probably due to being a Herald, possibly strengthened by himself after the restrictions on Bondsmith Surges were lifted but that would be speculation) to be able to open his Perpendicularity, just as Dalinar does via his Bond with the Stormfather.

Personal situation, not preference. That comment is here because someone actually claimed neutrality on the topic while taking sides. He secured the survival of the people most dear to him. It's "radically incomplete" because you snipped that paragraph in half. We're not looking at context or consequences here, only actions. With those things added, I do agree that Taravangian has a point. My quibble with his decision is him thinking he's most qualified to make decisions on humanity's behalf. Nothing that contradicts what I said Standing up by oneself to take action is admirable, robbing others of choice or chance to fight, to live, is not. That being said, this is him trying to fight an extinction-level event, he does have an argument that in a situation like that, morality can go out the window.

Thanks, I added it in! Yup, and Leshwi & Hnanan's interactions with him did fall into this category imo. Leshwi kind of helped draw him in and framed being on Odium's side in a more positive light, as being on the Singers' side. Hnanan gave him the dagger to kill Jezrien, to push him past the point of no return.

Moash does get a systematic breakdown of his sense of self and ability to question his actions, not just taking advantage of his psychologically vulnerable state but magically inducing/heightening it. It's most evident in his relationship with Odium and the Fused, but his relationship with the Diagram subset lead by Graves was also an example of this. He framed the whole assassination attempt as patriotism and revolution, he said exactly what Moash wanted to hear. We only see their relationship after the indoctrination but it's present in their interaction. While we're comparing characters, can we also talk about Amaram, specifically the conclusion of his arc. I've noticed there's a lot of discussion about Amaram becoming Yelig-Nar's host being an unsatisfying conclusion to the conflict between him and Kaladin. A sense satisfaction and schadenfreude is taken away by not letting Kaladin shank him or giving Amaram a sufficient political and social fall from grace, I agree with that but I also think that it's a pretty good conclusion to his character arc. Amaram was always meant to be wretched. Yes, he did not get a comeuppance but he became wholly responsible for his ignoble end by his own choices, in his desire to be the white knight. It consumed him figuratively and literally. His end actions proving his need for self-validation rather than genuine desire to improve the world. It was fitting. The only complaint I have here is that we did not spend much time exploring this aspect of his character after Dalinar tests him in WoR. Jasnah snubbing his character to Shallan, and Dalinar & Kaladin just... trying their best to ignore him. Which is also fitting in its own way, lol. Another thing that comes up with this is Kaladin not getting to have revenge / remaining a hero with unsullied hands, which I think served his character arc well too, just look at RoW! But going more into that would be spoilers. RoW really did his character well, way better than I was expecting.

Hmm... addressing a bit of subtext here that's often present in these types of arguments, a bit late but it's better to clear the air. Let's throw out the veneration we have for the idea of logic over emotion and neutrality over picking sides A lot of our decision making is emotional rather than logical, we're not machines. An emotional argument isn't inherently weaker than a logical argument. For a lot of people, emotion dictates their stance and logic dictates their arguments for that stance. But the two are not inherently different things either, it's not like you can't be both at the same time, we're not Taravangian. The entire point of any political argument isn't achieving some platonic idea of fairness but the people. Being socio-politically neural or apolitical isn't inherently a better stance, one does not have the moral high ground by being apolitical. For many, being apolitical isn't a stance, it's a privilege. Not everyone is in a position to be unaffected by these things. Now, back to the topic at the current time, comparing Taravangian and Moash. If we go by their actions, not their motivations for their actions then Taravangian is more evil than Moash by the sheer no. of atrocities he's committed. If we go by their motivations then it's more difficult to say, at least for me. I've always been of two minds on the idea of "for the greater good". The only difference is one is seeking to do good via what he considers necessary evil and the other is trying to cut out what he considers evil. I get why some people look at Taravangian more positively, I look at Taravangian more positively (and Moash too) but if you shift the lens a bit, both are out for blood. Now, with something as big as the survival of humanity, I get where Taravangian is thinking but it's still problematic that he thinks he's solely responsible and capable of thinking for the entirety of the human race, deciding who gets to live and who becomes sacrifices. That being said, I'm not surprised that the reaction to Moash is so divisive. There's an element of... catharsis to it for a lot of readers. Think revenge thriller films but for racism rather than sexism or feminism. I think this would've looked a lot more clear-cut if this happened with Amaram and Kaladin rather than with the more complicated situation of Elhokar and Moash. Moash's plotline also deals a lot with indoctrination which I'm surprised we haven't discussed as much.

Aether of Night was meant to have a sequel, we might've gotten to see the other race there, and more of the ones we already saw. I just meant that the Gol and Shenti did have a role in the story, to showcase the conflict between the Fell Twins. Also now that I think about it, I think the empire itself and its tributary states were meant to show systemic oppression, not the magically created races.

The train? I only remember the Leecher Allomantic grenade....

The Gol reminded me more of Ix from Mythwalker and Human the Koloss from Mistborn than the Singers of Roshar or the Skaa of Mistborn. The Shentis as well. Viglix was the Shenti dude's name? I actually thought he was Hoid The two did serve a narrative purpose in the book, showing the escalating conflict between the Fell Twins, Slaughter and Despair. An attempt at creating an army of non human creatures, foiled and an attempt at a plague, also foiled.

Just noticed, in Oathbringer, the Reachers appeared to be using veins of copper (or bronze) running across the ship to communicate with each other without speaking.