NameIess

Okay. Well I do. Thus there was an argument. Because I think that there is a big difference between Hitler and someone who killed a couple of people and abused his children.

She either could use soulcasting from gemstones like Shallan was able to link lightweaving to gems, or she just used the stormlight quickly enough that she never glowed.

What, so if I blow up a planet then feel sorry about doing it and decide not to do it again, that makes it better? It's not. I am not arguing that Lin isn't evil. I am arguing that he is sympathetic evil. Can you agree that you feel bad for him? Is there a difference between him and Voldemort?

True, but what is that redemption? doing good things? Is Darth Vader a good person at the end of Return of the Jedi? Does saving his son make up for blowing up a planet? No. It makes him a more sympathetic and nuanced bad person, but does not change the evil things that he did. Lin Davar is an evil person, but he had good intentions that were twisted by the unmade. Does this excuse him? no. Does this make him pitiable and sympathetic? maybe.

Everyone does or has done evil things for evil reasons. If you don't allow exceptions for extenuating circumstances, then there are no "good" people in the world.

Yes, but he also wants to save the world. As I said, doing to wrong thing for the sort-of-right reasons for a sort-of-right goal. Besides, this is irrelevant. All I'm saying is that either the world has things such as nuanced evil, or there is no good.

Sadeas was a thrill addict who wanted to "save Alethkar" by taking control by force, so that he could start a war with other countries. He treats his underlings with contempt, callously throwing away lives. He wanted power, not to protect Alethkar. If he wanted to protect Alethkar, he would have supported the king, not fought against him. Taravangian only wants to save the world, he feels guilty about his actions, he treats those around him with respect, and he only kills the people he thinks he needs to kill in order to save more. Elantris:

"Evil" brings to mind extremely hateable characters the likes of Umbridge, Amaram, and Sadeas. "Nuanced evil" brings to mind, to me at least, anywhere from characters like Darth Vader, who sort of redeem themselves, to characters like Taravangian, who does the wrong things for the sort-of-right reasons, towards a sort-of-right eventual goal. Because (Elantris)

Yes, but saying that someone is evil is very different from saying that someone is nuanced but evil. One of them brings to mind Sadeas, and the other brings to mind anything from (Elantris) to Taravangian.

Because you say that Lin Davar is evil, and seem to be saying that there is no nuance in his story at all.

No one is arguing that Lin's actions were justified. Only that he is sympathetic despite his evil actions, because of the context of those actions.

Nameless of course was using his narrative powers to carve the rock, as he was a construct of the real Nameless' imagination, and thus had no physical body to do anything at all if he did not use his narrative powers in order to project himself from the real person Nameless' imagination.

Nameless continued painstakingly carving out the statue by hand.

Nameless was busy erecting a thousand-foot tall statue of his pet rock in perfect detail, but he appreciated Facepalm's gift nonetheless.

The popcorn was made of chicken.

Duraluminum wouldn't be completely useless, it just wouldn't be magic-system redefining like duraluminum was to Mistborn.

Brandon was talking about normal Rosharan shardblades there, not shardblades in general. For example, the Honorblades aren’t sentient, but they still have all the other properties of shardblades, and are shardblades, just not normal ones.

Shallan is the only female character that gets a bunch of chapters from her perspective in the first couple of books, but there are other strong female characters, especially later in the series. And there are other strong female characters that are parts of the main plot, but they don't get many chapters from their perspectives until later in the series.

Nameless was still mourning his pet rock, so he sent Moni instead.

No, duraluminum has been very consistent. Elend burned Atium fast enough to see into the spiritual realm. That's not duraluminum being funky; it did exactly what you'd expect it to. That's Atium being funky. I see no reason that duraluminum would give extra investiture to a surgebinder, and to give them extra control over their powers would be basically the opposite of its normal effect, so all it should do is force them to expend all their stormlight in one burst, which they could do anyways. The one advantage that I could see making sense for it to have is preventing stuff like what happened to Kaladin at the end of tWoK when he expended too much stormlight all at once to save bridge 4. However, it could just as easily do nothing to prevent that, or even make it worse.

I don't think that A-duraluminum would be very useful to Radiants. Duraluminum doesn't increase the efficiency of investiture, only allows you to use it more quickly. For allomancers, whose power is limited by the speed at which they can burn their metals, that is incredibly useful, allowing them to have vast power for extremely limited amounts of time. However, "vast powers for extremely limited amounts of time" is the definition of the KR. I can't remember a single time in the series where any KR has hit a limit to the amount of stormlight they can use at one time. Kaladin never thinks anything about a certain number of lashings he can do at one time, Shallan never hits a limit to the number of illusions that she can upkeep, even Jasnah is limited in her soulcasting by the amount of stormlight she holds, not her ability to use that stormlight. Sure, Radiants get tired using their powers, like Shallan at the end of OB, but that seems to be more of a mental thing, with Shallan suffering from the mental strain of keeping up hundreds of illusions for an extended period of time. Not a limit to how much stormlight she can use, but an exhaustion from the focus required to make that many illusions. Since the KR don't seem to be limited by the amount or speed at which they can use stormlight at, but rather the amount of stormlight they can hold and the mental fortitude to command that stormlight, I see no reason why duraluminum would do anything other than give the KR a slight boost in using very large amounts of stormlight for things that don't require much mental concentration. For example, burning duraluminum might help Kaladin lash a rock 100 times more quickly than he otherwise could. I doubt it would allow KR to do things that they otherwise couldn't do.

Nameless kept crying, cradling his dead pet rock.

I think that we are treating Lin Davar unfairly. He is certainly not a good person, but he's not a pure evil monster either. I don't really feel anything other than pity for him. Despite the influence of the unmade, despite everyone, including the highprince, his wife, and even his own sons assuming he killed his own wife, he still lied to protect Shallan. Did he do evil? yes. Was his original love of Shallan twisted into something manipulative, controlling, and wrong by the end? Yes. But he still tried to protect her, sacrificed his reputation for her. So I have to give him some slack.

Nameless stared at the larkin for a second. Then he started crying harder.

His pet rock had just been murdered right in front of him.