Xerun

I will protect even those I hate; so long as a woman sees and she will say “I think you should kiss me now”

Hmmm I don’t know. Originally I would have agreed with you but as the series goes on I find Lirin to be a bit more annoying then anything. His treatment of Kaladin implies he doesn’t think of Kaladin as an equal who is capable of his own decisions. He wants Kaladin to follow his own ideas without question and is angry and disappointed when he doesn’t. that doesn’t scream Radiant to me

this is what I don’t understand about the people advocating that none of this is Gaz’s fault in any way. It’s like they didn’t read the end of Oathbringer. The theme of that book isn’t “Taking responsibility for your actions ONLY IF YOURE IN A POSITION OF POWER”. Saying Gaz bears no accountability because of his superiors just ignores everything that book tried to insinuate. sure is Gaz the worst character in the book? No. But he did have direct grievances with a main character that was never addressed before he was awarded the status of Radiant (which appears to be a near celebrity status in Roshar) and it feels undeserved.

Yep. He changed it to Kal stabbing Szeths arm which disconnects him from the Honorblade and he falls to his death. It’s one of the main things that made me think of this theory as Kal didn’t seem to care about Killing until the Parshendi at the end of book 1. So it makes me think it’s an Oath related retcon. I really like this. And I can see this being true. I just feel like the 4th Oath having Kaladin accept his failures may not leave him room for character development for a 5th Oath. The main reason I have this theory is because I can’t see Kaladins depression being managed until he swears the 5th Oath and maybe not even then. Coming to terms with his failings seems like the conclusion to his character arc.

I’d like to think that by naming it Dawnshard that we’d get pretty specific information about one. I do however reckon that the Dawnshards are probably unique and each one does something different so even knowing 1 there will still be plenty of information to keep hidden.

Moash will be redeemed when Kaladin stabs him through the face.

So for the longest time everyone has said they think that Kaladins 4th Oath is “I will forgive myself for those I cannot save” and I have disagreed. Not because I don’t think that’s his Oath. But because I think from a Literary perspective that it makes more sense for that to be his 5th Oath. At his core Kaladin’s biggest issue has been his inability to accept failure. And so for his character to come full circle it only makes sense for him to resolve that as his 5th Oath. So, into his 4th. I have always believed that this Oath will be about accepting that to protect you may have to kill. My reasoning for this is in the first book Kaladin goes and kills a lot of Listeners. At the end and through Words of Radiance he questions Syl why it was ok for him to kill them but not Elhokar. For the final battle of book 2 Kaladin finds himself out of action against the Listeners and we get what I think is our first glimpse into Kaladins issue. He only fights Szeth and he doesn’t kill him. He wounds him and the storm kills Szeth. then in Oathbringer in Kholinar Kaladin fights against the Fused and Singers. But he’s conflicted. He’s made friends with a lot of the Singers from earlier and now has to watch his friends fight against each other. Then he fails Elhokar. Now in chapter 8 Kaladin reasons with himself that he should finish off Moash and finds himself unable to do so. if we query the gemstone archive epigraph from Oathbringer, a Windrunner says he will soon swear the 4th Oath. But he’s not sure he can. Shouldn’t he want to help people? The wording has always made me question. How does being ok with not saving people directly go against wanting to help people. It doesn’t. You can be ok with failure because you’re still trying to help. But directly killing people who will cause harm does seem to be against helping people. anyway that’s my reasoning, mostly I think Kaladin being ok with his failings leaves him nowhere to grow in the 5th Oath. And his 5th Oath should really be the climax growth of his character.

Well that’s my fears realized. He obtained squirehood without any approach to redemption for his actions. I know Stormlight is a big book but it just feels like it misses the beat a little. This reminds me of Szeth joining the battle in Oathbringer. we saw on screen Szeths changes but none of the characters did. So when he joins it makes sense to us, but the characters should be dead against it and no one says a word except Jasnah making one offhand comment. It just feels wrong. ultimately I’m disappointed that Gaz has just advanced and not shown any slight form of redemption for the things he did to our on screen characters

The very idea of an ambush would tend to go against the honor system though? They were just traveling and were attacked out of nowhere. From Leshwi’s point of view Moash and Graves were essentially innocents which is exactly what she seems so put off by in the recently released chapter.

So something I just thought of; in Oathbringer our introduction to Leshwi is her attacking Moash along with two others. Which doesn’t really seem honorable in the slightest. So do you think that’s evidence against it, or that it’s something that has developed in the last year or just that Brandon hadnt considered it at that point.

The desolations were said to kill off 9/10ths of the population towards the last ones. So im imagining we are going to see a lot of people die this and the next book.

From a literary perspective, Ialai is a somewhat major character to the series so far. If this was the end of the book then I’d say Suicide as a fitting end to her character. BUT it’s the start of the book and this is a setup for a plotline and that screams murder

For Oathbringer I avoided it. I wanted to read the book all at once and have it all fresh. Since that time I’ve gotten deeper into the fandom and my thoughts have changed. Brandon writes a Stormlight book once every 3 years. That means RoW will come and I don’t want to just smash through it in a week and have no more content for another 3 years. This time I’m reading the chapters, that way RoW is stretched out for months and I can take part of discussions and theory crafting every week. When the book finally comes out I’ll read Part 1 again anyway.

And it’s ok for any character to be given that opportunity (ok except maybe Moash but maybe even him). So long as they go through the work to redeem themselves. my issue is mainly that it looks like Shallans men are now Lightweavers and so if Gaz is also one of them he’s kind of avoided all that redemption through hard work offscreen. I mean even look at Roshone, he was pretty terrible to Kaladin. He got shown up in book 3 and then he got kicked from his position into a relatively bad position. But he was showing the signs of redemption by caring for the people.

I guess my issue is if you take people like Sadeas and Amaram, they’re not getting offered amazing powers and godlike reputation by becoming Radiants. Whereas Gaz is being offered that by association with Shallan I get that Gaz was in a bad situation but the choices he made were never forced upon him until the end. He chose to be spiteful and bully the people underneath him. and I don’t mind him being redeemed which then allows him to become a radiant. But my biggest issue will be if it happened in the year between books And we don’t get to see him acknowledge that fact about what he did.

I’m not opposed to him being redeemed. But to see it happen offscreen would be very disappointing to me.

Sorry but I think you’ve missed something with Gaz’s character. He was never someone who meekly followed orders he took genuine sadistic pleasure in making sure Kaladin would die. There was no part of Kaladin that put him at risk when he first showed up, Gaz CHOSE to not give him any protection. Gaz FORCED Kaladin to run at the front. Sadeas was not part of his reasoning. It was purely Gaz’s choice. He was not a good person and he enjoyed bullying the people underneath him.

Tried to kill Kaladin (or at the very least tried to create situations in which Kaladin would die), specifically encouraging them to do side carry so that he’d failed and be killed Refused to give Bridge 4 more men so they would be a bigger target for the Parshendi. that’s off the top of my head but I feel like he also tried to prevent things Kaladin attempted just because he could.

Sadeas forced the structure. Gaz specifically did hateful things that weren’t forced on him just because; like not give Kaladin shoes or a vest before his first bridge run. Sadeas in a way has paid for his crimes. Gaz has not. And I would feel very upset at the idea of him being rewarded with a Spren bond without first trying to apologize for what he did.

Seeing Red is now a progressed Lightweaver I’m really worried that the year time skip will allow Gaz to have also progressed to a point. I don’t feel his character deserves the redemption without admitting onscreen what he did to Bridge 4.