CryoZenith

18 hours ago, Olmund said:

As far as Jasnah secretly intending to betray her family/people (as of Book 4), I think that's incredibly unlikely. If she hadn't been inducted into the Knights Radiant and become obsessed with voidbringers, I could see her perhaps planning that as a means to an end (tear down Alethi civilization so as to free Roshar from its influence -- even if it meant destroying her family). I could see her making similar decisions at some point in the future (given very specific conditions and/or character arcs), but given that she has been crowned Queen at this point she would most likely see such a betrayal as completely at odds with her (and her peoples') best interests.

We already know that Jasnah dislikes Alethi civilization. Since she became queen, she has systematically been breaking down elements of Alethi culture and society: she banned trial by combat, she banned slavery, she's trying to make the leadership more democratic and bureaucratic, she has ideas about overhauling the caste system... She cares about the happiness and safety of her people, sure. But she doesn't seem to give a damn about their culture, or, to a certain extent, even their preferences.

I think that when we're talking about treason it is important to bear in mind the difference between being an antagonist and being a villain. Antagonists have incompatible goals with the heroes, but that doesn't mean those goals have to be *bad*. Jasnah could, through the simple act of rationally thinking on her own (or learning about alternative political systems from Hoid) arrive at conclusions and goals that don't mesh with our other protagonists. And those conclusions don't even need to be well-intentioned-extremist-takes, they could even be MORE reasonable than what Dalinar or Kaladin or Adolin want. But it would still make her an antagonist.

TL;DR: I think when discussing the plausibility of Jasnah betraying, one must consider what Jasnah is loyal to. She isn't loyal to nothing, she actively does care about things outside of herself. But she's also not loyal to her family or country, per se. She's loyal to the maximization of utility, more or less.

5 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

The Vessels may have opinions and motivations and individual directions they wish the power to be used, but the Shard itself is just about the trait, not how or when it is applied.

I understand this. I'm not saying that being a Vessel that has to deal with the Intent of Odium leaves you unrestricted. I'm saying that I don't think "you have to be a contrarian" is in the list of restrictions. It's already restrictive enough that the Intent forces you, when you're at odds with someone, TO hate them and to be uncompromising (even if it's inconvenient, even if it screws over with your goals); it doesn't need to ALSO force you to need to create situations of being-at-odds-with.

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Indeed! I look forwards to further discussion on this  Though we should remember Rayse was vulnerable mainly because he was wounded and trying to go one way when the Shard was trying to go another, and Taravangian is fresh to the power so may be able to resist it more effectively. 

It will be interesting to see what he will have to resist and what he won't have to resist, because even if he overcomes Shardic Intent, we gain information about what he feels resistance against doing and what he doesn't feel resistance against doing.

One way or the other, our positions will either be supported or falsified. Taravangian (the human), is a very ruthless ends-justifies-the-means kinda guy, but his "ends" (at least prior to ascending) were to create a peaceful, happy, united, safe society. If the Intent changes his *ends*, rather than merely changing how he approaches his means and increasing his willingness to destroy obstacles, then I will have been wrong. If the Intent doesn't change his ends at all, but forces him to be less pragmatic (or at least pushes and forces him to resist the push to stay pragmatic) in the way of cooperation or common ground, then I will have been right.

2 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

Odium, despite what it may think, isn't Passion. Odium is caring deeply, and hatred. Hatred fundamentally is the idea of opposition - you can't hate something and want it to continue, and when someone confronts you with something you hate you attack it. 

I'm not saying Odium can hate something and want it to continue. I'm saying that the things he does hate, he doesn't hate *for the sake* of hating them. In essence, I'm saying that his Intent is more about allowing himself to freely act on his negative emotions without inhibition, hatred included, but not about *having* the hatred per se.

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 but the power … It liked questions. It liked arguments.

Ok, I will admit, that IS the strongest evidence against my hypothesis that I've seen so far. That really IS some indication of the Intent wanting conflict for the sake of conflict.

But I'm not sure it's enough to make me throw in the towel. We will find out more now that Odium has a different Vessel. We can look at how the actions of Rayse and Taravangian differ and what's left in where they actually overlap will be indicative of "purer" Shardic Intent. Both our positions are falsifiable, which is great, so let's let the data from SA 5 pour in when it will.

6 hours ago, Wandering Shade said:

Did Kal use his Innate Investiture to power a Surge? Is that something normal Radiants can do or is it a Kaladin only thing because of all the other weirdness. Or as suggested by the text, did he just use too much Stormlight all at once?

As far as I remember, this has only happened to Kaladin. We've had examples of Knights being exhausted after doing something really big or intensive, like what happened to Shallan, but nobody actually having effects on their body that would imply drain. Normally, Radiants draw in stormlight and surgebind as much as the stormlight they have allows them, they can't supercharge beyond what Investiture they externally gathered.

The idea that Kaladin can pull an Eragon and literally cast from hitpoints is definitely interesting. I wouldn't say overwhelmingly probable, but it has merit.

7 minutes ago, Ixthos said:

I think Adversity actually is more strongly Odium's intent than it is a combination. Perhaps Ambition and Odium would be Adversity, as that involves actively using others and harming them to prevent their plans while furthering ones own. Otherwise your point does make sense 

I don't like this strongly antagonistic interpretation to Odium. Odium's Intent (the intent of the shard) is not fundamentally adversarial, I think. Per WoB, Odium is willing to work with others, as long as their common goal is something he wanted to achieve anyway, rather than a common-ground compromise. So the Intent is definitely *uncompromising*, but it's not, on a basic level, seeking opposition to something. It just so happens, by overwhelming probability, that when you're someone who never makes concessions, you will end up in adversarial relationship with others. But that's an outcome rather than a cause. Odium doesn't Intend to be the contrarian; in fact if everyone agreed with him that'd be lit.

15 hours ago, Anomander Rake said:

Elsecaller!  Was very pleased getting this one, I see a lot of myself in Jasnah - aloof quiet asperity, logical thought superseding emotional, and a lovely tinge of superiority complex.

Funnily enough, for me, leadership is the *one* Elsecaller trait I lack, but I identify with all the others. I prefer to refine information and support a decision maker who is persuaded to trust me, rather than placing my own name on the dotted line.

Btw, out of curiosity, what does the test give you as your second closest order? (I get Elsecaller 69%, Skybreaker 62%, then everything else trails behind with under 50%).

13 hours ago, Bzhydack said:

Also, Evolution dont always mean conflict. Yeah, it changes species to better survive, but this not always mean conflict, nature is not about fighting just for the fight. Evolution make species fly, climb better, see in the dark...

Evolution is about conflict. It's straight up about conflict, always about conflict. Sure, that conflict is a lot of times player vs environment instead of player vs player, but it's conflict nonetheless. As long as a species is not *struggling*, as long as a large percentage of its population doesn't die young, without leaving offspring, it doesn't evolve. Because it's irrelevant how fitness-increasing of a mutation you just got; it won't meaningfully spread if *everyone* is successfully reaching adulthood and reproducing.

2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

What deos the legality or the way a system operates have to do with the morality of an action?

I guess something useful for me to say as a preamble here is that I am an Alistair Norcross-style utilitarian. I do not think of actions as right or wrong in the absolute utilon sense (although I do think in terms of utilons), I think of actions as bottlenecking the future into better or worse paths.

In this system, the reason why legality matters for the morality of an action is because it frames the alternatives you have. When someone is evil and goes unpunished because the system is broken relative to its own goals, you have the alternative to change the system. When someone is evil and goes unpunished because the system works AS intended and that gets you there, then that alternative is off the table.

(I still defend both because I think killing the person is better than all alternatives in BOTH situations, but because I acknowledge that the set of available alternatives is dissimilar, I can see why someone would disagree, and I wouldn't call them inconsistent for disagreeing)

7 minutes ago, Frustration said:

So, what if someone assassinated Hitler?

I think that's an unfair analogy, and I say that as someone who does agree with what Jasnah did.

The reason why it's disanalogous is because Hitler did have the legal right to do the things he did. The Kharbranth thugs aren't brought to justice because the system is not working (even according to its own standards). On the other hand, dictators aren't brought to justice because the system is working as intended.

So while I defend both killing the Kharbranth thugs as well as assassinating dictators, I think someone can have a morally consistent position where they defend one but not the other. And since I think that's possible, I think the analogy is not valuable.

6 minutes ago, RedBlue said:

What I’m getting at is that Jasnah did not have any realistic options other than going the vigilante route or ignoring the situation. Personally, I think what she did was justified in the circumstances. 

I wouldn't even go so far as to call what she did vigilantism, because while she technically intentionally put herself in a dangerous situation, a public alley is not supposed to be a dangerous situation.

1 minute ago, RedBlue said:

I agree with this, but I think you’re understating it. Jasnah is more of a scholar than a politician (at this point in the story) and has no policymaking power in her own country, let alone a foreign city. She also lives in a world where nobody knows what ‘police reform’ is. The law enforcement and legal systems are not anywhere near as sophisticated or reliable as the ones we’re familiar with, and that’s all Jasnah has ever known outside of books.

You're underestimating Jasnah. At least from what we've seen her talk about and mull over in RoW, we know that she's familiar with the way things are done in Azir, which is way closer to real life law than the rest of Roshar.

So yes, she doesn't have the power to change things in Kharbranth (or at least not in the short term) but she does have the knowledge of how it can look to be better.

5 minutes ago, Letryx13 said:

And considering both her rank and political skill, I'd wager she could manage to start things moving in the right way within a week.  If the thugs she apprehended weren't held accountable, then she could use that as evidence of the city's corruption and use that as political pressure. Alternatively, she could use the fact that she was attacked as proof of the city's failings and used that. 

Then this is an empirical disagreement, because I severely doubt this is plausible. If it is, then I agree with you, that's what she should've done. But I treat this as a counterfactual, not as an alternative she actually has, so it's a moot point.

You're basically advancing the hypothetical that Kharbranth has *so little in the way of sovereignty* that such a thing would work.

1 minute ago, Letryx13 said:

No, I'm saying the best way to fix a situation like this to to route out the corruption of Karbranth and make the policing force actually protect people like they're supposed to. Shardbearers can't hold ground.  Who could protect the population of the entire city better? Jashnah or thousands of police officers?

Except Jasnah is an Alethi politician. She has no policymaking power in Kharbranth, or, at the very least, no short term power. She would need at least something like months to get change to even *begin*, time during which the "symptoms", which Jasnah can address directly, are given free reign to operate.

5 minutes ago, Letryx13 said:

If apprehending the criminals does no good because the system is corrupt, them you need to do something to fix the system.  Otherwise it's like scooping sand off of a beach.

So you'd be cool telling the innocent civilians in Kharbranth something like "hey guys, don't worry, we'll do police reform and cleanup the streets in the following ~12 months or so. In the meantime avoid that particular alley if you wanna stay alive" ?

I'll go with none of the above.

Off the cuff, I would call Cultivation + Odium Instict. This is from me interpreting Odium as Passion moreso than Hatred, but yeah. It would be the Intent that embodies what you feel driven to do not because of some intellectual pursuit or rationale, but because of inborn biological drives.

So that Intent would cover (arguably) negative things like fight-or-flight, but also (arguably) neutral things like reproductive drive, and also (arguably) positive things like kin-interdependence.

1 hour ago, cometaryorbit said:

The fact that there seems to be a consciousness "in there somewhere" still (since post-Everstorm they remember their previous lives as parshmen as being 'in continuity' with their current existence, rather than being newly-born consciousnesses) doesn't seem to have been visible from their externally observable behavior.

I think it's more accurate to say that they had the potential for consciousness rather than a consciousness being in there somewhere. This is more in line with the book description of the slaveform as a fugue state of extreme cloudiness of thought. So even though a singer-awakened-parshman recollects *memories* from their years as a parshman, that's different from recollecting *oppression* or *trauma* from those days, since they weren't intellectually complex enough for their qualia to access those types of suffering.

I think this distinction is important to make because we shouldn't think of parshmen being quietly internally screaming but unable to externalize it (as far as we know). They were ACTUALLY internally stunted (as far as we know). It's the same as the distinction between slapping someone who is immune to pain and slapping someone who feels pain normally, but has a psychological compulsion against complaining. I don't think those two actions are equally immoral, and I don't think the latter is analogous to parshmen phenomenology.

7 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Those immediately post Recreance who set up the system are much more likely to have been at fault... otoh they may not have understood what was happening either.

I would agree culpability makes sense there, but, I don't actually remember if the use of parshmen as domestic animal is as old as slaveform. Was this mentioned in the books?

It could very well be the case that the timeline looks something like: 1. Ba-Ado-Mishram is captured. 2. Lots of singers lose sapience and become parshmen. 3. 200-300 years pass, people forget the origin of parshmen. 4. People decide to use parshmen as farm animals.

As far as we've been told, to become a Forger you need to have bloodline connections to MaiPon, but it doesn't seem to be an ability you "snap" into. Presumably if you're born able to Forge, you can always Forge (well, technically. practically it seems to require a university level polymath education, so there's that). It's probably because Forgers are less Invested than most users of arcana, so you don't need to poke holes in their spiritweb for the ability to take.

25 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

(I'd imagine there's a minimum threshold of Investiture for the original Vessel to stay Vessel-style immortal, but if you can be a Vessel of an Avatar, then it's probably a fairly small fraction of the whole Shard.)

The minimum threshold for how Invested you have to be to stay immortal is 2000 breaths. That's a decently high amount of investiture, don't get me wrong, but it's not gigantic, on the Avatar scale. (A counterargument you could make here is that maybe Endowment-type investiture is better at anti-aging properties than other types of investiture, but I doubt it's over an entire order of magnitude better.)

27 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

But people on Threnody who are killed by shade withering presumably don't usually want to become shades. So there is a way to involuntarily become a Cognitive Shadow... it just can't be based on how Invested you are at the time of death, since there's no way shade withering involves more than a full Shard worth of investiture.

I mean, it could just be that Threnodite shades could go into the Beyond if they wanted to, but they have issues with "wanting" things because they aren't exactly sapients with agency anymore, they're shades.

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(Also, the "barred from heaven" thing could just be a myth - svrakiss could be voluntary Cognitive Shadows. That story might just have arisen to explain their existence in a Jaddeth-centered religion.)

This is very plausible.

This is probably a super hot take, but here goes.

Parshmen are not singers. They are parshmen. They are treated as domestic animals because they ARE domestic animals, in terms of their sapience. Now yes, you could make the argument that we're not treating our domestic animals right either (and as a vegan, I'd agree) but that's neither here nor there. As long as you bite the bullet that it's okay to treat chulls the way they are treated, then it's okay to treat parshmen as chulls. The fact that they have the potential for sapience doesn't change the fact that they didn't have sapience *when* they were treated as chulls.

Yes, of course, when the parshmen awaken and become singers, treat them with the full rights of sapient beings in your society, and integrate them in your society. But I don't think the Alethi have any moral obligation to perform reparative/restorative justice for past treatment. Because the past treatment was of parshmen, not of singers. At *most* you could make an argument for repaying them for their *own* treatment, since they do seem to have memories from during the parshmen haze, but that's entirely different from historical payback.

16 minutes ago, cometaryorbit said:

Huh. I had not seen that "Augur Compounding health from identity-less metalmind" WoB before. That's a surprise to me, I always figured you needed both powers.

Yeah, I didn't see it coming myself either. That WoB is definitely a huge gamechanger.

@Pathfinder Reading over the arguments here, I don't think this is only a philosophical disagreement, but an empirical disagreement as well. There seem to be facts of the matter that Bort and Frustration disagree on (such as whether Dalinar took in an average amount of Thrill or whether he took an Odium-empowered amount of Thrill, or whether the unmade can overtake free will, or whether we should believe what Odium said about grooming Dalinar etc.) Resolving the empirical disagreements would not remove the fundamental ethical differences between the debaters, but it would actually change a lot of factors IMHO.

(on the Elantris tangent)

I think you're underestimating how much blood oxygenation can achieve on its own.

While it is true that breathing does more than simply maintain blood oxygenation, and having steady blood oxygenation is not enough to remove the need for breathing, it *severely* reduces it.

Just look at regular, non-Invested, real life Earth humans. We can hold our breath for only about 5 minutes in the normal case, but that shoots up to an impressive 20+ minutes if we breathe in pure oxygen before we start apnea. A literal 300 to 400% boost.

On 11.01.2022 at 4:10 PM, The 10 Fools said:

I am not sure if you can begin the path towards becoming a Knights Radiant if you don't have enough issues to achieve all 5 Oaths from the get go. The feeling I get though is that you have to be broken enough already which would imply you've got enough damage to swear all 5 Oaths.

I think overcoming flaws is a very Lightweaver-specific mode that other Knight Radiant orders don't fit.

Like, sure, for the Orders that actually have oaths, the oaths beyond the first tend to be personalized to the person's weaknesses. But that doesn't necessarily mean the weaknesses existing are a *strict requirement*.

I think it's also telling how spren interact with their Knight. Ivory likes Jasnah because she's dispassionate and calculating, not because she lacked those attributes and got them later. Syl likes Kaladin because he's honorable and protective, not because he became that way from a different mindset (she is *sympathetic* to his flaws, sure, but that's not the same thing as actively wanting the flaws). Highspren like people who understand and respect the law ceteris paribus; if someone was "not there yet" their reaction wouldn't be "Nice, I like flaws and growth!", their reaction would be "you're not worthy of me bonding you, call me when you're more lawful". Cryptics are the ONLY spren we've seen so far who pick who to bond based on a combination between their flaws and virtures, a combination of their damaged inner self and willingness for self-openness (also, let's be honest, if being a Lightweaver was purely about self-openness rather than this hybrid, Lopen would've been a level 4 Lightweaver rather than a level 3 Windrunner by now XD).

So yeah, I am making an empirical prediction here: I predict that if a non-cryptic spren finds a human that just happens to psychologically fit the ideals of that spren's order to a T, the spren would be like "cha-chiing".