Keto

The plot arc of WoR involves Shallan coming across a group of deserters - a group of bloodthirsty ex-soldiers, most of whom have supposedly done heinous crimes putting them beyond easy redemption. As Shallan gradually approached the shattered plains in her convoy, one of the main tensions in the plot was what would happen to the deserters once they reached. Tyn was quite sure that Shallan would have serious problems in getting pardons for their crimes and implied heavily that Shallan would have to sacrifice them. By all intents, Tyn was right. The Alethi, especially Sadeas (from whose army most of the deserters came from) take deserting very seriously. They're a warlike society which puts fighting as the most important thing a man can do, so obviously deserting would be an extremely serious crime. On top of that, the deserters have done other major crimes as well. But nothing comes out of this potential plot point. Shallan (who was a near unknown entity at that point in time) tells Dalinar "they're heroes, they saved lives". Dalinar agrees, issues pardons and that's it. Nothing more is talked about it through the books. This has kind of bugged me, their crimes just vanished with a wave of the hand, and this seldom happens in the real world. Sadeas should have thrown up a major objection, using this pardon against Dalinar. No one tries to get revenge on the deserters, like Gaz's creditors coming for him (and Shallan being forced to rescue him), Sadeas men don't try to harm them, and I'd have expected Ialai to send assassins to kill them, as a way of subtly warning others what would happen to people daring to desert Sadeas' army. At the very least, Dalinar, a soldier to the core should have had difficulty in agreeing to pardon deserters. Basically, I feel Shallan should have had to work harder and been forced to make sacrifices and some hard decisions to get the deserters freed, Everything has consequences and those are completely missing here.