Greywatch

I almost picked Adolin, but I had to go for Dalinar. I just find him so amazing. When he chooses to the right but difficult thing, it feels earned; not a holier-than-thou guy who's talking out his butt. Dalinar struggles to get to a good place, and his convictions feel so genuinely righteous because you know he chose to change himself to do it. I find him really inspiring.

Moving along is progress, even if it's not what we'd call positive growth. Him developing such empathy for the singers such that he couldn't fight them is progress. His inability to say the fourth ideal is progress. His inability to let go of his hero complex is progress. These things are events, and just because they didn't end satisfyingly doesn't mean it's just set-up. OB is only part of a series, but there are complete arcs within the books. Kaladin getting challenged and freezing instead of making decisive action is characterization. His character isn't being left behind or ignored or left incomplete; this is a complete arc within his broader story. Some of those things you mentioned, like his hero complex, have been unresolved since WoK. Sometimes people fail and they don't immediately get to fix it. Sometimes you just fail. He'll get back up and try again in the next one, but things ending without catharsis or redemption does not mean it's incomplete. Resolution of an arc doesn't mean everything has to fixed by the end. Sometimes the resolution is just accepting it as it is.

What we think of such arcs is purely opinion, but no one is saying that a character arc of failure is beyond criticism - more that it shouldn't be criticized for the sole reason that failure happened. His arc in OB isn't incomplete or wrong because it. It didn't make people feel good, and there are certainly people who weren't expecting Kaladin to have this arc, but it is valid.

I don't agree. Not all character arcs need to be positive, and positive growth as a person is not the be-all requirement to count as an arc.

Ah, okay. For some reason (the kyriarchy, probably), I was picturing it the other way around. I agree. In WoR and OB, I found she treats Kaladin very badly. Hence why I couldn't stand hardly any of their interactions.

Abusive in what sense? Abuse has a strict definition, different from simply an unhealthy relationship, and I'm not sure I see it.

R'shara, have I ever told you how much I appreciate you?? I appreciate you.

*praise hands* Thank you, Brandon... Out there being a real bro... Pour one out for 'you need to be totally broken to be a Knight Radiant' theory, it's been fun.

I guess I just don't agree.

I think any system of discrimination is also going to invent the fake reasoning for "why should this system exist" alongside of the system. For anyone who lives within the system, it needs to feel obvious and "right". That happened and happens in our world, historically and currently, and it happens in the worlds that Brandon writes. The oppressors will always be able to come up with a reason why they should be on top. The lighteyed/darkeyed reasoning is no different than things that have happened/happen on Earth. Coming up with a "justification" for it is part of the oppression.

If you're joking, then please try to think through if your post might sound genuine or aggressive. If you're not joking, then I'm afraid you're going to have to get used to it, as there are plenty of non-UK English speakers around.

"It'll be crimson to break" and immediately after realization, knew I should have figured it out before that. But that's what it was!

In the future, please remember to add [OB] in your topic titles for topics in the Oathbringer spoiler section.

Shallan's needs include being able to use Pattern as a sword, and she knew it was her issue, not Adolin's.

I'm going to disagree. When learning to play any sport in my life, we learned the sport and the physical conditioning was on the side. Never a pre-requisite. It just doesn't happen that way.

Please remember to add [OB] before your topic title in the Oathbringer spoiler board in the future. Very interesting! I'm not any kind of authority on how accurate Kaladin's experience is to gay men, but I appreciate you sharing your experiences with it. I think it's a great read; I love the take!

In the future, please add [OB] before the topic title in the Oathbringer spoiler section.

Oh! Oh, no! No, I didn't like either ship going into OB. I liked Kadolin and only Kadolin. I disliked Shalladin, and was bored by Shadolin. The very beginnings of the appearance of the triangle at the end of WoR caused me much anguish and dread. I spent three years going, "Brandon, don't do what I think you're doing" and only breathed a sigh of relief at the end of OB, when I'm taking it to mean it's over. I've come around to Shadolin only because when you end up defending something, one starts to feel fond of that something. No, even now I don't consider myself a Shadolin shipper. I'll argue in its favour if I think something is unfair, or just untrue, but I'm not going to be destroyed if the ship doesn't last.

If Shallan and Adolin continued on as they had in Part One, they should not have been together. After reading Part One, I was sure they were toast. They had a veneer of positivity, both trying so hard to be the perfect versions of themselves for each other. They hid the truth from each other, when they both had something big and serious they were dealing with, and both of them were too afraid to tell the other anything about it. While this is normal for many people when they start dating, it can't last if they're going to be serious. Hence, I was thinking OB might be the story of them breaking up. When they had their scene of telling each other the truth, resolving this big issue they were having as a couple, I grudgingly shook my head, "You got me this time, Brandon. Fine." Yeah, like I said, not a fan of either ship on the first read. Actually, no, there was no wedding scene. The last scene of Oathbringer is Dalinar and Navani.

Please remember to put [OB] in front of your title on new topics on the Oathbringer spoiler board.

Use the characters [ and ] in the topic title. In qwerty keyboards, these are located close to the ENTER and BACKSPACE keys. Just type [OB] before the rest of your title.

I do feel it was resolved satisfactorily. My feelings about either ship is a totally different question from whether or not I think it's resolved, in my opinion. On my first go through, I did not enjoy it, because I did not enjoy the triangle aspect of it. On my reread, knowing how it ended, I was able to relax only because I believed it resolved, and then had a much better experience with it. So, I guess overall, I believe it was a good romance arc. Shallan and Adolin - they started in a bad place, had a crisis, and then joined together again stronger at the end having resolved every problem that was brought up at the beginning of their arc in OB. Personally, I don't see the romance as the biggest part, as it's only existed properly for about half the series as it stands. Brandon might expand upon it as he goes on, but in my thinking, if Kaladin and Shallan are going to drop in importance in the back five (total conjecture seeing as we know very little about it), their romance arcs will as well. Dalinar and Navani were a longer and more established romance arc, and I find Brandon treats them with... I'm not sure what word I wanted, now that I got here. Uh... Like,for example, Dalinar and Navani have had their arc from the very beginning of all three books and their arc has been there for all three. It's consistent. Like other romances in the cosmere, there aren't tricks in it. I'm not saying it's impossible that Brandon would want to try something new with these specific characters, but my take is that it would be new and unprecedented, and it feels very against how he's treated all of his romances up until now. It's one of those situations where I won't believe it until I see it, as for me, it goes against way too much of Brandon's established precedent and style.

Please remember to add [OB] spoilers tags when creating topics in the OB spoiler board.

I disagree with this, especially the bolded. It hasn't been true in my experience. Even on 17S, which I'll be the first to say has a reputation for not being warm towards character topics, there are plenty of people who do like romantic arcs who were satisfied - or even bare minimum, were really fine with it. This statement is broad enough to dismiss a lot of Shadolin shippers who are here, and others who don't fall into either camp, but would still find this statement not true of them. The forum isn't separated into Shalladin shippers and people who dislike character arcs. I don't think that's what you were trying to say, but I feel like a lot of people reading this could see it that way. 17S also isn't the only place where cosmere fans exist, and those places are generally extremely open to character topics and romance. Those places have huge amounts of variation in terms of reaction to it, and none of it falls neatly into "people who were okay with the arc are the same people who didn't care." For me, personally, who finished OB strongly disliking both Shadolin and Shalladin - I love romance arcs, I love shipping, I love character arcs, and I still thought it was a resolution. Kaladin's reflection to himself about realizing that he doesn't love Shallan that way is on the level of subtlety with what I expect of him from his other romance arcs. Brandon doesn't really play games. He can't do anything about what the fandom does with his works, but I feel strongly that I can take certain things at face value. His romance arcs is one of those things. My two cents!

You know what? I'm really curious about Dalinar's parents. I want to know anything about them. What kind of people were they?