Greywatch

There has to be some room for compassion and allowance to heal. You don't heal from trauma from being forced to immediately conform to someone else's standard of what healthy is, and I'll take a Shallan who is, in some way trying to face what she experienced, than Shallan in the previous books who was so unable to face it that she out and out pretended it didn't even happen. It's a lot of progress. Shallan doesn't necessarily need a romantic relationship, but she does, at some point, just need someone to just accept her. She has so much anxiety in this book towards everyone about trying to be perfect, worrying that she's inadequate to every single situation she's facing. For someone she likes and cares about to accept her without condition or asking her to try to be someone else is very good for her. There's been a lot of discussion about Adolin forcing her to try and put on a persona of a perfect bride, but none of that actually came from Adolin. In the text, he's only shown a genuine desire to get to know Shallan better. Shallan's anxiety about personas fade when she realizes she can trust Adolin not to run away at the truth.

Haha, funny thought. Though I think that Odium would not accept those people as part of Kharbranth, as since he's following the agreement in spirit, he would only accept those who truly consider Kharbranth their home. Odium specifically said he wouldn't allow the option of saving anyone Taravangian ruled over, as King T was/is planning to rule over everyone on Roshar, so I'm certain the same rule applies to this whether it's by Taravangian becoming king of Roshar or by making everyone part of Kharbranth - neither option is acceptable to the guy.

Hah, thank you!

I don't know... At first it was really underwhelming for me as well, but then I tried to think about it in context of myself, and Earth, and how I would feel if this place that I thought was mine was stolen from someone else... I felt a bit sick. For me, this is much more believable as the cause for abandoning oaths. Not that it's such a horrifying shock that they all immediately dropped the oaths right then and there, but as it started to sink in over time, that many Radiants found the entire basis of their oaths and moral value system overturned... I can definitely see Radiants in Orders, like the Windrunners and Edgedancers who are all about protecting people, found it incompatible with their oaths to keep fighting the parshpeople at all. I wasn't sure it mattered to me at first, but by the end of the book I was on board with it.

Yeah, I would say the way his mother raised him has a lot to do with it, and even all that time, she made sure that Adolin and Renarin both thought Dalinar was amazing. He just seems to have a lot of mental and emotional resilience!

The only difference between Shallan in WoR and OB is that she was actually starting to face her trauma. In WoR, on the surface it seems healthier, but her in the first two books is textbook denial. She dissociates often - not in the flashbacks, in current reality - totally unable to accept that she was dealing with something terrible. She says it to Kaladin, but in her own POV, she doesn't reflect or deal with it at all, in comparison to Kaladin's constant self-reflection. In OB, she was starting to actually face her past down and it really, really hurt her so much that we started to get a lot of danger signals with Veil and Radiant and her attitude towards her personas - but she was not healthy or whole in WoR. She's only acting the way she is in WoR is because she's so perfectly denied that anything's wrong, even when she can say the words, and I cannot agree that it was healthy, or good, or well, or any positive synonym. Kaladin was certainly not in a good place for those couple days, no - but the trend of his healing was already much further along. He was already starting to confront his own issues and the struggle over his oaths which almost killed Syl was also what led him directly to his next oath and the next step of his healing. He spent a little time in darkness facing the next difficult step in his journey where he wanted to kill someone because he hated them, and he was already strong enough to move on from it. He made oaths and started to change himself. Shallan is not dealing with her issues; she's barely able to admit it and she's almost tailspinning. I am looking at the overall trend of their journeys, and I think even at the end of OB, Kaladin is much farther ahead in his healing, even though Shallan has made some progress. All that this says to me is that they're both main characters, and for narrative reasons, main characters often have parallel decisions/feelings. Digging into it, other main/recurring characters will have parallel journeys with each other, and it doesn't mean that they're romantically intended for each other (or even romantically good for each other). Moash's story is a foil for Kaladin, dramatic irony where he follows Kaladin's path in unusually specific ways until the moment they make different decisions; Kaladin's journey in WoK is a mirror story to Dalinar's (becoming a force for honor in a place where there isn't any), etc. etc. Just because they're main characters who have closely related ups and downs doesn't indicate that kind of future for them, especially since many parallels can be found between many characters. I don't believe them being two of the main characters is a good enough reason for them to be together. As for telling each other their whole stories, I'm glad they both did that. In a life or death situation, they end sharing things they'd never shared with another person up until then. Whether one takes that as romantic or not is personal preference; personally it has to be taken in context of the rest of the relationship, which does nothing for me. So I take this as a good step in their friendship, that they had someone to depend on while lost in a chasm, and nothing more. Shallan telling Adolin that Kaladin was insulting him was not being patronizing to him. Adolin doesn't know he's being insulted, and better to know you're being insulted than mistakenly think someone is being nice to you when they aren't. Having been in Adolin's place, someone telling me that wasn't patronizing - it was a sign they cared enough about me to defend me. Shallan's words there is also twofold, as right before she says that line, she is angry at Kaladin for being insulting to Adolin in a way he knows Adolin won't understand. This is also a rebuke to Kaladin that she knows what he's doing. On the other hand, Shallan constantly belittles and insults and condescends to Kaladin. She is classist, thinking nothing of using her lighteyed privilege. I don't want to go too long on this (I could write a dissertation) but a couple things. She refuses to even accept that Kaladin's life is quantifiably worse because he's a darkeyes (WoR 69); the boots scene where she literally robbed and bullied Kaladin and didn't feel the least bit bad about it until Kaladin directly confronted her later; the part where she insults Kaladin to make herself feel better (WoR chapter 70). It got to the point in WoR where I dreaded every time they had a scene together because Shallan was so consistent in directly insulting Kaladin and thinking she was hilarious, and then getting annoyed/hurt when someone disagreed that she was funny/clever. I took that dread into OB and thankfully their scenes weren't as bad as I was fearing. The fact that she thinks this is good flirting makes it even worse for me. If anyone treated a friend of mine the way Shallan treated Kaladin, I would tell them to run, especially if they're ever used the excuse "I was just making a joke". I do agree that Kaladin thinks he sees her whole and complete. I also think he puts her on a pedestal way too easily. But I'm already going very, very long on my issues with Shallan and Kaladin, so I'll link a few posts that explain the whole of the issues better than me. http://kogiopsis.tumblr.com/post/160574083724/horizonproblems-reblogged-your-post-and-added https://whatofyouyoungprincerenarin.tumblr.com/post/164869484039/why-do-you-not-like-shallan-kaladin https://themalhambird.tumblr.com/post/160493530367/whys-the-boots-scene-obnoxious As for Adolin there - I absolutely cannot agree with "enabling her dissociation". One of her core struggles throughout OB is struggling to find and like herself through a mountain of self-hatred. I do not agree that someone being gentle and giving her a lot of time to be ready to deal with it is in any way enabling her. She frustrated me a lot when she refused to just face up, but in her shoes, I'd probably do the same, and I think I'd want the compassion Adolin showed her in this case. The insistence on the matter that Shallan is only one person and she needs to admit reality that they are all her... is ignoring that healing is a process. Only one book ago was she even ready to say the words that she killed her parents, but she couldn't even think about it without falling into dissociation constantly. She divided herself into different personas to make it easier to process now that she admitted it. Even though we can recognize that Shallan was not in a good place during OB, (even a very bad place!) it was still progress on her part. While I don't know whether she will ever subsume Veil and Radiant's identities/consciousness/personalities back into her... "main"? For the moment, they are helping, and I don't think it does any good to force someone to give up a coping mechanism before they're ready just because we know it's unhealthy. For Shallan, having Veil and Radiant is giving her the safe distance it can take to self-reflect - something she has rarely done in all of Stormlight. She can think about herself using proxies and it's easier to think "I don't like that Veil thinks that" without having to make it self-hatred, ie. "I don't like that I thought that." For that reason, knowing that Veil and Radiant are here to stay (at least until SA4?), the fact that Adolin accepts them all without blinking is such a good sign that he's accepting all of Shallan - the complete version of her, all variations. By accepting all her personas, Shallan will stop thinking that she has to be someone else. She's frequently worried about what Adolin will think because she cares. Shallan's desire for this relationship and worry about what Adolin is the strongest sign that this is something she wants. I have to disagree again. A person can be very attached to someone they also feel silly and giddy with. Adolin is a person where she also feels safe and comfortable. Just because their relationship is lighthearted does not make it meaningless, and they don't have to be lost in a chasm together to have a real emotional connect where they can truly know each other. As for having to work on their relationship, Adolin and Shallan are in an arranged marriage, and though it was hard to prove for Shallan at first, they knew they were going to be trying for a relationship before they even met. They need to work on their relationship because they are also building a friendship at the same time, and the level of emotional vulnerability they both wanted with each other required revealing some really terrible stuff to each other. It's not a typical relationship in that they weren't really dating - they were both trying to get to know each other better with the expectation that they wanted to be married to each other, which is a much different relationship than a normal dating relationship between young adults in the Western hemisphere. They both decided they wanted to be with each other, where Shallan was briefly tempted by her attraction to Kaladin. Shallan/Adolin is... not exactly my favourite ship ever - I think it would be accurate to say I don't even ship it. But imo the canonical evidence is much stronger for a healthy and happy relationship between Shallan and Adolin. What happens in SA4 and beyond? Who knows. I wouldn't be surprised or bothered either way, if they stay together or not. But OB was building the case for these two, and I guess it's a matter of preference whether one was persuaded.

There are way too many to mention. The big ones all jumped to mind immediately, but on further reflection, I've narrowed it down to two: - Dalinar using a different approach to meet with the Azish and showing up unarmed with - not one, not two, but three Serious Academic Essays to win them over in a way he's not used to. - Lift showing up apropos of nothing in Dalinar's vision, spooking Odium so badly that he disappears. She's amazing.

Adolin being a half-Radiant just to spite both factions would be a hilarious conclusion to all this!

Speaking as someone who is not thrilled by either ship, I feel like Shallan and Adolin had more going for them. The chasm scene had them admitting some amount of truth to each other, but not on the core level. The big Moment for me was Kaladin seeing Shallan's smile - but it meant totally different things to each of them. It was powerful to Kaladin because for him to be able to smile like that would be immense. If Kaladin could manage to smile like that, it would be incredible evidence of far he's come in his healing process. But for Shallan, who can put on a face very easily, that smile doesn't equal healing. Especially at the point she was back then, Shallan was approaching her nadir - whereas Kaladin was on his way up. Shallan's ability to smile isn't evidence of her healing, but her denying reality. I didn't find it a powerful moment of connection between the two of them; I thought it was a powerful moment of realization for Kaladin to realize that it was possible to heal and move on, and I also thought it wasn't healthy for Shallan to pretend that she was fine when she wasn't. To Kaladin, she always tried to present herself as whole and complete, and beyond the myriad other issues I have with this ship, her inability to be actually vulnerable with Kaladin is a point I can't get past. She was mad attracted to him, but never in a way where she really cared what he thought of her. She never tried to imagine what he went through, or how he thought about things, and in almost all of their interactions, she condescends to him - even if it's in a funny way. One moment of connection in the chasm doesn't undo that for me. Whereas with Adolin, on the surface they seem more shallow, but she is really occupied with their relationship and actually making that work. No matter how deep or shallow anyone thinks their relationship is, her intention to work on her relationship with Adolin and make real sacrifices is what makes a relationship work for real. At the beginning of OB, I thought for sure Adolin and Shallan weren't going to work out, mainly because neither was being honest with each other. But they surprised me - they admitted the deep truth they were scared to show the other. They told each other things they hadn't told anyone else - not Kaladin, or Dalinar, or Renarin, or anyone - and that was exactly when I knew - that at least for Oathbringer - this is the relationship that works. Shallan and Kaladin don't even have a flirtation, never mind anything stable enough to base a stable relationship on. It is at the level of a crush, and yeah, they could have something enough to start a relationship on... But they both choose not to. Lastly is that Adolin focuses a lot on Shallan enough to let Shallan relax and not have to have a persona with him. I do not think Kaladin was able to past the fronts she put on and in all of his POV, we see him just accepting whatever Shallan is putting forward. I see no textual evidence to support the idea that Kaladin knows her better than Adolin does. Whether he's unable to see past her facades, or whether he doesn't enough emotional connection with to her to try and get past her personas, the canonical evidence is that Adolin actively makes that attempt to get to know Shallan and Kaladin doesn't. Lastly, this was something I thought was more under the radar, but I think it's a sign of success that Adolin and Veil are friends rather than that being a sign of lack in their relationship. The entire thing was Shallan being afraid to even let Adolin know that Veil existed, and even though this is a version of Shallan so distant he doesn't see her the same person as his fiancée/wife... Not only is Adolin completely unperturbed by Veil's existence, but he finds a way to share his life with this facet of Shallan, instead of Veil being an outsider to their relationship. That was the nail in the coffin for me to realize that they really were serious about each other. Adolin and Shallan have shared deep intense secrets about themselves with each other, allowed themselves emotional vulnerability and security even though their deep dark secrets were really deep and dark, and moved forward together after that, continually committing themselves to each other over and over again. All three of these kids have a ton of chemistry with each other, but romantic relationships aren't about that One Moment of connection or rosy feelings of exhilaration - but choosing to be with another person even if there are other options.

While I think a romantic relationship would be nice for Kaladin to have, I've also enjoyed how little of his character arc has depended on it so far. My opinion on it is I think I would enjoy it were Brandon to go there, but I'm also very happy with where he's going without it.

Lopen, seen right here before making his oaths (almost jokingly, just saying the words as explanation to another guy), makes me think that we shouldn't take the example of Kaladin, and Dalinar, and Shallan as the examples of minimum brokenness - if there even is such a thing. I don't know, trying to dissect peoples' psyches and saying "well, they don't seem sad or angry all the time, so that's probably not broken enough" seems like a misguided approach to what the spren mean when they talk about brokenness.

Yep, absolutely valid point, Chrono. I just wanted to say something about the idea being passed around (explicit or implicit) that Shallan would be a solution to Kaladin's depression or anger or unhappiness. It's entirely possible Shallan could be good for him that way; also possible his symptoms wouldn't change at all. (And I just want to be clear, I don't have a dog in this fight - I voted "no one".)

I disagree with the principle of the idea that being in a relationship will automatically make Kaladin happy. Even ignoring the fact that they have also fought a lot, being in a relationship does not "fix" depression. Not talking about how compatible Kaladin and Shallan are, or how well they understand each other, just this basic issue. And that goes for more than just clinical depression. Being in a relationship doesn't fix any of your problems; the other person is not a solution to whatever bad feelings. Just thought that needed to be said.

Oh, not at all! It was related and relevant; I really am planning on going to check out Feather's post on the matter.

I'll have to read her post about it, but I believe my point still stands.

I would prefer we leave it, but it is actually gut-wrenching to know that someone considers having a breakdown and being emotional means you're not "acting like a person" anymore. I find that horrifying. If you would prefer to be someone who would rather be right than compassionate, I think it would be best if this topic never ever came up again.

I had thought that all humans in the Cosmere are immigrated from Yolen? (I need to look up a WoB, I'm not sure of that.)

I don't understand why you've made all these assumptions and expect us to give credit when you've admitted it's all your opinion? I don't know enough about depression, but yeah, I've seen seasonal affective disorder, and it very strongly affects people's mood and motivation. During the Weeping, which is an entire month of rain and overcast weather, it is very likely for someone with the disorder to feel extremely down and lack motivation to go about their daily life. It's canon that Kaladin has felt this way during the Weepings. Shallan does have several coping mechanisms! You're right! If she didn't suffer trauma, she would probably be alright! But she suffered trauma. So she's been coping with it. And yes, Renarin is autistic. The thing about autism being a spectrum is that no one person with autism is going to act or react or look like anyone else with autism. If you know one person with autism, then you know ONE person with autism. EDIT: Oop, Feather got there ahead of me.

Like someone said before in the topic, when it comes to this topic there have been two ways to approach it: "What I think is most likely to happen based on the textual evidence" and "What seems like a good relationship, extrapolating from the text." If you're going to push me, I'll say yeah, Kaladin is most likely straight in the text, maybe ending up with Shallan?? But if you're asking me my opinion on the best relationship for Kaladin, absolutely it's Adolin. I said before they have the most chemistry, and I don't care about the text because they have the most going on. (Dramatic journey from distrust and bickering to brothers in arms and friendship! How wonderful!) I hesitate to speak for anyone else, but maybe this applies to others in the topic, but - yeah, it's incredibly frustrating to see posts going "Kaladin is straight and you are all wrong" with no interest in even hearing why I think Kaladin might be good for another character... if they happen to be male. You're missing the point when you argue "but Kaladin only likes chicks" - I understand we've seen Kaladin only show interest in women thus far. It's not new to me. Why be so against the idea of exploring other relationships? It just seems like trying to be right instead of having fun and exploring the text. Abalidoth and Feather had a lot of good things to say, bi-erasure among them, and just - yeah. Well said.

Well, maxal, I can't say I agree that Jasnah is "quite snotty". She's to-the-point, even abrupt, but because she has a lot of demands on her time. When we see her point of view being challenged, she doesn't condescend to her verbal opponents, but treats them as an equal, even respectfully. When she disagrees with someone, she doesn't shut them down, but she engages with their perspective. I personally don't share Jasnah's perspective on a lot of things, but I never felt attacked or the slightest bit insulted by how she's written. I wouldn't call her snotty at all. Now, I don't really ship Kaladin/Jasnah at all - I agree that the age gap is a little much. But I also think she would give Kaladin a baseline level of respect as an equal, seeing as they share a common cause and are in a similar position as new Radiants.

There is no reason he would have known. A one-time healing, for all Renarin knows, might be it; he's never had the opportunity to heal from something else in a battle situation, and we know even with the benefit of being on the outside looking in that Stormlight healing isn't infallible anyway. I don't think anyone could say that Renarin knew beyond the shadow of a doubt he would walk away. Having his eyesight healed >>> "I can walk away from any injury in a fight" is a /bit/ of a stretch. In the text, Renarin expects to die. I'm not sure how else to phrase this.

There is no evidence he knew he could heal himself like that. He was expecting to die at that point in the fight. That's pretty clear.

I voted Other, since there are no male options here. Absolutely Kaladin with Adolin. Has the most chemistry, platonic, romantic, or otherwise.

Ah, I had a post all written and accidentally clicked away. I'll try to recreate it. I also am of the opinion that our heroes will have done well on the "keeping their Surgebinding a secret" front. And I don't where it said it had to be public, only that it must be brutal, which doesn't have the implication of happening right out in the open. (Though if there is new info, I would def like to read it!) Szeth is not suicidal; there is a difference between charging in the second he gets to the Shattered Plains and approaching the killing with some degree of intelligence. Even if he does just go for it - and he may - numbers of people in Shardplate and/or Shardblades don't even make Szeth blink. He can handle that without slowing down. As I see it, the only one who could even take on Szeth's abilities and give him pause would be Kaladin, unless maybe Adolin is a lot better than Gavilar, Adolin being the only potential defender of Dalinar with both Plate and Blade.

First of all, Gloom, I'm not personally disagreeing with you about what Kaladin's orientation may or may not be. It's not unlike my own thoughts on how his character might be developed over the whole Stormlight Archive. Secondly, a lack of evidence of attraction to men does not equal a lack of attraction to men. More than that, sexuality is a spectrum; it doesn't have to be all one or the other. Sexuality develops all the time and it never stops. Lastly, while I think it's very important that we all continue to discuss the representation of sexual minorities here, in the smaller field of what shipping actually is, Kaladin's orientation doesn't matter. For example, I personally really like Kaladin/Adolin. I will ship this regardless of what the text shows. If Kaladin and Adolin are confirmed by Brandon to be perfect zeroes on the Kinsey scale (strictly heterosexual), I will still ship it because the ship is unaffected. If the series ends with Kaladin and Adolin romantically involved with other people or with no one at all, it doesn't affect what I ship. I will reiterate what I've said earlier: ships are usually not predictions or expectations or theories for the text. Sometimes they can be, if you want to take another look at how the ship theorizing at the beginning of the topic utilized theories for the characters' personalities and possible future development. But if the ship is nixed in the next book, that doesn't kill the idea of the ship. From my experience in fandoms, what will almost certainly happen is once we have new information, we will incorporate that into the ship and create it new again. Ships are extrapolations and possibilities. One last example... If Shallan and Renarin don't get together, that is not an obstacle, because you can't kill the idea of Shallan and Renarin being good for each other. If Kaladin is shown to be 100% straight, it does not destroy the concept of what he might be like in a relationship with Renarin or Adolin or whoever.