GroundPetrel

I've been looking to see if there's a WOB on what would happen if a singer bonded a surgebinder spren and I'm having trouble finding an answer. Does anybody know if we have an official word on this or if it's been RAFOed?

Adolin, Navani, Syl. oh, and Nightblood of course.

With regards to the caste system, I get the strangest feeling that universally beloved war hero Kaladin Stormblessed and his endlessly supportive best bro for life Adolin "I never met a nobody in trouble I didn't immediately want to help at any cost" Kholin will not be supportive of reestablishing it when all this apocalypse business is over. In fact, I am certain that they will use all the political power they can get to pressure Jasnah and maybe Dalinar into legally destroying the caste system.

Any and all quotes from Nightblood. Dalinar's "You can't have my pain!" from Oathbringer. Basically every time Syl tries to be therapeutic to Kaladin. I initially DNFed Oathbringer because I couldn't handle him being such a mess and her constantly trying to help because I was identifying really really hard with Kal and it was like Syl was trying to give me a pep talk and I know that I don't deserve that. Still like her attempts though. It's weird. That wham line from Denth in Warbreaker when Vivenna realizes how badly she's been outplayed.

Maybe in, like, a few years? Jasnah's actively trying to destroy the Alethi political system while replacing it with something more competent and less...uh...how do I put this... Rooted in toxic masculinity and typical nobility BS? Anyway, with that involved, I doubt she or Adolin will bother for at least a few years. If there is somehow a frozen conflict situation in between 5 and the currently-distant book 6, I think they will get down to it after a few years. They still have so much to do first, though! They haven't even gotten poor Kaladin laid yet! Adolin's got to sort out his relationship with his sword! Shallan herself has a severe psychological disorder that is deeply tied to her also-serious PTSD--she's in no shape to be raising a kid (and frankly--Adolin would be a great dad but I'm legitimately afraid that he's going to burn himself out if he has to deal with a kid as well as everybody else he is a walking talking support system for). As an alternative, allow me to propose this: Adolin and Shallan adopt Lift, then Lift adopts Adolin if/when he figures out how to help Maya heal her mind and (presumably) gets Surgebinding access.

"Palona, dearest! Look what I got you!" "Turi, what am I supposed to do with a trapped spirit of mindless overindulgent partying?" "...well, I'm not entirely certain, but I was thinking it would make an excellent centerpiece?" slap "Take that thing and give it to the Radiants to guard! I won't have it in my house!" "Storming woman, I'm the most henpecked man in the world, I swear to...grumble grumble" goes off to do what she said anyway.

I'm betting that he turns out to be a Greater-Scope Villain for the Heraldic Epochs and post-Oathpact abandoment/pre-Recreance Roshar. I bet that Ishar was somebody very important on Ashyn who screwed up big-time and has been trying to cover it up and rewrite stuff so he's a hero the whole time. Anyway, my personal take is that Ishar is definitely going down in book 5. Probably permakilled. Probably due to T!Odium cleaning up possible rivals, possibly via manipulating the good guys. I'm not a fan of Kaladin somehow being some super-special Jesus baby, but I do think Kal will be involved in some way with Ishar's death. Crack theory: Maybe Ishar's permadeath is a necessity for freeing BAM and healing the deadeyes?

This doesn't necessarily track. Grammatically, Kalak could just mean "as long as he's been around Thaidakar has wanted my secrets".

I'm really interested in pre-Recreance stuff personally. What made humanity go from Odium-serving imperialist jerks, to mostly pro-Honor good guys? (we kinda know how they went back to being imperialists, lol)

OTOH, there are also guys like Sadeas and Amaram. Who apparently are irredeemable, because they don't want redemption.

It was not just "a threat". It was a man who had already proven his ability and willingness to follow through on those threats explicitly threatening Adolin's family and the whole world. If at the end of WOR Amaram had been there with Kaladin and had told him "I am going to murder every last one of your bridgemen and if you tell anyone I said that I'll have 14 witnesses saying that I said nothing of the kind and you're just a crazy upjumped darkeyes", Kaladin would have impaled him with Syl on the spot, and Syl would have egged him on. And probably punched Amaram's corpse into unrecognizability, to boot. Jasnah wouldn't even have waited to let Sadeas finish his thought, she'd just Soulcast him to stone on the spot, dice him with Ivory, then Soulcast the chunks to smoke.

Toxic masculinity is the beating heart of Alethi society. It isn't directly affecting Dalinar in any conscious way in that moment, but he has been conditioned to be the Blackthorn and to see this as a good thing. That is what did a massive amount of psychological and emotional damage to him that he's only barely managed to cope with after being mind-wiped.

In what way?

Even then, Sadeas barely goaded Dalinar at all, Dalinar was just high on Nergaoul's Evil-Juice (makes you 3,000% more rageaholic or your soul back!) and toxic masculinity. Sadeas spent months privately and publicly rubbing Adolin's inability to get any measure of justice for Sadeas's betrayal of Dalinar and Adolin into Adolin's face. This after, prior to the betrayal, personally insulting the brother who Adolin loves more than anything, almost certainly more than his wife and possibly as much as or more than Maya. And Sadeas was being ableist on that point, too, which is heavily implied to be one of Adolin's berserk buttons. Essentially, Sadeas figured that he could use his social status and ability to game the broken and bigoted system to his advantage. Then he decided that the galaxy-brain move would be to walk into a dark alley with no witnesses and tell the guy he'd been needling and betraying and screwing over for months "I'm going to betray and murder everyone you love and there's nothing you or anyone else can do to make me stop". Like I said. Darwin Award material right there.

Dalinar was a freaking butcher who liked killing. The entire point of his Oathbringer flashback arc is him playing sociopath as hard as he can in a futile attempt to drown out the screams, which culminates in him killing a prisoner who was no longer any threat at all. Adolin killed a man who, after deliberately betraying Dalinar and Adolin in an attempt to get them killed, AND destabilizing the realm in an attempt to screw over Dalinar out of petty spite, explicitly and clearly stated to Adolin his express intent to continue betraying Dalinar out of petty spite. The legal system is no recourse; the kingdom's in chaos, Dalinar will try to push for forgiveness in a futile attempt to buy Sadeas's loyalty during the apocalypse, and Sadeas has already proven his immense ability to game the system. It will take years at least--years that Adolin and those he loves don't have--to convict Sadeas, and all the while he'll be spreading fake news left and right to discredit Dalinar and Adolin. Ehlokar is no recourse, he's already seen as weak and Sadeas can easily cast this as a frame job by the Kholins to take away highprinces' privileges, since Sadeas didn't actually do any treason, just say it according to Adolin. Adolin was fully justified in striking Sadeas down right there on the spot. It is, quite frankly, the logical thing for him to do. Sadeas is an active threat to Adolin's family and the world as a whole. He is protected by society to the same degree Adolin is, and is better at gaming the system. The system is broken and designed to help men like Sadeas get away with their plots and schemes. Hewing to authoritarianism and asking Ehlokar to do something will only destabilize the already wrecked kingdom. Sadeas walked up to somebody who could kick his butt with one hand tied behind his back and smugly declared that, since that guy could not do anything to Sadeas in a socially acceptable way, Sadeas was going to continue hurting and killing everybody that guy loves, and there's nothing you can do to stop me, mwahahahaha. That's a freaking Darwin award right there. He counted on his social privilege and rich status to save him when he was in a dark alley with the Hood. (if you've seen Arrow season 1, you know what I mean here)

...compared to who? His dad the straight-up mass murderer?

Adolin DID summon Maya outside of a duel in Sadeas's warcamp in TWOK but that was mostly him underlining a threat of weaponized privilege because he saw some nameless prostitute being beaten up and stepped in to personally help her out of the situation and help her to a safe place while refusing payment of any kind and blowing off an important strategy meeting. He didn't intend to use her, she was just underlining his threat of "I am roughly 3rd in line for the throne, do not storm with me".

Basically the vibe I get from Kel is that he starts off as an asshole who uses his revolutionary cause against an insanely sadistic regime as an excuse to sate his bloodlust, but interactions with better people and general experience are slowly making him a better person. I suspect that his motivation is something along the lines of "the Shards suck, people should have more freedom to determine their destinies without all this divine interference" and my pet theory is that he's gunning for all the Shards but Harmony with an end goal of reforging Adonalsium around Sazed. Meanwhile Hoid is basically playing into the planetary manipulation game and I'm afraid that he's slowly becoming a meddling manipulative imperialist who'll come to loggerheads with Kel after slowly becoming the villain. Of course based on the Sixth 2 excerpt I could be wrong.

Yeah, something about him, I kinda get a reverse-Kelsier from him? Like, I get the vague impression of Kelsier being a bad guy who slowly becomes good, and Hoid is a well-meaning guy who slowly becomes a bad guy. This could just be my mind pursuing minutiae though.

I'm sorry, but Adolin's fashion sense is one of the best things about him!

Honestly, for a man in his '20s the guy is remarkably self-controlled. Sadeas spent months trying to personally get a rise out of him after betraying Adolin and Dalinar and 8k of their troops in the nastiest possible way. Adolin endured that for months and finally snapped when Sadeas said "I'm going to keep on stabbing Dalinar in the back out of petty spite" which took him from "asshole" to "imminent and permanent threat to everyone Adolin loves".

God I keep hoping that this is a metaphor for Kal being particularly good at being a Windrunner. Because it would really really suck if Kal were straight-up Jesus like that.

I don't think this is controversial, I read their relationship as absolutely loaded with belligerent sexual tension too and I only notice that when it's really obvious.

Ati and Leras as bitter exes is the crack ship I didn't know I needed. Now how about Syl/Nightblood? XD As long as we're doing cargo shipping.

I am down with anything that involves Kalak getting the living daylights kicked out of him, but I'm pretty sure that Kaladin will actually bring himself to forgive Kalak and take him to therapy.