Nebty

Hmmm, I dislike the meta arguments because they ignore context. These aren't, 'main female character who is betrothed to extroverted prince but also attracted to broody self-made man'. They're Shallan, Adolin, and Kaladin, who are more than the sum of their tropes. Ultimately I don't really know what to do with meta arguments against either pairing because...I mean do you think these characters are cliche? I don't. I think their interactions with each other are funny, relatable, and often moving. The argument falls down before it gets out of the gate. Sure they're informed by tropes, but so is a lot of Sanderson's writing. It's what he does with those tropes that matters.

Oh for sure. I think there's going to be some conflict on the way there - especially since it seems obvious that both Kaladin and Shallan have some kind of feelings for each other, but as of right now they're both trying to convince themselves they don't. However I don't think there's going to be any burned bridges over this (er, so to speak). There's other things going on that are just too important. Again, though, I hate that kind of argument. It implies that the most fulfilling and self-actualizing thing Adolin can do is get the right girlfriend. But a girlfriend's not going to solve the underlying reasons for why he sabotages his own relationships. You can't rely on other people to solve your problems for you. Even if your girlfriend's the most wonderful, perfect person in the world. I can imagine a fulfilling character arc for Adolin in which him and Shallan break up and stay friends, but where he also manages to improve himself and become a happier, healthier person. I can imagine it for all of them. Because they are not their relationships - they're well-rounded characters who have their own rich inner lives and their own problems that they're going to have to deal with.

I think one of the big fears around a potential love triangle is that whoever is left is going to be negatively impacted (as is frequently the case in love triangles). But wouldn't it be great if everybody figured out their feelings, talked it out, and it was fine? No heartbreaking drama, no hissy-fits, just three really good friends deciding that, whatever happens, they're all going to stay friends. Personally, I think that would be a pretty good twist on the love triangle trope.

As someone who really loves and appreciates Shallan as a character, I don't buy the argument from the perspective of 'Adolin's found The One and he's never going to find another', and therefore he somehow deserves Shallan more. 1) I just don't actually believe it, as mariapapadia eloquently argued. You say that there is no possible way Adolin would be able to deal with not being in a relationship with Shallan, and thus the story shouldn't go there. But I don't think you're giving him enough credit. He's an adult. They're all adults. And also the world is ending. No matter what happens with this nascent love triangle, I think they're all going to have bigger things to worry about. 2) Even if it is true, that's...kind of a him problem. It takes two to tango, y'know? You've done a lot of arguing for why Adolin needs Shallan, but Shallan's own desires are a big part of if this whole relationship thing is going to work or not. I don't really have a dog in this fight. All of them are cute. I love all three. I want them all to be happy and safe and healthy. But I hate it when discussions like this devolve into arguing about which of two points of the love triangle deserves the third, when a relationship is inevitably going to require consent from both parties. And the argument that one person needs another for some kind of self-actualization particularly puts me off. It smacks of obsession, something that has impacted Shallan in a very personal, very traumatic way. I don't think that's the kind of person Adolin is.

I always find thinking about gender roles in Alethkar fascinating, because you're right. Women have access to a whole separate realm of power than men. Men have access to scholarly knowledge, but almost always through women only (as readers and scribes). I have to agree with Jasnah, though. Even though women do have their own spheres, if I was living as an Alethi woman I'd be pissed at having my activities determined for me by gender. Also, your observation makes me wonder what Alethi histories look like. I mean, we know that the people who write history often pay the most attention to historical figures who were a lot like themselves. That's how you get Great Men history, all about rich, powerful (often white) men. But what about Alethi historians? Would they emphasize women's roles in history over men's? Would they eschew long examinations of historical battles in favor of the history of scholarship? And with all the gender segregation that goes on in Alethi society (activities, food, professions, even the way you worship sometimes), it's interesting that men and women interact so regularly, and with so little oversight. I mean, there seems to be some sort of casual-ish dating culture in the warcamps at least. And this is among the upper crust. I think that speaks to the high status women are afforded in Alethkar. Not equal, I don't think (there's still some baggage about that - the whole 'you'll marry who your father tells you to' thing, for one), but women have a lot more freedom than in, say, Regency England. (I had to go back through my post to change all mentions of "Roshar" to "Alethkar", because Roshar has tons of different cultures, and many of them have different gender roles. One of the things I love most about the Stormlight Archive.)

I'd also like a link to some of those discussions. It sounds fascinating.

Yes, exactly. One of Brandon Sanderson's strengths is that he does emotion very well, both in terms of characterization and evoking emotion in the reader. He makes you care about these characters, which therefore makes the stakes that much higher. The Stormlight Archive is a pretty depressing series on the surface of it, with themes like the inevitability of death and the futility of struggling against an enemy that is more likely than not going to kill you and everyone you've ever known. However, most of the books are taken up with the personal struggles of this collection of characters. If it was all depressing stuff all the time, then the reader would just stop caring, but beauty is in the details, like when Kaladin smiles during the weeping because he remembers that he's wearing the boots that Shallan conned off of him. Sure there's big, scary, world-changing stuff happening, but it says something when the most poignant part of the book is two characters who thought they were utterly alone discovering that there's another person who truly understands them. "Journey before destination," right? Heh. I see Syl and Kaladin as having a very special relationship. They do love each other, I think. Not in a romantic way perhaps, but there are so many different kinds of love. I really enjoy reading their interactions, and appreciate that Syl is always there for Kaladin to rely on. I hope Shallan can form a similar sort of bond with Pattern eventually. Right now, though, she still seems to hate both Pattern and herself for what happened to her mother. Poor Shallan. She seems to be even lonelier than Kaladin, who's got both Syl and bridge four. Even though Kaladin might mope around a lot, it's probably important to remember that Kal wears his heart on his sleeve, and that's reflected in his narration. Shallan, on the other hand, is very good at lying to both other people and herself. She takes on roles to keep others at a distance and distracts herself as much as possible in order to deny what she's really feeling. So even though she might be upbeat and sociable most of the time while Kaladin is grouchy, much of that, like her humour, is a mask. There's a certain strength in that, though. Haha! I hadn't even thought of that, but yeah, that could be really convenient. If you had enough food on hand then Lift is basically an infinite stormlight-producer. Another option is having squires (like the bridgemen, can absorb stormlight but don't have a spren) running onto the battlefield and refueling their knights with stormlight.

Heh. Thank you. I think that was the longest post I've ever done here. Pffft. I had not, in fact, considered that. However, I have wondered what would happen if two radiants kissed while one of them was holding stormlight. After all, Shallan was able to take in stormlight from a sphere and then use that stormlight to infuse the lamps to power up the oathgate. Only those with the power of Progression can infuse regular people with stormlight, but can radiants give their stormlight to other radiants? After all, a Highstorm infuses a radiant like it infuses a sphere. Of course, you probably wouldn't have to kiss the person to try this out (you don't have to kiss a sphere to infuse it after all) but it'd be more fun that way.

Actually, she's talking about Cryptics, not Honorspren. Can't give you the page number because it's off the kindle version, but it's in chapter 3. Also, I don't think that Shallan declaring that she hates Pattern was one of her truths (probably not totally true, as it seems she blames herself more than Pattern for the incident), rather it was her finally admitting to killing her mother and confronting the truth of what happened that night.

Oh man, there were way too many of them. Shallan's big badass speech to the deserters. "No apologize! Boots!" Kaladin vs Shallan round 2 Shallan's flashbacks. Those were very difficult to read, but I enjoyed them a lot. Kaladin jumping into the arena with four shardbearers, felling one with a surge-enhanced missile kick, and fending off two others with a shardplate boxing glove made out of a helmet. This is why I like you, Kal. Finding out that Adolin had made the guards lock him up in solidarity. Lift's interlude. I'm glad I hadn't read it beforehand. Lift and Wyndle were a lot of fun, and her going back for Gawx even though she knew she'd probably be killed was really moving. Lift's a good kid. The entirety of the chasm scene. That was probably the most powerful dialogue in the entire book. Elhokar barging into Kaladin's room, laying himself bare and basically begging Kal to teach him how to be a good person. I never really thought much of Elhokar but damnation, that scene changed a forgettable character into an incredibly sympathetic one. I have high hopes for Elhokar's future development. Dalinar badgering god into becoming his adorable spren sidekick. Nothing but the best for the Blackthorn. There's more, of course, but that's just off the top of my head.

That's a possibility, the wording is ambiguous enough, but I just can't see the logic in saying that Shallan "deserves" to be beaten just because so far she hadn't been. None of them deserved what Lin did to them. It made me think that she knows some of what happened, even if Lin just hinted at it in a moment of weakness, like he tried to do when threatened by Helaran. Malise is arguably the person who was closest to him other than Shallan. His sons were both too afraid and too disgusted with him to spend a ton of time in his presence.

Voted for Kaladin, both because I like them together best and because I think it's very likely to happen. Honestly, I really wasn't expecting to ship anyone at all in The Stormlight Archive. WoK made me love these characters, just like all Sanderson books do, and I was content to see where they went without pairing them up. I'm not really a fan of shipping characters before you can really gauge what their interactions are like, and everyone was on their own for the majority of WoK (barring Jasnah and Shallan but I love their mentor/student relationship too much to ship them romantically, and Kal/Syl I guess but she's more like an adorable sidekick and really close platonic friend). And then WoR happened and I found myself really surprised at how much I enjoyed Shallan and Kaladin's interactions. I thought for sure he'd be too grumpy and stoic and she too snarky for them to get along. But it turns out that Kal's pretty snarky himself when he's not being constantly beaten down. That scene where Shallan pretends to be a horneater princess and makes him give her his boots had me in stitches, and the follow-up when she tries to get in to see Dalinar was even better. But while snark battles are great and all, it was the chasm scene that really did it. Well, specifically, these lines from the chasm scene: That's...a really powerful couple of lines. Especially considering where Kaladin is right now, emotionally. He's consumed by his past failures, obsessively so. And then he finds someone who is just as broken as he is, maybe more, who has found the will to live despite all of that. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that Shallan gives Kaladin hope, and that during the time they spent together he's grown to admire her very much, despite her being a lighteyes. That's a rather profound moment of character development for Kaladin, and Shallan was the catalyst. Shallan is more guarded about her feelings, but there's that passage where she zones out and thinks about Kaladin while talking to Adolin: Interesting how she says she can't define what's brilliant about Kaladin and then goes on to define it anyways. In italics. I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before, but I also loved just how much fun they seemed to have together. In Words of Radiance, even though all of the principle characters are together in one place now, they're still very isolated, Kaladin and Shallan most of all. Adolin has his family to rely upon. Ditto for Dalinar, and he has Navani as well. While Kaladin loves the men of Bridge Four, he mentions multiple times that they revere him too much for him to confide in them. Shallan has Adolin, but whenever they're together she's always very focused on making a good impression, letting him talk about himself, making sure she's appealing enough to keep him interested in her. In the end, she cares too much about making him perceive her a certain way to truly be able to rely upon him for support. While talking to Adolin is fun, it's also work. In the chasm, Shallan actually made Kaladin Grumpyguts smile. She made him laugh. She caused him to make a terrible pun. Frankly, that's pretty amazing. How many times has Kal let loose like that in the entire time that we've known him? And Kal's complete, blunt, brutal honestly in turn allowed Shallan to tell the truth, something that she's had difficulty doing even to herself. I think I might've rambled a bit, but I really love these two characters. Well, I love all of the characters in this series, but I didn't think that Words of Radiance could make me love Kaladin and Shallan more than I already did.

But would Amaram be able to wield Helaran's shards if it had been a live spren? Remember, Helaran was the shardbearer that Kal killed, which means that Amaram ended up with the shards. I was under the impression that the KR's act of breaking their oaths was what caused the spren to "die" and stay as shardblades. A live spren would presumably just leave when its surgebinder dies.

Well presumably Lin also told Malise and she apparently believed him. In the scene where Shallan is bandaging her wounds Malise wonders if Lin will start hurting Shallan who she says, "actually deserves it". Shallan doesn't deny it either. I don't think Malise would've said this if Lin hadn't told her about what happened.

Shallan's backstory was absolutely heartbreaking. Even though I could see where everything was leading, it was still a gut punch when it happened. And people are very rarely just heroes or just villains. Lin protected Shallan because he loved her. Shallan loved him too, and tried to be as dutiful a daughter as she could. Over the years, though, I wonder if Lin didn't grow to hate his daughter as well. His actions towards Shallan, even though he never physically touched her, were horribly abusive. He isolated her for most of her life, preventing her from having relationships with people outside the family. He also physically abused others while making it clear to her that they were being punished for her lack of obedience. That's some pretty powerful emotional manipulation right there, especially when you consider that Shallan believes everything that's gone wrong in her family has been her fault. So, to answer the question, I think it's tough to call Lin a hero or a villain. The situation is too complex for that. He did lie to save Shallan, but he also proceeded to systematically brutalize his family for years to satisfy his need to control them. And even though he protected his daughter he also allowed her to believe that this was all her fault, even reinforcing her sense of guilt by hurting people when she disobeyed him. That is amazingly stormed up. I've gotta say, kudos to Brandon Sanderson. Abusive relationships are difficult to write, and even more difficult to write in a way that is emotionally resonant. I wonder what kind of research he did. The parts where, despite everything that had happened, Shallan still hopes that maybe he's finally changed, rang especially true. Also the part when she's telling Kaladin about her past and she says that she loved her father very much. She did love her father, and she kept hoping that he'd turn back into the man he once was.