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Tunicate
May 15, 2012

The difference is Knight Radiant dies? Spren is sad, but gets over it. Knight Radiant breaks his oaths? Spren goes in a coma, but can come back if the guy reforms. Knight Radiant breaks his oath and dies? Well poo poo son, your spren's been lobotomized, no more knight radiants for that spren


Also, yeah, it's going to be something not immediately shown in the prologue.

Question
Was the Almighty still alive when the Heralds packed it in, and did the Radiants pack it in in direct response to what the Heralds did?

Brandon Sanderson
The Radiants did NOT abandon their post as a response to the Heralds. The Radiants abandoned it for some other reason which will become evident eventually. The Almighty was still around when the Heralds did their thing.

Tunicate fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Apr 3, 2014

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treeboy
Nov 13, 2004

James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.
i suspect re: the recreance, KR, and spren

A line from one of the Parshendi chant epigraphs mentions that Spren *could* bond to Parshendi but that to spren the Parshendi are "broth" and men are "meat" this allusion to consumption makes me wonder if the Nahel bond is as symbiotic as we've been lead to believe or that it may in fact have some parasitic component to it. The spren saw it as a betrayal and genocide. Maybe the Knights Radiant found out the Spren were getting something else out of the whole deal, perhaps even benefitting from conflict amongst humanity (without regular desolations the spren needed continual conflict to...breed? grow? /shrug)

Lobsterpillar
Feb 4, 2014

Tunicate posted:

The difference is Knight Radiant dies? Spren is sad, but gets over it. Knight Radiant breaks his oaths? Spren goes in a coma, but can come back if the guy reforms. Knight Radiant breaks his oath and dies? Well poo poo son, your spren's been lobotomized, no more knight radiants for that spren


Also, yeah, it's going to be something not immediately shown in the prologue.

Question
Was the Almighty still alive when the Heralds packed it in, and did the Radiants pack it in in direct response to what the Heralds did?

Brandon Sanderson
The Radiants did NOT abandon their post as a response to the Heralds. The Radiants abandoned it for some other reason which will become evident eventually. The Almighty was still around when the Heralds did their thing.


So Honor was still alive, but died sometime before now and after the last desolation. If the Heralds actually have some connection to Odium (they hang out on Braize, so maybe the connection he has to them is stronger than they thought), maybe their abandoning the Oathpact weakened Honor and allowed Odium to kill him. The shards of Odium are still present as those big evil spren that cause the Thrill and Death Rattles.

I hope that in the next few books we see some character development for Nightblood. He really wants to destroy some evil, and has very little idea of what evil actually is. I think he needs a bit of reprogramming/memory expansion/experience and I really hope he gets that through the inevitable exposure to parts of Honor/Odium/Cultivation.

Subvisual Haze
Nov 22, 2003

The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault.
In the Warbreaker annotations Sanderson mentions that Nightblood is more intelligent and capable of learning than Vasher gives him credit for. I think we have a lot to look forward to with Nightblood, and his attempts to understand evil. It occurs to me that Nightblood is very much like a spren. He's an idea given physical form - DESTROY EVIL

treeboy
Nov 13, 2004

James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

keiran_helcyan posted:

In the Warbreaker annotations Sanderson mentions that Nightblood is more intelligent and capable of learning than Vasher gives him credit for. I think we have a lot to look forward to with Nightblood, and his attempts to understand evil. It occurs to me that Nightblood is very much like a spren. He's an idea given physical form - DESTROY EVIL

My theory is that's exactly what he is. (Just "artificial")

Ugly In The Morning
Jul 1, 2010
Pillbug
I just finished WoR. I powered through the last 300 pages in one sitting. That was seriously his best ending yet, holy poo poo.

The Puppy Bowl
Jan 31, 2013

A dog, in the house.

*woof*
Yeah, gently caress Sadeas. He had it coming.

The Gardenator
May 4, 2007


Yams Fan

Lobsterpillar posted:

So Honor was still alive, but died sometime before now and after the last desolation. If the Heralds actually have some connection to Odium (they hang out on Braize, so maybe the connection he has to them is stronger than they thought), maybe their abandoning the Oathpact weakened Honor and allowed Odium to kill him. The shards of Odium are still present as those big evil spren that cause the Thrill and Death Rattles.


The links have some spoilers on general cosmere stuff.
http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4254-chicago-steelheart-signing-2-wheeling/#entry66703


Brandon answered this question:
Q: Are Honorspren Splinters, or do they hold Splinters?
A: Honorspren would be termed Splinters

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/4694-honor-splinter-spren-isnt-a-splinter-of-the-shard-or/?p=75854
I can't find the link atm, but there was a Q&A about the different spren. The above link references that there were spren before Honor was splintered completely.

Also in that thread, they talk about the balance that arises when polar shards (Ruin/Preservation) or (Honor/Odium/Possibly Cultivation) are on the same realm, like the three magic systems in mistborn. It goes on to say that Roshar is also experiencing this. This is probably what the desolations are.

Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.

treeboy posted:

I think it might be broader than that, though its hard to say since you could draw this relationship between a lot of characters
No you can't. What other character do we know of who has been running around consciously playing with Stormlight while also leading a group of men with virtually unshakable loyalty / devotion to him into battle?

quote:

Dalinar for instance
Is a huge stretch in this regard.

api call girl posted:

If taken chronologically Kaladin had already sworn the day before, so it's still not a perfect line-up. Proximity might still be the better association there.
How do you define 'perfect?' If it had anything to do with Kaladin's oath (which I am still not convinced was the third, but whatever), perhaps it granted him the ability but it wasn't until he really concentrated / hit on the right method that he could do it. It just seems silly to be, "Well Kaladin didn't swear immediately before Lopen absorbed stormlight, so it wasn't a perfect chronological relationship."

And re: Elhokar, yes, but as far as we are aware Elhokar hasn't said any of his oaths yet, right?

treeboy
Nov 13, 2004

James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Habibi posted:

No you can't. What other character do we know of who has been running around consciously playing with Stormlight while also leading a group of men with virtually unshakable loyalty / devotion to him into battle?

Is a huge stretch in this regard.

Dalinar has huge loyalty amongst his men and has for a lot longer than Kaladin. We had A crap ton of people just pop out of the proverbial Radiant closet this book, there's no reason not to expect that some of those side abilities like "squires" could be beginning to manifest from other radiants-in-training as well.

it's not rock solid 100%, but it's hardly out of the realm of possibility especially since we have no idea what the actual requirements are.

edit: reading some of the theories regarding how the Physical/Cognitive/Spiritual realms interact as far as perception and ideals has brought me to an interesting question. warbreaker Basically the theory is that Commands in awakening tap into a spiritual ideal or cognitive concept held by society. "Hold things" has a lot of variety even as a simple command. Destroy Evil however for Nightblood is a somewhat contradictory command from a societal viewpoint as depending on the area one is in, the population could have very different ideals and concepts of what "Evil" is. Going so far as to affect individuals the most. Only the "pure in heart" who don't see themselves, by society's standards or even perhaps their own, as evil can wield Nightblood without it affecting them

treeboy fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Apr 4, 2014

Lobsterpillar
Feb 4, 2014

treeboy posted:

Dalinar has huge loyalty amongst his men and has for a lot longer than Kaladin. We had A crap ton of people just pop out of the proverbial Radiant closet this book, there's no reason not to expect that some of those side abilities like "squires" could be beginning to manifest from other radiants-in-training as well.

it's not rock solid 100%, but it's hardly out of the realm of possibility especially since we have no idea what the actual requirements are.

edit: reading some of the theories regarding how the Physical/Cognitive/Spiritual realms interact as far as perception and ideals has brought me to an interesting question. warbreaker Basically the theory is that Commands in awakening tap into a spiritual ideal or cognitive concept held by society. "Hold things" has a lot of variety even as a simple command. Destroy Evil however for Nightblood is a somewhat contradictory command from a societal viewpoint as depending on the area one is in, the population could have very different ideals and concepts of what "Evil" is. Going so far as to affect individuals the most. Only the "pure in heart" who don't see themselves, by society's standards or even perhaps their own, as evil can wield Nightblood without it affecting them

Given that Radiants are popping up left and right, plus squires who may be able to absorb stormlight, and the massive amount of stormlight they needed to get to Urithuru, stormlight is going to get pretty scarce. I mean, they use it for lighting too. Could a squire gift stormlight to their Radiants?

Xachariah
Jul 26, 2004

Tunicate posted:

Send an email to brandon sanderson via the contact page on his website, mention that you liked his books and would love to read White Sand, and 2d12 months later it should arrive in your email.

Benson Cunningham posted:

He sent me the books 3 days later. Awesome guy.

Gave this a go, then a couple of days later he sent me both White Sands and Aether of Night. Can't wait to check them out.

Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.

treeboy posted:

Dalinar has huge loyalty amongst his men and has for a lot longer than Kaladin.
Did you just not bother reading what I said or ...?

treeboy posted:

it's not rock solid 100%, but it's hardly out of the realm of possibility especially since we have no idea what the actual requirements are.

Of course, nothing is out of the realm of possibility, but certain things are more likely than others based on what we've seen. And so far, Kaladin's checked a whole lot more of the 'Knight Radiant' checkboxes than Dalinar, while at the same time claiming the loyalty of more men than any other Radiant hopeful we've met.

Habibi fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Apr 5, 2014

Xachariah
Jul 26, 2004

Habibi posted:

No you can't. What other character do we know of who has been running around consciously playing with Stormlight while also leading a group of men with virtually unshakable loyalty / devotion to him into battle?

Shallan? Until you asked that I didn't realise Shallan basically had her own squires in the deserters.

EDIT: I know some of them aren't unshakably loyal, like the first leader guy whose name I've forgotten, but she'll get there, and it now seems like they're at least being set up to be her "squires."

Xachariah fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Apr 4, 2014

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE
Aug 1, 2004

whoa, what just happened here?







College Slice

Xachariah posted:

Shallan? Until you asked that I didn't realise Shallan basically had her own squires in the deserters.

EDIT: I know some of them aren't unshakably loyal, like the first leader guy whose name I've forgotten, but she'll get there, and it now seems like they're at least being set up to be her "squires."

Eh, it seems like he's about as loyal nowadays as any of them. Her "bring out their best" drawings (and treating them with decency and getting them pardoned and debts cancelled) seem to have that effect--even as it did on Bluth. It was pretty cool when she recovered Bluth's drawing.

MildShow
Jan 4, 2012

Brandon just announced on Twitter that he's completed the first draft of a sequel to Legion, hoping for a fall release.

VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE
Aug 1, 2004

whoa, what just happened here?







College Slice
Which means we have at least 2 books to look forward to this fall: Firefight and Legion. Exciting!

Cicero
Dec 17, 2003

Jumpjet, melta, jumpjet. Repeat for ten minutes or until victory is assured.

MildShow posted:

Brandon just announced on Twitter that he's completed the first draft of a sequel to Legion, hoping for a fall release.
But is it going to be a novel or a novella?

OmniBeer
Jun 5, 2011

This is no time to
remain stagnant!

MildShow posted:

Brandon just announced on Twitter that he's completed the first draft of a sequel to Legion, hoping for a fall release.

That makes me incredibly pumped.

I like all his stuff, but Legion managed to suck me in even moreso than usual. Not sure what it was about it, but, I'm pumped for more of that story.

Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.

Yeah that's probably the closest comparable at the moment, but I still wouldn't equats her mercs/attendants with Kal's bridgemen just yet.

treeboy
Nov 13, 2004

James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

Habibi posted:

Did you just not bother reading what I said or ...?


Of course, nothing is out of the realm of possibility, but certain things are more likely than others based on what we've seen. And so far, Kaladin's checked a whole lot more of the 'Knight Radiant' checkboxes than Dalinar, while at the same time claiming the loyalty of more men than any other Radiant hopeful we've met.

I did read your post, I simply disagree with your dismissal of my theory. We know that different orders have different requirements. We know Kaladin has fulfilled all the wind runner requirements. We also know that Dalinar has been receiving visions from the spren/splinter of the Almighty himself for as long as Kaladin has been interacting directly with Syl, maybe longer. Dalinar also commands the direct loyalty of tens of thousands of soldiers who don't simply follow him out of threats or lack of options but because he's a legitimately good leader. Kaladin might know all his men by their first names, but Dalinar kinda has him beat in the "whose army is bigger" competition

All I posited was the simple question of whether the "soldiers" referenced in WoR were *only* bridgemen or included some of Dalinar's regular soldiers as well. The answer apparently is "potentially"


Also stop picking posts apart piecemeal, it's obnoxious. And spoiler some of that stuff, the book hasn't been out that long

treeboy fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Apr 5, 2014

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

api call girl posted:

Which means we have at least 2 books to look forward to this fall: Firefight and Legion. Exciting!

Also Sixth of Dusk, I think.

SageSepthAtWork
Dec 11, 2013

treeboy posted:

I did read your post, I simply disagree with your dismissal of my theory. We know that different orders have different requirements. We know Kaladin has fulfilled all the wind runner requirements. We also know that Dalinar has been receiving visions from the spren/splinter of the Almighty himself for as long as Kaladin has been interacting directly with Syl, maybe longer. Dalinar also commands the direct loyalty of tens of thousands of soldiers who don't simply follow him out of threats or lack of options but because he's a legitimately good leader. Kaladin might know all his men by their first names, but Dalinar kinda has him beat in the "whose army is bigger" competition

All I posited was the simple question of whether the "soldiers" referenced in WoR were *only* bridgemen or included some of Dalinar's regular soldiers as well. The answer apparently is "potentially"


Also stop picking posts apart piecemeal, it's obnoxious. And spoiler some of that stuff, the book hasn't been out that long

I think he says something along the lines of "The Bridge 4 boys you had assigned to the king, I saw them inhaling stormlight during the fight". Also the only other thing is Kaladin has not actually completed all the requirements to be a Wind Runner, just the first 3, I think there's 5, I mean after all he needs more power up room for future books.

Subvisual Haze
Nov 22, 2003

The building was on fire and it wasn't my fault.
Kaladin is a Windrunner at this point. I think the exploding with mana, forming a glyph of his order, having his eyes turn light blue, and yelling the Knights Radiant have returned pretty well established that. He still has room to grow at this point, but he's definitely a full Knights Radiant

Dalinar's men follow and respect him, Kaladin's men feel an intimate personal connection with him. I wish the story had slowed down in a couple spots so we could read about the thoughts and reactions of the regular grunt soldiers both within Bridge 4 and the general army to Kaladin's shenanigans. After surviving the first fight with Szeth, winning the duel without wearing any shardplate, coming out of the chasm alive etc. to the average soldier he must seem like God incarnate at this point. I'm a little surprised he doesn't have a cult of soldiers worshipping him yet.

Velius
Feb 27, 2001
I'm curious about something: Why does everyone quibble over whether at the end Kaladin swears a third oath or not? Why are we assuming that "I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right" is an entirely new ideal? "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves" is a relatively unrestrictive oath, as Kaladin himself notes, and the last one is more so. But generally they touch on the same aspiration of being more honorable in some fashion. We know Syl wants Kaladin to always be truthful, we know that she has sapience as a result of her bond with Kaladin, which is itself dependent on the extent to which he embodies or aspires to her particular code of conduct. Not to belabor the point, but she's an Honorspren, and the degree to which Kaladin acts honorably and binds himself to act in such a fashion seems to influence the strength of their bond. Can't it be that whatever 'oaths' he swears, which restrict his behavior to be more in tune with Syl's nature strengthen his abilities, but also limit what he can do and increase the possibility of contradictory requirements and losing the spren, as well? That is, that neither of the post 'Strength before Destination' oaths were actually specific oaths required, but rather that they were personal statements that clarified and codified Kaladin's committments to the ideals of the Windrunners?

Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.

treeboy posted:

I did read your post
Really? Because it specifically referenced two inclusive characteristics, of which you've managed to focus on one. That's why I ask.

quote:

I simply disagree with your dismissal of my theory.
I'm not dismissing it, it's just the unlikelier of the two without performing some serious mental gymnastics on what we know. Like this:

quote:

We know that different orders have different requirements. We know Kaladin has fulfilled all the wind runner requirements. We also know that Dalinar has been receiving visions from the spren/splinter of the Almighty himself for as long as Kaladin has been interacting directly with Syl, maybe longer.

Because regardless of how long Dalinar had been receiving visions, he doesn't actually bond a Spren - which if you'll recall is sort of a prerequisite of becoming a KR - until the end of WoR.

quote:

Dalinar also commands the direct loyalty of tens of thousands of soldiers who don't simply follow him out of threats or lack of options but because he's a legitimately good leader. Kaladin might know all his men by their first names, but Dalinar kinda has him beat in the "whose army is bigger" competition
And this is all just irrelevant to anything I said.

quote:

All I posited was the simple question of whether the "soldiers" referenced in WoR were *only* bridgemen or included some of Dalinar's regular soldiers as well. The answer apparently is "potentially"
What we started with was a question of where Lopen's Stormlight absorption came from, and your further assertion that the Lopen/Kaladin relationship (that is, one of a loyal follower and a/their Knight Radiant) could be "drawn between a lot of characters."

quote:

Also stop picking posts apart piecemeal, it's obnoxious.
:lol: what?

quote:

And spoiler some of that stuff, the book hasn't been out that long
[/quote]
Whoops, apologies. Spoilers added (it slips my mind when posting from my phone).

HidaO-Win
Jun 5, 2013

"And I did it, because I was a man who had exhausted reason and thus turned to magicks"

Habibi posted:

Kaladin's oath (which I am still not convinced was the third, but whatever), perhaps it granted him the ability but it wasn't until he really concentrated / hit on the right method that he could do it. It just seems silly to be, "Well Kaladin didn't swear immediately before Lopen absorbed stormlight, so it wasn't a perfect chronological relationship."



Lopen mentions he tries to absorb stormlight once a day, every day, so if Kaladin got to the tier of power that gives him the Squire class feature that day, it lines up.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

He means stop ripping posts apart and attacking out-of-context segments just to try and win some internet battle. It's a thing you do in the Malazan thread too and it is rather annoying and somewhat disingenuous.

In any case, I think we need to see what sort of Squires appear for the differing Orders. After all, a Bondsmith may have entirely different types of Squires with differing requirements, power types, etc. just like all the differing Orders of KR have differing types of powers, Oaths, etc.

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

The Oaths encapsulate personal meaning - they don't depend upon exact phrasing. Hence why there's no linguistic shift issue.

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Tunicate posted:

The Oaths encapsulate personal meaning - they don't depend upon exact phrasing. Hence why there's no linguistic shift issue.

Right but not all of the Orders have the same number of Oaths, and not all of them seem to even use Oaths (Shallan's seems to use Truths, for example.)

Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.
e: ^^^ I can't recall, was it ever covered in WoR what words she spoke to Pattern when she first used him? It could make sense that the 'words' (as Syl always refers to them) differ for each type of spren. So maybe an Honorspren requires oaths, Shallans requires truths (or even lies?), others might require emotions or who knows what.

nucleicmaxid posted:

He means stop ripping posts apart and attacking out-of-context segments just to try and win some internet battle. It's a thing you do in the Malazan thread too and it is rather annoying and somewhat disingenuous.
(a) Holy poo poo again? Will you disappear this time, too? (b) I respond to what's relevant to the point. As with last time, if 'attacking out of context segments' is a thing I do, show me, because this is becoming 'a thing' that you do.

Habibi fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Apr 5, 2014

treeboy
Nov 13, 2004

James T. Kirk was a great man, but that was another life.

nucleicmaxid posted:

Right but not all of the Orders have the same number of Oaths, and not all of them seem to even use Oaths (Shallan's seems to use Truths, for example.)

Right, all the orders speak the first oath (life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination), after that they differ. Some speak other oaths, some speak no oaths but must (as in Shallans case) speak "powerful truths"

I find the concept that cryptics "feed" off the juxtaposition of lies/truth and the inherent contradictions and similarities to be fascinating

As for Kaladin it seems pretty obvious that his words in WoR are a new oath. The second was about protecting the helpless, the third was about protecting those he doesn't like. It's essentially requiring him to honorably protect those that he could knowingly allow to be killed because he doesn't care for them. Pretty dishonorable. For instance it would've required him to protect Sadeas had he known before hand what was going to go down with Adolin

treeboy fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Apr 6, 2014

Lobsterpillar
Feb 4, 2014

treeboy posted:

Right, all the orders speak the first oath (life before death, strength before weakness, journey before destination), after that they differ. Some speak other oaths, some speak no oaths but must (as in Shallans case) speak "powerful truths"

I find the concept that cryptics "feed" off the juxtaposition of lies/truth and the inherent contradictions and similarities to be fascinating

As for Kaladin it seems pretty obvious that his words in WoR are a new oath. The second was about protecting the helpless, the third was about protecting those he doesn't like. It's essentially requiring him to honorably protect those that he could knowingly allow to be killed because he doesn't care for them. Pretty dishonorable. For instance it would've required him to protect Sadeas had he known before hand what was going to go down with Adolin

Essentially his third oath clarifies and removes a loophole that would allow him to act dishonorably.

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Dug up some Word of Brandon on the topic.


Q: How many oaths can a Radiant swear?
A: There is an upper-limit/threshold to the number of oaths a Radiant may make. By the end of WoR, Shallan is a step higher than Kaladin.

Not completely sure on this one: He said that at one point Shallan may have said all the oaths for her order (or may have been capable of saying all of the oaths by the end of the book) but has since regressed due to "memory loss/repression."

Regarding Dalinar: He said that Dalinar has had a bond with the Stormfather "for a while." He also only said one oath at the top of the Urithiru tower, not two. Dalinar conveyed a single idea in that particular oath.

Brandon also clarified that the oaths, with the exception of the first ideal, are not restricted to specific words. Rather, a specific idea must be conveyed for the oath to be accepted.

Wolpertinger
Feb 16, 2011
This is probably obvious, but I'm betting a some of the Radiant orders did not in fact flat out tell their recruits what the specific oaths were, as it seems that getting hung up on the actual saying the words is probably the wrong idea, and it's supposed to be some sort of personal discovery culminating in the oath to actually become more strongly linked to whatever concept they're bound to.

Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.

Lobsterpillar posted:

Essentially his third oath clarifies and removes a loophole that would allow him to act dishonorably.

But how does that loophole work, exactly, and how is that clarification not implicit in the second ideal? I mean, logically speaking: The second ideal covers both those he likes and those he doesn't like as they can't protect themselves. So if a person is unable to protect themselves, then, allowing for some established interpretation of their relationship to the Radiant, he is obligated to protect them regardless of his personal feelings. This covers everyone who falls under the umbrella of the second ideal. Meaning the only category of people he might hate who are left out of that second ideal are those who CAN protect themselves. So if the clarification represents a wholly separate ideal, then, with the the caveat of "as long as it's right," what additional scope could it add except for 'people who hates who can protect themselves' (again, as long as it's "right" - whatever that might mean). Given this, doesn't it seem like an odd choice as a distinct ideal? And if it is, it opens up countless questions, like - "Why is he obligated to protect people he hates (as long as it's right) when they can protect themselves, but not people he likes? What about people he's ambivalent about?" - and so on.

For these reasons, I think it makes more sense for those words to represent more of...an emphasis on an implied tenet of the second ideal, with Kaladin coming to the fuller understanding that it doesn't just cover those he respects / loves / doesn't find abhorrent, but - as long as it's the right thing to do - everyone who requires his protection (and thus recommitting himself to it and regaining his KR powers) rather than a wholly separate clarification that seems to affect an almost arbitrary demographic. I also think it further makes sense given the circumstances, which were Kaladin understanding that he had to protect Elhokar, who for a variety of reasons was not able to protect himself in that scenario, subjecting him by definition to the second ideal. I guess another way you could look at it is that it's the difference between Kaladin going, "Oh, I swore to protect everyone who couldn't protect themselves. Even people I might hate." vs him going, "I swore to protect everyone - and barring some ethical interpretations, I mean everyone - who couldn't protect themselves. Did I mention 'everyone'? And on top of that I swear to protect even those people I hate, who for some reason weren't counted when I said 'everyone' before.'

Eh.

Mind you, I'm open to the idea/possibility that it will end up being a separate ideal. I just don't think that would make as much sense. *shrug*


treeboy posted:

For instance it would've required him to protect Sadeas had he known before hand what was going to go down with Adolin
That seems a pretty big assumption given that he would have only been required to protect him "if it was right," and it's not even in the same ballpark as a case like Elhokar's.

e:

Wolpertinger posted:

This is probably obvious, but I'm betting a some of the Radiant orders did not in fact flat out tell their recruits what the specific oaths were, as it seems that getting hung up on the actual saying the words is probably the wrong idea, and it's supposed to be some sort of personal discovery culminating in the oath to actually become more strongly linked to whatever concept they're bound to.
Have we had any insights into the recruitment process? I sort of figured that the oaths weren't something that recruits were required to say, but something they stumbled through with their spren before they became official recruits or whatever. But who knows.

Habibi fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Apr 6, 2014

Tunicate
May 15, 2012

Again, specific idea, not necessarily exact wording.

Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.

Tunicate posted:

Again, specific idea, not necessarily exact wording.

I'm not sure if you're responding to me, but if so: yeah, I mean, I would infer that if it's the idea that's important, then it makes even more sense that the WoR words were less a new thing and more a realization about an established ideal, because the idea behind the words was that he had to protect Elhokar, who was the rightful king (even if a poor one), despite his own feelings for him, because he required his protection (ie: he could not protect himself), and thus he should have been protecting him by the idea behind the words of the second ideal, anyway.

Habibi fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Apr 6, 2014

Kruller
Feb 20, 2004

It's time to restore dignity to the Farnsworth name!

The wording of the third oath, to me, means he not only protects those who can't protect themselves, but also those who CAN protect themselves that he personally dislikes, so long as their actions are "right" to him. So he has no obligation to protect Szeth from someone who will stab him in the back, if Szeth is actively trying to assassinate someone else, but he DOES have to protect Szeth if he's asleep and someone ELSE is trying to assassinate Szeth for an unjust reason. It's really a further clarification of the "life before death" oath. Windrunners try to keep EVERYONE alive, no matter what, but are allowed to kill in order to prevent greater loss of death, so long as whatever they're killing is the direct cause of it through malice, rather than incompetence. So he'd be allowed to let Sadeas die, depending on the situation, but probably not the way Adolin did it.

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Habibi
Dec 8, 2004

We have the capability to make San Jose's first Cup Champion.

The Sharks could be that Champion.

Kruller posted:

The wording of the third oath, to me, means he not only protects those who can't protect themselves, but also those who CAN protect themselves that he personally dislikes, so long as their actions are "right" to him. So he has no obligation to protect Szeth from someone who will stab him in the back, if Szeth is actively trying to assassinate someone else, but he DOES have to protect Szeth if he's asleep and someone ELSE is trying to assassinate Szeth for an unjust reason. It's really a further clarification of the "life before death" oath. Windrunners try to keep EVERYONE alive, no matter what, but are allowed to kill in order to prevent greater loss of death, so long as whatever they're killing is the direct cause of it through malice, rather than incompetence. So he'd be allowed to let Sadeas die, depending on the situation, but probably not the way Adolin did it.

And so again, why would there be an obligation to protect those who can protect themselves whom he hates, so long as their actions are right, but not those whom he likes, as long as their actions are right? Is there going to be a further oath obligating him towards people he's ambivalent towards? What about ones he just hasn't made up his mind about? If it's right, why isn't it just right? Why is it right for some, up to you for others? Like I said, it seems that interpreting it this way generates a lot more loose ends than if it were a case of reinforcing for Kaladin just what the oath he had previously taken meant.

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