Of responsibility and why Taravangian is 100 percent right

[Sasukerinnegan he/him]

So it's been a long long while since I've posted, so let me start again with this post.

Quote

He carefully rested the child’s body on the ground, then stood to face Cultivation, who rose to meet him eye to eye. Anger made him tremble. This divinity he held, it had so much emotion he could barely steer it.

“I blame you,” he hissed.

“For the boy’s death?” Cultivation said. “But I just showed you that—”

“I blame you,” he said, “because you should have done better. Eight thousand years, and you should have fixed this. All three of you.”

I feel like Taravangian here is 100 percent right when it comes to this paragraph. Taravangian here is revisiting an old argument in the Cosmere. He is highlighting the same issue that was the crux of the argument between Wax and Harmony except here he plays Wax's role and Cultivation plays Harmony's role.

Both Cultivation and Harmony are completely WRONG when it comes to this issue. All the Shards have de jure infinite power with some limitations in the Cosmere. They also can see the future to different degrees and have very very high mental capacities. 

Yet they keep refusing to take responsibility for their actions. The truth is that there is zero reason why hunger or poverty or war should exist in the Cosmere. The best example is the Desolation itself. The primary driver behind the Desolations is Odium himself, NOT the fused. Because Odium refuses to allow the Fused to seek a compromise or peace without him, the war has continued for millennia. 

If we adopt the Spiderman philosophy here, namely that "With great power comes great responsibility", the obvious corollary of that logic is that "With infinite power comes infinite responsibility". Therefore Shards are and should be given the greatest responsibility for all the atrocities happening in the Cosmere.

Yet Brandon has in part, chickened out, when it comes to highlighting this basic contradiction. He does highlight that the primary responsibility for the Desolation lies with Odium. Similarly when it comes to "bad" Shards like Ruin or Autonomy, he has highlighted their primary responsibility for the tragedies in the Cosmere.

But this is never highlighted about the "good" Shards. One particularly egregious example is how Cultivation essentially did nothing as 99 percent of Singers lost their minds and were essentially reduced to slaves by human beings once Ba Ado Mishram was imprisoned. It was Odium, who restored their Connection and healed them, albeit for the purpose of war. Cultivation is not shown to give a single solitary feck about the Singer race despite that she literally created them. There are other examples, like Harmony but that may be out of the scope of this discussion.

This is particularly bad as the theme of Responsibility is one of the heaviest themes of the Stormlight Archive. Kaladin taking responsibility is what leads him to the First and Second Oaths. Dalinar taking responsibility for Evi's death is what leads him to the Third Oath. Moash refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to the wrong path entirely. Amaram refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to join Odium.

Even absurd and inordinate amounts of Responsibility are expected of people. Both Stormfather and Kaladin call the Heralds "traitors to their oaths". But the oath was absurd in the first place - Why on earth would any sane individual be expected to handle torture for thousands of years?

All this highlights the fundamental weakness of the Stormlight Archive and perhaps by extension, the Cosmere - Exceptional responsibility is demanded of those who are ordinary or with limited powers but very little responsibility is demanded of those who have de jure infinite power. This is especially true for the "good" Shards.

This seems like a weak paraphrasing of the "God works in mysterious ways" argument.

What do you guys think?

[feruchemicalrockband]

I'm not sure how Brandon has "chickened out" when it comes to answering the question of how much responsibility does a God have. It's pretty clear that it's something he's exploring and continuing to explore, and it's being kicked off in the newest interlude. We don't have the full book yet, so it's too early to make claims on what he will or won't explore. Also, while the shards do have infinite power, they very clearly don't have infinite influence.

 

That being said, I'd be very disappointed if he doesn't end up exploring this further. People have said that Mistborn Era 2 is a clear statement that Brandon believes a true utopia doesn't exist, and struggles/conflict is necessary for progress, but the cosmere is still in the early/mid stages. I don't think we've even hit the halfway mark yet. It doesn't make sense for him to answer this question so early on when he probably wants to explore a lot more about the nature of shards.

 

Whatever the outcome of this book, we can take it as a certainty that the back half of Stormlight will have shards taking a much more proactive role. Whether that means the Roshar shards combating an outside force (Autonomy), an new internal combat between Odium and Cultivation, or something else entirely, I guess we'll have to wait and see.

[ZenBossanova]

It is worth remembering what Harmony did with the Elendil Basin, and that it didn't solve things, and made some worse. 

[Sasukerinnegan he/him]

@feruchemicalrockband I feel like what irritates me is the  egregious misallocation of responsibility in the Stormlight Archive.

Like often and routinely, powerful people get off with little consequences while far less powerful people suffer massive consequences for taking/ not taking responsibility.

Like it is explicit throughout Moash's arc that he is refusing to take responsibility and that it leads him to the wrong path. But Moash isn't wrong here - Most of what went wrong with Moash's life can be attributed to the discrimination against dark eyes and an oppressive monarchy. He does commit atrocities but atleast early on, he suffered injustice after injustice for which he was not responsible in any manner, except that he was poor and was a commoner and dark eyed.

But this DOESN'T hold for the powerful. Dalinar actually has enormous agency and through most of the time before TWoK, misused his power committing atrocity after atrocity for which he suffers little to no personal consequences. Yes, he suffered personal trauma for murdering Evi but nothing external actually happens to him. There is never any external accountability. Even his dramatic acceptance of responsibility in OB is frankly, not very impressive - he accepts he is responsible and the pain starts fading away almost immediately. In fact, for the mere admission of responsibility, he becomes far more powerful than he used to be, nearly becoming a pseudo-deity to some extent.

This is especially true for the "good" Shards. Good Shards have little to no accountability for their neglect. Cultivation twiddled her thumbs as the Singers were made into physical and mental slaves. Honor did nothing to help the Heralds suffering eternal torture. Neither Honor or Cultivation seem to have given much of a damn about the Singers once humans migrated to Roshar. The Singers literally describe the spren and Honor and Cultivation as having abandoned them. It's telling that there were Singers (who served Odium) and Listeners (who were neutral) before Aharietiam but no Singers who were aligned with Honor or Cultivation.

[Grailmoth]

Thanks for sharing this! One thing that comes to mind as I read it, is the importance of separating the shards and the vessels when we talk about them. The shards themselves are just incredible amounts of power and investiture with specific intents, and it is pretty difficult for the vessels to act against the intent of their shards. The best they seem to be able to do is "filter" it so to speak. We're already seeing this with Taravangian now that he taken up the Odium shard, where he is coming to the same conclusion that Rayse did, albeit for different reasons.

 

Quote

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Shards and Shard intents: Holding a Shard is a contest of willpower against the Shard that, over time, is very hard to resist.

Shards affect you over time, but your mind will not leave a permanent effect on the Shard. A holder's [Vessel's] personality, however, does get to filter the Shard's intent, so to speak. However, if that holder [Vessel] no longer held that Shard, the Shard will not continue to be filtered by that person.

Alloy of Law 17th Shard Q&A (Nov. 5, 2011)

 

So when blaming the shards for the bad things in the Cosmere, are you blaming the shards themselves? (meaning, the raw investiture) or are you blaming the vessels? (Who are likely trying to do the best they can while struggling against the intent of the powers they have?)

[Sasukerinnegan he/him]

@Grailmoth I hold the vessels of the Shards responsible here. Yes, the Shard does override the vessel over time but the vessels do still have substantial agency. The vessels, for instance, could simply swear Oaths to reduce their harm and to prevent misuse of the Shard by present or future vessels.

Like Rayse could just swear to himself or maybe to other human beings - I swear never to cause mass slaughter of human beings or other sentient species. Odium would have been bound by the oath and the oath would apply to the future Vessels and the Shard itself as well.

[Grailmoth]

@Sasukerinnegan that's an interesting idea. I wonder what impact it would have for a shard if the vessel swore an oath that was in opposition to the shard's intent?

 

The most likely possibility to me seems to be that the intent of the shard would eventually win out, and force the vessel to break the oath. This would leave them vulnerable to splintering from another shard. That seems pretty close to what happened with Preservation and Ruin even. Preservation wanted to created, so they made an Oath to Ruin that they would eventually be able to destroy the planet. Preservation's intent made them want to preserve it though. This led to Preservation getting splintered in an effort to preserve the planet.

 

I imagine that many of the shards are pretty careful about what they bind themselves to, since it can have such disastrous consequences.

Although, to your point, Taravangian could make that oath, eventually break it, and leave themselves open to getting splintered by other shards, ridding the Cosmere of a dangerous force. It just seems like the intent of the shard would fight against even making that oath tooth and nail.

[Darvys]

3 minutes ago, Grailmoth said:

So when blaming the shards for the bad things in the Cosmere, are you blaming the shards themselves? (meaning, the raw investiture) or are you blaming the vessels? (Who are likely trying to do the best they can while struggling against the intent of the powers they have?)

If what we see is the best they can do then that only reinforces Odium's point, these gods are either incompetent, or shockingly negligent and complacent. Which makes it extremely vexing that the two new Vessels we got are shackled from the get go, Harmony by the very nature of his powers, and T.Odium by Honor's restrictions. It makes it difficult to assess if the current crop is to blame or if the same tendencies would manifest no matter who held the powers, which would then make it easier to accept Odium's solution as a logical one, and not just another exhibit of his savior complex.

The mess on Roshar is still impossible to judge though, we know too little about the circumstances that led to the conflict, or the pact between the 3 shards, so there's still room for the state of affairs to be rationalized, but I doubt it could be justified, if Taravangian's assessment is anything to go by.

 

[feruchemicalrockband]

@Sasukerinnegan I agree on your points regarding Moash and Dalinar, but I think calling it a "misallocation of responsibility" isn't quite right. It's frankly realistic, and emphasizes that Dalinar's choice to accept responsibility and start to reveal the flaws in the Alethi society (maybe unintentionally) that led him to make the choices he did shows that he does take that seriously. Dalinar is currently the most powerful person on Roshar, with an important role and position. Suddenly forcing him into prison won't resolve anything, and (as far as the characters know) would only harm innocents by removing a force that countered the enemy.

 

Moash and Dalinar are both victims of a society with deep religious roots that promote a class system, and deify violence and trickery. Obviously, this system benefitted Dalinar, but it also taught him terrible values and enabled all of his bad choices. The church itself gave him absolution, which he rejected. Now Moash is making every wrong choice, and using a new system to find moral absolution. It rings hollow to say that Moash expected to take more responsibility than Dalinar, when Dalinar is trying to make up for what he did by stopping an immortal army and God from killing a bunch of innocent people then going on a murder spree through the cosmere, while Moash really just needs to admit he's killing people out of vengeance and not social change.

 

On the matter of Honor and Cultivation, I think we just don't know enough. In the end of RoW, Leshwi says something about about being "forgiven" by the spren, which implies that there was more to the human-singers/Odium-Honor switch than we know. But that all comes down to us not really knowing enough about the shards. Although, it's pretty telling that the Stormfather didn't really care that Dalinar burned the rift, and only cares about broken oaths.

 

Honestly my biggest problem with the books is how much focus was given on unfair class systems, with no actual resolutions to the problems. I'm assuming there'll be something in the back half when fabrial science starts getting really crazy, as social change usually follows technological advancements (when machines are cheaper than slave labor), but we'll see. We see this start to get addressed in the Taravangian interlude, where he condemns Cultivation, so hopefully we'll see more developments there.

 

Also it's worth noting that we'll probably see more consequences for Dalinar, as book 5 was initially going to be his flashback book.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, Sasukerinnegan said:

This is especially true for the "good" Shards. Good Shards have little to no accountability for their neglect. Cultivation twiddled her thumbs as the Singers were made into physical and mental slaves. Honor did nothing to help the Heralds suffering eternal torture. Neither Honor or Cultivation seem to have given much of a damn about the Singers once humans migrated to Roshar. The Singers literally describe the spren and Honor and Cultivation as having abandoned them. It's telling that there were Singers (who served Odium) and Listeners (who were neutral) before Aharietiam but no Singers who were aligned with Honor or Cultivation.

Not trying to argue, as I mostly agree, but I want to provide some context. Cultivation would have been really stupid to try to intervene after Recreance to save Singers, because direct intervention exposes Shards and with Odium literally breathing down her neck, right after he killed Honor, such action would have brought death to her. Not to mention that we don't know in what circumstances did Singers turned to Odium and humans to Honor and Cultivation. You suggest it was just a whim of Honor and Cultivation to betray Singers, yet the text seems to suggest otherwise. Leshwi's words upon discovering that Venli is a Radiant strongly suggest that it was ancient Dawnsigners who first betrayed Spren, which in consequence turned Spren towards humans. This later forced Singers to turn towards Odium for power (as the Song of Secrets said). At the time of Recreance, Singers had been a sworn enemy of Cultivation for more than 2500 years - she had no obligation to help them.

And no, Cultivation didn't create Dawnsingers, they were made before the Shattering by Adonalsium himself. With the recent revelation about the ancient Old Magic spren, we also had even less idea what gods did Dawnsingers worship and if they worship Shards at all. The Eila Stele said that "for their betrayal extended even to our gods: to spren, stone, and wind," which we are now quite certain that those are all ancient Old Magic spren, not Honor and Cultivation. We have no idea what happened around the very first Desolation, what caused gods to switch sides, therefore it's really hard to judge Honor and Cultivation actions towards Dawnsingers, if we lack any context. 

TLM ch 66:

Quote

"But I can’t kill a god. If Autonomy intervenes, I will need you.”
Autonomy won’t intervene, he said. It’s not our way, as it exposes us.

RoW ch 109:

Quote

“Sorry…” Leshwi said. A joyspren burst around her, beautiful, like a blue storm. “Sorry? Venli, they’ve come back to us! They’ve forgiven us.”

The Song of Secrets:

Quote

The betrayal of spren has brought us here.
They gave their Surges to human heirs,
But not to those who know them most dear, before us.
'Tis no surprise we turned away
Unto the gods we spent our days
And to become their molding clay, they changed us. 

 

Shards are stuck in an infinite trolley problem. They all know that their action or inaction will always cause death and suffering for someone else. For them it's the matter of choosing the path where the least amount of people suffer. That's what Harmony did with Wax. He could have left Wax alone, but that would end up with the total annihilation of Elendel and 5 million people living there - then everybody would have asked questions why Harmony didn't do anything to save them.

Is Taravangian right about blaming Shards for this - yes, they should take responsibility for the misfortune they create, even if they can't avoid it (which Taravangian even admitted). Is Taravangian right about his solution to this problem - absolutely not, restricting free will is not a solution, it's a dictatorship which sooner or later has to collapse causing even more suffering.

So then is there any good solution to this? I don't know, but I don't think Brandon is chickening out of this thread. No, he's only starting to explore it. We still are waiting to learn what happened around the First Desolation, how Odium got stuck on Roshar, what was the whole deal with Heralds and the Oathpact (which was Heralds' idea, not Honor's) etc. Harmony is growing into Discord and who knows what that will bring to Cosmere. Autonomy is regrouping and there is already a sizable opposition against her. Shards are meddling with human affairs everywhere and this dilemma of them taking responsibility for their actions will only grow. Is there even such a thing as a good Shard? No, Brandon said it multiple times. Honor might seem like a good guy, but Nomad realized that's a lie to make people kill each other  - the groundbreaking revelations are only ahead of us. The whole concept of Shards is that people with flaws can hold near infinite power, so the questioning of their responsibility will play a big role in the future - and Taravangian's words are only a foreshadowing of this. 

[Confused]

@Sasukerinnegan, your OP is well-written – Reasoned and Passionate. But I fear you place too much responsibility on the Vessels and not enough on Adonalsium. He created the cosmere as is. That includes suffering. The Shards simply inherited his work.

Suffering acts as a spur to progress. If people are happy and content, with their needs satisfied, they’re unlikely to grow, as an individual or as a culture. The racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious divisions in a society offer fertile ground for suffering. Just sprinkle a little ambition here and there, and someone will try to benefit from those divisions. Many will suffer for that person’s ambition. One could easily argue only absolute uniformity – full clones of the creator – could end suffering. Create a total absence of differences – no “Others” – and you rid society of most suffering.

Spoiler

I believe ambitious, power-hungry people deliberately use a society’s internal stresses to fracture that society and gain power from the chaos they create. This occurs at every political level from local to geo-political. Societal differences constitute the cracks, but ambitious people deliberately magnify the focus on those cracks and then strike the shattering chisel.

IMO, humankind shares a common nature, just as each animal species does. This “human nature” consists of a finite set of traits. No individual possesses all these traits; hence, human behavioral diversity. “Culture,” in my opinion, is  each society’s unique expression of this common “human nature.”

I believe individual traits are distributed along a bell curve, with the most extreme traits occupying the fringes. Most people are not ruthless narcistic sociopaths. But it only takes one of sufficient skill and charisma to upset the existing order.

The Shards can’t do more to eliminate suffering, at least not easily. Each Shard is only 1/16 of Adonalsium’s full power. They lack his cosmere omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. To change their planet might be possible, but they’d have to keep their planet isolated and blissfully ignorant. And even then any differences among the planet’s people will cause some to suffer.

To change the cosmere to eliminate suffering would require all 16 Shards to agree on a solution and to take joint action to achieve that solution. That will not and cannot happen. Even if the existing Vessels agree, some Shards are Splintered with no mind to guide them.

Odium’s solution is to restore the One God. Kill the other Vessels and (maybe) absorb their Shards’ and the Splintered Shards’ Investiture. As a matter of pure Investiture, I suppose that might work. As a matter of Intent, maybe not. By the time TOdium completes his mission, he will be only Odium no matter how hard he tries. (Ati anyone)? Will he be able to Connect to other Shards when their Intents are so diverse? Unclear. And if he rules as the Odium Shard, his powers will be limited by his Intent and perhaps unable to accomplish what he wants.

But if all that works, what do the Shards acting jointly or a new One God do? They can manage the cosmere, numb people to suffering, reduce pain around the edges as TOdium wants. But the problem remains. To totally eliminate pain, the Shards/One God would have to remake the cosmere from scratch. Maybe eliminate people and/or emotions altogether or create a bland, static uniformity among them. Pleasantly boring and unchanging. Hence, the Cultivation vs. Odium debate.

So be a bit kinder to the Shards. They have enough problems managing their piece of the cosmere and guarding their backs. Remaking humanity isn’t on their radar. Only Odium feels human pain so intensely. The others DON’T view it as their responsibility to change a fundamental cosmere feature Adonalsium created. Maybe they just like change more than Odium does.

[SpiritOfWrath]

1 hour ago, Confused said:

To change the cosmere to eliminate suffering would require all 16 Shards to agree on a solution and to take joint action to achieve that solution. That will not and cannot happen. Even if the existing Vessels agree, some Shards are Splintered with no mind to guide them.

(Nabbed the wrong quote. Shud be the paragraph b4 this one)
 Also, a tangential point, is Sanderson’s Wit rant to Shallan about pain. All pain and feelings, everything about humans is relative. Wit asked Shallan of a situation when someone is in perpetual pain and asked if they can still know art. 
Shallan answered by saying the times when the pain is lessened would be art. Even though the change would likely be minuscule, this hypothetical person would appreciate the change much more than other times.

It goes in the other direction too. When people know no pain, even the smallest slight can offend them or hurt them much more than it would a non hypothetical person. And by this time you’ve already severely limited their free will to get them to this point.

Cut them some slack. They can’t make everything perfect without making nothing special.

Edited Thursday at 09:58 PM by SpiritOfWrath
Wrong quote

[ZenBossanova]

24 minutes ago, SpiritOfWrath said:

Cut them some slack. They can’t make everything perfect without making nothing special.

I strongly agree. 

But I have to admit, TOdium has a point that they, as a whole, have been evading responsiblity and been most concerned with themselves. 

[Dofurion]

3 hours ago, ZenBossanova said:

But I have to admit, TOdium has a point that they, as a whole, have been evading responsiblity and been most concerned with themselves. 

I think we're losing some perspective here.

While I think this interlude is giving us the impression that TOdium's words are accurate (and even much of what ROdium said is accurate), I think they're still biased by the Intent of the Shard.

Let's go case by case:

• Nothing is known about the government of Devotion and Dominion, the only thing we know for sure is that Devotion seemed to directly help the Ire.
• Endowment actively micromanaging what happens at Nalthis. It has given all of its inhabitants biochromatic breath, and sends them warnings of future dangers with the Returned. To be honest, he has done a very good job since Nalthis is the safest world to live in in practically any Cosmere Era.
• The case of Autonomy is paradoxical since here we are talking about a Vessel that acts as a landowner, but whose Intent limits it to not interfering in the lives of mortals, but it gets around this with the Avatars who in turn create almost Spartan life systems.
• As for Honor and Cultivation, I would like to remind you that in the past, the Singer society had no problems with them until the arrival of the humans and Odium. And let's remember that Rayze didn't intend to be the only god because he wanted to be the best god possible, he simply wanted power.
  • Taravangian's claim to Cultivation has several nuances that he overlooks, since she hasn't been trying to create a functioning society for 8,000 years, she's been running an open war front for 8,000 years, fighting someone who isn't open to negotiation and who can't act directly because it would leave her vulnerable to attacks from Odium itself (who at the time was Rayse) as well as other Shards that are effectively acting in an expansionist manner (Autonomy and possibly Mercy). Not to mention that she cannot act indirectly since those dedicated to her (Radiant) and who possibly constitute the pillar of government that she was structuring with Honor, are being hunted by a Nale.
• We don't know anything else about Valor, we can only speculate that the world where it was established may be similar to what was seen in Adamant.
• And finally, Virtuosity never held a role of power and was always an observer until it decided to voluntarily splinter.

With all this I just want to make it clear that while we can trust much of what Taravangian said, I believe that his judgment is already being clouded by the Shard.

[coolsnow7]

20 hours ago, Sasukerinnegan said:

So it's been a long long while since I've posted, so let me start again with this post.

I feel like Taravangian here is 100 percent right when it comes to this paragraph. Taravangian here is revisiting an old argument in the Cosmere. He is highlighting the same issue that was the crux of the argument between Wax and Harmony except here he plays Wax's role and Cultivation plays Harmony's role.

Both Cultivation and Harmony are completely WRONG when it comes to this issue. All the Shards have de jure infinite power with some limitations in the Cosmere. They also can see the future to different degrees and have very very high mental capacities. 

Yet they keep refusing to take responsibility for their actions. The truth is that there is zero reason why hunger or poverty or war should exist in the Cosmere. The best example is the Desolation itself. The primary driver behind the Desolations is Odium himself, NOT the fused. Because Odium refuses to allow the Fused to seek a compromise or peace without him, the war has continued for millennia. 

If we adopt the Spiderman philosophy here, namely that "With great power comes great responsibility", the obvious corollary of that logic is that "With infinite power comes infinite responsibility". Therefore Shards are and should be given the greatest responsibility for all the atrocities happening in the Cosmere.

Yet Brandon has in part, chickened out, when it comes to highlighting this basic contradiction. He does highlight that the primary responsibility for the Desolation lies with Odium. Similarly when it comes to "bad" Shards like Ruin or Autonomy, he has highlighted their primary responsibility for the tragedies in the Cosmere.

But this is never highlighted about the "good" Shards. One particularly egregious example is how Cultivation essentially did nothing as 99 percent of Singers lost their minds and were essentially reduced to slaves by human beings once Ba Ado Mishram was imprisoned. It was Odium, who restored their Connection and healed them, albeit for the purpose of war. Cultivation is not shown to give a single solitary feck about the Singer race despite that she literally created them. There are other examples, like Harmony but that may be out of the scope of this discussion.

This is particularly bad as the theme of Responsibility is one of the heaviest themes of the Stormlight Archive. Kaladin taking responsibility is what leads him to the First and Second Oaths. Dalinar taking responsibility for Evi's death is what leads him to the Third Oath. Moash refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to the wrong path entirely. Amaram refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to join Odium.

Even absurd and inordinate amounts of Responsibility are expected of people. Both Stormfather and Kaladin call the Heralds "traitors to their oaths". But the oath was absurd in the first place - Why on earth would any sane individual be expected to handle torture for thousands of years?

All this highlights the fundamental weakness of the Stormlight Archive and perhaps by extension, the Cosmere - Exceptional responsibility is demanded of those who are ordinary or with limited powers but very little responsibility is demanded of those who have de jure infinite power. This is especially true for the "good" Shards.

This seems like a weak paraphrasing of the "God works in mysterious ways" argument.

What do you guys think?

I’m pretty sure Brandon literally highlighted this “contradiction”.

I have a hard time seeing how any of his writing constitutes Brandon making a philosophical argument. At best, you could say that this is a literary exploration of the implications of a few theological arguments. But ultimately that’s still not Brandon making anything like an argument. And again, it’s Brandon that’s even bringing it up for us to talk about in the first place! 

[king of nowhere]

18 hours ago, Sasukerinnegan said:

@feruchemicalrockband I feel like what irritates me is the  egregious misallocation of responsibility in the Stormlight Archive.

Like often and routinely, powerful people get off with little consequences while far less powerful people suffer massive consequences for taking/ not taking responsibility.

Like it is explicit throughout Moash's arc that he is refusing to take responsibility and that it leads him to the wrong path. But Moash isn't wrong here - Most of what went wrong with Moash's life can be attributed to the discrimination against dark eyes and an oppressive monarchy. He does commit atrocities but atleast early on, he suffered injustice after injustice for which he was not responsible in any manner, except that he was poor and was a commoner and dark eyed.

you are generalizing too much here. moash is absolutely wrong. just because he suffered injustice, it doesn't give him a right to perpetuate more injustices. the one responsible is roshone. and yes, he got away lightly, with exhile that still left him rich. assassinating a king whose only fault was being manipulated, though, is absolutely not a good idea. just like it would be totally bad to execute you if you made some mistakes on your job.

the "comes great responsibility" argument in this case doesn't work. a king has great power, therefore his mistakes are amplified. any small mistake is likely to kill someone, and even when the king does nothing wrong, people are still going to die. you can't hold the king responsible to that level, else no king would be able to perform their job for more than a few weeks before being executed for being guilty of something they couldn't have predicted.

Spoiler

 

This is especially true for the "good" Shards. Good Shards have little to no accountability for their neglect. Cultivation twiddled her thumbs as the Singers were made into physical and mental slaves. Honor did nothing to help the Heralds suffering eternal torture. Neither Honor or Cultivation seem to have given much of a damn about the Singers once humans migrated to Roshar. The Singers literally describe the spren and Honor and Cultivation as having abandoned them. It's telling that there were Singers (who served Odium) and Listeners (who were neutral) before Aharietiam but no Singers who were aligned with Honor or Cultivation.

cultivation is not a "good" shard; as you correctly point out, she never seem to give a damn about anything. nowhere is ever implied she is good, except maybe as a check on the power of odium, an evil far greater than herself. honor was clearly good, he gave his life fighting odium and keeping him imprisoned; we don't know his position on the singers. preservation was good, gave his life containing ruin.

we don't know about many other shards. but it is clear that good shards are, and they are limited in their ability to fix things by having to fight against other shards.

[bmcclure7]

On 9/19/2024 at 1:50 AM, Sasukerinnegan said:

So it's been a long long while since I've posted, so let me start again with this post.

I feel like Taravangian here is 100 percent right when it comes to this paragraph. Taravangian here is revisiting an old argument in the Cosmere. He is highlighting the same issue that was the crux of the argument between Wax and Harmony except here he plays Wax's role and Cultivation plays Harmony's role.

Both Cultivation and Harmony are completely WRONG when it comes to this issue. All the Shards have de jure infinite power with some limitations in the Cosmere. They also can see the future to different degrees and have very very high mental capacities. 

Yet they keep refusing to take responsibility for their actions. The truth is that there is zero reason why hunger or poverty or war should exist in the Cosmere. The best example is the Desolation itself. The primary driver behind the Desolations is Odium himself, NOT the fused. Because Odium refuses to allow the Fused to seek a compromise or peace without him, the war has continued for millennia. 

If we adopt the Spiderman philosophy here, namely that "With great power comes great responsibility", the obvious corollary of that logic is that "With infinite power comes infinite responsibility". Therefore Shards are and should be given the greatest responsibility for all the atrocities happening in the Cosmere.

Yet Brandon has in part, chickened out, when it comes to highlighting this basic contradiction. He does highlight that the primary responsibility for the Desolation lies with Odium. Similarly when it comes to "bad" Shards like Ruin or Autonomy, he has highlighted their primary responsibility for the tragedies in the Cosmere.

But this is never highlighted about the "good" Shards. One particularly egregious example is how Cultivation essentially did nothing as 99 percent of Singers lost their minds and were essentially reduced to slaves by human beings once Ba Ado Mishram was imprisoned. It was Odium, who restored their Connection and healed them, albeit for the purpose of war. Cultivation is not shown to give a single solitary feck about the Singer race despite that she literally created them. There are other examples, like Harmony but that may be out of the scope of this discussion.

This is particularly bad as the theme of Responsibility is one of the heaviest themes of the Stormlight Archive. Kaladin taking responsibility is what leads him to the First and Second Oaths. Dalinar taking responsibility for Evi's death is what leads him to the Third Oath. Moash refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to the wrong path entirely. Amaram refusing to take responsibility is what leads him to join Odium.

Even absurd and inordinate amounts of Responsibility are expected of people. Both Stormfather and Kaladin call the Heralds "traitors to their oaths". But the oath was absurd in the first place - Why on earth would any sane individual be expected to handle torture for thousands of years?

All this highlights the fundamental weakness of the Stormlight Archive and perhaps by extension, the Cosmere - Exceptional responsibility is demanded of those who are ordinary or with limited powers but very little responsibility is demanded of those who have de jure infinite power. This is especially true for the "good" Shards.

This seems like a weak paraphrasing of the "God works in mysterious ways" argument.

What do you guys think?

1. Cultivation did not create the singer race and has no responsibility to to help them. In fact, you could argue that none of the shards have any responsibility to anyone on Roshar say for May the few that are directly sworn to them.

2. From a practical story standpoint, you can’t have the shards do too much or otherwise Things would resolve too easily.

 

3. I suspect that they could do more than they are doing much more, not solve everything of course but do more for people in general however, I leave there intent prevents them, convincing them that they can’t. They are limited in their thoughts and focused on their intent.

4. I think you misunderstand both either the arguments of the shards or the God works in mysterious ways argument as they are fundamentally different.
 

The idea that God works in mysterious way is fundamentally that the plans and goals and perspective of God is so much beyond the understanding of humanity that we cannot truly comprehend it suffering a vague general sense. How can I truly understand what justice means from the perspective of someone who sees the entire universe and exist beyond itself? How can I truly understand what mercy means to someone that exists beyond time and sees the only entire universe itself. His perspective a mystery to me so why should I expect to understand his ways?

 

This is not the argument that the shards are making as we are seeing it from their perspective. They cannot realistically make an argument that they cannot understand their own perspective. Their argument is that by interfering even with the best intentions, they rob humanity of essential virtues, such as free, will mercy, creativity, progress, etc. this is a completely different argument.

[Wanguu He/Him]

15 hours ago, Dofurion said:

• We don't know anything else about Valor, we can only speculate that the world where it was established may be similar to what was seen in Adamant.

Overall, your post is very well read and eloquently stated. Good job. 

However, I haven't heard of Adamant. What is it?

[Dofurion]

1 hour ago, Wanguu said:

Overall, your post is very well read and eloquently stated. Good job. 

However, I haven't heard of Adamant. What is it?

Adamant is a story that Brandon has not yet published, it was originally going to be a story in the Cosmere but then he wanted to make it independent, and if I'm not mistaken there was a period of time in which it was going to be part of the Cytoverse, but it seems that recently he has considered reintroducing it into the Cosmere.

The striking thing about this story is that it introduces two deities, Valor and Vigilance.