[OB] Oathbringer chapters 19-21

[kari-no-sugata]

7 hours ago, Aminar said:

Not to mention how interesting she would be as an antagonistic ally. Or a rival to Jasnah. 

Random thought I've had: perhaps in the past Ialai has asked the Ghostbloods to assassinate Jasnah.

Seeing Ialai on a throne feels appropriate to her character, but also gives a sense of her getting ahead of herself. How long will it be until she's pulled off of it? I'm not sure how capable Ialai really is but I doubt she'll be a rival to Jasnah. Instead, she seems the type to not take the Radiants seriously or appreciate the changes that have been going on in general. In other words, she's the rotten "old guard" type of character who needs to be dealt with. However, I'm guessing a lot here based on not much at all. Maybe I'll be surprised...

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

34 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

Random thought I've had: perhaps in the past Ialai has asked the Ghostbloods to assassinate Jasnah.

Seeing Ialai on a throne feels appropriate to her character, but also gives a sense of her getting ahead of herself. How long will it be until she's pulled off of it? I'm not sure how capable Ialai really is but I doubt she'll be a rival to Jasnah. Instead, she seems the type to not take the Radiants seriously or appreciate the changes that have been going on in general. In other words, she's the rotten "old guard" type of character who needs to be dealt with. However, I'm guessing a lot here based on not much at all. Maybe I'll be surprised...

She is supposed to be cunning though. I think she will take the Radiants seriously, she isn't stupid. That said, I don't think she will be an overarching villain or anything. I feel like Mraize is using her.

[maxal she/her]

48 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

Random thought I've had: perhaps in the past Ialai has asked the Ghostbloods to assassinate Jasnah.

Seeing Ialai on a throne feels appropriate to her character, but also gives a sense of her getting ahead of herself. How long will it be until she's pulled off of it? I'm not sure how capable Ialai really is but I doubt she'll be a rival to Jasnah. Instead, she seems the type to not take the Radiants seriously or appreciate the changes that have been going on in general. In other words, she's the rotten "old guard" type of character who needs to be dealt with. However, I'm guessing a lot here based on not much at all. Maybe I'll be surprised...

I don't think Jasnah is half as cunning as Ialai: she is smart, but Ialai is a master at what she does. Everyone fears her: Sadeas described her as "the most dangerous woman he ever met". I personally love the idea of a masterful villain they need a few books to take down, someone more tangible than "Odium" whom is just "plain evil". 

12 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

She is supposed to be cunning though. I think she will take the Radiants seriously, she isn't stupid. That said, I don't think she will be an overarching villain or anything. I feel like Mraize is using her.

The story would be increasingly more interesting if she were using him and not the opposite. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

21 minutes ago, maxal said:

The story would be increasingly more interesting if she were using him and not the opposite. 

I really don't see why it would be. It would undermine the threat level of the Ghostbloods, and Ialai is not that interesting. Mraize can act as a cool non-Odium villain just as well, if not better than Ialai can. 

[kari-no-sugata]

I don't think sitting-on-a-throne Ialai's ambition would be satisfied by small things - I expect that she'll try to put herself in charge of the whole place. So I expect her to try various things to achieve that and ultimately fail. So she'll either be killed or she'll flee to some other location. So I don't see her staying at Urithiru long term.

[Aminar]

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

I really don't see why it would be. It would undermine the threat level of the Ghostbloods, and Ialai is not that interesting. Mraize can act as a cool non-Odium villain just as well, if not better than Ialai can. 

Unless she's a longtime ghostblood herself. Maybe a founding member or the like. That raises their threat level significantly. 

[maxal she/her]

1 hour ago, Toaster Retribution said:

I really don't see why it would be. It would undermine the threat level of the Ghostbloods, and Ialai is not that interesting. Mraize can act as a cool non-Odium villain just as well, if not better than Ialai can. 

Actually I like the idea Ialai might be standing above Mraize. Also the fact she is a woman makes it even more interesting: the story has been very male centrist so far.

5 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

I don't think sitting-on-a-throne Ialai's ambition would be satisfied by small things - I expect that she'll try to put herself in charge of the whole place. So I expect her to try various things to achieve that and ultimately fail. So she'll either be killed or she'll flee to some other location. So I don't see her staying at Urithiru long term.

Sadeas wanted to be king. I say Ialai wants to be queen.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

Just now, maxal said:

Actually I like the idea Ialai might be standing above Mraize. Also the fact she is a woman makes it even more interesting: the story has been very male centrist so far.

Ialai might be standing above Mraize, I won't protest against that. 

When it comes to gender, I agree about that the story is focused more on men than women. I do think that a character should be judged by more than their gender however. I personally feel that Mraize is a lot more intriguing than Ialai. He has a lot more stuff going on than she has, especially if she winds up not being a Ghostblood. 

[maxal she/her]

Just now, Toaster Retribution said:

Ialai might be standing above Mraize, I won't protest against that. 

When it comes to gender, I agree about that the story is focused more on men than women. I do think that a character should be judged by more than their gender however. I personally feel that Mraize is a lot more intriguing than Ialai. He has a lot more stuff going on than she has, especially if she winds up not being a Ghostblood. 

Independently of gender, I personally find Ialai more interesting: she is a cunning woman Sadeas describes as dangerous in a world where women usually engage themselves into painting or music contests. She eats men's food, she ignores male/female decorum whenever in private and she is ruthless. It makes her far more interesting, to me as a reader, than Mraize whom I honestly do not care so much about (he has no personality). The mystery around him is about who he is and where he has been. That's not interesting to me, as a reader, as I am far more interested in personalities then "whom has been where and knows what". For me it is more: "whom has an interesting personality I wish to read about.".

And yes, the fact she is a woman of power into a very male centrist story makes her even more interesting. Her becoming Highprince would be amazing just as it would be so interesting if she turned being a greater foe than Sadeas ever was. 

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

6 minutes ago, maxal said:

Independently of gender, I personally find Ialai more interesting: she is a cunning woman Sadeas describes as dangerous in a world where women usually engage themselves into painting or music contests. She eats men's food, she ignores male/female decorum whenever in private and she is ruthless. It makes her far more interesting, to me as a reader, than Mraize whom I honestly do not care so much about (he has no personality). The mystery around him is about who he is and where he has been. That's not interesting to me, as a reader, as I am far more interested in personalities then "whom has been where and knows what". For me it is more: "whom has an interesting personality I wish to read about.".

And yes, the fact she is a woman of power into a very male centrist story makes her even more interesting. Her becoming Highprince would be amazing just as it would be so interesting if she turned being a greater foe than Sadeas ever was. 

I think it comes down to us having different preferences when it comes to characters. I disagree about Mraize not having any personality. He is ruthless (like Ialai), he is a hunter, who seems to judge people based on how capable they are. He can put on a likeable face, but is also completely okay with murder and torture. He seems confident, and has his pilosophy of understanding other cultures through learning their weapons. He has a generally badass air around him, and gives the impression of being part crime-boss, part worldhopper, part warrior, part politician, and part hunter. The mysterious air around him, and the cool name only adds to his character. I too like to read about characters whose personalities fascinate me. But Ialai doesn´t interest me much, just as Mraize doesn´t interest you. I would argue that none of them are void of personality.

I would not have anything against Ialai becoming Highprince though, and I am interested in seeing what she is up too. 

[maxal she/her]

1 minute ago, Toaster Retribution said:

I think it comes down to us having different preferences when it comes to characters. I disagree about Mraize not having any personality. He is ruthless (like Ialai), he is a hunter, who seems to judge people based on how capable they are. He can put on a likeable face, but is also completely okay with murder and torture. He seems confident, and has his pilosophy of understanding other cultures through learning their weapons. He has a generally badass air around him, and gives the impression of being part crime-boss, part worldhopper, part warrior, part politician, and part hunter. The mysterious air around him, and the cool name only adds to his character. I too like to read about characters whose personalities fascinate me. But Ialai doesn´t interest me much, just as Mraize doesn´t interest you. I would argue that none of them are void of personality.

I would not have anything against Ialai becoming Highprince though, and I am interested in seeing what she is up too. 

I don't usually like "mysterious" characters: I find them boring and uninteresting  I also tend to say they have no personalities because they are "mysterious". This however is a purely personal preference. Mraize just reads to me as the "place-holder" for "an organization and a bunch of other stuff we know nothing of" and this makes him a plot device more than a character, to me. I feel the same about Hoid  I feel also this way towards Renarin, but to a lesser extend. I usually don't care about what people are being "mysterious" about unless I read their voice and start to feel sympathy for them. Mind, I don't feel sympathy for Ialai, but her motivations and goals are tangible, thus I root for her as a villain.

But yeah, in the end we just have different preferences: this is fine. So maybe not void in personality, but just not really showing this personality? So all in all, I really don't like the "mysterious character" trope: I don't care about them. Give me their motivations, their thoughts, their objectives and I will root for them, but just leave for me to guess without having any valid clues and I will fall asleep 

[kari-no-sugata]

4 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

I would not have anything against Ialai becoming Highprince though, and I am interested in seeing what she is up too. 

Yeah, there's so many different ways in which the follow-on chapter could go. Going to be interesting to see Ialai's approach.

Shallan's already going against a cultural tradition (in private) by learning the sword. Ialai aiming to become a ruler in her own right would likely go against tradition even more... and with much more significant consequences.

 

PS Meanwhile, we should be getting close to the climax of Part 1 - we're likely only going to get 2-3 more chapters from each character. From what Brandon has said we should see each character have a story arc climax of some sort. Kaladin's seems likely to involve him protecting the parshmen. Shallan's looks set to involve either herself/Pattern or Adolin (I'd guess Adolin). Adolin's looks likely to involve either Shallan or Sadeas. Dalinar's looks likely to somehow revolve around Evi or how he deals with others in general.

[StormingTexan he/him]

14 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

PS Meanwhile, we should be getting close to the climax of Part 1

I dunno seems like Pattern is trying to stop this. Of course Syl wants to cheer it on so..

[the_archduke]

I serious doubt Ialai can become a Highprince.  She has no children that we know of, and is likely beyond childbearing years.  Sadeas's highprincedom certainly has rules of succession, and Alethi inheritance is something we have a little bit of information on.  The evidence is that Jasnah is older than Elohokar, yet he inherited from Gavilar instead of her.  It shocks our Western/Modern sensibilities, but Alethkar really seems like a place that doesn't allow women to inherit.

[Aminar]

16 minutes ago, the_archduke said:

I serious doubt Ialai can become a Highprince.  She has no children that we know of, and is likely beyond childbearing years.  Sadeas's highprincedom certainly has rules of succession, and Alethi inheritance is something we have a little bit of information on.  The evidence is that Jasnah is older than Elohokar, yet he inherited from Gavilar instead of her.  It shocks our Western/Modern sensibilities, but Alethkar really seems like a place that doesn't allow women to inherit.

I seriously doubt Kaladin can get a shardblade. Dark Eyes never do. The odds are against them and the caste system's weapon rules make it even worse. 

-Which is to say probability has little to do with good storytelling.- Ialai taking over the princedom would make for an interesting story arc. 

[BlackYeti he/him]

8 minutes ago, the_archduke said:

I serious doubt Ialai can become a Highprince.  She has no children that we know of, and is likely beyond childbearing years.  Sadeas's highprincedom certainly has rules of succession, and Alethi inheritance is something we have a little bit of information on.  The evidence is that Jasnah is older than Elohokar, yet he inherited from Gavilar instead of her.  It shocks our Western/Modern sensibilities, but Alethkar really seems like a place that doesn't allow women to inherit.

Allow me to quote myself here:

On 10/13/2017 at 2:40 PM, BlackYeti said:

Looking at history though, those kinds of gender-based inheritance laws will allow a woman to inherit when there is no male heir (at least when it comes to the aristocracy). Consider the English monarchy, it has exactly those kind of laws in place, yet still ended up producing a Lady Jane Grey, Queen Mary I, Queen Elizabeth I, Queen Mary II,  Queen Victoria, and Queen Elizabeth II.

I don't think it's been made clear what would happen in Alethkar in such a situation, but if anyone could force the issue, I reckon it would be Ialai.

Additionally @maxal has pointed out that in order to become Highprince, you only need to be able to convince other people to call you Highprince. As such it wouldn't be that much of a stretch for Ialai to become Highprince.

---

1 hour ago, maxal said:

Actually I like the idea Ialai might be standing above Mraize. Also the fact she is a woman makes it even more interesting: the story has been very male centrist so far.

I think this is very likely actually. I don't think that Mraize is actually that highly ranked in the Ghostbloods. We know that Iyatil is above him, and Thaidakar is somewhere above that. I think he's actually somewhere more in the middle of the hierarchy, and the situation is a bit like in Mistborn Era 2 where

Spoiler

Mr Suit initially seems like he's very highly ranked in the Set, but then it turns out that he's actually a lot further down than we at first realised.

1 hour ago, maxal said:

And yes, the fact she is a woman of power into a very male centrist story makes her even more interesting. Her becoming Highprince would be amazing just as it would be so interesting if she turned being a greater foe than Sadeas ever was. 

I also agree with you that Ialai's a very interesting villain, and I do want to see her stick around for a few books (unlike her husband, whom I'm very glad is dead as I did not find him at all interesting). She seems to me to be far more cunning than Torol Sadeas, so I would be very surprised if she didn't turn out to be a greater foe.

[RYANHOME he/him]

Is anyone else getting the feeling the preface we get each week isn't the actual preface from the book. 

I feel like it's a place holder for the real thing. There's nothing of significance being said. I've read everything BRANDON SANDERSON has written and there's no fluff/filler in any of it.

I believe jasnah kolin is the author and she would not be making apologies for writing it. Being a no nonsense character the preface would be straight forward and unapologetic.  

Any thoughts?

[BlackYeti he/him]

Just now, RYANHOME said:

Is anyone else getting the feeling the preface we get each week isn't the actual preface from the book. 

I feel like it's a place holder for the real thing. There's nothing of significance being said. I've read everything BRANDON SANDERSON has written and there's no fluff/filler in any of it.

I believe jasnah kolin is the author and she would not be making apologies for writing it. Being a no nonsense character the preface would be straight forward and unapologetic.  

Any thoughts?

I highly doubt that Brandon would deceive us like you're suggesting.

I suspect that the epigraphs are highly significant, we just lack the context to understand the significance at this point.

And you're right about the epigraphs not sounding like something that Jasnah would have written. I don't know if you've read the Mistborn trilogy, but the epigraphs in those books contain a warning against ignoring that sort of clue to the writer's identity: they often aren't who you first think they are.

[kari-no-sugata]

1 hour ago, StormingTexan said:

I dunno seems like Pattern is trying to stop this. Of course Syl wants to cheer it on so..

So... rather than a dramatic and tension filled scene following the latest chapter.... we're going to go down a "make love not war" route and Shallan x Adolin x Ialai x Mraize?

Try unseeing that

[BlackYeti he/him]

10 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

So... rather than a dramatic and tension filled scene following the latest chapter.... we're going to go down a "make love not war" route and Shallan x Adolin x Ialai x Mraize?

If it carries on down this trajectory, then book 4 will end up being called "An Accountability of Virtue" (the love story which that Ardent was reading in that earlier released Interlude). 

[the_archduke]

5 hours ago, Aminar said:

I seriously doubt Kaladin can get a shardblade. Dark Eyes never do. The odds are against them and the caste system's weapon rules make it even worse. 

-Which is to say probability has little to do with good storytelling.- Ialai taking over the princedom would make for an interesting story arc. 

Except there is a tradition of darkeyes winning blades.  Three famous examples have become mythologized.  But everything we know of Alethi law says Ialai becoming Highprince isn't going to happen.  

[kari-no-sugata]

Dalinar is publicly challenging various things about tradition. No reason why Ialai can't try.

[Aminar]

1 hour ago, the_archduke said:

Except there is a tradition of darkeyes winning blades.  Three famous examples have become mythologized.  But everything we know of Alethi law says Ialai becoming Highprince isn't going to happen.  

You're missing the point. The more barriers placed in a story the more interesting it is. Like Laws. Or difficult challenges. Or societal ignorance. Or enemies bigger and stronger than you. The fact its against tradition is a reason it very well might happen. 

[kari-no-sugata]

I had previously mentioned some brief ideas on the character arcs for Part 1. Here's a longer version.

I think Kaladin's is quite simple. What I currently expect to happen is that he'll use the example of him protecting Rlain to extend that to all parshmen who agree with not taking revenge on the humans. The parshmen will have to decide between revenge and freedom.

I think Dalinar's arc is most likely to revolve around "trust" - people trusting him (or not) and him trusting others. I would say that's been the most consistent thread with all his chapters (though there's probably other ways to describe it). I don't know if his regained memories of Evi will feed into that or not.

In Shallan's case, Adolin has either been in every chapter of hers or been relevant. For her story arc, earlier on there was a bit more focus on her relationship with Pattern and her internal struggles but that is fading in favour of her getting increasingly involved with Adolin and the murder case. Putting it another way, Adolin and events related to Sadeas's murder have come up in all of her chapters. Based on that, for Shallan's personal character arc I think we'll have to see how she reacts to finding out that Adolin was the one who killed Sadeas. In which case this will likely turn out to be foreshadowing:

Quote

My guards. Right. Shallan had a group of soldiers made up of deserters and despicable murderers. She didn’t mind that part, being a despicable murderer herself. But she also had no idea what to do with them.

I think the most likely result is that Shallan will welcome Adolin into her flock of black sheep, as it were, though I don't know how much of that we'll see in Part 1 and whether she'll tell Adolin anything about herself (or even if Adolin will accept).

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, kari-no-sugata said:

I think the most likely result is that Shallan will welcome Adolin into her flock of black sheep

Eh. I don't know.

In the same chapter, she tells Adolin, that she sees him als "Moral, just and capable"

Such a revelation could twist those perceptions and raise doubts, too. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

Edited October 16, 2017 by SLNC