[OB] The problem with Adolin

[GoddessIMHO]

I love Adolin. I've been on medication for depression my ENTIRE adult life. People like Adolin are a gift as friends. They are the ones I want to be around. Kaladin and Shallan are better off for knowing him. Don't give me a bunch of noise about doing it ALL on your own: The people around you make a difference. Being around constant whiners and pessimists makes life so much harder.

We are social animals, we want to be in a tribe. Which tribe makes a difference. Kaladin is the archetypal hero, at this point in the story Adolin is the "everyman". They are the new generation of the Alethi tribe and I feel that Adolin is the glue.

All that being said, Adolin has spent his life having to be what his father decided he should be. He was cast into a role and forced to live it. Do you notice how often when he is referred to by others it's as "the son of the Blackthorn" and not his name? He lives in his father's shadow. But still his base nature is to pick up and do what needs to be done.

Edited December 4, 2017 by GoddessIMHO
When I call Adolin the everyman I realise that he is a prince but for the KR crowd, he is an everyman at the moment.

[bo.montier]

17 hours ago, SomeRandomPeasant said:

I would like to polity and respectfully ask why some readers like Adolin, because right now I hate him.  Sure, I would love to be his drinking buddy or friend, but   as a character I fail to see any compelling inner conflict or struggles.  He's just to good to be true.  It bugs me that a main character is that, especially in a book in which everyone is broken, where the Heralds themselves turned their back on humanity at the very beginning of the book. It is hard to care for him when he is written alongside:

•  A: A young women who is apparently suffering a mental breakdown due in part of a lack of a self assured identity and past emotional trauma at the hands of an initially well meaning father 
• B: Mr. Chronic Hero Syndrome (which thank god is proper deconstruction) who is being constantly thrust into situations that he fears           most (watching those he worked to protect die while he survives, and his struggle with depression) 

With such a wide and varied cast, there is no way someone will like all of them, and that's good.  My favorites happen to be Jasnah, Szeth, and, after Oathbringer, Dalinar, in that order. But even those who I don't personally like I can say that they are well written, compelling characters that add something to the story.  For example, I personally don't like Lift, but there is no doubt value in showcasing a destitute street urchin seeking a higher and vital purpose.  It is interesting to see such a bizarre and chaotic child become a freakin Knights Radiant. 

I want to understand so could Adolin fans please explain why his story is worth caring about or is compelling in any way.  There are no wrong answers, I just don't see him being
worthy of holding up the mantle of a main character, especially when we have yet to see much insight into his brother.

I will say that while I don't like him at the moment, my thoughts of Adolin are similar to how I thought of Dalinar in the beginning of Way of Kings. Dalinar at first was also to noble, even though he
had struggles with putting honor before reason.  But Dalinar's growth has been nothing short of amazing and his slow change from becaming a diplomat to forming a coletion to seeking forgivness have injected depth into his character, depth that right now Adolin simply does not have.  Back in Words of Radiance, my ears started to perk up a bit when I read Adolin showing a thirst for battle during his duels.  However, this plot point seems to have fizzled out and, after Oathbringer, going down this path would obviously be redundant.  But like I mentioned above, I have grown to love Dalinar, despite his less then interesting beginning, the same could happen to Adolin.  But three books later and I still having doubts seeing the point of Adolin.

Until his character gets interesting I will be calling him "Poor Man's Dalinar".  Hopefully this will change, maybe he will be worthy of the name "A(n)dolinsm".  Am I alone in hating him? Why is he so popular with readers?

I'm not going to read the whole thread, since I'm just going to respond to you. 

I like Adolin because he is so accepting of others, of their faults, of their weaknesses. He seems to accept them for who they are, and doesn't expect them to be otherwise. I even think he accepted Sadeas for who he was, it's just that Sadeas was someone who could NEVER have worked with them, so the acceptance of Sadeas AS HE WAS led Adolin to kill him. He didn't even expect Sadeas to be different.His acceptance of Kaladin in part 4, when he failed to save them, nearly brought me to tears. 

Is he the most interesting character? No, I don't think so, but I LIKE him. I want him to succeed, I want good things for him, because he's so generous and kind and accepting. 

[FuzzyWordsmith]

5 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

 

Thank you both so much!! Knowing people who went through much worse, and seeing how they came through relatively unbroken (as in: they were not emotional wrecks) people insisting that ‘broken’ meant ‘major psychological issues’ felt very much like they were devaluating those experiences. So thank you so much for this!

So, I would like to preface this by saying I acknowledge that your family members have been through a lot. I do not mean to offend in any way. However, I think some of you posts, particularly the bit in bold, are getting into the Fallacy of Relative Privation. Objectively speaking, there are such things as better or worse problems. However, on a person to person level, that's not really relevant at all. If a person goes through something "not as bad" but still ends up an emotional wreck, that should not be held against them. Similarly, if someone goes through something "worse" it should not be a mark against people who don't hold together as well. Everyone is different, and that does not make some people better or worse than others.

[soulcastJam he/him]

I agree that Adolin isn't an incredibly exciting character to read about (at least compared to some of the others in SA), although I personally have never found him boring. He's more like a refreshing dose of optimism. 

That being said, I think that of all the characters in SA he would be the best one to be friends with. Sure, there is glamour to the other characters that he doesn't have (although he has far more of that than anyone I know IRL). I admit that he isn't much of an intellectual, so he isn't great for deep thinking conversations, but he is really fun to be around and is nice to just about everyone.

 

Let's look at some of the other characters in terms of how they would stack up as a friend. And please, remember that friendship is a two-way street. Just because we think someone is cool or interesting doesn't mean we would ever mesh in real friendship.

---

Dalinar - Way too busy to spend any time with you. Also, way too intimidating to actually be his friend.

Jasnah - Does she have any friends?

Shallan - You could be good friends with one of her personalities, but it probably would be difficult to get along with all of them. (Hmmm... Shockingly, the only one to achieve that is Adolin...)

Renarin - A genuinely nice guy, but he doesn't talk much. He would probably make a really good friend if you put in enough effort to get him to open up.

Kaladin - A pretty close second. He genuinely cares about people. He also both shines (and suffers) when things get really bad so he's nice to have around when the world turns against you. But he doesn't relax very often. Being his friend is intense.

Szeth - Ummmm... nevermind. I'll just walk away...

Stick - Cool, but only has one thing on his mind.

Lift - Never stays put, never lets you get a word in edgewise, always steals your food, really afraid of commitment, but definitely Awesome.

 

Edited December 4, 2017 by soulcastJam

[FuzzyWordsmith]

15 minutes ago, soulcastJam said:

Szeth - Ummmm... nevermind. I'll just walk away...

 

I would love hanging out with Szeth. Certainly, I would much rather hang out with Szeth and Nightblood than I would with Adolin. But maybe I'm just weird.

[soulcastJam he/him]

Yes, but would he want to hang out with you? One of the points is that Adolin is the most likely to accept people like us readers as a friend.

[Foxx she/her]

3 minutes ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

I would love hanging out with Szeth. Certainly, I would much rather hang out with Szeth and Nightblood than I would with Adolin. But maybe I'm just weird.

I'd sign onto that roadtrip so fast... Nightblood and I would be fast fast friends. That may be telling regarding my personality... 

23 minutes ago, soulcastJam said:

Jasnah - Does she have any friends?

Jasnah is my spirit animal. <3

 

Anyway, I could spend way too much unproductive time imagining hanging out with SA characters and causing incredible mayhem. 

[StormingTexan he/him]

30 minutes ago, soulcastJam said:

Kaladin - A pretty close second. He genuinely cares about people. He also both shines (and suffers) when things get really bad so he's nice to have around when the world turns against you. But he doesn't relax very often. Being his friend is intense.

 

I think the only character he’s specifically called friend is Moash so he obviously has poor judgement and hangs out with a bad crowd. 

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

1 hour ago, FuzzyWordsmith said:

So, I would like to preface this by saying I acknowledge that your family members have been through a lot. I do not mean to offend in any way. However, I think some of you posts, particularly the bit in bold, are getting into the Fallacy of Relative Privation. Objectively speaking, there are such things as better or worse problems. However, on a person to person level, that's not really relevant at all. If a person goes through something "not as bad" but still ends up an emotional wreck, that should not be held against them. Similarly, if someone goes through something "worse" it should not be a mark against people who don't hold together as well. Everyone is different, and that does not make some people better or worse than others.

I’m not holding it against anyone. It would be an issue if I did, since I work in psychology.

My issue with ‘broken = major psychological issue’ is the same as ‘trauma = PTSD.’ It devalues those who experience the same or worse but come out releatively whole, by saying ‘well, since you are not a mess it couldn’t have been that bad/bothered you that much.’ And saying people like that are unrealistic denies their existence, which is even worse! 

That does not, on any level, mean that someone who does end up with a major issue due to their circumstances is weaker. I, personally, think mental illness has underlying biological factors. You can’t exactly help those, and having them doesn’t make anyone weak.

But just because someone else does not have those factors does not mean their experience was less personally traumatic.

[Dreamstorm]

1 hour ago, soulcastJam said:

Jasnah - Does she have any friends?

Jasnah has all of her online scholar friends!!!!

[soulcastJam he/him]

1 minute ago, Dreamstorm said:

Jasnah has all of her online scholar friends!!!!

Friends, not fans. Hallows, not horcruxes.

[aemetha he/him]

Jasnah has friends - the people she converses with by spanreed. She expresses genuine affection for them.

[Leuthie]

Jasnah, Adolin, Lift, Taln and...ummm... who is the 5th?

Anyway, Adolin is a second half of the series character.  He's different from the others because he has no obvious holes to dig out of.  We're starting to see some.  However, his time as an interesting, central character is a lo g way off.  Forgive him for being boring.  He has to be a foil for now while he waits for his turn to be awesome for you.  And he has to be a foil in a world that has way too many different types of issues.  And he has to be a foil while keeping hidden and whole the thing that will make him awesome later.  There's some tough juggling there.  

So bland and perfect it is.  He's already killed a High Prince and took on a giant stone golem one on one without plate for you...let him have his blandness.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Leuthie said:

Jasnah, Adolin, Lift, Taln and...ummm... who is the 5th?

 

Ash.

And I'm pretty sure, that Renarin is a back 5 character. Not Adolin.

Edited December 4, 2017 by SLNC

[Leuthie]

Well that makes Adolin even more boring.  I still like him and thinks the story benefits from him.  But yeah, I see the OP's point.

[SomeRandomPeasant she/her]

Everyone of these posts brings up good points, and I am proud of the 17thshard to act so civilly in such a discussion.  Therefore I would like to add a point of my own:

My problem isn't so much that he lacks a tragic backstory or that he is doesn't have Radiant powers. Having someone without crazy problems or superpowers is an important perspective, and characters like Navani are essential to foiling the more outlandish characters.   I don't dislike Adolin because he is boring, or that he is a nice guy.  I think he is to close to being perfect. There is a fine line between making a good, noble hero who usually does the right thing between a character who is to perfect (to an almost Mary Sue level).  For the record, I don't think Adolin is to perfect, but, to me, he weighs to heavily on the perfect side.

 

9 hours ago, XenosHg said:

Saying that someone can't be a main character without his own earth-shattering troubles, and saying "He has troubles but I don't acknowledge that they are large enough" is akin to saying that good people aren't allowed to exist. And if they may exist, they cannot do anything meaningful or participate in the plot. 

To be fair, I don't think every character needs a tragic backstory but a good character at the very minimum a character has to have a flaw, or a blind spot so as not be perfect who have no conflict at all in their lives. Something that a character needs to overcome, whether internally or not.  I think flaws are important even to characters that are good, or nice most of the time because no one is perfect and well written literature characters shouldn't be either.

You can still have good, noble character and not sacrifice good writing with conflict. In Hero of Ages, Elend Venture was an idealist and, as Vin was constantly telling him, a good man.  But his idealism cost him the throne, and weakened the crown for a while.  And despite losing because of his own somewhat idealist government, he still remained honorable and proved himself when he spoke with the council. There was still internal problems with him. I'd hate to make a non-Cosmere comparison, but Eddard Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire, was also a good man of supreme honor, who was likable and did the right thing. However his very code of honor was stained when he was outmaneuver because of his very nobility.  His honor cost him.  He still faced problems and didn't get away with everything.

Adolin, to me, has a lot of funny quirks, like his love of fashion, but no flaw to speak of. His flaw could be that he is a little slow and not very smart, but the moment Adolin needs to navigate a sticky diplomatic situation with Ialai Sadeas, he handles it perfectly, not just with a genuine smile but with well placed words.  Adolin can can be a good guy and have a comfortable childhood, but he has to fail at least once.  He has never been out of his comfort zone.  Even after the fall of Kholinar he just tells himself to not think about it, and for the most part moves on.

 

I will say that completely in the face of what I have just said, this forum has helped me see new value in Adolin, and I thank you people for that.  I am be perfectly happy with those who like Adolin in this forum. I am glad people like him even if I don't.

Edited December 5, 2017 by SomeRandomPeasant

[Aleksiel]

@SomeRandomPeasant you are right characters need flaws to be fleshed out. However, sometimes it depends upon the reader whether something is a flaw or not - for example Adolin's tendency to do as Dalinar wishes, to allow himself to be molded by other people's expectations. He also acts more stupid than he is with people he isn't close to like on his first date with Shallan she had him admit he wasn't as dense and unable to follow her explanation as he pretended. 

 Adolin is a hothead, who explodes easily and has trouble restraining himself as seen in his interaction with Sadeas. He started yelling at Dalinar for everyone to hear. Adolin also has trouble romantically, but his relationship with Shallan mostly resolved this. He has no friendship outside his family, although that kind of changed with Kal, however it's not exactly deep heartfelt friendship yet.  I think one reason Brandon didn't explore his darker side or give him more flaws and internal conflict for now is because otherwise everyone would have died in Kholinar, Adolin was basically the one who kept them together and focused towards the end. We needed someone to just soldier on. I think he has potential to grow, just not in this book.

[Katy]

So my opinion, is that your view of Adolin is due to poor writing on Sanderson’s part. Because if you really think about it, Adolin is quite the interesting character too, or could be, if Sanderson bothered to pay him any attention. Let’s start from a young age. Adolin is single-handedly raises by his mother up until age 12, where his mother supposedly dies from assassins. Then he basically is either raised by nannies, or raises himself, up until age 17 because his father spends those five years in a drunken stupor. When his father visits the Nightwatcher and loses all memories of Evi, he then starts to build a real, or at least more healthy relationship with his son. We already see from his character, that he’s raised by his mom pretty much. He’s very empathetic to those surrounding him (like his mother), and even has a talent in feminine things like fashion (dunno if his mother was a fashion queen, but he really didn’t get that from Dalinar). We can also tell that Adolin didn’t have an active father till age 17. He is constantly trying to prove himself to his father, and clearly idealizes him. Almost like, he’s trying to prove his worth. Which is something no child should have to do. Let’s switch topics tho. Enough on Adolin’s current parent issues (I’m sure Evi’s death will later become an issue). Now let’s go to WOK and WOR. He clearly has issues with Kaladin, and despite being typically fair, he does have prejudices. We see him confront these prejudices, and realize he Prince Adolin is wrong. To go against how ones been taught all their life, and expand their viewpoint is hard to do. Yet that’s exactly what Adolin does. Now finally to OB. Tho this topic isn’t thoroughly discussed, Adolin killed a man. Yes he later comes to the conclusion it was justified. But you do see him really struggle with the fact of lying to everyone. Adolin is such a genuine dude, so to lie to everyone must have been painful. His self-preservation vs what’s right, must’ve really been a huge debate for him. Which we see, since whenever anyone brings up Sadeas he is described as looking guilty. And finally, what makes Adolin a compelling character. His uselessness. Now he’s not useless, he’s really the emotional glue of the team, and has battle experience none but Dalinar have. BUT, he feels useless due to his lack of powers. Adolin went from the center of the universe, to a nobody. And that’s got to be jarring for a Prince. He’s always fared well, and been talented, and now well. He’s not. He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t have powers. And all of his friends are super cool, and here he is, with just a sword. It would definitely play at his confidence, and make him question what his real worth is, especially if he placed it in his battle skills (which methinks he did). Adolin is quite a compelling character. He has quite the story, and quite the growth. Yet due to poor writing, and Sanderson telling rather than showing, it doesn’t show unless you look at it with a fine eye. I don’t blame you for thinking there’s nothing to Adolin, because to be frank, sometimes I wonder if the author himself thinks the same. 

[Szmit]

I was going to argue that Adollin has flaws that make him interesting, but now that I think about it I really don't think that they are what I like about him the most. 

I belive that Adollin is one of well made paragon heroes. What is important about him the most is not his flaws that he has to defeat or overcome, but how he interacts with other characters and helps them overcome their flaws. 

Another example of a paragon character would be Kelsier:

(Spoilers for Mistborn)

Spoiler

He technically does have flaws but they are not properl adressed until AFTER his death, which is preatty late. The flaws that he had to fight with were the flaws of other people.

For interested there is source for my thoughts.

[Ashspren]

Honestly, I love Adolin. It’s true that he might not have the most issues or drama in the series, but there are other reasons to like him.

One, he’s a genuinely good person. His intentions are always to help other people. Even when he kills Sadeas, he’s thinking about the good of Alethkar. And, be honest, every reader wanted him dead, too... 

Two, he is like a light in the darkness for many characters. Everyone has days when they feel like chull dung, and they need someone positive to help them through it. Adolin is like that to so many characters, especially the Knights Radiant.

• He’s Dalinar’s pride and joy.
• He’s a friend to Kaladin.
• He’s a reliable and lovable person to Shallan. He’s an amazing brother to Renarin.
• I highly doubt that Jasnah has been able to live without laughing, so he’s maybe someone to provide comic relief and a break for Jasnah. 
• Oathbringer spoiler below:

Spoiler

I think that he will be a shoulder to lean on for Lift as she faces her struggles with the Nightwatcher, her boon, and her curse– especially since we know that Maya is a cultivationspren. If he ends up becoming an Edgedancer, he could empathize with her in ways that nobody else could. But (or "butt," in Lift's case), regardless of whether or not he becomes a Radiant, he will still be there to help Lift. 

In fact, this support extends far beyond the Knights Radiant. Navani seems more at ease around Adolin. In the Way of Kings, Navani is seen laughing and teasing Adolin about his flings with all of his ex-girlfriends. 

Oathbringer Spoilers Below:

Spoiler

Even when it was probably sort of weird that his aunt was marrying his dad, Adolin was super supportive and wanted them to be happy. He literally whooped and crushed them in hugs after the wedding. Sanderson is sure to mention that this is "Adolin, being Adolin," so that just goes to show how being supportive and putting other people's happiness first is a huge part of his personality. 

He also looks out for those who need help or someone who looks like they are alone. He helped the prostitute in the street. He stayed in jail with Kaladin.

In conclusion, I believe a quote from Oathbringer sums everything up:

Spoiler

“... handsome as sin, kind to everyone he meets regardless of their station, passionate about his art, and genuinely humble in the weirdest, most confident way... he actually seems to get you, and remarkably listens to your problems, encouraging you to be you—not to hide yourself away.”

—Shallan Davar, Oathbringer (pg 1200)

 

Edited June 3, 2018 by Ashspren