#also the “one block of respect”

[penwrythe]

What's stopping the possibility of a ceasefire is pretty simple. Hamas is holding 239 Israeli civilians hostage including children and the elderly. What's happening in Palestine is a travesty and horrendous. But Israel can't initiate a ceasefire from the position they're in, so we need to be agitating for Hamas to release the hostages and call for a ceasefire instead.

NO GENOCIDE IS JUSTIFIABLE

HOW DOES THE KILLING OF INNOCENT PEOPLE ON THIS EXTREME LEVEL FORCE HAMAS TO RETURN HOSTAGES??

ISRAEL'S BOMBARDMENT AND INDISCRIMINATE SHOOTING IN GAZA THREATEN EVERYONE THERE INCLUDING DOCTORS JOURNALISTS CHILDREN ENTIRE FAMILIES AND THE HOSTAGES

EVERYONE IS TARGETED

YOU HAVE HOSPITALS BOMBED HOW ANY OF THIS IS JUSTIFIED

@sarroora @fairuzfan @palipunk @wearenotjustnumbers2

You know more about this than I do.

[lucienne-thee-librarian]

Just to minimize my chances of being genuinely misunderstood OR deliberately misinterpreted, and crucified for something I don't think, How Dare You Say We Piss on the Poor website etc...I'm gonna say this right up top. I absolutely understand why people don't like Thessaly as a character, if anyone does completely unironically stan her as some kind of feminist hero who Did Nothing Wrong uwu, I personally see it as a bit of a red flag. I don't like terfs real or fictional. In a vacuum, I could even completely sympathize and agree with the people who want her cut.

HOWEVER.

It's really something to me to see people clamoring for her to be cut, because she carries and expressed an ugly indefensible prejudice (transphobia) in words towards (1) person. Meanwhile Hob fucking Gadling enacted one of the most violent forms of antiblack racism I can even think of against thousands no, millions of people, the ripple effects of which still affect billions more today. Just a little light idk, profiting off the fucking slave trade and had to be told by someone else that it was bad...and he's a fan favorite.

People are saying Thessally being Dream's love interest reflects badly on him or is somehow endorsement by the narrative (?!?!?!?!?!? Didn't she (SPOILER ALERT AS IF IT MATTERS BY NOW) help participate in his extended assisted suicide? She's not painted as a great person to me just another character what are y'all SMOKING whatever fine. It's fine this is fine.) But shipping Dream with Mr. Former Slaver is not only not verboten or frowned on widely in the fandom but its THEE most popular pairing by far. So...why the difference?

Like where are the same fans who are saying Thessaly shouldn't just be more clearly shown to be wrong, she shouldn't even be in the show at all when it comes to Hobert's crimes??? Yes, transphobia is indefensible. Isn't racism?

And I hear the cries of "it's fiction!!!" Already rallying (if anyone who needs to hear this even sees it lol) to which I say:

HORSESHIT. I KNOW you don't, deep down, really agree because if you did, why get upset about Thessaly being included??? Why does what she said to one person matter if it's Just Fiction You Guyze. Fictional characters are allowed to do bad things and fiction isn't reality sweaty....except when you only apply that standard to fictional racists you like and simp for, but fictional transphobes you don't are SO HARMFUL they shouldn't even be portrayed in fiction.

Like. Give me a big fat BREAK. This looks like bullshit, no? I'm sorry, but I'd love for someone to try and give any other explanation besides one personally offended you or hit home for you, and the other doesn't.

And if that bothers you or you feel like it says something negative about you...idk what you want me to say??? You can't control how other people perceive you and that's how people outside this majority-of-the-fandom bubble see it. You don't need to respond, I just wish and genuinely hope this gives you a moment to think about why fans who ARE bothered by both (and not just paying lip service to being bothered by the one but railing against the other) are so frustrated with people saying everyone is welcome but in practice only bending over backwards for the comfort and emotions of themselves, and people they can easily relate to.

You don't have to like Thessaly (I don't. I find her an interesting antagonist, I don't stan her. And frankly imo likability is not. the point of her character) but you'll pardon me for feeling more than a bit cynical and side eying people's motivations for what seems a...pretty obvious double standard, on what fictional crimes related to real world issues matter to y'all, and which clearly don't. Either actually bring the same energy to the table for fictional people who committed atrocities, even if against a group you're not part of and thus don't feel the need to empathize with, or just carry on, but accept that you don't have the SLIGHTEST room to talk about cutting characters who do immoral things. And you also need to accept that you look like a hypocrite when you do.

[ssaalexblake]

it’s also baffling to me that tumblr, home of the ‘why are white men Still being cast as the doctor’ for So many years now (For you know, like over a decade.) is somehow not appalled that they hired a white dude to be the next Doctor because look okay it’s okay if it’s This white man. 

I mean, I do not consent to acknowledge that they’ve shoved him in there under any circumstance, but my Only need for the casting of the next person was that it was Not a white man, otherwise i didn’t care who it was, so when they “announced” Gatwa I was satisfied (i am hesitant to say they announced it bc it was more like a tiny footnote than an announcement, oh the disrespect) and it took a whole seven days (it was literally seven days. Yes i counted. it was easy since it was only seven days) it was ‘actually sorry no it’s this white dude we’ve already had before did we forget to mention that???’ and it’s steadily gotten worse and worse. 

That This site of all places is not up in arms about both the situation and how it specifically played out is depressing, but also massively and darkly hilarious.  

Especially since i Also remember nobody on this site thought casting Whittaker was good enough but literally going backward to a previous white man is?? This is not even a metaphor about diversity getting worse, they literally looked backwards. 

But, yeah,  tenn/ant with the ‘what the future looks like’ headline is uh... Good???? Not super worrying and ominous? 

I feel like i’ve been dumped in some weird parallel universe by reactions to all of this on here like??? the whole way this was done was appalling, the situation is appalling, but i guess the bbc/disney should get a rousing round of applause for accurately judging that nobody would care about their poor actions if the specific white guy they cast was popular enough that next to nobody would care. 

( and to the ‘it’s an anniversary ep’ thing, they legit could have just set a couple of eps in the past. i don’t mean they travel to the past. i mean just say ‘hey this ep is set during s4!’ and nobody would care. this show does weirder stuff than this every second episode. and it would still be bad, but how they did it is so much Worse.)

[biohazard-inevitable]

Yamato is so trangenner i love that for him

[deoidesign]

just wanted to say that I absolutely LOVE your comic I am so inspired by it and it’s so lovely and I wanna buy the physical books (I’ve never done that before) I just AUGGHHH EVERYTHING ABOUT IT IS SO 💙💙💙

do you allow fanart? And is there anything not allowed? I wanna draw adam and steve so bad 😭

Of course it's allowed! Fanart fanfic fan music fan dubs whatever!

I like to think I'm sort of "building a playground" when I make a story, have fun on it! I made it for you!

In my general opinion, it's not my business what my "fandom" does... It's on you and also me to curate our own spaces! If you're inspired by my work in any way, that's the greatest honor I could imagine and I want you to feel fully free to explore that. If someone is being weird, I know where the block button is and they can keep being weird where I don't have to see it haha

Just don't like... sell it... it's messy legally with webtoon and I'm one person making the story and it's my whole income so the few sales I get are kind of huge for me ;_;

[queenofmalkier]

I just have to say, there's constructive discussion about what the show isn't getting right and then there's attacking people who are still enjoying it for what it is, more or less labeling them as bad fans or not "true" fans.

(And then getting mad when people call out what you're doing.)

[svtskneecaps]

you know what i'll say it MIKE AND ROIER ARE THE ONLY ONES I RESPECT these fuckers will rock up and say FUCK english all my homies HATE english they are the only ones i trust and respect these fuckers are like you will hear me speak my language and you will LEARN IT OR DIE and i respect the HELL OUT OF IT dude THANK YOU FOR BEING ENGLISH HATERS brothers THANK YOU FOR NOT SPEAKING ONLY ENGLISH WHEN AMONG ANYONE NOT OF YOUR LANGUAGE GROUP!!!!!!!!

[jubmato]

quick 50mins xenrey RAH........ im not a terribly huge fan of how it turned out but im trying to post more often so. blehhgh 😝

[sadaveniren]

.

[actual-corpse]

Saw a YT vid with the title, "Fandom Can't Handle Asexuality"

You're right, they can't... Because it doesn't fucking exist to them.

[monstersinthecosmos]

not for anything but friendly reminder that ~fandom discourse~ about where women belong (or people you perceive as women) is misogynistic as fuck. or what they're allowed to say, or what they're allowed to write about, or what they're allowed to enjoy.

next time you see someone having a tantrum and vaguing, especially if their posts from week to week completely contradict each other, perhaps analyze if the common denominator is "a gross woman said something and now i'm mad" without otherwise adhering to any actual principles.

[autisticlee]

sometimes people who struggle like to make jokes or find positives about their condition that causes them to struggle so they can escape the constant negative and struggle. sometimes autistic people will say things like "the 'tism" or use the "autism creature" or say their autism helped them have a *positive trait* to feel better about their struggles. because living your life only focusing on the struggles and negatives is depressing and makes it hard to want to live, even if those struggle take up 100% of your life and you can't actually escape them. sometimes any little seemingly positive thing can help a lot.

but there's so many other autistic people that hate when we do that and call it "reducing autism to a cute trendy thing" and say it takes away from *their* struggles and is bad and shouldn't be used. maybe *you* want to only focus on your struggles, but some people can't live in constant negative and need some positive or to find ways to make their condition more positive so they can feel better about living with their struggles. life is hard. I take anything I can get.

I cant get jobs. I can't make and keep friends. I can't get help and support for doing "normal" things so sometimes I go weeks without being able to shower and without eating more than a bowl of cereal a day. most times can't even do things I like. struggle to communicate. have meltdowns. i'll never be able to live independently. I struggle a lot. but instead of sitting here always depressed and having no motivation to live, i'd rather try to joke about "my 'tism is acting up again" when i'm struggling (just an example. don't think I ever actually used the 'tism thing but i saw others use it) or say "i'm just being a creature" when I need to stay in my dark room because everything is too much and I personally find it cute to be a little creature meant in a positive way. i'm not actually downplaying mine or anyone else's struggles. I still acknowledge them and that silly jokes dont make them go away. i'm not trying to be trendy. i'm not doing any of the things people say we do by making silly little jokes. i'm using the silly little jokes to convince myself life can be a little more than pointless, painful garbage all the time.

(continue in tags)

[alaskan-wallflower]

i think it’s funny i’m the one people send brody hate to lol like okayy

[naomiknight-17]

Interacted with a blog via one of my side blogs then looked at their DNI and it was several paragraphs like

"If you ship ANYTHING, DNI. If you post NSFW/NSFT in any main tags, DNI. If I think you're problematic in any way DNI"

And they didn't elaborate on the last one

Honey. What does that mean

I'm a big fat loud queer with a history of making NSFW art including stuff some would deem problematic. I don't shy away from politics. How am I supposed to know what you think is problematic? Maybe you're fine with people like me and maybe you're not!?!?

But all you've seen of me is my cat blog so. My cats are not problematic (except when they get into the recycling bin or similar shenanigans) so I guess you're just gonna have to deal with me

[basket-of-radiants]

Proposal for Re-working the Kholins’ Character Arcs - a semi-coherent “essay” by me (feat. @akpaley​, thank you for your contributions and for your attempts at editing.)

Hey guys. Different kind of post this time around, compared to my usual brand. It’s time for some fix-it fanfiction masquerading as literary critique. I won’t be using a readmore, I dunno, probably to punish anyone still following this blog or something. So! In this post I’m going to solve the all the issues of racial theming associated with the Kholin family.

I’m often very harsh on the Kholins for benefitting so much from exploitative power structures while doing little to help those below them. But then I’ve also criticized them for actually addressing these very problems in-universe. How can I be upset at them for their inaction and then also be annoyed when Jasnah ends slavery? The short answer to all of this is just that the ways these topics are addressed all feel very inauthentic. For example, in real life history it took over a century of protests, slave revolts, political campaigning, and civil wars to legally end slavery in Europe and America, and abolitionists were met with fierce opposition at every turn. A fictional world need not follow our same historical trajectory, but it still seems a little disingenuous for a monarch to just decide to end it within her first year of power because it doesn’t mesh with her philosophical framework. It’s more like trying to wrap up a subplot than actually address the topic.

Ultimately however, there’s only so far this line of criticism can ever take me because the Kholins are the protagonists and you can’t get rid of them without turning the whole story into something else entirely. And Sanderson shouldn’t have to, these are characters that he created and he’s allowed to tell a story about them. And I actually like a lot of their personalities and arcs and outlooks quite a lot. I do think it’s...unfortunate...to have used slavery and racism as disposable props in a story that ultimately turned out to be about a bunch of royals learning to be better people and saving the world along the way. So I guess what I’m interested in is if there’s a way to keep the premise, keep the characters, keep the general story beats, keep the themes of honor and personal growth, keep the basic structure of everything, and still handle those themes with grace. You know, could this be a compassionate story about addressing racism told from the point of view of nobility? Is such a thing possible?

Well, I’m going to try my best. And I’m going to be imperfect about it, obviously, so if you actually care enough to read all this shit, I welcome discussion and disagreement. 

Jasnah is the most obvious example to point to as being indicative of the problem, but I also think she has the easiest character fixes. She’s already been established as an outspoken dissident on many of her society’s deeply ingrained values. Just add to her atheism and feminism that she’s also always been an outspoken abolitionist. Give her ties to an ongoing reformist movement. Have her lecture Shallan about it in Way of Kings. Make that a reason she’s butted heads with her family so much. I do think it’s poor writing to have a ruler end slavery on a whim, but I won’t deny that having the right person in power can make a huge difference. It’s not as cathartic as having Kaladin lead a slave revolt (or as having Moash destroy society <3) but that doesn’t make it inherently bad so long as the topic itself is still treated with weight. Have her moralistic ideology be firmly pre-established so that when she has to explain why she’s abolishing slavery, her reasoning can be purely pragmatic. The reason she’s moving so fast is because this is a historical point of heightened change, and so her reforms are more likely to work, but if she waits too long and things settle back into a new status quo, she may have missed her window. Not to mention, when her nephew comes of age, her own legitimacy as a ruler might be challenged, so she needs to do as much as she can in what may be end up being a short reign. As a character, Jasnah has always been able to girlboss her way past political realities through sheer force of personality, and that’s great and all, but I think it heightens her character’s competence if she does have to deal with real backlash, not just to her but to her policies as well. The narrative doesn’t even need to linger on her opposition, but acknowledging it and acknowledging that she’s simply a member of a preexisting and ongoing movement would have done wonders to portray slavery as a real and prescient issue. Then again, this is a topic which people have fought and continue to fight wars over, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to have receive major backlash either; perhaps when the Kholins hear in Words of Radiance that she was assassinated, the news could come as tragic but not entirely unexpected so as to imply that her opposition has attempted such in the past. All this is to say, I don’t think it’s at all wrong for Jasnah to do what she did. I also don’t think her entire stance on abolitionism should have come down to a comment where she tells her uncle she’s trying to rule according to ethically consistent values. The fact that slavery was insultingly easy to end not only delegitimizes is as a topic worthy of discussion, but also is a really scathing indictment of literally everyone else in the ruling class who didn’t even think to try.

Jasnah done, easy, Dalinar next.

Dalinar is probably the most complicated character for me to discuss and form coherent statements on. He’s just so rife with contradictions down to his core. That’s probably why I continue to like him so much, why he’s still my favorite, even though I still consider him to be a Bad Person over all. I think deep down I’ll always lean a bit too pacifistic ideologically to ever consider a warlord/general to be a good person, no matter how honorable he may be or how much growth he may undergo. Don’t get me wrong, I still do love his growth. Dalinar is characterized by his constant change and forward momentum, even moreso than the rest of the cast. So for discussing him, at what point can I point to him and say “this is Dalinar, this is who he is, this is what he believes and what he cares about”? Of course, during any point in his arc, you’re going to have to grapple with the fact that all of his lofty rhetoric about honor and striving for personal betterment is ultimately going to be pretty useless to all the people whose lives he’s meaninglessly thrown away across his military career. For me personally, when I talk about his character I like to take the end-of-oathbringer approach, where I acknowledge everything he did in the past as Blackthorn, I agree that it was pretty fucked up, and I forgive him and grant him a clean slate. All this to say that even if I’m judging him purely by his behavior as the current Dalinar within the present day continuity of the books, he’s still a massive hypocrite with horrific amounts of blood on his hands which he’s never even bothered to consider. I dunno, when I first read Way of Kings and I first got to meet this general who’s leading an army in a literal genocide campaign, I sort of figured he’d get some kind of “wait am I the bad guy” moment at some point in the future. And he did get a moment in Oathbringer where he has to fully confront his guilt over past actions, it was great, I really really loved it! But it was also all about actions he took before the series even started, so I guess wiping out the listeners wasn’t a sin he thought needed any atonement. I’m not going to get into the narrative’s treatment of singers and listeners on this post (for no other reason than because I have waaaaaaay too much to say there) but the point I’m getting at is that however good Dalinar’s growth is and whatever direction it takes, it’s always going to have poisonous roots to me. And his treatment of class/racial issues is no different. 

Fixing Dalinar is going to take a lot of what Dalinar does best: introspection. In Way of Kings, Dalinar dislikes how Sadeas treats his bridgemen because he believes it to be dishonorable, because he believes Sadeas is forcing others into a situation that he himself would never put himself into. He also has various sympathetic reflections here and there about how sad it is when soldiers die, and about how without the benefit of the Thrill, violence is actually kind of bad. You know how it goes. But I don’t think he ever put himself at risk to actually help or protect any of the people who are dying. Whether he wants to end the war or not, he still continues to participate in it. And he’s still willing to set aside the lives of literally everyone beneath him so he can pursue his dream of unity. The book ends with Kaladin and the rest of bridge four saving him and Adolin, and in gratitude, he purchases their freedom and gives them honored positions in his household. You know, because he’s so honorable. Everyone loves this scene, so I’m going to make it the catalyst for Dalinar’s new and improved character development. The problem with saying Kaladin helped Dalinar so Dalinar helped Kaladin is that when I’m being reductive and uncharitable (like I’m being right now), I can argue that their relationship basically started as a quid pro quo. This scene is meant to prove that Dalinar really is the most honorable person in Alethkar, just as Syl thought, only it doesn’t actually do that. See I don’t actually want Dalinar to start treating Kaladin as an equal. I want Dalinar to, in that moment, realize that Kaladin is better than him. That for all of his pontificating about honor, he would have never even considered risking his own life and the lives of his own family to rescue a bunch of bridgemen. I want him to see Kaladin’s honor, and rather than be validated in his beliefs, I want him to be thoroughly humbled. Let him spend all next book reflecting on all the lives of darkeyes he’s destroyed. Let it shame him, as Evi’s death shamed him. He already flirts with these lines of thought, and he already has an arc about confronting his past actions. Let the racial injustices he’s participated in be a part of that. Let him abandon his books and traditions instead look to Kaladin to learn what honor truly means. I don’t know how any of this would translate to his actions, because if we’re being honest his ideals are already quite incongruous with his actions, but the fact that he manages to have such strong theming regardless makes me think maybe that’s okay. I guess ultimately it would be enough for me if his character, as someone who symbolizes the ideals of a nation, was able to look at a darkeyes publicly be a follower rather than always trying to lead by his own personal example.

That’s Dalinar. Elhokar next?

I actually don’t think there’s too much wrong with Elhokar’s writing, especially in the first two books where a much greater emphasis on these themes were placed. He’s not a protagonist and we the audience aren’t supposed to endorse his actions. Most of what I’d change about his story is more about Kaladin and Moash than it is about him. I definitely don’t love that he can throw away the lives of his own people by the thousands in the genocide campaign that was the vengeance war, and then have the narrative just ignore all that in favor of him being sad about his own incompetence. If Elhokar is meant to be a sympathetic character, then when he calls himself a bad king, that’s what he should be thinking about, the number of lives he’s wasted over these years. I actually like him a lot more as a less sympathetic character, and I think I would have preferred if in oathbringer the narrative and the other characters would have stopped making so many excuses for him. Back to Kaladin and Moash, those are the two characters defined by their experiences as members of the downtrodden caste, so I personally sort of judge the problematic-ness of the whole story by how they get treated. Everyone loves to talk about how those two are foils. So. In order to strengthen Kaladin and Moash’s characters, either Elhokar needs to be as much of a monster as Amaram, or Amaram needs to be just as sympathetic and conflicted and having-of-a-toddler as Elhokar. Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love the trope of finding at the end of a revenge quest that the person you hated has changed and grown. But I hate how this means that Moash’s hatred is wrong and unjustified, whereas Kaladin’s is validated at every turn. I don’t actually dislike Elhokar. I mean I think he’s a bad person, but I like a lot of characters who are bad people. I just think that if this story really wants to grapple with class and race (because it sure brings them up a lot for a story that doesn't want to talk about them), then Moash is a much more important character than him, with a lot more to add to that kind of discussion, which is why I think Elhokar’s characterization would have to come second to Moash’s development. (Obviously if this series were being reworked to be better on this topic, Moash would have to be written with a lot more compassion in general, but this post isn’t about him.)

Intermission time. Gavilar.

Gavilar is already perfect, 10/10, great character all around, what a guy, no notes, no wonder he’s so universally beloved among all of the fans, social justice icon.

Okay onto Navani.

I may not be the best person to talk about Navani. She has never been a favorite character of mine, and so compared to the others I haven’t thought as much about her values or the way she thinks or the narrative impacts of her actions. Someone who has more love for her would probably write better criticisms of her. (I’m going to reject any premise that falls along the lines of “Navani isn’t racist because she feels X,” but I’m not wholly confident in my analysis here, and I welcome any good faith critiques both of my own thinking and of her character when come at from other angles.) It’s hard to say where she should have grown from how she starts out viewing darkeyes because I don’t actually know how she starts out viewing darkeyes. I know I’m probably meant to assume she just treats everyone equally because she’s a Good Person on Team Good Guys, but it’s hard to just accept that she had all around good values when she married a warlord and was in love with his more violent brother. I dunno, was her “good guy” status meant to have always been an element of her character, or did she get it secondhand from her association with the new and improved Dalinar? With someone like Adolin, we got to see what shitty values he held at the start of Way of Kings (I’m talking about the Alethi warmongering, not his interest in fashion) but we also got to see how his father gradually won him over throughout the course of the book, and then later on we get to see him develop further on his own. For someone like Navani, I find it strange how she’s always so proactively supportive of Dalinar in everything, even when his own goals and values are in flux. I assume her character is just meant to be super ride or die when it comes to her family, and I do like that in a character, but that also means that she’s been wholly willing to support or at the very least excuse her family’s oppression and exploitation of darkeyes without comment. (See, Lirin is a much better parent than Navani, he would never have let his son start a whole genocidal vengeance war for fun and profit (I say this as if I’m joking but I’m kinda not.)) Some people have reminded me that she was pretty much shut out of the political process by Gavilar and Elhokar, and I agree with that, but I don’t really have any evidence that she would have cared much about darkeyes even if she had been more involved. In general it just seems like the whole topic doesn’t matter much to her. So what I would wish for the narrative would be to lean further into this. Draw attention to her cognitive dissonance and try and make the readers feel conflicted about her as a person. Highlight the fact that she’s willing to overlook the suffering that befalls other families if it means success for her own. I think one of my issues with her is that to me, this is a major (and interesting!) character flaw, but the books never seem to treat it as such. Honestly I think if this were intentional, I’d probably find her character really interesting, but from my reading of the text, I feel that I’m supposed to think of Navani as a generally decent person who’s by and large on the right side of things. The thing is, with the caste system playing such an integral role in their culture, I think she needs to have some sort of feelings about it, or else the fact that she doesn’t should be an issue to overcome. Otherwise she becomes another factor delegitimizing racial oppression as a real and important problem. If she’s a good guy and she doesn’t care about racism, then that’s saying you don’t have to be antiracist to be a good person in this world. 

Probably could have done that one better. I dunno. Leave me angry and hateful comments if I’m totally misrepresenting your favorite character. Moving on.

Adolin already has some great character development across the books. And he already has kind of engaged with this stuff in his story. Unfortunately, that’s less used in the “this person was racist but is becoming better sense” and more used in the sense of “Kaladin learns that #NotAllLighteyes are bad” which is pretty unfortunate for a number of reasons. Especially since, if he actually was going to prove he’s different from other lighteyes, out of all the Kholins I think Adolin is the best candidate for being a full on class traitor. I’m serious, looking back over the events of his plotlines, it would suit him shockingly well while disturbing the overall narrative shockingly little.

Adolin’s current plot is loosely as follows: in Way of Kings he likes all the things someone of his station is supposed to like, clothes, violence, dueling, warfare, swords, hangtime with the guys, all the good stuff. At the beginning of the book he doesn’t understand why old, stuck-up Dalinar can’t just let loose and be a relelntless war-monger like everyone else, but by the end of the book he’s come to understand a certain value to honor and thus has begun to become a better person himself. Words of Radiance has him lose his popularity, fall out of favor with all of his friends, grow disillusioned with his society, perform a prison sit-in in solidarity with Kaladin, and murder Sadeas. Most of this is done again, because of his father, and how Adolin now wants to help and support him and his ideals. In Oathbringer he mostly isn’t involved in courtly politics, being away on a mission for much of it, but he does make a pretty big move by rejecting the throne. In Rhythm of War we see the schism that’s formed between him and his father until he leaves on another long-distance mission. Summary over. In general I reject the idea that making the Kholins be individually less racist makes for a better, or more nuanced and compassionate discussion of the topic, but if anyone is primed for a “lighteyes learns racism is wrong” character arc, I think it’s Adolin. Imagine him following a bit less in Dalinar’s footsteps and a bit more in Jasnah’s. You almost don’t even have to change any story beats: in getting to know Kaladin, something clicks in Adolin where he realizes that if he wants to treat Kaladin as his equal, he has to treat all darkeyes as equals, and so he realizes to his horror that he and his entire caste of friends and family are all monsters for treating them the way they do. (Actually, there is one plotline in WoR I’d probably scrap, and that’s his slowburn bromance with Kaladin. I mean I get what Sanderson was going for with the ribbing and then eventual friendship, but Kaladin was an absolute stranger who risked his own life to save Adolin and his father from certain death, and so I feel there should probably have been a bit more overt respect upfront there.) In pushing for his newfound belief in equality, he ends up burning through all of his intracaste goodwill and political capital, causing all of his friends to drop him. When he kills Sadeas, it doesn’t have to be about protecting Dalinar or about personal revenge, it could also be that he’s gotten to know Bridge 4 and learned firsthand about the atrocities they’d gone through, and so there’s no way he’d allow such a pioneer of human rights violations to stay in power. In the following books, maybe he’s become so politically toxic due to challenging the very foundations of his own power, his own family has to send him away on missions so he can’t rock the boat too much at home. Maybe refusing the throne was more of a political statement than a personal one, because he’s come to understand that being a ruler means oppressing thousands of others. Maybe this is another form of hypocrisy he criticizes Dalinar for, how Dalinar might claim to value darkeyes but how he still retains power bought with thousands of their corpses. None of this has to modify actual events very much, it just affects the reasons for them. And it would also meaningfully show why he gets to be a “good lighteyes” if he actually engaged with his status and rejected it, knowing it comes at the expense of others.

Okay, enough about that. Renarin maybe?

I won’t say too much about Renarin here, because I’d probably just end up repeating a lot of the same criticisms of how he’s used as a “good lighteyes.” From a narrative standpoint, all those criticisms hold for him as well. You know, he wants to join Bridge Four, and future-villain Moash doesn’t like the idea because he doesn’t trust lighteyes, but Kaladin reassures him that Renarin is a good boy, so don’t worry about it, and everything works out fine in the end, proving that lighteyes are good people just like you and me. This isn’t a problem with him as a person or character, it’s just more of that general theme of “the caste system is fine so long as nice people are at the top” which I clearly think should be interrogated. Thus far, in contrast to the rest of his family, Renarin is very young and has had much less of a political presence, not to mention fewer POV chapters anyway, so I think delving too much deeper here will feel a bit hollow to me.

Does Shallan count as a Kholin? I’d like to talk about her super briefly.

Unpopular opinion, but I actually think Shallan is one of the better characters on the topic of race insofar as how she’s written, especially compared to the other Kholins. But wait, I hear you say, what about all of her dozens of instances of casual racism? Yes, that’s what I’m referring to. I like how Shallan demonstrates how ingrained these harmful ideologies are in their society. I like how every time she has a distasteful thought, we the audience are reminded that racism still exists and even good people will continue to promote it if they don’t view it critically. I like that Shallan is problematic, because their society has problems! At least with her it doesn’t feel like the story’s trying to sweep the fact under the rug. There are plenty of issues with her writing, plenty of jabs at Kaladin that probably shouldn’t have been treated as cute. She’s actually the main character whose racism and classism I see criticized the most. And I think that’s a good thing! My issue with the Kholins isn’t that I think they should all be less racist, my issue is that their positions are inherently oppressive, and it seems as though the narrative doesn’t think that matters so long as deep down they’re good people. When people critique Shallan in specific instances, I tend to see a fair amount of consensus and agreement there, but when I critique the Kholins people will argue with me by pointing out that Dalinar/Adolin/Navani/whoever actually treats darkeyes as equals, so my arguments are invalid. Purely my own anecdotal experience of course, but it tends to make me think that there’s something in Shallan’s writing that’s working right, something that isn’t working for the other lighteyed characters.

Now obviously with all of this, I’m not saying I want these books to have more racism in them. What I’m arguing is that if the books are going to explore the topic (which they do) then they should treat the topic with an appropriate amount of gravity rather than acting as if it can be solved by having aristocrats become nicer people.

If you’re still here with me, thank you for reading, I love you, I hope you enjoyed yourself through my descent further and further into rambly nonsense. If you just scrolled to the bottom, that’s fair enough, there won't be a tl;dr but you’re welcome for filling your dash with massive text blocks.

[theshadowrealmitself]

*really late at night/early morning*

Brain: Hey, I know you’re exhausted, but for the first time in forever I’m gonna make you feel inspired to write a story, I’m also gonna give you a really good outline of how the story goes and how it ends, which you usually have trouble with

Me: But-

Brain: Oh I know, you’re not gonna be able to do it tonight, you’re also gonna lose that motivation to do it when you wake up, this is just to fuck with you rn while you try to sleep :3c