#struggling single father of thirty-five -kaladin stormblessed 🥴

[currymanganese]

The Way of Kings' Bridge Four dynamic is so funny to me - thirty to forty of the most grizzled and downtrodden men you can possibly imagine, enslaved and depression sleeping in a rank, gloomy barrack in the wee hours of the morning on a Saturday...Not knowing when they'll once again be relentlessly driven and marched to their inevitable deaths..............

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

And some nineteen year old kid (who was just as hopeless and suicidal as the rest of them a minute ago) storms in subliminally BLASTING the Alethi equivalent of "No Longer Slaves", Yolanda Adam's "Be Blessed", Jekalyn Carr's "You Will Win" and SINACH's "Way Maker"at MAXIMUM volume-

-he turns on the lights, throws open the door telling them it's time to get up and BATHE and clean and exercise and I'll get you a nice stew for dinner tonight! He frantically promises to keep them all alive (because he's staked his life and self-worth to theirs and if they don't make it he'll REALLY fling himself of a cliff this time!!!) and he alternates between all forms of wheedling and outright bullying and threathening these men who are his elders to comply. He fakes his smiles and laughs with them hoping to coax genuine versions out of his "charges", and racks his brain worrying about where he'll get the money to feed all of them, and how in the Stormfather's name will he actually follow through on his outlandish desire to save them? And you know what? LO and BEHOLD, against all odds, as extremely pissed as he makes them feel- that shit actually, deliciously, works (eventually)! So now they have no choice but to wholeheartedly love and cherish this crazy (and still deeply miserable and depressed) guy.

Lirin and Hesina may never be able to see it plainly after all he's done and been through, but Kaladin really is their son in all the best possible ways. Only their son could successfully parent and discipline and browbeat and encourage and uplift a whole barrack full of 'dead-on-the-inside' men. 😭