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kyerinell · 4 years

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Moash

Sorry everyone, I haven’t slept in a while, I’m stressed, and I was thinking of Moash because of the other post. So let’s have a rant!

This will contain spoilers for Words of Radiance and Oathbringer.

So I have a lot of reasons I dislike Moash. I understand that he’s a literary foil of Kaladin, I understand that he’s the dark mirror. But I think too many of us have been told for too long that morality is grey and anti-heros are okay too if they mean well or some such nonsense. So here’s a (probably in-exhaustive but i tried) list of why I despise Moash.

He makes the choice to stay with Bridge 4, but then betrays them for vengeance, while trying to pretend he hasn’t. Even in Oathbringer, after he’s betrayed their purpose, his thought wasn’t about how he had left that fellowship, but about how they’d exclude him and judge him for that choice. His fear is Kaladin telling them he betrayed their mission.

He blatantly ignores the contradiction in his own words in the Chasms, when Sigzil points out that abuses will happen, just to different people, he says they won’t, but moments before had talked about how he’d have lighteyes slave in the mines and run bridges. It isn’t about fairness to him, or about justice, it’s always about getting back at them.

He flat out lies to Kaladin, multiple times. He gave his word to Kaladin then betrayed it within days (about the meeting). He holds other people to standards he himself doesn’t strive for. When he gets his shards, he leaves the barracks immediately, taking advantage of his privilege eagerly, then when he sees Kaladin swears he’s “not one of them”. It’s another case where he seems eager to take advantage but not responsibility.

He betrays confidence in his tasks. He served on the King’s Guard without raising his concerns or history. If it had been a lie from the beginning, something he’d sought as a step towards vengeance, I could accept that as a duplicitious but understandable action. However, he swore to defend and protect, and when the purview increased to the family of the man he’d sworn to defend, he betrayed that. He didn’t bring up the truth. He betrayed oaths he’d taken in at least the semblance of honesty for convenient revenge.

He continues to take the path of the coward. In the meeting with Graves, Graves says he realizes it was cowardly to seek the death of the king in a way that seems accidental. In the context of Alethi society, this seems fairly clear. More importantly, though, after he gains his shards he still insists on this cowardice. He could have left. He was given lands, and more importantly, standing. He could have done things legitimately. He could have filed a grievance. He could have challenged Elhokar to a duel, made an accusation. With the new rights and the clearly ignored rights in the Roshone affair, he might have been able to find justice that way. He never even pursued it.

In Oathbringer, he saw how broken people were. He knew Kaladin was, too. He’d seen the wretch, seen Kaladin broken. He watched Bridge 4, then the other crews be reforged. Yet when confronted by the brokenness of others, of people who weren’t able to fight back, he did nothing. He ignored the mother with children, when he could have easily went back into that tent and grabbed the food being ignored within. His response to seeing that others were broken was to use that to absolve himself.

Even later, in his defining good action, it was about avoiding responsibility. When he confronted the Singers who were mistreating the crew of “traitors”, he said it himself “you have to be better”. He always pushes it onto other people. He thinks it was just Kaladin who saved Bridge 4.

In WoR, he doubts Kaladin can bring back the other bridge crews, saying it’s different than Bridge 4 due to the scale. He fundamentally misunderstands that in an organization of a thousand people, the people are more important than the thousand. But that’s just something that gets under my skin.

In WoK, he idolizes Dalinar so he can hate Sadeas more. In WoR, he despises Dalinar so he can justify his hate of Elhokar. He hates Kaladin until Kaladin gives him an actual chance. And then he chooses to kill Kaladin. He views people purely by what he can get from them. Even Graves. In WoR, he sings praises, in Oathbringer he despises the man. In his WoR confrontation with Kaladin, he says he guesses he wouldn’t want Kaladin to back down. Even in this, Moash pushes responsibility onto others. He’s chosen to ignore what is right, but he needs someone to represent that ideal to him still. So he chooses to kill the man that just weeks (days?) before he had sworn would “always be my captain”.

I don’t hate Moash just because he’s motivated by vengeance. I hate him because even when he’s given chances to seek more, or even to use more even methods to seek that vengeance, he ignores them. I hate Moash because he kicks aside a crying toddler to kill a man. I hate Moash because he hates so freely he willingly blinds himself. I hate Moash because he refuses to be held accountable for his choices. I hate Moash because even when he tried to protect someone, it was about not about what was right or about the person to protect, but as a way to protect his worldview. Crem I hate that line. I hate Moash because he’s a crem-covered eel.

Okay, that’s all for now. If i remember more i might add to it, but that’s a start.

#Stormlight #why I hate #Moash

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