#cause he really got his shit together in between WoR and OB and finally started openly admitting his faults

[elhokar-kholin]

so my friend got to the bit in words of radiance where moash reveals his whole backstory with elhokar and so i sort of went on a rant because i've got a lot of opinions on how it was handled in the book. this one bit puts me in such a weird position because i excuse a lot of elhokar's Stuff. like being an ass sometimes and being horribly undignified and having really poor decision making skills. like usually the book casts him on average in a slightly negative light, and i usually interpret his character in a positive one. but this is literally some combination of manslaughter through gross negligence and the gross violation of life and liberty by abuse of power, and i'm over here going nah nope thats not something excusable and im not going to try and frame that in a positive light. meanwhile the book is being doing literally everything to try and frame it as a non-issue and go for the Elhokar Is Innocent angle. the book does this weird move of trying to blame all of it on roshone??? like Listen i know elhokar has a small amount of braincells but it doesn't take a big brain to realize that maybe imprisoning someone without due process is deeply immoral. its just. sigh

and basically something that just makes me. 🙃. is that so much of these books is about redemption and owning up to what you did so that you can actually move on and resolve to do properly better and be a better person. but they just sweep this under the rug and they like to forget it happened or excuse it somehow. and its not even a case of 'oh those darkeyed silversmiths who?? never heard of them' cause literally dalinar knew exactly what kaladin was talking about from a super brief and vague description after 8 years or whatever (and he wasnt even there while it was going on) and called it "the roshone affair" like this was a whole ass INCIDENT that they know full well about. and dalinar says "I would really not rather speak of the Roshone Affair." like he Didn't Want To Talk About It. and i feel like it would have been better for the story and for elhokars character if he DID address that and reflect on it and go 'oh my god i committed this gross violation of liberty by taking away two peoples freedom and life through negligence and/or malicious intent' like having that realization. like it wouldnt have been the worst crime that the narrative has forgiven, given dalinar and all he did and went 'i did those things and i have to accept that i did them in order to call myself a better person now' but for elhokar's one way lesser thing (not saying that it wasnt horrible, because it was, just saying what dalinar did was so much worse) its just 'lets try and forget it ever happened and never properly address it'

#I JUST. I JUST. #ive got a lot of feelings about this and it Bugs me that theres not even a narrative Attempt to address it #like i care about elhokars character and i feel like doing that would have done good things for his character #i feel like he was on the path to hopefully do things like that by the time he died #cause he really got his shit together in between WoR and OB and finally started openly admitting his faults #and accounting for his faults #IM JUST REALLY ANNOYED THAT THAT WHOLE THING WAS CONSIDERED RESOLVED WHEN IT WASNT #he fucked up morally now make him own up to it #if this is incoherent Sorry its 12am #i gotta reblog the 0 days since post #anyway #the roshone affair #an ancient singer's name #uncle issues #my posts #bros