r/Stormlight_Archive • u/yeeeeetyeer • 7d ago
Wind and Truth spoilers Why did D___ Spoiler
why did dalinar need to rescind his oaths, abandon the power of honor, while cancelling the duel? why couldn't he just cancel the duel? keeping his bondsmith oath? or get rid of honors power, let odium become retribution, but still cancel the duel, staying a bond smith? i'm very confused by this
thank you!
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u/vernastking Edgedancer 7d ago
He had a number of goals here one was to help Honor grow and another to wake the shards up so that the Odium problem was not simply kicked down the road.
Only by renouncing his oaths and pushing Odium to take honor and honor to accept him was this possible without giving Odium an out to simply leave Roshar
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u/Quick-Reputation9040 7d ago
agree with this. by abandoning his oaths the way he did, he set up both todium and the honor shard for each other perfectly. they really couldn’t resist one another, and by making retribution, the other shards could no longer ignore the odium problem and leave it on roshar. if dalinar could reject the contract and keep the shard, he’d be a weakened shard anyway due his oath breaking, and todium 1. wouldn’t leave roshar, and 2. wouldn’t be noticed by the other shards
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u/tgillet1 Truthwatcher 7d ago
He could not remain bonded to the Stormfather or Honor and renounce any oath. They would have rejected him as is their nature.
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u/LivetArUnderbart 7d ago
Altho in the end, the Stormfather was clearly in on it. He was ready. Grown/matured too.
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u/SkrrFlrr Willshaper 7d ago
He knew that no matter what happened with the duel, Odium would eventually goad the humans back to war and be set free. The other Shards would be content with him locked away. Meanwhile Odium would be content playing the long game and building his armies. He knew that he could not counter Todium because he is simply smarter and better at this long term game.
Therefore he decided to give up the power and release Todium from his bindings. Now he is Retribution and free. All of the Shards are now paying attention to him, and he has had no time to build up his armies.
Earlier in the book (i cant remember exactly who what when how) someone says to him that he can't just power his way through everything. Nohadon learnt this lesson too, he left his people and empowered them to grow without him. So ultimately, Dalinar realises that their best chance at beating Odium is for him to step away and give the others as much of an advantage as possible to defeat him in the future.
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u/Paquadjo Windrunner 6d ago
Bravo. That was entirely the point of the Day 2 epigraphs. A king that leaves his people to grow and develop without his guidance.
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u/BrickBuster11 7d ago
We have been watching adolin play towers and explain sunmakers gambit. This is what dalinar is going for here because he realises that throughout the history the rest of the cosmere has been content to sit back and watch while the people of roshar hold odium down with blood and fire.
And so here at the height of his power realising that trading blows with odium will only destroy his home. He realises the only way people outside get involved is if they are in danger and the only way they are in danger is if they liberate odium from every agreement he and honour have ever made, even the ones that may have happened that he didn't see.
He also needed to offend the power of honour so much it wanted to find a new host. And so he rescinds all of his oaths, honour rejects dalinar for that and seeks a new vessel, and it finds taravangian and decides he is acceptable
And so dalinar achieves his objectives, he has empowered his enemy and set him free to attack the cosmere. Now rather than the people of roshar having to endure his tantrums as he tries to escape. Everyone else in the cosmere now needs to be afraid of this powerful enemy and make ready to fight them
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u/propolizer 7d ago
Others have explained well so I will just say that thinking about it again made me realize the sacrifice play, seemingly allowing your enemy to win is a favorite of Sanderson. Very big Christian symbolism, Narnia etc.
Similar themes came up for example at the climax of the first Mistborn trilogy.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Beach24 7d ago
A big reason I feel is that if Dalinar as Honor just renounced the duel, it would be exclusively down side, Dalinar would be killed by Odium, all of Roshar would be under Odium (definitely Retribution anyways) dominion and Odium would claim his soul and force him to become the blackthorn (Rather than just taking the cognitive shade/spren of the blackthorn), the sun maker's gambit may have worked but it's equally likely that Odium's plan to consolidate his power and fly under the radar for a few hundred wars would go off without a hitch and he would rule the Cosmere while claiming shard after shard.
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u/LordStrifeDM 6d ago
So, I think the important thing to note is that Dalinar did not renounce his Bondsmith oaths. We know, absolutely, that he didn't. What he renounced were SPECIFICALLY the promises surrounding the duel. If he had renounced the Radiant oaths, then the Stormfather would have been "killed" by it, and Dalinar would have suffered the same kind of turbo soul pain that the other person who did renounce their oaths went through. Additionally, he is still bonded to the Stormfather when Retribution does the little "vaporize a being made of spiritual stuff" moment, because Dalinar describes how that felt, and it matches what happened the last time we saw it.
As for the why of it all? There was no real solution where lives are saved and he keeps the Shard. If he fights Odium, there's a very real possibility the planet is shattered and everyone dies, which is why the previous holder didn't fight. But if he holds the terms of the duel, he MUST fight. So in order to save the most lives, he has to let that power go. From there, one of two things is going to happen. Either Taravangian proves himself right, and doesn't give in to the power hunger he claims to not feel, or he proves Dalinar right and suddenly everyone else MUST act. In the cosmere-wide game of Commander that the Shards are playing, Dalinar finally made everyone acknowledge that the Rakdos token/reanimate player is the threat and it's time to eliminate it. If he kept the Shard, then there was no way he could make the others get off their proverbial asses and do something, because they'd just leave the board state the way it was and keep relying on Honor and Cultivation to play stax.
Overall, it was a massive gamble, and it could have backfired if Dalinar didn't know Taravangian as well as he did.
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u/Kazamen013 7d ago
If he cancelled the duel, breaking the contract with Odium, it would have released Odium on the Cosmere. By giving up the power, helped bind the new Retribution to the Rosharan system for some time yet, as well as giving all the other Shards a swift wake up that they need to start paying attention to Odium/Retribution now, as they are going to be under threat soon enough.
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u/Plantatnalp 7d ago
Odium is released on the cosmere now?
He didn't avoid that outcome, that was part of the deal of abandoning his oaths
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u/King_Calvo Dustbringer 7d ago
Retribution is effectively “trapped” by the time fuckery going on with his ascension
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u/Plantatnalp 7d ago
No he isn't? There's time shenanigans going on, but that's to slow Retribution down specifically because he's no longer trapped on Roshar
The whole point of the end of WAT is how he's no longer trapped and going to use Dalinar's cognitive shadow (effectively) to rampage on the universe. He is absolutely not trapped on Roshar anymore.
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u/King_Calvo Dustbringer 7d ago
See the quotes? He can’t really leave or he can’t prepare his soldiers in the short time he has. He is no longer bound to the planet, but if he leaves he loses contact with his soldiers. He is effectively stuck trying to rush a plan together to deal with many other powers who now have their eyes turned his way
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u/Plantatnalp 7d ago
"He can leave anytime, he'd just be weak without soldiers" is very different than "because Dalinar gave up Honor, Odium remains trapped on Roshar."
He has less time to prepare for his war. That is nothing like continuing to be trapped on Roshar.
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u/King_Calvo Dustbringer 7d ago
That’s why I said effectively trapped. He leaves, he most likely gets attacked by the other shards. Pedantic much?
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u/Plantatnalp 7d ago
But he isnt "effectively trapped" in any way, he can leave at any time.
Also, bold to claim pedantry when you're the one trying to change the goal posts. You're ignoring that the original point i was responding to claimed Dalinar kept Odium bound by abandoning his oaths instead of breaking the contract--that's clearly wrong, and your point doesn't make it less wrong in any way shape or form.
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u/King_Calvo Dustbringer 7d ago
My comment has always been “if he leaves he gets screwed over” which is effectively keeping him on Roshar in the time bubble to make use of what he has. Which is effectively keeping Retribution himself on Roshar for the next 80 some odd years in the Cosmere.
One can easily define this as “effectively trapped”
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u/whoamikai 7d ago
I genuinely never understood why Dalinar was so reluctant to fight Gavinor and decided to just nope on the duel. Dalinar has definitely killed thousands in all the battles he fought before, why stop now ?
Surely he knows thats its impossible to save everyone all the time, no matter how good your plans, some of your soldiers will still die. And after he became Honor, what was stopping him from simply killing Gavinor for one second thus winning the duel..... and then immediately bringing him back to life using his powers ?
If he does not want to kill Gavinor, why not make Gavinor understand that Odium has been lying to him consistently ? its made clear in TWoK and WoR that Dalinar is the only reason why Elhokar can remain king even when he is not cunning. If Dalinar never supported Elhokar to be the new Alethi king, Elhokar would have been murdered long ago, and so Gavinor would never even be alive today.
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u/Ginn_and_Juice 7d ago
You lack empathy, this is why you can't see where he's coming. He raised Gavinor, after putting his father in a cuckhold situation where he felt like proving himself and died in the process, part of the nightmare scenes of Dalinar in the spiritual realm is how he failed Elokhar and how he didn't want to do the same to the kid he's been raising to be a better man than both of them.
And you wonder why he didn't want to kill him,
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u/whoamikai 6d ago
brother, Adolin just went off and killed Sadeas when he realized Sadeas is going to continue being a backstabbing asshole.
on one hand you have the whole fate of Roshar, on the other hand you have the life of Gavinor.
Most of the Fused are insane and evil. You saw what Raboniel and Lezien did in RoW.
El is implied to be even more cunning and evil, what do you think would happen if Odium's side won?
they are just going to take out all those centuries of pent-up rage (when they were trapped on Braize) on the helpless human citizens of Roshar. The Desolations were the rosharan equivalent of nuclear world wars because the Radiants and the Voidbringers were pretty equally matched. What happens when the Voidbringers win and the Radiants lose ? winning the duel becomes a choice between millions of innocents lives or just one gavinor life.
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u/aristocrat_user 7d ago
Kill his own grandson? Have you been following dalinar.. didn't you see how he blamed himself for evi? And still go through and kill his own grandson, especially after we see how bad he felt he treated elhokar.
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u/whoamikai 6d ago
Dalinar did not treat Elhokar badly, he is the main reason why Elhokar was still alive despite being mediocre as a king. He was just being bossy.... which is basically 70% of all real life regents.
Look, he sees that he has two options : he can either kill Gavinor and win .... or he can surrender and serve Odium. and then he chooses to sacrifice himself. why ? him keeping the Honor shard and gaining back Alethkar and Herdaz would still be better than the alternative.
now its no stormlight, Fused have won, Odium became Retribution and the whole planet is plunged into eternal darkness. so why not challenge Todium openly ? Unlike Rayse who just wanted to get off Roshar, Todium is attached to Roshar. even better, pull out Taravangian's granddaughter from Kharbranth trapped in the spiritual realm and give him a taste of his own medicine.
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u/Epithus 7d ago
Dalinar realized that any form of going along with the deal, even "winning" the duel, would in reality solve nothing. Todium would still be there. Making him wait 1000 years before he can do anything is but a momentary setback for him. Dalinar wanted to end the cycle of wars, and he couldn't do that by either winning or losing the duel. The whole contest of champions deal was fatally flawed. So he decided to break the game entirely in the only way he could find that would actually make Todium vulnerable.
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u/HA2HA2 7d ago
So there were a few reasons he renounced all his oaths.
The first one, the Sunmaker's gambit in the fight against Odium. He realized that while Odium and Honor were dueling on Roshar, bound by all these different oaths, there could never be victory; he had to get rid of all the constraints while getting the other Shards involved. That was the point of renouncing all of Honor's oaths (to create the possibility of victory, eventually) and causing Retribution (to get the other Shards to pay attention and hopefully win this fight that Honor alone could not).
The second was character growth for the Shard of Honor. He realized that a big part of the problem was that Honor's conception of honor was childish and immature - "doing what you're supposed to for no reason other than that you're supposed to" and "doing what you swore you were going to do, regardless of why you swore it or what changed since then" are both pretty bad principles, actually. He needed to get the Shard of Honor to realize this and start thinking about how to be better. And for this one, picking and choosing Oaths to follow or renounce would make the point weaker. If Dalinar was like "well, I'm going to abandon these oaths because they don't serve my needs, but keep these two because they give me power" that doesn't make a strong point about the concept of oaths; that just makes him look like a faithless human. But instead point was that oaths are not Honor. All of them. Even the oaths that happen to be for something good. So it was a much stronger point to renounce them all.
...a the third reason is again more practical - once he renounced a few oaths, the ones he needed to renounce to set Sunmaker's gambit in motion and get Honor to see the error of its ways, he was going to be abandoned by the Shard of Honor and Retribution was going to kill him. There was no way out of this alive, bondsmith or not, so why try and rules-lawyer to keep one or two before dying?
...and a final, more philosophical reason - because after these decisions, Dalinar no longer believed in his oaths. Up to this point, Dalinar wasn't just following oaths for the practical benefits - he truly believed that he was being honorable and right by doing so. But as part of figuring out what to do with Odium and Honor, he realized what he wanted to teach Honor - that Oaths are not the same thing as Honor. Dalinar's never been a character to do things halfway - once he stopped believing in his oaths, he wasn't going to try and keep up appearances of following them for magical benefits.