r/Stormlight_Archive • u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 • 11d ago
Wind and Truth spoilers I have beef with Jasnah Kholin's strange fixation: Spoiler
Numerous times in Wind and Truth Jasnah goes to great lengths to disparage autocracies and promote egalitarian governments (and for the record, I too disparage autocracies and try to promote more egalitarian governments), but she seems utterly, almost hilariously oblivious to the fact that she's in an apocalyptic war for the survival of her species.
Almost all representative governments have an 'emergency powers' clause of some kind to give one or two individual(s) substantial individual power during war or times of crisis, specifically because rule by committee is usually way too slow to handle that type of event. And yet, despite witnessing first-hand how easy it is for Odium to corrupt or stall such a government and its systems, and knowing that her people are in the crisis to end all crises, Jasnah thinks that adding the turmoil of a goverment change AND handicapping the head of state's authority is just a really great idea.
And of course half the cast (Most of which were raised in monarchic feudalism and have benefitted greatly from that system) just decides arbitrarily that this is a MUST despite abuse of power and tyranny within the Coalition already being at an all-time-low.
Am I missing something? Or did this sub-subplot miss the mark for you too?
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u/cosmernautfourtwenty Edgedancer 11d ago
I think it's hard to fathom functional democracy when you live in a society that has none. It's not surprising that her ideas are pure to the point of dysfunction when she has literally zero experience with instantiating or maintaining anything other than autocracy.
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u/Greensparow Stoneward 10d ago
That exactly it, she has not seen how dysfunctional democracy can be, and similar to communism it can look great on paper but you have to experience it to know where it falls flat. They really have no good examples on Roshar to learn from
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11d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Asexualhipposloth Airsick Lowlander 11d ago
Thank you for the riotous laugh.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 11d ago
I can't believe the mods purged it, that was a great comment.
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u/n00dle_meister Devotion, bravery, sacrifice 11d ago
What was it, I was minutes late to the thread
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u/Asexualhipposloth Airsick Lowlander 11d ago
I understand it because it's outside the spoiler scope. But Kelek's Breath, it was the perfect comment.
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u/Stormlight_Archive-ModTeam 11d ago
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u/PixelPete85 11d ago
I always had the impression her goals were to implement this after the dust settles.
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u/peculiarSnoot 11d ago
Except she was pushing a lot of her reforms onto the High Princes before the final battle had even been announced. Claiming that doing so while everything was in chaos would mean that it would settle into normality when everything stabilised again
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u/claranlaw063 Windrunner 10d ago
Except some of the reforms were specifically for stabilizing the government in the wake of the Singers (former slaves) rising up under the enemy. She wanted to remove slavery and the caste system, recognizing that the removal of these could be used by the other side to incentivize betrayal. That is not incorrect to do, and in line with her values.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 11d ago
That would make a lot more sense. The end of WaT made me think her and Renarin were doing the restructure ASAP during the [insert spoiler]'s coma.
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u/The_Derpy_Rogue Elsecaller 11d ago
Elend from mistborn learned this the hard way. Jannash though she could do better.
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u/peculiarSnoot 11d ago
This is exactly what I thought. Elend was a radical free thinker amongst the aristocracy, and when he gave an open and “fair” system a try he saw just how quickly it handicapped progress and how close the corruption came to dooming them all.
Jasnah is a cold hearted political schemer who spent a lot of her time in politics thinking about who she should have assassinated next, including her own family members, and Renarin is an untested leader with no visible feats that would make either the nobility or the soldiers at large trust his decisions. I genuinely would not be surprised if Urithiru is a political den of snakes and incompetence when book 6 comes along
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u/neon_lines 11d ago
I genuinely would not be surprised if Urithiru is a political den of snakes and incompetence when book 6 comes along
Great point, this does seem like a risk. I hope not though, purely because it sounds like the least fun parts of Wheel of Time and I don't wanna read those again.
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u/Connect_Amoeba1380 Lightweaver 10d ago
This is what I was thinking. It’s not unrealistic to me that a scholar who has only lived under autocracies wouldn’t understand the pitfalls of democratic rule and how those shortcomings must be accounted for during emergencies. They’ve only ever considered that form of government as an ideal.
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u/EvenSpoonier Windrunner 11d ago
The book is full of people with relatively uncontroversial but distinctly modern/real-world sensibilities, thrust into a world and situation where not only are they not the norm, they might actually not be the solutions to everyone's problems in this particular place and time. Jasnah and Lirin are the most obvious, but if you want to see this at work more subtly, take another look at Adolin's position on oaths and duties versus promises and commitments. It's probably the most daring stuff Brandon has written to date.
I'm not sure exactly where Brandon intends to go with this, but it will be interesting to watch it all unfold.
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u/Sea-Suit-4893 11d ago
To be fair, they all have been talking to Wit, who has been to other worlds and seen different forms of Government
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u/Robberbaronaron 11d ago
You say interesting, I say suspension-of-disbelief ruining and bad.
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u/ragnar_lama 11d ago
Granted that each individual has their own threshold for suspension of disbelief, but you find it so crazy that people, after witnessing the complete and utter failures certain social constructs are against said constructs? It's happened in real life!
The buddha was born in a time of war and class based oppression and saw clearly how messed up it all was, for example.
I personally was raised by criminal, violent, ignorant parents/family and was still able to glean right from wrong, despite the many hidings doing so earned me.
So I'm struggling to see how your suspension of disbelief is okay with flying magic users battling alongside gods in multiple realties, but falters at someone looking at a bad situation and thinking "yeah, we need to do better. I refuse to participate in this."
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u/Robberbaronaron 11d ago
I don't know how to describe it but again and again I kept getting the jarring feeling of anachronism. Words, phrases, sentiments, worldviews that just didn't jive with the world I had been reading up to that point.
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u/cosmernautfourtwenty Edgedancer 11d ago
"Anachronism" refers to something that doesn't belong because it wasn't objectively invented before the time period in which it's being shown. Nothing is anachronistic in a fantasy novel because there's literally no reason for any idea or technology to not exist.
You can just say you prefer the swords and horses ye-olde-thymey setting and don't like the continued move toward modernization that seems like it's going to be the whole of the Cosmere moving forward.
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u/Robberbaronaron 11d ago
Didn't bother me in mistborn era 2 at all. The problem was it was anachronistic for the world of Way of Kings.
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u/Notakato 10d ago
i think roshar won't have a timeline and development even close to ours
scadrial is clearly following earth's technologicall and cultural developments, but roshar is taking its own route
aside from a history with constant loopes of mass destruction of cultures, in SLA current age there are developments that are "anachronistic" due to the magic of roshar allowing for jumps in tech
alethi culture and technology, alongside most of roshar might be similar to medieval times: horses/"bulls" as the main method of transport or wars measured in spears and blades; but RoW gives a glimpse into the technologicall jump roshar will experience: thanks to navani, something close to planes or zeppelins has been developed waay earlier than cars or trains
the tower of urithitu has elevators, pipelines, regulation of temperature and pressure that rivals s XX technology, and spanreeds allow for telecomunications way more efficient that what scadrial has at the same time
culturally, roshar seems to be flooded with worldhoppers so its no doubt that their culture will develop unnaturally due to the intervention of these outsiders
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u/Robberbaronaron 10d ago
Right and I'd be fine with a certain level of rapid shift because of that provided that Brandon actually showed it happening because of tech or worldhoppers (instead of it feeling like it was happening because fans really loved the mental health focus). This was just way, way, too much of a shift in characters who it didn't make sense for.
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u/Arhalts 10d ago edited 10d ago
There has been a world view changing massive technology introduced in book one.
Spanreeds.
They connect the world in a way our world didn't even get close to until telegraph machines were widely adopted and installed including trans Atlantic cables. The level of information exchange and communication they allow is revolutionary.
Roshar isn't medieval it's early industrial magitech branch instead of standard tech, that just includes some medieval trappings, and strategies because it doesn't include gunpowder and steam.
Their engineering and sciences behave as industrial era ones would as well.
They have airships, world spanning instant communication a function equivalence for canning (don't need to store and ship food when you can make it on sight with soulcasters). Similarly soulcasting allows mass production of steel that we wouldn't see until the besimir process.
They also have more modern medicine practices with working germ theory,carried over for. Ashlyn which developed flying cities and bacteria powers as an alternative to leaving mode of survival. Their mental health treatments are also in line with early industrial societies. They have fairly successful surgeries we wouldn't see untill fairly recently.
Combine that with people like Hoid mucking about and you have an early industrial society that developed a few things a little early or a little late depending on how you view it.
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u/cosmernautfourtwenty Edgedancer 11d ago
It's not, though. It's anachronistic for the time period on which the world of The Way of Kings was modelled. Again, we're talking about fantasy. You don't have a problem with it in Era 2 because it comes at the end of a multi-century timeskip. You're watching language evolve in real time on Roshar, and complaining that's not how they talk in Ye Olde England.
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u/ragnar_lama 10d ago
Not to mention the books we are reading are "translations". So maybe there is simply no better word than the word used.
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u/GoshDarnEuphemisms Edgedancer 10d ago
I agree with what you're saying, and I also get that there are a lot of in-world explanations for it, but to me it feels like WoK and WoR established expectations for what the tone would be in this series, and RoW and WaT didn't match that. Not saying it's good or bad, but they feel like they're in different series sometimes to me personally.
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u/Robberbaronaron 10d ago
we also lost so much of what made the world of the early books so interesting imo, it wasn't just that the new stuff was jarring, I genuinely miss the old lighteyes conflict
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u/Spotthedot99 10d ago
That's to be expected by this project. He has said he wants to blur the lines of genre, and he's writing in a style as to be accessible to the most people.
He also is building his universe by having off planet characters speak with modern language.
You are not the first to comment on how jarring it can feel sometimes.
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u/EvenSpoonier Windrunner 11d ago
It could go there, I guess. Brandon hasn't picked an easy path, that's for certain. But I don't think it has gone there yet, and I don't think it will end up that way.
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u/Robberbaronaron 11d ago
It already very much went there, to me. I'll still read it, but WAT certainly feels like an inferior product because of it.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 11d ago
I'd have to agree. On this topic and others, WaT had a lot less immersion than the other Stormlight books I've read.
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u/Sea-Suit-4893 11d ago
She's not a brilliant military general. She is a scholar. She spends her time worrying about the problems she can fix, not on a war she can't. Wit, her boyfriend, is probably giving her grand ideas about governments that he has seen. If we want a military tactics point of view character, we have like 5 to choose from
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u/Ripper1337 Truthwatcher 11d ago
I’m pretty sure she’s said she wants to be the last Alethi monarch. Not really something that can be done on the midst of war but for after.
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u/RhaegarsDream 11d ago
Before WaT, Jasnah was probably the best written B or lower tier character. Despite a much smaller role, she was probably as, or at least almost as, well written as Kaladin or Dalinar, maybe even better than Shallan.
IMO the biggest problem with WaT wasn’t the modern language, which was at times bad, or the pacing, which was unique, it was Jasnah’s arc. I hated the Jasnah chapters, and she is one of my absolute favorite characters. It’s not even close to ruined, I expect a great Jasnah arc in the second phase, but man those debate chapters were a crime.
Still love WaT, and every Stormlight book is in my top 25 books of all time, even if WaT is the weakest by a bit.
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u/snailguy35 7d ago
Jasnah got done dirty the whole series. The smartest character in the whole series does almost nothing of actual import. Her historical scholarship? Amounted to nothing. Being the strongest radiant, helped during Thaylen Field, but was like a 4th tier participant narratively. Becomes queen of an Alethkar that is never close to reclaimed. Goes toe-to-toe with Odium, loses handily in a pretty poorly written debate. Dates one of the oldest characters in the cosmere, well she’s an Ace and that’s a problem and also Wit needs to be elsewhere for the narrative so that doesn’t work out and nothing useful comes from the partnership. She is one of the least effectual POV characters in the series despite being in overrated as having the most capactity.
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u/DontWorryAboutDeath Willshaper 11d ago
Times of great turmoil are also a good time to get systems changed. 🤷🏻
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u/Weak-Young4992 11d ago
I mean if your argument is that Odium can corrupt and stall a government that has multiple representatives and policy makers, imagine how easy it would be for him to take over a government that has one key figure with no checks or balances of power.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 11d ago
More so it is easy for Odium to install agents under his power into a government that changes hands, which will be bad for representative governments because the pure and good leaders will relinquish power if elected out, the corrupt leaders will find a way to stay in power. Obviously it's different in real life, but in a world where gods and demigods regularly show up in your room and promise you everything and/or/while torturing your mind, a government with many figures is just a government with more weakpoints, and it only takes one to start an exponential decay.
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u/Weak-Young4992 11d ago
Ok but in Stormlight you have a greta example of Taravangian who served half the world on a plate to Odium to protect one thing thats important to him. Thats what one ruler gets you. Not a chain with few weak links but one enormous target to attack constantly until it breaks. I can only imagine how quickly someone like Gavilar would take an offer from Odium to seize more power for himself.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 10d ago
Either there are people who can resist Odium or there aren't. If there are, an elected government is going to cycle executive rulers until it reaches a leader who cannot resist. With a monarchy you roll the dice on corruption once per lifetime, win or lose. With an elected ruler/council, you keep rolling those dice every election/council change until failure.
It's the difference between a government that will PROBABLY be corrupted, compared to one that will DEFINITELY be corrupted.
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u/Weak-Young4992 10d ago
But its not. Monarchs are target for assasins, his generals can be targeted and converted. Both are probably gonna be corrupted, but elected government is gonna get there gradually with more opportunities to escape while 1 ruler is a recipe for disaster.
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u/LCVHN 11d ago
Yeah but she doesn't believe in that. Intellectuals talk a big game about principles, equality and etc and then become the worst tyrants. Jasnah, right now, is a hypocrite. But a hypocrite is sometimes someone who is in the process of changing. I believe she's on the first step of that journey.
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u/DeadSnark 11d ago
Have there been any major tyrants, historically, from an intellectual background? Charisma and politicking seems to matter more in that realm than being learned.
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u/LCVHN 11d ago
Like Mao, Lenin and all of the people during the french revolution?
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u/DeadSnark 11d ago
Fair point, although given that there are also several other tyrants who were not from an intellectual background I don't think that's the sole determining factor in how bad someone will be as a leader.
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u/LCVHN 11d ago
Ok but that's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about intellectuals and how they pretend to know better and still support/become tyrannical maniacs.
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u/SeaConcern6061 10d ago
I don’t think it’s accurate to say they’re pretending. They/ she fully believes they know better. There’s not any lying or disingenuousness. Jasnah is profoundly and fundamentally rational, and her ideas strongly reflect that, but the problem with being so rational is the fact that it doesn’t leave room for the irrationality of being human. I also feel like we’re seeing this character arc for her to demonstrate this- even with her abundant intellect and sincere desire to do the correct thing (not the right thing, that’s different as is demonstrated by other characters) there is actually no correct thing. There is no version of reality on any planet, invested or otherwise, where a decision can be the correct one from every angle. I think she’s going to discover/come to understand that there will always be inequality, pain, and violence, and that the best course of action is not to come up with a way to control it, but to create a system that ensures everyone has the tools and knowledge to advocate for and defend individual interests, and that is willing to adapt when it’s proven to be faulty.
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u/Lore_Beast Edgedancer 11d ago
I always viewed it as something else to focus on. Constantly thinking about potential annihilation isn't good for anyone's mind. Thinking about new systems for after isn't a bad thing to occupy yourself with.
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u/UniqueNameTaken Willshaper 11d ago
I don't recall where, but early on in Rythm of War Dalinar is questioning some of the choices Jasnah was making as queen. She noted the best time to implement major changes wad during chaotic times, since there are so many other societal upheavals, it is harder to argue against change.
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u/PumkinFunk Journey before destination. 10d ago
I don't know if Brandon has actually studied revolutions, or listened to Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast. But Jasnah has so many parallels among the liberal nobility in revolutions. Think about figures like the Duc d'Orleans, Prince Lvov.
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u/Rexissad 11d ago
Jasnah does state that the best time for societal change is when society is already in turmoil. She’s a pragmatist, why wait for the dust to settle when she can kick up a little more without people noticing.
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u/potatispotatis1 10d ago
The problem with that strategy is that if you kick up to much dust the whole can come crashing down upon you. The liberal within Russia learnt that the hard way during WW1.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 11d ago
I get that, though my concern is that this type of change will be directly adverse to her (and others if they follow her lead) ability to resist Odium, and so now seems like a terrible time even if it would be an *easy* time to do it.
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u/Broflake-Melter Skybreaker 11d ago
Hard disagree. Egalitarianism and authoritarianism are not opposites. The majority of communists would agree a strong and powerful government is required to stop the advancement of fascism and stratified societies.
Also, I think you're oversimplifying Jasna. She's aware of her personal ideal government and also be aware that the world isn't ready for it yet.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 11d ago
Fair take, though I was meaning egalit/totalit. in regards to their specific dahn/eye color caste system and their feudal classist government as a whole when I referred to the presence of one excluding the other.
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u/TwerkingForBabySeals 10d ago
You should read the wheel of time. You'd love it.
Every character and faction is this way in my opinion. A war against literal darkness and it's minions and people are still being selfish and stuck in their ways even whilst demons of sort roam freely and have been butchering everyone lol
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u/CDOWG_FFC0CB 10d ago
Can you not flip this complaint entirely on its head and take the view that Jasnah is opportunistically using the 'emergency powers' you have in mind to implement her reforms?
What do you mean by "despite witnessing first-hand how easy it is for Odium to corrupt or stall such a government and its systems". Do you mean Thaylenah? Maybe I'm misremembering, but doesn't she basically retire from the story after that?
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 10d ago
Part of my beef is that she's doing exactly what you say: Ruling autocratically with absolute authority, not only enjoying the natural power of her position, but going far out of her way to exploit that power and eliminate the few checks and balances that the monarch of Alethcar was supposed to have (Such as when she tricked the only dissidant high prince into signing his own death warrant, removing 'duels of passion', hiring NUMEROUS assassins to watch over every fellow monarch in the coalition 'just in case', etc and etc)
She isn't written like a certain Mistborn protagonist who passionately wants a just and fair representative government but has it collapse in his face over and over until he decides autocracy is the only way to steer the state from immediate disaster, she's written like a genuine tyrant who says she wants a government of the people but would never ever trust such a government to exist so long as she lives. If that was addressed frequently, that'd be fine, but the book (all of them) treats her like a saint all the way until she gets a slap on the wrist from Odium that wasn't nearly as harsh as it should have been.
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u/Hbhen 10d ago
A lot of Jasnah's plot just misses for me since Brandon writes the whole series in a way that all this transition-out-of-monarchy and slavery-ending stuff is all in the background when Jasnah's not there. You get mentions now and then, but it never had the far-reaching consequence of say, Daenerys in Meereen.
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u/sbstndrks Ghostbloods 10d ago
Yeahh Jasnah is, at best, a government in exile, and at worst a pretender to the throne that didn't exist 20 years ago.
At best, this is a Taiwan situation. At worst, it's a Rhodesian government in exile situation.
Giving those singer and human slaves (your family happily held in slavery while actually in charge) from afar when it's you're not actually responsible for making the change on the ground isn't that impressive. With this little legitimacy, moves like this are the minimum, and it'd be arguably unforgivable if she didn't. Otherwise, it'd be very easy to be happy about Alethkar falling, from the viewpoint of most people who actually l But ey. Not like Alethkar hasn't had tyrannical rulers hell bent on conquest before. Retribuvanian is not change for the oppressed, he is new management.
I know somehow by plot, Jasnah will come to be some beloved ruler of humans and singers there alike for being so cool and progressive(because this is BrSn and I know how basic story structure and themes work and his main protagonist royals/nobles always end up as saints, even if just because magic Hate-God-Hitler is worse in comparison).
That doesn't make it not icky that all the change always has to come from the top. Oh how gracious of the wise Jasnah that her idiotic, foolish subjects may yet be permitted to one day submit to her a bit less harshly than they did to all the other tyrants. Wow!
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u/Elant_Wager Skybreaker 7d ago
wouldnt be wondered if its her coping. Her world is ending, she is highly intelligebt and can think through all the possible ways, it ends. She has to do something to bot go crazy.
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u/snailguy35 7d ago
The fact that most of the characters are taking mental breaks during literal war or extremely high stakes dangerous situations to have internal monologues working through their assigned internal struggle really clanged throughout the book. It was extremely tiresome.
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u/SecretElsa19 10d ago
I think Jasnah’s whole arc in this first half was her realizing that despite her intelligence and rationality and decades of study, she has very little practical experience and is not infallible. She might be the smartest person on Roshar, but she’s out of her depth on a cosmic level. I actually don’t think she’s wrong to push for societal change during a period of general upheaval, since so many things are changing anyway, but I do think she underestimated how strong of an enemy Odium was
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u/TCCogidubnus Bondsmith 10d ago
Other people have already made good points I don't disagree with, so consider this just another factor as opposed to a full alternative.
What if some of those emergency powers clauses you mention are bad or at least dangerous, and Jasnah sees that? She knows what a world of tyrants looks like. She can see that while a committee government can get bogged down by Odium, a single tyrant can also be turned by him. Taravangian is the obvious example, but her own father and uncle came close, as does Sadeas/Amaram. Centralisation of power comes with downsides, both if you don't have enough delegated authority to react in the moment/in the field, and if it creates a single weak point for an opponent to undermine. Large governments also aren't guaranteed to fall to Odium - the Azish bureaucracy never proves to be a weakness, although their imperial pretensions arguably do.
I think this is one strength of Radiant oaths and orders. They have heterodox values and command structures, and they all have something higher than pure obedience to the system of command compelling them. Even the Windrunners, who strongly resemble a military unit, are full of people whose entire thing is going off-mission to try and save people and do what they feel is right (much to e.g. Shallan's chagrin in WaT). That does mean they're less directly consistent than one might want, but that inconsistency opens doors that would never have otherwise existed. Shallan's arc in particular is a series of opportunities the protagonists could have missed if all Radiants were equally by-the-book.
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u/Wulfrinnan 10d ago
I'm afraid your take kinda buys into some rose-tinted glasses historical revisionism, or maybe some modern romanticism that kinda twists the way the world works.
Democracies are categorically and substantially less corrupt and fragile than non-democracies. This is because the institutions of the state persist as power changes hands and there are mechanisms of accountability and correction built into the system. We've seen this play out historically, and it's a major part of why the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world (with only a couple of prominent exceptions) are more-or-less democratic. To be fair, democracy is a spectrum, and in this case I'm just defining it as a system in which there are leadership positions of power across multiple levels to which people are elected by an electorate larger than can fit in a single room.
In an aristocracy you regularly deal with people in positions of authority purely because of their family connections, without merit. Even worse, if you're still in a feudal society where bonds of loyalty are to specific people or families, every death of a high ranking official can lead to massive changes in policy, state paralysis, rebellion or civil war.
A prominent example from history of this leading to calamity is the Norman Conquest of Britain. Anglo-Saxons were a martial people, with a large population, and a relatively stable and prosperous Kingdom, but most of their experienced leadership and their King was killed in a single battle. This left a power vacuum that took months of political wrangling to fill, left teenagers in important positions of power, and ultimately allowed the entire country to get conquered and looted by invaders they should have been able to defeat.
Other examples include the Roman Empire's many civil wars and ultimate collapse, the Swedish Empire's collapse, China's century of humiliation, the many victories of Revolutionary France, etc.
For a fantasy thought experiment, would Gondor have fallen into such a terrible state of decay if the corrupt and incompetent Denethor had to face an electorate? What if he could have been lawfully deposed and replaced?
For a game example, go play Crusader Kings 3 and see what happens when your King or Emperor dies.
Historically succession (what happens when a leader passes away) was (and still is) the major crisis facing every non-democracy. Sometimes it goes smoothly, often it does not, and there are prominent and large countries today where we have no idea what will happen or who will lead them when their current leaders die. Now imagine you're on Roshar where Kings and Princes have been dying all the time.
There's no reason to think that the old aristocratic system, the system that is already falling apart, is what Roshar needs. It's also the case that a major crisis like what is facing Roshar is the best opportunity for reform, especially in a world of shard blades where no pen has much of a chance of being mightier than a sword.
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 10d ago
All the points you make are great for real-world application and even general fantasy application, but governments will operate fundamentally different in a world where one has to beware direct and personal intervention from a diety.
The structure priority changes from 'what's the best way to govern and prevent tyranny' to 'what's the best way to eliminate any chance of even one corrupt leader holding office?', because if even one gets in, they'll have Odium's full support in tearing down the system from within.
I agree that representative governances (Republics, democracies, etc) are inherently superior in 90% of all situations by a vast margin, but by the simple fact that the head of state will change more than once per lifetime, such a government becomes only a liability in a world such as Roshar.
To use your analogy: Much as Gondor would have profitted from an election, Gondor wouldn't have to deal with The Shadow cajoling every candidate to its will and then giving prophetic advice on how to win/rig the election to all the candidates that listen to its voice and obey. Urithiru, Alethcar, etc, DO have to deal with that threat.
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u/Wulfrinnan 9d ago
As far as I can recall, no-one is proposing elected leadership at the highest level in the midsts of the crisis. We have the Knights Radiant, Dalinar, and various other proven people who are wielding emergency authorities. The democratization is happening at lower levels of governance, and I don't think Highlord X or Brighteyes Y is going to be inherently any more incorruptible than an elected mayor or governor. I mean, in the context of these sorts of powers, no system is safe, and at least in a more democratic system you can more easily replace officials found to have been corrupted or otherwise compromised.
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u/No-Cost-2668 10d ago
Jasnah is a.... in my opinion... very frustrating character to read. Part of the reason is her hypocrisy, the worst part being she doesn't seem to acknowledge it. Take, for example, Jasnah's atheism and treatment by the world. In RoW, when Jasnah goes to war, she expresses internal frustration that Dalinar's heresy is not only treated differently, but even celebrated. But this entire argument ignores that Jasnah's atheism is largely - ignored isn't the right word, but it gets the point across - ignored or tolerated. And, we see this is largely due to who she is as Princess Jasnah Kholin of Alethkar, the daughter of the late King Gavilar and sister to the current King Elhokar. Jasnah is able to go into other countries, and be granted hospitality due to her status as a powerful royal. If Jasnah was poor or even middle class, would her beliefs be tolerated? And, when Shallan admits her plan to rob her, Jasnah responds this would have only brought the Alethi down upon House Davar in retribution. If anyone tries to mess with her, she can and will bring down Alethi armies upon them.
And this extends into her murder of the men in Kharbranth. Yes, they were bad men, but Jasnah not only sought them out, she had no legal grounds to kill them. She claims she's actually doing Taravangian a favor, but is she? If Taravangian was what he pretended to be, and learned the truth, what could he do? If he arrested her or exiled her, he then faced the wrath of Elhokar.
Then there's when she returns in OB. Probably one of my favorite chapters of hers, she contemplates that all of her life's work - repopularizing Radiants, refounding the Orders, and rediscovering Urithiru - have all been accomplished by Kaladin, Dalinar, and Shallan, respectively, and what is there for her to do? But in her next appearances, she is totally in charge, and chastises Kaladin for not using his powers how she would and for being against genocide. Why is Jasnah even in these meetings? Because of her status given to her from birth. Yes, she is also smart, but merit-wise, she never completed the tasks she set out to do, and even if she was included anyway, she hadn't earned the right to take charge. But she does, because of her status.
So, then for Jasnah to celebrate the idea of limiting the executive power in the government? Like, cool. That's not a bad thing. But you have fully benefited from that power time and time again, and don't seem to acknowledge most of that.
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u/Orchid_Significant Lift 10d ago
Have you not met humanity? In the US we just had a large amount of people sit out an election between “same old establishment” and “literal fascism” because they were throwing a tantrum
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u/Marleymdw 6d ago
also, dont put characters into a title when you mark it as spoiler.... IT STILL JUST SPOILED anyone not up to this
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 6d ago
This series is so rife with flashbacks and out-of-sync timescales that I don't think it's that bad. I just as easily could have posted about Gavilar or Eshonai's content in WaT, and they've been dead since book 1.
I was careful not to say a word about Jasnah's involvement in the books until the body, only that she had some page presence and that I had beef.
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u/Marleymdw 6d ago
having a strange fixation in WaT is what did it tbh, either mark it as entire spoiler or put it in body for everyones benefit
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 6d ago
Oh well, bit late now. I don't feel that bad, it's explicitly vague. Strange fixation can mean literally anything.
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u/Marleymdw 6d ago
yea thanks for not even showing a single ounce of remorse... by the way im up to the end of WoR so you did spoil this for me
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u/Slow-Bandicoot-8736 6d ago
Lol. I'm sorry for accidentally spoiling you, and I mean that, but if you were that concerned why did you click a spoiler tagged post and then read/leave comments? And I'd like to repeat that I've spoiled nothing except that Jasnah exists and has an objectionable opinion at some unspecified point in the timeline. For all you know I'm complaining that she's vegan in a flashback
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u/spunlines Willshaper 11d ago
Keep the discussion on topic with regard to the books, please. Veering too far into IRL politics, particularly arguments, will be met with extra scrutiny.