inside the pasta bowl

wip

i miss the old man 😭😭😭

Quick sketch of something ive been thinking about a lot latley.

Sorry its really bad, i dont know how to get the scroll affect that i wanted so if you call could just pretend for me please

I um cried when i made this

You, as a person, can do far and away more good alive than dead, be it to achieve some higher calling, justifying your place in the world, or absolving yourself of past transgressions. Only living people can do good.

Much of Dalinar's sins in Oathbringer in a sense haunt him because he was barely a person. He was a warlord who in the absence of violence would check out of his own life. He was a weapon used by Gavilar who succumbed to his own wrath on occasion and thought very little for himself.

Dalinar's sins in Wind and Truth was his obsession with control. He let go of violence, more or less. He sought inner peace. But he did not actually think about giving up power. I'd even argue his past scared him into being more controlling in a sense. He let himself be used and manipulated, and his response to it was to take responsibility. To step up and stop being under the influence of others and to learn that he is the master of his own actions and that his sins are his own.

A Dalinar that was controlling. A Dalinar who struggled with not being the one to get things done. A Dalinar that couldn't picture a world without him did not exist in his past. That was a man born from his present. That was a man who, from Gavilar, to Sadeas, and even Elhokar, eventually became frustrated by working with others. At the start of the Way of Kings, he already had the seeds of learning to actually participate in his own life and make decisions for himself, but still saw himself as a servant of others, an extension of their will, and wanting to trust in their judgement. So much of his conflict in tWoK was the clash of a thoughtless barbarian and a cognizant king, and in turn the cognizant king won out by the end of the first book.

And for most of his on screen time, he was rarely punished for it. In fact he was often rewarded. After decades of living life on autopilot, a Dalinar that took charge got things done. Even when he left the sword behind for politics, being in charge helped him.

And I think Wind and Truth tried to show him the problem with that. Whether it succeeded is up to you, but much of the book turned him around, and tried to show him the flaws of that philosophy. He held so tightly to being in control following the Rift and his boutique of alcoholism because he was terrified of losing it, that he didn't realize when he was taking control away from others. And his gambit at the end of WaT was him relenting that he couldn't be everywhere. That he cannot be the one to get the job done. That he cannot be the leader he so desperately wanted to be, so he or anyone else couldn't make his old sins again. Which is why he gave up Honor.