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Elaborating on it would require going on a bit of a tangent talking about contents of the previous books as well, which I feel a bit weird about since this is a post dedicated to my Oathbringer thoughts. But as I haven’t discussed Dalinar’s character all that much on my blog before, I hope y’all will forgive me. Here goes.

The Dalinar that we meet in TWoK is a man whose entire existence is about war. He may be considerably more honorable and honest than the rest of the brightlords, harbouring his intentions of uniting the Alethi people instead of trying to milk the protracted conflict for his own benefit, but even that endeavour is informed by militaristic goals, and the means chosen to achieve these goals are essentially militaristic, too. As Dalinar goes through his character arc, he slowly breaks away from this mindset, learning to accept other means into his toolset. WoR showed us a Dalinar who finally comes round to diplomacy, and though his efforts in that book are largely a failure, it gives him a springboard adequate enough to propel him into his role as a future coalition leader — and also that of a Bondsmith. And here I have to step a little bit to the side because I just want to say, woah. This is a very compelling premise for a character arc, especially for someone like Dalinar, with all the themes he’s linked to. His transformation across these books was imparted onto him by forces outside of him — the visions he received from a literal god are what spurred him on. An external incentive for personal growth. The way it’s written, the help and encouragement that Dalinar gets don’t in the slightest undermine the weight of the effort it took for him to become a better man, and I must say, with these two things combined, what a positive message it is.

But the final and most vital ingredient of the changes that Dalinar undergoes is the bare necessity: in Oathbringer, Dalinar is forced into accepting that his entire outlook on life is not only inadequate for the task at hand and outdated, but in this circumstances is also very much capable of causing significant harm. He can no longer depend on his military efficiency to achieve the goals he’s after. Under Gavilar’s rule, unity was forged through conquest and warfare. As Dalinar grows into acquiring a purpose outside of his brother’s legacy, he also has to pick up new methods. He has to seek peaceful solutions. He has to adapt, rising to the occasion, and discard the old lens making him approach every problem as a warlord, with befitting instruments and mindset. And so has the reader. Through Dalinar’s arc, we get a chance to recontextualise the war between humans and singers. Through Dalinar’s arc, we are shown that violent confrontation that drives one side to victory and the other to obliteration isn’t all there is. The solution lies in building connections, in reaching out and finding middle ground.

If Dalinar really drew any conclusions from remembering his history with Rathalas, then in order to atone for his mistakes he must allow past experiences to inform how he goes about solving this current conflict. The apparent likeness is there: an aggressor makes a claim on the territory, repressing the interests of the land’s rightful inhabitants in a brutal seizure, which is followed by eventual upheaval against the new ruler. The attempt at diplomacy fails. The oppressed people reject it. It seems like the only possible solution is violence, and it is the one that Dalinar follows through with the first time, decimating the entire city and its population. This is also the end that the coalition is working towards at the moment: solving the conflict by way of obliterating the opposite side entirely. If Dalinar has truly grown to recognise that what he did to the natives of the Rift was wrong, then he also has to recognise that what the coalition is about to try and do to the natives of Roshar is ultimately wrong, too. Other characters’ arcs seem to tap into this idea as well, albeit coming at the problem from different angles. But I’ll cover this in other parts — to each their own! All in all, this seems like a really compelling premise for some significant changes in how the main conflict is viewed.

Moving on, it feels more like nitpicking, but Dalinar’s arc, as great as it was, didn't go without occasional hiccups. Evi forgiving Dalinar in the end is one of those minor details which I frowned upon slightly but which I could easily ignore for the sake of focusing on great parts instead of criticising minuscule slip-ups. Complaining about something in a fantasy novel coming off as too magical for my liking is either pretentious or stupid, but Evi's voice appearing to bestow onto Dalinar her explicit forgiveness nonetheless seemed brushing on being merely a miraculous contrivance to rid the character of a portion of the weight of his burdens. Which was, in my view, redundant, if not outright a bit undermining of the book's main message, as I understood it. And it is as follows: there are going to be mistakes you wouldn't be able to atone for, but knowing that shouldn't undercut your capacity to do good. Dalinar receiving unambiguous forgiveness ever so slightly flattens this notion for me.

The other thing that rubbed me the wrong way was Dalinar apparently becoming a center and a main mouthpiece for morality in the series. Even if we put aside the question of whether he personally deserves the honour, I simply disagree with the idea of any single character accommodating this role. Not only can it make a character’s arc unreasonably rigid, but a series about how morality is a matter of perception and personal integrity and how attempting to align it with rigorous, predetermined ideals is only going to lead to failure and complications objectively shouldn’t stockpile its values in any singular character. But I very well may be misinterpreting this, in which case I hope that I am, if only for the sake of this narrative painting a more complex, intricate, and diverse picture.

Lastly, and it is not so much a minor fault as it is a more hefty criticism, but what troubled me most in regards to Dalinar’s decisions is the possibility of him abandoning the idea of achieving peace with the singers altogether after one failed negotiation attempt. C’mon now, I know that this man is more stubborn than that. Judging the entire people by a single person’s choices setting a bad precedent raises question marks. When Fen or any other political party was uncooperative, Dalinar was willing to find multiple alternative ways to persuade them. Where is that vigor in the singers’ case? Unless their people’s alignment with Odium taints them as irredeemable on the whole, as if every individual singer personally and inexorably defined their loyalties. Or, y’know, were given a chance to. I’m getting ahead of myself rambling about singers in Dalinar’s part, but as different characters’ attitudes to the singers problem are quite integral to my understanding of the book, I can’t not speak on the matter. All in all, I simply hope that this is more about a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to deliver a notion that Odium himself is impossible to bargain with, and as long as he commands the singers’ forces, the fighting is inevitable (because what spelled out the failurewasn't even Venli's adamant rejection ((which she is very much entitled to)); it's the fact that Odium intervened). And less about justifying the slaughter as a backdrop for the main cast’s heroics by pinning the blame of siding with Odium inexcusably on a systematically oppressed, enslaved until the most recent times, brutally marginalised people. Isn't it hypocritical? Wasn’t Odium humanity's god when the newcomers had to fight for a place in this world?

What's more, I'm genuinely baffled that Dalinar doesn't connect the crime of genocide against the rebelling people of the Rift with the crime of genocide against the listeners. Doesn't he have an entire breakdown forcing him to question the very foundations of his personhood over the atrocities he comitted in his past? In a book that for the first time since the start of the series garners enough compassion for the singers to engage in a discussion whether it is a righteous thing at all to stand up against the singers, thus denying their people justice for the crimes perpetrated against them? Shouldn't these facts coincide somehow? It's admittedly a very, very difficult notion to come to terms with in a narrative while retaining a positive image of the main characters, but to simply ignore the issue? Erm. It might undermine the entirety of my initial point in this post.

I guess I'll have to wait for the resolution, but the narrative framing is not selling it for me so far.

Since I have already mentioned Evi in this part, which was inevitable, and since I’m not giving her her own post, I simply have to talk about Dalinar’s relationship with her here. The dead wife trope is not usually my piece of cake (like, at all, though I won’t get into it now — it's an entirely different can of worms), but I genuinely believe that Sanderson’s iteration of it is one of the best there are. Evi still is a distant memory and an unternished beacon of light, as dead wives tend to be. Her personality is still primarily defined by a function she has to perform in a male character’s storyline, stirring the potential for positive change inside of Dalinar and sending him on his journey toward eventual improvement. All of the typical attributes that make me dislike this trope are seemingly there. And yet it works. Because Dalinar’s relationship with her and her memory isn’t all uncomplicated, sunshine and rainbows. Dalinar's relationship with her in fact sucks. Dalinar was a terrible husband for Evi. He loved her more when he didn't have her anymore, the feeling provoked by the grief of remembering his mistakes more than anything else, and showed more affection toward her when he no longer had anything to remember her by. His choices killed her, and there was a time he resented her for it. She was both afraid of him and his tremendous capacity to do harm and not afraid to confront him about it. Because his ferocity was what initially made becoming his wife plausible to her and her brother, and she understood that as well as Toh did.

But despite this marriage being little more than a mere political necessity, it didn’t prevent Evi from treating Dalinar with innate humanity every man deserved. With her gentle interference, she accomplished a feat of pulling a human being out of a jaded husk Dalinar became whenever he didn’t have orders to follow or a reason to engage in violence. She continuously challenged his detachment by coaxing him to think for himself and demanding to know his feelings. Kudos to her for making him feel validated for disagreeing with Gavilar for what seemed like a first time in Dalinar’s life, too. She awakened in him the first beginnings of an autonomous personality. But it's safe to say that neither of them really loved the other in a way that marriage usually suggests. Their relationship isn’t informed by them being a husband and a wife. And neither is it presented as something they need to work on! They simply learn to live beside each other, coming from a place of understanding the mutual duty that brought them together — until, of course, it all goes terribly wrong. Evi and Dalinar share a fascinating dynamic, regardless of Evi's effect on Dalinar's future arc, and that is well-meaning treatment of her character, even if she only exists as a narrative tool (nothing wrong with that, by the way!).