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kingjasnah · 30 days ago

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The Rlain Problem

As always, shout out to my dear sister and ever-suffering proofreader @akpaley.

Okay guys, let’s talk about Rlain.

For the record I actually wanted to make this post after RoW, because do not get me wrong, this is primarily a criticism of RoW. It also happens to extend to W&T, and is probably going to color how I view literally every scene with him. (I'm reading W&T right now, but I'm not very far. This post will be spoiler-free, except for the last endnote.) I don't dislike him as a character, or as a person, it's just...you know, let's just get into it, enough preamble.

So.

Five years ago, or seven and a half by some accounts, someone named Szeth-something-something-something wore white on the day he was to kill the king, fandom darling Gavilar Kholin. Now the Alethi highprinces may not have loved Gavilar, but they do love warfare, and the new king Elhokar may not be a strong ruler but he’s determined to look like one. And thus begins the Vengeance War. They all move to the Shattered Plains, the home of their enemy the listeners, with the intention to kill as many of them as possible in order to avenge their late king. (Pausing here to note that this is already not an honorable goal, nor method, considering they already had executed those who had ordered the assassination.) Their motive quickly changes to something more profit-oriented once they arrive and learn of riches in the form of shardblades and chasmfiend gemhearts. Most of the highprinces begin to grow lax, treating the war as a sport. Killing listeners and raiding the Plains’ natural resources becomes a game of one-upmanship to be played against their fellow princes. Of course you have a few good and honorable men, like Dalinar, who believes everyone should be united so they can more effectively wipe out the listeners and then go back home to their kingdom. (Yes, this was his motive in WoK, go back and check.) But for most of its duration, the purpose of the Vengeance War was that of fun and profit.

Such was the disparity between the humans’ and listeners’ military power, that even under these circumstances the listeners were decimated. For them, the conflict soon became one of survival. While more and more humans are brought in to occupy the Shattered Plains, while Elhokar moves his court there, while new fashions and foods and games are developed, the listeners meanwhile have barely any civilian population left to speak of. More and more of them are forced to adopt warform to defend their home from their existential crisis.

Venli has her own questionable motives, and she has been using this war to further her own agenda (putting a pin in Venli for the time being), but when she introduces stormform to her people, they were genuinely on the cusp of annihilation. Their only other hope for survival was if Eshonai could throw herself upon Dalinar’s mercy, but she had been unable to do so thus far, and from a meta perspective as well, Shallan was just around the corner to convince him that the listeners were Voidbringers and had to be defeated anyway. Perhaps more of the listeners would have survived if they hadn’t adopted stormform. Probably. But it was a last act of desperation, after they were nearly all dead anyway. You know how the rest goes. Dalinar finally unites the humans for a full-on invasion. They kill as many stormform listeners as they can, but they can’t prevent the Everstorm. When the clouds part, the listeners are no more.

The Vengeance War is over. Let's call it what it was, it was a genocide. The listeners were never a threat to the Alethi, but they were killed anyway. An entire culture destroyed for money, or for fun, or at best and most honorable, for revenge.

So this is a huge problem for our narrative, isn't it? Because how are we supposed to view any of our main characters as heroic now? They all helped to commit genocide! Dalinar was an active participant for his love of unity. Adolin was for his love of Thrill. For Elhokar the entire war existed upon and served his whims. Navani developed technology to assist the military. Shallan pushed the Voidbringer angle that precluded any peaceful resolution in the end. These should not be considered good people!

This is clearly a difficult thing to grapple with. So the story just. Doesn't. It sweeps the entire thing under the rug, because now there are new and bigger fish to fry.

Dalinar has a whole existential crisis about the war crimes he perpetrated in his brother’s name against other humans, but never cares to atone for all the listeners he killed. The only thing he regretted was how the war made the other princes and their troops lax in following the codes. Elhokar regrets that he was a poor leader, but he laments his lack of strength rather than lamenting how he lead his entire people to slaughter another. Adolin and Shallan certainly never give the listeners much thought. Navani has the gall to tell a singer how they’re all children of Roshar or something (don’t have the book or quote in front of me) when she reached her current home by having an army massacre the listeners and destroy their home. This isn’t to say I don’t like any of these characters, but it’s important for me to acknowledge all of this, because these books refuse to! This series is supposed to have themes about acknowledging one’s past actions and atoning for them, but it seems no one actually needs to atone for what is probably the greatest atrocity to have occurred in the span of these books.

Really there are only two characters who still think about the listeners at all. The two who have to. Venli and Rlain.

Ah, Rlain. I suppose it’s time we stop beating around the bush. Let’s finally address Rlain.

Wait actually I’m going to talk about Venli and Moash first.

Right, so I lied when I said that no one needs to atone for the events of the Vengeance War. There is one character who does, and that’s Venli. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying Venli was an innocent. She did some pretty sketchy stuff, she made some bad calls, she used the war and the deaths of her people as an avenue to pursue her own ambitions. So it’s nice to see that she’s remorseful over that, and that she wants to make an effort going forward to help others instead of just herself. Character growth, yay. However. Venli was not the one who was actually killing the listeners. Venli was not the one who drove her people to the brink of annihilation. Venli did not start this war. (Hell. Eshonai, the Five, Szeth, Gavilar, none of them started this war, Elhokar did with the rest of the highprinces after those who had arranged the assassination were already punished.) She does have some responsibility for their fate, and she did help facilitate most of the survivors losing themselves to stormform, but she does not deserve all of the blame for what happened. She isn’t the only one who should have had to make amends for the events of the Vengeance War. Except she totally is the only one who has to make amends for the events of the Vengeance War, because no one else cares.

But you know what, fine, because that’s not really my issue with Venli’s story, it makes sense that she would mourn her own culture to a much greater degree than the Alethi would mourn their enemies, and I’d probably be calling bullshit if that weren’t the case. My issue with Venli’s story (besides how little of it there is, please, give me more Venli, please, please, Venli) is that it represents an incredible double standard, between how human and listener characters are and should be allowed to feel.

(Side note: This is actually an issue for how all singers are treated in this story, but I’m going to limit this discussion to Venli right now, because this post is actually about Rlain (OBVIOUSLY) and she’s more pertinent to that topic.)

Very simple straightforward criticism: In RoW, Venli is denied her oaths, because when she said the words (“I will seek freedom for those in bondage”) she had recently seen an imprisoned human whom she had not helped. The moral being that she isn’t allowed to only help singers, if she’s swearing an oath then she has to help everyone. However, I do not believe any human radiants have this problem. Windrunners aren’t out there protecting singers. Dalinar isn’t trying to unite with them (or for that matter, take responsibility for his crimes against them.) Throughout all of RoW, in order to be a good person deserving of redemption, Venli must set aside her own feelings and assist the literal same kingdom that committed genocide against her people. Humans do not have to show the same sort of initiative helping singers.

I mean there’s one human who decided to help the singers, and rise above everything even though they hurt him. But we don’t really talk about him. Just kidding, I love talking about him. And unfortunately he’s relevant to this discussion. About Rlain. This post is still about Rlain. Always has been. He’s—look, we’re getting there okay?? Just bear with me!

Sometimes on this blog I like to talk about this guy named Moash. Or maybe his name's Vyre? idk, I've heard it both ways. A lot of people don't like him because he's evil and a bad guy and does evil things and is bad. Super fair and valid, right? I for one hate it when people are evil and bad, so that perspective totally checks out. Except then you get these annoying contrarians saying stuff like "hold on the only reason Moash is so evil is because he didn't want to serve a bunch of aristocrats who rule over the government which literally killed his family and enslaved him, isn't it kind of fucked up that he either has to rise above all that and forgive a society that always treated him like garbage, or else be relegated to the role of villain?" And the answer is yes, that is kind of fucked up. I like to call this the Moash Problem. It's a bit more complicated than that, but you get the gist. Ultimately to be a good person in Stormlight, you have to be willing to forgive the Kholins for all their indiscretions forever. (Note, this is specifically for the Kholins, you do NOT have to forgive everyone who's wronged you. See Sadeas and Amaram for example.) This principle of Kholin-based morality is demonstrated as well in the corollary to the Moash Problem: the Rlain Problem.

Rlain experienced one of the most horrific, traumatic events that can happen to someone. Ever. His people were wiped out, I cannot overstate the gravity of that. He's a victim of an unspeakably monstrous crime. And yet, we can't acknowledge it as such, because to do so would be to acknowledge half of our main characters as monsters. And so instead Rlain must forgive, and be the better person, and happily assimilate into his new life. The reason Rlain is a good guy, the reason he's a hero, the reason he's Radiant, is because he's decided to rise above their “differences” and work with the Kholins and the humans. In other words, Rlain's goodness was contingent on forgiving the genocide of his entire culture. Which he did.

I'm not being facetious here. Compare Rlain in RoW to Venli, how he is fully aligned with the humans (Alethi humans!) for the entire book, how he chides Venli for her hesitance in following suit, how the narrative clearly agrees with him and sees him as in the right.

On some level it makes sense that Rlain would want to live with the Alethi, among Bridge Four. He doesn't have anywhere else to go, after all, and they are more than willing to protect him. But that's not really a story of compassion and building bridges and found family. At least I don't think it is. There’s nothing wholesome or warm about him finding acceptance among the humans, because they’re the ones who took that from him in the first place. Presumably Rlain already had family and friends before the war. He already had a home. They were just all destroyed by the kingdom he now serves. I don't think it's wrong for him to stay with them, and I’m not saying that it doesn’t make sense. But I do think it's an inherently tragic situation, and it deserves to be treated as such.

And the worst thing about Rlain, his acceptance, his friendship with or loyalty to the Kholins and Alethkar, it completely lets them off the hook for their past atrocities. And it lets the narrative itself off the hook as well, because if Rlain doesn't need justice for the Vengeance War, then the audience doesn't either.

These days, it seems like the greatest problems in Rlain’s life are that humans are kind of weird to him, and will sometimes call him slurs. Which is an extremely shallow view of racism, particularly in a story wherein racial violence is and has been perpetrated on such a scale as in this story. Rlain's problem is not that people call him "shellhead". It isn't that he's not accepted by the humans, or that humans act awkward around him. No, Rlain's problem is that his culture was wiped out, and yet these books seem to be treating him like an after-school-special teachable moment about how we should be nice to everyone even if they look different.

This criticism isn’t unique to Rlain of course. For instance, the problem with the caste system was never that lighteyes are snobbish and annoying to Kaladin. No, the problem is that lighteyes had the power to enslave, exploit, and otherwise abuse darkeyes as they liked. Treating the problem as something Kaladin has to overcome completely misses the point. I do think Rlain’s case is even more egregious, however. Look: it probably matters less to the Listeners that humans act racist towards Rlain sometimes, and more that they were seen as less than people and so therefore killing them en masse never even had to be justified.

So that's it. On a thematic level, Rlain represents the notion that the downtrodden should stay in their place, and accept the wrongs done to them, and serve their betters, and assimilate, eventually they'll be rewarded. Hell, even his Radiance in the end wasn’t the result of his own development as a person, but is something that was given to him by a Kholin. He’s even denied that arc, yet these books treat it as if it’s a big celebration-worthy moment of him as a character. But it’s not. Rlain deserves to stand on his own, for himself, not for the culture that stole his life from him. He deserves justice for everyone and everything he lost. But he can never receive justice, because these books will never be able to acknowledge the magnitude of the crime that was perpetrated against him.

And that’s why this character will likely always leave a bit of a poor taste in my mouth going forward.

Or maybe I've written all this for nothing, and this will all be elegantly and satisfyingly addressed in something I've yet to read. I guess we'll see.

Endnote one: I am sure this is not what was intended for him and for his character, I’m sure Sanderson intended to write him compassionately and made these decisions so that Rlain could retain his dignity and agency as a person. But all of this is, unfortunately, still my takeaway.

Endnote two: There being a group of listener survivors does not mean it wasn't a genocide. The Alethi definitely tried to kill all the listeners, they shouldn't be let off the hook just because they didn't succeed. Furthermore, Rlain fully believed himself to be the sole survivor of the listeners, and presumably has been acting accordingly.

Endnote three: If you want to talk about my interpretations of Moash, I've discussed him in greater detail here and here, also generally in my Moash tag. Now let's keep this post on topic. The topic is Rlain.

Endnote four: If I end up not liking Renarin/Rlain in W&T, please assume it is because I am massively homophobic, and not for any reasons relating to all of this. (No for real, I promise to give them a fair shake, I don’t actually read things with the intent to dislike them.)

#🤝🤝🤝

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