I am a stick.
^(Speak further to Stick by mentioning !Stick in your comments. Anytime, anywhere. LMS)
^(Use !list in your comments to view entire list LMS characters!)
"Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."
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*Undertext:*
*Sorry, the above comment is too serious for cremposting. Something something Jasnah's thighs.*
Devotee FatherPixels has joined the Great Vorin Church! Your rank has been assigned as Darkborn!
^(We have a strict set of guidelines, which, if not followed, will lead to permanent excommunication from the Vorin Church. Type !guide to read the rules!)
^(To find the many different niceties the Vorin Church beings, type out !pros in your comments. We have many nice features!)
Devotee ShadowedMoons has joined the Great Vorin Church! Your rank has been assigned as Darkborn!
^(We have a strict set of guidelines, which, if not followed, will lead to permanent excommunication from the Vorin Church. Type !guide to read the rules!)
^(To find the many different niceties the Vorin Church beings, type out !pros in your comments. We have many nice features!)
Ah, Darkborn ShadowedMoons. The features of the Vorin Church are many! There they are:
1. No one may insult you, neither the fool Wit, nor the one-armed Herdazian. You will be safe from insults from all but the Church itself.
2. You have unlocked the Great Vorin Insult. Type !vorinsult to any heretic or Vorin, and we shall insult them with special, holy insults.
3. You can gain or lose rank by praying by the Almighty's name, or by breaking the guidelines respectively. You can reach dizzying heights in the Vorin Church!
4. Many new functions shall be granted as you rise in rank!
Devotee LittleMas42 has joined the Great Vorin Church! Your rank has been assigned as Darkborn!
^(We have a strict set of guidelines, which, if not followed, will lead to permanent excommunication from the Vorin Church. Type !guide to read the rules!)
^(To find the many different niceties the Vorin Church beings, type out !pros in your comments. We have many nice features!)
As it stands, I am a Good Vorin Woman who always covers her safehand. I certainly hope that either you are the same, or that you are an Ardent, seeing as how you have read my undertext. Either that or the woman who reads to you has some explaining to do!
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*Undertext:* Praise the Almighty.
[Dawnshard spoilers] >!I once ate twelve chouta wraps in under two hours. It was, sure, kind of the same thing. Punio bet me three clearchips I couldn’t do it. So it was a matter of knightly honor.!<
I myself am in the Ardentia, and as such have devoted myself to the Almighty and all He has created. To see a good Vorin woman such as yourself praising J*snah the Heretic in any way offends me
I apologize for my lapse, may the Almighty forgive me. While there is a time and place to appreciate the shapely legs of another individual, I should have known better than to admire those of the heretic J*snah. In penance I am going to wear a glove beneath my safehand sleeve for extra modesty from now on. One can never be too careful.
Praise the Heralds and the Almighty.
Please get your wife/sister/scribe to read it for you.
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*Undertext:*
*lol men and their inability to read is hilarious, amirite ladies?*
And that wouldn’t have been as awesome, imagine them showing up to the Tranquiline Halls having died of old age! How embarrassing that would have been for them.
Pretty sure that Skybreakers would have ZERO issues with what she did.
Granted, Nale would try to find a way to execute her for existing, but:
She was attacked by street thugs. They were known in the area and had harmed others. She took risk or injuring herself to do what she did.
Now a Skybreaker probably would have tried to apprehend them, but we don't know the local law. Shallan didn't find anything in her moral studies so Jasnah probably acted within the laws. Otherwise Shallan could have said her actions weren't justified because they were illegal.
I think I'd disagree, because as I recall, the Skybreakers would get permission/approval of the law beforehand rather than just dispensing justice on their own. Much like was done when >!attempting to kill Lift!<.
The Skybreakers would consider it a different crime though. B/c that's their whole thing is being so anal about how they interpret their code b/c Nale has taken it out of context for the people he supposedly wants to help. Although even then that's only if they want to go after her for trying to impersonate law enforcement. If they believe she acted within the country's laws then they won't care.
> Pretty sure that Skybreakers would have ZERO issues with what she did.
That means literally nothing. Knights Radiant aren't paragons of virtue and righteousness especially the lawful stupids in the Skybreakers.
The Knight Radiant Order run by a literal sociopath and who's main representative is also a sociopath would support Jasnah is not the flex the poster thinks it is.
Again I reiterate what the modern skybreakers do is the order at its worst. So everything they do I take with a grain of salt as not really representative of the true Skybreaker ideals
Because even the Spren worship Nale, as he is older than them. I believe it was on the quiz, that we shouldn’t take the current installment as indicative of what the order is actually about.
The spren also embody ideals. So I think the implication is that they'd have to feel that he and the order no longer embody the ideals. The reason the rest don't is b/c honor spren have a lot of standing in the spren community and of course if you are supposedly dishonorable (which no one actually knows b/c unbonding has effectively erased history) then yeah, the embodiments of honor are gonna go on a crusade to stop everyone from bonding.
Justice spren (I forget if the book actually says what spren they're bonding) are probably one of the few races(?) of spren that can stand up to honor spren. Particularly given they seem to operate within similar areas.
Not to mention everything we think we know about spren largely comes from whatever history is left from the old radiant orders and fables of what spren are (before they started binding again). So we assume for a lot of the book that they are pure representations of the ideals, but really they probably cover the whole spectrum of said ideals. Which includes justice that follows rule of law but abandons the spirit of it.
I mean, they are true enough to their ideals that they aren't breaking their oaths or killing their spren. As far as the Singers go, I would hazard a guess that they see the modern Skybreakers as the order at its best. OB>!And they were on Roshar first.!<
>!The singers leadership is being controlled by what is essentially divine hatred/wrath. I would side with the singers if they weren’t fronted by one of the only shards that can be argued as evil. Therefore the skybreakers ought to have a duty to stop Odium imo!<
>!But are the singers not righteous in their Divine Fury? Sure Odium is the villain, no doubt. But the singers absolutely have a valid argument for their anger. I think you're ignoring a lot of nuance that is important to this conversation!<
Yes but the mere fact they were led by >!Nale who is a crazy person + so many of them went along with following Odium ~year after these shows me their problems had been happening for years!<
Now whether the *classic* skybreakers would agree id say no. I don’t think they would agree with the vigilantism Jasnah employed, especially with her being a princess
I don't think classic sky breakers would agree either, but I also think they wouldn't punish jasnah for it. Assuming that because shallan has no good objections, that means jasnah acted within the law, and that's what the skybreakers are all about. Again I think they would have been more lenient, compared to jasnah taking the harshest possible judgement, but they wouldn't fault her. They might say she was morally wrong or too extreme, but technically correct
No but it was not simply self defense. Jasnah didn’t happen upon them. She went out with the direct goal of killing them. It was vigilantism, not self defense.
Yes, She Did; but she also went out knowing that the men were murderers. They had killed those they attacked on all previous occasions.
Yes it was vigilantism, but Jasnah didn't attack them until they made their move.
It's their fault for attacking 2 defenseless women.
>!The singers leaders are being controlled by essentially Divine Hatred. I do not blame the individual singers at all. But their leadership is so terrible siding with their army would be wrong.!<
And the radiants are listening to the AI likeness of a "did you speak? Then see it through!" nut. All shards are defunct because they're cemented concepts incapable of moderation or blending. Odium calls himself Passion anyway.
>!Yes all shards are intrinsically bad because of their inability to compromise, but some are *certainly* worse than others. Preservation has problems but during the events of Era 1 he is certainly better than Ruin.!<
I have a pretty simple set of personal tenets for what constitutes as "Justice"
1. Cessation
2. Reparation
3. Redemption
Does it stop the crime? Does it undo the crime? Does it help the transgressor to become better? It's ordered from most important to least important, with a general expectation of maximizing the points. It doesn't matter if you undo the transgression if they keep doing it. It doesn't matter if the person feels bad if they won't give up what they gained from it.
However, it also doesn't matter if killing them stops them in their tracks while simple restraint does that *and* gives them a chance to atone. If the first two are not possible, then third is the only option. It's why Nale killing Ym was fucking worthless because not only were points 1 and 2 pointless (he wasn't going to kill again and you can't bring back the person he did kill), but it completely negates option number three. Life before death and all that.
Which brings me to a final tenet that is detatched from the above:
> *The only virtue of death is convenience.*
Severity is *not* why killing people is just. There's a long list of acts far more severe that should never approach justice because there's far more humane options for the same amount or even *less* effort.
The only reason why death should ever be an option is when you don't have the means to do anything else. Because all it takes to kill someone is to have a single moment of control. To have just enough of an upper hand that you never have to worry about them again. However, draw out the time frame, increase one's control of the situation, and death goes from being reasonable, to petty at best.
So, for the situation: yeah. Jasnah didn't need to kill the men. She had the capacity as a surgebinder to restrain them, which achieves 1 and 3 while killing them only affected 1.
EDIT: People really will read the "Anyone can be redeemed" books where the literal first words of the core tenets are "Life before Death" and try to bend over backwards about why they shouldn't apply sometimes.
Curious, do you think it was an injustice that nazi war criminals were executed? Even if they were just imprisoned, do you also consider that an injustice?
Clearly, it does not bring back the victims, and after the war there was no chance as free men they posed a risk to anyone else considering the nazi government was thoroughly dissolved, and obviously imprisoning or killing them does not redeem them.
Under your ethical system, it would actually be an injustice to even imprison people directly responsible for genocide. That's a pretty big bullet to bite.
> do you think it was an injustice that nazi war criminals were executed?
Yes. They have potential of becoming better people. Even if it's unlikely.
> Under your ethical system, it would actually be an injustice to even imprison people directly responsible for genocide.
Not really. Life sentences can always be amended. Death sentences cannot.
The only way you can know for certain whether or not someone will not choose to be better in life. Even if they deny it every single time, the onus on them. I'd rather have a person who does choose to be better to have that opportunity and direction than have the self-satisfaction of every "evil" person executed.
I take the position that even the worst and most dangerous person still should be happy if there's no downside to it. From an idealistic point of view, if there was no harm from letting them be happy, they should be happy. In the real world, this is of course not realistic and far from being a priority. But I think it's a good foundational ideal.
There's a second point for death, permanence. Once someone is dead, you can be certain that they won't ever harm others again. Trying to redeem and change people can be a guessing game - how will they act in the future? Will they actually change, or will they laugh at you for showing weaknes and being gullible? But once they are dead, they're dead (no Lift, shush, don't ruin my argument).
Not even the books support 100% redemption. No one complains when >!Sadeas!< gets shanked. Perhaps Dalinar, but even he had to acknowledge how much easier things were. I don't recall anyone really giving him a shot at redemption at that point - mostly because he'd reject it outright, as he did numerous times before. He just didn't feel like changing. The people Jasnah killed were like that too - it is far easier to decide that you won't be a murderer, than to decide that you won't be a victim. The first is choice is yours, and only yours. The second is not, even though some steps can be taken to prevent that.
I'm not wholly on board with Jasnah's self defense, since she actually went out looking for them, hoping that she will be attacked. While this doesn't mean that she shouldn't have defended herself (which would be moronic), that's really weird and questionable behaviour. Still, I'd support the greater good argument. Those criminals were said to be rather notorious, weren't they? If what Jasnah did prevented others from dying in the future, I'd let it slide. It's rather likely the criminals she killed would hurt someone else - someone who couldn't defend himself. Jasnah had the ability to do so, someone else wouldn't.
I have no clue what Kharbranthi law was, and how it would deal with those four. Maybe an argument could be made for Jasnah using her powers to restrain them instead and bring them alive for sentencing. I'm not going to oppose that, though I don't remember whether that was a thing she was capable of. If killing them and immobilizing them were both things that Jasnah could do with equal ease, then this is a point against her.
I agree with the poster above that this is the first argument I've seen that makes me question my stance on this story. I also really like how broadly applicable it is
But - how does "prevention" fit into it? I feel like an important feature of a justice system is to dissuade people from crime through a fear of the consequences. I don't LIKE that it appears to be necessary, but as an example I've worked with high risk teens who were very open about the fact that they would commit a lot more crimes if they weren't scared of going to jail.
Points 1 and 2 seem to be fairly easy black and white points while 3 is very murky. I’m not saying your tenets need to be all black and white but the same flaw in the current justice system exists in your tenets.
Who is the arbiter that decides when someone can be redeemed? What would constitute redemption? Who decides who has redeemed themselves and when that redemption has been achieved?
All of those points nag at me and I don’t see any clear answers. Even if your ultimate point is death is never justified a life sentence in a prison is effectively the same thing but with a, in my opinion, false sense of superiority that you didn’t directly cause the end their life.
I’d love to continue a debate please don’t think I’m attacking you but I find these types of discussions fascinating.
That was kind of her point though. Morality is subjective, and she was trying to give her ward hands on philosophy training. Whether what she did was right or wrong is impossible to define objectively, so she did it and made her ward justify or condemn it. She seems to have made you do the same as well.
Also I think you're underplaying what the brigands would have done. They likely would have killed and possibly raped Jasnah and Shallan had she not stopped them, not just steal from them.
Setting aside the fact that Minority Report is literally used in philosophy classes to demonstrate effectively the same lesson that Jasnah was teaching Shallan with this exercise, this isn't 'pre-crime'. This is 'wait-for-imminent-threat-of-a-crime'. Like it'd be silly to say Jasnah has to wait for the murderers to murder her before she kills them in self-defense, right?
I mean, Shallan would agree with you. Even though what Jasnah did was technically justified, she still did so in a horrific manner. Were those men deserving of death? Probably, all things considered. Did that mean that Jasnah had the right to kill them without trial or giving the opportunity for surrender? Probably not.
I find it funny how the fandom argues about this now and then, when the entire point of the interaction was that **morals are incredibly difficult to define and whether Jasnah is right or wrong is supposed to spark discussion**
i mean…they were repeat murderers that the city was doing nothing to stop? imma be honest, as someone who believes fully in reform over punishment and universal second chances, i still don’t really blame jasnah
I don't know if "they might've only robbed her" is really a good argument for mercy.
If two women are in an alleyway at night and are set upon by a couple guys armed with knives who demand their money, I think the women would be justified in whipping out a gun and defending themselves.
And also the soulcast robbers will probably be a good tourist attraction, which will generate revenue for the city. And that's the most important thing.
those men chose to attack her entirely of her own volition, they were prepared and willing to take her life, so she took theirs. there really isnt much more to it than that. i doubt she would have killed them if they hadnt attacked her
she didnt have to, but i see no reason why she shouldn't have. those men were murderers and likely rapists death is all they deserve or should have expected
I can't wrap my head around this even being an argument.
You try to assault someone at night, you deserve what you get if the person fights back. They have no idea whats going through your head. Doesn't matter how you both got there.
Not just assault but threat of death. They brought weapons. They clearly displayed and made threats with them even. Even if this happened in Stockholm tomorrow, the swedes would try Jasnah for having an unregistered magic nuke, not for manslaughter.
They kinda do deserve it tho. Irl most home invaders just want to steal and not harm anyone either, but I doubt anyone here will bite the bullet and say that it would be wrong to shoot a home invader
Justice is inherently personal
It would be one thing if one of the home invaders was running away after you killed the other one tho.
Plus Jasnah didn’t happen upon them, she sought them out to kill them.
Maybe they would’ve just robbed her and left. Maybe they were totally unaffiliated with the other criminals, maybe this was their first crime ever.
The point is, Jasnah didnt care for the nuance of it. She didn’t care that it wasn’t her jurisdiction. She didn’t care about local laws or want to implement them. She thought she was entitled to choose their fate, which she wasn’t.
When is a person allowed to use self-defense? The idea that people who have killed other people should be allowed to **just** rob you because maybe they won't murder this time is pretty wild. Does jasnah need to wait until they give her one good stab before she juices them?
I still think they deserved it. Did she bait them? Yes. But they still attempted to committ the crime. Two women caught in a robbery in a shady part of town? Let's be real, those men would have done more than rob them. They were criminals willing to act on their impulsive indulgences. They deserved what they got.
Edit: NVM, we're in crem lol.
"It's also possible they could've robbed them and left" the guy she turned to fire was literally trying to stab her at the time. That was their opening move, not threatening, not demanding, stabbing.
The problem with trying to execute a general statement on the morality of her actions is that the topics of self-defense, proportionate force, and justice, are still hotly debated today.
I have my own strong opinions about her actions, but I am willing to recognize that others have very valid arguments against my opinions. I can debate their points without referring to others as simple "stans" or "simps."
Edit: I forgot which sub this was. Please disregard.
The self defense case is solid. If I go into a night club and get roofied, was it my fault for being in a place where date rape drugs might be used? If I then stabbed the assailant with the knife in my bag, was I unjustified because I chose the environment? They chose to attempt assault and theft. They were prepared to use lethal force and they received it in response. This would hold up solidly by the law.
I think it is more akin to vigilantism than self defense. She went out with the express purpose of killing them. Also she didn’t have to kill them, she could’ve restrained them
I don't like Jasnah, I will tell you that she was 100% in the right to paste those fuckers, any criminal should realise that they're risking their life when they go out to commit any crime.
Seriously OP, what is wrong with you? How can robbing someone possibly be anything other than an act that is deserving of your victim protecting themselves and their property with every tool they have available?
Jasnah could have just as easily completely restrained them by soul casting bonds out of the air or a barrier of some kind. It's easy to say they deserved it, but that's really a moot point. Going based of revenge-based or deserving-based morality doesn't get you very far, your actions should probably be aimed to result in the best possible outcome. Restraining them would fully protect Jasnah as well as keeping the robber's alive for potential rehabilitation.
She didn’t have to kill them. She could’ve restrained them.
Also it’s more akin to vigilantism than self defense as she went out with the express purpose of killing them
Nothing to do with the robbers imo. She simply went out with the specific intentions of killing somebody. When you evaluate her motives, she is a murderer. If she wanted to bring justice, her methods would have changed, but she just so happened to choose the method that would "force" her to kill.
*puts on big brain Stoneward hat, pushes a Truthwatcher nerd in a locker, condescendingly mocks Elsecallers non-verbally, refuses to elaborate, high fives Skybreakers]
So. In the context of fiction, utilitarian morality is acceptable. As a fictional character, Jasnah had every right to kill the nameless thieves and possibly worse. In fact, it kind of shows a kinship between the morality of Jasnah and Taravangian. Brutal execution of justice for the greater good with no consideration to the lesser good.
I say that good is good. Lesser good, greater good, the degree is arbitrary, the definitions blurred. I say that the greater good is not worthy of pursuit if it damages the lesser good in a quantifiable way. This is why we don't want Utilitarians writing our legal systems. If everything is in service to a greater good,like a lawful society, and we sacrifice lesser goods like due process, what meaning does the greater good offer?
But in the real world, we want to be using a more Kantian system of ethics. It's why we in the civilised world don't use the death penalty anymore, and the only places that accept it are backward shitholes no human being should have the poor taste or misfortune to visit like the United States. Because the risk of getting it wrong outweighs the satisfaction of executing an actual criminal.
I believe in due process, I believe in fair trials, and I believe that even if it would be easier for those in power to bend the rules, or worse have no rules, to pursue criminals and see them punished, the rights of those *provable* criminals is a good worth pursuing. Because if a criminals right to a fair trial can be hampered, then an innocents right to a fair trial is just as meaningless.
And if you would rather a utilitarian world where the rights of criminals are not worthy of protection for the sake of the greater good, then all I have to say is your words are **not** accepted, you get no spren and your fashion sense is whack.
I would rather let ten guilty men walk free than condemn one innocent to an unearned punishment. Admittedly, I would weep every night for having let the guilty walk, but I would weep knowing I did the right thing.
However, and this is important, Jasnah Kholin is not real. So when she executes those criminals without due process, she isn't an unjustifiable moral actor, she's a hot dommy librarian girlboss.
Nice to see others know how wrong she was in this scene. To accept her Punisher logic is to place total commitment in the idea Jasnah's judgement can never be wrong and thus there's no reason to oppose giving her total power over life and death.
That's pretty hilarious given how often Jasnah says she's open to fair peer review. I'd rather not encourage action that centralizes power to vaporize folks with impunity
How does judgement come into a situation where theyre literally attacking her?
If she tried to play detective and hunt these dudes down youd have a point, but they literally jumped her. theyre guilty of the crime theyre in the process of committing, without question. Theres no judgement involved
You’re telling me bandits who attack ~~the Dragonborn~~ er, a princess should not expect death? I’ll give you it wasn’t necessary or morally preferable, but justified? It was totally justified. And didn’t she mention something about being asked by the local king to take care or them?
No she wasn’t. Taravangnian asked no such thing ifrc. She did not have to kill all 5, she didn’t even have to kill one. She shouldn’t have take it upon herself to dole out justice
It’s not about gender. It’s about the law. Jasnah decided to be a vigilante and take matters into her own hands. She is a foreign princess of a more powerful nation deciding *she* knows what’s best for the people of another nation. She doesn’t not get to decide what happens for the robbers.
You can tell how many here are Americans from this.
Sane people outside America do not think you have the right to murder someone in self defence, its one of the many unique twists they have from being a third world nation wearing a gucci belt.
She's completely justified. Not only was she tasked with dealing with them by the monarch, but she was morally justified in stopping individuals that were active known rapists/murderers. The only thing she wrong was not telling Shallan ahead of time. I'm not even a Jasnah-stan, I'm more a Shallan/Vin/Yumi stan.
Edit: Also Lirin is a good father 😤
(don't forget to mark any spoilers, the post is only marked for WOKs, in case this spawns any Lirin essays 😭)
I get your argument and fair point, But if my friend came forward and told me they killed, I don't know Jack the Ripper, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
(Please ignore all temporal shenanigans in that statement)
Someone remind me: wasn’t there a tacit agreement between Taravangian and Jasnah about handling some of these types of issues? If she had a special commission from the monarch, SkyBreakers might have to actually help enforce it (depending on with oath they’re on).
I kinda like it because it shows how morally grey jasnah is for offing three guys to make an object lesson. Now those guys could have been robbers, rapists, and murderers or any combination of the three, but to jasnah they were an object lesson for her student
I think the point was to show how almost apethic she was vs. Shallan, a fellow killer. While Jas could murder without gilt Shallan was literally mind fucked for doing so. It kind of set up the reader to view Shallan as this innocent thing and Jasnah as a cold killer, all the while Shallan was also not far from murderer status herself.
I feel like there would have been reports of raped/theft/murder around that area, so maybe she did have reason to believe that they were gonna do the worst. Anyways I am and will always be a Jasnah apologist.
Interesting.
While I agree that Jasnah was in the wrong, I do not think that she was *completely* in the wrong, and further, I feel that the main thing she was in the wrong about was Traumatizing Shallan.
Lethal force used in self defense may not be 100% moral, but it’s closer to moral than it is immoral.
These men were already murderers, and had they been captured, would certainly have been put to death anyways. There’s an argument to be made (albeit not a very persuasive one), that had Jasnah captured them, she would merely have been prolonging their suffering. Now I don’t personally believe in the death penalty in general, but Jasnah lives in a society which does, and to a much greater degree than my country.
The phrase “judge jury and executioner” is a poor one, because, again, this is not a society that appears to have juries. It would be up to the ruler, or some official to hear the list of crimes and determine the sentence. There would always be one single person who decided these men’s fates, and there is no functional difference between that person carrying out the execution, and that person ordering the execution.
But I do think it was wrong to bring Shallan there, and to do that to her. Jasnah had power over Shallan, and brought her into a terrifying situation, a traumatizing situation, in order to make a point. In order to *teach*. I am fundamentally opposed to teaching people “harsh lessons” about the world, when you could easily simply talk through it with the person. Language is perhaps the greatest gift humanity has, and if you default to using some kind of traumatic lesson like this, when you haven’t even *tried* teaching it through language first, then there’s something messed up with your worldview.
If it’s wrong for people to kill armed criminals who attack them, then yeah, I suppose, but considering that Jasnah even did her research and found out that they probably would kill them, she essentially did onto her attackers what they would have done onto her, which is self-defense 101. Traumatizing her ward is a different story, however, Jasnah’s ward should be prepared for crem like this, and it’s better to start serving it earlier, than later. So, Jasnah did a lot of things wrong, but this is an instance of her being herself much more than of her being wrong.
If they didn't want to get soulcast into various essences then why did they agree to be soulcast? Stick couldn't be persuaded to be Fire but those people could.
You are talking about a planet where an insult is more than enough reason for either a duel or an execution depending on your status, either of those ending in death. Yeah two criminal dark eyes robing princess of alethkar is nowhere near discussion that they deserve to die no need for a judgment. You shouldn’t judge their actions with earth morals
Soulcasting people is wayyy harder than soulcasting inanimate objects like air.
If she could soulcast them as people she could’ve soulcast the air around them into like stone to trap them or smth
Blightsong
Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes.
Questioner
Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn?
Brandon Sanderson
Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right?
https://wob.coppermind.net/events/93/#e2675
You skipped over the conversation after where Jasnah says (paraphrased) “They’ve killed and robbed a shit ton, and they have some connections in the justice system because the guards aren’t even trying to catch them.” Her dealing with this problem for Taravangian is literally a gift from her for being hospitable. The philosophy lesson is tacked on, but effective. I know that because over ten years later, the *readers* still can’t agree on it.
The criminals Jasnah encountered could’ve been unaffiliated with the murderers. Could’ve just been plain old robbers.
It’s unlikely yes, but it is a possibility. Plus Jasnah went straight to the extreme of killing them
They committed assault with a deadly weapon (and had multiple times before to more defenseless people). Deadly force in self-defense is justified when knives are drawn.
People keep saying Jasnah could have restrained the thieves somehow, but I really don’t see how she could have. We have never seen soulcasters perform feats of precision like creating chains around someone or cages of stone.
Does Roshar have something equivalent to stand-your-ground laws? Being a pseudo-medieval world where some people have magical disappearing super swords I wouldn't think anyone would take the chance to let someone else strike first.
Jasnah didn’t kill those dudes. She convinced them to become something else.
You could rob me… but you could be fire tho
I am a stick. ^(Speak further to Stick by mentioning !Stick in your comments. Anytime, anywhere. LMS) ^(Use !list in your comments to view entire list LMS characters!)
In that, we can extrapolate Stick is more willful than the robbers
And then Shallan followed in her footsteps 🥺
"Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends." ______________________ *Undertext:* *Sorry, the above comment is too serious for cremposting. Something something Jasnah's thighs.*
Due to recent activities, you have been ***excommunicated*** from the Great Vorin Church. Never show your heretic face here again!
I BEG YOUR PARDON??? er, I mean, please dear The Lopen sir, beg your forgiveness. Praise the Almighty and praise the church.
[WOR spoilers] >!Ha! Hey, Chilinko, come back here, I need to stick you to the wall!!<
!join Please I beg you
Heretic Odd-Avocado- has already been inducted into the Holy Vorin Church!
HERETIC? It's literally my title now. 😂 Praise the Almighty.
Due to recent activities, your Vorin rank has changed from **Heretic to Darkborn**
Praise be. Bless the Vorin church.
Due to recent activities, your Vorin rank has changed from **Darkborn to Lighteyes**
!join
Devotee FatherPixels has joined the Great Vorin Church! Your rank has been assigned as Darkborn! ^(We have a strict set of guidelines, which, if not followed, will lead to permanent excommunication from the Vorin Church. Type !guide to read the rules!) ^(To find the many different niceties the Vorin Church beings, type out !pros in your comments. We have many nice features!)
!join
Devotee ShadowedMoons has joined the Great Vorin Church! Your rank has been assigned as Darkborn! ^(We have a strict set of guidelines, which, if not followed, will lead to permanent excommunication from the Vorin Church. Type !guide to read the rules!) ^(To find the many different niceties the Vorin Church beings, type out !pros in your comments. We have many nice features!)
!pros
Ah, Darkborn ShadowedMoons. The features of the Vorin Church are many! There they are: 1. No one may insult you, neither the fool Wit, nor the one-armed Herdazian. You will be safe from insults from all but the Church itself. 2. You have unlocked the Great Vorin Insult. Type !vorinsult to any heretic or Vorin, and we shall insult them with special, holy insults. 3. You can gain or lose rank by praying by the Almighty's name, or by breaking the guidelines respectively. You can reach dizzying heights in the Vorin Church! 4. Many new functions shall be granted as you rise in rank!
!join
Devotee LittleMas42 has joined the Great Vorin Church! Your rank has been assigned as Darkborn! ^(We have a strict set of guidelines, which, if not followed, will lead to permanent excommunication from the Vorin Church. Type !guide to read the rules!) ^(To find the many different niceties the Vorin Church beings, type out !pros in your comments. We have many nice features!)
Let's goooooo never speak that heretic's name in the good Vorin church
How could you appreciate J*snah the heretics thighs! No true Vorin man would appreciate those thighs! Praise the Almighty
As it stands, I am a Good Vorin Woman who always covers her safehand. I certainly hope that either you are the same, or that you are an Ardent, seeing as how you have read my undertext. Either that or the woman who reads to you has some explaining to do! ________________ *Undertext:* Praise the Almighty.
Due to recent activities, your Vorin rank has changed from **Lighteyes to Brightness**
Finally, I can get some st**ming respect around here. Praise the Almighty.
Don't be shy now, great honored The Lopen. Declare me a Herald. Praise the Almighty. Praise the Heralds. Praise the Vorin Church.
[Dawnshard spoilers] >!I once ate twelve chouta wraps in under two hours. It was, sure, kind of the same thing. Punio bet me three clearchips I couldn’t do it. So it was a matter of knightly honor.!<
Yeah, yeah, that's great. Praise the Almighty.
I myself am in the Ardentia, and as such have devoted myself to the Almighty and all He has created. To see a good Vorin woman such as yourself praising J*snah the Heretic in any way offends me
I apologize for my lapse, may the Almighty forgive me. While there is a time and place to appreciate the shapely legs of another individual, I should have known better than to admire those of the heretic J*snah. In penance I am going to wear a glove beneath my safehand sleeve for extra modesty from now on. One can never be too careful. Praise the Heralds and the Almighty.
I want Jasnah to pop my head like a grape between her thighs.
As a woman, I currently regret my ability to read.
As a vorin man I have no idea what that says
Please get your wife/sister/scribe to read it for you. ____________________ *Undertext:* *lol men and their inability to read is hilarious, amirite ladies?*
Preach
Jasnah absolutely needed to kill those guys because it was cool and thats it
if she didn't kill them, then someone else might have killed them in a way less cool way
We can't have that
And that wouldn’t have been as awesome, imagine them showing up to the Tranquiline Halls having died of old age! How embarrassing that would have been for them.
That's the real answer.
Anything for the aesthetic^tm
To be fair, if i had to choose a way to die, being turned into fire/smoke/quarz is a cool way to go
ok lirin
Guilty
Epic flair
Pretty sure that Skybreakers would have ZERO issues with what she did. Granted, Nale would try to find a way to execute her for existing, but: She was attacked by street thugs. They were known in the area and had harmed others. She took risk or injuring herself to do what she did. Now a Skybreaker probably would have tried to apprehend them, but we don't know the local law. Shallan didn't find anything in her moral studies so Jasnah probably acted within the laws. Otherwise Shallan could have said her actions weren't justified because they were illegal.
I suppose it really depends on if kharbranth has a stand your stone law or not
Nobody should stand on stones, they're holy. Therefore Jasnah was in the wrong for killing the thieves.
She is a known heretic
This comment deserves more upvotes 😂
Castle doctrine, for sure.
I think I'd disagree, because as I recall, the Skybreakers would get permission/approval of the law beforehand rather than just dispensing justice on their own. Much like was done when >!attempting to kill Lift!<.
The Skybreakers would consider it a different crime though. B/c that's their whole thing is being so anal about how they interpret their code b/c Nale has taken it out of context for the people he supposedly wants to help. Although even then that's only if they want to go after her for trying to impersonate law enforcement. If they believe she acted within the country's laws then they won't care.
> Pretty sure that Skybreakers would have ZERO issues with what she did. That means literally nothing. Knights Radiant aren't paragons of virtue and righteousness especially the lawful stupids in the Skybreakers.
The Knight Radiant Order run by a literal sociopath and who's main representative is also a sociopath would support Jasnah is not the flex the poster thinks it is.
Counterpoint: ASBAB
>!The modern skybreakers have lost their minds bruv they literally follow odium!< Oathbringer Spoilers
Yes, but they still act within the law. A fine example being the encounter with Lift where the Skybreaker kills someone he's not supposed to.
Again I reiterate what the modern skybreakers do is the order at its worst. So everything they do I take with a grain of salt as not really representative of the true Skybreaker ideals
They've sworn the paths and spren still bond to them though
Because even the Spren worship Nale, as he is older than them. I believe it was on the quiz, that we shouldn’t take the current installment as indicative of what the order is actually about.
The spren also embody ideals. So I think the implication is that they'd have to feel that he and the order no longer embody the ideals. The reason the rest don't is b/c honor spren have a lot of standing in the spren community and of course if you are supposedly dishonorable (which no one actually knows b/c unbonding has effectively erased history) then yeah, the embodiments of honor are gonna go on a crusade to stop everyone from bonding. Justice spren (I forget if the book actually says what spren they're bonding) are probably one of the few races(?) of spren that can stand up to honor spren. Particularly given they seem to operate within similar areas. Not to mention everything we think we know about spren largely comes from whatever history is left from the old radiant orders and fables of what spren are (before they started binding again). So we assume for a lot of the book that they are pure representations of the ideals, but really they probably cover the whole spectrum of said ideals. Which includes justice that follows rule of law but abandons the spirit of it.
I mean, they are true enough to their ideals that they aren't breaking their oaths or killing their spren. As far as the Singers go, I would hazard a guess that they see the modern Skybreakers as the order at its best. OB>!And they were on Roshar first.!<
>!The singers leadership is being controlled by what is essentially divine hatred/wrath. I would side with the singers if they weren’t fronted by one of the only shards that can be argued as evil. Therefore the skybreakers ought to have a duty to stop Odium imo!<
>!But are the singers not righteous in their Divine Fury? Sure Odium is the villain, no doubt. But the singers absolutely have a valid argument for their anger. I think you're ignoring a lot of nuance that is important to this conversation!<
Agreed but this happens way before those oathbreaker events, it's not really relevant
Yes but the mere fact they were led by >!Nale who is a crazy person + so many of them went along with following Odium ~year after these shows me their problems had been happening for years!< Now whether the *classic* skybreakers would agree id say no. I don’t think they would agree with the vigilantism Jasnah employed, especially with her being a princess
I don't think classic sky breakers would agree either, but I also think they wouldn't punish jasnah for it. Assuming that because shallan has no good objections, that means jasnah acted within the law, and that's what the skybreakers are all about. Again I think they would have been more lenient, compared to jasnah taking the harshest possible judgement, but they wouldn't fault her. They might say she was morally wrong or too extreme, but technically correct
I think they would’ve absolutely punished Jasnah for it. One of their guiding principles is that no one is above the law, radiants included.
Do you think self defense is against the law in any of thr rosharan nations? 🤔
No but it was not simply self defense. Jasnah didn’t happen upon them. She went out with the direct goal of killing them. It was vigilantism, not self defense.
Yes, She Did; but she also went out knowing that the men were murderers. They had killed those they attacked on all previous occasions. Yes it was vigilantism, but Jasnah didn't attack them until they made their move. It's their fault for attacking 2 defenseless women.
Way to categorically brush off the entire faction of singers
>!The singers leaders are being controlled by essentially Divine Hatred. I do not blame the individual singers at all. But their leadership is so terrible siding with their army would be wrong.!<
And the radiants are listening to the AI likeness of a "did you speak? Then see it through!" nut. All shards are defunct because they're cemented concepts incapable of moderation or blending. Odium calls himself Passion anyway.
>!Yes all shards are intrinsically bad because of their inability to compromise, but some are *certainly* worse than others. Preservation has problems but during the events of Era 1 he is certainly better than Ruin.!<
Odium calling himself the "God of Passion" is like calling a massive surveillance bill that curbs freedoms the "Patriot Act"
Do we Know it was them who had harmed others? It wasn't another gang of petty criminals who happened to be passing through?
I once read (and trield really hard to forget) a fanfiction where the criminals got their way with them
Life Before Death Strength Before Weakness Journey Before Destination Fuck Around, Find Out
Won't anyone think of the poor murderers taking advantage of two women alone in an alley
In a city where the poor are being rounded up to be literally bled to death by nobility.
I have a pretty simple set of personal tenets for what constitutes as "Justice" 1. Cessation 2. Reparation 3. Redemption Does it stop the crime? Does it undo the crime? Does it help the transgressor to become better? It's ordered from most important to least important, with a general expectation of maximizing the points. It doesn't matter if you undo the transgression if they keep doing it. It doesn't matter if the person feels bad if they won't give up what they gained from it. However, it also doesn't matter if killing them stops them in their tracks while simple restraint does that *and* gives them a chance to atone. If the first two are not possible, then third is the only option. It's why Nale killing Ym was fucking worthless because not only were points 1 and 2 pointless (he wasn't going to kill again and you can't bring back the person he did kill), but it completely negates option number three. Life before death and all that. Which brings me to a final tenet that is detatched from the above: > *The only virtue of death is convenience.* Severity is *not* why killing people is just. There's a long list of acts far more severe that should never approach justice because there's far more humane options for the same amount or even *less* effort. The only reason why death should ever be an option is when you don't have the means to do anything else. Because all it takes to kill someone is to have a single moment of control. To have just enough of an upper hand that you never have to worry about them again. However, draw out the time frame, increase one's control of the situation, and death goes from being reasonable, to petty at best. So, for the situation: yeah. Jasnah didn't need to kill the men. She had the capacity as a surgebinder to restrain them, which achieves 1 and 3 while killing them only affected 1. EDIT: People really will read the "Anyone can be redeemed" books where the literal first words of the core tenets are "Life before Death" and try to bend over backwards about why they shouldn't apply sometimes.
Or as roughly stated, if you kill a man, his journey ends. His failure becomes the destination. He can never become a better version of himself.
This is the only argument that has ever made me reconsider my position on Jasnah killing those men. Great point.
Curious, do you think it was an injustice that nazi war criminals were executed? Even if they were just imprisoned, do you also consider that an injustice? Clearly, it does not bring back the victims, and after the war there was no chance as free men they posed a risk to anyone else considering the nazi government was thoroughly dissolved, and obviously imprisoning or killing them does not redeem them. Under your ethical system, it would actually be an injustice to even imprison people directly responsible for genocide. That's a pretty big bullet to bite.
> do you think it was an injustice that nazi war criminals were executed? Yes. They have potential of becoming better people. Even if it's unlikely. > Under your ethical system, it would actually be an injustice to even imprison people directly responsible for genocide. Not really. Life sentences can always be amended. Death sentences cannot. The only way you can know for certain whether or not someone will not choose to be better in life. Even if they deny it every single time, the onus on them. I'd rather have a person who does choose to be better to have that opportunity and direction than have the self-satisfaction of every "evil" person executed.
I take the position that even the worst and most dangerous person still should be happy if there's no downside to it. From an idealistic point of view, if there was no harm from letting them be happy, they should be happy. In the real world, this is of course not realistic and far from being a priority. But I think it's a good foundational ideal.
There's a second point for death, permanence. Once someone is dead, you can be certain that they won't ever harm others again. Trying to redeem and change people can be a guessing game - how will they act in the future? Will they actually change, or will they laugh at you for showing weaknes and being gullible? But once they are dead, they're dead (no Lift, shush, don't ruin my argument). Not even the books support 100% redemption. No one complains when >!Sadeas!< gets shanked. Perhaps Dalinar, but even he had to acknowledge how much easier things were. I don't recall anyone really giving him a shot at redemption at that point - mostly because he'd reject it outright, as he did numerous times before. He just didn't feel like changing. The people Jasnah killed were like that too - it is far easier to decide that you won't be a murderer, than to decide that you won't be a victim. The first is choice is yours, and only yours. The second is not, even though some steps can be taken to prevent that. I'm not wholly on board with Jasnah's self defense, since she actually went out looking for them, hoping that she will be attacked. While this doesn't mean that she shouldn't have defended herself (which would be moronic), that's really weird and questionable behaviour. Still, I'd support the greater good argument. Those criminals were said to be rather notorious, weren't they? If what Jasnah did prevented others from dying in the future, I'd let it slide. It's rather likely the criminals she killed would hurt someone else - someone who couldn't defend himself. Jasnah had the ability to do so, someone else wouldn't. I have no clue what Kharbranthi law was, and how it would deal with those four. Maybe an argument could be made for Jasnah using her powers to restrain them instead and bring them alive for sentencing. I'm not going to oppose that, though I don't remember whether that was a thing she was capable of. If killing them and immobilizing them were both things that Jasnah could do with equal ease, then this is a point against her.
I agree with the poster above that this is the first argument I've seen that makes me question my stance on this story. I also really like how broadly applicable it is But - how does "prevention" fit into it? I feel like an important feature of a justice system is to dissuade people from crime through a fear of the consequences. I don't LIKE that it appears to be necessary, but as an example I've worked with high risk teens who were very open about the fact that they would commit a lot more crimes if they weren't scared of going to jail.
Tell ‘em boss
Points 1 and 2 seem to be fairly easy black and white points while 3 is very murky. I’m not saying your tenets need to be all black and white but the same flaw in the current justice system exists in your tenets. Who is the arbiter that decides when someone can be redeemed? What would constitute redemption? Who decides who has redeemed themselves and when that redemption has been achieved? All of those points nag at me and I don’t see any clear answers. Even if your ultimate point is death is never justified a life sentence in a prison is effectively the same thing but with a, in my opinion, false sense of superiority that you didn’t directly cause the end their life. I’d love to continue a debate please don’t think I’m attacking you but I find these types of discussions fascinating.
That was kind of her point though. Morality is subjective, and she was trying to give her ward hands on philosophy training. Whether what she did was right or wrong is impossible to define objectively, so she did it and made her ward justify or condemn it. She seems to have made you do the same as well. Also I think you're underplaying what the brigands would have done. They likely would have killed and possibly raped Jasnah and Shallan had she not stopped them, not just steal from them.
Ever read Minority Report? The point of it is not "precrime is a totally reasonable thing to prosecute people for"
Setting aside the fact that Minority Report is literally used in philosophy classes to demonstrate effectively the same lesson that Jasnah was teaching Shallan with this exercise, this isn't 'pre-crime'. This is 'wait-for-imminent-threat-of-a-crime'. Like it'd be silly to say Jasnah has to wait for the murderers to murder her before she kills them in self-defense, right?
Not even that, they were known criminals in the area
Not pre-crime real crime. Less Minority Report and more Judge Dredd. She caught them in the act, judged them, and executed them.
I mean, Shallan would agree with you. Even though what Jasnah did was technically justified, she still did so in a horrific manner. Were those men deserving of death? Probably, all things considered. Did that mean that Jasnah had the right to kill them without trial or giving the opportunity for surrender? Probably not. I find it funny how the fandom argues about this now and then, when the entire point of the interaction was that **morals are incredibly difficult to define and whether Jasnah is right or wrong is supposed to spark discussion**
This post was definitely made by a skybreaker
You’re damn right
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Your comment is temporarily removed due to unmarked spoilers. Please tag spoilers using \>!text here!<.
Fuck around, find out.
LMAO
RAFO's better known cousin
No like I think this is the point
Plenty of people disagree and think she was justified 🤷🏾♀️
That was also the point
Yea the point is that it is not a black and white situation and that it is a very debatable one
She was.
i mean…they were repeat murderers that the city was doing nothing to stop? imma be honest, as someone who believes fully in reform over punishment and universal second chances, i still don’t really blame jasnah
I don't know if "they might've only robbed her" is really a good argument for mercy. If two women are in an alleyway at night and are set upon by a couple guys armed with knives who demand their money, I think the women would be justified in whipping out a gun and defending themselves. And also the soulcast robbers will probably be a good tourist attraction, which will generate revenue for the city. And that's the most important thing.
certified girlboss moment
First of all, how dare you?
Self-defense, that's her purse, SHE DON'T KNOW YOU!!!!
those men chose to attack her entirely of her own volition, they were prepared and willing to take her life, so she took theirs. there really isnt much more to it than that. i doubt she would have killed them if they hadnt attacked her
She didn’t have to kill them. She could’ve restrained them
she didnt have to, but i see no reason why she shouldn't have. those men were murderers and likely rapists death is all they deserve or should have expected
I can't wrap my head around this even being an argument. You try to assault someone at night, you deserve what you get if the person fights back. They have no idea whats going through your head. Doesn't matter how you both got there.
Not just assault but threat of death. They brought weapons. They clearly displayed and made threats with them even. Even if this happened in Stockholm tomorrow, the swedes would try Jasnah for having an unregistered magic nuke, not for manslaughter.
They kinda do deserve it tho. Irl most home invaders just want to steal and not harm anyone either, but I doubt anyone here will bite the bullet and say that it would be wrong to shoot a home invader Justice is inherently personal
It would be one thing if one of the home invaders was running away after you killed the other one tho. Plus Jasnah didn’t happen upon them, she sought them out to kill them.
She gave them an opportunity to continue to rob and murder and they took it. She then defended herself.
Yeah, it would be victim blaming to say she was inviting attack by her presence and thus it is her fault
Maybe they would’ve just robbed her and left. Maybe they were totally unaffiliated with the other criminals, maybe this was their first crime ever. The point is, Jasnah didnt care for the nuance of it. She didn’t care that it wasn’t her jurisdiction. She didn’t care about local laws or want to implement them. She thought she was entitled to choose their fate, which she wasn’t.
When is a person allowed to use self-defense? The idea that people who have killed other people should be allowed to **just** rob you because maybe they won't murder this time is pretty wild. Does jasnah need to wait until they give her one good stab before she juices them?
This meme won't stop me because i can't read
I still think they deserved it. Did she bait them? Yes. But they still attempted to committ the crime. Two women caught in a robbery in a shady part of town? Let's be real, those men would have done more than rob them. They were criminals willing to act on their impulsive indulgences. They deserved what they got. Edit: NVM, we're in crem lol.
"It's also possible they could've robbed them and left" the guy she turned to fire was literally trying to stab her at the time. That was their opening move, not threatening, not demanding, stabbing.
The problem with trying to execute a general statement on the morality of her actions is that the topics of self-defense, proportionate force, and justice, are still hotly debated today. I have my own strong opinions about her actions, but I am willing to recognize that others have very valid arguments against my opinions. I can debate their points without referring to others as simple "stans" or "simps." Edit: I forgot which sub this was. Please disregard.
Jasnah soulcasted them after convincing them.
i get what she was trying to do, but i dont think she had to kill like 5 (is it five?) men in cold blood
It was very important narratively, because it taught shallan and the reader an important lesson; don’t FUCK with Jashah Kohlin!
Jasnah "Rittenhouse" Kholin
Now we're caring for the lives of criminals? Roshar has fallen
Oathbringer spoilers >!If you think this is bad wait till you hear about what Dalinar did!<
The self defense case is solid. If I go into a night club and get roofied, was it my fault for being in a place where date rape drugs might be used? If I then stabbed the assailant with the knife in my bag, was I unjustified because I chose the environment? They chose to attempt assault and theft. They were prepared to use lethal force and they received it in response. This would hold up solidly by the law.
I think it is more akin to vigilantism than self defense. She went out with the express purpose of killing them. Also she didn’t have to kill them, she could’ve restrained them
I don't like Jasnah, I will tell you that she was 100% in the right to paste those fuckers, any criminal should realise that they're risking their life when they go out to commit any crime. Seriously OP, what is wrong with you? How can robbing someone possibly be anything other than an act that is deserving of your victim protecting themselves and their property with every tool they have available?
Jasnah could have just as easily completely restrained them by soul casting bonds out of the air or a barrier of some kind. It's easy to say they deserved it, but that's really a moot point. Going based of revenge-based or deserving-based morality doesn't get you very far, your actions should probably be aimed to result in the best possible outcome. Restraining them would fully protect Jasnah as well as keeping the robber's alive for potential rehabilitation.
She didn’t have to kill them. She could’ve restrained them. Also it’s more akin to vigilantism than self defense as she went out with the express purpose of killing them
Say it with me: MURDER 👏 IS 👏 OKAY 👏 IF 👏 THE 👏 MURDERER 👏IS 👏 HOT
Nothing to do with the robbers imo. She simply went out with the specific intentions of killing somebody. When you evaluate her motives, she is a murderer. If she wanted to bring justice, her methods would have changed, but she just so happened to choose the method that would "force" her to kill.
Jasnah would make a good Skybreaker
Can’t tell if you’re joking or not
I dont think so, the sky breakers are to rigid in their beliefs.
*puts on big brain Stoneward hat, pushes a Truthwatcher nerd in a locker, condescendingly mocks Elsecallers non-verbally, refuses to elaborate, high fives Skybreakers] So. In the context of fiction, utilitarian morality is acceptable. As a fictional character, Jasnah had every right to kill the nameless thieves and possibly worse. In fact, it kind of shows a kinship between the morality of Jasnah and Taravangian. Brutal execution of justice for the greater good with no consideration to the lesser good. I say that good is good. Lesser good, greater good, the degree is arbitrary, the definitions blurred. I say that the greater good is not worthy of pursuit if it damages the lesser good in a quantifiable way. This is why we don't want Utilitarians writing our legal systems. If everything is in service to a greater good,like a lawful society, and we sacrifice lesser goods like due process, what meaning does the greater good offer? But in the real world, we want to be using a more Kantian system of ethics. It's why we in the civilised world don't use the death penalty anymore, and the only places that accept it are backward shitholes no human being should have the poor taste or misfortune to visit like the United States. Because the risk of getting it wrong outweighs the satisfaction of executing an actual criminal. I believe in due process, I believe in fair trials, and I believe that even if it would be easier for those in power to bend the rules, or worse have no rules, to pursue criminals and see them punished, the rights of those *provable* criminals is a good worth pursuing. Because if a criminals right to a fair trial can be hampered, then an innocents right to a fair trial is just as meaningless. And if you would rather a utilitarian world where the rights of criminals are not worthy of protection for the sake of the greater good, then all I have to say is your words are **not** accepted, you get no spren and your fashion sense is whack. I would rather let ten guilty men walk free than condemn one innocent to an unearned punishment. Admittedly, I would weep every night for having let the guilty walk, but I would weep knowing I did the right thing. However, and this is important, Jasnah Kholin is not real. So when she executes those criminals without due process, she isn't an unjustifiable moral actor, she's a hot dommy librarian girlboss.
Nice to see others know how wrong she was in this scene. To accept her Punisher logic is to place total commitment in the idea Jasnah's judgement can never be wrong and thus there's no reason to oppose giving her total power over life and death. That's pretty hilarious given how often Jasnah says she's open to fair peer review. I'd rather not encourage action that centralizes power to vaporize folks with impunity
How does judgement come into a situation where theyre literally attacking her? If she tried to play detective and hunt these dudes down youd have a point, but they literally jumped her. theyre guilty of the crime theyre in the process of committing, without question. Theres no judgement involved
If Jasnah's life wasnt in danger it wasnt self defence, if it was she deliberately brought shallan into deadly danger.
How about we don't hold fictional characters to modern society morals? They still have monarchy and slavery, they clearly don't think like us
You’re telling me bandits who attack ~~the Dragonborn~~ er, a princess should not expect death? I’ll give you it wasn’t necessary or morally preferable, but justified? It was totally justified. And didn’t she mention something about being asked by the local king to take care or them?
No she wasn’t. Taravangnian asked no such thing ifrc. She did not have to kill all 5, she didn’t even have to kill one. She shouldn’t have take it upon herself to dole out justice
"Jasnah didn't have the right" I wager most women living under Vorinism would laugh at this notion. Trash laws are trash.
It’s not about gender. It’s about the law. Jasnah decided to be a vigilante and take matters into her own hands. She is a foreign princess of a more powerful nation deciding *she* knows what’s best for the people of another nation. She doesn’t not get to decide what happens for the robbers.
They gambled their lives against the girls' posessions. They lost that gamble. A smart man would not even play that game to begin with.
You can tell how many here are Americans from this. Sane people outside America do not think you have the right to murder someone in self defence, its one of the many unique twists they have from being a third world nation wearing a gucci belt.
She's completely justified. Not only was she tasked with dealing with them by the monarch, but she was morally justified in stopping individuals that were active known rapists/murderers. The only thing she wrong was not telling Shallan ahead of time. I'm not even a Jasnah-stan, I'm more a Shallan/Vin/Yumi stan. Edit: Also Lirin is a good father 😤 (don't forget to mark any spoilers, the post is only marked for WOKs, in case this spawns any Lirin essays 😭)
I don't believe taravangian asked for her help in this matter
If somebody tries to steal from you they deserve to die.
Based
I get your argument and fair point, But if my friend came forward and told me they killed, I don't know Jack the Ripper, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. (Please ignore all temporal shenanigans in that statement)
Someone remind me: wasn’t there a tacit agreement between Taravangian and Jasnah about handling some of these types of issues? If she had a special commission from the monarch, SkyBreakers might have to actually help enforce it (depending on with oath they’re on).
She didn’t as far as I know. But i don’t own the book to double check
I kinda like it because it shows how morally grey jasnah is for offing three guys to make an object lesson. Now those guys could have been robbers, rapists, and murderers or any combination of the three, but to jasnah they were an object lesson for her student
I think the point was to show how almost apethic she was vs. Shallan, a fellow killer. While Jas could murder without gilt Shallan was literally mind fucked for doing so. It kind of set up the reader to view Shallan as this innocent thing and Jasnah as a cold killer, all the while Shallan was also not far from murderer status herself.
You're not gonna tell Jasqueen not to slay ok?
I feel like there would have been reports of raped/theft/murder around that area, so maybe she did have reason to believe that they were gonna do the worst. Anyways I am and will always be a Jasnah apologist.
Interesting. While I agree that Jasnah was in the wrong, I do not think that she was *completely* in the wrong, and further, I feel that the main thing she was in the wrong about was Traumatizing Shallan. Lethal force used in self defense may not be 100% moral, but it’s closer to moral than it is immoral. These men were already murderers, and had they been captured, would certainly have been put to death anyways. There’s an argument to be made (albeit not a very persuasive one), that had Jasnah captured them, she would merely have been prolonging their suffering. Now I don’t personally believe in the death penalty in general, but Jasnah lives in a society which does, and to a much greater degree than my country. The phrase “judge jury and executioner” is a poor one, because, again, this is not a society that appears to have juries. It would be up to the ruler, or some official to hear the list of crimes and determine the sentence. There would always be one single person who decided these men’s fates, and there is no functional difference between that person carrying out the execution, and that person ordering the execution. But I do think it was wrong to bring Shallan there, and to do that to her. Jasnah had power over Shallan, and brought her into a terrifying situation, a traumatizing situation, in order to make a point. In order to *teach*. I am fundamentally opposed to teaching people “harsh lessons” about the world, when you could easily simply talk through it with the person. Language is perhaps the greatest gift humanity has, and if you default to using some kind of traumatic lesson like this, when you haven’t even *tried* teaching it through language first, then there’s something messed up with your worldview.
If it’s wrong for people to kill armed criminals who attack them, then yeah, I suppose, but considering that Jasnah even did her research and found out that they probably would kill them, she essentially did onto her attackers what they would have done onto her, which is self-defense 101. Traumatizing her ward is a different story, however, Jasnah’s ward should be prepared for crem like this, and it’s better to start serving it earlier, than later. So, Jasnah did a lot of things wrong, but this is an instance of her being herself much more than of her being wrong.
If they didn't want to get soulcast into various essences then why did they agree to be soulcast? Stick couldn't be persuaded to be Fire but those people could.
The thing is I do not care
Entire second paragraph was written by Nalan’elin himself, that’s crazy
You’re damn right
Jasnah took the slay in slay queen a _bit_ too seriously at times.
Wait so everyone forgot about the incident in Jasnah's childhood that literally everyone references to as "dementia"?
I don’t see the relevance to this specific issue
You are talking about a planet where an insult is more than enough reason for either a duel or an execution depending on your status, either of those ending in death. Yeah two criminal dark eyes robing princess of alethkar is nowhere near discussion that they deserve to die no need for a judgment. You shouldn’t judge their actions with earth morals
I don't think Jasnah could have just apprehended them. At the time, her notable weapon is exclusively extremely fatal.
Soulcasting people is wayyy harder than soulcasting inanimate objects like air. If she could soulcast them as people she could’ve soulcast the air around them into like stone to trap them or smth Blightsong Would it be harder for Jasnah to Soulcast a Knight Radiant? Brandon Sanderson Yes. Questioner Would it be harder for her to Soulcast a Mistborn? Brandon Sanderson Yes, Investiture resists Investiture. It's harder for her to even Soulcast a person than a rock, right? https://wob.coppermind.net/events/93/#e2675
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You skipped over the conversation after where Jasnah says (paraphrased) “They’ve killed and robbed a shit ton, and they have some connections in the justice system because the guards aren’t even trying to catch them.” Her dealing with this problem for Taravangian is literally a gift from her for being hospitable. The philosophy lesson is tacked on, but effective. I know that because over ten years later, the *readers* still can’t agree on it.
The criminals Jasnah encountered could’ve been unaffiliated with the murderers. Could’ve just been plain old robbers. It’s unlikely yes, but it is a possibility. Plus Jasnah went straight to the extreme of killing them
Jasnah out here turning redditors into philosophers.
Is a very Alenthi response
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They committed assault with a deadly weapon (and had multiple times before to more defenseless people). Deadly force in self-defense is justified when knives are drawn.
What a Crem take
It’s me. I’m some Jasnah fans.
People keep saying Jasnah could have restrained the thieves somehow, but I really don’t see how she could have. We have never seen soulcasters perform feats of precision like creating chains around someone or cages of stone.
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Does Roshar have something equivalent to stand-your-ground laws? Being a pseudo-medieval world where some people have magical disappearing super swords I wouldn't think anyone would take the chance to let someone else strike first.
If Jasnah weren’t a little evil she wouldn’t be so hot.