Does anyone feel the ideals become more lame the more the story goes on?
Hear me out.
When i mean ideals i mean the windrunners ideals specifically, i realized the more i read the less sense they made as a whole and it went from awesome defining characteristics of an order of knights to... just lame whatever words.
Let me explain, in book 1 Kaladin swears the first and second, first is the same for every order so we skip that, second is "I will protect those who cannot protect themselves", which is cool, very straight forward, it tells us that Windrunners are the classical knights that do good, protect people, be a good dude, cool AF.
Then, in book 2 Kaladin swears the third which is "I will protect even those I hate, so long as it is right", again, very cool ideal, it reinforces the "Windrunners protect people" and even adds a little challenge for the knight since it prioritizes whats right over the feelings of the knight, very classical imo, another cool AF ideal to the list.
Then, since he can have squires, the Windrunners start to grow, the books tell us that most of bridge 4 already swore their first and second, and it never truly dives on this because... well we know what they are, we dont need explaining, by book 3 the problems start to show up.
In book 3 Teft swears the 3rd ideal, his exact words were "I will protect those I hate. Even...even if the one I hate most is... myself" which... it changes the words and i think thats a problem, in the moment is cool, the spirit of the ideal is the same but the challenge to overcome and truly swear it is different for Kaladin as it is for Teft, Kaladin´s challenge is Elokhar and Teft´s is himself, but if he spoke the words just like Kaladin it would´ve changed nothing, and i think he should have said the same words because this flexibility on the ideals is what makes them "lame" in my opinion, but different words are cool for the moment, bad for the overall logic, but nothing big since it still keeps the spirit of the ideal, to overcome hate and give protection,
But then Lopen swore his 3rd and it was funny in the moment but i knew there was no going back, his words were "I've got to protect people, you know? Even from myself." And... what? wtf does that mean? i cant even say that it keeps the spirit of the ideal, is just some words than still have to do with protect in the sentence...
Book 4 has the 4th ideal which is still imo very strong and since we have not seen someone else swore it, i think it still holds its strenght, acepting that people will die fits the challenge of swearing the ideal.
And then it all falls
Ideal 5 is just so freaking dumb... like, seriously? self-care and self-love? "I will protect myself, so that I may continue to protect others" is just... beyond the fact that by this point Sanderson´s writting feels more like a direct message on the importance of mental health and stuff like that than the actual story... the 5th doesnt make sense!! Because for the ideal to work, it would need to be so subjective and so vague, that anyone would be able to speak any words, if Teft were alive and he was about to swore the 5th ideal... he would face no challenge because the words in the ideal are all things he already does, his 3rd ideal was all about deserving protection, and every windrunner already swore the 2nd with the exact words so... wtf would Teft swear? The only answer is "Ideals are different for every Radiant, not only every order" but... then why did it follow an order in the first 2 books? and even in the 3rd book, up until Lopen, the ideals still shared the same "spirit" and thematic challenge, it made the windrunners actually feel like a group of knights that share THE SAME IDEALS:
protect people
protect regardless of emotions
accept you cant protect everyone
But now if this was the 5th it means someone like Lopen would face no challenge, which is lame, but if he does face a challenge it would mean completely different words, which is vague, which is lame, i mean these are Windrunners not Lightweavers just spitting facts, if the words of the ideals keep becoming more and more subjective and everyone has different words, the Windrunners are just going to be some randos with their connection being that they can fly. Like, whats stopping Lopen to say "I will protect my cousins so they can protect me" or some random thing like that? subjectivity imo makes the ideals weaker.
TLDR; Windrunners’ Ideals started strong and knightly, but got vaguer with time. Teft’s 3rd. still made sense, Lopen’s 3rd. felt off, and the 5th sounds like a self-help sloggan. If everyone swears different words, what's even the point of calling them the same Ideals? They’re just people who fly now.
Posted Jul 9, 2025, 11:14 PM UTC