The Way of Kings

Shallan is the main heroine of the novel, a secondary protagonist, and a multifaceted character. Initially, she is rather shy and avoids conflict. However, she also thirsts for knowledge and new experiences and gradually discovers she is persistent, which helps her deal with difficult situations. Because of her dark past, alluded to multiple times, Shallan seeks to understand truth and justice, but eventually realizes that there is no one clear answer.

Shallan is described as young, “pale-skinned” with some freckles and having light blue eyes, and long, “auburn-red hair” (66). She is an aristocrat by Roshar standards, but has led a sheltered and difficult life. Her father was abusive, leaving Shallan deeply scarred and uncertain about her own worth and abilities. Initially, her main talent is drawing and the ability to memorize and exactly reproduce faces and scenes, referred to as “Memory.”

Despite their different social status and upbringing, Shallan and Kaladin are very much alike. They both have suffered at the hands of others and feel determined to help and protect their families, albeit in different ways. Finally, they are both talented: Shallan has unique drawing skills and innate Soulcasting abilities, while Kaladin is a master of the spear and discovers his own innate powers. However, while Kaladin pursues objective moral truth and accepts his total responsibility to others, Shallan embraces a more complicated moral worldview. Shallan distinguishes between intentions and actions when considering moral behavior. These two characters never meet in this novel, but eventually their paths will cross on the Shattered Plains in future entries in the series.

By the end of the novel, Shallan has grown from a frightened girl to a powerful young woman. Her concerns and interests grow beyond the preservation of her own family as her nascent powers inspire her to consider what larger role she might play in humanity’s battle against the Voidbringers.

The third protagonist of the novel, Dalinar is the late king’s brother and current king Elhokar’s uncle. He is a widower and father to two sons, Adolin and Renarin. As a young man, Dalinar gained notoriety as a deadly warrior. He experienced war trances in which he could kill large numbers of enemies quickly and efficiently. After his wife’s death, he visits the Nightwatcher and as a result loses all his memories of her. Even her name sounds like gibberish when someone says it in his presence. This episode evinces Dalinar’s difficulty with confrontation and grief, to things the novel forces him to address.

When the novel opens, Dalinar has recently begun seeing visions during highstorms. In the visions, he is tasked to unite Roshar in order to fight off an unknown enemy, Odium. After his brother’s murder, Dalinar becomes interested in The Way of Kings, an ancient religious text in which a mythical king, Nohadon, writes about his experiences of ruling and his thoughts on what makes a good leader. Dalinar’s interest in ancient traditions and beliefs in combination with his unintelligible visions gain him the reputation of being soft and feeble-minded. However, Dalinar’s dedication to what he sees as the right thing to do wins over his vanity and pride, which ultimately leads to his transformation into a better person. By the end of the novel, Dalinar has taken ownership of his moral certitude, opened his heart to love again, and started to confront his fate. Of all the primary characters of the novel, Dalinar is the most explicitly and intentionally connected to systems of religion and spirituality on Roshar. Through Dalinar, Sanderson simultaneously critiques humans’ ability to reshape religious traditions to serve sociopolitical power structures and reaffirms the novel’s position on the existence of an objective, absolute morality.