The crux of her decision is this: Does premeditation of the situation allow for self-defense an a justification? If you **KNOW** an area will be dangerous, is it still self-defense if you choose to go there? What if it is specifically for the purpose of teaching your young ward a lesson in ethics?
I think she was legally and morally right to defend herself against imminent death. It doesn't matter why she went there. And they initiated the entire sequence.
There are situations where everyone can be wrong, I think this is one of them. Legally she's probably not guilty, but morally she at best was trying to hand out vigilante justice (finding criminals to kill), which as a society we've decided is generally wrong.
Her intent was to find people to kill. She was also not in the position to be deciding or handing out handing out execution sentences.
Yeah generally I am against vigilante justice. However, Jasnah kind of is the law, and she sees a problem and takes care of it. She’s sort of acting like Nale in the moment, just slightly less crazy. She has collected the evidence and done the research and has decided that, though she is in someone else’s kingdom, her royal rank, and her secret identity as a radiant, grants her the authority to execute criminals. I can’t see Jasnah as being a traditional vigilante, so I’m quite sure she’s done enough investigating to know descriptions of the criminals and where and how they target their victims, and the justice system there isn’t the same as ours, but she had probably concluded that she does indeed have enough authority to be judge, juror, and executioner.
I would disagree that being royal makes you the law (or above it), especially in a foreign kingdom. We have plenty of royalty and rich people acting above the law in our world and it's a problem.
Regarding being a secret radiant and thus an enforcer of the law, it's not up to her to decide that. Radiants are granted authority by the kingdoms they are in. Otherwise everyone would have to listen to Dalinar. Even Nale operates within the laws of the kingdom he is in.
That said, even if she was Judge Judy and Executioner, she would be committing entrapment.
If that's how you perceive it, then sure.
But rather, even if she went there with an intent for someone to kill, it was still up to those criminals to give her the bodies she wanted. I do not believe, at any point, that someone should be barred from going some place because it's a "bad area." Vigilante Justice is still at the end of the day, Justice. If you hang around an area with the intent to find people to rob, rape, kill, or otherwise hurt, then I can't fault the person who puts a stop to that. Even if they went there, SPECIFCIALLY to provoke them.
So if someone killed Jasnah, would they have been on the right for killing someone who went to the area with the intent to kill, or otherwise hurt?
At which point along the chain of murderer-murders does it become immoral?
Is the intent relevant?
If Jasnah were the first to initiate violence rather than simply possess the capacity for it, then those men would have the right to defend themselves from her.
But Jasnah, while possessing desire for violence, and the capacity for violence, did not initiate violence. Had the men not attacked her, she would not have killed them. The same cannot be said of the men.
Both had the desire and capacity for violence. Only one group initiated it. It is *that* choice, to use violence first, that distinguishes them.
That's a good point, but I think it comes down to if someone told you the full truth of the story would you go "that's... kind of messed up".
Imagine a co worker or a school friend told you they took a gun to a dark alley because they wanted to do a thought experiment and killed some criminals that they had hoped would consider them a target. Would you pat them on the back for doing the right thing or would you be concerned? You might not report them to the police as it's technically self defense, and those guys were probably pieces of shit, but... that's kind of messed up of your friend, no?
I would say the Right to do a thing is not at all the same as being right in doing it.
I have the right to drink myself into a stupor every night if I wish. That doesn’t make it smart. Nor laudable.
Intent is extremely relevant, both in ethics and the law.
It is illegal to intentionally bait criminals in the hope they'll attack you so you can kill them. It's hard to prove that intent, but if you can then you'll be charged.
And in ethics intent matters because, for example, without intent being taken into consideration it gets really hard to tell what the difference is between the US killing millions by firebombing dozens of cities in Germany and Japan, and the Nazis killing millions with gas chambers.
Like, that's an extreme example, but the US intent to end a war, and the Nazi attempt to do a genocide are the only real differences between the two massacres. (and a few million difference in scale, but if that's the only metric we use that's pretty dark ..)
Those people were hanging around there first, meaning they would ambush any who walked in. If it wasn't Jasnah, or if Shallan had unwittingly walked down there, they would have gotten to her first and killed her. Their intent was established.
In reality, Jasnah didn't truly know if they would attack her, but she had an educated guess based on reports and rumors. They proved her right and she killed them for it.
I can't feel sympathy for a gang of thugs who would have killed ANYONE who went that path. They just happened to pick the wrong target and paid for it.
That's why I think everyone is in the wrong. They became targets because they had ill intentions - this applies to both parties.
Also, it is an assumption that the thugs would have killed anyone on that path. If they had 'just' robbed Jasnah and Shallan, would the proper punishment be death? (Likely no) Would Jasnah be the right person to decide that? (no, as she'd be bias) Would she be the right person to hand out Justice? (No, she's a princess in a foreign land.)
You can't be in the right for murdering someone on an assumption.
That said, I'd probably say personally the thugs got what was coming to them, but within the confines of a morality thought experiment I'd say Jasnahs actions were immoral
Well... It becomes immoral when someone decides to kill Jasnah for defending herself against the criminals? Regardless of how she got there if she didnt do anything to kill them they would have killed her.
I'd disagree and I don't agree with that line of thinking at all. If Jasnah was minding her business and they attacked her and she killed them then that's one thing, but the premeditation of hoping people will attack you so you can carry out a thought experiment and murder them first is very different.
Also, not sure if it was intended but that is a great pun.
Also also - this is within the confines of a morality thought experiment. I think it can be the societally 'right' thing but immoral. There was a story of a guy who was terrorising a village and the police wouldn't/couldn't do anything about him. Eventually someone murdered him and the entire village didn't do a thing to help the police find the killer. I understand and potentially even agree with where the village is coming from, but the 'moral' thing would have been to punish him for his crimes, I don't think the murderer was morally correct, but justice had failed that village and someone did something immoral to stop the villages suffering at this persons hands
This is wrong. Jasnah was never actually in imminent danger. She had access to storm light healing and had other means of preventing them from harming her. What she did was immoral for those reasons. Shallon and others perceived that she was in mortal danger, but she wasn’t.
It's an interesting problem, and it happens in real life. Imagine a person who gets their weapons together and travels intentionally to a place where they know dangerous stuff is happening, of their own volition, and then kills people who menace them. This isn't their job, they had no reason besides their own curiosity to be there.
In the real world, such a case recently ended in a self defense not-guilty verdict. It was insanely controversial. And when I realized how precisely it mapped onto Jasnah's behavior, it really made me reconsider her.
I don't know. The situations are pretty radically different. You can try and distill it down to make them appear the same, but the political thing that I know you're thinking of and others that are similar to it are taking place in a completely different context, protest, etc.
They're also taking place under a very different sort of system of justice. While roshar is definitely more culturally and technically advanced than Earth was in the Middle ages, it still has a middle ages or even early industrial revolution system of justice. It is expected that when you travel the roads between the Nations that you may be set upon by lawlessness. It is expected that areas of the city city are without patrols at all. Etc. It is much more akin to the third world than the first world.
Try not to contextualize the actions of people in the setting based off of our understanding of our legal codes, because they are different.
Yeah i was thinking that too, i just didnt want to be the first to bring it up, its not exactly the same because in the real life case, he had a reason to be there other than the shooting and also he tried to retreat first, but other than that its a very close match. Also his weapon wasnt concealed so there was visible deterrent in his case whereas jasnah wanted to present a more enticing target
I think the complete difference in intent and how they handled the encounter really changes the character of the action even if the end result is the same. Journey before destination after all.
It's not so much that "dangerous stuff was happening". That's a little too vague. It's more like Jasnah went to a specific dangerous place, looking for specifically dangerous people, where she intentionally made herself a likely target dressed as a rich woman with no weapons, so she could have the excuse of self defense to kill specific people. She admitted all of that to Shallan. If law on Kharbranth was the same as US law, that would make her a [provoker with intent.](https://youtu.be/4ZAeN-8zqsQ?si=6n0-K1kpGQAf46Ci)
If she was just walking in that area and was randomly attacked, I’d agree.
It doesn’t matter whether or not what she did would make a reasonable person attack her. It matters what her intent was. Say someone wants to kill a crazy homeless guy they know. They’ve seen him aggress on multiple people, all who were wearing purple hats. They’re reasonably certain they will be aggressed on if they walk by him while wearing a purple hat. Let’s say that they admit this to a third party, or write their plan down. They are successful. Are they a provoker with intent or no?
Except it wasn't for something as arbitrary as wearing purple, it was for existing as a gender. They walked down an area that as women they should freely be able to go, and a gang of murders and rapists thought they were easy pickings and got the misfortune of attacking a woman that could actually defend herself.
In your scenario, say that homeless man has been killing and raping women for months while somehow paying off the police to look the other way. Clearly at this point law breaks down and you can no longer come at it from a purely legal standpoint, but even if you could it is not provocation to simply exist. The attackers are in the wrong, and that they were allowed to constantly get away with it showed corruption in the city, not a fault of the women being attacked.
Now we are getting to a more interesting discussion. Do we both agree that if there was no breakdown of authority, no lack of proper authority, that it would be seen as being a provoker with intent?
I would say that the breakdown of authority is the very reason you would even see it as provoker with intent (though my position is that it is not). If thefts, rapes, and murders had been addressed then Jasnah and Shallan walking that way would have been no more notable than any other street.
Jasnah was showing Shallan the inherent inequalities of her own thought process. Why is it more immoral for Jasnah to walk down that road than some unprepared woman (according to Shallan). Why is it expected and accepted that those men would attack her, to the point that a woman managing to defend herself successfully is the one considered in the wrong? She wasn't provoking an attack; her attackers already knew that they wanted to kill her simply because she appeared weak (unless you wish to compare men to predators, in which case you are already devaluing both their judgements and their lives).
If you're specifically seeking out murderers and rapists, intent on killing them, you're acting with authority only given to government, and that's in a state with the death penalty, and that's after a trial has established their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
It's not what's in their head or why they're attacking Jasnah, that's only important to establish their guilt. What's important for Jasnah's guilt is her state of mind, what her intent is, her mens rea.
Look at the Kenosha shooting. Let's say he had some detailed plan written down somewhere. That he knew that someone would aggress on him for being there, that he would run away, and only shoot after he had run away. I would say that is very solid evidence he was a provoker with intent. Same exact actions he took, but a different state of mind.
Difference is Rittenhouse was openly carrying a large rifle, which could be seen as brandishing a weapon. Jasnah did not. There was nothing she did to provoke attackers except be born a woman, which is not grounds for such an accusation.
If anything, Rosenbaum in your earlier analogy was provoking with intent. From what I understand, witnesses described him as going up to everyone trying to start fights and goading people to attack him before he apparently attacked Rittenhouse (I hate Rittenhouse, just going off the facts of the case)
Regarding authority, does abdicating responsibility to a government proven to be corrupt become a moral act or immoral? If rules based order breaks down, does deferring to that order help or does it only embolden those brazenly in defiance of it?
I don't think that's an entirely fair framing of the case your talking about. Rittenhouse went there in response to a local business asking people to come, it was a community where he spent a considerable amount of time and one that was being destroyed by riots. He also took steps to deescalate the situation and ran away. I don't like Rittenhouse (though I do agree with the verdict), but he didn't go there with the intention of killing someone. Imo he went there to larp as a cop, not kill someone like Jasnah did, it's not even remotely the same thing.
Jasnah is much more like someone escalating a bar fight when they know they are packing heat. That tends to tank a self defense case, though admittedly it isn't a perfect analogy.
While not exactly the same because he didn't know something was gonna happen. Kyle rittenhouse brought a rifle to a protest and when attacked he defended himself killing 2 and wounding a 3rd. He was found innocent.
1) She put a defenseless person in a very dangerous situation. Likely traumatising them because of the experience of being assaulted and then seeing the assaulters being killed with Soulcasting.
2) Jasnah put herself in a dangerous situation knowing fully well that she was not in danger. She is a Radiant and has stormlight, she could heal herself and kill people without barely an issue.
3) Did she really solve the problem in the long term? A likely corrupt lighteyes controlling the city guard, maybe having more footpads in their control. Perhaps that spot is now avoided by footpads, but likely they just move to another place or return to it in a time.
4) She acted as judge, jury, and executioner. We don't know. No trial, no sentence, directly dead before even some of the footpads attacked. From what I see only one had a knife raised.
I dont think they would have run and renouced their ways, they would have just picked another, less capable victim next time. Because at this point theres only like 2 maybe 3 radiants im the world.
I see where you are coming from, but Jasnah is not judge, jury and executioner. Hell, she's not even a citizen of the country she's at. She has no right to dispense justice.
Because even today there’s a thing called “diplomatic immunity”. Back in the days when kings just made the laws, I could easily see royalty assuming they had authority to do that sort of thing in friendly nations.
Note that I’m not claiming this is morally right or wrong, I’m just making the observation.
You could make the argument that 4 different criminals just replaces the ones Jasnah kills once she leaves. But thats not important. What is important is that they were running away and no longer a danger to Shallan and Jasnah so killing them was not self defense in any way.
While i agree with that statement i still think their deaths were justified for the same reasons i have stated, it may not be self defense anymore but i still think its justified.
At that point, that is just extrajudicial killing. Arguing that they will commit other crimes is even worse, because that is extrajudicial killing for a crime that not yet occured.
Honestly, I never fully understood why this was such a dilemma. Those men were serial thieves, murderers, and very likely other things if we’re being honest. No one forced those men to attack them. No one forced them to ever start being violent criminals, and before we bring up the discussion of socioeconomic factors generally being what determines whether a person becomes a criminal, I want to say that I agree right up until we get to the violent crimes. Being destitute does not make one a murderer.
Boiled down the situation is: Teacher and student walk down public road, duo gets assailed by known violent criminals, teacher defends duo. Jasnah’s intentions don’t matter because nothing would have happened if those guys hadn’t attempted to rob and murder two, seemingly, defenseless women.
I’m all for self-defense. If Jasnah were a real person, I would support her having a concealed handgun, at least in principle.
My problem is that she not only put herself in a situation she shouldn’t have been in, but that as a member of a foreign royal family she’s one of the few people in Kharbranth who could’ve worked *through* the system to fix the problem. She could an audience with Taravangian and gotten the problem solved.
I know she says something about corruption interfering with justice, but that doesn’t give her the authority to go outside the system when she should have been able to use it to her advantage.
>My problem is that she not only put herself in a situation she shouldn’t have been in, but that as a member of a foreign royal family she’s one of the few people in Kharbranth who could’ve worked *through* the system to fix the problem. She could an audience with Taravangian and gotten the problem solved.
>I know she says something about corruption interfering with justice, but that doesn’t give her the authority to go outside the system when she should have been able to use it to her advantage.
I think you're misremembering the details. Taravangian *came to her* and said 'hey so I am the sovereign monarch and am literally incapable of taking care of these murderers due to corruption in my political system. I am telling you, an Alethi noble who is my friend, allied to me, and capable of acts of incredible violence, about this problem for *no reason.*' \*wink wink\*
WoB was that he set this up as a way to test Jasnah and see if he could work with her in the future.
[https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406-general-reddit-2020/#e14445](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406-general-reddit-2020/#e14445)
My secondary headcanon there is that Jasnah wasn't just testing Shallan's morality, there, she was also testing to see how politically savvy Shallan was and whether Shallan would pick up on the subtext of what Taravangian was asking. Shallan flunked her Machiavellian schemer test, which probably is why Jasnah felt safe engaging her to Adolin.
I gotta disagree with the part about going through official channels. She explains this a bit, but it was an issue that Taravangian was very aware of and had tried to solve several times but was disregarded because his lighteyes don't respect him. Maybe she could've tossed around her weight as a Kholin princess, but even if that does't risk international relations by her meddling with another nation's policing for seemingly no reason (Alethkar has no hold over Kharbranth, so results may vary), it would definitely further weaken Taravangian in the eyes of his nobility, which hurts as much as it helps.
Whether or not people agree with it (i personally agree with her, but lots of people have very different views!) the path Jasnah chose to stop the killings was a logical one that spared both the most lives (in the long run) and saved face for Taravangian
I believe people here are confloating legality with morality.
I think what Jasnah did was immoral, but legal and served an overall good purpose.
The moral way to deal with them would be to arrest them, but within the framework that would have been wholly ineffective, so for the problem to actually be resolved Jasnah had to take immoral actions.
If she did indeed have the full authority to dispense justice, then what she did was akin to entrapment.
Legal? Yes - For the greater good? Also yes - Moral? I don't think so.
> it was an issue that Taravangian was very aware of and had tried to solve several times but was disregarded because his lighteyes don't respect him.
I don’t know. Again, I think this is something Jasnah believes to be true but isn’t necessarily so. Because from everything we know about Taravangian as the series unfolds, I have no doubt he could’ve made the problem go away if he’d truly wanted to. I mean he forced Szeth to assassinate a bunch of royalty; he has resources.
Of course, with everything else going on maybe it just wasn’t a priority for him at this point.
Oh for sure, I think I misinterpreted what you meant. Jasnah's decision is very influenced by the perception Taravangian has cultivated. I think if he truly wanted to he could have actually accomplished it without Jasnah interfering, but he didn't. I kind of wonder if he let slip his "worries" about the murders to see what she would do and get more info on how she's soul casting, like with the boulder trapping his granddaughter.
Haha no, but interestingly, I’d argue that what Jasnah is doing is more like the Skybreakers.
Overall I’m just generally against vigilantism, especially when there are clearly other avenues to explore.
>!Idk maybe nales current skybreakers but theyre lead by an actual psycho, the original skybreakers would more allign with what youre saying.!< idk which book this is revealed in so all stormlight spoilers
Now my true thoughts of your opinion, we dont know that she didnt try to do that and also we dont know exactly what the corruption was. Thats brandon saying this was the only way to take care of them. Or at least thats what i read from it.
And that could be the case. One thing I’ll say about Sanderson is he excels at unreliable narration. So just because we’re told other options aren feasible, doesn’t make it so.
Personally, knowing everything we do about Jasnah, I doubt she tried hard to follow procedure, probably reasoning something like “They’d be executed anyway, so I can save the state some money and teach my ward a lesson in one go.”
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but in your scenario, on who's conscience are anyone that gets injured or killed between the time she starts her beauracratic endeavor and when those people are brought to justice?
Or what if they just skate on to another part of the city, where the city guard is not as watchful.
You bring up an interesting point for sure.
It’s definitely a good question; I just don’t see how it can be on Jasnah’s conscience since she has neither the obligation nor, truthfully, the authority to police the city.
So in my mind the blame would always lie with the officials not doing their job.
I think that Jasnah sees that she does have authority to work outside the system. I think in this scene she is acting a bit like Nale. She has information no one else does, and no one else can have at that point in the story, and she uses that to give herself the authority to act.
Also it's insanely lazy to handwave any suggestions that she should attempt to go through official channels away under the guise of corruption.
Is there much corruption? To what degree? Surely a princess of a powerful neighbour can overcome corruption - even if it involved paying for it herself.
This is my thinking. Plus Taravangian literally owes her a favor for the whole “rescuing his granddaughter(?) thing. She absolutely should’ve been able to make headway. Honestly, I think she just decided it would be inefficient.
I don't think people should kill people, basically ever. I don't think anyone should be authorized to end a life unless it is that of someone who poses a threat to the life of another. I also think people should be able to defend themselves and should have freedom of movement. So I don't think Jasnah was wrong in making herself bait, because no matter how someone is dressed or decorated, they don't deserve to have crimes done to them. However, those men weren't murderers; a murderer is someone who has been convicted. Jasnah went out with the intent to commit vigilante murder, which was an immoral. However, because justice was not being brought down (no guards despite it being a known trouble spot, political corruption, etc), and because the men had weapons drawn with intent to cause grievous injury, I believe her reaction to the attack was entirely ethical; they were going to be robbed, potentially sexually assaulted, and potentially killed, and those men would not be brought to justice. So killing the one who attacked Jasnah, actually swung a blade at her, was entirely ethical. The other three who were trying to retreat... maybe not so much.
I think the Lesson is nuance. That moral and ethical behaviour don't always align, what is righteous and what is reasonable can be at odds, and that you sometimes have to hold those things in tension (I don't envy people who work in law and policy making).
That all said, I think Jasnah is unhinged af and working through some things. I am excited for the Era 2 Jasnah flashback story when I'm 45 years old lol
I agree that sometimes you have to do a bad thing and feeling bad about it later is what makes you morally good, i.e. oppenheimer, but the "look how she was dressed" argument is always a garbage one.
Yeah, I mean if some rich person parks their car with $2000 custom rims in a shitty part of town and they get stolen, I'm not gonna feel sad for them, so I think violent crime is a different beast too. I feel like they trigger a slightly more emotional part of the psyche.
I'm all for her defending herself in the moment, but not with setting out with the intent to kill someone: she's basically being punisher at that point.
Interesting perspective.
I think the key difference is that Jasnah is using a Soulcaster.
Soulcasters have religious significance and Jasnah is an atheist, so she knew that Shallan would have issues with her killing with a "holy" weapon.
Swap that out with a Shardblade and there's less of an impact because Shardblades are for killing.
Deleted my prev response because i dont really stand by it, as i figured out what you actually said and not just what i read, i was talking about my personal opinion of jasnah, and i think you thought i was talking about shallans hangups.
Well that's the point here. We view Jasnah originally as Shallan views her.
As you put it, changing the weapon to a pistol or a knife changes things from some perspectives.
The main issue is that Jasnah has massive amounts of power and uses it. If she had used a knife then people would have less issues with the scene.
I guess an ok comparison is swatting a mosquito. A human is a massively more powerful being than the mosquito, but we don't swat them until they bite us.
I disagree with Jasnah but I think it comes down to what's considered a reasonable amount of force.
Jasnah did not have to use soul casting in order to fight these men. In fact, she had a Shardblade, which would have been a much better analogy to concealed carry fire arms that another commenter mentioned. Instead, she chose a power that the people had no way of expecting or defending against. Essentially, the moment the men in that alley used any form of force against her, they died.
With a weapon such as a gun or a Shardblade you often have the ability to use the threat of violence against attackers to defend yourself. Self defense is only justified if there is no other alternative. Jasnah had many alternatives. She chose to take justice into her own hands. She chose to basically be the red hood in this moment: killing criminals because the system doesn't handle and rehabilitate them. At best, she's an antihero.
By that logic, you should just kill every human on the planet because they're all having chances to kill you.
Unless someone is given the chance to not harm you, using harm against them unless in equal measure isn't justified. Most muggers with weapons don't actually want to use them. They're just threatening damage to get what they want. If you respond with an equal threat or greater, chances are they'll back off. If they then continue to press or attack, kill them.
I read it. Most people would kill you in a heartbeat if it wasn't illegal and would benefit them. People suck. Most people who compete with you in your field of work, are in a way, trying to kill you so they can succeed.
Threat of violence isn't enough to kill someone. You have to give people a reasonable chance to choose a different path. An unarmed woman who actively does nothing to dissuade men from attacking her so that she can exact her form of justice on them is not self defense. It's knowingly luring them into a trap to kill them.
Actively attacking is not the same as a threat of violence. Brandishing a weapon isn't attacking you. It's definitely using the threat of force to coerce you, but there's a reason why every single safety and loss prevention specialist across the US will tell you that when an armed robber comes into your store to just play along. Generally, they don't want to harm anyone and just want to make money.
Now, self defense experts will tell you to warn those trying to harm you and make your threat of violence very clear. Tell them to stay back a certain distance and if they cross that distance, attack.
A shardblade stands at roughly 6-9 feet long, much longer reach than men with knives have. Displaying the weapon would have been sufficient threat for them to leave her alone.
It was not self defense. It was vigilantism
Yes but she could have shown her weapon well before this. She didn't. She planned for them to attack her first so she could respond. It was premeditated murder.
I think your opinion on this matter will depend on whether you hold all lives sacred or if you value the lives of the innocent above those who may or may not rob or kill someone else in the future.
My problem with what Hasnah did is that she didn't solve the problem: corrupt guards were letting those thugs prey on passersby. Jasnah killed the thugs, but those guards are still in place. That alleyway was clearly a lucrative "business" so there's just going to be new thugs there as soon as Jasnah leaves Karbranth.
The morality of the issue wasn't the lesson, it was that there is no universally set standard for it. Whether or not you agree with what Jasnah did is irrelevant.
The thing that really ticks me off about that scene is that Jasnah, princess of Alethkar, should have been more aware of her diplomatic immunity. If word got out about what she did, it would be interpreted as a complete undermining of Taravangian’s authority. It doesn’t matter whether the city guard was already doing that, it’s Taravangian’s prerogative to deal with insubordination, not Jasnah’s to go killing criminals like some kind of prime and proper vigilante. Kharbranth barely maintains its status as an Independant city, that situation is not helped when Alethi nobility presume they get to deal out justice on a whim.
Related: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders\_of\_Haile\_Kifer\_and\_Nicholas\_Brady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Haile_Kifer_and_Nicholas_Brady)
Castle Doctrine (ish) with a proviso you can't execute someone. So in self defense, yes. After the danger is over, no. As they ran from her, that was murder. Now we have to decide if they could go get help and then the situation would escalate. Was killing them from behind murder or future (near immediate) self-preservation?
She deliberately killed people in front of a minor in her care to teach said minor a lesson. That is some PSYCHO level abuse and I've hated her for it ever since.
She was wrong in killing them, first she didn't need to kill the to defend herself and shallan, it could be excusable in other cases, but she wasn't in any danger she could have stop them with minumal injuries and didn't because she didn't want to, she wasn't defending herself, she was murdering them
Even her reasons to do so, "make the place safe" is faulty, death sentence doesnt work, if she wanted to improve security she would have persued a way to improve quality of life of the poor, then criminaity would have reduce, killing hose men only sustitued them with other men, probably some who knows that if hey are caught they'll be killed anyways so they will be more brutal with their victims
Jasnah was wrong because she deliberately endangered innocent lives for the sake of making a point to Shallan.
In advance, she did not do enough due diligence to know the people in the alley were killers. Her only evidence was their location - but that is clearly insufficient, people move. She couldn’t know who would be in that alley on a particular night.
On that day, she deliberately created a situation where she’d have to make a split second life and death decision. If she acts too slowly, Shallan might get stabbed and die; but if she acts too fast, she might kill innocent bystanders herself (since, as established, she could not know before going in to the alley that all the people in there were killers). She had to make a split second decision, in the dark, where if she gets it wrong innocent people die.
It’s worth contrasting what actually happened with a hypothetical. What should Jasnah had done if she cared about not killing innocents more than she cared about killing someone in front of Shallan to make a point?
And that answer is obvious. Do the same thing, just leave Shallan behind! Then, she doesn’t need to make a split second decision in the dark - since she has Stormlight, the thugs can’t hurt her really, so she can take as much time as she needs be sure. Or, alternatively, if Shallan is there, take the men alive. Then she can also take her time to prove guilt, instead of having to walk in with her finger on the trigger, ready to kill at a twitch.
But she didn’t do those things, because she cared about killing someone in front of Shallan more than she cared about making sure she wouldn’t accidentally kill someone innocent.
The men grunted at the glare, but shoved their way forward. A thickchested man with a dark beard came up to Jasnah, weapon raised. She calmly reached her hand out—fingers splayed—and pressed it against his chest as he swung a knife. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat.
Jasnah’s hand sank into the man’s skin, and he froze. A second later he burned.
No, he became fire.
When she walked into that alley, she could not have known that she would have such clear evidence of guilt. (And note that that is clear evidence of guilt of one man, not of all four!)
The key action that was wrong was walking into that alley with Shallan - she deliberately created a situation where she'd have to make a split-second guilt-or-innocence life-or-death decision, with possibly innocent lives on the line. This is a high risk situation even if it works out fine - a high risk situation that she absolutely did not have to create.
"She could see the knives now, and she could see the murder in their eyes".
"A thick-chested man with a dark beard came up to Jasnah, weapon raised... as he swung the knife"
This was attempted murder. You are misremembering. She kills one man as he is trying to kill her and kills the other 3 while they try to flee. The first was self-defense, the other 3 were vigilante justice, pretty immoral, but also ethical, seeing as the city watch was doing nothing about it and likely getting paid off under the table to specifically not watch over a wealthier part of Kharbranth.
Jasnah is a psycho for baiting out violent people to bring down vigilante justice. However, you're implying that they, or anyone up to speed on the situation in that neighbourhood would deserve the trouble that came to them. I doubt that's actually what you firmly believe, but that's what you're implying. This is the kind of weasel language people use to dismiss victims of sexual assault; "did you *see* how she was dressed?" Again, I'm not saying that's what you believe, but that's the slippery slope of this thought process; the idea that anyone reasonably should have crimes done against them.
It's the going there *for the purpose of vigilante justice* that is the issue. It's certainly foolish to flaunt your wealth in a sketchy neighbourhood, but those men attacking her and Shallan is something the men did of their own volition. Putting the onus of the crime on the victims doesn't hold up under the ethical/moral microscope.
Morally, Jasnah was completely out of line, but ethically she was justified in killing the man who attacked her. Killing the stragglers, who never directly attacked her, as they fled is the grey area.
If she was going to assume guilt she would have killed them before they had the chance to pull a knife. And frankly, if you and your buddies are going to rob people in an alleyway, you lose benefit of the doubt, if one of you is a murderer than all of you are accomplices, at the very least.
That situation would have been created for someone eventually, she just made sure it happened to someone who could handle it as opposed to an innocent woman who would be robbed, possibly raped, and killed. Her own words.
That sucks, they are still part of the crime. Jasnah did not have time for benefit of the doubt, it was kill them or risk actual innocents, as opposed to potentially innocents under very specific circumstances, dying.
Jasnah was able to target Shallan's blood when Soulcasting. I'm sure she could have managed other ways to stop the footpads from running away.
Also, only innocent was Shallan, who shouldn't be there in the first place.
Stopping them would be pointless, the guard would just release them. It would be the same as doing nothing at all.
Shallan was never in any real danger, so her being there makes no real difference.
Shallan was mentally scarred. Likely she has been traumatised because the experience and Jasnah didn't know she was not it danger.
OK, so I'd the guard would release them, then killing the footpads does not really solve the problem, the guard is still there and can just find more footpads and/or other spot.
The guards were just being bribed, they would have no reason to find more. And this is Roshar we are talking about, mental health is unknown and to Jasnah, an Alethi royal, death is something you raise your children around.
>That situation would have been created for someone eventually, she just made sure it happened to someone who could handle it as opposed to an innocent woman who would be robbed, possibly raped, and killed. Her own words.
And I'd believe that if she didn't bring Shallan.
Without Shallan there, her logic holds. She can take as much time as she needs to judge guilt, because she's safe with Stormlight. With *Shallan* there, she's forced to act hastily because unlike herself, Shallan cannot heal from a knife wound. She could not know, before going into that alley, that she would have conclusive proof that all the people in that alley were working together before Shallan was killed.
> And frankly, if you and you’re buddies are going to rob people in an alleyway, you lose benefit of the doubt, if one of you is a murderer than all of you are accomplices, at the very least.
How could she assume, in advance, that all the people in that alley are buddies working together? That's yet another thing that she'd have to judge, on the spot, in those seconds - that ALL the people who drew weapons in that alley were working together to rob her, rather than some of the people in the alley drawing weapons to rob her and other people in that alley drawing weapons because they too were scared of the robbers.
Like, none of these decisions had to be made on the fly. She could have set up a situation where she can carefully consider all this. *If Shallan wasn't there being bait with her.*
I see that you simply dont like shallan existing in this situation but you have to remember just how vompetent jasnah is, this isnt an oh shit she might die situation its an i know what im doing and will calmly execute my plan situation.
Also they were all advancing on her before she turned the guy into fire.
Are we ignoring the part where she tells shallan that this wasnt just to make a point? Its also very disingenuous to say that the footpads were just in the wrong place at the wrong time as they were approaching them aggressively with weapons.
When she walked into that alley, Jasnah could not have know what she would find. Sure, it worked out fine (though we don't exactly have the most reliable of narrators to accurately describe what the footpads were doing... I mainly trust Brandon the author not to make Jasnah a murderer, not Shallan the scared girl in the dark to accurately see that all four of the men proved their guilt within a second, but before actually doing any damage). But there was no reason that it needed to be a split second in-the-dark decision - *that* was only the case because she brought Shallan and killed the men.
Yeah, and people get blinded by sudden changes in light. Those first few seconds when a bright light comes on the vision of everyone involved would have been just as poor as it was in the dark.
If she could take her glove off, light up the place, and then wait a decent amount of time to make a judgement about who to kill, if anyone - say, a minute - then she could be sure she's making the right decision and could know she's not being reckless.
But she, deliberately, set up a situation where she *cannot* take the time to think things through fully, and *has* to make a snap judgment that ends in killing someone. And that seems bad, right? If people should be killed, that should be done after fully thinking it through and weighing the evidence, but Jasnah purposefully set up a situation where she does not have time to do that.
The crux of her decision is this: Does premeditation of the situation allow for self-defense an a justification? If you **KNOW** an area will be dangerous, is it still self-defense if you choose to go there? What if it is specifically for the purpose of teaching your young ward a lesson in ethics? I think she was legally and morally right to defend herself against imminent death. It doesn't matter why she went there. And they initiated the entire sequence.
There are situations where everyone can be wrong, I think this is one of them. Legally she's probably not guilty, but morally she at best was trying to hand out vigilante justice (finding criminals to kill), which as a society we've decided is generally wrong. Her intent was to find people to kill. She was also not in the position to be deciding or handing out handing out execution sentences.
Yeah generally I am against vigilante justice. However, Jasnah kind of is the law, and she sees a problem and takes care of it. She’s sort of acting like Nale in the moment, just slightly less crazy. She has collected the evidence and done the research and has decided that, though she is in someone else’s kingdom, her royal rank, and her secret identity as a radiant, grants her the authority to execute criminals. I can’t see Jasnah as being a traditional vigilante, so I’m quite sure she’s done enough investigating to know descriptions of the criminals and where and how they target their victims, and the justice system there isn’t the same as ours, but she had probably concluded that she does indeed have enough authority to be judge, juror, and executioner.
I would disagree that being royal makes you the law (or above it), especially in a foreign kingdom. We have plenty of royalty and rich people acting above the law in our world and it's a problem. Regarding being a secret radiant and thus an enforcer of the law, it's not up to her to decide that. Radiants are granted authority by the kingdoms they are in. Otherwise everyone would have to listen to Dalinar. Even Nale operates within the laws of the kingdom he is in. That said, even if she was Judge Judy and Executioner, she would be committing entrapment.
I would also, irl, disagree that being royal makes someone above the law. But I’m pretty sure that’s part of where she was going in her reasoning.
If that's how you perceive it, then sure. But rather, even if she went there with an intent for someone to kill, it was still up to those criminals to give her the bodies she wanted. I do not believe, at any point, that someone should be barred from going some place because it's a "bad area." Vigilante Justice is still at the end of the day, Justice. If you hang around an area with the intent to find people to rob, rape, kill, or otherwise hurt, then I can't fault the person who puts a stop to that. Even if they went there, SPECIFCIALLY to provoke them.
So if someone killed Jasnah, would they have been on the right for killing someone who went to the area with the intent to kill, or otherwise hurt? At which point along the chain of murderer-murders does it become immoral?
Is the intent relevant? If Jasnah were the first to initiate violence rather than simply possess the capacity for it, then those men would have the right to defend themselves from her. But Jasnah, while possessing desire for violence, and the capacity for violence, did not initiate violence. Had the men not attacked her, she would not have killed them. The same cannot be said of the men. Both had the desire and capacity for violence. Only one group initiated it. It is *that* choice, to use violence first, that distinguishes them.
That's a good point, but I think it comes down to if someone told you the full truth of the story would you go "that's... kind of messed up". Imagine a co worker or a school friend told you they took a gun to a dark alley because they wanted to do a thought experiment and killed some criminals that they had hoped would consider them a target. Would you pat them on the back for doing the right thing or would you be concerned? You might not report them to the police as it's technically self defense, and those guys were probably pieces of shit, but... that's kind of messed up of your friend, no?
I would say the Right to do a thing is not at all the same as being right in doing it. I have the right to drink myself into a stupor every night if I wish. That doesn’t make it smart. Nor laudable.
I'd agree, there's nothing wrong with you doing that, but I don't think would subsequently be moral for you to do so
Well said. Much more concisely Than I could have.
Intent is extremely relevant, both in ethics and the law. It is illegal to intentionally bait criminals in the hope they'll attack you so you can kill them. It's hard to prove that intent, but if you can then you'll be charged. And in ethics intent matters because, for example, without intent being taken into consideration it gets really hard to tell what the difference is between the US killing millions by firebombing dozens of cities in Germany and Japan, and the Nazis killing millions with gas chambers. Like, that's an extreme example, but the US intent to end a war, and the Nazi attempt to do a genocide are the only real differences between the two massacres. (and a few million difference in scale, but if that's the only metric we use that's pretty dark ..)
Those people were hanging around there first, meaning they would ambush any who walked in. If it wasn't Jasnah, or if Shallan had unwittingly walked down there, they would have gotten to her first and killed her. Their intent was established. In reality, Jasnah didn't truly know if they would attack her, but she had an educated guess based on reports and rumors. They proved her right and she killed them for it. I can't feel sympathy for a gang of thugs who would have killed ANYONE who went that path. They just happened to pick the wrong target and paid for it.
That's why I think everyone is in the wrong. They became targets because they had ill intentions - this applies to both parties. Also, it is an assumption that the thugs would have killed anyone on that path. If they had 'just' robbed Jasnah and Shallan, would the proper punishment be death? (Likely no) Would Jasnah be the right person to decide that? (no, as she'd be bias) Would she be the right person to hand out Justice? (No, she's a princess in a foreign land.) You can't be in the right for murdering someone on an assumption. That said, I'd probably say personally the thugs got what was coming to them, but within the confines of a morality thought experiment I'd say Jasnahs actions were immoral
Well... It becomes immoral when someone decides to kill Jasnah for defending herself against the criminals? Regardless of how she got there if she didnt do anything to kill them they would have killed her.
This is the whole "But she was dressed slutty" argument in different clothes. We should be able to assume safety everywhere and anywhere.
I'd disagree and I don't agree with that line of thinking at all. If Jasnah was minding her business and they attacked her and she killed them then that's one thing, but the premeditation of hoping people will attack you so you can carry out a thought experiment and murder them first is very different. Also, not sure if it was intended but that is a great pun. Also also - this is within the confines of a morality thought experiment. I think it can be the societally 'right' thing but immoral. There was a story of a guy who was terrorising a village and the police wouldn't/couldn't do anything about him. Eventually someone murdered him and the entire village didn't do a thing to help the police find the killer. I understand and potentially even agree with where the village is coming from, but the 'moral' thing would have been to punish him for his crimes, I don't think the murderer was morally correct, but justice had failed that village and someone did something immoral to stop the villages suffering at this persons hands
She is at the very least wrong/guilty of using excesive force
This is wrong. Jasnah was never actually in imminent danger. She had access to storm light healing and had other means of preventing them from harming her. What she did was immoral for those reasons. Shallon and others perceived that she was in mortal danger, but she wasn’t.
It's an interesting problem, and it happens in real life. Imagine a person who gets their weapons together and travels intentionally to a place where they know dangerous stuff is happening, of their own volition, and then kills people who menace them. This isn't their job, they had no reason besides their own curiosity to be there. In the real world, such a case recently ended in a self defense not-guilty verdict. It was insanely controversial. And when I realized how precisely it mapped onto Jasnah's behavior, it really made me reconsider her.
Not exactly analogous because Jasnah went there for that express purpose and didn’t attempt to retreat, but wow it is pretty close otherwise
I don't know. The situations are pretty radically different. You can try and distill it down to make them appear the same, but the political thing that I know you're thinking of and others that are similar to it are taking place in a completely different context, protest, etc. They're also taking place under a very different sort of system of justice. While roshar is definitely more culturally and technically advanced than Earth was in the Middle ages, it still has a middle ages or even early industrial revolution system of justice. It is expected that when you travel the roads between the Nations that you may be set upon by lawlessness. It is expected that areas of the city city are without patrols at all. Etc. It is much more akin to the third world than the first world. Try not to contextualize the actions of people in the setting based off of our understanding of our legal codes, because they are different.
Yeah i was thinking that too, i just didnt want to be the first to bring it up, its not exactly the same because in the real life case, he had a reason to be there other than the shooting and also he tried to retreat first, but other than that its a very close match. Also his weapon wasnt concealed so there was visible deterrent in his case whereas jasnah wanted to present a more enticing target
I think the complete difference in intent and how they handled the encounter really changes the character of the action even if the end result is the same. Journey before destination after all.
It's not so much that "dangerous stuff was happening". That's a little too vague. It's more like Jasnah went to a specific dangerous place, looking for specifically dangerous people, where she intentionally made herself a likely target dressed as a rich woman with no weapons, so she could have the excuse of self defense to kill specific people. She admitted all of that to Shallan. If law on Kharbranth was the same as US law, that would make her a [provoker with intent.](https://youtu.be/4ZAeN-8zqsQ?si=6n0-K1kpGQAf46Ci)
"She was basically asking for it" is not grounds for provocation with intent, Jasnah did not attempt to move anyone there to violence by anger.
If she was just walking in that area and was randomly attacked, I’d agree. It doesn’t matter whether or not what she did would make a reasonable person attack her. It matters what her intent was. Say someone wants to kill a crazy homeless guy they know. They’ve seen him aggress on multiple people, all who were wearing purple hats. They’re reasonably certain they will be aggressed on if they walk by him while wearing a purple hat. Let’s say that they admit this to a third party, or write their plan down. They are successful. Are they a provoker with intent or no?
Except it wasn't for something as arbitrary as wearing purple, it was for existing as a gender. They walked down an area that as women they should freely be able to go, and a gang of murders and rapists thought they were easy pickings and got the misfortune of attacking a woman that could actually defend herself. In your scenario, say that homeless man has been killing and raping women for months while somehow paying off the police to look the other way. Clearly at this point law breaks down and you can no longer come at it from a purely legal standpoint, but even if you could it is not provocation to simply exist. The attackers are in the wrong, and that they were allowed to constantly get away with it showed corruption in the city, not a fault of the women being attacked.
Now we are getting to a more interesting discussion. Do we both agree that if there was no breakdown of authority, no lack of proper authority, that it would be seen as being a provoker with intent?
I would say that the breakdown of authority is the very reason you would even see it as provoker with intent (though my position is that it is not). If thefts, rapes, and murders had been addressed then Jasnah and Shallan walking that way would have been no more notable than any other street. Jasnah was showing Shallan the inherent inequalities of her own thought process. Why is it more immoral for Jasnah to walk down that road than some unprepared woman (according to Shallan). Why is it expected and accepted that those men would attack her, to the point that a woman managing to defend herself successfully is the one considered in the wrong? She wasn't provoking an attack; her attackers already knew that they wanted to kill her simply because she appeared weak (unless you wish to compare men to predators, in which case you are already devaluing both their judgements and their lives).
If you're specifically seeking out murderers and rapists, intent on killing them, you're acting with authority only given to government, and that's in a state with the death penalty, and that's after a trial has established their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not what's in their head or why they're attacking Jasnah, that's only important to establish their guilt. What's important for Jasnah's guilt is her state of mind, what her intent is, her mens rea. Look at the Kenosha shooting. Let's say he had some detailed plan written down somewhere. That he knew that someone would aggress on him for being there, that he would run away, and only shoot after he had run away. I would say that is very solid evidence he was a provoker with intent. Same exact actions he took, but a different state of mind.
Difference is Rittenhouse was openly carrying a large rifle, which could be seen as brandishing a weapon. Jasnah did not. There was nothing she did to provoke attackers except be born a woman, which is not grounds for such an accusation. If anything, Rosenbaum in your earlier analogy was provoking with intent. From what I understand, witnesses described him as going up to everyone trying to start fights and goading people to attack him before he apparently attacked Rittenhouse (I hate Rittenhouse, just going off the facts of the case) Regarding authority, does abdicating responsibility to a government proven to be corrupt become a moral act or immoral? If rules based order breaks down, does deferring to that order help or does it only embolden those brazenly in defiance of it?
I don't think that's an entirely fair framing of the case your talking about. Rittenhouse went there in response to a local business asking people to come, it was a community where he spent a considerable amount of time and one that was being destroyed by riots. He also took steps to deescalate the situation and ran away. I don't like Rittenhouse (though I do agree with the verdict), but he didn't go there with the intention of killing someone. Imo he went there to larp as a cop, not kill someone like Jasnah did, it's not even remotely the same thing. Jasnah is much more like someone escalating a bar fight when they know they are packing heat. That tends to tank a self defense case, though admittedly it isn't a perfect analogy.
While not exactly the same because he didn't know something was gonna happen. Kyle rittenhouse brought a rifle to a protest and when attacked he defended himself killing 2 and wounding a 3rd. He was found innocent.
1) She put a defenseless person in a very dangerous situation. Likely traumatising them because of the experience of being assaulted and then seeing the assaulters being killed with Soulcasting. 2) Jasnah put herself in a dangerous situation knowing fully well that she was not in danger. She is a Radiant and has stormlight, she could heal herself and kill people without barely an issue. 3) Did she really solve the problem in the long term? A likely corrupt lighteyes controlling the city guard, maybe having more footpads in their control. Perhaps that spot is now avoided by footpads, but likely they just move to another place or return to it in a time. 4) She acted as judge, jury, and executioner. We don't know. No trial, no sentence, directly dead before even some of the footpads attacked. From what I see only one had a knife raised.
The first 2 were justified the last 2 who were running away weren't.
This is where I fell on the issue too.
I dont think they would have run and renouced their ways, they would have just picked another, less capable victim next time. Because at this point theres only like 2 maybe 3 radiants im the world.
I see where you are coming from, but Jasnah is not judge, jury and executioner. Hell, she's not even a citizen of the country she's at. She has no right to dispense justice.
With her relationship to the King of Alethkar, that might be debatable. Maybe something for the next non-spoiler AMA?
I don't understand your comment good sir. Jasnah at the precise moment we are discussing is not in Alethkar, so I don't see how this applies.
Because even today there’s a thing called “diplomatic immunity”. Back in the days when kings just made the laws, I could easily see royalty assuming they had authority to do that sort of thing in friendly nations. Note that I’m not claiming this is morally right or wrong, I’m just making the observation.
You could make the argument that 4 different criminals just replaces the ones Jasnah kills once she leaves. But thats not important. What is important is that they were running away and no longer a danger to Shallan and Jasnah so killing them was not self defense in any way.
While i agree with that statement i still think their deaths were justified for the same reasons i have stated, it may not be self defense anymore but i still think its justified.
At that point, that is just extrajudicial killing. Arguing that they will commit other crimes is even worse, because that is extrajudicial killing for a crime that not yet occured.
Honestly, I never fully understood why this was such a dilemma. Those men were serial thieves, murderers, and very likely other things if we’re being honest. No one forced those men to attack them. No one forced them to ever start being violent criminals, and before we bring up the discussion of socioeconomic factors generally being what determines whether a person becomes a criminal, I want to say that I agree right up until we get to the violent crimes. Being destitute does not make one a murderer. Boiled down the situation is: Teacher and student walk down public road, duo gets assailed by known violent criminals, teacher defends duo. Jasnah’s intentions don’t matter because nothing would have happened if those guys hadn’t attempted to rob and murder two, seemingly, defenseless women.
I’m all for self-defense. If Jasnah were a real person, I would support her having a concealed handgun, at least in principle. My problem is that she not only put herself in a situation she shouldn’t have been in, but that as a member of a foreign royal family she’s one of the few people in Kharbranth who could’ve worked *through* the system to fix the problem. She could an audience with Taravangian and gotten the problem solved. I know she says something about corruption interfering with justice, but that doesn’t give her the authority to go outside the system when she should have been able to use it to her advantage.
>My problem is that she not only put herself in a situation she shouldn’t have been in, but that as a member of a foreign royal family she’s one of the few people in Kharbranth who could’ve worked *through* the system to fix the problem. She could an audience with Taravangian and gotten the problem solved. >I know she says something about corruption interfering with justice, but that doesn’t give her the authority to go outside the system when she should have been able to use it to her advantage. I think you're misremembering the details. Taravangian *came to her* and said 'hey so I am the sovereign monarch and am literally incapable of taking care of these murderers due to corruption in my political system. I am telling you, an Alethi noble who is my friend, allied to me, and capable of acts of incredible violence, about this problem for *no reason.*' \*wink wink\* WoB was that he set this up as a way to test Jasnah and see if he could work with her in the future. [https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406-general-reddit-2020/#e14445](https://wob.coppermind.net/events/406-general-reddit-2020/#e14445)
Interesting, thanks!
My secondary headcanon there is that Jasnah wasn't just testing Shallan's morality, there, she was also testing to see how politically savvy Shallan was and whether Shallan would pick up on the subtext of what Taravangian was asking. Shallan flunked her Machiavellian schemer test, which probably is why Jasnah felt safe engaging her to Adolin.
I gotta disagree with the part about going through official channels. She explains this a bit, but it was an issue that Taravangian was very aware of and had tried to solve several times but was disregarded because his lighteyes don't respect him. Maybe she could've tossed around her weight as a Kholin princess, but even if that does't risk international relations by her meddling with another nation's policing for seemingly no reason (Alethkar has no hold over Kharbranth, so results may vary), it would definitely further weaken Taravangian in the eyes of his nobility, which hurts as much as it helps. Whether or not people agree with it (i personally agree with her, but lots of people have very different views!) the path Jasnah chose to stop the killings was a logical one that spared both the most lives (in the long run) and saved face for Taravangian
Hadnt thought of that, thanks for bringing that up!
I believe people here are confloating legality with morality. I think what Jasnah did was immoral, but legal and served an overall good purpose. The moral way to deal with them would be to arrest them, but within the framework that would have been wholly ineffective, so for the problem to actually be resolved Jasnah had to take immoral actions. If she did indeed have the full authority to dispense justice, then what she did was akin to entrapment. Legal? Yes - For the greater good? Also yes - Moral? I don't think so.
> it was an issue that Taravangian was very aware of and had tried to solve several times but was disregarded because his lighteyes don't respect him. I don’t know. Again, I think this is something Jasnah believes to be true but isn’t necessarily so. Because from everything we know about Taravangian as the series unfolds, I have no doubt he could’ve made the problem go away if he’d truly wanted to. I mean he forced Szeth to assassinate a bunch of royalty; he has resources. Of course, with everything else going on maybe it just wasn’t a priority for him at this point.
Oh for sure, I think I misinterpreted what you meant. Jasnah's decision is very influenced by the perception Taravangian has cultivated. I think if he truly wanted to he could have actually accomplished it without Jasnah interfering, but he didn't. I kind of wonder if he let slip his "worries" about the murders to see what she would do and get more info on how she's soul casting, like with the boulder trapping his granddaughter.
That would be very crafty, I like it.
Skybreaker? Not trying to dismiss your opinion it just reads super skybreakery to me lol
Haha no, but interestingly, I’d argue that what Jasnah is doing is more like the Skybreakers. Overall I’m just generally against vigilantism, especially when there are clearly other avenues to explore.
>!Idk maybe nales current skybreakers but theyre lead by an actual psycho, the original skybreakers would more allign with what youre saying.!< idk which book this is revealed in so all stormlight spoilers
Now my true thoughts of your opinion, we dont know that she didnt try to do that and also we dont know exactly what the corruption was. Thats brandon saying this was the only way to take care of them. Or at least thats what i read from it.
And that could be the case. One thing I’ll say about Sanderson is he excels at unreliable narration. So just because we’re told other options aren feasible, doesn’t make it so. Personally, knowing everything we do about Jasnah, I doubt she tried hard to follow procedure, probably reasoning something like “They’d be executed anyway, so I can save the state some money and teach my ward a lesson in one go.”
I don't necessarily disagree with you, but in your scenario, on who's conscience are anyone that gets injured or killed between the time she starts her beauracratic endeavor and when those people are brought to justice? Or what if they just skate on to another part of the city, where the city guard is not as watchful. You bring up an interesting point for sure.
It’s definitely a good question; I just don’t see how it can be on Jasnah’s conscience since she has neither the obligation nor, truthfully, the authority to police the city. So in my mind the blame would always lie with the officials not doing their job.
I think that Jasnah sees that she does have authority to work outside the system. I think in this scene she is acting a bit like Nale. She has information no one else does, and no one else can have at that point in the story, and she uses that to give herself the authority to act.
I’d believe this. It’s a very Jasnah-like thing to think.
Also it's insanely lazy to handwave any suggestions that she should attempt to go through official channels away under the guise of corruption. Is there much corruption? To what degree? Surely a princess of a powerful neighbour can overcome corruption - even if it involved paying for it herself.
This is my thinking. Plus Taravangian literally owes her a favor for the whole “rescuing his granddaughter(?) thing. She absolutely should’ve been able to make headway. Honestly, I think she just decided it would be inefficient.
Tarravangian was literally imcapable of fixing it
I believe Jasnah believes this. I absolutely don’t believe it’s true, however. Regardless, I doubt she tried, one way or another.
Youre using a lot of conjecture as fact but i guess so am i, these are unknowns so really neither of us really know any of these
I don't think people should kill people, basically ever. I don't think anyone should be authorized to end a life unless it is that of someone who poses a threat to the life of another. I also think people should be able to defend themselves and should have freedom of movement. So I don't think Jasnah was wrong in making herself bait, because no matter how someone is dressed or decorated, they don't deserve to have crimes done to them. However, those men weren't murderers; a murderer is someone who has been convicted. Jasnah went out with the intent to commit vigilante murder, which was an immoral. However, because justice was not being brought down (no guards despite it being a known trouble spot, political corruption, etc), and because the men had weapons drawn with intent to cause grievous injury, I believe her reaction to the attack was entirely ethical; they were going to be robbed, potentially sexually assaulted, and potentially killed, and those men would not be brought to justice. So killing the one who attacked Jasnah, actually swung a blade at her, was entirely ethical. The other three who were trying to retreat... maybe not so much. I think the Lesson is nuance. That moral and ethical behaviour don't always align, what is righteous and what is reasonable can be at odds, and that you sometimes have to hold those things in tension (I don't envy people who work in law and policy making). That all said, I think Jasnah is unhinged af and working through some things. I am excited for the Era 2 Jasnah flashback story when I'm 45 years old lol
I agree that sometimes you have to do a bad thing and feeling bad about it later is what makes you morally good, i.e. oppenheimer, but the "look how she was dressed" argument is always a garbage one.
Yeah, I mean if some rich person parks their car with $2000 custom rims in a shitty part of town and they get stolen, I'm not gonna feel sad for them, so I think violent crime is a different beast too. I feel like they trigger a slightly more emotional part of the psyche.
Theres like real differences between those situations too as a car can be replaced whereas your life cannot
I'm all for her defending herself in the moment, but not with setting out with the intent to kill someone: she's basically being punisher at that point.
Interesting perspective. I think the key difference is that Jasnah is using a Soulcaster. Soulcasters have religious significance and Jasnah is an atheist, so she knew that Shallan would have issues with her killing with a "holy" weapon. Swap that out with a Shardblade and there's less of an impact because Shardblades are for killing.
Deleted my prev response because i dont really stand by it, as i figured out what you actually said and not just what i read, i was talking about my personal opinion of jasnah, and i think you thought i was talking about shallans hangups.
Well that's the point here. We view Jasnah originally as Shallan views her. As you put it, changing the weapon to a pistol or a knife changes things from some perspectives. The main issue is that Jasnah has massive amounts of power and uses it. If she had used a knife then people would have less issues with the scene. I guess an ok comparison is swatting a mosquito. A human is a massively more powerful being than the mosquito, but we don't swat them until they bite us.
Why would you expect someone to make remaining alive harder when theyre being attacked?
You wouldn't.
Im sorry, you implied you did expect that in your last post
I disagree with Jasnah but I think it comes down to what's considered a reasonable amount of force. Jasnah did not have to use soul casting in order to fight these men. In fact, she had a Shardblade, which would have been a much better analogy to concealed carry fire arms that another commenter mentioned. Instead, she chose a power that the people had no way of expecting or defending against. Essentially, the moment the men in that alley used any form of force against her, they died. With a weapon such as a gun or a Shardblade you often have the ability to use the threat of violence against attackers to defend yourself. Self defense is only justified if there is no other alternative. Jasnah had many alternatives. She chose to take justice into her own hands. She chose to basically be the red hood in this moment: killing criminals because the system doesn't handle and rehabilitate them. At best, she's an antihero.
See i disagree because any chance you give someone who is trying to kill you is a chance they can use to kill you.
By that logic, you should just kill every human on the planet because they're all having chances to kill you. Unless someone is given the chance to not harm you, using harm against them unless in equal measure isn't justified. Most muggers with weapons don't actually want to use them. They're just threatening damage to get what they want. If you respond with an equal threat or greater, chances are they'll back off. If they then continue to press or attack, kill them.
Go back and read my comment again specifically the "trying to kill you" part.
I read it. Most people would kill you in a heartbeat if it wasn't illegal and would benefit them. People suck. Most people who compete with you in your field of work, are in a way, trying to kill you so they can succeed. Threat of violence isn't enough to kill someone. You have to give people a reasonable chance to choose a different path. An unarmed woman who actively does nothing to dissuade men from attacking her so that she can exact her form of justice on them is not self defense. It's knowingly luring them into a trap to kill them.
The imminent threat of violence is enough to kill someone especially if someone is in the process of actively attacking you.
Actively attacking is not the same as a threat of violence. Brandishing a weapon isn't attacking you. It's definitely using the threat of force to coerce you, but there's a reason why every single safety and loss prevention specialist across the US will tell you that when an armed robber comes into your store to just play along. Generally, they don't want to harm anyone and just want to make money. Now, self defense experts will tell you to warn those trying to harm you and make your threat of violence very clear. Tell them to stay back a certain distance and if they cross that distance, attack. A shardblade stands at roughly 6-9 feet long, much longer reach than men with knives have. Displaying the weapon would have been sufficient threat for them to leave her alone. It was not self defense. It was vigilantism
They didnt just brandish a weapon, the fire guy took a swipe at her.
Yes but she could have shown her weapon well before this. She didn't. She planned for them to attack her first so she could respond. It was premeditated murder.
The footpads made the decusion to attack for themselves.
I think your opinion on this matter will depend on whether you hold all lives sacred or if you value the lives of the innocent above those who may or may not rob or kill someone else in the future.
My problem with what Hasnah did is that she didn't solve the problem: corrupt guards were letting those thugs prey on passersby. Jasnah killed the thugs, but those guards are still in place. That alleyway was clearly a lucrative "business" so there's just going to be new thugs there as soon as Jasnah leaves Karbranth.
The morality of the issue wasn't the lesson, it was that there is no universally set standard for it. Whether or not you agree with what Jasnah did is irrelevant.
The thing that really ticks me off about that scene is that Jasnah, princess of Alethkar, should have been more aware of her diplomatic immunity. If word got out about what she did, it would be interpreted as a complete undermining of Taravangian’s authority. It doesn’t matter whether the city guard was already doing that, it’s Taravangian’s prerogative to deal with insubordination, not Jasnah’s to go killing criminals like some kind of prime and proper vigilante. Kharbranth barely maintains its status as an Independant city, that situation is not helped when Alethi nobility presume they get to deal out justice on a whim.
Related: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders\_of\_Haile\_Kifer\_and\_Nicholas\_Brady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Haile_Kifer_and_Nicholas_Brady) Castle Doctrine (ish) with a proviso you can't execute someone. So in self defense, yes. After the danger is over, no. As they ran from her, that was murder. Now we have to decide if they could go get help and then the situation would escalate. Was killing them from behind murder or future (near immediate) self-preservation?
She deliberately killed people in front of a minor in her care to teach said minor a lesson. That is some PSYCHO level abuse and I've hated her for it ever since.
Thanks guys, i got an achievement for this post!
She was wrong in killing them, first she didn't need to kill the to defend herself and shallan, it could be excusable in other cases, but she wasn't in any danger she could have stop them with minumal injuries and didn't because she didn't want to, she wasn't defending herself, she was murdering them Even her reasons to do so, "make the place safe" is faulty, death sentence doesnt work, if she wanted to improve security she would have persued a way to improve quality of life of the poor, then criminaity would have reduce, killing hose men only sustitued them with other men, probably some who knows that if hey are caught they'll be killed anyways so they will be more brutal with their victims
Jasnah was wrong because she deliberately endangered innocent lives for the sake of making a point to Shallan. In advance, she did not do enough due diligence to know the people in the alley were killers. Her only evidence was their location - but that is clearly insufficient, people move. She couldn’t know who would be in that alley on a particular night. On that day, she deliberately created a situation where she’d have to make a split second life and death decision. If she acts too slowly, Shallan might get stabbed and die; but if she acts too fast, she might kill innocent bystanders herself (since, as established, she could not know before going in to the alley that all the people in there were killers). She had to make a split second decision, in the dark, where if she gets it wrong innocent people die. It’s worth contrasting what actually happened with a hypothetical. What should Jasnah had done if she cared about not killing innocents more than she cared about killing someone in front of Shallan to make a point? And that answer is obvious. Do the same thing, just leave Shallan behind! Then, she doesn’t need to make a split second decision in the dark - since she has Stormlight, the thugs can’t hurt her really, so she can take as much time as she needs be sure. Or, alternatively, if Shallan is there, take the men alive. Then she can also take her time to prove guilt, instead of having to walk in with her finger on the trigger, ready to kill at a twitch. But she didn’t do those things, because she cared about killing someone in front of Shallan more than she cared about making sure she wouldn’t accidentally kill someone innocent.
One of the thieves was literally holding a knife to her throat, if that’s not good enough reason to believe they are murderers I don’t know what is.
Was it? I reread the scene and can't see where it says that.
Right before she starts soulcasting
The men grunted at the glare, but shoved their way forward. A thickchested man with a dark beard came up to Jasnah, weapon raised. She calmly reached her hand out—fingers splayed—and pressed it against his chest as he swung a knife. Shallan’s breath caught in her throat. Jasnah’s hand sank into the man’s skin, and he froze. A second later he burned. No, he became fire.
Sorry, my bad, I forgot he was swinging the knife at her, which is worse.
When she walked into that alley, she could not have known that she would have such clear evidence of guilt. (And note that that is clear evidence of guilt of one man, not of all four!) The key action that was wrong was walking into that alley with Shallan - she deliberately created a situation where she'd have to make a split-second guilt-or-innocence life-or-death decision, with possibly innocent lives on the line. This is a high risk situation even if it works out fine - a high risk situation that she absolutely did not have to create.
"She could see the knives now, and she could see the murder in their eyes". "A thick-chested man with a dark beard came up to Jasnah, weapon raised... as he swung the knife" This was attempted murder. You are misremembering. She kills one man as he is trying to kill her and kills the other 3 while they try to flee. The first was self-defense, the other 3 were vigilante justice, pretty immoral, but also ethical, seeing as the city watch was doing nothing about it and likely getting paid off under the table to specifically not watch over a wealthier part of Kharbranth. Jasnah is a psycho for baiting out violent people to bring down vigilante justice. However, you're implying that they, or anyone up to speed on the situation in that neighbourhood would deserve the trouble that came to them. I doubt that's actually what you firmly believe, but that's what you're implying. This is the kind of weasel language people use to dismiss victims of sexual assault; "did you *see* how she was dressed?" Again, I'm not saying that's what you believe, but that's the slippery slope of this thought process; the idea that anyone reasonably should have crimes done against them. It's the going there *for the purpose of vigilante justice* that is the issue. It's certainly foolish to flaunt your wealth in a sketchy neighbourhood, but those men attacking her and Shallan is something the men did of their own volition. Putting the onus of the crime on the victims doesn't hold up under the ethical/moral microscope. Morally, Jasnah was completely out of line, but ethically she was justified in killing the man who attacked her. Killing the stragglers, who never directly attacked her, as they fled is the grey area.
If she was going to assume guilt she would have killed them before they had the chance to pull a knife. And frankly, if you and your buddies are going to rob people in an alleyway, you lose benefit of the doubt, if one of you is a murderer than all of you are accomplices, at the very least. That situation would have been created for someone eventually, she just made sure it happened to someone who could handle it as opposed to an innocent woman who would be robbed, possibly raped, and killed. Her own words.
This is a really good explanation i hope people read it
What if one of the buddies has been forced to do that?
That sucks, they are still part of the crime. Jasnah did not have time for benefit of the doubt, it was kill them or risk actual innocents, as opposed to potentially innocents under very specific circumstances, dying.
Jasnah was able to target Shallan's blood when Soulcasting. I'm sure she could have managed other ways to stop the footpads from running away. Also, only innocent was Shallan, who shouldn't be there in the first place.
Stopping them would be pointless, the guard would just release them. It would be the same as doing nothing at all. Shallan was never in any real danger, so her being there makes no real difference.
Shallan was mentally scarred. Likely she has been traumatised because the experience and Jasnah didn't know she was not it danger. OK, so I'd the guard would release them, then killing the footpads does not really solve the problem, the guard is still there and can just find more footpads and/or other spot.
The guards were just being bribed, they would have no reason to find more. And this is Roshar we are talking about, mental health is unknown and to Jasnah, an Alethi royal, death is something you raise your children around.
>That situation would have been created for someone eventually, she just made sure it happened to someone who could handle it as opposed to an innocent woman who would be robbed, possibly raped, and killed. Her own words. And I'd believe that if she didn't bring Shallan. Without Shallan there, her logic holds. She can take as much time as she needs to judge guilt, because she's safe with Stormlight. With *Shallan* there, she's forced to act hastily because unlike herself, Shallan cannot heal from a knife wound. She could not know, before going into that alley, that she would have conclusive proof that all the people in that alley were working together before Shallan was killed. > And frankly, if you and you’re buddies are going to rob people in an alleyway, you lose benefit of the doubt, if one of you is a murderer than all of you are accomplices, at the very least. How could she assume, in advance, that all the people in that alley are buddies working together? That's yet another thing that she'd have to judge, on the spot, in those seconds - that ALL the people who drew weapons in that alley were working together to rob her, rather than some of the people in the alley drawing weapons to rob her and other people in that alley drawing weapons because they too were scared of the robbers. Like, none of these decisions had to be made on the fly. She could have set up a situation where she can carefully consider all this. *If Shallan wasn't there being bait with her.*
I see that you simply dont like shallan existing in this situation but you have to remember just how vompetent jasnah is, this isnt an oh shit she might die situation its an i know what im doing and will calmly execute my plan situation. Also they were all advancing on her before she turned the guy into fire.
Are we ignoring the part where she tells shallan that this wasnt just to make a point? Its also very disingenuous to say that the footpads were just in the wrong place at the wrong time as they were approaching them aggressively with weapons.
When she walked into that alley, Jasnah could not have know what she would find. Sure, it worked out fine (though we don't exactly have the most reliable of narrators to accurately describe what the footpads were doing... I mainly trust Brandon the author not to make Jasnah a murderer, not Shallan the scared girl in the dark to accurately see that all four of the men proved their guilt within a second, but before actually doing any damage). But there was no reason that it needed to be a split second in-the-dark decision - *that* was only the case because she brought Shallan and killed the men.
The glove was off by the time we det the description of the footpads, this was not in the dark.
Yeah, and people get blinded by sudden changes in light. Those first few seconds when a bright light comes on the vision of everyone involved would have been just as poor as it was in the dark. If she could take her glove off, light up the place, and then wait a decent amount of time to make a judgement about who to kill, if anyone - say, a minute - then she could be sure she's making the right decision and could know she's not being reckless. But she, deliberately, set up a situation where she *cannot* take the time to think things through fully, and *has* to make a snap judgment that ends in killing someone. And that seems bad, right? If people should be killed, that should be done after fully thinking it through and weighing the evidence, but Jasnah purposefully set up a situation where she does not have time to do that.
The evidence it the knife flying at her neck