Kaladin Stormblessed (The Stormlight Archive) - A Character Examination

caliban's storm blessed really is the main character of the Stormlight archive he's the star of the first book and his story sets the tone for what the rest of the series is going to be like we base every new story that comes with each character kind of off what was set up with Caledon we know we're gonna get kind of an exploration of their backstory and understand how these characters have gotten to where they are whether they're kind of finished developing like Delon are kind of is or they are still in the middle of their main development like Chillon now Calvin's a pretty mixed bag of development when the series starts off he's already been on a roller coaster of events that foremost fantasy series would be enough for one character's development he's kind of risen to the top but this book the way of Kings has enough Vince for Caledon just inside of it to really progress him to a whole nother level so we kind of pick up in the middle of development and then finish off and the flashbacks give us a good grounding of how he got to where he is I'm gonna go through all of these events in chronological order because kind of trying to do the flashback order would be super confusing for the narrative I'm going for here so starting with the very beginning for Caledon he's just the son of a surgeon in a town now this is a kind of unique start for a fantasy character he's certainly not a farmer or a blacksmith but he isn't a Prentice who doesn't necessarily want to end up in the job that his father does or the master he's working for his dad wants him to be a surgeon and Caledon wants to go be a warrior some things happen and there's a lot of resentment between his father and the town over a debate about some money there's a lord who kind of has it out for Calvin's dad and eventually as kind of a way for the Lord to get at Calvin's family Calvin's little brother is drafted to go fight in war Caledon feels a responsibility to also enlist and make sure his brother is not killed he joins up with the military and immediately excels as a soldier he is amazing on the battlefield and this might partially be due to the fact that he's kind of trained as a surgeon and he knows where to hurt people but it's mainly just Calvin's natural instincts as a warrior shining I kind of picture him as like Brad Pitt and Troy and this is before his huge arc later on he's just a naturally gifted soldier unfortunately though even though he's so great as a warrior he cannot succeed at protecting his brother his brother dies in combat and Khaldun feels an immense responsibility for this because he promised his parents that he would watch out for them which he has now failed at Callaghan continues fighting in the battlefield in a much more haze like state kind of just trying to protect new recruits who remind him of his brother and leading one of the most effective groups of soldiers in the entire war him and his men are known for just kind of being an unstoppable force especially with khaldun as their spearhead he even manages to find a shard bearer on a battlefield and killed him himself which is an amazing feat for someone without shard plate or a shard blade to do but Caledon is able to successfully take him down and it's not just shard plate or a shard blade this guy has both in Caledon kills him but after seeing these weapons so efficiently kill the men that Calvin has come to love he refuses it and says no I don't want these murder weapons to be a part of my identity I don't want them with me they're essentially not even weapons they're just murder tools they just sliced through soldiers with no honor the general in charge of Calvin's army though sees this as a problem because he thinks eventually Countians gonna change his mind and want the armor and blade back so his logical conclusion is well I'm gonna wear it then I'm gonna make sure you never want it back so Amma ram the general of Calvin's army slaughters all of Calvin's men and sends Caledon into slavery seeing that as a mercy over killing him this is where we in the book pick up with Caledon he is a broken man who's lost his brother his men and pretty much all of his honor it feels like and it's just kind of a husk in this slave caravan well Calvin is in this slave caravan there is a wind sprint sprint being these kind of fairy-like creatures that embody different aspects of our world that are sentient and kind of really just strange little things begin speaking to him an incredibly rare occurrence and Caledon eventually acknowledges its existence and kind of has it back and forth with it and it's revealed that its name is sil sil is wonderful and arguably worth her own character examination I'm a very big fan of SIL and especially the way Shirin Khaldun interact but we're gonna focus back up here in Caledon eventually they arrive to satya psa's war camp in satya cies war camp Caledon gets the worst job he could possibly receive and that is to be a bridge bearer or someone who basically carries these massive bridges the army runs across to get across these chasms because they're fighting on like these broken planes with chasms in between and him and the men will set the bridges over the chasms and be shot at with arrows wearing no armor the whole time it's kind of the most dangerous job in all of war in this world he begins to have the first kind of inkling of some kind of purpose he looks around and he just feels like he should do something he ends up going on a bridge run and people dial around him he sees how much of an inhumane thing it is to give someone this job to carry bridges and just run into a battlefield with no protection it's absolutely terrifying no civilized army should do that to any form of man or woman but this is just common practice for satis this war camp also a very good indication of the kind of person Satya siz Khaldun kind of reaches an all-time low after experiencing bridge runs and goes to commit suicide and there is one guy who's kind of in charge of all the bridges that Calvin's had a negative relationship with and this guy sees Caledon going off to kill himself and just doesn't really care Calvin gets to a chasm about to throw himself in and sil the little wind sprint convinces him not to it's a very beautiful moment where she's able to stop him from killing himself and then Calvin kind of realizes you know what no I'm gonna make the best of my situation and I'm gonna make bridge for the most badass bridge and all of the army and he goes back and he takes charge of the men by literally beating them into submission and basically says we're gonna start a workout routine we're going to get in shape and we're gonna be the fastest best bridge out on the plateau and we're gonna develop ways to keep us alive longer the men of course resists him at first but he gets a few volunteers and they actually we kind of become this Brotherhood of Brij for which creating a real Brotherhood in a fantasy book is an incredibly difficult thing to do creating any kind of real feeling of a group that has a relationship a bond is a difficult thing to do as an author and I think bridge 4 is one of the all-time best examples have it done well it is such a awesome thing that is built in this world and it makes all the stakes feel so much higher because even if you don't know every member of bridge 4 when one of them dies you just you feel it and it hurts you love them even though you really have no connection with them besides the relationship they have with each other more and more Caledon is progressing as a leader and becoming someone that among the entire army people are revering for taking this group of slaves and turning them into a well-trained well organized unit there are rumors and whispers about him as he becomes someone that anyone can idealize and look up to which of course makes the person in charge that the bridges resent him but at this point Calvin's actually kind of beaten that guy into submission too and giving him a portion of his pay so that he will actually kind of help bridge forward do what they need to do all of this training kind of comes to a climax when Calvin comes up with the idea for bridge 4 to do these zigzag patterns with the bridge facing the arrows as they run towards the chasms protecting themselves they execute this maneuver and the arrows don't really kill anyone in bridge 4 but without them targeting the bridges the archers begin targeting the army and other bridges try to duplicate what bridge 4 is doing and fail and no other bridges really successfully make it to the chasms during this battle and the entire battle is lost because bridge 4 broke tradition and ruined the orders that sati is gave everyone's in huge trouble of course and Caledon takes the brunt of it Calvin's sentence from the higher-ups in this army for basically screwing up this entire battle with his risky maneuver is to be tied outside during a high storm this is essentially a death sentence but the whole thing behind is if God wants you to live he'll let you live and you'll be fine but it's basically a death sentence it would kill anyone it's like being tied outside during Hurricane Katrina Caledon is left outside and this is where his really comes to be seen to the reader he is able to absorb energy from the high storm and the gems that the high storm kind of infuses with its energy to heal himself so after the high storm is over Caledon storm blessed has become his final form I guess is the way I'm gonna put that it's now revealed that he has special powers powers that he wants to keep secret so now he has gone from being someone who was idolized among the army to a mythical figure of oh my god this guy survived a high storm so this is actually a place I wanna take a moment to talk about Calvin's development so far we got a man at the beginning the book who was broken and it slowly explained to us why he is so broken but where he is at right now is kind of the accumulation of him rebuilding his hope we saw him kind of take the first steps with SIL carry him a little bit towards actually leading bridge for but now he doesn't really need that crutch anymore he's able to come into his own and kind of take back the mantle that he knows he deserves of course the military can't punish him any further because he survived his supposed serious punishment so now he's back to running with bridge 4 and bridge 4 in general is doing a lot more bridge runs at this point it's kind of they're being abused a little bit now all of this build-up for Calvin's Redemption really comes to a head with the very end of the book where Caledon insist with sati as his army pulling out of a battlefield and Caledon and bridge for witness that saw Dias is leaving Dellen ours army for dead and Dellin are and his family and all of his men will be massacred by the parsha indy having no love or attachment for Delon or or his camp caliban's still decides to turn around and give them an escape route which they successfully do and Caledon saves thousands of men and Dellin are and his son by going back and refusing to let an injustice like this happen because of his amazing service to della nars army here Caledon is bought from satya Cesare me by Delon are for the price of a shard blade which is an incredible price for della nor to pay and all of his men and they are made into della NARS personal guard this is the pinnacle of Calvin's racism towards light eyed people really coming to a head because yes he is very much so a prejudiced person but it's kind of understandable with how many light eyed people have screwed him over throughout his life but this challenges his preconception that all blight eyed people are pretty much scumbags when Delon are gives up arguably his most prized possession aside from his son to buy him and make sure that saw Deus will not punish him or his men for their service it's a wonderful arc and it kind of comes full circle in a beautiful way the way Brendon structures his books with the slowly unveiling his characters past as the present unfolds instead of just kind of coming full circle that kind of meets in this nice middle where it just kind of links up perfectly and as the reader it's oh so satisfying if you look at all the connections that have been made everything served a purpose I did a great job completing Calvin's original ring of development he does continue to develop in the next two books but not nearly as substantially he more just has conflicts challenging where he has gotten trying to learn to let go of anger and hatred and coming to really like and understand some light eyed people there's also a plot to kill the king that really shows that no he can't stand for injustice even if he really believes it'll be for the greater good Calvin can't be that cold-hearted and while he is this kind of desensitized murdering soldier he still has his moral code and he's not exactly a hundred percent jaded and what we end up with is a character who feels incredibly human because he's flawed he does kill and he's still filled with rage and anger towards a lot of people from his past but he's able to let go of some of it and we work towards what he knows to be the just path he's a man who's not about the greater good he's a man who's about justice so that is my character analysis of Caledon storm blessed arguably one of the best modern fantasy characters of all time and absolute joy to follow I hope you guys have liked this video if you want to go ahead and support the channel go ahead and hit that patreon down below if you want to watch with an adblock or guilt free just give me a dollar I see a cloven up watching like a thousand of my videos with ads on so I prefer you do that but go ahead and hit that like button subscribe if you enjoy my content let me know what character I should try to examine next I'm going to be building an established schedule of video soon which I'm very excited for it'll be like Monday Review Tuesday character examination Wednesday spoiler talk or something like that I'll get it out there and I'll let you guys know and I'll do that in my Twitter so if you want to follow me on my Twitter hit that Twitter down below go ahead and follow me there if you want to follow me on Instagram and see just how boring my life is you can do that as well I had a really good time doing this examination I hope you guys enjoyed watching it peace

Channel: Daniel Greene

Views: 57,549

Keywords: Kaladin Stormblessed, The Stormlight Archive, Stormlight, Stormlight Archive, Daniel Greene, Character examination, Brandon Sanderson

Id: -wmWw0GOcEc

Length: 13min 47sec (827 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 27 2018