#moash is the only one i'll be vocal about though

[basket-of-radiants]

Unpopular opinion on Moash?

Oh boy!!! I’m always down for talking about my unpopular Moash opinions, you sure do know me!

Everyone who’s been around here for more than a couple days knows that this blog does not endorse Moash hate, and that in fact, I care a lot about him and his well-being. In the past I have talked at great (very great holy shit) length about him about the bad shit he did, and while perhaps not defended his actions, at least defended the idea that his side of the story is as legitimate and worthwhile as that of our protagonists. It’s always easy to talk about the reasons you should hate a character, and a character killing a character you happen to like is definitely one of those reasons, so here you go for my real unpopular opinion about Moash. (And boy is it unpopular.) Oathbringer actually gave us more reasons to love him than not! By that I mean that his pov chapters were a fucking delight.

I don’t want to talk about his mental health and how fucking depressed and depressing he is right now because this is a Moash-positivity post. I know that if you take away all the sad stuff, one might be tempted to argue there’s not much left of him, but I really would just like to strip that all away and go over what actually happened in his chapters.

Like, for example this fused tried to murder him so he murdered her instead and afterwards they totally bonded over that and became pals and started doing each other a bunch of solids. Honestly what more can you want out of any relationship? I’m getting ahead of myself, that didn’t happen for a while, let’s talk about how when he was first captured he went “oh so apparently there’s this Alethi resistance? Maybe I should check that out and get a pamphlet?” But then Moash started using his critical thinking skills and went “wait actually Alethi society fucking sucks, why the hell would I want to help reinstate this racist shit when I could be working for these other guys who aren’t racist towards one another every six seconds?” Like, the more he steps back, the more he goes, “yeah this new society is objectively better than ours, sure they’re enslaving humans but we enslaved/genocided literally all of them first so it’s at least understandable?” And Moash felt they weren’t even being that bad about how they treated humans, compared to how the humans had treated parshmen/each other, you know? You could take the the hardest most labor-intensive job they have and you still get six breaks a day, a decent health plan, and a sick new pair of boots out of it.

(Honestly, when my sister and I were discussing him, the one thing we could agree on was that if it weren’t for the whole Odium thing, we’d probably be on the side of the singers, the Alethi are just really shitty.)

Anyway, Moash decides he’s totally down for helping this new and improved society replace the old and unimproved one, so he up and volunteers for the absolute worst gig they have for the sake of the greater good or something. And the whole time he’s quietly complaining to himself about how his working conditions are too fair and about how he’s given too adequate of accommodations. Like, he mentions that you shouldn’t give slaves enough time to think and question if you really want to oppress them, and he might be right about that. Obviously he has enough time to deconstruct and analyze the power dynamics and tactics of the singers for no other reason than because he was bored.

Okay, that’s just where he’s at in relation to his newfound occupation, let’s actually get to the good stuff he actually did.

That time he sees Khen, Sah & co. being beaten and he goes “??????” and takes it upon himself personally to intervene. This here, this is why I will defend Moash forever. He just ditches his work and punches their overseer in the face. He just sort of angrily lectures them and tells him he is so so disappointed in them, and then he reassigns himself in place of the person they had hurt and lets him ride and heal. He did all that with just so much conviction that everyone goes “okay, guess we’ll just leave it be, he seems to know what he’s doing.”

Holy shit, wait, pausing this, how did I not notice he fucking Bridge Four-ed this group of singer slaves. They were in a hopeless and horrible situation and Moash just put it upon himself to take charge and protect/uplift them. He even did the thing where he trained them all with spears in their off-time! Like, everyone says he’s the opposite of Kallie, and in terms of where his mental health went that may be right, but in terms of his actions now I’m not so sure. And just like with Bridge Four, all the singers on his new crew disliked him from the get go, but Moash didn’t care and fully committed himself to supporting them anyway. But once again I’m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway he hangs out with this group and they hate everything and he’s like “okay, I got this” so he leaves in the middle of work without asking anyone permission and just goes to the nearest fused and goes “hi I want to speak to your manager.” And they go “you’re a slave, is that even a thing you’re allowed to do?” And he goes “it is now” and they go “not my department but sure go ahead” and just throw him into space where he just floats there until Lewshi shows up and they have a nice chat. She goes “what’s up?” And he goes “I’m here because I’m pretty sure you’re reinventing racism or something and I’m not about that. Like I’m cool with you guys replacing humans as our dominant species but only if you guys actually treat each other equally.” And she goes “I understand where you’re coming from, but now let’s talk about you.” And then they both have a nice feelings talk where he tells her why he’s sad, and she tells him why her entire species is sad, and they really connect, you know? She offers him a gig but also says he can do whatever and it’s cool, no pressure.

Anyway, after that Moash is pretty much left to do whatever he wants and by now not only is everyone mildly terrified of him, but now their extra special important person has put her official seal of approval on him. He pretty much just does whatever he wants at this point and he uses this as an opportunity to properly help and train his squad so they don’t fucking die. He cares okay?? Not about himself or about a lot of things, really, but he cares about these people! (I can’t say it’s canon it from the text alone, but just from my read I felt that he was taking some extra responsibility for them as well, because it was Kallie’s fault they were slaves in the first place.)

Like, okay. Were his chapters actually depressing af? Yes. But they were also such a ride, come on.

Just to end this off (because holy SHIT why does everything become so long when I write about him??) I want to add a couple more general points. Moash has had his life personally ruined by members of the aristocracy, and he really does hate lighteyes and what they represent. I don’t hold this against him at all. We do have a lot of main characters who are members of said aristocracy though, and if you feel the need to put one group over the other, then I can see why you wouldn’t like Moash. I do think it’s immensely inaccurate to categorize him as “selfish” or “an asshole” though, just because his actions really don’t show that. Putting this out there, I’m gonna keep talking about him pretty much forever because I think he’s a really great character and because most other people aren’t inclined to do so. Yup.

If you actually read all this, thanks for doing so! I personally didn’t, time to post without looking over it whatsoever. (I should make a masterpost of all my Moash discourse haha.)

#moash #oathbringer spoilers #oathbringer #stormlight archive #The Discourse #long post #asks #i'm honestly so sad he's probably going to be an evil emotionless assassin next book #although...i do have some hope for him just because his friends were shown coming back to visit him right before the end #moash though!!! i care about him so much!!! #i always write way too much about him maybe i like him more than i'm willing to admit to myself #unpopular opinions though my friend #to be honest i actually have some other...very unpopular opinions about a lot of other topics #moash is the only one i'll be vocal about though #not interested in discussing the others unless someone else brings them up first #do not ask i will not tell you they are easter eggs that must be revealed naturally through character development #if people are having fun with the others then tbh that's great for me #but moash is really the only one where i'll look at other people and go ''others think differently from me and this angers me'' #(i'm kidding btw) #the others i don't mind that much #thank you for asking!!!!!! #i still have a few more posts to make about him #but not right now #Anonymous #essay one from the other day is complete! #still gotta do the dalinar one and the szeth/lift/nightblood one