In this passage from The Way of Kings, The Way of Kings, Chapters 22-24: Dalinar Enforces the Codes, readers encounter a pivotal moment that illuminates the novel's central themes.
Oaths are fundamental to The Way of Kings. The ancient Knights Radiant were bound by a sequence of Ideals — spoken commitments that shaped what their powers could do and who they could be. Kaladin discovers that speaking these Ideals is not a ritual but a genuine act of self-declaration: the words only work if the person saying them means them. Sanderson uses oaths to argue that the commitments we make in public, when we mean them, change who we are.
The Way of Kings introduces Roshar, a world ravaged by highstorms — massive storms that sweep across the land with regular violence, shaping every aspect of how people build, farm, and organize their societies. The Alethi, the dominant culture, are defined by war: they have spent a decade fighting on the Shattered Plains for reasons that most soldiers no longer remember. Sanderson uses this backdrop to ask what happens to a society that mistakes the continuation of conflict for honor.
Kaladin begins the novel as a bridgeman — a slave whose only function is to carry bridges to allow soldiers to cross the chasms of the Shattered Plains. Bridgemen are used as arrow fodder: run forward, expose the enemy's archers, be killed so the real soldiers can cross safely. Kaladin's arc is built around a question Sanderson takes seriously: how does a person maintain moral agency and care for others when the system they are trapped in is designed to kill them?
Dalinar Kholin is a highprince — a military commander and one of the most powerful men in the Alethi army — who has begun experiencing visions during highstorms. The visions show him the ancient Knights Radiant, a legendary order of warriors who held Roshar together before mysteriously disbanding. Dalinar's challenge is not physical but epistemic: how do you trust what you have seen when everyone around you believes you are losing your mind?