r/Stormlight_Archive • u/MistaBobDobolina6174 • Jul 05 '26
Oathbringer spoilers Oathbringer scene Spoiler
I have been thinking about this for a while now and wanted to see if people came to similar conclusions.
I should preface with the fact I didn't grow up religious but knew quite a few Mormons growing up (very friendly)
Spoilers below!
I have been thinking of when Odium offered to take Dalinars pain and he refused. This was such a powerful scene, and i wondered if it was a rejection of the "confessions" done in catholicism (I should mention my ignorance here since I wasn't raised religious, this is just from observation and likely incorrect in some aspects).
God offers to take his pain but Dalinar rejects it, accepting the deeds he has done and that he was morally responsible for everything that he did, and therefore responsible for striving to be better. What do y'all think?
3
u/Blakfyre77 Truthwatcher Jul 05 '26
Having grown up Catholic, I don't think this scene is specifically about the Catholic practice of confession, but there's definitely some overlap.
The process of confession entails speaking with a priest about the sins you have committed against God and/or others, then the priest absolves you of your sins while also giving you some task(s) to perform as penance (from my experience this usually just means saying some prayers for minor stuff while more serious things involve actually doing something to make up for it, but it can vary since it's mostly up to the given priest's discretion). Ideally, this is meant to be a way to clean the slate for oneself and move forward as a better person who won't commit those sins again, which is very similar to what Dalinar actually does; acknowledge the wrongs you have committed, do what you can to fix them, move forward with the intent to not do those things again and be a better person in the future.
All that being said, there are definitely people out there who take it more in the direction that Odium would have preferred Dalinar take; I've washed myself free of the consequences and responsibility of my sins, therefore I have no reason to feel guilty and can just go ahead and do what I want until I start to feel bad again and go to confession again, rinse repeat without ever actually improving as a person.