I See A Lot Of Discussion Arguing About Whether Moash Or Other Characters Are Redeemable, Or Complaining

I see a lot of discussion arguing about whether Moash or other characters are redeemable, or complaining about the ways that characters like Amaram became less ambiguous and more evil, and I think this misses the themes of the series.

A big theme of the series is that a good person is one who is simply trying to do better - improving themselves and trying to be better each day than they were the last day. A lot of the series seems to support this reading: the progression of oaths, Kaladin's decision at the Honor Chasm, Dalinar's "Sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a man in the process of changing". Dalinar's "You will not have my pain!" speech basically spells this out, with him discussing the need to accept his past actions so that he can do better.

Throughout the story, characters like Kaladin, who attempt to improve themselves are the heroes. Even characters who've done horrifying things, like Dalinar and Szeth, are redeemable if they choose redemption. According to the morality of the Stormlight Archive, these are the heroes. Even Elhokar becomes a hero once he begins to try to improve himself, though this journey is cut short.

But this has a converse. Characters like Sadeas and Amaram, who are repeatedly given chances to do the right thing, but always choose the wrong thing. This, more than anything else, is what makes them the villains in the morality of the Stormlight Archives. These choices stack up worse and worse, and so, eventually, you end up the way they did, where there is nothing morally grey or defensible about either of them. That's why, by the end, Amaram is a monster bonding an Unmade and Sadeas is a mustache twirling villain. The morality of the Stormlight Archive will not allow them to stick around like the people we met early on.

Moash, right now, is headed down that path. He has had plenty of chances to choose to be less evil, but whenever given the option, seems to choose the worst option.

This does not mean he is irredeemable. No character in Stormlight is irredeemable, but they have to choose redemption. Whether or not he is redeemable does not depend on his past, or his motivations, merely whether he chooses redemption or not.

You’d think that by now, the fused would learn to be scared when a Knight Radiant starts yelling character development at them

So Kaladin tells Dalinar that he won't get back in time and Dalinar says "its ok, I can send a spanreed, Szeth can write". What would he have done if Szeth couldn't write?

Would Kaladin just have had to carry some random scribe with him for the entire book?

Would he send Lyn with him? That would be awkward, both because of their history, and because Lyn was initially annoyed at getting hired as a scribe instead of a team member, so now she gets promoted to... sky scribe?

There's an interesting parallel between Kaladin vs Szeth and Lift vs Nale: Both of them, in a climactic moment, swear the third ideal and summon their blade right before fighting either Szeth or Nale as the everstorm approaches. Szeth and Nale both make a very similar comment like "You mean to fight me? You are new to this" right before Szeth gets beaten by Kaladin and Nale fails to kill Lift. Anyway from this we can conclude that if the fight had continued and Nale hadn't realized he was wrong and stopped fighting, Lift was about to kill him.

Cultivation takes what you have and gives you what you need. The Nightwatcher tries this, but she’s new and not a god, so she’s a bit bad at this. Like taking perceptive orientation and giving the man linen(?).

This is why She had to intervene when Dalinar arrived. The Nightwatcher doesn’t have the nuance of understanding Cultivation does and would’ve done a simple transactional exchange.

Cultivation, however, understands that what Dalinar had was pain, and what he needed was the space to get over himself long enough to get his footing.

But then she gave it back. At a time when he was ready to process it and needed it to grow.

Odium can’t do that. He doesn’t let you process the pain. He takes what you have and gives you what you want—pleasure to fill the emptiness the pain left.

Odium—Hate, is addictive, because it can never be a source of growth. Only anger and destruction.

True Passion requires the desire to see someone do better. To see yourself do better.

“If I must fall, I will rise each time a better man.”

Some advice to worldbuilders: don't commit to exact numbers unless you've really really thought about them. Don't say "there are 12 wizard schools in the world", if you want to just center 12 in the plot, say something like "these are the 12 most prestigious schools" or "these are the 12 schools in the (magic equivalent for ivy league)". That way, your gaps can be filled in by the readers and if you ever find yourself wanting something for a future plot, you can just add a different one without retconning.