The Way of Kings characters

Appears from the start

A young man from the rural region of Alethkar, the son of a small-town surgeon, who trained as a spearman and quickly proved a gifted natural leader in his country's endless war. When the story opens he has been condemned to slavery and marked with a slave's brand, stripped of the men he once tried to protect. Bitter and grieving, he is sold into a bridge crew on the Shattered Plains, where he is expected to die. His defining trait is a stubborn refusal to let those in his care be lost, even when despair tells him it is hopeless.

Also known as Sylphrena

First appears in chapter 2

A small spirit of the wind who takes the shape of a young woman only a hand tall, visible at first to almost no one. She attaches herself to Kaladin out of curiosity, playful and childlike, forgetful of her own nature. Over time she grows more aware, more coherent, and more insistent, drawn to honesty and courage and repelled by treachery.

First appears in chapter 3

A sheltered young noblewoman from a remote and impoverished house, an accomplished artist with a near-perfect visual memory and a quick, bookish wit she usually hides. She travels to the great learning city of Kharbranth to become the ward of the famed scholar Jasnah Kholin. Behind her studious ambition lies a secret plan to steal a valuable device in order to save her failing family.

First appears in chapter 3

The formidable scholar-princess of Alethkar, daughter of the murdered King Gavilar and sister to the current king. Coldly brilliant and famously heretical, she rejects the established religion openly and pursues dangerous historical research. She owns a Soulcaster, a device able to transform matter, and takes Shallan as her ward while pursuing a hidden scholarly purpose of her own.

Also known as The Blackthorn

First appears in chapter 4

A highprince of Alethkar and its most feared war leader, brother to the assassinated King Gavilar and uncle to the young king who now rules. Once a savage battlefield commander called the Blackthorn, he has grown older and more restrained, troubled by visions that come to him during the great storms and by an old book of ideals he has begun to live by. His fellow warlords whisper that grief and age have unbalanced him.

First appears in chapter 12

Dalinar's elder son, a celebrated and vain young duelist who wields one of the rare Shardblades. Charming, hot-tempered, and devoted to his father, he privately fears that Dalinar's visions and unfashionable honor are ruining the family's standing, even as he defends him fiercely against those who would exploit it.

First appears in chapter 12

Dalinar's quiet, bookish younger son, kept from the battlefield by a blood weakness that brings on fits. Awkward in company and easy to underestimate, he is thoughtful and earnest, longing to be useful to a warrior family that treats him as fragile.

First appears in chapter 12

The young king of Alethkar, son of the slain King Gavilar, who inherited a crown and a war he struggles to command. Insecure and quick to suspect conspiracies against his life, he leans heavily on his uncle Dalinar while resenting the shadow the older man casts.

First appears in chapter 13

A powerful and cunning highprince, a childhood companion of Dalinar and outwardly the king's loyal ally. He runs his bridge crews with deliberate brutality, spending slaves' lives freely to win plateau battles. Shrewd and ambitious, he treats the war as a game of position and profit.

Also known as Szeth-son-son-Vallano, The Assassin in White

Appears from the start

A soft-spoken assassin from the distant land of Shinovar, condemned by his own people as Truthless and forced to obey without question whoever holds the small stone that binds his oath. He wields a Shardblade and strange powers over gravity and pressure, killing with terrible ease on the orders of masters he despises, tormented by every death he is made to cause.

Appears from the start

The late king of Alethkar, Dalinar's elder brother, who united the warring Alethi princedoms by conquest. He was assassinated on the very night his people signed a treaty with the strange Parshendi, an act that plunged both nations into the long war fought on the Shattered Plains.

Also known as Hoid

First appears in chapter 12

The king's Wit, a sharp-tongued jester and storyteller whose mockery is licensed by his office. Mysterious and clearly more than he appears, he turns up where he is least expected, trading barbed insults for a strange kind of counsel and telling stories that seem to carry hidden meaning.

First appears in chapter 18

The elderly king of the city-state of Kharbranth, widely loved as a gentle, slow-witted, and generous ruler who builds hospitals and shelters the sick. He seems the least threatening of monarchs, kindly and easily led, more interested in charity than in the wars of the eastern princes.

First appears in chapter 10

An older, gruff bridgeman with a soldier's bearing and a past he keeps to himself. Cynical at first, he becomes one of the earliest and most loyal converts to Kaladin's effort to keep Bridge Four alive, and seems to know more about old legends than he lets on.

First appears in chapter 10

A capable, hard-edged bridgeman nursing a deep resentment of the lighteyed nobility who rule Alethi society. He becomes one of Kaladin's close companions in Bridge Four, quick in a fight and fiercely loyal to the crew, though his anger runs deep.