Elhokar Kholin

Elhokar Kholin
Elhokar Kholin Fan art by jurassicpencil[1]
Biographical information
Ethnicity	Alethi
Nationality	Alethi
Gender	Male
Born	1147
Status	Dead
Abilities	Shardbearer
Physical Description
Hair Color	Black
Eye Color	Light Yellow
Social Information
Title(s)	Brightlord, King of Alethkar (former)
Family	House Kholin
Occupation	King
Appears in	The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, Oathbringer

Elhokar Kholin was King of Alethkar, son of former King Gavilar and former Queen Navani and younger brother of now Queen Jasnah. He was 27 years of age and a Shardbearer; his Shardblade is called Sunraiser. Unlike his uncle, Dalinar, and cousin, Adolin, Elhokar did not ride a Ryshadium, although he did ride one of the best horses among Shin stock named Vengeance.

Elhokar had an intense fear of assassination due to the way in which his father was killed. His fear was often misplaced and he saw trivial things as acts of aggression toward him by unseen enemies. He had doubts about his ability as a king, despite the assurances of his uncle, Dalinar.

While he was the Alethi king, he was absent from his kingdom and held his court on the borders of the Shattered Plains, along with ten highprinces, at war with the Parshendi and seeking to fulfill the Vengeance Pact. However, he stood aloof from fighting personally in the war, as was appropriate.

As long as Elhokar ruled, the highprinces got to fight in the war their way and fatten their purses. He didn't make many demands of them. They liked having him as their king.

Appearance

Elhokar had yellow eyes, a strong nose, and a clean-shaven face that was almost too handsome, with its full lips, broad forehead, and firm chin.

Personality

Elhokar was a good man, both by Dalinar and Kaladin's standards, though the latter believed him to be rather spoiled. However, Elhokar was also used to being surrounded by domineering people of various sorts. He was paranoid, due in part to his father having been assassinated by Szeth, but he was a proud man.

Character

The mention to him of Gavilar by others soured him; he felt they compared him unfavorably to the old king. Unfortunately, he was often right.

By the time Shallan, Adolin, Kaladin, and Elhokar had returned to Kholinar after it had been compromised, she'd grown accustomed to seeing Elhokar as an afterthought - a fault of the way Dalinar, increasingly, had been treating him. But she recognized that there was an earnest determination to him, and even a regal bearing.

Biography

The Hunt

Elhokar's impetuousness - and recklessness - is solely responsible for the nearly disastrous chasmfiend hunt's beginning, despite however much Bashin, as huntmaster, had meticulously prepared for the challenge.

From beginning to end, and in the midst of greatest danger, the king defied the warnings from his uncle as the beast surfaced - not where it had been lured (where it had already consumed the bait it had been offered), but on the very plateau where ... .

The king himself didn't fight for, or win, gemhearts except on the occasional hunt. On this one such, he harvested an enormous emerald gemheart from one of the largest chasmfiends that Dalinar had ever seen.

However, on this same hunt, he suffered a near-fatal fall from his horse due to a supposedly sabotaged saddle strap and subsequent ramifications with regard to the chasmfiend itself.

The Investigation

The strap that was the girth to the king's saddle, the strap that wrapped under his horse's barrel, ended in a ragged tear. It had broken suddenly during the chasmfiend fight, throwing the saddle - and the king - from horseback.

Elhokar had initially asked Dalinar and Adolin to look into the incident, supposedly because he thought the strap had been cut.

A girth could get so worn that it would snap, particularly when strained by the weight of a man in Shardplate. This strap had broken off at the point where it had been affixed to the saddle, so it would have been easy for the grooms to miss it. That was the most rational explanation. But when looked at with slightly more irrational eyes, it could seem that something nefarious had happened.

According to Dalinar, the strap did look like it had been cut. He thought that perhaps there was something that he and his son weren't seeing. That it could have been part of something larger that didn't work the way it had been anticipated.

Dalinar asked Adolin to have a leatherworker look at it and tell him what he thought of the rip. He told his son to ask the grooms if they'd noticed anything, and to watch to see if any had received any suspicious windfalls of spheres of late.

Having brought the saddle strap to the leatherworkers, Avaran stated that it had been cut and Yis agreed with him. When Adolin questioned just how sure they were about the strap, Avaran confirmed it, telling Adolin that it was not a simple tear. That it could indeed have been cut intentionally.

Later, despite that Elhokar had publicly asked Dalinar to look into the strap incident, claiming that it had been an attempt on his life, when Elhokar appointed Sadeas Highprince of Information, charging him to unearth the truth of it, Elhokar had practically proclaimed that he'd suspected his uncle. Any information Sadeas unearthed regarding the "assassination attempt" would only reflect unfavorably on Dalinar, who knew that his nephew thought he'd ignored the threats to him, so Elhokar had looked to Sadeas instead.

Elhokar had spoken to Sadeas about the position to which he'd been appointed, who'd agreed. He said Sadeas had mentioned that if he started with something less threatening, like appointing someone to Highprince of Information, rather his uncle to Highprince of War, it might prepare the other highprinces for what Dalinar had wanted to do.

Elhokar was oblivious to what he'd done, but said that Sadeas had specifically noted the cut girth as something he'd wanted to look into. Further, that Sadeas had known his uncle had always said he wasn't suited to those sorts of things.

Dalinar observed that Elhokar wouldn't have seen that Sadeas's new position was almost as threatening as Highprince of War, the position he'd asked Elhokar for, yet was denied. All Elhokar had seen was that he'd finally have someone willing to listen to his paranoid fears.

Elhokar was quite eager for results of Sadeas's investigation into the cut saddle strap.

Cryptics

Elhokar had an ability associated with Shadesmar, akin to that of Shallan, since he too saw strange creatures with symbols and shapes for their heads, although he appeared to see them directly rather than through drawings as Shallan does.

“

"I see their faces in mirrors. Symbols, twisted, inhuman."

”

And yet ...

“	"When you came, the shadows went away." "The ... shadows?" "I saw them in mirrors, in the corners of my eyes. I could swear I even heard them whispering, but you frightened them. I haven't seen them since. There's something about you. Don't try to deny it."	”
–Elhokar to Kaladin

Treachery

While within the king's palace, after Kaladin tells him that his men can't keep the conference room safe if they don't know what to guard, or if there are passages nobody is supposed to know about, and that he'll use only his officers in guarding them, Elhokar stares at Kaladin for a moment, then turns toward Dalinar and tells him that he likes this new officer.

After the duel in the arena between Adolin, Elit, Relis, Jakamav, and Abrobadar, then Renarin and Kaladin as well, Elhokar had Kaladin thrown in jail for his post-duel demands, and threatened to execute the man who'd saved the lives of his cousins just moments earlier.

What Kaladin wasn't aware of at the time he committed his officers to guarding Elhokar's residence, was that Moash bore a grudge toward the king based on an incident that occurred before he became a bridgeman.

Later, for the first time, Elhokar admits that the dueling fiasco was his own fault, brought on by his envy and resentment. However, Kaladin's bluntness may also be, at least in part, to blame for the drunken state in which he finds the king later.

Moash helped in the attempt on Elhokar's life by providing a way for assassins to destroy the railing of the balcony in his conference room that the king often visited.

After this assassination attempt, whereby a drunken Elhokar had nearly bled to death, and his subsequent recovery, Elhokar insisted that his uncle had usurped his position as king. He told Dalinar that he could retain Urithiru as his own, but that Kholinar was his and he would reclaim it.

Elhokar learned from Yokska that it was the ardent Pai's execution by his wife, the queen, that set off the unrest in Kholinar. He provided Yokska with a rationale (i.e., the influence of the dark spren, Yelig-nar) for not blaming the queen for the execution of the ardent.

When told by Yokska that the queen had issued a proclamation indicating that the parshmen should be executed because they were Voidbringers, Elhokar indicated that the parshmen were only exiled; that at least that order seemed to have reached Aesudan. He tells her that his wife must have been free enough from the control of the dark forces to heed his words via spanreed.

Still, he didn't mention that if Yokska was correct about the dark spren arriving during the Everstorm, then Aesudan had executed the ardent on her own. Likewise, the order to exile the parshmen would also have come before the Everstorm.

While on a mission to open the Honor Gate in Kholinar, Elhokar was impaled by a spear through his chest at the hand of Moash. Though he attempted to swear the First Ideal of the Knights Radiant, presumably in an attempt to heal himself, he was then stabbed through the eye as well, all the while holding his son, and he was killed.

Relationships

• Gavilar - It isn't apparent that Elhokar had much of a relationship with his father before or after Gavilar's death.
• Navani - Elhokar believed that his mother's marriage to Dalinar would make his mother happy.
• Jasnah - Jasnah and Elhokar were the sort of siblings both used to doing their own thing and getting their own way. They both learned to stay out of one another’s business. Since he was used to being surrounded by domineering people, having a domineering sister was no different.
• Aesudan - That Elhokar abandoned his wife to rule in Kholinar so that he might reign on the Shattered Plains seems telling about his relationship with his wife.
• Gavinor - That Elhokar abandoned his child in Kholinar so that he might reign on the Shattered Plains seems telling about his relationship with his son. But that he attempted to rescue his son from his compromised wife is evidence that he valued his son and wanted him to survive.
• Dalinar - Elhokar acknowledged to his uncle that Dalinar was always sorry for his actions with regard to the good of Alethkar. Still, this didn't deny the fact that Dalinar had - step-by-step - usurped the throne, despite claiming all along that he'd had no intention of doing so.
• Evi - There is a complete lack of information with regard to Elhokar's relationship with his aunt.
• Adolin - If there was a relationship between Elhokar and Adolin, it has not yet been referenced.
• Renarin - If there was a relationship between Elhokar and Renarin, it has not yet been referenced.

Family

• Gavilar - Father (deceased)
• Navani - Mother
• Jasnah - Sister and Queen of Alethkar
• Aesudan - Wife
• Gavinor - Son
• Dalinar - Uncle
• Evi - Aunt (deceased)
• Adolin - Cousin
• Renarin - Cousin

Notes

Brandon has said that Elhokar was going to be a Lightweaver, but that he was doomed from a long time ago.