( tezcatlipoca, who nurtured giants with his body. quetzalcoatl, who pampered the entitled with unneeded gifts. tlaloc, who forsook the lonely with his lover. and, chalchiuhtlicue, who provided the sheltered with no forward motion. and the fifth sun, the mortal sun, flourishing with little influence from the gods.

kaladin listens intently, stopping all that he's doing to focus. because this is crucial to his understanding, a part of a world overseen by gods. is it also his planet's "destiny" to fail? is his home an experiment like in tezcatlipoca's stories? )

... I don't understand, Tezcatlipoca. By your telling, you were the only one who tried to cultivate balanced worlds. It isn't fair that your creations suffered. That your family's mistakes ended their lives because you couldn't cope with what you'd made. It isn't.

But... your world was interfered with by Quetzalcoatl. Then you showed him how shallow he was, resulting in him choosing to destroy his people instead of trying to teach them. And you knew you had to make Tlaloc pay attention, so you stole his lover to ensure this, and he also chose destruction instead of trying to spend time with them. And Chalchiuhtlicue, who had to know the reality of things—that the cosmere is cruel and always will be—was given the truth of the matter, and she chose to let her children drown instead of trying to let go of them.

You all had an opportunity to be better—to learn from your mistakes—but you decided to kill. But you take the blame, saying it was "your hands," "your deeds,"... You're not responsible for the actions of others, Tezcatlipoca. You didn't want what happened to your people to happen again, and it sounds like you tried to help your siblings see.

It wasn't destiny that taught gods to stay out of the affairs of the mortals of the Fifth Sun. It was you.