Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, Lift and Wyndle led us into discussions of Edgedancers, the Cognitive Realm, murder, and justice. This week, we join Szeth atop the highest tower in the world to contemplate the End of All Things—or the end of all his former assumptions, anyway.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here.
Click on through to join the discussion!
Interlude 10: Szeth
Point of View: Szeth
Setting: Urithiru
Symbology: Assassin, Vedeledev
IN WHICH Szeth sits on the top of Urithiru and contemplates the things he has done; having fought someone who held and used Stormlight, he faces the possibility that the past eight years have been based on a lie; he departs Urithiru, falling toward a place he hopes to find answers.
Quote of the Week
“What does it mean if the Shamanate are wrong? What does it mean if they banished me in error?”
It meant the End of All Things. The end of truth. It would mean that nothing made sense, and that his oath was meaningless.
It would mean he had killed for no reason.
Well. Not so sure about that “end of truth, nothing makes sense” part, frankly, in my opinion, it never made sense to send someone out with an Honorblade and orders to implicitly obey anyone who picks up his Oathstone. Seriously, people? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
But that last? Yeah, it means that. For. No. Reason.
Commentary
Every now and then, I do feel a little bit sorry for Szeth. I mean, he was trying so hard to obey the rules no matter what the cost. But then… I think about the cost, and I don’t feel sorry for him anymore. Yes, the cost was high—but he’s not the one who paid it. And frankly, this makes me want to kick him:
The screamers deserved their deaths, of course. They should have killed Szeth.
This, and thoughts like this, which we’ve seen before and will again, when we’re in his head. Even as he murders more and more people, he seems to increasingly think of himself as the victim. “Oh, poor me. All those people I murdered scream at me every time I close my eyes. Poor, poor me. Life’s really hard when you can’t close your eyes.” Gah. Self-identification as Victim makes me want to hurl.
On a lighter note (for a few minutes), this short interlude gives us a truckload of hints and snippets of information. This is our first actual glimpse of Urithiru, a hundred terraced stories high, with that odd, flat, windowed, eastern wall. Whatever it may once have been, and whatever it will become, at this point Szeth seems to be the only person who knows exactly where it is and has the capability to get there.
However, given that he considers it “the only place in the East where the stones were not cursed, where walking on them was allowed,” it seems probable that the Stone Shamans know of it. It’s even possible that they know exactly where it is, I suppose, and that he found it based on existing maps. This train of thought brings a whole series of questions about the Stone Shamans, though. Do they train with the Honorblades? Are there traditionally one or more individuals among them who practice the Surgebinding that comes with the eight Honorblades they’ve been “protecting” for the last few millennia? Have they had them that whole time? If not, when did they acquire them? Which one do they not have, besides Taln’s? Who does have that one? In the later Interlude, is Taravangian telling the truth about another Blade going missing, or is that something he made up on the spot to distract Szeth? And does Szeth have the Honorblade because he was named Truthless, or had he already been “gifted” it for life, or…? Why did he have it? So many questions.
But we at least learned here, clearly(ish) stated for the first time, that the “crime” for which Szeth was named Truthless was a claim that either the Voidbringers or the Radiants (or both, or one implying the other) were returning. The Stone Shamans insisted that it was a false alarm, that the Voidbringers are no more, the powers of old (Surgebinding via spren?) are no more, the Knights Radiant are fallen, the Stone Shamans are all that remain. Which is… manifestly false. Did they know it was false? Were they deceiving themselves? Did they really believe Surgebinding was gone forever? Did they know the truth, but perpetrated a lie to maintain control? I hope we get some answers eventually. For now, we know that they were committed to a set of beliefs that were flat-out wrong.
It reminds me of an odd discussion I had this summer about the nature of reality. From my perspective, reality just is. We may perceive reality differently, depending on our basic assumptions, and we may attribute observable phenomena to different causes depending on those assumptions, and in some cases our perceptions and attributions vary rather dramatically. My argument was that our beliefs may be correct or incorrect, but reality is immutable. We each have a responsibility to decide what to believe, and we each have a right to our own beliefs, but those beliefs don’t change reality itself. The argument of my friend was that our perceptions determine reality, so that we each have a reality all our own; her example was that for George over there who is colorblind, certain colors don’t exist in his reality. My counter to that was that George’s inability to perceive red and green as distinct colors doesn’t make them any less a part of reality.
(The funny part is that the debate began with her insistence that no intelligent person could possibly believe a cosmology different than what she believed, because Science. Since I consider myself reasonably intelligent but hold to a very different cosmology, I pointed out that both views rest on a set of assumptions, and a scientist in particular should at least acknowledge that there are unprovable assumptions involved. She didn’t want to admit that all theories of origins have to make some assumptions, and next thing I knew, “reality” was being redefined. Not quite sure how “Science Irrefutably Proves This” suddenly became “Reality Is Defined By Perception” but… oh well.)
Anyway… Back to Roshar. There was Szeth, thinking that the Stone Shamans knew the truth, and believing that when they named him Truthless for saying something else, they must have been right, so off he went to obey the rules for being Truthless. Then he met up with Kaladin, who clearly could do at least some of the stuff that was supposed to be impossible in this day and age… and suddenly his perception ran head-on into the brick wall of reality. Suddenly the all-knowing Stone Shamans turned out to be completely wrong, meaning that despite all their declarations, he was not, in fact, Truthless… and there was no justification for the rules he followed after all.
Okay, I can feel sorry for him.
But what kind of special irrationality does it take?—to give someone an Honorblade which not only can’t be beaten, but also bestows Surgebinding skills on the holder… and then send him out with a rock in his hand, bound to give the rock to anyone that wants it, and then to obey whatever orders they choose to give him—good, bad, or indifferent. That’s just stupid irresponsible nonsense.
Szeth did the deeds, and he is guilty no matter whose rules he was following. But IMO, the Stone Shamans are every bit as guilty as Szeth, since they gave him the power to do those deeds. Likewise guilty are the masters he’s obeyed, because they used the tool at hand to commit evil deeds. Perception be damned; the reality is that a whole host of people were murdered with no justification whatsoever.
Stormwatch
This interlude takes place somewhere along the line of the past two Rosharan weeks, or roughly during the timespan of Part Three.
Heraldic Symbolism
Vedeledev watches over this chapter alone, and I have to admit that I’m slightly baffled by her presence. Why is the Healer, patron Herald of the Edgedancers, associated with this hot mess?
Just Sayin’
“Glories within.” On a guess, this is a Shin idiom; no one else seems to say it, anyway. It certainly serves as a reminder that there’s a whole raft of stuff we really don’t know about the people, culture, and religion of Shinovar.
Now we can try to figure out what charges a prosecutor would bring against Szeth, how on earth a defense attorney could possibly make a case for him, how the jury would rule, and what sentence the judge would be likely to hand down. Or… not. It’s up to you where the comments roll this week! Next week, we’ll look in on Eshonai and the new rhythms she’s attuning these days. This also will be an uncheerful episode, methinks. For now, I’ll see you in the comments!
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader. For one more day, she will be holed up in her gamma cave, nitpicking away to help minimize distractions in the awesome story that is The Bands of Mourning. Y’all, seriously: Tremendous story.
Szeth sucks. I don’t feel sorry for him at all. I hated the fact that Nalan brought him back from the dead. Why can’t people just stay dead?
Here’s hoping Kaladin wipes the floor with him for a second time.
The case against Szeth is pretty airtight. First degree murder, jury votes guilty after minutes of deliberation (just long enough for them to agree the evidence is horrific enough not to review again) and maximum penalty in the jurisdiction. Likewise for his masters. You could make a case against the Shamanate for depraved indifference because given Szeth’s skills and abilities, what did they think he’d be asked to do? I think that’d be murder 2 on Law and Order.
Any defence of Szeth would have to focus on his belief that he has no choice and convince the jury that he doesn’t know that what he’s doing is wrong. Since he certainly does, any defence would be a slim hope indeed. He probably would just plead guilty though.
That he’s blaming his victims for his suffering makes me think there’s hope for him. He still feels guilt and regret for what he’s done. He hasn’t rationalized what he’s done or accepted it as something reasonable and necessary (other as necessary because of his oathstone). There’s still part of him that isn’t a monster. It’s not exactly sane, but it’s still there. In World of Darkness terms, his morality stat is still relatively high.
The things about Szeth is that he is (currently) the closest we will ever see to a human tool of Odium. Odium typically uses non-human agents. The reason why it is difficult for Odium to use humans is because he is pure hatred. Szeth, as the “one who hates” actually hates himself. I think it is impossible for Odium to maintain long-term influence over a human for precisely this reason. Hence the need for alternate species like the Parshendi.
If Szeth can break free of this, then he is a unique position to understand and fight Odium better than any of the other KR.
Alice, I agree with your judgment on Szeth and those who sent him. Following orders is not an excuse for killing innocents, nor is providing the tools and rationale for someone to act in that fashion. Nalan, who presumably had that ‘missing’ Honorblade, is correct on the latter point. My impression of the Shin culture is that it’s xenophobic, believing themselves to contain all that is valuable (‘the glories within’). Everything outside is defiled, unworthy, and untrue. Szeth’s original proposition that things are in the process of radical change in the outside world; that Surgebinding is returning, was contrary to Shin teachings. He was therefore exiled from Shinovar and also sent into that defiled outside world, where Szeth had apparently obtained his heretical ideas, to wreak retribution and to create mayhem. It’s possible that Szeth had previously found an oathgate to Urithiru, used his Honorblade to gain entry, and found information there about the return of the Desolation.
I also agree that the physical world exists independent of our subjective perceptions. While there may be some subjectivity with regard to the submicroscopic quantum world or the relativistic world, such subjectivity does not pertain to the ‘everyday’ world. The radical philosophical notion of Bishop Berkeley ‘esse est percipi’ – being is perception, would undermine the scientific enterprise and our quest for the truth of things, if followed. David Hume’s argument that the ‘aught’ (prescription) doesn’t follow logically from the ‘is’ (description) would be further compromised by making the ‘is’ unknowable. That is too cynical a view for my tastes.
I don’t know the nature of the argument about cosmology to which you alluded. The fact is that there are different cosmologies current in the world of physics. The more conventional view is that the universe and time had its origin some13.8 billion years ago. There was no before, in this view. Others believe that the current universe is merely one phase of a never-ending cycle, or that uncountable other universes exist. In any case, the argumentation is more metaphysics than physics.
I think the real question is how Szeth reacts with the power of “controlling” Nightblood. His struggle for sanity is going to get a lot harder. Also, I look forward to finding out how Nalan ended up with that sword.
Great commentary again this week Alice.
Last week, I talked of how much I liked Lift. I am deeply excited to know she will play a larger role in the story as it progresses. I am keen on reading on grown-up Lift with a few sneak-peek of how she gets there in between.
This week, I will do the opposite. This will not come as a surprise for most as I believe I have stated it before, but I don’t like Szeth. In fact, to be true, I completely hate reading his POV. The constant whinning, the self-pitying, the crying for the deeds he is “forced” to do just annoy me to no end. No Szeth, you are not pityful. I am annoyed at Kaladin when he does the same, when he locks himself into his depressed mood and starts to believe the entire world is out to get him, so I will leave you all to imagine how much I dislike Szeth. Szeth makes Kaladin appears like a cheering smiling man skipping around in pure happiness across the plains.
I think you nailed it Alice in your comments: Szeth is a victim. He believes he was trapped and he laments endlessly as to “Why him?”. I assume I am supposed to feel sympathy for his plights, but I feel none. As you stated, he is not the victim: the victims are the poor innocents he slayed in the name of some greater ideology granting the owner of his stone the liberty to use him as he sees fit, which includes turning him into a mass murderer.
Last week, we also talk of justice. I mentioned how saddened it made me to think both Shallan and Adolin would get such astronimic sentences for their deeds. I mentioned how I thought a lighter sentence combined with a rehabilitation program would work best, for them. Now Szeth is a different story all together. Szeth can lay in his own filth down in prison till the end of time and I would not qualm. I also don’t believe one second he can be rehabiliated. I don’t believe he deserves a second chance. I do believe he has reach the “point of no return”, meaning he has done so much evil, he can’t come back. He can’t be redeemed, never completely, and I sincerely hope his story is not going this way, but I do fear it is… It does appear as he’ll become a Radiant and this discourages me to no end.
Needless to say I was unbelievably happy when I learned the next book would be about Dalinar and not Szeth as it was initially planned. Part of my reasons to cheer was I am indeed glad to read more about Dalinar, but the other part is I didn’t want to read more about Szeth. I don’t enjoy his POV. I dislike being in his head, so the prospect to read more of him is daunting. I also don’t even want his backstory… I felt the Shin culture could have been explore with another character: this backstory did not need him to be alive.
This being said, since he is alive and on his way to become a Radiant (most probably), I am going to have to pull through his POV which are bound to get numerous at some point. I have talked of the one aspect of him I may enjoy reading about: the dark avengers. The loose cannon who goes and kills who he wants, something for the good, sometimes for the bad. It is not a redemption, but it is not either a road to hell. It is an in-between where I think his character may find a path I could end up enjoying reading.
On the side note, I personally do not want to see another Szeth/Kaladin duel. A large chunk of WoR was built on Kaladin trying to improve himself so he could be a better match to Szeth. The encounter inspire him to train more avidly (while it alternatively served to increase Adolin’s level of stress and fear). The last fight was the conclusion of this arc. We have sailed that ship. Having a re-match would make Kaladin’s entire progression in WoR somehow… lesser? I know this is not right to state it this way, but I felt the conclusion was very satisfying for Kaladin, so I don’t relinquish the idea he may open up that box again. So no more Kaladin vs Szeth. We have plenty of Radiants now, let him fight someone else.
Re. “is Taravangian telling the truth about another Blade going missing, or is that something he made up on the spot to distract Szeth?”
It wasn’t either. It was to explain away how Kaladin was able to do things only a surge binder or a holder of an Honor Blade could do. He was just trying to get Szeth back under his control by convincing him Kaladin wasn’t a surge binder.
Challenging someone’s assumptions can make for uncomfortable conversation. It’s worth doing though, as many disagreements between rational people boil down to differing assumptions. And when the conversation regards the unknowable (What happened before the start of time, and does “before” have any meaning outside of time? What exists outside of that which is all that exists? We are in this world but are we of this world?) assumptions are all that can be made.
Szeth made choices. As much as he’d like to push responsibility on to others, he is responsible for his own actions. I think he knows this, and that is the source of his self-hatred.
On the irresponsibility of the Stone Shamans making Szeth truthless, it does make a certain amount of selfish sense. We know from Rysn’s interlude in WoK that the Shin respect people who add to society and disdain people who subtract. So naturally their worst punishment is to be turned into an indiscriminate, unstoppable killing machine (which is kind of a cool concept).
Szeth’s punishment is the guilt he racks up subtracting life from the world again and again. But you obviously don’t want him feeling guilty about killing all your guys if you’re the Shin, so you ship him out. Apparently subtraction is just fine outside the family. That’s just politics.
Re. Reality vs Perception: I enjoy those sorts of discussions. I don’t think reality is as determinable as you make it out to be. Yes, I agree that at some sub-sub-atomic level, there may be a point where facts are facts, but we don’t exist at that level so it’s irrelevant. For us, we basically vote on it. To go with your color blind example, what if what we call color blindness were the norm? Imagine you and a few others scattered all over the world are the only ones who can see the “full spectrum” and everyone else is the same kind of color blind. The majority get to decide what the reality is and the outliers get outvoted. It doesn’t matter that there is an actual difference in wavelength between red and green (just as an example–there are varying degrees/types of color blindness) if all but a few think they’re the same.
That isn’t actually a hypothetical. Look up “tetrachromacy”. It’s interesting stuff. Short version: there are people who can see more colors than you or I can. What we think of as the full color spectrum isn’t.
Oh Szeth. You’re screwed.
He’s got so many counts of 1st degree murder that he makes Goebbel’s look human.
The whole “I was ordered to do it” defense is out. That’s what Neuremburg was all about.
His masters are just as guilty, as they conspired with him to use him as the death tool.
And the Stone Shaman are accomplices, putting him out in the world to deal death.
No one’s innocent here.
The sword kills, but the arm moves the sword.
Is the arm to blame for murder?
No. The mind moves the arm.
Is the mind to blame?
No. The mind has sworn an oath to duty,
and that duty moves the mind, as written by the Throne.
So it is that a servant of the Throne is blameless.
Baru Cormorant says………not guilty!
What does redeemed mean, anyways? To me, it seems to mean that Szeth gets accepted into the company of heroes and his past acts are not held against him. I don’t think that’s really possible. Sanderson barely redeems Kelsier and he turned into skaa-Jesus.
I do think Szeth can choose to do good rather than evil and that will change the arc of his story. I don’t think it will bend away from his death. I suspect he’ll start looking for a reason good enough to die for instead of just hoping for someone dangerous enough to kill him.
@12 Fine, fine I’ll go read the book.
Szeth: Guilty of “Murder for Hire.” So he and his “owners” are both guilty. The Stone Shamans seem like they would be guilty of something – aiding and abetting? At least under our laws. As @12 pointed out, there are other laws.
Like I said last week, being in Szeth’s head is no fun. But I am looking forward to learning more about his culture. And maybe why that blade was chosen for him. Because if he had be granted any other blade, such as the Edgedancer blade – would he be as dangerous? Windrunners have a special blend of powers that make them deadly fighters. Given another blade, yes, he would be dangerous – but I don’t think his body count would be as high. His ability to travel would be less for one thing.
Does this sentence strike any one else as familiar? It pinged Rand on Dragonmount, but I’ve not read the chapter again for awhile.
I think Szeth is a tragic character. In his world view his actions are literally not his own but those of the person holding his stone. This is how he grew up and no matter what your personal value system is his is intact, up until the epiphany that the KR are truly back. And then what, he tries to kill himself for the guilt of knowing that indeed he is responsible for those actions. What a character. His integrity is whole. And a lot better than Kaladin’s. And why is that, well Kaladin choices are greatly flawed, but he learns from them becoming a better person. And a guy who gets the death penalty for plotting treason and figuring out that he was wrong and saving the king is no absolution from the crime. Szeth never wavered from how he was raised, hated himself, but did what he was told, even walked on stones. But Kaladin is told that he is not only wrong, but why he is wrong over and over, and he still does wrong. But you love him because he is a protagonist and you are geared to identifying with the protagonist. I can disagree with Szeth’s actions as they oppose my world view, but no member of his people would say he has done wrong… and that is the bigger picture. That is the world building, getting a clear view of another culture that is not yours, that has a value system that is not yours. Szeth tried to kill himself and was brought back to life and given Nightbringer…. what could go wrong. Give an insane homicidal sword to a guy going through a mental identity crisis.
We’re missing major pieces of information about Shin culture and Sanderson usually does a thorough job of building his cultures. Most practices like Szeth’s exile look incomprehensible to outsiders but have some utility or make some sense to members of the culture. We just don’t have all the pieces to make sense of something that looks so extreme.
I’m not saying that there’s a good objective excuse for Truthlessness, but it exists for a purpose. We know that the Shin have certain attitudes and practices in common with the Horneaters – they place a high value on people who add to society, particularly people involved with food. Both societies place warriors at the bottom of the social hierarchy, and both are isolationists. It could be that the Shin withdrew from the world to try to preserve some facet of pre-Roshar human culture, rejecting the environment and magical practices of humanity’s new home.
I don’t have a problem reading Szeth, and like Felix, I think he makes sense as a tragic character. We can feel empathy for him without condoning his actions. We can understand the anguish of feeling trapped in an inescapable situation while still holding him responsible. How many of us would be able to break free from such conditioning?
Gepeto @6 – Yeah, I’m not a Szeth fan either… in case anyone was in doubt on the matter. ;) I console myself with the possibility that he’ll still end up dying soon, and he’ll be the flashback-character-who-is-already-dead. Heh. I’m interested in learning more about the Stone Shamans, their history with the Honorblades, what made Szeth first claim that Surgebinding was returning, and some of that. It’s quite possible – probable, even – that his flashbacks will primarily be set in the time before he was named Truthless; he might even be a likable guy, back then. Which, I dunno, might serve to make me feel some pity regarding what is done to him in making him Truthless. I can’t imagine anything Brandon could write that would make me think Szeth (or the Shamanate, or his later masters) was justified in the results, but I might at least feel some sorrow for the person he used to be. We’ll have to wait and see.
Re: victims… I should clarify that there are real victims in this (and that) world; there are people who suffer deeply from the deeds of others. What drives me nuts about “victim status” is two aspects we see a lot in our culture: A) The person who insists that because he or she was once a victim, it’s okay to be a completely useless person forevermore, and everyone else is obligated to accept Victimhood as a justification for every last stupid thing that person does. This attitude pretends like you aren’t responsible for your own decisions going forward, and that Victimhood defines you. B) The person who isn’t really a victim of anything but their own unfulfilled expectations, who then claims Victimhood over every real or imagined slight. This attitude pretends that everyone else is responsible for how you feel, and that your feelings are the most important things EVER, rather than taking the responsibility to grow up and get on with life. Our culture has a weird habit of glorifying both sorts of Victimhood, and it drives me nuts. Szeth has elements of both: he is in a some ways a victim of his people’s beliefs and the errors of their leaders, but instead of ever taking the responsibility to say, “No, this is wrong,” (which would place the fault on himself, his masters, and ultimately the Shamanate) he blames the people he kills for not fighting back adequately.
Werechull @7 – Well, yes, Taravangian was trying to give Szeth a plausible explanation for Kaladin’s Surgebinding. But the question is, was there another Honorblade missing, or did King T make that up out of whole cloth? I don’t think we have a canonical answer, but I don’t know for sure.
Nick31 @8 – Yup. Pointing out that someone’s basic assumptions are only assumptions and not actual, provable facts tends to irritate them – especially when they don’t understand either the assumptions or the correlation to observable phenomena, and are merely taking the word of someone else for it. Heh. Which is why I have so much fun challenging people’s insistence that they “know” unknowable things.
Werechull @10 – I never said reality is humanly determinable, just that it exists independent of what we might think about it. Perhaps because of my own scientific background (minor in chemistry & major in chemical engineering) I’m amused at people who pretend that any theory of origins can be proved scientifically. I’m also amused at anyone who pretends that we as finite human beings can actually understand all of even the physical world, much less all of what exists. “Majority rule” doesn’t prove a bloody thing about reality – it’s just a convenient way to pretend we know what we’re talking about.
Well the thing is that Szeth aren’t subject of common law, or any real life juridic system, so here can’t be judged by any laws of our world =)
In Roshar he was already convicted after all he is “Truthless of Shinovar” an, in this he are wrongly convicted for a crime that he didn’t commit, to a punishment that depends solely in him following his honor, put someone in jail and say dude wait here 20/30 years because our laws say so and don’t escape, here take the keys, lunch are served at 12 bye, and wait to see how many minutes this fella wait until say bye jail.
Szeth must put himself in the hands of anyone that hold his oathstone and do violence against the wolrd without complain, because after all, he is a Truthless of Shinovar.
He is following the rules of his society, and more he are hurting himself doing so, even being innocent (he is a broken man in so many ways that I don’t know how sprens don’t make a line to partner it him).
And more, I don’t perceive him like a common criminal, he in his the actual state are just a tool, and a tool can’t respond for anything.
To me Szeth is more like a soldier following the order of his country, even when he don’t agree with his orders, If a soldier kill someone in a firefight following LAWFUL order of his country he must pay for his crimes? If yes, any solider that killed someone for his country are guilt of murder, and we do now that this is not true.
Szeth is only the product of his environment, he are lawful citezen by Shinovar law and he is innocent of murder, and innocent of being a Truthless, so all in all he is innocent. =)
If something is wrong is the fact that Shinovar was laws are like this, someone can’t be guilt if he follows the law =)
I agree with Mehndeke @11. My first thought when I read that because Szeth was a Truthless and had to do what the holder of his Oathstone said was to equate Szeth with the SS soldiers stationed at Concentration Camps. They also tried to justify there actions on the grounds that they were just following orders. Even in wartime, their are some orders that are just wrong. These orders would cross the line. They are not an act of war; they are just evil. Exterminating civilians when there is no military objective whatsoever goes beyond all bounds. The SS officer is no different that a middle age soldier storming the castle wall and raping the women inside.
To bring it back to Roshar, there is a world of difference between Shallan’s brother using a Shardblade to decimate enemy soldiers in a military action. It is another thing for Szeth to kill a multitude of people to make a worse massacre. It would be one thing if he were a true assassin who assassinated the king (be it Dalinar’s brother or the king of Shallan’s country) and anybody else necessary to complete the mission and escape. However, Szeth’s murders go beyond that.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
Wetlandernw/Alice @17 – I understand where you’re coming from, but I still think we need to be mindful of a few things when judging Szeth. We tend to assign more agency to others when assessing the morality of their actions than we would assign to ourselves. Others do things because of character weaknesses or because they’re just bad people, whereas when it’s yourself, you’re willing to consider many more mitigating factors.
Szeth’s internal monologue also reminds me of someone suffering from depression. When you don’t have an accurate view of yourself, your situation, and your abilities, it’s much harder to break out of dangerous patterns of thinking than it would be for a healthy person.
Natans @18 – It’s an interesting way of looking at things, but I think Shinovar’s jurisdiction stops at its borders. Soldiers are given a little more leeway about their actions in times of war because the warring parties are assumed to have declared war and committed to battle. It’s only within the last century or so that we’ve developed the idea that a responsible soldier should refuse a bad order, not harm civilians, and operate under codified rules of war.
I have mixed feelings towards Szeth. His killings aren’t justifiable but upto now, I can at least logically accept his reasoning about being Truthless especially because he is not an insesible killer, but really suffering from his deeds. In this respect he is a victim. A victim I would send to prison, or asylum / psychiatric ward.
But “now” he has reasons to doubt. He has reasons to believe that he’d been wrongfully punished. And then he lets himself be disuaded by T and afterwards refused to see “reality” as it presents itself. He stubbornly sticks to the false assumptions and continues killing, without ever again quentioning – which IMO is unforgivable. (Thouch I still think that BWS will find a way, that I might be tempted to forgive anyway.)
I know we don’t normally discuss reality here and I won’t cooment about my “cosmology beliefs”, but the polar bears (and many others) really suffer from global warming, even if there weren’t sufficient proof.
@17: Yes, yes and yes, to everything. If Szeth died and you throw a party, please invite me. I’ll celebrate with you.
I must say some of the comments currently disturbs me… Comparing Szeth to Kaladin… I must admit, I am speechless. I will to think some more on what to respond, but I’ll say Kaladin never was a mass murderer and never tried to justify himself by blaming others. He blamed himself. Szeth just blames everyone else for the fact he has decided to be forced to kill. I have no sympathy.
@2 Noblehunter
I disagree. Szeth victim blaming doesnt make him redeemable. It makes him vile in the same manner as a man who beats his wife then manipulates her by telling her it’s her fault, ane that she makes him do it. He is a serial killer who blames his victims for making him kill them. Nothing more.
@18 Natans
He knew the truth about the Voidbringers/Radiants but he didn’t have the balls and emotional courage to stick to his guns and stand up to the Stone Shamans. But he can stick to his guns if it means killing scores of innocent people? What kind of sick mind can think that way? I’m sorry what you call “honor” I call moral cowardice.
@15 Noblehunter
Again, I’m going to have to disagree the Shin dont want any truthless to exist and have a huge problem with Szeth. That’s actually exactly why they named him “Truthless.” Being truthless means he has to do whatever evil thing he is commanded, and is completely guilty of each and every sin he is forced to commit.
That’s basically them saying to him: “You did something bad, now we’re going to make you keep doing horrible things so that when you die you will suffer unimaginable torment for all eternity.”
It’s a sick, twisted sentence that is literally worse than execution to them.
Gepeto @22 – Well, I’m not going to put it completely past Brandon to change my mind about Szeth, but it’d have to be pretty amazing. As things stand now, if Szeth dies of Nightblood poisoning, I’ll commandeer the StormCellar and throw a party for sure! Of course, I’d spend half my time wishing it would also have taken out Nalan and Taravangian, but you can’t have everything…
@23: I fail to see the difference between the abuser who blames his wife for him being forced to beat her and Szeth who blames his victims for being to unskilled to defend themselves against him when he has a superior advantage.
@24: Well, I consider I can always change my mind about characters. How I feel about them is not fixed, so that do include Szeth. Whereas it is not impossible Brandon may manage to make me feel a small modicum of sympathy towards him, I consider it unlikely. Some characters are just better as antagonists, so I’d say I like Szeth as a villain, one I don’t need to be inside his head, because quite frankly, the head of mad psychopath isn’t all that interesting, to me. I don’t like him as a “proto-Radiant potentially going through a redemption arc where he’ll become a hero”. You can’t erase your past. You can make penance, repent and learn to do better, but for Szeth the penance would be so long he would not have any time left to live once he is done with it.
If you throw a party following Szeth’s death, I’ll bring the wine. We can then discuss as to how Taravangian should best die… Another one I have little pity nor sympathy for. Nalan gets an easier time with me because I have accepted the idea he is crazy.
Which makes me wonder about Dalinar… As far as we know, he committed atrocities in his past. Now, I reserve myself the right to judge of his past actions once I get to read his flashbacks as it may be our current perception is erroneous. However, if Dalinar truly was this horrific, how come he gets a free pass on justice? Shouldn’t he pay for his past crimes? Repenting is one thing, changing is another, but you need to pay a price for the blood you spilled. I somehow have the impression Dalinar didn’t… so if I can’t accept the idea Szeth may better himself as I consider him too rotten to deserve that chance, what can I say of Dalinar?
I am deeply worried as to where these thoughts are bringing me. I love Dalinar… and I feel it was deliberate on Brandon’s part. He showed us Dalinar as an older man who has changed. Had we met him first as a young man, would our impressions be the same?
@@@@@ 25 Gepeto
I’m slightly confused, that’s exactly what I said. There is no difference between the two. Or were you just agreeing with my initial statement?
@26: Oh… My bad. I understood the opposite. Go figure. I thought you said it was not the same, but you clearly did. So yes, I am agreeing with your statement. He is no better than an abuser beating is wife because she stayed too long into the bathroom or she dropped a fork.
@27 Gepeto
*Laughing* We’ve been debating issues too long, now neither of is knows how to act when we find ourselves on the same side : )
ETA: Seriously though, Szeth is a prick…
Ahhh …. “Self-identification as Victim makes me want to hurl.” This was so ironic I had to laugh for a good two minutes. Not going to be ironic to many here I suppose but to me who recognizes the victim self identification in current American culture …
Sign me up for the party when Szeth dies. As I believe a reality exists (the extra colors mentioned before certainly exist the fact I can’t seem them doesn’t mean they don’t. Infrared and ultraviolet exist and I can’t see them quarks exist and I can’t see them. Reality exists outside of us and would continue quite fine without us.) and morality exists outside of a certain culture Szeth is wrong. Yes he was honoring his culture but when your culture is wrong you have to fight it. I doubt I would be able to but doesn’t mean someone else who doesn’t isn’t as wrong as I am.
Gepeto @25 – We’ve been kept at a greater distance from Szeth, so it’s natural that we wouldn’t get to know him as well. We probably wouldn’t like young Dalinar very much if we’d seen him during the conquest of Alethkar.
But I also try to avoid projecting too much of modern morality onto characters in stories where the moral and technological development is in a different place. Sanderson wants us to be horrified by the violence and the depravity of some of his characters, without a doubt. But they aren’t playing by our rules.
In fact, Rosharans aren’t even playing by a unified set of rules. What we started to see in WoR is the foundations of the orders of the KR are rooted in the attraction of different spren to different types of traits and behaviors. We’ve seen evidence of tension between the orders as a result. We’ve also seen hints that as the world changed, the moral framework that gave rise to the KR may have compelled them to end their own existence rather than find themselves serving a twisted purpose.
dwcole @29 – Not sure if you’re referring to anything in particular, but current American culture is so overloaded with “self-identification as Victim” that you can’t move without tripping over it. Then again, those who use it (and actually take themselves seriously) aren’t likely to be all that good at recognizing it, perhaps…
@31 check the posts here about limitless to see what I am talking about and my comments on them. I don’t want to divert this post any more than I have. But yes I agree with you.
I may be wrong–and there may be plenty I’ve missed in the books that shows I’m wrong–but the idea I have about Shin society is that all their warriors are bound by the same rules as Szeth. By that logic, I assume he managed to get one of the Honorblades his people guard, maybe even fought his people with it as part of trying to prove the Radiants were coming back, and was defeated/failed to convince people/”proven” wrong.
At this point, I think we get into the question of subjective truth. We don’t know what convinced Szeth the Radiants were coming back or what convinced him the Shamanate were right and he had been wrong. Currently, I think Szeth had some kind of subjective experience that convinced him but that his faith in the Shamanate was such that, when they said he was wrong, he ultimately accepted that (I’m guessing it wasn’t that simple but that that was the core of it).
Right now, Szeth is like the story Hoid told Kaladin about the people who murder anyone who makes a mistake, saying their emperor won’t tolerate failure. But, they fall into chaos when they find out their emperor was dead and that they were responsible for their actions. If I get the cultural idea behind Szeth, it’s that a “truthless” person is assumed to no longer be able to make those right and wrong judgments–the truth is not in them. They can only follow the dictates of those fate puts in place to make that judgment for them. What redemption he can hope for is based on his following these rules.
This suggests his culture is very hierarchical, probably to a degree most of us would strongly disagree with–but Brandon has had a way of bringing back assumptions like that to bite us. Still, this is in strong contrast to Jasnah’s applied ethics lesson where she accepted Shallan’s reasoning as valid even if she disagreed with her.
I just really Hope Shallan has been able to study the Shin philosopher Jasnah wanted her to read up on and that she got a really well annotated copy that explains these things. I don’t think Szeth’s mentors would have done that.
@28: Agreeing with people is a strange feeling… I have grown so accustomed to disagree with most people, I have completely missed the clues :-O Yeah. I do agree. Szeth is a prick.
@30: They may not be playing by our rules, but even by their rules, Szeth is a criminal. Their culture may not be ours, but it does not condone mass murders outside open war. I simply do not want to know more about Szeth because I doubt what I’ll learn will serve to make him endearing to me. I have no respect for individuals who commit atrocities under the safe cover of a lame excuse while going as far as to blame the entire world for how they are forced to kill. Szeth knows his actions are wrong, but he keeps doing it, worst he believes he is not at fault. He has completely absolved himself from his own free-will. Unless we find out the Stone Shamanates have been holding his family captive and threatens to slaughter them unless Szeth remains a Truthless, I doubt I will ever pity him. Since I cannot see any redeeming quality in him, I do end up not wanting to read about him. I also completely dissociated the need to learn more about the Shin culture and reading about Szeth: the former does not need to include the latter.
Touching colorblindness, apparently color perception is hardwired into the brain. Colorblind people have a problem with the cells in the retina rather than a problem with their brain’s visual centers. Nowadays there are special glasses that can help correct the output of the retinal cone cells, and most colorblind people who wear them get normal color vision (or at least something much closer to it).
Gepeto @34 – I don’t think we know enough to understand whether the normal rules of Shin society apply to Truthless. It’s a good bet that they don’t. They go to extremes to separate him from his family, from his former role, and from Shin territory. The only instructions that they give him are that he must obey anyone with the oathstone, that he cannot kill himself, and he cannot relinquish his blade. They seem suspiciously silent about the morality of anything he’s asked to do by a master.
In my other comments, I didn’t say that Szeth’s situation absolved him of responsibility for his actions, but that he does deserve our empathy for the trap he finds himself in. When you grow up in an insular group, like a cult with no exposure to outside ideas and severe penalties for dissent, it’s very hard to escape that conditioning. Szeth has started to do just that, but there’s a long road ahead of him.
Szeth’s most objectionable acts have come in his role as assassin. He does not relish the acts of violence he’s asked to commit and he wants the release of death more than anything. That’s how he gets into the sad position of wishing for an opponent with the skill to defeat him. He’s a severely damaged person who is probably suffering from a number of mental illnesses. It’s not as though he picked up a sword of his own volition and began cutting down innocent people. He’s been a tool, he knows it, and now he knows it was all for nothing.
I myself have szeth as my favourite character. I know almost everyone thinks he is evil but what they seem to gloss over is he agrees with them himself. He is forced to follow the orders or else in his mind he would be completely erasedd from existance after death. He shows his character in never killing anyone that he is not ordered to untill the very end. He hates that he has to kill. I know most disagree but to him there really was no option but to follow the orders. He accepts that what he is doing is evil but views it as his penance. “To kill without choice but bear the sins nonetheless.”
@37 shardrunner
On the contrary, I’m not glossing over it at all. In fact, it’s exactly the crux of my argument for why I view him as so contemptible in the first place.
When a rabid dog attacks someone it needs to be put down. You don’t hate the dog, you don’t blame the dog. It’s just sick. Szeth knows what he’s doing and continues to do it anyway knowing exactly how evil it is.
How can he possibly stick to his guns and do something he knows is wrong when he wasn’t willing to stick to his guns before about the return of the Voidbringers/Shardbearers?!
He could have dropped that stone anytime he wanted. The Shin were never going to accept him back. The only reason he doesn’t is because he’s afraid that doing so would condemn his soul to cessation of existence upon his death. He would rather condemn everyone else to every atrocity he may be ordered to commit and even to endure punishment in the afterlife then face the possibility of simply not being.
That’s a level of narcissism I just can’t wrap my head around.
wcarter @38 – I think you and others are underestimating the powerful influence of of Szeth’s cultural conditioning. When you’re raised as part of an insular culture under the control of a powerful elite where no dissent is tolerated, you don’t think the same way as people who have had diverse experiences and who have known different types of people.
Think of what you hear about North Korea or isolated religious compounds. When people grow up convinced there is no other way but what they know, those ideas retain a powerful hold over them, and even when someone seemingly has the freedom to leave, their mind is still very much a prisoner.
It takes a tremendous amount of courage, strength, and support to overcome that kind of training and few people are able to do it. Szeth can, but he’s only starting to. He’s well aware of the horrors he’s committed, and he’s wanted to end his life as a result. We don’t know how he’ll cope with the realization it’s all been for nothing.
Shardrunner and wcarter @@@@@ 37 and 38 – Though Szeth is not my favorite character, I grudgingly respect him. I don’t like Szeth because I believe in wcarter’s assessment on 38. Szeth knew that what he is doing is wrong, so why does he keep doing it?
That said, the reason why I grudgingly respect Szeth is because the tenacity of his belief. It might be misguided, even insane but he holds on to it.
Yes, I believe Szeth should be put down. Kaladin did. But, for another misguided reason, Nalan decided to revive him. So, Szeth is back to square one. He is free from his oathstone and his shardblade. Now, he has Nightblood which is as insane as Szeth is.
Which reminded me of something. Nightblood is insane, and so is Szeth. Pattern is slightly neurotic (in a very funny way, which I love) and so is Shallan. Kaladin is so serious and so is Syl (whom I also love). The storm father is slightly insane. Does it mean that Dalinar is also slightly insane? LOL (Just asking… )
Back to Szeth – for me at least, Szeth’s situation reminded me of the book “The Day of the Jackal” which was adapted into a movie titled “Jackal” starring Bruce Willis. Reading the book and watching the movie, I really hated the assassin. I hated what he stood for and what he was doing. But, then after finishing the book (and of course the movie), I realized that the Jackal was a lone wolf and truly has a very lonely existence. He has no support group, yet he accomplishes many things. So, though I hated him, I had to grudgingly respect him. That’s how I feel about Szeth.
Oh, BTW, Stormllight Archive fans and reviewers on YouTube – many of them like Szeth. That just goes to show that Szeth is a very interesting character.
Different wavelengths of light are reality, but colors are subjective perceptions depending on the number of different color receptors in the eye. Most mammals have only two different receptors like colorblind people. Many birds have four different receptors. Many insects can see ultraviolet but not red. Snakes can “see” infrared (not with their eyes but with a special organ).
If yes, any solider that killed someone for his country are guilt of murder, and we do now that this is not true.
It is not true by our laws, but that is just as subjective as the laws of Szeth’s culture. Someone from a pacifist culture might see no difference between a soldier killing and Szeth killing. Dalinar killed many people because he was a warlord. He even considered exterminating the Parshendi. Is that worse than killing individuals because someone ordered you to? Dalinar was the one making the decisions, not following orders. I often notice that Americans believe that customs of other cultures that are different from theirs are “obviously wrong” while their own customs are “obviously right”, even in cases where other countries have different ideas (like the right to own guns). Every culture has its biases that are hard to notice for someone from that culture. (Maybe gun control isn’t the best example, but other biases like capitalism is the best system are harder to see from the outside because my culture shares the same biases.)
So, I was at the signing for Shadows of Self and Brandon read an excerpt from the next book with Young Dalinar fighting in the unification wars. Spoilers for that follow.
[Spoiler: Roll over to read]
In the excerpt, Dalinar sets fire to a village, kills a bunch of people that really aren’t capable of standing up to him, forces the best opposing archer to join his team of awesome dudes, and does this all because Gavilar said the place was next on the list. He might have said some other stuff, but Dalinar kept yawning at him until he shut up (ok, not really, but honestly, Lift felt more responsible than Young Dalinar). I don’t think he killed any women and children, but he was rounding up hostages when the place surrendered.
Meanwhile, Szeth has, mostly, killed rulers and their bodyguards or criminals. Dalinar has very probably personally killed something like 1% of the Parshendi population in addition to all the people he’s killed during the unification wars.
I’m not saying that Szeth deserves a free pass or anything. I’m simply pointing out that, however much blood Szeth has on his hands, Dalinar probably has ten times as much and I don’t think either amount of blood was spilled in a more “worthy” way than the other. So, it will be interesting to see whether people still like Dalinar more than Szeth after book three. [End]
@@@@@ 39 Halien and 42 WuseMajor
I’ll reserve judgement on the Blackthorn until book three. For now though, I nominally say that what makes Szeth different from the current Dalinar and Kaladin and even Hrathen from Elantris in my mind is that when they are faced with something horrible they have done and realize it was horrible, they not only acknowledge it as such, but abandon the action and try actively try to fight against the tragedy either continuing or repeating itself.
Based only on POV from the older Dalinar in the first two books, the young Dalinar is very much a product of typical Alethi mentality (similiar to a North Korean solider as you mentioned Halien). He does horrible things because they see them as being right and normal according to the culture he was raised in. However, he matured and learned differently. Now he rejects that attitude and looks on slaughter with horror.
Szeth already knows what he’s doing is wrong. And his crimes are crimes in the eyes of the Shin culture he grew up in. Yet he still blithely continues on his “poor pitiful me” little way. That doesn’t make him special. That doesn’t make him “honorable.” And the Shin don’t view it as such either.
They have the opposite view of soliders that the Alethi have. They honor farmers (those who add) and look down on “those who take away.” He was sentenced to be known as Truthless, and cut off, (albeit wrongly), precisely because that was the worse thing they could do to him–telling him to join those who take away–and to take on the full guilt of each murder and sin he commits.
But unless there is some magic compulsion that strips his free will (something which seems highly doubtful based his own and Taravengian’s POVs ), nothing actually forces him to do any of the things he’s ordered to do.
Put another way, millions of people every year face life changing hardships (such as but not limited to being diagnosed with a terminal illnesses). Most people go through the classic stages of grief either alone or with their families and eventually accept it. A few ,either through strength of character or simply having lived a full lifetime, accept it with grace right away.
A minority of people will sink into depression and react very negatively to the news, a subset of those might even commit suicide before the illness actually kills them. A sub-set of a sub-set may react so badly that instead of simply committing suicide, they grab a gun and kill as many people as they possibly can before either turning the gun on themselves or being killed by a cop.
Szeth belongs in that last group. It doesn’t make him a saint or a martyr. Just a selfish monster.
Wcarter @43:
Hear, hear! That’s exactly how I see Szeth and he even admits as much in his POV. He doesn’t do what he does out of misguided cultural imperatives (Shin consider him wholly responsible for his murders and count them as sins ) or “honor”, but solely because he can’t face the perspective of oblivion after death. I.e. he is a selfish moral coward.
Re: Sanderson’s reading about Young Dalinar – is it the same piece as he read during the WorldCon, does anybody know? And is it finally permissible to post summaries of the latter? I am dying to know what it was all about…
My issue with Szeth is that he had enough defiance to announce the existence of Surgebinders, and thus be named Truthless, but not enough to fight against his lot as Truthless thereafter. That isn’t even internally consistent.
I wonder if an Oathstone is more than just a stone. Perhaps it is actually something binding him, magically, to enforce his status as Truthless. Cuz if it is just a stone, and everything Szeth is doing is at his own insistence, I have a hard time believing his actions.
@42: About Dalinar, I raised that very point in one of my earlier responses. I commented abudantly why I disliked Szeth and why I felt he did not deserve a second chance: his crimes are too great. The penance he would need to do to absolve himself would extend beyond his life expectancy, which raised the question of Dalinar…
I’ll say it is not one I like as Dalinar is a character I actually enjoy. I have always understood his past life was tumultuous and perhaps not so glorious. I have always understood he had changed and had come to regret his past actions. A part of me has always considered the fact Dalinar may not have paid the right price for his past crimes, but I never pushed the reflexion much beyond as, after all, we do not know what Dalinar past truly was.
The spoiler you put makes me yearn for that chapter. October 24th. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, we’ll get it. As soon as I see it, I’ll post it here, unless someone beats me to it. Based on your spoiler thought, it appears as if young Dalinar was unsubbordinate, unattentive, undisciplined and it just strucks me: the complete opposite of young Adolin. I have always sense a certain fear, coming from Dalinar, his son would end up walking into his past footsteps, the insistance he never used his former ways, the insistance he obeys the code, the insistance he remains disciplined, the insistance he remains sober… and the fact I have always thought Dalinar was a bit hard and perhaps not very loving with his son which made of a sharp contrast when you compare his attitude towards other characters… We had that discussion a while back. I don’t want to have it again, but… if Dalinar truly was this horrible, how can he justify the fact he seems to have escape justice? The kind of justice he is trying to raise would not be kind to the Blackthorn, so why does he think he can walk out of it? Because NOW he feels sorry about it? And will he make an example of his son, despite him being a much better man than he ever was? He did one mistake which I have no doubt will rile him with guilt. Dalinar seems to have made 1000 mistakes and it took him decaded to start to feel sorry…
So if Dalinar gets a free pass, if Dalinar gets to be reformed without paying a fair price, then does Szeth get it as well? I swear I sincerely hate where my line of thoughts are going right now… but I feel next book will read like a complete injustice. Some characters are going to pay a too hefty price while others will walk away from it, just because someone has to serve as the “example”.
@34 re: ” Unless we find out the Stone Shamanates have been holding his family captive and threatens to slaughter them unless Szeth remains a Truthless, I doubt I will ever pity him.”
First let me say that although I don’t post often, I do agree w/your viewpoints fairly often, but not always :) (I know you sometimes feel alone in your beliefs).
In regard to the above, while I know that many people feel the same as you, to me having his family used against him, would NOT make me feel more pity (or anything else) for him. I love my family dearly, my husband means the world to me, but I could not, would not, do something I felt was morally irrepressible to save his life, he wouldn’t want me to violate my conscience in that way! I believe in all honestly that he feels the same about me.
This is not a slam against you.. you just posted an attitude that I’ve seen others display, and wanted to give my 2 cents.
Wuse_Major @@@@@42 – I flagged your comment as a spoiler. Mods, can you please white out the spoiler for him? Thanks!
Also @@@@@ Isilel – Spoilers from that reading should not be posted until next Monday, when Brandon has concluded the UK portion of his tour. At that point, it will be acceptable to post the whole thing.
Meanwhile, out of courtesy, PLEASE at least white out any spoilers before posting. Better yet, don’t post any tidbits until people have the chance to read the whole thing in its own context.
If anyone wants to read what has been labeled as spoiler (Brandon’s Tour reading from SA3)- Tor just put it up:
http://www.tor.com/2015/10/23/brandon-sanderson-reveals-a-dalinar-chapter-from-stormlight-archive-book-3/
Sorry to steal thunder :)
I agree with Halien @36 & @39.
Opposed to wcarter, Isileil and others I believe that the fear of total oblivion is viable excuse. He has no hope for this life anymore, and he knows he’s doing horrible stuff by killing – but in his worldview all those people at least might have an afterlife, which I the sole remaining hope of his existence. It might be cowardly but it doesn’t make him a monster, or a serial killer because he doesn’t enjoy what he’s doing, yes he suffers from it as well.
What really pisses me off, is that he doesn’t pursue the fact that puts the lie to his worldview (Kaladin is a surgebinder -> being named Truthless was wrong, so immediately go back to the Shamanate. But no, he “believes” Taravigian’s feable affirmations of a different explanation and keeps on his path with even more fervor. – At the latest he should have stopped, when Syl transformed from Blade to Spear, but even then he keeps fighting. (I haven’t checked if BWS’s changes of said passage alters this perception).
I don’t think Szeth is beyond redemption (especially because he didn’t enjoy what he did), but it will be very hard to achieve. – My view here might also be colored by all the negative comments so far, who just want him dead period, because they put me in a “I pitty Szeth” mood.
So apparently he’s done his last reading, and the remainder of his UK time is other stuff. So y’all can now go read the surprise scene and discuss it OVER THERE.
Szeth, a most intriguing character. He is one of those uncomfortable to read about yet still realistic for all of that. I see him as both a coward and a strong willed individual, sort of a strange mix. The cowardice is obvious, fear of oblivion driving him to commit atrocity after atrocity. As far as being strong willed, well he could have renounced his beliefs when confronted by his bosses instead of becoming Truthless. Once named, he continued to follow the mandate of whomever held his stone, his soul bleeding with every cut of his Honorblade.
Regarding @50,
He could have stopped after seeing Kaladin do what should have been impossible according to the Shin, but at that point he was grasping at straws. How many people did he kill before that point? 90% of the Jah Kaved nobility, heads of state from nearly every country, a significant amount of guards, the kid was bathing in blood to that point. Teravainin could have said anything halfway plausible and it would have been accepted to keep him from the knowledge that his crimes had no purpose, that he was wrong to follow his traditions, that being right lead to his damnation.
@ALL
I don’t have the problems most of you all seem to have with Szeth. That being said, I was perfectly fine with him dying and was kinda pissed that he was resurrected. His story had a decent ending, a tragic soul meeting a tragic end; any insights into Shin culture could have been handled by another character. But we got him, he’s still around, maybe he will do something only he could do to advance the storyline. I surely hope so.
@@@@@ 52 EvilMonkey
Oh Szeth is certainly an interesting character. I don’t have to like him as an individual to appreciate all the ways in which he can drive a story. I just hate him as a personality type not as a character.
EvilMonkey @52 – “the kid was bathing in blood to that point.” Can I point out that “the kid” is 35 years old? Just sayin’… :)
Hello all! Just wanted to pop in and say that we judge others on their actions but we judge ourselves based on intentions. Whatever else Szeth had for his intentions I believe first and foremost was being true to his culture. NO MATTER WHAT. And I think that is why he was chosen to be brought back. I don’t like him either and was estatic when I found out it was to be a Dalinar book and not Szeths. Incidentally. My question to brandon in Houston was if he was still going to be naming the books based on books inside the realm and he said ‘yes as of now that’s the plan’. So I think we will get a Shadows Remembered book. Maybe for Szeth.
Hey Wet,
I used kid in that post as a pejorative. Like “that guy” even if I were referring to a girl
After reading the Dalinar chapter, I feel I may start to appreciate Szeth more.
EvilMonkey @56 – Just a friendly elbow in the ribs… only because I had just looked up his age for other reasons, so it jumped out at me. The weird thing is, I often actually do think of him as much younger than he is. I don’t know if it’s the way he acts/thinks, or that one of the first descriptions of him was something about him looking like a child because of his eyes, or what. But when I remember that he’s actually in his mid-thirties, I find his behavior even less excusable than normal. Meh.
Oh, also, I have to agree with wcarter @53 – I think Szeth is a great character in terms of literary value. Brandon has used him well in several ways, and the fact that people tend to have strong opinions about him (either positive or negative) shows that he’s a well-written character. Just… one I love to hate on. Like Sadeas, about whom I’ve been known to say that if he turns out to be not-quite-dead like Szeth and Jasnah, I’m climbing into the book and killing him myself.
Yeah I saw the smiley face after I had already posted. It’s all good. Second that emotion regarding Toral Sadeas. Pretty please let that assface stay completely dead, no Princess Bride.
There actually were quite a few people worried about Sadeas coming back from the death after WoR’s release. I has been confirmed by Brandon’s team he was dead, dead, dead and dead. So far not people, we are only going to hear about him in the flashbacks, which I am keen on. I do want to see how this former friendship used to be.
On Szeth and age, it is strange some of you thought he was young as I always took him for an older guy. Well, not exactly old, but not early twenties young.
Gepeto – I can’t speak for others, but for me it’s not so much actually thinking he’s young, but having to remember that he’s not young enough to be as immature as a) he acts and b) he’s sometimes perceived by other characters. (Because the Shin don’t have the same epicanthal fold as most Rosharans, making them look “childlike” and all that.)
EvilMonkey @@@@@ 59 – Love the Princess Bride comment. :-)
Sidebar: It’s hard to believe that a fairytale like movie turned out to be a cult movie in the geeky side. :-) Love it
@61: The eyes reminded me of the alien in the X-Files……..
I think wcarter expressed my thoughts this week. Except for one.
Up stream someone called Szeth a ‘serial killer.’ To me he is a ‘mass murder.’ Serial killers get enjoyment out of what they do. We know Szeth gets no enjoyment from his kills. So he has that going for him.
@62, the book is a good thing too.
Speaking of Nale bringing Szeth back from the dead–I’m curious to know how he did it. I suppose it can wait until we get to that chapter to speculate.
Or maybe it can’t . . . Okay. Nale is, or was, patron Herald of the Skybreakers. Their surges are Gravitation and Division. We know how Gravitation works. The Coppermind says that Division is the surge of destruction and decay. Would Nale have given up his powers when he abandoned the Oathpact and gave up his sword? Probably. But not all his power, obviously, because he is still alive after thousands of years. Even so, Progression, which gives one the power of healing or regrowth, is the opposite of division. How could he revive someone? Unless he is in possession of the missing / stolen Honor blade, and it would have to be either Paliah’s or Vedeledev’s for him to access this surge.
Or he could be doing something with the Larkin. We’ve seen the Larkin drain stormlight from Lift. Perhaps they also expel or impart stormlight, as someone else suggested (sorry, I don’t remember who made that comment, but it was a great insight). Hope we get another Rysn interlude in the next book.
The only other idea I have is that he could be in possession of one of those ancient soul casters that induce healing as seen in one of Dalinar’s visions. This seems too easy, though it is possible. Still, how ironic is it that Nale goes around killing some protoradiants but healing others. Or, one could argue, healing an anti-radiant.
@65
Nalan said he used a fabrial to pull off the resurrection trick with Szeth. He could presumably have been lying but I cannot see what he would gain from a lie. Also, anti-radient made me think of anti-radiation for some strange reason. Just funny in my head.
Marbelcal @65 – I assume it’s a fabrial. In the original version, he said as much; in the new version it’s less clear but still implied. He tucks something bright into his pocket, which Szeth guessed was a fabrial, but later Nale claims healing can be done “with the right Surgebinding.” Whether Brandon decided that it’s not a fabrial, or whether he decided he didn’t want Nalan to admit it, I don’t know.
Well, clearly I did not reread that chapter. But thanks for the clarification. :?
Okay. I have a philosophical issue with “some people are beyond redemption.”
Gavilar, Dalinar, and Sadeas. The men who “united” Alethkar. Sadeas’ cruel games on the plains were primarily designed to bring back the Blackthorn. I think BWS is going to yank our emotional chains around with the theme of redemption. Gavilar began to reform. Dalinar following that same path. Both becoming better men. Good men. They were anything but beforehand. Any personality that Sadeas wants to resurrect? Think about it. Really think about it becaus I think most of you all underestimate Dalinar’s past. And many of you put Szeth and Sadeas on a similar scale. Well, Sadeas misses his old friend and rival. We shall see what redemption brings with Szeth, but he isn’t beyond it. None of us are
The problem is not being beyond redemption, it is with paying penance for your crimes. Once you pay the right price, you can move on, so yes Szeth could move on, once he does so. The issues is the price he’d need to pay to atone for his crime is so great it would take him a lifetime to go through it.
That’s why I say Szeth can’t be redeem.
As for Dalinar, it is clear he never truly paid for what he did…. He got a free-pass. I think.
@@@@@ EvilMonkey and @@@@@ Braid_Tug – OMG, I can’t get Primcess Bride out of my mind. Now, I see Elhokar with his shard blade challenging the resurrected Szeth saying, “My name is Elhokar Kholin. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” LOL And Adolin telling Shallan “as you wish,” LOL
@@@@@ 64 Braid_Tug
I think it was me who called him a serial killer but I’d have to go back and look to be sure. I do agree with you however that mass murderer is a much more accurate description.
There is one way in which “serial killer”does apply though, and I think it’s the what made me use that phrase initially–compulsory killing. There are some serial killers who do not actually enjoy killing per se. Instead it’s a pathological compulsion that causes anxiety, psychotic breaks, crippling fear, victim blaming, etc. Sound familiar?
Szeth primary motivations seem to be selfishness and fear and he definitely has much more in common with the mass murder type but I can’t help but feel there is common links between both.
I will state however that unlike most serial killers, Szeth seems to have been driven to madness rather than born that way. Regardless, it would be very hard to argue that he isn’t a total nutcase by this point.
His insanity does make me wonder why “Nalan” wanted to bring him back in the first place though.
Does anyone else think he plans to set Szeth on a path as a revenge killer and use him to get rid of the Stone Shamanate and/or Taravangian?
ETA: Someone had better pay Miracle Max to take an extended vacation and stay away from Sadeas until there’s definitely nothing else to be done besides go though his pockets for loose gems.
Exactly. A free pass was made available to Dalinar through The Way of Kings given to him by Gavilar. Forgiveness is a complex and strangely simple thing. The wronged give up their right to retribution, sometimes the wrongdoer acknowledges the sacrifice in that, sometimes not. But that’s a matter of reconciliation. A two party system of willing to forgive and willing to do better next time, to start the process of stopping and showing progress. Szeth was thoroughly used to the point of severe dissonance and intense depersonalization that grew to derealization. He has the mind of a traumatized child and the cultural operant conditioning to go with it, sent away for punishment before he corrupts anyone else with the added benefit of a slave payment. Szeth needs a psych ward, not an execution providing he can be taken alive. Kaladin could probably do it (or Wit), but outside of that he would have to be killed out of self-defense.
Somebody posted earlier about Szeth being irredeemable. Not to sound religious or anything at all, but everyone can be redeemed. You only have to ask forgiveness, do penance, perform the act of contrition (not necessarily in that order). That is if one follows a major world (as in Earth) religion.
That said, from that point of view, Szeth can be redeemed. The problem is that though Szeth is contrite, he keeps on killing and do it over and over again. He already had doubts. He already has proof that surge binding has return. Yet, he continues to kill. He had the courage to go against the Shin teachings but he does not have the courage for a follow through. Kaladin is right in calling Szeth a coward. And because of that cowardice, Szeth tops the list of being irredeemable.
But before someone says here that we give other characters a free pass, actually we don’t. Even at an early stage, we are already contemplating on what will happen to Adolin after murdering Sadeas. As for Sadeas sins, he is dead. He paid for it. For Shallan, she is suffering. She wants he family. She cannot have them. For Kaladin, he has been branded a slave. For Dallinar, he is now seen as weak, even accused of being insane after being the Blackthorn. Navani, well she lost her husband, her daughter and has a son who is a weak King. For Jasnah, she is basically a pariah. The only reason why people still,talk to her is because she is a princess.
Szeth as I already mentioned in one post is a loner; actually a lone wolf. He needs to hang to something. But instead of following his new truth, he continue to believe in a lie.
Hence, IMO, aslong as Szeth continues to believe that he is Truthless, then he is not worthy of redemption.
Werechuol @10
Brent Weeks explores tetrachromacy in his Lightbringer series.
Cirenaes @73 and Sheiglagh @74
Have to agree with you both.
One thing to keep in mind is that there are a number of different philosophies based around ethics. Shallan explores a number of these (in world) philosophies in her examination of what Jasnah did with the thieves in the back alley. Looking at some of our own philosophies (and my superficial understanding of them), what Szeth has done might not necessarily be wrong. Aristotelian “Virtue Ethics” where morality stems from the identity/character of the individual rather than being a reflection of the actions might not condemn Szeth. Another philosophy regarding what is ethical that much of the world has prescribed to for millennia is “Divine Command Theory” where right is defined by what God tells you to do and wrong is defined by what God tells you not to do. Without a better understanding of Stone Shamanism, it might be difficult to say for sure, but Szeth’s thoughts do seem to indicate that his actions might be ethically correct under this philosophy. Many Christians might have exonerated Abraham for the premeditated murder of his son because it was the command of God. It was the same sort of attitude that Abraham had (of doing something that he thought was right according to his overarching philosophy at the cost of what is conscious, gut feeling or personal desires might be) that attracted Nalan to invite Szeth to his elite group of people who value ‘justice’ and law above what is ‘right’ or ‘honorable’.
Most of us would probably say that we value taking responsibility for one’s actions and accepting the consequences of our mistakes. I am sure that all of us value the right to life. Most of our moral philosophies prize the right to life over just about everything else. Szeth’s doesn’t.
I guess the practical upshot of my comment is that there are a lot of different philosophies out there. While we are each likely to think that we are right, it does seem a little arrogant to assume that everyone else’s is evil do the degree it doesn’t align with ours. Yet it does make for some interesting discussion, as we have seen here.
It is also interesting that we are most upset for Szeth for infringing on the right to life, something many Earth cultures (especially in the west) have enshrined as essentially ‘the most holy of all rights’ and yet we are so quick to revoke that right from Szeth. While some philosophies ascribe to someone who has infringed upon that right with so many others has essentially forfeited that right, other philosophies will claim that not even the state has the ability to revoke that right.
What would be interesting to see is how the in-world philosophies outlined by Shallan would treat Szeth and his actions. I would take a hack at it, but my WoK is currently on loan. However, from what I remember, most of the theories were based around intent. What would they say about Szeth’s intent of killing (at the order of others) in order to maintain his own soul? It is interesting to note that we justify murder for the immediate preservation of our own life, or even someone else’s (ie: self-defense), yet most of us are horrified at the thought that Szeth is killing in order to preserve his soul. At the same time many would argue that the soul is more important than a life. That is essentially the argument many of us would make for our refusal to kill someone even under duress: I value my soul/conscience/self-image/whatever-you-want-to-call-it more than life and therefore will not commit an atrocious or morally irrepressible act even at the expense of my life or the live of my loved ones (see comment 47).
@70 Arguably, Dalinar lost his brother for his sins.
If Szeth can’t be redeemed, how should he be treated if he choses to do good? He lacks the beliefs and convictions that drive typical villains to commit to evil. Szeth attributes his choice to do evil things to others but that allows him to choose to do good things much more easily than someone who denies the evil they do or accept it as a legitimate tool.
I can’t help but thinking of Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was convinced he had to work for redemption. He had the soul thing as a dodge, though.
@@@@@ 76 Awesomeness
You’re right in that a better understanding of Stone Shamanism is critical to getting to know Szeth better. But here is one of my major problems–he’s trying to preserve his own soul but there is at least strong connotation if no direct statement in his POV’s that they don’t believe that those who do not follow Stone Shamanism get an afterlife at all.
So unless all his raging about blasphemies are just over-reacting he’s cool will consigning everyone he murders to that fate just not himself. Personally I don’t understand his motivation even if he did think they would all go to whatever approximation of heaven he believes in–(which he obviously doesn’t).
I, along with everyone else who has ever been born or ever will be have countless eons of practice at non-existence. In all those billions upon billions of years I never once suffered or was inconvenienced in the slightest. Given the choice between that and hell, I would choose oblivion every time.
Especially if the alternative meant sending other people to eternal suffering in hell at the very least, and very probably just to oblivion themselves.
@76 Awesomeness, the moral relativism that you appear to defend could be used to justify all kinds of horrific actions whether ordered by secular or religious authorities. If the real killings by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and ‘Islamic’ terrorists are worthy of condemnation, so are the fictional killings by Szeth. The only difference is that Szeth agonizes over his actions and their effects on his soul while continuing them, despite clear indications that he was misled. Even when confronted with Kaladin’s surgebinding ability that would invalidate the claim the Shin leaders that they are the only inheritors of such powers, he accepts the ad hoc argument that Kaladin must be in possession of the missing Honorblade. The fact that Kaladin didn’t produce that blade in their first confrontation doesn’t appear to phase him. Dalinar is different in that he has turned away from his violent past and strives to create a better and survivable world. I’m not holding out hope for such rehabilitation of Szeth – certainly not while under Nalan’s mentorship, but Sanderson may still have some surprises for us.
@65
Technically he didn’t. At least not in the revision.
It is going to be very interesting when we reach that chapter. A lot of people on this thread seem to not be aware of the controversial revision for the paperback version of WoR. The one where Kaladin does not kill Szeth.
Gepeto @70:
Szeth has already paid for his crimes with his life. What more can he give? Even the most vile serial killers and mass murderers can be given the ultimate penalty, death, only once.
Now, Szeth has been revived by Nalan through no wish of his, but you can’t blame Szeth for that. It seems fairly clear that Szeth has a chance to become a new person through his death and resurrection. If new!Szeth decides that he now has a chance to do more than simply give his life in payment for the crimes committed by old!Szeth, and embarks on a life of penance and good works, I will consider it believable.
I do find it interesting how strong the feelings are that Szeth always brings out in people.
Personally, I tend to feel a tiny bit sorry for the guy as he’s clearly losing his mind over the course of this book and all because he is so mentally inflexible and unable to stop himself. None of which excuses the things he has done, of course. I just wouldn’t put him up there near Sadeas or Amaram on the axis of evil.
@80
In the revised version, Kaladin does not kill Szeth, but Szeth essentially commits suicide by letting himself fall to his death.
Oh, and re: Vedeledev
She represents the attributes of Loving/Healing, which is probably about the opposite of what Szeth represents here.
Or perhaps she has some kind of connection to the Stone Shamans we have yet to learn.
@@@@@ 82 Matt
The difference between Szeth and Amaram or Sadeas to me and probably a lot of the others that hate him is that unlike the other two, Szeth knows what he’s doing is wrong.
Sadeas and Amaram are scum of the lowest order, but they are also products of their society. That society has them so twisted that they literally do not see the evil inherit in their own actions.
Szeth does, he knows exactly how vile his actions are and he claims to himself that he hates himself for it blah blah blah, but he continues to commit them anyway.
That sort of zealot is capable of crimes no one else is. At least prior to his “death” facing Kaladin, there is no line he wont cross to keep his soul for ceasing to exist regardless of how much torment he believes the afterlife will hold for him or how much it may cost others.
Sadeas and Amaram for all their evils, for all that they are disgusting, vile cretins, still believe in something beyond themselves. They have people they respect and goals for Alethkar.
Maybe Szeth will change now since “Nalan” told him he had died, but he didn’t face some sort of otherworldly torment before being brought back, who knows? At the very least the smart money is not on anticipating such a reversal while he’s still in “Nalan’s” company.
I think Szeth’s failure to take ownership of his actions is what makes redemption easier for him. Without the distortions of his religion and excommunication from it (and potentially Nalan’s influence >.<) Szeth seems like a decent person. He’s abrogated his responsibility for making moral choice but there’s no indication he won’t make better choices if forced to actively make choices rather than passively accept the choices of others. It’s one sin, oft repeated.
If he was evil in the way Sadeas was or Amaran is, he probably wouldn’t be able to handle Nightblood safely.
it’s probably fruitless to attempt to rank the wickedness of the above 3 characters: Sadeas, Amaram, and Szeth. Each is wicked in his own way. Sadeas is a ruthless cynic; Amaram lets ideology trump humanity; and Szeth is a blind follower. It is true, however, that Szeth is the only one of the three that agonizes over his killings. That doesn’t absolve him from the evil that he has done. His being given Nightblood by Nalan as a usable and effective weapon is not a sign of absolution, but that Szeth may be inherently repulsed by that ‘awakened’ sword. As I recall from Warbreaker, Nightblood decides on who is to be eliminated by their yearning for the sword. Those who yearn are killed. Nightblood may also be directed by a ‘valid’ possesser so that he may kill the Stone Shamans even if they show no desire for the sword.
I conjecture that there’s one important thing about Truthless that most posters here don’t seem to get:
The essence of the label is society’s judgment that you are CRAZY. That your judgment is so profoundly flawed as to be worthless, and that you MUST accept others’ judgment in lieu of your own because, bad as it is, your own would be worse. Hence “Truthless.” It’s a very powerful label when you look at it from this standpoint.
So what do you do when you discover that you were right all along, and that everyone else is mistaken? And that the horrible things you thought you were doing by following others, actually were as horrible and unnecessary as you thought?
Szeth’s problem isn’t in fact moral cowardice at all–it’s overweening intellectual… humility which turned out to be unjustified. He was right all along. Now what?
I’m excited to see where Szeth goes with this next. Szeth is one of my favorite characters and his arc bends inexorably towards courage and absolute integrity. I predict that at some point he’s going to be the one to tell Nightblood, “No, stop that, that is wrong” and make it stick.
@88 Maximilian Wilson, I agree that being labeled ‘truthless’ in Shin culture is far more serious than being called a liar in ours. A society that consider truth to be the overriding value removes any value from someone they label as ‘truthless’. That’s why his Shin master could not take any money for selling him to the Thaylen merchant (he threw the ‘sale’ money away). That social label is aimed at inducing the victim to totally accept the judgments of the Shin since they bear the truth while he doesn’t and can’t. However, they do not assume truthfulness in outsiders. Handing Szeth over to such masters and dictating that he must follow their orders blindly is not a means of insuring truth – just punishment. Szeth may consider himself to actually be ‘truthless’ and not just labeled as such, but he doesn’t believe that blindly following his masters’ orders is the path of truth and morality. It is a punishment that he must accept. His drive for self-justification is such that he even accepts Taravangian’s argument that Kaladin must possess the ‘missing’ Honorblade to account for his powers despite the absence of such a blade in their struggle. He accepts death when he is forced to face the reality of Kaladin’s status as a Knight Radiant in their final struggle. He thus realizes that he was truthful when he told the Shin leaders of the impending return of the Radiants and they were the ‘truthless’ ones. Once resurrected and given Nightblood, he will feel free of his guilt, but not of his desire to bring justice and vengeance to those who made him into the ‘assassin in white’.
Long time no see, guys. It has been a few months.
Just a quick point about Szeth – he has probably already started bonding a spren. He is hearing the same screams that Renarin was hearing when he holds that ShardBlade.
Also, it is worth mentioning, I really didn’t like Shallan before Words of Radiance. It will still be challenging to see him rehabilitated.