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This game is simple, if you possessed Szeth's oathstone, when he was a truthless, what would you order him to do? You can't set him free, order him to kill himself, or take his... WoR spoilers: but everything else is fair game.

This post contains spoilers for Mistborn Era 2. You have been warned. Big brain idea: Szeth is no longer Shin, he has been replaced by a Kandra. Specifically, Paalm. The art for the chapters with Szeth's POV have him making a facepalm, or "the face of Paalm," so to speak. It's just crazy enough to be true. We don't really get to know any Shin other than Szeth, so there's no way to tell if this is acting, but Paalm is a commensurate actor. Szeth is also moderately unstable, as was Paalm. Furthermore, the fact that Szeth has a Nahel Bond does not disprove this theory, as per this WoB: Lastly, there was some time between the death of Lessie (AKA Paalm) and Paalm's reappearance in Shadows of Self, I believe Paalm spent this time on Roshar disguised as Szeth. This lines up with the Cosmere timeline, as Mistborn Era 2 occurs ~9-10 years after the first Roshar quintology as per this spreadsheet made by the excellent BeskarKomrk. This probably means that Trell is somehow connected to Roshar, possibly an agent or manifestation of Odium, but I digress. What do you think? Is Szeth sus? Am I crazy? Can we trust the POV of a character who has suffered severe mental trauma?

In Chapter 22 of RoW (p. 325), Adolin observes Gallant leaving behind an afterimage. This passage is shortly after the delegation to the honorspren enters Shadesmar. This tickled my brain to the point where I decided to do a little digging into Szeth's afterimage, which is remarkably similar. To quote the wiki (I unfortunately do not have the relevant passages on hand), It's pretty clear to me that Szeth's afterimage is his Cognitive Shadow which is the result of his death and that "improper reattachment" by Nin/Nale/Nalan. I'm going to go out on a limb here and surmise that this detail about Gallant is 1. a characteristic of all Ryshadium, and 2. while not necessarily a Chekov's Gun by Brandon, something that is relevant to the nature of Roshar and/or Cognitive Shadows in general. I don't think it would be like Brandon to have a detail like this be purely flavor. I have a number of ideas concerning the ramifications on the lore that this has. I don't expect it will blow anything wide open, I just think it's interesting. Firstly, I'm fairly certain that these afterimages are connected, if not the same thing. What I think we're seeing here is Gallant's Cognitive Shadow (Ryshadium do have CSs as per this WoB). The implication here is that any sufficiently sentient life-form has a CS (not much of a stretch). I would posit that we would see a similar afterimage in Shadesmar (the manifestation of the Cognitive Realm on Roshar) from bonded Aviar. However, since we do not have any mention of such afterimages from humans or even Radiants (who have a symbiotic spren bond as do Ryshadium) this comes with a few reservations. It could be that my first premise is false and that Gallant has suffered some trauma that has harmed his "soul" and/or spren bond in some manner. I'd like to encourage someone trying to get a WoB about if we would see the CS of a non-sentient life-form with a symbiotic sprend bond such as a chasmfiend or skyeel in Shadesmar or even to confirm/reject my first premise. Another detail of note is the differences between the afterimages of Szeth and Gallant. Adolin is not heavily Invested, at least not enough to see Szeth's CS. However, he can see Gallant's CS without issue. He has not become more invested, so the only conclusion I can see is that CSs are more visible in the Cognitive Realm. While I don't have any evidence to back this up (perhaps someone who has Secret History could scrounge for such details about Kelsier), intuitively this seems reasonable. I'm also curious if Lift could see Gallant's CS in the physical realm. What are your thoughts? Am I making too much out of a random detail? Is this just a one-off? Am I wasting my time on a minor detail? Let me know what you think and any crazy thories you come up with!

So we have this conversation at the end of Navalni and Dalinar where she implied that nobody of Odium can defeat Kaladin. Then, Dalinar says that he is not his best fighter, and neither his best assassin, only his best soldier. The best assassin we can suppose that is Szeth (although he was defeated by Kaladin and also I don’t think we can consider Szeth an assassin now). But moreover, who does Dalinar think his best fighter is? Himself? Adolin? For me it’s quite strange that statement since I everything that is showed to us is that Kaladin is by far the best fighter with/and without Stormlight. I don’t think that Dalinar, Adolin or Azeth would defeat Kaladin in a combat without Shardblades and without Stormlight. And also neither with Stormlight or Shardblades. Moreover Odium seems to think the same about Kaladin since he appoint 10 times in the book that he is not possible to defeat in a fight (in the mouth of his minion Moash) and that’s why he try to mentally destroy Kaladin. So, is there any explanation for these words of Dalinar? Is he overvaluing himself as a fighter? Is he just making a mistake? The election of words is curious because he could have said that he is going to fight because not only fight skills will be important or something like that, but he clearly states that Kaladin is not his best fighter while all evidence is against.

Hello there! This piece is simply an arrangement of what I see in Szeth's turmoil in being labelled 'Truthless'. It is currently in progress. Please criticize and describe what story it tells you... My goal is to tell a small part of Szeth's story through the piece... Enjoy!

Ok, I'm about to go on a massive tirade, so try to stay with me. As I've re-read the new chapters something has come to my attention. There hasn't been a single mention of Szeth and Nightblood. *Tirade incoming* WHY WOULD THEY NOT UTILIZE SZETH. THIS MAN CAN PERMANENTLY KILL FUSED. HE IS PERFECTLY ADEPT IN THE AIR. IF YOU ARE GOING ON A MISSION IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO BRING THE ONE AND ONLY BONDSMITH, YOU SHOULD BRING THE ONE MAN WHO CAN PERMANENTLY KILL FUSED TOO. *Tirade over* The basis of my unfathomable rage is this. People don't like idea of dying, and they're accustomed to the idea that they eventually will. The fused are most certainly not accustomed to that idea. They would be TERRIFIED of Szeth. Making them WAY more cautious. There is no reason why he wouldn't be put into play. Szeth would be a very effective Fused deterrent, and I'm really annoyed that he wasn't utilized on the raid, on Hearthstone. So why? Why would they not use him? Any ideas why this glaring tactical blunder occurred?

My son noted that the most deadly order of Knights Radiant must be the current form of Szeth, as he was a Windrunner and now combines Skybreaker powers, thus making him the first Wind Breaker How true that is!

So in Words of Radiance chapter 45: Middlefest, Shallan meets a merchant who has a parrot that can talk. His name is none other than Jeksonofnone. This is supposed to be a callback to Jek from the Prime right? even before i ever read any of the Prime, i had heard that Szeth was called Jek and i was like “this has to be a reference to szeth” Jek + son-of-none sounds like szeth to me

Warning: Mistborn and Words of Radiance spoilers. Ladies and gentlemen, sticks and stones of all ages! Welcome to the Cosmere Colosseum, the topic channel where we debate as to the martial skills of characters from Brandon Sanderson's work. For our first ever episode, I chose a pair of combatants whose power is unmatched on their respective worlds--Szeth-son-son-Vallano and Rashek, the Lord Ruler of the Final Empire. I believe these two have been matched in fan debates before, but not recently. It's time for a fair poll to determine which of these two legendary fighters will survive their confrontation. As a refresher: Szeth-son-son-Vallano is equipped with Jezrien's Honorblade, a weapon with all the destructive finesse of the average Shardblade combined with the trait of granting the powers of the Windrunners to its wielder. Szeth is an extremely skilled and cunning fighter, trained in Lashing, swordsplay, and the Shin martial art of kammar. The Lord Ruler is the Sliver of Infinity himself, a Mistborn and full Feruchemist whose extreme power led to his worship as a deity on Scadrial. He is capable of Compounding every metal, and has had centuries to perfect his awesome skill. Following in the footsteps of EMTrevor with his amazing Monster Melee thread, I will be writing a brief description of the battle once enough votes have come in. Who will prevail? Cast your votes on the poll above!

I picked up my 10 year old copy of WoKs a while back and read the back summary and it is foreshadowing a redeemer and a destroyer. I'm wondering if its a red herring, a mistake, or still relevant. This has been in the back of my mind for years, hopefully you guys can help me out! The whole summary is : "I long for the days before the Last Desolation. Before the Heralds abandoned us and the Knights Radiant turned against us. When there was still magic in Roshar and honor in the hearts of men. In the end, not war but victory proved the greater test. Did our foes see that the harder they fought, the fiercer our resistance? Fire and hammer forge a sword; time and neglect rust it away. So we won the world, yet lost it. Now there are four whom we watch: the surgeon, forced to forsake healing and fight in the most brutal war of our time; the assassin, who weeps as he kills; the liar, who wear her scholar's mantle over a thief's heart; and the prince, whose eyes open to the ancient past as his thirst for battle wanes. One of them may redeem us. One of them will destroy us." Is Szeth the destroyer? But he opens the way for Dalinar before he joins the Skybreakers. Or maybe Kaladin who see's parshmen as people he should protect; or perhaps Kaladin's odious feelings against light eyes is the spark? Perhaps Shallan with her connection to a world hopping organization that fears the contest with Rayse? Or is it Dalinar that somehow releases Odium from the Rosharan System? Or perhaps this was a red herring or edited for a change of perspective. What are your thoughts?

Just like the topic says. Do we have a definitive timeline on when the modern radiants first started forming nahel bonds? I think Shallan is first but I can't find any clear information about Szeth. Jasnah's bond formed around the time of the assassination of Gavilar. Tien probably a few months before he was conscripted, Kaladin probably a few months after? Lift probably bonded Wyndle around this time, but Wyndle says the Cultivationspren decided to bond people after the other spren started doing it. I haven't found anything definitive on Coppermind or in the WOBs.

Minor spoilers for Warbreaker and Mistborn One of the biggest questions with the 1-year time gap between Oathbringer and Rythem of War is that Szeth is with the Radiants. We want the Nightblood Zahel meeting to occur onscreen but it feels weird if they've never interacted during the whole year. So, I have two theories one boring and one slightly more interesting. 1. The easy answer is just Szeth is in prison and refuses to let anyone else hold on to Nightblood. If so that's going to be a very irritating sentence. Imagine trying to meditate while Nightblood talks your psychic ears off. 2. This one is more interesting. When using advanced Steelsight and from shards perspective, at least on Scadrial you see a bright light inside people. So what if that is how Nightblood sees the world. He recognizes people by their spiritual aspect or whatever. Anyway, perhaps Vasher with divine breath is different from Vasher suppressing his divine breath but with normal breath and also different from Vasher with no normal breath and a suppressed divine breath. The theory is sort of falling apart as I think about it but it's an interesting idea

Hi everybody! I'm wondering how interested people are in the yin and yan aspect of Szeth and Nightblood. Not only in their personalities, but in their aesthetics. Specifically, I'm wondering if any of the talented artists on this site would be interested in drawing Szeth and Nightblood AS the yin and yan, what with the flowing of the loose white clothes and the black smoke. It's how I imagine him when he bears Nightblood at the battle of Theylena; rising inevitably into the air, one arm in front of himself as if in prayer, the other outstretched, sweeping Nightblood in a flowing arc around himself, for one instant the white and black in perfect balance, separate, yet mibgled. Or however a willing artist pictures him . I can't draw well but I can see it so clearly. I think it's a powerful image and I'd like to be able to show it to others who are on the fence about reading! Thanks for the consideration, and if anyone else thinks this aspect of the bond is interesting, hit me up! I never get sick of talking about the Cosmere!

So, are we making a further unwarranted assumption in thinking that Dalinar ordered Szeth to be imprisoned in his own prison? Do people on the human side know that Szeth is a Skybreaker? So may we be looking at an attempt at espionage by putting somebody with a spren into somebody's dungeon rather than an internal conflict among the Knoghts Radiant?

Hello, I noticed that in warbreaker when Vasher uses nightblood he is able to discard Nightblood before all of his investiture is consumed by just throwing him away. However, in Oathbringer when Szeth uses Nightblood he is not able to drop him without the sheath and nearly dies from having all of his investiture drained (Lift has to use healing on him iirc). So my question is why can Vasher drop Nightblood but Szeth cannot? I have a few theories and am curious what other poeple think: Is this a sign of Nightblood growing stronger from having consumed more investiture? If so will he become harder and harder to resist/sheath in the future? Was Vasher able to drop him because he understands how Nightblood works and has a better cognitive understanding of how the investiture is being used Is there an inherent difference in using breaths to fuel Nightblood compared to using Stormlight? My personal opinion is that it is a combination of 2 and 3 where Vasher is able to separate the breaths/investiture he is holding from himself and view them as individual pieces that Nightblood is consuming and then discard the investiture as a separate entity whereas Szeth views the stormlight as a single entity (not a combination of many parts) as well as the stormlight becoming a part of himself, so once Nightblood started feasting on the investiture he had a hold on all of Szeth. Thoughts anyone?

Is Szeth's "assassin in white" outfit at all inspired by the Assassin's creed video game series?

SPOILERS FOR ALL OF THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVE Culturally, Religiously, Historically, Emotionally, Medically, Psychologically, and Physically, Szeth is a beautifully intense character. Let us know your thoughts on our video!