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What did Szeth see?


nervousnerd

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Szeth had been banished for raising the alarm. The false alarm it had been said.
The Voidbringers are no more, they had told him.
The spirits of the stones themselves promised it.
The powers of old are no more.

What did Szeth see that caused him to raise the alarm? This quote seems to say that it was more related to the Voidbringers than surgebinding. I really don't think he had any surgebinding before the honorblade.

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Maybe He began to see a Strange Spren who followed him the whole time and knowing of the RK. He alert the Stone Shaman, they made him truthless and give him the Honorblade (this made the spren run away).

It's unlikely but it is a possibility.

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Perhaps Szeth was about to bond with a Voidspren and become a voidbinder :/ so the Stone Shaman saw the best way to stop the spren was to make Szeth truthless and giving him the Honorblade (building on Yata)

EDIT:maybe the voidspren are repelled by honorblades same way as Syl was repeled by shardblades

Edited by Darkness Ascendant
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6 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

Perhaps Szeth was about to bond with a Voidspren and become a voidbinder :/ so the Stone Shaman saw the best way to stop the spren was to make Szeth truthless and giving him the Honorblade (building on Yata)

EDIT:maybe the voidspren are repelled by honorblades same way as Syl was repeled by shardblades

I think there's a WoB that says something along the lines of: strictly speaking, a human could bond a voidspren, but in order to do so they would pretty much have to be bad/evil/up-to-no-good every second of every day, implying that it's not likely to happen in the series.  I'll try to look around some more to make sure I'm not misrepresenting it, but I'm fairly confident right now.  Szeth follows some strange beliefs about personal responsibility, but the remorse he feels upon killing (at least when he first started) leads me to believe he wasn't a raging psychopath before becoming truthless.

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Perhaps a spren initiated a bond with Szeth? I wouldn't be surprised if he buried it down, not unlike Shallan, but that now we'll see it resurface.

I don't think that his alarm necessarily has to do with voidbringers or voidspren directly. Surgebinding seems to be lumped in with the package that Szeth alarmed Szeth.

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37 minutes ago, jofwu said:

Perhaps a spren initiated a bond with Szeth? I wouldn't be surprised if he buried it down, not unlike Shallan, but that now we'll see it resurface.

I don't think that his alarm necessarily has to do with voidbringers or voidspren directly. Surgebinding seems to be lumped in with the package that Szeth alarmed Szeth.

Why, though?  The quote that @nervousnerd posted, from Szeth's POV, indicates the opposite.

Do we know that Venli and Eshonai were the first to discover how to bond with a Voidspren?  Perhaps there's another group of wild Parshendi living up in the area around Shinovar, and he stumbled across one with the red eyes and with Voidish powers.  Perhaps he interpreted some star sign or something like that instead, according to whatever the Shin religion is.  It's impossible to say without more information, but I'd be surprised if the original reason had to do with Surgebinding.  The Shin simply seem to understand that the Knights Radiant will return when a Desolation is imminent, even though the Vorin Church has suppressed information about the Radiants in most of the rest of the world.

jW

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1 hour ago, hwiles said:

I think there's a WoB that says something along the lines of: strictly speaking, a human could bond a voidspren, but in order to do so they would pretty much have to be bad/evil/up-to-no-good every second of every day, implying that it's not likely to happen in the series.  I'll try to look around some more to make sure I'm not misrepresenting it, but I'm fairly confident right now.  Szeth follows some strange beliefs about personal responsibility, but the remorse he feels upon killing (at least when he first started) leads me to believe he wasn't a raging psychopath before becoming truthless.

I dont think you would have to be evil exactly, or do evil things all the time, you would just have to be a hateful SOB which is how i would describe Szeth. At one point he thinks about how he hates literally everyone. If anyone in the series could pull off bonding a voidspren it would be Szeth.

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59 minutes ago, Blightsong said:

I dont think you would have to be evil exactly, or do evil things all the time, you would just have to be a hateful SOB which is how i would describe Szeth. At one point he thinks about how he hates literally everyone. If anyone in the series could pull off bonding a voidspren it would be Szeth.

But as was mentioned, this was after he had to kill so many people. He started to hate them for not being strong enough to stop him. He needed a way to justify his killing in his mind so as to not go completely crazy.

It may even be possible that he is broken enough to be a Radiant now (not sure I believe that, or if he is even too broken now) but I think he was just a regular man before he became Truthless. I suppose it could be that his people are like Rock and able to see spren; specifically those red voidspren.

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8 hours ago, Yata said:

Maybe He began to see a Strange Spren who followed him the whole time and knowing of the RK. He alert the Stone Shaman, they made him truthless and give him the Honorblade (this made the spren run away).

It's unlikely but it is a possibility.

There's a problem with this

Quote

MACEN

If someone is using an Honorblade, would they be able to bond a spren?

BRANDON SANDERSON

It is indeed possible. It does not block it. Good question. You do not have to bond Honorblades. Honorblades work with whoever holds them

Multiple nahel bond and/or multiple honor blades apparently even work with a single person assuming that person actually fits to the criteria of the nahel bonds and/or has possession of the honor blades.

I suspect Szeth learned this through vision sent by the almighty(hey maybe he fits) since i don't see him as somebody scholastic (like Jasnah and maybe Amaram to figure it out)

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7 minutes ago, goody153 said:

There's a problem with this

Multiple nahel bond and/or multiple honor blades apparently even work with a single person assuming that person actually fits to the criteria of the nahel bonds and/or has possession of the honor blades.

I think what @Yata may have meant is that sentient spren can be afraid of Honorblades, because they lack the restrictions the Nahel bond forces. Syl is definitely uncomfortable around Szeth's blade at the end of WoR.

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I don't think we can be sure until his flashback book is released. From the impression I got, he was doing research, maybe it was into Spren, and he came across evidence that the old magic and dangers were coming back. I have no idea what that might entail, but it clearly wasn't strong enough to convince the other Shen that he was right. Or if it was strong enough it was hidden by those who banished him.

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Err the WoB literally stated "  It does not block it. " when it comes to the bonding process which what you guys are trying to say. 

Syl was only uncomfortable with the Honorblade because of who was holding it who practically was murdering people and recking havoc which isn't very Windrunnery. And for somebody who's uncomfortable with the Honorblade she said to Kaladin about the Honorblade he got after the fight with Szeth "Be careful with it. It is a treasure.". 

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2 hours ago, goody153 said:

Err the WoB literally stated "  It does not block it. " when it comes to the bonding process which what you guys are trying to say. 

Syl was only uncomfortable with the Honorblade because of who was holding it who practically was murdering people and recking havoc which isn't very Windrunnery. And for somebody who's uncomfortable with the Honorblade she said to Kaladin about the Honorblade he got after the fight with Szeth "Be careful with it. It is a treasure.". 

No, what we're saying is that maybe the spren would abort the bonding process, not because it's blocked, but because it's afraid or worried. In this scenario, a braver spren could have stayed, and strengthened the bond further.

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In answer to the thread topic-question, I currently hold to the idea that Szeth ran across "Taln", who told him to raise the alarm and gave proof of his ability to Surgebind, but there's one aspect of that which doesn't make sense, that being why Hoid's "event of importance" sense had him go to Kholinar rather than where and when Taln returned.  (Though I could also argue that Hoid dragging Sigzil around the world was to try and catch up with "Taln", but that doesn't seem likely to me yet.)

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can voidspren reanimate corpses??

Cos I have this crazy idea of a voidspren bonding with the deceased Sadeas :/

Heck even Taravangian or Amaram fit the bill of being up to no good every day, whatever they see of themselves. Maybe that strange woman who was desecrating art in WoK might have already bonded with a voidspren, and her "sharblade" might be a "voidblade"

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4 hours ago, dvoraen said:

 the idea that Szeth ran across "Taln"

That doesn't sound right. Szeth was made Truthless at 27, assassinated Gavilar at 29, and is now about 35. What has "Taln" been doing for the last eight years before showing up at the end of TWoK?

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9 hours ago, goody153 said:

Syl was only uncomfortable with the Honorblade because of who was holding it who practically was murdering people and recking havoc which isn't very Windrunnery. And for somebody who's uncomfortable with the Honorblade she said to Kaladin about the Honorblade he got after the fight with Szeth "Be careful with it. It is a treasure.". 

Actually we don't know. Syl was a Spren with a well developed mind when Kel retrive the Honorblade. Imagine a Spren who simply follow his basic istinct... It may be afraid of something strange like an Honorblade. It's not a proof, I know it. But it's a possibility.

Maybe also the specific Honorblade may be a key (a Windrunner-like one for a probably Skybreaker...two order with not friendly relationship) but this would mean that the Shamans knowed Szeth was right and stopped him...This go beyond the negligence and closed mind, it's a real crime aganist their society and (if they are really well informed) the whole Roshar.

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From the Diagram:

Quote

"Ah but they were left behind. It is obvious from the nature of the bond. But where where where where? Set off. Obvious. Realization like apricity. They are with the Shin. We must find one. Can we make to use a Truthless? Can we craft a weapon?"

Taravangian, in his super-human moment of genius, appears to be making the connection that the Honorblades are held by the Shin, grant the use of surges to their wielder, and are given to anyone who is declared to be Truthless.  The sentence: "Can we make to use a Truthless?" is worded in a very peculiar style.  It sounds to me to be simultaneously asking, "can we make a Truthless?" and "Can we use a Truthless?"

If I had to guess, I'd say Taravangian found a way to set Szeth up, that he somehow found a way to manipulate Szeth into believing the voidbringers were returning, though whether he did so through deceit or real evidence we can't say yet.  After Szeth's exile, Taravangian either lost track of him, or else deliberately allowed him to be passed around from master to master in the Rosharan underground to hone his skills as a surgebinder.  

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9 hours ago, dvoraen said:

In answer to the thread topic-question, I currently hold to the idea that Szeth ran across "Taln", who told him to raise the alarm and gave proof of his ability to Surgebind, but there's one aspect of that which doesn't make sense, that being why Hoid's "event of importance" sense had him go to Kholinar rather than where and when Taln returned.  (Though I could also argue that Hoid dragging Sigzil around the world was to try and catch up with "Taln", but that doesn't seem likely to me yet.)

I really think we did see his return though. We may not have seen him appear like we did with Jasnah but it may have been different than Elsecalling. My reasoning for this is that Taln actually seemed to be trying to raise the alarm himself. After this, he does not seem to have the energy to do much more than repeat himself.
I had another thought. Szeth recognized Nale. Might he have been involved in a similar way to what you mention?

3 hours ago, hwiles said:

If I had to guess, I'd say Taravangian found a way to set Szeth up, that he somehow found a way to manipulate Szeth into believing the voidbringers were returning, though whether he did so through deceit or real evidence we can't say yet.  After Szeth's exile, Taravangian either lost track of him, or else deliberately allowed him to be passed around from master to master in the Rosharan underground to hone his skills as a surgebinder.  

This could definitely be a possibility.

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10 hours ago, dvoraen said:

In answer to the thread topic-question, I currently hold to the idea that Szeth ran across "Taln", who told him to raise the alarm and gave proof of his ability to Surgebind, but there's one aspect of that which doesn't make sense, that being why Hoid's "event of importance" sense had him go to Kholinar rather than where and when Taln returned.  (Though I could also argue that Hoid dragging Sigzil around the world was to try and catch up with "Taln", but that doesn't seem likely to me yet.)

When we first see Taln, at the gate to Kholinar, isn't he dripping with condensation? That would imply that he just came back from wherever the harolds go between desolations, or the cognitive realm or whatever. He's a stoneward, so on his own he does not have the ability to elsecall.

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@dvoraen I think Sanderson divulged some information about the original time-line and pacing he planned for the series a few years ago that would support your theory, IE: Taln was originally supposed to come back before Gavilar's assassination, something like 6 years before it actually occurred in the published novel.  I wouldn't be surprised if you just nailed down what the original reason for Szeth's exile was (though he was named something like Jekk in the early drafts I think...)  As it stands though, the timeline would be hard to make work for this to still be true.

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Wait, Taln was originally supposed to come back earlier...Szeth may have seen him and heard his warning...Taln couldn't Elsecall on his own... those possible theories are sounding like a conspiracy to me.

What if the Stone Shamans knew Szeth was right, but had their own reasons for concealing it...along with Taln himself. They have the Honorblades. One of them could have Elsecalled with Taln into Shadesmar, then left him stranded. Taln figured out a way to escape eventually, just 6 years later, when we see him covered with condensation like he'd just returned from Shadesmar.

jW

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24 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

Wait, Taln was originally supposed to come back earlier...Szeth may have seen him and heard his warning...Taln couldn't Elsecall on his own... those possible theories are sounding like a conspiracy to me.

What if the Stone Shamans knew Szeth was right, but had their own reasons for concealing it...along with Taln himself. They have the Honorblades. One of them could have Elsecalled with Taln into Shadesmar, then left him stranded. Taln figured out a way to escape eventually, just 6 years later, when we see him covered with condensation like he'd just returned from Shadesmar.

jW

While I believe some Stone Shamans knew Szeth was right and made him Thuthless anyway (whether from fear or nefarious reasons), I'm not sure I believe this. They likely have the power to do it but I see no reason that what we see us not the truth of it (even if Brandon calls him 'Taln'). Returning from death and "Damnation" seems just as likely to cause condensation to me (do they get tortured in the spiritual realm?).

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31 minutes ago, Jondesu said:

What if the Stone Shamans knew Szeth was right, but had their own reasons for concealing it...along with Taln himself. They have the Honorblades. One of them could have Elsecalled with Taln into Shadesmar, then left him stranded. Taln figured out a way to escape eventually, just 6 years later, when we see him covered with condensation like he'd just returned from Shadesmar.

jW

Taln is the Herald of War and the Shin treat warriors as the lowest profession. His title and Honorblade would not have helped him any with the Shin. 

I don't think this theory is true, but it does make a strange amount of sense. 

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