[OB] Why is everyone okay with Szeth?

[Llarimar]

7 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

When you look deeper Brandon's books have a fairly disturbing perception of morality and justice.  They're incredibly focused on the here and now ("always the next step"), and emphasize forgiveness and redemption arcs to an almost absurd degree.  There doesn't appear to be any moral threshold that can't be later excused as long as the redeemed character feels bad about their prior actions and tries better from that point onward.

Dalinar is a mass-murderer who genocided an entire city, Szeth has the blood of countless victims on his hands, Wayne murdered that shopkeeper, Sadeas' death was seen as a tragic loss by Dalinar, Amaram was extended the olive branch yet again by Dalinar in the Thaylen City battle.  I believe forgiveness is incredibly important, but the concepts of penance or restitution or seemingly any consequence for past evils seem completely ignored.

This is something I've definitely noticed.  Going through Dalinar's flashbacks, I started to think, geeze, I want to like this guy buy you're making it really difficult for me - how do you redeem a character who murdered an entire city of innocent people including his wife?  And then the fact that Szeth has suddenly been appointed as Dalinar's personal bodyguard, overlooking the fact that he murdered Gavilar and half the rulers of Roshar.  

This is the reason why Amaram has always been a confusing character for me - his story arc is totally inconsistent with the theme of forgiveness and redemption, despite the fact that he's really not that bad of a guy.  Amaram never receives the redemption storyline that mass murderers like Dalinar and Szeth receive, even though he is much more forgivable by comparison.  Yes, he killed Kaladin's soldiers, but it makes sense why he did it (not that it was justified, but you can see his reasoning for doing it).  And then he spared Kaladin's life, which was merciful, even if Kaladin didn't think it was.  Compared to slaughtering the entire population of the Rift, these are pretty minor grievances, and yet he is never forgiven.  It is just confusing to me that while there are so many redemption arcs in the cosmere for surprisingly depraved and evil characters (another example - it turns out the Lord Ruler wasn't so bad!), Amaram is never given his turn.  

Amaram was extended the olive branch in Thalyen City, yes, but he didn't accept it, and Dalinar wasn't really the character who needed to extend him forgiveness. And it's really unfair if that's the only chance of redemption Amaram receives, while characters like Szeth can literally kill the most important men in the world and still be accepted with open arms.  

[Andy92]

Dalinar asked the Nightwatcher for forgiveness. Over money, power, fame, it was the thing he wanted most in the world.

Szeth badly wanted to atone for his mistakes after learning his supposed Truthless status was a lie. 

Amaram never really did seem to care about asking for forgiveness. He didn't see that he ever did anything wrong. Same with Sadeas. I never recall him asking Dalinar to forgive him for what he did at The Tower (but it's been a while since I've read WoR). 

I think the difference in the characters mentioned above is that forgiveness is less about the magnitude of the mistakes that were made and more about the willingness to change. Maybe there could have been room for redemption from Sadeas and Amaram, but they never asked for it. It was easier to call Dalinar a hypocrite because his past was full of bad stuff too. Why ask for your own forgiveness when you can just point to the faults of other people? 

[Blackhoof]

16 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

When you look deeper Brandon's books have a fairly disturbing perception of morality and justice.  They're incredibly focused on the here and now ("always the next step"), and emphasize forgiveness and redemption arcs to an almost absurd degree.  There doesn't appear to be any moral threshold that can't be later excused as long as the redeemed character feels bad about their prior actions and tries better from that point onward.

Dalinar is a mass-murderer who genocided an entire city, Szeth has the blood of countless victims on his hands, Wayne murdered that shopkeeper, Sadeas' death was seen as a tragic loss by Dalinar, Amaram was extended the olive branch yet again by Dalinar in the Thaylen City battle.  I believe forgiveness is incredibly important, but the concepts of penance or restitution or seemingly any consequence for past evils seem completely ignored.

Perhaps this is laying the seeds to a future moral clash between Kaladin and his brethren.  If Szeth reveals what has been occurring in Taravangian's hospitals, and someone discovers that Mr.T was behind the murder of Eth for the Honorblade does Dalinar still try to forgive Mr.T and recruit him back to the light?  That seems to fit the pattern so far.

 

I agree to a large degree. Szeth can hide behind his "well.. honour! I am Truthless! I am so guilty!" but ultimately he chose his own sense of honour over the lives of thouuuusands of people. He had the choice between becoming an "unholy, blasphemous, damned honourless wretch" and murdering many people and he chose to murder many people.

Dalinar is a bit more forgivable. While he accepted responsibility for his crimes, the Thrill is a real force, and definitely affected him. With Rathalas, he lost his temper to the Thrill over a whole day, and in the end intended to let most people escape the city. He talked tough but he INTENDED not to kill most of the civilians. It was Sadeas that trapped everyone. Not excusing him, but he was under a magical malevolent influence when he made a lot of these bad decisions.

But, as Andy92 said, it is about people being willing to change and redeem themselves. And in an end-of-the-world situation, we can't waste time putting Szeth and Dalinar on trial. In addition, I question societies' view on crime and punishment sometimes- what is the purpose of punishment? Why put people on trial, then fine them or put them in jail?
Well obviously to deter that behaviour, and also to stop them doing it again, to protect society. Also to rehabilitate them as part of this, so they don't re-offend. But also, obviously, for revenge, to punish them for punishment's sake. Why do this? What purpose does vengeance serve?

Szeth is a "good guy" now, and will not slaughter anyone anymore, and Dalinar has reformed himself and become the champion of light. So neither of these characters present a danger to society, and will not "re-offend". At the moment, no purpose is really served by punishing these characters that admittedly deserve punishment.  

 

[Aminar]

16 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

When you look deeper Brandon's books have a fairly disturbing perception of morality and justice.  They're incredibly focused on the here and now ("always the next step"), and emphasize forgiveness and redemption arcs to an almost absurd degree.  There doesn't appear to be any moral threshold that can't be later excused as long as the redeemed character feels bad about their prior actions and tries better from that point onward.

Dalinar is a mass-murderer who genocided an entire city, Szeth has the blood of countless victims on his hands, Wayne murdered that shopkeeper, Sadeas' death was seen as a tragic loss by Dalinar, Amaram was extended the olive branch yet again by Dalinar in the Thaylen City battle.  I believe forgiveness is incredibly important, but the concepts of penance or restitution or seemingly any consequence for past evils seem completely ignored.

Perhaps this is laying the seeds to a future moral clash between Kaladin and his brethren.  If Szeth reveals what has been occurring in Taravangian's hospitals, and someone discovers that Mr.T was behind the murder of Eth for the Honorblade does Dalinar still try to forgive Mr.T and recruit him back to the light?  That seems to fit the pattern so far.

I think that it's important from a personal perspective. To have those themes of forgiveness. 

People do terrible things. Lots of people do. Over the last five years I've worked with a dozen juvenile sex offenders. Most of which loathed what they'd done, but who had a terrible time coming to terms with it. And that meant they had a chance. Society tells them that what they did is the worst of crimes. And what they did is awful. And they need to feel guilt over it. But at some point, they have to choose between hating themselves and falling apart(either getting worse/reoffending or becoming damaged wrecks) or moving past it, apologizing, reconciling, and living a life that makes up for it. 

But even without crimes like that we all see things we've done as terrible. We all have shameful memories we wish we could forget. And seeing that even people who've done things far worse than we ever could getting up and being better can help us move on from those things. From embarrassing breakdowns, stupid decisions, and drunken nights. 

I don't think Brandon's books will ever make us empathize with Stalin, but because of what they show we get moral lessons that apply to our lives. 

@hoser Yeah. At one point he talks about a voice that used to talk to him, long ago. And his interactions with his Spren(rips in the air) are familiar and nostalgic. 

[1stBondsmith]

On 12/10/2017 at 7:29 AM, Blackhoof said:

And in an end-of-the-world situation, we can't waste time putting Szeth and Dalinar on trial. In addition, I question societies' view on crime and punishment sometimes- what is the purpose of punishment? Why put people on trial, then fine them or put them in jail?
Well obviously to deter that behaviour, and also to stop them doing it again, to protect society. Also to rehabilitate them as part of this, so they don't re-offend. But also, obviously, for revenge, to punish them for punishment's sake. Why do this? What purpose does vengeance serve?

Well, this is the crux of it, isn't it. Amaram and Dalinar and Szeth could not be brought to justice because they were too powerful (see Dalinar's quote on not being able to imprison a shardbearer). Capital Punishment is almost always not about keeping the public safe or reforming the guilty. It is for a deterrent. It it to keep others from following their example. It is the ultimate removal of any reward from the crime. The trouble with a Governmental Justice System, is it cannot bring justice unless full restitution can be made. If that is impossible, it is not about justice, it is about protecting future victims, and keeping others from doing the same. The idea of reforming prisoners only came about after people said, "now what do we do with these humans in prison?" It is a good question, but secondary to the deterrent that living as a prisoner, or being executed truly is. Revenge doesn't even come into this.

The question in the story becomes, "do we work with people who have murdered, and is it murder under organized circumstances like war, chain-of-command, etc." Very few countries today allow an officer to counter a higher officer's commands even if they think it is immoral. The US is one of about two handfuls of counties that do. I wonder if Kaladin would have agreed to protect Dalinar at the end of TWOK if he knew all of Dalinar's past. I wonder if Dalinar would have asked him to, if he remembered his own past. Obviously some of them were fine with Szeth, even knowing his past. I think that is what stuck in my craw. Probably had something to do with Szeth working with Lift and not the others.

[Calyx]

I was really looking forward to a Szeth/Kaladin scene after the battle:

"wait, didn't I kill you?"

[RShara]

6 minutes ago, Calyx said:

I was really looking forward to a Szeth/Kaladin scene after the battle:

"wait, didn't I kill you?"

In the revised version, Kaladin doesn't kill Szeth.

[Dangerous_Pants]

I think it's important for Szeth's reaction to remember that he killed Galivar relatively early in his notoriety, and right up front everyone knew it was at the behest of the Parshmen.  He isn't so much a person as a weapon you wish was on your side.

Szeth then spent the better part of a decade (while the Alethi were playing War-Fetch on the Shattered Plains) being a force of murderous nature in Jah Kaved.  No negotiation, just killing every single person who could make a claim to ruling and thereby stopping a civil war.   And the entire time the Alethi just watch it happen, conveniently sidelining Jah Kaved as a functional threat to civil war for the duration of their time at the Shattered Plains.  Szeth came once for them with Galivar, but dozens of time for their neighbors.  

He's more a force of nature in his previous incarnation, and their first interaction with him is as a hired weapon who did his job and left without questions or explanation.  The Alethi don't think that assassination is "honorable," but they certainly don't have any compunction against killing one another for fun and profit and kingdom. 

 

[Llarimar]

3 minutes ago, Dangerous_Pants said:

I think it's important for Szeth's reaction to remember that he killed Galivar relatively early in his notoriety, and right up front everyone knew it was at the behest of the Parshmen.  He isn't so much a person as a weapon you wish was on your side.

This makes sense.  Dalinar, Jasnah and the rest of Alethkar probably wouldn't have a huge vendetta towards Szeth, because they blamed the parshmen for Gavilar's death and not the Assassin. They didn't invade Shinovar when Szeth killed Gavilar - they invaded the Shattered Plains.  It doesn't seem like the Alethkar-Shinovar relationship has been damaged at all by Szeth being Shin.  

6 minutes ago, Dangerous_Pants said:

Szeth then spent the better part of a decade (while the Alethi were playing War-Fetch on the Shattered Plains) being a force of murderous nature in Jah Kaved.  

The fact that Szeth was being used by Taravangian (by his own admission) will probably help to absolve any accusations towards Szeth on this front as well.  Everyone saw the parshmen as responsible for Gavilar's murder, and everyone will see Taravangian as responsible for the murder of the rulers of Jah Keved.  Szeth continues to be seen as nothing more than a weapon - effective and deadly, but not necessarily responsible for the damage he causes.  When they see him fighting alongside them in Thaylen City, they probably think to themselves, "Great, now he's on our side!" and leave it at that.

[Vissy]

On 9.12.2017 at 11:30 PM, Subvisual Haze said:

When you look deeper Brandon's books have a fairly disturbing perception of morality and justice.  They're incredibly focused on the here and now ("always the next step"), and emphasize forgiveness and redemption arcs to an almost absurd degree.  There doesn't appear to be any moral threshold that can't be later excused as long as the redeemed character feels bad about their prior actions and tries better from that point onward.

Dalinar is a mass-murderer who genocided an entire city, Szeth has the blood of countless victims on his hands, Wayne murdered that shopkeeper, Sadeas' death was seen as a tragic loss by Dalinar, Amaram was extended the olive branch yet again by Dalinar in the Thaylen City battle.  I believe forgiveness is incredibly important, but the concepts of penance or restitution or seemingly any consequence for past evils seem completely ignored.

Perhaps this is laying the seeds to a future moral clash between Kaladin and his brethren.  If Szeth reveals what has been occurring in Taravangian's hospitals, and someone discovers that Mr.T was behind the murder of Eth for the Honorblade does Dalinar still try to forgive Mr.T and recruit him back to the light?  That seems to fit the pattern so far.

Good catch. I agree, it is a fairly disturbing trend. In our day and age, my opinion of these people would be to regard them as absolute monsters who had no place in leadership.

They *are* living under extreme circumstances. Apocalyptic ones even. So much of their still-remaining-power has to do with necessity. Szeth, in particular, is rather strange: he is literally a deranged hitman who turned up out of the blue and swore undying allegiance to Dalinar. His next plan is to travel to Shin and, for all intents and purposes, enact genocide on them. I think Szeth seriously needs more chapters and time devoted to him. 

That being said, I'm someone who is always willing to give people a second chance. I guess that's why this view of morality in the Cosmere doesn't irk me all that much. The main characters are by and large good people, and you could realistically hand them a crisis and trust them to handle it humanely. The Cosmere isn't a very politically savvy series, though, which has to be remembered. It doesn't try to align with real-world politics all that much. We don't know what economic policy Dalinar would feel most inclined to support, or how Jasnah would handle the massive inequality in Alethi society as their Queen (though I get the feeling that she'd probably be pretty bad for the poor). 

Anyhow. That went places I didn't mean it to meander to. 

[Djarskublar]

On 12/9/2017 at 2:30 PM, Subvisual Haze said:

When you look deeper Brandon's books have a fairly disturbing perception of morality and justice.  They're incredibly focused on the here and now ("always the next step"), and emphasize forgiveness and redemption arcs to an almost absurd degree.  There doesn't appear to be any moral threshold that can't be later excused as long as the redeemed character feels bad about their prior actions and tries better from that point onward.

Dalinar is a mass-murderer who genocided an entire city, Szeth has the blood of countless victims on his hands, Wayne murdered that shopkeeper, Sadeas' death was seen as a tragic loss by Dalinar, Amaram was extended the olive branch yet again by Dalinar in the Thaylen City battle.  I believe forgiveness is incredibly important, but the concepts of penance or restitution or seemingly any consequence for past evils seem completely ignored.

Perhaps this is laying the seeds to a future moral clash between Kaladin and his brethren.  If Szeth reveals what has been occurring in Taravangian's hospitals, and someone discovers that Mr.T was behind the murder of Eth for the Honorblade does Dalinar still try to forgive Mr.T and recruit him back to the light?  That seems to fit the pattern so far.

The problem with what you've said here is the source of forgiveness. For Dalinar, its Evi he's looking to forgive him. For Wayne, Wax forgave him, but the children of that man clearly haven't. Dalinar is, well, Dalinar. He's the only one outside the Sadeas princedom saddened by Torol's death.

It's less about if they are forgiven, and more about if they got the forgiveness they wanted/deserved/earned.

[Calderis]

And just to be clear here, Szeth spent the better part of a decade being held by people who had no clue what he was originally what he was capable of. It was til his crime lord Master in Bav land took him that he started to be used as a weapon, and then was quickly scooped up by Taravangian. 

His campaign of destruction hit far more than Jah Keved, and it lasted all of a couple months. 

[Greywatch]

I think... it's a huge problem to judge morality by relativity/scope. Amaram operated on a smaller scale, but comparing his injustices to Dalinar's "larger" ones only makes it seem as though it's less of a big deal that Amaram murdered his own men for no reason other than they were witnesses - and then didn't feel an ounce of guilt about it afterwards. Sadeas, forget the word guilt, he practically seems proud of the fact that he gets to kill and waste darkeyes lives with the casualness he does. 

Dalinar has no one to make penance to except the dead, which makes his form of restitution difficult. The heads of state of those he affected seemed able to make some peace with him. Dalinar's path of restitution, it seems, is taking him along a journey where he stands for all people and can use the power he built up by doing evil, towards something righteous instead.

Amaram and Sadeas had multiple opportunities to make restitution. They refused. They refused to try and make any restitution with the survivors of their crimes, they refused to accept they did anything wrong in the first place. They deliberately rejected any and all options they had to make things right.

Dalinar and Szeth do admit that they did some incredibly evil things, facing down without flinching that they are responsible. So that's one thing. Not only admitting it, but they felt sincere grief and anguish over what they had done; I don't think feeling bad absolves anyone of anything, but it does make me feel better about them as a person, and I think this leads into direct action to fix things. So that's two things. Three - attempts at restitution. For both Dalinar and Szeth, I'm not sure there is any real restitution: we know of very few surviving family/friends of their victims. (Ironically, Dalinar is one of the people Szeth might have to make things right with, as Dalinar is a living family member of one of Szeth's.) Both Dalinar and Szeth have decided to live in a different way from the way they did before, intentionally choosing to not do the wrong thing again and living by a better code. I think Szeth juuust started this by siding with Dalinar and co. at Thaylen. I think he has so much farther to go (he still has his viewpoint book coming up!), but I do think he's started.

In the way that I accept redemption arcs, Dalinar and Szeth are doing it all right; whereas in my take Amaram and Sadeas are 0 for 3 and if I never hear how they weren't that bad ever again, it'll still be too soon.

[soyperson]

Szeth knows he's guilty. He knows what he did was wrong, and that his sense of honor is not to be trusted. That's why he's sworn to follow Dalinar, because Szeth knows that Dalinar is a better man than he, and that Dalinar is a truly Honorable man. 

[Stark]

For me, I'm less concerned with how the lead protagonists are going to respond to Szeth, or deal with his sudden appearance and mildly creepy loyalty to Dalinar once the post bttle high wears off.  Dalinar figured out that Taravangian is a bad guy.  Connecting the dots to see Szeth as his tool is not a huge reach.  That is not easy to swallow, but doable, and desperate times make for strange bedfellows.

 

The big hurdle I see is the other leaders.  They just got over Dalinar not being fully communicative and being set up to be High King.  Now he shows up with the Assassin in White as his personal body guard?  Holy hell, that is going to cause trust issues.  Even the Thaylens, who just got saved by Dalinar and the Assassin, from Dalinar's own corrupted army.  The Azish who said screw it, we're out.  Now the guy who has been murdering their leaders and neighbours works for the guy who wants to be High King over them all?  Dalinar will naturally point out that Taravangian was behind it all.  But given the choice between believing that Taravangian, the kindly simpleton who builds hospitals and accidental king of Jah Keved being a merciless murderer, or the Storming Blackthorn offering peace and unity with one hand while the other sends an assassin to eliminate all rivals, including his own brother , so that he can ascend to power - which do you think the rulers will believe?

 

Dalinar is totally going to look like the mastermind behind all that death and terror.  Taravangian, almost by accident, undermines him again.

 

Szeth showing up is going to be a major blow to Dalinar's coalition.  And, as he has learned, not coming clean right away makes it worse.  So he has to handle that right away.  That is going to a bigger hurdle to overcome.  Faced with that, who cares who the mains handle it?  Jasnah is nothing if not pragmatic, and even if she hates Szeth for her father's death, she knows he was just a tool.  The listeners admitted as much.  I desperately want to read that conversation though.  Kaladin saw how broken the man was in the clash over the two storms.  Lift never had a real issue with him - she'll likely be one of his biggest champions, hugging him while stealing his snacks.  Renarin, Adolin and Shallan will follow Dalinar's lead, all seeing a man more broken than they, trusting Dalinar's word, and Szeth's oath.  They'll have their own reservations, sure, but which of them is guiltless?  Renarin with the corrupted spren?  Shallan the broken, who murdered her own family?  Or Adolin, killer of Sadeas?  Heck, I see Adolin going to him to learn how to spar - needing to learn how to fight a powered individual as an unpowered.  I see Navani having the hardest time of it, but by all reports, she and Gavilar were not that close, and more pressing to her will be the loss of her son and the return of her Grandson.

 

It will be exciting to see how it plays out, and the principals will each likely have to have their own resolution with him, but that is nothing compared to the rest of the world showing up to negotiate with the Blackthorn and seeing the Assassin in white in his shadow.  How can they be unified and trust Dalinar if they think he killed the kings by proxy?

 

Completely unrelated thought:  This is the post that made me a Torturer of Heralds.  I got to see that level!  Yay! Saved for posterity.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Stark
Posterity musings

[Quiver]

In reference to the title, I feel like this is part of where Brandon is "cheating" with the Brandon Avalanche.

Because there should be a lot of questions asked about Seth's involvement here. He killed Gavilar, half the kings on the continent, and so far as the Radiants were aware, Kaladin had killed him in a duel. There should be a lot of very messy and confusing feelings for the people involved here to work through and, while a battlefield facing down an army isn't the best place to have that discussion, it just means that conversation needs to be rescheduled, not forgotten about entirely.

The book then... forget's about it entirely? But -as with Kaladin's resentment of lighteyes and his conflicted feelings about Dalinar in WoK- I imagine this is going to be a thing running into the next book. Basically, I'm extending the benefit of the doubt and assuming that Brandon hasn't mentioned that stuff because it would be too much to throw in right at the very end, and it's going to be important for Szeth's interactions and development in the next book.

(...as a counter to devil's advocate, the fact that Seth, apparently, guards outside Dalinar's door rather than being put in prison or something does make me a little concerned that his actions might be brushed under the rug a little, but... as I said, benefit of the doubt, and I'm curious to see what happens moving forward)

[Mulk]

From Dalinar's perspective, we already have in book proof that he has no trouble taking someone who tried to kill him on.  We saw him do that in a flashback.  That he would take a look at what Szeth is doing now, hear Szeth's words for himself and it would be good enough is probably the least surprising thing.

Really, the Alethi as a whole care about one thing - are you on our side when you fight?  If you are, good enough.  And they saw him lay waste to Fused and soldiers alike at Thaylen City, very nearly at the cost of his own life.  That Lift can vouch for him helps.  That Dalinar is larger than life and people have trouble standing up to him is going to suppress the displeasure even further, particularly that he can now give Stormlight like he's the Almighty.  Fen isn't going to complain, Szeth just helped save her city. Lift will likely talk the Azish Prime around.  I assume (and will probably look forward to with dark trepidation) Taravangian will try to use this to undermine Dalinar, but I think it's inadvertently going to help again as I think Cultivation spiked the Diagram.

For the other major players in Urithiru -

Jasnah's a pragmatist.  What was more out of character for her was sparing Renarin, not accepting Szeth into the fold.  I don't object to that plot point though because it shows Jasnah can love, can be merciful, can be touched, and can allow her relationships to sway her actions.  She was very close to swinging the sword though.

Adolin likely will fall in line with his dad, though he'll probably be harboring doubts.

Shallan has too many problems (and joys - marriage!) of her own to spare much time or thought for it.

Kaladin is who will likely have the hardest time with it, but he's already off again.  Bridge 4 likely will hold their approval or lack thereof pending Kaladin's.

Given that Szeth is likely going questing in Shinovar fairly soon, he may not be around long enough to matter all that much.  What I want to see is Dalinar questioning him about what else Taravangian had him do.  That will pull the covers of just how bad a dude he is. Mr T has some hard choices to make ahead of him.

[Obnoxiousspren]

I agree with what has been said and will just add this:

All three realms where pretty united at this point and Dalinar had just Ascended. Which means he had access to the Spiritual Realm of PURE TRUTH. He was very aware at the moment, and it seems like those around him also had a sort of increased awareness. So at least for Dalinar, he probably just knew that Szeth wasn't about to turn on them. He could see the bound and knew he was a Knight Radiant. Plus, when you compare it with witnessing all his previous murders, sitting in front of a evil shard, seeing some Heralds floating around, and freaking ASCENDING, it wouldn't be too crazy to just accept that someone who wanted to kill you is suddenly on your side.

[Elerubard]

On 12/9/2017 at 1:23 AM, Llarimar said:

I agree with this, I think it's possible that it will just never occur to Szeth to tell Dalinar about the Diagram and the hospital killings.  I don't think he'll consider betraying Taravangian unless Dalinar specifically asks him about it - Szeth is very self-aware, but sometimes it seems like he isn't very sharp.  Political subterfuge and manipulation just really don't fit his character.  

That's not entirely true. He was able to catch a thread none of the other Skybreaker Squires saw and rule-lawyered his way out of a training exercise.

[RShara]

As Harry Dresden said, it's Vader Syndrome.

(Spoilers for Dresden Files: Dead Beat)
 

Spoiler

“It is time to set our past differences aside. If you wear the cloak of a Warden and step in to fight when the Council is in its hour of need, it will make our people look at you differently.”

I took a deep breath.  “Oh.Vader syndrome.”

“Excuse me?”

“Vader syndrome,” I said. “There’s no ally so impressive, encouraging, and well loved as an ally who was an enemy that made you shake in your boots a couple of minutes ago.”

 

[Stark]

20 minutes ago, RShara said:

As Harry Dresden said, it's Vader Syndrome.

I don't have enough upvotes to give this wonderful reference.

 

I think they will get there with Szeth eventually, but I don't think the rest of the world knows Szeth through the Emperor into the Death Star core yet.  Mostly because I don't think that Szeth through the emperor into anything yet.  But oh will it be glorious when it happens.

 

It pairs super well with its sibling syndrome:  Moash Syndrome: There is no enemy so reviled, discouraging, and loathsome as an enemy who was an ally until they betrayed you and everything you stand for a couple of minutes ago.

Edited December 14, 2017 by Stark

[RShara]

5 minutes ago, Stark said:

I don't have enough upvotes to give this wonderful reference.

 

I think they will get there with Szeth eventually, but I don't think the rest of the world knows Szeth through the Emperor into the Death Star core yet.  Mostly because I don't think that Szeth through the emperor into anything yet.  But oh will it be glorious when it happens.

 

It pairs super well with its sibling syndrome:  Moash Syndrome: There is no enemy so reviled, discouraging, and loathsome as an enemy who was an ally until they betrayed you and everything you stand for a couple of minutes ago.

 

And Gaaaahhh Moash, you jerk!