Szeth's Madness

[Kessler]

I was wondering - Szeth appears to hear the voices of the people he killed. It could be a natural slipping of sanity under pressure of his deeds, but can it also be reinforced by his use of Stormlight? There have been indications stormlight's healing depends on person's self-perception, which is why Lopen can heal his arm and Kaladin's scars stick around. If the healing is affected by self-perception, then it might be possible that stormlight can actually subtly alter the person according to person's self-image. 

 

So, what if the same process is working on Szeth, except it's more of a mental alteration? Szeth believes he deserves to be haunted by those he killed, sees himself as a murderer and the shardblade as a weapon of damnation. So the stormlight that he is using is reinforcing and strengthening his self-loathing into something actual.   

[Kobold King]

This is actually a pretty interesting idea, especially considering how quickly he seems to descend into complete madness through WoR. It wouldn't surprise me if Stormlight is capable of doing this, although I think that a purely psychological explanation is also possible.

[Veil]

I think there's definitely something here. Don't know that Szeth's necessarily "healing" himself into madness, but I wouldn't be surprised if Stormlight has something to do with it. Between Syl's warning...

 

 

"This sword gave the assassin power to use Lashings, but it also fed upon his Stormlight. A person who uses this will need far, far more Light than you will. Dangerous levels of it."

Words of Radiance, chapter 87

 

...and this WoB...

 

Q:   In Mistborn, Allomancy tends to get a little addictive, is that something that's going to happen with Stormlight—holding it just because it feels good?
A:   You are noticing a similarity. That is intentional.

 

...I think it's pretty safe to say that Stormlight can do some bad things if you use too much of it. And Szeth has used a lot of Stormlight over the course of these two books with all the assassinations he's carried out, and flying all over Roshar, and fighting Kaladin. That, combined with the stress and guilt--I'm not at all surprised Szeth's mind has deteriorated as much as it has.

[Wherethewindgoes]

I was wondering - Szeth appears to hear the voices of the people he killed. It could be a natural slipping of sanity under pressure of his deeds, but can it also be reinforced by his use of Stormlight? There have been indications stormlight's healing depends on person's self-perception, which is why Lopen can heal his arm and Kaladin's scars stick around. If the healing is affected by self-perception, then it might be possible that stormlight can actually subtly alter the person according to person's self-image. 

 

So healing with Stormlight doesn't return you to your "natural state", but to the state you believe to be "you"? 

 

That actually makes a lot of sense. Kaladin views slavery as a part of who he is, so his natural state has those scars. Lopen still views himself as missing an arm, so in order to complete himself he must regrow that arm. Szeth views his "correct" state as one in which he suffers, so healing with Stormlight makes him suffer.

 

I suppose this is a slight Mistborn spoiler:

 

This also relates to how gold healing works--if I remember correctly, storing health actually stores a "blueprint" of your self, and tapping on the metalmind changes your body so it fits to that blueprint.

[Fifth of Daybreak]

What if the Honorblade didn't just kill the soul, but drained the innate spark of life investiture, sort of like Breath. The blades weren't originally intended to be used to massacre hundreds of men, and the combination of the stormlight cracking Szeth to let itself in, also made way for the souls of the ones he killed. That's why ordinary shardbearers don't hear the screams of the ones they've killed (not spren screams,) because they don't have cracks in their souls to absorb them as the soul is severed. I've thought that maybe that could be used to power Nightblood, but WoB seem to point towards Stormlight being the fuel for it. It does seem like Szeth would have a rather large amount of Breath equivalent to spare if that were the case though. He's killed a lot of people. 

[Lopen Skybreaker]

Szeth's killed a lot of people but iirc when (warbreaker spoiler)

Vasher draws Nightblood and runs up to finish his fight with Denth he has somewhere around 250 breaths? Maybe less. And that just barely lasts a couple minutes. Even with all his kills counting toward it Szeth would only be able to unsheath Nightblood for a minute or two, probably less.