How do you define 'honorable'?

[galendo]

Honor plays a big role in the Stormlight Archives, but it means something different to most of the characters involved.  How do you define honor?  What sorts of actions can be honorable or dishonorable?  Bonus topic: which characters from SA meet or fail to meet your definition of honor?

 

I'll go first.  Due to the nature of the subject, all simplifications will likely be over-simplifications, but I would probably define an honorable action to be an action taken (primarily) at the actor's expense, because the actor believes it to be right.  So for me, honor focuses on both sacrifice and on intent.

 

To illustrate with a few examples from SA: Jasnah refusing to claim a devotion that she doesn't believe is honorable, because she believes it wrong to lie about her faith (intent) and because being truthful has costs, namely a loss of reputation and acceptance (sacrifice).  On the other hand, Jasnah murdering a bunch of random thugs isn't honorable; she has good intent, as she presumably thinks she's doing the right thing, and arguably she is...but there's no real sacrifice on her part.  It's the thugs that are paying the price for her belief, not Jasnah herself.

 

For another example, take Shallan.  Her decision to go find the Oathgates is an honorable one.  She believes she's doing the right thing, helping to prevent the end of the world, and she's doing it at some cost to herself by exchanging her cushy position at the camp for the toils and dangers of an army at war.  On the other hand, her decision to ransom her brother for two knives and a necklace was not honorable (nor was it dishonorable).  She may have had the intent to do good, and I think most of us can agree that saving family members from death is generally the right thing to do, but there wasn't any sacrifice on her part -- what she got (the life of her brother) was worth far more to her than what she gave up (a few baubles).

 

What do you think?  How do you define honor?

[king of nowhere]

you know what, your definition is somewhat better than what i would have given. yes, i suppose "a person who is willing to do the right thing, even when it's uncomfortable for him" would fit. With an especial emphasis on keeping your word (within reason: honor before reason is not honorable in my book) and being trustworthy. Although i disagree on the point that the person has to sacrifice something for an action to be honorable; most people rarely have to make real sacrifices in the name of good. willingness to do it if it was necessary is the requirement.

 

Also, I have another, different concept of honor related to sports. it entails playing fair and treating the opponent as a worthy opponent, so it is somewhat related to the other, greater concept of honor. For example, in chess I feel insulted by people who refuse to surrender a clearly lost game, because it implies they think i may fail to win, therefore it denies my status of worthy opponent.

[maxal]

We can look at the definition for the word "honor".

 

hon·or·a·ble

ˈänərəb(ə)l/

adjective

 

1. 1.

   bringing or worthy of honor.

   "this is the only honorable course"

   synonyms:

   honest, moral, ethical, principled, righteous, right-minded; More

    

    

 

 

hon·or

ˈänər/

 

1. 1.

   regard with great respect.

   "Joyce has now learned to honor her father's memory"

   synonyms:

   es.teem, respect, admire, defer to, look up to; More

    

    

    

    

      

   •  

      

      

      

      

        
2. 2.

   fulfill (an obligation) or keep (an agreement).

   "make sure the franchisees honor the terms of the contract"

   synonyms: fulfill, observe, keep, obey, heed, follow, carry out, discharge,implement, execute, effect; More

    

    

 

According to the linguistic, being honorable means ethical, principled, right-minded and honest. To honor means fulfill his agreements and to treat with respect.

 

It is not imply one needs to sacrifice his life to be honorable, that would be being self-sacrificing or selfless, not the same thing. This is a flawed definition of "honor".

 

Dalinar and Kaladin are said to be honorable because they try to honor their engagements and to be true to their words. They also re right-minded and principled though not always in the best way. Dalinar, for instance, insist of perfect obedience of the precepts of the Way of Kings. He refused his son to duel as it would risk injuring war officers in a time of war, but he agrees to kill 50 of his men at the chasmfiend hunt just so the king could exercise his leadership.... He is sure principled and consistent, but one could wonder why dueling is bad and hunting, which causes by far more causalities, is acceptable. Killing a beast while wearing a Shardplate is not treating life with respect either, so Dalinar is not entirely honorable when it comes to hunting.

 

And to push it further down the road, Dalinar has never sacrificed himself for others (in books), except perhaps the one time he tried to catch the chasmfiend claw. Adolin is the one always jumping in front of Dalinar to protect him, but he is the least honorable of the two...

 

Kaladin is not always honorable as he does not treat the lighteyes with respect, worst he does not even believe they deserve it. 

 

Bottom line is nobody's perfect and I think the story is much better for it.

[Lilaer]

That‘s a very interesting topic! I think that both Galendo and Maxal touched on something here.

 

The dictionary definition says: regard with respect/fullfill obligation. And I think, that means that honor has always this overtone of being very ‚official‘. It is not personal morality, it is not niceness, it is something cultural something that all know and have agreed to. That‘s also, I think, why in societies with little policing everyone has to protect their own official honor so that people know they can trust them to act in a particular manner.

These actions are honorable:

*Keeping one‘s word.

*Following the rules of trade, a game, a contest. No cheating.

*Speaking the truth.

Self-sacrifice is, I think, what gives being honorable that particular status and glamour, it is what makes in valuable. If it was easy, everyone would do it/be honorable.

 

Now between Dalinar, Kaladin and Adolin, who is the most honorable?

 

Dalinar, hands down. (Not the Blackthorn though.) Dalinar is the one who tries to follow all these official codes of honor and who tries to establish honor as a force of order on the Alethi. He does deeply believe in the codes and tries to spread them.

 

Kaladin is in my opinion someone who really likes the idea of honor, of an honor you can trust in yourself and others, only he‘s lost some of the belief in this actually being possible and true. But for Kaladin it would have been a natural state, I think, to believe, if only he hadn‘t had those traumatic experiences. He is, at heart, an idealist.

 

Adolin now, he follows those codes, but not of his own free will. He does not believe in them. (That‘s no criticism of Adolin.) At the very least Adolin thinks the codes are impractical in the current situation, but also I doubt that they impress him on any personal level. Not because he‘s had bad expierences with them but because at at heart is more of a pragmatist. (Not callous, mind, only pragmatic.)

 

Shallan is even more pragmatic. (Not callous, again, only pragmatic.) She does not believe in any grandiose codes and she doesn‘t even follow them to please anyone. She believes very much that there are problems and there are solutions and you apply the solution that befits the problem... She is sneaky by nature and honor is all about being open and doing exactly what‘s expected of you and what you said you‘d do. That‘s why she really is not very honorable - the fact that Lightweavers do not speak any oaths beyond the first highlights this - they are left free to follow their own morality and not held to some particular expectations.

 

Each of these characters is very brave and deeply self-sacrificing though.

[Moogle]

Slightly a tangent, but I just read why the thread was created, so it seems like it should be posted here:

 

The various orders' spren are mixtures of Honor and Cultivation. We can theorize with pretty decent accuracy that the orders with women Heralds are meant to be more Cultivationy. So, the Dustbringers, Edgedancers, Truthwatchers, Lightweavers, and Elsecallers should probably be expected to be a little less than classically honorable (with perhaps Dustbringers+Willshapers being on the edge).

 

I find this correlates well with my intuitions on how honorable some characters are. Jasnah, Renarin, Shallan, and Lift, I wouldn't call honorable. They certainly show glimmers of it, as might be appropriate when their spren are 10% Honor (or some other small number), but on the whole the word does not seem to describe them.

 

Some quick personal guesses on the goals of each Cultivationy order:

• Lightweavers: Inspiring others, lifting them up to be idealized versions of themselves. (Personal growth, in other words.)
• Truthwatchers (very theoretical): Seeking out important events, ensuring they end well. Something like a counter-terrorism agency. (External growth.)
• Elsecallers (very theoretical): Seeking out knowledge, ensuring it is used appropriately. (Cultivation of knowledge, in other words.)
• Edgedancers: Helping and healing others. (Cultivation of people, similar to Lightweavers.)

None of these really make my honor-sense tingle.

[galendo]

I'll respond with my thoughts to the two people who've already responded.

 

@king of nowhere: It sounds like we've pretty similar definitions of honor.  I think sacrifice is necessary, so I'd find keeping your word honorable, for instance, only if it's something that you wouldn't have done anyway.  For instance, if I say I'm going to spend my Saturday relaxing and playing video games, I wouldn't call that honorable, because I'd be doing it anyway.  But if I say I'm going to help my friend move on Saturday, and I do that instead of playing games, that could be considered honorable.  At least, provided I didn't get enough back to compensate me for my time.  If he paid me 100 bucks to help him, or if it was understood that he'd be helping me move next time, it would be more of a job or an exchange.  No honor there.  Maybe a better example would be volunteering at a homeless shelter or donating to a cause -- something where I have no reason to expect any tit-for-tat.

 

As far as games go, I think we're actually in agreement there.  Like, when someone conceeds a lost chess game, they're sacrificing the small chance of victory they have for a higher cause (not making their opponent slog through a dull game).  So there's a little bit of honor there.  Not a lot in the big picture -- it's a small sacrifice, and not that much of a higher cause -- but it's still something.

 

@maxal: You've given a dictionary definition, which is fine if that's how you happen to define honor, but it's certainly not the only way to do so.  My dictionary, for instance, gives no fewer than six definitions for 'honorable' and somewhere between six and eight for 'honor', after neglecting alternate usages of the words not relevant to the topic at hand.  I guess I'm more interested in what you think than I am in what whichever dictionary you happen to have on hand thinks.

 

Though it might be worth contrasting the definitions of honor and selflessness, because I see a lot of overlap there.  Can anyone think of an honorable action that is not in some way selfless?  They probably aren't perfect synonyms, but I can't think of an example offhand.

[galendo]

Uh, and now to respond to the two people who responded between me starting and finishing my previous response.

 

@Lilaer:  I'm curious to know whether you think if following the rules of a game or telling the truth are honorable things in their own right, or if there has to be some element of cost to the participant for them to be considered honorable.  For instance, while I find cheating dishonorable, I would find playing by the rules to be more the expected thing to do than the honorable thing to do.  Maybe a little bit of honor there, but not a whole lot.  Similarly, if someone asks me what the weather's like outside and I tell them the truth, I wouldn't consider that to be honorable unless I had some motivation to lie.  It's telling the truth, but it's not honorable, at least in my book.  Not dishonorable, either.  Just sort of the normal thing to do.

 

I'm not sure whether I think Dalinar is more honorable than Kaladin or not (I think they're both trying pretty hard, if not always flawlessly), but I'd agree that both are more honorable than Adolin.  He was never as honorable as Dalinar in any event, and his murder of Sadeas was a sort of moral event horizon.  He certainly did a few honorable things before that, though, like having himself imprisoned along with Kaladin.  One of the few instances where I think Adolin behaved more honorably than Dalinar.

 

@Moogle: I'm somewhat surprised you don't find Lift honorable, though I agree with you about Shallan, Jasnah, and Renarin.  Lift seems to behave quite honorably, I think.  She needs to eat, so who does she steal from?  The rich people who can easily afford it.  It's not quite as good as getting an honest job and not stealing, but I get the impression that that really isn't much of an option for her, if for no other reason than that Darkness will track her down if she stays in one spot for too long.  Given that she can't find honest work, she's basically behaving as honorably as she possibly can: stealing the minimum amount (enough food to eat) from the people who can most afford it (the rich), even though it would be much safer and easier to steal from the poor.

 

Also, don't forget that Lift basically sacrificed her life and/or freedom for a chance at saving a boy she just met like half an hour ago.  It doesn't get much more honorable than that.  I'd say that Lift racked up more "honor points" in the single chapter we saw her than almost every other character has in two entire books.

[maxal]

The problem is you can't twist the definition of a word to suit your own personal notion. Words are not to be interpreted: they mean distinct things. You can't decide honor implies self-sacrifice if the definition does not call for it. According to google, word "honor" simply means to treat with respect and to keep your word. Of course, keeping your word may not always be easy, but it does not always imply a "sacrifice" as you say it. If I am happy to go help my friend move and I do keep my word, I am being honorable, even if it pleases me to do so. 

 

Someone is not less honorable if the word he is ask to keep is easy, someone is not less honorable if he finds it easy to treat his opponent with respect.

 

Honor does not imply hardships.

[Ari]

Having principles, and living up to them.

Being self-sufficient.

Not sacrificing others for your principles or your benefit.

Being honest.

Living up to your promises and obligations.

Making things better for other people without ulterior motive.

 

I think that probably covers the relevant themes.

I think all the Radiants whose heads we've been in so far, plus Jasnah, seem to follow most of the points I'd consider honourable. But they've all also made mistakes along the way, have things stopping them from getting there entirely. I wonder if Spren like to pick Radiants who struggle to learn the ideals, or if it just makes for a better story if Brandon writes it this way.

 

Not 100% sure about Renarin, but what little we know of him, he seems to fit.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Ari

[Lilaer]

 

@Galendo I agree that for an act to be considered particularly honorable it has to have a cost. Else, it just isn‘t very meaningful. So I agree, not cheating at a game isn‘t particularly honorable. It‘s merely at a neutral point up to very very slightly honorable.

But cheating when you can almost certainly get away with it and you‘d win a large sum of money, that I would consider a note-worthily honorable action - the cost is lost opportunity. I think you‘d agree, right?

 

I also think that an ‚honorable‘ mindset considers the normal state for everyone to be honorable. You are honorable until proven otherwise. So in this case, not cheating does not make you honorable - but you don‘t have to make yourself honorable, you already naturally are (theoretically, to an honorable mindset at least.)

 

Btw, Moral Event Horizon is an expression from TV Tropes, isn‘t it? And it means a point of no return for turning evil. I really don‘t think that Adolin is turning evil or was even wrong for killing Sadeas - merely not honorable. Shallan murdering her father was certainly even further from honorable. Yes, both were being downright dishonorable and yet they were right, to themselves and to me too - pragmatic. Honorable is not the only way of doing the right thing in a particular situation. Would you agree?

[Moogle]

@Moogle: I'm somewhat surprised you don't find Lift honorable, though I agree with you about Shallan, Jasnah, and Renarin.  Lift seems to behave quite honorably, I think.  She needs to eat, so who does she steal from?  The rich people who can easily afford it.  It's not quite as good as getting an honest job and not stealing, but I get the impression that that really isn't much of an option for her, if for no other reason than that Darkness will track her down if she stays in one spot for too long.  Given that she can't find honest work, she's basically behaving as honorably as she possibly can: stealing the minimum amount (enough food to eat) from the people who can most afford it (the rich), even though it would be much safer and easier to steal from the poor.

 

Also, don't forget that Lift basically sacrificed her life and/or freedom for a chance at saving a boy she just met like half an hour ago.  It doesn't get much more honorable than that.  I'd say that Lift racked up more "honor points" in the single chapter we saw her than almost every other character has in two entire books.

 

Lift is a thief, unlawful, rude, and doesn't seem to have problems with lying. Her thing with food is not her stealing things to live (and if she was at all guilty at that, she'd use her Awesomeness less so she didn't have to steal as much food), it comes across as a personal challenge of hers. What she does flies in the face of most definitions of honor I've seen. If you can read this and think differently, we'll just have to disagree:

“I’m gonna eat their food,” she said. “Rich folk have the best food.”

“But . . . there might be spheres in the vizier quarters. . . .”

“Eh,” she said. “I’d just spend ’em on food.” Stealing regular stuff was no fun. She wanted a real challenge. Over the last two years, she’d picked the most difficult places to enter. Then she’d snuck in.

And eaten their dinners.

 

Her saving of Gawx was very admirable: she's clearly selfless. In one chapter, she comes across as one of the most admirable characters in the series for placing her life at risk to save a street urchin. Taravangian, too, is selfless, to a far greater degree than most other characters in the book, but I would not name him honorable.

 

But I'd really prefer to avoid a debate on the definition of the word, since I don't think it's going to be very productive. I don't think there is an established meaning everyone's going to agree on, here. It's a word like "good". I just came in here to point out that we should only expect Radiants with spren that are mostly of Honor to actually be classically honorable. Apologies for any derailing.

[galendo]

Okay, more responses to everyone:

 

@maxal: But my point is twofold: first, that there are more definitions of honor than just the two you quoted.  For instance, my dictionary includes for honor definition 8a: a keen sense of ethical conduct: INTEGRITY.  This is a different definition than the treat with respect and keep your word definitions that you quoted, and there are a whole bunch of others in just this one dictionary that I grabbed off the shelf.  So you can't just quote a single definition and say "This is it", because there are a lot of different definitions.

 

Second, pretty much every instance of honorable conduct I can think of involves at least some measure of self-sacrifice, of rising above temptation, of taking the right way out rather than the easy way out.  It's sort of implied in the definition I quoted (one cannot demonstrate integrity without having been tempted otherwise, at which point choosing the right option involves at least some self-sacrifice).  I'd also claim that there are levels of honor -- if I promise to donate 50 bucks, that's less honorable than if I promise to donate 1000, assuming I keep my word in both cases.  If I'm poor and make those donations, that's more honorable than if I'm rich and do the same.  The more sacrifice there is to myself, the more honorable the action, all other things being equal.  So keeping an easy promise (e.g., I'll go grocery shopping tomorrow) is less honorable than keeping a difficult one (I'll spend tomorrow at the soup kitchen).  Or at least, that's my take on it.  If you still disagree, let me know.  That's why we debate.

 

@Ari: Those all sound pretty good to me, though I find the self-sufficiency one a bit weird.  It seems to speak of competence rather than honor.  Plus, e.g., a child could reasonably do all the things that you mention, except for self-sufficiency.  Is being self-sufficient really honorable?

 

As far as the spren goes, I think that anyone they pick would have difficulty intuiting the appropriate Ideals.  Plus, the Ideals that Syl is looking for aren't the same ones that Pattern or the Stormfather require, so there's quite a bit of ambiguity there as well.

 

And, of course, it does make a better story if they have to find them out the hard way.

 

@Lilaer:  I agree about the cheating example.  Assuming that you could get away with it in both cases, not cheating in a friendly game would be very different than not cheating in a game with millions of dollars on the line.  The latter would certainly be honorable.  The cost is quite real.

 

If moral event horizon is a TV Tropes thing, I didn't know or consider it when I made the reference.  I don't mean to say that Adolin maybe couldn't come back to the side of honor with time and effort.  What I meant was that it was a complete turnaround, a dishonorable action that dwarfs all his previous honorable actions.  It's like how you could do a lot of good in the world, but if you murder someone, you still deserve life in prison.  Something like that.

 

I can agree that doing what's right isn't always the same as being honorable, but in Shallan's case especially, it seems like a pretty flimsy argument.  I would say that what she did was neither honorable nor right.  They couldn't have just drugged her father or tied him up and then all ran away?  They were talking about running away earlier, but were worried they wouldn't be able to get far enough fast enough.  Having their father helpless and insensate seems like it would have been the perfect opportunity.  I really don't get why she murdered him, since it doesn't even seem necessary, much less right.

[maxal]

Which dictionary have you picked up? As I said, I checked the online definition of the word and it did not imply "self-sacrifice". That being said, I have issues with your way of seeing it in the sense one does not control the hardships life send towards himself. If I follow your logic, an individual can't be honorable unless he is forced to make difficult choices... but not all of us have to make these choices and if you start to compare everyone to Kaladin who has a horrific life, then they all fall short.

 

Adolin is the perfect example of why honor fails... He did the right thing, even if it was not entirely fair. It may not have been honorable, but it was still right. Honor would have let the bully named Sadeas escape and be free to torture more people because the setting was not to his taste. 

[Darkness Ascendant]

Woah, you ask a massive thing. The dictionary meaning of honorable is someone who brings or deserves honor. What I believe is that honor is your dignity, like being branded an outcast but retaining your honor. It could be like loyalty or truthfulness as in honoring a fair deal or it could mean appreciating something, like honoring the dead. To say the truth, I have no idea.

[Zathoth]

Someone sat down to define the words in the dictionary, our understandings of the concept (within reason, of course, it does not for example mean 'fork' or any other kind of dinnerware.) isn't necessarily more wrong or right.

 

For example I would say that murdering Sadeas was no more dishonorable than killing the Parshendi. They are both enemies, the only difference is that Sadeas is hiding behind a veil of politics.

 

Anyway a lot of Stormlight is about different kinds of honor. My personal favorite is so far the Lightweavers, "Be pragmatic and honest to yourself". My least favorite being the Skybreakers and their absurd ways of twisting the laws to fit their own needs. Nale hunting people who committed minor crimes is ridiculous (Of course it is implied that the there is more going on and the Radiants returning is a bad thing, so he might be doing the right thing after all, or, well, at least the pragmatic thing) and Szeth following the laws of a people who abandoned him is equally ridiculous, but he did sacrifice his own sanity for it, so by your definition he did something honorable.

 

I think honor is about following some code of what is 'ethical' and 'right' (both words we could start another thread about!), but it is not always the reasonable choice. Give me the opportunity to cheat to win a million dollars and I would obviously take it, unless there was a high risk of getting caught.

 

It is 5 o clock in the morning, I woke up for some reason, I'll stop ranting about here.

[galendo]

Wow, so many great responses.  I'll try to get to everyone's, because I'm enjoying the conversation:

 

@Moogle: You could be right; Lift might be selfless more than honorable.  But maybe not.  I suppose it depends whether her thieving is something she does just for fun, or if it's a necessary action that she's making the best of.  But I sort of get a Robin Hood vibe from her, who would sort of be the paradigm of the honorable outlaw.  Being an outlaw doesn't necessarily imply a lack of honor.

 

And no appologies for derailing are necessary -- this is a pretty open-ended question and can go a lot of ways.  You're probably right that Lift's spren is more of Cultivation than of Honor (the vines and the Growth surge certainly support this), but I don't see her actions as particularly cultivatory, either.  When does she cultivate anything?

 

@maxal: I've grabbed Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, though I could have grabbed a different one and it would have likely had slightly different definitions.  For more completion, here's the list of apropos definitions it has for honor:

1a: a good name or public esteem: REPUTATION

1b: a showing of usu. merited respect: RECOGNITION (I don't think this one really applies in the sense we're talking about, but since it seems to match up with the first of your definitions, I'll include it)

4: one whose worth brings respect or fame: CREDIT

7: CHASTITY, PURITY

8a: a keen sense of ethical conduct: INTEGRITY

8b: one's word given as a guarantee of performance.

There's another half dozen definitions for honorable, several of which match up with these and some of which don't.  My point is that saying "We'll use the dictionary definition" is fine, provided we can all agree on the dictionary to use.  Different dictionaries will have at least slightly different definitions.  Even then, they still require interpretation.  And I would say that at least definitions 7, 8a, and 8b have some measure of implied self-sacrifice to them.

 

And I wouldn't at all say that someone can't be honorable unless he's had a terrible life.  Anyone could choose to give of himself to serve a greater good.  Anyone fortunate enough to have disposable income could choose to give some or all of it to a worthy cause; that would be a pretty honorable thing to do (going off of definition 8a here, and perhaps implicitly 8b as well).  Anyone could choose to give his word to do something even if he'd rather do something else.  People faced with extreme adversities or temptations certainly have greater opportunities to demonstrate their honor than someone who doesn't, but that doesn't mean that someone else couldn't be just as honorable.

 

@Pleasant Peasant: It's a big question, but interesting to debate, I think.  I always took the "branded an outcast but retaining his honor" thing to refer to someone who refused to compromise his ideals/his sense of right despite bad things happening to him, which would be a little different than retaining his dignity, but I think I get what you're saying.

 

@Morzathoth: I'm surprised that you find killing Sadeas to be no worse than killing the Parshendi.  It seems to me that it's one thing to kill someone in combat (where they're also trying to kill you) and another to kill them without warning, when they're just talking to you.  One's mortal combat and the other murder, and although they both have the same result, the sense of fair play I get from them both is rather different.  But I can kind of see where you're coming from: from the point of view of the person killed, the distinction is probably a pretty small one.

 

Sure, honor isn't always the reasonable choice, or even the right choice.  In my view, Adolin killing Sadeas and Taravangian implementing the Diagram plan are both the right thing to do (from their respective characters' points of view), but neither is the honorable thing.  And hey, I'd likely cheat for a million dollars, too.  Honor is great, but it doesn't always get the job done, and one easily could take being honorable to a stupid extreme.

[maxal]

Thanks for putting in you full dictionary definition, though I still do not think self-sacrifice is a requirement to be considered honorable. In your money giving example, giving out a significant amount to charity is being honorable: it is being generous. Honorable is when you say you are going to do it and you actually do it.

 

Pertaining Sadeas's murder...

 

When Kaladin fights the Parshendi: there is no honor. He is a killing machine nobody can stop and not one of them stood a chance against him. He is unbeatable, invincible. This was not a honest fight. In fact, Adolin point it out himself at the Plateau fight: each time Shardbearer is asked to fight regular soldiers, it turns into a butchery. Adolin sure does not think there is honor is fighting regular foes while wearing his Plate: he hates hunting for the very same reasons. Therefore, fighting the Parshendis is not honorable. Not when you have a Radiant and Shardbearers in your ranks.

 

Sadeas is a different matter. He may not have been holding a sword at Adolin's throat, but he has guaranteed he would never relent in his endeavor to destroy Dalinar and the Kholin princedom. What was Adolin supposed to do? Would it be more honorable for him to walk away and wait for the next causalities they MAY end up tying directly enough to Sadeas to take direct actions? To wait until they can FINALLY catch him holding a bloody knife which we all know will never happen? Except for open war, they have NO means to deal with Sadeas other than suffering his threats and his attempts. Was Adolin supposed to let him continue, knowing full well how guilty he is? Is that really honorable?

 

Heck no it isn't. Hence Adolin jumps on Sadeas. Sure, he takes him up by surprise, but Adolin is injured. His wrist is broken, he is bruised all over (if we go back and read the fight at the Plateau, he's pretty messed up by the end of it. 5 days later, he's probably still swollen all over) and Sadeas is not exactly a weakling. He is an experience and trained soldier who had the advantage of not being injured. The fight was not dishonorable: Sadeas had a fair chance to win. In fact, it was way more honorable then any fight we see Kaladin partake in as Kaladin's opponents never stood a chance to begin with. Sadeas could have beaten Adolin and Adolin had a hard time bringing it home. He struggled. He panted. He was covered in sweat at the end of it: it was short, but intense. Had Sadeas figure out about the injured wrist, just a push on it and Adolin would have lost his grip. Gee, you can't muster a lot of strength with a broken wrist, just closing his fingers on the knife should have been hard and rotational movement nearly impossible without a massive amount of pain.

 

All in all, Adolin fighting Sadeas was not such a dishonorable fight. It was unlawful, but it was morally right and it did carry some honor into it, though not the same honor Dalinar follows (code before all).

[galendo]

Thanks for putting in you full dictionary definition, though I still do not think self-sacrifice is a requirement to be considered honorable. In your money giving example, giving out a significant amount to charity is being honorable: it is being generous. Honorable is when you say you are going to do it and you actually do it.

Thanks for the response, and sorry I'm a bit late replying.  I do think that there can be a lot of overlap between generosity and honor, but one can be generous without being honorable.  Giving to a worthy cause would be honorable, but if I buy my friend a gift, even if it's a really expensive gift, I'm only being generous, not honorable.

 

I agree that saying I'll donate and then donating is honorable, but I'd claim it's the act of donating that's honorable, not the time elapsed between saying and doing.  If I say I'll donate in a month, and I do, that's honorable.  We both agree.  If I say in a week, that's still honorable, right?  What if I say a day, or a minute, or a second?  What if there's no time at all elapsed between saying and doing?  If anything, I'd say that delaying the donation is worse than doing it promptly.

 

Pertaining Sadeas's murder...

 

When Kaladin fights the Parshendi: there is no honor. He is a killing machine nobody can stop and not one of them stood a chance against him. He is unbeatable, invincible. This was not a honest fight. In fact, Adolin point it out himself at the Plateau fight: each time Shardbearer is asked to fight regular soldiers, it turns into a butchery. Adolin sure does not think there is honor is fighting regular foes while wearing his Plate: he hates hunting for the very same reasons. Therefore, fighting the Parshendis is not honorable. Not when you have a Radiant and Shardbearers in your ranks.

 

Sadeas is a different matter. He may not have been holding a sword at Adolin's throat, but he has guaranteed he would never relent in his endeavor to destroy Dalinar and the Kholin princedom. What was Adolin supposed to do? Would it be more honorable for him to walk away and wait for the next causalities they MAY end up tying directly enough to Sadeas to take direct actions? To wait until they can FINALLY catch him holding a bloody knife which we all know will never happen? Except for open war, they have NO means to deal with Sadeas other than suffering his threats and his attempts. Was Adolin supposed to let him continue, knowing full well how guilty he is? Is that really honorable?

 

Heck no it isn't. Hence Adolin jumps on Sadeas. Sure, he takes him up by surprise, but Adolin is injured. His wrist is broken, he is bruised all over (if we go back and read the fight at the Plateau, he's pretty messed up by the end of it. 5 days later, he's probably still swollen all over) and Sadeas is not exactly a weakling. He is an experience and trained soldier who had the advantage of not being injured. The fight was not dishonorable: Sadeas had a fair chance to win. In fact, it was way more honorable then any fight we see Kaladin partake in as Kaladin's opponents never stood a chance to begin with. Sadeas could have beaten Adolin and Adolin had a hard time bringing it home. He struggled. He panted. He was covered in sweat at the end of it: it was short, but intense. Had Sadeas figure out about the injured wrist, just a push on it and Adolin would have lost his grip. Gee, you can't muster a lot of strength with a broken wrist, just closing his fingers on the knife should have been hard and rotational movement nearly impossible without a massive amount of pain.

 

All in all, Adolin fighting Sadeas was not such a dishonorable fight. It was unlawful, but it was morally right and it did carry some honor into it, though not the same honor Dalinar follows (code before all).

To be fair, I completely agree with you that there isn't any honor in Kaladin fighting the Parshendi.  But I don't see it as particularly dishonorable, either.  Not nearly as much as murdering someone, at least.  When someone goes to war, it's understood that you're going to be trying to kill the other guys and the other guys are trying to kill you.  If you're a better fighter than them, or they're a better fighter than you...well, that's just the way it works out.

 

Now if Kaladin had mowed down the same Parshendi on a sunny day in the marketplace, for instance, that would have been exceedingly dishonorable.  The Parshendi are just as helpless in each case, but one is dishonorable (and abominable) while the other isn't.  Or not as much, at least.

 

That's why I see Adolin's actions as dishonorable.  Adolin murders Sadeas, plain and simple.  If someone walks up to me and tries to knife me, the fact that we're maybe about equal in combat strength doesn't make a difference (say I have a knife, too -- or even a gun, if you like).  The fact that I'm better armed, the fact that I have a better chance of killing him than he does of killing me, that doesn't really matter.  It's still a pretty darn dishonorable thing to do.  The Adolin-Sadeas fight might have been an even fight, and it was probably the right thing for Adolin to do, but it certainly wasn't honorable.  Not the way I see it, at least.

[Jimmy]

Honour has different meanings from one area to another as well as from different periods in history. The samurai ideal of honour is very different to the Teutonic, for example. 

 

Culturally speaking, honour can be defined loosely as "what is good for the tribe." Again, this is only a very loose description. Cultural honour differs between male and female, young and old. For example, a man avoiding conscription in modern United States is generally thought of as a coward, lacking honour. A female isn't even required to register for the draft, the standards for female honour are completely different. In the same way, a child in Western civilisations is not expected to fight and neither are the elderly. They contribute to the tribe in different ways. Telling the truth, doing "good" things, are mere sideshows. A person who is honourable is believed because the monkey brain realises that a person who has risked their life for yours should be trusted. Not the other way around.

 

Again, honour is different in even similar countries and regions within that country. Certain parts of the United States, Texas springs to mind, expect that a household owns a firearm. Australia, as similar as it is to the US, generally frowns on people owning guns. 

 

Way back in the day though, Honour was everything to the tribe. A small clan that was made up of men who refused to defend the perimeter would quickly be killed, it's women enslaved and children murdered. Reference the entire history of the world for examples of this. A man who would happily kill anything that crossed his tribe was an incredibly useful asset to that tribe and would be considered honourable by his own people. He'd be lauded by all and probably made chief. A woman from that same tribe who risked herself by getting into endless fights would be strongly discouraged from doing so for biological reasons. Long term survival means children, only females can create children. It would be suicide for this tribe to risk it's future by allowing it's women to fight off hungry bears, wolves and men. 

 

Fast forward to today and the landscape is completely different. That same man who kept his clan alive a few thousand years ago would be rotting in jail now for the exact same behaviour. That female who wanted to go to war ends up a hero for even attempting, see the recent hubbub about the two females in Ranger school. 

 

Honour is about culture at the time and for those who it is important to, it is everything. The levels of suicide among veterans relate to this. They've come from an environment where that barbaric war chief would once more be a god amongst men. Then they come back to civilian life and are slapped in the face with the fact that, far from being conquering heroes, the people they believe they fought for revile them and everything they did. Cut off from their comrades, the fighting, the day to day routine that has been everything to them for so long... What other option do they really have? Their lives no longer have any honour, any worth. Why stick around when it's never going to get better? 

 

Bringing it back to this book and with my apologies for the long post, Adolin murdering Sadeas is perfectly honourable. Saudis just told him that he's going to undo everything Dalinar fought for, start a civil war, murder his father and the King. Faced with that, what idiot would just let Sadeas go when it all could be prevented then and there? What other option was there, let Sadeas kill Gods know how many people and start a war that would damnation the world? Bad option that, not really honourable to let everyone die. 

 

Kaladin fighting the Parshendi is also the epitome of honour for him. These are people that are killing your comrades, shot at him how many times and killed King Gavilar. It would be risking the safety of the tribe for him not to fight. This is why Kaladin gets the greatest honour "level up" for lack of a better term after the battle for the tower and in the defence of the King. Doesn't matter if it's a bad king, its your King. 

 

Modern definitions of honour cannot be applied to historical events. By historical standards almost nobody now has any honour anyway. By modern standards, our history was filled with murderous psychopaths.

 

Stopping now, could go on for days. 

[maxal]

Thanks for the response, and sorry I'm a bit late replying.  I do think that there can be a lot of overlap between generosity and honor, but one can be generous without being honorable.  Giving to a worthy cause would be honorable, but if I buy my friend a gift, even if it's a really expensive gift, I'm only being generous, not honorable.

 

I agree that saying I'll donate and then donating is honorable, but I'd claim it's the act of donating that's honorable, not the time elapsed between saying and doing.  If I say I'll donate in a month, and I do, that's honorable.  We both agree.  If I say in a week, that's still honorable, right?  What if I say a day, or a minute, or a second?  What if there's no time at all elapsed between saying and doing?  If anything, I'd say that delaying the donation is worse than doing it promptly.

 

I don't understand why giving a gift is merely generous while giving to a charity is honorable on top of being generous. I understand giving a gift is not honorable, but a charity? 

 

I think an action can be defined as honorable is your word is imply. For instance, when you give to a charity, you are not only given money, you are giving your word you would. So that's what honorable, the fact your word is in play much more than the money. The delay does in between your word and your action does not matter so much as long as it is reasonable. If you need years to hold onto your word, you are still being honorable.

 

That's why I see Adolin's actions as dishonorable.  Adolin murders Sadeas, plain and simple.  If someone walks up to me and tries to knife me, the fact that we're maybe about equal in combat strength doesn't make a difference (say I have a knife, too -- or even a gun, if you like).  The fact that I'm better armed, the fact that I have a better chance of killing him than he does of killing me, that doesn't really matter.  It's still a pretty darn dishonorable thing to do.  The Adolin-Sadeas fight might have been an even fight, and it was probably the right thing for Adolin to do, but it certainly wasn't honorable.  Not the way I see it, at least.

 

You still have not answered my original question: "What should have Adolin done to remain honorable given the situation at hand?".

 

Adolin knows Sadeas will strike. It is not a matter of "if" but "when" and "how". He has no reason to doubt Sadeas's seriousness in uttering his threats as Sadeas has attacked in the past, showing his willingness to resort to open betrayal and thinking 10 000 human lives is a worthy cost.

 

So what should he have done?

 

If he lets Sadeas walk away, then he is guilty of not taking actions which would have prevented future causalities. When Sadeas indeed manages to discredit Dalinar and starts a near open war with the Kholin princedom, that blood would be on his hands as he would have failed to prevent it. We all know talking to Dalinar would not have helped.

 

However, if he kills Sadeas, he breaks the law and he becomes dishonorable because Sadeas has not agreed to fight him... and he was not using direct aggression.

 

Seriously, did Adolin truly have a valid, legitimate option here? No matter what he does, he fails on one side. Either he is being legal and supposedly honorable, but he is not moral or he is being moral, but he is illegal and potentially dishonorable....

 

I am starting to think Adolin was given a very poor set of cards as no matter what he did, he was wrong. 

 

 

...

 

That's a very good chunk of text. Thank you. You do put many things in perspective.

[kaellok]

Is it honorable to punish a mass murderer, who has bragged about what he did, and says he is planning to do it again? How do you punish them if the law itself says they have done no wrong, and the lawmakers are impressed rather than appalled? The honorable action is to stop (read: kill) the murderer, and then accept the legal consequence. Letting Sadeas stay free and alive dishonored the memories of the thousands of soldiers who died because of him. The only dishonorable thing Adolin did was to hide what he had done.

To me, self sacrifice as a requirement for an action to be honorable is... we will simply have to disagree. Keeping your word once given, to me, is possibly THE hallmark of an honorable person, and it doesn't matter at all what it's about. An honorable person can be counted on if their word is given, not if their word is given AND it involves sacrifice to themselves AND it's not what they would be doing anyway AND they won't be fairly compensated for it. Being honorable also means being true to yourself and others. Not compromising your ideals, nor hiding your actions when your ideals are counter to the law. Using the law to help others, but not allowing the law to keep you from helping them. Hiding your actions from the law to prevent capture, etc, is dishonorable unless being free would mean the ability to help far more (ex, US Underground Railroad to free slaves was honorable, and the deceit practiced necessary to fight the much larger evil protected by the law.)

[maxal]

That's a good one Kaellok, though I cannot personally held against Adolin the fact he hid the evidence. He is clearly in shock.

[king of nowhere]

Also, let's assume adolin confesses everything: then what? as the best shardbearer of the army, they cannot afford to jail him, or worse, execute him. The very right thing to do would be what perrin did in the wheel fo time, i.e. "II'll submit to the sentence, but only after the last battle has come and gone". However, you cannot always count on the legal system giving you such a leeway. perrin managed to do that because he had a big army behind him, or he would have been hanged straight away.

 

But then, honor is not the only framework for one's actions. what is good, what is right, what is legal, what is honorable, what is pragmatic, what is necessary, what is reasonably possible, what is the lesser evil, what simply works, are all different way to evaluate an action. In an ideal world, all those would agree, and in fact they normally do. In our everyday life, we generally manage to take choices that are good, right, legal, honorable, and they work. In fact, one of the purposes of society is to provide an environmment where it is so.

 

However, when lives are on the line, the neat moral system of right and wrong that we use abitually tends to fall apart.

I'd say adolin's choice was not good, not right, not legal, not honorable, but it was pragmatic, it may or may not have been necessary (it is uncertain how much damage sadeas would have done otherwise), it definitely was reasonably possible, it was the lesser evil, and it worked. And I am not going to hold it against him. Sadeas had the power to kill thousands at a time when humankind is risking extinction; such a circumstance calls for pragmatism more than morality.

[maxal]

I'd say what Adolin did was the moral thing. It was just wrong to leave Sadeas walk away. It was right to remove a man responsible for mass massacre who just promised he was not done. However, it was also wrong to kill him in such way.

 

No matter what he did, he was screwed.

 

He had no option. Makes me think of Jaime Lannister... Sworn to protect the king, sworn to protect the people: who to chose when the king is mad and killing the people? No right choices, except the moral one, but morality always loses in front of honor and legality.

 

However, I am glad Adolin chose with his heart, though it took a lot of anger to make him go against his father's teachings, but ultimately, I think it was the right thing to do, for him. 

[ParadoxicalZen]

I'm too philosophically grey to offer a concrete opinion of the word 'Honour' but there is a perspective from Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow and Thorn that comes to mind which reflects a theme present in SA.

 

I can't remember the exact passage but it is along the lines of the King duelling an expert swordsman and an, by dictionary definition's term, Honourable champion of another country. He manages to overpower the King but doesn't kill him because it goes against his code of honour (I think it was because the King was disarmed) thereby allowing the King enough time to counterstrike somehow and win. The King then states something along the lines of how honour is but a tool/end to a means.

 

Although, the only idea that really fits my sense of 'honour' is Blood-Oaths. Granted a bit outdated (and somewhat extreme), but to me, you wouldn't swear one unless the matter was of utmost crucial importance anyway (marriage and the like).