Arcoss Posted November 22, 2017 Report Share Posted November 22, 2017 Are the ideals of the of the knights radiant clearly defined by Honor or are they relative to each knight's subjective viewpoint? Say if a mad Windrunner honestly believes that, by murdering innocents, he is protecting them somehow, would he still retain his powers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Cole he/him Posted November 22, 2017 Report Share Posted November 22, 2017 1 hour ago, Arcoss said: Are the ideals of the of the knights radiant clearly defined by Honor or are they relative to each knight's subjective viewpoint? Say if a mad Windrunner honestly believes that, by murdering innocents, he is protecting them somehow, would he still retain his powers? Well, I think a lot of it hzs to do with the spren. If the spren also believed that, then I think they would retain their powers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The One Who Connects he/him Posted November 24, 2017 Report Share Posted November 24, 2017 On 11/22/2017 at 7:24 AM, Arcoss said: Are the ideals of the of the knights radiant clearly defined by Honor or are they relative to each knight's subjective viewpoint? Two Windrunners can disagree on whether an Oath has been kept. Quote Questioner Are you saying that the spren’s view of themself influences how they work? Brandon Sanderson Oh yeah, and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces. For instance, whether or not Kaladin is keeping an oath is up to what Syl and Kaladin think is keeping that oath. It is not related to capital-T Truth, what is actually keeping the oath. Two windrunners can disagree on whether an oath has been kept or not. But in terms of whether you would retain your powers, your Spren would have to agree that you are maintaining the Oaths. (Although I don't think we know what would happen if your Spren felt it was okay but you didn't think so. Might be something to ask Brandon sometime) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wizwell he/him Posted November 27, 2017 Report Share Posted November 27, 2017 On 11/24/2017 at 1:08 PM, The One Who Connects said: Two Windrunners can disagree on whether an Oath has been kept. But in terms of whether you would retain your powers, your Spren would have to agree that you are maintaining the Oaths. (Although I don't think we know what would happen if your Spren felt it was okay but you didn't think so. Might be something to ask Brandon sometime) Whether or not you are maintaining an oath is a system of checks and balances based off of a two (maybe even three) party system. The first party is you, the windrunner, fallible and susceptible to change. The second party to judge whether the thing is right is your spren, who is not-so-fallible and not-so-changeable. But the thing I really think ties it all together is that Honor spren are cognitive essences of societies views of the "right thing". So, for example, an Honor spren could never be able to view [insert debated and highly controversial topic here] as right unless society upheld standards that supported that thing as right. But it's important not to conflate society upholding certain standards as right with society viewing an individual action as right. That's what so many people get wrong - Moash, King Taravangian, Guantanamo Bay torturers. Yes, while you can view a certain action you take as the right thing to do, if society views any of those steps in that action as morally inept, then it is negated. A long and much broader sum-up of "The ends most certainly do not justify the means!". This is why Syl is so distraught by a man carrying an honor blade that lacks a spren, there are no checks for power. Spoiler So we're just capitalizing the word spren now, eh... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The One Who Connects he/him Posted November 28, 2017 Report Share Posted November 28, 2017 (edited) On 11/26/2017 at 10:17 PM, Wizwell said: So we're just capitalizing the word spren now, eh... Force of habit. (Also, spellcheck counts "spren" and "Spren" as two different words) On 11/26/2017 at 10:17 PM, Wizwell said: Whether or not you are maintaining an oath is a system of checks and balances based off of a two (maybe even three) party system. The first party is you, the windrunner, fallible and susceptible to change. The second party to judge whether the thing is right is your spren, who is not-so-fallible and not-so-changeable. But the thing I really think ties it all together is that Honor spren are cognitive essences of societies views of the "right thing". So, for example, an Honor spren could never be able to view [insert debated and highly controversial topic here] as right unless society upheld standards that supported that thing as right. I don't think societal views have as much weight as you think they do. (To be honest, unless you bonded a Highspren, I don't think they hold much weight after you've bonded. It'll shape your view of right/wrong, and mold the views of the Spren to begin with, but after that, I feel it's more centralized to the individual Bond.) On 11/26/2017 at 10:17 PM, Wizwell said: A long and much broader sum-up of "The ends most certainly do not justify the means!". Oh not this again... . Had Kaladin not changed his mind about assassinating Elhokar in WoR, he would've committed an action where the ends justified the means without breaking his bond. Edited November 28, 2017 by The One Who Connects Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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