Szeth, the Stone Shamans, and Taln's Honorblade

[Greywatch she/her]

15 minutes ago, RShara said:

But both of those refer to regular people, not to the person for whom the Honorblade was specifically made.

In thousands of years of violence, no Herald was ever knocked out in battle with his Blade out?

Hmm... What's your basis for thinking that the honorblades worked differently for their associated Heralds than with anyone else? 

My assumption this whole time was that honorblades aren't that changeable, that they were created one way, and it worked the same for Heralds the same as any other non radiant human.

[Calderis he/him]

2 minutes ago, Greywatch said:

Hmm... What's your basis for thinking that the honorblades worked differently for their associated Heralds than with anyone else? 

My assumption this whole time was that honorblades aren't that changeable, that they were created one way, and it worked the same for Heralds the same as any other non radiant human.

I believe the same Grey. If there is a difference, I think it's only in the way it went with them upon "dying" because of the Oathpact. 

If a Herald were disarmed or knocked unconscious, they have to rely on whatever other abilities they have. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/161/#e6898

Quote

Rybal

Can the Heralds Surgebind without their [Honor]Blades, and if not are they under the same restrictions the Radiants are?

Brandon Sanderson

[...] I will say that the Heralds without their Blades are incapable of the powers you are familiar with. It doesn't mean there aren't other things they can do, but they are incapable of the powers you are familiar with throughout the book.

And as we've seen with Taln's superhuman speed and precision, catching a dart mid flight, they definitely have more going on. 

[MonsterMetroid]

woah guys look at this WoB that just appeared on Arcanum source

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Hypothetically speaking, if some of the main Radiants were to die at the end of book 5, go to Braize and then spend the time in between 5 and 6 there, would they age?

[PENDING REVIEW]

There are lots of problems with that question.  If a Radiant dies, they don't go to Braize. A Herald would, but a Herald is a Cognitive Shadow, so there's inherent problems in there.  When you're a Cognitive Shadow, aging is different there, because you're basically a ghost.  Even if you've been stapled to a body, it happens weirdly.  So there's all kinds of flaws in that question.

So that's pretty interesting!

Edited January 5, 2018 by MonsterMetroid
added source

[Calderis he/him]

4 minutes ago, MonsterMetroid said:

woah guys look at this WoB that just appeared on Arcanum source

So that's pretty interesting!

Yeah. Which was my whole point in that when the Heralds "die" they aren't dead, so there no reason for the blade bond to break. 

[JamesMc6]

This may have been debunked, but I’ve always thought Wit switched the blades and stashed Taln’s Honorblade somewhere between Kholinar and the Shattered Plains. When Wit was riding with Bordin(?) in the carriage carrying Taln, he made the carriage stop twice to bang his head against a wall or something. I’m having a hard time finding the right passage near the end of WoR where Dalinar is questioning Bordin(?). The first time Wit stops, he retrieves the dead Shardblade from where he had it stashed, makes the switch in the carriage, and then the second time he stops the carriage he goes off to stash the Honorblade. Someone cited a WoB that “Wit doesn’t have it,” but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have it and stashed it somewhere.

Again, this may have been debunked, but it seemed very obvious to me that the whole point of that section of WoR (someone find it for me!) was to establish Wit had the opportunity to switch the blades.

[RShara she/her]

1 minute ago, Brightlord Brooding Eyes said:

This may have been debunked, but I’ve always thought Wit switched the blades and stashed Taln’s Honorblade somewhere between Kholinar and the Shattered Plains. When Wit was riding with Bordin(?) in the carriage carrying Taln, he made the carriage stop twice to bang his head against a wall or something. I’m having a hard time finding the right passage near the end of WoR where Dalinar is questioning Bordin(?). The first time Wit stops, he retrieves the dead Shardblade from where he had it stashed, makes the switch in the carriage, and then the second time he stops the carriage he goes off to stash the Honorblade. Someone cited a WoB that “Wit doesn’t have it,” but that doesn’t mean he didn’t have it and stashed it somewhere.

Again, this may have been debunked, but it seemed very obvious to me that the whole point of that section of WoR (someone find it for me!) was to establish Wit had the opportunity to switch the blades.

Yeah, Brandon has said that Wit did not take or switch the Blades.  It should be back on page 1 somewhere, I think.

 

48 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Yeah. Which was my whole point in that when the Heralds "die" they aren't dead, so there no reason for the blade bond to break. 

But in thousands of years of battle, they've never been knocked out with their Blade out?  And if they did, none of the enemies that would be around thought to try and pick up the Blade?

 

(Okay, really done now )

[Oversleep]

15 minutes ago, RShara said:

Brandon has said that Wit did not take or switch the Blades.  It should be back on page 1 somewhere, I think.

Yeah.

On 3.01.2018 at 5:50 AM, RShara said:

There's another that says he did not switch the Blades.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/224-words-of-radiance-san-francisco-signing/#e6885

Quote

Questioner

At the very end of Words of Radiance, Dalinar touches a Shardblade and it screams at him. Shouldn't that particular Blade have been safe?

Brandon Sanderson

No it should not have. It's a clue that something has happened.

[...]

[This is] a question that the subtle reader should be asking. And there are other clues that something is wrong with what the story you've been told is.

Questioner

Because Option 2 is that it's unsafe to touch an honorblade, but there's no evidence of that.

Brandon Sanderson

There is no evidence of that. In fact there's much stronger evidence that something else is going on.

Questioner 2

Did Hoid switch out the blades?

Brandon Sanderson

Hoid did not switch out the blades, but good question.

It was you who quoted it!

Edited January 5, 2018 by Oversleep

[TheGoddessBeyond]

I'm thinking about the quote @MonsterMetroid showed us:

"If a Radiant dies, they don't go to Braize. A Herald would, but a Herald is a Cognitive Shadow, so there's inherent problems in there.  When you're a Cognitive Shadow, aging is different there, because you're basically a ghost.  Even if you've been stapled to a body, it happens weirdly.  So there's all kinds of flaws in that question."

So, while on Braize, Heralds are cognitive shadows without bodies. Great. But is this saying when they come back to Roshar, they are staples to a new body? If so, are they inhabiting other people's bodies like the fused?

 

[Isilel]

18 hours ago, Calderis said:

 

And additionally, the Heralds retaining their Blades after "death" is meaningless as well, because they don't die, they just lose their physical body. 

Without a physical body, it's possible that like the we saw with Shardblades the others in Shadesmar, it's impossible to summon the blade at all. So they are tortured in Braize without the ability to summon a blade, and this no ability to relinquish it. 

Then why were the  Heralds given Honorblades in the first place? They weren't supposed to ever return from Braize, after all. Not to mention that condemining them to fighting the Fused for all eternity while weaponless would be even crueler and more senseless than the rest of the Oathpact!

As to the crisis of faith among the Shamans due Taln's Blade discovery - this would require them to know the truth about the defection of the other 9, and we have seen no indication of that so far.

 

18 hours ago, Calderis said:

And the Liss as Chana thing... I find it absolutely hilarious that you so vehemently disagree with one of my theories. Because your a believer of probably my most crackpot, speculative theory ever. 

And why do you think that it is crackpot? IMHO, this current thread is significantly more so . Anyway, I have come to the idea independantly, due to stumbling across across a WoB that we have seen members of every Order in WoK and WoR, if we count their Heralds. Though now that I have re-read the books in question, it turns out that there was a Dustbringer in one of Dalinar's visions, so this may be moot as far as evidence for Chana appearing on-screen in them.

However, Liss's whole demeanor, her obvious knowledge that something was about to go down that night  and the general air of sly superiority still make me believe that she is a Herald. Her looking ethnically mixed and being perfect with accents, like most of the Heralds that we have seen so far, only cements my suspicions. Though if she doesn't have to be Chana, her description looks very much like the picture of Vedel in WoB. 

In any case, Liss lied to Jasnah about selling Szeth several weeks previously, IMHO, because it would have been an unbelievable coincidence that he was be still available and cheap enough for Klade to buy him on a whim. We also know that Nale and Kalak were somehow behind the assassination of Gavilar, though indirectly. I.e.:

"I don't like this. What we've done was wrong. That creature carries my lord's own Blade. We shouldn't have let him keep it. He--"

Blurted out by a nervous fellow who was almost certainly Kalak to Nale in the prologue to WoR. Prologue to OB supports this even more, because Parshendi took their coming into possession of Szeth just before Gavilar revealed his nefarious intentions as a sign to try an assassination. And, of course, a "voice speaking to the rythms" led them to Szeth _and_ led them to "press" Szeth into revealing his true capabilities. That was surely Nale's spren. I have forgotten this, but in WoR Parshendi knew about the existence of Honorblades, even though the rest of the world outside Shinovar didn't - so they knew that Szeth was more than just a shard-bearer when they ordered him to kill the king.

Anyway, all of it only makes sense to me if Liss knew exactly what Szeth was, and that Nale knew that he was in Kholinar to be used in his scheme and convinced Liss to give up her slave for the cause. The fact that Nale didn't just obtain a death warrant on a notorious assassin and execute Liss to get at Szeth strongly suggests that she is a fellow Herald. IMHO, YMMV.

 

[natc]

Did the honorblades come during, after, or before the Oathpact?

Because apparently Ishar was already called Binder of Gods before becoming the Herald of Luck and founding the Oathpact . . . and the war was presumably already going on when the pact was made . . .

[Michael Portz he/him]

1 hour ago, natc said:

Did the honorblades come during, after, or before the Oathpact?

Because apparently Ishar was already called Binder of Gods before becoming the Herald of Luck and founding the Oathpact . . . and the war was presumably already going on when the pact was made . . .

My impression was always that they came WITH it, as integral part of it.

Whats the source of Ishar being called so before the Pact?

[Calderis he/him]

3 hours ago, natc said:

Did the honorblades come during, after, or before the Oathpact?

Because apparently Ishar was already called Binder of Gods before becoming the Herald of Luck and founding the Oathpact . . . and the war was presumably already going on when the pact was made . . .

The blades were created for the Oathpact. For the Heralds. I thought we were told as much in this book. 

Why would The binder of gods name mean pre-oathpact? That assumes that he's been called the Herald of luck since the beginning. Over... 6000 years? I'm sure all of the Heralds have had a variety of titles. 

Edited January 10, 2018 by Calderis

[Elerubard]

On 1/5/2018 at 0:34 PM, MonsterMetroid said:

I've assumed this is the case but where does it say this. Legitimately asking

I always assumed they still had their physical bodies but that they were just transported to Braize somehow. Haven't put much thought into this interesting

 

I believe we have WoB explicitly referring to the Heralds as Cognitive Shadows in relation to a question that might have also involved Kelsier.

Edit: Someone beat me to it.

Edited February 16, 2018 by Crazy1993

[Subvisual Haze]

On 1/6/2018 at 7:26 AM, Isilel said:

"I don't like this. What we've done was wrong. That creature carries my lord's own Blade. We shouldn't have let him keep it. He--"

Ohhhhhhh Crem.  It was right there the whole time.  "What we've done was wrong. That creature carries my lord's own Blade.  We shouldn't have let him keep it."

The phrasing here is critical.  Past tense and plural.  Kelek+Nale previously did something that Kelek now believe is wrong.  Not something they're actively doing at present time (if indeed they were involved in orchestrating the assassination).

Couple that with this little thought from Szeth in Oathbreaker confirming that he did indeed possess the Honorblade before being declared Truthless:

Quote

For a moment he felt the freedom of flight-reminding him of his first days, holding an Honorblade long ago.  Before he'd becomes Truthless.

The Heralds collectively (at the very least including Kelek and Nale, probably several others) were directly involved in Szeth being declared a Truthless and exiled.

[RShara she/her]

I'm actually on board with this.  But to be fair "What we've done was wrong" might be referring to abandoning the Oathpact and leaving the Honorblades in the first place.

I don't know if they were involved in making Szeth Truthless, but I think they might have manipulated events to get him to kill Gavilar, who was a budding Bondsmith.  Because Nale would have had no way to touch him.

[Calderis he/him]

I always took that as referring to the Oathpact, and that "we shouldn't have let him keep it" was just that they came across someone with an Honorblade and Kelek disapproved of anyone wielding the blades. 

[Subvisual Haze]

13 minutes ago, RShara said:

I'm actually on board with this.  But to be fair "What we've done was wrong" might be referring to abandoning the Oathpact and leaving the Honorblades in the first place.

I don't know if they were involved in making Szeth Truthless, but I think they might have manipulated events to get him to kill Gavilar, who was a budding Bondsmith.  Because Nale would have had no way to touch him.

Let's tie it all together with the very important missing piece.  What reason would Nale+Heralds have to ruin Szeth's life like that?  Nale's driving singular mission for thousands of years has been to destroy or neutralize any surgebinders not under his direct control.

Quote

"I worked for thousands of years to prevent another desolation," Nin continued. "Ishar warned me of the danger.  Now that Honor is dead, other Radiants might upset the balance of the Oathpact.  Might undermine certain...measures we took, and give an opening to the enemy"

Anyways, after reading through Szeth's chapters closely, it became apparent that there are a lot of clues in Szeth's chapters that before he was exiled, not only did he have the Honorblade, but Szeth had already bonded a spren and possibly even become a Radiant.  So, BUCKLE UP!

Quote

[Master Ki] "To progress further among our ranks, and to learn the Lashings, you will need a master to take you as their squire.  Then may you speak the Second Ideal.  From there, you will need to impress a highspren and form a bond-becoming a full Skybreaker."

....

"The Third Ideal, the Ideal of Dedication, requires you to have first bonded a highspren.  Once you have, you swear to dedicate yourself to a greater truth-a code to follow"

So we establish the general order of gaining powers for Skybreakers.  The important point being, that the 3rd oath requires the Radiant to bond with a spren.  Yet, when Szeth asks if he needs to be paired with all the other rookies:

Quote

"The Herald," Ki said, "originally thought that you might skip to the Third Ideal because of your past.  He is not longer here, however, and we cannot judge.  You'll have to follow the same path as everyone else.

After the first trial at the Purelake, Ki accepts Szeth as her squire letting him swear the second oath and we get this blurb:

Quote

[Master Ki] "During my prayers last night, Winnow proclaimed the highspren are watching you.  I won't be surprised if it takes mere months before you achieve the Third Ideal."

[Szeth] Months.  No, he would not take months.  But he did not swear quite yet.

Szeth seems quite confident that he could choose to swear the 3rd Ideal very quickly!  But how would he know that a spren would be drawn to him and bond with him so quickly?  Perhaps he has already done this before.  Next we cut to the aftermath of the second Skybreaker exercise:

Quote

Warren looked backed to him. "You shall soon have your spren, gauging by this performance."

"Not soon," Szeth said. "Right now.  I shall say the Third Ideal this night, choosing to follow the law. I-" [Nale interrupts here to exposition dump on Szeth]

Szeth did perform well enough in the contest to draw the approval of the Highspren.  He even glimpses 2 of them briefly as slits in the air.  He hasn't had nearly enough time to form a bond with one though!  Nale's interruption here however implies that Szeth could have indeed sworn the oath at this point.

Coming at things from a different angle, we also learn that Szeth is no stranger to voices speaking into his head.

Quote

"I knew a voice like your once, sword-nimi."

The whispers?

No.  A single one, in my mind, when I was young."  Szeth shaded his eyes, looking across the glistening lake.  "I hope things go better this time."

And after the battle he finally swears his Third Oath.

Quote

"I swear to follow the will of Dalinar Kholin. This is my oath." At the Words, snow crystallized around him in the air, then fluttered down.  He felt a surge of something.  Approval?  From the hidden spren who only rarely showed itself to him, even still.

Mash it all together, and we're given the clear impression that Szeth knew he could immediately swear the 3rd oath because he had already bonded a spren.  One that spoke to him in the distant past before everything went wrong.

Poor Szeth.  He probably bonded a spren long ago and tried to report it to the people in charge, sound the alarm that the Radiants spren were returning and the Voidbringers were soon to follow.  Unfortunately Nale as part of his "Kill or Ruin any Unauthorized Surgebinders" Campaign, probably stepped in.  Likely Szeth was such an upstanding citizen that there was no legal reason to murder him, but by being declared Truthless by his people his nascent bond with his spren was terminated and the spren in question went into a dead/sleeping state like Sylphrena did in WoR.

And now for the real kicker: we don't know for certain that his first spren was necessarily a Highspren.  What if, for maximum tragedy and irony, the most famous Truthless in the world was on the path to become a Truthwatcher?

[Calderis he/him]

@Subvisual Haze I agree with most of you're points, they're part of what brought this thread into a cohesive whole in my head in the first place. 

Szeth's adherence to his laws and the Oathstone that drew Nale to him in the first place are why I'm sure he drew a Highspren originally as well. I believe that in accepting his peoples pronouncement that he was Truthless he rejected the Spren as well... So whether dormant like pattern was, or actually unbonded, in the intervening time I don’t believe he could Surgebind. 

I hadn't considered it being the same spren before though. I like it, and think it explains his advancement in OB well. 

Edited February 17, 2018 by Calderis

[WhiteLeeopard she/her]

6 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

And now for the real kicker: we don't know for certain that his first spren was necessarily a Highspren.  What if, for maximum tragedy and irony, the most famous Truthless in the world was on the path to become a Truthwatcher?

I somehow doubt this because the spren that he bonds on OB seemed to be really easy to bond with, so I assume its the same spren from long ago. Szeth is just perfect for the Skybreakers, as he has always followed laws to a psychotic level. It would be unusual at the very least if someone so obsessed with the rules could also be a good match for the Truthwatchers (or any other order, since Skybreakers don't mesh too well with any other order I've seen so far). Final point... Szeth already has access to too many powers. Nightblood, highspren he has bonded, we add a third spren to the mix and things get very very unlikely.

Your post was very nice .

Edited February 17, 2018 by WhiteLeeopard

[Isilel]

6 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Poor Szeth.  He probably bonded a spren long ago and tried to report it to the people in charge, sound the alarm that the Radiants spren were returning and the Voidbringers were soon to follow.

Yes, indeed. It is worthy of note, though, that his first spren couldn't have been a highspren, as they shared Nale's conviction that a Desolation could never happen as long as the other Orders didn't return and unwittingly tamper with the Oathpact and some additional measures that Nale claimed "_we_ took". "We" being Ishar and likely some of the other Heralds in addition to himself. As an aside, I believe that the "measures" were what allowed Taln to hold out for as long as he did (and may have caused/enhanced the insanity of the 9 defectors in the process) - because great hero or not, I don't think that his out-of-the ballpark endurance makes sense otherwise.

6 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

  Likely Szeth was such an upstanding citizen that there was no legal reason to murder him, but by being declared Truthless by his people his nascent bond with his spren was terminated and the spren in question went into a dead/sleeping state like Sylphrena did in WoR.

Yes, indeed. I imagine that the Skybreakers may have followed him for a time and caused situations where he'd be forced to reveal his possession of a shardblade and subsequently compelled to commit murders by his master(s), to well and truly stamp out his bond. Peaceful people becoming uncomfortable with having him as a servant and all those rumors that inevitably arose about him may have been more directed than apparent at first. I guess, the idea was that he'd eventually snap/slip and let himself be killed or commit suicide. But as time passed and Szeth survived and remained faithful to the Shin law despite everything, Nale became impressed with him and decided to recruit him.

I am not entirely sure that this was truly the case, as not everything should happen on purpose, even in fiction, but there was this in the Ghostblood letter to Shallan:

Quote

"He (Nale) has spent the last two decades - perhaps much longer - dealing with anybody close to bonding a spren. Sometimes he recruited these people, bonding them to highspren and making them Skybreakers"

And Szeth's story would be an economical way to show how it was done. A nascent, or even already existing bond disrupted by forcing a person to act against their Order's principles and/or to actively reject their spren, then recruiting them if they seemed suitable. If the targets could be manipulated to commit a crime in the process they could also be eliminated if they weren't.

6 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

And now for the real kicker: we don't know for certain that his first spren was necessarily a Highspren.  What if, for maximum tragedy and irony, the most famous Truthless in the world was on the path to become a Truthwatcher?

Yes! I have also considered what kind of spren could have sought out Szeth initially and the Truthwatcher spren seem fairly active in trying to form bonds - we have already seen 2 proper proto-Truthwatchers and Renarin, who doesn't quite count. Another hint that Szeth was dealing with a different spren the first time around is this:

Quote

"We can... know what the Ideals are?" Szeth asked. For some reason he'd thought they would be hidden from him"

Which, of course, is how the things have been for all of our other new "founding Radiants" and the opposite of how the highspren operate.

Speaking of how Szeth thought that he could jump to the 3rd Ideal immediately - IMHO he could feel the forming bond with his highspren and knew that it already reached that threshold, rather than that he had already sworn the 2nd one previously. After all, he is closer to Spiritual Realm than most, both due to his madness and to his not-quite-timely revival.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

11 hours ago, RShara said:

Because Nale would have had no way to touch him.

Wouldn't it just be better for everyone involved to just hire/ask Chana (if Chana is Liss) to kill Gavilar. If Nale doesn't want to do it, Ishar or Kalak could (or they could just kill Gavilar themselves). The point is, that if Nale, Kalak, Chana and Ishar agreed that Gavilar needed to die, there had to be a simpler way than creating a very convoluted plot which would lead the Parshendi to assassinate Gavilar.

[Isilel]

9 minutes ago, Toaster Retribution said:

Wouldn't it just be better for everyone involved to just hire/ask Chana (if Chana is Liss) to kill Gavilar. If Nale doesn't want to do it, Ishar or Kalak could (or they could just kill Gavilar themselves).

Ah, but Liss (who, I now think is Vedel, rather than Chana), had that agreement with Jasnah, which may have prevented her from taking on the job herself. And we don't know if Nale's twisted code allowed him to do something as directly criminal as hiring an assassin. In addition, he may have wanted to firmly discourage any further peaceful interactions and particularly exchange of knowledge between humans and Parshendi, as he thought that it might lead to certain revelations about the past and encourage Nahel bonding. We now know, after all, that the listener Songs spoke of the Radiants in the glowing terms. 

Kalak seems to be currently pretty useless, and other Heralds may have been sufficiently ambivalent about the validity of Nale's views that they neither helped nor hindered them. Ishar trusted Nale and the Skybreakers to deal with any attempted resurgence of other Orders, which Gavilar wanted and worked to bring about (among other things).

So, IMHO, convoluted nature of the plot was due to Nale's limitations and/or secondary goals that he also wanted to achieve in one fell swoop.

[Toaster Retribution he/him]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

Ah, but Liss (who, I now think is Vedel, rather than Chana), had that agreement with Jasnah, which may have prevented her from taking on the job herself. And we don't know if Nale's twisted code allowed him to do something as directly criminal as hiring an assassin. In addition, he may have wanted to firmly discourage any further peaceful interactions and particularly exchange of knowledge between humans and Parshendi, as he thought that it might lead to certain revelations about the past and encourage Nahel bonding. We now know, after all, that the listener Songs spoke of the Radiants in the glowing terms. 

Kalak seems to be currently pretty useless, and other Heralds may have been sufficiently ambivalent about the validity of Nale's views that they neither helped nor hindered them. Ishar trusted Nale and the Skybreakers to deal with any attempted resurgence of other Orders, which Gavilar wanted and worked to bring about (among other things).

So, IMHO, convoluted nature of the plot was due to Nale's limitations and/or secondary goals that he also wanted to achieve in one fell swoop.

I still think its far-fetched. Chanas madness might be related to her obedient nature, and thus she might not want to go back on deals, so I´d give you that. But Ishar and Kalak both seems to be in on the "killing Gavilar idea" and as such, one of them could do the deed. Kalak is kind of useless, but I do think that he is able to give Szeth a simple command/pay another assassin. Ishar could defenitely do it. 

[WhiteLeeopard she/her]

3 hours ago, Isilel said:

Yes, indeed. It is worthy of note, though, that his first spren couldn't have been a highspren, as they shared Nale's conviction that a Desolation could never happen as long as the other Orders didn't return and unwittingly tamper with the Oathpact and some additional measures that Nale claimed "_we_ took". "We" being Ishar and likely some of the other Heralds in addition to himself. As an aside, I believe that the "measures" were what allowed Taln to hold out for as long as he did (and may have caused/enhanced the insanity of the 9 defectors in the process) - because great hero or not, I don't think that his out-of-the ballpark endurance makes sense otherwise.

I think we should be careful of assuming spren all behave the same way because they are from one group. The way I see it each spren type has some characteristics, and tend to have similar views, but thats not a rule, as at the end of the day they are individuals with their own ideas. Syl was obviously a rebel, Timbre was also obviously unique in her decision to bond parsh instead of humans and even spren of her species were decided not to bond anyone. Spark is probably not the norm for Dustbringer spren in been a traitor, and I bet there is a highspren that could disagree with Nale's belief and go its own way.

On how Szeth knew he could swear the Third Oath, maybe it was a bit of arrogance. Szeth tends not to undersell, or oversell himself, he knew he was amazing with the Surges, and he knew he had followed the law to perfection for 7+ years. What more could a highspren want? I'm still not convinced the spren he has bonded isn't his original spren though.

P.s. I can totally imagine a scene either on book 4 or on the intervening year where Szeth is begging Nightblood not to be jaleous of his bond with the spren, and promising that using his normal Shardblade does not mean Szeth doesn't value and appreciate Nightblood .

[Subvisual Haze]

I want to say Brandon has hinted at that it would be possible under specific circumstances for a Radiant to bond multiple spren.  Szeth certainly meets a lot of theoretical qualifiers for special circumstances.  His original spren bond was probably frayed almost to extinction, then he himself was "mostly dead", doing weird things with his body and soul when he was revived.

Could his original spren still be loosely bonded to him, but on life support?  Does the especially cracked nature of his soul and previous experience with training with all surges somehow allow him to advance up the Skybreaker oaths without specifically having bonded a Highspren?  Do Nale's powers as patron of Skybreakers have anything to do with it?  Does Nightblood somehow meet the qualifier as a weird Highspren, since Szeth definitely has a bond with Nightblood and Nightblood has a connection with the smoke element and is practically the Division surge incarnate.

I do think Szeth's original bonded spren is still around though and slowly recovering its bond with him.  What weird combination of powers is allowing him to advance up Skybreaker oaths is a completely open question though in my opinion.  Maybe he has just bonded a new highspren, but there are a lot of other strange possibilities that could be at play.