The Heavenly Ones Aren't Honorable

[ConfusedCow]

         I've seen a lot of discussion about the honorable tactics of the 'heavenly ones'.  I disagree that Leshwi and her fellow flying fused are being honorable. 

          These duels favor fused.  Consider the pros and cons of two types of engagement general combat vs duels.   General combat favors the side with superior numbers, superior speed, superior stormlight, and superior weapons.  In contrast, duels favor the side with superior experience, individual skill, and endurance.  General combat would be fast and chaotic, the advantage of a shard blade that could cut a fused in half, or superior speed, or the greater access to stormlight.  Individual skill would shine in the prolonged duels.  Moreover, losing a duel is not really a problem for the Fused.  They die then come back.   A general combat might allow a large number of radiants to surround a small group of fused.  They could then attempt to capture them, perhaps by bludgeoning them briefly unconscious and then draining their voidlight.   This could remove them permanently.

        All of this is to say that I think the dueling favors the Fused not the windrunners.  I think the Fused are exploiting the windrunners sense of honor to achieve more favorable conditions and that the windrunners if they had any sense would change their tactics and 'carry the bridge together'.   

        What about Leshwi?  I don't think she's particularly honorable either.  I think she recognizes that killing Kaladin is the real prize here, but that she can't do it in the air.  She could be drawing him into a trap or just learning about him, what matters to him... who matters to him.

[Aminar]

Any form of combat favors the fused. Their numbers are essentially static while Radiants have to be retrained. This form favors them less sometimes and more others. I don't think it's honorable persay. I think it's competitive in the same way that The Thrill is about the contest. But they aren't doing it because its advantageous. 

[Master Silver]

I disagree, with there being no consequences for the fused dying. The fused sooner or later, go insane from being reborn time after time after time. These duels, must have been something that Leshwi designed to preserve her order/friends. As you said, in many ways, this sort of combat favors the Fused. making it less likely that they will die. Although as certain radiants win, their skill and experience increase+ they will progress in oaths meaning that in some cases these duels will start to skew heavily in some Radiants favor (like Kaladin, Drehi, and Scar).Finally, another way that honor works to benefit the Fused, is by not committing atrocities and dueling humans with powers, they have something to cling to even if they do die and are reborn. This type of fighting makes it more likely that they keep their souls and sanity intact. Thus, not a trap and based on pragmatism as much as honor. 

[Karger he/him]

I think it generally favors both sides minimizing casualties.  This causes combats to be drawn out with the deaths only happening one at a time.  In purely military terms as Kaladin noted.  Killing each other does not do much.  We have seen no indication that crazy fursed are incapable fighters and training new Windrunners does not take that long.  It also insures that the most skilled fighters last longer indicating that the fighting in the air will be done by professional soldiers.  A fun thought experiment is to wonder what happens when out of the blue this practice is initiated from an evolutionary perspective.  Less dedicated fused and Windrunners tend to die more often thus reducing the number of casual members.  The same is true for the fused.  This protects civilian populations on both sides during the war something the fused do probably care about for both practical and personal reasons.  The same is true for the Windrunners.  Even in warfare things are not always zero sum.

[Gilphon]

It occurs to me that the Fused probably aren't used to death being as consequence-free as it is for them at the moment. Like normally they'd get sent back to Braize until the next Desolation every time they die, which might be centuries away. This time it just means they have to take a week off to recover. 

But in previous desolations, a single Fused would've been less expendable than a single Radiant, since a Radiant Spren could go forge a new bond within the same desolation. 

With that in mind, it's worth questioning whether or not this is how the Heavenly Ones acted in previous desolations, or if it's a response to the newly lowered stakes (from their perspective). I'm inclined to think that they've always acted like this, because it's hard for me to imagine beings that have lived for thousands of years completely changing their favoured tactics that quickly. Despite the fact that fighting fair would've put them at a disadvantage in the long run. 

[Aminar]

13 minutes ago, Gilphon said:

It occurs to me that the Fused probably aren't used to death being as consequence-free as it is for them at the moment. Like normally they'd get sent back to Braize until the next Desolation every time they die, which might be centuries away. This time it just means they have to take a week off to recover. 

But in previous desolations, a single Fused would've been less expendable than a single Radiant, since a Radiant Spren could go forge a new bond within the same desolation. 

With that in mind, it's worth questioning whether or not this is how the Heavenly Ones acted in previous desolations, or if it's a response to the newly lowered stakes (from their perspective). I'm inclined to think that they've always acted like this, because it's hard for me to imagine beings that have lived for thousands of years completely changing their favoured tactics that quickly. Despite the fact that fighting fair would've put them at a disadvantage in the long run. 

It's worth noting that while they're ancient, they are also sort of insane. And likely far moreso than they were 4 and a half millenia before. That can adjust their pattern of behavior significantly. After all, they haven't been warring for a long long time. They may very well be rusty or have lost memories of what they once did. Assuming they can grow and change and learn. If they can't then this is how they've always acted. But it seems likely they can. 

[ftl]

I think I agree with the OP -  but not because I think the fused dueling is necessarily a trick or tactically advantageous for them. I just don't think that "dueling" instead of "fighting" is necessarily more honorable.

This is a war, not a game. The Fused are still trying to kill radiants and win this war. They seem to prefer fighting 1v1, and because at the moment the radiants believe that's tactically advantageous for them, they accept.  But that only is more "honorable" if you accept the terms that the goal here is to have a fair contest of skill, instead of a fight for survival. 

It could be honorable if they really were just duels. No war, fused and radiants get to challenge each other for stakes of their choosing. Sure, then it would be "honorable" to have a fair 1v1 fight and "dishonorable" to do otherwise. But as it stands right now, here's nothing "honorable" about an immortal reincarnating fused having duels to the death with very mortal radiants, with the threat of destroying everyone the radiants know and love if they don't accept those terms. 

[Ansalem]

11 hours ago, ftl said:

... with the threat of destroying everyone the radiants know and love if they don't accept those terms. 

To be fair, that threat is the same regardless. But I agree with your assessment. War is inherently honorless. Not always necessarily dishonorable, but there's no honor to be gained through war. Especially not when the goal of one or both sides is genocide as is the case here.

For my part, I think the Fused take this dueling tactic for the simple reason that they enjoy it. It's not more or less honorable either way, and the stakes are roughly the same either way, so neither reason makes sense to me. If it's not for honor and it's not for strategy then what's left? They do it because they like it better.

[Innovation]

It should be noted that the Heavenly Ones in Oathbringer did not use such tactics. They teamed up against strong opponents or fought solo against multiple weaker opponents. These duels seem like a trick of some kind, intended to make the Windrunners believe that the Fused are somewhat predictable/honorable in their dueling-focused way of combat. Then, the Heavenly Ones spring a trap and team up against a large group of Windrunners, surrounding and killing the confused Windrunners. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Innovation

[Kuram]

I agree that it's either a trick or a result of their particular brand of insanity.

[RazeU]

I think this viewpoint, if true, would make me feel completely and utterly betrayed lol. Also an extremely effective narrative for the storyline. The betrayal Kaladin would feel from Leshwi whom he has respect for.

[NoctemSanguis he/him]

On 8/16/2020 at 2:01 PM, Innovation said:

It should be noted that the Heavenly Ones in Oathbringer did not use such tactics. They teamed up against strong opponents or fought solo against multiple weaker opponents. These duels seem like a trick of some kind, intended to make the Windrunners believe that the Fused are somewhat predictable/honorable in their dueling-focused way of combat. Then, the Heavenly Ones spring a trap and team up against a large group of Windrunners, surrounding and killing the confused Windrunners. 

Although I can not disagree with you in regards to this, I can offer two alternative theories. The first is that this is a tradition specifically related to the Windrunners, and they did not expect to encounter Windrunners during the fights in Kholinar, and were engaged before they could realize that their opponents were Windrunners and thus unable to innate a dual as such. The second is that they did not use this tactic in Oathbringer because they were attacked by multiple people at once at the beginning of the fight, thus invalidating the dual.

[Robot]

The Heavenly ones show the same honor in the battlefield as the parshendi did in WoK. The fused also put themselves at a disadvantage in 1v1 fights, since Radiants in general have insane burst power but less staying power than the fused, while also having a sharblade and later plate.

[Master Silver]

The Radiants only have less staying power than the fused, until they get their armor. Right now the fused are able to use the weapons they have crafted to fight Radiants that don't have plate. Once radiants start to get plate they will be much harder to kill. I'm not even sure how effective a shard blade would be, because living plate is likely much more durable. So, a 4th ideal Windrunner, would close the gap with stormlight efficiency, be much harder to kill, and perhaps manifest new powers. Meaning the Heavenly Ones would want to limit fighting them. So perhaps just don't challenge masters to duels. 

[Robot]

I assume that's what thunderclasts are for, since even Kalak says he's been killed by them

[Master Silver]

2 hours ago, Robot said:

I assume that's what thunderclasts are for, since even Kalak says he's been killed by them

Yeah, can't heal very well from being crushed. I do think that Nale being a Herald and having Shard plate, makes him the most tanky individual on Roshar except maybe Hoid. Besides Thunderclasts can't fly. As long as the Windrunners don't have to protect civilians then they would be fine just staying out of reach. 

[bo.montier]

It seems to me, from what we have so far, that the Heavenly Ones are the most similar in temperament to the Listeners. They have strict rules of engagement and escalation of force. Maybe they're better than individual radiants, maybe worse, but the rules aren't equal contest/equal risk. 

The rules seem to be
Engage in single combat unless threatened by multiple opponents
If an enemy is wounded to the point of removing them from the fight, allow them to live. If they're still fighting go for killing blows where possible
Engage enemies as close to your own skill level as possible. - Note, this does not mean not engaging if there are weaker opponents, it just means don't single out the weak ones first. Leshwi fighting Kaladin when he's available and then others when he is not is an example.

I think we're building up to a split among the Fused where some "Orders," namely the Heavenly Ones, decide to fight Odium, rather than fight FOR Odium.

[ConfusedCow]

        What exactly is honor (the concept)?  We have been dancing around this question both in this thread and in the books.  Brandon seems to suggest that it involves the making and keeping of oaths, but he also shows that there are multiple competing even conflicting, literally dueling, ideas of honor.  Brandon is right a sense of honor is culturally contextual, perhaps more so than any other idea.  What Brandon can't answer in a thousand pages, I can't answer in a thousand words.    I think I see the soul of it though. 

           At its heart honor is about letting, honesty, compassion, and courage guide our actions.  I don't think Leshwi or The Heavenly Ones are doing that.   Perhaps honor is a mortal thing.  Can you have compassion if the lives of others are but passing moments to you?  Can you have courage if you never die?

Edited August 22, 2020 by ConfusedCow

[NoctemSanguis he/him]

9 hours ago, ConfusedCow said:

        What exactly is honor (the concept)?  We have been dancing around this question both in this thread and in the books.  Brandon seems to suggest that it involves the making and keeping of oaths, but he also shows that there are multiple competing even conflicting, literally dueling, ideas of honor.  Brandon is right a sense of honor is culturally contextual, perhaps more so than any other idea.  What Brandon can't answer in a thousand pages, I can't answer in a thousand words.    I think I see the soul of it though. 

           At its heart honor is about letting, honesty, compassion, and courage guide our actions.  I don't think Leshwi or The Heavenly Ones are doing that.   Perhaps honor is a mortal thing.  Can you have compassion if the lives of others are but passing moments to you?  Can you have courage if you never die?

Honor is. . . difficult to define. Each culture will have its own definition, however broad that might be, but each person will in this culture will inevitably have their own variation of their culture's sense of honor, due to their own life experiences. This is even explored to an extent in both Words of Radiance and Oahtbringer, with the Skybreakers and the Windrunners, Szeth and the Skybreakers, Kaladin and his whole mess in WoR and Oathbringer, being just a few of the best examples.

For the Skybreakers (the modern ones at least), the Law is Honor and Honor is the Law. To them, the Law is all-important, although it appears that the Fifth Ideal does change this, and is also noted to be very rare for a Skybreaker to reach it, with Nale being the only current one. This has led them into conflict with the Windrunners, as the Windrunners believe Honor is doing what is right and keeping oaths.

Szeth, a walking ball of hatred and self-loathing, constantly followed by the voices of those who he has killed and a talking sword who only want to destroy evil, is not the best judge of what is right. And he realized this! Rather than insisting he knew what was best, he found someone who he could put his faith in, whose sense of honor was (in Szeth's view) was unquestionable; Dalinar. Unlike the Skybreakers (who release themselves from personal liability in exchange for holding themselves strictly to their code, the Law or one they chose, and giving up a measure of personal freedom), he did not use this as an escape from his guilt, did not give up all responsibility for his actions, instead keeping responsibility and giving control over his action to another.

I am not going to try to explain Kaladin's variety of moral and ethical dilemmas around honor, as that would require summarizing most of his arcs between WoR and Oathbringer, something I have not the time, patience, or knowledge to do. If you want to know, just go re-read the books.

To get back to the Heavenly Ones, one thing the seems to have been mostly forgotten in this conversation is that the Fused are all less than completely sane, and this perhaps could just be one sort of coping mechanism. Yes, they have lost their mortality, but they are hanging on to their morality, as a way to remind themselves that they were once mortal and that death is final for those they kill. Maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but it is one thing that came to mind.

[Xerun]

So something I just thought of; in Oathbringer our introduction to Leshwi is her attacking Moash along with two others. Which doesn’t really seem honorable in the slightest. So do you think that’s evidence against it, or that it’s something that has developed in the last year or just that Brandon hadnt considered it at that point. 

[Karger he/him]

35 minutes ago, Xerun said:

So something I just thought of; in Oathbringer our introduction to Leshwi is her attacking Moash along with two others. Which doesn’t really seem honorable in the slightest. So do you think that’s evidence against it, or that it’s something that has developed in the last year or just that Brandon hadnt considered it at that point. 

Neither.  Kaladin states that they don't do one on one combat on the ground and additionally Moash had Graves with him.  Finally no duel was offered or excepted by either party and ambushes have different rules then open combat anyway.

[Xerun]

19 hours ago, Karger said:

Neither.  Kaladin states that they don't do one on one combat on the ground and additionally Moash had Graves with him.  Finally no duel was offered or excepted by either party and ambushes have different rules then open combat anyway.

The very idea of an ambush would tend to go against the honor system though? They were just traveling and were attacked out of nowhere. From Leshwi’s point of view Moash and Graves were essentially innocents which is exactly what she seems so put off by in the recently released chapter. 

[Karger he/him]

59 minutes ago, Xerun said:

The very idea of an ambush would tend to go against the honor system though?

Whose Honor system?  Plenty of cultures have different rules deciding what constitutes honorable combat under different circumstances.  Ambush is not of itself dishonorable depending on who you ask.  Particularly when attacking force superior in numbers or equipment(I would say that having shards qualifies).

1 hour ago, Xerun said:

They were just traveling and were attacked out of nowhere. From Leshwi’s point of view Moash and Graves were essentially innocents which is exactly what she seems so put off by in the recently released chapter. 

  Both were technically members of the Alethi military.  We don't know how Leshwi located them but the fact they were attacked indicates pretty strongly she had some idea who they were.  Attacking people at random would be a waste of their time.

[I Am A Fish he/him]

48 minutes ago, Xerun said:

The very idea of an ambush would tend to go against the honor system though? They were just traveling and were attacked out of nowhere. From Leshwi’s point of view Moash and Graves were essentially innocents which is exactly what she seems so put off by in the recently released chapter. 

I'd like to think that Leshwi, and some of the other fused/singers are having character arcs. They are realizing, just like our protagonists, that there is more to this war than black and white, and just like the windrunners are trying to cope with that. I find it interesting that the windrunners and heavenly ones, two orders parallel to each other have similar ideals.

 

[LordTheodore]

On 8/23/2020 at 3:27 AM, Xerun said:

So something I just thought of; in Oathbringer our introduction to Leshwi is her attacking Moash along with two others. Which doesn’t really seem honorable in the slightest. So do you think that’s evidence against it, or that it’s something that has developed in the last year or just that Brandon hadnt considered it at that point. 

 So to be clear Leshwi and 3 other Fused attack a party of 4 humans including two Shardbearers Moash and Graves. They don't ambush them. They fly towards them and attack them. The fact that no one in Graves group is on the lookout for Flying voidbringers isn't the fault of the Fused. Moash only notices them because he happened to glance upwards just before they attacked giving him chance to dodge. An ambush is where one force hides so that the enemy force doesn't notice them and then proceeds to attack when the enemy force has checked the surrounding area and failed to locate the ambushing force. This results in the ambushing force gaining the advantage of surprise. An ambush is not where one force attacks another force and the attacked force is taken by surprise because they didn't have lookouts.

During the Attack the Fused do in fact follow their one on one dueling philosophy. Each Fused attacks an individual member of the group and none of them interfere in each others fights. The only member of the group who dodges the initial attack by their respective Fused is Moash. Moash proceeds to duel Leshwi one on one whilst the other 3 Fused inspect the wagon and look through stuff. The other 3 Fused don't interfere in the duel between Leshwi and Moash at all except by indirectly helping Moash by giving him easy access to a spear.

After Moash kills Leshwi the Fused even offer him a choice of surrendering or fighting to the death and when he chooses surrender they honor that agreement and take him prisoner.

19 hours ago, Karger said:

  Both were technically members of the Alethi military.  We don't know how Leshwi located them but the fact they were attacked indicates pretty strongly she had some idea who they were.  Attacking people at random would be a waste of their time.

In the chapter in question Moash recalls that they used their shardblades to scare off any singers who approached them. It is plausible that one or multiple singers notified a fused or voidspren, of Moash and Graves group, who in turn communicated this to the Heavenly Ones who were then sent out to find and kill them. In addition Moash is armed with a long knife/short sword. Moreover it is possible that the Fused could see the dead-eye spren, in the cognitive realm, that are accompanying Graves and Moash.

Edited August 24, 2020 by LordTheodore
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