Most honorable characters I've seen. Szeth & Kaladin

[Shinwarrior]

Who would you consider more honorable between Kaladin and Szeth? I stick this comparison between these two because I feel that their actions are most purely honorable. Characters such as Dalinar have been involved in so much more that just honorable actions. (Ex: influenced by impluse, passion, growth, in addition to honor).

 

From what I see, Kaladin has been driven by his sense of honor to protect and serve those he loves, as well as those he doesn't. He's learned to protect his enemies is he know's that it's right. He personal journey seems to embody honor in the sense that it doesn't matter if it is something that he doesn't want to do, he get's up and does the honorable thing because according to his beliefs that is what he must do. 

Not sure if this will be a similarly held opinion, but I feel that Szeth's actions are as equally honor bound as Kaladin's. His beliefs and knowledge lead him down a violent path, but despite it being  more than he can bear he binds himself to what he believes to be true. 

From my perspective, the Radiant Journey helps both (and all) to grow in the areas that will help them act more honorable. (Which is probably why there is the belief that shard blades come from an alloy of both honor and cultivation's god metal). 

I've seen some suspicion that someone will pick up the pieces of honor and wield the shard again, and I feel that these two are the most purely honorable that I've seen. Kaladin is called the son of Tanavast, and Szeth..... well Michael Kramer uses the same voice for him as he does for Sazed so.... 

[mathiau he/him]

They're roughly equal. There's a reason the Highspren wanted Szeth to chose an easier 4th Ideal so she could give him his plate.

[Inquisitor #5]

I feel like honour isn't exactly quantifiable. They're differently honourable.

Though Szeth has, as far as we know, held to what he's understood to be his obligations flawlessly, while Kaladin hasn't.

Then again their situations also aren't the same, barring that the times when they were slaves had an overlap.

 

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[Shinwarrior]

2 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

 

Though Szeth has, as far as we know, held to what he's understood to be his obligations flawlessly, while Kaladin hasn't.

 

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The only lapse that I'm aware of is when Szeth attacks Kaladin in basically a suicide attempt. 

Edited September 7, 2021 by Shinwarrior

[ScadrianTank he/him]

Szeth actions are the best counter to Dalinar's view that breaking Oaths is always immoral. So out of these two, I'd choose Kaladin. 

[Inquisitor #5]

6 hours ago, Shinwarrior said:

The only lapse that I'm aware of is when Szeth attacks Kaladin in basically a suicide attempt. 

I assume this is about when they fight at the end of WoR?

In that scene Szeth comes to the conclusion that the reason he was made Truthless, and thus all the obligations that came with it, were false.

So to me that's not a lapse on his part, as he no longer has the obligation to act as a Truthless.

 

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[ElMonoEstupendo]

11 hours ago, Shinwarrior said:

The only lapse that I'm aware of is when Szeth attacks Kaladin in basically a suicide attempt. 

There's one huge lapse that struck me when I was re-reading WoR. Just after he's launched Dalinar into the air, Szeth turns to walk away. Adolin attacks him in a weakened state and gets easily slapped down.

Szeth grins and says something along the lines of: "I can kill one more on my own time." That's not part of his instructions, not part of self-preservation (Adolin was practically crippled). That's spiteful execution. At that point, he's lost it - straight-up bonkers. He spends the entire time tormented by the killing, then opts to willingly and unnecessarily increase that burden?

There's also a question about his own legal ability to renounce being Truthless. Clearly it's morally wrong that he was so-named, but he unilaterally decides his punishment was unfit and stops obeying it - that's not how the Law (or Oaths) work, unless perhaps you're a 5th Ideal Skybreaker. Prisoners can't just decide the judges are corrupt and leave. I'm surprised Nale didn't take extreme exception to this. Maybe the Shin system permits it...

Edited September 8, 2021 by ElMonoEstupendo

[Inquisitor #5]

2 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

There's also a question about his own legal ability to renounce being Truthless.

Well, by his saying "I was never Truthless" and the context he says it in, his status as Truthless seems to hinge on his having lied, or been untruthful.

He now has seen evidence of that what he claimed, that got him branded as Truthless, was in fact true, making him definitionally not Truthless.

His being Truthless is based on a false conviction and seems to be mostly self-enforced and heavily based in Shin culture and religion, he was convinced the Shin leaders were right and that he was wrong, but once he knew that he'd been wrongfully accused it all fell apart.

Being falsely convicted of a crime does not make you guilty of said crime.

Shin society also easily reads as an "honour" society, in which it might be hard apply modern legal thought.

2 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Prisoners can't just decide the judges are corrupt and leave.

To be fair, no-one seems to be enforcing his punishment.

He's also trapped in an unwinnable situation, he can either serve a punishment that he knows is wrongfully inflicted on him for the rest of his life or try to appeal to a system that's already condemned him and would probably punish him further as he'd need to violate his status as Truthless to even attempt an appeal (unless his master ordered him to or, possibly, gave him permission.)

He'd also be hit with even more cognitive dissonance than he already is if he kept to his Truthlessness in spite of it all, because then he'd know that he has a choice.

There's also the question if Truthless is a legal verdict or a social humiliation and ostracism kinda thing.

Or, given how much time is spent on explaning what being Truthless means for Szeth's soul, a religious thing.

If it's a religious rather than civil verdict, the morality of the conviction might actually be directly relevant to its legality, a bit like you might be suspicious of a Catholic excommunication if you find out that the Pope who issued it is a heretic.

Seen in a religious context both Szeth's deciding that the verdict doesn't apply and Nale's acceptance thereof makes sense.

If the verdict wasn't valid from the start Szeth isn't at fault, but he thought he was, and Nale praises him for holding to the mores and rules he was convinced were right, which makes it clear that Szeth's conduct is important here, as he doesn't blame Szeth for all the crimes other people had him commit, even though he should be guilty of them, having never been Truthless.

2 hours ago, ElMonoEstupendo said:

Szeth grins and says something along the lines of: "I can kill one more on my own time." That's not part of his instructions, not part of self-preservation (Adolin was practically crippled). That's straight-up spiteful execution. At that point, he's lost it - straight-up bonkers. He spends the entire time tormented by the killing, then opts to willingly and unnecessarily increase that burden?

Yeahhhh, Szeth is not in a good place mentally in... the Stormlight Archive, honestly. End of Words of Radiance he's really started to crack though.

I will say this for him, once he comes to terms with that he's not Truthless, doesn't need to keep fighting Kaladin, etc., he has a really good character moment, expressing agency and a will of his own in a brilliant climax for the character, chosing to stop fighting and let himself die.

 

Which Nale promptly ruins by ressurecting him, but Szeth also gets points there for calling Nale out on it.

 

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[mathiau he/him]

5 hours ago, ScadrianTank said:

Szeth actions are the best counter to Dalinar's view that breaking Oaths is always immoral. So out of these two, I'd choose Kaladin. 

Moral no, but honourable?

[ScadrianTank he/him]

3 hours ago, mathiau said:

Moral no, but honourable?

If we treat them separately, might as well replace honor with keeping promises.  Otherwise, the Highspren would be "Honorspren" and the real Honorspren would be the spren of morality.

[Shinwarrior]

4 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Well, by his saying "I was never Truthless" and the context he says it in, his status as Truthless seems to hinge on his having lied, or been untruthful.

If the verdict wasn't valid from the start Szeth isn't at fault, but he thought he was, and Nale praises him for holding to the mores and rules he was convinced were right, which makes it clear that Szeth's conduct is important here, as he doesn't blame Szeth for all the crimes other people had him commit, even though he should be guilty of them, having never been Truthless.

I viewed this as a lesser court, higher court type ruling. Where the shin have declared him truthless and he complies with the ruling. He has no parole officer, but sticks to the ruling with fierce adherence. When Kaladin swears his 3rd ideal and Szeth realizes that he's never been truthless. I see that almost as a ruling from a higher court, or someone with more authority who can say the previous ruling is invalid and there is a new code to live by. The fact that he was living the first code of conduct to a T until it was overturned does not impact his honor in my opinion.  

[LewsTherinTelescope]

2 hours ago, ScadrianTank said:

If we treat them separately, might as well replace honor with keeping promises.  Otherwise, the Highspren would be "Honorspren" and the real Honorspren would be the spren of morality.

Brandon's actually mentioned before that the "honorspren" title is a self-identification and there are valid arguments both sides have for which of the two kinds are truly closer to Honor.

Quote

Questioner

The question kind of rooted because, Wyndle in the short story is always saying that he’s a cultivationspren, he doesn’t like [...]. I kind of got the idea that each order had a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.

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.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

 

[apepi]

There is a quote from the Stormfather talking about how at the end, Honor cared more about oaths than the meaning behind it. I see this kind of like the Kaladin vs Szeth argument. Szeth really doesn't know what they are doing right now, from the life that we see him in a book we just see him just more have their choices made for them, being truthless or even following Dalinar(which I guess that was a choice), they really haven't had to make that much decisions. Like, he really never actually had a character change in a sense, because he is still following some code and not making his own decisions. I feel like he won't actually change until he swears the 5th ideal. But good news, his book is next I think?

But my point, is just following some code, isn't honorable in of itself but the action of using it to do action is. While he has done some honorable things, I don't think it has matched what Kaladin has done so far.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

11 hours ago, apepi said:

But my point, is just following some code, isn't honorable in of itself but the action of using it to do action is. While he has done some honorable things, I don't think it has matched what Kaladin has done so far.

Tbf, honorable is not always the same as Honorable (see: what you mention about Tanavast's actions once he was losing himself). I'd agree Kaladin's more honorable, but would argue Szeth was more Honorable with his code (though Kal's not exactly flexible either lol).

[Shinwarrior]

23 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

Tbf, honorable is not always the same as Honorable (see: what you mention about Tanavast's actions once he was losing himself). I'd agree Kaladin's more honorable, but would argue Szeth was more Honorable with his code (though Kal's not exactly flexible either lol).

We’ve seen that when a shards intent isn’t exactly shared by the vessel there begins to be some dissonance. Kaladin definitely has more noble/honorable actions than Szeth, I just think Szeth, better matches the intent of the shard. 

[CosmicSieve]

Szeth has a much narrower definition of honor, which makes it easier to adhere to. He doesn't let what's right interfere with keeping his word. Having to balance things would make it much more difficult.