Daishi5

With Kaladin as our example of the path to KR.  I think that if Renarin stays on the good guy side, he is going to do so through strength of character and personal growth, not from getting magical items that "fix" his problems.

I worry about Renarin.  The Way of Kings has this idea of strength before weakness, defending those who can't defend themselves, and everyone will be weak at some point in their lives.  Renarin is a character who is weak at this time, and the ideals and the Way of Kings make it pretty clear they should be defending him and respecting him, while Vorin society in general really holds no respect for him because he can't fight.  

 

I can see him going one of two ways, either he goes evil because of the failings of Vorin society.  Or, he gets at least one moment of awesome where he, the normally weak character, defends a character who used to be strong and he gets to be an example of why the Way of Kings is the right way and Vorin society is the wrong way.

 

There is also the additional problem that is basically, we haven't been inside his head yet.  From the times in Dalinar and Adolin's heads it seems pretty clear to me that they are headed straight in the right direction.  Brandon could be hiding the clues that Renarin isn't on the right path by just not giving us his POV. 

Yes there are some cultural variances and gray areas, but Shardic intent and common sense seems like it should have an effect in this world.  By your argument, you could make the case that Odium's behavior is honorable.  So Odium is the same as Honor and we need another intent for the now intentless Shard once known as Honor. 

The general alethi concept of honor has been corrupted, which we can easily tell.  The Parshendi may be operating under some other corrupted meaning of honor, but the OP seems to be referring to an absolute meaning of honor when he claims they have been completely honorable. 

Syl's consciousness does not seem to have been changed by the corruption in the Alethi concept of honor, so I would argue that from the Shardic point of view, your argument is, at best, partially true. 

 

At first, I didn't want to get in to an argument about whose version of honor is more honorable because we can't really reach a conclusion, but I had a thought.

 

Maybe, with Honor dead and splintered, the Parshendi have lost the real guidance of honor but are still trying to follow something that seems like honorable actions to them.  

What if the Humans are the bad guys and we can't see it because we are viewing it from their viewpoint, maybe the story we are seeing is the corruption of Odium's people.  (This idea has so many problems, but it makes me think.)

 

Right now the humans have scoured the aimians(sp?), and are currently working on wiping out the Parshendi.  If the Aimians(sp?) and the Parshendi are the creatures of Cultivation and Honor, then what we might be seeing is the final battles of Odiums troops to wipe out the last of the people of Honor and Cultivation.  Perhaps the Almighty is Odium, that would answer the question of why everyone seems to think their is only one almighty.  

 

Of course, the whole history of honorable KR, and the heralds with honorblades doesn't sound at all like the works of Odium, so most of this idea is going to be wrong.  I just wonder if there might be some kernels of truth in it, but I don't know which ones.

One thing has been really bugging me about the Parshendi/voidbringers connection.  The Parshendi seem to have been honorable and upstanding in everything we see of them.  I can't really post this in the Stormlight section since it contains information from the WoR readings.  (At least I think I am supposed to avoid posting WoR stuff down there.)

 

• When they sent Szeth, they required him to wear white so that his target would see him coming.
• They entered into the peace treaty in good faith, only sending Szeth when they learned of new information.
• They publicly owned up to their own assassination. 
• When they fight on the plains, they only start bringing two armies to the fight after the Alethi start bringing two armies.  I have seen suggestions that they did this because they didn't want to provoke the Alethi in to combining forces, but it seems to me that they have been fighting fair fights.
• Kaladins observations of their combat techniques and how they avoid targeting weak and injured Alethi.

Compared to the humans, the Parshendi just don't seem to be tools of Odium at all.  

 

On top of that, spren are mostly Honor, Cultivation, or a mixture of the two.  Apparently there may also be Adonalsium spren (I haven't seen the source for this.)  The Parshendi forms are based on Spren, and one of the forms is a mating form.  

 

So, we have a race that seems to be consistently honorable in their behavior with a lifecycle that is dependent on spren that come from either Honor or Cultivation (or maybe Adonalsium).  

 

My big question is, where did the Parshendi come from, and how are they related to the voidbringers?  Did Honor and Cultivation make them, and then Odium corrupts them?  Maybe voidbringers are not related to Odium at all, maybe that is a mistake that built up through history?  Are the Parshendi the natural forms, and maybe Odium stripped the spren to leave the Parshmen to be taken over?

 

Personally, I think Jasnah is wrong.  Mostly based on the behavior of the Parshendi in the WoK, and a feeling that if the Parsh are the voidbringers it seems too similar to the Kandra in Mistborn.  

If this were the case, I'd be surprised. Not because it's implausible, but because it's a boring answer to an interesting question, and Brandon is not one to take the fun away from a good question like that.

 

It isn't clear to me who you were answering with this, were you replying to my post, or someone else's?

I don't think we should rule out the idea that the black sphere has something to do with the Parshendi's fears.  If Gavilar got the Black Sphere of Doom as a result of what he did, then the mere fact that he had it would mean that Szeth had failed to stop him.  The Parshendi may not have mentioned anything about the Black Sphere, because any instructions at that point would have been futile any way.  

Something just occurred to me. The way Darkness' companion phrased "this creature carries my lord's blade," it could be interpreted in a way that suggests that Darkness is his Lord and whoever or whatever they are taking about carries blade. Think about it. It becomes obvious if you use "m'lord" instead of "my lord."

I have a crazy theory that Szeth is being forced to carry an honorblade, so that he will suffer like the herald in the prologue of WoK. The idea behind it was that he was being forced to be an assassin so that his suffering would be a just punishment for all of the killings he committed.  To me it seemed like a perversion of justice, to decide that someone must be punished and then force him to commit the crimes that justify the punishment.  The biggest issue with my (crazy) theory is that Darkness already seems to be a herald who has a twisted view on justice running around punishing people, and I would expect there to be only one herald running around doing the "perverted justice" crazyness.  

 

If he is referring to Szeth carrying Darkness's blade, that would leave me with only one herald doing crazy backwards forms of justice.  (Of course my theory still resides mostly in crazyland.)

I believe that Dalinar described Elhokar as dazed. Elhokar may have been staring at a sea of glass beads thinking he was going nuts, but he didn't appear to be aware of what was going on in the real world at the time Dalinar may have glowed, or perhaps reflected the light in such a way as that he appeared to glow.

In my latest reread, I noticed that Szeth specifically said he couldn't wear shardplate because his lashings would interfere with the gemstones in the plate, that combined with the broken gemstones in Elhokar's plate led me to go over the chasmfiend scene several times.  I am trying to see if there is anything that might have been Elhokar surgebinding in some form, but I am not seeing it.  

 

Maybe he did try something on the chasmfiend and it just plain failed.  

I get the feeling that the Parshendi are creatures of Honor, especially with how they fight at the Tower.  The humans on Roshar feel a lot more like Odium's creatures than the Parshendi.  

 

With the thrill and the general behavior of humans on Roshar, I wonder if Odium brought the humans, and Honor "corrupted" them to his side.  Maybe the codes were his way of trying to keep humans from sliding back into their normal horrible behavior.

 

Edit: removed any spoilers, I don't think they were necessary for my point.  

Just click "Edit" and then the "Use Full Editor" button on the OP, then you should be able to edit the title. Happens to the best of us.

Thank you.

One thing I noticed was that the voidbringers were described as being of fire and flame, and Kaladin was described as if the stormlight was smoke and fire during the tower fight.

"A more subdued glow began to steam off his body.  Radiant, like smoke from an ethereal fire."

"White Stormlight streamed from him like a blazing fire"

 I think the Parsh are a red herring, and the real voidbringers will actually be glowing with stormlight and actually look like fire and smoke.  

I think the theory has merit, but it also has a couple of flaws. The most obvious one is one you didn't pick up on.

 

If Szeth is replacing a Herald, and considering his power set, we can assume the Herald he'd be replacing is Jezrien. If this is so, why do the stone shamans need to recover the Blade? When a Herald dies, the Blade goes with him.

 

I believe that either Ishar (Pious/Guiding) or Chach (Brave/Obedient) is a very well respected and revered stone shaman. I'm leaning more towards Ishar on this. Someone like this, especially if corrupted could go along way towards explaining what little we know of the Shin and there behavior.

 

I don't think he is replacing him, I think the herald is more sacrificing them in his place.  I also found something in the Kaladin chapters slightly like this: "some kind of supernatural curse of the type that were supposed to happen to people who sought the Old Magic.  There were stories of evil men made immortal, then tortured over and over again - like Extes, who had his arms torn off each day"

 

Edit: I can't believe I have a typo in the title, is there any way to fix my mistake?

I am a new poster here, but I have been lurking for a while.

 

I had a slightly complicated, but mostly baseless theory, about Szeth, his blade, a herald, and the oathpact that I put together after reading a lot of stuff here and my latest re-read.  

 

I liked the theory about Szeth having an honorblade, and one quote stood out to me as I read WoK again: "Though his murders and sins would damnation him ... He would continue to exist. Punished, in agony, but not exiled to nothingness."

 

This gave me an idea that I wanted to present. 

 

First, here are the things that are kind of prerequisites to my idea:

1. The place of torture that the Heralds go to after they die, going there has to also provide some form of benefit (or at least the heralds need to believe that it provides a benefit).  The prologue seems to make it clear that they feel ashamed of not going back, so I think this is pretty safe.
2. Taking up an Honor blade is somehow related to going to the place of torture. The heralds need to leave their blades when they decide not to go back, so this also seems likely, but not nearly as strong as #1.
3. Others need to be able to pick up and be bound through an honor blade, and I think we might have a word of Brandon on that somewhere, but I am horrible at searching those interviews.

Here is my theory, a herald is living with the Shin, and is binding people through the honor blade to go through the torture. However, the herald still has a twisted concept of the ideas of justice and honor, and cannot just condemn Szeth to the everlasting torture for what he had already done. Szeth's punishment is not just to be bound to the honor blade, but to first be forced to commit so many horrible crimes that it could be considered justice to send him to (almost) everlasting torment.  This has some parallels to Hoid's story, Szeth may be ordered to commit the crimes, but he is still responsible for carrying out those orders.

 

To me at least, this idea covers a few things:

1. Szeth believes (correctly) that he will continue to exist, but will be tortured.
2. The stone shamans need to recover the blade, so that other people are not condemned, as Szeth is, without "deserving" it.
3. As long as the herald is with the Shin, it helps explain how he is so knowledgeable about surgebinding and fighting, things that a high ranking Shin probably should not know how to do.
4. Szeth's blade is different and unique, and more importantly how he knows this.  
5. It could be yet another herald who is twisted against his old ideals.

There are a few problems with the idea.  

 

1. Not much evidence.
2. What Szeth thinks may not be true.
3. The interludes show us someone we think is a herald dispensing a twisted form of justice already.  I wouldn't expect two heralds to both be consumed by a twisted and sick concept of justice.

Some things I just think would be interesting:

 

1. This would allow Kaladin to kill Szeth before his flashback book, but still have an obvious chekov's gun to bring Szeth back as a character.
2. It would present Kaladin with the ability to pick up not just a shardblade, but possibly the Honorblade of his new order.  (Or perhaps pass it on to Dalinar).

Edit: I screwed up and posted this halfway through.