Szeth's Oathstone

[Kenshu Ani]

He has to obey whoever holds his stone, and obedience is a kind of honor, but assassination is not honorable.

The problem here is that honorable acts can be different depending on one's cultural influence. Example: In feudal Japan, an act that brings honor to someone that has previously brought shame on to himself is to commit sepaku, suicide. However, suicide for Catholics is considered a mortal sin. One act, two different reactions.

If we assume that keeping one's word is the most honorable action for a Shin, then following his master's instructions for assassinating people would be honorable; especially since he does not want to kill.

[dj26792]

I both disagree with Kenshu and yet agree with the point he is making. Honour as a concept is almost universal societies that have a honour concept all say that honour is the same thing they just have other influences on their behaviour. Honour is about obedience to the highest authority and then your more immediate superiors it is about justice and trustworthiness and many other things the reason a samurai would commit suicide is that their society said honour is more important than life, for a catholic honour is second to Gods law which states that according to their interpretation suicide is self murder and thus a mortal sin. On Roshar honour is everything, more important than life, but Szeth has sworn he he will not suicide he will obey etc, I think its just a rock, thats part of his punishment all he has to do is give up his honour and he can be free, but honour is life. Thats my interpretation anyway.

[Ari]

I'm going to be an chull and say that the answer could potentially be "both". The stone is, or at least was most likely an ordinary stone that is simply a symbol for his debasement and the fact that he must be owned by foreigners too ignorant to not know the shame of picking up the oathstone. However, I have a suspicion that the way oaths work in the Stormlight Archive mean that Szeth's treatment of the stone may have created some sort of magic bond with it- I doubt the bond coerces Szeth in any way to follow the commands of his "masters"- rather, Szeth's honouring of his social obligations by treating the stone as if it does mean those things may have allowed him access to some powerful magic.

As to killing people being dishonourable: It depends what you mean by honour- in the modern use of the word, killing people isn't even arguably honourable. But in terms of fulfilling obligations, keeping promises, performing acts in accordance with social expectations of you, (which is how the word seems to be used in Way of Kings, more along the lines of "honourbound" than in terms of glory or moral conduct) Szeth is acting highly honourably, even if also totally amorally. In a way, this makes his honourable conduct more impressive: he values the seriousness of his word and his obligations above even his own morality. If, as I suspect, these things have large magical import due to their associations with the shard Honour, then that would explain a lot of the things Szeth can do.

[LightReader]

This isn't my own idea, I think I've seen it tossed around on other threads, but I haven't noticed anyone mention it here. What if Szeth's stone is just a stone, but has a spren trapped inside it like a fabrial gemstone? Then Szeth's oaths as truthless could be binding him to the stone's spren to create a sort of simulated Nahel bond, giving him his windrunner abilities.

[Vortaan]

This is the best that we have on dissent about which spren are honorspren.

Note that the spren are not the ones disagreeing. I hope this helps

So here's an interesting question... how are spren arguing? Syl says that all spren are, essentially, the same individual. Are they all crazy?

Also, I like the idea of Szeth's stone being a fabrial. That sort of indicates though that you'd be able to take his abilities away by destroying the stone.

[Mistborndragon]

I recently came to the conclusion that Szeth's oathstone is not just a rock. It works similarly to a soulcaster, which we know from Navani's Notebook, works by trapping truthspren inside of it- that gives the user the power to soulcast without having a personal bond with a truthspren like Shallan does. I think an honorspren is encased inside of Szeth's oathstone- that would give him the ability to surgebind for he would have an indirect bond with said honorspren- so Szeth would lose his powers if he disobeyed his masters, but he does have a choice he can break the bond. It is like when Syl offered Kaladin the choice to end their bond but he would lose surgebinding, and she would lose her memory.

Please tell me what you think of this theory.

[Vortaan]

I recently came to the conclusion that Szeth's oathstone is not just a rock. It works similarly to a soulcaster, which we know from Navani's Notebook, works by trapping truthspren inside of it- that gives the user the power to soulcast without having a personal bond with a truthspren like Shallan does. I think an honorspren is encased inside of Szeth's oathstone- that would give him the ability to surgebind for he would have an indirect bond with said honorspren- so Szeth would lose his powers if he disobeyed his masters, but he does have a choice he can break the bond. It is like when Syl offered Kaladin the choice to end their bond but he would lose surgebinding, and she would lose her memory.

Please tell me what you think of this theory.

I can't recall anywhere where Navani says that a soulcaster has truthspren inside of it. As far as I know, they don't know how to recreate Soulcasters. Fix them, yes, but not recreate them, which might be because they don't know about truth and honor spren. That said, it's as good a theory as any, although Szeth's oathstone doesn't appear to be a gemstone. So that would mean you can make fabrials out of normal rocks, which I kind of doubt.

[Arcanist]

Hi!

In my opinion, the Oathstone is just a stone, only the word and honor of Szeth binds him. I prefer the theory about losing the Surgebinding-abilities so that the honor (or Honor ) is required for his magic to work.

Something different:

In TWoK page 29 Szeth is thinking about Shardplates:

Szeth didn't own a set of Plate himself, and didn't care to. His Lashings interfered with the gemstones that powered Shardplate, and he had to choose one or the other.

My question is: if it's truth, why can be Surgebinding (Lashings) the magic of the Knight Radiants (in this case of the Windrunners)? Their plates should have interfered with their magic....

[ReaderAt2046]

Hi!

In my opinion, the Oathstone is just a stone, only the word and honor of Szeth binds him. I prefer the theory about losing the Surgebinding-abilities so that the honor (or Honor ) is required for his magic to work.

Something different:

In TWoK page 29 Szeth is thinking about Shardplates:

My question is: if it's truth, why can be Surgebinding (Lashings) the magic of the Knight Radiants (in this case of the Windrunners)? Their plates should have interfered with their magic....

The reason Szeth can't use Plate is that he'd drain the gemstones that powered it when infusing himself. There are a couple of theories on how the Radiants got around that, including the idea that Radiant Plate didn't need gems, and the idea that Radiants could somehow leave out their stones.

[Cheese Ninja]

The Oathstone is my second guess for the source of his powers, my first guess is his Shardblade. I think the Oathstone is at least slightly magical. There's a scene early on in the book where he mentions that the Parshendi just tossed it into a ditch as they were fleeing Kholinar. Szeth either had to have seen them throw it away, or has some sort of connection to the Oathstone that allows him find when it is unclaimed.

Had the Parshendi known what they were consigning him to by tossing his Oathstone away as they fled Kholinar that night? Szeth had been required to recover it, then stand there beside the road, wondering if he would be discovered and executed—hoping he’d be discovered and executed—until a passing merchant had cared enough to inquire. By then, Szeth had stood only in a loincloth. His honor had forced him to discard the white clothing, as it would have made him easier to recognize. He had to preserve himself so that he could suffer.

It does not appear to confer absolute obedience, he can go against what the bearer of the Oathstone says. At one point near the end of the book he considers killing Taravangian even after being given orders not to harm him. If it is magical, there might be repercussions for doing that.

Or I could kill him, Szeth thought. I could stop this.

He nearly did it. But honor prevailed, for the moment.

[ReaderAt2046]

The Oathstone is my second guess for the source of his powers, my first guess is his Shardblade. I think the Oathstone is at least slightly magical. There's a scene early on in the book where he mentions that the Parshendi just tossed it into a ditch as they were fleeing Kholinar. Szeth either had to have seen them throw it away, or has some sort of connection to the Oathstone that allows him find when it is unclaimed.

Yes, very probably true. On the other hand, how does this fit with Interlude 2 and Section 5, when he's in the same room with the stone and doesn't know it? And in Interlude 2, the stone actually does change hands without him knowing.

Also, it makes perfect sense that he would report back to the holder of his stone for further orders, and be on hand to see it discarded.

It does not appear to confer absolute obedience, he can go against what the bearer of the Oathstone says. At one point near the end of the book he considers killing Taravangian even after being given orders not to harm him. If it is magical, there might be repercussions for doing that.

I agree.

[marianmi]

The oathstone is not the source of Szeth's powers. Neither is some spren. It's Odium. Szeth is a voidbringer.

Make a parallel to Mistborn. You can use allomancy by being a misting with power X (here, a spren can bond with you to give you power X), or you can use hemalurgy, with the same power X, but by spiking an allomancer (here, by an unknown procedure).

The procedure might be: killing a spren -> either the rock or the sword may be involved; or maybe Szeth was a scholar and discovered something about voidbinding, and became a truthless after he was judged by the stone shamans.

Take your pick, there are not enough clues, and Brandon Sanderson can use any.

The idea is that the voidbringers are not some aliens, but are people with similar powers as surgebinders, but achieved in some other way, through Odium.

In this theory, the parshmen/parshendi are the natives of Roshar, so you can have both radiants and voidbringers which are parshendi.

If you look at the heralds, Nalan looks like a parshman to me. He's hooded, and stocky. Plus, the parshendi had a knife with a herald image, Kaladin thought was wither Jezrien or Nalan. I would say it's Nalan, their parshman herald

[PeterAhlstrom]

Not that it's exactly relevant to this discussion, or canonical, but you should read the new deleted scene I put up today.

[Kurkistan]

Not that it's exactly relevant to this discussion, or canonical, but you should read the new deleted scene I put up today.

I was about to go so OT that heads would spin, but just posted a new thread instead.

[marianmi]

To reiterate, is there any theory that Szeth is a voidbringer?

[Master_Moridin]

Szeth can't be a Voidbringer, cause he at one point makes reference to how he had heard Voidbringers were supposed to be able to hold in stormlight perfectly.

[dj26792]

Imperfect in-world knowledge is quite common in Brandons work he doesnt have to know he is a void bringer to be one, equally maybe that is true at higher levels like kalladin is a level 2 radiant maybe szeth is level 1 and at level 5 he can hold stormlight perfectly and his knowledge is incomplete rather than wrong.

That said I dont sure I think Szeth is a voidbringer but I couldnt really justify that and may change my mind at any point

[Glaring at the Survivor]

Has anybody read this?

It's about another Truthless of Shinovar, a Son-Son-Vallano. Meaning, in fact, that he is either cousin or brother to Szeth.

<a href="http://www.brandonsanderson.com/library/147/The-Way-of-Kings-Prime-Jeksonsonvallano">This is the link!</a>

It may cause a few less arguments, but I didn't read everything on this page.

Also I highly doubt Szeth is a Voidbringer. Aren't those the Parshendi?

Edited September 19, 2012 by Stroniax

[Voidus]

That's actually an early version of Szeth I believe.

[Observer]

That's just the name Brandon originally called Szeth.

When Szeth is in the 'hospital', it mentions that he could kill him, right there. Then it said honor prevailed over it, because what were a few more deaths? On several occasions he also warns himself against questioning his religion, lest he question his nature as truthless. That all says to me that the stone has no real power over him.

Edited September 19, 2012 by Observer

[Zenith]

Yeah, I always found the stone to just be a rock that is (for some reason) important to Szeth. Unless evidence in Book 2 or another book says otherwise, I don't think I have enough of a reason to think otherwise.

[Theorymaker]

I feel the stone is really important. Not only because the Shin find stone sacred, but also because they don't mine stones. And this stone has an ore vein in it which makes me think it was mined or something.

[Argent]

That's a detail that, if true, might be interesting. The only thing I know is that the Shin trade their warriors by exchanging stones - it might make sense for the stones of the Truthless to be special.

[Theorymaker]

I have an idea about all of this but don't know how to hide spoilers.

[Kurkistan]

Enclose the spoilers in a tag like this: <spoiler>SECRETS!</spoiler>.

Only with square brackets.