Ether was born to a father who lived his whole life in captivity. However, his Grandfather was king. This means that Ether was of a noble line. Traditionally, in the book of Ether, sons who have fathers who used to be king, wage war in an attempt to restore their father to the throne. Ether was born with every reason to be angry and vengeful at his situation, yet, made a conscience decision to follow the Lord rather than the tradition of the land.
Shiz was a puzzle piece in setting up the destruction of the Jaredite people because he was such a polarizing leader. Either you were with Shiz, Coriantumr, or you were dead (or your name was Ether and you were hiding in a cave). The BOM institute manual says:
“The insane wars of the Jaredite chiefs ended in the complete annihilation of both sides, with the kings the last to go. The same thing had almost happened earlier in the days of Akish, when a civil war between him and his sons reduced the population to thirty. . . . This all seems improbable to us, but two circumstances peculiar to Asiatic warfare explain why the phenomenon is by no means without parallel: (1) Since every war is strictly a personal contest between kings, the battle must continue until one of the kings falls or is taken. (2) And yet things are so arranged that the king must be very last to fall, the whole army existing for the sole purpose of defending his person. This is clearly seen in the game of chess, in which all pieces are expendable except the king, who can never be taken. ‘The shah in chess,’ writes M. E. Moghadam, ‘is not killed and does not die. The game is terminated when the shah is pressed into a position from which he cannot escape. This is in line with all good traditions of chess playing, and back of it the tradition of capturing the king in war rather than slaying him whenever that could be accomplished.’ You will recall the many instances in the book of Ether in which kings were kept in prison for many years but not killed. In the code of medieval chivalry, taken over from central Asia, the person of the king is sacred, and all others must perish in his defense. After the battle the victor may do what he will with his rival—and infinitely ingenious tortures were sometimes devised for the final reckoning—but as long as the war went on, the king could not die, for whenever he did die, the war was over, no matter how strong his surviving forces. Even so, Shiz was willing to spare all of Coriantumr’s subjects if he could only behead Coriantumr with his own sword. In that case, of course, the subjects would become his own. The circle of warriors, ‘large and mighty men as to the strength of men’ . . . that fought around their kings to the last man, represent that same ancient institution, the sacred ‘shieldwall,’ which our own Norse ancestors took over from Asia and which meets us again and again in the wars of the tribes, in which on more than one occasion the king actually was the last to perish. So let no one think the final chapter of Ether is at all fanciful or overdrawn. Wars of extermination are a standard institution in the history of Asia” (Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites, pp. 235–36).
Finally, my favorite quote. Read Ether 15: 1-6. Coriantumr writes an epistle to Shiz, offering him his whole kingdom if he will let the war stop. Shiz replies, if you let me kill you, I'll stop. Coriantumr refuses the offer and the fighting continues. Elder Maxwell said:
“There for us to ponder also is a clear case in which personal pride and rage kept two principals from acting for the welfare of their people. Shiz insisted on “getting his man,” even if it meant the destruction of his own people; and Coriantumr offered his kingdom but not his life for his people. Each said, in effect, that the ultimate object of his selfishness was nonnegotiable! Neither was willing to play the role of the intervenor and say of the circumstances, “This has gone too far—enough is enough.” How often on a lesser scale in human affairs do tinier tragedies occur for want of this selfless intervention? How often do we withhold the one thing that is needed to make a difference?”I recommend the whole talk: Three Jaredits: Contrasting Contemporaries by Elder Neal A. Maxwell.
