The Recreance, Yet Again

[MRex]

 

On 10/10/2016 at 9:24 PM, cometaryorbit said:

Similarly, Odium Splintered Devotion and Dominion on Sel. But humanity on that planet survived; he didn't destroy the planet, depopulate it, or warp it into some kind of a hellscape.

This is directly contradicted by what occurred on Threnody.

"These broken chunks of power twisted every planet in the system, including Threnody and its people. Ambition fled the system, pursued by Odium." (Coppermind)

Perhaps this implies that the other Splinterings were different from that of Ambition, who fought before presumably succumbing somewhere in the Cosmere. If the three people of god like power are having a war, I think humanity would notice, and end up involved.

[The One Who Connects]

1 hour ago, MRex said:

This is directly contradicted by what occurred on Threnody.

"These broken chunks of power twisted every planet in the system, including Threnody and its people. Ambition fled the system, pursued by Odium." (Coppermind)

Perhaps this implies that the other Splinterings were different from that of Ambition, who fought before presumably succumbing somewhere in the Cosmere.

Odium physically placed the power of Devotion & Dominion fully into the Selish Cognitive Realm.

Chunks of Ambition's power would have washed over all three realms unattended, unless specifically stated otherwise.

That is the big difference with Threnody. Power went where it wished, flying around willy-nilly and affecting anything around it.

[thebestoralist]

Has anyone considered that maybe the Recreance was caused by some kind corruption of the Spren by Odium?   For a while I thought that Odium somehow figured out a way to use the Nahel bond to harm/taint the spren, maybe due to the breaking of the Oathpact.  This is similar to what the Dark One did to saidin in WoT.  Therefore the KR, rather than basically becoming human versions of Voidbringers, chose to break their oaths and sever the bond.  This crippled/killed the spren but gave the surviving ones time to recover.

This also explains why a Herald is running around killing everyone who surgebinds, and maybe sets up the chance for Odium to do it again. 

The way I see it the "secret" that broke up the KR has to be something both devastating AND immediate.  Learning that the Heralds gave up on them or that Honor deceived them would be tough, but it doesn't quite justify the urgency of calling the whole Order together and convincing everyone to give up their spren and powers immediately. 

Just a theory. 

Edited September 28, 2017 by thebestoralist

[Stormcrown]

Removed.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Stormcrown

[Jofwu]

@Stormcrown (and everybody else)

No Oathbringer spoilers outside of the Oathbringer Spoiler Board please.

[Stormcrown]

@jofwu - Thanks for removing that. I removed the entire section as it wasn't necessary. My apologies.

[cometaryorbit]

On 9/27/2017 at 4:31 PM, MRex said:

This is directly contradicted by what occurred on Threnody.

Well, the fact that Threnody got badly messed up doesn't negate the fact that Sel didn't -- and Devotion and Dominion were directly Invested in Sel, while Ambition doesn't seem to have been Invested in Threnody.

Quote

Perhaps this implies that the other Splinterings were different from that of Ambition, who fought before presumably succumbing somewhere in the Cosmere. If the three people of god like power are having a war, I think humanity would notice, and end up involved.

Well, Honor's Splintering seems to have happened without much human notice, since Vorinism still worships him as an alive and currently-reigning god, and Aharietiam is still spoken of as the 'Last' Desolation.

[Naerin]

I think we're looking at this a little sideways. Let's say Honor was in fact using the Knights Radiant to oppose Odium for the good of the Cosmere but not necessarily for the benefit of humankind. Yeah, many of the Knights would be mighty pissed, but really that still fits with their general mission statement doesn't it? These are people who willingly sacrifice for others. Their whole motto is that the journey is what is important, so the fact that there was less "in it" for humanity wouldn't necessarily change the fact that it was the right thing to do. And we see by Honor's video diary that he did care for humans, so it's not like he was using them callously. 

My question is, what if Nale was right in Edgedancer? He was killing potential Knights Radiant because he believed it would prevent a Desolation. Now obviously that didn't work. BUT we also get that dialogue between Jasnath and Hoid, where we learn that this time around the Everstorm is working DIFFERENTLY. And it has seemingly been much longer between Desolations this time...the one time when the Knights Radiant weren't around between them.

So, what if the existence of the Knights actually helps CAUSE the Desolations? We know that perpendicularities are needed to worldhop. And these are essential pools of Investiture. We also know that Odium's forces are from another world. What if the general concentration of Investiture in high-level Knights somehow makes it easier for Voidspren to transition onto Roshar, starting a new Desolation. Maybe it doesn't cause it outright, but maybe it makes it easier for them, and the Desolations more frequent. This is just wild speculation on my part, but I feel like it fits better.

Imagine you are a Knight devoted to sacrificing for the greater good. Then you realize that in fact all of your efforts are only helping to perpetuate this endless cycle of war. Remember that when the Heralds set down their blades, they speculated that that might end the cycle of Desolations. That seems like an odd thing to say, unless it is more complicated than just one side attacking over and over. Almost as if there was something on the Roshar end of things that was perpetuating the cycle as well. Learning that would be more devestating than discovering you had been used or tricked. Because it is YOUR FAULT. Yours and the spren. Because remember the bond was not part of Honor's original plan. Spren did that to imitate the Honorblades. Perhaps this had unintended side-effects. That would explain why the Knights determined to reject the powers themselves, killing their spren, in the hopes of ending whatever effect was helping to perpetuate the cycle of Desolations. 

[The One Who Connects]

On 11/5/2017 at 11:43 PM, Naerin said:

And it has seemingly been much longer between Desolations this time...the one time when the Knights Radiant weren't around between them.

They were still around for the first two millennia after Aharietiam though, which, by all accounts, was already a much longer gap than was between the Desolations.

On 11/5/2017 at 11:43 PM, Naerin said:

we also get that dialogue between Jasnah and Hoid, where we learn that this time around the Everstorm is working DIFFERENTLY.

I still think that the Everstorm isn't being different, but that the Everstorm is different. The Stormfather implies that the Everstorm didn't exist in prior Desolations.

On 11/5/2017 at 11:43 PM, Naerin said:

What if the general concentration of Investiture in high-level Knights somehow makes it easier for Voidspren to transition onto Roshar?

We've speculated that the Everstorm would act in much the same way, so the premise is somewhat sound here. I don't think there were enough Radiants at any given point to equal an Everstorm, and the only place they would be concentrated together is at Urithiru, which is the last place I'd expect Voidspren to transition in around.

On 11/5/2017 at 11:43 PM, Naerin said:

Remember that when the Heralds set down their blades, they speculated that that might end the cycle of Desolations. That seems like an odd thing to say, unless it is more complicated than just one side attacking over and over. Almost as if there was something on the Roshar end of things that was perpetuating the cycle as well.

The problem here is that Jezrien(and presumably Ishar) saw no issue with letting the KR stick around after the Heralds "retired." If they knew about what you suggest, I don't think they'd just leave it at that. And if the Heralds didn't know, then they'd have been talking about something else, which is just as unnerving.

There's also the fact that the first Desolation happened before Surgebinders were a thing, but that's another topic entirely.

[Naerin]

10 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

The problem here is that Jezrien(and presumably Ishar) saw no issue with letting the KR stick around after the Heralds "retired." If they knew about what you suggest, I don't think they'd just leave it at that. And if the Heralds didn't know, then they'd have been talking about something else, which is just as unnerving.

There's also the fact that the first Desolation happened before Surgebinders were a thing, but that's another topic entirely.

That's definitely a good point. I agree that it's not as simple as saying the Knights Radiant are the cause of the Desolations or anything like that. But from WoB we know that the Heralds being on Roshar for too long somehow triggers the Desolations. We also know that the nahel bond was meant to inimitate the Honorblades. It's not too big a stretch to think that in imitating one aspect of what Honor did, the spren inadvertently imitated other aspects. So perhaps the large conentration of Knights Radiant eventually began to mimic, in some way, the effects of the Heralds being on Roshar, exacerbating the cycle in some way. 
Granted I'm not sure how this would work Realmatically. We don't know enough about the actual mechanics of the Oathpact (though I've speculated elsewhere). I just think it would be an interesting fit thematically if that was the case. And it would be more likely to destroy the Knights than other possibilities for the cause of the Recreance.