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The Oathpact & Recreance origins


Luck Spren

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This is my 1st post on this forum and I'm not a native English speaker, so please go easy on me.

I felt compelled to ask a few questions after I came across something interesting in my second read-through of “The Way of Kings” and “Words of Radiance”. I'm sure most of these are just theory related and others have probably been answered already. 

I’ve seen posts debating about the amount of time between the breaking of the Oathpact and The Day of Recreance. I didn't seem to encounter a consensus about this but can we assume, for the sake of this theory, that the Day of Recreance took place shortly after the breaking of the Oathpact? While reading chapter 52 of TWOK we see Dalinar re-living the Day of Recreance and I couldn’t help but noticed that only 2 Orders are shown: The Stonewards and the Windrunners (Brandon clearly emphasizes this fact twice in the chapter). Why only these, I ask? Wasn’t the Herald of the SWs (Talenel) the one who was “abandoned” by the rest of the Heralds? (What about the other Orders? Do we have clear evidence that they also proceeded this way?)

 I think we can safely assume that something more than the exhaustion and fear of returning to the Tranquiline Halls took place for the Oathpact to end.  We still know too little about Jezrien to know if he’s driven by honor like the WRs. And that is where I make the connection between the SWs and the WRs as we’ve seen in Dalinar’s vision. Could it be that the WRs, driven by honor, had no other option but to follow their brothers into abandoning their oaths after feeling equally betrayed by what happened? I should also highlight the fact that we see WR fall from the sky to join the advancing group of SWs and WRs (This makes me believe that every existing WR and SW was in that group when they abandoned their shards)

My big question is, do you think that the breaking of the pact is what triggered the Recreance?

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Welcome to the Shard!!

Interesting theorizing, but I'll interject with a brief point - the Recreance was definitely long, long after the breaking of the Oathpact. There is doubt about exactly how long ago, but it's unquestionable more than a few hundred but definitely way less than 4000, long after the breaking of the Oathpact.

Quote

Argent

In terms of timeline-- So The Way of Kings and the Stormlight Archive takes place 1173-4 right now, how far ago, approximately, was the Recreance?

Brandon Sanderson

So you-- Let’s see-- Heralds leave at what, 4500?

Argent

That’s what it says.

Brandon Sanderson

So the Heralds leave at 4500 and we’re at 11--

Argent

So we are at 5500 years after--

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. So Recreance is more recent than late.

Argent

So… In the thousands--

Brandon Sanderson

I’m going to have to pull out the timeline.

Argent

But it’s not like three hundred years ago.

Brandon Sanderson

It’s not like three hundred years ago, but it’s also not like 4000 years ago.

Argent

Okay, so from the middle--

Brandon Sanderson

The Hierocracy happened after and the Hierocracy was a couple hundred years ago. It’s longer than that even, it’s like five or six hundred years ago I think.

Tanavast even has memories of the Recreance so it really was a long time after the Heralds walked out.

Another thing to note is there were only 2 orders involved with that flashback, but we know that 9 orders (all but 1) abandoned their oaths. Speculation is that it's the Skybreakers that didn't but I don't think that's established. Either way though, if 9 orders did it it may be hard to draw a connection between which Shard the orders are involved with, and that leading to oathbreaking. I hope that helps!

Edit - thanks @Calderis for pointing out there are NOT 12 KR orders :) so newb

Edited by Extesian
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17 minutes ago, Extesian said:

Another thing to note is there were only 2 orders involved with that flashback, but we know that 11 orders (all but 1) abandoned their oaths. Speculation is that it's the Skybreakers that didn't but I don't think that's established. Either way though, if 11 orders did it it may be hard to draw a connection between which Shard the orders are involved with, and that leading to oathbreaking. I hope that helps!

9 orders. 9.

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Edgedancer spoilers 

Spoiler

Edgedancer confirms that it was the Skybreakers that did not abandon their oaths. The woman and man proto-radiants that were bonded to spren, but had not leveled-up to the blade yet. Nin was talking to them about their sacred responsibility as the remaining order. 

So in think we can safely assume the one order is the skybreakers. I also recall a WoB about it too, but don't have the time to look it up. 

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We know the Skybreakers kept going. But I don't think they had Sprenbonds between the Recreance and the recent past. That seems... Difficult to hide. What with new shardblades and plate appearing(along with people holding Stormlight and flying around.) But an order of people living up to the oaths of the Skybreakers wouldn't be anywhere close to as obvious. 

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