[OB spoilers] 'Kay, so can someone sum up the story of the Heralds for me?

[The Night Watcher]

I read Oathbringer (twice, actually ;P) but the whole deal with Heralds is confusing me. What exactly happened with the Recreance and Aharietiam? The Stormfather is blaming Honor for not preparing the Radiants before he died. And some of the Heralds betrayed the other Heralds by leaving them in Damnation? I dunno. Can someone explain that?

Also, how are they not dead. At least, Ash and Taln aren't. Don't know if there are others.

[Landis963]

In reverse order: All the Heralds have a resurrective-immortality deal, which is how they've lasted so long.  

All the other Heralds made the decision to abandon Taln on Braize (otherwise known as Damnation), because he'd died first and thus locked away the Voidbringers (or as we now know them, the Fused).  They'd noticed that if it was anyone else, they'd have cracked immediately and thus started another Desolation.  

The Recreance is a separate issue, but what the Stormfather is talking about is that when pre-Recreance Radiants twigged to the fact that oh, hey, humans aren't really the good guys here, Honor was always able to talk them down from the cliff.  However, at the time of the Recreance, Odium's splintering of Honor was in full swing and Honor's sanity was deteriorating to match.  Hence, when contemporary Radiants looked to Honor for guidance, his senile ramblings made things worse.  

Aharietiam is the Last Desolation, where Jezrien and co. left Taln to the Voidbringers' tender ministrations and told all the humans on Roshar that the Desolations were over and that the Heralds were going to retake the Tranquiline Halls.   a third event, one that we don't have all the details of but had something to do with the breaking of the ardentia's power.  (I think.  I could be wrong, I'm remembering this off the top of my head)  EDIT: Thank you to everyone who corrected me on this.  

Edited January 26, 2018 by Landis963

[Willow]

Well, I was trying to put it in a logical timeline for myself, so I wrote you a whole novel (it has mini-chapters!) on this subject. I hope it's all correct:

Desolations and Heralds: start
As far as I've understood it, based on the book and some of the theorizing on this site (credit to everyone discussing this), it goes something like this: There's a cataclysm on Ashyn, and the humans flee in terror to Roshar, bringing in their wake their god, Odium. Eventually the humans expand beyond the land they were given, stuff happens, and the Singers switch to Odium. During or just before what they now presumably call the first Desolation, Odium turns several of the Singers into Cognitive Shadows, beings who can return after they've been killed, and possess the bodies of other Singers, and who can also use Surges (presumably Voidbinding). These newly dubbed Fused could come back almost immediately after they were killed, which prolonged the fighting, etc.

As a solution, Honor (who was now aligned with the humans instead of the Singers) gathered nine of the highest kings, scholars and important people of the age (and Taln, who wasn't supposed to join but did the best job anyway), and turned them into Cognitive Shadows. These newly dubbed Heralds would, at the end of a Desolation, willingly (or not-so-willingly, if they were killed during the fighting) go to Braize (Odium's home base, AKA Damnation), and as long as the Heralds were there, the Fused were held prisoner, and could not return to Roshar. The Heralds then spend some time (at first several centuries) being tortured, until one of them gave in to stop the torture, at which point it seems both they and the Fused were returned to Roshar, to prepare for a new Desolation.

Desolations and Heralds: end
As you can imagine, spending several centuries being tortured, fighting a Desolation, and then having to go back for more torture (lasting centuries) was not great for these Heralds' mental health, and so every round they broke faster and faster, until their last period on Braize lasted less than a year, and the last Desolation started (Aharietiam). Most of the Heralds were, frankly, broken, done, and didn't want to go back, and they were looking for a way out (as stated in the prelude, Jezrien says they took up the burden willingly, and now they could put it down if they wanted to). Only problem is, as soon as they break the Oathpact, there are no longer any restrictions on the Fused, and humanity would die out very quickly.

At this point they realized that out of all 10 of them, nine of them had given up and started a new Desolation at one point.. except for Taln. So they figured, if we leave him on Braize (since he already died, and had already gone there in the prelude), the Oathpact won't technically be broken, the Fused can't come back, and we can stay on Roshar. Since they are Cognitive Shadows, and no longer really human, they didn't age or die during the 4500 (!) they left Taln to suffer alone, holding the Oathpact together all by himself (this is the Heralds betraying their fellow Herald bit). The Stormfather, being a spren (of Oaths) and not a human, was very offended by this bit of Oathbreaking, since he didn't really understand how humans work. Spren aren't as changeable, and probably couldn't be broken mentally the way the Heralds were. After Oathbringer, as far as we know, basically all the Heralds are still alive (and back on Roshar), except Jezrien (blame Moash).

Knights Radiant
However, a few Desolations before this last one, the spren had figured out how to bond with humans, and the organisation of the Knights Radiant formed. These Radiants also fought in the Desolations, guided humankind, etc. I'm not sure we have any information on how they reacted when the Heralds wandered off, maybe they believed this Desolation ended the same way all the ones before did, and the Heralds were back on Braize.

Well, at this time, several thousand years back, humans were aware that they were refugees from Ashyn (they figured this out on occasion), since at that time they were still talking to spren who were around before that, among other things. But Honor always managed to convince them that they were righteous (in basically taking over the entire continent of Roshar).

Honor's Death
However, in between all these reaffirmations, Honor (and Cultivation) was trying to dodge around Odium, who was doing his best to kill both of them. Eventually, at one point, Honor took a fatal blow, and started the long process of dying (which took him quite a while). Unfortunately, near the end, the intent of his shard (keeping Oaths) started to overwhelm the rest of his personality a bit, and he started to rant and rave about how the humans destroyed their old world with Surgebinding, and the Heralds were Oathbreakers, and everything was going bad, etc. These humans, who were already centuries or more removed from Ashyn, and had mostly forgotten about it, were rather shocked and shaken, but as far as I know, still willing to continue on Knight Radianting. Then on top of all of that, the False Desolation happened, which eventually led to the Recreance and the ending of the Knights Radiant, which the Stormfather took as more Oathbreaking, which led him to the belief that humans can't be trusted. So what I think the Stormfather is blaming Honor for, is from switching from reassuring the Radiants to saying 'it was all your fault, and you will do this again.' 

Edited January 25, 2018 by Willow

[RShara]

Ooh that's a complicated question.

So the humans came from Ashyn to Roshar.  At some point, the Desolations, dead Singers with powers possessing live Singers, started occurring.

Ishar went to Honor and proposed the Oathpact.  Ten of them would go to Braize, and with their presence, seal the dead Singers to that planet.  Honor agreed, and presumably, set it up so that they were Invested with enough power not to die of old age, and perhaps gave them other powers as well. 

Unfortunately, they didn't anticipate the torture, and the fact that, powerful as they are, the Heralds are still people.  And while some types of beings are unable to break their sworn words, people aren't among them.

So the Heralds broke during their torture, each of them in turn, except for Taln.  Each time they broke, the dead Singers' spirits were able to return to Roshar, possess live Singers and start a Desolation.

After hundreds or thousands of years of this, nine of the Heralds decided that they couldn't take it any more, and abandoned their Oaths, except for Taln.  They lied to humanity, told them that they had won, and called it Aharietiam.  In reality, it was just the end of another Desolation, and nothing in particular was different, other than that only one of them went back to Braize.

At some point, Honor started to die.  He started going mad, raving about how the Radiants would destroy Roshar just like they did Ashyn.  This, combined with their realization that they were the invaders on Roshar (I believe this happens every generation or so of Knights, but that Honor usually counseled them through it) made them decide they were too dangerous to stay as Knights.  (I also believe that the spren were in on the decision, and willingly sacrificed themselves so that the surviving spren would be too angry to be willing to bond others in the future, but this is pure speculation on my part).  This led to the Recreance.

Thousands of years later, events moved to enable the Fused to return again and start a new Desolation.

Does that make sense?

[Govir]

12 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

Aharietiam is a third event, one that we don't have all the details of but had something to do with the breaking of the ardentia's power.  (I think.  I could be wrong, I'm remembering this off the top of my head)

Aharietiam is actually the name of the event where the 9 Heralds abandoned the Oathpact and left Taln on Braize. Aharietiam = Last Desolation, and that's what the 9 Heralds told mankind: It's over. Mankind has won (spoiler: they lied).

[Yezrien]

Yes, Aharietiam has nothing to do with the Ardentia, and probably predates its existence my many years.

The Hierocracy is a more recent event, occurring long after the Recreance. It was an attempt by the Ardentia, which was once a powerful church, to establish a theocratic empire over the Vorin world. When the Hierocracy was overthrown, the ardentia was robbed of its power, and now all ardents are slaves. This event had nothing to do with the heralds.

Spoiler

As far as we know.

 

[RShara]

12 minutes ago, Belzedar said:

Yes, Aharietiam has nothing to do with the Ardentia, and probably predates its existence my many years.

The Hierocracy is a more recent event, occurring long after the Recreance. It was an attempt by the Ardentia, which was once a powerful church, to establish a theocratic empire over the Vorin world. When the Hierocracy was overthrown, the ardentia was robbed of its power, and now all ardents are slaves. This event had nothing to do with the heralds.

  Hide contents

As far as we know.

 

Yeah it definitely does.

Humans Arrive on Roshar->First Desolation->Aharietiam->Recreance->Honor's Death->Hierocracy->True Desolation/Everstorm

[Subvisual Haze]

42 minutes ago, RShara said:

After hundreds or thousands of years of this, nine of the Heralds decided that they couldn't take it any more, and abandoned their Oaths, except for Taln.  They lied to humanity, told them that they had won, and called it Aharietiam.  In reality, it was just the end of another Desolation, and nothing in particular was different, other than that only one of them went back to Braize.

At some point, Honor started to die.  He started going mad, raving about how the Radiants would destroy Roshar just like they did Ashyn.  This, combined with their realization that they were the invaders on Roshar (I believe this happens every generation or so of Knights, but that Honor usually counseled them through it) made them decide they were too dangerous to stay as Knights.  (I also believe that the spren were in on the decision, and willingly sacrificed themselves so that the surviving spren would be too angry to be willing to bond others in the future, but this is pure speculation on my part).  This led to the Recreance.

Good summary, but I think there's a lot of wiggle room with regards to Honor/Tanavast's madness and death.  We're not entirely sure if Tanavast died all at once (maybe as direct consequence of the Heralds breaking their oath) or if he was slowly killed and progressively lost his mental capabilities. 

Also the personalities of the humans who hold shards seem to distort over time to more closely match the influence of their shard and become less "human".  Ati, the human who held the Ruin shard was apparently at one point a very kind person, but millennia of holding that shard drove him crazy.  Something similar may have occured with Honor.  Odium is a big fat liar, but he may have been partially correct when he said:

Quote

"Honor cared only for bonds.  Not the meaning of bonds and oaths, merely that they were kept.

Perhaps pre-Aharietiam some of the broken Heralds asked Honor to release them from the Honorpact and its eternal tortures, and he refused as his focus on oaths had become so absolute?

[RShara]

12 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Good summary, but I think there's a lot of wiggle room with regards to Honor/Tanavast's madness and death.  We're not entirely sure if Tanavast died all at once (maybe as direct consequence of the Heralds breaking their oath) or if he was slowly killed and progressively lost his mental capabilities. 

Also the personalities of the humans who hold shards seem to distort over time to more closely match the influence of their shard and become less "human".  Ati, the human who held the Ruin shard was apparently at one point a very kind person, but millennia of holding that shard drove him crazy.  Something similar may have occured with Honor.  Odium is a big fat liar, but he may have been partially correct when he said:

Perhaps pre-Aharietiam some of the broken Heralds asked Honor to release them from the Honorpact and its eternal tortures, and he refused as his focus on oaths had become so absolute?

We know that he died slowly.

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Dalinar's visions are the memories of Honor, correct?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes. Yes, they are things specifically created by Honor...

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Does that mean that the Recreance happened before Honor's death... since Dalinar sees it?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

Yes. But Honor's death, like Preservation's death, is a protracted event.

source

 

[The Night Watcher]

5 hours ago, Willow said:

Well, I was trying to put it in a logical timeline for myself, so I wrote you a whole novel (it has mini-chapters!) on this subject. I hope it's all correct:

Desolations and Heralds: start
As far as I've understood it, based on the book and some of the theorizing on this site (credit to everyone discussing this), it goes something like this: There's a cataclysm on Ashyn, and the humans flee in terror to Roshar, bringing in their wake their god, Odium. Eventually the humans expand beyond the land they were given, stuff happens, and the Singers switch to Odium. During or just before what they now presumably call the first Desolation, Odium turns several of the Singers into Cognitive Shadows, beings who can return after they've been killed, and possess the bodies of other Singers, and who can also use Surges (presumably Voidbinding). These newly dubbed Fused could come back almost immediately after they were killed, which prolonged the fighting, etc.

As a solution, Honor (who was now aligned with the humans instead of the Singers) gathered nine of the highest kings, scholars and important people of the age (and Taln, who wasn't supposed to join but did the best job anyway), and turned them into Cognitive Shadows. These newly dubbed Heralds would, at the end of a Desolation, willingly (or not-so-willingly, if they were killed during the fighting) go to Braize (Odium's home base, AKA Damnation), and as long as the Heralds were there, the Fused were held prisoner, and could not return to Roshar. The Heralds then spend some time (at first several centuries) being tortured, until one of them gave in to stop the torture, at which point it seems both they and the Fused were returned to Roshar, to prepare for a new Desolation.

Desolations and Heralds: end
As you can imagine, spending several centuries being tortured, fighting a Desolation, and then having to go back for more torture (lasting centuries) was not great for these Heralds' mental health, and so every round they broke faster and faster, until their last period on Braize lasted less than a year, and the last Desolation started (Aharietiam). Most of the Heralds were, frankly, broken, done, and didn't want to go back, and they were looking for a way out (as stated in the prelude, Jezrien says they took up the burden willingly, and now they could put it down if they wanted to). Only problem is, as soon as they break the Oathpact, there are no longer any restrictions on the Fused, and humanity would die out very quickly.

At this point they realized that out of all 10 of them, nine of them had given up and started a new Desolation at one point.. except for Taln. So they figured, if we leave him on Braize (since he already died, and had already gone there in the prelude), the Oathpact won't technically be broken, the Fused can't come back, and we can stay on Roshar. Since they are Cognitive Shadows, and no longer really human, they didn't age or die during the 4500 (!) they left Taln to suffer alone, holding the Oathpact together all by himself (this is the Heralds betraying their fellow Herald bit). The Stormfather, being a spren (of Oaths) and not a human, was very offended by this bit of Oathbreaking, since he didn't really understand how humans work. Spren aren't as changeable, and probably couldn't be broken mentally the way the Heralds were. After Oathbringer, as far as we know, basically all the Heralds are still alive (and back on Roshar), except Jezrien (blame Moash).

Knights Radiant
However, a few Desolations before this last one, the spren had figured out how to bond with humans, and the organisation of the Knights Radiant formed. These Radiants also fought in the Desolations, guided humankind, etc. I'm not sure we have any information on how they reacted when the Heralds wandered off, maybe they believed this Desolation ended the same way all the ones before did, and the Heralds were back on Braize.

Well, at this time, several thousand years back, humans were aware that they were refugees from Ashyn (they figured this out on occasion), since at that time they were still talking to spren who were around before that, among other things. But Honor always managed to convince them that they were righteous (in basically taking over the entire continent of Roshar).

Honor's Death
However, in between all these reaffirmations, Honor (and Cultivation) was trying to dodge around Odium, who was doing his best to kill both of them. Eventually, at one point, Honor took a fatal blow, and started the long process of dying (which took him quite a while). Unfortunately, near the end, the intent of his shard (keeping Oaths) started to overwhelm the rest of his personality a bit, and he started to rant and rave about how the humans destroyed their old world with Surgebinding, and the Heralds were Oathbreakers, and everything was going bad, etc. These humans, who were already centuries or more removed from Ashyn, and had mostly forgotten about it, were rather shocked and shaken, but as far as I know, still willing to continue on Knight Radianting. Then on top of all of that, the False Desolation happened, which eventually led to the Recreance and the ending of the Knights Radiant, which the Stormfather took as more Oathbreaking, which led him to the belief that humans can't be trusted. So what I think the Stormfather is blaming Honor for, is from switching from reassuring the Radiants to saying 'it was all your fault, and you will do this again.' 

Wow... That story is a lot more depressing than I remember... I was very sad when Jezrien died. Mostly for Ash's sake. But after this...I kinda feel bad for the Heralds in general.

[Landis963]

2 hours ago, The Night Watcher said:

Wow... That story is a lot more depressing than I remember... I was very sad when Jezrien died. Mostly for Ash's sake. But after this...I kinda feel bad for the Heralds in general.

The Heralds have been getting the fuzzy end of the lollipop for a long time, for periods of "a long time" covered by most forms of immortality.  Aharietiam was them attempting to carve out some rest among all the madness and chaos.  (Which, of course, as you've seen from Taln's and Ash's viewpoints, not to mention the cameos from other Heralds, was rewarded by 4500 years of deteriorating mental state, followed by yet another Desolation whose staging ground isn't on another storming planet.  Yay Oathpact!)

[Willow]

7 hours ago, The Night Watcher said:

Wow... That story is a lot more depressing than I remember... I was very sad when Jezrien died. Mostly for Ash's sake. But after this...I kinda feel bad for the Heralds in general.

Yes, definitely. Even the Stormfather feels sorry for them now.

Quote

'I HATED THEM. NOW, THE MORE I COME TO KNOW MEN, THE MORE I SEE HONOR IN THOSE POOR CREATURES YOU NAME HERALDS.'

 

[Carla Bridge Four]

Also, as side note and not speaking of Heralds, but Radiants, when the False Desolation happened, and the capture of Ba-Ado-Mishram, the weight on Radiant's shoulders grew heavier: they were not just invaders, they've just erased the local people minds! That added to Honors gibberish, and we have the Recreation.

And yes, Herald's story is so sad :'(

[Storms!]

Quote

That added to Honors gibberish, and we have the Recreation.

I too enjoy speaking in gibberish for fun...

 

Sorry couldn't help it!

[digitalbusker]

15 hours ago, Willow said:

so I wrote you a whole novel (it has mini-chapters!) on this subject

Please. In Sanderson-adjusted terms, that was barely a Tweet.

[Willow]

2 hours ago, digitalbusker said:

Please. In Sanderson-adjusted terms, that was barely a Tweet.

Have mercy, I am only a normal human.

[Steeldancer]

Essentially, Taln is the bomb, they abandoned him to not break the Oathpact for 4500 years, because if they break the oath, all the Fused get through. Also, Taln is my man. The end. 

[The Night Watcher]

11 hours ago, Steeldancer said:

Also, Taln is my man. The end. 

I agree with this.