[OB]The spren were in on it

[RShara]

My theory is that the spren were in agreement with their bondmates to die and cause the Recreance.  Both the Knights and their spren decided that Honor was correct and that they would end up destroying the world if they were allowed to continue to surgebind.  Without Honor, Notum and Ishar say there are fewer checks on their power, and we know they actually did destroy their previous planet.  They deliberately allowed their Knights to break their Oaths, knowing that it would kill them, and alienate the remaining spren, so that no spren would be willing to seek out a bond for the foreseeable future.  In this way, they save all of their fellow spren, friends, family, loved ones, as well as the humans and the Singers.

We know that Honor was going mad and dying.  He swore that the Knights would destroy the world.  Whether that's true or not, he convinced the Knights and their spren that they were too dangerous to exist.

1.  The spren are everywhere. It's nearly impossible to hide things from your own spren, and very difficult to hide things from others' spren.  Most of them seem able to change size and some can change shape.  Honorspren, at least, seem to be constantly curious, investigating anything interesting going on.  Only the Knight they're bonded to can see them by default, so they can snoop around quite easily without being seen.  An obviously coordinated effort like we see in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance would be impossible to plan without the spren finding out.

2.  The spren can read thoughts. Syl can sometimes read Kaladin's thoughts, and definitely knows it on an instinctual level when he's not following his Oaths.  Glys seems able to meld with Renarin, and definitely talks to him in his mind.  We know that perception is important for whether a Nahel Bond is being kept or not.  That it depends on the perception of the person and the spren. If the spren weren't in agreement that the Recreance needed to happen, then the Radiants who were planning on breaking their Oaths should have been losing their powers.

3. Honorspren are willing to let their Knights break Oaths if it's important enough. (WoB truncated for length).  Honorspren are are willing to put the cause ahead of their own well-being.  It's the nature of protecting.  Kaladin is willing to die to save others, or at least put himself in harm's way.  I think that this trait is not unique to honorspren, but to many of the Radiant spren.  They're willing to die if it means a greater good--such as not destroying the planet.

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.

source

  

4.  Some spren don't see death the same way as humans do.   Pattern is very nonchalant about dying.  He fully expects, even encourages, Shallan to kill him, simply to spare her pain.  Syl bounces back from being dead and doesn't really even give Kaladin grief over it. Ico doesn't seem particularly upset over his father being a dead-eye.  He even is very understanding about why humans break Oaths.  Other spren are downright friendly with humans.  Even Wyndle, who is quite a fussy little voidbringer, mentions that they don't exactly die, though he is admittedly nervous about it happening to him.

5.  The Radiants didn't lose their powers before the Recreance.  As I mentioned in 1 (felt like it bore repeating), in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance, the Windrunners had their powers up to the point where they broke their Oaths.  They flew to Feverstone Keep, their Blades and Plate were still glowing. 

Quote

As they drew closer, Dalinar could see that their Plate was unpainted, but it glowed either blue or amber at the joints and across glyphs at the front, as with other Radiants he’d seen in his visions.

Quote

The leading Radiants stopped in a line, immobile. Suddenly, others began to fall from the sky. They hit with the sound of rock cracking, puffs of Stormlight blossoming from their figures. These all glowed blue.

Quote

Dalinar found himself running forward. The door behind him opened and some curious soldiers left the keep. Dalinar reached the Shardblades. They sprouted from the rock like glittering silver trees, a forest of weapons. They glowed softly in a way his own Shardblade never had, but as he dashed among them, their light started to fade.

 

6.  The other spren don't seem to know the reason for the Recreance.  Ico thinks the reason for the Recreance was that humans couldn't honor Oaths.  Notum just thinks Radiants are dangerous.  Niether of them seem to care or mention much about the possibility of surgebinders destroying the planet.  I think that the bonded spren at the time deliberately did not tell their friends and relatives what they were going to do, in order to enhance the shock factor, as well as the sense of betrayal by the humans.  This would discourage just about all the spren from ever seeking a Radiant again, unless they were desperate.  The best way to prevent future bonds was to shock and horrify all the other spren so much that the idea would be unthinkable for millennia.

7.  The spren didn't leave or choose to have their Oath broken.  Notum mentions there are "other ways" than killing the Knight, at least until the 5th Oath is sworn.  Bui;ding on 6, if the spren didn't agree with their Knights, shouldn't some of them have tried to break their bond?  It doesn't appear as if any of them did.

Quote

“Not too late. Killing you would free her—though it would be painful for her. There are other ways, at least until the Final Ideal is sworn.”

 

8.  The skybreakers and highspren didn't break their Oaths.  Highspren and Skybreakers hold the Law and Oaths as the highest possible Ideal, so to speak.  The highspren would never have agreed to breaking the Oaths, and the Radiants likely wouldn't either, or weren't willing to kill their spren without their consent.  They must have agreed to some degree though, because they've never told the other spren why all the other Orders foreswore their Oaths.

9. The spren didn't break their Oaths on their own (controversial).  I believe that the spren can break the bond to their humans on their own.  That they didn't also implies that they were complicit in the Recreance.  This is a point of contention between me and some of the proponents of this theory, though, so I've marked it controversal.

Quote

Questioner

I was wondering if a bond to a spren, a Nahel bond, may be taken with a Hemalurgic spike.

Brandon Sanderson

This is possible but it's gonna-- Since the spren has free will it's going to be-- Yeah it's going to have weird ramifications but it is a possible thing.

source

 

So, thoughts, opinions? 

Oh and thanks to @Calderis .  Like Wit mentions, timeliness is important, and Calderis thought of this before me, although I came to it independently I posted this with his blessings.

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by RShara

[Greywatch]

I also have agreed with Cal on this for a while - great to see it all lined out like that, with quotes and all. Nicely put together.

[MountainKing]

They probably were, a posted on a different thread that it would be impossible for the recreance to happen and the spren not knowing about it.

[Calderis]

Well now that it's been brought up, I had to look and see when I first said that the Spren were complicit, and apparently it was back on August. 

You've gone into more detail, and brought up additional points I've since said, and a couple I haven't considered. 

Kudos. 

 

[RShara]

I added a point 9 that I know some people don't agree with, but that I think is true

[Calderis]

On your controversial point, I agree, although I think it would be very very difficult for then to do so, just as it would be difficult for them to lie, and may have actually killed them in itself. More so for the ones consisting of more honor than Cultivation. Though dying for what you believe is right is in itself "honorable" so this may very well have just aided in the Recreance. 

As a recent discussion on discord with you, RShara, and @Extesian pointed out, my biggest idea towards all of them being complicit is still the lack of knowledge from the Spren in Shadesmar, and the continued powers of the Windrunners/glow of the Radiant blades up to the moment of the blades being dropped.

At this point, I don't know if all of them were complicit, though I think that the majority were. 

I have to ask the question though, why was Feverstone keep necessary? The only explanation I have is that the decision to break the Oaths was not, in itself enough to do so. 

The Windrunners would have wanted to end the Oaths out of a desire to protect the world from themselves, and the potential destruction that Honor said was unavoidable. The Elsecallers would have arrived at the decision as a logical extrapolation of the facts as they saw them... The Skybreakers themselves could have agreed, and their more strict following of the Oaths required them to remain, but created their drive to end all other surgebinders. 

So, in my opinion, Feverstone Keep was a result of the Recreance. An act orchestrated to actually break the oath, as their desire was not enough. In intentionally divesting themselves of the blade and plate, the Windrunners created a situation that would create harm and strife due to the nature of human greed, and the Stonewards were symbolically giving up rather than "standing when others fall." 

I believe that the other orders orchestrated similar events, of nature's tailored to their oaths, designed to achieve the same ends. 

The largest conundrum for me is Lightweavers. How do you break thier oath structure? How do you lie to yourself after achieving that level of self awareness and self honesty? 

[OrgasimSpren]

I like it. I also think spren are liars. They have already admitted to lying by omission many times. They know more about whats going on than they let on. Maybe they have good reason act like they don't know but I don't buy their innocent/stupid act.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, OrgasimSpren said:

I like it. I also think spren are liars. They have already admitted to lying by omission many times. They know more about whats going on than they let on. Maybe they have good reason act like they don't know but I don't buy their innocent/stupid act.

For spren of honor, lying is difficult. 

Quote

Blightsong

Can honorspren, or any other type of Knight Radiant spren, be evil despite their relationship to Tanavast or Cultivation?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, because I don't call the Shards good and evil. There are no good and evil Shards in my opinion, like and so, what's evil and what's not evil- you can totally have spren that are of Honor that you would consider evil. They have free will; they are much more strictly limited in that free will than we are, because of their nature as spren. It's very hard for most spren to every break an oath or to lie. That's just like- as manifestations of laws of nature makes it very hard for that to happen, but they can be cruel.

source

And as Honor is in their nature, a lie of omission is still an intent to deceive and should not be excluded. 

And for others, like pattern, lying may be something of which they are capable, but that doesn't mean it's something that they are good at. Pattern is a mathematical construct. He is fascinated by lies, but his nature is pure mathematical truth. That's why he's terrible at it. 

[+Extesian]

As usual in recent months I have very little time to Shard properly (though get to Discord sporadically) so apologies for dropping in and out. As we've discussed my primary issue is with the last point, I'm sceptical that spren can unilaterally sever the Nahel bond. The reason was given by the Stormfather. 

Quote

HONOR LET THE POWER BLIND HIM TO THE TRUTH—THAT WHILE SPREN AND GODS CANNOT BREAK THEIR OATHS, MEN CAN AND WILL.

I regard the Nahel bond as a two way thing, an oath from the spren as well as from the Radiant. If that is the case then spren cannot choose to abandon the Radiant. If you're right with point 9 then it must be that the Nahel bond does not require an oath from the spren (which would surprise me as what other type of oath would a spren take?).

My two cents. I'll see you again in the forums...soooometiiiiime 

[FirstSelector]

I like this theory quite a lot, and I think that it explains quite a bit of the trickiness with the Recreance.

I think it a not-unreasonable assumption, based on what we have seen concerning Skybreakers and the epigraph about the fourth Windrunner oath, that not all of the Knights would have achieved the Final Ideal of their order.  Since there are "ways," as you point out, for a spren to separate from their Knight prior to the Final Ideal, it seems reasonable to conclude that their spren nevertheless went along with the plan.

As for point #9, I think that the free will of the spren is an important part of Honor's built-in regulator for the power of the Knights.  The Nahel bond can't be a two-way agreement if only one party has the ability to walk away.

[Leyrann]

Great post. I felt like it was unavoidable that the spren knew (it's just too hard to hide things from your spren, and how are you going to avoid even a single spren hearing you discuss it with another Radiant?), but you put it into words and reasoning in a great way.

[Song]

I had started to wonder if this was the case but you have convinced me

Much nicer than believing that the KR knowing murdered their spren.

I wonder if Maya is revived if she might remember the details of her death...

[Guest]

6 hours ago, FirstSelector said:

The Nahel bond can't be a two-way agreement if only one party has the ability to walk away.

I don't believe, that the ability is the problem. Technically spren should also be able to walk away from a bond, yes. But I think, since the Radiantspren, that we know of, are made of the essences of Honor and Cultivation and thus also carry a part of their Intents with them. Honor intends to uphold oaths. Thus I think, that spren are Intent-blocked from stepping back from the agreement that binds them to their Radiant. Humans don't have such a limitation, which is what I think, that the Stormfather means with "cannot" and "can".

So, yeah. It seems, that spren have free will, since Syl and Ivory both "ran away" to find Kaladin and Jasnah, but as soon as they start to have a binding agreement with a human (or otherwise I suppose), they can't just break that agreement. They are bound to it by Intent, which they have as they are partially made of Honor.

Edited February 13, 2018 by SLNC

[Leuthie]

Of course, if breaking one oath is the only way to uphold another, more important oath...

[Subvisual Haze]

8 hours ago, OrgasimSpren said:

I like it. I also think spren are liars. They have already admitted to lying by omission many times. They know more about whats going on than they let on. Maybe they have good reason act like they don't know but I don't buy their innocent/stupid act.

No, I think they're fundamentally bound by certain rules regarding memory and truth that they can't break.  Their minds and memories don't even touch on certain concepts until their Radiants discover them, at which point they're completely familiar with them.  Syl does this several times, remembering a past event or details of a new skill only after Kaladin finds it himself.  I imagine the Nahel bond was specifically designed this way to be a brake on a Radiant's acquisition of power post Ashyn Surgebinding disasters.  Lift and Wyndle's situation is an exception to this rule.

[ShardplateJoe III]

I think it is worth pointing out, though, that Dalinar forced the Stormfather into a shardblade when working the Oathgate, seemingly against his will.

[RShara]

9 hours ago, Extesian said:

As usual in recent months I have very little time to Shard properly (though get to Discord sporadically) so apologies for dropping in and out. As we've discussed my primary issue is with the last point, I'm sceptical that spren can unilaterally sever the Nahel bond. The reason was given by the Stormfather. 

I regard the Nahel bond as a two way thing, an oath from the spren as well as from the Radiant. If that is the case then spren cannot choose to abandon the Radiant. If you're right with point 9 then it must be that the Nahel bond does not require an oath from the spren (which would surprise me as what other type of oath would a spren take?).

My two cents. I'll see you again in the forums...soooometiiiiime 

Right, but Notum implies that there were ways to separate the spren from the Radiant, other than killing the Radiant, until the 5th Oath.  So even if it's not as simple as "the spren walked away," there do appear to be methods by which this can be done.

4 hours ago, Song said:

I wonder if Maya is revived if she might remember the details of her death...

I hope she will and can confirm if this is the case or not!

3 hours ago, SLNC said:

I don't believe, that the ability is the problem. Technically spren should also be able to walk away from a bond, yes. But I think, since the Radiantspren, that we know of, are made of the essences of Honor and Cultivation and thus also carry a part of their Intents with them. Honor intends to uphold oaths. Thus I think, that spren are Intent-blocked from stepping back from the agreement that binds them to their Radiant. Humans don't have such a limitation, which is what I think, that the Stormfather means with "cannot" and "can".

So, yeah. It seems, that spren have free will, since Syl and Ivory both "ran away" to find Kaladin and Jasnah, but as soon as they start to have a binding agreement with a human (or otherwise I suppose), they can't just break that agreement. They are bound to it by Intent, which they have as they are partially made of Honor.

See my reply to Extesian

 

2 hours ago, Leuthie said:

Of course, if breaking one oath is the only way to uphold another, more important oath...

They seemed to deliberately leave their Shards in a way that would encourage people to take and fight over them and with them.  Knowing the death they would bring and doing it anyway might be what managed to break their Oaths.

 

2 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

No, I think they're fundamentally bound by certain rules regarding memory and truth that they can't break.  Their minds and memories don't even touch on certain concepts until their Radiants discover them, at which point they're completely familiar with them.  Syl does this several times, remembering a past event or details of a new skill only after Kaladin finds it himself.  I imagine the Nahel bond was specifically designed this way to be a brake on a Radiant's acquisition of power post Ashyn Surgebinding disasters.  Lift and Wyndle's situation is an exception to this rule.

Also my reply to Extesian

 

39 minutes ago, ShardplateJoe III said:

I think it is worth pointing out, though, that Dalinar forced the Stormfather into a shardblade when working the Oathgate, seemingly against his will.

Mmmm.  Dalinar forced a part of the Stormfather into a solid chunk of investiture, not an actual Shardblade.  I'm not sure what that has to do with the issue, though?

[thegatorgirl00]

15 hours ago, RShara said:

6.  The other spren don't seem to know the reason for the Recreance.  Ico thinks the reason for the Recreance was that humans couldn't honor Oaths.  Notum just thinks Radiants are dangerous.  Niether of them seem to care or mention much about the possibility of surgebinders destroying the planet.  I think that the bonded spren at the time deliberately did not tell their friends and relatives what they were going to do, in order to enhance the shock factor, as well as the sense of betrayal by the humans.  This would discourage just about all the spren from ever seeking a Radiant again, unless they were desperate.  The best way to prevent future bonds was to shock and horrify all the other spren so much that the idea would be unthinkable for millennia.

 

Most of the spren who survived the Recreance were children at the time. I think the ignorance was less intentional, and more a side affect of the complete chaos caused when almost every adult in a society is killed. We know how chaotic the Recreance was for humans and how much knowledge was lost. It had to have been at least as bad, if not more so, for the spren societies in Shadesmar. 

Circumstantial evidence but the main source of knowledge about what caused the Recreance admitted his memory was fuzzy around that time. And we haven't spoken to any highspren yet. 

[Guest]

39 minutes ago, RShara said:

Right, but Notum implies that there were ways to separate the spren from the Radiant, other than killing the Radiant, until the 5th Oath.  So even if it's not as simple as "the spren walked away," there do appear to be methods by which this can be done.

Yeah, I know. Still, we don't really know what it entails. Does it need to be mutual? Or can it even be initiated by the spren? The quote doesn't really specify that. We do know, that some Radiants failed though and stagnated in their progression, hence being before the Final Ideal. Maybe this is what he means. Like a contract dissolvement where both parties agree, that it doesn't make sense to keep going forward with it.

Not trying to bash your theory, by the way, I don't deem it improbable, but this is kinda where it all hinges on. If the spren can't move away from the bond out of free will, then it is irrelevant if they knew about their Radiant's intent to give up the oaths. They couldn't have done anything about it anyway.

3 minutes ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

And we haven't spoken to any highspren yet. 

That is a good point. They probably have some better knowledge about back then.

Edited February 13, 2018 by SLNC

[RShara]

4 minutes ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Most of the spren who survived the Recreance were children at the time. I think the ignorance was less intentional, and more a side affect of the complete chaos caused when almost every adult in a society is killed. We know how chaotic the Recreance was for humans and how much knowledge was lost. It had to have been at least as bad, if not more so, for the spren societies in Shadesmar. 

Circumstantial evidence but the main source of knowledge about what caused the Recreance admitted his memory was fuzzy around that time. And we haven't spoken to any highspren yet. 

This is a valid alternative possibility but I like my theory better

[Isilel]

This is a very well thought-through and substantiated theory. I agree with almost everything, but have a couple of quibbles:

 

16 hours ago, RShara said:

  Without Honor, Notum and Ishar say there are fewer checks on their power, and we know they actually did destroy their previous planet. 

 Well, technically, they didn't. As far as we know, they didn't have Nahel bonds on Ashyn - their magic system was founded on similar principles, but it wasn't the same.

And, interestingly enough, Ishar was, apparently, never worried about "greater power of the Oaths" destroying Roshar - he feared, instead, that there was a small, but non-negligible possibility that they might, somehow, destroy the already weakened Oathpact and the mysterious "certain measures we(?) took" - we being Ishar and Nale, perhaps, though other Heralds may have certainly also been involved. And I do think that it is very significant that Ishar's concerns were so different than those of the Radiants who commited the Recreance. And also that Honor, in his visions to Dalinar, was  also urging the re-founding of the Radiants, while completely neglecting the alleged risk of them destroying another planet. Something doesn't quite fit - there is obviously "another secret" behind all this.

 

Quote

 Highspren and Skybreakers hold the Law and Oaths as the highest possible Ideal, so to speak.  The highspren would never have agreed to breaking the Oaths, and the Radiants likely wouldn't either, or weren't willing to kill their spren without their consent.  They must have agreed to some degree though, because they've never told the other spren why all the other Orders foreswore their Oaths.

Yes, it is also intriguing that they apparently thought that "the greater power" of _their_ oaths wasn't a problem. Maybe because Nale never let anybody but himself reach the Fifth Ideal? Because he had an agreement with highspren that they wouldn't guide their bonded partners to it, perhaps?  But, of course, if they were following the lead of Nale they didn't actually believe that the other Orders were a danger to the world as such - but only to the Oathpact. One of my greatest disappointments in OB was how Jasnah bearding the highspren in their den during her disappearance in WoR was completely glossed over and all the pertinent information she had upon her return seemed to come from Hoid. I mean, why _wouldn't_ they have tried to explain their position to her and attempted to convince her to abandon her bond to Ivory? 

 

5 hours ago, Song said:

I wonder if Maya is revived if she might remember the details of her death...

Yes, I think that's why this plot-line is important. Our Heroes won't get anywhere without convincing the recalcitant spren peoples and reluctant individual spren (which would be the majority of them, even among those peoples who aren't opposed to bonding on principle), to bond en masse again and/or to fight the voidspren and the Fused in Shadesmar. It would take the testimony of a survivor of the Recreance, I think, and some very solid arguments why giving in to Odium would be worse than risking damage to the planet and/or revelations that Honor's dying ravings were misleading/misunderstood in some way, to win back the allegiance of the spren in sufficient measure to effectively oppose Odium and his cohorts.

 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by Isilel

[RShara]

24 minutes ago, SLNC said:

Yeah, I know. Still, we don't really know what it entails. Does it need to be mutual? Or can it even be initiated by the spren? The quote doesn't really specify that. We do know, that some Radiants failed though and stagnated in their progression, hence being before the Final Ideal. Maybe this is what he means. Like a contract dissolvement where both parties agree, that it doesn't make sense to keep going forward with it.

Not trying to bash your theory, by the way, I don't deem it improbable, but this is kinda where it all hinges on. If the spren can't move away from the bond out of free will, then it is irrelevant if they knew about their Radiant's intent to give up the oaths. They couldn't have done anything about it anyway.

That is a good point. They probably have some better knowledge about back then.

It actually still matters because of point 5.  The Radiants didn't lose their powers or have problems with their powers.  They were using stormlight, powering their plate and flying, etc, right until That Moment.  If the spren thought they were wrong in what they were planning, the Radiants would be losing their powers.

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, RShara said:

The Radiants didn't lose their powers or have problems with their powers.

Did Kaladin, when he began breaking his oaths? IIRC Kaladin didn't have any problems with his powers until the bond was almost completely lost, which was also when Syl didn't reappear. Then he lost them abruptly. Syl showed signs of a deteriorating bond, true, but his powers worked just fine.

The 4v1 duel where he helped Adolin was shortly before that and there he used his powers.

Edited February 13, 2018 by SLNC

[CrazyRioter]

I'm not sure if I agree with this theory, but you do make some very good arguments.

I agree with previous posters that this is one reason why I'd like to see Maya revived. We need an insider view on this.

Edited February 13, 2018 by CrazyRioter

[RShara]

16 minutes ago, CrazyRioter said:

I'm not sure if I agree with this theory, but you do make some very goo arguments.

I agree with previous posters that this is one reason why I'd like to see Maya revived. We need an insider view on this.

My theory is not a kandra!

 

(Teasing you )