[OB]The spren were in on it

[Calderis]

13 minutes ago, galendo said:

Your god says you'll destroy Roshar?  You'd think they'd get a second opinion from their other god (Cultivation).

This assumes that Cultivation was as involved with them personally as Honor was. Her intent seems to be the type that she prefers to stay in the background. I doubt that was all that different back the. Especially as at the point of time in question the wounding of Honor had already occurred, and Wyndel states that due to what happened to Honor she had withdrawn and "has given up on you (humanity)."

16 minutes ago, galendo said:

But if the surges on Roshar are simply too dangerous and will eventually destroy the planet no matter what, the solution would seem to be to use your powers to abandon Roshar, not to surrender your powers and wait for the inevitable rise of a new and completely ignorant generation of Knights.

And go where? Ashyn has already been destroyed, and and Braize is an cold and inhospitable world that also happens to be the home base of their eternal enemy. 

Leaving the system means having to have a destination, which to our knowledge they weren't aware of. 

And evacuation of the entire population of a planet also likely turns them into an unwitting invader of whatever world they do decide on. That's a good option? 

18 minutes ago, galendo said:

The near-destruction of an entire species of sapient life?  If the in-world Words of Radiance is correct, they were considering exterminating the Parshendi.  Trapping them in dullform doesn't seem all that horrifying by comparison.  Plus, even if they were horrified by what they'd done, it seems like using your powers to find a way to reverse it would make much more sense than surrendering them and being stuck with the results.  Worse-case scenario, it seems like you could try releasing your captive Unmade, if that was what caused the mindlessness in the first place.

The in world Words of Radiance was written three centuries after the Recreance. So I'll take the supposed motivations with a grain of salt. I can imagine some orders like the Elsecallers for example, being on board the extermination option, but I don't think that would go over universally any better than what actually did happen to the Parshmen. 

And releasing BAM is an option how? We don't know that that would have reversed anything, and even if it did, your right back to fighting a war that requires the use of the powers you now find suspect. 

21 minutes ago, galendo said:

Realizing they were a danger to all they loved?  Seems overstated, at the very least.  I doubt any individual Knight felt personally dangerous to everyone he loved.  You could give me the powers of a god, and I guarantee you I would not be a threat to those I love -- I'm guessing most other people feel the same way.  So why would all the Knights decide they needed to break their Oaths?  It just doesn't add up.  I'd think a fair number would have made themselves conspicuously absent when the time for the Recreance rolled around.

And I'm sure that no one has ever accidentally wielded power in a way that harmed anyone they didn't mean to. 

All in all, I think that were expecting the Orders to be fat more varied in temperament than is possible. If the reasoning was able to satisfy the unifying ideals of each of the ten Orders, then I think that the individual dissenters would have been far less likely, although some would still exist. 

To be perfectly honest, at this point I believe the Spren are the ones who proposed the Recreance to the Radiants, not the other way around. That's pure guesswork though. 

[DocHoliday]

On 2/16/2018 at 4:58 PM, Vissy said:

Well, I think we have to assume a lot to say that it was Surgebinding that destroyed the planet. Honestly, we don't know if Surgebinding destroyed the planet at all, we just have (second-hand account) of an unreliable narrator telling us it was so, and apparently the Dawnshards are involved somehow too. 

Well, that's a kind of a silly way to read what I said isn't it.  The Radiants of the time had friends, didn't they, and loved ones who were not Radiant? Trusted allies and comrades? I find it very hard to believe that all of them kept their silence, and the people they talked to about the Recreance kept theirs, and so on. In fact it is implied that not all Orders took part in the Recreance;

So now we have a whole Order of Radiants running around, who know about the Recreance and the reasons behind it, but who choose not to speak. Not a single one. For me, at least, this seems like a plot hole front line and center. OB explained nothing and I can't think of an explanation either, which naturally I hope will be supplied by the fourth book. 

True that information could have been lost. How convenient that the single most important piece of information from that time became lost. Maybe you're right, that there was another conspiracy too - a conspiracy to suppress information about the Recreance. That would make sense to me, if someone could stand to gain from it. Skybreakers maybe? 

Dude, I'm tired of reading your ranting. I'm not going through the last page and a half of your arguments. Clearly everyone implicit in the conspiracy stayed silent. Spren and KR beholding. Stop arguing a minor point,  because ,as the OP pointed out, no-one in Shadesmar has the facts. Everything is hearsay, and as the "forensic pathologists" we are, this is the logical conclusion.

[Willshaping Crasher]

12 hours ago, Calderis said:

It was everything else. It was the fact that the seemingly all powerful God who was present and spoke to them for millenia said they would destroy Roshar. It was examples of their power in the world that showed it's destructive potential. It was the near destruction of an entire species of sapient life. 

It was the realization that they weren't what they'd always been told and believed, and that they were a danger to everything they loved and cared for. 

This was what I was referring to.  "Capricious, frustrating, unreliable" is how the Willshapers were described by Invia. The description leads me to believe that given their seemingly varied nature, at least a few would say "I didn't destroy anything so don't make assumptions about what I will do, and by the way, you've been talking crazy lately Honor".  The amethysts seem to further reinforce their rather independent nature.
 

Quote

 

"I returned to the tower to find squabbling children, instead of proud knights, That's why I hate this place. I'm going to go chart the hidden undersea caverns of Aimia; find my maps in Akinah."

"Now that we abandon the tower, can I finally admit that I hate this place? Too many rules."

 

Just the small subset of humanity we have on the 17th shard can't even agree on many things.  I'm not saying they all ran off (nor disagreeing with the root of this theory).  I am just suggesting that perhaps some Radiants, in addition to the Skybreakers, made a different choice.

As an aside, it would be interesting to find out that Skybreakers started post Recreance by hunting down those who didn't break their oaths and then moved on to proto-radiants later.

[Calderis]

7 minutes ago, Willshaping Crasher said:

As an aside, it would be interesting to find out that Skybreakers started post Recreance by hunting down those who didn't break their oaths and then moved on to proto-radiants later.

That's exactly what I think happened, and part of what I meant by "dissenters would be dealt with harshly" 

[Willshaping Crasher]

35 minutes ago, Calderis said:

That's exactly what I think happened, and part of what I meant by "dissenters would be dealt with harshly" 

Then we are probably in agreement.

[Vissy]

Just now, DocHoliday said:

Dude, I'm tired of reading your ranting. I'm not going through the last page and a half of your arguments. Clearly everyone implicit in the conspiracy stayed silent. Spren and KR beholding. Stop arguing a minor point,  because ,as the OP pointed out, no-one in Shadesmar has the facts. Everything is hearsay, and as the "forensic pathologists" we are, this is the logical conclusion.

The only one ranting here seems to be you. I don't know what you think this forum is supposed to be, but personally, it's a place to have fan discussions. That prospect entails the possibility of these discussions sometimes being stupidly specific or long-winded. I'm sorry if that's not to your liking, but thankfully you don't have to read them.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Vissy

[RShara]

Let's all take a breath and return to the topic at hand.   I'm not arguing whether the reasons for the Recreance were plausible, or exciting or underwhelming or ridiculous or holier than a rusted island.  Let's just take the text as given, and discuss the spren, instead.

Edited February 18, 2018 by RShara

[Isilel]

19 hours ago, galendo said:

  But if the surges on Roshar are simply too dangerous and will eventually destroy the planet no matter what, the solution would seem to be to use your powers to abandon Roshar, not to surrender your powers and wait for the inevitable rise of a new and completely ignorant generation of Knights.

And who is is to say that some didn't? I believe and have been saying in various threads that some of the members of the more "Cultivationy" Orders which didn't have obviously destructive powers, did leave Rosharan system and figured out how to take their spren along. Puuli's Interlude about his grandfather's foretelling of people coming from the Origin "with light in their pockets" could allude to their descendants bringing those spren back, for instance. They might be trapped in gemstones for transport or something. These ancient Radiants may have, Cosmere Spoilers:

Spoiler

Founded or joined Silverlight, a city that exists purely in the Cognitive Realm. No need to fear destroying a planet, if you don't live on one, after all.

And also, there is this interesting WoB (Cosmere Spoiler):

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/91/#e817

that offers some other possibilities. Some of the Radiants may have reasoned that in small numbers and without an easy access to investiture they couldn't possibly be dangerous even when living on a world. Which is very true, as far as we know.

 

8 hours ago, Willshaping Crasher said:

As an aside, it would be interesting to find out that Skybreakers started post Recreance by hunting down those who didn't break their oaths and then moved on to proto-radiants later.

Yes, I am pretty sure that they did. However, they must have somehow prevented the spren of their victims from returning to their peoples as well, otherwise the reasons for and the  circumstances surrounding the Recreance would be well-known among the population of Shadesmar and pre-Recreance spren would still be around. Maybe Nale/the Skybreakers  captured orphaned Nahel spren somehow, or even killed them? Kaladin did kill a lesser voidspren tormenting Gavinor with the Sylblade, after all, and Venli felt certain that a Fused could destroy Timbre even without a shardblade. OTOH, we have also been told that it is very difficult to properly kill a sapient spren and they certainly didn't think that they were in danger of their lives from the Fused in Shadesmar, so I dunno.

Edited February 18, 2018 by Isilel

[Leyrann]

1 hour ago, Isilel said:

And who is is to say that some didn't? I believe and have been saying in various threads that some of the members of the more "Cultivationy" Orders which didn't have obviously destructive powers, did leave Rosharan system and figured out how to take their spren along. Puuli's Interlude about his grandfather's foretelling of people coming from the Origin "with light in their pockets" could allude to their descendants bringing those spren back, for instance. They might be trapped in gemstones for transport or something. These ancient Radiants may have, Cosmere Spoilers:

  Reveal hidden contents

Founded or joined Silverlight, a city that exists purely in the Cognitive Realm. No need to fear destroying a planet, if you don't live on one, after all.

And also, there is this interesting WoB (Cosmere Spoiler):

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/91/#e817

that offers some other possibilities. After all, some of the Radiants may have reasoned that in small numbers and without an easy access to investiture they couldn't possibly be dangerous even when living on a world. Which is very true, as far as we know.

This might also explain why stormlight is used as currency in Shadesmar.

[RShara]

So we have this WoB from Emerald City Comic Con

 

Quote

Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW]

Can a spren willingly break their bond anytime between the First and Fifth Oath, with their Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

*Very hesitant*  Well...yes...this is possible...

Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW]

Essentially committing suicide is always more...

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

I just ascribe to that question...A spren could at any point break it.  Can they break it safely?  That's a different question.

Overlord Jebus [PENDING REVIEW]

Can they break it safely? *laughs*

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

There are methods in place where it can be stopped.  So yes it can be done.  But once you've started into this, once you've chosen on both sides, it's a dangerous process.  But yes it can be done, and it can be done safely.

source  

So now we know that it IS possible for spren to break the bond with their Radiant.  It doesn't always work, but it can be done and safely.

So that makes it even more likely that they cooperated in the Recreance.

[Vissy]

That does make it more likely. What would be your answer to the deadeyes spren accusations of murder, though? For example, Relis' blade screamed "you killed me!" when Relis heard them briefly. Would you say that this is only because the spren are more or less mindless now, and can't understand why they were killed? Or maybe it's referring to the process of Summoning and Dismissing the Blade, as being a torturous cycle of resurrection --> murder --> resurrection and so on? 

Edited March 4, 2018 by Vissy

[+Extesian]

I was so glad after our debates that you asked Jebus to ask this. My hesitation is that Brandon sounds like he's thinking of a mutually severed bond, he refers to having chosen on both sides. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it as a thing of mutual consent. But my doubts were whether the spren could unilaterally break it. Willingly is a broader thing that could include mutual consent. If so it doesn't bear as much on the argument that the spren could've terminated the bonds if they didn't agree with the Recreance, or withheld surgebinding. 

[thegatorgirl00]

12 hours ago, RShara said:

So now we know that it IS possible for spren to break the bond with their Radiant.  It doesn't always work, but it can be done and safely.

So that makes it even more likely that they cooperated in the Recreance.

Why? The way I see it, this makes the theory less likely. If the spren agreed, they could have severed the bond without being killed. If they wanted to prevent future spren from bonding, they could have explained to future generations why bonding is bad and been around to enforce the rule on anyone who tried to disagree. That seems safer than a plan to shock the spren into avoiding bonds. 

[MountainKing]

Look at Timber and Stl both of their spren group didn't want them to bond, but they did anyways.

[hypatia]

We seem to know one of the reasons the humans decided to break the bond, but what if the bonded spren had other reasons?

The Radiants were also affected by the madness of Tanavast/Honor - is it possible this madness affected their spren in a more direct way, perhaps they even were also going mad?

[RShara]

10 hours ago, Vissy said:

That does make it more likely. What would be your answer to the deadeyes spren accusations of murder, though? For example, Relis' blade screamed "you killed me!" when Relis heard them briefly. Would you say that this is only because the spren are more or less mindless now, and can't understand why they were killed? Or maybe it's referring to the process of Summoning and Dismissing the Blade, as being a torturous cycle of resurrection --> murder --> resurrection and so on? 

Yeah I think it's that they've been killed and what's left of them hates being used to kill like they are.  I didn't think of it being a torturous cycle, but that also makes a lot of sense!

10 hours ago, Extesian said:

I was so glad after our debates that you asked Jebus to ask this. My hesitation is that Brandon sounds like he's thinking of a mutually severed bond, he refers to having chosen on both sides. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it as a thing of mutual consent. But my doubts were whether the spren could unilaterally break it. Willingly is a broader thing that could include mutual consent. If so it doesn't bear as much on the argument that the spren could've terminated the bonds if they didn't agree with the Recreance, or withheld surgebinding. 

I guess we'll have to continue agreeing to disagree.  I didn't get the feeling that Brandon was thinking of a mutually severed bond.  Jebus did a good job conveying that we were asking about just the spren deciding to break the bond.

 

5 hours ago, thegatorgirl00 said:

Why? The way I see it, this makes the theory less likely. If the spren agreed, they could have severed the bond without being killed. If they wanted to prevent future spren from bonding, they could have explained to future generations why bonding is bad and been around to enforce the rule on anyone who tried to disagree. That seems safer than a plan to shock the spren into avoiding bonds. 

This I covered in part 6 of my original post.

Quote

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.

Just telling the other spren to stop, and why they should, wouldn't have had nearly the effect that the Recreance did.

[Angsos]

He isn't saying but shouldn't Stormfather or nightwatcher know about the recreance

[RShara]

6 minutes ago, Angsos said:

He isn't saying but shouldn't Stormfather or nightwatcher know about the recreance

I don't know if the Stormfather was bonded at the time of the Recreance.  Even if he was, his memories are fuzzy because it was before Honor died.  He was just a Splinter riding the highstorms, rather than fully sapient.