Chapter 84 (Decoded) Epigraph Message

[Arcanist Lupus]

Wait a minute.  Gavilar was having visions, correct?  And I presume that they were the same visions Dalinar has been getting.  And Mr. T knew about the visions, right?  And the visions tell the viewer to reform the Knights Radiant.  So why is Mr. T going to destroy them?

[Karou]

I'm pretty sure Mr. T took "unite them" to mean the people of Roshar, not the Knights Radiant.

[Argent]

One of Dalinar's visions from Words of Radiance (the one just before the "62 days" message appears) tells him specifically to reform the Knights Radiant. "Unite them" is ambiguous - Taravangian interprets it as "unite all of Roshar" while Dalinar started off with "unite the princedoms" and now seems more concerned with uniting, gathering, the Knights.

 

So I guess that he is either seeing more visions (and so Gavilar and Taravangian just haven't seen the one where the Almighty refers to the Radiants), or they are all seeing different ones. Or Taravangian knows about the visions from Gavilar, who didn't keep him entirely up to date.

[Moogle]

Wait a minute.  Gavilar was having visions, correct?  And I presume that they were the same visions Dalinar has been getting.  And Mr. T knew about the visions, right?  And the visions tell the viewer to reform the Knights Radiant.  So why is Mr. T going to destroy them?

 

He's not actively trying to destroy them, he's just got contingency plans in case he has to.

 

I agree with Argent that it could be Taravangian's interpretation of "unite them", though I would argue that it's possible that Taravangian just stumbled on the world-uniting plan on his own and would have done it regardless of Honor's urging.

[Mr_Doe]

I would conjecture that whatever this secret is, it is the key to why the recreance occurred in the first place.  Thus he would try to make it happen again.

[Vestis Etoris Prime Targ]

Would Honour be sending bad advice via the visions?

 

I think there is more going on with the visions than we know. I'd like to find out more about them before commenting.

 

 

But the spren have identity in the Cognitive Realm already.  Cities, governments and so forth.  How would that affect the splintering/re-uniting?

 

From what we know of spren cities and spren organization in the cognitive realm, these are primarily made up by the Cryptics who are of Cultivation. Moreover the process of "creating cities", "growing" could theoretically be in line with the intent of 'Cultivation'. Even the Nightwatcher's boons have been theorized (in a different topic) to be an end-neutral form of magic, where the curse compensates in some way for the boon. So the curse could be thought of as an input for 'growing' a crop and the boon could be the final 'harvest' (using cultivation/farming terminology  ). I could be wrong but honorspren do not have such an extensive organization in the cognitive realm.

In general the sprens seem to be following their Shard's intent within the Cognitive realm. 

[Radiant_thoughts]

Maybe odium offered to end the desolations, or highstorms, or held Honor hostage, but had some leverage that he basically said abandon your oaths or else. It could b quite a few things, from destroy shadesmar, to the world or whatever. We know that for the radiants to abandon their spren, powers and oaths they had to be put in a screwed up, lesser of two evils kind of situation. Also how long did the radiants go on after the heralds abandoned the oathpact, and was Urithru around in the days of the heralds?

[junior]

Alright.  Wild and baseless hypothesis time.

 

 

Just taking a wild guess - Voidspren are exclusively formed from corrupted spren.  i.e. Odium doesn't form spren on his own.  But he can take existing spren formed from Honor or Cultivation, and turn them into his own.

 

Now having thrown that out there...

 

Where do Voidbringers come from?  It now appears that Voidbringers are Parsh-forms (new word that I just made up that includes Parshmen, Parshendi, and any other off-shoots that Sanderson later introduces) that have gained a form from Voidspren.

 

So what happens if all of the higher order Spren suddenly go away.  Well, obviously, you don't have any more Radiants.  No spren means no new Nahel bonds.  And that means no new Radiants.  But you also might not have any more spren for Odium to corrupt, which means no new Voidbringers.  Or even any kind of Parsh-form more advanced than dull form.  Or possibly even lower than dull form.  Like, say, Parshmen?

 

Except, of course, the higher order Spren are unlikely to agree to such a plan.  To them, hanging out with humans is almost like a drug.  And if some of them get corrupted, well, no one plans for it.  It's just a fact of life that you hope to avoid.  So how do you get the Spren to decide that they no longer want to hang around with humanity?

 

Well...  let's say that you killed off roughly 90% of the bonded spren.  Do you think that might have an effect?  Do you think it might scare the higher order Spren into not coming to chat with the humans anymore?  Do you think that might irrevocably scar any and all higher order Spren who lived with it?

 

We already know the answers to the last two questions.  The question is - did the old KR come up with the same idea, and then actually attempt to carry it out?

[Kier]

It really looked intentional in Dalinar's flashback, and the Spren see it as a betrayal, which implies it was on purpose to some extent. beyond that, no idea.

As for the Parshendi being their first. I have 100% always assumed that the Humans colonized the planet from somewhere else. It's bound into their theology, and makes a whole lot of sense. It's always had a significant Pern vibe in that sense.(And I like it.)

the living spren see it as a betrayal.. Its very possible the bonded ones that died also say the need for it.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

A few points... 

 

1. Whatever it is, it is enough to crumble the current KR, so it is applicable to current times as well. (scary)
2. I don't' think it's Gavilar's stone, because Szeth hid that after assassinating Gavilar. I DO want to find out what that is though.
3. I love the idea of a reverse TLR, trying to kill off enough spren to reform Honor as a shard that someone could then take up. If that is what they are trying, I think they are going about it all wrong, but what do any of us know about trying to reform a shard? 
4. I kind of agree with Kier, MAYBE the KR spren agreed with the plan? 
5. re: Recreance - AAggghh, which KR thought ti would be a good idea to force their spren into sword form and freeze them there and give such powerful weapons to non-bonded people?? Terrible idea!!

[Kier]

Just another note that I just thought up in the sane vein as this...

while the KR came after some desolations happened so it is unlikely they "cause a desolation" as Nalan believes. Its important to remember a few distinctions.

1. Nalan says surge binders bring desolations, not KR.

2. Its important to remember in Dalinars vision, there were surgebinders BEFORE there were KR.

3. The KR are organized Surgebinders and made it more exclusive.

so Nalan can be correct. And that could be the secret that the KR learned that led to the Recreance.

This all being said. Its also possible that the secret the people of Roshar learned was that Honor and the Heralds where Honorably sacrificing their people in the Oathpact and the Desolation Cycles to keep Odium invested on Roahar. And they KR thought well if we abandon our Oaths, maybe Odium will leave our planet alone if all he cares about is shattering the shards. And that's why they abandon their oaths.

[Argent]

re: Recreance - AAggghh, which KR thought ti would be a good idea to force their spren into sword form and freeze them there and give such powerful weapons to non-bonded people?? Terrible idea!!

 

I am not sure they knew what would happen when they killed their spren. 

[Arcanist Lupus]

I am not sure they knew what would happen when they killed their spren. 

Mr. T's certainty that the secret that broke the Knights will do so a second time indicates to me that they knew.  Otherwise, the secret would be less effective this time around, because they understand the cost.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure that the KR understood their bonds with their spren much better then the new KR do.  It seems highly unlikely that they didn't understand what breaking their oaths would do.

[Gyth]

Back to Mr T having visions.

 

It's already been mentioned that Bondsmiths could bond with specific spren. 

 

Maybe Mr T could be receiving visions from another unique spren, such as the Nightmother, or less likely, Cusicesh.

 

Maybe those unique spren are tied to Cultivation, with a slightly different agenda.

 

Just a thought.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Mr. T's certainty that the secret that broke the Knights will do so a second time indicates to me that they knew.  Otherwise, the secret would be less effective this time around, because they understand the cost.

 

Also, I'm pretty sure that the KR understood their bonds with their spren much better then the new KR do.  It seems highly unlikely that they didn't understand what breaking their oaths would do.

 

I think Argent was referring to the "remain in blade form for others to pick up and use" portion of my post, and that he thinks the KR didn't know they would remain if they broke their bonds. 

 

Not sure I agree with that, but pretty sure that is what he was talking about. 

[Argent]

Yep.

[RShara]

Wouldn't they have to?  I mean, in Dalinar's vision, the soldiers from the keep start fighting with each other for the Blades before the KR even left the field, so they had to know about it.

 

And remember, abandoning their oaths meant murdering their spren, who were probably their best friends...

[Arcanist Lupus]

Oh.  That's possible.  Sorry.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

Wouldn't they have to?  I mean, in Dalinar's vision, the soldiers from the keep start fighting with each other for the Blades before the KR even left the field, so they had to know about it.

 

And remember, abandoning their oaths meant murdering their spren, who were probably their best friends...

 

I agree with this... which to me is perhaps the most horrifying thing of the Recreance almost. 1 they killed their bonded companions and friends. 2 they left those dead companions to be weapons of horrifying power for those who had no bonds to hold them in check...

 

What, oh what, could cause those orders to abandon their bond, murder their friends by doing so, and leave those weapons in the hands of weaker men (people)?? Especially since we know one of the orders which did so was the Windrunners, dedicated and bonded to Honorspren?!? Sigh. Such a sad thing

 

I wonder what happened to spren whose KR died of natural causes (old age) in all the eras between Desolations? 

[journey_first]

I think there is another aspect to the recreance, which is a gradual corruption of the KR. The only reference is the epigraph to chapter 46 in tWoK.

 

Though I was due for dinner in Veden City that night, I insisted upon visiting Kholinar to speak with Tivbet. The tariffs through Urithiru were growing quite unreasonable. By then, the so-called Radiants had already begun to show their true nature.

 

 

Which implies at least an element of greed of corruption among the KR.

[Argent]

Hmm, interesting. I've been working under the assumption that the Radiants were misunderstood, but now that you bring this up (and force me to reread The Way of Kings again), I am starting to think there must be some truth in the traditional story. 

[Levian]

I wonder if it has to do with the motives of the spren in bonding with humans?

 

This is what I'm thinking as well. The Radiants probably know the cost of abandoning their oaths and they seem resigned, determined, and somewhat... depressed, or sad when they were actually abandoning their oaths. 

 

I'm wondering if - and this is just a crackpot theory - maybe Spren gaining intelligence attracts a different type of Spren... Odium Spren! Which in turn brings on the Desolations. So it's possible that the KR realized their bonds were contributing to causing the Desolations and knew they would have to abandon the bonds. This would sort of fit in with what we hear Nalan/Darkness talking about, in his mad desire to hunt down Surgebinders.

 

I know it doesn't make much sense considering the fact we have WoB that says the Heralds being on Roshar too long can trigger a Desolation. Regarding that, I wonder if it is possible that the Heralds have bonded with Odium, and where ever the Heralds go, Odium has to follow. They keep him locked up in Braize but that is where he has most control, being able to torture the Heralds to try to force them back to Roshar so he could follow.

 

This also has some problems though. First we know that one Herald is enough to hold the Oathpact and keep Odium on Braize, so shouldn't having even one Herald die during a Desolation immediately call Odium back? Unless he behaves like the Heralds and must be defeated and returned to Braize, which raises the question of how he is temporarily defeated each time.

[ram433]

The Stormfather does refer to the Parshendi as the ancient ones. So it's very possible that they are native to the land. Not to mention humans are VERY different from the natural flora and fauna of Roshar.

Humans don't really need to be in the wrong though. They might just be refugees as implied in their theology.

 

I think this is extremely likely. There was a fairly recent WoB that the Parshendi weren't of Honor, Cultivation or Odium originally. I am betting they were put on Roshar by Adonalsium. They had their planet and some of form of spren. When Honor and Cultivation showed up, they made humans, which eventually led to conflict. I also have this crazy idea that maybe the "Tranquiline Halls"  were really a space ship and it crashed on Roshar. Honor and Cultivation favored them because the Shard Holders were originally human and that caused the conflict. However, I have no evidence to support that theory. It just sounds really cool.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn]

I think there is another aspect to the recreance, which is a gradual corruption of the KR. The only reference is the epigraph to chapter 46 in tWoK.

 

 

Which implies at least an element of greed of corruption among the KR.

 

Could be that the orders least associated with Honor are those who were growing in corruption and that is why we only see 2 orders abandoning their oaths in the Recreance, although "they were just the first"? 

 

The other option is that you/we are reading that wrong. It is from the perspective of a person who is being "taxed". And we all know how that kind of thing works out for the taxer Perhaps the Radiants weren't acting in the wrong, but were from the other perspective. We only have 1 side of the argument...

[Lightning]

While I like the rampant theories given so far, I think there may be a much simpler explanation (which I admit is just another rampant theory).

 

Supposing, for a moment, we didn't have the quotation from the diagram, and we didn't have our knowledge about the nature of the spren, what would we think would be the reason for the oath-breaking?  The most natural thing that comes to my mind is that the Knights Radiant have seen their beloved leaders apparently (but according to Brandon, not technically) break the oathpact.  They would no longer want to follow such leaders, or be a part of any organization linked to them.  In Dalinar's vision the reason they give is "The Night of Sorrows will come, and the True Desolation.  The Everstorm."  They have lost hope for mankind.

 

That said, can we now merge this idea with what we really DO know about the nature of the spren, and also with the diagram quote?  I believe we can.

 

1. We know that spren die when their bonded humans break their oaths.  Is it possible that the knights had sworn oaths of loyalty to the Heralds, which were a part of their Nahel bond?  Thus they were unable to keep those oaths of loyalty while simultaneously being honorable.

 

2. If so, how would this mix with Taravangian having a secret that could destroy the new knights?  Perhaps that secret is he merely needs to have them swear contradictory oaths, and then their spren naturally *must* perish.

 

3. If this is what did happen, it makes sense that the Radiants would abandon their weapons and armor.  They wouldn't want to hear the screams of their dead spren every time they called upon their sword.  We know from Dalinar's vision that the spren had not yet died (at least, I imagine that was what the blue glow meant), but they might have seen the effects start to take place (just as it took Syl a while to regress when Khaladin started breaking his oaths).

 

There are of course holes with this theory (possibly patchable).  One data point which can either blast this theory out of the water or partially confirm it, is that (if I remember correctly) one of the orders of the Radiants never did not break their oaths.  Was that the order connected to Taln?