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Ok. I'm new but I've tried to at least be mostly thorough while digging through the forums for my ideas and/or supporting evidence. My new job allows for many hours of audio (by far my preferred method) and allowed me to start binging Shardcast, something I had little time for previously. An episode I watched recently talked about deadeyes and The Recreance. A WoB was mentioned that talked about the deadeyes being similar to something that happened previously in the cosmere. The argument on shardcast was the situation one like Seones (Maybe spelled right?) Or shades on Threnody. The majority of the crew heavily sided with similar to Seones, and most posts I have read speak very little of shades. This is my thoughts. There are WAY too many clues about BAM and the recreance. WAY too many. The entire narrative is directing you straight at it. Well, all the Mistborn epigraph was trying to point you straight at Vin. Well, now there's Harmony. Ya know? So why would Brandon put out dozens and dozens of blatant clues that BAM was the cause of deadeyes? Simple misdirection. Here is my actual theory. The problems on Threnody started because Ambition was basically killed by Odium. Now we have Shades. My best research has been able to provide, Honor was dying in the time leading up to The Recreance. His death probably coincided very close with The Recreance. Seones issues were caused by Elantris magic system being directly connected to the landscape. That is NOT the case on Roshar. The landscape changed. The Seones changed. On Roshar, the singers were connected to BAM, not the Radiant Spren creating Nahel Bonds. The radiant spren as far as I can tell are connected to Honor (some more than others). So what if the parshmen lost their form because of the imprisonment of BAM. But the deadeye were because of the death of Honor. I love new information so feel free to prove me wrong. Totally want the real details. But I feel the shades on Threnody are what was referred to in the WoB. Not the Seones. I am reasonably confident this theory has merit. BUT The secondary part of my theory maybe is a lot more fluid and all that. So, if the deadeyes are mainly affected by the death of Honor, and a VERY good chance also that it was connected to Honor breaking his own oathes. Spren are connected to Honor. Honor breaks his oathes and dies. Radiant oathes being broken now cause deadeyes. This happened near simultaneously with The Recreance. A huge theory I see getting repeated is Kaladin taking up the Shard of Honor. (Sometimes Dalinar and others) BUT I think Adolin has shown more Honor than anyone. He is the 1 throughout many books, he has shown kindness to slaves and servants, common soldiers. He is always championing whatever "righteous cause" comes along. Who is closer to Honor? I had a wild theory before about Adolin being Honors champion. But what if, instead of Dalinar or Kaladin, Adolin became Honor! A bit of supporting evidence or implications or whatever. Similar to the beginning part of my theory. Sanderson loves misdirection. I see a lot of mention of Adolin as a "side character". Sazed was a side character for all the same reasons Adolin. As far as I am concerned Adolin and Sazed are on the same level of side/main character. Now we have Harmony. Whether or not it is Adolin, I think when the shard of Honor had coalesced in whichever way and finds another vessel, the new vessel will renew the oathes and free the deadeyes. I believe near simultaneously, right before, right after, which have you. In a very similar timeline BAM will be released and fix any issues still with the singers. I'd love to hear any feedback pro or con. I really hope my idea isn't completely stale and repetitive as I'm late to the forum party. Lol.

This is something I just thought of while finishing RoW. Typically a Darkeye can become a Lighteye when they bond a Shardblade or become a Knight Radiant. Yet somehow we have had natural born Lighteyes that has continued for just a bit under 4000 years, most likely since the Recreance. We also know that Deadeyes only started appearing since the Recreance. The link between both "races" would seem to be that the eyes were affected since this happened. We are aware that the sealing of BAM had wide reaching affects on Roshar. A similar example we observe is how the Parshendi were affected by the sealing of BAM, specifically in my opinion is that their Identity was taken away from them. Deadeyes also seem to be in a "Identity"-less state like the Parshmen are. So it feels like something was ripped from the Spiritweb of the spren and imprinted on the humans at the time of unbonding. This then became a hereditary trait on the few people who unbonded their spren/took the dropped shards and continued to pass it onto their descendant's spirtiwebs. TBH I think this might have been very obvious for some people but this just hit me like the stormwall haha.

The question's in the title. Maybe it's obvious, and there's a passage I'm forgetting, so let me know if this is duh. We know the following, either directly from text or WoB: Nine out of ten Orders of Knights Radiant took part in the Recreance. There was only one Bondsmith alive at the time: Melishi, bonded to the Sibling. Melishi was definitely alive for the Binding of Ba-Ado-Mishram. The Binding was very shortly before the Day of Recreance. The Sibling was considered dead for a long time. Many of their functions shut down, and they lost their Light. It seems a slam dunk, to the extent that I'm amazed the connection isn't explicit in the book, or even the question. Did I miss something? It also means that Adolin isn't the only person to rehabilitate a deadeye - Dabbid has too.

I am pretty sure that I saw someone else say something about this, but for the life of me I can’t find the post. It is an interesting theory so I want to hear ideas. When BAM was imprisoned, it affected the entire land and created slave form among the singers. It created a new state of being for them. What if it also affected the spren of the Knights Radiant?. What if before the imprisonment of BAM, the bond could be broken without killing the spren, only some pain on their part. BAM getting imprisoned changed the land and the Knights didn’t know anything had changed. They had the plan to end their oaths but they didn’t realize it would kill the spren.

Brandon said in the livestream that the deadeye spren is a relashonship that has been seen in other parts of the cosmere. My mind immediately jumped to elantrians. The elantrians had their investiture and their link to the Dor blocked because the command was incomplete. Because it was incomplete, they had sickly blotches, had no heartbeat, and could not heal. They themselves said that they were dead. That is what is happening to the deadeyes. Their command allowing them to exist or transition to their unbonded state or whatever happens after they break their bond is being interrupted mid-transition. This would explain the dead and clawed out eyes. This would explain why they seem to not access investiture or do anything with bonds. Ba-Ado-mishram Somehow allowed that transition to happen, so trapping her interrupted the command, just like with Elantris.

RHYTHM OF WAR SPOILERS! TL;DR: Adolin and Shallan release Ba-Ado-Mishram and revive all the Deadeyes. Some Tinfoil And Some Facts After completing WoR, I had a big question I never asked 'cause I thought Stormfather was exaggerating what had happened... but I'll come back to this point in a min. What are Deadeyes? Spren whose bonded radiant broke their oaths. But isn't the cost too high? Humans who can't keep their oath lose their Surgebinding at the cost of a dead spren? After reading RoW, we know what happens to a spren whose Radiant broke their oaths after the Recreance. Testament died after Recreance when Shallan broke her oaths... err, truths? Now back to my first point. Stormfather told Kaladin that he killed Syl. Back then I assumed he was lying and Syl will just return to Shadesmar after their bond breaks completely, which never happened. Now that I think about it, Stormfather wasn't lying. Syl would have died if her bond with Kal broke completely. Read This Before Conclusion Syl said this about Honorblades: If a Spren reqiure checks, will it just die if the the requirements are not met. I don't think so. Maya agrees with me: Spren thought they will suffer from pain, not death. And Kalak says: I certainly think this is related to formation of Deadeyes after a Radiant break oaths after the Recreance The Conclusion Before Ba-Ado-Misharm was imprisoned, a spren would not die if their Radiant broke their oaths. They would just be sent back to Shadesmar. And ever since the Recreance, any broken bond results to death of the spren. But why Ba-Ado-Mishram is so important? How can an Unmade scar Roshar in such ways? I think Ba-Ado, and all the unmade for the fact, were once of Honor and Cultivation with important roles in Rosharan Spiritual ecology. Later currupted by Oduium. But that's another theory for another day. Adolin and Shallan's arc is now going towards reviving the Deadeyes. Maya and Adoin have been theorized for long. Now we have Shallan and Testament too. I think Adolin and Shallan's next quest will be to find Ba-Ado and free her. In freeing her, they will revive the Deadeyes. Another Tinfoil Titbit Ba-Ado-Mishram was once tasked to check Surgebinding in ways that it remains safe and whatever happened to Ashyn is not repeated. She kept doing it even after Odium Unmade her 'cause Odium don't want to destroy Roshar either. After her imprisonment, Radiants and their spren realized that Nahel bonds are no longer safe and decided to break them.

Brief note regarding Adolin and Maya. When spren come to the physical realm, we know they lose intelligence/cognition until they spend long enough with a Connection to a radiant. Is it possible that, in the cognitive realm, Connection to a radiant could lend physical recovery over time? Could that mean a different set or distribution of powers?

Remember how in Emperor's Soul, a braindead person's mind was recreated using an essence mark? Dead shardblades are basically braindead spren (recall how Pattern said spren don't truly die, they just sort of break). It seems probable that you could temporarily resurrect a "dead" shardblade with an essence mark, provided you knew enough about the blade's history to make a forgery. There's most likely an easier way to revive a dead shardblade (I give it 50/50 odds that Adolin resurrects his blade at some point in the books), but, the idea is kind of interesting. Restoring an ancient and damaged thing seems like exactly the kind of thing forgery was made for.

What part of themselves are the deadeyes missing? Would it be possible to heal this by tapping a metalmind or using Ba-Ado-Mishram?