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The Recreance - why, how, and when it happened - is obviously going to play a central role in the upcoming books. We know precious little, but I would like to propose a simple (if outlandish) theory as to why it happened. The Knights Radiant could be mind-controlled by Odium. Yes, you read that correctly. I would like to propose that the Knights gave up their power to prevent Odium from taking them over en masse following the most recent Desolation. To properly motivate this idea, I need to lay out some facts: * The cause of the Recreance can be communicated simply * The cause must be sufficiently dangerous that almost all of the Knights gave up simultaneously * The spren would interpret these actions as a betrayal The first fact follows from the Diagram, and the fact that Taravangian could somehow use the secret to break up the new Knights. I take this to mean that he would announce whatever the secret is, and the Knights would be compelled in some way to give up their power. In particular, I think the Knights themselves have to decide to give up their own power. The second fact follows from the Feverstone Keep vision and the in-world Words of Radiance. This isn't a gradual event - suddenly, within a fairly short time window, all of the Knights give up their power. I take this to be an indication of the magnitude of the damage caused by the secret. The third fact follows directly from Jasnah, the Stormfather, and Pattern. How does this mind control work? We have seen on other worlds how a Shard can interact with damaged souls, and it isn't much of a leap to assume a similar thing can happen here. Knights are, by construction, damaged souls. Odium simply reaches in, granting him anything from direct control to simply changing viewpoints. There may be some restriction on this ability, some requisite hatred or similar that allows Odium to take hold. Thus, a particularly emotionless Knight might be able to resist Odium if she could properly banish emotion. The Skybreakers fit this well, but the other Orders don't generically have their control. Note Szeth's unnatural hatred towards the people he has killed and Kaladin's unhealthy hatred of lighteyes. Why at the particular time? I assume that the Heralds provide some sort of "prison" for Odium during their time in Damnation. When all ten Heralds are present, Odium has very little touch on Roshar. But with only one Herald present, his touch may be more drastic. With no other Voidbringers to control and only Talenel, sometime after the most recent Desolation would be a good opportunity for him. In this scenario, I imagine that the Heralds/Knights realize that this possible and move to destroy the Orders before Odium can act. Depending on Odium's speed, the execution referenced in Words of Radiance may in fact be one of the first of these case. Finally, the spren consider this a betrayal because Odium can only take over when the Knight fails to keep hatred away. Thus, the preemptive abandonment rather than fighting his influence goes against the First Ideal and everything the Knights stood for. In conclusion, without the other Heralds to guard him (or Voidbringers to distract him), Odium can take advantage of a emotionally susceptible Knight's broken soul to mind control her. When the Knights realized this, they abandoned their Oaths instead of fighting Odium's influence which to the spren was a betrayal. Closing thoughts - any theory for the Recreance has to account for the fact that all of the Knights gave up at once. Given what else we have seen, this seems like a sufficiently drastic scenario.

There are quotes, lettered in parentheses, at the end. The Diagram is Mr. T's plan to save humanity. On the way he thinks he has to become king of everything (A, B ) Graves pretends to be a patriot wanting to kill Elhokar so that Dalinar can take over. At the end, he talks about the Diagram. He says that they tried to keep Kaladin away from Dalinar. They know that Szeth is coming back for a second try. Deduction: Graves is an agent of Mr. T who is really acting to have both Dalinar and Elhokar killed so that Alethkar will fall into chaos and Mr. T can take over. (D, E ) Mr. T apparently helped Szeth become a Truthless so that Mr. T would have a weapon of destabilization (C ). The chaos in Jah Keved was created by Szeth's assassinations and Mr. T has already taken over. Azir is destabilized by the assassination of two successive emporers and might be needing leadership except for the intervention of a budding Radiant. Earlier, a Selay Gerontarch was slain by Szeth. There is an ardent who denounces the queen of Alethkar. After her execution, riots erupt. There is some sort of plague in the Purelake. It sounds suspiciously like "medical" intervention is needed. Deduction: Mr. T is making his move, with all these crises, and probably others, being supported by his agents. Nin is aiming Szeth to take out the Shamanate. More chaos. Questions: Is Nin using Mr. T in his designs or is Mr. T using Nin, both or neither? Will Moash learn about the Diagram and Mr. T? Will he be redeemed and let Kaladin know that Mr. T is a huge part of the problem? When will Szeth turn his attention to Mr. T? Now that the desolation is here, will Nin cease his persecution of the budding Radiants? The diagram apparently has contingency planning to destroy even the rebuilt Radiants. With Dalinar and the Radiants, the Diagram has already failed to an extent. At what point does reality diverge so much from the Diagram that Mr. T ditches it? The Diagram apparently has Mr. T destroying humanity's ability to fight. After he has thrown every realm into civil war and destroyed their fighting population along with any Radiants that pop up, how does Mr. T plan to fight the desolations? Mr. T asked the Nightwatcher for the ability to save humanity. The fluctuating intelligence is her apparent answer. Based on his point of view, Mr. T is monumentally stupid in what he thinks of as his brilliant times. He is murdering to get the information one of the Unmade is providing him. He is assiduously following a Diagram that he created on a day he was so "smart" that he is unlikely to ever be that smart again. Has he been led astray by Odium? There is a timing issue. Mr T seems to be motivated by Gavilar's visions that he was told about on the day of Gavilar's assassination in his POVs. Szeth is already a truthless and the death rattles have been happening for a year at this point. Either Szeth became a truthless on his own or Mr. T visited the Nightwatcher and had his special day before learning about Dalinar's visions. Is there any evidence supporting the idea that Mr. T had his day of "brilliance" after Szeth became Truthless? A. Ch 79 Epigraph B. Ch 80 Epigraph C. Ch 78 Epigraph D. Ch 87: E. Ch 84: Edit: added quotes, last question about timing of Diagram relative to Szeth becoming Truthless.

This this might be a stupid question but is sequence of numbers a time table for high storms.. What I'm saying for example... 1173090605 Year 1173 Month 09 Day 06 Hour 05 Maybe I'm wrong or someone else has figured out the right answer idk...?

I had the privilege of being able to gamma read Words of Radiance, and I found a list of digits in one of the epigraphs to be very intriguing. It’s obviously some sort of hidden message, and I’d like to know what it says. So I spent a bit of time working on it. It’s the message encoded in the numbers for the epigraph "From the Diagram, Book of the 2nd Ceiling Rotation: pattern 15". The numbers are as follows: 11182510111271249151210101114102151171121011121713 44831110715142541434109161491493412122541010125 1271015191011123412551152512157551112341011129151 21061534 They have different layouts between the hardcover and the Kindle version. In fact, in the kindle version, the layout changes depending on device rotation. So I believe the layout is irrelevant. If you remove the line breaks, you get a long string of digits. The first thing I thought of was that maybe the string could be split into three digit numbers and something like the first letter of each page given by the numbers could be used to construct the message. This would give “111 825 101 112 712 491…” But I tried a few pages and that didn't work. Peter mentioned to me that I should be able to figure out why what wouldn't work, and I could see that there'd be issues between digital and physical versions. Also, paperback page numbering probably wouldn't match the hardcover page numbering. So I presumed that the code could be found in one of the messages in the other epigraphs relating to the Diagram. I think the most likely source is the only other epigraph from the “Book of the 2nd Ceiling Rotation.” This one was “pattern 1” and it’s set out as follows: Obviously they are fools The Desolation needs no usher It can and will sit where it wishes and the signs are obvious that the spren anticipate it doing so soon The Ancient of Stones must finally begin to crack It is a wonder that upon his will rested the prosperity and peace of a world for over four millennia It sounds like its chock full of hidden codes, right? I realized the long string of numbers has 154 digits, and couldn’t really be split into three digit numbers. I thought that maybe splitting the string into two digit numbers would give something that could work. I tried to use the two digit numbers as letter offsets into pattern 1, with 01 being the first letter from the string. The numbers become “11 18 25 10 11 12 71 24 91 51 21 01 01 11 41 02 15…” With spaces I got: te th s soOOtnb t h thredtt seryl n ynnoor hsh thlh thsot thl th sou l The “soul” at the end sounds sort of interesting, but it ends up giving a lot of consecutive spaces in the answer. I decided the spaces should probably be removed. Removing the spaces I got: hoDthesevnsOOhobrhsethefyhghtsnudantvtcaoosTdttenstrothenewhanslwhenthevnsurn I got excited for “Hod (Hoid?) these v” but it degenerates into garbage. With some potential English words along the way. I see “ten”, “the new”, “when they”. This one may be the closest to the solution. Assuming 00 as the first offset (letter) into pattern 1, I got: eoeheyhDiaTbbeuveehyheyoaenehhaswrnhiwaruuThwhhyaohelheynyienaTlieynheyiaTsen which is probably what you yell if you’ve lost your spear and a chasmfiend is chasing you. But it for sure isn’t any answer to a code. Assuming the numbers index 01 as the first letter from the back of pattern 1, you get: urwruorogedaaueieuroruoofocurreperdrgitrbedlerroefreoruodorutedlruodruogedled which sounds like our old friend the chasmfiend has met up with as again… I also tried using just single digits from the original string as counts starting from the first letter and starting the next count from the last stop. That’s not it. I wondered if pattern 1 could be set in rows with ten columns, and the digits could be xy co-ordinate pairs into the first hundred letters. Something like: Obviouslyt heyarefool sTheDesola tionneedsn ousherItca nandwillsi twhereitwi . . (0,0) would be “O”, (1,1) would be “e”, (1,2) would be “T” etc. Nope. Even swapping x and y. Two of the epigraphs had paragraphs apparently derived from one “Floorboard 17: paragraph 2”. One epigraph had every second letter starting from the first letter, while epigraph the other had every second letter starting from the second letter. I tried to recombine them into the original, but it turns out they don’t have an equal number of letters. Using “*” as a placeholder for missing letters, I combined them into: AThhbeurtethhaesytwoebreealneafntsbweehriWnhdaIttiisstohbevainosuwsefrrSotmotphTehneaPtaurrsehoefntdhieObnoenodfBtuhtewmhYeersetwhheeyraerwehtehreemwihsesrienSgeptioefcfeOPbuvsihofuosrRtehaelAilzeatthiiotnoldieksetarporyitchietmyoTuhteryiagrhetwbietfhotrheetShhiisnoWneemoubsttafiinnsdtohneeiCrapnowweemraIktewtiolulsfeoarTmraubtrhildegses*C*a*n*w*e*c*r*a*f*t*a*w*e*a*p*o*n* Trying to index into these also didn’t yield anything but nonsense. I tried a similar trick with pattern 1, taking every second letter starting from the first or starting from the second and indexing into those. Zip. Nadda. It may well be that more than one epigraph is required. I have not tried anything with any of the other epigraphs, like the Book of the 2nd Desk Drawer etc. I got nothing else. I’m hoping some of you who are into ciphers or code-breaking can help figure this out…