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The Ideals of the Knights Radiants (written up in the in-book Way of Kings): one shared ideal and four unique ideals for each order unlock enhanced capabilities and even trigger access to stormlight (or at least the second ideal does for Kaladin). I have been assuming that the surges were a shared Honor-Cultivation system with the Oaths as an Honor system built on top of them. Could the spren have created the oaths? (tWoK chapter 67) Jasnah says (chapter 6) that the spren are returning the oaths. Does that strengthen the thought that they empowered them in the first place? The spren created the Radiants in imitation of what was done with the Heralds. It was a surprise to Honor. (WoR chapter 3) Nohadon complains that some of the Nahel-Bond spren are not discriminating enough. (tWoK chapter 60) So the spren created Surgebinding and it was kinda good, but it had a bug in that the empowered people wouldn't necessarily work together. Could the spren be the ones who changed their own system? The spren could have created the Ideals to restrain the behavior of the surgebinders. A Surgebinder either adopts the progressive ideals or doesn't become a strong surgebinder. The knights thought they had to disband (or whatever they did) because continuing as knights would lead to Something Bad. In doing so, they violated their Oaths to their bonded spren, not least of which is the first: journey before destination. Spren may have died or become mindless as a result. Syl comments on gravity working consistently as a working agreement (between the spren?) to keep people's minds from being blown (this is a whole topic of it's own) (Chapter 9 WoR). The oaths could be a similar agreement between the spren (and maybe Nohadon) to limit the strength of the Surgebinders who have not adopted all the ideals. Of course, Honor and the spren could have worked together on this also. What do people think?