Why the Singers will reject Odium

[Letryx13]

I realize this theory is going out on a limb, and makes a couple of very big assumptions.  But I really think this could be a possible route to how the things go in StormLight book 5.

Ever since I finished Oathbringer, I've come to the conclusion that since Honor and Cultivation restrained Odium in some way, Odium himself is only a real threat while he has the fuzed and singers obeying him. Obviously, there are humans following Him, along with the Unmade and Thunderclasts, but the vast majority of his forces come from the singers.  The Fuzed are basically helpless without willing singers to sacrifice their bodies for them. When I realized this, it also occurred to me that the way to defeat Odium is to find a way to separate him from the singers.

My first, relatively stupid, idea was to simply find a way to have the humans and singers on different worlds.  Obviously this is never going to happen, since the humans have lived on Roshar for so long, and since the singers were the original inhabitant species, both feel as if it rightfully belongs to them. 

So I started trying to figure out what might get the singers to turn on or reject Odium. I've posted a theory already about how I think it was the singers that started the wars in the first place.  But that alone wouldn't be enough to change their minds.  They might not be happy that it was the Fuzed and their like that started the fighting, but that doesn't seem like it could overshadow their anger at humankind. The years they spent as slaves to humans is what is truly fueling their rage.

That's when it hit me.  What if the humans weren't the only ones to blame for the singer's enslavement? Stick with me on this.

During Dalinar's last vision in WoK, Honor tells Dalinar various pieces of puzzle in the conflict between Him and Odium. One line that specifically stood out to me was when he mentions that Odium has realized that the people of Roshar will fight amongst themselves if left alone.  This is a fairly simple concept.  Getting multiple enemies to turn on each other is one of the easiest ways to defeat opponents.  He also claims He will be dead by the anyone ever receives the message, if anyone even does.  So it's safe to say that Honor died shortly after he created that message.  This line in Honor's message is the first of two pieces of information supporting this theory.

Honor's death would have happened after the Herald's decided to abandon the Oathpact (since the visions not only showed their abandoned swords, but at least one vision afterward at FeverStone Keep), which means that two of the four largest unifying forces for humankind, their god and his heralds, would be gone. The main unifying forces left would be the Knights Radiant and the singers, humankind's enemy.  You might be able to see where I'm going with this. If Odium could figure out a way to remove both of those, humans wouldn't be as strongly united anymore, and would likely turn on each other.

This brings me to my main point.  I think that Odium intentionally setup Ba-Ado-Mishram's imprisonment, knowing what would come of it.  I believe that Odium realized what would happen if the singers were removed from the equation; that the Radiants and their spren would choose to end the orders if they no longer had an enemy to fight.  Honor encouraged the radiants not to give up even after they found out that Roshar originally belonged to the singers, and he also acted as a check against their powers. With Him gone, they lost both of these things, and Odium was likely crafty enough to deduce that if he could remove the singers somehow, the knights would be gone, and humans would eventually start fighting amongst themselves. 

But what's the evidence that Odium did anything like this? It takes a some amount of reasoning, but there is another piece of information that supports it.  The fact that the entire population of singers were bonded to BAM at the time of her imprisonment.  Not counting the Listeners, since they were separated at the time. Previously, the Fuzed had taken over willing singers, and some voidspren had granted some singers forms of power.  But, if it's possible for one of the Unmade to grant every existing singer a Regal status, then why didn't Odium himself do this? Why hasn't he done this during the current desolation? A larger quantity of powerful soldiers would be better for his army.  It doesn't fit. With the way Regals act so aggressively, it's likely they've be even more willing to give themselves up to the Fuzed.

Yes, it's possible that there just weren't as many singers at the time of BAM's imprisonment, and this evens things out, but that answer doesn't sit right with me. If their numbers were proportionally smaller, then the Radiants shouldn't have needed to imprison BAM to end the war.  During one of Venli's flashback chapters, the voidspren Ulim talks to her about how BAM was imprisoned and what that did to the singers. The fact that he never mentions anything about Odium being responsible makes sense however, since he wouldn't want to reveal anything that might turn singers against Odium, assuming Ulim even knew about it.  We don't know when exactly human's learned to imprison spren, but judging from the way the Fuzed were surprised by it, it was probably after Aharietiam.  We also don't know where humans learned to imprison spren in the first place. It's entirely possible that Odium himself leaked that knowledge to humans, but i admit that's pure speculation. It's more likely he took advantage of humankind's ability to imprison spread in gemstones. 

And let's not forget that Odium would need to eventually bring the singers back.  Obviously, this is done with the Everstorm. While the Stormfather said that the Everstorm is new, it is old of design, which means that the idea for it probably existed before the recreance, during the time of the desolations.  So it could easily have been a part of Odium's plans. It is also possible that he just never thought that Taln would be able to resist for for over four thousand years, and figured by the time Taln broke (which never happened) the humans would be sufficiently divided.

If the information that Odium was responsible for the singer's enslavement were somehow distributed to the singer population, I imagine that would turn the entire situation on its head. They might not be any less angry at humans, but if they found out the very god they were following, the one their ancestors had followed, had betrayed them and gotten them enslaved, they would probably abandon Him pretty quickly.  It's the sort of thing that could end the war in a chaotic enough way to upend the new Odium's plans and bring a semi-conclusion good enough for the first half of the ten book installment.  Of course, the contest of champions would still happen, but this would be a dramatic enough event to impact even that.

Edited November 25, 2021 by Letryx13
misspelling

[Rashekin]

Sounds like a good theory to me, albeit a little clarification: I think that, based on what Stormfather says in Oathbringer, Honor probably died shortly after the False Desolation, and that he (Honor) was totally insane and delirious talking about the Dawnshards and saying that the Radiants were going to destroy the world.