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The secret of the radiants


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On 1/30/2017 at 0:28 PM, hwiles said:

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I have to echo Galendo, how do you craft a situation yielding into all members of all orders, except one, to simultaneously paint themselves into a corner where the only available option is to break their oaths? Not to forget we have to consider orders as a group of individuals and not as a completely homogeneous entity. Already, we have been told taking the oaths is a personal venture which results in various proto-Radiants to state the same oath in different manner, in different context. It thus seem logical to expect not all Windrunners will adopt a role similar to Kaladin meaning not all of them would end up trap within the same large scale ploy. We also have orders which progress through self-knowledge which means, unless your same ploy is able to make all Lightweavers simultaneously denying their own self, it seems like an almost impossible task and certainly not one which could be referred to as a "secret" capable of being "reenact" if required.

It is thus I am growing increasingly convinced the "secret" has to refer as a way to force the knights to break their oaths or to just break them without their consent. It would account for the instantaneous effect of the Recreance, the stunned look of the Radiants and since the sprens have no idea what happen, it would also be logical they would think it was a betrayal. The one order which didn't break might be because they found a way to protect themselves or perhaps it was a betrayal, but not from human to sprens, but from one order to the others. 

I think there are a lot of wiggle room to come out with a good explanation which would be satisfying, but I have doubts a simple "truth" would be enough.

18 hours ago, galendo said:

Or, if you haven't read the Mistborn trilogy, one mystery in Way of Kings that I was rather disappointed with the revelation was the secret behind Dalinar's visions: that he wasn't actually conversing with Honor, just getting talked at by an unhearing, unresponding recording.  But I've mistaken an answering machine for an actual person picking up the phone before, and started to have a conversation with the machine; and let me tell you that it takes about five seconds or less to realize your mistake.  Like literally less than five seconds.  Same thing's happened when I'm on the phone and the other person mutes me accidentally.  Then it takes maybe ten seconds.  And yet I'm supposed to believe that Dalinar doesn't figure it out after several sessions of several minutes of conversation?  It just isn't reasonable or realistic.

I think the most logical explanation is that Dalinar wanted to believe his visions were true. He refused to second guess himself, he refuse to even hear they might be a fabrication and he didn't consider the possibility he might not interpret them right. I read Dalinar as someone who wants guidance, who wants to be told what to do: he used to blindly follow Gavilar without asking questions and now Gavilar is dead, he turns himself to the next higher authority, peculiar visions. Another individual would have never put so much faith into them.

Thus, I do feel Dalinar has turned his critical sense off and went with his basic need for the visions to be true, hence he was manipulated.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Tarion said:

I think you've either misread or are misremembering for the 2nd point.

What actually happened is almost entirely the opposite of what you're describing - He noticed the discrepancies because the memories other people were retrieving from their copperminds were different to the memories he had kept in his head. The entire trick relied on people forgetting their memories when they stored them, but by virtue of not needing to use copperminds, he was immune. 

Replies in spoilers, for spoiler-y purposes:

Spoiler

Oh, that...that makes a lot more sense.  I just totally misinterpreted that part.  It still doesn't explain how he reaches the conclusion that you can write things in metal to avoid Ruin's influence -- seems a very bizarre thing to test, and impossible to prove besides -- but that explanation makes a lot more sense now.

 

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Mistborn spoilers everywhere.

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1. Burning atium doesn't prevent it from being reformed in 300 years, destroying the crystals in the Pits of Hathsin, the place where Ruin's power leaked out did. You could argue that TLR could've still taken that step, but the atium was in fact serving an important purpose for him; giving him a direct line of control over the economy of the Final Empire. Losing it would've meant the possibility of chaos, something which would've added more unpredictable risks than if he had just played it safe and waited for the Well to refill so he could fix things again.

2. As Jondesu said, the memories were being stored using Ruin's power. No surprise he could touch them. Also, there's a huge difference between storing investiture in metal which is how the copperminds function, and physically writing it in metal, in addition to the reason why he couldn't read the physical metal, which they detail. It was literally glowing for him, he couldn't see the physical metal. Also, Kwaan wasn't a feruchemist, he just had a good memory naturally.

3. TLR hid the actual knowledge. If people knew it was just mist, then he would've seen less impressive as the one who defeated the Deepness. Yes, feels underwhelming, at the same time, makes sense. Really maintained the line of how many falsehoods TLR had created over the years.

4. Honestly, would've felt boring if we had created 300 new mistborns after all the build-up that they were so rare. Seer mistings make more sense too, since they probably would've been easier to snap into, as less spiritual would've needed to have been changed.

 

 

Spoiler

1) Yeah, I kind of glossed over that the geodes in the pits would have to be destroyed, too, but I figured that would be part of the "burn all the atium" process.  I don't buy that the Lord Ruler needed it to keep stability, either.  He kept stability off of a mere trickle of atium for a thousand years, so he certainly doesn't need very much of it.  He has the authority, he has the money, he has the Ministries, he has the Steel Inquisitors, he has the koloss...he has basically everything.  Plus, he's their literal god.  The atium doesn't seem that important to his rule.

2) Yeah, I mostly retract my objections to point #2.  I misunderstood the explanation.

3) I guess?  I dunno, if the Lord Ruler's rewriting history, why didn't he make the Deepness into an evil god or something -- maybe even Ruin himself!  (Not only would this be more impressive than some vague, undefined threat, it would have the benefit that, if anything bad happened, the entire population wouldn't be blindsided by Ruin's existence.)

4) Nah, it would've been climactic (though I admit that opinions may differ).  Plus, most of them would die against the koloss hordes anyway, so mistborn would remain very rare.  Basically, the story wouldn't have been changed much at all, but the pattern of 1 day = misting, 16 days = mistborn would have made a lot more sense, in my opinion.

 

13 hours ago, Rasarr said:

I would argue with this, for three reasons.

  • You are aware of the existence of answering machines. Dalinar is not; moreover, Dalinar has no knowledge of computer games, videos, chatbots, or anything similar. He literally lacks the mental framework necessary to quickly pick up on something like this.
  • Honor has the capacity to see the future to some extent, and has engineered the entire scene. He knows what kind of person he picked up; he can reasonably predict what questions his candidate will ask of the Honorbot. As such, his monologue will fit Dalinar more than an answering machines will fit you.
  • Dalinar, especially later on, feels the need to believe that he's actually talking with some higher entity; he needs to know that he's not crazy and that the Almighty approves of his actions. As such, he might be subconsciously overlooking small details that don't fit in, which could clue another person that they're dealing with an Honorbot.

Anyway, back to the topic - I agree that it's unlikely that "the secret" is some bit of knowledge, or some situation which might be engineered. Personally, I find it more likely that the secret is something that will force the Radiants to break their oaths, not because they will learn it and go "oh, hell no!", but because they will be physically (magically?) compelled to do so. Their behaviour in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance is, in my opinion, far too uniform for this to be something... natural, for lack of a better word.

I'm aware of the existence of answering machines, true, something beyond Dalinar's experience; but I'm sure Dalinar has experienced people not hearing what he said.  It's really, really obvious when someone can't hear your words.  Hold a conversation with someone who's hard of hearing, and I guarantee you it will be really obvious what parts they understood and which they didn't.  (I used the example of the telephone because it seemed the most analogous situation, where you're conversing with someone you can't see.  But I'm pretty certain the point holds just as well in other circumstances.)

I also don't really believe that Honor can see the future well enough to predict Dalinar's questions.  Not only does he not do a very good job answering them, Honor himself describes it as looking through shattered panes of glass -- I could be wrong, but it sounds like something that's pretty hard to do.  I might believe that Dalinar really wants to be guided by a higher power and thus overlooks some stuff, but...I dunno, the whole "conversation with an answering machine" thing just seems too unbelievable.  It's really obvious when someone can't hear you.

As to forcing the Radiants to break their oaths by magical compulsion, I'm not sure that I'm a fan of this explanation, either.  I don't know that it would count as oathbreaking, for one thing, if it was entirely unintentional (do accidents count as oathbreaking?  If Kaladin accidently stabs Ehlokar when sparring or something, does that mean bye-bye Syl?  Seems like a strange chain of cause-and-effect if so).  For another, I'm pretty sure there are WoBs that say that the more Invested something is, the harder it is to magically affect, so messing around with the willpower of hundreds or thousands of Radiants seems very difficult, to say the least.  And finally, if you did have the power to mind-control a bunch of Radiants, couldn't you find something more exciting for them to do than just break their oaths?  Maybe have them go on a killing spree or something first?

12 hours ago, Rob Lucci said:

This is an interesting deathrattle from WoK Chapter 2: Honor is Dead.

 

If this is one of the Lost Radiants, then we have reason to believe that the KR did not willingly set down their bonds. "Shard of my soul" is an interesting metaphor. I believe this refers to their bonded spren. Could this mean that the secret is a way for somebody to forcibly take away the spren of a Radiant, even temporarily?

I interpret "Shard of my soul" to refer to the Almighty, not a bonded spren.  It's open to multiple interpretations, of course -- almost all the deathrattles are written vaguely enough for that -- but that's my interpretation, for what it's worth.

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1 hour ago, galendo said:

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1) Yeah, I kind of glossed over that the geodes in the pits would have to be destroyed, too, but I figured that would be part of the "burn all the atium" process.  I don't buy that the Lord Ruler needed it to keep stability, either.  He kept stability off of a mere trickle of atium for a thousand years, so he certainly doesn't need very much of it.  He has the authority, he has the money, he has the Ministries, he has the Steel Inquisitors, he has the koloss...he has basically everything.  Plus, he's their literal god.  The atium doesn't seem that important to his rule.

2) Yeah, I mostly retract my objections to point #2.  I misunderstood the explanation.

3) I guess?  I dunno, if the Lord Ruler's rewriting history, why didn't he make the Deepness into an evil god or something -- maybe even Ruin himself!  (Not only would this be more impressive than some vague, undefined threat, it would have the benefit that, if anything bad happened, the entire population wouldn't be blindsided by Ruin's existence.)

4) Nah, it would've been climactic (though I admit that opinions may differ).  Plus, most of them would die against the koloss hordes anyway, so mistborn would remain very rare.  Basically, the story wouldn't have been changed much at all, but the pattern of 1 day = misting, 16 days = mistborn would have made a lot more sense, in my opinion.

 

Mistborn spoilers:

Spoiler

  

Hi, I noticed you had some questions about Mistborn's mysteries.  Let me see what I can do to clear them up.

1)  Why not just burn the atium every 300 or so years? Because kandra can't use Allomancy,  Inquisitors are agents of Ruin, and humans can't be trusted.  Even a tiny fraction of it would be squirreled away and hidden, and at that point it may as well be part of Ruin already.  And those tiny fractions would add up over the years.  

2) You understand already, I won't belabor the point.  

3) Because Ruin could, would, and has sabotaged every effort against him, and using the written word to do so is one of his favorite tactics.  Any alterations to history would only serve Ruin.  It wouldn't even be all that difficult - call the Deepness an evil god, and Ruin will rewrite the characterization of that god to fit Preservation and not himself.  

4) It kind of beggars belief that an army of Mistborn, even without Elend's lerasium boost, would get slaughtered as easily as the mistfallen did.  But this last is all opinion anyway, and frightfully off-topic.  

Regarding the "Honorbot" (excellent name for it, BTW), every one of us here is privy to both sides of the conversation. Did you, your first time reading them, pick up on the fact that Honor was a recording?  I'm not sure I would have, but I was spoiled about Honor's deceased-ness before I read tWoK.  

I do agree that most of the available options re: The Recreance don't entirely hang together.  But I do have two marks to drop in, so here we go: What if it wasn't completely unanimous, as in Honor's accounting?  We're told that all the bonded spren of the time died, but Pattern didn't know how long that took.  This suggests to me (and my sleep-deprived brain) that the "good" ones laid down their arms to prevent something really bad happening (possibly along the lines of "your powers allow the Voidbringers to return" which would count as the so-called "wicked thing of eminence") but the "bad ones" merely broke their oaths a la WoR Kaladin, and possibly didn't leave a Blade behind when they died.  

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30 minutes ago, Landis963 said:

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Hi, I noticed you had some questions about Mistborn's mysteries.  Let me see what I can do to clear them up.

1)  Why not just burn the atium every 300 or so years? Because kandra can't use Allomancy,  Inquisitors are agents of Ruin, and humans can't be trusted.  Even a tiny fraction of it would be squirreled away and hidden, and at that point it may as well be part of Ruin already.  And those tiny fractions would add up over the years.  

2) You understand already, I won't belabor the point.  

3) Because Ruin could, would, and has sabotaged every effort against him, and using the written word to do so is one of his favorite tactics.  Any alterations to history would only serve Ruin.  It wouldn't even be all that difficult - call the Deepness an evil god, and Ruin will rewrite the characterization of that god to fit Preservation and not himself.  

4) It kind of beggars belief that an army of Mistborn, even without Elend's lerasium boost, would get slaughtered as easily as the mistfallen did.  But this last is all opinion anyway, and frightfully off-topic.  

Regarding the "Honorbot" (excellent name for it, BTW), every one of us here is privy to both sides of the conversation. Did you, your first time reading them, pick up on the fact that Honor was a recording?  I'm not sure I would have, but I was spoiled about Honor's deceased-ness before I read tWoK.  

I do agree that most of the available options re: The Recreance don't entirely hang together.  But I do have two marks to drop in, so here we go: What if it wasn't completely unanimous, as in Honor's accounting?  We're told that all the bonded spren of the time died, but Pattern didn't know how long that took.  This suggests to me (and my sleep-deprived brain) that the "good" ones laid down their arms to prevent something really bad happening (possibly along the lines of "your powers allow the Voidbringers to return" which would count as the so-called "wicked thing of eminence") but the "bad ones" merely broke their oaths a la WoR Kaladin, and possibly didn't leave a Blade behind when they died.  

Mistborn stuff:

Spoiler

1) You wouldn't burn the atium up every 300 years.  You'd gather it up, like the Lord Ruler was doing, and then, after 950 or so years, you have an atium-burning party.  Ruin shows up 75 years later (24 later than you predicted), and then is out of luck for the next two-and-a-quarter centuries.

3) But there's such a thing as oral history, which isn't subject to Ruin's fiddling.  And I'm not sure how much fiddling Ruin could even do, anyway, if the Lord Ruler just came out every so often and reiterated the story he wanted known.  Also, I could be misremembering, but it seems like Ruin didn't really start messing with stuff until he was about ready to be freed.  I'm not sure that he could reach out of his prison before that prison started to weaken.

4) Well, if I recall correctly, they only found out that they were atium mistings right before the big battle.  So even if they were mistborn, they'd have no practice, no training, and definitely not least, no allomantic metals to burn.  But yeah, rather off-topic.  Just a minor quibble of mine.

I can't claim the Honorbot moniker.  That was Rasarr's invention, I think.  To answer your question, though: I did not pick up that Honor was a recording.  But in some ways that's the part that irritates me.  Because if he were a recording, you shouldn't see Dalinar complete nearly as many sentences without Honor interrupting him (Honor should be interrupting maybe 80+ percent of the time, since he can't hear Dalinar at all).  You should see instances where they both start talking at the same time.  Honor's side of the conversation should make more sense when considered without Dalinar's interruptions than it does with them.  Generally, though, the reverse is true; which is representative of a conversation more than a monologue.

To be fair, though, I probably wouldn't have noticed it on my first reading anyway.  I generally don't pick up on stuff like that.  The revelation didn't bother me on my first reading, either.  It was only during a second reading, when I read the scenes looking for clues that Honor was on autopilot (and didn't find enough evidence to support it, IMHO) that I began to get irritated.

As for the Recreance, did Honor actually say it was unanimous?  I don't remember that particularly, but I tend to skim over Dalinar's WoK scenes nowadays.  The thing is, though, even if all the "good" Radiants laid down their arms for the greater good -- and I'd think it would take one hell of a greater good to justify condemning their spren to endless agony -- there should still be a bunch of less noble Radiants running around post-Recreance.  Presumably they'd be just as likely to avoid breaking their oaths as ever, assuming that "bad" isn't synonymous with "stupid."

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@galendo, I admit that such hiccups like starting the conversation at the same time etc. would probably happen, and perhaps should happen, but didn't because it would spoil the twist. I personally believe that Honor could predict Dalinar's words with pretty decent accuracy (Stormfather's looking for similar kind of people, the situation is always the same, and so on; though this is hardly 100% accuracy, as seen when Dalinar grows convinced that he should totally trust Sadeas), and I could argue that, I don't know, Honorbot has a bit of code that tells him 'speak only when Dalinar doesn't', but at this point, this turns into an excercise in making up handwaves on my part, because text evidence of Honorbot's inner workings is nonexistent. I understand why you don't buy this, and I probably won't be able to convince you that it makes sense, because it's less "see this quote that explains it all" and more "well, it seems plausible to me".

As for the idea that the Recreance wasn't unanimous, it's an interesting one, and I could believe in this far more than I could in everybody agreeing to breaking their oaths all at once. The Oathbringer description that's been released recently does mention that Shallan is supposed to find some dark, dark secrets in Urithiru; perhaps some Radiants not breaking their Oaths could be one of them (though why that would be a dark, dark secret eludes me). I personally still believe that there's something less than voluntary about the Recreance - again, the way their expression is completely the same on the Day of Recreance is odd (and I don't think this is Honor copy-pasting the same expression on everyone for a made-up vision, he was still alive when that happened), as is the way they seem to be in sync with one another. I don't think they had the opportunity to practice breaking their Oaths together.

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6 hours ago, galendo said:

As for the Recreance, did Honor actually say it was unanimous?  I don't remember that particularly, but I tend to skim over Dalinar's WoK scenes nowadays.  The thing is, though, even if all the "good" Radiants laid down their arms for the greater good -- and I'd think it would take one hell of a greater good to justify condemning their spren to endless agony -- there should still be a bunch of less noble Radiants running around post-Recreance.  Presumably they'd be just as likely to avoid breaking their oaths as ever, assuming that "bad" isn't synonymous with "stupid."

I don't believe so.  Pattern later said that all the bonded spren from that era died, which makes it look unanimous even if it wasn't exactly so.  However, I suspect that the Radiants who chose the Recreance over whatever alternative there was didn't know all the consequences of quitting.  Because you're right, it would take one doozy of a dark secret to make someone choose to leave their spren an agonized zombie. 

As for the bad ones, remember Kaladin almost broke his oaths completely by accident, and Shallan nearly killed Pattern in her youth by repressing her memories.  Also, one might find it difficult to, for example,  protect someone who wants them dead.  

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After thinking for a day, I'd like to throw in a theory. (

The secret is that the Nahel bond, as Nale suggest, is bringing Desolations. I believe that the Nahel bond stretches the frontier between the Physical and Cognitive Realm somehow, and enables Odium to influence Roshar more strongly. That is why KR's spren are so much in the Physical, yet still Cognitive. And their recovered memories is just a consequence of more and more bonded spren (thus thinning the barrier between both Realms), not just time passing.

In the past, the appearance of the Heralds announced a coming Desolation, because of their Honorblade which is a stronger Bond that a Shardblade is. Thus, they increase the strain between Realms on a stronger scale than a regular bond. While shattering the Oathpact, the Heralds preserved Mankind in a way because they left their Honorblade on Roshar, except Talenel's, whereas they usually accompagny the Heralds into Damnation. The periodical strain became a permanent one. Which still threatened Roshar, but Talenel uphold the Oathpact.

The Knight Radiants forsook their Oaths because they either learned, understood or knew that it would get worse for Roshar if the spren continued bonding men. only one order refused because of what said order considered their duty, or that it was more a gamble than a solution. But the 9 other Orders understood the risk of the increasing number of bonds. They had to break the bond to save mankind.

Random correlative theories:

  • The Shin were asked for help into completing the plan. That's why they guarded the Honorblade. The fact that they do not believe it is possible for new Radiants to appear comes from that time and is the reason they made Szeth Truthless. It was the only explanation for them.
  • The portraying of KR, the Hierocracy and book tampering were made to prevent people from discovering the Oaths. But they didn't account on the fact that the spren may act on their side to search for candidates again, because they didn't remember the threat of the bond. The full transition back into the Cognitive Realm may have hampered their memories again. That and the lust for power that grew into them.
  • From the Listerner Song of Spren, 10th Stanza : ""But it is not impossible to blend / Their Surges to ours in the end. / It has been promised and it can come. / Or do we understand the sum? / We questioned not if they can have us then, / But if we dare to have them again." " The sum in question might be tied to the overall number of bonds on Roshar on a given moment. And that would explain why they yearn yet do not dare to bond "regular" spren.
  • Voidspren or Odiumspren act as an anchor on Roshar for Odium, which explain why he sought the Parshendi, spurned by the spren, but seemingly easily bondable. But either they do not increase the strain on Realms, or the Parshendi are just not concerned with that.

There are holes and problems with those thoughts, but I think the madness of the Herald might not be the kind we think it is. they might be right, but misinterpreting it because of what they went through and relative sanity.

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9 hours ago, Rasarr said:

I don't know, Honorbot has a bit of code that tells him 'speak only when Dalinar doesn't'

I came here to suggest this bit. Not full-blown awareness, but something. If it's capable of speaking to Dalinar in any (and, apparently, multiple) languages while giving him the ability to understand them (temporarily), making sure he's not speaking when it speaks doesn't seem like a huge leap, if you're wanting to get your point across. Even if it's just a case of the Stormfather queuing up the Investiture sound files and hitting play at appropriate moments. 

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58 minutes ago, Tarion said:

I came here to suggest this bit. Not full-blown awareness, but something. If it's capable of speaking to Dalinar in any (and, apparently, multiple) languages while giving him the ability to understand them (temporarily), making sure he's not speaking when it speaks doesn't seem like a huge leap, if you're wanting to get your point across. Even if it's just a case of the Stormfather queuing up the Investiture sound files and hitting play at appropriate moments. 

This was my opinion as well.

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22 hours ago, Demiandre said:

The Knight Radiants forsook their Oaths because they either learned, understood or knew that it would get worse for Roshar if the spren continued bonding men... But the 9 other Orders understood the risk of the increasing number of bonds. They had to break the bond to save mankind.

I find this solution very dissatisfying, because I don't see any good reason why things are different NOW. I think it's pretty clear that the Knights Radiant (in the time of the books) are good and necessary. Like, we're not going to be rooting for another Recreance in the end. So how come the Recreance was a necessary evil THEN, but NOW having the knights is okay?

The only argument I can think of is something along the lines of "it's too late". Maybe it's all the sprens' faults for getting things started again without knowing the implications. Maybe it was definitely a good idea, but just not good enough. So now that the Desolations have come anyways it's a moot point... Okay, but Taravangian believes "the secret" can potentially destroy the Radiants all over again. This doesn't fit with the idea that it's too late to matter. 

If the secret is the idea that "nahel bonds make bad things happen" (e.g. Desolations come, Odium is freed/empowered, etc.) then it implies we shouldn't be rooting for the Radiants, which really doesn't feel right. And if you then try to argue that "it's too late, so they're okay now" it means the secret is no longer very relevant or meaningful to the story. Which is really unsatisfying and also probably not right.

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1 hour ago, jofwu said:

I find this solution very dissatisfying, because I don't see any good reason why things are different NOW. I think it's pretty clear that the Knights Radiant (in the time of the books) are good and necessary. Like, we're not going to be rooting for another Recreance in the end. So how come the Recreance was a necessary evil THEN, but NOW having the knights is okay?

I never said the plan was good or 100% successful in saving mankind. Just that they thought that breaking the bond was the solution against the problem caused by said bond.

It may even be worse because Honor is dead and Talenel back on Roshar. Before that, the solution of breaking the bond could have been the good solution. Not anymore. The Nahel Bond might make bad things happen, but it is also the only way Mankind can survive now that the Oathpact is broken. Thus the Everstorm.

I wonder if the Oathpact was linked to a kind of "dying a hundred before letting the enemy get his way. That would be terribly ironic.

 

It could be an unsatisfying end or secret if poorly handled, but that could be a core of a larger secret, with more than meets the eye and ramifications.

 

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