Darkness caused the Recreance

[vikorr]

The Recreance was the work of Darkness ! He convinced the Knights Radiant to cease surgebinding.

 

This theory doesn’t have huge amounts of direct evidence.

 

THE PARSHENDI EXAMPLE:

 

We see that Darkness is at the treaty ceremony between the Parshendi and the Alethi. There is no real reason for the Parshendi to believe that surgebinding causes a desolation – in in the Eshonai interlude, we see her worrying that using stormform (and no doubt certain other forms) will cause them to come under the power of their gods…and the back cover backs this up.

 

We know that Darkness believes that surgebinding causes a return of desolations. It appears to me that Darkness convinced the Parshendi that it is surgebinding that causes the return of their gods.

 

On that line – did anyone else wonder how Eshonai knew that an Honorblade grants access to surgebinding? When they fought the Heralds, they wouldn’t have known this. And humans are most unlikely to tell them, so how do they know? I think Darkness showed them, to convince them that he was a herald (which in turn, is necessary to him convincing them of the validity of his ‘knowledge’)

 

SIMILAR BEHAVIOUR:

 

If he tried (and succeeded) to convinced the Parshendi, why would he not try the same with the Knights Radiant.

 

In the Lift interlude, Darkness had this to say about Edgedancer order.

 

“Yes. It is unfortunate they were always so concerned with small-minded things, while ignoring those of greater import. It appears you share their temperament. You have become one of them.”

 

 

HUMAN NATURE AND THE HERALDS:

 

One thing about us humans is that we want to think of ourselves as good. Even the most hardened criminals always seem to have a ‘good’ reason for what they do. The most bitter and petty divorces usually have both sides seeing themselves as the victim. As countries prepare to go to war, they demonise the enemy or make it out that they are saving the enemy…etc. We are great at finding ‘good’ reasons for the bad that we do.

 

But what reason could a Herald come up with for completely abandoning humans, that would still allow you to think of yourself as ‘good’?

 

We know that one of the justifications was ‘they have the Knights Radiant’. They would never fully believe that.

 

…and it doesn’t help their betrayal of Taln (for which they came up with another excuse). Frankly, on Taln alone, they would probably never forgive themselves…living eternally, knowing they have abandoned a friend who is still being tortured.

 

ODIUM's PLAN:

 

Now let’s move on to Odium’s plan. Odium eventually figures that if he left humans alone for long enough, they would turn on themselves (last vision, WoK)…but…he needs for more than humans to turn on themselves. He needs the Knights Radiant gone, because ‘he does not want to risk another loss’ (first vision, WoR) – and from the Prelude, the Knights Radiant truly helped humanities fight against the desolations.

 

But how is Odium to get rid of the Knight’s Radiant, and the Ideals that they are bound to?

 

RE-ENTER, THE BROKEN HERALDS:

 

The broken Heralds were looking for a way to meet their human nature – a way that they can feel truly justifies why they did what they did (the size of the betrayal was massive) - that they could still see a part of themselves as good

 

My take on Darkness, is that he came up with the crackbrained ‘In giving up my honorblade, I was helping to prevent desolation from returning’.

 

Odium worked on him while delaying the desolations…and worked to give him enough ‘circumstantial evidence’ to convince the Knights Radiant to abandon their duty.

 

AND BACK TO THE PARSHENDI:

 

It was a good plan on Odium’s part, except the method of his bringing desolation – the Parshendi – escaped him many centuries ago. To trigger the everstorm, he needed a way to bring the Parshendi back to this side.

 

With Gavilar possibly looking to refound surgebinding / The Knights Radiant...Odium then he realised he could use his unwitting minion, Darkness, to retrigger the Everstorm – by getting Darkness to play on the Parshendi's fears - fears about the return of their terrible gods.

 

Once Darkness tied their fears to what the Alethi king was planning - it was a small step to get them to assassinate said king - (with Odium) knowing that the following war would cause would drive the Parshendi towards extinction - and back into his fold.

 

That to me – seems to be the background storyline to what has happened so far.

 

Darkness caused not just the War of Reckoning, but the Recreance!

[Glaring at the Survivor]

Does Darkness have an Honorblade? I suppose its possible, but I never thought of that.

To me Darkness seems like Denth, really... Or like evil Vasher. We know too little.

And I didnt pick up that Darkness was at the treaty ceremony...

[weebojello]

Does Darkness have an Honorblade? I suppose its possible, but I never thought of that.

To me Darkness seems like Denth, really... Or like evil Vasher. We know too little.

And I didnt pick up that Darkness was at the treaty ceremony...

Brandon stated that one herald went back for a blade. No one's 100% sure as to which did. There is much speculated that Szeth has it currently, which would imply Jezerian went back as it's also believed honorblades give surgebinding.

[krill]

Interesting theory......

I would have to think that it would depend on of he realized before the Recreance that surgebjnding was linked to the desolations. He could have made the connection afterwards then committed himself to making sure it never came back.

[QuantumHarmonix]

I think that if Darkness is Nalan, he is trying to justify his abandonment of the oath pact. I think he eventually focused on the uptick in the number of surgebinders right before a desolation, which caused him to make a correlation error. Because an increase in surgebinders before a desolation does not necessarily imply that surgebinding causes desolations. However since he abandoned his oaths with just the barest hope that it might stop the next desolation, he justifies his decision by forcing it on everyone else as well.  

[vikorr]

Hi Quantum - much more succint than what I posted, though I did want to show that Darkness has form for convincing entire peoples of his beliefs, and that there are multiple tie-in's to the overall plot of the story.

 

Hi Weebojello - Szeth having Jezriens honorblade (if that is in fact the case) would no necessarily mean it was Jezrien that went back for his blade...multiple normal humans likely took the remaining blades.

 

Hi Stroniax :

 

This is from the Jasnah Prologue in WoR

 

“I don’t like this. What we’ve done was wrong. That creature carries my lord’s own Blade. We shouldn’t have let him keep it. He—”

The two passed through the intersection ahead of Jasnah. They were the ambassadors from the West, including the Azish man with the white birthmark on his cheek. Or was it a scar? The shorter of the two men—he could have been Alethi—cut off when he noticed Jasnah. He let out a squeak, then hurried on his way.

 

The Azish man, the one dressed in black and silver, stopped and looked her up and down. He frowned.

 

His stare made her uncomfortable.

 

 

And this is from the Lift Interlude :

 

She looked out the window. Surely she’d escaped Darkness, the man in the black and silver with the pale crescent birthmark on his cheek. The man with the dead, lifeless stare.

Edited February 4, 2014 by vikorr

[FirstSelector]

I like your theory and would like to expand a bit on it.  I think the evidence for Darkness being Nalan is pretty good, and if you buy my idea that Jezrien is the Stormfather, then Syl's choice to go against the Stormfather's wishes makes more sense.  In particular, the Heralds realized that if they could get rid of Surgebinders, then Odium wouldn't return with his army.  In fact, he could have told them this directly.

 

How does this play out?  The Heralds show themselves to the Knights Radiant, explain that if they don't step down, Odium will return.  They do so, at great cost to themselves and the spren.  The spren are mightily offended and refuse to make any more Surgebinders.  However, they realize Odium may eventually come back (despite his claim).  Jezrien works the Cognitive realm side, prohibiting spren from crossing over, while Nalan runs around in the Physical realm killing Surgebinders that somehow slipped through the cracks.

 

The major difference I would like to point out is that while the human element is a compelling story, it is entirely possible that Odium spoke directly to the Heralds and told them they wouldn't have to fight anymore if they could purge all of the Surgebinders.  At this point he would have already killed Honor and thus be in a very strong position to tell the Heralds to stuff it.  Odium, of course, knew he would come back eventually after all feasible resistance had faded away.  But the Heralds, sick of a lifetime of torture and fighting, would agree almost immediately out of guilt over Tanavast's death and desire to never deal with Desolations again.

 

I really, really like your point about how Odium could use Gavilar's death to manipulate the Parshendi into researching old forms, causing them to accidentally discover the form that Odium can control.   If you accept that Odium corrupts spren, then if he can corrupt stormspren that the Parshendi subsequently bond, it would give rise to the so-called Voidbringers.  Of course, without the war they would have no reason to engage in such research.

 

Overall I like these ideas, very well done.

[Tortellini]

I had an idea that's completely out of the left field, based on seeing a possible connection between Parshendi and Darkness:

 

Darkness might be a Parshendi.

 

PRO:

- he's black, with a white marking on the face. The colors can fit. We don't see enough of the rest to tell for certain.

- Parshendi change shape with different forms. If he's using a form unknown to others that is leading to him being more human-looking in shape, we can explain why he wouldn't be recognized as one.

- it could explain why the parshendi believe the same as him - he would have little trouble getting them to trust him - and also how they know so much about heralds...

 

CON:

- not much evidence so far

- no red on him, but that could be a part of his markings

- if he is, he must be keeping a lot of secrets from the Parshendi still. However, the other Heralds do so too...

- very random idea

 

This would mean the whole Parshmen as Voidbringers is a huge red herring, but some believe that anyways. That would mean that if the Nalan connection is true, there would actually have been a Parshendi herald. Quite interesting!

Edited February 4, 2014 by Tortellini

[Kaladin Kal]

I am not sure about the chronological sequence of these two incidents so this is all assumptions

 

1. Odium killing honour

2. The day of recreance

 

But I had this random thought , the sprens might have returned becuse odium killed honour and if its Jezrien(as I also think the stormfather) have a piece of honour's shard feared something worse will happen. Something like this.

 

As we know Odium's power is hatred and something related to the Thrill men feels at war. May be after odium defeating the Honor , stormfather might have doubted the radiants will be influenced by Odium and they will fight for experiencing Thrill or something worse. So he prohibited sprens from crossing over.

 

 

I hope this is not a blunder

Edited February 4, 2014 by Kaladin Kal

[Chlehrma]

I always thought the death quote about the "shard of my heart" was a radiant referring to e death of Tanavast. Which might have meant the recreance was because the knights radiant had lost their powers and thought they had been abandon owned by the almighty.

[hoser]

The why of the Recreance is a very interesting question for me. 

I always thought the death quote about the "shard of my heart" was a radiant referring to e death of Tanavast. Which might have meant the recreance was because the knights radiant had lost their powers and thought they had been abandon owned by the almighty.

That death rattle always pointed to Honor splintering before the Recreance to me also.  OTOH, in that case the Recreance vision would be a future imagining of Honor. 

If the Radiants quit before the splintering, then the Recreance vision could be something Honor witnessed.

 

Either way, many of the Windrunners fly in the Recreance vision, so the evidence is that the Radiants had some of their powers at the time of the Recreance. 

 

Edit: added "Recreance" to incoherent first sentence

Edited February 5, 2014 by hoser

[Chlehrma]

The why of the is a very interesting question for me. 

That death rattle always pointed to Honor splintering before the Recreance to me also.  OTOH, in that case the Recreance vision would be a future imagining of Honor. 

If the Radiants quit before the splintering, then the Recreance vision could be something Honor witnessed.

 

Either way, many of the Windrunners fly in the Recreance vision, so the evidence is that the Radiants had some of their powers at the time of the Recreance.

I missed that in my earlier reads. Good catch.

[CCQ]

Words of Radiance spoilers: [spoiler]

 

Darkness is not a Herald.

In the beginning of WoK prologue Jezrien tells Kalak“They have the Radiants. That will be enough.” If the heralds left the radiants to be a defense for man why would one go killing them.

Also Honor must have splintered before the Recreance because Syl says she is part of a god and can give Kaladin power because of that. If the spren gave power it must be that Honor split before. page numbers forthcoming. 

 

[/spoiler]

[Vortaan]

Words of Radiance spoilers:

 

Darkness is not a Herald.

In the beginning of WoK prologue Jezrien tells Kalak“They have the Radiants. That will be enough.” If the heralds left the radiants to be a defense for man why would one go killing them.

Also Honor must have splintered before the Recreance because Syl says she is part of a god and can give Kaladin power because of that. If the spren gave power it must be that Honor split before. page numbers forthcoming. 

 

 

I believe you are wrong. The spren are the natural outlet for Shardic power on Roshar, it seems. While each spren is a tiny splinter of one of the three Shards invested on Roshar, only of those Shardholders is dead. Cultivation and Odium are still alive and we have confirmation of Cultivation-spren and Odium-spren, so it's pretty likely that spren just occur when a Shard invests on Roshar, much like any Shard investing on Scadrial will probably start creating a god metal or mists (probably both?)

[Awesomeness Summoned]

Words of Radiance spoilers:

Darkness is not a Herald.

In the beginning of WoK prologue Jezrien tells Kalak“They have the Radiants. That will be enough.” If the heralds left the radiants to be a defense for man why would one go killing them.

Also Honor must have splintered before the Recreance because Syl says she is part of a god and can give Kaladin power because of that. If the spren gave power it must be that Honor split before. page numbers forthcoming.

Darkness himself confirms to Szeth that he is a herald

“Nin,” he whispered. “The one they call Nalan, or Nale, here. Herald of Justice.”

Nin nodded.

Just because Jezrian had faith in the Radiants doesn't mean nalan agreed and it has been over 4000 years. Something could have happened in that time to make nalan decide he needed to hunt down surgebinders.

Edited March 6, 2014 by Awesomeness Summoned