[OB] The secret that caused the Recreance

[Aminar]

10 hours ago, Greywatch said:

I don't know... At first it was really underwhelming for me as well, but then I tried to think about it in context of myself, and Earth, and how I would feel if this place that I thought was mine was stolen from someone else... I felt a bit sick.

For me, this is much more believable as the cause for abandoning oaths. Not that it's such a horrifying shock that they all immediately dropped the oaths right then and there, but as it started to sink in over time, that many Radiants found the entire basis of their oaths and moral value system overturned... I can definitely see Radiants in Orders, like the Windrunners and Edgedancers who are all about protecting people, found it incompatible with their oaths to keep fighting the parshpeople at all. I wasn't sure it mattered to me at first, but by the end of the book I was on board with it.

I still find it underwhelming. The first book made it quite clear humans weren't native to Roshar and that Shinovar was where they were supposed to be. 3 Books and 7 years into the series is too long to let an idea sit before turning it into a twist. The morality of it was dealt a long time ago for most of the readers. 

Not that the idea doesn't have interesting implications we hadn't thought about, but... frankly Odium is the only real invader. He's the destructive force here. His creations destroyed their planet and fled to another. He failed. And he's failing again. Without him there would be peace. So its easy to think around the problem while Odium is there. 

[+archvenison]

3 minutes ago, Aminar said:

So its easy to think around the problem while Odium is there.

But at the time of the Recreance the Radiants believed that they had actually won, so Odium wasn't there.

[Willow]

9 hours ago, Stuperman said:

Plus it sounds like it was peacetime when they abandoned their oaths. Its much different when someone is trying to kill you and your friends

I'm not so sure. @kaellok pointed out that in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance, it seems as though there is a war going on. And then there's also this epigraph, probably about the same subject:

Quote

The enemy makes another push toward Feverstone Keep. I wish we knew what is was that had them so interested in that area. Could they be intent on capturing Rall Elorim?

I don't know if the Radiants abandoned Urithiru at the same time as they abandoned their Oaths, but if it was: this particular epigraph makes it sound like Feverstone Keep was a relatively important place in whatever war they were fighting at the time. Dalinar said the soldiers there wore simple/patched armor with only one soldier with actual bronze armor because it was an out of the way fallback position. This epigraph makes it sound as Dalinar's assumption was wrong/based on flawed information, which doesn't say good things about the state of the army and the war they were fighting at the time (the False Desolation?). 

 

 

[Aminar]

19 minutes ago, archvenison said:

But at the time of the Recreance the Radiants believed that they had actually won, so Odium wasn't there.

Right. I get that. He's talking about it disappointing him that nobody cared. Nobody cared because the problem is visible. 

There's actually a lot more nuance involved as well in regards to imperialism, refugees, and a lot of other real life stuff. But that's... A heavy discussion I don't feel like having and Odium mucks it all up. 

[Nepene]

They likely had more issues than simply being colonizers. Honor was starting to go insane, perhaps because he was being destroyed by Odium, they were getting odd messages, the Heralds were insane and had dumb ideas of what to do, generally they had a lot of poor messages from their leadership.

Just imagine the chaos it would cause on earth if at every religious building divine beings started ranting about how the churches would destroy the earth and prophets returned from the dead to to say this was a good idea. 

They don't know that Honor or the Heralds are insane either. They assumed these were accurate prophesies and accurate views, not the ramblings of a person whose mind is being cracked and broken.

[Aminar]

7 minutes ago, Nepene said:

They likely had more issues than simply being colonizers. Honor was starting to go insane, perhaps because he was being destroyed by Odium, they were getting odd messages, the Heralds were insane and had dumb ideas of what to do, generally they had a lot of poor messages from their leadership.

Just imagine the chaos it would cause on earth if at every religious building divine beings started ranting about how the churches would destroy the earth and prophets returned from the dead to to say this was a good idea. 

They don't know that Honor or the Heralds are insane either. They assumed these were accurate prophesies and accurate views, not the ramblings of a person whose mind is being cracked and broken.

The heralds didn't reveal themselves. They've been in hiding this whole time. And while Honor may have been dying that doesn't explain how two orders of radiants just unified and abandoned their oaths all at the same time, killing their closest companions(spren) in the process. It... The revelation shouldn't have been that powerful. There had to be more to it. I suspect infiltration by Odium of some kind. The secret had to be wielded like a scalpel. That's the only thing I can really think of toncause what we saw at feverstone keep. 

[Nepene]

1 minute ago, Aminar said:

The heralds didn't reveal themselves. They've been in hiding this whole time. And while Honor may have been dying that doesn't explain how two orders of radiants just unified and abandoned their oaths all at the same time, killing their closest companions(spren) in the process. It... The revelation shouldn't have been that powerful. There had to be more to it. I suspect infiltration by Odium of some kind. The secret had to be wielded like a scalpel. That's the only thing I can really think of toncause what we saw at feverstone keep. 

The Heralds were talking to people and lying to them.

Quote

 

“What do we tell the people, Jezrien?” Kalak asked. “What will they say of this day?”

“It’s simple,” Jezrien said, walking away. “We tell them that they finally won. It’s an easy enough lie. Who knows? Maybe it will turn out to be true.”

 

 

[Aminar]

Just now, Nepene said:

The Heralds were talking to people and lying to them.

 

That was thousands of years before the recreance. 

[Nepene]

2 minutes ago, Aminar said:

That was thousands of years before the recreance. 

Wasn't it centuries? Anyway, d you have any reason to believe they stopped talking to them? Even today, the Heralds are still talking to people. 

[shawnhargreaves]

3 hours ago, StormWrath said:

I think Brandon has written himself into a corner where he cannot provide a satisfying reason for the recreance

My experience reading Brandon's work is that when something doesn't smell right, it usually isn't right.  And this doesn't smell right.  We are missing too many important pieces, and I don't trust that the information we received in OB is accurate (or at least, not complete).

There is always another secret...

[What's a Seawolf?]

Gonna copy something I wrote in the full book reaction thread.

"The Recreance felt weak.  Maybe we Sharders speculated too hard, but that revelation would have cause the KR of old to kill their spren?  We're talking relationships that were probably greater and longer than Kaladin/Syl, and ALL OF THEM shattered that relationship just because of that revelation?  Not buying it.  There's more there than what we've been told.

I still think it has something to do with the Nahel Bond imitating the Oathpact upon death, and leading to Braize.  We know (I think) there's something wrong with the Roshar afterlife.  (I still think Kaladin dies in book 5, but remains in the back 5 books as the major afterlife POV.)"

 

So as a few others have mentioned, there's more to the Recreance than what we've been told so far.  (This IS Brandon after all.)  Thousands upon thousands of Kaladin/Syl relationships, and they ALL willingly ended that?  Nope.  What we've seen is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Aminar]

1 hour ago, Nepene said:

Wasn't it centuries? Anyway, d you have any reason to believe they stopped talking to them? Even today, the Heralds are still talking to people. 

Yes. They all went nuts. Jezrian's been a babbling hobo for a long time. Shallash is art vandal. Even the mad prophet guy isn't claiming to be a Herald anymore. None of the world works suggests people at large believe the heralds are still alive or have been alive for a long time. The heralds would be in power if their existence were widely known. And if I remember correctly the plan stated during the first scene in the book was for them to not associate with eachother. That implies a level of going into hiding. 

 

The timeline I've seen puts the recreance close to 3000 years after the last desolation. I'd put it closer to two, but it was still a long time. 

Edited November 22, 2017 by Aminar

[KC Hammer]

2 hours ago, archvenison said:

I don't think that the Recreance was caused by the Radiants making a conscious, logical decision to stop betray their ideals.  Rather, the revelation that humans were originally the bad guys and had used their powers to destroy a different world, combined with Honour saying they would do it again (and perhaps whatever happened in Natanatan) caused them to lose conviction in the Ideals and thus act contrary to them.  As we know from Kaladin in WoR this is enough to kill their spren.  Also when Syl offered to leave Kaladin he had only sworn the first Ideal which I suspect is before the point of no return.

I agree, but in addition I think the revelation made them realize that they had already broken their oaths. As Kaladin said, what is right is all about your perspective. 

[Elsecaller3414]

Is there any possibility that the someone convinced the Radiants that their bonds would bring about another Desolation? Kind of like the Heralds?

[yulerule]

Each order swears Ideals - breaking those Ideals means killing spren. Fulfilling Ideals however, depends on perception, as Kaladin discusses with Syl. 

So perhaps the knowledge that the ancient Radiants gained changed their perception of their Ideals, like for example - what happens to a Windrunner who realizes he is killing/enslaving those who cannot protect themselves? 

Also, as Dalinar discusses, that vision of Radiants abandoning their Shards en masse seems to be more of a representation of the Recreance than a totally real event. 

And in any case, I feel the most important perspective we'll get is from someone who was actually there and part of it. (Maya when(if?) Adolin heals her can shed the most light on those events.)

Syl says the majority if not the entire population of most spren people's was wiped out. So all the new Spren made assumptions about what happened. I wonder how much the spren involved agreed with what was happening. I mean in a way, it was kill the spren, or kill the humans so spren become unbonded. It seems they decided to kill spren so that there couldn't be any more Radiants in the (near?) future.

[Bridge Boy]

*This is a long post. (read: rant)

This underwhelming reveal is the heart of the issue I had with Oathbringer.

In general the book reminded me a lot of the later seasons of "The Walking Dead":

- All the characters from early on that I love are still there; however, the focus is placed on them doing "cool things" and they have become caricatures of the deep multi dimensional characters that were established in prior books/episodes.  

&

- The interesting plot lines that were promised are not progressed in a satisfying manner to deliver on the promises that were made in the earlier books/episodes.

 

All I see/read in Oathbringer is, "here is character that you love; watch him/her do this cool thing; now watch him/her do this cool thing; isn't this character so cool?" All of that would be well and fine if their individual and "overall series" plot lines were also moving towards conclusion in satisfying ways. But in Oathbringer that was not the case.

-Kaladin's story line does not progress.

-Shallan's storyline not only doesn't progress; it regresses.

-Dalinar progressed. But not in the way I hoped. The backstory was satisfying in many ways but was so predictable that it felt stale. I was dying for him to become Odium's champion. How incredible would that have been? Think of what something like that would have done to Adolin, Shallan, Navani, Kaladin, and Jasnah. Imagine the repercussions and just total anarchy that would ensue amongst the knights radiant. But no, instead we get "dues ex machine" Dalinar resists and happy-go-lucky ending.

-Jasnah does not progress. We get zero inkling of what she learned in the cognitive realm. Yes she was "super cool" in that battle scene. I enjoyed that. But what in damnation does she know that she is not sharing with the group? Zero progress. (I know this character gets her own book, but that in no way excuses a total lack of progress).

-Szeth, don't even get me started on how flat this fell. (I know this character gets his own book, but that in no way excuses a total lack of progress).

-Adolin was done well in the book. I greatly enjoyed reading from his POV. I think he is a wonderful character and I think he is going to be completely torn apart by the emotional high storm that is being married to Shallan.

-Renarin is a character that I very much want to be interested in, and just cannot find caring about. He has a very interesting plot line in Oathbringer but the lack of POV from him has not allowed for me to develop an emotional connection to the character.

I don't like Wit. Him being so actively involved in every book of this series is becoming a tedious intrusion. It was fine in WoK, and worked well in WoR, but I am over it.

 

Overall, I could forgive all of the failures in progressing individual character plot lines in satisfying ways, and I could forgive caricaturing all of these wonderful characters; if they are put on the back burner in favor of greatly progressing the overall plot, which I think was the intent of Oathbringer. However, the major plot line of "Why/How did the Recreance occur?" was the biggest disappointment I've read since Terry Goodkind's horrific ending to the sword of truth series. This is completely out of character for Brandon as he is easily the best fantasy fiction author that I have ever read. This leads me to believe that Oathbringer and it revelations are a lie to walk the reader down the garden path to a place where Brandon is going to turn the hose on us in books 4 & 5. This is the only thing I can think. I have to have hope; because I have devoted too much time to this series to have it go poorly from here.

 

[Hiadin Haloun]

What if it was a mixture?  We know nale stayed with the sky breakers, and we know the feverstone keep knights were stonewards and windrunners.  What if the revelation that the parshmen weren't the evils of old, coupled with the revelation that taln was still trapped in damnation, drove the radiants to break their oaths.  The spren of old probably knew that humans were the voidbringers to begin with, and when the knights found out all of these things together, they broke.  The two that felt most guilty first.  A better question is why was the enemy so focused on the city of shadows.

[RShara]

A few points that came to me while discussing this with hubby:
First:  Honor was starting to get strange.  His Intent was taking over his personality, and causing problems, such as caring more for any oath, than for actual honor.

Second:  The Knights were squabbling quite a bit amongst themselves.  Possibly even close to starting a civil war between Orders.

Third:  I don't see how the spren didn't know what their Knights were going to do.

Fourth:  Pattern offered to sacrifice himself to save Shallan pain, because he thought she hated him.  And if he died, then she could bond another spren, one who hadn't killed her parents.

Fifth: Their ancestors destroyed their previous planet, then came and took over Roshar, and brought a rather nasty Power with them.

Sixth:  We have this quote from Nale:

Quote

“I worked for thousands of years to prevent another Desolation,” Nin continued. “Ishar warned me of the danger. Now that Honor is dead, other Radiants might upset the balance of the Oathpact. Might undermine certain … measures we took, and give an opening to the enemy.”

So my conclusion is multi-fold:  The Knights had lost their way, and when they found out about this, it hit them while they were vulnerable and they broke.  This might have been encouraged quite a bit by Nale and his Skybreakers, since one of the epigraphs stated that a lot of the infighting was between the Skybreakers and the Windrunners.

Also, I believe that they had to have conspired with their spren to sacrifice themselves.  Pattern is willing to sacrifice himself to spare Shallan some pain.  It wouldn't be a huge reach to think their spren would be willing to sacrificed themselves to keep from destroying the world.  By killing their spren, they ensured that spren would not form bonds with humans for the foreseeable future, thus preventing future Radiants from being created.

[KC Hammer]

 

53 minutes ago, yulerule said:

And in any case, I feel the most important perspective we'll get is from someone who was actually there and part of it. (Maya when(if?) Adolin heals her can shed the most light on those events.)

I have another thought on this. At one point (I don't have the exact quote at the moment) the Stormfather says how he hated the humans for what they did in the Recreance but his bond with Dalinar showed him how they were actually not that bad. I forget his exact wording. Perhaps since all the spren that were involved in the Recreance directly died, every bit of information we've had on it so far has been tainted by opinions (either of spren who felt that humans killed their family unjustly or humans who felt the Radiants betrayed their duty). 

Though as I am saying this I don't know how the Stormfather survived unless he was not currently bonded to a Bondsmith, I guess he could have just "gone stupid" in Syl's words and lost his memory of that time regaining it as Dalinar's bond deepens and he learns more. 

[+Child of Hodor]

I was able to accept it because the Stormfather told Dalinar that at the time of the Recreance Honor was dying and as he was dying he was raving to the Radiants that they were doomed to destroy Roshar like they did their previous world. If their God is directly telling them they will end up destroying the world with their powers like humans did in the past it would make a difference. 

When I first read it I also thought "Really, that's it?". Especially when a lot of modern day people focus on the fact that humans came from another planet and Roshar isn't their home. After thousands of years who cares? I don't think the ancient Radiants gave up their shards because they found out their ancestors were invaders. 

[Hiadin Haloun]

If I read it correctly, dalinar is the first to bond the storm father since honor died.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2017 by Hiadin Haloun
Spelling

[Aleksiel]

I'm underwhelmed, too. First of all, it's been thousands of years, the 'not native' argument means nothing at this point. Just imagine if in our world everybody had to rearrange borders to fit how things were X amount of millennia ago, it's ridiculous. Even if some Orders agreed, I find it hard to believe nine out of ten would be that shaken by this info.

Second, there were way more elegant ways to disband if that was all the KR wanted to achieve. Ways without mass genocide. Considering how the SF still feels, I do not think the spren had agreed to what happened as has been speculated. Not only did the Radiants not choose a non-genocidal way, but they also left behind massive amount of over-powered weapons for people to kill each other with. Why? I don't think we know the whole story, but so far it doesn't make much sense.

[lordofsoup]

17 minutes ago, Child of Hodor said:

I was able to accept it because the Stormfather told Dalinar that at the time of the Recreance Honor was dying and as he was dying he was raving to the Radiants that they were doomed to destroy Roshar like they did their previous world. If their God is directly telling them they will end up destroying the world with their powers like humans did in the past it would make a difference. 

When I first read it I also thought "Really, that's it?". Especially when a lot of modern day people focus on the fact that humans came from another planet and Roshar isn't their home. After thousands of years who cares? I don't think the ancient Radiants gave up their shards because they found out their ancestors were invaders. 

The way I understood it, the first settlers were fleeing from their previous planet and they ended up in Shinovar.  The next were Odium's army who were the first void bringers.  

Is there anything that explicitly says all the Heralds were human?  I feel like that should have been enough argument that the humans weren't as bad as they seem to be painted.  

The real problem here seems to be that the Shards cause rampant destruction where ever the go.  The Recreance could be more of a rejection of Honor.  Either way Nin is a lunatic, nothing good ever comes of consourting with Shards.  Hoid seems more correct in his decision to not claim one with every book that gets released.

[+Wax]

1 hour ago, yulerule said:

Also, as Dalinar discusses, that vision of Radiants abandoning their Shards en masse seems to be more of a representation of the Recreance than a totally real event. 

Well - it was a vision of a scene that happened near Feverstone Keep.

Feverstone Keep got another mention in one of the epigraphs, so it's not an unimportant place.

Also, another scene mentions the scene just after the Heralds swords are abandoned... and it seemed a faithful representation of the scene after the Prologue from WoK.

[sylian]

A few things just don't match. Dalinar saw the recreance in a vision, so honor lived after the recreance and created the vision after, when, based on evidence, was pretty crazy. I don't remember anything at the visions hinting a crazy and lunatic god.

Also, the radiants were fighting someone. Who was that someone and what happened with them? 

And the thing that I least believe is that the radiants killed their spren more or less willingly. I can see kaladin forced to choose between the world and syl and I know he will be "let them burn".