[Theory] The Bondsmiths enslaved the Voidbringers

[Grunion]

So Melishi retired to his tent, and resolved to destroy the Voidbringers upon the next day, but that night did present a different stratagem, related to the unique abilities of the Bondsmiths; and being hurried, he could make no specific account of his process; it was related to the very nature of the Heralds and their divine duties, an attribute the Bondsmiths alone could address. —From Words of Radiance, chapter 30, page 18 Sanderson, Brandon (2014-03-04). Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The) (p. 675). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.

 

 

This is the epigraph from Chapter 58 "Never Again".

So, first part.

"So Melishi retired to his tent, and resolved to destroy the Voidbringers upon the next day,"

 

 

Melishi is going to destroy the Voidbringers. Simple enough.

 

However, we know that the voidbringers have not been destroyed, but enslaved as parshmen.

 

Part 2

"but that night did present a different stratagem, related to the unique abilities of the Bondsmiths;"

 

So, in his tent he comes up with or is presented with a different tactic. Something that only Bondsmiths can do. As stated before, we know that the voidbringers were not destroyed, but enslaved as parshmen. So, logically this tactic would be some way to change the voidbringers into parshmen.

 

Part 3

"and being hurried, he could make no specific account of his process; it was related to the very nature of the Heralds and their divine duties, an attribute the Bondsmiths alone could address."

 

 

So, he was too hurried to write it all down, but it was something only the Bondsmiths could do. I haven't thought through exactly what "it was related to the very nature of the Heralds and their divine duties" refers to. My initial hunch is some kind of forceful bonding of the voidspren that is bonded to the voidbringer. That bonding pulls the spren from the voidbringer, turning them into a parshman. Or perhaps something to do with the Storm Father, as he seems vital to the bonding process of both the Knights Radiant and the Parshendi/Voidbringers.

 

Anyway, it was just something that caught my attention while listening to the audio-book.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Grunion

[Argent]

Sounds pretty reasonable. We might need to wait for book #3 to see what it is exactly that the Bondsmiths can do, but their access to the surges of tension might have helped here.

[DiamondMind]

I agree, mostly. I envision the Bondsmith forcibly separated the voidspren from the listener, but they didn't have to seal it away. Perhaps they instead sealed the listener in such a way that they could not bond another spren on their own, which is what differentiates dullform from slaveform.

[Chaos]

This theory is awesome. I really really like this.

[Morsk]

I'm also fond of this. We don't know what the Bondsmiths can do yet, but we know they're Ishar's order, and Ishar was able to choose the form the Nahel bond took. Combined with the special placement of Order 10 on the chart, and the very small number of Bondsmiths, they could have something very powerful. In the Prelude, Jezrien mentions Ishar's opinion on whether the Oathpact will still hold with one Herald. Even if Ishar wasn't directly responsible for that one, it's more association of Ishar, and possibly Bondsmiths, with world-changing magic.

I wonder if it's related to Stormseat exploding and making the Shattered Plains. Is there anything that narrows down the time of when the Voidbringers were enslaved? I'd always assumed it was at the Last Desolation, but there's another theory that it didn't happen until the Recreance.

[Sabrina Stormshard]

Well if the Bondsmiths forge bonds, perhaps its they who engineered or perhaps altered the 'precepts' that bind Odium. We've heard things about Champions being able to be elected by each side and we knwo Ishi'elin was the one who orgainised and formulated rules for the Knights Radiants.

 

Maybe the Bondsmiths forged the agreement or whatever that put a (temporary) pin in the desolation cycle.

 

Or maybe, as forgers of bonds they have the power to break bonds too - that would fit with the separating voidspren theory. Maybe to separate the voidspren all the KR's spren had to be separated too, hence Recreance.

 

Just babbling!

[Argent]

I am really starting to like this Ishar guy. Sharp kid. I hope he hasn't fallen too far and can be found and persuaded to aid humanity. 

 

And on a different note, I am now curious to see how the Heralds, or the most powerful of the Radiants, compare to other characters from the cosmere in terms of raw power. Could a few people, even if they are Radiants or Heralds, have stood against Odium and done something to force him to react? 

[Aminar]

I agree, mostly. I envision the Bondsmith forcibly separated the voidspren from the listener, but they didn't have to seal it away. Perhaps they instead sealed the listener in such a way that they could not bond another spren on their own, which is what differentiates dullform from slaveform.

 

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 281018368 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 285501744 bytes) in Unknown on line 0

One issue. We know they could still access Mateform.

[DiamondMind]

One issue. We know they could still access Mateform.

 

Can they really? We know they mate, but they don't necessarily need mateform for the process. Is there a quote?

[+rhaiynebow]

I don't think they NEED mateform to  reproduce, but they prefer to be in it while they try. Although Eshonai seems to think this particular form is distasteful because it creates lack of concentration and inhibitions.

 

Most couples, in order to have a child, would enter the form and sequester themselves away for a year - then would be out of the form as soon after the child's birth as possible.

"Can we really trust the accuracy of words first sung so long ago? When those songs were memorized, our people were mostly dullform."  It was a form of low intelligence, low capacity. They used it now to spy on the humans. Once, it and mateform had been the only forms her people had known. 

Edited March 14, 2014 by rhaiynebow

[DiamondMind]

Exactly. A year in mateform? The humans employing using the parshmen would definitely notice if they changed forms for a year. And changing forms would have come up when they met the Parshendi and realized they also have different forms. So, if/when parshmen reproduce, it happens without mateform.

[LegalBondsmith]

I agree with Grunion that this passage refers to the Stormfather acting on request from Melishi (the Bondsmith during the Recreance) to somehow end the cycle of fighting at the time of Recreance.  The Bondsmith summons the Stormfather (his bonded spren) in the form of a highstorm during an all out battle with the voidbringers (there is no everstorm at the time, so no conflict between the storms occurs) on the pre-shattered plains and the high storm forcibly removes the voidspren from the voidbringers (just as the high storm allows for changes in form, presumably at the will of the Stormfather, wouldn't it by nice if that was also the case for stripping them of their form) allowing the knights to slay the voidspren (some apparently escape to live another day) maybe with the help of the honor blades (which are subsequently taken by the squires to be hidden away in Shinovar) and creating the parshmen.  The battle and storm are so violent (as the highstorm stalls over the battle for an extended period) that the city is destroyed and the plains are shattered.  The oathgates were locked pre-battle by the radiants who then abandoned their shards after the voidspren were slain, in the terrible assumption that this would further thwart Odium from returning.  This would also explain at the end of WoR why the Stormfather tries to wipe out the army when the everstorm is formed.  He tries to prevent the full scale return of both sides, but he is thwarted by the power of odium and the will of the radiants (who do not abandon their shards, but use them). 

 

EDIT: Perhaps the KR's didn't kill the voidspren but captured them in spheres and they were buried in the city that was destroyed.  That would explain how Venli is able to "acquire" almost 20,000 spren in such a short amount of time and why she is so confident that she can provide enough for the transformation of the entire army of parshendi.  The spren were buried under Narak the whole time.

Edited March 14, 2014 by LegalBondsmith

[KevinTheHerdazian]

I agree with Grunion that this passage refers to the Stormfather acting on request from Melishi (the Bondsmith during the Recreance) to somehow end the cycle of fighting at the time of Recreance. The Bondsmith summons the Stormfather (his bonded spren) in the form of a highstorm during an all out battle with the voidbringers (there is no everstorm at the time, so no conflict between the storms occurs) on the pre-shattered plains and the high storm forcibly removes the voidspren from the voidbringers (just as the high storm allows for changes in form, presumably at the will of the Stormfather, wouldn't it by nice if that was also the case for stripping them of their form) allowing the knights to slay the voidspren (some apparently escape to live another day) maybe with the help of the honor blades (which are subsequently taken by the squires to be hidden away in Shinovar) and creating the parshmen. The battle and storm are so violent (as the highstorm stalls over the battle for an extended period) that the city is destroyed and the plains are shattered. The oathgates were locked pre-battle by the radiants who then abandoned their shards after the voidspren were slain, in the terrible assumption that this would further thwart Odium from returning. This would also explain at the end of WoR why the Stormfather tries to wipe out the army when the everstorm is formed. He tries to prevent the full scale return of both sides, but he is thwarted by the power of odium and the will of the radiants (who do not abandon their shards, but use them).

EDIT: Perhaps the KR's didn't kill the voidspren but captured them in spheres and they were buried in the city that was destroyed. That would explain how Venli is able to "acquire" almost 20,000 spren in such a short amount of time and why she is so confident that she can provide enough for the transformation of the entire army of parshendi. The spren were buried under Narak the whole time.

Then wouldn't the parshendi be different forms as well? Because why would all the voidspren be storm spren? Sorry for necroing by the way. Edited October 25, 2014 by KevinTheHerdazian

[Oudeis]

It's possible there were millions, and Venli selected only the stormspren from those options.

 

However if in the past at least 20,000 Stormform listeners existed, why didn't they simply summon the Everstorm? Wasn't it said in Words of Radiance that the Everstorm had never been summoned before?

[Aleksiel]

The everstorm was called a 'new thing, but old of design'. It's unclear how old the design is - before the Heralds abandoned their Honorblades or between the last desolation and present time; however it hasn't been used before, but a reason wasn't given. Since Tanavast talked about it, it must have been designed (whatever that means) before his death, though it's not clear if that was before or after the Oathpact was broken.

[Twenty@20]

Wow this theory is nice. I don't know how I missed it earlier. Thanks for necroing(hope I don't get into trouble for saying that).

I think we don't know the timeline of parshmen enslavement. Were they enslaved after the Heralds left or before? Wasn't the big fight in the prelude of WoK meant to be the end of the previous desolation. So if they were enslaved before then they were not in that fight and if after then did the Heralds desert before the Desolation ended?

It may be that the voidbringers were defeated and then enslaved but still the question remains why enslavement was chosen over destruction. Leaving the parshmen alive and susceptible to voidspren and taking a huge risk of another desolation, why was the enslavement option chosen? Did the Heralds play a role in this choice even though they were about to desert? Or was this a requirement of the Oathpact? I made a lot of assumptions here but this point needs some clarity.

Edited October 25, 2014 by Twenty@20

[Oudeis]

Where did the free listeners come from? Where there always a free subsection of them, or is this new? Where did they get Blade and Plate from?

 

Were there some listeners who never took on Voidform? They must've had all of the other Forms once upon a time, or else there wouldn't be a record of it. More Knights Radiant gave up their Plate and Blade than there are Plates and Blades accounted for by Dalinar's reckoning; have the listeners had these weapons all this time, or did they recently discover a cache of them?

 

This might be a perfectly valid question: Which of the secret societies orchestrated the current state of the listeners?

[KevinTheHerdazian]

Wow this theory is nice. I don't know how I missed it earlier. Thanks for necroing(hope I don't get into trouble for saying that).

I think we don't know the timeline of parshmen enslavement. Were they enslaved after the Heralds left or before? Wasn't the big fight in the prelude of WoK meant to be the end of the previous desolation. So if they were enslaved before then they were not in that fight and if after then did the Heralds desert before the Desolation ended?

It may be that the voidbringers were defeated and then enslaved but still the question remains why enslavement was chosen over destruction. Leaving the parshmen alive and susceptible to voidspren and taking a huge risk of another desolation, why was the enslavement option chosen? Did the Heralds play a role in this choice even though they were about to desert? Or was this a requirement of the Oathpact? I made a lot of assumptions here but this point needs some clarity.

I think this was because it was supposed to be the last desolation, if the heralds were gone before his plan was completed