Ishar and Radiant Oaths

[+ZincAboutIt]

Hello! Fairly new to the Shard and this is my first post. I apologize if this topic has been covered but I searched and couldn't find a direct answer. I have recently finished my third listen of Oathbringer and started thinking about greater implications of Odium's creepy new dagger. If Ishar is killed (for real) by this dagger, will the requirement of Oaths become removed from the nahel bond? Since Honor is dead, it seems like the rules of being a Radiant are already starting to flex and bend more and more, what with the Skybreakers literally fighting for Odium, or Malata and her very anti-social spren who seem largely intent on destruction for its own sake. However, it seems like the first Oath is still required for the bond to form, regardless of the difference of other higher Oaths.

Since Ishar was the one who decided to implement the Knights Radiant and lay down this codification of Oaths, would his death lead to the relaxation of this requirement? Would we get the problems on Roshar that Nohadon speaks of in Dalinar's flashbacks, with surgebinders that can bond spren in a more private contract between just the two of them, allowing someone who is less-than-nice to wield great powers? Would this in turn actually cause the destruction of Roshar - as feared by Honor in his last days - due to surgebinding? It seems like Honorspren have always largely been rather strict with their bonded human partners, but I get the sense other spren wouldn't be nearly so choosy or demanding unless they had to be. And if Ishar isn't the one holding the collective Radiant spren to the necessity of Oaths, then what is? I get the impression that the spren aren't exactly all in a unanimous vote with one another about most things. What else, aside from divine/semi-divine will, could cause all of them to agree on Oath requirements? The other option could, of course, be that Cultivation would hold everyone to the Oaths regardless of Ishar living or not, but she's so mysterious and rarely seems interested in interfering with humans in a large, authoritative oversight kind of way.

I'm really hoping one or more of you clever people have some answers or ideas!   

[Calderis]

I honestly don't think so. 

I think the Skybreakers and Malata show the flexibility that exists in the oaths themselves. 

I think the primary thing that held Radiants pointed in a certain direction in the past ws the orders themselves. The Knights Radiant as an organization, rather than just the oaths. 

I still find a strange and inexplicable dichotomy between the oaths somehow having been imposed upon Surgebinder after the fact, when we've been told the oaths grew out of the spren themselves. 

Quote

Blightsong

Were the ideals of the Knights Radiant consciously chosen, or did they happen naturally?

Brandon Sanderson

*apprehension*. This is one of those vague ones in that yes and no. They are a natural outgrowth of the spren, but the spren are a natural outgrowth of human's perception of natural forces, but the spren are sentient, so I would say it's a little more by instinct than not. For example two Knights Radiant in the same Order might speak the words differently, but the concept is the same. You will see this happen in a future book, where a Windrunner will speak the oaths. It's a slightly different take on the same concept. Some are moreso, like Shallan's oaths are very individualized truths, so.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

I find the first oath being in The Way of Kings more evidence that Nohadon was a Radiant... The epigraph we have says that Ishar forced organization upon the Knights. 

My biggest issue is that I fail to see how a single ma could reshape an entire magic system that even the Shards do not fully shape. 

[Goatbringer]

I also think that there's a healthy dose of opacity when it comes to the old-timey Radiants. From what we can glean from them from the gem archive and all the other older writings the orders were already rife with in-fighting and disagreements. It seems to me just a matter of course for each order now to have their own goals, ambitions and perceptions about the world, especially that the old institution that was the Knights Radiant is nothing more than just a legend. So Ishar's death wouldn't have much impact other than an up-tick in the chaos that is going on on Roshar. 

[+ZincAboutIt]

23 minutes ago, Calderis said:

My biggest issue is that I fail to see how a single ma could reshape an entire magic system that even the Shards do not fully shape. 

Yes, this is also one of my main confusions. You make a good point though, in that the organization of the KR and the Oaths aren't the same thing. Still, forced organization seems kind of pointless if you can have different orders doing such disparate things. Who cares if the Skybreakers are all organized, if they are simply organized against humanity?  

I guess now that the Knights Radiant have reformed, we will get to see them in their most contemporary re-formation with the needs of the current day. Since all the magic systems in the Cosmere seem to work by intent, perhaps the very fact that Roshar now equates surgebinding with the Knights Radiant makes it so, no divine intervention required. It's all about perception.

[Calderis]

1 minute ago, ZincAboutIt said:

Yes, this is also one of my main confusions. You make a good point though, in that the organization of the KR and the Oaths aren't the same thing. Still, forced organization seems kind of pointless if you can have different orders doing such disparate things. Who cares if the Skybreakers are all organized, if they are simply organized against humanity?  

That's just it though. The Knights weren't any single order in isolation. The orders have different roles and functions, and they need each other to balance out. 

Elsecallers logic and pragmatism tempered by Windrunner care and idealism. And vice versa. 

Any order acting alone is going to be an echo chamber. 

[CrazyRioter]

We know that oaths are open to interpretation, so what I think Ishar did was create an organization that would train its members to interpret the Oaths in ways that were productive and conductive to co-operation, and as @Goatbringer pointed out even that wasn't a perfect solution.

Currently we are seeing the results of NOT having a cohesive interpretation of the oaths , i.e. Surgebinders working at cross purposes, as Nohadon complained about in that one vision.

[+ZincAboutIt]

Just now, Calderis said:

Any order acting alone is going to be an echo chamber. 

I'm guessing this is why the Bondsmith order is so essential, to guide everyone to go in roughly the same direction, just approached from different angles. I can only imagine how difficult things were if there happened to be a generation without at least one Bondsmith around.

Thanks for the very wise answers!

[Bigmikey357]

Two things. Humans forget. And any organization made for a purpose tends to lose their way when that purpose is accomplished. Once humans weren't fighting off Desolations anymore the KR began to lose focus and eventually rot.