The Ancient Betrayal of Spren

[makromag]

This line of thought springs from Leshwi's reaction to finding out about Venli's bond to her spren. The relationship between Singers/Listeners was never explained in depth beyond the fact that Singers/Listeners can trap them in their gemhearts to switch between different forms. In the listeners' songs, there is mention of a betrayal from the spren, but the information has been passed down verbally for many generations, and is therefore very unreliable. In Rhythm of War, Venli reveals her bond and Leshwi's reaction is to wonder whether they have been forgiven for their betrayal. That of course raises the question: What betrayal? Was their bonding with Odium some kind of betrayal? What was their relationship to sentient spren?

[Blackwarder]

I’ve been wondering about that myself.

I think that we got it the other way around, where it was the dawnsingers who first turned to Odium, probably by some of Odium human agents, and started the hostilities after the Ashyn refugees came to Roshar. At least that started the ball rolling, I’m sure it was more convoluted than that.

[+Czernobog]

Adding to the mix, the spren of Lasting Integrity mention that they were betrayed by the Singers, in the distant past, but it was "not as bad" as the humans' betrayal from the Recreance.

[Harkain]

My guess is sentient spren getting sealed in Parshendi Gem Hearts. Might've granted them now forms of power/access to the surges before the Nahel bond? Could be where the different forms of fused came from before Odium rocked up. (maybe Humans rock up powered by Odium, Parshendi get desperate, begin sealing radiant spren in their gem hearts to get access to surges to fight back, Spren are noticeably upset at this?). It is possible for spren to be trapped in Parshendi Gem hearts like what happened with Venli and her Odium Spren.

Could've been that the spren Leshwi asked after was the one she had previously sealed in her gem heart before she became a Fused?

This is all a complete crackpot theory at this point but it makes sense in my head. It is possible for spren to be trapped in Parshendi Gem hearts like what happened with Venli. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Harkain

[Myrovyn]

19 minutes ago, Harkain said:

My guess is sentient spren getting sealed in Parshendi Gem Hearts. Might've granted them now forms of power/access to the surges before the Nahel bond? Could be where the different forms of fused came from before Odium rocked up. (maybe Humans rock up powered by Odium, Parshendi get desperate, begin sealing radiant spren in their gem hearts to get access to surges to fight back, Spren are noticeably upset at this?). It is possible for spren to be trapped in Parshendi Gem hearts like what happened with Venli and her Odium Spren.

Could've been that the spren Leshwi asked after was the one she had previously sealed in her gem heart before she became a Fused?

This is all a complete crackpot theory at this point but it makes sense in my head. It is possible for spren to be trapped in Parshendi Gem hearts like what happened with Venli. 

I find the idea that Leshwi was bonded to an honorspren or had one in her gemheart very interesting, especially since the Heavenly Ones are basically Odium's Windrunners. However, having taking a spren into a gemheart has to be consensual. I cannot remember to what Odium spren you are referring, Ulim or the voidspren giving her envoyform (although I don't think that one is sentient). Trapping a spren in a gemstone was unknown before Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured. For example, ancient fabrials were spren that came over to the Physical Realm willingly. Also, Raboniel mentions that the Fused only considered that the Heralds could be captured after BAM was imprisoned.
   

[seriodor]

I think it went something like this, Honor and Cultivation ordered the singers to let humans settle in Shinovar, the singers are annoyed by this, but they were commanded to do it by their gods. They're probably pretty surly about it, so when humans start trying to expand a bit, the singers get disproportionately pissed. Maybe they decide to harshly punish the transgressors. Some spren witness this and work with Ishar to form nahel bonds so they can protect themselves against the singers and their forms. Giving the humans the ability to defend themselves is a huge betrayal to the singers because this is their world and their spren. So they throw a hissyfit and purge all their own bonds with sentient spren. This doesn't cause deadeyes because it was before BAM was imprisoned, making it a lesser betrayal. Leshwi sees it as their bad all these years later, because if they hadn't been so prideful and secure in their righteousness then there wouldn't have been this whole 7000 year kerfuffle in the first place.

[Bork]

What if the secret is in their name? The singers could and often would bond radiant spren in their gemhearts, and then Odium came around, and permenantly bonded them together, turning the singers into a new kind of spren, literally fusing them together. The name fused would make a lot more sense

[Brgst13]

44 minutes ago, Bork said:

What if the secret is in their name? The singers could and often would bond radiant spren in their gemhearts, and then Odium came around, and permenantly bonded them together, turning the singers into a new kind of spren, literally fusing them together. The name fused would make a lot more sense

This...is fascinating.  I wonder if the Fused were formed by Odium combining a sentient spren and a Singer's Cognitive aspect.  This would explain the lack of Bondsmith spren, as there are only 3 available.

[Stormlightning]

There seems to be some indication that Leshwi might have had a proto-radiant bond with Riah which would also explain both why she's a shanay-im and why she's so fascinated by Windrunners. All of that considered...it seems strange she would fuse with a spren other than Riah. But she also seems to genuinely regret whatever rift happened between them, so maybe she did ditch Riah for a voidspren parallel. I'm *really* curious about what could have caused her to willingly walk away from that friendship.

With what we now know about the Recreance, I feel like the betrayal of the singers--aligning themselves with Odium--actually was worse than the Recreance, the spren just don't realize it because 1) they had no one to explain that the Recreance was agreed upon by both parties, and 2) the outcome of the Recreance had more immediately obvious and permanent repercussions than the singer betrayal. But the singer betrayal seems likely to have been more selfishly motivated than the human betrayal.