First Desolation >>>> Recreance; Am I the only one?

[CarTorSan]

Am I the only one who is more excited about knowledge on what happened before the First Desolation than the Recreance? Like, yeah, 9/10 of the Knights Radiant broke their oaths and flew away from existence, but are you seriously comparing that to the Dawnsingers (presumably) giving up their spren bond in order to come to serve under Odium's wings?? What on the Almighty's storming name happened there???!?!

 

Please tell me that I'm not alone here! Also I wanna know your theories on what happened both in the Recreance and before the True Desolstion. I can't wait to find some clues about that on book 5!!!!

[Karger]

52 minutes ago, CarTorSan said:

the Dawnsingers (presumably) giving up their spren bond in order to come to serve under Odium's wings??

Genocide of entire races of people who happen to be the best friends of the sacrifice is a bit more dramatic then choosing to serve a god who will help you fight some invaders.

[WasingtheWhy]

I don't know if genocide is the right word, but it amounts to about the same thing, really. The spren chose to sacrifice themselves. It was agreed upon by both parties of the bond.

Though from what I understand, Honor and Cultivation were on Roshar first. Then Odium came with the people from Ashyn when they screwed their planet up. They were gifted Shinovar as a place to rebuild, but then something happened and they either invaded because of Odium's feud with Honor and Cultivation, or for other reasons.

How I personally imagine it playing out was that Honor went to the humans to try and get them away from Odium, and Odium used that to kind of sneakily get the singers to his side, painting himself as a great savior and the humans as the Big Bad Invaders. Even though the whole thing was probably that jerk Rayse's fault anyways. Then, as always, there is confusion, and fighting, and then eventually everyone forgets the reason they were fighting in the first place, and then the humans and singers both become pawns to the Shards. At that point, which species fought for which Shard probably became irrelevant anyway.

I do think it would be interesting to know the exact chain of events that brought the singers to Odium's side.

[CarTorSan]

21 hours ago, Karger said:

Genocide of entire races of people who happen to be the best friends of the sacrifice is a bit more dramatic then choosing to serve a god who will help you fight some invaders.

I didn't mean the Recreance was not dramatic or a serious and important fact, I just think that the events before the First Desolation are more mysterious and, therefore, interesting to me as of now, probably because we don't know a thing about what happened back then.

2 hours ago, WasingtheWhy said:

I don't know if genocide is the right word, but it amounts to about the same thing, really. The spren chose to sacrifice themselves. It was agreed upon by both parties of the bond.

That is also something I'd like to keep in mind. It was not a genocide! They chose, and at this point it's difficult to tell if they're dead or not... 

 

3 hours ago, WasingtheWhy said:

 

I do think it would be interesting to know the exact chain of events that brought the singers to Odium's side.

I hope that Brando gives us the answers we need in Stormlight 5. Storms, I'm dying to know more of that!

[Leuthie]

It seems the end of the first 5 books is heading toward fixing the Recreance. The back 5 will probably work back to fixing the Desolations, considering that at least one of the Heralds is a major viewpoint character. So it's probably the back 5 that will give us background to the whole thing.

But I agree with the idea that the story behind the Recreance is more interesting than the one behind the Desolations.

Big Bad comes with Pawns1. Big Good convinces Pawns1 to leave Big Bad. Big Bad convinces Pawns2 that Pawns1 are horrible invaders. Pawns2 notice Big Good is helping horrible invaders. Pawns2 feel betrayed and join Big Bad. Pawns1 see that Big Bad is at the head of Pawns2. Pawns1 start a war with Pawns2 to take down Big Bad.

Pretty sure that's how it went. The story behind how it escalated to Fused and Heralds and Oathpact and cycle of Desolations would cover a chapter or two and I'd love to see it.

But the Recreance. Start with the Knights Radiant consuming itself from the inside due to a long period of peace. Then, Usurper (BAM) turning the Singers to fighting machines again and Knights Radiant having to pull together to fight. Urithiru Spren backs away from the Knights Radiant and humanity. Then Bondsmith captures the Usurper. Singers end up compliant husks of barely sapient beings. Knights Radiant discover that humanity are the conquerors, had destroyed their home world and have just turned the entirety of the native inhabitants of Roshar to less than zombies (at least zombies hunger). Surges are deemed too dangerous and Knights and spren all decide to drop their bonds, with Skybreakers staying to enforce the decision, probably breaking their own oaths once everyone else breaks theirs. Then all of the spren die unexpectedly and the world is thrown into chaos as the remains of the spren are used as indefensible weapons for the next few hundred years. Skybreakers don't break their bonds (for obvious reasons). Somewhere in there, Big Good becomes a raving lunatic then dies.

Truthfully, we have then bones of both stories. I think they both have some surprises and will both be fun to get details on, but I look forward to getting details of the Recreance more than the Desolations.

[Raven Wilder]

The Recreance is more immediately relevant to present day events, because the characters are living in the society that grew out of the Recreance. Meanwhile, inbetween the First Desolation and now, not only have 7000 years gone by, but there have also been multiple apocalyptic wars that forced civilization to start over from sticks and stones.