theory Some Notes on the Recreance [Discuss]

[Green chicken]

1 hour ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I mean.... accidentally destroying the minds of an entire sapient species isn't a pretty big sign they're screwing things up?

 

If that were the case, they could of just released Ba-Ado-Mishram. Plus, at least some one out of the several thousand radians must have decided to not break their bonds, plenty of people still deny that global warming is caused by humans, which means that it must been something very serious in order to cause EVERYONE to break their oaths. All it would take is one conspiracy nut to deny that humans are invaders, for the secret to leak out.  

[LewsTherinTelescope]

5 minutes ago, Green chicken said:

If that were the case, they could of just released Ba-Ado-Mishram.

a.) most were probably not in a position to do so, b.) while they were probably not happy about what happened, I don't think any of them wanted to start the False Desolation back up again. (In fact, this decision could very well have been a driving factor in leaving their Ideals behind — do you stick to Journey Before Destination and release BAM for the sake of the singers, but restart a horrible bloody war that was bad enough literally every single honorspren was needed to bond to combat it? Or do you leave her imprisoned, knowing the singers could be fixed but not wanting to cause all those deaths?)

9 minutes ago, Green chicken said:

plenty of people still deny that global warming is caused by humans

I mean, a.) if your god is directly screaming and raving at you, it's probably a lot harder to ignore, b.) the spren would probably back up the veracity of the claim like Syl did with Kaladin, c.) they very well know that Surgebinding is super dangerous and have a lot of personal experience with the powers.

11 minutes ago, Green chicken said:

which means that it must been something very serious in order to cause EVERYONE to break their oaths

Many very serious things happened at the time, such as:

• Their home kicking them out and the orders starting to disband
• Their god raving and promising them they'll destroy the world and in fact have done so prior
• Them lobotomizing an entire species of people because they were messing with powers they did not understand

[Jofwu]

15 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

I mean.... accidentally destroying the minds of an entire sapient species isn't a pretty big sign they're screwing things up?

I could see it being enough, but I think it clearly isn't considering Adolin/Blended know that truth already. There would be no outstanding "questions more dangerous than we ever knew" if that's all there is to it.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

36 minutes ago, Jofwu said:

I could see it being enough, but I think it clearly isn't considering Adolin/Blended know that truth already. There would be know outstanding "questions more dangerous than we ever knew" if that's all there is to it.

Fair. I think it's possible there's more, I just don't particularly see the need for it (and admittedly am in general kind of tiring of "there's always another secret" — imo that motto should apply to unanswered questions, not randomly adding to already pretty reasonably solved questions [or to a main character's entire life story four fifths of the way into a series and two fifths of it after a book full of their flashbacks, cough cough, but that's another topic], so perhaps I'm being a bit unreasonably strong against it).

[Jofwu]

Needed to dig this up to post this WoB from earlier in the month:

Quote

Questioner: (paraphrased)

In RoW was see Kaladin telling Syl that he believes that the Recreance took place not as one event such as fever stone keep, but on an individual basis. This has created many discussions in the fandom about how the spren could have been unaware that they would become deadeye's. Is this because it took people years later to discover how to summon and dismiss shards through an ornementation mishap, and deadeye's weren't seen by the other spren in shadesmar until there was no stopping anyone. 

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

The recreance wasn't something that happened over months, more like days. And the decision was made in the heat of the moment by the spren and their knights.

Footnote: I don't have the exact wording unfortunately, but he did say 'days not months' and explained that this was something that he hoped to be totally cleared up by the end of book 5. 
Miscellaneous 2021 (July 1, 2021)

I'm quite pleased that it fits with my timeline theory on the previous page.

Aside from just clearing up the general idea of how much time passed, I think this completely refutes the idea that the gemstone archive was mostly recorded during the Recreance. Maybe a few of them were, but there's no way they made a snap decision to abandon Urithiru, did research on what was happening with the Sibling, and.... everything else... not to mention setting up the whole gem archive thing, all over the course of "days".

[+Oltux72]

On 28.4.2021 at 9:56 PM, Jofwu said:

I don't see any issues with the WoB about the timeline on Parshmen enslavement. I imagine there were several years where the humans were still completely afraid of them. Some probably avoided them. Some probably hunted them down and killed any they could find. I can easily see how it would take a decade before people got comfortable with the idea that they weren't immediately dangerous. And I can see how it would take longer still for someone to realize they could be trained to take orders fairly well.

1. It is hard to see how people with the mental faculties of Parshmen would survive more than a few days on Roshar on their own. It is not exactly a benign environment, even if they were aware enough to shelter from the Highstorms.
2. The humans must already have had prisoners. It was a war going on. And they surely made them work.

On 28.4.2021 at 9:56 PM, Jofwu said:

I keep failing to keep track of all the details for the timeline on the Recreance... But my gut feeling always comes back to the idea that the gem archive is all pre-Recreance. It's hard for me to imagine all of this activity described in the gem archive (which clear lasted over the span of weeks... probably months, if not years) without ONE mention of the Recreance. We are obviously just getting a selection of them hand picked by Brandon, but... that omission would be rather odd to me. The easy answer is that they aren't talking about the Recreance because it hasn't happened yet.

And that comes back to the duration of the Recreance. And again, I must say anything longer than a few days is implausible

1. Either the phenomenon of dead Blades was entirely new. Then surely somebody during an extended process picked one up and heard the scream.
2. Or some form of "crippled" spren existed even before. Then somebody would have to ask where they are if the Recreance lasted for weeks.

On 28.4.2021 at 9:56 PM, Jofwu said:

But... yeah, then you fall back on the timeline with the Sibling's functionality failing. And they repeatedly attribute their loss of functionality with the loss of Towerlight production... And THAT makes me flip the other direction. Because I don't know how to explain this really well either. And I guess it's easier to imagine Brandon coming along and saying, "Okay, the Recreance is a lot more complicated than you thought. Let's clear it up finally," than to imagine him dropping some random comment about how the Sibling sort of shut off the first time to drive people away... and then... actually lost some of the functionality they were pretending to lose the first time later.

For a while I was toying with the idea that maybe the Sibling's functionality was in decline BEFORE the capture of BAM due to Honor's decline. But this is a bit convoluted and doesn't really solve anything.

You see this as convoluted only under the assumption that the False Desolation and Honor's decline were unrelated. And that strikes me as unlikely. Was there ever a better time to try such an attack? And you also assume that Odium did not forsee the capture of Ba-Ado-Mishram and wasn't ready to sacrifice her.

On 29.4.2021 at 7:08 PM, Jofwu said:

Foremost is the start of the Recreance. Something that we don't entirely understand drove a large group of Windrunners to break their oaths at Feverstone Keep immediately after BAM was captured. They and their spren believed that this was necessary to present some terrible thing from happening. They left their spren behind and walked away. It's unclear why they did it this way... But they had reasons, and those are ultimately irrelevant for my purposes here. The important thing though, noted by Weiry on Shardcast, is that the spren were locked as Shardblades and thus didn't appear as deadeyes in Shadesmar. (until the dismissal trick was discovered at some later date) So nobody realized that these unbonded spren were "dead" in an unanticipated way.

I am afraid, there are three major problems with this line of reasoning

1. The Scream
2. Testament. Nobody affixed a gem to her, yet she moved around in Shadesmar
3. Nobody notices all the missing Spren?

On 29.4.2021 at 7:08 PM, Jofwu said:

Those were some of the final entries in the gemstone archive, so it's not surprising that the Recreance is mostly unaddressed. The Radiants had practically abandoned the tower at that point after all. It's not clear how long the Recreance may have gone on. To make educated guesses on this I think we need to know more about WHY they were making that decision. Was it some conclusion that they all individually but inevitably came to? Were the Heralds and/or Skybreakers slowly convincing people to do it? Did it happen as a trickle or in big waves? Hard to say.

If it was slow why didn't the Spren record it and the reason? Or send messages to the Skybreakers?

On 29.4.2021 at 8:18 PM, ScadrianTank said:

I stand corrected. I suppose that lobotomy of the singers was so graphic that two entire orders decided that there is nothing they can do to fix it.

I find that extremely unlikely. There must have been a significant group who considered this an acceptable permanent solution to the Parshendi problem, that is a grim, but ultimately beneficially accident. Humans are just not that unanimous.

On 29.4.2021 at 10:57 PM, Andy92 said:

Wasn’t the big thing that caused them all to walk away finding out humans were the foreign invaders? I’m assuming this is what they learned after BAM had been captured. This made what they did less of a necessary evil to defeat an invading army and more of a genocide of an indigenous people group. 

They had all sorts of ancient spren around. The Stormfather knew all along. How could they not have been knowing for basically all the time? In fact they had access to Shadesmar. They could have observed Ashyn. They must have met offworld traders. They could interrogate parshendi prisoners.

 

[+mdross81]

10 hours ago, Jofwu said:

Needed to dig this up to post this WoB from earlier in the month:

I'm quite pleased that it fits with my timeline theory on the previous page.

Aside from just clearing up the general idea of how much time passed, I think this completely refutes the idea that the gemstone archive was mostly recorded during the Recreance. Maybe a few of them were, but there's no way they made a snap decision to abandon Urithiru, did research on what was happening with the Sibling, and.... everything else... not to mention setting up the whole gem archive thing, all over the course of "days".

I think you're right that the process of abandoning the tower and recording of the gems began, and largely took place, before the imprisonment of BAM and the Recreance.

If any of the gems were recorded after the imprisonment, I would say that the most likely are:

• the three zircons in drawer 1-1 (detailing the failing of some systems and research into the cognitive reflections of the spren at the tower);
• the garnet in 3-11 ("I am worried about the tower's protections failing. If we are not safe from the Unmade here, then where?"); and
• the particularly small emerald in drawer 30-20 ("Don't tell anyone. I can't say it. I must whisper. I foresaw this.")

Of these, the small emerald seems the most likely because it hints at something bad having happened.

The first two are probably related and seem like they could have happened during the "days" over which the Recreance happened. If, however, they happened before the imprisonment of BAM, and if the Elsecaller who recorded those zircons is correct, we're still left to wonder what caused the unintentional withdrawal of the Sibling prior to the imprisonment. The most likely culprit I'd guess would be the "Honor himself is changing" thing or just generally the fact that Honor was going mad/dying.

A final question, does anyone have thoughts on which of the Unmade might have attacked the tower? I don't think we get any clues, but it seems to me the three most likely would be:

• sja-anat - we've been told that Radiants feared her the most and the comment about cognitive reflections of spren makes me wonder if they were seeing corrupted spren
• re-shephir - we know that she eventually makes her way to the tower; maybe there was an earlier effort?
• yelig-nar - Nohadon mentioned that yelig-nar broke into his chancery once and slaughtered all his scribes, and with the whole swallowing a gem to activate seems like it would maybe be the easiest way to sneak one in

Curious what others think.

[AquaRegia]

On 7/26/2021 at 2:52 AM, Oltux72 said:

I am afraid, there are three major problems with this line of reasoning

1. The Scream
2. Testament. Nobody affixed a gem to her, yet she moved around in Shadesmar
3. Nobody notices all the missing Spren?

I'm sorry, I don't understand any of these objections.

Do you mean "the screaming heard by a Radiant who holds a deadeye Shardblade"?  Why is it a "problem"?  The Recreance took place quickly (days), as BS has confirmed.  Most deadeye Blades were claimed by normal humans, and the only Radiants remaining to experience the Scream would have been Skybreakers... but I don't see the issue.

Testament is a unique case - a deadeye whose Radiant is both 1) still alive and 2) bonded to another Radiant spren.  It is not safe to use her to draw conclusions about deadeye Blades in general.

What I'm understanding @Jofwu to be saying is that since the Recreance happened so quickly, nobody had TIME to notice all the missing spren until it was all over.  There was a war on; Radiants and spren were going on dangerous missions.  Even in peacetime, no police department will process a missing person claim until at least 72 hours has passed... someone missing 3 days during a war would be of no note whatsoever.  After weeks, they'd start piecing together what happened.

[+Oltux72]

1 hour ago, AquaRegia said:

I'm sorry, I don't understand any of these objections.

Do you mean "the screaming heard by a Radiant who holds a deadeye Shardblade"?  Why is it a "problem"?  The Recreance took place quickly (days), as BS has confirmed. 

This does not require days. It requires hours, possibly minutes. Or, even more frightingly, something that was important enough to go on even then.

1 hour ago, AquaRegia said:

Most deadeye Blades were claimed by normal humans, and the only Radiants remaining to experience the Scream would have been Skybreakers... but I don't see the issue.

And the Skybreakers would not talk to the rest of the Spren? Respectively the Highspren? Did the other Radiants not talk to the Skybreakers?

1 hour ago, AquaRegia said:

Testament is a unique case - a deadeye whose Radiant is both 1) still alive and 2) bonded to another Radiant spren.  It is not safe to use her to draw conclusions about deadeye Blades in general.

1) So were at that time the other Radiants who had dropped their Shards

2) So you are saying that Pattern bonded her immediately?

1 hour ago, AquaRegia said:

What I'm understanding @Jofwu to be saying is that since the Recreance happened so quickly, nobody had TIME to notice all the missing spren until it was all over.

But why? I am sorry, we have to make up our collective minds here now. Was the Recreance a product of fears or was there a concrete issue that needed to be addressed immediately and radically?

1 hour ago, AquaRegia said:

  There was a war on; Radiants and spren were going on dangerous missions.  Even in peacetime, no police department will process a missing person claim until at least 72 hours has passed... someone missing 3 days during a war would be of no note whatsoever.  After weeks, they'd start piecing together what happened.

So there is an extreme danger, they do something radical, yet they appoint nobody to check on the results?

[+mdross81]

9 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

I am sorry, we have to make up our collective minds here now. Was the Recreance a product of fears or was there a concrete issue that needed to be addressed immediately and radically?

If I had to choose one of these options, I'd say it was more the former. But I don't think I would describe it as an either/or. I think it can be both. There were ongoing and growing fears that spiked at a certain point (the imprisonment of BAM I think), prompting a "decision in the heat of the moment by the spren and their knights" as Brandon said in the recent WoB.

Let's just set the scene. The False Desolation is ongoing and the KR are fighting singers with forms of power and Voidlight provided by BAM. The Heralds are MIA. We know that the generation of Radiants that committed the Recreance learned the truth about humankind's origins. They learned that humans had originally come from Ashyn but had destroyed Ashyn through Surgebinding. They learned that humans were the invaders in the war with the singers over Roshar. Honor was going mad and/or dying. And so, rather than reassuring them that their cause was righteous as he had with previous generations, Honor raved and told them they would destroy Roshar just as they had Ashyn. There's also friction between the Radiants and the rest of the world, and in-fighting between the orders. Oh, and the Sibling has lost trust in humans and is expelling them from Urithiru.

So imagine all of that going on and then the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram happens. This tears out the the Connection and Identity of an entire species, leaving them shells of beings. We're also told in RoW that the imprisonment wounded Roshar itself and "touched the souls of all who belong to Roshar. Spren too." So this would have included all of the Radiant spren, who are bound to the spirit web of Roshar. (in RoW 75, Vaiu tells Adolin that "Deadeyes cannot think, but they are still spren - bound to the spiritweb of Roshar herself.") And because the Nahel bond involves linking the spirits of spren and human, one imagines that the Knights might have felt something too.

So imagine, already burdened with worries about the dangers of the Nahel bond and the Surgebinding it allows, the KR and their spren witness/feel the extent of the damage that can be done with powerful Surgebinding. So now you've got a concrete example of harm to go with the existing fears. I can buy that that freaked them out enough that they acted rashly, thinking they needed to make sure they put a stop to Radiant Surgebinding right away.

As a postscript on BAM's imprisonment and its relation to deadeyes, I'll note that I think BAM Connected to all of the singers by Connecting to some portion/aspect of Roshar itself. And as I noted above, spren are connected to the spirit web of Roshar. So when BAM was imprisoned, I think some crucial Spiritual aspect of Roshar (maybe something to do with how Honor's Investing in Roshar created sapient spren?) was also sealed away and therefore torn away from the spren. This made the Radiant sprens' spiritual Connections to their Knights all the more crucial, and when the Knights foresook their oaths, that left the Radiant sprens' minds untethered, causing the deadeye phenomenon.

Ooohh, running with this idea that BAM's imprisonment messed with whatever Honor did to create sapient spren, what if before the imprisonment, spren were able to come to the Physical Realm without giving up their minds? Do we know whether that's always been the case? Might explain a bit of what happened with Adolin and Maya - maybe it was him forging a Connection with her and then sharing his mind with her while in the the Cognitive Realm that allowed her to regain some level of sapience.

[AquaRegia]

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

This does not require days. It requires hours, possibly minutes. Or, even more frightingly, something that was important enough to go on even then.

And the Skybreakers would not talk to the rest of the Spren? Respectively the Highspren? Did the other Radiants not talk to the Skybreakers?

We've been both told and shown that Highspren are - to use Brandon's word - "weird".  I have no problem accepting that as a rule, 1) nobody (except Skybreakers) ever talks to Highspren; and 2) Skybreakers were not on speaking terms with other Radiant orders OR their spren.

Even if we assume some random Skybreaker (or other Radiant) did pick up an abandoned deadeye Blade, would "the Scream" somehow EXPLAIN to them what had happened?  And would that be enough to enable that one person to convince every other Radiant AND spren to abandon the ongoing plan?  I don't think it's unreasonable to say "no" to that.

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

So you are saying that Pattern bonded her immediately?

I did not say that.  But by the time we see her, Testament has had several years of a second Cryptic bonded to her Radiant, and Shallan has been renewed some truths with her.  As far as we know, this has not been the case for any other deadeye. 

Another very important difference: the spren who participated in the Recreance did so willingly - they CHOSE.  They broke the bond from their side as well... and eventually, their Radiants died.  Shallan is still alive.  It appears Testament was blindsided by young Shallan's oathbreaking, which, as with Syl, made Testament "only as dead as [Shallan's] oaths."

What I'm saying is that there are SO MANY differences between Testament and the deadeyes of the Recreance that it's very difficult to draw inferences from one to the other.  To my eye, nothing about Testament disproves any of @Jofwu's arguments.

12 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

So there is an extreme danger, they do something radical, yet they appoint nobody to check on the results?

Exactly so.  That's implied in the word "radical".  They took an extreme action without knowing what all the results would be, and with no thought of undoing them.  Seems likely they THOUGHT they understood the results... but Maya's account shows they clearly did not.

[apepi]

Had a thought, when Raboniel was talking about "the last Return" is that talking about the Last Desolation or the False Desolation?

[+Oltux72]

11 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

We've been both told and shown that Highspren are - to use Brandon's word - "weird".  I have no problem accepting that as a rule, 1) nobody (except Skybreakers) ever talks to Highspren; and 2) Skybreakers were not on speaking terms with other Radiant orders OR their spren.

Nale told Lift that he would have welcomed her among the Knights Radiant under different circumstances.

11 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

Even if we assume some random Skybreaker (or other Radiant) did pick up an abandoned deadeye Blade, would "the Scream" somehow EXPLAIN to them what had happened?  And would that be enough to enable that one person to convince every other Radiant AND spren to abandon the ongoing plan?  I don't think it's unreasonable to say "no" to that.

So you are doing something unprecedented you know to be dangerous and you just ignore knew facts? What was so dangerous and urgent, that they could not release Ba-Ado-Mishram? Are you implying that the capture addled their minds, too?

11 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

Another very important difference: the spren who participated in the Recreance did so willingly - they CHOSE.  They broke the bond from their side as well... and eventually, their Radiants died.  Shallan is still alive.  It appears Testament was blindsided by young Shallan's oathbreaking, which, as with Syl, made Testament "only as dead as [Shallan's] oaths."

During the years immediately after the Recreance those Knights were mostly also alive. The only difference can therefore be only in the rebonding. And Pattern acts very much like a new spren in Kharbranth.

11 hours ago, AquaRegia said:

Exactly so.  That's implied in the word "radical".  They took an extreme action without knowing what all the results would be, and with no thought of undoing them.  Seems likely they THOUGHT they understood the results... but Maya's account shows they clearly did not.

If the damage done is so hideous, why isn't it obvious? And why no warning?

[LewsTherinTelescope]

11 hours ago, apepi said:

Had a thought, when Raboniel was talking about "the last Return" is that talking about the Last Desolation or the False Desolation?

Would have to be the Last Desolation since the False Desolation didn't actually involve any Return, right? Voidspren and Fused were still stuck on Braize.

[Serack]

I’m on an OB reread and noticed that the chapter 77 epigraph indicates the BAM capture hadn’t happened yet, and thus the tower was failing beforehand

 

Quote

Something must be done about the remnants of Odium’s forces. The parsh, as they are now called, continue their war with zeal, even without their masters from Damnation.
—From drawer 30-20, first emerald

 

 

[LewsTherinTelescope]

Just now, Serack said:

I’m on an OB reread and noticed that the chapter 77 epigraph indicates the BAM capture hadn’t happened yet, and thus the tower was failing beforehand

That depends on if the order our cast labeled the drawers and their contents is actually the chronological order they were recorded or not.

[Brgst13]

I have come to a theory that the Recreance was a result of a combination of BAMs imprisonment, the knowledge of the fate of Ashyn, and the death of Honor.  Honor's death released the bounds on Radiant powers and this scared the spren and Radiants.  The capture of BAM may have been accomplished by Bondsmith powers not otherwise available.  The Stoneward power is also noted as being bound to "prevent disaster like what happened on Yolen".  With Honor's death these bonds were lost, as we can see from Ishar being a "Bondsmith unchained".  Honors death also caused the Sibling to stop producing Towerlight.  The fact is that Honor's death was the precipitating event that led to the Sibling losing function, the Recreance, and the binding of BAM.

[LewsTherinTelescope]

41 minutes ago, Brgst13 said:

Honors death also caused the Sibling to stop producing Towerlight

Sibling claims that it was Ba-Ado-Mishram's imprisonment that did that, and places it shortly before Honor's final death.

Quote

The Sibling fell silent for a time, and Navani wondered if she had pushed the spren too far. Fortunately they spoke again, softly. I have … been wounded. Thousands of years ago, something happened that changed the singers. It hurt me too.

Navani covered her shock. “You’re speaking of the binding of that Unmade, which made the singers lose their forms?”

Yes. That terrible act touched the souls of all who belong to Roshar. Spren too.

“How have no spren mentioned this?”

I don’t know. But I lost the rhythm of my Light that day. The tower stopped working. My father, Honor, should have been able to help me, but he was losing his mind. And he soon died …

[Jofwu]

11 hours ago, Brgst13 said:

the death of Honor.  Honor's death released the bounds on Radiant powers and this scared the spren and Radiants

We know Honor did die AFTER the Recreance, but I think this still works if you imagine he was less restrictive in his final days. Whether through lack of control, a failing mental state, or whatever.

There's been so much talk of how dangerous the Surges are, how they led to the destruction of Ashyn, etc. And meanwhile, very little indication to us of how that is true. I mean, maybe with infinite sources of Stormlight they would be scary, but it's hard to imagine how a  couple of Surgebinders could wreck a whole planet without really going out of their way to do so.

It would be very interesting to find out they are somehow a lot more powerful than we've been led to believe. Like maybe right now we're seeing them capped out at the power level they had through most of history.... And Honor's death busted open the door to much more dangerous things, and the characters along with us just don't even realize how yet.

[TruthwatcherDan]

15 hours ago, Jofwu said:

There's been so much talk of how dangerous the Surges are, how they led to the destruction of Ashyn, etc. And meanwhile, very little indication to us of how that is true. I mean, maybe with infinite sources of Stormlight they would be scary, but it's hard to imagine how a  couple of Surgebinders could wreck a whole planet without really going out of their way to do so.

It's not surgebinding itself that is the danger, but rather anyone with access to investiture that also holds one of the Dawnshards. That was what resulted in the destruction of Ashyn (A surgebinder holding a Dawnshard); this was revealed in the Dawnshard novella and why the condition was placed on Rysn to never bonding a spren. 

Quote

“Fortunately, you would not be able to employ it,” Nikli said. “It is beyond your capacity. But there are those in the Cosmere who could use it for terrible acts.”

...

“The most powerful forms of Surgebinding transcend traditional mortal understanding,” Nikli said. His body began to re-form, hordelings crawling back into place. “All their greatest applications require Intent and a Command. Demands on a level no person could ever manage alone. To make such Commands, one must have the reasoning—the breadth of understanding—of a deity. And so, the Dawnshards. The four primal Commands that created all things.”

...

"My kin insisted on two further terms, though. You must never bond a spren to become a Radiant.”

...

- Dawnshard, chapter 30.

The Recreance was the consequence of a generation of Radiants realising (a) humans were the voidbringers, (b) humans invaded Roshar after destroying their own planet, and (c) that by having access to investiture, they also had the potential to destroy Roshar like they did Ashyn (if the Dawnshards were ever located).

We learnt this from the Stormfather in OB chapter 113.

I don't think the radiant understood the consequences of breaking the bond after BAM was impressioned; however, Melishi must have had some idea given that (a) he built protections for the sibling, and (b) his bond with Sibling was voluntarily broken prior to the the Recreance (and BAM's imprisionment which I suspect happened in parallel).

The thing I find horrifying is poor Honor, already a little mentally unwell, witnessing all of his Honorspren children die at once! It's the Sanderson equivalent of a Thanos snap!

 

[Frustration]

23 hours ago, Jofwu said:

There's been so much talk of how dangerous the Surges are, how they led to the destruction of Ashyn, etc. And meanwhile, very little indication to us of how that is true. I mean, maybe with infinite sources of Stormlight they would be scary, but it's hard to imagine how a  couple of Surgebinders could wreck a whole planet without really going out of their way to do so.

Well if a war broke out between them, gravitatiom and Transformation could easily make an asteriod.

And depending on whether Honor bound those surges or not Cohesion nukes could hve been possible.