How the Recreance should have happened

[+MistMage]

Here's my theory of how the old Radiants intended for the Recreance to go and potentially what will happen if they find and release Ba Ado Mishram.

So Maya hints that the spren didn't intend to become deadeyes but would just be damaged after the Radiants decided to give up their oaths. My guess the original intention, and what used to happen when a Radiant broke their oaths before BAM was trapped, was that the spren would be damaged to the point where they couldn't form another full Nahel bond but still retain their minds and their ability to make decisions.

But because the Radiants didn't want to leave humanity completely defenseless they felt the spren should manifest as shards before the oath is broken. This leaves the spren with sapience, and the ability to bond with another human as a Shardblade, but not give access to other Radiant powers. This would keep Roshar safe from whatever the dangers of Surgebinding are and still allow some defense to humanity. The other reason I like this theory is the Radiants would have thought that the shards would be in good hands because the spren would choose who to bond with and wouldn't let any horrible person use them for whatever they want.

Unfortunately due to BAM getting sealed away. This caused the spren to go full deadeyes and all checks the original Radiants intended failed. That plus adding the gemstone trick that was discovered allowed any idiot to bond with the blades.

[Inquisitor #5]

Interesting theory, though I don't think it can be true if all the adult honorspren were wiped out. I find it unlikely that none of them had been bonded to radiants who broke oath before, so some should have survived based on that.

 

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[+MistMage]

Oh that's a good point, my only thought is they went deadeyed too after BAM died automatically, and no one noticed till after the regular Radiants also broke their oaths.

[Jondesu]

On 6/15/2021 at 7:11 AM, Inquisitor #5 said:

Interesting theory, though I don't think it can be true if all the adult honorspren were wiped out. I find it unlikely that none of them had been bonded to radiants who broke oath before, so some should have survived based on that.

 

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I doubt any Windrunners had broken their oaths between BAM being contained and the Recreance. It wasn’t that long between those events I don’t think, on the scale of things, and Windrunners aren’t the type to break their oaths often. It took an unusual situation for Kaladin to almost break his and he recovered. The only known new Radiant to break their oaths is Shallan and she was both a child and a Lightweaver with a pretty much antithetical oath system.

[Inquisitor #5]

11 hours ago, Jondesu said:

I doubt any Windrunners had broken their oaths between BAM being contained and the Recreance. It wasn’t that long between those events I don’t think, on the scale of things, and Windrunners aren’t the type to break their oaths often. It took an unusual situation for Kaladin to almost break his and he recovered. The only known new Radiant to break their oaths is Shallan and she was both a child and a Lightweaver with a pretty much antithetical oath system.

Ah, but that's not what I'm saying at all. Working from the idea that the Recreance would damage the spren to the point that they couldn't form another bond, as posited in the original post, I then concluded that that kind of damage should be the normal consequence for oathbreaking, assuming the original post to be true, as I don't think there's a mechanical difference in what happened to the spren between a single oathbreaking and mass oathbreaking.

My conclusion is then that if oathbreaking damages a spren enough that they can't form a new bond, there should have been more survivors among the honorspren, as I don't think that no Windrunner has broken oath between the inception of the Radiants and the Recreance, meaning that there should have been unbonded adult honorspren at the time of the Recreance.

Therefore my stance was that the premises laid out in the original post can't be true, as by my interpretation there should have been survivors in that case.

 

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[drunkenbotanist]

The whole Ishar maybe becoming more lucid thing near a bond being sworn makes me wonder what the spiritual/cognitive impacts are of a bond being broken. Maybe the mass breaking of oaths was meant to damage the spren enough for *something* (maybe capture of BAM but who knows) but the damage was a lot more severe than intended or after the capture of BAM the combined damage wasn't something that could be healed.

 

Regardless, we have the current explanation that they broke their oaths because they were scared they'd break the planet with their powers. But my feeling is that's one of the lore assumptions Brandon likes to leave us with that maybe a little true but he's going to flip on its head for a Big Reveal

 

Maybe it was meant to destabilize honor more? Could BAM connecting to the singers be using honor to a degree and they needed to cut that off? 

 

Or could it have been something to damage cultivation?

 

Maybe the oathpact? There's the line about Meleshi (sp?) having a plan to destroy the voidbringers but it was going to be terrible and costly. And then late in the night he had another idea that had to do with the "nature of the heralds" and their role or something like that, and he had to get the plan together really fast and couldn't detail all his thoughts about it. The oathpact is kind of like a bridge between Braize and Roshar, could BAMs trick have been to subvert that bridge to get odiums investiture to Roshar to the Singers? With the help of a traitor/crazy Ishar?

 

 

[+MistMage]

On 7/5/2021 at 4:45 AM, Inquisitor #5 said:

Ah, but that's not what I'm saying at all. Working from the idea that the Recreance would damage the spren to the point that they couldn't form another bond, as posited in the original post, I then concluded that that kind of damage should be the normal consequence for oathbreaking, assuming the original post to be true, as I don't think there's a mechanical difference in what happened to the spren between a single oathbreaking and mass oathbreaking.

My conclusion is then that if oathbreaking damages a spren enough that they can't form a new bond, there should have been more survivors among the honorspren, as I don't think that no Windrunner has broken oath between the inception of the Radiants and the Recreance, meaning that there should have been unbonded adult honorspren at the time of the Recreance.

Therefore my stance was that the premises laid out in the original post can't be true, as by my interpretation there should have been survivors in that case.

 

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Right and my idea is that after BAM got imprisoned, even old veteran honorspren who's radiant broke oaths before the recreance turned into deadeyes. Now there's no existing honorspren around until Stormfather creates some others, and this new generation has no clue that once there would be honorspren who's radiant broke oaths but they didn't turn into deadeyes.

[Inquisitor #5]

4 hours ago, MistMage said:

Right and my idea is that after BAM got imprisoned, even old veteran honorspren who's radiant broke oaths before the recreance turned into deadeyes. Now there's no existing honorspren around until Stormfather creates some others, and this new generation has no clue that once there would be honorspren who's radiant broke oaths but they didn't turn into deadeyes.

Yeah, I was just explaining my reasoning because I was misunderstood as talking about Windrunners breaking oath between the sealing and the formal Recreance when I was actually talking about Windrunners breaking oath at any point prior to the Recreance.

That is a fair interpretation, though I'm not sure how willing I am to think that spren can be irrevocably altered forever so easily.

 

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[Frustration]

@Inquisitor #5 we know from a number of sources that every single Honorspren was bonded

[+MistMage]

9 hours ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Yeah, I was just explaining my reasoning because I was misunderstood as talking about Windrunners breaking oath between the sealing and the formal Recreance when I was actually talking about Windrunners breaking oath at any point prior to the Recreance.

That is a fair interpretation, though I'm not sure how willing I am to think that spren can be irrevocably altered forever so easily.

 

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Fair enough, I can't wait till book 5 when we get some answers!

[Leuthie]

There aren't a whole lot of breadcrumbs to follow on the Recreance. We have a few unreliable narrators (current Roshar historians, Honor's recording, the gem archive) and that's about it. This is going to be a back 5 reveal that we just don't have enough to go on yet. There's no way every single Radiant agreed to break their bonds. It's very strange they did so in a showy way with their spren as weapons. It's super weird that a single order was left behind.

One of my trains of thought:

Why, exactly, did the spren turn into deadeyes? How could this not be noticed before EVERY Radiant had broken bonds, unless all bonds were broken at once. If all bonds were broken at once, this would REQUIRE some kind of magical intervention to synchronize. If there was magical synchronization in the process, was a non-Radiant or a Radiant that wasn't breaking bonds involved? Heralds? Skybreakers? Honor? Melishi? All could have used the Connection required for synchronization to create problems and all had reasons to do so.

 

[+MistMage]

3 hours ago, Leuthie said:

There aren't a whole lot of breadcrumbs to follow on the Recreance. We have a few unreliable narrators (current Roshar historians, Honor's recording, the gem archive) and that's about it. This is going to be a back 5 reveal that we just don't have enough to go on yet. There's no way every single Radiant agreed to break their bonds. It's very strange they did so in a showy way with their spren as weapons. It's super weird that a single order was left behind.

One of my trains of thought:

Why, exactly, did the spren turn into deadeyes? How could this not be noticed before EVERY Radiant had broken bonds, unless all bonds were broken at once. If all bonds were broken at once, this would REQUIRE some kind of magical intervention to synchronize. If there was magical synchronization in the process, was a non-Radiant or a Radiant that wasn't breaking bonds involved? Heralds? Skybreakers? Honor? Melishi? All could have used the Connection required for synchronization to create problems and all had reasons to do so.

 

In terms of timing, I don't think the Recreance had to happen all at once. Because as some Radiants broke their oaths, they left their spren as Shardblades. As Shardblades, they remain in the physical realm. Over a few years probably, all the radiants have broken their oaths, all the radiant spren are left as Shardblades. No one knows what happens because no one has figured out how to dismiss a shardblade yet. Years later the trick with the gem is discovered, and now people can bond the shardblades and dismiss them, so the spren return to the Cognitive realm as deadeyes for the first time.

[Inquisitor #5]

On 2021-07-07 at 6:32 PM, Frustration said:

@Inquisitor #5 we know from a number of sources that every single Honorspren was bonded

Well, then none could have been damaged by previous oathbreak, as posited in the OP and I think it unrealistic that none of the Windrumners had ever broken oath before then.

 

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[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Well, then none could have been damaged by previous oathbreak, as posited in the OP and I think it unrealistic that none of the Windrumners had ever broken oath before then.

 

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Unrealistic that none of the Windrunners could have broken their oaths in the time of at MOST a few hours between BAM's binding and the Recreance?

Really?

[+Oltux72]

On 7.7.2021 at 11:06 PM, MistMage said:

In terms of timing, I don't think the Recreance had to happen all at once. Because as some Radiants broke their oaths, they left their spren as Shardblades. As Shardblades, they remain in the physical realm. Over a few years probably, all the radiants have broken their oaths, all the radiant spren are left as Shardblades. No one knows what happens because no one has figured out how to dismiss a shardblade yet. Years later the trick with the gem is discovered, and now people can bond the shardblades and dismiss them, so the spren return to the Cognitive realm as deadeyes for the first time.

No, definitely, no, because surely a Radiant would have picked up a dead Blade and heared the scream.

[Inquisitor #5]

33 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Unrealistic that none of the Windrunners could have broken their oaths in the time of at MOST a few hours between BAM's binding and the Recreance?

Really?

Unrealistic that no Windrunner, since the inception of the Knights Radiant, had ever broken oath.

The way I understood the OP the claim was that breaking oath would permanently damage a spren in such a way that they could never bond again, this being the purpose of the Recreance.

Thus if a Windrunner has ever broken oath before the Recreance, all honorspren can't have been bonded, because any whose Radiant broke oath would have damaged them so that they couldn't have been bonded and I find it unrealistic that no Windrunner since the start of the Radiants until the sealing of Mishram had broken oath.

I'm also not sure about the statement of the timescale between the sealing and the Recreance, but this is super foggy and not relevant to my point.

 

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[Frustration]

3 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

Unrealistic that no Windrunner, since the inception of the Knights Radiant, had ever broken oath.

The way I understood the OP the claim was that breaking oath would permanently damage a spren in such a way that they could never bond again, this being the purpose of the Recreance.

Thus if a Windrunner has ever broken oath before the Recreance, all honorspren can't have been bonded, because any whose Radiant broke oath would have damaged them so that they couldn't have been bonded and I find it unrealistic that no Windrunner since the start of the Radiants until the sealing of Mishram had broken oath.

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What they were saying is that not being able to bond again is what they thought had happened by sealing BAM.

3 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

I'm also not sure about the statement of the timescale between the sealing and the Recreance, but this is super foggy and not relevant to my point.

 

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Mishram was pushing towards Feverstone keep.

Radaints were fighting the front lines.

Doesn't give a whole lot of time for wiggle room.

[Inquisitor #5]

7 hours ago, Frustration said:

What they were saying is that not being able to bond again is what they thought had happened by sealing BAM.

Really?

On 2021-06-15 at 4:30 AM, MistMage said:

So Maya hints that the spren didn't intend to become deadeyes but would just be damaged after the Radiants decided to give up their oaths. My guess the original intention, and what used to happen when a Radiant broke their oaths before BAM was trapped, was that the spren would be damaged to the point where they couldn't form another full Nahel bond but still retain their minds and their ability to make decisions.

Bolding mine.

That seems to pretty clearly be about the state of things before sealing Mishram, on account of how it literally says "before BAM was trapped."

And I argue that a: it is unrealistic that no Windrunner has ever broken oath, which should have left honorspren unable to bond and thus possibly surviving the Recreance, and b: that all the premises the theory hinges on can not be true simultaneously.

8 hours ago, Frustration said:

Mishram was pushing towards Feverstone keep.

Radaints were fighting the front lines.

Doesn't give a whole lot of time for wiggle room.

This gets into if we think the visions are accurate re-creations of historical events or realistic dramatisations and I'd argue that the visions do not have to be historically accurate and might instead be historical fiction aimed at getting the right feel and message across.

 

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[+Oltux72]

On 15.6.2021 at 4:30 AM, MistMage said:

Here's my theory of how the old Radiants intended for the Recreance to go and potentially what will happen if they find and release Ba Ado Mishram.

So Maya hints that the spren didn't intend to become deadeyes but would just be damaged after the Radiants decided to give up their oaths. My guess the original intention, and what used to happen when a Radiant broke their oaths before BAM was trapped, was that the spren would be damaged to the point where they couldn't form another full Nahel bond but still retain their minds and their ability to make decisions.

To be blunt, what would be the point? If those spren were of the opinion that they should no longer form bonds, why do anything? In a few decades there would be no Knights Radiant left and you cannot torture a spren into a bond. Even if you could, the Recreance would not affect the unbonded and the new spren. Why do something dangerous and painful now?

[LewsTherinTelescope]

37 minutes ago, Inquisitor #5 said:

This gets into if we think the visions are accurate re-creations of historical events or realistic dramatisations and I'd argue that the visions do not have to be historically accurate and might instead be historical fiction aimed at getting the right feel and message across.

We've been told they're accurate.

Quote

R'Shara

Is the vision that Dalinar of the Recreance; is that how it actually happened?

Brandon Sanderson

You can assume that even though it was a recreation, that it is accurate.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

[Inquisitor #5]

38 minutes ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

We've been told they're accurate.

Quote

R'Shara

Is the vision that Dalinar of the Recreance; is that how it actually happened?

Brandon Sanderson

You can assume that even though it was a recreation, that it is accurate.

Skyward release party (Nov. 6, 2018)

Huh, must have missed that, neato.

I'll conceed that point then.

 

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[Leuthie]

11 hours ago, LewsTherinTelescope said:

We've been told they're accurate.

Accurate and precise are two different things.

[+MistMage]

On 7/14/2021 at 1:13 AM, Oltux72 said:

To be blunt, what would be the point? If those spren were of the opinion that they should no longer form bonds, why do anything? In a few decades there would be no Knights Radiant left and you cannot torture a spren into a bond. Even if you could, the Recreance would not affect the unbonded and the new spren. Why do something dangerous and painful now?

So my theory is that the spren and old radiants became afraid of their bonds because something similar caused the destruction of Ashyn, and they don't want a repeat to occur on Roshar. So they think the normal Radiant bond is dangerous and want to stop them, but there's the threat of the singers and the Fused returning again, so the Radiants wouldn't want to leave humanity completely helpless in future generations. So they devise breaking their oaths, with the understanding that doing so will cause the current generation of spren to be unable to form Radiant bonds in terms of granting surges, but may remain in the Physical Realm as Shards and even having some say in who wields them. This way it leaves some weapons for future humans to use to fight the Singers. Of course it all goes wrong with the spren losing all sapience and turning into deadeyes

[+Oltux72]

8 hours ago, MistMage said:

So my theory is that the spren and old radiants became afraid of their bonds because something similar caused the destruction of Ashyn, and they don't want a repeat to occur on Roshar. So they think the normal Radiant bond is dangerous and want to stop them, but there's the threat of the singers and the Fused returning again, so the Radiants wouldn't want to leave humanity completely helpless in future generations. So they devise breaking their oaths, with the understanding that doing so will cause the current generation of spren to be unable to form Radiant bonds in terms of granting surges, but may remain in the Physical Realm as Shards and even having some say in who wields them. This way it leaves some weapons for future humans to use to fight the Singers. Of course it all goes wrong with the spren losing all sapience and turning into deadeyes

1. Why then? Did they assume themselves and their spren to go mad? Recognising that danger means avoiding it. Seems like suicide out of the fear of death.
2. If you fear that on the contrary, you must never allow the knowledge to be lost.
3. So they do this all at the same time? If not how do you explain that none of the slow ones picks up a Blade and hears the scream?

[+MistMage]

On 7/16/2021 at 1:37 AM, Oltux72 said:

1. Why then? Did they assume themselves and their spren to go mad? Recognising that danger means avoiding it. Seems like suicide out of the fear of death.
2. If you fear that on the contrary, you must never allow the knowledge to be lost.
3. So they do this all at the same time? If not how do you explain that none of the slow ones picks up a Blade and hears the scream?

1) We don't know exactly why they did it, but my guess is they feared continuously using the surges on Roshar would lead to some cataclysm. In RoW we learn Odium tricked Ishar into playing with surges which ended up destroying the planet so it's viable they were afraid of it happening again.

2) Knowledge wouldn't be lost if the Recreance happened the way I theorize it should have. The spren would have kept their Sapience and be able to teach the future generations of spren about the dangers of surgebinding. Theoretically, they would form some kind of psedo bond with future humans, which would allow them to dismiss the shardblade sans gem, and in that time the spren are in the Cognitive Realm, hanging out with their descendants.

3) No they don't have to do it at the same time, but I think it would be hard for the remaining Radiants to be aware that something weird happened. The gem stone trick to dismiss the shardblades hadn't been discovered until way after the Recreance. So all the spren are in Shardblade form, therefore they're not visible in the Cognitive realm if an Elsecaller or Lightweaver or Willshaper took a look. The only way they would notice is if they picked up a shardblade, which I think is unlikely if they have their own spren hanging around.