Singer / Spren Betrayal

[Stonerward]

Ok so after listening to the last shardcast a little theory starting to form about how the Singers betrayed the spren and vice versa according to Leshwi in RoW. 

So we know that prior to Humans arriving on Roshar the singers and spren were on good relations with at least one good friendship that we know of, we also know that the surges were denied to the singers (by Honor?) I'm still not sure how the Stoneshaping fits it's this as it's clear they had access to that (and I also think that the Dawn cities were created by large groups of Singers using stoneshaping and singing to a certain rhythm, different rhythm's made different shaped city like cymatics shown by Kabsal).

Anyway the Singers take the Humans in and they settle in Shinovar and from likely a little bit of meddling from Odium decide to invade the rest of Shinovar and the first desolation begins. From what I recall Humans had some limited access to the surges at this point somehow which I'm thinking is similar to how the fuse only have access to one surge but the humans access was more limited. So if you were a Singer leader what would your course of action be to try and battle these "voidbringers" with access to power that has long been denied you? You'd try and fight fire with fire and look for a way to get your hands on access to the surges somehow to save your people from being wiped out. 

Enter Odium.

So from Oathbringer we know that Fused can bond with humans, I can't remember the exact wording but pretty sure Odium states that this was always able to happen you just had to get the circumstances right so it doesn't seem that it would be impossible for Odium to tell the singers how they can bond Radiant Spren to their Gemhearts against the Sprens will. So with this new information the Singers started to bond the Radiant spren against their will to help fight the human voidbringers. If the Sibling's reaction to lower Spren being captured in gems to power fabrials is anything to go with I think Radiant Spren would be mightily pissed at this to the extent that they abandon them and cut off all contact with the singers for imprisoning them against their will to use in the fight against humans.

It's possible that after this Odium's grip on the Humans lessens or he starts to favour the Singers, I don't know there's a lot that happens in what seems like a short period of time but Spren eventual realise that Humans offer richer emotions and variety than the Singers offered so start to favour them now that they've fallen out with the singers and eventually proto radiants start to form - this pisses the Singers off even more now as they will freely give them access to surges after denying them to singers.

As I said there seems to be a hell of a lot that happens after humans arrive on Roshar like the formation of fused, Heralds and the Oath pact etc so maybe a few holes around the timings but it would help explain exactly why the Sibling is so pissed at the humans for trapping spren in Fabrials as they've heard the horror stories of Radiant spren being bonded and imprisoned in Singer gemhearts against their wills.

Final bonus thoughts not really related:

1. Do we have confirmation that Fused are called Fused as it's a cognitive shadow being "fused" into a living Singer? Just in my head I have it that in order to make them Odium Fused the Singers "soul" with an Odium Spren and that's how they also have access to the surges and can then bond to Singers / Humans like a Spren would. 
2. BaM was/is the Spren of Rhythms - I think that the Rhythms are important enough to the Singers that there'd eventually be a Spren associated with them, after the Radiants spren went over to the humans (see above) she'd side with those that could hear the Rhythms over humans who are deaf to them and voluntarily be unmade by Odium which orientated her from being of Honor & Cultivation to Odium and would explain how in the false desolation how she was able to grant forms of power to Regals and also how she was able to supply the voidlight by basically attuning the Song of Prayer to get voidlight and I think attuning the correct Rhythm could somehow attract the right voidspren to grant forms of power.

Thanks for reading my ramblings and would love to hear people's thoughts on this. 

 

[bmcclure7]

16 hours ago, Stonerward said:

Ok so after listening to the last shardcast a little theory starting to form about how the Singers betrayed the spren and vice versa according to Leshwi in RoW. 

So we know that prior to Humans arriving on Roshar the singers and spren were on good relations with at least one good friendship that we know of, we also know that the surges were denied to the singers (by Honor?) I'm still not sure how the Stoneshaping fits it's this as it's clear they had access to that (and I also think that the Dawn cities were created by large groups of Singers using stoneshaping and singing to a certain rhythm, different rhythm's made different shaped city like cymatics shown by Kabsal).

Anyway the Singers take the Humans in and they settle in Shinovar and from likely a little bit of meddling from Odium decide to invade the rest of Shinovar and the first desolation begins. From what I recall Humans had some limited access to the surges at this point somehow which I'm thinking is similar to how the fuse only have access to one surge but the humans access was more limited. So if you were a Singer leader what would your course of action be to try and battle these "voidbringers" with access to power that has long been denied you? You'd try and fight fire with fire and look for a way to get your hands on access to the surges somehow to save your people from being wiped out. 

Enter Odium.

So from Oathbringer we know that Fused can bond with humans, I can't remember the exact wording but pretty sure Odium states that this was always able to happen you just had to get the circumstances right so it doesn't seem that it would be impossible for Odium to tell the singers how they can bond Radiant Spren to their Gemhearts against the Sprens will. So with this new information the Singers started to bond the Radiant spren against their will to help fight the human voidbringers. If the Sibling's reaction to lower Spren being captured in gems to power fabrials is anything to go with I think Radiant Spren would be mightily pissed at this to the extent that they abandon them and cut off all contact with the singers for imprisoning them against their will to use in the fight against humans.

It's possible that after this Odium's grip on the Humans lessens or he starts to favour the Singers, I don't know there's a lot that happens in what seems like a short period of time but Spren eventual realise that Humans offer richer emotions and variety than the Singers offered so start to favour them now that they've fallen out with the singers and eventually proto radiants start to form - this pisses the Singers off even more now as they will freely give them access to surges after denying them to singers.

As I said there seems to be a hell of a lot that happens after humans arrive on Roshar like the formation of fused, Heralds and the Oath pact etc so maybe a few holes around the timings but it would help explain exactly why the Sibling is so pissed at the humans for trapping spren in Fabrials as they've heard the horror stories of Radiant spren being bonded and imprisoned in Singer gemhearts against their wills.

Final bonus thoughts not really related:

1. Do we have confirmation that Fused are called Fused as it's a cognitive shadow being "fused" into a living Singer? Just in my head I have it that in order to make them Odium Fused the Singers "soul" with an Odium Spren and that's how they also have access to the surges and can then bond to Singers / Humans like a Spren would. 
2. BaM was/is the Spren of Rhythms - I think that the Rhythms are important enough to the Singers that there'd eventually be a Spren associated with them, after the Radiants spren went over to the humans (see above) she'd side with those that could hear the Rhythms over humans who are deaf to them and voluntarily be unmade by Odium which orientated her from being of Honor & Cultivation to Odium and would explain how in the false desolation how she was able to grant forms of power to Regals and also how she was able to supply the voidlight by basically attuning the Song of Prayer to get voidlight and I think attuning the correct Rhythm could somehow attract the right voidspren to grant forms of power.

Thanks for reading my ramblings and would love to hear people's thoughts on this. 

 

 You're confusing fused with void Spren. And the sibling was not around back then.

Edited July 9, 2022 by bmcclure7

[cometaryorbit]

I don't think Fused can possess humans (I think they use the singer's gemheart) though apparently humans can become Fused (Odium says he'll turn Dalinar into one if he loses the contest).

I think that pre-Fused singers had limited and indirect access to Surge effects, Stoneshaping through "talking to the stones" (maybe interacting with ambient spren in the environment?) rather than working through a single major spren like Radiants do.

But then I don't know how Fused use the Surges either... does the Fused itself count as a spren bonded to the singer body? Or is it more like the Honorblade Surgebinding and the Fused basically has a chunk of Odium stuck in its soul that lets it access a Surge?

EDIT: I think the ancient singer Surge effects were much safer & more limited than Honor era Radiant/Honorblade or Fused Surgebinding, much less the current unbound Radiant/Honorblade Surgebinding.

It might not really be Surgebinding per se, perhaps more like Rosharan "natural magic". I wonder if the singer way to grow plants with Light and rhythms and lifespren is something similar... maybe that's "natural magic" proto fabrial science and their Stoneshaping is "natural magic" proto Surgebinding.

Edited July 13, 2022 by cometaryorbit