The Reason for the Recreance (Singer Slavery)

[Diomedes]

1) The Recreance and the “False Desolation”

First a few preliminary thoughts. The Recreance happened during the "False Desolation", in which BAM handed out Forms to the Singers, as  Jasnah concluded in chapter 56 of OB by inspecting Dalinars vision of the Recreance. The Humans in Dalinars vision also appear to be a very multi-ethnic group, a kind of coalition that only came together to fight against the Singers in a Desolation.  The following two epigraphs confirm this, as the “sentiment of betrayal” was surely regarding the war against the Singers and not some other human group, which would not have access to surges. The last epigraph suggests that all these events were connected somehow.

“This act of great villainy went beyond the impudence which had hitherto been ascribed to the orders; as the fighting was particularly intense at the time, many attributed this act to a sense of inherent betrayal;” WoR chapter 41 epigraph. 

"Ba-Ado-Mishram has somehow connected with the parsh people, as Odium once did. She provides Voidlight and facilitates forms of power. Our strike team is going to imprison her." OB chapter 80 epigraph. 

“I was there when Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured. I know the truth of the Radiants, the Recreance, and the Nahel spren RoW.” Ch. 94. Epigraph.  (Kalak speaking)

2) The Discovery

As the original Radiants faced the False Desolation one thing was made patently clear: The Heralds had lied to them, when they said that the Humans or Team Honor had “won” the wars of the Desolations. Because here was BAM, handing out void forms and leading a Desolation in all but name. This must have caused some considerable consternation and a desire to know what actually happened.

 I think they figured out pretty quickly that the Heralds had walked away from the Oathpact at the cost of Taln staying back.  That was pretty easy to find out given the nine swords in Shinovar. They learned that they were in this kind of limbo state inbetween Desolations and Peacetimes. Odium would come back eventually. 

I do think however that Taravangian was right in seeing the discovery of the Humans as Odium`s original people being the “fact” that caused the Recreance. But as with many other things, this lacks its proper context in order to be meaningful.

3. Singer Slavery

Here comes my actual theory. I think the Singers being reduced to servitude was not a consequence of BAM`s imprisonment. They already had been made slaves sometime after the Humans had “won” the war of the Desolations, let`s say after 1000 years. The False Desolation probably started out as a mass slave rebellion of the Singers.

So why did the KR accept Singer slavery? Institutions corrupt over time. The Vorin church was founded during the time of the Heralds as well. The Skybreakers were a KR order and currently serve Odium. Or take the storming Honor Spren of Lasting Integrity, which condemned all Humans based on the false belief that the Radiants had killed their spren en masse during the Recreance.  

The Knights Radiants could likewise condemn all Singers based on the false belief, that Singers were by nature Odium`s people, like the orcs in LotR, and Humans Honor`s chosen ones. This should be seen as the core ideology, which justified the enslavement of a large portion of Singers, if not all of them. As the Radiants figured out the secrets of the Eila Stele, the core ideology upon which they had justified the enslavement of large numbers of an entire species fell apart.

4. The Recreance

As we know from Way of Kings slavery is not compatible with Honor. Sadeas used slaves as bridgemen, Dalinar did not. The Knights Radiants therefore discovered something equally shocking: their own order had become corrupted to the ways of Odium as according to the Eila Stele all human beings can be. If things would go on unchanged forever, the Knights Radiants as a whole would become servants of Odium, as the Skybreakers are now. So the Radiants decided to end their order altogether by breaking the Nahel bond and telling the Spren in Shadesmar this was done in malicious intent to make sure no new bonds would be created in the future. This way they wanted to ensure no corrupted KR institution would ever arise to make a resistance to Odium impossible, once he did come back.

Secondly, to eliminate the reason for anti-singer prejudice the KR  wanted Humanity to forget millennia of wars against the Singers as Voidbringers.  In this regard they conducted a large scale cover up operation to ensure key information was lost, like that the Parshmen were the Voidbringers or the location of Urithiru. There is a certain symmetry to Dalinar`s arc in OB I think. Humanity, like Dalinar, had to forget, in order to be make a rebirth of an honorable KR order largely impartial to the  Singers possible. The gift of forgetting goes for the Spren as well. They could only "forgive" the Singers as Leshwi put it, because they were so mad at the Humans in the first place. The same also goes for the Singers of course.  The fact is there are now Singer Radiants, which had not existed for all those millienia of Desolations. I think the Recreance has made that possible. 

I also think that the KR, like Dalinar, had help from Cultivation in  this regard. Did you ever wonder how a gigantic tower in the middle of Roshar could go unnoticed for millenia? Or that a community of sentient Singers with convinient knowledge of millenias past could be hidden from Humanity though being situated right at the border of Alethkar? Cultivation made sure it stayed that way.    

Edited May 20, 2023 by Diomedes

[alder24]

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

3. Singer Slavery

Here comes my actual theory. I think the Singers being reduced to servitude was not a consequence of BAM`s imprisonment. They already had been made slaves sometime after the Humans had “won” the war of the Desolations, let`s say after 1000 years. The False Desolation probably started out as a mass slave rebellion of the Singers.

So why did the KR accept Singer slavery? Institutions corrupt over time. The Vorin church was founded during the time of the Heralds as well. The Skybreakers were a KR order and currently serve Odium. Or take the storming Honor Spren of Lasting Integrity, which condemned all Humans based on the false belief that the Radiants had killed their spren en masse during the Recreance.  

The Knights Radiants could likewise condemn all Singers based on the false belief, that Singers were by nature Odium`s people, like the orcs in LotR, and Humans Honor`s chosen ones. This should be seen as the core ideology, which justified the enslavement of a large portion of Singers, if not all of them. As the Radiants figured out the secrets of the Eila Stele, the core ideology upon which they had justified the enslavement of large numbers of an entire species fell apart.

I have several problems with this. Firstly, there is WoB saying that  enslavement of the parshmen happened only decades after the Recreance. Next, it was said in OB ch 113 that Radiants knew humans came from Ashyn, that they were the first Voidbringers and cause the first Desolation, but there was Honor always reassuring them that their cause it right and honorable - until the last generation of Radiants, when Honor was raving about Dawnshards and how humans would destroy Roshar with their Surges. Radiants knew they were of Odium. Plus nothing in the gem library of Urithiru suggests that Singers were enslaved before the False Desolation. I think the way they speak about Singers suggests they were free at that time.

Spoiler

Questioner

How close is the enslavement of the parshmen to the Recreance, timeline-wise? 

Brandon Sanderson

Um, fairly close, as timeline issues go, but still many decades.

Questioner

Did it play any kind of factor in the decision?

Brandon Sanderson

Absolutely. But we're not talking about it happening next year. But it was a factor, how about that?

Skyward Houston signing (Nov. 19, 2018)

 

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

As we know from Way of Kings slavery is not compatible with Honor.

Do we?  Honor is about oaths, not good deeds. A slave owner swearing to release his slaves when they pay off their debt is "Honorable".

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

The Knights Radiants therefore discovered something equally shocking: their own order had become corrupted to the ways of Odium as according to the Eila Stele all human beings can be.

That's not true, both Odium (OB ch 57) and Stormfather said in OB that Radiants were good and honest people and weren't corrupted nor lost their ways.

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

So the Radiants decided to end their order altogether by breaking the Nahel bond and telling the Spren in Shadesmar this was done in malicious intent to make sure no new bonds would be created in the future. This way they wanted to ensure no corrupted KR institution would ever arise to make a resistance to Odium impossible, once he did come back.

That's also not true. First as proven by Odium, Stormfather and Maya, they did this to protect humanity and Roshar from the same destruction that Ashyn faced. Secondly, Recreance spanned over a few days and it wasn't organized, it was done on an individual basis, decision made between spren and their Radiant in the heat of the moment, not a pre-planned action. There is nothing to suggest that Radiants told spren in CR about their actions, nobody knew what was happening, even Radiants and their spren were unaware of Deadeye (as Maya's words proved, she didn't know for certain she would turn into a Deadeye). If they didn't know spren would turn into Deadeye, they would just think breaking oaths would be enough, spren would survive this and they would never bond anybody else, or leaving spren in the Shardblade form would make sure that people would still have weapons to fight against Fused, but not surges as spren would prevent this from happening. 

Spoiler

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)

 

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

Secondly, to eliminate the reason for anti-singer prejudice the KR  wanted Humanity to forget millennia of wars against the Singers as Voidbringers.  In this regard they conducted a large scale cover up operation to ensure key information was lost, like that the Parshmen were the Voidbringers or the location of Urithiru. There is a certain symmetry to Dalinar`s arc in OB I think. Humanity, like Dalinar, had to forget, in order to be make a rebirth of an honorable KR order largely impartial to the  Singers possible. The gift of forgetting goes for the Spren as well. They could only "forgive" the Singers as Leshwi put it, because they were so mad at the Humans in the first place. The same also goes for the Singers of course.  The fact is there are now Singer Radiants, which had not existed for all those millienia of Desolations. I think the Recreance has made that possible. 

I don't agree with your reasoning here as well. There was pre existing disagreement between the Sibling and Radiants (could be because Radiants wanted to imprison BAM and the Sibling was against this idea), which ended with expulsion of Radiants from Urithiru and closing Oathgates. The messages in the archives of Urithiru also suggest there was no cover up story, as they openly were talking about Parsh bonding with BAM, Voidbringers etc. Both humans and spren knew nothing about Recreance, they only saw its effects - Radiants abandoning their Oaths, which for many humans meant they turned against them, and spren turning into Deadeye, which for spren in CR meant Radians betrayed their spren killing them. There is no reason for any cover up, as both humans and spren could know only what they saw.

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

Did you ever wonder how a gigantic tower in the middle of Roshar could go unnoticed for millenia?

Yes, because it's in the middle of inaccessible mountain range, far away from any civilization, and the only way to it are magic teleportation devices (except for a long and difficult track alongside mountain valleys with no places to stop and shelter from Highstorms), which no longer function, and can be opened only by a living Shardblade, which can't be done anywhere. How could they not forget it when nobody could access it anymore? The maps that humans had were all inaccurate (just look at medieval maps of Europe), each country placed Urithiru closest to their own borders, not where it should be (it was said either in WoK or WoR). There is nobody who can fly, nobody who can walk through a solid mountain, only Radiants knew where Urithiru precisely was, and all of them were dead now.

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

Or that a community of sentient Singers with convinient knowledge of millenias past could be hidden from Humanity though being situated right at the border of Alethkar?

The Last Legion ran to Narak prior to the Last Desolation. They were a relatively small community, on desolate wastelands. I wouldn’t be surprised if Radiants knew about them, but left them alone, and once slavery of Singers happened after Recreance, they were already so isolated that humans just didn't go there anymore (no maps). And Listeners didn't travel at all. Plus you don't travel far away from civilization when every few days there is a massive hurricane storm that wants to kill you and you have no way to find any shelter in the middle of a forest. 

3 hours ago, Diomedes said:

Cultivation made sure it stayed that way.    

How? She rarely intervenes with the Nightwatcher. Would she go around Roshar erasing people's memories without their consent? 

[Diomedes]

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

I have several problems with this.

O boy you really took your time with my post; But I do have counterarguments  

So first off, I do think it is a very strange coincendence that the Recreance happened during the time of the False Desolation. Too strange, if you ask me. There has to be some causal link between the two.  

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Firstly, there is WoB saying that  enslavement of the parshmen happened only decades after the Recreance.

First of, of course I did not know of this WoB. The Questioner opened up with an issue of chronology (How close is the enslavement of the parshmen to the Recreance, timeline-wise?), Brandon answered it was a couple of decades, therby referring to the wholesale enslavement of the Singers,  The next question therefore refers to the wholesale imprisonement factoring into the decision of the Recreance. He does not say that there were no enslaved Singers prior to the Recreance. 

This brings me to the issue of chronology. We have multiple events here. 1) the event at the Feverstone keep (happened as fighting with the SIngers was still going on, and they were not ripped off their forms yet; 2. The Imprisonement of BAM 3. The Recreance proper.    

The Recreance was apparently not one single event but two ones, as  different orders "gave up". Brandon is refering to the span and the causal link between event 2) and 3) and does clearly not refer to event 1.  Besides he does clearly say that the enslavement was "absolutly" a factor in the decision, which is a bit of an argument for my case. 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

until the last generation of Radiants

"But in the days leading to the Recreance", Ob p. 1052, is the correct timeframe given by the Stormfather. This did not refer to literal days but, from the perspective of the SF to a time epoch, which lasted long enough for the KR to forget what their human origin was. This could well be thounsands of years. 

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Plus nothing in the gem library of Urithiru suggests that Singers were enslaved before the False Desolation.

The gem archive speaks of the days of the False Desolation, when the Singers were of course not enslaved, but rather fighting the Humans. (chapters 77, 80, 81

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Do we?  Honor is about oaths, not good deeds. A slave owner swearing to release his slaves when they pay off their debt is "Honorable".

Honor is more than keeping Oaths, the attitude you describe here would fit for the Skybreakers, who happen to not participate in the Recreance (what a "coincidence"). For all other orders moral questions are part of what makes them Radiants.

Quote

This attitude would also fit Gavilar, who gets shunned from the oaths precisly because of his lack of moral values.  

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

That's not true, both Odium (OB ch 57) and Stormfather said in OB that Radiants were good and honest people and weren't corrupted nor lost their ways

Corrupted, I have to admit, would be the wrong term. Rather guided by wrong beliefs like the Honor Spren at Lasting Integrity regarding the Humans. 

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Odium, Stormfather and Maya,

Odium is hardly a reliable source of Information; Maya said "to save", which fits your theory just as mine; Regarding the Stormfather: He says he was "childlike" during these events, his account lacks important context. What kind of Surges used in which way would destroy Roshar? it was Odium`s Surges that destroyed Ashyn not Honor`s. I think it is a bit more complicated than KR exist, therefore Roshar gets destroyed. I think it is the continous clash of Odium and Honors Surges that was feared by the Radiants, a perpetual Desolation,

Spoiler

as envisioned by Gavilar in the prologue of SA 5 in order to train his "Radiants".

 If it was just the Surges, how would the enslavement of the Singers factor in the decision for the Recreance, as attested by your WoB? 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Recreance spanned over a few days and it wasn't organized, it was done on an individual basis, decision made between spren and their Radiant in the heat of the moment, not a pre-planned action.

Kaladin does not know anything on the Recreance and was just speculating. Given that each and every one of the KR made this decision does speak to a common, not an individual decision. 

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

they would just think breaking oaths would be enough, spren would survive this and they would never bond anybody else,

But would the Spren remember their past periods of bondage with their previous KR? Syl hardly remembers anything from her previous knights. They needed something different than a collective breaking of Oaths in order for the Spren to remember. Deadeyes were of course not intended. 

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Both humans and spren knew nothing about Recreance

That is was what the Radiants intended. But granted to your WoB, there probably was not a cover up by the Radiants, only by Cultivation. 

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yes, because it's in the middle of inaccessible mountain range, far away from any civilization, and the only way to it are magic teleportation devices (except for a long and difficult track alongside mountain valleys with no places to stop and shelter from Highstorms), which no longer function, and can be opened only by a living Shardblade, which can't be done anywhere. How could they not forget it when nobody could access it anymore? The maps that humans had were all inaccurate (just look at medieval maps of Europe), each country placed Urithiru closest to their own borders, not where it should be (it was said either in WoK or WoR). There is nobody who can fly, nobody who can walk through a solid mountain, only Radiants knew where Urithiru precisely was, and all of them were dead now

Point taken

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

Plus you don't travel far away from civilization when every few days there is a massive hurricane storm that wants to kill you and you have no way to find any shelter in the middle of a forest. 

You misunderstood me here. Why was there all these millenia no Alethi Higprince or entrepeneur seeking riches beyond Alethkar in say for instance gigantic Chasmfiends, that stumbeled upon the Listeners living just at the border of Alethkar? Was there no group of slaves or peasents desperate enuogh trying to find same farmable land ? You can travel through the wastelands to the Shattered Plains in wagons btw. as Shallan did.   

 

6 hours ago, alder24 said:

How? She rarely intervenes with the Nightwatcher. Would she go around Roshar erasing people's memories without their consent? 

I think ist safe to assume she has ways of influencing events on Roshar beyond the Nightwatcher. Perhaps she does have a secret society like Harmony does? But seriously there are so many different ways to think of its hard to choose from. Honor was also based on Roshar just as Cultivation and he founded the Heralds and protected the KR to serve his interests.  

Edited May 20, 2023 by Diomedes

[Jn819 she/her]

7 hours ago, Diomedes said:

1) The Recreance and the “False Desolation”

First a few preliminary thoughts. The Recreance happened during the "False Desolation", in which BAM handed out Forms to the Singers, as  Jasnah concluded in chapter 56 of OB by inspecting Dalinars vision of the Recreance. The Humans in Dalinars vision also appear to be a very multi-ethnic group, a kind of coalition that only came together to fight against the Singers in a Desolation.  The following two epigraphs confirm this, as the “sentiment of betrayal” was surely regarding the war against the Singers and not some other human group, which would not have access to surges. The last epigraph suggests that all these events were connected somehow.

“This act of great villainy went beyond the impudence which had hitherto been ascribed to the orders; as the fighting was particularly intense at the time, many attributed this act to a sense of inherent betrayal;” WoR chapter 41 epigraph. 

"Ba-Ado-Mishram has somehow connected with the parsh people, as Odium once did. She provides Voidlight and facilitates forms of power. Our strike team is going to imprison her." OB chapter 80 epigraph. 

“I was there when Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured. I know the truth of the Radiants, the Recreance, and the Nahel spren RoW.” Ch. 94. Epigraph.  (Kalak speaking)

2) The Discovery

As the original Radiants faced the False Desolation one thing was made patently clear: The Heralds had lied to them, when they said that the Humans or Team Honor had “won” the wars of the Desolations. Because here was BAM, handing out void forms and leading a Desolation in all but name. This must have caused some considerable consternation and a desire to know what actually happened.

 I think they figured out pretty quickly that the Heralds had walked away from the Oathpact at the cost of Taln staying back.  That was pretty easy to find out given the nine swords in Shinovar. They learned that they were in this kind of limbo state inbetween Desolations and Peacetimes. Odium would come back eventually. 

I do think however that Taravangian was right in seeing the discovery of the Humans as Odium`s original people being the “fact” that caused the Recreance. But as with many other things, this lacks its proper context in order to be meaningful.

3. Singer Slavery

Here comes my actual theory. I think the Singers being reduced to servitude was not a consequence of BAM`s imprisonment. They already had been made slaves sometime after the Humans had “won” the war of the Desolations, let`s say after 1000 years. The False Desolation probably started out as a mass slave rebellion of the Singers.

So why did the KR accept Singer slavery? Institutions corrupt over time. The Vorin church was founded during the time of the Heralds as well. The Skybreakers were a KR order and currently serve Odium. Or take the storming Honor Spren of Lasting Integrity, which condemned all Humans based on the false belief that the Radiants had killed their spren en masse during the Recreance.  

The Knights Radiants could likewise condemn all Singers based on the false belief, that Singers were by nature Odium`s people, like the orcs in LotR, and Humans Honor`s chosen ones. This should be seen as the core ideology, which justified the enslavement of a large portion of Singers, if not all of them. As the Radiants figured out the secrets of the Eila Stele, the core ideology upon which they had justified the enslavement of large numbers of an entire species fell apart.

4. The Recreance

As we know from Way of Kings slavery is not compatible with Honor. Sadeas used slaves as bridgemen, Dalinar did not. The Knights Radiants therefore discovered something equally shocking: their own order had become corrupted to the ways of Odium as according to the Eila Stele all human beings can be. If things would go on unchanged forever, the Knights Radiants as a whole would become servants of Odium, as the Skybreakers are now. So the Radiants decided to end their order altogether by breaking the Nahel bond and telling the Spren in Shadesmar this was done in malicious intent to make sure no new bonds would be created in the future. This way they wanted to ensure no corrupted KR institution would ever arise to make a resistance to Odium impossible, once he did come back.

Secondly, to eliminate the reason for anti-singer prejudice the KR  wanted Humanity to forget millennia of wars against the Singers as Voidbringers.  In this regard they conducted a large scale cover up operation to ensure key information was lost, like that the Parshmen were the Voidbringers or the location of Urithiru. There is a certain symmetry to Dalinar`s arc in OB I think. Humanity, like Dalinar, had to forget, in order to be make a rebirth of an honorable KR order largely impartial to the  Singers possible. The gift of forgetting goes for the Spren as well. They could only "forgive" the Singers as Leshwi put it, because they were so mad at the Humans in the first place. The same also goes for the Singers of course.  The fact is there are now Singer Radiants, which had not existed for all those millienia of Desolations. I think the Recreance has made that possible. 

I also think that the KR, like Dalinar, had help from Cultivation in  this regard. Did you ever wonder how a gigantic tower in the middle of Roshar could go unnoticed for millenia? Or that a community of sentient Singers with convinient knowledge of millenias past could be hidden from Humanity though being situated right at the border of Alethkar? Cultivation made sure it stayed that way.    

As far as point three goes, chances are that there were separate nations of Parsh and humans. There would likely be some Parsh slaves just as there were human ones, but it would not have been easy or desirable to enslave all of them until after they basically lost their minds due to the captivity of BAM.

For point four, what I have to say is that Dalinar did not use slaves the way Sadeas did. There were definitely slaves in Dalinar's camp and possibly even his army, he just didn't throw their lives away. Slavery's morality or lack thereof is murkier than you might think (for instance, it's made clear that some people become slaves voluntarily, much like indentured servitude IRL), and clearly what matters is how the knights and spren see morality. (I am against slavery myself, but the obligation to repay debts is a necessity in society and not all that different from this milder form of slavery/indentured servitude.)

[Jn819 she/her]

4 hours ago, alder24 said:

I have several problems with this. Firstly, there is WoB saying that  enslavement of the parshmen happened only decades after the Recreance. Next, it was said in OB ch 113 that Radiants knew humans came from Ashyn, that they were the first Voidbringers and cause the first Desolation, but there was Honor always reassuring them that their cause it right and honorable - until the last generation of Radiants, when Honor was raving about Dawnshards and how humans would destroy Roshar with their Surges. Radiants knew they were of Odium. Plus nothing in the gem library of Urithiru suggests that Singers were enslaved before the False Desolation. I think the way they speak about Singers suggests they were free at that time.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

How close is the enslavement of the parshmen to the Recreance, timeline-wise? 

Brandon Sanderson

Um, fairly close, as timeline issues go, but still many decades.

Questioner

Did it play any kind of factor in the decision?

Brandon Sanderson

Absolutely. But we're not talking about it happening next year. But it was a factor, how about that?

Skyward Houston signing (Nov. 19, 2018)

 

Do we?  Honor is about oaths, not good deeds. A slave owner swearing to release his slaves when they pay off their debt is "Honorable".

That's not true, both Odium (OB ch 57) and Stormfather said in OB that Radiants were good and honest people and weren't corrupted nor lost their ways.

That's also not true. First as proven by Odium, Stormfather and Maya, they did this to protect humanity and Roshar from the same destruction that Ashyn faced. Secondly, Recreance spanned over a few days and it wasn't organized, it was done on an individual basis, decision made between spren and their Radiant in the heat of the moment, not a pre-planned action. There is nothing to suggest that Radiants told spren in CR about their actions, nobody knew what was happening, even Radiants and their spren were unaware of Deadeye (as Maya's words proved, she didn't know for certain she would turn into a Deadeye). If they didn't know spren would turn into Deadeye, they would just think breaking oaths would be enough, spren would survive this and they would never bond anybody else, or leaving spren in the Shardblade form would make sure that people would still have weapons to fight against Fused, but not surges as spren would prevent this from happening. 

  Reveal hidden contents

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 don't agree with your reasoning here as well. There was pre existing disagreement between the Sibling and Radiants (could be because Radiants wanted to imprison BAM and the Sibling was against this idea), which ended with expulsion of Radiants from Urithiru and closing Oathgates. The messages in the archives of Urithiru also suggest there was no cover up story, as they openly were talking about Parsh bonding with BAM, Voidbringers etc. Both humans and spren knew nothing about Recreance, they only saw its effects - Radiants abandoning their Oaths, which for many humans meant they turned against them, and spren turning into Deadeye, which for spren in CR meant Radians betrayed their spren killing them. There is no reason for any cover up, as both humans and spren could know only what they saw.

Yes, because it's in the middle of inaccessible mountain range, far away from any civilization, and the only way to it are magic teleportation devices (except for a long and difficult track alongside mountain valleys with no places to stop and shelter from Highstorms), which no longer function, and can be opened only by a living Shardblade, which can't be done anywhere. How could they not forget it when nobody could access it anymore? The maps that humans had were all inaccurate (just look at medieval maps of Europe), each country placed Urithiru closest to their own borders, not where it should be (it was said either in WoK or WoR). There is nobody who can fly, nobody who can walk through a solid mountain, only Radiants knew where Urithiru precisely was, and all of them were dead now.

The Last Legion ran to Narak prior to the Last Desolation. They were a relatively small community, on desolate wastelands. I wouldn’t be surprised if Radiants knew about them, but left them alone, and once slavery of Singers happened after Recreance, they were already so isolated that humans just didn't go there anymore (no maps). And Listeners didn't travel at all. Plus you don't travel far away from civilization when every few days there is a massive hurricane storm that wants to kill you and you have no way to find any shelter in the middle of a forest. 

How? She rarely intervenes with the Nightwatcher. Would she go around Roshar erasing people's memories without their consent? 

"happened only decades after the Recreance." I think it's not exactly clear. It's more like in the decades after the Recreance. It takes a while to round up all the now basically mindless Parshmen and enslave them.

"which ended with expulsion of Radiants from Urithiru and closing Oathgates." I think it's made clear at some point that this occurred centuries before the Recreance, so probably not specifically because of the plan to capture BAM. It probably had more to do with the Sibling losing its rhythm, distrusting humans, and convincing them it was hibernating.

"it was said either in WoK or WoR" It was when Shallan was in Sebarial's camp looking for Urithiru, so I'm pretty sure WoR.

[alder24]

3 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

So first off, I do think it is a very strange coincendence that the Recreance happened during the time of the False Desolation. Too strange, if you ask me. There has to be some causal link between the two.  

There is, more than one link. Honor was dying, the Sibling banished them from the Tower, and they just performed a genocide on Singers - just like Honor told them they will do.

7 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

This brings me to the issue of chronology. We have multiple events here. 1) the event at the Feverstone keep (happened as fighting with the SIngers was still going on, and they were not ripped off their forms yet; 2. The Imprisonement of BAM 3. The Recreance proper.    

You don't know this. You don't know if Singers weren't just turned en masse into a Slaveform in the middle of an ongoing fight. It was also noted by the Sibling that imprisonment of BAM was felt not just by spren but by all who belong to Roshar, both True Spren and Radiants would very likely be able to feel this and realize what a terrible mistake they had just made.

13 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

The Recreance was apparently not one single event but two ones, as  different orders "gave up". Brandon is refering to the span and the causal link between event 2) and 3) and does clearly not refer to event 1.  Besides he does clearly say that the enslavement was "absolutly" a factor in the decision, which is a bit of an argument for my case. 

What happened at the Feverstone keep WAS Recreance! It was even confirmed by Honor during Dalinar's vision. As said in the WoB, Recreance was an event spanning across multiple days, when the decision was made by individual Radiants and spren, not whole Orders (during the False Desolation there were at least 2000 Windrunners, but at the Feverstone keep only 100). 

The last sentence of yours is true. But I can just argue that all Radiants felt the effect of BAM imprisonment, saw what they did to Singers and that was the last straw which made them abandon their Oaths - that was the factor Brandon said in a WoB. He also said in this very WoB the enslavement of Singers didn't happen "in the next year" after Recreance - which clearly means that enslavement of Parsh happened decades after Recreance. Timeline is secure.

24 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

"But in the days leading to the Recreance", Ob p. 1052, is the correct timeframe given by the Stormfather. This did not refer to literal days but, from the perspective of the SF to a time epoch, which lasted long enough for the KR to forget what their human origin was. This could well be thounsands of years. 

No, quote the entire sentence Stormfather said. He clearly stated Radiants of the past knew they were from Ashyn and Honor was always there to reassure them, But before Recreance this changed - he also clearly said that when "this generation of Radiants" learned the truth, they were hearing only Honor raving about incoming the destruction of Roshar. This was one of many reasons why Recreance happened. Radiants before Recreance knew they were from Ashyn.

31 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

The gem archive speaks of the days of the False Desolation, when the Singers were of course not enslaved, but rather fighting the Humans. (chapters 77, 80, 81

Yes, that's the point. If this was a slave rebellion, like you suggest, they would mention it.

33 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

Honor is more than keeping Oaths, the attitude you describe here would fit for the Skybreakers, who happen to not participate in the Recreance (what a "coincidence").

Ancient Skybreakers weren't "evil" nor on the side of Odium, nor even close to Odium. They didn't have to participate in Recreance because they were one of the safest Order to keep them from destroying Roshar - laws preventing murder. They have to obey them. That's why they stay and prevent Radiants from ever coming again.

Spoiler

[...]

FirebreatherRay

We've seen that the interpretation of the oaths is largely up to each individual spren (to the point that we've seen an entire Order of Radiants change their allegiance). Would it be possible for there to be a "sociopathic spren" that has interpreted the oaths so radically differently from the rest of their kind that it appears, to an outsider, that they are unbound in the same way the wielder of an honorblade is unbound? Or is there something essential about the nature of spren that prevents this?

Brandon Sanderson

I think that spren could go further than we've seen so far, and indeed, many of the older Skybreakers might be horrified by how far their order has gone. However, there are SOME fundamentals that even a spren with a very different interpretation wouldn't be able to abandon.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

40 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

Honor is more than keeping Oaths, the attitude you describe here would fit for the Skybreakers, who happen to not participate in the Recreance (what a "coincidence"). For all other orders moral questions are part of what makes them Radiants. This attitude would also fit Gavilar, who gets shunned from the oaths precisly because of his lack of moral values.  

Radiants aren't of Honor alone. They're both of Honor and Cultivations. Lightweavers have nothing moral to them, Dustbringers are about self-mastery, Elsecallers act more because of logic, not morality. Morality isn't the defining factor of Radiants, nor Honor. Honor is about keeping oaths, natural laws, not morality. Honor isn't a good guy,

Spoiler

Blightsong

Can honorspren, or any other type of Knight Radiant spren, be evil despite their relationship to Tanavast or Cultivation?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, because I don't call the Shards good and evil. There are no good and evil Shards in my opinion, like and so, what's evil and what's not evil- you can totally have spren that are of Honor that you would consider evil. They have free will; they are much more strictly limited in that free will than we are, because of their nature as spren. It's very hard for most spren to ever break an oath or to lie. That's just like- as manifestations of laws of nature makes it very hard for that to happen, but they can be cruel.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

Spoiler

Questioner

It was mentioned that there are 16 gods in your Cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on your definition of god.

Questioner

Shards. Are the ten orders of the Knight Radiants related to specific gods? Because Honor, child of Honor-Kaladin

Brandon Sanderson

So all the magic on Roshar, all the surgebinding on Roshar, is going to have its roots in Honor and Cultivation. Um... There is some Odium influence too, but that’s mostly voidbinding, which is the map in the back of the first book.

Questioner

I was wondering how much-

Brandon Sanderson

But, but even the powers, it’s, it’s really this sort of thing. What’s going in Stormlight is that people are accessing fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe. They’re accessing them through the filter of Cultivation and Honor. So, that’s not to say, on another world you couldn’t have someone influence gravity. Honor doesn’t belong to gravity. But bonds, and how to deal with bonds, and things like this, is an Honor thing. So the way Honor accesses gravity is, you make a bond between yourself and either a thing or a direction or things like that and you go. So it’s filtered through Honor’s visual, and some of the magics lean more Honor and some them lean more Cultivation, as you can obviously see, in the way that they take place.

Questioner

The question kind of rooted because, Wyndle in the short story is always saying that he’s a cultivationspren, he doesn’t like [...]. I kind of got the idea that each order had a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.

Questioner

Are you saying that the spren’s view of themself influences how they work?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces. For instance, whether or not Kaladin is keeping an oath is up to what Syl and Kaladin think is keeping that oath. It is not related to capital-T Truth, what is actually keeping the oath. Two windrunners can disagree on whether an oath has been kept or not.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

 

1 hour ago, Diomedes said:

Corrupted, I have to admit, would be the wrong term. Rather guided by wrong beliefs like the Honor Spren at Lasting Integrity regarding the Humans. 

All True Spren living during Recreance knew about human origins, most were even alive when humans came from Ashyn. Radiants knew they were of Odium, knew they came to Roshar and caused the first Desolation. they weren't missguided (only in their trying to imprison BAM they could be ignorant of unforeseeable results).

1 hour ago, Diomedes said:

Odium is hardly a reliable source of Information; Maya said "to save", which fits your theory just as mine; Regarding the Stormfather: He says he was "childlike" during these events, his account lacks important context. What kind of Surges used in which way would destroy Roshar? it was Odium`s Surges that destroyed Ashyn not Honor`s. I think it is a bit more complicated than KR exist, therefore Roshar gets destroyed. I think it is the continous clash of Odium and Honors Surges that was feared by the Radiants, a perpetual Desolation, as envisioned by Gavilar in the prologue of SA 5 in order to train his "Radiants". If it was just the Surges, how would the enslavement of the Singers factor in the decision for the Recreance, as attested by your WoB? 

Odium and Stormfather's words were the same, Radiants were good people, wanting to save Roshar. Stormfather, while not fully aware, was still perfectly knowledgeable about those events, and knew Roshar isn't the original world of humanity (he was rather surprised Dalinar thought it was).

We don't know what happened on Ashyn, only that Surgebinding and Dawnshards destroyed it, but we know Honor's last words - all about Radiants destroying Roshar with Surges and Dawnsahrds like what had happened on Ashyn. That was what Radiants fear during Recreance, because this time Honor didn't reassure them, but said they will destroy Roshar with their Surges. They didn't have to know what exactly had happened on Ashyn, when their god was telling them they will do the same thing on Roshar. That was one of the main reasons for Recreance. 

Please keep spoilers from SA 5 in a spoiler box.

Regarding the last sentence of yours, Radiants fear they will destroy Roshar, they've just committed a genocide on the entire race of native Rosharan population - they'd just realized that they are on they're way to destroy Roshar, just like Honor had told them.

1 hour ago, Diomedes said:

Kaladin does not know anything on the Recreance and was just speculating. Given that each and every one of the KR made this decision does speak to a common, not an individual decision. 

Again, read the WoB, which literally said that it was a decision in the heat of the moment between spren and their knights, not a pre-planned action.

Spoiler

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)

 

1 hour ago, Diomedes said:

But would the Spren remember their past periods of bondages with their previous KR. Syl hardly remembers anything from her previous knights. They needed something different than a collective breaking of Oaths in order for the Spren to remember. Deadeyes were of course not intended. 

Yes they would. Stormfather remembers many of his past Knights. Syl is different because she wasn't ready for a bond and suffered heavily when her Knight died. That's why she doesn't remember it well. Another reason why she doesn't remember it well is because she is in PR, not CR, she needs a bond to anchor herself to PR, to remain sapient, to remember. Spren returning to CR without searching for a bond would just remember everything.

1 hour ago, Diomedes said:

You misunderstood me here. Why was there all these millenia no Alethi Higprince or entrepeneur seeking riches beyond Alethkar in say for instance gigantic Chasmfiends, that stumbeled upon the Listeners living just at the border of Alethkar? Was there no group of slaves or peasents desperate enuogh trying to find same farmable land ? You can travel through the wastelands to the Shattered Plains in wagons btw. as Shallan did.   

Because they didn't know it even existed. They were focused on internal struggle in dividing Alethkar with other Highprices, and when united, they were fighting in areas where people were actually living, Herdaz, Jah Keved or with Sunmaker in Azir. Eastern lands were not very farmable, those were barren wastelands, with low amounts of crops, high wind speeds. You want your investments in a place where people live, people who would work there and build there - both in the eastern and southern direction from Alethkar there was nothing there. Plus they thought there were mountains there. 

And Listeners weren't traveling as far away from their camps as Eshonai was. She was the first one who traveled so far away to meet humans. Without her Gavilar wouldn't have discovered the Shattered Plains.

And yes, now you can travel to the Shattered Plains in wagons, because there is interest there which wasn't there before. Now they know this place exists. And you named it yourself - wastelands. There was nothing there for people to look for.

Not to mention, in ancient times this place would be abandoned because of the shattering of the Stormseat. Whatever had happened there would make people never to come back there again.

1 hour ago, Diomedes said:

I think ist safe to assume she has ways of influencing events on Roshar beyond the Nightwatcher. Perhaps she does have a secret society like Harmony does? But seriously there are so many different ways to think of its hard to choose from. Honor was also based on Roshar just as Cultivation and he founded the Heralds and protected the KR to serve his interests.  

How did Honor protect KR? There is also nothing indicating Cultivation has any secret society on Roshar (and we almost know them all). Also why would she did that? 

 

27 minutes ago, Jn819 said:

"which ended with expulsion of Radiants from Urithiru and closing Oathgates." I think it's made clear at some point that this occurred centuries before the Recreance, so probably not specifically because of the plan to capture BAM. It probably had more to do with the Sibling losing its rhythm, distrusting humans, and convincing them it was hibernating.

No, the Sibling lost her Rhythms because of BAM imprisonment, which happened after Radiants abandoned the Tower. The gem archives were made because Radiants were leaving, but also mentioned they're going to imprison BAM during the False Desolation that was happening. The expulsion from Urithiru happened shortly before the imprisonment of BAM. 

RoW ch 49:

Quote

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 ...

[Jn819 she/her]

2 hours ago, Diomedes said:

O boy you really took your time with my post; But I do have counterarguments  

So first off, I do think it is a very strange coincendence that the Recreance happened during the time of the False Desolation. Too strange, if you ask me. There has to be some causal link between the two.  

First of, of course I did not know of this WoB. The Questioner opened up with an issue of chronology (How close is the enslavement of the parshmen to the Recreance, timeline-wise?), Brandon answered it was a couple of decades, therby referring to the wholesale enslavement of the Singers,  The next question therefore refers to the wholesale imprisonement factoring into the decision of the Recreance. He does not say that there were no enslaved Singers prior to the Recreance. 

This brings me to the issue of chronology. We have multiple events here. 1) the event at the Feverstone keep (happened as fighting with the SIngers was still going on, and they were not ripped off their forms yet; 2. The Imprisonement of BAM 3. The Recreance proper.    

The Recreance was apparently not one single event but two ones, as  different orders "gave up". Brandon is refering to the span and the causal link between event 2) and 3) and does clearly not refer to event 1.  Besides he does clearly say that the enslavement was "absolutly" a factor in the decision, which is a bit of an argument for my case. 

"But in the days leading to the Recreance", Ob p. 1052, is the correct timeframe given by the Stormfather. This did not refer to literal days but, from the perspective of the SF to a time epoch, which lasted long enough for the KR to forget what their human origin was. This could well be thounsands of years. 

 

The gem archive speaks of the days of the False Desolation, when the Singers were of course not enslaved, but rather fighting the Humans. (chapters 77, 80, 81

 

Honor is more than keeping Oaths, the attitude you describe here would fit for the Skybreakers, who happen to not participate in the Recreance (what a "coincidence"). For all other orders moral questions are part of what makes them Radiants. This attitude would also fit Gavilar, who gets shunned from the oaths precisly because of his lack of moral values.  

Corrupted, I have to admit, would be the wrong term. Rather guided by wrong beliefs like the Honor Spren at Lasting Integrity regarding the Humans. 

 

Odium is hardly a reliable source of Information; Maya said "to save", which fits your theory just as mine; Regarding the Stormfather: He says he was "childlike" during these events, his account lacks important context. What kind of Surges used in which way would destroy Roshar? it was Odium`s Surges that destroyed Ashyn not Honor`s. I think it is a bit more complicated than KR exist, therefore Roshar gets destroyed. I think it is the continous clash of Odium and Honors Surges that was feared by the Radiants, a perpetual Desolation, as envisioned by Gavilar in the prologue of SA 5 in order to train his "Radiants". If it was just the Surges, how would the enslavement of the Singers factor in the decision for the Recreance, as attested by your WoB? 

Kaladin does not know anything on the Recreance and was just speculating. Given that each and every one of the KR made this decision does speak to a common, not an individual decision. 

 

But would the Spren remember their past periods of bondage with their previous KR? Syl hardly remembers anything from her previous knights. They needed something different than a collective breaking of Oaths in order for the Spren to remember. Deadeyes were of course not intended. 

 

That is was what the Radiants intended. But granted to your WoB, there probably was not a cover up by the Radiants, only by Cultivation. 

 

Point taken

 

You misunderstood me here. Why was there all these millenia no Alethi Higprince or entrepeneur seeking riches beyond Alethkar in say for instance gigantic Chasmfiends, that stumbeled upon the Listeners living just at the border of Alethkar? Was there no group of slaves or peasents desperate enuogh trying to find same farmable land ? You can travel through the wastelands to the Shattered Plains in wagons btw. as Shallan did.   

 

I think ist safe to assume she has ways of influencing events on Roshar beyond the Nightwatcher. Perhaps she does have a secret society like Harmony does? But seriously there are so many different ways to think of its hard to choose from. Honor was also based on Roshar just as Cultivation and he founded the Heralds and protected the KR to serve his interests.  

The causal link between Recreance and False Desolation is that A: heralds weren't around (or even coherent enough) to guide the Knights B: Honor went raving mad and said they'd destroy the planet. I think Stormfather is who said that each generation of knights learned of humanity's origins individually, which to me means older ones didn't tell younger ones, they found out from Parsh only when at war. There was no significant war between Aharietiam and the False Desolation, so there was no real opportunity for the Recreance until then.

"We have multiple events here. 1) the event at the Feverstone keep (happened as fighting with the Singers was still going on, and they were not ripped off their forms yet; 2. The Imprisonement of BAM 3. The Recreance proper." The indication I got was more that the Feverstone soldiers didn't know the Parsh were defeated yet and the Recreance happened within days of BAM getting captured. It is also possible that the strike team who captured BAM didn't succeed until after the Feverstone Recreance, but unlikely to me. Why? Dalinar describes feeling a great scream in the vision and the Blades and Plate fading, which to me indicates the Spren turning to Deadeyes. I think based on a lot of factors but particularly what Kalak said, they wouldn't have become Deadeyes until after BAM's capture

"Besides he does clearly say that the enslavement was "absolutly" a factor in the decision, which is a bit of an argument for my case." No, it just means that the strike team who went after BAM (or at least those who decided to send it) did it knowing it would render all Parsh docile, ending their nations and any chance of further war, then provide a lot of free manual labor for rebuilding after the war.

"Gavilar, who gets shunned from the oaths precisly because of his lack of moral values." No, the Stormfather was afraid of his plan, and if anything withdrew his bond as Gavilar died. If the morals were the only problem, the bond would have ended the first time Gavilar did anything the SF considered immoral.

"I think it is the continous clash of Odium and Honors Surges that was feared by the Radiants, a perpetual Desolation, as envisioned by Gavilar in the prologue of SA 5 in order to train his "Radiants"." Dead on IMO. That's basically what Honor was raving about. After the capture of BAM though, I think it's more that they feared some Knights turning against each other or even to Odium's side without the Parsh to fight against.

"If it was just the Surges, how would the enslavement of the Singers factor in the decision for the Recreance, as attested by your WoB?" I suspect it's more that they saw how it was going to play out. They saw that there would be little need for Knights Radiant without the Parsh fighting for Odium. This made it easier for them to abandon their oaths.

"Given that each and every one of the KR made this decision does speak to a common, not an individual decision." A distinction without a difference. Yes, they discussed it and made the decision together, but it was unanimous (apart from the Skybreakers). However, actually doing it meant each Knight individually deciding to break their bonds/oaths. I think if even one of the Knights, say, hid and kept their bonds, their Spren would have told the non-bound Spren about how the discussion went. The modern Spren would know that the Deadeyes had chosen the breaking of bonds.

"But would the Spren remember their past periods of bondage with their previous KR? Syl hardly remembers anything from her previous knights." Yes, they would have. Remember the Honorspren that Kaladin orders to try bonding with Rlain? He was available because his Knight had died, and it did nothing terrible to his memory. Syl was young and on her first Knight when he died unexpectedly, and it was so traumatic that she basically shut down completely and hibernated for millennia. It's implied that it was more common for Spren to be minimally impacted by the loss of their Knights (well, no more than a human losing their closest companion). Syl was just an extreme case.

"Why was there all these millenia no Alethi Higprince or entrepeneur seeking riches beyond Alethkar in say for instance gigantic Chasmfiends, that stumbeled upon the Listeners living just at the border of Alethkar?" A: they were generally more interested in war and known spoils than vague rumors and hints B: the Chasmfiends were probably a rumor below even the level of Sasquatch. Are you willing to wander into the woods in the Pacific Northwest just to maybe find Sasquatch? That's not only on the border but technically within the border. It's the same kind of thing; that border of Alethkar was blurry because no one was really contesting it. It was just a broad area of uncultivated forest. I do think it odd that the locals who knew about Chasmfiends never mentioned the Listeners, but maybe they'd all grown up knowing about the Listeners as people and didn't think of them as anything special (perhaps because they'd never actually gotten close enough to notice their skin was different from a more common tribe) and therefore didn't mention them to outsiders.

"Was there no group of slaves or peasents desperate enuogh trying to find same farmable land ?" Not in that area. There were better options closer to established trade routes.

"You can travel through the wastelands to the Shattered Plains in wagons btw. as Shallan did." Once the supply chain has been in place for five years of war, yeah.

"I think ist safe to assume she has ways of influencing events on Roshar beyond the Nightwatcher." Yes and no. She probably has some power similar to how Preservation could hear people's thoughts and Ruin could give them thoughts, but if she uses it, it will draw Odium's attention.

"Perhaps she does have a secret society like Harmony does?" Recruitment would present too much of a risk of loss of secrecy. She's probably hesitant to even show herself to the Nightwatcher's supplicants. Keep in mind, people on Scadrial know about Harmony's secret society even though there is no recruitment because they're the Faceless Immortals. Cultivation doesn't even have any viable immortals to recruit. Probably the closest option is Vasher/Zahel, and he's trying to hide as much as she is (though in more of an "in plain sight" style). He doesn't seem to have any interest in basically any agenda at this point.

"Honor was also based on Roshar just as Cultivation and he founded the Heralds and protected the KR to serve his interests." Honor was confronting Odium, not hiding from him. There probably were Dawnsingers in contact with Cultivation before the arrival of Odium and humans, but the Desolations probably wiped them out.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Jn819
trying to revert sunglasses emoji to B) (as in point B)

[Jn819 she/her]

17 minutes ago, alder24 said:

There is, more than one link. Honor was dying, the Sibling banished them from the Tower, and they just performed a genocide on Singers - just like Honor told them they will do.

You don't know this. You don't know if Singers weren't just turned en masse into a Slaveform in the middle of an ongoing fight. It was also noted by the Sibling that imprisonment of BAM was felt not just by spren but by all who belong to Roshar, both True Spren and Radiants would very likely be able to feel this and realize what a terrible mistake they had just made.

What happened at the Feverstone keep WAS Recreance! It was even confirmed by Honor during Dalinar's vision. As said in the WoB, Recreance was an event spanning across multiple days, when the decision was made by individual Radiants and spren, not whole Orders (during the False Desolation there were at least 2000 Windrunners, but at the Feverstone keep only 100). 

The last sentence of yours is true. But I can just argue that all Radiants felt the effect of BAM imprisonment, saw what they did to Singers and that was the last straw which made them abandon their Oaths - that was the factor Brandon said in a WoB. He also said in this very WoB the enslavement of Singers didn't happen "in the next year" after Recreance - which clearly means that enslavement of Parsh happened decades after Recreance. Timeline is secure.

No, quote the entire sentence Stormfather said. He clearly stated Radiants of the past knew they were from Ashyn and Honor was always there to reassure them, But before Recreance this changed - he also clearly said that when "this generation of Radiants" learned the truth, they were hearing only Honor raving about incoming the destruction of Roshar. This was one of many reasons why Recreance happened. Radiants before Recreance knew they were from Ashyn.

Yes, that's the point. If this was a slave rebellion, like you suggest, they would mention it.

Ancient Skybreakers weren't "evil" nor on the side of Odium, nor even close to Odium. They didn't have to participate in Recreance because they were one of the safest Order to keep them from destroying Roshar - laws preventing murder. They have to obey them. That's why they stay and prevent Radiants from ever coming again.

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FirebreatherRay

We've seen that the interpretation of the oaths is largely up to each individual spren (to the point that we've seen an entire Order of Radiants change their allegiance). Would it be possible for there to be a "sociopathic spren" that has interpreted the oaths so radically differently from the rest of their kind that it appears, to an outsider, that they are unbound in the same way the wielder of an honorblade is unbound? Or is there something essential about the nature of spren that prevents this?

Brandon Sanderson

I think that spren could go further than we've seen so far, and indeed, many of the older Skybreakers might be horrified by how far their order has gone. However, there are SOME fundamentals that even a spren with a very different interpretation wouldn't be able to abandon.

Dawnshard Annotations Reddit Q&A (Nov. 6, 2020)

 

Radiants aren't of Honor alone. They're both of Honor and Cultivations. Lightweavers have nothing moral to them, Dustbringers are about self-mastery, Elsecallers act more because of logic, not morality. Morality isn't the defining factor of Radiants, nor Honor. Honor is about keeping oaths, natural laws, not morality. Honor isn't a good guy,

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Blightsong

Can honorspren, or any other type of Knight Radiant spren, be evil despite their relationship to Tanavast or Cultivation?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, because I don't call the Shards good and evil. There are no good and evil Shards in my opinion, like and so, what's evil and what's not evil- you can totally have spren that are of Honor that you would consider evil. They have free will; they are much more strictly limited in that free will than we are, because of their nature as spren. It's very hard for most spren to ever break an oath or to lie. That's just like- as manifestations of laws of nature makes it very hard for that to happen, but they can be cruel.

OdysseyCon 2016 (April 8, 2016)

 

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Questioner

It was mentioned that there are 16 gods in your Cosmere.

Brandon Sanderson

Depends on your definition of god.

Questioner

Shards. Are the ten orders of the Knight Radiants related to specific gods? Because Honor, child of Honor-Kaladin

Brandon Sanderson

So all the magic on Roshar, all the surgebinding on Roshar, is going to have its roots in Honor and Cultivation. Um... There is some Odium influence too, but that’s mostly voidbinding, which is the map in the back of the first book.

Questioner

I was wondering how much-

Brandon Sanderson

But, but even the powers, it’s, it’s really this sort of thing. What’s going in Stormlight is that people are accessing fundamental forces of creation and laws of the universe. They’re accessing them through the filter of Cultivation and Honor. So, that’s not to say, on another world you couldn’t have someone influence gravity. Honor doesn’t belong to gravity. But bonds, and how to deal with bonds, and things like this, is an Honor thing. So the way Honor accesses gravity is, you make a bond between yourself and either a thing or a direction or things like that and you go. So it’s filtered through Honor’s visual, and some of the magics lean more Honor and some them lean more Cultivation, as you can obviously see, in the way that they take place.

Questioner

The question kind of rooted because, Wyndle in the short story is always saying that he’s a cultivationspren, he doesn’t like [...]. I kind of got the idea that each order had a different Shard.

Brandon Sanderson

That is a good thing to think, but that is not how it is. Some of them self-identify more in certain ways. Syl is an honorspren, that’s what they call a honorspren, they self-identify as the closest to Honor. Is that true? Well, I don’t know. For instance, you might talk to different spren, who are like, no, highspren are like “We’re the ones most like Honor. We are the ones that keep oaths the best. Those honorspren will let their people break their oaths if they think it’s for a good cause. That’s not Honor-like.” There would be disagreement.

Questioner

Are you saying that the spren’s view of themself influences how they work?

Brandon Sanderson

Oh yeah, and humans’ view of them because spren are pieces of Investiture who have gained sapience, or sentience for the smaller spren, through human perception of those forces. For instance, whether or not Kaladin is keeping an oath is up to what Syl and Kaladin think is keeping that oath. It is not related to capital-T Truth, what is actually keeping the oath. Two windrunners can disagree on whether an oath has been kept or not.

Boskone 54 (Feb. 18, 2017)

 

All True Spren living during Recreance knew about human origins, most were even alive when humans came from Ashyn. Radiants knew they were of Odium, knew they came to Roshar and caused the first Desolation. they weren't missguided (only in their trying to imprison BAM they could be ignorant of unforeseeable results).

Odium and Stormfather's words were the same, Radiants were good people, wanting to save Roshar. Stormfather, while not fully aware, was still perfectly knowledgeable about those events, and knew Roshar isn't the original world of humanity (he was rather surprised Dalinar thought it was).

We don't know what happened on Ashyn, only that Surgebinding and Dawnshards destroyed it, but we know Honor's last words - all about Radiants destroying Roshar with Surges and Dawnsahrds like what had happened on Ashyn. That was what Radiants fear during Recreance, because this time Honor didn't reassure them, but said they will destroy Roshar with their Surges. They didn't have to know what exactly had happened on Ashyn, when their god was telling them they will do the same thing on Roshar. That was one of the main reasons for Recreance. 

Please keep spoilers from SA 5 in a spoiler box.

Regarding the last sentence of yours, Radiants fear they will destroy Roshar, they've just committed a genocide on the entire race of native Rosharan population - they'd just realized that they are on they're way to destroy Roshar, just like Honor had told them.

Again, read the WoB, which literally said that it was a decision in the heat of the moment between spren and their knights, not a pre-planned action.

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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)

 

Yes they would. Stormfather remembers many of his past Knights. Syl is different because she wasn't ready for a bond and suffered heavily when her Knight died. That's why she doesn't remember it well. Another reason why she doesn't remember it well is because she is in PR, not CR, she needs a bond to anchor herself to PR, to remain sapient, to remember. Spren returning to CR without searching for a bond would just remember everything.

Because they didn't know it even existed. They were focused on internal struggle in dividing Alethkar with other Highprices, and when united, they were fighting in areas where people were actually living, Herdaz, Jah Keved or with Sunmaker in Azir. Eastern lands were not very farmable, those were barren wastelands, with low amounts of crops, high wind speeds. You want your investments in a place where people live, people who would work there and build there - both in the eastern and southern direction from Alethkar there was nothing there. Plus they thought there were mountains there. 

And Listeners weren't traveling as far away from their camps as Eshonai was. She was the first one who traveled so far away to meet humans. Without her Gavilar wouldn't have discovered the Shattered Plains.

And yes, now you can travel to the Shattered Plains in wagons, because there is interest there which wasn't there before. Now they know this place exists. And you named it yourself - wastelands. There was nothing there for people to look for.

Not to mention, in ancient times this place would be abandoned because of the shattering of the Stormseat. Whatever had happened there would make people never to come back there again.

How did Honor protect KR? There is also nothing indicating Cultivation has any secret society on Roshar (and we almost know them all). Also why would she did that? 

 

No, the Sibling lost her Rhythms because of BAM imprisonment, which happened after Radiants abandoned the Tower. The gem archives were made because Radiants were leaving, but also mentioned they're going to imprison BAM during the False Desolation that was happening. The expulsion from Urithiru happened shortly before the imprisonment of BAM. 

RoW ch 49:

Thank you for clarifying. I haven't read the whole series in a couple of months, and I had forgotten some of these details. I do think the Sibling was getting paranoid largely because of the talk of imprisoning BAM, but the paranoia had to do with how at least one of the crystals mentioned that the tower was "changing" IIRC. I may have gotten confused on when it began its hibernation scam based on the fact that the Midnight Mother thought the Sibling was hibernating the whole time she was in the tower. I thought she might have heard of it through the grapevine of KR talking to the Parsh (perhaps as captives) prior to imprisonment of BAM.

Still though, it's not clear to me how quickly Operation Capture BAM went from planning to execution. I guess centuries is unrealistic, but it certainly could have been more than days. More importantly, I feel like somewhere in a Jasnah/Shallan conversation (or maybe Shallan talking about Jasnah's thoughts to Pattern?) they talk about how Urithiru was already abandoned by the Recreance. I think that's what gave me the impression of years, not days. I guess Jasnah could've been wrong, of course.

[alder24]

11 minutes ago, Jn819 said:

Still though, it's not clear to me how quickly Operation Capture BAM went from planning to execution. I guess centuries is unrealistic, but it certainly could have been more than days. More importantly, I feel like somewhere in a Jasnah/Shallan conversation (or maybe Shallan talking about Jasnah's thoughts to Pattern?) they talk about how Urithiru was already abandoned by the Recreance. I think that's what gave me the impression of years, not days. I guess Jasnah could've been wrong, of course.

It isn't clear. The False Desolation likely lasted for years, ending with Recreance. It might be that after Radiants were expelled from Urithiru, years had passed before the strike team manage to capture BAM - that's however very unlikely, as one of the gems mentioned Parsh pushing towards the Feverstone keep, this likely mean less than a year (or even month) had passed between abandonment of Urithiru and BAM capture.

[Jn819 she/her]

Just now, alder24 said:

It isn't clear. The False Desolation likely lasted for years, ending with Recreance. It might be that after Radiants were expelled from Urithiru, years had passed before the strike team manage to capture BAM - that's however very unlikely, as one of the gems mentioned Parsh pushing towards the Feverstone keep, this likely mean less than a year (or even month) had passed between abandonment of Urithiru and BAM capture.

I had forgotten that gem, that's a very good point. I guess it's still possible that it's referring to a separate push and the war involved a lot of back and forth, but you've convinced me that you're most likely right.

[Diomedes]

Just a few points.

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

You don't know this. You don't know if Singers weren't just turned en masse into a Slaveform in the middle of an ongoing fight.

I refer you to epigraph WoR 41 

This act of great villainy went beyond the impudence which had hitherto been ascribed to the orders; as the fighting was particularly intense at the time, many attributed this act to a sense of inherent betrayal;”  

If the Recreance did not happen in the middle of the fight with the SIngers, why then the feeling of Betrayal? Or rather who were they fighting against, if not against the non-imprisoned Singers.? There is a piece to the puzzle we do not know yet. 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

They have to obey them. That's why they stay and prevent Radiants from ever coming again.

That`s what is Nale is telling us. As Szeth commented: Nale is interpreting the law as he sees fit, as he has "become" the law. De facto he has gone mad like all the other Heralds. 

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

And yes, now you can travel to the Shattered Plains in wagons, because there is interest there which wasn't there before. Now they know this place exists. And you named it yourself - wastelands. There was nothing there for people to look for.

What about freedom from Alethi rule? Enslaved peoples seeking refuge, fugitives from the law, etc. There are people living near the North Pole IRL, which is surely less hospitable than the wastelands. If the Listeners were able to survive, so are some humans.

Besides, there were dozens expeditions to Akinah, even though there were tons of deadly currents and never has a vessel come back from there. Somone is always desperate enough to look for profit in nlikely regions. And the Shattered Plains are on the doorstep of Alethkar. A taliking Singer would be as strange on Roshar as a sentient horse would be to us. There has to be some supernatural reason, why the Shattered Plains were obscured from the world. 

Ah and another thing, like I said in my original post, Singer Radiants are a very recent phenomenon, I still think that the downfall of the original Radiants has made that possible.   

 

 

Edited May 20, 2023 by Diomedes

[alder24]

19 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

I refer you to epigraph WoR 41 

This act of great villainy went beyond the impudence which had hitherto been ascribed to the orders; as the fighting was particularly intense at the time, many attributed this act to a sense of inherent betrayal;”  

If the Recreance did not happen in the middle of the fight with the SIngers, why then the feeling of Betrayal? Or rather who were they fighting against, if not against the non-imprisoned Singers.? There is a piece to the puzzle we do not know yet. 

The quote is from the in-world text Words of Radiance, written 200 years after the Recreance. Why the feeling of betrayal? Maybe because nobody understood the reason why knights abandoned them right after the brutal Desolation? Maybe because of the fear of future Desolations without Radiants at all? Who knows. Good point however, still too vague. I also agree we don't have a full picture yet.

23 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

That`s what is Nale is telling us. As Szeth commented: Nale is interpreting the law as he sees fit, as he has "become" the law. De facto he has gone mad like all the other Heralds. 

Except even Nale doesn't kill unjustly or against the law. That's not what Nale is telling us, that's what Skybreakers are about - law. He is mad, yet still bound by Oaths as Radiant and becoming the senate law doesn't place him above the law.

27 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

What about freedom from Alethi rule? Enslaved peoples seeking refuge, fugitives from the law, etc.

As Kaladin proved, slaves have a very hard time escaping and it just doesn't happen that often. Plus only a very small portion of Alethkar borders that region. Plus plus - people don't escape to places where nobody lives, no food grows, no resources to be found. Just no. Slaves would have a better chances trying to escape to Reshi Isle than Wastlands.

31 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

There are people living near the North Pole IRL

Near? How near are we talking about, because the North Pole is in the middle of the ocean. I'm nitpicking.  

32 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

Besides, there were dozens expeditions to Akinah, even though there were tons of deadly currents and never has a vessel come back from there. Somone is always desperate enough to look for profit in nlikely regions. And the Shattered Plains are on the doorstep of Alethkar. A taliking Singer would be as strange on Roshar as a sentient horse would be to us. There has to be some supernatural reason, why the Shattered Plains were obscured from the world. 

The scouring of Aimia happened after the Recreance (maybe even 400 years before the True Desolation), much closer to current events than destruction of Stormseat. There are also supernatural storms and spires surrounding Aimia, only making it more intriguing to people - which was still a relatively ignored region up until recent times. Plus the Aimia was inhabited by Aimians, a race of people who still wander around Roshar, visible and distinguishably different. This only adds to the mystery. To add even more, Aimia was known to hold valuables and fabrials before the scouring, which is another reason to travel there.  On wastelands there is nothing anymore, no ruins, no supernatural things, no anything. Just nothing interesting and the Shattered Plains are hidden in mountain ranges. There wasn't even any nation in that region anymore, no country, no people at all. 

And again, as I said 2 times already, Listeners were not leaving their camps. Not at all. Eshonai was the werid one. They spend most time after abandoning their forms in a Dullform (as this and Mateform were the only forms known to them up until recent times) and Dullform was very similar to Slaveform. If some human happened to meet them in the middle of nowhere (unlikely, Listeners didn't leave their camps) he would assume those are regular Parshmen, slaves and nothing more.

The Shattered Plains are weeks away from Alethkar, on uncharted parts of the map, where mountains should be. Even the forest in which Gavilar and Dalinar were hunting when they met Eshinai wasn't on any map. That isn't really a doorstep, is it?

Parshmen were talking sometimes.

There is no supernatural reason why the Shattered Plains were forgotten (except for its shattering). There is just nothing there (as far as people knew about it). Nothing of interest is there. Nothing lives there. Nothing. That’s the reason. Even before the Last Legion escaped there, it was already an empty, desolate place, devoid of people. 

53 minutes ago, Diomedes said:

Ah and another thing, like I said in my original post, Singer Radiants are a very recent phenomenon, I still think that the downfall of the original Radiants has made that possible.   

Yes, because Timbre stated it directly. Lightspren decided to give Singers another chance after the Recreance. Ashspren on the other hand want to get revenge on humans for the Recreance.

[cometaryorbit]

On 5/20/2023 at 3:02 PM, Diomedes said:

What about freedom from Alethi rule? Enslaved peoples seeking refuge, fugitives from the law, etc. There are people living near the North Pole IRL, which is surely less hospitable than the wastelands. If the Listeners were able to survive, so are some humans.

Besides, there were dozens expeditions to Akinah, even though there were tons of deadly currents and never has a vessel come back from there. Somone is always desperate enough to look for profit in nlikely regions. And the Shattered Plains are on the doorstep of Alethkar. A taliking Singer would be as strange on Roshar as a sentient horse would be to us. There has to be some supernatural reason, why the Shattered Plains were obscured

No one really (permanently) lives that close to the North Pole (most of the very high Arctic is ocean anyway). The inhabited parts of the high Arctic are generally coastal ones, where the resources of the sea are available. Large parts of the Arctic - eg the interior of Greenland - are not inhabited, and other large areas are technically inhabited but the population is tiny. Scandinavia (and Murmansk, the largest Arctic city) benefit from warm ocean currents and so are less lethal.

Without satellite imagery or aircraft overflights, it would be very easy to miss large things in a vast, mostly unpopulated area.

The Unclaimed area marked on the map of Roshar is larger than Australia, nearly as large as the US. The fact that it remains unclaimed makes me think that it is probably less hospitable than those parts of the Arctic that are seriously inhabited.

Also, Alethkar is not well equipped to expand (being involved in internal wars until very recently), and certainly don't have the organization needed to establish big mines in or transport huge numbers of prisoners to unpopulated lands distant from home like the Soviet Union did in our world's Arctic Russia, but they're very warlike and would likely prevent any other nation from trying. They're probably a buffer. Also, the existence of Soulcasters and Roshar's weird geology probably means that mining is less profitable, which is one big reason that economic activity does happen in our Arctic.

The Listeners are native to Roshar, humans aren't. They're adapted to it. (Also, they mature much faster than humans, a listener population can demographically survive when a human one couldn't.)

Akinah is accessible by sea. That makes a huge difference in pre-aircraft times. The European colonial powers explored Earth's coasts quite well long before they had any idea what was in the interior of the Amazon or New Guinea or Antarctica (which were all 20th century).

I don't think anything supernatural is required. I think it's economic, and a result of the extreme severity of highstorms in Far Eastern Roshar. Alethkar, I think, needs Soulcasters to keep the level of logistics we see in the War of Reckoning. I think they'd be pretty limited without them. The population density of Alethkar is probably surprisingly low even with Soulcasters, IMO.

Edited May 21, 2023 by cometaryorbit