[Theory] Cause of the Recreance

[dvoraen]

This seems unlikely. The Recreance seems to have been pre-planned, as all the orders did it at once, and WoR's author remarks that her Radiant contact wouldn't tell her what it was. They had time before doing the Recreance to share what it was.

 

Keeping it quiet because you know people won't react well might be understandable, but isn't a sufficiently good reason to explain why no Radiants ever spilled the beans and had it recorded. The writer of WoR was clearly interested, and would have been looking for that information.

RE: Bolded.  I assume you refer to the epigraph that mentions "though whether...Avena would not suggest." ?  I never got the impression that it was an actual Radiant (but I could be forgetting something from Way of Kings), but rather that Avena was an ancient writer referenced.  The in-world Words of Radiance was, per Shallan's POVs, written about two(?) centuries after the fact, so there's plenty of time for the facts to be muddled, or even suppressed.  Factual records of the time could have been expunged when the author of the WoR book took up the project, but there's also the certain fact that Brandon deliberately didn't give us much except a big tease from Chapter 38 of that book.

 

Would really like to see Jasnah's take on that book, for sure.  I bet Ivory told her stuff, to say nothing of what Pattern likely clarified.

Edited December 23, 2014 by dvoraen

[Oudeis he/him]

Keep in mind this also isn't an age where you can scour the world for contacts. Approximately 1800 people ever knew it. Surely a few told some other people, but that's still a shockingly small portion of the population. The author could hardly travel to every small town for exhaustive interviews or do internet research.

Also, recall that in the book, the Diagram is an excellently kept secret. In real life, the CIA keeps many secrets. It's possible, but by no means likely, that this secret wasn't well-kept.

[Moogle]

You're right, I had falsely thought it was confirmed that Avena was a Radiant. My bad, there. The fact that the secret could have been censored is also one I was not giving enough weight to.

[dvoraen]

I looked it over again, and you're right that it's not certain. I messed up. It's odd, though, that he would encrypt that section of the Diagram if he didn't actually know the secret. How would he plan on learning it if he didn't know how to figure it out when he was at the height of his intelligence? Very odd.

 

 

I don't think this is the problem. Taravangian has issues understanding the emotions of others as he grows more intelligent, but he seems to break this hurdle past a certain point when he's intelligent enough. It seems that while he's stupid, he's very intuitive and understands people that way, and as he gets smarter and smarter, that intuition decays... but eventually he grows so smart he doesn't need the intuition to understand people and can just use his gigantic intellect to figure out what they'll do.

 

If Taravangian had issues understanding people's emotions when he wrote the Diagram, there's no way he could have predicted how the civil war in Jah Keved could go, he couldn't predict that helping people from a "plague" in the Purelake would gain him major brownie points, etc.

Not quite bumping this because something just crossed my mind that relates to this post:

 

Remember how in the Way of Kings epigraphs, Jasnah remarks that the Palanaeum had been fired (had burned almost completely?) at one point?  The work she quoted also had to do with an apparent treatise on the era just around the Recreance, if I'm not mistaken, which seems incredibly coincidental. We don't know when the burning happened, but suppose that Taravangian actually found the secret in a book, per the Diagram's instructions, and set the whole place ablaze after learning it?  Or, just as precisely, figured it out on the Day of the Diagram because of something he had read that was in the Palanaeum, 

[Arondell]

I've been considering an hypothesis involving Moogle's second general possibility.  From the information we have all potential knights must be broken in some way for there to be a chance of a bond.  What if the Nahel spren somehow encourage this breaking to occur?  Comments by Jasnah imply that it is possible for unbonded spren to manipulate situations in the physical realm. 

 

 

“Most certainly. I must admit, Shallan, I find the coincidence of our meeting to be startling . Suspiciously so.” “Brightness?”“They were involved,” Jasnah said. “They brought you to me. And they are still watching you, it appears. So no, Shallan, you no longer have a choice.

Sanderson, Brandon (2014-03-04). Words of Radiance (Stormlight Archive, The) (p. 43). Tom Doherty Associates. Kindle Edition.

 

Regardless of moral outlook I can certainly imagine a universal outrage among the Knights if they discovered that their bonded spren somehow manipulated events in the physical realm to encourage the mental/spiritual damage that enabled the bond in the first place.

[kari-no-sugata]

There's a lot we don't know about the Recreance, even at a meta-level: it's certainly a major event in Roshar's history but are the reasons behind it going to be directly relevant in the next 3 books? If not what about the second five? It's certainly been openly posed as a mystery but also not one that needs immediate attention. It seems logical that the new Radiants would worry about the cause of the Recreance at least. Also, the spren (and particularly the Stormfather) are still quite upset/fearful about the event. So the fact that the Recreance occured is not going to be a non-issue but how much will the precise details matter?

 

How much can we trust the in-world Words of Radiance book? Shallan cross references it with Pattern and finds flaws - it was written a significant time after the Recreance after all. Has it been tampered with during the Heirocracy? Almost certainly - information on the Recreance is something that seems they'd be highly likely to alter to fit their preferred narrative. Are there any reliable records anywhere? Maybe but it would be really hard to even tell that an indvidual record was factually correct and complete. Are there any reliable sources/witnesses? Well, the Stormfather and Heralds should have some awareness but can we trust it to be complete and accurate?

 

Pattern seems to believe that it is inevitible that Shalln will betray and kill him in an echo of the Recreance but is that really likely when such an event has only happened once in the history of the Radiants (that we know of)? Or is he thinking of Shallan's particular history with him?

 

As for the actual causes, the Knights we see in Dalinar's vision certainly seemed to do it intentionally. How willingly were they doing it? Was it a collective decision? Were their sound and logical reasons for their actions? Were they in any way duped, misslead, tricked, setup...? Were any third parties directly involved and if so were they deliberately trying to cause the Knights' downfall?

 

Jasnah states that Urithiru was abandoned before the Recreance. Together with a quote from her notebook suggests that the Radiants were weakening or faltering before the Recreance. Is this relevant (and correct)? Is there a common cause or are they pretty much unrelated?

[dvoraen]

RE: Urithiru.  I've been wondering if it was abandoned simply because of the implication that people weren't paying the "Stormlight tax" that's been hinted in epigraphs, that the Radiants at that time couldn't basically pay the power bill (so to speak) for the fabrials-and-more that were there.  Or, that they were unable to reliably use Urithiru as the waypoint for the Oathgate network because they were lacking in extra Stormlight.  Either way, it wasn't feasible to use Urithiru anymore due to lack of infused spheres.  (Which then begs the question of how a highstorm functions there.  Will it dump any Investiture into Urithiru or is the place too high for that to happen?)

 

It's also another reason that would support my claim that the Radiants were lacking in leadership.  They didn't have a central point to congregate, and so on.  A bunch of factors basically added up to the Orders splitting, dividing, feuding, and in the end turned their backs on humanity because they lost faith in their mission (which would be a direct violation of the First Ideal, aka a broken Nahel bond).

Edited December 29, 2014 by dvoraen

[kari-no-sugata]

For the Oathgates, there is a cost in Stormlight roughly proportional to how much is being transported so the Radiants would at least need to cover their costs with some kind of tax. Given that Stormlight is seemingly readily available, why would costs go up? Some possibilities (1) if the Radiants then were independently funded (ie most most of their income came from the Oathgate tax) that would mean that if the number of Radiants increases then so would the taxes (2) The Radiants wanted to expand their range of operations (or just got greedy) and so increased the tax (3) Something made Stormlight more expensive (gems became rarer? Highstorms became rarer?) (4) Something increased the Stormlight requirements for powering the Oathgate.

 

The loss of Urithiru seems likely to be damaging to the world economy - not just trade but also political relations since countries would become more isolated (they didn't have spanreeds back then unless their recent invention is actually a re-invention). This would also make it hard for the Radiants to stay united and above nations/politics - either they all/mostly settle in one country or they split by their country of origin (either option has problems). The loss of Urithiru seems to imply terrible leadership by itself - unless the Radiants themselves are a problem I don't see how it could be a good idea to abandon Urithiru.

 

We currently have no real idea what Bondsmiths can actually do but they seem key to the Radiants overall. I'd be quite surprised if the Bondsmith situation was "normal" at the time of the Recreance: for example, there may have been none. Or there could have been the typical 3 but they couldn't agree on things. Or there could have been one and that person could have been inadequate (or corrupted in subtle ways).

[Girsoe]

This isn't too hard to explain, but it obviously requires more assumptions (though all of this does). The Stormfather was a part of Honor prior to his splintering, so before that took place The Stormfather was Honor (or rather, a part of him). If we assume that, then he would witness his own death, and possibly his own birth. Also, another assumption, but born our of a little knowledge from other books is that the shard and the person wielding it are two separate entities. Tanavast held Honor, and we refer to him as Honor, but without the shard he is just Tanavast. It is possible that after the shard was splintered, that Tanavast lived for a (probably very) short period to give The Stormfather instructions before he ultimately died.

Again, a lot of speculation and assumption, but it's born out of at least the little knowledge we have about how the system works from other books.

The quote from Pattern would still support my theory, if we assume that Tanavast died prior to the Recreance.

[Girsoe]

This isn't too hard to explain, but it obviously requires more assumptions (though all of this does). The Stormfather was a part of Honor prior to his splintering, so before that took place The Stormfather was Honor (or rather, a part of him). If we assume that, then he would witness his own death, and possibly his own birth. Also, another assumption, but born our of a little knowledge from other books is that the shard and the person wielding it are two separate entities. Tanavast held Honor, and we refer to him as Honor, but without the shard he is just Tanavast. It is possible that after the shard was splintered, that Tanavast lived for a (probably very) short period to give The Stormfather instructions before he ultimately died.

Again, a lot of speculation and assumption, but it's born out of at least the little knowledge we have about how the system works from other books.

The quote from Pattern would still support my theory, if we assume that Tanavast died prior to the Recreance.

There's a WoB that says that there is intentional splintering.So it means that Honor took a piece of his power create the Stormfather.

[Kelek's Breath he/him]

 I was just doing a re-read of the WoR, and while going through the Listener interludes, an alternative theory for the cause of the Recreance occurred to me, which may not have been proposed as of yet.

 

We know that both the spren and humans considered what the Radiants did traitorous. We know through the visions that the Radiants were involved n fighting "devils" at the time. We have the WoR Epigraph about Melishi the Bondsmith coming up with a different stratagem for defeating the Voidbringers, instead of destroying them.

 

So, I propose that, what if the Recreance was a deal/agreement/arrangement between the Radiants and the Listeners to end the war by giving up their powers? What if they both said, we give up our spren, so that Odium has no purchase on Roshar? The Listeners would do this only if the humans would also give up surgebinding. This explains why the Listeners are so concerned about the return of surgebinders, because it is a breaking of the agreement they had made at the Recreance.

 

How to explain the Last Legion? Well, what if the Last Legion was Listeners who found this arrangement not so honourable? What if they thought that it would be more honourable if they had to struggle to attain freedom without sacrificing spren or their identities? What if the Listeners who became the Parshmen (without spren, music or souls) and the Radiants chose the dishonorable option, of "got to do what you can to survive"?(This quote is very prominent in an anti-honourish act). It could also explain

 

This type of arrangement would definitely seem like treason to the humans, because the Radiants made a deal with the Listeners instead of destroying them, and to the spren because they broke their oath of Journey before destination.

 

Any ideas on this?

 

P.S. Excuse my writing of honour with a u. Canadian upbringing.

[natc]

If the Listeners cared about honor at all then I doubt they're far enough gone to be fighting Radiants in the first place. . .

[Kelek's Breath he/him]

Well, could it be that the Listeners just wanted to be free from Odium"s influence

[Kessler]

I think Knight Radiants make the Desolations worse. 

 

1. There is a lot of symmetry in Roshar. The conflict between Honor and Odium clearly has some rules - so maybe like chess, both sides can field the same number of pieces. Add Knight Radiants and Odium can add his own game pieces.

 

2. Spren imitated what Honor did - the Honorblades. And Honorblades are linked with Desolations. So maybe Spren are similar to Honorblades in their connection with Desolations.

 

3. The Desolations were getting worse, despite the addition of Knights Radiant. Considering their power, they should have made great difference, protecting the people. The fact they didn't, means Odium got stronger as well.

 

4. Diagram Taravangian doesn't consider Knight Radiants as central to his plan to save humanity from Desolation. This is odd, considering how much difference they could make. So maybe their presence is neutral, not positive, since they equally add to Odium's power. 

 

5. Nalan is killing surgebinders, to prevent something terrible from happening. 

 

I think Knights Radiant were told that their presence would cause a Desolation and the only way to stop it would be to abandon their swords. Note, that it's very similar to how Heralds abandoned their Honorblades. I would say it's likely that Heralds told them - since Knights Radiant would believe something so great only from somebody they would have utmost trust in.

 

The next part is more speculative. It's possible that Heralds themselves were mislead - Radiants make Desolations worse, but they are triggered only by the appearance of Herald with Honorblade, bound by Oathpact. There was something odd happening in the Dalinar's visions, like somebody releasing Midnight Essense. It could have been an attempt to make it seem like a Desolation was coming to trick the Heralds and Radiants, forcing them to ''chose life'', abandoning their Shardblades to stop the Desolation.  

 

I think Spren form the bond, on the assumption that despite it giving the extra power to Odium, the empowered humans will do more good. I think there was an explanation of humans & almighty, that talked about it. However, Odium found a way to gain an upper hand - perhaps by subverting one of the Heralds. For example Ishar, who organized the Knigths Radiant in the first place and probably had great influence over them. But that would be pure speculation on my part. 

[natc]

Just realized something. The Stormfather and a small number of other spren were considered survivors of the Recreance, and since it was a rather organized event all of the Nahel spren likely knew the reason the Radiants did so, if not outright consented to it.

Is the Stormfather so sure his kind will be betrayed because of distrust, or because there really isn't another option that he can think of but to kill them again? Everything is really pointing to some devastating cause now.

[Frosted Flakes]

Has anyone else noticed the trickle down effect in Stormlight Archive? Maybe it's coincidental, but...

Honor gives Men Honorbaldes; they receive access to the Surges. > Spren figure out what He did, then give Men Shardblades; they receive access to the Surges. > Men figured out the Nahel bond, then gave themselves fabrials; they received access to the Surges.

I think it's safe to assume that each progression is weaker than the last. A fabrial is not as powerful as a Surgebinder, which is not as powerful as a Herald, which is not as powerful as Honor.

What if we look at infamous oathbreaking in reverse chronological order? The Alethi no longer follow The Codes, before that the Radiants broke their oaths, before that the Heralds broke their oaths, and before that...oh my goodness, the logical conclusion is that honor broke an oath. I imagine such a thing would shatter him.

Obviously, the timeline of Honor dying doesn't sync with that proposed series of events, but something similar could be happening.

[Moogle]

I think it's safe to assume that each progression is weaker than the last. A fabrial is not as powerful as a Surgebinder, which is not as powerful as a Herald, which is not as powerful as Honor.

 

You have interesting thoughts here, but I did want to comment: there's no guarantees Heralds are more powerful than Surgebinders. Quite the opposite, in fact, given Surgebinders seem to be more efficient and that's what matters in Surgebinding. Honorblades are certainly super powerful relics, moreso than Shardblades, but I'm reasonably confident that's because they do things in addition to granting Surgebinding, not that their Surgebinding is better.

 

In a similar sense, fabrials could be more powerful than Surgebinders because with gigantic gemstones you can have more stored Stormlight than a Radiant is capable of having at once. They might not be usable with the precision a Surgebinder can manage, but it's possible they can manage more power.

Edited February 13, 2015 by Moogle

[Frosted Flakes]

@Moogle, I always assumed that Honorblades consumed more Stormlight when used by anyone other than the Herald Honor gave it to, though unless there is WoB somewhere, Syl does not make that distinction in-text.

And yeah, as I was writing that I started thinking...how do you define power? You could argue that fabrials are most useful because, presumably, anyone can use them. You could also argue that a Radiant has more utility with his two surges because he holds the Stormlight within himself and doesn't need gemstones per se.

I just kept it simple and used a rough idea of innate power. I think Heralds can do far more than what we have seen them do, otherwise why would Honor have bothered creating 10 of them when he could have made thousands?

[Moogle]

@Moogle, I always assumed that Honorblades consumed more Stormlight when used by anyone other than the Herald Honor gave it to, though unless there is WoB somewhere, Syl does not make that distinction in-text.

 

There's no sign anywhere that Honorblades let their Herald consume Stormlight more efficiently is the idea I was trying to get across. There's no WoBs, but I would be shocked to find that Honorblades have special "Herald-detection" things in them that let Heralds use Stormlight more efficiently. Syl is quite clear that the Honorblades are consuming Szeth's Stormlight, much like a sort of weaker version of Nightblood. I think it's more a matter that people like Szeth just don't know how to operate Honorblades' secrets rather than Heralds getting special abilities with them.

 

I agree that Heralds can do more than we've seen, but I don't think that includes improved Surgebinding efficiency. My current headcanon Honorblades as Surgebinding 1.0, and then spren looked at what Honor did and improved it to grant Surgebinding 2.0.

[Voidus]

Yeah in terms of the speed at which they lose Stormlight it actually seems reversed Szeth is worse than Kaladin who is way worse than just a gemstone.

[natc]

Perhaps something beyond the instinctive control Radiants have is necessary to operate a honorblade to its full potential, as suggested. They're hailed as powerful relics yet consume too much stormlight to be of use, and can't heal as effectively. There must be something in there nobody has figured out or the Heralds would be pretty useless.

[SmurfAquamarineBodies he/him]

OK. In regards to the Heralds being less 'powerful' ( efficient, whatever that word doesn't matter ) than Surgebinders. We know from Sel that a Splintered Shard makes the Cognitive Realm dangerous. Yet we see Jasnah and Shallan casually wander into the Cognitive Realm with no real negative side effects. We also have a WoB that the reason this is is because the Spren act as a kind of release valve for the energy released by the Shattering of Honor.

Which leads me to my question, are the Spren more powerful now that Honor is dead? If so what is the effect to the Nahel Bond?  Does this make today's Surgebinders more powerful than those that existed previously?

[Moogle]

OK. In regards to the Heralds being less 'powerful' ( efficient, whatever that word doesn't matter ) than Surgebinders. We know from Sel that a Splintered Shard makes the Cognitive Realm dangerous. Yet we see Jasnah and Shallan casually wander into the Cognitive Realm with no real negative side effects. We also have a WoB that the reason this is is because the Spren act as a kind of release valve for the energy released by the Shattering of Honor.

Which leads me to my question, are the Spren more powerful now that Honor is dead? If so what is the effect to the Nahel Bond?  Does this make today's Surgebinders more powerful than those that existed previously?

 

I would guess that this means there's more spren, not that each spren is more powerful than before. Pattern backs this one up:

“An entire people, all killed?”

“Not just one people,” Pattern said, solemn. “Many. Spren with minds were less plentiful then, and the majorities of several spren peoples were all bonded. There were very few survivors. The one you call Stormfather lived. Some others. The rest, thousands of us, were killed when the event happened. You call it the Recreance.”

[natc]

So really, Odium actually kind of saved the spren population. That's convenient.

[Mestiv he/him]

Here's my wild idea: Odium tricked Radiants so that they shattered Honor somehow. With some tricks a'la Ruins text manipulations he lead them to Honors shardpool or any other physical manifestation (lets say it was somewhere in the Storm Seat or what was the name of the city that became Shattered Plains). Radiants believing that they will destroy Odium, attacked the city. People of this city knew that they were defending Honors "body", and they fought Radiants. Obviously, they had no chance against Surgebinders, and so Honor was somehow shattered by Radiants. This can be the origin of the Shattered Plains. Who knows what happens to the physical world when a Shard is shattered by force?

 

Then, when Radiants (and their spren) found out that they have been tricked, they decide to commit "suicide" out of guilt. Only Skybreakers believe that they did nothing wrong, because all the evidence they had.

 

I know this idea probably has a lot of weak points, but it just couldn't leave my mind