Theory about Spren (WoR Spoilers)

[LogicSpren he/him]

Hey all, first-time poster, but I had a theory about Spren and the 'Secret that broke the Knights Radiant'

 

So, on the back cover of WoR it says

"It is the nature of the magic. A broken soul has cracks into which something else can be fit. Surgebindings, the powers of creation themselves; they can brace a broken soul, but they can also widen its fissures"

 

And somewhere in WoK or WoR, it says that the number of people who bond with spren increases right before a Desolation.

 

Think about this for a second; The people we see in Dalinar's Vision of the Recreance (Windrunners etc. abandoning their oaths and shardblades/plate) were full knights. 

 

Kaladin, after swearing 3 ideals, gets to use Syl as a Shardspear/weapon. We learned that all shardblades are spren, living or dead (excluding blades like Szeth's) 

 

The question is, why would these Knights, who had bonded with their spren, probably having a good relationship with them like Shallan/Kaladin have with Pattern/Syl, abandon their oaths, KILL their spren buddies, and walk away? What IS the secret that broke them? 

 

Here's where theorizing comes in.

 

We know that a person has to be 'broken' to allow a Nahel Bond (see back cover quote), and that more people bond to spren before a Desolation. 
 

Chances are, people aren't suddenly becoming more attractive to spren.

 

I think the spren, acting on their nature left from Honor's splintering, believe it to be honorable to save mankind by giving them surges. To do so, they are forcing bonds onto people. 

 

Example 1, Shallan. She was terrified by the symbol-headed Cryptics that followed her around until she said her first truth and went into shadesmar (soulcasting the goblet). I realize she had already bonded partially, but I think that her broken household may also have been inluenced by spren or some other force (Her father's hate is unnatural, don't remember the WoB, but I know he said it wasn't just him) 

 

Example 2: Jasnah. In the beginning of WoR, she's freaking out about the whole 'backwards-shadow' thing. Then, abunch of spren attack her, forcing her into shadesmar, where she fights back, and eventually bonds with Ivory. This, to me, is the most overt example we have of spren forcing a bond.

 

Example 3: Lift. She grew up in Rall Elorim, City of Shadows. I think we have further WoB somewhere saying that there is some nasty spren-like stuff going on there. Furthermore, Wyndle says this

"I  wanted to pick a distinguished Iriali matron. A grandmother, an accomplished gardener. But no, the RIng said we should choose you. 'She has visited  the Old Magic,' they said. 'Our mother has blessed her,' they said. 'She will be young, and we can mold her,' they said." emphasis added

 

Example 4: Kaladin. I think this might actually be the odd one out. Syl left, she said, without permission from the honorspren leadership in shadesmar. She truly was simply attracted to his honorable life. 

 

Finally, we know from Jasnah's return at the end of WoR that the spren in shadesmar actually have civilization. "It's been a long time since the spren had to deal with someone alive" pg 1078 and also the earlier quote from Wyndle. It's been mentioned a couple of times in the books that spren want a bond with humans because it gives them intelligence. But, they have civilization in shadesmar. they already are intelligent. So why do they really want the bond? 

 

Feel free to rip it to shreds  

 

 

 

[Guest]

In one of Dalinar's Visions, the Almighty says something to the effect that the Spren are doing it for survival/self preservation.

Though the Physical/Cognitive realms aren't 1:1 copies, there is a relationship between them and as such the Spren are likely hoping that fighting Odium in the Physical will help them defend in the Cognitive

[Guest]

It was Jasnah, not the Almighty.

WoR, Ch1. "Santhid"

The old ways are returning, and I don’t see it as a hopeful sign. It’s an act of self-preservation. The spren sense impending danger, and so they return to us.

I'm pretty sure the Almighty has a similar quote, but I can't find it.

[LogicSpren he/him]

Yeah, but how much of that is their nature? Seons are devoted b/c of Devotion, makes sense if the spren are 'honorable' in their minds and thus want to 'protect' men and thus are returning.

[kaellok he/him]

What you are actually theorizing is a bit muddled to me. I'd you're saying that the spren forcing a bond caused the recreance, two problems aren't addressed.

One, entire orders of Knights abandoned their Oaths all at once; i see zero chance of them waiting around for years under the brutal yoke of am oppressive spren that forced some (but definitely not all) of them into a bond they had no interest in just so they could do so with a few hundred friends.

Two, the recreance occurred way, way after the so called final desolation, so there shouldn't have been increased levels of spren "recruitment" anyway.

[natc]

I doubt Shallan's screwed up family had anything to do with the bond, and the bond definitely wasn't weak. She could form Pattern into a fully functional shardblade before all that even happened. It took 3 oaths for Kaladin to even obtain such an ability.

[hoser he/him]

I think the spren do need some combination of investiture and cognitive activity in the physical realm to survive.  Somehow people's thoughts give rise to spren.  So if Odium wipes out intelligent life on Roshar and takes his Unmade to go hunt other Shards, the spren and Shadesmar will be diminished.  This could be the self-preserving motivation for spren. 

It doesn't really fit that Syl broke Kaladin from what I can see.  First Tien, and then Amaram seem to have been the impetus.  It seems to me that he reached his suicidal low despite Syl, not because of her. 

Shallan has a father who has been under Odious influence for some undetermined amount of time.  Her mother apparently tried to kill her.  She hints that her childhood was truly miserable.  I find it difficult to attribute her misery to Pattern. What I imagine is that her efforts to improve her situation were the lies that originally attracted Pattern.  I wildly speculate that when she tried, with Pattern's help, to improve the family the first time, it frightened her mother into trying to kill her. 

So, while spren bonds being evil could motivate the Recreance, I don't really see evidence that the bonds are onerous in the activities of the spren or their influence on our protagonists. 

 

Consider the quote that partially inspired this theory:

It is the nature of the magic. A broken soul has cracks into which something else can be fit. Surgebindings, the powers of creation themselves; they can brace a broken soul, but they can also widen its fissures

I think it is significant that it refers to Surgebindings and not spren.  Arguably, Shallan, Kaladin, Jasnah, Dalinar, Lift and Renarin are having their already broken souls braced. I don't really see an example of surgebinding making someone more broken.  While Shallan's father seemed to get worse with Odium's increasing influence, I don't know that Odium provides Surgebinding. 

Edited June 18, 2015 by hoser

[LogicSpren he/him]

I guess the main point that i'm trying to make is thus;

what if the Recreance ocurred because the Orders suddenly learned that their best buddy spren had bonded with them NOT because they exemplified a virtue/attribute, but because they were driven to by some other force/drive/whatever. That the spren were widening the cracks in an already somewhat broken soul so that they could 'help' mankind as a whole or just that individual. I'm not really sure why they would do so, but I feel like the realization that the spren were not all that they said they were would potentially be cause for the Knights to abandon/kill the spren. 

Because abandoning your oaths as a full Knight would most definitely and obviously kill the spren they were bonded to, it seems like the Recreance as an event was not just a protest/corruption, but a way of hurting the spren for some reason.

[hoser he/him]

I guess the main point that i'm trying to make is thus;

what if the Recreance ocurred because the Orders suddenly learned that their best buddy spren had bonded with them NOT because they exemplified a virtue/attribute, but because they were driven to by some other force/drive/whatever.

This part is well known.  The spren are coming for their own reasons.  Lift's spren tells her about the circle choosing her.  There is also the Jasnah quote above.  Syl tells Kaladin about needing to come despite the Stormfather's prohibition because of the storm to come.  I imagine the Knights before the Recreance had similar interactions.  That is not exclusive with the Knights exemplifying a virtue. 

 

I ...

That the spren were widening the cracks in an already somewhat broken soul so that they could 'help' mankind as a whole or just that individual. I'm not really sure why they would do so, but I feel like the realization that the spren were not all that they said they were would potentially be cause for the Knights to abandon/kill the spren. ...

This seems like a leap.  What evidence do you have to support this?  The characters associated with spren seem to be mending.  Kaladin is working through his bitterness and need for revenge.  Shallan seems stronger for Pattern's pushing her to confront the past.  I understand that the quote at the back of the book can be interpreted to support the idea that the spren are helping break people, but the contents of the book seem to contradict that notion.

 

Because abandoning your oaths as a full Knight would most definitely and obviously kill the spren they were bonded to, it seems like the Recreance as an event was not just a protest/corruption, but a way of hurting the spren for some reason.

This, too, seems like a leap.  What evidence do you have to support that the Knights did it to hurt the spren?  While it is not impossible, the Knights could have disbanded for any of infinite reasons. 

The Knights could have seen that in a contorted way they were supporting Odium or ultimately bringing harm to those they were sworn to protect.  The knights were in the middle of a war.  What if they found that the war was unjustified?  The spren would have been around when the Knights planned the Recreance.  The oaths died when the Knights abandoned their armory, not when they planned it.  What if the Knights saw that the organized world govenment was not helpful in a world without Honor?

The Dawnchant and The Way of Kings were both preserved by the Vanrial artists.  What if the Knights had a plan for their Resurrection? 

The idea that the Knights did it to hurt the spren seems too petty to me.  I could imagine that they foresaw a need for Shardblades when the Everstorm and did it as a way of arming Roshar against the Voidbringers more easily.  This last is purely unsupported speculation and doesn't explain why they disbanded. 

[kaellok he/him]

I guess the main point that i'm trying to make is thus;

what if the Recreance ocurred because the Orders suddenly learned that their best buddy spren had bonded with them NOT because they exemplified a virtue/attribute, but because they were driven to by some other force/drive/whatever.

I just don't see this. While I had a pretty terrible childhood, and I'm more acceptable and inclined to violence than any of my friends (by far), I've never once thought "you were just using me all along, pretending to be my friend all those years... so now I'm going to murder you in some bizarre ritual reminiscent of drinking the kool-aid in a cult to perform a mass suicide. "

It's an interesting thought, and i can see the fun in exploring it, but i don't think it's what actually happened.

[LogicSpren he/him]

 

 

RShara, on 12 Mar 2014 - 11:21 AM, said:

The important thing in my mind is that whatever the secret is, it made the KR willing to kill their spren partners--pretty much their best friends in a lot of cases.  That says to me that whatever it is involves a secret the spren themselves have.  Like, maybe the spren betrayed the KR and made them want to sever all ties with their "friends," up to and including killing off masses of them.

This is kind of what I'm trying to say; that this secret Chapter 84 Epigraph is related to the idea that abandoning Radiant Oaths kills the spren, so the secret (in my reasoning) must be related to the Spren. 

 

Now, it could be that the spren are coming to help, or coming because that's what they do (their nature) or to save themselves, or any number of reasons.

 

But if in the process of doing so they force bonds where they wouldn't have normally developed, it seems like that idea/knowledge could result in the abandonment of oaths and killing of spren.

[Lord Tavash Shar]

So by your theory. The death of the old city lord. The arrival of Roshorn. The death of Tien. All that sort of thing is some how triggered by the spren to create cracks in the soul?

Sort of like they are forcing any human they can to snap enough that a spren bond could form.....

This. Does seem like something that some one like the high spren or cultivation centric spren "Might" do. But even if the humans found out about it that does not explain how they would all give up there oaths.

 

As a personal example. I realized later in life my mother used me in her divorce from my father to hurt him. But I still love her and talk to her some times.