[OB] "Unite Them" - Listener Enslavement as the Cause of the Recreance

[Subvisual Haze]

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"You must unite them, the strange, booming words had told him. You must prepare. Build of your people a fortress of strength and peace, a wall to resist the winds. Cease squabbling and unite. The Everstorm comes."

A simple set of directions, given to Dalinar by Honor in mystical visions.  Dalinar interprets this command of Honor as instructions to unite the Alethi princes, or possibly the monarchs of the world.  From the Oathbringer chapters we've read so far, this plan is not working very well for Dalinar.  Our first impulse would be to assume that Dalinar is overly concerned about leaders of the world instead of uniting the human populations of Roshar.  But the deeper truth hiding in plain sight is that Honor's commands are not human-race specific.  What Honor truly desires to be accomplished on Roshar is an end of the cycle of hate between humanity and The Listeners.  When Honor says "unite them", he is referring to all sentient life on Roshar.

Thus my sort of long-winded theory, which I do think has the benefit of explaining several mysteries on Roshar: The Recreance and the death of Honor were a direct result of the cruel physical and mental enslavement of the Listener people.

Just as not all humans became or served with the Knights Radiant, so too did individual Listeners have the capacity to choose to embrace the powerful and dark forms offered by Odium or to remain in more conventional non-war forms.  Individual Listeners with reason to loathe humanity, or feeling desperation/hatred from human attacks may join the armies of the desolation, but my thought is that these were probably a minority.  The majority of Listeners likely cared only about trying to survive the desolations, and while no Listener has become a KR, it is possible individuals may have offered their assistance as squires or general soldiers/support. A lingering animosity likely existed between the human and listener races, but the nature of the desolations was not a conflict fundamentally between humans and listeners, but rather between Odium and life itself.

Following the Final Desolation, the 9 Heralds abandoned the Oathpact.  Not all of them appear to have abandoned their positions of authority over the Knights Radiant though.  Nale currently operates as direct patron to the Skybreakers, but he himself seems to justify his actions according to the visions and plans of Ishar.  Ishar and his madness (and possible outright traitorous nature) are the likely source of the current great conflicts on Roshar.  In an effort to break the Oathpact and prevent future desolations Ishar had a 2-part solution.  First he worked with the Bondsmiths and through some great magical calamity locked the Listener people into near-mindless slaveform and allowed their mass-enslavement by humanity.  Perhaps this event was the "wicked thing of eminence", and may also be somehow linked to the magical destruction of The Shattered Plains.  The results of this action were morally horrifying: the collective enslavement physically and mentally of nearly the entire Listener species.  Faced with the mass enslavement of the Listeners being carried out by the human kingdoms, the Knights Radiant found that they could not condone such actions, and abandoned their orders and oaths in what became known as the recreance.  The "death" of so many KR bonded spren, along with the shock of Honor's Herald granted powers being used for such dishonorable ends weakened Honor to the point that Odium was able to kill him.  Following these events Ishar instructed Nale and the hidden Skybreakers to hunt down other surgebinders both to prevent a new desolation as well as fearing that they might disrupt the Listener-enslavement status quo.

At the present time Odium has played his hand perfectly.  Dalinar was incorrectly convinced that the Everstorm would turn the Parshmen en masse into Voidbringers, and by communicating his message around the world has likely convinced many of Roshar's rulers that the newly mentally liberated parshmen need to be violently suppressed and re-enslaved.  Doing so merely feeds into the cycle of hatred between humans and listeners though, which benefits Odium in the end.  What is truly necessary to survive the desolation is to find a way to break the cycle of hatred, and unite the humans and listeners in the cause of mutual survival in the face of the Everstorm.

This theory also offers insight into what Gavilar was attempting to accomplish (and very poorly conveying to Eshonai) in our new prologue:

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“Our enslaved parshmen were once like you. Then we somehow robbed them of their ability to undergo the transformation. We did it by capturing a spren. An ancient, crucial spren.” He looked at her, green eyes alight. “I’ve seen how that can be reversed. A new storm that will bring the Heralds out of hiding. A new war.”

Although Gavilar is missing the mark here regarding the return of the Heralds (in a tragically ironic fashion - not realizing that they both haven't left and are the source of the problem he is trying to correct), he does seem to understand that enslavement of the parshmen is a thing needing to be reversed.  Kaladin currently seems well on the way to understanding that the Listeners are not a group of irredeemable monster shock troops in Odium's army, but are individuals that his own oaths of protection oblige him to try to help.  How he will balance this with the demands of the Alethi who just recently revered him as a hero and likely want the return of their slaves will be another moral tribulation for poor Kaladin.  It is a positive sign though that so far Syl has not voiced any moral objections to Kaladin's path thus far, indicating that his intentions are not off base with those of an honorspren.  Hopefully Dalinar reaches a similar conclusion about the nature of this war very quickly, before the human-listener infighting becomes even worse.

Ultimately I also like this theory because it tackles a common problem in Fantasy: the irredeemably evil orc-like race that our heroes can murder en masse with no moral qualms.  I have faith that the listeners/parshmen are not going to be portrayed in that way.  There is a solution to this conflict beyond enslaving or killing their entire race.

[Erunion he/him]

@Subvisual Haze - Nicely done, and ninja's a theory I had brewing. I'd upvote but I ran out so I'll have to later

Some thoughts - likely a lot of Listeners were bonded to void forms during desolations. It's implied that they were a significant threat. This means that if the initial dumbing-down of the Listeners was accomplished during the Last Desolation, then it wasn't so morally reprehensible (breaking them of their bond to Odium with the side effect of breaking their ability to bond. While unpleasant - it's trading being mind-controlled slaves ruled by hatred and cruelty for being regular, if incredibly dull, slaves). 

However, a much more interesting possibility is that the breaking of the Listeners occurred between the Desolation and the Recreance. That it happened during a time of (relative) peace. And that it was done as a pre-emptive strike by Ishar and/or the bondsmiths he worked with. 
 

If that is correct, then it truly is a 'wicked thing of eminence' and very much against Honour - destroying the minds of an entire people to prevent the possibility of them turning evil. And it would also explain Nale's task - Knight's Radiant would draw in Bondsmiths who could have undone the damage done to the Listeners. Thus he and his controlled Skybreakers would kill all Radiants to prevent the occurance of Bondsmiths - or possibly just uncontrolled surgebinders - who could undo the damage done to the Listeners, allowing them to once again bond voidspren. 

[Goatbringer he/him]

I really like this theory. Kal's story so far definitely points to the idea that they don't all become soulless monster warriors and based on hints and the dust-jacket blurb we're definitely going to learn at least something about the Recreance. This is a good theory. Have an upvote. 

[jamskinner]

My problem with this is their is no betrayal by the Spren. I thought that was a major reason for the recreance. In think somehow this goes all the way back to the pact itself. 

[Hyarmenatan]

2 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Dalinar was incorrectly convinced that the Everstorm would turn the Parshmen en masse into Voidbringers, and by communicating his message around the world has likely convinced many of Roshar's rulers that the newly mentally liberated parshmen need to be violently suppressed and re-enslaved

Reading this made me think of Ruin and Preservation (Mistborn spoilers) :

Spoiler

What if Odium somehow managed to mess up the messages, like Ruin did with the prophecy of Hero of Ages?

Argents insist that messages Dalinar receives are not of Honor, but of Voidbringers. Even though they do it to refuse acknowledging the fact of Honor's death, they still might be right about visions being a way of tricking humans - only the ultimate goal is not to lie about Honor's death (which is true), but instead to convince Alethi that all Voidbringers are enemies that need to be turned to dust, which is not true. I think that war itself, and a strong feeling of hatred from one to another that comes with the war is something that can increase Odium's capability of manipulating the events on Roshar. Following that line of thought, what would cause a stronger feeling of hate between both sides : a just war of retaliation and revenge between enslaved, innocent Parshmen versus humans, or a conflict where nothing is clear, humans cant's distinguish neutral Parshmen from foes, and kill also the innocents just in case? Such a scenario would definitely be a great win of Odium. 

I think 'Unite them' means 'Unite Parshmen and humans alike to fight the real Voidbringers with forms of power', like OP said.

TL:DR:

1) visions are corrupted by Odium

2) Odium wants Dalinar / humans to believe all Parshmen are bad

3) Odium does that to avoid creating a unified front of humans and Parshmen vs. real Voidbringers

[powerfulmoss]

1 hour ago, Erunion said:

@Subvisual Haze - Nicely done, and ninja's a theory I had brewing. I'd upvote but I ran out so I'll have to later

Some thoughts - likely a lot of Listeners were bonded to void forms during desolations. It's implied that they were a significant threat. This means that if the initial dumbing-down of the Listeners was accomplished during the Last Desolation, then it wasn't so morally reprehensible (breaking them of their bond to Odium with the side effect of breaking their ability to bond. While unpleasant - it's trading being mind-controlled slaves ruled by hatred and cruelty for being regular, if incredibly dull, slaves). 

However, a much more interesting possibility is that the breaking of the Listeners occurred between the Desolation and the Recreance. That it happened during a time of (relative) peace. And that it was done as a pre-emptive strike by Ishar and/or the bondsmiths he worked with. 
 

If that is correct, then it truly is a 'wicked thing of eminence' and very much against Honour - destroying the minds of an entire people to prevent the possibility of them turning evil. And it would also explain Nale's task - Knight's Radiant would draw in Bondsmiths who could have undone the damage done to the Listeners. Thus he and his controlled Skybreakers would kill all Radiants to prevent the occurance of Bondsmiths - or possibly just uncontrolled surgebinders - who could undo the damage done to the Listeners, allowing them to once again bond voidspren. 

Disclaimer! I'm not sure about the timings involved in the enslaving of the listeners, the Recreance and the death of Honour.

One of the things I have been thinking about recently is if the enslavement of the listeners was a side effect for something else - the blocking of void spren from Roshar/stopping spren from bonding with anything sentient. This would explain why the Bondsmiths deliberated over it and why the rest of the KR disagreed. They didn't think the cost of the entire listener race was worth it and the Bondsmiths were the one order that was talked about that didn't participate in the Recreance.

This is why there were no thunderclasts and other voidbringers (my headcanon has been for a while that it is not only listeners that will be transformed when bonded to voidspren, but other native roshar races: Axehounds, Greatshells, Whitespines etc.)

This still doesn't explain why the Radiants began returning or voidspren appeared...

 

[Passion he/him]

Ion very much support the idea that the listener enslavement happened after the last desolation. I have previously noted on a dif. Thread that in an eshonai chapter where eshonai talks to her mother about the past it is implied the listeners that make up eshonai group faced a dangerous event centuries ago which was a danger to their existence and caused them to stop using all forms for fear of the unmade and revert to only 2 basic foms(dullform,mateform) to throw off their control. The desolations were millennium ago... so some major voidbringers/parshendi event we haven't heard anything about happened in 'recent' memory and maybe that's when your theory would add that herelds also got involved.

there is one other interesting scene where eshonai transforms into stormform where we find out the parshendi have a unique relationship with the stormfather they blame him for going over to the humans but still grow him as someone who originally worked with them and hasn't broken the connection fully. I can't decide if this supports ur theory the bondsmiths are responsible for the skavery or disproves it(cuz it is implied all they blame him for is giving pple  spren not anything else

which brings me to question I'm beg. To ask my selves.... does eshonai and his band of parshendi know what happened to turn their kin to slaveform? If they don't how did it come about that they are unaware whatvcaused the gap in their knowledge?? 

[Michael Portz he/him]

So, to summarize

1. Melishi, a Bondsmith at that time, did something to the people of the Parshendi.
2. A huge part of them could not hear the rythms anymore, afterwards, and became numb to everything around them.
3. The nature of what had been done to so many people so disgusted nearly all Radiants, that they cut their Nahel bond.

My two pence, in spoiler tags just for spoilery reasons related to Mistborn, not for dramatic ones 

Spoiler

Melishi severed the Connection (*) of the Parshendi to a spren or spren like being (possibly Odium), which gave them the rythms but also made them vulnerable to become voidbringers. The nature of this specific connection was/is similar to the connection of the Heralds to Honor.

(*) something which Bondsmiths should be able to do by job description

EDT: added job description of Bondsmiths

EDT2: added spren speculation

Edited October 11, 2017 by Michael Portz

[StormingTexan he/him]

I like this theory and do agree that "Unite them" more than likely meant humans and Parshendi (I actually made this comment yesterday in the chapters thread prompted from someone else's comment).  

I'm in the process of a re-read of the first books it has been a few years so I may not be remembering correctly but wasn't the theory of the Everstorm turning parshman into voidbringers given to Dalinar by Jasnah which she discovered from her research? Hmm altered historical text where have we seen this before..

[Wreith he/him]

2 hours ago, StormingTexan said:

wasn't the theory of the Everstorm turning parshman into voidbringers given to Dalinar by Jasnah which she discovered from her research?

It is "confirmed" by the Stormfather when he's talking to Dalinar at the end of WoR

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SF: "The Everstorm. It is a new thing, but old of design. It rounds the world now, and carries with it his spren. Any of the old people it touches will take on their new forms."

Dalinar: "Voidbringers"

SF: "That is one term for them"

not sure how this relates to the theory other than the Stormfather seems convinced Odium's spren will affect the change.

[Subvisual Haze]

Sticking with my sub-theory of "Ishar is a very bad man", it occurs to me that his plans were likely a driving force behind the Hierocracy.  Their efforts to suppress or modify historical records, paint the Knights Radiant as awful traitors, and present the Heralds as still worthy of reverence neatly matches with his goals.

Something really fishy is going on with Vorinism's arguments against the KR.  If they're teaching that the previous desolation was the last, for what purpose would the KR need to continue to exist?  Knights Radiant abandoning their oaths and power doesn't make much sense as being seen as an act of betrayal against humanity like is being currently taught.  

As Sunmaker was the ruler who essentially overthrew the Hierocracy, perhaps the (in world book) Oathbringer will have insight into the Hierocracy's machinations and purposes.

[DiamondMind he/him]

In the main SA board, there's a topic about why the Recreance happened, and galendo formulated 3 good test questions to point out why most of the theories don't work:

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1) Why did all the KR abandon their oaths?  This is the big one. In my experience, you can't get ten people to all agree on where to have dinner on a given night.  Getting thousands of people to all kill their bosom companions and, incidentally, give up on their superpowers, not to mention the oaths they've spent a lifetime upholding, just doesn't seem at all plausible.

2) Why did the Recreance happen all at once?  Even if most or somehow all the KR were convinced to abandon their oaths, any believable theory needs to explain why they all did so at the same time.  What time crunch were they under?  This can be explained if the Recreance were some sort of mass suicide-pact in which there was fear that some individuals might not go along with it (it also leaves room for either the Lightweavers or Truthwatchers to be the betraying Order), but other theories, in particular any relying on individual dissatisfaction of the KR as its motivation, tend to founder here.

3) Why did the Recreance happen the way it did?  Why didn't the Windrunners and Stonewards hand over their Shards peacefully?  Why not explain their motivations to the people they were abandoning?

 

To which I would add a few: 

1a) Why did all the spren agree to die? Abandoning the oaths are one thing, dying is another

3a) Why did they leave their spren/Shards behind to be misused? They could have just abandoned their oaths without killing their spren and locking them into physical form. 

This is a great theory, but I don't see how it answers any of the questions. It doesn't make sense that all of the Radiants would have decided to abandon their oaths from one Bondsmith's actions, nor is it a reason to leave their Shards behind. Maybe the cutting the listeners off from their forms it connected to the Recreance is some fashion, but I don't think it's the cause of it.

[Aleksiel]

If that is so, how do you explain that Tanavast didn't even mention the Listeners?

[Subvisual Haze]

11 minutes ago, Aleksiel said:

If that is so, how do you explain that Tanavast didn't even mention the Listeners?

Honor himself notes his visions are a desperate ploy on his part.  He doesn't know if anyone will see them or how.  Some of his message was likely lost, other parts may have been "modified" (DUN DUN DUN!) by a certain malevolent shard or crazy Herald.

 

[bo.montier]

13 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Honor himself notes his visions are a desperate ploy on his part.  He doesn't know if anyone will see them or how.  Some of his message was likely lost, other parts may have been "modified" (DUN DUN DUN!) by a certain malevolent shard or crazy Herald.

 

But the visions are maintained by the Stormfather, somehow. I imagine that the influence of honor left behind in the SF would protect the visions from tampering. He is PART of Honor, unlike words written down on Scadrial.

51 minutes ago, DiamondMind said:

3a) Why did they leave their spren/Shards behind to be misused? They could have just abandoned their oaths without killing their spren and locking them into physical form. 

This is a great theory, but I don't see how it answers any of the questions. It doesn't make sense that all of the Radiants would have decided to abandon their oaths from one Bondsmith's actions, nor is it a reason to leave their Shards behind. Maybe the cutting the listeners off from their forms it connected to the Recreance is some fashion, but I don't think it's the cause of it.

From watching Kaladin, it seems like abandoning the oaths is what kills the spren. If that is the case then why would we think they had a choice of abandoning the oaths without leaving their shards behind? 
Fully aware I may be missing some vital WoB or other information.

[Aleksiel]

Just now, Subvisual Haze said:

Honor himself notes his visions are a desperate ploy on his part.  He doesn't know if anyone will see them or how.  Some of his message was likely lost, other parts may have been "modified" (DUN DUN DUN!) by a certain malevolent shard or crazy Herald.

Where did he call the visions desperate ploy? He called the champion plot the best advice he could give:

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“I was surprised when these orders arrived. I did not teach my Heralds this. It was the spren—wishing to imitate what I had given men—who made it possible. You will need to refound them. This is your task. Unite them. Create a fortress that can weather the storm. Vex Odium, convince him that he can lose, and appoint a champion. He will take that chance instead of risking defeat again, as he has suffered so often. This is the best advice I can give you.”

From WoR, emphasis mine. It doesn't sound like what you suggest, but more of an attempt to refound the KR and unite them which the Listeners weren't per WoB.

How could a Herald or Odium modify the visions and without the Stormfather even noticing anything? What is the evidence in support of that?

[Subvisual Haze]

8 minutes ago, Aleksiel said:

Where did he call the visions desperate ploy? He called the champion plot the best advice he could give:

From WoR, emphasis mine. It doesn't sound like what you suggest, but more of an attempt to refound the KR and unite them which the Listeners weren't per WoB.

How could a Herald or Odium modify the visions and without the Stormfather even noticing anything? What is the evidence in support of that?

Desperate in the sense that he didn't know if his message would even be received.  Which hints at some level of interference.

The Heralds have great and mysterious powers which Brandon has purposefully kept us in the dark regarding.  I suspect to some degree the powers of the Heralds will likely include an ability to control higher spren or the KR.

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But as for Ishi’Elin, his was the part most important at their inception; he readily understood the implications of Surges being granted to men, and caused organization to be thrust upon them; as having too great power, he let it be known that he would destroy each and every one, unless they agreed to be bound by precepts and laws.

This is still just a guesswork theory, but one possible explanation: "Precepts and laws" could be as simple as inserting a loyalty oath into all of the KR Orders along the lines of "I will follow/obey Honor and his Heralds".  If a fallen Herald started issuing dishonorable commands, he could force the existing Knights Radiant into a mutually-conflicting oath situation like Kaladin previously experienced.  Torn between oaths to do what was right or following orders would force the death of the radiant's spren.  The Skybreakers would be the exception as for them doing right and following orders seem to be one and the same.

The absolute silence from the spren regarding the Recreance implies to me that there is some form of magical compulsion at work from the Heralds.  The simultaneous lack of any mention regarding the Heralds in honor's vision or from Stormfather himself to Dalinar is an enormous glaring omission.  Something devious is at work here.

[Aleksiel]

@Subvisual Haze at the time the quote refers to Ishar had his Blade and there isn't any evidence he communicated with the KR after the Heralds told humanity the ultimate victory was achieved. Even if I was to accept Ishar was responsible for KR fall (which I don't), it still doesn't make him capable of altering visions set by a Shard.

 

13 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

The absolute silence from the spren regarding the Recreance implies to me that there is some form of magical compulsion at work from the Heralds.  The simultaneous lack of any mention regarding the Heralds in honor's vision or from Stormfather himself to Dalinar is an enormous glaring omission.  Something devious is at work here.

Pattern said all Cryptics of old died, entire spren species were wiped out or left with very few members. Present day radiant spren don't know why Recreance happened except the SF, who isn't the sharing type. The Heralds were mentioned in the quote I posted, just not in the context of being on Roshar. The visions are long after they abandoned their duty, so Honor likely didn't count on them anymore.

I consider the visions insufferably ambiguous, but I don't see them as altered - at the very least I do not see proof they were and that the SF wouldn't notice interference. May be Honor's intent/oath prevented him from sharing more, they certainly have less information than I would expect from a Shard. Still, I don't agree Tanavast was referring to Listeners and humans when he said unite them, it's definitely not the case in the part I referred, I'd argue it's straightforwardly talking about surgebinders. Your theory is interesting, but it involves much speculation with very little textual evidence.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I do think the Parshmen's severance from their forms may have been willing, or at least partially, to line up with one of the presumably Bondsmith epigraphs and some of the Songs. At least, their talk of abandoning their gods from the songs seems to have some relevance...however that may relate the Parshendi tribe on the plains.

I do think the severance/god abandonmernt and the Recreance have a connection though, as it seems like a mutual disarmament between the factions.

[Kaladin Zahel]

I believe the cause of the recreance has to be either a failed championship or a 'successful' championship where Odium wiggled out of or instituted a couple clauses in the contract.

This would explain why the Stormfather and Honor are keeping the details hidden so that they can still promote using the champion for hope.

A contract would also explain the Knights Radiants and sprens making their awful decisions as well as the Listeners' accepting their plight.

Perhaps the Parshendi are decendants of rebels against the contract.

I also feel like the Heralds have gone the way of the Lord Ruler and have also ignored the contract causing problems.

[Calderis he/him]

@Subvisual Haze you put a lot of thought into this. Well done.

I disagree, but that doesn't amount to much. I think the timing is off, and more importantly, the driving force of each order is varied enough that I don't believe this would have cause the universal decision that was the Recreance. Not all of them were driven by emotional or moral concerns. 

We'll see how it plays out. 

[Yata he/him]

17 hours ago, bo.montier said:

From watching Kaladin, it seems like abandoning the oaths is what kills the spren. If that is the case then why would we think they had a choice of abandoning the oaths without leaving their shards behind? 
Fully aware I may be missing some vital WoB or other information.

The Bond could be released willing by the parts without harm them, sure the Spren will lose his sapience in the PR but it's not too bad and the Bond is released without tragic feedback if the Knight dies.

As you said The Spren is killed by the OathBreak....while the Oaths are fine, the Bond could be released without troubles, there were also cases in the past were KR passed their Spren to someone else. Surgebinding is not for life, it is a pact between two parts.

 

[menacekop]

I agree with most of this, I've quietly suspected since my first reading the WoK that "Unite them" probably included the Listeners after WoR and these chapters with Kaladin I'm convinced.

Im not sure I agree that the Recreance was the result of the Knights responding to the breaking of the Listeners.  That doesn't make sense to me, lets respond to one atrocity by committing another in the mass murder of all our spren and the abandonment of our oaths?  That just doesnt Jive well, there has to be more to it than that.

[bo.montier]

1 hour ago, Yata said:

The Bond could be released willing by the parts without harm them, sure the Spren will lose his sapience in the PR but it's not too bad and the Bond is released without tragic feedback if the Knight dies.

As you said The Spren is killed by the OathBreak....while the Oaths are fine, the Bond could be released without troubles, there were also cases in the past were KR passed their Spren to someone else. Surgebinding is not for life, it is a pact between two parts.

 

What I'm asking is are you SURE about that, and where does the info come from? I have not come across that information before, but then, I'm new to the forum and all the research people here have done, all the WoBs that have been compiled.

[Calderis he/him]

41 minutes ago, bo.montier said:

What I'm asking is are you SURE about that, and where does the info come from? I have not come across that information before, but then, I'm new to the forum and all the research people here have done, all the WoBs that have been compiled.

I'll try to find some WoBs later for you, after my morning work meetings, but yes we're sure. 

The bond is a consensual thing. If either party decides to be done, they can part ways and the bond will degrade. The Spren will lose sapience and in Syl's words "go stupid" but be free to bond with someone else, and the person will lose their powers. This is the entire point of Syl's questions to Kaladin early on, and her implying that what they were doing could stop of it was what Kaladin wanted. 

The death of the Spren as we see in the Recreance is a direct result of broken oaths.