theory [OB] Surges, Honor, the Heralds and the Oathpact: A Theory

[Shadowfax]

We learned a lot of information in Oathbringer, and it's taken me quite a few days to process what I've read. A lot of that processing seems to happen as I'm lying in bed half asleep, and that is where this theory comes from.

TDLR; Surges came first, Honor bound them to Heralds and his Investiture via the Oathpact, and this was done to help stop surges from destroying Roshar during Desolations.

Now that the TLDR is out of the way, let me actually explain where my brain went with this.

1. Humans, according to OB, came to Roshar because they'd destroyed their home with Surgebinding. 
-- I believe that it's being called surgebinding because that's how the powers are known on Roshar at this time. My theory postulates that humans had Surges, ALL surges, in an unchecked manner and this led to the Cataclysm on Ashyn (likely) or whatever their original home was. They were able to use Surges because it it simply just channeled/focused Investiture. It did not *require* Stormlight, but whatever the equivalent is where they are from. 

2. Humans came to Roshar, as refugees, Odium followed them, and they were accepted there.
-- At first they settled in fine, but then decided they wanted more... seems plausible. In the book we're told the humans were the enemy in the first Desolation (if not some of the first few Desolations). I can buy this. They would have been seen as invaders, as is evident by the Fused's hatred of humanity. There are still remnants of human worship of Odium on Roshar (in the form of Thaylen Passions, as one example).

3. Odium is the side with the most Passion.
-- I believe the reason Dalinar's visions show humans fighting humans fighting parsh, et al, is because there were not distinct sides. Odium basically liked to stoke the coals and cause a ruckus in order to inspire passion. Early Desolations were a manifestation of this I believe, and throughout the years people simply gravitated to the side they were more comfortable with.

4. Early Surges were unchecked. Hence, the Oathpact.
-- Here comes part of the meat of my theory. I believe early use of surges were unchecked, and all surges were accessible by anyone who drew upon Investiture to use them. This made them extremely dangerous. Also I believe ANY Investiture could fuel them. Therefore my theory postulates that 9 of the Heralds (not Taln) were men and women who could use all surges AND were in positions of power in Roshar were chosen by Odium during the creation of the Oathpact. The Oathpact was a way for Honor to allow Surges to remain on this world, but be limited and bound by oaths, so as to not destroy it like it did the previous world humans occupied. Taln was selected by Honor. I don't necessarily think the Heralds were told they were selected or by whom. I also think this is why today it's called Surgebinding. Honor literally bound the Surges, and bound them to HIS Investiture, created the Honorblades as a way to limit how many surges of what type could be used in conjunction and that this is the basic idea of the Oathpact. Honor did not want these surges on Roshar all the time, so the agreement was made that after each Desolation the Heralds would go to Damnation to give humans time without them. I don't think Honor counted on the Spren trying to mimic the Honorblades. The KR were then formed to keep the spren in check and to keep humans further bound by oaths in order to use Surges. This was all rolled into the Oathpact.

EDIT: After reading some WoBs I'm adjusting my theory a bit to account for information I did not have while sleeping...

 

5. Odium sidesteps the Oathpact.
-- Once the Surges were no longer free to be used by anyone, Odium was at a disadvantage. He began by torturing the Heralds, trying to corrupt them. I think their Connection to Honor was too strong to be corrupted, so he turned to the next best thing... the spirits of the dead parsh from the early Desolations. (He still tortured the Heralds, as we know, and he did so to begin new Desolations as soon as he could following the last one). He couldn't allow them to use Surges, since he Surgebinding is bound by the Oathpact, but he sidesteps this with what we know as "Voidbinding", a corrupted version of Surges, likely powered by one or more of the Unmade. This is legal since the Unmade are not likely part of the Oathpact. 

6. The Death of Honor.
-- Wild tin-foil part of this theory is that the Heralds themselves, with the help of Odium, killed Tanavast and splintered Honor. WHY??? Why would the Heralds do this?? Because he was weakening. I posit that the Heralds believed that if Tanavast was killed someone would take up the Shard and strengthen Honor and keep the Oathpact strong. Odium swooped in and Splintered Honor before that could happen. This is all extremely unlikely, but it kind of fits the narrative I have going here so I forced myself to write it anyway.

So, here we have it. This is what I ended up with after digesting the information given to us in Oathbringer. I only have a physical copy of the book, so I don't have actual quotes in this post, but I can probably work to find some. I'm pretty happy with this theory, even though I'm probably wrong in most, if not all, of it, but it's what my brain concluded while I was asleep so I thought I'd share and see what the other more-cosmere-aware folks here thought about it.

[Aleksiel]

Hm, I'm more thinking in the lines calling what people did in their previous world surgebinding is simply incorrect, yet another piece of information distorted through time.

Remember Honor didn't expect spren imitating the Honorblades and the Oathpact was Ishar binding the Heralds and Honor, thus he already had his Honorblade and was familiar enough with his powers. He also bounded (binded? whatever) surgebinders to oaths eventually (heavily hinted, not explicitly said if I recall correctly) and I doubt Honor couldn't have done it himself if he wanted to. However, it was said Honor's death changes things...

There are some elements from what we learned that just don't fit in my opinion, but I need more time to think about it.

Edited November 17, 2017 by Aleksiel

[Shadowfax]

I just went to go read some WoBs and I will have to revise some of this theory.

 

This WoB and this WoB in particular cause me to need to make a couple adjustments.