[OB] Melishi, False Desolation and Recreance

[Aleksiel]

I'd like to bring your attention to Maleshi, now mentione twice - in WoR and OB (emphasis mine):

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Something must be done about the remnants of Odium's forces. The parsh, as they are now called, continue their war with zeal, even without their masters from Damnation.

A coalition has been formed among scholar Radiants. Our goal is to deny the enemy their supply of Voidlight; this will prevent their continuing transformations, and give us an edge in combat.

Our revelation is fueled by the theory that the Unmade can perhaps be captured like ordinary spren. It would require a special prison. And Melishi.

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.

We are uncertain the effects this will have on the parsh. At the very least, it should deny them forms of power. Melishi is confident, but Naze-daughter-Kuzodo warns of unintended side effects.

Surely this will bring - at long last - the end to war that the Heralds promised us.

 

 

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So Melishi retired to his tent, and resolved to destroy the Voidbringers upon the next day, but that night did present a different stratagem, related to the unique abilities of the Bondsmiths; and being hurried, he could make no specific account of his process; it was related to the very nature of the Heralds and their divine duties, an attribute the Bondsmiths alone could address. 

 

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It could be the False Desolation,” Jasnah said..... “Considered pseudohistorical. Dovcanti wrote an epic about it somewhere around fifteen hundred years ago. The claim is that some Voidbringers survived Aharietiam, and there were many clashes with them afterward. It’s considered unreliable, but that’s because many later ardents insist that no Voidbringers could have survived. I’m inclined to assume this is a clash with parshmen before they were somehow deprived of their ability to change forms.

 

Melishi – the sole Bondsmith of the last Radiant generation during a False Desolation. He imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram, the highprincess of the Unmade and commander of Odium’s forces (according to Mythica), who was providing voidlight for the parsh in the absence of Odium - already imprisoned by Honor at that time I assume. These parsh are ‘the devils’ the KR were said to be fighting at Feverstone Keep in Dalinar’s vision of Recreance.

Not only did Melishi and the coalition of Radiants manage to capture Ba-Ado-Mishram, but also caused the fighting parsh to lose their ability to form bonds with spren. Around this time the Last Legion escaped all and hid until their descendants were discovered by Kholin expedition. Somehow they managed to avoid losing the ability to bond spren, so the imprisonment of Ba-Ado-Mishram is not the main reason other parsh were stuck in dullform.

So, matching False Desolation, cognitive destruction of most parsh and Recreanse, we get Windrunners and Stonewards abandoning their Shards for people to easily find and take. If the reasoning behind it was what was done to the parsh, surely this wasn’t the best way to do it. They deliberately left both Plates (that could have been dismissed for all we know and disappear as a footnote in history) and Blades out in the open for anyone to take at Feverstone Keep. The only threat I can think of that is worth fighting with Shards are Odium’s forces, so I suggest the Radiants were inclined to think they did not permanently defeat their enemy. In the light of all that, I do not believe the revelation humanity isn’t originally from Roshar played as big a role as the Stormfather claimed. They disbanded for whatever actual reason, yet left invaluable weapons to humanity for future war.

It is interesting to point out previous books claimed Urithiru was abandoned before Recreanse, yet there doesn’t seem to be much of a time difference between the two. How whatever was happening with the Sibling, Urithiru becoming unsafe and uninhabitable (for more see Urithiru the corrupted city), along with the tensions between Windrunners and Skybreakers, the only ones who kept their Oaths to present day, is related to it all remains to be seen.

[kari-no-sugata]

Lots to agree with here. Nice summary!

Regarding "Dovcanti wrote an epic about it somewhere around fifteen hundred years ago" - I wonder if this is before or after the Recreance. I'm guessing there's not much of a time gap between the two - feels practically synonymous. So this likely puts the Recreance at least 1500 years ago.

I wonder if the failings of Urithiru are related to Honor dying? ie they both started dying at about the same time, so possibly there's a correlation? Urithiru was supposed to be the place closest to Honor, after all.

[Fifth of Daybreak]

I wonder if Nalan's reference to clusters of Voidspren being found in hiding is at all related to the false desolation as well?

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"...What you saw are a few listeners who remain from the old days, ones free to use the old forms. They summoned a cluster of Voidspren. We’ve found remnants of them on Roshar before, hiding.”

Edgedancer 9

 

[Aleksiel]

Thanks, @kari-no-sugata! It could be related to Honor dying, one epigraphs notes:

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This generation has had only one Bondsmith, and some blame the divisions among us upon this fact. The true problem is far deeper. I believe that Honor himself is changing.

It comes from a smokestone, so it should be a SB saying this. This could hint to the Orders's general reluctance to buy whatever crazy stories Honor might have told the last KR, SF hinted to something like that. Honor's intent likely had overpowered Tanavast's personality at that point. Interestingly enough no gemlibrary entries sound like people about to abandon their duty, so I think something else unexpected must have happened when Melishi and his coalition tried to wipe out the last voidbringers and Ba-Ado-Mishram for good. 

About the Dovcanti epic I think it could be a few centuries after this, may be two or three at most. At least according to the last updated timeline Recreance is about 1700 years before our present, but there's a couple of centuries margin error to it.

 

@Ookla of Daybreak I'd say so. Also, note the use of 'we' - sounds like Nale was still with his Order. Yet the TW entries (from my first post) talk about 'the end of war as Heralds promised us', which begs the question - was it a reference to the lie when the Heralds broke the Oathpact or something more recent? 

Edited November 27, 2017 by Aleksiel

[Fifth of Daybreak]

2 minutes ago, Aleksiel said:

was it a reference to the lie when the Heralds broke the Oathpact or something more recent? 

Hmm, I guess that all depends in the timeline for Nale retrieving his Blade. If he retrieved it and met back up with the Skybreakers in secret before the Recreance, which seems most likely imo if the Skybreakers portion of Mraize's note is to be believed, I'd say it's a reference to Aharietiam.