[OB] "Unintended Side-Effects" of Imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram

[NotBurtReynolds]

Quote

We are uncertain the effect 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 the unintended side-effects.

- From drawer 30-20, fifth emerald

Chapter 81 Epigraph, page 785

 

Is it to fast to think that  at least one of the unintended side-effects of imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was that all of the parsh Connected to her at the time were robbed of not just their forms of power but all forms, locking them into the previously unknown slaveform? I had always assumed the Parsh ending up in slaveform was a purposeful action taken by the Knights Radiant. If it is instead an unintended consequence of  defeating one of the world's great evils, then it really muddies up the morality waters. Enslaving an enemy is one morally questionable decision.  Enslaving them and purposefully robbing them of their minds is much, much more questionable, in my eyes. But what should they have done, if this is true? The Knights know they had to defeat Ba-Ado-Mishram, if they have the chance. They succeed. Hurrah! But then all the (presumably)thousands and thousands of former enemy combatants are now mindless drones. What do you do? Slaughter them? Leave them to their own devices to die of starvation and the elements? Care for them until they all die off? Or enslave them? This makes the human/parsh relationship much more interesting to me, because before I was pretty much thinking the Knights Radiant were real dicks for the whole slavefom thing. You couldn't give them dullform? Or just mateform? This would bring a lot more context for me.

[Dlyol]

Further to this, there's a theory going around (which I think is basically correct) that this was the reason for the Recreance. The False Desolation and the Recreance seem to have happened in a very short time horizon of each other and imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was what ended the False Desolation. The Radiants, who now know that surgebinding destroyed Ashyn and that Honour is dying, manage to completely lobotomise almost the entire Singer population of Roshar and so confirm that surgebinding is, in fact, something terrible and to be avoided. From there it doesn't seem implausible that they would abandon their oaths especially as they now believe that having imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram that forms of power are gone and there isn't really a reason for them anymore.

[Subvisual Haze]

I think there's also a strong possibility that this event is what "hurt" The Sibling to the point that he/she has been asleep ever since.

[NotBurtReynolds]

5 hours ago, Dlyol said:

Further to this, there's a theory going around (which I think is basically correct) that this was the reason for the Recreance. The False Desolation and the Recreance seem to have happened in a very short time horizon of each other and imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was what ended the False Desolation. The Radiants, who now know that surgebinding destroyed Ashyn and that Honour is dying, manage to completely lobotomise almost the entire Singer population of Roshar and so confirm that surgebinding is, in fact, something terrible and to be avoided. From there it doesn't seem implausible that they would abandon their oaths especially as they now believe that having imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram that forms of power are gone and there isn't really a reason for them anymore.

Yea man, I really like that..The Recreance feels like it has to be a lot more complicated than “ humans were the original Voidbringers.” When you put it as, “Not only were we the invaders that conquered the home species but we also lobotomized/enslaved them? And we’re supposed to be the heroes?” That fleshes out the Recreance a little more for me.

[thejopen27]

5 hours ago, Dlyol said:

Further to this, there's a theory going around (which I think is basically correct) that this was the reason for the Recreance. The False Desolation and the Recreance seem to have happened in a very short time horizon of each other and imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was what ended the False Desolation. The Radiants, who now know that surgebinding destroyed Ashyn and that Honour is dying, manage to completely lobotomise almost the entire Singer population of Roshar and so confirm that surgebinding is, in fact, something terrible and to be avoided. From there it doesn't seem implausible that they would abandon their oaths especially as they now believe that having imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram that forms of power are gone and there isn't really a reason for them anymore.

This also makes sense with the event at Fevre Stone keep. We know from a Part 3 Epigraph that the Parsh were attacking Fevrestone Keep in the False Desolation and we know a ton of Windrunners and Stonewards gave up their shards all at once after that event. While the plan to bind BAM seems to have been developed at the time the tower is being abandoned and the recordings are being made.

Most likely time-line:

Honor is slowly becoming a force, less Tanavast, more Honor.

False Desolation comes, BAM leads the Regals and warforms against the humans, BAM is linked to and controlling all Parsh except the Last Legion

Last Legion escapes control by Unmade through Dullform

Tower is failing. can no longer support life with the sibling gone and there is infighting among the Radiants, especially the Skybreakers and the Windrunners, while the Willshapers chafe at the control. Only one Bondsmith is active (Melishi).

Melishi and the Truthwatchers form a plan to capture BAM, they think this will deny the Parsh the forms of power

For some reason the Parsh are trying to capture Fevrestone Keep near Iri.

The Radiants fight a large battle against the Parsh near Fevrestone Keep, meanwhile, Melishi and the Truthwatchers manage to bond Ba-Ado-Mishram

The binding of BAM steals the souls of all Parsh linked to BAM

The Radiants are horrified and many throw down their swords and break their oaths that day, the rest wither over time

The mass Oathbreaking, madness, and deaths of Spren weakens Honor enough that Odium finally kills him. 

2 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

I think there's also a strong possibility that this event is what "hurt" The Sibling to the point that he/she has been asleep ever since.

The war seems to be still going on while the recordings are being made, therefore the tower was being abandoned during the false desolation not after, as one talks about the Parsh attacking at Fevrestone keep and others talk about creating the plan to trap Ba-Ado-Mishram. 

[Subvisual Haze]

Just now, thejopen27 said:

The war seems to be still going on while the recordings are being made, therefore the tower was being abandoned during the false desolation not after, as one talks about the Parsh attacking at Fevrestone keep and others talk about creating the plan to trap Ba-Ado-Mishram. 

One shouldn't assume the gems were all recorded at the same moment in time, or that the order we read them is the order that they were recorded.

Renarin at one point posits that there is a secret pattern related to how the gems are ordered (and Renarin's hunches are almost always correct).  I have no clue what the pattern is though.

[Urithiru]

51 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

This also makes sense with the event at Fevre Stone keep. We know from a Part 3 Epigraph that the Parsh were attacking Fevrestone Keep in the False Desolation and we know a ton of Windrunners and Stonewards gave up their shards all at once after that event. While the plan to bind BAM seems to have been developed at the time the tower is being abandoned and the recordings are being made.

Most likely time-line:

Honor is slowly becoming a force, less Tanavast, more Honor.

False Desolation comes, BAM leads the Regals and warforms against the humans, BAM is linked to and controlling all Parsh except the Last Legion

Last Legion escapes control by Unmade through Dullform

Tower is failing. can no longer support life with the sibling gone and there is infighting among the Radiants, especially the Skybreakers and the Windrunners, while the Willshapers chafe at the control. Only one Bondsmith is active (Melishi).

Melishi and the Truthwatchers form a plan to capture BAM, they think this will deny the Parsh the forms of power

For some reason the Parsh are trying to capture Fevrestone Keep near Iri.

The Radiants fight a large battle against the Parsh near Fevrestone Keep, meanwhile, Melishi and the Truthwatchers manage to bond Ba-Ado-Mishram

The binding of BAM steals the souls of all Parsh linked to BAM

The Radiants are horrified and many throw down their swords and break their oaths that day, the rest wither over time

The mass Oathbreaking, madness, and deaths of Spren weakens Honor enough that Odium finally kills him. 

The war seems to be still going on while the recordings are being made, therefore the tower was being abandoned during the false desolation not after, as one talks about the Parsh attacking at Fevrestone keep and others talk about creating the plan to trap Ba-Ado-Mishram. 

I really like this timeline. It’s also supported by Eshonai’s many references in WoR of listeners freeing themselves “centuries” ago, not the “millennia” you’d expect if it had happened after the last desolation. Still a question of how or why they managed it, and only them. Did BAM completely control those bonded to her, or was it more like leading them and giving them access to forms of power? How much choice was involved? Did Sja-anat maybe help free some of the singers? What about the Voidspren (who may be pre-Roshar human spirits?) like Ulim? They seem intelligent and survived the desolations and capture of BAM so that they could guide Venli to bring back the Fused, and reestablish Connection for all singers. Could some of the Voidspren, maybe working with Sja-Anat who seems to want freedom from Odium, have helped the listeners escape into dullform? I think the origins of the listeners will prove critical in the story. Maybe they freed themselves? Maybe their sacrifice was what so convinced the Radiants that they were on the wrong side or to at least abandon the war in disgust?

[thejopen27]

8 hours ago, Urithiru said:

I really like this timeline. It’s also supported by Eshonai’s many references in WoR of listeners freeing themselves “centuries” ago, not the “millennia” you’d expect if it had happened after the last desolation. Still a question of how or why they managed it, and only them. Did BAM completely control those bonded to her, or was it more like leading them and giving them access to forms of power? How much choice was involved? Did Sja-anat maybe help free some of the singers? What about the Voidspren (who may be pre-Roshar human spirits?) like Ulim? They seem intelligent and survived the desolations and capture of BAM so that they could guide Venli to bring back the Fused, and reestablish Connection for all singers. Could some of the Voidspren, maybe working with Sja-Anat who seems to want freedom from Odium, have helped the listeners escape into dullform? I think the origins of the listeners will prove critical in the story. Maybe they freed themselves? Maybe their sacrifice was what so convinced the Radiants that they were on the wrong side or to at least abandon the war in disgust?

I think the last Legion, or the Listeners, we're completely unknown to anybody. I think they just ran away into obscurity until Eshonai stumbled into Dalinar. I don't think the Radiants meant to destroy to Parsh entirely and I think they just felt terrible about what they did to them. We see in Oathbringer that some of the Singers chafe at being ordered to war by the Fused and the Voidspren. I don't think it's inconceivable that a couple Singers just got sick of it, one figured out how to avoid control in dull form, and told the rest. It was probably an accident, and while in Dull form he or she realized that they weren't being controlled while in Dull form. 

[thejopen27]

9 hours ago, Subvisual Haze said:

One shouldn't assume the gems were all recorded at the same moment in time, or that the order we read them is the order that they were recorded.

Renarin at one point posits that there is a secret pattern related to how the gems are ordered (and Renarin's hunches are almost always correct).  I have no clue what the pattern is though.

I got the sense that they were all farewell messages. Most talk about either the abandonment of the tower, the war with the Parsh and the plan to bind Ba-Ado-Mishram (meaning that it is one specific war, the False Desolation), or the growing  disaffection of the Radiants and the infighting within the orders. 

Edited December 8, 2017 by thejopen27

[Subvisual Haze]

46 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

I got the sense that they were all farewell messages. Most talk about either the abandonment of the tower, the war with the Parsh and the plan to bind Ba-Ado-Mishram (meaning that it is one specific war, the False Desolation), or the growing  disaffection of the Radiants and the infighting within the orders. 

Oh yes, I think that's definitely the first impression you're intended to get when reading them as well as my first thoughts.  It was only when Renarin made an offhand comment about a pattern that wasn't resolved in this book, that I started to think about what could be "hidden" there.

Brandon loves hiding in another secret in plain site though, so I think there's a good chance that these recordings weren't all simultaneous.  I think there's a cause/effect relationship in there to tease out.

 

[thejopen27]

4 minutes ago, Subvisual Haze said:

Oh yes, I think that's definitely the first impression you're intended to get when reading them as well as my first thoughts.  It was only when Renarin made an offhand comment about a pattern that wasn't resolved in this book, that I started to think about what could be "hidden" there.

Brandon loves hiding in another secret in plain site though, so I think there's a good chance that these recordings weren't all simultaneous.  I think there's a cause/effect relationship in there to tease out.

 

I disagree. I think they're all from the same time period. One even talks about the Edgedancers being too busy to send anyone to record one, implying they were made in a very short time, maybe only a couple days. 

[Cenanin]

On 12/7/2017 at 2:25 PM, Dlyol said:

Further to this, there's a theory going around (which I think is basically correct) that this was the reason for the Recreance. The False Desolation and the Recreance seem to have happened in a very short time horizon of each other and imprisoning Ba-Ado-Mishram was what ended the False Desolation. The Radiants, who now know that surgebinding destroyed Ashyn and that Honour is dying, manage to completely lobotomise almost the entire Singer population of Roshar and so confirm that surgebinding is, in fact, something terrible and to be avoided. From there it doesn't seem implausible that they would abandon their oaths especially as they now believe that having imprisoned Ba-Ado-Mishram that forms of power are gone and there isn't really a reason for them anymore.

The KR are not just for the Desolations. The Desolations were happening before spren started bonding humans. That was the reason for the Heralds. They would teach humanity to fight the parshendi, but then one Desolation humans had discovered surgebinding. The KR were active during the times between Desolations.

I believe the KR/Surgebinding are all completely independent of the Oathpact and the Desolations completely. 

[Dlyol]

9 hours ago, Cenanin said:

The KR are not just for the Desolations. The Desolations were happening before spren started bonding humans. That was the reason for the Heralds. They would teach humanity to fight the parshendi, but then one Desolation humans had discovered surgebinding. The KR were active during the times between Desolations.

I believe the KR/Surgebinding are all completely independent of the Oathpact and the Desolations completely. 

Yeah sure, how does that relate to my point about the Recreance and the False Desolation?

[Heir of the Void]

On 12/7/2017 at 11:29 PM, thejopen27 said:

The Radiants are horrified and many throw down their swords and break their oaths that day, the rest wither over time

Biggest problem with this theory (to me):

Why would the Knights Radiant, who face supernatural horrors in a lifetime of war against demonic foes seeking the obliteration of mankind, be so bothered by the permanent defeat of their enemy? To be certain, what happened to the Singers is unpleasant, but they had been seeking to do worse to mankind, and this is a permanent end to that existential threat. Beyond that, in a pre-industrial society with very limited agricultural food surpluses (relative to the modern era), it is not viable to dedicate the entire productive surplus of human civilization into feeding the lobotomized monsters that were until recently trying to kill them. A population of that size must do some sort of useful work to earn its keep, so (functionally) enslaving them was most likely the only alternative to allowing them to starve. 

I think we are quite likely projecting our modern sensibilities onto what is/was quite obviously a very different context. Slavery was seen as some variation of normal by effectively every culture on Earth for all of history; the notion that chattel slavery is a special kind of evil is very much an industrial-era Anglo-Saxon notion that was pushed onto the rest of the world by the British Empire, the Royal Navy, and Anglo-American cultural hegemony. I think it would take something much more dramatic and topical to push the Knights Radiant into doing something like the Recreance. 

[NotBurtReynolds]

21 minutes ago, Heir of the Void said:

Biggest problem with this theory (to me):

Why would the Knights Radiant, who face supernatural horrors in a lifetime of war against demonic foes seeking the obliteration of mankind, be so bothered by the permanent defeat of their enemy? To be certain, what happened to the Singers is unpleasant, but they had been seeking to do worse to mankind, and this is a permanent end to that existential threat. Beyond that, in a pre-industrial society with very limited agricultural food surpluses (relative to the modern era), it is not viable to dedicate the entire productive surplus of human civilization into feeding the lobotomized monsters that were until recently trying to kill them. A population of that size must do some sort of useful work to earn its keep, so (functionally) enslaving them was most likely the only alternative to allowing them to starve. 

I think we are quite likely projecting our modern sensibilities onto what is/was quite obviously a very different context. Slavery was seen as some variation of normal by effectively every culture on Earth for all of history; the notion that chattel slavery is a special kind of evil is very much an industrial-era Anglo-Saxon notion that was pushed onto the rest of the world by the British Empire, the Royal Navy, and Anglo-American cultural hegemony. I think it would take something much more dramatic and topical to push the Knights Radiant into doing something like the Recreance. 

Its one thing to understand objectively that enslavement may be the best out of a list of terrible options, after the parsh were (presumably) accidentally lobotomized.  I think its a different kettle of fish to actually live with the results of taking the supposed 'best' option. You are a storming Knight Radiant. Hero. Held up as an Ideal to all of Roshar...But Roshar isn't even yours...Your people destroyed their own planet. So they came to this one and conquered it. You took a planet that wasn't yours and conquered the local populace. And if that wasn't already bad enough, you took their minds.   You robbed the native populace of not only their home but their mind, their culture, their everything.  And you're reminded of it, every day.  As you walk around, held up as a hero. Might start to wear.

[The-only-game]

On 08/12/2017 at 8:29 AM, thejopen27 said:

This also makes sense with the event at Fevre Stone keep. We know from a Part 3 Epigraph that the Parsh were attacking Fevrestone Keep in the False Desolation and we know a ton of Windrunners and Stonewards gave up their shards all at once after that event. While the plan to bind BAM seems to have been developed at the time the tower is being abandoned and the recordings are being made.

Most likely time-line:

Honor is slowly becoming a force, less Tanavast, more Honor.

False Desolation comes, BAM leads the Regals and warforms against the humans, BAM is linked to and controlling all Parsh except the Last Legion

Last Legion escapes control by Unmade through Dullform

Tower is failing. can no longer support life with the sibling gone and there is infighting among the Radiants, especially the Skybreakers and the Windrunners, while the Willshapers chafe at the control. Only one Bondsmith is active (Melishi).

Melishi and the Truthwatchers form a plan to capture BAM, they think this will deny the Parsh the forms of power

For some reason the Parsh are trying to capture Fevrestone Keep near Iri.

The Radiants fight a large battle against the Parsh near Fevrestone Keep, meanwhile, Melishi and the Truthwatchers manage to bond Ba-Ado-Mishram

The binding of BAM steals the souls of all Parsh linked to BAM

The Radiants are horrified and many throw down their swords and break their oaths that day, the rest wither over time

The mass Oathbreaking, madness, and deaths of Spren weakens Honor enough that Odium finally kills him. 

The war seems to be still going on while the recordings are being made, therefore the tower was being abandoned during the false desolation not after, as one talks about the Parsh attacking at Fevrestone keep and others talk about creating the plan to trap Ba-Ado-Mishram. 

But wasn't Melishi bonded to the Sibling? Doesn't this throw the timeline into wack?

[Dlyol]

@Heir of the Void I think @NotBurtReynolds outlines my thinking on this pretty well - these people aren't robots, Radiants are damaged individuals caught in a perfect storm of moral and objective catastrophe. I'd just like to add a couple of points though for completeness sake. One Radiants are bound by Oaths that for some orders although not at all orders would mean they have to be horrified by this. Can you imagine Kaladin or Lift reacting to lobotomising the Singers in the way you outline? The second point is you get how ideological 'justifications' for slavery, if you can call them that without wretching, emerged in our world backwards. Societies didn't have pre-existing arguments for slavery and then gained slaves, they had slaves then sought to justify that to themselves. The 'positive good' argument for slavery emerged in the 1830s because slave owners had slaves and wanted to justify keeping them, they didn't acquire slaves because they believed the argument. As this applies to Roshar we have no idea whether there were slaves prior to the Recreance but we can be fairly confident that there wouldn't exist the requisite ideological framework to justify lobotomising and then enslaving vast numbers of Singers *because it had never happened before*

Quote

But wasn't Melishi bonded to the Sibling?

@The-only-game Do we know this? 

Edited December 9, 2017 by Dlyol

[The-only-game]

15 minutes ago, Dlyol said:

@Heir of the Void I think @NotBurtReynolds outlines my thinking on this pretty well - these people aren't robots, Radiants are damaged individuals caught in a perfect storm of moral and objective catastrophe. I'd just like to add a couple of points though for completeness sake. One Radiants are bound by Oaths that for some orders although not at all orders would mean they have to be horrified by this. Can you imagine Kaladin or Lift reacting to lobotomising the Singers in the way you outline? The second point is you get how ideological 'justifications' for slavery, if you can call them that without wretching, emerged in our world backwards. Societies didn't have pre-existing arguments for slavery and then gained slaves, they had slaves then sought to justify that to themselves. The 'positive good' argument for slavery emerged in the 1830s because slave owners had slaves and wanted to justify keeping them, they didn't acquire slaves because they believed the argument. As this applies to Roshar we have no idea whether there were slaves prior to the Recreance but we can be fairly confident that there wouldn't exist the requisite ideological framework to justify lobotomising and then enslaving vast numbers of Singers *because it had never happened before*

@The-only-game Do we know this? 

Ok I found the WoB, and it said Rafo. Sorry, I must have switched it in my head.

[PhineasGage]

From what I remember, the orders we saw in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance were Windrunners and Edgedancers (were there others there?) If that is right, those are two orders who would be most opposed to the "accidental lobotomy" situation and may have balked immediately at the sight. 

Even if there were other orders there, what happened if they were ordered to kill the Parsh? It would be like when Adolin found himself slaughtering the singers at the end of WoR - and it was sickening. I don't think many people, KR or not, could take having to do that. The WR and ED would have likely been unable to kill the newly slaveform parshmen and may have been stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of fulfilling their duty as KRs and obeying their oaths. If this is what happened, I for one would have forsworn my oaths on the spot.

I know this is supposition, but it might fit. The KR were more hierarchical pre-Recreance - more like a proper army - than the autonomous group we see now. I suspect that the leaders of each order would not have been present at (?) Feverstone Keep because you don't put your generals on the frontline usually. Those leaders may well have been farther from the fighting and perhaps orders weren't changed quickly enough or they decided that they needed to order the slaughter of the Parsh anyway for the continued safety of Roshar. Those on site may not have been able to stomach the slaughter. It might explain why the Skybreakers could cope - they would follow the orders if their oaths allowed it? 

[NotBurtReynolds]

1 hour ago, The-only-game said:

But wasn't Melishi bonded to the Sibling? Doesn't this throw the timeline into wack?

Well, what if we presume that Melishi is bonded to the Sibling during this time. And it's during this time that the Sibling is starting to be affected by whatever it is that eventually causes it's slumber, which is presumably a malevolent event. I would think that whatever is affecting the Sibling would be affecting the one bonded to it. And a partially corrupted bondsmith could help explain why the capture of Ba-Ado-Mishram didn't go exactly as planned..ie..lobotomized populace of parsh. Maybe if did go as planned they would've captured BAM and ended up with a parsh that weren't mindless thereby "necessitating" enslavement , but just defeated. Defeated and deprived of access to voidlight and forms of power. They wouldn't have to be enslaved...People can have wars without one ending up slaves to the other. Parsh and humans may not have lived in complete harmony but they could've existed together, I think. It could've been a completely different story, if not for the lobotomy.

Edited December 9, 2017 by NotBurtReynolds

[NotBurtReynolds]

36 minutes ago, PhineasGage said:

From what I remember, the orders we saw in Dalinar's vision of the Recreance were Windrunners and Edgedancers (were there others there?) If that is right, those are two orders who would be most opposed to the "accidental lobotomy" situation and may have balked immediately at the sight. 

Even if there were other orders there, what happened if they were ordered to kill the Parsh? It would be like when Adolin found himself slaughtering the singers at the end of WoR - and it was sickening. I don't think many people, KR or not, could take having to do that. The WR and ED would have likely been unable to kill the newly slaveform parshmen and may have been stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of fulfilling their duty as KRs and obeying their oaths. If this is what happened, I for one would have forsworn my oaths on the spot.

I know this is supposition, but it might fit. The KR were more hierarchical pre-Recreance - more like a proper army - than the autonomous group we see now. I suspect that the leaders of each order would not have been present at (?) Feverstone Keep because you don't put your generals on the frontline usually. Those leaders may well have been farther from the fighting and perhaps orders weren't changed quickly enough or they decided that they needed to order the slaughter of the Parsh anyway for the continued safety of Roshar. Those on site may not have been able to stomach the slaughter. It might explain why the Skybreakers could cope - they would follow the orders if their oaths allowed it? 

Yea, good thoughts man. I had figured that slaughter might have been put forth as a solution to the now mindless parsh, but then eventually put aside in favor of the enslavement option. But yea, what if slaughter was the first decision? I think it was Windrunners and Stonewards at Feverstone Keep, which are 2 orders I think would have large problems with wholesale slaughter. And Edgedancers, as you mentioned..I would also think Truthwatchers and possibly WillShapers would have the most vociferous objections. The other Orders, on the other hand, I could see being able to justify slaughter in the name of  the greater good.  What if Feverstone was just the start of the Recreance, dominoe-style?

So, Ba-Ado-Mishram is captured, the False Desolation ends and the KR are left with what to do with the mindless parsh and they land on slaughter. Some orders(and individuals within orders) revolt and refuse to comply, leading to Feverstone. The other Orders start to carry out the genocide plan, but cannot finish it and then continue the Recreance when the weight of what they've done comes down on them. The Skybreakers persist

[teknopathetic]

I wonder when the Shattered Plains were shattered. Could they have been shattered when. Boa-Ado-Mishram was captured, and the de-souling of the Parsh mixed with the destruction of a city caused the radiants to abandon their oaths?

Edited December 9, 2017 by teknopathetic

[Farnsworth]

Maybe the plains are a spren? They broke when the oath that tied them to the Radiants was broken. Kind of like when Syl “dies” when Kaladin almost breaks his oath. 

[Varenus]

2 hours ago, teknopathetic said:

I wonder when the Shattered Plains were shattered. Could they have been shattered when. Boa-Ado-Mishram was captured, and the de-souling of the Parsh mixed with the destruction of a city caused the radiants to abandon their oaths?

That would be interesting, and that was also my initial thought, but the epigraphs seem to suggest that the fighting was taking place mostly in northern Iri and/or western Reshi.

Quote

"The enemy makes another push toward Feverstone Keep. I wish we knew what it was that had them so interested in that area. Could they be intent on capturing Rall Elorim?"

Here is a map of Roshar, look near Iri:

Spoiler

So, my best guess is that Ba-Ado-Mishram was captured in Rall Elorim, the city of shadows. The shattering of the plains might be involved, but it is across the entire length of Roshar.

But who knows, maybe there is some oathgate trickery going on.

[thejopen27]

13 hours ago, Heir of the Void said:

Biggest problem with this theory (to me):

Why would the Knights Radiant, who face supernatural horrors in a lifetime of war against demonic foes seeking the obliteration of mankind, be so bothered by the permanent defeat of their enemy? To be certain, what happened to the Singers is unpleasant, but they had been seeking to do worse to mankind, and this is a permanent end to that existential threat. Beyond that, in a pre-industrial society with very limited agricultural food surpluses (relative to the modern era), it is not viable to dedicate the entire productive surplus of human civilization into feeding the lobotomized monsters that were until recently trying to kill them. A population of that size must do some sort of useful work to earn its keep, so (functionally) enslaving them was most likely the only alternative to allowing them to starve. 

I think we are quite likely projecting our modern sensibilities onto what is/was quite obviously a very different context. Slavery was seen as some variation of normal by effectively every culture on Earth for all of history; the notion that chattel slavery is a special kind of evil is very much an industrial-era Anglo-Saxon notion that was pushed onto the rest of the world by the British Empire, the Royal Navy, and Anglo-American cultural hegemony. I think it would take something much more dramatic and topical to push the Knights Radiant into doing something like the Recreance. 

Their calling, their oaths, are to find the better path. They are sworn to listen to the unheard, to unite instead of divide, to protect those who cannot protect themselves, to lead instead of divide, to even protect their enemies, if it is right, to remember those who have been forgotten, to but the journey before the destination and lift before death. You don't think they'd have a problem with destroying an entire people? A people who are being controlled and taken advantage of by a vengeful god? A people who were there first and they believe they stole the land from? Why wouldn't they be terrified? The Radiants, who saw themselves as the good-guys, destroyed an entire people! 

Kaladin doesn't have our "modern sensibilities" he is horrified by the senseless killing in Kholinar. 

I believe the theme over the next seven books will be humans and Singers finding common cause, and finding a third way, a way to work together to defeat their common enemy: Odium. 

 

For the record, I don't think Melishi was bonded to the sibling as I think the sibling had already receded by the end. I am pretty sure the two orders Dalinar saw in his vision were Windrunners and Stonewards, but I mostly know that from someone shooting down my theory pre-OB that the Stonewards were the order that was still active. I think the Shattered Plains were Shattered during the previous desolation. 

Edited December 10, 2017 by thejopen27