The Spren Did Not Betray the Listeners

[Confused]

The Listeners seem to believe that the spren chose humans instead of Listeners as surgebinders because the Listeners were in some way inadequate. Following, respectively, are the Listener Song of Spren, 9^th Stanza (epigraph to WoR Chapter 32) and the Listener Song of Secrets, 40^th Stanza (epigraph to WoR Chapter 28):

 

"The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt.

Our minds are too close to their realm

That gives us our forms, but more is then

Demanded by the smartest spren,

We can’t provide what the humans lend,

Though broth are we, their meat is men."

 

"The betrayal of spren has brought us here.

They gave their Surges to human heirs,

But not to those who know them most dear, before us.

’Tis no surprise we turned away

Unto the gods we spent our days

And to become their molding clay, they changed us."

 

These passages seem to get backwards the relationship between cognitive beings (humans and Listeners), on the one hand, and spren. New types of spren come into existence when cognitive beings on Roshar personify something they have created or observed.  Honor created surgebinding when he gave the Honorblades to the human Heralds. Sometime later, after the concept of human surgebinding had become personified in Shadesmar, spren created other human surgebinders through the Nahel bond.

 

Spren did not “choose” humans to be surgebinders. There were simply no spren that personified a Listener surgebinding experience. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. WoB states Listener surgebinding is possible. It just hasn’t been done. Yet…

[kaellok]

I think you're clearly right on one count, regarding why spren chose humans.  However, I think that there's some other event that occurred that is the 'betrayal.'  The mention of I-5, The Rider of Storms, p.395 of hardcover, says, "This one, the soul of the storm, was the one the humans called Stormfather--and he was not one of her people's gods.  in fact, the songs named him a traitor--a spren who had chosen to protect humans instead of the listeners."  Presumably, this is the voidspren--after all, when Eshonai transforms into stormform, the Stormfather says "I CANNOT STOP THIS.  I WOULD SHELTER YOU, LITTLE ONE, IF I WERE GIVEN THAT POWER.  I AM SORRY" (next page of same section.)  

 

We know that the Stormfather is bound in certain ways beyond his control (he cannot stop the highstorms from coming, he cannot help but give visions to Dalinar, etc.)  I think that the betrayal of the spren is something that left the Listeners vulnerable to voidspren (perhaps the spren's actions 'taught' voidspren how to create a bond?)

[Ati]

Confused, it seems like you're saying that the Heralds led to a concept of surgebinding, which in turn created spren capable of the act.  If this was the case, it seems most likely to me that we would be seeing "surgespren".  Instead, we have honorspren, "liespren", highspren, etc.  It seems likely to me that these spren would have all predated the Heralds.  If I'm interpreting what you're suggesting correctly, I think one extra link of cause/effect may make it tighter.  

 

I pretty sure I've seen it suggested on one of the threads that each of the spren capable of a bond responded to the characteristics of a Herald.   I could accept an argument that people identified a "primary" characteristic for each Herald.  We see in the current timeline that they still seem to do something along these lines.  Perhaps there was an idea that the Herald's gained their powers due to an embodiment of each of those characteristics, in turn, granting those same powers to the spren tied to those same characteristics.   This seems like an extra layer of complexity relative to what you're suggesting (unless I'm misreading, if so, apologies), but I think it's also slightly more in keeping with what we know, so far, of the mechanisms governing spren. Still speculative, but an interesting idea nonetheless.   Cheers.
 

 

edit: kaellok, your post reminded me of the bondsmiths.  Not sure how they would fit into the above system.  They seem just a bit specific for it.  

Edited April 7, 2014 by Ati

[entropicscholar]

Upvote for Ati.

 

To Confused,

I recently started a Thread, that may explain why a bit about why "Radian Spren" abandoned the listeners. I don't adress the question directly, but it may explain why some spren don't like bonding to the listeners.

 

That said,

"The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt.

Our minds are too close to their realm

That gives us our forms, but more is then

Demanded by the smartest spren,

We can’t provide what the humans lend,

Though broth are we, their meat is men."

 

"The betrayal of spren has brought us here.

They gave their Surges to human heirs,

But not to those who know them most dear, before us.

’Tis no surprise we turned away

Unto the gods we spent our days

And to become their molding clay, they changed us."

 

...

 

Spren did not “choose” humans to be surgebinders. There were simply no spren that personified a Listener surgebinding experience. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. WoB states Listener surgebinding is possible. It just hasn’t been done. Yet…

These things seem to imply that Listeners had a bond to spren, and possibly could surgebind, before men could.

It also seems to state that The change that listeners suffer--the one I presume Odium inflicted upon them which makes them scarcely able to think, without the aid of a spren-bond--occured after the spren abandoned them.

 

Could it be, that at some time in history the Listeners/parshmen/parshendi abandoned their Radiant Oaths, similar to the way humans did at the day of Recreance?

Could it be that they did this in response to the Heralds betraying their oaths?

Could it be that the spren felt that the listeners had abandoned them, and began bonding with men in response to this?

And that the Listeners, seeing the Spren do this, felt betrayed themselves (despite them, and the Heralds being the ones at fault), and in turn, began to serve Odium instead? And he made them his slaves (because he's Odium, and they were willing)?

 

all speculation, but it seems a reasonable line of progression to me.

 

(I would also guess that they were not the same kind of surgebinders that we know of today, but rather that their race has some innate ability, and that the 10 types of "Radiant Spren" came along later)

Edited April 8, 2014 by entropicscholar

[Confused]

Ati, good catch! I chose to simplify the essential point about the personification of surgebinding without delving into an Order by Order analysis. But you are correct: I think individual types of spren "mutated" into spren that matched the Herald attributes and therefore could bond: windspren became honorspren, some Cryptics reflecting natural patterns became "liespren," etc. The conclusion remains the same - the spren did not "choose" humans over Listeners.

 

There's a more general phenomenon going on here a description of which I deleted from my first draft:

 

Human experience - emotionally individualistic coupled with an ever-changing material culture - varies far more than the Listener experience of communal emotional responses (the rhythms) and a relatively static material culture. An individualistic culture will create more, and more varied, spren than a communal one. These are simply differences in temperament and culture, not differences in emotional or intellectual capacity. Eshonai and Venli are a match for any human. When spren seek sentience in the physical realm, they will thus have more varied opportunities among humans for finding suitable hosts.

 

Kaellok, I believe the Stormfather's "betrayal" was allowing himself to be bound to Bondsmiths. Syl says the Stormfather must accept oaths given. He has no choice. It's unsurprising, then, that he can likewise do nothing to interfere with Eshonai's decision to bond with the stormspren.

 

Entropicscholar, thanks for your reply, but I disagree. Love your name: do you study entropy?

[Seloun]

Spren did not “choose” humans to be surgebinders. There were simply no spren that personified a Listener surgebinding experience. That doesn’t mean it can’t be done. WoB states Listener surgebinding is possible. It just hasn’t been done. Yet…

 

This is an interesting point. If we assume that the development of the human Surgebinding through spren bonds was due to copying the Heralds using the Honorblades (which seems like the implication at this point) and the reason Parshendi don't have similar abilities is due to the lack of Parshendi Heralds, it would suggest that spren that can provide something like the Nahel bond for Parshendi might develop if the Parshendi had access to Honorblades.

 

It might be also that the Unmade do serve a similar role to the Heralds in that they provide an original template for the spren to copy. If this analysis holds, it may imply that Parshendi access to Honorblades might prove to be a huge plot point - a Parshendi Honorblade bearer running around for a while might give rise to a new spren variant capable of providing surgebinding to other Parshendi.

 

Regarding the original point about the spren 'betrayal' - I figured that this is a reference to the spren bonding at all with the humans. I assume that humanity is the invading force on Roshar (all or most native fauna appear to inherently bond with spren) and therefore initially they had no spren bonds. The 'betrayal' seems to be that some spren started bonding with humans at all.

[Ati]

Confused, I actually think the "deleted content" that you added up there is my favorite part.  Very interesting ideas. 

[entropicscholar]

yeah, I did some rereading, that theory at the bottom of my post above is totaly bogous...

sorry about that.

[hoser]

Great discussion on an interesting subject. 

 

Here's what I think I know (I can look up quotes if needed):

• Brandon has said that the spren we are seeing (in tWoK) are of Honor, Cultivation or both. 
• Spren are living ideas, according to Jasnah and Shallan's discussion.
• Spren are investiture, some of which have attained sentience.
• Splinters are quantities of investiture (larger?) that have attained sentience.
• There are spren that are splinters of Adonalsium on Roshar. 
• The listeners are referred to as the ancient ones.

Here are some beliefs that I have:

• The human mythology about coming from off-world (Tranquilline Halls) is somewhat true.
• Humans were brought by Honor and Cultivation at more or less the time they came to Roshar.  

Wild speculation:

• The listeners and their pre-H+C spren had a certain consciousness together.  
• When H+C's investiture came along, more sentient spren developed based on that investiture that were connected to them and their intent.  
• These sentient spren were the ones that formed the Nahel bonds with the people that H+C brought.  
• The humans are more cognitively strong independantly of spren, but are not as connected to Shadesmar, so they can offer the Nahel bond spren more cognition when they come more into the physical.   

Here is a conversation between Shallan and Pattern from Ch 24:

"Spren," Shallan said.  "If people weren't here, would spren have thought?"

"Not here, in this realm," Pattern said. "I do not know about the other realm."

... "Besides, there are others who think."

"Voidbringers," Shallan said, cold.

"Yes.  I do not think my kind would live in a world with only them.  They have their own spren."

Shallan sat up sharply.  "Their own spren?"

... "Spren are ... power ... shattered power.  Power given thought by perceptions of men.  Honor, Cultivation, and ... and another.  Fragments broken off."

"Another?" Shallan prodded.

... "Odium."

 

Hoping this seems relevant.

 

Edit: added quote

Edited April 10, 2014 by hoser