Speculation on the Recreance, and the nature of Knight Radiant Oaths

[+TheFoxQR]

In Oathbringer, we are given this sort of complicated reasoning behind the Recreance. I'm going to list out all the points that we have solidly been told:

-> Honor was dying, and he raved at the latest generation of Knights Radiant that they would destroy Roshar, like they destroyed their previous world - Ashyn, or the Tranquiline Halls.

-> Before his death, Honor was there to moderate the power of the Knights Radiant.

-> The Stormfather is currently connected to the vast majority of Honor's power.

-> Everytime a Knight Radiant in the current timeline speaks an Oath, the Stormfather judges if the oath will be binding.

This, I think, is the biggest hint we have. Knight Radiant Oaths aren't some password combination you can just brute force. It is not just about having the Nahel Bond and speaking some words in the right order. Not only are the oaths relatively personalised, but the person speaking them has to truly mean what they are saying.

 

The idea I'm trying to put forward is this - the Knight Radiant Oaths may not be as concrete as we think they are. And, most importantly, it is not just about the Radiant in question saying an oath that they believe in. It is about whether the Stormfather accepts those words.

We know surgebinding is powerful - so powerful the it can destroy worlds.

This is my speculation on what happened.

When the Humans were on Ashyn, instead of bonding with a spren and letting their investiture "initiate" you, access to surgebinding came through diseases caused by invested bacterium/viruses. This process would not be unlike bonding a spren, the end result is still your spiritweb being suffused with investiture. Except in this case, it is not about the spren's investiture, but through a spiritual and physical disease causing vector suffusing you with investiture.

What's the importance of this?

There is no check on who gets to use surgebinding. Anyone who can get "infected" gains access to it. I do not know what powered it on Ashyn, I have not had the chance to read any excerpt from the Silence Divine.

Then, the humans come to Roshar. After some sequence of events, the status quo is this: There is something called an Oathpact that keeps Odium in check, practically trapping him on Braize. This Oathpact is somehow enforced by 10 humans, who have a direct connection with Honor via the Honorblades (Honor is their spren). These humans have to stay with Odium on Braize, and Odium tortures them there. When one of them gives up, and Odium gets a chance to fight free of his bonds. If he fails, the Oathpact is reinfirced, and he and the heralds go back to Braize.

On Roshar however, the disease angle is not present. So access to surgebinding is granted through Nahel Bonds. The way Honor would then moderate surgebinding is by "judging" each surgebinder. More "honorable" surgebinders get access to more powerful and efficient surgebinding. This where the oaths fit in. The Oaths are the check - with Honor deciding if a spoken Oath is valid or not. While each spren order gets to decide what kind of person they will grant their particular brand of surgebinding to, it is Honor that decides if the person in question actually lives up to those ideals or not. This would be a sort of contract between the spren and their "father". This would then be how Honor guided the ancient generations of Knight Radiant to use surgebinding righteously.

 

In this theory, the Recreance would then be a response to Honor dying. With a raving Honor's judgement compromised, the Knights Radiant would no longer feel confident in their capability to use the surges safely, without destroying the world. There would be an older generation that  was Honor moderated, and a newer generation that wasn't. This would cause the Knight Radiants to unilaterally decide that surgebinding is no longer a trustworthy tool. But how do you disincentivise the spren from seeking out more candidates? How do you force the people to just stop using magic? You have to take a sufficiently strong step. In this case, to make the people hate the lost radiants would also be a deliberate decision taken by the orders themselves. This reason seems strong enough to the cause the almost genocidal Recreance - The KR dropped surgebinding in such a way so as to stop

a. The spren seeking new candidates.

b. the humans to start considering surgebinding taboo.

 

This also explain why the skybreakers stayed behind. It was their job to ensure that this "law" would then be enforced. This is why Ishar would make Nale hunt down surgebinders through the ages. They would know that despite such drastic measures, there would still be edge cases where a successful Nahel Bond is formed and the person accepts surgebinding.

 

In Edgedancer, Lift convinces Nale surgebinding can still be used safely - that the Stormfather has taken up Honor's mantle. If that scene is taken in this context, it makes a lot more sense imo.

 

Tell me what you guys think about this.

 

[+TheFoxQR]

On a side note, I recently had a conversation with R'Shara on reddit regarding cognitive shadows. I'm about to give out a very wild theory, so bear with me.

 

We know that the more invested a person is, the longer they can stick around as cognitive shadows. We know that Knights Radiant constantly suffuse themselves with a lot of investiture.

We know that the fused are cognitive shadows.

We know that Braize is primarily occupied by cognitive shadows.

And I just gave out a theory that atleast some bits of the Vorin religion are deliberate checks by people who knew what was going on. What if there is some more truth in the Vorin teachings? What if, there is, in fact, a battle in the "afterlife"? What if, after physical death, a Knight Radiant's cognitive shadow is truly pulled to Braize, where they join the Heralds in fighting the cognitive shadows of the fused in constant battle?

 

I'm putting down my Tinfoil hat. Sheesh.

 

Well, this one actively goes against a WoB. I'm still gonna keep it here, but its most likely not true.

Edited February 6, 2019 by TheFoxQR
Proved Wrong.

[RShara she/her]

43 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

On a side note, I recently had a conversation with R'Shara on reddit regarding cognitive shadows. I'm about to give out a very wild theory, so bear with me.

 

We know that the more invested a person is, the longer they can stick around as cognitive shadows. We know that Knights Radiant constantly suffuse themselves with a lot of investiture.

We know that the fused are cognitive shadows.

We know that Braize is primarily occupied by cognitive shadows.

And I just gave out a theory that atleast some bits of the Vorin religion are deliberate checks by people who knew what was going on. What if there is some more truth in the Vorin teachings? What if, there is, in fact, a battle in the "afterlife"? What if, after physical death, a Knight Radiant's cognitive shadow is truly pulled to Braize, where they join the Heralds in fighting the cognitive shadows of the fused in constant battle?

 

I'm putting down my Tinfoil hat. Sheesh.

Sorry

Quote

Questioner [PENDING REVIEW]

Hypothetically speaking, if some of the main Radiants were to die at the end of book 5, go to Braize and then spend the time in between 5 and 6 there, would they age?

Brandon Sanderson [PENDING REVIEW]

There are lots of problems with that question. If a Radiant dies, they don't go to Braize. A Herald would, but a Herald is a Cognitive Shadow, so there's inherent problems in there. When you're a Cognitive Shadow, aging is different there, because you're basically a ghost. Even if you've been stapled to a body, it happens weirdly. So there's all kinds of flaws in that question.

Orem signing (Dec. 21, 2017)

Also, double posting is frowned upon. You want to click on the Edit link and add to your post if you have additional thoughts.

Edited February 6, 2019 by RShara

[+TheFoxQR]

2 minutes ago, RShara said:

Sorry

 

M'lady, I counter you with this!

Quote

Pagerunner (paraphrased)

Are the Cognitive Shadows on Braize the Shades of the Knights Radiant?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

*RAFO card* There you are, there you are!

Arcanum Unbounded Hoboken signing (Dec. 3, 2016)

Granted, yours is significantly more concrete than mine. And its later too. So... yeah. That theory doesn't pan out.

[RShara she/her]

Yeah that's just a RAFO, which just means he wasn't ready to reveal it. Then he does, in the one I posted.

Also, the Oathpact doesn't bind Odium, except indirectly. It binds the Fused to Braize.

Edited February 6, 2019 by RShara

[+TheFoxQR]

Yeah, that one actively proves my second theory wrong.

 

But there has to be something going on with Knight Radiant Shadows. With the amount of investiture they hold, their cognitive shadows must stick around for a reasonable amount of time. When Kelsier died on Scadrial, he was actively in the cognitive realm. And Roshar's cognitive is pretty active. We have hints that travel to and from the cognitive was a thing at some point in time from Shallan talking to the spren of the Oathgate, and Elsecallers can actively jump between the two. I wonder what it must have been like in those times. I mean, assume your husband is a 5th level Radiant and he dies. Could you, if you were fast enough, just go have a chat with his cognitive shadow before it passed on?

[RShara she/her]

1 minute ago, TheFoxQR said:

Yeah, that one actively proves my second theory wrong.

 

But there has to be something going on with Knight Radiant Shadows. With the amount of investiture they hold, their cognitive shadows must stick around for a reasonable amount of time. When Kelsier died on Scadrial, he was actively in the cognitive realm. And Roshar's cognitive is pretty active. We have hints that travel to and from the cognitive was a thing at some point in time from Shallan talking to the spren of the Oathgate, and Elsecallers can actively jump between the two. I wonder what it must have been like in those times. I mean, assume your husband is a 5th level Radiant and he dies. Could you, if you were fast enough, just go have a chat with his cognitive shadow before it passed on?

Part of that is because the people who are alive in Shadesmar don't see the same things as Cognitive Shadows do.

Quote

ZuperzubS

In Words of Radiance, when the sailors were being killed, Jasnah/Shallan sees the flames representing the minds of the sailors vanishing in Shadesmar, but the sailors don't appear in the cognitive realm. In contrast, in Secret History, we see that all sapient entities do transition to the Cognitive Realm before going to the Beyond. Is there something strange here? Or am I just overthinking this?

Brandon Sanderson

You're not overthinking it--but it's also not as strange as you might think. The one seeing the spirits on Scadrial was in a different state than Jasnah/Shallan.

Skyward Pre-Release AMA (Oct. 27, 2018)

Also, a bit about your original theory:

14 minutes ago, RShara said:

Yeah that's just a RAFO, which just means he wasn't ready to reveal it. Then he does, in the one I posted.

Also, the Oathpact doesn't bind Odium, except indirectly. It binds the Fused to Braize.

 

[+TheFoxQR]

4 minutes ago, RShara said:

Part of that is because the people who are alive in Shadesmar don't see the same things as Cognitive Shadows do.

That one is definitely interesting. Leras could actively see those. Was it because of the Preservation investiture in them? Or can shards just do that?

Also, Hoid vs Kelsier. And his interaction with Kriss and Nazh. Maybe his state changed when he was preserved?

 

22 minutes ago, RShara said:

Also, the Oathpact doesn't bind Odium, except indirectly. It binds the Fused to Braize.

Hmm. That's also super interesting. I did not know that. Where do we have that tidbit from?

I know he was able to influence events on Roshar even when the Oathpact was intact. I just assumed he was super restricted in doing so. If not the Oathpact, how is he bound to the Rosharran System?

Because Dalinar definitely offered him freedom during their exchange. And Odium accepted that offer too.

Edited February 6, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[RShara she/her]

1 minute ago, TheFoxQR said:

That one is definitely interesting. Leras could actively see those. Was it because of the Preservation investiture in them? Or can shards just do that?

Also, Hoid vs Kelsier. And his interaction with Kriss and Nazh. Maybe his state changed when he was preserved?

 

Hmm. That's also super interesting. I did not know that. Where do we have that tidbit from?

I would imagine all Shards can do that. Kelsier was dead, he could see dead people.

We have it from the Stormfather in Oathbringer.

Quote

THEY GAVE THEMSELVES UP. AS ODIUM IS SEALED BY THE POWERS OF HONOR AND CULTIVATION, YOUR HERALDS SEALED THE SPREN OF THE DEAD INTO THE PLACE YOU CALL DAMNATION. THE HERALDS WENT TO HONOR, AND HE GAVE THEM THIS RIGHT, THIS OATH. THEY THOUGHT IT WOULD END THE WAR FOREVER. BUT THEY WERE WRONG. HONOR WAS WRONG.

 

[+TheFoxQR]

 

7 minutes ago, RShara said:

We have it from the Stormfather in Oathbringer.

Huh. Yeah, that does cover my questions. I will have to re-read those portions more carefully, seems there is a lot of information in those sections.

[RShara she/her]

You might be interested in my thread:

 

[+TheFoxQR]

Yep, that is pretty much the other side of the coin to my entire write up. The Recreance had to be a well thought out, well planned thing.

I... didn't know however that these were all known facts on this forum. I don't frequently come here.

[RShara she/her]

2 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

Yep, that is pretty much the other side of the coin to my entire write up. The Recreance had to be a well thought out, well planned thing.

I... didn't know however that these were all known facts on this forum. I don't frequently come here.

I might be more anal retentive than most.

[Scion of the Mists]

Very interesting theory about the Stormfather taking over Honor's role.  

 

9 hours ago, TheFoxQR said:

Everytime a Knight Radiant in the current timeline speaks an Oath, the Stormfather judges if the oath will be binding.

Do we ever see the Stromfather accepting non-Windrunner oaths?  I only remember Kaladin/Teft.  

[Jace21 he/him]

1 hour ago, Scion of the Mists said:

Do we ever see the Stromfather accepting non-Windrunner oaths?  I only remember Kaladin/Teft.  

Seems obvious, but Bondsmith too since he accepts Dalinar's oaths.

We don't see him involved in any of the other orders oaths.

[Scion of the Mists]

40 minutes ago, Jace21 said:

Seems obvious, but Bondsmith too since he accepts Dalinar's oaths.

We don't see him involved in any of the other orders oaths.

I don't think that he's involved in anybody's oaths except for Windrunners and the specific Radiant who bonds him (not all Bondsmiths).  

[Jace21 he/him]

5 hours ago, Scion of the Mists said:

I don't think that he's involved in anybody's oaths except for Windrunners and the specific Radiant who bonds him (not all Bondsmiths).  

Oh I agree 100%.

Just wanted to point out that he approves his own Oaths as well as those for Honorspren.

I just find it interesting that it seems every other Spren, including the Stormfather, approve their own Oaths. Except Honorspren.

Of course this could all be wrong once we have more information.

[+Oltux72 he/him]

On 2/6/2019 at 5:54 AM, TheFoxQR said:

When the Humans were on Ashyn, instead of bonding with a spren and letting their investiture "initiate" you, access to surgebinding came through diseases caused by invested bacterium/viruses. This process would not be unlike bonding a spren, the end result is still your spiritweb being suffused with investiture. Except in this case, it is not about the spren's investiture, but through a spiritual and physical disease causing vector suffusing you with investiture.

But why would they give that up? That part is hard to explain. Some people giving up powers can be explained, but not all. The recreance was not complete. And in that case we are talking about a far smaller number already selected to care about oaths.
There must be something about Ashyn we don't know. It seems like they originally bonded with something else and found a replacement that could be used in the new floating cities. Something that could not just be taken to Roshar. Trees?

[+Invocation]

7 hours ago, Jace21 said:

I just find it interesting that it seems every other Spren, including the Stormfather, approve their own Oaths. Except Honorspren.

 

Well, they are probably like that because, well, honor and all that. The Stormfather more of less lays down the rules for them, so he accepts the Oaths for them as well, as the largest chunk of Honor left.

[Bigmikey357 he/him]

It's important to remember that for all a Shard's power they cannot withhold power from a user that meets the conditions for using the magic. We see an example of this concept when Kaladin is reaching for Oath 3. Syl straight up tells her stormdaddy that since Kaladin said the Words it's outta his hands, Kal gets the power. Honor may indeed be the check on the KR progression, but I think the process is somewhat autonomous. The power itself knows when a user meets the conditions necessary to advance. If those conditions are met then power is granted regardless of whether the granting authority likes the user or not.

Of the people we've seen give Oaths on screen:

Dalinar

Kaladin

Shallan(Truths)

Lyft

Szeth

Lopen 

Teft

Dalinar and Kaladin were spoken to directly by Stormfather. Dalinar is directly bonded to him so that makes sense. Kaladin was the first dude to bond Honorspen in a couple millennia. Furthermore he bonded Syl, one of the first Honorspen created by Stormfather instead of Tanavast. He's got a bond to all Honorspen now. I'm not sure he's actually accepting the Oath, rather he's acknowledging that that the key works. So Lopen and Teft probably get that same treatment, though it could be their Spren delivering the news. After all, when a Knight speaks an Oath there's an accompanying power boost likely related to an opening into the Spiritual Realm. Stormfather isn't the only one who sees this and thus can deliver the news.

If the Stormfather is simply acknowledging that the correct Words have been spoken then he isn't unique. Presumably any spren affected can do it. 

[+TheFoxQR]

 

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

There must be something about Ashyn we don't know. It seems like they originally bonded with something else and found a replacement that could be used in the new floating cities. Something that could not just be taken to Roshar. Trees?

Like there are spren on Roshar, Ashyn had disease causing vectors like viruses and bacteria that evolved to give you powers. So you would want to be diseased, and keep them around in your system, and they could thrive. We know this because of WoB, and that one reading where he read a little bit of The Silence Divine, which is set on Ashyn. It seems on Ashyn, society developed along those lines, with medicine focusing on how to quickly infect and cure oneself. As to why they didn't bring it offworld, perhaps the reasoning is similar to how spren can't go offworld without specific measures, which they didn't know. So those viruses and bacteria are confined to Ashyn until someone figures out how to untether them from that planet.

 

1 hour ago, Oltux72 said:

But why would they give that up? That part is hard to explain. Some people giving up powers can be explained, but not all. The recreance was not complete. And in that case we are talking about a far smaller number already selected to care about oaths.

As to why the Recreance was unanimous, it has to do with the fact that every Knight Radiant was a specific kind of person. That is the whole point of ideals. And Honor was much more actively involved at the time. So every Knight Radiant knew how Honor was going mad. Perhaps the Recreance was Honor's doing too, before he died. He would know (or perhaps consulted Cultivation) that Taln would not break for a very long time, and he realised that there would be a long gap between his death and the next desolation. In this case, he was convinced that without himself to moderate and guide the KR, they were a genuine threat to Roshar.

 

Regardless, the Recreance was a deliberate, planned sequence of events by the KR, and it was accomplished in such a way that its fallout was exactly what they wanted - a distrust towards surgebinding from the human side and a distrust of humans from the spren side. These are not misconstrued, misinterpreted or misunderstood consequences, like Ruin was doing on Scadrial.

[+TheFoxQR]

3 hours ago, Bigmikey357 said:

It's important to remember that for all a Shard's power they cannot withhold power from a user that meets the conditions for using the magic. We see an example of this concept when Kaladin is reaching for Oath 3. Syl straight up tells her stormdaddy that since Kaladin said the Words it's outta his hands, Kal gets the power. Honor may indeed be the check on the KR progression, but I think the process is somewhat autonomous. The power itself knows when a user meets the conditions necessary to advance. If those conditions are met then power is granted regardless of whether the granting authority likes the user or not.

Maybe the form of moderation was the structure of Oaths themselves?

 

As in, there were initially no restrictions on spren bonding, and no restriction on progression. Maybe the entire Oaths and progression thingy came about as a sort of Contract between the ten kinds of Spren, Humans, and Honor. Kind of like how the Heralds went to Honor with the "contract" for the Oathpact and he granted it to them. And, while Honor was alive, he could enforce this "structure" on the magical system. So, like a different way of saying this would be that the magic system was broad, and then they sort of modified/tightened it up. And so when Honor was dying, he was convinced that once he died, this enforced structure would collapse, surgebinding would no longer be restricted to a select few, and chaos would ensue. But then the Stormfather sort of became Honor's cognitive shadow, and so the structure still sort of held. Or he held it.

This fits with the upholding of Oaths and bonds interpretation of Honor that we have seen from Tanavast so far.

Side Speculation: During the recreance, there was only one Bondsmith, and he was bonded to the Sibling. This is why the Sibling is "sleeping",  and why the Stormfather and Nightwatcher survived.

Also, is this why the spren never bonded to the Singers? Because they were initially excluded from that initial contract?

Edited February 7, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[+Oltux72 he/him]

35 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

Like there are spren on Roshar, Ashyn had disease causing vectors like viruses and bacteria that evolved to give you powers. So you would want to be diseased, and keep them around in your system, and they could thrive. We know this because of WoB, and that one reading where he read a little bit of The Silence Divine, which is set on Ashyn.

Yes. Now. Always?

35 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

It seems on Ashyn, society developed along those lines, with medicine focusing on how to quickly infect and cure oneself.

When? Since settlement or since the calmity that forced the exodus to Roshar and the rest into the floating cities?

35 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

As to why they didn't bring it offworld, perhaps the reasoning is similar to how spren can't go offworld without specific measures, which they didn't know. So those viruses and bacteria are confined to Ashyn until someone figures out how to untether them from that planet.

Bacteria and viruses are physical entities. Aviars, aethers and Taldainian sand can be brought offworld, even to another solar system. The sand is confirmed to still work. Breaths can be brought offworld and keep working. Shades can be taken offworld. And the bacteria would be moved within a solar system whose planets all are under the influence of the same Shards.

35 minutes ago, TheFoxQR said:

As to why the Recreance was unanimous, it has to do with the fact that every Knight Radiant was a specific kind of person. That is the whole point of ideals.

Indeed. Yet Ashyn's current magic does not involve oaths. So why did the people coming from Ashyn give up their magic unanimously?

[+TheFoxQR]

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Yes. Now. Always?

When? Since settlement or since the calmity that forced the exodus to Roshar and the rest into the floating cities?

Yes, Ashyn's medical advancement and the diseases granting surges have to be pre-calamity. Otherwise using them to keep cities afloat wouldn't make sense. Also, Calamities like that usually regress societies, not progress. That is not to say new things haven't been developed after, just that the primary means by which the floating cities remain functional have to have been known before. The PoV character even mentions the dangerousness of the powers granted by the diseases when he is pondering on the devastation.

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Bacteria and viruses are physical entities. Aviars, aethers and Taldainian sand can be brought offworld, even to another solar system. The sand is confirmed to still work. Breaths can be brought offworld and keep working. Shades can be taken offworld. And the bacteria would be moved within a solar system whose planets all are under the influence of the same Shards.

There is a fallacy here. The distinction isn't about being physical or cognitive. It's about how invested are you, where does that investiture come from, and what is it's nature?

We do not know how any of those work precisely. We do not know anything about what the special steps required for something like the Spren or Kelsier going offworld are. So I'm not gonna speculate there.

Azure, Hoid, and Mraize are all very cosmere aware people. If any of those things have this restriction, these characters could feasibly have taken the steps required to untether it. So I'm not sure if we can use those as examples here.

2 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Indeed. Yet Ashyn's current magic does not involve oaths. So why did the people coming from Ashyn give up their magic unanimously?

Again, you're assuming Ashyn's magic system works on Roshar, or if they even had a choice. Even if it does work, I don't think that the Shards or the Singers would have let them stay if they didn't give it up. That would be like saying "I have this super powerful weapon! Look I accidentally destroyed my home with it, I'm bringing it to your place. Can I stay there for a while?" It could easily have been one of the conditions even. Maybe the Honorblades were created as a replacement. Maybe they did bring the diseases, but they died out naturally. Any of these could be true, and none of it could be true too. I'm just speculating.

Edited February 7, 2019 by TheFoxQR

[Jace21 he/him]

5 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

Indeed. Yet Ashyn's current magic does not involve oaths. So why did the people coming from Ashyn give up their magic unanimously?

I doubt they had a choice.

Keeping bacteria and viruses alive and in a host isn't as easy as it sounds. Combine the usual difficulty with a world destroying cataclysm and a conpletely new planet/environment and I imagine all Ashyn bacteria/viruses on Roshar died shortly before or after the humans arrival.