Blackmail Theory: The Real Recreance

[ConfusedCow]

Brandon released a thoughtful and personal political statement about BLM which I appreciated.  Nevertheless, I'm having too much fun posting my theories on here.  This one ranges quite a bit so bear with me and as always I welcome disagreement and correction.  Spoilers for Stormlight.  

Blackmail Theory: The Real Recreance

        A certain epigraph in WOR suggests that Taravangian has a secret that broke the knight's radiant in the Recreance.  We then see him releasing a secret to attack Dalinar by decoding the Eila Stele.  It is revealed that human's are not the original inhabitants of Roshar, they came, invaded, and displaced the singers.   This causes Kaladin and others some moral guilt and we are led to believe that this is the secret that broke the Knight's Radiant.  Except I don't buy it.  The knights who abandoned their oaths, abandoned their fight against a mad god, gave up their super powers, and killed their best friends.  I might have felt guilty if I was a knight during the Recreance, attempted to make peace with the Singers, find a way to co-exist, even some kind of reperations. I wouldn't abandon everything because my ancestors were guilty of a horrible crime.  I don't really have to wonder about this. I'm a white man in the south.  I think we should build a world that's good for all of us now (liberal socialism) and not hold people accountable for the sins of their ancestors.  I also get that this is a self serving point of view.  My own ethics aside, it is hard to imagine an ethical system that would require the Radiants to abandon their entire civilization and way of life because of their  displacement of a native people in the distant past.  Nor did the Radiants actually help the Singers during the Recreance they left them a broken enslaved people. Finally, the idea that humans aren't from Roshar (excluding Shinovar) can't have been that big a secret.  Jasnah figured it out without help. Dalinar who though sometimes clever is not a scientist almost figures this out.  Really anyone familiar with evolutionary biology would figure this out pretty quickly.  Where is the human evolutionary branch?  There are barely any other mammals. If that's not enough a quick examination of the fossil record would be.  Scholars on Roshar had to think human's came from Shinovar at least.  Perhaps this information was subsequently suppressed by Vorinism but I don't think it came as a surprise during the Recreance.  Taravangian hasn't played his trump card.  He was attacking Dalinar, trying to control the Knight's Radiant not destroy them.  Indeed, destroying them completely would have removed his bargaining power with Odium. So what is the secret that broke the Radiants?  

        Before we answer that, we need to pause and consider two seperate questions.   First, what does the ecology of Roshar look like? We have seen that spren are deeply tied to several species of greatshells, but there are continual references to spren being involved intimately with other animals, Ryshadium, sky eels, fish in the pure lake.  The spren involved with the greatshells seem to be exploiting something similar to a surge of gravitation.  Can other species access other pseudosurges?  Perhaps fish in the Purelake access regrowth through a spren, which explains why they can cure aches and pains. Grasses could access cohesion to help them burrow into rocks.  Birds could use adhesion to glue their eggs in their nests during highstorms.  Cremlings could access illumination to hide from predators.  Rockbuds could use transformation instead of nitrogen fixing bacteria.  The possibilities are endless.  I believe that spren are tied far more deeply to the ecology on Roshar than we are aware of.   Such an ecology would be far stranger than any we are familiar with on earth.  Ecosystems on earth are rather strictly bounded by things like, amount of sunlight, available water, temperature, oxygen levels, and available nutrients.  Answer a few basic questions about these types of things and I can predict a great deal about the kind of life you are likely to find in such an ecosystem.  Not so on Roshar, spren and the surges they offer allow all kinds of work arounds to these limitations.  We can expect life on Roshar to be stranger, more varied.  Indeed, the spren have their own ecosystem. There are clear references to spren eating each other during the trip to Thaylen city.  These sprensystems must overlap somehow with Rosharan ecosystems.  We know so little about spren.  What do they get out of their interactions in the physical realm?  Are they immortal?  Do they reform or reproduce in someway? What sustains them?  What would a spren food chain look like?  I don't have the answers here except to speculate that this deep connection to spren makes the Rosharan ecology almost 4 dimensional in nature.  

        Second, how does Odium plan to kill Cultivation? He is not simply seeking to conquer Roshar.  He is planning to cause the total ecological collapse of all life on the continent.  This is how Odium killed Honor, he caused Honor to invest himself in humans and then he caused those humans to act dishonorably breaking that investiture away from Honor leading to his madness and death. Similarly, Odium observes Cultivation causing life to florish all across Roshar.  When Odium kills all of that life he will cause her investiture to act against her intent.  This is foreshadowed by the fate Ashyn, the scowering of Aimia, and Honor's ravings about the Radiants and the danger of their Shards.  It is also a not uncommon theme in Brandon's other books. How does Odium intend to end all life on Roshar? This is the secret that broke the Knight's Radiant.  Humans and especially surge binders are destroying and are fundamentally destructive to the ecology of Roshar outside of Shinovar.  The human presence outside of Shinovar is causing a slow but inevitable environmental catastophy, not unlike global warming.  Humans with their mere presence and emotions are attracting Spren and interacting with them, surgebinders even more so. They are disturbing the key element that makes the Rosharan ecology work.  There are limited numbers of spren in each area, many of whom are drawn preferentially to humans.  Even in victory the Radiants are destorying Roshar and Cultivation.  That's why the humans were originally confined to Shinovar.  That's why the Shin refuse to leave the valley of truth.  That's how humans ended up harming the sibling.  That's why so many parts of Roshar are barren and empty, unclaimed hills, frostlands, Aimia, etc... That's why the Radiants betrayed humanity.  It was a noble gesture to save Roshar or at least forstall the end.  Odium is confident in victory not because of his past record of success but because there is no path to victory.  Fall before Odium's armies and he will orchestrate the systematic destruction of Roshar's ecology unopposed. Defeat Odium by using surgebinding and the ecosystem will collapse everyone will starve, Cultivation will die, and Odium be set free.  (Not really, I think Stormlight will have a happy ending where everyone lives)  Thanks for reading my theory.  

[+Hoiditthroughthegrapevine he/him]

This is an incredibly interesting theory, and a better explanation for the Recreance than what we got in Oathbringer.

I really like the idea that normal spren might function as conduits for investiture, and that it's not just the Radiant spren that grant the power of the surges. Your ecological analysis seems spot on, and it's interesting to think of the all the spren being both cause and effect, and that their manifestation might be a sign that a small amount of investiture has been used to some effect. In the case of say, the attraction of creationspren, they are drawn to the singular-ness of the act of creation, but maybe their arrival is also a small dispensation of additional investiture which then would further fuel that creation.

That they are playing a vital role in the ecology of Roshar, and that specifically each one is a small thread leading back to Cultivation is a really cool theory, and that furthermore that the Radiant's use of their surges upsets this balance and is itself a direct attack on Cultivation is ingenious. With this knowledge, Tanavast himself might have encouraged the Recreance to save his beloved Cultivation. The ravings and madness might have been a canned act to spur the dissolution of the Knights Radiant, and in this light Nale might once again be a hero, by stemming the resurgence of the Knights Radiant.

This is all very interesting to think about, and I'll definitely have to give this more thought, but off the top of my head the one seeming flaw with this is that Human's and their society routinely draw spren. Humans are not native to Roshar, so doesn't this imply that this might in and of itself upset the ecological balance by drawing power away from the Ecology. This might be answered by the fact that power draw for emphasis spren is less than what a Knight Radiant would use by several magnitures, but the net effect of this divergence of energy would surely have some sort of effect.

I'm hoping that we get some scenes from Jasnah's POV in book 4, specifically her grilling the Cryptics about exactly what is going, I think those would be awesome to read and would ultimately clear up a lot of the ambiguities that still exist.

Currently out of upvotes, but I'll get you one later, this is a really fun theory!

[Gears]

Brilliant. I always thought the reasoning behind the Recreance was a little shallow. So they conquered the planet, subjugated the native people, and lied about it to everyone. Surely some of them wouldn't care. This theory fits perfectly. 

[Eternal Khol he/him]

2 hours ago, ConfusedCow said:

That's why so many parts of Roshar are barren and empty, unclaimed hills, frostlands, Aimia, etc... 

i think that might be the Highstorm pal.

if we had a hurricane sweep across the US every week or two, im pretty sure there would be some pretty barren locations too

 

 

2 hours ago, ConfusedCow said:

This is how Odium killed Honor, he caused Honor to invest himself in humans and then he caused those humans to act dishonorably breaking that investiture away from Honor leading to his madness and death.

yeah, i dont think its a simple as having humans go against a Intent. there have been and always will be people who act "dishonorably"

 

 

2 hours ago, ConfusedCow said:

Similarly, Odium observes Cultivation causing life to florish all across Roshar.  When Odium kills all of that life he will cause her investiture to act against her intent.

again. not that simple.

thats like saying, Ati couldv'e killed Leras by following his Intent to Ruin things.

or like saying if a lot of Allomancers kill people(which they do) then that would in turn kill Preservation because they arent "Preserving"

[Tiberius Gracchus]

I would point out that the secret that was the primary cause of the Recreance was the knowledge that the humans destroyed Ashyn through "surgebinding." (or at least some form of magic, Dawnshards probably involved) This combined with Honor's descent into madness, raving at the Radiants saying that they would destroy Roshar as well, and the disastrous end of The False Desolation (the mind-breaking of almost all of the Singers) forced the drastic action of abandoning the shards and disbanding the order. (worth pointing out that the Knights tried more moderate steps like abandoning Urithiru first) 

Your theory seems like a plausible explanation for the still not understood mechanism that means that surgebinding=planetary destruction, However the only examples we have of similar events are the destruction of Ashyn and the shattering of Nattanattan, both of which are implied to have been fast, explosive events of mass destruction leaving few survivors, not gradual ecological degradation.

[Aminar]

I like the idea there was more to the Recreance(mostly because I think the current reason isn't all that convincing). But I don't think this is it. Something about surge binding broke life and forced humanity to flee their home planet. The Spren being drawn to humans is pretty much that humans feel more diverse emotions. A war form Listener isn't going to get a Creation Spren no matter how hard it works. A human can go from a Creation Spren to an Anger Spren to a Glory Spren in the time it takes to write a single beautiful sentence and follow it up with a Gloom Spren a minute later. 

Which is besides the point. I don't think the destruction wreaked from Surge Binding is because it draws Spren away from things. I think it's a function of the old magic system. Odium's version of Surge binding. Using passion to fuel destructive magics comes with obvious downsides. Imagine Division being powered by Rage. Angry people would be terrifying. 

In addition Cultivation is kind of the opposite of wild growth. It's planned Growth. It's almost anti-ecology. So I'm not sure she'd be killed by destroying nature. 

[Tiberius Gracchus]

12 minutes ago, Aminar said:

I like the idea there was more to the Recreance(mostly because I think the current reason isn't all that convincing)

I am pretty sure that the more complicated explanation of the Recreance is canon, it is just rather poorly communicated in OB, (a lot of the details around the additional factors are hidden in epigraphs and the reveal of the Elia Stele is given more narrative weight) 

[Honorless he/him]

Wasn't it the destruction of Ashyn, caused by the Surges that caused the Radiants to abandon their Oaths. The truth about the original Voidbringers was emotionally devastating, of course, but the logic of it was the destructive capacity? Plus, Honor was going mad and raving at them, the Radiants' worthiness was being questioned, there were Odium's forces active despite the Heralds' reassurance that the war was over.

It was probably the straw that broke the camel's back

[Aminar]

15 minutes ago, Tiberius Gracchus said:

I am pretty sure that the more complicated explanation of the Recreance is canon, it is just rather poorly communicated in OB, (a lot of the details around the additional factors are hidden in epigraphs and the reveal of the Elia Stele is given more narrative weight) 

I don't find the complicated version all that convincing either. They destroyed the planet with unrestrained power granted by the god of make decisions with your feelings. All it takes is one look at the Thrill to realize how the planet was destroyed, and why the Nahel Bond largely invalidates that. I can see it causing unrest and some people to forsake their oaths. But all the orders but the Skybreakers? It doesn't make sense to me. People don't act in that uniform a manner because of something that happened millenia ago. There's a reason there's a million different variations of a handful of major religions out there. People can't all agree the Earth is Round, let alone that they should abandon protecting the world. The Cognitive Genocide and enslavement of the Singers is far more devastating a choice. The Radiants actually did that and kept going. But it's so much worse.

[Tiberius Gracchus]

20 minutes ago, Aminar said:

The Cognitive Genocide and enslavement of the Singers is far more devastating a choice. The Radiants actually did that and kept going. But it's so much worse.

The Radiants didn't continue after the Cognitive Genocide (good term btw) it is suggested that the Recreance took place immediately after that. (The Radiants are seen abandoning Roshar during wartime) it is my view that the factional fighting between Radiant orders, Honor's madness, the fear of destroying Roshar and the instability of Urithiru (Re-Shephir and The Sibling) first convinced the Knights to slowly dissolve the orders and downscale surgebinding but then the unexpected disaster of the Cognitive Genocide was the factor that forced the Radiants to abandon their shards immediately en masse. (and imho the Skybreakers would have fully disbanded with the others without Nale's personal intervention)

[Aminar]

9 minutes ago, Tiberius Gracchus said:

The Radiants didn't continue after the Cognitive Genocide (good term btw) it is suggested that the Recreance took place immediately after that. (The Radiants are seen abandoning Roshar during wartime) it is my view that the factional fighting between Radiant orders, Honor's madness, the fear of destroying Roshar and the instability of Urithiru (Re-Shephir and The Sibling) first convinced the Knights to slowly dissolve the orders and downscale surgebinding but then the unexpected disaster of the Cognitive Genocide was the factor that forced the Radiants to abandon their shards immediately en masse. (and imho the Skybreakers would have fully disbanded with the others without Nale's personal intervention)

The timeline suggests they left Urithiru after the Cognitive Genocide but continued for some time after that. Or at least that was what the Crystal Epigraph's seemed to suggest that was what was happening. I remember it being suggested that the Feverstone Keep Vision wasn't exactly factual, so much as a symbolic version of the Recreance. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Aminar

[Tiberius Gracchus]

2 minutes ago, Aminar said:

The timeline suggests they left Urithiru after the Cognitive Genocide but continued for some time after that. Or at least that was what the Crystal Epigraph's seemed to suggest that was what was happening. 

All of the Crystals are recorded a short time before the CG there is discussion of Melishi setting off on a mission to capture Ba Ado Mishram, but none about the results of his mission, also the soldiers at Feverstone Keep obviously have not received word that the war is won.

My understanding of the timeline is

1: Radiant's losing faith in themselves. (Honor, Ashyn reveal, infighting)

2: False Desolation begins (proves Herald's promise false)

3: Problems in Urithiru (Re Shephir, Climate, Sibling)

4: Abandoning of Urithiru

5: Cognative Genocide

6: Recrence

(those last three take place over like a week)

I hope Brandon gets into some more detail about this in RoW, I think many people are confused about this (I was when I first read OB) because the main narrative is really only concerned with the Colonialism angle and the rest is relegated to visions, epigraphs and Stormfather ramblings.

[Cammac]

My theory is that another shard was on Ashern who provided surges to the humans. Then odium came along and splintered this shard, removing any regulation of the surges and causing destruction of the planet.

Then the humans travel to roshar. I still havent figured out how the humans and listeners both at some point end up under odiums influence. Skip forward in time, humans having surges from honor this time. When honor is splintered it again removes the regulation of the surges power and the radiants unwittingly cause the devastation of the shattered plains, accidentally killing everyone in Narak . This leads them to abandon their oaths.

[+Q10fanatic]

Ooh! This is really interesting. One thing that may support this: Shallan's early conversation with Adolin in WoR where she talks about chasmfiends. Remember, she actually directly raises the point with him that the systematic hunting of the apex predator in the ecosystem will have serious unintended consequences for the Shattered Plains (and beyond since they don't know where chasmfiends live when they aren't pupating).

Actually, this makes me wonder. What happened to Roshar's ecosystem after the Singers were functionally wiped out? The Singers were the dominant civilization over all of Roshar before humans showed up. That would make them the actual apex predators. We know what Singers/Listeners get from spren but we don't know what spren or Roshar got from the Parsh.

[SamoaJ]

Hey there! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the Blackmail Theory and the Real Recreance.

[thephenomenal12]

It's fascinating how Shallan's conversation with Adolin in WoR about chasmfiends potentially causing unintended consequences for the Shattered Plains and beyond may support the theory. It really makes you wonder what happened to Roshar's ecosystem after the Singers were wiped out and how they may have been the actual apex predators. There's still so much we don't know about spren and Roshar's history with the Parsh.

Also, it's worth checking https://digitalinvestigation.com/sextortion. It's important to be vigilant and protect both our family life and reputation online. It's true that not paying blackmailers may not make them go away, and threats could continue. It's good to have resources and expertise in dealing with such situations.

Edited April 26, 2023 by thephenomenal12