Theory on the Recreance, Honor's death, the Tones, and theFalse Desolation

[ftl]

So, we've always known in the past that a bunch of important events happened close to each other in time -  the Radiants leaving Urithiru, the False Desolation and the trapping of Ba-Ado-Mishram, the Recreance, Honor's death. Close in time, but not the same time.

I think in Rhythm of War, we learn a bunch of tidbits of information that may tie into a unified theory for how these all fit together.

My genesis for this theory is the discrepancy between the Tones of Roshar as they exist now and as the Sibling remembers them. Navani and the Sibling have a conversation about this in chapter 65:
 

Quote

 

"“Two tones of Roshar?” Navani said. “There are three.”

“No, there are two. One from my mother, one from my father. The tone of Odium is an interloper. False.

“Could part of the reason you lost your abilities relate to that tone becoming a pure tone of Roshar? Odium truly becoming one of the three gods?”

I … don’t know, the Sibling admitted.”

 

Navani's idea makes sense given the history. Odium and Cultivation were here first. They made the Sibling together. At the time, there were only Two true tones of Roshar. Odium has continually resisted Investing himself into Roshar, so did not have a Tone for a long time; eventually, he had Invested enough that he got one. In fact, that was probably the moment that the Sibling lost some abilities - when they no longer had access to all of Roshar's tones. But this all gave rise to a horrible cascade of events.


So here my final proposed timeline.
1. Honor and Cultivation were on Roshar first. Their Tones were the True Tones of Roshar. They made the Sibling, were part of the ecosystem as the highstorm cycle, etc. The fight against Odium starts and keeps going.

2. Sometime before the False Desolation, Odium and Honor have one last clash. (I think we don't have info on this, yet. Maybe it was Odium trying to do something to force Taln to break?) In this, Odium wounds Honor, but at the cost of Investing himself more heavily in Roshar than he wants.

3. ...this Connects him more heavily to Roshar, making his Tone one of the True Tones of Roshar, giving Ba-Ado-Mishram he ability to power up Singers with his Light, and making the Sibling lose some of their powers (since they're missing one of the three tones of Roshar and don't know it.).

3. The False Desolation happens. At its conclusion, Melishi traps Ba-Ado-Mishram.

4. ...but in doing so, it disrupts *everyone's* connection to the third tone of Roshar - Spren and Singer alike.

5. In this, the humans firsthand have a look at just how much damage radiant powers can cause. It's no longer theoretical, it's not just Honor raving about how they destroyed Ashyn a long time ago - they can SEE what their powers can accidentally do. (Maybe they see themselves as being one or two gemstones away from destroying all spren or even all life on Roshar, or something like that, who knows what they conclude about what would happen if the Stormfather or Nightwatcher was similarly trapped.)

6. The Radiants decide that the only way out is to remove their powers from the equation entirely. The Recreance happens; perhaps the Skybreakers are left behind to ensure that no radiant orders reform, maybe their surges are deemed safe?

7. ...except the Recreance is even worse than they imagined. They knew breaking their bonds would hurt their spren; they did not realize that since the Spren's connection with Roshar was ALSO broken, that they would get deadeyed instead of eventually, after pain, reforming in the Cognitive.

8. And it gets worse. Honor, already being wounded, was dealt the killing blow by all radiant bonds being broken at the same time.

9. Since before this, making bonds was safe, most spren that didn't mind bonding had already done so; none of the spren who were "left behind" were the kind to study realmatic theory and understand exactly what just happened, given the huge casualties they'd just had. And so Spren society, decimated as it was, did not retain the knowledge of why the Recreance went wrong. Humans, having lost touch with their spren, had no idea what horrors they'd done. And so it was lost to time - leaving everyone, spren and human, to make up their own stories of what happened and why.

Edited November 21, 2020 by ftl

[KandraAllomancer]

On 21.11.2020 at 8:17 AM, ftl said:

2. Sometime before the False Desolation, Odium and Honor have one last clash. (I think we don't have info on this, yet. Maybe it was Odium trying to do something to force Taln to break?) In this, Odium wounds Honor, but at the cost of Investing himself more heavily in Roshar than he wants.

I agree with all your points except this one. Odium was completely bound to Braize at this point and BAM started to act against his wishes and interest (and using Adhesion as well). Something happened to her that did Connected her to Roshar, but my bet would be on "uncorrupting" her with Honor's Investiture, leading to the creation of the Rhythm of War and corrupted spren of Honor and Odium like Glys