kari-no-sugata

A single Radiant can have multiple squires. We know little about technical details of squires but I'd be surprised if the details of the Radiant/Squire bond is unrelated to the Spren/Radiant bond. For "normal" spren they are mostly in the Cognitive Realm and forming a bond pulls them into the Physical Realm which affects their mind -which is why breaking the bond can "kill" them. However, the Stormfather is already heavily in the Physical Realm which suggests that forming a bond with him has little effect on his mind... and that breaking it would have little effect. Edit: The "anti-gravity spren" we see around Chasamfiends etc are another example of a "many-to-one" bond. It's worth remembering that Radiants were not designed by the Shards - they're more like an emergent property of Roshar's magic system.

There sure were lots of "sequels" this season. Was pretty disappointed with Wixoss sequel (end of first half was quite awesome cliffhanger) but on reflection the sequel was kinda "more of the same" overall. Thought Psycho-Pass sequel was quite flawed in several areas. Mostly happy with how Log Horizon has gone. Outside of sequels, best new show for a general audience was "Your Lie in April"... though if you've been around the anime block a few times and feel that you've kinda seen it all then maybe best was "Gonna be Twintail", depending on what works for you. This show was quite a surprise for me, since if you read the basic premise it seems like the sort of thing you'd just want to toss in the bin... but actually it's quite good and manages to subvert your expectations nicely while being lots of fun. However, it did dip quite a bit around eps 5-10, particularly in animation quality. One interesting show was "Rage of Bahamut: Genesis" since for the first few minutes I was "whee, epic fantasy with high production values!" but quickly became disappointed with the show, mostly because the characterisation felt quite generic - the most interesting character was the zombie girl. However, I decided to keep watching and the ending was decent. The stand-out show for this season though was "Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works". If you've seen Fate/Zero but not the "Fate/stay night" anime from the last decade then this would be a sequel though technically Fate/Zero is a prequel (and based on a novel rather than a visual novel so has a different feel). Now, it certainly didn't hurt that this show had a big budget (I saw a number of "Unlimited Budget Works" jokes) but the thing that made it a joy for me was the characterisation, starting with the delicious double-length "episode 0". Shame we have to wait 3 months for the second half but it'll be worth it. Incidentally...a few months ago when reading some F/SN background notes I got an idea for how Shardplate is made in the Stormlight Archive because of some interesting similarities between magic systems. Unfortunately, explaining would possibly be a big spoiler for UBW. Looking ahead to the next/current anime season, there's not been anything I was particularly excited about. Hopefully there's some nice surprise out there for me...

Before WoR came out I was thinking there was a good chance that at some point Shallan would hear that her remaining family had been killed or similar. My expectations for book 3 are fairly similar. I have no problem with having my expectations confounded but certainly there's a lot that could go wrong: with the Everstorm everything has gotten a lot more dangerous and they have quite a bit of travelling to do (maybe a month or so in "normal" times) We don't even know if Mraize is telling the truth. Either way, the Ghostbloods are an additional problem - Shallan does not like them or their philosophy and I'd be very surprised if that changes any time soon, particularly since they can be quite casual about killing others. Even if the brothers do make it safely to Urithiru they won't be out of danger - far from it. I suspect there will be a lot of tension even if there's been no overt threats. Ignoring the Ghostbloods etc and assuming they do in fact meet up, what would my expectations be? Certainly, Shallan has changed a lot. Have her brothers changed at all? I'd expect there to be some changes though nothing like how much Shallan has changed.... though in a way, I don't think Shallan has fundamentally changed much yet, more that she has reverted to what she would have been like. Her brothers see her as "timid" but she's not naturally timid - she learned to be that way to deal with her situation. Putting it more generally, she adapted to her situation (her abusive father, her terrible memories, her broken family) and now that she has been released from that (mostly) she's been free to revert. One area where she has probably changed fundamentally is self-confidence - when we first meet her she's often downplaying herself and is still doing that a lot early in WoR (though I note that she's still using a lot of self-deprecating humour towards the end). Ignoring the Ghostbloods still, what would be sources of tension? For Shallan, the big one I see would be telling her brothers the truth about mother's death - this would be a very hard thing to do but her brothers do deserve the truth. I would not be at all surprised to see Shallan getting quite stressed out over this, similarly to how she was getting quite stressed during the last part of WoR. For the brothers, the main source of tension would be the "gap" that has developed between them - Shallan is now effectively an international superstar and they're a broken bunch from a minor noble house.

I don't see a contradiction here - they weren't merely "muggers" but people who robbed and murdered others on three occasions (whether the victims were entirely random or not is never explained). In countries with the death penalty such crimes would normally merit capital punishment. btw, when I say doing things "properly", I mean trying to resolve the situation where the Watch were not investigating the murders - the "proper" thing to do is to leave law and order to the authorities or to fix the authorities if they're not doing their job. Of course, either would take time. Going back to what Ivory might think another thing to consider is that spren like Ivory who have taken the choice upon themselves to bond with humans against what their fellow spren think would clearly be outliers. That doesn't necessarily make them more "aggressive" of course, though they should be more willing to take an activist/interventionist stance, which is basically what Jasnah did with the robbers. Edit: Thanks for digging up that quote Moogle.

One of the enjoyable things about the Stormlight Archive is that it's not dominated by one viewpoint character and we get a nice mixture - in tWoK there's a nice balance between Kaladin, Dalinar and Shallan. However, I do have a minor frustration in that we don't see much of these three from other view points. In the case of Jasnah, we have one released chapter from her viewpoint (from 6 years ago) and one beta chapter - everything else is from Shallan's perspective. My view of Shallan is that she is someone who will naturally tend to empathise with others: I think the main reason why she (initially) couldn't go through with the Soulcaster theft is that she had started empathising with Jasnah, who turned out to be very different to Shallan's expectations (you could say that Shallan had pre-created a mental image of Jasnah that she could justify robbing). By early WoR, Shallan's view of Jasnah is of someone "almost divine". It seems clear that Shallan's initial reaction to Jasnah killing the robbers and her current view are quite different. I think for Shallan that killing others is very much a last resort and something she would prefer to avoid if at all possible - but once someone has crossed a particular threshold then she doesn't really hold back. For her, I don't think the robbers had quite crossed that threshold just yet (though they would have if Jasnah had done nothing). Putting it another way, at the times of their deaths, for Shallan those robbers were not people who deserved to die - hence her reaction. For Jasnah I suspect it's something like this: the city was somewhere she was visiting. She did not have responsibilities there. However, she had became aware of a particular group of criminals doing horrible things and also that (for whatever reason) the police/guards were not doing their job. Jasnah did not have any real spare time (she's worried about the fate of the world) so didn't have the time to resolve things "properly". She also couldn't just stand by and let more crimes continue when she knew she could do something. So she was prepared to kill in advance - her perspective and thresholds are different to Shallan's. I would say that Jasnah deliberately and knowingly committed vigilante justice.... and also that she only took action because the authorities did not. The problem with such actions is she is playing judge, jury and executioner - if everyone did the same it would be chaos. I'm pretty sure she understands that too. But what does Ivory understand? I really have no idea at present - there's not enough information. I would like to raise one point though: Jasnah does not seem to be a full Radiant, despite having about 6 years of continuous experience with Ivory - at least she says she's not. This is somewhat speculative but this does feel "slow" in comparison to the others. This is not to say that Ivory necessarily disagreed with Jasnah over the robbers but it wouldn't surprise me if they've had other issues of contention that slowed down the development of the Nahel bond.

I'm pretty sure I asked him that using pretty much the exact same words. He said good question but didn't answer it The thing I'm kicking myself for not asking: When was the Recreance? (not what caused it, just when was it) Bonus question: how many Bondsmiths were alive at the time of the Recreance?

I was using the scenario requested by the thread starter - an open plain etc. This would mean Szeth would only have Stormlight from any spheres he is carrying and would not be able to get any more. Likewise, Vin would be limited by how many vials she is carrying. btw, I've not yet voted on this because I've not yet been able to come to a conclusion in my mind about who would likely come on top. One mistake I definitely made previously is that Szeth can't just make Vin fly up into the sky - as you said, he has to touch her. I doubt he could then adjust the Surge without touching her again. Also agree that it would definitely be a valid tactic for either to try to make the other run out of Stormlight/metals - probably lot easier for Vin to do Szeth unless he can make her waste metals with Duralium burns. We've seen Szeth burn through Stormlight at a rapid rate but then he's often been facing multiple opponents. Not sure how efficient he could be when facing just one opponent. I think the main two problems for Vin is that Szeth can heal very fast - she almost needs an instant-kill hit to be able to win, or at least a knock-out blow that then allows her to finish him off... so long as Szeth has a lot of Stormlight left. Forcing him to use lots of Stormlight for healing would be very effective but its easier said than done. The other big problem for Vin is Szeth's Shadeblade - it's very very dangerous for her since one hit and she would be dead or in bad shape. Although she could use a Duralium Push to knock it away, Szeth could just reclaim it and doing a Duralium Pull would be quite suicidal. I can certainly think of tactics Vin could use to good effect but hard to say exactly how effective they could be. I'm still not sure how this fight would work out... PS Happy 2015

For the Oathgates, there is a cost in Stormlight roughly proportional to how much is being transported so the Radiants would at least need to cover their costs with some kind of tax. Given that Stormlight is seemingly readily available, why would costs go up? Some possibilities (1) if the Radiants then were independently funded (ie most most of their income came from the Oathgate tax) that would mean that if the number of Radiants increases then so would the taxes (2) The Radiants wanted to expand their range of operations (or just got greedy) and so increased the tax (3) Something made Stormlight more expensive (gems became rarer? Highstorms became rarer?) (4) Something increased the Stormlight requirements for powering the Oathgate. The loss of Urithiru seems likely to be damaging to the world economy - not just trade but also political relations since countries would become more isolated (they didn't have spanreeds back then unless their recent invention is actually a re-invention). This would also make it hard for the Radiants to stay united and above nations/politics - either they all/mostly settle in one country or they split by their country of origin (either option has problems). The loss of Urithiru seems to imply terrible leadership by itself - unless the Radiants themselves are a problem I don't see how it could be a good idea to abandon Urithiru. We currently have no real idea what Bondsmiths can actually do but they seem key to the Radiants overall. I'd be quite surprised if the Bondsmith situation was "normal" at the time of the Recreance: for example, there may have been none. Or there could have been the typical 3 but they couldn't agree on things. Or there could have been one and that person could have been inadequate (or corrupted in subtle ways).

Okay, so continuing my mental simulation: let's skip the "warm up" of the fight except to say that Vin (obviously) noticed that Szeth's Shardblade is metal but when she tries to push on it she meets heavy "resistance" (like trying to push on the Lord Ruler's bracelets for example). She guesses a Duralumin Push may work but doesn't want to waste an attempt. Szeth tosses Vin up into the air and keeps her there. She throws some coins around and some find enough purchase in cracks that she can Push on them somewhat (enough to move her around to a degree). Szeth makes some attempts to slash her while leaping at her but she is able to evade with her Pushes (still stuck up in the air). Szeth could probably figure out a way to corner her though and goes for the kill. Vin decides to try a Duralumin Push on Szeth's Shardblade. I see two ways this could go depending on timing: if Vin pushes early then Szeth would probably have enough time to recover by the time her reaches her - since he would have Stormlight and Vin would have no metals left after the Duralumin Push, he should be able to deal some heavy damage to her. If instead Vin waits for the optimal moment to Push (when Szeth his in mid-swing) then she could quite possibly dislocate his shoulder while Duralumin Pushing his Shardblade away. This would also give Szeth less time to recover and Vin would probably be able to deal some extra damage to him but since she wouldn't have any metals left at that point the damage would be limited (unless she would be able to use an obsidian knife for example). Also, Szeth would be able to break way and heal his wounds (and probably recover the Shardblade if he wants to). This would imply a stale-mate situation at best for Vin. However, if Szeth doesn't realise that her weak physical attack immediately after the Duralumin Push was a once-off then he might mistakenly think that her attacks will always be weak. So if he decides to try to leap at her (while she's still stuck up in the air) and finish her off with his martial arts then he would be very surprised by her Pewter fueled strength (presumably she'd be able to drink another vial in between) - in hand-to-hand close combat I think Vin would have a significant advantage. I think the more they fought and the more they understood each others powers the more of an advantage Szeth would have. Vin is definitely very resourceful and tricky to fight (more so than Szeth IMO) but she has no way to block Szeth's Surges while he can (likely) block her long distance attacks. If she had multiple secure anchors then the fight would probably be closer but that's not part of the setup and not something she can just assume to have in general.

There's a lot we don't know about the Recreance, even at a meta-level: it's certainly a major event in Roshar's history but are the reasons behind it going to be directly relevant in the next 3 books? If not what about the second five? It's certainly been openly posed as a mystery but also not one that needs immediate attention. It seems logical that the new Radiants would worry about the cause of the Recreance at least. Also, the spren (and particularly the Stormfather) are still quite upset/fearful about the event. So the fact that the Recreance occured is not going to be a non-issue but how much will the precise details matter? How much can we trust the in-world Words of Radiance book? Shallan cross references it with Pattern and finds flaws - it was written a significant time after the Recreance after all. Has it been tampered with during the Heirocracy? Almost certainly - information on the Recreance is something that seems they'd be highly likely to alter to fit their preferred narrative. Are there any reliable records anywhere? Maybe but it would be really hard to even tell that an indvidual record was factually correct and complete. Are there any reliable sources/witnesses? Well, the Stormfather and Heralds should have some awareness but can we trust it to be complete and accurate? Pattern seems to believe that it is inevitible that Shalln will betray and kill him in an echo of the Recreance but is that really likely when such an event has only happened once in the history of the Radiants (that we know of)? Or is he thinking of Shallan's particular history with him? As for the actual causes, the Knights we see in Dalinar's vision certainly seemed to do it intentionally. How willingly were they doing it? Was it a collective decision? Were their sound and logical reasons for their actions? Were they in any way duped, misslead, tricked, setup...? Were any third parties directly involved and if so were they deliberately trying to cause the Knights' downfall? Jasnah states that Urithiru was abandoned before the Recreance. Together with a quote from her notebook suggests that the Radiants were weakening or faltering before the Recreance. Is this relevant (and correct)? Is there a common cause or are they pretty much unrelated?

Hmm. I've been thinking through their options and I was going to give Vin the edge but then I remembered one thing Szeth can do which is throw people up into the air and keep them there at his leisure. Within the setting, Vin would not have any fixed anchors to use to pull herself back to the ground and wouldn't be able to make any once tossed into the air. She would be able to use thrown coins to push herself around but not bring her back to the ground - she wouldn't be helpless but she'd be very vulnerable to attack. If Vin can Push or Pull on Szeth's Shardblade though then I would expect her to win... but I'd be surprised if that was possible.

Excuse me while I de-cloak for a minute... I had some similar thoughts on this... I suspect that this "influence" would also apply to Shallan's mother and quite possibly her entire family. And pretty much everyone around them - that rather than Lin being personally targeted I suspect it's something more akin to the Lord Ruler's soothing stations spread out through his city... but with real malicious intent behind it. I wouldn't be surprised if all the more mindless Unmade are "broadcasting" a particular corrupting influence each. The influence over a single day would be quite small but would build up over time, rotting away the foundations of society. Some people would be more susceptible than others - perhaps Lin was particularly susceptible. When Shallan "persuades" the deserters to help her (and change their lives around) not everyone was affected equally - some were more easily persuaded and some were not persuaded (it was much later into the book before Shallan won over the leader). Imagine that positive influence over a small area, then invert it to be a negative influence and then spread it out over a huge area. Maybe that's what some of the Unmade are doing (though whether they are using similar Surges or not I have no idea).

I would rate it as a "classic", though if you want a Big Plot you might be disappointed - most of the episodes are pretty stand-alone and self contained.

Excuse me while I de-lurk for a bit... I had a thought a while back: why did Nalan choose to call his organisation the "Skybreakers" (the ones we see in WoR)? I can think of two likely scenarios: He originally came up with the term (back when he originally accepted leadership of the order). He was disappointed with the Radiant Skybreakers and his new group are basically "Skybreakers done right" (ie his way exactly). If he didn't create the name I don't think it's likely that he'd have enough attachment to the name to do this. He approved whatever stance the Radiant Skybreakers took at the time of the Recreance and is angry at what happened to them. Whether he came up with the term originally or not he is using the name out of nostalgia/respect for the Radiant Skybreakers. If so then it could be argued that his actions in WoR are a form of revenge against the other Orders. Any thoughts?

Yes, "leakage" (ie glow) would be inversely proportional to Radiant level. Unless Brandon wants a glow just for effect then a full Radiant should be able to hold Stormlight (doing nothing with it) indefinitely and without glowing. Would rather neatly upturn the convention where "more glow = more power"

Hi Moogle, two apologies: my slowness in posting and I don't think I've given you enough credit for the quality of some of your arguments - I guess I was just surprised at the angle you were taking for some things. Anyway, I'm glad you've found this discussion to be as interesting as I have. It's somewhat off-topic but here's my current thinking on Desolations and the like from a Shard level (and why Odium might have been careful about how much power he invested on Roshar): I think we're not that far off on how important we see Radiants being as a military force, at least for the first half of the series. Here's a summary of my expectations: I'll try to get back to more on-topic topics when I can

I just suddenly remembered a theory I'd had but never posted: The basic idea is that there's something similar to "electrical resistance" going on with Radiants, in how terms of how they can hold Stormlight: the stronger the spren bond becomes the more the "resistance" falls. When the spren bond becomes strong enough the "resistance" falls to zero - ie a full Radiant is sort-of like a super-conductor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconductivity This would help explain why Radiants can't keep swearing more and more Oaths and get increasingly stronger. If this theory is correct then a "full" Radiant should be able to hold Stormlight indefinitely with no loss. However, that doesn't mean that they can store infinite amounts of Stormlight, in the same way that super-conductors cannot handle infinite current.

In previous Desolations without the Radiants they had the Heralds though. I have no problem with the sentiment that there's too much emphasis on the Radiants. We see "ordinary" humans among the battle in the Last Desolation, we see examples of squires fighting along side Radiants in one of Dalinar's flashbacks and in modern times we see ordinary soldiers complementing Shardbearers to good effect. Most obviously, Dalinar faced the stormform Parshendi with conventional troops and Shardbearers only (and a bit of fabrial help) - though I'd expect Parshendi to be among the weakest Voidbringers. However, I think you've gone too far in the other direction - you come across as being very pessimistic about Radiants. Also, the new Desolation seems set to be uniquely dangerous - the Everstorm is "new" (in scale at least) and I suspect that destroying it will be the end-goal of the next 3 books (ie the first half of the Stormlight Archive) and I don't see much chance of conventional weapons being able to do anything about it (not that I'm expecting the Radiants to be able to do much about it individually either - it will require some kind of special solution). It's also worth noting that it took a Radiant to stop Szeth when even experienced warriors with Shards attacking in groups failed. Maybe the reason why Desolations did not become notably easier with the rise of the Radiants is because Odium invested extra power in his forces - for example creating the Unmade. That's certainly speculation but I find it much more realistic than some flaw in the setting that inherently but indirectly counterbalances the Radiants as a whole (if it was some direct flaw at an individual level then I would have no problem with it). I don't want to turn this thread into a discussion on Taravangian but so far he's making things worse: he's significantly weakened the armies of Jah Keved and has destabilised the world just in time for the Everstorm. If he did this a generation earlier maybe he could have taken over the world and had time to undo the destruction he caused - instead he's playing into Odium's hands. He's shown no interest in trying to prevent the Everstorm in the first place either - a pretty big oversight for the supposed saviour of the mankind. At least Darkness/Nalan is not causing massive collateral damage.

Moogle, to cut a long story short... you seem to be saying that the protagonists basically aren't needed and everything can be safely left to the amoral types who seem to know what they're doing. Is that about right?

This is a serious speculation: we're told over and over that Shardplate is "beautiful" (or similar) and that each set is unique. Who are the Order most associated with "beauty"? The Lightweavers (Shalash is the Herald of Beauty). They can also Soulcast. The material that Shardplate is made of seems inherently magical - even the small piece Kaladin used in the duel had magical properties. It seems like a "magical metal" or "magical alloy" (ie some real world metal combined with heavy Investiture), something that cannot form naturally. An imaginary metal, as it were. That also seems something more suitable for the Lightweavers. So, I think that the basic structure for a set of Shardplate is the creation of Lightweavers, quite possibly augmented with fabrial technology or similar to create the Shardplates we actually see.

I think that Nalan is going to be somewhat dammed by his actions either way: Taln's return guarantees a proper Desolation (most likely). The Heralds aren't currently up to the job of protecting humanity and nobody else except the Radiants could stand up to an army of Voidbringers - killing off proto-Radiants is likely playing into Odium's hands. All the Heralds are likely going to need some kind of redemption (except maybe Taln). If Nalan is "shooting the messenger" it's probably not due to a lack of understanding of statistics but something else: for example, maybe he can't forgive himself for abandoning Taln and/or the Oathpact and to escape the pain he's actually erased Taln from his mind (or at least, Taln's fate). If he's effectively forgotten about Taln then maybe he's jumping to the wrong conclusion. Expertise in investigating humans doesn't give one expertise in understanding magic systems. I'm pretty sure he's sincere. But I'm also pretty sure he's clearly making mistakes - his emotional state is a big warning sign that all is not well. I very much doubt that's the only thing wrong with him. I don't find this answer very satisfying for the following reasons: there's no evidence that there's ever been a real Desolation without involving the Heralds, no other major "ancient" seems to agree with him (Honor, the Stormfather, the spren, the other Heralds, Hoid) and it just seems plain unnecessary for the plot - a real Desolation is coming anyway (courtesy of Taln's return). Also, before tWoK came out Brandon was talking about how he wants to do a story where the magic is coming back rather than going away and making the Radiants inherently flawed (in that they summon Desolations) seems to be going against that. Though my previous post considered the possibility that Nalan is wrong I still think it's more likely that we're misinterpreting him. This is mostly because he says "could" - "dabble in arts that could return Desolation to Roshar". This is very different to saying "dabble in arts that would return Desolation to Roshar". The use of the word "could" indicates uncertainty. Now, is he effectively saying "I've got no proof but on the off-chance that Surgebinders using the Nahel bond might summon a Desolation I'm going to kill all of them, providing I'm can find some other unrelated crime they've committed"!? Does it mean that he would not kill a Surgebinder if he cannot find some suitable crime, even though he believes they summon Desolations!? I don't think he's that crazy. Instead the uncertainty may be about how individual Surgebinders might act. If Nalan views them all as "potential WMDs who are uniquely dangerous" then maybe the reason why he's killing those who have committed past crimes is that he sees them as likely to commit new crimes with their new found Surgebinding powers. Sort-of like him and his new Skybreakers are the "Reckoners" and Radiants are "Epics". I think his attitude towards Szeth indicates a flaw in his love of the law - ie you can follow the law and still be morally wrong or heinous.

I've pondered some aspects of this before, wondering if there are "network effects" in action: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7674-spren-bonding-motivations/ Thinking about it more recently I suspect that Galivar was becoming a Bondsmith and this in particular attracted some other spren to his family. If this is true then Dalinar actually becoming a Bondsmith should definitely influence other spren.

The following occurred to me on the way in this morning: I've generally been arguing that we have probably been "misinterpreting" Nalan's statements - that I don't think the "obvious" interpretation is supported by the rest of the text and he therefore means something else. However, it's also plausible that he means exactly what he says but is in fact wrong - this is the subject of the rest of my post. We know for certain that the Heralds are wrong about some things - WoB says that "They have not completely broken the Oathpact, despite what they may think", for example. I also think that the Heralds are "broken" to various degrees - certainly from Lift's point of view, "Darkness" is really warped. Is it possible that he has gotten muddled about some things? In response to "Are the Heralds aware that Taln is back?" Brandon says "the return of the Voidbringers does indeed indicate to them, in their mind, that he would have returned." Has Nalan seen the signs but jumped to the wrong conclusion somehow? Yes, this is a stretch. Normally when a Desolation occurs the return of the Voidbringers leads to increased numbers of spren bonding humans (ie Radiants) to combat them. So Taln's return causes a Desolation which causes the return of the Voidbringers which causes the return of the Radiants. But Nalan is not reacting as if that is true currently - does that mean that sequence is wrong or does it mean Nalan is wrong? Could Nalan be "shooting the messenger"? (I'll write more when I get time...)

Nalan seems unique (among those in the know) in this aspect. Certainly Honor's visions indicate that the Radiants are part of the solution, not part of the problem and we've not seen any of the other Heralds take similar action (yet?). The Stormfather seems to consider Radiants to be untrustworthy spren-killers rather than Desolation summoners. For WoBs, I've found these: This makes sense since the Radiants were more of an accident. This also indicates that the Radiants are not part of the Oathpact - or at least that the Heralds are not aware of any such linkage (because they knowing left the Radiants after the Last Desolation while also thinking they had broken the Oathpact) There's also this WoB: Which to be honest doesn't make much sense - reads like a transcription error. We know for certain that the Radiants (or Surgebinders with spren bonds to be more generic) are not perfect. A rogue one caused a major war in Dalinar's flashback of Nohadon. Maybe their oaths have been strengthened since then but that doesn't make them perfect - the in-world Words of Radiance book talks of one being executed for crimes. The first Oath still allows the killing of Voidbringers (and presumably plants and animals for food) and opponents in general. It would limit what they could do - it would be very hard for them to commit "war crimes" for example. Jasnah's research says that Urithiru was abandoned well before the Recreance, which indicates that some things were falling apart, either between Radiants or nations or both. For reference I think the Recreance occurred about 3000 years after the Last Desolation - more than enough time for some things to decay. You raise goods points about Szeth and Taravangian but I'm not sure about the Sunmaker, who seems more like a freedom fighter - he fought to bring down the Hierocracy and I don't remember him being particularly destructive.

Personally, I would be very surprised if the Heralds have not influenced some major world events since the Last Desolation. Though without their Honorblades their ability to directly influence things would be quite limited - it would be interesting to know which Herald went back to get their Honorblade and what they did with it. However, I think taking what Darkness/Nalan says at face value leads to more problems than it solves: If Nalan really thinks this then he should be against any and all Surgebinding - this especially includes what Szeth has been doing. As best as I can tell there is no actual evidence that Surgebinding can cause Desolations (in the conventional sense of wars with Voidbringers) and there was a big gap between the Last Desolation and the Recreance (it would be really nice to know just how big), so there was plenty of time. In other words, proving such a theory to the Radiants at the time of the Recreance would be pretty much impossible due to lack of evidence. In addition, if there happened to be some indication that a real Desolation was coming at the time of the Recreance then you would have to be super ultra certain that Radiants were the true cause and that disbanding would prevent it because otherwise you just doomed Roshar - if you're faced with an external threat the last thing you do is unilaterally disarm. Here's what I think Nalan/Darkness is really saying: the Radiants at the time of the Recrance were becoming a Desolation themselves (think of them as Weapons of Mass Destruction) and are part of the reason why Nalan has lost faith in humanity. There's even a line earlier in the chapter that equates Szeth to being a Desolation, which I don't see as a co-incidence - assuming my interpretation is correct of course