This is my 1st post on this forum and I'm not a native English speaker, so please go easy on me.
I felt compelled to ask a few questions after I came across something interesting in my second read-through of “The Way of Kings” and “Words of Radiance”. I'm sure most of these are just theory related and others have probably been answered already.
I’ve seen posts debating about the amount of time between the breaking of the Oathpact and The Day of Recreance. I didn't seem to encounter a consensus about this but can we assume, for the sake of this theory, that the Day of Recreance took place shortly after the breaking of the Oathpact? While reading chapter 52 of TWOK we see Dalinar re-living the Day of Recreance and I couldn’t help but noticed that only 2 Orders are shown: The Stonewards and the Windrunners (Brandon clearly emphasizes this fact twice in the chapter). Why only these, I ask? Wasn’t the Herald of the SWs (Talenel) the one who was “abandoned” by the rest of the Heralds? (What about the other Orders? Do we have clear evidence that they also proceeded this way?)
I think we can safely assume that something more than the exhaustion and fear of returning to the Tranquiline Halls took place for the Oathpact to end. We still know too little about Jezrien to know if he’s driven by honor like the WRs. And that is where I make the connection between the SWs and the WRs as we’ve seen in Dalinar’s vision. Could it be that the WRs, driven by honor, had no other option but to follow their brothers into abandoning their oaths after feeling equally betrayed by what happened? I should also highlight the fact that we see WR fall from the sky to join the advancing group of SWs and WRs (This makes me believe that every existing WR and SW was in that group when they abandoned their shards)
My big question is, do you think that the breaking of the pact is what triggered the Recreance?