Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

WOR Signing Table Q&A (Verbatim)

And, how were the Radiants able to summon their Shardblades at the Recreance if they'd already decided to break their oaths?

Their Shardblades are part of what brought them to--part of the Oathpact--but breaking the Oathpact did not affect their ability to bond or unbond Shardblades.

knights radiant, oathpact, shardblades, recreance,

WOR Signing Table Q&A (Verbatim)

I had a couple other questions about the Recreance that you're probably not going to answer. I was wondering if the Radiants were deliberately trying to put Shardblades in the hands of non-Radiants, since they left them all outside a military base.

RAFO. Since I've answered so many questions, the RAFOs are going to start flying freely. I'm like, "Now, what is there left to write books about?

knights radiant, oathpact, shardblades, recreance,

Firefight Tour - El Cerrito, CA (Paraphrased)

This may be RAFO bait, but let’s see. Did the Knights Radiant in Dalinar’s Feverstone Keep vision divest their discard their Shards to a specific person/being/entity? (Brandon interrupted here before I could finish, but I’ll include the rest anyway). If so, have we seen them onscreen as of the end of WoR?

That’s a definite RAFO. (And that’s how I earned my first official RAFO card).

knights radiant, recreance, dalinar, feverstone keep,

Firefight Tour - El Cerrito, CA (Paraphrased)

So this may be RAFO bait, but in Dalinar’s Feverstone Keep vision, when the Radiant’s discard their Shards are they doing that to any entity in particular in specific?

Definitely a RAFO.

knights radiant, recreance, dalinar, feverstone keep,

Firefight Tour - El Cerrito, CA (Paraphrased)

Cool. I’m not going to bother asking who did right now. With Syl being able to be revived, is Adolin ever going to be able to revive his own blade, or-

Ah, that would be very difficult, as the orig-, in most cases, the original person who broke the oaths has to be the one.

Question

Ok. Do you have to have done the third oath before you can convert your spren into a Blade?

Brandon Sanderson

Uh, in most orders, yes.

Question

What about Shallan then? Did she do it, cause she was a kid when she first-

Brandon Sanderson

Um… You will find out more.

recreance, knights radiant, oaths, shardblades, spren,

Chicago

In terms of timeline-- So The Way of Kings and the Stormlight Archive takes place 1173-4 right now, how far ago, approximately, was the Recreance?

So you-- Let’s see-- Heralds leave at what, 4500?

Shadows of Self-Oak Brook, IL

Was Honor Shattered before or after the Recreance?

I believe after. I'm pretty sure. I mean, he has memories of the Recreance.

Honor, recreance,

Calamity Release Party

Did Vasher visit Roshar before or after the Recreance? I ask because he probably had to have seen a live Shardblade to model Nightblood after, right?

Vasher didn't have to have seen a live Shardblade. He could've heard stories and modeled Nightblood after those.

Vasher, Nightblood, Roshar, shardblades, cosmere chronology, Recreance,

Barnes and Noble YA (Paraphrased)

I asked “Was the wicked thing of eminence an action of spren, of men, or both?” I didn’t go into this with him in a line, but my theory is about the spren.

Finally, Brandon RAFO’d me on my question about “the wicked thing of eminence” that Alice theorized about.

We’ve heard from the Stormfather, who is a completely unreliable witness, and Syl, who doesn’t even remember, that it was men’s fault. Pattern is certain that Shallan will choose to kill him in the future, but I don’t remember him saying the Radiants were “wicked.” That doesn’t really fit with what we know of cryptics anyway. He went dormant when Shallan ignored him, but why would he think she would go even further and “kill” him when his standards are much different than honorspren? Also, the big troop of Radiants who abandoned their swords in Dalinar’s vision all did it at once. Their swords and armor were glowing and functioning when they arrived, so not oathbroken yet, and they do it in mass right then. Why would they choose that? (And weren’t many of them Windrunners?) I think the Listener verse about the Parshendi being milk to the spren as opposed to the meat provided by bonds to men hints at the answer. We know that the spren imitated what the heralds could do and initiated the bonds on their own. I think that there is a cost to the Nahel bond that is undisclosed–the spren are somehow feeding/draining something–life, magic, etc. from their partners. They have good intentions and/or view short human live through a different lens of priorities in perspective of the millenia long struggle with Odium, but the humans pay a steep cost in exchange for their increased abilities. Maybe they eventually drain and become spren themselves?

recreance,