The Day of Recreance

The Day of Recreance is infamously known as the day when the Knights Radiant turned their backs on humankind. Little is known of their reasons, but it occurred centuries after the Last Desolation. (About 2,000 years ago.)JordanCon 2018, Atlanta, GA, 4/20/18
==History==
===Vorin Reasoning===
In Vorinism, it is accepted that the Knights Radiant became corrupt and betrayed humans to the Voidbringers. How they did this is unclear, since Knights are seen at the end of the Desolations. It is also implied that they did this for their own power and desire to rule.
Due to Dalinar's visions, and comments made by Teft, this is likely nothing more than an exaggeration or a downright lie, though Syl notes that "the Knights changed." This could mean that there is some truth to what the Vorin church says but likely nothing like the whole truth.
===Dalinar's Visions===
During one of Dalinar's visions, he appears to see the Day of Recreance, from the point of view of a soldier at Feverstone Keep. He notes nearly three hundred Shardbearers gathering near the keep. The Radiants proceed to drive each their Shardblades into the ground and remove their Shardplate, leaving them for any to claim. Dalinar notes that when they abandon their Shards, the artifacts lose their glow. Soldiers from Feverstone then begin rushing out to claim the Blades and even fight each other and their officers for them.
When Dalinar asks one of the Radiants why they are abandoning mankind, the Radiant didn't reply, but the Almighty responded, " ... I cannot be of that much help to you. The Night of Sorrows will come, and the True Desolation. The Everstorm."
===Consequences===
This event allowed normal men to gain both Shardblades and Plate. In addition, it encouraged men to kill one another because there weren't enough Blades for all of them. It also horrified the spren, who ceased bonding to humans after this event as it had killed entire spren populations.
Pattern explains that spren with minds were less plentiful then, and that the majorities of several spren peoples were all bonded. Further, that there were very few survivors. While the Stormfather lived, others - the rest, thousands of them were killed when the Recreance occurred.
Effectively, it meant the end of the Knights Radiant or the order in its pure form. There are hints that the order went on after this event but only for very short time.
This event caused great embarrassment for the Vorin religiosity. It also cost them great influence amongst the Alethi, leading to the Hierocracy.
==Present Day==
The Radiants didn't betray their spren; Radiants and spren decided together to break their bonds. In so doing, neither realized that such would make the spren deadeyes.
This wasn't done simply because they discovered that humans were the original Voidbringers. The Stormfather explicitly said that the Radiants had rediscovered this fact several times before, and though it shook them, they'd always weathered it.
Mayalaran said that the Recreance was a conscious choice. That the Radiants and their spren were in agreement. That this was not the betrayal of spren by the orders that was assumed to have been done by both humans and spren.
The thing that motivated them to break their bonds was the discovery that the people fled from Ashyn to Roshar because they'd destroyed Ashyn through Surgebinding.
Apparently, there was some good evidence (about which readers do not yet know) that convinced the Radiants that they would similarly destroy Roshar if they retained their powers.
==Speculation==
There are some odd things about how the surviving spren wouldn't know these facts - and it really seems like they should have ... but didn't.
==References==
Category:Events and Eras