[Theory] Taravangian's curse matching his boon

[Tortellini]

Hey,

 

so I had an idea about Taravangian's curse, and how it could fit his boon. It's been speculated before that his compassion is actually his boon, and that the compassion will end up saving the world.

 

Now, I've had the idea that T's fate will be a really, really ironic twist. Brandon loves those, and and this is setting up really well for one of those. So, T asked for a boon, which is the capacity to save humankind. My theory is that his curse is that he will in fact spend his time in ill-guided efforts that lead towards the destruction of humankind. Only at the end will he have a decidedly non-intelligent day (either very compassionate but quite stupid or maybe just very average, just like he was before), which in some combination of events leads to him being in a critical position that contributes to saving humankind. But his curse is that he will be in that position out of his own choosing and will. Quite possibly, he would have been in the same position even without going to the Nightwatcher at all. So he will indeed contribute to saving the world, but only accidentally and against his wishes at first, while at the same time all his efforts will prove to only have been contributing to death, destruction and suffering.

 

This would be the ultimate moral gut-punching "ends don't justify the means" realization for him to have, and quite possibly his contribution to saving the world involves some sort of redeeming sacrifice so he won't have to live with himself after.

 

So this is thinking about his boon/curse less in the juxtaposition of intelligence/compassion but rather in the sense of saviour/destroyer, his boon being he can save mankind and his curse being that he will do it by accident while being an evil destroyer otherwise. A second, less redeeming option might be that his boon is the capacity to save humankind, and his curse is the inability to realize it and take it (due to lacking compassion). Either way, the Nightwatcher basically tailor-made a bad guy for the series...

[The Honor Spren]

Seems legit.

[kaellok]

 

This would be the ultimate moral gut-punching "ends don't justify the means" realization for him to have, and quite possibly his contribution to saving the world involves some sort of redeeming sacrifice so he won't have to live with himself after.

Long ago, Moogle pointed out something that has stuck with me ever since:

 

The story would be much, much stronger overall if there was a competing worldview to the Radiants that was actually capable of being successful.  Mr T believes that the ends of "survival of the human race" justifies the evil of wanton slaughter that he has engineered and the chaos he masterminded to deliberately weaken the nations of the world enough that he can be declared their benevolent leader.  Radiants believe it's better to live well and honorably and stand tall against death itself no matter the consequences.  Two competing views that have the same goals.

 

Two Truths struggling for supremacy is much more interesting to read, talk about, and think over than one Obvious Truth vs. one Obvious Falsehood.

 

Mistborn spoilers:

 

The Lord Ruler was a terrible, evil ruler.  And yet his plan to defeat Ruin was a good one.  His plan in case his plan failed is the only thing that let the world survive.  The evil, horrible ideology was directly responsible for saving life on the planet.  And the Mistborn series is much the stronger for it.