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I was reading through Way of Kings again, and I noticed something very odd. On Kaladin's first bridge run, there is an unnamed bridgeman who says, "Talenelat'Elin, bearer of all agonies." The bearer of all agonies part interests me, because it clearly refers to the fact that he is the only Herald still being tortured in death, while all the other Heralds broke the Oathpact and are still alive. However, all of the common people believe that the Heralds won, stopped the cycle of Desolations, and chased the Voidbringers into the Tranquiline Halls. That being the case, how does this random bridgeman seem to know this information about Taln when nobody else does? Additionally, he is described as being old and leathery-faced. I don't know how much older he would be than Kaladin, but I imagine it's pretty significant, especially when you consider the physical strength and stamina needed for a bridgeman. How would such an old man have survived carrying bridges long enough to know the ins and outs of how the whole process worked? He knew enough to tell Kaladin tips for making the carrying easier, knew not to make Gaz mad, and was able to look for the signs to see that the current bridge run was "going to be a bad one". It seems odd that someone so apparently old would be strong enough to survive carrying bridges as long as he must have. The man also is the only bridgeman we see to show any kindness at all to Kaladin, while all the other bridgemen are pretty much completely dead inside. Much like Kaladin when he becomes "the wretch," they don't care about anything or anyone. So why does this bridgeman, who has clearly gone on at least a few runs before (and it seems likely that it's more than just a few), suddenly help Kaladin without any real reason to do so?

It's rather unnerving that Brandon refuses to call the man who showed up at the end of the Way Of Kings 'Talenel'. He talks about him "the man who calls himself Taln". One theory is that Talenel is so broken that he is not the man he was anymore. So he used to be Talenel, but that man is dead. Simple explanation, could be probable, but I am not sure Brandon actually would have gone with that. Here is some ungrounded theorising without (almost) any proof. Since this "Taln" (from now on I will simply call him Taln and the "real" Herald Talenel'Elin) thinks about constant torture and fire and his mantra is something a Herald could definitely say, then I suppose he really was in Damnation (on Braize). Since Talenel was there for 4500 years, somebody who was there with him could definitely have his words ingrained (is this good word?) in his mind. Even if he does not know the language it is spoken in (but I suppose Shardholder would know). Well, of course there could be another inhabitant of Braize, nobody said that Heralds are the only ones tortured by Odium. But Hoid seems to know him - well, I suppose he knows Heralds, but that is not what we're talking about here - and Hoid knew Rayse. So it could be him. Now, how the hell Rayse ended up in this situation? Maybe he got sick of being force of evil, maybe his mind broke from this constant hatred, maybe he couldn't cope with being responsible for so many genocides and death of his fellow Shardholders. Maybe he gave up Odium and switched with someone, then went to atone for his deeds in place of Talenel. Maybe the person he switched with was Talenel and Talenel took up Odium. Or maybe Talenel soloed him and won. Well, he already was in place which he couldn't die in, no matter the damage done to him. He was effectively immortal and even had his Honorblade! Who could stop him from going against Odium? Of course, the Oathpact and mechanism of Desolations may be grounded on him being tortured, but Talenel could have finally broken after thousand or two of torture meant for ten people and gone rampage. And killed defeated Rayse, but was forced to take his place. Or maybe someone entirely different took up Odium. But before Odium changed holders, he activated the time-trigger and the Desolation still was started eventually (remember, the start is when voidspren are released, the rest is just matter of time). The important bit is that Rayse was exposed to Heralds' Torture, broke, and was finally released to Roshar, and anything that was left in his mind was the words that Talenel repeated for thousands of years. Yeah, yeah, I know it's far fetched, but this whole thing with "Taln" is boiling my mind Disclaimer: I don't really believe that Taln is Rayse. I just thought "hey, what if... the man we thought was Herald is in fact the person who held the power which is a Big Bad?"