[OB Spoilers]Taln is originally Elantrian?

[LopenTheTwoArmedHerdazian]

Hey guys.

I know my basis for this may seem flimsy, but hear me out.

First off, after going through four millennia of constant pain, Taln goes Hoed (his mantra being the thing he usually said at the start of a Desolation). Another thing that points at the fact he is not from Roshar is that he uses a Shardblade. I think that the reason this Herald had to use an Honorblade was that he had Selian spiritual DNA, making it near impossible for him to become a Surgebinder. The same thing (excluding being from Sel) would apply to other Heralds.

My second reason for believing this theory is that Taln is supposedly the one Herald who was not meant to be a Herald. Maybe this is because, as Brandon has previously stated, it is very hard to make Selian magic work outside of Sel? Also, he may be the byproduct of Sel being incredibly advanced in understanding the Cosmere, or he may have been one of the pioneers of Selian understanding of the cosmere.

Oh, and finally, Brandon answered RAFO to a question about where the Heralds are from (i know that he could RAFO something that doesnt matter, but still).

Thanks for reading, and please tell me what you think about this.

Edited February 3, 2018 by LopenTheTwoArmedHerdazian
Grammar and extra point

[RShara]

17 minutes ago, LopenTheTwoArmedHerdazian said:

Hey guys.

I know my basis for this may seem flimsy, but hear me out.

First off, after going through four millennia of constant pain, Taln goes Hoed. I think that the reason the Herald had to use Honorblades was that they had Selian spiritual DNA, making it near impossible for them to become Surgebinders.

My second reason for believing this theory is that Talk is supposedly the one Herald who was not meant to be a Herald. Maybe this is because, as Brandon has previously stated, it is very hard to make Selian magic work outside of Sel? Also, he may be the byproduct of Arm being incredibly advanced in understanding the Cosmere, or he may have been one of the pioneers of Selian understanding of the cosmere.

Thanks for reading, and please tell me what you think about this.

Biggest problem with this is that Taln looks Alethi, and Elantrians would have "Shin eyes". 

Also, the Heralds being created almost certainly pre-dates Elantrian civilization.  They abandoned the Oathpact ~6000 years after the Shattering, which means they would have been on Roshar for probably at least another couple thousand years before that (referencing how there were hundreds of years between Desolations at first).  Not to mention however long Ashyn was occupied.

While we don't know exactly when the original Elantrians or the events of the book Elantris takes place, it's very likely after this point, since 4000 or 5000 years post-Shattering isn't really a lot of time, given all of the events that would have had to occur.

Another problem is that all of the Heralds are extremely suffused with Honor's Investiture.  I feel like this would be very hard to do if any of them were already invested by the Dor, given that investiture resists investiture.

I think Taln was the one who was never supposed to be a Herald because all of the other Heralds were kings and nobles and generals and the like.  Taln was the regular guy.

Edited February 3, 2018 by RShara

[LopenTheTwoArmedHerdazian]

38 minutes ago, RShara said:

Biggest problem with this is that Taln looks Alethi, and Elantrians would have "Shin eyes". 

Also, the Heralds being created almost certainly pre-dates Elantrian civilization.  They abandoned the Oathpact ~6000 years after the Shattering, which means they would have been on Roshar for probably at least another couple thousand years before that (referencing how there were hundreds of years between Desolations at first).  Not to mention however long Ashyn was occupied.

While we don't know exactly when the original Elantrians or the events of the book Elantris takes place, it's very likely after this point, since 4000 or 5000 years post-Shattering isn't really a lot of time, given all of the events that would have had to occur.

Another problem is that all of the Heralds are extremely suffused with Honor's Investiture.  I feel like this would be very hard to do if any of them were already invested by the Dor, given that investiture resists investiture.

I think Taln was the one who was never supposed to be a Herald because all of the other Heralds were kings and nobles and generals and the like.  Taln was the regular guy.

Thanks, this is definitely what debunks my theory about Taln, but I feel that with a process similar to Hemallurgy or the Nahel bond Honor could change the Heralds' Spiritweb to the point that he could himself in them. Also, I made a mistake by saying Elantrian. I thought he may have been taught about the Hoed throughout his childhood, so his madness took that form. I did not mean to imply that he had been taken by the Shaod. 

Also, I still think that maybe when he says Taln was different, it is referencing a planet/system of origin, though there seems to be more merit to your answer. 

Thank you for taking time out of your day to educate me on this issue.

Edited February 3, 2018 by LopenTheTwoArmedHerdazian

[Leyrann]

Selian magic is instead location based, and it is indeed extremely hard if not impossible to become an Elantrian if you're not from Arelon, as you won't have a Connection to Arelon.

Surgebinding works very differently however. You only need to be broken (and opinion varies on when you're broken, but we shouldn't expect it to be something extremely uncommon, as there were thousands of Radiants in the past) and you need to be chosen by a spren. Where you're from doesn't matter at all. But either way, the Heralds do not actually have a spren bond, but rather gain access to the Surges directly through the Honorblades, which, obviously, have been created by Honor's Investiture. The Heralds seem to have some additional bonuses, of course (they're functionally immortal, for one), but either way their powers have been granted to them by Honor directly, not by a bond.

As for where the Heralds are from, yeah, that could be basically anywhere. As RShara mentioned, they don't look weird to Rosharans (though a bit hard to determine where they're from), indicating they have Rosharan eyes rather than normal eyes. For all we know, however, that could also be a physical change that's been made to them to not stand out so much, or maybe they've started viewing themselves as Rosharan and have changed it through Progression. But there's little evidence that they're from one place compared to another place. Except maybe Scadrial (depending on when Ruin and Preservation created Scadrial compared to the events on Roshar that spawned the Oathpact) they could be from any planet we know about, and maybe a few we don't know about.

Having said all that, we also don't know whether they are all from the same planet, and Taln could indeed be the odd one out who is from a different planet than the others. However, the most popular theory regarding why Taln "should never have been one of them" is that the others were all kings and generals and the like, while Taln was a common soldier.

Oh, and while Elantris does play first chronologically in the Cosmere, it will not have played much before Stormlight Archive (I would say some 500 years at most, probably less), as they'd otherwise probably have been so Cosmere aware they'd show up everywhere. We do know that they're the furthest ahead in that, however. On the other hand, Roshar in particular will catch up fast, now that their past is also known.

[Weltall]

1 hour ago, Leyrann said:

Having said all that, we also don't know whether they are all from the same planet, and Taln could indeed be the odd one out who is from a different planet than the others. However, the most popular theory regarding why Taln "should never have been one of them" is that the others were all kings and generals and the like, while Taln was a common soldier.

Actually, we do know they're all from the same place.

Quote

Newan

Are the Heralds...

Brandon Sanderson

The Heralds are from the same place that Taln is from.

I'm firmly in line with the obvious surface reading of Taln's background, that he was 'the regular guy' among all of the royalty, generals and scholars that comprised the rest of the Heralds.

[Leyrann]

1 hour ago, Weltall said:

Actually, we do know they're all from the same place.

I'm firmly in line with the obvious surface reading of Taln's background, that he was 'the regular guy' among all of the royalty, generals and scholars that comprised the rest of the Heralds.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/103-salt-lake-city-comic-con-2014/#e1038

I'm not sure how absolute that WoB is. Brandon also says "Taln is Rosharan", and then RAFO's if he's "native to Roshar". In the first sense, they're all Rosharan (so from the same place), in the second sense, some or none of them may be from the same place.

[Weltall]

While that's true, Brandon mentioned that the Heralds and Taln are from the same place first and entirely unprompted, so I think it's safe to say that whether the Heralds as a group are native Rosharans or not, they are all originally from the same place.

The other obvious option is that not much time actually passed between the arrival of humans on Roshar and the start of the Oathpact and that they're technically native to Ashyn. That doesn't sound right with what we know of the timeframe; humans had to have time to expand beyond the land they were given, trigger a war with the singers and then whatever happened that led to the former becoming 'of Honor/Cultivation' and the latter 'of Odium' had to take place before the Fused could start appearing and the conditions necessitating the Oathpact could happen. So my guess is that the RAFO on whether the Heralds were native Rosharans was of the 'keep them guessing' variety.

Edited February 3, 2018 by Weltall

[Calderis]

The Heralds needing Honorblades to surgebinding has nothing to do with being unable to attract a spren. 

For one thing, being from another world should not have any bearing on if a spren chooses you or not. More importantly though, the Honorblades came first and the Spren copied them to create surgebinders.