Thaidakar's Identity

[Kingsdaughter613]

2 hours ago, Karger said:

For those of us keeping score at home.  Considering the evidence for Kelsier=Thaidakar

Our For Arguments.

1. Thaidakar is (probably) a cognitive shadow, or at least is in a similar situation to the Heralds

2. He is called "Lord of Scars"

3. Wit slapped him around

Our Against Arguments.

1. Hoid says planets, plural.

2. Mraize says he talks to Kelsier's "avatar"

3. The GB are way harsher than Kelsier ever was

4. Kalak calls Thaidakar, "old Thaidakar". Kelsier's 300 yrs, Kalak is 7000 years.

The best argument against is 4.
 

Where does Hoid say planets? I must have missed that.

3 isn’t a good argument since it’s based on the actions of one individual. We’ve only interacted extensively with two Ghostbloods, and one was considerably kinder than the other. We need more time with other GBs.

2: The avatar thing has a fairly simple explanation, I suspect: Kell has a Kandra using his original skeleton. He’s obviously going to have a strong Connection to his own bones, and he has emotional alomancy. Between the two he can possibly use a Kandra to communicate between worlds.

And yes, this hypothetical Kandra is a willing participant.

[Karger]

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

3 isn’t a good argument since it’s based on the actions of one individual. We’ve only interacted extensively with two Ghostbloods, and one was considerably kinder than the other. We need more time with other GBs.

Kelseir made it a point to get kinder individuals who enjoyed doing a job well and were willing to trust each other.

1 hour ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

2: The avatar thing has a fairly simple explanation, I suspect: Kell has a Kandra using his original skeleton. He’s obviously going to have a strong Connection to his own bones, and he has emotional alomancy. Between the two he can possibly use a Kandra to communicate between worlds.

I am pretty skeptical that would work.

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 hour ago, Karger said:

Kelseir made it a point to get kinder individuals who enjoyed doing a job well and were willing to trust each other.

I am pretty skeptical that would work.

He did, but he obviously didn’t personally recruit Mraize. Or most non-Scadrian members. I doubt he recruited Iyatil; I think he recruited her ancestors and she was raised to the family business. He never met Shallan, but she was about to become a GB anyway. He’s not personally recruiting; he’s trusting his recruiters who may not be as discerning as he.
 

For the GBs to work with Kell trapped, he has to really trust other people to work for him. And even when he does have good people, that isn’t a guarantee. How many people did Yeden manage to get killed again?

[+Bliev]

I was one of those against the Kelsier argument pre-RoW, but it does seem like there are hints in RoW that Thaidakar is Kel. But the timeline here has always seemed off to me--that Kelsier would have to found and establish a dangerous Cosmere-wide organization and gain incredible knowledge of Rosharan politics and history, all from a different planet. It just seems implausible to me. 

But the clues are very strong.

The fact that Kalak calls him "old Thaidakar" and seems to know him, though? That doesn't bode well for the theory.  Iyatil was born in Silverlight in the cog realm and was part of the 17th shard, but Thaidakar is *her* master. How? What knowledge does Kel have the she does not? Hemalurgic knowledge? Is that the going currency? 

I think @Kingsdaughter613 does make an excellent point about the foreshadowing though--if it's not him, will this foreshadowing for the Cosmere-aware fans breed disappointment? That doesn't seem like a typically Brandon thing to do. To lay out clues and then not pursue them. 

[Samuel]

@bliev We don't know the extent of Iyatil's knowledge, but Kelsier was briefly Preservation's Vessel.

[Karger]

32 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

For the GBs to work with Kell trapped, he has to really trust other people to work for him. And even when he does have good people, that isn’t a guarantee. How many people did Yeden manage to get killed again?

Yeden was both incompetent and not chosen by Kelsier but by circumstances. 

33 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

For the GBs to work with Kell trapped, he has to really trust other people to work for him. And even when he does have good people, that isn’t a guarantee. How many people did Yeden manage to get killed again?

He still has met and worked with Mraize.  I don't think he would employ someone so brutal.

[+Oltux72]

2 minutes ago, Bliev said:

I was one of those against the Kelsier argument pre-RoW, but it does seem like there are hints in RoW that Thaidakar is Kel. But the timeline here has always seemed off to me--that Kelsier would have to found and establish a dangerous Cosmere-wide organization and gain incredible knowledge of Rosharan politics and history, all from a different planet. It just seems implausible to me. 

Yes. But, it is still possible that Kelsier is leading them without having founded them.

2 minutes ago, Bliev said:

But the clues are very strong.

That is true, but makes me suspicious. The bait is too obvious.

2 minutes ago, Bliev said:

The fact that Kalak calls him "old Thaidakar" and seems to know him, though? That doesn't bode well for the theory.

Well. Kalak may be mistaken  about or ignorant of the most recent change in leadership. But that indeed is a problem for Kelsier == Thaidakar.

And there is one more. Why would Kelsier use an alias? Unless of course Thaidakar is what Sovereign or Survivor actually sounds like in North Scadrian.

2 minutes ago, Bliev said:

 Iyatil was born in Silverlight in the cog realm and was part of the 17th shard, but Thaidakar is *her* master. How? What knowledge does Kel have the she does not? Hemalurgic knowledge? Is that the going currency? 

It may be as simple as the Ghostbloods being an organization that is millenia old but Kelsier was just powerful enough to make sure that "old Thaidakar" suffered an "unfortunate accident". No special knowledge required.

 

[Kingsdaughter613]

13 minutes ago, Karger said:

Yeden was both incompetent and not chosen by Kelsier but by circumstances. 

He still has met and worked with Mraize.  I don't think he would employ someone so brutal.

I don’t think he employed him. I think Iyatil did.

And we don’t know how much he’s actually interacted with Mraize; I suspect it isn’t as much as Mraize would like Shallan to believe.

@Oltux72

It’s also possible that Kell is pretending to be older than he is. Especially if he took over a pre-existing organization.

Edited November 19, 2020 by Kingsdaughter613

[Karger]

2 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I don’t think he employed him. I think Iyatil did.

GB corporate structure is

Thadikar

Iyatil

Mraize. 

I think Kelseir would have contact with the person he employed only one level down.  Let me put it this way.  What member of the OG crew do you see getting Mraize?

2 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

It’s also possible that Kell is pretending to be older than he is. Especially if he took over a pre-existing organization.

Everyone on Scadrail knows how old Kellseir is and Khriss can ID him instantly.  He may have had three hundred years but given that Kelek calls him "old" he must have been the GB leader for at least fifty of those IMO.  He must in the intervening two hundred years have: gotten a body, created unsealed metalminds, helped the southerners, gotten an avatar that he can project across the cosmere, joined the GBs, become their leader and decided to take over the universe.

[Kingsdaughter613]

8 minutes ago, Karger said:

GB corporate structure is

Thadikar

Iyatil

Mraize. 

I think Kelseir would have contact with the person he employed only one level down.  Let me put it this way.  What member of the OG crew do you see getting Mraize?

Everyone on Scadrail knows how old Kellseir is and Khriss can ID him instantly.  He may have had three hundred years but given that Kelek calls him "old" he must have been the GB leader for at least fifty of those IMO.  He must in the intervening two hundred years have: gotten a body, created unsealed metalminds, helped the southerners, gotten an avatar that he can project across the cosmere, joined the GBs, become their leader and decided to take over the universe.

We don’t actually know the GBs structure. We know Iyatil is fairly high ranked and Mraize answers to her. That doesn’t actually tell us Mraize’s rank; he could be something like an apprentice journeyman.

 

Scadrial knows. Kalak has not been to Scadrial. We don’t know how much he actually knows.

It would only take Kell one year to become the GB leader...

[Karger]

42 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

We don’t actually know the GBs structure. We know Iyatil is fairly high ranked and Mraize answers to her. That doesn’t actually tell us Mraize’s rank; he could be something like an apprentice journeyman.

"Can you deal with my master can you deal with hers?"

42 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

It would only take Kell one year to become the GB leader...

I think that was an exaggeration.

Edited November 20, 2020 by Karger

[Kingsdaughter613]

13 minutes ago, Karger said:

"Can you deal with my master can you deal with hers?"

I think that was an exaggeration.

You can be a lower ranked apprentice of a high ranked master. Or Mraize was exaggerating.

Or Shallan was assuming; Mraize doesn’t mention Thaidakar until she does. In fact, considering what he says next, I think that’s fairly likely. You don’t threaten someone with a person who can’t even be bothered to visit you in person. In fact, the way Mraize speaks, it almost sounds like they’ve never met in person.

I doubt Kell would appreciate his team being spoken for by anyone who’s not him though. And he REALLY wouldn’t like being spoken for.

[Karger]

1 minute ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

You can be a lower ranked apprentice of a high ranked master. Or Mraize was exaggerating.

We really are at the end of the actual facts rope.  I don't think you are convincing enough for me to pull that particular argument although if you have some others I am all ears.

[Kingsdaughter613]

4 minutes ago, Karger said:

We really are at the end of the actual facts rope.  I don't think you are convincing enough for me to pull that particular argument although if you have some others I am all ears.

Does it make any sense to threaten someone as follows: “You’re going to have to deal with my master’s master, who thinks we’re so irrelevant that he can’t even be bothered to visit the planet!” It really doesn’t make sense.

It seems far more likely that Mraize is talking about someone else and Shallan mistakenly assumes he’s talking about Thaidakar.

[Karger]

Just now, Kingsdaughter613 said:

Does it make any sense to threaten someone as follows: “You’re going to have to deal with my master’s master, who thinks we’re so irrelevant that he can’t even be bothered to visit the planet!” It really doesn’t make sense.

You are getting in the way of someone so ridiculously OP that they consider everything that happens on your entire known world basically irrelevant.  Makes sense to me.

[Kingsdaughter613]

Just now, Karger said:

You are getting in the way of someone so ridiculously OP that they consider everything that happens on your entire known world basically irrelevant.  Makes sense to me.

If he’s not going to show up, then it doesn’t matter how powerful he is. Shallan isn’t going to have to deal with him, making the threat non-sensical.

Also, as a writer, that’s EXACTLY the kind of misdirect I’d do. Have a character make a (wrong) assumption, but have the other characters react to that assumption in a way that seemingly confirms it. This way I can surprise them later.
 

I wouldn’t be surprised if we do meet Iyatil’s master in book 5 - and it isn’t Thaidakar (who is still stuck, it seems). Although I also suspect we’ll meet his ‘Avatar’.

[Karger]

Just now, Kingsdaughter613 said:

If he’s not going to show up, then it doesn’t matter how powerful he is. Shallan isn’t going to have to deal with him, making the threat non-sensical.

I would be scared of plenty of people who would not bother killing me personally. 

[Kingsdaughter613]

Just now, Karger said:

I would be scared of plenty of people who would not bother killing me personally. 

The way the threat is phrased sounds more like direct involvement, even if the methods are indirect. The way Mraize then describes Thaidakar, it sounds like he doesn’t really get involved in the nitty gritty details of what goes on on Roshar. 
 

Shallan is already fighting a god. She’s not going to be concerned about someone who can’t even be bothered to personally direct his subordinates. The more I think about this, the less likely it seems that Mraize was talking about Thaidakar at all.

[ALAKA]

22 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

 A great example is an unfinished Tolkien story, which shows the good guys of the Atalante as being colonialists from the perspective of someone they’re conquering. The Numenorians were shown as the bad guys there, but from their perspective (shown in the Atalante) they were doing good.

Is that the one about the boy from the tribe who meets the ship from numenor? In unfinished tales? I liked that one and it was a cool perspective flip. Are you sure they were Faithful though? And isn't it called the Akallabeth?

But the analogy to here would be writing the SA from the POV of the Parshendi - some sort of war where everyone is sympathetic. Or a policeman trying to arrest the aforementioned dashing international jewel thieves. This with the GBs is like having Elendil, or some junior numenorean casually behead a puppy,  - it's evil evil, not excusable-in-a-story evil (human morality is weird...)

I'm probably leaning towards it being Kelsier on the evidence- it's just an unpleasant change for him and it feels wrong. As has pointed out, it's plausible that there's little oversight in the GBs etc. But to the reader it's a bad impression (good old Kels crew are evil now!) and doesn't feel like anything Brandon would do (though other authors might very well do it, Brandon isn't edgy like that - which I like! Probably makes me unsophisticated or something. .)

Edited November 20, 2020 by ALAKA

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 minute ago, ALAKA said:

Is that the one about the boy from the tribe who meets the ship from numenor? In unfinished tales? I liked that one and it was a cool perspective flip. Are you sure they were Faithful though? And isn't it called the Akallabeth?

But the analogy to here would be writing the SA from the POV of the Parshendi - some sort of war where everyone is sympathetic. Or a policeman trying to arrest the aforementioned dashing international jewel thieves. This with the GBs is like having Elendil, or some junior numenorean casually behead a puppy,  - it's evil evil, not excusable-in-a-story evil (human morality is weird...)

I'm probably leaning towards it being Kelsier on the evidence- it's just an unpleasant change for him and it feels wrong. As has pointed out, it's plausible that there's little oversight in the GBs etc. But to the reader it's a bad impression (good old Kels crew are evil now!) and doesn't feel like anything Brandon would do (though other authors might very well do it, Brandon isn't edgy like that - which I like! Probably makes me unsophisticated or something. .)

Maybe? They were the Faithful; you can tell from the sails. This was when the Faithful controlled Numenor.

You may be right about the name; Atalante may refer to the fall itself. It’s been awhile since I read it.

I disagree though. The Faithful are shown as pure heroes in the Silm story, and as pure villains in the other. So which is true? Somewhere in the middle. (Got to love those fools who think Tolkien can’t go dark. Some of the stuff he does is GoT level dark - he just uses fancier language, lol!)

I think a lot depends on how much Kell knows and how directly he’s involved in what’s going on (not nearly as much as he’d like, obviously.) We also need to see more GBs who are not Mraize. We really just don’t know enough. We STILL don’t know what they want!

[Hoidwillsaveus]

This has all the feels of being Kell to me. Yes it does seem like the Ghostbloods are a little to evil to be associated with Kell, but he works with crews. He can't get off world currently so who is to say that in the back 5 he doesn't show up and slap Mraize around for turning his crew I to something it should not of been. Remember how kinda crazy spook went when he thought Kel was guiding him, but it turned out to be Ruin getting to him through the hemalurgic spike that he had been stabbed with. Whose to say that some other shard hasn't wormed its way into this crew? 

[Pandora's shard]

Why do I feel like most of you don't understand Kelsier? He is, arguably,  the most driven character of entire entire cosmere. And absurdly talented. And very charismatic. And, dedicated. So, when such people focus on an argument, what happens to people who support the other side? I sometimes get Thanos vibe from Kelsier. Yes, what he wants is gud. But the means that he may employ is certainly not extremely moral. And when such morality meets such drive, charisma, personality and talent, the same character can turn from the best hero to the worst villain so quickly. 

Why, because, whether a character is hero or villain is defined by people who argue. And always, the against u in an argument is villain 

 

So, yes, Kelsier can be a villain in Cosmere depending on the goals that he wants to achieve and the goals that Brandon is showing us to be gud. 

 

Having said all these, I do believe Thaidakar is Kelsier. Now, let's see if Brandon has conned us or not this time.. 

[Kingsdaughter613]

1 hour ago, Pandora's shard said:

Why do I feel like most of you don't understand Kelsier? He is, arguably,  the most driven character of entire entire cosmere. And absurdly talented. And very charismatic. And, dedicated. So, when such people focus on an argument, what happens to people who support the other side? I sometimes get Thanos vibe from Kelsier. Yes, what he wants is gud. But the means that he may employ is certainly not extremely moral. And when such morality meets such drive, charisma, personality and talent, the same character can turn from the best hero to the worst villain so quickly. 

Why, because, whether a character is hero or villain is defined by people who argue. And always, the against u in an argument is villain 

 

So, yes, Kelsier can be a villain in Cosmere depending on the goals that he wants to achieve and the goals that Brandon is showing us to be gud. 

 

Having said all these, I do believe Thaidakar is Kelsier. Now, let's see if Brandon has conned us or not this time.. 

True, but we also know the character. Kell wouldn’t be okay with some of the things the GBs have done.

I doubt he’d approve of the way Mraize manipulated Shallan’s DID to try and recruit her, if only because it was likely to backfire. Look at how Kell recruits Vin, versus how Mraize tries to recruit Shallan. Mraize does what Vin thought Kell was doing. Kell proves otherwise and recruits Vin, while Mraize’s foolishness leads to him losing Shallan. So Kell would have disapproved - if only because it was stupid. 
 

And Kell wouldn’t have approved of killing random porters. If you were in his very broad category of ‘enemy’ he’d be fine with the deaths. But those porters weren’t nobles, or in other, similar categories. Just people trying to live their lives, and he usually does try to avoid harming those directly. (Indirectly... is a very different story. Kell struggles to recognize the indirect harm he causes.) However, knowing how ruthless he can be, many GBs would be surprised to realize this.

So he definitely doesn’t approve of everything they do, but the GBs as a whole are very much his thing. Which is why I think the discrepancy comes down to lack of oversight and Kell not being able to guide them directly.

[Koloss17]

5 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

True, but we also know the character. Kell wouldn’t be okay with some of the things the GBs have done.

I doubt he’d approve of the way Mraize manipulated Shallan’s DID to try and recruit her, if only because it was likely to backfire. Look at how Kell recruits Vin, versus how Mraize tries to recruit Shallan. Mraize does what Vin thought Kell was doing. Kell proves otherwise and recruits Vin, while Mraize’s foolishness leads to him losing Shallan. So Kell would have disapproved - if only because it was stupid. 
 

And Kell wouldn’t have approved of killing random porters. If you were in his very broad category of ‘enemy’ he’d be fine with the deaths. But those porters weren’t nobles, or in other, similar categories. Just people trying to live their lives, and he usually does try to avoid harming those directly. (Indirectly... is a very different story. Kell struggles to recognize the indirect harm he causes.) However, knowing how ruthless he can be, many GBs would be surprised to realize this.

So he definitely doesn’t approve of everything they do, but the GBs as a whole are very much his thing. Which is why I think the discrepancy comes down to lack of oversight and Kell not being able to guide them directly.

So while I do agree with you, I do think Kelsier can change. He can be broken like the heralds, or can just go through a drastic change as he realizes the world is not as he thought. I also think he could be like Taravangian. Kill the few to save the many.

Now I have my own issues with the idea. I see all the similarities, but Kelsier is NOT a leader of an organization type. He gathers a small group of friends or does amazing things alone, then gathers a group of followers to worship him. We saw this in both era 1 and 2, and I have a feeling that will not change as his morals change. 

[Kingsdaughter613]

Just now, Koloss17 said:

So while I do agree with you, I do think Kelsier can change. He can be broken like the heralds, or can just go through a drastic change as he realizes the world is not as he thought. I also think he could be like Taravangian. Kill the few to save the many.

Now I have my own issues with the idea. I see all the similarities, but Kelsier is NOT a leader of an organization type. He gathers a small group of friends or does amazing things alone, then gathers a group of followers to worship him. We saw this in both era 1 and 2, and I have a feeling that will not change as his morals change. 

Kell would understand what T did but would not approve. This is a WoB, so not exactly debatable.

 

The GBs seem to consist of multiple levels of ‘crews’. There seem to be several master/apprentice type levels leading up to a core group around Thaidakar himself. I don’t think they’re big, so much as they are very fluid and flexible.

Kell’s MB crew was actually pretty big if you consider the levels. Several members of the crew had their own crews. At a certain point a literal army was part of the ‘crew’ (Kell definitely seems to consider the army his, so it counts).

Kell gathers a small, specialized core crew who know as much of what’s going on as Kell is willing to reveal to anyone. Within that group, a handful know a few things others don’t. Only Kell knows everything.

Then those crew gather their own crews to fulfill their various agendas. Those crews have their own subcrews, especially when we’re talking about the Cosmere - not Luthadel. 
 

I’m guessing the Luthadel Crew had three to four layers: Kell, the Crew, sub-crews, sub-sub-crews. The GB’s probably have between five and eight layers, depending on the world.

I think Iyatil’s master is core crew, and there is one core crew member on each world. Those were personally picked by Kell.

Iyatil is sub-Crew, and Mraize is a few steps below her. He’s her apprentice though, so he’s considered more of the same rank as her. Iyatil runs her own crew on Roshar, but Mraize often gets to use them too.

Also worth remembering: Kell has run a government now, which is basically a big corporation. So it’s not like he doesn’t have experience running an organization. I doubt he sees the GBs as such, though.