Man, I hope Taravangian's doing alright.

[Sparrowhawk]

I've always liked Taravangian because he's an amazing utilitarian villain, and I've always kind of hoped he'd succeed in some way in making the world a better place, even if the narrative whoops his ass and forces some "journey before destination" nuance into his philosophy. When he became Odium at the end of RoW I was really hoping he'd basically just end the war or something (not that I expected him to). In WaT, I could buy that he was convinced he needed to get more power so he could be the uncontested, perfect ruler.

But at the same time, he's not holding the shard of, like, benevolence, he's trying to control the infinite force of directionless divine wrath and emotion, and it's clearly warping him a little bit. I'll totally buy him getting kinda sidetracked by wanting to show-up Dalinar and Jasnah, but I'd be really disappointed if he kept getting more and more unreasonably tyrannical or aggressive. 

I'm sort of hoping the shard of Honor will help him keep to his utilitarian principles and resist the influence of Odium. This is why I was surprised when the new double-shard mix was called Retribution! That seems quite malevolent!!
What do you guys think. Is Honor going to make Vargo more, well, honorable? Or just more inflexible?

[RedBlue]

It appears to me that Taravangian is not doing alright, and that having more power is pretty much the worst thing that could have happened to him personally. It just enables all of his worst instincts.

And Honor is just as divorced from context, nuance and common sense as the rest of the Shards. I doubt that will help.

[+Child of Hodor]

LOL at the title

No, he is not alright. He has huge problems with all the other Shards after him and getting a somewhat sapient Honor will be trouble for him long term. 

[daaaaale]

48 minutes ago, Sparrowhawk said:

This is why I was surprised when the new double-shard mix was called Retribution! That seems quite malevolent!!

Retribution: "Punishment inflicted on someone as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act" - seems pretty spot on to me when mixing honor and hatred. My initial guess was  it could have been something like "Revenge" (maliciously keeping an oath), so Retribution wasn't far off. 

I think if Retribution were to combine with Valor, we'd see something like Justice or Restitution. 

[MagicMaggot]

To be honest, I don't really understand how he is supposed to be a fit for Honor at all. Special restrictions on keeping your word, even compared to other shards, are kind of a big restriction on Utilitarianism's "by any means necessary". He certainly wasn't a man of his word in his mortal life, with basically everything about him being a manipulative front, with a secret society bend on keeping it up, and no shyness about giving blatant lies and false promises to the people he was duping to reach his goals. If good old Vargo was good enough for Honor in that moment, is there even anyone who wouldn't have been? 

So yeah, I'd expect him to have problems remaining himself, while catering to a power that doesn't really fit his personality profile. And yes, considering that every time he negociates he risks binding himself to promises that might become a burden when circumstances for the utilitarian calculation change, I'd guess that holding that power would make him more likely to brute force problems, now he is probably the most powerful god around. 

In the long-term, with Honor's budding sentience on the one side, and Mishram, as a super sexy draw for his Odium portions on the other side, he likely won't be having a fun time. And that's discounting the fact that he has to manage with the attention of the other shards that will be overwhelmingly current and hostile. 

But well... it's Stormlight Archive. Having a hard time is basically synonymous with getting a character arc. And he did save Karbranth, in violation of his principles, and did not manage to prove his philosophy to/through Dalinar, which really rattled him. So there is stuff to work with... And 5 books left to go, where things certainly won't be stagnant, either.

[Sparrowhawk]

I'm hoping that his main motivation really is doing good, and his lust for power is a flaw amplified by Odium, rather than his main motivation being power and him just hiding it behind utilitarianism.
I think it's much more interesting if that's the case, because that kind of does give him a legitimate reason to want to be the sole power, if he really does believe he can make a nearly perfect world. If that's true, I'd hope he gives the Cosmere an example of that on Roshar ("this is what I'm trying to do, please do not resist"), but unfortunately it seems like he's not doing that (at least not yet). 

Basically, I really hope he doesn't just become a stereotypical unreasonable power-hungry villain (though he should definitely keep being a drama queen), even if he is the bad guy! I liked what he did by conquering most of Roshar via subterfuge and diplomacy (eg. Thaylenah), I want to see more of that! He may believe the ends ultimately  justify the means, but I'd hope he'll still prefer siding with less destructive means when possible! 

[Leuthie]

23 hours ago, Sparrowhawk said:

I've always liked Taravangian because he's an amazing utilitarian villain, and I've always kind of hoped he'd succeed in some way in making the world a better place, even if the narrative whoops his ass and forces some "journey before destination" nuance into his philosophy. When he became Odium at the end of RoW I was really hoping he'd basically just end the war or something (not that I expected him to). In WaT, I could buy that he was convinced he needed to get more power so he could be the uncontested, perfect ruler.

But at the same time, he's not holding the shard of, like, benevolence, he's trying to control the infinite force of directionless divine wrath and emotion, and it's clearly warping him a little bit. I'll totally buy him getting kinda sidetracked by wanting to show-up Dalinar and Jasnah, but I'd be really disappointed if he kept getting more and more unreasonably tyrannical or aggressive. 

I'm sort of hoping the shard of Honor will help him keep to his utilitarian principles and resist the influence of Odium. This is why I was surprised when the new double-shard mix was called Retribution! That seems quite malevolent!!
What do you guys think. Is Honor going to make Vargo more, well, honorable? Or just more inflexible?

Oaths and Hatred. Binding and inciting. One seeks to create lasting Connections. The other seeks to make those Connections repulsed by each other. 

The new Shard is going to be more focused and stable, but no more honorable. Honor is dead. There's only binding now.

[Returned he/him]

He's doing alright for now, but I predict that the big issue he's going to have is that his view of utility is pretty arbitrary: whatever he says is best is best, so his obligations are really just to do whatever he prefers (and then pay any costs, as necessary).

I feel like this has been amplified since his ascension. His reasons for why he must destroy the other Shards are essentially "I vaguely don't like the systems those Shards have imposed on the people that live on their worlds". His rationale for why his regime will be better have been pretty thin, so far, little more than just asserting that it will be better.

I don't think that the nascent identity of Honor's power is ultimately going to be thrilled that Taravangian does a lot of what he does simply because he promised to do it. "I promise I'll rob your house" doesn't have the most palateable follow-through.

[Dalluminum he/him]

Taravangian has always been one of my favorite Cosmere characters, and one of my favorite villains of all time. Seeing his interludes was one of my favorite parts of WaT.

I kind of teared up a little at the Kharbranth reveal. It was a "yay, he's still Taravangian in there... wait is that a good thing?" kind of deal.