Why Taravangian is perfect to take up Odium and why he'll lose it

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

As usually happens with me, I was not thinking about the Cosmere at all, when I suddenly had an idea hit me. Regardless of what Cultivation has told Taravangian, I believe a foundational reason that she cultivated Taravangian to take up Odium (and I believe she planned Retribution as well, based on her actions) is because Taravangian hates himself, intensely.

He constantly referred back to what the physician at his birth, wrongfully predicted. And while I am sure that was traumatic in his youth, it became clear in adulthood that he was anything but "diminished" in his mental capacity. 
He went out of his way to involve himself in as many gruesome acts as he possibly could, and then went out of his way to demonstrate that to Szeth (and possibly others). A king who orders the murders of his subjects is just as guilty for their deaths as the person who commits the murder, and Taravangian (of all people) knows that, but he would go and sit with the dying, killing them himself on a regular basis. It's clear from his direct admissions to Szeth, and his oblique ones to Dalinar, that he felt pain/sorrow/grief at his actions but he never once deviated from his plan. I believe that he so firmly embedded himself in the minutia of brutality because he wanted to self-harm through grief and horror (and also so that he could claim the moral highground of "Look at me..I did all these things because I had to do them. My way was the only way. The right way. And, I  have to be the one to 'save everyone'") <--Honestly, I wish that he'd be over this in SA 6 and stop talking about it, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one, as it's sort of his core thing, even in godhood.
All of these actions, paint the picture of a man who is conflicted between what he could have been, and what he's decided he will be. He had dozens of opportunities to stop the Diagram and side with Dalinar fully, but he never did. And he never did, because he had decided in his "smart times" that there was no way for Dalinar to win. It seems to me that if someone had tossed Taravangian out of a window in Urithiru, somewhere around Oathbringer, things wouldn't be quite so bleak for Roshar and the Cosmere now, and Taravangian knows that too.

Anyway, I feel that Odium's intent is clearly focused outwardly, not inwardly, and Taravangian's hatred is mostly directed at himself. I think that him executing further plans on the level of a Shard will only deepen his self-loathing, and that Odium will ultimately reject him. Honor was charged to watch, listen, and learn from Taravangian, and his sociopathic/narcissistic obsession with sticking to his plans regardless of the cost (in lives, planets, or honor). I just don't see Honor accepting him longterm either. 

All of that is to say, Retribution isn't Cultivation's endgame, I think he's her opening move.

[Returned he/him]

As I've thought about your post, I have begun wondering about the fusion of Odium and Honor being Retribution and how odd it is for Taravangian to have been the one to forge them together that way. I'm not sure I'm sold on the self loathing aspect, but I do think that Taravangian is ultimately going to be a poor vessel for the Odium aspect for reasons similar to what you've presented.

He has some elements for both, individually: his intense emotionality has at least given him experience in dealing with an overwhelming tumult of emotion, and his unwavering commitment to the Diagram regardless of what it cost him or anyone else feels on-brand for Honor (before it started to gain self-awareness, at least). But the retribution aspect is pretty new and doesn't track so obviously with Taravangian pre-ascension.

He was very positive in his ambitions (even though his optimistic case for preserving humanity may not have been terribly hopeful) and virtually of the emotion we saw on-screen was sadness and regret: he was weighed down by what he had to do. He never really displayed negative emotions for others, no spite or resentment or anything like that. But after the ascension that darker set of emotions is pretty much all we see, which is fitting for Odium but an absolutely terrible fit for the man himself. Experience with strong emotion suits Odium about as well as liking heights suits being thrown out of an airplane with no parachute.

"Smart" Taravangian had little capacity for emotion but had arrogance in abundance. No restraint, no second thoughts, no (apparent) ability to doubt his own conclusions or thought processes-- the most complete evidence of his being right about something he could ever want is his own observation of himself believing that he's right. No need to bow to, or even acknowledge, others or their needs.

Shards don't like that. It didn't work for Rayse. It didn't work for Tanavast. There is at least one other (outside of SA) for whom it didn't work, and perhaps more depending on how you want to think about it. Taravangian doesn't seem better equipped to deal with raw hatred than anyone else, and his closest relevant experience with emotion isn't that similar to what Odium has been feeding him. This is the classic Shard/Vessel problem we've seen before, and I'm not that confident that Taravangian's practiced arrogance is going to impress Odium or keep it under control. That, in turn, will impede his ability to keep Honor satisfied and integrated (even more so now that it has some self-awareness).

But I don't think that we're likely to see the Shards rejecting Taravangian in the sense that he loses them. Rather, I think that the Shards' tensions with each other and Taravangian will alter his mind and cause the whole being to shift its inflection, similar to Harmony potentially collapsing towards Discord. I have no prediction for what that new inflection will be.

I decline to speculate on Cultivation's plans and how Retribution might fit into them other than to note that, due to her Shard's nature, she may not have the philosophical orientation to have endgames.

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

9 minutes ago, Returned said:

But the retribution aspect is pretty new and doesn't track so obviously with Taravangian pre-ascension.

Honestly, it tracks very well for me. I didn't state as strongly as I actually feel about him still being angry over the prediction of the physician at his birth. Retribution, to paraphrase D&D alignments, is lawful hatred mixed with "I told you so" (but his version of that is more likely to be I'll make you see that I was right..by any means necessary..so that I can say I told you so, even if you're dead when I say it). <---That right there, is Taravangian all the way down to the ground. If he could have bullied Dalinar into admitting he was correct in his plans, and that Dalinar needed to step aside, make Taravangian the head of the coalition, and unalive himself...he would have done so without hesitation, but would have assuredly found someone to express how sad he was that he had to do that. Honestly, the more I've gotten to know Taravangian over the years, the more spiteful he's gotten. If Shard names could be sentences instead of one-word names, Retribution could go by, "I vow I will be Spiteful" without missing a beat.

15 minutes ago, Returned said:

He never really displayed negative emotions for others, no spite or resentment or anything like that.

O I dunno, that sickly-sweet chat he had with the dying king of Jah Keved, seemed pretty spiteful to me. At the very least, Taravangian was gloating something awful.

 

18 minutes ago, Returned said:

Experience with strong emotion suits Odium about as well as liking heights suits being thrown out of an airplane with no parachute.

Yeah, I agree with, and really like this metaphor. It's also a great example of why I believe Cultivation has much different plans for Taravangian than what she's told him, because she'd be aware of that more than anyone.

19 minutes ago, Returned said:

"Smart" Taravangian had little capacity for emotion but had arrogance in abundance.

Abundance is doing some really heavy lifting where Taravangian is concerned. I feel like he finds every loftier heights of arrogance as his story has unfolded. And yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.

 

21 minutes ago, Returned said:

But I don't think that we're likely to see the Shards rejecting Taravangian in the sense that he loses them. Rather, I think that the Shards' tensions with each other and Taravangian will alter his mind and cause the whole being to shift its inflection, similar to Harmony potentially collapsing towards Discord. I have no prediction for what that new inflection will be.

I mean, you pointed out how one of his Shards rejected Tanavast, and Rayse and Taravangian have both (I think T may have said it for Rayse post-mortem) that Odium preferred BAM to either of them, and I don't see how Honor wouldn't prefer her of Taravangian as well, given the chance. I'm not saying either or both of them will jump ship to bond with her. But Honor being self-aware, will not put up with Taravangian nearly as long as it did Tanavast, or Odium did Rayse. Also, Honor being self-aware and blending with Odium, will most likely have an affect on Odium if they ever split.
It could be as you say, that the Intent will shift Taravangian, but I really don't see him bowing to the power. I am pretty sure he'd rather die than admit to anyone that he's not the be-all, end-all of the Cosmere. But, that's just my feeling. I don't have any hard evidence to that.

 

26 minutes ago, Returned said:

I decline to speculate on Cultivation's plans and how Retribution might fit into them other than to note that, due to her Shard's nature, she may not have the philosophical orientation to have endgames.

I feel that she's more suited to endgames than most Shards. All kinds of things can be cultivated, but not infinitely. Eventually, any ecosystem(s) would be as cultivated as it can be. I suppose one could say that, in that case, Cultivation would use the Cosmere at large (if she felt it had reached it's ultimate level of cultivation) to cultivate another Galaxy/Dimension/whatever else Brandon would come up with that's way more creative than what I can think up.

So, in that view, no she wouldn't have an orientation towards endgames, only reaching a peak that could then be a launching point for something else. But, that feels like semantics, in that we're talking about a being that's looking at eternity, and eternity can't have an endgame by definition, but it can have extreme inflection points. So, if I added to my original statement, I guess it would be that Cultivation planned Retributions rise, and will use him to reach several more inflection points for the Cosmere going forward. 

[Returned he/him]

22 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

Honestly, it tracks very well for me. I didn't state as strongly as I actually feel about him still being angry over the prediction of the physician at his birth. [...] Honestly, the more I've gotten to know Taravangian over the years, the more spiteful he's gotten.

It's totally possible, I just haven't ever considered it from the angle you describe. Long-simmering anger about an odds-based prediction made due to an objectively true medical complication does sound a bit strange to me, given Taravangian's medical orientation, but that's basically all supposition on my part. One question I still have on the topic is: do we actually know that the physician was wrong? Taravangian seems to always have had a reputation for, let's say, unremarkable intelligence. The big break away from that is obviously his deal with the Nightwatcher. But prior to that, might Taravangian's anger and frustration (to the extent that they were present) be directed at the situation being true rather than the physician for making an uncharitable prediction? I don't know, but on my next re-read of the series I'll keep an eye out for hints.

In the meantime, are there any moments that stood out for you as being particularly good displays of Taravangian's pre-ascension spitefulness?

 

22 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

O I dunno, that sickly-sweet chat he had with the dying king of Jah Keved, seemed pretty spiteful to me. At the very least, Taravangian was gloating something awful.

That wasn't my read of that conversation at all. As I read it, it was very matter-of-fact from Taravangian and very in keeping with following the Diagram. "There is a script, we're all following it", etc. And it was a pretty normal day, without a big swing towards intelligence or emotion. Little to no gloating that I perceived, no malice or spite, just commitment to the plan, as always. Practical things only. It's true that he didn't admit anything even as the king tried to prod him into it, but there was a witness who would (and needed to) survive, and confirmation of Taravangian being a schemer would have been bad for his ambitions. After ascending, I 100% agree that Taravangian is very spiteful and loves to gloat. But it comes across to me as a kind of disjointed change, not a smooth ramp from how he was before. Obviously that's not conclusive of anything, and I imagine we'll learn more at some point.

 

22 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I mean, you pointed out how one of his Shards rejected Tanavast, and Rayse and Taravangian have both (I think T may have said it for Rayse post-mortem) that Odium preferred BAM to either of them, and I don't see how Honor wouldn't prefer her of Taravangian as well, given the chance. I'm not saying either or both of them will jump ship to bond with her. But Honor being self-aware, will not put up with Taravangian nearly as long as it did Tanavast, or Odium did Rayse. Also, Honor being self-aware and blending with Odium, will most likely have an affect on Odium if they ever split.
It could be as you say, that the Intent will shift Taravangian, but I really don't see him bowing to the power. I am pretty sure he'd rather die than admit to anyone that he's not the be-all, end-all of the Cosmere. But, that's just my feeling. I don't have any hard evidence to that.

It took an awfully long time for Honor to do anything other than ineffectually resist Tanavast, and even then it didn't just jump ship to another person or to isolation until a better vessel came along. It's not clear to me that they even can do something like that. It seems to me that when Shards and Vessel intentions are contradictory the Shard simply becomes less tractable and harder to use, while the pressure on the Vessel's mind is constant and insidious. A Vessel doesn't have to bow to the power to be changed. Consider:

Spoiler

Ati wound up pretty far from where he started, and by all accounts would not have chosen to be what he became.

It's on record in a WoB that Rayse was not controlling Odium very well by the end. Will Taravangian be worse than Rayse in this way? And whatever the answer to that question, do we think that he has any particular ability to resist the influence of the Shards on his mind? Maybe the time scale remaining in this plot line will just be too brief for those effects to have much impact.

 

22 hours ago, JohnnyKaizen said:

I feel that she's more suited to endgames than most Shards. All kinds of things can be cultivated, but not infinitely. Eventually, any ecosystem(s) would be as cultivated as it can be. I suppose one could say that, in that case, Cultivation would use the Cosmere at large (if she felt it had reached it's ultimate level of cultivation) to cultivate another Galaxy/Dimension/whatever else Brandon would come up with that's way more creative than what I can think up.

So, in that view, no she wouldn't have an orientation towards endgames, only reaching a peak that could then be a launching point for something else. But, that feels like semantics, in that we're talking about a being that's looking at eternity, and eternity can't have an endgame by definition, but it can have extreme inflection points. So, if I added to my original statement, I guess it would be that Cultivation planned Retributions rise, and will use him to reach several more inflection points for the Cosmere going forward. 

Of course things can be cultivated infinitely, if time continues infinitely. No ecosystem is static, it's always a dynamic equilibrium at most. Cultivation's whole thing is growth and change, and an endpoint is kind of definitionally the end of changes. I definitely believe that she has goals and preferences about how things ought to be, but it doesn't seem like "endpoint" would be in her vocabulary. I don't think that she could aim herself at some static state any more than Preservation could destroy something to preserve something else-- it's just not what the powers do.

As for planning specific events, I personally feel that futuresight's existence and representation in the Cosmere has made it fundamentally impossible for us to evaluate Shards' schemes in that way. But that's a whole other issue I've belabored elsewhere, and I won't force another thread to discuss it 

Edited February 13, 2025 by Returned

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

8 minutes ago, Returned said:

Taravangian seems to always have had a reputation for, let's say, unremarkable intelligence.

Its true that he has, but Dalinar, Navani, and Galivar all have moments of "O wow! This dude is crafty and not at all what I have heard." It seems that Brandon was implying heavily that Taravangian played up those rumors that had persisted from his youth, to his advantage, while simultaneously obsessively going back over the doctors words over and over for decades.

 

10 minutes ago, Returned said:

In the meantime, are there any moments that stood out for you as being particularly good displays of Taravangian's pre-ascension spitefulness?

Like I said above, the meeting with the dying King of Jah Keved is one of the few times we see Taravangian...I won't say not pretending, because he insisted on pretending even when alone with a man who was about to die...if not being spiteful, then at the very least petty and really gloating. 

Another great example for me is the fact that he put his granddaughter, and all the servants attending her, at risk just to watch Jasnah soulcast. He suspected that she was a surgebinder, and only trusted a display he witnessed, to judge for himself. Honestly, the more I think about this, the more I feel it's more extreme narcissism, egotism, and hypocrisy than spitefulness. Or maybe it's just the the former is so much greater than the later, that it feels less significant in comparison?

I also realize that I need to pay more attention to him on my next re-read and probably take notes on him to help form a more complete picture of him, for myself.

35 minutes ago, Returned said:

Little to no gloating that I perceived, no malice or spite, just commitment to the plan, as always

Except that no matter the form, "the plan" invariably is "Be king of everyone and everything, because I am the goat, and everyone else is stupid and less than me." I think the more I'm sitting and really thinking about him, the more I balk at his limitless disdain for everyone else in the Cosmere.  He has always (at least for the 6ish years worth of time we've seen him in) completely believed that he's the only person who is qualified to save humanity. Even when viable alternatives presented themselves during his mortality, and now in godhood, he could literally end war, conflict, and suffering across the Cosmere, but he won't do it. He'll only "end" those things, when he is in charge of all of it, and not a moment sooner. Still, I will pay extra close attention to to him on my next read through, and I'll see how that shapes and/or changes my thoughts on him.

42 minutes ago, Returned said:

It's on record in a WoB that Rayse was not controlling Odium very well by the end. Will Taravangian be worse than Rayse in this way? And whatever the answer to that question, do we think that he has any particular ability to resist the influence of the Shards on his mind? Maybe the time scale remaining in this plot line will just be too brief for those effects to have much impact.

Perhaps. Also, we have very little knowledge of what it's like to be a vessel and how they relate to the power. My statements were pretty much exclusively derived from Rayse and Tanavast's experiences. Taravangian started off his godhood as a convenient 2nd choice and has continued with that theme into his second ascension. It did take thousands of years for Odium and Honor to in ,small or large ways, reject their vessels. It feels to me like they would have learned from that though. Both of them had only ever had one vessel in their current state, and while Odium may not have the same level of intelligence that Honor is showing, it clearly hasn't liked Rayse or his plans for several thousand years, and that came to an acute head in the last several years, as evidenced by Rayse's swift transformation as he battled the power he wielded. Also, it's probably my sense of Brandon and how he does things that makes me believe we will see Taravangian lose one or both Shards. Once again, I am struck with the feeling of having to wait so long for another SA book *sigh*

I had written a whole thing about what you had behind the spoiler tag, but I'd forgotten we are on the Stormlight-only board, so perhaps I'll write something about it on the Cosmere board later.

53 minutes ago, Returned said:

I don't think that she could aim herself at some static state any more than Preservation could destroy something to preserve something else-- it's just not what the powers do.

A state of maximum Cultivation isn't a static one, it's simply an environment that has no more room for growth. Despite the massive size of planets, they are a finite space that given enough eons, will run out of room. Cultivation is, at the very least, planning for Cosmere-sized Cultivation, and Retribution is a big ol tool of change...emphasis on tool. As to the other part of this regarding MB
 

Spoiler

Preservation did destroy in order to Preserve. That was Leras' whole arc, I had thought. It didn't end well for him, but it is what he chose to do.

And yeah, Futuresight can, and does, cause some mind-bending/paradox/timey-wimey messes, but we can (at the very least) take the clues that Brandon throws out there, like Honor's comments on Cultivation's higher skill in predicting the future. Even that though, doesn't really have a scale by which to judge and probably won't for another decade or so...again *sigh*