Theory: The Diagram was NOT created by rational deduction alone

[DefiantBurrito]

I have seen a few threads about the Diagram, but I think I have a different take on it. Apologizes if this has been discussed before!

 

My theory is that the on the day the Diagram was written, Taravangian was NOT actually as smart as he thinks he was. Instead, something ELSE was influencing/affecting his mind on that day.

 

Evidence:

 

1. The level of intelligence needed was statistically very unlikely

Brandon gives us several pages where Taravangian and an advisor are discussing the probability distribution of Taravangian's intelligence, and the conclusion is that the "Day of Brilliance" was VERY unlikely:

"If you were to live another two thousand years, Vargo," she said, "you'd maybe have one single day like this among them. Maybe. Even odds, I'd say."  --  Words of Radiance I-14

 

This interlude makes it clear that the "Day of Brilliance" was significantly outside Taravangian's normal intelligence range. I believe that this whole section is a hint from Brandon that maybe we should treat that day with suspicion, because Taravangian's supposed super-intelligence doesn't fit his usual curve.

 

2. The Day of Brilliance was different from other smart days

On the day he created the Diagram, Taravangian's behavior was described as "babbling the whole time", "lucid insanity", and "madness". He also has no memory of that day:

He didn't remember any of this. It was the product of twenty hours of lucid insanity

 

On his second most brilliant day, there is no evidence of insanity or madness, and he remembers it clearly:

"I remember that day," he said. "It was when I solved Fabrisan's Conundrum."

 

Taravangian's theory seems to be that both the madness and forgetfulness were byproducts of being off-the-charts brilliant, but I don't think we necessarily need to accept that explanation. I don't see why becoming smarter would lead to insanity or forgetfulness. In fact, I believe that the passages above, providing a direct contrast between remembering one bout of intelligence and not remembering the other, might be another hint that the Day of Brilliance wasn't what it seemed - it's another way in which it doesn't fit his usual pattern.

 

Another discrepancy that I have seen others mention: Typically on Taravangian's smart days, he is correspondingly stupid about predicting human behavior. Yet, that doesn't seem to be the case on the Day of Brilliance. In fact, MOST of his predictions are about human behavior. Some have theorized that he could get smart enough to make up for his lack of empathy with sheer deduction ability, but that explanation is unsatisfying to me.

 

3. Raw intelligence could not have predicted the future so accurately

In my opinion, creating the Diagram should have been impossible with ANY level of raw intelligence.

 

Taravangian would only be able to extrapolate from what he already knew, and some of his knowledge seems like it couldn't just be rationally deduced (e.g. "the secret that broke the Knights Radiant" or "the nature of the bond", specific concepts like "Nahel bond" and "Investiture").

 

Also, extrapolating human behavior years into the future, even with infinitely high intelligence, just seems implausible to me. It seems like you would just have too much error and uncertainty adding up.

 

Words of Brandon

I asked Brandon about this on Reddit, and his answer was not conclusive, but he also didn't outright deny my suspicion:

 

Q. Taravangian: On his "Special Day" where he created the Diagram, was he actually as smart as he thinks he was, or was something else going on? It seems suspicious that any level of raw intelligence would let him deduce all of that...

A.  That sure IS suspicious, eh? Let's just say that HE believes it was rational deduction. But other theories are valid.

 

Conclusion? Whatever The Diagram is, it's not just rational deduction

To me, Taravangian's theory that he predicted the future through sheer deduction seems far-fetched. A much better explanation is that this is exactly what it seems:

 - Madness

 - Scribbling on walls

 - Predicting the future

 - Not remembering

...Sounds like prophecy, right?

 

My guess is that some other power was able to influence his mind on that day and give him knowledge of the future. Whether that "other power" is helpful or harmful is up for debate!

 

Other misc thoughts

1. Cultivation has been associated with prophecy, and also has a link to the Nightmother... maybe there is some connection there.

2. If this theory is correct, it means that Dalinar and Taravangian both visited the Nightmother, and were both mentally influenced by prophetic visions... maybe receiving a "gift" from the Nightmother makes you open/vulnerable to something? (I'm thinking, similar to Ruin with Hemalurgy?)

3. Taravangian thinks that he invented the script that he used to write the Diagram, but since he doesn't remember that day, how can he be sure? Maybe during that day, he simply had knowledge of some other preexisting script? Might set up an interesting reveal later when somebody recognizes that script somewhere else!

 

Thank you for reading!!

 

 

[Oudeis he/him]

Hrm. Interesting, and I don't disagree. This is definitely an idea worth considering. Gonna toss out a few thoughts of my own, however.

 

1. Insanity and forgetfulness. I could see off-the-charts intelligence producing these, for essentially the same reason. His brain is working, faster, on a level it never has before. He can't make it slow down enough to make himself understood by those around him. This is why he seemed to be insane. Likewise, I would say his memory gap isn't due strictly to forgetfulness, so much as his brain's inability to remember. His thoughts were so multi-layered and complex that his current brain literally cannot even process them. They weren't typical, single-threaded cognition. He was at a level where inventing a code and writing in it was faster than just writing the sentence normally. His brain, as it is, isn't working well enough to even process the thoughts. Like something traumatic, the memory might be there, as I believe he mentions when he says that sometimes while reading it he gets an impression of what he meant, but inaccessible through average recall.

 

2. Smart enough to deduce emotional responses. Yeah, I'm with you on that one. It just doesn't make sense to me. I mean, if it turns out to be true, I won't throw the book down, but it just doesn't scan.

 

3. Things he couldn't have known. I'm not sure here. He has access to he Palaneum; he owns it. He's met the Nightwatcher. He knows of Gavilar's visions. There could be a TON of information he has, a lot of stuff we, the readers, don't. The entire point of the Veristitilians is to read biased records of the past and deduce what actually happened. Presumably, Vargo's read their stuff. This is the point I have the least trouble accepting. Someone looking at history, lore, religion, and superstition with a critical eye and a lot of raw data could find the trends and deduce what actually happened from many, many biased records.

 

I like your miscellaneous thoughts.

 

I have one possible addendum to your conclusion. I don't think we necessarily need to throw the entire idea out. It might be what it appears, but more than it appears. Rather than decide it wasn't intelligence at all, what if there's simply more to it? What if he did have an insanely smart day, but also an additional source of information? Maybe a book we're unaware of, maybe it was influence from something Shardic. Hey, maybe it was Hoid. I think you might be right, it might have nothing to do with intelligence. But maybe intelligence was only one part of it.

[king of nowhere]

you're not the first too come up with this idea. other people find it at least possible that some shard had directly influenced him that day. myself among them.

hoowever, that does not need that the diagram is the product of a shard. it is possible that said shard simply influenced his curse/gift to cause him his extremely brilliant day, which would have been too unlikely otherwise.

[Prince of Ravens he/him]

On my last read I thought of this too. Somethings are just too ... counterproductive to be actions for "saving the world". In one of his visions, when Dalanar talks to Nohadon, there is talk about a ruler who started a war before desolation. I think this is an old trick used by Odium.

[Blightsong he/him]

On my last read I thought of this too. Somethings are just too ... counterproductive to be actions for "saving the world". In one of his visions, when Dalanar talks to Nohadon, there is talk about a ruler who started a war before desolation. I think this is an old trick used by Odium.

And predicting the future is of the voidbringers...

[StormyAngel he/him]

Ooh, this ties in really well with some thoughts I've been having lately. Taravangian's actions, while theoretically to save the world, are really all focused on making him King. That's in the diagram. He's basically decided that he's got to be in charge of everything in order to save a small portion of humanity, which has inadvertently led him to trying to cut down anyone more powerful than he is. Rather than raising nations up, he's tearing them down to his level. So i can totally buy him working under Odium's influence.

[Patrick Star]

Totally insane theory of the day:

 

Tarivangian wrote the diagram in the language of the Dawnsingers.

[Oudeis he/him]

If he wrote it in a different language because it was the native language of what was possessing him, why would he write a translation key?

[natc]

The plan is pretty useless if nobody can read the plan no?

[Oudeis he/him]

If it was being written by someone who knew Vorin script, and it wanted to be understood, why write in code? The explanation for why Vargo did it was, he was so smart, the new language was so much easier to write in, it didn't occur to him others couldn't read it as well. In fact, doesn't he remember exactly that? There was a place where he wrote three sentences, one atop the other, and he actually remembers looking at them and thinking that they looked perfectly distinct and easily decipherable to his expanded mind.

[Patrick Star]

If he wrote it in a different language because it was the native language of what was possessing him, why would he write a translation key?

 

That's what's so insanely great about my insane theory!  Taravangian decoded the Dawnsingers!

[DefiantBurrito]

In fact, doesn't he remember exactly that? There was a place where he wrote three sentences, one atop the other, and he actually remembers looking at them and thinking that they looked perfectly distinct and easily decipherable to his expanded mind.

 

Here is the passage:

 

He found it on a reproduction of one corner of his room, where he'd written in tiny script sentences over the top of one another because he'd run out of space. In his clarity of genius, the sentences had looked easy to separate, but it had taken his scholars years to piece together what this said.

 

It does sound like he remembers it in this passage, but it doesn't specifically say he remembers it - so I'd argue that it's debatable how much he actually remembers. He could just be making assumptions about what his motivations were at the time.

 

It does clearly say, earlier in the same chapter, "He didn't remember any of this" as I quoted earlier. Here is that full paragraph:

 

Here and there, Taravangian could find hints that this writing was his own. The way he wiggled a line, the way he wrote along the edge of a wall, much like how he would write along the side of a page when he was running out of room. He didn't remember any of this. It was the product of twenty hours of lucid insanity, the most brilliant he had ever been.

 

Based on this passage I would conclude that he doesn't specifically remember writing sentences over each other, but much like writing along the side of a page, etc, he simply recognizes it as something he would do. But it doesn't seem conclusive either way honestly.

 

Anyway, I agree with you that he probably did just invent the script (that is the simplest answer), but I do like the crazy theory.

Edited July 11, 2015 by DefiantBurrito

[DefiantBurrito]

What if he did have an insanely smart day, but also an additional source of information? Maybe a book we're unaware of, maybe it was influence from something Shardic. Hey, maybe it was Hoid. I think you might be right, it might have nothing to do with intelligence. But maybe intelligence was only one part of it.

 

I like this idea. In fact, thinking about this more, this seems like the most likely option because clearly there is SOME rational deduction going on - you can tell just by reading the Diagram passages. However, many aspects of it are suspicious, as I mentioned.

 

Taking this a bit further, here is a more specific theory:

1. Taravangian's Gift/Curse comes from Nightwatcher, who is associated with Cultivation.
2. This gives Cultivation some influence over exactly how the gift works, and maybe even a "backdoor" into Taravangian's mind. 
3. Cultivation helped produce the Diagram by kicking Taravangian's brain into extreme overdrive, while nullfying the "low empathy" drawback he usually has, and also feeding Taravangian glimpses of the future to keep his predictions on track.
4. However, this also means the Diagram is NOT the result of pure human reason - Cultivation was in control, and could have influenced the Diagram toward her own ends.

The plan spelled out by the Diagram seems like it could fit Cultivation... Cultivation wants to defeat Odium and keep the world alive, but isn't necessarily bound by "honorable" ways to do it. Furthermore, she wants to "cultivate" (i.e. control) the world, via her puppet Taravangian. There is no real evidence AFAIK about what Cultivation's goals/personality would be like, but that sounds reasonable to me.

 

It does NOT seem likely that Odium is directly influencing Taravangian... It would be an unnecessary long con. Odium's version of the Diagram could simply say "Give all the Shardblades to the Parshendi" or something. It seems like Taravangian's plan IS aimed toward defeating Odium, at least.

[kaellok he/him]

If it was being written by someone who knew Vorin script, and it wanted to be understood, why write in code? The explanation for why Vargo did it was, he was so smart, the new language was so much easier to write in, it didn't occur to him others couldn't read it as well. In fact, doesn't he remember exactly that? There was a place where he wrote three sentences, one atop the other, and he actually remembers looking at them and thinking that they looked perfectly distinct and easily decipherable to his expanded mind.

Random thought triggered by the words at the end that I have bolded.  We know that holding a Shard expands the mind tremendously in a short period of time.  Maybe something similar happened to Mr T?

 

Iirc, his Special Day happened almost immediately after visiting the Nightwatcher, right?  What if his Boon was to hold the Shard for, say, a minute (or maybe just a vast amount of Investiture?)  That would explain the frantic speed with which he worked, as he'd know that he only had a short period of time to capture all that he had Seen before it was lost, but also in a way that saw plans come to fruition when they were ready as opposed to years ahead of schedule (so, being intentionally obstinate and difficult.  After all, if he's capable of predicting how to start and end a civil war without anyone being the wiser and being nearly spot-on with which lighteyes would side with whom, why in Damnation would he not realize that people couldn't read his writing?!)

 

Right, it's 130am, and I'm not sure how solid the idea is, but: What if Mr T's Boon was to become a Sliver?  I'm pretty sure this would answer all of the problems we currently have with the Diagram / Mr T (while also creating, at a minimum, two new ones; one of them as large as a god.)

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Right, it's 130am, and I'm not sure how solid the idea is, but: What if Mr T's Boon was to become a Sliver?  I'm pretty sure this would answer all of the problems we currently have with the Diagram / Mr T (while also creating, at a minimum, two new ones; one of them as large as a god.)

I do like this idea, especially the boon/curse bit, it would make a lot of sense: having access to an immense amount of knowledge yet not being able to do much with it.

 

EDIT: grammar fail

Edited July 11, 2015 by ParadoxSpren

[Oudeis he/him]

As for timing... when did Gavilar die? I feel like there's a quote I read saying that Vargo definitely went to the Nightwatcher after Gavilar's death. Also, when calculating how smart he was, they looked back over five years, and implied Diagram Day was before that. Gavilar died something like seven years ago, yes? So we've got a two-year window, at most, where Diagram Day could have happened.

[Kelek's Breath he/him]

As for timing... when did Gavilar die? I feel like there's a quote I read saying that Vargo definitely went to the Nightwatcher after Gavilar's death. Also, when calculating how smart he was, they looked back over five years, and implied Diagram Day was before that. Gavilar died something like seven years ago, yes? So we've got a two-year window, at most, where Diagram Day could have happened.

Well, Taravangian says it's been years since the Day he wrote the Diagram, and WoB says he went after Gavilar's death:

http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6815-updated-with-qa-anyone-going-to-the-dayton-signing-19th/

Small correction: when Adrotagia is calculating how smart he was that day, she only looks at the last 500 days (1 year?).

 

As for if Cultivation took over his mind, I doubt that she was that overt, if only because as Honor says in the visions, they are bound by rules, and he constantly tells Dalinar he will give him what he can. Which may mean that Cultivation may have shown Taravangian the future (as Renarin can supposedly see) but the future is not set, but rather a probability Or she showed him multiple 'visions' of events and he had to write them down but also extrapolate from them (just like Dalinar does in his visions of the past).

[Blightsong he/him]

Especially when I think about how ruin was able to change words writen words around it is very obvious that odium has had many opportunities to manipulate Mr.T. Especially with the refrence of someone doing something similiar in trying to become king before Nohadon's desolation and that helping it be so destructive I really believe odium had an influence. It is a genius "long con" and makes sense for odium to do. In ruins case he manipulated someone into believing he was the hero of ages and used him to almost destroy the world. In Odiums case he is manipulating some one into believing he should be king to save humanity and is using him to destroy Roshar's chance at fighting back.

[acrestu]

The diagram remind me a lot of "psychohistory" from the Asimov foundation books. T even says he isn't predicting the future, and the use of mathematical models in the interlude seems to point to the diagram being the result of a prop ability calculation. The problem, and this is why Tarvingian wants so desperately to " update" the diagram, is because the variables are changing. The KR are appearing, etc.

I also wonder if the night watchers boon was for T to see a way to unite roshar, but the curse is that this unity will be the result of roshar uniting against him. With Szeth being free of his oath stone, it seems plausible that T's machinations may be exposed.

[reshi0501]

I don't know if this has already been discussed but what about if the intelligence isn't T's boon? He wanted to get the ability to save people and stop what was coming, so I would think that the day of deduction, by itself, is the boon he received. So likely he got access to extreme intelligence and some small part of Cultivation's future telling or he became a shard for some small period of time. Either way in this case it would explain why this day falls outside of the normal distribution of his intelligence.

[Bacon]

I ran across this in a Google search, and it made me think of something I hadn't realized before about my favorite character, so sorry for dredging up a long-dead thread.

Human brains have physical limits on what they can how fast synapses can fire, thoughts can be processed, etc. That's the only way everything works smoothly. Our muscles work the same way. We are actually much, much stronger than we seem, but exerting all that strength would cause our muscles to tear themselves apart faster than our bodies could repair them. Think of it like a computer process: if a computer with 2 GB of RAM is trying to do something with high priority that requires 3 GB of RAM, everything else it's doing slows down or freezes to accommodate it, things crash, and the computer overheats after too long.

I think that's what happened with Taravangian that day. His brain, because of magic, was suddenly required to run far, far, far beyond its limits. So other things, like the work required to convert short to long term memory, shorted out. This is also why he was by all definitions, insane: the minuscule amount of work required to do things as inconsequential as being coherent, was being devoted elsewhere. Going off that previous analogy, if his brain was a computer with 2 GB of RAM, only about 200 MB might be used at any given time on an average day. If his second smartest day caused his brain to take up 1.5 GB of space, that still allowed more than enough processing power to do everything else normally, which is why he was perfectly coherent and could remember everything afterwards. However, in his absolute smartest day, his 2 GB brain was consistently trying to use 10 GB of processing power. It's no wonder he seemed insane and couldn't remember anything later. I wouldn't be surprised if running at that capacity for even a day, significantly reduced his remaining lifespan.

[Farnsworth]

Wait a minute...

He doesn't even remember this.

So who says it was him? Mraize is a very odd guy, and if you look at my sig you can see that I espouse a theory about who he really is. It could be that Mraize was responsible for the Diagram, and wrote it while as disguised as Tarvangian with Lightweaving-esque powers. Ideas? Or is this just too crazy?

[Aoibheann she/her]

I think the OP is right.  Taravangian was possessed by someone/something on the day of the diagram.  

It may have been made possible by the boon/curse of the Nightwatcher.  I imagine someone with very, very low intelligence could be easier to possess.  It's possible this is an Unmade version of what a Bondsmith would come up with. 

[Krandacth]

So, building on the OPs hypothesis that the Diagram was not just the result of the heightened intelligence of Taravangian, this thread discusses who else may have contributed (starting with the case for it being primarily Cultivation):

 

[dionysus]

I definitely think something had to have helped him with information, and also influencing things to make sure the diagram stays on track. I'd have to guess Odium. In economics, the fatal weakness of centralized planning is information gathering and prioritization. This is in essence what Mr. T is trying to do with even less access to information that our technology allows us. No matter how much of a genius he is, he does not have access to the kind of information he would need to accurately predict for example how 7 princes of Jah Kaved would all fight each other. Then, on an ongoing basis, stalemating the war in Jah Kaved like he did such that everyone ends up dead who matters is impossible. A fatal illness at the wrong time, a surprisingly adept commander influencing the outcome of a battle, an arrow the wrong time hitting a general, all could drastically impact the outcome. Human history is full of examples like this. I refuse to believe the diagramist can control all these variables without divine support.

For me, I feel the diagramist and Mr. T are a big tool in some Shardholder's tool chest, but not the only one. Someone with Power is influencing things to happen the way the Diagram predicts.