Taravangian Wasn't Entirely Lying: A Taln Identity Theory

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

I was despairing of the wet Taln thing, but as it turns out Kholinar is right next to not one, but two rivers. So the water thing may actually be pretty mundane.

 

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And, to continue my exploration of the Honorblade thing... I'm not actually 100% sure that Nalan's Blade is not Taln's.

 

Gaze at the three Honorblades at the bottom of this.

 

Does the middle one really match the Skybreakers, like the previous image I posted implies? For reference, the black symbol at the top right here.

 

Here are another two versions of the symbols, too: Stoneward and Skybreaker.

 

It seems conceivable to me that the bottom middle one is actually the Stoneward Honorblade. (For reference, a larger version of the Honorblade in question can be found on Part 2 of the Way of Kings.)

 

If so, it is really darn spikey. And if it is, then that heavily heavily heavily implies that the Herald is in fact Taln.

 

Anyone want to help me in the interpretation of this image?

 

The way i see those three blades are 1. Jezrien's 2. Nalan's 3. Chana's

[Moogle]

In regards to the new direction of the discussion, I agree with your analysis Moogle. It would certainly seem that the man at the end of WoK was holding Taln's blade. That still doesn't answer whether the man is Taln or not, though, merely that he holds Taln's Blade.

 

You're right that it doesn't answer whether or not the man is Taln if he has Taln's Honorblade... but the chances skyrocket, in my humble opinion. All the situations where it's not the case become highly unlikely, simply because "Taln" himself seems to be a Herald. It would mean that another Herald found Taln, was crazy, and took his Blade... and Taln couldn't stop it.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

You're right that it doesn't answer whether or not the man is Taln if he has Taln's Honorblade... but the chances skyrocket, in my humble opinion. All the situations where it's not the case become highly unlikely, simply because "Taln" himself seems to be a Herald. It would mean that another Herald found Taln, was crazy, and took his Blade... and Taln couldn't stop it.

 

I agree, the alternatives to the man being Taln seem unlikely. Working under the assumption that the Heralds know whether anyone else has joined them in their torture, Taln could have returned to Roshar angry, and sought out a Herald to send in his stead. That's just wild spit-balling though. 

[Moogle]

I agree, the alternatives to the man being Taln seem unlikely. Working under the assumption that the Heralds know whether anyone else has joined them in their torture, Taln could have returned to Roshar angry, and sought out a Herald to send in his stead. That's just wild spit-balling though. 

 

Just to support your idea that the Heralds know if they're alone in torture, we have two passages which I think hint at it.

 

Taln's first interlude line (if he is Taln...):

Of fires that burned and yet they were gone. Of heat he could feel when others felt not. Of screams his own that nobody heard. Of torture sublime, for life it meant.

 

And this here Death Rattle:

“The burdens of nine become mine. Why must I carry the madness of them all? Oh, Almighty, release me.”

 

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I've gone over all the WoBs, and I still don't get Brandon refusing to name him Taln (though he slips up a few times) when I don't think anyone originally thought he was anyone else. I'm not sure how to take that, because I can find very few hints supporting a case of mistaken identity (the most notable is the line  "Who am I? I... I am Talenel'Elin"), and Brandon would almost certainly foreshadow that. I will continue to hunt.

[Blaze1616 he/him]

I've gone over all the WoBs, and I still don't get Brandon refusing to name him Taln (though he slips up a few times) when I don't think anyone originally thought he was anyone else. I'm not sure how to take that, because I can find very few hints supporting a case of mistaken identity (the most notable is the line  "Who am I? I... I am Talenel'Elin"), and Brandon would almost certainly foreshadow that. I will continue to hunt.

 

I actually finished a reread of WoK last night, and in the Epilogue, the text even references him as "The man who had named himself a Herald." It's as if Brandon was hoping we'd question the identity, rather than accepting it at face value. I find the whole thing odd. It makes me wonder if he wants us questioning identities; perhaps someone else is masquerading as a Herald.

 

Are we confident that the man at the end of WoK, and the man in WoR, are the same? Is it possible the man got swapped as well as the Blade? That would explain the Blade's swap too, though I find it to be an unlikely scenario.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Blaze1616

[Moogle]

I actually finished a reread of WoK last night, and in the Epilogue, the text even references him as "The man who had named himself a Herald." It's as if Brandon was hoping we'd question the identity, rather than accepting it at face value. I find the whole thing odd. It makes me wonder if he wants us questioning identities; perhaps someone else is masquerading as a Herald.

 

Are we confident that the man at the end of WoK, and the man in WoR, are the same? Is it possible the man got swapped as well as the Blade? That would explain the Blade's swap too, though I find it to be an unlikely scenario.

 

There is a WoB confirming they are the same man:

Q:  The person who arrived at the gates of Kholinar, the one you refuse to acknowledge as Talenel - is that person the same as the one delivered to the warcamps?

A:  Yes.

(source)

 

And you're right, the text does say he had "named himself a Herald". Even still... Hoid's there, and pronounced this as being super important. If he's not Taln, why the heck would Hoid be there?

 

I asked a RAfO-bait question on the AMA for the slim chance of getting at least some small tidbit of information to chew on, but my hopes are not high.

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

On that death rattle, why nine and not ten?  Surely the burden of the other nine would add to his own?

[Blaze1616 he/him]

Thanks for the WoB. Its a very odd situation, and Brandon's insistence on not giving away information, to the point of him correcting people who assume it's Taln, just adds to the oddity. 

 

Perhaps Hoid was there due to the novelty. The conversation he was having with the guards about someone performing a feat independently of, but after, someone else; could he be alluding to this not being Taln, and as a result when Taln gets there his pleas will fall on deaf ears? Though this "Taln's" pleas have also fallen on deaf ears, so...

 

Edit: @ParadoxSpren, perhaps he's calling the burden that which is more than what he would have recieved otherwise. He would have recieved his own torture already, but now he must make up for nine others as well.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Blaze1616

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Well to be fair..if you had a complete ragged stranger approach you, whilst it was an average guard duty day, in some state of incoherentness claiming to be one of Almighty's chosen Heralds, wouldn't you be slightest bit skeptical?

 

That is an interesting train of thought; could someone else have perhaps done something similar, or Hoid has heard something similar? It is  strange, especially as Hoid seems to regard and acknowledge the guy as a Herald with his being too late and all.

[Lirins hand]

First off, I keep getting stuck on how much emphasis is placed on the size/shape of these swords based on the little information we have.  The Honorblade descriptions are very generic, really.  I.e."like a spike" - just thinking of all the different images that people had about Mistborn spikes.

 

Secondly, creating a new word:  Glyph-ified - the act of turning objects or words into stylized art/pictographs to represent those objects/words to an illiterate population (most men).

 

In a world where names that have been glyphified can have no physical resemblance to the actual glyphs/glyph pairs they have been based on or you can stylize the same glyphpair in many different ways, can we really take glyphified swords as accurate representations of the real swords?  Where did those images come from, which time frame?  Are they based on the Herald's name, their surges, or actual descriptions of the items?  Throw in the artistic license that is widely used and there is no almost no way that any of the sword glyphs would have any semblance to the real thing.  

When did glyph-ifying become the way of communication?  Recreance time era?  So there's also the time from the last desolation until then for the descriptions/images to become distorted.  Plus after the Recreance, when the Shardblades became more ornate and decorated, did the Honorblade glyphs change to match that trend? 

[ParadoxicalZen he/him]

Well...in WoR after Kaladin says the third oath, after catching up with the soldiers and everyone to go chase Szeth, doesn't the Windrunner glyph appear under him or something similar, hence one of the surrounding people saying that it looks like wings. I can't remember the exact passage and i don't have it on hand 

[Moogle]

Brandon actually replied. I mean... wow, he's been very chatty lately. He's great.
 

Q: The man who calls himself Taln had his Blade swapped with another. Presumably, the people (or person) doing so thought he had an Honorblade.
Would the people who did the swap have known if Taln did not in fact actually have an Honorblade? Could they have been taking a chance and in fact ended up with a regular Shardblade?

A: This is possible. Assuming they knew just what they were trying to grab, they'd probably have figured it out very quickly.
(source)

 

The answer is not particularly useful, but it has a few interesting implications.

 

First, it seems to me the people grabbing the Blade did not originally know 100% that Taln had an Honorblade, but quickly figured out that he did (my interpretation is, if the people knew what they were trying to grab, they would have figured out whether Taln had an Honorblade very quickly).

 

As well, "very quickly" implies to me that, if Taln was not holding an Honorblade, they would have not actually swapped the Blades. They would have just left his old Shardblade there. (Because, what's the point of swapping two regular Shardblades?)

 

This is by no means confirmed (this is me interpreting a WoB and not being confident), but it makes me favor the idea that Taln had an actual Honorblade much more strongly.

 

Which is weird. Darn eye colors.

Edited July 17, 2015 by Moogle

[Oudeis he/him]

Where did they get the new Blade? It's still an oddity. Never before seen, without providence. Perhaps whoever gave Helaran his? What did they do about the guards who saw the first Blade and could have said, hey, that's not it.

This wasn't just some guy, cuz almost no one would have access to an unknown Shardblade. It seems not to be the Sons of Honor unless they have terrible interagency memoes. This feels maybe like the kind of thing the Diagram could predict. The Ghostbloods knew of Taln, but sent Veil in to learn more.

[ccstat he/him]

Alternatively, we know of at least one religious group that has been hoarding Honorblades for a long time, and are reputedly good at retrieving them. My current belief is that the Stone Shamans are responsible for the swap. Since an arriving Herald is the sort of anathema information that they made Szeth Truthless over, they would want to confirm it for themselves.

If it's just a normal dead-spren blade, you can ignore the crackpot imposter. If it's a genuine Honorblade but not Taln's, you wanted it back anyway because Moogle was right (as was Mr. T) that someone stole it from you. (Unless it belongs to the herald that went back for his, which would be awkward if he still wants it--presumably that Herald could resummon the blade if he hasn't given it up again. But if not I guess the Shamans would be able to complete their set of 9.)

If it's the real deal I'm not sure what they do, but probably something drastic. Or maybe their denial runs really deep and they decide to ignore real-Taln too.

Spelling things out this way makes me think that "Taln" definitely is not who he claims. First, Taln could presumably resummon his own blade if it were taken from him. (I recognize that this is an assumption not everyone shares, but I think it is a reasonable one. Until we see evidence that Honorblades don't work that way, I will consider them to be similar to dead-spren blades in terms of bonding and summoning.)

Anyway, if we assume that the Stone Shamans are the blade swappers, then they would know for sure whether "Taln" is who he claims to be. I'll need to think through the scenarios a bit more to look for textual evidence either way, but from a narrative standpoint, I think it is far more likely that Szeth's confrontation with his people will be more like "We know you are still lying because the last Herald hasn't returned, and we can prove it" than like "Oh, sorry, you were right after all. Our bad."

Edited July 18, 2015 by ccstat

[hoser he/him]

We know that Hoid can tell when and where he needs to be, but not what he will find. Kholinar seems like a logical place for groups to plant sleeper agents. For me, the first question is: what did Hoid do? Since he was definitely involved, he is the prime suspect. Even though none of our questions have teased out what he did with it,that doesn't rule out his involvement in the transfer.

The diagram could have done something, but I find it unlikely that they could predict "Taln"'s arrival.