The Unnamed Bridgeman

[Sand Master]

I was reading through Way of Kings again, and I noticed something very odd. On Kaladin's first bridge run, there is an unnamed bridgeman who says, "Talenelat'Elin, bearer of all agonies." The bearer of all agonies part interests me, because it clearly refers to the fact that he is the only Herald still being tortured in death, while all the other Heralds broke the Oathpact and are still alive. However, all of the common people believe that the Heralds won, stopped the cycle of Desolations, and chased the Voidbringers into the Tranquiline Halls. That being the case, how does this random bridgeman seem to know this information about Taln when nobody else does?

Additionally, he is described as being old and leathery-faced. I don't know how much older he would be than Kaladin, but I imagine it's pretty significant, especially when you consider the physical strength and stamina needed for a bridgeman. How would such an old man have survived carrying bridges long enough to know the ins and outs of how the whole process worked? He knew enough to tell Kaladin tips for making the carrying easier, knew not to make Gaz mad, and was able to look for the signs to see that the current bridge run was "going to be a bad one". It seems odd that someone so apparently old would be strong enough to survive carrying bridges as long as he must have.

The man also is the only bridgeman we see to show any kindness at all to Kaladin, while all the other bridgemen are pretty much completely dead inside. Much like Kaladin when he becomes "the wretch," they don't care about anything or anyone. So why does this bridgeman, who has clearly gone on at least a few runs before (and it seems likely that it's more than just a few), suddenly help Kaladin without any real reason to do so?

[Spoolofwhool]

Old guy in a random place dispensing useful information for seemingly no reason? It's obviously Hoid.  

About the Talenat exclamation, it's possible he had a rep for bearing agonies because of his stubbornness and toughness, so it might be that and not knowledge of his extended stint in Damnation. 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Xaklys]

Could have been Jezrien maybe?  He was confirmed by Brandon to have been in The Way of Kings.

[Oversleep]

46 minutes ago, Xaklys said:

Could have been Jezrien maybe?  He was confirmed by Brandon to have been in The Way of Kings.

I doubt that one of the Heralds would end up in a place like bridge crews; I even more doubt they they'd get killed there.

[Xaklys]

You could be right, I'm just stirring the discussion up a bit.

[Mason Wheeler]

3 minutes ago, Oversleep said:

I doubt that one of the Heralds would end up in a place like bridge crews

...but Hoid can be a beggar?

Quote

I even more doubt they they'd get killed there.

Meh.  They know what's coming.  Spend a few brief weeks in Damnation and then suddenly they're out again.

[Oversleep]

Just now, Mason Wheeler said:

...but Hoid can be a beggar?

How's that relevant? Heralds can't just Lightweave and run away, like Hoid does. I don't see how would a slave run away without anyone noticing or causing trouble along the way. And only one of the Heralds reclaimed his Blade (probably Nalan).

3 minutes ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Meh.  They know what's coming.  Spend a few brief weeks in Damnation and then suddenly they're out again.

... and go to the place they desperately were trying to avoid?

[DrakeMarshall]

1 hour ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Meh.  They know what's coming.  Spend a few brief weeks in Damnation and then suddenly they're out again.

Not a few weeks. As I understand it, they spend all the time between desolations in damnation. And since the last desolation was a long time ago, I doubt the heralds would want to risk their lives and join Taln at all. It turns out that in this case it would be a few weeks, but for all they knew, it would have taken many more centuries in damnation before a desolation allowed them to return.

3 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

About the Talenat exclamation, it's possible he had a rep for bearing agonies because of his stubbornness and toughness, so it might that and not knowledge of his extended stint in Damnation. 

This is very true. Taln was the head of the stonewards, and Words of Radiance says that both Taln and the Stonewards were remarkably steadfast. He could be known as a bearer of agonies in Vorin mythologies I think.

 

Even so it's an interesting theory. The details of that bridgeman are a little odd. I frankly still doubt he is someone in disguise (especially since very few people would probably be able to identify Kaladin as a proto-radiant this early in the bonding process, and there isn't really any other reason to infiltrate bridge four). But it's a clever thought anyway, and would be cool if it turned out true.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[Oversleep]

3 minutes ago, Drake Marshall said:

Even so it's an interesting theory. The details of that bridgeman are a little odd. I frankly still doubt he is someone in disguise (especially since very few people would probably be able to identify Kaladin as a proto-radiant this early in the bonding process, and there isn't really any other reason to infiltrate bridge four). But it's a clever thought anyway, and would be cool if it turned out true.

I don't think we would ever find out, cause he died on Kaladin's first run.

[DrakeMarshall]

Well I think the only way that this could be someone important in hiding is if they somehow didn't die. But I suppose this is a question the OP should answer. Were you implying that they aren't actually dead?

 

If they aren't actually dead, that would mean they would need to have the ability to identify Kaladin from a distance and track him down to bridge four, infiltrate it, and fake their death, all to share a few words with one of the up and coming radiants on Roshar. That simply isn't a sensible thing to do.

The only person who has both the ability and the personality to pull something like that is hoid, like spoolofwhool said. I kind of doubt Sanderson would put a cameo of hoid there because usually he likes to make hoid appearances a little more obvious. And plus the king's wit is already the biggest hoid involvement in a cosmere novel to date, so I'm not sure why Sanderson would make another small one like that.

 

Like I said, I harbor some skepticism of the theory but I still definitely like the idea.

[Sand Master]

1 hour ago, Drake Marshall said:

Well I think the only way that this could be someone important in hiding is if they somehow didn't die. But I suppose this is a question the OP should answer. Were you implying that they aren't actually dead?

 

If they aren't actually dead, that would mean they would need to have the ability to identify Kaladin from a distance and track him down to bridge four, infiltrate it, and fake their death, all to share a few words with one of the up and coming radiants on Roshar. That simply isn't a sensible thing to do.

The only person who has both the ability and the personality to pull something like that is hoid, like spoolofwhool said. I kind of doubt Sanderson would put a cameo of hoid there because usually he likes to make hoid appearances a little more obvious. And plus the king's wit is already the biggest hoid involvement in a cosmere novel to date, so I'm not sure why Sanderson would make another small one like that.

 

Like I said, I harbor some skepticism of the theory but I still definitely like the idea.

 

I wasn't necessarily implying that he wasn't actually dead, but I had certainly considered the possibility. Kaladin didn't exactly check to make sure, and

Spoiler

we saw Jasnah "die" pretty convincingly, but she turned out to be just fine too.

You're right that it does seem like a lot of effort to go through while only being able to say relatively little to Kaladin, and that's something I hadn't considered before. Something does still seem odd to me about him though. Maybe he's like Sigzil; a Worldsinger that got stuck in the bridge crews, and somehow he knows enough to identify Kaladin.

Of course, if that were the case, it wouldn't make much sense for him to not have gotten himself out of the bridge crews in the first place if we're assuming he had the ability to fake his own death. So maybe he was undercover in the army and saw Kaladin passing by, then disguised himself as a bridgeman? Or maybe he just did actually die.

 

Not claiming anything solid here, just trying to more closely examine a character that seemed off to me.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Sand Master
spoilers

[scifan]

I thought there was another person that Kaladin worked on that had a remarked "lack" of an accent... that's been identified as a possible Herald... (or is this the same one, and I just mis-understood...)

[galendo]

I figure the unnamed bridgeman is just a normal Alethi.  The fact that he's old doesn't mean much - you can get assigned to the bridge crews at any age.  Sure, he's been on bridge runs before, but that doesn't mean much.  Remember, on Kaladin's run, the unnamed fellow's at the front of the bridge during the approach, which means that for the past ten runs or so, he's been farther back.  It would take some luck to survive ten or twenty runs, but not all that much, especially if the run where he was at the front was one of the runs where the Alethi beat the Parshendi to the chasm and didn't have to fight at all.  A bit of luck, but we're talking like one chance in three or four, not one chance in hundreds.

As for tips on how to carry the bridge, again, I'm guessing it doesn't take all that long to learn.  Knowing not to make the boss mad is also pretty obvious advice, I'd think.  And as for knowing that the run is going to be a bad one, well, all that takes is noticing that the Parshendi are already set up and ready for the bridges.  We're not exactly talking rocket science here.

The interesting thing is the "Talenelat'Elin, bearer of all agonies" quote, of course, but even that doesn't take all that much speculation to explain away.  Doesn't it seem somewhat likely that at some time in the past 4500 years one of the Heralds, let's say Jezrien, is sitting around drunk on wine or depression when someone nearby says something like "Praise be to Jezrien, king of the Heralds, for saving us from the Desolations", to which he irritably replies "Don't thank me, thank Talenel, bearer of all agonies"?  Despite the listeners' probable confusion at the first half of the sentence, it wouldn't take all that much for the second half to be absorbed and passed along.  It happens to be both true and in line with Talenelat'elin's known traits already.

[DrakeMarshall]

9 minutes ago, galendo said:

Doesn't it seem somewhat likely that at some time in the past 4500 years one of the Heralds, let's say Jezrien, is sitting around drunk on wine or depression when someone nearby says something like "Praise be to Jezrien, king of the Heralds, for saving us from the Desolations", to which he irritably replies "Don't thank me, thank Talenel, bearer of all agonies"?  Despite the listeners' probable confusion at the first half of the sentence, it wouldn't take all that much for the second half to be absorbed and passed along.  It happens to be both true and in line with Talenelat'elin's known traits already.

That almost sounds like something Sanderson would do, too.

But probably the people themselves gave Talenel that label, not a drunk Jezrien. Like you said it already logically makes sense to bestow such a title, and it isn't so far fetched to assume that over the centuries someone thought to bestow that title on a religious figure like one of the heralds.

Also, I will note that "Talenelat'elin" was not his real name, I'm pretty sure it was just Talenel. Over the years the people ended up calling him that, much like "Jezrien" changed to "Jezerezah". This means that the unnamed bridgeman probably wasn't a herald, because the heralds called Talenel by his real name.

[Kingsdaughter613]

On 8/31/2016 at 8:34 PM, Xaklys said:

Could have been Jezrien maybe?  He was confirmed by Brandon to have been in The Way of Kings.

I think Jezrian is sitting at the beggars feast, completely drunk, during Gavilar's assassination. The description fits anyway. He says 'have you seen me?' to Szeth, and right afterwards Szeth walks by the Heralds statues...

[Xaklys]

16 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I think Jezrian is sitting at the beggars feast, completely drunk, during Gavilar's assassination. The description fits anyway. He says 'have you seen me?' to Szeth, and right afterwards Szeth walks by the Heralds statues...

I read through both The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance very fast so I missed that detail, but that makes sense.

 

[Duhchappers]

I always thought that this quote was just a deathrattle. Why does it have to be a title or world hopper when it can just be a simpler explanation?

[DrakeMarshall]

When I re-read WoK I was certain that guy was a herald as well. I don't remember though, is there anything to suggest that he is Jezrien in particular?

Also Duhchappers welcome to the 17th shard! Have an upvote on your first post.

Edited September 3, 2016 by Drake Marshall

[goody153]

I don't think Heralds can simply be killed by arrows judging from Taln ultra ridiculous reflexes and other abilities that Brandon implied they have.

Also at the time in WoR when Nale got outplayed by the new emperor of Azir to not kill Lift he mentioned that praise Jezrein(in his Azir name) "if he ever stops drooling" that probably implies he's still alive.

[ARARITA]

death rattle ....

[nervousnerd]

Did he die immediately after saying this? I thought it was too early to be a death rattle.

[Argel]

Death Rattles started around the time Gavilar was investigating the Shattered Plains, which is roughly 7 years ago (well, from when Taravangian mentions it to Szeth at the end of TWoK).

The question then is was Moelach close enough to the Shattered Plains at the time? 

[nervousnerd]

Possibly. I think Kaladin heard a death rattle on one of the early bridge runs when he first started saving people (not Maps). Not sure how long after the first that was.

[Oversleep]

It's chapter six. Kaladin's first run. That unnamed bridgeman switches positions along with Kaladin and they run in the first row. He says the line about the bearer of all agonies, then says it's gonna be hard cause Parshendi are already in position.

Then Parshendi archers kneel, draw their bows and release first wave of arrows. The unnamed bridgeman dies - he gets three arrows. After Kaladin almost falls in the chasm and then wakes up, asks for Syl's name and finds his body. One of arrows was through the neck. Then Kaladin takes his clothes.

So it cannot be a death rattle, as at the time that man wasn't dying yet. I doubt he's a Herald or worldhopper since he's definitely dead, unless he somehow survived getting three arrows (with one through the neck) and then being trampled by an entire bridge crew and then somehow made a body double and disappeared.

[Yata]

6 hours ago, Oversleep said:

So it cannot be a death rattle, as at the time that man wasn't dying yet. I doubt he's a Herald or worldhopper since he's definitely dead, unless he somehow survived getting three arrows (with one through the neck) and then being trampled by an entire bridge crew and then somehow made a body double and disappeared.

Boromir is you ?...Cross-worldhoppers confirmed