The Diagram is not Simply One Group

[Argent]

Redditor /u/Ray745 reported something interesting a little earlier - something that I at least have had missed, and it sounds like I wasn't the only one. Turns out that the group known as "the Diagram" is actually not as unified as I had previously believed:

Quote

Final Question - Graves tells Kaladin and Moash that with Elhokar out of the way, Dalinar would become king and be much better for Alethkar. Obviously Graves isn't totally truthful with them, he is working for the Diagram and wants Dalinar to be king in hopes he becomes the Blackthorn, the warlord, and provides no real competition to Taravangian in becoming king of everything. However, in the scene when Kaladin faces down Graves and Moash, Graves makes a comment on how it was too late, and he just had to keep Kaladin away from Dalinar, presumably so Szeth could assassinate him. Then the last we see of Graves, he is talking to Moash and says

Quote

I thought for sure my interpretation was correct, that if we removed Elhokar, Dalinar would become our ally is what is to come.

How would Dalinar become their ally if Graves was purposely keeping Kaladin away from Dalinar so Szeth could kill him? Is Graves lying to Moash there? That part I never fully understood. It seems as though Graves understands Dalinar is going to be assassinated, yet from what he says to Moash at the end he seems to expect Dalinar would not have been killed.

Brandon Sanderson Answer - Graves is supposed to (though people missed this, so perhaps I didn't do it well enough) indicate that the Diagram is not simply one group, following Taravangian. They follow the diagram itself, not him, and some think his interpretations are wrong.
Graves was ordered to remove the Alethi leadership entirely--though Taravangian was sending Szeth after Dalinar (the more dangerous one) and Graves was to remove Elhokar. Graves, however, interpreted the diagram differently. He thinks that Dalinar cannot be killed by Szeth, or anyone, and is hoping to remove Elhokar, have Dalinar step up, and help them. He has passages of the Diagram that indicate, to him, this is the natural outcome of removing Elhokar.
The actual passages, and what it is they're trying to accomplish in specific, has yet to be revealed in full.

The Reddit thread has a couple more of his questions (the second one featuring medium-level spoilers for Edgedancer), but I don't think they reveal anything interesting (or at least new).

[Eki]

That is interesting, yeah... Does that mean some of them disapprove of Taravangian trying to take over the world? I mean, the Diagram does literally say "You must become king of everything" or something, doesn't it? Not that much room for interpretation...

[Demiandre]

12 minutes ago, Eki said:

"You must become king of everything" or something, doesn't it? Not that much room for interpretation...

Yet, to whom does the "you" refer ? Anyone with enough ambition would interpret it as meaning it applied to themselves. After all, we don't know if Taravangian was adressing himself or somebody else when he was writting the Diagram, no ?

[Eki]

Just now, Demiandre said:

Yet, to whom does the "you" refer ? Anyone with enough ambition would interpret it as meaning it applied to themselves. After all, we don't know if Taravangian was adressing himself or somebody else when he was writting the Diagram, no ?

True, but I'm pretty sure there are other places where it's more obvious he refers to himself. I could be wrong.

[Demiandre]

Indeed, I don't have all released parts in mind, and I'm pretty sure the thing with Jah Keved specifically refers to himself in the end... But I still think other people might disagree.

[Quiver]

17 hours ago, Argent said:

Redditor /u/Ray745 reported something interesting a little earlier - something that I at least have had missed, and it sounds like I wasn't the only one. Turns out that the group known as "the Diagram" is actually not as unified as I had previously believed:

The Reddit thread has a couple more of his questions (the second one featuring medium-level spoilers for Edgedancer), but I don't think they reveal anything interesting (or at least new).

Huh.

Yeah, that's interesting. Makes sense that there would be a range of interpretations regarding the Diagram, but definitely not the vibe I got from the book itself. 

[Kurkistan]

Even if the Diagram is aimed at Taravangian that doesn't necessarily rule out other people thinking "yeah it's meant to make Mr. T the king, but normal-him is going about following the Diagram's instructions all wrong; see this part really tells us to..."

[Eki]

22 hours ago, Quiver said:

Huh.

Yeah, that's interesting. Makes sense that there would be a range of interpretations regarding the Diagram, but definitely not the vibe I got from the book itself. 

I always felt like Graves had his own agenda, but I didn't really think it was because he had interpreted the Diagram differently - I didn't even consider the possibility that he had studied it himself, instead of just being a henchman.

20 hours ago, Kurkistan said:

Even if the Diagram is aimed at Taravangian that doesn't necessarily rule out other people thinking "yeah it's meant to make Mr. T the king, but normal-him is going about following the Diagram's instructions all wrong; see this part really tells us to..."

Absolutely. But it would be interesting if the Diagram actually broke into civil war over the whole world domination thing. I wonder if the Diagram predicted anything like that...

[Krandacth]

I always think it's weird how most people seem to see the Diagram as Taravangian writing to himself. The phrases used in it definitely refer to a "you" when discussing future action, and to a "me" or "I" when referring to knowledge or thoughts in the moment. Furthermore, when he reflects on the day of the Diagram's writing, Mr. T himself says that the him on that day must have been so much smarter than he has ever been otherwise that he was practically a different person; the Diagram's phrasing, as already mentioned, suggests that this sentiment was mirrored by his super-intelligent self.

That's not even considering the possibility I have raised before that the Diagram was authored by someone/something else, using Mr. T at his most empathetic as an intermediary... But that point is rather moot here.

Either way, I think there is every chance that the author was clever enough to predict how bits of the diagram would be presented to and received by different people. The fact that Mr. T has interpreted it as being aimed at him was, therefore, likely intentional.

Finally, after it was revealed that Graves was related to the Diagram I always assumed he was acting from his own interpretation, as his actions clearly contradict those of Mr. T. This made sense to me because Mr. T's own PoV makes it clear that he considers no one capable of being an authority on the Diagram, himself included. Furthermore, he strikes me as a very humble and reasonable man trying to act in remarkable circumstances and in the face of impossible choices: Acknowledging that his interpretation is just one possible interpretation and letting others in his trusted circle have their own interpretations seems completely in keeping with that impression.

[emailanimal]

I don't think it is fair to  say that the Diagram is not one group.  It is one group. But it is one group organized more as a political party than as an autocracy. Which is completely fine and reasonable (because if the 13 agents of Shaitan cannot pull it together in the cousin series, why would one expect other organizations to move with precision and single-mindedness???).

I have a side observation. After the reveal of the type of Jasnah's spren, I keep on asking myself (and want to eventually see this asked of Brandon): would Mr. T. writing the diagram attract a Nahel-bondable Inkspren? Because given what we know of Elsecallers (and Brandon just used their name and the word "Macchiavelian" in the same sentence), and given the content of the Diagram, if you were an up-and-coming Inkspren, would you not want to bond that?

[thejopen27]

On 12/7/2016 at 3:48 PM, Krandacth said:

 Furthermore, he strikes me as a very humble and reasonable man trying to act in remarkable circumstances and in the face of impossible choices: Acknowledging that his interpretation is just one possible interpretation and letting others in his trusted circle have their own interpretations seems completely in keeping with that impression.

Humble and Reasonable? The man who is setting himself up to be king of the world by destroying everything and is only doing that because he asked for the power to be able to save the whole world? He is not humble. (This doesn't even get into him being a monster who will never be able to perfectly interpret and predict the future and will cause more harm than good. I think Taravangian is the villain for the Stormlight pt 1.

[Argent]

It's really hard to pass a verdict on Taravangian because of how different he can be on different days. I think there is an argument to be made for his "real" personality being the one where he is smarter than the average (because that one seems to be one driving his long-term plans), but on some days he really is a kind old man. It's just on those days his influence over the world is restricted, and so he doesn't get to balance out his more intelligent - and cruel, most might say, - half.

[Kurkistan]

Oh joy. The morality debate begins. 

[Left]

35 minutes ago, Kurkistan said:

Oh joy. The morality debate begins. 

I miss the days when we all just calculated the most effective means of creating allomantic animals from hemalurgy and other even more sordid questions of science and economics without bringing up morality until the very end as an after thought. Not that moral questions aren't really really important and everything, but it was fun just questioning what Could be done, not whether less interesting things Should be done. 

[zmunkz]

On 12/6/2016 at 0:46 PM, Kurkistan said:

Even if the Diagram is aimed at Taravangian that doesn't necessarily rule out other people thinking "yeah it's meant to make Mr. T the king, but normal-him is going about following the Diagram's instructions all wrong; see this part really tells us to..."

I agree with this completely. As soon as T is not his super-self, there is room for doubt at his interpretations.

[thejopen27]

On 12/9/2016 at 4:53 PM, Ookla the Left said:

I miss the days when we all just calculated the most effective means of creating allomantic animals from hemalurgy and other even more sordid questions of science and economics without bringing up morality until the very end as an after thought. Not that moral questions aren't really really important and everything, but it was fun just questioning what Could be done, not whether less interesting things Should be done. 

Brandon is asking us to ask Morality questions. He's writing a ten book series about the question of whether the ends justify the means. As someone who believes that generally they don't, I admit to disliking Taravangian (not to mention he is playing god, deciding who lives and who dies). Taravangian doesn't give people the chance to band together. By destroying the world to bind it together he makes it harder for people who legitimately want to help people to bring the world together through negotiation, reason, and show of force. 

And if Taravangian doesn't trust himself to change things when he is very smart because he is too cold and calculating, why does he base his entire philosophy on the amoral calculations of himself at his smartest?

[Left]

On 12/9/2016 at 11:33 PM, zmunkz said:

I agree with this completely. As soon as T is not his super-self, there is room for doubt at his interpretations.

Woah, Zmunkz, our profiles are twinning!

28 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

Brandon is asking us to ask Morality questions. He's writing a ten book series about the question of whether the ends justify the means. As someone who believes that generally they don't, I admit to disliking Taravangian (not to mention he is playing god, deciding who lives and who dies). Taravangian doesn't give people the chance to band together. By destroying the world to bind it together he makes it harder for people who legitimately want to help people to bring the world together through negotiation, reason, and show of force. 

And if Taravangian doesn't trust himself to change things when he is very smart because he is too cold and calculating, why does he base his entire philosophy on the amoral calculations of himself at his smartest?

I guess my joking wasn't quite clear. I adore Sanderson's anti villains like mr T and the guy from Elantris for being such conflicted and complicated people. 

[thejopen27]

7 hours ago, Ookla the Left said:

Woah, Zmunkz, our profiles are twinning!

I guess my joking wasn't quite clear. I adore Sanderson's anti villains like mr T and the guy from Elantris for being such conflicted and complicated people. 

I get passionate about Taravangian. I think he is a monster.

[Spoolofwhool]

9 hours ago, thejopen27 said:

And if Taravangian doesn't trust himself to change things when he is very smart because he is too cold and calculating, why does he base his entire philosophy on the amoral calculations of himself at his smartest?

How I feel whenever people bring up the "Taravangian can't figure people when he's smarter, how can the Diagram be any good?" argument is that there is a fair gulf between Taravangian when he is a lot smarter than average, and when he wrote the Diagram. I don't see it as being too cold and calculating, because he could do a lot of good things when he's smarter than norm. No, what is the real problem is a form of naivety. It's the naivety a smart person gets when they understand something, then turn and explain it to a less smart person in a logical manner (for the smart person) and the less smart person just doesn't get it. I understand what it is, because it happens to me. It's a matter of being too focused on the bigger picture, that you miss the smaller picture, of those below you. However, the Taravangian of the Diagram doesn't have that naivety. He understood that he wouldn't be able to just go before people and tell that they would have to surrender their freedom to him so that he could save the world. Instead, he understands that those people with the smaller picture wouldn't understand and wouldn't accept, so left instructions to cut them out of the equation altogether. 

To create an example. Let's take a look at two cases, one in-Roshar, and one in real life. The Roshar example is where the Taravangian got the idea to raise the population average IQ by killing the people with low IQ. The RL example is that I'm working on a group project and I figure out how to do the challenging last part while the rest of the group doesn't. The smart Taravangian thinks he can solve this problem easily by just explaining it to the people, convincing them with logic, but never taking into account how they would feel about it. As such it doesn't work, because he could never logically convince people to commit suicide, especially since they're lower IQ and may not understand logic as well (I once discussed with someone that if he had used a religious approach, it might've worked). Analogously, in my project, I'm a nice person so I try to explain how everything works to my group. Unfortunately, I'm bad at explaining, in part because I can't understand where they're having trouble since it seems so easy to me (true story), so I'm wasting a lot of time, and unfortunately miss the due time for the project. Now on the other hand, the Diagram Taravangian understands that he would never be able to convince the people, so he doesn't bother. Instead, he probably just goes for the direct approach and figures out a way to execute everyone below the IQ threshold. Analogously, I understand that I probably wouldn't be able to properly explain how it works to my group, so I just go ahead and finish the project myself and submit it. In both cases, the problem and the reason for solution can be explained afterwards, though, I think it applies a bit better to the RL case.

Anyhow, this was really spur-of-the-moment, so if I'm missing anything important, please tell. Or just downvote for all the errors. 

[thejopen27]

36 minutes ago, Spoolofwhool said:

 all the errors. 

It's not really that his an is inaccurate. When Taravangian is just very smart, it's not that he's wrong. It's that it's evil. It is evil to demand all those below a certain intellect not reproduce or commit suicide, and the diagram is evil. What it calls for him to do is evil, and that's not even considering that Taravangian may interpret it wrong and that the diagram can be mistaken on small parts. I think the whole premise that the diagram is working on is wrong. 

[Spoolofwhool]

23 minutes ago, thejopen27 said:

It's not really that his an is inaccurate. When Taravangian is just very smart, it's not that he's wrong. It's that it's evil. It is evil to demand all those below a certain intellect not reproduce or commit suicide, and the diagram is evil. What it calls for him to do is evil, and that's not even considering that Taravangian may interpret it wrong and that the diagram can be mistaken on small parts. I think the whole premise that the diagram is working on is wrong. 

Well evil is subjective so... I personally dislike using it. Now then, is the premise of the Diagram wrong? As you said, it's a moral debate. The pragmatist says the premise is right, that the survival of humanity must be ensured, no matter the cost, as by all accounts everyone might die otherwise. The "Journey before Destination" person says that it has a bad premise, since he asked for the capacity to save, not protect. Costs outweigh any benefits. Where am I? I'm not too sure. I'm more in favour of the costs to make sure the goal is reached, but the Diagram does appear to be too extreme. However, I can't disagree with its premise. Important things require someone to step up, take charge and make the hard calls, and saving a sample of humanity is no exception. Taravangian is taking the greatest burden of all, the burden of choice, and he is paying for the weight of that decision, as every drop blood that is spilt is on his hands, and haunts him until he dies. Based on what I've seen, he will never forgive himself for doing this.

In any case, don't confuse that giant post I made previously to me agreeing with murdering people of low IQ or the Diagram. That was just me arguing against an argument people commonly used against the Diagram because I disagree with it.

Also, I disagree with your assessment that he's wrong. What he has suggested while smart is logically valid, just morally sketchy.

[thejopen27]

20 hours ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Well evil is subjective

Evil is evil, not all morality is subjective.

Killing hundreds of thousands of innocents is never acceptable. That what Taravangian is doing killing, hundreds of thousands. 

Edited December 13, 2016 by thejopen27

[Spoolofwhool]

On 12/12/2016 at 9:26 PM, thejopen27 said:

Evil is evil, not all morality is subjective

By definition, morality is entirely subjective. There is no such as a objective, universal set of morals. There are morals which society holds to be correct which most people follow, but that by no means makes it objective, it just makes them generally accepted. Evil, by generally definition as acts going against one's perceives morals of how the world is being, is therefore entirely subjective as well. Now this is a discussion I like to have, but since it would be straying away from the subject of this topic, and morality debates can get hazy on a forum, I would ask that you PM me if you wish to continue it. Also yes, evil is evil, but that's circular reasoning. And yes, I know you're trying to say that evil is objective with that.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Spoolofwhool

[Jame Starmade]

Everyone is the hero in their own story.

[Spoolofwhool]

12 minutes ago, Jame Starmade said:

Everyone is the hero in their own story.

Basically, this.