Taln is Taln minus one thing

[ZenBossanova]

Brandon has been notoriously hard to pin down on whether the person who showed up at the end of The Way of Kings is actually the Herald Taln. Brandon only refers to him as, the man called Taln. But why? 

In his latest FAQFriday, Brandon suggested that who he is will be answered soon, presumably in Oathbringer. 

Since that is still months away, this is my theory. 

The Taln that returned was the real Taln, except that the thousands of years he spent fighting Odium has literally burned away his Identity, so that what is left is mainly a shell. 

If this is true, then the question is, what do you do with a Herald, that has no Identity left?

Edited May 20, 2017 by ZenBossanova

[The Technovore]

You give him an Aluminum Metalmind and make him think that he's the great magician "Simon".

Either that you hand him a shardblade, point at the Voidbringers, and say "Them bad. Poke with Sword." And see him go at it.

...or you could teach him to say "I am a Herald." 

 

In all seriousness I do like that theory, have an upvote :^).

[Steeldancer]

On 5/20/2017 at 0:40 AM, ZenBossanova said:

Brandon has been notoriously hard to pin down on whether the person who showed up at the end of The Way of Kings is actually the Herald Taln. Brandon only refers to him as, the man called Taln. But why? 

In his latest FAQFriday, Brandon suggested that who he is will be answered soon, presumably in Oathbringer. 

Since that is still months away, this is my theory. 

The Taln that returned was the real Taln, except that the thousands of years he spent fighting Odium has literally burned away his Identity, so that what is left is mainly a shell. 

If this is true, then the question is, what do you do with a Herald, that has no Identity left?

 

On 5/20/2017 at 2:32 PM, The Technovore said:

You give him an Aluminum Metalmind and make him think that he's the great magician "Simon".

Either that you hand him a shardblade, point at the Voidbringers, and say "Them bad. Poke with Sword." And see him go at it.

...or you could teach him to say "I am a Herald." 

 

In all seriousness I do like that theory, have an upvote :^).

You know what this reminds me of? The scene in septimus heap where the white witch erases the Hunters identity and turns him into a circus buffoon. That's a classic moment. Also, well thought out. He might once have been Taln, but in reality isn't Taln anymore. I hope no one tries to turn him into a circus buffoon 

[The Sovereign]

This actually makes me wonder if any of the Heralds are really themselves when they are separated from their Honorblades. We saw at the end of Edgedancer that

Nalan is apparently making some progress, or at least has the capacity to.Perhaps this is directly related to him having his honor blade?

[Fulminato]

four and half milleniums worth of torture can broke any mind, and honor is dead. the honorblade are a sliver of the shard himself, probably a counduit for use the real power of the magic system (similarity with a ''mistpoint' allomancer), but the system is totaly broken now, this can make a backfire in the herald mind.

[Kered]

Since they're all insane, and with Taln back, I think the Oathpact is going to finally. fully break. Once this happens, I think a little bit of sanity is going to come back to them. 

[Sparkrunner]

Okay-- Long ago, nine heralds abandoned the Oathpact because they were broken by millennia of torture on Braize. They were still completely functional, just broken inside. They have their full sanity, but they're resolve broke, their sense of obligation to keep going back to Braize, which helps mankind win the desolations. One herald, Talenel'Elin, was left, and so the cycle of the Oathpact continues, but nine heralds are free of it. There is a WoB that talks about how all the heralds are insane, but I believe this is just referring to how their will is broken, not raving, wall drooling madness like you would think of "insanity." In Edgedancer, Nalan seems perfectly sane, just broken.

Quote

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

This death rattle is a quote from Taln, probably on Braize at the time. We can imagine that Odium and the Unmade are unhappy about losing nine little toys, so they take it out on Taln. Taln goes truly insane. I see a huge similarity between Taln and the Hoed from Sel. (There is probably a WoB on this somewhere.) Ok, so Taln is Hoed. We see him repeating his mantra over and over in WoR, in his own little chapter. His body knows what he is supposed to do, warn humanity, train the knights, etc., I think this is like how when you play a song on the piano five thousand times, your muscles know what to do. However, he is hoed, and his mind is snapped, thus he sits on the ground drooling.

My theory: He still has his identity, but he is brain dead.

[Calderis]

@Cluny the Scourge

Nale is beyond just "broken." he suppresses all emotion and functions in a cold robot state. He may not be wild and unpredictable, but that's a remarkably narrow view of insanity.

Shallash is compelled to destroy representations of herself. The one we see with Nale in Jasnah's Prologue is seemingly Paranoid and neurotic.

They are all insane. It just manifests differently in all of them. 

[Steeldancer]

46 minutes ago, Calderis said:

@Cluny the Scourge

Nale is beyond just "broken." he suppresses all emotion and functions in a cold robot state. He may not be wild and unpredictable, but that's a remarkably narrow view of insanity.

Shallash is compelled to destroy representations of herself. The one we see with Nale in Jasnah's Prologue is seemingly Paranoid and neurotic.

They are all insane. It just manifests differently in all of them. 

I wonder how it manifests in Paliah and Velededelev, or whatever her name is

[Radiant_Jaeger]

Here is the FAQ...  Just for those who haven't seen it yet (you can also find it on Brandon's twitter page)

[Kersplattle]

I'd just say that physically, this just about has to be Taln. He is exceptionally strong and inhumanly fast (cf catching the darts blown at Amaram at the end of WoR). He has brief snatches of lucidity and recognition - he recognises Shallan when she uses storm light in his cell and knows what she is.

So I go with the theory that this is Taln but he is mentally out of the loop so to speak. He is insane and can't act as a herald.

As for what happened to his original honour blade I'm not sure. If Brandon hadn't denied it, I'd have gone with the theory that Hoid purloined it for a reason. Presumably though it is still in Kholinar where it was last known to be, could the Queen have it and be acting strange as a result ? I doubt that the guards would have the sort of authority to grab it themselves though one might have. And who would have another shardblade to replace the honour blade with ? Maybe Jasnah's assassin ? The Queen, I doubt that there are that many untraced shardblades just hanging about in Kholinar.

I do wonder if being parted from the sword is part of Taln's problems. With it he at least seemed semi-rational and aware although exceptionally exhausted, maybe completely drained of stormlight ? If it was restored to him could he start to recover ?

[Fulminato]

8 hours ago, Kersplattle said:

I'd just say that physically, this just about has to be Taln. He is exceptionally strong and inhumanly fast (cf catching the darts blown at Amaram at the end of WoR). He has brief snatches of lucidity and recognition - he recognises Shallan when she uses storm light in his cell and knows what she is.

So I go with the theory that this is Taln but he is mentally out of the loop so to speak. He is insane and can't act as a herald.

As for what happened to his original honour blade I'm not sure. If Brandon hadn't denied it, I'd have gone with the theory that Hoid purloined it for a reason. Presumably though it is still in Kholinar where it was last known to be, could the Queen have it and be acting strange as a result ? I doubt that the guards would have the sort of authority to grab it themselves though one might have. And who would have another shardblade to replace the honour blade with ? Maybe Jasnah's assassin ? The Queen, I doubt that there are that many untraced shardblades just hanging about in Kholinar.

I do wonder if being parted from the sword is part of Taln's problems. With it he at least seemed semi-rational and aware although exceptionally exhausted, maybe completely drained of stormlight ? If it was restored to him could he start to recover ?

hoid don't swap the blade, but probably know who made. popular teory are the herald chana, and chana are lyss (the assasin jasnah meet in the prolugue of WoR),

Edited May 24, 2017 by Fulminato

[Yata]

16 minutes ago, Fulminato said:

hoid don't swap the blade, but probably know who made. popular teory are the herald chana, and chana are lyss (the assasin jasnah meet in the prolugue of WoR),

Where does Chana=Liss come from ?

Edited May 24, 2017 by Yata

[Jondesu]

What if the Shin reclaimed the blade, wrongly continuing to believe the Desolation is coming, or even having been corrupted and wanting it to happen? If the theory that Taln is less Taln because his blade was taken, perhaps it was an intentional sabotage?

[Yata]

Just now, Jondesu said:

What if the Shin reclaimed the blade, wrongly continuing to believe the Desolation is coming, or even having been corrupted and wanting it to happen? If the theory that Taln is less Taln because his blade was taken, perhaps it was an intentional sabotage?

Taln seems "less Taln" also with his Honorblade. And the other Heralds are not "less Heralds" without their Honorblade's.

[Jondesu]

6 minutes ago, Yata said:

Taln seems "less Taln" also with his Honorblade. And the other Heralds are not "less Heralds" without their Honorblade's.

Good point, though I'll argue that he did seem somewhat more lucid when we first saw him (with his Honorblade) than after, but not by much, and it's probably just because he'd just managed to get back and had the energy/willpower for that initial warning, and then was used up.

[Fulminato]

2 hours ago, Yata said:

Where does Chana=Liss come from ?

 

[The One Who Connects]

11 hours ago, Yata said:

Where does Chana=Liss come from ?

Long story short: Discussions about Aesudan(and Jasnah hiring Liss to tail her)
Spoiler tag to condense quotes

Spoiler

Credit to Gavin-Son-Son-Odegard for starting the talk about her blade.

Quote

We know that Taln's Honorblade was swapped for a Shardblade of unknown origin at some point between his arrival in Kholinar at the end of WOK and his arrival at the Shattered Plains in WOR. Now since I'm pretty sure Liss is still in Kholinar spying on Aesudan, and she's, as far as I know, the only Shardbearer present in Kholinar at this point, could she have swapped her Blade for Taln's Honorblade?

This led to Weltall theorizing that she may be a Herald(as possible motivation for taking his Blade)

Quote

One possible explanation for why Liss might take the blade: She's a Herald. She would know what an Honorblade is and might be inclined to grab one, if only to get access to Stormlight healing again. I thought it might be possible to speculate on which Herald she could be until I realized that Taln's blade shares no Surges with those possessed by the female Heralds, so whichever of them picked it up they'd be getting powers they'd never had access to before.

Which then led to me trying to patch holes in the idea(since I liked the line of thought)

Quote

Well, to kill two birds with one stone, she combats her insanity by focusing on combat. The whole "keep your mind off of it" schtick. Or better yet, following Weltall's "Chana" idea, her insanity is a twisting of the "brave, obedient" divine attributes where she follows orders/the contract(obedient) without regard for who, where or how(brave, in a sense)

Which led to Calderis' topic that Fulminato posted above

Edited May 24, 2017 by The One Who Connects