The Diagram (Spoilers)

[hoser he/him]

There are quotes, lettered in parentheses, at the end.

 

The Diagram is Mr. T's plan to save humanity.  On the way he thinks he has to become king of everything (A, B )

 

Graves pretends to be a patriot wanting to kill Elhokar so that Dalinar can take over.  At the end, he talks about the Diagram.  He says that they tried to keep Kaladin away from Dalinar.  They know that Szeth is coming back for a second try.  Deduction: Graves is an agent of Mr. T who is really acting to have both Dalinar and Elhokar killed so that Alethkar will fall into chaos and Mr. T can take over. (D, E )

 

Mr. T apparently helped Szeth become a Truthless so that Mr. T would have a weapon of destabilization (C ).  The chaos in Jah Keved was created by Szeth's assassinations and Mr. T has already taken over.  Azir is destabilized by the assassination of two successive emporers and might be needing leadership except for the intervention of a budding Radiant.  Earlier, a Selay Gerontarch was slain by Szeth.

 

There is an ardent who denounces the queen of Alethkar.  After her execution, riots erupt.  There is some sort of plague in the Purelake.  It sounds suspiciously like "medical" intervention is needed.  Deduction: Mr. T is making his move, with all these crises, and probably others, being supported by his agents. 

 

Nin is aiming Szeth to take out the Shamanate.  More chaos. 

 

Questions:

1. Is Nin using Mr. T in his designs or is Mr. T using Nin, both or neither?
2. Will Moash learn about the Diagram and Mr. T?  Will he be redeemed and let Kaladin know that Mr. T is a huge part of the problem?
3. When will Szeth turn his attention to Mr. T?
4. Now that the desolation is here, will Nin cease his persecution of the budding Radiants?
5. The diagram apparently has contingency planning to destroy even the rebuilt Radiants.  With Dalinar and the Radiants, the Diagram has already failed to an extent.  At what point does reality diverge so much from the Diagram that Mr. T ditches it? 
6. The Diagram apparently has Mr. T  destroying humanity's ability to fight.  After he has thrown every realm into civil war and destroyed their fighting population along with any Radiants that pop up, how does Mr. T plan to fight the desolations?
7. Mr. T asked the Nightwatcher for the ability to save humanity.  The fluctuating intelligence is her apparent answer.  Based on his point of view, Mr. T is monumentally stupid in what he thinks of as his brilliant times.  He is murdering to get the information one of the Unmade is providing him.  He is assiduously following a Diagram that he created on a day he was so "smart" that he is unlikely to ever be that smart again.  Has he been led astray by Odium?
8. There is a timing issue.  Mr T seems to be motivated by Gavilar's visions that he was told about on the day of Gavilar's assassination in his POVs.  Szeth is already a truthless and the death rattles have been happening for a year at this point.  Either Szeth became a truthless on his own or Mr. T visited the Nightwatcher and had his special day before learning about Dalinar's visions.  Is there any evidence supporting the idea that Mr. T had his day of "brilliance" after Szeth became Truthless?

A. Ch 79 Epigraph

Q: For what essential must we strive? A: The essential of preservation, to shelter a seed of humanity through the coming storm.

 

B. Ch 80 Epigraph

You must become king. Of everything.

 

C. Ch 78 Epigraph

AhbuttheywereleftbehindItisobviousfromthenatureofthebond

ButwherewherewherewhereSetoffObviousRealizationlikeapricity

TheyarewiththeShinWemustfindoneCanwemaketouseaTruthless

Canwecraftaweapon

 

D. Ch 87:

"The Diagram is vague," Graves said.  We only knew this term because of old Gavilar's visions.  The Diagram says this will probably return the Voidbringers, though. ..."

 

E. Ch 84:

"Too late!" Graves shouted.

Kaladin frowned, then glanced at the king.

"The Diagram spoke of this," ... "... We focused on making certain you were separated from Dalinar, ..."

 

Edit: added quotes, last question about timing of Diagram relative to Szeth becoming Truthless. 

Edited March 14, 2014 by hoser

[Shale]

There are a few different ways the Diagram could be something other than what it appears.

 

One, it could be well-intentioned but wrong. Taravangian asked for the capacity to save humanity from the Desolation, but thanks to his fluctuating mental state he clearly doesn't have that capacity every day. He is assuming that he had it on Diagram Day, but there's no signed-and-sealed affadavit from Nightwatcher saying so. He might have needed some measure of compassion to find a solution.

 

Two, it could be leading humanity to a fate worse than death - more than one person has theorized that he's planning to lead Roshar to pure survival, by conquering the world and then surrendering it to Odium without a fight.

 

Three, it could be a trap. The entire curse of varying intelligence and empathy is a red herring, and what actually happened is that something else was working through him on Diagram Day, which may or may not have humanity's interests at heart.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Shale

[Moogle]

Graves pretends to be a patriot wanting to kill Elhokar so that Dalinar can take over. 

 

Graves was apparently a sleeper agent. I think he was actually a patriot. He even says as much to Moash.

 

 

At the end, he talks about the Diagram.  He says that they tried to keep Kaladin away from Dalinar.  They know that Szeth is coming back for a second try.  Deduction: Graves is an agent of Mr. T who is really acting to have both Dalinar and Elhokar killed so that Alethkar will fall into chaos and Mr. T can take over.

 

Graves wanted Dalinar as Mr. T's ally, hence his attempt to kill Elhokar. That was his interpretation of the Diagram - kill Elhokar, get Dalinar as an ally.

 

 

Mr. T apparently helped Szeth become a Truthless so that Mr. T would have a weapon of destabilization

 

The epigraphs imply this, but the timeline is off. I lean towards Szeth already having been a Truthless when Mr. T made the Diagram.

 

 

1. Is Nin using Mr. T in his designs or is Mr. T using Nin, both or neither?
2. Will Moash learn about the Diagram and Mr. T?  Will he be redeemed and let Kaladin know that Mr. T is a huge part of the problem?
3. When will Szeth turn his attention to Mr. T?
4. Now that the desolation is here, will Nin cease his persecution of the budding Radiants?
5. The diagram apparently has contingency planning to destroy even the rebuilt Radiants.  With Dalinar and the Radiants, the Diagram has already failed to an extent.  At what point does reality diverge so much from the Diagram that Mr. T ditches it? 
6. The Diagram apparently has Mr. T  destroying humanity's ability to fight.  After he has thrown every realm into civil war and destroyed their fighting population along with any Radiants that pop up, how does Mr. T plan to fight the desolations?
7. Mr. T asked the Nightwatcher for the ability to save humanity.  The fluctuating intelligence is her apparent answer.  Based on his point of view, Mr. T is monumentally stupid in what he thinks of as his brilliant times.  He is murdering to get the information one of the Unmade is providing him.  He is assiduously following a Diagram that he created on a day he was so "smart" that he is unlikely to ever be that smart again.  Has he been led astray by Odium?

 

1. I believe their goals overlap, but they have no involvement. We've seen none.

2. Moash will probably learn of the Diagram, and I could see him acting as a bridge between Dalinar and Mr. T. I'm not so sure he'd think Mr. T is a problem, though...

3. I don't know if he ever will. I find it unlikely, because Mr. T's death would cause even more instability on Roshar (now there's no one to pick up the pieces). Szeth strikes me as someone who wouldn't want to cause that kind of destruction, though I admit Skybreakers would be the sort to kill Mr. T.

4. Quite possibly, but we don't know that the Desolation is here necessarily.

5. Where has the Diagram failed? It predicted the return of the Radiants. It said what they had to do - kill Dalinar. They failed the Diagram. They Diagram didn't fail them. And I think Dalinar might ally with Mr. T at some point, because Mr. T's information on Dalinar was old when he wrote the Diagram. Dalinar's changed a lot.

6. He hasn't destroyed anyone's ability to fight, so far as we've seen. Jah Keved is a wreck, there was a civil war, but I doubt every man of worth is down, and there's still time to rebuild.

7. Odium isn't on Roshar, and if Odium could manipulate events like this, I don't see why he wouldn't just rip everything to shreds. Playing with the Diagram would also be copying Ruin, and I hope Brandon is more original than that. Taravangian's plans when he's smart are idiotic, but so far as I can understand, his plans when he wrote the Diagram were at a level so intelligent that he could make up for his inability to understand human emotions institutionally through pure logic. I don't feel the Diagram is necessarily broken or wrong - if it was likely to go very much out of date, then I think the smart Mr. T wouldn't have used that plan.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Moogle

[LordCitrus]

There are a few different ways the Diagram could be something other than what it appears.

 

One, it could be well-intentioned but wrong. Taravangian asked for the capacity to save humanity from the Desolation, but thanks to his fluctuating mental state he clearly doesn't have that capacity every day. He is assuming that he had it on Diagram Day, but there's no signed-and-sealed affadavit from Nightwatcher saying so. He might have needed some measure of compassion to find a solution.

 

Two, it could be leading humanity to a fate worse than death - more than one person has theorized that he's planning to lead Roshar to pure survival, by conquering the world and then surrendering it to Odium without a fight.

 

Three, it could be a trap. The entire curse of varying intelligence and empathy is a red herring, and what actually happened is that something else was working through him on Diagram Day, which may or may not have humanity's interests at heart.

 

Ooh I like those ideas Shale.

 

I've always found it odd that they're following this plan of extreme++++ intelligent King T, when all the examples of intelligent and intelligent+ King T's ideas were noted to be too crack-pot worthy for him to be given leave to implement them. There's certainly something fishy with the Diagram.

[Shardbearer he/him]

I think that Mr. T misread the Nightwatchers gift. The compassion he has on his dumber days is the capacity to save humanity.

 

Or maybe the intelligence and the compassion together are the capacity. He was smart enough one day to create the Diagram, but on a different day he'll need compassion to put that information to the proper use.

[Shardlet he/him]

3. I don't know if he ever will. I find it unlikely, because Mr. T's death would cause even more instability on Roshar (now there's no one to pick up the pieces). Szeth strikes me as someone who wouldn't want to cause that kind of destruction, though I admit Skybreakers would be the sort to kill Mr. T.

4. Quite possibly, but we don't know that the Desolation is here necessarily.

6. He hasn't destroyed anyone's ability to fight, so far as we've seen. Jah Keved is a wreck, there was a civil war, but I doubt every man of worth is down, and there's still time to rebuild.

 

3. Szeth is probably about as mentally broken as anyone we've met on Roshar so far.  I fully expect Taravangian to die at Szeth's hand.  I actually expected him to go after Taravangian rather than his last attempt to get Dalinar.  Taravangian knew that Szeth was right and that he wasn't truthless, yet he commanded Szeth to sow chaos accross all of Roshar.  That's a lot of blood and death that Szeth could lay at Taravangian's door.

 

4. The Everstorm is.  And after it makes its first lap around Roshar, there will be a spanking lot of voidbringer Parshendi (hundreds of thousands by Dalinar's reckoning of the number of Parshmen).  Seems pretty likely that this is the beginning of the desolation.

 

6. Seven armies fought over Vedenar.  There would have been massive casualties.  I wouldn't be surprised if it approached 50%.  How many armies could survive 50% casualties without having drastically reduced fighting capability?

 

I wonder about what Taravangian asked for?  The boon he reported asking was general.  It didn't say that he asked that he personally be given the capability.  I wonder if the fluctuating intelligence was the curse and the boon was the return of bonding spren to establish new KR or something like that.  Humanity was given the capability not Taravangian specifically.  His curse left him cracked open to influence by Odium and was then given the info dump to sow chaos and debilitate Roshar's ability to fight.  Pure logic cannot be used to accurately predict human behavior.  Certainly not the behavior of an individual.  Humans act according to passions like fear, love, and hate.  Different people will commonly react vastly different to identical stimuli.  I think Taravngian is being led down the garden path.

[Moogle]

3. Szeth is probably about as mentally broken as anyone we've met on Roshar so far.  I fully expect Taravangian to die at Szeth's hand.  I actually expected him to go after Taravangian rather than his last attempt to get Dalinar.  Taravangian knew that Szeth was right and that he wasn't truthless, yet he commanded Szeth to sow chaos accross all of Roshar.  That's a lot of blood and death that Szeth could lay at Taravangian's door.

 

4. The Everstorm is.  And after it makes its first lap around Roshar, there will be a spanking lot of voidbringer Parshendi (hundreds of thousands by Dalinar's reckoning of the number of Parshmen).  Seems pretty likely that this is the beginning of the desolation.

 

6. Seven armies fought over Vedenar.  There would have been massive casualties.  I wouldn't be surprised if it approached 50%.  How many armies could survive 50% casualties without having drastically reduced fighting capability?

 

3. Szeth was about as mentally broken as we've seen, I'll agree. However, I think at the end of WoR, he was on the path to healing. Given the chance to stop being Truthless, his afterlife no longer being an eternity of suffering... I think that Szeth could very well be redeemed, and his insanity cured. I'm not sure if Nalan will be a helpful influence, but he's a hint better than Taravangian for Szeth's mental health.

 

I think Szeth will think about the consequences of his actions in the future. I think killing Mr. T would be a bad idea after he becomes the leader of everyone. Killing him would sow chaos from whatever order he creates. Szeth can blame the Stone Shamans instead of Mr. T.

 

It's possible, certainly, that Szeth could kill Mr. T, but he's going to be occupied for quite some time with killing seven Honorblade wielders, and I wonder how he'll feel when that's done. He'll certainly be a changed person.

 

4. I agree that the Everstorm could be the beginning of the Desolation. In fact, I think it's likely. Taln said it's started. But I'm not 100% certain it has in fact started. Perhaps it can be stopped still.  We don't really know what the Desolation is and what marks the fact it has come.

 

6. That's fair, but 50% of an army can still fight I would argue. This isn't "destroyed" fighting capabilities.

 

 

Pure logic cannot be used to accurately predict human behavior.  Certainly not the behavior of an individual.  Humans act according to passions like fear, love, and hate.  Different people will commonly react vastly different to identical stimuli.

 

I would argue that a human's behavior can be predicted with startling accuracy (the advertising industry makes its money this way), and furthermore that Taravangian is capable of it. His manipulation of the entire world to accept him as leader shows an understanding of how humans act. He even shows in the Diagram that he understands how people think, and how they need to like him to elect him as leader (the Diagram says he has to act compassionate).

 

This points to an understanding of human motivations and behavior. I will agree that he loses this when he's smart (hence his fantastically bad ideas where he thinks people would commit suicide because of a beautifully argued plan), but I would argue he regains this ability when he's Diagram-level smart and his intelligence is at such a level that he can extrapolate people's actions based on past behavior (so long as he knows what their past behavior was).

 

This is what I mean by logic. I'm not certain if we agree or disagree here.

Edited March 13, 2014 by Moogle

[shinintendo]

You wrote: "Mr. T apparently helped Szeth become a Truthless so that Mr. T would have a weapon of destabilization." 

 

We talked about it in another thread that it seems Szeth becoming a Truthless predates Mr.T plans.

Mr.T probably went to the Nightwatcher after consulting Gavilar 6 years ago, and at that time Szeth was already Truthless.

 

It had worked. Just as the Diagram instructed, Taravangian was king of Jah Keved. He had taken the first major step toward unifying the world, as Gavilar had insisted would need to happen if they were to survive.

That was, at least, what the visions had proclaimed. Visions Gavilar had confided in him six years ago, the night of the Alethi king’s death. Gavilar had seen visions of the Almighty, who was also now dead, and of a coming storm.

[11thorderknight]

I think it's pretty clear that the Diagram is leading to some sort of dystopian future. The examples of "smart T" wanting half the city to kill themselves and the like is a pretty blatant clue. I think it's important that T and friends don't really understand what the Diagram is really trying to do. It's a small point, but in the preview that was originally released by Tor of this interlude, his bodyguard states after his IQ test that T "may not alter the Diagram", but in the actual book he says "he may not make binding commentary on the Diagram". The difference emphasizes that T, even on his smartest days, is not nearly as brilliant as he was the day he wrote the Diagram - he doesn't alter it, but merely interprets it as best he can. 

 

My bet is that at some point in the series he finally realized that he's been working toward something really awful. He may or may not then change direction. Maybe he sabotages it on a stupid but compassionate day. It's all in the means vs. ends theme of the Stormlight Archive.

 

Also - does anyone else feel like the concept of the Diagram is a bit of an homage to Isaac Asimov and the Foundation series?

[Moogle]

I think it's important that T and friends don't really understand what the Diagram is really trying to do.

 

Taravangian wrote it. The Diagram was not some alien artifact. If you're proposing that the Diagram is not intended to save a portion of humanity from the upcoming Desolation as it claims, then you're proposing that Mr. T decided while insane to throw his back on all of his previous desires and motivations and lie to himself.

 

You're further proposing that the step by step plan laid out by his genius self (which they know in full) has steps that look like they save the world, but in truth "lead to some sort of dystopian future". And that none of the hundreds of people who have read the Diagram suspect this.

 

This is also implies that the Nightwatcher did not fulfill Taravangian's wish of having the capacity to save the world, since his boon (curse in this theory I guess) sabotages him, and his curse (boon in this theory?) causes him to literally turn into a drooling idiot that can't stop this saboteur version of himself. He has no potential to save the world in this case.

 

This is a pretty bold claim in my opinion. I'm sorry, but the evidence you have doesn't really convince me.

[Shardlet he/him]

 

Taravangian wrote it. The Diagram was not some alien artifact. If you're proposing that the Diagram is not intended to save a portion of humanity from the upcoming Desolation as it claims, then you're proposing that Mr. T decided while insane to throw his back on all of his previous desires and motivations and lie to himself.

 

You're further proposing that the step by step plan laid out by his genius self (which they know in full) has steps that look like they save the world, but in truth "lead to some sort of dystopian future". And that none of the hundreds of people who have read the Diagram suspect this.

 

This is also implies that the Nightwatcher did not fulfill Taravangian's wish of having the capacity to save the world, since his boon (curse in this theory I guess) sabotages him, and his curse (boon in this theory?) causes him to literally turn into a drooling idiot that can't stop this saboteur version of himself. He has no potential to save the world in this case.

 

This is a pretty bold claim in my opinion. I'm sorry, but the evidence you have doesn't really convince me.

 

The information that formed the basis for the diagram had to come from somewhere other than Taravangian.  A high IQ does not grant information.  Merely the processing capability.  So, to some extent, the diagram is of "alien" origin.

 

I still say that the theme of the books so far being essentially the first ideal is fairly strong evidence that Taravangian is playing for the wrong team.  Wittingly or not.

 

I wonder how Taravangian expects this to play out htough.  Karbranth is small enough and its problems small enough in scale that it would likely be no big deal for the king to take the "day off" or hold off on important decisions.  But how is that supposed to work during a desolation when decisions need to be made immediately?  "Sorry, the king of the world is broken today.  Please call again tomorrow."

 

Edit: as to the Nightwatcher not granting what Taravangian asked for, the Stormfather is likely somewhat analogous to the Nightwatcher and he doesn't seem to be particularly interested in helping Humanity make it.  Why should we expect that the Nightwatcher has humanity's best interests at heart?

Edited March 14, 2014 by Shardlet

[Shale]

Even assuming Taravangian was himself when he wrote the diagram, that doesn't mean his ultimate goal is something Normal Taravangian would agree with. At his most sociopathic, who knows what the king would consider an acceptable form of survival?

[Moogle]

The information that formed the basis for the diagram had to come from somewhere other than Taravangian.  A high IQ does not grant information.  Merely the processing capability.  So, to some extent, the diagram is of "alien" origin.

 

I'm curious, where do you think the information comes from? Your conclusion here that he received information from elsewhere is possible, but I lean towards the information coming from his memories of everything he'd ever heard and every book he'd ever read.

 

 

The Diagram was not perfect, however. They caught errors in it now and then. Or  .  .  . not truly errors, just missed guesses. Taravangian had been supremely brilliant that day, but he had not been able to see the future. He had made educated guesses— very educated— and had been right an eerie amount of the time.

 

If he had a source of other information than guesses and extrapolations from known information, then where was it from and what exactly is his boon then? Why does his information appear to be wrong sometimes?

 

Why should we expect that the Nightwatcher has humanity's best interests at heart?

 

The Nightwatcher has fulfilled all of her previous boons before. I don't expect her to have humanity's best interests at heart, but I expect that she's bound by her nature to fulfill what is requested. Baxil learns that the Nightwatcher does not try to twist words.

 

Even assuming Taravangian was himself when he wrote the diagram, that doesn't mean his ultimate goal is something Normal Taravangian would agree with. At his most sociopathic, who knows what the king would consider an acceptable form of survival?

 

If you're proposing that Taravangian's plan involves turning everyone into indestructible immortal cyborgs or something, I'm interested in hearing more of your ideas. I like where you're going where this.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Moogle

[Shale]

Life under Odium, mass movement to Shadesmar, abandoning Roshar for another Shardworld, somehow turning men into Voidbringers, a survival rate under 1%, maybe even mutual annihilation with Odium...

[Shardlet he/him]

I'm curious, where do you think the information comes from? Your conclusion here that he received information from elsewhere is possible, but I lean towards the information coming from his memories of everything he'd ever heard and every book he'd ever read.

 

See post #6.  I would be surprised if his own personally acquired data would be sufficient to make such large scale projections involving topics which virtually all information regarding said topics is obscured or lost.

 

 

 

The Nightwatcher has fulfilled all of her previous boons before. I don't expect her to have humanity's best interests at heart, but I expect that she's bound by her nature to fulfill what is requested. Baxil learns that the Nightwatcher does not try to twist words.

 

Again, see post #6.  I don't think this would constitute twisting words.  The curse is hers to choose.  That is what Baxil and his colleague wee discussing.  The curse not the boon.  The Nightwatcher may have provided Taravangian exactly what he asked for and he may simply be failing to recognize what that was because he assumes his curse is actually his boon.

[Moogle]

See post #6.  I would be surprised if his own personally acquired data would be sufficient to make such large scale projections involving topics which virtually all information regarding said topics is obscured or lost.

 

I am uncertain on this point. It seems like question to ask Brandon, really.

 

My view on this is this: He's an old man, he apparently had enough time to have researched the Shin culture and I imagine he had researched the culture of the Horneaters, which might allow him to piece together Hoid's existence (Rock knows of the god of mischief and travel). He knew what Gavilar's visions contained, which gives him a huge chunk of information and would jumpstart his understanding of the Radiants. He can look at decades of his memories of spren and determine how and why they work, realize they came from Honor from the visions, understand the Nahel bond from there, and determine the Radiant's secret from the vision of it first happening.

 

He's king, and has a wide intelligence network (I don't think he started it very recently if he already had sleeper agents), so he can ruminate on his memories of reports of politics and the like, realize there's secret societies, figure out their existence and their goals, and keep going from there. Suddenly he can reinterpret his every memory of history, find the flaws in history. He can realize that some sections of histories have been altered, or are missing from when they are there, and then use that to determine the truth of what happened.

 

All this information feeds each other, and spirals out of control in beautiful madness to create the Diagram.

 

I agree it seems like a lot of information was lost, and that there's ultimately a limit, but I think that Gavilar's visions and memories of things like the Surgebinding chart on the door of the Palaneum should be capable of giving a superintelligence enough information to make connections they seem like they should not have. We almost see an example of this when he hears about Mrall's ability to turn off his emotions:

 

“Can you really change that easily?” Taravangian asked. “Turn off your emotions on a whim?”

“Of course,” Mrall said.

Something about that tickled at Taravangian, some thread of interest. If he had been in one of his more brilliant states, he might have seized upon it— but today, he sensed thought seeping away like water between fingers.

 

The way it's described really does seem like his ability to see the connection between information is enhanced, not that he gets information from a different source. I'll grant that it's a possibility, but it just doesn't seem all that likely to me.

 

Again, see post #6.  I don't think this would constitute twisting words.  The curse is hers to choose.  That is what Baxil and his colleague wee discussing.  The curse not the boon.  The Nightwatcher may have provided Taravangian exactly what he asked for and he may simply be failing to recognize what that was because he assumes his curse is actually his boon.

 

I am afraid I disagree with you that it wouldn't be twisting words. Taravangian says he asked for the capacity to save the world. He wanted to save it, not have the Nightwatcher put the potential out there for him. I find it to be an extreme misinterpretation of his words to have the Nightwatcher reintroduce the spren, not to mention that seems significantly out of line with her previous boons.

 

If someone could just wish for something with world-spanning alterations (like, "I want my boon to be the entire world suddenly exploding"), I think Roshar would look significantly different. I feel most boons should be limited to changing the person or altering the environment in extremely limited ways.

 

One point of support for the theory that Taravangian's intelligence is his curse is that all of the Nightwatcher's curses seem to be neurological in nature, but the boons do not seem to be so limited. I'll think about this more.

[Shards of Mist he/him]

The thing is, we don't really know how the Nightwatcher operates. We know she grants a boon that comes with a curse, but to what extent?

What if the curse she gives someone is equal to the boon she grants?

In that scenario, Taravangian would have the ability to save mankind AND also ensure its destruction. How would he know which one is which?

I don't really believe that the Nightwatcher would do something like that to the detriment of mankind, but it does bring up interesting dialogue.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Shards of Mist

[Seloun]

Questions:

1. Is Nin using Mr. T in his designs or is Mr. T using Nin, both or neither?
2. Will Moash learn about the Diagram and Mr. T?  Will he be redeemed and let Kaladin know that Mr. T is a huge part of the problem?
3. When will Szeth turn his attention to Mr. T?
4. Now that the desolation is here, will Nin cease his persecution of the budding Radiants?
5. The diagram apparently has contingency planning to destroy even the rebuilt Radiants.  With Dalinar and the Radiants, the Diagram has already failed to an extent.  At what point does reality diverge so much from the Diagram that Mr. T ditches it? 
6. The Diagram apparently has Mr. T  destroying humanity's ability to fight.  After he has thrown every realm into civil war and destroyed their fighting population along with any Radiants that pop up, how does Mr. T plan to fight the desolations?
7. Mr. T asked the Nightwatcher for the ability to save humanity.  The fluctuating intelligence is her apparent answer.  Based on his point of view, Mr. T is monumentally stupid in what he thinks of as his brilliant times.  He is murdering to get the information one of the Unmade is providing him.  He is assiduously following a Diagram that he created on a day he was so "smart" that he is unlikely to ever be that smart again.  Has he been led astray by Odium?

 

1) Nin, based on what we've seen in the interludes, doesn't really seem like the sort to manipulate people on that grand a scale (he's a very personal fellow). Mr. T's agenda doesn't really seem aligned with Nin, either.

2) It seems almost certain that Moash will learn something about Taravangian. It feels like it'd be a tough sell to Moash that the Diagram is the solution to everything. Given Moash appears to have a strong incentive to try to 'redeem' himself to Kaladin, I could believe that Moash might prove to be how the Diagram gets resolved.

3) I'm on the side of 'never'. Taravangian isn't really Szeth's issue; Szeth's issue is that he killed a ton of people when he didn't have to, which starts well before Taravangian (Taravangian didn't help, but if it wasn't for his being named Truthless, it never would have come up). If he does address Taravangian, I think it'd be much later.

4) I want to say he'll continue. The law is clearly the most important consideration in his mind; if his thinking that Surgebinding would bring back the Desolation was really his top priority, I would have expected to see him be willing to bend the law for it. Since he wasn't willing to bend the law despite (allegedly) potentially dooming the world before, I don't think he'll stop now either.

5) As mentioned above by Moogle, I don't think the Diagram has failed in this regard. It appears to make predictions, but also allow for contingencies. It would really only 'fail' if something happened which the Diagram didn't have a contingency for.

6) I don't think we can conclude the Diagram is destroying humanity's ability to fight. 50% of the military pointed in the right direction is vastly more effective than 100% of the military fighting with itself. We see an example of this in the Shattered Plain during the assault on the center. This doesn't rule out the possibility that the Diagram is in fact flawed, just that I don't think Jah Keved can be used as proof that the Diagram is corrupted.

7) I'm not sure you can ever really rule this out (well, until the end of the series) but it feels a bit cheap if that ends up being the resolution to every misguided secret society. I have a feeling that the main difference is that Taravangian's solution is the most conservative, least risky solution (it'll save some remnant of humanity with high probability, but won't take any risks that might have a higher ROI overall); it _will_ save some humans, but by sacrificing much of the reason for saving them in the first place.

[DiamondMind he/him]

I think that perhaps what Shardlet is getting at is that something interfered with Mr. T's normal daily intelligence, or perhaps just enhanced it and gave him access to outside information. After all, we're told that his level of intelligence on Diagram day is supremely unlikely. Not impossible, but the chances are so minuscule as to be inconceivable: One in a million, or thereabouts.

 

Why is this so important? Possibly because this never should have happened in the first place. Maybe Odium or Cultivation interfered, or something else entirely.

[el_warko he/him]

3. Szeth was about as mentally broken as we've seen, I'll agree. However, I think at the end of WoR, he was on the path to healing. Given the chance to stop being Truthless, his afterlife no longer being an eternity of suffering... I think that Szeth could very well be redeemed, and his insanity cured. I'm not sure if Nalan will be a helpful influence, but he's a hint better than Taravangian for Szeth's mental health.

 

 

I'd argue that his new "therapist" will not help in regardst o curing his insanity.

[11thorderknight]

 

Taravangian wrote it. The Diagram was not some alien artifact. If you're proposing that the Diagram is not intended to save a portion of humanity from the upcoming Desolation as it claims, then you're proposing that Mr. T decided while insane to throw his back on all of his previous desires and motivations and lie to himself.

 

You're further proposing that the step by step plan laid out by his genius self (which they know in full) has steps that look like they save the world, but in truth "lead to some sort of dystopian future". And that none of the hundreds of people who have read the Diagram suspect this.

 

This is also implies that the Nightwatcher did not fulfill Taravangian's wish of having the capacity to save the world, since his boon (curse in this theory I guess) sabotages him, and his curse (boon in this theory?) causes him to literally turn into a drooling idiot that can't stop this saboteur version of himself. He has no potential to save the world in this case.

 

This is a pretty bold claim in my opinion. I'm sorry, but the evidence you have doesn't really convince me.

 

Yes, Taravangian wrote the Diagram - in state of such "brilliance" that he wrote it in codes and languages that he made up on the fly. The entire interlude throws out hints that on very intelligent days, he's also pretty psychopathic - enough so that he placed a three day waiting period on anything he does on those days, because his "intelligent" self isn't always very smart (asking for half his people to voluntarily kill themselves?) My point is that, if he can come up with such stupid ideas on a "normally brilliant" day, what stupid ideas did he think of as reasonable on Diagram Day??? That's the dystopian future I was suggesting might be at the end of the Diagram.

 

And no, they don't understand the Diagram, not entirely. Yes, they've been able to decode most of it, and figure out a lot of it, but it specifically states that he doesn't fully understand what he himself wrote on that day. Hence, the "binding commentary" part. 

 

He asked the Nightwatcher for the capacity to save mankind. We don't know what his boon and his curse were. The implication, and what he and his friends think, is that the alternating intelligence is both boon and curse - it gave him the capacity to figure out what to do to prepare for the coming desolation, but the price is that he's really stupid on some days. But we know that the more intelligent he is, the less compassionate he becomes. What if the capacity to save the world isn't in his intelligence, but in his compassion, and he's got it all backwards?

[Moogle]

. But we know that the more intelligent he is, the less compassionate he becomes. What if the capacity to save the world isn't in his intelligence, but in his compassion, and he's got it all backwards?

 

When he's very compassionate he starts drooling (literally) because he is incapable of basic thought. If his drool is strongly Invested and is a counter to Voidbringers, I'll grant you this point, but Taravangian was very compassionate pre-Nightwatcher. He didn't think it was enough.

 

My point is that, if he can come up with such stupid ideas on a "normally brilliant" day, what stupid ideas did he think of as reasonable on Diagram Day??? That's the dystopian future I was suggesting might be at the end of the Diagram.

 

So far, his plans seem to be working out rather well and don't seem obviously stupid. It seems that his stupidity decreases as his intelligence increases, though he gets more stupid initially as his intelligence rises because he loses a connection to his humanity and doesn't understand things as well. This fixes itself with more intelligence.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Moogle

[xbauks he/him]

Yes, Taravangian wrote the Diagram - in state of such "brilliance" that he wrote it in codes and languages that he made up on the fly. The entire interlude throws out hints that on very intelligent days, he's also pretty psychopathic - enough so that he placed a three day waiting period on anything he does on those days, because his "intelligent" self isn't always very smart (asking for half his people to voluntarily kill themselves?) My point is that, if he can come up with such stupid ideas on a "normally brilliant" day, what stupid ideas did he think of as reasonable on Diagram Day??? That's the dystopian future I was suggesting might be at the end of the Diagram.

And no, they don't understand the Diagram, not entirely. Yes, they've been able to decode most of it, and figure out a lot of it, but it specifically states that he doesn't fully understand what he himself wrote on that day. Hence, the "binding commentary" part.

He asked the Nightwatcher for the capacity to save mankind. We don't know what his boon and his curse were. The implication, and what he and his friends think, is that the alternating intelligence is both boon and curse - it gave him the capacity to figure out what to do to prepare for the coming desolation, but the price is that he's really stupid on some days. But we know that the more intelligent he is, the less compassionate he becomes. What if the capacity to save the world isn't in his intelligence, but in his compassion, and he's got it all backwards?

Yes he's shown to be a little crazy on his intelligent days however, from what his advisors say, on the day he wrote the diagram, it was almost like he could see the future. Which is possible with enough information and someone/something that can process said information. If Mr T was as smart as his advisors believed on that day, he could have come up with the Diagram.

Keep in mind that Cultivation is said to be best of the 3 at seeing the future. It is entirely possible that those 20 hours of near prescience were the boon. The fluctuating intelligence being the curse.

[xbauks he/him]

So far, his plans seem to be working out rather well and don't seem obviously stupid. It seems that his stupidity decreases as his intelligence increases, though he gets more stupid initially as his intelligence rises because he loses a connection to his humanity and doesn't understand things as well. This fixes itself with more intelligence.

His stupidity while intelligent can also be explained by incomplete information processing. He is smart enough to process logical information but humans are hardly very logical. We may be predictable but I doubt a normal brilliant person who has not studied psychology can predict the behaviour of a person for any significant length of time.

[Moogle]

His stupidity while intelligent can also be explained by incomplete information processing. He is smart enough to process logical information but humans are hardly very logical. We may be predictable but I doubt a normal brilliant person who has not studied psychology can predict the behaviour of a person for any significant length of time.

 

I get your point, but the point remains that he thought people wouldn't resist his law to commit suicide. This isn't a long-term prediction. He literally thought he could persuade people to commit suicide with brilliant arguments. People he thought were below average intelligence. It's stunning how he seems to not understand basic human motivations when a little intelligent.

 

He loses something very vital when he becomes intelligent, and only regains it when he becomes super-intelligent. I don't trust Taravangian not to make poor decisions when he's intelligent unless he's stark raving mad like he was when he wrote the Diagram.