The Diagram (Spoilers)

[Bobobagins]

Chapter 85 diagram is the wanderer mraize or is it talking about hoid also is it just a coincidence that mraize sounds like Rayse....

Wild speculation abounds.....

[hoser]

When ...

So far, his plans seem to be working out rather well and don't seem obviously stupid. ...

{Snarky sarcasm}

Mass murder in Kharbranth.  Precipitated civil war that wipes out large parts of the Veden fighting forces.  Rioting in Kholinar. Plague in the Purelake.  The Everstorm creating armies of Voidbringers worldwide.  Regicide out west.  Crazy herald about to use renegade assassin to wreck the Shamanate.  Renegade assassin who knows his identity and that Mr. T lied to him to get him to try to assassinate Dalinar a second time.  Yes, his plans are working out quite well indeed.  With saviors like Mr. T, who needs Odium?

{/Snarky sarcasm}

 

Really, the only things that are going well are his failures.  Szeth no longer does his dirty work. The Radiants have started reforming.  Dalinar has survived.  Moash may infiltrate his organization and expose him. 

 

{Snarky sarcasm}

But don't worry, the Diagram has contingency plans to fix all that. 

{/Snarky sarcasm}

[akintu]

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.

 

They calculate out his chance of another super-intelligent day as being in the next thousand plus years.  Perhaps the odds of a super-compassionate/stupid day are different.  And just like he loses something vital when intelligent that he regains when super-intelligent, he could easily gain something when crossing over from very dumb to super-compassionate.  It could be something as simple as a realization that allows him to interpret the Diagram in a new way on better days.

[IceBaka]

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.

...

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.

 

 

It may not really matter what Taravangian asked for, if Av is a reliable source (when telling Baxil how the Old Magic works):

 

"The Nightwatcher doesn't trick you or twist your words.  You ask a boon.  She gives you what she feels you deserve, then gives you a curse to go along with it.  Sometimes related, sometimes not."

-- Way of Kings (p. 709, Kindle location 14988)

 

That seems to indicate that the Nightwatcher doesn't twist your words because your request is, to some extent, irrelevant.  I've always read the "sometimes related" part as meaning that the curse and boon may or may not be related, but I guess it could also mean the boon (and/or curse) may or may not be related to the request.  Either way, Av's description strongly suggests that Taravangian's fluctuating intelligence may have been his curse (and/or boon) regardless of the wording he used when asking a boon of the Nightwatcher.

 

 

 

As a side note, when I went back to read this section to make sure I got Av's words correct, I realized that Baxil's mistress (presumably Shallash) using henchmen was a good foreshadowing of Darkness (presumably Nalan) using henchmen.

[xbauks]

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.

I agree with you. Normally intelligent Mr T is unable to really understand people. Diagram creating intelligent Mr T can. Whether it's because he can just process more information or he gains something extra we don't know. Regardless we can discard Mr T being mind controlled as a theory (knowing what we know so far)

[xbauks]

{Snarky sarcasm}

Mass murder in Kharbranth. Precipitated civil war that wipes out large parts of the Veden fighting forces. Rioting in Kholinar. Plague in the Purelake. The Everstorm creating armies of Voidbringers worldwide. Regicide out west. Crazy herald about to use renegade assassin to wreck the Shamanate. Renegade assassin who knows his identity and that Mr. T lied to him to get him to try to assassinate Dalinar a second time. Yes, his plans are working out quite well indeed. With saviors like Mr. T, who needs Odium?

{/Snarky sarcasm}

Really, the only things that are going well are his failures. Szeth no longer does his dirty work. The Radiants have started reforming. Dalinar has survived. Moash may infiltrate his organization and expose him.

{Snarky sarcasm}

But don't worry, the Diagram has contingency plans to fix all that.

{/Snarky sarcasm}

The whole point of all the chaos is so that Mr T can be the beacon of hope. So he can become "king of everything" as he put it. So humanity can be united for the coming desolation.

And while you're mentioning his failures, i hope you don't forget that he has become the king of Jah Keved. If Szeth had succeeded in killing Dalinar, Alethkar would've been an easy victory for him as well. Plague in Purelake? How fortunate for Mr T that his kingdom is so famous for its medical knowledge.

Keep in mind that the Diagram was written some years prior to the current events. Circumstances have changed significantly. The Diagram being wrong about some things shows that even the godlike genius Mr T is fallible.

[DocHoliday]

Shardbearer, on 13 Mar 2014 - 5:55 PM, said:

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.

That's an interesting idea. I mean there's a neat little description about him weeping reading about the monstrosities he had planned.

I think it would be fun to see Cultivation explain that idea to Mr. T. Something like:

"You were supposed to write a plan that didn't make you weep at night!"

Moogle, on 13 Mar 2014 - 10:12 PM, said:

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.

Actually there is a lot of play room in the wording of those requests. Enough rope for The Devil Cultivation to hang you with.

Depending on the wording Mr T used. He didn't say Mr. T wants the capacity to save the world. He said I want the world to have the chance to save itself. Etc. Etc. And that's just playing with the wording.

If someone asked the world to suddenly be exploding, she can cover the world in bubbles and pop them. Never said exploding What or how long. Or how damaging, dosnt matter how you feel about it.

DiamondMind, on 13 Mar 2014 - 11:33 PM, said:

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.

There must have been a nugget of insight from somewhere. Predicting general politics of nations for maybe a month into the future? for a super genius? Maybe, okay..

Predicting global socio-restructuring during a tumultuous global catastrophe on an apocalyptic scale?? on a global basis for the next 20 years? Ummm. Magic? Maybe?

Then there's the cascade effect. Every little decision adds up into a different future, causing greater and greater divergence from the original predictions less and less useful. Already we're seeing huge divergents from the Diagram. That Mr T succeeded this well is near Shardic in nature.

Edited March 14, 2014 by DocHoliday

[Pattern]

To me, the Diagram seem like an intricate plan with contingencies to become king of everything. Unification seems somewhat similar to Dalinars aims.

Having the Palanaeum in Kharbranth, Mr. T would have been able to aquire lots of information during his not so short life, which he processed during his day of brilliance. Nonetheless the Diagram does not predict the future. Mr T works proactively to make the events happen the Diagram "predicts".

He started using Moelach(or Nergaoul?)  via death rattles to gather more information, because the diagram became too imprecise. I am really excited about in which book of the series the Diagram runs wild. I expect it to happen like it happens with every weather forecast. 5 days might be ok, but 14 days...well I could also look into my coffee and predict something instead.

And Jasnah is back - with information from Shadesmar. This is not to be ignored. Would be nice to know, where on Mr. T's intelligence chart Jasnah would be positioned...

Edited March 14, 2014 by Pattern