Taln's Identity

[dilburt]

I think the answer to the questions regarding Taln are based on his experiences since the last desolation. He was abandoned by all the other heralds and left alone in the place of torture for 4500 years. That had never happened before. In the beginning of the first book when discussing their abandonment of Talenel'Elin, Kalak said, "He will not remain bound by this. The enemy. He will find a way around it. You know he will."

 

The enemy (I assume they mean Odium) had free reign over Taln for those 4500 years and either drove him mad or changed him in some other way and he may or may not recover.

 

Regarding the blade, there were only 3 people present when Taln showed up and collapsed - Wit and two lowly guards.  Wit spoke the last words in the book, "I fear you may be too late, my confused, unfortunate friend." Wit knows where the original blade is. My guess is that he knew it would be stolen so he's hidden it somewhere and replaced it with a normal shard blade that looks completely different.

 

Regarding the eye color - something else is going on with that. There are all the references to "life among the dark eyes..." and the vision of the "bright lord" with the scarlet cloak and dark eyes. It's possible that the honor blades did not change the color of the herald's eyes and that is why dark eyes were considered "holy" prior to the Recreance when the lower classes took over the abandoned shard blades and rewrote history.

 

D 

Edited March 24, 2014 by dilburt

[Argent]

The Blade could've been switched after Taln's arrival, but before Bordin got to him and put him in the carriage. I had a write-up of the possibilities somewhere...

[dilburt]

The Blade could've been switched after Taln's arrival, but before Bordin got to him and put him in the carriage. I had a write-up of the possibilities somewhere...

Exactly. After Taln collapsed, Wit probably sent the guards running and could have been alone with TaLn for some time.

I'll have to look for your post.

D

[Leuthie]

What about Taln having the same issues as the other Heralds? Nalan is imposing Justice on Surgebinders. Shalash is destroying art. Whoever was talking with Nalan in the prologue is being a whiny bitch. Jezrien is drooling in a corner. Taln is mumbling about protecting people and catching darts...

[Argent]

I don't think those two types of brokenness (ha! Turns out this is a real word...) fall under the same umbrella. Nale and Shalash are exhibiting perverted versions of their divine attributes - Taln is just broken from torture.

[Tempus]

We have a WoB somewhere that madman Taln is not Taln, but 'the man who calls himself Taln'. He's going to be a PoV character in the latter half of the Archive, apparently. It was implied that it wasn't the sword that was switched, but the entire person - the Taln from WoK epilogue is somewhere else entirely.

 

 

Edit found it: Outis signing - 

 

 

 

Q:  Do you know the order of 6-10?
A:  I know whose they are but I haven't decided the order.  Lift is one, Taln is one.  The person who calls himself Taln.

 

 

Ah, and here is the accompanying bits:

 

 

 

Q:  At the very end of WoR, Dalinar touches a Shardblade and it screams at him.  Should that particular Blade have been safe?
A:  No, it should not have.  It's a clue that something has happened.  There are other clues that something is wrong with what the story you've been told is.

Q:  Because Option 2 is that it's unsafe to touch an honorblade, but there's no evidence of that.
A:  There is no evidence of that.  There's much stronger evidence that something else is going on.

Q:  Did Hoid switch out the blades?
A:  Hoid did not switch out the blades, but good question.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Tempus

[Argent]

Yea, I am not ready to rule out Brandon trolling us.

[RShara]

We have a WoB that Hoid did not switch the Blades.

Although someone else might have.  Or.....well the different theories that I made in the 3rd post to this thread lol.

 

Edit:  Also another WoB where he says the person who showed up at Kholinar is the same person who arrived at the warcamps.

Edited March 26, 2014 by RShara

[Numb]

It could be that Taln isn't actually his real name and is just his "herald name" so WoB is trolling us hard. Who knows at this point.

 

Is it possible that the heralds don't actually survive each desolation and instead merely their memories/consciousness gets implanted into worthy individuals when they return? That could fall in line with the whole Taln but not Taln

Edited March 26, 2014 by Numb

[corwin01]

Has anyone actually asked if it was an Honorblade? I know all the evidence points to this, but if we are missing part of the story, perhaps it comes from a false assumption such as this. We know Brandon has said we've seen 3 types of blades in TWoK, and knowing that we saw a number of Shardblades, Szeth's Honorblade, maybe Taln's blade is the 3rd type.

Also, going off assumptions we've made, has anyone directly asked Brandon if someone besides "Taln" did anything to the blade? Maybe the blade mismatch from TWoK's Epilogue and when "Taln" shows up at the warcamps is something of "Taln's" doing, and not by an external party like we have been assuming.

Edited March 26, 2014 by corwin01

[Moogle]

Has anyone actually asked if it was an Honorblade? I know all the evidence points to this, but if we are missing part of the story, perhaps it comes from a false assumption such as this. We know Brandon has said we've seen 3 types of blades in TWoK, and knowing that we saw a number of Shardblades, Szeth's Honorblade, maybe Taln's blade is the 3rd type.

 

A piece of evidence for it not being an Honorblade is that "Taln"'s eyes were not topaz. His Honorblade should have changed his eye color if he was bonded to it. Whether that means it wasn't an Honorblade, or "Taln" simply wasn't the rightful wielder, I don't know. I can't recall anyone ever asking Brandon if it was an Honorblade. It just seemed like it obviously was... but then, I never thought Szeth's Blade was an Honorblade until WoR.

[Aleksiel]

Perhaps a better question would be if Taln really died as Jezrien told Kalak. Though there's WoB the Heralds would know a Desolations is upon because of his return, so probably Taln did die and return, but there's something even that long ago, I'm sure of it. Brandon have said it was indeed strange that in a such a terrible battle as Kalak described it only one Herald has dies.

 

Perhaps someone can ask Brandon is something different (than in other cases he died) happened to Taln when he died in the previous Desolation.

[Argent]

Is it possible that the heralds don't actually survive each desolation and instead merely their memories/consciousness gets implanted into worthy individuals when they return? That could fall in line with the whole Taln but not Taln

 

I like this. I have no idea how it might be done, but I like it.

[Swimmingly]

Didn't Brandon say epilogue and and WoR Taln are indeed the same person?

[RShara]

He said that the person who arrived at the gates of Kholinar and the person who arrived at the warcamps are the same person.

[Aleksiel]

Didn't Brandon say epilogue and and WoR Taln are indeed the same person?

 

That he did, but the idea here is that this Taln in both end of WoK and WoR may not be the original Herald.

[digitalbusker]

How specifically was the "person who arrived at the warcamps" identified? Does the wording leave room for Taln to swap places with Borden?

I don't advocate this theory, but since this question is rapidly turning into Stormlight's "Who killed Asmodean?" I figure no loony theory is too loony.

[Argent]

The exact wording of my question has been mentioned several times - "Is the person who arrives at the gates of Kholinar at the end of The Way of Kings the same person as the one Bordin delivers to the warcamps?"

[Awesomeness Summoned]

Not sure if these have been brought up in this thread yet but I was rereading Taln's interlude with this topic in mind and two quotes jumped out at me.

 

Words... The Gift and words. Not his. Never his. Now his.

 

First, why is Gift capitalized? More importantly, though, is the second part where he says the words were never his but now they are.

 

"I am Talenel'Elin, Herald of War." Voice. He spoke it. He didn't think it. The words came, like they always came.

 

Those quotes and a few other things in that interlude indicate that the words his body is speaking have nothing to do with the person who's pov we are seeing. As he says himself, the words are coming out of his mouth but they aren't his. It's almost as if there are two people's minds stuck in one body which could I guess go along with the idea that Brandon keeps saying "The person who calls himself Taln." The mouth is saying he's Taln, but the mind inside isn't really.

 

Could it be that somehow Taln's thoughts and memories have been thrust into someone else's body and have control over what he says? The part about The Gift, sounds like the Nightwatcher. Some guy, maybe a Son of Honor went to her and asked for the Heralds to return, or even to be a Herald himself, and she granted the request by putting Taln's mind into his. Yes, I know a little far fetched and it seems like the Nightwatcher is becoming our answer for every strange occurrence but I can't really think of any other explanation for why there seems to be a spilt personality within "Taln".

Edited March 26, 2014 by Awesomeness Summoned

[RShara]

Maybe Taln got spiked and the person who received the spike now thinks he is Taln.

[Leuthie]

"...like they always came."

Seems to show that this isn't new, nor unexpected. Possibly it always takes a while for a Herald to "wake up" so a state of automatic recall takes over. In any case, "...like they always came" doesn't fit with the second mind in one head theory.

[PorridgeBrick]

He could have been repeating it in his head during his torture too, a la hoed mantras. And I don't think someone put Taln's mind in this person's. I'm more inclined to think he simply took over his identity and position, and then confused it with his own identity after 4500 years of constant torture.

[Argent]

A version of this idea I've been tinkering with makes the Heralds a combination of separate bodies and a single mind. Maybe when a Herald dies, it's their cognitive aspects that gets sent to Damnation, while the body dies. Then, when they need to return, they have their mind shoved down some poor sod's throat, and voala - Herald. This could explain why Nale's chapter header portrait doesn't have his signature scar on the cheek - the drawing could've been done when he wore a different face. The memories would always be intact, but ot would take the new body some time to get used to the new mind in it.

[Seloun]

A version of this idea I've been tinkering with makes the Heralds a combination of separate bodies and a single mind. Maybe when a Herald dies, it's their cognitive aspects that gets sent to Damnation, while the body dies. Then, when they need to return, they have their mind shoved down some poor sod's throat, and voala - Herald. This could explain why Nale's chapter header portrait doesn't have his signature scar on the cheek - the drawing could've been done when he wore a different face. The memories would always be intact, but ot would take the new body some time to get used to the new mind in it.

 

That's a cool idea, and I was about to concur, but... (from TWoK prelude):

 

 

The figure in white and blue glanced toward him. Even after all these centuries, Jezrien looked young, like a man barely into his thirtieth year. His short black beard was neatly trimmed, though his once-fine clothing was scorched and stained with blood. He folded his arms behind his back as he turned to Kalak.

 

So it's probably unlikely, unless there's some other thing going on (perhaps it's a similar idea, but their appearances do change?).

[thejopen27]

Taln is Taln.  The person who appears as Taln is the Herald Talenel'Elin. He has superhuman reflexes, he knows things that would be very hard for a non-Herald to know, and he has been mentally broken which fits a Herald who has shouldered the burdens of all ten.  As for speaking perfect Alethi this could be explained by a Heraldic ability to be universally understood or to speak all langauges (this would be a necessity in their jobs as heralds in order to communicate with a whole continent thousands of years apart when the languages could change over time.

 

As for the mystery of the changing Blade.  He was clutching his blade when he first appears in Khilinar like a desperate man holding the only thing that belongs to him.  Taln was seen by several guards holding a blade.  Now we have WoB saying that Hoid did not switch the blades but that does not mean that Hoid didn't just give him a decoy blade so he wouldn't rouse suspicion by being a darkeyed insane man with a bonded shardblade.  Szeth proved an Honorblade canbe bonded, summoned, and banished, so Taln is passed out and his blade is on the ground, maybe Szeth gets him to wake up and banish his blade and gives him the new blade, his Honorblade disappears and he is found with the new blade and Wit/Hoid is probably gone.  Hoid would want the Herald to be killed by a greedy person or the queen for his blade and wouldn't want smarter people to figure out he was the Herald.  Easier to explain darkeyed man with an unbounded blade than one bonded with a blade with dark eyes.