As we reach the last of the third set of Interludes in our Rhythm of War reread, we return to one of the most controversial characters: (former) King Taravangian. He’s having an emotional day, with all the angst that brings him; to further mess with him, he receives a visit from Renarin and Szeth-in-disguise. Since neither conversation goes the way he’d planned, he ends the chapter in tears. Does this make him more sympathetic? Or… not really? Come on in and join the discussion; we’ll talk about that.
Reminder: We’ll be discussing spoilers for the entirety of the series up until now. If you haven’t read ALL of the published entries of The Stormlight Archive (this includes Edgedancer and Dawnshard as well as the entirety of Rhythm of War), best to wait to join us until you’re done.
This week doesn’t really address wider Cosmere questions.
Heralds: Palah (Pailiah, Paliah). Truthwatchers (Progression, Illumination). Learned/Giving. Role: Scholar.
Nalan (Nale), Herald of Justice. Skybreakers (Gravitation, Division). Just/Confident. Role: Judge.
A: Honestly, my best guess is that these two are here for their respective Knights Radiant—Palah for Renarin the Truthwatcher, and Nalan for Szeth the Skybreaker. Otherwise, I can’t really see what Taravangian has to do with either of them in his fuddled state of mind.
Icon: The Vine King denotes an emotional-Taravangian POV.
Chapter Recap
WHO: Taravangian
WHEN: 1175.4.9.2 (Maybe; the 17S timeline puts this on the same date as Interlude 7, and it might well be. I’m still a little doubtful of the actual date, but we’ll roll with it for now.)
WHERE: Laqqi, Emul—coalition war headquarters city
(Note: For the “when” notations, we are using this wonderful timeline provided by the folks at The 17th Shard.)
RECAP: Taravangian wakes, stupid and aching. He’s particularly stupid this day, unable to even think of basic things like checking for fresh food before eating the stale leftovers. He carefully reviews the notes he wrote while he was smarter, just in case he needs that today. Turns out he does, because he has visitors. Renarin is first, hoping he can help Taravangian “find his way back” from the lost state he’s in. Unprepared, Taravangian doesn’t know how to respond, and Renarin leaves promising to return if his visions show him anything that will help. His guard stays, though, and demands to know why Taravangian requested an Oathstone. It takes a minute, but Taravangian finally sees that it’s Szeth inside the disguise, and jumps immediately into trying to convince him to use his sword against Odium. Szeth categorically refuses to be manipulated and walks away. Taravangian is sad.
Chapter Chatter—Taravangian’s Terrors
A: You could almost feel sorry for the man; the state he’s in this week reminds me of advancing senility. He can’t remember why he asked for things, he can’t remember why things he wrote down are important, he can’t even remember that there is fresh food in the other room. The saddest part is that he’s aware of his lack.
On the other hand… smart Taravangian is such a nasty piece of work that I can’t really feel too bad about him being in this state. At least when he’s “stupid” he’s human; when he’s smart, he borders on demonic.
(Worth wondering about: Just how smart was he when he wrote on the side of the drawer the other day? Was it one of those days that Mrall would have determined he was too smart to be allowed to make critical decisions? Or just an average sort of smart, the kind where he could understand the Diagram but couldn’t be trusted to modify it? He notes in later Interludes that, while his intelligence still varies from day to day, there’s a general downward trend so that his smart days are more like his former average days, and only smart by comparison with his increasingly stupid days. We really don’t know how strong that effect is just yet.)
Dumb. How dumb was he? Too… too dumb. He recognized the sensation, his thoughts moving as if through thick syrup. He stood. Was that light? Yes, sunlight.
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A: Like I said, you can almost feel sorry for him. The worst of the COVID brain fog wasn’t nearly that bad (at least for me). It takes him some serious thinking to work out that there’s sunlight coming through an unboarded window because Dalinar ordered that he be allowed more light.
P: The COVID brain fog wasn’t that bad for me, either, but it was frustrating nonetheless. But yeah, it’s no wonder that “smart” Taravangian hates “dumb” Taravangian.
Though I still don’t feel sorry for him when he’s dumb. I feel like I need to make that perfectly clear.
A: Fair enough. I sort of pity anyone in this state, but on the whole, Taravangian made his own bed, and I’m okay with letting him lie in it. Even the dumb part.
He went back into his bedroom. Unhooked the drawer with the instructions. Slowly read them.
Then again.
He laboriously copied them into the notebook. They were a list of things he needed to say if he could meet Szeth alone.
A: Aaaand… say goodbye to sympathy. Gah. When he was “smarter,” he wrote instructions to himself on the side of a drawer, since he didn’t have any paper. Now he’s got paper (as requested from Dalinar in the earlier Interlude). Once he finally realizes why he asked for the paper, he copies the notes into his little notebook, trusting absolutely in the “wisdom” of his “smart” self. Ugh. Wherever “smart” is on the scale these days, he was smart enough to make plans to manipulate Szeth, and write them all down in case he was having a dumb day when he had the chance. Which brings back all the dislike of the manipulative serpent he really is.
Gotta say, though, it’s bizarre to watch one borderline insane person trying to manipulate another.
P: Yeah, I’ll mention how much I hate that Szeth allowed himself to be manipulated, but he’s not exactly thinking straight when he’s around Taravangian.
A: It’s understandable, even though I find it irritating, you know? Given what Taravangian put him through, it’s no wonder he goes a little buggy around his former master… but I wish he were better at being on his guard without being so easily manipulated by his emotions.
Several times, the words “Don’t talk to Dalinar” were underlined. In his current state, Taravangian was uncertain about that. Why not talk to him?
Smarter him was convinced they needed to do this themselves. Dalinar Kholin could not be entrusted with Taravangian’s plans. For Dalinar Kholin would do what was right. Not what was needed.
A: I probably don’t really need to express my frustration with this viewpoint again, do I? ::sigh:: I mean, I appreciate hearing that yet another person believes Dalinar will always do the right thing these days; even if we all know he can make mistakes, at least he tries to do what is right. So far, so good… but Taravangian intends to do things that are, even in his own eyes, morally unjustifiable, because he thinks he knows what is “needed.” I suppose that’s what comes of being your own god?
P: One of the many reasons why I despise Taravangian. He’s so sure of himself despite how horrible his choice was. So sure it was the only way, so sure that only he could see what was right and what was necessary. Oh, the arrogance. Tsk.
Didn’t they understand? He made their lives difficult. But he lived the difficulty. He wasn’t trying to be a problem.
People took their minds for granted. They thought themselves wonderful because of how they’d been born.
P: And he thinks himself wonderful because what, Cultivation touched him? Because he was dangerously brilliant for one day? Because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else even when he’s not at his smartest?
What have you done, Cultivation?
A: And that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question… What has she done? Will it turn out to have been a blessing or a curse? Whichever it is, the effect will be on a cosmic scale.
“Traitor!” a voice called into the room. “You have a visitor!”
Taravangian felt a spike of alarm, his fingers shaking as he closed and gripped the notebook. A visitor? Szeth had come? Taravangian’s planted seed bore fruit?
P: I’d forgotten about the planted seed comment but it’s good to know that he only asked for the Oathstone to draw Szeth to him. I mean, not good, considering how things will go with Taravangian and Szeth later. I hate that Szeth allowed himself to be manipulated.
A: So far (as we’ll talk about below) he hasn’t manipulated Szeth into anything beyond coming to see him, but we all know it won’t stop there. As does Szeth, so one wonders why he came anyway. But at least now we have confirmation on why he was asking for the Oathstone-looking rock; he really did just want to provoke Szeth into this visit. (Which, as per a couple of weeks ago, I’d forgotten, but several of our friends pointed out in the discussion. Speaking of brain fog…)
He hadn’t prepared for this. Renarin. Their quiet salvation. Why had he come? Taravangian hadn’t prepared responses in his notebook for this meeting.
A: I really like this. I like Renarin coming to visit him, and I like that Taravangian hadn’t expected it or planned for it. (Maybe I just like it when Taravangian missed things?) But Renarin is such a gift to the world.
P: It’s interesting that he calls Renarin “their quiet salvation.” I think our boy’s gonna have a pretty big role to play as things progress.
A: Oh, for reals. I don’t know what it’s going to be, but I agree—it will be big. I love the phrasing of “their quiet salvation”—it has such a portentous ring. Taravangian has already figured out that Renarin’s presence obscures Odium’s future sight, so it’s probable he’s just thinking that this allows him to work out his plan with Nightblood. I don’t think he’s quite realized that Renarin’s visions can have a much wider effect than that.
“I see your future, Taravangian. It is dark. Not like anything I’ve seen before. Except there’s a point of light flickering in the darkness. I worry what it will mean if that goes out.”
A: What does that mean?? Okay, the darkness is pretty understandable; Taravangian has given up on almost everything, because he sees the Diagram as more or less having fulfilled its purpose, and certainly that he’s fulfilled his purpose. But that point of light flickering in the darkness… is that the possibility that he will return to Team Honor, or that he will destroy Odium? I’m wondering, now, whether the events at the end of this book keep that point of light flickering, or put it out.
P: Frankly, I’m rather dying to know, too. Not that we’ll find out from Renarin, not when everyone thinks Taravangian is dead.
But I’m not sure that flicker means anything good. It’s possible that it’s your second guess, just his potential to kill Rayse, take up the shard, and be even more dangerous as Odium than Rayse was.
A: I wonder when everyone else will find out that Taravangian is the new Odium… Well, I wonder a lot more than that, but this is probably not the place to get into it!
P: I’m hoping that he’ll slip and say something that will tip Dalinar off.
“You are in darkness, Taravangian, and my father thinks you are lost. I lived through his return, and it taught me that no man is ever so far lost that he cannot find his way back. You are not alone.”
P: Oh, my sweet summer child. Taravangian is too far lost. You are remarkable, Renarin, but as your visions at the battle of Thaylen City showed, you don’t see everything as it’s going to happen. You aren’t omniscient. Do remember that.
A: I think that Renarin was right in a way—no one is ever so far lost he can’t be found again. But Taravangian was proud of being too far lost—he was so self-righteous in his “I’ll be the bad guy so that everyone else can be good” schtick that he doesn’t—can’t—even want to find his way back. Repentance and redemption are contrary to everything he’s done for the last seven years; he’s just not interested. And I’m not quite sure whether that’s more sad or repulsive.
Regardless, Renarin believes there is still hope for Taravangian, and the blessed boy promises to come tell him if the visions show him anything that might help.
P: Honor love our Renarin. I wish he’d been right.
Taravangian watched Renarin walking away, wishing he had the courage to call after the boy.
Foolish emotions. Taravangian was not lost in darkness. He had chosen this path, and he knew precisely where he was going. Didn’t he?
A: Hah. Not even a little bit, dude.
P: Nope. Not even an inkling.
“He is wrong,” the guard said. “We can’t all return from the dark. There are some acts that, once committed, will always taint a man.”
P: Szeth is spot on, here. Dalinar will always be tainted, Szeth will always be tainted, and Taravangian… wow, you all know how I feel about him.
A: Tainted for sure, though that’s actually not quite the same thing as irredeemable. But for these two, in a sense it is. Taravangian doesn’t want to be redeemed, and Szeth is convinced that he can’t be. (I think that has something to do with the Shin religion, or the traditions associated with being Truthless: You bear the responsibility/blame for all the things the holder of your Oathstone tells you to do. Szeth may have concluded that he’s not and never was Truthless, but he spent so many years thinking of himself as bearing the blame for all that stuff that he can’t let go. I suspect that eventually he’ll conclude that the people who falsely named him Truthless are actually the ones who bear the blame, and I kind of hate to imagine what he’ll do to them.)
P: Yeah, I don’t know that he’ll ever find peace.
A: Yeah. I don’t really see it happening; he’s got too much painful baggage, and any solutions I can see him trying will only bring more grief.
“Why? Why do you seek an Oathstone? I will not follow your orders again. I am becoming my own man.”
“Do you have the sword?” Taravangian asked. […] “The sword. Did you bring it?”
P: Szeth is so preoccupied with the idea of Taravangian wanting an Oathstone to somehow control him again, that he completely misses Taravangian’s urgency when he asks about Nightblood. Ding ding ding… Pay attention, dude! *sigh*
A: And it’s not like Taravangian could possibly have been any more obvious about it. He doesn’t even pretend to care about anything but the sword once he realizes the guard is Szeth. Nothing like talking past each other!
It’s a weird conversation to watch. While Szeth keeps obsessing over not obeying his former master, Taravangian keeps obsessing over Szeth’s sword. Still, what he says is not wrong. The Diagram didn’t anticipate Nightblood, Odium does fear it, and yes, that fear is thoroughly justified.
“My stone… was always only a stone… My father said…”
“Your father is dead, Szeth,” Taravangian said.
P: So much for emotional Taravangian. Just maliciously drop that bomb right on poor Szeth, who you helped to screw up so badly.
A: I’m not sure he was smart enough to be malicious; he just reacted to Szeth’s “distraction” by dismissing it as irrelevant. In some ways, emotional-T is every bit as oblivious to what’s going on with other people as intellectual-T was. It makes me wonder if that aspect is less about his capacities and more that he was always a self-obsessed git. “If it’s not important to me, it’s not important. Get over yourself.” Or in this case, “Stop talking about what your father said, he’s dead and irrelevant.”
Not exactly the way to gain Szeth’s cooperation… though I’m not sure that’s possible anyway. Szeth is so paranoid about being manipulated by Taravangian he can’t even hear anything else. The weird thing is that he knows the hypothetical Oathstone would mean nothing, but he still couldn’t resist coming and telling Taravangian that.
No! “Listen,” Taravangian said, going off script, ignoring the orders of his smarter self. “Give Dalinar the sword.” […]
Smarter Taravangian claimed he didn’t want to work with Dalinar because it was too dangerous, or because Dalinar wouldn’t believe. Those lies made dumb Taravangian want to pound his fists at his own face out of shame. But the truth was more shameful.
A: I was a little confused by this, but I think what he’s saying is that smart-T’s claims about Dalinar (as stated here) were lies, and the truth is what he thought earlier—that Dalinar would do what was right instead of what was necessary. If that’s the case, I’m glad he’s still got enough conscience to realize the shame of it, even if he doesn’t have the courage to act on the realization.
P: Yes, when he’s being emotional, he is aware of the horrific things he’s done and feels that shame. But I’m not sure I think he’s too much a coward to do anything about it, I think that he just doesn’t want to do anything about it because it’s so necessary in his mind.
A: True. Even in his emotional state, he thinks his brilliant-day-self is the epitome of perfection; shame, honor, right, wrong all have to be subjected to “necessary” as defined by that man.
“I should have realized I wouldn’t be able to understand the way your mind works. All I can do is refuse.”
A: Well, I’ll agree with Szeth on this: He’ll never understand the way Taravangian’s mind works. I’ll also say that’s not a bad thing… Much as I get frustrated with the over-simplicity of Szeth’s obsessive behavior, I’m glad he’s not weasel enough to understand Taravangian.
P: I almost wish we had a weasel who could have possibly anticipated how awful this man is.
A: I’m just glad Taravangian and Sadeas didn’t team up. They’d have really been a prize pair.
Bruised and Broken
There were more notes in the book about how to manipulate Szeth. Taravangian read them, and the words made him hurt. Hadn’t this man been through enough?
P: As I said, you put him through much of that, you snake. (I really wanted to use a word other than snake!) He’s literally thinking about manipulating Szeth while also thinking that he’s been through enough. If that doesn’t show you how screwed up Taravangian is, I don’t know what to tell you.
Because Szeth has been through enough. I hope Brandon eventually gives him some peace.
A: The fact that Taravangian changes his mind and doesn’t use those tools against Szeth, and instead attempts to simply seek help, is one of the few glimmers of hope I see for him in this scene. Of course he doesn’t actually acknowledge that the “enough” Szeth has been through was at his own hands, but at least he stops. For now.
We’ll be leaving further speculation and discussion to you in the comments. As always, feel free to add anything we left out, because we can never address everything. Now we launch into Part Four, which brings back Adolin and Shallan’s story, leaving Dalinar, Jasnah, and the Emuli campaign on the back burner for a while. Navani’s arc continues, as does Venli’s arc and flashbacks; Kaladin’s arc will mostly be seen from the perspective of other Bridge Four members. Next week we’ll do Chapter 73, which is one of Venli’s flashbacks, and it promises to be a painful one.
Alice lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids. She is currently immersed in her daughter’s high school production of Beauty and the Beast; the show opens tonight!
Paige resides in New Mexico, of course, and she is ready for some baseball! Links to her other writing are available in her profile.
Has anyone previously mentioned that a “vine” king icon would relate to Cultivation, whose spren look like messes of vines and who uses vines as her physical manifestation, e. g. when they penetrate Dalinar’s body before she prunes his soul?
You think humans with psychopathic tendencies are demonic?
Renarin’s secret power is specifically that futuresight can’t predict him. I maintain that Rayse was wrong, and Taravangian’s future-predicting ability was always futuresight masquerading as just being really smart. Note that this is most certainly Brandon’s tribute to Dune and sequels, in which Paul’s whole plan was to make everyone precognitive, which would cause precognition itself to become meaningless (because predicting the predictions of predictions ends up meaning that precogs cancel each other out).
Random Cosmere speculation: would atium predict Renarin’s actions? I actually have to say that it might not.
I hate Taravangian as a person, mostly for his Death Rattle collection massacre, and usually enjoy him as a character. But I find him extraordinarily relatable early in this chapter.
‘Taravangian awoke hurting. Lately, each morning was a bitter contest. Did it hurt more to move, or to stay in bed? Moving meant more pain. Staying in bed meant more anguish. Eventually, he chose pain.’ That’s my morning routine, though I think he’s in more pain than I am. As I write this on my phone with already-pained hands, I’m struggling to make myself get out of bed at a shamefully-late hour of the morning and start addressing the anxiety-making list of pain-making things I need to do, knowing I’ll be more physically-uncomfortable until I can finally go to bed again and angsting over the pain and fatigue that make it a struggle.
‘Didn’t they understand? He made their lives difficult. But he lived the difficulty. He wasn’t trying to be a problem.’ Yep, that’s how it can feel to need caretakers, or less-intensive forms of assistance that “normal” adults don’t need. Guilt at making their lives more difficult, resentment at this guilt when I feel that I have it worse for being constantly stuck with the conditions that they choose to help me manage.
‘People took their minds for granted. They thought themselves wonderful because of how they had been born.’ No storming kidding. People who don’t have a given mental (or physical) disability take the advantages of its absence for granted. I have anxiety, depression, and disordered eating, and I can resent people who have the biological good fortune to simply not experience those illnesses, but I take the healthier parts of my mind — my memory, for instance, and my lack of addictions — for granted when I don’t actively think of the people who aren’t so lucky and the fact that my good fortune could always change.
It’s uncomfortable to feel so akin to him and then be reminded how much he is hated by readers (usualy including me). But that’s what Sanderson so often gives us — characters with intensely relatable conditions and personalities, who sometimes do despicably terrible things.
Sorry about rapid-posting, but after putting up the previous one, I realized that Odium II did to Wit/Hoid exactly what Cultivation did to Dalinar, only maliciously (surprise, he’s Odium!) and clumsily. Chopped out a big chunk of memory.
I wonder if Wit will grow them back the same way Dalinar did.
Alice and Paige. Please confirm that this forum will be spoiler free for the draft of the Prologue to SA 5 that Brandon released on his YouTube Channel on March 31, 2022 or any of the portions of the 4 secret books he previously read on his YouTube channel during throughout March.
Alice. Nope. Nothing that happens to Taravangian will ever make me feel sorry for the character. He made his bed and now has to sleep in it. Further, I think that Taravangian would not want pity from anyone about his fate. He has willingly accepted the sacrifice he made.
Thanks for reading my musings.
aka the musespren
While I don’t mind Taravangian as an antagonist; he is still the man who chose to do this slaughter; even his “stupid” days have him still be as schemeing as his smart days. The fact that he basically says here, with the “planted seed” says it all. Despite that he weeps what he has done during his stupid days, he does nothing to even try to circumvent the terrible orders; he even made sure that he can’t do anything, as if his smart self feared that his stupid days might shut parts of the plan down.
We however can pity his condition; which reads off as some one with Alzehimer’s or Parkinson’s. Where they have good days where you can talk to your loved ones and remember the good times; or bad days when they can’t remember you at all. That’s the sad part; and it works well. It’s just that Tarvangian as a person is quite frankly, awful.
I am generally in agreement with all of the commentary about Taravangian’s general reprehensibility. One thing I would love to see (and I don’t think we ever will), though, is what he was like before he got his boon from Cultivation. We know he had some mental difficulties due to having his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck when he was born, but that’s really about it. Was he a ruthless megalomaniac then, but just kept it concealed better? Is it possible there was once a good man called Taravangian who learned of the Desolation and went to the Nightwatcher to ask for the capacity to save his people out of genuine concern? The Taravangian we know throughout the books is detestable, but I can’t help but wonder about his origins and how much influence his curse and boon had on who he has become.
Mr T, bah, turns head and spits to the side. I really dislike his choices through the entire series and he makes it worse as he goes along.
It has just occurred to me that maybe even becoming TOdium won’t stop the smart/stupid day cycle. And that cycle is veering more to the stupid side. Of course, that much power being wielded stupidly could be just as destructive.
@@.-@:
Emphasis on published is mine.
@7
I question how much the smart/emotional dichotomy from Cultivation will still exist now that Taravangian has Ascended. We saw with Dalinar that Cultivation’s pruning of his memories started weakening as his bond with the Stormfather grew stronger. It came across to me, and I could be reading this wrong, that the stronger his Connection to one type of Investiture grew the more it kind of edged out his Connection to others. If that’s the case, then it would make sense to me that Taravangian’s Connection to Odium now outweighs his Connection to Cultivation and his boon/curse will no longer apply either.
I’ve wondered what her goal with that particular boon/curse could be, especially if her endgame was to get him to take up Odium. The best I’ve come up with is that she gave him a boon/curse that he could remember, even if it no longer afflicted him. Now that he’s Ascended, perhaps he’ll remember how much he hated himself and his lack of emotions when he was hyper-intelligent. I think that’s highly doubtful, but it’s the best I’ve got lol.
@9 I believe that Connections between investitures can intermix; after all, look at Mistborn. Hermalurgy enhanced allomancy, after all, and one was of Ruin while the other was of Preservation, and we have seen how Allomancy and Fermaurlgy could work together to produce better and more powerful results. Lift is also a good example of the two connections working together. Lift might use lifelight, but her powers work just as they would with stormlight, there is no real difference there. Cultivation’s pruning of Dalinar was never meant to be permanent, she set it up so that his memories would eventually return; I don’t think it had anything to do with is connection to Stormfather.I think Tavaragian’s curse is still in effect; and I think we see that at the end. Notice that Tavaragain slipped in his conversation with Hoid and tried to reset it, that implies infallicay meaning he might still have his dumb days and his smart days.
Carl @1 – But if the vines represent Cultivation, what does the sword represent? Both sides nominally come from Cultivation’s … gift to him. And yes, for a certain definition, psychopathic behavior is demonic IMO. It’s certainly not angelic…
I still haven’t decided whether I think Taravangian’s Diagram is a result of Shardic precognition, or a super-intelligence whereby he was able to remember everything he’s ever known/heard and connect all the dots. The former would be easier to believe.
Andrew @@.-@ – I can’t guarantee that the comments will be free from spoilers, because I don’t have any control over that. We can but request it. I can promise that Paige and I will avoid discussion of the secret books and the SA5 Prologue until they are published, at least. If it seems super necessary to address something therein, we’ll spoiler-tag the bejeebies out of it.
Lance @6 – Minor correction: the surgeon at his birth suggested he “may have diminished capacity.” He didn’t, as it turned out (or so he says), but people expected it and so it became part of his reputation. He did use the reputation to encourage people to underestimate him, so we can make of that what we will. As for the rest of “what was he like before”… I suppose if it matters, Sanderson will find a way to give us that information, but otherwise I don’t know how we’d learn.
@several – I’m personally undecided as to whether the cycle will continue in any degree now that he’s Ascended. The arguments on both sides are valid, so I’ll just wait and see what happens in book 5, on the assumption that we’ll see enough of him to tell. I love reading the debates, though!
I certainly don’t want this reread to discuss the recent Brandon previews but I would love a seperate article from Tor that would give us space to discuss them.
Brendan @12 – I’m… not sure; I’d have to check with the PTB. Tor isn’t publishing them, so it’s really not a given.
@10
You make some interesting points, and I’ll agree with you that Connections to multiple Shards don’t present a problem at the normal level. I would push back, though, when it comes to things like Ascension. To use your example of allomancy and hemalurgy, as you said both powers are capable of being used together. There’s also WoB that it is, in theory, possible for a Radiant to bond more than one spren, which could result in a Connection to more than one Shard (if, for example, a Radiant was bonded to both an honorspren and a cultivationspren). And we can’t forget Hoid, who has to be Connected to various Shards in order to use their systems of Investiture.
However, we saw in Mistborn Era 1 that Vin wasn’t able to use the power at the Well of Ascension, fully absorb the mists of Preservation while fighting Marsh, or to take up the Shard while her hemalurgic earring still Connected her to Ruin. Even that tiny bit of metal prevented her Ascension until it was removed. I think Connection to other Shards, while not significantly affecting everyday uses of Investiture, does become an issue in Ascension-level events. I think Cultivation’s boon/curse will still have an effect on Taravangian in that he will remember how much he hated the other part of himself when he was at one extreme or the other, but that’s as far as I think it will go.
As Alice said, though, everything is pretty much speculation at this point and there are valid arguments either direction. It’s also entirely possible that Branderson is going to pull one out of left field on us and we find out Cultivation’s plan the whole time was to have a Vessel with a strong connection to her take up the Shard of Odium, which then gives her something she could exploit to shatter the Shard from within. Kind of like a vine, working its way into a tiny little crack in a boulder and eventually breaking it apart. I could warm to that idea pretty easily.
@14 True, True. I actually did just finish reading well of ascension again, and the earring and metals in her belt actually hurt Vin as she was trying to get into the Well, proving your point that there is indeed a connection issue between the actual Ascension.. Heck, In secret History, Preservation even says that it would be be impossible for kelsier; and not because he was just a spirit; but because he had too much of Ruin inside of him. I just think it would be a bit too convenient for Tavargian to suddenly lose the curse/boon, when it would make him MUCH more unpredictable than Rayse ever was. The curse and boon could also still be around because of the way he ascended as well, inbetween the phyisical and the spirtural realms, that the curse/boon could transfer
I have to say, I spent the entirety of RoW, including this Interlude, waiting and wishing for T to die. The only saving grace with T during this book was that he seemed to be getting more emotional/stupid days than logical/smart days. I thought, maybe he could slightly redeem himself by hurting Odium with a plan based on emotion and compassion instead of cruel intelligence, just before he died.
Nope. On the day where T is his most emotional, that emotion attracts Odium and T Ascends, almost by accident. The character I wanted gone the most, becomes the big bad of the series. Not only do I have to read his BS for another 6 books, he now accesses a whole other magnitude of power and malignant influence. I was sickened. T is the last person on Roshar who should be a Vessel of Odium. The absolute last, being the megalomaniac snake that he is. Not even Sadeas would be as bad.
@Gaz, by Brandon’s own reasoning Taravangian has to die in the next book.
He has commented that Rayse had to go because so many of his schemes have failed and/or backfired that he was no longer a believable threat. The same applies to Taravangian, moreso if anything. (At least the Everstorm worked.) Bye bye now, character Gaz and I don’t find interesting!
Carl @17 – I dunno… his plan with Nightblood, which wasn’t even one of his “smart-day” plans, worked rather brilliantly.
That was Cultivation’s plan, in my personal version of the Cosmere.
@19 – Oh, there’s no doubt, IMO, that Cultivation is the Littlefinger of this series. She’s behind just about every plot twist. She prepared both Dalinar and Mr. T for their showdowns with Odium. She has some kind of plan in place with Lift. Who knows what else she has on her spiderweb.
That doesn’t mean that Taravangian will die, though. Even if you don’t want to credit him with anything, he’s likely to survive as Cultivation’s tool, or possibly as the tool that slips in her hand and causes far greater destruction.
On the other hand, if the actual plans were Cultivation’s and not his, you can’t really say that he’s failed, can you?
@17
I’m not sure I would agree that Taravangian has been on a sufficient losing streak to qualify for the “not a believable threat” death. Overall I’d say that he’s been pretty successful as a villain. He and the Diagram managed to successfully turn most of Roshar into chaos by killing off rulers, take over Jah Keved, severely undermine Dalinar’s budding coalition by outing the whole “high king” thing and exposing that humans were the actual voidbringers, and even though Dalinar expected his betrayal on the battlefield in Tukar he was still successful in getting both Dalinar and Jasnah away from Urithiru so it could be taken over. He’s had more wins against Dalinar and the coalition than Rayse, which is why I think he makes a much more believable threat now that he’s Ascended. I’m not sure what Cultivation’s ultimate plan was for him taking up the Shard, but I personally think he’s been a pretty effective antagonist thus far.
Yes, I don’t see Taravangian (I accidentally typed “Taravangium” first, lol) as a failed villain.
The fact that Cultivation has had a hand in his ascension doesn’t take away from his prior successes, as @22 Lance points out. And Taravangian could well turn Cultivation’s plots against her.
He showed his craftiness as well as adaptability by fixing his slip-up with Hoid, and Cultivation had nothing to do with that.
I agree. Taravangian hasn’t really failed like Odium has through the series. You can not like a character but don’t say that they have failed. the Sazeth plan worked completley for his main goal. Remeber, it wasn’t his plan to kill Elokhar; and the kil Dalinar plot was more of a setback than a faliure. The only time he really failed was convincing Odium and well…he’s turned that around, now has he.
In my mind, Human T died, or became a new character entirely, when he became Odium T.
@17, Human T has already died, as his usefulness to the plot had already expired – even though I agree with others that his plans worked and he was an effective villain. I just hate(d) his guts.
And @21, I think Odium T, as a new character, will be giving us grief for a few books at least.
Even though Cultivation had a lot of influence in Human T’s ascension, now that Cultivation and Odium T are equals, I fear for what Odium T will do. I doubt Cultivation will be able to control Odium T at all.
To be clear, I’m just writing mental fanfic (actually, just plotting it), but in my head Taravangian is even less ethical than Rayse, and will be unable to resist breaking his word, making it easy to kill him.
Taravangian has better (pardon the word) intentions than Rayse, but fewer actual ethical restrictions, to be more clear.
@25 Shall we call this new character Toadium
I do believe in the potential for redemption for all, but it’s clear T doesn’t want it and is pretty comitted to his path. He COULD change, but I am skeptical he would (especially now, obviously).
The idea of pity for ‘stupid T’ is kind of interesting. I do feel general pity for a person that is clearly in physical/mental pain…but in a way it is interesting to think of stupid T/smart T as almost two different people (even though they are not)…how culpable is the stupid T persona for the smart T decisions. We do see him carry them out even when he feels bad about it, so…maybe a little bit.
I can relate to the Alzheimer’s analogy because I’ve known people who were nasty before they got it*, not just because of dementia/aging. But of course by the end they are quite pitable anyway.
(*although even that had some extenuating circumstnaces, so it’s complicated)