Taravangian's Intelligence

[Phantom Monstrosity]

I.totally agree. He's obviously the "means don't justify ends" object lesson. Doesn't make him evil. Makes him a pawn for evil.

And he's so obvious in book one that Sanderson is obviously going to throw a curveball and have his plans all work out in the end.

[happyman he/him]

There are other ways this could work out to be more manageable for T.

 

For instance, it wouldn't be out of the question to have the fluctuations themselves have a normal distribution around his previous average.  Thus if he started out smarter than average, when he becomes smarter, he really becomes something.  When he becomes stupid, he doesn't become that stupid, most of the time.  By and large, in this scenario, he would be at least competent most of the time, just occasionally becoming a bit dim.  There would still be outliers, but they would be rarer than hoser estimated.

There would still be need for competent back-up, though.  He might be able to play a better role than just "advisor," though.  After all, normal people's effective intelligence tends to fluctuate as well, due to sickness, health, nutrition and exercise.

[Leuthie]

Considering everyone thinks he's an idiot king, I'm guessing most administrative duties fall on a second person, even on his smart days. He's using his high IQ to fry bigger fish. Why waste it running some backwater city-state?

[happyman he/him]

Considering everyone thinks he's an idiot king, I'm guessing most administrative duties fall on a second person, even on his smart days. He's using his high IQ to fry bigger fish. Why waste it running some backwater city-state?

We were talking about his "real" organization.  If he's smart (which he is, at least some of the time), the city probably pretty much runs itself without him.

[BlairJ he/him]

I was thinking of this topic last night and came back to post.  Everything that happened up to this point makes me feel like being a king is almost a cover up for him being the Roshar mob boss.  

 

The way his cronies approached Szeth with the list and a head.....

 

That scene where he and Szeth meet for the first time....

 

The whole, "paint me, Brightness".....

 

The plan.....

[king of nowhere]

If you can't trust yourself to be prepared to make quick changes to a plan, you set up plans that don't require quick changes and contingencies should those plans get mucked up. It doesn't take much intelligence to remember how to handle Szeth should he arrive on a stupid day. IQ and memory are two different things.

I think the real situation is even more complex. IQ and intelligence are two different things, and having good memory do not imply always having good memory.

I see it on myself every day of my life. For memory, I can read a textbook twice and then take a university exam and pass it with a good mark. I also remember more than most after the test, and I am good at most memory based games. And yet, if I am introduced to three people in an evening, chances are I won't remember more than one name at the end of the day. If I have an appointment for the day after tomorrow, I generally forget it if I don't write it down. And writing it is not enough. I have to make sure that I would stumble upon the note (generally putting it on my pillow, or over my clothes), otherwise I would just forget about the note.

I have an IQ over 140, because it is calculated with mathematical tests, and yet for many things not connected with mathematics and logic I am no better than average, and sometimes lower. Even in mathematics I wasn't constant. In the annual games of mathematics I was always best or second best of the school, and until 13  years I had top marks in math without ever studying (and without paying much attention at lessons too), but in the high school I was no better than average, despite starting to study. And I still was great in the annual games. Same with physics, I was good at the games but barely reached sufficiency otherwise. Turns out I have a strong intuitive understanding, that helps me with the games and with intermediate school mathematics. But if I can't grasp intuitively an argument, I am no better than anyone else. With university level mathematics, I am definitely bad.

I am also a strong chess player, but with very alternate results. I am the strongest of my club by a fair margin, and on a good day most other players would consider a good result to defeat me once in the evening. And yet sometimes I have a bad day, and I lose more than I win. I still remember a day when I lost twice consecutively against one of the weaker members of the club, after he played a weak opening that gave me a distinct advantage. Once I realized how poorly I was playing, I started to laugh and I invited everyone to play, because "it was their good chance to beat me". And I felt no different than other evenings.

So, Taravangian's condition may be an improvement for me At least he can take a math test and see how he will do for the day. Me, I can stat playing bad in the middle of a game.

Before you ask, I don't have asperger or any other of those strange syndrome.

So, I don't think intelligence can be measured in any meaningful way, and most people will have both genius and dumbass moments within the same day. Come to think about it that way, taravangian is not THAT diffferent from regular people. He probably has stronger fluctuations.

[Leuthie]

While there are many aspects to everyone's mental abilities, when.people refer to someone's IQ, they are usually referring to their critical thinking abilities. Specifically, how much that person can hold in their working mind at one time while performing comparison and alteration processes on them.

When King T is stupid, he can't think of many things at one time to perform enough useful work on them to make good decisions. He still knows what he knew and can remember what he was doing while smart, he just can't process new things very well.

On smart days he can hold and process more things in his minds than most people can, giving him the ability to solve complex problems and construct complex machinations.

[Meg]

While there are many aspects to everyone's mental abilities, when.people refer to someone's IQ, they are usually referring to their critical thinking abilities. Specifically, how much that person can hold in their working mind at one time while performing comparison and alteration processes on them.

 

 

If I'm understanding you right you imply that a lot of people (first of all elder people, but also people with certain medical conditions [i.e. multiple sclerosis or the like]) have different IQs on different occasions? So we, too, all underlie our form on the day, (over)tiredness, and so on, and therewith we don't have 24/7/365 the same ability to solve problems, I don't think that our IQs differ then (what would be if I understood you right). 

 

About Taravangian your thoughts may be right, but he's "a special case", as I would say. 

[Vortaan he/him]

Something to note: Taravangian's bad days make him, according to the other lighteyes, less intelligent than them... but he may well be at the level of a clever darkeyes with no education. You have to keep in mind that opinions expressed on his intelligence are given by the ruling elite of a city with the largest library in the world, Jasnah, and Shallan. Not exactly the dimmest people ever.

[Kurkistan he/him]

^Hence "stunning mental mediocrity."

*Pulls out shiny new eBook from the recent deal*

Ch 29, Shallan viewpoint:

He was a popular king, beloved by the darkeyes as a builder of hospitals. However, the lighteyes considered him less than bright.

He was not an idiot. In lighteyed politics, unfortunately, being only average was a disadvantage.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Kurkistan

[Acecool]

I could live with Taravangian's boon/curse as a megalomaniac schemer, but it would make social life really unfun. As a schemer, waking up stupid is like "You have the day off, go watch TV. You can take over the world tomorrow." But socially, he must have no friends or hobbies. I guess as royalty he can pass the time walking around and waving at people...

edit: Actually it's kind of like involuntary Feruchemy.

 

I actually think he is a sparker and doesn't know how to control it.

[flinn]

 A lot of these questions or "theories" are already in the book. Maybe you should do a re-read.

[Kurkistan he/him]

You'll note that the last post before Acecool's was a year ago, flinn.

[illsmithyourbonds he/him]

Okay so I'm gonna get all mathsy, and I'm gonna use stuff we know from words of radiance (no actual spoilers about what happens, just small things that have been said about T's intelligence - read at your peril)

 

So Taravangian (hereby referred to as T) has an intelligence on a particular day that is rated from 1-100. Now I think it's wrong to say his average is low, I think it is probably somewhere around 60-70. Let's say 65.

Since is extremely extremely clever days are much more rare than his moderately clever days, then we can say that it is close to being normally distributed. If he can get to 100, then his standard deviation will be 10. So we have I ~ N(65, 10) where I is intelligence.

What this means is that if his intelligence needs to be above 65 for him to be able to rule effectively, then he can do that exactly 50% of the time. But if he only needs to be above 50, then he can rule *gets out graphics calculator* 93% of the time. If however he needs to be above 70, (running a kingdom is not easy), then he can do so only 31% of the time.

 

Now, that model is flawed, that merely describes how he is and how he can be - it doesn't give you a method that will calculate his intelligence if you want it on a particular day for, say, fanfiction. In order to do that, you'll need either 6 d10, 3 d20, 10 d6 or n d(90/n) OR a calculator with the Rand button and a dice with an even number of sides If you just have dice, then you d0 35 + the sum of all of your dice rolled together. If you have a calc (the better method as it well it just is) then you do 65 + ((-1)^dice x Rand^2 x 31) and then round.

 

Yeah that's how I'm gonna mathematically model it, but that's just my opinion.

[Voscaia she/her]

Theory (my first here):

 

The boon Taravangian required was a way to prevent the Voidbringers from returning. The result was the Diagram.