Character from The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
Herald of the Almighty, patron of the Stonewards. Held the Oathpact alone on Braize for 4,500 years of unimaginable torture without breaking. The single most heroic figure in the cosmere. Returns barely coherent.
Talanelat'Elin is the Herald who defines what heroism means in the Stormlight Archive. When the other nine Heralds abandoned the Oathpact after the Last Desolation — choosing to let one man bear the burden rather than face another cycle of torture and war — Taln held. Alone on Braize, enduring torment beyond mortal comprehension, he held the Oathpact by himself for four and a half thousand years. He was never even one of the original planners of the Oathpact's abandonment; the other Heralds simply left him because they believed he was the most likely to hold. And he did. For forty-five centuries. When he finally broke and returned to Roshar, he arrived as a madman, barely able to speak coherently, repeating tactical information about fighting Voidbringers as though preparing humanity for a Desolation. His Honorblade was stolen almost immediately. The tragedy of Taln is that the most selfless act in the cosmere was rewarded with madness, and the civilization he protected for millennia barely remembers his name. He is proof that some sacrifices are too great for any being to bear — and that he bore it anyway.
An enormously tall, dark-skinned man with a powerful build that speaks of millenia as a soldier. His eyes are wide and unfocused, muttering the same phrases endlessly when he first appears. He carries — or carried — an Honorblade. Despite his broken mental state, his physical presence is overwhelming, radiating the weight of ages. His hands are scarred beyond counting from lifetimes of holding weapons against the Voidbringers.
Also known as: Talanelat, Talanelat'Elin, Talenel, Stonesinew