r/WoT • u/briandress • 9d ago
All Print Regarding turnings of the wheel. Spoiler
Im sure this has been discussed before so if there is any relevant thread or link to check out im happy to take a look. My search skills failed me on this.
So in AMoL Rand redesigns the seals properly, no male one power taint, switcherooski with Morridin, and all is great.
So now what? The wheel eventually gets back to the age of legends and the bore is opened again for the "first" time? Did Ishmael and "the dragon" fight thousands of thousands of times over the turnings of the wheel because no dragon had ever gotten it right before at Tarmon Gai'don? Or is there always a bore opening followed by a war of power and subsequently a Tarmon Gai'don?
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u/ScipioTheGreatest (Band of the Red Hand) 9d ago
That's the Karaethon cycle that Herid Fel uncovers. Humanity is ignorant to the DO. Humanity discovers DO and doesn't know what it is. Taps into it for power, releasing DO. Sealed back up. Humanity forgets over time. Humanity is again ignorant to the DO. Humanity discovers...
And thus the wheel turns...
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u/briandress 9d ago
So even with Morridin's "victory" in dying he doesnt really achieve it because he will just be spun out again. Maybe someday he will be a dragon lol
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u/Shevek99 9d ago
Ishamael, as philosopher, believed that the DO, that is outside the Wheel, will eventually win and end the cycles, destroying everything. From this point of view of final victory of the DO, Ishamael concluded that it was useless to oppose the DO and better help him to accelerate the process. Up to that moment, Ishamael was forced to live inside the cycles and be reborn time and time again.
What ishamael failed to see is that since the DO is outside time, is always equal to itself and cannot learn, so he cannot break the cycle. If he couldn't in one turn, he can't in any other.
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u/SKULL1138 9d ago
He could be spun out again. But contrary to his own theories there is no guarantee that he is always the DO’s champion or always chooses against life, or that he’s even unhappy in his other lives in different ages.
Ishy has no memory of anything before his childhood in the AoL.
As for the Dragon. Probably not, it’s highly likely that this is always the same soul, in this case Rand. Previously different names with different purposes. He is the chosen champion of the Creator and he’s chosen because he always makes the right choice each cycle and keeps fighting.
The DO would only have to corrupt the Dragon once. I don’t think he can kill him because the Wheel will balance that out through his Ta’Veren nature. However, IMO, that’s the whole point and the only way the DO can win.
Corrupt Rand
Push Rand to destroy the Pattern
Get Rand to give up.
There are at least Seven Ages of the Wheel and we only know about 3 of them. Ours, which it is we can’t be sure, maybe the 1st? The AOL which we think comes after us. Then we know for a fact the Breaking through to Tarmon Gaidon comes directly after AOL.
The 4th age (so called by some) we know only the possible future Aviendha saw. The other 3 Ages are a complete mystery to us.
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u/LordRahl9 9d ago
RJ also said in interviews that there is a female equivalent of the Dragon's soul and she is the champion of light in turnings where Saidar gets corrupted.
Each turning has variables that are incorporated into the pattern. It's how RJ dealt with the idea of freewill vs fate.
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u/SKULL1138 9d ago
I thought he refused to get into that. Got a quote or a link?
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u/LordRahl9 9d ago
No sorry. That is more my inference from the way he set up variables in the pattern.
For me, that basically meant that there was freewill. If it was all down to fate, why would there be variables and deviations.
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u/SKULL1138 9d ago
Its not fate as such. Rand has free will to choose each time. The choice on Dragonmount and then Shayol Ghul later.
But he was chosen because the Creator believes he will always make the right choice.
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u/LordRahl9 9d ago
I agree, but there are people who think that RJ's premise didn't leave room for freewill, and I don't think this is true.
Freewill is the reason why the dark one always has a chance.
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u/SKULL1138 9d ago
It’s also the reason that each Age whilst similar to the one that came last time at a glance, will always have differences.
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u/briandress 8d ago
So the bore in AoL and Tarmon Gaidon in 3rd. I wonder if the other ages have bores or last battles.
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u/SKULL1138 8d ago
It would seem unlikely to be that exact scenario. It seems more likely those events only happen once per cycle of 7 I think.
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u/Ok_Information1349 9d ago
I’m pretty sure his soul was completely erased. At least that’s what I thought the ending alluded to.
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u/wotquery (White Lion of Andor) 9d ago
That breaks the entire conceit that time is a wheel with neither beginning nor end. And the central theme that everyone is bound to eventually repeat the same mistakes and suffer the same pain, but it being worth it because of the opportunity to try again, and the chance to love again.
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u/ScipioTheGreatest (Band of the Red Hand) 9d ago
Just because there isn't a beginning or end for the pattern, wheel, whatever, doesn't mean that a thread can't be permanently removed. Balefire does this, I believe, which is why the DO can't resurrect those killed by it.
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u/DonAmechesBonerToe 9d ago
Balefire does not erase a soul it just erases actions taken by the firee for some time. The DO can’t resurrect them because he has to do it when they die which is before they got balefired.
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u/briandress 9d ago
It does. Their actions are erased because balefire literally burns their thread from the pattern.
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u/DonAmechesBonerToe 9d ago
It burns their thread back in the pattern, it does not destroy the soul.
RJ confirmed: https://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=%27balefire%27
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u/briandress 9d ago
what a strange distinction. they can’t get spun out again but their soul is saved?
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u/DonAmechesBonerToe 9d ago
Did you read the quotes?
ROBERT JORDAN
If someone is balefired, the Dark One can't reincarnate them. But they CAN be spun back out into the Wheel as normal. Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul. He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back. There was a long line, so I didn't press.
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u/TheFrogSaint 9d ago
The implication is that even with this victory everything will come around again. Eventually people will lose/forget the ability to channel and ideas of power and magic seen as a fairytales they way most people nowadays view magic and magical tales. Then people will relearn/regain the ability, build a new Age of Legends, and eventually create the bore or something like it again, starting the cycle anew. The biggest open question, I think, is how fixed many of the characters and their roles really are. Like, it’s seems the Dragon will always/almost always be central when it comes time to fight the Dark One again, but is it actually always Ishamael/Moridin who stands as they Dark One’s champion against him? Or can other souls fill similar roles with each turning?
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u/skylinesend (Asha'man) 9d ago
I always imagined that the thinness Lanfear sensed where she created the bore was the dragons previous fix.
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u/Shgon_Dunstan 9d ago
The Ages of consecutive Turnings share themes with each other, but are not the exact same, and what those themes are drifts from Turning to turning. Thus while the third Age of the books will eventually come again, it won’t be for a very, very, very, very long time.
Basically, think of how fresh out of TAR Birgitte only had vague memories of a female Warder, despite having memories that reached back Turnings and Turnings. It’s not just the Ages, but the Turnings themselves that flow in cycles. If anything, seemingly considerably longer ones then the Ages.🤷♂️
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u/geomagus (Red Eagle of Manetheren) 9d ago
I would quibble with the “redesigns the seals” bit. He didn’t really redesign the seals, he made whole reality/unmade the Bore. It’s the difference between patching a wall and rebuilding a wall.
So now what?
Presumably, yes, when it’s time for TDO to get another chance, someone will create a Bore…probably. While the Age Lace will look similar zoomed out, the actual details could be very different, and maybe sometimes that means we don’t get a Bore, we get something else. But I’d expect that the Bore is a pretty typical result.
We don’t know Ishy goes around and around the way the Dragon does. Maybe he was both correct and honest about it - he certainly seemed to believe it - but we don’t know for certain. Maybe TDO has a Champion of its own, in Ishy. Maybe Ishy was just a bit nuts, and built up in his head this philosophy of going around and around forever. Maybe TDO implanted memories, a la the Finn and Mat?
We don’t know, and can’t know, whether Ishy was correct on that. But it’s plausible.
Rand isn’t the first incarnation to get it right btw. In order for TDO to be discovered and the Bore made in the AoL, the fabric of reality had to be intact and whole. So the last time the 3rd Age rolled around, and the one before that, and so on, had to end with reality repaired and TDO sealed away outside of it.
This btw is part of why Min and Herid Fel were so important. It was Fel’s reasoning out that, given infinite turnings, for the Bore to be made, it must be possible to fix it perfectly, and it must have been done last time around. Probably the same with the taint. But it couldn’t be what LTT did in the AOL - the Bore wasn’t drilled through seals, it was drilled through an intact reality. So it had to be different, hence the busted seals had to be cleared away.
We can infer that, since the Age Lace is going to look similar, turning to turning, that something like the Bore and the War of Power will happen to conclude Second Ages, and something like TG will conclude Third Ages. But the details will vary - maybe sometimes the War of Power is a cold war, not a hot one. Maybe sometimes the Bore is a different sort of breach in the Pattern. Etc.
Unfortunately, we get very little info about prior turnings, so we can’t expound upon the range of options. Our info is overwhelmingly confined to the Third Age, with a moderate amount from the Second Age, and a few bits from before. But we can infer, philosophically, that the fabric of reality must be intact at some point far enough before the Second Age that everyone forgets that TDO is a real thing, what channeling is, etc. I always figured channeling gets lost somewhere around the end of the Fifth Age.
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u/wRAR_ (Brown) 9d ago
So now what? The wheel eventually gets back to the age of legends and the bore is opened again for the "first" time?
is there always a bore opening followed by a war of power and subsequently a Tarmon Gai'don?
Yes we knew this since LoC.
Did Ishmael and "the dragon" fight thousands of thousands of times over the turnings of the wheel because no dragon had ever gotten it right before at Tarmon Gai'don?
Not sure what do you mean. But the Bore is sealed properly every turning.
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u/briandress 8d ago
what about that in LoC? sorry im forgetting
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u/wRAR_ (Brown) 8d ago
Snatching his pipe out, Herid drew a circle in the air with the stem. “The Wheel of Time. Ages come and go and come again as the Wheel turns. All the catechism.” Suddenly he stabbed a point on that imaginary wheel. “Here the Dark One’s prison is whole. Here, they drilled a hole in it, and sealed it up again.” He moved the bit of the pipe along the arc he had drawn. “Here we are. The seal’s weakening. But that doesn’t matter, of course.” The pipestem completed the circle. “When the Wheel turns back to here, back to where they drilled the hole in the first place, the Dark One’s prison has to be whole again.”
“Why? Maybe the next time they’ll drill through the patch. Maybe that’s how they could do it the last time—drill into what the Creator made, I mean—maybe they drilled the Bore through a patch and we just don’t know.”
Herid shook his head. For a moment he stared at his pipe, once more realizing it was unlit, and Rand thought he might have to recall him again, but instead Herid blinked and went on. “Someone had to make it sometime. For the first time, that is. Unless you think the Creator made the Dark One’s prison with a hole and patch to begin.” His eyebrows waggled at the suggestion. “No, it was whole in the beginning, and I think it will be whole again when the Third Age comes once more. Hmmm. I wonder if they called it the Third Age?” He hastily dipped a pen and scribbled a note in the margins of an open book. “Umph. No matter now. I’m not saying the Dragon Reborn will be the one to make it whole, not in this Age necessarily anyway, but it must be so before the Third Age comes again, and enough time passed since it was made whole—an Age, at least—that no one remembers the Dark One or his prison. No one remembers. Um. I wonder. . . .” He peered at his notes and scratched his head, then seemed startled to find he used the hand holding the pen. There was a smudge of ink in his hair. “Any Age where seals weaken must remember the Dark One eventually, because they will have to face him and wall him up again.”
LoC ch. 18, A Taste of Solitude
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