Ishamael was a Fool

[solarz]

Elan Morin Tedronai was a philosopher in the Age of Legends. He joined the Dark One because he believed that a victory by Shaitan would end the cycle of rebirth, which he equated with suffering. He personally desired an end to the suffering. He was probably a depressing person to be around.

 

Elan believed that the Dark One and the Dragon have fought thousands of battles throughout the Ages, and will keep fighting until the Dark One is victorious. He concluded that the Dark One's victory was inevitable. After all, each time the Dark One is defeated, he just comes back for a rematch.

 

He overlooked two possibilities:

1- A victory by the Dark One would not end the cycle of rebirth.

2- The Dark One cannot, can never, win. In fact, the Dark One was never meant to win.

 

For the first possibility, the most certain one, recall that while there are many worlds, there are two constants: the Dark One and Tel'aran'rhiod. Some believe that a victory by the Dark One on one world would result in his victory on all worlds. This is demonstrably false: Rand once traveled to one such world, where Trollocs had overrun humanity, and killed everything except grolm. If that is not a victory of the Shadow, then what is? Yet, the Dark One did not automatically win in Rand's world. He had not even broken out of his prison!

 

Lews Therin once mused that the Creator was like a gardener, having created many worlds and then went on to create more. Perhaps He is still yet creating more worlds. Regardless whether it's true or not, we *know* that there are countless worlds, and we have shown above that victory by the Shadow on one does not translate to victory by the Shadow on all other worlds.

 

The other constant being Tel'aran'rhiod. We know that the Heroes of the Horn dwell in TAR when not reincarnated or summoned by the horn. We know that wolves who die go to TAR. This strongly suggests that TAR is a "central repository" of souls, and since TAR is always constant, this in turn strongly suggests that souls are reborn across worlds.

 

This means that even if the Dark One destroys or remake a world, there are countless numbers of other worlds for souls to be reborn into. The cycle of rebirth would never end.

 

For the second possibility, admittedly more speculative, the battle between the Dragon and the Dark One could very well be one of the drivers of the Wheel of Time. It has been said that Saidin and Saidar are what drives the Wheel, but in something as complex as the very fabric of reality itself, there is no reason to believe that there is only one source of change. The strongest evidence is the amount of change the two battles (we know of) against the Dark One brought. The first one changed the face of the world. The second battle spurred a stagnant humanity back onto the path of progress. Think about the amount of innovations that was a direct result of the fight against the Dark One: discovering how to Heal Severing, the invention of dragons, the steam engine, the anti-balefire weave, etc.

 

Rand thought the Dark One was necessary for humanity to have free will. Perhaps instead, the truth is that the Dark One gives humanity the opportunity to exercise their free will.

[wotfan4472]

Not only does the Dark One allow free will by his existence, the Creator does as well. In fact, the destruction of the Dark One was shown to remove free will. That means the Creator's destruction would do the same. The Wheel's destruction however, must unmake creation itself regardless of wether the Creator and the Dark One are there or not. The thing is, Ishamael is aware of all of this due to his back ground. But I think only the Dark One can do this, but his prison must be destroyed first, and someone wanting that is Nae blis. Anyone else wanting another outcome must be dead as well due to the Dark One's suspicion meet these things, and Ishamael's mission in life is achieved.

[solarz]

52 minutes ago, wotfan4472 said:

Not only does the Dark One allow free will by his existence, the Creator does as well. In fact, the destruction of the Dark One was shown to remove free will. That means the Creator's destruction would do the same. The Wheel's destruction however, must unmake creation itself regardless of wether the Creator and the Dark One are there or not. The thing is, Ishamael is aware of all of this due to his back ground. But I think only the Dark One can do this, but his prison must be destroyed first, and someone wanting that is Nae blis. Anyone else wanting another outcome must be dead as well due to the Dark One's suspicion meet these things, and Ishamael's mission in life is achieved.

 

The question is, however, is there only one Wheel, or are there one Wheel for each of the possible worlds? I'm inclined to believe the latter. The Wheel is a metaphor for the mechanism that creates the Pattern. The Pattern is a metaphor for what happens in the world. Therefore, each world has its own Pattern, and each Pattern should have its own Wheel. Destroying the Wheel means unmaking Creation, but only for that world. There are countless worlds.

[wotfan4472]

I think there is only one Wheel and one Pattern. Remember Perrin vs Slayer in AMOL? There were alternate representations, which means Verin's musing in Book 3 about the Dark One and his prison is true. Plus the ghost in the White Tower. It is just an Aes Sedai from a parallel world working through her White Tower arranged in a different manner. Perhaps she saw them too??

As for the alternate world, perhaps the War of a Hundred Years was raging when the Trolloc Wars broke out there? I like your ideas though. Just that it looks to me to be the opposite. Or it could be a little of both opinions just as easily.

 

[Sabio]

I wouldn't say the DO wants freewill, if he won and remade the wheel he would remove from your mind that there is any other possibility.  So if the DO won, there would be no freewill in the DO only world.  I mean you saw with the forcing channelers to the shadow, he didn't really care if you came to his side willingly or not.  How many times was Rand told dead or alive you will serve the DO regardless?  

 

RJ said the DO never "won", but Rand at the end said why the DO has never won.  For him it's not just crushing the forces of light.  Victory to the DO is everyone giving up hope and begging him for mercy. He wants everyone to lose hope.  As you saw that was never going to happen, the forces of light were going to fight to the end.  So the DO might of destroyed his enemy, but to him that wouldn't of been a victory.

Edited January 22, 2018 by Sabio

[solarz]

I've been thinking about this some more, and something struck me. Throughout the series, we keep hearing about how the Dark One would destroy the Pattern if he won.

 

Yet, how would he do that? Even if the trollocs and myrdraal crushed the forces of Light, that would not destroy the pattern. Lanfear believed the Choedan Kal could destroy the world and challenge even the Creator when used together. However, the CK are gone. The next most powerful sa'angreal have never been said to have such power. In any case, it is highly doubtful Demandred would have been willing to use Sarkanen for such a purpose. Callandor is said to be able to wipe out a city, but that seems to be on the high end of its power range, nowhere near reality warping.

 

Could the Forsaken and the Dreadlords join in a great circle to accomplish this? Perhaps, but why would they want to? With the exception of Ishamael, all Forsaken and Dreadlords joined for promises of power and immortality, which they can hardly obtain by destroying creation.

 

That leaves the Dark One intervening directly.

 

Throughout the series, we keep hearing characters talk about how dire it would be if the Seals were all destroyed. The Dark One would be free then, they said.

 

Yet, the Bore was drilled for almost a hundred years before the War of Power erupted. If the Dark One did not get free during a hundred years of no opposition, why would he be able to get free now? If the Dark One was able to destroy the world once the Seals were gone, why did he not do so during the War of Power?

[Illian Tear]

I always though of the wheel/pattern as a giant sphere that the pattern is being weaved upon, layer upon layer, and at times they over lap each other like in TAR. With 2 points where all of the different possible worlds/universes connect: the Creator and the Dark One.

[Sabio]

It has to get to a certain size before it's large enough to let the DO get free.  The bore wasn't very large, which is why his influence spread slowly at first.  The BWB even described when the forces of shadow tried to break the DO free.  The hole slowly gets larger and larger, who knows how large it actually has to be before he could break out.  

 

 

[solarz]

Shaitan had 100 years from when the Bore was drilled and when LTT sealed it up. For the past 3000 years, he/it had been trying to weaken the Seals.

 

Notice also that the Forsaken put in very little effort at finding the Seals. Only Moridin was ever concerned about them, the rest hardly cared.

 

Almost everything we know about the DO comes from subjective, and highly speculative, sources. However, everyone just assumes that the DO will destroy the world when he gets free, without anyone ever asking HOW.

[jack of shadows]

i never took elan morin for a fool,to be honest,i did find his nihilistic

point of views quite refreshing,comparing to other villains(barring

lanfear),he was a cut from a different cloth.

[solarz]

1 hour ago, jack of shadows said:

i never took elan morin for a fool,to be honest,i did find his nihilistic

point of views quite refreshing,comparing to other villains(barring

lanfear),he was a cut from a different cloth.

 

One could argue that nihilistic philosophies are inherently foolish. ;)

[Sabio]

How can the forsaken put a lot of time into finding the seals?  The seals weren't important, they were going to fail soon anyway.  So is it better to grab power and prepare for the DO to get free or spend a lot of time hunting seals?

 

He had no power to widen/weaken the bore or weaken the seals. He is outside the pattern, that's why his followers made an attempt to break him free.  He was as powerless as everyone else to weaken the seals, basicly it was for the pattern to say when the time was right.

[solarz]

9 minutes ago, Sabio said:

How can the forsaken put a lot of time into finding the seals?  The seals weren't important, they were going to fail soon anyway.  So is it better to grab power and prepare for the DO to get free or spend a lot of time hunting seals?

 

Exactly, the Forsaken knew the DO wouldn't just "break free" once the seals are gone. After all, they lived through the time when there were no seals.

 

9 minutes ago, Sabio said:

He had no power to widen/weaken the bore or weaken the seals. He is outside the pattern, that's why his followers made an attempt to break him free.  He was as powerless as everyone else to weaken the seals, basicly it was for the pattern to say when the time was right.

 

I don't know about that... Surely you're not saying the Pattern weakened the seals?

[Sabio]

They had to fail to the point where the pattern would make it so the dragon would be reborn and forsaken freed.   The pattern decided when it was time to kick off the end of the age.  The seals were made of stuff that should never fail or be able to be broken (those chains around Tar Valon were made of the same stuff and they were as strong as ever.)  So the Pattern had to weaken the seals.

[Sabio]

Ishy was no fool, he was wrong about a few things (especially because he never understands the DO is simply using him).  But for the most part he was correct.  

[threadnecromancer]

On ‎2018‎-‎01‎-‎30 at 7:47 PM, Sabio said:

They had to fail to the point where the pattern would make it so the dragon would be reborn and forsaken freed.   The pattern decided when it was time to kick off the end of the age.  The seals were made of stuff that should never fail or be able to be broken (those chains around Tar Valon were made of the same stuff and they were as strong as ever.)  So the Pattern had to weaken the seals.

There were several ways to destroy Cuendillar. The True Power was one of them - they were not immune to the essence of the Dark One.

[Sabio]

Do we know if true power could harm it?   I don't remember anyone trying or it being mentioned.