Memory of Light ending

[ashi]

3 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Thanks for finding the prophecy I meant; and while I know the show is dropping them left and right, I am kind of sympathetic to their situation.

 

Prophecy and foretelling does a lot to the world, but until they know exactly which ones they'll be able to include, and which ones have to be cut for production reasons, they have to be very careful about including them.  I point to how upset the book fans were over the poor execution over the one for Alivia, or the GoT blowback from Cersei's (which I actually figured out beforehand) to know a showrunner needs to be very careful including a prophecy if they're not sure they can deliver a proper pay off.

 

Yeah, that is reasonable. And as you say, there is a lot of prophecy, and it would probably be impossible to make room for all of it, even if the uncertainty you pointed out wasn't there. And perhaps it is not that easy to write the scenes to bring it out without it coming off as stilted.

[SingleMort]

16 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

@SingleMort while I understand the objections you raise - I was lurking here for the post aMOL discussion, and "he wouldn't do that" was the most common complaint - I really don't think you're proposed solution is good, either.  Not only is it cutting of the nose to spite one's face, it's slitting one's own throat.

 

It's why, as I've said before, I'm going to be so interested to see what they do in the next 10 episodes on this topic. Between the KC, Min, and the Aelfinn / Elfinn, there's a helluva lot of prophecy that could happen, but I think it will be dependent on whether or not Amazon commits early to the whole series or not.

 

I'm not saying Rand wouldn't try to find a way to live or even fake his death. I'm saying it would only be a matter of time until he got found out. If your argument is that Rand would leave everyone and go off to maybe another continent or somewhere then the other prophesies you mention directly contradict that because they show Rand would remain a presence in the Westlands and I can't see how he could do anything but continue as the Dragon in that case. 

 

In any case I think any prophesy that refers to anything post AMOL is likely to be cut unless Amazon plan on making a series in the 4th Age. TBH it might have been better if they had done their series in the 2nd or 4th Age then they could just use the books as inspiration and make almost whatever they wanted not bound to the existing source material.  

Edited January 27, 2022 by SingleMort

[EmreY]

2 hours ago, SingleMort said:

 the other prophesies you mention directly contradict that because they show Rand would remain a presence

 

Alas, so many people decided to follow the hidden spoiler trend that I'm lost.  Which prophecies?

[SingleMort]

2 hours ago, EmreY said:

 

Alas, so many people decided to follow the hidden spoiler trend that I'm lost.  Which prophecies?

Nicola's foretelling and Mins vision about marriage.

[EmreY]

@SingleMort Thank you for clearing that up! But how does that square with:

 

6 hours ago, SingleMort said:

If your argument is that Rand would leave everyone and go off to maybe another continent or somewhere then the other prophesies you mention directly contradict that because they show Rand would remain a presence in the Westlands and I can't see how he could do anything but continue as the Dragon in that case. 

 

 

Leaving the boats thing aside, I'm pretty sure the Wheel and Its Shuttle can weave as they desire.

[Cauthonfan4]

On 1/26/2022 at 1:12 AM, DaddyFinn said:

They better put him through all the awful stuff and not hold back. I will riot otherwise

Considering it's a huge part of his story...

 

[ElijahKlee]

I wonder if they could do a visual effect to show the mind swap of Moridin/Rand, and elso, an closing of how the next few days played out for each faction of the world happened.(seanchan, white tower, black tower, ect.)

[Juan Farstrider]

I don't know if this is a good solution to selling the body switch, but if there were something different about Rand's eyes that carry over with him in the end, considering how important eyes are for when we look at each other if we really are looking at each other, it might help sell it. If Rand has some character-defining gestures, something some actors often create as they try to define and inhabit a character, that could be carried over, that would help. I didn't pick up any in the show but if it were subtle it could be better anyway (but then also tougher for the audience to pick up on). I do think there should be an attempt to create something to visually sell the switch since the show is a visual medium. But that could undercut the fullness of the switch and raise the question of "how", so I could see attempts being made and dropped. 

[Andra]

1 hour ago, Juan Farstrider said:

I don't know if this is a good solution to selling the body switch, but if there were something different about Rand's eyes that carry over with him in the end, considering how important eyes are for when we look at each other if we really are looking at each other, it might help sell it. If Rand has some character-defining gestures, something some actors often create as they try to define and inhabit a character, that could be carried over, that would help. I didn't pick up any in the show but if it were subtle it could be better anyway (but then also tougher for the audience to pick up on). I do think there should be an attempt to create something to visually sell the switch since the show is a visual medium. But that could undercut the fullness of the switch and raise the question of "how", so I could see attempts being made and dropped. 

Well, it was mentioned in another thread that LTT made some gestures that mirror how Rand moved.  And that they acheived this by having Karim study Stradowski's movements and copy them.  So if they give it time to build, we could certainly see that method.

Another technique would be similar to the visual effects of Min's viewings.  Show Rand's face as that kind of ghostly image moving out of his body and into Moridin's.  Something like that would make it obvious to the viewers, even if we never see it with any other characters.

Edited January 27, 2022 by Andra

[AdamA]

Count me in as not a huge fan of this part of the ending. He should have just died. If the show lets him die, that's fine with me. Coming on the heels of Galad, Lan, and Faile all unexpectedly surviving when they should have died, it started to get excessive. I was actually expecting them to come back as heroes of the horn and was surprised it only happened to Noal.

[Vambram]

5 hours ago, AdamA said:

Count me in as not a huge fan of this part of the ending. He should have just died. If the show lets him die, that's fine with me. Coming on the heels of Galad, Lan, and Faile all unexpectedly surviving when they should have died, it started to get excessive. I was actually expecting them to come back as heroes of the horn and was surprised it only happened to Noal.

I am a big fan of the ending. I expected Rand to die by sacrificing himself to lock the dark one away. So, I was pleasantly surprised that Rand survived. 

[Vambram]

Double post 

Edited February 11, 2022 by GanoesParan

[Jaysen Gore]

On 2/10/2022 at 3:03 PM, AdamA said:

Count me in as not a huge fan of this part of the ending. He should have just died. If the show lets him die, that's fine with me. Coming on the heels of Galad, Lan, and Faile all unexpectedly surviving when they should have died, it started to get excessive. I was actually expecting them to come back as heroes of the horn and was surprised it only happened to Noal.

The big problem with killing him is it turns the Wheel of Time into a Christian Allegory - born to a life of sacrifice and pain, and then dying at the end for all of our sins. For he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son...blah, blah, blah. 

 

The whole point is that Rand (and the readers) need to learn and accept that it can be the Woman who fills the role of the sacrificial hero, and that they have both earned the right to do that, and that men need to emotionally accept it.

 

Lan surviving was never in doubt, thematically, and having him die, after having spend the whole series learning that sometimes living is the hard thing to do, would have been O. Henry level irony.

 

I think killing Gawyn enabled them to keep Galad, and while I would have liked another major male death, I don't know who that would have been. Since Glory is often awarded postumously, maybe Logain? Or Thom.  But aside from the boys (who all should live) and the various generals (most of whom died), there just weren't a lot of other male PoV's in the series.  Who was the male equivalent to Siuan or Morgase? 

 

I could have seen killing Faile, but honestly, it would have felt like fan pandering - she was maybe the least favourite character before aMOL - when the other EF5's got to keep their spouses and go on with their lives. 

Edited February 11, 2022 by Jaysen Gore

[AdamA]

It's not that I wanted those people to die. In Lan's case, Demandred speared him through the gut, which should have killed him. In Galad's case, Demandred cut his arm off and then decided not to finish killing him for no good reason. Faile is totally surrounded by Trollocs and doesn't get killed without any explanation. She's just found alive later. It's not a theme problem, just unexpected given the specific situations they were all in that would normally end in death. With Rand, I don't have a problem with him living in general. It's the questions it raises like were brought up earlier thanks to the body switch. Is he seriously going to stay away and pretend he isn't Rand? I'm personally doubtful the dragon's peace is really going to hold. A whole bunch of Aiel and Aes Sedai are not at all okay with their sisters being held as damane, even though some leader who isn't even alive now signed a piece of paper. Whatever is left of the Sharans never signed anyway, and I'm assuming the entire nation wasn't on the battlefield getting defeated. So if it doesn't hold, how is Rand going to react? Is he going to have no contact with his children? His wives know he is still alive, so can they never remarry? Why is Rand no longer able to channel? Everything up to that point indicated channeling ability is a property of the soul and he still has the same soul. It just raises a bunch of new questions that didn't need to be there since they're never going to get answered. It's okay to end a story without answering every question, but I don't think you should raise a whole bunch of new ones in the last five minutes.

[Jaysen Gore]

2 hours ago, AdamA said:

It's not that I wanted those people to die. In Lan's case, Demandred speared him through the gut, which should have killed him. In Galad's case, Demandred cut his arm off and then decided not to finish killing him for no good reason. Faile is totally surrounded by Trollocs and doesn't get killed without any explanation. She's just found alive later. It's not a theme problem, just unexpected given the specific situations they were all in that would normally end in death. With Rand, I don't have a problem with him living in general. It's the questions it raises like were brought up earlier thanks to the body switch. Is he seriously going to stay away and pretend he isn't Rand? I'm personally doubtful the dragon's peace is really going to hold. A whole bunch of Aiel and Aes Sedai are not at all okay with their sisters being held as damane, even though some leader who isn't even alive now signed a piece of paper. Whatever is left of the Sharans never signed anyway, and I'm assuming the entire nation wasn't on the battlefield getting defeated. So if it doesn't hold, how is Rand going to react? Is he going to have no contact with his children? His wives know he is still alive, so can they never remarry? Why is Rand no longer able to channel? Everything up to that point indicated channeling ability is a property of the soul and he still has the same soul. It just raises a bunch of new questions that didn't need to be there since they're never going to get answered. It's okay to end a story without answering every question, but I don't think you should raise a whole bunch of new ones in the last five minutes.

I didn't think Lan got stabbed through the gut; the point to guiding the blade as part of Sheathing the Sword is try to avoid anything vital when you skewer yourself. But even in our world, men with stabbing gut wounds could live for days after, and he got healing relatively quickly. I find it more unreasonable that the Sharans didn't rip him apart with their bare hands after killing their saviour, but stunned shock could explain that. I guess I would be stunned too, if right after the second coming, Jesus gets run over by a bus.

 

Galad - Demandred didn't want him dead; he wanted him as bait.  Live bait catches bigger fish.

 

Faile - I refer you to the scene in Platoon where the sergeant hides himself under the corpse of an enemy, and survives. Trollocs are dumb, they wouldn't have smelled her covered in trolloc blood, and were busy chasing a horse.  Plotwise, it's an easy write; thematically, I think one of the surviving EF5 should have lost a spouse, but that's just me.

 

Two quotes from the book for you to consider:

1. "The Last Battle done, but the world not done with battle"

2. "the wind was not the end; there are no endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was an ending"

 

One of the single biggest complaints about the fantasy genre is "and they all lived happily ever after". Leaving all of these topics open and unresolved (though many would have been at least touched on in the Mat / Tuon trilogy) enables Jordan to show that as cataclysmic a result as it is, the world did not stop; the Wheel will inexorably keep turning, and the Pattern will continue to spin out. 

 

And while you raise interesting questions, the bigger one for me is how does Randland move forward with:

- 50-60% of all army aged males dead

- 3/4 of the Aes Sedai existing at the start of the series dead

- new rulers in almost every land mentioned in the series

- Aes Sedai, Borderlanders, and Aiel needing new purposes after 3,000 years.

- Asha'man needing to determine their role in the world

 

Oh, and dependent on the pattern rebounding nature really quickly to get a harvest so they don't all starve in the coming winter. There have been parallels to this level of destruction in human history, but it is going to be a hard generation or two for the westlands.

[EmreY]

4 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

50-60% of all army aged males dead

 

Polygamous marriages is the obvious answer, and lots and lots of babies.  The Lord Dragon showed the way!

 

4 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

3/4 of the Aes Sedai existing at the start of the series dead

 

More like half, if you deduct the Darkfriends, and they do have a mass of new recruits coming in.

 

4 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

new rulers in almost every land mentioned in the series

 

But not novel ones; they're all grounded in the lands they rule, except the Seanchan.

 

4 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Aes Sedai, Borderlanders, and Aiel needing new purposes after 3,000 years.

 

Time for a new religion?

 

4 hours ago, Jaysen Gore said:

Asha'man needing to determine their role in the world

 

See immediately above, and also, building a Black Tower on the slopes of Dragonmount that is taller than the White. ? 

[nsmallw]

A question I've always had about the ending to Memory of Light. The world is still complicated and messy even after the LB and there are all kind of issues left over that the world needs to handle.

 

Do we really think that Rand wouldn't try to help? 

 

Personally, I think Rand whether in his original body or in Moridins would indeed involve himself in the issues of the Fourth Age in some form or another. I mean he would be alive for decades after the LB.

I can't see him just standing by and raising sheep. He would try and help and that opens up all kinds of thoughts in my head canon lol. 

[notpropaganda73]

I don't know, I always liked the idea of the ending and in terms of him trying to help - hadn't he done enough? The job was done, as he sees it, now he gets to be selfish. 

 

I'm not saying that it'd all be plain sailing and maybe he'd struggle with staying out of things as well, but how would he even prove that he was still Rand to try and intervene/fix problems anyway? And considering his role as Dragon was fulfilled, why would any of the new world leaders bother listening to him? 

 

I think trying to get involved in the post-Last Battle world could actually raise more questions than disappearing off into the sunset does. 

 

 

[KakitaOCU]

5 minutes ago, notpropaganda73 said:

The job was done, as he sees it, now he gets to be selfish. 

There's nothing wrong with this, and I could see it in Mat maybe?

But Rand, for better or worse, is a hero.  It's like looking at the MCU Trajectory of Steve Rogers.  He is always the hero up until Civil War where he finally decides he's going to be selfish and screw doing the right thing to do the thing he wants and finds valuable.  Which lasts until Infinity War then he drops right back into being the hero even while catching problems from it.  (Don't know if we can discuss the end since I'm pretty sure his "selfish" path is just him creating an alt timeline and things working out differently before he brings the shield back to Sam)

[Andra]

9 hours ago, nsmallw said:

A question I've always had about the ending to Memory of Light. The world is still complicated and messy even after the LB and there are all kind of issues left over that the world needs to handle.

 

Do we really think that Rand wouldn't try to help? 

 

Personally, I think Rand whether in his original body or in Moridins would indeed involve himself in the issues of the Fourth Age in some form or another. I mean he would be alive for decades after the LB.

I can't see him just standing by and raising sheep. He would try and help and that opens up all kinds of thoughts in my head canon lol. 

I actually don't have a problem with it.

Remember that of everything he had to do up to that point, the things that he was the worst at - and that he hated the most - were all politics.  And that is virtually all that is still complicated and messy from here on out.  Just politics.

 

I don't think he will be raising sheep, since he ends the book talking about finally being able to travel the world incognito.  Perhaps he will become the new Jain Farstrider for the Fourth Age.  And it would actually be a good way of keeping an eye on things everywhere, as Morgase did herself on occasion.  Just not all over the world.

 

Aside from traveling, I do see him eventually wanting to get back involved where his Academies are concerned.

[AdamA]

I don't think Rand would have trouble proving he's still Rand if he decided to come back. Aside from the memories only he can have, he still has the warder bonds, and I would expect the three ladies to become extremely well-respected people that others would generally believe if they say the guy claiming to be Rand really is. There is still the question of that bond, too. Aviendha and Elayne are likely to outlive him since they can still channel, but Min has a pretty good chance of dying first. Is he going to go into a berserker rage when she dies? Just randomly start killing whoever is near him at some Sharan port halfway around the world when he's off on some Rand Farherder adventure?

 

His not being able to channel any more bugs me, too. If channeling is supposed to be a property of the soul, it doesn't make sense. Does this mean all future dragons won't be able to channel now? He wasn't shielded or gentled. The ability was just gone.

[EmreY]

3 hours ago, AdamA said:

I don't think Rand would have trouble proving he's still Rand if he decided to come back. Aside from the memories only he can have, he still has the warder bonds, and I would expect the three ladies to become extremely well-respected people that others would generally believe if they say the guy claiming to be Rand really is. There is still the question of that bond, too. Aviendha and Elayne are likely to outlive him since they can still channel, but Min has a pretty good chance of dying first. Is he going to go into a berserker rage when she dies? Just randomly start killing whoever is near him at some Sharan port halfway around the world when he's off on some Rand Farherder adventure?

 

His not being able to channel any more bugs me, too. If channeling is supposed to be a property of the soul, it doesn't make sense. Does this mean all future dragons won't be able to channel now? He wasn't shielded or gentled. The ability was just gone.

 

Rand and other male channellers who have been bonded have a different reaction to the warder bond than non-channellers, so I don't know what would happen.  If I had to speculate, I don't think it would be the same as when a regular Warder outlived his Aes Sedai.  And also, given his reaction to not being able to channel - a sort of uh-huh, OK who cares moment - I don't think that his reaction to the loss of his bonders would be the same.  But just to be on the safe side, I'd like the bond to be lifted.

 

Epilogue Rand is a special case, I think, and I don't think the normal rules apply.

 

As for the future, I don't think that what happens to Rand translates directly to future incarnations.

Edited February 16, 2022 by EmreY

[KakitaOCU]

6 hours ago, AdamA said:

I don't think Rand would have trouble proving he's still Rand if he decided to come back. Aside from the memories only he can have, he still has the warder bonds, and I would expect the three ladies to become extremely well-respected people that others would generally believe if they say the guy claiming to be Rand really is. There is still the question of that bond, too. Aviendha and Elayne are likely to outlive him since they can still channel, but Min has a pretty good chance of dying first. Is he going to go into a berserker rage when she dies? Just randomly start killing whoever is near him at some Sharan port halfway around the world when he's off on some Rand Farherder adventure?

 

His not being able to channel any more bugs me, too. If channeling is supposed to be a property of the soul, it doesn't make sense. Does this mean all future dragons won't be able to channel now? He wasn't shielded or gentled. The ability was just gone.

Regardless of how the bond was formed, I don't think Min bonded Rand, I think the Ladies bonded Min and Rand and somehow roped her to him instead of themselves.  She can't mask the bond or do any of the Aes Sedai side of the bond tricks.

So I imagine when she dies it'll be like a sister losing a warder and he'll hurt for a good long time but eventually calm down.

As for his not being able to channel, I don't think that's what happened.  I think he's just instinctively weaving the entire pattern and so is no longer using just Saidin and further, no longer has to embrace the source.

Remember, his future kids with Aviendha perpetually touch the source all the time.  Seems like a combination of his new nature with a regular channeler.

[Jaysen Gore]

There's three things about Rand walking off the way he does that I'm okay with:

 

1. Rand has just gone through, and survived, the most traumatic experience of any single human being in the last 3,000 years. His sanity depends on figuring out who he is when he is not the DR. There is nothing about the ending that says he doesn't come back, or doesn't help later on.  But it is critical to figure out who Rand Al'Thor is. This is especially true since he could now have T'A'R level wish fulfillment in the real world.

 

2. Depending on where you put Aviendha's level of influence and standing among the Aiel post Last Battle (and remember she carries their honor at Merrilor) 5 of the 6-10 most powerful women in the world know that Rand is alive, leaving, and are fine with it. The Amyrlin Seat, the Seachan Doomseer, the High Queen of the Borderlanders, the Queen of Andor, and the Rising star of the Aiel Wise Ones all want him to go away and heal. Well, I'm not sure Cadsuane wants him to heal, but definitely wants him to go away.

 

3. With all of the changes in leadership - almost every ruler dead in the 2 years covered by WoT - it is critical that they work out their new relationships and approaches between each other without the expectation of the Emperor Lews Therin Telamon being at the top of the power pyramid. For Rodel, Darlin, the guy in Illian, Perrin / Faile, and Lan, they need to figure out how to be independent kings, and not vassals. Even the channelling community needs to self-determine their new relationships in the world, since I doubt Caddy would carry forward with Egwene's plans for the Towers relationships with other societies.

 

The first time I read this, I kind of thought Rand had in fact walked into the Dream, like the King under the Hill. That's why the Caddy scene is so important to have an outside real world observer see him.  So I expect it's a couple of years finding himself, and reconnecting with his friends on a personal level, probably before settling down in Andor with Elayne. And I expect in the Outrigger novels, there would have been a personal connection scene between Mat and Rand that would enable Tuon to realize Rand is still alive, and watching.

Edited February 16, 2022 by Jaysen Gore

[Raal Gurniss]

50 minutes ago, Jaysen Gore said:

There's three things about Rand walking off the way he does that I'm okay with:

 

1. Rand has just gone through, and survived, the most traumatic experience of any single human being in the last 3,000 years. His sanity depends on figuring out who he is when he is not the DR. There is nothing about the ending that says he doesn't come back, or doesn't help later on.  But it is critical to figure out who Rand Al'Thor is. This is especially true since he could now have T'A'R level wish fulfillment in the real world.

 

2. Depending on where you put Aviendha's level of influence and standing among the Aiel post Last Battle (and remember she carries their honor at Merrilor) 5 of the 6-10 most powerful women in the world know that Rand is alive, leaving, and are fine with it. The Amyrlin Seat, the Seachan Doomseer, the High Queen of the Borderlanders, the Queen of Andor, and the Rising star of the Aiel Wise Ones all want him to go away and heal. Well, I'm not sure Cadsuane wants him to heal, but definitely wants him to go away.

 

3. With all of the changes in leadership - almost every ruler dead in the 2 years covered by WoT - it is critical that they work out their new relationships and approaches between each other without the expectation of the Emperor Lews Therin Telamon being at the top of the power pyramid. For Rodel, Darlin, the guy in Illian, Perrin / Faile, and Lan, they need to figure out how to be independent kings, and not vassals. Even the channelling community needs to self-determine their new relationships in the world, since I doubt Caddy would carry forward with Egwene's plans for the Towers relationships with other societies.

 

The first time I read this, I kind of thought Rand had in fact walked into the Dream, like the King under the Hill. That's why the Caddy scene is so important to have an outside real world observer see him.  So I expect it's a couple of years finding himself, and reconnecting with his friends on a personal level, probably before settling down in Andor with Elayne. And I expect in the Outrigger novels, there would have been a personal connection scene between Mat and Rand that would enable Tuon to realize Rand is still alive, and watching.

I just viewed it as him choosing self determination after living a predetermined existence…A choice of stepping out of the wheel….

 

Didn’t really like the ending and felt the series was being drawn out and spread thin for the last several books..But then I suppose thats the case for 9/10 long running series.

 

Shame really, I always felt it had a bit more mileage in it but it ran out of steam early and had to be pushed limping into a weak finish.