How did the books end for you? Maybe that way...

[Nembrot]

What if...

In the beginning there was The Creator and The Dark One, two adversaries, more like two brothers, for sure two opossing forces of nature. Selflessness vs Selfishness. Stagnation vs Evolution. From the start bound in an eternal circle of creation and destruction, seemingly unable to break out of it. Eons would pass if time existed, until The Creator sacrificed itself and to became the Wheel of Time, changing the rules of their struggle, in a way becoming a prison for The Dark One as now in order to have everything it had to break the will the world itself. It was no longer a contest of the two, but The Dark One vs the world. As the ages came and went, they culminated in either openning the world to the existence of The Dark One, who was always outside of the pattern, unleasing the horrors onto the world, but in effect giving strength to the people to fight the shadow and in the end there was always Dragon Reborn, an avatar of the virtues of The Creator who was always the one final obstacle, for he always represented the will of the world, if world would give up, he would fall and The Dark One would win. Only for untold ages he never fell, the bore was sealed, golden age without darkness was born, in time people became weak, power hungry and the bore was created again, repeating the circle.

 

The Final Battle was different. Rand realized that The Dark One is not the enemy. He understood that if he will do as it was done before, it will only lead to another iteration of the same. He understood that even if he killed The Dark One, the resulting existence would be flawed. Instead, using Callandor he drawn The True Power, The Dark One's essence and bound it with One Power, which is the essence of The Creator, thus from this point on intertwining them in the pattern, both now bound to the rules of The Wheel of Time. The age ended, the circle of bore and seal ended, but The Wheel never stopped, the next age will be truly The New Age.

[KakitaOCU]

Interesting take, but I don't think so.  I get the feeling Rand doing what he did is what he always does (He being the Dragon in general).

Herid Fel talks about it in universe.  At one point the power and knowledge of the DO doesn't exist.  Then someone discovers the power.  Then someone makes the bore.  Then the bore is patched, etc.  But eventually we have to come circle to the bore not existing at all in order to drill it again.

I also get the feeling they don't drill the bore in exactly the same place.  In AMoL Demandred's and Taim's full on reckless Balefiring begins the pattern unraveling there and Egwene sacrifices herself with that reverse Balefire weave that is described essentially as scabbing over the wound, sealing it so it could heal but not actually healing it the way Rand does the bore.

I interpreted that as meaning when this all comes full circle the bore will be drilled right there, because now that is the weakest point in the pattern instead of Shayul Ghul.

[Nembrot]

That's kind of my point.

If this is a circle of bore->patch->bore then it wouldn't be The Last Battle, it would be just "one of the battles".

 

The location of the bores do not matter imo, as it's basically a hole in a pattern to the outside, given how balefire is weakening the pattern, I assume bore was basically drilled using balefire. I think it's safe to assume that Rand/LTT is the authority regarding DO and he clearly states that DO is outside the pattern. Now note that there is no mention of Creator as an actual specific being like DO, but at the same time he supposedly existed in the beginning. Creator and DO are mentioned as a pair of opposing forces, and even DO calles Rand an adversary, not an enemy, Rand for DO is an equal, because DO is ultimate selfishness, DO can't comprehend otherwise, that's why I say Rand is kind of an avatar of the Creator. DO goes along the line "there is only me" and Rand is Us. DO is not evolving on his own, he only changes when is forced to becuase his adversary evolved and changed the rules.

 

Now, for The Last Battle to actually mean something it simply has to mean breaking out of the circle. DO can't be killed like "light has no meaning if there is no darkness" he can't be simply locked out of wheel again as it would no be last battle, that means the rules had to be changed once again.

 

Rand did draw All of the power into himself, Saidar, Saidin, True power, that left no place for his self in his body which is why his self ended up in Moridin body. Then Rand body full of all of this died, thus the dark one essence was bound to the pattern and spun into the world accoring to the rules of the wheel. This preserves the good, the evil, nothing changes, but everything changes, the world can no longer be destroyed in the same way, rules changed.

[Asthereal]

That's an interesting take indeed. I'm more in the camp of "this is just another turning of the Wheel", this has all happened before and will happen again (which is mentioned in the start of every book in the series, after all) and nothing really matters.

Well, that's not true. It does matter. My take is that the world, all people in it, the Wheel of Time and reality itself are created by the Creator simply to keep Shai'tan locked up and busy for all eternity. We, our world and everything we know is part of an elaborate prison for a celestial force/being.

 

But by all means hold on to your head-canon. The whole point of reading books is that we all get to enjoy them in our own ways, read our own ideas into them and create our own vision for the story. To me, this is the main appeal of books over things like movies and TV shows.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Asthereal