Confused reader about Dark One being bound…

[Roboobor]

Please please please, can you help me without giving any spoilers?

 

I’m about halfway through The Shadow Rising and I’m bothered at two ideas I cannot reconcile- can you help me figure out if one or both is correct, or if I am right to be confused and should just keep reading!

 

1. The Dark One and the Forsaken weee bound in Shayol Goul by the Creator at the beginning of the world. 
 

or is it

 

2. The Dark One and the Forsaken were out in the world at one point and then Lews Therin and a bunch of Aes Sedai defeated them and sealed them up. 
 

which one is it? And if the answer would be a spoiler for me (again, I’m in the Shadow Riskng) please just let me know that all will be revealed.

 

Thank you!

[Kathy Campbell]

It’s a mix of both. The Dark One was always bound, but able to touch the world. The Forsaken, however, were out and about until Lews Theron and his boys trapped them in. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Without going into any spoilers, the books use a technique called unreliable narrator a lot (my apologies if you are already conversant with this). 

 

A awful lot of the information given in character is not correct, though it is to the best of that character's knowledge. However some characters are pretty ignorant, with trollocs commonly thought to be travellers' tales and one character in the South of the Westlands not believing in snow. There are a few instances where Jordan also changed his mind, though I don't think there are many of them that are apparent at least. 

 

About your question in particular, the quote is from a catchism in the general populace thousands of years after the Breaking where details are obviously a but hazy and it is considered both bad luck and evil to talk about what actually happened, take Nynaeve thumping people with a stick for talking about the Prophecy of the Dragon. Which is why people think both that the Dragon will break the world again and only a few think he will save it, as the details are garbled and only a few know an approximation of the truth. 

 

Where you are in the story though it is clear that the Forsaken are actual people, not some form of dark angels, so could not have been sealed in the Dark One's prison at the moment of Creation. More details about the prison will be coming shortly, cannot really say more than that without spoilers. 

[Bugglesley]

Both things are true. The Creator bound the Dark one at the moment of creation. He also was bound by The Dragon in the more recent distant past.

 

But how can these both be true? I don't think it's a spoiler to undertake the most basic leap of logic and say that if someone or something was imprisoned and then imprisoned again... it must have escaped at some point. The spoilers are in the details.

Edited May 28, 2024 by Bugglesley

[Dagon Thyne]

The Dark One was bound by the creator.  The Forsaken were bound by the Dragon.  

 

At the time the 7 seals were set by the Dragon and the Hundred Companions, the 13 Forsaken were at the pit of doom meeting with the Dark one.  The seals caused the forsaken to be locked between the physical world and the Dark one's prison.  

[Irat]

The Dark One alone was bound at the beginning of time, then when the bore was opened in the Age of Legends, the Forsaken joined him. Then Lews Therin and the Hundred Companion sealed The Dark One and the Forsaken.

[Sabio]

The Forsaken are just people who joined the DO, the Forsaken change every turning of the Wheel.  How I always look at it is in the Age of Legends they accidently drilled a hole in his prison which allowed his influence to start seeping out.  Slowly the hole was getting bigger and bigger, but it wasn't big enough to where the DO could actually get free.  LTT did a temp patching job that trapped the Forsaken, but it was going to start to weaken again over the years.  As the patch job weakened the Forsaken were finally freed.