World(s) of the Aelfinn and Eelfinn

[TheRedSon]

Hey everyone.

 

This is my first post, so be nice to me.  I apologize if anything I post here is a rehash of a previous conversation.  I did a word search for "Aelfinn," "Eelfinn" and "Snakes and Foxes" and never came across much in terms of the physical reality of the world(s) the Snakes and Foxes live in.  I have a crazy hairbrained theory that goes as follows...

 

When Matt enters the doorway in Tear he meets the Snakes.  Before he comes to the three Snakes that answer his questions he thinks the "hallway" he is in has no straight sides to it except for the floor.  Outside of the windows he sees strange plants and tall silver spires that seem to somehow move from the windows on one side of the hall to the windows on the other.

 

I don't remember the chapter in Rhuidean when Matt enters the door to the Foxes' world as well (and my copy of TSR is currently loaned out), but I believe the hallways he walks through here are described as a series of straight branching hallways.

 

The Snakes have some ability to see into the future or at least a far ranging view of the present in Randland.  The Foxes, on the other hand, seem to have some power over what happens in Randland which is how they're able to grant wishes that affect things in the other world.

 

This whole theory seems so abstract to me, but also explains the otherworldness of the two separate hallways he walks through inside the two doors.  Before I go on take a look at the top left hand of this web page.  There is a picture of the Wheel being turned by the snake devouring its own tail.  My admittedly ridiculous theory is that Matt is inside of the Wheel of Time.  Not within the pattern the Wheel of Time is spinning, actually inside of the Wheel (or in the case of the doorway in Tear - inside of the serpent).

 

This theory explains why in the Snake world things seem to move from windows on one side to windows on the other as the Serpent moves.  It also explains how the Snakes, outside of the physical Wheel, can so broadly see the pattern the Wheel is spinning.  The series of straight branching hallways in the world of the Foxes sounds like the inside of the Wheel (the spokes).  From inside of the Wheel the Foxes cannot see the pattern (but they could, in theory, touch it) and that matches neatly with others' theories that they need the eyes of those they deal with to see (experience) what is going on in the pattern.

 

Now, please tell me I'm crazy and quickly dispatch with this ludicrous theory that is keeping me from sleeping my alloted eight hours.

[Achmed]

You're crazy.

 

The fact that we can have theories like this is what makes the WoT great.

 

May Peace favor your sword.

 

 

[TheRedSon]

The fact that we can have theories like this is what makes the WoT great.

 

It's also freaking me out.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

I have to disagree. I think that this is out in left field, and RJ would never throw us a curve like that.

 

The Serpent is actually supposed to be representative of the One Power, which is the driving force that turns the Wheel.

 

The Serpent Ring is another occurance of the image, yet again symbolizing that the One Power turns the Wheel.

 

And as for the part about the Serpent biting it's tail, well that is an eternity motif, which also fits with saidin and saidar, opposite halves of the source, struggling against each other yet working together to turn the Wheel.

 

The Snakes and Foxes are within the pattern. Their reality just has some odd properties.

[Blackrose]

nice theory, im not to sure about the snakes and foxes people ( Aelfinn and Eelfinn)

 

but im sure Rj will give us all the knowlage we need in AmoL

[TheRedSon]

I have to disagree. I think that this is out in left field, and RJ would never throw us a curve like that.

 

The Serpent is actually supposed to be representative of the One Power, which is the driving force that turns the Wheel.

 

The Serpent Ring is another occurance of the image, yet again symbolizing that the One Power turns the Wheel.

 

And as for the part about the Serpent biting it's tail, well that is an eternity motif, which also fits with saidin and saidar, opposite halves of the source, struggling against each other yet working together to turn the Wheel.

 

The Snakes and Foxes are within the pattern. Their reality just has some odd properties.

 

I freely admit this theory comes from left field...  Or the upper deck...  Probably the parking lot even.  The cheap parking lot.

 

OK, so the Serpent represents the One Power (according to AS anyway).  Maybe the Snakes and Foxes live in a physical manifestation of the Wheel and the Serpent.

 

Your last sentence makes me wonder...  How do we know they are part of the pattern?  If they were actually inside of the Wheel and the Serpent would that mean they weren't part of the pattern?  

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

There is no wheel. The wheel is used as symbolism, representing the mechanics of the Randland universe, and how everything repeats itself. There is no huge seven-spoked wheel in the sky! It's metaphorical, same as the serpent. They are not physical objects, they are representative of ideas.

 

Also, we've seen Portal Stone worlds, but they are part of the Pattern. Tel'Aran'Rhiod is part of the pattern. The skimming place is part of the pattern. Everything we've seen is a part of the pattern.

 

The pattern is all-encompassing.

[Blackrose]

Atually from what i understand when skimming your not in the world or any part of the pattern its totaly seperate.

 

um i think anyway there are various quotes on this but i cant remember where

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Well, I think that skimming is debatable, but I was trying to make a point.

 

I don't know how it could be outside of the pattern if a person has the power to create a ferry on it.

 

But if it is outside of the pattern, then it is complete nothingness, and you can see that there is truly nothing outside of the pattern.

[Blackrose]

hmm i get your point and there is nothing outside the pattern but the ferry or whatever travel means appear are specific to the person who create the weave, i think rands is the anceint AS symbol, and egwenes is um a ferry there are multiple examples of skimming in the books

[TheRedSon]

The pattern is all-encompassing.

 

That's not entirely true.  The Creator and the Dark One are both outside of the pattern. 

 

I think skimming is intentionally leaving the pattern in order to reenter it elsewhere.  Of course once Rand (or whoever) has entered the void it is being touched by the pattern because Rand (and those with him) is still part of the pattern. 

 

Just because something is symbollic doesn't mean it isn't real (especially not in a fantasy novel).  My original post describes it as a real place and Matt, Rand and Moiraine certainly all went there, but it doesn't have to be that simple.  I admit it's a "curveball," but so is the very existence of the snakes and foxes in the first place.

 

There has to be a reason the description of their hallways sounds so much like the inside of a wheel (lower case wheel even) or a web or like they are moving independent of the world outside.  Writers seldom put that much detail into something for no reason (That's no beetle, it's a morally bankrupt journalist).  Whether they live insdie the Wheel or not they do live inside a wheel (or something else with intersecting lines that are straight and round).

 

I'd like to hear another theory explaining why their halls are shaped the way they are.

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Because their location is distant from Rand's world, and has different properties, which seem odd to the casual Randlander.

 

But if you recall, Mat was going from room to room, and they all seemed like the same place, except on the last stop they went through a door at the other end of the room (that had been in every room they traveled through).

 

Their method of travel is not the same, spatially, as in Randland. I would imagine it is similar to the Portal Stone world.

 

Who would go into that detail, you asked? RJ would. The same guy who made a bath scene last 10 pages.

 

Also, if there was some big wooden wheel in the sky, wouldn't the Dark One just send some Forsaken up there to blow it up, instead of fighting a battle with the Dragon when that would be the hard way to win? After all, the Dark One clearly intends to break the Wheel, as per EotW.

 

Anyways, what I said about the pattern being all-encompassing makes sense in the context. I wasn't referring to the DO or the Creator. I was talking about what we've seen in the books.

 

If the Skim Place is outside the pattern, then we've seen that there is clearly nothing outside the pattern. It's all a white nothingness.

 

Anyways, there is absolutely NO WAY that the Aelfinn and Eelfinn live in a giant snake that encircles a wooden wheel that hangs in the sky.

 

Besides, even if there were, when would RJ have enough time to cover that?

[TheRedSon]

Their method of travel is not the same, spatially, as in Randland. I would imagine it is similar to the Portal Stone world.

 

Is this conjecture or did I miss something?  Other than being obviously not Randland I don't see what they have in common with the PS world.  I would agree that physics seem to work differently there, however.

 

Who would go into that detail, you asked? RJ would. The same guy who made a bath scene last 10 pages.

 

OK, that was funny.  He does go into that much detail about architecture and dresses and numerous other things that aren't, or don't seem plot related.  I personally don't find that annoying.  It paints a very real picture in my head.  I would never notice so much about a woman's clothing, but I can certainly see them easily in my head (the bath scene too).  Anyway, my point wasn't how much detail he described it with, but how he described it.  The Snakes hallway is clearly circular.  I'm working on more hazy memory with the Foxes, but I recall several branching hallways.  The shape of these hallways or buildings also plants a picture in my head about what it would be like to stand in them, and that picture is wierd.  At the very least the archetecture of these hallways, the geographic reality of them, is important in some way.  I imagine the Snakes and Foxes gameboard is very similar to what they would look like from above overlaid on one another.

 

Also, if there was some big wooden wheel in the sky, wouldn't the Dark One just send some Forsaken up there to blow it up, instead of fighting a battle with the Dragon when that would be the hard way to win? After all, the Dark One clearly intends to break the Wheel, as per EotW.

 

Of course he would simply destroy the wheel...  If he could.  Big wooden wheel in the sky is funny btw.  I think he is, by nature, the very oppisite of the Creator (which is why he is not the Randland equivilant of Satan).  I don't think he's evil in that he wants to corrupt Randland or make himself the ruler of creation, I think he wants to destroy, completly, everything the Creator ever made.  However, I also think that the pattern (or creation or both assuming they're the same) is his prison, so he can't get to the wheel without ripping through the pattern.  This is why both the Snakes and Foxes hate darkfriends or questions/requests touching the DO.  As crazy as the rest of this theory is I seriously do think they are connected closely with the spinning of the pattern (however that is accomplished).  I'm not saying they spin it.  I think of them more as parasites or perhaps inhabiting the spaces between threads in the pattern (or between PS worlds).  Anyway, wherever it is that they are the DO can't touch it without ripping through the pattern and defeating his enemies in Randland first.

 

Anyways, what I said about the pattern being all-encompassing makes sense in the context. I wasn't referring to the DO or the Creator. I was talking about what we've seen in the books.

If the Skim Place is outside the pattern, then we've seen that there is clearly nothing outside the pattern. It's all a white nothingness.

 

OK, fair enough.  Nothing other than the DO or the Creator are outside of the pattern.  I think that's true enough.  The One Power can obviously be used to exit the pattern though (or to rip things from it), and it can also be used to open a hole back into it (as done in skimming.  Incidentally, I thought the skim void was all black...).  Suppose there is a vast void of nothing outside of the pattern, but also inside of it imprisoning the DO (or vice versa with the pattern keeping him out rather than in).  So when Rand skims he's skimming through the void on the other side of the pattern from the DO or the DO would simply destroy him there.  That would explain how Rand can exit the pattern without losing the pattern's protection from the DO.  As to why he's never seen the Wheel when skimming...  Well, it is a vastnothingness  ;)

 

Anyways, there is absolutely NO WAY that the Aelfinn and Eelfinn live in a giant snake that encircles a wooden wheel that hangs in the sky.

 

Besides, even if there were, when would RJ have enough time to cover that?

 

LOL.  Sorry, I'm laughing with you at the audaciousness of a giant Wheel and Serpent in the sky.  However, it wouldn't be in the "sky."  It would be its own world and seperate from Randland and the PS worlds.  They do live in something, obviously, and Matt's going to have to understand the shape of that something in order to get in and get out again.  Since whatever they live in isn't important to the plot happending in Randland (other than it being Moiraine's current location) RJ won't have to spend a lot of time explaining it.  It's more interesting left a mystery I think.  We'll learn as much about it as Matt does and perhaps whatever Moiraine has learned while she's been there (however long that's been for her).

 

You make a strong arguement about the pattern encompassing all there is other than the void, the Creator and the DO.  If there is an actual Wheel I don't think it's necessarily seperate from the pattern and even if it would have to be there's no rule saying the pattern is all the Creator ever created.

[Elwinn Taron]

Okay, I can't take credit for this.  It was posted a couple of months ago by someone much smarter than I, and I thought it was absolutely brilliant!  I'm sorry, I can't remember who.  Anyway, if you imagine the straight hallways being overlaid by the circular hallways of each the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn, it makes a spider-web.  Or a board for playing Snakes and Foxes!  So Mat essentially has a map for when he attempts to rescue Moiraine.  Brilliant!

[TheRedSon]

A spider web also fits a lot of the imagery we've been given.  It could still work well with the idea that the Snakes and Foxes are somehow closer to the lace of ages.  It doesn't explain how things move from one side to the other in the windows though.

 

I do think the board game is a map of their world however simple a map it might be.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Just to lay this to rest once and for all, the world of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn is one of the parallel worlds, reachable in theory by Portal Stone, within the noraml construction of the Pattern.

 

A basic 'finn-land Q&A, from RJ, at Dragoncon, Sept 2005:

 

Do the Finns inhabit a perpendicular world? No, it is a parallel world.

 

Does the physical location of the world of Finns have anything to do with the bells ringing when the ta’veren were in together? No.

 

Have the Finns existed as long as the Wheel? Yes.

 

Do they have souls? Yes.

 

Are the Finns from human stock? No.

 

Did they originate in their current location? Yes.

 

Are they related to T’A’R or do they control T’A’R? No.

 

http://www.wotmania.com/faqtopic.asp?ID=25

 

The physics of 'finn-land is curved differently than the physics of Randland.  While the imagery of a spider-web seems to fit in some ways, in others it cannot, because a spider-web is, ultimately, made up using the rules of physics in this world, and those are not the rules in 'finn-land.  As one example among many, in 'finn-land you can turn "in place" and actually arrive somewhere else.

 

This difference makes channeling extremely risky in 'finn-land.  Channeling is based on "weaves" which are geometric constructions.  But geometry is different there, so channeling doesn't always work, or if it does, not always in the way it was desinged to work.  It was a reaction with this different geometry that caused Lanfear and Moiraine's weaving to destroy the ter'angreal doorway (per Jordan, same reference as above).

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

You know, I have no idea where you find these interviews. I've looked everywhere, and I've only seen like 4 interviews with him.

 

To think that he had answered so much about the Finns.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Well ... I do kind of provide links ...  ;D

[TheRedSon]

I came across that interview while I was making sure I wasn't posting old stuff about the finns.  Thank you for posting it here. 

 

I don't feel like that interview really answers a whole lot of questions I have about the finns' world (those brought up here and others).  They are good questions, but his answers, like always, leave a lot of room for interpretation.

 

In fact, let me show you how my messed up mind interpretted some of them the first time I read them...

 

-Does the physical location of the world of Finns have anything to do        with the bells ringing when the ta’veren were in together? No.

 

"Location?"  I always thought the bells are ringing as some kind of warning (intentional or not) that the finns' world was being stressed to the brink by hosting two ta'veren.  There world isn't meant to hold so much of the pattern at one time.  Any time two of them are together in the real world the pattern must be groaning, let alone in a place with such a strange relationship to the pattern.  I think both of them being there together was seriously stretching the bounds of reality (either in the finns' world or in every world)

 

-Have the Finns existed as long as the Wheel? Yes.

 

Of course they have, they're in it!  ;D

 

-Did they originate in their current location? Yes.

 

;D

 

-Are they related to T’A’R or do they control T’A’R? No.

 

They're not related to T'A'R.  They're related to the age lace.  The snakes can see the pattern more fully than any human and the foxes can introduce (limited) new things into it or slightly alter individual threads within it.

 

As to reaching finn land with a portal stone...  I think there is only one expert on ter'angreal alive in any world.  I won't pretend to know the similarties between a portal stone and the gateway past they can both send you to different worlds.  I don't think, however, that finn land makes sense as one of the PS worlds like we experienced in tGH.  Those worlds were alternate worlds.  A world where Artur Hawkwing lost a battle he won in the real world, or a world where Trollocs discovered canibus and grew there hair long.  The finns' world isn't an alternate world.  It is a different world.  Not Rand's world with snakes and foxes that evolved into humanish shape with scientient powers.  It is other.  It may be parallel (I won't pretend to understand what that means), but I do not think it is like the PS worlds in any way except that it is not Rand's world.

 

Incidentally, I no longer think a spider web fits because they aren't round.  They're generally round, but they are made up entirely of straight lines and there are no straight lines in the Snakes world with the possible exception of the floor.