Shadowspawn

[Saidar]

Do Trollocs, Fades, Darkhounds, ... also have a thread in the Wheel? Because I find that kinda weird...

[Jelly]

Well, that's like asking if animals do. I don't think it's been mentioned in the books.

 

[stoper]

Why should this be weird?

Balance, you know (good/evil).

[BKVMC]

im assuming anything alive is a thread in the pattern. rand balefires the darkhounds chewing through mats door  and balefire  removes threads from the pattern  if there was nothing to remove  would it work :)? we know  that  at least wolves  go to  TAR when they  die  ( Hopper) and we know darkhounds are  made from  wolves  who  become corrupted.

[Dragon21]

I would have to say that shadowspawn definetly have their own threads in the pattern. Life is the pattern. I don't think living things exist outside the pattern. The pattern is all inclusive.

 

And I think BKVMC's examples are good ones.

 

 

[DuDZiK]

All life is included in the pattern, because everything in existence impacts everything else.

 

Shadowspawn can hardly be omitted from it, when they greatly impact the lives of humans; and all life, actually.

[Kura]

the only ones I'd say might not have a thread would be the Fades, since they don't dream. Plus, if I remember right the balefiring of a fade by Nyn didn't work out as well as it should have, can't remember the chapter or the book, so don't quote me here lol.

 

Could anyone find it for me? Its the chapter where the Wonder Girls are saved by the Aiel, when they were to be sold by DFs (I think) to a fade. I think it was tFoH, but not positive.

[BKVMC]

we arent  told for certain that nynaeve made balefire it could have been something else she didnt know what she channeled.

[Elwinn Taron]

The Dragon Reborn, Chapter 39; "Threads in the Pattern"

[icspots]

Nynaeve's balefire worked just fine, I just think the difference we see in it's result is a combination of her not putting a lot of power behind it (she still hadn't reached her full potential) and the combination of the different weaves (from Egwene and Elayne) used in conjunction with the balefire.  Add into all of that that I think this is the first time we actually see balefire used in the series so it could be that RJ just hadn't worked out  how it really presented when it's being used.    IIRC (without referencing the books) instead of seeing the fades disappear we see all their colors invert and then disappear.  That is similar to other times it's used when the power behind it isn't that strong.

 

Does anyone have the exact quote of how RJ described it?

[Duneflayer]

no sry i don't but here's a question

 

what would happen if someone hit the DO with Balefire

 

that would be interesting

[Shaidar]

Do remember that the Wheel of Time, isn't really a physical Loom kind of thing but rather one method of illustrating WoT's metaphysics.

 

That said, I think we would be right to regard every animate thing as a thread, being twirled over some structure. Sometimes one threads extinguishes another (one person kills another), sometimes the threads weakens and unwinds (death by age or disease), sometimes it breaks on the structure (someone falls off a cliff).

 

So yes, Shadowspawn would be threads, generally stronger but less complicated than those of human soul-threads.

[Thunderbomb]

no sry i don't but here's a question

 

what would happen if someone hit the DO with Balefire

 

that would be interesting

 

I believe if someone hit the DO with Balefire(mind you it would have to be a hellastrong Balefire)

 

It would put the whole world out whack and even more chaos

[Jelly]

It would tip the balance too much, which would tip it back again... You know, between good and evil. Also, What thunder said.

[Luckers]

RJ has actually commented on this. He said that the amount of balefire required to destroy the Dark One would also destroy all of existence.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Well ... he said this, according to Wotmania's painfully unreferenced quotes section:

 

Why doesn't somebody just Balefire the Dark One?

 

The quantity necessary would destroy the world.

 

http://www.wotmania.com/faqtopic.asp?ID=58

 

I'm not sure that "the world" equates with "all of existence" in a philosophical sense, but functionally, for our heroes, it does.

[elmis]

I've always thought that quote was kinda odd, though as some might already know, I think several things about balefire is odd.

 

Granted the Dark One isn't your average dungeon critter, but with everything else the tiniest thread will kill you, the amount only makes a difference for how long you have been dead.

 

With items (walls ect), the tiniest thread seems to slice through anything, except cuendillar, and the amount used only determines how thick the hole will be. Maybe it's as if the object hasn't been there in the past too, that we've never really had put to the test. It obviously works like that on 'stuff' that isn't alive, but is animated - the only example being the crazy fog in aCoS.

 

(Sidenote: Was that a Fain trick, or one of the so called bubbles of evil?)

 

From what we know, the DO is kinda like a God. I'm unsure where you'd even point your balefire in order to hit him. And as he only has a small rift in the pattern to work within you'd have to step outside it to target him? Wouldn't that be kinda like stepping outside reality?

 

[RobertAlexWillis]

(Sidenote: Was that a Fain trick, or one of the so called bubbles of evil?)

 

It was a bubble of evil.  The confirmation for this is in an odd place, which is why many miss it.  See the glossary of TPoD under "Daved Hanlon", where it is confirmed that the "White Lions" (who, with Hanlon were part of Toram Riatin's forces) were destroyed by a bubble of evil.

[Luckers]

The danger of balefire is the unravelling of the pattern--if enough of the pattern unravelled to destroy the world, i imagine the rest would go along with it. But your right, at this stage its seriously improbable, so meh.