The Seals, The Bore, and the Dark One's Plan

[Tel Janin Aellinsar]

I have spent some time in my most recent reread of the WoT trying to piece together the clues surrounding the Dark One's overall plan.  I realize that I am trying to play Steven Hawking, but I want to see if the clues in the books so far can be pulled together to ascertain what the Dark One is planning to do.

 

NB:  This post will probably be more questions than answers, I'm looking for the collective wisdom of the WoT fan community to come up with the answers and save me all the work.

 

NB:  I should also note that in my current reread I am in LoC, so my recollections of the first five and a half books will be fresher than those from LoC-KoD.

 

At the beginning of LoC, Demandred is summoned to Shayol Ghul where he meets Shaidar Haran for the first time.  During this meeting the Dark One apparantly gives Demandred his marching orders, beginning with an admonition to "Let the Lord of Chaos rule."  Later in aCoS (I think) Shaidar Haran is observing Sammael and Graendal with the Shaido, and he muses over whether Sammael's actions will serve chaos.  So clearly promoting chaos is important to the DO.  What is not clear is WHY promoting chaos is so important.  I will grant that sowing chaos makes it harder for Rand to unite the nations to prepare for TG, but that seems too simplified as an explanation to really satisfy me.  What I want to know is whether the command to sow chaos relates to what is happeneing to the pattern.

 

As of KoD, it seems clear that the pattern is unravelling; buildings are rearranging themselves, the dead walking, all the really fun apocalypse stuff.  Why is the pattern unravelling?  It cannot simply be the fact that the seals are weakening because the bore was open for more than a century during the AoL (if I remember what I read in the white book).  Is it because the DO has that much more influence over the pattern in the modern age?  I really do not think so.  If the DO could directly affect the pattern from within his prison, it would seem to defeat the point of having him imprisoned.  Therefore his ability to influence the pattern must be limited to what his followers can do.  So what are Demandred, Morridin, and Shaidar Haran up to?  It seems clear that those three are running the shadow's side of the war.

 

Here is the only conlusion that I could reach.  At the begining of the LoC, the DO asks Demandred "WOULD YOU UNLEASH THE BALEFIRE IN MY SERVICE?"  He followed up by telling Demandred "HEAR WHO WILL DIE, AND WHO LIVE."  (These are exact quotes, LoC Hardback edition p. 16)  As far as we know the only way to unravel the pattern is to use balefire to create temporal paradoxes on a massive scale.  Now I have not heard about entire cities being wiped out by balefire, so the DO either must be targeting specific people who have had an important effect on the pattern, or continuous small scale use of balefire has the same deleterious effect on the pattern as wiping out whole cities would if done at once.

 

In tFoH, Moiraine tells Rand that he must be careful with balefire.  She said that if he damages the pattern too much, it might take years for the pattern to resettle, and when it did, it might not settle around Rand as a tav'eren.  So it seems to me that the DO is walking a fine line.  He is trying to remove Rand's one big advantage (tav'eren-ness) but he has to be careful.  If the pattern takes too much damage then it might simply unravel in its entirety leaving the Chosen nothing to rule and the DO nothing the remake in his own image.  Clearly, the DO's patience has worn out.

 

So is this why Taim looked terrified when Rand was muttering that he needed to break the seal?  (How much does Taim know?)  Because if Rand broke the seals while he was very strongly tav'eren would he have a much better chance of defeating the DO than he would if the seals broke now?

 

I apologize if this has already been hashed out in another thread, I'm sure someone figured this out long ago.  I feel really dumb that it took me this long and this many rereads to figure out what Demandred/the DO were up to.

 

So by all means, comments, criticisms, holes that need to be poked?

[ksbsnowowl]

BRILLIANT!

 

I had never even throught of this before, nor have I seen this theory anywhere.

 

One thing to note, however, is that I believe it is stated somewhere (or maybe it is just long and strongly-held fan belief) that Ishmael knew the Dark One's true plan was to destroy the pattern, not "remake it in his image," and embraced it. Thus why he was immensely more crazy than he even appears at first to be.

[JenLenaMom]

First it was Moridin who observed D&G with the shaido.  Second the pattern is not unravelling yet it is just "loose" things are not as tightly woven in place as they once were.  I think that by asking Demi if he would use balefire he was testing his fortitude knowing that the results of mass balefire use had scared the chosen so much in AOL they stopped using it. 

[Davian93]

I've read similar theories on what exactly Demandred has been doing for the two years or so he has been free and basically off-screen.  Its a distinct possibility albeit one that has little evidence for or against it.  We know this: He has been up to something and it must be fairly important.  We also know that Pattern is weakening.  Are they connected?  I have no idea.

[42Bonzo88]

    I always thought that when the DO asked Demandred if he would unleash balefire for him was just testing his dedication to the DO. Now I'm not so sure. I can't think of the DO destroying the pattern, what would he rule?

[Tel Janin Aellinsar]

A few responses/clarifications:

 

    I always thought that when the DO asked Demandred if he would unleash balefire for him was just testing his dedication to the DO.

 

I always felt the same way.  The text lends itself to that interpretation because Demandred begins musing about the use of Balefire in the Aol immediately after the DO asks him if he would unleash balefire.  But when I really thought more deeply about it, it was not the most logical way to look at it.  The DO told Demandred that he could not save Rahvin from balefire, then said that it was the Dragon who used balefire, and then asked would Demandred unleash balefire in his service.  The DO was already discussing balefire and its properties ("EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE OF TIME") before he asked Demandred about unleashing it.  At the time, I never would have thought anything about it, but since the pattern is now unravelling (or loosening unravelling does not necessarily mean damaged beyond repair) the conversation implies that the DO had a plan that involved balefire before he asked Demandred if he would unleash it.  So I think the DO was testing Demandred's dedication and prepping him for the plan simultaneously.  No reason the DO is not smart enough to do two things at once.

 

First it was Moridin who observed D&G with the shaido. 

 

Page 636 of aCoS Hardback edition, Chapter 40, Spears.  Shaidar Haran observes Sammael send the Shaido through the gateways, and before being pulled back to Shayol Ghul muses about whether Sammael's actions would "churn chaos."  I did not have my books earlier to give an exact quote.  This one is accurate. 

 

JenLenaMom, you are thinking of the scene earlier in the book when Moridin was watching Sammael's earlier meeting with Sevenna from the woods wearing a fancloth disguise.

 

Second the pattern is not unravelling yet it is just "loose" things are not as tightly woven in place as they once were. 

 

See what I said above, unraveling does not mean damaged beyond repair, unraveling means exactly what the word means, in the process of coming apart.  Either could suffice to remove Rand's centrality to the pattern.

[Aemon raHal]

It could be said that the DO ordered Demandred to kill some people with balefire - removing them and their actions from the past x amount of time (depending on the strength of the Balefire used) from the pattern.

 

You pull a few strings from a few places on a piece of cloth, and you either get a hole, or a piece of cloth that is not held together as tightly as it was before.

 

Maybe the DO is trying to loosen the pattern - creating Chaos and the effects we've seen in KoD...

 

 

 

 

[aevogt]

This rests on a lot of ifs but has some backbone.

 

If the DO is alter ego to the Creator, then he is enormously powerful.

 

If the DO is the alter ego of the creator, then he is not a creation of the Creator and exists outside the pattern.  Since this is the case with the entire blight, it's a safe assumption.

 

If he is that powerful and if the pattern unravels and creation is destroyed then the DO would have the power to remake a new wheel, weaving a new pattern in his own image.

 

Thus, the DO isn't planning on the pattern unraveling, he's counting on it.

 

That's why he'd want the BF unleashed.