Did LTT die in the Prolougue and was there a reason why he did what he did?

[42Bonzo88]

    First of all, I am going to answer my first part. Yes, I think he did die, but I'm not sure if he died right when he pulled the mountain over him. I have read a story (Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card) where a man fought a battle to end an invasion, then they sent him forward in time so when he came back he could train the boy who was needed to win the final war.

    I'm not saying this happened with LTT, but I wonder about a couple things. In the prolougue, Ishy healed LTT enough to take away the madness and show him what he did to his wife. What if LTT became "cleansed" of the taint long enough to realize he needed to get away so he couldn't get turned to the shadow. How better to hide than to pull a mountain over yourself? Also, alot of people on this site believe that LTT will play a part in either destroying the DO, or helping in some other way at TG. If Ishy was to take him in his madness, would the Dragon Reborn be able to defeat the DO.

 

    If he didn't die right away under Dragonmount, with him being one of the most powerful channelers, and a ta'veren to boot, could he have done something to maintain his spirit (personality) so he could be there for Rand?

 

    I don't have any evidence to back this up. Just my thoughts, feel free to dissect at Will. ;D

 

[OsaroLJ]

     First of all, I am going to answer my first part. Yes, I think he did die, but I'm not sure if he died right when he pulled the mountain over him. I have read a story (Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card) where a man fought a battle to end an invasion, then they sent him forward in time so when he came back he could train the boy who was needed to win the final war.

     I'm not saying this happened with LTT, but I wonder about a couple things. In the prolougue, Ishy healed LTT enough to take away the madness and show him what he did to his wife. What if LTT became "cleansed" of the taint long enough to realize he needed to get away so he couldn't get turned to the shadow. How better to hide than to pull a mountain over yourself? Also, alot of people on this site believe that LTT will play a part in either destroying the DO, or helping in some other way at TG. If Ishy was to take him in his madness, would the Dragon Reborn be able to defeat the DO.

 

     If he didn't die right away under Dragonmount, with him being one of the most powerful channelers, and a ta'veren to boot, could he have done something to maintain his spirit (personality) so he could be there for Rand?

 

    I don't have any evidence to back this up. Just my thoughts, feel free to dissect at Will. ;D

 

 

You know, I think many on this board take LTT prefunctorarily. I think there is a HUGE reason why the series began with LTT...and I believe that it will end with LTT. But you're idea is interesting...we still don't know RJ purpose for having LTT's character in this current spinning of the Wheel...but we'll find out in a year ;)

[Celdiruen]

Well, since Rand is LTT reborn, I'd guess it makes sense for him to have LTT in his head... Right? Right?!?

 

But it is kind of suspicious. Starting the series off with LTT does provide a nifty prologue in and of itself, but I'm starting to think that RJ had some sort of reason for doing that.

 

I'm thinking that LTT will have a pivotal part in AMoL, and do something important, be it the body switch theory, or the fusion theory, or maybe he'll take over Rand's body for a few minutes and do some crazy stuff to win the last battle, and then Rand becomes himself again. Who knows?

 

BS better hurry up and not mess it up, either. I want that damn book!

[Safia al-Maaz]

I like this theory because it's interesting and different, but I don't think LTT found a way to be there for Rand in the future.  If that were true, wouldn't he be more.... helpful?  Cause currently all he does is cause trouble for Rand.  Despite the occasional aid, overall LTT just bothers/threatens Rand's safety.  You'd think if he actually meant to be helpful he might try to be...

 

Not to mention he was in a state of grief when he killed himself.  He didn't kill himself with the mountain though.  He drew on so much of the power that he was hit by "lightning" (I don't know if that was exactly what it was, but w/e) and was killed.  The strike was so powerful that when it hit it ended up raising up a mountain, dividing the river.  That is how I always interpretted it anyway.  If he was just pulling a mountain on top of him, why would he need the lightning?

[Bob T Dwarf]

The air turned to fire, the fire to light liquified.  The bolt that struck from the heavens would have seared and blinded any eye that glimpsed it, even for an instant.  From the heavens it came, blazed through Lews Therin Telamon, bored into the bowels of the earth.  Stone turned to vapor at its touch.  The earth thrashed and quivered like a living thing in agony.  Only a heartbeat did the shining bar exist, connecting ground and sky, but after it vanished the earth yet heaved like the sea in a storm.  Molten rock fountained five hundred feet into the air, and the groaning ground rose, thrusting the burning spray ever upward, ever higher. ...

 

Does that sound like any lightning you've ever heard of?  Lightning strong enough to bore down and shatter the earth's mantle, releasing molten magma?  Creating an entire new volcano?

 

Sounds like balefire to me.  How far back would you guesstimate that he rewound time with balefire that powerful?  Far enough to undo his own killing of his family?  IF he had been the one who killed them, that is?

[BrainFireBob]

RJ's confirmed it wasn't balefire.

 

I've been known to speculate that he sealed his soul in Dragonmount, and that's why he's in Rand's head now, independent of any taint-degradation theories.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Source quote on that confirmation, please, BFB.

[Safia al-Maaz]

I didn't say it was lightning, I simply used that to describe it, since it struck from the sky much like lightning.  Personally, I think it may have been pure Saidin, since he drew on so much and that's what killed him rather than being burned out.  I think that makes more sense than anything else.  And pure saidin would be powerful enough to make a whole new freakin mountain in the middle of flatlands.

[42Bonzo88]

    When I said "pull a mountain down" I was speaking figuratively. It doesn't really matter how it happened, I just think he was escaping Ishy and the chance to be turned, if thats what Ishy was going to do. Love all the answers, Thanks!

[Safia al-Maaz]

Maybe, but I don't think Ishy would have turned him... I think he was more interested in torturing him then killing him as slowly and painfully as possible.  That was the reason he cleansed LTT of the taint.  Just to watch him suffer.  But hey, with this series, anything is possible....

[BrainFireBob]

That's the problem. It's an old, old one- from when he first introduced balefire explicitly. I've been trying to think of where I could find it- we're talking 96ish.

EDIT: Boy was I off. It was '93.

 

http://www.steelypips.org/wotfaq/2_nondark/2.4_yore/2.4.02_ltt-balefire.html

 

Best I can find at this point.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Arrrrghhh.  Another of those somebody said Jordan said things.  I hate those.  We can never be sure that they're accurate.

 

I'm going by the book... the brightness, the intensity, the fact that it's described as a bar of light, exactly like balefire is described.

 

If it wasn't balefire then this is an example of moronic hero behavior.  If LTT was going to off himself, seems like the least he could do to mitigate things would be to do it in a way that ( so far as he could know ) would undo the damage he might have done.

 

But, that's my hindsight.  Rendered from the viewpoint of 20 years of frustrated waiting for this thing to play out.  Probably not a fair assessment of how a man in the midst of a huge emotional crisis can be expected to perform.

[Guest Dreadlord]

I personally dont think Lews Therin sealed his soul in Dragonmount-although he may have been capable and probably knew how to do such a thing, if its possible. I believe Lews Therin is in Rands head because of Rands semi-madness, like Semirhage explained. But dont argue about that though, another thread turned into an off-subject debate because of that theory.

 

Ishamael only cleansed Lews Therin of the Taint temporarily, if I remember correctly. And even if he didnt, Lews Therin drew that much of the Power that it killed him. Who knows what damage that did to his mind or soul as well as his body?

[Bob T Dwarf]

My take is that LTT is in Rand's head because the Wheel needs The Dragon Reborn to correct the Age Lace, and The Dragon Reborn needs a mentor in order to do that.  LTT ( or rather the Dragon soul ) is the only appropriate mentor that the Wheel could arrange to fill that need.

 

To this point, most of that mentoring has been subconscious.  Rand just knows this and does that without understanding the how or why of any of those things. Nothing comes for free and the babbling is just the price he has to pay for the help he's getting from the Dragon soul's vast storehouse of knowledge and ability.

[Dhaos]

Wouldn't uber-balefiring himself be -extremely- dangerous?  This is post Strike-at-Shayoul-Ghul, so isn't there a chance he would -undo- the Sealing of the Bore by setting the clock back too far?  If his family came back to life, wouldn't his status as Kinslayer be...undone?  Wouldn't the pattern get messed up by balefire on that scale?

 

For all of those reasons, I don't think balefire is likely.  I think what we see is the -EXTREME- end of overchanneling, done by one of the most powerful channelers to ever live.  He just sucked as much of the One Power down as possible, and obliterated himself (and the landscape) in the process.  Didn't the Queen of Manetheren do something similar?

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yup.  Burned herself and Manetheren to ashes in the process.  But, she also drove back the Shadowspawn and avenged her husband.

[BrainFireBob]

He confirmed it other times, too.

 

At this point, though, it's been 15 years- the old cites are hard to track down.

 

He stipulated explicitly on at least one occasion that what LTT did was overdose on the One Power- he was simply so strong rather than simply burning himself out, he literally incinerated himself and the area surrounding him.

[Bob T Dwarf]

OK.  I'll buy that.

[42Bonzo88]

    Just in response to your hindsight. Yes, you are correct that it was a foolish thing to do, but given the circumstances of your world, love, family, is dead before your eyes and possibly the realization that you started the whole thing. I wouldn't be thinking clearly, either. Of course, it was wise to travel to a place that was uninhabited, so he wouldn't hurt anyone else. Sound familiar?

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yup.  In fact, yup to the whole post.

[leo]

So here's my 2 cents.  I'll preface by saying that I always assumed he drew too much.

 

Why the description of the bar?  Was the bar something that only a channeler would have seen?  Or was the sheer immensity of the OP that was drawn enough to make it visible to everybody?

[RAND AL THOR]

Why the description of the bar?  Was the bar something that only a channeler would have seen?  Or was the sheer immensity of the OP that was drawn enough to make it visible to everybody?

 

Its the prologue after all. Meant to grip the reader. Only us avid readers who re-read the series a hundred times are going to pick up this stuff. I really think that it was just exagerrated to grab us (which it did to me at least).

[bjclinton]

Also, in every instance that we've ever seen balefire used, it was channeled from the channeler outwards....we've never seen nor heard of balefire being pulled down from the sky onto a place below. Although visually it was bright like balefire, the way this was created was very different.

[Llewin]

I think it's the 'light liquified' part that explains it most readily to me... He drew in so much of the OP that he annihilated himself in the blink of an eye, at that *moment* in time the OP had to go somewhere...and it coelesced in to... pure...center of a star... plasma.

[RAND AL THOR]

Also, in every instance that we've ever seen balefire used, it was channeled from the channeler outwards....we've never seen nor heard of balefire being pulled down from the sky onto a place below.

 

This is a very good point that more or less kills the idea that LTT used balefire-if anyone still wasn't convinced.