Asmodean Suicide Theory

[cloglord]

Okay, plenty of posts have been devoted to the topic of Asmodean’s killer, but I have an alternate theory that may provide us with the answer to Asmodean’s killer while simultaneously confusing the issue even further.  So I’ve decided to post this here instead of in the who killed asmo thread, because it is really more a discussion about how Asmo died, than who killed him.

 

What if, Asmo killed himself?  What fate would Asmo have suffered if he had been captured?  He would have been slowly tortured by the DO, until he died, whereupon his soul would have been captured and tortured some more.  What would have been Asmo's fate if he died naturally?  His soul would have been captured and tortured.  Either case, is bad for asmo, and he knows it. 

 

Now I was skimming through the compendium "things that RJ said," and I came upon an interesting, albiet unsubstantiated claim from a barnes and noble's booksigning that RJ was at in January of 2003  the question as posted follows.

 

Could the Dark One have brought back Asmodean if he wanted - NO

While it has been widely discussed that Asmo will not be coming back, the suggestion that the DO was unable to bring him back is something entirely different.

 

Now I can only think of 3 things in the books that would end in a character's death that prevents the DO from bringing them back.  Mashadar, Machin Shin, and balefire.  Since I am not so far gone loony to suggest that either of these evil weather occurences were hiding in a pantry, this quote, if true, suggests to me that Asmo was balefired, which would  fit the description of his death. 

 

Knowing that Asmo was a coward, and being reasonably sure that he would attempt to avoid a long and torturous death followed by another long and torturous unlife does not seem out of character for him.  In fact at one point Asmo flat out says that he planned to kill himself the moment that he heard that the DO was free.  If he encountered ANY of the proposed likely suspects for his death, he would likely be in no position to fight his way free of any of them, escpecially if one of the accused is one of the forsaken.  So what were Asmo's options?  He could get caught (tortured, killed and then tortured some more,) he could get killed, (then have his soul caught and tortured,) or he could do the one thing that would prevent his prolonged torture in either case, balefire himself.

 

Now taking out the seperate argument of how paradox would have effected the act of balefireing one's self, lets look at how this fits with RJ's statements about the intuitiveness of figuring this out.  In this theory, all of those requirements are fulfilled.  We know that Asmo was present, that he had the means, and that he had the motivation to kill himself.  Further, RJ's assertions that he had given enough clues are also true.  Mere sentences before his death he is thinking about his story of the man hanging from the cliff, and his recent death and undeath experience due to an act of balefire.  One could even infer that Asmo was in the hands of the DO during his short death, until Rand’s balefire snatched Asmo back from the DO.  Further, at this point in the stories we the reader know enough about the cosmology of the world to know that if Asmo dies, the DO will punish him after the fact. 

 

Asmo had the means, the motive and the oppurtunity.  He balefired himself to escape punishment from the DO

 

 

Now this theory would also explain why RJ had said that “very, very, few people” had quessed the correct answer to Asmo’s death.  Here's a reference from John Novak  from a Border's book signing in Northern Virginia from 21 November, 1998. 

Asmodean is, and I quote, road-kill.  And he still claims there are many indirect clues from tFoH on about who killed him.  He also claims that very, very few of the fan letters he gets are correct about it.

 

Now this signing takes place in 1998, TFoH was first published in 1993.  If we use the “exit poll” sampling of DM'ers who participated in the last major “Who killed Asmo poll“, the numbers were as follows.

 

QuoteGraendal    42%    [ 219 ]

Lanfear    13%    [ 68 ]

Moiraine    7%    [ 41 ]

Shadar Haran    11%    [ 61 ]

Moridin    6%    [ 32 ]

another forsaken (post your suggestion    4%    [ 25 ]

anyone else (post your suggestion)  14%    [ 73 ]

Total Votes : 519

 

If this poll is representative of the proportions of fan mail that RJ had received over the years it tells us something important.  Lets say that RJ got 1,000 fan letters about asmo's death in the interveining 5 years between the publishing of TFoH and the above referenced PoD's booksigning and extrapolate the numbers based on our DM sampling. That means of the hypothetical 1,000 letters RJ recieved in over 5 years roughly 440 people guessed Graendal, 140 quessed Lanfear, 80 guessed Moraine, 120 guessed Shaidar Haran, 50 people guessed some random other forsaken, and 140 quessed someone else, the Isam/Gholam/Fain/ and LTT camps.  Yet RJ said that "very very few fan letters quessed correctly.  When was the last time anyone called 80 people "very very few?"  However, we also know that Asmo's killer has to pass the intuitively obvious test.  None of the main contenters in the intuitively obvious category also fit into the "very very few," category.

 

Asmo's suicide is intuitively obvious though, as we have some "indirect clues" from TFoH.  We have Asmo's statement about his preference of suicide over facing the DO, we know that he was thinking about the ramifications of a death by balefire at the time of his death, (the reason he went looking for the wine in the first place.)  and we have several indications that Asmo faced a horrible fate if caught or killed, as well as indications that he lacked the mental or emotional fortitude to face that fate, should he have ANY means of escaping it.

 

I can see why RJ would get so much pleasure from this debate, if this is in fact what happened.  He would have fed us the greatest bit of Aes Sedai style trickery ever, when people were asking who killed Asmo, they really thought they were asking who did asmo find in the wine cupboard, but RJ was giving us hints to Asmo's suicide, not the "YOU!" that suprised him and forced him into it.

 

Now this might seem like a splitting of hairs to say, asmo got scared by his would be killer and killed himself, but that doesn’t solve the mystery of who scared him in the first place.  If it seems this way to you, you would be right, but it would change the dynamic of the Asmo debate.  If Asmo is his own killer then the clues that RJ gave us do not necessarily point to anyone, and means that the mystery of who was in the wine cellar would most likely hae to wait

[Bob T Dwarf]

The real major flaw in all of that is that you assume he had the means.

 

... and drawing the little of saidin that he could was like drinking sewage.

 

He can't draw enough Power to make balefire.  Lanfear wouldn't have left him able to draw enough for that.  She had PLANS for Rand.  She wouldn't risk Asmo spoiling those plans.

 

Another thing that Jordan said was that the DO couldn't transmigrate him because of "how he died and where he died."

 

If it had been balefire that killed him, where he died wouldn't matter.

[cloglord]

to be fair we really don't know if asmo could have made a microburst of balefire or not, and even if he did there is still the problem of balefire paradox, which I have absolutely no desire to debate.  So instead I'll just circumvent the issue altogether and mention thaat RJ said that there were other means of dying that prevented the DO from capturing a soul.  As a forsaken, I'm sure that Asmo was aware of those means, as his immortality hinged not just on his immunity to aging, but also on avoiding death by means that the DO could not reverse.  If Asmo knew how to die without ending up in the DO's hands, It goes a long ways towards providing him the means.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yes, Jordan gave himself a big loophole on transmigration.

 

Sadly, so far, nobody knows for sure what those other methods are.

 

And, until we figure out at least one of them, we can't say, for sure, whether Asmo had the means to kill himself, or not.

 

 

 

[cloglord]

Unless we take Asmo's own words as pure bluster, we have reason to believe that Asmo did have the means.  He said that he planned to kill himself when he found out the the DO was loose, and he also expressed his knowledge of the torturous realities that faced him after his death.  To what point would he kill himself if he could not also ensure that the DO could not reclaim him?

[Bob T Dwarf]

He was in deep doodoo.

 

That left him clutching at straws as well as "tufts of grass."  He may have hoped that the DO would be too busy with breaking free to notice.  He might have hoped for any one or more of twelve impossible things.

 

We just don't know.

 

Until somebody comes up with a substantiated way to die that puts the soul out of reach for the DO, and then determines that Asmo could have had that weapon or known that method, suicide qualifies only as a rumor, rather than a theory.

 

Understand, please, I'm not saying you're wrong.  All I'm saying is come up with that method and then we have something to discuss.

[cloglord]

Until somebody comes up with a substantiated way to die that puts the soul out of reach for the DO, and then determines that Asmo could have had that weapon or known that method, suicide qualifies only as a rumor, rather than a theory.

 

I already answered the question.  RJ put other means into his world.  The DO knew about them, Asmo was only immortal provided he knew about those means, so logically the DO would have let him in on those means at the time he brought him on.  Just becasue we don't know the exact means, does not mean that they were not known and available to Asmo. Further, just because I don't have any real desire to start a balefire paradox debate, does not mean that Balefire was not the means.  Moraine was realtively weak compared to Rand, but that did not stop her from making balefire strong enough to take out Be'lal for a few seconds worth.  What's to say that Asmo couldn't make a  microburst of balefire worth .0000000001 seconds?  It is more likely that Asmo had the means to do himself in permanently, than it is that he did not.

[havoc110]

You have to understand the context of what RJ meant when he said "very few".

 

I believe (using memory than looking it up) that RJ was talking about the people who correctly outlined the whole scenario, including, murderer, means, and motive, not just the identity of the murderer.

[Bob T Dwarf]

From my recollection, at the time he wrote about it, there had only been one person who had gotten the whole scenario correct.

[Guest Dreadlord]

I reckon Taim killed Asmo

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

Obviously, there are some things against this theory, but I would love nothing more than for something like this would be true. Imagine how awesome it would be.

[RAND AL THOR]

In TDR, Moiraine didn't easily conjure balefire. It required some effort. Though Asmodean is much stronger, he was unable to channel strongly due to Lanfear's shield. I think a minimum quantity of saidin must be drawn to even be able to create balefire. I imagine it like some sort of threshold that must be passed.

Anyway, I really don't think he killed himself. He could have done that long before if so. Someone killed him (asmo's final moments are very clear on that). Asmo knows who. But we don't. And the DO won;t bother to bring him back because asmo betrayed them all anyway.

[Bob T Dwarf]

It isn't that the DO won't it's that the DO can't.

 

For suicide to work, and the method of dying is balefire, that leads to a paradox.

 

If it was suicide, by some unknown method other than balefire that also renders the soul untransmigratable, what happened to the body? 

[Lille]

I think i read somewhere that Balefire stands outside its own paradox, so if you killed yourself with balefire you're still dead.

[Jehaine]

Yup. Balefire undoes what you did a second or two ago (or more, depending on strength used), but it also removes your thread from the Pattern. Therefore, even though you'd technically not have cast balefire at it, your thread is still gone, making you quite dead.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I believe you're correct.

 

But, then you have to postulate that Lanfear left him able to draw enough Power to make balefire.  I doubt that that is a safe assumption.

[Lille]

I believe you're correct.

 

But, then you have to postulate that Lanfear left him able to draw enough Power to make balefire.  I doubt that that is a safe assumption.

 

I agree, i seriously doubt that Lanfear would have left him able to balefire Rand. She wanted him for herself when she shielded him, she did not want him burned out of the pattern. btw does Balefire burn your soul away? So you cannot be reborn? If so that would be quite an advantage for the shadow.

[Bob T Dwarf]

btw does Balefire burn your soul away? So you cannot be reborn? If so that would be quite an advantage for the shadow.

 

That's a commonly held idea.  I've never seen anything that confirms it or refutes it.  I'd say we just don't know.

[cloglord]

No balefire does not remove the thread forever.  There is an RJ quote to that effect that I am too lazy to look up right now.  If it were the case that balefire killed permanently, then it would be a simple matter for the baddies to win, as they would just have to BF the dragon and then wait for the next time that the pattern required him, but couldn't produce him. 

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

The description of balefire leaves us one important question: does "burning one's thread from the Pattern" mean that one's soul is destroyed forever, and one can never be reborn? John Novak finally got an answer for this from RJ at a post-TPOD book-signing [Northern Virginia - 21 November, 1998]:

 

Balefire: I'm right. (This was my question) What this means is, if someone is balefired, the Dark One can't reincarnate them. But they CAN be spun back out into the wheel as normal. Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul. He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back.

 

So this means two things. 1, balefire does not prevent one from being reborn; and 2, perhaps there was another way for Asmodean to have killed himself.

[Vemynal]

While I *LOVE* the concept of asmodean killing himself the description of his death scene makes it seem as if he didn't kill himself.

 

Also: I clearly remember it saying "he was dead before his body hit the floor", and with balefire there is no body left.

 

 

[Guest Dreadlord]

QUOTE

Also: I clearly remember it saying "he was dead before his body hit the floor", and with balefire there is no body left.

UNQUOTE

 

I must nitpick. When he screamed NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO it said "his scream still hung in the air as death took him. "Balefire wasn't ruled out in the description, it didn't mention a body at all. I very much doubt he kiled himself; why would he kill himself before whoever it was he saw could?

 

Branden Sanderson said he and Harriet have agreed on a place in AMoL where they can reveal the killer, so its just a matter of time.

[aevogt]

It is no more possible for a person to Balefire themselves than it is for them to Heal themselves.

 

For starters one can't use the Power on oneself.  See the "Flying" debate.

 

Second, If you could BF yourself, and Balefire burns your thread out of the pattern so you are dead before the Balefire hits you, you would be dead a few seconds BEFORE you BF'd yourself.  Insert paradox analogy here.

 

So on two fronts, Asmodean did not, and could not, Balefire himself. 

[Ealdur Tinuviel]

For starters one can't use the Power on oneself.

 

I believe this is because of the obvious problem of what happens when a weave you are creating affects you (because the channeling should also be affected, which means that the weave is not affecting you, which means that channeling isn't affected, etc.) I think that while you can't touch yourself with a weave of the power you are currently holding, you can use the Power on yourself by releasing the weave before it makes contact with your body.

 

In other words, if a stream of balefire only needs be woven and released, then so long as it touches the body after losing a direct connection to the source through the individual, it can actually affect you.

 

Though of course, I'm not sure exactly if channeling works that way. Balefire may require a sustained connection to the One Power.

 

 

[cloglord]

While it is true that some weaves can not be used on oneself, it is also equally true that others can be.  I throw out the example of the weaves used to mask OP ability and the ones used to create an illusion as obvious examples of these types of weaves.  We also know that it is possible to use the OP to kill oneself, as LTT does so in the very opening scene of the books. 

 

As to whether Asmo used balefire to kill himself, I honestly do not know.  We do know several things that point to this scenario as a possibility.

 

1.  RJ has categorically stated that there are ways to die in which the DO can not reincarnate.

 

2.  We know that Asmo died by one of those means.

 

3.  We know that Asmo would have been tortured, alive or dead, by the DO if he were to be caught by the DO

 

4.  Asmo also knew this, and expressed his plan to kill himself to avoid this fate.

 

I have no doubt that if Asmo was given the chance to kill himself in such a manner as to prevent his prolonged torture, he would have taken that chance.  What we don't know for sure is if he had that chance, wither his shield or the quickness of the event could have prevented him from taking his own life, but then the question must be asked, why would his killer have killed him in such a manner as to prevent the DO from getting his hands on Asmo's soul?  What did Asmo know that his killer didn't want the DO to know?  None of the major candidates had secrets from the DO that ASmo knew about except Lanfear, and the DO got his hands on her quick enough, (not to mention the fact that she is only on the fringes of possible culprits.)

 

No, to me Asmo's suicide makes more sense from the standpoint of avoiding torture, than it does from the standpoint of some elaborate conspiracy to keep secrets from the DO.  It also explains the difficulty in trying to figure out Asmodean's killer, since asmodean's killer and the person in the closet would then be two different people.