An Interesting Find Re: The Creator

[Luckers]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone bring up this quote in relation to the Creator. It's spoken by Moiraine in Chapter 42 of the Eye of the World.

 

"The Pattern presents a crisis, and at the same time a way to surmount it. If I did not know it was impossible, I could almost believe the Creator is taking a hand."

 

Of course Moiraine's been wrong before, but those are some pretty heavy words. If she did not know it was impossible--implying that she has some very specific reason to not only think it unlikely, but to know it was not possible.

 

It was already incredibly unlikely that the Creator would involve him in any way given all the other comments about him, but this does seem to set it in stone.

[Vambram]

Very interesting, Luckers.

[Roxinos]

Yes, yes, I remember noting that point when Leigh Butler quoted it in her re-read of The Eye of the World. I certainly do wonder why she's so certain that it's simply impossible for the Creator to take a hand in the affairs of man...

 

Then again, outside of this quote, I don't recall any other mention of the nature of the Creator.

[Majsju]

 

 

Then again, outside of this quote, I don't recall any other mention of the nature of the Creator.

 

Moridins thoughts in KOD. Which does back up what Moiraine said, even if her reasoning might come from a completely different direction.

[Roxinos]

Well, I find Moridin's thoughts on the Creator's nature completely unreliable. I regard him as a nihilist. *laughs* You can't listen to crazies like him.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Lews Therin (inside Rand's head) does have similar thoughts about the Creator with the whole Creator as gardener bit.

[Vambram]

Yeah, I remember those thoughts as well, RAW. Its stuff like that which makes me wonder just how righteous of a person this Creator is if he seems to not even care about the creations of his garden.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Depends on your definition of righteous, Vambram.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Just in case anyone else doesn't remember them, Rand's PoV, CoT ch 24:

 

The Creator had made the world and then left humankind to make of it what they would, a heaven or the Pit of Doom by their own choosing.  The Creator had made many worlds, watched each flower or die, and gone on to make endless worlds beyond.  A gardener did not weep for each blossom that fell.

[Vambram]

Well, we hear from the characters in the WOT books just how evil and wicked the Forsaken, the Darkfriends, and the Dark One are... but since the Creator in the WOT seems to not care for the "flowers and blossoms" that fall in "His garden," .. then to me, it seems that the Creator's apathy is just as evil as the deeds of the Dark One and his followers.

I am coming at this topic from my own perspective, which is that of a born-again Christian. Although I recognise that the vast majority of fiction does not follow the Judeo-Christian principles as found in the Bible, I would still like for there to be real appreciable differences in WOT's "Creator" a.k.a. "the Light" and the WOT's Shaitan a.k.a. "the Dark One."

[RobertAlexWillis]

I would still like for there to be real appreciable differences in WOT's "Creator" a.k.a. "the Light" and the WOT's Shaitan a.k.a. "the Dark One."

 

Well ... I could argue that making a world, locking the Dark One out of it, and then leaving people to exercise their free will is far different than actively trying to either enslave or destroy all of existence ...

[Sab]

That's basically what it comes down to "Free Will".  Not to turn this into a religious debate, because those always end badly. But Vambram brought up a point on Judeo-Christian principles.  We live in a world of war, hate, crime, famine, natural disasters, etc.... Yet god has left us to use Free will to govern our planet.  Thats what the creator has done, he made it and if the people there wish to make a total mess of it then that is what they choose to do.  If Rand decides yeah I want to join the DO, guess the creator makes another world.

[vainebekonnes]

Honestly how do we know that their theology is correct?  They say that the Dark One has been locked away by the Creator since the beginning of time, but obviously he wasn't locked away during the Collapse and the War of Power.  They don't even really know all that much about the First Age and they are only in the Third.  Personally, I think all their theology could be entirely wrong.  What if the Creator does take a hand occasionally, but primarily allows them to use free will?  What if he is the one that pumps out Taveren, rather than it being the Wheel?  Would they know it was him, if they were always taught differently?

[RobertAlexWillis]

Well, obviously we don't know, in the sense that of having either a Creator or Dark One POV.  But Lews Therin Telamon, Mierin Eronaile, Elan Morin Tedronai, and their contemporaries understood the actual mechanics of reality well enough to go to parallel worlds, Tel'aran'rhiod, and to create and later seal the Bore, a "hole" in reality itself ... so they have as good a basis for their philosophical interpretations as anyone ...

 

Does that mean "they're definitely right and there's no chance that they're wrong"?  No.  Does it mean "they're probably right, and we have no reason to believe otherwise"?  Yup.

 

Plus, the Dark One does seem pretty genuinely pissed off, so, the basics are likely to be right.

[Aspar]

I am wondering how exactly people discovered the knowledge about the wheel, the pattern and The Creator.

[RobertAlexWillis]

For the Age of Legends folks, they had sophisticated research techniques based around the Power that drives time itself ... doesn't get much more fundamental than that ...

[ghost_of_santa]

maybe the creator left clues....he does seem pretty against the dark one, locking him up and all, and knowledge of how the wheel and stuff works is pretty handy in fighting him

 

[Majsju]

Lews Therin (inside Rand's head) does have similar thoughts about the Creator with the whole Creator as gardener bit.

 

That is Moridin thinking, not LTT. The one I accidently refered to as happening in KOD instead of COT.

If you look at that part again, you will notice that LTT seems to be listening (and agreeing), rather than being the one expressing these thoguths. Also, it fits very well with what we know of Ishys philosophy.

[Jethro]

"The Pattern presents a crisis, and at the same time a way to surmount it. If I did not know it was impossible, I could almost believe the Creator is taking a hand."

 

Good and evil are both necessary. Everything happens for a reason in Wheel of Time. I believe the Wheel brings both good and evil about to a point in order to create what is needed later on. I think it is safe to assume that the Wheel has extensive insight on events, considerably more so than any Dreamer, Foreteller or Viewer. For example, I cant see any reasonable explanation for Aridhol/Shadar Logoth producing a source of power like it did, other than the idea that it would be necessary later on. Maybe we have already seen this in Shadar Logoth canceling out the Taint dome, maybe we will see Padan Fain fulfill some sort of purpose for the Light whether deliberate or not, maybe something else entirely.

 

My point is I think Moiraine was wrong. I think the Wheel brings about the necessary events to create what is required for a balance later on. I believe when she referred to a crisis followed immediately by a solution, this is the Wheel bringing about an event which in turn brings about a condition that is necessary, but at the same time implementing the means to deal with the "necessary evils" in order to remove them once they have served their purpose.

 

I think Moiraine was very observant to notice this, but I think her idea that the Creator was intervening is incorrect, unless of course you want to call the creation of the Wheel as direct intervention.

[Luckers]

Just in case anyone else doesn't remember them, Rand's PoV, CoT ch 24:

 

 

Quote

The Creator had made the world and then left humankind to make of it what they would, a heaven or the Pit of Doom by their own choosing.  The Creator had made many worlds, watched each flower or die, and gone on to make endless worlds beyond.  A gardener did not weep for each blossom that fell.

 

Those were Moridin's thoughts, transferred through the link--though Lews Therin does show that he agrees with them.

 

My point is I think Moiraine was wrong. I think the Wheel brings about the necessary events to create what is required for a balance later on. I believe when she referred to a crisis followed immediately by a solution, this is the Wheel bringing about an event which in turn brings about a condition that is necessary, but at the same time implementing the means to deal with the "necessary evils" in order to remove them once they have served their purpose.

 

I think Moiraine was very observant to notice this, but I think her idea that the Creator was intervening is incorrect, unless of course you want to call the creation of the Wheel as direct intervention.

 

She did not think the Creator was intervening, she said that if she didn't know it was impossible she would have thought that. Her comment is in fact directly that the Creator is NOT intervening.

[metria31183]

Maybe we have already seen this in Shadar Logoth canceling out the Taint dome, maybe we will see Padan Fain fulfill some sort of purpose for the Light whether deliberate or not, maybe something else entirely.

 

Do you think this might be too close to Lord of the Rings?  I know RJ delibrately made the flight from the Two Rivers very similar to the hobbits leaving the Shire and Padan Fain was RJ's recreation of Gollum in Moria.  I'm not sure how I would feel about this happening.  I think it feel like RJ was relying too much on Tolkien.  Just my opinion.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Sorry ... why do you guys think that what we saw in CoT ch 24 was Moridin?  There has been no indication of actual thought transfer from Moridin ...

 

Lews Therin was "listening" because Rand was the one actually thinking it.  But the seeds of that philosophy were in Lews Therin himself.  Its like when Rand hears Lews Therin reminiscing about having grown up in the Two Rivers, or chanting Rand's list as if it were his own.  The closeness of their own thoughts is such that Lews Therin can "listen" to Rand think things that came from him originally, and vice versa.

 

But the ideas that seed the thoughts still come from Lews Therin originally, as Rand acknowledges just a few lines after the thought:  "Still, it was not the kind of thing he [Rand] would have considered before Lews Therin.  How much space remained between them?"  (CoT ch 24)

 

He doesn't get any memories, much less conscious thoughts, from Moridin.  If he did, he'd probably know exactly who Moridin is, long before he started getting complex philosophical ideas.

 

Did Jordan say somewhere that Rand was getting Moridin's thoughts and cite this as an example?  I'm just curious as to where you guys got the idea that it was Moridin thinking here ...

[Luckers]

Did he think the Creator had decided to stretch out a merciful hand after three thousand years of suffering? The Creator had made the world and then left humankind to make of it what they would, a heaven or the Pit of Doom by their choosing. The Creator had made many worlds, watched each flower or die, and gone on to make endless worlds beyond. A gardener did not weep for each blossom that fell.

 

For an instant, he thought those must have been Lews Therin’s reflections. He had never gone on that way about the Creator or anything else that he recalled. But he could feel Lews Therin nodding in approval, a man listening to someone else.

 

The emphasis is RJ's. Rand states the thoughts were not his own, and that the thoughts were not Lews Therin's. The only other mind with influence is Moridin.

 

 

[RobertAlexWillis]

Hmm ... nope, not buying it.  Rand's confusion is about whether Lews Therin is the source, or if it is himself, and he clearly settles on himself.  Their own issues more than account for it, and if Moridin's thoughts were leaking in this semi-random fashion, Rand would have a lot more information ... unless you can explain why this idea and apparently only this idea has leaked?

 

It is Rand's thought, rooted in Lews Therin's philosophy.  Just like all the other things that leak between them.

 

Maybe someone could ask Brandon or Harriet about this at JordanCon?  LOL ... although this is linked to something that might be important enough to get nothing more than a RAFO ...

[Luckers]

It's not only this idea--he senses Moridin's fury at one stage, and Lews therin senses that Moridin is aware of him at another.

 

That being said we don't really have to explain why only this idea leaked--the link has been growing stronger in fits and spurts. You might as well ask why Rand only sees Moridin's face in that one singular event.

 

The wording is clear, it is not Rand, and it is not Lews Therin.