How does forced turning-to-the-Shadow work?

[Builder]

Well, the title says it all. That's the main question.

[Graendals favourite]

I think it works so that different kinds of selfish impulses a person has are magnified. These will then suppress the persons rationality. They will think simply following their anger or greed or the like will be the best thing to do.

[Titan Orion]

Robert Jordan talked about this in an interview, he said that being turned against your will exaggerates the qualities of your personality that might be called evil and suppresses the qualities that might be called good.

 

I tried finding the interview but couldnt, so no link. Sorry

[ROB_88]

maybe it's just a cooler version of Compulsion

[Builder]

Wow that sounds so evil. Oh wait they are evil!

 

So how can one reverse it? It seems like a weave, and Fades somehow play into it too.

 

Also would the same thing happen if you turned to the Shadow by yourself?

[animegirl]

When Egwene was being tested for Accepted, she saw a vision of the future with Black Ajah and Mydraal about to turn her to the shadow. Pretty creepy as she was apparently naked at the time too.

[Titan Orion]

The Accepted test makes you confront your own fears IIRC, so any events that happen in the Ter'angreal arent necessarily accurate as to what would happen in reality.

 

If you turned by yourself I dont think the change in personality would happen. You might end up being marked in some way, which would enable the Forsaken to identify you, but I dont think going over willingly would change you-Ingtar certainly seems a good example.

 

I wonder whether or not there has ever been someone to infiltrate the Black Ajah?

 

I like the idea of someone being freed from the Shadow, as in forcably turned back to the Light. Another thing I wonder if we will see, considering the name A Memory of Light...

 

Could Semirhage be brought back to the Light against her will, in AMoL?

[Graendals favourite]

I think the people who turn on their own are not changed in any way, they were either born that way, or were turned into that by life.

 

Here is an excellent example, the Queen of Night from the Zauberflöte, which I remembered because of the Mozart earlier. This is the best performance on youtube I have seen:

 

In the aria "The vengeance of hells boils in my heart", since she sings in german and is translated there in french, she sings:

Hell's vengeance boils in my heart,

Death and despair flame about me!

If Sarastro does not, through you, feel the pain of death,

Then you will be my daughter nevermore.

Disowned be forever,

Forsaken be forever,

Destroyed be forever

All the bonds of nature

If you do not make Sarastro turn pale!

Hear, Gods of Vengeance, hear a mother's oath!

I can completely see Lanfear as the Queen of Night. Though she has her motherly impulses as seen in the aria, they are completely overridden by her likely completely unreasonable hatred toward Sarastro. Though Lanfear is human, you would not notice because she is always acting on some evil impusle such as that.

[Aemon raHal]

I don't get why you'd need 13 BA/Dreadlords and 13 Myrdraal just to exaggerate / dampen certain personality traits.

It sounds like compulsion in a way.

 

I always thought that they needed the Myrdraal to do something (who know's what) to the soul.

 

All a bit vague really....

[Builder]

I can completely see Lanfear as the Queen of Night. Though she has her motherly impulses as seen in the aria, they are completely overridden by her likely completely unreasonable hatred toward Sarastro. Though Lanfear is human, you would not notice because she is always acting on some evil impusle such as that.

 

I wonder how it must be to always act on evil impulses and never do something good.

 

All a bit vague really....

 

It is vague, but that's why I asked  :)

 

 

[Caedn of the Taardad]

I think that looking at Lanfear may be a good example of what someone turned against their will would be like.  There is, im my mind, at least a chance that she was turned in a similar way as with the myrdraal when they tapped into the True Power in the AoL.  The Myrdraal may be something similar, linking the person directly to the DO, or some such, and letting him "corrupt" their soul.  Just my interpretations though. 

[Graendals favourite]

I wonder how it must be to always act on evil impulses and never do something good.

I think, left completely to their own devices, they might do some good, only to their annoyance, as well as to the misery of everyone else, there is always something to distract them to one vengeance or another.

 

Now, I think the Queen of Night was not always like that. I think the girl is her and Sarastro's daughter. But perhaps this happened because Sarastro thought he could help her. Instead she must have grown worse.

 

Indeed, her first aria is quite pleasant:

 

It goes in English:

Oh, tremble not, my dear son!

You are innocent, wise, pious;

A youth like you must do his best

to console this deeply troubled mother's heart.

 

I am chosen for suffering

For my daughter is gone from me;

Through her all my happiness has been lost,

A villain fled with her.

I can still see her trembling

with fearful shaking,

her frightened quaking,

her timid effort.

I had to see her stolen from me,

Oh help! Oh help! was all that she said.

But in vain was her pleading,

For my powers of help were too weak.

 

You, you, you will go to free her,

You will be the rescuer of my daughter.

And if I see you return in triumph,

Then she will be yours forever.

[Majsju]

Week 15 Question: When a channeler is forcibly turned to the Dark, is his/her former personality lost to eternity? Are they in a permanent state of mindless Compulsion? Furthermore, can a channeler forcibly turned to the Dark return to the Light unaided?

 

Robert Jordan Answers: They are not in a mindless state of Compulsion. Their former personality is twisted, the darker elements that everyone has to some degree elevated while what might be called the good elements are largely suppressed. I don't mean things like courage, which is useful even to villains, but they are unlikely to be very charitable, for example, and forget any altruistic impulses. Call it being turned into a mirror image of yourself in many ways. It is very unlikely that a channeler forcibly turned to the Shadow could find a way back to the Light unaided. For one reason, by virtue of the twisting he or she had undergone, it is very unlikely that he or she would have any desire to do so.

[mb]

The title question is kind of vague.

 

To force someone to the Shadow, there needs to be 13 darkfriend channelers channeling through 13 myrddraal.

The exact weave, it is not revealed in the books I read (1 through 9).

 

[zanotam]

So, it basically pulls out the good and stuffs in the evil. I wonder if there is anything about being linked to the DO (or is that only for those able to use the DP or TP or whatever the heck it's called.)

[ROB_88]

So, it basically pulls out the good and stuffs in the evil. I wonder if there is anything about being linked to the DO (or is that only for those able to use the DP or TP or whatever the heck it's called.)

 

i wouldn't call it pull out, more like stomps on the chocolaty goodness and stuffs it into a box and replaces it with a sudden urge to microwave puppies. that's the idea i got from what majsju just quoted.

[mb]

It seems that the process could be done with the One Power since it was done in the Trolloc Wars.  The True Power I doubt was used (or even granted) then.

 

[Titan Orion]

So, it basically pulls out the good and stuffs in the evil. I wonder if there is anything about being linked to the DO (or is that only for those able to use the DP or TP or whatever the heck it's called.)

 

i wouldn't call it pull out, more like stomps on the chocolaty goodness and stuffs it into a box and replaces it with a sudden urge to microwave puppies. that's the idea i got from what majsju just quoted.

 

Nope. The quote Maj put was the one I menationed earlier. RJ himself says being forced to the Shadow suppresses the "good aspects" of the personality and exxagerates the "evil aspects." Nothing is added or removed.

[Builder]

So basically that. I wonder why the fades are there. Do they do anything or do they just stand there and doing some sort of boogie-dance?

[Titan Orion]

I personally think Myrddraal arent necessary, just that their prescence was added to the stories passed around. Chinese whispers and all that. What could a Myrddraal possible do? We have seen enough standard Myrddraal by now to be pretty sure of what they can do. Silent walking, shadow teleport, look of fear, resisting death, thats about it.

 

Thats how I see it anyway, unless the channelers channel through the Myrddraal, somehow infecting the person with the True Power present in Myrddraal? It seems a bit of a stretch

[Neemo]

i thought that Myrddraal couldnt use  the power? how could you channel "through" them, would it soemthing like the Seanchan Necklace thingy? is it possible that Egwene associated male channelers with Myrddraal? since both were assumed to be equally evil at that time? that was my understanding :)

[Roxinos]

You can channel through objects. That's how the angreal and sa'angreal work. You channel through them and they give you a boost in the Power. The Power does not come from you, it comes from the pools that turn the Wheel. A channeler redirects the flow away from the Wheel into the Pattern and then directs the flows into creating various things. If a channeler wants, though, he or she can direct the flow through an object, and the flow is altered in some way by that object. I would imagine most things have no effect on the Power, but evidently the Myrddraal and angreal do.

[Caedn of the Taardad]

I'd say the myrdraal are there for one of two basic reasons:

 

1)  To act as a "template" of sorts for the person being turned (myrdraal having somewhat basically "evil" personalities, and limited in other emotions). 

 

2)  To provide a link of sorts with the evil/taint of or the control of the DO leading to the twisting. 

[ROB_88]

so, in short you could say that the Myrdraal are used as living ter'angreal

[Durinax]

I would say so.

I think that the myrdraal are needed because the dark one imprinted himself when Aginor was creating them. So by channeling Saidar (no male channelers since the War of Shadow) through Myrdraal the taint inside of them is drawn into the weaves and by being exposed to the taint their personalities twist. Kinda like how the taint on saidar twist the males personalities and cause them to go insane and destruction crazy, just in a lesser amount