Mat's Luck

[Germs]

Concensus please!

 

Who am I kidding; Ares will never drop this. I'm just interested to see where the numbers stand.

[Yorkie]

A combination of being Ta'veren, natural luck, and that natural luck being reinforced by events past and present. :)

 

[Lord Monty]

Ta'veren, not a dagger

[OptimusPrime]

So we open a thread to discuss Mats luck, then another one to discuss discussing Mats luck? Should I open a thread to discuss the discussions about this other discussion we have in this thread?

[Mr Ares]

Anyone who thinks it isn't the dagger is wrong.

[Germs]

I actually do hope it is the dagger, that'd be way cooler than just being ta'veren. It just seems unlikely; the only evidence appears rather coincidental.

[Mr Ares]

I actually do hope it is the dagger, that'd be way cooler than just being ta'veren. It just seems unlikely; the only evidence appears rather coincidental.

As opposed to evidence to the contrary being non-existant.

[Aagaard]

The luck is tied to the dagger. If it was taverenness he would have had it all the time, and if it was the finns he wouldn't have had it in the books earlier. The dice and his incredible luck first apears after the healing in the white tower when he is being released of the bond to the dagger. When Fain doesn't have the luck it can be explained only by the fact that he has not been released from the bond from the dagger, and probably will not be able to any longer.

[jcb2inhbgpa]

I disagree Matt did have his luck before then look at all the close calls that they had before they found out that Rand was the Dragon

[Thorn]

As opposed to evidence to the contrary being non-existant.

 

  Moiraine said, "No one knows about ta'veren as strong as Rand... Artur Hawkwing was the most strongly ta'veren of whom any writings remain. And Hawking was in no way as strong as Rand.

    "It is said," Lan put in, "There were times when people in the same room as Hawkwing spoke truth when they meant to lie, made decisions they had not even known they were contemplating. Times when every toss of the dice, every turn of the cards, went his way. But only times."

 

 

8, Jarra, 115

[Mr Ares]

I stand by what I said earlier. Ta'veren can be lucky, but Mat's luck doesn't fit. Other explanations exist for luck. Mat's luck didn't manifest when he became ta'veren. Ta'veren in no way fits.

[Swigaro]

The luck is tied to the dagger. If it was taverenness he would have had it all the time, and if it was the finns he wouldn't have had it in the books earlier. The dice and his incredible luck first apears after the healing in the white tower when he is being released of the bond to the dagger. When Fain doesn't have the luck it can be explained only by the fact that he has not been released from the bond from the dagger, and probably will not be able to any longer.

 

I have been lurking on all of the miriad discussions surrounding Mat's luck, and a thought, or perhaps a clarification occured to me.  The first time we see Mat's greatly increased luck is after the TV healing, but if I remember correctly, wasn't he in a coma for much of the trip from Toman Head to TV.  The luck could well have been present once he was reunited with the dagger.  This is speculation, of course, but, since Mat is quoted as thinking of the luck and Ta'verenness as seperate, and he specificly thinks of the luck manifesting after his trip to Shadar Logoth, I think it is pretty clear that the luck and the Dagger are connected and that it has nothing to do with being a Ta'veren.

[Thorn]

This is speculation, of course, but, since Mat is quoted as thinking of the luck and Ta'verenness as seperate, and he specificly thinks of the luck manifesting after his trip to Shadar Logoth,

 

Mat also associates the luck with his ta'veren status at different points and even at one point believes his luck may come from the Dark One. Mat's opinion isn't a reliable guide -- he thinks different things at different times.

[Alternate34]

One note is that Mat's Luck increases greatly after he is Healed at Tar Valon.  Intuitively, that indicates the dagger was not the cause.  The argument is simple.  Dagger removed, Mat becomes lucky.  Getting rid of the dagger caused his luck.  If a pot of water was boiling, you removed it from a stove, and the water stopped boiling, you could say the stove caused the boiling.  To say that the stove caused it to stop boiling would be farcical.  This argument would claim that the luck was actually restrained by the dagger and was freed after removal of the dagger.

 

The counter to this is obvious.  The evil of the dagger was healed, but its luckiness was left as a residue.  To use the pot of water example, while you can't say the heat source caused the water to stop boiling, if you put your hand in the water, it would still be hot.  You could say the stove caused the heat.

 

Some evidence indicates he was lucky when in possession of the dagger.  One instance is TGH when he is winning against the Shienar in dice.  One question I have is what other evidence is there for his being lucky in possession of the dagger.  I recently re-read TEOTW and the trek to Caemlyn with Rand had no instances (unless you count the surviving of lightning).  The passage through the Ways has no good instances.  Going through the blight, at the eye of the world, and after that when he has the dagger, the only luck I see is dicing with the soldiers.  Correct me on this if I'm wrong. 

 

Right after healing, he remembers being more lucky after getting the dagger, but (1) his memory is full of holes (2) there are very few instances that the reader sees to indicate that he is right (we have a better memory than him at this point) and (3) his luck was emerging at around the same time as Perrin's wolf powers and Rand's ability to channel.  That is evidence that it is not related to the dagger.  They are about the same age and their powers are emerging at similar times.  Perrin's and Rand's powers are not related to an outside influence aside from the Pattern or something.  Mat's may not be as well.  It is coincidence that he got the dagger when he did.

 

There is some evidence he had some luck prior to the dagger, though never at the level after the dagger.  He mentions that he sometimes felt lucky, though he remembered when he lost dicing when he was young.

 

As for ta'veren being responsible for luck, this isn't plausible to me as well.  Ta'veren have strange things happen around them, not just lucky.  They attract miasmas.  They have horrible things happen as well as good.

 

I think the third option, that Mat's luck is a facet at him unrelated to the dagger and being ta'veren is most palatable to me.  Ta'veren have powers that are incidental to their ta'veren.  Rand is a channeler who is ta'veren.  Perrin is a Wolfbrother who is ta'veren.  You could have thief catcher who is ta'veren or someone who reads auras who is ta'veren.  Mat is a lucky guy who speaks the Old Tongue who is ta'veren.  His luck in dice and cards is too omnipresent to be just ta'veren.  He almost always wins now.  It is too different from ta'veren altering chance.

[dholm]

Question: In the Dragon Reborn, Lanfear visits Mat as he is recuperating from his one power surgery over the dagger. At one point she stretches out her hand towards him and he feels a tingle going over him, somebody interrupts them, and she turns her head and sobs, at about the same time a member of Black Ajah stole angreal and ter'angreal out of the tower cache, one of which was a ter'angreal that was known to have some effect on chance. So it was about this time that Mat's really really really weird luck and the dice rolling in his head began, is this a connection or coincidence.

 

Jordan: That is a coincidence. When they say that Mat has the Dark One's own luck, he can get as mad as he wants to, but in a way it is true. It wasn't a gift from Lanfear, though.

 

If Mat's luck was caused by him being ta'veren, it would in no way be true that he had the Dark One's own luck.

[Thorn]

 

If Mat's luck was caused by him being ta'veren, it would in no way be true that he had the Dark One's own luck.

 

This is probably the best evidence there is for the daggger theory, but there are two flaws with it:

 

1. "The Dark One's Own Luck" is caused by the Dark One's influence on the Pattern. Ta'veren also shape the Pattern. One type of luck is the converse & parallel of the other.

2. Shadar Logoth is completely separate from the Dark One, at least as far as we've seen and been told. Luck from Shadar Logoth (if Shadar Logoth can provide "luck") would be just as "opposite" to "the Dark One's Own Luck" as luck from the Pattern would be.

 

So while it's persuasive on the surface, I don't think it really answers this question once you think about it; RJ's quote could refer to luck from the Pattern, from SL, or from the Dark One.

 

One note is that Mat's Luck increases greatly after he is Healed at Tar Valon.  Intuitively, that indicates the dagger was not the cause. . . .

 

 

The ta'veren argument here is that the Pattern "needed" Mat out of Tar Valon, and so chance went absolutely wild in order to get him out of there, doing everything from twisting a zillion dice games to forcing the Amyrlin Seat to write a blanket letter of permission and give it to three Accepted so they could give it to Mat. Note that later in the books, several Aes Sedai comment on what a bad idea Elaida's plan to imprison Rand was precisely because of the horribly wild effects that would result if someone tried to imprison a ta'veren in the Tower.

 

 

The problem with the Dagger theory is that there's no real reason to associate the dagger with luck apart from timing, which equally supports the ta'veren theory since Mat became ta'veren at approximately the same time he got the dagger,  and there's massive textual evidence that ta'veren are lucky (such as the quote from Lan above). There's one point where Mat thinks his luck comes from the dagger, but he also associates his luck with the Dark One and with his ta'veren status at different points.

 

For every

The luck had come once he took the dagger from Shadar Logoth.

 

there's a

 

"A man ought to be able to find a profit in something like that, having events twist themselves around him. Rand certainly had, in a way. He himself had never noticed anything twisting around him except the fall of dice."

 

-- Mat, thinking to himself in TFoH, Chapter 42 "Before the Arrow."

 

or, for that matter, this extended passage where Mat considers his luck to be "ta'veren work":

 

"Your scheme do entail a good deal of luck," Teslyn said, not for the first time. . .

 

Mandevwin's bay stampted a hoof, and he patted the animal's neck with a gauntleted hand. "You cannot deny there is battle luck, when you find a weakness in your enemy's lines that you never expected, that should not be there, when you find him arrayed to defend against attack from the north only you are coming from the south. Battle luck rides on your shoulder, my lord. I have seen it."

 

. . .

 

In truth, he was depending on luck to some extent.

 

. . . .

 

Mat drew breath. Now that had to be ta'veren work. They could hardly have been better placed if he had given the order himself.

 

So Mat's contradicting himself at different points in time. If anything, he has less information about what's going on that we do. So his suppositions can be ignored either way -- and in the absence of Mat's suppositions, there's no concrete evidence for the dagger theory, and considerable concrete evidence for the ta'veren theory.

[Alternate34]

There is a fair amount of evidence for it is just his ability theory and not a result from ta'veren.

 

(1)  Abilities that are not related to being ta'veren exist.

(2)  Both Perrin and Rand possess such abilities, proven not to be ta'veren related abilities because other non ta'veren have them.

(3)  Mat came by his ability at the same time that Perrin and Rand did.

(4)  Mat has other indicators that it isn't just ta'veren.  He has the dice in his head.  His dice luck is there all the time and positive while ta'veren chance altering can be both positive and negative.  Sometimes it goes wild, but it is always positive.  I could be wrong on this.  Give me a time after he acquires super luck that he loses at dice or mentions that his dice luck was gone.

(5)  That being said, because ta'veren do alter chance around them, the two could interact to create his super luck.  Maybe he is consistently lucky, but ta'veren chance altering makes him super lucky at times.

[dholm]

 

If Mat's luck was caused by him being ta'veren, it would in no way be true that he had the Dark One's own luck.

 

This is probably the best evidence there is for the daggger theory, but there are two flaws with it:

 

1. "The Dark One's Own Luck" is caused by the Dark One's influence on the Pattern. Ta'veren also shape the Pattern. One type of luck is the converse & parallel of the other.

2. Shadar Logoth is completely separate from the Dark One, at least as far as we've seen and been told. Luck from Shadar Logoth (if Shadar Logoth can provide "luck") would be just as "opposite" to "the Dark One's Own Luck" as luck from the Pattern would be.

 

So while it's persuasive on the surface, I don't think it really answers this question once you think about it; RJ's quote could refer to luck from the Pattern, from SL, or from the Dark One.

 

I'm not saying it could be used to prove the dagger theory -- I am just saying it can be used to disprove the ta'veren theory.

 

The Great Lord of the Dark's influence over the Pattern is about as different as it could possibly be from ta'veren -- ta'maral'ailen is a centerpoint in the web, while the Great Lord's influence is a shadow cast over it.

[Thorn]

 

The Great Lord of the Dark's influence over the Pattern is about as different as it could possibly be from ta'veren -- ta'maral'ailen is a centerpoint in the web, while the Great Lord's influence is a shadow cast over it.

 

That's a fair argument, but I think what Jordan was thinking there was that the Dark One's touch on the pattern gives rise to "luck" in the same way that the Pattern does -- they're equal and inverse, and therefore similar. You could be right, but I see it the other way.

 

This kinda gets into a discussion of how "luck" functions in the Wheel of Time cosmology. We basically know two (confirmed) sources of "luck" -- ta'veren, and the Dark One's touch on the Pattern. ta'veren are lucky because the Pattern shifts around them; the Dark One's luck also results from shifts made to the Pattern, just destructive shifts. That's sortof another problem with the Dagger theory -- there's little to no evidence that SL can impact the Pattern in the way that the Dark One or ta'veren can, and that's the source of luck in the WoT cosmology.

[Moorz]

I need to have my two cents here.....

 

Did RJ actually know himself where the luck came from?...?

 

On one hand....

3 taverin - all three have luck - not all 3 gamble or talk about it 'though. Because 2 taverin don't think about their luck all the time it doesn't mean they don't have it.

 

On the other hand....

There are three taverin, all three have special skills - luck, wolf talk, channeling/dragon reborn. The point here is that maybe luck is Mats taveriness (if that's a real word).

 

 

[OptimusPrime]

Been here before. The main thing that makes me think Mats luck came from the daggers taint is that it fits with the description of Aridhol. It came as dark as the Shadow to fight the Shadow. It got the powers it wanted, because it wanted them. Random is chaos. What better way to fight chaos, than to benefit in chaotic situations?

 

Aridhols evilness gave it the powers it wanted. Mat was infected with the daggers taint which came from the same source of evil. Maybe Mat became lucky because in EotW he is a trickster. Tricksters can be said to create random situations with the odd prank, no? Like, sending a badger onto the village green where all the girls are.

[Mr. Dragon]

Been here before. The main thing that makes me think Mats luck came from the daggers taint is that it fits with the description of Aridhol. It came as dark as the Shadow to fight the Shadow. It got the powers it wanted, because it wanted them. Random is chaos. What better way to fight chaos, than to benefit in chaotic situations?

 

Aridhols evilness gave it the powers it wanted. Mat was infected with the daggers taint which came from the same source of evil. Maybe Mat became lucky because in EotW he is a trickster. Tricksters can be said to create random situations with the odd prank, no? Like, sending a badger onto the village green where all the girls are.

 

Ofc the taint in the dagger fits with that as in Aridhol, it's the same thing. Mashadar and the taint within SG were created by humans and has little to do with the shadow, they have the same goals but are completely seperate, it attacks the shadow because it attacks everything.

[Malivis]

The ta'veren argument here is that the Pattern "needed" Mat out of Tar Valon, and so chance went absolutely wild in order to get him out of there, doing everything from twisting a zillion dice games to forcing the Amyrlin Seat to write a blanket letter of permission and give it to three Accepted so they could give it to Mat. Note that later in the books, several Aes Sedai comment on what a bad idea Elaida's plan to imprison Rand was precisely because of the horribly wild effects that would result if someone tried to imprison a ta'veren in the Tower.

It seems to me that people are overlooking this. I personally think that Mat's luck is something that the pattern "needs" and therefore we constantly see the pattern giving him abnormal luck. I may be wrong, but I believe that he only wins when he has some need for the money that he's taking in, because we don't really see Mat squandering his money on extravagant things. Instead, his money is used for much more practical things in the scheme of the pattern; paying the Band and Valan Luca being the first two things that come to mind. It just seems to me that Mat is the only character with a need for money, and a constant need for it. Therefore, the Pattern has to compensate for this and does so via giving him a constant supply of it, wherever in the world he happens to be.

[OptimusPrime]

Been here before. The main thing that makes me think Mats luck came from the daggers taint is that it fits with the description of Aridhol. It came as dark as the Shadow to fight the Shadow. It got the powers it wanted, because it wanted them. Random is chaos. What better way to fight chaos, than to benefit in chaotic situations?

 

Aridhols evilness gave it the powers it wanted. Mat was infected with the daggers taint which came from the same source of evil. Maybe Mat became lucky because in EotW he is a trickster. Tricksters can be said to create random situations with the odd prank, no? Like, sending a badger onto the village green where all the girls are.

 

Ofc the taint in the dagger fits with that as in Aridhol, it's the same thing. Mashadar and the taint within SG were created by humans and has little to do with the shadow, they have the same goals but are completely seperate, it attacks the shadow because it attacks everything.

 

I was getting at Mats luck fitting with the nature of Aridhol getting the powers it wanted.

[LNitefall]

I don't think that his luck started in TV after the healing, it started, much slower, well before that. You get a small hint of it in TGH, as Rand is looking for a place to hide and he goes into the store rooms, he comes across Mat and Perrin dicing with the servents. Mat sees Rand's fancy new clothes and says something along the lines of "Maybe I'll be me some fancy new clothes too. I have the money for it, I can't seem to touch the dice without winning lately" I'll have to look up the actual words when I get home. Evil work.

 

The bond with the Dagger was still there, as much of the taint had been cleansed off of him and he had been shielded to slow the spread returning, but the bond was still there.

 

I think we see it less early in the series because it was just starting to grow and manifest.