No, Balefire Does Not Work Like that. (-- 2009 Empy Award Winner!)

[Bob T Dwarf]

Back to the mechanisms of balefire.  For some of that explanation we have to go all the way back to The Great Hunt.

 

After Rand, Hurin and Loial awake having been transported by a Portal Stone, they start trying to figure out what's going on.  Loial has only a partial and fragmentary answer:

"I said I think I know, Rand.  There was a piece of and old book, just a few pages, but one of them had a drawing of this stone, this Stone" - there was a distinct difference in the way he said it that marked importance - "or one very like it.  And underneath it said, 'From Stone to Stone run the lines of "if," between the worlds that might be.' "

...

"Most of it sounded like this. 'If a woman go left or right, does Time's flow divide?  Does the Wheel then weave two Patterns?  A thousand, for each of her turnings?  As many as the stars?  Is one real, the others merely shadows and reflections?' ... "

 

"Not here," Loial said slowly.  "Obviously not here.  'From Stone to Stone run the lines of if, between the worlds that might be.'  I've been thinking on it, and I believe I know what 'the worlds that might be' are.  Maybe I do.  Worlds our world might have been if things had happened differently.  Maybe that's why it is all so ... washed-out looking.  Because it's an 'if' a 'maybe.'  Just a shadow of the real world.  In this world, I think the Trollocs won.  Maybe that's why we have not seen any villages or people."

 

"She is a fascinating woman, isn't she?  Some of the Elders don't know as much as she does about history - especially the Age of Legends - and about - oh yes.  She says you were right about the Ways, Rand.  The Aes Sdai, some of them studied worlds like this, and that study was the basis of how they grew the Ways.  She says there are worlds where it is Time rather than distance that changes.  Spend a day in one of those and you might come back to find a year has passed in the real world, or twenty.  Or it could be the other way round.  These worlds - this one, all the others - are reflections of the real world she says.  This one seems pale to us because it is a weak reflection, a world that had little chance of ever being.  Others are almost as likely as ours.  These are as solid as our world and have people.  The same people, she says, Rand.  Imagine it!  You could go to one of them and meet yourself.  The Pattern has infinite variation, she says, and every variation that can be, will be."

 

So, The Wheel weaves out all possibilities, and then flows the Age Lace through whichever of those possibilities really happen.

 

In the case of Rand balefiring Semirhage, there would be a possibility where he doesn't do it at all.  Another where he doesn't do it until after Min is dead.  One where he balefires her before he ever started choking MIn.  etc.

 

And apparently, from the story we are given, one where he doesn't balefire her back to before she made Rand start choking Min.  One where he balefires her back only some number of seconds.  That's the only way what Sanderson wrote can remain consistent with the rules Jordan laid down for balefire.

[coteaz]

Its quite simple really, rand balefire semi and not himself, his actions still exist, despite semi being the one that actually caused them, he was still the one to do it. And im pretty sure Brandon has actually said that rand was the one that did the choking therefore balefiring semi wont erase it.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yet one more time.  The rules Jordan gave us state: Not only are the vanished actions undone, but also what was done in response to those vanished action is undone.

 

It doesn't matter that Rand's hand was on her throat, Semi caused it.  The only way Min can still have bruises is if Rand did not balefire Semi back to before she made him start choking Min.

[coteaz]

Balefire erases DIRECT actions, not INDIRECT, at least thats how i have interpreted it, and it has worked so far. But perhaps im wrong.

[Nightstrike]

Yet one more time.  The rules Jordan gave us state: Not only are the vanished actions undone, but also what was done in response to those vanished action is undone.

Yet one more time. Jordan didn't give us those rules. He gave us other rules.

 

It doesn't matter that Rand's hand was on her throat, Semi caused it.  The only way Min can still have bruises is if Rand did not balefire Semi back to before she made him start choking Min.

Rand's hand didn't change. Just as Nynaeve's ass didn't leave the boat that sank for minutes.

 

 

 

[Nightstrike]

So, anoyne ever wondered if Rand could balefire the DO with the TP?

Of course, this is assuming we'll ever see him in a form other than an avatar.

Using TP near the Bore would fry you instantly. RJ said so.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yet one more time.  The rules Jordan gave us state: Not only are the vanished actions undone, but also what was done in response to those vanished action is undone.

Yet one more time. Jordan didn't give us those rules. He gave us other rules.

 

 

Supply a quote, either from the books or from a signing or interview that substantiates these supposed "other rules." 

[Nightstrike]

Supply a quote, either from the books or from a signing or interview that substantiates these supposed "other rules." 

First of all, you haven't supplied anything said by Jordan.

 

Read the scenes that involves Balefire in the rest of the series. Nynaeve's boat that sank for minutes is a good place to start.

 

Also, try reading the BS Q&A.

[Nightstrike]

Not only are the vanished actions undone, but also what was done in response to those vanished action is undone.

Every other scene with Balefire completely disproves that.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Not only are the vanished actions undone, but also what was done in response to those vanished action is undone.

Every other scene with Balefire completely disproves that.

 

No, it doesn't.  It just proves that you misunderstand every scene involving balefire.

 

Take the Darkhounds incident.  Rand balefires the hound, causing its direct act ( tearing a large hole in the door ) to be reduced to a small hole in the door.  It also reduced that Darkhound's indirect act ( slobbering on Mat causing extensive burns, caused by Mat placing his own hands and arms in a position to be slobbered upon ) to be reduced, as well.

 

The balefire caused both the vanished direct acts  and the indirect results of those direct acts to be undone.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Supply a quote, either from the books or from a signing or interview that substantiates these supposed "other rules." 

First of all, you haven't supplied anything said by Jordan.

 

Yes I have.  His name is on all of the books.  Your choosing to not believe he is responsible for what's in them is your issue.

Read the scenes that involves Balefire in the rest of the series. Nynaeve's boat that sank for minutes is a good place to start.

 

Also, try reading the BS Q&A.

 

What part of threads burning backward in time is hard for you to grasp?  The boat starts filling with water the instant it is struck, and continues to fill with water the whole time that the boat's thread is burning backward in time.  It takes the same amount of time for a thread to burn as it did to weave it in the first place.  If balefire worked the way you think it does, Nynaeve wouldn't suddenly find herself up to her neck in water.

[coteaz]

Not only are the vanished actions undone, but also what was done in response to those vanished action is undone.

Every other scene with Balefire completely disproves that.

 

No, it doesn't.  It just proves that you misunderstand every scene involving balefire.

 

Take the Darkhounds incident.  Rand balefires the hound, causing its direct act ( tearing a large hole in the door ) to be reduced to a small hole in the door.  It also reduced that Darkhound's indirect act ( slobbering on Mat causing extensive burns, caused by Mat placing his own hands and arms in a position to be slobbered upon ) to be reduced, as well.

 

The balefire caused both the vanished direct acts  and the indirect results of those direct acts to be undone.

 

The slobbering of the darkhounds would be a direct act, since it is them doing it.

[Rocky_Outcrop]

Back to the mechanisms of balefire.  For some of that explanation we have to go all the way back to The Great Hunt.

 

After Rand, Hurin and Loial awake having been transported by a Portal Stone, they start trying to figure out what's going on.  Loial has only a partial and fragmentary answer:

"I said I think I know, Rand.  There was a piece of and old book, just a few pages, but one of them had a drawing of this stone, this Stone" - there was a distinct difference in the way he said it that marked importance - "or one very like it.  And underneath it said, 'From Stone to Stone run the lines of "if," between the worlds that might be.' "

...

"Most of it sounded like this. 'If a woman go left or right, does Time's flow divide?  Does the Wheel then weave two Patterns?  A thousand, for each of her turnings?  As many as the stars?  Is one real, the others merely shadows and reflections?' ... "

 

"Not here," Loial said slowly.  "Obviously not here.  'From Stone to Stone run the lines of if, between the worlds that might be.'  I've been thinking on it, and I believe I know what 'the worlds that might be' are.  Maybe I do.  Worlds our world might have been if things had happened differently.  Maybe that's why it is all so ... washed-out looking.  Because it's an 'if' a 'maybe.'  Just a shadow of the real world.  In this world, I think the Trollocs won.  Maybe that's why we have not seen any villages or people."

 

"She is a fascinating woman, isn't she?  Some of the Elders don't know as much as she does about history - especially the Age of Legends - and about - oh yes.  She says you were right about the Ways, Rand.  The Aes Sdai, some of them studied worlds like this, and that study was the basis of how they grew the Ways.  She says there are worlds where it is Time rather than distance that changes.  Spend a day in one of those and you might come back to find a year has passed in the real world, or twenty.  Or it could be the other way round.  These worlds - this one, all the others - are reflections of the real world she says.  This one seems pale to us because it is a weak reflection, a world that had little chance of ever being.  Others are almost as likely as ours.  These are as solid as our world and have people.  The same people, she says, Rand.  Imagine it!  You could go to one of them and meet yourself.  The Pattern has infinite variation, she says, and every variation that can be, will be."

 

So, The Wheel weaves out all possibilities, and then flows the Age Lace through whichever of those possibilities really happen.

 

In the case of Rand balefiring Semirhage, there would be a possibility where he doesn't do it at all.  Another where he doesn't do it until after Min is dead.  One where he balefires her before he ever started choking MIn.  etc.

 

And apparently, from the story we are given, one where he doesn't balefire her back to before she made Rand start choking Min.  One where he balefires her back only some number of seconds.  That's the only way what Sanderson wrote can remain consistent with the rules Jordan laid down for balefire.

 

Thanks for this post - it has reminded me of a part of the book which I had not thought about in so long. I know people mention the Ogiers on occasion but actually reading bits again brought it back*.

 

 

And the opportunities that the parts of the book you mentioned open up are incredible.

 

Imagine this scenario - this takes would require some knowledge of the world you were entering such as the one which Loial would call a very clear reflection - Rand wants a new CK - he goes to parallel world where say he knows it still exists, then for argument's sake, buys the CK from himself.

 

Or scrap that, imagine this one - he goes to a world where he finds himself (Rand2) and convinces Rand2 that his world is not as good as R1 for whatever reason so they decide to team up and destroy the DO in Rand1's world. Rand2, again for argument's sake, could be one that has been beaten somehow by LTT and Rand1 could maybe convince Rand2/LTT that it was all a jolly good idea.

 

Those two scenarios are just basic ones, how about this idea - The DO sends Moridin to a world, having got DO omniscience he knows where to send Moridin - to a world where the Chosen who have been hit with BF are still living - what sort of crazy paradox would that cause then!?

 

 

 

 

--------------------

 

*Just skip this part if you can't be bothered reading someone rambling on about how they love the books etc..

 

 

It was so good how Loial would take forever to come up with one little bit of info, but that info would be so significant. The chat he and Rand would have, the whole idea of the book recording Rand's actions (if I am remembering that right... that will need some serious updating by Loial before the final days) and the friendly nature of it all was from a time when The White Tower seemed impressive, now Rand could just chew it all up if he wanted. Back when the Chosen were scary, now they are just an annoyance unless they sneak up on Rand. The time when getting a few quid (I'm from scotland) together for a night at an inn was a chore and a bed was a luxury. What happened to sleeping on Pallets? It was only a few books in that Rand was getting brand new massive feather mattresses..

 

The thing I like about Sanderson** is that he writes from a fan's perspective, or at least I think so. The way he, at times, quite quickly and neatly reintroduced parts of the book to me - similarly to your post about the Stones - is really refreshing. Reading the part, for instance, when Rand and Moridin have their fireside chat reminded me of when I first read the part with Rand running up the steps on his first trip up to that strange place. I read that about a decade ago. Sometimes when I read a passage I have only read once but not read for a long time I get a similar experience to when I smell something I have not smelled in a long time. This happens frequently and I enjoy the experience so much. Stepping off the plane, having just touched down in Malaga airport, I can smell the Spanish air - in that first moment all my happy memories of previous holidays come back. Just like that, reading the parts from the early book, I remembered an exact moment from a long time ago - and without smells, snippets of music, sections of stories I would struggle to get that amazing kick. I think I enjoy it so much as I have the dual effect of enjoying something in the present whilst concurrently remembering enjoying it at before - doubling up the enjoyment.

 

Regarding my scenarios above - sometimes I think that RJ and all the other fantasy writers have such large imaginations working away at vast possibilities of story lines which they have to choose from resulting in an evolutionary effect as the writing process takes place. The implication of this is that in one imagined story line in RJ's head 15 years ago there are multiple worlds the characters jump between. Upon further examination this is then chopped down from multiple worlds to really just the one which has a secondary dream world attached to it. In some ways then, given that I see Sanderson as writing from a fan's perspective, there must be so many dilemmas for him. Does he ignore the early stages and unevolved ideas such as The Ways, those Stones, The Green Man, That other race people never talk about and so on and so on - or does he select the ones that he likes and gives life to them again. As a fan of the series will he focus on things that he wanted to see happen which RJ had decided were dead end story lines? I wonder

 

 

**I can't read BS without thinking Bullsh.. so I say Sanderson when I am in the mood to type more than two letters)

[Rocky_Outcrop]

In my last post I did not mention the thing I came here to suggest - like going into a supermarket I forgot the milk but did manage to ramble on for ages about nothing at all!

 

What I had thought was that those of you who are discussing the Direct/Indirect argument are not considering the fact that Rand used the BF and it is his actions that are to be undone - is this not worth thinking about - if someone else had BF'd Semi then maybe he might have moved back as you could somehow adjust his consciousness to allow for that - however - since he is the one committing the BF he is in essence putting himself directly in the eye of the hurricane.

 

My personal interpretation of him getting access to TP is through his bond with Moridin. I view this as being an unanticipated side effect of his interactions with Moridin - unanticipated by the DO and by Moridin who has a very close relationship with the TP. I said before that it was a result of Rand's actions as I discount the theory that the DO wants Rand to have access to the TP as only a supporting theory which allows the whole scenario to occur and nothing more. Ie. I view the DO's opinion on whether or not Rand gets access to the TP as inconsequential, and in short I don't think that the DO considered the possibility that Rand could access the TP before the Semi incident with an eye on making it happen. That would be the sort of thing the DO would do, I expect, but I think that it asks too much of the reader to believe when compared to my view on Rand as Ta'veren (sp) etc and the fact that the DO is not infallible, which he obviously is not otherwise he'd have won already.

 

 

Therefore, and I apologise for being so long-winded and sounding far too much like a fantasy writer in that I have lost all ability to just get to the point, I think that Rand - as he was under such extreme pressure as a result of strangling a person he loves - essentially broke through his bond with Moridin in an "only Rand could do it" moment to try to avoid killing Min. In essence it was only as a direct result of him almost killing Min that he was able to get access to the TP and kill Semi with BF. This creates a whole new layer to the discussion - which I'm sorry if I have missed but I have not seen it mentioned. If Rand had not been strangling Min he would not have got BF therefore if he BF'd Semi and she did not make him strangle Min then he did not BF Semi and then still strangled Min. It is an unavoidable problem for the Pattern to overcome. Min had to be strangled otherwise she would have been strangled and killed. The bruises must stay.

 

There is one keystone in my argument - being the one who uses the BF puts you at the eye of the storm. If you only used the BF as a result of the actions someone else made you do through whatever unnatural means then you would not be able to undo those actions which created the circumstances that the Pattern demands exist in order for the BF event to have occurred.

 

Having said all of this there is probably a long standing theory on all of this as proposed by H.G Wells.

 

[WWWwombat]

I started out believing that the bruises remained merely because Rand hadn't burned far enough back with his balefire.  Now I'm just confused.  There is no conclusive evidence either way.  All the balefire scenes are ambiguous, that is they can be explained either way, and we have no direct quotes from RJ or BS.  We have Moiraine and Rand talking about balefire and we have someone with vague hearsay evidence allegedly from BS at a signing.

[Bob T Dwarf]

The slobbering of the darkhounds would be a direct act, since it is them doing it.

 

Nope.  They just slobber.  It's part of what they are.  Mat's hands and arms getting in the way of that slobber is all on him.  He had a choice about what he did.  The burns he received are an entirely accidental side effect of the Darkhound trying to get through that door and kill him.

[richnewton82]

.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Rocky Outcrop -

 

A logical theory that has one big failing.  Balefire exists outside of time and thus outside its own paradox.  Once balefire has been loosed nothing can call it back.  Nothing can undo its having been loosed.  Not even the effects of it having been loosed.

 

That's a big part of why it is so dangerous.  In the Rand/Semi case, if he had blasted her back to before she put the Domination Band on his neck, logically nothing that followed could occur.  Rand and Min would both remember everything that had happened but none of what they remembered would be "real."  But, it was loosed, and so, it had its effect.  If its effect had reached far enough back in time that she never put the Band on his neck, that would create an non-resolvable paradox for the Wheel, creating a hole in the Pattern, and weakening reality.

[Nightstrike]

Conclusive evidence: Nynaeve in the boat.

 

Case closed.

[Bob T Dwarf]

What part of the boat starts filling with water the instant it is hit and is still filling with water when the thread finally finishes burning don't you get?  Water doesn't care which way time is flowing.  It flows into whatever low area it can find whether time is going forward or whether it's being burned backward.

 

What we see from Nynaeve's POV and what balefire actually does are two different things.  Her memory and perception is false because it involves events that didn't really happen.  She thinks she was high and dry when she was really sinking fast.  Essentially, she has a hallucination of being rowed further upstream than she really was.  Being safe when she was really sinking.

 

Once the balefire burn-back interval has passed, she and we as the passengers in her mind come back to reality and she "suddenly" finds herself neck deep and sinking fast.

[richnewton82]

Let me guess... you're a physicist too?

[WWWwombat]

Conclusive evidence: Nynaeve in the boat.

 

Case closed.

 

You might want to explain your reasoning if you want to convince anyone.  I understand if you are too afraid of being refuted.

[richnewton82]

.

[WWWwombat]

In that case it shouldn't be hard for you to quote or refer me to your relevant posts.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Forget about physics, physics has nothing to do with it.  This is fantasy.  How things work in WoT is whatever Jordan says it is.

 

Jordan says there's this thing called balefire that burns stuff backwards in time and negates actions and the results of those actions, so that's how things work.  No math or esoteric real-world study required.  Just the ability to follow a logic chain.

 

And, no rich, you have explained nothing except your ignorance about how balefire works, and your unwillingness to accept the authors explanation.

 

We've got a choice between what Jordan wrote and what you mistakenly think.  I go with the author.  I'm silly that way.