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

[Bob T Dwarf]

Usually having free will versus never having free will. You assume that the Pattern will not distinguish between a temporary removal of free will and never having any.

 

Maybe you're right, it could go either way, but you're claiming the author made a mistake based on your assumption of how it should be. Personally I think it's more likely that he knows what he's doing.

 

No.  I base my conclusion entirely on what Jordan wrote about balefire.

 

Australia Interview - August 1999

So that person that was hit here is burned out of the pattern back to here. What that person did between here and here was no longer done. Other people remember seeing it. They may remember the supposed effects of it but what that person did wasn't done. It didn't happen, it's not real.

[1eejit]

 

No.  I base my conclusion entirely on what Jordan wrote about balefire.

 

Australia Interview - August 1999

So that person that was hit here is burned out of the pattern back to here. What that person did between here and here was no longer done. Other people remember seeing it. They may remember the supposed effects of it but what that person did wasn't done. It didn't happen, it's not real.

You base it on your interpretation of what Jordan wrote, your interpretation the scene, and your interpretation how balefire decides which actions are done by the balefired person rather than in response to that person. All the while assuming your interpretation is more correct than someone with access to RJ's notes.

 

Person A is fighting person B. During their fight they both destroy a bunch of stuff while person A tries to kill person B and person B tries to throw person A off their trail. Person A then balefires person B, person B's actions for the last [x] minutes didn't happen, but person A's actions in response to what person B had done during their attempt to avoid being killed did.

 

The only difference between this scenario and the Semi one is that Semi was forcing the actions of Rand more directly. It was still Rand who did the deed in response to stimuli from Semi, just as person A blew things up in response to stimuli from person B.

 

As I said, maybe your interpretation is correct, but if it is then you're assuming that the published (checked) material is incorrect. You're right they're wrong, based on ambiguous information.

 

 

 

[Bob T Dwarf]

As I said, maybe your interpretation is correct, but if it is then you're assuming that the published (checked) material is incorrect. You're right they're wrong, based on ambiguous information.

 

There's nothing ambiguous about, "They may remember the supposed effects of it but what that person did wasn't done. It didn't happen, it's not real."

 

That exactly parallels what's in the BWB. "... Not only that; whatever had been done because of those vanished actions also no longer had been done."

 

If the cause vanishes, so does the effect for as far as the causal chain extends.

[fretbored]

Here's an analogy to demonstrate how I imagine balefire works:

 

1) Take a rubber band, loop it over each of your index fingers, and stretch it so that it is taut.  That is your thread in the pattern.

 

2) Have another person pull down on the middle of the rubber band so that it stretches downward to form a "V."  That is the effect of their "thread" intersecting with yours in the pattern.

 

3) Now have the other person release their hold on the rubber band to simulate their "thread" being instantly burned out of the pattern.  What happens?  The "V" snaps back to a straight line, but the end points (your fingers) don't move.

 

When a thread is burned out of the pattern by balefire, it only effects other threads where it intersected with them and only as far back as it has been burned out.  The endpoints of the other threads don't move because they have already been woven into the pattern.

 

(I hope this makes sense...)

[1eejit]

There's nothing ambiguous about, "They may remember the supposed effects of it but what that person did wasn't done. It didn't happen, it's not real."

 

That exactly parallels what's in the BWB. "... Not only that; whatever had been done because of those vanished actions also no longer had been done."

 

If the cause vanishes, so does the effect for as far as the causal chain extends.

 

The Rahvin fight.

If the entire fight was erased along with the entire causal changes how did Rand still have some wounds? Even accepting the theory that Graendal or another Forsaken interfered during the T'A'R portion of your fight by your logic it would also have been undone as Rand wouldn't have been there.

 

It's simply not the case. Rand didn't suddenly teleport elsewhere after balefiring Rahvin - memories are not the only remnant of pre-balefire events.

[Bob T Dwarf]

The Rahvin fight.

If the entire fight was erased along with the entire causal changes how did Rand still have some wounds? Even accepting the theory that Graendal or another Forsaken interfered during the T'A'R portion of your fight by your logic it would also have been undone as Rand wouldn't have been there.

 

It's simply not the case. Rand didn't suddenly teleport elsewhere after balefiring Rahvin - memories are not the only remnant of pre-balefire events.

 

Rand's fishbites remained because they occurred in T'a'R.

 

USAToday Chat - 5 January 2004

 

Laurel, Mississippi: In The Fires of Heaven, after Rand has his battle at the end, why is it that balefire works for his friends and not on his bites that have to be healed?

Robert Jordan: Because his injuries occurred in Tel'aran'rhiod. And what occurs there is different than what occurs in the waking world. Different rules apply.

[1eejit]

Alright. I'll concede that point, but the other remains. People don't teleport to different places after someone is balefired.

[Swigaro]

Alright. I'll concede that point, but the other remains. People don't teleport to different places after someone is balefired.

 

Actually, they do.  When Moghidian BF'd the ship Nyneave was on, and more speciffically, those rowing said ship, The entire ship, with Nyneave and every other surviver onboard moved about 50 feet or so back upstream.  In addition, since the oarsman hadn't been rowing for the minute or two that was BF'd out, and a hole had been blown through the hull with said BF, several minutes before, Nyneave went from comfortably sitting in her cabin, to 50 feet back upstream and under water.  People can most definitely teleport to different places after someone or something is balefired.

[1eejit]

That's a different circumstance from what I'm talking about. The balefire directly took out some rowers and the rest were on a vehicle propelled by them. That's different from people not directly effected but who's movements were changed by limited interaction the balefire-ee ending up somewhere else.

[Bob T Dwarf]

That's a different circumstance from what I'm talking about. The balefire directly took out some rowers and the rest were on a vehicle propelled by them. That's different from people not directly effected but who's movements were changed by limited interaction the balefire-ee ending up somewhere else.

 

And, it's exactly getting all these finicky details right that makes writing balefire incidents so tricky.

 

What people not directly affected by the balefiree ( Semirhage ) are you referring to?

[1eejit]

Well for example any time balefire has been used the wielder has not teleported, no matter whether they have moved in the few seconds previously.

Off the top of my head Moiraine was advancing on Bel'al, Rand was moving as the UberDarkhounds attacked and when he first used it during his Trip To Tear. After eliminating the threat backwards in time with Balefire they didn't automatically move back a few steps to where they would have been.

 

Writing them is tricky, but luckily the writer has notes to help him and an editor and assistants to keep him straight on the mechanics should he make a mistake.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Balefire, and by extension the person wielding that balefire exist outside the paradox of balefire.

 

If the wielder gets transported, he/she never gets to where the balefire was cast, so the balefire never gets cast in the first place.  That obviously cannot happen.  It's only the people, events and things that are affected as a result of the balefire that get moved around.  Or rather their threads get rewoven in accord with the altered reality created by the balefire.

 

Look at Bel'al.  Everybody except Moiraine and Bel'al are static for the time period surrounding the balefire event.  Other than erasing Bel'al, the Wheel has nothing else to do because of the short timeframe involved.

 

With the Darkhounds, all that needed to be rewoven was the size of the hole in the door, and the extent of Mat's injuries.

 

With Rahvin, things got more complicated.  Three people needed to be returned to life with the accoutrements they'd carried into that square returned to their original states.  Everything that had happened in that square from the time the skimming gateway opened until Rand loosed his balefire had to be rewoven because those three people hadn't died afterall.  They then killed Trollocs that hadn't died before.  People lived that had been supposedly killed by the now dead Trollocs. etc.

 

With the Graendal event it got more complicated still.  There were dozens if not hundreds of people in that fortress.  Many if not all of them had interactions that extended outside that fortress.  All of those interactions had to be rewoven.  That's why the ripple in reality after the balefire hit.  Try to wrap your mind around what actually ended up happening to that dead stag that the hunters hauled back shortly before the balefire hit.  Is it alive again?  No, because it was in the fortress at the time the balefire hit.  It's still dead, it just died in a different manner.

 

Balefire is nasty.  Its effect on the Wheel and the Pattern is byzantine.

[Basic]

Here's my interpretation of balefire:

 

I don't see balefire as something that rewrites the pattern totally up to that previous point in time. Its much more local in the pattern, as well as being less predictable than we think. If you imagine the pattern itself, and a thread is pulled out of it, its quite possible that the removal of that thread would change the surrounding threads greatly. Then again, i would also say that its quite possible that very little would be affected.

 

The point im making is that its not an exact science. Much like when the gateway is unravelled unsuccessfully in one of the later books (can't remember which) the effects of that cannot be predicted. It could cause a huge explosion, as it did, but then again it could cause something else completely - something very minor. If we apply this idea to balefire, the effects could vary greatly regardless of the balefire's power.

 

This is why i believe these arguements about the nature of balefire exist: because its effects are interpretted as predictable when it may be that they are not. Indeed, events may be rewritten in slightly unexpected ways: Min's bruises remaining for example, but maybe it would have been possible for the bruises to have disappeared completely if the threads in the pattern had happened to re-align in a different way.

 

Main point: we know very little about Balefire and its quite possible that we shouldn't be able to predict its effects. Regardless of how much we pour over the books.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I think where people may be running into trouble here is in equating The Age Lace and the Pattern.  They are two different things.

 

The Pattern was laid down by the Creator when he created everything.  It is exactly what its name implies, a master pattern. 

 

The Age Lace is what the Wheel weaves as it spins out current existence.  The Wheel tries to follow the Pattern as closely as possible, but because people have free will, some will always go off on unplanned tangents. and The Age Lace never exactly matches the Pattern.  That's true for all Ages, not just this one.

 

Balefire burns a hole in both The Age Lace and the Pattern.  The Wheel can patch-up The Age Lace, but it can't effect the Pattern.  The hole in the Pattern never gets fixed.  Over time, given enough balefire incidents, compounded over successive Turnings of the Wheel, the Pattern will unravel due to all of the holes balefire has burned through it.

 

Thus endeth the factual part of this post.

 

I believe that The Creator was wise enough to include a way for people to repair the Pattern.  The Song.  I think The Song will prove to be the only way to seal up the DO, and mend the Pattern so that the Wheel can continue to turn and Ages can continue to come and pass as they always have done.

 

I also think that there is a way for Rand to create a far different future that allows mankind to successfully get off the hamster wheel.  He shall hold a blade of light in his hands, and the three shall be one.  Which "three" is one of the things we ( and Rand ) need to figure out.

 

Whether we'll see one solution or the other or some combination of the two will be fun to find out.

[1eejit]

Balefire, and by extension the person wielding that balefire exist outside the paradox of balefire.

 

If the wielder gets transported, he/she never gets to where the balefire was cast, so the balefire never gets cast in the first place.  That obviously cannot happen.  It's only the people, events and things that are affected as a result of the balefire that get moved around.  Or rather their threads get rewoven in accord with the altered reality created by the balefire.

 

 

Balefire is nasty.  Its effect on the Wheel and the Pattern is byzantine.

So you say the person wielding the balefire is effected differently from others when the Pattern tries to fix up the events that happened? Such as Rand, the person who choked Min?

Yeah...

I think where people may be running into trouble here is in equating The Age Lace and the Pattern.  They are two different things.

 

The Pattern was laid down by the Creator when he created everything.  It is exactly what its name implies, a master pattern. 

 

The Age Lace is what the Wheel weaves as it spins out current existence.  The Wheel tries to follow the Pattern as closely as possible, but because people have free will, some will always go off on unplanned tangents. and The Age Lace never exactly matches the Pattern.  That's true for all Ages, not just this one.

 

Balefire burns a hole in both The Age Lace and the Pattern.  The Wheel can patch-up The Age Lace, but it can't effect the Pattern.  The hole in the Pattern never gets fixed.  Over time, given enough balefire incidents, compounded over successive Turnings of the Wheel, the Pattern will unravel due to all of the holes balefire has burned through it.

 

Thus endeth the factual part of this post.

Factual? Citation needed.

 

 

[zxg15]

I was always under the impression that the pattern and the age lace were the same thing.

[1eejit]

Yes, I believe the Age Lace is simply a sub-section of the Pattern rather than being a seperate entity. The Wheel weaves the Pattern.

 

Unless Bob has some awesome and unambiguous RJ quote to back him up of course...

[elmis]

Well for example any time balefire has been used the wielder has not teleported, no matter whether they have moved in the few seconds previously.

Off the top of my head Moiraine was advancing on Bel'al, Rand was moving as the UberDarkhounds attacked and when he first used it during his Trip To Tear. After eliminating the threat backwards in time with Balefire they didn't automatically move back a few steps to where they would have been.

 

Writing them is tricky, but luckily the writer has notes to help him and an editor and assistants to keep him straight on the mechanics should he make a mistake.

 

That's because they remember how Be'lal / the Darkhounds were moving at the time. There is a huge difference between that and for instance a Darkhound slamming into Rand, making him skid across the floor, and Rand then balefiring it seconds afterwards.

 

In the latter even he would not be skidding across the floor, he would be standing still, or perhaps bracing for the impact as he remembers seeing the Darkhound jumping at him.

 

We all should note that an event like this has not happened, thus far in the books, which leaves this topic open for speculation, but from what we know about balefire, I at least find it plausible that it works like this.

 

Balefire, and by extension the person wielding that balefire exist outside the paradox of balefire.

 

If the wielder gets transported, he/she never gets to where the balefire was cast, so the balefire never gets cast in the first place.  That obviously cannot happen.

 

It's actually easier than that.

 

The person balefired is dead before he gets hit with the balefire so in essence he is never actually hit with the balefire. Re: Rahvin. He wasn't anyplace close to T'A'R when he cast those lightnings, yet those never happened, because he died before casting them, thus he couldn't have been in T'A'R to be hit with balefire, yet he was. This is because at the time of the balefire impact, everything is as it is supposed to be in the original timeline. After the balefire hits the person, the timeline is changed to fit with the person being dead before his last actions.

 

It would be natural if the same applied for "caster teleportation" post balefiring, as I tried to explain in my example above.

 

Bob: I did not know about inanimate having threads. Since that is the case, the conclusion has to be that BS messed up the scene.

 

Note: Regards to the Rahvin (Rands cuts) incident: I've always thought that RJ wrote the paragraph as is, then when confronted about it made up the different T'A'R rules. I believe he initially messed up on that part, and changed it up so it would fit. Just a gut feeling.

[1eejit]

I just thought I'd quote the post which actually describes the effects of balefire correctly, from page 1.

Well I'm sure people are getting tired of my posts on the matter so I'll just post it in here and others can argue against it all they want.

 

I think Balefire is misunderstood by many, including myself up until recently.

 

 

Balefire doesn't cause time to go backwards and events to replay with that missing thread. This isn't like Back to the Future.

 

Rather, the thread is burned backwards and, in an instant, the pattern is forced to reconcile contradictions that exist as a result.

 

 

This is really important because it explains many things within the books. For example:

 

When Rhavin dies by balefire some things are undone but some are not. The things caused by his use of lightning (Mat, Asmo, and others dead) must be undone. The pattern cannot leave those people inexplicably dead. So it returned them to life. The damage done to the palace during the fight was not undone. Rand caused that damage. It is not paradoxical without Rhavin present.

 

Moghedian balefires Nynaeve's boat. You can read the passage for yourself and see that 1 instant she's sitting there, suddenly feels a massive amount of Saidar, doesn't even have time to react, and then suddenly, minutes have elapsed differently but HER reactions have not shifted. She's suddenly underwater. The passage even says that it took minutes out of the pattern for the rowers and the hull of the boat. One does not sit idly in a sinking ship for a few minutes. They run to deck and leap out. She had no reaction time because time did not go backward and restart. The pattern simply adjusted what it could: the position of the boat (due to rowers dying) and the position of the water(due to it now being cut in half and filling with water).

 

 

The misconception people are having is that they feel if there is a cause -> effect sequence in a situation and balefire removes the cause, then the effect should be removed anyway. This is very plainly false. Otherwise both the scene with Semmirhage and the scene with Graendal are completely 100% flawed.

 

In Semmirhage's case, she died from balefire and so did Elza. If there is simply a cause -> effect relationship and time should have transpired differently then we should have seen both Rand and Min shift from standing where they were, to sitting back on the bed where they were to begin with. The collar should have been replaced in the box. Min's bruises should have faded away. With a cause -> effect or "time rewind" interpretation of balefire those 3 things should not be how they are written and BS made huge errors. But they are. They make perfect sense if the pattern only seeks to resolve paradox and doesn't simply rewrite history though.

 

At Graendal's Palace the only thing that is undone is the compulsion weave is removed. The pattern had to remove it because it cannot inexplicably exist now. Graendal wasn't alive to put it there. If time rewound, then Rand would have showed up at the palace, it would have been empty, and they would have left after Ramashalan came back with nothing to report. No balefire would have even occurred at all. People will argue that "balefire exists outside of its own paradox" and indeed it does, precisely because of the mechanic I am describing. If time were rewritten, a paradox would form. Time isn't rewritten though. The balefire did occur, will always have occured, and the pattern would not undo it. Removing the balefire would remove Graendals death. You'd have a loop of paradox. The pattern seeks to remove paradox, not create it, therefor the balefire is never undone and hence, is always outside and unaffected by any paradoxes it creates. The pattern seeks to resolve all others created by it rather than touching it.. because that just creates a cause/effect loop/mess.

 

 

Clearly this is the great danger with Balefire. We saw at Graendal's palace the pattern groan as it reconciled the damage to reality from that paradox. Indeed, this is why removing entire cities threatened the entire world and why the tapestry analogy is perfect. Removing a thread or even a few threads from a tapestry may damage it, but hold a lighter to it's center and you'll have a hole that can never be mended. The pattern does not rewind and replay. It simply continues with the hole burned in it patched as best it can with what it has to work with. You burn a big enough hole and the hole cannot reconcile. The lose ends fray away. The pattern disintegrates. If the pattern simply rewove, then it would never be destroyed. You could burn the entire thing back 20 years and we may have a different pattern but a pattern would still exist. Because it doesn't rewind, it cannot reweave. It can only mend damage. It's ability to do that is fairly limited. And that is precisely why it is such a ridiculously powerful weapon yet completely unpredictable weapon.

 

 

[clu7ch]

Balefire is relatively direct and straight forward, unless you want it to be complicated, because you think you were personally cheated in the book.

 

It burns the pattern back, removing that thread's direct implications, IE lightning bolt. Balefire isn't omnipotent, and therefor can't tell if the person it just killed was using a ter'angreal to manipulate someone to hurt someone else. The one person, one thread was removed, not the threads effected by the thread in question

[Bob T Dwarf]

Note: Regards to the Rahvin (Rands cuts) incident: I've always thought that RJ wrote the paragraph as is, then when confronted about it made up the different T'A'R rules. I believe he initially messed up on that part, and changed it up so it would fit. Just a gut feeling.

 

To be perfectly honest, I agree with you.  Although, I believe the idea that what happens to somebody in T'a'R carries over into the waking world had already been introduced which is what gave Jordan the wiggle room to explain things the way he did.

 

Balefire is such a tricky thing to write that I doubt anybody, even Jordan who invented it, could cross all the t's and dot all the i's, and get it totally right all of the time.

 

I was always under the impression that the pattern and the age lace were the same thing.

 

The best source I've found for what is what with regard to the Wheel is the BWB.

 

For each Age there is a separate and unique pattern; the Pattern of the Age, which forms the substance of reality for that age.

 

The Great Pattern is what the Creator intends to have happen, the Age Lace is what actually happens.

 

[1eejit]

Note: Regards to the Rahvin (Rands cuts) incident: I've always thought that RJ wrote the paragraph as is, then when confronted about it made up the different T'A'R rules. I believe he initially messed up on that part, and changed it up so it would fit. Just a gut feeling.

 

To be perfectly honest, I agree with you.  Although, I believe the idea that what happens to somebody in T'a'R carries over into the waking world had already been introduced which is what gave Jordan the wiggle room to explain things the way he did.

 

Balefire is such a tricky thing to write that I doubt anybody, even Jordan who invented it, could cross all the t's and dot all the i's, and get it totally right all of the time.

 

Well you complicate it unnecessarily in your head. It's really not that difficult, there is no 'new timeline' as you seem to thing, otherwise paradoxes would form and people's memories would change.

 

I was always under the impression that the pattern and the age lace were the same thing.

 

The best source I've found for what is what with regard to the Wheel is the BWB.

 

For each Age there is a separate and unique pattern; the Pattern of the Age, which forms the substance of reality for that age.

 

The Great Pattern is what the Creator intends to have happen, the Age Lace is what actually happens.

 

You're saying something which is really rather different from what appears in the BWB though. Just because you have chosen to believe in a very shaky extrapolation does not make it true.

[richnewton82]

.

[Bob T Dwarf]

You're saying something which is really rather different from what appears in the BWB though. Just because you have chosen to believe in a very shaky extrapolation does not make it true.

 

No, I'm not.  What the BWB, Moiraine, and Jordan's quote which I also posted all say is:

The searing energy of balefire did more than kill or destroy - it actually burned threads from the Pattern.  Anything destroyed this way actually ceased to exist before the moment of destruction, leaving only a memory of deeds no longer done and souls forever erased from the Pattern.  Not only that; whatever had been done because of those vanished actions also no longer had been done.

 

Let's trace through the following scenario and see what has to happen in order for events to follow the rules Jordan laid down:

 

A meets with his investment broker B.  They go over his investments and decide that he should sell his holdings in Company X and buy stock in Company Y.  They shake hands, A leaves, and B writes out an order to Sell X and buy Y.  He passes that along to his assistant C who executes those orders.  D is the seller of the stock A just bought in Y.  He takes the proceeds of that sale and closes on a house he's wanted being sold by E.  E takes the proceeds from the sale of his house and buys a condo on Maui from the estate of F.  This allows F's estate to close probate.

 

Now, four days after A met with B, after all transactions have settled and all money has been transferred, M walks into B's office.  He's also a client.  He's made some bad investment decisions and lost lots of money.  He blames B for this.  He balefires B back five days.

 

How does reality need to get rewoven?

 

B actually died before he met with A.  So, the meeting never happened even though A clearly remembers that it did.  Because the meeting never happened, no transaction order was ever filled out.  Because there was no transaction order, A never sold X nor bought Y.  Because A never bought the stock in Y, D doesn't have the money to buy the house.  Because E didn't sell the house, he can't buy the condo.  Because he can't buy the condo, F's estate can't close probate yet.

 

A, C, D, E, and F's attorney all clearly remember their parts in this chain of events, but none of it really happened because, "whatever had been done because of those vanished actions also no longer had been done."

 

A similar chain of events needs to be rewoven for each of B's clients for whom he transacted any business for the five days covered by the balefire interval.

 

The Pattern now has a large hole in it.  The Age Lace does not.

[1eejit]

You're saying something which is really rather different from what appears in the BWB though. Just because you have chosen to believe in a very shaky extrapolation does not make it true.

 

No, I'm not.  What the BWB, Moiraine, and Jordan's quote which I also posted all say is:

The searing energy of balefire did more than kill or destroy - it actually burned threads from the Pattern.  Anything destroyed this way actually ceased to exist before the moment of destruction, leaving only a memory of deeds no longer done and souls forever erased from the Pattern.  Not only that; whatever had been done because of those vanished actions also no longer had been done.

Erm, what I said about your extrapolation was the stuff you came out with about the Age Lace and Pattern being two seperate things, balefire damaging both, and only the Lace healing. You based that on... cloud fairies?

 

And yes, the actions had no longer happened, but that doesn't mean that everything only somewhat related to what had happened change. Only those which would cause a paradox. If your understanding of balefire was correct (i.e. "Back To The Future method) it would constantly cause paradoxical time loops, and people's memories would change.