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

[coteaz]

Just a thought that I hope isn't a rehash of other posts...

 

In the War of Power the forces of Dark and Light agreed to stop using Balefire. IF the Dark One's ultimate aim, as Moridin seems to suggest, is to break the pattern in some way, shouldn't he be Balefire's number one fan and tell his team to go crazy with it?

 

Would you unleash the balefire in my service?

 

Im thinking that he wants to escape first and then destroy the pattern, but if he was still partially sealed (im not sure how he wasn't out 100% after the bore was drilled) then he probably would be destroyed along with the pattern.

[hearmonicaroar]

Hello everyone, I'm Monica. I've been lurking on this board for a while. So...hi!

 

I'm re-reading the Gathering Storm (so good!) and I just came across something that I had to talk about with others reading the book.

 

Did anyone notice that after Rand balefired Semirhage with the "true power" the bruises on Mins neck didn't fade? (or I guess, rather, that they probably just shouldn't have formed) I don't think the TP effects the pattern in the same way the OP does. I wonder if that'll keep Semirhage and Elza burned out of the pattern the same way that balefire from Saidar would? Especially since Lews Therin alludes that Semirhage and Elza aren't dead: "Better to have killed again than to do this..." (pg 355) RIGHT after Rand assumes he's balefired them out of existence.

 

 

Also, he wasn't aware of the DO's force until he rid himself of ALL emotion. I think that's the price of using the DP...and there's definitely some foreshadowing there for the next books.

 

Sorry if I already missed this discussion elsewhere.

 

I just thought of something else too... when Moridin used the TP for balefire while helping out Rand in Shadar Logoth, Moridins bar of balefire was purple, as opposed to Rands Saidin being white. So why is the TP balefire Rand used in TGS described as "pure white light" (pg 355)?

I'm starting to think that using the Dark Ones power is going to send Semirhage and Elza back to the DO, since they died by the dark ones own power. Regardless of if it's balefire. Because it seemed like in Eye of the World the source pool was referred to as something of the "creators" source, and everyone balefired with saidin or saidar is assumed to be truely out of the pattern.

 

Also, while I'm thinking of theories here...a few chapters before this one the prophecy that Rand would have to die to live was brought up again... and I remember farther in this book it being mentioned that Rand wasn't going to be able to fight this battle in the way he thought he was going to...and THEN the Snakes and Foxes came was brought back up, mentioning how in order to beat the game you had to break the rules...I'm wondering if Rand is going to have to die to fight the Dark One (his blood on dragonmount), and use the True Source to defeat him...and perhaps somehow he'll be brought back into the pattern to live? This book has me so damn excited! Sorry to have gotten off topic.

 

PS - I have to modify that last paragraph a little bit. What I meant to say was that I though Rand would have to battle the DO in a different world than the one Rand lives in, and would have to die in order to do that.

[richnewton82]

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[BrainFireBob]

And we're talking about the limitations of effecting causality caused by an energy beam that vaporizes mass, so it's rather relevant.

No, not at all.  ;)

 

From Theoryland:

I asked, in essence, are One Power and True Power balefire the same.

 

He answered that the True Power is another source of power, that Aes Sedai were researching another source, like a different form of battery, to power their weaves and that in for balefire, what it does is essentially the same between both power sources, but that it has different affects on the individual using the power source (this appeared to be a reference to what True Power does to its user).

 

 

 

 

 

I'm thinking, based on your remark, that you didn't even follow what I posted. That post was part of a discussion about the nature of causality and matter, in response to and correcting a post made by someone else.

[BrainFireBob]

Not true. Review your quantum. At the speed of light, all times are effectively simultaneous. Further, outside the light cones, you can make effects proceed their causes- how you'd get there is another matter.

 

so you've read stephen hawking? No sorry but that's science fiction or even science fantasy. time travel will never occur. Heck, even forward time travel is just an illusion. You are simply warping the perception of time. You cannot truly move forward in time at all you just change the way you perceive time itself.

 

either way its completely unrelated. balefire doesn't cause time to replay. period.

 

No, bucko, I *am* a physicist.

[BrainFireBob]

What?

 

He thinks physics proves time travel possible. He needs to do more research on the matter because time travel is impossible and will remain impossible. Somewhat unrelated to this thread though.

 

I realize I'm multi-posting, but the website does not work correctly on my computer.

 

richnewton, you are flatly wrong. Even approximating, wrong.

[Nightstrike]

I'm thinking, based on your remark, that you didn't even follow what I posted. That post was part of a discussion about the nature of causality and matter, in response to and correcting a post made by someone else.

I did follow it. And it is irrelevant. Noone can travel near the speed of light, but that's actually not relevant either. Only Balefire is relevant. We're talking about WoT. Not Star Trek.

 

[mrc1ark]

I asked BS about the balefire and Min's bruises tonight at the DC book signing.  He said that he, Harriet, and Maria discussed them and decided they should stay.  Semi got balefired not Rand and Rand made the bruises therefore bruises stay.  Thats according to the source.  So even if you disagree with those rules that seems to be the way it will be interpreted for the last two books.  Sanderson did admit that things with balefire were tricky.

[Jaric Mar Tedronai]

Balefire is paradoxical by nature so it is indeed tricky, but your answer from BS confirms what I had posted earlier in the week. I said that if we followed "certain people's" logic regarding balefire, after Semi ate it she never would have had Rand collared, and he never would have channeled the True Power to balefire her. He obviously channeled the true power as he has had the dark aura around him since that night, just as although Semi no longer made him choke Min, he still had done it, and she still bore the marks as Semi was indirectly, not directly, responsible for them. Once again, thanks for clearing up another of my arguments with your question.

[richnewton82]

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[richnewton82]

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[WWWwombat]

What?

 

He thinks physics proves time travel possible. He needs to do more research on the matter because time travel is impossible and will remain impossible. Somewhat unrelated to this thread though.

 

AFAIK, time travel has not been ruled out.  Also, forward travel through time is not an illusion.  You might as well say time is an illusion if you think that.

[richnewton82]

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[WWWwombat]

brainfirebob no physicist would argue that timetravel is possible because it is not. As I said before, going forward in time is merely a trick of changing our perception of time. We cannot hop into a time travel machine and move forward. We cannot even move small particles to a point forward in time. We can only change the perception of time from the point of that particle or person. That's just like hitting your accelerator on the freeway. You're not teleporting to a new point in space, you're simply changing how fast you get there.

 

What's to stop you from saying travel through space is an illusion?

 

As for reverse time travel - at this point it is all hypothetical and it is incorrect at that. I may not be a physicist but you can quote me on this - reverse time travel will never be done. You cannot go back and change what has happened in the past. The very nature of time itself makes that impossible. Time isn't real. Time is a perception of how things are changing around us. Time is simply an effect of space, thus space-time being the same concept and not 2 independent concepts. You cannot go backwards in time because you cannot bend the curvature of space-time hyperbolic (which you would need to create a time-wormhole). That would require an enormous, and impossible to achieve, level of energy, and still wouldn't result in harnessable time travel.

 

I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but there is a reason hyperbolic geometry is used for general relativity.

 

For that matter, I am quite certain that over the coming years physics will finally discover the true nature of the universe. That is, that distance itself is an illusion and that all particles actually exist at the same point (and are, actually, the same particle). Call it crazy but its the only mechanism that explains why things work the way they do. Distance, time, and therefore, velocity, are all illusions.

 

I'm gonna go ahead and call it crazy.  You remind me of O'Brien talking to Winston in room 101.

[WWWwombat]

Time is an illusion. That's what Einstein proved. Time is simply a perception of changes occurring in space. Forward time travel is NOT what you think it is. Forward time traveling is simply slowing an individuals perception of time relative to others' perception of time. The person still must go through a period of time to end up at their destination. As I said above, it is the same idea as traveling down a freeway. You may be able to change your speed and thus, the perceived time it takes to arive at your destination, but we will never be able to get their instantly.

 

Einstein showed that time is relative, not that it doesn't exist.  Also, the notion of "travel" doesn't require infinite velocity.

[Nightstrike]

AFAIK, time travel has not been ruled out.

How would it be possible, then, do you propose? We can't travel at the speed of light.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Re. Time Travel in general - The world of WoT is not really our world or universe.  Physical laws are similar but not identical.  There is no entropy, for instance.  No stars burn out or nova.  So our notions about space-time are not really valid for WoT.

 

The Wheel reaching back in time to correct causality paradoxes caused by balefire doesn't require time travel.  It just requires that events previously woven get discarded and new events woven to replace them.  Other than memories, the people involved don't notice any difference.  Their lives appear to them to unfold seamlessly.

[Nightstrike]

I saw someone posting on Theoryland, someone that had asked BS about the TP Balefire. Apparantly Brandon said that it was just the same as OP Balefire. And he also said that the bruises remained because it was Rand's hands on her throat.

 

Timetravel - I don't think it can ever be possible (in the real world). Not for anyone. We've not seen any visitors from the far future lately, have we?  :D

 

[jemron]

I saw someone posting on Theoryland, someone that had asked BS about the TP Balefire. Apparantly Brandon said that it was just the same as OP Balefire. And he also said that the bruises remained because it was Rand's hands on her throat.

 

Timetravel - I don't think it can ever be possible (in the real world). Not for anyone. We've not seen any visitors from the far future lately, have we?  :D

 

 

So, was that a mistake then?  For BS and Co. to decide that the bruises should have remained.  It seems pretty clear that the BWB and other examples in the books explain that the effects of the BFed person, and any other people's actions based on that persons's actions are all negated after BF.  Am I missing something?

[Nightstrike]

So, was that a mistake then?  For BS and Co. to decide that the bruises should have remained.  It seems pretty clear that the BWB and other examples in the books explain that the effects of the BFed person, and any other people's actions based on that persons's actions are all negated after BF.  Am I missing something?

No, it wasn't a mistake. It's absolutely consistent with Balefire events in the other books. The BWB has errors, because it is written with the ignorance of people living in Randland. People living long after the Breaking. Knowledge has been lost & misunderstood. People in WoT aren't omniscient. Read the preface of the BWB.

 

 

[jemron]

Interesting.  Honestly, it seems like it would have been easier to just say, "BF with the TP is slightly different than BF with the OP."

 

It's funny, after all these years I thought that BF actually removed the person and their soul completely from existence.  It wasn't until reading this thread that I realized I was wrong, and BFd people will be reborn.  I feel like that is wrong, but if you people say RJ said that BFd people aren't completely eliminated from existence (in or outside of the pattern) like I thought, then I'll believe it.

 

We're sure this is accurate, right?  I mean, was RJ misquoted, or is this obvious and I just totally missed it in the books?  Did I mistake "removed from existence" to mean "removed from all existence, never to be reborn?"  It still feels weird to me that I misunderstood this.  Unless of course, as has been stated, this is because the characters in the books don't fully understand it either.

[Nightstrike]

Interesting.  Honestly, it seems like it would have been easier to just say, "BF with the TP is slightly different than BF with the OP."

Different would have meant that the bruises had gone away. They didn't. Which means that they have the same effect on Min's bruises.

 

We're sure this is accurate, right?  I mean, was RJ misquoted, or is this obvious and I just totally missed it in the books?  Did I mistake "removed from existence" to mean "removed from all existence, never to be reborn?"  It still feels weird to me that I misunderstood this.  Unless of course, as has been stated, this is because the characters in the books don't fully understand it either.

Yeah, we can be pretty sure. I think I've seen more than one quote that mentions them being reborn. Reborn the regular way.

 

 

[Morsker]

Yeah, we can be pretty sure. I think I've seen more than one quote that mentions them being reborn. Reborn the regular way.

If only! I greatly dislike the interpretation that balefire destroys souls, and I think it's clearly a jump-to-conclusions based off misunderstanding why the Dark One can't recycle Forsaken killed by it. But I don't have anything so convenient as a simple quote that proves it wrong in one fell swoop.

 

That said, I'm not going to argue the position here; it's been done sufficiently. Nynaeve is wrong. Instead, I'm going to explain why I dislike the interpretation so much, and think people who believe it are missing out on something cool. Destroying souls is boring. WoT already has it for wolves killed in T'A'R, and probably others as well. Balefire is an environmental danger like nuclear weapons, not some type of moral horror in permanent death. Moreover, balefire is interesting. It causes strange paradoxes that can't be reasoned out because they rely on living beings being "threads in a pattern" not just organic matter, and the idea of a person's "direct action" having some real physics to it. Even more, the way balefire stops the Dark One from transmigrating souls is a cool interaction between two separate things: balefire's retroactive deaths, and one of the limitations the Dark One operates under. This is all the more interesting in the case of Sammael, whose death was retroactive even though he wasn't directly balefired.

 

The interpretation that balefire destroys souls misses out on all of that. It's a shame.

[jemron]

Cool Morsker.  I really like that.  Thanks guys for clarifying this.  I'm gonna love it that much more on my re-read.

[Nightstrike]

Yeah, we can be pretty sure. I think I've seen more than one quote that mentions them being reborn. Reborn the regular way.

If only! I greatly dislike the interpretation that balefire destroys souls, and I think it's clearly a jump-to-conclusions based off misunderstanding why the Dark One can't recycle Forsaken killed by it. But I don't have anything so convenient as a simple quote that proves it wrong in one fell swoop.

 

 

From Theoryland:

The Path of Daggers book tour 21 November 1998, VA - John Novak reporting

 

 

 

 

Balefire: If someone is balefired, the Dark One can't reincarnate them.  But they CAN be spun back out into the Pattern as normal.  Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul.  He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back.  There was a long line, so I didn't press.