Balefire

[Psion]

What would happen if you massively balefired someone who just balefired someone?

 

Example: I am Ishamael. I am vastly powerful. Moiraine, who is weaksauce (comparatively), just balefired Be'Lal, removing him from the pattern for maybe a minute.  I then balefire the crap out of her, removing her from the pattern for several hours.  Would Be'Lal come back to life?

[HighLordXanthus]

I think not.  I do think there would be MAJOR disruptions to the pattern.

[Muad Cheade]

What would happen if you massively balefired someone who just balefired someone?

 

Example: I am Ishamael. I am vastly powerful. Moiraine, who is weaksauce (comparatively), just balefired Be'Lal, removing him from the pattern for maybe a minute.  I then balefire the crap out of her, removing her from the pattern for several hours.  Would Be'Lal come back to life?

 

No, because Be'lal's thread is already gone before Moiriane started the weave.

[fifellee]

What would happen if you massively balefired someone who just balefired someone?

 

Example: I am Ishamael. I am vastly powerful. Moiraine, who is weaksauce (comparatively), just balefired Be'Lal, removing him from the pattern for maybe a minute.  I then balefire the crap out of her, removing her from the pattern for several hours.  Would Be'Lal come back to life?

 

No, because Be'lal's thread is already gone before Moiriane started the weave.

 

But, Moiraine would also be gone before she started her weave???

Right????

[WWWwombat]

RJ's answer to this was it depends how strong the balefire is or something like that.

[OptimusPrime]

This is how I imagine it.

 

If Moiraine killed Bel'al at 6.00pm, and the balefire undid 5 mins of Bel'als life, that means his actual moment of death was 5.55pm. If Ishamael then balefired Moiraine at 6.02pm, his balefire would have to kill her before Bel'als calculated moment of death. So if Ishamaels balefire took Moiraine back 8 minutes, that means she technically died at 5.54pm. Because she died before her action caused Bel'al to die, Bel'al would return. Because her current action affected time 5 minutes earlier, you have to undo 5 more minutes of her life to save Bel'al. I think.

[RaZeR]

RJ's answer to this was it depends how strong the balefire is or something like that.

 

 

This is accurate from what I remember. Rand actually DID it once.

 

 

When Rand was fighting Rahvin, Rahvin killed Asmodean, Mat, and a few others with lightning.

 

 

 

Several tense moments later, Rand drilled Rahvin with a particularly big bolt of Balefire, and the ones who were dead were sitting around confused.

 

Asmodean even had had an idea of what happened.

 

I wondered why Rand at the end of KoD didn't balefire Semirhage and get his hand back.

[redarm]

Hello all!  My first post.  I was interested in the topic so I thought I'd stop lurking.  Maybe I'm wrong but I believe something that is Balefired is permanently removed from the pattern.  The person/object is not dead or waiting somewhere to return their thread is just gone.  There is nothing to bring back.  This is of course why it was banned in the first place.  Remove enough threads and the pattern falls apart.  The example with Matt at Asmodean doesn't fit the example in the original question because they were killed with lightning, not balefired.  They could return because there threads were still intact.  There soul or whatever was still somewhere which allowed for the correction once Rhavin was removed from the pattern.  As for the original question I would say no one is coming back no matter how strong you Balefire the the original offender.  There is nothing to bring back the thread is burned from the pattern and can't be replaced.  If those threads could be replaced balefire wouldn't have been so feared.  Things could have always been put back the way they were by balefiring the balefiree.  Remember the descriptions of entire cities burned out?  Why wouldn't someone just Balefire the crazy fool with enough juice to bring it all back?  Because there wasn't anything to bring back.  Anyway, just my thoughts.  I love this place. It's great to share thoughts about these books with others.

[Majsju]

 

 

I wondered why Rand at the end of KoD didn't balefire Semirhage and get his hand back.

 

Well, for starters Rands refusal to kill women, something that has been an issue pretty much through the entire series, might have something to do with that decision...Just look back at TFOH, even as Lanfear was about to kill him, he could not make himself even risk killing her in self defence.

[ROB_88]

This is how I imagine it.

 

If Moiraine killed Bel'al at 6.00pm, and the balefire undid 5 mins of Bel'als life, that means his actual moment of death was 5.55pm. If Ishamael then balefired Moiraine at 6.02pm, his balefire would have to kill her before Bel'als calculated moment of death. So if Ishamaels balefire took Moiraine back 8 minutes, that means she technically died at 5.54pm. Because she died before her action caused Bel'al to die, Bel'al would return. Because her current action affected time 5 minutes earlier, you have to undo 5 more minutes of her life to save Bel'al. I think.

 

i highly doubt that that is how it works at all.

the Thread of Bel'al is burned off, not neatly cut.

you can't recrate a burned thread in a pattern.

 

case in point:

from a Wheel of time FAQ

"The balefire weave exists wholly or partly outside time, which removes it from its own effect"

[bjclinton]

RJ's answer to this was it depends how strong the balefire is or something like that.

 

 

This is accurate from what I remember. Rand actually DID it once.

 

 

When Rand was fighting Rahvin, Rahvin killed Asmodean, Mat, and a few others with lightning.

 

 

 

Several tense moments later, Rand drilled Rahvin with a particularly big bolt of Balefire, and the ones who were dead were sitting around confused.

 

Asmodean even had had an idea of what happened.

 

I wondered why Rand at the end of KoD didn't balefire Semirhage and get his hand back.

 

Actually, you're only half right on this one. Its true that Rhavin killed them, but he didn't kill them with Balefire....it was lightning that he used. The big question in this post addresses actually being killed with Balefire and whether or not that can be undone, as opposed to a more 'traditional' death by the OP or other means.

[RaZeR]

Ahhh right right...

 

 

I failed to notice that subtle twist.

 

 

It is indeed an interesting question.

[bjclinton]

I have to admit, i don't remember RJ commenting on it. I have a file somewhere with every quote RJ ever said in a formal / informal interview, including posts here. (just hope it wasnt on my drive that just crashed). I'll see if i can dig it out and find that question anywhere.

[mb]

This is what the FAQ site tells about this situation::

How does balefire work? Say person #1 balefires person #2, then person #3 balefires #1 and #2 comes back to life. If person #2 then balefires #3, he shouldn't be back so he couldn't balefire #3 so he should be back after all!?

Time travel always lead to paradoxes like this. That's why balefire is considered so dangerous. If balefire is used too much then more and more paradoxes like this occur. The result is that the Pattern itself becomes unstable. It could unravel and the whole world could disappear!

http://www.dragonmount.com/Faq/index.php?action=artikel&cat=4&id=486&artlang=en

 

I think the first balefire being undone would depend on if the time of second balefire overlaps both the time of the first balefire and the time it took to weave the first balefire.

An example::

• w= time for weave to reach its target
  
• r= time removed
  
• 1= of the first balefire
  
• 2= of the second balefire
  
• t= time between the two balefires
  
• scenarios:
  
  • If r1 is less than w1, then r2 would need to be greater than t+w1 in order for the first balefire to be undone.  If r2 is less than t+w1, then the first balefire would not be undone.
    
  • If r1 is greater than w1, then r2 would need to be greater than t+r1 in order for the first balefire to be undone.  If r2 is less than t+r1, then the first balefire would not be undone.
    
  • If r1 equals w1 equal to some number x, then r2 would need to be greater than t+x.  If r2 is less than t+x, then the first balefire would not be undone.

 

[bjclinton]

Hi guys- so sorry to hijack this post with my message but for 2 days I keep getting a message that reads:

 

"Database Error

Please try again. If you come back to this error screen, report the error to an administrator."

 

Not sure how to contact an admin since I can't seem to access the General Discussion page. Is anyone else getting this message? Any suggestions?

 

Again, so sorry to post on this thread, but since i can't start a new one i just replied to this one. Any help on passing this on to an admin for a potential fix would be much appreciated.

 

Thank you !

BJ

[mb]

Hi guys- so sorry to hijack this post with my message but for 2 days I keep getting a message that reads:

 

"Database Error

Please try again. If you come back to this error screen, report the error to an administrator."

 

Not sure how to contact an admin since I can't seem to access the General Discussion page. Is anyone else getting this message? Any suggestions?

 

Again, so sorry to post on this thread, but since i can't start a new one i just replied to this one. Any help on passing this on to an admin for a potential fix would be much appreciated.

 

Thank you !

BJ

I also got the message.

I used this site's private messaging system; explained my situation to all administrators since I was not sure which one to contact.

This site's administrators are as follows::

-SiteAdmin

-Jason

-Kevin Dean

-WhiteWolf

-Kathana Trevalaer

-Alicia

-Segurant

-Emperor

 

Edit:: both Gathering Storm sections have a sticky telling that the administrators are working on this problem.

 

Another edit:: The problem has been fixed for some time now.