Baelfire controversy...

[okstate91]

How is it than something can completely erase everything you've ever done. If the man who thought up 007 got baelfired would all the 007 movies dissaoear? and in doing that would Sean Connery never be a great movie acter? Feel free to discuss the diferent possibilities of baelfire in this thread.

[Guest Harso]

yes, if ian fleming was balefired there would be no 007. or chitty chitty bang bang either.

[Gondring]

Bad on the first, good on the 2nd (never could watch the entirety of that movie)

I think things like Balefire (and other things in other literary works that do the same) are just fancy tools, to bring beloved characters back to life, or silence foes in a extreemly final manner (more too just prime examples)

So why not, its fantasy, your supposed to use your imagination, lol what better way than to erase someone completely?

[Colmana]

what if someone balefired themselves, like they would be gone, but then they wouldn't of been there to balefire themselves, so then what? :?

[Mat Comes With The Dawn]

what if someone balefired themselves, like they would be gone, but then they wouldn't of been there to balefire themselves, so then what? :?

 

No no no, it's not quite like that. You see, the person when balefiring himself ceases to exist before he even decides to balefire himself.

 

Therefore, he simply ceases to exist at some random time. If he had not ceased to exist, he would have decided to balefire himself. But he can't decide to balefire himself unless he ceases to exist before it happens.

[okstate91]

Quote

Therefore, he simply ceases to exist at some random time.

 

wouldnt he simply cease to exist from all time?

[Colmana]

Quote: If he had not ceased to exist, he would have decided to balefire himself. But he can't decide to balefire himself unless he ceases to exist before it happens.

 

oh i see, so, for him to balefire himself, he needs to cease to exist for he is able to do it

 

so what happens, if two people balefire each other at exactly the same time?

[Roxinos]

okstate91, here's something you need to understand about balefire. It doesn't erase a person from the entirity of the Pattern. Take a string and hold a small flame up to one end of it. A piece of it gets burned off right? Well that's balefire. It's like putting a flame to the thread of a person's life.

 

Now get a bigger flame and put it to one end of the string. More gets burned off, right? That's the way it works. The stronger the weave for balefire, the farther back the person will be burned out of the pattern. It would take a very very very strong weave to burn someone entirely out of the pattern.

[okstate91]

well roxi im not sure ian fleming? was that old. and its only for the sake of discussion anyway.

[Roxinos]

I know. But I was mainly just responding towards "wouldnt he simply cease to exist from all time?" that. You said it as if that's what balefire does.

 

And Ian Fleming is dead. So of course he's not that old. :-p

 

But yes. Let the discussion take hold! I just wanted to make sure you knew how balefire worked.

[okstate91]

poor ian fleming... lol :lol:

[chuckievi]

You know.... if someone just Balefired Rand the DO would be free to do as he pleases.... other than the obvious lack of story then I wonder why all these "enlightened" Chosen haven't pull that one out of their superior brains yet?

[Vecusum]

You know.... if someone just Balefired Rand the DO would be free to do as he pleases.... other than the obvious lack of story then I wonder why all these "enlightened" Chosen haven't pull that one out of their superior brains yet?

simple actually, the Dragon Reborn is as important of a tool to the Dark Ones release as he is to stopping it, things would be far simpler if they let him succeed in all but the one way that prevents their success, Rand's actions actually make it easier for the Dark One's minions to maintain control, not harder. Well, that, and there is also the distinct possibility that Rand himself may be the creator, or rather part because it is more likely that a combination of Rand, Perrin, and Mat are the creator(their abilities when combined match and oppose Ba'alzaman's).

 

and as far as balefire goes, it burns part of their line out of the pattern, so they still exist in the past, but not then, but remember that they are only the path for the one power, a tool more then the user, so the balefire is still used whether they are in the pattern or not, the power is still channelled and still in that way, remember, both the True Power and One Power are not bound too or by the pattern, rather they are incharge of it, and that is why balefire is even possible, they are thrid parties that are essentially the Creator and Dark One themselves(their essences and true forms) and come from them.

 

[Roxinos]

That last bit made no sense. The One Power is the driving force of the Wheel which spins out the Pattern of Ages. But the One Power does not exist in Randland except via a person who can channel. If there is only one person in the world who is capable of channeling and he or she dies, then there is no more One Power in the world. Outside of the Pattern, yes. But not inside.

 

However, that doesn't mean that the effects of the One Power aren't still in play. If that one person throws a fireball at a rock blowing it up, then dies no more One Power in the world can be channeled, but the effects are there.

 

Now. Balefire is different because balefire acts upon time. Even the Dark One who lives outside of the Pattern is still susceptible to the power of balefire because he cannot pull someone from death and put them in a new body if they were killed using balefire.

 

The point if balefire is that it's too dangerous to use. Every single time you use it, you create a paradox in the Pattern that the Wheel has to sort out, thus creating ripples in the Pattern that are felt for a very long time. That's why it was banned on both sides of the field during the War of Power.

 

You balefire a rock. That rock ceases to exist before the point where you balefired it. So if it wasn't there when you balefired it, you can't balefire it. So it does exist. So you can balefire it. And you do. But if you do.... You see the paradox?

 

 

As for the reason why the Chosen never used balefire on Rand. Aginor and Balthalmel didn't know he was the Dragon Reborn at first, so they had no reason to balefire him. Cause that much damage to the Pattern for a useless few people? You could have so much more fun just torturing them. Not to mention Aginor wanted the Eye for himself.

 

Ishamael then knew he was the Dragon Reborn, but he was insane when he encountered Rand.

 

Then Belal. He didn't balefire Rand because he wanted Callandor and he couldn't get it unless Rand took it first, he was planning on killing him (possibly through balefire) after Rand took the Sword That Cannot Be Touched. But he was balefired by Moiraine before he could.

 

After that, they were commanded to find him and kill him by the Dark One. However, they want to use him as much as they can before they kill him, and just appearing where he is via gateway and balefiring him isn't very useful.

 

Asmodean wanted the Choeden Kal for himself, and he doesn't like to take chances. Using balefire on Rand would've been taking a chance because Rand was stronger than him. He would've killed him after he got the Choeden Kal if it weren't for Lanfear tipping Rand off.

 

Lanfear is in love with Rand so she won't kill him.

 

Rahvin was comfortable where he was and was also teaming up with a few of the other Chosen to trick Rand into attacking Sammael so the Chosen could team up and kill Rand. However, he didn't plan on Rand attacking him, so he was frantic when Rand actually did. Also, when Rand did attack him, Rahvin did use balefire on him. But Rand was lucky enough to dodge the beams.

 

Sammael was cocky in his strength, and by the time Rand attacked him, the Chosen had orders not to kill Rand. The Dark One was planning on making him Nae'blis. At least that's what the Chosen thought.

 

And the rest I can't exactly remember the reasons.

[Mat Comes With The Dawn]

Well, imagine what would happen if ta'veren get balefired.

[Roxinos]

I don't think the Pattern would allow it. The whole point for a ta'veren's existance is because the Wheel needs it. So the Wheel weaves a person into the Pattern to cause certain events and such to happen by bending the Pattern around him or her.

 

*shrugs*

[okstate91]

so the guys from two rivers arent susceptible to bealfire? intersting thought. If the person weaving baelfire was a really bad shot and just hit the persons arm would it be like not having an arm or would the rest of you be consumed?

and if you wer just consumed how come wen baelfire hits walls anly a circle is gone out of the wall and not the whole wall is gone?

[okstate91]

i would like to thank Roxinos for contributin to this thread so much. hes kind of the annoying voice of reason lol.

[chuckievi]

Thats a good question. Someone struck with balefire disappears, and yet the wall only has a hole in it. That most likely has to do with the fact that the wall isn't a thread woven into the pattern, just an object that the threads are interacting with.

[okstate91]

i was thiking more alog the lines of the pattern thinkin of ppl as whole entities, while walls are more like compunds.

[Vecusum]

As far as the creator/dark one thing that was a reference based off the nature of the True Power, the other creator thing was me being an ass.

 

The point if balefire is that it's too dangerous to use. Every single time you use it, you create a paradox in the Pattern that the Wheel has to sort out, thus creating ripples in the Pattern that are felt for a very long time. That's why it was banned on both sides of the field during the War of Power.

 

You balefire a rock. That rock ceases to exist before the point where you balefired it. So if it wasn't there when you balefired it, you can't balefire it. So it does exist. So you can balefire it. And you do. But if you do.... You see the paradox?

 

My point was that the effect is not about the person guiding it or the target, the target is not the person and the paradox you refer to is rather easily solved with some philosophical thinking and scientific reasoning.

 

Consider first that the pattern is a plane of existence, well, that makes it multidimensional, we can not perceive the patern as it truley is as we can not exist on that level, it is a construct of ever recycling time, and well, dimensions, motion is in 3 major dimensions, in/out, up/down, left/right or 3-D you add in time you get 4-D, we can not see time but know it goes by, it is much the same with the pattern, we can not see it but know it is there, rather it is time, or at least a representation of it, each string which is slightly different is composed of the other three dimesions just making the plane, the slight differences between and similarities between the lines determine what they are and how they manifest in the other dimensions or how they look/act/what they are, so now we have an apt discription of what determines what things are.

 

Now for when they exist, well I kind of already covered this, the length of the line is the time they exist in, the longer the line the longer they exist, however there is a finite amount of product, or rather stuff to make it, think sewing, you only have so much string so eventually you have to change the color in the pattern, well, as the patern is always being spun out continuously you will eventually need to recycle old material, thus causing repetition and creating the age lace, there is only so much material so the timelines eventually repeat, and because they reuse the oldest to make the newest you get the constant rotation of ages and lifes, this is where balefire comes in, when you damage some of the material you cause a gap in the recreation, they can never make it again so rather that portion of the person's existence gets completely removed, and the person becomes unrecyclable thus damaging the pattern and changing the over all look and template of an age, rather the immediate effect is not the problem the future one is, so a guy dies, big deal people die all of the time, but wait, this guy didn't die rather that specific existence stops being, removing it from the pattern not just until the next spinning of this age lace, but rather the spinning of every age lace(I will go into how that is possible later).

 

Ok, so we know have how ages repeat making a constant loop and how they are preceived by a being much like the Dark One, but wait, there is one kind of important thing I didn't mention, it may even be related to balefire, during Moghedian's imprisonment by the Dark One she is trapped in a bubble on the pattern, a gap in time, but how is that possible, well, it may be the one thing that pulls apart this little post of mine so I will discuss it a bit. Consider that I am wrong in the removal of the existence from the age lace, rather it is attempted to be remade every repetition of that age, well, there is not enough of it left to completely remake it, rather the pattern trys to remake it and then finds this, well think of it sort of like silly putty, rather it streches to connect over the cap in the line but can not fill the inside of it, thus creating a bubble in the time line that follows it but is effectively out of it, the silly putty type creation of it could be what causes the removal of the past as well, the longer the gap between the beginning timeline and ending one the further back it has too pull from to get enough material to bridge the gap and keep the pattern whole, if Rand Al'thor were killed at birth it would have a bigger effect then if he was killed later in the age, and this could thus account for why he is not completely removed and some of his actions remain, consider that after a certain point it gets harder and harder to pull material, so you can only effect the past so far back, the bigger blast of balefire rather makes a smaller whole in the persons string but a bigger whole in the pattern hitting other strings around it, which makes determines the size and frequency of bubbles but the effect on things causes a bigger level of required change in the pattern, or in other words the mass ripples, thus weakening the pattern as a whole and lowering its structural intergrity until so many bubbles form that existence falls in on itself, the stresses of the ripples caused by balefire would explain the problems in the War of Shadows when balefire was used and why both sides stopped using it, this, of course, is only a theory.

 

Now that I have covered bubbles and rifts in the pattern, the common annomalys, what a string in the pattern his, and what the pattern and Age Laces are, lets move on to why we perceive it as such. Well, it should be obvious to most people, although you probably never think on it, that you can only perceive in the dimentions you exist in, and in the context of the pattern most people are 4 dimensional, they perceive the passing of time, movement in the left and right, movement up and down, and movement forward and back, just like if we were a drawing on a piece of paper we would only conceive time, left/right, and forward/back we would not be able to look out of the paper to see the world of up/down, and if we could we would not understand what we are looking at, but more we would ignore it, well, we are the strings, but only a portion of them, the portion with senses of its existence and knowledge of it, and that self exists in a time referable as the present, so the present is a single line across the age lace, a line that encompasses all of the pattern at once and moves along it causing advancement in time, and thus binds all of existence together to proceed in an ordly fashion.

 

Wait!

If Dimensions are what you can perceive then what about Aes Sedai and Asha'man, why then can they perceive the one power and no one else can, well, that is rather simple actually, but that has to do more with the nature of the Dark One, well, actually it is easier to understand it if you consider the Dark One and the True Power. The True Power is almost equivalent to the One Power, but different, one is a gift from the Creator the other from the Dark One, but how does this have to do anything with dimensions and existence? Actually everything. See, is well known to be outside of the Pattern, he does not exist on the pattern because his very existence would corrupt it, this explains the nature of the Creator and why he is removed, rather, his existence in the pattern would ahve much the same effect as the Dark One's except the Dark One had to be blocked from it, the Creator did not/is not as far as we know. How then can the bore exist? Well, actually in much the same way that balefire can effect the pattern, both of these would require outside involvement, we also know that the One Power is not in the pattern, it is involved in the pattern and guided by specially attunned strings on the pattern, but is not part of it, both the powers(True and One) exist on a higher plane, a 5th dimension if you will, that touches certain threads on the pattern, the 5th dimensional threads are like the others in every way except that they can perceive and funciton in the dimension of the powers, a dimension of materials, 5 materials attunned in 2 different ammounts and ways make up Saidin and Saidar, and considering the differences between the two it may be that they do not flow in the same way as time, which flows along the stringst that make exisence, but rather it flows parralel to the string that represents the present, and when a weave is made it is laid across the pattern in that manner, consider Saidin flows one way and Saidar the opposite, the string of present does not flow, and all slide along with the string of present to make continuous time flows, and thus creating the fading effect of both weaves and weaving while explaining why the One Power is split in two sperate forces and preceivable to only certain people, now lets add in another thing to cement the sex issue, say strings in the pattern spin the spin determines sex, Male spin oppossed to Saidin, Female spins opposses Saidar, thus they see the Power string coming at them, the only problem in this is that then why can others not see either power, ok, well, lets say that whether the string spins or not determines if you can channel, nonchannlers strings do not spin or spin too slow to be able to perceive it, ok, so the Power is parrallel to the pattern, but what about the True Power, how do you explain why it is unseeable and unconceivable? Actually that is rather simple, as it is conceivable but not seeable, only one other dimensional item meets that requirement, Time, which does not spin in either the direction of Saidin or Saidar, so the True power does not spin, but rather it requires your string being one with the Dark One as the One Power probably requires a similar connection to the creator, neither can be acheived in the normal pattern itself as it is whole and sealed off, but consider that the Age Lace is a peace of paper, and the Dark One and Creator are on either side of it, they can not see through it and see the others actions, but they can see the paper, they can push the paper, stab the paper, tear holes through the paper, well what if they could merge with the paper, touch it with part of themselves and become part of it without putting their wholeselve into it, the Creator wove the paper, and he wove himself into it thus making the One Power exist in the Age Lace, he let it become one with the Age Lace like he had, so part of it is connected to the Age Lace, but as it is free of the Lace it still retains all of the abilities you have when you see a piece of paper, now consider what I said earlier about a drawing on a piece of paper, well, Lanfear felt something outside the Lace, she thought it was something like the One Power, she was right, unknown to her she managed to manipulate the power to punch an entrance in the paper for the Dark One, the Dark One merged with it like the Creator but the hole was not big enough, so he pulls at the hole, spreading it more, meanwhile he introduces more to the pattern, and the people of the Age of Legends learn more about the One Power, so much that they figure out more things like what Lanfear did, they learn Compulsion allowing them to manipulate strings in the pattern, they learn Balefire allowing them to break strings, travelling allowing them to connect strings, basically they use the One Power to manipulate the pattern and even bore holes in it(balefire), but some also learn the true power, well, the Dark One teaches it to them, but does not merge it with the whole pattern as the Creator did with the One Power, instead he creates threads in the pattern that go out of the whole in it and connect to the Dark One, through which he allows people to manipulate the True power, but the True power remains completely out of the pattern, where the One Power is merged with it to some degree. This means that the the One Power can be used in more ways then the True power and cause less damage to the pattern, this is shown when they describe traveling with the True Power, where travling with the One Power is making two lines touch travling with the True Power involves quite literally blowing a hole through one thread and into the other, something only doable outside the pattern, so we can assume that to manipulate strings you must be part of the pattern, however to destroy them you do not, the Dark One's goal is not destruction fo the pattern but rather manipulation of it so he trys to work his way through the bore so he can truley manipulate it, the Dark One is the source of the True Power so we can assume he is strongly connected to it, the same holds true for the Creator, with the bore sealed the Dark One can not manipulate threads but can only create or destroy them, destroying threads only counters his purpose so he uses people who can manipulate the pattern and manipulates them.

 

Now for the uncommon annomalys such as Ta'avern, well, to tell the truth I can only make hypothesis on this phenomena, but the best explination I can come up with is that they each contain a part of the Creator, or are a part of him, this comes from a few things, most notably the nature fo the Dark One. The Dark One manipulates luck, and, as shown in Shayol Ghul, alters reality, well, so do Ta'vern, not the same kind of alterations but they do alter it, Hawkwing, Lews Therin, Manetherin, all these people were known for luck, Hawking didn't gain his empire because he was ambitious, he gained it by defending his original empire from a False Dragon, the defeat of the Dragon gave him the empire because by the time he destroyed the Dragon's armies he had conquered most of the continent, Lews Therin drove Demandred away from jealousy, both were as skilled and accomplished the same things but Lews Therin seemd to get lucky and more people noticed him, it is said among the Forsaken he 'minted luck like a banker minted coins', Manetherin was had renoun battle luck to accompany his skill as a strategist and knew how to take advantage of it managing to gain himself an empire. Now apply this to the modern Ta'vern; Rand, Perrin, and Mat. Well Mat is absurdly lucky, things just go his way, it has been said he has the Dark Ones luck, Rand, according to the Forsaken, seems to have the same luck as Lews Therin, and Perrin manages to constantly find what he needs before he knows he needs it, the biggest things gained from this were Faile and Eliyas.

Well, what does this have to do with them being parts of the Creator, it is simple really, each Ta'vern has shown an ability or trait that is like the ones represented in the Dark One but different, with Mat it is luck(although that represents in varying degrees with most Ta'vern along with the warping of the patern), with Perrin it is affinity for animals, Perrin has wolves the Dark One has Ravens and Rats(I know there is Eliyas but he can not command them, Perrin has, and nothing said that there were only 3 Ta'vern Eliyas could be an extremely weak one), nad the most powerfull Ta'vern usually have an affinity with the One Power, Ta'vern channlers are historically strong. To explain it in the contesxt of the pattern and strings the other strings weave around them which is why Ishmeal and the Dark One can trakc Ta'vern by their effect on the pattern, Ishmeal's abuse of the True Power before he was inprisoned caused him to be sort of pulled from the pattern patrially, like a lose thread and he is somewhere between free of the pattern and woven in it.

 

 

As far as those who use the True power being insane, mabey they are not, but rather view things differently because of the pull of the True Power which I suspect attempts to wrench them free of the Pattern as oppossed to the One Power which actually makes them more aware of the pattern.

 

I know there are a few things missing, just ask and I will try to explain, I tried to make it as simple as possible, but obviously that didn't work out too well. :?

[Roxinos]

That's way too long for me to read. And I stopped when you said that because a person's life is finite, so is the length of their thread.

 

A person's thread is not based off of how long they are alive. It's based off of how long their physical being interacts with the rest of the pattern. When balefire takes hold of a thread in the Pattern, the object/person in question ceases to exist. That's why the thread is burned out. The thread, otherwise, would be infinitely long because the physical object/being is infinitely interacting with the world.

 

That doesn't factor into account the human mind or soul. Because I'm too damn lazy to go into that.

 

Anyway. Thanks for the comment state. I try as hard as I can to be annoying.

 

Ah yes, and I'm not saying that the Two Rivers people aren't susceptible to balefire. They're human. If they were hit by it, they would be obliterated just like anyone/thing else. However, the Wheel would try to avoid that by bending chance around them so that they didn't get hit. Though it still comes down to chance, so they might still get hit.

 

Hence the infinite worlds that can be visited through the Portal Stones.

[okstate91]

vecusum, thats a novel.

[Vecusum]

That's way too long for me to read. And I stopped when you said that because a person's life is finite, so is the length of their thread.

 

A person's thread is not based off of how long they are alive. It's based off of how long their physical being interacts with the rest of the pattern. When balefire takes hold of a thread in the Pattern, the object/person in question ceases to exist. That's why the thread is burned out. The thread, otherwise, would be infinitely long because the physical object/being is infinitely interacting with the world.

 

That doesn't factor into account the human mind or soul. Because I'm too damn lazy to go into that.

 

Anyway. Thanks for the comment state. I try as hard as I can to be annoying.

 

Ah yes, and I'm not saying that the Two Rivers people aren't susceptible to balefire. They're human. If they were hit by it, they would be obliterated just like anyone/thing else. However, the Wheel would try to avoid that by bending chance around them so that they didn't get hit. Though it still comes down to chance, so they might still get hit.

 

Hence the infinite worlds that can be visited through the Portal Stones.

Their life is not finite, their thread is, thus the recycling of ages, nothing indicates that the threads are infinitely long, rather it is indicated to the opposite as ages repeat in a cycle and they constantly relive the same lives.

[okstate91]

well, what would happen if they did get hit? Would the DO automatically win, because thats sumthing thats pretty important and i dont know if they would just leave it up to chance.

Im just checking on this even though its a little off topic, are all the memories mat has acquired just the people he was in the earlier parts of his thread?

and vecusum i appreciate ur novel, i dont think its annoying :D