Hinderstap Situation (spoilers and speculation)

[mb]

The situation in Hinderstap seems stranger than the other phenomenon that the books tell.

The people there when killed during night become resurrected at dawn.

The mayor there tells Mat that this has happened for about a couple of months.  I think in relation to the series' calendar.  It is told on Adar 20 (morning after Mat witnessed the event); before Adar is Aine, before Aine is Saban. (In our calendar, May 1-2 is when Mat visits the town.)

From checking Cooper's timeline, Saban 19-20 was shortly after Mat & his companions escaped Ebou Dar.  Not telling that there is a correlation between the two events, but telling where Mat was when it started. (Saban 19-20 corresponds to March 5-6 in our calendar.)

It seems certain that the Dark One caused this.

 

This is the strange part: most (if not all) of the people seem to be non-darkfriends; also that we have not been told of any other location that has had same situation.

 

Some questions:

If Hinderstap is the only location, why only there?

What exactly caused the situation?

How might this get solved (if any attempts are made)?

 

[water_seeker]

It almost seemed like a bubble of evil AND a loop in the Pattern.

[Owayn The Traveller]

It almost seemed like a pointless waste of pages.That is of course it comes up in the story later. Didnt one of the guts get left behind and he turned back up. Okay maybe not that but something happened to one of the band of the red hand guys. No?

[Eagle Prince]

It might not play a part later in the story, but it easily could since there's a lot of interesting things you could do with it.  If some of the Band got trapped there, they could decide to train up the village into soldiers, and you'd have a special unit that gets reborn every morning.  Only real problem is you'd have to Travel them back out to the battlefield everyday.  Or a bunch of myrddraal killed there... the Shadow could probably find some use for a pack of myrddraal that just get 'reborn' every morning, even if killed.

[cleantoe]

Even if it doesn't come up again, which it probably won't, it was still a fun read.

 

Anyways, it served as a plot device, since the mayor is the one who directed them to Verin.

 

The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.

[Owayn The Traveller]

But he could of done that without trying to kill them. Ah it just felt slightly out of place just slightly, a small bit, barely notice it, only notice if you wrer looking for and so on blah

[Dreamwalker]

I personally think it was an excuse to combine the awesomeness of WoT with zombies. I approve heartily. And then we got Bloodknives, which are totally ninjas. The circle of awesome is now complete. :D

 

But in all seriousness, we don't know for sure that stuff as bad as Hinderstap isn't happening other places. The bubbles of evil combined with the unraveling pattern combined with dark Rand puts a lot of strain on the world. I think we're definitely going to see more equally freaky stuff going down in the last two books.

[Paladin]

Just a personal theory but I thaught it was a sign of the increase in use of Balefire.

 

The patern having been distorted by having threads burned out.

 

I see Hinderstrap as being a "Frayed" section of the patern. The wheel is trying to repair the damage but its not quite getting it right.

[water_seeker]

Just a personal theory but I thaught it was a sign of the increase in use of Balefire.

 

The patern having been distorted by having threads burned out.

 

I see Hinderstrap as being a "Frayed" section of the patern. The wheel is trying to repair the damage but its not quite getting it right.

 

There was a lot more BF use in the AoL.  Whole cities burned out and whatnot.  Even when Rand BF'd Graendal's fortress he didn't come close to a whole city.

[Owayn The Traveller]

Even if it was caused by balefire that might explain the loop in the pattern but every ones desire to kill everyone after sun down cant be caused by bale fire surely.

 

And yes maybe in the next book we'll have ninja zombies, vampire washerwomen, banshee trolls and teenage mutant ninja turtles. Fingers crossed for turtle power.

[Crael123]

Just a personal theory but I thaught it was a sign of the increase in use of Balefire.

 

The patern having been distorted by having threads burned out.

 

I see Hinderstrap as being a "Frayed" section of the patern. The wheel is trying to repair the damage but its not quite getting it right.

 

There was a lot more BF use in the AoL.  Whole cities burned out and whatnot.  Even when Rand BF'd Graendal's fortress he didn't come close to a whole city.

 

the DO wasnt trying to break free in AoL though. I just thought hinderstap was an awes0me filler, and an exuse to put Mat in the book without the Tower of Genjie. I doubt it will come up again.

[dholm]

It was simply another example of the chaos loose in the world -- as well as some action for Mat. I see no problem with it at all.

[thewalrus777]

It was simply another example of the chaos loose in the world -- as well as some action for Mat. I see no problem with it at all.

 

No to mention it produced one of the funniest lines in the series.

 

Mat: "Well, they should be more forth coming."

Thom: "More forthcoming? How? The mayor is right, they did try to warn us."

Mat: "I don't know. They could put up a warning sign or something. Hello. Welcome to Hinderstap. We will murder you in the night and eat your bloody faceif you stay past sunset. Try the pies. Martna Baily makes them fresh daily."

[Morsmordre]

If it really is BF, maybe Demandred did it? After all, the DO asked him if he was going to use BF for him and Demandred smiled. I have never seen anyone evil use balefire against Rand after LoC. However, the idea seems plausible. Nobody really knows what BF can do to the Pattern.

[thewalrus777]

If it really is BF, maybe Demandred did it? After all, the DO asked him if he was going to use BF for him and Demandred smiled. I have never seen anyone evil use balefire against Rand after LoC. However, the idea seems plausible. Nobody really knows what BF can do to the Pattern.

 

We do know what BF does to the pattern, courtesy of RJ in interviews. Massive use of BF can and will unravel the pattern. That's why both sides agreed to never use it again in the War of Power. Even the Forsaken really don't like using BF. EXTREMELY hesitant to use it. As a matter of fact, they've only used it in retalliation of it being used against them(case in point, Rahvin for example).

[SecondhandDevil]

Hello,

 

It's my first time posting, and I hadn't seen anything posted about this possibility in what I have read of the boards thus far, so I'm gonna take a shot in the dark and put my hair-brained idea out there.  I apologize that this does deal a lot with Padan Fain by the end, but it's all in support of why I believe Hinderstap isn't just a filler scene.

 

I'm entertaining the thought that the bubble of evil/balefire theory in relation to causing the Hinderstap instance is instead a situation in which Padan Fain's powers may have been the cause of the looping battle royale in Hinderstap, since that seems to follow more along with his established powers, only amplified. 

 

The motivation behind this occurance and Fain's possible involvement isn't clear to me at this time, but why isn't really relevant to my idea, especially since there've been many reasonings which we've all assumed were concrete fact that turned out to be delusions of grandeur when they came to play in future books.  Besides this wouldn't be the first time the reason why wouldn't be revealed or make sense until two books later. It could be that Mat needed a run-in with Fain to balance out Perrin and Rand's, even if it was offhand and indirect which fits with Mat's chance motif.  Or maybe Fain really liked Martna Baily's fresh pies and decided to stop by for a fresh one before inducing a neverending bloodbath as a perverted form of payment. Who knows?

 

Either way, here are a few things that I used to come to my conclusions with some of my crazy thoughts to support the ideas behind them.  Basically to reiterate, my theory is that Hinderstap is caused by an enhanced form of Fain's looping abilities that we've seen and I'll list my supporting evidence to the best of my remembrence.  I apologize in advance I don't have exact locations within the books as to the chapters, but  I believe the books are at least correct that I'm referencing.

 

The first time we see Fain's looping ability is in tGH, I believe it was the first village that the Sheinaren hunting party ran across regarding the room with the flies that Rand nearly gets trapped in while viewing the family at dinner just before they attempt to run in terror from something. When I first read of it in combination with the revelation of Selene being Lanfear, I was under the impression that it had something to do with Lanfear enticing Rand to use the power, in an attempt to forcefully teach him to wield Saidin on his own so it wouldn't kill him.  This was later debunked by RJ during one of the questions brought to him that indicated it was in fact Fain who had created the time loop as a trap, and had Rand not escaped the loop, he would have eventually died in that room.

 

Second (at least as far as I can recall) is the looping of the renegade Asha'man who Fain had killed that both Rand and Lan were heading up (or down from the roof as it turns out) to kill themselves, without knowing that they had already been corpsified by Fain.  I believe this event occured in WH just before the endearing rooftop scene where Rand said he'd only drop Lan when the sun turned green.  Either way, both instances of illusion being created and more than likely looped by Fain (I don't see him putting up the illusion of the Asha'man during his little scuffle with Rand just for visual representation of what he can do, it'd seem a little silly, then again he is raving mad... 

 

The other piece I'm going to use actually comes from Mat, and his random chance Ta'veren-ness that normally leads him down the right path, but is so random that even he doesn't really think about it at the time.  Such as in tDR, when Mat stops in front of the right house on a rainy night, fresh off the docks when he first arrives in Tear with Thom while looking for Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve.  Mat later realized the power of his random luck later when he had to take Thom to the same house for treatment of his cough.

 

The randomness I'm speaking of to support my theory was when Mat and Thom are speaking of Queen Doreille of Aridhol which causes Mat to  begin remembering the ruby from the Shadar Logoth dagger, and the pull of the dagger seeping into him from the simple memory. The situation did strike me as a little odd, since I don't really recall Mat bringing it up for quite some time, but I was willing to let it go as BS trying to fit into the mind of Mat through a little bit of reminiscing of a major event and how it might have had an impact on his situation. 

 

Then during my second read of tGS, the scene just really struck me that Thom's conversation and Mat's reminiscing was more than just a little random to have occurred RIGHT before Mat heads into Hinderstap, especially when he mentions still feeling the pull of the dagger from memory at times, even though he admits not having felt it for a long time.  As we all know, the dagger is associated with Fain and the SL taint, even to the point that chapters with Fain have the dagger icon whenever we run into him in the books.  It definately seems possible to me that Mat may have thought of it because of Hinderstap being caught in an upgraded Fain loop and him recognizing the residual taint from the Shadar Logoth evil, without really realizing what's causing it or how he's responding to sensing it.  The Aes Sedai weren't sure when they healed him if he was completely severed from the dagger when they were finished, and I don't recall them ever confirming it being truly gone, or even being sure of any residual problems that may follow Mat seeing as how he held it for so long.  We've all assumed that the holes in his memories were a good enough explanation, and haven't realy delved further into what else could possibly be there.  Perhaps Mat has an affinity in recognizing the taint from Shadar Logoth, and we just haven't had the oppurtunity to put it to the test before this particualar situation.

 

Turning against everyone in your village and trapping other people who manage to get caught up in it seems to fit the SL theme, although the manner in which it happens is a little morbid, but I doubt Aridhol was all smiles and politeness when everyone there managed to kill themselves.  Perhaps the Dark One's touch on Fain has added the twist that gives him the ability of altering reality from the inherent illusion creating ones that Fain possesses, or perhaps this is a manifestation of rapid degeneration when Fain just passes through and drops a seed of his corruption. 

 

Now I understand the arguement that Fain's powers seem to only be illusion up until that point, but I'm willing to go out on a limb and believe that Fain may be coming into more of his power, and learning to handle it naturally, seeing as how if he's still going to be a major player, he's got the remaining Chosen, Rand, Super Fade, or possibly even the Dark One to contend with.  If Fain's going to be considerred a force of power all his own (Unless he just happens to be really, REALLY sneaky and jump out from behind a rock at the last moment and issue a major paper cut with his death-dagger... a dozen or more so times...) it would make sense, to me at least that he needs to have an increase in power and bring something new into play to put him on lpar with the other people who can possibly stop your heart just because they feel like it.  (Making your allies suddenly turn against you and want to tear off your face after baking pies all day might be useful... in theory)  Perhaps this alludes to other powers we haven't yet seen, maybe with Fain drawing on both the SL taint, and the Dark One's touch within him seeing as how he has a sort of unique combination of both that hasn't really followed the conflicting evil forces that we've seen thus far. Unfortunately I only have theories and loose evidence on that, and can't support more concrete proof other than examples based on yet again more theories, but here's something I did come up with that might be a possible answer.

 

We've been able to see three instances where the SL taint and the Dark One's evil have come together, and possibly with three different results. 

In the first instance, both powers met directly during the cleansing of Saidin without a third party involved so they negated eachother and decimated Shadar Logoth and Mashadar in the process.

The second example involves Ishamael's wound topped with Fain's slash battling eachother within Rand.  Both having been sealed away by Flinn, as well as Rand trying to resist both evils from within himself.  This situation involves a third party who hasn't exactly just succumbed to their taint and is working against them with his own presence being a factor, which still seems like a time-bomb before the situation explodes yet again.  Finally there's Fain who was touched by both the Dark One, and Mordeth, in a sort of merging of both evils within Fain, which led to him becoming something entirely different from a shadow-touched, darkfriend-hound, likely because he acted as a merging point for the two evils to latch onto without negating eachother entirely.  Who really knows what he is capable of at this point especially with all his off-camera activities?

 

To argue the current popular theories, I don't see Hinderstap being related to Balefire, as it doesn't seem to fit the theme of what Aes Sedai mentioned as the reason to stop using it during the war of powe.  Cities were described as just being gone, not looping for eternity with strange results on the inhabitants. 

 

And as far as just adding to the chaos to strengthen the Dark One's power.  The looping seems to be fairly orderly for a chaotic event.  I mean yes having a town turn to zombies and rip eachother to shreds every night, adding to their numbers if someone outside gets caught in the fray would seem very chaotic initially, and did when I was first reading about it happening.  However the village people who are involved in it have kinda resolved themselves to the fact that it's going to happen and even seem to have a means of prevention for adding to it, which probably would've worked in this instance if it wasn't for the prince of luck himself's pattern altering powers coming into play.  I think Hinderstap happened for a reason, even if it may not exactly be evident to us at this time.

 

Well, regardless of whether or not it's correct, it was at least an entertaining thought during my long wait for the next book to be released.

 

Feel free to tear my musings to shreds

[water_seeker]

2ndHD...that was a...really long post...lol

 

Having said that, as soon as you said Fain my mind jumped to the room with the flies...it fits I think...I'm just not sure I buy the randomness yet...Maybe we'll find out you're right b4 the story is over.

[Javonite]

SecondhandDevil, that was nicely put together. I think it's perhaps the best theory so far.

[cleantoe]

Nice theory.

 

I don't think people give Fain enough credit. Everyone thinks he only has powers of illusion, but he has been displaying other powers for quite some time now.

 

The most striking power I've seen him wield is the fact that he NAILED a myrdraal to a door and took command of a whole battalion of trollocs that typically only obey the Chosen or the DO.

 

I mean how tough would you have to be to nail one those suckers to a door? And let's not forget the obvious power of simply being able to resist their eyeless gaze and ram a nail through em.

[mikael]

Liked the Fain theory, it was well put.

 

However, it would be nice if someone checked the timeline to see if the Hinderstap Situation started at the same time as some big event, if not then BF could probably be considered very unlikely.

[Aiyen kin Leary]

Good theory.  It kind of seemed like just a bubble of evil though--didn't that chapter have the "pattern unraveling" icon?

 

[bronnt]

Nice theory 2ndHD.  It helps fill in some of the gaps for Fain, too.  We've been wondering what he's been up to since WH.  It's unusual for him to stay quiet for this long.  And it would make that Hinderstap scene actually a bit more important than as a random example of the pattern fraying.

 

Well done-I'm actually rooting for this to be the case, now.  Fain needs to be re-integrated into the story.

[Crael123]

that theory is actually possible. nice one

[Owayn The Traveller]

Great post and i hope its true and we get more of Fain with a little more threat  :-[

[bushleague]

Great post.

 

Another factor against the BF theory is that Rand BF's Graendal after Mat has left hinderstrap.  Not to say that his previous use of BF hasn't caused it, but the only time where we see the pattern actually weakening from BF usage is the Graendal execution scene.  Because of Rand's visions we know Mat to be in Camelyn at that time.