Did we get a glimpse of the untainted Ways?

[MikeRiley]

I finished re-reading Eye of the World recently and there was something that stuck out this time around that I missed all the other times. Rand thought he recognized the Ways when he entered them. If there was light, I'm picturing how the Ways would look and it seems like the dream he had with all the bridges leading to platforms in a maze. He was being hunted then, and he could see his hunter and could count how many turnings it would take for it to get to his location.

 

I tried to find where the dream was located in the book but didn't have much luck with it. Anything to the idea? I wanted to re-read the dream sequence but couldn't find it to confirm.

[Durinax]

It doesnt say where it is located, all he knows is that it IS a dream, and he also says you cannot rely on looks in there, what seems a long ways off was only a couple of turns away

[Talmanes]

You know I have never thought of that part as anything other than a dream, but this is interesting.

The light though is also present in The World of Dreams. It does sound a little similar though.

[MikeRiley]

It doesnt say where it is located, all he knows is that it IS a dream, and he also says you cannot rely on looks in there, what seems a long ways off was only a couple of turns away

 

Yeah, I don't mean to say Rand wasn't having one of those dreams, just that the setting chosen for it could have been the Ways before the taint got to them. I'm only on for a few minutes but I'll see if I can find both passages in the book later.

[nwash_10]

In the Shadow Rising, Perrin is in the Wolf Dream and attempts to enter the ways.  He touches the silvery shinny surface but instead of his hand going through it just feels like he's touching a mirror.

 

The point of this being that, even if Rand attempted to enter the ways in Tel'aran'rhiod he wouldn't have been able to.  He wouldn't have been able to go through the waygate just like Perrin was unable to.

 

I think more likely than not it wasn't the ways Rand was running through just another weird and crazy part of Tel'aran'rhiod.

[MikeRiley]

Right, but like I said above, he was not in the actual Ways. All of those dreams he had were pre-made and watched by Ishamael. He could have chosen any setting he wanted at all, so the fact it was done in TAR only lends aid to the argument it was what the Ways looked like. Had it been the real/current Ways, they would have been as black as in the real world.

[Talmanes]

I agree with that. He was in a dream not the actual ways. Ishamael most likely knew what the ways used to look like, and could've easily picked that as a "location" for the dream.

[MikeRiley]

I just found where it is. There's going to be book spoilers at this point in a way, and I'm not sure if such large quotes from the books are allowed. I'll remove them if that's the case.

 

 

 

 

In The Eye of the World chapter 24, Flight Down the Arinelle:

 

    Water dripped in the distance, hollow splashes echo-

ing and reechoing, losing their source forever.

There were stone bridges and railless ramps every-

where, all sprouting off from broad, flat-topped stone spires, all

polished and smooth and streaked with red and gold. Level on

level, the maze stretched up and down through the murk, with-

out any apparent beginning or end. Every bridge led to a spire,

every ramp to another spire, other bridges. Whatever direction

Rand looked, as far as his eye could make out in the dimness it

was the same, above as well as below. There was not enough

light to see clearly, and he was almost glad of it. Some of those

ramps led to platforms that had to be directly above the ones

below. He could not see the base of any of them. He pressed,

seeking freedom, knowing it was an illusion. Everything was

illusion.

    He knew the illusion; he had followed it too many times not

to know. However far he went, up or down or in any direction,

there was only the shiny stone. Stone, but the dankness of

deep, fresh-turned earth permeated the air, and the sickly

sweetness of decay. The smell of a grave opened out of its time.

He tried not to breathe, but the smell filled his nostrils. It clung

to his skin like oil.

    A flicker of motion caught his eye, and he froze where he

was, half crouched against the polished guardwall around one

of the spire tops. It was no hiding place. From a thousand

places a watcher could have seen him. Shadow filled the air,

but there were no deeper shadows in which to hide. The light

did not come from lamps, or lanterns, or torches; it was simply

there, such as it was, as if it seeped out of the air. Enough by

which to see, after a fashion; enough by which to be seen. But

stillness gave a little protection.

    The movement came again, and now it was clear. A man

striding up a distant ramp, careless of the lack of railings and

the drop to nothing below. The man's cloak rippled with his

stately haste, and his head turned, searching, searching. The

distance was too far for Rand to see more than the shape in the

murk, but he did not need to be closer to know the cloak was

the red of fresh blood, that the searching eyes blazed like two

furnaces.

 

Then when he entered the Ways with his group,

 

From chapter 44 of The Eye of the World, Entering the Ways:

 

    The edges of their light caught other stoneworks, what ap-

peared to be stone-walled bridges arcing off into the darkness,

and gently sloping ramps, without railings of any kind, leading

up and down. Between the bridges and the ramps ran a chest-

high balustrade, however, as though falling was a danger there

at any rate. Plain white stone made the balustrade, in simple

curves and rounds fitted together in complex patterns. Some-

thing about all of it seemed almost familiar to Rand, but he

knew it had to be his imagination groping for anything familiar

where everything was strange.

 

The descriptions of the two areas are identical. Given the murkiness of the dream version, I would say that Ishamael was not free from his prison in the time period that the Ways were clean, and when he did end up seeing them they had already begun to grow dark and stale. It was the Ways he remembered that he chose as the setting for the dream. Rand even (possibly correctly) considered that there wasn't just one place, but multiple and Mat was possibly in one at that very moment with yet another Ba'alzamon. A bit farther into chapter 44, he realizes the island he had just left was directly below the one they just went to.