Taim is NOT a DF

[Tom Sawyer]

What happened to the Black Ajah's plan to break him free, as we hear from that captured Black sister in the beginning of book 4?

 

That was a fake plan that the captured BA girl told to Moiraine et al to try and distract them from learning the real plan of going to Tarabon and getting the male a'dam.  If it had been a real plan, she'd have been bound by her BA Oaths not to reveal it.

[haloun]

the only evidence i needed was that he has been channeling forever and has not gone mad yet.  most people go mad in how long?  4 to 5 years before they die?  he has been channeling for how long?  to me it seems like the DO's black cords that protect men from the taint.

[primus]

All of the evidence points to Taim being a DF.  That doesn't mean that he is one.  The easiest answer to the mystery of his escape is that Black AS let him escape because he is already a DF, or they turned him into a DF.  There are always other explainations.  Perhaps he really does have followers still that helped release him.  We don't know 100% for sure yet.  As for his spoken words, he is definately surrounded by other DF and Forsaken, who is to say what he overhears and repeats.  Also, why take a position of authority when the traditional DF and Forsaken move is to saddle up to a person with authority and set them up as a scape goat for your actions.  It is entirely possible that Taim just has a winning personality like Elaida (who is not a DF): intelligant, strong, overbearing, and cruel.  It just works out better with brutish men than sly women.  He also may have imitators giving orders on his behalf, which is much more a Forsaken's style.  Taim is almost definately a DF, but stranger things have happened.   I know there are tons of holes in my comments.

[Dragan]

quite honestly after reading the books in detail over and over i would find it massively hard to believe that Taim is not a DF. But for the sake of argument lets assume for the moment  that he is not. He knows a decent amount about saidin yes possibly enough to be learned from experimenting with the Power (we all know this is dangerous given that there are no Male Aes Sedai left to train new ones) but for now we can assume he has learned over his years of channeling how to weave Shield, Wards, and Healing. Shields i would assume are relatively simple as they generally just need to be woven of solid air. Wards on the other hand are slightly more tricky in order to get a ward to do a specific thing you must know how to spin it the ward against listening for example is far different from a ward to keep out shadow spawn. Finally Healing...well Healing is..Healing its massively complicated and with an untrained hand is more likely to kill the one that requires the healing rather than actually heal them so regardless of how Taim learned to weave a shield or a ward the easiest way for those two would be trial and error but healing on the other hand requires a mostly living subject to have your trials and errors implying that Taim would have had to have had hundreds if not thousands of subjects to attempt healing on unless he already knew how. The fact that Taim knows any Healing at all does not bode well for the case of him not being a DF because even if hes not to learn healing by trial and error using live human subjects is something along the lines of Semirhage(Nemene Damendar Boann) which tells me he may not have spoken the words to the DO but his actions abandoned the Light long ago. Even if the Black AS let him go it would imply that he is being used as a means to an end in their scheme and if he was 13x13 then he is a DF by default. Personally I believe he is a DF to the core of his being and will be one of the shadows Dreadlords at TG bringing his legion of followers to the Shadow to oppose Rand and his armies the outcome will be....interesting.

[azrael.1289]

the only evidence i needed was that he has been channeling forever and has not gone mad yet.  most people go mad in how long?  4 to 5 years before they die?  he has been channeling for how long?  to me it seems like the DO's black cords that protect men from the taint.

IIRC, couldn't Rand actually see those cords or were they a special case with Asmo?

[Dragan]

the only evidence i needed was that he has been channeling forever and has not gone mad yet.  most people go mad in how long?  4 to 5 years before they die?  he has been channeling for how long?  to me it seems like the DO's black cords that protect men from the taint.

IIRC, couldn't Rand actually see those cords or were they a special case with Asmo?

 

Al'Thor saw the Threads with Asmodean and with Aginor while fighting over the Eye of the World he burns Aginor with the power and severs his connection with the Dark One at the same time tho Aginor is resurrected as Osan'gar who then posed as Corlan Dashiva.

[azrael.1289]

the only evidence i needed was that he has been channeling forever and has not gone mad yet.  most people go mad in how long?  4 to 5 years before they die?  he has been channeling for how long?  to me it seems like the DO's black cords that protect men from the taint.

IIRC, couldn't Rand actually see those cords or were they a special case with Asmo?

 

Al'Thor saw the Threads with Asmodean and with Aginor while fighting over the Eye of the World he burns Aginor with the power and severs his connection with the Dark One at the same time tho Aginor is resurrected as Osan'gar who then posed as Corlan Dashiva.

My question then is, if Taim is indeed protected from madness by DO, couldn't Rand see those threads while he saw Taim channeling?

One possibility is he could be hiding them somehow.....

[Lacanos]

the only evidence i needed was that he has been channeling forever and has not gone mad yet.  most people go mad in how long?  4 to 5 years before they die?  he has been channeling for how long?  to me it seems like the DO's black cords that protect men from the taint.

IIRC, couldn't Rand actually see those cords or were they a special case with Asmo?

 

Al'Thor saw the Threads with Asmodean and with Aginor while fighting over the Eye of the World he burns Aginor with the power and severs his connection with the Dark One at the same time tho Aginor is resurrected as Osan'gar who then posed as Corlan Dashiva.

My question then is, if Taim is indeed protected from madness by DO, couldn't Rand see those threads while he saw Taim channeling?

One possibility is he could be hiding them somehow.....

 

He doesn't see them while channeling, he sees them while in alternate realities - Ishamael in TAR, Asmodean during Skimming

[Luckers]

And he did not see them with Aginor in the Eye of the World, just Ishamael as Lacanos stated.

[haloun]

All of the evidence points to Taim being a DF.  That doesn't mean that he is one.  The easiest answer to the mystery of his escape is that Black AS let him escape because he is already a DF, or they turned him into a DF.  There are always other explainations.  Perhaps he really does have followers still that helped release him.  We don't know 100% for sure yet.  As for his spoken words, he is definately surrounded by other DF and Forsaken, who is to say what he overhears and repeats.  Also, why take a position of authority when the traditional DF and Forsaken move is to saddle up to a person with authority and set them up as a scape goat for your actions.  It is entirely possible that Taim just has a winning personality like Elaida (who is not a DF): intelligant, strong, overbearing, and cruel.  It just works out better with brutish men than sly women.  He also may have imitators giving orders on his behalf, which is much more a Forsaken's style.  Taim is almost definately a DF, but stranger things have happened.   I know there are tons of holes in my comments.

 

for this particular set, i can see him being set up as RANDS friend/advisor, and having the DR be the scapegoat for the actions of the ashaman, that way the world hates him even more when it turns out the ashaman are DF's

[Naffy]

The only thing that is certain is that Taim is a total dick.

[Cirin]

Yeah, whether a Darkfriend or just a guy out for power, I see little chance that he's not going down soon.  With only two books left and still a whole lot to get done, to have him be anything BUT a Darkfriend would be cutting it a little close, I think.  Sometimes things have twists to them, but stories also need things that are what they seem to be, especially since tension often comes from the reader knowing/realizing something that the characters in the story don't.  I know that RJ said that things aren't always what they seem in the Wheel of Time, but I don't think that necessarily means that NOTHING is as it seems.

 

For Taim to not be a Darkfriend after all this time would be too convoluted, in my opinion.

[Barid Bel Medar]

this is all true and as i said in the first post i myself am banking on Taim as a DF however i thought i would bring it up since most are thinking its a forgone conclusion, where in fact it is all speculation (albiet pretty convincing) it still isnt established yet. So thats the point of this, just something to spark some interest into the Taim/Logain battle that seems to be comming up in ToM, so i  thought i would present some reasons why taim isnt a DF

[fikkie77]

Have we ever had a POV from Taim?

[Barid Bel Medar]

No, we havent had a POV from Taim

[Dragan]

only way to know for sure is Taim is a Friend of the Dark is to wait and see....

[Shazzai]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to put this question, or even if it has been asked before, but...

 

Who told us about the 13x13 conversion?  Wasn't it Sheriam who first mentioned it?  Have we seen ANY other characters bring it up that didn't first hear it from Sheriam, EVER?  I know RJ mentioned it, but he might have been 'keeping up the con'.  We have NEVER seen or heard of it being definitively used either, which doesn't make much sense if it's as simple as it was described.  What better way to ensure victory in the Last Battle than TURN THE ENTIRE WHITE TOWER to darkfriends one at a time?

 

Whether it's an example of a bit of worldbuilding that RJ thought better of, or an example of Sheriam LYING (because she can do that sort of thing), it would be nice to know why we haven't seen it before...

[Lacanos]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to put this question, or even if it has been asked before, but...

 

Who told us about the 13x13 conversion?  Wasn't it Sheriam who first mentioned it?  Have we seen ANY other characters bring it up that didn't first hear it from Sheriam, EVER?  I know RJ mentioned it, but he might have been 'keeping up the con'.  We have NEVER seen or heard of it being definitively used either, which doesn't make much sense if it's as simple as it was described.  What better way to ensure victory in the Last Battle than TURN THE ENTIRE WHITE TOWER to darkfriends one at a time?

 

Whether it's an example of a bit of worldbuilding that RJ thought better of, or an example of Sheriam LYING (because she can do that sort of thing), it would be nice to know why we haven't seen it before...

 

It's mentioned in TWOTWOT/BWB several times. The occasion I can think of is when it talks about Semirhage preferring to torture AS to the dark than turn them

[fikkie77]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to put this question, or even if it has been asked before, but...

 

Who told us about the 13x13 conversion?  Wasn't it Sheriam who first mentioned it?  Have we seen ANY other characters bring it up that didn't first hear it from Sheriam, EVER?  I know RJ mentioned it, but he might have been 'keeping up the con'.  We have NEVER seen or heard of it being definitively used either, which doesn't make much sense if it's as simple as it was described.  What better way to ensure victory in the Last Battle than TURN THE ENTIRE WHITE TOWER to darkfriends one at a time?

 

Whether it's an example of a bit of worldbuilding that RJ thought better of, or an example of Sheriam LYING (because she can do that sort of thing), it would be nice to know why we haven't seen it before...

It was not Sheriam who mentioned it... it was Egwene who encountered it (she was about to be turned 13/13) in her Accepted test. Sheriam only confirmed it.

[CUBAREY]

What better way to ensure victory in the Last Battle than TURN THE ENTIRE WHITE TOWER to darkfriends one at a time?

 

Until the begnning of The Eye of The World the Chosen were trapped inside of the Do's prison in a dreamless sleep. Even Ishy was mostly trapped and could gain his freedom only once every few hundred years. That being the case I think that their simply was no Darkfriend with enough authority/guts to try and meet (much less order around) 13 of the Faceless. Afterthey gained their freedom the Chosen seemed to intent on gaining their own fiefdoms to execute such a plan.

[Shazzai]

It was not Sheriam who mentioned it... it was Egwene who encountered it (she was about to be turned 13/13) in her Accepted test. Sheriam only confirmed it.

 

Egwene encountered it in the same place that she had the ageless face without having sworn on the OR.  Some of the things she saw were wrong, that leave Sheriam as the source for HOW the turning functions.

 

How exactly does the 13x13 work?  Is it a circle of 13 channeling?  Or do they channel individually?  If it's a circle, is there something important about it BEING a circle, or could a powerful channeler with a sa'angreal handle enough enough of the power to do it?  Can a male channeler take part?

[Lacanos]

It was not Sheriam who mentioned it... it was Egwene who encountered it (she was about to be turned 13/13) in her Accepted test. Sheriam only confirmed it.

 

Egwene encountered it in the same place that she had the ageless face without having sworn on the OR.  Some of the things she saw were wrong, that leave Sheriam as the source for HOW the turning functions.

 

How exactly does the 13x13 work?  Is it a circle of 13 channeling?  Or do they channel individually?  If it's a circle, is there something important about it BEING a circle, or could a powerful channeler with a sa'angreal handle enough enough of the power to do it?  Can a male channeler take part?

Pretty sure it is done individually so men can do it without women

[Blackhoof]

It was described as "thirteen weaving the flows through thirteen myrdraal" I think that means not in a circle, each weaving a weave through a fade, then into a captive.

 

I like taim. hes badass. But then again, i always like most bad guys.

 

"Kneel before the Dragon Reborn, or you will be knelt"

 

Classic.

[Dragan]

13x13 was referenced as being used in the Age of Legends to Turn Aes Sedai to the shadow so we do know that it can in fact be done against their will but i think the question is would the Myrddraal be destroyed in the process of turning the Aes Sedai? if thats the case you would have to make sure the person you are turning is very valuable to the Shadows cause because to my understanding Myrddraal are only a % chance to be born to a Trolloc and i don't know how long a Trolloc breeding cycle is so even if Myrddraal are 5% thats not very many Myrddraal not enough to spare to turn the entire tower to Shadow especially if the Myrddraal is destroyed in the process. Taim would be a likely subject for a 13x13 turning even if the Myrddraal were destroyed in the process because he is in a seat of power in the Black Tower and he has direct access to the Dragon Reborn. So even if the Myrddraal are sacraficed to turn someone he would be worth the cost due to his access to Ashaman and the Dragon

[fikkie77]

13x13 was referenced as being used in the Age of Legends to Turn Aes Sedai to the shadow so we do know that it can in fact be done against their will but i think the question is would the Myrddraal be destroyed in the process of turning the Aes Sedai? if thats the case you would have to make sure the person you are turning is very valuable to the Shadows cause because to my understanding Myrddraal are only a % chance to be born to a Trolloc and i don't know how long a Trolloc breeding cycle is so even if Myrddraal are 5% thats not very many Myrddraal not enough to spare to turn the entire tower to Shadow especially if the Myrddraal is destroyed in the process. Taim would be a likely subject for a 13x13 turning even if the Myrddraal were destroyed in the process because he is in a seat of power in the Black Tower and he has direct access to the Dragon Reborn. So even if the Myrddraal are sacraficed to turn someone he would be worth the cost due to his access to Ashaman and the Dragon

To my knowledge, the 13/13 trick wasn't discovered in the Age of Legends, but in the Trolloc Wars.

I believe RJ (or BS) never told us what happens to the Murddraal.