Opening Excerpt From The Prologue

[duncanwright]

Controlling the population does sound useful, but I note the following:

1 - the doors to the Ways have 'keys' similar (perhaps in design only) to chora trees

2 - that the Ways (or their access doors) are 'grown' using a talisman (perhaps some offshoot or something associated with chora trees?)

 

And separately this triggered the thoughts:

1 - that the stedding also make one feel at peace

2 - I think the stedding are part of another reality where the Ogier originate from

3 - The Ogier are good with growing things and singing and the like

=> perhaps the chora come from the same alternate reality as the stedding/Ogier?

or => perhaps I'm getting wildly speculative on my first day posting on this forum?

[Lisa Campbell]

Could be something like Rand singing to or even just visiting Avendesora and getting it to flower and then chora trees can be grown and distributed etc. The effect the trees have on everyone and peacing them out I think would be an intended result only not to control the masses but to keep them peaceful - maybe following the leaf. The seed singing would need the combination of the ogier and tinkers (peacemakers) to make them flower without the Dragon's power to do it on his own which would support Rand's Rhuidean memories. Aviendah could help him with her new memories from the Glass Columns too.

 

The book of translation also makes me think of a mass ascension to a parallel world but not in the Ogier running away fashion.

[Silver]

I don't have it in front of me but from what I remember, Loial wrote the passage in past tense. So that means that the quote is from a book that Loial probably wrote after the last battle (the passage doesn't sound like a note jot down).

 

Doesn't reveal anything about the last battle except that Loial lives.

[username13]

Controlling the population does sound useful, but I note the following:

1 - the doors to the Ways have 'keys' similar (perhaps in design only) to chora trees

2 - that the Ways (or their access doors) are 'grown' using a talisman (perhaps some offshoot or something associated with chora trees?)

 

And separately this triggered the thoughts:

1 - that the stedding also make one feel at peace

2 - I think the stedding are part of another reality where the Ogier originate from

3 - The Ogier are good with growing things and singing and the like

=> perhaps the chora come from the same alternate reality as the stedding/Ogier?

or => perhaps I'm getting wildly speculative on my first day posting on this forum?

 

The Ways were created by the male Aes Sedai who survived the breaking due to the Ogier providing sanctuary in their stedding. I'm guessing the design was simply created by them as the Chora tree signified a time of peace.

 

The Chora tree themselves, as well as the Nym, are genetic alterations/creations in the Age of Legends, pre War of Power. The reason Aginor went to the shadow was it provided greater opportunity ofr creation/experimentation as in the Age of Legends it was widely considered there was nothing more to discover, just alterations of existing stock, such as the Chora Tree.

[Sharaman]

I think certain specific kinds of research were verboten in AoL.

Mixing animal-human genes, for instance. Or Semirhage's experiments.

[Matrim DeLaneous]

For example the Blight could be another (probable?) dimension which (through the DOs influence?) is slowly forcing itself onto the main WoT one.

 

RJ has confirmed that the Blight is another reality--also that you cannot access the Blight in TAR because of this.

 

This is interesting. I did not know it. Has the location of Rand's Ishamael dreams / encounters ever been discussed. Most recently their meeting in TGS? I always assumed the landscape & Sky were from the blight. Is this just a TAR conjuring?

[duncanwright]

The Ways were created by the male Aes Sedai who survived the breaking due to the Ogier providing sanctuary in their stedding. I'm guessing the design was simply created by them as the Chora tree signified a time of peace.

Perhaps, this seems reasonable.

 

 

The Chora tree themselves, as well as the Nym, are genetic alterations/creations in the Age of Legends, pre War of Power. The reason Aginor went to the shadow was it provided greater opportunity ofr creation/experimentation as in the Age of Legends it was widely considered there was nothing more to discover, just alterations of existing stock, such as the Chora Tree.

Indeed. Since my post I have read that the Nym were created. I didn't know about the Chora tree.

 

Thanks

[Rcurran]

Interestingly the guy that ran the patent office back at the turn of 19-20th century wanted to close it as he said there was nothing left to invent. Similarly back when Constantinople was the centre of world knowledge Islamic culture as a whole turned it's back on science and deliberatley set ou to advance religion as science reach was viewed as completed. This ago of legends technology hubris we read about, like most if the books, has a real world equivalent.

 

On iPhone please excuse spelling, Chita is Chora etc

The Chita tree, they need to make cuttings of it and plant it places, for crying out loud. Really interested in what you say about the blight and steddimgs, does a steddimg exist beneath the blight or is it blighted out of existence...

[Sentinel78]

Really interested in what you say about the blight and steddimgs, does a steddimg exist beneath the blight or is it blighted out of existence...

 

I remember reading somewhere, probably from Loial, that steddings are consumed by the Blight. I think it's when they're discussing the problem of guarding the Waygates in Book 6.

[Sharaman]

Really interested in what you say about the blight and steddimgs, does a steddimg exist beneath the blight or is it blighted out of existence...

 

I remember reading somewhere, probably from Loial, that steddings are consumed by the Blight. I think it's when they're discussing the problem of guarding the Waygates in Book 6.

LoC - Elder Haman marking Waygates on the map.

[Caedn of the Taardad]

Really interested in what you say about the blight and steddimgs, does a steddimg exist beneath the blight or is it blighted out of existence...

 

I remember reading somewhere, probably from Loial, that steddings are consumed by the Blight. I think it's when they're discussing the problem of guarding the Waygates in Book 6.

LoC - Elder Haman marking Waygates on the map.

 

I'll go one step further:

 

Perhaps saddest was the one marked on the very edge of the Blight in Arafel; Myrddraal might be reluctant to enter a stedding, but as the Blight marched south year by year, it swept over everything. Pausing, Haman said sadly, "Sherandu was swallowed by the Great Blight one thousand eight hundred forty-three years ago, and Chandar nine hundred sixty-eight."

-LoC, chapter 20 From the Stedding

 

I apologize for any errors in that, they're from whatever scanning software was used to make the PDF's I found (and the Light bless whoever did make them).

[OptimusPrime]

For Discussion of Loial's excerpt. Requested by Matrin DeLaneous

 

In the excerpt from Loil's book, I'm curious if anyone found it unusual that the ogier spirits / dead were forced to stay outside the stedding? Makes me wonder why if the stedding are safe from some of the cosequences of time /the pattern unravelling, why wouldn't they be a safe haven during TG?

 

I never want to second guess you man, you are right too often, but...I just kinda figured they were standing there by choice ( you know doing what they would have been doing if alive) but now I have to go read it again. On the other point I believe TG decides the fate of the pattern so all dimensions related to it are in fact in danger, and this will probably Loial's argument...but let me say again I defer to your judgement hell, how many times have you missed?

 

 

To be clear, that quote is Matrim's thoughts. I merely repeated it in created the thread at his request.

 

I brought this comment up not so much from a theoretical inclination but from a sense of peculiarity. I'm not sure we'll ever fully understand the nature of the stedding. We know the Avendesora (sp) like feelings one has when they're in the stedding. We know you can't channel in the stedding. I don't think you can even channel in to a stedding. etc, etc, etc. I just found it unusual / contradictive even, that in Loil's excerpt, we see that while even the trees in the stedding are feeling the ripples of the unraveling pattern (dying and resistent to any song), however the dead ogier spirits can't seem to enter and are forced encircle and look in from the outside? Can they truly not enter, is it supposed to sybolize the time of Longing, or is there another answer?

 

I always assumed that a stedding is like a center of stability for the Pattern, and seeing as the dead walking is a sign of the Pattern weakening, if a stedding was a naturally strong area of the Pattern, then the dead walking couldnt cross into that area, I can understand it myself. Imagine that the thinning of the Pattern that allows the dead to be present, imagine that thinning of the Pattern hasnt got bad enough yet. The trees and plants might be deteriorating, but the dead cant walk here... yet.

[Duskfire]

I actually think the opposite and Stedding are alien to the Pattern, or rather the Pattern of that particular world. Ogier come from elsewhere, channeling doesn't work, etc etc. Stedding are like, pockets where the Pattern doesn't exist, or is maybe greatly weakened. Min has said that she never sees auras around Ogier, and as far as I can tell Egwene hasn't so much has had a dream regarding Loial despite how much he has been around. Stedding are an extension of Ogier. Ghosts not being able to enter has something to do with this weakness in this Pattern. Only weakness isn't quite the word. More like, anamolies?

 

So yeah, thats quite a garbled post :P

[nophone]

 

First: I think, though am not certain, that stedding are not accessible in TAR - this would be something in common with the blight, which has been stated to not be a natural part of the world.

 

Places known to be inaccessible in TaR.

 

Stedding

The Blight

Rhudien (atleast it was before the fog lifted, now i'm not sure)

 

I don't think the dimensionality of the wheel would justify this because it has been stated that TaR is a kind of superposition of all dimensions of the wheel. (Verin Sedai to Egween in book 4 I think)

[duncanwright]

I don't think the dimensionality of the wheel would justify this because it has been stated that TaR is a kind of superposition of all dimensions of the wheel. (Verin Sedai to Egween in book 4 I think)

I thought it was a superposition of all the 'worlds of if' but not ALL dimensions, though I may be mistaken.

 

I would also add that in that case we know only what Verin (or other researchers) believe, not the definite truth.