What's up with Taim

[RobertAlexWillis]

Well, this conversation is now revolving around the meaning of the word "friend". None of the definitions of which I am aware consist simply of the state of being similar.

[Luckers]

similar and attractive. But that is not the point. Language is living, used and adapted by the context in which it is uttered. In context, in the progression of the sentence and the reality of the situation, Aginor describing the Shaidar Logoth evil as 'an old friend and an old enemy'--in entirety, the description being made by both factors not the singular--is creating a descriptive paradigm that fits between.

 

Concider this. We use language not to speak ideas, but to speak around them to describe them in the outline created by the descriptors we have used. Each word we use in the progression reinforces the outline being established. 'The big green tree' is more then the individuality of its parts... it is more complete, and creates a contextual specifity lacking in simply 'the tree'.

 

So, a friend is someone you feel a connection to. A likeness created by a similarity at some level. An assosiation and an attraction. There is a limited implication of common interest as well.

 

Shaidar Logoth and the shadow fit all these, yet does not fit the word friend because we are aware that their nature exceed this definition, and become conflicting. So under that yes, Shaidar Logoth and the Shadow cannot be described as friends. But they were not, they were described as both friends AND enemies. Neither state is complete without the other. Together they create the entirety of the description. They create a more defined outline, one that both modifies and defies the nature of the sum of its parts.

 

There is a reason oxymoron's exist beyond the nature of paradox. Life is inherently dichotic... or even multiplicitious. Singular descriptions, such as the one you are arguing, do not fit, which is why we modify. And it is in the modification that the usage of friend AND enemy becomes an accurate description of the Shadar Logoth/Shadow relationship.

[RobertAlexWillis]

But we have different words to convey different shared experiences with some measure of precision, otherwise any word would mean anything and communication on even the most rudimentary level becomes uncertain to impossible. What I am saying is that other words apply more precisely to the situation described in other passages in the book. You used many of them in explaining your position to me.

 

I guess the closest thing I can think of in my experience is when people would describe positively and negatively charged particles as "liking" each other. In that way, a simple physical attraction is personified in a way that give it a wholly fictional intent, which could be extended to the term "friend". But, although it does happen, it irritates me, because that sort of lingual imprecision ..... grrrr ... it just irritates me.

 

I had a chemistry professor who used to talk about making equations "happy" by balancing them. I hated that.

 

So I guess what I'm saying is that, yeah, I can see what you're saying, it just irritates me. Usually I like the way Jordan uses language, so in this case, it is especially irritating. You'd think a scientist like Aginor could be a little more careful. Grrrrr.

[Bob T Dwarf]

I think everybody just blew by the quote Maj posted:

RJ: no, but you have to be close to it. It’s not something you can sense from a close distance use to track Padan Fain down.

 

Which now opens up the possibility of wrangling about how close "close" is.

 

Nonetheless, based on that quote, it seems unlikely that A&B could have used the miasma of the dagger to track Mat. If the evil of Fain can't be used to track him, the much tinier amount of that evil contained within the dagger wouldn't work either. Nor, can it be simply being ta'veren. Rand is the most strongly ta'veren of the three. If that was their beacon, Aginor would have pointed at him, not Mat.

 

So, it has to be some additional X factor.

 

It's just one of a thicket of mysteries at the end of "The Eye of the World" that have never been explained.

[Luckers]

You see, i genuinely like the bastardisation of language. Using words slightly out of their descriptive context to create both new and innovative meaning and dialogue, and so as to better communicate an understanding... which at its core is the sole reason language exists.

 

Concider too that not only do words have meaning, but so do sentences. The specific words we use to describe a situation... the tone, the word order, the choice of which descriptor we use to describe something in a situation in which we have options... it adds a level of meaning that is otherwise absent. Sentence structure that is not recognized grants emphasis, and in some ways intrigue.

 

I don't think im explaining this well. Let me try with an annecdote:

 

I remember once i met this guy named Adam. My friends all thought he was one of the coolest people around... funny, engaging, polite. Cool, essentially. The instant i met him i felt a deep dislike. I warned my friends that there was something off about him, and they asked me what it was... i could not tell them.

 

Later i was concidering it. It was not his manner... he said all the right things, did all the right things--it wasn't even the way he spoke, the silences or the gaps... any of the indications that we pick up on that leads to 'hunches'. There was nothing to fault. Then it struck me that what had made me react was not what he said, but how he said it. The specific sequence of words utilized to portray an idea revealed to me a mind that was slightly off. It occured to me then that it was more then word and action on which we judged people, but on which words, which sequence, and how those words can adapt, or change or be molded.

 

Three months later Adam started stalking a friend of mine. By then the other has started to be concerned by him, and had cut him out. It ended with him following Katie to the bus one night, and her having to call the cops on him.

 

Am I getting any of this accross, or should i shut up now and stop wasting peoples time?

[Bob T Dwarf]

Art can only imitate life to a limited extent.

 

What you describe is something everybody has experienced, but there is no reliable way to put it down on a page and make the reader have the same feeling about an interaction that the participant is trying to describe.

 

Thus, when writing - especially fiction where it is imperative that the reader "get" what is really going on - the author has to be very precise in his word usage. The only times you will customarily see the ordinary, sloppy, everyday, kind of word usage is when the author is deliberately setting out to deceive the reader so as to surprise him/her later.

 

Jordan was certainly being deliberately mysterious with what he had Aginor say, but I've never had the sense that he was being deceptive. He seemed to mean to convey the beginnings of something that would be revealed in full later. He just never followed through with the revelation so far as I can tell. The "AHA!" moment that he seemed to be setting up may have been changed out of existence as the series and the way in which Mat's character developed changed as the series expanded beyong the originally planned three books.

[Luckers]

I'm saying that in my opinion Aginor's actions and words were not strange. Art has imitated life in this instance, and quite reasonably so. I very likely would have said the same thing in his place.

[Anarion]

Those who taste power grow accustome to its essence. Very potent. Taim feels in his heart and soul(superfiacaly) that he has some extreme power,whether it be through the Dark One or just plain aragance. I think he his too big for his britches. And Rand, with the help of Lews and his Aes Sedai friends will put him in check, not with out great effort.

[Duncun42]

I'm new here so excuse my impudence, but isn't this topic supposed to be about Taim. As interesting as this thread is, shouldn't you start a new topic link?

[Luckers]

Threads, like words, have a life of their own. They should be discouraged from getting off the wheel of time, but before that the evolution of the conversation is fine. At least to my mind.

[Duncun42]

I apologize for my presumptuousness. Carry on. :)

[Luckers]

Lol, no, i was just offering my opinion on that. I have no power here... i suppose its really up to the mods.