The Nature of the Dark One's Prison?

[Jon Paul]

So, I have been wondering for a while now. What is the exact nature of the Dark One's prison. I've seen some who view the Pattern its self as the Prison for example. Something I have recently been considering is the possibility of the Prison being a vacuole? Doubt it, though I'll give it more thought.

 

So what are your views on the Dark One's Prison?

[dovien]

I've seen some who view the Pattern its self as the Prison for example.

This is my position. Vacuoles are small and temporary and not necessarily linked to any particular reality. The Dark One's prison is cogent to all realities so it makes sense to say the Dark One is locked outside the pattern itself.

[dscott8]

For some reason, whenever I read of seals guarding the Dark One's prison, I think of aquatic animals balancing Aes Sedai symbols on their noses. So it's got to be someplace with lots of fish.

 

Actually, I always assumed it was a small bubble of artificially created parallel dimension, like a mini World Of Dreams, the seven seals being the opposite of dream ter'angreal, acting as "locks".

[Jblaylock]

Well, since they physicaly boared a hole in the DO's prison, which is mentioned as being at WOT's version a Mount Doom, which is a physical place, and physical people (LTT and the 100 mofo's) are mentioned actualy going there to do the deed in the first place, I am assuming that it is not some parrallel demention figurative thingy-ma-gigger, but an actual prison.

 

That, plus the fact that I believe the DO is basicaly the Anti-dragon, and the Dragon is basicaly a result of the pattern trying to balance out the darkness of the DO, so I think the Dark One is an actual being, like Rand, so his prison must be an actual place. Of course, this is all my speculation, based off of no more evidence than simple ideas and thoughts that came off the top of my head, so please feel free to correct me.

[dovien]

The Dark One is the antithesis of the Creator. The Dragon's opposite is the Nae'blis.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Well, since they physicaly boared a hole in the DO's prison, which is mentioned as being at WOT's version a Mount Doom, which is a physical place, and physical people (LTT and the 100 mofo's) are mentioned actualy going there to do the deed in the first place, I am assuming that it is not some parrallel demention figurative thingy-ma-gigger, but an actual prison.

 

That, plus the fact that I believe the DO is basicaly the Anti-dragon, and the Dragon is basicaly a result of the pattern trying to balance out the darkness of the DO, so I think the Dark One is an actual being, like Rand, so his prison must be an actual place. Of course, this is all my speculation, based off of no more evidence than simple ideas and thoughts that came off the top of my head, so please feel free to correct me.

 

RJ has said that the Bore isnt an actual place. It lends creedence to the Pattern = Prison.

 

The bore was "drilled" at the Sharom, (Shayol Ghul) where the pattern was thinnest. But that the prison isnt actually physically there.

 

 

Robert Jordan Answers: A shield exists both as a barrier around the entire person and as a single point along with everything in between. . (In a way, this is like the Bore, which does not actually exist as Shayol Ghul. The Bore exists everywhere, but Shayol Ghul is the place where it can best be detected. Which is not to say that there is any connection between the Bore and a shield. Both simply exist in different states simultaneously.)

 

Jordan: No, no, no. Because of the Bore and the fact that the Bore is best perceived, the Bore doesn't really exist in Shayol Ghul, the Bore exists everywhere, it's simply in Shayol Ghul where it can be perceived most easily. By the same token he has greater access to people at Shayol Ghul than he does elsewhere, or did, and uh, that's, when you know, Rahvin died, Rahvin is balefired out of time, slain out of time, cannot be reached, gone. Be'lal, (names someone else).

From theoryland database: https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcjspjqg_53c74tbncv

[Jon Paul]

This is my position. Vacuoles are small and temporary and not necessarily linked to any particular reality. The Dark One's prison is cogent to all realities so it makes sense to say the Dark One is locked outside the pattern itself.

 

I see where you're coming from in regards to vacuoles. And I can see the Dark One existing outside of the Pattern, separated. But I don't think it should be correct to say that the Pattern is his bonds. The Dark One is superior to the Pattern, it's all very dualistic, him and the Creator. If the Creator can make existence then the Dark One can unmake existence. Which makes me think the the Prison itself is sort of.. like a varnish over the Pattern keeping the Dark One out. The Bore's broken that nice varnish. It needs a fresh coat. I think the Dark One simply wants to destroy because he's Chaos. It's what Chaos does when it sees Order

.

On the Bore, I believe it is maintained by a weave of the power. It was created so.. clearing away the rubble. What if the Seals aren't the only rubble? Men cannot match the Creator, Lews Therin learned that in his arrogance. What if one simply removes man's interference?

[Jblaylock]

Ah. Well then. I gladly accept that correction. Learn something new here every day.

[didymos]

The bore was "drilled" at the Sharom, (Shayol Ghul) where the pattern was thinnest.

 

No. The Sharom was not the future home of Shayol Ghul. It was a (floating, spherical) research facility in the city of V'Saine, and part of the Collam Daan, a university. Shayol Ghul was just some subtropical island and a nice, rustic (i.e. decidedly non-urban or major-research-university-supporting) vacation spot. And there's no evidence that they drilled where the pattern was thinnest. It's never explained how they learned of this new "Source" or how they drilled. They just did, using some unspecified Age of Legends methods to do so. However, RJ said the Bore is the thinness:

 

Q: What exactly is the Bore?

 

RJ: Well, it is at…No, I shouldn't say that. It is a thinness in the Pattern that you can feel the most at Shayol Ghul.

 

That's what is best detected: the Bore itself. And since the Bore obviously didn't exist before being drilled...well, I think you can see the problem there.

[trashbird1240]

Jordan: No, no, no. Because of the Bore and the fact that the Bore is best perceived, the Bore doesn't really exist in Shayol Ghul, the Bore exists everywhere, it's simply in Shayol Ghul where it can be perceived most easily. By the same token he has greater access to people at Shayol Ghul than he does elsewhere, or did, and uh, that's, when you know, Rahvin died, Rahvin is balefired out of time, slain out of time, cannot be reached, gone. Be'lal, (names someone else).

From theoryland database: https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcjspjqg_53c74tbncv

 

This sounds precisely like what a Mormon friend told me about Mormon temples. He said that within a temple "the veil is thin." I didn't ask him to explain further since it didn't sound like something I'd understand. Jordan may have gotten many of his ideas from Buddhism, but I don't know if there's something similar (a similar place, such as a temple, dzong, etc) in Buddhism.

[Ihasavowel]

I suspect that in the WOTverse, entropy is a kind of "lack of balance" and that either a lack of entropy prevents the DO from touching the pattern, or accumulation of entropy requires the DO touch the pattern.

 

It's prison might even be its own ignorance about its own nature. Maybe it can touch the pattern, and like the Creator is everywhere, but it just does not know this, and believing the contrary, is constrained accordingly.

[helis4life]

The bore was "drilled" at the Sharom, (Shayol Ghul) where the pattern was thinnest.

 

No. The Sharom was not the future home of Shayol Ghul. It was a (floating, spherical) research facility in the city of V'Saine, and part of the Collam Daan, a university. Shayol Ghul was just some subtropical island and a nice, rustic (i.e. decidedly non-urban or major-research-university-supporting) vacation spot. And there's no evidence that they drilled where the pattern was thinnest. It's never explained how they learned of this new "Source" or how they drilled. They just did, using some unspecified Age of Legends methods to do so. However, RJ said the Bore is the thinness:

 

Q: What exactly is the Bore?

 

RJ: Well, it is at…No, I shouldn't say that. It is a thinness in the Pattern that you can feel the most at Shayol Ghul.

 

That's what is best detected: the Bore itself. And since the Bore obviously didn't exist before being drilled...well, I think you can see the problem there.

 

This is correct. Lanfear and Beidomon tap in to what they believe is a new source of the OP and unexpectedly open a hole to the DO's prison. My thoughts are that while its called a Bore, I think its more of a rip in the pattern that allows the DO one to influence the world. The seals placed at Shayol Ghul were to "stich" the pattern together, thus closing out the DO once more. The strike occured at SG because of the pattern being the thinnest there. When RJ refers to being "thin" i take it to mean not a physical quality of that location, but less interaction/change/influence of The immediate area/world. Coupling this with the beliefs of the female Aes Sedai of the Fateful Concord that the requirement of the placement of the seals were so precise, that it bordered on an impossibility, i think leads credence to that line of thinking that LTT chose that location perhaps because of the Patterns weaker influences of the area, and thus allowed him more precision when placing the seals.

 

Also, due to the weaker forces of the pattern around that location, the DO would require less power to influence the area, and I think agrees with the idea of the Forsaken meeting there to be closer or more aware of the DO.

 

I believe if the DO's prison were sealed totally his influence would cease immediately, and his followers would wain and eventually fall. The AoL before the bore was created seems to indicate that there was no perception of the Shadow or its influence. The DO had no touch, his "prison" was infinite. I think the Creator essentially wrote him out of this story of the world, and the DO could never involve him/her/it self until someone/something paved the way first.

 

But a question i come across is will this truly be the Last Battle between the shadow and the light. Now that the DO is accessible through a rip in the pattern, could someone in future seek to bring him/her/it in to the world again?

[Darth Krewl]

I've always thought of this in metaphysical terms, concerning theories on the Earth's electromagnetic field (EMF) and potential gateways into other places, realms or dimensions in space, that would be impossible to reach via physical travel, but that depend on electromagnetic currents to function.

 

This I get clearly from RJ's explanation. He claims that the Bore is not an actual physical orifice located straight above Shayol Ghul, but that it's everywhere. And that SG is where the Pattern is thinner. So, I think of it as layers divided into the material and the spiritual realms, so to speak, based on Einstein's theories on energy and relativity.

 

In other words, there's the physical world, then there's the Pattern itself (enveloping the physical realms contained therein) and then, there's the Dark One's prison. IMO, the DO's prison is not really a physical place, like a cell or something, but actually a void or "nothingness" that stands outside the Pattern and vibrates in a different frequency, thus the DO is not bound to the turnings of the Wheel but can't touch the Wheel or interfere with it, till the Bore was drilled. Simply because he is completely outside of the electromagnetic currents of the Pattern.

 

At that point, from my understanding, what happened was that an ultrasonic wave (generated by Lanfear and her team of scientists) creates an inter-dimensional hole in energetic, but not physical terms, which allows what is in fact an alien lifeform (the DO) that doesn't belong in this dimension (within the Pattern) to meddle with the whole thing in an unnatural (and most twisted and evil) manner.

 

This theory would be reinforced through the seven focal points across the Earth's EMF, where the seals had to be placed exactly, lest the whole thing backfire in the sense of another ultrasonic and energetic disruption that would completely erode the thin protective electromagnetic layer that was keeping the DO from being freed entirely. The idea being that the cuendillar seals would produce an electromagnetic vibration that would raise the frequency that had been disrupted by the original drilling.

 

All this metaphysical jargon wouldn't make any sense to the folk from the Third Age, of course. But, if we take into consideration that RJ meant for the Age of Legends to be our distant future (distant past, depending on the turns of the Wheel), then I'm pretty sure that this was simple stuff for accomplished scientists, like the Aes Sedai of that time.

 

Some metaphysical theories claim that the collective consciousness of the Earth (and all lifeforms that reside on it) is affected by the frequencies and currents that the planet's EMF goes through. This would be right in line with the explanations provided by the Guide, where it's said that the Dark One's touch started to corrupt the minds of the people, IMO.

 

Just another theory I thought I'd throw in for good measure.

[Kestrel]

So if I can reduce what you've said to overly simplistic terms:

 

The pattern is a layer of sorts, like a thick blanket of insulation, and our world is woven into one side of it. On the other side of the blanket is a barrier layer which is the boundary of the Dark One's prison.

 

Meirin and Beidomon sensed a power on the other side of the insulation blanket, so they used saidin and saidar together in a circle to spread the blanket threads apart. To keep the threads spread apart they built a tunnel with walls made by saidin and saidar together

 

LTT was forced to try closing the tunnel without saidar, therefore he was unable to tear down the tunnel walls. Instead he tried to plug the tunnel with the seals. The tunnel is still there, and as each plug crumbles away the unobstructed tunnel opening grows wider.

 

Even though the seals are plugging the tunnel, they are also holding it open. In order to implement a permanent solution, Rand has to REMOVE the tunnel, not plug it. Once the tunnel walls are removed, the threads of the blanket will return to their original position and the tunnel will collapse. It will require using both saidin and saidar to undo the original making of the tunnel walls.

[Darth Krewl]

Well, first off, thanks for simplifying things, Kestrel. I'm gonna follow your example and and try to keep the jargon simple, because I do tend to babble and drift hehehe...

 

Think of the whole WoT universe as a spiral painted by the Creator, where each world contained within the Pattern's a layer within the spiral, with the Dark One outside looking in.

 

Now, imagine the drilling of the Bore by Mierin and co. like deleting some of the layers from the spiral. Not a tunnel, because a tunnel would lead straight to a certain place. The problem here is that some of the layers on the spiral weakened and became thinner all around (more so right above Shayol Ghul, but all over the place) till they disappeared entirely, allowing for the Dark One to come closer to the physical realm. Though he can't break through entirely, because other layers are still in place, blocking his way.

 

Now, the sealing of the Bore was the right idea, IMO. But the absence of saidar meant that it lacked balance, as you've wisely noted. In this case, that would be like replacing the missing layers on the spiral, but missing 50% of their original thickness. Hence, the seals break because they're not as strong as they should have been.

 

In this case, I agree 100% with your suggestion that removing the seals completely would be like replacing the faulty painting of the spiral with a brand new one, that includes both, saidin and saidar, yup. Hope this makes it clearer.

 

But a question i come across is will this truly be the Last Battle between the shadow and the light. Now that the DO is accessible through a rip in the pattern, could someone in future seek to bring him/her/it in to the world again?

 

Ah, finally someone else who wonders about the title "Last Battle". Well, from the Shadow's perspective, it's the Last Battle if they win, 'cause the DO will be freed and that's that for the Light. But, how can it be the Last Battle for the Light, if the DO could be freed again in some future turning of the Wheel?

 

That's why I'm a firm believer in Rand's intentions to kill the DO. I know many folk say "nah! That's crazy, Dark Rand talk" but, IMO, it's the option that makes the most sense. Hmm...wonder if those folk thought Rand's idea to cleanse saidin just "crazy talk", too?

 

Not saying it's easy. Not saying it's gonna happen. Just saying that the idea to blast the DO into oblivion is the only way you can guarantee that he'll never come back again.

[Guest Ishu161]

The Dark One is the antithesis of the Creator. The Dragon's opposite is the Nae'blis.

 

We know that the wheel spun out the Dragon in response to the Dark One touching the world. You can say that even if the DO and the creator are an even match, the creator will not be fighting the DO. He has choosen the Dragon as his champion to do so. Err...compare this with Christian mythology. Was Jesus more powerful than the Devil?

As for the Nae'blis, well all the forsaken are fighting among themselves for that position. Graendal is still dreaming to be the Nae'blis despite the fact the Moridin has been choosen already. That tells us that even if the Nae'blis has a choosen role, it is not something you can't alter. The Dragon, on the other hand....there can only be one Dragon.

For some reason, this whole prison business very much reminds me of the season 5 of the TV show 'Supernatural'. If you've seen it, you know what I mean.

 

 

 

From theoryland database: https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dcjspjqg_53c74tbncv

 

 

 

I read the entire thing. simply awesome :) I understand that Brandon has too much responsibility to handle by himself and has to depend on RJ's notes and the people around him, but I still couldn't help but marvel at how most of RJ's answers were extremely detailed(as is his style), and Brandon just mostly put-off as RAFO

[Dagon Thyne]

Some view the Shayol Ghul itself as the DO's prison, but that is not right......Shayol Ghul is just the poin t in the world where the patternis weakest....THe Dark One is actualy held outside of the pattern itself.....When the Aes Sedai made the bore trying to tap into the True Power, they accidently destroyed the DO's actual Prison, which is within the void that exsists outside of the pattern......and he was free to move.....and effect the world through the Bore.

[didymos]

Some view the Shayol Ghul itself as the DO's prison, but that is not right....

 

It's because of the various forms of the Randland catechism:

 

"The Dark One is sealed in Shayol Ghul, sealed by the Creator at the moment of creation..."

 

"The Dark One and all of the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul, beyond the Great Blight, bound by the Creator at the moment of creation, bound until the end of time. The hand of the Creator shelters the world, and the Light shines on us all."

 

"The Dark One and all the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul, bound by the Creator at the moment of creation. The hand of the Creator shelters us all, and the Light protects us from the Shadow."

[Agitel]

Small correction to something that was said earlier:

 

V'Saine was not a subtropical island but one sitting in a cool sea far to the north. No doubt weather ter'angreal allowed great climate and weather control to limit extreme conditions, but it was definitely no subtropical island.

[didymos]

Small correction to something that was said earlier:

 

V'Saine was not a subtropical island but one sitting in a cool sea far to the north. No doubt weather ter'angreal allowed great climate and weather control to limit extreme conditions, but it was definitely no subtropical island.

 

V'Saine wasn't an island at all. It was a major AoL city. Shayol Ghul was an island and "rustic" vacation spot, and its original name is unknown. As far as "subtropical" goes....I don't where I got that from.

 

Never mind, I do know where I got it from. It was RJ hisself:

 

Lord of Chaos Book tour Seattle 25 October 1994 - Tony Zbaraschuk reporting

 

Tony Zbaraschuk: Speaking of the Breaking, how did Dragonmount survive all that rearrangement of geography?

 

RJ: Well, the Breaking had different effects in different areas. Some areas were raised up, others lowered, others moved around...but the effects were relatively mild in some areas; Dragonmount was one of them. Note that Shayol Ghul used to be a subtropical island. The Tar Valon area was moved, but as an entire piece, so the mountain, the island, and the river stayed in the same places relative to each other.