The Aelfinn and the Eelfinn

[FarShainMael]

On re-reading the 'finn chapters, I note that at one point, Mat realised that he's in one of the three spires he saw when he entered from the Rhuidean redstone doorway. If this spire corresponds to the ToG, where are the other two, I wonder?

[Elan Tedronai]

I have always wondered why the shadow never bothered with making agreements with the finn like how the light does. A way for ultimate victory i suppose.

[dscott8]

A point I believe has been overlooked: The red stone doorways are ter'angreal. Ter'angreal were made by Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends. I suggest that some experimenting Aes Sedai created the first doorway to Finnland, went through and negotiated the Agreement. Aside from the terms of the Agreement, the Finns would have had no say in who could pass through the doorways because they did not create them.

 

We also know that you can create different ter'angreal to perform the same function (example: dreamworld ter'angreal in the form of a spiral disc or sleeping-woman amber plaque). So the Tower of Ghenji may be a different ter'angreal, perhaps created by the Finns using knowledge and power they stole from visiting Aes Sedai. The Finns seem to govern the ToG's reality. The other towers Mat saw may lead to other places in Randland, or other worlds entirely. Or, given Mat's luck, they may lead to really great taverns, full of honest dice games and cute barmaids.

[Annia]

I have always wondered why the shadow never bothered with making agreements with the finn like how the light does. A way for ultimate victory i suppose.

 

For all we know, the Eelfinn and the Aelfinn might have been the bogieman that threatened the world before drilling the Bore. Maybe the channeling ability was a talent that mankind developed during their struggle to defeat them and truly turned the tides to the mankinds advantage. The Finns were beaten back and some agreements were stuffed down their throats. The victory started a new age of prosperity that later ages called the Age of Legends. Who knows? Maybe it was the wolfbrothers that fought them? It is kinda hard to speculate without any real information. We don't know if the Tower and the Doorways are from the same era.

 

The shadow never made agreements with the Finns since the agreement already existed and they were never in position to force them to accept any new deals and the Finns already safely tucked away from them.

[sopclod]

The other towers Mat saw may lead to other places in Randland, or other worlds entirely.

 

Noob here; Haven't re-read the previous books (yet; I feel like I need to now) so it's been years for the older ones.

 

Anyway I've always been under the impression that the tower itself is more like a portal stone; you don't go inside it, but rather it transports you to their world.

 

In other words if you flew in on a raken and went a few hundred feet up (do they say how tall it is?) and made your doorway there, the effect would be the same as if you did it on the ground.

 

So I don't think either the tower Mat is in or the ones he can see are the same ToG that exists in Randland. Also I would love it if someone got "outside" in their world and was able to explore for a while.

 

Or, given Mat's luck, they may lead to really great taverns, full of honest dice games and cute barmaids.

 

This made me lol.

[FarShainMael]

I agree with you aboutm the ToG being a sort of portal to another world, but it does seem to correspond to a particular one of the three spires that Mat saw. When he uses his 'key' to get them out, they are in the chamber with the ruined redstone doorway, and he expects to appear in Tear - but he doesn't, they come out beside the ToG. Thinking about this, they also found the melted doorway from Rhuidean in this spire, so perhaps they're in the 'Randworld' spire/portal.

 

Wonder if one of the other spires is a portal to the Blight..

[RickTCPB]

I'm also intrigued by what may be the actual relationship, or perhaps treaties between the Aelfinn and Eelfinn themselves. As I've said in another forum here, while Mat was berating himself for only stipulating "you foxes" in his non aggression agreement, I very much doubt that the Eelfinn would have had the authority to bind the Aelfinn to such an agreement as well. Anyone any thoughts on that?

 

Or possibly, they chose not to try, just to be difficult..

 

OK, what do we know about these people? They are physically dissimilar, though not so much as to have different numbers of arms and legs, or anything like that. Their realms seem to be independent (having different doorways) but connected through the ToG. They specialise in different responses to visitors, answers to questions or 'gifts'. The Eelfinn charge a price for their gifts, the Aelfinn don't charge for giving answers AFAICS. They are at least as much allies as to share the ToG, though that may be an 'armed truce'. And we know nothing at all about the treaties - who arranged them, when and most of all, why.

 

But they do indeed share the ToG, which suggests very strongly that they have some kind of inter-group arrangement in force. How strong this arrangement is, we don't know.

 

Some of this might have already been proven right or wrong, but here are my thoughts:

 

I think that the ToG is the primary point of entry into the 'finnland that has been around for quite some time and pre-dates the two doorways. Someone already mentioned that the Seanchan have some stories of the Foxes/Snakes so apparently the idea of them has been around for a while, and I think that both races have probably always coexisted to a point in their realm. Their abilities are somewhat related and their mindset/behavior is too similar for them to not be tied together in some way that we haven't seen. Anyway, it would seem logical that somehow along the way, someone made it into the tower where they were approached by both races, unprotected. They would have had to somehow survive/escape and decide that it was too dangerous to enter 'finnland through the tower, but saw that there might be some benefit to visiting the 'finns anyway. At that point, they could have re-entered the ToG specifically to create an agreement between the 'finns and the outsiders about people visiting that would result in the AF/EF getting what they want (knowledge/emotions) and the visitor supposedly getting what they want (answers/gifts). This overall binding agreement would have included the bits about no iron, fire, music, etc to protect the 'finns in exchange for the safe passage of the visitor. I also don't think it is too far fetched for part of the agreement to be the doorways themselves. I see two possibilities in this event: A. As part of the overall bargain the Randlanders were given the two doorways as a gift with the restrictions built in; allowing the visitor to enter through a particular doorway to ONLY visit one or the other race without the other one interfering, but only once so that the AF and EF would not be taken advantage of (I'm assuming this because I would think that the 'finns would want people to return so they could 'feed', but wouldn't want someone to figure out how to beat them at their own bargaining game and leave with that knowledge). OR B.As a part of that agreement someone on the Randland side with knowledge of making ter'/sar'angreals worked with the 'finns to create the doorways and built them with the ability to keep the visitor protected from the race (AF/EF) that you did not want to speak with, and also built them with a one time only pass so that you wouldn't be tempted to keep risking yourself (with this angle, the Randlanders would want to protect themselves and would know the danger of losing to the 'finns if someone continued to enter their realm).

 

This leaves the ToG as a wildcard entry point in which visitors are probably still able to reach bargains with either race, but your chances of doing so successfully (and without being killed) are probably very slim.

 

To continue that theory - The idea that one race thrives on knowledge and memory and the other group on emotions and feelings makes them seem symbiotic to a point and makes me wonder if somehow they work together to share what they gain with each other. With the agreements in place I would imagine everyone 'in the know' would avoid entering the ToG to visit (unprotected) so the 'finns would probably have to be sneaky about how they worked together to keep people coming back. The Randlanders cannot pass through the same doorway twice so the only way to get back to the land of the 'finns is to go through the other door. Maybe the 'finns figured out that if they work together they can meet the terms of their original bargain while still providing answers/gifts that would draw the unsuspecting visitor back to visit the other race? That way both races get to 'enjoy' the visitors.... We did see both Mat and Morraine return shortly after their first visit and Mat eventually made his way back a third time through the Tower - all related to the answers they received (or in Mat's case, didn't receive) the first go-around. I fully believe had Mat not had his limited knowledge of the 'finns and (more importantly) his luck they all probably would have been stuck in 'finnland forever to be 'fed' on.

[ShenAnCalhar]

I agree with you aboutm the ToG being a sort of portal to another world, but it does seem to correspond to a particular one of the three spires that Mat saw. When he uses his 'key' to get them out, they are in the chamber with the ruined redstone doorway, and he expects to appear in Tear - but he doesn't, they come out beside the ToG. Thinking about this, they also found the melted doorway from Rhuidean in this spire, so perhaps they're in the 'Randworld' spire/portal.

 

Wonder if one of the other spires is a portal to the Blight..

 

I read it as the central spire being the point of access from the ToG, possibly some kind of neutral area, and the other two "belonging" the Aelfinn and Eelfinn - and the locations of the two doorway ter'angreals. So I think they actually moved between all three spires in ToM (neutral -> Eelfinn -> neutral -> Aelfinn).

[FarShainMael]

I'll go with that.

[Rookie.Rider]

I recall a particular discussion many years ago at wotmania concerning the Finns. Their world lies outside the Pattern, which allows them to see the threads that make up the Pattern. Like someone on the outside, being able to look and see the whole, unlike someone within. Questions or topics regarding the Shadow probably upset them because "chaos", which is the Shadow, disrupts the Pattern, rendering it unreadable to the Finns. Taveren bring order to the Pattern, hence they probably savor the presence of those.

 

You would think the Finns would have a vested interest in keeping the Pattern going. After all, what would they do once the Dark One destroys the Pattern? Also, the man who came and got Lanfear. What did he offer the Finns in return? Are the Finns subordinate to the Will of Shaitan? Are they some sort of perverse demi-gods that reside outside the Pattern, just like Shaitan and the Creator? It's too bad that the Finns are not given more backstory.

[mcbernier]

It's too bad that the Finns are not given more backstory.

 

I actually like the fact that they don't have much back story. Adds to the intrigue!

 

A few random thoughts.

 

1. It actually seems as though Travelling into and out of Finnland should be possible. Consider: those doorways made by AS. This means there is a way to use the OP to get into and out of Finnland.

 

2. If Finnland is "outside" of the Pattern, as was suggested above, then what does that say about a whole bunch of things?? For example: how do these "other worlds" relate to the Pattern? Why is it so important to HAVE a Pattern, since the LACK of a Pattern doesn't necessarily mean destruction of all that exists (Finnland isn't absolute chaos--maybe they have a different Pattern? What exactly is a "Pattern"??). Also, this means that the OP can actually work on things that are outside of the Pattern. And: people can continue to exist when they are no longer "in" the Pattern, since when Mat and gang went into the ToG they would no longer have been in the Pattern-governed world, but somewhere else entirely. Maybe they should give the world to the Dark One and just go find another world.

 

3. Why do the Finns hold to their agreements and bargains? What exactly is binding here? What will happen if they do no hold to them? Perhaps it is simply in their nature to do so?

[Erunion]

@ TheBigCheese

 

You raise some very interesting questions. What I've pieced together from reading and explanations and my own crazy thoughts is that it works like this - Each age has it's own "age lace" that is woven. The world then takes these age laces and weaves them together. A further pattern than takes the product of each world and makes a pattern of worlds, the mirror worlds of Randland are the "warp", while the separate worlds like Finnland are the "woof". Tel'Aran'Rhiod lies in the spaces between.

If that is correct, then the Aelfinn are able to see the pattern of Randland because they lie across it, and are separate from it. Ta'veren, especially in this world where the Dark One is trying to destroy everything, affect the pattern on all of these levels.

[Barid Bel Medar]

I dont think that it was said that the Finns are outside the pattern. Just that they do not live in the same universe as Rand's world.

 

In any case, I just want to bring up two things.

 

1. In relation to the Finns ancestory or whatnot.

 

Towers of Midnight Chapter 54: The Light of the World

"A female, with a crest of red running down her back, the leather straps crossing her breasts in an 'X' pattern. Her red lips smiled, "We are the near ancient, the warriors of final regret , the knowers of secrets"

 

What do people think of that? the Knowers of secrets seems obvious, they know stuff about the pattern etc. But what about the "near ancient" and "warriors of final regrets". Strange that RJ put that in there, if titles like that are used, the usually mean something. Any ideas on what this means?

 

Secondly,it seems the Shadow is involved with the Finns. Moiraine remembers

 

Towers of Midnight Chapter 57: A Rabbit for Supper

"They claimed to have killed Lanfear by draining her too quickly, though I think they may have been trying to make me afraid. A man was there once, when they woke me. He said he was not the one he wanted."

 

Clearly this means it was Lanfear he wanted. They were the only two in there at the time. Nobody other than the forsaken or the DO knows about the ToG, let alone want to go their to 'collect' lanfear. It seems clear to me that it was a DF, Moridin being the one that comes to mind, as he turned up with Cyndane and her mindtrap. Add that to the mysterious breaking of the Tear doorway, it seems the Shadow has some relationship with the finns.

 

It is also suspicious that the finns lead the "man" to Moiraine. Usually they try to swindle everyone and only give them their three "wishes" but it seems like there is something more to this "man" being able to walk around in Finnland and looking for Lanfear rather than just "wishing" for lanfear in the Hall. Seems like they have some pre-existing deal with this "man" and seem much more accomodating towards him. Makes me wonder if WHY questions regarding the shadow are dangerous. is it because the Shadow is in league with them? Or the Shadow has some kind of power over them. perhaps they bully the finns overpowering them?

[aynatal2000]

No one is speaking about the destruction of the tear doorway and I think that it may have been done by 1 - whoever came for Cyndane or 2 - Rand and his booby traps when Narishma got Callandor.

 

When Rand was berated in earlier books about leaving Callandor in the Stone he said whoever came to take it would get a nasty surprise if they didn't know how.He gave Narishma explicit private instruction on how to get it and questioned him thoroughly before they cleansed the male half of the power.

 

Now if it is whoever came to claim Cyndane,remember that any questions or dealings that touch on the Dark One are dangerous - could the Ael/Eel have threatened the person, so much so that they had to destroy the doorway to avoid capture,even after having calmly negotiated for Cyndane's release... or did they realize that that was Moiraine in there(with a most powerful ter angreal on her that might be a buffer for Callandor) and that without her Rand cannot use Callandor at the Last Battle - so they destroyed the doorway, knowing that the other from Rhuidean was useless.Now of course no one knows Mat's staff is a key.They think they have eliminated a player for team light, but have actually ensured that the Ael/Eel are now isolated and that only team light can enter the tower and their world freely... with Blind Luck on their side LOL!