...called the third Age by some...

[Mr Ares]

Don't you see? It wouldn't come around again. Take this quote from balefired-ed2:

 

Take this asterisk *, assign one of the bars a random number. Lets call the top bar number 1. Assume that someone else calls that bar number 3. That arbitrary number does not change the fact that there is a bar both to the left and to the right of it, the same way that this Age is called the third does not change the fact that there were events that happened before it. It is just an artificial description.

 

This view that the numbering is arbitrary and doesn't matter simply doesn't fit with cyclic time. If time cycles through seven Ages, then something must happen at the end of the seventh Age for everything to start over again from scratch (or whatever). Yes, there is always a "bar" to the left and to the right of any current "bar". But in order to have a cycle, in order for the Ages to 'repeat' themselves, there must be a first Age and a last Age in a full cycle. Therefore, the numbering is not arbitrary. It is not equally valid to say it is the fifth Age when in fact it is the seventh. Because if it is the seventh, the cycle is going to start over at one in the next Age, while if it is the fifth, there will be two more Ages before the cycle restarts.

 

If the numbers ARE arbitrary and have no significance, then it is linear time. In order for it to be cyclic time, then there has to, in fact, be a "correct" Age number for any given Age at any given Turning. Am I making sense yet?

No. While it is true that something must happen at the end of the Seventh Age to take things back to the start of the First, that doesn't mean that the end of the Seventh/start of the First is in anyway a more definitive end than the end of the Third/start of the Fourth. Linear time, being a straight line, would have a beginning and end (unless you had an infinitely long line), but cyclical time, being a circle, means that if you pick any point on the circle as a start point you will eventually make it back to your start point. The end of every Age becomes the beginning of the next, that remains true no matter what arbitrary number you stick on those spokes. If you did number the spokes on a wheel, then eventually spoke one would come around again. The wheel wouldn't magically become a straight line if you changed spoke 2 to spoke 1, and let the numbering of all the others follow (making the old seven the new one). Your start point always comes around again.

 

 

Also worth mentioning is that the resin this is called the third age is simply because we know the previous age was known by it's contemporaries as the second. Therefore we regard this age as being the third.

This is incorrect. The Age before the Third Age is not referred to as the Second Age, it is referred to as the Age of Legends. The Age before that as the Age before the Age of Legends. As these people know of two Ages before their own, they refer to themselves as the Third.

[Agitel]

I don't think the people in the books consider themselves to be in the Third Age. The only time we see that terminology is in the Fourth Age writings. It seems to be a part of their beliefs.

[PhoenixUK]

It isn't equivalent to linear time because the same major events are repeated over and over in the same order. A utopian age always ends with the dark one briefly being released before the breach is patched over thanks to the Dragon, followed by a darker age which ends with the Dark One being sealed away properly by a reincarnated Dragon, plus 5 other ages of who-knows-what.

[Thanatos]

It isn't equivalent to linear time because the same major events are repeated over and over in the same order. A utopian age always ends with the dark one briefly being released before the breach is patched over thanks to the Dragon, followed by a darker age which ends with the Dark One being sealed away properly by a reincarnated Dragon, plus 5 other ages of who-knows-what.

 

Assuming that the "3rd Age" ends with the DO being perfectly sealed again. Maybe it is another incomplete sealing until the next Age, or the Age after that comes around.

 

Just my thoughts.

[The Watcher and Wanderer]

I"ve always found the whole 'Third age" thing to be a bit odd. It seems that in a seven age cycle that the LAST battle should occur at the end of the seventh age. Honestly, I think the phrase "called the third age by some" is RJ giving us a hint that this story occurs two ages after our own. Thus we are the "some" who would call it the third age.

[Aiyen kin Leary]

Maybe. I've kind of thought there would be two potentially pattern-breaking Last Battles per turning. Tarmon Gai'don, and the battle that gave us our legends left over from the Seventh Age. Something ending in the Biblical flood which turned into the Ice Age, from which humanity rebuilt and rediscovered farming in Sumeria...

 

[SethBaker]

Maybe. I've kind of thought there would be two potentially pattern-breaking Last Battles per turning. Tarmon Gai'don, and the battle that gave us our legends left over from the Seventh Age. Something ending in the Biblical flood which turned into the Ice Age, from which humanity rebuilt and rediscovered farming in Sumeria...

 

 

I think that the destruction you're talking about would need to happen at 6-7 barrier, with the rediscovery of agriculture during Age 1. Remember, the wolves remember ages where humans ran wild and free with them. You need an Age between the destruction of human civilization and the reemergence of any kind of technology.

[mb]

The Headers and Footers indicate at least one Age after the series' Age. Because of that, the Tarmon Gaidon of the series I guess would be no later than the 6th Age.

Each cycle I guess would begin with Creation.

 

And various scenes indicate at least 2 previous Ages; so the Tarmon Gaidon of the series I guess would be no sooner than the 3rd Age.