The semantics of 'destruction'

[navahgar]

Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and be consumed by the Midnight Towers. And his destruction shall bring fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself.

 

I'm not going to try and explain who I think the Broken Wolf might be, because I think there have been many words typed on that subject. I've read a lot of the theories, and I'm not entirely sure what's right. What I want to say is that maybe 'destruction' doesn't mean what everyone seems to think it means.

 

Many appear to be interpreting 'And his destruction shall bring...' as meaning 'And his death shall bring...'. They then use that in arguments for why a certain character's death would not be impactful enough. But what if 'And his destruction shall bring...' means 'And the destruction he wreaks shall bring...'?

 

If that's the case then Perrin, or Slayer, or Lan could easily be the Broken Wolf, because the prophecy could refer to the Dark Lord having broken one of them and causing him to wreak destruction upon the forces of Light.

[FarShainMael]

Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and be consumed by the Midnight Towers. And his destruction shall bring fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself.

 

I'm firmly of the opinion that this is two independent sentences, referring to two different people. Recall that what we see is a compilation of prophecies collected by observers; we don't hear them on-screen. So there is room for this sort of ambiguity, which is, after all, very common in prophecies.

 

Many appear to be interpreting 'And his destruction shall bring...' as meaning 'And his death shall bring...'. They then use that in arguments for why a certain character's death would not be impactful enough. But what if 'And his destruction shall bring...' means 'And the destruction he wreaks shall bring...'?

 

I've been thinking this for some time.

 

And further to my first comment, if 'his destruction' refers to someone other than the Broken Wolf - whoever that might turn out to be - then I propose that a good candidate for him is Mat. The destruction caused by those cannons will certainly bring fear and sorrow, and may make at least some people wonder what has been unleashed on the world.

[navahgar]

I'm firmly of the opinion that this is two independent sentences, referring to two different people. Recall that what we see is a compilation of prophecies collected by observers; we don't hear them on-screen. So there is room for this sort of ambiguity, which is, after all, very common in prophecies.

 

I see what you mean about the different sentences referring to different things, but I'm not sure about this being one of them. The book says these are 'from The Prophecies of the Shadow' but does that mean that this is a compilation? Or that this is a section taken out of them? Although that citation can infer what you've concluded about this being a selection of prophecies, I think that this is rather a section of prophecy from a larger cycle, much like other ones we've seen from the Karatheon cycle throughout the series.

 

Also, I think that the second sentence is too dependent to be divorced from the previous one. To me, it would be clumsy for 'And his destruction shall bring fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself' not to be associated with 'Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and be consumed by the Midnight Towers'. Otherwise, why just put 'And his'? Why not spell out the object like every other sentence does?

 

Having said that, I'm glad you agree about the destruction bit.

[FarShainMael]

Prophetic utterances (and biblical ones generally) often begin with 'And'. The word is not being used as a conjunction in such cases, but more as an emphasis.

 

These Dark Prophecies may be a compilation, or a selection, or an extract - or even a translation from the Old Tongue. My point is that we don't know anything at all about their origin. What we do know is that prophecies are usually misinterpreted, even by those who give them - witness Elaida's take on her own Foretellings. The people who noted these sayings down probably did set them down accurately, but without understanding. IMO there is considerable wiggle room in working out what these utterances mean.

[navahgar]

Prophetic utterances (and biblical ones generally) often begin with 'And'. The word is not being used as a conjunction in such cases, but more as an emphasis.

 

These Dark Prophecies may be a compilation, or a selection, or an extract - or even a translation from the Old Tongue. My point is that we don't know anything at all about their origin. What we do know is that prophecies are usually misinterpreted, even by those who give them - witness Elaida's take on her own Foretellings. The people who noted these sayings down probably did set them down accurately, but without understanding. IMO there is considerable wiggle room in working out what these utterances mean.

 

Fair enough. I can see where you're coming from, and you might be right. I'm still not convinced. I take your point about prophecies and the like starting with 'And', but that's not my point about that line. It's not the 'And' that makes me think that it's referring to the previous line. It's the fact that it uses the possessive pronoun ('his'). I think that the subject established in reading the sentences together is the Broken Wolf. However, I guess what you mean is that maybe I shouldn't be reading the sentences together.

 

I'll tell you this much. If you are right, then I hope that we discover your correctness by someone showing us the full unadulterated section that that line comes from, and I hope in that there is a preceding sentence that establishes an appropriate subject.

 

In any case, at least we can agree that destruction may not refer to the subject's death, rather his actions.

[FarShainMael]

I'll go with that. Mainly, I separate those two sentences because Mat is such a good fit IMO for the second but not for the first, there's no wolf connection in Mat at all AFAICS. Let's see what develops.

[JKN-SW]

In that day, when the One-Eyed Fool travels the halls of mourning, and

the First Among Vermin lifts his hand to bring freedom to Him who

will Destroy, the last days of the Fallen Blacksmith's pride shall come.

Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and

be consumed by the Midnight Towers. And his destruction shall bring

fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself.

 

Reading the verse above again, thinking on what is said above, I can interpret "his destruction" as beeing a reference to "Him who wlil destroy" wich is, I gueess, the DO. I guess when/if Rand breaks the remaining seals, the DO will reach out and the destruction he brings (in TG?) will very probably "bring fear and sorrow" to men and "shake their very will".

[mike c]

In that day, when the One-Eyed Fool travels the halls of mourning, and

the First Among Vermin lifts his hand to bring freedom to Him who

will Destroy, the last days of the Fallen Blacksmith's pride shall come.

Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and

be consumed by the Midnight Towers. And his destruction shall bring

fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself.

 

Reading the verse above again, thinking on what is said above, I can interpret "his destruction" as beeing a reference to "Him who wlil destroy" wich is, I gueess, the DO. I guess when/if Rand breaks the remaining seals, the DO will reach out and the destruction he brings (in TG?) will very probably "bring fear and sorrow" to men and "shake their very will".

The one eyed fool is obviously Mat.I can't remember where the halls of mourning are (if we know).

The first among vermin (servants) must be Rand and it continues to reference him breaking the seals.

Which would make "him who will destroy" the dark one.

What it means by "the last days of the fallen blacksmith's pride" other that refering to Perrin I don't know.

The broken wolf may refer to Lan(he has certainly known death). Are the "Midnight Towers" what the shadow calls Malkeri since they took it?

"his destruction" must refer to the broken wolf.

[WhiskyJack]

Midnight Towers are forsaken...

[Leyrann]

I'm not sure about that. What evidence do we have?

I think it could be the Towers of Midnight (in Seanchan), but I'm not sure.

And Death is with a capital, so I think it means Moridin. And I think Slayer has met him. So Slayer will fall and be consumed by the Midnight Towers, whatever they are. Makes it even more unlikely they're those towers in Seanchan.

And I also don't think "his destruction" means "the DO's destruction". There are no capitals, while there are with Him who will Destroy.

And maybe the "Midnight Towers" are connected with the towers in Egwene's dream in chapter Three of ToM? But then it is more likely they mean the Forsaken. Six tower are left, this one that almost fell, then rose up the highest likely Moridin, and there were six Forsaken left when Egwene had that dream (now five).

[ravenfier]

Ok so lets break this one down.....

 

In that day, when the One-Eyed Fool travels the halls of mourning

 

Obvious, this is Mat, though we can debate about where the halls of mourning are, maybe they were the various halls in the ToG?

 

and the First Among Vermin lifts his hand to bring freedom to Him who will Destroy

 

another Obvious on Rand/LTT (who was First Among Equals back in the AOL) breaking the seals and the DO.

 

the last days of the Fallen Blacksmith's pride shall come.

 

Perrin of course, though how he was prideful I don't know.

 

Yea, and the Broken Wolf, the one whom Death has known, shall fall and be consumed by the Midnight Towers.

 

now the problematic line: let me skip to the End and work back from there.What are The Midnight Towers? We were informed that yes there are things back in the Seanchan homeland that are called the ToM, but also after ToM was released that the title was a reference to the ToG, to the WT and to the "BT". I am postulating that the Broken Wolf is Noal/Jain Farstrider. We know that he died (literally fell and consumed by the Finn's) in the ToG, one of the towers ToM was referencing, there was evidence that some sort of compulsion was put on him, i.e. his recent memory problems, and that he disappeared in the Blight years ago, Mordin/Ishy back then was out during this time, so Death could have know him.

 

And his destruction shall bring fear and sorrow to the hearts of men, and shall shake their very will itself.

 

And so we come to this line: Is the And bridging verses 4 and 5 or is the He in this line some one else?

 

this could go both ways. if news of Farstrides death spreads then yes that can happen especially in Borderlanders, where he was a living legend and then And in this case is a bridge. But this line can go to a few other people as well, depending on the interpretation of Destruction, If we go with death then it could also refer to Lan and the army at Tarwins Gap. If you go with

a Literal destruction, then it could be linked with Mat and his "Dragons" (but when have we ever seen a literal meaning in a prophetic verse?, its always been euphemized).

 

personally I am leaning towards the Lan and his army at Tarwins Gap.

the Tower in Malkier are called the broken towers so these ones are out.