Is the Creator any better than the DO?

[Apotheosis]

Seriously though.

 

It does seem like the Creator has just played one cruel joke on humanity. Like, making us go around in incessant circles, repeatedly subjecting the humans to the Dark One and all of his minions. And really, do the DOs plans seem all that bad? He wants to break time. That's what we're certain of, and would that not break humanity of the endless circles? The one problem I can find here is that. Well. Mr. DO is trying to achieve his goals through rather...direct methods. But then, if you had been imprisoned since the dawn of time, wouldn't you get a little frustrated?All in all, it seems like the Creator seems to be doing a lot of ignoring while the DO messes with the weather, bubbles in the pattern, etc, and perhaps he really isn't all that much better than the DO.

 

And what I expect is the Creator to appear sometime at the end of MoL, do a typical "Grats on doing my work. I knew you could do it. Bask in my glory." and wins the God version of the Nobel Peace prize.

[Skeeve the Great]

Seriously though.

 

It does seem like the Creator has just played one cruel joke on humanity. Like, making us go around in incessant circles, repeatedly subjecting the humans to the Dark One and all of his minions. And really, do the DOs plans seem all that bad? He wants to break time. That's what we're certain of, and would that not break humanity of the endless circles? The one problem I can find here is that. Well. Mr. DO is trying to achieve his goals through rather...direct methods. But then, if you had been imprisoned since the dawn of time, wouldn't you get a little frustrated?All in all, it seems like the Creator seems to be doing a lot of ignoring while the DO messes with the weather, bubbles in the pattern, etc, and perhaps he really isn't all that much better than the DO.

 

And what I expect is the Creator to appear sometime at the end of MoL, do a typical "Grats on doing my work. I knew you could do it. Bask in my glory." and wins the God version of the Nobel Peace prize.

 

 

Ishy? Is that you?

[JKN-SW]

Seriously though.

 

It does seem like the Creator has just played one cruel joke on humanity. Like, making us go around in incessant circles, repeatedly subjecting the humans to the Dark One and all of his minions. And really, do the DOs plans seem all that bad? He wants to break time. That's what we're certain of, and would that not break humanity of the endless circles? The one problem I can find here is that. Well. Mr. DO is trying to achieve his goals through rather...direct methods. But then, if you had been imprisoned since the dawn of time, wouldn't you get a little frustrated?All in all, it seems like the Creator seems to be doing a lot of ignoring while the DO messes with the weather, bubbles in the pattern, etc, and perhaps he really isn't all that much better than the DO.

 

And what I expect is the Creator to appear sometime at the end of MoL, do a typical "Grats on doing my work. I knew you could do it. Bask in my glory." and wins the God version of the Nobel Peace prize.

 

 

Ishy? Is that you?

 

ROFL

[Leyrann]

I made a thread about this a week or two ago. Where is it gone?

 

And, indeed: ROFL

[LazyMonk]

Seriously though. It does seem like the Creator has just played one cruel joke on humanity. Like, making us go around in incessant circles, repeatedly subjecting the humans to the Dark One and all of his minions. And really, do the DOs plans seem all that bad? He wants to break time. That's what we're certain of, and would that not break humanity of the endless circles? The one problem I can find here is that. Well. Mr. DO is trying to achieve his goals through rather...direct methods. But then, if you had been imprisoned since the dawn of time, wouldn't you get a little frustrated?All in all, it seems like the Creator seems to be doing a lot of ignoring while the DO messes with the weather, bubbles in the pattern, etc, and perhaps he really isn't all that much better than the DO. And what I expect is the Creator to appear sometime at the end of MoL, do a typical "Grats on doing my work. I knew you could do it. Bask in my glory." and wins the God version of the Nobel Peace prize.

Read Rand's conflict and final answer in the end of TGS, that's your answer too.

And a short explanation if that's not enough... The turning of the wheel is not an infinite repetition of the same events. the outcome of events can be different in each cycle. The sum of it might perceived as progress toward some grand cause and progress of the self toward some understanding of "what it all means"... which is the real meaning of life.

Stopping the cycle means life without a chance of advancement, no second chances, depriving life of meaning and cause.

That is what Ishy fails to understand.

 

 

 

Ishy? Is that you?

indeed

[Leyrann]

But maybe Ishy (Moridin) does when Rand tells him. I have a theory in which that is an important fact.

[Never]

But maybe Ishy (Moridin) does when Rand tells him. I have a theory in which that is an important fact.

 

 

Me to. Ishamael from the Bible is known as a symbol of redemption. He killed his brother if I am not mistaken. I made a post about this theory once, called Ishamael - Champion of the Light!

 

 

Oh, and that "Ishy, is that you" comment was pure gold! :D

[Leyrann]

There is no "Ishamael" in the bible, but there is an "Ismael". He is the brother of Izaak, who is son of Abraham. So Ismael is too. And I think Ishamael refers to it, because some or all of the Arabians are descendents from Ismael. The one who killed his brother, by the way, was Kain. Well, there were more who did so, but Kain is the most important.

[Never]

Yeah, I meant Ismael, fingers move faster than my head. He's still a symbol of redemption from the Bible though.

[spoke]

Yeah, I meant Ismael, fingers move faster than my head. He's still a symbol of redemption from the Bible though.

 

It depends on which Ishmael you are referring to:

 

Ishmael = "God will hear"

1) son of Abraham and Sarah's handmaid Hagar and the progenitor of the Arabian peoples

2) son of Nethaniah and the murderer of Gedaliah

3) a Benjamite, one of the sons of Azel a descendant of Saul through Meribbaal or Mephibosheth

4) a Judaite, father of Zebadiah

5) a Judaite, son of Johanan and one of the captains who aided Jehoiada in restoring Joash to the throne

6) a priest of the family of Pashur with a foreign wife whom he was forced to put away by Ezra

 

If you are referring to #1, no, he is not a symbol of redemption, #5 might be.

[jemron]

Why do people think that the Creator is inherently "Good"? The way I see it, the Creator and DO are two sides of the same coin (dragon's fang/flame of Tar Valon). One creates, the other seeks to destroy what has been created. The people in the WoT world feel like the DO is evil because he's trying to destroy them/time/everything; but many think the Creator is just as "evil" for "leaving them alone." He may well be "evil" in the sense that he isn't good, but maybe he did his job. He created. Now he's off creating more, and the DO is trying to undo what has been done by the Creator.

 

I would like the Creator to make an appearance in the end and sort of "save the day" by being like a Savior of the people or whatever; but I'm not sure that's what RJ intended.

[Entreri]

The Creator is pretty pathetic. The DO interferes greatly with the Pattern, while he sits on his rear end and does nothing.

[Hybrid]

He's called the Creator, not the Maintainer, Preserver, Guardian, etc. Given that, I'd say he did his job even better than Shai'tan (if he existed in the first place -- I'm not completely sold on it since there's little evidence aside from the ambiguous ALL CAPS in the TEOTW).

[Joshua Hendrickson]

Ah, the old question of theodicy! You know, if God is good why is there evil, and all the attendant complexities such a question implies. Really, presuming that there is a Creator (in the real world, not the universe of WOT) opens up a great big can of worms. It is so much simpler to go along with the idea that there is no greater meaning or purpose to life, even if that doesn't satisfy the majority of human beings and their need for self-importance. (Not that I lack that particular need, of course. I'm just perfectly content to make it up for myself, and don't understand why others seem to need to have it given to them by an imaginary deity.)

 

Take a disc (well, a wheel), divide it into black and white halves (sound like any symbol we know?), and give it a good fast spin. It's going to look pretty grey.

 

Of course, there really isn't much ambiguity in WOT and I understand that Jordan himself decried the idea of grey areas of morality, at least in his fictional world (if not in life itself, although anyone who doesn't accept shades of grey in real life is unlikely to tolerate them in art). So I doubt if Jordan intended to imply that the Creator "wasn't all that," any more than he expected us to doubt the moral stalwartness of Rand, Mat, Perrin, Nynaeve, Loial, Egwene, Lan, et al.

 

Although ... once in a while Jordan was capable of giving us a grey shade or two, notably in the character of Ingtar, who remains my favorite minor character, at least from the early books, precisely because of that ambiguity.

 

I'm reminded of the blurb from writer Orson Scott Card for TEOTW which praised Jordan for his "powerful vision of good and evil." I agree it is powerful, but it isn't very complex or nuanced or even terribly realistic. Card, a devout Mormon, is himself (at least in the one novel of his I have read, ENDER'S GAME) concerned with good and evil but certainly recognizes the ambiguities involved rather better than Jordan ever did.

[Never]

Yeah, I meant Ismael, fingers move faster than my head. He's still a symbol of redemption from the Bible though.

 

It depends on which Ishmael you are referring to:

 

Ishmael = "God will hear"

1) son of Abraham and Sarah's handmaid Hagar and the progenitor of the Arabian peoples

2) son of Nethaniah and the murderer of Gedaliah

3) a Benjamite, one of the sons of Azel a descendant of Saul through Meribbaal or Mephibosheth

4) a Judaite, father of Zebadiah

5) a Judaite, son of Johanan and one of the captains who aided Jehoiada in restoring Joash to the throne

6) a priest of the family of Pashur with a foreign wife whom he was forced to put away by Ezra

 

If you are referring to #1, no, he is not a symbol of redemption, #5 might be.

 

I might have been a little bastant (That's a Norwegian word, I have no English word for it but I think it might be English aswell) when I claimed that Ismael was a symbol of redemption. I read it on wikipedia once, and I usually trust it. If I'm wrong, I take the blame for that :p