Nynaeve's persistence with healing everything

[Fliggerty]

Hey guys,

 

I've been going through LoC with a fine-tooth comb the past few days (doing so for an entirely different reason I'll post about later.) Something just stood out to me that I wanted to bring up for discussion.

 

Told from Elayne's POV, she is pondering on Nynaeve's efforts to study those who had been severed in order to heal them. I'm paraphrasing a bit, but she thought "Nynaeve won't be satisfied until she has healed someone 3 days dead."

 

It was presented as a sort of passing thought, nothing of consequence. But if there's one thing we know about RJ, it's that he loves to give hints and clues in that way. So it got me thinking....

 

There have always basically been three things that were considered impossible to heal with the One Power: severing, death, and taint-induced madness.

 

Nynaeve discovered how to heal severing, and shortly thereafter Flinn did the same. The first time I read through I thought that the concept of them both learning how to do it was simply a quick and not-well-thought-out plot device; but on subsequent readings and more thought on the matter it seems that it was deeply planned and intentional. For a long time I thought that the Wheel was working on bringing about a new Age of Legends, with Nynaeve's healings and Elayne's ter'angreal and traveling and such. Now I think that isn't the case exactly; the very concept of The Wheel of Time is that ages do repeat themselves, but they are different each time. It seems to me that the Wheel is indeed starting a new age, and bringing about not only old things that were lost and come again but new things as well. So both of them learning a new thing and healing severing at nearly the same time (speaking on a grand time scale) is not coincidental nor far-fetched in any way. It may very well be that healing severing WAS impossible prior to Nynaeve doing it, not just "undiscovered" as the general attitude towards it is. Robert Jordan weaves as Robert Jordan wills.

 

Next, we move on to Nynaeve healing taint-induced madness. As far as the bits of story leading up to it, I thought it was rather obvious what was coming. She saw something that she knew was "wrong" and became somewhat obsessed with it. She studied it, experimented a bit, and healed it. I'm going to say this is most likely the same as above; healing the madness was studied by AoL Aes Sedai and continued on for years after the breaking, completely without success. Then along comes Nynaeve and it's no longer an insurmountable problem. Is it likely that she simply stumbled upon a particular combination of weaving the Power that no one had ever thought to try before? And is it unthinkable the effects of certain weaves can be changed if the Wheel wills it?

 

And on to the final unhealable: death. Nynaeve obviously doesn't believe anyone who says something cannot be healed, and so doesn't let that attitude stop her from investigating. Flinn is obviously the same way, at least to a degree. I really think that Elayne's statement that Nynaeve will not be satisfied until healing someone 3 days dead is an example of foreshadowing, specifically of the last battle.

 

Let's look at some facts:

 

1. WoT characters and events are often based on real world people and events and mythologies to a large degree. And of course the idea of someone coming back to life after 3 days...well, there's probably no need to elaborate on that.

 

2. According to prophecies, Rand's blood has to be spilled at Shayol Ghul. There is also Min's viewing: "three women standing over a funeral bier with you on it." And Egwene's dream: "Logain, laughing, stepped across something on the ground and mounted a black stone; when she looked down, she thought it was Rand's body he had stepped over, laid out on a funeral bier with his hands crossed at his breast." All accounts point to the inevitability of Rand's death during Tarmon Gai'dan.

 

3. Nynaeve insists that everything can be healed despite what everyone knows to be sure fact....and she has twice proven everyone wrong.

 

 

Because this is a story, we all want it to have a "happy ending," and suppose that can only happen if the main protagonist is alive and relatively well at the end. So it's natural for us to assume as we read that the prophecies are misunderstood or translated wrong or are incorrect for some other reason. However, in the WoT books that has never really proven to be the case (misunderstandings yes, but never a prophecy being blatantly wrong.) There are numerous theories around of how Rand can die and there still be the happy ending we're looking for; everything from some sort of transmigration to something happening with his link to Moridin.

 

I say just look at the Pattern (yes, pun intended.) Nynaeve insists that everything can be healed, and there's one "impossible" left that she hasn't cracked. Rand is surely going to die in the last battle. And new and amazing things are happening left and right. I submit that somehow, three days after he is killed during Tarmon Gai'dan, Nynaeve is going to figure out how to heal death, and resurrect Rand.

 

 

 

I'd sure love to hear some debate on this! I don't know if this is a new idea or not (I'm fairly new to these forums) and I'm positive someone had to have brought this up before. So if there is anything about this I've missed, please fill me in!

[Eichhörnchen]

I have to say I would be pretty disappointed. An epic is usually built around the rise and fall of a hero. A happy ending would be the defeat of the DO at the sacrifice of Rand. A bad ending is the victory of the DO. What you're proposing is the infantile rosy rosy world view that is ruining the culture of our society. I mean they actually are getting to the point where they edit traditional children/adolescent novels such as the pied piper of hamelin or the little mermaid. I bet you're the kind of person who would also say "Hey, let's do a remake of Bambi where Bambi's mother does not die. Let's remove that horrible scene! She merely gets injured and everyone is happily re-united by the end of the movie,...yay happy happy family." Completely oblivious to the deeper symbolism behind the book and story concerning the cycle of life.

[Fliggerty]

Wow...the first response I get is a bit of a personal lambaste. Kind of disappointing, and I hope not an indicator of the quality of this community.

 

I never stated anything about what the idea would do to the quality of the story, nor that I have a preference in which way it would go. Just that I see some indications that is a possible outcome.

[Mulk]

Eich, you need to cool it a bit or at least refrain from adding bits to your posts that look like personal attacks.

 

Fliggerty, this ain't a bad place to be on the whole. Some of the discussion is rather, ah, spirited shall we say, but not a bad place.

 

As to your post, I think given all of the foreshadowing that has gone into it, and given the Christ parallels inherent in the Rand Al'Thor/Dragon character, it's likely in my opinion that he will die and then be resurrected in some fashion or other. There's been quite a bit of discussion here and elsewhere on how that is to be accomplished. Suffice it to be said, I think he will die, but it won't be Healing as it is understood in the books that brings him back. I lean toward either a balefire resurrection (which we have seen with Mat, Aviendha and Asmodean) or toward Nynaeve ripping Rand out of Tel'Aran'Rhiod in the same fashion that Birgitte was (Nynaeve having witnessed the event and having a very good memory for weaves). Which one I prefer depends on the day. So I tend to think it will happen, but not as a strictly Healing event at least as we currently understand it. That opens the way to immortality for everyone who doesn't have their head cut off or their heart ripped out or other such things, which I don't think is intended by Jordan or the Wheel or whatever.

 

I suppose another option is that Rand is so wounded and injured he appears to be dead, but any Aes Sedai capable of Delving should be able to determine whether life remains in the body or not.

 

I think this will have a "happy ending", meaning in some form or fashion the Dark One is sealed up, but I think there will be a horrible price paid to get that victory.

 

Others have no doubt spent more time thinking on this than I have and I look forward to their responses. :)

[Plato]

I like your theory... And also coincidentally 3 days dead and being resurrected is.... ah forget it. It's too obvious.

 

But anyway, I also expect Rand to live somehow. Not simply because I want him too, but because this whole story is a series of "How will Mat get out of this one," or "how close to death will Perrin get this time," or "Egwene lives AGAIN??!?!?!"

 

Only the villains die, and lots and lots of trollocs! and plenty of innocent bystanders

[Jon Paul]

I have to say I would be pretty disappointed. An epic is usually built around the rise and fall of a hero. A happy ending would be the defeat of the DO at the sacrifice of Rand. A bad ending is the victory of the DO. What you're proposing is the infantile rosy rosy world view that is ruining the culture of our society. I mean they actually are getting to the point where they edit traditional children/adolescent novels such as the pied piper of hamelin or the little mermaid. I bet you're the kind of person who would also say "Hey, let's do a remake of Bambi where Bambi's mother does not die. Let's remove that horrible scene! She merely gets injured and everyone is happily re-united by the end of the movie,...yay happy happy family." Completely oblivious to the deeper symbolism behind the book and story concerning the cycle of life.

 

Yea, so? I for one would be glad for a happy ending. I get enough doom and gloom in the newspapers to want it in my fictional novels. Screw deeper symbolism, cycle of life, etc., if you want to read about important human themes, read Goodkind !

[FarShainMael]

Hi Fliggerty,

Yes, this has come up a few times, and there are a number of ideas about it.

 

My personal take on this is that it's already happened - in a sense - in VoG.

 

There, the old, Dark Rand, 'died' - he's not around anymore. Instead we have a new entity with full, integrated access to both Rand-TR's memories and Rand-LTT's memories, who I refer to as Rand Sedai. Nynaeve helped to bring this about by getting Rand to tell her where Perrin was, and, therefore, where Tam was, so that Tam could be brought to Rand in the hopes that the encounter would bring him to his senses. Which, of course, it did, though not quite in the way that Cadsuane had envisaged!

 

For me, the clincher for this is Nynaeve's rather pointed comment when they are waiting for Rand to return to Tear (ToM12) that he's been away for three days..

 

But I also think that the prophecy

 

"Twice and twice shall he be marked,

twice to live and twice to die." (TGH26)

 

means that Rand will live twice and die twice. So, if he's now on his 'second life', it's likely he will die in TG, and not return (except perhaps to the call of the HoV..)

 

Others have suggested that Rand will be killed in the early stages of TG, go to T'A'R, and be ripped out Birgitte-style by Nynaeve.

[b3arz3rg3r]

I have little doubt that Rand will somehow survive TG, but like Little Squirrel that three days after his death thing is a bit too much Jesus for me. This isn't C.S. Lewis.

 

@FarShainMael Rand didn't "die" in VoG, he cast of his blindfold. The dreams and viewings we had of Darth Rand showed him as blind.

[ElusiveAthena]

Others have suggested that Rand will be killed in the early stages of TG, go to T'A'R, and be ripped out Birgitte-style by Nynaeve.

 

Now that's an interesting theory...

[Jon Paul]

Now that's an interesting theory...

 

And it's one I am opposed to. We haven't really begun to see the effects that it has had on Bridget. We know that she's slowly loosing her memories. In fact I don't think she remembers anything pre-breaking now. Is she still bound to the Horn? We don't know what would happen to the Wheel if the Dragon Soul was removed from the weave and then forcibly dragged back into it.

 

Besides I can't see the Wonder Girls pulling something Moggy did to mid-rape their friend's mind and destiny.

[Tyzack]

Others have suggested that Rand will be killed in the early stages of TG, go to T'A'R, and be ripped out Birgitte-style by Nynaeve.

 

Now that's an interesting theory...

 

I'm sure this has been answered elsewhere, but has it ever been disclosed extactly how the birgitte-rip worked? RAFO?

[Fliggerty]

Fliggerty, this ain't a bad place to be on the whole. Some of the discussion is rather, ah, spirited shall we say, but not a bad place.

Overall it looks like it, and I'm in need of a good community. My Elder Scrolls community has lately become rather....shall we say "polluted?" So I definitely need a good place to hide out.

 

Nynaeve ripping Rand out of Tel'Aran'Rhiod in the same fashion that Birgitte was (Nynaeve having witnessed the event and having a very good memory for weaves).

 

I think that brings up a neat thought. It is mentioned numerous times that Nynaeve only has to see a weave once to learn it, and she is obviously innovative of her own accord. Her "new healing" is based upon traditional healing weaves, but with her own additions.

 

Perhaps, what she learned from Moghedien is the principle of how to take something from TAR and bring it into the real world. From there, she adapts that with her healing weaves, and is essentially able to heal Rand's body and retrieve his spirit from TAR and reunite them. Just a thought.

 

On a bit of a tangent, but on the topic of ripping Birgitte out of TAR, I often wondered how it would work for her to do the same thing as entering TAR in the flesh and staying there. I always assumed that what happened to her was essentially the opposite of that.

[FarShainMael]

@FarShainMael Rand didn't "die" in VoG, he cast of his blindfold. The dreams and viewings we had of Darth Rand showed him as blind.

 

The old, Two Rivers, 'dark' Rand no longer exists. TR-Rand has absorbed and integrated the memories of LTT and a new entity, Rand Sedai, was 'born'.

 

PS: what was Rand doing in those three days he was away?

[Lisa Campbell]

@FarShainMael Rand didn't "die" in VoG, he cast of his blindfold. The dreams and viewings we had of Darth Rand showed him as blind.

 

The old, Two Rivers, 'dark' Rand no longer exists. TR-Rand has absorbed and integrated the memories of LTT and a new entity, Rand Sedai, was 'born'.

 

PS: what was Rand doing in those three days he was away?

 

Feasting with Tinkers and studying the Seanchan society from a new angle.

[vanceme]

Aside from Randsus returning from the dead, i am in love with the idea thay Nyn didn't do the impossible but what was once impossible can now be done. We already know one day the source will be inaccessible. New concept, i love it

[Eht Slat Meit]

Honestly, if RJ has Nynaeve perform a resurrection, I hope she dies immediately afterward losing the secret forever, because the idea of turning WoT into a Forgotten Realms/MMORPG type of environment where Resurrection is simply a commonplace form of healing a corpse is horrifically bad fantasy. For starters, it would just drain the epic tragedy of Rand being forced to realize that not even the Dragon can Heal death, all those books back (TDR?) and tread within the boundaries of an area (necromancy) normally reserved for the likes of the DO. I'd be cool with the possibility only if it were treated in a manner respectful of death, rather than just another Epic Moment of Awesome for Nynaeve, because there's a point at which it stops being EMoA and starts becoming pulp fantasy.

[Suttree]

Honestly, if RJ has Nynaeve perform a resurrection, I hope she dies immediately afterward losing the secret forever, because the idea of turning WoT into a Forgotten Realms/MMORPG type of environment where Resurrection is simply a commonplace form of healing a corpse is horrifically bad fantasy. For starters, it would just drain the epic tragedy of Rand being forced to realize that not even the Dragon can Heal death, all those books back (TDR?) and tread within the boundaries of an area (necromancy) normally reserved for the likes of the DO. I'd be cool with the possibility only if it were treated in a manner respectful of death, rather than just another Epic Moment of Awesome for Nynaeve, because there's a point at which it stops being EMoA and starts becoming pulp fantasy.

 

Agree wholeheartedly. With the references made earlier in the book about not even the Dragon healing death it would be just terrible to about face on the topic.

[Hyronimus]

Never hurts to kick this topic around...

 

So far i believe the main arguments are the body-swap theory based mostly on the link with Moridin, and the ripping out idea mentioned above, both well argued and convincing enough though I've never warmed to either...

 

the simplest for me is that 'to live again' Rand dies but the wheel continues, so he will eventually live again. VoG hinted at this ending.

 

After all, where do souls go after death? We do know that heros of the horn dwell in the dream world but do the others sleep till rebirth?

 

However, I don't find Rand living/surviving to be inconsistant with the series so far, it's fairly light stuff and tWoT is hardly due for a martin-esk realistic kill off.

 

The one other well documented resurrection is what the DO does. It grabs souls recently dead and puts them into suitable bodies.

 

So there is no reason that Nyv won't figure out the trick of it, just how long do you get to retrive a soul, and does the body need to be 'new' or could the old serve?

 

no idea.

[FarShainMael]

@FarShainMael Rand didn't "die" in VoG, he cast of his blindfold. The dreams and viewings we had of Darth Rand showed him as blind.

 

The old, Two Rivers, 'dark' Rand no longer exists. TR-Rand has absorbed and integrated the memories of LTT and a new entity, Rand Sedai, was 'born'.

 

PS: what was Rand doing in those three days he was away?

 

Feasting with Tinkers and studying the Seanchan society from a new angle.

 

That only seemed to take a day or so. In TGS47, Rand draws back from actually balefiring Tam, then Travels to Ebou Dar. He spends a night at a Tinkers' camp (TGS49), collecting a cloak and a staff, then enters the city with the intention of destroying the Seanchan there. The concern of the citizens for his sickness persuades him not to and he Skims to a meadow, then Travels to Dragonmount, where he spends a long time thinking. A long time.. surely not two days??

[zfnorth]

Given that Rand couldn't with the Sword that Ain't, I doubt it can be done...

 

...Except maybe with the TP, or possibly it requires a circle with both men and women? Nynaeve and Flinn, perchance?

[Kahsm]

In theory it could possibly be done?

 

What if someone was shocked and their heart stopped. Techincally everything would be "fine" or at least "Good enough to keep working", they just need to be kick started again. The typical healing weave probably can't do that since it seems to mend stuff and requires the target's endurance.

 

However, the way Rand was kinda "puppetting" the dead girl might actually work if Nynaeve did it (assuming her understanding of human body function is better so she can get the stuff working in unison).

[Entreri]

Typically one needs JUICE, lots of OJ to bring back the dead (according to King of the World Leonardo Dicaprio Rand).

 

That is why those sa'angreal would have come in very handy. Nynaeve will probably need to find another way. Snow White type kiss? Possibly.

[Arath Faringal]

Given that Rand couldn't with the Sword that Ain't, I doubt it can be done...

 

That doesn't really mean anything. We haven't seen Rand do much healing at all, other than healing Bela's fatigue. Someone who hasn't healed so much as a papercut isn't going to be able to heal death just because he's wielding a sa'angreal.

 

I think if death can be healed, it would have to take place in a VERY small window of opportunity, before the soul has a chance to slip too far away. Unless someone could figure out how to trap a soul in the area. That kind of sounds like something you'd have to learn from the DO though, and accomplish with the TP.

[Glexn]

Just a note, the madness that the AoL Aes Sedai couldn't fix has nothing to do with Nynaeve healing the Asha'man's taint induced madness. The taint on Saidin is the essence of the Dark One, it's an infestation of the True Power getting little hooks into the brain. The description is fairly clear, I doubt the AoL Aes Sedai saw little black True Power hooks in the minds of schizophrenics. Nynaeve hasn't cured a mental illness, she'd found a way to remove the True Power from Asha'man brains.

 

I don't think her healing the Asha'man's madness is a forshadowing of her bringing people back from the dead.

 

Plus, resurrection is the lamest excuse for a happy ending next to 'it was all a dream'.

[Ananta]

I'm pretty sure that if Nynaeve heals death, it will be at the price of her own life. A life for life, so to say.