In COT, How Come Only Mat Can See The Ghost?

[The Fisher King]

Ive always wondered.

 

Fish

[MasterAblar]

I've always assumed it had something to do with him being tavaren.

[The Fisher King]

But we have so many other examples of "regular" folks who DO see the ghosts...just curious what made this incident different...

 

 

Fish

[MasterAblar]

But we have so many other examples of "regular" folks who DO see the ghosts...just curious what made this incident different...

 

 

Fish

 

It's possible this was the beginning of the appearence of the ghosts. Perhaps regular folk only became aware of it later, after Mat, and perhaps Rand and Perrin as well.

[The Fisher King]

Maybe so. I remember EVERYONE being affected in the White Tower and at Algarins mannerhouse. I remember all the roaches/beetles in the Aes Sedai tents. Of course Hinderstap and So Harbor...and everyone with Mat saw the village in Shiota sink. But the incident in my OP was just Mat alone ...

 

 

Fish

[MatBloodyCauthon]

I think it wasn't a literal ghost but just a literary action. Mat didn't see a ghost but a ghost of a memory cuz it was Artur Hawking right? I'm pretty sure that's the part your talking about could be wrong been a while since I last read COT

[The Fisher King]

I think it wasn't a literal ghost but just a literary action. Mat didn't see a ghost but a ghost of a memory cuz it was Artur Hawking right? I'm pretty sure that's the part your talking about could be wrong been a while since I last read COT

 

He sees a bunch of ghosts walking straight foe him. He jumps to the side to get out of their way. Tuon makes a crack about him dancing or some such.

[ROB_88]

Mat sees them, while Tuon does not, could mean there is something different between them.

 

so what is different between the two then?

it could be that he is Ta'veren, or it could be that Tuoon is not from this land, and doesn't see them because she's an outsider.

 

has there been any notice about whether the Seanchan sees the ghosts or not?

[Luckers]

Actually only some people see the ghosts. Mat's not the only one--Ituralde sees ghosts in the KoD prologue that the Seanchan officers ride through without seeing.

 

I worked on the development of the whole 'Dark One Touching the World' for the WoTFAQ. Not all made it in--this is the whole, a mixture of my work and theirs.

 

The Dark One’s Touch on the World

 

As of CoT we begin to see the world grow increasingly strange, with the appearance of ghosts, and ripples that seem to be destabilising the very fabric of reality. This thread is to examine these incidences, along with their cause, and what effects they might be having.

 

The Ghosts

1. [COT: Prologue, Glimmers of the Pattern, 87]:

...a palace serving woman came running into the room with her skirts gathered almost to her knees. "Lord Dobraine's been murdered!" the serving woman squealed. "We will all be killed in our beds! My own eyes have seen the dead walking, old Maringil himself, and my mam says spirits will kill you if there has been a murder done!"

Maringil was one of the Cairhien nobles Colavaere had murdered in her bid for the Sun Throne in LOC. Possibly this is just hysteria, but all things considered, probably not.

2. [COT: 10, A Blazing Beacon, 269-270]:

Elayne's maid Elsie spots Lady Nelein, Lord Aedmun's deceased grandmother, in a hallway. Elsie shrieks, Elayne embraces saidar and whirls around, but the spirit is gone by the time Elayne can look around the corner to see if anything is there.

3. [COT: 26, In So Habor, 584]:

While Perrin and Co. are finding weevils in the barley sacks someone again shrieks outside, and Kireyin and Seonid see a man walk through a wall.

[seonid, to Perrin]: "The dead are walking in So Habor. Lord Cowlin fled the town for fear of his wife's spirit. It seems there was doubt as to how she died. Hardly a man or woman in the town has not seen someone dead, and a good many have seen more than one."

4. [COT: 29, Something Flickers, 633-634]:

Mat is walking with Tuon and Selucia and sees a crowd of people on the road to the town: "Staring straight ahead, they moved so purposefully they seemed not to see anyone in front of them." Tuon and Selucia see nothing. The people disappear after a few moments as well, and Mat thinks that he doesn't remember any of them breathing mist in the cold.

 

5. [KoD: Prologue, Embers Falling on Dry Grass, 32]

Rodel Inturalde begins his attack on the Seanchan, and sees the Seanchan ride down a group of people. The people “seemed not to hear [the Seanchan] thundering up behind them”, and the leader of the Seanchan’s “hand never twitched on his reins as he and the rest rode the people down”, later the bodies all disappear. Inturalde thinks to himself “Friends and neighbors must have come out to carry them away, though with a battle on the edge of the village that seemed about as likely as them getting up and walking away after the horses passed.”

 

6. [KoD: 2, The Dark One’s Touch, 128-129]

 

Beonin sees Turanine Merdagon, an Aes Sedai who has been dead since Beonin was one of the Accepted. Turanine vanishes suddenly in midstep.

 

Dead Towns

 

1. [KoD: 10, A Village in Shiota, 249-252]

 

Mat and co. see an entire town from the past, including, both the people and buildings. The inhabitants, like the ghosts, seem to be completely unaware of the present. A peddler rides into town and when it melts he is sucked into the ground and killed. This is the first time the ghost phenomena had proven dangerous (events in So Harbor came about due to fear of the ghosts, not the ghosts themselves).

 

2. [KoD: 18, News for the Dragon, 394] [KoD, 19, Vows, 399]

 

In [News for the Dragon], Verin states that a few men moving cattle saw a fair sized town melt away a few miles north of Algarin's Manor, and in [Vows] Loial clarifies that she also informed them that the town was out of the past--though she apparently either didn't know of the danger of these towns, or didn’t warn Loial of it, since Loial is dreaming about walking through the town before it melts.

 

Moving Rooms, Randland Style

 

1. [Kod: 15, A Different Skill, 335-336]

 

We see this first in the Royal Palace in Andor when Elayne gets lost on her way back to her rooms. She thinks it's just her pregnancy but later Birgitte sets her straight.

 

[KoD: 17, A Bronze Bear, 366]

 

"The palace is... changed." For a moment there was confusion in the bond. Birgitte grimaced. "It sounds mad, I know, but it's as if the whole thing had been built to a slightly different plan"...

 

..."I don't forget a path once I've followed it," she went on, "and some of these hallways aren't the same as they were. Some of the corridors have been... shifted. Others arn't there anymore, and there are some new."

 

2. [KoD: 24, Honey in the Tea, 518]

 

Through Egwene we see this has occurred to the Tower too. “Impossible as it seemed the interior of the Tower had changed. People got lost trying to find rooms they had been to dozens of times.”

 

3. [KoD: 25, Attending Elaida, 535]

 

Tarna also speaks of it occurring in the Tower. “[Tarna] climbed toward Elaida's apartments, although it meant using a seemingly endless series of staircases--twice those stairs were not located were she remembered them, but so long as she continued upward she would reach her destination.”

 

Birgitte lays out the potential dangers of the changing architecture.

 

[KoD: 17, A Bronze Bear, 367]

 

"Not the Forsaken," Birgitte said once Aubrem was out of earshot. "But what caused it is only the first question. Will it happen again? If it does will the changes be benign? Or might you wake up to find yourself in a room without doors or windows? What happens if you are sleeping in a room that disapears? If a corridor can go so can rooms. And what if it's more than the palace? We need to find out if all the streets still lead where they did. What if next time part of the city wall isn't there?"

 

 

The Bugs

 

1. [KoD: 12, A Manufactory, 297]

 

Tylee cut off when the man who was coughing surged to his feet, his stool toppling with a clatter. Clutching his middle, the young man doubled over and vomited a dark stream which hit the floor and broke up into tiny black beetles that went scurrying in every direction....

 

...he bent over and spewed another black stream, longer, that broke into beetles darting across the floor. The skin of his face began writhing, as if beetles were crawling on the outside of his skull...

 

...again and again the man vomited, sinking to his knees then falling over, twitching disjointedly as he spewed out more and more beetles in a steady stream. He seemed to somehow be getting... flatter. Deflating. His jerking ceased but black beetles continued to pour from his gaping mouth and spread across the floor. At last--it seemed to have gone on for an hour, but could not have been more than a minute or two--at last the torrent of insects dwindled and died. What remained of the fellow was a pale flat thing inside his clothes, like a wineskin that had been emptied.

 

2. [KoD: 12, A Manufactory, 298]

 

"I heard a rumour," Faloun said hoarsely. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He smelled of fear. Not terror, but definitely fear. "From east of here. Only that was centipedes. Little black centipedes."

 

 

The Ripples

 

1. [KoD: 5, Something... Strange, 173]

 

[Faile] had just reached Therava's tent when everything in front of her eyes rippled. She rippled. It was not imagination. Meria's blue eyes widened as far as they could go; she could feel it too. Again everything rippled, including herself, harder than before. In shock Faile stood up straight and let go of her robe. A third time the world rippled, and as it passed through her she felt as if she might blow away in the breeze, or simply dissipate into mist.

 

Breathing hard she waited for the fourth ripple, the one that would destroy her and everything.

 

2. [KoD: 26, As If The World Were Fog, 576]

 

Suddenly, everything seemed to ripple in Perrin's sight. He felt himself ripple. Breane gave a cry and dropped the pitcher. The world rippled again, and Berelain clutched his arm. Tylee's hand seemed frozen in that odd gesture, thumb and forefinger forming a crescent. Everything rippled for a third time, and Perrin felt as if he were made of fog, as if the world were fog with a high wind coming.

 

 

The Wind

 

I’m not sure if this qualifies as one of these effects, but it’s strange enough that it gets itself a mention. In Chapter One of KoD the normal wind motif develops a darker side.

 

[KoD: 1, When Last Sounds, 101]

 

Born beneath the glow of the fat, sinking moon, at an altitude where men could not breath, born among the writhing currents heated by the fires inside the ragged peak, the wind was a zephyr in the begnning, yet it gained in strength as it rushed down the steep, rugged slope. Carrying ash and the stench of burning sulfur from the heights; the wind roared across the sudden, snowy hills that reared from the plain surrounding the impossible height of Dragonmount, roared and tossed trees in the night.

 

[KoD, 1, When Last Sounds, 102]

 

The sudden stink of burning sulphur hung heavy in the air, announcing where that wind had come from, and more than one Aes Sedai offered a silent prayer against evil. In moments, though, the wind had passed, and the sisters bent back to their deliberations on a future bleak enough to fit the sharp, fading stench left behind.

 

On the wind roared toward Tar Valon, gaining strength as it went, shrieking over military camps near the river where soldiers and camp followers sleeping on the ground suddenly had their blankets stripped off and those in tents awoke to canvas jerking and sometimes whipping away into the darkness as tent pegs gave way or guy ropes snapped. Laden wagons rocked and toppled, and banners stood out stiff before they were uprooted, their hurtling staffs now spears that pierced whatever lay in their path. Leaning against the gale, men struggled to the horselines to calm animals that reared and screamed in fear. None knew what the Aes Sedai knew, yet the biting, sulphurous smell that filled the chill night air seemed an ill omen, and hardened men offered their prayers aloud as fervently as the beardless boys. Camp followers added their own, and loudly, armorers and farriers and fletchers, wives and laundresses and seamstresses, all clutched by the sudden fear that something darker than blackness stalked the night.

 

Now, later we see another strange gale--in Altara when Perrin meets the Seanchan.

 

[KoD: 4, A Deal, 159]

 

Suddenly the breeze was a gale howling in the opposite direction, pelting them with grit, blowing so hard that he had to cling to his saddle to keep from being knocked out of it. His coat seemed on the point of being ripped from his body. Where had the grit come from? The forest was carpeted inched deep with dead leaves. The tempest stand of burned sulfur too, sharp enough to burn Perrin's nose.

 

Now, given the sulpherous smell, and the grit in it in the middle of forest, it seems likely that the wind Perrin experiences is the same wind as comes from Dragonmount, and Tylee reacts to it with the feeling that there is something darker to it, just as did the Aes Sedai and soldiers. "Avert the Shadow. Where under the Light did that come from? I've heard tales of strange things happening."

 

So what is causing it all?

 

Well, Elaida has this to say.

 

[KoD: 2, The Dark One’s Touch, 134]

 

... now it seemed that Tarmon Gai'don would come sooner than anyone had thought. Several of those ancient Foretellings, from the earliest days of the Tower, said the dead appearing was the first sign, a thinning of reality as the Dark One gathered himself. There would be worse before long.

 

Verin [KoD: 19, Vows, 394], Tuon [KoD: 10, A Village in Shiota, 256] and Siuan [KoD: 24, Honey in the Tea, 518 (secondhand through Egwene)] all separately agree with Elaida’s comment. These occurrences result from a thinning of the pattern, and are a direct result of the Dark One’s efforts to free himself.

 

Also, note the similarity between Elaida’s phrase ‘a thinning of reality’ with the Ripple Effect Faile experiences. If the ghosts are him gathering himself, then that ripple is him making a real effort.

 

So, What Are the Ghosts?

 

Ok, so the ghosts are appearing because of this thinness, but what exactly are they? Firstly, some notes on their nature.

 

1. The Ghosts always appear where they should—as in you don’t see a Perrin’s family rocking up in So Harbor, you see the dead of So Harbor rocking up in So Harbor. The dead manifestation coincide with their living local.

2. They are completely unaware of the living world, as far as can be seen. In particular we’ve seen them completely fail to react when walking into someone, or when someone calls out to them.

3. They interact with each other—we’ve seen ghosts moving in groups, and as listed above, the rising of dead towns.

4. They behave normally, as if they were alive. No swooping from the ceiling, shrieking and hurling sticks around. They, in effect, are not ‘haunting’ the living. They are just there. Indeed, amidst the Dead Town we see them doing normal, everyday tasks.

 

So, we’ve called them ghosts, but they don’t seem to be ghosts in the normal sense of the word—as in the restless dead, unable to cross-over, so on, so forth. Every description of the ghosts seems to be them simply going through their normal business with no awareness of the living world. So, if not ghosts in the strictest sense, what are they?

 

1. Imprinted Images. That they are not ghosts at all, or even manifestations of the souls of the dead, but rather echoes of the real living people. We have seen imprinting occur before in the way that some channelers are able to feel impressions of the past in objects. For instance the sensation of terrible sadness and pain in the male a'dam, or the sense of pain Nynaeve gets from the black rod ter'angreal from Ebou Dar.

 

This is why they show no awareness, they are just images parroting what their living selves actually did, made visible by the Dark One’s efforts to free himself.

 

2. People Out of Time. This idea is that as the Dark One’s pressure on the world is growing, the pattern is beginning to loosen, allowing things to shift out from their normal place. Like the Imprinting idea this suggests that the ghosts are not actually ghosts, but rather that they are the real people, seen in the past, from the present, due to reality becoming so fluid. That then and now are coming to occupy the same place in time—enough for seep through to occur.

 

This theory would continue that if the rooms moving show space is shifting, then these dead show that a similar effect is occurring with time.

 

Counter-point: The physical shifting involves the rooms redesigning to accommodate for the changes. New doors form, to fit the new corridors. It is strange then that there is no sign of accommodation between this past/present ‘shifting’. In particular why is the past completely unaware of the present if time itself is getting out of wack and a genuine time-slip is occurring?

 

Counter-counter-point: The simplest explanation is time—it may be a wheel, but it always goes forwards. They past slips into the future, but the future can’t slip into the past. This would explain why no one from the future has appeared.

 

3. Blurring Mirror Worlds Into The Real World. As reality grows thing things are slipping into the real world from the Mirror World. This explains how the architecture changes haven’t crumbled buildings—because the architecture isn’t changing, the architect is, thereby allowing for the changed architecture to work as if it had been designed to be there all along.

 

Under this theory the ghosts would be people in the other worlds, worlds that are moving slower through time then the real one, and the reason they can’t see the real world is because they are weaker, mirror images of what were real people.

 

Counter-point: Why are we only seeing people from the past then? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the strongest of the mirror worlds, the ones which most closely resemble the real world (in effect the present time and organisation), to be the ones manifesting.

 

4. The After-life theory. According to RJ at a signing listed on the Thirteenth Depository (under Plots, Characters and the Wheel of Time) there is a separate and distinct after-life for normal people to live in between their latest death and next rebirth. According to this theory, what we are seeing is the dead genuinely going about their lives (deaths?) in this after-life, and that the barriers between life and death are fading allowing the dead to be seen. This would explain why the dead are in the right location—if the after-life, like tel’aran’rhiod occupies the same space as the real world, then it’s just seeping through.

 

As such, it would explain how towns are manifesting as well as dead people—the images of the life they lived manifesting for their life in death.

 

Counter-point: This assumes a lot of facts not in evidence. That people retain the look of their most recent incarnation in the after-life, for one. That the after-life resembles living world, for another.

 

5. They’re Darkfriends. Several people have suggested that perhaps the ghosts are all former Darkfriends, and that's why they seem to be exempt from the normal Randland cycle of rebirth - because the DO has control of their souls, alive or dead. It's possible; Gedwyn and Torval were DFs, and while we have no evidence either Maringil or Lady Nelein was a DF, Elayne's maid Elsie described Nelein as a horrible old harridan, and Maringil certainly wasn't the nicest guy ever. Even Kari's ghost talks of being led astray by the DO's "honeyed tongue".

Counter-point: Gedwyn and Torval, the only definite darkfriends listed, were subject to Fain’s powers—and he can create illusions as real as life. So, in effect the one solid example of darkfriend ghosts may not have been ghosts at all, but illusions created by Fain to distract Rand.

 

 

A Note on the Nature of the Manifestations of the Ghosts.

 

Jason Denzel points out that practically every time dead people are seen, it's at a crossroads, and at twilight (for slightly broad values of both terms). Elayne's maid sees Lady Nelein at the junction of two crossing corridors, at dawn. So Habor, where ghosts are rife, is itself a crossroad over the river, and the incident with the man walking through the wall happens at dusk. The sun is rising when Mat takes Tuon shopping and sees the apparitions, though here only a road is mentioned, no crossing. It's not said where exactly the Cairhien servant saw Maringil in the Prologue, but it's reasonable to assume that it was probably also in a corridor, and it was in the morning. It's not ironclad, but it's definitely a pattern.

 

--This takes some hard blows in KoD. Inturalde sees his ghosts at dawn, and it might be said that that first battle represented a crossroads for both himself and the Seanchan. Beonin, however, saw hers sometime after dawn, though she was herself at a crossroads in her life and her role in the rebellion and as an Agent for Elaida, and the maid Loial sees react to a ghost is no where near a crossroads; is not, as far as we know, experiencing a personal crossroad, and it’s the middle of the morning.

 

There may be things in that incident we’re missing, but still, as of KoD this pattern got a lot weaker.

 

Have we seen these effects before CoT?

 

It seems so. We may have seen one as far back as TEOTW, when Ishy/Ba'alzamon shows Rand the vision of Kari al'Thor

 

[TEOTW: 51, Against the Shadow, 639]. The scene's a little long, but worth quoting in its entirety:

 

Egwene and Nynaeve blurred, became wafting mist, dissipated. Kari al'Thor still stood there, her eyes big with fear.

 

"She, at least," Ba'alzamon said, "is mine to do with as I will."

 

Rand shook his head. "I deny you." He had to force the words out. "She is dead, and safe from you in the Light."

 

His mother's lips trembled. Tears trickled down her cheeks; each one burned him like acid. "The Lord of the Grave is stronger than he once was, my son," she said. "His reach is longer. The Father of Lies has a honeyed tongue for unwary souls. My son. My only, darling son. I would spare you if I could, but he is my master, now, his whim, the law of my existence. I can but obey him, and grovel for his favor. Only you can free me. Please, my son. Please help me. Help me. Help me! PLEASE!"

 

The wail ripped out of her as barefaced Fades, pale and eyeless, closed round. Her clothes ripped away in their bloodless hands, hands that wielded pincers and clamps and things that stung and burned and whipped against her naked flesh. Her scream would not end.

Rand's scream echoed hers. The void boiled in his mind. His sword was in his hand. Not the heron-mark blade, but a blade of light, a blade of the Light. Even as he raised it, a fiery white bolt shot from the point, as if the blade itself had reached out. It touched the nearest Fade, and blinding canescence filled the chamber, shining through the Halfmen like a candle through paper, burning through them, blinding his eyes to the scene. From the midst of the brilliance, he heard a whisper. "Thank you, my son. The Light. The blessed Light."

 

It has long been argued over whether this Kari was real or an Illusion created by Ishy, but Alan Ellingson points out that in that scene, "Kari never tells/asks Rand to join Ba'alzamon. She only asks him to help her. Ba'alzamon might have limited what she couldn't say but he [evidently] couldn't force her to say anything. Remember in Rand's dreams in TDR the people he trusted tried to kill him? Why wasn't Kari like that? Why couldn't Ba'alzamon make her say something more... appealing to Rand? Second, she refers to him as 'Lord of the Grave' and more importantly 'Father of Lies'. Yes, have your chief witness call you a 'Father of Lies' in front of the guy you are trying to convince to join you. Third, her last words are 'The Light. The blessed Light.' Why would Ba'alzamon make her say that if she were an illusion he created?"

 

But wait - there's more! We originally thought that the image of Gedwyn and Torval coming up the stairs of the inn in Far Madding, minutes after Rand had found them dead [WH: 33, Blue Carp Street, 615-616] was an illusion created by Fain, but that really doesn't make any sense when you think about it. Gedwyn and Torval aren't shown brandishing swords, or doing anything that might be considered a diversionary tactic, which presumably would be Fain's purpose in creating them; they're just walking up the stairs with their cloaks over their arms, arguing. After Rand slashes at them with his sword, they disappear. In light of events in COT, it's probably safe to assume that Fain had nothing to do with the apparition, and that Gedwyn and Torval were ghosts. [steven Cooper]

Counter-point: For ghosts they appear at a really convenient moment. Furthermore, Steven points out that when Rand slashes the ghosts with swords they disappear, yet in other occurrences ghosts have walked through walls—why were these ghosts different in that they reacted to physical contact?

 

In any case it seems that the ghost phenomenon was at least obliquely foreshadowed prior to COT.

Other Issues, Related effects

 

1. The Bubbles of Evil. Kept separate because the Bubbles of Evil are not side-effects of the thinning reality, but miasma coming directly off the Dark One himself like a bad smell.

2. The Weather. Kept separate because it was done intentionally by the Dark One as a weapon to weaken humanity.

3. Food Decay. Once again seems more a result of the Dark One’s touch than a thinning of reality—explored more in the ‘is saidar failing’ thread anyway.

[The Fisher King]

Actually only some people see the ghosts. Mat's not the only one--Ituralde sees ghosts in the KoD prologue that the Seanchan officers ride through without seeing.

 

I worked on the development of the whole 'Dark One Touching the World' for the WoTFAQ. Not all made it in--this is the whole, a mixture of my work and theirs.

 

The Dark One’s Touch on the World

 

As of CoT we begin to see the world grow increasingly strange, with the appearance of ghosts, and ripples that seem to be destabilising the very fabric of reality. This thread is to examine these incidences, along with their cause, and what effects they might be having.

 

The Ghosts

1. [COT: Prologue, Glimmers of the Pattern, 87]:

...a palace serving woman came running into the room with her skirts gathered almost to her knees. "Lord Dobraine's been murdered!" the serving woman squealed. "We will all be killed in our beds! My own eyes have seen the dead walking, old Maringil himself, and my mam says spirits will kill you if there has been a murder done!"

Maringil was one of the Cairhien nobles Colavaere had murdered in her bid for the Sun Throne in LOC. Possibly this is just hysteria, but all things considered, probably not.

2. [COT: 10, A Blazing Beacon, 269-270]:

Elayne's maid Elsie spots Lady Nelein, Lord Aedmun's deceased grandmother, in a hallway. Elsie shrieks, Elayne embraces saidar and whirls around, but the spirit is gone by the time Elayne can look around the corner to see if anything is there.

3. [COT: 26, In So Habor, 584]:

While Perrin and Co. are finding weevils in the barley sacks someone again shrieks outside, and Kireyin and Seonid see a man walk through a wall.

[seonid, to Perrin]: "The dead are walking in So Habor. Lord Cowlin fled the town for fear of his wife's spirit. It seems there was doubt as to how she died. Hardly a man or woman in the town has not seen someone dead, and a good many have seen more than one."

4. [COT: 29, Something Flickers, 633-634]:

Mat is walking with Tuon and Selucia and sees a crowd of people on the road to the town: "Staring straight ahead, they moved so purposefully they seemed not to see anyone in front of them." Tuon and Selucia see nothing. The people disappear after a few moments as well, and Mat thinks that he doesn't remember any of them breathing mist in the cold.

 

5. [KoD: Prologue, Embers Falling on Dry Grass, 32]

Rodel Inturalde begins his attack on the Seanchan, and sees the Seanchan ride down a group of people. The people “seemed not to hear [the Seanchan] thundering up behind them”, and the leader of the Seanchan’s “hand never twitched on his reins as he and the rest rode the people down”, later the bodies all disappear. Inturalde thinks to himself “Friends and neighbors must have come out to carry them away, though with a battle on the edge of the village that seemed about as likely as them getting up and walking away after the horses passed.”

 

6. [KoD: 2, The Dark One’s Touch, 128-129]

 

Beonin sees Turanine Merdagon, an Aes Sedai who has been dead since Beonin was one of the Accepted. Turanine vanishes suddenly in midstep.

 

Dead Towns

 

1. [KoD: 10, A Village in Shiota, 249-252]

 

Mat and co. see an entire town from the past, including, both the people and buildings. The inhabitants, like the ghosts, seem to be completely unaware of the present. A peddler rides into town and when it melts he is sucked into the ground and killed. This is the first time the ghost phenomena had proven dangerous (events in So Harbor came about due to fear of the ghosts, not the ghosts themselves).

 

2. [KoD: 18, News for the Dragon, 394] [KoD, 19, Vows, 399]

 

In [News for the Dragon], Verin states that a few men moving cattle saw a fair sized town melt away a few miles north of Algarin's Manor, and in [Vows] Loial clarifies that she also informed them that the town was out of the past--though she apparently either didn't know of the danger of these towns, or didn’t warn Loial of it, since Loial is dreaming about walking through the town before it melts.

 

Moving Rooms, Randland Style

 

1. [Kod: 15, A Different Skill, 335-336]

 

We see this first in the Royal Palace in Andor when Elayne gets lost on her way back to her rooms. She thinks it's just her pregnancy but later Birgitte sets her straight.

 

[KoD: 17, A Bronze Bear, 366]

 

"The palace is... changed." For a moment there was confusion in the bond. Birgitte grimaced. "It sounds mad, I know, but it's as if the whole thing had been built to a slightly different plan"...

 

..."I don't forget a path once I've followed it," she went on, "and some of these hallways aren't the same as they were. Some of the corridors have been... shifted. Others arn't there anymore, and there are some new."

 

2. [KoD: 24, Honey in the Tea, 518]

 

Through Egwene we see this has occurred to the Tower too. “Impossible as it seemed the interior of the Tower had changed. People got lost trying to find rooms they had been to dozens of times.”

 

3. [KoD: 25, Attending Elaida, 535]

 

Tarna also speaks of it occurring in the Tower. “[Tarna] climbed toward Elaida's apartments, although it meant using a seemingly endless series of staircases--twice those stairs were not located were she remembered them, but so long as she continued upward she would reach her destination.”

 

Birgitte lays out the potential dangers of the changing architecture.

 

[KoD: 17, A Bronze Bear, 367]

 

"Not the Forsaken," Birgitte said once Aubrem was out of earshot. "But what caused it is only the first question. Will it happen again? If it does will the changes be benign? Or might you wake up to find yourself in a room without doors or windows? What happens if you are sleeping in a room that disapears? If a corridor can go so can rooms. And what if it's more than the palace? We need to find out if all the streets still lead where they did. What if next time part of the city wall isn't there?"

 

 

The Bugs

 

1. [KoD: 12, A Manufactory, 297]

 

Tylee cut off when the man who was coughing surged to his feet, his stool toppling with a clatter. Clutching his middle, the young man doubled over and vomited a dark stream which hit the floor and broke up into tiny black beetles that went scurrying in every direction....

 

...he bent over and spewed another black stream, longer, that broke into beetles darting across the floor. The skin of his face began writhing, as if beetles were crawling on the outside of his skull...

 

...again and again the man vomited, sinking to his knees then falling over, twitching disjointedly as he spewed out more and more beetles in a steady stream. He seemed to somehow be getting... flatter. Deflating. His jerking ceased but black beetles continued to pour from his gaping mouth and spread across the floor. At last--it seemed to have gone on for an hour, but could not have been more than a minute or two--at last the torrent of insects dwindled and died. What remained of the fellow was a pale flat thing inside his clothes, like a wineskin that had been emptied.

 

2. [KoD: 12, A Manufactory, 298]

 

"I heard a rumour," Faloun said hoarsely. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He smelled of fear. Not terror, but definitely fear. "From east of here. Only that was centipedes. Little black centipedes."

 

 

The Ripples

 

1. [KoD: 5, Something... Strange, 173]

 

[Faile] had just reached Therava's tent when everything in front of her eyes rippled. She rippled. It was not imagination. Meria's blue eyes widened as far as they could go; she could feel it too. Again everything rippled, including herself, harder than before. In shock Faile stood up straight and let go of her robe. A third time the world rippled, and as it passed through her she felt as if she might blow away in the breeze, or simply dissipate into mist.

 

Breathing hard she waited for the fourth ripple, the one that would destroy her and everything.

 

2. [KoD: 26, As If The World Were Fog, 576]

 

Suddenly, everything seemed to ripple in Perrin's sight. He felt himself ripple. Breane gave a cry and dropped the pitcher. The world rippled again, and Berelain clutched his arm. Tylee's hand seemed frozen in that odd gesture, thumb and forefinger forming a crescent. Everything rippled for a third time, and Perrin felt as if he were made of fog, as if the world were fog with a high wind coming.

 

 

The Wind

 

I’m not sure if this qualifies as one of these effects, but it’s strange enough that it gets itself a mention. In Chapter One of KoD the normal wind motif develops a darker side.

 

[KoD: 1, When Last Sounds, 101]

 

Born beneath the glow of the fat, sinking moon, at an altitude where men could not breath, born among the writhing currents heated by the fires inside the ragged peak, the wind was a zephyr in the begnning, yet it gained in strength as it rushed down the steep, rugged slope. Carrying ash and the stench of burning sulfur from the heights; the wind roared across the sudden, snowy hills that reared from the plain surrounding the impossible height of Dragonmount, roared and tossed trees in the night.

 

[KoD, 1, When Last Sounds, 102]

 

The sudden stink of burning sulphur hung heavy in the air, announcing where that wind had come from, and more than one Aes Sedai offered a silent prayer against evil. In moments, though, the wind had passed, and the sisters bent back to their deliberations on a future bleak enough to fit the sharp, fading stench left behind.

 

On the wind roared toward Tar Valon, gaining strength as it went, shrieking over military camps near the river where soldiers and camp followers sleeping on the ground suddenly had their blankets stripped off and those in tents awoke to canvas jerking and sometimes whipping away into the darkness as tent pegs gave way or guy ropes snapped. Laden wagons rocked and toppled, and banners stood out stiff before they were uprooted, their hurtling staffs now spears that pierced whatever lay in their path. Leaning against the gale, men struggled to the horselines to calm animals that reared and screamed in fear. None knew what the Aes Sedai knew, yet the biting, sulphurous smell that filled the chill night air seemed an ill omen, and hardened men offered their prayers aloud as fervently as the beardless boys. Camp followers added their own, and loudly, armorers and farriers and fletchers, wives and laundresses and seamstresses, all clutched by the sudden fear that something darker than blackness stalked the night.

 

Now, later we see another strange gale--in Altara when Perrin meets the Seanchan.

 

[KoD: 4, A Deal, 159]

 

Suddenly the breeze was a gale howling in the opposite direction, pelting them with grit, blowing so hard that he had to cling to his saddle to keep from being knocked out of it. His coat seemed on the point of being ripped from his body. Where had the grit come from? The forest was carpeted inched deep with dead leaves. The tempest stand of burned sulfur too, sharp enough to burn Perrin's nose.

 

Now, given the sulpherous smell, and the grit in it in the middle of forest, it seems likely that the wind Perrin experiences is the same wind as comes from Dragonmount, and Tylee reacts to it with the feeling that there is something darker to it, just as did the Aes Sedai and soldiers. "Avert the Shadow. Where under the Light did that come from? I've heard tales of strange things happening."

 

So what is causing it all?

 

Well, Elaida has this to say.

 

[KoD: 2, The Dark One’s Touch, 134]

 

... now it seemed that Tarmon Gai'don would come sooner than anyone had thought. Several of those ancient Foretellings, from the earliest days of the Tower, said the dead appearing was the first sign, a thinning of reality as the Dark One gathered himself. There would be worse before long.

 

Verin [KoD: 19, Vows, 394], Tuon [KoD: 10, A Village in Shiota, 256] and Siuan [KoD: 24, Honey in the Tea, 518 (secondhand through Egwene)] all separately agree with Elaida’s comment. These occurrences result from a thinning of the pattern, and are a direct result of the Dark One’s efforts to free himself.

 

Also, note the similarity between Elaida’s phrase ‘a thinning of reality’ with the Ripple Effect Faile experiences. If the ghosts are him gathering himself, then that ripple is him making a real effort.

 

So, What Are the Ghosts?

 

Ok, so the ghosts are appearing because of this thinness, but what exactly are they? Firstly, some notes on their nature.

 

1. The Ghosts always appear where they should—as in you don’t see a Perrin’s family rocking up in So Harbor, you see the dead of So Harbor rocking up in So Harbor. The dead manifestation coincide with their living local.

2. They are completely unaware of the living world, as far as can be seen. In particular we’ve seen them completely fail to react when walking into someone, or when someone calls out to them.

3. They interact with each other—we’ve seen ghosts moving in groups, and as listed above, the rising of dead towns.

4. They behave normally, as if they were alive. No swooping from the ceiling, shrieking and hurling sticks around. They, in effect, are not ‘haunting’ the living. They are just there. Indeed, amidst the Dead Town we see them doing normal, everyday tasks.

 

So, we’ve called them ghosts, but they don’t seem to be ghosts in the normal sense of the word—as in the restless dead, unable to cross-over, so on, so forth. Every description of the ghosts seems to be them simply going through their normal business with no awareness of the living world. So, if not ghosts in the strictest sense, what are they?

 

1. Imprinted Images. That they are not ghosts at all, or even manifestations of the souls of the dead, but rather echoes of the real living people. We have seen imprinting occur before in the way that some channelers are able to feel impressions of the past in objects. For instance the sensation of terrible sadness and pain in the male a'dam, or the sense of pain Nynaeve gets from the black rod ter'angreal from Ebou Dar.

 

This is why they show no awareness, they are just images parroting what their living selves actually did, made visible by the Dark One’s efforts to free himself.

 

2. People Out of Time. This idea is that as the Dark One’s pressure on the world is growing, the pattern is beginning to loosen, allowing things to shift out from their normal place. Like the Imprinting idea this suggests that the ghosts are not actually ghosts, but rather that they are the real people, seen in the past, from the present, due to reality becoming so fluid. That then and now are coming to occupy the same place in time—enough for seep through to occur.

 

This theory would continue that if the rooms moving show space is shifting, then these dead show that a similar effect is occurring with time.

 

Counter-point: The physical shifting involves the rooms redesigning to accommodate for the changes. New doors form, to fit the new corridors. It is strange then that there is no sign of accommodation between this past/present ‘shifting’. In particular why is the past completely unaware of the present if time itself is getting out of wack and a genuine time-slip is occurring?

 

Counter-counter-point: The simplest explanation is time—it may be a wheel, but it always goes forwards. They past slips into the future, but the future can’t slip into the past. This would explain why no one from the future has appeared.

 

3. Blurring Mirror Worlds Into The Real World. As reality grows thing things are slipping into the real world from the Mirror World. This explains how the architecture changes haven’t crumbled buildings—because the architecture isn’t changing, the architect is, thereby allowing for the changed architecture to work as if it had been designed to be there all along.

 

Under this theory the ghosts would be people in the other worlds, worlds that are moving slower through time then the real one, and the reason they can’t see the real world is because they are weaker, mirror images of what were real people.

 

Counter-point: Why are we only seeing people from the past then? Wouldn’t it make more sense for the strongest of the mirror worlds, the ones which most closely resemble the real world (in effect the present time and organisation), to be the ones manifesting.

 

4. The After-life theory. According to RJ at a signing listed on the Thirteenth Depository (under Plots, Characters and the Wheel of Time) there is a separate and distinct after-life for normal people to live in between their latest death and next rebirth. According to this theory, what we are seeing is the dead genuinely going about their lives (deaths?) in this after-life, and that the barriers between life and death are fading allowing the dead to be seen. This would explain why the dead are in the right location—if the after-life, like tel’aran’rhiod occupies the same space as the real world, then it’s just seeping through.

 

As such, it would explain how towns are manifesting as well as dead people—the images of the life they lived manifesting for their life in death.

 

Counter-point: This assumes a lot of facts not in evidence. That people retain the look of their most recent incarnation in the after-life, for one. That the after-life resembles living world, for another.

 

5. They’re Darkfriends. Several people have suggested that perhaps the ghosts are all former Darkfriends, and that's why they seem to be exempt from the normal Randland cycle of rebirth - because the DO has control of their souls, alive or dead. It's possible; Gedwyn and Torval were DFs, and while we have no evidence either Maringil or Lady Nelein was a DF, Elayne's maid Elsie described Nelein as a horrible old harridan, and Maringil certainly wasn't the nicest guy ever. Even Kari's ghost talks of being led astray by the DO's "honeyed tongue".

Counter-point: Gedwyn and Torval, the only definite darkfriends listed, were subject to Fain’s powers—and he can create illusions as real as life. So, in effect the one solid example of darkfriend ghosts may not have been ghosts at all, but illusions created by Fain to distract Rand.

 

 

A Note on the Nature of the Manifestations of the Ghosts.

 

Jason Denzel points out that practically every time dead people are seen, it's at a crossroads, and at twilight (for slightly broad values of both terms). Elayne's maid sees Lady Nelein at the junction of two crossing corridors, at dawn. So Habor, where ghosts are rife, is itself a crossroad over the river, and the incident with the man walking through the wall happens at dusk. The sun is rising when Mat takes Tuon shopping and sees the apparitions, though here only a road is mentioned, no crossing. It's not said where exactly the Cairhien servant saw Maringil in the Prologue, but it's reasonable to assume that it was probably also in a corridor, and it was in the morning. It's not ironclad, but it's definitely a pattern.

 

--This takes some hard blows in KoD. Inturalde sees his ghosts at dawn, and it might be said that that first battle represented a crossroads for both himself and the Seanchan. Beonin, however, saw hers sometime after dawn, though she was herself at a crossroads in her life and her role in the rebellion and as an Agent for Elaida, and the maid Loial sees react to a ghost is no where near a crossroads; is not, as far as we know, experiencing a personal crossroad, and it’s the middle of the morning.

 

There may be things in that incident we’re missing, but still, as of KoD this pattern got a lot weaker.

 

Have we seen these effects before CoT?

 

It seems so. We may have seen one as far back as TEOTW, when Ishy/Ba'alzamon shows Rand the vision of Kari al'Thor

 

[TEOTW: 51, Against the Shadow, 639]. The scene's a little long, but worth quoting in its entirety:

 

Egwene and Nynaeve blurred, became wafting mist, dissipated. Kari al'Thor still stood there, her eyes big with fear.

 

"She, at least," Ba'alzamon said, "is mine to do with as I will."

 

Rand shook his head. "I deny you." He had to force the words out. "She is dead, and safe from you in the Light."

 

His mother's lips trembled. Tears trickled down her cheeks; each one burned him like acid. "The Lord of the Grave is stronger than he once was, my son," she said. "His reach is longer. The Father of Lies has a honeyed tongue for unwary souls. My son. My only, darling son. I would spare you if I could, but he is my master, now, his whim, the law of my existence. I can but obey him, and grovel for his favor. Only you can free me. Please, my son. Please help me. Help me. Help me! PLEASE!"

 

The wail ripped out of her as barefaced Fades, pale and eyeless, closed round. Her clothes ripped away in their bloodless hands, hands that wielded pincers and clamps and things that stung and burned and whipped against her naked flesh. Her scream would not end.

Rand's scream echoed hers. The void boiled in his mind. His sword was in his hand. Not the heron-mark blade, but a blade of light, a blade of the Light. Even as he raised it, a fiery white bolt shot from the point, as if the blade itself had reached out. It touched the nearest Fade, and blinding canescence filled the chamber, shining through the Halfmen like a candle through paper, burning through them, blinding his eyes to the scene. From the midst of the brilliance, he heard a whisper. "Thank you, my son. The Light. The blessed Light."

 

It has long been argued over whether this Kari was real or an Illusion created by Ishy, but Alan Ellingson points out that in that scene, "Kari never tells/asks Rand to join Ba'alzamon. She only asks him to help her. Ba'alzamon might have limited what she couldn't say but he [evidently] couldn't force her to say anything. Remember in Rand's dreams in TDR the people he trusted tried to kill him? Why wasn't Kari like that? Why couldn't Ba'alzamon make her say something more... appealing to Rand? Second, she refers to him as 'Lord of the Grave' and more importantly 'Father of Lies'. Yes, have your chief witness call you a 'Father of Lies' in front of the guy you are trying to convince to join you. Third, her last words are 'The Light. The blessed Light.' Why would Ba'alzamon make her say that if she were an illusion he created?"

 

But wait - there's more! We originally thought that the image of Gedwyn and Torval coming up the stairs of the inn in Far Madding, minutes after Rand had found them dead [WH: 33, Blue Carp Street, 615-616] was an illusion created by Fain, but that really doesn't make any sense when you think about it. Gedwyn and Torval aren't shown brandishing swords, or doing anything that might be considered a diversionary tactic, which presumably would be Fain's purpose in creating them; they're just walking up the stairs with their cloaks over their arms, arguing. After Rand slashes at them with his sword, they disappear. In light of events in COT, it's probably safe to assume that Fain had nothing to do with the apparition, and that Gedwyn and Torval were ghosts. [steven Cooper]

Counter-point: For ghosts they appear at a really convenient moment. Furthermore, Steven points out that when Rand slashes the ghosts with swords they disappear, yet in other occurrences ghosts have walked through walls—why were these ghosts different in that they reacted to physical contact?

 

In any case it seems that the ghost phenomenon was at least obliquely foreshadowed prior to COT.

Other Issues, Related effects

 

1. The Bubbles of Evil. Kept separate because the Bubbles of Evil are not side-effects of the thinning reality, but miasma coming directly off the Dark One himself like a bad smell.

2. The Weather. Kept separate because it was done intentionally by the Dark One as a weapon to weaken humanity.

3. Food Decay. Once again seems more a result of the Dark One’s touch than a thinning of reality—explored more in the ‘is saidar failing’ thread anyway.

 

Thanks for all of that, Luckers!!! Good stuff to read over - even if I still do not see the CONSISTENT answers I am seeking! Speaking of The WOT FAQ, btw....whatever happened to it - as far as updates, I mean? I was excited about that recent batch (of updates) but even they seem to have come to a halt. It seems like it always ends up being a bit too much to chew for so many ''Custodians'' - judging by how often it changes hands, lies dormant, etc...Is it still REALLY all THAT much work, lol???

 

 

Fish

[ROB_88]

Luckers, i like some of those ideas.

i never even realised the one with Ituralde seeing people being run over at the battle were ghosts.

 

but unless i missed it, there was nothing about why some see them and why others don't.

i don't think there's been any point where the Seanchan sees them

[Luckers]

Luckers, i like some of those ideas.

i never even realised the one with Ituralde seeing people being run over at the battle were ghosts.

 

but unless i missed it, there was nothing about why some see them and why others don't.

i don't think there's been any point where the Seanchan sees them

 

We don't know why some see them and others don't. Though Fortuona and Selucia see the town from Shiota, so it's not just alliegence.

[The Fisher King]

Thanks for all of that, Luckers!!! Good stuff to read over - even if I still do not see the CONSISTENT answers I am seeking! Speaking of The WOT FAQ, btw....whatever happened to it - as far as updates, I mean? I was excited about that recent batch (of updates) but even they seem to have come to a halt. It seems like it always ends up being a bit too much to chew for so many ''Custodians'' - judging by how often it changes hands, lies dormant, etc...Is it still REALLY all THAT much work, lol???

 

 

Fish

[The Fisher King]

Update: Just since it was brought up - the FAQ is still waaaaaaaaaay behind schedule :(

 

 

Fish