Stalemate

[LeeM.Erickson]

Ok, I apologize in advance if this ends up kind of rambling.

 

So I was thinking about a question I've seen debated off and on and I've never really had a satisfactory answer to. That question being: Why does the Dark One try to convert the Dragon Reborn instead of just killing him? What advantage does the Dark One gain by having the Dragon Reborn on his side that he doesn't also have if he's dead? These questions inevitably lead to an RJ quote I'm sure you guys are all familiar with.

 

Crossroads of Twilight book tour 16 January 2003, Dayton, OH - Tim Kington reporting

 

Q: (inaudible)

RJ: Yes, the Champion of the Light has gone over in the past. This is a game you have to win every time. Or rather, that you can only lose once--you can stay in if you get a draw. Think of a tournament with single elimination. If you lose once, that's it. In the past, when the Champion of the Light has gone over to the Shadow, the result has been a draw.

 

This got me thinking along these lines. We've told often in the series that the only chance the Light has of winning is for the Dragon Reborn to be alive at the Last Battle. So I thought to look at the possible ending conditions of the Last Battle.

 

1. The Dragon Reborn defeats the Dark One in the Last Battle. Victory: Light.

2. The Dragon Reborn is turned to the Shadow. This can end with a victory for the Dark One, or a draw.

3. The Dragon Reborn is killed before the Last Battle. Victory: Shadow.

 

Then I realized there was a flaw in my logic. The Dragon Reborn must be alive in order for the Light to have a chance of winning. But if a draw is a possible outcome, it's possible that the death of the Dragon Reborn could also result in a draw.

 

Now THAT got me thinking...what exactly constitutes a draw? This presents a multitude of problems. And unfortunately I think what this comes down to is yet another situation where we don't know enough about the Wheel and the Ages to really determine a satisfactory answer.

 

Also, I noticed that RJ did NOT say "The Dragon Reborn has gone over to the Shadow," but rather used the term the Champion of the Light. The term Champion of the Light, as I take it, seems to be another term for what is also called the Dragon Soul, which I interpret to mean the different incarnations of that particular thread throughout the Ages. If that makes sense. For instance, Lews Therin (the Dragon) was the incarnation of the Champion of the Light in the Age of Legends. Rand al'Thor (the Dragon Reborn) is the Champion of the Light in the Third Age.

 

What exactly do we know about the Champion of the Light? We know he's bound to the Wheel. I could be wrong on this next point, however, which is that I also believed that while bound to the Wheel, this soul is fundamentally different from other Heroes of the Horn. While Heroes get spun out periodically, sometimes living quite mundane lives, I assume the Dragon Soul is only spun out when he is going to be needed to fulfill his purpose as the Champion of the Light, which I assume usually involves some confrontation with the Dark One. Anyway, I bring this up because this could have been clever wording by RJ that while the Champion of the Light has served the Shadow in the past, it doesn't necessarily mean that the Dragon Reborn did. In other words, these turnings could have taken place in other Ages.

 

Again, it's frustrating because there's so much we don't know about the Wheel of Time world. I guess it's hard to predict what a stalemate would be because we have no idea what constitutes victory. We have no idea HOW the Dragon Reborn is going to defeat the Dark One in the Last Battle, in fact, Verin postulates that the battle will be unlike what most people can envision.

 

It stands to reason that not every Age ends with some sort of fight against the Dark One, because by the time the Age of Legends comes again his existence isn't known. Which begs the question of what does constitute the end of an Age. To paraphrase another quote of RJ's I've seen brought up, he said something akin to the differences between each individual Age's Age Lace would be like looking at two tapestries. From across the room, they might look identical, but as you get closer, you can see minor differences in the patterns. It seems established (or maybe taken for granted) that while there is room for variety in a particular Age from one Turning to another, there are always some specific events that have to take place in specific Ages. The Bore is always drilled in the Age of Legends, for example. This is even substantiated in the books by Fel's assumption that the Bore has to be completely mended--as opposed to sealed as it was in the AOL--by the time that Age comes again so that it can be drilled once more.

 

So that brings me back to my original question. What exactly is a stalemate? If that quote from RJ didn't exist, I'd probably argue such a thing isn't possible. It seems to make more sense to me that there would be only two possible outcomes: Victory for the Light, or victory for the Shadow. Because if a third option exists, it seems to indicate that there'd be much more room for variation in the Pattern. If Rand is supposed to mend the hole into the DO's prison completely and he doesn't, if that is the "correct" outcome, and if he doesn't, that seems like it would create a radically different Fourth Age than what it's "supposed" to be. Somebody else (well, most likely a new Fourth Age incarnation of the Champion of the Light) would have to fix what Rand didn't do.

 

Was the Age of Legends a stalemate? It wasn't exactly a sweeping victory for the Light. The Dark One was beaten back, but only temporarily, and saidin was tainted as a result. But I always assumed that was what was supposed to happen so that it could be rectified in the Third Age. But then, maybe not? Perhaps there was a way to ensure a total victory of the Light in Lews Therin's time, which would have made the Dragon Reborn not even necessary to be spun out in the Third Age at all?

 

Anyway, this type of talk makes my head spin. And I don't know if any of this even makes any sense! What do you guys think?

[Eht Slat Meit]

I think the trick with Semirhage sufficiently quashes the theory that he wants to convert Rand to the Dark Side. I get the distinct impression it's about manipulation rather than control, perhaps because a Champion of the Light under the absolute control of the DO no longer has the ability to do certain things the DO wants him to do. What those certain things are is a matter of speculation, but I'm guessing they're related to his HoTH nature.

[Cybertrolloc]

Yah, I think that too, but there's a lot of contradictory things presented in the books to come to inarguable conclusions.

 

There's really two struggles going on: whether or not the DO escapes (never happened) then whether the light or shadow triumphs in some greater or lesser way.

[Mr Ares]

In terms of a final, lasting victory, the Shadow has never won, but RJ has talked about degrees of victory. Theoretically, it's possible that the Dragon could seal the Bore, only for the forces of the Shadow to completely crush the Light's armies, and find themselves unable to reopen the Bore - that could be considered a draw (as it is, the War of the Shadow look slike a marginal victory for the Light). The Sha'rah game in PoD gives us a good metaphor for the struggle. In that, it is possible to win by controlling the Fisher, or by letting your opponent control but forcing it to make moves that result in your victory, or you could even win by outright slaughter. The Dragon going to the Shadow doesn't mean they will win, and him staying with the light doesn't mean the Shadow will lose. But killing him isn't enough. The third way was total destruction, not the death of the Fisher. Killing Rand might help the Shadow - if he is working against them and they cannot turn him to their advantage - but it is not enough to win, nor is it necessarily the most desirable way. Killing him might simply mean that you have a hell of a lot of hard work ahead, while leaving him alive will result in some short-term setbacks, but potentially will see you win more quickly and more easily than if you had killed him. Turning or manipulating Rand instead of killing him might look like a superficially stupid idea, but I think it really represents the quickest and surest way to victory, the only way to win at a stroke.

[Dakota]

I'm guessing that a draw would be the shadow winning every decisive battle, destroying much of civilization, converting the Light's champion, everything that the Forsaken would think of as a victory, but the Great Lord isn't able to accomplish what he needs to in order to actually destroy the world to remake it in his image.

[Alric]

I think it is stated several times that "everything" will end if the Dark One wins. So I doubt the DO would consider anything else a victory. Necessarily, that means that while Ishy might have beaten the Champion of the Light several times before, the DO has never achieved anything better than a stalemate. This stalemate could be catastrophic for humanity, it doesn't have to mean anything more than that the human race barely survives. For the Light though, and in the grander scheme, this would still be a stalemate.

 

The Rand-Fel exhange for reference:

 

 

"Oh. Yes. Ah, question. Last time. Tarmon Gai'don. Well, I don't know what it will be like. Trollocs, I suppose? Dreadlords? Yes. Dreadlords. But I have been thinking. It can't be the Last Battle. I don't think it can. Maybe every Age has a Last Battle. Or most of them." Suddenly he frowned down his nose at the pipe in his teeth, and began rummaging across the table. "I have a tinderbox here somewhere."

 

"What do you mean it can't be the Last Battle?" Rand tried to keep his voice smooth. Herid always came to the point; you just had to prod him toward it.

 

 

"What? Yes, exactly the point. It can't be the Last Battle. Even if the Dragon Reborn seals the Dark One's prison again as well as the Creator made it. Which I don't think he can do." He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "He isn't the Creator, you know, whatever they say in the streets. Still, it has to be sealed up again by somebody. The Wheel, you see."

 

"I don't see...." Rand trailed off.

 

 

"Yes, you do. You'd make a good student." Snatching his pipe out, Herid drew a circle in the air with the stem. "The Wheel of Time. Ages come and go and come again as the Wheel turns. All the catechism." Suddenly he stabbed a point on that imaginary wheel. "Here the Dark One's prison is whole. Here, they drilled a hole in it, and sealed it up again." He moved the bit of the pipe along the arc he had drawn. "Here we are. The seal's weakening. But that doesn't matter, of course." The pipestem completed the circle. "When the Wheel turns back to here, back to where they drilled the hole in the first place, the Dark One's prison has to be whole again."

 

"Why? Maybe the next time they'll drill through the patch. Maybe that's how they could do it the last time—drill into what the Creator made, I mean—maybe they drilled the Bore through a patch and we just don't know."

 

 

Herid shook his head. For a moment he stared at his pipe, once more realizing it was unlit, and Rand thought he might have to recall him again, but instead Herid blinked and went on. "Someone had to make it sometime. For the first time, that is. Unless you think the Creator made the Dark One's prison with a hole and patch to begin." His eyebrows, waggled at the suggestion. "No, it was whole in the beginning, and I think it will be whole again when the Third Age comes once more. Hmmm. I wonder if they called it the Third Age?" He hastily dipped a pen and scribbled a note in the margins of an open book. "Umph. No matter now. I'm not saying the Dragon Reborn will be the one to make it whole, not in this Age necessarily anyway, but it must be so before the Third Age comes again, and enough time passed since it was made whole—an Age, at least—that no one remembers the Dark One or his prison. No one remembers. Um. I wonder. .,." He peered at his notes and scratched his head, then seemed startled to find he used the hand holding the pen. There was a smudge of ink in his hair. "Any Age where seals weaken must remember the Dark One eventually, because they will have to face him and wall him up again." Sticking his pipe back between his teeth, he tried to make another note without dipping the pen.

 

"Unless the Dark One breaks free," Rand said quietly. "To break the Wheel of Time, and remake Time and the world in his own image."

 

 

"There is that." Herid shrugged, frowning at the pen. Finally he thought of the inkpot. "I don't suppose there's much you or I can do about it. Why don't you come study here with me? I don't suppose Tarmon Gai'don will happen tomorrow, and it would be as good a use of your time as—"

 

"Is there any reason you can think of to break the seals?"

 

 

Herid's eyebrows shot up. "Break the seals? Break the seals? Why would anyone but a madman want to do that? Can they even be broken? I seem to remember reading somewhere they can't, but I don't recall now that it said why. What made you think of a thing like that?"

 

"I don't know," Rand sighed. In the back of his head Lews Therin was chanting. Break the seals. Break the seals, and end it. Let me die forever.

 

 

I think someone in the books state (as has already been said in this thread) that Ages look similar to the corresponding Age in the last turning from afar, but closer up they look very different. I don't think Ages in the same turning need to look similar to each other at all. You could boil this down to a very interesting question: What exactly do we know repeats itself in each turning? I suspect it might not be as many events as some would assume. 

[msbee]

Darn it, I spent ages trying to put my thoughts down in a coherent fashion only to come back and find I've been beaten to it on most points.

Here it is anyway:

 

---

Here is how I think of it. Forgive me if I state the obvious at times - it just makes my head hurt slightly less if I do it this way.

 

The Champion of Light, happens to be called the Dragon Reborn this time round. I'll use DR to mean all incarnations from now on

The DR's job is to appear whenever the DO looks to be endangering the balance of existence and do something about it

So, periodically, they slug it out. (a continuous war punctuated with large battles)

When this happens, there tend to be dramatic wars in the world of men, upheavals etc. People, who like attaching labels to things, call this the end of an age and reset their calendars back to 0

An Age is a convenient term, everybody uses it, even the FS, but it does not have a fixed length

 

Sometimes the DR wins a battle quite decisively. The DO is so thoroughly sealed away (prison remade, not patched) that he is forgotten as an entity and a source of power, but he still exists, so the war is not won - just that particular battle. History and any survivors may call this the 1st Age and the Wheel is said to have started a new revolution.

 

Now there are two possibilities:

Either the DO is chaos and entropy and can still 'reach out' enough to corrupt minds over time, so that eventually someone drills a Bore (or does something else - there is no way of knowing whether there is a Bore for every turn of the Wheel)

Or, he has to wait until human nature runs it's course and someone unknowingly does something to his advantage.

 

In either case, the DR is sent back into action. But maybe this time the DR wasn't “raised better” and the result of the battle is somewhat inconclusive, the Bore is only patched, the 2nd Age starts etc. This continues until a DR comes along who figures out how to remake the prison rather than just patch it again. People forget the DO, call this the 1st Age......

 

Neither side has won the war, or, to use another analogy, the big game of sha'rah

TPOD Pr

... Several pieces had varying moves, but only the Fisher's attributes altered according to where it stood; on a white square, weak in attack yet agile and far-ranging in escape; on black, strong in attack but slow and vulnerable. When masters played, the Fisher changed sides many times before the end. The green-and-red goal-row that surrounded the playing surface could be threatened by any piece, but only the Fisher could move onto it. Not that he was safe, even there; the Fisher was never safe. When the Fisher was yours, you tried to move him to a square of your color behind your opponent's end of the board. That was victory, the easiest way, but not the only one. When your opponent held the Fisher, you attempted to leave him no choice for the Fisher but to move onto your color. Anywhere at all along the goal-row would do; holding the Fisher could be more dangerous than not. Of course, there was a third path to victory in sha'rah, if you took it before letting yourself be trapped. The game always degenerated in a bloody melee, then, victory only coming with complete annihilation of your enemy. He had tried that, once, in desperation, but the attempt had failed, painfully.

So we have confirmation that the Fisher changes sides all the time and there are three ways to win.

The “bloody melee” is presumably Ishamael's last all-out attmpt to kill the boys in TDR and all we need to figure is what getting the Fisher to “a square of your color behind your opponent's end of the board” and the “goal-row” represent.

 

There are lots of other implications that can be drawn from this quote, and the paragraphs after - here is one that struck me

His [Moridin's] real attention was on the game laid out before him on the table, thirty-three red pieces and thirty-three green arrayed across a playing surface of thirteen squares by thirteen. A re-creation of the early stages of a famous game. The most important piece, the Fisher, black-and-white like the playing surface, still waited in its starting place on the central square.

The Fisher is not black, or white, or some neutral grey, he's black-and-white.

And if the Fisher is the DR, which is Moridin's piece?

Do they take it in turns to be the Fisher?

Turning the DR appears to be no great achievement in the game, so is the idea to turn the Fisher both black and white? As in linked, joined together, “the two must be as one”? And the winner is declared according to which colour square he's standing on at the time?

 

[Suttree]

In terms of a final, lasting victory, the Shadow has never won, but RJ has talked about degrees of victory. Theoretically, it's possible that the Dragon could seal the Bore, only for the forces of the Shadow to completely crush the Light's armies, and find themselves unable to reopen the Bore - that could be considered a draw (as it is, the War of the Shadow look slike a marginal victory for the Light). The Sha'rah game in PoD gives us a good metaphor for the struggle. In that, it is possible to win by controlling the Fisher, or by letting your opponent control but forcing it to make moves that result in your victory, or you could even win by outright slaughter. The Dragon going to the Shadow doesn't mean they will win, and him staying with the light doesn't mean the Shadow will lose. But killing him isn't enough. The third way was total destruction, not the death of the Fisher. Killing Rand might help the Shadow - if he is working against them and they cannot turn him to their advantage - but it is not enough to win, nor is it necessarily the most desirable way. Killing him might simply mean that you have a hell of a lot of hard work ahead, while leaving him alive will result in some short-term setbacks, but potentially will see you win more quickly and more easily than if you had killed him. Turning or manipulating Rand instead of killing him might look like a superficially stupid idea, but I think it really represents the quickest and surest way to victory, the only way to win at a stroke.

 

Great post Mr Ares. To my mind the second way to win Sha'ra "by letting your opponent control but forcing it to make moves that result in your victory" is the key for the DO. We saw how close Rand came to doing the DO's work for him pre VoG.

[damandred]

The drilling of the Bore??

Here's how I see it.

 

1) The DO has never in history achieved victory.

That has left only 2 possible outcomes in the past, draw or a light victory (of mixed degrees).

 

2) A draw. I can only imagine as some sort of armament. A sort of beating back of the DO, but resulting In an event so traumatic that it literally ends the age. Leaving the remains of both sides to slowly after hundreds and thousands of years to gather their strength and have it out again in a last battle, which in one sense will be a LB as humanity will not see a conflict on such a scale for millennia or never depending on the outcome.

 

3) Light victory. The Bore being sealed.

The DO being unable to touch the world in anyway, maybe still having followers, but I suspect not being able to free him and eventually being eliminated by heroes in the following ages until all memory of the DO is lost. Ensuring that the wheel survives for one more turning at least, until civilisation reaches it pinnacle and some wise fool frees him again.

 

I think it interesting that Herid was sceptical that any man can completely seal the bore. Maybe the creator helps or grants the power to the champion every turning. Maybe that's something we might see in the last book?

[rand4747]

i think there have basically just been various draws, good or bad but always a draw, a victory for the light or for the shadow will be the end of the battle i think, the shadow is the end of existence and the light will probably make it impossible for the DO to be freed. Or kill him or somethign weird.

[Eggplant]

Random thought: it's possible to "kill" the DO, but only temporarily. He regenerates in a later (earlier?) age and the whole cycle repeats

[ArthurOysgelt]

Darn it, I spent ages trying to put my thoughts down in a coherent fashion only to come back and find I've been beaten to it on most points.

Here it is anyway:

 

---

Here is how I think of it. Forgive me if I state the obvious at times - it just makes my head hurt slightly less if I do it this way.

 

The Champion of Light, happens to be called the Dragon Reborn this time round. I'll use DR to mean all incarnations from now on

The DR's job is to appear whenever the DO looks to be endangering the balance of existence and do something about it

So, periodically, they slug it out. (a continuous war punctuated with large battles)

When this happens, there tend to be dramatic wars in the world of men, upheavals etc. People, who like attaching labels to things, call this the end of an age and reset their calendars back to 0

An Age is a convenient term, everybody uses it, even the FS, but it does not have a fixed length

 

Sometimes the DR wins a battle quite decisively. The DO is so thoroughly sealed away (prison remade, not patched) that he is forgotten as an entity and a source of power, but he still exists, so the war is not won - just that particular battle. History and any survivors may call this the 1st Age and the Wheel is said to have started a new revolution.

 

Now there are two possibilities:

Either the DO is chaos and entropy and can still 'reach out' enough to corrupt minds over time, so that eventually someone drills a Bore (or does something else - there is no way of knowing whether there is a Bore for every turn of the Wheel)

Or, he has to wait until human nature runs it's course and someone unknowingly does something to his advantage.

 

In either case, the DR is sent back into action. But maybe this time the DR wasn't “raised better” and the result of the battle is somewhat inconclusive, the Bore is only patched, the 2nd Age starts etc. This continues until a DR comes along who figures out how to remake the prison rather than just patch it again. People forget the DO, call this the 1st Age......

 

Neither side has won the war, or, to use another analogy, the big game of sha'rah

TPOD Pr

... Several pieces had varying moves, but only the Fisher's attributes altered according to where it stood; on a white square, weak in attack yet agile and far-ranging in escape; on black, strong in attack but slow and vulnerable. When masters played, the Fisher changed sides many times before the end. The green-and-red goal-row that surrounded the playing surface could be threatened by any piece, but only the Fisher could move onto it. Not that he was safe, even there; the Fisher was never safe. When the Fisher was yours, you tried to move him to a square of your color behind your opponent's end of the board. That was victory, the easiest way, but not the only one. When your opponent held the Fisher, you attempted to leave him no choice for the Fisher but to move onto your color. Anywhere at all along the goal-row would do; holding the Fisher could be more dangerous than not. Of course, there was a third path to victory in sha'rah, if you took it before letting yourself be trapped. The game always degenerated in a bloody melee, then, victory only coming with complete annihilation of your enemy. He had tried that, once, in desperation, but the attempt had failed, painfully.

So we have confirmation that the Fisher changes sides all the time and there are three ways to win.

The “bloody melee” is presumably Ishamael's last all-out attmpt to kill the boys in TDR and all we need to figure is what getting the Fisher to “a square of your color behind your opponent's end of the board” and the “goal-row” represent.

 

There are lots of other implications that can be drawn from this quote, and the paragraphs after - here is one that struck me

His [Moridin's] real attention was on the game laid out before him on the table, thirty-three red pieces and thirty-three green arrayed across a playing surface of thirteen squares by thirteen. A re-creation of the early stages of a famous game. The most important piece, the Fisher, black-and-white like the playing surface, still waited in its starting place on the central square.

The Fisher is not black, or white, or some neutral grey, he's black-and-white.

And if the Fisher is the DR, which is Moridin's piece?

Do they take it in turns to be the Fisher?

Turning the DR appears to be no great achievement in the game, so is the idea to turn the Fisher both black and white? As in linked, joined together, “the two must be as one”? And the winner is declared according to which colour square he's standing on at the time?

 

 

Fantastic posts, guys. The first time I read about the game in Path of Daggers, I didn't catch all the references. Awesome. I don't think that Ishamael is another Fisher or part of the Fisher though. To me it seems that Ishi is just another councelor.

[Bromo Sapien]

Why assume that RJ's quote applies only to the Dark Side never winning? I think rand4747 has a good point in that there has only ever been draws.

 

Here's how I see it with the win/draw/loss thing:

 

Win: Only true way to "win" is to kill the Dark One and completely eliminate him from the Pattern somehow. Obviously has never happened.

Draw: Something like what happened in the AoL. The Champion of the Light prevents the DO from touching the world for however long it takes. This would begin a new Age. This also had to have happened in the Age before the Age of Legends since there had to be something for Mierin to drill through. I believe this is the only thing that has ever happened (since both the DO and the world still exist).

Loss: The DO completely breaks free and takes over the world, destroying the Pattern and ruling for ever. Fire and brimstone rain from the sky and four horseman ride in battle... Sorry, getting my apocalypses mixed up.

 

Everything in the series seems to be balanced on, well, balance. For every Champion of the Light, there's an Ishamael. For every Ilyena, there's a Lanfear. For every Logain, there's a Taim. If that holds true, then it makes sense that if the only way the DO could win is that he breaks free and wins for Eternity, the only way he could lose (and the Light wins) is if he can never influence the world ever again in any Age and the Light wins for Eternity. Obviously, since he is still almost breaking free, that hasn't happened yet. I think every Age since the literal First Age has come down to some form of Sealing the Bore and that's what constitutes a stalemate.

[bobarose]

sealing the bore is definatly just a draw ,the shadow must be consumed by the light.

i really don't think there has been a winner in this contest yet.having a few centuries

of peace won't do for rand,i think he has a plan to end this stalemate once and for all

there wil be light or nothing.

[vanceme]

Reading the Herid wrote again it seems clear he refers to the AOL as the 3rd age. Based on epilogues it seems the 4th age comes after the last battle. As the d has been r, I feel like it all falls under one conflict. Do we have proof the col is always the same soul? I seem to remember reading that rands soul has never been turned. Yes he remembers many pay lives but perhaps her is the chosen one of every third age. What is different about rands that both sides seem to be playing under special conditions? #sickandrambling

[Suttree]

Reading the Herid wrote again it seems clear he refers to the AOL as the 3rd age. Based on epilogues it seems the 4th age comes after the last battle. As the d has been r, I feel like it all falls under one conflict. Do we have proof the col is always the same soul? I seem to remember reading that rands soul has never been turned.

 

Yes we do Rand's soul has been turned

 

"That is better, Lews Therin." Ba'alzamon tossed the banner to the floor and put his hands on the chair back; wisps of smoke rose from between his fingers. The shadow no longer encompassed him. "There is your banner, Kinslayer. Much good will it do you. A thousand strings laid over a thousand years have drawn you here. Ten thousand woven throughout the Ages tie you like a sheep for slaughter. The Wheel itself holds you prisoner to your fate Age after Age. But I can set you free. You cowering cur, I alone in the entire world can teach you how to wield the Power. I alone can stop it killing you before you have a chance to go mad. I alone can stop the madness. You have served me before. Serve me again, Lews Therin, or be destroyed forever!"

And another:

 

"You worm, you know nothing at all. As ignorant as a beetle under a rock, and as easily crushed. This struggle has gone on since the moment of creation. Always men think it a new war, but it is just the same war discovered anew. Only now change blows on the winds of time. Change. This time there will be no drifting back. Those proud Aes Sedai who think to stand you up against me. I will dress them in chains and send them running naked to do my bidding, or stuff their souls into the Pit of Doom to scream for eternity. All but those who already serve me. They will stand but a step beneath me. You can choose to stand with them, with the world groveling at your feet. I offer it one more time, one last time. You can stand above them, above every power and dominion but mine. There have been times when you made that choice, times when you lived long enough to know your power."

He says YOU have served me before; YOU made that choice. Not some random hero of the Light. Rand. RJ said he wasn't lying. Case closed.

 

It is also strongly implied the CoL is the same, this BS quote supports Ishy's musings on the topic...

 

The Gathering Storm Book Tour, Powell's Books, Portland, OR 19 November 2009 - Matrimony Cauthon reporting

 

I didn't hear the question but someone asked something about Rand's and Moridin's souls being intertwined. Sanderson said that many souls' threads are frequently woven together in the Pattern such as Birgitte and Gaidal. He said that Rand and Moridin are also frequently woven together in the Pattern.