Soul Curry

[Sharaman]

Soul transmigration is central to the WoT-universe.

It's a necessary part of channeling ability though there's also a genetic component.

The soul even influences details like specific skills at Healing, etc.

Similarly, it seems to influence musical ability, strategic gifts, sword skills, archery, weapon preferences, bent for research,thinking patterns, career choices, etc.

 

How far does this "soul influence" extend?

Can a person with specific training break free from it or are people in WoT "doomed" to repeat variations of the same things in each of their lives?

 

I'm speculating about this partly as a broad universe-building concept.

Also specific questions:

Say for example, is the soul of a reborn DF, foreordained to always become a DF again?

Or could such a soul fight for the Light in its next incarnation, given the right influences of nurture versus nature?

Similarly, will a great fighter for the Light be always reborn as a fighter for the Light?

If this is the case, the Pattern could simply skew the odds by ensuring that a majority of souls alive as TG approaches are all Lightside.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Soul curry? hahaha, i like the name.

 

This was the closest thing I could find to an answer about this,

INTERVIEW: May 15th, 2003

La Repubblica - Interview with Robert Jordan (Translated)

 

DARIO OLIVERO

In the book just published in Italy [Crossroads of Twilight], the protagonist, a young man named Rand al'Thor, predestined to do something great, is scared and tries to flee, to escape his fate. Is it possible to escape fate?

 

ROBERT JORDAN

All have many opportunities to change their lives. In this sense there is no fixed and immutable destiny. Fate materializes in the moment in which you make a decision: it is in that moment that your life takes a necessary direction.

 

Pretty Aes Sedai but it seems like nothing is pre-destined. (It is too hard to say really)

 

INTERVIEW: Jan 7th, 2003

COT Signing Report - David Funke (Verbatim)

 

QUESTION

The question is, with Rand and Lews Therin, do they have one soul or two souls in the body?

 

ROBERT JORDAN

They have one soul with two personalities. The reincarnation of souls does not mean reincarnation of personalities. The personality develops with each reincarnation of the soul. This is the cosmology that I have cobbled together

.

 

From this I gather that every life is different, past lives, unless something happens like LTT/Rand are separate and have nothing to do with each other.

 

INTERVIEW: Jan 16th, 2003

COT Signing Report - Tim Kington (Paraphrased)

 

QUESTION

(inaudible)

ROBERT JORDAN

 

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.

 

It seems that this confirms that one is not always a DF in every life or is not a certain "faction". The Heroes of the Horn could be something else entirely, but yeah.

 

The DO has uncommon power over the Grave, so I suppose that in some situations he has a hold over the dead and when they are reincarnated he has a hold, but I assume this would be cut off when he is fully sealed out of the pattern, setting it back to square one.

[Sharaman]

Thanks - that helps a bit. The soul (nature) is a serious influence but upbringing / heritage (nurture) would also count.