Mashasdar

[Edynol]

Seeing as they never confirmed Mashadar was dead, as per BS' quote in the interview, do you think it will have a part to play in the last book? What I am thinking is that during the cleansing, maybe they way gate somehow opened up, cause god knows what kinda effect that much one power would have on things like that. So here is my theory.

 

During the cleansing, when Mashadar or whatever was battling that taint, somehow it broke whatever it was that bound Mashadar to SL and it sensed that taint and Machin shin inside the ways and went after it. And seeing everything that happened there in the past was to fight the Dark One and all that, Mashadar's instinct to fight the shadow was stronger than it need to kill those in SL so it took this chance and escaped into the Ways.

 

So seeing that the DO's taint and the Ways/Machin shin are connected and SL's taint and Mashadar are connected, maybe this somehow made it possible for Mashadar to travel into the Ways while this once in a lifetime chance presented itself before the way gate was destroyed, if it was destroyed in the first place. It could also be it just got buried and remained open where only Mashadar could get to it. And if this is the case, Mashadar and Machin shin could fight and destroy each other and possibly cleanse the ways in the process, returning them to their former glory.

 

What do yall think?

[RandA lThor]

i can't imagine Mashadar actually moving somewhere completely different through ways. I always thought that it was a creature of Shadar Logoth like Mordeth, but unlike Mordeth, cannot be removed until all of SL is destroyed. since that is what happened, I think that Mashadar is dead. Besides, with traveling back, waygates are not as important anymore. Normal people couldn't travel because they couldn't read the signs, and it would be a lot easier to ask an AS or Kin to gateway you if it is important.

[Barid Bel Medar]

I think Brandon was referring to Fain. The power of Shadar Logoth, and by extension, Mashadar, still lives on in Fain/Mordeth.

 

Fain can create Mashadar, or something similar, in ToM.

[Edynol]

i can't imagine Mashadar actually moving somewhere completely different through ways. I always thought that it was a creature of Shadar Logoth like Mordeth, but unlike Mordeth, cannot be removed until all of SL is destroyed. since that is what happened, I think that Mashadar is dead. Besides, with traveling back, waygates are not as important anymore. Normal people couldn't travel because they couldn't read the signs, and it would be a lot easier to ask an AS or Kin to gateway you if it is important.

Not always. Remember residue from gateways can be read and followed if not unwoven, which aside from Wise Ones not many people can do successfully. Aslo remember that if you haven't been to some place, you can't open a portal there and skimming isn't always reliable and can put you farther away than it would take to travel by the Ways. Also remember that those who made the gateways could travel as well. And after TG, if the ways are cleansed, the Ogier and others know how to read the signs can teach normal people so they can travel from place to place a lot quicker without needing Aes Sedai or anything, they would become normal transits, sorta speak. But that is beside the point.

 

Rather Mashadar is dead or not isn't relevant. For this theory, we are assuming that it did alive, and for all we know it did. Thinking it is dead doesn't make it so, so that is pointless. Anyways, Mordeth was bound to SL just like Mashadar until certain conditions were met, and as we have seen through out the series, anything that is bound to something can be unbound, the trick is just finding the way to do it. I mean, if one of the Forsaken can be unbound from the Dark One, I think it's safe to say any other type of unbinding would be child's play in comparison. And with the ultra mega massive load of One Power being channeled there, I would be at all surprised of whatever bound Mashadar to that place was fizzled away like a string of cloth in a volcano.

 

@Barid - Nah, he said "Was it ever confirmed Mashadar was dead?" or something along those lines.

[Barid Bel Medar]

I know, and Mashadar isn't dead. Fain can create it.

 

I don't think it is one entity. It isn't like a soul, but a corruption, which Fain can duplicate.

 

Like Machin Shin is a fungus that grew out of control. If you put a bit in a test tube, but spray the rest with super-hardcore cleansing spray, it would still be "alive" in the test tube you put it in.

 

Mashadar is not exactly a fungus, it hasn't been said to be one, but it is similar to the Black Wind. A corruption arising from the tainting of each place.

 

From the DO's taint in the Ways Machin Shin grew.

 

From the human-made evil in Shadar Logoth, Mashadar was created.

 

As long as the power of the evil of Shadar Logoth exists, Mashadar lives on. The evil has not diminished with the destruction of Shadar Logoth. Fain has all of the "strength" of that evil, the only piece left now, inside the dagger.

 

That is, at least, my opinion of that comment.

[Edynol]

No Fain didn't create it. If any one person did, it was Mordeth, but it wasn't created by any one person. It was created from the combined hatred of all those in Aridhol. Yes, it was Mordeth who instigated it, but he wasn't the sole one responsible for it. He was just a normal guy(Physically, not mentally) and had no special powers, he just had a poisonous tongue and knew just what to say to get what he wanted. Him being trapped there and bound like Mashadar instead of being killed like the others was pretty much just because he was the source of it all, the one who started it. Also, I don't remember reading anything about Mashadar in TOM. Can I get a quote from the book please?

[Barid Bel Medar]

You seem to misunderstand what is being said.

 

Mordeth went looking for a way to destroy the Shadow. He went to the Finns, and with his research he created an evil, which he embodied himself.

 

INTERVIEW: Oct 15th, 2011

NY ComicCon Report - Ted Herman (Paraphrased)

 

TED HERMAN

Did Mordeth go to the Finns?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

YES.

 

 

 

INTERVIEW: Oct 9th, 1996

ACOS Signing Report - Erica Sadun (Paraphrased)

 

QUESTION

What is Fain?

 

ROBERT JORDAN

 

Mordeth + person. Mordeth is a human-made evil. The Black Wind gets along with Mordeth because of professional courtesy. Fain is anti-Forsaken as well as anti-Rand. He has a lot of skills and abilities outside of channeling. He can not channel.

 

 

When he returned to Aridohl, the evil spread from Mordeth to encompass the whole city.

 

 

INTERVIEW: Nov 21st, 2009

Driving Mr. Sanderson - Matt Hatch

 

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah, he wanted to defeat the Dark One and he felt that he could find other ways to do it [...] He originally was good. He did not...he wasn’t this terrible person to begin with but he was looking to defeat the Dark One, to find a way to defeat the Shadow. And he looked into a lot of things he shouldn’t have looked into. There are evils that are not necessarily directly related to the Dark One, though everything evil kind of has...just as there are goods that are not related necessarily to the One Power...we are talking much as Perrin runs with wolves. This is a thing older than...there are other evils things that are old in a similar way...

 

MATT HATCH

 

...is the assumption then that he found one of these?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

He did.

 

MATT HATCH

He found one or multiple?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

He found many things of darkness. There is one in specific that is driving him but he knew too much. He found things he should not have gotten into and that is what turned him into...when he got there he was already corrupt. He still thought he was doing a good work. He still thought we are going to raise this Kingdom up and it is going to become this bastion against the Shadow, but he was already by then corrupted.

 

MATT HATCH

Is this same corrupting influence what corrupts everyone through the dagger itself?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yeah. Through him, yes. And even through his presence.

 

INTERVIEW: Apr 15th, 2011

JordanCon Signing Report - Ted Herman (Paraphrased)

 

QUESTION

How about Padan Fain and his talents?

 

ALAN ROMANCZUK

He acquired his talents when he merged with Mordeth, who [paraphrased a bit] got his from research and sucked the souls from his victims

 

QUESTION

Was Padan Fain behind the killer fog in the Rahad?

 

ALAN ROMANCZUK

What do you think? LOL

 

 

Mordeth IS the evil of Shadar Logoth. It came from him, he turned himself into that evil via experiments etc... He found what was best hidden, and it corrupted him.

 

Have a look at ToM prologue: Fain uses a mist to turn Trollocs into Zombies. Here it is from the WoT encyclopaedia summary. http://encyclopaedia...m/prologue.html

 

Padan Fain POV - A mist comes out of the ground. It kills the Fade and turns the Trollocs into zombies of some sort.4 Fain no longer hunts Rand. He plans to meet him at Shayol Ghul and kill him.

 

 

Mashadar occured as an effect of Mordeth's power, an extension of it. The hatred that Mordeth's power brought into the city corrupted Aridohl and destroyed it, which eventually accumulated and became Mashadar. The evil created Mordeth, and Mordeth created Mashadar.

 

 

INTERVIEW: Nov 11th, 2009

TGS Signing Report - Tim Kington (Paraphrased)

 

QUESTION

Will Fain be in the next book?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

Padan Fain will be seen again. He's a mixture of two things—Mordeth's power, which he got by seeking out all of the evil things that weren't related to the Shadow, and the Dark One's Hound. Brandon said that Fain's number one goal is to kill Rand, and a close second is to kill the Dark One. Now that Shadar Logoth has been destroyed, all of the Mordeth power that remains in the world is in Fain.

 

Everything else has been destroyed, only Fain/Mordeth remains of the evil that was known in Shadar Logoth.

 

Edit: got rid of a lot of unimportant stuff

[Edynol]

Like I said, Mordeth was start of what created Mashadar, but I still see nothing that says he actually created it. And that which turned the trollocs into zombies was not Mashadar, that was a power of Mordeth's. Mashadar killed things, and that was it.

 

As for Mashadar being destroyed, seems we have two conflicting answers.

 

BENJAMIN MOLDOVAN

 

Mashadar is gone, isn't it? Would it really hurt to say whether the True Power would be affected?

BRANDON SANDERSON

 

Have we ever confirmed that Mashadar is dead? :)

[Barid Bel Medar]

Ok, I think I know what your saying.

 

If we are talking about Mashadar as the mist solely in Shadar Logoth, Mashadar, then, could technically still be alive, if the quote is interpreted that way.

 

What I was saying is that Mordeth is the vessel of this human-made evil. He took it with him to Aridhol, and it was destroyed. Mashadar is the remnant of the power that destroyed Aridhol. Which is the Power that Mordeth has.

 

A gigantic vaporous fog that resides in Shadar Logoth. It is the remnant of the hate and evil that destroyed Aridhol.

 

 

Therefore, Mashadar is simply a manifestation of the power Mordeth has. What Fain does is control this power, which results in the killing mist we see in ToM. Mashadar is the uncontrolled version of this.

 

So, we can interpret Mashadar as the separate entity that existed in Shadar Logoth, which was given that name by others.

 

Edit: more edit of things that were unnecessary.

[Edynol]

Oh my bad, I didn't notice you edited your previous post. Now that makes a bit of sense.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Yeah, sorry about that, the confusion was my fault because I kept editing it.

[Terez]

Well, this thread was hard to read.

[Suttree]

Well, this thread was hard to read.

 

[Barid Bel Medar]

Well, this thread was hard to read.

 

 

Shh, It was hard to type, I need to get some sleep. I literally nodded off in the middle of a post.

[skyfirex]

I had wondered where Mordeth and Shadar Logoth got its power. This answer never occurred to me.

 

INTERVIEW: Oct 15th, 2011

NY ComicCon Report - Ted Herman (Paraphrased)

 

TED HERMAN

Did Mordeth go to the Finns?

 

BRANDON SANDERSON

YES.

 

 

 

 

[fikkie77]

He might have asked for immortality, great wealth and power to fight to shadow. Which he got in a weird way.

[Sharaman]

Questions about the Shadow are dangerous but Mordeth was a very smart man. One interesting sidelight - does Mat now have Finn-gotten memories of Aridhol and Mordeth ??

[Edynol]

That would be wierd, Seeing as the Finns don't just take the memories they person has at that time, but memories from the rest of their lives. What if Mat suddenly experiences a memory Morphine is experiencing right at that moment or maybe a future memory? Would he be able to predict exactly what he will do? That would be kinda handy. lol.

[rand4747]

I guess if he had been to the finns he asked for something to use to defeat the shadow and what he got was that evil.

[Terez]

Except we know he was specifically searching for things related to the Shadow.

[Sheepherder]

It's doubtful he got the Mashadar evil directly from the foxes. He more likely just got the knowledge of how to located and use it from the snakes. The only options for going to the foxes (that we know of) are the ToG and the Ruidean doorway. He couldn't have gotten into Ruidean and ToG is too risky. It's possible he was desperate enough to try ToG and somehow make it out but its more likely he just went to the snakes through the Mayene doorway and got knowledge of what he needed to fight the shadow (even though that's apparently a touchy subject with them).

[rand4747]

Ishmael had a part to play too, he probably helped him onto the path.

[Sheepherder]

Why would Ishmael have helped him find the Mashadar evil? True, it led to the destruction of SL, something he would have desired, but the Mashadar evil hates the shadow just as much as the light. That is why Mordeth sought it in the first place, to battle the shadow.

 

Fain's exposure to the Mashadar taint has created quite a few headaches for Moridin as a result of that dislike for the shadow. Unless there is a quote to the contrary I'm unaware of, it is unlikely ishmael would have played a part in Mordeth searching out the Mashadar evil.

[Suttree]

Why would Ishmael have helped him find the Mashadar evil?

 

Ishamael most certainly did not help him...

[Barid Bel Medar]

If anyone is still interested, here is what Moiraine has to say about Mashadar. Note, however, she and Verin were wrong about the spread of SL, so take it will a grain of salt.

 

Personally though, I think this is correct.

 

"EotW 41

 

This is from Shadar Logoth (Dagger). There is not a pebble of that city that is not tainted and dangerous to bring outside the walls, and this is far more than a pebble.The evil that killed Shadar Logoth is in it, and in Mat, too, now. Suspicion and hatred so strong that even those closest are seen as enemies, rooted so deep in the bone that eventually the only thought left is to kill. By carrying the dagger beyond the walls of Shadar Logoth he freed it, this seed of it, from what bound it to the place. It will have waxed and waned in him, what he is in the heart of him fighting what the contagion of Mashadar sought to make him, but now the battle inside him is almost done, and he almost defeated."

 

 

Bold is mine.

 

An Ishamael did not help Mordeth. I am not sure where this thought comes from?