The Memory of Light

[RandA lThor]

Yeah, they don't think as logically when it coms to the DO.

[Barid Bel Medar]

 

Okay, when the seal break (or are broken), wouldn't the shadow's strength be restore to what it was in the War of Power? These prophies, and the characters, seem to think that then the seals are broken the bore will grow/expand to envolpe the entire pattern. Am I misreading this? How will the DO be able to have a stronger influence this time than the last time he was freed?

 

The bore is no bigger than it was in the War of Power. IT is the seals that are weakening, so you are correct in saying that.

 

However, my comments do not involve the seals.

 

These prophecies etc... do not, in my opinion, mean that the DO will completely envelop the Pattern as such, but his influence will be so great it will seem as if there is no Light left.

 

Remember, before LTT sealed the DO in the AoL, they were on the brink of defeat. The current Age has less knowledge and less power than those in the AoL, to have the DO freed at such a level will seem like the Light has been lost.

 

Also, I do not say this will happen right after the Seals are broken, although it is a great possibility. With the Seals broken, the DO will be able to resume widening the Bore. Something could happen to make the Bore widen significantly, or his freedom will allow him to widen it more quickly.

[RandA lThor]

I still think that when the DO completely gets rid ofhis prison, he won't win yet. I think that this may be a twist. he may get out of his prison, and we may all think that the world is doomed, but then we asre saved. All that will do I think is him having control of his bubbles of evil and endless hordes of Shadowspawn, however, if something is done to trap him again, all will be well once again.

[Matrim-Bloody-Cauthon]

One theory i had was this... Assuming the bodyswap theory with rand and moridin happens, Rands soul and mind would be corrupted by Moridins body, since it has been tainted and twisted inside by the extensive use of the True Power. Meanwhile, Moridin would not last long after the body swap, as the Champion of the Lights body rejects an evil soul like Moridins. Body and soul are destroyed. Rands blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul and prophecies fulfilled. Now Rands mind and soul struggle for survival inside the tainted body that had been Moridin's, descending deeper and deeper into darkness till nearly all is lost.... Then, breaking through the blackness of the TP's taint on his mind, a Memory of Light shines through, of the people he is fighting for, he conquers the darkness within, awakens to "live again" in Moridins old body, and proceeds to kick some Shadow ass..... Let me know what u think, hope that made sense.

[Treebeard]

I have two ideas about the title

 

1: a philosophic statement in the book ( x was like a memory of light... )

2: or as some has already voiced , the end of the era of the light , but honestly i do not think that is the chase.

[Hyronimus]

Mat remembers what it was like to look through his missing eye.

[shortkut]

I thought the title was RJ's title for the last book. He wanted it to be a single book. If that were the case, it would likely refer to VoG.

[bobarose]

Mat remembers what it was like to look through his missing eye.

lol

[Kestrel]

It took me a few times reading to understand it, you Aes Sedai. I guess you mean "against what do we guard?" "the Shadow at noon"? In that there will be Shadow at noon?

 

Indeed.

 

The Shadow is weakest at noon.

 

The Shadow's power in aMoL will grow so strong it will consume the world. It will be cloaked in the Shadow's glory.

 

I am not saying that this refers to an eclipse, because I don't think that the eclipse is what we know as an eclipse. Nor am I saying all light will disappear like the Ways. Although it might, I don't think it will.

 

I think that the "eclipse" is actually the Shadow's influence. It will act like an hourglass, once the sun is fully consumed, the Shadow is victorious.

 

Thus, the Shadow will be so influential and powerful that the Light seems a distant memory.

 

Is the Shadow really weakest at noon? I have a completely different take on the matter. In A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin has Melisandre saying this:

 

Shadows cannot live in the dark. They are servants of light. The children of fire. And the brighter the flame, the darker they are.

 

You've got to admit she has a point. If it weren't for Light, there would be no such thing as Shadows. Noon is when the Light is brightest, therefore noon is also when the Shadow is darkest and strongest. Shadows fade away as darkness falls.

[TristanWebb]

Not really, everything is in shadow at night. You can just see a bit better than walking into dark room from the sunlight because your eyes have already adjusted.

[Rocky_Outcrop]

I'm sorry benevolent cow, but that's not correct, it just sounds nice. "everything is in shadow" is very poetic but given that a shadow is cast by something the only time that happens is during an eclipse when the earth is in the shadow of the moon. Night time is when the light is not obstructed and darkness is not caused by a blockage but rather by the absence of light. Unless you consider the earth itself to cast a shadow on the other half of itself. If that's what you mean then technically you are also correct but that would be pushing semantics to a new level and in the context of this discussion I don't think that the casual observer of this thread would agree. I really do like the way that this is an example of you're brain working totally differently from mine though and that's why I love this forum and others like it as discussing literature is fantastic.

 

As to the actual topic BS answers this himself in the video that has just been posted in another thread here. After he reads out his excerpt he says that this is a book about contrasts, black blacks and white whites etc and that the pool of light around Rand is the metaphor used in the book title. However, I'm still looking forward to the particular line in the book which says it outright.

 

"Rand fell to his knees, unable to support himself any longer, he was loosing too much blood. 'Blood and Ashes, Rand was right - he does have to die, that woolhead' Nyneave said to herself, and the audience reading this last ever book in the wheel of time. With a sudden thunder clap of devine punctuation Rand died, the pool of light which had auspiciously been ligniting the surrounding area extinguished, 'oh dear, now it's really dark and without more than just a memory of light I won't be able to do my haberdashery.'"

 

Something like that is always good, I like it in music too when they say the title track, big AC DC fan myself.

 

Edit- iPad spell checker blahblah

[Rocky_Outcrop]

Also wanted to add to the shadow at noon discussion which to me means the time when shadows are strongest yea but to me the phrase is to do with spreading light. Ie a good opposite would be to 'bring the light at midnight' or something, carry a torch or whatever. It's about not being complacent, about getting into every corner and blah blah. Also I don't think it's very profound, it's more or less half as profound as the stuff the children of light spout out.

 

There are a bunch or Nordic farmers who live in circular houses as they believe he Devil lives in shadows, which is nice. That's a real thing to them. For these AS the lines don't mean anything in almost everything they say as they are a society of traditions and not of active thought, mostly they're just pompous robots. I don't think they consider the wors they are saying just the same way people don't consider the words of the lords prayer at church or anything. The AS only think about their inability to lie and that's it. As we saw with the greens in the tower attack they don't care about anything but power, men and oh yeah, power. So the shadow at noon thing is just a load of tosh until someone like Egween comes along who will birch you if you don't know what it means and are not at least as 'holy as thou'

[TristanWebb]

It isn't semantics at all. Light is both a partical and a wave, but at all times it is something. Darkness or shadows are an absence of light. You can see shadows better during the day only because your pupils are constricted to reduce the light intake.

 

So, unless your magical system is reliant on perception (which admittedly is true in some fantasy) saying that shadows are stronger the more light there is is demonstrably wrong. Shadows are infact weaker the more light there is because ambient reflections will pass though the interference at different angles providing the shadowed area with light. If you put a photon detector in the shade during the day it will register higher (in most cases) than at the same spot at night.

 

There Is poetry in the whole 'light begets shadow' and you can make good stories from it, but it isn't true in our world and the whole morality of 'you can't have good without evil, just as you can't have light without shadow' is something that really irritates me in every single context that it is used.

 

Also: if something can't be in the shadow of itself, how do sundials work?

 

Edit: stupid iPad keeps autocorrecting things wrong :(

[Rocky_Outcrop]

I feel your iPad pain, ha, ain't it terrible? Haha woe betide us.

 

Shadows at noon will have more ambient light because there is more light and therefore a larger disparity in lumens... Ehh I'm at danger of tripping over my own words here but I'm saying that the relative difference in light during the day is likely to be greater at noon than dusk. Although I completely agree with what you're saying to the point I doubted my own argument.

 

I wouldn't say that darnkess is akin to a shadow, a shadow is a relative term whereas darkness is absolute. Ehhhhh going nowhere much? Neither of us are Terez so I'll not fight you on it! Hahahahahahahahah burn,

[thisguy]

I think that it means that something bad will happen and people will remember the good times with the light.

I'm guessing something like this too, and some character either thinking or giving a speech about remembering the light to keep morale up. Although, the op has some good guesses, too.

[mike hunt's here]

is the title going to be "the" memory of light, or "a" memory of light? I think it makes a difference, but i'm not smart enough to know what the difference is right this second.

 

however first off, if its "a" memory of light, then its singular, and its either someones individualistic's POV, rather than all of the world, or just the good guys, or channellers, etc.

 

So that make me think, but I really hope I'm wrong, because i think that would be a sucky POV to introduce at this stage in the game, a POV from Eldar Haman or Loial, writing about Rand's battle as it appears to them as "a memory of light," sometime in the not so distant future. Assuming they jumped in their steddings and hopped to that other dimension.

 

Thats theory 1.

 

 

Theory 2 is that "light" is some terangreal, sorry i cant recall the spelling. And they use it in the last battle....i

 

last theory...because Elayne gets huge with twins, Avi gets huge with quadruplets, and Min just gets huge...they all have memories of being light. haha.

[Barid Bel Medar]

Is the Shadow really weakest at noon? I have a completely different take on the matter. In A Clash of Kings, George RR Martin has Melisandre saying this:

 

Shadows cannot live in the dark. They are servants of light. The children of fire. And the brighter the flame, the darker they are.

 

You've got to admit she has a point. If it weren't for Light, there would be no such thing as Shadows. Noon is when the Light is brightest, therefore noon is also when the Shadow is darkest and strongest. Shadows fade away as darkness falls.

 

Sorry I wasn't clear. I am not talking about actual shadows, this is from the text. The Shadow (the Dark One) is weakest at noon. Just as the Shadow is strongest at twilight. Clash of Kings has little bearing on this.

 

That is why the Amyrlin meeting/leave-taking (cant remember which) ceremony goes like this:

 

"From what do we guard?"

 

"The Shadow at Noon"

 

Because when the Shadow "controls" noon, when it is the weakest, it's power is almost absolute.

 

However, I do think you make a good point about shadow in general. However, it isn't like night pure Darkness. There is the moon, which casts a large shadow across the land. But yeah, I don't actually know, your point is as good as any.

 

Edit: I will have to search for the actual quote properly, might take a bit. I may be wrong, I didn't find the exact reference in a quick search, so could be making things up hahhaa.

 

In any case, my post was under that belief that the books or RJ had said that the Shadow was weakest at noon.

 

 

Edit edit: @mike hunt's here - it will be "A Memory of Light".