Confused about the Dark One and Ba'alzamon

[Ingtar's Third Cousin]

Apologies for starting two threads - I promise I am not one of those rookies who will spam the boards. Just one question on this. I am a bit confused about Ba'alzamon and the Dark One. I can't understand if people use them interchangeably. So the Dark Lord is pure chaos - not really an entity similar to the Devil. And Ba'alzamon is his servant. But throughout the book, it seems that the characters use the two interchangeably (or maybe I have just lost track of all the names Ishamael uses).

 

So my question is - why do people use them interchangeably? was Ishamael just really too proud, thinking himself on equal footing with the Dark Lord and perpetuating that image?

[Kamin_Majere]

Ishamael was the name given to Elan Morin Tedronai during the war of power in the age of legends.

 

Sometime after the sealing of the bore (or maybe before that) he started using the True Power almost exclusively and basically went a bit loony and started calling himself Ba'alzamon (which is a trolloc name for the Dark One) (they are two separate things but when your eyes and mouth burn like fire is understandable that people make mistakes)

 

As to what Ishamael is... well hes just a really powerful Aes Sedai from the age of legends that let hyper rationalism turn him to the dark. He (logically so) assumed that since the wheel happens over and over again and the light had to keep winning for it to keep turning that the Shadow would eventually be the winning side (because it only needed to win once to claim victory)

 

It actually get a bit more complicated than that though as there is a lot that goes into his character make up. How far into the books are you? Because you get alot of insight to him the further you go in the series

[jsbrads]

Trollocs are given commands by Ishy, and they call him ba'alzamon. humans think ba'alzamon is DO (moraine says so one time) but trollocs must notice that all the chosen have basically the same power over them, so the intellgent amoung them must notice this difference between DO and Ishy.

Ishy does push this crazy DO type self image and trys to convince people of this...

 

Note: Ishy will probably be balefired in the last book, so all his logic will never get him on the winning side.

[spoke]

it is really simple if you see it from this angle. Rand and co (including Moraine) think that Ba'alzamon is the DO. They think that Ba'alzamon is a trolloc name for the DO. Reality is that Ishy/Baalzamon is not. In the first books, Rand calls him Lord of Darkness or some other title that belongs to the DO, and Ba'alzamon (Ishy) replies "You honor me too much!", i.e. he is stating that he is not the Dark One. In TGH, the darkfriend meeting, Ba'alzamon is refered to as "your master comes," Boors makes this same mistake. So Ishy never tried to claim he was the DO, but the mistake is perpetuated frequently throughout the series until Rand kills him in TDR.

[Naggash]

Why keep poping this up when Karmin_Majere gave as good an explanation as could be given?

[Barid Bel Medar]

I will go a bit further.

 

Ishamael doesn't think he is the DO totally, but he thinks he is an extension of the DO's power.

 

Ba'alzamon in the Trolloc Tongue, thought to be a name for the Dark One means, in translation "Heart of the Dark"

 

Rand thinks he is the Dark One, but he is wrong. However, the title of Ba'alzamon itself may be important.

 

Ishamael turned to the Shadow because, apparently he thinks Rand and him have fought countless times in the past, and that eventually the Dark One will win.

 

Ishamael believes he is the Dark One's champion on "earth" just as the Creator's champion is the Dragon. The truth of that is yet to be seen, however, Ishamael is not as mad as people think. He is crazy, no doubt, but some of the things he says are true.