Where did Taim begin conspiring?

[Suttree]

Mik, after recent developments in ToM we know that Bashere cannot be a darkfriend...

However, that would be interesting if Taim ended up being Moridin. I've never heard that theory before. I'm still wondering where Demodred is...

Interesting, perhaps, but flatly at odds with several quotes RJ gave, such as those about why Taim went to Caemlyn.

What quote was that? (googled it, couldn't find it) I appreciate it.

(All quotes from the Theoryland database)

ODAS

Is there anything you can tell us about Taim's choice to head to Andor after his escape?

ROBERT JORDAN

 

Well, he really didn't have much other choice. He's a man who can channel. At that time as far as he knows any Aes Sedai that gets their hands on him will try to gentle him again. But the word is getting around, there are men gathering near Caemlyn, men just like him, and maybe there are enough of them that if they stick together the Aes Sedai will not be able to take them down. So he has no other choice. He can either spend a life on the run or he can enlist. He decided to enlist.

ZAELA SEDAI

Did Taim have motives for coming to Andor after he escaped the Aes Sedai?

ROBERT JORDAN

 

Ta-eem (he said it phonetically). [Don't know how to write down how to say it, but it's not how most people say it.] Sure, he is a man who can channel. The Aes Sedai see him as a man who can channel. They will hunt him down and gentle him if they can. He has one safe haven in the world. A place were there are more men like him. Just maybe, if there are enough men like him, the Aes Sedai won't be able to come after him.

TED HERMAN

How did Bashere and his army manage to track Taim hundreds of miles?

ROBERT JORDAN

 

Because a man like Mazrim Taim leaves a trail, even when he is trying to travel quietly. Traveling quietly is not in his character.

All of RJ's quotes on the matter of Taim's flight to Andor are fairly consistent - he was harried the whole way there, and had little choice about where else to go. For Moridin, who can Travel, leaving a trail makes little sense. Given that Moridin has the forces of the Shadow at his disposal as well as his own fortress, the idea that he had to go to Caemlyn makes little sense. Moridin has nothing to fear from AS. None of it fits with Moridin, in short. Plus we have Moridin supposedly busy running things up in the Blight, which is inconsistent with him spending most of his time running the BT. Contrary to what some people would have you believe, RJ was not overly prone to AS answers - while you might find a few, he has rather more answers that are either just plain answers, or a RAFO. As no-one has yet done a good job of squaring the circle between RJ's words and the Taimidin theory, we can either accept that RJ lied pretty consistently for no real reason, or that this theory is bogus.

 

Indeed. No proponents of this theory have ever been able to explain these quotes away. Mik trying to spin them into meaning something other than flight almost reaches Felix like levels.

[roocifer]

Did we ever find out where, why & how Taim got one of the Seals to the DO's prison?

[Barid Bel Medar]

Did we ever find out where, why & how Taim got one of the Seals to the DO's prison?

 

Of course we did! He got it from a Saldaean farmer who says they were descended from some royal line or another. Why else would you think Faile goes on about Saldaean farmgirls?

[Durinax]

Taim begins conspiring about the time that Rand brings about the rankings of AM, I think he turned for much the same reason as demandred (note I am not saying he is demandred), in that he turns because he cannot stand being second.

[Luckers]

I believe he turned quite young, and was already a darkfriend when he began channeling--in fact I think he was tested and chosen from amongst Darkfriends to be trained to channel by Ishamael as a part of the gathering and training of Dreadlords for Tarmon Gai'don. We have evidence that he was trained in training others from the fact that he has esoteric knowledge of the testing method (i.e. he states that using too much strength could kill the man being tested. If he had simply learned this on his own there would be no 'could' about it, it would just be 'using too much strength will kill the man being tested'. The fact that he speaks so shows that he had been taught this knowledge.

 

Furthermore, Ishamael did it before, during the Trolloc Wars, and it makes sense for him to gather and train a few personally and then set them the task of training the rest. Taim even owns up to having sought to train others, for all that he states only one followed through on it and went mad--but given Taim is a darkfriend, that latter part becomes highly unlikely, leaving us just with the fact that Taim admitted to training men.

 

Ultimately, having trained some of those men, who could then take over the training, I believe he was then re-tasked to blacken the name of the Dragon (a plot Joiya spoke of, and we know there was a lot of truth mixed in to Joiya's lies). Further evidence of this is the fact that the Aes Sedai sent to capture him were in Arad Domon for six months before he fell, almost as if they were trying not to capture him, and when he was knocked down by Sky Rand, and captured by Cadsuane and turned over to those same Aes Sedai, he 'managed to escape'--supposedly with the aid of his followers, despite those followers never being seen again, the oft repeated wariness of Warders around False Dragons because they 'remember Guire Amalasan', and the relative ability of thirteen Aes Sedai to ward off any amount of non-channeling attackers, as seen in at Dumai's Well's--and, let's not forget that the news of his 'escape' reached Siuan in a chapter called 'Deceptions'.

 

[yes, I'm suggesting the Black managed to get themselves control of the mission to capture him, with the intention of thwarting it, and ultimately released Taim, a fellow darkfriend, and killed the two Light-sided sisters who were part of the mission to cover it up. If Alviarin could keep Blacks out of the mission to the Black Tower, she could get ones into the mission to capture Taim. It also makes sense in regards to Joiya's lies--Ispan did the same thing, speaking of old Black Ajah plots in an effort to get past the Oath against betrayal]

 

Finally, I say he was quite young despite the fact that he very easily could have only sparked in the last five years or so (he's in his late twenties now) because the way he's adopted Forsaken mannerisms (referring to the Aiel as 'so-called', the use of the three-lightning fist sigil etc) is more something young people are inclined to do. We also know Ishamael was physically free around the same time Taim was a young teenager (the perfect age of that sort of mannerism adoption) as he killed Jarna Milari at that time, AND we know that was around the time Ishamael learned the Dragon had been Reborn, and thus that TG was coming soon, and thus would have been looking to create Dreadlords.

 

 

And finally, we have some suggestive evidence that this was occuring in the form of Liandrin, who was a darkfriend prior to going to the Tower, and who could channel prior to going to the Tower but does not consider herself a wilder. Now this may be Liandrin lying to herself, but chronologically this would have been at precisely the same time as Taim, precisely the same time Ishamael had learnt of the Dragon's birth--and if she was tested and trained initially as part of a Dreadlord recruitment process then it would explain why she doesn't think of herself as a wilder.

[Lisa Campbell]

Interesting thought about Liandrin not thinking of herself as a wilder Luckers, I've never thought of it in that fashion before. Who else could be Ishy trained? (not directly of course, fish/birds)

[Vardar]

Whoa Luckers. Conspiracy theory to the rescue! No seriously though, damn nice thought, and nicely articulated! Puts things in a new light.

 

I thought the Liandrin thing was all ego, but the Taim training thing makes perfect sense, especially with all the off screen channelers we've seen. (Male)

[Luckers]

Interesting thought about Liandrin not thinking of herself as a wilder Luckers, I've never thought of it in that fashion before. Who else could be Ishy trained? (not directly of course, fish/birds)

 

I think relatively few would have been trained directly--Ishamael would have taken in a few men, and then moved on to matters more worth his time, leaving the training to them. The women I suspect would have been just the same, only at the hands of a Darkfriend wilder, or perhaps a Black Sister. The latter would explain why Liandrin went to the Tower, if the Black sister took note of Darkfriends who testes positive who also had the traits that might lead to them gaining the shawl....

 

Whoa Luckers. Conspiracy theory to the rescue! No seriously though, damn nice thought, and nicely articulated! Puts things in a new light.

 

I thought the Liandrin thing was all ego, but the Taim training thing makes perfect sense, especially with all the off screen channelers we've seen. (Male)

 

I actually have it laid out somewhere with full quotations... not sure where though. It's been a few years since I dabbled in Taim.

[thisguy]

I don't believe Bashere is a DF because of ToM (I won't give any spoilers). I also hope that Taim doesn't turn out to be Moridin because that is what everybody is expecting.

 

He better not be Moridin, I agree. Why would you say he isn't a DF? He's building a palace with stones from Shayol Ghul. If he's not a df then he must be under compulsion.

[jwood01]

Taim begins conspiring about the time that Rand brings about the rankings of AM, I think he turned for much the same reason as demandred (note I am not saying he is demandred), in that he turns because he cannot stand being second.

 

I think he was a DF before this because he already had rocks from SG as his podium at the "farm".

[OptimusPrime]

Interesting, so Taim being a Darkfriend, is also surprised that Rand picks Dashiva in aCoS. He then suggests Torval, Gedwyn and Kisman (his favo's). Does this mean that Taim has no idea a forsaken (Dashiva) has infiltrated the Black Tower? Him being a darkfriend and highly ranked at that, you think they would have mentioned him.

 

He knows Dashiva is someone high in the councils as it were, which is why he's shocked he picked him, after turning down the other darkfriends. (In my mind at least)

 

In my mind it was Moridin not wanting Dashiva to be stuck with Rand because the Chosen are used for bigger things than being a fly on the wall. Moridin wanted a lesser Darkfriend to go with Rand so Dashiva/Osan'gar could help with messing the BT up in Rands absence.

Optimus! (I just can't call you any other name, because I like optimus better)

 

*salutes* I know! I wish I didnt change it now :D

 

While you know I more then agree with you on 'all things Taim' and I even pride myself in maybe setting you on the right track years ago, I do think Moridin had another reason for disliking Dashiva as a choice instead of one of the regular Darkfriend Asha'man. And the reason is very simple: regular Darkfriends obey and serve much better; they are less powerful -true-, but to Moridin they are all insects (lflies on the wall if you will) anyway. He'd rather attach a more reliable (as far as that goes with Darkfriends anyway) tool to the Dragon, then one of the sceeming, backstabbing Chosen. The Chosen compete with Moridin, where Asha'man punch where Moridin points.

 

Good points, I suppose he had a multitude of reasons not to want Osan'gar with Rand all the time. Then again I always thought the main reason was so he could be used in the insanely complicated way he runs the Black Tower. Not because Ishy wanted assistance-I fully agree Ishy is skillful enough all by himself, its childplay to him-but so that he could use Osan'gar as a false flag. If Rand suspected a Forsaken at the Black Tower, Moridin could just have thrown Osan'gar and a few Dreadlords in his face, and Rand would likely think he had purged the complex. Osan'gar was the canon-fodder, the only male left besides Demandred, who I think isnt as tightly under Moridins thumb.

 

While you know I more then agree with you on 'all things Taim' and I even pride myself in maybe setting you on the right track years ago,

 

Drekka that in itself should set the alarm bells ringing for you on this theory.

 

HA HA HA that was hilarious! I think I'll remind you about this thread once the books put it in black and white again. Or you remind me if Im wrong

 

While you know I more then agree with you on 'all things Taim' and I even pride myself in maybe setting you on the right track years ago,

 

Drekka that in itself should set the alarm bells ringing for you on this theory.

Bwaha!

 

I would love to be there -lurking from deep shadow- to see your eyebrows climb up to your hairline when (not if) the quarter finally drops during aMoL.

 

It could almost be even better than when RAND finds out!

 

I remember, when KoD just came out and everyone was ranting about Taims contribution in the Epilogue. Back then Taim and Moridin were my favourite villains, but for DIFFERENT REASONS. Do you realize how ridiculous that is??? It was actually Brandons fault I realized Taim was Moridin, when he said there was a BUT. I looked at the period of book 4-6, came to the idea that it might be about Ishamaels "transmigration" (I HATE that word) and then I read Lord of Chaos and saw it. Every single detail about Taims introduction, every single word in the first four times or so that we see him... EVERY SINGLE TIME HE IS ON SCREEN...

 

The thing you convinced me on Mik, back in the Equal Yet Not thread, is that the Watcher aint human.

 

I do agree that how obvious Mazridin has become is taking some of the fun out of it, because it can hardly be called a theory anymore, but I like how its playing out. Seeing Moridin walking around with the black aura, possibly the most blatant sign of a nihilist ever seen in the books if only people knew, makes the Black Tower seem a much more blackened, corrupt, inescapable place than if he had a non-Forsaken proxy doing it for him. Honestly, when I got my hands on ToM I asked my bro if Taim was in it and he said for about 5 seconds. So I found that tiny, tiny speck, KNOWING there would be another hint. And there he stood, with his hand-balled in a fist-behind his back, just like Rand.

 

I just cant wait til this whole thing gets the spotlight!

[jwood01]

Very interesting theory Luckers and very well argued.

 

On twitter I see old people adopt new mannerisms and parrot memes all the time though. So it could still be possible for him to be trained at some later date IMO, i.e., sometime between when he declares as the dragon reborn and when he arrives in Caemlyn. He could've been having lots of fireside chats with Ishy in his dreams every night.

 

My personal view is that he was always a really bad dude, and he turned to the shadow in exchange for his escape from the Aes Sedai. I mainly suspect he was a DF prior to meeting Rand because he seems to be seething at Rands commands, but then gets ahold of himself as if he has been instructed to mind his manners so to speak. And there is also the evidence that suggests he may have been trained by a foresaken e.g., mannerisms, knowledge, etc.

[Luckers]

Very interesting theory Luckers and very well argued.

 

On twitter I see old people adopt new mannerisms and parrot memes all the time though. So it could still be possible for him to be trained at some later date IMO, i.e., sometime between when he declares as the dragon reborn and when he arrives in Caemlyn. He could've been having lots of fireside chats with Ishy in his dreams every night.

 

Yeah, as I said he could have come to channeling more recently, though it fits better chronologically with when we know Ishamael was free. And too, there is a high degree of arrogance to adult Taim, and my feel is that wouldn't permit mimicry or absortion.