Did the Pattern cause the taint?

[etched Chaos]

Been thinking about the taint and the patternin relation to Rand and LTT's memories and I'm beginning to think the taint was cause by the pattern aligning things for the 3rd age. Let us consider that rand needs LTT's memories, experiences and knowledge to win, it's not enough to be the DR he's needs LTT in there as well. The problem is that without the taint there's nothing really there to help break down those partitions in his mind that kept LTT at bay. With the taint, his madness slowly eroded those walls until eventually he had his epiphany and was whole. The taint for all it's evil was actually required for the light to win imo.

 

But how could the pattern cause the taint?

 

Well, quite simply LTT is Taveren, in Latra opposing him the pattern could've been giving her a nudge towards never following his plan regardless of what happens. Then when she has a plan, a viable one, everything goes wrong with it, the Shadow swarms the location of the CK, the access keys are lost. At this point you'd think any sane, rational person would follow that riskier plan, but Latra did not, perhaps the pattern kept her from following, kept her opposing purely so the taint could happen.

 

Now if the pattern did cause the taint if not directly but by shifting things for it to potentially happen it puts a how new light on the LTT vs. Latra dynamic. Both are almost helpless in this, the pattern needs the taint for the light to win now, not then, so it was going to happen. Or not?

[Elan Tedronai]

No. LTT's mad plan caused the taint. The pattern did not need the taint. It needed someone smart enough to figure that saidin and saidar would never seal the bore lanfear created. The rupture in the dark one's prison is only healable by the pattern itself. How me as a reader can figure this is and yet a legend of an aes sedai, the first amongst servants could not is mindboggling

[etched Chaos]

No. LTT's mad plan caused the taint. The pattern did not need the taint. It needed someone smart enough to figure that saidin and saidar would never seal the bore lanfear created. The rupture in the dark one's prison is only healable by the pattern itself. How me as a reader can figure this is and yet a legend of an aes sedai, the first amongst servants could not is mindboggling

 

You completely missed the point of needing the taint in my post. Rand without LTT's memories, his knowledge, his experiences isn't enough, that wall that separated LTT needed breaking down and madness seemed the only method of doing so. The taint had a positive impact for the first time. Then Nynaeve learned to heal the madness, seems to me the pattern was rectifying the taint once it had served it's purpose.

[Elan Tedronai]

No. LTT's mad plan caused the taint. The pattern did not need the taint. It needed someone smart enough to figure that saidin and saidar would never seal the bore lanfear created. The rupture in the dark one's prison is only healable by the pattern itself. How me as a reader can figure this is and yet a legend of an aes sedai, the first amongst servants could not is mindboggling

 

You completely missed the point of needing the taint in my post. Rand without LTT's memories, his knowledge, his experiences isn't enough, that wall that separated LTT needed breaking down and madness seemed the only method of doing so. The taint had a positive impact for the first time. Then Nynaeve learned to heal the madness, seems to me the pattern was rectifying the taint once it had served it's purpose.

 

The taint actually hindered rand accepting his LTT alter ego. he thought he was going mad when he was hearing LTT's voice all that time. Coupled with the fact that the taint was slowing inducing rand into rages, paranoia, suspicion including his own friends and i am struggling to see any positive impact. You're not even adding the collateral damage the taint has caused for 3000 years.

[Mulk]

They bored they hole with saidin and saidar. Why shouldn't they assume they could fix it the same way? The only argument was whether to use the CK to build a massive shield around SG or to plug up the Bore using the seal strategy. It's easy to argue from hindsight that it was flawed, but LTT and the rest had no way of knowing that the Dark One could do what he did in response.

 

etched, I've had the same thought myself more than once - that the Pattern took into account the Dark One's likely response to being sealed in that fashion and used it to its own ends. If this is the case, the Pattern, far from being mindless, acts like the greatest grandmaster chess player of all time, able to see moves thousands of years in advance and prepare for them. I would say this inherent preparedness is the reason why the Light keeps winning or at least managing a stalemate instead of losing. So, in that light, the sole reason the Pattern prepared the CK was to undo the taint in the future. Same thing with Aridhol/Shadar Logoth - though Mordeth escaped after a fashion and is now a wild card under the control of neither the Pattern nor the Dark One, so it would seem.

 

Elan, I agree that there is a lot of damage due to the taint. However, the taint is (or perhaps I should say may be; i'm not certain the taint is the sole cause of the memory leak) the biggest reason why Rand has LTT's memories intact, as far as we can tell. If all of that damage along the way was the price of saving the world, would it be worth it?

 

Anyway, the thought has crossed my mind, more than once.

[Vardar]

They bored they hole with saidin and saidar. Why shouldn't they assume they could fix it the same way? The only argument was whether to use the CK to build a massive shield around SG or to plug up the Bore using the seal strategy. It's easy to argue from hindsight that it was flawed, but LTT and the rest had no way of knowing that the Dark One could do what he did in response.

 

etched, I've had the same thought myself more than once - that the Pattern took into account the Dark One's likely response to being sealed in that fashion and used it to its own ends. If this is the case, the Pattern, far from being mindless, acts like the greatest grandmaster chess player of all time, able to see moves thousands of years in advance and prepare for them. I would say this inherent preparedness is the reason why the Light keeps winning or at least managing a stalemate instead of losing. So, in that light, the sole reason the Pattern prepared the CK was to undo the taint in the future. Same thing with Aridhol/Shadar Logoth - though Mordeth escaped after a fashion and is now a wild card under the control of neither the Pattern nor the Dark One, so it would seem.

 

Elan, I agree that there is a lot of damage due to the taint. However, the taint is (or perhaps I should say may be; i'm not certain the taint is the sole cause of the memory leak) the biggest reason why Rand has LTT's memories intact, as far as we can tell. If all of that damage along the way was the price of saving the world, would it be worth it?

 

Anyway, the thought has crossed my mind, more than once.

 

I guess it comes down to this: If Man cannot perfectly fix what the creator made, then how did they destroy it? (Something that always bothered me about the Sadair/Sadain cannot patch the bore theory). If it's good enough to blast thru it, it should be good enough to fix it.

[thisguy]

Just because it didn't work last time doesn't mean it won't work next time... or the time after. We're just looking at two out of 7 ages.

[Thrasymachus]

How do you distinguish between the causal powers of the Pattern and the causal powers of all the people, places and things within the Pattern? That's a rhetorical question because you can't. LTT and the Dark One are responsible for the taint on saidin. Latra is responsible for keeping the taint off saidar. LTT and Latra, and arguably the DO to a certain degree, are part of the Pattern. Thus, the Pattern is responsible for the taint on saidin and the cleanliness of saidin. Q freakin' E to the D.

[thisguy]

How do you distinguish between the causal powers of the Pattern and the causal powers of all the people, places and things within the Pattern? That's a rhetorical question because you can't. LTT and the Dark One are responsible for the taint on saidin. Latra is responsible for keeping the taint off saidar. LTT and Latra, and arguably the DO to a certain degree, are part of the Pattern. Thus, the Pattern is responsible for the taint on saidin and the cleanliness of saidin. Q freakin' E to the D.

To a degree, I agree with you. There's only so much room for freedom within the pattern. The Ta'veren learn that. The more they resist it, the worse things are for them. However, I don't know if something as specific as the taint is because of the pattern. That LTT would not seal the bore correctly is part of the pattern - how that plays out exactly, I'm not sure if that's part of the pattern or not. You could be right, though.

[b3arz3rg3r]

I think there is always an equivalent of the taint at the end of the 2nd Age of each turning of the Wheel. The next time if the Dragon is female saidar may get tainted. As I see it the taint has two main reasons. One is to allow the Dragon to reach his or her ultimate state. Without it Rand wouldn't have been able to draw upon LTT's memories and break through the barrier between lives. The second is to reshape the world between the second and third age and make new ressources accessible. Afterall as the Wheel turns by right the natural resources should become depleted after some time. At those times the Breaking reshapes the world and makes new ressources avaiable.

 

So yes the taint is an essential part of the Pattern and happens every time at the end of the 2nd Age.

[Thrasymachus]

LTT is part of the Pattern, and his choices are part of the Pattern. It doesn't make sense to say that someone's trying to change the Pattern to suit their will, because their will is part of the Pattern. There's no such thing as "resisting the Pattern," there's just the Pattern and what happens in the Pattern. Mat trying to run away from his place in the Pattern and Perrin trying to avoid his leadership responsibilities and Rand going full Dark-side and deluding himself into thinking he can control the Pattern at will are all part of the Pattern for those characters. LTT's plan to seal the DO and getting saidin tainted is as much a part of the Pattern as his dumping Meirin and hooking up with Ilyena, as is the song they chose for their wedding dance and the steps they took during that dance. The Pattern is responsible for all that because the Pattern sets it up for just those things to happen and no others.

[nolirion]

How could the Pattern do that to himself ?

The Do reaction to the taint may have been foreseeable by the force who is the pattern , or the collective force that form it , but it cannot be a direct choice from it , it is a reaction . I tried to explain it in another thread but the possibility that the Do is a thread in the pattern is not rational , first and foremost the Do is a disruptive force for the pattern , it unravel it by its very presence .

The fight against the shadow is part of the pattern because the Do force it on the wheel not the other way around .

[Thrasymachus]

It's not like this is the first time the Pattern's been through the 2nd/3rd Age. The main themes of each of the Ages is always the same. 2nd Age is a utopian society founded on the use of the One Power that culminates in the discovery of the Dark One and drilling of the Bore. 3rd Age is an age of an imperfectly sealed DO and civilization in decline, culminating in a permanent re-sealing of the Dark One. And the taint of the Dark One on saidin may not even have been an intentional act of the DO, it may have just been the necessary result of anything touching the DO, like the homeless guy's body odor rubbing off on your jacket when you have to sit next to him on the subway.

 

Besides, just because the Dark One's not part of the Pattern of this world and its mirrors and parallels doesn't mean you can't go meta and argue that both the DO and the Creator are themselves part of a larger Pattern. Think Verin's speech to the Super-gals in tDR whilst they're bringing Mat and the Horn and Dagger back to TV.

[Elan Tedronai]

The pattern could not stop lanfear drilling a hole through. It did not stop the dark one's backlash. It did not stop LTT from getting his ass whooped by sammael and demandred which led to his final desperate act to seal the bore imperfectly.

 

 

To the poster who said why cant saidin/saidar be used to seal the bore. LTT tried and failed. You can't use the one power to heal something that is independent of it. The pattern is cut through and only threads from the pattern can heal the wound. Not superficial plaster

[Thrasymachus]

The pattern could not stop lanfear drilling a hole through.

 

Why should it? Meirin's desire to drill a hole in the Pattern, and her success in doing so, are obviously part of the Pattern itself. Meirin's a thread in the Pattern, Beidomon's a thread in the Pattern, everything and everyone that was actually required to drill a Bore was a part of the Pattern prior to the drilling. It follows that the creation of the Bore itself is part of the Pattern. And remember that the Pattern is designed, and presumably the Creator is smart enough to see that, hey, sometime about a third of the way through, the Pattern's gonna weave a hole in itself to the Dark One, who's kind of a jerk and likes to mess up his design, so he should probably rig this thing to tae that into account and eventually weave the hole back shut.

[Hagazussa]

No. LTT's mad plan caused the taint. The pattern did not need the taint. It needed someone smart enough to figure that saidin and saidar would never seal the bore lanfear created. The rupture in the dark one's prison is only healable by the pattern itself. How me as a reader can figure this is and yet a legend of an aes sedai, the first amongst servants could not is mindboggling

 

Fist of all it is very easy for you the reader who know the outcome to say the plan was mad, but from the characters perspective, remember they do not know everything about how the Power or the world around them work. Now if you where a nearly omnipotent mage and your friends where dying left and right and the entire wold was in danger because what is in effect the Devil had a window to try to crawl into the world, what would you do, sit on your hands or try to do something to stop it.

 

The taint actually hindered rand accepting his LTT alter ego. he thought he was going mad when he was hearing LTT's voice all that time. Coupled with the fact that the taint was slowing inducing rand into rages, paranoia, suspicion including his own friends and i am struggling to see any positive impact. You're not even adding the collateral damage the taint has caused for 3000 years.

 

You are forgetting one thing, without the taint the second age would not have ended. LTT would have lived to the ripe old age of a thousand something in bed surrounded by his descendants. When Rand was eventually born he would have been trained by the Aes Sedai and remained a kind, naive young man with the no more problems when how to impress the girls and make his teachers proud. There would be no Black Tower and the world would be a paradise completely unprepared for the Dark One's attack, often people grow from adversity. Rand in the end of the books is cynical, hardened and not afraid to kill. Remember the pattern is not good or evil, it do not care who suffers or not, it only cares for the play to move forward as intended.

 

For that matter who know if some male channeler at some point in history would not have derailed the whole thing if he had not been taken down by Aes Sedai or died from the taint, or for that matter Logain is proving to be one of Rand's most important helpers if he had not been through the hell he suffered would he have been the same person?

 

You speak about the positive sides, there is no positive or negative here, just the pattern playing things out. Also there might not be any meaning behind the taint, it might just be one of the things that is supposed to happen. Probably every third age have it, there might be variations but each age play out the same, so every first age end with the Power being discovered and an atomic war, every second age is a paradise of joined magick and technology which end with the Dark One nearly breaking out and tainting the source and so on and so on, it is a play and the characters are the actors and there is no indication that the pattern want either good or ill for the world, it only want the play to continue, and so it needs the taint.

 

Elan, I agree that there is a lot of damage due to the taint. However, the taint is (or perhaps I should say may be; i'm not certain the taint is the sole cause of the memory leak) the biggest reason why Rand has LTT's memories intact, as far as we can tell. If all of that damage along the way was the price of saving the world, would it be worth it?

 

Some few people have memories from people they share blood with, but the only time we have seen a complete personality from a former life appearing is with Rand though in some cases it is mentioned if I am not completely wrong that male channelers tend to hear voices as they beginning to go mad, there is a good chance that without any taint there would be no memory personality of LTT for Rand to get into contact with.

 

I guess it comes down to this: If Man cannot perfectly fix what the creator made, then how did they destroy it? (Something that always bothered me about the Sadair/Sadain cannot patch the bore theory). If it's good enough to blast thru it, it should be good enough to fix it.

 

I don't know it is rather easy to smash an egg on the floor, but not that easy to glue it back together again, being able to destroy something is not a guarantee that one can fix it again.

 

The pattern could not stop lanfear drilling a hole through. It did not stop the dark one's backlash. It did not stop LTT from getting his ass whooped by sammael and demandred which led to his final desperate act to seal the bore imperfectly.

 

Why would it want to stop these things?

[Barid Bel Medar]

Of course it was the Pattern's doing. Lanfear drilling the bore was the Pattern's doing, as was the imperfect sealing. It hasn't caught the Pattern by surprise, it has spun the same thing infinite times before and will do infinitely more.

 

You could say that the wheel is structured exactly for these events. Each time the second age comes around, the DO's prison is opened. Each time the bore is sealed imperfectly, which leads to the next age.

 

Unless somehow you want to say that this is the first time the wheel has turned, then the Pattern and Wheel would already "know" such events will take place, and if it wanted, it would stop it accordingly.

 

Both Latra and LTT were correct in their actions. LTT, as Ta'veren, does the bidding of the Pattern. He can't go off and do something else for the fun of it. We have ample evidence of this from the three Ta'veren.

 

The Pattern was woven precisely at the end of the AoL. Balanced on the edge, mere weeks from total annihilation, the Pattern wove perfectly. Lews Therin put his plan aside in favour of the Chodean Kal (which incidentally, are the most dangerous weapons known) but the plan failed, and the Chodean Kal were lost. If the Pattern needed them, Lews Therin would have had them. Just like Rand, Mat and Perrin seem to end up with what they need.

 

So, with the Chodean Kal lost, only one thing remains, Lews Therin's plan. Now somehow Latra etc. hope that a new plan can be hatched while Demandred and Be'lal are weeks away from crushing the resistance entirely, when they haven't come up with anything for 10 years in the War of Power, and the plans they have have failed. Except this one last, dangerous chance.

 

The Pattern needs a few things to survive. The Dark One sealed for the time being, because he is on the brink of victory. But it also needs the world itself to survive. No use winning the battle if everything is destroyed anyway. Also, it needs to destroy the physical forces of the Shadow. Even if the DO is sealed, his followers would soon take control, and in time would just re-open the bore.

 

So, the Pattern sets it up as it went down.

 

Lews Therin sacrifices himself and the bore is temporarily sealed. The Pattern makes sure that the Shadow's main command is also cut off, and the Forsaken (mainly the ones that are the most dangerous, Ishamael, Demandred, Semirhage, Graendal, Sammael and Be'lal) Add the woman who is the only known person to be able to drill the bore, Lanfear.

 

But there are still millions of Darkfriends, and millions more Shadowspawn. So the Taint is thrown in for good measure (not made by the Pattern, but intended) Male Channelers go mad and destroy the world and any organized civiliation. The Shadow's armies crumble along with that of the Light. With no command, those not driven mad, and the women fight for personal power, since the Dark One is no longer guiding them, and the Shadow's forces are wasted, the Shadowspawn leaderless or destroyed.

 

Of course, the Taint is not the best outcome, for obvious reasons. The Pattern doesn't want the world to be destroyed, so it leaves a backup force. Saidar, untouched by the Taint, because Latra is guided by the Pattern, and manages to miraculously convince EVERY SINGLE WOMAN with enough power to help Lews Therin to remain opposed. Right up till the end, when there is literally no time left to act. This is not natural, it is the Pattern. Logically, the sacrifice would be worth it, even if they knew what would happen (which they didn't). No opposition can be that mindless without a guiding force.

 

So the female Aes Sedai are left to clean up and get the world back into shape once again. A difficult task, but no greater than the sacrifice that was made by the men, giving their lives and sanity to save the world.

 

And then we have Rand born. Nobody ever remembers their past lives. Not completely, not knowingly. It is not something that happens without prompting.

 

Bring in the Taint, which lowers the barriers of sanity and opens up the mind, to give Rand access to his past life, and Shadar Logoth, the Pattern giving Rand the ability to cleanse saidin.

 

Why didn't it do it earlier? It could have, Shadar Logoth has been cursed for centuries.

 

Of course, Rand needed something that would give him access to past lives. But of course, it wouldn't do that he went completely mad, so he gets a cure.