Birgitte and Death

[MrJade]

If Birgitte dies does she die for real? My father and I are in an argument and he says that she will die for real and ever, and that this is supported in the novels. I disagree. Anyone care to weigh in?

[AquilaInfernus]

RJ is on the record saying Min's viewings only refer to the future. In WH when she meets Birgitte for the first time, she sees more images than one woman should have in a lifetime, including with several men, who she is certain is one man (Gaidal Cain). Unless the pattern has already unraveled enough to disrupt this, she is still bound to the horn

[MrJade]

RJ is on the record saying Min's viewings only refer to the future. In WH when she meets Birgitte for the first time, she sees more images than one woman should have in a lifetime, including with several men, who she is certain is one man (Gaidal Cain). Unless the pattern has already unraveled enough to disrupt this, she is still bound to the horn

 

Thanks. That's what I was thinking, but he didn't believe me. Do you know where that was said?

[Mashiara Sedai]

I talked about this in one of the Theory Blogs a few weeks ago. The actual place where Min sees the viewings is in Winter's Heart, Chapter 12, "A Lily in Winter." RJ's quote about Min only seeing the future is here.

[Whizbang]

I think I remember reading somewhere that not even the people in the AoL understood the Horn of Valere. In an interview, RJ said that the Horn was made before the AoL. The AoL'ers just engraved the "The grave is no bar to my call" bit.

 

Interview: Apr 20th, 2004

 

TOR Questions of the Week Part I (Verbatim)

Week 1 Question

 

Was the Horn of Valere known and used in the Age of Legends? Or did it only appear in the Third Age?

Robert Jordan

 

 

The Horn of Valere was known in the Age of Legends, though it was an artifact of an earlier age, but it was never used in the Age of Legends. In part, this was because there wasn't any need in an Age that knew universal peace, but also it was because what it could do was considered a sort of myth by most people in that Age. No one who is serious spends time trying to test out whether a myth might be real. (Seen anybody sacrificing a white bull to Jupiter lately?) And once the Dark One touched the world, before the War of the Shadow actually began, the Horn was among the items lost, and thought destroyed, in the first rush of mob violence, terrorism etc. So it wasn't available for use then even had someone wanted to try. It was later recovered and sealed up with the Dragon Banner because along with the Foretellings that made up the Prophecies of the Dragon was one saying that it must be.

In any case, the story of the Horn was carried on through the Age of Legends in the same way that myths are today, and magnified thereafter though the twisting that occurs in the telling and retelling of a story. And believe me, stories about the Dragon Reborn and the Prophecies and everything concerned with them were rife during the Breaking. When everything is going to hell around them, people cling to anything and everything that might offer hope. That is how the Breaking could end with tales of the Dragon Reborn and the Prophecies already on many peoples' lips.

 

 

From this quote, it appears as if the Horn wasn't even made by humans, or even in the "real" world, but maybe in one of the mirror worlds accessed through a portal stone:

Interview: Oct 4th, 2005

 

Robert Jordan's Blog: ONE MORE TIME

 

 

Robert Jordan

 

For Randshammer, you might say that mortals made the Horn of Valere. They certainly weren't gods.

 

 

and there's this:

Interview: Dec 2nd, 2010

 

4th Age Podcast Interview with Team Jordan (Verbatim)

Andrew Gelos

 

One of the questions—and this is a really weird one, at least for me—I was wondering—and obviously we know that if it's pertaining too much to things that are going to be coming out in the books that haven't been released yet, we know that they can't be discussed, and that's completely and totally understandable—but I was really wondering—I've recently started yet another re-read of the series with my wife, and I got to thinking about the Horn of Valere (rhymes with full-AIR)…or Valere (full-EAR)—and once again, I sometimes flip back and forth between the way I originally heard it and the way it probably should be pronounced—but how does the Horn function? Is it actually an old ter'angreal, or is it completely unrelated to the One Power?

Alan Romanczuk

 

 

Hmm.

MARIA SIMONS

 

Okay…we don't really know. No one really knows. It's an ancient artifact, probably not a ter'angreal.

 

 

So, Moghedien wouldn't know how to cut someone off from the horn. She is a master of Tel'aran'rhiod, and so knows how to push someone out of it into the real world, but she also has many faults and weaknesses. When Nyn and company interrogate her, it is obvious she doesn't know Healing, or making ter'angreal or angreal. She doesn't know about working with metals or making cuellander. She isn't a walking encyclopedia of everything that was possible in the AoL. Cutting someone away from the Horn would be well above her skill level, I feel. The AoL'ers didn't know how it worked. They couldn't make the Portal Stones, only use them. They were far from omnipotent and omniscient. Birgette was merely pushed out of TAR into the "real" world, but is still tied to the Horn.

 

My guess is that she'll die in the Last Battle and be immediately spun out to be Gaidal Cain's lover and companion in the next age (maybe she'll have time to answer the call of the Horn during the LB).

[Whizbang]

Ah, found the quote about the inscription of the Horn:

Interview: Apr 23rd, 2010

 

JordanCon 2010 Q&A Report - Terez (Paraphrased)

Matt Hatch

 

Is the Horn an object of the Power?

Maria Simons

 

 

RAFO, but I will tell you something about the Horn. People always ask why the inscription on the Horn is in the Old Tongue, if it's so old. It was added in the Age of Legends.

Terez

 

It should also be noted that, when a panel moderator asked the audience if we wanted to see the Heroes of the Horn come back before the end, Maria raised her hand high.

[jsbrads]

The timing of the appearance of the horn doesn't disprove that Moggie could cut someone off. Much like gravity preexisting humanity means we can't understand it?

My theory for her actually as cut off from the horn, allows her to be reconnected, easiest way? just be heroic and maybe die heroically, get reattached (I think she can handle that).

I see an arguement for Birgitte just having her telrhoid body exported and she is still connected to horn...

 

Can someone be tied to the horn if balefired? just thinking of Elayne's soldiers throwing their lives away, Black Ajah killing them.

[Orderofolde]

I would like to know when the last time the horn was sounded pre-Mat, and how our characters are even aware of what it is aside from the Legend. Did we have some AOL'er find a shiny horn and blow it and have the mists rise up and the HOH ride into his living room or a tavern or onto the village green when giving off a lively bit of music during Festival? That would be a good telling in of itself I am sure. And about the inscription, I'd like to know what was behind it being added. Some poor Hero lost his Heroine wife and then finds her when the horn is sounded? Really gives meaning to the grave being no bar to its call. Or perhaps the horn is wrought with the True Power as the DO is supposed to be the keeper of the dead. His magic so to speak would bypass the natural barriers that maintain the current order of things and bring back the dead.

[FarShainMael]

The horn seems to be firmly linked with the Last Battle. Three reasons for saying this:

 

1. The inscription on the horn seems to be a line from a ballad and possible prophecy, 'The Great Hunt of the Horn' (EotW26):

 

"In the last, lorn fight

'gainst the fall of long night,

the mountains stand guard,

and the dead shall be ward,

for the grave is no bar to my call."

 

2. According to Siuan, when she took charge of the Horn from Agelmar in Fal Dara (TGH5), there is a prophecy saying it would only be found in time for the Last Battle.

 

3.Thom also knowws about this; when Rand meets him in Cairhien and tells him that they have the Horn (TGH26), he is sceptical at first, then says: "The Horn of Valere. That means the Last Battle is coming."

 

So it seems that the Horn hasn't been used at all before Mat blew it. Unless there is more than one Last Battle, per Herid Fel.

[jsbrads]

this is very confusing, because we havent heard of AOLers using it, they used Jo-cars and Sho-wings, high tech, not horn, never mentioned it in the fall of AOL, but it certainly hasn't been used since 3000 yrs, been in Eye of World

[mike hunt's here]

Isnt there something from BS that says this issue will be settled in AMOL? RAFO haha.