The aMoL 'Memories of Light' Releases

[Manscher]

True Herid, but with the pattern being as it is, who is to say what negative effects any sort of manipulations of the pattern might have? Can't remember in what context, but there were some mention in the books of how the pattern could be disrupted to the point where Rands Taveren nature could be lost until the pattern got set right again

[Suttree]

 

Only traveling with the TP "rips" a whole in the pattern per the books, we see what happens from that here...

Robert Jordan

Jordan said that that was because the Traveling was done by using the True Power. We'd seen the same since, when Moridin Travels somewhere..."The Pattern screamed."

Saidin gateways are described as folding the two places in the pattern together and then bore a hole through. While Saidar is described as making two places in the pattern similar to each other. so both weaves effects the pattern. TP is just a way more brutal way of doing it.

 

There is also the whole issue of travelling simply being to powerful, not only does it grant the forces of light with a massive advantage, it's also extremely easy for the dark side to simply travel in and kill any of the generals of the Light. Putting this limitation on travelling makes sense from a plot perspective

 

Curious as to how you think it gives the light a "massive" advantage?

 

Once again RJ was very clear that it is TP traveling that "rips" and causes damage. He made that distinction quit clear both in description and interviews.

[Manscher]

Their army can travel, darkspawns can't? Kinda similar to having an air mobile army while the other side have to travel by ground. Massive advantage in mobility. Which alone can decide the outcome of a war

 

 

Edit: He said TP rips the pattern, which makes it screams. He never mentioned travelling by OP not having any effect on the pattern. In fact evidence in the books suggests otherwise

[Suttree]

Their army can travel, darkspawns can't? Kinda similar to having an air mobile army while the other side have to travel by ground. Massive advantage in mobility. Which alone can decide the outcome of a war

 

 

Edit: He said TP rips the pattern, which makes it screams. He never mentioned travelling by OP not having any effect on the pattern. In fact evidence in the books suggests otherwise

Those trollocs traveled by ground to Algarin's Manor and Caemlyn did they?

 

Also...

 

 

Interview: Jul 19th, 2005

TOR Questions of the Week Part III (Verbatim)

Week 14 Question

Military strategy in the War of Power must have been odd, indeed. How do the concepts of capturing and holding territory even make sense in a world where forces can Travel?

Robert Jordan

Good question, though not all of the forces involved could use gateways. (Rafo! Rafo!) Think of the ability to Travel in terms of moving troops via aircraft, and you will begin to get the picture. Even with the largest possible circles, there are limits to the size of gateways and thus limits to the front along which you can move troops out through it, the numbers you can commit simultaneously. Of course, you can use multiple gateways, but each is still only so large and can admit only so many soldiers at a time.

So-called front lines were very fluid, but you couldn't fling your forces in anywhere without regard to what would be surrounding them or how you were going to re-supply, reinforce or withdraw them. Although no one has shown it so far in the books, there are ways to interfere with the making of a gateway—and ways to defend against interference—so the battle would take place on many levels. Yes, any area you hold can be attacked by your enemy, and you can attack any area that he holds. (Part of the result was great destruction and a great fall-off in the ability to produce high tech items. By the time the Bore was sealed, soldiers were already much, much more likely to ride horses and carry swords than to ride armored vehicles or aircraft and carry shocklances, which had all become very rare.) But holding an area is not impossible so long as you can successfully disrupt your opponent's attempts to make gateways into it. Even if he manages to get those first soldiers in, if you can disrupt his ability to reinforce, re-supply or withdraw, it becomes another Dien Bien Phu for him. Of course, if you fail, then it becomes Gettysburg or Waterloo, a bloody fight that will be decisive for somebody. At least until the next "decisive" battle is fought. Remember, that designation is always given after the fact, by historians.

 

[Ryan52]

Traveling seems like a good candidate to me, it would certainly be a huge paradigm shift to take away or severely limit it.  It would also make sense for it to cause some structural issues on the Pattern with things so weak at the moment, having threads randomly "jumping" from one place to another seems like it would require some realignment on the part of the Pattern (especially in the case of a major thread like Rand or even Mat and Perrin).  The weave for Traveling is described as taking a fair amount of power  to use and is taxing to maintain or expand significantly, so to discover that it is a strong enough weave to have direct impact on the Pattern would not be surprising.  

[lhsmommy]

ok, good point about Rand balenuking Graendal's palace in tGS. I didn't think of that. That does make balefire much less likely in that quote.

Didn't think of that either. It's certainly less likely. I don't think it's traveling though. Hmmm... Maybe BBM is onto something.

[herid]

True Herid, but with the pattern being as it is, who is to say what negative effects any sort of manipulations of the pattern might have? Can't remember in what context, but there were some mention in the books of how the pattern could be disrupted to the point where Rands Taveren nature could be lost until the pattern got set right again

you may be right and I'm not ruling this out altogether but I still see problems with it being Taveling. as I said it's strange that Amys says "this weave" rather than Traveling. Also, if she does mean Traveling, how exactly are they supposed to spread the word about it without using Traveling unless all the forces of Light are in the same place? I kind of doubt the scene takes place at Merillor. It would also be introducing a second Traveling prevention method after dreamspikes only recently showed up. This is awkward plotwise IMO.

[Manscher]

Those Trollocs got there by waygates, because right after people asked questions regarding deathgates and random trollocs popping up everywhere, to which Rand replies that they don't survive moving through a gateway. Which is why they use the ways and portal stones.

 

I'm not saying that travelling is the weave. I'm just saying it makes sense, both from a in world point of view, and from a plotting perspective. How often haven't we questioned why people didn't just travel to each other and talk things through? Or why it the Forsakens didn't just pop up at various places with inverted weaves and killed various important people. Travelling is a silly strong tool

[driedraspberry]

I still find it strange for Amy to call it "this weave" rather than Traveling (or whatever else she means) if this is something already known to the Wise Ones. 

Also, saidin Traveling might negatively affect the Pattern. Rand described it as boring a hole in the Pattern once to Egwene. But the way saidar Traveling was described ( by making two places identical) doesn't sound destructive to me.

 

True, but manipulation of time and space is heavily involved with the pattern, it could be that it's the reverse and it's actually the pattern that's making traveling dangerous. Although I suppose if that's the case spreading the word would become quite difficult.

[Ryan52]

Not really much else jumps to mind.  The making of cuendillar (sp?) springs to mind of possibly having a side effect, but the weave is not exactly common knowledge and known by one faction (and the speaker in question does not belong to the WT). 

[Suttree]

Those Trollocs got there by waygates, because right after people asked questions regarding deathgates and random trollocs popping up everywhere, to which Rand replies that they don't survive moving through a gateway. Which is why they use the ways and portal stones.

 

Dude I know trollocs can't travel, it seems as if my sarcasm was lost there. I was merely pointing out they don't have to travel "by ground".

[Barid Bel Medar]

I still find it strange for Amy to call it "this weave" rather than Traveling (or whatever else she means) if this is something already known to the Wise Ones. 

 

So it can be used as a "Memories of Light" teaser and not give anything away? I think it likely given the circumstances. 

 

Also, on a related note - it may not have to do with destroying the Pattern. It does't say why it shouldn't be used, only that it's important nobody does use it. 

 

Now, of course, negative consequences in regards to the Pattern is the most logical conclusion, but considering the nature of "Memories of Light" and the main purpose of them to be teasers which make people wonder and are often taken out of context to misdirect the reader - it could all too easily be something far simpler - like the Aiel's pedantics about how evil it is to go into TAR in the flesh. It could very well be just something that makes the channeler overly tired or strained. 

 

Also - continuing on the Travelling line of thought - since the Pattern is unravelling, that might render Travelling ineffective, since it is using a short-cut so-to-speak in the Pattern, with a certain level of degradation, it might make Travelling dangerous and unreliable - which would be nothing to do with the weave itself, but the fact that the Pattern is unstable. 

[Manscher]

 

 

True Herid, but with the pattern being as it is, who is to say what negative effects any sort of manipulations of the pattern might have? Can't remember in what context, but there were some mention in the books of how the pattern could be disrupted to the point where Rands Taveren nature could be lost until the pattern got set right again

you may be right and I'm not ruling this out altogether but I still see problems with it being Taveling. as I said it's strange that Amys says "this weave" rather than Traveling. Also, if she does mean Traveling, how exactly are they supposed to spread the word about it without using Traveling unless all the forces of Light are in the same place? I kind of doubt the scene takes place at Merillor. It would also be introducing a second Traveling prevention method after dreamspikes only recently showed up. This is awkward plotwise IMO.

Indeed, it does seem rather odd. As for getting the word out, it might be that Skimming is still possible, as it seems to be moving either outside of the pattern or in another world similar to that of the ways. Which would mean that it doesn't effect the pattern itself. This would still make the Dreamspike viable, but still prevent large army movements

[herid]

 

I still find it strange for Amy to call it "this weave" rather than Traveling (or whatever else she means) if this is something already known to the Wise Ones.

 

So it can be used as a "Memories of Light" teaser and not give anything away? I think it likely given the circumstances.

 

 

 

 

I'm sure the book was finished well before choice the memories was decided upon so this would not matter.

Also, on a related note - it may not have to do with destroying the Pattern. It does't say why it shouldn't be used, only that it's important nobody does use it.

 

Now, of course, negative consequences in regards to the Pattern is the most logical conclusion, but considering the nature of "Memories of Light" and the main purpose of them to be teasers which make people wonder and are often taken out of context to misdirect the reader - it could all too easily be something far simpler - like the Aiel's pedantics about how evil it is to go into TAR in the flesh. It could very well be just something that makes the channeler overly tired or strained.

 

Also - continuing on the Travelling line of thought - since the Pattern is unravelling, that might render Travelling ineffective, since it is using a short-cut so-to-speak in the Pattern, with a certain level of degradation, it might make Travelling dangerous and unreliable - which would be nothing to do with the weave itself, but the fact that the Pattern is unstable.

 

Those are all good points and Traveling does look like the strongest candidate suggested so far but my objections still remain, including the one about how exactly they are supposed to spread the news without using Traveling in the first place. As I said, it's unlikely that the scene takes place at Merillor. It's quite out of the way of everything. There are no Waygates nearby AFAIK so pretty much the only way to get to and from Merrilor reasonably quickly is by Traveling.

 

 

 

 

True Herid, but with the pattern being as it is, who is to say what negative effects any sort of manipulations of the pattern might have? Can't remember in what context, but there were some mention in the books of how the pattern could be disrupted to the point where Rands Taveren nature could be lost until the pattern got set right again

you may be right and I'm not ruling this out altogether but I still see problems with it being Taveling. as I said it's strange that Amys says "this weave" rather than Traveling. Also, if she does mean Traveling, how exactly are they supposed to spread the word about it without using Traveling unless all the forces of Light are in the same place? I kind of doubt the scene takes place at Merillor. It would also be introducing a second Traveling prevention method after dreamspikes only recently showed up. This is awkward plotwise IMO.

 

 

 

 

Indeed, it does seem rather odd. As for getting the word out, it might be that Skimming is still possible, as it seems to be moving either outside of the pattern or in another world similar to that of the ways. Which would mean that it doesn't effect the pattern itself. This would still make the Dreamspike viable, but still prevent large army movements

 

 

 

 

 

I don't believe this would be something involving Traveling only but not Skimming. That would not change the situation sufficiently plotwise and would be hard to justify logically as the weaves are very similar and likely have very similar effects on the Pattern.

 

But don't get me wrong. As I said, Traveling is the best suggestion offered thus far and it would also explain why using the Ways will be necessary. I'm certain that the Ways will come into play. There is memory #7 and Rand said once that he wanted to cleanse the Ways because they might be needed (LoC, ch 21). Also, Sealing the Bore won't do anything to the Ways and it would be very strange if the Ways were left to remain tainted after the LB is over.

[lsm]

as far as spreading the news, there's three wise one dreamers that can spread the news among the other aiel at least, so no traveling wouldn't be an issue, if that's the weave

[driedraspberry]

I wonder why not the portal stones (in terms of Ituralde). Rand surely has as much knowledge of them as Lanfear did in tGH.

[Valsuvious]

There is my 2 cents. This falls into line with what one of the more common theories states about pulling something or someone from Teleran'roid (spelling). Remember how adamant the wise ones were about pulling someone from the dream or accessing the dream world? Perhaps, and this is just a hunch, this has something to do with what Egwene learned to do by traveling via use of the dream world. I don't believe that any of the wise ones actually saw Egwene use the weave but I am sure this can be analyzed and disproven.

 

Bottom line is that I feel that this as something to do with connecting to the dream world from the real world in a similar fashion in which Egwene used it. With the wise ones being adamant about how inherently evil that process is, it really just fits for me.

 

Thoughts anyone ?

 

This is in relation to the Amys quote in the memories of light. Getting used to posting here so I am sorry for not being clear as to which "memory" I was referring to

[herid]

as far as spreading the news, there's three wise one dreamers that can spread the news among the other aiel at least, so no traveling wouldn't be an issue, if that's the weave

possible but unlikely IMO. There are only 3 Wise Ones dreamwalkers left and one (Bair) is gone to Rhuidean. Amys is one of only two who are left. Who is she commanding then? Melaine only? I don't see her ordering Melaine about this way.

I reread the quote and she say "we must spread the word". So she does include herself in it.

I wonder why not the portal stones (in terms of Ituralde). Rand surely has as much knowledge of them as Lanfear did in tGH.

Ituralde might not be near any portal stones and the knowledge of how to use portal stones is very limited. If Rand is not there with Ituralde there would be nobody to teach him how to use the portal stones even if he has Ash'man and Aes Sedai with him.

[Kamin_Majere]

If its speaking about travelling it might have to do with location more than the weave. Something could be really messing up the pattern where they are and the conversation went like the

 

Se saw what happened when blahblah opened her gateway and was torn apart

:insert statement here:

 

It would make sense a little bit like that, but still not very much i suppose. The only "dangerous" weave is balefire but i dont think any of the wise ones even know how to make it. Maybe Avi from her time with Nynaeve and Elyane?

 

So if its not travelling or balefire then something has happened that caused this mysterious weave to be harmful

[KrisAnton]

It's a huge stretch, but I hope it is the bonding weave. It wasn't done in the AoL, maybe the dark side has found a way to harm the forces of Light by using the bonding against them. I'm thinking of the way trollocs die if their Myrdraal was killed. Like I said, I know it's a stretch, I'm just hoping that it's something crucial the light has or something they depend on to make the finale more interesting.

[Sentinel78]

It seems like Amys would just call it Traveling if the Dark One was somehow messing with that weave.  However, I still like the idea of Traveling being compromised somewhat during the Last Battle (beyond the Dream Spike).  It fits in with why someone may suggest using the Ways to Ituralde, and why it would be appalled with such a suggestion, consistent with aMoL: Day Seven:

 

"Nobody travels the Ways," Ituralde said, aghast." 

Also, Darth Rand considered the Ways crucial to the battle plan that he worked out with Bashere for taking out the Trolloc Hordes.  Rand was wrong about virtually everything when he was in his dark state, so in a way there's a certain irony to his basic battle plan being made obsolete, from tGS, "Scents Unknown":

 

 

"...Shadowspawn can't move through gateways, so they can't move as quickly as I can.  By the time they've engaged Lan, I'll be past them and attacking directly at the Dark One's Heart"

"I don't plan to abandon the southern lands, not at all.  When the Trollocs punch through the Gap, they will break up into fists to invade.  That's when my forces will hit them, led by Bashere, Traveling by gateway to strike each group of Trollocs from the sides or behind.  That way, we can pick the best battlefields to suit our needs"

Firstly, this strategy appears wrong because the Trollocs are staying together in huge groups, not breaking up into fists (why the heck would he think they would just break up into small groups anyway?  No army does that, the Fades would never let it happen), but it also heavily relies upon reliable access to Traveling.

[Maleshub]

From Amys quote, the weave seems to be common to all allies. Balefire doesn't seem to fit that criteria; especially since BF seems to be a tool the DO is using to further his plans (including giving Rand access to TP to BF Semirhage).

 

The bonding weave isn't known or used by the Aiel or Sea Folk, or even Seanchan (allies for the duration of TG only). Any warning regarding that weave would probably come from Aes Sedai or Asha'man. But the previous memory of "pass his bond to me" (if linked to this memory) could put this bond in play.

 

Traveling could be a possibility. Overuse of that weave by hundreds or thousands of channelers could have an impact on the pattern. Maybe that's why the AoL they had planes instead of Traveling grounds.

 

But I think it is another weave. I just cannot think which one at the moment.

[unlabled]

Quick question:  Does traveling using the True Power work the same way? I believe it was mentioned somewhere in the series that weaves are sometimes different when using the TP.

 

Could trollocs travel with the TP?

[Amandera]

It rips through the Pattern, that's the difference. But I really don't think Shadowspawn can go through a TP gateway either. More of the Forsaken had access to the TP at the War of the Shadow (I believe it was as high as 30 people if I remember from the interviews correctly), yet still Rand thinks they've never been able to use Travelling to move Shadowspawn. I imagine they would, if they could.

[herid]

Somebody pointed out on the Tor spoiler thread  that one problem with this being Traveling is that, apparently, Traveling never had any adverse affects on the Pattern during the War of the Power. Judging by Rand's visions in Rhuidean (the seed singing scene) the Pattern wasn't in quite as bad a state at the moment of the Sealing in the AOL as it is at the moment but still, this is a good argument. It could still mean balefire, if the Wise Ones see that it affects the Pattern really badly, or it can mean a new weave that was not known in the AOL. I really don't think it's bonding though. I find it impossible to see why bonding would be bad. BS clearly likes it very much too judging by the double bonding thing. Also, the Wise Ones showed zero intention to bond anybody and likely don't even know the required weave.