Ta'veren-ness bugs me

[EmperorAllspice]

Okay. I'm 2/3 of the way through Lord Of Chaos. I'm at the part where Rand finds out about Salidar. I just had to stop when I reached that scene. I need answers.

 

What's the deal with Ta'veren-ness?

 

Bar none the concept of Ta'veren has to be the most infuriating aspect of this series for me (yes, worse than the women). It's almost driven me to abandon the series several times. The reason why is very simple:

 

I have no idea how it works!

 

What are it's limitations? It's failings? How do you counter it?

 

As it stands, it's robbing the series of the one thing any story desperately needs, especially a fantasy story that heavily features battles and warfare: Tension. There needs to be a feeling that the main characters can fail. There has to be a feeling that the forces of evil are powerful/cunning enough to win. It's what keeps the reader engaged. The issue with Ta'veren is that it makes the series run on complete arbitrariness. 4 questions:

 

1.) Does being Ta'veren control people's minds? Why could Perrin convince the Two Rivers to fight back and not Verin? What about him being Ta'veren alters what he's saying? Or does it mess with the minds of the people he's talking to? In either case, then why doesn't it work on the villains? How come Rand couldn't intimidate Ba'alzamon enough to flee from him back in book 1 or 2 if he's so insanely strong in his Ta'veren-ness?

 

2.) It's stated that Rand messes with probability just by existing within an area. People fall from insane heights and live wheras other people abruptly trip over their own feet and die. Why doesn't this ever happen to the chosen? To someone like Lanfear? Lanfear could just arrive, trip over her own dress and die.

 

3.) Why do these uncontrolable luck fluctuations ala the kind of stuff I mentioned above even happen anyway? Isn't Ta'veren a system spawned from the Pattern itself to counter the Shadow's grip on the pattern? Why is it so horribly inefficient?

 

4.) Rand just happened to be in the right place at the right time to overhear details about Salidar. Why doesn't this happen with things like Demandred's or Sammael's armies?

 

Now, there's an obvious reason why none of this happens. It'd be anti-climactic. But it leads to the entire series being incredibly arbitrary. To me it reeks of RJ blatantly justifying anytime he needs to include a dramatically convenient contrivance. Why did this happen? Why, he's T'averen, of course! The pattern shifts around him.

 

Now, if something lucky happens to a character, then I can just file it away under luck. Lucky things happen. and a a story is meant to be something that doesn't ordinarily happen. So odd happenings and insanely lucky things occurences are to be expected. But RJ is trying to justify it by inventing this Ta'veren system. But he doesn't explain it thoroughly. (at least not where I am. and that's well over a third of the way through the series.) It's already driving me nuts! The effects of Rand's Ta'veren-ness aren't controlled by any kind of consistant criteria. It's applied when the author needs to apply it to advance the plot. That comes off as frustrating to me.

 

How do you fight someone who's Ta'veren? Where's the tension?

[Wool-headed lummox]

It's legalized contrivance and plot convenience. When RJ needs to place character Alpha to place B at time Y, and he has no idea how to do it, abradadabra taveren.

[EmperorAllspice]

and that's bad writing in my opinion

[avernite]

I think Isam said it best (paraphrasing):

 

'You are Ta'veren, aka a main character'

 

 

Other characters who are not called Ta'veren also have contrived occurances to help them win or lose (like Elayne being in the dungeon JUST when people are being liberated... odd huh?) but at least with the Ta'veren the author outright admits these people will have strange luck or misfortune.

[Suttree]

A good deal of questions touching on it here under "ta'veren"...

 

http://www.theoryland.com/wheel-of-time-interview-search.php

 

He made clear to differentiate it however.

 

RJ

Ta'veren can oppose one another, when their conflict is what the Wheel "sees" as the necessary corrective. And, no, ta'veren is not Old Tongue for Deus ex machina. It came out of musings on luck, charismatic leaders, and the theory of the indispensable man.

[EmperorAllspice]

None of these are helping me. It still comes off as blatant justification for the universe bending to help the main characters.

 

God, why am I the ONLY person who's frustrated to tears by this concept

[EmperorAllspice]

Did my post just not make any sense? I thought I was clear in my problems

[Agitel]

Wool-headed lummox is a big critic of a lot of aspects of WoT. That doesn't make his opinion invalid, but he can be counted on to bring a negative critique to most discussions.

 

Personally, I agree that there's a lack of tension in the novels, even later on (though there certainly are some very tense moments and plots that erupt from all this). I say that while also admitting that I still really enjoy them. However, in Lord of Chaos, you do begin to see the Shadow learning that direct confrontations with ta'veren are pretty futile, and they do develop alternative strategies. Not all of them will become clear until later in the series, though it is starting in LoC. Let's just say that ta'vereness is new to the Forsaken. They're not used to accounting for it at this point, and it's led to a lot of foolish mistakes. The Shadow does learn to try to make use of it, though . . .

 

Personally, I feel that Jordan was making commentary on deux ex machina.

 

Being ta'veren messes with chance. It applies pressure, but doesn't directly take control. This works with people's minds as well, perhaps making them more easily convinced. The way this works becomes more apparent later in the series, but it's pressure and a tilting of the odds, not mind-control. The Wheel warps the Pattern around ta'veren. I think "warping" is the best way to think of it. It directs the ta'veren and has direct, intended results, but it warps the surrounding pattern as well as a consequence, which results in the random shaping of extreme odds in unintended ways. It's not a divine intervention on a specific act, it's like a massive object and gravity, warping space around it, and whatever's near will be affected by the gravity well. The Pattern is pressuring Rand's thread to weave in a certain fashion, and this causes other threads around it to be disturbed and warped to allow for it.

 

Why doesn't it work as well on the villains? Perhaps their connection to the Shadow provides some shielding. And for a person's opinion to be influenced by ta'veren ability, that opinion likely needed to be a little open to change in the first place. If the person was at some level open to listening then that decision can be pressured.

[b3arz3rg3r]

and that's bad writing in my opinion

 

Well, just think of the alternative. In every fantasy novel there are coincidences which strain even the suspension of disbelief. Some kind of nonsensical reason why a hero survives despite astronomical odds against him, why he's miraculously saved by some chance event or another or why the protagonists just happen to be at a certain place when something important goes down. Ta'veren is a rather neat explanation which covers all those coincidences. Without ta'veren you wouldn't have the joke events like spears forming circles etc, but you would have have the same ridiculous coincidences just without the explanation.

[Agitel]

At the beginning of LoC we do see that the DO is capable of warping the Pattern directly to his own needs. Not exactly like, but similar to ta'veren. That influence may extend very, very slightly through his Forsaken, at least to help... er... stabilize the Pattern around them, though not perfectly or entirely, but enough to limit the influence of ta'veren on them.

[EmperorAllspice]

but that't it. I can suspend my disbelief that far. I do it all the time. By adding in this explanation it just leads me bback to my point. There's no tension and the system seems very vague in how it works. I go back to those 4 questions in my first post.

 

I don't buy that the villains can possibly win. The heroes are unstoppable because IN-UNIVERSE reality is shifting to help them and it just seems pointlessly arbitrary when it doesn't help them.

[Agitel]

but that't it. I can suspend my disbelief that far. I do it all the time. By adding in this explanation it just leads me bback to my point. There's no tension and the system seems very vague in how it works. I go back to those 4 questions in my first post.

 

I don't buy that the villains can possibly win. The heroes are unstoppable because IN-UNIVERSE reality is shifting to help them and it just seems pointlessly arbitrary when it doesn't help them.

 

Well, even weighted dice don't always turn up the way you expect. As I wrote in my edits to my post, the Forsaken do learn to try to use this to their advantage. There's a little bit of discussion on the strategy at the beginning of the eighth book, though it's done through an example of something else.

 

Jordan could have done a better job at building tension if he focused a little more in other areas of the plot that don't become obvious until later without having to discard with the ta'veren idea.

[b3arz3rg3r]

but that't it. I can suspend my disbelief that far. I do it all the time. By adding in this explanation it just leads me bback to my point. There's no tension and the system seems very vague in how it works. I go back to those 4 questions in my first post.

 

I don't buy that the villains can possibly win. The heroes are unstoppable because IN-UNIVERSE reality is shifting to help them and it just seems pointlessly arbitrary when it doesn't help them.

 

I honestly can't think of a single fantasy novel where I thought the villains could win. Their defeat is inevitable in every book out there. All that changes is the price the good side may have to pay to achieve it.

[EmperorAllspice]

It's like the way they mentioned Rand being unable to touch the Source all the time in the first 4 books. Did that EVER become an issue? Did he ever fail to touch the Source when he needed to? Honestly, he seemed to be doing pretty well without knowing what he was doing for the most part. He would just conveniently DO a spell when he needed to, even if he didn't know how to do it.

[Agitel]

It's like the way they mentioned Rand being unable to touch the Source all the time in the first 4 books. Did that EVER become an issue? Did he ever fail to touch the Source when he needed to? Honestly, he seemed to be doing pretty well without knowing what he was doing for the most part. He would just conveniently DO a spell when he needed to, even if he didn't know how to do it.

 

Well, you could say he's done it all before . . . And there does seem to be a correlation with strength and intuition with the One Power, not just with Rand.

 

There are justifications and explanations, but I can understand how they may fall flat. This may not be the series for you, and there are some problems. You've picked up on one of them. I do quite like the climax to LoC, though. I think it's a great point that many in the series love.

[EmperorAllspice]

but that't it. I can suspend my disbelief that far. I do it all the time. By adding in this explanation it just leads me bback to my point. There's no tension and the system seems very vague in how it works. I go back to those 4 questions in my first post.

 

I don't buy that the villains can possibly win. The heroes are unstoppable because IN-UNIVERSE reality is shifting to help them and it just seems pointlessly arbitrary when it doesn't help them.

 

I honestly can't think of a single fantasy novel where I thought the villains could win. Their defeat is inevitable in every book out there. All that changes is the price the good side may have to pay to achieve it.

 

That's from a media literate outsiders perspective. You're a genre savvy person. You know that good almost always wins. Dramatically covenient contrivances exist because you know the author put them there

 

But within the Diagetic world of the story, the hero's victory ISN'T completely assured from the get go. and if you can forget that you're reading a book, then there's still tension offered by the villains.

 

In WOT, those contrivances exist within the diagetic world itself. You can't forgt that events are being manipulated by an author because the story keeps reminding you of it

[Agitel]

but that't it. I can suspend my disbelief that far. I do it all the time. By adding in this explanation it just leads me bback to my point. There's no tension and the system seems very vague in how it works. I go back to those 4 questions in my first post.

 

I don't buy that the villains can possibly win. The heroes are unstoppable because IN-UNIVERSE reality is shifting to help them and it just seems pointlessly arbitrary when it doesn't help them.

 

I honestly can't think of a single fantasy novel where I thought the villains could win. Their defeat is inevitable in every book out there. All that changes is the price the good side may have to pay to achieve it.

 

That's from a media literate outsiders perspective. You're a genre savvy person. You know that good almost always wins. Dramatically covenient contrivances exist because you know the author put them there

 

But within the Diagetic world of the story, the hero's victory ISN'T completely assured from the get go. and if you can forget that you're reading a book, then there's still tension offered by the villains.

 

In WOT, those contrivances exist within the diagetic world itself. You can't forgt that events are being manipulated by an author because the story keeps reminding you of it

 

As I said, the author takes into account ta'veren. The villains take it into account, and that becomes one of the conflicts in the series. He certainly could have written this novel without exploring the issue, and I honestly don't think he just chose to incorporate it for the sake of his own convenience. He does explore this issue within the series, not just use it to make things easier for him. It's not just plot convenience or contrivance.

[EmperorAllspice]

but again, what are it's limits? How come it works sometimes and not others?

 

Rand can conveniently remember stuff that allows him to do certain things at certain times. Why doesnt' her remember other things at certain times?

 

This is the issue that comes from making contrivances a system rather than something applied abstractly by an author. a system needs rules. I want to know these rules

[Agitel]

but again, what are it's limits? How come it works sometimes and not others?

 

Rand can conveniently remember stuff that allows him to do certain things at certain times. Why doesnt' her remember other things at certain times?

 

This is the issue that comes from making contrivances a system rather than something applied abstractly by an author. a system needs rules. I want to know these rules

 

Think of it as a dice toss, and when ta'veren are involved the dice are weighted. Why do they show up at their weighted values sometimes? Why not at others? It's chance. The odds may be weighted, but it's still a toss of the dice.

 

I've already described a bit of the system and the way it seems to works. And any time an issue works out in a character's favor or not in a character's favor in a novel you can ask yourself the same question, whether or not the concept of ta'veren is included. This issue just seems to break the fourth wall with you.

 

This is an issue further developed in the series and one which becomes a conflict and is explored. I've said that. It's not just something he used for his own convenience.

[EmperorAllspice]

AGAIN, the difference is that I can ignore the coincidences in other films/books/ etcetra. If two characters just happen to be in the same place at the same time, that's just luck. It happens.

 

In WOT, I can't ignore them or file them away under blind luck because it's a system within the world of the story itself. There's no reason why main characters are lucky in most stories. They just are. In WOT, there's a complex reason why and it just opens too many questions, chiefly the wondering of HOW IN THE NAME OF LIGHT DO YOU FIGHT IT!!!

[Agitel]

AGAIN, the difference is that I can ignore the coincidences in other films/books/ etcetra. If two characters just happen to be in the same place at the same time, that's just luck. It happens.

 

In WOT, I can't ignore them or file them away under blind luck because it's a system within the world of the story itself. There's no reason why main characters are lucky in most stories. They just are. In WOT, there's a complex reason why and it just opens too many questions, chiefly the wondering of HOW IN THE NAME OF LIGHT DO YOU FIGHT IT!!!

 

To be honest, I'd appreciate it if you responded to more of my posts. I understand your point. I've provided explanations to some of your questions, but instead of telling me why they aren't working for you, you just continue to say the same thing. I don't mind if you don't change your mind in the end, but it makes it hard to discuss anything when one side doesn't actually discuss anything.

 

More specifically to you wondering "HOW IN THE NAME OF LIGHT DO YOU FIGHT IT!!!" Read and find out! I've already said that the villains take it into account and try to use it to their advantage, leading up to one of the most intense sequences in the series.

[EmperorAllspice]

My best friend reccomended this series to me because he promised that the villains were effective (villains are what I care about in a story)

 

I just keep trying to figure out how they can be effective against something like Ta'veren. I don't want him to be a liar

[EmperorAllspice]

@Agitel In response to your mention of dice tossing. Mat claims later on that he gets a string of bad luck because his good luck is being stored up for something big.

 

... how does that tie in to your dice tossing analogy? and what are it's limits? Can't he just have terrible luck for a year then beat the DO accidentally with one GINORMOUS burst of good luck? Or can his body only contain a certain quota of good luck at any given time?

[Agitel]

@Agitel In response to your mention of dice tossing. Mat claims later on that he gets a string of bad luck because his good luck is being stored up for something big.

 

... how does that tie in to your dice tossing analogy? and what are it's limits? Can't he just have terrible luck for a year then beat the DO accidentally with one GINORMOUS burst of good luck? Or can his body only contain a certain quota of good luck at any given time?

 

Well, I responded to your original questions in my first post, as well. But I'm not entirely sure I remember exactly when Mat made his analysis. As for that analysis, Mat himself doesn't know the rules. It's just a gut feeling on his end. It's not some type of concrete analysis on his part. And the DO is outside the Pattern, unaffected by the Wheel's weaving anyway.

[Agitel]

My best friend reccomended this series to me because he promised that the villains were effective (villains are what I care about in a story)

 

I just keep trying to figure out how they can be effective against something like Ta'veren. I don't want him to be a liar

 

The Forsaken have done a lot of things over the series. Unfortunately, not all of it is obvious until later and upon further reflection, and it's intensely obvious on a reread. Jordan could have done a better job with this.