[Plot Specific] The nature of the Waking World (WW)

[Naggash]

Hello.

I start this topic to talk about something that has been mentioned before, but needs a new place since in AMoL we have THE huge hint about it: TAR is the Real World and the Waking World is just a fold created and maintained by the Creator, imposing his will over it to create what the characters percieve as physic laws, etc...

I had this idea for a long time but thought "nah, I'm just overthinking"; until I read a topic created by someone who shares my PoV, fionwe.

I'm posting here something that I originally planned as a response to a thread on Rand's death in Theoryland. While a lot of this is probably incoherent...thoughts?

It is in the context of "the sum of all souls" that I find TAR interesting. TAR is the sum of all the worlds, and it seems like a sort of collective unconscious. It surrounds all the worlds, is the "third constant" apart from the DO and the Creator, and it exists "between the threads of the Pattern".
It is the resting place of the Heroes (who are the course correctors of the Pattern when it strays).

More importantly, TAR is the place where humans can create. They cannot create a soul, but as we saw with Egwene's TAR-Bela, what is created there can have very real characteristics. But most importantly, a powerful Dreamwalker can rope in a soul from the "Dream pool" and take it into a folding of TAR were she/he has ultimate control.

What if that is what the Creator is doing? What if "reality" is but a folding of TAR, one which is maintained by the Creator's own will. Souls that are "alive" are roped into this fold, souls that are dead return to a "soul pool" which is exactly what the "dream pool" looks like.

This would explain several things. Why the Aiel say, "life is a dream", for one. For another, Asmodean calls the Skimming space the "dream of a dream", which also fits very neatly with this.

The Dark One also seems to have TAR levels of control over the Blight and Shayol Ghul. And the Blight has no reflection in TAR because it is "another world". What if the Dark One's corruption is basically his Power altering the rules the Creator has imposed on the fold of TAR that is "reality"?

This idea would also explain why the Wise Ones consider it so wrong to enter TAR in the flesh. Doing so, your entire soul has left "reality". In a way, you are "dead", and out of the reach of the Pattern's influence.

It would also explain why, when Rand and crew were stuck for four months in the Portal Worlds, playing out the variations, Egwene had a feeling that Rand wasn't "there". I think she, like Ishamael and Lanfear, can track ta'veren, and she was unable to feel Rand in the Pattern because he had side-stepped it for a time.

This can also give a very good explanation for how Rand is able to hold back the Dark One's touch, and why the clouds part around him. We have a very good clue what is going on:

He gathered his will. Those scents would vanish. They did, replaced with the scents of
summer. Grass, hedgehogs, beetles, moss, mice, blue-winged doves, purple finches.
They appeared, bursting to life in a circle around him.
He gritted his teeth. The reality spread from him like a wave, blackness fading from the
plants. Above him, the clouds undulated, then parted. Sunlight streamed down. The
thunder calmed.

What Perrin tried to do in TAR, Rand is able to in reality, since the moment he became one with his Champion persona. I think that is the ability the Creator grants his Champion, and while Rand may be unconscious of the mechanism of it, I think this is what he's doing, and this is why apples can grow in the matter of seconds from lifeless trees!

Basically, I think life and reality as the characters know it is a dream. It is a Dream maintained by the Creator. The Horn of Valere can bring TAR in contact with this (and any other) reality, and that is how Rand, in the end, will be able to fight the DO and Seal him away.

There's not much I can add to it, since his idea is almost exact to the one I had.

Some things I think strongly support this theory are:

-Ta'veren: They are a mechanic used by the Pattern to "correct" itself(and as the Creator is the creator of everything, this mechanic is also his doing), and how they do this? While they're Ta'veren they gain some influence over the folding of the TAR known as Waking World (or Real World although it is no so), or rather than "they gain", "they're allowed". Common people can't modify reality because when you're in the folding (Dream Shard is what they called it in AMoL? Can't remember :S) created by someone else, it is needed an extremily strong will to modify things, so what could they do without even knowing where they truly are? And when a strong Ta'veren is around, imposing his will, maybe with an extreme need, people will do and say things that wouldn't have normaly. Ta'veren slightly modify reality.

-Rand's effect: In AMoL they explain this as Rand being the positive balance of the Pattern, opposing the DO. But can this really be all there is to it? I don't think so. Vanishing the clouds above him, for example, doesn't have anything to do with balance really, it's just a direct opposition to the DO's will. And along this example many others. Maybe 200 births without indicende around Rand could be him being  the positive balance of the Pattern.  Growing a forest? Please, it can't be just that. And it is never said as fact, it's just a guess Rand makes. So MY guess is that, as fionwe states, Rand can impose his will to an extent in the WW because he is the Creator's Champion and so he is allowed to do it.

-Perrin and Slayer: How can they switch between the TAR and the WW? Easy. They are always inside TAR, they just step in or outside the Creator's folding, and they can do this at will because they're extremely powerfull Dreamwalkers.

-Waves: There are several ocassions through the series where someone does something with the One Power that he or she didn't even know. How can that be? Instint? I don't think so, if they could channel by instint something as complicated as the things they sometimes do without knowing how, they should be able to learn on their own too as we learn to walk or we learn to breath and laugh. But they can't. The control of the One Power is not something humans have by instinct. Old Blood? The only one in the series who could speak some phrases in the Old Tongue because of the "Old Blood" is Mat. Egwene for example can't even understand what Mat sais, although she sais that "she almost understood". You can't blame a wave as intrincate and powerful as the Balefire's oppossite on the Old Blood. I think this situations could be easily explained as those people imposing their will in moments of great need, and so this will manifests itself through waves of the One Power because the first thing they rely on is the Power.

-Rand final chapter AMoL: The pipe...his impossible pipe. He saw it. He saw it all and understood it all when he fought the DO outside the Pattern. It's not that the creator granted him powers or privileges...he just saw it all and now he understands, so he can modify "reality".

-Bubbles of evil: Something like nightmares in the WW, produced by the DO.

[FarShainMael]

I've had some similar thoughts myself:

 

http://www.dragonmount.com/forums/topic/69363-the-creator-the-dark-one-and-the-dragon/

 

I view Rand as an avaT'A'R... sorry!!

[Naggash]

It's dead.....sorry for the spam but I don't understand why there isn't anyone interested in this theory. 

Is there any other post that sais exactly the same?

[MauricXe]

I like the theory....it would explain the Pipe.  I don't like some of the other attached bits i.e. Perrin/Slayer, Waves , Rand's effect, etc.

 

I like to think simple phrases such as "Life is a dream" is a bit smack of foreshadowing.