Confused by Rand and the Dark One discussion

[Mr Ares]

As killing Shai'tan should not remove the ability to choose evil (as He is not the source of evil), but only the ability to choose Shai'tan (and even then it's arguable, as people choose to believe in various gods which are sufficiently contradictory that they cannot all exist - therefore it is certainly possible to choose something which doesn't exist), I think you've missed the point. The elimination of Shai'tan does not result in a loss of choice. If Rand kills Shai'tan, the Wheel keeps on turning. Rand is not God, he is not all knowing, he is human and fallible - he brought his own beliefs and assumptions to the fight with Shai'tan, and made decisions in accordance with his own limited perspective. Just because he made a choice, just because he came to an understanding, doesn't mean he is right.

[Leopoled Boothe]

I agree it's very odd. The thing that I would pint to that really confirms it makes no sense is Shadar Logoth. Shadar Logoth is a known product of human evil that opposes the Dark One and his minions.

 

If humans can't choose evil without the Dark One why does it exist?

 

If the Dark One is the product of human evil then what separates that kind of evil from the evil of Shadar Logoth?

 

Also, if the Dark One is the product of evil wouldn't destroying him just lead to a new Dark One rather than removing free will?

 

Don't get me wrong I love the series but it was rather fuzzy on that point.

 

In order to understand the role of the DO in the pattern you must understand the cosmology of the world in WOT.  In The Wheel of Time the word is made up of threads which are spun out by a cosmic wheel.  Some of those threads are human lives, and while these particular threads are in general free to choose their own path certain forces my push or pull them in particular directions.  This pushing and pulling is most exemplified by the influence of ta'vernan.  What human being perceive as the Dark One and The Creator are actually forces within the wheel that push and/or pull the threads of human lives toward particular actions, one toward more destructive actions the other toward more benign actions respectively.  This is how the DO allows humans to choose evil.  Shadar Logoth and Mahshadar came about when a man known as Mordeth made it his personal mission to destroy the Dark One.  While Mordeth was originally a good man with very good intentions he became obsessed with the idea of destroying the Dark One and eventually took on an "at all cost" attitude toward his mission and this lead him to use some questionable methods in achieving his goal.  Ultimately Mordeth began doing evil in the name of destroying the DO thus corrupting himself and the city that would become Shadar Logoth.  So what you must realize is that the forces at Shadar Logoth do not repel the DO and his minions simply because they are a different breed of evil but because they were specifically designed to do so.  The irony is that Mordeth could not have chosen to use evil in quest to destroy the DO without the DO's influence.  In his natural state (ie no bore) the DO can only allow people to make evil choices.  What specific evil choices a person makes are up to them and in the case of Mordeth he used those choices to create a force that would oppose the Dark One.

 

I think that Mordeth was included in the WOT not only as a plot device by which Saidin could be cleansed but also as an example of what Rand might have become had he not had his epiphany atop Dragonmount.  Rand was also a good man with good intentions but he, himself, was going to some rather dark places in the name of destroying the Dark One.

[Suttree]

  While Mordeth was originally a good man with very good intentions he became obsessed with the idea of destroying the Dark One and eventually took on an "at all cost" attitude toward his mission and this lead him to use some questionable methods in achieving his goal.  Ultimately Mordeth began doing evil in the name of destroying the DO thus corrupting himself and the city that would become Shadar Logoth.  So what you must realize is that the forces at Shadar Logoth do not repel the DO and his minions simply because they are a different breed of evil but because they were specifically designed to do so.  The irony is that Mordeth could not have chosen to use evil in quest to destroy the DO without the DO's influence. 

 

Some interesting quotes on the topic...

 

Interview: Nov 11th, 2009

TGS Signing Report - Tim Kington (Paraphrased)

Question

Will Fain be in the next book?

Brandon Sanderson

Padan Fain will be seen again. He's a mixture of two things—Mordeth's power, which he got by seeking out all of the evil things that weren't related to the Shadow, and the Dark One's Hound. Brandon said that Fain's number one goal is to kill Rand, and a close second is to kill the Dark One. Now that Shadar Logoth has been destroyed, all of the Mordeth power that remains in the world is in Fain.

 

Matt Hatch

...before he went to the King and became the counselor, Mordeth was this guy that went around searching for Power?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he wanted to defeat the Dark One and he felt that he could find other ways to do it [...] He originally was good. He did not...he wasn’t this terrible person to begin with but he was looking to defeat the Dark One, to find a way to defeat the Shadow. And he looked into a lot of things he shouldn’t have looked into. There are evils that are not necessarily directly related to the Dark One, though everything evil kind of has...just as there are goods that are not related necessarily to the One Power...we are talking much as Perrin runs with wolves. This is a thing older than...there are other evils things that are old in a similar way...

Matt Hatch

...is the assumption then that he found one of these?

Brandon Sanderson

He did.

Matt Hatch

He found one or multiple?

Brandon Sanderson

He found many things of darkness. There is one in specific that is driving him but he knew too much. He found things he should not have gotten into and that is what turned him into...when he got there he was already corrupt. He still thought he was doing a good work. He still thought we are going to raise this Kingdom up and it is going to become this bastion against the Shadow, but he was already by then corrupted.

Matt Hatch

Is this same corrupting influence what corrupts everyone through the dagger itself?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Through him, yes. And even through his presence.

 

We know he got some of the info from Finnland as well. Hope we get more on this in the encyclopedia.

[Heloc]

 

 

 

Just has they have lost the ability to choose benign actions, the people of the DO free world have lost the choice to perform destructive actions and thus free will no longer exists.

Doesn't follow. Unless you contend that it is impossible to choose between two benign actions, the inability to choose destructive actions should not negate free will.

 Absent the ability to choose evil, you would always choose the action that you saw as the MOST good.

That doesn't follow either - just because all the possible actions you can choose between are good, doesn't mean you are forced to choose the actions that provide the greatest good. Just because someone is compelled to do good, doesn't mean they are compelled to do the greatest good.

 

Frankly, I think Rand's "perfect" world tells us more more about Rand's inability to truly picture a world without evil than it does show us what a world without evil would truly be like. Shai'tan came close to victory at Dragonmount, and those scars have yet to fade. Even in his defiance, he cannot achieve true victory, and settles for a delay, a continuation of the cycle. I guess Elan Morin had a point.

 

 

Think about it this way, if 10 is the most good you could be doing and -10 is the most evil thing you could be doing, choosing to do anything less then a 10 is choosing do to something that is more evil than whatever action the 10 is.  Doing something that rates a 9 on our scale is still great but it's not as good.  This is a little abstract but let's say that you do something that rates as a 10 and something else that rates as a -1.  So you did the most good you could do and then added a tiny little bit of evil.  That's not so bad since 10 + -1 = 9.  Absent the DO, a -1 is simply not an option so you're stuck with just the 10.  In a sense, a 9 is just a 10 with a bit of evil added to it.  Without the existence of the DO, you cannot choose any amount of evil, the option doesn't exist.

 

I suppose it has to do with how you want to interpret this line:

"If you have no choice,  then you aren’t a man at all.  You’re a puppet  .  .  ."

 

To me, that says, if you have no choice between creator or DO, you're a puppet.  You have no free will because your actions are not your own and are dictated by the puppeteer.  The creator, if Rand kills the DO, the DO if he defeats Rand.

 

Personally, I think that the creator created the DO to oppose himself in order to allow free will to exist.  He then created The Dragon to oppose the DO as a safety mechanism should humans ever bore outside of the patter into the DO's prison (allowing the DO access to the pattern).  Kind of like those giant, automated industrial weaving machines.  You put all the threads in place, program in if/when to switch to different threads on the warp and/or weft and any other settings.  In other words, you crate all the rules and then let the machine do it's thing.  Given that the whole thing is based on the weaving wheel analogy, I think it works pretty well.  It's just that this weaver is unfathomably complex.

[Heloc]

 

  While Mordeth was originally a good man with very good intentions he became obsessed with the idea of destroying the Dark One and eventually took on an "at all cost" attitude toward his mission and this lead him to use some questionable methods in achieving his goal.  Ultimately Mordeth began doing evil in the name of destroying the DO thus corrupting himself and the city that would become Shadar Logoth.  So what you must realize is that the forces at Shadar Logoth do not repel the DO and his minions simply because they are a different breed of evil but because they were specifically designed to do so.  The irony is that Mordeth could not have chosen to use evil in quest to destroy the DO without the DO's influence. 

 

Some interesting quotes on the topic...

 

Interview: Nov 11th, 2009

TGS Signing Report - Tim Kington (Paraphrased)

Question

Will Fain be in the next book?

Brandon Sanderson

Padan Fain will be seen again. He's a mixture of two things—Mordeth's power, which he got by seeking out all of the evil things that weren't related to the Shadow, and the Dark One's Hound. Brandon said that Fain's number one goal is to kill Rand, and a close second is to kill the Dark One. Now that Shadar Logoth has been destroyed, all of the Mordeth power that remains in the world is in Fain.

 

Matt Hatch

...before he went to the King and became the counselor, Mordeth was this guy that went around searching for Power?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah, he wanted to defeat the Dark One and he felt that he could find other ways to do it [...] He originally was good. He did not...he wasn’t this terrible person to begin with but he was looking to defeat the Dark One, to find a way to defeat the Shadow. And he looked into a lot of things he shouldn’t have looked into. There are evils that are not necessarily directly related to the Dark One, though everything evil kind of has...just as there are goods that are not related necessarily to the One Power...we are talking much as Perrin runs with wolves. This is a thing older than...there are other evils things that are old in a similar way...

Matt Hatch

...is the assumption then that he found one of these?

Brandon Sanderson

He did.

Matt Hatch

He found one or multiple?

Brandon Sanderson

He found many things of darkness. There is one in specific that is driving him but he knew too much. He found things he should not have gotten into and that is what turned him into...when he got there he was already corrupt. He still thought he was doing a good work. He still thought we are going to raise this Kingdom up and it is going to become this bastion against the Shadow, but he was already by then corrupted.

Matt Hatch

Is this same corrupting influence what corrupts everyone through the dagger itself?

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Through him, yes. And even through his presence.

 

We know he got some of the info from Finnland as well. Hope we get more on this in the encyclopedia.

 

 

This still fits with the "Shai'tan" is the source of all evil idea though.  All this is saying (the way I read it) is that Mordeth sought out sources of evil from before the bore was made when the DO only existed as an abstract concept.  Evil doesn't exist without the DO but without the bore, the DO doesn't exist within the pattern.  Evil exists, Shai'tan doesn't.  So, anything that's evil before the bore must be independent of the DO.

[Suttree]

Personally, I think that the creator created the DO to oppose himself in order to allow free will to exist. 

 

We know he didn't.

 

Interview: Jun 26th, 1996

Compuserve Chat (Verbatim)

Martin Reznick

How was the Dark One created, i.e. is he a fallen angel, an inherent part of the universe, etc.?

Robert Jordan

I envision the Dark One as being the dark counterpart, the dark balance if you will, to the Creator...carrying on the theme, the ying yang, light dark, necessity of balance theme that has run through the books. It's somewhat Manichean I know, but I think it works.

 

[Heloc]

 

Personally, I think that the creator created the DO to oppose himself in order to allow free will to exist. 

 

We know he didn't.

 

Interview: Jun 26th, 1996

Compuserve Chat (Verbatim)

Martin Reznick

How was the Dark One created, i.e. is he a fallen angel, an inherent part of the universe, etc.?

Robert Jordan

I envision the Dark One as being the dark counterpart, the dark balance if you will, to the Creator...carrying on the theme, the ying yang, light dark, necessity of balance theme that has run through the books. It's somewhat Manichean I know, but I think it works.

 

 

 

That doesn't contradict my interpretation.  The creator could have created the DO as that dark balance.  I can imagine the creator's internal monologue.

 

"What should I do today? Right, time doesn't exist yet.  I know!  I'll create the universe."

 

"Let's see, we'll need some rules about time and matter function, ah here we go.  What else?  Planets...oh, how about some life forms to live on them."

 

"Okay, everything looks set.  GO!"

 

"Hmm, this is kind of boring.  Shit, I made all made all the rules so I know how everything will play out.  Those..people, yeah I'll call them people, don't have any choice do they?  Like, I'm good so everything is a reflection of myself since I made all the rules."

 

"I've got it!  I need an opposite to balance me out.  I can do that right?  Of course I can, I'm omnipotent."

 

"So, this 'dark one' will need to exist outside of time just like me so we'll have to lock him away outside of my beautiful pattern."

 

"Hmmm, this looks good but what if they figure out how to access my essence (the one power)?  They could use that to like, drill into that guy's prison and he could start messing up my age lace.  Well, it's bound to happen.  I guess I could just torch the whole thing and start over.  Well, the other guy will be just like me except have opposing goals so maybe I won't be able to.  Ah ha!  We'll just create a reoccurring adversary within the pattern."

 

"All right, off we go!"

 

"I have no idea what's going to happen!  WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

 

It's kind of comforting idea because I can assume that, although the DO is just as powerful as the Creator, the Dragon always has all the tools he needs to defeat him.  In other words, it always comes down to getting the Dragon to give up and let the DO win but the Dragon never will because that's the way the creator made him.

[Mr Ares]

 

 

 

 

Just has they have lost the ability to choose benign actions, the people of the DO free world have lost the choice to perform destructive actions and thus free will no longer exists.

Doesn't follow. Unless you contend that it is impossible to choose between two benign actions, the inability to choose destructive actions should not negate free will.

 

 Absent the ability to choose evil, you would always choose the action that you saw as the MOST good.

 

That doesn't follow either - just because all the possible actions you can choose between are good, doesn't mean you are forced to choose the actions that provide the greatest good. Just because someone is compelled to do good, doesn't mean they are compelled to do the greatest good.

 

Frankly, I think Rand's "perfect" world tells us more more about Rand's inability to truly picture a world without evil than it does show us what a world without evil would truly be like. Shai'tan came close to victory at Dragonmount, and those scars have yet to fade. Even in his defiance, he cannot achieve true victory, and settles for a delay, a continuation of the cycle. I guess Elan Morin had a point.

 

 

Think about it this way, if 10 is the most good you could be doing and -10 is the most evil thing you could be doing, choosing to do anything less then a 10 is choosing do to something that is more evil than whatever action the 10 is.

 

Or just less good. You see, on your scale a zero would be an action which is not good, but also not evil. Is evil just an absence of good or is it a thing in its own right? If the former, more good and less evil are synonymous, but if the latter then "less good" doesn't have to include any evil.

 

I suppose it has to do with how you want to interpret this line:

"If you have no choice,  then you aren’t a man at all.  You’re a puppet  .  .  ."

 

To me, that says, if you have no choice between creator or DO, you're a puppet.  You have no free will because your actions are not your own and are dictated by the puppeteer.  The creator, if Rand kills the DO, the DO if he defeats Rand.

To me, it says what it says: if you have no choice [at all] you're a puppet. Choices exist outside of the choice between Creator and Shai'tan.

 

Personally, I think that the creator created the DO to oppose himself in order to allow free will to exist.  He then created The Dragon to oppose the DO as a safety mechanism should humans ever bore outside of the patter into the DO's prison (allowing the DO access to the pattern).  Kind of like those giant, automated industrial weaving machines.  You put all the threads in place, program in if/when to switch to different threads on the warp and/or weft and any other settings.  In other words, you crate all the rules and then let the machine do it's thing.  Given that the whole thing is based on the weaving wheel analogy, I think it works pretty well.  It's just that this weaver is unfathomably complex.

Given RJ's comments on Shai'tan being the "dark counterpart" to the Creator (which Suttree has already provided), that seems doubtful. Not just the dark counterpart, but the yin/yang and Manichean references - unlike monotheistic Christianity, in which the Devil is less than God, RJ's comments are consistent with a dualistic theology, two beings who are equal and opposite. Also note the context: it was in response to a question on how Shai'tan came to be, and "he is the dark balance" and "he was created by the Creator to be his dark balance" are very different answers, with the latter being utterly unsupported.

 

 

I agree it's very odd. The thing that I would pint to that really confirms it makes no sense is Shadar Logoth. Shadar Logoth is a known product of human evil that opposes the Dark One and his minions.

 

If humans can't choose evil without the Dark One why does it exist?

 

If the Dark One is the product of human evil then what separates that kind of evil from the evil of Shadar Logoth?

 

Also, if the Dark One is the product of evil wouldn't destroying him just lead to a new Dark One rather than removing free will?

 

Don't get me wrong I love the series but it was rather fuzzy on that point.

 

In order to understand the role of the DO in the pattern you must understand the cosmology of the world in WOT.  In The Wheel of Time the word is made up of threads which are spun out by a cosmic wheel.  Some of those threads are human lives, and while these particular threads are in general free to choose their own path certain forces my push or pull them in particular directions.  This pushing and pulling is most exemplified by the influence of ta'vernan.  What human being perceive as the Dark One and The Creator are actually forces within the wheel that push and/or pull the threads of human lives toward particular actions, one toward more destructive actions the other toward more benign actions respectively.

Actually, both Shai'tan and the Creator exist outside the Wheel, not as forces within it, and the Creator doesn't really bother pushing anyone towards any actions.

[Suttree]

It's kind of comforting idea because I can assume that, although the DO is just as powerful as the Creator, the Dragon always has all the tools he needs to defeat him.  In other words, it always comes down to getting the Dragon to give up and let the DO win but the Dragon never will because that's the way the creator made him.

 

Actually we know the Dragon Soul has gone over to the DO and it is possible for the DO to win...

 

Robert Jordan

Yes, the Champion of the Light has gone over in the past. This is a game you have to win every time. Or rather, that you can only lose once—you can stay in if you get a draw. Think of a tournament with single elimination. If you lose once, that's it. In the past, when the Champion of the Light has gone over to the Shadow, the result has been a draw.

[Heloc]

 Personally, I think that the creator created the DO to oppose himself in order to allow free will to exist.  He then created The Dragon to oppose the DO as a safety mechanism should humans ever bore outside of the patter into the DO's prison (allowing the DO access to the pattern).  Kind of like those giant, automated industrial weaving machines.  You put all the threads in place, program in if/when to switch to different threads on the warp and/or weft and any other settings.  In other words, you crate all the rules and then let the machine do it's thing.  Given that the whole thing is based on the weaving wheel analogy, I think it works pretty well.  It's just that this weaver is unfathomably complex.

Given RJ's comments on Shai'tan being the "dark counterpart" to the Creator (which Suttree has already provided), that seems doubtful. Not just the dark counterpart, but the yin/yang and Manichean references - unlike monotheistic Christianity, in which the Devil is less than God, RJ's comments are consistent with a dualistic theology, two beings who are equal and opposite. Also note the context: it was in response to a question on how Shai'tan came to be, and "he is the dark balance" and "he was created by the Creator to be his dark balance" are very different answers, with the latter being utterly unsupported.

 

True but it's also not really important to the story and kind of outside of the scope of the books to get into.

 

Besides, the nice thing about dealing with deities like that is contradictory things can be true.  If the creator and the dark one exist outside of time then even if the creator created the dark one, the dark one has still always existed.  So "the dark exists and has always existed as the creator's counterpart" is just as true as "the creator created the dark one and sealed him in the prison."  In the same way, the dark one exists outside of the patter and yet still touches it and the dark one is both the concept of evil/destruction/chaos and the physical manifestation of those things yet still doesn't physically exist in a way that we comprehend.  The bore doesn't really exist as a place and yet is located at Shayo ghul.  There is also no reason why the creator couldn't have created the dark one as his equal.  It's not an idea that christian theology accepts but this isn't christian theology.

 

The fact that ying/yang are abstract concepts/cosmic forces but in the book the dark one exists physically in some sense and has a personality suggests to me that there is some gray area that may support my interpretation.

 

 

 I suppose it has to do with how you want to interpret this line:
"If you have no choice,  then you aren’t a man at all.  You’re a puppet  .  .  ."
 
To me, that says, if you have no choice between creator or DO, you're a puppet.  You have no free will because your actions are not your own and are dictated by the puppeteer.  The creator, if Rand kills the DO, the DO if he defeats Rand.

To me, it says what it says: if you have no choice [at all] you're a puppet. Choices exist outside of the choice between Creator and Shai'tan.

 

 

See I think the point, given the context where that line is written, is that without the choice between light and dark, all of your other choices become irrelevant.  With the DO destroyed, everything everyone does will be driven by their lack of choice.  They will always do the most good they are able and become utterly predictable.  People are still choosing to do good, in a sense, but the outcome of their decisions are 100% predictable, are they really making a choice?  Furthermore, they don't even have a choice of WHY they are doing what they're doing.  They're doing it because it's good, not because they choose to or they have to, there aren't any other options.  Choice may still exist but puppets don't make choices, puppets don't have free will, they move according to the will of the puppeteer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just has they have lost the ability to choose benign actions, the people of the DO free world have lost the choice to perform destructive actions and thus free will no longer exists.

Doesn't follow. Unless you contend that it is impossible to choose between two benign actions, the inability to choose destructive actions should not negate free will.

 

 Absent the ability to choose evil, you would always choose the action that you saw as the MOST good.

 

That doesn't follow either - just because all the possible actions you can choose between are good, doesn't mean you are forced to choose the actions that provide the greatest good. Just because someone is compelled to do good, doesn't mean they are compelled to do the greatest good.
 
Frankly, I think Rand's "perfect" world tells us more more about Rand's inability to truly picture a world without evil than it does show us what a world without evil would truly be like. Shai'tan came close to victory at Dragonmount, and those scars have yet to fade. Even in his defiance, he cannot achieve true victory, and settles for a delay, a continuation of the cycle. I guess Elan Morin had a point.

 

 
Think about it this way, if 10 is the most good you could be doing and -10 is the most evil thing you could be doing, choosing to do anything less then a 10 is choosing do to something that is more evil than whatever action the 10 is.

 

Or just less good. You see, on your scale a zero would be an action which is not good, but also not evil. Is evil just an absence of good or is it a thing in its own right? If the former, more good and less evil are synonymous, but if the latter then "less good" doesn't have to include any evil.

 

Yes, all of those.  10 - 1 and 10 + -1 are both the same thing right?  You could say that the first is perfect good with a little of the good taken away and the second is perfect good with a little evil added in but they're both 9.  It's the kind of contradiction that allows Padan Fain to be utterly evil and yet fight the dark one.

 

However, I think that without the existence of the dark one anything less than a 10 doesn't exist, at least not for humans.  If you read the "puppets" line as meaning that humans no longer have free will, then I think you're stuck with the "evil is the absence of good" interpretation whether you agree with it or not.  It's the only way that a lack of choice between light and dark results in a lack of free will.

[Heloc]

 

It's kind of comforting idea because I can assume that, although the DO is just as powerful as the Creator, the Dragon always has all the tools he needs to defeat him.  In other words, it always comes down to getting the Dragon to give up and let the DO win but the Dragon never will because that's the way the creator made him.

 

Actually we know the Dragon Soul has gone over to the DO and it is possible for the DO to win...

 

Robert Jordan

Yes, the Champion of the Light has gone over in the past. This is a game you have to win every time. Or rather, that you can only lose once—you can stay in if you get a draw. Think of a tournament with single elimination. If you lose once, that's it. In the past, when the Champion of the Light has gone over to the Shadow, the result has been a draw.

 

 

He doesn't really say what happens though.  All he says is that if the Dragon goes over to the dark one, the result is a draw, not a loss.  It kind of contradicts the events at Shayo ghul where the DO offers the "break the wheel and we all get the end of existence and oblivion" as the compromise.  It implies that the "draw" is the end of existence while a loss is that the world gets remade according to the dark one's will.  The latter at least leaves open the possibility for the Dragon to be reborn and re-seal the prison, the former does not.  Of course, it be that what the dark one REALLY wants to break the wheel and destroy existence, he just offers it as a compromise to Rand because he needs Rand's help to make it happen (at that time) and it's the only way he thinks Rand will go for it.  If that is the case then a draw is the dark one remaking the world, a win is re-sealing the prison, and a loss is the end of existence.  If so, I assert that the creator engineered to the pattern such that the Dragon is required to allow the dark one to break the will and the Dragon is incapable of doing so.

[Suttree]

He says "if you lose once" it's over. That means it's possible. We also have...

 

 

Robert Jordan

Given that time is cyclic, you must assume that there is a time when the prison that holds the Dark One is whole and unbroken. There is a time when a hole is drilled into that prison and it is thus open to that degree. And there is a time when the opening has been patched in a make-shift manner. But following this line the cyclic nature of time means that we have at some time in the future inevitably a whole and unbroken prison again. Unless of course, the Dark One breaks free in which case all bets are off, kick over the table and run for the window.

 

&

 

 

Interview: Nov 1st, 1998

SciFi.com Chat (Verbatim)

Rothaar

When Rand takes Verin and the others through a Portal Stone in The Great Hunt, at the end of each life he hears "I have won again Lews Therin". I thought that if the Dark One won even once the Wheel would be broken and therefore the Dragon would not be reborn again. How could the Dark One have won before to be able to say "again"?

Robert Jordan

There are degrees of victory. The Dark One can achieve victory by breaking free, but can also achieve lesser victories. Such as by stopping the Dragon Reborn from doing other things he was born to do. It isn't as simple as him being born to fight The Dark One. It's never simple.

[Leopoled Boothe]

In order to understand the role of the DO in the pattern you must understand the cosmology of the world in WOT.  In The Wheel of Time the word is made up of threads which are spun out by a cosmic wheel.  Some of those threads are human lives, and while these particular threads are in general free to choose their own path certain forces my push or pull them in particular directions.  This pushing and pulling is most exemplified by the influence of ta'vernan.  What human being perceive as the Dark One and The Creator are actually forces within the wheel that push and/or pull the threads of human lives toward particular actions, one toward more destructive actions the other toward more benign actions respectively.

Actually, both Shai'tan and the Creator exist outside the Wheel, not as forces within it, and the Creator doesn't really bother pushing anyone towards any actions.

 

 

 

 

That is certainly what the people of that world believe, but one of the beautiful things about WOT is that the long held beliefs of the people can sometimes be wrong.  Throughout the series the people believe and take it as fact that the DO is something completely alien to the pattern and that he exists outside of and completely separate from it.  However, one of the big twists at the end of the story is that, surprises surprise, the DO is in fact part of the pattern and plays a very important role within it.  This idea is first suggested by Moiraine at the Fields of M and Rand finds it to true through is interactions with the DO.  I admit that much of the above is based on my personal theories but they make sense within the cosmology of the wheel of time.  We know that the DO's purpose is to allow human beings to make evil (or destructive) choices, we know that threads of the pattern can be pushed and pulled by forces within it.  We know that the Creator is the equal and opposite of the DO (RJ said as much).  Thus, if the DO is the force that allows humans to choose evil then the Creator must be the force the allows them to choose good.  

[Suttree]

That is certainly what the people of that world believe, but one of the beautiful things about WOT is that the long held beliefs of the people can sometimes be wrong.  

 

True but in this case they weren't...

Robert Jordan

The threads work in the way, in the same way that the thread of any living thing works. It is part of the Pattern. They are not outside of the Pattern. Neither are the Forsaken. But the Pattern in a thing that is open, that's change. It is not a matter of the lives being forced necessarily. It's wide, you have the Pattern, the Heroes that are bound to the Wheel, they're not always heroes in the way of someone who rides in galloping with a sword, or carries out daring rescues. The people, the Heroes who are bound to the Wheel, are the corrective mechanisms. Human behavior is throwing the Pattern out. It's throwing the balance off. And the Wheel spins out the proper correctives. Put everything back in the balance. So not even the Forsaken are apart from that, they're not outside. The only things that are outside are the Creator and the Dark One. Neither is affected by the Pattern.

[Heloc]

 

That is certainly what the people of that world believe, but one of the beautiful things about WOT is that the long held beliefs of the people can sometimes be wrong.  

 

True but in this case they weren't...

Robert Jordan

The threads work in the way, in the same way that the thread of any living thing works. It is part of the Pattern. They are not outside of the Pattern. Neither are the Forsaken. But the Pattern in a thing that is open, that's change. It is not a matter of the lives being forced necessarily. It's wide, you have the Pattern, the Heroes that are bound to the Wheel, they're not always heroes in the way of someone who rides in galloping with a sword, or carries out daring rescues. The people, the Heroes who are bound to the Wheel, are the corrective mechanisms. Human behavior is throwing the Pattern out. It's throwing the balance off. And the Wheel spins out the proper correctives. Put everything back in the balance. So not even the Forsaken are apart from that, they're not outside. The only things that are outside are the Creator and the Dark One. Neither is affected by the Pattern.

 

 

The pattern might not the dark one but the dark definitely affects the pattern.  The creator likely CAN affect the pattern but he chooses not to.  Or, maybe he touches the pattern but only in very subtle ways.

 

The point that Leopoled is trying to make is that the people of the world think that the dark one is like a bacterial infection.  He isn't supposed to be there at all and it's best to eradicate him completely.  Rand finds out that he is more like gut flora.  That bacteria is fine and is actually required for your body to properly function as long as they're contained where they're supposed to be.  If your intestines rupture and those bacteria end up outside of your GI tract though, they'll do all kinds of damage to your other vital organs and you'll be in on your death bed in a hurry.  Likewise, if you kill all of the bacteria completely, your body won't be able to absorb nutrition and you'll die if left untreated.

[Suttree]

 

 

That is certainly what the people of that world believe, but one of the beautiful things about WOT is that the long held beliefs of the people can sometimes be wrong.  

 

True but in this case they weren't...

Robert Jordan

The threads work in the way, in the same way that the thread of any living thing works. It is part of the Pattern. They are not outside of the Pattern. Neither are the Forsaken. But the Pattern in a thing that is open, that's change. It is not a matter of the lives being forced necessarily. It's wide, you have the Pattern, the Heroes that are bound to the Wheel, they're not always heroes in the way of someone who rides in galloping with a sword, or carries out daring rescues. The people, the Heroes who are bound to the Wheel, are the corrective mechanisms. Human behavior is throwing the Pattern out. It's throwing the balance off. And the Wheel spins out the proper correctives. Put everything back in the balance. So not even the Forsaken are apart from that, they're not outside. The only things that are outside are the Creator and the Dark One. Neither is affected by the Pattern.

 

 

The pattern might not the dark one but the dark definitely affects the pattern.  The creator likely CAN affect the pattern but he chooses not to.  Or, maybe he touches the pattern but only in very subtle ways.

 

The point that Leopoled is trying to make is that the people of the world think that the dark one is like a bacterial infection.  He isn't supposed to be there at all and it's best to eradicate him completely.  Rand finds out that he is more like gut flora.  That bacteria is fine and is actually required for your body to properly function as long as they're contained where they're supposed to be.  If your intestines rupture and those bacteria end up outside of your GI tract though, they'll do all kinds of damage to your other vital organs and you'll be in on your death bed in a hurry.  Likewise, if you kill all of the bacteria completely, your body won't be able to absorb nutrition and you'll die if left untreated.

 

 

 He claimed they are forces within the wheel which isn't true. RJ has explained it already and also has said that the Creator does nothing to influence events. At this point you have been attempting to spin multiple quotes that show many of your theories to be off. Why not reassess the situation now that you have more info?

 

Oh and as an aside, the only time anyone thought to eradicate the DO totally was Rand when he was at his darkest.

[Heloc]

I'm not arguing that, I'm saying that you're focusing on irrelevant details or a poor choice of words and missing the larger point.  It's not about whether or not the dark one exists within the pattern but whether or not the dark one is a component of the system or an outside influence that shouldn't exist.  Rand believes that the DO should be destroyed if possible but then finds out that for the pattern to function as it is intended, the DO one must exist.

[Cybertrolloc]

I'm sympathetic, and probably everyone posting is.

 

It'd be great if there were more to this part of the story/cosmology than we got, but whether it's ball-dropping or never there to begin with, it hasn't shown up in the books.

 

Even if you play the game of when Min is sure of something (in some instances Rand) it's fact, but I doubt you can pull out something coherent that others will see as the only valid interpretation.

[Heloc]

Here's the thing.  Tolkien kind of set some expectations with the Lord of the Rings.  The man obsessively fleshed out his fantasy world writing "The Silmarillion" that was only ever kinda-sorta intended to stand on it's own.  Mostly it became background for the "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit."  None of what is written in "The Silmarillion" is really required to understand LotR but it helps that world make a little more sense and be a little more internally consistent.  I get this sense that everyone would like to have something like "The Silmarillion" for every other fantasy series but that just isn't normal.

 

Sometimes I get the sense that authors don't really think out and codify their worlds beyond what is needed for the story their writing.  Then, in a later interview, an author gets asked about some background aspect of the story they wrote and that ends up being the first time that it gets written in stone, so to speak, but they don't have access to their notes and they might be considering everything that they've written in every novel in that series or what they intend to write in future of that series.  Further more they might have a good idea of where they want the story to go and how to get there but they don't have all the details fully formed yet.  It's isn't like, later on, they'll say, "Ah, I know how to handle this piece!  Wait, I said that thing in that interview and what I want to do now contradicts that.  Guess I'll have to think of some other approach."

 

I honestly think it makes a story better to make some of the background stuff vague.  It lets the reader fill in the details on their own with whatever they like best.  I think that "Wolverine" became on of the most popular comic book characters in part because he didn't have an origin story (for a long, long time) and most of his past was intentionally vague.  It had been made clear that some things were fabricated (either by someone else or by the character's own mind) but they didn't reveal which things really did happen and which didn't (some but not all).  As a result, the reader is able to basically pick and choose the details that they like best.  The author's conception of Wolverine might be totally different then yours but both are totally accurate.

 

So, if RJ said something in an interview about the world of the WoT and it helps you understand the story better or just helps you enjoy it more, great!  That works.  If you don't like or you like your version better, that's totally okay too!  The only thing that you can really consider to be chiseled in stone is what's written on the pages.  Everything else is subject to YOUR interpretation and no one else's.  All anyone else can do if offer you options.  If you like them, great.  If you don't ignore them.

[Leopoled Boothe]

 

 

 

That is certainly what the people of that world believe, but one of the beautiful things about WOT is that the long held beliefs of the people can sometimes be wrong.  

 

True but in this case they weren't...

Robert Jordan

The threads work in the way, in the same way that the thread of any living thing works. It is part of the Pattern. They are not outside of the Pattern. Neither are the Forsaken. But the Pattern in a thing that is open, that's change. It is not a matter of the lives being forced necessarily. It's wide, you have the Pattern, the Heroes that are bound to the Wheel, they're not always heroes in the way of someone who rides in galloping with a sword, or carries out daring rescues. The people, the Heroes who are bound to the Wheel, are the corrective mechanisms. Human behavior is throwing the Pattern out. It's throwing the balance off. And the Wheel spins out the proper correctives. Put everything back in the balance. So not even the Forsaken are apart from that, they're not outside. The only things that are outside are the Creator and the Dark One. Neither is affected by the Pattern.

 

 

The pattern might not the dark one but the dark definitely affects the pattern.  The creator likely CAN affect the pattern but he chooses not to.  Or, maybe he touches the pattern but only in very subtle ways.

 

The point that Leopoled is trying to make is that the people of the world think that the dark one is like a bacterial infection.  He isn't supposed to be there at all and it's best to eradicate him completely.  Rand finds out that he is more like gut flora.  That bacteria is fine and is actually required for your body to properly function as long as they're contained where they're supposed to be.  If your intestines rupture and those bacteria end up outside of your GI tract though, they'll do all kinds of damage to your other vital organs and you'll be in on your death bed in a hurry.  Likewise, if you kill all of the bacteria completely, your body won't be able to absorb nutrition and you'll die if left untreated.

 

 

 He claimed they are forces within the wheel which isn't true. RJ has explained it already and also has said that the Creator does nothing to influence events. At this point you have been attempting to spin multiple quotes that show many of your theories to be off. Why not reassess the situation now that you have more info?

 

Oh and as an aside, the only time anyone thought to eradicate the DO totally was Rand when he was at his darkest.

 

 

Well, the real point I was trying to make was that the the existence of Shadar Logoth does not contradict the ending of WOT.  I was attempting to explain exactly why the forces within SL oppose The Shadow and  while these evil forces did not come from the Dark One they could not have come to be with out his existence.  The evil forces within SL did not come from the DO, but Mordeth's choice to create them did.  Unfortunately no one focused on this aspect of my original reply.

[Mr Ares]

Besides, the nice thing about dealing with deities like that is contradictory things can be true.  If the creator and the dark one exist outside of time then even if the creator created the dark one, the dark one has still always existed.

But as Shai'tan says "EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE OF TIME", the idea that He and the Creator are outside time is, again, unsupported - they are outside the Pattern, not necessarily time.

The bore doesn't really exist as a place and yet is located at Shayo ghul.

No, the Bore exists everywhere. There is a thinness in the Pattern at SG that allows the Bore to be clearly felt, but it is not the Bore itself.  There is also no reason why the creator couldn't have created the dark one as his equal.  It's not an idea that christian theology accepts but this isn't christian theology.

 

 

 

I suppose it has to do with how you want to interpret this line:

"If you have no choice,  then you aren’t a man at all.  You’re a puppet  .  .  ."

 

To me, that says, if you have no choice between creator or DO, you're a puppet.  You have no free will because your actions are not your own and are dictated by the puppeteer.  The creator, if Rand kills the DO, the DO if he defeats Rand.

To me, it says what it says: if you have no choice [at all] you're a puppet. Choices exist outside of the choice between Creator and Shai'tan.

See I think the point, given the context where that line is written, is that without the choice between light and dark, all of your other choices become irrelevant.  With the DO destroyed, everything everyone does will be driven by their lack of choice.  They will always do the most good they are able and become utterly predictable.  People are still choosing to do good, in a sense, but the outcome of their decisions are 100% predictable, are they really making a choice?  Furthermore, they don't even have a choice of WHY they are doing what they're doing.  They're doing it because it's good, not because they choose to or they have to, there aren't any other options.  Choice may still exist but puppets don't make choices, puppets don't have free will, they move according to the will of the puppeteer.

What reason do we have to believe that the lack of Shai'tan results in a lack of free will? The world created by Rand. As already stated, this is a world shaped by Rand's mind, and he is not a perfect creator with lots of experience of shaping worlds. I think it far more likely he simply made things wrong - we have no reason to believe this is truly what would happen. The idea that Shai'tan is somehow integral to our freedom of choice is poorly supported, and doesn't really make a lot of sense. In the context of a series that has always understood that knowledge can be incomplete and misleading, it makes far more sense that Rand's knowledge remains incomplete and misleading to the end. Thematically, it is more appropriate that Rand is wrong than that he is right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just has they have lost the ability to choose benign actions, the people of the DO free world have lost the choice to perform destructive actions and thus free will no longer exists.

Doesn't follow. Unless you contend that it is impossible to choose between two benign actions, the inability to choose destructive actions should not negate free will.

 Absent the ability to choose evil, you would always choose the action that you saw as the MOST good.

That doesn't follow either - just because all the possible actions you can choose between are good, doesn't mean you are forced to choose the actions that provide the greatest good. Just because someone is compelled to do good, doesn't mean they are compelled to do the greatest good.

 

Frankly, I think Rand's "perfect" world tells us more more about Rand's inability to truly picture a world without evil than it does show us what a world without evil would truly be like. Shai'tan came close to victory at Dragonmount, and those scars have yet to fade. Even in his defiance, he cannot achieve true victory, and settles for a delay, a continuation of the cycle. I guess Elan Morin had a point.

 Think about it this way, if 10 is the most good you could be doing and -10 is the most evil thing you could be doing, choosing to do anything less then a 10 is choosing do to something that is more evil than whatever action the 10 is.

Or just less good. You see, on your scale a zero would be an action which is not good, but also not evil. Is evil just an absence of good or is it a thing in its own right? If the former, more good and less evil are synonymous, but if the latter then "less good" doesn't have to include any evil.

Yes, all of those.  10 - 1 and 10 + -1 are both the same thing right?  You could say that the first is perfect good with a little of the good taken away and the second is perfect good with a little evil added in but they're both 9.  It's the kind of contradiction that allows Padan Fain to be utterly evil and yet fight the dark one.

 

However, I think that without the existence of the dark one anything less than a 10 doesn't exist, at least not for humans.  If you read the "puppets" line as meaning that humans no longer have free will, then I think you're stuck with the "evil is the absence of good" interpretation whether you agree with it or not.  It's the only way that a lack of choice between light and dark results in a lack of free will.

Mathematically, 10-1 and 10+-1 might be the same, but we're not talking about maths, and mathematical analogies don't always make sense. If evil is a concept in its own right, then an action can be less good without containing any evil. (I also think it's worth noting that RJ did describe Shai'tan in similar terms to the Finns - he stated that the Finns were not "evil" so much as they were simply alien, but that they might appear evil to us. He also described Shai'tan as being inhuman, and said that thinking of Him in human terms didn't work. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that trying to make Him a being of "pure evil" is unhelpful - He is not evil, He is alien. The Chosen are evil.) Given that choices made do not exist on a binary spectrum of good or evil, right or wrong (it is, after all, possible to make amoral choices), it doesn't make sense that a lack of ability to choose between light and dark would result in a lack of free will. It simply doesn't follow. We either accept that Rand has a perfect understanding and the underlying metaphysics of the universe make no sense, or that Rand (whose understanding is shown to be flawed so often) has an imperfect understanding. 

 

 

 

In order to understand the role of the DO in the pattern you must understand the cosmology of the world in WOT.  In The Wheel of Time the word is made up of threads which are spun out by a cosmic wheel.  Some of those threads are human lives, and while these particular threads are in general free to choose their own path certain forces my push or pull them in particular directions.  This pushing and pulling is most exemplified by the influence of ta'vernan.  What human being perceive as the Dark One and The Creator are actually forces within the wheel that push and/or pull the threads of human lives toward particular actions, one toward more destructive actions the other toward more benign actions respectively.

Actually, both Shai'tan and the Creator exist outside the Wheel, not as forces within it, and the Creator doesn't really bother pushing anyone towards any actions.

 That is certainly what the people of that world believe, but one of the beautiful things about WOT is that the long held beliefs of the people can sometimes be wrong.  Throughout the series the people believe and take it as fact that the DO is something completely alien to the pattern and that he exists outside of and completely separate from it.  However, one of the big twists at the end of the story is that, surprises surprise, the DO is in fact part of the pattern and plays a very important role within it.  This idea is first suggested by Moiraine at the Fields of M and Rand finds it to true through is interactions with the DO.  I admit that much of the above is based on my personal theories but they make sense within the cosmology of the wheel of time.  We know that the DO's purpose is to allow human beings to make evil (or destructive) choices, we know that threads of the pattern can be pushed and pulled by forces within it.  We know that the Creator is the equal and opposite of the DO (RJ said as much).  Thus, if the DO is the force that allows humans to choose evil then the Creator must be the force the allows them to choose good.

Interesting that you take as proof people who are known to be wrong, rather than the words of the creator who contradicts their views. Rand believes it to be true following his interactions with Shai'tan. Why do you think he is right? We do not know that allowing humans to make any sort of choices is Shai'tan's purpose. Note that RJ described Shai'tan as a control freak, combine that with the Creator's willingness to step aside - the Creator allows people choices (hence not interfering), Shai'tan seeks to deny them choice. That is consistent with what we know.

 

Here's the thing.  Tolkien kind of set some expectations with the Lord of the Rings.  The man obsessively fleshed out his fantasy world writing "The Silmarillion" that was only ever kinda-sorta intended to stand on it's own.  Mostly it became background for the "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit."  None of what is written in "The Silmarillion" is really required to understand LotR but it helps that world make a little more sense and be a little more internally consistent.  I get this sense that everyone would like to have something like "The Silmarillion" for every other fantasy series but that just isn't normal.

True. But neither is WoT. RJ spent far more time and effort on his world and story than just about any other author other than Tolkien, as his masses of world-building notes will attest to. It's certainly true that a lot of authors don't spend a lot of time world building, they just write the story - RJ was an exception. He also had the ending of the story planned for years. The guy spent a decade planning before he wrote the first book.

So, if RJ said something in an interview about the world of the WoT and it helps you understand the story better or just helps you enjoy it more, great!  That works.  If you don't like or you like your version better, that's totally okay too!  The only thing that you can really consider to be chiseled in stone is what's written on the pages.  Everything else is subject to YOUR interpretation and no one else's.  All anyone else can do if offer you options.  If you like them, great.  If you don't ignore them.

While it is true that WoT has a tiered canon, and the books take precedence over other forms with regards to truth (save where outside sources address the contradictions between themselves and the books), that's not to say that the stuff RJ said in interviews should be dismissed out of hand - he gave a lot of important background which really fleshes out the world, information which couldn't easily be fitted into the books, and helps further our understanding of what happened. Ad while Sanderson is an unreliable source, even his statements can contain useful information.

[Heloc]

 Here's the thing.  Tolkien kind of set some expectations with the Lord of the Rings.  The man obsessively fleshed out his fantasy world writing "The Silmarillion" that was only ever kinda-sorta intended to stand on it's own.  Mostly it became background for the "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit."  None of what is written in "The Silmarillion" is really required to understand LotR but it helps that world make a little more sense and be a little more internally consistent.  I get this sense that everyone would like to have something like "The Silmarillion" for every other fantasy series but that just isn't normal.

True. But neither is WoT. RJ spent far more time and effort on his world and story than just about any other author other than Tolkien, as his masses of world-building notes will attest to. It's certainly true that a lot of authors don't spend a lot of time world building, they just write the story - RJ was an exception. He also had the ending of the story planned for years. The guy spent a decade planning before he wrote the first book.

 

Right but he didn't always have all of those notes handy when answering questions and I'm sure he wouldn't have taken the time to make sure that his response didn't contradict everything he'd written or intended to write.  Even then, there would have been gaps in his plans and those plans may very well have changed by the time that part of the story got written.

 

We're talking past each other a bit here.  All I'm saying is that things the author said in an interview can certainly provide some incite but given the constraints on them when they answered the questions, it shouldn't be taken as the gospel truth.  If what they said doesn't seem to fit the story/world, you should feel free to ignore it if you want.

[Heloc]

 

Besides, the nice thing about dealing with deities like that is contradictory things can be true.  If the creator and the dark one exist outside of time then even if the creator created the dark one, the dark one has still always existed.

But as Shai'tan says "EVEN I CANNOT STEP OUTSIDE OF TIME", the idea that He and the Creator are outside time is, again, unsupported - they are outside the Pattern, not necessarily time.

 

"When the Dark One touched the Pattern, time existed for him. And so, while time was nothing to the Dark One, he— or it, as the Dark One had no gender— could only work within its bounds." AMoL p. 698

 

So, when the dark one is sealed in his prison, time does not exist for him the way it does for us.

 

 

 

 

 

[wotfan4472]

I am leaning to Rand being wrong in his battle with Shai'tan, regarding his knowledge and assumptions. It makes more sense to have Rand re seal Shai'tan. It was just the fact that had Rand NOT been there, then Shai'tan (or the Wheel) would have destroyed Creation, as no one would be able to affect the outcome.

 

Don't forget, they have battled countless times before, and as we all know, this battle will rage for eons yet. From Moiraine's comment, it seems that eventually Shai'tan will be gone, but only when the Creator goes at the exact same moment, or the Wheel will weave Creation's destruction.

 

It is this danger that Rand may have thought of in his battle.... that the Wheel would have woven a dead Creation had Shai'tan been killed. Fain was not a replacement in hindsight, as after consuming Sahi'tan, he would most likely had gone after the Creator, or at least caused a heck of amount of damage to force Him to step in with the same result: the Creator consumed. Not a good outcome.

 

Even the Doctor would take this option, and he is always right. After all he would say that Creation must continue at any cost, and trust me guys, he has paid the price to make that call. 

[Mr Ares]

 

 Here's the thing.  Tolkien kind of set some expectations with the Lord of the Rings.  The man obsessively fleshed out his fantasy world writing "The Silmarillion" that was only ever kinda-sorta intended to stand on it's own.  Mostly it became background for the "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hobbit."  None of what is written in "The Silmarillion" is really required to understand LotR but it helps that world make a little more sense and be a little more internally consistent.  I get this sense that everyone would like to have something like "The Silmarillion" for every other fantasy series but that just isn't normal.

True. But neither is WoT. RJ spent far more time and effort on his world and story than just about any other author other than Tolkien, as his masses of world-building notes will attest to. It's certainly true that a lot of authors don't spend a lot of time world building, they just write the story - RJ was an exception. He also had the ending of the story planned for years. The guy spent a decade planning before he wrote the first book.

Right but he didn't always have all of those notes handy when answering questions and I'm sure he wouldn't have taken the time to make sure that his response didn't contradict everything he'd written or intended to write.  Even then, there would have been gaps in his plans and those plans may very well have changed by the time that part of the story got written.

 

We're talking past each other a bit here.  All I'm saying is that things the author said in an interview can certainly provide some incite but given the constraints on them when they answered the questions, it shouldn't be taken as the gospel truth.  If what they said doesn't seem to fit the story/world, you should feel free to ignore it if you want.

RJ had a good memory, he was capable of issuing corrections to erroneous statements that he made, and was always willing to give RAFO as an answer, for a host of reasons. Ignoring things which don't seem to fit the world can just be a case of letting your biases have free reign - rather than adjust your view in the face of new evidence, you simply ignore inconvenient facts.