Breaking the cycle of the Wheel without freeing or killing the DO.

[Forgemage]

Hello, long time lurker and loving it, thought I'd share a theory of mine pertaining to the cyclical nature of the wheel and why I think that the cycle can, and will be broken without freeing the DO and dooming the world to his dubious mercy.

 

In my opinion the whole concept of a cyclical time like the WoT is an allegory for the education of man by God or in Randland the Creator. Following creation the DO's prison is intact and even though his influence is felt as an ethereal presence inciting the choice of evil in the world he cannot touch the world directly, he cannot speak to humans or effect events within the Pattern. as humanity grows in sophistication and develop more and more advanced technology. (that's exactly what the AoL is, a technologically advanced society, albeit their primary energy source is the OP rather than fusion or fission or whatever, still a technologically advanced society.) At some point the sophistication of said technology allows them to detect the DO, outside of reality. (quite a feat that...) they break reality and the DO can influence humanity directly. Anger, hate, destruction, war, all nastiness essentially is unleashed from the vaults of the human mind. Now nothing that happened during the War of Power was the DO doing it himself. Shadowspawn? Aginor created them, The incursion of the Bore created the Blight and humanity ie the Forsaken did the rest. Humanity rallied and LTT sealed the Bore, imperfectly. That's what happened. Now the AoL was technologically advanced but as it is in our own society, technological advancement and social or ethical or compassionate evolution is far slower. Are we better people than our ancestors? we still wage war and kill and maim, albeit with better weapons. So my thought is to break the wheel of time's cyclical component the next AoL need to have the race of man evolved to a point where these impulses that he unleashed in man are dealt with much better. An ethically evolved race of man. if the Bore is opened but war and destruction is not the consequence but calm appreciation and an eventual solution, a seal without the Breaking so to speak. If a Dragon is not needed to save the world but the human race save themselves the cycle would be broken and humanity would continue to evolve. I think the whole concept of the cyclical nature of the Wheel is akin to the Aiel appreciation of the Waste. A testing ground. When humanity is worthy enough to save themselves, they will break the cycle.

 

  

[Plato]

Nice theory.  Star Trek Randland here we come!

[Suttree]

 Now nothing that happened during the War of Power was the DO doing it himself. Shadowspawn?  Aginor created them,

 

That couldn't have happened without the TP which only the DO can grant however.

 

 The incursion of the Bore created the Blight

 

The bore is everywhere, it doesn't exist in one place. The blight was created by the DO's taint on the land.

[Nick Trano]

Best way to do it would be to move humanity to Mars, terraform it with the Choden Kal and then destroy all life on Earth. Let the dark one rule over bones and dust.

 

Alternatively, don't develop the One Power as the primary source of technology. Modern tech is better anyways. I don't know about you guys but my Galaxy S III is far more useful than a call box. Of course, using the One Power in limited applications such as a tied off pair of gateways in close proximity to turn water turbines for infinite energy, or ter'angreal that are constantly heating up to essentially replace nuclear fuel would be useful. If you don't center your whole society on the One Power, the issue of the True Power shouldn't come up.

[Suttree]

Best way to do it would be to move humanity to Mars, terraform it with the Choden Kal and then destroy all life on Earth. Let the dark one rule over bones and dust.

 

If the DO wins in this world he wins in them all.

[Forgemage]

'That couldn't have happened without the TP which only the DO can grant however.'

 

True but the choice to employ it was the Forsaken's, had they been better people they'd never chosen to use it, despite it's destructive and seductive qualities. And it reinforces the point that the DO supplies the goods as it were but he nneds living minds to actually do the deeds.

 

'The bore is everywhere, it doesn't exist in one place. The blight was created by the DO's taint on the land.'

 

Also true but story-wise Shayol Ghul and the Pit of Doom is the epicentre of his power on earth. regardless of the nature of the Bore that's where his touch and influence is strongest. and only the immediate area around the Pit, the Blasted Lands are actually devoid of life. The Blight itself although twisted actually supports a great deal of life, the Trolloc hordes need to eat and several times in the book Blight-crops are mentioned and the eco-system in the Blight is balanced, albeit a deadly world it functions. which leads to the supposition that the part where the 'thinning' of the Pattern is strongest is where life is void. Not the Blight itself.

 

Besides a truly cyclical world where mistakes are bpound to happen with absolutely no chance of breaking it holds as little freedom as one where the DO is either dead or absolutely victorious.

[Suttree]

And it reinforces the point that the DO supplies the goods as it were but he nneds living minds to actually do the deeds.

What category would you place things like him controlling the weather in then? Shadar Haran? Bubbles of evil?

 

 

The Blight itself although twisted actually supports a great deal of life, the Trolloc hordes need to eat and several times in the book Blight-crops are mentioned and the eco-system in the Blight is balanced, albeit a deadly world it functions.

Yet we see it retreat when the DO suffers a set back. It is tied to him. As for the crops they are essentially genetically modified "blight resistant" crops.

 

Besides a truly cyclical world where mistakes are bpound to happen with absolutely no chance of breaking it holds as little freedom as one where the DO is either dead or absolutely victorious.

Interview: May, 2001

Marcon Report - Sorilea (Paraphrased)

Question

At one point in the story we see Ishamael talking to Rand, and telling him that they have fought countless times in the past, but this is the final time. Is there anything about his Age that makes it special?

Robert Jordan

"No...every Age is repeated, there is nothing that makes this age any different from any other turnings of the Wheel. The Wheel is endless."

 

 

Interview: 1997

Audio Renaissance Interview (Verbatim)

Laura Wilson

What about this notion of time as a wheel? Is that your idea?

Robert Jordan

No. It's not mine. It is from Hindu mythology that time is a wheel. But actually, most eastern cultures believed that time was circular. The Greeks gave us the great gift of believing that time was linear. And that's a great gift because if time is circular, if everything repeats in cycles, then change is impossible. No matter what you do, it's always going to come back to what is here. But if time is linear, then change is possible. But I wanted the circularity because I wanted, again, to go into the changes by distance. So, the myths and legends and a few of the stories that these people tell, well, some of them are based on our own current events, on the present. What they are doing is based on our myths and legends. So they are the source of our myths and legends, and we are the source of theirs.

 

[Forgemage]

Ouch shot down by RJ himself from beyond...

[Hayward1979]

So if NOTHING ever changes in the turnings of the Wheel, does bale fire not actually burn threads from the Pattern forever?

[Suttree]

So if NOTHING ever changes in the turnings of the Wheel, does bale fire not actually burn threads from the Pattern forever?

 

No it doesn't. It just burns the threads backwards for a bit. Think of lighting string on fire.

Interview: Nov 21st, 1998

TPOD Signing Report - John Novak (Paraphrased)

John Novak

[is balefire the eternal death of the soul?]

Robert Jordan

If someone is balefired, the Dark One can't reincarnate them. But they CAN be spun back out into the Wheel as normal. Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul. He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back.

 

Interview: Aug 30th, 1999

Sydney Independent Theatre Q&A (Verbatim)

Question

Balefire is one of the most confusing things in the book, for me. I find the fine aspects of it, the whole threading together of the things that work in it... Could you be a little more elaborate on that?

Robert Jordan

All right. The cosmography we're looking at here, is not the cosmography of here and now. The Wheel of Time is in its way a spinning wheel. The fabric of reality is woven by the threads. Those threads are the lines that are formed by people passing through time. Each person has a thread. The thread has its sole dimension in time, its life is in time. Those are the threads that are used to weave the fabric of reality. When balefire strikes a person, a thread here, it doesn't simply stop the thread there. The thread burns backwards a little bit, like you just took a thread and put a match to it and it burns up a little bit before it goes out. It depends on how hot the flame is how far it's going to burn back and what the material is opposed to. It burns up a little bit, it doesn't just catch fire on the end and go out. So that person that was hit here is burned out of the pattern back to here. What that person did between here and here was no longer done. Other people remember seeing it. They may remember the supposed effects of it but what that person did wasn't done. It didn't happen, it's not real. Now that's a little bit of a shiver on the fabric of reality as it is. The reason that there was an unofficial agreement in the War of the Shadow to not use balefire any more, to stop using it, was simply that several cities were destroyed in that way. Hundreds of thousands of threads were burnt out from the Pattern in one go and the fabric of reality began to unravel. And even the guys going for the Dark One knew that there's not a whole lot of point to winning if winning means there's nothing there to rule, nothing there to win. If you burnt out the stakes, forget it. Have I made it a little clearer I hope?

 

[Hayward1979]

Didn't RJ once say something about Fain/Mordeth being new to the Pattern and "side-stepping" the Pattern?  Doesn't that suggest that certain things do change upon each full turning of the Wheel?

[Suttree]

What RJ said was "he is unique to this particular age" and had "unwittingly side stepped" the pattern in "some ways". Keep in mind that there are small changes as the turnings go.

 

 

Interview: Nov 30th, 2000

WH Signing Report - Matt Peck (Paraphrased)

Matt Peck

I asked that as the Wheel turned, each time an Age rolls around, is the Pattern exactly the same each time, or does it change?

Robert Jordan

He seemed to like this question. He likened it to a tapestry. When seen from a distance, each Third Age (to make it easy to track) has exactly the same pattern as the previous Third Age. However, when seen up close, there are differences. Threads are different, different nations exist, geography is different, different personalities rise to prominence. These changes, while minute in the grand scale of the Pattern, affect the Pattern enough so that while two iterations of an Age are almost the same, the first "Third Age" may be wildy different from the hundredth "Third Age".

[SinisterDeath]

What's interesting is if you examine All the Dune, The Robot & Empire, and The Wheel of Time novels, its very easily & possible, to think of each universe, as just another 'age' of the wheel. Which in a way, is just an examination of Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre in general. Same Stories being told over and over again, always happening in cycles, only with minor variations between them.

 

See, Jordan was a sneaky bastard that way.

(course, I still wonder if G.R.R martin will be the one to break this cycle, or if he'll just be the one to move onto the next age?)

[Suttree]

(course, I still wonder if G.R.R martin will be the one to break this cycle, or if he'll just be the one to move onto the next age?)

 

 

 

Depends if Archmaester Rigney was correct.

 

Archmaester Rigney wrote that history is a wheel, with all actions possible of being repeated over and over again due to the nature of man.