3 hours ago, jsbrads said:

Even tho Grendel said the type of madness in which the person hears the real voice of the person he was reborn from is the hardest to heal, it doesn’t mean it can’t be healed (she didn’t think stilling could be healed either).

And while the 3rd age is in our distant future (and past) the universe mechanics are different, mental illness is still fixable, even tho we barely scratched the surface of what can be fixed (excepting people who hear real voices of the people they are reborn from).

My understanding is that the One Power can't be used for healing madness and the True Power is the only thing that can do so there.  The One Power can heal physical ailments, but madness is a spiritual ailment.

There was that workaround in ToM but I believe that was just BS looking for something to fill pages with. 

They had no way to know about the Gateways and Dreams.

Plus it was not as secure as they thought - they were convinced that the Children were unaware of them and yet as it turned out Pedron Nial was well aware of them.

Now he failed to attack because a divided Tower was good for his plans (namely the Andor campaign) and later he got busy with a war with the Prophet of Ghealdan, but he could have attacked them, and if the complete armies of the Children and Amadicia had struck Salidar - well even if they did not annihilate them completely they could have inflicted irreparable losses on the Aes Sedai (and worse still - their mystique) and would have had a far easier time recovering themselves.

On ‎4‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 1:08 PM, DemandredFO said:

Does the companion whether burnout can be healed since Satelle couldn't hold the adam but Suian could

 

I don't have the Companion handy so I can't check, but I believe it says that Satelle was never healed.

That said, I'm fairly certain that burn out can be healed, because of course anything aside from death and madness supposedly can be healed by the One Power,  but it certainly doesn't happen in the life time of these characters.

On ‎2‎/‎13‎/‎2008 at 1:48 AM, safwd said:

Another good question today.

Im not sure if a adam would work or not. A T'angreal that actually uses the one power would not work im sure (such as the balefire rod) but an adam does not actually use the power does it, it just established a link between the suldan and damane, but perhaps the link is done with the power.

Another question to ponder.

I suppose related to that, would a shocklance work in a Stedding? In the Age of Legends basically all technology was fueled by the One Power.

Now I have this vision of the Steddings each having a coal power plant to provide them electricity.

On ‎3‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 7:14 AM, haycraftd said:

Didn't the Heroes of the Horn have many names?  (I think it was in the GH, not the MoL).  I seem to remember that some of the names were VERY familiar ones, like Artur had also been named Arthur.  When I first read it, I thought RJ wasn't alluding to the fact that the Heroes had had many previous lives, but that there were many worlds out there and one of them was ours.

 

So if one had fought the Shadow with ballistic missiles, that makes sense.   

No, our world is a past age.

I don't think the mirror worlds are fully real (which isn't what I wanted to believe) but ultimately it is the only one that makes sense - each person only has one soul after all.

12 hours ago, Dephael said:

Ok so thanks to the news of the wheel of time tv series, of which i am both terrified and exited for, i have decided to once again reread the series. I always forget about this damned mirror world with the weird black lines and the white streak in the sky and the fact that these are never explained. 

This time around however I have going back and forth over the text in an attempt to ween out every possible clue. 

 

I have finally come to a belief that explains all of the things described in this chapter. 

I believe it is the mirror of a technologcially advanced world. The white streak in the sky is that of either a scouting aircraft or a rocket heading into orbit. An orbit in which exists at least one or more lazer weapons. I know this has been said many times before but i think i can explain further. 

 

The black streaks are described as tapered at the ends, sometimes a mile wide, sometimes only a few hundred paces, the soil crunches as if seared, and always east to west. "as is if someone had streaked it with a monsterous brush of fire."

Nothing grew where the burns were even though some of them "had the feel of a thing long done".

The land seems lifeless, no animals insects, birds or fish, even the water tastes lifeless "it tasted flat as if it had been boiled. 

  

I could imagine that there is a whole strip of land across the entire continent dedicated as a "no mans land" which could act a a barrier to the dark one and his minions in the north. This whole swathe of land could have been sterilized which could prevent the blight from taking over and would make the water taste lifeless while making it difficult for any animals to live there. some plants or trees may be able to survive but not thrive and certainly unable reclaim the burned bits. 

 

Each of the strips could be the result of various sized trolloc hordes attempting to cross and getting obliterated by the orbital weapons. The weapons would be presumably adjustable in size (which would allow for power saving, control, accuracy etc) explaining why the streaks were all different sizes. The lazer explains the tapering as it powers up and powers down (or opens and closes some form of iris), and the orbit explains why they are always east to west. A baddass sci fi ion cannon would be pretty monstrous for some one on the ground.  

 

The white streaks in the sky could be a visual cue for us to think about looking up and could be a rocket heading into orbit lending to the orbital weapon theory, or drones keeping watch over the land but also hinting to us as readers that this series of books contains advanced technologies.

 

I seem to vaguely remember RJ saying something about this being being a bit of a nod to another author but I cant seem to find it at the moment. If some can track it down I think that other story might give more clues about what this world may actually be.  

 

So i could be very wrong but this makes sense in my mind and seems to fit all of the clues we have.

I like this idea.

And perhaps everything is dead because these automated machines killed most things off?
 

One thing which took me a long time to realize was that, because of how the Wheel works, although this world diverged from our own at an early date (pre-Age of Legends if the grolm are native, although that said, we have no reason to think they are as there are no traces of other exotics and Lanfear could have grabbed them from their own world and brought them to a lifeless - avoids the risk of complications) it still will likely follow a certain "path" so chances are, when Hawkwing lost to the Trolloc armies, both sides probably had guns and tanks and other advanced technologies. And that makes sense because the Wheel weaves to bring about certain figures (although of course, we really don't know if Hawkwing even existed in this world, since it seems Loial can't read Trolloc).

I would say the effects of isolation vary from person to person.

Regardless Elyas seemed to be a very awkward person to me who was not totally comfortable with interacting with these people.

He also does not seem to be THAT isolated, the Tinkers know him well in that caravan, and what are the odds that is the only caravan he knows anyone at?

On ‎2018‎-‎10‎-‎14 at 4:44 PM, Maedelin said:

Sabio, can I have a link to that RJ confirmation, please?  I'd love to read that!

On ‎2018‎-‎10‎-‎14 at 4:44 PM, Maedelin said:

Sabio, can I have a link to that RJ confirmation, please?  I'd love to read that!

It is probably a reference to this:

Interview: Jan 16th, 2003

Question

Robert Jordan

On ‎2009‎-‎01‎-‎11 at 3:30 PM, Gentled Ben said:

Is there a basis in the books for cups, wands, swords, and pentagrams? I have a hard time seeing Jordan, as a Christian, using Wiccan symbols on his dice...

I don't think Wiccanism was what RJ had in mind.

In this case it was probably Masonic.

On ‎2018‎-‎05‎-‎18 at 9:59 AM, solarz said:

That's because before the advent of modern medicine, the biggest causes of death were infectious diseases, not cancer.

 

Tobacco use takes years to develop into cancer. In a world without any understanding of epidemiology or statistics, there is no way they can figure out the dangers of tabac. In any case, compared to the various kinds of infectious diseases, not to mention trollocs, the dangers of tabac use are very low in priority.

I don't think it is true that one cannot discover the dangers of tabac. In the seventeenth century people said tobacco was bad for you. It's just that people didn't really listen.

I agree with the general topic of the thread, I see no reason why tabac would be any less unhealthy than tobacco, or for that matter why it would be any different. It's life kaf, it's just a vaguely different name for something we already have.

He should have gone with Lanfear.

Obvs.

8 hours ago, TheSociopath said:

I would think that trollocs have animal souls, but myrdraal could have human ones. 

Afterall, darkhounds have wolf souls. 

I forgot darkhounds had wolf souls.

That said, I think it was firmly stated that Fades don't actually have souls.

I think they'd have to be human souls, the Nym had human souls after all. 

Jordan said they had souls, though something to the effect that their souls were so pathetic you could scarcely still call them that. 

Which calls into question where they come from - if they are human souls are they just the souls of Darkfriends? Possible, but then Trolloc numbers would be dependent on dead DFs. And how come Ishamael can expect to be reborn a human via natural causes?
 

But DF souls do apparently go the Pit of Dhoom. Where they probably wouldn't be reborn - I was always expecting some sort of Harrowing of Hell scenario at the end but it never happened.

I don't think RJ necessarily meant that the more shadowy worlds were less plausible possibilities as BS seems to think.

I think the ones that seemed more shadowy and phantomlike were simply further away from "our" universe - our Randland probably seemed the same way to them.

IIRC Jordan also answered Brandon's question re: "What happens if the DO wins in a mirror world" - He has to win in all worlds, simultaneously - or he wins in no worlds, which is kind of paradoxical. 

At the absolute minimum they would not be different worlds with a different Dark One - the DO, like the Creator exists outside the Pattern - although whether he could destroy or remake mirror worlds is an interesting question.

On ‎2018‎-‎02‎-‎17 at 5:13 PM, Mrs. Cindy Gill said:

Book one wasn't guaranteed any sequels when it came out, so it had to have an ending tha could pass for a stand-alone. When it sold well, sequels were green lit, and it became the first of a series.

 

Things changed with hindsight and Jordan changed as a writer and the story changed and grew more complicated.

 

and everyone leveled up, Rand and the forsaken.

 

you can construct meaning behind happenstance but I think it was mostly happenstance.

My understanding is that Jordan already had a contract for 6 books? He still expected to finish the series in 3 but his publisher gave him 6 just in case (and if Wheel could be finished in 3 then he could start a different trilogy). Is that not accurate?

That theory actually makes a great deal of sense.

It doesn't explain why they created it in the first place though, as Jordan said it wasn't used for the purpose it was intended for. That said, I suppose it would have been very handy for Rand to have clean Saidin when he was starting out.  

This made me think of a more literary question - should Jordan have killed off two of the chosen at the beginning of the series? It kind of undermined their status right from the start to die from an untrained farmer and a damaged plant creature. Might it have been better for Someshta to have wounded Balthamel and then Rand caught them by surprise by securing the Eye - then they retreat? 

I think the ending would still have been fairly dramatic and it wouldn't really change anything about the long term arc of the series (neither character really needed to be doing anything for the next few books, they could just carry out some schemes off screen, finding artefacts etc. until they get better bodies) - but it may have built more tension to avoid the death of any of the Chosen until book 3.

Thoughts?

What do people think of the Ashaman pins from Badali jewelry? Does anyone own one?

http://badalijewelry.com/Wheel-of-Time/asha-man-dragon-pin-8482-24k-gold-plated-bronze.html

Also, what do people think of the enameled versions? I don't have the books with me any longer and so can't check but I want to ensure they are accurate before I ever buy one. I'd always envisioned them as essentially enameled little versions of the dragon on the Dragonbanner - but these look rather different. Thoughts? Is a pin that looks like the dragonbanner available somewhere else? 

I do quite like their Dedicated pins - and I am really quite irked that every flipping ring in Wheel of Time is gold since I could afford their silver jewelry but, what's the point of having them if they aren't accurate?

What do people think of the Ashaman pins from Badali jewelry? Does anyone own one?

http://badalijewelry.com/Wheel-of-Time/asha-man-dragon-pin-8482-24k-gold-plated-bronze.html

Also, what do people think of the enameled versions? I don't have the books with me any longer and so can't check but I want to ensure they are accurate before I ever buy one. I'd always envisioned them as essentially enameled little versions of the dragon on the Dragonbanner - but these look rather different. Thoughts? Is a pin that looks like the dragonbanner available somewhere else? 

I do quite like their Dedicated pins - and I am really quite irked that every flipping ring in Wheel of Time is gold since I could afford their silver jewelry but, what's the point of having them if they aren't accurate?

I'm not sure I agree with this.

Although the Ways make travel faster they are not instantaneous by any means, you could have a number of cities who are as close to reach conventionally as you via ways and yet you don't see these sorts of effects. I'm also not clear that people enjoyed totally free access to them - and the Ogier don't seem that interested in technology.

On the other hand, you do see the continent developing a common language which could be attributed to the influence of these closer connections. 

Also, I think it was more like 2,000 years of use, I think the Ways did not become essentially unusable until the War of the Hundred Years (maybe a little after) although I think different versions of the Eye of the World may have said different things.

On ‎2011‎-‎07‎-‎18 at 5:00 AM, Leyrann said:

On ‎2018‎-‎02‎-‎04 at 1:44 PM, Mrs. Cindy Gill said:

I don't think this was RJs thought, tho it's interesting.  The earth is randland in another age, and the wheel keeps turning. The power or its use wanes as technology waxes. There could be a few factors, like wars of power and red Ajah and Seanchan culling of channelers might simply lower the channeling population (like predator and prey population cycles). And the advance of technology, which we see starting in WoT with steam engines and explosives, make chanelling somewhat redundant. Technology is accessible to anyone, not limited to those genetically predisposed to its use, so it would advance quickly and eclipse channeling as the source of great works and apocalypses. A little canticle for liebowitz as they/we rediscover lost writings and ideas.

 

Eventually technology leads to world breaking Via wars and overuse etc. and chaneling once more waxes and chanelers repair the broken world and rebuild it and the wheel turns again.

 

ogier and shedding are something separate and I believe from outside this world, or maybe just this dimension. They seem to have come from somewhere and gotten trapped.  I haven't reread in a while, perhaps they're from somewhere else in this world and got geographically separated, leading them to build or grow steddings to shelter in?

 

But I don't think RJ saw present day earth as a stedding. The land isn't protected and much of earth is paved over or cut down or farmed or mined in ways not consistent with the ogier we know from randland.

 

On ‎2018‎-‎02‎-‎04 at 1:44 PM, Mrs. Cindy Gill said:

 

The Stedding seem to clearly exist apart from our world. They existed in the Age of Legends, I presume they are sort of like reserves, presumably they are territories that the Ogier were able to lay claim to when they first came to Earth? I'm not sure,  but they endure even after the Ogier and trees etc are gone (did the stedding in the Eye of the World even have a Waygate or was it abandoned early in the Age of Legends?) we do know that there are many more stedding in Seanchan than in Randland (which is why those Ogier never had to worry about the Longing). One would think there was a reason that there are more stedding there than in Randland - though it could be related to where points in the Pattern are closer to the Ogier universe or weaker (similar to why Shayol Ghul exists in a specific location, or the Tower of Ghenjei). 

4 hours ago, failemandarb said:

What if there is a multiverse and in this one there has always been a "stedding" effect on the planet?

I just think it's a weird effect - it's strange to have a world/universe where the power of the Creator can't reach. 

In terms of a multiverse, well that's kind of the thing, the Ogier, because of the stedding, are very different from the denizens of other worlds, the Seanchan exotics don't need a stedding equivalent for instance (though they don't do super well in our world). 

It just almost makes it seem like the Ogier come from outside the universe the Creator made - they need to return to places where He can't touch them lest they be worn down by existing in that world. 

Which I'm not really sure RJ was thinking of, but the Ogier have seemed weirder the longer I've thought of them. I originally presumed they were just from an alternate universe like the Seanchan exotics, but it seems they actually must be from a different dimension entirely, like Sindhol, but apparently distinct from Sindhol given that Sindhol continues to channel (and is understood to exist in terms of how it fits into the cosmology of the world, but a universe without channeling is not even considered by philosophers). 

I don't think Jordan necessarily thought the existence of multiple deities in his cosmology (although I was admittedly rather hopeful that it would turn out that Shadar Logoth was the Big Unnoticed Thing that could prove to originate from some ancient being associated with the eyes in the World of Dreams) but I find the Stedding perplexing. 

This is actually an interesting question -  it's really weird that the world of the Ogier is a world where channeling can't occur and they brought that to our world when they invaded. 

The One Power is, from what I understand, sort of the essence of the Creator (TP vice versa) it is strange that Ogier are apparently outside that - even other dimensions like Sindhol have channeling, so what dimension did the Ogier come from that they do not? It is strange, I think it is clear that they are from some separate dimension rather than just another planet, but why do they stand outside of the One Power/True Power dichotomy like that?

I can't recall if the Encyclopedia ever said anything about Ogier but they seem to come from a place even stranger in its way than Sindhol.

On ‎2018‎-‎01‎-‎30 at 7:47 PM, Sabio said:

They had to fail to the point where the pattern would make it so the dragon would be reborn and forsaken freed.   The pattern decided when it was time to kick off the end of the age.  The seals were made of stuff that should never fail or be able to be broken (those chains around Tar Valon were made of the same stuff and they were as strong as ever.)  So the Pattern had to weaken the seals.

There were several ways to destroy Cuendillar. The True Power was one of them - they were not immune to the essence of the Dark One.

I always liked Fain, he was a delight.

In terms of characters that I really hated, Egwene post FoH perhaps, I didn't enjoy her arc and really didn't care for her being Amyrilin. Admittedly, prior to reading New Spring I mentally retconned Siaun's age to be at least double as I found her ridiculously young to be an amyrlin.

I never much cared for Perrin truth be told. Faile and company were naturally even more disliked, perhaps because of that.

I evidently need to re-read the series, I can't recall the spellings any longer.

It actually makes a lot of sense, this world was very different in many ways from the one we know (the Seanchan exotics being one obvious example) but nonetheless the Wheel saw to it that it followed a similar pattern. Presumably the world better recovered from the Breaking, or (though the similar geography tells against it) the Breaking was not as bad.

Hawkwing still existed because the Wheel demanded it be so, in this world he presumably was well on his way to uniting the world with his army of motorcycle knights and jet fighters when the well-equipped Trollocs smashed him in battle.

Another world would exist where he won the battle and things ended up much the same as in our world except that the Last Battle had hover tanks.

That is how I've rationalised all this anyway.