When you finish re-reading 3 of the WoT books during your breaks at work, and then sadly realize that you can't read them again since you still remember reading them last week.

And then, after you finish re-reading book 4, you feel compelled to come back to DM to post a question you already know the answer to.

And then, when reviewing your old posts, you feel like a bump of one of your old posts is not only necessary, but serves the public good.

I believe when he first gets it in book 4, it's described as wood.

Do not recall any of the books telling what the Dark One's prison is. The Guide does not.

I believe it's in EotW where Moiraine describes the DO's prison being the pattern, and later books expand on what the pattern is made of. I read an interesting theory at theoryland about the nature of the pattern which collects the various evidence that the pattern is made out of souls and why.

But, after asking this question, I thought it was silly of me to be thinking in 3 dimensions. :D

Being inside the Matrix, for example, doesn't mean if you walk to the outer wall you can punch through to the outside.

I'm thinking this should be a full topic, but let's start here in case there is a simple answer:

If the DO is imprisoned by the Pattern, and the Pattern is made of souls, why not balefire a few million people until the hole in the Pattern is large enough for him to step through?

Also, is the Pattern a globe with the DO on the inside or outside? If it's flat, he could just walk around it to the other side?

Finally, is the Pattern one-sided? Why can't the DO affect the pattern from the inside out?

Tam got his sword from king Stepeanos in the Whitecloak War where he fought with the Illian army (he was a Second Captain). He became a blademaster there.

The procedure to get a heron marked blade is to defeat a blademaster with witnesses, if you kill them you get the sword. Only Rand and Lan got their blades from their fathers.

--the bookworms in your copy of tDR died of old age.

Why is the expression "black eyed Aiel?"

Your 6 character RPG team is named:

Loial (Fighter)

Mat(Fighter)

Hurin (Thief)

Julian (Thief)

Moiraine (Wizard)

Asha'man (Wizard)

Did Lanfear die in the ToG? Or was she rescued? I thought Moiraine witnessed her death.

Cyndane? The DO brings her back.

Yeah that's what I thought. For the DO to do a soul transmigration, there has to be a non-balefire death. A lot of people think she was rescued and then body-switched, but then why rescue her if you are going to kill her anyway? Unless the man Moirane saw went in there to kill Lanfear so the DO could make a new body for her.

Did Lanfear die in the ToG? Or was she rescued? I thought Moiraine witnessed her death.

Why has Rand effectively ignored the Black Tower for ... five books now? Four? I can't remember

In his words, he's too busy. Around book 4 or so, he realized that he couldn't do everything himself and he had to rely on other people to help him. The first step was sending Perrin to take care of the Two Rivers, of which he hasn't been back since book 1.

My impression is that he has a lot of knowledge of events based on his study of the prophecies in book 4 (and he had Asmodean's help in interpreting them,) so he's prioritized events and only sees to the most important himself.

At the Cleansing, saidar doesn't react how Rand expects it to - he says the weave looks different to how he would have thought it would look. Also, the way men and women travel are somewhat different - women make two places in the pattern the same, men bore a hole through the pattern to travel through.

Re: cleansing: it looked different because there were gaps he figured was saidar. Also, was it actually a weave? I thought he just funnelled saidin through Aridhol like a giant Brta filter.

re: traveling: Sure, weaves that do different things probably are different weaves. But, does balefire have different weaves?

At the time I figured it was about Owyn, his nephew that the Reds Gentled. RJ later said that Min's viewings are always about the future, so I don't know. Either he's made a mistake (same deal with Lan and the baby with the sword), or there's some other explanation. Rand? His child from Moiraine? Don't know.

Mistake I think. When she views Birgette, Min sees "more events than one person could have in a single lifetime." I would agree with the Owyn interpretation. Or, part of Min's viewing is interpreting it. Maybe those she can't figure out could be the past.

I think it is one of those things that was fuzzy in the early books and clarified later.

 

Not sure about this. Seem to remember that TP comes directly from the DO himself. OP probably from the Creator, then? White/Black - there is a certain symmetry.

I subscribe to the (not very popular) theory that the DO is the Creator. It makes perfect sense to me. :D

One question on TP:

 

 

How did forsaken learn to channel TP? Is it exactly like OP (five elements) and weaves are exactly the same? But that couldn't be since weaves are not the same for Saidain and Saidar. So how did Rand know what to do in tGS?

 

We know very little about it, but what we do know I can hazard some guesses:

 

1. Ishy has been using it for many years, which is why Moridin has saa.

2. In the death of Mesaana scene, we know Rand channeled Fire to break the Domination band and balefire Mesaana and Elza.

 

So yes, expertise in one transfers to the other, they both use the same elements and weaves, and it is simply an alternate source of the OP.

 

But this leads to disturbing speculation about the relationship between saidar, saidin, and the DO.

 

Not sure about this. Seem to remember that TP comes directly from the DO himself. OP probably from the Creator, then? White/Black - there is a certain symmetry. Also the Creator doesn't interfere personally in the Pattern (for whatever reason) so he wouldn't deny the Forsaken OP, whereas TP is only for those chosen by DO .. certainly sounds like it'd fit into RJ's general WoT philosophy, if you see what I mean.

 

Also, Rand learned to channel intuitively, in large part, and so did the Wisdoms of The Two Rivers. He was killing (one of the three) love(s) of his life! That's enough pressure for anyone to come up with balefire. Maybe. In any case, I don't think the weaves are the same, just as saidin/saidar are not the same (which one would TP correspond to?). The 5 elements theory sounds plausible because there doesn't seem to be much of an alternative, looking at it from an author's perspective (to whatever extent that is possible).

wasnt it stated somewhere that the TP takes the rough shape of the OP when weaving it, so to a woman it would react like saidar, and to a man it would react like saidin

I'm not 100% convinced saidin/saidar weaves are different, everybody assumes so because it cannot be confirmed. However, there are striking similarities between damane and asha'man combat weaves. Both sexes also use weaves of Air to immobilize, lightning to strike, balefire, etc. They also talk about the same 5 elements.

If you used balefire to somehow cause someone's retroactive death without the balefire touching them, can the DO transmigrate them, ie does the balefire itself prevent transmigration, or is it the retroactive death?

 

Situation: Somebody is underneath a rock that is held up by a pole, and then you balefire the pole. Afterwards, one minute ago, the rock fell and crushed them, and in the current time, they are already dead, but by crushing, not balefiring.

Balefire removes the soul (thread) from the pattern, and thus transmigration is not possible.

Your other example is a completely different topic. Yes, that person would still die.

The only way balefire can prevent death is if, in your example, the pole fell, caused a death, and then was balefired.

edit: after some more thought, I don't think balefiring inanimate objects should have any effect whatsoever because they don't have souls, hence they do not have threads in the pattern. Going back to your situation: Person A holds a sword and stabs Person B. Person A is then balefired, thus Person B comes back to life. However, if Person A's sword is balefired instead, Person B should still be dead.

The main counterargument I was considering was when Moggy tried to balefire Nynaeve while Nynaeve was on a boat. The boat jumped backwards a few yards and then started sinking. If the boat jumped backwards in time because the boat was balefired, that would blow my theory. However, I think that Moggy must have balefired some of the rowers, and that caused the backwards jump.

The way I took it was based on the tavern scene in Rand's past vision. The common people were blaming all AS and Aiel for what happened, but LTT, over time, became the focus.

However, afterwards, they had a buttload of prophecies to prepare them for the DR, which is why the modern reaction wasn't hysteria.

re: darren: no prob, it happens all the time. :)

Using the Game to kill is totally different, like in Tear. Suggesting somebody kill another always allows for the other to refuse.

Unless there's more evidence, I'd say it's still speculative.

Does Thom ever feel bad about causing a civil war?

He only seems to care about not being able to protect his girl.

It's symptomatic of all men in Randland. For whatever reason, the way men protect women is largely irrational and borderline psychotic, even towards women who tried to kill them.

One question on TP:

 

 

How did forsaken learn to channel TP? Is it exactly like OP (five elements) and weaves are exactly the same? But that couldn't be since weaves are not the same for Saidain and Saidar. So how did Rand know what to do in tGS?

We know very little about it, but what we do know I can hazard some guesses:

1. Ishy has been using it for many years, which is why Moridin has saa.

2. In the death of Mesaana scene, we know Rand channeled Fire to break the Domination band and balefire Mesaana and Elza.

So yes, expertise in one transfers to the other, they both use the same elements and weaves, and it is simply an alternate source of the OP.

But this leads to disturbing speculation about the relationship between saidar, saidin, and the DO.

In TSR Perrin see's a vision of Rand in ragged clothes, with a bandage around his eye's carrying a begger's staff.

What do you think this portends to? Before TG or after?

I took that to mean the time after he almost killed his father and he took the CK to destroy the Seanchan in Ebou Dar or Tanchico or somewhere:

1. Beggar's staff: He picked up a plain staff along the way.

2. Ragged clothes: he traded his cloak for a plain brown cloak.

3. Bandaged eyes: he was still getting blurred vision after channeling the True Power. There were several references to sunlight hurting his eyes, iirc.

edit: in tGS.

When Mat escapes from Ebou Dar in WH he shows a sea folk windfinder how to remove the collar. He doesn't remove it himself, just teaches her how to do it. However if I remember correctly from Egwene's capture one can't even touch the collar/do something as a means to escape.Then is this an author's mistake or am I just missing something here?

PS:Sorry if this was already answered. I couldn't find it anywhere.

The way I took it is that the a'dam only prevents removal if you are trying to run away, like how it prevented Egwene from touching the washbasin pitcher after she thought about using it as a weapon to harm her sul'dam. So, the windfinder's reason to remove it was to free her sisters, not to run away.

Was Noal the same Jain Farstrider who wrote the books? Or, was Noal the latest body for Farstrider's soul?

 

1. Uh, no. The part about going away because she hated the chores because was clearly a joke, both times.

 

2.And BTW, Siuan definitely wanted Elayne to be a Black Ajah hunter - she just couldn't say it straight out to her, because then she wouldn't have been able to evade Morgase's inevitable questions. So she told Nynaeve and Egwene, and expected them to tell Elayne, as it happened.

 

3. What? Please explain how Elaida would've been able to stop Rahvin. He'd have come to power in Andor no matter whether Elayne have left the Tower or not. Not to mention that Liandrin had planned to have Elayne killed if she hadn't left the Tower with Nynaeve and Egwene in TGH, which would've ruined the Tower - Andor relations even more than her running away. Blaming Elayne for what happened with Morgase is completely ridiculous.

 

4. Now, I agree that her running away was really irresponsible act for a heir to a throne, but this doesn't mean that it lead to all the disasters you claim. And I really don't know how it's her fault that Gawyn is an idiot who decided to get involved in the Aes Sedai internal strife.

 

5. She ruined Gawyn's life? Really? I don't recall Elayne forcing him to get involved in the Aes Sedai internal affairs or to kill his teachers. And she excused him from his duties as Captain-General because that's what he wanted, I don't see what 's condescending about that.

 

6. One example showing that Elayne is not selfish - bonding Birgitte when she was on the brink of death. Not only she risked being grief stricken for years if the most likely happened and Birgitte had died, she also risked a really serious punishment if the Aes Sedai ever learned that she had bonded someone while she was still an Accepted.

 

1. And this somehow proves she's not selfish because...? It seems to me this point actually supports my point.

2. That was only Siuan covering herself. Elayne could have refused, IF she wanted to scrub pots.

3. Elaida is a Red, who is trained with men who can channel. While it is debatable whether she could have helped against Rahvin, it seems strange that Rahvin decided to make a move on Morgase after Elaida left.

4. Yep, it did. Elayne running away and the WT covering it up directly caused the rift between Morgase and the WT. There was no other conflict between Morgase and the WT except that. I could even argue that this chain of events led to the split of the WT, because it forced Elaida to return.

5. It is very clear that Gawayn disliked Siuan solely because she wouldn't tell him where Elayne was. The only reason he supported Elaida was the hope that Elayne would return to the tower.

6. Iirc, that was indirectly her fault too. She fell asleep when she was supposed to be monitoring Nynaeve.