6 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

Worth reminding you that the time pressure on the journey was that Mat would die before they reached Falme if they went overland.  Also the events were being influenced by Ba'alzamon in ways that were not fully sane.  

The Matt issue is a great point. I somehow forgot that being focused on the bigger picture. And while Jordan wasn't really enforcing this idea at the time, the fact that if one goes, they all go, make it more a certainty that if they didn't use the portal stone, the world may as well have ended I believe.

6 hours ago, Asthereal said:

Were there darkfriends present who may have known Verin was black ajah?

I don't remember who exactly was in that particular party, but that would explain why Verin would risk more. The shadow already knew Rand was a candidate for the Dragon Reborn (they've been after him for a while already), so Verin being extra careful to prevent him from doing something potentially dangerous to himself might be suspect.

 

Otherwise, Verin might not see it as super risky. That indeed could seem out of character. Though Verin  doesn't shy away from a little risk herself, as it turns out. In fact, she's the biggest risktaker of them all.

The only one I think was a Darkfriend was Inktar (spelling?). But I would strongly assume he wouldn't have known Verrin was black. I don't think I could believe Verrin would put Rand in terrible danger just to avoid some suspicion. If she wanted him dead, she'd have killed him easily. If she was told to keep him alive, she could be seen as responsible for his death if she convinced him to use a portal stone. I just can't see it as a valid method of transportation given the risks. It's not like "Oh we could probably make it". It's like "yeah, we have like 1/100 chance of you being able to bring all of us without casualty. And Fain definitely knew we could use a portal stone, so he expects us at Toman Head now, even though he blocked the way. So we should take that chance. Instead of just riding a month" or however long it was. It all just doesn't quite add up. It just seems like Jordan was using this as a method of suspense, intrigue, or whatever else.

And to be clear I love this series and think it is extremely well done. My first few read throughs, I never thought of things like this, it was just so good. But now I do think like this.

40 minutes ago, Jsbrads2 said:

Seems obvious to me that Verin believed Rand couldn’t disappear from the pattern altogether because of the pattern’s need for him. Hence it was safe. Much like the logic Moraine used to “allow” Rand when he used the Portal Stone to Rhuidean. 

If that was such a strong belief by Verin and Moiraine, why would there be any fear at all from any of them? Why would Moiraine be so vehement about Rand having to keep moving, to do this, to do that, when the pattern had it all under control? I would think that indication that at least Moiraine did not believe that. I have less evidence for Verin, so that's possible I guess. I'm not sure I believe it would be consistent with her character though. Personally.

1 hour ago, Sir_Charrid said:

Once we found out she was of the black ajah I always felt that she was somehow given the knowledge by Lanfer somehow. But it did always feel a little bit like Robert Jordan was looking for a way out of getting Rand from A to B at the right time. 

That's how I felt. How many times is he gonna use the Ways? Not this time!

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

Personally I hated the portal stones - we already had the Ways and Tel'aran'rhiod.  Are they connected, are they not?  Too much metaphysics for me.

I've seen online they weren't popular. And they weren't really touched on again after what, the fourth book I think? I can agree they don't really fit in well.

30 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Being a Brown - she has probably studied the prophecies, pattern, etc. more than your 'average' Aes Sedai.  If she was a true believer, perhaps she assumed the pattern was guiding her decision as well.

 

"The pattern brought us to a portal stone, might as well use it."

Hmmm, yeah I can see that. Does it warrent a dive into danger that way? May still be up for discussion but maybe she saw it so.

1 hour ago, DojoToad said:

Perhaps she was relying on the pattern to ensure the right decision was made.

Then couldn't she have relied on the pattern that the horn wouldn't be blown until the last battle as stated by the prophecies? And that taking the safe route would have worked just fine? I love the idea of the prophecies being a literary device in these books, but one failing of them is the characters have so much more leway because the prophecies always come true.

And on top of that, she was the one who really made the decision, not the prophecies right? If she was going to simply rely on them, she would have just been like "let's walk and see what happens", not "let's teleport through this crazy magical rock that could kill us".

Not to be argumentative right, just debating.

So rereading The Great Hunt. In the part where Verin asks Rand to pick a symbol and use the Portal Stone to port them to Toman Head, she states there have been theories of worlds where reality is barely held together, air is not breathable, etc. And yet Verin urges the Dragon Reborn to risk killing them all to retrieve the Horn. I don't know that I'm confident in feeling Verin thought the risk minimal, and worth it to take them all to Toman Head. I would be concerned that it would be much more safe to risk travelling there on foot.

The risk to this path was that Fain would not be there, or would think they were not coming, making him torment the two-rivers in retaliation. But first off, Fain blocked the ways (for some reason). How could he reasonably expect the group to reach Toman Head quickly? When I first read the book, I thought this. And that he would reasonably expect the group to take months to get there. Which is why he carried on with his plans there. I'm surprised Verin did not come to this conclusion. Second, with the time dialation in other worlds, how can Verin reasonably expect to make it to Toman Head WHEN they wanted to? She trusted a man who had no idea how to channel to get them to the right spot at the right time, no trouble? As opposed to taking the much safer path, knowing Fain couldn't open the chest, blocked their path, yet still baited them, AND chances are they could have all died? Ending the world?

What do you guys think?

1 hour ago, KakitaOCU said:

That's essentially what I was saying.  From the perspective of the insect inside the tire, the gash is new each time.  From the perspective outside, it happened once.  

So from our perspective as mortals ON the world, it happens every spin (Bore, Patch, Sealing) and repeats, but from the Perspective of the DO they only tried once.  

It's not a perfect match but think of Dormamu in the end of Dr. Strange.  The cast and director have mentioned that we saw only a sliver of Strange's deaths and confrontations.  Enough time passed for Strange to essentially let him move from talented novice to the level of competence he shows in Infinity War forward.  During all that time, Strange perceived multiple deaths, multiple confrontations, tried multiple different tactics to endure.  Dormamu perceived an upstart mortal showed up and was killed.  

It took millions if not billions of spins before Dormamu finally started to sort of sus out something was wrong.  Maybe the DO would be the same (an idea for a story) but how many turnings have their been?  And for the DO even if it's repeating without their ability to perceive the repeat, there's such a gap in time between each one.  Dormamu figuring it out after millions+ times back to back with no stop.  the DO has 5 ages between each attempt.

 

I think this walks into Multiverse theory and it's own fun.  But aside from that, Independently I think there's no way for Rand to "win" permanently.  I think that's what Fain/Mashadar/whatever represents.  It's always described as an evil different from, separate from the DO.  I think if Rand had given into hubris, killed the DO and ended that threat Fain would have slipped into the void left and slowly become essentially a new DO.  We already saw in the last few books how utterly alien their thinking was becoming, as well as an obsession with the Dragon.  It's a pet theory only obviously, but I think the Fain thing is a failsafe built into the system.  Rand made the "right" choice so Fain had no purpose and the pattern shoved Mat in to deal with the now unneeded factor.  

A good comparison would be the Matrix IMO.  Each iteration of "The One" involved a reset of the system to status quo and things continuing.  And let's be fair, while there's a lot of bad stuff in the Matrix, for the VAST majority  it's just life without issue.  Once Neo breaks the pattern a new evil starts spiraling out of control that is an enemy to both Neo and the Opposition.

Hmmm... I think there is some more that could be discussed here but it's getting pretty deep. And slightly off topic, lol. I really like this idea though, that the Dark One somehow fights all Tarmon Gaidons at the same time with the same conclusion. But also I am not confident this is exactly what happens as there are some holes to be filled I think.

However, to return to the original topic, I think our conversation leaves us with a tangent possibility. If the Dark One fights all of these fights at once, I think we are saying that would explain why he doesn't "learn", yes? So it is possible he really does want to win. But still remains it's possible he doesn't. And at least for me, given that he still does indeed make some silly decisions and he does indeed show at least a decent amount of intelligence, I still feel he could easily have lost on purpose. I do believe he is intelligent enough regarding the pattern and wheel that he must understand how it works enough to know the infinite instances of Tarmon Gaidon. But also I suppose we are presuming to understand a pretty powerful being that doesn't perceive things as we do.

7 minutes ago, KakitaOCU said:

The thing is, to look at this and say the Dark One never learns, adapts or works to win implies that it sees these turnings as multiple attempts.

I really don't think it does.  It's outside of Time, it's existing in a 5D world looking at a 4D object.  Much like we are 4D and can't really comprehend time save it moving in one direction, I think the DO sees time as a dimension that same as width, lengths and depth.

So from the DO's perspective, picture looking at a tire spinning very slowly.  You reach out and puncture it in one place, drag a gash in it, get push back and finally shoved away from it.   From your perspective the tire doesn't come around and you poke again, that's just all there is, you can see the slash from your single attempt and that's that.  Meanwhile an insect sitting stationary inside the tire would would see the gash, have offspring, die as the gash disappears, the offspring have offspring, etc, etc, then the insect's progeny would see the gash come around again and perceive it as a new thing..

I think the DO made a single attempt, was smacked down and that was it, from its perspective.

I think this might be my favorite thing I've heard about this series. The only reason I might not agree is that it is implied that while time is cyclical in the series, that doesn't mean the same characters and events. If that is the case, it would make sense to say it is not a single gash. It is not a single attempt. If it was, it would be exactly the same every time, right? And it isn't.

But maybe that isn't quite right. Maybe it could be more accurate to say the Dark One fights EVERY SINGLE Tarmon Gaidon all at once? And gashes the tire an infinite number of times at once. Each time representing each turning of the wheel.

But then how are there different outcome at the end as Rand spins the pattern? Are all possibilities real and occur in different worlds? As discussed when they talk about the portal stones? And if so, that would imply that at the beginning of the universe (or all of them?) when all the different patterns were spun, was it determined the Dark One failed his infinite battles from the get-go because if he won any of them ever, and he is outside time, then he could affect any time period he wanted (or any instance of the turning of the wheel). Maybe this is why Jordan or Sanderson (whoever it was) said the Dark One CANNOT win, since he already failed every time. But this doesn't imply he didn't lose on purpose. But it also might make it confusing to say he lost on purpose because he was bored, since they all happened at once?

Trying to understand the perspective of a being outside of time is difficult. I love this topic more and more though. You guys are great.

7 hours ago, Asha'man Shar'aman said:

I’m pretty sure either RJ or BS said that the Dark One can never win (because the Wheel has been turning infinitely, he’ll never be able to win because he never could in the past/future), but I love this idea! Really adds a lot of interesting depth to the DO (who I think could’ve used a lot more fleshing out as an entity) and the idea of the cycle. It’s entertaining to think of him wanting to play the game but not win, especially with the parallel of Moridin and Sha’rah (that old board game). 
 

So while I think it’s disproven by the canon, there could be a fun loophole of the DO hasn’t realized he can’t win and for all intensive purposes, your theory would be right. He’d play the game and purposely lose, without ever realizing the outcome can’t be different. 
 

Thanks for the theory, I really like the perspective! 

And thanks for that! I really thought it was cool. The more I reread the series, the more I believe this. I feel out of all the media I have consumed (lol), this one by far is the most stable. By that I mean finding plot holes and things that are just silly are less frequent for me than say the Marvel movies for example. I never get tired of it. And any of the silly stuff is explained as a mechanic like plot armor (Ta'veren), the heros knowing their path without any experience at all (again, the pattern and the knowledge of past lives, plus the Snakes and Foxes for their assistance and answers). And this theory. Thanks for the reply!

5 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

It is clear from his confrontation with Rand that the Dark One does not want to win in the sense of winning the last battle and installing a Nae'Bliss as ruler of the world for a dark age.  He wants to win in the sense of putting the dragon in a position where he chooses to destroy the wheel entirely rather than continuing to accept the torments that the Dark One inflicts.

I agree that it is clear he doesn't want to install a ruler. And I was afraid it was simply stated that Jordan or Sanderson simply stated this theory wasn't true. But for the sake of discussion, how was it clear he certainly wanted to win and destroy everything? I feel the Dark One made a lot of goofs. Killing Rand as quickly as possible basically guarantees he will be set free. Then presumably he can do whatever he wants, even bring Rand back since he is the Lord of the Grave, yes? Destroying the seals as soon as he can definitely guarantees that. I believe Taim had the seals before Rand gave them to Egwene right? So what could Rand have done in response to him being free? I suppose we do not know, but I'd think it would be better than what happened. Better as in for the Dark One.

It seems as though you're implying the method he wants to use to win is by using Rand? I'll note I do not know much of what was said by Sanderson and Jordan, so all this is just coming from the books. But if that is the case, Rand come dangerously close to dying by most of the Forsaken. Yes, some of those were dealt with, but there was that order to kill Rand during the Cleansing yes? By killing Rand, that method is no longer valid. Maybe he wanted to cut his losses and keep Saidin tainted to better his chances for next time. But I'm not confident that is the case.

So I haven't seen anybody theorize this so I was curious what others though. I have come to believe that that Dark One never wanted to win in the first place. I feel like many of the decisions made were always suboptimal towards that purpose. Like if the whole series was a chess game, the Dark One purposefully doesn't take the king, or gives up his own pawns telling them to take the knights but never the king. He always ACTS like he wants to win and of course comes insanely close to it. But if other turning of the wheels are so similar, the Dark One should be wise and experienced enough to counter anything ignorant humans can come up with. Or even the main-character luck Rand has. So many chances for a slightly better decision to tip the scales and have the Dark One win. But I suspect he never wanted to win, only wants to play because he is bored. I could list specific examples but I'm sure we are all aptly educated at this point to discuss.

I suppose one thing to point out is when Rand experienced all of those other worlds when using the portal stone, was it in The Great Hunt? Rand lost many many times. If those were real, and it has been said in the series that if the Dark One wins in one world, he wins in all, wouldn't it make sense that with the possibility of his winning, that he actually won many times? But gave the win up just to continue the game for next time?

Thoughts?