This week on Reading The Wheel of Time, we’re covering chapter 14, in which Cadsuane brings Sorilea in to see Semirhage, and the first two thirds of chapter 15, in which Rand finds himself talking to Moridin and then, finally, confides a little in Min. Also, Aviendha and Amys learn about the Shaido prisoners of the Seanchan, and Amys tries to help Aviendha understand the reasons for her punishments. The last section of chapter 15, which is a conversation between Aviendha and Amys, we’ll cover next week.
In the manor house in Arad Doman, Cadsuane brings Sorilea to see the imprisoned Semirhage. Sorilea is interested in the weaves Cadsuane uses to restrain the Forsaken, and remarks that she is surprised to find Semirhage so human and easy to understand. Cadsuane notes a small reaction from Semirhage upon hearing those words, the first so far.
Semirhage brings up the Aiel’s history as peaceful servants, and asks Sorilea how much pain an Aiel would have to endure before they dishonored themselves, before they killed a blacksmith and dined on his flesh. Sorilea maintains her composure well, and once Semirhage’s sight and hearing has been blocked, Sorilea suggests that it is far to dangerous to keep her, and that she should be killed. Cadsuane agrees about the danger, but the need to prepare for the Great Battle, to know what Semirhage knows, is even greater.
They discuss Rand’s injunction against harming women, though Cadsuane doubts that Semirhage can be broken through pain, even if she were turned over to the Aiel. She is still convinced that a different method must be used, and wonders if a clue lies in Semirhage’s reaction to Sorilea’s comment.
Sorilea also asks to see the items Cadsuane is holding. Cadsuane would rather not show the male a’dam to anyone, even Sorilea, who Cadsuane regards as an equal. But Sorilea did show Cadsuane the weaves for Traveling, and Cadsuane feels that gesture must be returned. So she takes Sorilea and Bair to her room.
They pass the burned hole where the front door used to be, and Cadsuane reflects on al’Thor’s foolishness. They should have left this place, but he refused to be “chased away.”
Al’Thor seemed almost eager for the Last Battle. Or perhaps just resigned. To get there he felt he had to force his way through the petty squabbles of people like a midnight traveler pushing through banks of snow to arrive at the inn. The problem was, al’Thor wasn’t ready for the Last Battle. Cadsuane could feel it in the way he spoke, the way he acted. The way he regarded the world with that dark, nearly dazed expression. If the man he was now faced the Dark One to decide the fate of the world, Cadsuane feared for all people.
In her room, Cadsuane has a chest to act as a decoy, and a document box on her desk in which she keeps the only important items that she doesn’t wear on her person. It is protected by hidden, inverted weaves that will spring out and capture anyone in the room and sound an alarm if the box is opened. She undoes the weaves and shows the Wise Ones its contents—the access key to the male Choedan Kal and the male a’dam taken from Semirhage.
She explains what Nynaeve told her about the bracelets and collar, how they were supposed to be thrown into the sea, though Nynaeve never saw it done. The fact that the Seanchan have had this ter’angreal to use as a pattern is alarming. Sorilea remarks that the Seanchan should be fought for this abomination alone, and asks where the others are. Cadsuane replies that they are with “retired” Aes Sedai she trusts, along with the female a’dam, being tested.
Personally, Cadsuane has tested a female a’dam herself, knowing that the only way to defeat your enemies’ weapons against you is to understand them. She had women she trusted to release her standing by, and was frustrated when she found no weaknesses to exploit, and did, in fact, need to be released by another. She wants to test the male a’dam on a man, but Rand won’t allow it, only muttering about “the box.”
The three sit down to discuss the problem of Rand al’Thor, determined to find a way to help him, for the good of the world, and for Rand himself.
Rand “wakes” on the floor of a hallway, in a place that feels distantly familiar. He thinks he might be in Tel’aran’rhiod, but it doesn’t quite feel the same as the dream world. As he struggles with his memory, he realizes he does remember this place, and opens a door into a room with a view of a stormy sky.
He looked more closely, and saw that each new cloud formed the shape of a tormented face, the mouth open in a silent scream. The cloud would swell, expanding upon itself, face distorting, jaw working, cheeks twisting, eyes bulging. Then it would split, other faces swelling out of its surface, yelling and seething. It was transfixing and horrifying at the same time.
On the other side of the room is the fireplace, the stones around it warped as if by a great heat. But the table Rand remembers is not there anymore, and there is a fiery red light oozing from between the stones.
There are also two armchairs. Fearing what he will find, Rand walks over and finds Moridin sitting in one of them. Rand knows now that Moridin is Ishamael, though the man cuts him off when Rand tries to use the name. Rand insists that he killed Ishamael, that he is dead and this is just a dream.
Moridin finally looked at him. Flames from the fire cast bright red and orange light across his angular face and unblinking eyes. “Why do you always whine that way? Just a dream. Do you not know that many dreams are more truthful than the waking world?”
Rand can see hands and faces in the fire, and realizes that there are rats behind the stones, clawing to get out as they are burned alive.
Moridin reminds Rand that everyone is reborn, spun out into the Pattern again and again, and that death is no barrier to the Dark One. Anyone can be brought back to life, unless they are destroyed by Balefire. Rand is relieved that at least some of the Forsaken he killed are dead for good.
Rand finds he remembers Lews Therin’s death, and his last encounter with Ishamael, but Lews Therin is strangely absent from Rand’s mind. In fact, Rand feels more stable and whole here than he has in a long time.
He is surprised when Moridin asks Rand why he came here; Rand had assumed that Moridin was in his dream. Moridin asks Rand to go and leave him in peace, claiming that it is not time for them to fight and that he doesn’t know what will happen if they kill each other, now that they are connected somehow.
He promises Rand that the Great Lord will have him soon enough, and Rand counters that the Dark One has failed before and this time, Rand will defeat him again.
Moridin laughed again, the same heartless laugh as before. “Perhaps you will,” he said. “But do you think that matters? Consider it. The Wheel turns, time and time again. Over and over the Ages turn, and men fight the Great Lord. But someday, he will win, and when he does, the Wheel will stop.”
This, Moridin claims, is why the Dark One’s eventual victory is certain: The Dragon needs to defeat him endlessly, but the Dark One only needs to win once. This, Rand realizes, is why Elan went over to the Dark, and suggest that Elan’s own logic was destroyed him.
“There is no path to victory,” Moridin said. “The only path is to follow the Great Lord and rule for a time before all things end. The others are fools. They look for grand rewards in the eternities, but there will be no eternities. Only the now, the last days.”
Rand stands, declaring that there is a way to win, and that he intends to kill the Dark One. Moridin is unimpressed, suggesting that Rand cannot understand the stupidity of his statement. Rand reaches for the One Power, which feels impossibly distant, but once he grabs it he feels himself yanked away into blackness.
Min is reading one of Herid Fel’s books, but is interrupted by Rand thrashing in his sleep. Once he stops, she returns to her reading, determined to figure out what Fel was going to tell Rand about the Last Battle, what message he wasn’t able to pass on before he was murdered by the Dark.
She figured—from reading among his books—that she could trace his thoughts. Rand had wanted information on how to seal the Dark One’s prison. Could Fel have discovered what she thought she had?
Min is determined to solve this puzzle, not only to help Rand but to help the world itself.
Rand wakes, and immediately begins talking about Lews Therin being back in his head. Min urges him to talk to someone, reminding him that being strong does not mean never sharing anything. She pushes him until he admits that he knows that she is strong enough to share his fears and struggles with.
Finally, reluctantly, Rand admits that Semirhage was right, that Lews Therin is inside Rand’s head, that he speaks to Rand and responds to the world around Rand, and that sometimes he even tries to take control over the One Power, even succeeding upon occasion. He explains that, despite what Semirhage says, Lews Therin is real; he knows things that Rand doesn’t and remembers things from his life that Rand can’t, proving that they two different people.
Min counters that they are the same person, that Lews Therin was Rand’s previous life and remembers because Rand lived that life, but Rand argues that she’s wrong. He insists that Lews Therin is mad and he, Rand, is not, and is desperate not to hurt the ones he loves the way Lews Therin did.
And when I defeat the Dark One, I won’t leave him able to return a short time later and terrorize us again.”
Three thousand years a “short time later”? She put her arms around him. “Does it matter?” she asked. “If there is another person, or if those are just memories from before, the information is useful.”
Rand admits this is true, but that he is afraid to use the One Power because Lews Therin will try to take control, and that he can’t be trusted after the horrible things he has done. Privately, Min wonders if this is how all men experience the madness of the taint, believing someone else is inside them and that person is responsible for all the bad things.
Rand also tells Min that Ishamael is alive, and that only using Balefire can make sure the Dark One doesn’t resurrect his best tools. Min reminds him of what Cadsuane said about using Balefire, but Rand replies that he is the Dragon Reborn, and he will be the one who decides how they fight.
He is determined to kill the Dark One, or to at least seal him away so tightly that the world will forget about him. Min tells him that she believes he has to destroy the seals on the Dark One’s prison, that this is what Fel meant in his note by “have to destroy before you can build.” She suspects Rand to be shocked, but he only muses that the concept makes sense, and worries over how breaking the seals will scare people.
Min thinks about how the prophecies don’t say that Rand will win, only that he will fight. Aloud, she assures him that she knows he will find a way to defeat the Dark One, and that she has faith in him.
He sighed. “Faith in a madman, Min?”
“Faith in you, sheepherder.” Suddenly viewings spun around his head. She ignored them most of the time, unless they were new, but now she picked them out. Fireflies consumed in darkness. Three women before a pyre. Flashes of light, darkness, shadow, signs of death, crowns, injuries, pain and hope. A tempest around Rand al’Thor, stronger than any physical storm.
Rand points out that he still doesn’t know how to stop the Dark One, even if he does break the seals, and Min promises to find answers for him. She feels his trust through the bond, and reflects that letting her in has made a few small cracks in the stone.
My brain keeps wanting to make a parallel between the metaphorical cracks in Rand’s stone and the molten lava in the cracks of the flagstones in Moridin’s weird little sitting room. I don’t really know if that’s anything, but there’s this interesting thematic aspect to Rand seeing his hardness as strength and resolve while everyone else sees it as being closed off and inflexible, which I kind of feel like we are seeing reflected, and iterated, in Moridin.
In chapter 14, Cadsuane reflects that Rand seems to believe he has to “force his way through the petty squabbles of people like a midnight traveler pushing through banks of snow to arrive at the inn,” in order to get to the Last Battle. I was struck by how apt the metaphor is, and how I, as a reader, never really felt like this part of Rand’s perspective needed to be challenged. His interpretations about the meaning of things, yes, but it is true that a lot of people in this world can’t put aside their own desires for power or control or whatever, either because they are too afraid to recognize how near the Last Battle truly is, or because they genuinely don’t understand that it is coming.
Or because they’re like Elaida and Pedron Niall, and believe that they are supposed to be the head generals of the Last Battle, using the Dragon Reborn rather than following him.
Egwene is going to take us into that discussion next week, so I’ll leave it f0r now, but it is definitely a factor.
I, as a reader who is privy to all the perspectives and all the information known by all of the POV characters, always find characters who don’t understand or choose to center themselves in the narrative surrounding the Last Battle to be incredibly frustrating. As Rand does.
But Cadsuane’s thoughts made me wonder if there was another way for Rand. Was there a way for him to ignore more of the chaos around him, to skirt some of these conflicts and allow others to begin uniting the world for him? Not that anyone has really done a very good job at that, except for Egwene. (And technically the Seanchan, though I don’t love to admit it.) If the White Tower hadn’t been fractured from the inside out by the Black Ajah, they could have been doing that work, I suppose… but they aren’t.
In any case, whether or not Rand ever had other, possibly better, options as he attempted to unite the world, Cadsuane’s perspective is still very helpful. As is Min’s point that Rand needs to let someone in, and that he has people in his life who love him enough, and are strong enough, to carry the burden of knowing what is really going on with him. By the end of their conversation, Min thinks that there are a few cracks in the stone of Rand’s emotions, perhaps enough to let her in. And if she’s right, this could be the first step towards the lesson Cadsuane wants to teach him.
And then there is the Forsaken formerly known as Ishamael, who is experiencing some cracks of his own. In his case, it feels like the man has been holding back a sort of nihilistic despair that he is now, finally giving into. When he was Ba’alzamon, he was very focused on the work of conquering the world for the Dark One, very confident in his ability to manipulate everyone and to bend or break Rand to his will. Even if all that was a front, it was very convincing and Ishamael seemed very motivated.
Now, as he himself admits, Moridin is just tired. He has become connected to Rand in a way even he doesn’t understand, and while he is still doing his duty as Nae’blis, it is a much quieter action, and almost feels like just going through the motions. The cracks in him are showing, as well, and I wonder if Rand is going to worm his way in, somehow.
Elan and Lews were friends once, after all.
Some of Ishamael/Moridin’s beliefs about the inevitably of the Dark One’s victory have been touched on earlier in the series, though I can’t remember exactly when. It’s definitely spelled out more clearly now, however, and I’m particularly intrigued by Rand’s assessment that Elan’s own logic destroyed him. That comment was made in reference to Moridin’s claim that the Dark One’s victory is inevitable because the Dark One only needs to triumph once in order to end everything. One has to admit, at first glance, that it is a frightening thought.
But Rand clearly sees this logic as flawed, though there are a few possible reasons as to why he assesses it the way he does.
One could argue that not everything can be understood through pure logic. Egwene is actually going to say as much to a White sister in the next chapter—that some things must be understood through emotion. When it comes to a battle between Good and Evil, between Creation and its polar opposite, it does make sense to say that this fight isn’t about logic at all, but about something that transcends statistics or reason or even philosophy, something that is felt and understood by the heart. It isn’t about figuring out which side is most likely to win by the numbers, but by feeling in your gut which is the right side to fight for. Regardless of the final outcome, there is only one right, moral choice to make.
Even if the endless conflict between the Dark One and the Wheel, between Creation and its antithesis, could be reduced to a logical equation, it is kind of silly to assume that a human—even the most powerful and knowledgeable and wise human to ever exist—could conceive of the whole truth of this struggle, could have any concept of what the Dark One really is, what Creation really is.
Even what the Chosen experience when connecting with the Dark One in Shayol Ghul is still filtered through the lens of the Pattern and their own human consciousness. Even they know basically nothing of what the Dark One truly is, why he (we should say it) exists, or even the great cosmic reason for this never-ending conflict. It is ridiculous to imagine that the Dark One thinks like a human at all, or that his true desires and motivations could even be understood by a mere mortal.
It’s ironic that Moridin has recognized the ridiculousness (which I myself have often pointed out) of the other Forsaken’s belief that they will get to rule and enjoy themselves for eternities once the Dark One wins the Last Battle. And yet he doesn’t ever question his own assumptions about what the endgame will look like.
Moridin just wants to stop existing, I think. He doesn’t think there will be anything good for him once the Dark One wins, and seems to believe that everything will just end. Since he believes that the Dark One’s victory is inevitable, it kind of feels like he just wants to get the whole thing over with. If it was just the case of giving up the fight, he could have chosen to opt out of the battle against the Dark, refusing to suffer for a lost cause and trying to find a place to avoid as much of it as possible. But that’s not what he did. Instead, he chose to dedicate himself to the Dark One and to become his most powerful and effective soldier, which does seem to suggest a desire to hasten inevitably along.
Destroyed by his own logic, indeed.
(I feel called to note, at this point, that some of the things Ishamael said in the television show about hating the cycle of rebirth and just wanting to be done with it are affecting my read of Moridin now. I don’t see anything in the book to contradict the show’s presentation of Ishamael, though of course Ishamael’s desires and beliefs might have been simplified somewhat to work on the small screen, where there isn’t as much time for long-winded musings and where themes often need to be a bit… crisper.)
Ishamael’s choice to accept the Light’s defeat also shows that he doesn’t value the good things in the world. One could argue that, even if the Dark One will win someday, every Age that survives, every person who lives out a life, is worth it. Ishamael deciding that none of that matters because the Dark One will win eventually is a bit like if we today decided not to take care of our planet because we know that in, like, five billion years or whatever, the sun is going to turn into a red giant and engulf the earth.
Think about it. How many times has the Wheel turned fully? We don’t know, but it could be millions, or quadrillions, or a number far outside our comprehension. And if the Dark One only needs to win once, it’s possible that he has been defeated for, I don’t know, a googolplex of times and never won once.
The odds at any given time might seem to be against the Light, but when you look at it from a cosmic perspective, the odds for defeating the Dark One this time around actually look really, really good.
I’m not sure which, if any, of these ideas Rand is thinking, or if he’s not thinking any of them. From Rand’s point of view, it might be enough to know that the Dark One’s victory and the destruction of the world is unacceptable, and so he will not accept it.
And that, I think, shows us that Rand is still in there. No matter how hard he has tried to cut himself off from his emotions and how much he resents the suffering he has undergone, and how little he trusts even those closest to him, he is still willing to suffer, willing to fight, and that shows that he hasn’t lost his love for the world.
Moridin, on the other hand, clearly has. Maybe he never had it—one consistent trait of all the Forsaken is only caring about themselves, and Elan/Ishamael is probably no different in that respect, even if he very much is in other ways.
I’m curious about the place where Moridin and Rand met. My best guess is that Rand found his way into Moridin’s actual dreams, not in Tel’aran’rhiod but in Moridin’s own head. It makes sense to me that Moridin is the sort to have a lucid dream—he’s all messed up on True Power, after all, and he’s so dramatic in all his imagery. It might also be a real place, and the same place that Rand visited last time, but it is clearly somehow outside the regular pattern. A vacuole, maybe—those are bubbles that are outside of the Pattern, technically, so it makes sense that the One Power would feel far away and that the experience would feel very different from being inside the Pattern. Being technically outside the Pattern could even explain why Lews Therin was no longer in Rand’s head while he was there; Rand traveled to somewhere else, but the corruption of his connection to a different time, a different Age, is part of his experience of the Pattern.
Speaking of Lews Therin, Rand and Min’s differing assessments of what that presence is, and what it isn’t, were both fascinating. I think they both had a point; neither were entirely right, but neither were entirely wrong, either. Rand’s madness is not him imagining Lews Therin is talking to him while in reality it’s just his own mind speaking to him; I do think Lews Therin is really “there” in some metaphysical sense. But Min is correct in pointing out that Lews Therin and Rand are the same person—in so far as they are the same soul. The madness is not Rand hallucinating that Lews Therin is there when he isn’t, it’s the fact that Rand’s mind is experiencing a consciousness from a previous incarnation, that he has become a single soul with two consciousnesses.
Or something like that. I think it’s a little less straightforward than how I have described it, but the gist is correct. Rand tries to “prove” that Lews Therin is a completely different person by pointing out that Lews Therin has memories and knowledge that Rand doesn’t. However, we have seen Rand instinctually use weaves he was never taught, even before Lews Therin manifested in his mind, which shows at the very least an ability to invent weaves on the spot, and may in fact suggest some kind of connection to the knowledge and power his soul had before, or that is perhaps written into the soul, outside of whatever person and consciousness it has during any given incarnation.
Lews Therin’s presence in Rand’s mind may be a corruption of something that was always meant to be there to protect and guide the soul called the Dragon in his fight for the Light.
In any case, I hope that this conversation will spur on more conversations between Rand and Min about Lews Therin, and I think that if it does, they may actually be able to get to some kind of understanding. Min needs to recognize that telling Rand that his interpretations of his experiences are wrong isn’t helpful. Even if she is right and he is hallucinating Lews Therin entirely, a madman is not going to be able to understand and accept that you are right and they are wrong. The madman’s inability to distinguish the difference is part of the problem!
However, I do think Min could offer Rand some helpful perspective in how to view and engage with Lews Therin’s presence. Rand either misremembered or misunderstood what Semirhage said about his madness; he suggests that Semirhage said that he was wrong about Lews Therin being in his mind and insists to Min that he is real, but Semirhage actually never said that Lews Therin wasn’t real. She did say that Rand is insane, but she also said that Lews Therin being real made the situation worse.
Lews Therin isn’t Rand, and Rand isn’t Lews Therin. However, they are both born of the same soul, and in that way they are the same person. Min has the details wrong, but I do think she has the right idea here, and I do wonder if she might be able to help Rand find a new perspective on the whole citation. Rand is afraid of Lews Therin as he is afraid of himself, but you can’t be at war with yourself. Rand needs to be able to accept the part of himself that was Lews Therin, just as Lews Therin needs to find a way to forgive himself for what he did when he was mad. Or at least to let it go.
Exactly what kind of peace and equilibrium one should be seeking out between oneself and an older version of oneself? I am sure I don’t know. But I do think that this is the right direction to be taking things.
I was also struck by a piece of the vision Min saw around Rand when she decided to take a moment to let it all in. Most were either too vague to mean anything, or something we’ve encountered before like the darkness and the sparks of light, but there was also, specifically, a mention of three woman around a pyre, which immediately made me think of Rand’s three lovers and how he believes that he is going to die at the Last Battle.
Personally, I have always believed that Rand will survive, both because it doesn’t feel like the kind of story where the chosen one sacrifices everything and then dies at the end, and also because Rand is so convinced he’s going to die. After all, the prophecies don’t say he will die, only that his blood will be on the rocks at Shayol Ghul. But it’s hard to imagine that his vision of three women around a funeral pyre, seen while Min is studying Rand, isn’t a portent of his death. So that is something to consider.
I do love that Min has become a scholar. It gives her a little more agency in the story, and, again as she herself observes, shows that her relevance to the events of her Age is not just about making Rand accept love and care. She has something important to offer the world in the fight against the Dark One.
I had guessed that “clearing away the rubble” referred to breaking the seals so that the Dark One’s cage can be made whole again. The idea has come up obliquely a few times, and as we know, the cyclical nature of time means that the Dark One’s prison has to be made perfect and whole again so that people can forget about the Dark One and thus make the mistake of drilling the Bore when that Age comes back around the Wheel again.
Rand even mentions, in this section, his intention to seal the Dark One away so thoroughly that people will forget about his existence. Some part of him knows, I think, what must be done. What will be done, and has been done before.
There isn’t that much to say about Cadsuane’s section, but I do enjoy watching her work and seeing how she thinks. She’s close to realizing something about Semirhage, I think, which is that the Forsaken only cares about her image. If Cadsuane can destroy that, make her look weak or foolish in the eyes of others, I think she might have a chance to actually break the Forsaken.
The a’dam would be a good tool for that, of course, but Cadsuane is clever, as are the Wise Ones. I think it can be done, but not as long as everyone shows how scared they are of Semirhage. As long as people are visibly sickened by her stories and frightened by her threats, Semirhage has the upper hand.
I can’t blame Rand, really, for refusing to let Cadsuane test the male a’dam. It is a good idea, and Cadsuane showed both practicality and intense bravery in trying it herself, even if she was with women she trusted. But Rand, quite understandably, doesn’t have the strength to endure an experience like wearing the a’dam, even as a test, and would either lose it entirely or maybe find a way to kill everyone around him even while wearing it. And with how guilty he already feels about the moral gray areas he has had to explore, I can’t imagine him inflicting that horror on someone else, even if an Asha’man were willing to do it. I’m not sure I could ask such a thing of another human being, if I were in his shoes.
The fact that the Seanchan have replicated the male a’dam is horrible, though, and I’m quite sure this isn’t the last we will hear about that.
Sorilea and Cadsuane talk a little in chapter 14 about Rand believing that women can’t handle pain as well as men, which was interesting to me since that isn’t quite why he has his injunction against harming women. He knows women are strong, just as he tells Min that he knows she is strong—it’s he himself who can’t handle the suffering of women. The problem is, and always has been, Rand’s own difficult emotions and his inability to navigate them in a healthy way. Or… at all, really.
I am still enjoying Cadsuane and Sorilea’s uneasy alliance, and the way that Cadsuane recognizes an equal in Sorilea, something she doesn’t even see in most Aes Sedai. In many ways, Cadsuane thinks like an Aiel, however much their goals and intentions may not align. I hope we get to see more of them working together.
And finally, I want to make note of Cadsuane’s last line in chapter 14. Sorilea has just said that they must solve the problem of Rand al’Thor for the good of the world. Cadsuane adds that they must do it for Rand himself, most of all.
This moment, for me, was like the moment Verin decided not to poison Cadsuane. It shows that Cadsuane is a good person, that for all her main goal is to see the world safely to, and through, the Last Battle, she hasn’t lost sight of her own humanity, or of Rand al’Thor’s. I don’t think Cadsuane’s perspective on Rand is quite right, and she is in danger of making him worse if she doesn’t change her approach, but this shows, I think, that at least her heart is in the right place.
We’ll cover Aviendha’s section next week, finishing up chapter 15, and then move on to chapter 16, in which things really come to a head for Egwene. It’s a great chapter, and I can’t wait to talk about it. See you all then!
Over the weekend, I stumbled upon an old Reddit thread – Meming Every Chapter of the Wheel of Time.
Some of them were quite funny.
Here’s the one for TGS Chapter 14:
Very good philosophical discussion about the dark one and creation here. The definition of a romantic according to one of my AP English professors was “do you think there are things humans can never understand” in my core I think I believe this while believing that we should still keep trying that the meaning and advancement is in the struggle to understand things – so I guess I am a romantic scientist/ romantic enlightenment realist – so just very very confused… yeah that seems right.
Very interesting discussions about the connection between Mordin and Rand and oh so close on the interpretation of the three women standing in front of a prior. How you respond to the ending is going to be fascinating …
Also have to say I think themes really should’t be crisper in TV shows – that just leads to dumbing down. I like my entertainment to make me climb up – but many do not it seems…
“The fact that the Seanchan have replicated the male a’dam is horrible, though, and I’m quite sure this isn’t the last we will hear about that.”
I actually think it IS the last we hear of the male adam, right? Which is weird. It feels like an unfired Checkoff’s gun.
Am I forgetting anything?
Yes. I believe you are forgetting the circumstances of Semirhage’s death.
Heh, good point. But what I was referring to specifically was the Seanchan having additional male adam and the ability to make more. That never came up again, did it?
I don’t know whether we know that the Seanchan have any additional male a’dam (sad bracelets) than these 6. Or who exactly made these copies. As far as I know the chain of custody seems to go Nynaeve -> Egeanin -> Suroth -> Semirhage. It’s possible Semirhage made the copies herself, because the “impersonate Tuon to capture the Dragon” plan necessarily needed to be secret. Though we don’t know whether Semirhage has that particular ability.
My own thought is that Moridin’s logic suffers from a critical flaw, one that Rand might not consciously identify but that, in the terms of WoT’s cosmology, necessarily shoots it in the foot. The entire premise of the Wheel of Time is that the wheel is *eternal*; like the start of every book tells us, there are neither beginnings nor endings to its turning.
Therefore, in an eternity, *anything* that has any chance whatsoever of happening, both will happen and will have had happened. If Moridin is correct that the Dark One would break the Wheel if freed, then it follows that *if the Wheel isn’t broken, the Dark One has never been freed*, from which it also follows that the Dark One *will* never be freed.
One side’s victory is inevitable, but it’s not the Dark’s.
Titles of the Elan Morin works, provided in the TWoRJTWoT, can provide insight into his intellectual framework:
Nihilism and the Absence of Meaning: The title Reality and the Absence of Meaning implies a rejection of inherent purpose or value in existence. Elan Morin likely argued that reality lacks objective meaning, a stance that aligns with nihilistic philosophy. This perspective would have made him particularly susceptible to the Dark One’s promises.
Deconstruction of Reason: Disassembly of Reason suggests a critical approach to rational thought, possibly questioning the reliability of human perception and logic. Elan Morin may have viewed reason as a flawed tool for understanding the universe, paving the way for his embrace of the Shadow’s chaotic, destructive ideology.
Interchangeable Roles: A striking aspect of Ishamael’s philosophy is his claim that Lews Therin had served the Shadow in previous turnings of the Wheel, becoming the Dark One’s champion. This suggests a belief in the fluidity of moral allegiance, where even the greatest heroes of the Light could fall to the Shadow. For Ishamael, this reinforced the futility of resisting the Dark One, as the outcome of each turning was merely a variation of an inevitable cycle.
Fatalism and Despair: Ishamael’s view of an endless war fosters a fatalistic outlook. If the struggle between Light and Shadow is eternal, with no final resolution, then resistance to the Shadow becomes meaningless. This fatalism likely fueled his nihilistic call for the “complete destruction of everything,” as he saw no value in preserving a world trapped in an unending cycle of conflict.
Ishamael’s philosophy also finds significant parallels with Georges Bataille, as his embrace of destruction, transgression, and power mirrors Bataille’s focus on excess and sovereignty, particularly in their shared response to a meaningless world.
Wauw, somebody else knows Bataille over here!
Honestly, this is very close to the flaw in Ishamael’s logic.
Because time is a wheel with no start or end, in the Wheel of Time. The Dark One has lost literally infinite times. His chance of winning is literally zero. It’s not inevitable that the Dark One wins, it’s impossible. Though he’s allowed to ‘win’ the last battle in the sense of overrunning all of civilization and starting an era – or even an entire turn of the wheel – of darkness. Just not to win in the sense of breaking the wheel.
Which is… good. But the problem for Cadsuane is that you have to ask Rand, not just assume you know best for him.
And also, that’s not what he wants. You can argue that it’s a mistake, but nobody seems to understand that Rand has accepted that he must die at the last battle and is not focused on what happens to himself afterwards, and that there’s good reasons to believe he’s right. Which means that it really doesn’t matter so much if he laughs or whatever – he won’t be around to shape the world in the next age, so what kind of age he’d make is irrelevant.
Now, readers with the benefit of knowing how everything goes can argue… but it just irks me that nobody around him seems to even consider that he might be right.
If you take the theological law of WoT at face value, that there were truly no beginnings or endings to the Wheel then yes it was clear from the beginning that there could be no victory for the Dark One. But what I wondered the first time through is that maybe there was a “dark” secret to the cosmology that hadn’t been revealed that meant that the popular conception of eternal turnings was an incorrect assumption based on flawed observations. After all, we live in the same universe ostensibly as Randland, and yet in our “age” we do not have universal surety in belief in an eternal Wheel and Pattern, so presumably there are similar “dark ages” and lacunae of knowledge in long stretches of the history of Randland. And if we could be wrong, then maybe the people of Randland could be wrong too. Didn’t turn out that way of course.
On the subject of teaching Rand laughter, that was necessary to avoid the destruction of the world. If Rand is correct that he held enough Power through the Choedan Kal to destroy the Pattern, then if Cadsuane ever failed in her mission, the cycle would end. It’s not about “what kind of age he’d make” after the last battle, whatever Cadsuane thinks. Rand being reintegrated at the crucial moment was necessary for the world to survive at all.
If you looking at the secrets in WoT cosmology try this one: one of its foundational stones is dialectics, synergy of opposites. What synergy can come out of opposing ideas of cyclical and linear times?
Modern physics (especially general relativity) and most analytic philosophers of time somewhat favor the “block universe” or eternalist picture: past, present, and future all exist tenselessly in a four-dimensional spacetime manifold. The Wheel of Time is explicitly modeled this way — there is no first turn, no final turn, and no temporal edge. Every Age exists “already” in the total structure of reality.
Consequence: the fact that we observe a coherent Pattern at all is direct evidence that the Dark One has never (in any past or future turn) achieved the total, Wheel-breaking victory he seeks. If he ever had succeeded even once, the entire block would be replaced by the static, timeless non-existence he promises (“an end to endings”). Since the block manifestly contains infinite coherent turns, total victory has zero occurrences across infinite trials.
Also, David Lewis’s modal realism treats all possible worlds as equally real. In an Everett-style many-worlds branching combined with an eternal Wheel, every turn of the Wheel spawns a new branch for every quantum (or Pattern-level) outcome.
This is a version of the quantum-immortality argument, but inverted: instead of the observer surviving, it is the entire cosmos that survives, forcing the “win” probability to zero.
Still, Elan Morin would probably came up with some counterarguments (as ishamael/Moridin he would be beyound discussions)
Many people know that Robert Jordan was a decorated Vietnam veteran. The combat scenes in WOT are written by man that was in actual combat.
A bit less know is the fact that Robert Jordan studied physics at the Citadel, graduating with a Bachelor of Science. I don’t know their curriculum, but it is very unlikely that he did not study special relativity and quantum physics. He had a mind fully capable of comprehending four dimensional space time manifolds. Also physics is full of conservation laws, as are the magic and metaphysics of the WOT.
I always wondered how many formal philosophical training Jordan had. An important theme in WOT is that of duty and being forced into fulfilling it. But even when forced you can choose ‘why to do it’. This reminds me of Husserl and early Heidegger.
I also think, that one of most important RJ quotes is this one: ”Even if you do it unconsciously, you have to refer to religion if you’re writing fantasy. You’re stepping into the realm of the supernatural and so you’re stepping into the realm of religion. A few years ago I found myself thrown into the company of theoretical physicists on panels. I thought, ‘I’m not going to be able to talk with these men because my knowledge of this field is 25 years out of date.’ But I found that I could hold my own not by talking physics but by talking theology”.
But this quote is rarely brought up in the dicsusscions.