Theoryland Chronicles

Members :Frenzy : Grand Taint Unification Theory

Introduction

I think one of the things the Taint does to you is to break down the barriers between you and your past lives. You begin to hear the voices of yourself, but from other lives. Since you're hearing the echoes of your own soul, THERE'S ONLY ONE SOUL IN EACH BODY!!! (so nyah, Dragon Thief!)

Anyway, I like to dredge this little gem of deductive reasoning out every once in a while. Probably cuz it's my one coherent theory. It seems to go along with the topic of discussion here anyway. It's long, so grab a snack...

Frenzy's Grand Theory of Saidin, the Taint, the Seals, and the Madness. (I finally wrote it all down. It's a bit long, but bear with me.)

Development

Let's start with what's known about the Taint. We know that it was the Dark One's counterstroke against the Hundred Companions sealing the Bore. It causes madness and a wasting illness in all male channelers. It has been described, both by Rand and by the BWB as akin to rancid oil covering the purity of Saidin. Everything else is theory. Well, here's mine.

The Taint

The Taint is the essence of evil, the essence of the Great Lord of the Dark. The GL placed the Taint on Saidin because the Hundred Companions were attacking him with Saidin. I think the Taint was placed at the same moment that the Seals were placed. Therefor the Bore is incomplete, since the GL can alter the world by altering Saidin.

We've seen what happens to works made with Tainted Saidin. Eventually the Taint effects them. The Ways were clean and usable for 2000 years, then started to deteriorate around the time of the War of the Hundred Years. So it takes a long time for a power-wrought object to fall to the Taint. But what of works made with both Saidar and Tainted Saidin? I think that Saidar has a cleansing effect of some kind, keeping the Taint at bay, or even eliminating it. There are two items that come to mind that were made with Saidar and Tainted Saidin: the Ward around Callandor and the Pattern itself. (There is a possibility that the Ward was created with Saidin from the Eye, but I think the Ward was created before the Eye was.) Saidin is still used to drive the Wheel, and yet the Pattern is pretty-much unaffected by the Taint. Sure, there are blighted areas of the Pattern, but I think they derive from the Bore more than the Taint, since they are localized. If this normalizing effect of Saidar actually exists, it could prove very useful when it comes time to cleanse Saidin.

Saidin and Death

We've debated the nature of Saidin to death, and here's what I think of the whole mess. The Taint is a film on top of Saidin, so that when a channeler accesses Saidin he has to go through the Taint first. When the channeler draws on Saidin, most of the Taint goes into his body, causing madness and disease. The Taint, after all, was an attack on the Hundred Companions, not their weaving. A small portion of it also goes into his weaving itself. But since most weaves are temporary, there's not enough time for the Taint to corrupt the weave.

Here's another analogy. Think of the Taint as a slick of bacteria growing on the surface of Saidin. Whenever a channeler draws on Saidin, he has to go through the bacteria first. The bacteria attack the channeler, but a few organisms also go into the weave. It takes a while for the bacteria to multiply to the point where it can infect the weave.

The Ways

The Ways finally succumbed to the Taint, and now the Taint has a "living" manifestation in the Ways: Machin Shin. Machin Shin still needs to feed, and it has already consumed the Ways, so it attacks any hapless travelers, infecting their minds with madness, and given enough time, it will take their bodies as well as their souls. These souls are then trapped within Machin Shin, and cannot be rewoven into the Pattern by the Wheel. We've already seen one species of Shadowspawn that attacks the mind before it takes the soul: Draghkar, so there is a precedent.

The Madness

Madness comes to all male channelers, if they live long enough to experience it. They live in a world of nightmares, with the power to make them come true. I think the Taint breaks down the barriers between lives. You begin to hear the voices of your past lives. Rand's case is a little more acute because his voice is already mad. Knowing that your soul goes through a cycle of death and rebirth is one thing, confronting the voices of your past selves is quite another. This added to the physical degeneration caused by the Taint is usually enough to drive someone mad.

The Sickness

The wasting disease, along with the madness, comes fast for some, slow for others. I think this is due to a combination of two factors: the number of times you use Saidin, and your personality. The more you use Saidin, the more Taint you take into yourself, simple as that. And a person who is strong-willed, say Taim, can withstand the onslaught of the Taint longer than someone who is weak-willed can. (I'm ignoring all Taimandred arguements, btw)

The Seals

The Seals are weaves of Saidin, with Heartstone discs used as foci. There seems to be a weakening of the seals, along with a weakening of the Heartstone discs. Since the Taint is the essence of the GL, there must be some way that the GL is maintaining it on Saidin. It's possible that there's an infinitesimally small hole or crack in the Seals, which allows the GL to maintain the Taint. Or it could be that the Seals create a conduit in which the GL can leave his mark on Saidin.

We know that given skill and enough time, you can undo a weave that has been tied off. We also know that to maintain a weave, you must be connected to the Source. In other words, you have to be alive. As far as I know, all of the Hundred Companions are dead. So who's maintaining the Seals? If they're tied off, then why didn't the Chosen on the other side simply unravel them? Maybe the normal rules don't apply on the other side of the Bore, since it's outside of the Pattern. Maybe the Heartstone discs are ter'angrael which maintain the Seals without the need of a channeler. We've already seen Saidin being woven without a male channeler with the Bowl of Winds, and Sammael's callboxes.

The Black Cords

We've seen black cords coming off a few of the male Chosen. So what are they? I think they are a "physical" manifestation of their oaths to the Great Lord. I say physical in quotes because we only actually see the cords in alternative reality states, like Tel'aran'rhiod and the Skimming dimension, (I have a beef about Rand seeing Asmodean while Skimming, but I won't go into it here.), and while the Chosen are channeling. Anyway, these cords are the ties that bind the male Chosen to the Dark One, and they are black because they are removing the Taint from Saidin as the Chosen channels. They appear because they are removing the Taint. Rands cords appear in tEotW because he is channeling Saidin, but his aren't black because he's channeling from the Eye, not the Tainted Source.

Conclusion

Well, that's my take on the whole thing. Please tell me what you think, since you took the time to wade through all that. Of course, being a woman, I can't fully comprehend Saidin, its effect on male channelers, or what's happening to it. Not that that's a bad thing.