Theoryland of the Wheel of Time

TOR Questions of the Week Part I (Verbatim)

What does the Dark One view as the worst punishment he can inflict on his minions: Killing them as painfully as possible? Balefire? Mindtrap? Being continually resurrected to suffer at his hand for eternity? Something we haven't seen yet?

The Dark One doesn't care about his minions sufficiently to invest much time in their punishment except as it serves to correct their behavior or as object lesson to others, nor is there much in the way of gradation. Simple failure and outright betrayal might be punished equally, or one might result in death and the other in becoming an object lesson or in something else. (The mindtrap, by the way, could be called an object lesson only to the one so trapped; remember, none of the Forsaken know who is mindtrapped except Moridin and those who are trapped.) The decision, death or object lesson or something else, normally would be simply a matter of whether or not he believed there was any point to an object lesson and/or whether or not he felt there was really any further use in the individual. Or, for that matter, made for reasons unknowable to a human mind. Remember, the Dark One is NOT human and thinking of him in human terms just doesn't work.

But he also operates under a constraint that did not exist in the Age of Legends. At that time, about 3% of the population could learn to channel to some extent, though not all chose to—the training program took time, and being able to channel carried with it certain obligations that not everyone wanted to undertake—but that still meant there were, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people in the world who could channel, and more likely millions. A large pool of possible recruits. Break a tool or decide it isn't working right and throw it out, because there is an endless supply of similar tools waiting on the shelf. That might be said to have been his attitude. In the here-and-now of the books, that figure is about 1%, and of that 1%, very, very few have any idea that they could learn to channel, much less have any training at all. Here-and-now, the pool of possible recruits is tiny.

Also, while the Forsaken themselves have realized that these primitives have discovered how to do things with the Power that they themselves cannot, or perhaps can once they learn how but never dreamed of doing until they found that the weaves existed here-and-now, they still think of people in the here-and-now as primitives, and their attitudes filter through to the Dark One, who believes that his people from the age of Legends are in all practical ways better—for which read better trained, more capable, and thus better able to serve him efficiently and effectively—than the people of the present time. And he is right. In a way. They are certainly better trained, with a much wider knowledge, at least in some areas. Some of their skills are absolutely useless in the society they are forced to live in. Aginor was a genius in biology and genetics, but in this world, he had no way to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools.... Well, you get the idea. Pity the poor chip designer dropped into the seventeenth century.

In any event, the Dark One tries to conserve his resources, using and reusing those he might have killed himself, or ordered killed, in a time where there were thousands to equal them.

age of legends, aginor, channeling, dark one, forsaken, one power, mindtrap, transmigration,

Barnes and Noble Chat (Verbatim)

Is there any way to escape a Mindtrap other than death?

To be released, you can be released from it.

mindtrap, moghedien, cyndane, lanfear,

COT Signing Report - Tim Kington (Paraphrased)

Is Mesaana now fitted with a Mindtrap?

RAFO.

mindtrap, mesaana,

KOD Signing Report - NaClH2O (Paraphrased)

When I finally got up to the desk I asked, "After Moghedien was mindtrapped, Moridin said that had she not managed to do some good by accident, she would have been dead. What good was Moridin referring to?"

NaClH2O

moghedien, mindtrap, moridin,

JordanCon 2010 Q&A Report - Terez (Paraphrased)

Who thought up the mindtrap? Any circumstances you can divulge...?

Brandon Sanderson

Maria Simons

I know nothing.

mindtrap, mafo,

TOM Signing Report - Matt Hatch (Paraphrased)

We are told that the mindtrap is somehow connected to the soul. Is it possible to create ter'angreal that can hold a soul, or be tied to a soul in such a way as to capture it at death?

Matt Hatch

Brandon Sanderson

mindtrap, souls, ter'angreal, age of legends,