he Wheel Turns...
by Highbreaker: 2003-04-11 | Not yet rated
Many people seem to believe that this age is the wheel, and at the end, the world will break again and the taint will be put on the Source in the next age...
I have seen these types of ideas used as arguments several times throughout the site. But I can not agree with that. The wheel is several ages long. This is age is the third (fourth? - I can't remember) age. The world breaks in the age preceding this one, and I would assume, that the age after this one is one based more heavily on science than the AoL, and much less destitute than the current age. Rand seems to be working hard towards this with the Schools he sets up all over Randland.
The wheel spins in a longer loop than most people choose to believe. By the time that this age, (rand's age) is repeated, the age of rand will be so far gone that even the legends of the legends of it will be forgotten. The prophecies of the dragon, the ones that are considered so old that they most people believe they are just legends were written in the same age as Rand was born. We know that there was atleast two ages (but IMHO, many more) between the last "rand" and the current one. We can not use information from preceding ages, excepting only personality simularities between LTT and Rand, as arguments for how things will turn out in the future. In LTT's age, the taint was created, in Rands, it was removed...
I hope for feedback, 'cause I write much better when I can bounce ideas off of other minds... I have trouble remembering everything I want to say until someone tries to debunk my theory, hey who knows, maybe I won't have an answer... but I doubt it. :)
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1
Tamyrlin: 2003-04-14
I don't believe that the taint will come again until the next turning...however, it is possible. This is my belief, as you said we know there are seven Ages that repeat themselves in similar but varying degrees to the previous turnings. We can surmise that this current Age is three thousands years long. We don't necessarily know how long the Second Age was...but we do have poetry from the Fourth Age. Apparently, that poetry talks of the third age and discusses Rand's victory. We also know that the One Power powers the Wheel so I would be surprised if there were actually an age without the One Power. The Dark One has to be resealed (hence the Last Battle.) While I agree that the following Age will return to a meshing of science and magic, I don't think either will be exclusive. The Second Age, without the Dark One's direct influence, created a meshing that was so incredible, and the creation of the Black Tower, the cleansing of the taint, and the eventual triumph over the Dark One, suggests that sometime during the Fourth Age a meshing will come again.
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Highbreaker: 2003-04-14
Hey, thanks for supporting me in the overall, if not on the specifics. Although, i do believe you have misunderstood my meaning slightly... I do not mean that the fourth age (oh yeah, thanks for clearing up the number of ages thing) will be devoid of the one power, I also do not mean that the one power will lose significance at all. In fact, with the raising of the black tower, I think it will grow in significance, but I also think technology will grow.
In the second age, technology was as you said, "a mesh" of the power and ingenuity, but that is all it was, a mesh. I believe in 'Rand's' fourth age, technology and magic will be seperate... moving towards say... actual steam powered trains, or cars... the devolopment of the enguine, or electricity. the one power will still be in use of course... but as a secondary to things technology can't accomplish. Like moving into the industrial age of man.
If you think about it, Randland's ages are similar to Earth's ages... the second age being comparable to the Greeks (man's golden age), then "The Breaking" resembles the inquisitions and crusades that wracked our earth. This continues into the third age (the dark age, or middle ages - devoid of thought or growth...) and then the rennassiance (the status quo of the books), finally coming to rest in the fourth age (industrialization). Tell me what ya think... that was a little out there, but it may be right. Authors do like to slip in statements on humanity in little nooks and cranies.
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solomonrex: 2003-04-14
Tamyrlin, Why do you think the OP has to exist? The OP doesn't exist in the steddings, yet the Wheel of Time seems to turn more effortlessly in the stedding than anywhere- creatures of the DO (the DO who exists outside of the pattern and wants to break it) do not want to enter the stedding, for example.
Furthermore, I have the sense from the last two novels that the OP may be a finite resource- more like oil or water than sunlight. The Eye of the World was a 'purified' pool of saidin, Nynaeve keeps a bit in a belt for sakekeeping and the taint feels like a layer of scum on the surface of saidin. So, if it's not entirely physical, it's not entirely ethereal either. I actually don't think RJ will kill the OP, but there's no reason why his world wouldn't live without it.
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Tamyrlin: 2003-04-14
I see your point, but I still think what I said was valid. Many souls are inborn with the ability to channel, something attached to their souls. Now the only way I can see that they would be disabled from channeling were to be if somehow the entire world became a Stedding. The worlds are so connected, and the OP turns the Wheel, so could a dreamer enter T'A'R and then channel...it seems highly unlikely that there would ever be an instance where the OP was untouchable by anyone...but I guess anything is possible.
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Highbreaker: 2003-04-14
First of all... I didn't mean that, but since it has been brought up :P---
Solomon Rex - You have some really good points, but... I have to disagree. The Wheel is powered by the one power, but life is powered by the wheel. The lets say, for example, that I have a ball, and I kick it to roll it. ok, the ball has some spots, that I CAN NOT kick, no matter what I do, my foot just can't touch those spots. If I kick the ball in one place, do those spots just stand still? No, they keep moving, with the ball. So, if the OP is my foot, and the Ball is the wheel, with the untouchables being the stedding, the stedding keeps moving forward in time and life because the rest of the world drags it along with it.
also, your scarcity idea, it shows a lot of insight, but, RJ has dropped red herrings before, or you could be overanalyzing... I still have to dissagree, Randland REQUIRES the OP to keep moving, and as long as the human race doesn't breed the channeling gene out, people will still be able to tap into that power.
Better luck next time! :)
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solomonrex: 2003-04-15
I didn't want to use this, because I can't find the reference. I think it's in eye of the world somewhere soon after Perrin becomes a wolfbrother. Elyas says that Wolves ran with people before there was channeling. I don't have the book with me, but here is a quote I found in another thread that may help:
"Ring of Tamyrlin{TAHM-ehr-lin}"
"a legendary ring, believed mythical by most people, worn by the leader of the Aes Sedai during the age of legends. Stories about the Ring of Tamyrlin, include that it was an angreal or sa'angreal or ter'angreal of immense power. It was supposedly named after the first person to learn how to tap into the Source and channel the One Power, and in some tales was actually made by that man or woman. Despite what many Aes Sedai say, no one knows whether it was a man or a woman who first learned to channel. Some believe that the present title is a corruption of Tamyrlin."
From the glossary of Into the Blight.
Sorry about the 'secondhand' source.
I think the OP can be carried around, can be stored, purified and corrupted and most likely can be destroyed. And the Wheel of Time will continue to grind away, regardless. We don't have to make the whole world a stedding if the OP can be used up- and we don't know exactly how the stedding came to be, or what makes them stedding.
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Highbreaker: 2003-04-15
Ok Solomon... I concede defeat in one aspect of my theory, but not in all of it.I do have to agree that there is an age without channeling. at least one if not more. I CANNOT Say the same for the OP drying up though. The wheel is powered by the OP, it has to be there... but maybe people loose th talent to tap into it...
I do remember your reference to the wolves talking of wolfbrothers before channeling... but I have an answer to that.WE know only of the 2nd and 3rd ages, right? Wrong. From what we know there, we can draw some rather obvious conlusions about the 1st age, and place a few key events in the 4-7th ages.
--Of the First Age--the first age was the age of feral power... people lived in caves, or shacks, villages or tribes... much like the stone to bronze ages of our earth... this was before the OP was rediscovered (remember that the "1st" age is not the actual first age")and wolfbrothers, as the most gifted of humans, led them. Men ran in packs until the ability began to decline. You see, the wolves don't remember the 7th age anymore in the 3rd age... even they admit their collective memories fail to reach back indefinately... This age ended in some cataclysmic battle, as they always do and so began the period of transition into the second age. I would like to propose, that if there was a dragon in this age, he was Tamyrilian (or one of his rebirths...also, as a side note I believe this is who is in Lews Therin's head... the infamous 'other one')
I don't need to go into the second or third ages... you have those down...
--the fourth to seventh ages-- Like I said, the OP is required for time to spin on, but not the use of it by channelers. as each age ends in its own tragic battle long forgotten by the age two after it, magic is slowly depressed until at the end of the seventh age, where magic is all but gone, some horrible cataclysmic event occurs, wiping humanity clean, technology forgotten, knowledge forgotten, magic lost, they revert back to their feral ways... which leaves us back at, SURPRISE!!! the first age..
It goes on like that until eternety, the wheel writing itself like RJ writes the books, knowing the important stuff in advance, and letting the rest write itself. There ya have it, a theory that supports you idea that people don't have to channel for life to go on, and one that says the OP has to exist for life to go on.
I hope this doesn't satisfy you and everyone reading, 'cause I am enjoying this...
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solomonrex: 2003-04-16
I wonder now if Rand will be as successful as I thought. If only two ages ago, the DO was locked up and had been for so long that people forgot who he was (AOL), then I don't see how we can return to a caged DO so soon- only two ages later. The ages are marked by cataclymic events, right? Let's list the ones we think we know (I only have the Bible to draw on personally, but I am aware that RJ draws on so much more):
1. DO discovered (Adam and Eve type event)
2. DO slowed (dare I say messiah part 1?)
3. DO defeated (Armegeddon/ Tarmon Gaidon or messiah part 2)
Well, I have three and we need 7. Maybe:
1. Genesis (stuff created)
2. Knowledge of good and evil (Or drilling the Bore)
3/4. Evil dominant
4/3. Flood (Or Breaking)
5. Evil defeated (or Tarmon Gaidon)
6. World restored
7. World destroyed? Wash, rinse, repeat.
According to what you've written, the Breaking doesn't qualify as an age barrier, so I'm still having trouble coming up with seven distinct ages. Perhaps they have more to do with the persons themselves than with the cataclysmic events.
so:
1. Adam and Eve (Lanfear 1st life)
2. Cain kills Abel (Ishamael's 1st life perhaps Perrin's first?)
3. Creator upset, great flood calamity, humanity saved by Noah (Mat's 1st life?)
4. Messiah born to save humanity again (Dragon's 2nd life)
5. Messiah betrayed (Ishamaels 2nd life in this turning)
6. Messiah's death (Abel 2? Noah 2? Eve 2?)
7. Messiah's victory (Dragon's 3rd life)
Or perhaps there is no pattern to the pattern, just to keep the DO guessing. I mean, he keeps losing, right?
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Highbreaker: 2003-04-16
Hmm... I don't know what it is I said that lead you to believe that the breaking isn't a distinct age barrier... It is clearly the spot between the 2nd and 3rd ages... sorry for causing the misconception... actually, I want to know what Isaid that gave that impression... lol, god I am confused.
Yeah, I agree that you draw to heavily from the bible, but that didn't even occur to me. I think I may be drawing to heavily from the real world... maybe if someother people knew some stuff about hinduism/islam/African Fairytales they could give us some more insight into this. I also know some stuff about Greek and Norse Mythology, but I certaintly wouldn't consider myself a scholar on the subject. We most definately are being to limited...
Yeah, we know the the barrier between the 2nd and 3rd ages is Freeing the DO/the breaking and between 3rd and 4th is Tarmon Gaidon. I believe between the 1st and 2nd, it had to have been Tamyrilian's rediscovery of channeling... and whatevr that involved. I also think that between the 7th and 1st ages there was something Akin to nuclear war... not destroying the world, just wiping the human population down to something so small that it has to regress. So small it caaan't support the scientists and enguineers anymore. All the people have to farm to produce enough food for everyone to live... that sort of thing. This is gonna seem kind of dumb, but... If you have ever played Civilizations II, you'd know what I mean. Scientists and teachers, Enguineers and FActory managers... they don't produce things... they don't make food. So, if the community can't support them, they just arent.
That's all I can think of for now... you put a lot of thought into that... but I really think we need more perspectives. lol, we gotta recruit people to this...
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Rand-althor: 2003-04-16
I believe that the DO keeps loosing because although he(seems to be able) to see back and remember infinately, maybe he looses track of time, or maybe he looses due to curcumstances beyond your control. I mean, Rand, untrained drained the eye of the world in what, maybe half an hour of channeling? i mean how long can that scene have taken? So facor in his training, expereience, LTT, and the male Chaddon Kal(i think thats how its spelled) and it seems the DO is very outmatched. Then add in the factor of a seemingly infinite circle, and the posability of almost all known Angreal, and the DO hsa absolutely no chance.
So instead he has to try to turn, kill, or trick the Dragon, no matter what he is called or looks like, to win, yet the Dragon is Ta'avern, meaning his luck (obvioulsy) sees him through all the Dark Ones attempts to beat him that way, and it is left to the last battle. Really all you need is a few strong channeling circles, an army to hold trollocs and suck at bay, and the battle becomes verry easy. And conciter that i believe it has said that the White Tower is about 1000 strong when all are gotten togeather, The black tower is approaching that, there are about as many Aeil Wise Ones who can channel, and the currently unkown variable of the Sea Folk numbers, and you could easily have a good 4000 channelers on your side, even if some are Dread Lords, the high numbers of Kin will probably make up for any loss of total strength, and all the old women joining the tower, and what will probably become a more efficient way to gather channelers before they die from "wilder syndrome," and i would say you have at least a good 5000 channelers, with all the armies of the lands, and probably the Seanchan, and aeil, and (possably tho not likely) Shara, and possably sea folk, and you have a good sised army of at least i would have to say half a million, and thats not counting mercenaries, or people who would rather pick up theur belt knives and pitchforks than let the DO have even a small chance of winning, so at least a million.
Hmm this post has given me a idea for my own theory, so thanks. But there you go, the dark one's only chance is to trick rand using something valuable to him, but he is Ta'avern so it will most likely work out neways. Thanks again for the idea tho :)
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Highbreaker: 2003-04-17
I agree with Rand... The DO loses all the time, because that is how the wheel wills it. The reason the DO keeps trying is because he is obsessed... being obsessed can really screw with you... :(
On a lighter note! More support for the wheel willing the DO's loss, the Taveran (sp) effects are created by the wheel guiding these people. All of the "luck" just implies that that is the way the wheel needs things to turn out. For Taveran anyway, other people's luck is genuine, if you believe in that sort of thing.
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Highbreaker: 2003-05-03
Hey, itrs been a while, but.. since I started rereading tEotW, I decided I have to post this quote on EVERY argument I can find that someone has sasid the OP can runout. It is very Definitive.
Moiraine, Book 1, chapter 12 -across the Taren, page 169:
"No," Moiraine said in answer to a question Rand had missed, " the True Source cannot be used up, any more than the river can be used up by the wheel of a mill. the true source is a river; the Aes Sedai, the waterwheel."
Also, for those of you that doubt that the OP drives the wheel of time as I have often repeated... here is another quote. The citation is the same as above, except for on page 168...
"The One Power," Moiraine was saying, "comes from the True Source, the driving force of creation, the force the Creator made to drive the wheel of time."
I hope that clarified some things.
13
brigitta: 2003-11-19
to Tam's first say at it
can it be possible that the next to go gagaga when dealing with the power will be women? 'cos men have already got their share and for equalitys sake so must women... not that I fancy spending any part of my life in a nuthouse (although they are quite nice actually, or so I've heard). Another good point as to why we shouldn't reinvent cannelling here...
