eakening the seals
by Niall: 2003-04-05 | Not yet rated
Herid Fel found out how you could break the seals. A quote from his last letter to Rand-"Belief and order bring strength." That's the first sentence of the letter. (LoC, p. 880). Here's what it means. The strength of the seals is based on order and belief.
It makes sense from my POV. If you assume that the Seals are like nails or screws holding the patch on the DO's prison down, then they are in effect meant to hold chaos in the prison. Thus the nail-or-screw heads (ie the Seals) should be isolated from chaos, thus keeping the patch on, thus keeping them from chaos, thus...I'm sure you get my point. It's hard for me to prove this theory, but I'm going to give it a crack.
The first Seal is submerged in Saidin (the Eye of the World) Saidin by it's very nature is chaotic (It's part of nature, and nature by it's very nature is chaotic.) So the Aes Sedai who hid it probably didn't understand the Seals properties hid it in such a fashion that it had to be weaker than it should be. This was the reason that first seal could be broken. I don't know what exactly broke it but that's why it was possible. Then Rand and the Forsaken drained the Eye and the Horn, banner and seal were revealed. Saidin was no longer around to weaken the seal, and that's why when Lan took a swing at it with his knife, his knife broke. It was no longer submerged in Chaos and was strong again. Later, at Falme, two seals were found broken. This time it was the Forerunners that caused so much chaos that the seals were vulnerable. I don't think I have to explain the chaos there, do I?
Even after the defeat of the Seanchan, Falme was in chaos, what with everybody having seen the Dragon Reborn fighting Ba'alzamon. That's why those seals were still weak. After that, there was too much chaos in the world for the seals to still be strong. Which is why this theory is so hard to prove. Even I'll admit this could all be coincidence. Fortunately, this will be hard to disprove too. Go ahead and try. :)
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1
Tamyrlin: 2003-04-11
Hmm...okay, I am going to take a crack at your idea, and rearrange it to fit what you have me thinking. We know Ishamael goes on forty year jaunts outside the Bore. And we know that a few of his cohorts that we at the edge of the sealing were able to squeeze out. But why were they seeking the Eye of the World? Is it possible that, while the Horn was important, the pool of pure Saidin was actually used as a counter-weight to the tainted Saidin being touched by the DO through the Bore, and was preventing the Bore from being broken open once again? Ishamael creates this elaborate plan, gets Rand to lead the Forsaken to the Eye, and gets Rand to use the pure Saidin. They get the horn, but then mysteriously the seals start to break.
<br>This is where you might have a point, in my opinion, but I see the Saidin pool bringing order and strength to the chaos from the seal, keeping the Bore closed and safe for three thousand years. Other ideas?
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WinespringBrother: 2003-04-11
I agree with Tamyrlin, at least regarding the first seal. Channeling at seals, whether with saidin or saidar, makes them stronger. So submerging a seal in pure saidin should also make it stronger.
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Rand-althor: 2003-04-11
I tend to agree with Tamyrlin, but what Niall said can be incorporated. After all, for Aginor to break free, the seals would have had to at least start to weaken, or he would have escaped a long time ago. So maybe its a bit of both, because the other seals seem to have stayed strong up to the draining of the eye. But here is another idea to why the forsaken wanted the Eye drained, when asked whether putting the power into heartstone, would it get stronger, and of course the answer was yes. The next question was can you take power away from Heartstone to make it weaker, and he said(as you can expect) RAFO. But its another thing to think about, that if the seals are just focus points, the stronger the seals get, the stronger the seal gets, and theoretically they could have put the one seal in the eye, so it could slowly absorb the saidin, keeping the seal strong in case the others started to weaken. Just another thought to throw in.
P.S. If you dont know what inteviews I am talking about, check Wotmania.com, and Dragonmount.com I forget which it was on, but it should be on one of those.
4
believer2: 2003-04-11
Niall might be on to something here. Moridin/Issy, and DO seemed to be more concerned with creating chaos. They are always giving contradicting orders to different people. "Kill Rand", "Interfer, but don't kill Rand". I always attributed it to the fact that the Forsaken wanted Rand out of the way, and the DO did not.
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Flinn: 2003-04-11
Here's an idea. Maybe the seals lose their power over time. after all, they were created 3000 years ago, and surely the DO and Forsaken have been doing evertyhing thet can to break free. This may also be why cuendillar becomes stronger when it is channeled. A pool of pure saidin would be the perfect place for a seal if this is true.
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Niall: 2003-04-12
So far, alot of people assume that a pool of saidin would strengthen cuendillar. But the evidence only says that CHANNELLED saidin or saidar strengthen cuendillar. Every account of Asha'man, male forsaken or the Dragon Reborn notes how chaotic Saidin is, but channeling give it order, give it purpose. As always, I'm going to assume I'm right and say that that is the difference between the pool of chaotic Saidin and using orderly threads of Saidin to strengthen cuendillar. So I think my theory is still viable.
7
Hydraan Sedai: 2003-04-13
But is the Chaos caused by the Taint, or Saidin itself?
I agree with your comparison of Channeled Saidin and the pool of Pure Saidin; They should affect cuendillar in different ways. Are you saying that Chaotic influences on cuendillar weakens it, whereas controlled influences on cuendillar strengthens it? Is hitting cuendillar with a hammer a controlled, orderly influence, since it strengthens the cuendillar?
Does hitting/channeling cuendillar really strengthen it? How can you tell the difference in strength of two different un-breakable objects?
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Daishan: 2003-04-13
TITLE: Eye of the World, CHAPTER: 52 - Neither Beginning Nor End
"I begin to wonder," Moiraine said. "The Eye of the World was made against the greatest need the World would ever face, but was it made for the use to which . . . we . . . put it, or to guard these things? Quickly, the last, show it to me. "
Since the Green Man and the Eye are only found when "the need" is great, this speaks against your theory. The quote implies that the Eye was needed when Rand/Moiraine found it. Unless the need was "to break the DO free", this doesn't hold with your theory.
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Rand-althor: 2003-04-13
Hey Daishan, what about this idea, the need of the world WAS for the DO to be freed. Now before anyone says anything, i know my previous post was kinda anti-theory, but i dont take sides on theories, unless they are completely moronic, like a theory i read on another site saying demandred is posing as tam(not taim, tam). Anyways, lets say that Rand battling the DO breaks the world again. But what if this breaking somehow causes the world to fall back into order, leading to a beginning for people to build back up towards the age of legends, which then they open the bore, and we know what happens from there. But basically, what if the need is for the DO to break free, causing Rand to need to learn to channel, which leads to a breaking of the world, which causes the repeating of the process. I repeat, i am not being wishy-washy about this theory, i just dont see enough evedence to take a definate side.
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Callandor: 2003-04-13
In LOC, I believe, Sammael reaches out to saidin, and the taint washes off the protection from the DO but he still feels and enjoys the struggle for control.
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Niall: 2003-04-14
Hydraan Sedai-I seem to recall that only weaves of the One Power strengthen cuendillar. So as far as that question goes, no, I don't think that hammerblows are acts of order (I think they're pretty neutral, actually). Sorry I was unclear on that point before. And no, the taint doesn't neccessarily add to Saidin's chaos. Every channeler besides the Forsaken who gives us a POV of them channeling notes the fire and ice and otherwise disorderly feel of Saidin, AND talks about the filth of the taint. (thanks to callandor for a good example of this) I tend to think this means that the two are different things.
Daishan-You brought up need. But I don't think you considered what would have happened if the Forsaken had found the pool of Saidin without Rand and his companions there to stop them. That much power would have tipped the balance between Light and Dark even further than it already is. It might also have to do with PERCIEVED need. Moraine thought it was neccessary for her to find it, and that was enough for her to find the eye. In fact, there are probably huge numbers of possibilities that you or I haven't though about.
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solomonrex: 2003-04-14
I read the 'Strike at Shayol Ghul' carefully and I think we have another answer to the great seals question.
"Seven "focus points" (there seems no better translation from the old tongue, although they are obviously the Seals of Legend) were constructed of cuendillar."
"and there to implant seals held by the focus points which would close up the Bore and shut the Dark One from the world once more."
The 'focus points' hold the bore closed, the 'seals' (made of cuendillar) hold the focus points. This might seem a trivial point, but the focus points are _within_ the cuendillar 'seals' and they are the true seals on the bore. The cuendillar cannot be destroyed by any external force, but the seals themselves and the DO are (in a sense) inside the cuendillar, not outside the cuendillar. I think the seals break because they are weakened or corrupted from within by the DO.
Another possibility (also drawing on tSaSG) is that the bore was not successfully sealed to begin with.
"Worse, several experts claimed that if the seals were not placed with exact precision, the resulting strain would, instead of sealing up the Bore, rip it open, freeing the Dark One completely."
"As precise placement of the seals was widely thought to require a circle, that apparently killed the plan, since men cannot create a circle, but can only be brought into one created by women."
Since there were not powerful women channellers in the 100 companions due to the 'Fateful Concord', we can assume that something went wrong besides the back-blast and taint.
tSaSG contains another interesting note- not one of the soldiers returned, and the 68 survivors of the male Aes Sedai went 'insane on the instant'. Meaning that we have no credible witnesses, and that whatever the Aes Sedai did to seal the bore is a complete mystery. The taint normally works slowly, so one is left to wonder what they saw/did that drove them so quickly insane. There are no circles made without women, so how did any one man (Lews Therin, we assume) accomplish such a grand feat?
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The Leveler: 2003-04-15
I think the seals are just the pyhsical manefestations of something else. No physical object could hold the DO, the seals just focus the power of the Bore, so it can hold the DO.
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araqyl: 2003-05-16
Solomonrex, it's quite possible that the DO inserted the taint on Saidin directly through the Hundred Companions - so the 'conduits' that funneled the taint into Saidin were completely filled with the taint, thus driving them instantly insane.
Also, on the circle lack - the Asha'man have learned how to form 'complete' weaves (eg, the impervious ward and 'rolling ring of earth and fire' at Dumai's Wells) without linking - it just requires precise placement of each man's 'section' of the weave so that it forms a seamless join to the next man's.
btw, I like the idea of the focus points corrupting the seals - since the seals are built to contain those focus points, the focus points must be part of the items themselves - and when the focus points collapse, there is a vacuum within the seal...
15
Callandor: 2003-05-17
The DO used the Seals to taint saidin. It caused a huge backlash of the taint on to saidin and into the male channelers who were at SG.
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Dezza: 2004-11-09
I know this is an old theory but here is another idea.
There are many references to heartstone being unbreakable and becoming sronger when force is directed at it.
What if someone were to try to draw force from heartstone? I think that this is what is causing the weakening.
17
Wielder of Waterflame: 2005-04-26
I like solomonrex's theory about the seals being corrupted from the inside, this would make sense and also tie in to the feelings of evil that Nyn & Elayne felt from the seal in Tanchico before it was broken (when it was broken the DO would no longer be corrupting it from the inside)
18
Aiel Finn: 2005-04-28
If the seals are a sort of hardened knot, then the weave that makes them cuellendar also is linked to the weave holding the not on the actual seal on the prision. If the knot is broken, then it weakens the heartstone-weave to the point that it can be broken.
19
Traveller: 2005-07-17
I think chaos definitely weakened the seals. I never even though it was an issue before I started visiting this website coz it seemed obvious to be, especially once i read Herid Fel's note to Rand. I think there is no doubt about this and that people are being to picky- go with the flow, it isn't all about proof, its about feeling.
