hildren of the dragon
by brigitta: 2003-11-20 | Not yet rated
ok, here goes... I'll start with the most obvious facts and try to make myself clear. Also, if some of them do not fit, please don't judge me, I haven't read the last 2 books yet, they're sold out on this particular spot of the world:(
1)Rand is the reincarnation of Lews Therin.
2)Aes Sedai used to live up to a very high age (remember the two women in Rhuidean?), the oldest (that we know of)is over 300 years old, so it's possible that in AOL they sometimes evan lived twice as long, if not more.
ok, now that that's clear, on with my theory. It has been implied, that Rands life will take a somewhat similar course as Lews Therins, but does that include his lovelife as well? According to my theory it does. Rand has three women in his life- a brunette (Min), a blonde (Elayne) and a redhead (Aviendha); and we know of two in Lews's life: a brunette (Lanfear) and a blonde (Ilyena). My theory is that Lews was involved with a third woman as well- someone with red hair would be my guess... I have never seen a mention of Ilyena being able to channel, but even if she was, she was probably decades, if not centuries younger than Lews, and (I don't know if it has been mentioned anywhere or if I'm just babbling) so was Lanfear. It would be very.... odd... for a man to live hundreds of years in celibacy, now, wouldn't it? so it is pretty safe to say that Lews had some affairs... and maybe one of them was a redhead with a temperament.
now I come to the second part of my theory, which might be a little harder to believe. Let's say that Lews and this redhead had some kids, maybe 3 or 4; if the redhead was able to channel maybe even more, because the lifespan was so long. These children would be called what? that's right, "the children of the dragon" (that's one of the reasons I say redhead so often). This theory would make Lews Therin a great-great.... (you know what i mean)... grandfather to Rand al'Thor.
I am aware, that there are some pretty big holes in my theory, and one of them is why Lanfear never showed any jealousy toward that redhead, were as she is bristling with it for Ilyena. The answer to that would be timing. Let's say that Therin met his redhead right after gaining the knowledge of OP, and let's say that she was a little older than him. then some 300 years, or so, go by, the children have children, and they have children too and so on (of course not amongst themselves, but the Great Father would still be Lews ). I think that the redhead was dead when Lews met Lanfear. if the redhead could not channel, she would have been dead for at least some decades and if she did channel... well, maybe she was just too old and died. Thus Lanfear couldn't be jealous of a woman long dead.
Another hole in the theory is that there were so many Aiel originally, but if a family has over 600 years to grow and expand, it is somewhat believable, right?
so, there you have it, boys and girls... again: feel free to box my ears
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1
Tamyrlin: 2003-11-26
Where to begin...okay, as to the possibility that Lews Therin is the great great grandfather of Rand al'Thor, I don't think it is possible since we are told that Lews Therin massacred his entire family. Of course, you are saying there was a mysterious redhead with whom he might have fathered children that turned into the Aiel, I just don't see it, since we are missing the redhead...But, I would suggest pushing for another course, that all of the incarnations of Lews Therin are connected genetically, that I might be able to swallow, maybe, but Jordan seems to make it clear that Lews family ended with him, maybe a distant cousin's ancestral line? Fun idea, but scant evidence; I like the children of the dragon thing.
2
Callandor: 2003-11-26
Lanfear has black hair, not brown.
3
brigitta: 2003-11-27
That's right, he did, but is it said that ALL of his family or only the closest kin? my theory is based very much on the concept that Lews maybe didn't even think of "the children of the dragon" as HIS children, because his children would be dead by the time he went mad. Only their decendants and relatives were alive, and they all lived a life of peace, maybe even sanctity. they were also unharmable by other people (see Rand in Rhuidean) so I think maybe Lews never thought of them as his decendants but rather as saints.
4
Dorindha: 2003-11-27
Quite a nice idea, but I do think there were too many Aiel already around in the AoL, and with a specific role (it would take a long time 1st to get lots of them, then to establish them as a separate "class" with their own creed and beliefs), so I think it very unlikely.
5
Sidhe: 2003-11-27
Tamyrlin,
In the prologue to TEotW, LTT is in his palace, or what's left from it anyway, and he has killed everyone there, including his kin, which earned him the name Kinslayer. But only this palace is mentioned here, not that he traveled the whole world in order to slay every member of his family. You can be a kinslayer if you kill only a few members of your family; it's the fact that you kill direct relatives that gives you that name. Thus, it could be that there were still relatives alive after the slaughter at the palace, which could explain Rand being a direct descendant.
The redhead-theory sounds a bit far-fetched, although it would make another nice "trinity". But i agree that this third love would have been mentioned already if she ever existed. And somehow i just can't imagine LTT having an afair with an Aiel, given the relationship between the AS and the dai'shain.
6
: 2003-11-28
I thought he killed 'all who carried a drop of his blood in their viens... all he had loved or had loved him.'
Or something like that, with the noticeable execption of Lanfear, who was sealed away in the bore. Also, the CotD were called that because they owed their existance to the Dragon's Breaking, or something like that... What do Tinkers look like? Do they look like Aiel? Or not, because of the amount of converts?
Using AoL lifespans, an average person lived to 200, so I doubt that the Aiel could have had that many kids. Also, Aiel have entirely red to brown hair, none are black haired. Also while LTT was a womanizer, they must not of had kids, as the birth control of that age was very advanced, or the population would have exploded to over-population.
7
a lonely darkhound: 2003-11-28
This is my first attempt at writing a WOT theory. I am writing this in reply to the Children of the dragon theory. My theory is :
- da'shain aiel was the outcome of an genetic engineering program (eugenics), where gene structure was modified using one power.
- This program was carried out in an age prior to AOL
- Dragon of that age was the inventor/leader of this program, else, it was his sperm that was taken as the raw stock for the program. So is the term of ‘children of the dragon'.
Now let us look into some supporting stuff.
“Da'shain aiel was the outcome of an genetic engineering program (eugenics), where gene structure was modified using one power.”
1. Aiel means dedicated. In TSR, Moiraine said it meant something written into bones. In AOL, aiel followed ‘way of the leaf', and now they follow Ji'e'toh. Both “crazy” concepts and more importantly, 100% of the population believes that this is THE ONLY WAY TO LIVE YOUR LIFE. This can happen only with genetic tinkering, supported with conducive societal environment. In AOL, aiel were sort of “protected species”, they used to work with aes sedai and society was so designed that aiel, and their way of the leaf were respected. During the breaking this societal protection was gone, so was ‘way of the leaf', as we saw through Rand's eyes in Rhuidean. However because the innate gene structure and its need for a core value, written into bones, aiel had to find something else, namely Ji'e'toh. (I believe Tinkers and Amayars were also Aiel).
2. In AOL, among humans, only Aiel men took part in seed singing. So the Voice talent was available in every Aiel male. Among general people, this talent was restricted to very few OP channelers. OP channeling is a genetic trait. So how come such a rare talent is so widespread among a particular group of people? Obvious answer is gene tinkering. Today you make high yield high resistance crops using similar technique.
“This program was carried out in an age prior to AOL”
1. LTT in Rand's head does not have any such memory, of carrying out such a program. He does not even know why they are called “children of the dragon”, otherwise he might have gibbered at some siswai'aman. In FOH, Lanfear wondered about change in Aiel. She, being a famous scientist and of the same age as LTT, would definitely have known about such a program. I think She is intelligent enough to figure out the core value shift ( from “ way of the leaf” to “Ji'e'toh”), had she known about such programs. Similarly Demandred / some other FS wondered about Aiel. At least Somesthra the nym or the ogier would know. I know this is sort of ‘negative' proof but still valid.
2. Had LTT been the program leader, he would have had about 500-700 years (his lifespan) to create so many aiels (10000 aiels went to salvage one male aes sedai from madness, all were killed. Even after that there were enough. Such scale can be achieved only through some mass cloning. Again no mention of existence of such techniques, otherwise Aginor would have used it. But even trollocs breed.
These things make me believe aiel program was conducted in the age preceding to AOL. There is no proof to say that age was not equally advanced. After all portal stones were created in that age. And Dragon is always the most influential and powerful being in every age. He is the ideal candidate to take up such a program, to create a perfectly “good” human sub-species. And he is arrogant and has lot of self-belief and courage (Look at Rand, he always believed saidin can be cleansed and has the courage to go on doing it). Whose sperm has better credential to start such a race. After all “courage, the heart of an aiel”.
8
Zaela Sedai: 2003-11-28
Sidhe-
TITLE: Eye of the World, CHAPTER: Prologue - Dragonmount
"Remember! Even now the Hundred Companions are tearing the world apart, and every day a hundred men more join them. What hand slew Ilyena Sunhair, Kinslayer? Not mine. Not mine. What hand struck down every life that bore a drop of your blood, everyone who loved you, everyone you loved? Not mine, Kinslayer. Not mine. Remember, and know the price of opposing Shai'tan!"
TITLE: Eye of the World, CHAPTER: 14 - The Stag and Lion
"Fool, I have never been bound!" The fires of his face roared so hot that Rand stepped back, sheltering behind his hands. The sweat on his palms dried from the heat. "I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer's shoulder when he did the deed that named him. It was I who told him to kill his wife, and his children, and all his blood, and every living person who loved him or whom he loved. It was I who gave him the moment of sanity to know what he had done. Have you ever heard a man scream his soul away, worm? He could have struck at me, then. He could not have won, but he could have tried. Instead he called down his precious One Power upon himself, so much that the earth split open and reared up Dragonmount to mark his tomb. "
This seems to say that LTT did kill everyone he loved or had a drop of his blood in them. I believe it includes friend and family. (Unless he didn't have any friends) Not just people in the palace.
As for him having other children, this probably shoots down that idea unless he had no knowledge of them.
I don't think that LTT's lovelife would have any bearing on Rand's. Whether you believe they have one soul or two they're still different people in different ages. Not everything has to be the same between them. Or even have similarities.
9
Zaela Sedai: 2003-11-28
Aiel can have black hair, It's very rare but possible. There are many blonds too. Not just red-brown.
TITLE: Path of Daggers, CHAPTER: 9 - Tangles
"We learn what there is to learn, Perrin Aybara," Marline said calmly, combing nearly black hair with her fingers. She was one of the few Aiel he had seen with such dark hair, and she often toyed with it. "And we teach what there is to teach."
TITLE: Crossroads of Twilight, CHAPTER: 9 - Traps
"Just as Faile was about to turn back around, she noticed a dark-haired Aiel woman facing the other way. Not just dark hair, but hair black as a raven's wing, a great rarity among Aiel."
Also the tinkers don't have the characteristics of Aiel. I believe they are a combonation of things, with brown hair/eyes being most common.
10
Callandor: 2003-11-28
**In the prologue to TEotW, LTT is in his palace, or what's left from it anyway, and he has killed everyone there, including his kin, which earned him the name Kinslayer. But only this palace is mentioned here, not that he traveled the whole world in order to slay every member of his family. You can be a kinslayer if you kill only a few members of your family; it's the fact that you kill direct relatives that gives you that name. Thus, it could be that there were still relatives alive after the slaughter at the palace, which could explain Rand being a direct descendant.**
As with the previous post by Zaela, there is a quote that has problems with this, and it happens to be the very first paragraph:
TITLE: Eye of the World, CHAPTER: Prologue - Dragonmount
"The palace still shook occasionally as the earth rumbled in memory, groaned as if it would deny what had happened. Bars of sunlight cast through rents in the walls made motes of dust glitter where they yet hung in the air. Scorch-marks marred the walls, the floors, the ceilings. Broad black smears crossed the blistered paints and gilt of once-bright murals, soot overlaying crumbling friezes of men and animals, which seemed to have attempted to walk before the madness grew quiet. The dead lay everywhere, men and women and children, struck down in attempted flight by the lightings that had flashed down every corridor, or seized by the fires that had STALKED THEM, or sunken into stone of the palace, the stones that had flowed and SOUGHT, almost alive, before stillness came again. In odd counterpoint, colorful tapestries and paintings, masterworks all, hung undisturbed except where bulging walls had pushed them awry. Finely carved furnishings, inlaid with ivory and gold, stood untouched except where rippling floors had toppled them. The mind twisting had struck at the core, ignoring peripheral things.** (emphasis mine)"
LTT used the Power exactly the same way Rand used it in the Stone in TSR when he killed all the Trollocs. LTT just set the weave to hunt people.
11
Dorindha: 2003-11-30
I don't think that the Aiel themselves as a race have anything to do with LTT as there wre so many of them at the same time as LTT, and before the bore (in the Rhuidean flashbacks to the AoL, Rand is one of his ancestors, and clearly recognised as Dai'shan on the day the bore was drilled as being a seperate social "rank" nad I believe before LTT was known as Dragon). However, this is not to say that the name has nothing to do with LTT - it could have been adopted sometime in the was of the power.
12
Cor Shan: 2003-12-01
I am the Blank reply above.
13
mako0424: 2003-12-03
i just wanted to say, that i doubt rand is the son or descendent of ltt or anything, but an interesting point you did make was the one concerning the women in LTT and rand's life, about illyena being blonde and what not, maybe there is a third girl somewhere in LTT life
14
Callandor: 2003-12-03
**TITLE: Shadow Rising, CHAPTER: 9 - Decisions
"You are Lews Therin Telamon. Oh, physically, nothing is the same except your height, but I would know who is behind those eyes even if I'd found you in your cradle." She laughed suddenly. "How much easier everything would be if I had found you then. If I had been free to. . . ." Laughter faded into an angry stare. "Do you wish to see my true appearance? You can't remember that, either, can you?"**
I highly doubt (to the point of dissmissing it entirely) that Rand has ANY of LTT's blood in him no matter how remote.
15
brigitta: 2003-12-04
hey, Callandor, it seems to me that you have a bone to pick. 1) I never said that Lanfear had brown hair, I said "brunette", which applies for black- haired people as well. 2) all the mentions to Lanfears true image imply that she was, in fact, a brunette, although I don't have any quotes to apply to this statement.
To all of you others: I get it (finally) that maybe the Aiel aren't LTT's decendants, but I still think that they would not have been named "The Children of the Dragon" for just being there. And I still think that there is some kind of a connection between LTT and the Aiel
16
Callandor: 2003-12-04
No bone to pick, just think it is wrong.
17
Stanzi: 2003-12-12
Okay, Lanfear was very jealous of Avienda...and by her ramblings, she shows that she's still jealous of Ilyena, even though Rand never really knew her, and the woman's been dead for over 3000 years.
I think that we're going to find out why he has three women this time around. But it has nothing to do with Lews.
But yeah, Ilyena was a channeler herself. I don't think people married into situations that were doomed to be tragic, (like losing a loved one to age while you still get to be pretty.) Channelers might have fooled around or even dated non channelers, but marriage? Uh, doesn't seem logical at all. And weren't they enlightened?
And I also think that the title "Children of the Dragon" is prophetic: the children Elayne and Avienda have will be Aiel and the remenant of a remenant, (that's Rand, that last remenant.)
Or maybe the children part refers to his status as chief among them. A king is called a "sire", which literally means fathered. So it might be like that.
18
Arien Sedai: 2003-12-13
I don't see why it has to be LTT who is referred to - perhaps the name refers to the Dragon in the First Age.
19
Zaela Sedai: 2003-12-14
LTT was given the name Dragon in the AoLs, it may not have been used in previous ages. The Children of the Dragon have nothing to do with LTT, they were the followers ofGuaire Amalasan who declared himself DR in FY939(pg 108 BWN). And Da'shain Aiel were called the People of the Dragon because LTT and the other AS were doing everything to save them from being destroyed in the War of the Shadow. They represented the best of all that was lost before the opening of the Bore and faught not to lose them.(pg44 BWB) They were not called that because they were descendents of LTT but because he protected and fought for them. I do not think that their id any LTT blood in todays Aiel because of that.
20
Caramoor: 2003-12-15
Children of the Dragon is simply a name the Aiel are called, likely because they served the Dragon - LTT - in the Age of Legends. He served as there protector in return. That's it. No gentic engineering. Simply a title.
If we use that logic, the Children of the Light must be direct descendants of the Creator and carry around the gene to spawn more creators at some point in time. Come on, they use the title Children of the Light!
21
Dorindha: 2003-12-16
I don't know if it is just that it wasn't clear before, or that the topic has wavered a bit, but the name "Child of the Dragon" is first heard in the series when the Green man calls Rand it. The Green Man has not really spoken to anyone (and very unikely any Aiel) since the AoL, and therefore, the title must have existed in the AoL. When we see a flashback in Rhuidean, Shomesta has already started to lose his memory, so I think the name existed prior to the bore being drilled, and therefore prior to LTT's rise as the Dragon. (He was only called the Dragon once the war of the power had begun). I am sure there is some connection, but it may be a link with the first age dragon, rather than LTT, as I think the name was around for longer.
On the other hand, I don't know if the Aiel were "People of the dragon" with the dragon on the arm, before the Rhuidean ter'angreal was built, but the arm dragon might just be a tangible reminder of what they were in the AoL.
Zaela - I think Guaire Amasalan called his armies "people of the dragon" when he was trying to take Tear in order to fulfil prophecy, rather than as an actual "genuine name".
