I decided to post this after reading the ‘Creator, Dark One and Time' theory.

This is my first post but this is how I pictured the whole creator/dark one/wheel metaphysical thing, hopefully I can try and explain it with words so bear with me if you can:

The WoT really has no beginning or end, the creator sits outside of time and as he made it (which was not at a point of time, because he is outside of time) a barrier (time/the wheel) was formed between the creator and the DO, thus imprisoning the DO. The DO is constantly trying to escape and destroy what the creator made and this is perhaps why:

The creator and DO are opposites and attract, but the creator is now outside of the wheel and time, and can no longer interfere with it directly (or doesn't want to), but the DO bound within the wheel (like in a donut) constantly seeks release, trying to get back to the creator, but to do so must break the wheel and time (which is just incidental and makes sense rather than him just being some evil, personified being who just likes to be nasty and unmake, not to mention having an over-inflated ego wanting his own wheel while being too lazy to make one).

So what exactly is this wheel? It is in fact the prison, the wall blocking the creator from DO. Its structure is composed of threads, and powered by the true source, time is merely a consequence of the ever-changing structure of the prison, and everything is kept in balance by the overall design/pattern.

Everything was in balance, until an age (pre-AoL) when people discovered channelling. This somehow broke the harmony between Saidin/Saidar (which can be shown by the lack of ying-yang harmony dots on the AS symbol, and the disharmony between sexes) and eventually led to a thinning of the pattern and creation of the bore. When channelling was first discovered the DO/True Power (sealed away) could not have been sensed, only later as the True Source grew further in disharmony, i.e. the pattern was already thinning, it just required a final punch through by some people channelling towards the DO (Lanfear).

Finally after the bore the DO has some access to this wheel and tries to weaken it further by influencing threads and forcing Saidin/Saidar into further disharmony, I see this as the way in how he will break the wheel. He is merely playing with the Forsaken, causing them to set up events that cause further disharmony. He may have purposely caused the events that allowed him to set up the counterstroke –A disproportion of Saidar to Saidin channelling over 3000 years must be bad. Sure the prison was resealed (sort of), but those years mean nothing if you reside outside of time.

As for the true power it either comes directly from the DO, or maybe from a point in the wheel where Saidin/Saidar are so close they almost merge becoming the same thing, unfortunately the only way to reach that point is via the DO himself, hence the consequences of channelling it. He obviously has some access to power anyway.

So there you have it. At this point it appears the DO is actually closer to his goal than anyone in Randland realises, but I think the true wildcard is the power of Padan Fain. I imagine his weird taint opposite will tie in with the dragon, and probably some ta'veren effects, all factors of some wheel defence mechanism to heal what the DO has done. I think we'll see him sealed away properly again and the pattern restored but with the cost of all channelling ability being blocked, probably by a global merge of all the stedding. I think I read that the wheel has 7 repeating Ages of no particular length. There is probably one purely normal Age where the universe goes on doing its thing, with the other 6 being involved with the actions of the DO trying to escape followed eventually by his defeat. The pattern keeps the wheel doing what it should, imprisoning the DO, cycle after cycle....