The Eye of the World

[Fun Guy from Yuggoth]

I started reading the Wheel of Time (just finished book 3, might not read more, its too slow) and I thought this was interesting;

The Aes Sedai (pronounced "eyes sed eye") are the counterpart of the sithi/sidhe and the CotF.  It is an all-female organization of witches and their leader is the Amyrlin (~Merlin). and their base of power is the WhiteTower on the island of Tar Valon (~Avalon) and the island is shaped like an eye.  (and the island appears to have tentacles spreading from it in the form of roads and the river) 

The river that flows around Tar Valon is called the Eirinin and eirin means "eye tooth" in gaelic, and Tar Valon is on the Eastern bank of the river and Dragonmount--called the Dragon's Fang--is on the Western bank, and they were both created in the same event (when the Dragon erupted out of the ground).  The two sides of the yin-yang are the White Flame of Tar Valon (female side) and the black Dragon's Fang (male side) divided by a sinuous line (the river).  The eye is next to the tooth.  The Eirinin river flows around Tar Valon and down to Tear--and tears come out of eyes.  

The male side of magic became tainted by the Dark Lord, and so male magic users were hunted down and killed: the yin-yang was split apart.

a-siddhi means "incompleteness" ans a-suddh means "impure, faulty, corrupt" ans a-suddhi "fault error"

The two sides of the yin-yang need to come back together to seal the Dark Lord back into his prison at Shayol Ghul.  And Rand re-unites the two halves.

 

The first book is called the Eye of the World.  The dark lord Shaitan says that he wants to "blind the eye of the world" and kill the Great Serpent / ouroboros / the wheel of time.  Moirane Sedai tells everyone that the "eye of the world" was a secret well containing all the essence of male magic condensed into liquid form in the far north, but I think the Eye of the World is really Tar Valon--or that there are two eyes of the world--one containing the saidin and the other the saidar.  The magical well she calls "the eye of the world" is guarded by a magical Green Man who is an animate tree.  This magic well is warded so people can't find it.  Rand drinks the well and acquires god-like powers.

Shaitan pretty much tells Rand that the Eye of the World is Tar Valon:

"Did they tell you the Eye of the World would serve you? What glory or power is there for a puppet? The strings that move you have been centuries weaving. Your father was chosen by the WhiteTower, like a stallion roped and led to his business. Your mother was no more than a brood mare to their plans. And those plans lead to your death.”

The Aes Sedai are repeatedly called "puppet masters."

On the island of Tar Valon there is a special grove of trees that has an entrance to the Ways (a sort of extra dimension outside space and time that allows you to travel, it is a maze and it is "somehow alive")  The key to access the Waygate is a leaf of a special tree--the Avendesora.   Underneath the White Tower is a network of caves, and an entrance into the Dream World of Tel'aran'rhiod (arianrhod means "silver wheel"--the way into the Dream World is through the Silver Wheel [weirwood])  The weirwoods grow in a wheel, and they are outside time, is the Wheel of Time a weirwood grove?

 

avval is Hindi for "first, chief, best, excellent, beginning, to come first"

avvalan = "first, first of all"

avvalin = "first, former, ancient"

avalon and tar-valon and the word ava-tar means "to descend from heaven, as a diety" and valay = "ring-shaped object" and vali means "master, lord"

Underneath the White Tower on Avalon is an entrance to the Arianrhod (the silver wheel) dreamworld.  The irish tale of Caer Arianrhod is of a castle that gets launched into space by a wizard and becomes the constellation Arianrhod. 

 

So, an all-female group of magic users who live in a white tower on an eye-shaped island called Avalon--that is the Eye of the World.  The world itself is alive, and the Eye is its central point, maybe it's the first, most ancient part, where a ring-shaped deity descended from heaven and has spread out from there with tentacles underground (the strings of Tar Valon).  

I don't think George abandoned his novel Avalon, I think its ASOIAF.  (Avalon in the Thousand Worlds is where the Academy of Human Knowledge is located, a repository of all human knowledge--the weirwood is a repository of knowledge)

The dark lord says he wants to put out the Eye of the World.  I think this supports the theory that the Night King wants to get to the God's Eye and destroy the center of the weirwood hive-mind that is located there.