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The Wheel of Time and Lord Varys (second attempt)


Lord Varys

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Having listened through 'The New Spring' I actually continued with the 'The Eye of the World'. I'll try to get through the series this time, although I'm not sure I'll have the strength.

I'm about halfway through now, perhaps the right opportunity to give some thoughts here:

First, I have to say the book isn't all that bad. It is pretty much a pastiche of the Lord of the Rings, but that's actually a good thing. The whole plot of evil sneeking into the Shire and hunting a couple of backwater people who don't understand what's going can be - and is, in this instance - pretty powerful. It draws you in early and keeps you interested in what's actually going on.

As I already said in the other thread, I find the Prologue and its explanation of Ishamael being 'partly sealed' pretty confusing. The impression we get is that the Forsaken were physically imprisoned back in the day, so either Ishamael was with his peers - and then he would be sealed as well - or he wasn't there, then he would be free. How he can only be partly sealed and be free sometimes and then imprisoned at other times is, to my knowledge, never explained. And neither is the impression given in the Prologue that Ishamael was defeated/sealed with the Dark One and the others by Lews Therin, which leads me to believe that this whole thing is a later retcon. As Ba'alzamon, Ishamael also never indicates that he was sealed when he stalks Rand and the others in their dreams.

Character-wise, Moiraine, Lan, Rand, and Nynaeve are most interesting in the first half of the book. Perrin really starts to get interesting when we get his POV when the gang is forced to split up.

The problematic portrayal of female characters already starts in the first book with effectively all women being described as schemers ruling behind the scenes (the women of Emmond's Field allegedly running things behind the scenes with the men not even being aware of it) as well as effectively all women (namely Egwene, Nynaeve, Egwene's mother) having the same traits in the sense that they boss around their men in a similar or even the same manner. At the same time, the women also seem to secretly crave being told what to do by men, e.g. when we have Egwene wanting Perrin to be in charge. Jordan cannot give those two young people just make joint decisions or anything - no somebody has to be in charge.

The Aes Sedai aren't really all that weird in the first book, but most likely mainly because Moiraine is a pretty positive character. But it is noteworthy that the author fails to actually explain/tell us why folks do not really like the Aes Sedai all that much. We hear that they believe the Aes Sedai use other people as pawns and pull various strings behind the scenes, but we are never given actual examples when and why this actually made things bad or worse. Emmond's Field is complete backwater, so the Aes Sedai should only be unpopular in that place if something they know the Aes Sedai affected them and their lives badly. The same goes for the Aes Sedai intervening in this or that nation. For the people to view them as potentially evil, selfish, mean, etc. they actually do have to do shady/evil things or appear to be doing such things. To this point no such things have been mentioned or depicted.

[The whole thing of the gentling of the male Aes Sedai is another matter. That can be ugly but unless I'm mistaken most people understand that this is necessary.]

Insofar as plot is concerned, the book isn't very subtle. For instance, that Padan Fain is the Darkfriend leading the Trollocs to Emmond's Field is pretty much obvious from the start (he seems to always laugh about a joke only he knows). How much better this plot could have been if Thom - the nice guy - had been the evil one, while the shadier character turned out to be guy they could trust.

And then the characters are really written as complete morons.

We can, perhaps, accept that Rand doesn't connect the dots when he meets Fain in Baerlon, but how does it make sense that he doesn't remember this encounter when the Myrddraal shows up at the inn? Why doesn't he even think of Fain when they hear about a guy looking like him and behaving basically the way he did in Baerlon?

Then there is the issue of the gang being allowed to go out and explore the town in Baerlon. How does this make sense? Why would they do that? And why would Mat and Rand provoke the Whitecloaks on the street? They are not described as being that stupid.

Much worse is the entire episode in Shadar Logoth - in what universe does it make sense that the gang goes into that haunted place and Moiraine does not immediately - immediately! - warn them what's going on in that place and that neither of them go alone or in groups out exploring?! And how could they even leave the place they were staying without the others noticing? Nynaeve and Lan are both supposed to be those great trackers but they don't realize that a bunch of boys go away?

This is just sloppy writing. There are quite a few scenarios imaginable where folks go out there and meet Mordeth even if Moiraine warned them.

But this kind of thing seems to continue later on - in Whitebridge there seems to exist only a single inn where the gang quickly meets shady Floran Gelb. The speed in which stories told by some sailor spread throughout a town is also completely unrealistic.

That's it for now.

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I think this is a source of some debate in the Wheel of Time fandom. Basically, it was considered to be a MAJOR SPOILER that Ishmael wasn't sealed.

But I pointed out that he was talking to Lewis at the start.

I don't think the "partly sealed" thing makes any sense and just think he avoided it completely--which, of course, explains why there's armies of evil at work.

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A retcon between the Prologue and the first few chapters of the first book of a series?

While Ishamael being free or not is not discernable completely in the early part of book 1, he clearly isn't able to physically come and kill whoever he suspects is the Dragon. Thus, he is definitely constrained at this time, compared to when he meets Lews Therin.

We get a very good explanation for what "half-bound" meant in the last book of the series. I see no real reason why the author has to explain before that the precise mechanism by which a major antagonists interaction with the world was curtailed. 

But that he was bound at some points and not at others is fairly obvious right from the start, if you give it a moment of thought. 

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22 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

We get a very good explanation for what "half-bound" meant in the last book of the series. I see no real reason why the author has to explain before that the precise mechanism by which a major antagonists interaction with the world was curtailed. 

I definitely missed this. Please share in spoiler caps, since it's about the last book. 

I personally always assumed it had something to do with Tel'aran'rhiod.

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4 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And then the characters are really written as complete morons.

 


This is the main reason why I've still never finished the first book, after making I think my fifth attempt last year. There are a lot of things I like about the first half of the book, but at some point someone does something really fucking stupid yet again and I just go 'ughhhhhh'. 

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11 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

A retcon between the Prologue and the first few chapters of the first book of a series?

While Ishamael being free or not is not discernable completely in the early part of book 1, he clearly isn't able to physically come and kill whoever he suspects is the Dragon. Thus, he is definitely constrained at this time, compared to when he meets Lews Therin.

We get a very good explanation for what "half-bound" meant in the last book of the series. I see no real reason why the author has to explain before that the precise mechanism by which a major antagonists interaction with the world was curtailed. 

But that he was bound at some points and not at others is fairly obvious right from the start, if you give it a moment of thought. 

Not sure when that 'partly sealed' explanation is first given in the text. That seems to be a later retcon, but not necessarily one given in the first book. The impression given throughout the first half of TEotW is that Ishamael/Ba'alzamon was never sealed at all. In that sense, it seems that Jordan originally worked with a free Ishamael and later felt that didn't fit the general Forsaken story and then had him sealed as well.

The reason why this is a problematic setting is that it generally weakens the narrative of the Forsaken/Dark One being sealed. If the seals couldn't even hold Ishaemael completely, how effective were there, and how successful was Lews Therin? Not all that much, it seems.

11 hours ago, C.T. Phipps said:

I think this is a source of some debate in the Wheel of Time fandom. Basically, it was considered to be a MAJOR SPOILER that Ishmael wasn't sealed.

But I pointed out that he was talking to Lewis at the start.

I don't think the "partly sealed" thing makes any sense and just think he avoided it completely--which, of course, explains why there's armies of evil at work.

Yes, the entire narrative would have worked better if Ishamael had been free the entire time, but had died (of old age, succumbed to saidin-induced madness, etc.) in cycles, to be reborn whenever there was trouble in timeline (Trolloc Wars, end of Hawkwing, etc.).

By the way - did anybody ever remark how silly the idea is that the Darkfriends/Forsaken crave immortality of all things, in a world where eternal rebirth is the (effectively) confirmed metaphysical truth? Why would anyone want to be immortal if everybody effectively knew or believed that they would live again the way they did when the age they were living in came back?

I mean, sure, physical immortality is also a nice thing, but death doesn't mean what it means in our world if you know you will be reborn eventually.

11 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

I definitely missed this. Please share in spoiler caps, since it's about the last book. 

I personally always assumed it had something to do with Tel'aran'rhiod.

From what we take from the Prologue and the Worldbook Ishaemael was there, physically, in the real world. It is not really conceivable that he spent time at the court of Hawkwing under an allies in the guise of a dream phantom. At least not when we assume the people there are not to be imagined as complete morons.

7 hours ago, polishgenius said:

This is the main reason why I've still never finished the first book, after making I think my fifth attempt last year. There are a lot of things I like about the first half of the book, but at some point someone does something really fucking stupid yet again and I just go 'ughhhhhh'. 

Well, I can't read it, either. I'm just listening to audiobooks. That way, you don't have to actively go through the shitty part but hear it passively.

But even in that form I couldn't get through all of WoT the last time around.

And it is not that the setting is completely shitty or anything like that. There are just lazy setups and silly behavior on the part of the characters. If you want to create tension/action in a new town/place, there are dozens of better ways to do it than have characters who are hunted by evil monsters for (so far) unknown reasons go out exploring or antagonize shady characters by provoking them for no reason.

And the thing with Moiraine not telling anyone what Shadar Logoth is and what is lurking there, is completely inexcusable. That makes no sense at all.

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Been a while since this board had a WoT-bashing thread.

I have neither the time, energy, nor inclination to defend WoT in it's entirety - certainly there are things about the series that are dated, or irritate even me as a fan , and plenty that I meme on, though those jokes hit rather different coming from fans than when ya'll are just actively hating / deriding the series.

That said I do wanna reply to a few of Varys' points, starting with some fact and then moving down more into taste/ymmv territory:

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And why would Mat and Rand provoke the Whitecloaks on the street?

For Rand, who from what I recall is primarily responsible here there is an explanation provided in the book for the astute reader to pick up on. I don't know if this is a spoiler thread so I'll tag it, from EotW Chapter 23 when Moiraine explains self-taught channelling to Nynaeve, with a little extra explanation/commentary from me that a first time reader might not pick up on:

Spoiler

"You felt nothing special at the time, but a week or ten days later you had your first reaction to touching the True Source. Perhaps fever and chills that came on suddenly and put you to bed, then disappeared after only a few hours. None of the reactions, and they vary, lasts more than a few hours. Headaches and numbness and exhilaration all mixed together, and you taking foolish chances or acting giddy. A spell of dizziness, when you tripped and stumbled whenever you tried to move, when you could not say a sentence without your tongue mangling half the words. There are others"

Thus it's Rand's reaction to his first channelling - when he cleansed Bela so Egwene wouldn't fall behind - there are a couple of other instances where he unknowingly channels and his reactions, in increasing proximity to the time of his channelling can be tracked through the book.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

But it is noteworthy that the author fails to actually explain/tell us why folks do not really like the Aes Sedai all that much.

I mean it's a fantasy/medieval/renaissance setting, I don't think the author needs to work very hard to explain why the mysterious magic users are mistrusted. Beyond that Jordan does show quite a few reasons why they might be disliked, including one that you mention and then dismiss - that they're reputed to be manipulators and puppet masters pulling the strings of nations, this is inherently viewed by most people as a bad thing, and is actually correct in this instance unlike in many real world conspiracy theories where it's also used as an inherent negative. Also we see that Emond's Field is a backwater ass end of nowhere full of yokels who rarely get a proper Gleeman, let alone someone like Thom who'd actually know something close to the true history in the stories he spins, and in the mob scene I believe someone shouts about the Aes Sedai breaking the world which strikes me as very much a classic bigoted talking point - completely missing the point but just true enough that someone trying to respond in good faith has to clarify with a more lengthy far less explosive explanation vs the initial talking point which is simple and easy to stick in the minds of the ignorant and stupid. Also we see the existence of the Whitecloaks an active Aes Sedai hate organisation whose business is spreading hate and fear. Finally and we're getting in to the territory already covered in the TV show thread (though I think you passed over my post since I tagged it with full spoilers? certainly you didn't respond to it) but the White Tower is a fallen organisation at this point, they're literally at their all time low, they barely have any members relative to the size of the continent, and certainly have no PR branch. Even someone we know to be good and working for the good like Moiraine is shown to be rather unconcerned with the impression she gives to outsiders and given to little explanation of her motives - she scares the protagonists multiple times, including for instance when she sinks the Taren Ferry with magic, and probably scares half the town when she uses the giant illusion to cover their escape from Baerlon which is probably something that in the normal course of events where the world doesn't start ending soon thereafter something they'd be talking about for generations in that town.

14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

As I already said in the other thread, I find the Prologue and its explanation of Ishamael being 'partly sealed' pretty confusing. The impression we get is that the Forsaken were physically imprisoned back in the day, so either Ishamael was with his peers - and then he would be sealed as well - or he wasn't there, then he would be free. How he can only be partly sealed and be free sometimes and then imprisoned at other times is, to my knowledge, never explained. And neither is the impression given in the Prologue that Ishamael was defeated/sealed with the Dark One and the others by Lews Therin, which leads me to believe that this whole thing is a later retcon. As Ba'alzamon, Ishamael also never indicates that he was sealed when he stalks Rand and the others in their dreams.

I never found this hard to believe - the actual mechanics of the sealing are pretty much left unknown beyond the knowledge that there are seven seals, the Strike at Shayol Ghul added that they required precise placement around the bore. Given that Lews Therin went to the Shayol Ghul with just over 100 male Aes Sedai (mentioned in the prologue, the hundred companions) and an entire army of 10,000 soldiers it's pretty much a given that a large battle took place there and it wasn't a stealth mission, so the Forsaken wouldn't have been caught off guard or just chilling in a board meeting with the Dark One when they're suddenly all stuck in stasis. Maybe Ishamael was in the middle of Travelling away from the battle, maybe he had his foot over the line of the seal, maybe the Dark One managed to yeet his favoured champion slightly out in to the world to make sure it stayed sufficiently fucked up. It's not super relevant to the present narrative beyond giving explanation for how the world has remained in decline so I don't know that it's explained (or that explanation is really necessary) in the main books but the companion offers that he gets spun out once every thousand years which fits with the events he boasts about being responsible for to the boys in Eye of the World.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The reason why this is a problematic setting is that it generally weakens the narrative of the Forsaken/Dark One being sealed. If the seals couldn't even hold Ishaemael completely, how effective were there, and how successful was Lews Therin? Not all that much, it seems.

But that's the point. Lews Therin payed a terrible price, and all he bought was a temporary reprieve for the world. 

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

From what we take from the Prologue and the Worldbook Ishaemael was there, physically, in the real world. It is not really conceivable that he spent time at the court of Hawkwing under an allies in the guise of a dream phantom. At least not when we assume the people there are not to be imagined as complete morons.

I understand that, but the Forsaken can and have travelled in the Dream World in the flesh. And Ishamael is a master of it, and kinda insane to boot.

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10 hours ago, polishgenius said:


This is the main reason why I've still never finished the first book, after making I think my fifth attempt last year. There are a lot of things I like about the first half of the book, but at some point someone does something really fucking stupid yet again and I just go 'ughhhhhh'. 

If you're struggling to get through the first book, stop now and do not waste your time. They get WAY worse after book three. 

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Don't know if they would hold up to a reread now in 2021, but back in the day I found the first 6 volumes to be quite awesome. A Crown of Swords, given its cliffhanger ending, was the first one not up to par, so to speak. It was a steady decline after that, culminating with the travesty that was Crossroads of Twilight.

If not for the Sanderson books, I'd reread the whole thing one day. As things stand, probably not. . .

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2 hours ago, Poobah said:

Been a while since this board had a WoT-bashing thread.

To be clear, chances are high that this will turn into a bashing thread, but the intention is just to give you my thoughts as I advance in the series. If something comes up I really like or find intriguing I'll write about that, too.

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I have neither the time, energy, nor inclination to defend WoT in it's entirety - certainly there are things about the series that are dated, or irritate even me as a fan , and plenty that I meme on, though those jokes hit rather different coming from fans than when ya'll are just actively hating / deriding the series.

The intention is also not to trigger fans of the series to feel the need to defend it. We can also just talk about whether the flaws I see are seen by others who like the series for this or that reason. We all have different tastes and care about different things in literature.

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For Rand, who from what I recall is primarily responsible here there is an explanation provided in the book for the astute reader to pick up on. I don't know if this is a spoiler thread so I'll tag it, from EotW Chapter 23 when Moiraine explains self-taught channelling to Nynaeve, with a little extra explanation/commentary from me that a first time reader might not pick up on:

Ah, yes, that's a pretty good explanation for Rand's behavior there. I realized that Rand was using saidin in that incident, and I remembered the side effects of the use of the One Power, although I don't remember if men are similarly affected as women - there are differences there in pretty much every department.

But this certainly can help explain Rand's behavior there ... although not so much Mat's behavior. This is prior to Shadar Logoth, he doesn't have the dagger yet, and while Mat is a pretty irresponsible guy it is too much for a young boy from a backwater village in what they would view as a big city to pointlessly provoke what they would (rightfully) view as pretty dangerous people.

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"You felt nothing special at the time, but a week or ten days later you had your first reaction to touching the True Source. Perhaps fever and chills that came on suddenly and put you to bed, then disappeared after only a few hours. None of the reactions, and they vary, lasts more than a few hours. Headaches and numbness and exhilaration all mixed together, and you taking foolish chances or acting giddy. A spell of dizziness, when you tripped and stumbled whenever you tried to move, when you could not say a sentence without your tongue mangling half the words. There are others"

Thus it's Rand's reaction to his first channelling - when he cleansed Bela so Egwene wouldn't fall behind - there are a couple of other instances where he unknowingly channels and his reactions, in increasing proximity to the time of his channelling can be tracked through the book.

I mean it's a fantasy/medieval/renaissance setting, I don't think the author needs to work very hard to explain why the mysterious magic users are mistrusted. Beyond that Jordan does show quite a few reasons why they might be disliked, including one that you mention and then dismiss - that they're reputed to be manipulators and puppet masters pulling the strings of nations, this is inherently viewed by most people as a bad thing, and is actually correct in this instance unlike in many real world conspiracy theories where it's also used as an inherent negative.

My issue with this is pretty simple. I'd like to have concrete examples when how the Aes Sedai influenced things in a bad or shady manner. Possible example would include the downfall of popular monarchs/rulers or entire dynasties, political decisions which led to economical or military disasters (lost wars or famines), etc. Especially one would need, I think, examples where the Two Rivers were actually suffering from a development they could blame on the Aes Sedai or the White Tower.

The Aes Sedai are traditional not some weirdo magical society doing their own thing - they do not rule over other people directly and their powers are rather crucial in dealing with the Dark One and his servants as well as with the madmen using saidin.

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Also we see that Emond's Field is a backwater ass end of nowhere full of yokels who rarely get a proper Gleeman, let alone someone like Thom who'd actually know something close to the true history in the stories he spins, and in the mob scene I believe someone shouts about the Aes Sedai breaking the world which strikes me as very much a classic bigoted talking point - completely missing the point but just true enough that someone trying to respond in good faith has to clarify with a more lengthy far less explosive explanation vs the initial talking point which is simple and easy to stick in the minds of the ignorant and stupid.

Yes, that was a point I found not that bad ... for the more ignorant folks in Emmond's Field. But it is also clear that especially some of women there are not as ignorant as those - which is why, for instance, Nynaeve's insistence that the Aes Sedai/One Power is/are bad is also kind of weird.

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Also we see the existence of the Whitecloaks an active Aes Sedai hate organisation whose business is spreading hate and fear. Finally and we're getting in to the territory already covered in the TV show thread (though I think you passed over my post since I tagged it with full spoilers? certainly you didn't respond to it) but the White Tower is a fallen organisation at this point, they're literally at their all time low, they barely have any members relative to the size of the continent, and certainly have no PR branch. Even someone we know to be good and working for the good like Moiraine is shown to be rather unconcerned with the impression she gives to outsiders and given to little explanation of her motives - she scares the protagonists multiple times, including for instance when she sinks the Taren Ferry with magic, and probably scares half the town when she uses the giant illusion to cover their escape from Baerlon which is probably something that in the normal course of events where the world doesn't start ending soon thereafter something they'd be talking about for generations in that town.

Oh, I certainly get that the Aes Sedai aren't that popular - but the point was that I'd like more concrete speculations/claims/information as to why that is. We all do get motives for the whacko evil guys in conspiracy theory, but the mere fact that people are there and do influence political decisions behind the scenes isn't enough for them to appear evil. They also do need to have evil motives - like, say, power for themselves.

And we don't get any of that.

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I never found this hard to believe - the actual mechanics of the sealing are pretty much left unknown beyond the knowledge that there are seven seals, the Strike at Shayol Ghul added that they required precise placement around the bore. Given that Lews Therin went to the Shayol Ghul with just over 100 male Aes Sedai (mentioned in the prologue, the hundred companions) and an entire army of 10,000 soldiers it's pretty much a given that a large battle took place there and it wasn't a stealth mission, so the Forsaken wouldn't have been caught off guard or just chilling in a board meeting with the Dark One when they're suddenly all stuck in stasis. Maybe Ishamael was in the middle of Travelling away from the battle, maybe he had his foot over the line of the seal, maybe the Dark One managed to yeet his favoured champion slightly out in to the world to make sure it stayed sufficiently fucked up. It's not super relevant to the present narrative beyond giving explanation for how the world has remained in decline so I don't know that it's explained (or that explanation is really necessary) in the main books but the companion offers that he gets spun out once every thousand years which fits with the events he boasts about being responsible for to the boys in Eye of the World.

It is just some thing I noticed and find odd. Unless I'm misrembering the Dark One didn't have the power to preserve the youth and lives of those Forsaken who were closest to the reality outside the seals (i.e. Aginor and the other fellow showing up at the end), so Ishamael should have died along time ago or be in even worse shape than those people if he wasn't completely affected by the seals.

My judgment is that the 'partly sealed' explanation causes more problems than the idea that the guy wasn't sealed at all - because the entire plot about the seals means the door to the Dark One's domain was closed rather thoroughly, especially in the Forsaken department.

My impression also is that Jordan originally intended to contrast Ishamael's obvious mobility with the dogmatic repetition of the wrong belief that the Dark One and the Forsaken have been imprisoned by the Creator in the very beginning - which is true only for the Dark One and no longer true since the Bore.

While Ishamael's desire to be completely annihilated makes some sense in light of everybody being imprisoned in the Wheel of Time's eternal rebirth cycle, the existence of that magical balefire thing makes that desire completely silly, considering it should have been remarkably easy for Ishamael to completely annihilate himself - or ask one of his fellow Forsaken to do it for him, or even Lews Therin back in the day or Rand in the present day.

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3 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

While Ishamael's desire to be completely annihilated makes some sense in light of everybody being imprisoned in the Wheel of Time's eternal rebirth cycle, the existence of that magical balefire thing makes that desire completely silly, considering it should have been remarkably easy for Ishamael to completely annihilate himself - or ask one of his fellow Forsaken to do it for him, or even Lews Therin back in the day or Rand in the present day.

Balefire will get rid of him now but he will still be spun out again by the wheel at some point.  Hence he wants to break the wheel.

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27 minutes ago, Slurktan said:

Balefire will get rid of him now but he will still be spun out again by the wheel at some point.  Hence he wants to break the wheel.

But doesn't that remove you permanently from the pattern so that even the Dark One cannot resurrect you again? I took that as meaning that whatever is destroyed by balefire is annihilated forever. After all, if you are killed in this manner you never actually existed, no? That's why Rand can resurrect people another person killed by killing them with balefire - because all their actions never happened after that.

Which, if you think about it, could actually reverse much about the original war against the Dark One if you were to kill all the Forsaken with balefire because then they would have never existed. And they seemed to have done rather crucial things back in the Age of Legends.

Jordan didn't seem to think that through properly.

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10 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But doesn't that remove you permanently from the pattern so that even the Dark One cannot resurrect you again? I took that as meaning that whatever is destroyed by balefire is annihilated forever. After all, if you are killed in this manner you never actually existed, no? That's why Rand can resurrect people another person killed by killing them with balefire - because all their actions never happened after that.

Which, if you think about it, could actually reverse much about the original war against the Dark One if you were to kill all the Forsaken with balefire because then they would have never existed. And they seemed to have done rather crucial things back in the Age of Legends.

Jordan didn't seem to think that through properly.

No, Balefire is essentially instant time travel killing someone.  It is not erasing them from history.  The DO cant go retrieve your soul because he would have to travel back in time to exactly how far back the balefire burned you in order to catch it so to speak.  Your soul still exists though.

As per usual you say Jordan didn't think things through properly while working on flawed knowledge.

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10 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But doesn't that remove you permanently from the pattern so that even the Dark One cannot resurrect you again? I took that as meaning that whatever is destroyed by balefire is annihilated forever. After all, if you are killed in this manner you never actually existed, no? That's why Rand can resurrect people another person killed by killing them with balefire - because all their actions never happened after that.

Which, if you think about it, could actually reverse much about the original war against the Dark One if you were to kill all the Forsaken with balefire because then they would have never existed. And they seemed to have done rather crucial things back in the Age of Legends.

Jordan didn't seem to think that through properly.

While true, it also misses a key point that Ishmael's desire for self-annihilation is not Buddhism or depression based.

Ishmael doesn't want to die. He wants to kill everyone and everything forever. He's philosophically opposed to existence rather than just suicidal. Which is to say he's the most evil guy in the universe who ever eviled and the only person who is actually like the Dark One. The other Forsaken have the belief that the Dark One wants to rule the world but we, the audience, get insight that he's like Melkor and wants to destroy all of creation and the Wheel.

Similarly, I don't think that reincarnation is particularly interesting to the Forsaken because you are still effectively a different person. For all these incredibly powerful dangerous mages, being reborn a farm boy or girl and growing up is less than preferrable to living as a magical demigod for centuries or millennia.

It also helps to note that all of them are varying degrees of narcissistic sociopaths.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

The intention is also not to trigger fans of the series to feel the need to defend it. We can also just talk about whether the flaws I see are seen by others who like the series for this or that reason. We all have different tastes and care about different things in literature

This doesn't make much sense, given how you write about the books, though. You point out things as flaws that are not, based on a fuller reading of the books. You do have a half-assed understanding of some things, but since you haven't read the books, they are, as I said, half-assed. You then project that half-assed understanding as the ground truth in the books, and call them badly written, and to state, as you did in the other thread, that you can only enjoy the books if you were a young and inexperienced reader... All of which is anything but an honest discussion of differing tastes. 

If you want to do what you claim you're going for, you can ask for instance "hey do we ever figure out how Ishamael was only half sealed"? But if you go in with "I've never read the books, but I'm going to assume this is never explained, so see, this book is shit, I'm right to hate it", that isn't about triggering a discussion. That's about you trying to justify your dislike for the books, and doing a shitty job of it.

47 minutes ago, Lord Varys said:

But doesn't that remove you permanently from the pattern so that even the Dark One cannot resurrect you again? I took that as meaning that whatever is destroyed by balefire is annihilated forever. After all, if you are killed in this manner you never actually existed, no? That's why Rand can resurrect people another person killed by killing them with balefire - because all their actions never happened after that.

So where did you get your information on Balefire from? Can't be the books, since you stopped reading them around book 3, you said?

This is all so spectacularly wrong it's funny.

You always existed. Balefire doesn't change that. It is just able to push the time to which you existed back from the moment the balefire touches you. Ie, your death is retroactive. This causes massive ripple effects and paradoxes, because the events that occured that included you cannot include you. So reality has to patch up the gaps, and depending on how far back you died (which depends on the strength of the balefire used), and how many people you interacted with before the balefire killed you (ie, the time between the balefire touched you and the time before it it ends your existence in), this can be incredibly harmful to the stability of reality.

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Which, if you think about it, could actually reverse much about the original war against the Dark One if you were to kill all the Forsaken with balefire because then they would have never existed. And they seemed to have done rather crucial things back in the Age of Legends.

And then the many crucial things they did would have to be patched over, which would destabilize reality further, which gives the Dark One more access to the world to completely take over. Nice job letting him win, hotshot. 

For a period of a few years, both sides used Balefire indiscriminately. Entire cities were destroyed with it, and reality basically began to frey and unravel, so an unspoken truce got established and both sides stopped using balefire. Well, most of them did, because barring Forsaken like Ishamael, the others still want reality to exist, just with them in control. 

The other thing you're missing is that Balefire is incredibly power intensive. Burning someone back a few minutes is bad, and feasible. Hours takes a lot more power. Days, much more so. Years? You're coming up against sufficient use of the Power, and sufficient damage to the Pattern, that you're doing the Dark One's job. Which is why he's eager for it's use, but no one else is.

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Jordan didn't seem to think that through properly.

:rolleyes: You asked why Mat was so stupid with the Whitecloaks. You seem to be proving that it is human nature to be much more stupid than even Mat was there. Seems to me Jordan had a better grasp of how people work than you do?

 

ETA: about rebirth and immortality: that's another very puzzling critique. If you're reborn, your soul lives again, but your memories of your past, your achievements, your knowledge... All that is wiped. You start afresh. This is the same as living as the same person, the same consciousness, continuously? There's no connection between them, yet it's being presented as somehow odd that being reborn wouldn't suffice for a person wanting immortality? 

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Balefire is one of those weird things where how it worked was always clear and obvious to me and yet I've seen a bunch of people assume it worked differently. It doesn't annihilate someone's soul or cause permanent destruction, but I have to admit this is a take I've seen before and from people who have been enjoying the books and merely looking for more information so I have to wonder where the weakness in the explanation is? I can't believe that all fantasy readers need some Brandon Sanderson-esq scene where a scientist explains in detail exactly why and how the logic of the magic works.

The talk of burning threads from the pattern is, I suppose, what causes the confusion? And yet there's other talk of cutting threads as a metaphor for death elsewhere in the story - the thread is the life in the metaphor, and it's length is the duration life - so it isn't a novel image or complicated concept the only thing Balefire does is, depending on the amount of power used, cause that thread to end at a moment before the "fire" started, ie. kills someone back in time. This prevents the Dark One from capturing their souls to keep them around because He's constrained by linear time when interacting with the pattern, but doesn't otherwise have any effect on them. We can see this clearly as various enemies are Balefired over the course of the series - the absurd changes to reality that would happen if they were completely deleted from existence and everything they've personally ever done is erased don't happen, instead we have their most recent actions undone as the pattern retcons itself to account for them dying minutes or hours earlier then "originally" happened.

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17 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

And then the characters are really written as complete morons.

We can, perhaps, accept that Rand doesn't connect the dots when he meets Fain in Baerlon, but how does it make sense that he doesn't remember this encounter when the Myrddraal shows up at the inn? Why doesn't he even think of Fain when they hear about a guy looking like him and behaving basically the way he did in Baerlon?

Then there is the issue of the gang being allowed to go out and explore the town in Baerlon. How does this make sense? Why would they do that? And why would Mat and Rand provoke the Whitecloaks on the street? They are not described as being that stupid.

Much worse is the entire episode in Shadar Logoth - in what universe does it make sense that the gang goes into that haunted place and Moiraine does not immediately - immediately! - warn them what's going on in that place and that neither of them go alone or in groups out exploring?! And how could they even leave the place they were staying without the others noticing? Nynaeve and Lan are both supposed to be those great trackers but they don't realize that a bunch of boys go away?

This is just sloppy writing. There are quite a few scenarios imaginable where folks go out there and meet Mordeth even if Moiraine warned them.

How do you have 24,000 posts on a ASOIAF board if characters behaving stupidly to move the plot along bothers you so much?

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