The Wheel of Time

[Prince Who Was Promised]

It is. I can't be one hundred percent certain, but I'm fairly sure that in book 2 (or maybe book 4) when they're talking about the Portal Stones and the parallel worlds someone -- Lanfear or Moiraine or Verin -- says that so long as the Dark One is bound in one world, he is bound in all, and if he is freed in one world, he is freed in all. On top of that, they even go on to say something like, "such is the paradoxical nature of the Dark One." I may be misremembering, but I don't think I am.

I believe it's Moiraine speaking to Perrin, saying that the DO is master of chaos, destruction, and paradox.

[Lightning Lord]

I hadn't really thought about the nature of the other worlds and the DO's state of captivity being the same in all of them. I guess that means that every time there is this massive conflict, there is literally no real hope for one of the sides. Kind of confusing in the worlds where there are no people to champion the cause of Light. *shrug

[Prince Who Was Promised]

Kind of confusing in the worlds where there are no people to champion the cause of Light. *shrug

True, but the DO can't touch a world with no people to drill the Bore.

[Lightning Lord]

True, but the DO can't touch a world with no people to drill the Bore.

Bore was drilled in Age of Legends. Trolloc Wars were either one or two thousand years later (can't remember exactly). So if the dark side wins the Trolloc wars and eat everyone, no Dragon Reborn and no chance of DO being defeated.

I guess there would have to be some small pocket of humanity left to spawn Lews Therin's soul? Even though in the infinite possibilities of reality, there HAS to be one that has no people left?

[SpaceChampion]

Well, souls like the Dragon's and other heroes would still be bound to the Wheel, so I think they'd find a way to come bodily out of World of Dreams to take new life and repopulate the planet. Gaidal Caine and Birgette as Adam and Eve, perhaps.

By the way, so according to Lews Therin the process for sealing the Bore is "first you break the Seals, then you die". Rand understandably thought old Lews was just being his crazy weepy self, but I think we're going to find out that a soul is required to repair the Bore. So, yes, he is going to have to die... except Moridin's soul is now merging with him, with probably Moridin's soul will be used to repair the Bore, and Rand will get to live again.

Since the Dark One is Lord of the Grave, perhaps the True Power is the essence of souls? And perhaps dying is the only way for Rand to access the True Power without the Dark One's permission.

[elmis]

I'm not following you on this one.

Fanboi: How much balefire would it take to kill the DO?

RJ: Enough to destroy the world!

When we have know that a sliver of Balefire is enough to kill anything, more just burns the thread backwards in time. Does that mean that the DO have a thread in the pattern? Can you see the DO (does he have form?)

It seems to me (at least) that some of these NON BOOK answers aren't well that well thought out, and that discussions around it, when we don't have all the facts are stupid. That's what I mean when I say that enjoy the books more when I ignore these kinds of discussions.

The problem is, the books DO explain this. The books make it abundantly clear that the Creator and the Dark One are gods, and the only beings outside of Time. It makes it clear that Shai'tan is bound outside of the the multiverse of the Wheel, and that sense Time began, the Creator and the Dark One have been fighting their war using human surrogates.

You have misunderstood me, I know that what the books say, I've read them all, several times. I'm speaking of the all these book signing facts, that should be canon, since it comes directly from RJ, but are facts that I find increasinly stupid (the metaphysics ones). I daresay it is as if RJ wanted his Epic Series to be even more Epic than it already is.

So you enjoy ignoring important world facts?

LOL, good to see that even the Lit forum isn't without smart internet replies. ;)

[DivisionByZero]

On another topic, after reading through all the previous WoT/tGS threads I could find, I found that absolutely no one has addressed the biggest "wait.. what?!" moment I had in tGS. I seriously think I must have missed a chapter or something got left out of my copy or something...

When Rand and Tam meet and talk, Tam just casually mentions that Morgase is with them. Maybe I placed more significance on the situation than I needed to, but I always figured the reveal that Morgase was alive and with Perrin and Faile would be a pretty important and noteworthy thing! A lot of Gawyn's douchebaggery is reliant on his assumption that Morgase was not only dead, but killed by Rand. I was certainly expecting something more than an offhand "Oh yeah, Morgase is alive." I had to reread that line several times to be sure I was reading it right.

But then no one has mentioned it over four 400+ post threads. Did I miss something or does no one else care about Morgase or what?

[Shryke]

On another topic, after reading through all the previous WoT/tGS threads I could find, I found that absolutely no one has addressed the biggest "wait.. what?!" moment I had in tGS. I seriously think I must have missed a chapter or something got left out of my copy or something...

When Rand and Tam meet and talk, Tam just casually mentions that Morgase is with them. Maybe I placed more significance on the situation than I needed to, but I always figured the reveal that Morgase was alive and with Perrin and Faile would be a pretty important and noteworthy thing! A lot of Gawyn's douchebaggery is reliant on his assumption that Morgase was not only dead, but killed by Rand. I was certainly expecting something more than an offhand "Oh yeah, Morgase is alive." I had to reread that line several times to be sure I was reading it right.

But then no one has mentioned it over four 400+ post threads. Did I miss something or does no one else care about Morgase or what?

We know TTOM (the next book) takes place partially/largely concurrently with TGS.

We also know at some point that Perrin meets up with Galad and we can only assume Morgase is unmasked at this point.

We also know Tam's meeting with Rand takes place AFTER this meet up with Galad so I think it's fairly obvious what happened here.

[Werthead]

Even with my post just above in mind, I'll just post this: Pretty sure the DO didn't win there, but rather the Ba'alzamon won the Trolloc War. Who is left to stop the DO from breaking free in that world though is anyones guess.

No, the portal stone world is a result of what happened if the Trolloc armies won the Battle of Talidar in FY 987 (where, in the 'real' world, Artur Hawkwing assembled a huge army from across the entire Westlands and met and defeated the largest Trolloc army since the Trolloc Wars). In the portal stone world the Trollocs raised their own great monument to their victory (the same as the one Hawkwing rose except with a Trolloc emblem on it) and basked in the glow of it until they were utterly annhilated by the Seanchan exotic animals (Rand, Hurin and co. meet a grolm, IIRC, menacing Selene/Lanfear). That's why the Dark One is still imprisoned in that world, because the Shadow got its arse kicked.

I've read theories that in that world the non-unified-by-Luthair Seanchan invaded the Westlands at some point and wiped out the victorious Shadow armies using the exotics and went on to achieve high technology (Rand spots aircraft trails in the sky), or that there was no Seanchan in that world and the exotics simply spread by themselves and destroyed the Shadowspawn.

I also think the earlier theory that only the world in the books is 'real' and the rest reflect it is correct. The DO cannot break free in those worlds whilst it remains imprisoned in the primary world. It's even possible the Seven Seals don't exist in those worlds, or that they are totally inert (like the Seals in the WoT computer game, which is set in a portal stone world).

[Werthead]

The WoT movie people have also been talking about the film project, which terrifyingly still seems to on the cards. The latest notion seems to be to adapt the first three books directly into films (losing about 50% from each one, by my reckoning based on turning a 700-page book into a 2.5 hour movie) and then throw together elements from the later books to complete the narrative. How many films they are aiming for in total appears to be vague, although I don't see how they realistically expect to do it in more than six (or eight as an extreme outlier). Needless to say, breaking Wheel of Time down to 6-8 two to three hour films will mean gutting and destroying the story and losing many major elements (I don't see how you'd include the Seanchan for example, although you might be able to keep their initial appearance but have to ditch their later return), which I can't see going down well with the fans.

[Isabel]

The WoT movie people have also been talking about the film project, which terrifyingly still seems to on the cards. The latest notion seems to be to adapt the first three books directly into films (losing about 50% from each one, by my reckoning based on turning a 700-page book into a 2.5 hour movie) and then throw together elements from the later books to complete the narrative. How many films they are aiming for in total appears to be vague, although I don't see how they realistically expect to do it in more than six (or eight as an extreme outlier). Needless to say, breaking Wheel of Time down to 6-8 two to three hour films will mean gutting and destroying the story and losing many major elements (I don't see how you'd include the Seanchan for example, although you might be able to keep their initial appearance but have to ditch their later return), which I can't see going down well with the fans.

It won't be a 2.5 hour movie. It will be even better 2 hours......

I also don't believe it will be done properly. But Red Eagle already knows my opinion ;)

At Jordan Con Larry (from red eagle) had been talking about getting the essence of the character and merging some events.... :thumbsdown:

He also said he had a screenwriter, who had read wot and loved the books.(at least i thought he was talking about that) Who apparantly was famous, but was very busy.

I think he said they were looking into getting extra help for him.

[Werthead]

It won't be a 2.5 hour movie. It will be even better 2 hours......

I also don't believe it will be done properly. But Red Eagle already knows my opinion ;)

At Jordan Con Larry (from red eagle) had been talking about getting the essence of the character and merging some events.... :thumbsdown:

He also said he had a screenwriter, who had read wot and loved the books.(at least i thought he was talking about that) Who apparantly was famous, but was very busy.

I think he said they were looking into getting extra help for him.

In fairness, even a pretty faithful TV adaptation of WoT would need to drop some characters, merge some events and trim some fat away, as we have seen with LotR (which is a very faithful adaptation compared to most, although fans of Tom Bombadil, the Scouring of the Shire and 'Good Faramir' will likely disagree) and as we are seeing with ASoIaF now. But the degree to which it will be necessary with WoT to fit it into even say six films will be insane. I think my previous calculation (using LotR as a baseline) was that one film would get 5% of the story on the screen and six would struggle to get 30% in. Dropping Tom Bombadil from LotR or say Darkstar from ASoIaF (plucking a character at random) is one thing but losing the Sea Folk or the Seanchan or the Kin from WoT? That's much bigger.

Actually, I could stand losing the Kin and maybe some Sea Folk characters. But not the Seanchan. It would be a completely different, and less interesting, series, if Rand just has to fight the Shadow and that's it.

[fionwe1987]

The WoT movie people have also been talking about the film project, which terrifyingly still seems to on the cards. The latest notion seems to be to adapt the first three books directly into films (losing about 50% from each one, by my reckoning based on turning a 700-page book into a 2.5 hour movie) and then throw together elements from the later books to complete the narrative. How many films they are aiming for in total appears to be vague, although I don't see how they realistically expect to do it in more than six (or eight as an extreme outlier). Needless to say, breaking Wheel of Time down to 6-8 two to three hour films will mean gutting and destroying the story and losing many major elements (I don't see how you'd include the Seanchan for example, although you might be able to keep their initial appearance but have to ditch their later return), which I can't see going down well with the fans.

I'm no fan of the movie project, but you do have to realize that with all of Jordan's descriptiveness, more of the books will fit into 2.5 hour movies than if the books had been less descriptive.

Also, if the first movie is successful, there's always an option of increasing the length of the latter movies. And if done well, the Eye of the World can be hugely successful as a movie. "If done well" being the critical phrase.

[elmis]

On the bright side, CoT would take up all of 5 minutes screen time. ;)

[fionwe1987]

On the bright side, CoT would take up all of 5 minutes screen time. ;)

Depending on who they pick to play Elayne, CoT could turn out to be the biggest hit. All because of the infamous bath scene! :cool4:

[Werthead]

Also, if the first movie is successful, there's always an option of increasing the length of the latter movies. And if done well, the Eye of the World can be hugely successful as a movie. "If done well" being the critical phrase.

I suspect EotW is giving Universal a bad case of hives. "Right, so Gandalf - but as a girl! - shows up and takes our bucolic heroes from their rural idyll homeland to the town of Breelon where they run into Gollum and then go to an, ancient ruined city (but above ground!) and they split up and...we might have issues here. Do New Line sue people easily?"

The Shannara movie adaptation has gotten round this by ditching Sword and going straight for Elfstones and starting with Book 2. WoT doesn't really have that option.

[fionwe1987]

I suspect EotW is giving Universal a bad case of hives. "Right, so Gandalf - but as a girl! - shows up and takes our bucolic heroes from their rural idyll homeland to the town of Breelon where they run into Gollum and then go to an, ancient ruined city (but above ground!) and they split up and...we might have issues here. Do New Line sue people easily?"

The Shannara movie adaptation has gotten round this by ditching Sword and going straight for Elfstones and starting with Book 2. WoT doesn't really have that option.

I doubt that anyone can sue (since the books obviously weren't), but you're right about it having a very strong LotR vibe.

Which is why I think success will depend (if they do go ahead with a movie) on them picking some really big names for Moiraine and Nynaeve, since these are the two extremely non-Tolkeinish characters in this book. And they'll also have to make this a visually stunning movie (plenty of scope for that in the story), as well as emphasize those aspects of the world that make it very different from Middle Earth. Otherwise this is likely to be written off as a Tolkien ripoff.

One option, however, would be to begin with book 4, and leave the first three books to be made as a prequel trilogy. That might actually work.

[Slurktan]

No, the portal stone world is a result of what happened if the Trolloc armies won the Battle of Talidar in FY 987 (where, in the 'real' world, Artur Hawkwing assembled a huge army from across the entire Westlands and met and defeated the largest Trolloc army since the Trolloc Wars). In the portal stone world the Trollocs raised their own great monument to their victory (the same as the one Hawkwing rose except with a Trolloc emblem on it) and basked in the glow of it until they were utterly annhilated by the Seanchan exotic animals (Rand, Hurin and co. meet a grolm, IIRC, menacing Selene/Lanfear). That's why the Dark One is still imprisoned in that world, because the Shadow got its arse kicked.

I've read theories that in that world the non-unified-by-Luthair Seanchan invaded the Westlands at some point and wiped out the victorious Shadow armies using the exotics and went on to achieve high technology (Rand spots aircraft trails in the sky), or that there was no Seanchan in that world and the exotics simply spread by themselves and destroyed the Shadowspawn.

Logically the idea of Luthair coming back over from Seanchan to kick Shadow ass is completely unsound. Luthair was not even sent across the sea until 5 years after that battle.(Not to mention Hawkwings daughter and the Shara army). So the idea that for some reason Luthair would still take 300k soldiers and settlers away from the fight against the Shadow is preposterous (if he even lived past the battle in 987).

In that portal world it is very obvious the Shadow has won.

[Old Nan]

The Shadowspawn have won, but it's not not clear the Shadow, i.e. the Great Lord, has. In fact, given what Ishamael believes, the fact that there is a world at all, no matter how barren, means that the Dark One explicitly hasn't been freed. Perhaps humanity is necessary for that to happen in the first place; it's clear, for instance, that the Seals held more or less perfectly until after Lews Therin was reborn.

[Werthead]

Logically the idea of Luthair coming back over from Seanchan to kick Shadow ass is completely unsound. Luthair was not even sent across the sea until 5 years after that battle.(Not to mention Hawkwings daughter and the Shara army). So the idea that for some reason Luthair would still take 300k soldiers and settlers away from the fight against the Shadow is preposterous (if he even lived past the battle in 987).

As I clearly said, it is possible the non-unified-by-Luthair Seanchan - non-unified because Luthair never went to Seanchan because he would be dead at Talidar, or later in the invasion - have travelled to the Westlands and launched their own invasion. The presence of the Seanchan exotics on the Westland continent indicates this as a possibility, since grolm cannot swim 5,000 miles, nor will to'raken carry them randomly.

If Luthair didn't go to Seanchan the wars there would continue until someone eventually came out on top, and once they had done that expansion to other landmasses is a logical development, especially if they have technologically evolved to the point of having jet aircraft.

In that portal world it is very obvious the Shadow has won.

...and invented jet aircraft. Trolloc Airways, anyone?

The Shadow has not won. If it had won, the Dark One would be free and the world would have been destroyed.