The Wheel of Time

Elayne needing to deal with the "Chibi Lords" as I like to call them is an anime plotline if I've ever seen one.

You know, that time when the only Caemlyn Lords left were the ones who were too young to go to war.

Edited by GNinja on Sep 27th 2022 at 1:05:00 PM

So, in book 6 Matt shows up and says he's there to take Elayne back to Caimlin. Elayne refuses because she doesn't trust Matt, she doesn't trust Rand because she heard rumors about him, and she has to go do the Bowl of Wind subplot.

From what I can tell, this also means she spends several books not consolidating her position in Caimlin and consequently means it takes her even longer to take the throne when she actually tries to.

Mat gets a very raw deal in the middle third of the series or so.

Reading through Book 7, it seems that "winter's heart" is an in-universe idiom akin to "the dead of winter".

I like book 7 for the most part, though I'm also noticing that Jordan could get pretty gruesome when it comes to violence.

I'm not a fan of the whole subplot with Tylan and Matt, though.

Jordan was a Vietnam combat veteran. He had first-hand experience with violence.

Okay, so that's Book 9 down. I didn't say anything for Book 8 because it felt like a lot of nothing happening. Winter's Heart was actually pretty interesting, especially the subplot about Mat trying to exfiltrate Ebu Dar. The end does feel like yet another book where Rand looks up in the last few chapters and goes, "Okay, it's time for this book to have a climax", but I can't complain because the cleansing of Saidin was just so cool. It's been a theme of the series that Rand and co. have to break the status quo of the world in order to save it, but this was a lot bigger than re-arranging the map, it was Rand altering the metaphysical status quo of the world. Technically restoring it to an older status, but almost nobody remembers the world before Saidin was tainted.

I still hate Tylin, though, even with this book's attempt to cast her in a slightly more favorable light.

Yup. Next book has a lot of fallout about that specific status quo break. And I do mean a lot. It's uphill afterwards though.

Let me say that Rand in the last book is pretty damn satisfying.

Yeah, I've heard Crossroads of Twilight is basically 800 pages of secondary characters reacting to it.

Serious question, would it be a bad idea to just skip Crossroads of Twilight?

Winter's Heart does have a strong ending.

You can read the first part of the prologue of Crossroads of Twilight and the last two chapters, because some important stuff does happen in them. The rest of the book is skippable. (Well, there is some stuff with Elayne having to deal with a brewing civil war, but it's all setup that Knife of Dreams brings you up to speed on).

There is something that has been stuck in my head for a while (honestly since reading book 1 or 2) and i just cannot figure it out. How was the Dark One winning ever treated as a realistic possibility by characters in-universe with knowledge of how the Wheel works?

I mean the Dark One is outside the Wheel with his main goal being to destroy the Wheel and possibly remake it in his own image. Since the Wheel is spinning past, present, and future are essentially the same, so if the Dark One were to destroy the Wheel it would destroy past, present, and future. Since the characters know the past and present exist (and as far as they know are not made in the Dark Ones image) it seems obvious that the Dark One ever winning is an impossibility. If the Dark One theoretically did win and destroy/remake the Wheel, the world would have always been that way from the perspective inside the Wheel.

Edited by Samaldin on Mar 20th 2023 at 10:17:51 AM

I think that it may be a bit like Balefire: retroactive destruction doesn't change the fact that, prior to said destruction, the thing did originally exist.

It can perhaps be thought of in terms of iterations: The characters are on the current iteration of the nature of the universe and time. What they fear is that said iteration will be discarded and replaced; the current iteration of past, present, and future replaced by a new past, present, and future.

You are attributing passage of time to the Wheel itself, when the Wheel is the passage of time. Balefire works within time, so retroactive changes that way did happen at some point, while the Wheel itself is unaffected by time. For beings within the Wheel any potential changes to it would be completely imperceptible, as these changes would have always been the case.

"The world would always have been destroyed if the bad guy wins so we wouldn't be able to tell" isn't a comforting thought, I guess. It's kinda the opposite of Ishamael's philosophy, actually.

I think that is a very comforting thought actually. It would basicly mean that "since we are fighting we will win". The very act of resistance in itself is the guarantee of victory. And yeah i honestly think Ishamael was an idiot who didnt consider that the Dark One is outside of time.

I also believe the Dark One does not get to try again, due to his timeless nature, but only had/has/will have one chance against the Dragon Reborn (in all of his incarnations at once) and he lost that one.

For people in the Pattern, the concern is that the Devil will destroy all creation. If that doesn't happen, it's because people prevent it. The Pattern itself is made of human lives, after all.

It's also mentioned somewhere that, while time is cyclic, no cycle is ever exactly the same as the previous one. Sure, the Dragon vanquished the Dark One last time, but he still needs to put in the effort this time.

Not disagreeing in general, people have to fight, but as long as they do the established rules of the universe dictate that the Dark One will lose. And if the people did not want to fight the pattern would make them via Ta´veren (we have seen the pattern make people act completely out of character if it means advancing the Dragons agenda), just as it will force the Dragon to put in the effort to defeat the Dark One.

And like i said i strongly believe that every single Dragon Reborn that ever was and ever will be has faced the Dark One together with Rand. The Dark One is outside time and without time there cant really be a this time and next time.

Ehhh...

We know The Multiverse exists in The Wheel of Time and we encounter several iterations of the world where the Dark One is triumphant.

Destroying EVERYTHING may be impossible but all those worlds where Rand fails are pretty depressing.

I honestly dont remember alternate worlds. Do you mean the worlds we see during the confrontation with the Dark One? I always interpreted them as potential worlds Rand and DO created on the spot, not full fledged parallel worlds (and thereby didnt need to follow the rules). The other times i remember Rand seeing a world where he failed to defeat the Dark One were illusions or dreams sent his way to discourage him.

Edited by Samaldin on Mar 20th 2023 at 3:24:35 PM

Not exactly, but sort of; it's difficult to speak clearly about what amounts to a form of time-travel, I fear.

Think of it as a sort of simulation:

In the current run of the simulation, the internal timekeeping cycles around forever, and carries the protagonists along.

The The Dark One comes along, turns off the computer, rewrites some of the simulation code, and boots everything up again. Suddenly the protagonists (who we might imagine are stored between runs and restored on startup) find themselves in a world that is much worse, and always has been that way.

Hence there would be two "iterations" of time, one replacing the other.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Mar 20th 2023 at 4:46:42 PM

"Since the characters know the past and present exist (and as far as they know are not made in the Dark Ones image) it seems obvious that the Dark One ever winning is an impossibility. If the Dark One theoretically did win and destroy/remake the Wheel, the world would have always been that way from the perspective inside the Wheel."

Actually, the books address this, though I can't remember exactly where. Someone points to Min's seeing signs of the future as proof that the Dark One won't win, but she herself points out that what she see's are signs of the future only so long as time, in it's current form, exists. If time is destroyed, or remade, than any signs she's seen are null and void because the pattern being created before the Dark One destroyed or remade it would be out the window.

So I'm guessing this requires a non-linear view of time. It assumes (I think) that time exists all at once, and it's only our perceptions that give it a linear form. Should the Dark One break the Wheel, past, present, and future will cease to be all at once, and be replaced by—whatever he replaces it with.

This is, I think, pretty much the perspective that I was trying to describe.

I think it was in Memory of Light during the last preperations for the battle. I remember the passage where they talk about that, because i was confused by this for a long time and that was the first time the books came close to adressing it (Mins futuresight is irrelevant, the very existence of past and present in its current form is my arguement). Mins arguement is correct in theory, but she fails to consider that the Dark One is outside the Wheel and only beings within the Wheel experience time as such. If they would not win in the future, they would not be having this conversation in the present.

Which is precisely my point. Past and present clearly exist in the currently non-replaced form, which is indicative of the Dark One not winning. Without time affecting the Dark One there is also no next turning of the Wheel or next try for him, all of the turnings happen at once from his perspective. He is in all likelyhood (for lack of a better word) "currently" fighting (and losing) against Rand/the Dragon Reborn outside the Wheel, while Rand is smoking his pipe inside the Wheel.

Huh, random side-thought now that i say that... You know my own theory of how Rand lit his pipe has always been that his mind expanded following his battle with the Dark One, but without time outside the Wheel that would essentially mean his soul is both inside the Wheel and currently wielding enough power to go toe to toe with a god and create worlds outside of it. Thats a quite "simple" explanation for a bit of minor reality warping, i think.

I see what you're saying, but I don't think the function of time is relevant to the activities of the Dark One. He's operating on time from outside of time, no more bound by it than the Creator is.

Rand smoking his pipe after defeating the Dark One is the pattern, should the pattern survive. The pattern, I think, can't reflect it's own destruction.

Edited by Robbery on Mar 20th 2023 at 4:07:56 AM

Doesn't one of the characters explicitly say that the Pattern can't show it's own destruction?