Another possibility, along the lines of what you are suggesting, could be that when Thom's knives (which presumably were OP-wraught) and the Myrddraal blade clashed, the OP in Thom's knives drained the Myrddraal blade (the draining manifesting as the blue flashes) enough to where Thom's subsequent injury wan't fatal.
Yeah, I can see that. The OP-wrought blades were mostly made in AoL and around that time so it makes sense that such weapons might have been designed to counter the DO's poison in Myrddraal blades and basically "dispel" it.
I could see how RJ might want something like this to happen, when OP-wraugth weapons clash with Myrddraal blades, to sort of even out the playing field a bit.
Yep.
This explanation makes some sense from another perspective too. Why did the Myrddraal not finish Thom off? I mean if Thom was on the ground with a serious wound in his leg and basically out of the fight, why did the Myrddraal not take the opportunity to stab Thom in the heart and make sure he died?
Possibly because the Myrddraal believed that Thom was dead anyway from the DO-poison in his blade. The Myrddraal did not realise that his blade was no longer sufficiently potent to actually kill. One could say that if his blade was very old and close to needing replacement he might have known this and finished Thom off in a more traditional way. But if the OP-knives were responsible for basically accelerating the decay of the blade then the Myrddraal might not have realised what had happened and mistakenly thought his blade was still fully powered.
But whether just time, or the knives or even both together, the basic idea is that Thom survived because the sword the Myrddraal was using had lost its potency and no longer had the power to kill from a non-lethal wound.
Who knows, Tam actually survived quite a while after his injury. He was getting worse but slowly. Maybe the blade that struck him was also "running out" of power. Maybe if you were to take a brand-new blade that had JUST been made at Thakan'dar and sliced someone with that, the death would happen near instantaneously like it does with the Shadar Logoth dagger.
I'm not sure there's much evidence that Power-wrought materials drain Myrddraal blades, though it is fun to speculate. Lan has fought Myrddraal with his sword several times and I've never seen this suggestion before. And didn't Tam also use his power-wrought sword that he later gave to Rand? In that case the theory would actually be disproved.
Of course one possibility is that the ta'veren's proximity to Thom made a one in a million chance of surviving a myrddraal stab wound into a certainty. Stranger things have happened.
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Character discussion 3 : Thom Merrilin and Noal Charin
- 17/05/2010 01:01:17 PM
1786 Views
No comment.
How did Thom survive the Myrddraal?
- 17/05/2010 05:18:17 PM
1121 Views
I always figured the Fade simply gave the old man a bitch slap that sent him flying
- 17/05/2010 05:22:21 PM
935 Views
Re: I always figured the Fade simply gave the old man a bitch slap that sent him flying
- 18/05/2010 05:36:27 PM
945 Views
Re: I always figured the Fade simply gave the old man a bitch slap that sent him flying
- 18/05/2010 10:08:08 PM
839 Views
Magical ter'angreal knives. They're the only explanation that makes any sense. *NM*
- 17/05/2010 07:30:48 PM
489 Views
I'm going with Plot Flash Depicting a Boss Fight as per JRPG and manga/anime standards
- 17/05/2010 08:21:12 PM
1059 Views
Re: How did Thom survive the Myrddraal?
- 17/05/2010 11:10:29 PM
1185 Views
Re: How did Thom survive the Myrddraal?
- 18/05/2010 01:48:44 PM
1455 Views
I just miss when he was a badass
- 18/05/2010 05:36:47 PM
961 Views
I think that some political skills will serve him well in Ghenjei
- 12/09/2010 03:24:50 AM
738 Views
You mean Thom and Jain?
- 21/05/2010 11:57:52 PM
1058 Views
Noal claims to be Jain's cousin
- 28/05/2010 04:14:05 PM
837 Views
A geyser is a spring characterized by intermittent discharge of water
- 28/05/2010 09:47:06 PM
721 Views