I have seen a few interesting theory on what Rand will do to win. This is a theory on how people other than Rand will contribute to Seal the Bore.

Part 1)
Based on the existing Seals, we can deduce that to properly seal the Bore, the new Seal must satisfy several properties:

1) It needs to be at least as strong as Cuendillar. Anything less would be destroyed instantly.

2) It needs to last for eternity. The current Seal lasted three thousand years, and it is just not long enough.

3) It is desirable that the DO's counter stroke during the sealing process, if any, does not cause another Breaking of the World.

4) It is desirable to have a valid reason why the Aes Sedais in the Age of Legend did not come up with the same answer.

After careful deliberations, there is one answer that satisfies all of them. Before I reveal the answer, let us first consider the nature of the DO's prison.

From all evidence, currently the Pattern is the DO's prison. The DO is outside the Pattern, and trying to break through. If we have something that is as strong as the Pattern, that should be able to contain the DO.

But what is the Pattern anyway? The answer is there in the very first book.



The Pattern is made from threads of human life. So far, this concept is only used to explain ta'veren and balefire. But it also has a hidden utilization. A Patch made out of threads of human life is "Pattern-like", and can fuse with the remainder of the DO's Prison when set to the Bore. This is the only way to make the DO's Prison the same as the Creator made it, made entirely out of the Pattern, instead of with a patch.

To seal the DO this way, would involve a Living Seal against the DO, a Seal made of human lives, stronger than cuendillar and Everlasting. At a metaphysical level, it implies that people/souls are the strongest materials in the world. This may be regarded as quite cheesy, and very cliched. That is true, but in the WOT, it is the natural result of the cosmology of WOT, and it could be argued the whole series is set up with this end result in mind. Thematically, there is no better solution than this.

Before going further into the details, I will show how this solution have all four desirable properties I set out in the beginning.

1) It is stronger than Cuendillar. The Pattern itself is made from threads of human life and has stood against the DO for eternity. Since the patch is made from the same material as the rest of the prison, it should be as strong as the rest of the DO's prison.

2) The Seal can last for eternity, provided people continue to be born, and added to the Seal as others die. In a sense, the Seal is an ideal that is materialized. The Seal represents the collective beliefs of those people whose lives are used to construct the Seal. An ideal will not die so long as there are people who follow this ideal. It is a good way to interpret "Order and belief brings strength."

3) As to the DO's counter strike, it can be rationalized the following way. The cuendillar disks are not flexible. So the DO's counter strike is transferred to the Saidin used to set the Seal, thus tainting Saidin. Life threads are flexible, so the counter strike can be absorbed, instead of transferred. "The Hard shatters, while the Strong endures."

So instead of tainting the True Source, the people whose life threads are used to construct the Seal will die, and only a remanent will survive the Sealing. It may take an age for the Seal to fully fuse with the rest of the DO's prison, and only a remanent of a remanent will survive to the next age. So while there will be a great loss of human lives initially, the world can stabilize and progress from here on.

Robert Jordan said that the tainting of Saidin is due to a "unique" circumstance, without much elaboration. It is worth noting that the DO has only tainted Saidin using the counter strike during the Sealing process. If the DO can taint Saidin at any time, He could have done so at the start of the War of Shadow. If the DO can taint Saidin through the disks after the Sealing, Rand's Cleansing would have achieved nothing, as the DO can just taint Saidin all over again.

4) For property number 4, we need a special type of people with a specific set of ideals to make the Seals, who are not available in the Age of Legends. If we consider the Seals as ideals that materialized, the strength of the Seals should be directly related to the strength of the ideals. I will go into details about this in the next parts.

The current thinking about the Seal center around the following statements by LTT:


The general interpretation is that the "something" here is referring to Saidin, due to the obvious fact that Saidin was tainted. But a simpler interpretation is the cuendillar disks, the focus on the DO's prison. "something to close the gap", the Gap on the DO's prison.

It was a trap typical of Robert Jordan, hiding things in plain sight, just like good old Verin Sedai.

There are a number of quotes seeming to indicate that the DO is touching the cuendillar disks directly.



When the cuendillar disks broke, they no longer felt evil as they are no longer touched by the DO.



It may well be that only the cuendillar disk the DO is currently working on will felt evil. The others, broken or otherwise, will not.

"The seal was weak!", because cuendillar was not strong enough to absorb the counter strike.



So while it seemed a rhetorical question to ask "how can a man mend what the Creator made", there is an answer -- "using the same material that the Creator used."

This idea to make a Seal/Focus from life threads can easily come from Moiraine by accident. She is practically the only one mumbling about Threads and Patterns in the whole series anyway. She can talk about the Pattern in an off-handed way like "or do you think the Wheel will weave the DO's Prison shut when the Dragon go down to the Pit of Doom?", and someone says all of a sudden," Why, that is a great idea!" Thus, fulfilling Min's viewing about the importance of Moiraine.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2)

After the method of Sealing the Bore is found, two questions remain:

A) Whose life threads to use, and
B) the mechanism of creating a Seal out of life threads.

The answer to the first question comes naturally during Aviendha's second trip into Rhuidean.

We can clearly see that the Aiel can not remain a society of warriors. I imagine a scenario where Aviendha will make the Aiels the Focus of the new Seal, a new purpose given to the Aiel who follows a new Covenant. The lives of the Aiel who swear to the Covenant willingly, will be added to the Focus of the Seal. As long as there are enough Aiels keeping to the Covenant, the Seal will remain strong, and the DO can not break free.

In order for the Covenant to have any meaning, becoming the Focus of the Seal must be a dangerous, daunting and lifelong task. It might mean that they could possibly battle the DO in the Dream World every night, for the rest of their lives. They may be tortured, they may be tempted. Some will receive wounds in the dream, and wake up injured; and some will die in their sleep during the battle. If enough died, the DO will break through. And the first night when the patch is applied, the counter stroke will kill many, and drive lots of Aiels insane ... thus the tension remains.

Some quotes in TOM implied this kind of battles as the ultimate last battle. The Last Battle is not about Heros defeating Evil, but about mankind confronting Evil.



When Aviendha starts to train to become a Wise One, she gave up her spear. She can not fight two battles at the same time. Similarly, it is for this specific purpose, that the Aiels are no longer capable of fighting a battle in the flesh during the day. For them, it is "the last battle" -- in the flesh, until the Wheel turns, and the Third Age comes again, at least.

They give up the spear not to avoid fighting, like the Tinkers, but to fight an even harder battle of nightmares. This go back to the following theme earlier on in the series:



This was said to Aviendha on giving up the spear. And Aviendha could say the same thing to all the Aiels joining the Covenant, and giving up the spear for something more.

This new battle front will change Aiels in a major way, because in this battle, there is no glory. There is no possibility of victory in the traditional sense. No Aiel can kill the DO. The best they can do is to stand their ground, withstand the abuse, and prevent the DO from getting out. Each will fight like other Aiels before them, and other Aiels after them. And even if they succeed one night, they have to fight another night, just like the previous night, and each battle is just as important as the last one. There can be no glory, just a job well done. In a way, this is very close to the Da'shain Aiel's system of honor through service, instead of glory in battle.

In a way, it may be considered a bleak vision for the Aiel. Only a remanent of a remanent will survive. A large percentage may die in the first night they become the focus, testing their resolve. If 50% died in the very first night, people may ask, "can we really last through this"?

But it also presents a highly idealistic version of war: that some people fight nightmares, so other people don't have to. Consider RJ's comabt background, it is a fitting end to his final battles.

And this also connects nicely with the theme of the Horn of Valere.


I can't think of a better motto for the new Aiel. Their fight against the DO is not of glory, but of salvation. Salvation of themselves, and salvation of man kind.

The idea of fighting a war for salvation instead of glory is an essential theme to this series. It is expressed repeatedly by Mat, Perrin and Rand. They are not fighting a war for their own glory, and they are not fighting a war for the glory of others, be it Andor or the WT. They only took up leadership for the salvation of their followers, not for their glory.

Battling the DO in this fashion presents a whole new meaning to the Shaido incident and the Bleakness. The Second Aiel War and the Bleakness must happen, so the remaining Aiels can be strong enough to stand against the DO in this new battle. The Aiels who left seek only of glory, are thus not fit to fight the DO. Even if they do not join the Shadow in seeking glory, they are likely to abandon their post to seek glory in a dream created by the DO, thus easily tempted.

Now, the answer to Property number 4) becomes clear: the Dragon can not seal the DO properly in the AOL, but can do it in the Third Age because, "they had no Battle Harden Aiel back then".

The peace loving Da'shain Aiel that followed the Way of the Leaf in the AOL were simply not strong enough to face the DO. If the Aiels in the Third Age must return to the Way of the Leaf before winning the last battle, the obvious question is: How come the folks in the AOL can not figure out something so simple, with all their foretellings, dreaming and peace loving Da'shain Aiel at the peak power for one hundred years?

We can also look at the Breaking of the World in a new light. At the end of the War of the Shadow, there was no permanent solution against the DO. So a temporary solution of using cuendillar was used. This merely buys time until the Aiels can grow strong enough to face the DO in a Last Battle at the end of the Third Age. The task assigned to the Aiel by the Aes Sedai becomes clear, even if the Aes Sedai may not know exactly what.



From this point on, Aiels will no longer be marked by clan or sept or bloodline. Anyone who decide to dedicate themselves to the fight against the DO, and proves capable of doing so, can become an Aiel, and maintain the Seal at a personal cost.

At the start of the Fourth Age, the DO's attack will be strong, and as society gets stronger, more orderly, the attack will be fewer and fewer, until the attack themselves becomes a myth, then a legend, until the DO is forgotten, and the Prison is whole and drilled again when the Second Age comes again.

Aiels will start with no more battle of the flesh. Then there is no more battle of the nightmare. Sometime during that long chain of events, the Aiel will adapt the Way of the Leaf, so when the Second Age comes again, the full cycle can begin anew.

In this fashion, the answer to why the Aiels CANNOT return to the Way of the Leaf before the Last Battle is the same answer as to why Olver can not be Gaidal Cain, the timing is wrong. If the Aiels return to the Way of the Leaf, what do they do in Age 4,5,6,7 and 1?

Based on this assumption, I would also have the perfect item to raise an Aiel -- The Accepttron. Several Wise Ones will operate it, and show the new initiate what the DO is likely to do to prevent the initiate from his task of guarding the Bore, from their personal experience. When the initiate passes, he/she is washed clean of his previous life, and becomes an Aiel, ready to join the fight confronting the DO.

In this context, the Dragon's Peace has an entirely different meaning than just no fighting among the nations. The Aiels, by becoming the Living Seal, has to be protected and respected by every nation, without a need to defend themselves ever again. They must prosper to ensure future generations of fighters against the DO. The Dragon's Peace is a necessary condition for the Aiel to prosper, and defend the world, rather than a cease fire imposed as a price of spoiling the Dragon's blood.

The Dragon's Peace will be the Peace upon the Aiels. They shall never be harmed by men, and must be cared for by men. They can do whatever they need by day(planting trees, maybe), and fight nightmares by night. Those that are injured or driven mad by the DO must be cared for by other men so that the Aiels can prosper. So while the Aiels are very good at self defense at the moment, there will no longer be a need for Aiels to have self defense in the Fourth Age. As time goes by, the Aiels can gradually adapt to the Way of Leaf.

From the Aiel cultural prospective, this would fit their existing culture much better. As we can see from Aviendha's POV in TGS, to an Aiel, the worst kind of shame is useless labor. If the Aiel were to return to the Way of the Leaf now, the last three thousand years are useless labor. The Aiels who throw away the objects of One Power, and became Tinkers at the Breaking of the World would earn great honor.

If the Aiels becomes the Focus of the New Seal, the last three thousands years in the desert would merely be the tempering process before they can be forged. The desert in Three-fold land, hot by day, and cold by night, exhibit the exact same property as tempering. "Three fold", folding metal over and over to turn iron into tempered steel. The signs are all here for people who wish to look.

It would also grant them great honor. Basically, they are just declared the best warrior in the whole world, and the only warrior capable of standing up against a deity. Their stand every night against the DO is the proof that no one can deny. There is nothing more they could want. Rand has said he has toh toward the Aiels. And the best way to meet his toh is to give ji to the Aiels.

If we were to think of the Seal as an ideal that materialized, the strength of the Seal is the strength of the ideal. This also shines a different light to the Perrin Arc in the later books. If the final solution to the Seal is to use human threads, the obvious danger is for tyrants to sacrifice helpless people to make Seals -- Weak Seals that do not last long, but will do for the life time of these tyrants. The leaders are essentially sending people to harm's way.

The WOT series would become very dark if indeed Perrin would just pick up any human threads and make a Seal out of it. In fact, I suspect that Faile and Perrin will put their own life threads in, and Perrin will have to accept the possibilities, and that will be his ultimate personal growth, in direct contrast to his "Damn the world,save Faile first" attitude.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 3)

Having said that, it becomes obvious what my personal idea is, about question B), How will Life Threads be made into a Seal. I took it to be self evident, that Perrin, the Blacksmith, will make new Seals out of human Threads with his magic Hammer, in the Dream World. Since Perrin put some of his own soul into the Hammer, I envision him leaving the Hammer there, and the Hammer will keep on working the Forge on its own, adding future life threads to reinforce the Seal, for eternity. That is a much better use of a magic hammer than killing mere Trollocs. Or maybe Perrin becomes a hero of the Horn after death, and have to stay in the Dreamworld, keep working the forge and re-enforce the Seal with new life threads. In either case, it seems a fitting end. Perrin could live his after life doing what he want to do the most, being a simple blacksmith god.

Perrin could even die before the Last Battle, so that he can start to make the Seals full time in the dream world, while everyone else think the Broken Wolf has died.

If I didn't have the restriction of no more trips to Seanchan mainland, I would have Perrin use the Crystal Throne as the Anvil to make the Seals. Perrin could have found it using "Need", and taken it to make Seals without realizing what it is he took. That would give Rand kneeling to the Crystal Throne a much more benign meaning, a tribute to the sacrifice of the Aiel. I just think it would be a great way to play with the letter of a prophecy like this.

The details to make it work can come about in many ways. It may well be that entering T'A'R in the flesh will expose one's life thread, to someone who knows where to look. The Aiel Dream Walkers may give Perrin the final hint, in a grand session of information sharing. Or Lanfear may give Perrin a hint on how to bend life threads to create a pattern. Anyhow, many things in the dream world can be hand waved to allow a Seal to be constructed out of life threads, and things happening to the life thread can be reflected to that person.

As to the Trollocs, they are still important. The purpose of the Trollocs are to eliminate any human threads that can be used to form the Seal. If they can kill all the Aiels in their sleep, the Seals will break and the DO will break free. So the battle of the swords are necessary, but the purpose is to protect the people who are fighting the DO at a different level. it is not the real battle, as Verin Sedai so thoughtfully indicated, but it is still a necessary battle.

In this line of thinking, a "Dark Rand" who did not destroy the Pattern could also "win" the Last Battle by making Seals out of people's life against their wills, and name they "collateral damage". The Seals will be weak by nature, but will do for a period of time. That would be like a world where the weak are routinely killed on the alter to strength the Seals. A victory by the light could be as dark as a defeat. The difference between good and evil then becomes obvious.

I envision the three ta'verens work together like this:

Mat is the General, and fights the Last Battle in the Flesh against the Trollocs and the Dreadlords.
Perrin is the Bannerman, gathering Wolves in the Dream, plus Aiels who dedicated themselves, hammering these life threads into a new Seal, and gives it to Rand. The wolf will act as guides to man, on fighting nightmare and the DO in the Dream. Man will be running with wolves, in the dreams at first. After a few ages, man will run with wolves in the flesh, which is how wolf brothers started in the beginning.
And Rand is the Dragon, using the Seal made by Perrin as the focus, and set it on the DO's prison, and reseal the Bore for as long as there are Aiels left to maintains the Seal. This is still going to a hard task, needing the help of women, a blade of light, etc. There will be a struggle at SG, but this is only the beginning. The rest of the battle are fought by mankind, not the Dragon. It will not be the Dragon that defeated Evil and saved mankind. It will be mankind that hold the Evil at bay, and saved mankind.

Thus the DO's counter attack can kill many characters in one fella step, and reduce the Aiels to the remnant of a remnant. And yet there are enough left to maintain the Seal, and win the LB at a heavy cost, and a continuing cost with danger just lurking around the corner. It is a fight with a heavy cost, but also hope.

To maintain dramatic tension, it may be preferable for Rand to go to the Pit of Doom, without the right idea of how to seal the Bore, or relying on a wrong idea. He went in relying on faith, faith in the Creator. But in fact, he was relying on a faith of mankind, relying on others doing their part to help him.

Behind him, others like Perrin/Moiraine/Aviendha were scrambling to create the things the Dragon would need, and rushing to deliver it to him. I could totally see Egwene riding on Bela to deliver the finished Seal at Rand in the very last second in T'A'R, and Seal the Bore properly.