My crackbrained idea involves Rand killing the Dark One and somehow breaking The Wheel of Time in this process. The Dark One will be eliminated, and time will become linear, which means people won't be "reborn."
That is my crackbrained theory within no evidence to back it up.
That is my crackbrained theory within no evidence to back it up.
The Wheel drives time forward, always forward, Creation merely goes through recurring phases.
Breaking the Wheel is merely a metaphor for the end of Creation. Seing Creation as a prison for the souls, with no evolution, always repeating itself is Moridin's obsession. Rand broke away from that during his epiphany and the moral was pretty clear: obsessing with circularity and the Pattern is a curse, you've got to live your life and leave the rest to the Creator.
Notice that obsession with avoiding death and rebirth, being eternal, wanting to get rid of the Wheel is a theme developped exclusively for the Shadow, and for Rand at the height of his despair and darkness, in WOT. Not even all the Chosen (not even a majority, that we can tell) believe in the seven ages, or that the DO's battle to get inside the Pattern has gone on since the moment of Creation, most of those who've mentionned this spoke of that as Moridin's obsession, usually in the same breath they mentionned his insanity...
Jordan even gave hints in Q&A that in order to destroy the Dark One, Rand would have to sacrifice Creation. "Slaying the DO" became Rand's obsession in TGS, until he nearly destroyed Creation. Now, leaving behind LTT's flawed plan to patch the Bore, he's going to have to do what he believed only the Creator could do: repair or heal the Bore from the Pattern. He's returning to Herid Fel's theory: in this Age the bore has to disappear "permanently", secure in the faith that according to the cosmology it will one day return, but in an Age so far ahead there's no point worrying about it.
The "good guys" know the theory of seven Ages etc. but they leave that largely to philosophers. They rarely waste a thought wondering if they're repeating themselves, who they have been in past ages etc. Few of them waste a thought on free will vs. pulls of the Wheel, they can't tell the difference, and as we've seen with people forced to be ta'veren, awareness of this makes people unhappy. They are already mostly free from the obsession of circularity despite being in the abstract aware of it (all but the Heroes, who while dead in TAR are concretely conscious of it), and thus they are free of the trap a too great awareness of the cosmology is. Rand's victory at TG will free them from the very concrete element in the cosmology that cursed the third Age with this barely avoidable perception of the circular nature of reality, and that's the touch of the DO on the Pattern, having to face the DO again like in the previous Age, the rebirth of the Dragon etc. Rand's victory at TG should free Creation of that for almost 6 ages, more than enough for people to no longer even be aware in any way that battle has gone on in a previous turning or that there are circular phases to time. With the DO gone, even perception of the Pattern and Wheel will gradually fade away or at least become more and more a philosophical view with little bearing on people's lives, things returning to normal as there won't be a force foreign to the Pattern touching it and making people aware of it.
The Dark One's prison *minor AMoL spoiler*
27/09/2012 12:25:41 AM
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I think he just wants to kill S'T ... I still think Fain will end up being imprisoned as a new DO
27/09/2012 12:31:37 AM
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Your theories of Egwene's benevolence are probably closer to being true. *NM*
28/09/2012 11:32:38 AM
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Not a bad idea. Better yet, maybe Rand lures the DO into the blightworld. *NM*
27/09/2012 12:34:00 AM
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The DO is touching all worlds. Didn't RJ say if he's free in one, he's free in all? *NM*
27/09/2012 01:22:00 AM
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That's too close to Terry Goodkind's solution to the SoT antagonists for my comfort. *NM*
27/09/2012 09:38:58 AM
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What if Rand wants to "kill" the dark one and "break" the wheel, thus making time linear?
03/10/2012 08:05:59 PM
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Time is already linear... with recurring patterns
08/10/2012 03:59:33 PM
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