Please explain holding Justice to distract Shai'tan - Edit 1
Before modification by Sidious at 08/11/2012 05:57:15 PM
I realize that I've been dismissive of the literary value of Wheel of Time for some time. I always viewed it as entertainment. And on that count, there was a series of massively disappointing books - Path of Daggers, Winter's Heart, Crossroads of Twilight - the last certainly being the worst, and in many ways the breaking point for me - but I really did have a fun time reading the first six books, and Book 7 was okay, I guess. I also liked Knife of Dreams and The Gathering Storm moderately well, and when New Spring came out I was actually sad, because I had never read it as a short story and when the book came out, I got "classic Jordan" after several books of "writer's block Jordan" and remembered exactly why I liked the series in the first place (and, coincidentally, I was finally able to conclude that the reason I stopped liking the series had less to do with me changing than the series going downhill).
Why am I mentioning this?
Well, because I keep coming back to my fundamental, cloudy, muddled theory about the end of the series. It has a whole Hell of a lot to do with the prophecies, "twice dawns the day" and all that.
Essentially, it says his blood will be spilled on the rocks of Shayol Ghul, which most people now assume will be the Aiel, since they call themselves the "Blood of the Dragon". Okay, but he still has to die and then live again. Three women in a boat, the old Arthurian legends - this is all still central to what will happen.
I realize that it's been massively unpopular, but I still wonder if Rand's life will be transferred to another body because his is just too damaged. It's possible that Ishamael would then inhabit Rand's body due to the link. Or maybe Ishamael takes control of Rand's body and his life force is transferred to another body. I realize it all sounds silly, but there are a whole LOT of people who seem to have multiple consciousnesses (Rand himself already has LTT, Mat has his memories, and of course we still don't know exactly what's up with the Luc/Isam couple).
Why, you might ask?
Well, Rand's old name is Lucifer, essentially - Lord of the Morning, and he's the Dragon. This is all highly NEGATIVE imagery in our world, and Jordan, while not specifically stating he was writing about our world, implies it in the very beginning of the series (Mosk and Merk, Materese, etc.).
And then there's Logain, who is a Christ figure with a halo of glory around him every time Min views him. Logain, which sounds like the Greek λογος (logos), as in "In the beginning was the λογος, and the λογος was with God, and the λογος was God." It doesn't just mean "word", but also "proportion, ratio, harmony".
I have always been convinced that somehow, Logain slays the Dragon and saves the world, but for that to happen, for the roles to invert, somehow Rand has to not be "the Dragon", or at least seem so for purposes of later legend.
So there. I have said it multiple times but I'm going on record about it, vague as it all is.
Why am I mentioning this?
Well, because I keep coming back to my fundamental, cloudy, muddled theory about the end of the series. It has a whole Hell of a lot to do with the prophecies, "twice dawns the day" and all that.
Essentially, it says his blood will be spilled on the rocks of Shayol Ghul, which most people now assume will be the Aiel, since they call themselves the "Blood of the Dragon". Okay, but he still has to die and then live again. Three women in a boat, the old Arthurian legends - this is all still central to what will happen.
I realize that it's been massively unpopular, but I still wonder if Rand's life will be transferred to another body because his is just too damaged. It's possible that Ishamael would then inhabit Rand's body due to the link. Or maybe Ishamael takes control of Rand's body and his life force is transferred to another body. I realize it all sounds silly, but there are a whole LOT of people who seem to have multiple consciousnesses (Rand himself already has LTT, Mat has his memories, and of course we still don't know exactly what's up with the Luc/Isam couple).
Why, you might ask?
Well, Rand's old name is Lucifer, essentially - Lord of the Morning, and he's the Dragon. This is all highly NEGATIVE imagery in our world, and Jordan, while not specifically stating he was writing about our world, implies it in the very beginning of the series (Mosk and Merk, Materese, etc.).
And then there's Logain, who is a Christ figure with a halo of glory around him every time Min views him. Logain, which sounds like the Greek λογος (logos), as in "In the beginning was the λογος, and the λογος was with God, and the λογος was God." It doesn't just mean "word", but also "proportion, ratio, harmony".
I have always been convinced that somehow, Logain slays the Dragon and saves the world, but for that to happen, for the roles to invert, somehow Rand has to not be "the Dragon", or at least seem so for purposes of later legend.
So there. I have said it multiple times but I'm going on record about it, vague as it all is.
Resurrection, transmigration, possession the desire for physical immortality, in Jordan's world it's all seriously associated with evil. It's the antithesis of the Way of Leaf which is extreme passivity, also colored negatively in the series, as if it were "extreme Good", a desire to emulate the Creator, and clearly not the purpose of Creation.
Rand has more or less to walk the middle line between the two extremes. It's the balance his epiphany brought him. He's embraced the whole creed now. He wants Creation to go on, and has embraced life and death alike.
The "body swapping" theory has been around a long time. I think it has some merits but not as something that might save Rand, but as something the Shadow intends to do. I think the DO intends to translate Rand's soul in Moridin's body. He won't have time to transmigrate Rand, he'll simply translate his soul in the body Moridin controls. We know something of what would happen... Mordeth has possessed Fain like this, and in Jordan's words "Fain has managed to sidestep the Pattern after a fashion". I believe this is how the DO intends to use the Dragon's soul to his own purpose.
It's not very likely Logain "saves" Rand.
His blood on the rocks with come from his "dolorous stroke" in his side.
IMO there will be two phases to the Strike. In the first one Nynaeve will use Callandor (in a link with Rand and Moiraine) to remove the residues of the sealing that would prevent the Bore from closing.
In this phase, Rand's soul will be translated by SH into Moridin's body using the bond between Rand and Moridin. Alivia will be hidden by the ter'angreal that shields from Shai'tan's attention and she will kill Moridin, freeing Rand.
The second phase will involve Rand in the afterworld with the Heroes of the Horn, holding Justice against Shai'tan to distract his attention. Meanwhile, Nynaeve will remove Shai'tan's "tentacles" holding the Bore (like the taint holds a brain). In tel'aran'rhiod the Dreamwalkers will help the Wheel speed up the process of reverting the Pattern to its normal state: a "weakness" which is how decay and death can exist in Creation, not a Bore letting Shai'tan actively touch the world. I'm convinced for many reasons Lanfear and Beidomon created the Bore in TAR, because I think what became "the Bore" used to be the threshold between the living world and the Afterworld. It's through that weakness the Wheel can use a trickle of Shai'tan's power to produce the decay to death process.
It doesn't matter much that Rand has to be seen as "evil" for future legends. We have a poetry from the 4th that basically worshipped him.... The next age isn't close from "our age", which happened before the AOL or close to that. Brandon has already confirmed the next Age isn't the one in which channelling disappears.
Don't forget RJ has tainted the third age's "arthuriana" massively with Asian elements. In China/Japan, dragons aren't evil, they're powerful benevolent creatures, not to be triffled with, but not evil. The saviour in Jainism (the main source for the Way of the Leaf stuff) is also a kind of dragon.
I think future legends of evil dragons are an amalgam of many things, some of which we might have seeds of... Alivia's dragons, the association between volcanoes and dragons both will lead to an association of dragons and fires, and eventually once the LB and the DO are all but forgotten (not in the next age for sure...), an amalgam between snakes, dragons and Satan. I also highly suspect part of this isn't about corrupted legends, but rather the fact TAR connects all human and acts as kind of Jungian collective inconscious with its archetypal heroes and villains you can dream about.
How does Hawkwing's sword mean anything to the DO, and isn't it a normal jeweled sword?