As far as I understood it from the books and from questions to Jordan about the matter, the way Balefire worked was to erase some time from your life backward from the moment you were hit with it and make you effectively die in that past moment but it didn't destroy your soul or effect your chances of being reborn. It was only so important to the issue of the Forsaken being given new bodies because apparently the DO needed to catch their souls at the moment they died to keep them with him instead of them going to wherever it is souls go between lives like everybody else.
But in tGS Balefire is described as erasing souls from the pattern for eternity, in effect truly killing people instead of just denying them this particular life incarnation.
But in tGS Balefire is described as erasing souls from the pattern for eternity, in effect truly killing people instead of just denying them this particular life incarnation.
I always understood balefire to work the way Sanderson used it. I always understood it to mean that the person balefired was burned completely out of existence, never to be reborn. I'd have to go back and look up some examples as to why I believe that, but that's how I've always understood it.
According to a direct quote from RJ, even someone who has been balefired will be spun back into the Pattern in a future Age, to be reborn again.
Has Sanderson changed how Balefire works?
- 12/11/2009 12:05:56 PM
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Re: Has Sanderson changed how Balefire works?
- 12/11/2009 12:19:10 PM
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Well that's not how RJ understood it...
- 12/11/2009 12:22:26 PM
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When Balefired your Thread is burnt backwards through the pattern
- 12/11/2009 01:04:36 PM
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*NM*
Sanderson understands it the same as you do.
- 12/11/2009 01:45:19 PM
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Whoever said this in the book was wrong
- 12/11/2009 05:20:52 PM
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What about the coat? Since when does it make a coat vanish? Do coats have threads in the Pattern?
- 13/11/2009 05:21:34 PM
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