[Epiph]

I just read the first Perrin chapter and I need someone to refresh my memory about what Balwer was talking about. I vaguely remember something about the Shaido Wise Ones getting Age of Legends artifacts from Galena(? Galina? That awful Red), or somehow related to her, but I don't remember anything specific. I may have paid less attention because I hated the Shaido bits...

[Terez]

It was Sammael and Graendal back in A Crown of Swords, when the Shaido were milling around after Dumai's Wells, trying to figure out what to do. Sammael gave them what he called nar'baha, which translates to 'fool boxes', but he told them it meant 'traveling boxes'. They each had an embedded gateway weave that would trigger once, and thus Sammael sent the Shaido off to various places across Randland. The gateways were timed, so only a certain number of people would make it through, and I gather that a lot of Shaido got chopped in the process. Sevanna took all of the Wise Ones that could channel with her, and eventually they set up camp in Malden so that the other septs could find them, and there were a few septs that were in range around the time of the battle, coming to join the main group. Perrin managed to avoid a battle with them, mostly because the Shaido didn't seem interested. They probably took off back to the Waste, like Therava did (with Galina, and the Oath Rod, of course....they also got the Oath Rod from Sammael, and Galina is bound by it and has been ordered by Therava, whom she is bound by the rod to obey, not to touch it ever again).

This post has been edited by Terez: 08 February 2010 - 10:20 PM

[Epiph]

THE Oath Rod, from the Tower, or an Oath Rod?

[HoosierDaddy]

"An." I think there were 7, right Terez?

[Illuyankas]

I think I remember two, the Tower one has 3 engraved on it and this one has 111.

[Terez]

Illuyankas, on 09 February 2010 - 12:18 AM, said:

I think I remember two, the Tower one has 3 engraved on it and this one has 111.

Indeed, and HD is probably thinking of the Nine Rods of Dominion, which were actually positions of authority held by people in the Age of Legends, rather than actual rods. There was a theory that the Oath Rod was one of the 9 rods, until someone asked RJ about it at a signing. The Oath Rod and Therava's rod are both what Sammael calls 'binders', used to restrict channeling criminals in the Age of Legends. They don't work on non-channelers; for non-channelers, a binding chair is required. The Tower apparently has one, and actually uses it for its original purpose to control crime in Tar Valon, though it seems they don't use it exactly how it was used in the Age of Legends...when the Black Ajah hunters used it on Talene (the Black Sitter that they caught right off), it seemed to be more a torture device than a binder.

Oh, and Sammael told Sevanna that the binder only works on women, but he was probably lying. He seemed to be working on getting his hands on a Domination Band (the male a'dam thingy) for Sevanna to control Rand with, but he probably didn't think it wise to allow her to bind Rand with a binding rod, since she was clever enough to reason out how to bind Rand in such a way to keep Sammael from stealing him when the time came. Releasing someone from an Oath requires the rod, and if Sevanna managed to hide that from Sammael, then he wouldn't be able to remove any Oaths that Rand had sworn, like 'I swear to obey Sevanna only,' or some such.

This post has been edited by Terez: 09 February 2010 - 12:42 AM

[HoosierDaddy]

Ah, yes that's what I was thinking of, indeed.

[Nuto]

I don't think that the Chair of Remorse in the White Tower is meant to be a binder. It simply let's the one sitting in it experience certain consequences of ones crimes.

[Terez]

How would you know, though? Like the women said, they have no idea what use the chair was put to in the Age of Legends, or if it is anything like what they currently use it for; they learned how to use it by experimentation. It works on non-channelers, and Sammael said that it is much more difficult to control non-channelers than it is to control channelers, so we shouldn't expect the chair to act in the same way as the Oath Rod, or even close to it. It's used to control crime in Tar Valon, so chances are pretty high that it's a binding chair.

[Epiph]

Thanks, ya'll. It's all slowly coming back. To think, I used to know all this stuff backwards and forwards...

[Nuto]

Terez, on 09 February 2010 - 01:53 PM, said:

How would you know, though? Like the women said, they have no idea what use the chair was put to in the Age of Legends, or if it is anything like what they currently use it for; they learned how to use it by experimentation. It works on non-channelers, and Sammael said that it is much more difficult to control non-channelers than it is to control channelers, so we shouldn't expect the chair to act in the same way as the Oath Rod, or even close to it. It's used to control crime in Tar Valon, so chances are pretty high that it's a binding chair.

Of course we don't know how it was used in the Age of Legends and I'm not saying it couldn't be a binding chair, I just think it has always been used that way and not to bind non-channelers.

[Lousy]

I absolutely loved this series when I first got into it in the late 90's, but it stagnated so badly somewhere around books 6-8, that it became painful. I've read them all up to this one, but only got about 120 pgs. into this ... and regretfully had to stop. I have other books I need to read, and don't have time for stories which do not seem to be going anywhere.

NOW, having said that, I've read some of the posts in this thread which seemed to hint at 'The Wheel actually spinning again' (and no, at this point, i don't care about spoilers), so I'm looking for any reason at all to want to finish this series I once loved so much. I hope that I've now found them, thanks to the posters in this thread

[Blend]

Lousy, on 26 March 2010 - 04:32 AM, said:

I absolutely loved this series when I first got into it in the late 90's, but it stagnated so badly somewhere around books 6-8, that it became painful. I've read them all up to this one, but only got about 120 pgs. into this ... and regretfully had to stop. I have other books I need to read, and don't have time for stories which do not seem to be going anywhere.

NOW, having said that, I've read some of the posts in this thread which seemed to hint at 'The Wheel actually spinning again' (and no, at this point, i don't care about spoilers), so I'm looking for any reason at all to want to finish this series I once loved so much. I hope that I've now found them, thanks to the posters in this thread

Hrmmmmm... Well, imagine Egwene controlling a circle with hundreds of novices' power added to her already remarkable powers and shooting Raken out of the sky with blinding light fireballs... That, right there, should be reason enough.

[Sindriss]

I am not sure I understood the final part, when Rand dismisses his internal voices by breaking that magnifier thingie. Hope you know what I am talking about, because it is a bit blurry and I read the book too fast I think.
The scene is something like Rand confronting his inner voice which he has always assumed was the former dragon and then by breaking the magnifier he becomes free or something and realises that he will never hear that voice again. So explanation please?

[Terez]

Sindriss, on 08 April 2010 - 09:32 PM, said:

I am not sure I understood the final part, when Rand dismisses his internal voices by breaking that magnifier thingie. Hope you know what I am talking about, because it is a bit blurry and I read the book too fast I think.
The scene is something like Rand confronting his inner voice which he has always assumed was the former dragon and then by breaking the magnifier he becomes free or something and realises that he will never hear that voice again. So explanation please?

I can probably explain this better than anyone else, but I just woke up. Give me an hour or two, and you will understand it perfectly, promise.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Blend, on 08 April 2010 - 05:42 PM, said:

Lousy, on 26 March 2010 - 04:32 AM, said:

I absolutely loved this series when I first got into it in the late 90's, but it stagnated so badly somewhere around books 6-8, that it became painful. I've read them all up to this one, but only got about 120 pgs. into this ... and regretfully had to stop. I have other books I need to read, and don't have time for stories which do not seem to be going anywhere.

NOW, having said that, I've read some of the posts in this thread which seemed to hint at 'The Wheel actually spinning again' (and no, at this point, i don't care about spoilers), so I'm looking for any reason at all to want to finish this series I once loved so much. I hope that I've now found them, thanks to the posters in this thread

Hrmmmmm... Well, imagine Egwene controlling a circle with hundreds of novices' power added to her already remarkable powers and shooting Raken out of the sky with blinding light fireballs... That, right there, should be reason enough.

Well, just a nitpick here, but Egwene was controlling a circle of at max 13, since that is the largest circle female channelers can make without the help of a man. But she does have the most powerful sa'angreal in the white tower.

[Terez]

Sindriss, on 08 April 2010 - 09:32 PM, said:

I am not sure I understood the final part, when Rand dismisses his internal voices by breaking that magnifier thingie. Hope you know what I am talking about, because it is a bit blurry and I read the book too fast I think.
The scene is something like Rand confronting his inner voice which he has always assumed was the former dragon and then by breaking the magnifier he becomes free or something and realises that he will never hear that voice again. So explanation please?

Okay, here goes. It's actually not all that complicated, but it goes into areas of mystery-solving that will never be confirmed from the source; Brandon and Harriet have both said that they will never confirm or deny the 'Lews Therin was a psychological disorder rather than a supernatural manifestation of Rand's past life' theory, because RJ apparently wanted the debate to continue.

Anyway, the assumption that Lews Therin was more of a psychological illusion than anything else is founded on a few simple principles:

1. Predisposition. Rand has a bit of a problem with denial, and we saw from chapter 6 of book 1, when he learns from Tam's fevered ramblings that his parentage was questionable. In fact, Rand chants to himself to try to convince himself that Tam is his father, because the truth is so obvious that it takes serious effort for him to deny. This is similar to what he does later, with Lews Therin, chanting to himself, "I am not Lews Therin! I am Rand al'Thor!" In the first book, he even has a voice in his head that speaks the truth, that Tam is not his father, and he reduces the voice to the sound of a fly buzzing, which is verbatim what he does with Lews Therin. Rand denied that Tam was his father until he learned that he was the Dragon Reborn, at which point he accepted that Tam was not his father, but started denying instead that he was Lews Therin reborn. When he started actually remembering his past life, he had accepted that he was the Dragon Reborn (barely), but he had a new thing to deny: that those memories actually belonged to him (they were not separate issues, but he pretended that they were).

2. Motive. Rand was raised to believe that Lews Therin was 'the most hated, the most feared man in the history of the world' (that's from Rand's own thoughts, book 2, chapter 8, when he gets told by Siuan and Moiraine that he is the Dragon Reborn). In book 1, he made the comment: 'What kind of need could be great enough that we'd want the Dragon to save us from it? As well ask for help from the Dark One.' So, Rand's ideas about Lews Therin were already well-ingrained by the time he discovered that he was Lews Therin.

3. Reinforcement. When Rand actually started remembering, he was horrified by those memories, particularly the memory of the Kinslaying, and Ilyena. He already desperately wanted to believe that he was not, in fact, Lews Therin; the memories did little to change his view.

4. Real-world psychology. Rand doesn't exactly have a real-world psychological disorder, since he's got past life memories, and that's obviously a fantasy-only situation (no offense to people that believe in that sort of thing). However, his condition does have some real-world parallels and explanations. The mechanism is simple: his denial leads him to build a psychological construct that allows him to believe that Lews Therin is a separate person. The process of building this construct is observable especially in books 5 and 6, from the time that he first realizes where the memories are coming from and the time that he first manages to have a 'conversation' with Lews Therin. It was not something that happened without effort on his part. Most people tend to interpret this as Lews Therin becoming slowly aware, but I have never encountered someone who has studied psychology that believes that. The result of Rand's efforts has similarities to MPD and schizophrenia.

5. False dichotomy. It's extremely difficult to determine where, exactly, to draw the line between Rand and 'Lews Therin'. Rand remembers Lews Therin's life directly, not via the 'voice' (which rarely actually shares important information with Rand), and eventually, 'Lews Therin' remembers Rand's early life as well. Every single thing that 'Lews Therin' says or does can be explained by Rand's circumstances. Lews Therin rambles, like a madman, listing off names of the Forsaken while Rand is trying to think about other things...because the Forsaken are Rand's biggest worry, and he is frustrated that other things distract him from hunting them all down and eliminating them. Lews Therin rages about male channelers, but ESPECIALLY about Mazrim Taim who, incidentally, Rand does not trust in the slightest and would probably kill if he wasn't convinced that he needed the man. Lews Therin weeps and moans about Ilyena, because Rand can't bring himself to face the guilt that he feels (and he really does feel it, personally, as early as book 5). Lews Therin tries to kill himself in book 11, or at least appears to...but he waits for Rand to talk him out of it, because it's actually Rand's despair which is the issue, at that point. Which leads to the answer to the question you asked.

What happened in TGS:

Rand almost killed Tam, at the end of TGS. He realized at that point that he could no longer pretend that he was a better person than Lews Therin, because at least Lews Therin had had the excuse of being (legally) insane, at the time that he killed Ilyena (and everyone else). Once Rand was faced with that simple fact, the despair threatened to overwhelm him. He almost destroyed the Seanchan, in Ebou Dar, but his conscience (still lurking) prevented that catastrophe. So, he decided to kill himself instead, just as Lews Therin did when Ishamael Healed him, and made him face the truth about what he had done. When Rand finally admitted to himself that he really was Lews Therin, it was like reliving that pain all over again.

But that denial has been his problem all along. He's been getting steadily and steadily closer to insanity because he refused to admit that Lews Therin was in fact himself. The voice in his head - the voice he created as a defense mechanism - had convinced him that he was insane, despite his attempts to pretend otherwise, in the beginning. The scene with Semirhage didn't help.

So, he faced the truth, about what he had done in the past, and about what his responsibilities were, at that moment. And then, instead of repeating his mistake and killing himself, he found a reason to live (love). Hence, his memories were fully integrated, because, having accepted the truth, he was no longer actively suppressing those memories.

He destroyed the Choedan Kal because he feared what he would do with it, but that was not the cause of the reintegration.

[Sindriss]

Thanks for a lot for clearing that op Terez, have rep!

I'll be sure to hit you with more once I wrestle the book from my brother and reread it.

[Grimjust Bearegular]

Just finsihed it, and my intitial impression is that Brandon did a pretty good job of it. This one was faster paced than many of the others, and he chose a good place for it to end.....now, when's the next one due?


I want to know what happens next?!

[Terez]

It's due out Nov. 2 but that might change. Brandon just finished the book recently, and it's in the editing stages now, but he's said there's a chance of a late October release.