Terez, on 30 November 2014 - 01:47 PM, said:
Andorion, on 30 November 2014 - 04:20 AM, said:
One thought I had after the final book: The Dark One is initially presented as a sort of Dark counterpart to the Creator. Present from creation, but sealed away etc. But after reading Rands battle with him, my own impression was more like he was a creature from another dimension/universe who was interfering through a hole in the fabric of reality. I was wondering if there had been any discussion regarding this.
Not a whole lot, but Werthead has posted a little about this on his blog because he read some of RJ's early notes. Brandon had read them too, and Brandon wrote this scene. I get the feeling that Brandon was not left a lot of detail on how this battle was supposed to go, so he tried to construct it as best he could from what RJ wrote in his notes and in the books. He used the hell out of the Mirror World visions in TGH, for example.
I have only read AMOL once so I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about in that battle that led you to believe the Dark One was an alien being. I will keep an eye out for it when I do a reread. Anyway, in RJ's very nascent notes on WoT, the Dark One (Sa'khan or Sa'kanh) and his minions were indeed from another universe, and they had been discovered by channelers who made contact with other worlds using the Power. Sa'khan's followers were called the Forsaken (and here RJ writes a note to himself: "get a good name for Sa'kanh's lieutenants"), and they were trying to escape a dying star/planet. This is who Lews Therin and the Companions fought, and they were either trying to seal him away from Randland or return him to his own world.
I'm pretty sure that RJ moved completely away from that idea and towards the yin/yang of the Creator and the Dark One, but I have noticed other instances of Brandon hearkening back to RJ's earliest notes in the way that he resolved things for which there were no later notes.
My idea comes from two sources:
One was how the Dark One was reaching through the Bore to affect the weather. What he essentially did was take one season - summer and amplify it unnaturally. When the Bowl of the Winds is used, we get a lot of rain and mainly snow. Winter returns with a vengeance. Now if the Dark One was truly as powerful as he was made out to be, then he could have taken this winter and amplified it a bit. An extreme winter could have caused as much devastation as an extreme summer. but he didnt. This got me thinking, that what if extreme heat is more congenial to the Dark One rather than cold? What if, wherever he is, its a rather hot place, and he was trying to convert his new conquest into something familiar? This got me thinking along other-dimensional lines.
Secondly Rands drawn out battle with the Dark One is less a battle and more of a philosophical debate. Each projects an ideal world and tries to pole holes inthe others vision. But towards the end, when Rand finally manipulates Moridin into using Callandor, forms a tripartite weace of Saidin Saidar and True Power, punches through the Bore and actually comes into physical contact with the Dark One, we get this:
Quote
Rand punched through the blackness there and created a conduit of light and darkness, turning the Dark One’s own essence upon him.
Rand felt the Dark One beyond, his immensity. Space, size, time… Rand understood how these things could be irrelevant now.
With a bellow— three Powers coursing through him, blood streaming down his side— the Dragon Reborn raised a hand of power and seized the Dark One through the Bore, like a man reaching through water to grab the prize at the river’s bottom.
The Dark One tried to pull back, but Rand’s claw was gloved by the True Power. The enemy could not taint saidin again. The Dark One tried to withdraw the True Power from Moridin, but the conduit flowed too freely, too powerfully to shut off now. Even for Shai’tan himself.
So it was that Rand used the Dark One’s own essence, channeled in its full strength. He held the Dark One tightly, like a dove in the grip of a hawk.
And light exploded from him...........
..........The seals crumbled. The Dark One burst free.
Rand held the Dark One tightly.
Filled with the Power, standing in a column of light, Rand pulled the Dark One into the Pattern. Only here was there time. Only here could the Shadow itself be killed.
The force in his hand, which was at once vast and yet tiny, trembled. Its screams were the sounds of planets grinding together.
A pitiful object. Suddenly, Rand felt as if he were holding not one of the primal forces of existence, but a squirming thing from the mud of the sheep pens.
YOU REALLY ARE NOTHING, Rand said, knowing the Dark One’s secrets completely. YOU WOULD NEVER HAVE GIVEN ME REST AS YOU PROMISED, FATHER OF LIES. YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED ME AS YOU WOULD HAVE ENSLAVED THE OTHERS. YOU CANNOT GIVE OBLIVION. REST IS NOT YOURS. ONLY TORMENT.
The Dark One trembled in his grip.
YOU HORRIBLE, PITIFUL MITE, Rand said.
Rand was dying. His lifeblood flowed from him, and beyond that, the amount of the Powers he held would soon burn him away.
He held the Dark One in his hand. He began to squeeze, then stopped.
He knew all secrets. He could see what the Dark One had done. And Light, Rand understood. Much of what the Dark One had shown him was lies.
But the vision Rand himself had created—the one without the Dark One—was truth. If he did as he wished, he would leave men no better than the Dark One himself.
What a fool I have been.
Rand yelled, thrusting the Dark One back through the pit from where it had come. Rand pushed his arms to the side, grabbing twin pillars of saidar and saidin with his mind, coated with the True Power drawn through Moridin, who knelt on the floor, eyes open, so much power coursing through him he couldn’t even move.
Rand hurled the Powers forward with his mind and braided them together. Saidin and saidar at once, the True Power surrounding them and forming a shield on the Bore.
He wove something majestic, a pattern of interlaced saidar and saidin in
their pure forms. Not Fire, not Spirit, not Water, not Earth, not Air. Purity. Light itself. This didn’t repair, it didn’t patch, it forged anew.
With this new form of the Power, Rand pulled together the rent that had been made here long ago by foolish men.
He understood, finally, that the Dark One was not the enemy.
It never had been.
Now if the Dark One had been the Dark counterpart of the creator, he would have hardly been as powerless as this. Rand could hardly have held him in his hand and contemptuously called him a mite. Its as if at that moment Rand perceived the Dark Ones true nature, found him a lot weaker than imagined and then sealed the breach.
Help
