HoosierDaddy, on Aug 7 2009, 12:19 AM, said:
Completely out of the blue question for you Terez, but you are pretty damned knowledgeable so I was just curious. What is the deal with Shara? Why mention it with Graendal? Why put the place in the Ency and with a decent amount of info? RJ really didn't spend time on the Land of Madmen, and yet, felt the need to bury the Shara seed deep and then give it some exposure and explanation.
Just curious on your take.
I think RJ just put Shara in mostly to convey that, although the main events leading up to the Last Battle are occurring mostly in Randland, other parts of the world are still affected. As for why Graendal mentioned it with Sammael...that whole exchange between the two of them (LoC Ch. 6) was entirely meant to highlight how little they trust each other, and why (they both do their damndest to deceive and manipulate the other). Sammael assumed that Graendal showed off the Sh'botay and Sh'boan to him because she wanted him to assume that she had something going on in Shara, and he was probably right (beyond the fact that Graendal enjoys having pets that were once powerful, and those two were supposedly the most powerful two in Shara). In any case, Graendal's move in Shara did essentially the same thing there that Semirhage did in Seanchan when she murdered the Imperial family - both continents are neck deep in civil war and chaos at the moment.
The Land of Madmen has always been in chaos, since the Breaking, because of crazy resident male channelers and unpredictable volcanic activity. There's no real history or culture there to reveal, so that's why it wasn't talked about much in the Guide.
lobo the wolfman, on Aug 7 2009, 03:22 AM, said:
As for your question, no i have never posted on Theoryland, or any other forum for that matter but this one. Why do you ask, was he a bit of a bugger?
Not really. Just another WoT fan that went by Lobo. Though I think his member name might have actually been wolfbrother (probably with a number tacked on the end). We just called him Lobo. He hung around in the chat room for some time and then disappeared, never to be seen again.
Tapper, on Aug 7 2009, 04:33 AM, said:
Why would Rand be the one to re-imprison the DO in a fully restored prison?
We don't necessarily know that he will be able to, but we know that the prison has to be restored for the cycle to start over again. Relevant quote:
RJ said:
TITLE - Lord of Chaos
CHAPTER: 18 - A Taste of Solitude
Rand sighed; he almost thought if he turned his head quickly enough, he would see Alanna's hand poised over him. "What about the question I posed you last time? Herid? Herid?"
The stout man's head jerked up. "Oh. Yes. Ah, question. Last time. Tarmon Gai'don. Well, I don't know what it will be like. Trollocs, I suppose? Dreadlords? Yes. Dreadlords. But I have been thinking. It can't be the Last Battle. I don't think it can. Maybe every Age has a Last Battle. Or most of them." Suddenly he frowned down his nose at the pipe in his teeth, and began rummaging across the table. "I have a tinderbox here somewhere."
"What do you mean it can't be the Last Battle?" Rand tried to keep his voice smooth. Herid always came to the point; you just had to prod him toward it.
"What? Yes, exactly the point. It can't be the Last Battle. Even if the Dragon Reborn seals the Dark One's prison again as well as the Creator made it. Which I don't think he can do." He leaned forward and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "He isn't the Creator, you know, whatever they say in the streets. Still, it has to be sealed up again by somebody. The Wheel, you see."
"I don't see... " Rand trailed off.
"Yes, you do. You'd make a good student." Snatching his pipe out, Herid drew a circle in the air with the stem. "The Wheel of Time. Ages come and go and come again as the Wheel turns. All the catechism." Suddenly he stabbed a point on that imaginary wheel. "Here the Dark One's prison is whole. Here, they drilled a hole in it, and sealed it up again." He moved the bit of the pipe along the arc he had drawn. "Here we are. The seal's weakening. But that doesn't matter, of course." The pipestem completed the circle. "When the Wheel turns back to here, back to where they drilled the hole in the first place, the Dark One's prison has to be whole again."
"Why? Maybe the next time they'll drill through the patch. Maybe that's how they could do it the last time – drill into what the Creator made, I mean – maybe they drilled the Bore through a patch and we just don't know."
Herid shook his head. For a moment he stared at his pipe, once more realizing it was unlit, and Rand thought he might have to recall him again, but instead Herid blinked and went on. "Someone had to make it sometime. For the first time, that is. Unless you think the Creator made the Dark One's prison with a hole and patch to begin." His eyebrows waggled at the suggestion. "No, it was whole in the beginning, and I think it will be whole again when the Third Age comes once more. Hmmm. I wonder if they called it the Third Age?" He hastily dipped a pen and scribbled a note in the margins of an open book. "Umph. No matter now. I'm not saying the Dragon Reborn will be the one to make it whole, not in this Age necessarily anyway, but it must be so before the Third Age comes again, and enough time passed since it was made whole – an Age, at least – that no one remembers the Dark One or his prison. No one remembers. Um. I wonder. . ." He peered at his notes and scratched his head, then seemed startled to find he used the hand holding the pen. There was a smudge of ink in his hair. "Any Age where seals weaken must remember the Dark One eventually, because they will have to face him and wall him up again." Sticking his pipe back between his teeth, he tried to make another note without dipping the pen.
"Unless the Dark One breaks free," Rand said quietly. "To break the Wheel of Time, and remake Time and the world in his own image."
"There is that." Herid shrugged, frowning at the pen.
Tapper said:
I wouldn't be surprised at all if all channeling disappears after TG, with dark energy or whatever it is called is being cut off as well... in a future age, it would be something like one power wielding warlocks against technology which has no way to fight back against energy they don't know about, with the future Creator avatar being a sorceror as well.
It will probably be gone by the time the next Age rolls around, but I don't think it will disappear immediately. But it won't be because the Dark One's power disappears, I don't think. The One Power was discovered long before the thinness in the Pattern was discovered (on the order of a few thousand years, I think), and I doubt that the ability to use it will disappear when the Dark One does.
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