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As regards Rand at the end, I've always suspected/held the theory that Nynaeve will (finally) learn how to heal death. (Under specific circumstances, with a mighty powerful ter'angrel, your millage may vary, performed on a closed course by a trained stuntman, do not attempt at home)
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Dec 28, 2012 19:42
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enigma105 posted:Not completely, just back a distance in time relative to the strength of the balefire. 
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Dec 28, 2012 19:43
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VanillaGorilla posted:The point remains though that's it's not a regular death, wherein Rand's soul would return to TAR to await the next cycle of the wheel. Regardless of how far back his thread is burned, he's erased for some measure of time as if he'd never existed.
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Dec 28, 2012 19:52
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veekie posted:Nope, the Dark One must intercept the soul on it's way out, if they get Balefired, he can't intercept them because the death happened before he knew about it. That explanation isn't given in-text, though, is it? All we've gotten in the books are quotes from the Dark One about how bale-fired people are "beyond his reach". I just re-read the prologue to EOTW, and Ishamael offers Lews Therin Ilyena's resurrection as a reward for turning to the shadow. I don't think that's the only time it's been implied that the Dark One can raise someone past the point of their immediate death. I mean, he could have been lying, but the explanation you offered sounds more like a theorycrafted explanation to me.
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Dec 28, 2012 19:57
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Word of RJ
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Dec 28, 2012 20:07
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Here's what's going to happen - Rand gets captured, Moirane balefires him to avoid him being turned to the Shadow. poo poo happens for three days, they find Herid Fel's notes or some poo poo, Moirane realizes she needs to sacrifice herself so the Shadow does not win. Alivia and Nynaeve link with Logain (who still needs to achieve his golden-halo glory) who uses Callandor to create a huge loving balefire that hits Moirane, burning her thread in the Pattern back three days, Rand's alive again, kicks rear end and the Light wins.
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Dec 28, 2012 20:21
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VanillaGorilla posted:It's been implied a number of times that there's no coming back from being balefired - it's the only thing that can remove one of the Forsaken from the Dark One's ability to resurrect them, for instance. As RJ explained it, the DO can't resurrect someone who's balefired because he needs to intercept the soul at the instant of death. Since that instant is back in the past, whether 3 seconds or 3 days, and the DO "cannot step outside of time", even infinitely fast reflexes don't allow him to intercept the soul. api call girl posted:Going by the cover art, it is Nynaeve and Moiraine following Rand down into Shayol Ghul. Even if it's Michael Whelan, I'm not willing to base any speculation at all off of cover art. I won't bat an eye if neither Moiraine or Nynaeve actually goes down into the Pit, although I do hope at least Moiraine gets to be there. While I agree that Alivia may only be tangentially involved and that her being in the Callandor circle is just my own speculation, Min's viewings have been stated a number of times to be 100% accurate (Gawyn if/or notwithstanding), just sometimes very, very obtuse. She will help him die somehow, and the only alternative to that is the destruction of the Pattern.
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Dec 28, 2012 20:29
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The Midniter posted:Here's what's going to happen - Rand gets captured, Moirane balefires him to avoid him being turned to the Shadow. poo poo happens for three days, they find Herid Fel's notes or some poo poo, Moirane realizes she needs to sacrifice herself so the Shadow does not win. Alivia and Nynaeve link with Logain (who still needs to achieve his golden-halo glory) who uses Callandor to create a huge loving balefire that hits Moirane, burning her thread in the Pattern back three days, Rand's alive again, kicks rear end and the Light wins. The only thing that would be worse than this is a weird Stephen King-ish self insert of RJ turning out to be the Dark One, and he proceeds to fling stones at Rand from a tower on Shayol Ghul. Then Rand balefires him and the series restarts at EOTW, only Brandon Sanderson writes the whole thing now. Seriously, it would be awful if the end turns into some weird balefire circle-jerk.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:01
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Huh, I always had the impression that balefire did destroy the soul/prevent rebirth. Guess I was wrong. wellwhoopdedooo posted:While I agree that Alivia may only be tangentially involved and that her being in the Callandor circle is just my own speculation, Min's viewings have been stated a number of times to be 100% accurate (Gawyn if/or notwithstanding), just sometimes very, very obtuse. She will help him die somehow, and the only alternative to that is the destruction of the Pattern. Am I the only one that was weirded out by Alivia appearing (almost) out of nowhere? She just kind of shows up and gets a Min viewing saying she's ultra important. I feel like she needed some more build up or something.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:10
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VanillaGorilla posted:Moiraine (who isn't even at full power - she needs to rely on the angreal to be close to her original power levels). I am a tremendous sperg and feel obliged to point out that Moiraine said she was actually stronger with her angreal.  Anyway I just worked out what the plot of AMOL is gonna be, the entire Light army is gonna fall to pieces and be eaten alive because all the Great Captains are gonna scrap with each other about who gets to lead and then Mat will be picked and they'll all sulkily do the exact opposite of what he wanted and everyone dies, Rand balefires everything, Michael (am I the only one thinks M'hael is a shortening of Michael?) reveals himself only to be shown he was totally redundant due to Light forces killing themselves.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:30
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Fintilgin posted:Am I the only one that was weirded out by Alivia appearing (almost) out of nowhere? She just kind of shows up and gets a Min viewing saying she's ultra important. I feel like she needed some more build up or something. She flew into a random scene on a parachute, took off the parachute and swept it under a bed, and then everyone was like "Who? Her? She's accepted as safe, sane, not evil, and we're going to talk about her like she's been here for years." Annoyed the crap out of me.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:35
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Oh god, Alivia is the Poochie of the Wheel of Time series.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:43
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Balefire is dumb. Why is it that sometimes it just cuts objects like a laser, and other times it can erase entire buildings at once? Why doesn't it leave behind the target's clothes that weren't touched by the beam? It behaves more like a D&D spell than a One Power weave. The only good appearance of balefire was when Perrin swatted it away in T'A'R.
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Dec 28, 2012 21:45
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Nemo posted:Balefire is dumb. Why is it that sometimes it just cuts objects like a laser, and other times it can erase entire buildings at once? Why doesn't it leave behind the target's clothes that weren't touched by the beam? When was it ever used like a laser? I thought that regardless of the size of balefire shot, whenever it hit its target, the target would reverse colors and disappear. Although, did Moggy use balefire when she split the ship in half that led to Nynaeve almost drowning? Maybe it just "deleted" the individual planks of where it went... God, I don't know...head is hurting now...
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Dec 28, 2012 22:40
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When one of the Black Ajah used a balefire ter'angreal in the Panarch's palace, I think it sort of described it as cutting through stuff like a laser?
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Dec 28, 2012 22:57
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Nemo posted:Balefire is dumb. Why is it that sometimes it just cuts objects like a laser, and other times it can erase entire buildings at once? Why doesn't it leave behind the target's clothes that weren't touched by the beam? It destroys the objects it touches, which in the case of something like a boat or a building can just be a line of individual bricks or planks, but with a person is always the whole person. Obviously there has to be some handwaving with regards to how it determines where the object ends but the only time balefire has destroyed an entire building was when Rand made a beam of balefire as wide as the entire building.
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Dec 28, 2012 23:17
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Fintilgin posted:Huh, I always had the impression that balefire did destroy the soul/prevent rebirth. Guess I was wrong. Dying in the Wolf Dream, however, destroys your soul. Poof, gone for good, per RJ unequivocal answer. This is also, as far as I know, the only way for that to happen. Fintilgin posted:Am I the only one that was weirded out by Alivia appearing (almost) out of nowhere? She just kind of shows up and gets a Min viewing saying she's ultra important. I feel like she needed some more build up or something. Agreedo. I feel the same way about Ituralde, and even Cadsuane to an extent.
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Dec 28, 2012 23:49
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I believe Ituralde have always been "around", as in; mentioned really early on as one of the Great Captains? Then he kinda twiddled his thumbs for 1-2 years of in book time but yeah, Cadsuane and Alivia (whom I barely remember) suffer a bit from coming into the series really late, with basically no foreshadowing. In a series where everything is foreshadowed or mentioned by someone at least 3 books before it happens, having *super important* characters just pop out of nowhere is quite startling as a reader. RJ was usually really good at writing in a way that didn't tie up loose ends within 30 pages of introduction or introduce things out of nowhere so when it happens it stands out even more. As for the wacky Balefire soul destruction/thread burnin' that has shown up in discussions as confusing nearly as often as the Taimandred theory. At first I thought it destroyed the soul utterly (which I got from reading only in book things) but then there's the RJ quote so that's settled. I prefer not reading out-of-book explanations, kinda ruins the fun when the writer steps in and goes "no no really it's like this". Goes against the whole "show, not tell" on a whole higher meta level.
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Dec 29, 2012 00:17
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I think the balefire thing is a known retcon, is part of the confusion. I think in its first usage or two it really was 'bam, you're not here and you never were', and then later it got adjusted and refined to the present state.
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Dec 29, 2012 00:44
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Jordan might have changed his mind on it, but Balefire has never been stated to be a perminant soul death. It's first use IIRC was Moiraines vs darkhounds, the second was Nynaeve v Fade, and with neither of those is soul death brought up.
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Dec 29, 2012 01:10
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Although, honestly, if balefire doesn't do it, I'm surprised that dying in Tel'aran'rhiod annihilates your soul. That seems kinda lovely, really. Anyone could, at any time, dream themselves momentarily into Tel'aran'rhiod, be falling and fail to wake before hitting the ground, or get sucked into a nightmare and killed. Utterly gone, no rebirth or afterlife, at complete random.
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Dec 29, 2012 01:16
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My guess is that Rand defeats the DO, but is turned to the Shadow in doing so. So he gets balefired by Moiraine, which takes his thread out of the Pattern to the point where he was turned. The DO exists outside of the Pattern, though, so he remains defeated. Then, three days later, Rand's soul is woven out from the Wheel again. Elayne has to raise the kid.
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Dec 29, 2012 01:59
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That leaves the gaping hole called Mr. P. Fain.
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Dec 29, 2012 02:16
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subpage posted:That leaves the gaping hole called Mr. P. Fain. He's the godfather.
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Dec 29, 2012 02:17
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IMO Fain is the one that kills Rand in the end.
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Dec 29, 2012 02:22
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I tend to think that dying in the wolf dream is much like Heroes of the Horn mechanism. Wolves seem to all be like Heroes, they are spun out to live in the real world, then when they die they return to T'A'R until they are reborn. In other words, Heroes are people whose souls have been made like wolf souls.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:01
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Fintilgin posted:Although, honestly, if balefire doesn't do it, I'm surprised that dying in Tel'aran'rhiod annihilates your soul. That seems kinda lovely, really. Anyone could, at any time, dream themselves momentarily into Tel'aran'rhiod, be falling and fail to wake before hitting the ground, or get sucked into a nightmare and killed. I'm pretty sure you need to be dead to perminantly die in the Dream, and that dying there when you are alive just counts as a normal death. Balefire makes things with souls disappear at a touch, but physical objects are lazered. Asmodean sees walls with insanely smooth round sections carved out in Camelyn before he dies and is able to figure out what happened there immediately.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:06
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api call girl posted:I tend to think that dying in the wolf dream is much like Heroes of the Horn mechanism. Wolves seem to all be like Heroes, they are spun out to live in the real world, then when they die they return to T'A'R until they are reborn. In other words, Heroes are people whose souls have been made like wolf souls. Wow that was a semi-coherent bunch of phone-posting. Ok, here goes, more semi-coherent bunch of desktop computer posting: It's complete out of the question that a soul can be destroyed permanently, T'A'R death or not. If soul destruction were possible this would have happened to one of the Heroes or even the Dragon Soul at some point in the infinity of history already. Wolves call it permanent death because their souls behave like Heroes. When they die in the physical world their souls go to the wolf dream. If then they die in the wolf dream, their soul goes to be renewed before being re-woven into the Pattern. Their identity will no longer be present in the wolf "collective", they will be for all intents and purposes a new wolf. That is, they then go through the equivalent of a non-Hero human soul rebirth. What this says about Hero souls in T'A'R in-between spinning-out is interesting. Does the Pattern remember that they're supposed to be a Hero, so they get renewed for one generation then get reattached to T'A'R? What's interesting is that wolf and human souls are very much alike. Wolves have no concept of human and wolf, to them there are either two-leg souls or four-leg souls, suggesting that wolf and human souls are much more the same than they're different. Perrin is Young Bull but wolves have a concept that he is a two-leg still--while Boundless is simply considered a wolf, the end.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:26
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Fintilgin posted:Although, honestly, if balefire doesn't do it, I'm surprised that dying in Tel'aran'rhiod annihilates your soul. That seems kinda lovely, really. Anyone could, at any time, dream themselves momentarily into Tel'aran'rhiod, be falling and fail to wake before hitting the ground, or get sucked into a nightmare and killed. It seems to be more that dying in the dream destroys your 'instance', the bit of you that remembers and is remembered. Everyone is reborn, that's what the Wheel means, only a rare few are selectively reborn, as Pattern troubleshooters.
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Dec 29, 2012 03:50
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subpage posted:IMO Fain is the one that kills Rand in the end. This makes me picture Smeagol for some reason.
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Dec 29, 2012 04:14
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Wandered down to my local bookstore to grab a copy of EOTW that I'd like Harriet to sign when she's down with Brandon for a signing next month, and asked to pre-order MoL on a whim. I was summarily informed that they had about a million copies in the back and that I didn't need to worry about it. I'm not ashamed to admit that I actually offered the customer service rep a non-insignificant amount of money to sell me one early. She's a better employee than I would be. I had to try, I guess 
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Dec 29, 2012 17:47
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VanillaGorilla posted:Wandered down to my local bookstore to grab a copy of EOTW that I'd like Harriet to sign when she's down with Brandon for a signing next month, and asked to pre-order MoL on a whim. I was summarily informed that they had about a million copies in the back and that I didn't need to worry about it. I've always wanted to try this.
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Dec 29, 2012 18:16
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FYI first spoilers are hitting the net - it was a doozy, too. I can't help myself, and I can't wait to read some of this stuff in text.
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Dec 29, 2012 19:16
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And time to stop reading this thread. V yup that's me more or less. Blind Melon fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Dec 29, 2012 |
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Dec 29, 2012 19:33
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Blind Melon posted:And time to stop reading this thread. People are generally pretty good about spoilering or just not posting about it here. If really hate spoilers and have no control over yourself hovering on the blacked out text then that's probably the best option.
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Dec 29, 2012 19:35
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Also chalk this up as one more instance where street dates just screw over consumers. It's patently obvious that they're not waiting on distribution at this point, but we all get to twiddle our thumbs while a constant stream of leaks hit over the next 11 days. I keep hoping that media companies will completely rethink how they handle content releases at some point.
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Dec 29, 2012 21:02
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VanillaGorilla posted:I'm not ashamed to admit that I actually offered the customer service rep a non-insignificant amount of money to sell me one early. She's a better employee than I would be. Duty is heavier then a mountain, death lighter than a feather. But losing your job for breaking street date is the heaviest of all. 
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Dec 29, 2012 21:11
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VanillaGorilla posted:Also chalk this up as one more instance where street dates just screw over consumers. It's patently obvious that they're not waiting on distribution at this point, but we all get to twiddle our thumbs while a constant stream of leaks hit over the next 11 days. What was the reason for them to choose the 8th anyway? I would have assumed that they would have tried to get a Christmas street date because they would have sold a billion copies.
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Dec 29, 2012 21:25
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VanillaGorilla posted:FYI first spoilers are hitting the net - it was a doozy, too. I can't help myself, and I can't wait to read some of this stuff in text. Ok everybody, I'll see you at the end of all things! Good luck to each of us, lets all pray it doesn't suck!
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Dec 29, 2012 21:34
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Ramadu posted:What was the reason for them to choose the 8th anyway? I would have assumed that they would have tried to get a Christmas street date because they would have sold a billion copies. http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/02/the-release-date-for-a-memory-of-light-has-been-set
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Dec 29, 2012 22:05
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