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Though the dark one actually wanted everyone's souls and consciences, not oblivion, yeah?
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Jan 13, 2020 15:46
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the dark one's just doing his job
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Jan 13, 2020 15:48
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Y'know that brings me to a philosophical question. What exactly did Rand mean when he thought the dark one wasn't actually evil after all right at the end? I mean obviously what we were just talking about, and everything drives the wheel of time and so on. But like, he doesn't explain what triggered him thinking that or why? Or I missed it.
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Jan 13, 2020 15:53
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The dark one was ok with a world without him in it - one of rand's flailing attempts to fight back was "a world without you" and the dark one was like "ok, done, sign me the gently caress up". Literally any option other than "Locked up inside the wheel for another few thousand cycles" sounds great to TDO. It seems clear that the only way the dark one could get out of the endless cycle is if he could convince The Dragon, acting on behalf of The Pattern, to let him go. Meanwhile, as we have long since established, the Dragon is sort of an rear end in a top hat and keeps jamming him back into his eternal hamster wheel.
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Jan 13, 2020 15:57
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Anias posted:The dark one was ok with a world without him in it - one of rand's flailing attempts to fight back was "a world without you" and the dark one was like "ok, done, sign me the gently caress up". Literally any option other than "Locked up inside the wheel for another few thousand cycles" sounds great to TDO. Not only that, the idea was scrapped immediately because theodicy. literally "a world where people can only choose good" = "a world where people can only choose evil". I think the specific scene is something like Rand sees Elayne not being a huge rear end in a top hat and is like "That's not Elayne at all!" and backs the gently caress away because that's clearly evil.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:24
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NinjaDebugger posted:Not only that, the idea was scrapped immediately because theodicy. literally "a world where people can only choose good" = "a world where people can only choose evil". I think the specific scene is something like Rand sees Elayne not being a huge rear end in a top hat and is like "That's not Elayne at all!" and backs the gently caress away because that's clearly evil. He sees that she has the same darkness behind her eyes as the people who get forcibly turned to the Shadow have iirc, and he freaks the gently caress out.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:27
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EvilTaytoMan posted:He sees that she has the same darkness behind her eyes as the people who get forcibly turned to the Shadow have iirc, and he freaks the gently caress out. that "darkness" = lack of free will.
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Jan 13, 2020 16:39
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EvilTaytoMan posted:He sees that she has the same darkness behind her eyes as the people who get forcibly turned to the Shadow have iirc, and he freaks the gently caress out. I guess the point of that "vision" is that without a choice between good and evil that any distinction between the two will eventually collapse and then end up being the same? So in the end without the Dark One's influence to act as an opposite pole to the Light the Dark One ends up winning anyway. It always read really suspect to me, like a 19 year old philosophy major's idea of morality with some boomer "both sides are equally bad" thrown in, but maybe I'm an outlier.
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Jan 13, 2020 17:51
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Mat Cauthon posted:I guess the point of that "vision" is that without a choice between good and evil that any distinction between the two will eventually collapse and then end up being the same? So in the end without the Dark One's influence to act as an opposite pole to the Light the Dark One ends up winning anyway. Nah, it's NinjaDebugger posted:that "darkness" = lack of free will. It's a fairly standard response to the problem of evil. Not that I think that makes it any more compelling a story beat. e: Man, I do not remember much of anything that happened in AMoL. TGS, a little bit; ToM a little less. AMoL? I think I was just happy that the is had been dotted and the ts crossed. KOGAHAZAN!! fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Jan 13, 2020 |
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Jan 13, 2020 17:56
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I was not disappointed or surprised at how the ending was handled, to me all that was completely in line with everything else since the word Go. Opposing forces creating balance, I mean the dude used the drat Yin/Yang, for pete's sake. The duality of man, sir!
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Jan 13, 2020 18:11
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Brolander posted:I was not disappointed or surprised at how the ending was handled, to me all that was completely in line with everything else since the word Go. Opposing forces creating balance, I mean the dude used the drat Yin/Yang, for pete's sake. The duality of man, sir! Yeah, the ending was sent western union. It was never going to be satisfying to me, but the rest of it justified reading. For me, it was way more about the journey than the obvious and mediocre destination.
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Jan 13, 2020 18:13
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While the cycle will continue for all time it is up to humans to have free choice to do good or evil. The Creator/Dark One (who I think is the same being, there's too much duality in the rest of the series for this not be the case) cannot make the decision, the Dragon must. The Shadow ultimately doesn't want to kill Rand, it wants to torture and break him so he decides it's time to end the cycle. That's why Rand says the Dark One isn't evil, just like the Creator isn't good, they're simply two opposite forces of existence that human are stuck between. e:. I mean it's telegraphed heavily that the good guys win, that's even ignoring the fact that there are quotes from the Fourth Age in the prologue/epilogue of some of the books. ONE YEAR LATER fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jan 13, 2020 |
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Jan 13, 2020 18:17
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I've always read this bit as meaning that the Human soul needs both good and evil to function and if you take one half out you get crap. It basically turns you into a soulless homunculus regardless of which half is missing.
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Jan 13, 2020 18:33
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NinjaDebugger posted:Yeah, the ending was sent western union. It was never going to be satisfying to me, but the rest of it justified reading. For me, it was way more about the journey than the obvious and mediocre destination. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time! or so I've heard. But it was an ending, one that I give like a 7.5/10. I know that Jordan knew/wrote the conclusion early on, but I wonder how much of how it's depicted is Sanderson and whether I would've liked it more had the man lived to finish. Imagine if The Dark One was just some Extrabadass Final Boss, and Rand uses Super Ultra Balefire and crosses the streams to kill it or something. Lamer and boringer The DO exists because he must, again Brolander posted:the dark one's just doing his job
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Jan 13, 2020 18:41
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NinjaDebugger posted:Yeah, the ending was sent western union. It was never going to be satisfying to me, but the rest of it justified reading. For me, it was way more about the journey than the obvious and mediocre destination. I thought that the actual mechanism by which Rand won was clever, if delivered in a confusing fashion. Callandor being a trap was this weird Chekhovs hun that existed for ten books while everyone scratched their head.
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Jan 13, 2020 18:59
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I just bought the complete WoT collection for my Kindle. I haven't read the complete series since KoD came out. 12,400+ pages. That's a lot of words.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:00
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The Wheel of Time, a series about free will and how history eternally repeats and nothing ever changes except the small details. Free will, the force that drives the pattern to make people agree with ta'veren and entire villages to spontaneously have mass weddings.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:02
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Drone Jett posted:The Wheel of Time, a series about free will and how history eternally repeats and nothing ever changes except the small details. Free will, the force that drives the pattern to make people agree with ta'veren and entire villages to spontaneously have mass weddings. Exactly!
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Jan 13, 2020 19:10
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It's called fate and it's great, that's an easy way to remember it.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:13
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I'm gonna spend a fate point.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:13
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Drone Jett posted:The Wheel of Time, a series about free will and how history eternally repeats and nothing ever changes except the small details. Free will, the force that drives the pattern to make people agree with ta'veren and entire villages to spontaneously have mass weddings. Freemium Will
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Jan 13, 2020 19:20
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I can't help but feel the ending would have been slightly different without Sanderson, yeah, though I can't support that. I feel like Fain might have survived, for example.
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Jan 13, 2020 19:20
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Drone Jett posted:The Wheel of Time, a series about free will and how history eternally repeats and nothing ever changes except the small details. Free will, the force that drives the pattern to make people agree with ta'veren and entire villages to spontaneously have mass weddings. And ta'veren have the least amount of it! But normals can try and alter their thread if the pattern has room for it, for instance the pattern has refused to allow me, a lazy antimath, to become a Space Trillionaire
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Jan 13, 2020 20:11
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Libluini posted:I've always read this bit as meaning that the Human soul needs both good and evil to function and if you take one half out you get crap. It basically turns you into a soulless homunculus regardless of which half is missing. You gotta have stuff that sucks in order to have stuff that's cool. — But al'Heda
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Jan 13, 2020 20:23
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I can't help but feel the ending would have been slightly different without Sanderson, yeah, though I can't support that. I feel like Fain might have survived, for example. I think I would still discard out of hand the idea that Fain was being set up to become the "next" Dark One or anything of that nature though. Like, first of all, that's more Sandersons gig. It was never in the cards for the kind of cosmology RJ set up. Also I notice we're spoiling the endgame left and right here so
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Jan 13, 2020 20:30
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It's a safe bet that Jordan had something in mind for Fain though, at least originally. Could be an idea he had that never got developed further, but there was no reason to have Fain hang around as long as he did just for a completely pointless minor role in the Last Battle.
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Jan 13, 2020 20:56
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bloom posted:It's a safe bet that Jordan had something in mind for Fain though, at least originally. Could be an idea he had that never got developed further, but there was no reason to have Fain hang around as long as he did just for a completely pointless minor role in the Last Battle. I assumed he and the ways were going to be involved in cleansing Saidin at some point. Then after that turned out to be wrong I figured there'd be a cool showdown between him and Shaidar Haran at some point. Then he turned into a wet fart of a baddy. Would have been better to have been killed more meaningfully earlier.
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Jan 13, 2020 21:05
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At least he didn't die of food poisoning after eating a rotten horse.
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Jan 13, 2020 21:28
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Libluini posted:I've always read this bit as meaning that the Human soul needs both good and evil to function and if you take one half out you get crap. It basically turns you into a soulless homunculus regardless of which half is missing. Agreed; I read this as "humans need the capacity to choose evil for good to mean anything". IIRC this is also the philosophical underpinning of A Clockwork Orange.
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Jan 13, 2020 22:40
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aparmenideanmonad posted:I assumed he and the ways were going to be involved in cleansing Saidin at some point. Then after that turned out to be wrong I figured there'd be a cool showdown between him and Shaidar Haran at some point. Then he turned into a wet fart of a baddy. Would have been better to have been killed more meaningfully earlier. I'm probably reaching, but when they're discussing the Pattern they agree it has space for small changes but not large, so it's unlikely a farmer will become a king. And it's unlikely a peddler will become the ultimate evil and he just gets shanked like a chump
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Jan 13, 2020 22:57
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:I'm probably reaching, but when they're discussing the Pattern they agree it has space for small changes but not large, so it's unlikely a farmer will become a king. And it's unlikely a peddler will become the ultimate evil and he just gets shanked like a chump Agreed, but a lot of small changes working into the same direction can probably re-route the pattern a bit, so a farmer who organizes a nation-wide uprising suddenly has far better chances at getting the crown.
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Jan 13, 2020 23:39
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VikingofRock posted:Agreed; I read this as "humans need the capacity to choose evil for good to mean anything". IIRC this is also the philosophical underpinning of A Clockwork Orange. and southpark: bigger longer uncut
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Jan 13, 2020 23:40
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Submarine Sandpaper posted:and southpark: bigger longer uncut Now we're talking literature
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Jan 13, 2020 23:43
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just finished rereading the bit where rand is in rhuidean in TSR. i'd forgotten how absolutely alien the setting gets when you're given a view of the earlier ages. i really hope the show gets the chance to go through everything and do a good job of showing off this weird poo poo. also glad that mat is finally given his sense of 'purpose' in the story starting at that point. i forget, when mat gets intertwined with the seanchan does he have a generally negative view of the whole damane thing? i honestly can't remember, but i'm hoping he's against it since it would weird me out if he was all gung-ho about it.
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Jan 14, 2020 00:39
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Mat has a generally negative view of all things that involve magic.
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Jan 14, 2020 00:47
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Johnny Joestar posted:i forget, when mat gets intertwined with the seanchan does he have a generally negative view of the whole damane thing? i honestly can't remember, but i'm hoping he's against it since it would weird me out if he was all gung-ho about it. He's deeply disturbed, iirc, and is involved in engineering the escape of at least a few Aes Sedai who were leashed. He doesn't say much publicly when he's in Seanchan-occupied territory, but he's actively against the whole idea.
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Jan 14, 2020 00:47
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From memory he's against it but willing to accept it while they are fighting for the literal survival of humanity He does send Hawkwing to talk to them about it though
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Jan 14, 2020 00:47
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sweet. that all pretty much lines up with my vague memories, but i wasn't sure if those were real or if they were wishful thinking on my part.
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Jan 14, 2020 00:50
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:From memory he's against it but willing to accept it while they are fighting for the literal survival of humanity hrmmm so Mat, overtime, might have convinced the Seanchan to do away with enslaving women with A'dam ultimately freeing and unleashing Moghedien on the world. That really does seem very Mat
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Jan 14, 2020 01:49
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Drone Jett posted:The Wheel of Time, a series about free will and how history eternally repeats and nothing ever changes except the small details. Free will, the force that drives the pattern to make people agree with ta'veren and entire villages to spontaneously have mass weddings. Just don't think about it.
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Jan 14, 2020 02:15
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