Journal: Entry for Seiera Chalinda

Today in my history class we were discussing this amazing book, Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier, in which a character from the 20th century has dreams about an ancestor from the 16th century. One of the questions that my professor ended up asking was if there was any connection between people of the past and people of the present, a sort of collective memory. This of course reminded me of Wheel of Time and how people are reborn in the Pattern, etc.

***Plot spoiler for The Gathering Storm***
I immediately thought of the end of TGS when Rand is sitting on Dragonmount asking himself why people keep being reborn in the Pattern. People do the same stupid things and we make the same mistakes over and over again.
***End of plot spoiler***

This part of the book gave me the inspiration for answering my prof's question about collective memory and the human experience. Just as people are reborn in the Pattern and humans do the same things over and over again, people in history experience things the same way we do. We have the same emotions, same feelings, same character flaws that the people of the past did; the only difference is the context in which it happens.

Another history-WoT parallel comes from another history book I was reading about historiography. The book was discussing time, and it said that many ancient cultures depicted time as a snake eating its own tail – just like the WoT symbol with the snake eating its tail wrapped around a wheel. I can't believe I never thought of that before, and how much thought Robert Jordan put into the symbolism for his epic series. The book continued to say that these cultures also used a snake because time repeated itself like the shedding of a snake's skin, like how people are reborn in the Pattern Age after Age.

I love when WoT relates to history

And as a side note, the weather today was perfect for reading – gloomy, slightly warm and rainy!