Re: Great ideas, but some points don't seem quite right.
LoialT Send a noteboard - 01/06/2010 11:06:57 PM
I'll leave praise for the end, fyi.
There's a bit of confusion on Ages. We don't know how they square with evolution, for one thing. We also don't know how long they last. RJ made a point of stating that some Ages have featured the Last Battle, but fought without any use of the Power at all (which might raise many DO questions, but that's a bigtime tangent)...
I definitely disagree with how you tie Randland into "our time." We don't really know that "our" Age (one with America and Moscow) was the Age that directly preceded the AoL. More to the point, we don't even know if it was in Randland's present cycle of Ages. I always assumed Mosc and Merk were from the 5th or 6th Age of the previous cycle (or something like that).
In support of this idea is my next point: by the time the AoL came around, there was no memory or even concept of War, tools as weapons, etc. They had a sport called "swords" and it needed modification to be used to kill. This strongly suggests that the world experienced at least one Age (or Age & 1/2) that did not have major armed conflicts and such. Since the Wheel has so many Biblical parallels (forbidden & guarded gardens, innocence and peace torn by over-reaching for power, etc), I assume that the "First Age" is one of pure peace that became blessed with the knowledge that created the AoL. Sadly, it would take a long-ass time for us humans to forget about killing each other in big numbers.
What's more, looking at the entire Age concept, it's entirely plausible that 2 or more Ages are taken up with nothing but evolution. IIRC, there's no set length for an Age - they always end with a cataclysm, like the Breaking or "The Last Battle." I imagine the Alvarez Hypothesis fits there too, so we can add dinosaur-killing meteorites as an Age-killer.
I always assumed that channeling is something intrinsic to people that they either might or might not discover in any given Age/Cycle of Ages. Is your theory on Finn and Ogier there to support why there was no (known) channeling in "our" Age? 'cause I'd definitely like to see your ideas considered heavily, even if they're not the reason us Americans and Moscovites got to live Balefire free.
Also, I think you're wrong in your analysis of Min's visions of channelers. I think that channelers have a lot of auras, not because their channeling is disruptive to the pattern, but because channelers are literally plugged into the pattern. More importantly, they do much more than the average WoT person, and face many possible futures (turned by BA, captured by FS, burnt out by terangreal, getting another Warder). AS and Ashaman have all the same possibilities as other folks, and possibilities only available to those with the Power. Normal people in WoT buy horses and farm or run taverns or own lands - they have a lot less important moments and many less possibilities than the OP-capable.
Finally, there's nothing really connects the Horn of Valere or the Portal Stones to the 'Finn. The only evidence in favor for the Horn is its Old Tongue inscription and magical powers; yet the Horn's supposed to be from an earlier Age altogether. The Portal Stones allow travel between Worlds and Time, but that's the only link to the 'Finn and their Tower...
I very much like your out-of-the-box thinking here, though. It's nifty, and I like the idea that these oddly-connected worlds and dimensions are things that "strain" the pattern. It's great to consider the concept that these extra-dimensional objects are problems that must be resolved - or rubble that must be cleared - to win TG.
I would say that Mat may definitely do something with the 'Finn - something that might see them leaving the world alone for a few Ages. Still, I can't see Perrin - or even Rand - doing much about Portal Stones. They resist being moved at all, even by the Power. I don't know that anyone will have the strength or time to do anything about them with TG coming.
Still, I always assumed the Stones will prolly remain as a good (but exhausting) way for the Shadow to move fleets of Shadowspawn around (assuming Rand's "Ways Destruction Plan" works).
I don't know how much more I can say without checking out other sources for a spell...
There's a bit of confusion on Ages. We don't know how they square with evolution, for one thing. We also don't know how long they last. RJ made a point of stating that some Ages have featured the Last Battle, but fought without any use of the Power at all (which might raise many DO questions, but that's a bigtime tangent)...
I definitely disagree with how you tie Randland into "our time." We don't really know that "our" Age (one with America and Moscow) was the Age that directly preceded the AoL. More to the point, we don't even know if it was in Randland's present cycle of Ages. I always assumed Mosc and Merk were from the 5th or 6th Age of the previous cycle (or something like that).
In support of this idea is my next point: by the time the AoL came around, there was no memory or even concept of War, tools as weapons, etc. They had a sport called "swords" and it needed modification to be used to kill. This strongly suggests that the world experienced at least one Age (or Age & 1/2) that did not have major armed conflicts and such. Since the Wheel has so many Biblical parallels (forbidden & guarded gardens, innocence and peace torn by over-reaching for power, etc), I assume that the "First Age" is one of pure peace that became blessed with the knowledge that created the AoL. Sadly, it would take a long-ass time for us humans to forget about killing each other in big numbers.
What's more, looking at the entire Age concept, it's entirely plausible that 2 or more Ages are taken up with nothing but evolution. IIRC, there's no set length for an Age - they always end with a cataclysm, like the Breaking or "The Last Battle." I imagine the Alvarez Hypothesis fits there too, so we can add dinosaur-killing meteorites as an Age-killer.
I always assumed that channeling is something intrinsic to people that they either might or might not discover in any given Age/Cycle of Ages. Is your theory on Finn and Ogier there to support why there was no (known) channeling in "our" Age? 'cause I'd definitely like to see your ideas considered heavily, even if they're not the reason us Americans and Moscovites got to live Balefire free.
Also, I think you're wrong in your analysis of Min's visions of channelers. I think that channelers have a lot of auras, not because their channeling is disruptive to the pattern, but because channelers are literally plugged into the pattern. More importantly, they do much more than the average WoT person, and face many possible futures (turned by BA, captured by FS, burnt out by terangreal, getting another Warder). AS and Ashaman have all the same possibilities as other folks, and possibilities only available to those with the Power. Normal people in WoT buy horses and farm or run taverns or own lands - they have a lot less important moments and many less possibilities than the OP-capable.
Finally, there's nothing really connects the Horn of Valere or the Portal Stones to the 'Finn. The only evidence in favor for the Horn is its Old Tongue inscription and magical powers; yet the Horn's supposed to be from an earlier Age altogether. The Portal Stones allow travel between Worlds and Time, but that's the only link to the 'Finn and their Tower...
I very much like your out-of-the-box thinking here, though. It's nifty, and I like the idea that these oddly-connected worlds and dimensions are things that "strain" the pattern. It's great to consider the concept that these extra-dimensional objects are problems that must be resolved - or rubble that must be cleared - to win TG.
I would say that Mat may definitely do something with the 'Finn - something that might see them leaving the world alone for a few Ages. Still, I can't see Perrin - or even Rand - doing much about Portal Stones. They resist being moved at all, even by the Power. I don't know that anyone will have the strength or time to do anything about them with TG coming.
Still, I always assumed the Stones will prolly remain as a good (but exhausting) way for the Shadow to move fleets of Shadowspawn around (assuming Rand's "Ways Destruction Plan" works).
I don't know how much more I can say without checking out other sources for a spell...
I think you are probably right about my periodization, especially about when our own time falls in the Wheel's history. Given that there ARE still popular stories even vaguely reflective of our own time, however, suggests to me that it cannot be THAT long before the events of the series. I mean, how many tales do you know about the about ice age, or the ancient mesopotamians? I suppose the Bible contains quite a few ancient tales, so I could be wrong, but I would wager that we're talking thousands instead of tens of thousands of years. After all, it was "all save historians" (paraphrasing) in the Age of Legends who had forgotten war. It was not completely forgotten, only by the lay person. The first age could be our age or it could the one that follows, but I am guessing that war at least persisted into the First Age.
About Min, I was not referring to the fact that channelers/warders always have auras around them. I meant that she has observed that these auras invariably become fuzzy and impossible to read when the person is directly connected to the True Source. This sounds to me like they are becoming more unpredictable, which is different than more powerful.
This is all quite speculative, anyhow, and my major point was to explore the significance of the evidence that the Portal Stones, the Horn of Valere, and the Tower of Ghenjei preceded the Age of Legends. Whether they were built all in one Age, and whether that was the First Age is probably impossible to determine given the available facts. The Horn is definitely tied to not only TAR but the war against the Shadow, so it may have a different origin than the Portal Stones, which were less weapons and more enormous and presumably time-consuming engineering feats. That fact alone suggests a more peace-time history to the PS, but whether the Tower of Ghenjei and the PS were always connected as DomA has argued (if I understand him correctly) remains more ambiguous. We do know that the PS were originally used without the OP, and that the symbols on them resemble the symbols on the Ter'angreal doorways. We also know that the Finns have access to many worlds, for instance the commonly cited RJ response about the careless guy wishing to be king of the world being placed in a world without any other inhabitants. About the Horn having no obvious Finn connection, I completely agree, although I think we may learn more about its history in the books ahead.
Nevertheless, my guess is that the parallels between the Dai'shain and the Ogier concerning harmony, closeness to nature, and the Nym may even extend further. The presence of the Ogier in this world indicates a kind of sacrifice and exile that reminds me of the Aiel's history. The Ogier may have made their sacrifice at the request of the Finns to help salvage a disaster that the Finns had been responsible for producing much like the Aes Sedai asked the Dai'shain to help save part of the world that the Aes Sedai had brought to ruin. We cannot know, but it is certainly a possibility, and one that would place the Ogier arrival in the human world later than the Portal Stones and contact with the Finns.
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