Rand/Tamirlyn power & the Last Battle theory

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This thread contains major spoilers through MoL. You have been warned!!

Ishamael claimed that the struggles between good and evil had been going on since creation and that human substitutes were used to fight the war. He claimed that the champion for good had been lured to the Shadow several times during the turnings of the Wheel and tried to do the same to Lews Therin

It is my belief that Rand's ability to light his pipe without using either the one power or the true power is the beginning of the next form of power.

Ta'veren have the ability to manipulate the pattern around themselves. Most of the time this is done subconsciously, Mat started doing so consciously to a limited extent.
When Rand stepped outside of the pattern, and then returned however, his ta'veren nature was fully awakened. He can now bend the pattern to his will.

Back before the age of legends Tamirlyn (who was possibly a hermaphrodite Shaman or Druid) possibly also faced the Dark One outside of the pattern and returned being able to wield the one power, which S/He began to teach to others.
I say Tamirlyn was a hermaphrodite because if they were the first to discover the One Power because she would not have been able to teach anyone how to wield Saidin unless he could sense and use it herself.
Only someone who was both Male and Female and yet neither would have been able to access both halves of the One Power.

Now let's say that both Tamirlyn and Rand "defeated" the Dark One which means that the Dark One is still bound to the pattern after their battle. Ishamael claims that the Dark One has won several of the battles, if this is the case then why hasn't the wheel of time been broken?

I believe that when "The One" faces the Dark One and either decides to free or destroy "him" The Dark One is recycled back into the wheel and the former "Chosen One: is bound outside of the pattern which in turn resets the wheel back to the 1st age. Effectively unraveling the pattern and remaking it anew.
 

Merena Orithana

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He claimed that the champion for good had been lured to the Shadow several times during the turnings of the Wheel and tried to do the same to Lews Therin
Based on this claim and his many others, I assumed that either:
1) Ishy was just talking a big game, as usual, and this wasn't entirely true (a la 'I am the DO').
Or
2) maybe in those timelines, another ta'veren was able to 'step up' and take LT/Rand's place

I am preferential to the first, as if the DO actually won, then the Wheel would be broken and LT/Rand would not have kept on being reborn.

I haven't been able to make heads or tails of the Nakomi character. Was she in RJ's notes or just a plot device made by BS?
 
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Aduiavas Ida

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I think Rand confirmed sometime in his battle with the DO that he had never been lured to the Shadow.
 

Satara al'Caelahn

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My stance has always been that Ishamael is a lying sack of turds. :cheeseeni:

He lied multiple times in order to undermine Rand's confidence and make him waver, so I don't take any of his lines as truth unless I've seen it confirmed elsewhere by someone more reliable. And even then, I have my reservations.

Although, it does raise the question of how "big" the wheel is. For example, how long passes before one event is repeated? And on the opposite side of the wheel, is there some event or series of events, maybe even an era or two where people have no powers at all? Or, like Linkelivar suggested, an era where the main "power" used is an ability to manipulate the pattern directly through force of will?

I will say that I don't think that second option is likely, simply because I believe Rand to be special in that regard. And to an extent, Mat and Perrin. You have three people here who have more or less been directly picked out by the Creator. Even being ta'varen isn't a common thing. To be able to use that influence to directly control the pattern, I believe, is a power that is more like a weird side effect of being touched by the Creator in the first place, essentially, and not a power in its own right.
 
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Okay what about Nakomi? We know that Brandon confirmed, when asked if she was one of the Jen Aiel, that we were barking up the right ancestral tree.
This tells me that she is related to the Jen Aiel. Now based on how some of what she did seems to mirror a dream Walker's abilities, I think it's possible that Nakomi was/is from the 2nd age and an ancestor of the Jen Aiel.
She may have even been the first Dream walker.

As to how she's still around, maybe she either was bound by the pattern, or she saw Rand in a dream and bound herself to Tel'aran'rhiod so that she could be there when needed.
 

Ryu Shadowborn

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I would say Rand lighting his pipe is just a matter of him having a very intimate Knowledge of the pattern and how it is created.

Remember when he fixes the bore properly he isn't weaving The Five Powers, or Saidar and Saideen individually he is weaving them "In a new way."
 

Merena Orithana

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Okay what about Nakomi? We know that Brandon confirmed, when asked if she was one of the Jen Aiel, that we were barking up the right ancestral tree.

Oh okay - I hadn't heard that before. I guess it makes sense. The Jenn Aiel did work on several of the ter'angreal they were carrying, so perhaps she is part of one of the ter'angreal?

Also - have you heard anywhere else about Tamirlyn, other than the reference to the ring? Maybe I'm missing a Q&A or a short story...
 

Ryu Shadowborn

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As far as I know the ring is the only reference to Tamirlyn that we have.
I am fairly confident however that if it were described it would be similar in appearance to the Aes Sedai ring.
If I had to guess the Tamirlyn was the precursor to the Amyrlin Seat and Their ring was a Tar'angreal of some sort. Sort of like the Rods of Dominion (Oath Rods)
 

Azlan Marenellin

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If I had to guess the Tamirlyn was the precursor to the Amyrlin Seat and Their ring was a Tar'angreal of some sort. Sort of like the Rods of Dominion (Oath Rods)

I like where you're going, but the Rods of Dominion were not rods, they were people. Regional Governors, specifically.

I have always assumed Tamyrlin was an earlier linguistic version of Amyrlin, or perhaps the male equivalent, meaning he was the leader of all male Aes Sedai. It's interesting that he "once" wore the ring. If my theory is correct, and Tamyrlin is the male counterpart to the Amyrlin, then it would seem to indicate that in the Age of Legends, an Amyrlin/Tamyrlin could retire, or perhaps was limited to a term. This makes sense if you think about how the Aes Sedai actually survived. In a time of cataclysm, it's reasonable to assume that the most powerful Aes Sedai would either be expected to stay in power, or would be forced to stay in power, to hold together the last remnants of the Aes Sedai and attempt to contain the damage of the male Aes Sedai. It would likely have been policy to keep the Amyrlin/Tamyrlin in office until a safe/convenient/stable exchange of authority could occur. Given how long the Breaking was, it's probable that if this were the case, the Amyrlin may have simply stayed in office until her death, thus resulting in the tradition of Amyrlin Seats being elected for life.

This is all very curious to me, because it also leads to another implication; if Tamyrlin is the male counterpart to Amyrlin, then it's reasonable to assume there was both a Ring of Tamyrlin and a Ring of Amyrlin, possibly as markers of their station. They would have been angreal at least, if not sa'angreal or ter'angreal. So, I want to know what they did, what their purpose was, and where they went.

As for Rand/LTT, I think it's more likely that stepping outside of the Pattern resulted in a sort of awareness, as has been mentioned already. As a result of his little trip, I think he never actually fully returned to the Pattern, and instead is inside his iteration the same way he was in the others he saw during his battle.

This would make his lighting of the pipe similar to the way he was able to manipulate the pattern during the battle
 

Toral Delvar

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I think it likely the ring was just a symbol - if it was a ter'angreal, what would it do? This is one of those throwaway mentions where we don't get any more detail, so probably Tamyrlin just changed to Amyrlin over the 200-300 years of chaos before the surviving (not surviving since the breaking apparently) Aes Sedai decided to set up Tar Valon, In a similar way to how ajah became Ajah
 

Ryu Shadowborn

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I like where you're going, but the Rods of Dominion were not rods, they were people. Regional Governors, specifically.
Oh didn't know that, well regardless I think that Lews Therin's titles had more to do with his position as "The boss" in the Age of Legends since we have enough similarities to Third Age things to draw a line.

"The Hall of the Servants" = The Hall of the Tower and the like.
 

Merena Orithana

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Aduiavas Ida

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I don't think there was an Amyrlin in the Age of Legends, but the name of the leader could be Tamyrlin.
Remember, the Aes Sedai was not divided by gender in the AoL. They were all Aes Sedai.
 

Thaddius al'Guy

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Only someone who was both Male and Female and yet neither would have been able to access both halves of the One Power.

I've done little research on it, but I had always assumed that since they were able to leave the pattern and come back with the full power of the One Power it was because they temporarily existed outside of the pattern and it did not matter at that point. Coming back to teach people how to use it provided some kind of divide that was unexpected.

Edit: I also feel like it was later kinda proven to me when Aginor was placed into a female body but still could only channel Saidin.
 
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I've done little research on it, but I had always assumed that since they were able to leave the pattern and come back with the full power of the One Power it was because they temporarily existed outside of the pattern and it did not matter at that point. Coming back to teach people how to use it provided some kind of divide that was unexpected.

Edit: I also feel like it was later kinda proven to me when Aginor was placed into a female body but still could only channel Saidin.
I do have another theory, on how Tamirlyn could have taught both Saidin and Saidar, but I'm going to wait until I can start writing for the TV times to reveal it in a piece that will be called
The blood of the dragon
 
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