New Stuff Found upon Re-read

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I'm up to The Great Hunt in my latest re-read, and something struck me about the Prophecies of the Dragon. When Rand finds Thom alive in Cairhien, Thom quotes a passage from the Prophecies:

"Twice dawns the day when his blood is shed. Once for mourning, once for birth. Red on black, the Dragon's blood stains the rock of Shayol Ghul. In the Pit of Doom shall his blood free men from the Shadow.

I had always before taken that to mean that Rand would have to die in order to defeat the Dark One, Sheathing the Sword, etc. But it struck me that perhaps "his blood" doesn't mean the blood in his veins, but perhaps someone he is related to. Maybe we have some redemption for Luc / Isam coming up? Luc is Rand's uncle. Or it could be something Galad will do, since he is Rand's half brother.

Thoughts?

That is a pretty common theory yes.

The blood could be someone related to him, Luc, Galad..... or even his unborn children etc.

It's a valid theory but at this point, its only conjecture and could easily mean his own blood as well.

We just have to RAFO on that one :)
 
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I have always took it to mean the Aiel. How often have the Wise Ones said that he needed to "Know Their Blood For His". Now with Aviendha believing that their punishment of the 3 fold land ends after fighting the last battle. Add on top of that the Prophecies of the Aiel about how he will destroy them and only a few of them will survive past the last battle. I really interpret "His Blood On the Rocks Of Shayol Ghul" to mean the sacrifice of the Aiel.
 
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Another valid theory.

unfortunately as with most prophecy there's so many possible solutions they are hard to nail down
 

Kitan Tataru

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I thought the "remnant of a remnant" of the Aiel that would survive would be the Shaido that are returning to the Waste (since they'd probably be out of the way of most Tarmon Gai'don stuff), but Aviendha's vision seems to disprove that.
 
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Im reeeading the great hunt now. With respect to your first question why does Moirraine thing the horn needs to go to illian she gives her reasoning in conversation with Siuan. She argues if Rand appears in Illian with the horn as the Dragon reborn he will automatically have a sizable army behind him, since many there would follow the one who discovered the horn.

That's true in that Moiraine and Siuan came up with the idea to get Rand to take the horn to Illian as a strategy to get him some support, but I don't think they came up with that until Fal Dara. Remember, no one knew that the Horn of Valere would be sitting there at the bottom of the Eye of the World to be found at the end of the first book. However; Moiraine immediately said that it needed to be brought to Illian right after finding it. Later on, I think sending Rand to Illian became part of their strategy (Moiraine & Siuan's), but I don't think it was really a consideration during the moments right after they discovered the horn.
 
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I'm up to The Great Hunt in my latest re-read, and something struck me about the Prophecies of the Dragon. When Rand finds Thom alive in Cairhien, Thom quotes a passage from the Prophecies:

"Twice dawns the day when his blood is shed. Once for mourning, once for birth. Red on black, the Dragon's blood stains the rock of Shayol Ghul. In the Pit of Doom shall his blood free men from the Shadow.

I had always before taken that to mean that Rand would have to die in order to defeat the Dark One, Sheathing the Sword, etc. But it struck me that perhaps "his blood" doesn't mean the blood in his veins, but perhaps someone he is related to. Maybe we have some redemption for Luc / Isam coming up? Luc is Rand's uncle. Or it could be something Galad will do, since he is Rand's half brother.

Thoughts?

Mackenzie Rose, I'm not sure if you wanted me to reply to yours, but that passage is one of the most talked about prophecies in the books.

Twice dawns the day seems to be a solar eclipse, or at least just a great darkness covering the land as the 6th seal is broken.

Red on Black (interestingly the colors of Ishamael) probably just means his red blood covering the black rock of Shayul Ghul. However, one question arises in that does his blood being spilt necessarily mean a death or deaths? To me, the Dragon must sacrifice himself (die) so at least one of those blood releases needs to be a death.

Once for MOURNING. Once for BIRTH. Now, that is where it really gets interesting. Mourning only happens when someone close to you dies. So who will die that's close to Rand? Birth might be Rand's blood again, or it could somehow relate to Isam/Luc. That part; however, could go a lot of different ways.
 

Jaryd Kosari

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Or it could be once to end the world as we know it (thus, mourning what is lost), and once to create the new world afterwards (thus, birth).

Then again, I like to think symbolically, so maybe I'm stretching it too far. Dunno.
 

Kitan Tataru

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Or "once for mourning" could be everyone grieving Rand's death, and "once for birth" could be Elayne giving birth to Rand's children (after all, birth is messy).
 
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Or "once for mourning" could be everyone grieving Rand's death, and "once for birth" could be Elayne giving birth to Rand's children (after all, birth is messy).

Kitan, good thoughts but it really can't be Elayne's kids. A lot of us thought the exact same thing, but I believe it was RJ at a book signing or perhaps Brandon who commented that it was just too soon. Elayne hasn't been pregnant long enough.

Your MOURNING is possible tho. Ninya's BIRTH of a new world theory is pretty interesting as well, although I think there would have to be survivors from the old world. Aviendha does get to peek into the possible futures of her offspring.

BIRTH could be something being born like a new world, or just the birth of a new age, or the reason could be because of someone's ancestry or birth.
 
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Way, way, way too soon for a "birth" exactly. Elaine is about 4 months gone, give or take.

Although I do like Brandon chucking just the little bit of doubt in there to keep people guessing

[h=4]Interview: Nov 16th, 2010[/h] Paris Signing Report - Jonathan B (Paraphrased)
[h=4]Jonathan B[/h] I also asked if there was anything in A Memory of Light like the big unnoticed thing in Towers of Midnight that we should look for.
[h=4]Brandon Sanderson[/h] He said there are lots of little things that come to fruition in interesting ways.
[h=4]JONATHAN B[/h] I said yeah, I can't wait to see how "his blood on the rocks of Shayol Ghul" turns out. Do you know there are some people that think Elayne will have her babies on Shayol Ghul and that will fulfill the prophecy?
[h=4]BRANDON SANDERSON[/h] He said well, Elayne is like four months pregnant at this point... Lots of things are possible with the One Power though.
[h=4]JONATHAN B[/h] In my mind, this debunks that theory somewhat.
 

Kitan Tataru

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I'm still in EotW (reading very slow)...I didn't remember that Loial was originally so incredibly shocked that Rand was not an Aiel (which is significant since Rand didn't remotely suspect his Aiel heritage at this point). I also forgot that Loial left the stedding without permission. And that the Red Ajah blames the Ogier for making the Breaking worse for sheltering male Aes Sedai in the stedding during the Time of Madness, where other Ajahs like the Blue believe that the Ogier actually alleviated the Breaking, because if all the men had gone mad at once the world may have been entirely destroyed instead of just Broken.
 
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I'm still in EotW (reading very slow)...I didn't remember that Loial was originally so incredibly shocked that Rand was not an Aiel (which is significant since Rand didn't remotely suspect his Aiel heritage at this point). I also forgot that Loial left the stedding without permission. And that the Red Ajah blames the Ogier for making the Breaking worse for sheltering male Aes Sedai in the stedding during the Time of Madness, where other Ajahs like the Blue believe that the Ogier actually alleviated the Breaking, because if all the men had gone mad at once the world may have been entirely destroyed instead of just Broken.

Some things about the BREAKING interest me as well. As I understand it, the ThreeFoldLand didn't exist in the Age of Legends (similar to Dragonmount), so how did the men going mad create that much change in the landscape of the world? The name "ThreeFoldLand" sorta implies that the actual continent may have been folded back upon itself, thus creating the Aiel Waste and the Spine of the World. However, I don't think it was really ever revealed as to how exactly that happend (if what I suspect is the truth). Perhaps there is some sort of ter'angreal that could amplify a man's control of Earth. Or perhaps some men actually just stood next to the Chodan Kal and used it directly rather than using an access key. I figured you'd have to use an access key or be burned to a cinder, but a madman may think being burned to a cinder was worth whatever he was trying to do.

Axis, do you have any quotes or knowledge on the creation of the ThreeFoldLand?

As for Loial and his reaction to Rand, I believe Stedding Shangtai to be one of the ones close to the Waste, so they must periodically get Aiel visitors. Obviously, they created some sort of non-aggression pact with them, for when Rand's group visited Stedding Tsofu, the Aiel maidens had to stop their veiling and desire for combat with the Shenarians due to the pact.
 

Kitan Tataru

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From what I understand, the name "Three-Fold Land" is about the Aiel being punished for breaking their oaths to the Aes Sedai. Aviendha said something once about the Aiel being banished there to punish them for their transgressions, to make them strong for the Dragon, and to...I forget the last one but it was something specific :p So I think that "Three-Fold" is meant to refer to the three purposes the Aiel believe they were sent there for, not to the actual creation of the area's topography.

As for the Waste not existing before the Age of Legends, remember that during the Breaking, oceans became dry land, dry land became oceans, mountains rose where there were none (not only Dragonmount), etc. The Sand Hills near Emond's Field were part of an ocean and coast during the Age of Legends. I don't think it's a huge stretch for the Waste and the Spine of the World to have been created during the "usual" course of the Breaking by the mad male Aes Sedai.

Also, remember that all Aes Sedai were stronger in the Age of Legends than they are in the Third Age, and that men are generally stronger in Earth than women.

Loial mentioned in EotW when they were all going into the Blight and it was warm that he wasn't used to the heat because Stedding Shangtai is in the mountains. You can see here that it's in the mountains east of Tear: http://img202.imageshack.us/img202/8286/wotmapa130verzija4ph.jpg While Stedding Shangtai is kinda relatively close to the Waste, do Aiel really live that far south?

And it's possible that Loial learned about the Aiel in books before leaving the stedding and hadn't actually met any...
 
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The breaking was really quite surprising effective in altering the physical landscape of the world.

There's a good chance some of the men were using angreal/sa'angreal and so on, (although I doubt the Choedan Kal were).

But certainly mountains were destroyed, new mountains were made like The Damona Mountains and The Mountains of Dhoom, oceans were drained, dry land flooded which seems rather impressive if they didn't have angreal/sa'angreal. So I think its probably almost certain they did use them as I'm not sure their raw power would have been sufficient for such large changes

We do know that some men were in charge of ter'angreal at the very least as we know they gave the Talisman of Growing to the Ogier, so its reasonable to assume they probable had angreal/sa'angreal as well I should think, as well as other ter'angreal.

In some ways you'd think the female aes sedai would have done a better job of hunting the men down and taking them out, if most of them had access to angreal/sa'angreal that's probably reason why they resisted capture so effectively and the breaking lasted 300 years.

Oh and the three fold land refers to the following three things

1) A shaping stone to make them
2) A testing ground to prove their worth
3) A punishment for their sin.

The Aiel visit the stedding in order to procure Sungwood. Given Loail is one of their youngest treesingers. I'm sure he's been introduced to them during a trade run.

A more interesting question is not why Loial could recognize Rand has having Aiel heritage, but why Moiraine and Lan did not?

Although perhaps they did and were keeping it to themselves. That should have been pretty obvious that Rand was the different one from the other two and was the Dragon right away.

Probably they did know and continued to bring the others along as decoys.
 
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Kitan Tataru

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I'm sure Moiraine and Lan saw Rand as having Aiel heritage - after all, Lan fought in the Aiel Wars, and Moiraine knows about those things too. So Mat and Perrin probably were partially decoys but they're also ta'veren themselves, which makes them worth bringing along. Also, Moiraine may not have known how to interpret the prophecies - knowing Rand is the Dragon it's easy to say "he will be born of the ancient blood, raised by the old blood" (or whatever it says) as "He will be born Aiel but raised by Manetheren", but without knowing Rand is the Dragon you just can't know 100% how to interpret that.
 

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I wondered how Loial (and even Moiraine) was able to work out all three were ta'veren. When Rand met Loial, he and Mat had been together the whole time, so there wasn't really any reason to say it was both of them rather than one of them
RJ said they didn't become ''ta'veren'' until leaving the Two Rivers (don't have the quote)
I also wonder about the plants animals in the waste (and the drowned lands). They seem to adapted to have evolved in such a short amount of time, so either RJ didn't think it through, or there was some previous desert like area of land in the middle of the ocean that used to be there.
 

Kitan Tataru

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Loial and Moiraine studied ta'veren extensively, I'm sure, that probably helped...and the effects around Rand and Mat were so extreme that it wouldn't be unusual to assume they were both ta'veren.

As for the plants and animals in the Waste etc, there may have been deserty islands in that previous ocean, or maybe some already existing desert stuff got displaced from elsewhere during the massive land upheaval. Or it could have been evolution after all. We don't know how fast things evolve in Randland compared to our world...
 
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Here you go Toral

Interview: Jul, 2002
COT: 'Glimmers' Ebook Q&A (Verbatim)
Question
Does ta’veren-ness ebb and flow as needed? If Rand, Mat, and Perrin were all ta’veren growing up, it seems that the Two Rivers would have had a lot of odd events occurring, but no mention is made of it.

Robert Jordan

You might say that ta’veren-ness ebbs and flows. For one thing, remember that even for someone like Rand, the effects are really occasional, not continuous. Even when he is causing dozens of coincidences in a particular place, many more events pass off quite normally. For another thing, no one is born ta’veren. Rand, Mat, and Perrin only became ta’veren just before Moiraine appeared. You become ta’veren according to the needs of the Wheel. Like the Heroes linked to the Wheel, who are spun out as needed to try to keep the weaving of the Pattern straight, a man or woman becomes ta’veren because the Wheel has “decided” to use them as an influence on the Pattern. And, no, the Wheel isn’t sentient. Think more of a fuzzy logic device that uses feedback to correct what it is doing in order to do it in the most efficient way.
 
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Continuing the re-read/listen into The Dragon Reborn, I come to a chapter where the reader learns much as Egwene visits Verin Sedai in her office, and a few interesting things come up as well. At one point, they discuss a parchment that Verin thinks holds some undiscovered truths:

"Rosel wrote that it held secrets the world could not face."

"Heart of the Dark. Ba'alzamon. Name hidden within name shrouded by name. Secret buried within secret cloaked by secret. Betrayer of Hope. Ishamael betrays all hope. TRUTH BURNS AND SEARS. Hope fails before truth. A LIE IS OUR SHIELD. Who can stand against the Heart of the Dark? Who can face the Betrayer of Hope? Soul of shadow, Soul of the Shadow, he is ... "

Of course, we know that Ba'alzamon was really Ishamael the whole time in books 1 & 2. That's known. However; I don't think that is the lie that protects the world. Truth burns and sears. A lie is our shield. What is this truth that burns and sears? One that we must be protected from with a lie?

I've thought about that and come up with a few things, but I'm curious as to what you guys make of this one.

Another interesting comment is made by Lanfear as she is speaking to Mat in the White Tower.

"I would not have visited you in this way, Mat, except that I was here in the ... in the White Tower --She smiled as if the name amused her-- FOR ANOTHER PURPOSE, and I wanted to see ALL OF YOU.

What exactly was Lanfear's "other purpose" isn't exactly clear. Perhaps she's the one who set up the trap for Nynaeve and Egwene. She obviously wanted to convince Mat to be on her side in assisting Rand/Lews Therin, yet in such a way that Mat did what she told him rather than be compulsed.

Secondly, the only main characters in the Tower at that time were Nynaeve, Egwene, Elayne, and Mat. Is she referring to them, or Perrin/Mat/Rand, the three parts of the tripod? I suppose she did meet Perrin in tel'aranrhiod, so she was probably referring to that.
 
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Re: New Stuff Found upon Re-read- Had a theory

New to the site, but have been reading the books since the Great Hunt came out. I would pop in here occasionally over the years to check things out. I'm really excited for AMoL (as is everyone else), probably going to take the day off. As I prepared myself for it, I re-read all of them earlier in the year and then did a quick scanning re-read of the last 6 this month.

I kind of had a moment while I was thinking about it in the shower (yeah, I know, get a life). As pointed out in several of the books, after Rand takes his 2nd un-healable wound, it is referred to as beating in counterpoint to the wound Ishmael gave him. It got me to thinking, and I am sure I am not the first as the forums are huge, that this is how Fain is going to play into it. He is going to seal him in the Bore with the Dark Lord and that is how he is going to stop it from continuing. Moridin told him something to the effect of " destroying the Great Lord is really incredibly naive" when he visited him in the dream (LoC maybe, while they were having their fireside chat).

I was also reading Mark Lawerence's King of Thorn's(really good) and a similar counterpoint situation, totally different scenario, occurs which kind of set me on that line of thinking.

So I don't think he ends up killing the Dark Lord, just occupying his time for all eternity.

Thoughts?
 
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