*Spoilers* AMoL Ending Theory Discussion

[Jaryd Kosari]

If you didn't like the book and you've lost all faith in the series, why do you keep arguing about it Aulrick? The book isn't going to be magically rewritten and no one who liked it is going to change their mind (I happen to be one of the ones who thought it was epic and I am very, very satisfied and no amount of people trying to rain on that parade will make me stop liking it), so what's the point?

I'm especially curious why a book is getting you so riled up that you feel the need to attack people as much as you have. It's just a book.

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

Ninya - I didn't attack anyone.
Also - I liked the book as a whole. I love the series as a whole. I even liked how the ending played out, with the trap in Calandor and everything. The ONLY part I'm dissarisfied with is about the ending is the part that sais the DO is the source of evil. That's all. I mean, not everything was perfect. Fain was wasted, and stuff like that, but that's not enough to make me dislike the book.

Does that answer your question? :P

 

[Jaryd Kosari]

Not really.

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

Well it was meant to :P

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

I'm still waiting, BTW

 

[Syera Faelron]

This book does seem to of impassioned a lot of people. Surely a deep breath, cup of something and a smile will help.
Otherwise hammer of telling off, slapping of wrists in a tender way will ensure...hehe

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

I dunno why people keep saying that I'm upset. I'm not upset at all. I would just like for someone who thinks the ending wasn't detached from the series to give me an example of the importence of choice specifically to this series, or even the mention of choice as an integral part of the series, or the DO's connection to choice prior to book 14.
No one seems to be able to do that

 

[Eluial Aldaran]

As one of the impassioned discussors, I agree with Aulrick. Not sensing much anger or hostility here. Just passion and strong opinions.

Aulrick: I missed you were asking a specific question. I hope to get you an answer but it probably won't be soon. Maybe we can start a new thread about it.

 

[Don al'Gooch]

Aspects of the series where choice is intergal:

1) The Dark One "turns" channellers to the Shadow, against their will, by removing their capacity for real choice. The series clearly establishes that this is a fate worse than death.

2) Compulsion is considered inherently evil, and the worst form of complusion removes all capacity of the individual to choose.

3) A consistent theme in the series is that redemption is available to those who have been swept up by the Shadow, if they but choose to turn away from it. Indeed, Intgar chooses to return to the Light, as a matter of choice, in TGH. I recall Rand saying something along the lines of "Light, Intgar. I think you just deciding to return to the Light is enough."

4)The series represents the Seanchan culture as inherently evil because it relies on slavery - by definition taking people's freedom (capacity to choose their own actions) away from them. Again, we see this as early as TGH, with Nyn and Min's revulsion at the Seanchan treatment of Egwene and Egwene's emotional scars as a consequence of that enslavement.

5) In TGH, Rand's revelation in his battle with B'alzamon is that, despite all the failures he witnessed with the Portal Stone, Rand had never chosen to go over to the Shadow. His victory was in his refusal to bend to the Shadow's will, no matter what.

6) Moridin makes much of the Dark One's desire to claim the Dragon for his own -- but that can only come of the Dragon choosing to go over to the Shadow.

Those are just the ones off the top of my head...

D.GOOCH

 

[Don al'Gooch]

MuKen - the more you try and use big words like "perpendicular," the more you lose your point.

Hey, he could have used "orthogonal." D.GOOCH

 

[Don al'Gooch]

Also - this is anoher fine example of why the ending blows. Instead of letting us understand the information we already had, we start making excuses why what RJ said to a fan in one place is ok, but in another place it's not... Had the ending made sense, EVERYTHING RJ said, in the books and out, would make sense and we wouldn't need "Ah, but in THAT case he was blah blah blah, and in the other he was another blah blah blah." You jusr prooved mu point for me on that, thank you.

I've read through your argument here in this thread, but I don't get this point. What about it doesn't make sense? I get that you don't like it, and that it doesn't fit your previous theory. What I don't get is why you think the ending doesn't "make sense"...or is somehow inconsistent with Fain being a unique part of this turn. I think one can concede that Fain is a unique part of this turn and be quite comfortable with the logic of BS's ending. Where am I wrong? D.GOOCH

 

[Don al'Gooch]

We're not talking about some random conversation, these are serious Q&As, and even if they weren't - it's his world. I expect him to give serious answers.
So yes, when RJ said Fain is unique to this turning, I take it to mean just what it means. How important it is depends on your point of view, I agree, but there are some things I doubt anyone can question. For example, that if Fain is unique, it means that there are exceptions to the wheel's circular time.

It means things can change.

But wait, the Pattern allows change (i.e. uniqueness). That is explicit. Every thread can weave a number of different ways that the Pattern can accomodate. Even t'averen have a bit of leeway in making choices (the Pattern allows for even variation there). I've read nothing in the series that suggested to me that every turning of the Wheel is a carbon copy of the previous Turn. The Pattern is the same only in broadstrokes...the details (like Fain) can be different from Turn to Turn. D.GOOCH

 

[Don al'Gooch]

Kind of hovering at the edges of this for the time being, but wanted to jump in with this:

First, while Fain is unique (and I honestly see no reason to doubt RJ's word on this), Aridhol and its subsequent fall and becoming Shadar Logoth is not (or at least, we have 0 reason to believe it so, and I vaguely remember reading something that confirmed that though I can't say where). Mordeth, the corrupt adviser, is not unique, either. So the evil that pervades Shadar Logoth, which stems from Mordeth, is not unique, meaning that cleansing the source is not unique.

RJ was known to choose his words very, very carefully when answering questions -- people often commented that he liked to give "AesSedai answers," meaning he didn't lie, but the truth you thought you heard was not necessarily the Truth. So when RJ says FAIN is unique, we should take him at his word. The creature that Padan Fain becomes is unique -- a creature of both the hatred and greed of Shadar Logoth, and a darkfriend, touched directly by the DO. But Fain's uniqueness implies nothing about Shadar Logoth itself or the cleansing of the source.

Or, perhaps Shadar Logoth and it's particular kind of evil is unique to this Turn, because the way that the Dark One tainted the source is unique --- Shadar Logoth was the Pattern's response, in this Turn, to the 'unique' counterstroke of the Shadow for this Turn. IOW, "uniqueness" in this respect is only a problem to the extent that one buys that there is only one way to skin a cat (or one way for the Dark One to Taint the Source). Aulric is assuming that the Taint requiring the Shadar Logoth 'cleanse' is not unique (in its form) as well. That may be an unwarranted assumption. Perhaps the Dark One taints Saidar in other Turns, requiring a different type of cleansing. Or perhaps the counterstroke comes in a different form entirely, requiring a different kind of response from the Dragon. Variations on a theme may be "unique" unto themselves, but they still follow the same basic pattern. D.GOOCH

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

WoW Don... You posted A LOT!
So I've already talked about most of your 6 examples before. They only proove my problem with the ending, and that (I hope) would also answer your second messege about the ending not making sense - in each of your examples, evil is taking choice away. Turning someone to the shadow is the extreme example, but compulsion works too. The shadow takes away people's choice. This (to me, at least) is contradictory to the ending, since in non of the examples you showed what I requested - the DO being responsible for choice. It's always been the other way around. The Shadow TAKES choice the people have in the pattern and forces them to do evil. THAT's what doesn't make sense about the ending. We had no reason to assume the DO is responsible for choice. Nor did we have reason to assume there is no evil without him.
Hope it's clearer now.

As for the rest - it's all speculation and theory at this point.

 

[Ealandrelle Melyma]

Don's examples weren't all about evil taking choice away at all, unless we read different ones. For example - Ingtar choosing to reject the DO. That's a choice in favour of light, and he does that. OK he dies, but he still chooses to reject the DO. Rand himself chooses to reject Ishy (who he thinks is the DO at the time) in the dream/realities in TEOTW. The members of the Black Ajah don't all seem turned/compelled into joining, they choose the Dark - in search of power/influence/whatever. And the you get Verin who chooses to join (albeit the other option is to be killed) in order to give information back to the good guys when she can.

I don't particularly agree or disagree with either side (tbh I gave up following all the indepth discussion ages ago) but I don't agree that the only "choices" are when the DO forces evil.

I mean, look at Elaida. I suppose she's a bit of anomaly on both sides. Could what she did be considered "evil"? She wasn't of the Black Ajah. She wasn't trying to further the power of the DO (albeit for a while when she was manipulated by Alviaran she did do this). But beating Egwene, demoting Aes Sedai, continuing the split in the Tower, her downright insanity... her willingness in AMOL to sell out her fellow Sisters if only it'd get her free... Where does the DO come into that? If the DO couldn't touch the world, would she still have been a cowbag? Is this an indirect touch - an example of someone who hasn't actively chosen the Dark nevertheless being a negative force?

I'm not sure I'm making sense, but I wondered where things like that fall in.

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

Don's examples weren't all about evil taking choice away at all, unless we read different ones. For example - Ingtar choosing to reject the DO. That's a choice in favour of light, and he does that. OK he dies, but he still chooses to reject the DO. Rand himself chooses to reject Ishy (who he thinks is the DO at the time) in the dream/realities in TEOTW. The members of the Black Ajah don't all seem turned/compelled into joining, they choose the Dark - in search of power/influence/whatever. And the you get Verin who chooses to join (albeit the other option is to be killed) in order to give information back to the good guys when she can.

All valid, except that in any series, TV show, etc., the bad guys CHOOSE to do bad things for whatever reason. This in no way connects the DO as the SOURCE of evil in the universe. I already said ages ago in this thread that the fact people MAKE choices in a series doesn't mean that choice onto itself is important. Nor in the case of the Wheel of Time does it in anyway connect the DO with the source of the choice. In the examples you gave, the DO was the TOOL for those people to gain the whatever they wanted, or it was forced upon them.
I have yet to see the thing that I was looking for in the first place - where in the series is the DO connected to giving the choice, thus making the choice itself the integral part? It's always the other way around in any way you think on it. He's either taking the choice away, providing a tool for the bad guy's choices, etc., but he's never GIVING the choice. Your example of Elaida is actually a good one, because it shows us how evil can be done WITHOUT the use of the DO's tools like darkfriends use, thus also nolifing an argument that could have been made about the DO giving people the choice by giving them the tools. The tools are already there without him as well.

The idea that the DO is the source of evil, the concept of it, is just opposite to the series. It makes no sense at all... To me at least.

 

[Madrin Al'Carthon]

I am starting to have trouble following all the twists, turns and loop-the-loops involved lol can anyone remind me which variation involved no DO. I seem to remember elayne in the garden but what else happened in that world?

 

[Aulrick Vendour]

Nothing. Rand met Elayn and her eyes were wrong. I need to find the description, but I think her eyes were much like those of the Asheman and Aes Sedai who were turned to the shadow using the 13 method.

 

[Madrin Al'Carthon]

Took a while scanning but I finally found it. Alright so the way I see it, the DO is the manifestation of chaos. The shadow actually has more choice than the light. Maybe not to PICK the shadow necessarily, but generally they can do as they wish as long as it promotes chaos and destruction. Without the DO there's no CHAOS. The pattern is order. Ina world of pure order no one has to think for themselves.

The pattern's balance between good and bad is generally through random occurrence as opposed to evil human intervention. As can be seen through the things that happen around Rand. It's not that bad things don't happen, it's that no one has to think. Everything happens as it should.

Think of it from an unbiased POV. The Pattern can give and take money as it pleases. It doesn't need theft, and thus, theft doesn't exist. You can't commit an evil that you can't even conceive.

I actually thought about this while writing a story some time ago. It would be easy to be good if ethics and morals were black and white, evil takes a conscious thought process to break from the societal norm. It's a little weird to fathom, because we don't live in such a world, but if the Pattern existed alone, that's what the world would be.

 

[MuKen]

Ninya - I didn't attack anyone.

You attacked me, and didn't apologize back when I extended the first apology. But moving on.

My critisism IS valid for the ending I gave you as well, as I stated when I wrote it. I chose it to show that an less disconnected ending COULD have been writen using the same "DO=choice" thing. I still think it makes no sense, but I gave it as an example BECAUSE of it, not despite of it.

That's my point, we can't argue one is overall 'better' or 'worse' than another because that's all up to our individual opinions. But I am questioning why you criticize this one, and offer reasons that apply equally to the other endings you like better.

Further more - it doesn't matter where he said Fain was unique.

It matters a lot, it is the most important part of this. You can't say the books have bad writing because they mislead the readers, based on information that was not given in the books. Going solely off of what was read in the books, a reader would not have been led to believe this cycle would be any different than any other. If a reader got that impression because of what the author mentioned in an interview, that doesn't mean his writing] is bad.

You're saying the ending isn't detached from the rest of the series? Fine. There are 14 books in the series. Please collect and show me all the foreshadowing regarding

I'm saying it's no more detached than the endings you like better. I have shown connections other than the ones you ask for, so you now have to show why the ending(s) you like are better connected than what I have already stated.