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- #41
I agree that they're completely consistent if you interpret "time" there to mean "the time frame of the Pattern."
You are twisting the words to a meaning that is clearly not what they say, nor is what is intended by the author.
If our apartments have different TVs, would it be reasonable for me to say "Only in my apartment is there a TV" as a way of saying that your apartment has a different TV? No, and it is just as awkward to assume BS uses these lines to describe the situation you describe.
It makes no sense whatsoever if taken to mean "there is no time outside the Pattern" because it is shown to us, directly, in plain text, that there is. The entire Wheel of Time saga, and in particular AMOL Page 584, make 100% zero sense if there is no time outside the Pattern. If there's no time outside the Pattern, the Creator could never have made the Pattern. "Creator" *means* "One who creates." That means there was a point in Pattern-External Time where there was no Pattern. Otherwise his name would be "Guy Who Sits Over There And Never Does Anything But Yell In Capital Letters Once Or Twice" and that title is way too long, even for a deity.
The word "Creator" was coined by time-experiencing beings, who have never even had any idea there was such thing as timelessness. Rand is the only person in this entire universe who has, and he didn't name the Creator.
And the chapter 34 makes perfect sense as a description of Rand's perception, just as he perceives the Pattern in a way that is the only way his brain can perceive it. Rand is an entity that exists partially outside, and touches the Wheel at various areas. From the outside, his perception, if there even is such a thing, is not described to us. From inside the flow of time, Rand remembers events leading up to his exit, and following after his entry at the same point. What he described is the obvious description a human mind would put on it.