It seems to be a standard of epic fantasy that all the important characters have a ton of names. I mean, it’s Aragorn’s fault, right? The guy spent so many years traveling incognito, and he picked up all those names along the way, plus there are his elvish names and the names that relate to his heritage! Elessar, Estel, Longshanks, Strider, Thorongil, Wingfoot, Envinyatar… and I’m sure I’m missing some. Now that’s set up as a standard, and we get al’Lan Mandragoran, Lord of the Seven Towers, Lord of the Lakes, Dai Shan, uncrowned King of Malkier, and Rand al’Thor, who’s the Dragon Reborn on his own merit even before he inherits Lews Therin Telamon’s titles, like Lord of the Morning. I guess being reincarnated throws a unique twist in this game of many names.
It can sometimes be difficult to keep track of who’s who when everyone has a plethora of names and titles and lives, and that’s before they’re adopting disguises and calling themselves “Selene” or “Bors.” But of all the tricky name business in the first two books of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, the man who calls himself Ba’alzamon might have claim to the most intricate of all. And he certainly has claim to the one that pulled the wool over my eyes the most.
When we meet Ba’alzamon in Rand’s dreams, we understand him to be the Dark One himself. Everyone knows Ba’alzamon is a Trolloc name for the Dark One, after all—it’s not his true name, but then it is not safe for even his followers to speak that name aloud. No one questions that Rand is indeed seeing the Dark one in his dreams, and many are alarmed that the seal on the Dark One’s prison is weakening so much as to allow him this reach. When she first learns of their dreams in The Eye of the World, Moiraine theorizes that Rand, Mat, and Perrin’s status as ta’veren makes them stand out in the Pattern, a theory that Ba’alzamon later confirms when talking to Rand in The Great Hunt, but she doesn’t look for an explanation that would accommodate Ba’alzamon still being completely trapped. I offer one to you now: Ba’alzamon is not actually a name for the Dark One, but rather a name used for the most powerful of the Forsaken, Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope.
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The Great Hunt
We are first introduced to the “Betrayer of Hope” right in the Prologue of The Eye of the World, in which his original name (in that lifetime, anyway) is given as Elan Morin Tedronai. This name never comes up again in either The Eye of the World or The Great Hunt, but the title is later tied to the member of the Forsaken called Ishamael by Moiraine in Chapter 42 of The Eye of the World. Presumably, then, Ishamael means “Betrayer of Hope” in the Old Tongue.
But who is Ishamael and how could he be the true face behind the being that has been calling himself “Ba’alzamon?” It’s hard for me to believe that the Dark One would be okay with anyone, even one of his own followers, pretending to be him, but there may be a plan that requires it, and I can certainly see how, if the Dark One could pass one of his human followers off as himself, this would enhance the fear and uncertainty among the ranks of his enemies.
The first usage in The Eye of the World of the name Ba’alzamon is when Moiraine is telling the story of Manetheren to the people of Emond’s Field.
…dawn revealed the banner of Ba’alzamon at their head. Ba’alzamon, Heart of the Dark. An ancient name for the Father of Lies. The Dark One could not have been free of his prison at Shayol Ghul, for if he had been, not all the forces of humankind together could have stood against him, but there was power there. Dreadlords, and some evil that made that light-destroying banner seem no more than right and sent a chill into the souls of the men who faced it. (TEOTW, p. 139)
Moiraine has said more than once that if the Dark One was actually freed from his prison, all of humankind could not stand against him, and this assertion is repeated a few other times in the book, both by her and by others, such as when Lord Agelmar’s hears that Fain claims to have met “a man who named himself Ba’alzamon” at Shayol Ghul.
Agelmar shook his head contemptuously. “The Dark One? Pah! The man’s lying or mad. If Heartsbane were loose, we’d all of us be dead by now, or worse.” (TEOTW, p. 660)
The threat of the Dark One breaking free is the endgame in the series; it is prophesied to eventually happen at the moment of the Last Battle, when the Dragon will face him with the Horn of Valere. Ba’alzamon’s presence in Rand and Mat and Perrin’s dreams throws confusion on the status of the Dark One’s imprisonment. Moiraine even questions if the seal on his prison has grown so weak that he can reach forth and touch the Pattern, directing the course of events, and this concern bears out when Ba’alzamon claims, during his confrontation with Rand at the end of The Eye of the World, to have orchestrated everything that led Rand to that moment. So we can see that, unsurprisingly, it is useful to the forces of the Dark One to make their enemies believe that he has more power and influence than he actually does at this moment in time. Fear is one of Shai’tan’s greatest weapons, after all. And Jordan left us clues in the narrative to discover that this Ba’alzamon may not be entirely what he seems to be.
One of the biggest tip-offs here is actually not in the text of The Eye of the World or The Great Hunt, but rather in the glossaries of each.
Ba’alzamon (bah-AHL-zah-mon): In the Trolloc tongue, “Heart of the Dark.” Believed to be the Trolloc name for the Dark One.
This “Believed to be” is significant. Both Moiraine and others have said flat-out that Ba’alzamon is the Trolloc name for the Dark One, and there is no suggestion within the actual text to suggest that this knowledge is in any way uncertain. But there is no reason to say that Ba’alzamon is “believed to be” a name for the Dark One unless there is doubt. With this in mind, I went back and looked at the conversations the person calling himself Ba’alzamon has with Rand, and I noticed that he never claims any of the Dark One’s other titles, never actually refers to himself as Shai’tan or the Lord of the Dark, although he does drop those names in a more general sense.
For example, when Ba’alzamon returns to Rand’s dreams for the first time in The Great Hunt, he references Shai’tan by name but does not directly apply that name to himself. When the true name of the Dark One is uttered, the darkness behind Ba’alzamon reacts, growing and thickening, and when Rand denies him, settles back again. Rand, along with Mat and Perrin, were denying the Dark One in their dreams all the time back in The Eye of the World—Moiraine specifically told them that if they deny him, his power fails—but this is the only instance in which we’ve actually seen any kind of reaction to that denial. It’s almost as if the Dark One wasn’t there in those dreams at all, and only now is his presence beginning to show, as an impenetrable mass of darkness hovering behind his agent.
There are other clues to suggest that Ba’alzamon might not actually be the Dark One. In the Prologue of The Great Hunt, the man who called himself Bors is shocked that the Dark One would appear to them in the form of a man. He is puzzled also by the mask, and by the burns on his hands. Bors is a powerful enough Darkfriend to be summoned to this gathering and given a special task, so one expects that he has some knowledge of what he’s talking about. Bors even wonders if this might not be the Dark One at all, but one of the Forsaken, which he finds almost as terrifying a prospect. This shows how much beyond typical Darkfriend status the Forsaken really are, and suggests that the terror that Ba’alzamon inspires is of a level that one of the Forsaken might be able to muster.
Although the Forsaken and their imprisonment is mentioned a few times in The Eye of the World, it took me a while to figure out how they got there, since it is usually mentioned lumped in with the Dark One, as though both were bound by the Creator. But that isn’t the whole story. The Dark One was bound by the Creator, the Forsaken were sealed in there with him after they tried to break into his prison to free him, and Lews Therin and his followers stopped them. Ishamael is named several times as one of the Forsaken, but when Aginor explains how he and Balthamel were freed from imprisonment because they were the closest to the surface, he makes an interesting comment.
“[We were] bound.” Aginor smiled; his yellowed teeth had the look of fangs. “Some of us are bound no longer. The seals weaken, Aes Sedai. Like Ishamael, we walk the world again, and soon the rest of us will come. (TEOTW, p. 690)
It didn’t occur to me on the first read to analyze those words too closely, but Aginor actually tells us everything we need to know here. Ishamael is walking the world. Indeed, Aginor says “we walk the world” like him, not “we have been freed” like him—there is nothing to say he was even imprisoned to begin with.
Which, in fact, he was not.
The events of the Prologue of The Eye of the World take place after the final confrontation and the resealing of the Dark One’s prison. Lews Therin has already been taken by the taint, but Elan Morin is there to restore his faculties, to taunt him over what has been done. This shows that he was never imprisoned as the others were; somehow he escaped that fate, and has been free in the world since then, no doubt able to orchestrate much mischief. Then, when Rand confronts Ba’alzamon in his dream while at the Stag and Lion, he repeats the creed that the Dark One and all the Forsaken are bound in Shayol Ghul, and Ba’alzamon responds with anger.
“Fool, I have never been bound!” The fires of his face roared so hot that Rand stepped back, sheltering behind his hands. The sweat on his palms dried from the heat. “I stood at Lews Therin Kinslayer’s shoulder when he did the deed that named him. It was I who told him to kill his wife, and his children, and all his blood, and every living person who loved him or whom he loved. It was I who gave him the moment of sanity to know what he had done. Have you ever heard a man scream his soul away, worm? He could have struck at me, then. He could not have won, but he could have tried. Instead he called down his precious One Power upon himself, so much that the earth split open and reared up Dragonmount to mark his tomb. (TEOTW, p. 203)
At the time, I took this as a poetic speech. Believing Ba’alzamon to be the Dark One, I assumed that he meant that, despite being imprisoned, he is not “bound” because he has had the ability to reach out to touch men’s souls, to influence them and their world. He stood figuratively at Lews Therin’s shoulder because it was the Dark One’s taint that caused it. He gave Lews Therin his momentary glimpse of sanity because it was through Shai’tan’s power that the healing was done. But looking at it now, I see that it can be read literally. Elan Morin, also known as Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope, was actually there. It’s much more simple than I took it all to be.
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The Ruin of Kings
Ba’alzamon goes on to talk about other events he influenced, including stoking Artur Hawkwing’s hatred of the Aes Sedai and getting him to send some of his armies across the ocean. Back in Chapter 8, as she prepares to heal Tam, Moraine mentions that ever since “the wars that ended the Age of Legends, since the Forsaken were bound, [Myrddraal] have been the brain that tells the Trolloc fists where to strike.” (TEOTW p. 117) Knowing what we know now, this is probably not true. Ishamael has been the brain behind everything, and he has not even had any other of the Forsaken around to challenge him for power or control. It has been the Ishamael show all this time, and that speaks, I think, to the grand way he talks about himself. At this point , he probably thinks of himself as almost as great as the Dark One.
There is a great example of Ba’alzamon’s careful wordplay in his encounter with Rand in the mist, while in the mirror world. It shows how he invokes the name of the Dark One without actually claiming to be him.
“I have a thousand strings tied to you, Kinslayer, each one finer than silk and stronger than steel. Time has tied a thousand cords between us. The battle we two have fought—do you remember any part of that? Do you have any glimmering that we have fought before, battles without number back to the beginning of Time? I know much that you do not! That battle will soon end. The Last Battle is coming. The last, Lews Therin. Do you really think you can avoid it? You poor, shivering worm. You will serve me or die! And this time the cycle will not begin anew with your death. The grave belongs to the Great Lord of the Dark. This time if you die, you will be destroyed utterly. This time the Wheel will be broken whatever you do, and the world remade to a new mold. Serve me! Serve Shai’tan, or be destroyed forever!” (TGH, p. 241)
It sounds like Ba’alzamon is just naming himself in the third person there, but he’s actually commanding Rand first to serve him, Ba’alzamon/Ishamael, and then to serve Shai’tan. It’s really clever, and the whole thing is backed up by the fact that Ishamael definitely does view himself and Lews Therin as two sides of a coin, as he mentioned earlier in the same conversation. What threw me for a while was this insistence that he and Rand have faced each other throughout time; the legends and beliefs about the Dragon say that he is a foil to the Dark One, and makes no mention of there being a sort of “Dark Dragon” to Rand’s Light. It would make sense if there was one, a human who serves as the Dark One’s hand and a human who serves as the Creator’s, but you would think that there would be some knowledge of such a relationship outside of what Ishamael has said. But whether or not Ishamael’s read on their relationship is accurate and unbiased, the fact remains that we saw the same claim from Elan Morin.
“Ten years! You pitiful fool! This war has not lasted ten years, but since the beginning of time. You and I have fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a thousand times a thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!” He finished in a shout, with a raised fist, and it was Lews Therin’s turn to pull back, breath catching at the glow in the Betrayer’s eyes. (TEOTW, p. 14)
When Ba’alzamon reveals his healing scars to Rand, he does so to show “what the Power unchecked can do,” to simultaneously entice Rand into wanting such strength and to frighten him with Ba’alzamon’s command of it. I remember wondering on my first read how the Dark One could have use of the One Power. He can lay his taint upon the surface of saidin, and he intends to use it or destroy it when he remakes creation in his own image, but it seems unlikely that he would be able to channel it as a human, who is a part of Creation and therefore a part of the One Power just as the power that drives the Pattern is a part of them. The Dark One is the opposite of the Creator, a sort of primordial being that existed before the world, and therefore is not part of it.
Granted, there is still much for The Wheel of Time to teach me about the One Power, and there may be an explanation to these questions. Still, I have to assume that Jordan wanted the reader to start figuring out Ba’alzamon’s true identity, since he left two much more obvious clues in the end: Ba’alzamon’s wariness of Rand’s non-powered sword and Lanfear’s mention that “Ishamael thinks he controls events.” Pretty much from the beginning I’d suspected that there was something about Ba’alzamon that we didn’t know—my best guesses were either that the Dark One was using some kind of projection or that he had figured out how to possess a human. This answer is actually a lot simpler, story-telling wise, and I’m impressed that Jordan walked such a perfect line, leaving all the clues clearly there and yet always having another, logical explanation for Ba’alzamon’s words. Of course, it helps that Rand really has no idea about any of this; I’m sure he doesn’t even know that Ishamael had a personal relationship with Lews Therin.
But I am left with a new set of questions, now that I know that the man the Trollocs call Ba’alzamon is Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope. The first question is how Ishamael is protected from the taint. The rest of the Forsaken are sealed away in the Dark One’s prison, unable to touch the One Power (Aginor talks, obliquely, about how long it has been, as he stares hungrily at the door to the Eye of the World) so it never occurred to me that the male Forsaken might need to be shielded from the taint. Aginor and Balthamel died before any unshielded channeling might result in madness, but what of Ishamael? Does the Dark One protect him somehow, or is he completely off his rocker, so to speak?
The second question is about his flame eyes and mouth. I can imagine that, having lived as long as he has lived and drunk as deeply from saidin, he might have some kind of supernatural effects on his body, or perhaps these effects are from the influence of his connection to the Dark One. Of course, it’s also possible that it’s just an illusion put on for Rand’s benefit. After all, if you’re going to let people think you are the Dark One, you have to try to look the part.
Next week is going to be another retrospective, this time on Rand and how his identity in The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt is reflected in his relationship to the heron-marked blade, and the heron symbol as a whole. I’ve been really fascinated by how it has affected how people saw Rand, how it was simultaneously a tie to Tam and his old life, and a symbol of Rand becoming something else. The destruction of the sword at the end of The Great Hunt came as a big surprise to me, and I’m really interested in exploring the symbolism of that totem.
Sylas K Barret knows a little something about names, living in the names you’re given or claiming those you choose for yourself. Fortunately, he’s never tried to pass himself off as the source of all the world’s Evil, so there’s that.
Sylas – nice piece of analysis – not to say it is 100% correct. More to come on Ishmael in future books. I’m really looking forward to your thoughts on Book 3, The Dragon Reborn, which is a personal favorite and the book that confirmed my status as a fan of the Wheel of Time books.
Ooooh! So close! But I do think you’ve nailed about all that is possible to nail with the information presented in the first two books. Really well done.
In addition to how and if male Forsaken are protected from the Taint, you might also want to ask yourself that if indeed Ishamael was never bound in Shayol Ghul, by what mechanism is he still alive? We know from The Eye of the World that the Forsaken were not immortal in the sense that they do not age. Being bound kept Aginor alive, but the Wheel of Time still “grinds” him into an ancient man, and did even worse to Balthamel.
So, if Ishamael was never bound, how is he still alive? Can the Dark One grant immortality while still being imprisoned? How would he do that? If so, why did he not grant it to Balthamel and Aginor? Or is the premise that Ishamael was not imprisoned with the rest of the Forsaken flawed? Is there some other mechanism by which Ishamael was able to stay alive that we are unaware? What has he been doing for 3000 years, and why hasn’t he tried to free the Dark One again? Or has he?
This careful teasing out of history and mysteries is one of the things I love about this series. Little hints laid by the side that catch your eye and make you question your assumptions about the story and the world. For all the other things that make the wheel of time good, this is one of the ones that I like the most. I think I like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere for similar reasons (among others).
I am really enjoying following along on this read-through. Thanks for bringing us along for the ride.
Somebody remind me…//when is it first mentioned in the series that Ishy was only partially bound? I feel like it was early in the series.//
@@.-@: I think we still have a while to go for that. In fact, I’m not sure // its ever mentioned outright in the series proper. // I think it was first introduced in the // Big Book of Bad Art. //
EDIT: I just checked the old WOTFAQ that was updated post-Knife of Dreams, and I was right. There is // no direct mention of this outside of the Big Book of Bad Art. //
FURTHER EDIT: There is an oblique reference by // Moghedien in TSR Ch 46 //. So that’s definitely a reference to what you are saying, but the // mechanics and specifics // are never spelled out in the series proper.
Sylas, about the Eye of the World and Aginor…this isn’t really a spoiler, but I will white it out just in case. Feel free to look at this, though, as I don’t think it’s a major spoiler or anything: //The Eye of the World never made sense; at least, not in why Aginor so desired it. So don’t look too much into that aspect. It’s just a quirk from early Robert Jordan who hadn’t really fulled formed his world yet. There’s a lot more “mysticism” to the Power in the early novels, compared to the “hard” magic system later developed.//
DON’T call me Ishamael! All the Forsaken have issues but Ishy has subscriptions.
@6:
That’s a function of how the story was written. As designed, the first book was supposed to go through the // fall of the Stone of Tear //. I don’t know this for a fact, but it seems like the // Eye of the World // was retrofitted in to give the first book an actual ending.
@5 – Huh, that seems…odd. I guess I’ve been a part of the fandom so long that it’s just become an accepted fact without a real source. Maybe there’s a Word of Robert Jordan on it?
I usually hate what I call re-crap episodes. But Sylas, you have worked your literary charm on me. I thoroughly enjoyed this weeks column. This exploration actually makes me concerned for the tv show… If they ignore the Prologue, we miss a great introduction to the Wheel of Time… I can’t imagine where they might slide it in during the series… maybe at the start of the second season…
@9:
As I said, its in the Big Book of Bad Art, which is the big white book with all the bad artwork that Tor published in 1998, properly titled The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y5LK6B7/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
This is a book written from the perspective of a Fourth Age scholar. It is considered to be an in world document, and therefore subject to inaccuracies, which is a fancy way of saying Robert Jordan wanted to be able to backtrack on anything in this book if he needed to as the series progressed.
EDIT: If you want a summary of its contents as related to this discussion, click here.
@6 // I think I finally figured out a plot usefulness for the Eye of the World. (Whether the people creating it knew it or not) As I understand it, the Eye was a pool of Saidin that was cleansed of the taint. By finding and using this Rand learns two important things:
1. Saidin can be cleansed, he just needs to reason out a large scale method for doing all of it in one shot. (think of the Eye as a proof of concept)
2. This is what cleansed Saidin is supposed to look/feel like. (Think of the Eye as the sample home in a new development) //
Sylas, have you considered reading the prequel “Strike at Shayol Ghul”? It clears a lot of questions. ( A bucket load of info in 2 pages).
@12:
And #3: // It gave Rand a power boost, akin to the “forcing” we see Mazrim Taim do to the Asha’man in later books, all without the Taint. //
@13:
That’s a really good thing to read, but maybe not until the order it was published? It reveals things that are found in books 3-5. “The Strike at Shayol Ghul” was first published leading up to the release of Lord of Chaos in 1996. In my opinion, I don’t personally think its safe to read until after reading The Fires of Heaven.
//Embrace the power of “and.” I think Ishy was quite mad by the end of the War of Power and kinda off even before. Like a bad wine, he only got worse with age.//
@16 // I don’t know that he was mad by the end of the War of Power, but certainly by the time of Eye of the world. He seemed lucid, if evil, in the prologue. I hesitate to even say he was mad then. It’s more that he suffered physical brain deformity from True Power over use. Once he gets killed and given a new body he seems to reset back to sane, but still evil. It’s notable that while the other Forsaken seem to be punished/told they shouldn’t fail again when they are given a new body he seems to just be told to carry on about his business. His goals certainly seem to be most in line with the Dark One. //
@17:
Megalomania is a form of insanity, and Elan Morin obviously suffers from it in the Prologue. There’s crazy, and then there’s crazy.
EDIT: Holy spambots, Batman! We jumped from @17 to @67? Did the site get hit hard?
@…67(?) Yikes. No idea why #18 is displaying as #67, but we’ve let the site developers know that strange things are afoot…
@67 or 18??? // I’m sure he had suffered some damage from using the True Power for some of the 10 years of the war and that he was probably less sane than newly bodied Moridin. (I don’t think he was part of boring the hole so I’m not sure when he went to the Dark nor when the Dark One first gave him access to the true power) I’m just saying he would have been early, early stages compared to the level of insanity he had in eye of the world – dragon reborn period. //
Very impressive, Sylas. Some right, and some wrong, but much, much better than my own first read-thru. Thank you for this. I am truly enjoying seeing this story through your eyes. I very much look forward to your future posts. :)
RAFO!
@MODS
I thought maybe there were 50 unpublished comments that your spam filters had caught, but I just looked at your code, and the comment ID only increased 5. That’s a sitewide number, the comment-ID. So, It may just be a weirdness issue.
@69:
The // Bore was drilled between 100 and 50 // years before the War of Power began. // Lanfear // for certain, and likely // Ishamael //, would have gone over to the Shadow long before the // War started //. So he’d likely been // channeling the TP // for more than 10 years. Maybe many more.
@17
//“Once he gets killed and given a new body he seems to reset back to sane, but still evil.”
If you consider nihilism sane, that is….//
@73 // I do. //
I don’t have my books handy but, // at the end of The Dragon Reborn, isn’t a scrap of paper from shortly after The Breaking discovered that hints at the partial nature of Ishy’s being bound? Did Egwene find it?//
@73 // To clarify, I consider //his motivations to be the most reasonable of the Forsaken/most Darkfriends. He believes based on the information he has available that he is stuck in and endless cycle of death and resurrection and it presumably always “ends” poorly for him. I say “ends” because it doesn’t really end. It’s his wound that won’t heal. I can understand his motivation to end it all and spare himself essentially eternal torment. The Dark Ones goals legitimately seem to align with his. I have a much harder time understanding everyone else’s motivations when everything they desire seems to be the fulfillment of fairly obviously empty promises from the Dark One.
//
Note: message edited by moderator to white out potential spoilers.
@75 – Yes! That just rang a bell. I believe you are right.
@75 & 77 // Not exactly. Moraine theorizes that it was a man killed and that perhaps it was one of the first forsaken released or that he was never really bound, we may never know for sure who it was. then Egwene pipes in saying she may know that Verin showed her a book that was tough to read but mentioned Ba’alzamon and ishamael together. //
If you look closely at the history of the 3000 years between the war of power and The Eye of the World, a pretty clear pattern emerges.
@anthony Pero (#67/#18)
Well…. Ishamael is only a megalomaniac in the Prologue to The Eye of the World if you subscribe to the idea that the Dragon is the only person that is reborn at the end of every Age, and //the Nae’blis// is never reborn at all. I personally don’t subscribe to that idea, as I believe that there is a Champion of the Shadow for (almost?) //[I find it conceivable that Tamyrlin didn’t have a Shadow-counterpart, for instance]// every incarnation of the Champion of the Light, and that like the Champion of the Light the Champion of the Shadow is //for at least a portion of all occurrences// the same soul. The same soul that embodies Elan Morin Tedronai/ Ishamael / Ba’alzemon, that is.
At any rate, the mere fact that there is debate over whether Elan’s theories were correct or not means that his megalomania isn’t obvious by any means. Of course, he gains other types of megalomania by the time of The Eye of the World proper, but I concur with John@17 in that the only thing present in the EotW Prologue that could conceivably qualify as megalomania is Elan’s insistence that he represents an equal-but-opposite to the Dragon. And again, that’s only megalomania if you don’t believe him.
I know this is one of the hardest things to do in life, which is why I’m not blaming you in the slightest for faltering at it in this instance, but still I would like to remind you, as kindly as I can (I hope), that one should be careful in not confusing one’s own interpretation of the facts with the actual facts-as-presented. Saying “Depending on how you view his words, Ishamael is already a megalomaniac in the EotW Prologue.” is preferable to going with “Ishamael is clearly already a megalomaniac in the EotW Prologue.”, is essentially what I’m saying.
@austin (#6) and others
Wasn’t the use of the Eye of the World for the Forsaken that there was enough raw saidin in there to permanently break open the Dark One’s Prison, thus them getting to it having the potential of releasing ole’ Shai’ty once and for all, winning what I shall refer to as “the War of the Wheel” for the Shadow?
@80:
Oh, I feel pretty confident in a diagnosis of megalomania. It doesn’t really matter whether he is correct or not. That doesn’t factor in.
I didn’t feel I was presenting it as a “fact,” considering that, by definition, a psychological diagnosis is an opinion. Its not like you can stick a needle in him, run some labs, and say “Yep! He’s contracted megalomania!” These are soft sciences we are discussing. There is no proof, only opinions, however educated they might be.
But if needed, I will tag on a disclaimer to all my future comments that all interpretations of any given topic (even ones that might be stated without any additional qualifications) are strictly my own and don’t constitute the thoughts or opinions of the author, the OP, or the internet at large.
@81 – No. That was just another source of saidin. It did not grant a magical ability to draw more from it than regular saidin. In fact, Aginor burned himself out trying to outdraw Rand. So Rand, or whoever, would be no more capable of ripping open the prison than would a regular saidin channeler.
Congratulations, Sylas! Through observation, dedication, and demonstration of sound reasoning, we hereby grant you the rank of purple belt in WoT Kwan Do.
This essay is very well written and overall pretty accurate. I have to admit I’m impatient for you to get to book 3 though… the best is yet to come.
@85:
I’m enjoying this series and want to move on as well, but there are certain points in the story that recontextualize everything that comes before it. I would certainly enjoy hearing Sylas’ reaction to them, as we got here.
Sylas and Tor — If Sylas has the time, maybe we could go to twice per week on the recaps? Like we used to do with Leigh, before she started the Song of Ice and Fire re-read?
//Did someone balefire the comment thread?//
//Verin shows Eg a paper that hints at Ishy’s identity when she gives her the dream ring. At the end of the book Eg figures it out.//
At least now we can say Ishy instead of having to type Ba’alzamon.
@87 // Nice. That explains the gap quite neatly. I wonder what I said :P//
@87:
As near as I can tell, I posted comment 67 about a minute after comment 17 was posted, so its just a glitch.
“It would make sense if there was [a “dark dragon”], a human who serves as the Dark One’s hand and a human who serves as the Creator’s, but you would think that there would be some knowledge of such a relationship outside of what Ishamael has said.”
I’ve always been curious on Ishamael’s knowledge, on this issue in particular. Of course it’s possible that the DO gave Ishy some knowledge that’s outside of anything human kind otherwise knows, but I always read Ishy’s //nihilism (not certain if his motivations are really a spoiler)// as driven by his arrogance: He figured out the whole endless cycle of the Wheel that //has to eventually end in the DO’s release//, and so he must be one of the most important players, an equal-opposite of LTT/the Dragon. But the Ishamael we see is still one man, from a particular weaving of the wheel – he’s only Elan Morin Tedronai. We see hints of other dragons from previous ages in the text, and prophecy concerning the Dragon’s rebirth, but nothing but Ishy’s opinion on his own importance. //The fact that he ends up with central importance to defeating the DO is a counter-point, but it didn’t have to be anyone special; anyone channeling the True Power could have played that role.//
On another note, this is really impressive detective work. I personally had no idea about the Dark One/Ba’alzamon/Ishamael distinction until //the next book//, and it’s really cool picking up on all the clues in re-reads. It’s really cool to see Sylas putting it all together so well. There’s one key component missing, but there aren’t really good clues for that in the two books so far. I can’t wait to read what comes next!
Excellent reasoning, as always! You are correct on some counts and not quite there on other counts. I can’t wait to see the adjustment to the theory as time goes by.
As for others about the importance of the Eye of the World, it served to:
1) protect the contents located at the bottom of it (the Horn, the Seal, & the Dragon Banner)
2) it was placed in the Green Man’s gardens so that only those that did not want to use it could find it (and the whole need thing)
3) it was a large source of untainted Saidin for the Dragon Reborn to use and have access to.
The characters in WoT refer to the effects of the Taint as “madness,” but they do not correspond to any real-world psychiatric disorders. // Nynaeve heals an affected person and sees the effects as similar to Compulsion. I think this is a better description of the phenomenon – it allows the Dark One to directly influence the thoughts and actions of the afflicted channeler. Ishmael is insane in the conventional sense, but he is not affected by this Compulsion. //
@92:
You are right to say that taint-madness doesn’t correspond to any single affliction. Nor is it meant to. There are all kinds of symptoms given. One person // sees spiders all over him when he channels. // That’s a // hallucination //. Others are shown presenting with // extreme paranoia //. I personally believe that // Rand’s “taint sickness” // was actually meant to be his madness presenting.
Its not a single affliction, its // random issues with the mind //. Like, playing a cosmic game of // “spin the wheel of taint madness symptoms.” //
@93 – Wasn’t //Rand’s// madness //Lews Therin’s voice?// At least, that’s what he thinks. It’s in one of the last two books. He thinks it’s ironic that the taint let //him integrate with Lews Therin.//
@94:
He did think that. And // Semirhage // — if she can be trusted — said that very rarely people who // hear voices are hearing the voices of a past life //. But she was not talking about the Taint. How could she be? She was // sealed // before the Taint occurred, and would have had no chance to study it in enough subjects to be sure of anything since she awoke.
So, what that does tell us is that people who were mad in the // AoL (not from Taint sickness, just regular old mad) would sometimes hear voices //. And sometimes those // voices // were of their // past lives //.
What I think happened is that // Lews Therin’s memories started leaking through (RJ has said the memories leaked through because of the Taint, or something very similar), and Rand couldn’t deal with them. It scared him. So his subconscious started shoving them into another voice. Then the Box happened, and he had a full on dissociative break, and instead of just being a voice, the Lews Therin in Rand’s head became a full on persona that Rand could speak to.
Then, during the climactic scene of The Gathering Storm, Rand channeled to Dragonmount, had his mountaintop experience, and reintegrated the two personas (Rand al’Thor and Lews Therin) into a single persona who had the memories of each. //
@95 – That was the best theory about that situation that I’ve ever read. Well done!
@96:
I doubt I came up with it on my own. I’ve been part of this community since back in the RAWSF-RJ days, so lots of people’s ideas have formed my own. But thank you anyway.
Sylas, You mention that because Moiraine says that something is true, then it is true. I am curious. What leads you to make this statement? I am not saying you are wrong or right. Your answer to this question may help you answer some other points you raised in your post this week. In considering this question, you should re-read the chapter in TGH where Moiraine is visiting the two older Aes Sedai sisters.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
Fantastic analysis Sylas. So many good questions too. RAFO. Btw, here is something else for you to ponder if you missed it while making your theory. Focus on Ba’alzamon’s response. There is a pretty strong hint there. From The Great Hunt, chapter 41:
the comments going from 17 to 67 is nothing but a // bubble of evil // lol
@97 — actually, it was RASFW-RJ, not RAWSF-RJ. It was the first online community of any kind that I was ever a part of, starting in… 1996 or 1997 I guess?
I don’t have a copy of TEOTW handy at the moment, but I seem to recall that one major piece of the puzzle that Sylas is missing can be found there. //At the climax of the book, doesn’t Rand cut Ishamael’s cord to the Dark One that protects him from the taint on Saidin?//
The one big problem I have with the audiobooks of the series is that they don’t include the glossaries, which just have so much information in them which isn’t available anywhere else in the text. It’s definitely something that a lot of readers can skip over and ignore — //like in Leigh’s original readthrough of Towers of Midnight, where she didn’t read the glossary and thus didn’t know that “Who killed Asmodean?” had been answered.//
The very very very obvious clue about Ishamael that Sylas picked up on from the prologue to the Eye of the World — that Ishamael was physically there with Lews Therin, even after the Dark One’s prison had been sealed, and thus he couldn’t have been sealed the same way the other Foresaken were — was something that I just did not pick up on at all on first reading. Of course, the Eye of the World prologue also contains another key to something that Sylas hasn’t picked up on because he doesn’t have enough information yet — //namely, that Ishamael doesn’t use Saidin, but rather the True Power. Reading the Eye of the World after you’ve read through, say, Lord of Chaos, it becomes clear that the type of Travelling Ishamael uses is not the type of Travelling via Gateway performed by One Power users. Of course, we don’t actually see True Power Travelling to know it for what it is until Hessalam uses it in A Memory of Light, and we don’t actually see Travelling again of any sort until Rand and Asmodean use Skimming in The Shadow Rising, so there’s no possible way to know that there was anything hinky about Ishamael’s Travelling at this point.//
Also, @@.-@, with respect to //Ishamael only being partially bound — while the details are only explicitly stated in the big white book, it’s right there in The Eye of the World — Padan Fain talks about how two years before he had had to go to Shayol Ghul to speak to Ba’alzamon, and then how he had been able to appear as a flickering shadow outside of Shadar Logoth, and then he’s able to appear physically as himself by the end of The Eye of The World.//
@hassanbh: Oooh I knew I was forgetting something! I had that quote in the back of my head and then I forgot to go look for it. Someone has a sense of humor, doesn’t he? I love it.
@101, that puzzle piece you’re talking about is mixing two different events. In TEOTW, Rand sees //black cords. That gives him the idea of cutting Asmo’s cord in Rhuidean //
Note: message edited by moderator to white out potential spoiler.
@87 –
Not that I ever had occasion to, but we could all have just typed “Ballsy” instead of “Ba’alzamon”.
@103 Lillian — I just picked up my copy of Eye of the World, here it is in chapter //51:
@101, @103, @105
//The black cords are connected to the Dark One and are the means by which it siphons off the taint from saidin for its Chosen followers to use. But Ishamael had the cords for 3000 years presumably, and they didn’t stop him from going mad with power, which is presumably either because he was partially bound, or from his excessive and exclusive use of the True Power. Nothing to do with the taint on saidin.
Also, severing the black cords is not permanent. Yes, Rand severs the cords in tEotW, but then at the end of TDR, he sees that Ishamael has the black cords again. And Rand severs them, again, before killing Ishamael… again, for real. So clearly the Dark One can reattach the cords if he so wishes. Perhaps all it has to do is snap its fingers to reattach the cords, or perhaps it involves some eldritch rite that can only be done at Shayol Ghul. We know that Rand severed Asmodean’s cords, and Asmo did NOT get them reattached, but that was either because Asmo was betraying the Dark One by teaching Rand and the Dark One was not inclined to restore that protection, or because they black cords couldn’t be restored except at the Pit of Doom.
Also, @103, you did not white out the words “black cords” which you should probably do, because that is pointing at a puzzle piece that Sylas has not picked up on yet. Self-flagging for Mods.//
@101:
What can I say? I have fat fingers. :)
That’s not something you CAN pick up on without circling back and re-reading. Because you don’t have enough understanding of what that scene is for quite a while.
RE: Ishamael being bound
What you state only means that // Ishamael was the first Forsaken released. // Which happened around the time of the events of // New Spring //. It doesn’t mean he was // never bound //, nor does it say anything at all regarding the // cycle of binding // that he actually went through.
RE: The severing of black cords at the end of the Eye of The World.
As others have said, that just means the // Dark One had to reattach them // . And, it wouldn’t matter anyway, because Ishamael // uses the TP exclusively // throughout the series. He has never // channeled saidin // that we know of since the Taint happened. You don’t // go mad if you don’t channel //. Of course, channeling the // TP // is like drinking directly from the sewer. Its not tainted water, its // what’s tainting the water //. Using the // TP // drives you mad much, much, much // faster than using saidin //.
@106:
This is largely true, with the added complicator that // Asmodean knew the other Forsaken would kill him before he ever reached Shayol Ghul to explain himself. Ishamael didn’t have that problem. Asmodean was the weakest member of the pack of hyenas, and they would have turned on him given this excuse. There was no way for him to get to Shayol Ghul either. He didn’t have the strength left to make a gateway, and would have had to go on land, through the Borderland and the Blight, with almost no ability to channel. His ownly protection from his own side was Rand. //
@107: With respect to the //black cords//, my point was that Sylas is asking //about the process of the Dark One protecting male Forsaken from the Taint, and we’ve already seen how that works, through the black cords in The Eye of The World, and we already have knowledge from there that that connection can be severed, since it was done to Ishamael, although of course it was presumably later fixed.//
@108:
We don’t know that’s what the // black cords // are for until much later. Even if someone were to guess what they do at this point, that’s all they are doing. Guessing.
Really fantastic analysis, Sylas!
Regarding Ishy’s madness, given that he is //possibly mistaken about his cyclic/cosmic importance, I would say that is where his insanity lies. I think this got discussed in a previous thread, but it seems like the general timeline of events was (and I had to look these up on a wot wiki to keep it all straight) – he published various esoteric works that seem to point to some kind of meaningless existence, but that’s not really the same as being insane. When the DO was unleashed from the bore, he basically adopted a ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ attitude since in his view the infinite turnings of the wheel meant the DO would eventually win. I’m not sure if that counts as ‘insane’ either, as opposed to just morally flawed, and perhaps not as smart as he thought he was At some point after that he ended up adopting the belief he was part of this same cyclic/cosmic battle and thus sought oblivion. THAT could certianly be a form of delusion brought about either by the TP or his being bound.
The wiki I was looking at says this, although I can’t vouch for how trustworthy it is, or where it was confirmed: “Despite the fact that he appears to be the only human being with the same strength in the One Power as the Dragon, it is not known whether there is any truth to his belief. It has been confirmed however that his soul and that of the Dragon are often spun into the Pattern together.” I do think it would be interesting to know what the ‘Wheel of Time’ story would be in other turnings of the wheel :)
And speaking of the TP – I know that Beidomon/Mierin recognize it as a power that both male and female can use (and we know that IS the case, it’s just obviously not a beneovlent power) – but was there intended symbolism in the fact that the ‘evil’ power is..well, is it both genders, or is it no gender? The only thing I can think of is that it perhaps it doesn’t have the ‘working togeher/balance’ aspect that the OP is supposed to have in which the greatest things are created with both halves working together, and instead is just raw power. Given the time it was written, I doubt RJ was really thinking of concepts of people identifying as agender/genderfluid etc which are much more widely talked about now. //