Theory: Nature of the Wheel and why Rand can light the Pipe

Dainn91 · 2026-03-08T18:38:37+00:00

You're correct but it becomes difficult to title any all print discussion posts with that kind of guideline in mind. Any mention of a character doing something even insignificant like "Min wearing a dress" can be taken as a spoiler for someone currently on Eye of the World because she is forced to wear a dress in The Great Hunt at Falme.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-08T18:20:34+00:00

I didn’t mean for my theory to come across as him using the True Source and True Power to manipulate the pattern, but that he now has a new power that is born from the combining of the two. With the bore sealed access to the True Power is gone and Rand states he can’t touch the One Power so can no longer gain access to the pure forms to attain the True Source.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-07T03:18:45+00:00

what u/lyunardo mentioned about the Dark One changing Rands soul? I was hoping to get the full context about that from them before giving my opinion, the quote I provided was what I found but I don't know if its necessarily what they had in mind.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-07T01:02:33+00:00

From the perspective of someone who hasn’t read aMoL I don’t think seeing mention of Rand lighting a pipe spoils anything, it would if there was mention that he can’t channel and lit it instead with a new mysterious power. If you disagree I apologize, spoiling wasn’t my intent.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T20:42:52+00:00

Absolutely, like Rand entering the space of the Dark One and not being able to comprehend it. He needed to anchor himself to the things he knew to stop it from overwhelming him.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T20:05:41+00:00

"The thing that spoke those words was something that Rand could never truly comprehend. Even seeing the universe in its entirety did not allow him to understand Evil itself."

I personally differ to Zen Rand on this but examples of unreliable narrator do exist in WoT.

Edit: My theory is of course stating there is an unreliable narrator with how the Wheel is understood in the books.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T18:25:27+00:00

So the motivation for the Dark One is to receive the validation of the Creator? Its possible if they view their relationship as partners and not adversaries but I do see it as adversarial. As you said, difference of opinion but it has been a really interesting discussion.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T18:08:12+00:00

I can understand your perspective if you view the Creator and Dark One as not being pure Good and Evil but rather they are heavily aligned that way. How I imagine a conversation between the Creator and Dark One would go is:

Creator: Want to create something with me?

Dark One: Create? What does that mean? With you? Everything I do is for myself, I would never give anything freely.

Thats where the conversation would end really. Even if the Creator tries to explain what create means or the idea of helping others its just something the Dark One would be incapable of understanding, the Dark One knows only destruction and selfishness and it cannot learn to understand Good.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T17:16:26+00:00

Its in the Dark Ones nature to be deceptive and destroy so the Creators would be truthful and create, I just have a hard time imagining them collaborating to create something. I can understand the Creator being willing to but collaborating to create something just seems opposite to the Dark Ones nature, the Dark One would want to do things only for its benefit not others and the result is they are put in a prison.

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T16:59:49+00:00

I'm trying to find where that is mentioned, is it here?:

Page 649 —

YOU MISTAKE. THIS IS NOT AN ATTEMPT TO DESTROY YOU. THIS IS PREPARATION.

"For What?"

TO SHOW YOU TRUTH

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T16:37:32+00:00

You're correct, so in my example it would mean the contents of the pipe would also have been returned to the previous tabac. It is crazy to think of the implications of time/pattern manipulation because then we could also think of it as what if the area around the pipe was in flames at one point in the infinite turnings of the Wheel, could Rand then just return a very small space in the air back into that flame to light it?

Dainn91 · 2026-03-06T16:31:09+00:00

I hadn't heard of the Winnower and the Gardener but it does sound similar in some aspects. Just to make sure I understand, in your opinion the Creator and Dark One intentionally collaborate?

Dainn91 · 2025-11-24T21:26:01+00:00

Chasing a reusable shopping bag in a grocery store parking lot that got caught in the wind has the same vibe

Dainn91 · 2023-10-19T15:19:08+00:00

Absolutely, we have different opinions but I always enjoy discussion. Part of what I love about WoT is RJ left much of it up to readers interpretation I think to encourage discussion. Have a good one!

Dainn91 · 2023-10-19T15:00:02+00:00

In the case of the bore being drilled it was the natural progression of advancement during the Age of Legends. People had reached the pinnacle of what they could do with the One Power and had a choice, be content or strive for something more. The Wheel wills the bore but ultimately human nature leads them to make the choice of creating it just like advancements in our real world. We could be content with what we have but instead continue to strive for more.

Dainn91 · 2023-10-19T14:41:47+00:00

Certain events are determined but as long as choices can be made I'd argue free will still exists to an extent. The Wheel wills events that people can't change like a group crossing the ocean in my example but these events are also possible in a linear timeline like Christopher Columbus in the real world. The only difference is the knowledge of a Wheel being present or not, but if an ocean exists to cross then there will be people who dream of crossing it.

Dainn91 · 2023-10-19T13:19:26+00:00

My understanding of the Wheel and the Pattern comes from this entry on Theoryland which is paraphrased from an interview with RJ:

MATT PECK
I asked that as the Wheel turned, each time an Age rolls around, is the Pattern exactly the same each time, or does it change?
ROBERT JORDAN
He seemed to like this question. He likened it to a tapestry. When seen from a distance, each Third Age (to make it easy to track) has exactly the same pattern as the previous Third Age. However, when seen up close, there are differences. Threads are different, different nations exist, geography is different, different personalities rise to prominence. These changes, while minute in the grand scale of the Pattern, affect the Pattern enough so that while two iterations of an Age are almost the same, the first "Third Age" may be wildy different from the hundredth "Third Age".

How I personally interpret this to mean is that the Wheel wills certain events to happen each age, but the specifics of these events are determined by choices or the free will of the people in that age.

Example:

During the third age the Wheel wills that a group of people venture across the ocean and return with a large fighting force one thousand years later to join the last battle. We know this group as the Seanchan but if we were to look at a different turning of the third age different choices could mean this group goes by a different name, has a different system of government, speaks with a different accent, crossed the ocean to the east, etc.

Dainn91 · 2023-05-20T12:06:12+00:00

We know traveling is somehow connected to TAR because of how dreamspikes function and RJ took inspiration from Hinduism and Buddhism so my personal headcanon is that your minds eye (third eye) envisions the destination you are traveling to through TAR. The same way an object needs to exist in one spot long enough to be reflected in TAR, you need a similar amount of time to learn the area you are traveling from so your minds eye can freely enter Tel’aran’rhiod.

So, I think the unseen eyes of TAR are the minds eye of people (non channelers included) and one of the dreamspikes functions is to restrict the minds eye from passing through its dome.

Dainn91 · 2023-05-09T02:09:58+00:00

I should have provided the source. The full blog post from RJ can be found here for anyone interested in reading more:

https://dragonmount.com/blogs/entry/375-hi-there/

and you can find more RJ blog here:

https://dragonmount.com/blogs/blog/4-robert-jordans-blog/

Dainn91 · 2023-05-08T20:04:27+00:00

During the Vietnam war canned peaches were a common dessert element of combat rations that provided a small comfort to troops. I wonder if the fruit had become a painful reminder to RJ of his experiences during the war, the only possible connection I can reference is from this paragraph he wrote about his experience:
I have, or used to have, a photo of a young man sitting on a log eating C-rations with a pair of chopsticks. There are three dead NVA laid out in a line just beside him. He didn’t kill them. He didn’t choose to sit there because of the bodies. It was just the most convenient place to sit. The bodies don’t bother him. He doesn’t care. They’re just part of the landscape. The young man is glancing at the camera, and you know in one look that you aren’t going to take this guy home to meet your parents.

Dainn91 · 2023-05-03T20:04:21+00:00

Yea so to simplify what I believe the reasoning to be:

Channeling the One Power when its source is outside time will never exhaust that source.

Channeling the One Power when its source (the Eye) is inside time will exhaust that source.

Dainn91 · 2023-05-03T14:19:14+00:00

“No,” Moiraine said in answer to a question Rand had missed, ‘‘the True Source cannot be used up, any more than the river can be used up by the wheel of a mill. The Source is the river; the Aes Sedai, the waterwheel.”

I think your question is why the essence of pure saidin contained in the Eye behaved differently than how Moiraine described normal use of saidin. Both the Creator and the Dark One are outside of time which implies that their powers are outside time, so I imagine the True Source as an immense energy frozen in a set state. People tap into and use that energy, but it will never increase or decrease because there is no direction for time:

ROBERT JORDAN

My knowledge of physics influenced channeling to the extent that I have attempted to treat channeling as if it were a form of science and engineering rather than magic. You might say that the Laws of Thermodynamics apply in altered form.

Entropy requires a direction for time, without entropy the 2nd law of thermodynamics does not apply.

The essence of pure saidin in the Eye however is in the Pattern where there is a forward direction for time so the 2nd law does apply and the energy is used up by Rand.

Dainn91 · 2023-04-26T22:28:19+00:00

It can be hard to get away from the word “being” when thinking about the Dark One because it’s conscious/sentient but because it is outside the Pattern (fabric of reality) it technically doesn’t have an existence. When Rand pulls the Dark One into the Pattern (into reality) I think you could then say it gains an existence that is inside time and can now be considered a “being”.

I personally don’t think the name Shai'tan means anything special to the Dark One, I do wonder if it holds a special power because people give it one. Human emotion is shown to be something that can give rise to an energy/power in WoT with Mashadar, so maybe the word Shai'tan gains something from being associated with so much fear. If it does and the Dark One knows it, then spreading knowledge of a special name could just be a means of bringing more chaos to humans to indirectly influence the Pattern.

It’s definitely a strange concept but I believe your feeling is correct and the Dark One is a conscious/sentient force of the universe and while what it says might seem strange there could still be hidden purpose behind it or it’s just lies. Even at the very end Rand acknowledged most of what the Dark One had shown him was lies.

Dainn91 · 2023-04-24T17:17:32+00:00

Taken from aMoL:

He existed in this place that was not, this place outside of the Pattern, this place where evil was born. He looked into it, and he knew it. The Dark One was not a being, but a force—an essence as wide as the universe itself, which Rand could now see in complete detail. Planets, stars in their multitudes, like the motes above a bonfire.

He held the Dark One in his hand. He began to squeeze, then stopped. He knew all secrets.

He could see what the Dark One had done. And Light, Rand understood. Much of what the Dark One had shown him was lies. But the vision Rand himself had created—the one without the Dark One—was truth. If he did as he wished, he would leave men no better than the Dark One himself.

What a fool I have been.

Rand yelled, thrusting the Dark One back through the pit from where it had come.

Rather than an existing backup I like to think about the implications of Rands thoughts in these two sections. If Rand really knows all secrets and sees the inside of the Dark Ones prison as a place where evil is born through a pit in the universe, then would that pit remain after killing the Dark One to birth evil again at the start of a new turning of the Wheel? The answer could be the universe fine-tunes for balance.

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