The Shadow

Q: Will we be getting more glimpses into the DO prison as we go? 
A: The prison: maybe.

Q: I was wondering if the Dark One is ever going to be manifested into a single person, and was also wondering where you went to college? 
A: I graduated from The Citadel and, for the rest, read and find out! That is neither to say yes nor nor; just read and find out. 

Q: Greetings! From Rand's Rhuidean vision: If the sharom is the D.O.'s prison, 
A: But it isn't. The sharom and the collam dann are a university/research center. Or were. 
Q: why would it be floating in on place above a city and not in some transcendent plain? Ah Didn't Rand see it there? Also, did Mierin *i to createthe bore? (we seem to be out of synch!
A: In part, yes. Not alone. 

Q: Mr. Jordan, you've outdone yourself with Crown of Swords. My question concerns the True Power. How is it distinguishable from the One Power? 
A: It's fairly self-evident from the book. What can be done with the True Power is very similar to what can be done with the One Power. Except that where the One Power is drawn from the True Source and is the force that drives the Wheel of Time and powers the universe, the so-called True Power is drawn from the Dark One. There are limits in the same ways there are limits to the One Power. It would be very long if I went into it too much, but some of those limits and costs of drawing on the Dark One are shown in CROWN OF SWORDS.

Q: Was Mat right about the "snakelike" guy being a Gholam, and if so, are we to assume that the bad guys are going to have as much trouble stopping one as the good guys? 
A: I guess he was right. Because after all, his source for the information was Birgitte, who has some memories of the War of the Power. And yes, if a gholam decided to turn against one of the Forsaken the Forsaken would certainly have as much difficulty in stopping the attack as any other person would. They were, after all, created for the sole purpose of assassinating Aes Sedai.

Q: And also is the Dark One the only source of the True Power? 
A: Yes, the Dark One is the only source of the True Power.

Q: We know of high ranking darkfriends among the Aes Sedai and Whitecloaks. Is it safe to assume that there's one placed near each of the ta'veren as well?
A: Gee guys, read and find out! 

Q: How was the Dark One created, i.e. is he a fallen angel, an inherent part of the universe, etc.? 
A: I envision the Dark One as being the dark counterpart, the dark balance if you will, to the creator carrying on the theme, the ying yang, light dark, necessity of balance theme that has run through the books... it's somewhat manichian i know, but I think it works. 

Q: Are there limits to the Dark One's power besides: inability to reincarnate balefired people, and his imprisonment.
A: Read and find out! Obviously, there are some limits or he simply would have ripped the prison open and done as he wanted to do. With an absolutely powerful character, there is no story, or at least the story goes "it shall be as I will it to be, " he said, and so it was..the end. That's the whole story.

Q: Was the Dark Prophecy in THE GREAT HUNT (Now the Great Lord comes...) a real prophecy, or was it a taunt? 
A: Read and find out.

Q: What do you think the chances are that perhaps by the end of the series, the Dark Lord will face Rand? Would there be an actual, awesome battle? I just liked to say, Mr. Jordan, you rock. 
A: Well, thank you very much, I try! And as far as the other, read and find out. If I tell you guys everything up front, you're going to say, "Jeez, there's no reason to read the book, we know it already!"

Q: You once said that all the info needed for solving Asmo was there by the end of tFoH. Does this eliminate a Gholam from being a suspect? It's generally believed that a gholam was responsible for the murder of Lord Barthanes in TGH and the two black sisters in TSR, but I don't think it mentions a name. 
A: Read and find out. Read And Find Out.

Q: When Rand takes Verin and the others through a portal stone in <The Great Hunt>, at the end of each life he heres "I have won again Lews Therin". I thought that if the DO won even once the wheel would be broken and therfor the Dragon would not be reborn again. How could the DO have won before to be able to say "again"? 
A: There are degrees of victory. The Dark One can acheive victory by breaking free, but can also acheive lesser victories. Such as by stopping the Dragon Reborn from doing other things he was born to do. It isn't as simple as him being born to fight The Dark One. It's never simple.

Q: Ask how it was that Moggy got to SG intstantly...was it the DO using his twisty powers or was it a function of being all a dream. 
A: It was a dream. Moggy, by the way, used to be an investments counciler until the FTC got on her case.

Q: And for fun ask whether Ogier can be friends of the dark 
A: RAFO.

Q: Why doesn't somebody just BF the DO? 
A: The quantity necessary would destroy the world. 

Q: What are those black threads on the male Forsaken? 
A: RAFO

Q: Umm, we were wondering if you had to take someone down into the PoD to make them into a Grey Man, you know, 'cause it seems so similar to mind trapping someone. 
A: Yes...at least that's the way I've always thought of it. It's not easy to remove someone's soul.

Q: First off thanks for joining us on the chat. To settle a dispute on our mailing list I would like to know if the gholam works the same way as Mat's medallion? Can it be killed by lightning or any such thing?
A: Read and find out. The principle is the same, but it doesn't work in the same way as Mat's medallion.

Q: Is there any way to escape a mindtrap other than death?
A: To be released, you can be released from it.

Q: Has a Gholam ever been in Caemlyn?
A: Read and find out!

Q: How does Mat's medallion damage the Gholam? Also, what significance to the Seanchan does his spear have?
A: Laughing... Read and Find out. If I tell you you get bored with the new books!

Q: Where are the Trollocs? I miss them.
A: Read and find out! They're coming.

Q: In The Great Hunt, you showed us Trayal, the Ogier without a soul. And he could still walk. Barely, but he could still walk. So, the body retains some skill without the soul. How.. how's that.. divided?
A: Think of it as.. ah, as what is autonomic, nervous-system really, autonomic nerve reflexes. You still breathe, you still move, but I would not... I would not ask him to play the flute.
Q: Language skills?
A: Ehm.. no.
Q: Absolutely nothing at all?
A: Absolutely nothing. Unless it's done in the form of a Gray Man. Which is a voluntary ahh.. rejection of your own soul. In that case, there are other skills, higher function. That's a matter of making a deal with the Dark One, and there are other prices to be paid from that.
(Yup, that was me again. Olver-Cain suddenly begins to look dim to me.)

Q: What happens to the soul of someone when he becomes a Gray Man. Is his thread removed from the Pattern, or are threads and souls different things alltogether?
A: Err, they are... Oh, uhm, no, it is gone. It is gone. And it ceases to exist in any form that you could of as real.
Q: So threads and souls are the same thing
Err, not the same thing, but they must coexist. The thread can be removed; you die in this world. You die and the soul remains to come again and begin another thread. The soul disappears from this Gray Man, it's gone. Think of the Dark One as having eaten it. It's a fiction, but a convenient fiction for the moment.
The thread of the Gray Man remains until the Gray Man dies, physically.
Q: And the rest of the Shadowspawn?
What? Do they have souls you mean?
Q: Yeah, and how do their threads work.
The threads work in the way, in the same way that the thread of any living thing works. It is part of the Pattern. They are not outside of the Pattern. Neither are the Forsaken. But the Pattern in a thing that is open, that's change. It is not a matter of the lives being forced necessarily. It's wide, you have the Pattern, the Heroes that are bound to the Wheel, they're not always heroes in the way of someone who rides in galloping with a sword, or carries out daring rescues. The people, the Heroes who are bound to the Wheel, are the corrective mechanisms. Human behaviour is throwing the Pattern out. It's throwing the balance off. And the Wheel spins out the proper correctives. Put everything back in the balace. So not even the Forsaken are apart from that, they're not outside. The only things that are outside are the Creator and the Dark One. Neither affected by the Pattern.

Q: Do Myrddraal blades flash blue lightning regardless of the blades they strike? Or does it require a power wrought blade? If so, why do the two Fades fighting in the Stone make the flashes?
A: myrdraal blades produce the blue lightning only when the strike their own kind of blade or a blade wrought with the OP not simple steel

Q: If a Fades blade will not produce lighting except against other Thakandar wrought blades, and power-wrought blades, Why do Thom's daggers produce it when he attacks the Fade at Whitebridge?
A: thoms daggers did not produce the effect. It was produced before thom reached the fade.

Q: Have you ever thought about reinstituting some of the old ideas from earlier books? For example, in "The Dragon Reborn" you had a situation with thirteen dark sisters and thirteen Myrdral to forceably convert someone to the darker side of things. It seems you have abandoned that. Do you think you might have something like that pop up again at some unexpected moment? It doesn't seem realistic for the black ajah to abandon the idea
A: I have not abandoned this notion about a circle of 13 AS and 13 Myrddraal can convert someone to the Shadow. It is not an easy situation to set up, in fact its a very difficult situation to set up. It has to be worth the effort, you don't go to all of this effort to just convert anyone. In fact it might be better for your plans to manipulate someone against their will than as a willing ally.

Reports from signings

 Tell us about the blight: Blight: you can not enter it from TAR because it is apart from NORMAL UNIVERSE and can not be touched. The Blight is not part of the normal universe. Ask about the Blight. If it is not reflected in T'A'R, why does the GLotD have so much power over T'A'R, the Wheel and reincarnation? see above. 

On the question on the "alignment" of the characters, he said that there are no completely good character in the books, as he thought such a character would be completely boring (right - Galad is boring! - my comment), and would probably be killed rather quickly, like other fully good persons in the world. He took Jesus as example of this. Instead, every person struggles with the good and bad sides of his/her personality. Another point he pressed was that "noone's going to rescue you", there are not going to happen any miracles. The Creator shaped the world and set the rules, but does not interfer. Humankind messed things up, and have to fix it too, as well as finding the truth themselves.

Machin Shin eats the souls _and_ memories of the people it catches.

Fel was killed because somebody thought he might reveal too much. 

Balefire: I'm right.  (This was my question) What this means is, if someone is Balefire, the Dark One can't reincarnate them.  But they CAN be spun back out into the wheel as normal.  Balefire is NOT the eternal death of the soul.  He also made a comment to the effect that even in the absence of balefire, there may be circumstances where the Dark One cannot bring someone back.  There was a long line, so I didn't press.

KuraFire asked about... I don't precisely remember what Kura asked. Oh, but I do. Doing Nogling a favor, he talked about Ishamael's belief that Rand had fought him for time without end, and asked if it was perhaps not Rand's goal to take on the DO, but to only take on the DO's Nae'blis. Jordan gleefully answered "Read And Find Out."
 

Raina's Hold / Thus Spake The Creator - Index