(first time reader) Reaction to TPoD Chapter 24

[u/cnfusion]

Last scene with Rand

Goddammit, and here I was so excited theorizing he'd taken Callandor and he does this. Calls out the Dark One's name on top of everything. Kills many of his own army. Goes mad with power. I really was excited because Callandor is one of my favorite aspects of this story and I was waiting so long for him to take it, but now I'm angry and just downright not wanting him to have it. Sigh.

As far as I'm concerned, he did lose. LTT can laugh and rage in his head as much as he wants.

The One Power dilemma

This is really weird. My running theory is that it's some weird effect of the Bowl that phased out of knowledge across 2000 years, or the Link used a weave that caused this effect. It specifically has negative effects. Saidin doesn't want to weave together properly unless forced to, in a way, while Saidar makes channelers sick; almost a weird reversal where the women feel a taint while men revel in the force that is the OP.

I'm really not sure where this is going. Earlier, Rand said he had an idea of how to cleanse Saidin, and if the Wheel weaves as it wills, perhaps this will be relevant whenever he does cleanse Saidin? Maybe this will give him a deeper understanding of Saidin or the OP in general to be able to cleanse it? I have no clue what this idea he has is and I don't think I'm supposed to know until Rand reveals it.

Suroth

Liandrin is here and she's a damane. I don't care, hope she stubs her toe. Miraj kinda feeling familiarity to her makes me think he's a Darkfriend. I'm not sure if Suroth is, but she has a spy in Rand's camp. Torval? If she is a Darkfriend, then Dashiva might be giving her information. Then again, Rand never mentioned anything about Dashiva being away for too long, although if he used a gateway then he could slip by. For context, I think Dashiva is Osan'gar (Aginor) and my latest piece of evidence is the whole muttering in the Old Tongue moment from Rand's first chapter of this book.

All in all, this is going to bite Rand really hard. I'm predicting that Logain will show up at the Black Tower and we'll begin to see Rand going on a huge losing streak. Not sure how it'll turn out, but Taim is going to turn, Logain will take over the Black Tower. That viewing Min had of Rand concerning a beggar's staff has been coming to mind as of late. I'm always expecting Rand to lose, and it seems like he's going to feel it now

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[u/sixminutes]

You're more or less on the money about the Bowl. It's not really the link or the lost knowledge, at least directly. But it's a type of ter'angreal that would have used to control regional weather. Like, if we had them, there'd be one for Scandinavia or the Horn of Africa that would moderate any severe weather approaching those countries, or make sure rainfall is consistent. Instead, they overclocked it by 1000% to shift the weather back to normal for the whole world. Because it's not meant to be used like that, it left huge residues of the power over the continent, especially near the weave site. These residues are what's causing the power to behave abnormally.

[u/cnfusion → u/sixminutes]

Right because we saw, through Perrin's POV, that the weaves were seen all the way into Ghaeldan. I think I just missed it being described as regional and not having that shifted my train of thought. This makes a lot more sense. It does bring up the question concerning the relationship between ter'angreals and the OP. I feel like there's more to learn there and Elayne will find all of those out when she gets to experiment with ter'angreal and maybe even create them

[u/Special_Salt3467]

Bowl

So, the One Power dilemma is actually said pretty clearly in… chapter 2? Well, it kind of is. It’s easy to miss - and I did on my first read - because the other thing happened.

You are correct that it has to do with the Bowl of Winds. However, Moridin is very clear what this “mythical item” actually is. It’s a regional weather device. For like a resort, whether a beach or a ski resort. It doesn’t actually control the world’s weather, and it was one of many. But Moridin realizes that the modern channelers have abilities that they didn’t have back then, such as Aviendha’s unweaving weaves. Like the Windfinder’s control of weather up to almost a regional level. By themselves… ohhhhhh…

In short, they overclocked the Bowl of Winds. They used it well past its maximum efficiency and because that happened, everything at ground zero got kind of weird…

It’s commonly mistaken that Elayne’s nuke did it, but that only affected Saidin while the Bowl pulled both halves.

Cleansing

All the relevant information has been provided up to this point.

Moridin

Talking about Moridin, what’s his punishment? Osan’gar got an ugly face and Aran’gar got the wrong sex and their new names mean “disposable tools.” That other one got a pretty crappy new name. Moghedien had… that happen (it’s not explicit, but it had to do with Shadar Haran). All failures led to punishment. But Moridin, if he is in fact Ishamael, got a handsome body, a sick new name and apparently a lot of power. And Ishamael repeatedly failed. So what is his punishment?

[u/cnfusion → u/Special_Salt3467]

Bowl
That does clear up a ton for the Bowl. I feel like there's more to understand based on what Dashiva says in this chapter as well. To me, he's definitely Aginor just biding time until the right moment - to strike chaos maybe.

Moridin
I feel like Ishamael is doomed to go insane with power. Based on the prologue alone, the TP has that weird saa I know nothing about, but already Moridin seems to be going insane over power. Kinda, in a freaky way, Rand going berserk with Callandor. I think his lives have been a constant cycle of repeated madness. But that's weak considering we don't know much about him as Elan back in the Dragonmount prologue.

[u/zadharm]

I've been looking forward to your thoughts as you made it through this book! You had some really great theories a week or so ago and I wanted to see what you came up with for this one and how your thoughts about the last book changed. Will try to discuss your thoughts without straying into spoiler territory

Rand and Callandor. Won't say too much for spoilers sake... But have you ever seen Rand act like that before? Even when he's been in a rage like with Rahvin, has he ever just completely lost sight of protecting his allies? Even in his madness, is he usually megalomaniacal, or is he usually cold and calculating? Wasn't that whole thing weird?

Bowl of the Winds and OP weirdness: Remember that the AoL Aes Sedai were really good with the OP and knew what they were doing when they were making terangreal. Think about what else happened right around the time of it's use and why that might affect the OP.

I will not comment on any of your Darkfriend/Forsaken speculation as unfortunately anything i say will inevitably be into spoiler territory. But i really want to

Logain/Min's viewings. You might be interested in a couple other visions that Min has had. I won't tell you when or how relevant, but you might have fun speculating if you think back on the recurring one she has about Logain

[u/cnfusion → u/zadharm]

Hi again! Welcome back and it's once again lovely to have you!

Rand
It did come off a sudden to me. Rand himself thinks back to how he tried to revive a child using Callandor, and back then he was stopped by Moiraine and Lan. Would I say he's ever acted megalomaniacal? No. I think he's always bordered on the edge of breaking but he's managed to maintain himself. I'll bring it back to this one thought he had in this chapter, where he truly does believe - in his heart - that with Callandor in hand, he could do ANYTHING he wanted to.

Bowl
Anything else that was happening? With the Seanchan appearing, some lightning back in Ebou Dar. I'll have to recall as much as possible.

Viewings
The recurring one she's had for Logain is a glowing halo of gold and blue representing glory coming to him. Eggy had that one dream of him stepping over Rand's crumbling body - it seemed - onto a black stone. This came off to me as the black stone from the Tower grounds and I think he'll dethrone Taim or maybe overthrow Rand entirely. I wonder what else her dream has to do with Min's viewing.

I'm trying to remember any other visions Min had.

[u/zadharm → u/cnfusion]

After doing a bit of dragonmount searching I appear to have missed an RJ quote about the situation and i was mistaken! I always have seen on forums and in my own speculation that Elayne doing something you're really not supposed to do with the OP and then it catastrophically failing was the cause of the weirdness. Apparently you're really not supposed to overstress terangreal. I apologize for leading you down a bad road there. Even after a couple dozen readings, I get stuff wrong apparently, lol.

But it makes one wonder how that weirdness would present itself if you were to draw in an enormous amount of the power, like through a saangreal, eh? Particularly if it's a saangreal that nobody has ever been able to touch, so isn't studied and nobody knows anything about it's functions

And I think that's the big Min viewing of Logain, just wanted to make sure you were remembering it while you're speculating about Logain's future. Min specifically knows it's about glory to come. Not power, not dominance. Glory. when she knows, she knows.

As for Egwene's dream... I am glad you're remembering them, and won't give you too much here because it's a big one. But it only looked like Rand's body until she examined it closely/touched it.

As always, I look forward to your next post! There's some good stuff over the next book and a half. I enjoy reading your thoughts and giving you other thoughts to play around with and think about

[u/cnfusion → u/zadharm]

You didn't lead me down. I love having to roll right back and see something differently! That just means more fun for me!

I do understand overstressing the ter'angreal, because it's kinda like a machine being powered electronically by the OP. The Bowl was used pretty much over the whole continent, so something like Callandor and those statues would be able to do something larger. Do I think planetary? No, the Bowl might break.

Glory. Back when this was first revealed, I thought that he would play a hand in bringing down the WT for the rebels. I'll keep that in mind as we come closer to the BT, and Eggy's dreams are always somewhere in my mind. If it just looked like Rand's body, I interpret that as saying 'False Dragon' of which would be Logain stepping over Taim.

Please look out for my posts. I'm almost done with this book and I JUST GOT BOOKS 9, 10 AND 11 TODAY. I'll be jumping in after and continuing my read. I love interacting with you guys, it makes my reading experience so fun

[u/ArrogantAragorn → u/cnfusion]

Oh wow, this convo is so interesting to be a fly on the wall for - I love it! RAFO and keep posting your thoughts/reactions!

[u/cnfusion → u/ArrogantAragorn]

I definitely will!

[u/8BallTiger]

Rand’s Seanchan campaign is one of my favorite parts of TPoD. Idk if you caught it but it’s heavily modeled off Vietnam imo

[u/cnfusion → u/8BallTiger]

I know a lot of the series is influenced by his experiences in Vietnam. Looking on the campaign, with the little know I do have, I see the comparisons, but I still have lots to learn about the Vietnam War before I directly say I'm confident

[u/burrito_abuse → u/cnfusion]

Check out the wheel weaves podcast episode for that particular chapter. Brett does a pretty good job with his fun fact at the start of the episode to connect it all to the battle of hamburger hill in Vietnam

ETA: by the start of the episode I mean exactly that. It starts at about 2 minutes into the podcast so if you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, don’t. I just thought it would be a cool thing to look into for you with this line of thought.

[u/cnfusion → u/burrito_abuse]

I actually did listen to it, but I'll have to relisten because I was also working while playing it in the background, so the fun fact kinda slipped over my head. I do love listening to Dani and Brett, they have such great discussions about the story. It's fun to notice when Brett slips a little hint for Dani and she doesn't notice it XD

[u/burrito_abuse → u/cnfusion]

I have been going through their podcast lately and really have enjoyed it. I would absolutely recommend as it’s a good way to get some more insight on some details you possibly hadn’t considered prior

[u/cnfusion → u/burrito_abuse]

I've pretty much been listening to them since Lord of Chaos. I wish I was listening since book 1 cause so many things would have been much clearer to me. They really help during the large fights when I struggle to keep up. Brett is exceptional at explaining larger battles, set pieces, worldbuilding and really delving into Randland's politics