I battle sometimes with whether we are considered in the seventh age But the quotes from TSR where Thom talks about the oldest tales he knows "from the age before the age of legends There is a widespread debate on the internet: you mentioned some tales of times like Mosk and Merk I thought that one was very obvious. Lenn, who went to the moon in the belly of a fire eagle? And his daughter Salya who walked among the stars? Sally Ride was the first female American astronaut.
All those tales were explained to be from the age before the age of legends. As to how we could get from where we are Some argue that there would have to be some kind of cataclysm to get from a world like ours to the age of legends, but to me the simple discovery of something like the One Power would be enough of a change to accomplish that AoL is mentioned again and again as having a lot of science to it, flying cars, experiments, study of the nature of things It may be simply discovery of the one power as the thing that ushers in the AoL and kicks mankind over the struggle of resources that we have currently and into an age of utter prosperity.
As for the Portal stones, to me that may have been the first attempts at understanding the one power, some kind of massive science science experiment or perhaps the embodiment of the new age type of thinking that we control our own reality.
And before anyone says something like "our world and randland are not the same, you aren't going to start channeling someday, get real". Of course we know that.
We know that this is a fictional world, and that we are not in some wheel of time created by Robert Jordan. This is simply an attempt to understand HIS world, not ours, so points like "what age was the world in when it was a molten ball of lava," or the like are just silly distractions. Edit: For formatting! And also to agree with Rose below, I forgot to pull the quote where Jordan says Channeling being discovered marked the end of the first age but that has indeed also been stated.
I'll go look for it. Somebody with a better mastery of the interview databases than me can probably pull out a reference As for the portal stones, it seems to me that they are from before the first age. Time is cyclical, so the first age is not actually the beginning of anything. The portal stones could be lying around the world as we speak, but nobody knows how to use them or what they are for ;. This supports the idea that science and the one power were used side by side, and there wasn't a big cataclysm where biology and genetics knowledge was forgotten.
Yes, as I have set things up, there are Ages when no one has any idea of how to channel or even that the One Power exists. Our own, for one. Even the Dark One's presence is restricted exclusively to the two Ages which are relevant to the story, Rand's resealing is expected to last until the next Age of Legends.
Okay, I got it, you don't like the Wheel aspect of RJ's writings. Yet he refers to it again and again. It is part of the series, whether you think it is explained well enough or not.
I find it an interesting and an integral part of the story I can see why you would see it as a 'run-of-the-mill fantasy series' when you completely ignore what, to me, is a large part of the series. Saying the title of the series, and the beginning of each and every book of the series, is superfluous to the story is hubris in the extreme and makes me wonder why you would even bother looking deeper into the series by participating in a message board such as this.
What is the point exactly? You were the one with the problem with the numbering system, which is not absolute by any standards in a cyclical system. But I forgot, you don't think it is cyclical, you think RJ just thought it would be a cool idea so tacked it on without any thought whatsoever.
Ask yourself: if you cut out all the references to cyclical time and whatnot, would the story, plot, and characterization of the series in any way suffer, become incomplete or ambiguous to the reader?
Time is very linear in this series. We never get to the part where one age flowing into the other and back into itself becomes relevant, we're only dealing with a grand total of THREE Ages here. The ancient past, the tenuous present, and the looming future. Why there should be anything else tacked on to this sequence is beyond me.
Illusion of depth? A hodge-podge of ideas and concepts that fail to form a cohesive structure? By comparison, let's take the metaphysics of my favorite fantasy series, Chronicles of Amber. The universe of CoA is composed of two True Worlds, Courts of Chaos and Amber, and an infinitude of alternate dimensions called Shadows, created from the tension between these polar opposites, which can be traversed by those of royal blood.
The Shadows can be as different from one another as the traveler's imagination permits, right up to drastically altered laws of physics. Our world, Earth, is one of these reflections, no more and no less important than any of its "neighbors". The characters often ponder the nature of their abilities, whether they are but travelers shifting from one pre-existing reality to another, or gods spontaneously creating novel universes as they go along their business.
Chaos and Amber are represented by two symbols, the Logrus and the Pattern, lines of mystical energy forming a maze. Traversing these lines is a difficult test of will, passing it gives those with royal blood the ability to walk through Shadows. Nothing about this description is superfluous to the story, indeed, removing any of these elements would render the Chronicles of Amber impossible to read, as its plot, themes, and characterization utterly depend on the world they are written for.
There's nothing extraneous or insignificant about it. Robert Jordan's approach is more along the lines of, "Hey, the world is huge, let's just throw in a bunch of random things I think are cool, even though the characters will never have to deal with them". Describing the basics of his universe is a futile experience, because half the things you need to mention never pay off anywhere in the series, and the other half is just standard fantasy cliche material.
Seems a little extreme lummox; sure it's not fully necessary, but take it out and why bother trying to make a book unique to any other then? It's supportive details that tie in nicely to compliment other things, like the heroes or Rand's memories. I think Lummox responded to this pretty well. The "problem", so far as it goes, is that the Wheel gets central billing in the mythology and metaphysics of Randland while doing virtually no work in terms of plot. Now, that's no big deal. WOT is still great escapist fun.
But I just don't think there's a particularly serious point to be found in the fact that time is cyclical. There is one exception to this, which is Rand's near-total spazz-out on top of Dragonmount in Veins of Gold. There, he contemplates the possibility that life and his struggle against the Shadow might be totally pointless, since it happens over and over and over again.
This is similar to something Moridin says during their "fireside chat" earlier in the book, where he comments that the whole business is absurd and that he simply looks forward to putting an end to it The idea that having to repeat one's life over and over again in a grand cycle of repetitive time was explored by Nietzsche. His concept of the 'overman' ubermensch or 'superman' was according to some derived partly from what it would take, psychologically, to be able to endure the knowledge that all of one's actions had already occurred, multiple times, and would occur again endlessly into the future.
Nietzsche thought the prospect of this would destroy most people, but that a few rare individuals had the intestinal fortitude as it were not only to carry on living under those circumstances, but to desire them. Sorry to any philosophers on this board if I've badly mangled Nietzsche's thought.
Based on this, you might argue that the point of making time cyclical in Randland was to set up a line of existential inquiry like the one Nietzsche tried to develop. In other words, you might argue that RJ is making a point about the actual or proper source of moral values. But he's not very serious about it. The issue is at best a minor plot point, and there's all kinds of stuff that conflicts with Nietzsche's "man-is-the-measure-of-all-things" approach to morality eg the existence of good and evil supernatural beings, demigods etc.
The bottom line, from where I'm sitting, is that RJ was something of a kleptomaniac when it came to mythology and metaphysics. He populated his world with borrowings from other cultures and thinkers to give it an aura of authenticity, but there isn't any real rhyme or reason to any of it.
To wit: I challenge anyone to explain to me what the point of basing Mat, Perrin and Rand on Norse deities is. What Lummox said. RJ may have know a few things about physics. But I doubt he ever cracked a text on sociology or anthropology. His depiction of political, cultural and religious institutions is simply not credible. Again, this doesn't really matter. I don't read fantasy for political insights though GRR Martin is pretty good in this respect.
But people should stop trying to find some kind of deep social commentary in the WOT. I think RJ probably enjoyed world-building for its own sake, and wanted to write a fantasy series that took place in a richly detailed and more-or-less consistent place.
Fair enough. I've certainly derived many hours of enjoyment by escaping to his creation. But I am a little I think it will be mostly forgotten 50 years from now Am I saying the RJ has created a lasting or immortal piece of fiction?
I am merely talking about his series and the scope that it allows for me to play with and have fun with as a fan. However, the jump from 'hey look, this isn't the greatest story ever told' to 'it is a waste of time thinking about something that RJ probably just tacked on because he likes to throw random stuff in his book' is rude to say the least and moronic to be more frank.
RJ put a great deal of time and thought into writing this series, and the cosmology is deeply ingrained in every character and every bit of the world. To think the man would literally name the series and revisit the idea every few chapters without a thought of the depth of the implications is to think far too little of him. The cyclical nature of time is not merely represented in the beginning of each chapter and in the title of the series, it is represented in every relationship, in the hopes of every character, in the birth and rebirth of heroes, in the motivations of the forsaken and the Dark One.
It is essential to everything that makes the series go from merely escapist fun for me into the realm of thought provoking, it lays the groundwork for speculation on the past and future, and for the foreshadowing that many would claim RJ does quite well. The interplay between myth, legend and prophecy. I could go on and on. To be blunt, if you don't find the books merit-worthy enough to discuss on a deeper level, why are you here?
Just because it doesn't have a deep philosophical meaning doesn't mean that the Wheel is a useless concept. It's central to the story; it drives the characters' motivations and lays the foundation for most of the themes running through the series.
No, we shouldn't take it as a commentary on human life and morals. But this Crazyrandisdead, I always thought the point wasn't that Mat, Perrin and Rand are based on Norse deities but that legends of their exploits exist in the current age. I believe it was a way to expound upon the "time is cyclic" thing and make the world seem more real and connected to ours.
First time commenting in years but these topics attract me like a moth to an open flame. Here is my view of how these Ages look like:. Age 1 is the current age, starting from the Big Bang, and covering all of prehistory and history up to the present day on our own planet. Age 2 is a very long one. My theory is that the nuclear war of Age 1 brought about genetic mutations that unlocked the power of channeling in some subset of humans, as well as other mystical talents e.
As civilization began to recover, it did so on the backs of channelers and the One Power, not technology as in Age 1 our age. Perhaps the wolfmen were hunted down to extinction by the early AoL civilization, with only recessive genes surviving on to later express themselves in the likes of Elyas and Perrin?
The question of why knowledge of Portal Stones building and operation was lost doesn't have a readily apparent answer, but one can easily guess at it.
Maybe the group of channelers that knew of Portal Stone building were defeated in a war with another group of channelers, and exterminated?
In any case, after some time, what we know of as the AoL arose, with war having receded to dim memory by the time the Bore was unsealed so, this global peace must have been established thousands of years before. If it was so great why did so damn many people go over to the side of the DO?
Maybe he offered progress? An apparent way upwards for ambitious and talented people that the anti-meritocratic AoL system stiffled? Anyhow, this is another discussion. Age 4 is presumably a world that comes to be dominated by a global Seanchan Empire, as envisioned by Aviendha.
Railways are developed. Troublesome tribes like the Aiel are perhaps exterminated if the viewing is correct. Presumably it collapses, as all empires eventually do. Age 7 I suspect ends with an apocalyptic war that destroys reality, causing the cycle to begin anew from a Big Bang. You don't NEED more than three cycles to see the overall pattern. More would be helpful, but we have enough reference points to guess where to plot the rest of the timeline.
It fits anyways If time were linear, the series would fall apart from the beginning. Without the wheel, the driving force behind the driving plot line would not exist. Since you like analogies to other fantasy series, here is what you are suggesting, translated into LOTR:.
I've just assumed that the story we are reading is in a different cycle of the ages than our present. We know that each cycle is not totally identical. Think parallel universes like in star trek. In their particular cycle of the world, WWIII was big enough to carry legends through an entire age and a half after the original war. Maybe we are in the next cycle, or the previous cycle. Always Age One, but different iteration of the cycle of ages. This isn't a clue but I always find it interesting; I have a feeling that whatever the "current" age is it is always going to be the 3rd or the fourth age as you'll always see yourself in the "middle" of the cycle and never at the end or the beginning..
Looking back at our history we have to consider the legends and myth's approach; every culture we know about always seemed to have 3 distinct ages,. Channeling does not happen in our age; but there were always legends of "men with magic" or "casting spells"; Merlin, Medea and traveling to the spirit or underworld Many of the "ages of men" always refer to the first age the age no-one remembers and is completely forgotten as a time when animals and men were as one ; lets assume that comes from the running with the wolves; I'm going to put it in our age of myths.
Age of God's and Titans the "creation" running with wolves. I'm guessing this is when the Portal Stones are created and legends of "god's fighting" were channeling battles between remaining channellers. Pre History, the first civilization prior to the end of the last ice age; destroyed by the melting of the ice caps; think Atlantis and legends of all previous civilization who were the first to use fire, farm the land and sail the world.
Ends with the great flood, ice age, meting of ice caps. A great ending greatly influences the longterm view. Lord of the rings gets its status in part to the very well done twist at the climax.
Ender's game, the usual suspects, etc. I have always expected some really interesting stuff will go down in this one at the end. By DeadRabbit23 Started 3 hours ago. Rosamund Pike will narrate a new audiobook version of The Eye of the World. By Asha'man Shar'aman Started September By Asha'man Shar'aman Started October By Asha'man Shar'aman Started October 3.
It is an online community of people from all over the world who have come here to experience the series to the fullest. Our Patreon site is now live! Fourth through 7th ages. Share More sharing options Followers 0. Start new topic. Prev 1 2 Next Page 1 of 2. Recommended Posts. The pattern of each Age is fixed by the Great Pattern, but the details of a specific Age can vary considerably from the base pattern. The length of time from one variation of an Age to its next variation is long enough to completely erase all memory and records of the previous Age.
Into each Age are born individuals who posses the ability to change the Pattern of an Age in either minor or major ways. These people are known as ta'veren , and can have a great influence on events of an Age. Although powerful, ta'veren are still bound to the Pattern of an Age, as well as the Great Pattern.
It is theorized that ta'veren are created by the Wheel as a method to assure that the Pattern of an Age is woven properly. There is some evidence in the books that we are living in the First Age, for example real-world references.
There are some known contradictions or yet unclear parts. See more here. This is a short page. All known information from the Wheel of Time universe has been added. A Wheel of Time Wiki Explore. TV series. TV series wiki Episodes 1. Community Info. Jump Right In!
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