The Eye of the World

“‘Some stories shouldn’t be told,’ Master Buie insisted. ‘Some stories shouldn’t be known!’” (27)

“This is just a story,’ he said, ignoring Master Buie’s scowls, ‘because no one knows everything that happened. But it really did happen. You’ve heard of the Age of Legends?’” (28)

“‘Three thousand years ago and more, it was,’ Rand’s father went on. ‘There were great cities full of buildings taller that the White Tower, and that’s taller than anything but a mountain. Machines that used the One Power carried people across the ground faster than a horse can run, say machines carried people through the air, too’” (28)

Commentator’s Note: Early hint at a science fiction past.

“The Forsaken had been Aes Sedai? … some of the Forsaken were men, so he had to be wrong” (29)

"’… the Light had a leader who would never give up, a man called Lews Therin Telamon. The Dragon.’
… The Dragon was the man who had destroyed everything! She did not know much about the Breaking of the Worldwell, almost nothing, in truth—but everybody knew that much. Surely he had fought for the Shadow!” (29)

“if the Dragon had saved the world, how had he destroyed it?” (30)

“Perrin scatched at his head. ‘Master al’Thor,’ he said slowly, ‘what does the Dragon mean? If somebody’s called the Lion, it means he’s supposed to be like a lion. But what’s a dragon?’” (30)

“But it all happened long ago and far away, and it doesn’t have anything to do with us. Well, you’ve had your story, lads” (30)

“She stopped wanting to hear stories from the grownups … The boys stopped wanting stories, too. She did not think they even read very much” (31)

“the symbol on his cloak, a circle half white and half black, the colors separated by a sinuous line” (34)

“‘the True Source … tainted saidin’” (37)

“He was still touching saidin, the male half of the power that drove the universe, that turned the Wheel of Time” (37)

“the eight corners of the World” (39)

“all but memory lost, and one memory above all others, of him who brought the Shadow and the Breaking of the World” (39)

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning” (43)

“Tam … was a pillar of reality in that morning, like a stone in the middle of a drifting dream … there was a solidness to him, as though a flood could wash around him without uprooting his feet” (44)

“Remember the flame, lad, and the void” (47)

“he recognized the Great Serpent, an even older symbol for eternity than the Wheel of Time” (66)

“‘As the Wheel of Time turns,’ Moiraine said, half to herself and with a distant look in her eyes, ‘places wear many names. Men wear many names, many faces. Different faces, but always the same man. Yet no one knows the Great Pattern the Wheel weaves, or even the Pattern of an Age. We can only watch, and study, and hope’” (68)

“‘Not the Dark One,’ Haral Luhhan growled. ‘The Dragon’s not the Dark One. And this is a false Dragon, anyway.’
‘Let’s hear what Master Fain has to say,’ the Mayor said, but no one would be quieted that easily. People cried out from every side, men and women shouting over one another.
‘Just as bad as the Dark One!’
‘The Dragon broke the world, didn’t he?’
‘He started it! He caused the Time of Madness!’
‘You know the prophecies!’” (74)

“In the stories, men who channel the Power almad, and then waste away and die. Only women can touch it. Doesn’t he know that?” (75)

“‘The stories,’ he began slowly, but Mat cut him off.
‘Not all the stories say they serve the Dark One, Rand.’
‘Light, Mat,’ Rand said, ‘they caused the Breaking. What more do you want?’” (78)

“Tales of Artur Paendrag Tanreall, Artur Hawkwing, Artur the High King, who once ruled all the lands from the Aiel Waste to the Aryth Ocean, and even beyond” (88)

Commentator’s Note: Arthur Pendragon?

“They kill for the pleasure of killing, so I’ve been told” (106)

Commentator’s Note: A boring trope of evil

“a repulsive melange of human faces distorted by muzzles, horns, feathers, and fur” (109)

Commentator’s Note: Fear of mixture called ‘evil’.

“They called them savages” (118)

Commentator’s Note: Orcs redux, yet more fantasy racism.

“nightmare forms with horns and muzzies and beaks” (118)

Commentator’s Note: Chimeric.

“All the stories are real,’ he muttered” (124)

“you’ve heard the stories. They can cure where medicines fail” (131)

“if outward appearance reflected what was side” (132)

Commentator’s Note: Tolkien (Sauron), or Dickens (environment reflecting subjective interiority). But ‘if.’

“The Power. The One Power, drawn from the True Source that drove the Wheel of Time” (136)

“That was what everybody believed what everybody learned with his mother’s milk” (138)

“‘We have lost the making of these,’ she said. ‘So much is lost, perhaps never to be found again’” (139)

“Fades are Trolloc spawn, throwbacks almost to the human stock the Dreadlords used to make the Trollocs. Almost. But if the human strain is made stronger, so is the taint that twists the Trollocs” (139)

Commentator’s Note: Just Nazgul and Orcs.

“Some talents are all but gone, and many that remain seem weaker” (141)

“Supposedly they could sense Trollocs, if they were close enough”

Commentator’s Note: Ah, is this where Dragon Age for Grey Wardens from?

“You have forgotten who you were, forgotten what you were” (159)

“Ba’alzamon at their head. Ba’alzamon, Heart of the Dark. An ancient name for the Father of Lies” (161)

“the last the of Manetheren was driven back, back to here, to this place you now call Emond’s Field” (162)

“Other wars would wrack them in years to come, until at last their corner of the world was forgotten and at last they had forgotten wars and the ways of war” (163)

“They held it when the long centuries had washed the why of it from their memories” (163)

“What is done is already woven in the Pattern” (168)

“It is part of the Pattern, now … There is a reason for it” (169)

“Everything is a part of the Pattern … We cannot pick and choose” (170)

“… if the Myrddraal has a Draghkar …” (174)

Commentator’s Note: Nazgul fell beast.

“A scream ripped the darkness, a sound like a man dying under sharp knives” (178)

Commentator’s Note: Really just Nazgul.

“‘The One Power.’ Moiraine was saying, ‘comes from the True Source, the driving force of Creation, the force the Creator made to turn the Wheel of Time.’ She put her hands together in front of her and pushed them against each other. ‘Saidin, the male half of the True Source, and saidar, the female half, work against each other and at the same time together to provide that force. Saidin’—she lifted one hand, then let it drop—‘is fouled by the touch of the Dark One, like water with a thin slick of rancid oil floating on top. The water is still pure, but it cannot be touched without touching the foulness. Only saidar is still safe to be used’” (193)

“the True Source cannot be used up, any more than the river can be used the wheel of a mill. The Source is the river; the Aes Sedai, the waterwheel” (193)

“only a very few can learn to touch the True Source and use the One Power. Some of those can learn to a greater degree, some to a lesser. You are one of the bare handful for whom there is no need to learn. At least, touching the Source will come to you whether you want it or not. Without the teaching you can receive in Tar Valon though, you will never learn to channel it fully, and you may not survive Men who have the ability to touch saidin born in them die” (193-194)

“The Red Ajah held its prime duty to be the prevention of another Breaking of the World, and they did it by hunting down every man who even dreamed of wielding the One Power” (194)

“… but some of the women die, too. It is hard to learn without a guide” (194)

“Things do not have the Power, child. Even an angreal is only a tool” (194)

“Clear your mind of everything but the stone. Cleary your mind, and let yourself drift. There is only the stone and emptiness” (195)

“summoning the flame and the void, the empty calm” (200)

“‘Empty it of hate or fear, of everything. Burn them away’ …
Rand stared at him. ‘The flame and the void’” (201)

“Forget the stories and use your eyes” (202)

“Whatever the Dark One wants, I oppose, so hear this and know it true. Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself” (204)

“‘The Five Powers,’ Egwene said slowly. ‘Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, and Spirit. It doesn’t seem fair that men should have been strongest in wielding Earth and Fire. Why should they have had the strongest Powers?’ Moiraine laughed. ‘Is that what you think, child? Is there a rock so hard that wind and water cannot wear it away, a fire so strong that water cannot quench it or wind snuff it out?’” (204)

“Becoming an Aes Sedai will not change you from what you are” (205)

“But there is no other choice … You have no choice … The Aes Sedai’s made our choices (207-208)

“Nobody tells the stories in the Two Rivers” (211)

“Tear hates anything to do with the Power even more than Amador, and Amador is the stronghold of the Children of the Light” (211)

“Moiraine said it would have happened to her anyway, this touching the True Source. She had no control over it, and that meant it was not her fault” (219)

“‘Are you expecting glory?’ Ba’alzamon said. ‘Power? Did they tell you the Eye of the World would serve you? What glory or power is there for a puppet? The strings that move you have been centuries weaving. Your father was chosen by the White Tower, like a stallion roped and led to his business. Your mother was no more than a brood mare to their plans. And those plans lead to your death’” (224)

“It was what the gleeman had called Plain Chant, those nights beside the fire on the ride north. Stories, he said, were told in three voices, High Chant, Plain Chant, and Common, which meant simply telling it the way you might tell your neighbor about your crop. Thom told stories in Common, but he did not bother to hide his contempt for the voice” (231)

“She says I see pieces of the Pattern” (235)

“The sparks are trying to fill the shadow, and the shadow is trying to swallow the sparks” (235)

“the Dark One, and minions of the Dark One. From those things I can protect. Touching the True Source touching saidar, gives me that protection, as it does to every Aes Sedai … Even those poor men who find themselves wielding the Power for a short time gain that much, though sometimes touching saidin protects, and sometimes the taint makes them more vulnerable” (254)

“It was The Great Hunt of the Horn again, but no one complained, of course. There were so many tales to be told about each the Hunters, and so many Hunters to tell of, that no two tellings were er the same. The whole of it in one telling would have taken a week or more” (259)

“Beast-muzzled almost-men”

Commentator’s Note: Tiered humanity, always a dangerous trope.

“The old blood still sings” (284)

“things do not have power. The One Power comes from the True Source, and only a living mind can wield it. This is not even an angreal, merely an aid to concentration” (286)

“Trollocs and Myrddraal loathe deep water. Trollocs are terrified of it Neither can swim. A Halfman will not wade anything more than waist deep, especially if it’s moving. Trollocs won’t do even that if they can find any way to avoid it” (304)

Commentator’s Note: Nazgul at the Forda of Bruinen.

“They say you can see the Blight from the highest towers in Maradon” (320)

Commentator’s Note: More Dragon Age source material.

“The Ways are closed, and there has not been an Aes Sedai powerful enough to Travel since the Time of Madness” (325)

Commentator’s Note: Source for the Eluvian in Dragon Age?

“Unlike most women who claim to listen to the wind, you actually can, sometimes. Oh, it has nothing to do with the wind, of course. It is of Air and Water. It is not something you needed to be taught; it was born into you, just as it was born into Egwene” (327)

“You felt nothing special at the time, but a week or ten days later you had your first reaction to touching the True Source” (328)

“Every wolf remembers the history of all wolves, or at least the shape of it. Like I said, it can’t be put into words very well. They remember running down prey side-by-side with men, but it was so long ago that it’s more like the shadow of a shadow than a memory” (348)

“This is an old thing, boy. Older than Aes Sedai. Older than anybody using the One Power. Old as humankind. Old as wolves. They don’t like that either, Aes Sedai. Old things coming again. I’m not the only one. There are other things, other folk. Makes Aes Sedai nervous, makes them mutter about ancient barriers weakening. Things are breaking apart, they say” (351)

“‘She said the girl’s planted firmly in the human world, while you’—he nodded at Perrin ‘stand halfway between’” (352)

“I will strangle you with the corpse of the Great Serpent!” (357)

Commentator’s Note: Tiamat.

“‘They’re looking for a song. That’s what the Mahdi seeks. They say they lost it during the Breaking of the World, and if they can find it again, the paradise of the Age of Legends will return.’ He ran his eye around the camp and snorted ‘They don’t even know what the song is; they claim they’ll know it when they find it. They don’t know how it’s supposed to bring paradise, either, but they’ve been looking near to three thousand years, ever since the Breaking. I expect they’ll be looking until the Wheel stops turning’” (372)

“Leafblighter means to blind the Eye of the World … He means to slay the Great Serpent” (378)

“Slay the Great Serpent? Kill time itself?” (378)

“A whole new cycle of stories waiting to be made” (392)

“Ba’alzamon ignored the weapon … ‘Is this what you have to protect you? Well, I have faced this before. Many times before’” (407)

“‘As it once was, so shall it be again, world without end’
‘… World without end. World and time without end’” (409)

“You can do nothing with the One Power when emotion rules your mind” (413)

“‘The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,’ Moiraine mumbled. ‘No eye can see the Pattern until it is woven’” (415)

“All the Dark One’s creatures delight in killing. The Dark One’s power is death” (426)

Commentator’s Note: More essential evil.

“The One Power won’t work here; they can’t touch the True Source. Can’t even feel the Source, like it vanished. Makes them itch inside, that does. Gives them the shakes like a seven-day drunk. It’s safety” (429)

“Come on. We’d better get deeper into this legend” (429)

“Most of them looked on him [Artur Hawkwing] as only a step below the Creator” (432)

“The shelves must have held three or four hundred books, more than he had ever seen in one place before. Clothbound, leatherbound with gilded spines. Only a few had wooden covers” (531)

“The Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and lives are the threads it weaves. No one can tell how the thread of his own life will be woven into the Pattern, or how the thread of a people will be woven. It gave us the Breaking of the World, and the Exile, and the Stone, and the Longing, and eventually it gave us back the stedding before we all died. Sometimes I think the reason you humans are the way you are is because your threads are so short. They must jump around in the weaving” (534-535)

“Everything is changed, and half of what I know is useless” (536)

“‘The Wheel turns,’ he said, ‘and no one knows its turning’” (537)

“Ta’veren … You know how the Pattern is woven, of course?” (537)

“‘I never really thought about it,’ he said slowly. ‘It just is’” (537)

“You see, the Wheel of Time weaves the Pattern of the Ages, and the threads it uses are lives. It is not fixed, the Pattern, not always. If a man tries to change the direction of his life and the Pattern has room for it, the Wheel just weaves on and takes it in. There is always room for small changes, but sometimes the Pattern simply won’t accept a big change, no matter how hard you try” (537)

“But sometimes the change chooses you, or the Wheel chooses it for you. And sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on. That first bending to make the Web, that is ta’veren, and there is nothing you can do to change it, not until the Pattern itself changes. The Web ta’maral’ailen, it’s called can last for weeks, or for years. It can take in a town, or even the whole Pattern. Artur Hawkwing was ta’veren. So was Lews Therin Kinslayer, for that matter, I suppose” (538)

“I didn’t say you were, but I could almost feel the Pattern swirl just listening to you tell your tale, and I have no Talent there. You are ta’veren all right. You, and maybe your friends, too” (538)

“‘The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills,’ she murmured, ‘but I cannot believe it weaves an end to hope. I must first take care of that of which I can be certain. It will be as the Wheel weaves’” (541)

“One day again. More a feeling than words, it sighed with the promise of a meeting foreordained, with anticipation of what was to come, with resignation to what was to come, all streaked in layers” (556)

“‘There was no foretelling this.’ Moiraine spoke as if to herself. Her eyes seemed to look at something beyond him. ‘Something ordained to be woven, or a change in the Pattern? If a change, by what hand? The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills. It must be that’” (558)

“What is, is. What is woven already is past changing” (559)

“it was old and lost long before the Dark One was found. But what of the chance involved, blacksmith? Sometimes the Pattern has a randomness to itto our eyes, at least but what chance that you should meet a man who could guide you in this thing, and you one who could follow the guiding? The Pattern is forming a Great Web, what some call the Lace of Ages, and you lads are central to it. I don’t think there is much chance left in your lives, now. Have you been chosen out, then? And if so, by the Light, or by the Shadow?” (560)

“Is this a Foretelling, Elaida? Are you reading the Pattern? You say it comes on you when you least expect it and goes as suddenly as it comes” (590)

“You truly are ta’veren, Rand. The Pattern weaves itself around you, and you stand in the heart of it” (597)

“he usually seemed to think a story needed two or three hundred years of background to make it understood. His sense of time was very strange; to him three hundred years seemed a reasonable length of time for a story or explanation to cover” (610)

“He said the Dark One intended to blind the Eye of the World, and slay the Great Serpent, kill time itself” (615)

“‘That’s what the Tinkers told us,’ Perrin said.
‘Yes,’ Egwene said, ‘the Aiel story’” (615)

“he cannot make you his unless you let him” (617)

“But for a time, at least, three are central to the Pattern. A Web of Destiny is being woven, and every thread leads straight to you” (617)

“Sometimes being ta’veren means the Pattern is forced to bend to you, and sometimes it means the Pattern forces you to the needed path. The Web can still be woven many ways, and some of those designs would be disastrous. For you, for the world” (618)

“The Pattern is forcing our path. The Pattern still weaves itself around you three, but what hand now set the warp, and what hand controls the shuttle?” (618)

“The Pattern presents a crisis, and at the same time a way to surmount it. If I did not know it was impossible, I could almost believe the Creator is taking a hand” (618-619)

“Whether it is the Creator, or fate, or even the Dark One, the Pattern has chosen our path for us” (619)

“It was not just that they could not wield the One Power, or touch the Source; they could no longer even sense that the Source existed” (621)

“the Ways are not part of the world we see around us, nor perhaps of any world outside themselves” (621)

“They are a living thing in some fashion, the Ways and the Waygates” (621)

“The Ways were made by men wielding Power fouled by the Dark One. About a thousand years ago, during what you humans call the War of the Hundred Years, the Ways began to change” (622)

“What seems like chance is often the Pattern. Three threads have come together here, each giving a warning: the Eye. It cannot be chance; it is the Pattern. You three did not choose; you were chosen by the Pattern” (623)

“This contest between us has taken place countless times before. Each time your face is different, and your name, but each time it is you” (627)

“This struggle has gone on since the moment of creation. Always men think it a new war, but it is just the same war discovered anew. Only now change blows on the winds of time. Change. This time there will be no drifting back” (628)

“Avendesora … The leaf of the Tree of Life is the key” (638)

“Something icy slid along his skin, as if he were passing through a wall of cold water. Time stretched out; the cold enveloped one hair at a time, shivered over his clothes thread by thread” (639)

“The Wheel turns faster in the Ways” (640)

“it did not seem as if there was anywhere for something to be” (641)

“You feel the taint, the corruption of the Power that made the Ways. I will not use the One Power in the Ways unless I must. The taint is so strong whatever I tried to do would surely be corrupted” (646)

“No one, not even among the Ogier, knows how far the Ways run, or how deep. It could even be something of the Ways themselves” (656)

“You swirl lives around you, Rand al’Thor, you and your friends. Your fate chooses ours” (660)

“No men … It is the nature of the Eye, and the nature of the Green Man” (669)

“‘No one finds the Eye of the World,’ Moiraine said, ‘unless the Green Man wants them to find it. Need is the key, and intention. I know where to go—I have been there before … But one among us seeking glory, seeking to add his name to those four, and we may never find it though I take us straight to the spot I remember’” (668)

“He is a madman, Lord … The Light shields madmen” (670)

“The Pattern is forming a Web, Lord Agelmar, but the final shape of the Web is not yet set. It may yet entangle the world, or unravel and set the Wheel to a new weaving. At this point, even small things can change the shape of the Web. At this point I am wary of small things out of the ordinary” (671)

“Three ta’veren in one place are enough to change the life around them as surely as a whirlpool changes the path of a straw” (684)

“Mountains of Dhoom” (690)

Commentator’s Note: OH COME ON.

“Moiraine shook her head. ‘It should not have been willing to come so close to one who touches the True Source.’
‘Agelmar said the Blight stirs,’ Lan said. ‘Perhaps the Blight also knows a Web is forming in the Pattern’” (700)

“‘This place,’ said a deep voice from the trees, ‘is always where it is. All that changes is where those who need it are’” (704)

“Strange clothes you wear, Child of the Dragon. Has the Wheel turned so far? Do the People of the Dragon return to the first Covenant? But you wear a sword. That is neither now nor then” (704)

“I… cannot say. My memories are torn and often fleeting, and much of what remains is like leaves visited by caterpillars.
Yet, I am sure…. No, it is gone” (604)

“Then it has come again. That memory remains whole. The Dark One stirs. I have feared it. Every turning of years, the Blight strives harder to come inside, and this turn the struggle to keep it out has been greater than ever since the beginning. Come, I will take you” (705)

“All things must grow where they are, according to the Pattern,’ he explained over his shoulder, as if apologizing, ‘and face the turning of the Wheel, but the Creator will not mind if I give just a little help” (707)

“Avendesora is not here. I have not rested beneath its ungentle branches in two thousand years” (708)

“I was set to guard it long long ago, but it makes me uneasy to come too close. I feel myself being unmade; my end is linked with it, somehow. I remember the making of it. Some of the making. Some” (708)

“The greatest Aes Sedai works were always done so, joining saidin and saidar, as the True Source is joined. They died, all, to make it pure, while the world was torn around them” (708)

“It was not what I was made for, but all was breaking apart, and they were alone, and I was all they had. It was not what I was made for, but I have kept the faith” (708)

“‘It might be called the essence of saidin.’ The Aes Sedai’s words echoed round the dome. ‘The essence of the male half of the True Source, the pure essence of the Power wielded by men before the Time of Madness. The Power to mend the seal on the Dark One’s prison, or to break it open completely’” (709-710)

“Many in Tar Valon have attempted to find a way to use this Power, but it is as untouchable for any woman as the moon is for a cat. Only a man could channel it, but the last male Aes Sedai is nearly three thousand gone. Yet the need they saw was a desperate one. They worked through the taint of the Dark One on saidin to make it, and make it pure, knowing that doing so would kill them all. Male Aes Sedai and female together. The Green Man spoke true. The greatest wonders of the Age of Legends were done in that way, saidin and saidar together. All the women in Tar Valon, all the Aes Sedai in all the courts and cities, even with those in the lands beyond the Waste, even counting those who may still live beyond the Aryth Ocean, could not fill a spoon with the Power, lacking men to work with them” (710)

“The Forsaken” (712)

Commentator’s Note: Another Lord of the Rings adaptation, the nine kings of men…

“A glowing rope ran off from Aginor, behind him, white like sunlight seen through the purest cloud, heavier than a blacksmith’s arm, lighter than air, connecting the Forsaken to something distant beyond knowing” (718)

“Yet beside that shining cord, the Forsaken seemed almost not to exist. The cord was all. It hummed. It sang. It called Rand’s soul. One bright finger-strand lifted away, drifted, touched him, and he gasped. Light filled him, and heat that should have burned yet only warmed as if it took the chill of the grave from his bones. The strand thickened. I have to get away!” (718)

“Rand pulsed with the beating in the cord, like the heartbeat of the world. It filled his being. Light filled his mind, till only a corner was left for what was himself. He wrapped the void around that nook; sheltered in emptiness. Away!” (719)

“Warmth built in Rand, the warmth of the sun, the radiance of the sun, bursting, the awful radiance of light, of the Light. Away!” (719)

“His mind would not work; light and heat blinded it. The Light. In the midst of the void, the Light blinded his mind, stunned him with awe” (719)

“Heat filled him, the burning heat of the touched sun. He could see the Draghkar clearly, soulless eyes in pale men’s faces on winged bodies that had nothing of humanity about them. Terrible heat. Crackling heat” (720)

“It was not Rand’s thought, making his skull vibrate. I WILL TAKE NO PART. ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE CAN DO WHAT MUST BE DONE. IF HE WILL” (721)

“‘There are other choices,’ Rand said. ‘The Wheel weaves the Pattern, not you … You do not weave the Pattern’” (722)

“Ba’alzamon had a cord, too, he saw. A black cord, thicker by far than his own, so wide it should have dwarfed the human body, yer dwarfed by Ba’alzamon, instead. Each pulse along that black vein ate light” (722)

“men say many things about what happened in the Gap. That the Light took on flesh and fought for us. That the Creator walked in the Gap to strike at the Shadow. But I saw a man, Moiraine Sedai. I saw a man, and what he did, cannot be, must not be” (740)

“‘The Prophecies will be fulfilled,’ the Aes Sedai whispered. ‘The Dragon is Reborn’” (744)