The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time

  Series: Wheel of Time [1]

  Published: 2001

  Rating: ★★★

  Tags: Fantasy - Epic, Criticism, Illustrations, Epic, Science Fiction, Rand al’Thor (Fictitious character), Science Fiction Fantasy, General, Fantasy, American, Literary Criticism, Jordan; Robert;, Handbooks; manuals; etc, Fantasy fiction; American, Literature - Classics, Fiction, 1948-, Wheel of time, American - General

  Fantasy - Epicttt Criticismttt Illustrationsttt Epicttt Science Fictionttt Rand al’Thor (Fictitious character)ttt Science Fiction Fantasyttt Generalttt Fantasyttt Americanttt Literary Criticismttt Jordan; Robert;ttt Handbooks; manuals; etcttt Fantasy fiction; Americanttt Literature - Classicsttt Fictionttt 1948-ttt Wheel of timettt American - Generalttt

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  SUMMARY:

  Since the debut of Robert Jordan’s internationally bestselling series in 1990, The Wheel of Time has transported readers to a world so strikingly real, so rich in detail and complexity, it seems to rise from memory rather than a printed page. This essential companion to The Wheel of Time is for the millions interested in the history and the background of this incredible series-never-before-told legends, previously unknown peoples and lands, exotic beasts, and portents of what may come to pass. With more than seventy new full-color paintings that include stunning new world maps, portraits of the central characters, landscapes, objects of Power, and national flags, this comprehensive guide is indispensable to any Robert Jordan fan

  The World of Robert Jordan’s

  The Wheel

  of Time

  by Robert Jordan

  &

  Teresa Patterson

  *

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  The Wheel and the Power

  The Wheel and the Pattern

  The Power and the True Source

  The Age of Legends

  The Age of Legends

  The Fall into Shadow

  The Dark One & Male Forsaken

  Shai’tan

  Dreadlords

  The Forsaken

  Ishamael

  Aginor

  Balthamel

  Sammael

  Rahvin

  Be’lal

  Demandred

  Asmodean

  Female Forsaken & Darkfriends

  Lanfear

  Graendal

  Semirhage

  Mesaana

  Moghedien

  Osan’gar and Aran’gar

  Friends of the Dark

  Shadowspawn

  Trollocs

  Myrddraal

  Draghkar

  Darkhounds

  Gray Men

  The Breaking of the World

  The World Since the Breaking

  Formation of the White Tower

  The Ten Nations

  The Rise of Artur Hawkwing

  The Reign of the High King

  The War of the Hundred Years

  The New Era

  The Aiel War

  The World of the Wheel

  The World After the Breaking

  The World

  The Main Continent

  Continent of the Seanchan

  Land of the Madmen

  Shara

  Land of Barriers

  Hazardous Trade

  Rulers and Government

  The Ayyad

  Manifest Destiny

  Slavery

  Seanchan

  One Nation

  Leashing the Power

  Class Structure

  Imperial Control

  Seanchan Honor

  Imperial Security

  The Return

  The Animals of Seanchan

  Torm

  Corlm

  Lopar

  Grolm

  Raken

  To’raken

  The Sea Folk Islands

  The Atha’an Miere

  Chain of Command

  The Ships

  The Amayar

  The Aiel

  The Waste

  History of the Aiel

  The First Division

  The Second Division

  The Maidens of the Spear

  The Water Gift

  Rhuidean

  Legacy of Rhuidean

  Growth of the Aiel Clans

  The Code of Honor and Obligation

  The Wise Ones

  Aiel Culture

  Aiel Kinship

  The Lost Ones

  The Ogier

  Stedding

  History

  Lifestyle

  The Ways

  The Gift

  The Waygate

  Within the Ways

  Deterioration of the Ways

  Tel’aran’rhiod

  The World of Dreams

  Entering Tel’aran’rhiod

  A Different Reality

  Within the Land

  The White Tower

  Aes Sedai

  Political Strength of the Tower

  A Breed Apart

  Talents

  Becoming Aes Sedai

  Warders

  The Hierarchy of the Tower

  The Seven Ajahs

  Spies and Informants

  The White Tower

  The Library

  Tar Valon

  The Children of the Light

  History

  Purpose

  The Hand of the Light

  The Spymasters

  Organizational Structure

  The Military of the Land

  National Armies

  Order of Command

  The Band of the Red Hand

  Andor

  History

  Succession

  National Stability

  The Queen’s Guard

  Caemlyn

  Whitebridge

  The Mountains of Mist and Baerlon

  The Two Rivers

  The Borderlands

  Holding Back the Shadow

  Shienar

  Arafel

  Kandor

  Saldaea

  Cairhien

  History

  The Game of Houses

  The City of Cairhien

  The Sun Palace

  Foregate

  The Other Nations

  Amadicia

  Altara

  Murandy

  Arad Doman

  Tarabon

  Ghealdan

  Illian

  Tear

  Mayene

  Holidays and the Calendar

  The Prophecies of the Dragon

  *

  *

  This compilation of the world’s geography, sociology, and history uses information dating from the earliest available records of the Age of Legends through the current era.

  Reliable sources are limited. Almost all documents from before the War of the Hundred Years survive only as copies, or copies of copies, etc., and thus may well include mistakes made by the scribes. Few complete books or manuscripts of any kind survive from the War of the Hundred Years. The earlier period, from the end of the Trolloc Wars to the end of the War of the Hundred Years, left even less. All information from the time of the Breaking of the World to the end of the Trolloc Wars was pulled from manuscript fragments of varying sizes, sometimes not even consisting of consecutive pages. No books or manuscripts have yet been found dating from before the Breaking. All the information from the Age of Legends is based on documents from the first few centuries after the Breaking, when the writers might have had access to sources that had survived.

  Wherever possible, the information has been at least partially verified by writings contemporary with their contents, but the older a document or manuscript, the harder it is to date pages precisely.

  Some difficulties arise not from age or verifiability, but from problems of translation, for the older documents were written primarily or completely in the Old Tongue. Within the Old Tongue, as all scholars know, words have variable meanings, and some meanings have shifted to varying degrees over time.

  The authors hope that the reader will forgive the occasional inaccuracy that may arise within these pages and relish instead the immense diversity and energy within the legacy of the Pattern and the World of the Wheel.

  *

  The Wheel and the Power

  *

  The Wheel and the Pattern

  *

  “The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and go, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.” So begins each saga within the World of the Wheel, a universe in which the major controlling factor is the Wheel of Time and the Great Pattern it spins. A pattern in which light and dark, good and evil, male and female, and life and death struggle for balance within the weave of destiny.

  What is the Wheel of Time? Imagine a great cosmic loom in the shape of a seven-spoked wheel, slowly spinning through eternity, weaving the fabric of the universe. The Wheel, put in place by the Creator, is time itself, ever turning and returning. The fabric it weaves is constructed from the threads of lives and events, interlaced into a design, the Great Pattern, which is the whole of existence and reality, past, present, and future.

  Within the influence of this Lace of Ages are not only the earth and stone of the physical world, but othe
r worlds and universes, other dimensions, other possibilities. The Wheel touches what might be, what might have been, and what is. It touches the world of dreams as well as the world of waking.

  In this world there is no one beginning or one end, for each spoke of the great Wheel represents one of the seven Ages, receding into the past and returning in the future as the Wheel spins, the fabric of each age changing only its weave and pattern with each passing. With every pass the changes vary to an increasingly greater degree. For each Age there is a separate and unique pattern, the Pattern of the Age, which forms the substance of reality for that age. This design is predetermined by the Wheel and can only partially be changed by those lives which make up the threads within the weave.

  No one knows the length of time it takes for a full turning of the Wheel, nor is there a set time for each Age. There is only the certainty that all will come around again, though surely long past the span encompassed by human memory, or even legend. Yet that knowledge provides the basis for the philosophy and history of the known world. No ending, even death, is necessarily final within the turning of the Wheel. Reincarnation is a part of the way of the world. Prophecies are believed and heeded, since they tell as much of what was as of what will be. The only questions are when and in what manner the prophecies will unfold.

  In such a world change is simply a predetermined part of the mechanism. Only a few individuals, special souls known as ta’veren, can cause the fabric of the pattern to bend around them, changing the weave. These ta’veren are spun out as key threads around which all surrounding life-threads, perhaps in some cases all life-threads, weave to create change. These key threads often produce major variations in the Pattern of an Age. Such major changes are called, in the old tongue, ta’maral’alien, or the “Web of Destiny.”

  Even the ta’veren and the Web of Destiny woven around them are bound by the Wheel and the Great Pattern; it is believed that the Wheel spins out ta’veren whenever the weave begins to drift away from the Pattern. The changes around them, while often drastic and unsettling for those who must live in the Age, are thought to be part of the Wheel’s own correcting mechanism. The more change needed to bring the Great Pattern into balance, the more ta’veren spun out into the world.

  The Great Wheel is the very heart of all time. But even the Wheel requires energy to maintain itself and its pattern. This energy comes from the True Source, from which the One Power may be drawn. Both the True Source and the One Power are made up of two conflicting yet complementary parts: saidin, the male half, and saidar, the female half. Working both together and against one another within the True Source, it is saidin and saidar which provide the driving force that turns the Wheel of Time.

  The only known forces outside the Wheel and the Pattern are the Creator, who shaped the Wheel, the One Power that drives it—as well as the plan for the Great Pattern—and the Dark One who was imprisoned outside the pattern by the Creator at the moment of creation. No one inside and of the Pattern can destroy the Wheel or change the destiny of the Great Pattern. Even those who are ta’veren can only alter, but not completely change, the weave. It is believed that if he escapes his prison, the Dark One, being a creature or force beyond creation, has the ability to remake the Wheel and all of creation in his own dark image. Thus each person, especially each of those born ta’veren, must struggle to achieve his or her own best destiny to assure the balance and continuation of the Great Pattern.

  *

  The Power and the True Source

  *

  The True Source is made up of two complementary parts: saidin, the male half, and saidar, the female half. Each has separate properties and affinities, working at the same time with and against the other. Only women can touch saidar, and only men saidin. Each is completely unable to sense the other half of the Source, except as an absence or negativity. Even the methodologies by which men and women utilize the One Power that emanates from the True Source are so completely different that no woman can teach a man to use the power, and no man a woman.

  In some Ages, such as that called the Age of Legends, men and women used the complementary and conflicting halves of the Power together to perform feats that neither could accomplish separately. In the present Age, part of the Power, the male half, has been tainted, causing any man who channels saidin to go mad eventually and cause Power-wrought havoc unless he is killed or gentled.

  Most people cannot sense or touch the True Source, even though its energy may be manifested all around them. Only a tiny portion of the population, about two or three percent, actually have the ability, once taught, to touch and draw on the One Power, and today many of those cannot utilize its power in any effective manner. The act of drawing and controlling the flow of the One Power from the True Source is known as channeling.

  Channeling draws on threads of the One Power and uses them singly or in combination in a weave designed to accomplish the particular task at hand. There are five different threads to the One Power, known as the Five Powers. They are named according to the elements their energies manipulate: Earth, Air (sometimes called Wind), Fire, Water, and Spirit. In many cases only one of the Powers is required to accomplish a task. A weave of Fire alone will light a candle or control a fire. But certain tasks necessitate the weaving of flows in more than one of the Five Powers. For instance, one who wishes to affect the weather must weave a flow combining Air, Water, and Spirit.

  Anyone who can channel usually has a greater degree of strength with at least one or two of the Powers, yet they may lack any particular ability at all with some of the others. For example, someone strong in Wind may be all but unable to weave Fire, or may be weak in Earth but equally strong in Spirit and Air. Some few rare individuals have been found to be very strong in as many as three, or in very rare cases four, of the Powers. But since the Age of Legends no one has had great strength in all five. Even then, such individuals were very rare.

  Levels of comparative strength also vary greatly from one individual wielder of the Power to another, and from men to women. Using records gathered from the Age of Legends (current data have little usable information concerning the use of saidin), it is possible to state certain facts about the strength and distribution of the ability in those men and women who could channel. In general, men were stronger in the use of the Power than women—that is, in the sheer volume of the Power they could handle—though there were certainly individual women who had great strength and individual men who were comparatively weak. By the same token, though some men had great dexterity in the weaving, in general women outstripped men in this regard. Men usually exhibited greater ability with Earth and Fire while women more often excelled in the use of Water and/or Air. Equal numbers of men and women were strong in the use of Spirit. There were, of course, exceptions, but they were rare enough that Earth and Fire came to be regarded as male powers, while Air and Water were considered female powers. Even today women usually exhibit their greatest strength in Air or Water, or both. This probably prompted the popular saying among female channelers: “There is no rock so strong that water and wind cannot wear it away, no fire so fierce that water cannot quench it or wind snuff it out.” Any equivalent witticism among male channelers has been lost.

  Of the tiny percentage of the population who have the potential to channel at all, only a small number have the ability inborn. It usually manifests itself in adolescence or early adulthood, though in general women show the ability at a younger age than men, often much younger. These few talented individuals will eventually channel the Power with or without guidance, whether or not they wish to do so. In many cases they are not even aware of what they are doing. For such people, touching and drawing on the True Source is completely natural, and potentially deadly.

  As far as is known, the One Power is not alive, but is a force of natural energy limited only by the strength of the channeler and the extent of his/her control. One warning must be emphasized: its use is extremely addictive. One unwary of the danger inherent in channeling can easily be seduced into drawing more than he or she can handle, or drawing on it too often. Such mishandling of this power usually exacts a terrible price on the body and mind.

  Drawing saidar and channeling it without benefit of guidance or training results in death for four out of five women born with the ability. This death often takes the form of a lingering sickness that saps the individual of her life energy. Those who first touch the power unintentionally generally feel nothing unusual at the time, but suffer a violent reaction as much as ten days later. This reaction seldom lasts for more than a few hours. Headaches, chills, fever, exhilaration, numbness, dizziness, and lack of coordination are only a few of the most usual symptoms, often occurring simultaneously or in quick succession. These effects return after each incident of touching the Source. Each time, reaction comes closer to the actual act of touching, until the two happen almost simultaneously. At this stage the visible reactions stop, but unless some sort of control has been learned, death becomes a certainty. Some women die within the year, some survive as long as five years, yet without the control that is almost impossible to learn without guidance, all die. Their final days are usually marked by violent convulsions and screams of agony. Once the last stages are entered, there is no known cure, even with the use of the One Power.