I'm pretty new to the wot community but I really do enjoy all the novels. In my endless endeavoring to procrastinate, I came upon this site and have spent many fruitful hours in the different links, not the least of which is the theory post. In particular I've been reading the postings about Mat(one of my favorites) and the theories of how and why he looses his left eye, if at all. I was surprised to see however that no one had the same thought that just struck me.
In Egwene's dreams, we can assume that Mat is going to loose one of his eyes. She also dreamed that Rand would loose a hand and his sight to live as a beggar (I'm sorry I haven't cited these, but like I said, I'm new and have only read through the books once).
In many of the theories I have read, many of you think that Rand will be captured and tortured. I agree with this thought. Other theories think that Mat will loose his eye as payment to Eelfinn in an attempt to save Moraine or some other escapade dealing with "All those women" that get Mat into trouble. This I do not fully agree with.
My thought does not deal with Mat saving Aes Sedai, however. It deals with Mat, "Giving up half the light of the world to save it."
To weave the one power, there are some criteria that must be met. One of which is that the channeler must be able to see the weaves he or she is controlling. If Rand is captured in one of the subsequent books, tortured, and blinded, he will not be able to channel, let alone "save the world" at TG. Therefore, Mat, being the savior character that he is, must "give up half the light of the world", his eye, to allow Rand to see again, to channel again, to Save the World. I don't know if this will be payment to the Eelfinn or be met through some type of new Nynaeve healing process, but knowing Robert Jordan it will probably be much more involed than I can think of. Anyway, I hope my guess into the future events of the books helps spark some thought out there. Later
Raserei says: I suppose the next claim you'll make is that Mat will invent gun powder too.
J/k
But the real question is, how would Mat do this?
Comments
you don't have to see the weaves to be able to channel. For example in book 4 in the Stone of Tear, Rand pins Lanfear against the wall with Air, and she of course can't see the weaves of saidin, but she can still snap them, because she knows what and where they are.
For a list of all the prophecies in WoT, see
http://linuxmafia.com/jordan/4_prophecy/
Mat will have to "give half the light of the world to save the world." But if I remember correctly, and I pobably don't, I think it says he must give up half the light of his world to save the world. This corresponds to his putting ones of his eyes on a set of balance scales. This is something he will have to do for himself, not Rand.
Good thinking though!
Brown and Gold, baby!
UW Cowboys
"I think it says he must give up half the light of his world to save the world"
I don't see how this makes a difference to the theory. Mat would be giving up half the light of his world by giving up his eye so that Rand can see.
I liked this theory in that it seems original, although I don't necessarily believe it's true.
To tell you the truth, I think you do have to be able to see to weave. It's not really the same situation as knowing where a weave is and cutting it, even if you can't see it. For example, at Dumai's Wells, when Rand breaks the shield he says the only thing he could see was the inside of the bok so all he could do was break free of it using air. I'm sure you can channel with your eye's closed, but actually weaving the flows...I dunno.
If Rand goes blind (Tam warned him about that 'hobby' of his) Then he would be able to eventually relearn channeling, but it'd be hard process. Like Helen Keller learning to comunicate he'd have to find a new way to experience things on his own.
I think that half the light of the world could be Mat giving his eye for Rands sight. Or allowing a link to his eyes so Rand can see. It might also mean the moon, or that is to say the duaghter of the nine moons. It's definitely one of those things that we won't know until it happens. Kind of like no one could have guessed how Mat would have to weigh two Aes Sedai on a scale until it happened in Book 9.
By the way cool theory dude. Thanks for giving us something about light that wasn't another tired theory on the twice dawning thing. Not that I dislike any of the theories mind you. We've just been getting too many of them.
Oh and welcome to our twisted neighbor hood. Hope you enjoy it here.
Sooner or later it all connects back to itself.
why is it that people think that if you're blind you can't channel? this never occured to me. in the shadow rising i think, towards the beginning when Rand is having a little mini-confrontation with Lanfear before the trollocs invade, she comments on how she doesn't need to see his weaves to know where they are. This is how she is able to 'cut' his them. While this doesn't necessarily relate to seeing her own weaves, i beleive it is much the same. Also, in a later book (not sure which right now), while Egqene is training with the Wise Ones in Cairhien and the Tower Aes Sedai have sent their envoy to Rand, Egwene uses Moiraine's trick of the eavesdropping stone. While somewhat vaguely described, the reader sees various scenes that take place within the house/inn/manor/whatever that the tower sisters are staying at. Egwene is weaving her weaves inside their residence and spying on them. Can she be sitting out in some back alley a street away and weaving crazy stone-eavesdropping weaves inside a huge manor house and watch them? That's doubtful.
just thought i'd add. good theory though.
One of the Salidar Aes Sedai who once had a block (Theodrin) stated that she could not weave if she could not see. That was her block; she could only channel when she had her eyes closed.
I liked this theory. It is (to me) perhaps the second best theory regarding this that I have read.
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Just a thought...
Min said that Rand almost certainly would lose without a woman who was dead and gone, right?
To save the world, Moiraine does have to be found.
I dont believe in this myself but I just had to say it
Yes, that's true but....what exactly does that have to do with this theory or the previous blackboard comments?
Perhaps he meant that Moiraine might be the one to figure out how Rand can see again if he goes blind. By the way again, yes you probably could learn to channel weaves if you were blind, but it'd still require relearning channeling in a new way.
Sooner or later it all connects back to itself.
Egwene wasn't looking inside the house, she was listening to conversations in it by picking up the vibrations at the windows. If any of you have ever read anything on SpyTech, you will know what I am talking about. Today, you can listen to conversationsm or any kind of sound wave by using a laser-based device. You point it at a window, and the device plays back the resulting vibrations in the beam as sound. The One-Power way of doing it is akin to using two cans with a string connecting them. The channeler moves their 'string' around wherever they want to hear, using some abject as a focus, though I doubt they really have to use an object. They could just as easily use the air in their ear.
Egwene listens into the manor house from an alley across the way. She had to peer around the corner to do so. That's why she stopped doing it. She was afraid she'd be seen. Moraine said that you had to see the weaves to weave them, though I can see how that would be a limitation she merely believed in. But there are many who seem to. That could trap Rand into believing it also. The Forsaken may know other ways, and there is the occasional descrepency, but Rand would have to believe he could channel blind in order to do so, and that's contrary to the info he's gotten so far.
I believe that anything is possible with the one power. I don't think it would matter if Rand lost both his eyes. He could use the One Power to see with. If you can use the One Power to hear things that are far away, you can use it to see with, just in a very different way. You would have to bypass the eyes, but tying weaves directly to the brain. Let me explain. On the outside is some kind of photoresponsive weave (Rand (or someone else) could even weave it all around his head so that he could see 360 degrees!) from that photorestive weave are neural connector weaves that transfer the signal to the brain. If you think that that is too complicated for them, think again! Think how complicated it would sound if we explained the complex healing Nynaeve uses or weaving a GATEWAY! That, is incredibly scientific! They would just have to get the idea for Rand to be able to use it, which isn't likely.
This will neither prove or disprove the theory, but I thought that I would mention it to get people thinking. There are two major things that limit what a person can do with the OP. One, obviously is their strength. The other is their training. I remember someone saying that they could tell who trained a particular AS just by the way they wove their weaves. If they were taught that there needed to be a throwing motion to throw a fireball, then they needed to make a throwing motion. There is a quote in POD refering to having to see the weaves. This is during the ill-fated attack on the BT by the AS. This quote is from Toveine's spoken words and her own thoughts. {"At my command," she said quietly, "we will break in every direction. As soon as you are far enough away that the man loses the shield," men always thought that they had to be able to see to hold their weaves, which meant that they did have to. "turn back and help the Guards."} {POD Ch. 26 The Extra Bit}. Although this doesn't directly answer the question do you need to see to be able to make the weaves, it does say that you can maintain a current weave with out seeing it. It would seem to raise the question, could a blind person be taught to weave the OP.
Anything can be Healed, short of death.
The closing comment of this theory by the moderator, not the proposer was actually kind of interesting. It was asked whether he was proposing that Mat would discover gunpowder, in a semi-humorous way. Well, in a way, Mat has discovered gunpwder already, but he doesn't know yet that he has. Two things make me say this; 1) his use of the satchel of fireworks at the Stone, an early form of bunker-busting, and still quite effective for ground forces today, and 2) His meeting with Aludra in Ebou Dar where she challenges him to reason out why she needs to find a bellfounder. Why would she need that? To get him to cast cannon barrels naturally. Early cannons were nearly always made of bronze, and later reinforced brass. It wasn't until the mid to late 19th century that they began making them of steel.
As for giving up half the light of the world? I guess we will need to wait for RJ to enlighten us!
Tai'Shar Preussen!
Der Ritter des Lichtes 
Lord Protector of the Lady B.Alicia
The closing comment of this theory by the moderator, not the proposer was actually kind of interesting. It was asked whether he was proposing that Mat would discover gunpowder, in a semi-humorous way. Well, in a way, Mat has discovered gunpwder already, but he doesn't know yet that he has. Two things make me say this; 1) his use of the satchel of fireworks at the Stone, an early form of bunker-busting, and still quite effective for ground forces today, and 2) His meeting with Aludra in Ebou Dar where she challenges him to reason out why she needs to find a bellfounder. Why would she need that? To get him to cast cannon barrels naturally. Early cannons were nearly always made of bronze, and later reinforced brass. It wasn't until the mid to late 19th century that they began making them of steel.
As for giving up half the light of the world? I guess we will need to wait for RJ to enlighten us!
Tai'Shar Preussen!
Der Ritter des Lichtes
Lord Protector of the Lady B.Alicia
This is my first time reading these theories so I haven't had any influence from them before reading all the books.
So the first time I read giving up half the light of the world to save the world I assumed it meant living on the Seanchan island married to Tuon which is on the other side of the world and therefor never being able to return home and never seeing the sunlight from his homeland again.
I really like this theory, and I have one thing to point out to most of the blackboard comments so far. That is all of the counter examples given to being able to channel without seeing focus on the reciever of the weave. IE you weave something and can't see where it is effecting (in someones mind for Compulsion, eavsdropping etc) however none of them address the fact that even if you can't see where it ends you certainly seem to have to see exactly where it is and what you are weaving before 'sending' it where you want.
Also on a side note...I REALLY don't think that the half the light of the world prophecy relates to Mat losing an eye at all because while it seems to fit the first part, i have heard nothing that even comes close to explaining how Mat losing an eye will save THE WORLD...which is a very important aspect to the prophecy.
anyway that's my 2 cents for now
I think it has something to do with Mat helping Tuon and the Seanchan take most of the Westlands.
Since the Seanchan have conquered Tarabon, Altara and Amadicia, many of the Eastern countries are worried of invasion, and fear the Seanchan conquerors.
In actuality, the lands conquered under the Seanchan are prospering, and the Seanchan prove to be worthy rulers. They quelled many of the civil wars and much of the unrest in Tarabon (though not all) and have begun to rebuild and restablish these countries.
What the world percieves as giving up its 'light' may be just what the Westlands need to defeat the DO, a full unification under the Seanchan.
Perhaps this 'light' is the White Tower and Aes Sedai.
If i am correct, I believe Ishamael was the one that convinced Artur Hawkwing to refuse Aes Sedai help, seige Tar Valon, and send Luthair Paendrag across the Aryth Ocean in order to cause turmoil later.
I believe that Ishamael also had a hand in helping to create the first a'dam , and the whole damane/suldam scheme in Seanchan. If the Aes Sedai gave up their liberties to be used as weapons(though they would need to swear new oaths most likely), perhaps they would be able to save the world, leaving the Ashaman as the other half of the light of the world.
The only problem I see with this is RJ being able to continue to develop Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve and all the other important Aes Sedai characters. Maybe giving up the White Tower and letting the rebels stand as the other half of the world's light?
As far as why Mat would have a hand in 'giving up half the light of the world', we know that he possesses a great deal of information about the Aes Sedai, despite his mistrust and hatred of them. He also has the Foxhead medallion and General Skills, so perhaps he can assist the Seanchan military in some way.
Hmm, still not convinced Matt is going to lose an eye, But anyway....
Focusing on 'losing half of the light of the world'. I assumed (maybe stupidly) that the light of the world would be the moon and the sun. Hmm, moon? As in daughter of the nine moons? I was wondering if Matt has to sacrifice Tuon to save the world. Becuase eventually they are going to love each other right? Anyway, probably completely wrong, but opinions please!
You won't believe this but this is practically the exact same theory I came up with without ever reading this particular board. I also have further evidence to back up Mat losing an eye. His fox head medallion only shows one eye, correct? Coincidence? I think not. I'm not definite on this, because there are other theories out there I like alot, I just wanted to say I think when two people come up with the same idea and have never met, or read anything of the other's, have a pretty good chance of being right. ^_^
First of all, if you lose an eye, you only lose one fifth of your vision. And second, most times you do have to see in order to weave. Channellers are able to cut the weaves of the opposite source (saidan, saidar) because they know where the weave is, say if it is holding a person from moving. In PoD when Toveine was sheided by the men she ordered the sisters to scatter in hopes of breaking eyesight with the men "men always thought they had to be able to see to hold their weaves, which meant that they did have to. it doesnt mean that you cant channel blind just that if you think u cant then u cant.
To the Choedan Kal: Theodrins block was that she could only channel when there was a man around that she either liked or disliked.
about seeing the weaves