Is the Bore a hole in Tel'aran'rhiod?

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We know that Tel'aran'rhiod is the world of dreams and we also know that across all of the Multiversal patterns, there exists only one Creator, one Dark One and one Tel'aran'rhiod. Essentially the world of dreams is the manifestation of consciousness, which is why you need to sleep to enter it - with the exception of entering the realm of consciousness physically.

So I imagine a layered cake, for arguments sake the Dark One the base. The next layer would be Tel'aran'rhiod and then at the top of the cake we have the Multiversal Pattern. When Lanfear created the Bore, it was due to her "drilling" through Tel'aran'rhiod, and into the Dark Ones prison.

Ishamael (someone whose words I think we can hold some weight to - even if his nihilistic philosophies are proven to be wrong) says something to the effect of Shayol Ghul being no closer to the Bore physically than anywhere else, but that the thinness of the Pattern at Shayol Ghul allows the Dark One to seep through Tel'aran'rhiod.

So my theory here (no doubt not original at all and inspired my many other far more intelligent WoT readers than me) is that Lanfear created the Bore as a metaphysical hole in reality, a hole in consciousness and will.

This ties in with the theme of the Dark One being an agent of Free Will, of Chaos, that the world that exists in WoT is a the physical world where Tel'aran'rhiod acts as a mechanism to tie consciousness to the World of Flesh, hence entering in the Flesh is evil because it removes one degree of separation to Chaos. We also know that whatever research Lanfear was engages in at Collam Daam it is likely to revolve around her expertise and penchant towards the World of Dreams.

Any thoughts?
 
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Interesting to note that RJ had a degree in physics. You could think of TAR, the Skimming Place, and the Ways as different manifestations of spacetime, and in fact when Egwene and Moghedian explain Travelling to each other (I think in TFOH) the gates are exactly like wormholes that exist in numerous sci-fi worlds and some physicists think may actually exist.

I'm not quite sure if the Aelfinn and Eelfinn fit into this but Moiraine's description of how their world is "folded in strange ways" would seem to fit.
 
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I'm not quite sure if the Aelfinn and Eelfinn fit into this but Moiraine's description of how their world is "folded in strange ways" would seem to fit.

There is also when Rand and co are travelling in TGH after using the portal stone. The world they move into is said to have strange properties relating to distance, similar to the Aelfinn/Eelfinn worlds but to a lesser extent. Which is essentially non Euclidean geometry as a fundamental part of physics in that world. Verin speculates that the portal stones relate to travel between the multiverse and we know the portal stones pre-date the AoL.

I also remember reading somewhere that Jordan stated the Sun in Wheel of Time will never go nova because of the cyclical nature of the WoT Universe - I am not sure where I read that or if it is true so I'll have to find a source.

I do think Jordan had some fundamental metaphysics underpinning his world.
 

Ashara Koh'inor

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Following this conversation, because I am a nerd and this is a fantastic theory.
 

Satara al'Caelahn

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Following this conversation, because I am a nerd and this is a fantastic theory.

Same. I'll be honest, when I read the thread title, I was like "what?" But then I read the theory and it makes a lot of sense.

I've thought about the Bore before and I knew it was clear that Lanfear bored into something but I didn't think too hard about what that might be or how it might relate to the rest of the world. At least, not beyond what Rand had to do in order to touch the DO's prison to recreate it.
 
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I think the Bore was created in Tel'aran'rhiod by an act of will. We know that willpower > everything else in Tel'aran'rhiod. I don't think Aes Sedai actually channel there, I think they just will weaves into existence because it is something they can do in the world of flesh. "It's only balefire" after all.

I think Jordan definitely had a clear view of what happened although I think he liked to keep the mythos.
 

Elanda Tonil

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I’ve always imagined tel’aran’rhiod as being a different dimension occupying the same space as the physical worlds, rather than existing outside of them. And the same with TDO’s prison.

I think it’s a slight plot hole that there’s only one tel’aran’rhiod for all the worlds because it is so consistently reflecting theirs, the girls even use it to read Elaida’s letters. Though it could be argued that they all fundamentally expect it to be limited to their world that they are subconsciously forcing it to be so.

Ishamael (someone whose words I think we can hold some weight to - even if his nihilistic philosophies are proven to be wrong) says something to the effect of Shayol Ghul being no closer to the Bore physically than anywhere else, but that the thinness of the Pattern at Shayol Ghul allows the Dark One to seep through Tel'aran'rhiod.
Do you perchance remember where he said this? I think I need to reread it in order to form up my thoughts on this.
 
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I’ve always imagined tel’aran’rhiod as being a different dimension occupying the same space as the physical worlds, rather than existing outside of them. And the same with TDO’s prison.

I think it’s a slight plot hole that there’s only one tel’aran’rhiod for all the worlds because it is so consistently reflecting theirs, the girls even use it to read Elaida’s letters. Though it could be argued that they all fundamentally expect it to be limited to their world that they are subconsciously forcing it to be so.

The reason it consistently reflects theirs is that not all realities in the multiverse are equal - at least according to Lanfear and considering her knowledge of the Esoterics from the AoL I would probably air on the side of believing her claims. When she is masquerading as Selene she tells Rand and Co (TGH) that some of the realities are an almost exact offshoot, while others are so unlikely to form a reality that they are barely holding together.

So this is not a typical multiverse, rather a Universe with infinitely mapped variations on a probabilistic curve. This would mean most realities would strongly reflect their world - and therefore so would Tel'aran'rhiod.

Do you perchance remember where he said this? I think I need to reread it in order to form up my thoughts on this.

I'm sorry i cannot remember where exactly, but when I come across it I will post it. I am fairly certain its is after TSR because I think when Ishamael states it he has already been reborn as Moridin.
 

Elanda Tonil

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The reason it consistently reflects theirs is that not all realities in the multiverse are equal - at least according to Lanfear and considering her knowledge of the Esoterics from the AoL I would probably air on the side of believing her claims. When she is masquerading as Selene she tells Rand and Co (TGH) that some of the realities are an almost exact offshoot, while others are so unlikely to form a reality that they are barely holding together.

So this is not a typical multiverse, rather a Universe with infinitely mapped variations on a probabilistic curve. This would mean most realities would strongly reflect their world - and therefore so would Tel'aran'rhiod.



I'm sorry i cannot remember where exactly, but when I come across it I will post it. I am fairly certain its is after TSR because I think when Ishamael states it he has already been reborn as Moridin.
I appreciate it! That helps me narrow my search a little bit too. :D

I'm still not entirely sold on that. Many decisions in life are all but random and they can have a significant impact on things, and would be roughly equally likely to occur. For example, the timelines in which Siuan looked into the extra laborers a bit earlier rather than deciding to wait a bit. Tiny changes in virtually randomly chosen orders of events (for example, Siuan selecting the extra laborers for her random audit three weeks earlier) would have a huge impact and would be nearly equally likely and would therefore be nearly as likely as the "real" timeline to appear. Then you have the variations on each of those variations, and even though the probability is lower for each of those than for the analogous ones in the "real" timeline, there's a lot of them. I'd need more specifics about the probability space to really form a solid opinion. Of course, ta'veren break the laws of probability so maybe it's predetermined enough to narrow it down. But that would seem to potentially make the other possibilities not possibilities at all. If the pattern forces everyone in the village to get married all on the one day because Rand is passing through, is there the possibility of a universe in which Sally said no, she didn't want to marry Barry? Or does the ta'veren effect obliterate those other possibilities?
 
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