Saturday, February 23, 2019

The shattering of the Arm of Dorne and the Doom of Valyria could pale in comparison


Potential Spoilers Below

I keep telling everyone that similarities between The Wheel of Time (TWOT) and A Song of Ice and Fire (ASOIAF) are vast even if there are those out there that say otherwise.  There is an event from the Wheel of Time (TWOT) that I have always thought would have to be used somehow as it was pivotal.  With the advancing White Walkers and wights something on those lines will have to be incorporated somehow.  I have always believed that there was a device within ASOIAF that was similar to the Bowl of the Winds in TWOT.  The Bowl is a ter’angreal which allows its users to control the weather.  This to me could account for the long summers and winters that are experienced that aren’t tied to their planet’s revolution around its sun.  The picture of the Bowl of the Winds reminded me immediately of something shown in the TV show located in the Land of Always Winter.  Think of it a device that could control nature itself.  It would provide a better insight as to how the Arm of Dorne was shattered and how the Doom of Valyria was able to destroy everything to the extent that it did where even dragons couldn’t escape.  What if Sam discovers a way to utilize said device and do something on the lines of what was done in TWOT to give our heroes enough time to escape and plan their next phase of attack against the advancing enemy.  It could be the way they utterly destroy the enemy.  As my theory has developed over the years I would say such a device would most like reside on the Isle of Faces.  Click here to see the blog I wrote concerning the item that I theorize could exist.  The rest is the blog is the story of the pivotal event from TWOT:

The Bowl of the Winds




This reminded me of the Bowl of the Winds from TWOT


Someone rode up beside her on a large black horse, emerging as if from smoke. The man was tall and well-built and had darks curls of hair down to his shoulders. Logain looked thinner than she remembered from last time she’d seen him, his cheeks sunken, but his face was still handsome.

“Logain?” she said, shocked.

The Asha’man gestured sharply. Explosions sounded all across the battlefield. Elayne turned to see over a hundred men in black coats marching through a large gateway on top of her hill.

“Pull those Ogier back,” Logain said. His ragged voice was raw. Those eyes of his seemed darker now than they once had been. “We will hold this position.”

Elayne blinked, then nodded for Arganda to pass the command. Logain shouldn’t give orders to me, she thought absently. For the moment, she let it pass.

Logain turned his horse and rode to the side of the hilltop, looking down at her army. Elayne followed, feeling numb. Trollocs fell as Asha’man called up strange attacks, gateways that seemed tied to the ground somehow. They stormed forward, killing the Shadowspawn.

Logain grunted. “You’re in bad shape.”

She forced her mind to work. The Asha’man were here. “Did Rand send you?”

“We sent ourselves,” Logain said. “The Shadow has been planning this trap for a long time, according to notes in Taim’s study. I only just managed to decipher them.” He looked at her. “We came to you first. The Black Tower stands with the Lion of Andor.”

“We need to get my people out of here,” Elayne said, forcing her mind to think through the cloud of fatigue. Her army needed a queen. “Mother’s milk in a cup! This is going to cost us.” She’d probably lose half her force withdrawing. Better half than all of them. “I’ll start bringing my men back in ranks. Can you make enough gateways to lead us to safety?”

“That wouldn’t be a problem,” Logain said absently, looking down the slope. His impassive face would have impressed any Warder. “But it will be a slaughter. There’s no room for a good retreat, and your lines will grow weaker and weaker as you pull back. The last ranks will be overwhelmed and consumed.”

“I don’t see that we have any other choice,” Elayne snapped, exhausted. Light! Here, help had come, and she was snapping. Stop it. She composed herself, sitting up straighter. “I mean to say that your arrival, while appreciated greatly, cannot turn a battle that is this far gone. A hundred Asha’man cannot stop a hundred thousand Trollocs on their own. If we could arrange our battle lines better, get at least a short rest for my men … but no. That is impossible. We must retreat—unless you can produce a miracle, Lord Logain.”

He smiled, perhaps at her use of “lord” for him. “Androl!” he barked.

A middle-aged Asha’man hurried over, a plump Aes Sedai joining him. Pevara? Elayne thought, too exhausted to make sense of it. A Red?

“My Lord?” the man, Androl, asked.

“I need to slow that army of Trollocs long enough for the army to regroup and refield itself, Androl,” Logain said. “How much will it cost us for a miracle?”

“Well, my Lord,” Androl said, rubbing his chin. “That depends. How many of those women sitting back there can channel?”


*   *   *

It was a thing of legends.

Elayne had heard of the great works performed by large circles of men and women. Every woman in the White Tower was taught of these feats from the past, stories of different days, better days. Days when one half of the One Power had not been a thing to fear, when two halves of one whole had worked together to create incredible wonders.

She wasn’t sure the days of legend had truly returned. Certainly, the Aes Sedai during those times hadn’t been so worried, so desperate. But what they did now left Elayne in awe.

She joined in the circle, making the total fourteen women and twelve men. She barely had any strength to lend, but her trickle added to the increasingly large stream. More importantly, a circle had to have at least one more woman than it had men—and now that she had joined, Logain could come in last of all and add his considerable strength to the flow.

At the head of this circle was Androl, an odd choice. Now that she was part of the circle, she could feel his relative strength. He was extremely weak, weaker than many women who were turned away from the Tower, refused the shawl because of their lack of innate talent.

Elayne and the others had relocated to the far side of the battlefield. The rest of the Asha’man held back the attacking Trolloc horde as Androl prepared. Whatever he did, it would need to be swift. Elayne still had trouble believing anything could be done. Even with this much power, even with thirteen men and fourteen women working together.

“Light,” Androl whispered, standing between her horse and Logain’s. “Is this what it feels like to be one of you people? How do you handle so much of the One Power? How do you keep it from consuming you alive, burning you away?”

Pevara rested her hand on his shoulder in a gesture that was unmistakably tender. Elayne could barely rub two thoughts together amid her fatigue, but she still found herself shocked. She had not expected affection from a Red for a man who could channel.

“Move the soldiers back,” Androl said softly.

Elayne gave the order, worried. The man beside her had never held this kind of power before. It could go to someone’s head; she had seen it happen. Light send that he knew what he was doing.

The soldiers and others retreated, passing by Elayne’s group. Several tired Ogier nodded to her in passing, their shoulders slumped, their arms scored with cuts. The Trollocs poured forward, but the Asha’man who weren’t in the circle disrupted their attack with weaves of the One Power.

It wasn’t enough. Though the Asha’man fought well, there were just so many Trollocs. The Asha’man could not stop this tide. What did Logain think could be done?

Androl smiled widely, and held his hands out in front of himself as if pressing against a wall. He closed his eyes. “Three thousand years ago the Lord Dragon created Dragonmount to hide his shame. His rage still burns hot. Today … I bring it to you, Your Majesty.”

A beam of light split the air, easily a hundred feet tall. Moonshadow shied back and Elayne frowned. Why a column of light? What good would that … The beam of light began to twist in the air, rotating upon itself. Only then did Elayne recognize it for the start of a gateway. An enormous gateway, large enough to swallow buildings. She could have moved an entire wing of the Caemlyn palace through that thing!

The air shimmered in front of them, the way a gateway always looked from behind. She couldn’t see where the gateway was leading. Did they have an army waiting on the other side?

She could see the expressions on the slavering Trolloc faces as they looked into the opening. Absolute horror. They broke away, running, and Elayne felt a sudden heat, almost overpowering.

Something exploded out of the gateway, as if pushed by an incredible force. A column of lava a hundred feet in diameter, blazing hot. The column broke apart as the lava crashed down, splashing to the battlefield, gushing forward in a river. The Asha’man outside the circle used weaves of Air to keep it from splashing back on the circle and to shepherd it in the right direction.

The river of fire washed through the foremost Trolloc ranks, consuming them, destroying hundreds in an eyeblink. The lava was under pressure on the other side; that was the only way she could explain the force with which it sprayed from the enormous gateway, turning Trollocs into cinders, burning a large swath through their army.

Androl held the gateway for long minutes as the Shadow’s army pulled back. Asha’man to the sides used gusts of wind to blow the Shadowspawn back into the ever-widening river. By the time Androl finished, he had created a barrier of red-hot death between Elayne’s army and the bulk of the Trollocs, whose backs were against the northern walls of Cairhien.

Androl took a breath, closed the gateway, then pivoted and made two others in quick succession, one pointing southeast, the other southwest.

A second and third column of lava spurted forth—smaller this time, as Androl was obviously weakened. These went tumbling over the land to the east and west of Cairhien, singeing away dead weeds and casting smoke into the air. Some of the Trolloc army had pulled back, but many others had perished, boxed in, with the walled city on one side and lava on others. It would be some time before the Fades could organize the survivors to resume their attacks on Elayne’s forces.

Androl let the gateway close. He slumped, but Pevara caught him.

“One miracle, my Lord,” Androl said, voice soft, as if strained. “Delivered as requested. That should hold them back for a few hours. Long enough?”

“Long enough,” Elayne said. “We will be able to regroup, bring through supplies for the dragons, and fetch as many Aes Sedai from Mayene as we can get to Heal our men and wash away their fatigue. Then we can sort through who is strong enough to continue and reposition our ranks for a much more effective battle.”

“You intend to keep fighting?” Androl asked, surprised.

“Yes,” Elayne said. “I can barely stand, but yes. We cannot afford to leave that Trolloc horde here intact. You and your men give us an edge, Logain. We will use it, and everything we have, and we will destroy them.”

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.

1 comment:

  1. In the TV show the Horn of Winter will probably save the day as Sam most likely still has it. Bran will peer back in time and see the purpose of the Horn and Sam will pull it out of his bag. This will give everyone a chance to escape Winterfell and move their forces and people to the South.

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