What is the One Power in 'The Wheel of Time'?
Image Source: Fandom
Fantasy, by default, is a genre defined by magic and strange creatures. One of the key components is the magic system, and they’re just that, a system. There’s a soft system, where the rules aren’t really explained, and a hard system, where the rules are explained. It’s a sliding scale, but regardless, the writer has to know how it works if the story is going to make sense. If there’s magic in the story, magic must be the keystone. Without it, it would fall apart. While these aren’t hard and fast rules, because any writer would tell you there are no real rules, it’s the sort of de facto law of the fantasy universe.
The Wheel of Time is a hard magic system. The One Power has rigid rules and explicit explanations within the story that help the reader understand how it works. And the One Power is central to the story. Without it, it wouldn’t make much sense.
So what is the One Power?
RELATED:
It may be helpful to think of it foundationally like the Force in Star Wars. Ultimately, it’s a sort of permeating force, what is called the True Source, that is everywhere. It’s what the Creator used to used to create and then also spin the Wheel of Time. It’s an energy that can manipulate the physical universe. The One Power comes from this Source.
Like and unlike the Force, though, the True Source is made up of two halves. While this may seem similar to the Light and Dark side of the Force, those are in truth philosophical pathways on how to use the Force. The Force is just the Force, you can use it for bad, or for good. The True Source in The Wheel of Time is by nature split. There is a male half and a female half, and they are essential to each other in that they are opposite, but together make up the whole. Only males can touch the male half of the Source, called saidin, and only females can touch the female half, known as saidar.
Furthermore, the two halves behave differently as well. Saidin is described by male channelers as being like a storm, raging and ferocious, something that must be tamed and, as they say, seized. Wielded like a weapon. Saidar, instead, is described like a river. It flows, so it’s not something to control, but rather something to guide or direct. If a woman tries to seize it the way a man does, they’ll get swept away, or overwhelmed.
The visual representation from the Prime Series of saidin, the “taint” shown as black threads.
Image Source: Cinesite
As such, women cannot teach men to use it, and vice versa. They also cannot “see” the other half. Men and women can sense something after the other half has been used, but they can’t see it (the show departs from this, as we see Logain react to Nynaeve’s explosion of power). It can be seen by the user, known as a channeler, as a “thread”. So when people are using it, they “weave” some sort of pattern. It meshes well with the theme of the Wheel of Time being comprised of the threads of peoples’ lives. Some weaves are short and quick, like burst of fire, others need to be “tied off”, like a weather weave.
Jordan doesn’t specify beyond it being from the Creator, but the Source is something akin to some sort of subatomic particle because when channelers are taught weaves, and how to tie them off, failure to do so right can be explosive. especially trying to “undo” a weave. It’s so dangerous that Aes Sedai are warned not to do it, as threads can be “slippery”, and if it’s messed up, the weave can explode and level towns. Like matter touching anti-matter. Also, the stronger the tie, the stronger the weave.
Despite the uniqueness of this magic system, Jordan still relied on the foundational system of “elements.” In the books, especially as you get into the middle stretch and beyond, characters talk about weaving threads of earth, or fire, or air. Combinations of these can create particular kinds of weaves or spells, and even repel others.
Aes Sedai have been associated with white for centuries, living at the White Tower. When Rand creates a male version, he calls it the Black Tower. This is a running motif throughout the books.
Image Source: Tor
If we’re going to talk about the two halves, we have to address the central issue and nature of the story. Rand is the Dragon Reborn, and as such he’ll be the most powerful channeler. Since he’s male, he will use saidin. There’s a problem though: the Dark One corrupted saidin. In a previous age, before the Breaking of the World, the original Dragon, Lews Therin Telamon, fought the Dark One, and before he was sealed away, the Dark One violated the male half. The corruption drove male channelers insane, so much so that Lews Therin returned from the fight and slaughtered his family. As a result he took his own life, but as the remaining male channelers went insane, they unleashed waves of the Power that nearly destroyed the world. They leveled mountains, raised oceans, and in their insanity reshaped the planet and nearly killed the human race. Surviving female channelers hunted them down and gentled them, removing their power. Humanity lost nearly everything, reducing the survivors back to an agriculturally centric society.
Male channelers since then describe touching the source as euphoric, as it used to be, but they also come out of it feeling filthy, violated, and repulsed. Each successive use of saidin drives them closer and closer to insanity. The stronger the channeler, the longer they hold out, but eventually they all succumb. The surviving female channelers created the order of Aes Sedai, and one of the orders’ groups, known as the reds, task themselves with hunting down any male channelers, and shielding them from the source. If they determine they are the Dragon Reborn, they basically declare that they will hold the channeler until the last battle so they can fight the Dark One and seal him back. Otherwise, they gentle them. Anything to prevent another Breaking.
The Ajahs of the Aes Sedai in the White Tower. Red, Gray, Yellow, Blue, White, Brown, and Green.
Image Source: Nerdist
Gentling a channeler is described as essentially severing them from their soul. Channelers that are cut off from the Source, and to a stronger degree male channelers, often go into a deep depression. Many male channelers take their own life, unable to go on living without touching the source. We see this desperation in season one when Liandrin and Moiraine gentle Logain.
However, in the age the story takes place, there is hope in the power of Nynaeve al’Meara. She’s considered the most powerful female channeler in centuries, and due to her work as the Wisdom of Two Rivers, she becomes a part of the Yellow Ajah, the healers of the Aes Sedai. She discovers that gentling is not permanent, as previously believed, and she actually “heals” Logain, reconnecting him to saidin.
Jordan also created a system for enchanting objects. Known as angreal, sa’angreal, and ter’angreal, they are objects that are associated with the One Power and either amplify the use of the One Power, or they have a specific function. Angreal and sa’angreal amplify the channeler’s weave, allowing them to draw in more of the Power without burning themselves out. Sa’angreal does so to a greater degree. There are angreal and sa’angreal that are for saidin and saidar, but not both. Ter’angreal serve a particular purpose. They don’t require the Power to use them, but they need the Power to be created. The oath rod that Aes Sedai use to bind the sisters to their oaths is a ter'angreal. Since the Breaking of the World, the art of creating these objects has been lost, until Nynaeve and Elayne Trakand. Nynaeve can “read” ter’angreal and find out their purpose, and Elayne rediscovers the process to make them.
A sa’angreal.
Image Source: Fandom
Finally, since there is hope for gentled channelers, there is also hope for male channelers as well with their insanity. After discovering he was the Dragon Reborn, Rand al’Thor, in his journey to confronting the Dark One, and through the help of Nynaeve, uses the most powerful sa’angreal ever made to separate the “taint” of saidin from the good part.
Magic systems are an integral part of any fantasy, and there are some talented world builders out there with magic systems, like Brandon Sanderson, and Brian McClellan. Tolkien is often credited with his world building, which is truly incredible, but his magic system is soft and unexplained. Robert Jordan, however, has one of the most well designed and explained magic systems there is.
READ NEXT:
Source(s); Fandom
Latest News
Featured
