Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss the
Dark One, a cosmic manifestation of evil and the main antagonist from the Wheel of Time series.
And just a quick disclaimer before we get going: there may be spoilers for those reading the series
or watching the first season, so if that will be a problem for you,
this may not be the best video to watch.
Let’s get into it.
The Dark One’s true name was Shai’tan, but to name him so was to invoke him and thus draw his
eye to you. Those who fought him avoided using his true name to avoid notice. And so, every race
and culture used their own alternatives, yielding an array of substitute titles,
including: father of lies, Sightblinder, Heartsbane, Soulsbane, father of storms,
Lighteater, Soulbinder - the list goes on; you could say that he had as many titles
as there were ways for someone to have their life snuffed out and put in the grave. Those who swore
their souls to the Dark One also avoid using his true name, but for a very different reason.
To them, saying the true name was to blaspheme, so instead, they favour titles that extolled
the Dark One, as opposed to the pejorative variety used by those who lived in the light.
The most favoured title used by those who forsook their immortal souls was Great Lord of the Dark.
There’s a duality to the dark one, much as there’s a duality to the primordial deities in
Greek mythology, simultaneously existing as gods and as the fundamental manifestations of creation
as they pertain to life and the material world. On the one hand, the Dark One was a force of supreme
malevolence that sought to remake the world - creation itself, even - in his own twisted image.
However, his true nature was more profound and complicated than being an unfathomably powerful
force with wicked world-dominating goals. He was the manifestation of evil, the wellspring
from which all evil came. To have removed him from creation would have been to remove the capacity to
perform evil, which is insidiously awful, for the elimination of the capacity to perpetrate evil,
by extension, precludes people from rising above evil to bring true good into the world.
Binaries are defined by their opposites, so evil cannot exist in a world devoid of the capacity for
good anymore than good can exist in a world devoid of the capacity for evil. Because of this dynamic,
it becomes apparent that forever imprisoning the Dark One, not killing him, is the best course of
action, because killing him obliterates evil, which, in turn, sanitizes creation in a way
that would leave it in a perpetual state of grey, utterly lacking in black or white.
And perhaps worst of all, this grey world would ultimately rob people of their agency,
destroying free will, which, we can all agree, isn't an eventuality we’d like for ourselves.
The antithetical counterpart to the Dark One is the Creator, who’s comparable to how God
is conceptualized in montheistic religions. He’s omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent,
but despite this boundless state of existence that the human mind can’t begin to truly comprehend,
he doesn’t interfere with the course of events that unfold in the universe he created.
At the same time, though, the Creator is the grand-architect of the pattern, which is the
infinite tapestry that encompasses everything that has or will happen. People are often described
as being threads in the pattern, and “the wheel weaves as the wheel wills’ is a common saying that
expresses a fatalistic quality that characterizes creations as it’s conceived in the Wheel of Time.
People do have autonomy in dictating their own destinies, but also, to a certain extent, the flow
of time and the events that crystalize in its wake are preordained. The pattern is infinite, and it
is said many times that it has neither beginning nor end. Every permutation of events, every
iteration of existence, has already come and gone, and will come and go again, again, and again.
The use of magic is one of the defining aspects of this story. Here’s a quote
from Moiraine Damodred, a magic wielder and one of the main characters, that explains it
“The One Power comes from the True Source, the driving force of creation, the force the Creator
made to turn the Wheel of Time. Saidin, the male half of the True Source, and Saidar, the female
half, work against each other, and at the same time together to provide that force. . . . The
True Source cannot be used up, any more than the river can be used by the wheel of the mill.”
What this quote doesn’t tell you is that the one Power, when wielded by people,
is like a prism that splits light, but instead of separating into colours, it separates into the the
five powers, which are fire, water, earth, air, and spirit. The one Power extends life,
and the more strongly gifted someone is, the longer they live. Those most powerful in the One
Power can live for centuries. But not everyone is blessed with the ability to touch the One Power.
During the third age, the age in which the Wheel of Time takes place,
there are no male channelors, wielders of the One Power, for Saidin, the male half, became
tainted by the Dark One. Because of that taint, men born with the gift are inevitably driven mad,
so any male channelers are hunted down by female channelers and gentled, which is to extinguish
the ability in someone, before their minds break and they wreak havoc upon the world.
This takes us to a time thousands of years in the past, the end of the previous age, the second age,
known as the Age of Legends. This was a time of magic, marvels, and miracles. The One Power was
ubiquitous, improving every facet of society, and the channelers of that time, comparatively,
were much, much more powerful than the channelers in the third age. It was an idyllic time.
Life was paradisiacal. War, famine, suffering and hardship of every kind were conquered.
All of the fighting arts and all of the tactics of war were forgotten,
unneeded for so long; people had to dust off ancient, arcane tomes to learn of them once again.
The most exalted people in the Age of Legends were the most powerful wielders of the One Power
who harnessed their knowledge and talent towards scholarship, unlocking new technologies and
applications of the One Power that could benefit society. Despite everything that was achieved,
though, people were still people, and the unworthy aspects of our collective character
still lurked beneath the surface, particularly pride.
Mierin Eronaile, later known as Lanfear, meaning Daughter of the Night in the old tongue,
a name she would choose when she forsook the light and declared herself for the shadow,
was as powerful in the One Power as a woman could be. She was a researcher at the Collam Daan,
a huge, floating university, spherical in shape, made of silver and of blue domes.
Lanfear lusted after power and prestige, her appetite for those insatiable. At some
point in her research, she and one of her colleagues made an astonishing discovery,
detecting a new, seemingly limitless energy source that appeared to exist outside of the pattern. She
and her team bore a metaphysical hole through the pattern itself, connecting creation to this new
energy source. Unfortunately, this was just about the worst thing that anyone could have done.
They unwittingly bore a hole in the Dark One’s prison, allowing him to exert his will on the
pattern itself. This precipitated a chain of events, a downward spiral,
known as the collapse, which culminated in and was punctuated by the breaking of the world.
Lanfear was the first to proclaim herself for the shadow, but more would follow, with
many of the most powerful channelers of that time proclaiming themselves, too. This resulted in the
War of Power, a global, world-consuming conflict, in which the forces of good and the forces of evil
were pitted against each other in total war. After years of fighting, Lews Therin Telamon, the most
powerful channeler, the most revered man, and the leader of all the armies who fought for the light,
proposed a brazen plan, a concentrated attack on the bore itself so that it could be sealed,
thereby severing the Dark One’s connection, once again sealing him away in his prison. None of the
female channelers agreed to his plan, But Lews Therin went ahead anyway, galvanizing
the male channelers. He led the infamous Hundred Companions, 113 male channelers. Using seven seals
they plugged the bore, even sealing away many of the forsaken, the name given to the most powerful
channelers who gave themselves to the shadow, but the victory came at a high cost, perhaps too high.
Saidin, the male half of the power, was tainted so that all male channelers were driven mad.
One by One madness took them. Their insanity coupled with their immense power broke the world,
the event that ended the second age. The Age of Legends was no more, its peace and prosperity a
relic from a bygone time. Then, thousands of years later, near the end of the third age, the time in
which the events of The Wheel of Time take place, Lews Therin’s soul is spun back into the pattern,
and the Dark One’s prison, weakening, sees the remaining forsaken, those sealed away with the
Dark One, released, bringing the war between good and evil, light and dark, back into full swing,
another bout with the highest stakes imaginable, the very fate of creation.
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