Skip to main content

the wheel of time - Was Lan ever really dead?


One of the key climactic scenes in A Memory of Light involves two majors characters fighting and apparently killing each other:



Lan manages to kill Demandred by "sheathing the sword", that is, allowing Demandred to land a blow in order to land one of his own. In this case, both strikes appeared to be fatal.



This death leads up to the major turning point in the battle:



As the Dark One gloats about all of the deaths, Rand "zooms in" on Lan and says something like "You're wrong about one", as we see Lan stand back up and hold Demandred's severed head over his own.




I have seen several comments on this site (and elsewhere) that assume the character in question was killed and resurrected



by Rand,



but I did not get that impression at all from the novel. That, IMO, is counter to everything else we know about how things worked. To me, it was obvious that the character in question was never dead -- the apparently fatal blow was not fatal, merely extremely severe, and he was able to push through it and keep going.


Is there any indication, other than



The Dark One's claim, which is highly suspect




that the character actually died and was resurrected?



Answer



I'd cautiously suggest that he wasn't resurrected, because others who were resurrected, such as Moridin, bore none of their prior wounds, while this character was still half-dead. Those other characters also required new bodies, while this character didn't.


It's technically possible that said potential resurrector acquired new, unexplained powers - he has before. However, in the past, his powers made a certain amount of sense in the universe, whereas power over death really isn't his vibe.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

Which Doctor Who works are canon?

I have been watching a Doctor Who documentary and they mentioned that Paul McGann did audio stories so he wasn't just a one-hit Doctor (and that there are novels featuring his Doctor as well). My question is: is Doctor Who canon just the show, or is it like Star Wars where some books and audios are canon and some are not? The documentary also shows that before 2005 they did audio stories where the Doctor is female and obviously that cannot be — not the female part, but the show doesn't count any female Doctors in episodes like The Day of the Doctor . Answer Nothing, and also everything The definitive piece of writing on Doctor Who canon is this blog post by writer Paul Cornell . I'm essentially going to be summarizing his post here, much less eloquently, but one section I want to quote directly is this: Nobody at the BBC has ever uttered a pronouncement about what is and isn't canonical. (As I'm sure they'd put it, being such enthusiasts for good grammar.) Be...
Post a Comment
Read more