Music Hey everybody and welcome back to another Wheel of Time video. In today's video we're going to be answering a question that I think many of us have asked over the years of reading the Wheel of Time and that is what actually happens at the end of the eye of the world. Before getting into the video let me take a quick moment to thank the channel sponsor Audible.com with all of the sequestering and social distancing going on all over the world right now. It's a great time to start a reread for the Wheel of Time. I think one of the absolute best ways to experience the Wheel of Time is through audio book form. It's an entirely different experience. Kate Redding and Michael Kramer do an absolutely amazing job of giving the story giving the story life and giving it to us in a completely different way. They were actually on the Dusty Wheel last week and that was a really cool experience. If you haven't watched that video go check out the Dusty Wheels channel and watch that video with Kate Redding and Michael Kramer. But the great news here is that as a viewer of my channel you're going to get a free audio book so you can start your reread of the Wheel of Time. All you have to do is head over to www.audibletrial.com, forward slash naveless and sign up for the free trial. You'll be able to keep your audio book even if you don't want to pay for their service. And if you do decide to keep it it's crazy cheap for audio books and you're going to get one each month. I'll also have that link in the description of the video as well. You can even recommend Audible to a friend and give them that same code if they're bored to tears at home and they can start their own reread or their first read of the Wheel of Time. Give them a free audio book. Let me go ahead and throw up a spoiler warning for the video. This video will carry a spoiler rating of red with spoilers only through a crown of sorts. If you haven't finished the seventh book of the Wheel of Time, then watch this video at your own risk. You'd be best to put this video on hold until you finish your crown of sorts. So before digging in and truly answering what went down at the Eye of the World, let's first say this. Robert Jordan to me will always be the king of foreshadowing and the master of writing an unreliable narrator. He dropped subtle hints all through Eye of the World that seemingly mean nothing at the time, but later becoming incredibly important. Equally, he narrates from individual characters points of view. And they do not always have an accurate or unbiased idea of what is going on around them. This is never more true than at the Eye of the World. This section of the story is told from Rand's point of view, and he is truly not sure of what's going on around him. This is partially why when reading this section of the story, we as readers are equally confused as to what's going on. The intention of this video will be to use events that occur later in the books to give some context to what we see here and explain what exactly is happening at the end of the Eye of the World. Now let's start with some back story here. Up until this point in the story, Rand has been running from the shadow pretty much non-stop since leaving Emmonsfield. In the process of running, he's actually channeled on three separate occasions without truly knowing what he had done. The first time was when he took Bella's fatigue away with the power so that a Gwein could keep up with the rest of the horses as they fled Emmonsfield. Around a week later, he feels the effects of channeling for the first time when he feels the exhilaration in bear one when confronting the white cloaks. He doesn't know where that came from, but it was a result of his channeling. The second time was when he and Matt and Tom were fleeing Shadow Logoth. As they boarded the spray, chased by trullix, Rand channels to force the boom of the spray to knock away a trullick that was about to kill him. A few days later, Rand feels exhilaration and climbs the mast and basically scares the crap out of the crew as he hangs high above the ship, seemingly careless about his own well-being. Third time he channels is when he and Matt are trapped in the storeroom in four kings. He channels to call lightning and it gives them away out of the building. Not much longer afterwards, he gets very ill and weak as they ride to Kamen, again, showing the effects of channeling. All of this is to say that Rand had been channeling, but neither he nor we as readers had any idea what was going on. The only reference that we can find to know for sure that this is what was happening was a very brief interaction between Moraine and Naimeeve that occurred without Rand even being present. Without remembering that interaction, something that you're not likely to remember on your first read through, you wouldn't even know what was happening to Rand, and you certainly would not know that he was channeling. Rand's inner monologues see things as just kind of happening by chance when he needs them. So when he and the party finally arrive at the Green Man's Grove and they see the eye of the world, Rand is equally confused as to what he does here during the encounter with the Forsaken. So let's take a look at exactly what happens here and try and piece together a better picture of what happened at the eye of the world. When they emerge from the chamber in the hill that contains the eye of the world like the pool of Cydene, they are confronted by Agonor and Balthamal. The Green Man kills Balthamal at the sacrifice of his own life, and Moraine attempts to fight and hold Agonor, but is unsuccessful. She screams for the rest of them to run as Agonor comes after her and Rand takes off into the trees. He finds himself running up a hill through the forest and eventually the hill begins to incline quite a bit. When he finally reaches the summit of that hill on his hands and knees, he finds a sheer drop of hundreds of feet and finds himself trapped with Agonor hot on his heels. Now the sight of Agonor coming and taunting him causes him to again feel very, very desperate and Rand reaches out for help and begins to see what he can only describe as a glowing cord connecting into Agonor. Now what he's actually seeing here is Cydene for the first time, and he can see Agonor drawing Cydene from the eye of the world. This is consistent with the other times that Rand channeled. He felt cornered without a means of escape or a means of helping a situation, and then in his desperation he channels. This time however, he actually begins to see Cydene and can see Agonor's connection to the eye of the world. Now Rand begins to draw on the eye as well, in an attempt to prevent Rand from drawing on it because he wanted it all to himself, Agonor draws too much of the power from the eye and completely incinerates himself. Now not really knowing what he's doing here, Rand actually travels here for the first time, traveling to Tarwin's gap. Now he doesn't know that that's what he did, but later we learn that's what he had done. He finds himself in the middle of a battle with the forces of Shinar in a great trawlic army in the gap. Rand sees Draggar in the sky and uses the power from the eye of the world to call down lightning and kill them. He then sees Trellix about to advance and he creates walls of fire and waves of earth with the power to essentially obliterate the trawlic army, which by the way he saw Morandu earlier. Seeing that the Trellix were being killed, the Shinarians charged to finish off the Trellix. Now Rand sees the Shinarians about to run over him with their horses, and so he again channels and opens up a gateway. And this time he steps onto a staircase that's actually a skimming platform. He hears what we can assume is the creator's voice here telling him that the creator will not act, but this is never really confirmed to just kind of make some sense. So Rand steps onto the platform into total darkness. Now skimming is the less instantaneous way of traveling, so the Chandler creates a platform and then rides it through the nothingness, which is exactly what's happening here, but that stairway is the skimming platform. He climbs the staircase and the gateway opens into the world of dreams where he finds himself facing a shaman. The reason we can be 100% sure that Rand skimmed here is that later in the shadow rising, when he's chasing Asmodian to Roydeon, he skims and creates the same staircase as this skimming platform and recalls that he did it previously, which again was this scene in the eye of the world. Now when Rand emerges, we know it's the world of dreams because a shaman is able to control things around the dream, creating murderer in a vision of Rand's mother being tortured. Rand creates a sword out of fire with the power and kills the vision of his mother and then slices the cord that he sees emanating from a shaman. Now it wasn't a real cord, but this is how Rand's mind is perceiving the one power right now. As a shaman else creation in the world of dream falls apart, Rand travels back to the spot that he originally traveled from while running from Agonor, at the top of the hill in the green man's sanctum. He sees Agonor as ashes and then descends the hill, and this is where he's reunited with Moraine, Gwain, and Naimee even the rest of the guys. What has typically confused many about this section of the book is the nature of what the staircase was and exactly what was going on with the battle with the Shamael. There is one other question though that I believe goes unanswered outside of a few guesses and theories, and that is what exactly is the nature of the green man's growth. Moraine and the green man both explain that the grove can only be found by great need and that none has ever found it twice until Moraine does. There's never an explanation given for this, but there is some evidence that the green man's grove, and possibly the blight itself, are a part of the world of dreams. Now the main evidence for this is the fact that need is the way to find the green man. This is seen again when a lane and Naimee were looking for the bowl of the winds. They used need to find it in the world of dreams and they find out that it's an ebudoar. They are told by the wise ones that that method of finding something in the world of dreams using need is something that can only be done once, very similar to finding the green man. There's also more evidence here that leads to more spoilers, so I think that it's better left for another video directly about that topic, maybe about what exactly the blight is, but hopefully this gives you guys a little bit more clarity as to what might have happened at the eye of the world. Now let me know what you all think in the comments below. Is there something that I missed? I also wanted to give a big thank you to everybody who donated money to the website. We hit our goal and that money is going to go a long way to helping make sure that the site is something that the community can be proud of and use regularly. And although we've hit the goal, I'm going to leave the GoFundMe active for another week to give anybody that wants to be credited as an original supporter for the website of Chance to Donate. In case you missed the previous video explanations for this, anyone that donates to the GoFundMe will receive a credit for being a founding member of theGreatBlight.com. Again, thank you to everybody who's supported the site so far. Your generosity is very much appreciated. Lastly, please like the video and subscribe to the channel to be updated when I release new Wheel of Time content. Check out the Patreon if you want to support the channel. And the guys, thanks for watching and until next time, peace out.