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| The One Song of Power Or what exactly is it that the Tuatha'an are looking for? by Nyraen al'Ronaedhe "'You are welcome to our fires. Do you know the song?'…'Your welcome warms my spirit, Raen, as your fires warm the flesh, but I do not know the song.'…'Then we seek still'…'As it was, so shall it be, if we but remember, seek and find.'" (tSR, chapter 41) Introduction The essay I've laid before you is a creation of my imagination, and although based on the text of Robert Jordan's books (in particular The Shadow Rising), is not, perhaps, a necessary conclusion. However, It makes a lot of sense to me and I think it fits the spirit of Jordan's series. I have not yet read The Path of Daggers, and maybe parts of my theory will be in contradiction with whatever is revealed there. If that is the case I'll make the proper adjustments to my theory, but I will not be persuaded to abandon it until Robert Jordan himself tells me it's wrong. And now, to the essay itself: We all know by now that in the Age of Legends the common ancestors of the Aiel and the Tuatha'an were servants to the Aes Sedai of the time. That they were pacifists (a thing that was preserved well by the Tuatha'an, but was forgotten by the Aiel, though they still have remnants of it - such as their reluctance to use swords) and as such were called Da'shain Aiel. We also know that they could sing beautifully, that they sang with Ogier to grow trees, but it is also implied that their song contained other powers. "'Do you know what happened to the Aiel at Tzora?' He nodded and she sighed, reaching out to smooth his short hair as if he were a child. 'Of course you do. Your Da'shain have more courage than…. Ten thousand Aiel linking arms and singing, trying to remind a madman of who they were and who he had been, trying to turn him with their bodies and a song…" (tSR, chapter 26). Song can grow trees, and yet it has nothing to do with the power. Not only that, but treesinging is practiced by Ogier who don't like the One Power, and live in Steddings in which the One Power does not work. The Tuatha'an believe that when they find their lost song, the song of the Da'shain Aiel, the age of legend will return. I don't see why this prophecy cannot be regarded as equal in importance to the Prophecies of the Dragon, the Aiel prophecy of the Car'a'carn, and the Atha'an Miere prophecy of the Coramoor. The paragraph quoted earlier strongly implies that the Song of the Da'shain Aiel has some sort of mystical powers. What are those powers then, and why have they vanished? The purpose in the use of the Song in the paragraph I quoted is clear: it is a heroic, if vain, attempt to calm a male channeler and restore his sanity, taken from him by the taint of the mail half of the True Source. No Aes Sedai would use her power in such a manner. We are told several times (usually in connection to Graendal's life before her turning to the darkness) that the One Power cannot cure the mind (it can destroy it, either by the taint or by Compulsion or Suggestion, but not Heal it). I deduce from that that the song can! The song used by the Da'shain Aiel at the time of the age of legends couldn't do it in a very powerful way (they did fail) but it was used to calm people, and, perhaps, to cure very light mental illnesses (ones for which a man wouldn't even be hospitalized). The Song therefore should be somehow connected to the spirit (not spirit as in one of the five powers, but spirit as in the immortal soul). It can grow and rejuvenate, it can calm and heal the soul. It is a gentle force, though powerful if used correctly. Why then it is forgotten? I believe that before the Age of Legends, and maybe even in the beginning of it, the Song (learned perhaps from the Ogier, and further developed by humans) was all-powerful. Much like the One Power is now. In fact, the One Power was unknown. The Song fulfilled everything that the Power does now. But the Song was gentler, and because the people using it were so involved in the spirits of their surrounding world (human and non-human, flora and fauna) they became pacifists. It seems that the very name of their pacifistic philosophy should indicate of their original characteristics: The Way of the Leaf. And through their pacifism they were truly "servants of all". (I believe the Singers were also vegetarians at the time) If the Song was so powerful, why has it weakened so and vanished? Why did the "all-powerful" Singers become servants to the Aes Sedai? I think the answer to that question lies within The Way of the Leaf. When the first Wielders of the One Power appeared (which happen, to my opinion, right before the Age of Legends or at the beginning of it) they worked in cooperation with the Singers, after all there were much more Singers. But as the Wielders grew in numbers and in power they started to compete with the Singers. The Singers didn't stand a chance…. Their pacifism forbade their fighting the Wielders and the Wielders won. The wielder then turned the Singers (whom they mockingly called Da'shain Aiel- the dedicated to war with peace) into their servants, took their titles and thus became Aes Sedai. In the time that followed the more the Aes Sedai prospered and found new ways of using the One Power, the Singers, now called only Da'shain Aiel, forgot their art. They used only what they needed to serve the Aes Sedai, and grow beautiful gardens for them, until that was the one song that did not fade in oblivion. The Breaking of the World made humans forget even this part of the song (though Ogier still use it- and even among them, it is in decline). It is my firm belief that the rehabilitation of the world after Tarmon Gai'don will require the re-invention of the Song, and that thus an Age of Legend will begin. |