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Interview #131: Leiden Signing Report - Aan’allein, Entry #21

Isabel

Can you give some more details on how the taint was cleansed? I was sort of confused reading the book.

Robert Jordan

You don’t think it’s obvious? Err, let’s see. You have… You’re using both repulsion and attraction of opposites here. Repulsion of things that are opposite and [attraction] of things that are the same. The Taint upon [ saidin ] as versus the conduit, which is made of saidar through which the saidin passes. The saidin and saidar , as men and women, are in many ways opposite. It repels one another. It is safe to make this conduit of saidar between saidin and Shadar Logoth, because there can be no mixing. As the eh… as [ saidin ] passes through, as the taint passes through, the saidar actually repels it, pushes it away from [ saidin ]…, alright?

Now, you have a taint on… the eh Source, the male half of the Source, you have the taint on Shadar Logoth. They’re not the same, yet they are. The taint on Shadar Logoth did not come from the Dark One. The taint was created by humans, who believed that they must do whatever was necessary, anything that was necessary to defeat the Shadow. And because they would accept no limits to what they would do, to what could be done, to what needed to be done, they created their own destruction. Their evil is, or was, as great as that of the Dark One, but diametrically opposite. It is an evil created for the best of intentions, created for good intentions. So it is the opposite. So, this attraction created the conduit begins to pull the taint from [ saidin ] to siphon it off. Remember, it’s always been described it’s not as mixed all through [ saidin ], it is like a thin skin of rancidness, think of a thin skin of rancid oil floating on a pond, and if you get through it, you’ve got clean water, but you can’t get through it without putting your hand in that oil. You’re getting it on your hand…

To attract one another because they are opposites, but because even being opposite, they have gone far enough around the circle, they act to destroy one another. You see, it’s not opposites along a straight line. We’re actually talking opposites along a circle. Continuing the motif of the Wheel of Time, if you will. So you’ve got two things that are both opposites and the same. [He’s been waving his hands in the air for this. Hands far apart for the straight line versus hands together, making a circle and coming together again] That will both attract one another and negate one another.

Do you understand better now?

Isabel

Yes, thank you.

Robert Jordan

Oh, and one last point: It’s all imaginary my dear…

Tags

cleansing ,

taint ,

rand ,

shadar logoth

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