Even a stone in a wall has a thread in the Pattern, right? You said so…
As I understand it, Robert Jordan specifically said that even inanimate objects have a thread.
So, that explains why when, say, a stone pillar is balefired, only the portion that balefire hits disintegrates…
Right…
…because all of those little bits would have their own threads…
Theoretically. And I was wrong on that for a while—I had to go back and look at interviews before I…[to Terez] Were you the one that sent me that?
Yeah, I tweeted that to you…
Yeah…the boat that Nynaeve was on that got balefired…
She pointed out that inanimate objects…their threads are burned back. But that also explains why a person who has one thread tied to their soul would be completely eliminated by balefire.
Mmmhmm.
So…why did their clothes go away?
(laughs)
Balefire does spread a bit, from what I’ve read.
Then why doesn’t it for the column?
It does, but it’s like, you know…just a little bit.
Right, but if you use a pencil-thin bit of balefire, right, and I shot your shirt, why would the whole shirt disappear?
Um, if it goes through and hits you, then you disintegrate, and it will spread out from you.
Then, that doesn’t explain Nynaeve’s boat.
No, it doesn’t. … I will be perfectly honest with you. I’ve worked through and tried to figure out the rules of balefiring inanimate objects quite a bit…because we’ve got the whole thing with Nynaeve and…
The rowers.
Yeah. Well no, not even that…earlier than that with the balefire rod that’s like cutting swaths through the palace in Tanchico, and it’s just cutting lines through the palace, just slicing big holes…
Right. That’s the stone pillars…the multiple threads…
It did the same thing in Caemlyn with Rand and Rahvin.
Yeah. And that’s searing little lines, but then you hit something living, and it all *poofs*. It actually becomes motes…like it hits and it spreads to the full, living thing, and then *poof* that all goes away. And so…the clothes are something I hadn’t even thought of, but balefire does seem to spread a little bit…
You would think that, you know…where the balefire hit, obviously there would be a hole, the person would *poof*, and their clothes would drop.
Yeah. But it’s got to spread a little bit because of that. But then, you know, with the boat…yeah.
You can’t imagine how many debates we’ve had on Theoryland about the boat…
Oh god…
The boat is an outlier. You could argue a couple of things on it—distance and power level could both be involved.
And there are other outliers, like in The Gathering Storm …um…
The palace?
Yeah, the palace…
That, I did intentionally. Looking through everything that is happening, and saying, ‘He is continuing to pump balefire into this thing, to expand it through into the entire thing…’
So, it’s a deliberate, directive thing…
That’s got to be possible, because in the Age of Legends…
Right, whole cities…
Right, whole cities. And so there’s got to be a force-to-spread multiplier. Does that make sense?
Sure.
So, I’m using a force-to-spread multiplier. And so you could maybe make that argument with the boat.
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