In The Wheel of Time books, there are several villains, all with their own reasons for turning to the Shadow aka the Dark One. A music lover wanted to be able to make and listen to music forever, so he figured it was a good bargain. Some turned because they wanted immortality and power beyond imagining. A few turned because they were simply evil. And then there is Ishamael, also called the Betrayal of Hope.
In the prologue of the very first book, after a horrendous ten-year war, Ishamael tells “The Dragon,” (the defender of the light and the hero of the story):
“This war has not lasted ten years, but since the beginning of time. You and I have fought a thousand battles with the turning of the Wheel, a thousand times a thousand, and we will fight until time dies and the Shadow is triumphant!”
The Dragon is a man who was created to fight this eternal battle, though he doesn’t remember his previous lives. (Ishamael apparently does remember.) And since The Dragon never had a choice in the matter, he was just reborn at the proper time to fight the Shadow, I can only presume (on this reading, anyway), that Ishamael himself has no real choice in the matter, either, and was always born to fight the Light.
That’s assuming, of course, that Ishmael is telling the truth. One of the interesting aspects of the books is that each point of view character isn’t privy to the whole of the story, and sometimes they mistake what is going on. Another interesting aspect is how that world runs — the wheel of time keeps turning, and ages come and go and then come around again. Although there might be small variations each time, I get the impression that each age is pretty much the same as it was before.
Which means that these two men are fated to fight forever.
That is why Ishamael turned to the dark — the only way for him to get off the wheel, to end this terrible and terribly meaningless cycle, is to destroy the wheel, which, in his mind, means that the Dark One must be the winner of this eternal battle. Whether he saw this destruction as the ultimate act of mercy for the world or only for himself, isn’t clear. But still, to be stuck forever in a life he sees as futile, remembering fighting the same battle over and over again seems so very tragic.
Although some of the other minions try to kill the current Dragon Reborn at various times, Ishmael sometimes helps him stay alive because if the Dragon Reborn dies before the final battle, then Ishmael continues to be stuck forever in the endless cycle.
It makes me so very glad we live in a linear world, or at least we presume we do, where the past stays in the past and doesn’t come again. There is a fatalism to the books stemming from the wheel, where each age will be repeated when the wheel comes around again to that age again. Which also gives them their belief that you can change your life in small ways, but not large ones. Not an easy philosophy to live under.
Ishamael sees that fatalism, too, so unlike the other minions of the Dark One, he doesn’t seem evil, just driven to end the interminable cycle. And, in the world of The Wheel of Time, he has a good point.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
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