Theoryland Chronicles

Members :SDog : The Stedding Remnant

Introduction

Long ago, before the Age of Legends, human beings did not channel the One Power. At some point in the past, according to the glossary in "To the Blight", someone named Tamyrlin discovered that humans could tap the True Source and channel the One Power. While this discovery may be simply that, I believe that Tamrylin's discovery may have represented the first time the One Power was actually available.

In the current Age of the Wheel of Time, as well as in the Second Age (the Age of Legends), there are places where the One Power is still unavailable-the Ogier stedding. These stedding may be remnants of the old world, where the One Power was completely unknown to humans.

Development

From all indications in the books, as well as interviews with Robert Jordan, the World of the Wheel (WoW) is both our future and our past. In the Third Age, the Age of the WoW, we see artifacts that may have come from our time, as well as stories and legends that could easily refer to events and personalities with which we are familiar, today. But we know first-hand that humans are unable to channel the One Power (OP) in our Age. There has been nothing quite similar discovered, despite all of our technological achievements. This can only mean that, at some time along the Wheel's turnings, the OP became inaccessible; it would be available once more as the Wheel ground on. This is also evidenced by the passage mentioned in the introduction-at some point in the future of our current World, Tamyrlin will discover how to access the One Power.

What other evidence do we have, that the OP could possibly be restricted from human access? The Ogier stedding are perhaps the best example. Stedding are natural phenomena, to the best of our knowledge, whose physical properties some how restrict a channeler from touching the True Source. It is critical to note that stedding are natural, because this indicates that the OP can be made unavailable without intervention from humans. One can infer, therefore, that our current inability to channel may be natural, as well, stemming from natural properties of the current Earth on which we live.

Conclusion

This all means, of course, that at some point in the past of the WoW, the previously inaccessible OP became available. While the mechanism for this is unknown, we can speculate that it involved some cataclysmic event. It has been postulated that all Ages may come to an end with such an event, and whatever made the OP available may very well be the event that ended the First Age. What else but a massive cataclysm could cause most of the Earth to lose those physical properties that prohibit channeling? In such an earth-shattering event, we might expect to see shards of reality reminiscent of that old Age, and indeed, the stedding may be just that. Ogier stedding may not be simply odd places on the Earth that are shielded from the OP. Rather, they may be remnants of an earlier time when the entire Earth was naturally prohibitive to channeling.

It is unfortunate that we have not been given more information about the physical properties of the stedding. These properties may shed light onto how the OP was discovered, and how stedding might expand in the Fourth, or later, Age to prohibit channeling across the globe, once again. Indeed, the properties of the stedding may be the key to understanding the true nature of the One Power, and of reality itself.