Moridin

Moridin
Biographical Information
Current status	Dead
Physical description
Gender	Male
Height	Very tall/ 6 feet 5, as tall as Rand
Build	Broad-shouldered
Hair	Black
Eyes	Blue, black flecked
Chronological and political information
First appeared	ACOS 20
Last appeared	AMOL Epilogue
Rank	Nae'blis

For other uses of the word "watcher," see Watcher.

Moridin is the name that Ishamael was given after being resurrected by the Great Lord and given a new body. The name is an Old Tongue translation for death.

Appearance

Moridin was very tall, (as tall as Rand al'Thor), broad-shouldered, and had black hair. He was handsome enough that Moghedien, upon first seeing him, had the thought that only too strong a jaw kept him from looking like someone Graendal might want. He had a deep voice, and eyes that were described as shockingly blue. He was described by Moghedien as appearing to be in his mid-twenties.

Activities

The Watcher and the Wanderer

Ishamael was killed by Rand al'Thor in the Stone of Tear shortly after the latter gained possession of Callandor. Unable to draw on enough of the True Power to combat the amount of Saidin that the sword could be used to draw upon, Ishamael was stabbed through the heart by Rand. As the Dark One's most powerful and valued servant, the Dark One immediately captured Ishamael's soul and placed it in a new body. Unlike all of the other members of the Forsaken who were resurrected by the Dark One, Ishamael was not punished in any way for his failure. This was because Ishamael's greatest wish was to die so completely that he would never be spun back into that Pattern. The Dark One knew of this desire, and so he considered returning Ishamael to life to be sufficient punishment.

Shortly after his resurrection, he watched as both Sammael and Graendal spread chaos among the Shaido Aiel. He seemed amused with Sammael's boasting of a truce with Rand al'Thor and that he would be Nae'blis. Moridin was given the title of Nae'blis by the Dark One, effectively naming him his regent on the Day of the Return, the coveted position that set him above the other Forsaken. He was also apparently given virtually unfettered access to the True Power.

Later, he pulled Rand out of a cavern in Shadar Logoth when Rand was fighting Sammael. During this escapade, Moridin shot a beam of balefire at a tendril of Mashadar the same time as Rand did, and the two beams crossed over each other and touched. As a consequence of this, they have formed a connection: Rand then often saw Moridin in his mind when he channeled. The link worked both ways as Moridin was also aware of Rand. The sensation Rand had was of them each touching the other, but not physically. Rand then suffered nausea when he first reached for saidin and, through his link, felt Moridin also suffer the same nausea (this appears to have stopped after Rand's melding with Lews Therin). Moridin seemed to be furious with this apparent side-effect.

He later watched Nynaeve al'Meara, Elayne Trakand, and the rest of their group Travel from Ebou Dar. He became concerned when he found out that they had a ter'angreal that could change the weather back to normal. He was amazed and furious when Aviendha unraveled the weave for her gateway without it exploding.

Nae'blis

Moridin contemplates the Fisher King from a sha'rah board.

He controlled Cyndane and Moghedien through the use of cour'souvra, and started to consolidate the power of the Shadow under his command, as he once did as Ba'alzamon. He reluctantly rescinded the order to kill Rand as Rand was planning to cleanse saidin. He ordered Raefar Kisman, Manel Rochaid, Charl Gedwyn, and Peral Torval to take the access keys for the Choedan Kal from Rand. He did not participate in the Battle near Shadar Logoth.

He set up a meeting in Tel'aran'rhiod, which was made to look like the Ansaline Gardens, where he told the other Chosen to leave Rand for him alone. Mat and Perrin were to be found and killed however. He also wanted to find out who was masquerading as Sammael and sent tens of thousands of Trollocs into the Ways. Later he set up a meeting between Mesaana and Demandred, and rewarded Graendal by allowing her to overhear this meeting. During the meeting Graendal spotted that his left hand seemed stiff and causing him pain, the same hand Rand lost recently. He forbade any rescue attempt for Semirhage as her punishment for trying to kill Rand.

Unscheduled meeting

While dreaming one night, Rand found himself in one of Moridin's dreamshards, their link to one another having pulled him there without either he or Moridin willing it. Upon seeing Moridin, Rand immediately reasoned that Moridin was the reincarnation of Ishamael, and was angered and horrified to learn that others amongst the Forsaken might have been resurrected as well. However, during a relatively genial chat with Rand, Moridin informed him that the only way to ensure one of the Dark One's servants remained dead was to kill them with balefire. He also expounded slightly on the connection he shared with Rand, though he admitted to not understanding it. The two of them discussed the timelessness of Rand's struggle and Moridin's belief in its ultimate futility. He also revealed that he was feeling exhausted, and wondered out loud whether the exhaustion he felt was Rand's or his own. He also mentioned to Rand that he believed that he knew the truth about the Dark One's intentions - that the Dark One intended to destroy creation forever. He went on to cite his contempt for the other Forsaken, mocking them for believing that they would receive eternal life and power. However, the idea of the end of creation seemed to please him, as he gave a laugh that had "true pleasure in it," as opposed to other, humorless laughs that he had exhibited during the conversation. Before leaving, Moridin asked Rand why Rand had come to his dreamshard, but then speculated that it was their link that somehow drew Rand to it.

A Portrait of Moridin, by Ariel Burgess Official Wheel of Time Artist

When Moridin found Graendal hiding on a desolate island in the Aryth Ocean, he chastised her for her failure and for causing the death of another Chosen. She promised the death of Perrin to redeem herself, and Moridin agreed to allow her to attempt to kill him, loaning her a dreamspike and the services of Slayer. He also showed her a prophecy of the possible death of Perrin. In doing so, he revealed that a chamber within his palace appeared to be full of powerful relics from the Age of Legends. Graendal seemed to have a very difficult time controlling her fear of him during this meeting as opposed to the last time she met with him. She also made an observation that Moridin would understand Rand's feelings of guilt for destroying her lair and its inhabitants, but did not elaborate much. During the meeting it appeared that Moridin was able to receive commands directly from the Dark One without being at Shayol Ghul. Around this time, Moridin's attitude began to attract the attention of some of the other Forsaken as being distinctly different from that of Ishamael. Virtually all of his vindictiveness, cruelty and sadism essentially vanished, and he took to carrying out his tasks in a somewhat mechanical fashion. More often than not he was silent and seemingly detached or distracted.

Slayer later spotted Moridin in the Town on some unknown business and recalled when Moridin first entered the Town and obliterated at least a dozen of the Samma N'Sei when they attacked him, not knowing who he was.

The final plan

As the end grew nigh, Moridin gathered the last of the Chosen within one of his dreamshards. Moghedien was given back her cour'souvra with the warning to not fail again, after which Moridin revealed two unfamiliar looking Chosen. One of them was Mazrim Taim, now renamed M'Hael, and the unfamiliar female Chosen present was named Hessalam; Graendal in a new and hideous body. At the meeting, Moghedien was placed under Demandred's command, and Moridin gave Demandred overall command of the Shadow's forces at the Last Battle. Moridin then demanded that all other plots and plans by the Chosen were to be concluded and that they were to unite for the Last battle against the forces of the Light. Rand, fully re-integrated with Lews Therin's memories, was later pulled into Moridin's dreamshard via their connection. Rand revealed that he knew that Lanfear had been reincarnated, to which Moridin replied that her name was now Cyndane and she now hated Rand. They debated the point to their never-ending cycle of battles, and Rand released his full ta'veren nature to cause sunlight to stream through the clouds and transform all the dying grasslands into a beautiful verdance. Moridin could not understand how this had happened and fled the dream.

The Last Battle

Moridin then charged the Forsaken to find and kill Mat and Perrin. At the Last Battle itself, he waited with a mortally wounded Alanna Mosvani in the depths of Shayol Ghul for Rand. His eyes were at that point almost completely black from saa. To the side of Moridin was the lifeless body of Shaidar Haran and the black nothingness of the Dark One stretched behind him. Rand arrived and tried to convince Moridin to step aside. Moridin was amused by Rand’s attempt to lure him to the Light, but refused, citing that the only thing he wanted was the oblivion promised to him by the Dark One. He rushed Rand and the two engaged in a swordfight in the now lava-less Pit of Doom. Despite having only one hand, Rand maintained the advantage in their duel, which was conducted strictly with swords and lacked any use of the Powers, either One or True. Rand eventually touched the nothingness behind Moridin with his foot, which froze both of them in place while Rand confronted the Dark One himself outside of reality. When Rand managed to overcome the horrors of the Dark One's assault, Moridin stabbed Alanna in the heart in the hopes Rand would lose control when the holder of his warder bond died. However, Alanna was able to release Rand's bond before she died, so Moridin then stabbed himself in the right hand, believing that his connection to Rand would cause him to drop Callandor. When Moridin picked up the sword to attack Rand, he realized that it was not only a saidin sa'angreal, but that it could amplify the True Power as well. But when he attempted to use it against Rand, Nynaeve and Moiraine used Callandor's flaw to trap him in a link with them. Wielding Callandor, Moridin was able to draw so much of the True Power that the Dark One was not able to immediately cut off his access to it, and Rand used the link to funnel the True Power, saidar, and saidin, into the Dark One's prison. Using the True Power to shield both halves of the One Power from any attempt by the Dark One to taint them again, Rand combined both halves of the One Power to restore the original integrity of the Dark One's prison.

Dying, Rand managed to bring Moridin out with him as the cave collapsed. They were both moved to the camp by Shayol Ghul for healing. Unbeknownst to everyone at the camp except Min, Aviendha and Elayne, Rand used his connection to Moridin to swap bodies, putting Moridin in his own dying body while taking Moridin's body for himself. This was enabled due to the fact that Moridin, above all else, wanted to die, while Rand wanted as badly to continue living. Once the transfer was complete, Moridin died in Rand's body, and was cremated on the Dragon's funeral pyre.

Changes in personality as Moridin

Upon being reincarnated as Moridin, Ishamael initially kept most of his former personality traits. However, as time passed his personality changed drastically. Though his madness was said to have been even greater as Moridin than as Ishamael, he exhibited a preternatural calm most of the time, and appeared to have left both his pride and his desire for power behind him. Additionally, he lost any hint of sadism that he had once had, and took more often than not to simply brooding in silence. Instead of the fanaticism he had once possessed, he changed to becoming fatalistically devoted to seeing the Dark One triumph, as he believed that his service to the Dark One would grant him his truest desire; to die so completely that he would never have to be reborn again. This desire was brought on by an overwhelming sense of self-loathing, and utter despair regarding what he saw as the inevitability of the Dark One's victory. This desire was apparently so strong that, rather than being punished (both for dying and for impersonating the Dark One) upon resurrection like the other re-incarnated Forsaken, the Dark One deemed that returning Ishamael to life in and of itself was punishment enough. His insanity, therefore, took on an omnicidal tone rather than a power-mad one, as the only thing he wanted was to bring about a permanent end to the world as quickly as possible. However, he did appear to suffer from violent mood swings at times, thought they were very, very transient and he tended to regain control very quickly. Several comments from Graendal suggested that, before his conversion to the Shadow, he may have been much like Rand al'Thor. Indeed, the two of them, even as mortal enemies, appeared to get along oddly well during their numerous conversations in Dreamshards, and before re-integrating Lews Therin's memories with his own and recovering, Rand nearly destroyed the Pattern in a nihilistic despair similar to Ishamael's own.

Ultimately however, despite understanding a great deal about the nature of the Pattern, he ultimately failed to realize the true nature of the Dark One, having believed that the Dark One would have allowed him the peace of oblivion despite the fact that the Dark One was completely incapable of granting peace or rest of any sort.

Dreamwalking

Apart from being one of the most powerful male channelers - as strong as Lews Therin Telamon - Elan Morin Tedronai was also one of only a few male Dreamwalkers. He used this talent extensively, communicating his orders to Darkfriends via their dreams. He trapped many Darkfriends in Dreamshards to punish their failures, and he also used Tel'aran'rhiod to lure the three ta'veren. He also spent much of his leisure time in very subtly twisted Dreamshards. His favorite settings appeared to be realistic places that contained warped or impossible elements. His typical setting involved sitting alone in front of a fireplace that radiated no heat, with disturbingly human-shaped flames and clouds bursting and contorting, and burning rats behind the fireplace. Others involved places like a platform floating on endless water with people chained under the waves, perpetually drowning and being eaten by giant, unseen predators.

True power

As Moridin, Elan was granted access to the True Power. Rand al'Thor, when drawing on the True Power (probably due to his balefire-induced link to Moridin), compared the strength of the power to the amount used while cleansing saidin. However, the verbiage is somewhat vague and may refer more to the subjective experience of channeling the True Power for the first time. When channeling the True Power through his Callandor-provided link with Moridin at Shayol Ghul, Rand indicated he was channeling the Dark One's essence "in its full strength." However, it is unclear precisely what traits or circumstances are permitting this unprecedented amount. Of possible relevance is that Logain indicates the amount of power being channeled in this moment is in excess of the amount used at the cleansing. Since there is never any indication that Logain can sense the True Power (or saidar beyond the goosebumps), he is sensing saidin. This indicates Rand is channeling more saidin than Callandor should allow on its own, perhaps indicating something in the nature of Shayol Ghul or Rand himself as the Dragon Reborn is overcoming the usual limitations. As a result, it is difficult to draw conclusions concerning Moridin's strength and access to the True Power based on the mechanisms involved in the re-sealing of the Bore.

Body swap

When a fan asked (in 2019) about how the body swap between Rand and Moridin occurred, Brandon Sanderson stated that "the soul that wanted to live found the body that wanted to live, and the soul that wanted to die didn't go to the effort" and indicated this is a paraphrasing of something in Robert Jordan's notes or of something that Harriet McDougal told him. The Reddit response also indicated that the comment being replied to was correct in that the Rand/Moridin body swap was also a result of the balefire link. Several years earlier, in 2013, he gave a similar response to a similar question (sans any discussion of the balefire link), but indicated that this was merely his own thinking and explicitly stated that it was not outlined in the notes. Regardless of the details, this can be considered a confirmed theory.