The Mahdoubt Poll

[dlbpharmd]

That is intriguing, well done Finn and WF!

[Nerdanel]

So basically this would be the Modern Lord theory, but justified better than how I have seen it before. I should really have included that, but this board doesn't allow a limitless number of options.

The idea ounds plausible. I also remember that the Clave had mind-affecting spells. The Sunbane stuff would have been obsoleted, but the Charm Person type spells could potentially have been made to work, which would have been very handy against the Masters. However, I wonder how they would have dealt with Kevin's Dirt since the Mahdoubt didn't suffer from it. Did her folk cause it or is Kevin's Dirt fundamentally so similar to the Sunbane, that the Mahdoubt's Clave lore is effective? If not, were they just good at magical research or were they told the secret by Lord Foul?

[Dagonet]

The problem, of course, is that the broken Laws of Life and Death (not to mention the caesuras) mean that the Mahdoubt can be literally *anyone*, from *anywhen* in the history of The Land.

Although I can't justify it, I don't think she's new, but instead an unfamiliar face for someone or something we've seen before.

I only joined the forum today, and haven't had a chance to sift through the 22-page thread on this subject, so my apologies if I re-tread ground that's already been covered. Some possibilities that occur to me after reading through THIS thread:

Elena

Whatever's left of the Elohim who was bound in the Colossus

Diassomer Mininderain (The Creator's wife--maybe that a-Jheroth song was more than just Foul mocking the past)

The mother of the Ravers

Foul's mom (the jheherrin creation-myth does describe Foul as having been born)

Personally, I'm thinking (hoping?) it's one of the last three. . .


Cheers,

Dagonet

[stonemaybe]

Some theories have been put that the Mahdoubt is a personification of something - my idea is she is a human(?) expression of Glimmermere.
Glimmermere is Earthpowerful, and has strange properties. Perhaps coming into contact with the Banefire was a catalyst for it to become aware/conscious and the Mahdoubt is a sort of avatar.
Doesn't explain the patchwork clothing though.

[Fist and Faith]

I got it. The Mahdoubt is the personification of the Earthsense that the Land dwellers are being deprived of.

*whew* Now we can get some sleep!

[sherifffruitfly2]

... I'm sure that's an old theory, but that's my guess.

[thranathiril]

Flicking through the Second Chronicles, I wondered if maybe the Mahdoubt is one of ladies of the Sandhold, Benj or Alif or another, who came across some arcane knowledge in the ruins of Kaseryn's chambers and has used it to survive for millenia.

The constant references to earthy matters in the description of her may tie in (loosely) to the sand of the Great Desert whence she came.

Thranathiril

[NightBlaze]

Ok, I have to do this. We will soon see who the Mahdoubt is I am sure. But I wonder, is there a love story here? I mean, Anele is at revelstone, and theres plenty of 'rock' to show...LOL
All we need now is TC to show up with a make up artist....LOL

[Manny Calavera]

She was a dusky, loamy woman, with hair like tangled brown grass, and an old face uneven and crude of outline, as if it had been inexpertly molded in clay. The hood of a tattered fallow-green cloak covered the crown of her head. And her eyes were the brown of soft mud, an unexpected and suggestive brown, as if the silt of some private devotion filled her orbs, effaced her pupils-as if the black, round nexus between her mind and the outside world were something that she had surrendered in exchange for the rare, rich loam of power. Yet there was no. confidence, no surety, in her gaze as she regarded him; the life which had formed her eyes was far behind her. Now she was old, timorous. Her voice rustled like the creaking of antique parchment ...

WOW,has his writing changed.... what the hell happened ? Who kidnapped SRD!!!?


PS: I voted "a constructed being (not a Demondim)"

[dlbpharmd]

Many people here have talked about the lack of "operatic style" in ROTE, but I don't see that passage as an example of bad writing (as you've implied.)

[wayfriend]

But ... that passage is from TPTP. I'm confused.

[dlbpharmd]

Damn, I sat there this morning trying to recall how that paragraph pertained to the Mahdoubt. Now I realize, that's a description of The Healer. Thanks, WF!

[wayfriend]

(When I read the part about two brown eyes, I knew it could not be the Mahdoubt, for I have not forgotten that she has one purple eye and one orange. There's really only one other candidate it could have been ... Mercy.)

[dlbpharmd]

I should've caught that.

[Relayer]

Assuredly.

[NightBlaze]

Um...oh yeah....I found it. Thats the SRD I remember. I have seen the difference in ROTE.

[Aleksandr]

Re: Perhaps coming into contact with the Banefire was a catalyst for it to become aware/conscious and the Mahdoubt is a sort of avatar.
Doesn't explain the patchwork clothing though.

Don't forget Covenant was right in the middle of the Banefire/Glimmermere meeting, fusing Wild Magic and Venom into a new alloy. I rather doubt the Mahdout came from that, but there most certainly was enough power (of multiple sorts) at that moment to create something unusual if the will was there to use it. Hmm. Findail was also present. Maybe he did something?

[Ur Dead]

Looked at the past posts and I suggest that the Mahdoubt is the Unbound Colossus?
An Elohim who was doomed to protect the Land from the Ravers. I believe in Runes that the Manthrall
almost idenified or reconized who the Mahdoubt was before Linden said anything.

The Mahdoubt and the Colossus were female in appearance.
Could after all that time as being the Colossus the Elohim personna is a bit skewed?
Sorta like how the Mahdoubt acted?
The Ramen might be familiar with the Collossus even if they havn't been in the Plain of Ra for ages.

But then again I could be grasping at straws.

[dlbpharmd]

Looked at the past posts and I suggest that the Mahdoubt is the Unbound Colossus?
An Elohim who was doomed to protect the Land from the Ravers. I believe in Runes that the Manthrall
almost idenified or reconized who the Mahdoubt was before Linden said anything.

The Mahdoubt and the Colossus were female in appearance.
Could after all that time as being the Colossus the Elohim personna is a bit skewed?
Sorta like how the Mahdoubt acted?
The Ramen might be familiar with the Collossus even if they havn't been in the Plain of Ra for ages.

This makes sense to me.

[Froggis0]

I was reading one of my english text books today, and one of the stories had the word "mahout" in it, which made me think immediately of our mystery, the Mahdoubt. I looked it up later, not knowing what it meant, and found that it was a keeper of an elephant, especially in India. I laughed for a minute because of the phrase "an elephant never forgets," and it seemed like that she was a keeper of a herd of non-forgetting elephants. Interestingly, however, was the origin of the word. From Dictionary.com, [Hindi mahāvat, mahāut, from Sanskrit mahāmātraḥ, one having great measure, mahout : mahā-, great; see meg- in Indo-European roots + mātram, measure (from mimīte, mā-, he measures; see mē-2 in Indo-European roots).], specifically the "one having great measure". I'm not sure if the Mahdoubt has anything to do with this, but the words just seem so similar to me.

Also, I'm not sure if I'm right, but didn't Donaldson say somewhere that he spent time with his father and lepers in India, or some eastern area like that?

If this is, in fact, where Donaldson got the name of this mystery, then she's certainly going to be a huge character later.