Or the Pattern 'knew' it would need the flawed sword and made it so. As everything in the Pattern is in some way guided by the Pattern. Going along with the 'there are no coincidences' thing.

 

umm...

 

RJ: The flaw with Callandor is simply a manufacturing flaw. (He went on to talk about how they were at the end of their tech age with only a few sho-wings and jo-cars left. A couple of shocklances were still around but they were not as prevalent as they had been. Anyway they had been mass producing ter'angreal, angreal, and sa'angreal, and there are bound to be flaws with the products. The flaw with Callandor is simply one such flaw.)

 

I'm going to call coincidence. Straight from RJ's mouth: the flaw is a manufacturing flaw.

This was not unusual in the mass production of sa'angreal. It is not unusual in the mass production of ANYTHING.

 

Here is an illustrative, hypothetical anecdote to drive my point home:

Its like you bought one of those Toyotas, which one week later gets recalled due to manufacturing flaws, and somebody at the Toyota dealership hates you. A week later, you get in a wreck because of a manufacturing flaw on a recalled Toyota. It is indeed a big coincidence, the recall and that a-hole at the dealership, and you're dumb because you didn't take your car back when it was recalled.

Far be it from me to say RJ got it wrong but.. the analogy would hold if there were a Toyota-style production line turning out hundreds or thousands of identical Callandors. But there is only one. Maybe we're oversimplifying.

 

Lol, so the super duper sword of this age is a broken version of one that was mass produced in the AoL.

Lol, so the super duper sword of this age is a broken version of one that was mass produced in the AoL.

 

Yeah, and it just may be that the nature of the accidental flaw might be what makes the difference in the end. In TDR, Moiraine explained to Perrin that the Pattern uses what it gets -- it throws scrap metal in with the steel.

 

So Jimmy, a.k.a. Sa'angreal Inspector #634, accidentally comes back from his lunch break five minutes early. As a result, his union boss makes him clock off five minutes before the end of his shift. Wanting to make his quota, he rushes through a couple of steps on his last couple of inspections.

 

Up on the production line, Anne, a.k.a. sa'angreal crafter #42, came to work with a cold because she just sent her hubby and two sons off to fight and doesn't want to feel like she's not doing everything she can. While she's laying the last weave, she sneezes, but doesn't realize that she made a mistake because of the cold and the stress she's under.

 

Sa'angreal Industries Sword That Is Not a Sword ® serial #14602A rolls off the production line into Jimmy's area. He misses the flaw because his boss is pestering him so it goes into the wrong sorting bin, and gets packaged and shipped off.

 

Three days later, Johnny the Aes Sedai gets issued #14602A. He inspects it and shouts out, "This is crap! Why do I get the broken one?" and chucks it in the back of an Aiel wagon to be returned to the factory.

 

Next day, Lews Therin strikes at Shayol Ghul. Men go insane. Total chaos erupts. The Aiel go to the female Aes Sedai for orders. One of the Aes Sedai notices the sword in the wagon and is struck by a powerful Fortelling.

 

And the rest is history.

 

Coincidence? I've heard fate described before as a series of seemingly inoccuous conicidences.

We really, really need a ROFLMAO smley.. that was lovely!