Aginor (Ishar Morrad Chuain) Log In

Basic Info

Gender

Male

Class

Forsaken

Channeler Info

Type

Forsaken

Description

Aginor was the chief scientist for the Shadow prior to the Breaking. He is responsible for the creation of Trollocs, Drakghar and other beasts of the Shadow. His experiments led to the death of thousands of people around the world.

He and Balthamel were trapped on the edge of the Bore, and as such, aged more than any of the other Forsaken. When the Seals broke and they became free, they were ancient. Aginor and Balthamel both fought Rand at the Eye of the World and lost.

Aginor was reborn as Osan'gar, and was later revealed to be masquerading as Dashiva the Asha'man. He was killed by Elza while trying to reach Rand during the Cleansing.

For more details on Aginor (Ishar Morrad Chuain), visit Encyclopaedia WoT.

Interview Questions (10 total)

Question	Action
If the Forsaken were sealed away in Shayol Ghul since the Age of Legends, with no contact with the outside world, wouldn't they be speaking the Old Tongue when they woke back up? How did they learn the Common Tongue? They still do speak the Old Tongue among themselves, but the first two who were freed, Aginor and Balthamel, had been held very near to the edge of the sealing, the reason they were so visibly affected and twisted while the rest came out whole and healthy, and they were very much aware of what had gone on in the world outside. You might say they had floated in limbo while watching three thousand plus years roll by, with the ability to zoom in. That is probably the only reason they didn't emerge entirely mad. In truth, those two have a much better understanding of the current world than any of the others because they watched it forming. They don't have a complete knowledge, because they couldn't see and hear everything at once, but they have an overview that is unavailable to any of the others, excepting Ishamael to a lesser extent. But then, he's a special case. For the rest (aside from Ishamael), who spend those thousands of years in a dreamless sleep, the language spoken "here and now" was derived from the Old Tongue. I've heard the analogy used of a well-educated, highly intelligent citizen of ancient Rome needing to learn modern Italian. It would hardly be a slam-dunk, but he or she would have the roots of the language already. In the case of the Forsaken, the task is actually easier than that of the ancient Roman, since modern Italian is a more complex language than Latin, while the Old Tongue, as I have said time and again, is more complex and nuanced than the language of "today."	View More Details
How did Aginor manage to sense the Shadar Logoth dagger in the The Eye of the World? That has to do with the end of Winter's Heart. It's an effect of resonance. The dagger is the same evil as the evil of Shadar Logoth. You can say its diametrically opposite to the taint, thats the evil on saidin. Rand, in one point in Shadar Logoth feels it repulsing with each other. And especially in the wounds on his side. There is a resonance created. A positive and negative pulse of evil, you might say.	View More Details
What does the Dark One view as the worst punishment he can inflict on his minions: Killing them as painfully as possible? Balefire? Mindtrap? Being continually resurrected to suffer at his hand for eternity? Something we haven't seen yet? The Dark One doesn't care about his minions sufficiently to invest much time in their punishment except as it serves to correct their behavior or as object lesson to others, nor is there much in the way of gradation. Simple failure and outright betrayal might be punished equally, or one might result in death and the other in becoming an object lesson or in something else. (The mindtrap, by the way, could be called an object lesson only to the one so trapped; remember, none of the Forsaken know who is mindtrapped except Moridin and those who are trapped.) The decision, death or object lesson or something else, normally would be simply a matter of whether or not he believed there was any point to an object lesson and/or whether or not he felt there was really any further use in the individual. Or, for that matter, made for reasons unknowable to a human mind. Remember, the Dark One is NOT human and thinking of him in human terms just doesn't work. But he also operates under a constraint that did not exist in the Age of Legends. At that time, about 3% of the population could learn to channel to some extent, though not all chose to -- the training program took time, and being able to channel carried with it certain obligations that not everyone wanted to undertake -- but that still meant there were, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people in the world who could channel, and more likely millions. A large pool of possible recruits. Break a tool or decide it isn't working right and throw it out, because there is an endless supply of similar tools waiting on the shelf. That might be said to have been his attitude. In the here-and-now of the books, that figure is about 1%, and of that 1%, very, very few have any idea that they could learn to channel, much less have any training at all. Here-and-now, the pool of possible recruits is tiny. Also, while the Forsaken themselves have realized that these primitives have discovered how to do things with the Power that they themselves cannot, or perhaps can once they learn how but never dreamed of doing until they found that the weaves existed here-and-now, they still think of people in the here-and-now as primitives, and their attitudes filter through to the Dark One, who believes that his people from the age of Legends are in all practical ways better -- for which read better trained, more capable, and thus better able to serve him efficiently and effectively -- than the people of the present time. And he is right. In a way. They are certainly better trained, with a much wider knowledge, at least in some areas. Some of their skills are absolutely useless in the society they are forced to live in. Aginor was a genius in biology and genetics, but in this world, he had no way to make the tools to make the tools to make the tools…. Well, you get the idea. Pity the poor chip designer dropped into the seventeenth century. In any event, the Dark One tries to conserve his resources, using and reusing those he might have killed himself, or ordered killed, in a time where there were thousands to equal them.	View More Details
Are the Forsaken defined by being allowed to tap the True Power? No, not necessarily. They are, but it takes more than that, and they may be denied it. You see there were many more than thirteen Chosen at the time of the Breaking of the World. At the time of the Sealing, there were more, and they died. The reason these thirteen lived was that they were trapped and, except for Balthamel and Aginor, sealed away in large extent from the effects of time, as if they were put in suspended animation. The others who were not there at this conference died.	View More Details
(from Vanin) What did Aginor mean in The Eye of the World when pointing towards Mat and saying something about old history, old friend, old enemy? RAFO you horsethief!	View More Details
There are many theories that attempt to create a connection of time duration to the transmigration of the dead Forsaken. Are there time and/or power constraints on the Dark One's ability to transmigrate souls? There are definitely time constraints on the Dark One's power to transmigrate a soul. The soul doesn't have to be secured immediately - that is, the Dark One doesn't have to be ready to snatch the soul at the instant of death - but the longer that passes after the death, the less chance that the Dark One will be able to secure the soul. Someone who has been killed with balefire in actuality died before the apparent time of his or her death, and thus the window of opportunity for the Dark One to secure that soul for transmigration is gone before the Dark One can know that the soul must be secured unless the amount of balefire used is very small. Remember that the more balefire is used, the further back the target's thread is burned out of the pattern. After the soul is secured, then a suitable body must be acquired and stripped of the (former) owner's memory and soul to make way for the favored one. By the way, what constitutes a suitable body from the Dark One's perspective is not that of the recipient. Certainly Aginor would never have chosen to be reincarnated in his, shall we say, less than imposing body, nor would the womanizing Balthamel have chosen to be reincarnated as a beautiful woman. It was only chance that Moridin ended up in a body that is young, fairly good looking and physically imposing. Those things simply don't matter to the Dark One. But the body has to be basically healthy and sound, and neither too young nor too old. After all, the Dark One wants his servants to be effective, and a body that meets those basic requirements is more desirable than one that doesn't. Since there is no stockpile of such bodies, the only way for someone to die and immediately be reincarnated would be a matter of pure chance. That is, the death occurred when a suitable body was on hand for some other reason. There are a few other limits and constraints, but I won't go into them here, since I may want to use them in the books, and I would rather they come as a surprise if I do.	View More Details
Why was Aginor so interested in the Eye of the World? He could channel clean saidin anyway so it shouldn't have been an issue? He was able to channel clean saidin, true, but only through the "filter" which had been provided by the Dark One just a short time previously, which meant the Dark One would be aware of him channeling wherever he was. Remember, Aginor was the creator of the Trollocs; he is quite able to reason things out clearly, at least in a scientific sense. Also, he wasn't certain whether or not the Dark One also would know what he was doing when he channeled, too. For someone as secretive, competitive, and generally untrustworthy as the one of the Forsaken, the Eye of the World amounted to a valuable asset if it could be secured. To put it simply, Aginor saw a means of channeling without the Dark One looking over his shoulder, and maybe a way to increase his own power at the expense of those who didn't have that advantage. Balthamel might well have been for the long drop, administered by Aginor, if things hadn't worked out differently.	View More Details
How were the gholams made? Were they created or bred like the Trollocs? How exactly are they controlled if they are immune to the One Power? The gholam---singular and plural are the same---were created, not bred. Supposedly their creation involved making them so that they would be obedient to the Chosen, whoever they might be at any given time. This was an attempt at copying something that had turned up in Myrddraal, which seem incapable of disobeying one of the Chosen, possibly because of the use of the True Power in creation of the Trollocs, the parent stock of the Myrddraal. Even Aginor, who created the Trollocs, and thus indirectly the Myrddraal, was uncertain about the actual cause. (Becoming one of the Forsaken involves receiving a mark from the Dark One in return for your oaths; this mark is invisible and cannot be sensed by another human being, even another of the Forsaken, but it can be by certain non-human creatures, including Myrddraal and draghkar among others. This may play a part in the Myrddraal's obedience but doesn't explain it completely.) This element in gholam has some flaws, however, as we have seen in a small measure. In any case, if I were you, I wouldn't try giving orders to a gholam unless I were one of the Forsaken.	View More Details
How does the process of waking up work, and were they conscious of it happening to them and or the other Forsaken? They were conscious of waking up, but remember that Lanfear said they were in a sleep so deep they were trapped so deep, that they were denied even dreams. Most of them were in fact in suspended animation. Balthamel and Aginor, very close to the surface, were not, which is why they were so wasted when they are seen, and why they have a certain degree of madness as well. The others came out un-aged, looking exactly as they did, but Aginor and Balthamel, although wearing the clothes they wore, and [Balthamel's] mask was an original, he was wearing it when he went in, they were further wasted, you might say, preserved by being sealed in the Bore, but close enough to the surface that they were aware of things going on outside.	View More Details
So the Power really isn't capable of genetic reconstruction? (Like, for example, making you taller.) Maybe, in the Age of Legends, someone might have been able to pull it off, if they were really skilled. Might have. (Like Aginor?) Aginor was damn good, but he wasn't that good.	View More Details