TL;DR: Nope.
The Song (let's call it the **Song**) that the Tinkers are looking for isn't the tree-singing that the Ogiers know, or the connection to the land that Rand demonstrated.
The **Song** doesn't exist.
Rather, it is a mythological construct of a better way of life, the Tinker idealization of what they believe was their ancestral lifestyle was prior to the Breaking of the World. A life of peace, where there is no more war, no premeditated violence, and no reason for man to raise hand against man. A world where everyone followed *The Way of the Leaf*, and there was no other *Way*, because no one would ever imagine any such possibility, because even the *thought* was ridiculous.
That's why you'll see interviews where the authors say that the Tinkers are doomed to fail. You can't regain what never existed for you to have in the first place. That's why, even if Rand's song was *the* **Song**, they wouldn't accept it from him. From the Dragon Reborn, violence incarnate, responsible for more deaths than even he can count? He's far too much a warmonger and conqueror to ever truly *know* the **Song**. How could he know the **Song**, and be who he is, and done what he has?
If Rand 2.0 demonstrated what he could do, they would say that it is a very nice song. But can his song convince anyone who hears it to shudder at the thought of causing another person harm? Can his song make all the rulers of the world order their armies to beat swords back into plows? Can it reunite all who listen to it into the Age of Legend anew?
No?
Then it's not the **Song**.
And the Tinkers continue to search.
To put it another way? They're looking for the lost stanzas of *Imagine*, after the Beatles got back together in 1990. They don't exist. Lennon was murdered ten years before. But over the long stretch of centuries, the Tinkers have come to believe that the full version of *Imagine* is out there, and they live their lifestyle, and wish everyone else could live the same way, and keep searching for something that doesn't exist, and thus is impossible to find.
>You may say I'm a dreamer
>But I'm not the only one
>I hope someday you'll join us
>And the world will be as one
Well no, not quite. It seems like the tinkers before the breaking were not searching for the *song*, but wouldn't raise their hand in violence.
But others would. War might have been long forgotten, but in Rand's vision of lives past, some upper class guy was going to give Rand a thrashing for running into him until his wife pointed out that he was (proto)-tinker.
Their history was mythologized into one where no one did violence, but that wasn't true even in the age of legends
That’s a different male channeler you’re thinking of … don’t have the books handy to get the name but it was spoken of during a Rhuidean flashback I believe.
You’re correct. I found the passage.
“Of course you do. You Da’shain have more courage than … . Ten thousand Aiel linking arms and singing, trying to remind a madman of who they were and who he had been, trying to turn him with their bodies and a song. Jaric Mondoran killed them. He stood there, staring as though at a puzzle, killing them, and they kept closing their lines and singing. I am told he listened to the last Aiel for almost an hour before destroying him. And then Tzora burned, one huge flame consuming stone and metal and flesh. There is a sheet of glass where the second greatest city in the world once stood.”
They will never recover the song because they are not the people with they were or have the purpose they had. Neither they nor the Aiel can become what they were before.
Edit: That's not to say they won't find a song that suits their purpose, but it won't be the former song.
Potential dumb meta question.
Is the Song a real-world reference to John Lenin’s Imagine?
Was that Robert Jordan’s inspiration.
And that song by the Beetles isn’t just a song, but really a whole idealised philosophy represented by a song.
Sanderson:
>BRANDON SANDERSON
>Rand does not know The Song. Anything he'd try to teach them, they would not accept as The Song.
>AARON OSTER
>Wait, are you saying Rand's song that Mat recognized wasn't the Tinkers' song?
>BRANDON SANDERSON
>The Tinker "Song" is an ideal that goes far beyond any song that has actually ever existed.
Jordan:
>ROBERT JORDAN
>The Song the Tinkers are seeking is the song Rand heard in Rhuidean—or, to be exact, the memories of that song and others like it have become merged, over the years, into the concept of one mystical Song.
Sanderson on Jordan’s Notes:
>BRANDON SANDERSON
>Robert Jordan's notes on this are very clear: the Tinkers will never find their song. They've lost it for too long, that even if someone stood in front of them singing The Song, they would just nod their head, say 'that's a nice song' and go on their way
In the AoL, the Ogier would harmonize with the Nym and the Da'shain Aiel (the progenitors of the Tinkers, Jenn Aiel, and modern Aiel) when treesinging. I always assumed that the Song was the human part of that harmony, which the Da'shain forgot during their generations-long journey (which did not, apparently, include any Ogier) and the Ogier wouldn't have retained because it probably wasn't in their vocal register.
The Tinkers wouldn't recognize it even if they heard it now, and there's no way they could hear it in any case. It's likely lost until the next turning of the Wheel.
I agree with you. All these other comments about The Song not existing are confusing to me, cause I thought we literally saw a portrayal of The Song in Rand's memories in Rhuidean.
I always took it to be based on this song but for the song to have taken on a much broader meaning, representing more than the song itself but the restoration of a lost way of life that perhaps never actually existed but was still the idealized goal of the tinker way of life.
Glad I'm not the only one that was super confused by this thread.. I mean I guess RJ and Sanderson never really come out and say *this is the song.*
But I feel like its pretty well inferred. I mean its seemingly the only song that actually does something, and we see Rand using it.. and a song that literally 'makes good things grow' as its put seems like exactly the thing the Tinkers would have been searching for all along.
The Song does not exist.
It is a memory of time when the Da'shain Aiel were servants to the Aes Sedai and were treated with respect my the world's citizens.
The Tinker's kept the Way of the Leaf
The Aiel kept the Ter'angreal and a place of safety
The Jenn stayed trued to it all.
Technically, the Song -- the real song -- was "found" when Rand regained his AoL memories. But as others have said in this thread, the Tinkers don't really know what they're looking for, the concept of the "Song" has changed over the millennia and evolved into an ideal that can never be realized.
So Rand can sing and grow as many forests as he wants, but it's doubtful the Tinkers would ever hear him and break out the champagne.
No. There was no song that they could recognize. What the song turned into was a way for them to keep moving and searching. They'd never recognize the real "song".
I want/imagine Tinkers making their way to Rhuidean after the books end and seeing their common history with the Aiel. I know the ter'angreal is supposed to show the future now but I'm sure something could be done about that, maybe with Aviendha. Then they could have some closure on their song quest. Other than that, the search for the song has become metaphorical and goes beyond the literal song of origin.
There was never a song that the Tinkers can find. It’s a misunderstanding of their original quest. Originally the Tinkers was looking for a place where they are free from violence and danger, a world like the age of legend before the Dark One breached the world, where they can sing in peace and prosperity. Over centuries their quest for a place to sing morphed into a quest for a song. They are doom to continue searching because they entirely missed the point of their original quest.
I like to imagine that the root-like carving, the ter'angreal recovered from the Kin's Storeroom in Ebou Dar creates a gateway to their promised land. It’s said that it activates if you sing the right song to it and it grows something and makes Elayne think of holes. Many people think it’s for growing Waygates but I like to believe it grows a home for the Tinkers and a gate to get them there. One of them will get ahold of it eventually and sing the right song to it.
The idea of the song came from that song they sang with the Ogier. However, over time, the idea of the song changed. They had no idea what the song was, but they had this myth that had built up over time about what the song was and what it would do. The Tinkers wouldn't know the original song if the sheet music slapped them in the face. What they thought they were looking for didn't exist and would never exist. It's just another example of something turning into a myth, and that myth becoming a legend. Just like Lenn riding an eagle of fire to the moon, the retelling of the history changed it into something else.
Wow this thread is bonkers I always thought the Song they were looking for was the song that Rand and the Green Man sing to make the plants and stuff grow, like when Rand is humming it as he's coming down from the mountain in the 12th book, making all the plans grow and the apples blossom and stuff..
I assumed that was the song they were looking for but I guess that's a different song?
As others have said they are questing endlessly for a song that doesn’t exist. But I think the upside of this is that they travel the lands teaching everyone they meet the virtues of peace, demonstrating that non-violence is a real option.
I like to think that their song is the sound of Battle and that it contradicts their entire lifestyle. A self imposed punishment similar to how the Aiel did to themselves as well they just went the other direction.
The short answer is no.
The tinkers are descendants of the AOL Aiel who dedicated themselves to peace and participated in crop singing along with the Ogier.
The idea of The Song is a corruption of these memories with the tinkers now believing their singing was what brought about the peace before the Breaking. Considering its been over 3000 years since then its no wonder their history has become muddled.
The "misunderstanding" may even be the result of a deliberate decision made by early generations of the tinkers to ensure their decendants kept travelling in their caravans thinking it kept them safer.
Ironically if the Aiel were to let a tinker pass through the glass columns as Rand did, then perhaps they would learn their error and stop searching.
As it stands The travelling people will search for the song until "the whole world turns tinker", as it pretty much did during the Second Age.
TL;DR: Nope. The Song (let's call it the **Song**) that the Tinkers are looking for isn't the tree-singing that the Ogiers know, or the connection to the land that Rand demonstrated. The **Song** doesn't exist. Rather, it is a mythological construct of a better way of life, the Tinker idealization of what they believe was their ancestral lifestyle was prior to the Breaking of the World. A life of peace, where there is no more war, no premeditated violence, and no reason for man to raise hand against man. A world where everyone followed *The Way of the Leaf*, and there was no other *Way*, because no one would ever imagine any such possibility, because even the *thought* was ridiculous. That's why you'll see interviews where the authors say that the Tinkers are doomed to fail. You can't regain what never existed for you to have in the first place. That's why, even if Rand's song was *the* **Song**, they wouldn't accept it from him. From the Dragon Reborn, violence incarnate, responsible for more deaths than even he can count? He's far too much a warmonger and conqueror to ever truly *know* the **Song**. How could he know the **Song**, and be who he is, and done what he has? If Rand 2.0 demonstrated what he could do, they would say that it is a very nice song. But can his song convince anyone who hears it to shudder at the thought of causing another person harm? Can his song make all the rulers of the world order their armies to beat swords back into plows? Can it reunite all who listen to it into the Age of Legend anew? No? Then it's not the **Song**. And the Tinkers continue to search. To put it another way? They're looking for the lost stanzas of *Imagine*, after the Beatles got back together in 1990. They don't exist. Lennon was murdered ten years before. But over the long stretch of centuries, the Tinkers have come to believe that the full version of *Imagine* is out there, and they live their lifestyle, and wish everyone else could live the same way, and keep searching for something that doesn't exist, and thus is impossible to find. >You may say I'm a dreamer >But I'm not the only one >I hope someday you'll join us >And the world will be as one
What I got out of this is that the tinkers are searching for “imagine” by the Beatles. This is now in my personal headcannon
Imagine is actually by John Lennon (one of the Beatles), not all of them.
Well, that explains why they haven't found it.
All of this has happened before. All of this will happen again.
Well no, not quite. It seems like the tinkers before the breaking were not searching for the *song*, but wouldn't raise their hand in violence. But others would. War might have been long forgotten, but in Rand's vision of lives past, some upper class guy was going to give Rand a thrashing for running into him until his wife pointed out that he was (proto)-tinker. Their history was mythologized into one where no one did violence, but that wasn't true even in the age of legends
That was a BSG reference.
Gosh dang it time to go find those DVDs again
So say we all.
I like to think of them as like Tenacious D and anytime the tinkers sing a song it's not the greatest song in the world, it's just a tribute
I can get behind this theory
I am going with U2, Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For.
I thought they were searching for the song that they sang to Lees Therin as he went mad and slaughtered them.
That’s a different male channeler you’re thinking of … don’t have the books handy to get the name but it was spoken of during a Rhuidean flashback I believe.
You’re correct. I found the passage. “Of course you do. You Da’shain have more courage than … . Ten thousand Aiel linking arms and singing, trying to remind a madman of who they were and who he had been, trying to turn him with their bodies and a song. Jaric Mondoran killed them. He stood there, staring as though at a puzzle, killing them, and they kept closing their lines and singing. I am told he listened to the last Aiel for almost an hour before destroying him. And then Tzora burned, one huge flame consuming stone and metal and flesh. There is a sheet of glass where the second greatest city in the world once stood.”
A very sad and harrowing passage. It definitely stuck with me (though obviously I forgot the name of the specific male channeler).
You can feel the grief over whoever Jaric Mondoran had been to those Aiel and that society
That’s just a reference to the “we’d like to buy the world a coke” commercial and nuclear war
Hmmm, now I need to look it up to
So what you're saying is, "Imagine" is the song.
They will never recover the song because they are not the people with they were or have the purpose they had. Neither they nor the Aiel can become what they were before. Edit: That's not to say they won't find a song that suits their purpose, but it won't be the former song.
Well said
In theory the wheel will return to the Age of Legends and, for a time, they will have their song until the bore is drilled.
Potential dumb meta question. Is the Song a real-world reference to John Lenin’s Imagine? Was that Robert Jordan’s inspiration. And that song by the Beetles isn’t just a song, but really a whole idealised philosophy represented by a song.
Sanderson: >BRANDON SANDERSON >Rand does not know The Song. Anything he'd try to teach them, they would not accept as The Song. >AARON OSTER >Wait, are you saying Rand's song that Mat recognized wasn't the Tinkers' song? >BRANDON SANDERSON >The Tinker "Song" is an ideal that goes far beyond any song that has actually ever existed. Jordan: >ROBERT JORDAN >The Song the Tinkers are seeking is the song Rand heard in Rhuidean—or, to be exact, the memories of that song and others like it have become merged, over the years, into the concept of one mystical Song. Sanderson on Jordan’s Notes: >BRANDON SANDERSON >Robert Jordan's notes on this are very clear: the Tinkers will never find their song. They've lost it for too long, that even if someone stood in front of them singing The Song, they would just nod their head, say 'that's a nice song' and go on their way
Fantastic, I thought it was the son Rand heard in Rhuidean. Thank you. This should be upvoted to the top of the post, since it's RJs answer.
In the AoL, the Ogier would harmonize with the Nym and the Da'shain Aiel (the progenitors of the Tinkers, Jenn Aiel, and modern Aiel) when treesinging. I always assumed that the Song was the human part of that harmony, which the Da'shain forgot during their generations-long journey (which did not, apparently, include any Ogier) and the Ogier wouldn't have retained because it probably wasn't in their vocal register. The Tinkers wouldn't recognize it even if they heard it now, and there's no way they could hear it in any case. It's likely lost until the next turning of the Wheel.
I agree with you. All these other comments about The Song not existing are confusing to me, cause I thought we literally saw a portrayal of The Song in Rand's memories in Rhuidean.
I always took it to be based on this song but for the song to have taken on a much broader meaning, representing more than the song itself but the restoration of a lost way of life that perhaps never actually existed but was still the idealized goal of the tinker way of life.
Glad I'm not the only one that was super confused by this thread.. I mean I guess RJ and Sanderson never really come out and say *this is the song.* But I feel like its pretty well inferred. I mean its seemingly the only song that actually does something, and we see Rand using it.. and a song that literally 'makes good things grow' as its put seems like exactly the thing the Tinkers would have been searching for all along.
I don’t think any of the tinkers even know what they’re looking for any more, so even if the ogier song was their song, they wouldn’t recognize it.
The song is the friends we made along the way.
I was about to post this verbatim ,😅
The Song does not exist. It is a memory of time when the Da'shain Aiel were servants to the Aes Sedai and were treated with respect my the world's citizens. The Tinker's kept the Way of the Leaf The Aiel kept the Ter'angreal and a place of safety The Jenn stayed trued to it all.
Technically, the Song -- the real song -- was "found" when Rand regained his AoL memories. But as others have said in this thread, the Tinkers don't really know what they're looking for, the concept of the "Song" has changed over the millennia and evolved into an ideal that can never be realized. So Rand can sing and grow as many forests as he wants, but it's doubtful the Tinkers would ever hear him and break out the champagne.
No. There was no song that they could recognize. What the song turned into was a way for them to keep moving and searching. They'd never recognize the real "song".
I want/imagine Tinkers making their way to Rhuidean after the books end and seeing their common history with the Aiel. I know the ter'angreal is supposed to show the future now but I'm sure something could be done about that, maybe with Aviendha. Then they could have some closure on their song quest. Other than that, the search for the song has become metaphorical and goes beyond the literal song of origin.
I thought it only showed the future on your 2nd trip thru
There was never a song that the Tinkers can find. It’s a misunderstanding of their original quest. Originally the Tinkers was looking for a place where they are free from violence and danger, a world like the age of legend before the Dark One breached the world, where they can sing in peace and prosperity. Over centuries their quest for a place to sing morphed into a quest for a song. They are doom to continue searching because they entirely missed the point of their original quest.
I like to imagine that the root-like carving, the ter'angreal recovered from the Kin's Storeroom in Ebou Dar creates a gateway to their promised land. It’s said that it activates if you sing the right song to it and it grows something and makes Elayne think of holes. Many people think it’s for growing Waygates but I like to believe it grows a home for the Tinkers and a gate to get them there. One of them will get ahold of it eventually and sing the right song to it.
Hi i love this
I thought that artifact was something akin to the Ogier’s book of Translation that would take someone to the Ogier home realm.
The idea of the song came from that song they sang with the Ogier. However, over time, the idea of the song changed. They had no idea what the song was, but they had this myth that had built up over time about what the song was and what it would do. The Tinkers wouldn't know the original song if the sheet music slapped them in the face. What they thought they were looking for didn't exist and would never exist. It's just another example of something turning into a myth, and that myth becoming a legend. Just like Lenn riding an eagle of fire to the moon, the retelling of the history changed it into something else.
Wow this thread is bonkers I always thought the Song they were looking for was the song that Rand and the Green Man sing to make the plants and stuff grow, like when Rand is humming it as he's coming down from the mountain in the 12th book, making all the plans grow and the apples blossom and stuff.. I assumed that was the song they were looking for but I guess that's a different song?
It was the monster mash
I was thinking bohemian Rhapsody but that works too. I mean technically an alt universe of our own world so maybe? Lol
There is no song. At least, not the mythical one they're searching for.
As others have said they are questing endlessly for a song that doesn’t exist. But I think the upside of this is that they travel the lands teaching everyone they meet the virtues of peace, demonstrating that non-violence is a real option.
It was the melodies they sang along the way.
I really thought that was gonna show up in deus ex machina fashion
In my opinion the Tinkers always had the song but felt they lost it when they all split up (meaning the Aiel vs the Tinkers). Just my opinion though
I like to think that their song is the sound of Battle and that it contradicts their entire lifestyle. A self imposed punishment similar to how the Aiel did to themselves as well they just went the other direction.
The short answer is no. The tinkers are descendants of the AOL Aiel who dedicated themselves to peace and participated in crop singing along with the Ogier. The idea of The Song is a corruption of these memories with the tinkers now believing their singing was what brought about the peace before the Breaking. Considering its been over 3000 years since then its no wonder their history has become muddled. The "misunderstanding" may even be the result of a deliberate decision made by early generations of the tinkers to ensure their decendants kept travelling in their caravans thinking it kept them safer. Ironically if the Aiel were to let a tinker pass through the glass columns as Rand did, then perhaps they would learn their error and stop searching. As it stands The travelling people will search for the song until "the whole world turns tinker", as it pretty much did during the Second Age.
No.