Skip to main content
Evidiant
← All topics

What was the Breaking of the World, and how much of it does the record actually preserve?Fiction

In-universe lore. Claims are judged against the fiction's own canon, not the real world.

The Breaking is the hinge the whole series turns on: a sealing that worked, a counterstroke that poisoned the male half of the One Power, and generations of men with that Power in their hands and nothing left in their heads. Almost everything the Third Age believes about it reaches the reader through a few hundred fragmentary pages, so this page keeps the in-world account and the authorial one side by side instead of choosing between them.

7 established, 2 disputed, 2 debunked, 3 unresolved. We do not pick an answer; the evidence places each claim. How we decide

45 citations from 5 independent sources - 40 echo the same voices and count once. Graded A1-B1.

Added 6 Aug 2026 - canon current as of 6 Aug 2026

What the four states mean
  • Establishedsupported, uncontested
  • Disputedcredible sources disagree
  • Debunkedrefuted by the evidence
  • Unresolvedno settled answer

Established 7supported, uncontested

  • The strike worked and the counterstroke came at the moment of sealing. The seals were placed safely, without ripping open the Dark One's prison as many opponents had feared, and all thirteen of the Forsaken who were at Shayol Ghul were trapped in the sealing. Saidin itself was tainted, Lews Therin and the sixty-eight survivors of the Hundred Companions went insane on the instant, and by the time the taint on saidin was discovered hundreds more male Aes Sedai had been driven mad.▰▰▰▱▱ likely4 points
    Supports
  • The clearest surviving record of the Breaking is the shape of the world. Male Aes Sedai who had gone insane caused great earthquakes, leveled old mountain ranges and raised new mountains, lifted dry land where seas had been and made the oceans rush in where dry land had been, and many parts of the world were completely depopulated. The effects were uneven: some areas were raised up, others lowered, others moved around, and in some areas the effects were relatively mild. Shayol Ghul used to be a subtropical island.▰▰▰▱▱ likely4 points
    Supports
  • The order that exists now was assembled after the fact, not carried over. There was a time when the White Tower was not there, the Aes Sedai after the Breaking were everywhere, so there was not that institutional memory in all things at that point and things were lost. One account of how it re-formed is simply that Aes Sedai slowly got together; later a conference of women representing twelve sizeable groups and several small groups decided to unify all Aes Sedai into one organisation and build a new city with a very large tower as a centre of their power.▰▰▰▱▱ likely4 points
    Supports
  • The Breaking reset what the order was for. After it, men were viewed as destroyers, almost all the male leadership of the world were Aes Sedai who were now dead, and the dominant political force in the world for three thousand years was the all female White Tower. Since the Time of Madness all surviving Aes Sedai are women, widely distrusted and feared, even hated, and blamed by many for the Breaking of the World. The standing answer to a man who can channel became gentling, the act of shutting him off from the One Power, and the Red Ajah bends all its energies to finding men who are attempting to wield the Power and to gentling them.▰▰▰▱▱ likely5 points
    Supports
  • The name the record kept for them undercounts them. A group of powerful young male Aes Sedai formed in support of Lews Therin and was popularly called the Hundred Companions, though in actuality they numbered one hundred and thirteen at that point. One surviving description of them still runs simply as one hundred male Aes Sedai who launched the final stroke that ended the War of the Shadow.▰▰▰▱▱ likely3 points
    Supports
  • Some of what the Age of Legends held was deliberately carried out rather than abandoned. After hope was given up of stopping and curing male Aes Sedai from madness, it was decided to save the most precious angreal, sa'angreal and ter'angreal; some artifacts were loaded into stasis boxes and many others onto wagons. The people hauling them were afraid even to touch them, and were left with wagons full of things the Aes Sedai would never come for.▰▰▰▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • What came through the Breaking came through unevenly. The art of printing survived when so much else did not, and was practiced to some extent during the Breaking itself under severe and restricted conditions; the writing and printing of books continued throughout, which introduced a large conserving factor in the language. Against that, the account of the sealing rests on a fragmentary manuscript: of two hundred and twelve surviving pages the largest number of consecutive pages number six and nowhere else more than two, and such dates as are given are totally incomprehensible because no calendar dating from the Age of Legends has ever been found.▰▰▰▱▱ likely4 points
    Supports

Disputed 2credible sources disagree

  • How long the Breaking lasted is recorded two ways. One account holds that the exact duration of this period is unknown but that it is believed to have lasted nearly one hundred years, ending completely only with the death of the last male Aes Sedai, and another that it took about a hundred years before all the men finally died. Set against those, the duration is elsewhere given as no less than 239 years and no more than 344.▰▰▰▱▱ roughly even chance2 against4 points
    Supports
    Against
  • Whether the men who sheltered in Ogier stedding made the Breaking worse is argued both ways. Some hold that they eventually left and went mad, thus prolonging the Breaking. Other scholars state that this allowed the world to recover from those already mad, and that if all had gone mad at once the world would not have survived. The Red and Blue Ajah traditionally hold differing views of the Ogier help.▰▰▰▱▱ roughly even chance1 against3 points
    Supports
    • Some male Aes Sedai escaped the madness by staying in Ogier steddings, but they eventually left and went mad, thus prolonging the Breaking, according to some. Other scholars state that this allowed the world to recover from those already mad, and that if all had gone mad at once, the world would not have survived.Breaking of the World, A Wheel of Time Wiki analysis
    • Aes Sedai of the Red and Blue Ajah traditionally hold differing views of the Ogier help, with Reds acceding to the former, and Blues to the latter.Breaking of the World, A Wheel of Time Wiki analysis
    Against

Debunked 2refuted by the evidence

  • One reading has the Hundred Companions placing the seals as a linked circle, on the ground that precise placement of the seals was widely thought to require a circle. The answer given is that they did not do it linked, that they worked together individually, which made it more difficult and is part of the reason the seals have weakened so quickly, and that linking was never meant to be implied.Refuted byThey did not do it linked. They worked together individually, which made it more difficult, and that is part of the reason the seals have weakened so quickly. I never meant to imply linking. It is possible for large numbers to do a large project without linking, although it is more easily done in a circle.refuted1 against3 points
    The claim rested on
    Refuted by
  • A standing objection to the whole account is that the women could simply have got together in circles, cut off one man from the Source and gone on to the next. The answer given is that you have to find the men before you can do anything, that by the time they realized what was going on it was too late, that after a point the women were trying to preserve what they could rather than fight the men directly, and that to make someone stop doing something you have to be able to threaten them.Refuted bySeveral things. Partly, you have to find the men before you can do anything. Partly, by the time they realized what was going on, it was too late. The massive geological upheavals were only a part (and not the most important part) of the Breaking. There was also the cumulative social collapse, breakdown of transportation systems, etc.. Imagine a city like Seattle that suddenly loses ALL contact with the outside world. Also, the women were (after a point) trying to preserve what they could, not fight the men directly. Finally, in order to make someone stop doing something, you have to be able to threaten them. What can you threaten a madman with, that he will listen to you and stop?refuted1 against3 points
    The claim rested on
    Refuted by
    • Several things. Partly, you have to find the men before you can do anything. Partly, by the time they realized what was going on, it was too late. The massive geological upheavals were only a part (and not the most important part) of the Breaking. There was also the cumulative social collapse, breakdown of transportation systems, etc.. Imagine a city like Seattle that suddenly loses ALL contact with the outside world. Also, the women were (after a point) trying to preserve what they could, not fight the men directly. Finally, in order to make someone stop doing something, you have to be able to threaten them. What can you threaten a madman with, that he will listen to you and stop?Robert Jordan, LOC Signing Report by Tony Zbaraschuk, 25 October 1994 (Theoryland interview database) Word of God

Unresolved 3no settled answer

  • Whether saidar would have been tainted too, had women taken part in the strike, is asked and never settled. Whether the men or saidin itself might have been protected in some fashion from the counterstroke by a circle comprised of men and women together is raised alongside the possibility that saidar would have been tainted as well, and the whole line is then dismissed as no more than a fireside game to frighten the gullible.▰▰▰▱▱ likely3 points
    Supports
  • What actually happened at Shayol Ghul that day is stated to be unknowable. Only the results are known, and of the soldiers not a single man or woman returned to give any account. A report at the time, given as not confirmed, was that the Bore had been sealed with most of the Forsaken on the other side, maybe all of them, and that something was disrupting communications.▰▰▰▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • Whether the tainting was a deliberate act or a side effect of trying to stop the seals from being placed is left open. The conditions for it were set up while the seals were being placed on the Bore and the chances of exactly those conditions occurring again are put as fairly small, but the reading that treats it as a volitional act is set beside the alternative that it was a side effect, and the question of why saidar could not have been tainted as well is raised without being answered.▰▰▱▱▱ likely1 source
    Supports
    • The conditions would have to be exactly right. Those conditions were set up while the seals were being placed on the Bore. The chances that exactly those conditions would occur again are fairly small. And that is saying that it was a volitional act rather than a side-effect of trying to stop the seals from being placed. After all, if the Dark One could taint saidin at will, why could he not taint saidar as well, and why would he not have done so?Robert Jordan, Wotmania and Dragonmount Q and A, 9 December 2002 (Theoryland interview database) Word of God

Spotted an error, or have a source to add? (tell us which claim). Missing a topic? .

wheel of timerobert jordanfantasylore

Related