Self-Determination and Personal Choice
I “read” audiobooks, and there was a short interview at the end of a Wheel of Time book where Robert Jordan says the series is about personal choice. This didn’t sit well for me, because reading the series—and knowing how everyone was tied together as well as how the Pattern works—it almost seems like everyone was playing a role set out for them and had little choice in the matter. I equate it to the biblical belief of the elect: like it or not, God has a role for you and you’re going to do it. If you fall, God also saw that and you weren’t (obviously) part of the elect.
What he was talking about—and I’ll get to The Belgariad shortly—was that the main character in Wheel of Time, toward the end of the series, had some choices. He could destroy all existence and chose not to. Then at the Last Battle he could have decided to destroy or keep and imprison the force of evil. It was not predestined; it was a choice. (Now, I’ll admit a Pattern that has no beginning or end wouldn’t do well if it did indeed have an end, but Jordan was a discovery writer, so some things don’t fit in well.) Either way, though, the character did have a choice and a voice in how things would end and what would happen going forward. It was not set in stone by any means.
In The Belgariad, David Eddings treats this much differently. There is no choice. The main character is elected to play that role, the last battle is pitched the way it had to be, and the outcome of one defeating the other and ending the other was predetermined. After the last battle this is even mentioned—that they didn’t have a choice. Leading up to that, the voice in the main character’s head also mentioned that they don’t have a choice in the matter.