Chainfire event
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A Chainfire Event is a powerful spell in the world of the Sword of Truth series of books. It uses subtractive magic to remove all traces of memories of a person from everyone's mind, making them cease to exist, at least in peoples' minds. It is created by completing an empty fork in prophecy, and making it recursively poison the prophecy with the Chainfire Event, corrupting it and all related prophecies.
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[edit] Effects
A Chainfire event has the following effects:
- It removes all memories of the victim from everyone's mind, except someone touching the Sword of Truth at the time of the Event.
- It replaces memories that deal with the victim, making it seem as if similar events occurred without that person's presence (Example: instead of Nicci using the Maternity spell on Kahlan to capture Richard, she remembers it as her simply overpowering Richard on her own). In situations where the victim's absence would have made the event impossible otherwise, the others simply don't remember the event (Example: Cara has no memory of how Richard got to the Temple of the Winds, or why they went to the Mud People at the end of that book).
- It erases all text in Prophecy mentioning the victim.
- Because of the contradictions between reality, it begins to unravel life and reality, causing the eventual destruction of reality.
- The Chainfire event also acts as mind-influencing effect, causing anyone who sees the victim to immediately forget them.
[edit] Counters
Those who initiate the Chainfire event are not subject to it's effects. Likewise anyone intimately linked to the initiators are granted their immunity (Ex: Emperor Jagang is immune as he was mentally linked to the initiators of the event) Outside of that instance only two counters to a Chainfire Event are known:
- Anyone touching the Sword of Truth when the Event is triggered is immune from the effects.
- The magic of Orden was created as a counter to a Chainfire Event, and only through the use of it can the Event be stopped from unravelling life and reality.
Still, the witchwoman Six was not affected by the Chainfire event and can remember Kahlan. Also Jagang was protected from Chainfire by being in the the minds of the Sisters of the Dark when they performed the spell, as their bond to Richard failed to protect them from his powers as they did not truly devote themselves to him.
[edit] Resistances
Pristinely ungifted can have their memories erased by this spell, because it works indirectly through prophecy. However, the direct erasure of memory caused by simply seeing the person (see above under Effects), causing normal people to immediately forget what they saw, does not happen among pristinely ungifted (as shown in preview of coming book).
Although Shota could not remember Kahlan or any events likewise related, it was she who was able to give information surrounding the chainfire event.
[edit] Chainfire Events in Other Fiction
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Although Chainfire events are only present in the specific state listed in Terry Goodkind books as such, several media sources have instances where from time travel (most common method) or other effects, has caused (almost) all memory to be altered and for subjects and/or events to be changed in a way that marks their alteration. There are three distinct types of this event, which may be classified as worldwide, personal, and wall chainfires.
[edit] Worldwide
A worldwide chainfire occurs as in Chainfire, with all memories of events sealed off around the person's existence.
- The Whispers by Dan Parkinson, Part One of the Gates of Time series, one of the time travellers steals the original drape used to make a dress in Gone with the Wind, so a different color is known as being used.
- Negima!: Magister Negi Magi has two distinct types of this happening. First, the time clock Negi has people affected by his actions in the past of the future. Second, as a result of a massive enchantment, the entire world has the reverse of a chainfire spell cast on them, as they all as a result suddenly know that magic exists in the wo
- Yakitate Japan, among its other silliness has a chainfire event conjoined with actual physical effects of time travel. That is, after eating a cannabis seed fried doughnut, Pierrot is sent back in time (a pun on words makes cannabis into time machine) where he meets his mother and father. He manages to avert his mother's death. But the chainfire event is that no contestant (including Azuma Kazuma) nor anyone in the crowd can remember why it was so important to Pierrot to see his parents in the first place, now that history is changed.
[edit] Personal
The event centers around the memory of single targets, but the surroundings are altered on a grand scale to reflect the new reality.
- It's a Wonderful Life has chainfire event of this type, removing him from existence in all cases but only from his own mind, as a result of angel effect.
- The Forgotten has this type, as everyone is actually aware of the abduction of her child, but concealing it through elaborate means, even to the point of wallpapering over evidence to the contrary.
[edit] Wall
This is the most difficult to explain, involving the theory behind the Chainfire event. Because a Chainfire event is based on reality and memory, and reality has time and space as subsets, it is possible to create a barrier outside trapping one person inside - either away from others, or in a reality where either the other person/s do not exist or are altered.
- .hack//SIGN: A barrier between the three main characters Tsukasa, Subaru, and Mimiru are separated by a thin wall of space, but they wander around for hours being met (and insulted) by false versions of each other, before finally breaking the illusion.
- Final Fantasy VIII: In the ending sequence, the hero Squall is trapped in a time compression barrier until finally bursting out with the help of Rinoa. This also includes memory erasure in its components.
[edit] Uses
It has only been used one time, on Kahlan, wife of Richard Rahl, the Seeker of Truth.
