Balefire Paradox

Was thinking about balefire and made my brain start hurting. I thought I would share:

What happens if you balefire someone strongly who has just balefired someone else?

e.g. Suppose after Moirraine balefired Be'lal, Rahvin travels to the stone and balefires Morraine. Be'lals thread was burnt, but the action that caused that thread to be burnt never happened, so how could the thread be burnt? Dose Be'lal come back cause Moirraines actions should be as if they never occured, her thread has been burnt out.

And can this go on, i.e. Rand comes and balefires Rahvin, so now Moirraine is back but is Be'lal alive or dead? Ishmael come and balefires Rand, so now Rand is dead, Rahvin is alive, but Moirraine and Be'lal?

Got a headache yet?

I think it would work that way unless Bale-Fire is permanent...

a more interesting question would be what would happen if Rahvin and Rand hit each other with bale-fire? Whoever had the stronger (bigger burn) bale-fire win?

If they hit each other at the exact same moment, my guess is that both the balefire streams will unravel, cause they would never have been produced. But it would have to be the exact same moment, otherwise whoever hits first, if even by a microsecond, would win, cause he unravels the other dudes balefire, the instant he touches him.

Hmmm....my head does hurt if that makes you feel better.

*I put this in later as I confused myself*
A balefires B. C balefires A.

I would imagine that as soon as you balfire someone (A vs B), their thread(B) is erased from the Pattern for all time. In other words they(B) ceased to exist in the greater cycle of death and rebirth.
The string is cut as it were and it would be as if they(B) never existed from that exact moment.
So even if you balefire the original balefiring person (A vs C), their(A) thread would be cut, but it wouldn't mean that B's thread gets reattached to the Pattern.
Both threads would just cease.

Does that make sense?

Do the threads cease or do they get erased fromt hat point in time? I was under the impression that they are erased starting from that point, and the stronger the power used, the longer back the erasing. I think Moiraine even says something in TFOH about the amount she can erase vs the amount Rand could. In an actual example, just cause Be'lal was balefired, its not as if all of his actions ever have never happened, its just the last few seconds. Same with Rahvin except in this case its the last few minutes.

Basically what I remember and the reason for the thought, was I remember Moiraine saying something is that its like the actions the balefired commited, its like they never happened though people around them remember it.

So if your right about the thread being burned forever I agree, if im right about the thread just being burned by a few mins or seconds I'd have to disagree.

I'm also confused by balefire. It seems that if you erase someone from the thread, then they should be forgotten and the person throwing the balefire should be confused at what it is they were doing to begin with and why they were getting so worked up about it. Obviously that is not the case, and the memories persist. Also, the whole history should change, because, like Bradbury's butterfly, if you zap one thread, every effect it had disappears, and every chain reaction it started or took part it will come to a halt. Obviously that does not happen either, history doesn't change. So, if history doesn't change, and memories persist, what exactly is the difference between getting zapped by balefire and just dying a horrible death some other way?

History does change though memories don't. The balefire doesn't completely remove the entire thread of someone/things existence. It stops it from going forward and the more powerful the balefire used the farther back in time the thread is burned. MOST of the time balefire just burns back a few seconds, or maybe a minute or two, though hours or maybe days can be affected if a large enough flow is used.

This also suggests that when someone dies their thread continues (to be rewoven back in later) except for the use of balefire and that is why someone is even beyond the reach of the dark one.

Thanks... that does make sense.