Board Thread:Questions and Answers/@comment-98.141.47.111-20140113121113/@comment-29517617-20140207113411

Let me see if I can make sense of this. It's going to be difficult and complicated, and the comment I am about to make will be very long. The Third Door, the one made of wood and bound with brass, is a plain, ordinary door. And I mean, it is literally the present. Rye and Sonia and their families live in the present time, the same time as King Lief, or possibly Lief's sucessor, which would make the statement that the Shadow Lord has been defeated twice true and untrue, sort of. Once by Adin, and once more by Lief. You could say that it had been three times though, considering Lief, Barda and Jasmine, and the Pirrans, in a way defeated the Shadow Lord with the Pirran Pipe, but I believe that they did not count that event because none of the Deltorans prisoners/slaves remembered anything once they were brought from the secret unerground sea to the surface of Deltora. Remember, Lief, Barda and Jasmine only remembered because Emlis gave them three soul-stones, similiar to the one Doran had possessed.

Also, Lief, Barda and Jasmine might never have told the Deltoran people of their time in the Shadowlands to spare them of the terrible memories of their time in imprisonment.

So, in conclusion, the Golden Door leads into the past, which happens to be the time after the sorcerer Malverlain (the Shadow Lord) had been banished from Dorne by his older brothers, the sorcerers Eldannen (Dann) and Annoltis (Olt). When Rye and Sonia walked through the Golden Door it was a few years after Eldannen had confronted Annoltis about his sudden lust for power and arrogant attitude, leading to Eldannen's decision to leave the city with a group of Fellan and found Weld. The Third Door was built as nothing but an ordinary door, put in place to seal the hollow mountaintop that was to shelter Weld. After some time of living safely in Weld, Eldannen found he missed the world he had left behind outside the Wall, and this feeling grew bigger every day. Brief escapes through the wooden Door did not satisfy his needs, since so much time had passed that even in the forest much had changed, and Eldannen felt like a stranger there. So he created the Golden Door, and he used it secretly to travel back in time and spend time with Edelle and the other Fellan he knew well. He could also forget his duties as Weld's leader, his concerns that his people's magic was fading inside Weld, and his doubts that he had done the right thing in shutting himself from the outside world.

Eldannen's doubts grew too big, and it was then he created the Silver Door. Rye had speculated that he had seen how Annoltis lived on and on, preying on his people. When Eldannen grew frail and old he told his best friend and advisor that he wanted to abandon Weld and lead his people out, so that the freer air of Dorne could restore their magic and they could help him rid the island of Annoltis. This "friend" pretended to agree, but secretly thought the plan was madness. He wanted everything to stay the same. He persuaded Eldannen to take him through the Golden Door, and here he attacked him and stole his bell tree stick. He hurried back through the Golden Door and slammed the door shut. Without the bell tree stick Eldannen could not return through the Golden Door, and his strength had been broken by the attack and so he could not go to find another one. The false friend announced Eldannen had lied and left Weld in his care.

When Rye defeated Annoltis, the magic that protected Dorne was undone, but the future was also changed. Annoltis' city, Oltan, was rebuilt into New Nerra and a new Chieftain took over as leader. Fast-forward to the present, Chieftain Farr decided to rid the forests of the Fellan. He and his people was able to do this, since Annoltis and his tyranny had been erased from the present by Rye. Chieftain Farr littered the forest floor with metal. Due to Annoltis' spell having been broken, the Shadow Lord was able to invade Dorne. And so the future became what Rye and Sonia saw when they walked through the Silver Door. They saw the vast, deserted, sour-smelling Scourings, littered with the metal from Chieftain Farr's attack on the Fellan.

When Rye, Sonia, Dirk and Sholto traveled back through the Silver Door, they witnessed Chieftain Farr's attempt at ridding Dorne of the Fellan. They managed to stop Farr, and thus changed the future. Of course there is no saying that the Shadow Lord will still not invade Dorne, as Olt is still dead at this point and the Shadow Lord still alive. We'll see...

So, the Golden Door is a door into the past. The Silver Door is a door into the future. And the Third Door, or Wooden Door, is just that, a normal wooden door, meant to lead in and out of Weld.