in which I have lots of thoughts about Lanâs upbringing and Malkieri culture
When the nation of Malkier died, twenty men had been given the task of carrying the infant Lan Mandragoran to safety. Only five had survived that journey, to raise Lan from the cradle and train him, and Bukama was the last left alive. His hair was solid gray now, worn cut at the shoulder as tradition required, but his back was straight, his arms hard, his blue eyes clear and keen. Tradition infused Bukama. A thin braided leather cord held his hair back, resting in the permanent groove across his forehead it had made over the years. Few men still wore the hadori. Lan did. He would die wearing it, and go into the ground wearing that and nothing else. If there was anyone to bury him where he died. He glanced north, toward his distant home. Most people would have thought it a strange place to call home, but he had felt the pull of it ever since he came south.
â New Spring, chapter 1 âThe Hookâ.
Bukama is the only one of Lanâs mentors we get to meet, so we donât know how much the other surviving four were like him. Nor what sort of impact they had on Lanâs upbringing, nor exactly how long it is since the others died. It seems most likely that they met their deaths sometime between Lan riding for the Blight as a 16 year old and seven years later when Lan headed south with Bukama to fight the Aiel - but we donât know. Â I wonder if it will be in the Companion...?
However, I suspect they were men infused with tradition, as is Bukama. Because traditions were really all they had left. Their traditions and their honour. Theyâd lost their homes, and people they knew and loved. The Malkieri wouldnât have been able to bring many cultural artefacts out of Malkier with them, so most of their art and literature and written history would have been destroyed. Their community was diminished, the surviving Malkieri were scattered across the Borderlands and some had began adopting the customs of their new communities. Their culture - as they knew - was at risk of being lost.
(A slight tangent: I suspect that lower classes may have faced more pressure to fit it - in order to find jobs and make connections in their community - than those who belonged to or worked for the nobility. Itâs easier to keep to the old ways if youâve got money and social status. Â And canât have been many of the nobility left - Edeyn is âthe Lady Arrelâ, so there are others apart from Lan, but according to the LoC glossary, heâs the only remaining Malkieri lord.)
And so those traditions and their definition of honour are what they passed on the young alâLan Mandragoran (along with things like sword-fighting and surviving the Blight, of course). It is enormously important to Bukama that Lan respect and observe their customs, and he wonât shut up about it when he thinks Lan isnât adhering to them.
But, as Lan discovers, strictly adhering to every last tradition isnât always the best choice.Â
One of the things Bukama feels strongly about is that it is important to respect women, and protect women. However, that doesnât allow for situations in which a man might be the one in need of protection.
Look, I wasnât there and New Spring only gives us passing details about what happened ten years earlier BUT IT DOESNâT SEEM LIKE A RELATIONSHIP WITH EDEYN WAS A HEALTHY THING FOR A 15 YEAR OLD! Especially since, culturally, Lan couldnât say No to her, and could only end the relationship by getting out of dodge. (Maybe he was happy, maybe he didnât want to end the relationship until then - but the fact remains that he wasnât given very good tools for dealing with it if he wasnât happy.)
And heâs been clearly struggling to say No to women ever since - for instance, thereâs the serving maid in Canluum. Lan tries to subtly indicate that heâs not interested and when she ignores that, sighs and thinks âif he tried to say no now, she might well pull a knife over the insultâ (NS: 16). Never mind that heâs alâLan âNever Lost a Fightâ Mandragoran and could probably beat her blindfolded, that would be against the Bukama Code of Conduct and isnât an option. Leaving, on the other hand, is. Â
Adhering to custom doesnât help Lan, either, when Edeyn is taking advantage of it - sheâs âalways one to demand every right  and require the smallest obligation be metâ.Bukama doesnât approve of this, but neither he nor Lan can think of a way that Lan can be honourable and defend his personal boundaries. (Personal boundaries here including âraising a banner in my nameâ.) Â
I wonder, had traditions and dreams and Lan not been all Bukama had left of Malkier, Â would he have been able to be more flexible? If more of Malkier had survived, would their customs have evolved and modernised rather than just been substituted with those from other cultures? If he hadnât been so busy upholding and defending traditions, if he hadnât been so concerned that they might become extinct, might Bukama had been able to critique them?
More speculation: It sounds like Lanâs upbringing was a bit of a boysâ club - raised by five warriors, without any female mentors. That although there were other women in the community - and likely female servants in Lanâs household, especially when he was a kid - they werenât part of Lanâs âfamilyâ. He didnât necessarily get to see their lives up-close and personal, and respect their opinions the way he did his mentors. So they would have had less opportunity  than, for example, a sister or female mentor might have to challenge the strict gender roles Bukama and co. were teaching Lan. Â
Given Malkieri gender politics, I'm left with the impression that Bukama and co. were not the best people to teach Lan about women, and to support him as he navigated his relationship with Edeyn. Especially since it seems likely they had put their own personal lives on hold to raise Lan, and thus hadnât provided Lan with a model of what a loving heterosexual partnership looks like. Â
I know, I know, Iâm speculating. And Iâm biased - my siblings and I make each other to read / watch / think about things we wouldnât otherwise consider, so I think everyone needs this sort of relationship. Â But I think this would explain a lot of Lanâs difficulties with Edeyn. And his anxiety about Aes Sedai, too - Lan knows how to ensure that he doesnât take advantage of his power over women, but doesnât have a cultural script for how to defend himself when women have power over him. Which, experience has taught him is a very real thing he should be concerned about, even without the ability to channel. Â
I donât want to undervalue what Lan gains from his mentors. They went above and beyond to ensure he lost as little of his heritage as possible and to support him. And all this despite that they bore an unimaginable grief. It mightnât have been easy for Lan to grow up with that grief instilled into him, but itâs Lanâs grief too. Itâs healthier to acknowledge it than to deny it.
Also, it was apparent from the moment his parents died that an ideal upbringing was not possible for Lan. So thereâs that.
In the end, Lan is able to cut his ties with Edeyn, and to accept a new future in joining Moiraineâs quest (which isnât exactly the quest he thought he was destined for), without turning his back on his culture or abandoning the values heâs grown up with. He finds a way to be flexible. Or at least, more flexible.Â
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âAes Sedai or not, a decent man follows certain forms,â he muttered as he tightened his front saddle girth. âItâs a matter of common decency.â
âGive over, Bukama,â Lan told him quietly. Bukama did not, of course.
âItâs disrespectful to her, Lan, and shameful on your part. An honorable man protects whoever needs protecting, but children above all, and women above men. Pledge her protection for your own honor.â
Lan sighed. Likely, Bukama would keep this up the whole way to Chachin. He should understand. If the woman really was Aes Sedai, Lan wanted no more strings binding him to her. Bukama had already tied one, but his own pledge might lead to worse. If she was Aes Sedai, she might be hunting a Warder. If.
New Spring, chapter 20 âBreakfast in Manalaâ
RJ liked his foreshadowing, didnât he?
Because in the end, Lan does pledge to protect Moiraine. Except not because thatâs the honourable thing to do, and not because sheâs a woman and thus automatically needs protecting. He does it because Moiraine offers him a place on her team, and he wants to support her to achieve her goal. Â
Doubtless Bukama had thought he was being silent, and in truth, very few men would have heard the faint crunching of his boots in the snow, yet he should have known Lan would. After all, he had been one of Lanâs teachers, and one of the first lessons had been to be aware of his surroundings at all times, even in his sleep. Not an easy lesson for a boy to learn, but only the dead could afford oblivion. The oblivious soon became the dead, in the Blight beyond the Borderlands.
"Embrace death," Bukama muttered, sounding like cold steel, and Lan heard other Borderlanders echo those words. He merely thought them; it was enough. Death came for every man eventually, and seldom where or when he expected. Of course, some men died in their beds, but from boyhood Lan had known he would not."
Robert Jordan, New Spring p. 23
"sounding like cold steel"Â - damn did that man know how to write
