#seanchan

Yes, the continent-spanning western Empire, originally founded by people from the old world who traveled westward across the ocean, subjugated the natives and build a society based heavily on slavery. Who eventually seek to push their order and worldview on other countries, and firmly believe that it is their right and duty to lead the world.

Who speak with a distinct drawl that Robert Jordan described as a Texas drawl.

Lanfear and Mierin by m.art.a (Marta Dasic)

Egwene by m.art.a (Marta Dasic)

I'm baffled from reading all the arguments that the Seanchan are going to survive in their current state for more than a couple centuries at best or that their society isn't currently in free fall and isn't quite frankly, always on the brink of imploding because it's built on five different powder kegs that can, will, and have made it a failed state.

TLDR - Seanchan society is five different fascist systems in a trench coat.

The Most Obvious One - The damane problem. Having your lever of control that allows you to subjugate an entire continent with essentially magical nukes also capable of being magical nukes is bad. Plenty of other people have explained this in detail, I'm not going further into it.

The Ever Victorious Army is Always Fighting - Pretty sure one of the Seanchan generals lamented being born too late because just two hundred years previously they were still actively subjugating the continent and the people. For comparison, European powers had control over huge swathes of the Americas within a century. It took Hawkwing's brood 800 fucking years. And they're still dealing with rebellions and uprisings often enough that their army is well seasoned and HUGE. They've literally been infighting their entire existence, that's not a win, that's the hundred years war to the nth degree.

The Exclusivity and Concentration of Power in the Blood - Semirhage killed a couple dozen people - on what to her was probably a slow afternoon and who were probably all related to each other - throwing an entire continent into chaos. If you build a society where less than a hundred people have any kind of real authority and power and they all die, you have built a house of cards not a successful government. Let's be real, huge swathes of the Blood have probably been taken out by communicable diseases because they don't have magical doctors, just magical nukes that they don't want touching them. Oh but they can raise people to the Blood, it's a meritocracy. They raise people to the Low Blood, you don't get to rise under your own power to where decisions are actually made.

The Honor System - This complicated bullshit has to be soooo easy to manipulate it's not even funny. It requires people to follow a thousand rules about every aspect of life solely from societal teachings and pressure. Are those living in cultural strongholds and big cities probably following everything to the letter? Most likely because there's way too many people around that could kill them for disobedience. Is the Seanchan equivalent of Jim Bob living in the middle of nowhere doing much more than swearing to serve the Empress one time and then doing whatever the hell he wants? Yes, he is because the next closest person in power lives hundreds of miles away and doesn't even know he exists. Seanchan's system is a monolith among the upper classes because that's their claim to the power to rule, any commoner who doesn't have to interact with nobility on a daily basis is not heavily influenced by it and we know that because the army is ALWAYS FIGHTING REBELLIONS.

The Shaido come from a healthy, functioning republic. They decide to ditch the regular methods of choosing a leader to follow a megalomaniac instead.

They have a hate-driven life motivation. So long as they can hate the wetlanders, hate Rand al'Thor, hate the Tuatha'an, they are happy. Setting aside their hate is more than they can bear.

They claim to follow honor and obligation, but gleefully cherry pick which tenets they prefer to adhere to and which they consider mere suggestions.

They capture people and turn them into permanent servants, devolving into slavers as their morals erode.

When presented with proof of their delusions, they stick their fingers in their ears and sing lalalalala.