#shaido

Magic Dagger Curse Is My Middle Name

Tuon Athaem Kore Paendrag (now Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag) has a lot of names, and I'd found puns or references in most of them. There's the "Lady Luck" pun of "Empress Fortuona". There's the very appropriate "Kore" (Persephone's and Tuon's pre-kidnapping moniker, meaning "Maiden") for a girl who gets kidnapped and dragged through both the human underworld (a circus, and a dive bar that's literally called a hell) and the death-related underworld (a literal ghost town full of ghosts, and the hell of guerilla warfare). There's "Devi", a reference to divinity, which replaces "Kore". Paendrag is of course an Arthurian legend reference.

But the one name I never quite understood was her only other permanent name- "Athaem". The 13th Depository Blog suggests it was meant to evoke both "athame" - a knife or dagger used in magic rituals - and "anathema" - a curse, especially one that exiles someone. Go on, let that sink in. Tuon's middle name is "Magic Dagger Curse". Tuon "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. Fortuona "Magic Dagger Curse" Paendrag. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE ENOUGH THAT TUON'S ACTUAL MIDDLE NAME HAS ACTUALLY BEEN "MAGIC DAGGER CURSE" THIS ENTIRE TIME.

Basically that's all I actually need to say here to prove that Tuon is the symbolic return of Mat's sexy cursed magic dagger that isolates the bearer via paranoia and suspicion, but let's throw in some of the other parallels just for fun and so you have time to recover from the psychic damage I just dealt you. There's some fun ones just around rubies specifically and the color red.

The Shadar Logoth dagger has a large dark ruby on it, the size of Mat's thumbnail. Mat estimates it would buy a dozen farms back home, and when Mat first meets Tuon, he notices she's 'wearing a fortune in rubies'. Also, before she becomes Empress, Tuon's signature color is red; she's got red fingernails, red and a very dark green are the imperial colors as seen on the Deathwatch guards, she buys a lot of red silk in Jurador, and presumably the roses in the Raven and Roses imperial sign are red, as she treasures Mat's present of red silk rosebuds. (Interestingly, she starts going more blue once she becomes Empress- I'm thinking specifically of the blue nails and dress she has when she declares maritime Ebou Dar her capital.)

Tuon also has other physical similarities to edged weapons in general, and the dagger specifically. Like the dagger, she looks ornamental but could absolutely kill you. Mat describes her hands as "bladed like an ax" when she strikes a footpad in the throat to save him. She's also sharp, in the sense of being very intelligent and canny. Also, she could learn to channel, and in being a sul'dam is a conduit for magic, so she fits that aspect of the dagger as well. And, last but not least, like the dagger, Tuon is a fascinating and deadly artifact of a powerful civilization that embraces a uniquely human form of evil.

Shadar Logoth as Ultimate Human Evil

In the books, Shadar Logoth is our loadstone for what is described as a specifically human kind of evil, separate from the absolute, somewhat abstracted "evil for evil's sake" that is the province of the Dark One. The Dark One's ideology as practiced by humans ends up being nihilism, or rather, self-interested nihilism. (Ishamael isn't a pure nihilist, he's ok with getting worldly power while there's still a world.) In contrast, Shadar Logoth's downfall is a kind of corruption; evil things done in the name of, and for the sake of, good things. There are other cultures that do that, of course, but Shadar Logoth is the purest example of 'the ends justify the means', since their 'end' was fighting the Dark One.

"The victory of the Light is all. That was the battlecry Mordeth gave them, and the men of Aridhol shouted it while their deeds abandoned the Light. [...] No enemy had come to Aridhol but Aridhol. Suspicion and hate had given birth to something that fed on that which created it, something locked in the bedrock on which the city stood." -Moiraine, The Eye of the World

The goal of opposing the Dark One (an abstract idea of evil) at any cost led them to turn on and destroy not just their allies but ultimately each other.

Mat's Shadar Logoth dagger is a part of Shadar Logoth that has most of the powers of the whole. When carried by an individual, it can brainwash, induce (semi-justified) paranoia, kill via corruption, and infect others. These are all powers associated with Aridhol/Shadar Logoth. About the only thing the dagger can't do that we see other elements of Shadar Logoth do is shapechange or snatch bodies (#JustMordethThings) and move semi-instinctually on its own (like Mashadar). Shadar Logoth is established as Peak Human Evil, an evil so archetypal it has undergone a sort of dark apotheosis and become both a physical and metaphysical force.

Because it is so archetypal, we should expect to see aspects of it reflected in other Randland cultures that are antagonistic to our heroes, but which are not explicitly pledged to the Dark One.  We should also expect to see the same part to whole dynamic in those cultures' leaders. Rand is a great example of this part-to-whole dynamic; as the Dragon Reborn who is 'one with the land', he struggles against increasing paranoia and self-hatred, which leads him to act as his own antagonist for much of the series, even as he explicitly fights against the Dark One. It's the Shadar Logoth struggle writ large. Therefore, the leader of a corrupted, Shadar Logoth-esque culture will be a powerful and faithful representative of the traits of that culture; you could say they are the purest expression of that culture.

This is a tenet of Robert Jordan's worldbuilding and narrative, and applies to more than just the antagonist leaders; protagonist leaders also stand in practically and symbolically for their culture or group. Over the course of the series, nations and groups end up led by the 'best' people for the job, where 'best' is some combination of 'most representative', 'most competent', and/or 'best adhering to their culture's ethical tenets' (which often happen to be our protagonists). This has the possibly unintended/unconscious effect of justifying autocracy, monarchy, etc in-world because it's all adhering to aristocracy, 'rule by the best', where 'best' is rather culturally relative. It's also an artifact in-universe of the world moving to a wartime footing; anyone who isn't the best person for the job gets tossed out of the way in the name of prepping for Tarmon Gai'don, by some combination of The Will of The Pattern as well as actual effort on the part of our heroes.

On a more meta level, Robert Jordan's choice to use third person limited points of view means we get a lot of POV characters who are very embedded in their cultures and serve as an immersive cultural crash course for the reader. They tend to be either main or secondary characters who are movers and shakers in the plot (justifying the time we spend in their heads) or there to provide an outsider reaction to main or secondary characters (again, justifying the time we spend in their heads.) Robert Jordan's writing is concerned with the use, abuse, and fluctuations of power, but it's worth noting that he doesn't give us POVs of characters who are structurally and permanently without power.

POV characters often have moments of powerlessness, either in the beginning of their narratives or at the end, but if you happen to be a WoT character who never had power and never will, RJ isn't interested in showing us the inside of your head. For example, we don't ever get a POV from an ordinary da'covale who spends the entire series out of control of their own destiny, even though that could be a very powerful outsider perspective. Instead, we get POVs from sojhin, who are movers and shakers in their own right. (These are great POVs--Karede's POV in chapter 36 of KOD is maybe my favorite of the entire series, it's a work of art--but again, there's a bias here in who we observe observing.) In a series where people bemoan or celebrate being constrained by fate and consciously question if they have free will, we somehow don't hear from those who have never had worldly power; we only hear from those who do, or once did.

(I find this disappointing, and it's one of the reasons I find it difficult to recommend the Wheel of Time books- which are obviously deeply personally significant to me, and which I find fun, interesting, and more often than not, well-written- without caveats. The series is so obviously about power and choice and the ways they influence each other, and uses third person limited POV so skillfully, that it is surprising and disturbing to me that we are not exposed directly to the point of view of those who have been permanently and structurally deprived of power. We miss an opportunity to engage with the core themes on that level, and also uncover an authorial bias that hasn't aged very well and which makes me look at some of RJ's other choices with a more jaundiced eye. I believe WoT would have been stronger and richer thematically if it had grappled directly with the realities and perspectives of those who remained powerless throughout the events of the series. And whether it was an unconscious or deliberate choice to leave out those perspectives, not having them there lessens my trust and acceptance of Robert Jordan's takes on power and choice. But I digress!)

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Shaido

So, there are other antagonist cultures that we spend a lot of time with but which are not explicitly allied with the Dark One (though we are always shown their leaders being subject to the Dark One's influence, through their advisors and high-ranking coworkers, who are Darkfriend characters that have positions of structural power and influence.) Overall, the Shadar Logoth archetype means we are looking for structural corruption, fear, hatred, and the cultural belief that the ends justify the means. In-universe, that's what human evil looks like, and we expect to find it in our secondary antagonists.

So let's take a look at the Shaido, who are attempting to recapture a glorious (fictional) past by imposing a corrupted version of their original values on others; the Whitecloaks, who spread authoritative dehumanization and bigotry in the name of order and righteousness; and the Seanchan, who have the dubious distinction of doing *both*, which is why they win the door prize for Most Problematic Antagonist Who Isn't Literally Allied With The Dark One.

The Shaido are an example of a corrupted culture that imposes its corruption on others, especially others that do not meaningfully consent to be assimilated. Their corruption starts with suspicion and fear and leads to brainwashing; they choose to believe a lie because it is more palatable than the truth, and because they fear becoming powerless and losing their cultural identity. They and the Aiel that joined them cannot accept Rand's truth bomb about the origins of the Aiel as pacifists. It's an idea so counter to modern Aiel self-image and culture that the secret was carefully hidden and used as a test of character for Aiel leaders.

In the test, the knowledge that they had betrayed their original ideals to survive was presented in the original emotional and logistical contexts, which may have helped the Aiel who went through the test survive learning about it; it's easier to empathize and overcome fear and disgust if you know why people made the decisions they did. To survive, and to self-govern, the honor-bound Aiel leadership has learned to forgive themselves for their corruption, while not losing the lessons they learned from it, and empathize with people almost entirely unlike themselves. (How effective are they at that? Your mileage may vary.)

Normally, only those who could accept the information could reach the highest leadership roles. Sevanna, whom the Shaido exodus coalesces under after the death of Couladin, is the only Wise One who didn't go through that testing process (she got in on a technicality), which makes her uniquely qualified to lead the group that can't accept this information. Like that group, she lacks humility or the ability to accept unpleasant truths; however, she's self-confident, politically skilled, culturally competent, and has a clear vision for her people, which are the other qualities that the Aiel select for in their leaders. (I cannot believe that today I woke up and said nice things about Sevanna!)

She's presented as somewhat 'corrupted' by wetlander ways, greedy for wealth and power, but I think it's more that she's off the leash of strict Aiel morality; she goes on a reign of terror, taking more than she needs of any resource, and capturing non-Aiel and keeping them as permanent gai'shain. This is clearly slavery in a more modern sense. The Aiel proper have a sort of ancient-style slavery, based on taking prisoners of war, that is time-bound, highly regulated, and that everybody more or less consents to by living in that society. (I say more-or-less; not sure your average civilian Aiel precisely consents the way a warrior might consent, but then again, everyone in Aiel society is a little bit of a warrior.) Sevanna's unconsenting, permanent, non-Aiel gai'shain are a clear violation of all of these tenets, and resemble the bodysnatching and invasive nature of the Shadar Logoth evil. Fear turns into hatred of both kinds of uncorrupted Aiel (the originals, and the modern) and of those groups of people who are not like them. In the end, the Shaido dissolve, their corruption having weakened them so that they fall prey to outside forces.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Children of the Light/Whitecloaks

The Whitecloaks are an obvious heir to Shadar Logoth, as they persecute channelers and anyone they consider a Darkfriend in the name of order, righteousness, and the Light. Whitecloaks represent the paranoia, assassination, and brainwashing powers of Shadar Logoth, and insofar as they have assimilated Amadicia and make forays across borders, they also cover invasion, though to perhaps a smaller degree than the Shaido (or the Seanchan). The Whitecloaks are also good intentions, corrupted; yes, Darkfriends are bad, yes, the Light is good, no, not everyone you don't like or who has power you want is a Darkfriend! They turn neighbor against neighbor, harrass, torture, and murder the innocent as well as the guilty, and generally do all the bad behavior you would expect of a military quasi-religious order that considers itself above the law. Also, Mordeth/Fain literally got his grubby hands all over the Whitecloaks early in the story and made them even worse.

Galad is a really good example of the 'best man for the job' ending up in it; Galad's extremely uncompromising morality is most likeable and practical when he's fulfilling a 'reformer' role in a group that really needs it, and when he's not in that role, his entire deal can feel excessive and alienating. (Although I will note that if you think about how his mom abandoned him to pursue what she was told was her duty, and his dad was a real asshole, you can kind of see why Galad has such a strict moral code and won't let something like family or feelings get in the way of carrying out his duty... anyway just having feelings about Galad, don't mind me.) When leading the Whitecloaks he recalls them to their original ideals and purpose, which is literally fighting the Shadow on an actual battlefield, and makes them hew to ethical standards from the original Lothair Mantelear text and his own personal extremely high standards.

He purifies the Children of the Light, insofar as they can be purified, purging the corrupt people and practices. This allows the Whitecloaks to ally with the Light, rather than sitting out the Last Battle or killing important Light-allied groups. But the Whitecloak channelerphobia is not going to be eradicated so easily, and that's mostly what Galad’s family was objecting to about him joining the Whitecloaks in the first place. And even Galad starts to succumb to it by the end of the series, although to be fair the White Tower had definitely done a number on his family by that point. Post-Last-Battle, Galad is really going to have to grapple with 'what is the practical purpose of a bunch of armed busybodies who think they're better than everyone else and who have a very deep-seated hatred and fear of channelers?' One hopes he'll convert them to a peaceable monastic order doing community service. If anyone can do it, it's probably Galad, but I think it's not going to be easy and it's also not clear to me if Galad is going to have the same opinion about the necessity that I do.

Heirs of Shadar Logoth: The Seanchan

So, now we come to the Seanchan, who are a rich, complex, fascinating culture that combines the best and worst thematic elements of both the Shaido and the Whitecloaks. Twice the fun, twice the flavor! Like the Shaido, they are the corruption of an honor-based culture that now assimilates other people and cultures without their consent. The Seanchan have a strongly-held honor system that uses public and private shame as a deterrent to unethical behavior, similar to ji'e'toh, but like the Shaido, they apply it to conquered peoples under duress; even if the Seanchan themselves are ok living this way, there's no real consent happening when they conquer.

Like the Shaido, the Seanchan claim to be the true heirs of an ancient legacy, the children of the child of Artur Hawkwing, but have spent enough time in Seanchan to absorb all sorts of concepts Artur Hawkwing never had (slavery, taming weird beasties, exploiting Aes Sedai rather than just avoiding or fighting them). Their culture is also built on convenient fictions; the knowledge that sul'dam can learn to channel, and that some can be held by the a'dam, is likely to produce a truth bomb down the line, one way or another. And the Seanchan are an imperial power, which means they automatically follow the natural growth and rules of empire; always be expanding, always be consuming, always be exploiting. They're Mashadar, baby!

Let's zoom in on the slavery, since that's one prong of what makes the Seanchan evil. It's a kind of bodysnatching and brainwashing, and there are some really interesting parallels here to the Shaido and Aiel. The Seanchan have three forms of institutional slavery; so'jhin, da'covale, and damane. So'jhin, hereditary upper servants of the upper class, have the most power and are analogous but not precisely equivalent to normal Aiel gai'shain. Like standard gai'shain, they are considered property that can be traded, have some level of autonomy and ability to direct their lives, certain rights and privileges, and in theory can be manumitted.

Unlike gai'shain, they actually can have more political power than free people. Also unlike gai'shain, they are not guaranteed manumission after a set time, and while I think the gai'shain consent issue is a little muddy (Aiel can't help being born Aiel and thus subject to Aiel raids) so'jhin are born into slavery and have therefore absolutely not consented to it. So'jhin appear to be based at least partially on Byzantine examples of high-ranking slaves, and slavery in other very complex and bureaucratic cultures where those in power needed highly competent administrators, but didn't want the administrators supplanting them.

Da'covale are equivalent to Shaido gai'shain; often (but not always) captured from other cultures, absent the rights and privileges of regular gai'shain or so'jihn, and bound to involuntary servitude for life, although they can in theory be manumitted. (Shaido gai'shain have the option of trying to escape, I guess.) They have very little autonomy and power to direct their lives. It may be possible for da'covale to become so'jihn, so again there is a kind of internal mobility/potential access to power that doesn't have an exact equivalent with the Aiel models, but that's offset by the lack of consent; da'covale can also be born into slavery. One can be made da'covale as punishment for defiance or anything else the Seanchan see as a crime, or born into it. It seems historically equivalent to ancient, prisoner-of-war-type slavery, mixed with the carcereal state; you were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or you fucked up, and that's the justification for making you a slave.

Damane have some points in common with both regular Aiel and Shaido versions of dat'sang; they are all slavery in the form of the carcereal state/slavery as an outcome of the justice system. Dat'sang are 'despised ones', usually those accused of being Darkfriends or who have committed heinous crimes. It's a punishment that is apparently permanent and unrecallable, and they are sentenced to the most shaming labor in the worst conditions. They are cast-out from the community and forced to serve it in the most degrading way. Marath'damane, channelers with the spark who are not leashed, are treated like dat'sang are, in that they are cast out of their communities and shamed for their 'crimes'. Once they are leashed, though, they become integral parts of Seanchan society and are told to take pride in the service they can provide, which is very unlike the dat'sang cultural experience. Damane are enslaved and exploited for their talents, ostensibly to keep the general population safe from their magic powers and their potential political power, but also because they're an incredibly powerful military and infrastructure resource.

The first damane was created out of a combination of fear, greed, and hatred. One Seanchan-local Aes Sedai captured a rival and brought her to Luthair Paendrag, who she knew would be receptive to constraining the power of channelers. What she didn't count on was that solution being institutionalized, and that she'd eventually fall prey to it herself; a classic Shadar Logoth "do a shitty thing unto others and eventually you'll just be doing a shitty thing to yourself" move. Both the existing Seanchan population and Luthair's group had already othered, hated, and feared channelers, the Seanchan possibly for logical contextual reasons (seems like the Seanchan Aes Sedai were all independent Americans who didn't want to be governed by a universal code of ethics or subject to institutional oversight, which is not conducive to living in a society), and Luthair because of Ishamael’s original corruption of Artur Hawkwing.

In the end, the combined Luthair group/original Seanchan institutionalized their channeler bigotry, saying that the ends (preventing channelers from exploiting non-channelers) justified the means (exploiting channelers). Damane are never, ever freed and now the Seanchan think of channeling independently as inherently a corruption and a crime; something that makes the involuntary channeler evil and unhuman. They also break channelers, brainwashing them into thinking that this is for their own good (and not just for the good of the state).

(Another meta aside: Because involuntarily channeling is a genetic trait that the channeler has no control over, leashing damane feels to a modern reader, especially US ones, I think, very much like the race-based slavery of our recent past. Especially the idea that the enslaved person is enslaved as a punishment for a crime; this is something that would hit a US reader pretty hard, given that the US's booming prison population is the only legal slave labor force in the US and is also disproportionately made up of people of color. I am pretty sure that explicit parallels between racist slavery and the practice of leashing damane would be supported by Robert Jordan, especially since he literally put the Seanchan on post-apocalyptic North and South America. They have other influences, including Imperial Japan and Imperial China, and the Byzantine Empire, but in this way, and also because of the Texas accents, they are very, very American.)

The Seanchan are also similar to the Whitecloaks; they're both military groups who hate and fear channelers, and they are particularly susceptible to paranoia and assassination/extrajudicial murder. The Shadow didn't have any trouble infliltrating either the Whitecloak command structure (especially the Questioners) or the Seanchan Blood; there's a certain background level of 'the ends justify the means' going on in Seanchan and Whitecloak power centers that makes them fertile ground for recruitment. The Whitecloaks and the Seanchan both have a kind of secret police; Questioners and Seekers (they even have similar names!) who operate under certain strictures with respect to their upper management, but who can basically do whatever the hell they want to ordinary people. And I'm sure I don't need to tell you that secret police are PEAK Shadar Logoth; they were always judging everyone else, generating paranoia and mistrust.

The Blood and Imperial family are also a really great example of Shadar Logoth values creating a (somewhat) functioning society full of extremely fucked-up people; the more power you have, the more delicately you have to step and the harder you have to watch your own back. The higher up you go, the less trust you are able to have in others, until you reach the point where people are sending assassins after an imperial baby, and the imperial baby grows up thinking that's completely normal and fair and it's their fault if they are ever not good enough to dodge it. (Hi, sorry, please excuse me and my many, many feelings about Tuon.) That kind of thing makes you very, very sharp, assuming you survive; it also makes you very inured to violence and most comfortable when you've got a high baseline paranoia going at all times. It puts you in danger and it gives you the means to survive danger; it's very Shadar Logoth dagger, which attracts Darkfriends but also gives you the ability to sense the Darkfriends right back, and incidentally stab the hell out of them.

A Part With the Power of the Whole: Tuon and the Seanchan

So, we have all the sins of Shadar Logoth united in the Seanchan; they're invaders, they brainwash and bodysnatch, they're paranoid, they assassinate and murder, they've institutionalized hate and fear, they're structurally corrupt in that power in their society is based on lies and exploitation, and they think that when it comes to dealing with their mortal enemies (channelers), the ends justify the means. And their leader, Fortuona Athaem Devi Paendrag, Empress of Seanchan, is indeed many of these things wrapped up in one efficient and deadly package.

She's a sul'dam and she enjoys her work breaking and training damane; she's had siblings assassinated and we've seen her kill onscreen; she's deeply suspicious, always second-guessing and skeptical (except about received values and information from her culture); she embodies and enforces Seanchan culture and power. She is all Seanchan in one person, and she'd tell you that proudly. She tries to assimilate *herself* into the state, because she thinks that's what she's supposed to do, to best serve her people. She wants to be the part that is an exact mirror of the whole, and she wants the whole to be perfect, so she wants herself to be perfect, too.

Do you see the shades of Galad, here? Like Galad, she has a strict and impractically idealistic moral code that makes her somewhat unpopular wherever she goes; she's too unpredictable, merciful, and flexible for her counterparts in the Blood (she's always surprising them with her unconventional choices) and too perfectly Seanchan for her allies (who are all horrified by the damane thing, or the da'covale thing, or the assassination thing, etc etc.) The things people grudgingly praise her for are sincerity, competence, compassion within the bounds of her ethical structure, and (sometimes) a willingness to consider new information or accept oversight, the last of which is only impressive because of how enormous her ego is and how thoroughly she's been indoctrinated to believe she's inherently correct and all-powerful.

She is the best of Seanchan, within the context of Seanchan: she survived, took, and kept power, making her the most competent imperial daughter; she's very ethical within Seanchan strictures, not striking first unless threatened, working to acknowledge and correct personal faults, keeping her word, showing concern and mercy for those she believes are suffering, being thoughtful and careful of consequences when she exercises power; she is most representative of all of Seanchan's flaws and virtues, as a sul'dam, Empress, and Lightside ally. (That said: is Tuon the most ethical Seanchan within a broader cultural context? Hell no, that's Egeanin, who goes through a long and painful process of realizing and rejecting the corrupt and nasty parts of Seanchan culture, after it rejects her.)