#tremalking

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AIEL

The ability to channel is taken by all Aiel as a sign that the women is fated to be a Wise One. Therefore even if she has other failings that make her unsuitable, she is made an apprentice, even if her apprenticeship lasts a very, very long time.

The Wise Ones' teaching of Aviendha where others could see was unusual, done in large part because the Wise Ones know she is potentially very strong, that they needed to train her. Also, although they did not know what she had seen in the rings ter'angreal in Rhuidean (at least at first), they could already see a relationship developing with Rand which they might be able to make use of but which would decrease the time available to give her the very necessary training in private.

Since Wise Ones don’t sequester themselves from regular society, and are expected to have children, and even male channellers often father children before they discover they can channel, the Aiel population has a higher percentage of potential channellers (1.5%) compared to the mainland population (0.5%).

 WINDFINFERS

As with Aes Sedai, Windfinders are trained through a three-phase apprenticeship program. Most trainees are identified early, because they start channelling or ask to be tested. The latter are made to ask three times before being accepted.

Occasionally a woman who is older and has the ability to learn will begin fumbling her way to the ability, whether consciously or unconsciously. When this happens, it is believed that the woman has been chosen out to be a Windfinder ("chosen by wind and current"), and, unlike those who are made to ask three times, she is made an apprentice willy-nilly. There are relatively few such among the Sea Folk, but the fact of it is that even a Wavemistress or Mistress of the Ships who began to manifest the ability would be forced to give up her earrings and nose ring and become a common deckhand again to begin training as a Windfinder.

‘In the first part other training, the apprentice must serve with the other deckhands while taking her training with the Windfinder. This is analogous to the novice period in the White Tower. This portion other training usually involves service on at least three ships, at least one year on each though often longer. In the next portion of her training, she is more of a personal apprentice to the Windfinder of the ship she is serving on. This training also normally encompasses service on at least three ships, and corresponds to being an Accepted.

Even after an apprentice is considered qualified to become a Windfinder, she seldom gets the chance immediately since there must be a position open for her. She remains an apprentice, in a position analogous in some ways to an Accepted close to being tested for the shawl. This period also frequently covers service on several ships.”

 AMAYAR

There has never been an Amayar Aes Sedai. Windfinders locate those girls born with the spark and train them, though not in Weaving the Winds. These women then serve much the same function as Wisdoms and the like do on the mainland, although each is pledged to give certain services to the Windfinders and to come when called. This calling is almost always a made-up affair. The Windfinders have no use for these women, as they see it, but by their customs there has to be some sort of exchange or else they have lessened the other person. These Amayar women are quite assiduous about performing the services and answering the calls because their culture also requires "repayment" for gifts.

While the Amayar women who can channel are quite capable of finding girls on their own, they do not; or rather, what they do is either lead the girls to the Windfinders or the Windfinders to the girls. This is a part of their tradition, and the Amayar are strongly held by tradition. Their training of the girls after the Windfinders are finished with them is not known even to the Windfinders, but there is such training.

The Amayar are, of course, aware of the slow aging and long lives of women who can channel. It is something that simply is, though.

 SHARA

To maximise their numbers Ayyad only mate with other Ayyad, with the records the Ayyad keep of blood lines akin to the records of horse-breeders. Sons are raised communally, rather than by their mothers, as daughters are. (In fact, sons are never referred to as sons among the Ayyad; they are only referred to as "the male.")

No one with Ayyad tattoos can marry one without:

Sex between Ayyad/non-Ayyad is punishable by death for the latter, and for the former if the Ayyad forced it; any resulting child is killed by exposure.

If a non-Ayyad person is found to be able to channel, they are presumed to be the result of a union between one of their ancestors and an Ayyad; they are seized, tattooed, and confined to an Ayyad village for the rest of their lives.

Shadar Logoth by nugubeef

Tar Valon shining walls by  nugubeef

Alviarin took part in the pogrom against lucky men and senior Aes Sedai. She mistakenly believed that Mesaana only passed orders to Black sisters through her and that Mesaana did not know the identities of the twelve other sisters on the Supreme Council. Mesaana actually made contact with each member of the council and had learned the names of every Black sister

Chesmal Emry was almost sent away from the White Tower twice as a novice and once as Accepted because of serious discipline infractions involving attacking others.

Falion Bhoda: Despite her outward coolness, inside she is a furnace of angers and slights. She has little or no patience with anyone's faults or quirks but her own, and is in fact contemptuous of others while never seeing her own faults or peculiarities. Doesn't really think anyone else is good company except for other Whites, and even then, they do have their faults, particularly in certain questions of logic.

The vote for Galina to be chosen as the Head of Red Ajah was manipulated.

Galina was not involved in questioning Tamra Ospenya—that was a Supreme Council job, and she was not then a member—but she might have been involved in kidnapping her, or putting her body into her bed. Galina was also involved in putting to the question some of the sisters Tamra had gathered, as well as in killing those and others. Galina was involved in killing Sierin Vayu, which was purely a Red Ajah affair. Galina was involved in putting Siuan Sanche and Leane Sharif to the question, and maybe in stilling them as well.

The Black Ajah believes that the Three Oaths must be removed using the Oath Rod. They are not aware that stilling and burning out also break you free of them.

Regularly a sister will be ordered to watch another sister for a day or two, passing on a detailed report of everything she does, everyone she sees or speaks to. This is never anyone that you know is a member of the Black Ajah. In fact, you quickly realize that if all of those watched were Black, then the entire White Tower would be. Some might be, though, and you never know when you yourself are being watched and reported on.

Only the head of the Black Ajah knows the names of all the Black sisters; the other members of the ruling council know various names, with enough overlap that even the deaths of several of them would not result in a loss of all names. No heart contains two members of the ruling council. All sisters know how to reestablish contact, to report or receive orders, if the normal methods are disrupted in any way…

When a new head is chosen, she learns the full list from the others on the Supreme Council. Normally, the members of the Supreme Council all would know the name of the head of the Ajah, but Alviarin was put in charge by Ishamael, and only three members of the Council know her name.

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As might be expected, occasionally men are born among the Amayar who can channel. The method of dealing with them is curiously gentle, in a way, while at the same time being efficient and brutal. The man is shielded, then put into a deep sleep where his dreams and bodily responses are manipulated. He has pleasant dreams—indeed, pleasant dreams of an entire life—and he feels no pain or discomfort, but he sleeps until he dies. NOTE: This manipulation of dreams is something beyond any Aes Sedai and probably beyond Aiel Wise Ones who are Dreamwalkers.

The Amayar ignored the world beyond their scattered islands, for the Water Way taught that this world was only illusion, a mirrored reflection of belief.- The Path Of Daggers, To Keep the Bargain

Robert Jordan’s notes explain further:

The Water Way is very fatalistic in many ways, teaching the acceptance of what is, teaching against any desire for change. After all, this world is only an illusion—"the shadow of a dream"—and changes in it do not matter. To them, it is the inner life, the spiritual life within, that is truly important.

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There are gods or beings so powerful as to be considered gods, beings perhaps in some ways as powerful as Sa’khan [original name of Shai’tan], or possibly even more so, but they are invariably of little or no help. Their aid is withheld, or circumscribed, or more harmful than good, or at best delivers less than was hoped and promised. This is a thread which must run through: mankind must depend on itself, not on the help of all-powerful gods.

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Rand in chains, and it was he who was screaming.

- The Shadow Rising, What Lies Hidden

Jordan planned that Rand was to be captured and held a second time, by Semirhage and Graendal, and this dream refers to that event.

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Each Age, as it comes again, is as it was, yet it is new and different, as well, much as two tapestries may seem to be identical from a distance, yet when they are observed closely differences in detail are found.

Jordan distinguished between the Greater Pattern of the Ages and the Lesser Pattern of the days, with the latter being more changeable than the Greater Pattern. He explains that the changes in the Pattern of Days:

make up the major part of the differences of an Age from that same Age the last time it came and from that Age the next time it will come. The Pattern of Days is woven by living things, but even in that there is an order imposed by the Creator…This Lesser Pattern is woven by men as much as by the Creator, but it exists as surely as the Greater Pattern. Some of what happens is fore-ordained by the Greater or Lesser Pattern, but no human can know what.