THE WHEEL OF TIME TIDBITS

the happy novice days :')

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Even before the important rescue scene we get a lot of strong friendship moments at Falme.

Egwene accepting to become a damane if that meant that they would spare her friend's- Min's - life. And Min feeling despair and guilt and crying herself because she couldn't find a way to free Egwene alone. But there was no way she was gonna abandon her.

Meanwhile, Nynaeve pretending not to be hungry so Elayne who grew up as a pampered princess will have her portion of food,too. But Elayne who sees through Nynaeve's selfless act steals applies for her friend- because she knows that the only way to convince Nynaeve to eat is if there is enough food for both of them.

It was noble and brave (they needed to remove themselves before they went mad to protect their loved ones and to keep themselves from contributing to the breaking). But one by one they left the Steddings. I think this was probably a really complicated thing that was probably both brave and selfish.

Brave, because they weren’t mad (yet), and maybe they could do something about the terrible things happening. Some, if not all, were Aes Sedai who probably felt a professional as well as moral responsibility to *do something* for humanity. Maybe the madness was gone. Maybe, somehow, it wouldn’t affect *them*. Maybe they could be the one to reverse it. And they couldn’t do any of that from the Stedding. How could they just watch the breaking and not at least try?

Selfish because in the Stedding they are cut off from the One Power and that causes it’s own set of problems. It’s addictive. Is it really living, once you’ve used it, to never use it again? Even if it means going mad in the end? But also they would have been lonely and isolated in the Stedding. Even with Ogier and each other, and maybe some brought families, exile and quarantine are hard to bear forever.

There is still debate three thousand years later—was this good, because if all the male channelers had been out at once maybe the world and Pattern would have just ended; or did it just prolong the Breaking and drag the agony out?

I think it resonates with our experiences with the pandemic. Was it better to “flatten the curve,” or did that just drag it out and should we have just let it rip? Or would letting the virus run unchecked have been too devastating for our society (moreso than it already was)? We all had to deal with quarantine and lock down, and for some this was horribly isolating and painful. It may have been the right thing to do, but it came with it’s own consequences.

How long could any of us have lasted in the Stedding, under those circumstances?

That said, a lot hinges on the time period in which Robert Jordan began writing. The Seanchan serve multiple narrative purposes and are tailored to fulfill them.

First, the Seanchan culture. All cultures in the Wheel of Time are meant to look both alien and familiar. History not only repeats, it remixes, and the Seanchan combine elements of multiple powerful cultures. Some of them are signals, like the Deep South accents. Some are mostly there to make them look more alien (to RJ's anticipated audience). I understand that some people consider this combinatorial approach gross and appropriationist. All I can say is that at the time, we were seeing just the opposite: humans are just humans and no cultural element is intrinsic to anyone's being; that was what it meant, back then, to be a good multicultural person.

Second, the first role the Seanchan play in the story is to be a *colonial power*. RJ is clearly suggesting: "Hey, European descendants, this is what it looks like when a 'superior culture' descends on your homeland." We have already identified with the protagonists; now we get to see them (and by extension, ourselves) in the role of the colonized. This sort of cultural turnabout is now seen, at best, as overdone, and often as deeply misguided and insulting. Whatever you think of it, remember that at the time it was a smoking hot take. The Seanchan are only mildly technologically ahead of our protagonists, but there are certain extremely key developments that make them hard to beat: the a'dam, the tight organization, and the frikkin' *Air Force*. RJ takes the classical European conception of a medieval/early Renaissance army, and then he puts it up against artillery and an air force. Barring almost literal divine intervention, the side we identify with gets smoked. This could be construed as a sort of war porn; I am convinced it is not. It is RJ saying "Imagine yourselves as the Powhatan people."

But why, then, are the Seanchan so necessary to the fight against the Dark One? Why aren't they simply malignant evil and maybe on his side? Well, again, history is remixed, not merely repeated. Third: the Seanchan are also playing the role of Soviet Russia. This is the early '90s. The USSR is the Evil Empire (Now in Collapse), but RJ knows his history. The USSR were our genuine allies, when the enemy was Nazi Germany. That did not make them "good guys", per se. If the war had been only Germany vs. Russia, the victor would scarcely have mattered; the result would be a monstrous dictatorship ruling all Europe. And yet if Russia had not been in it at all, the remaining Allies would have been far harder pressed. I don't know enough history to say "The Axis might have won." But literarily: the Axis might have won. That was the nightmare AU scenario that ruled alternate-history sci-fi. I know a lot of you younger folks are socialists and some of you are tankies. Set that aside for a moment and understand: to much of three generations, Soviet Communism was every bit as monstrous as the Seanchan. And *we had to rely on them anyway*, or lose to an enemy even worse. That's the situation RJ has set up for his protagonists.

I always love this kind of appraoch in the fandom on the topic of analyzing Seanchan. Objectively always taken with one sided view around.

If we know anything after reading the Wheel of Time, it is that nothing there has just one face.

Is the real culture of real Roman empire objectively terrible because they had slavery too? What about the British empire or even the ancient Mesopotamans? Slavery is not the only thing that defines one culture to be "objectively terrible".

BUT DAMANE!!! most of fans will scream in terror. Give me a break. Fans don't even know why damane existed in the first place. A big chunk of fans literally cannot tell what is the actual reason why the Seanchan's society accepted damane's existence but fans are eager to judge on the spot. (And no, it is not just because some random Aes Sedai made a ter'angreal as this still doesn't explain why Seanchan accepted it.) Robert Jordan created one interesting moral dilemma with that reason why and no one even tries to acknowledge it and analyze the chronology of what we know so far - what happened in Seanchan, what were the obstacles there that let to the horrible situation and what is the mindset of random Seanchan citizen (or noble) on the matter. Not one word about that. Always on one side.

unmarkedcards made some really good points (because the above is not directed personally to you, pal) but still this is only part of the whole picture that Robert Jordan wanted to present with the balance of good versus evil.

And as a slave society, that does a number of things much better than the wetland nations or leadership, you get the question If they can do it, why can’t the “good” guys?  Why can’t the wetland nations establish a system of justice that acknowledges the rights of all members of society, and holds the leaders to account, where they really and truly believe in their version of equality to the point that Seanchan generals are uncomfortable acknowledging the objective fact that locally-recruited troops are objectively inferior to those from Seanchan. 

It’s probably not an accident that the forces Rand takes to fight the Seanchan include the two most morally questionable nations outside the Empire, as well as the most prominent Asha’man to include the Darkfriends and future renegades.  Rand is trying to fight the slavers with aristocrats who abuse their people and Dreadlords-in-training.  His campaign is bloodier than he anticipated, and it goes badly when he exceeds his original mission parameters of defending a land that follows him, and instead decides to conquer a new country/city he has no more right to rule than the Seanchan do. And when he blows up his own army taking out the Seanchan, Rand learns the lesson that he’s not supposed to be the politician, he’s supposed to be the messiah.  He has not come to lead one people against another, but against the Shadow. 

mat: I resent that implication, im not going to do anything!

moiraine leyendecker study !!!

Daily Tasks

Mourn Ilyena

Tell the madman living in my head some random info from the Age of Legends

Convince him to kill the Asha'man before it's too late

Try to embrace sweet, foul saidin

Say a litany of women we murdered

In physics, wrapping gold wire around a central core (like a hilt) is exactly how you would construct a solenoid or coil to interact with electromagnetic fields.

If we think of Aviendha as a “magnet” and the dagger as a Faraday coil, the whole scene makes scientific sense.

When Aviendha (the "magnet") interacts with the dagger (the Faraday coil), the result is that the dagger generates a Field (aka Faraday cage).

In physics, a Faraday cage is a shield made of conducting material (like a wire mesh) that blocks external electrical fields.