Random stupid Wheel of Time thoughts

Quote from their transcript (Episode 20):

"He kind of reads, although his older – no he is the middle sibling I guess. Elayne’s youngest and Galad’s oldest, so Gawyn reads very much like a middle sibling here, holding the peace between the two extremes."

Oh my god. Why did it never sink in with me before that Gawyn is the middle child!!???

That explains so much! GAWYN HAS MIDDLE CHILD SYNDROME!

From wiki regarding middle child syndrome:

The oldest child may be dominant and conservative

The middle child may be cooperative and independent

The youngest child may be ambitious and privileged

Indulge me for a moment. I think I can make a case for this.

Galad is a guy whose lived most of his life being a good son to his step mother and following all the rules, so he’s primed for rebellion against that life and just needs a change of circumstances and a little freedom to facilitate that rebellion.

He gets to go to the White Tower with his half brother and sister, two kids who sound like they’ve been muck ups their whole lives, and finally, he’s off Morgase’s apron strings, and doing the right thing doesn't seem like so much fun anymore.

At the White Tower, Galad isn’t there to fuck spiders. No, he’s there to try fucking Egwene. He hits on Egwene as soon as he meets her. Like, literally on their first meeting. She’s just hanging out with Elayne, and Galad thinks it’s cool to hit on his little sister’s friends while mogging his bro Gawyn. Wtf dude.

Later, and arguably, he shows interest in Nynaeve too, since later Elayne has a thought wondering if Galad was still interested in everyone’s favourite walking Braid Tugger™. Did something happen off camera? I think we see a bit of attempted flirtation from him when Nynaeve turfs G&G out of her room in the Accepted’s quarters, because he’s trying to turn the charm on her after he hits on Egwene again, right in front of Nynaeve. Also infront of his little sister again. Fkn shameless.

I bet if Tinder existed in Tar Valon, Galad would be the guy swiping right on all the girls to see who he matches with, and then copy/pasting “sup” to every one of them to find out who has low enough self esteem to reply to his lazy text. A looksmaxxing is fuckboi is still a fuckboi, Galad.

Then, after the girls are gone from the Tower in The Shadow Rising, we hear from Gawyn that Galad is heartsick Egwene is gone (she left him on read when he texted her “wyd” actually), and that he’s not coming to Warder training as often.

“...the last time he bothered to come to the yard.” (TSR, Chapter 17, Deceptions) Gawyn tells Min, so we know Galad is slacking off which is not doing the right thing at all.

THEN Galad goes and hits on Min, offering to take her to a dance and smiling at her, and we all know that when Galad smiles, it has this CHA +100 effect. Min’s impression is that he’s unaware of what he’s doing, but I disagree with her. He’s tried that smile on Nynaeve, who withstood it because she is Nynaeve™, and I bet he’s been trying that smile on plenty of girls at the White Tower because it gets him further than “sup”.

And THEN we learn the reason Galad is slacking off training and allegedly ‘heartsick’.

He’s not. He’s drunk. Gawyn thinks that Galad doesn't even get smashed on his birthday, but I think Gawyn doesn't know shit about what Galad's really been getting up to.

Sure, Gawyn knows his brother has been going out into Tar Valon and drinking in taverns with Whitecloaks. WHITECLOAKS! But I’m going to assume our friend Dain Bornhald is there, and we all know he drinks like a high school English teacher on the weekends. So I bet he’s there just frat boying it up with Galad, and being a bad influence while Galad is ditching Warder school.

Valda, that predator epic level asshole, is there too and he’s busy grooming Galad to join his cult by giving him personally autographed propaganda and making him feel like a Special Boy, all while under the influence of alcohol, which Valda probably bought for him and got the bartender to serve doubles, but told Galad they were singles, so Galad gets white girl wasted.

And that’s how this all ends, like many average university experiences, with Galad joining a cult and running away from home.

How many of the Forsaken went to the dark side because they hated this guy’s guts? The wot wiki says:

“Due to Lews Therin's power, envy overtook many of Lews Therin's greatest generals such as Tel Janin Aellinsar, Duram Laddel Cham, Barid Bel Medar, and potentially others who remain unknown and caused them to defect to the Shadow, shifting the war in favor of the Shadow.”

Yeah nah. Seems like too extreme a reaction to just be jealousy. If it was just one person, then sure, whatever, but it’s actually three and potentially more? That's a pattern. What’s the common denominator there? Yep. It’s Lews.

This suggests to me Lews was probably an insufferable jerk and horrible to work under. I bet he was a micromanager too.

In terms of abandoning the Light to join the Shadow, I think we all need to remind ourselves that people don’t leave bad jobs. They leave bad bosses.

And consider Lanfear's obsession with Lews? That kind of crazy-ex behaviour doesn't come from nowhere. I seriously doubt Lews was blameless in that relationship.

So if I was Rand, I’d be mortified if I suddenly found out I was the reincarnation of a total asshole who pissed people off enough they quit the Light and went to the Shadow. He should probably go apologise to the Forsaken on Lews’ behalf.

So Gawyn approaches Mat all friendly and smiling, happy to meet another Emond’s Fielder, and asks politely after his heath since he’d heard Mat was sick from E&E (Egwene and Elayne.)

Mat has these sullen thoughts about if he should call Gawyn ‘My lord’ since he had refused to give Elayne a title, and decides he’s not going to show proper respect to her brother either.

Galad asks if Mat is interested in learning the sword, making polite conversation, and the boys share a joke about Nynaeve being scary. Gawyn makes a suggestion that Mat might want to learn a little of the sword because it’s good for everyone to know that, then asks after his friend, Rand. Y'know. Polite making more friends chit chat.

Mat completely snubs swords and starts bragging about how he could take them on with a quarterstaff. He looks half dead, remember, because he’s been sick, and Gawyn tries to be polite about it by not challenging him on his bragging.

Mat, the little shit, takes umbrage with this! And because he’s been having a shit morning and is jealous that all the girls are ignoring him and looking at Galad, he decides to take his mood out on Elayne’s brothers. Oh, he tells himself the actual reason he’s doing it is for fun, but we know better. And he’s going to be a total dick about it and fleece the princes out of a couple of silver marks each. He’s like a pool shark, scamming people out of money because he knows how good he is and they don't.

Gawyn is still trying to be nice, saying they can do it when he’s not so sick anymore, and Galad also points out it wouldn’t be fair. He also doesn’t want to piss Egwene off by potentially hurting one of her friends.

But Mat pushes the issue like a jerk. G&G clearly don’t want to fight, but Mat isn’t giving it up. He's the one pushing for a fight, not them.

Now here, Galad does get a little prickly, saying the wager is ridiculous and that Mat wouldn’t have a chance against one of them, let alone two, but I think he’s still trying to deter Mat from what seems like foolishness and save him getting hurt. None of them want to fight a dude who looks half dead.

Hammar steps in, and they tell him also that it wouldn’t be fair and that Mat has been sick. Gawyn even says there’s no need for it. When Hammar pushes them into the fight, G&G look regretful. They don’t want to fight, and I think that’s what everyone’s missing here (and I know Hammar wants to teach G&G and all the other little Warderlings a lesson here, but that's not the point).

Even when their teacher makes G&G fight, they still don’t want to take the wager, because they’re sure they’ll win and they don’t want to take some country kid’s money. Their assumption that they’ll win here isn’t important – but it is important to note that they’ll fight, but don’t want Mat’s money while Mat is being a shit saying he wants to take theirs.

Only when Hammar says he’ll cover the bets do G&G finally agree, but they’re not happy about it.

So I think we’re so blinded by Mat’s Moment of Awesome beating the princes that we kind of overlook that he was a total dick in the lead up to the fight. Don’t get me wrong – Mat was my favourite at this stage and I loved that he kicked their asses (this is one of my favourite parts in the series), but re-reading that chapter again, I can’t help but think what a jerk he was. Gawyn especially was being so nice to him, and Mat has go to and start picking fights with boys who just want to be his friend so he could take their money! (and possibly gives Gawyn permanent brain damage in the process IYKYK).

This is like that alternative reading of the Karate Kid, in which Daniel is painted as the aggressor.