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#a memory of light
flo-n-flon · 8 months
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"While it's fresh. I need everyone to tell me what they saw and heard, so that I can write it down. There will never be a better time."
Of all the accounts Loial gathered in Thakan'dar that day, the Aes Sedai's proved the most difficult to acquire. Those who remained were elusive, bustling around the Healing tents and churned fields. Nynaeve Sedai and her helpers, paying no heed to the fragility of Humans, were bringing back from the brink of death so many that a constant flow of barely healed soldiers and channelers shuffled toward the Travelling grounds, freeing much-needed beds inside the tents.
Moiraine Sedai would not answer his inquiries about the events at Shayol Ghul either, intent as she was on the care of a drawn, but gently chiding Tairen woman.
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butterflydm · 4 months
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restructuring the wheel of time into ten books
So a little while ago, there was a poll about people's favored choice for how many books should have been in WoT -- I voted for 'ten' and this is, I guess, my argument for a ten book series.
Books 1-5, I don’t really have any notes on when it comes to structure. Every book is complete in and of itself. While books 2 & 3 do have something of a repetitive structure, I think that works better in a book series than in a tv series.
The only suggestions that I would have structurally would be minor things like “tweak Rand’s power levels in the early books to keep him more in line with what he does later” (aka what the show is doing, lol) and maybe not having Ishamael present during the Battle of Falme and having that purely against the Seanchan, so that we don’t have super similar climaxes for Rand two books in a row (Rand could get his wound in Tear instead). And those are the sorts of things that I think it might be likely that Jordan would have done if he’d known exactly how long the series would end up being -- ex. he clearly backed down on Rand’s power jump when he realized that the series would be going for longer than he’d originally planned.
One minor plot change that I would do is put Perrin feeling Rand tug at him as the epilogue of TFOH or thereabouts. Just a little hint of Perrin in there, showing that he'll have a bigger role in the next book.
Book 6, though... I have some thoughts there.
Lord of Chaos/A Crown of Swords: this is the first book where the beginning really takes some time getting off the ground -- there are several Salidar chapters that could have been combined. This is really the first place in the books where characters hang around doing nothing (we're told more than once in Elayne & Nynaeve's PoV that they're barely being taught anything and that being there feels pointless), waiting for it to be time to actually Do Some Plot (the big Healing of severing) and it's just the beginning of a bad trend.
The other structural change that I would suggest is not doing the weird feint with Mat's character where he starts off doing a "Rand's general" storyline and then creakily transitions over to Salidar instead. Since Mat isn't actually going to Illian, he doesn't need to be marching south. He could just still be in Cairhien/Caemlyn and have Rand take him to Salidar from there. As it is, we end up spending several chapters on a storyline that gets abruptly terminated part of the way through the book so that Mat can do a completely different storyline instead and that really pads out the pages unnecessarily (this was a really bad trend that happened with Mat's character in particular more than once in the books; his storylines would just stop in their tracks and get shifted to something else entirely and never go back to his original storyline; ex. we literally never find out why/what the murdered caravan of Tuatha'an had to do with anything, because Mat never bothers to tell Rand their message because he spends the entire rest of the book series doing completely unrelated things and only ever sees Rand again for a brief conversation that is dominated by everyone catering to his slaver wife -- we never get payoff for the vast majority of Mat's storylines, even the minor threads). It really does feel like Jordan started writing the book, then went "oh shit, Mat needs to meet & marry the DotNM" and just abruptly changed Mat's story to yeet him to Ebou Dar without actually rewriting the earlier bits in the book.
Outside of that, the main change I would suggest being made in these books is improving Min’s characterization and Min and Rand’s relationship by NOT having Min change herself for Rand. Let Rand fall in love with Min as she is, not the dolled-up version of Min that she invents for Rand’s benefit (there are other characterization tweaks I would recommend as well, but Min is kinda the biggest issue imo).
The main ‘story arc’ for Rand that's set up in LoC is ‘defeating Sammael’ and it should take place over the course of a single book, not two separate books. Parts of ACoS would be saved for the next book but the Illian climax should happen in the same book that the story starts. I would title this book “A Crown of Swords” so that the focus is on Rand’s story, not the Forsakens' (and part of the oddness here is definitely due to Jordan changing his mind about doing the Taim-Demandred combo, so he sets up something that ends up going nowhere).
Inciting incidents:
Egwene is summoned to Salidar leading to Rand sending Mat there as well
Min arrives in Caemlyn, leading to The Box Incident
Turning point:
After the Box incident, Perrin and Rand stage a fight so that Perrin can go find Masema
Egwene sends Elayne, Nynaeve, Mat & co to Ebou Dar to look for the Bowl of the Winds and they actually take advantage of Mat being ta’veren right away instead of waiting around for a month (all the delays in Mat's various storylines had a knock-on effect in delaying everyone else's storylines, imo -- the Slog happens because everyone is waiting on Mat, whether they know it or not)
Climax:
Rand defeats Sammael
The attack of the Seanchan on Ebou Dar begins
A Crown of Swords/The Path of Daggers/Winter’s Heart: The Path of Daggers only needs some of trimming imo. Once that trimming is done, I think Elayne’s section of the prologue of WH could slid into it fairly neatly as a bit of an ‘upbeat’ epilogue, which would be a contrast to the darkness of Rand’s ending in the previous book and his defeat here when he tries to repel the Seanchan from Ebou Dar.
Also have Mat interact with Tuon throughout this book, essentially like he did in WH (Mat's interactions with Tuon in WH make sense with his previous characterization; it's in CoT & KoD when Jordan had him completely reverse on his moral outlook on slavery so that he would be willing to make out with a slaver - genuinely, how Mat goes from sympathizing with slaves in WH to sympathizing with slavers in CoT remains one of the most baffling writing choices that I've ever run across; especially with how limp and one-sided it made everything about Mat & Tuon feel in those books for me, because Jordan drained all the potential interesting conflict out of the pairing so that he could focus on Mat navel-gazing about his self-inflicted prophecy woes, making him just Min 2.0. *sigh*). This book I would choose to be named “The Path of Daggers” out of the available options.
Inciting incidents:
Elayne & Nynaeve use the Bowl of the Winds as Ebou Dar is invaded by the Seanchan and Mat gets left behind during the escape
Perrin & co find Masema, etc.
Egwene uses the rule of law to take control of the Salidar Aes Sedai
Turning point:
Mat first meets Tuon -- maybe give Mat & Tylin’s first meeting to Mat & Tuon instead, where he accidentally greets her using the Old Tongue, thus sparking her interest (cut out Mat & Tylin’s ‘relationship’ entirely, it was zero percent needed and is needed even less if Tuon arrives in the first wave of the attack, as I'm suggesting here)
Rand learns about the invasion by the Seanchan and goes campaigning
Egwene & the Aes Sedai jump to Tar Valon and begin their siege (since they no longer need to kill time to let Mat's plotline happen)
Climax:
Rand fails to defeat the Seanchan & gets attacked in the Sun Palace but kills the attackers here instead of us needing the Far Madding detour (which just felt like a less emotionally-impactful version of The Box to me and Jordan giving in to his desire to write a travelogue)
Faile learns Masema is dealing with the Seanchan and kills him, cutting off that entire path of slog by not getting kidnapped (we really only need one kidnapped wife imo)
Mat escapes Ebou Dar, kidnapping Tuon along the way (there's our allotted Kidnapped Wife)
Egwene is captured by the White Tower Aes Sedai when the rebels block off the harbors to Tar Valon
Winter’s Heart/Crossroads of Twilight/Knife of Dreams: All three of these books would have greatly benefited from being massively cut down to a single volume. This one also has a touch of TGS in it, mostly because Egwene had a lot more story left after KoD than pretty much any other character except maybe Mat.
Specific items to change or cut:
Cut out Far Madding entirely (Rand killed the attackers in Cairhien). Since Tuon arrived with the initial Seanchan invasion fleet in Ebou Dar, Nynaeve can be honest with Rand about Mat being left behind but Rand can see (in his color swirl vision) that Mat is no longer in Ebou Dar and has already escaped, filling that plot hole (the list of contrivances to keep Rand from knowing what happened to Mat frustrated and annoyed me so much when I was reading books WH-KoD).
Have the love confessions and Rand sleeping with Elayne, but don’t do the bonding yet. Have Rand leave Min behind in Caemlyn when he takes Nynaeve off to do the cleansing, so she can (emotionally) bond with Elayne & Aviendha. Since Min was just at ground zero for a terrible attack that was focused on Rand (which should, to Rand, prove his fears about being a danger to the people he loves to be correct!), it really is so bizarre that he keeps backpacking her around to dangerous place (Far Madding) after dangerous place (the Cleansing) after dangerous place (parlay with the Seanchan) and mostly shows that Jordan a) just had no more plot beats for Min until she played pregnancy test for Tuon in the epilogue and b) primarily saw Min as Rand’s Hero Reward rather than a character in her own right. But the whole affair mostly just undermined Rand’s character journey for me (he's so isolated! ...except for his live-in girlfriend).
Don’t do the Shaido plotline at all (have the Shaido scatter back to the Waste post-Dumai’s Wells); instead this should be where Perrin starts his wolf boot camp, so that he actually has a more appropriate amount of time for training before the Last Battle (and his emotional storyline would be a conflict with Faile over her killing Masema). I guess you can do the Whitecloaks storyline here.
Have Mat be the one to make a treaty with the Seanchan, and have Semirhage order the ‘airfleet’ against the White Tower instead of Tuon doing it. Instead of Mat accidentally giving himself away for nothing, have the Mat-Tuon marriage as part of the deal to seal the treaty, since Mat has figured out that she believes that he needs to be her husband, per prophecy, so he uses that to actually get concessions out of her. Because we aren’t trying to convince the readers that Mat is the sort of person who is capable of falling in love with a slaver in the space of a single month, we don’t need to spend two whole books wandering the Altaran countryside doing random shit and instead can get to the politics of it all. Let Mat actually continue to be smart and empathetic in this section of the storyline, rather than lopping off those parts of him and turning him into a zombie bootlicker yes-man. You can still layer in elements of Mat seeing potential in Tuon to be more than just a slaver, just don't have him toss his entire brain & morals away in order to kiss her ass.
Out of the available titles here, I think “Knife of Dreams” is the best one.
Inciting incidents:
Egwene undermines Elaida from within the Tower
Perrin starts Wolf Boot Camp
Rand & Nynaeve cleanse saidin
Turning Point:
Rand faces off against Semirhage and captures her
Egwene finds out from Verin about the extent of the Black Ajah in the White Tower
Aviendha leaves to go to Rhuidean to become a WO
Mat finds out that sul'dam (and thus Tuon) can channel and actually uses it as a negotiation tactic against her, please let this man use his brain during literally any of his conversations with Tuon, I am begging you. The way he reacts in the books to finding out that Tuon is a sul'dam and then that Tuon can channel is SO FUCKING BIZARRE. He just Does Not Care about slavery at all in CoT & KoD and is all Me Me Me about all of the Tuon revelations. In the previous books, Mat claims to be selfish even while constantly doing heroic/selfless things, but in CoT & KoD, he really does just come across as a genuine selfish bastard, someone who only thinks about himself and who doesn't give a shit about anyone else.
Climax:
Tuon and Mat agree on the terms of their marriage alliance and Say The Words
Elayne defeats her fellow claimants to the throne; maybe Min helps root out that Darkfriend captain in her guards, which would lend weight to her being able to do the same later for Tuon and also make it so that Min is at least as helpful to Team Light as she was to the Seanchan
The Seanchan (sent by Semirhage before she went to face Rand) attack the White Tower.
The Gathering Storm/Towers of Midnight: ToM has never made any sense as a title, so I would call this combined book “The Gathering Storm”. This section is more about putting things in a somewhat different order than they happened in the books, with a few tweaks.
Inciting Incidents:
Egwene defeats the Seanchan at the White Tower
Semirhage is freed by Elza and captures Rand, and (stealing @markantonys's excellent suggestion) Nynaeve is the one targeted when Semirhage forces Rand to her will, making Rand push Nynaeve away 'for her protection'
Rand and Egwene have a tense encounter that makes her doubt his sanity.
Turning point:
After taking the test to become full Aes Sedai, Nynaeve gets Lan's bond from Myrelle and then, since Myrelle was literally right outside the Black Tower at the time, Nynaeve and Logain deal with the Black Tower
Egwene deals with the assassins in the Tower (Gawyn subplot)
Perrin deals with the dreamspike and kills Slayer | Egwene deals with Mesaana
Aviendha returns from Rhuidean and reunites with Elayne & Min
Climax:
Rand attacks his father, leading to the moment on Dragonmount
post-epiphany, Rand actually goes to check in on his friends and loved ones, thus making his epiphany have an impact on the storyline -- he Travels to where Mat is and is the one who helps Mat get from Point A (Altara) to Point B (Caemlyn) and letting them actually have a real reunion, delivering Aludra to Elayne, where she is ready to make weapons. In Caemlyn, he talks to Elayne, Aviendha, & Min, leading into the bonding moment.
Mat saves Moiraine from the Tower of Ghenjei.
(epilogue) Tuon arrives back in Ebou Dar and takes control of the Seanchan forces, letting everyone know that there is now a treaty with the Westlands. Her going back with a treaty already tentatively in place would actually make the triumphant tone that the books try to take her with her return make a lot more sense than... readers apparently supposed to be happy??? that one slaver is taking over from another slaver, even though Tuon is just as willing to do awful shit to our protagonists as Suroth was, so it feels like a distinction without a difference to me. Technically, is Tuon marginally better than Suroth? Eh, maybe, but not by much.
A Memory of Light: Most of my changes here either follow from earlier ones (we already have a treaty with the Seanchan, so Mat can just go to Merrilor to start General’ing right away), but apart from that:
Let the Emond’s Field Five (plus Elayne) have a group reunion! (easier to do in this version where Mat's storyline isn't all about sucking up to Tuon, I admit)
Let Perrin and Mat be at Rand’s funeral! (genuinely so bizarre that Sanderson didn't do a one-sentence fix of this tbh; that would have been the easiest thing in the world to fix. One sentence is all you would have needed.)
Let Moiraine be the person who realizes that Rand is still alive, not Cadsuane.
The battle itself could have been cut down somewhat in order to leave more room for character interactions (we probably don't need three separate sword duels for Demandred; kinda excessive). This is a goodbye to people some of us spent over a decade loving; we should be given proper goodbyes to them.
I also feel like there's no need to have everyone and their brother know that Rand is in a relationship with three women? And it felt pointless to have people know that Rand is the father of Elayne's kids too. Have Rand tell his dad (and then have Tam actually act like he has that knowledge during his scenes with Elayne; it is genuinely bizarre how formal Tam and Elayne's interactions were in AMoL; she knows that he's Rand's dad! That's the grandfather of her kids!) but there's no need for a continent-wide memo about Rand's love life. I know this was likely all because of the epilogue where the whole world knows about ~the three~ grieving widows but this is all about a theoretical world of only ten books total, so some tweaking of the epilogue is happening regardless.
Inciting incidents:
Moiraine arrives (with Mat) to help heal the rift between Egwene and Rand
Darkfriends attack Caemlyn through the Ways
Climax:
Rand vs The Dark One
Everyone else vs the Shadow’s forces
So, that would leave us with ten books total (plus the New Spring prequel):
The Eye of the World: the journey begins
The Great Hunt: more important plot elements are introduced, like the Seanchan; Rand begins to learn leadership
The Dragon Reborn: Rand accepts being the Dragon Reborn & takes on a full-time leadership role; Mat now has his luck & Perrin has met Faile
The Shadow Rising: Perrin takes on a leadership role when he leads the defense of the Two Rivers
The Fires of Heaven: Mat takes on a leadership role during the Battle of Cairhien, creating the Band of the Red Hand
A Crown of Swords: Egwene takes on a leadership role by becoming Amyrlin Seat of the rebel Aes Sedai
The Path of Daggers: Elayne takes on a leadership role by putting in her claim to become Queen of Andor
Knife of Dreams: Rand & Nynaeve reverse the Dark One’s counterstroke and then Rand tries and fails to make an alliance with the Seanchan (fake!Tuon); Perrin goes to wolf boot camp; Mat makes a treaty with the Seanchan via marriage alliance to the DotNM; Elayne gets all ten Houses she needs to secure the throne; Egwene has all-but won over the White Tower as well.
The Gathering Storm: we all prepare for the Last Battle; Rand has his epiphany, in whatever form it takes; Mat saves Moiraine; Perrin defeats Slayer; Egwene and Elayne prepare their respective areas for TLB.
A Memory of Light: the journey ends (for this age)
I feel like this gives us a more consistent build-up to the ending, with each piece building upon the ones before, and not taking an excessive amount of time with subplots in the endgame. Each character also has a more consistent progression as well.
Rand
tEotW: worries about being a male channeler
TGH: told he is the Dragon Reborn but assumes the White Tower wants to use him as a false Dragon
TDR: goes on a journey to prove whether or not he’s TDR and proves that he is; taking control of Tear
TSR: becomes the Car’a’carn
TFoH: takes control of Cairhien
ACoS: takes control of Illian
TPoD: has his first major failure when he is unable to repel the Seanchan from Ebou Dar
KoD: succeeds in cleansing saidin but fails to make peace with the Seanchan
TGS: has rock-bottom moment and then his epiphany; he learns he doesn’t have to do it All On His Own
AMoL: re-seals TDO
Egwene
tEotW: sets off an adventure
TGH: experiences great trauma at the hands of the Seanchan
TDR: Black Ajah Hunter
TSR: Goes to the Aiel Waste to begin her training
TFoH: One of her mentors (Moiraine) dies
ACoS: is called to take on a leadership position
TPoD: takes control of the rebel Aes Sedai
KoD: besieges Tar Valon and is captured
TGS: become Amrylin of a united White Tower
AMoL: leads in the Last Battle and becomes an inspirational figure
Perrin
tEotW: discovers that he’s a wolfbrother
TGH: is first placed in a leadership position when Rand disappears
TDR: meets Faile
TSR: defends the Two Rivers (Slayer introduced)
TFoH: feels the tug of ta’veren and leaves the Two Rivers again
ACoS: saves Rand
TPoD: finds Masema; Faile kills Masema
KoD: Wolf Boot Camp
TGS: deals with Slayer in the Wolf Dream
AMoL: leads the wolves at the Last Battle (instead of it being Elyas)
Nynaeve
tEotW: sets out to protect the four kiddos
TGH: adopts Elayne as a fifth kiddo
TDR: Black Ajah Hunter
TSR: Tanchico & the SAD bracelets; Egeanin
TFoH: defeating Rahvin & capturing Moghedien
ACoS: Salidar & Ebou Dar
TPoD: using the Bowl of the Winds
KoD: cleansing saidin
TGS: the Black Tower plotline
AMoL: with Rand at the climax of TLB; being the Ultimate Protector
Mat
tEotW: finds the dagger
TGH: blows the Horn of Valere
TDR: discovers his luck
TSR: Rhuidean & prophecy
TFoH: the Battle of Cairhien & the Band of the Red Hand
ACoS: Salidar & Seanchan invasion in Ebou Dar
TPoD: meets & kidnaps the Daughter of the Nine Moons
KoD: forms a marriage alliance with the Daughter of the Nine Moons
TGS: saving Moiraine
AMoL: General of the forces of Light at the Last Battle
Elayne
tEotW: meets Rand, heads off to Tar Valon
TGH: gets a found family in Egwene, Nynaeve, & Min
TDR: Black Ajah Hunter (meets Aviendha)
TSR: Tanchico & the SAD bracelets; Egeanin
TFoH: bonding Birgitte; Circus storyline
ACoS: Salidar & Ebou Dar
TPoD: using the Bowl of the Winds & heading to Andor
KoD: becoming Queen (plot climax)
TGS: bonds Rand (emotional climax)
AMoL: powerful leader during the Last Battle
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wot-tidbits · 24 days
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cairhienin · 10 months
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bonus:
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Ok, the phrase "I'd bet against Mat himself", coming from Rand and being spoken to Perrin, was actually pretty funny. It's good to know that even in the days before Tarmon Gaiden Rand still has a sense of humor.
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highladyluck · 3 months
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Re: Rand going off at the end:
Specifically the way he talks about the polycule feel weird and OOC to me. Getting stuck on which member of the polycule to ‘visit’ and then deciding he loves them all equally, like he hadn’t already come to that conclusion a while ago? Plus no acknowledgement that he’d be having children in the same thought as the polycule.
I’m probably influenced by the knowledge that RJ wrote that ending a long long time ago and Sanderson had to apply it faithfully, but I think even without assuming that bit was written earlier, it would be jarring.
Elayne made her choice about having Rand’s kids without his involvement, but she did that for safety reasons pre-TG and ‘assuming Rand would be dead’ reasons post-TG. Knowing he’s out there and not actually dead and instead joyriding around in disguise would probably be just a little bit irksome. She’s human and perfectly capable of hypocrisy. (Elayne has also done a joyride to avoid her responsibilities, but her joyride was technically to stop climate change, and it’s just a coincidence that she got to run away to the circus.)
I do think that there are good reasons for Rand to go ‘find himself’ post-TG rather than attempting to immediately fulfill his remaining obligations to people. He doesn’t have chronic pain anymore and he doesn’t hear voices anymore and he doesn’t have an impossible high-stakes task that he can’t escape anymore, but he had them before, and those thought patterns and coping mechanisms don’t just stop once they aren’t useful anymore, and also he just switched bodies. Like. He needs therapy even if you think he actually resolved all his past issues (Zen!Rand weirds me out, personally.) He genuinely does need to go work on himself.
But I think the cognitive dissonance comes from the ‘woooo permanent vacation!’ energy of the ending, when everyone else has new burdens and messes to clean up. Rand didn’t do it alone, everybody else should get a break too! And he does deserve the break, but to me it should be a break like the Israelites had after getting out of Egypt: hang out getting your basic needs met long enough to have a version of yourself that doesn’t remember the trauma of your previous generation. For them it took 40 years. I don’t know that it’ll take Rand that long, he’s one person, not a group. But it’s ok if it takes a while. I don’t want unreconstructed Rand raising kids any more than he does.
The thing that bothers me is that the deeper meaning of ‘go lose yourself in the metaphorical desert for a while’ isn’t even hinted at in the tone of the text. It feels superficial and very flippant. Maybe that giddiness/flippancy is a part of Rand’s trauma response- he hasn’t been allowed to be flippant or blow off anything for years- but it isn’t presented as that at all. I feel like I need to do intellectual backflips to make it all vibe with the rest of the series.
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Another obscure WoT character. 😉 Rand after Dragonmount is one of my favorite characters to read; here’s him and Tai’daishar catching the last rays of a setting a un, late in the Third Age.
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A Memory of Light Cover Art by Michael Whelan
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fantasiavii · 5 days
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When Rand called Aviendha shade of my heart… I am going to cry!!!
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cannoli-reader · 2 months
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Hello Cannolli, your metas on the Wheel of Time books are always very well thought out and constructed, and you've clearly given a lot of thought to the series as a whole. I was wondering if you have any ideas on what RJ's plan for Egwene's AMoL arc and story would be? For all the other characters I can see the writing on the well, the clues and foreshadowing, and together with what can be inferred from BS's books about RJ's notes get what I think is a good aproximation for what would be their final arcs and ending. Except for Egwene! I've always had a hard time understamding her character and Sanderson favoured her so much that I have a hard time discerning what came from him or from the notes! I've found your analysis of her character very interesting and enlightening and so wanted to hear your thoughts on this! Thanks in advance! (No hard feelings if you're not up for answering this tho!)
With the caveat that I have a limited and spotty awareness of Jordan's notes, and so my answer is based largely on my projection of her arc and established characterization in the series, I would say her end was probably where Jordan intended, but Sanderson's path to get there, somewhat different.
"(No hard feelings if you're not up for answering this tho!)" - I found this amusing, because I am always down to go off at length about WoT, among other topics. "Up for answering this"? How could I not be? How hard could this be? The results of seven hours and two drafts later are under the cut.
First of all, when speaking of Jordan's intentions, I generally refer to all three of the final books together as aMoL since that was his plan, to finish the whole series with one book. So I would have to take Egwene's story from where it left off in KoD.
I think her rise in the Tower would have been a lot quicker. Maybe a montage chapter like in KoD, where she meets the other Ajah heads, with less dramatic results, but making a slightly better impression than she did with the two in KoD. Her serving Elaida, as set up in Tarna's chapter, might bring things to a head, but not with schoolyard putdowns. I don't believe she suddenly has the revelation, conveniently just in time to avoid behavior that would spur Elaida to put an end to her pretentions for good, that she should be trying to unite the Tower instead of driving the factions further apart. Rather, that realization should be more organic and maybe a result of seeing the fruits of her sowing coming to pass.
I don't believe the Seanchan attack would have gone as it did in tGS, where Sanderson seems completely oblivious to the fact that all Egwene did was kill a lot of people without changing much of the outcome. Even her shooting down the to'raken with captives was pretty appalling, since she and Alivia are living proof that being collared is not the end of your life, and the view of channelers as combat assets it is important to deny the enemy is morally repugnant. If anyone is going to be thinking in that manner on the eve of Tarmon Gaidon, there had better be some harsh & immediate blowback. I also don't think Sanderson realizes he had Egwene torture helpless women to death, or that there was any irony or sense of hyperbole in her self-congratulatory stream of consciousness. IF those things happened under Jordan, it should be the spur to Egwene coming to realize that fighting the Seanchan can't be the plan going forward, since it brings out the worst in her and others, and maybe the truce is the best thing for now. During the attack, Saerin actually showed the best leadership, and the kind more in keeping with Jordan's style in the prior books.
I don't know about her rescue, because so much of that is utterly wrong, especially everything with Bryne, from his going along at all, to suddenly brandishing a heron-mark sword, to his reaction to the Warder bond, to Egwene's pompous displeasure with Siuan in the aftermath. Again, I think Egwene was supposed to become disillusioned with Siuan in general during/following her captivity in the Tower, as she works for reconciliation, because Siuan is the worst advisor in the setting since Mordeth. She is the author of the conflict between the Aes Sedai, for her own personal vengeance. There are plenty of signs in the text suggesting that Elaida is not so different from Siuan or Egwene, and the latter in particular takes a lot of actions that mirror or duplicate Elaida's supposed worst crimes against the Tower. As part of her getting her focus on the right conflict, which should have been in parallel with Rand getting his personal issues straight, she should have rejected the whole course of action she pursued from LoC through KoD. She subtly does that in tGS, to a degree, but in a very contemptible way, wriggling out of responsibility for her part and blaming everyone else. Her condemnatory speech to the rebels after she is raised by the loyalist Hall is particularly risible, considering that collectively, the objects of her tirade balked and dragged their heels at doing most of the things she berates them for, and Egwene herself schemed, lied, tricked, maneuvered and ultimately commanded, them in taking those actions. It's the same thing with her histrionics with the Hall when she is raised, the spirit of her ideas in direct contradiction with what she tells the rebels, and her "defense" of Silviana being pure sophistry. The best thing you can say about all that blather is that it paints a picture of a sociopathicaly dishonest and manipulative woman, and might have been intended to show how far lost she has become in the pursuit of her political ascension. If Jordan had anything to do with the scripting of her plotline in tGS, that had to be his intention, to be her equivalent of Rand's behavior after Semirhage gets her hands on him (and his attack on Graendal's HQ & threats against the Borderland rulers are far more justifiable than Egwene's conduct in the Seanchan raid).
For the political side, once she was the consensus Amyrlin, she should have been in the position of a compromise candidate, not the universal hero with the moral high ground (because she has done nothing to earn it, even in the errant perspectives of in-story characters: she has waged war against the Tower, ruined the harbors and her efforts against the Seanchan are not impressive to sophisticated and experienced politicians, who scorn combat as the province of dumb thugs). This should have led to constant frustration in her efforts to make reforms and pursue policies, because after Elaida and after Siuan was deposed for her own high-handed and unilateral actions, the Hall is not going to take the new Amyrlin flexing lying down, especially when she was only chosen because they couldn't stand any of the other choices, or their rivals would never have allowed preferable candidates through. They are not going to agree to major changes to Tower procedures or policies, and they are not going to vote away their own power or toss out checks on the Amyrlin's authority on her say-so.
Jordan's writing is very big on partial victories, and compromises and hard work being necessary to achieve goals, he does not go for dramatic speeches that sway people to give the protagonist everything they want. I believe Jordan's intention in writing the original bargain Nynaeve & Elayne made with the Sea Folk to be a lesson in the costs of high-level political dealings and a warning that the hot streak the girls had been riding for a while was coming to an end, and they were not going to get their way by showing up and asking for it, or with a feat of creative channeling, and that not all goals could be met by driving off the Black sisters or defeating a Forsaken. I also utterly reject the idea that he would simply have the Sea Folk walk back the whole bargain in order to give Egwene a cheap win at no real cost.
To me, Egwene's straw-man debates with Gawyn and Nynaeve about her authority and the effect their recalcitrance can have, make no sense in ToM, because it's simply not an issue, because Warder bonds are firmly established as strictly private, and even one of the strictest sisters can have a Warder back-talk her in the Hall of the Tower without losing face in the Sitters' eyes. Siuan needed 10 years of Moiraine running amok before she started to have political problems, and it was arguably a sign of her own being captured by the system that she put it on Moiraine. There is certainly no real sign that the narrative endorses Siuan's view of the relationship & political issues, since Moiraine feels not the slightest remorse and promptly bails on the meeting to avoid telling Siuan things she is keeping from her. In the story we got, Egwene is getting everything she could wish, there are no problems with her campaign against Mesaana, and the Sitters vote for her proposals for the most painfully stupid reasons I can imagine an educated adult putting to paper. What possible reason could she have for demanding Nynaeve, Elayne and Gawyn jump through hoops to maintain her reputation? That sort of demand makes much more sense in a story where she is experiencing constant political frustration and administrative headaches (Sanderson promptly tossed all the issues with a massive and on-going influx of novices of all ages down the memory hole).
Egwene calling on Nynaeve and Elayne to attend her in the Tower would also create conflict with Elayne. Jordan has seeded too many conflicts between Andor and the White Tower, and between Elayne's two sets of duty, in the series for that not to come to a head in the finale. Egwene's is not the only plotline or character arc where lots of potential conflicts were handwaved away. Elayne is trying to rule one country and claim another, behind two very dubious and fraught coalitions, that are largely loyal to other parties. As awesome & loyal as Dyelin seems to be, she is wrong in every disagreement with Elayne from WH to KoD. Even her support of Elayne at the end is ultimately expressed as an aspect of her conservatism and resistance to change. In Cairhien, she's going to be working with a Red sister who is sworn to Rand, and will see that as two strikes against Elayne, given her anti-Rand policies and positions in Andor. And where she had to suppress and conceal their relationship in Andor, that's going to cost her in dealing with Sashelle and and of Rand's partisans in Cairhien (and there are hints here and there that the commoners and servants and soldiers hold him in rather higher regard than their lords and ladies do). In Cairhien, Elayne herself is a compromise candidate, with the Damodreds and their allies ready to accept her for the father she doesn't remember, their rivals willing to accept her because her name isn't Damodred, whatever remains of Colavaere's allies resenting their own downfall under Dobraine in Rand's name, for Elayne's sake, and some of Dobraine's allies expecting some sort of reward or primacy of place for their efforts in the interregnum. Also, famine. And in the middle of trying to juggle all this political stuff, with the Black Tower conflict heating up in her backyard, and the methods needed to win over Andorans inspiring contempt in Cairhienin, and Cairhienin methods triggering fear of tyranny and intrigue in Andorans, she gets a call in the middle of all this to put everything on hold and dance attendance on the Amyrlin because she can't handle her end, that's going to be when Elayne decides now is the time to draw that line between personal and political authority and responsibility. And Elayne can get away with it as no other ruler in the last thousand years could, because when it comes to Elayne versus the White Tower, the Dragon Reborn, King of Illian and Car'a'carn of the Aiel, and the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of the Light are not going to think twice before taking a side. Right, of course, at the least politically convenient time for Egwene.
With Gawyn, he has been taught, since day one, that in addition to physical protection and military advice, his job is also to tell his principal when she is in the wrong, and that is so not going to fly with Egwene in the middle of all the other problems going on. Sanderson seems to have run with the fandom meme that Gawyn is an idiot, on top of inventing a character issue where he resents Rand over class issues and a sense of heretofore never seen royal entitlement. The funny thing is "I should be the leader and hero, not that up-jumped sheepherder!" is basically Egwene's normal state of mind. So I could see Gawyn going to Elayne at Egwene's behest, or stepping in an volunteering, in an effort to patch things over, and butting heads with his sister, while trying to loyally stick to the party line, because Egwene is pissed that he keeps suggesting her leadership methods aren't the best. Because Gawyn has been taught to be a military commander in what is basically a feudal military structure, which means herding cats on a bunch of nobles to get them to carry out the crown's strategies and campaign plans, whereas up until aMoL, Egwene's political training has been about intrigue and subterfuge, and no so much on coalition-building, and appeasing competing interests.
With Nynaeve, she's generally willing to play along, but that's not always helpful, as Nynaeve is all about the moral with little use for the political. We see what her version of helping with political negotiations is like in KoD where Cadsuane has to rein her in from threatening the nobles with Rand's wrath. Her PoV chapters became much more rare after she broke her block, because she's largely centered and has found her right head-space, that Egwene & Rand are still striving for in KoD & aMoL. And that means she is going to be a lot more confident in calling out the sisters on their bullshit, and have Opinions, however respectfully she might make them known to Egwene, on Egwene's methods. She's been butting heads with Cadsuane for three books. No one in the Tower is going to impress her all that much, and to Egwene, it's going to be like having a loose cannon in the Tower.
I think in Jordan's version, Egwene, around the time Rand is on Dragonmount, and Mat is struggling in the Tower of Ghenji and Perrin is trying to save the Children of the Light while relations with Elayne are at their nadir and Caemlyn is falling to the Trollocs, is going to complete her mini-arc of coming to understand what it means to unify the Tower, to move away from the partisanship that divided it under Siuan and her predecessors, reconcile with the fence-sitting sisters, and after all these problems are worked through, she starts repairing her relationships with Elayne and Gawyn, at the least. Maybe she helps resolve things between Elayne and Perrin as well. I don't think her penultimate climax is going to be simply beating Mesaana and the Black Ajah in direct combat for the Tower, at most that would be a part of the whole unity arc, only tangentially related, in the way that the fight with the Black Ajah was to Elayne's claiming the Lion Throne.
I also think the conflict, if any, between Rand & Egwene at Merrilor is going to be over an arbitrary and nonsensical issue like the Seals, but more the cumulative result of all the baggage they've built up over the course of the series. Egwene is going to be fearing the worst, because I think it more likely that Dark Rand called the meeting intending to lay down the law and crush any resistance to his leadership, but then Dragonmount, whereas he has been observing from the outset her resistance to him and his role in things, and her White Tower partisanship. Their working past that, and coming to accept the changes each has made should be organic as well, the payoff of years of friendship and history, with all their friends in common, from the Two Rivers and Rand's love interests helping to bring them together. It would absolutely NOT be resolved by Moiraine wafting in on a cloud of angel farts quoting Scripture the Prophecies of the Dragon to convince the assembled leaders of the nations to fall into line.
I think the effect of Moiraine's return should have been private and personal, for Rand at least, and maybe Egwene too. And it should have some apologies for how she treated them and used them, because let's face it, she did not go out as a hero, she manufactured a scenario to emotionally abuse and gaslight Rand into believing his weaknesses and shortcomings caused her death, and wrote a letter tacitly blaming him, while also writing one to passive-aggressively guilt Mat into risking mutilation and death to extract her from the situation she contrived to put herself in. In any case, it's nonsense that Rand & Egwene would drop their contentions at her word. Egwene was losing her devotion to Moiraine as a mentor before the end, not least because of disagreements over her handling of Rand, and as Amyrlin, would emphatically make a point that their relationship has changed now, as she does with absolutely every other person she knew beforehand. Part of Rand's epiphany is getting some perspective, and while he'd be thrilled to see Moiraine return, the List should be gone, and only relevance her return should have to that construct is the role she played in turning Rand that way. Her return doesn't solve problems, it's the reward for working past the problems. For Moiraine herself, I think she's learned her lesson as a result of her captivity, and goes into the Pit of Doom with him because she means it now, she accepts that this is Rand's mission and it's his call and she will back him 100%.
A lot of the decisions for Tarmon Gaidon, will, I believe, be made on the basis of the connections and trust built up over the course of the series, and part of Egwene's role would be to legitimize it all for public consumption, by telling people who don't get it, that everything is cool, trust the Amyrlin. For the Battle itself, I could not say, because what Sanderson wrote is the complete opposite of WoT warfare. Instead of heavy emphasis on the fog of war, brilliant plans crashing and burning at the outset, the brutality, and the cost, and especially the chaos, and the lack of control, we got a handful of protagonists playing a strategy game, where every piece moved exactly according to the rules, Mat was in complete control the whole time, and half of the decisive moments were settled in duels. On the issue of Egwene, I do think she would die, trying to do something beyond her grasp. I think Gawyn might die specifically because of an order Egwene gave or a choice she made, which is the strong implication of Egwene's dream of him choosing between two paths that lead to different fates, because of her. As it was, picking a fight with the enemy Forsaken general because he didn't have anything better to do, A. does not fit that foreshadowing, and B. indicates a failure to grow from the again, out-of-nowhere envy of Rand and his role. Telling Galad not to succumb to his own fatal flaw, because it got Gawyn himself mortally wounded, is hardly growth (and why would Galad hate or envy Rand, anyway? At best, his expression of this too-late realization makes Gawyn a shitty sibling for thinking the worst of his big brother). In Jordan's aMoL, Gawyn dying because of Egwene's choice or action (not necessarily error, mind you) fulfils his loyalty arc and forces Egwene to confront a real and personal price, and one that she has not reckoned with before this book. She's considered in the abstract prices for her tactics and people dying from her decisions, but its never come home, especially because she was spared the necessity of assaulting the Tower. Egwene pushed for decisive action, but hesitated over actually pulling the trigger on any such significant acts, and lucked out when the Seanchan swooped in and relieved her of the need to fish or cut bait on the Tower siege.
That's what I think Egwene's arc would come to in the end - a realization that she's only ever paid lip service to meeting toh or the "pay for it" part of taking "what you want", and that the price for her quest for the Amyrlin Seat, and all the dirt she did along the way, using slander against her enemies and false propaganda on her subordinates and allies, declaring war against people she should have been working with against the Shadow, and being a party to perhaps the worst case of "men fighting their own petty battles" with the Shadow looming over the world, it all comes down to what is she going to do with that power and that position. Her rationalization from the get-go, and perhaps even her true motive, though that would denote an incredible degree of arrogance, has basically been to ensure that the necessary steps are taken and the right woman for the job has it. And now, at the critical moment, she has the choice to try to do the impossible to save the world, regardless of the cost to herself, and she can't do anything else. Whether because that is how she operates, to always push, always reach for more, or because she has come to the realization that if she backs down, she was full of shit when she did all the suspect stuff she did along the way, and that all her striving since becoming Nynaeve's apprentice has only been about self-aggrandizement, that she has been taking what she wants all her adult life, but now is being called on to pay for it.
And a flip side to that, is that Egwene, as depicted in the story, who is all about concentration of power on herself, and cares only for accruing more and more power, status or authority, can't survive or have a happily ever after, without a radical change of personality and mindset, without changing into someone no longer recognizable as the woman whom readers love or hate for her irrepressible ambition and determination. To put it another way, Egwene's attitude and mindset are only justifiable in a protagonist of a fantasy story where the fate of the world hangs in the balance, where her drive and appetite for advancement can only be justified as a means to resolve stakes of that magnitude. She is the parallel to Rand, who, as the Chosen One, the prophesied savior, is given a great deal of latitude and approbation for actions that would be unconscionably ambitions or tyrannical in anyone but a man on whom the fate of the world depends (though, ironically, Egwene herself is the least tolerant toward Rand in this regard). It's understood that after the Last Battle, Rand, if he survives, will no longer have the claim to most of his power or authority. Many people swear fealty or promise to follow him, to the Last Battle, as a limiting condition on their service. But such conditions are not applied to Egwene or to her position as Amyrlin Seat. The Aes Sedai who swear fealty to Rand after grossly abusing their power and social position and violating his trust, still only do so until the Last Battle. The Aes Sedai Egwene blackmails with the knowledge of actions taken to help her friend and to further her cause, do not have any such condition that will end their servitude. And Egwene is outraged by Rand's receipt of sisters' fealty. With that kind of mindset and usurpation of power, she had to go. Egwene is the epitome of the Dark Knight aphorism that you die young or live long enough to become the villain.
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craanbery · 3 months
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jpiercecreative · 10 months
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For those of us fans of the Wheel of Time novels who aren’t entirely satisfied by the show, here are some portraits of Rand al’Thor as I’ve imagined him based on the books (((created with Midjourney))) :
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butterflydm · 6 months
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wot rewatch (book spoilers edition): 2x5
Not only is this one going to have spoilers for all the aired episodes plus any teasers (including the trailer for episode 6), it will also have book spoilers through book 14: A Memory of Light.
An interesting change from the books is Suroth calling Loial a slave -- in the books, the Ogier of the elite guard are very specifically not enslaved (I wonder if they got as badly jacked up by the Longing as the ones in the Westlands but their 'solution' ended up involving the Empress and the Crystal Throne somehow?). Since this exception is never explained in the books, I don't have any issue with it being changed.
2. I also think we are getting some really good set-up here for a potential fracture in the Seanchan once we get deeper into the series -- a fulfillment of the narrative promise that Jordan set up in books 2-9 but then backed away from once we hit Crossroads of Twilight & Knife of Dreams. I'm hopeful that we're actually going to get the Seanchan civil war that the books never gave us but that they desperately needed in order for Mat's characterization to make any damn sense in CoT & KoD.
3. The idea that Ishamael is being something akin to Suroth's Truthspeaker makes a lot of sense (I think only the Imperial family has Truthspeakers in the books? but it makes sense to expand them outward).
4. That Fain plays the game so well with Turak here can serve as a hint that he's playing the subservience game with Ishamael as well (who killed the Fade? in other words).
5. The saa in Lanfear's eyes! I love that we're getting a super-charged look at the True Power this early on. I definitely approve of the change of the Forsaken getting brought back with the True Power rather than being put in new bodies -- that can work in a book, but in a show, you want to keep your actors. Especially when they're so good!
6. The Elyas scene does feel like Elyas is essentially doing triple-duty this season: he's himself (Wolfbrother lore dump); he's Hurin (sniffer who leads them after Fain); he's Noam (completely detached from his previous human life).
7. I do like how Elyas feels... somewhat amoral (not immoral!) -- he cares about his fellow wolves (including Perrin) and only his fellow wolves. Obviously, part of the reason that's there is so that viewers will wonder if Ishamael (the Father of Lies) was telling the truth about Perrin becoming closer to the Shadow the closer he gets to the wolves but that's... a good thing, I think, for Perrin's narrative arc. It gives him a grounded reason to try to avoid embracing the wolves. The show has done a really good job in giving characters believable motivations for their behavior.
Show: has Elyas diss every human that Perrin cares about because he's trying to tell Perrin that he belongs with the wolves and not the humans.
Some Book Readers: Ah-ha! Laila wasn't his pack? Darkfriend!
It was just so clear to me, in watching the episode, that Elyas mentioning Perrin's wife was the last straw that made Perrin push him away. It was not meant as a Darkfriend hint of any kind! Elyas did not know Laila as a person! He does not care about Laila as a person! It's pretty clear that he only cares about Perrin (because he's a fellow Wolfbrother). That's why he only saved Perrin from the caravan; that's why he led Perrin eastward instead of west. He has zero interest in putting himself in danger to help humans; he does not identity with humans.
8. Ooo, I wonder if we're going to see Perrin's wolf name visualized at some point by the wolves -- Young Bull with his axe that is also his horns, strong and protective. Again, the show has done such a good job in showing us the Perrin that I think Jordan wanted us to see but that he didn't quite manage -- pretty much every show-only reactor sees Perrin as genuinely considerate and empathetic and believes that he has a good heart and wouldn't leave people to suffer.
9. Brilliant choice to have Aviendha introduced here and be part of Perrin's storyline. I do really like how Elayne, Aviendha, and Min have all been part of another main character's plotline before anything implied romantic between them and Rand happens. Hopefully, the show does the same thing with Tuon in the season when she gets introduced. I'm going to guess that (rather than going along with Perrin because of Faile) Bain and Chiad are going to help Aviendha meet her toh towards Perrin once she's told that she needs to become a Wise One apprentice and Bain and Chiad will travel with him to the Two Rivers. I suspect that Gaul will be introduced next season as well.
10. I also really like the way they set up Dain and Perrin's future dynamic here as well -- Dain realizes that Perrin is from the Two Rivers, so that gives him a reason to go there after he (mistakenly?) thinks that Perrin has killed his father. I do wonder whether or not Fain will go to the Two Rivers at all. It's kinda... crowded over there, since we know that Slayer was cast (I think). There isn't, imo, any real need for Fain to corrupt the Whitecloaks in the show -- I feel like they can corrupt themselves just fine. (I kinda feel that way about Elaida too) -- and it might be good to tie Fain back into Rand and/or Mat's plotlines.
11. The Seanchan and the Whitecloaks both have a 'evil but not the evil of the Dark One' situation going on, and we kinda get that here, with the (new) innkeeper being even more unhappy with being occupied by Whitecloaks than by the Seanchan. I actually like that they have the new innkeeper here selfishly being okay with the Seanchan -- the issue that I had with various plotlines in CoT & KoD wasn't "it's unrealistic for anyone to be collaborators with the slavers", of course some/many people are selfish enough that it doesn't matter to them that some people get enslaved as long as it isn't them; it was an issue with specific characters turning collaborator without there being anywhere near enough work in the characterization or narrative to justify it. That was the issue that I had.
Especially since this same conversation does illustrate how selfish this man's PoV is, if you pay attention to the dialogue. The old innkeeper's granddaughter was kidnapped by the Seanchan -- SHE would not agree with him that they're totally chill if you only just swear the oaths.
12. Seeing Lady Suroth like this, 'dressed down', as it were, gave me quite a start. She looks almost naked without the super-long nails and the helmet and with me being able to see that she has no eyebrows. Like, it gives her a big 'pathetic and vulnerable' vibe even though she's been just as awful as she was in her introduction.
And it makes me wonder... are people who are sympathetic to Tuon in Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams also more likely to be good at visualization when they read? Because, personally, I don't see pictures in my head when I read books. I think it's part of the reason why I can so easily accept adaptations in the first place -- there's no prior image that I need to override. I had no firm mental image of how 'Rand' or 'Nynaeve' or anyone looked in the books, so the actors can easily become that person for me. It's all just... words in my head for me. The most that I ever visualize is something akin to black and white abstract sketches.
How this relates to Tuon: one of the deeply frustrating things about CoT+ Mat to me is how he behaves like Tuon is 'not like the other Seanchan' even though her behavior on the page is just as rancid and terrible as any other Blood. But, in her descriptions in CoT & KoD, she doesn't visually resemble other Seanchan anymore -- her hair is growing out, she's in Westlands clothing instead of Seanchan High Blood clothing. But as someone who doesn't visualize characters and scenes when I'm reading a book, the clothes that a character is wearing has little to no impact on my perception of them as a character.
Is it different if you do/can visualize how differently Tuon looks when she's traveling with Mat vs how she looked when she was embedded in the Seanchan power structure? Because it really does genuinely confuse me when I see people repeat what Mat says about her being different from the other Seanchan because her behavior is just... identical to all the other Seanchan Blood from what I've seen in the books -- intensely political and manipulative; firmly supports and believes in slavery; gets off on torture and abuses her slaves even while believing that she's the bestest and kindest slave owner in the world; thinks of herself as inherently better because she's Of The Blood, etc. I remember when Mat places her in the same 'better than other nobles' category as Talmanes in KoD, my brain just bluescreened because he's consistently been shown on the page that she's still just as awful as the others (the chapter where she literally collars and tortures three of his allies is certainly never anything I'm forgetting, even if Mat 'goldfish' Cauthon forgot about it five minutes after it happened). But, yeah, if you visualize characters and scenes when reading books, do those visuals have an impact on how you think of the characters?
(on a character level, I understand why Mat would lie to himself about Tuon if he genuinely believes himself to be trapped in a marriage with her -- the issue with that is two-fold though: a. with Mat's other lies to himself, we are given outside context with other PoVs and behavior from other characters to see that he's lying while in CoT and KoD, we're pretty firmly locked into Mat's warped perspective, and b. Jordan did a shit job of showing why Mat gave up so quickly and just believed that he's doomed to be married to Tuon without him making ANY attempts at fighting the prophecy)
13. Looking forward to the future... I do suspect that we'll still get Semirhage trying to shape and mold Tuon (unless we don't get enough seasons), but I think in the end (exploring @sixth-light's idea about having a split Seanchan Empire instead of having the Sharans), we may end up with Suroth in charge of one half of the Seanchan (who will fight for the Shadow) and one half led by Tuon (who will fight for the Light) and that we will, hopefully, be getting a Tuon who actually has to confront what being a sul'dam means and that the Seanchan will fracture on the issue of slavery (which would make their American accents even more apt) instead of the Westlands characters becoming friends and lovers with gleefully cruel slavers. Having Tuon's 'stubbornness' and pushback against Semirhage actually lead to her questioning the established order would be so much more powerful than her stubbornness being used as an excuse for her dodging and avoiding any character growth for the entire time that she hangs around.
14. I hope that Aviendha's amusement here over Perrin's protectiveness is perhaps going to be more of the vibe we get with Rand & the Maidens once that relationship gets going. Rand really doesn't have the same reasons (so far) to be as unreasoningly overprotective of them as he is in the books, since the Two Rivers in the show aren't Weird about women in danger the way that the books are. It's very much a Perrin hangup because of his wife and we've seen it develop over time. And if Rand feels some protectiveness, I'd like it to be tied more towards him feeling like he doesn't want to lose any of his newfound family.
15. It feels clear that Moiraine is absolutely still bound by the Three Oaths. She obviously WANTS to lie in the scene where she's introducing Rand to Anvaere and Barthanes, but she isn't able to. It's played very much the same way as when she was caught in the Oath last season (one of the funniest moments in S1 is when she wants to tell the Two Rivers' kids that she trusts them now but she absolutely doesn't trust them and can't say the words).
16. So, who in this scene is a Darkfriend. I suspect that Barthanes is and I suspect that Anvaere is not. Anvaere's information session with Moiraine last episode completely destroyed the Shadow's plans for Rand -- it could be the Shadow tripping over itself but I suspect it's just that Anvaere is what she seems to be -- a very political but non-Shadow-aligned person.
17. I wonder if the end of the next episode is going to timeskip us the few weeks to the wedding (thus making it so that Egwene spends several weeks in 'training') -- or maybe we'll timeskip between episodes 6&7. From the preview, it looks like we're going to spend some serious time showing how horrible and dehumanizing the damane 'training' is. What they might do is show us the initial beginning of it -- and then we jump forward and see how things are after several weeks? The mention of the wedding just feels... potentially significant, since it's not from the books. This would give Perrin time to travel to Falme with Aviendha; Mat and Min would have time to get to Cairhien; Elayne and Nynaeve would have time to bond; and Siuan would also have time to get to Cairhien, since we know she goes there at some point. And it might mean that, along with Egwene getting her 'training' from Renna, we might also get Rand getting some training from Logain and potentially Lan as well.
18. I love Verin kickstarting the Black Ajah Hunt so much. I already talked about this a lot in my earlier post about Darkfriends, so I won't get into it here but: fantastic choice. It does imply to me that we don't really need the Wondergirls to go back to the Tower next season to get their Black Ajah Hunting instructions, since there's already a Hunt started by full Sisters. Which I would be fine with -- they literally spend less than a week in the White Tower in book 3. They dip in for Egwene & Elayne's tests, to get more instructions from Siuan, and then dip out again. I feel like the show could easily have them decide to hunt the Black Ajah of their own accord (Nynaeve in particular has a reason to want to go after Liandrin).
19. I do not think that Sheriam knows that Verin is 'Black Ajah' or that Liandrin is (more genuinely) Black Ajah. She and Liandrin were at odds too much earlier in the season over Nynaeve imo. Joiya, otoh, I think might know that Liandrin is also Black Ajah, because she immediately backed Liandrin up in the big group discussion.
20. "We respect the One Power so much that we don't believe that anyone should wield it by accident of birth". I've seen other people (reactors on youtube) wondering if this conversation means that the Seanchan already know that sul'dam are learners, since they talk about training the sul'dam for years and them earning the right to use the One Power, but this line in particular makes me feel like they don't know. Because sul'dam are only sul'dam because of an 'accident of birth' as well. I'm sure that we'll find out, because the realization of the sul'dam secret was a pretty huge moment with Egwene in the books (even if Min & Nynaeve appeared to have completely forgotten the information when they were spending time with Rand later in the series) so it will definitely stand out if it gets played differently and Renna doesn't get that horror of realizing that she, too, is marath'damane.
21. I've also seen people wonder why the damane & sul'dam didn't catch on that Liandrin was channeling to wake the girls and free Nynaeve, but she was channeling that entire time (to hold open the Waygate) so her tiny weave would have been masked by the larger one.
22. Aviendha's attitude towards obligation and honor is going to be such an interesting contrast to how weighed down Rand is by his obligations. Looking forward to them getting some good scenes together in s3.
23. I hope Egwene gets to hit Renna over the head in this version too. And collar her to the wall. I can already tell that this is going to be painful and intense. I did notice that a lot of show-only reactors have NOT picked up on how terrifying and awful the damane slavery is yet, but I feel like the show is going to make it very clear in the next episode. (I don't know how you can look at Egwene in pain here and not already understand but... next week should make things crystal clear).
The preview did show us how... earnest (ugh) Renna is going to be in her 'training' of Egwene. The way she called the damane kennels "your new home" and the (horrifying) sincerity in her voice.
I'm actually wondering if Egwene is going to be freed in episode 7, before Rand gets to Falme, since Perrin and Aviendha are headed in the direction of Falme and it's Perrin who is attached to the Ingtar and Horn storylines and not Rand (who didn't even find out that the Horn is a thing that exists until 2x3). Because Rand isn't actually involved in her rescue in the books iirc -- that was Elayne and Egwene (with Min tagging along). He spots her and seeing her is why he refuses to leave, but since he's going there for his own purposes unrelated to the Horn in this version (I assume), then he doesn't need that extra push to stay. From the preview for episode 6, it kinda sounds like Loial & co are going to try to help her be freed but I'm not sure if it'll work that soon.
Expecting next episode to be extremely rough, emotionally.
Additional spoilers/speculation based on imdb listings (which may not be entirely accurate):
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The actress who played Maigan in S1 is listed as being in the next three episodes (6, 7, 8). She was planning to go west to investigate the rumors. She has not been seen in the White Tower this season. The actress who is playing Ryma is only listed for episodes 5 & 6. Renna is listed for all the remaining episodes; Seta is listed for the final two episodes. That just all seems like interesting information to me, though again, imdb.
Complete side note, episode 7 is the episode that Hayley Mills is listed for. I wonder if she's the Queen of Cairhien that Barthanes is marrying.
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wot-tidbits · 6 months
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halcyon-autumn · 6 months
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Underrated Comedy moments from A Memory of Light (under the cut to avoid whole series spoilers). Feel free to add your faves
- Amerasu gets summoned by the Horn and immediately finds Mat to be like “heard you were talking shit about my boy Rand just because he was probably going to go crazy”
- All the Maidens of the Spear threatening to cut Rand’s dick off (in a supportive way?) while he an Aviendha have sex
- Moghedien impersonating Demandred was legit the most competent thing she’d done in like 6 books
- Lanfear tries to blackmail the devil and almost pulls it off. Iconic to the end
- Taim, who up to this point has been pretty competent, gets upgraded to Forsaken and immediately develops petty bitch disease
- Everyone being afraid that Nynaeve will deck Moiraine when she sees her again
- Perrin asks Elyas to warn people that the Great Generals are under compulsion and Elyas is like “sure man” and then just sends the wolves to kidnap one of the generals
- Mat meets Greatest General Ever Artur Hawkwing and is like “cool hey can you go talk to my wife?” just to see if it will make her more chill
- Rand surviving via a body swap with his most homoerotic enemy
- Elayne interacts with a sul’dam for about two minutes, sets about pissing her off, and we get the phrase “Light willing, Elayne had managed to offended her again”
- Birgitte comes back to life and immediately picks up her long standing argument with Elayne
- Aliviana doesn’t know how money works and gives Rand so much gold he’s absurdly rich as he fakes his death
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mindofserenity · 1 year
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18/01/2023, Iceland
It has always been a dream of mine since I was a child to witness the Aurora Borealis, commonly known as the Northern/Aurora lights. This was truly one of the most memorable experiences in my life الحمدلله no picture could bring any justice to its beauty, but only to be seen through the eyes. I understood why for centuries, civilisations worshipped these lights. Why many myths and legends, people held the belief that it was spirits dancing across the sky. But الحمدلله, it is simply the beauty created by our Creator ‎ﷻ as signs of his work and wonders.
I pray everyone can experience this at least once in your lifetime ‎إن شاء الله
وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلنُّجُومَ لِتَهْتَدُوا۟ بِهَا فِى ظُلُمَـٰتِ ٱلْبَرِّ وَٱلْبَحْرِ ۗ قَدْ فَصَّلْنَا ٱلْـَٔايَـٰتِ لِقَوْمٍۢ يَعْلَمُونَ
And He is the One Who has made the stars as your guide through the darkness of land and sea. We have already made the signs clear for people who know.
Qur’an 6:97
وَعَلَـٰمَـٰتٍۢ ۚ وَبِٱلنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ
And He it is who has made the sea subservient …/ And He has placed firm mountains on Earth, lest it sway with you, and rivers and paths, so that you might find your way,/ And landmarks; and by the stars they are guided.
Qur’an 16:14-16
ٱلَّذِى جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلْأَرْضَ مَهْدًۭا وَسَلَكَ لَكُمْ فِيهَا سُبُلًۭا وَأَنزَلَ مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءًۭ فَأَخْرَجْنَا بِهِۦٓ أَزْوَٰجًۭا مِّن نَّبَاتٍۢ شَتَّىٰ
˹He is the One˺ Who has laid out the earth for ˹all of˺ you, and set in it pathways for you, and sends down rain from the sky, causing various types of plants to grow.
Qur’an 20:53
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