#and I’m pretty sure moiraine and Siuan’s endings are not going to be the same

[aflawedfashion]

I’m unconcerned with how the books ended - it would be such a missed opportunity if this show doesn’t end in a polycule with platonic Moiraine and Lan at the center.

This is Siuan and her wife Moiraine and her platonic husband Lan and his wife Nynaeve.

So easy.

Obvious ending.

#I will stand by my opinion that this show could do something truly interesting with these relationships #and they’re already changing the books in this regard #and I’m pretty sure moiraine and Siuan’s endings are not going to be the same #so why not keep up the relationship adjustments #will and grace retconned their entire series finale into a dream just so they could do over and make this kind of ending #it’s 2023 #we support platonic soulmates #who also have romantic soulmates #the wheel of time #moiraine damodred #lan mandragoran #siuan sanche #nynaeve al'meara

[champion-of-thedas]

WoT Reread New Spring Chapter 4

I forgot how long this chapter is. It is so long.

Leaving the Tower

Siuan and Moiraine leave the Tower and travel to the camp where they are going to begin taking down names.

·Description of a room for no narrative reason. Look, if he was trying to set a tone, it would be one thing. If the characters were going to be in a room, it would be one thing, if it was an important way to characterize a location, it would be one thing! But Moiraine’s room is none of those things. In all honestly, I find this charming, but I am amused that this room is getting so much description when it meets none of the previous criteria. My dude.

·I have misophonia and it hates KR’s ‘sl-p’ words above all else. The sheer amount of ‘sleep’, ‘slip’, and ‘slippers’ I’ve been hearing is driving my nerves insane.

·Despite the fact that this is supposed to be an out of the ordinary event and the inciting incident of the series, it is giving us a lot more of what regular life for Accepted in the Tower is like.

·Strangely, knowing all of the stuff that Moiraine packed that will not be mentioned in this chapter is helpful to me. It is also a good way for us to get to know Moiraine by learning what she thinks is important.

·Siuan is not a horse girl, and I love that.

·There is a lot of description of the city, but not in the same way that made me so frustrated with it earlier. Here, it feels like it is contrasting the city of Tar Valon with the tragedy going on outside as well as showing off how so many people from all over the continent mix together here. Also it feels in character for Moiraine to notice what she does.

·There’s a brief non-scuffle with the white cloaks that I had forgotten about that ultimately just let’s us know that they are here and they are definitely taking the opportunity to heckle Tar Valon while so close.

·Moiraine and Siuan taking every opportunity that they can to use the power so they have excuses if anyone catches them.

·So here, Siuan tries to convince a guardsman to see her way and it doesn’t work, but she does seem to be considering him afterwards. I wonder if this is just us seeing how Siuan eventually becomes the Amyrlin that she does. Small little moments of her attempting persuasion, deception, and other forms of manipulation are done so she can see how different people interact with them and adjust her approach accordingly. Moiraine talks about how Siuan sees puzzles and patterns, so this would make sense. In essence, while this looks like Siuan utterly failing at browbeating a guard, it actually is Siuan making a mistake, realizing it, analyzing what happened and what went wrong, and filing it away for the future while observing her mark to guess what alternate approaches would work. I’m pretty sure I’m not just making this up either. Moiraine comments on Siuan liking puzzles once more and says she’s looking at the guard as if he was one of her puzzles, and then Moiraine makes a statement about how Siuan sees patterns. I just wish we got more of this in her POVs.

·I also think this could be a good comparison with Egwene. This book came out between Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams, so it was there after Egwene got captured by the White Tower, but before we got to see her begin manipulating people and events in the Tower. A lot of the next few books involve Egwene using the skills she learned (many of which were with the help of Siuan) to beat the White Tower from the inside. We get to see the origin of those skills here.

·There’s just some more back and forth with Moiraine being a disaster bisexual and thinking about pretty guards and pretty Accepted. Good for Moiraine. The chapter ends with them getting set up at the new spot.

One thing my Siuan rant reminded me about is when I first read this book, I was just thinking of it as a Moiraine and Siuan story, but on this readthrough, I’m also thinking of it as a Moiraine and Siuan and Rand and Egwene story. In the rest of the series, I kind of think of Moiraine as Rand’s mentor and Siuan as Egwene’s mentor and the two of them are reflected a lot in their students. I joked with a friend once that sometimes you can really tell that Rand’s leadership style came from a spy and it shows up in some not great ways. I love Moiraine, but she is a spy, not a leader. And no, I’m not saying she messed up Rand’s leadership, he did that on his own bless him. I’m just saying that sometimes he’ll do something, like make sure he is surrounded by people that he knows want to hurt him because he knows their intentions for sure and having people mess each other up so they don’t think about rebelling against him, and my brain says, “that’s a spy move”. I also know that Siuan was also a spymaster and then became a leader (and Moiraine received training as a leader before becoming a spy), but I’m pretty sure that she pushes back against some of those tendencies with Egwene and she had experience as a leader by then. Plus, she comments on how her spy tendencies screwed her. Egwene still has plenty of sneaky spy in her, but I think there is a subtle difference in their motives and actions that is hard to explain. I’ll probably get more into it when the two actually come up as characters.  

#wheel of time spoilers #Wheel of Time #wheel of time book spoilers #wot book spoilers #wheel of time: new spring #new spring #champion rereads new spring #champion rereads wot

[sixth-light]

I have spent the last couple of days doing a cheat’s re-read of the last four WoT books by re-reading the Tor.com Re-Read blog, and it confirmed my view that the series has a huge opportunity...

(book spoilers!!!)

...to give us some emotional pay-off the books never quite did by ruthlessly eliminating and merging a lot of characters who did not end up having distinctive character arcs. Probably the key disappointment of the last few books is that a tonne of big reunions and penny-dropping moments are rushed over to get the books to (and through) Tarmon Gai’don - and this in a series famous for its moping character interiority. I don’t know anybody who isn’t annoyed about how little PoV space/screentime/agency Moiraine and Nynave got in AMoL. The Superboys literally never reunite after TSR. Siuan and Moiraine never reunite on page, after their twenty-year quest!!! We never get so much as a nod to the Andoran Royal Family Gordian Knot with even half of the participants in the same room, and most of them even know about all of it by the end of the series. It’s not like the last three books didn’t tie up a hell of a lot of loose ends; it was a question of prioritisation, and of the sheer number of corners RJ had written himself into. 

(And, not to rag on Sanderson too much, but the Re-read noted there were a lot of charity auction/fan shout-out names in ToM/AMoL, so I went and counted and there’s...over 200. That’s getting on for 10% of all named characters in the series, and it goes a long way to explaining why it feels like so many characters drop off the page in the last three books; they do, because Sanderson never uses, say, Sulin or Theodrin or Damer Flinn, tertiary characters who nevertheless have been around for most of the series at that point and have well-established personalities and relationships with the leads, when he can have a brand new walk-on character. I’m going to be annoyed about that forever now I’ve realised how extensive the issue is.)

Anyway. My point is: a really easy way to lose some of this aimlessness is to give major characters, or strong supporting characters, a bundle of plot arcs so they can stay on-screen consistently and it will really really hurt when they die Tarmon Gai’don will have some serious stakes and emotional meaning, not that it didn’t in the books, but YKWIM. We’re already pretty sure they’re going to merge Alanna and Myrelle because Green Sister With Bad Bonding Ethics is not a slot that needs filling twice; I bet they’ll do the same for, e.g., various politically scheming Aes Sedai, the Great Captains (I bet we get one with significant on-screen development at most), and maybe characters as prominent as Gawyn and Galad. I think it would be smart and useful to merge Moiraine and Cadsuane, and bring Moiraine back much much sooner but still after Dumai’s Wells. You get the picture. 

What I wonder is in what ways they are already doing that (Liandrin???) that we don’t have enough information to realise yet. 

#wheel of time #wot book spoilers #I also suspect that a lot of the repeating plot structures will be collapsed down for the show #RJ really liked to do things twice and slightly differently the second time #but often not differently enough to work for a tv show structure

[gunkreads]

Ok small analysis/rant about the changes to Aes Sedai culture in the show and a little extra rant at the end:

One scene sticks out to me like a sore, swollen thumb. Liandrin trying to wiggle her way into Nynaeve’s head in the hallway felt like such a painful, jarring change from the books and... even after deconstructing why I believe the changes happened, I don’t like it. My personal opinion aside, it’s very clear that Liandrin, along with literally every other Aes Sedai, is being given miles more room to be expressive than the books suggest. In the books, for example, Alanna is noted as a weirdly expressive and open Aes Sedai; in the show she’s played fairly similarly to how I imagined, but is still one of the less expressive sisters we see. Aes Sedai are frequently defined by the phrases “serene expression” or “schooled her face to stillness”. These women don’t let a damn thing show on their faces unless they want to. In the show, this has been changed to slightly more familiar manipulation tactics of ingratiation and congeniality, specifically in Liandrin’s case. This, obviously, lets the actors go absolutely nuts and, devoid of the context of the books, it totally works. Every woman playing an Aes Sedai absoLUTELY comes across as at least a bit creepily manipulative.

But it’s fundamentally different from the books. I understand that a visual medium with live actors can’t really afford to have a bunch of people walk around completely expressionless, but that’s what makes Aes Sedai so scary. They literally DO NOT look fully human. Their faces throw you off, their voices and expressionless demeanor put up the hairs on the back of your neck--to the layman, they’re practically eldritch in some ways. The way they’re described, you could almost say they’re halfway down the slope of uncanny valley. It seems the show, so far, is leaning in to the idea that Moiraine has mastered this stoicism to a much greater extent than most Aes Sedai (which is fine--she’s kind of a folk legend to them in the books as well). I assume Siuan will have a similar mastery of it. However, she’s still selective with it, and that pulls the whole damn thing apart. Think about it logistically: acting serene all the time as a way of being unreadable only works if you’re serene all the time. Moiraine is far too expressive in the show for this to work; the second she puts on the serene face, it’s painfully clear she’s hiding something. If you want to hide something, you can’t just go around telegraphing that you’re hiding something.

Again, considering the show as a standalone, most of this is pretty chill. I personally liked this establishment of Aes Sedai as, above all, imperious. They’re cold, they’re calculating, they’re frequently cruel, occasionally kind, and commanding to an extent you rarely see in ANY media. I’ve said before that every shitty thing the Aes Sedai do translates to real life perfectly if you imagine the women doing it as a bunch of men in suits around a conference table. Personally, that take on a matriarchal organization was super cool! It’s one of Jordan’s few gender-relations decisions that feels weirdly progressive; he’s effectively saying that gender doesn’t decide what kind of leader you’ll be, only the manner and degree of power you have. A woman given a colossal degree of influence over world affairs is fundamentally no different from a man in the same situation, in his world. There are good and bad women leading the world to the same degree that there are good and bad men. I love that shit! I love this idea that putting a fictional woman in a position that’s male-dominated in real life doesn’t immediately make her better or worse than the fictional man that would’ve been there! I’m sure this is a concept from like three waves of feminism ago, but that’s not my purview; I just think it’s a more interesting world than one where women and men lead in a fundamentally different way.

More to the point, the fact that Liandrin’s manipulation tactics are very specifically aligned with traits that, in real life, are often considered feminine bothers me. She lays it on thick in honeyed words, ingratiating smiles, and naive body language. It very clearly doesn’t work on Nynaeve, and that makes it look sillier. I loved the way that, in the books, Aes Sedai “manipulation” frequently involved just giving a command and walking away with such confidence that people did it, not for any reason more than sheer fear of the consequences of failure. Their whole MO is to browbeat people. No carrot, all stick. The only variations you see is how much stick is applied and how well they hit pressure points with it. Moiraine is a great manipulator because she’s smart about when to ease off the stick, going from full-bodied smacks to light pokes. Elaida isn’t good at it because she puts her hips into every single swing she takes with that stick. Aes Sedai almost never learn that there can be a give-and-take to their commands because they’ve been trained that no one has the right to ask anything of them. Sure, they’re servants of the people, but the prevailing culture in the Tower is that people will take what they are given by the Aes Sedai and offer fealty or loyalty or trust in return.

Just to keep the monkeys off my back, I’ll reiterate that I’m still enjoying the show. Even if I’m not some hardcore fan who speedread every book the day it was released and reread the series every year, I still love this series and the show is making critical changes to things I enjoyed in the books. translation: let me have this one. I’m going forward in the show treating it drastically differently than I initially hoped I could. So much has been changed, so much not to my liking, that I’m ready to give up trying to keep track of it all. I almost want to quit posting analyses of the differences between the show and books because there’s just so much going on in the adaptation that I’m just... not vibing with. I think the show is good, I think it’s well made, I think it’s doing at least a passable job of capturing the spirit of the series, but it truly doesn’t feel like the same story. It’s going to have to re-sell me on everything I love in Wheel of Time. So far it’s doing a bang-up job, but the sheer effort of forgetting what I know of the story is making the show so much harder to enjoy than I’d like. It’s hitting me hard in a lot of ways, but it’s not even throwing many of the punches that made me love Eye of the World so much the first time. The world feels smaller, the arcs are shorter, the mysteries shallower and more contained. The show isn’t qualitatively worse for any of that; it’s just different in a way I’m having a hard time getting over all the changes.

inb4 “rip to you but i love everything about the show” proud of u bb <3 couldn’t be me

#wheel of time on prime #wheel of time #wot

[justalittlebluetiefling]

Hi, who wants to read my... moderately spoilery reactions to the Wheel of Time trailer? I tried really hard to not mention anything outright, but who knows how I did by the end of this (I definitely mentioned at least one ship I really like). This has screenshots so it’s super effing long sorry not sorry.

This is very long and I don’t expect anyone to care, but this is all I’ve thought about all day so have my excitement and the one-and-a-half things I’ve explicitly spoiled which aren’t that major but still they count.

It starts with Egwene and Nynaeve so like, I’m already sold. 10000%. Because I love them so much.

And Nynaeve PUSHING EGWENE OFF A CLIFF which is clearly part of some test that prospective Wisdoms have to take. 

AND THE FUCKING SCENERY 

And the WINESPRING INN

And then THE BOYS ARE HERE and they’re all laughing together?! Be still my heart.

Like. Okay. But I really adore their friendship, so I’m so happy that we get to see them together. And Mat already looks like a troublemaker. I was already on board with the casting, but they look SO GOOD. And clearly in the same scene, we get to see Egwene and Rand smiling at each other like dorks who are into each other and Nynaeve looking all proud of Egwene and I’m already super into the dynamic between the five of them and we didn’t even see them all interact.

So then we get to THIS SHOT

And it was when I knew. This show is going to be a fantastic adaptation. Sorry for a reference to spoilers I won’t name outright, but THE FUCKING FORESHADOWING OF THIS SHOT. It’s gorgeous. It’s amazing. I don’t even have words. Her whole character arc is one of my favorite and this shot got me even more pumped than I already was to see it on screen.

I mean, DID I MENTION THE SCENERY! Tar Valon with Dragonmount looming up behind it LIKE I’M DEAD OKAY

I was so excited to see what they did and I am not disappointed.

And then we see Moiraine, which I’ll talk about later. I really can’t do this shot by shot or it would be too long and it’s already ridiculous. Plus I want to talk about THIS FUCKING MOMENT.

While Moiraine is narrating about The One Power. And I was blown away by this. Which maybe I’m dumb but she’s talking about Power and Egwene is floating down the river and it’s beautiful, because... okay hold on. Book quote here (first book, there’s one in later books that I want to use, but that’s massive spoilers): The Source is the river; the Aes Sedai, the waterwheel. But that’s why I loved this. They refer to the Power as a river so much during the books and this is one of those moments that I was struck by how much the people creating this must love the source material.

Moving on to SIUAN WITH THE CHEST TATTOO

She looks... SO GOOD. The colors. Like, all that gold??? Gosh, she looks amazing.

I did also really love that for our first glimpse of Saidar, we go from this:

to THIS

I’m actually really pleased with how it looks. I was a little worried that they would go too overboard with it, but it looks really subtle and seems to flow really well in all the shots they have it in.

And we get a glimpse of the Red Ajah! Also like, that blonde is Liandrin right? It has to be. 

AND THEN LEANE!!!!

And then I’m pretty sure this is ALANNA stopping those arrows?!?! Looking like a freaking badass.

Plus a bonus in that shot which is Lan guarding Nynaeve??? So like, this is obviously a big change from the book, which we knew was coming, because Alanna doesn’t show up until a little later, but I’m not mad about it. I’m interested to see what they’re doing. Plus Lan x Nynaeve in a scene together? I’ll take all I can get.

So, next thing. I’m pretty sure this is Rand and Mat outside of Shadar Logoth.

Clearly not on the Caemlyn road. It seems like they (in general, not Rand and Mat) might skip over Caemlyn completely in favor of spending some time in Tar Valon season one. And I know that Rafe said in an answer today that season one contains parts of books 1, 2, and even a little of 3. I’m intrigued. There’s definitely a lot that I think can be shuffled around without losing the integrity of the story and I’m going into this with a very open mind. Anyway, another thing is just that the shot above is freaking gorgeous and I love what they’re doing.

NOW. We get THE BOYS again and I love it. 

Rand and his bow and arrow!

AND MAT WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING THE BLADE PLEASE STOP

I guess he doesn’t know but like. Please. It looks so cool.

And then a glimpse of Mashadar, which might be the only look in the trailer I’m not totally sold on.

But I’m reserving judgment until we see it in action. I’m like... super hopefully that they lean into horror a little, at least for this season. There’s a lot that I think lends itself to it and Mashadar is one of those things.

Also, Mat looks so pretty. But I have no idea what is supposed to be in that cage behind him???

I have no speculation for this.

I could do an edit to get Perrin and the wolf in the same shot, but I did a lot of gifs earlier oh wait I have a gif that works instead.

THAT BETTER BE HOPPER OKAY. I’m so excited about this. So, we got to see Rand & his bow, Mat & the dagger, and then Perrin & a wolf. Even though I guess it isn’t explicitly clear in the trailer that Perrin has a connection to wolves so I’m sorry for the spoiler. But I’m stoked. I want to meet Hopper.

ALSO OKAY THEY’RE PLAYING UP THE ROMANCE BIT sorry I’m about to explicitly spoil something below this screenshot. 

I like the evolution of their relationship a lot and I’m really excited to see this play out on screen. It’s interesting that it looks like they might already be at a physical point in their relationship. But one of my favorite things about the book is them learning to let each other go. I think it’s clear that they loved each other, but things get in the way and they have to move on. So I hope they don’t fuck this up. And yes, I do have a favorite ship for Rand and I’m... a little wary about how they’re going to portray his love life. I just hope they do it right. 

OKAY MOVING ON

I’m 99% sure this is Tam, okay? I was torn. I had to look at the actor pictures pretty close and that’s my decision.

Make that 100% sure. AND HE’S GOT TEARS IN HIS EYES. They’re going to make me cry like, right out of the gate, aren’t they? Anyway, he ALSO looks good and I have a thought but it’s spoilers so I’m not going to say it because I want there to be some surprise in your lives.

Okay then there’s one of my favorite things which is the transition from this (Winternight)

To this (unknown funeral?) (It feels sort of like Children of Light-y but that’s just because of the white shrouds with the gold pendants and I could be wrong.)

To THIS view of the Tower and Siuan walking up to her throne

Look at all the circles. All the symbolism! It’s all about the Power. The Wheel. Ages coming to pass, etc. etc. etc. BOOK QUOTE ACTUALLY: The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. Which the first line is IN THE TRAILER and I just dig it. I’m ready. I’m prepared. Be November now please.

Moving on I have nothing to say except LAN IS SO PRETTY HE LOOKS SO GOOD

I promise I won’t just say everyone is pretty the whole time but they are.

And our FIRST LOOK AT TROLLOCS with our SECOND look at a Myrddraal 

SO COOL! I love everything about this. The Trollocs look horrifying. That Myrddraal has a skull on his horse. He DOESN’T HAVE EYES. I’M - Make. It. Horror. 

Also, I just dig this shot of Mat and Rand running away with the Myrddraal popping up in the back at the end.

This feels like such a good embodiment of the characters. Especially Mat. 

Okay and then I’m very curious about whoever Lan is fighting here, because it sort of looks like they might push Lan and Nynaeve (and maybe Moiraine?) into the path of the Aes Sedai who are escorting Logain back to the Tower. Because these definitely aren’t Children that he’s fighting.

And this is a bit of a skip in the trailer, but the lighting is the same as the Nynaeve gif I have.

The scenery also matches. So something is CLEARLY UP. I might just be thinking that these are Logain’s men because of the SWEET LOGAIN SHOT WE GOT.

I am wondering some things now, but wondering about them out loud would be very spoilery for people who haven’t read the books. Anyway, I have some thoughts about where they’re taking his story and wondering if they might skip the middle part of it, which I wouldn’t be mad about.

MOVING ON ONCE AGAIN.

Everything we’re seeing about the Tower is giving me life.

More Red Ajah. Green Ajah. And there are Brown Ajah in that room Moiraine is walking out of. HER POWER STRIDE. God I love her. And that dress. And this whole thing. Okay. I need to chill.

EXCEPT I CAN’T BECAUSE BLURRY TROLLOCS AND THEY LOOK SO COOL

And then Moiraine riding her horse! I’m so happy that it looks like they put her in pants for this.

I know that there’s a about riding dresses, but she looks so good on Aldieb. Don’t let me get attached to the horses. I mean, I’m pretty sure Aldieb survives, but like. I’m so scared of getting attached to horses in fantasy stuff. 

AND I’M OBSESSED WITH NYNAEVE AND EGWENE AND THEIR FRIENDSHIP OKAY

Look at Nynaeve ready to fucking stab a Trolloc for Egwene. And Egwene back there ready to fight, too. Fuck. I love the women in this series okay? But especially these two and Moiraine (and Aviendha).

Okay but pausing this finally gave me a clear shot of what’s going on.

There’s an Aes Sedai in the back, holding Logain (I’m assuming) in stasis? And her Warder (maybe?!) is going in for the kill? Which I’m guessing is going to go poorly for him. 

Anyway. This shot, not only is it cool, but is another one that makes me assume we’re skipping Caemlyn.

Because I’m pretty sure those pillars are confirmed to be a Waygate and that’s clearly not in someone’s cellar. Which doesn’t actually matter. I’m not tied to them going word for word by the books, plus this looks sick. But also yay for confirmation that they all hook up again by the end? I hope? I’m going off book a little here, but while I’m really not tied to things going exactly the same, because this is an ADAPTATION and I’m aware of what that means... I’m really hoping they end at the Eye again. That confrontation is just SO COOL. And would make such a good finale.

Listen. We get a FULL ON LOOK at the Myrddraal and I’m obsessed.

That is some Pan’s Labyrinth shit right there and I’m going to have nightmares about it. IT LOOKS PERFECT. I had no idea what to expect. I’m into it.

Also I am obsessed with this whole next sequence of Lan and Moiraine fighting at Winternight. Like, you can SEE his need to protect her because I’m assuming he’s looking over to where she’s channeling.

AND THIS LOOKS SO COOL I’M ALSO OBSESSED ALREADY

PLUS THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE?! SIGN ME THE FUCK UP.

They work SO WELL TOGETHER. The flow. The somersault into stabbing the Trolloc. The weave like, pushing him through the motion or going over him or SOMETHING. I’m SO EXCITED OKAY. This looks SO GOOD. I can’t wait.

AND THIS SHOT?!

I am ALL ABOUT IT.

ALSO THE SHOT OF THE POWER IN ACTION. I’m not going to post it here because it’s super flashy, but watching her call lightning down was just GORGEOUS. And then it flows into the logo of the show. 

I’m obsessed with everything. The music. The scenery. The costumes. The casting?! 

YOU GUYS. Can it just be November PLEASE.

#the wheel of time #wot spoilers #wot on prime #sorry for who this is turning me into #i'm just so excited #and i can't believe i get to see this show become a thing #i'm so ready #i will post some critical role content this weekend to make up for it i promise #so yes i explicitly spoiled one and a half things #and moderately spoiled other storylines #but i didn't give major details or anything #i just mentioned some things that are connected #i also know that rafe said today that there will be another trailer #and it will be longer #so i will probably not do this for that one lol #because this is too long

[kaasknot]

1x6 thoughts

first things first:

holy SHIT you guys we have canon gays, extremely canon, incontrovertible, unapologetic main character gays in a high-budget genre flick. !!!!!!!!

moiraine was clearly the pov character of this ep, and it was done beautifully. the rapid clip of the scenes and her constant frenetic movement within them really conveyed the terrible anxiety she's operating under: managing not only five unruly potential chosen ones, but also cutthroat tower politics. even when she was perfectly still i got the impression of a quiet surface hiding turmoil beneath. massive, massive props to rosamund pike for carrying it off so seamlessly.

siuan was also fantastically dynamic. the change between the static, uncompromising amyrlin seat in an official capacity, her more relaxed "half mask" to prospective novices, and her true face to moiraine was a tribute to sophie okonedo's craft. i was also so satisfied by the set decoration and worldbuilding in this ep,too, and how it built siuan's character—the difference between her sitting room, where she meets people in a semi-informal fashion, versus her inner sanctum, which is tairen through and through. (i especially loved the detail of her mending nets to keep her hands busy; crochet for fishermen’s daughters.)

also just... it’s so nice to have nonsexual nudity and non-explicit sex scenes. lookin’ at you, GoT.

i'm relieved we finally got moiraine healing mat, though it was a bit of an anticlimax for me; for the first time, mat looked like he was actually cursed/possessed instead of just sick—and then it was over. (not over over, we still haven't addressed padan fain's cameo from last ep, but it still felt rushed.) also i haven't read the books in 20 years but i'm pretty damn sure mat went on the ways with everyone else. i'm trying to remind myself that this is more an "inspired by" than a word-for-word adaptation, but i'm struggling to imagine a way forward from here, especially after all the lead-up the show gave about mat as a potential dragon. that ending... i have questions.

perrin and egwene's plot also suffered. not so much in the internal logic of the episode, where they were minor characters and played such, but as it tied to the previous episode and the story as a whole. if perrin’s condition was that critical when they left the whitecloaks, how they fuck did they get to tar valon before he bled out?? alternately if they were that close to tar valon, why the fuck didn’t warders or the city guard or someone chase them off? the tower's influence might wane the further away you go from tar valon, but the same can be said of the whitecloaks and amador.

and then loial. i’m not sure someone who hasn’t read the books would pick up that he was the one who knew about the waygates. like, the reason he’s in the plot at this point is because he knows the ways. i assume that’s why moiraine brought him to the white tower, so they could hash out their travel plans, but we didn’t hear the conversation, so... idk, he seemed surplus to the plot’s requirements. i love loial, but the pace is so rushed that the show doesn’t seem to be using him effectively.

it’s just one more way in which s1 would have benefited from 10 episodes instead of 8. the showrunners are working miracles with what they’ve got, but it's still coming at the expense of the through-plot. that said, we’re still incredibly early in the series—maybe later, after other characters get their moments in the sun, we can look back and things will fit better into a more coherent whole. (also honestly, given the sheer density of named characters in the books, i don't think we're going to see the slow character development everyone was given. it's going to be brisk, because there simply isn't time.)

i'm really eager to re-watch all of season 1 as a complete piece of storytelling.

#wot #wot meta #wot spoilers

[neuxue]

So I'm reading your CoS reviews and something jumped out - you seem to think that Egwene blackmailing the Aes Sedai into swearing fealty is different from Elaida because there is no Oath Rod involved. But that's what compells Myrelle & Nisao to keep their oath. Also, you seem to think that there is a distinction about obedience, but if she can assign Siuan to be in charge, they ARE being made to obey, not just be loyal.

(2/4) Another issue with Egwene’s Oath of Fealty in CoS. Elaida had convicted rebels swear the Oath in mitigation of their rebellion against the same authority. It was the EXACT rationale used to make Myrelle & Nisao swear, except Egwene just did it for personal advantage, and Nisao herself didn’t even do anything wrong, she was just facing the same sort of unjust Tower justice as Elayne for the secret of the Kin. What should her priority have been, saving Lan or being holier-than-thou with Myrelle? 

(3/4) More Egwene’s Oath: Egwene’s attitude in the whole morning is very contradictory. The night before she was smug about taking control of minor admin stuff from Sheriam and aghast at the idea of anyone blackmailing AS or AS swearing fealty, but in the AM, she’s mad about the papers on her desk & blackmails AS into fealty. Also she’s in the middle of a false flag operation, tricking people into fighting a war they’d never fight if they had the facts. It seems like Egwene is secretly in the wrong 

(4/4) Final issue with Egwene in aCoS, I promise: How did we get from two books of Rand being the priority in Salidar, both in N&E’s motive for going there, then searching for the Bowl, lying to make them think they need Rand, and suddenly it’s all about Egwene’s power? She’s 18 with no qualifications, and for all she’s supposed to make the Tower help the good guys, she gets mad at N&E because SAVING THE WORLD might cause HER problems & condemns Rand for doing what she did except AS actually hurt him.”

For context: Since answering the previous string of asks about Egwene a few days ago, I have received 12 asks, in addition to these, telling me in less civil language about how Egwene is a hypocrite/evil/annoying/the worst and I’m reading her wrong or giving her too much leniency. Just putting that up front in case I sound impatient, because I do value good-faith discussion but the overall tone of my askbox right now is…not so good faith.

And I really don’t mind if people disagree with me on Egwene. That’s fine; you’re entirely within your rights to do so. There are parts of her story and characterisation that are very, very easy to disagree on. That’s okay! They’re supposed to be! She walks pretty close to some lines at various points (like many characters in the series), and whether she steps over those or not is sort of up to you.

But there’s only so much I can respond to on the same topic, especially because it feels like a) I’d just be rehashing things I’ve already said in the liveblog, b) like I said before, it could just keep going because Egwene’s a main character in a 14-book series and there’s a lot of material there to disagree on and c) we clearly do not see eye-to-eye on her character. That’s absolutely fine, but it again contributes to the…lack of enthusiasm I feel about this. 

tl;dr: I like Egwene, and I disagree with some of the specifics you’ve pointed out, but will also acknowledge that she does some things that are morally questionable and arguably hypocritical, and while I don’t have a problem with that in particular, it’s fine if you do.

More on the oaths, the ‘false flag’ operation, and Egwene’s lack of qualifications below.

1: Egwene’s oath

Yeah, this is one where the line between what she does and what Elaida does (and what Rand and Taim and eventually Verin do) is rather fine. I think oaths of fealty, even with the Oath Rod preventing untruths, leave more flexibility, especially to an Aes Sedai, than a very specific Oath of obedience; we see that in how the Aes Sedai sworn to Rand behave. And I think her wording is that they have to treat orders from Siuan as if those orders had come from her: there’s definitely some wiggle room there, if you want to get into technicalities…which I kind of don’t, really. For me, that’s not specifically the point. I also think Elaida’s and Egwene’s respective positions and rationales make enough of a difference that, for me, what Egwene does falls into the category of ‘morally rather shady but in a way I like rather than dislike’.

And most of it comes down to just that: a very subjective liking of this kind of thing. I like watching characters play around in moral grey areas, or struggle with their own pride, or do complicated or questionable things for complicated or questionable reasons. I like when desperate characters, backed into a corner, find a way out that works but isn’t always easy to live with. I like when characters I like find ways to get what they need, and I will absolutely admit that in many cases this is subjective. The more I like the character, and the cleverer their solution, the more likely I am to enjoy it.

Given that…yes, I like seeing Egwene find this solution and implement it. Yes, it’s politically manipulative and at times morally questionable. Yes, I condemn Elaida for something that I see as different but not hugely different. No, I don’t have a list of technicalities that I can use to draw a clear delimiting line and say ‘Egwene is right because X and Y, while Elaida is wrong because Z’. I think Egwene has more justification for what she does, given her position, her options, and her capabilities…but that’s just what I think. It’s messy and ambiguous and there’s a bit of ends justifying the means here, which again I’m kind of…fine with, in fiction, because I like morally sticky situations. If you don’t like those, or you have a line in the sand drawn at a different point than I’ve drawn mine…yes, I can 100% see where you’re coming from, and I’m not going to change your mind, and you’re probably not going to change mine, and that’s fine.

2: Egwene running a false flag operation and tricking people into fighting

They asked. A general. To build. And lead. An army.

Before Egwene even got there.

They started the rebellion. Well, no, Elaida did by leading a coup, and I suppose the Black Ajah by influencing events in that direction and Ishamael by pushing them to do so…

But the Aes Sedai who went to Salidar fought their way out, refused to recognise Elaida’s authority, set up a centre of power and operations outside of and antagonistic to it, and decided to appoint an Amyrlin, and let’s not forget, asked Gareth Bryne to lead an army for them. One of his conditions, which they agreed to, being that they have to see this through. And then they try to get out of that.

She’s tricking them–or rather, manipulating them; I’m not sure it really qualifies as trickery specifically–into actually doing what they have already effectively committed themselves to doing. 

You say ‘if they had all the facts’. What facts don’t they have? Any of them at any point could look at what Egwene’s doing and see where it’s going, but they kind of deliberately don’t. Egwene’s authority, and her motivation for getting them to vote (vote!) to go to war, is a technicality in Tower Law, which they have every reason to know. That they don’t and Egwene does is… kind of their own problem. Also, that they’re surprised at all by the vote of war in the first place is their own problem given, again, that they started a rebellion and hired Gareth Bryne to give them an army.

Does Egwene try to manipulate the political situation? Yes. Does she try to push the Aes Sedai into action when they’d rather sit and talk about acting and actually do nothing? Yes. Is that a false flag operation? No.

3: Egwene is 18 and has no qualifications

3.1: 

Rand al’Thor is 21 and has no qualifications. Perrin is 21 and has no qualifications. Luke bloody Skywalker is 20-ish and has no qualifications. There’s an entire genre out there filled with characters who are young and have no qualifications, by that definition, and Egwene is hardly less qualified for her role than plenty of other WoT characters are for theirs. In real life, that would be more of a problem. In fiction…eh. Depends how well it’s executed, for me. Some people have a higher or lower tolerance for this, and that’s fine. But it’s not remotely specific to Egwene, so I have a hard time taking it seriously.

3.2: 

Is she unqualified? An important point of context here is that this is the apocalypse. Things are falling apart in ways that no one’s really prepared for. The Aes Sedai are broken. This is sort of a theme across the books: the existing powers and systems and authorities are either in denial, or unprepared, or outdated. We can argue all day about the validity of that narrative premise, but that’s how this is set up. It’s how any of the young protagonists end up in power: because, in this ‘nothing is normal and everything is breaking’ world, no one is specifically qualified and those who can’t accept what’s happening are even less so.

Anyway, let’s look at Egwene. She’s trained under Moiraine and Siuan - political experts and also two of the Aes Sedai who have spent the most time preparing for the coming of the Dragon Reborn and the apocalypse. She’s trained under Amys and the Aiel Wise Ones - political experts, though in another culture. She even, arguably, has military experience in that she’s been trained by the Seanchan to be a weapon. She certainly has a great deal of firsthand experience in foreign affairs, having been held by the Seanchan, spent months with the Aiel, and travelled across the continent and interacted or negotiated with various countries’ leaders and governments. She’s familiar with Tower Law (thanks to Siuan), and highly skilled in the use of the One Power. She’s also intimately familiar with a great deal of the shit that has recently hit the fan: she’s a childhood friend of the Dragon Reborn, and has been front and centre at a number of rather key events lately. Also, she’s got good mentors: Siuan and Gareth Bryne, both leaders or former leaders in their own rights, teach her and vouch for her capability.

3.3:

She’s put into the position she’s in precisely because the other Aes Sedai believe her to be too young and unqualified to think or act for herself, and believe they can use her as a figurehead and puppet. They know the things an Amyrlin is and isn’t legally and technically empowered to do (and if they don’t, that’s on them), and they seem to accept the risk they take in appointing her to a position with those powers, trusting that she won’t be able to use them. That they’re wrong about this is their own fault. The lesson here is: don’t put someone in a figurehead role if you’re not prepared for them discovering that they have actual power, and deciding to use it. Look at historical monarchies, and young monarchs, and what happens to their advisers who think ‘I’ve got everything under control’

4. Everything else you’ve mentioned

The rest is subjective enough that trying to argue it would be an exercise in futility, and I feel like that’s not the point here anyway. For instance, “she gets mad at N&E because SAVING THE WORLD might cause HER problems” is…several degrees into interpretation and subjectivity; I disagree that this is what’s happening here, but the framing of this makes it hard to go anywhere productive. Same with “what should her priority have been, saving Lan or being holier-than-thou with Myrelle” - I disagree with the premise of the question itself, so there’s not much I can say.

So I’ll just…leave it there. Nothing’s stopping you from putting together these arguments as a post of your own, but I’m probably done airing them on my blog, given the sheer volume of vitriol I’ve received in response to the last set of asks. 

#look I do enjoy discussion #and I'm happy to have people disagree with me #but I'm probably done with this one specifically #because I don't see it going anywhere productive #and this is the most civil of the asks I have on it right now #asks #anon #wheel of time #egwene al'vere

[neuxue]

Wheel of Time liveblogging: The Gathering Storm ch 2

In which Egwene is excellent, understanding is reached, and laughter is achieved

Chapter 2: The Nature of Pain

Well that’s a promising start to a chapter.

Egwene! She only had one chapter last book but what a chapter it was, and I am loving her current arc so here’s to more of that, hopefully.

She smiled to her reflection, and her twin selves nodded to one another in satisfaction.

Speaking of reflections. It does seem to carry just a bit of double-meaning here (see what I did there?) if you want it to, what with her entire battle here to…maintain and also affirm her identity, and make those around her see her for who she truly is, and to be who she needs to be.

So she’s still spending quality time in the Mistress of Novice’s study every day. But she’s barely crying anymore. (Though, unlike a certain Dragon, she’s still capable of tears. Which is…good? I suppose? For a given definition of ‘good’, anyway).

The Aiel could laugh during the most cruel of tortures. Well, she could smile the moment she stood up.

I’m reminded, here, of the time when Rand forced himself to smile through the torture he was subjected to in the lead-up to Dumai’s Wells. Both Egwene and Rand have now been subjected to torture at the hands of the White Tower, and both have smiled in response, though the similarity pretty much ends there. I don’t really have a point to this comparison, because they’re very different situations and characters and contexts, but I like how something can be so superficially similar yet so different in every meaningful way.

(I would not be at all opposed to this arc culminating in a Dumai’s Wells level scene, though. I can’t see Egwene outright fighting the other Aes Sedai, but she did have that dream of the Seanchan attacking the Tower, and there’s also the issue of Mesaana…)

Give up? You’re asking Egwene when she plans to give up? Have you…met this girl? Ever? At any time across the last eleven books?

“Proper order, Silviana?” Egwene asked. “As it has been maintained elsewhere in the Tower?”

The score stands something like Egwene 2304913 – 0 Elaida. I’ve been keeping careful track.

Speaking of Elaida, Egwene gets to go serve her dinner. And, if we’re lucky, serve her in a more colloquial sense. (Does anyone even say that anymore? No? Nevermind then).

Silviana seems worried about Egwene’s wellbeing and Egwene doesn’t quite recognise it – in that, she and Rand have another thing in common, it would seem. The disconnect between them and those around them, when it comes to understanding that people are concerned for them, and even why those people might be concerned for them. Though again, while it’s a similarity on one level, it gets very different when looked at more closely.

She considered that last comment. Perhaps it hadn’t been surprise that Silviana had shown upon hearing of Egwene’s visit to Elaida. Perhaps it had been sympathy.

I’m momentarily amused at the memory of Egwene accusing Moiraine of not even recognising human emotion.

But Egwene’s role, as she sees and embodies it now, isn’t one she would think of as deserving sympathy. She’s not trying to get the other Aes Sedai to feel sorry for her. She’s trying to get them to follow her and recognise her as Amyrlin. More than that, she’s trying to repair the near-fatal damage that has already been done to the Tower and the Aes Sedai, and also prepare them for the end of the world, and at some point that starts demanding a force of nature more than a person.

Like so much else, the same could be said of Rand, to a degree. I say that a lot, I know, but what fascinates me about the parallels between Egwene and Rand are not the parallels themselves so much as the differences beneath them, which are highlighted by the surface-level similarities. And the more I think about it, the more I think it comes down to an issue of choice. Egwene chooses, where Rand was chosen.

I mean that not so much as a narrative truth but as a matter of perception, which in a way is what makes it so fascinating. This is a fantasy  world with prophecy and a Pattern and therefore a rather complicated notion of free will (or the lack thereof) that I would probably tie my brain into logical knots trying to untangle. So I’m not looking at how much choice or agency Rand and Egwene have relative to one another, but rather how much they perceive themselves to have. (Because perception and belief are the keys, aren’t they, to living freely a predestined life? But then, I’m an atheist; what would I know?)

Rand makes choices – he chooses to continue day after day, despite everything – but he does so with the increasing knowledge or certainty that his life does not belong to him but to the Pattern, to history, to the world itself. He chooses to do what must be done because it is his task and his duty and his destiny, and so is no choice at all. He is arguably the single most powerful individual in the world, but in many things he no longer perceives himself to have agency. He must do what he must. His choice is resignation. He is the chosen one; he does not get to choose.

(To go on a slight tangent from my tangent here, this relates back to what I was thinking about last chapter. That he has lost sight or sense of why he is fighting. He is using himself and everything around him, and destroying himself in the process, because it’s what he has to do, but it feels as if his aims are becoming increasingly…hollow. And with a fading sense of purpose beyond determined resignation, his ability to choose anything in a meaningful way fades as well, so he becomes little more than a weapon of fate, wielded by prophecy. Something is going to have to change that).

Egwene, though. Egwene actively chooses her path, and the steps she takes. Sure, she’s pushed and pulled by events around her, not to mention the part where she’s literally enslaved. Often, her choices are limited, and often she has to do things she would rather not, but the point is that she does not stop seeing them as choices. It is a matter of perception, and she believes herself to have agency. She leaves the Two Rivers because she wants something more. She goes to the Tower because she wants to learn. She goes to the Aiel because she wants to learn. She is summoned to become Amyrlin, but even then, she herself decides to truly be Amyrlin rather than a puppet. She makes that choice her own, rather than resigning herself to it. And now she is striving to save the Tower because she knows it needs saving. Egwene is not a prophecied hero; she is a hero because she chooses to be.

And I love that about her. I love that, if you try to map her story to the Hero’s Journey, she manufactures her own ‘call to adventure’ and then skips right past the ‘hero is reluctant’ step. I love that even when she is pushed a certain direction, she goes on her own terms. Becoming Amyrlin, being taken captive… when she surrenders, she does so in order to control. I love that instead of fighting a path she has been set on, she steps onto her own and dares the world to defy her.

It doesn’t make her storyline or character better or worse than Rand’s – at least, not the way I read it; they’re different characters and their different arcs are each lovely and effective in their own rights – but it enhances this effect of…contrasting parallels between them. For example, the way they deal with pain. Rand endures it because he must. Egwene embraces it because it is a victory. Both are determination and willpower, but one is resignation while the other is choice. It’s a bit like listening to the same piece of music played once in a major key and once in a minor key. The same, sort of, but also not the same at all.

Anyway.

Egwene treating Katerine as a servant amuses me far more than it should.

Egwene ignored the threat. What more could they do to her?

Not a question I would recommend asking, given that the answer is usually ‘challenge accepted’.

Egwene just gives them a lecture on precisely how fucked the Tower is right now, and how they should pull their heads out of their arses and do something about it.

More eloquently, of course. And very slightly more subtly.

Of course, this is no doubt lost on Katerine, given her actual Ajah. But Silviana seems to have been listening at the door…

I still rather like Silviana. I think Egwene kind of does as well. She certainly respects her, anyway.

No Alviarin? Where is she now? What is she up to? Trying to find a new concealer to cover the invisible mark Shaidar Haran left on her?

Yes, Egwene was winning. But she was beginning to lose the satisfaction she’d once felt at that victory. Who could take joy in seeing the Aes Sedai unravelling like aged canvas? Who could feel glad that Tar Valon, the grandest of all great cities, was piled with refuse? As much as Egwene might despise Elaida, she could not exult at seeing an Amyrlin Seat lead with such incompetence.

Time for Phase Two, perhaps? Whatever that might be, in this case?

I still just love the situation she’s in, because it’s so uniquely…odd. There’s an aspect of the classic ‘leading a rebellion from within the enemy’s camp’ element to it, of course, but the twist is that the Tower itself, and the other Aes Sedai, aren’t her enemies. She’s leading a rebellion, but one that seeks not to undermine or break the Tower, but rather to strengthen it. To take advangate of the cracks in the foundation, but at the same time to heal them. To gather support to her, but without ever letting the overall whole weaken.

Easy, right?

So now she has to figure out how to behave with Elaida. Punching her in the face, unfortunately, seems like it’s not an option.

Corridors are still shifting and also paintings are becoming significantly more creepy. Maybe Shai’tan once had ambitions of becoming an interior designer, and turned to evil when no one wanted to employ him.

Oh, there’s Alviarin.

This was the woman who had pulled down Siuan, the woman who had beaten Rand

So she knows about that now, it seems. Last book she was surprised to hear that Elaida had tried to have Rand kidnapped, but I guess she’s filled in the details.

And she thinks of him as Rand, here. It’s not ‘the woman who had beaten the Dragon Reborn’ and thus caused something of a diplomatic crisis. She doesn’t think of it here in terms of Elaida mishandling the Dragon Reborn, but of Elaida beating Rand. There is still love between them, even if it is strained almost to breaking and nearly overshadowed by everything else.

Elaida needed to know Egwene’s anger, she needed to be humiliated and made ashamed! She…

Egwene stopped in front of Elaida’s gilded door. No.

She could imagine the scene easily. Elaida enraged, Egwene banished to the dark cells beneath the Tower. What good would that do? She could not confront the woman, not yet. That would only lead to momentary satisfaction followed by a debilitating failure.

But Light, she couldn’t bow to Elaida either! The Amyrlin did no such thing!

Or…no. The Amyrlin did what was required of her. Which was more important? The White Tower, or Egwene’s pride? The only way to win this battle was to let Elaida think that she was winning. No…No, the only way to win was to let Elaida think there was no battle.

This is, I think, a very important moment in – or perhaps illustration of – Egwene’s character development. And it’s excellent.

We’ve already seen Egwene’s decision to accept pain, and her refusal to accept the role Elaida (and most of the Tower’s Aes Sedai) are trying to force her into. We’ve seen her determined and we’ve seen her defiant.

But this is different. Humility, I think we can agree, is not exactly one of Egwene’s main traits. That has often served her well – after all, arrogance, pride, and ambition are often separated from determination, confidence, and resolve by little more than context – but stubbornness even in the form of calm defiance isn’t the right tool, here.

The fact that she is able to recognise that, and not back away from it, is a real mark of strength and maturity in her. It reminds me of her conversation with Moiraine all the way back in TFoH, when Egwene asked why Moiraine had started doing what Rand told her. And Moiraine replied simply that she had remembered how to control saidar. It was a major moment in Moiraine’s own behaviour and approach, and Egwene is now facing something like that herself, and truly understanding it. Sometimes surrender, or the appearance of surrender, is necessary. Sometimes pride must be set aside.

This is about something far greater than her pride, and while that may seem a simple statement, it’s no easy thing to recognise and genuinely accept. Not just for Egwene – for anyone. But she accepts it here, and shows how far she has come, and how deserving of the Amyrlin Seat she is. She is not doing this for herself, but for the Tower. She will accept pain and sacrifice pride where necessary in order to heal and unite the Tower, will give of herself whatever is required, because it is about something greater than herself.

Moiraine would be proud. I’m proud. It’s such a strong moment, even though no one around her is able to notice anything of it.

Character development is one of those things that really benefits from a fourteen-book series, if you do it right.

Silence. That would be her weapon this evening.

Excellent. Silence is such an effective tool in so many circumstances, and it’s so often underestimated.

Ah, Meidani’s here. And not apparently happy about it. Poor Meidani; she’s caught in a pretty shit situation.

In stark contrast to Egwene’s understanding of when to set aside some measure of her own pride, Elaida’s sitting on basically a throne in an elaborately decorated room, smirking. Elaida wants power for power’s sake – she knows the world is going to need saving sometime in the near future, but while she is in her way trying to work towards that, it’s important to her that she be remembered as the one who saved it. That she be known as the greatest Amyrlin ever, etc. It’s not about the Tower and the World, it’s about Elaida. And she’s not effective enough to make that kind of arrogance work.

Though Egwene had not chosen an Ajah herself, she would have taken the Green.

This is one  thing I dislike about Egwene’s characterisation, actually. There’s such a good opportunity here for her to be truly of all Ajahs and of none. Not raised in the ordinary way, never given the choice of an Ajah, and therefore being in a position to understand and appreciate and identify somewhat with all of them. Especially because, while I can see why she might lean towards the Green, she does have elements of several of the others. There’s also the fact that she has brought a great deal of change already and means to bring more, so having her sort of…outside of the normal rigid structure of Ajahs, and instead as someone who genuinely stands getween and linked to and yet apart from all of them, could be a way to emphasise that. And it would underscore her suitability for the role of Amyrlin in general, because unlike every single other Aes Sedai, she actually isn’t of any Ajah, and never has been.

I just feel like it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity, and it always strikes me as slightly odd whenever it’s mentioned.

But Egwene held her tongue. This meeting was about survival. Egwene could bear straps of pain for the good of the Tower. Could she bear Elaida’s arrogance as well?

A less painful task, perhaps, but not necessarily a less difficult one.

Egwene broke her gaze away from Elaida’s. And – feeling the shame of it vibrate through her very bones – she bowed her head.

Elaida laughed, obviously taking the gesture the right way. “Honestly, I expected you to be more trouble. It appears that Silviana does know her duty.”

It seems like a small gesture to have to make, and her shame and anger could be read as slightly hyperbolic, but…it’s really hard to stay calm and let someone you absolutely hate take the upper hand, without making any move to show them how incompetent and mistaken they are, and that they’re only winning because you’re throwing the game.

Egwene hears Meidani’s name and knows she’s one of the spies, but doesn’t know the entirety of all the ways in which Meidani’s life sucks right now. Compelled by an oath she was forced to swear to spend time with Elaida, while knowing that Elaida knows she was sent by the rebels and terrified of what might happen if any of that goes wrong. Also the implication that their ‘pillow friendship’ has probably been renewed makes it even more unpleasant, given Meidani doesn’t really want anything to do with any of this.

“Ah, that is right,” Elaida said musingly. “It will be good to know how traitors have been treated in the past. Beheading seems too easy and simple a punishment to me. Those who split our Tower, those who flaunt their defection, a very special reward will be needed for them. well, continue your search then.”

How spectacularly cruel.

Egwene, meanwhile, is proving her ability to multitask: she can seethe and serve soup at the same time. Just about.

Elaida’s still being generally awful, asking Meidani for information about the rebels and insinuating that she could strip her of the shawl and then laughing about it. And Egwene continues to show admirable restraint by not punching her.

Light! What had happened to Elaida? Egwene had met this woman before, and Elaida had struck her as stern, but not tyrannical. Power changed people. It appeared that in Elaida’s case, holding the Amyrlin Seat had taken her sternness and solemnity and replaced them with a heady sense of entitlement and cruelty.

Well, and I think Fain might have had something to do with that, but otherwise Egwene is probably correct. Elaida craves power, but she clings to it too tightly. She’s not strong enough to feel secure in her position, so she tries to forcibly show herself to be even stronger, and instead ends up brittle.

At least some of the Aes Sedai are apparently nervous about the Seanchan, but Elaida dismisses that as well.

Egwene couldn’t speak. She could barely have sputtered. How would Elaida feel about these ‘exaggerated’ rumours if the Seanchan slapped a cold a’dam around her idiot neck? Egwene could sometimes feel that band on her own skin, itching, impossible to move.

…Yeah. It’s hard enough for her to keep silent and ignore Elaida tearing the Tower apart, and being wantonly cruel towards Meidani, and dismissive of a threat Egwene has seen. But the fact that the threat is the Seanchan makes it so much worse for her to be listening to this. She has suffered firsthand what Elaida scoffs at, and it’s no wonder she still feels echoes of it, and she can’t let herself show anything. So she’s stuck in a room with someone she hates, someone she thinks could bring down the Tower and possibly the world, and now she’s also stuck in here remembering enslavement and torture and generally one of the worst times of her life.

“No […] These Seanchan are not the problem. The real danger is the complete lack of obedience shown by the Aes Sedai.”

Holding onto power so hard that it shatters in her hands like porcelain. She is not strong enough to inspire respect, so instead she tries to beat everyone around her into submission. Which always ends well…

“Fortunately, I have an idea myself. Doesn’t it strike you as strange that the Three Oaths contain no mention of obedience to the White Tower? […] Why no oath to obey the Amyrlin? If that simple promise were part of all of us, how much pain and difficulty could we have avoided? Perhaps some revision is in order.”

Um…yikes. Double yikes because Meidani is listening to this and has already been forced into a fourth Oath of obedience.

Egwene is rather horrified at this notion; she has received oaths of fealty, but the first two were given voluntarily and the others were taken from those who tried to use her as a puppet, and none were sworn on the Oath Rod. There’s some grey morality there, but this is several steps further. Elaida wants to demand them of all Aes Sedai, for the sake of maintaining her own increasingly despotic power. Which is…understandably both terrifying and infuriating.

Egwene’s rage boiled within her, steaming like the soup in her hands. This woman, this…creature! She was the cause of the problems in the White Tower, she was the one who caused division between rebels and loyalists. She had taken Rand captive and beaten him.

Again with thinking of him as Rand here, and feeling angry at the fact that he was beaten, rather than at the fact that Elaida fucked things up with the Dragon Reborn. As for the rest…yeah, pretty much. The other Aes Sedai are not her enemies, and most want the Tower to be whole again, but Elaida stands in the way of that.

Egwene felt herself shaking. In another moment, she’d burst and let Elaida hear truth. It was boiling free from her, and she could barely contain it.

No! she thought. If I do that, my battle ends. I lose my war.

So Egwene did the only thing she could think of to stop herself. She dumped the soup on the floor.

Well, that’s…one way of handling things, I suppose. It’s certainly amusing, but again it’s actually not as excessive as it immediately appears, I don’t think. Given what Egwene has endured thus far, and everything that has happened as a result of Elaida, and even what she’s had to listen to in this scene alone, and the fact that she can’t let herself do or say anything and she has to act like she’s submissive and defeated…well, it’s not suprising that her self-control would waver slightly.

It is still amusing, though.

“I’m sorry,” Egwene said. “I wish that hadn’t happened.”

Ha. Well played.

And she has her composure back, so it seems to have worked.

Meidani gets the task of helping Egwene clean up the soup, so Egwene tries to tell Meidani to send for her. Of course, that just adds a third string to Meidani, pulling her in yet another direction, but Egwene doesn’t know that.

Egwene laid a hand on her shoulder. “Elaida can be unseated, Meidani. The Tower will be reunited. I will see it happen, but we must keep courage. Send for me.”

Meidani looked up, studying Egwene. “How…how do you do it? They say you are punished three and four times a day, that you need Healing between so that they can beat you further. How can you take it?”

“I take it because I must,” Egwene said, lowering her hand.

Leading by example. But she does win Meidani over very quickly here, by showing such determination and strength.

“I can help heal what has been broken, but I will need your help.”

I’m remembering way back in the beginning, when Nynaeve still thought of Egwene as her apprentice, and mentioned how ‘Egwene has the desire to heal, the need to’. And…in a way, she wasn’t wrong. Egwene hasn’t followed the same path of healing that Nynaeve has, but here she is trying to heal what is essentially the greatest wound to the Aes Sedai as a whole.

Elaida throws Egwene out, which is probably the best way this could have ended, all things considered.

Oh, except she wants Egwene to come back another day. Deep breaths, Egwene. You can do it.

“And if you so much as spill another drop, I will have you locked away in a cell with no windows or lights for a week.”

Elaida. Please. Can we stop with the locking people in boxes thing? That’s a parallel Rand and Egwene really don’t need to share.

Egwene left the room. Had this woman ever been a true Aes Sedai, in control of her emotions?

Yet Egwene herself had lost control of her emotions. She should never have let herself get to a point where she’d been forced to drop the soup. She had underestimated how infuriating Elaida could be, but that would not happen again. She calmed herself as she walked, breathing in and out. Rage did her no good.

Just like embracing pain, she has to learn how to do this, and it’s not exactly easy at first. But she knows where she went wrong, and is already making sure she will do better next time. And I like the recognition that rage does her no good, because it reminds me of her first meeting with Silviana, where Silviana asked why she was not hysterical and Egwene responded by saying she could not see how that would help.

Egwene ate contemplatively, listening to Laras and the scullions bang pots at washing up in the other room, surprised at how calm she felt.

She is learning true Aes Sedai serenity. Not the forced and brittle mask of it that so many seem to have used as a substitute, but the real thing. The ability to acknowledge emotion but dismiss it when it does not help her. Not forcing things like pain away, but accepting them as part of her. The ability to face anything, and withstand it in a state of calm.

She had changed; something was different about her. watching Elaida, finally confronting the woman who had been her rival all of these months, forced her to look at what she was doing in a new light.

She had imagined herself undermining Elaida and seizing control of the White Tower from within. Now she realised that she didn’t need to undermine Elaida. The woman was fully capable of doing that herself.

This is all excellent. She is steadfast and stubborn and determined, but she’s also able to recognise when she needs to shift her focus slightly, or reevaluate her exact goals and strategies. Because, again, it’s about something far greater than herself, and she knows it. And this is a lovely, subtle realisation.

Her role isn’t to undermine Elaida, but to be a source of strength in contrast to Elaida’s weakness, to be a centre around which the Tower can reform and rebuild and heal, even as Elaida shakes its foundations. She isn’t seizing control, because it isn’t about control, really. It’s about being there to support something that is crumbling, to show strength and sow unity amidst division and weakness.

It’s also a strong revelation because it means essentially relinquishing any sort of personal grudge against Elaida. It means making this, once again, not about her but about the Tower itself. Letting go of her own anger in order to focus on what is truly important.

Elaida would topple eventually, with or without Egwene’s help. Egwene’s duty, as Amyrlin, wasn’t to speed that fall – but to do whatever she could to hold the Tower and its occupants together. They couldn’t afford to fracture further. Her duty was to hold back the chaos and destruction that threatened them all, to reforge the Tower.

Yes, that, exactly. And holding the Amyrlin Seat, coming into power, may be a part of that, but this is the realisation that that part is…incidental, almost. That, again, it’s not about her at all. Nor is it about Elaida, even. It’s about doing whatever she can do to hold the Tower together and heal it.

And that’s what she’s been working towards this whole time, but this is just that…slight change in focus, and a much more subtle and nuanced understanding of her true purpose here, and what needs to be done.

She has come so far, to be able to see and understand and act upon this, and it’s beautiful to watch.

Time for another trip to Silviana, which will probably be edifying for anyone but Egwene. Because really, what can they do to her? And as Meidani showed –and as the reactions of some of the other Aes Sedai have shown – at some point it just makes the others respect her more, and thus serves her own purpose. She will not be broken so easily, and the others are coming to see that strength.

[Egwene] spoke calmly about the evening, omitting the fact that she’d dropped the bowl of soup on purpose. She did, however, say that she’d dropped it after Elaida had talked of revoking and changing the Three Oaths.

Silviana looked very thoughtful at that.

“Well,” the woman said, standing up and fetching her lash, “The Amyrlin has spoken.”

“Yes, I have,” Egwene said

Ha. It’s not quite on the level of “there’s no need to call me ‘sir’, professor” but that’s what I’m immediately reminded of, and it’s pretty excellent.

Oddly, Egwene felt no desire to cry out. It hurt, of course, but she just couldn’t scream. How ridiculous the punishment was!

It’s almost like the end of a training montage, except with…pain. She started off determined to embrace the pain, even though she wasn’t completely sure how, and did a decent job of it. But it still hurt, and she still screamed, and it took effort. Now…now, it just seems ridiculous.

She’s thinking of the far greater pain of seeing the division and hostility amongst the Ajahs, of hearing Elaida speak of an oath of obedience to the Amyrlin, of Meidani’s treatment.

Each of these things was a pain inside of Egwene, a knife to the chest, piercing the heart. As the beating continued, she realised that nothing they could do to her body would ever compare to the pain of soul she felt at seeing the White Tower suffer beneath Elaida’s hand. Compared with those internal agonies, the beating was ridiculous.

And so she began to laugh.

This is lovely. She thought, in the very beginning of her odd captivity, about how the Aiel could supposedly laugh through any torture. About how she could not see how she could manage that, but she could at least try to embrace the pain. And she had to remind herself of it at first, with something of a constant mantra, and over time it got easier, little by little. Easier still when she understood that every beating was a victory, a sign that she was winning.

And now…now she has realised something even greater than that: namely, that in the face of the wounds the Tower is facing, this pain is nothing. That in the face of a far greater task for a far greater purpose, this is a minor obstacle. A triviality. And that renders the pain…irrelevant, almost.

And so she laughs, finally succeeding at truly embracing pain and laughing in the face of it, without having to force it.

Laughter in the face of pain, serenity as she contemplates her true task – and the fact that it isn’t about undermining Elaida. These are major steps, and they show such incredible growth and understanding. Her way forward won’t be easy, but she understands what she has to do, and she’s strong enough to do it, and with that comes this sense of…lightness, almost.

The lashing stopped. Egwene turned. Surely that wasn’t all of it!

Silviana was regarding her with a concerned expression. “Child?” she asked. “Are you all right?”

Ha. Yeah, to anyone who is not Egwene (or Aiel, I suppose), that would look…rather worrying. It’s okay, Silviana, Egwene’s just badass and also a better Aes Sedai than most Aes Sedai.

“Can’t you see it?” Egwene asked. “Don’t you feel the pain? The agony of watching the Tower crumble around you? Could any beating compare to that?”

Silviana did not respond.

I understand, Egwene thought. I didn’t realise what the Aiel did. I assumed that I just had to be harder, and that was what would teach me to laugh at pain. But it’s not hardness at all. it’s not strength that makes me laugh. It’s understanding.

That is beautiful. And this is such a perfect chapter to follow the previous one, because the contrast is so clear. Rand hasn’t yet reached that understanding, not truly. He is lost and afraid and desperate and he doesn’t understand, not really, and he’s in so much pain that all he can think to do is become harder in order to prevent it from breaking him. So he has lost laughter, along with tears.

And the answer is understanding. Understanding what this is all for, as Egwene is finally understanding what her true focus is, what her battles and her war are all about. She was close, before, but now she understands it in full, and with that comes this sense of laughter and release and the true strength necessary to win, rather than the brittle hard strength of resistance and defiance.

So this is what Rand, too, will need to reach, in some form or another. An understanding of what it is he is doing, of why he is enduring all this pain, of what his task is and why it matters. He knows it, knows the prophecies and his role and knows he must win or the world dies, but it’s…like Egwene thinking that she has to beat Elaida and bring the Tower to herself. It’s very close to the right answer, but it lacks nuance, and the focus is ever so slightly off, but that small difference can mean everything.

“I will not make the same mistake [as Shemerin], Silviana. Elaida can say whatever she wants. But that doesn’t change who I am, or who any of us are. Even if she tries to change the Three Oaths, there will be those who resist, who hold to what is correct. And so, when you beat me, you beat the Amyrlin Seat. And that should be amusing enough to make us both laugh.” The punishment continued, and Egwene embraced the pain, took it into herself, and judged it insignificant, impatient for the punishment to cease. She had a lot of work to do.

What a fantastic chapter. So many great realisations, so much really wonderful character growth, and I am so very much looking forward to seeing how this arc plays out.

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