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The Wheel of Time and Lord Varys (second attempt)


Lord Varys

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14 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Arda is also supposed to be our world, but Tolkien didn't feel the need to name Melkor 'Shai'tan' or Sauron 'Asmodean'.

And just as Arda doesn't *really* make sense as *our world* due to geography and other issues, the Wheel world also doesn't make sense in this capacity. At best you can take the hints in that direction as easter eggs that the Wheel world could or might be our world, but there is no real attempt made to convince us that this must be the case, is important for the setting, etc.

I must also say that I can't really buy it since I have considerable trouble believing that the discovery of the One Power and the magical tech of the Age of Legends would lead to the people giving up mundane non-magical tech completely.

Now we enter TSR territory:

And I get it why people might like that book more. It appears to be broader. We get a massive prologue featuring the Children/Fain at the border of the Two Rivers, Lady Suroth on an island, and Min at Tar Valon. We even get our first Elaida POV. The story gets bigger and that is a good thing since this story could only get better (and perhaps even 'good') if we got more perspectives and more insight into the motivations of various characters.

But there are already massive stupidity problems in the Prologue. Elaida still has no clue about Rand being the Dragon Reborn ... while fucking Suroth on her island does have reports about him. Siuan brags about how she would know immediately when the Seanchan returned because people would send her reports via carrier pigeons ... but Elaida and the Reds don't get such reports, of course, nor the many Ajahs allied with the Reds.

Also, it seems Jordan dropped the ball in the 'Aes Sedai cannot lie' department since Siuan herself tells Min that she spread the story that the girls were working on a farm. How can she do that if she cannot lie? I suggested that she could have told her non-Aes Sedai servants and spokespeople to do it when I suggested she don't tell the truth about the Black Ajah ... however, with the girls nobody but Siuan seemed to have known the truth - so how could she possibly spread that story without lying herself. Even if she figured out a way to imply it ... her sisters shouldn't be as stupid as to not realize when the Amyrlin misdirects them.

Elaida even investigated the story and followed every 'rumor' claiming this back to Siuan herself, so Siuan is actually the source of that story.

Also, Min basically foreseeing the coup and Siuan childishly and stupidly not even considering the possibility that her own sisters might turn against her, depose her, gentle and imprison her is perhaps the worst reaction to prophecy in this series so far. I had forgotten how easily the coup could have been averted at that point.

And speaking about prophecy: Siuan thinks the prophecies about the Dragon are *there* basically as propaganda? That makes no sense in context - a prophecy coming true publicly or it being fulfilled being told to the public in a convincing manner might work as propaganda ... but nobody had those prophecies or wrote them down so the Dragon Reborn would have a propaganda department when he showed up.

I also realized again why I really started to hate this series with TSR and following (also did got into book 5 to some degree).

We have only completely toxic/abusive 'romantic relationships'. Perrin risked his life saving Faile just a couple of days ago - which seemed to mark the beginning of their friendship/relationship ... and now we already have Perrin roar at Faile and Faile actually slapping Perrin for basically no reason? What kind of shit show is this? This was written in the 1990s and not the 1890s.

Also, there is literally no character development for certain characters. We are in book 4 now and if something continuously manipulates people and events it is Mr. Ta'veren Rand al'Thor (and presumably also the lesser ta'veren but in their cases we basically see zero ta'veren affects, so ... who knows?) yet people insist that evil Moiraine and her Aes Sedai manipulate people. That's just silly and factually incorrect. The ta'veren influence and rewrite the pattern (i.e. reality itself and how it is perceived) not mundane Aes Sedai - they are manipulated by the ta'veren, too.

We also get silly conflicts/motivations. Faile and Mat both want to leave Rand ... why? Because they stand a better chance against the Forsaken, Darkfriends, Shadowspawn on their own? Since they can, of course, assume that the bad guys will just accept that they are no longer Team Dragon and thus no longer legitimate targets for the Anti-God of the Universe? Of course nobody would go after them, capture them, torture them, kill them, etc. to get to Rand...

This general setting that Rand should not work with Moiraine and her Aes Sedai allies (Siuan) is just stupid. The Dragon Reborn is going to need the help of the female channelers just as much as she will need his help. The entire conflict and this irrational fear that one side will want to or has to dominate the other is just childish and stupid.

And I really cannot stomach this constant misogyny of most of the male characters who have such frail egos that they constantly view women as manipulative evil bitches. Even more so, that this is often justified as per their behavior if you think about how the girl gang acted like complete shitheads when/after Mat let them out of their cell at the end of TDR.

Jordan doesn't seem to be able to write as having a normal relationship and actually liking/loving people without an evil secret agenda, especially not women. I mean, Perrin feels pressured to stop shaving because Faile likes him with a beard. What kind of an attitude is this? Who wants to read something like that and pretend those two have a normal relationship?

The straw which broke the camel's back for me was the completely childish and infantile behavior of gentled Siuan/Leane after they escape from the White Tower. That was literally unbearable. I'm not sure if I can get beyond that.

This is getting beyond parody now.

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17 hours ago, Mazzack said:

I don't want to do much to defend that relationship, because it is indeed pretty awful, but I also started developing a beard and stopped shaving as a result of my then-girlfriend-now-fiancee expressing a preference for me with a beard. It did feel a little bit like I was pressured at the time, but I also did not feel like it was a big deal to go along with it. I bear her no animus for it and don't really see it as a marker for an abusive relationship

I'd say there are two aspects to this. There is nothing wrong with trying to please a partner or spouse if it pleases you to do this ... but it is quite another thing to present it in such a matter that one partner/spouse uses her skills at manipulation or coercion to do that even if it doesn't please you very much.

We clearly see that Perrin doesn't like his beard very much and he feels trapped and treated badly by Faile for 'making him have it'.

Continuing the nonsense that is the beginning of the novel at hand, I'd also like to point out that the entire Suroth prologue shows that I was right about the shit show that was the revelation of the Darkfriend thing back in TGH.

Suroth uses her captured Aes Sedai damane as a source information on the lands they want to conquer - confirming that the Seanchan definitely listen to what foreign damane have to say. In fact, it is rather obvious that they would be milked for information as thoroughly as possible considering the sul'dam could weed out any lies. If she does that then a captured Egwene spilling the beans about Suroth and Liandrin being Darkfriends working together would have also reached the ears of the upper echelons of the Seanchan state, especially their secret police.

Also, we learn that Suroth doesn't control all her people and had to promote one of her underlings to a higher position - with the secret in question most likely being that sul'dam are latent channelers. If Suroth couldn't keep that under the rugs because all her people were Darkfriends sworn to her then she sure as hell couldn't stop the people (aside from Egwene) from spilling the beans about her being a Darkfriend working with an accursed Aes Sedai.

The attempt of Berelain to seduce Rand is perhaps the worst scene I've read in those books so far. I don't even want to rant about that. It is wrong on so many levels. What I do rant about, though, for a moment, is the silliness that the Aiel guards and Defenders of the Stone would allow the woman in just because she herself told them the Dragon had summoned her. I mean, if that's security at that place why doesn't Rand just shoot himself? He cannot survive for five seconds if everybody saying that they have been summoned by him get inside without anybody double-checking. I honestly don't know how this could have been written any worse.

Directly after that comes the silly scene where Perrin confronts the Aiel guards and - I kid you know - picks up one of the spear girls (while their spears are at his throat) up and puts her out of his way. That shows how much Jordan respects and portrays women in a positve light. My ass. And of course Faile just pretends that she doesn't need Perrin to defend her against other men. In truth she craves a strong man who protects her, like every woman does.

Also, kind of silly how Perrin's first idea when the axe runs amok is that Rand tried to kill them. Why would he think that and not, you know, that a Forsaken or Black Ajah tried to murder then? Considering what they went through that's much more likely.

And can please somebody just shoot Mat for me? After three books this ungrateful, stupid, obnoxious little prick still blames Moiraine for his problems??? This irresponsible dumb freak stole an accursed dagger and nearly got himself killed, threatening basically the entire world in this process. Moiraine saved his ugly hide and then later the Aes Sedai - the Amyrlin included - worked their ass off to save him ... and this guy shows neither gratitude nor humility or common decency. Not for that, and not that the woman and Lan saved his fucking village, his neighbors, and the lives of him and his friends countless times over - while he himself stumbles through the plot like drunk moron on acid.

And we, the readers, are supposed to sympathize with him? We are to like this ungrateful prick? No, thank you.

I think it was here that the series really started to break down for me the first time around. No proper character development, just silly behavior all over the place.

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Seriously, has Jordan to use weirdo retcons at the beginning of nearly every book? I didn't expect him to repeat the mess that's the beginning of TGH later, but he does it again, although on a smaller scale, with the character of Amico Nagoyin who was not, in fact, stilled during her capture in TDR - unlike the weirdo claims in the beginning of TSR.

Amico was captured by Egwene in the dream world and later knocked out completely when Mat let the girls out of the cell. That was her capture. It didn't include stilling at all.

I assume Jordan through continuity out the window here so he could go through with his 'stilling removes the magical oaths' plot ... but, you know, he could actually have had that by Amico burning herself out after her capture or by Moiraine stilling her intentionally for some reason.

Instead he just created a continuity issue for no reason.

Also, the talk really devolves into shit in this book. I mean, I had to listen to this:

Quote

Seemingly ignoring the Aes Sedai, Egwene peered into Elayne’s eyes. Elayne wanted to look away, and could not. Suddenly Egwene leaned closer, whispering behind a cupped hand. “I love him. Like a brother. And you like a sister. I wish you well of him.”

Elayne’s eyes widened, a smile spreading slowly across her face. She answered Egwene’s hug with a fierce hug of her own. “Thank you,” she murmured softly. “I love you too, sister. Oh, thank you.”

Who talks and acts like that but clichéd, badly written characters from children's books.

Elayne has, so far, met Rand al'Thor only once - what's months ago at this point. She doesn't know him and has pretty much no reason to be obsessed with him. Ta'veren nonsense or not, this is getting ridiculous.

Also, how full of self-hatred and misogyny are the girls? They actually think an Aes Sedai cannot fall in love ... but they themselves all do fall in love and want to be fucking Aes Sedai? How are they different from other Aes Sedai? Why do they view Aes Sedai in general as unnatural, man-hating monsters?

Also, is it just me or have Elayne and the Emond's Field girls literally nothing in common and no reason to be friends aside from, you know, the random fact that Elayne is basically the only other novice Egwene met at Tar Valon she bothered to interact with. The author continues to insist they are friends, but he never shows what they have in common, what they like about each other, why they want to spend time with each other, etc. The only reason why we have to buy that Elayne and Egwene are friends is that they say so - in silly, clichéd terms. But we never see this, actually.

This gets even worse when the author decided to turn their friendship into a bitch fight where slapping and other means to establish dominance over 'a friend' becomes more and more prominent, resulting in the silly scenario where the future queen has to be the conciliator between the alpha girls Nynaeve and Egwene. Elayne is groomed to be a queen in a non-democratic system. If anybody should take charge then she would be the one, since she was groomed to do that her entire life, when Egwene is an innkeep's child and Nynaeve has at best experience how to deal with a bunch of peasants.

Also, how silly is it that they do not figure out that a Forsaken/Shadowlord/powerful Darkfriend might have taken over Andor and Queen Morgase ... meaning why the hell doesn't Elayne want to check on her mom in the wake of the news Mat and Thom must have brought from Andor? They talk about Sammael in Illian, but so far the Andor situation hasn't even come up.

Instead, the only topic Elayne can talk or think about is fucking Rand.

Also, the whole book really suffers from the fact that the author cannot just throw all the guys together into one big council scene. We waste time and time and time with folks and their private relationship issues. We can also have (some of) that - but the fucking Dragon Reborn should call a council where his friends and allies and lickspittles can offer all their advice so that they can try to get all on the same page. Instead we get people talking about each other but not with each other.

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Oh, Gaebril and Morgase are actually mentioned briefly later in the beginning of TSR ... but only to be dismissed as a non-issue. Effectively they are mentioned to serve as a reminder for the reader, but the characters themselves remain as dumb as ever.

And, man, if I were a misogynist and/or somebody who likes to beat up people I'd really cheer a lot scenes in TSR. If I were not listening to the audiobooks I'd might start to note whenever some person either slaps or wants to slap a person they are close to/'love'. And then there are the scenes where folks enjoy to torture captured Black Ajah. I expect that to get only worse as the story progresses.

But the biggest thing right now was the scene where Elayne and Egwene want to help Rand to understand saidin better.

We are introduced to friends (or one friend or some weirdo royal woman the guy in question has met only once very briefly who as a stalker-like obsession with him) talking to a friend which is then by viewed by said friends as 'a plot' by Moiraine to manipulate him. First - how silly is it to view an open conversation as nefarious intrigue - friends might want to persuade their friend there, but this is neither scheming nor plotting - it is just a conversation. And second - how twisted are people who view friends talking to friends as scheming in the first place. People doing that wouldn't be friends.

And then, man, is Jordan putting those scheming bitches in their place for presuming to be able to tell a man how to do his sorcery. He has Rand grab them and turn them into his helpless little dolls in a matter of seconds ... the fact that he later 'apologizes' for this doesn't change the fact that male dominance has be established and reinforced. Men are not only physically stronger than women - and thus the only ones who should be warriors as Siuan Sanche herself established in TGH - they are also naturally (much) more powerful than men in the One Power, establishing and mirroring the natural hierarchy of the sexes.

Women's nature is also reinforced by the casual manner in which Elayne/Egwene mention and concern themselves with Rand's domestic issues - they think about how his bedchamber looks like, Egwene more or less cleans the mess with the feathers Rand created, and we are informed that the person managing domestic tasks in the Stone is - surprise! - another woman.

And for the hundredth time we learn that woman's natural behavior is to care for the men in charge who, in turn, are for some reason naturally willing to submit to woman's leadership in naturally female domestic fields - we have that in the Two Rivers, at Fal Dara, at various inns, and basically with every woman who ever interacted with or cared for a man in this series.

Also, what shit is this?

Quote

My mother says men are different from us. She says we want to be in love, but only with the one we want; a man needs to be in love, but he will love the first woman to tie a string to his heart.

So in Jordan's mind women make men love them - and that very much fits with how he describes the sexes and their relationships. Love isn't actually love not even desire - but manipulation and seduction. Man's natural state is that he doesn't need a woman - they only make him want them with their evil femine wiles, their seduction techniques, their beauty, their breasts, etc. Every woman is basically an attractive slut/whore, the only difference is between good and bad sluts - good sluts seduce and 'guide' a man for his own good whereas bad sluts really want to exploit men for their own gain.

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Jordan has some deeply ingrained gender role ideas that I found problematic reading them even as they were coming out. It's littered in the little details, but we've had this conversation before and having women rulers and Aes Sedai doesn't balance out his world.

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7 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

Jordan has some deeply ingrained gender role ideas that I found problematic reading them even as they were coming out. It's littered in the little details, but we've had this conversation before and having women rulers and Aes Sedai doesn't balance out his world.

I actually think that the way he portrays women makes it worse, because it constantly hammers home the fact how women (should) behave, etc. In a sense that's worse than, say, if there were fewer women who were not behaving in the silly Jordan manner.

I don't really want to beat that dead horse, but right now the only thing the story is about are the gender and relationship issues the characters have.

I mean, I had to listen to magical metaphysics which feel like the naturalisation of gender roles ... and which basically read the way good men and women behave during sex, i.e. the women give in to the guy while the man takes what he wants. The latter pretty much borders on rape apologetics ... and definitely reinforces the idea that proper sex magic with men has to be rough and they have to take what they need for it to be good, etc.

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“Yes, it does,” Egwene insisted eagerly. “Rand, we just do it a little differently, that’s all. I imagine myself to be a flower, a rosebud, imagine it until I am the rosebud. That is like your void, in a way. The rosebud’s petals open out to the light of saidar, and I let it fill me, all light and warmth and life and wonder. I surrender to it, and by surrendering, I control it. That was the hardest part to learn, really; how to master saidar by submitting, but it seems so natural now that I do not even think about it. That is the key to it, Rand. I am sure. You must learn to surrender—” He was shaking his head vigorously.

“That’s nothing like what I do,” he protested. “Let it fill me? I have to reach out and take hold of saidin. Sometimes there’s still nothing there when I do, nothing I can touch, but if I didn’t reach for it, I could stand there forever and nothing would happen. It fills me all right, once I take hold, but surrender to it?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Egwene, if I surrendered—even for a minute—saidin would consume me. It’s like a river of molten metal, an ocean of fire, all the light of the sun gathered in one spot. I must fight it to make it do what I want, fight it to keep from being eaten up.”

Not to mention that this is another instance of dumb girl since folks knew for the entire history of the Aes Sedai pre- and post-Breaking that women and men to it differently.

But the whole relationship stuff is even worse:

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He was ready for Elayne to pick up like a lost puppy if she handled him the way they had discussed. She thought Elayne would manage him nicely, now and later. For as much later as they had.

Not to mention how Elayne and Rand talk about each other's 'feelings' and how Rand later dismisses the possibility that Egwene and Elayne basically staged the entire scene, treating him like a piece of cattle passing from one hand to the next.

It is kind of interesting to see this kind of ugly thing taking place with women being the one treating people like goods, basically, but it is still part of Jordan's general misogyny to portray it as something the scheming women do without men even realizing what's going on.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

It is kind of interesting to see this kind of ugly thing taking place with women being the one treating people like goods, basically, but it is still part of Jordan's general misogyny to portray it as something the scheming women do without men even realizing what's going on.

I hesitate to call Jordan a misogynist, I just view him as a Southern gentleman of a different generation. Yeah, there are problems with the writing, but I hesitate to ascribe that label to him. That's too personal for a man I don't know and I think intent is important, because I don't think it was malicious. We can talk about the themes and writing promoting the misogynistic views of a more traditional conservative worldview and attempt to point out why it is so.

Kind of like not calling someone stupid, but pointing out their stupid behavior, if that makes sense.

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8 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I hesitate to call Jordan a misogynist, I just view him as a Southern gentleman of a different generation. Yeah, there are problems with the writing, but I hesitate to ascribe that label to him. That's too personal for a man I don't know and I think intent is important, because I don't think it was malicious. We can talk about the themes and writing promoting the misogynistic views of a more traditional conservative worldview and attempt to point out why it is so.

Kind of like not calling someone stupid, but pointing out their stupid behavior, if that makes sense.

I didn't call him a misogynist as such, I said that the issue at hand - the way he has women to scheme to arrange romantic relationships and marriages - is part of his general misogyny. And that 'general misogyny' is something I think is visible to various degrees in all his female characters and/or in the way various characters talk about women.

For men, women in Jordan's are both superfluous and dangerous to various degrees. Even positve/good women are schemers - like Egwene and Elayne. They might accomplish something good with their schemes and manipulation but they still cannot be honest and straightforward, they have to lie and pretend and misdirect.

And unless I'm very much mistaken to crucial part of Rand's journey - and to a lesser degree that of Perrin and Mat as well - is to ensure that he is not ever mastered by a woman. That male dominance is, in the end, always ensured. Both in the magical and the mundane sphere. That first and rather prominently established here in TSR when Rand showed the girls they place by grabbing them and isolating them from saidar when they tried to mess with him. We also get it with how Perrin establishes himself as the one in charge Faile - he saves her from the magical trap, not the other way around. And, more importantly, Faile - like any woman in this world - craves a man who tells her what to do. They need that. I didn't read much about Siuan's later obsession with Gareth Bryne, but it is quite clear that she only becomes a 'real woman' as such once she finally admits she is in love with him.

And of course, I'm only talking about his literature here, not his person.

Also, while this whole thing is problematic on a conceptual level it is also very poorly written dialogue - and that would be the case even if this were a book series for children.

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I didn't mean to say you were saying that, I just wanted to head that off for future discussion.

And I agree that the Perrin/Faile relationship is rife with problems. Even disregarding the spanking he gives her (which is hard to do because ... ugh) the message it presented in a positive way, but is really dismissive of women in a way I don't think he intended. That men shouldn't coddle women so that they can live up to their potential is just so patronizing that it makes me cringe. Part of the message is good (women should be allowed to be strong) but it's wrapped in a message of male dominance and female submissiveness that I just can't stand. Aside from the annoyance of their bickering and lack of communication, they are just the worst couple. There is one time I like them and that is when they are in Emond's Field. Everything else is just too frustrating to read.

That's not to say I don't like Faile. She's fine for the most part, especially as she matures and grows the fuck up, but as a couple, I hate just almost everything about them.

And Siuan and Moiraine getting their happily ever after with a man ... gag. Hated that a lot too.

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2 hours ago, Gertrude said:

And I agree that the Perrin/Faile relationship is rife with problems. Even disregarding the spanking he gives her (which is hard to do because ... ugh) the message it presented in a positive way, but is really dismissive of women in a way I don't think he intended. That men shouldn't coddle women so that they can live up to their potential is just so patronizing that it makes me cringe. Part of the message is good (women should be allowed to be strong) but it's wrapped in a message of male dominance and female submissiveness that I just can't stand. Aside from the annoyance of their bickering and lack of communication, they are just the worst couple. There is one time I like them and that is when they are in Emond's Field. Everything else is just too frustrating to read.

He actually spanks her? I haven't reached that part yet - or if I did, I forgot (I know TSR completely and got some way into book 5).

Can you elaborate a little bit about the context?

2 hours ago, Gertrude said:

That's not to say I don't like Faile. She's fine for the most part, especially as she matures and grows the fuck up, but as a couple, I hate just almost everything about them.

I find her not really that bad as a person, either. So far she is the least like the standard Jordan woman. But the entire setup of Perrin getting a prophecy about falcon who is going to chain him is so stupid a metaphor for 'a romance' is just unbearable ... not to mention that he seems to be getting another 'evil love interest' with Berelain.

Faile as a character is completely stupid, I think, in her insistence to stay with the gang in TDR. No real person would be doing that. And 'ta'veren' isn't an explanation for this. She effectively stalks and harasses Perrin - the worst it is in Illian, I think, when he goes to the smithy and she actually follows him there (or searches for him until she finds him there)

2 hours ago, Gertrude said:

And Siuan and Moiraine getting their happily ever after with a man ... gag. Hated that a lot too.

The big thing were I cut my ropes with the series the last time around was when Jordan turned Leane and Siuan into silly little giggling girls after they escaped Tar Valon. That was early book 5, was it not? And the Bryne thing starts when they first meet him on the road.

There you get it thrown in your face that power robs women of their humanity/womanhood. Real women are properly besotted with men, they lust after them, they crave their attention ... they do not presume to rule over them like the mighty Amyrlin Seat and the Keeper of the Scrolls did when they were still all high and mighty.

It is from this change that you can draw the conclusion that the Aes Sedai are basically unnatural women to various degrees because they presume to rule over men in a way they are not supposed to.

Jordan's intention clearly is to show that the sexes have to work together - as the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends did - for society to work properly. But he also sends the message that powerful sorceresses aren't a good thing at all.

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The Perrin spanking incident happens on their way to Emond's Field in the Ways. Perrin thinks Faile is acting childish after their prolonged bickering and spanks her. That's the context. It's ridiculous and infuriating and it's played for laughs. Yeah, that's the guy I'd want to marry - the one who thinks of me as a child to be disciplined at his whim. (book 4 I think - I've lost track of where you are.)

And yeah, I hate pretty much everything about the Siuan and Leane situation. I can't for the life of me figure out why stilling de-ages someone into unrecognizability unless Siuan needs to be sexy enough for Bryne to follow a pair of blue eyes and Leane to be young and sexy enough for her to fall back on her feminine wiles. It's reductive and adds absolutely nothing to the story except some small shock value when the Salidar Aes Sedai don't recognize them. 

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11 hours ago, Gertrude said:

The Perrin spanking incident happens on their way to Emond's Field in the Ways. Perrin thinks Faile is acting childish after their prolonged bickering and spanks her. That's the context. It's ridiculous and infuriating and it's played for laughs. Yeah, that's the guy I'd want to marry - the one who thinks of me as a child to be disciplined at his whim. (book 4 I think - I've lost track of where you are.)

 

I remember him spanking her after she hits him in the face twice. 
 

Doesn’t make it right, but it wasn’t because he thought she was acting childish. 

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11 hours ago, Gertrude said:

The Perrin spanking incident happens on their way to Emond's Field in the Ways. Perrin thinks Faile is acting childish after their prolonged bickering and spanks her. That's the context. It's ridiculous and infuriating and it's played for laughs. Yeah, that's the guy I'd want to marry - the one who thinks of me as a child to be disciplined at his whim. (book 4 I think - I've lost track of where you are.)

I just checked the summaries and seem to have mostly blanked out on the entire Two Rivers plotline of the book - although I do remember Slayer now that I got reminded that he exists.

Reads like other horseshit as a scenario, so I'm really looking forward to that part.

11 hours ago, Gertrude said:

And yeah, I hate pretty much everything about the Siuan and Leane situation. I can't for the life of me figure out why stilling de-ages someone into unrecognizability unless Siuan needs to be sexy enough for Bryne to follow a pair of blue eyes and Leane to be young and sexy enough for her to fall back on her feminine wiles. It's reductive and adds absolutely nothing to the story except some small shock value when the Salidar Aes Sedai don't recognize them. 

Oh, it does add a lot of bad stuff to the overall story and setting - that what I laid out above. And this is most definitely intentional. Jordan wanted to humiliate and ridicule those women who were once so high and mighty.

And it seems that's also a trend with the female Forsaken, no? Lanfear gets captured and killed and turned into a less powerful version of herself as a punishment. And the others seem to be broken and tortured and humiliated in other ways, right down to the point of utter ridiculousness where a very powerful Forsaken is broken by being turned into a servant ... unless I misread some of the summaries.

We also have this trend with the Black Ajah who are captured, etc.

Thinking about that - how are Tuon-Mat portrayed? Any slapping going on there, too?

8 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

I remember him spanking her after she hits him in the face twice.

Doesn’t make it right, but it wasn’t because he thought she was acting childish. 

I must say in context of those books and this world we would actually have to conclude that it is right and proper doing that kind of thing. Physical chastisement of children, spouses, students (and, unless I'm mistaken, monarchs, if you are Cadsuane), etc. is common practice and very much a way to express your love and concern. Not to mention part of normal education - I mean, Sheriam routinely spanks her novices and Accepted, but our girls don't hate for that. They find it perfectly normal, and even joke about how their butt hurts (I recall that Elayne cannot lie on the back because of her most recent 'treatment').

If Jordan had had problem with that concept he would have likely portrayed it as problematic, would have had characters and cultures where spanking isn't a thing, etc. So far I'm not seeing anything like that.

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12 hours ago, Gertrude said:

And yeah, I hate pretty much everything about the Siuan and Leane situation. I can't for the life of me figure out why stilling de-ages someone into unrecognizability

It's a bit silly, but consistent. Channellers normally age very slowly, but the Oaths make Aes Sedai look ageless. Without the Oaths, Siuan and Leane would still look very young, and stilling removes the effects of the Oaths. They'd age normally from that point on.

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13 minutes ago, felice said:

It's a bit silly, but consistent. Channellers normally age very slowly, but the Oaths make Aes Sedai look ageless. Without the Oaths, Siuan and Leane would still look very young, and stilling removes the effects of the Oaths. They'd age normally from that point on.

There's later a very old Novice (a grandmother) who actually starts to grow more youthful in appearance as she starts channeling. It's not an immediate thing but a gradual effect in her case.

His basic idea seems to be that channeling actively makes your cells and organs more vital and rejuvenates them, hence people living hundreds of years. The oath accelerates aging, however, cutting down the lifespan, so its effect on the body appears to be short-circuited. Oath removed, all that rejuvenation and vitality that was held back or whatever ends up rushing back in.

 

 

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Neither the ageless look or the shortening of the life span makes much sense in context ... unless you go just with 'arcane object from the distant past can have a multitude of unknown and convenient side effects that further the plot'. I know that the Oath Road was an instrument of punishment in the past ... but there is no inherent reason why such a thing should be designed to reduce people's lifespan if the actual purpose of it was to prevent criminals from committing crimes in the future.

And if the only way the 'Paradise on Earth' society of the Age of Legends could make people swear binding vows was to cut their lifespan in half, then they would have *never* done that ... considering this would be very twisted inhumane behavior.

As for 'agelessness' as such - that very concept means, by default, a vague youthful appearance. The moment we stop to grow and develop we begin to age, so agelessness would be a person frozen the way she look around the age of twenty or so.

It light of that, neither Siuan nor Leane would look 'younger' after their stilling but more or less the way they do.

And channeling also doesn't 'slow growth' as it might slow aging, or else channelers starting to channel at, say, the age of ten or so would still look like eleven or twelve years and decades later - which doesn't seem to be the case.

There isn't the slightest indication that the channeling of the novices and Accepted slows down their growth and development.

But the looks of the women after stilling isn't the issue - it is their childish and infantile behavior.

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Thanks for correcting me on the context of the Perrin/Faile spanking. I just remember that incident as them both behaving badly and neither one using their words. So yes, it's not right, but it makes more sense in a Jordan universe as to why he did. (which is obviously still problematic).

As to the agelessness, Siuan has only been Aes Sedai for 20 years, yeah? How much de-aging should we expect? I'd think she didn't age much in that interval, especially not enough to become unrecognizable. I know it's a magical artifact, but it just seems like a random effect and That's a hell of an effect to inflict on someone's body all at once as the oath is removed rather than just keep them at the current state, or at worst, shed those effects over time.

It's just another Jordan detail that feels random to me. I get that feeling a lot from him - lots of details to make the world broad, not much thought put into them to make it deep.

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I think he really wanted to lean into the agelessness as being so unnatural and strange. It's not that they are "forever youthful", it's literally described again and again as literally ageless -- something in you brain can't put an age to them. Doesn't matter if they're perfectly smooth-featured, it doesn't look "young" and it doesn't look "old". It's ageless.

So when you're used to someone looking ageless, and then suddenly they look like any particular age, it's jarring and they may indeed be unrecognizable at first.

The other issue with the "agelessness" is that it's so strong and obvious an effect specifically because they are taking three oaths, not one. 

In the AoL, I believe the general use was for particularly heinous criminals to take a single Oath designed to end their crime. The "ageless" effect would be so minimal as to be unnoticeable (confirmed by Jordan), suggesting they were more of an unintended effect of the Oath Rod. As to the reduction of lifespan, that clearly was intentional, but possibly because it was a necessary aspect of creating a device that could bind people to oaths rather than as a further punishment.

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

 

There isn't the slightest indication that the channeling of the novices and Accepted slows down their growth and development.

Elayne and Nynaeve discuss it in Ebou Dar. 
 

Novices and Accepted absolutely have their aging slowed. 

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1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

if the only way the 'Paradise on Earth' society of the Age of Legends could make people swear binding vows was to cut their lifespan in half, then they would have *never* done that ... considering this would be very twisted inhumane behavior.

Compared to the alternative of severing a rogue channeller from the Source entirely, which even aside from the psychological effects would reduce their lifespan far more (to human normal), it seems pretty reasonable. And the person making the oath has to agree to do it.

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

As for 'agelessness' as such - that very concept means, by default, a vague youthful appearance.

It's clearly not what Jordan means.

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