The Wheel of Time: The Wheel Weaves as Jeff Bezos Wills (Book Spoilers)

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, wolverine said:

I thought even before stilling she wasn't particularly powerful, but I could be misremembering. 

She was the most powerful Aes Sedai, equal to Moiraine, though both were under Cadsuane (but everyone seemed to have believed she'd died.) But she doesn't seem powerful compared to Elayne, Egwene, and (especially) Nynaeve.

[wolverine]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

She was the most powerful Aes Sedai, equal to Moiraine, though both were under Cadsuane (but everyone seemed to have believed she'd died.) But she doesn't seem powerful compared to Elayne, Egwene, and (especially) Nynaeve.

Got it.  Maybe I just preferred thinking ability in the one power wasn't the most important factor in their fickle hierarchy. 

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, wolverine said:

Got it.  Maybe I just preferred thinking ability in the one power wasn't the most important factor in their fickle hierarchy. 

Why wouldn't wizards consider it important to be magically powerful? That's the thing that makes them special, makes them wizards. Their literal power. 

The confusion/consternation over this part of Aes Sedai culture is, frankly, revealing. People who think they're special are jealous and superior about being slightly more special than their peers. 

Have you people never had a job before?

[Ran]

And new thread time.

[Arakasi]

We’ve already had a scene of that anyway. When Egwene is all preening over what Siaun is saying only to find out it’s talking about Nynaeve. But there is a difference between some discussion of strength and implied behaviour because of it and the ridiculous levels Jordan went to.

So yes you might think a coworker is better or worse than you but if you’re stack ranking your department then you probably got some issues. That level of detail has no place in a show and I don’t want the characters to talk about how strong they are since that just would come off poorly.

[Jace, Extat]

You realize it was written by a military man, right? And saluting or standing at attention/parade rest is not optional?

[Lord Varys]

24 minutes ago, Babblebauble said:

Why wouldn't wizards consider it important to be magically powerful? That's the thing that makes them special, makes them wizards. Their literal power. 

The confusion/consternation over this part of Aes Sedai culture is, frankly, revealing. People who think they're special are jealous and superior about being slightly more special than their peers. 

Have you people never had a job before?

Nobody should have principal problems with a hierarchy based on raw power.

But if you want that - then have it from the beginning, don't invent a silly organization with democratic elements, a parliament of sorts, sub-divisions who also have democratic structures (some Ajah are run by a council not a single leader), and an elected leader serving for life.

If it all boils down to raw power then just drop the pretense. The way this thing is presented is that privately you have to defer and submit to any Aes Sedai who is stronger than you ... while at the Hall and in your Ajah you are supposed to defer to decisions they make in committee, with majority votes, etc.

Also, as it stands it seems the Darkfriends and even the Forsaken are, well, more progressive than the demented women of Tar Valon. Because Ishamael - the strongest Forsaken - isn't actually their boss. He is some kind of a informal head due to the fact that he wasn't properly imprisoned, but the Forsaken all vie to be named 'the Dark One's Darling' in the end times - which would set them above the rest. Also, there is no clear hierarchy based on strength among the other Forsaken.

And the Darkfriends as such - I kid you not! - are also supposed to have democratic elements. There are votes and such and the Black Ajah - never mind their awesome magical powers - don't get more votes than your run-of-the-mill Darkfriend rabble.

The way Jordan presented things clearly indicated that 'being able to channel' doesn't turn you into a good leader, operative, politician, spy, healer, man-hunter, scholar, philosopher, whatever else the Aes Sedai like to do.

Before everything is retconned into a silly strength hierarchy the obvious impression you have is that strong channelers certainly have more chances at rising in the hierarchy of the Tower ... but based on general behavior, social skills, intelligence, connections within the political framework, etc.

Strength in the power would be a important reason why you rise through the ranks, especially in those Ajah where folks really use the One Power for their profession (the Browns, Whites, Grays shouldn't care about the power at all, since politics, philosophy/mathematics/logic, and reading books doesn't really require you to be particularly powerful), since strength in the power could make you pretty useful to your Ajah and the order at large.

But it would be definitely not the only reason for advancement.

[Jace, Extat]

You understand that the White Tower is supposed to be hamstrung by conservatism and borderline superstition all wrapped up in tradition and ceremonies that do nothing except halt progress, right? Like, that's one of the things the story is about. How institutions can undermine the very people they're supposedly empowering for even as critical a job as saving the world.

They're kinda silly and stupid about some stuff because they're a 3,000 year old organization of people who all think they're the most important person in the world.

It takes some young blood hotshots who are too busy with the actual business of heroism to bother with Aes Sedai trivialities and infighting to push the entire organization into usefulness and innovation.

That isn't a flaw in the writing, that's what the author was telling you about the state of the world and this particular part of it. 

Just because you summarize an aspect of a story with a dismissive tone doesn't make you smarterer than the writer. It just makes you look like an asshole who has watched too many "The Problem With..." videos on YouTube.

[Lord Varys]

Just now, Babblebauble said:

You understand that the White Tower is supposed to be hamstrung by conservatism and borderline superstition all wrapped up in tradition and ceremonies that do nothing except halt progress, right? Like, that's one of the things the story is about. How institutions can undermine the very people they're supposedly empowering for even as critical a job as saving the world.

They're kinda silly and stupid about some stuff because they're a 3,000 year old organization of people who all think they're the most important person in the world.

It takes some young blood hotshots who are too busy with the actual business of heroism to bother with Aes Sedai trivialities and infighting to push the entire organization into usefulness and innovation.

That isn't a flaw in the writing, that's what the author was telling you about the state of the world and this particular part of it. 

Just because you summarize an aspect of a story with a dismissive tone doesn't make you smarterer than the writer. It just makes you look like an asshole who has watched too many "The Problem With..." videos on YouTube.

That isn't an explanation why they would develop a fake exterior, pretending to have votes and elected leaders and such. The strength hierarchy is basic and would have been there - if in existence - even back in the Age of Legends. It wouldn't have developed as a sign of decline and decadence. Instead you would be able to see decline and decadence when they started to pretend to democratic and give the weak and inferior a voice ... hiding the truth that the strong should and do, actually, rule.

I mean, even something like the Ajahs are silly in a strength hierarchy system. If I'm the strongest and don't like the Ajahs I abolish them. What will the others do against that? What can they do? Nothing.

In fact, the entire coup against Siuan makes no sense with the strength hierarchy in place. She is the strongest - along with Moiraine and Elaida - so they have no right to depose her, never mind what they think she did.

In fact, if the Aes Sedai internally always and consistently defer to the strongest sister, then nobody would agree to scheme against a leader ... since that would be as unthinkable as not deferring to the stronger sister next to you. Everybody would know their place in the hierarchy, and at best we would get some friction between sisters who have the same strength.

Most times there wouldn't even be a election for the Amyrlin - it would always be the strongest sister in the order. And there would only be competition if more than one sister were the strongest Aes Sedai.

[Werthead]

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What did Lan do in the books that made him toxic? Being/seeming emotionless may not be endearing but it's not toxic, surely.

Not the character in himself, but the idea that being stoic, not showing emotion and internalising trauma are ideals of masculine or "manly" behaviour, and showing emotion, externalising pain and actually processing grief are signs of "weakness" and such behaviour is wrong (a notion I thought would have died some time ago, but was being expressed in the previous thread). Ironic, of course, because Robert Jordan himself noted that type of behaviour is unhealthy and to move on from the trauma of Vietnam, he had to confront those issues, and his depiction of it in the books was not an argument for that kind of behaviour.

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I'm not really sure why the length of EotW is supposed to be some kind of excuse for this sloppy, helter-skelter mess. They had almost three times the run time as Fellowship of the Ring had available. 

The Eye of the World (301,000 words) is the better part of being twice as long as Fellowship of the Ring (180,000 words). However, The Fellowship of the Ring and A Game of Thrones are both 1) much better novels than The Eye of the World and 2) not as oddly paced. I'd argue that Eye of the World is the most difficult of the three to adapt from a story/structure point of view, especially in a world where Eye is being adapted twenty years after Fellowship became part of the cultural consciousness, which is a big problem when Eye is pretty blatantly copying Fellowship's structure and in some cases story beats pretty closely.

Another problem is that whilst taking eight hours to adapt Eye is indeed good from a the POV of not rushing around like a lunatic, it's problematic from the POV of trying to adapt the entire series, which to give later books more justice, ideally you need to be compressing Eye down to four or six hours.

[Corvinus85]

@Lord Varys This deferment to higher OP strength is something semi-informal, that likely evolved from Aes Sedai in general wanting to be involved in politics or whatever issue. It's more about who's voice can be first and loudest. And we see examples of extremely meek AS because of how weak they are, but AS who are somewhat close to each other will still have their voice heard.

An Aes Sedai who is weaker can choose to ignore what a stronger Aes Sedai told her after their meeting. We see this all the time with Elayne and even Nynaeve, as this tradition of deferring to the strongest is met with resistance from older, more experienced AS. However, an AS cannot ignore the orders from the Amyrlin, the Hall, or the head of her Ajah without fearing punishment. 

[Jace, Extat]

Dawg, with all due respect - and remember I'm saying with all due respect-, you have no idea how humans function independently or in group settings. 

 

 

[Lord Varys]

4 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

@Lord Varys This deferment to higher OP strength is something semi-informal, that likely evolved from Aes Sedai in general wanting to be involved in politics or whatever issue. It's more about who's voice can be first and loudest. And we see examples of extremely meek AS because of how weak they are, but AS who are somewhat close to each other will still have their voice heard.

An Aes Sedai who is weaker can choose to ignore what a stronger Aes Sedai told her after their meeting. We see this all the time with Elayne and even Nynaeve, as this tradition of deferring to the strongest is met with resistece from older, more experienced AS. However, an AS cannot ignore the orders from the Amyrlin, the Hall, or the head of her Ajah without fearing punishment. 

I only know it from ANS and there it is made pretty clear that you defer to a stronger sister whenever interacting with her, even if you have your own things to do.

It is also very much implied that the hierarchies within the Ajahs are based on the strength hierarchy.

In that sense there is no chance that the people involved would create a system where people of lesser strength who should and do defer to stronger people are allowed to make binding decisions for all in the Hall. Because we do know that quite a few sitters are actually not the strongest Aes Sedai.

[Which Tyler]

Question.

Is this new thread a show discussion that involves book talk, or another book-hate thread with the odd mention of the show?

 

By my count there are 13 posts, 3 by a poster with his own thread for hate-reading, 12 talking about the books, books and books, 1 talking about the show, and 1 talking about adapting the book for TV

[Ran]

Show thread. 

I really think book-focused discussion needs to go back to book threads, and I think I'll be moderating that way for a bit to keep things on track. So if you aren't primarily discussing what the show does, then make sure you save a copy because it may end up deleted.

[SpaceChampion]

A few reviewers are apparently still getting advanced copies of episodes.  Here's a non-spoiler review of ep 7.

 

[fionwe1987]

Someone needs to go to the dictionary to look up the difference between deference and obedience. I think that should resolve most of the nonsensical book discussion here.

About the show, I think it's a good point that Season 1 doesn't just have to adapt EotW. If you're going from 14 books to 8 seasons, you have no business adapting all of book 1 to one season. So season 1 already takes the early Fal Dara arc from tGH, and some of the politicking in the Tower.

All that I'm fine with, but that still doesn't explain the choppy scenes and other issues with the show. 

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, Lord Varys said:

In that sense there is no chance that the people involved would create a system where people of lesser strength who should and do defer to stronger people are allowed to make binding decisions for all in the Hall. Because we do know that quite a few sitters are actually not the strongest Aes Sedai.

The greatest warriors also used to be kings of their people. See The Iliad. Then people realized you need a brain to govern, and while great warriors continued to exist, they listened to those with other capabilities and still do today. But the greatest warriors would still flex their muscles and demand others listen to them in certain situations where all other things were equal. 

My point is that your argument is just ridiculous and it goes backwards in terms of how civilizations and societies advance.

[felice]

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

If it all boils down to raw power then just drop the pretense.

Yeah, nobody has pretenses in real life, it's completely unrealistic. How is there even a word for it?

3 hours ago, Lord Varys said:

Also, as it stands it seems the Darkfriends and even the Forsaken are, well, more progressive than the demented women of Tar Valon. Because Ishamael - the strongest Forsaken - isn't actually their boss.

No, the Dark One is their boss. You're allowed to have more than one direct underling without formally ranking them all. Otherwise imagine the trouble they've have sorting out the relative rankings of every single trolloc in the shadowspawn army...

 

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

About the show, I think it's a good point that Season 1 doesn't just have to adapt EotW. If you're going from 14 books to 8 seasons, you have no business adapting all of book 1 to one season. So season 1 already takes the early Fal Dara arc from tGH, and some of the politicking in the Tower.

I don't know, the first book does some heavy lifting in world building and introducing the main characters, which makes it less compressible than later books. Personally I think the Tower stuff, and making Moiraine the protagonist, was a poor choice. She's not even in half the books! And the Two Rivers folk have lost out badly from the change. The "who is the Dragon" mystery could work just as well, if not better, told from their perspectives, with Moiraine as a mysterious figure. The audience can learn about the wider world along with the main characters as they encounter it. The show makes some quite baffling decisions, like Nynaeve explaining the warder bond to Lan instead of the other way round.

[Gertrude]

From the last thread:

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It's pretty clear there's a group around the Dragon Reborn that's there to help him, guide him, support him. And I'd say they all play important enough roles that he wouldn't succeed without them.

Yes, of course. What I was thinking about was specifically why the show would bring this up, even if we know it's not going to be the case. For the mystery of it, as we've already discussed. But I was thinking the book actually kind of supports this theory. Min's fireflies and the fact that Rand needs his ta'veren/supergirl crew are already built into the books. The show has mentioned how unreliable the prophecies are, so it's possible the Dragon, the Gambler and the Wolf King (however they are described) got garbled into a many-headed dragon.

Basically the negative reaction from people who are railing against this (reactors, not this board particularly) as so against the books that it's a travesty (and can Rafe be a true fan if he misunderstands the books so badly?), really aren't thinking about what the book presents to us. Yes, there is one Dragon, but he has many heads and hands helping him on his path. I also like them presenting this in show as another way to get us used to the idea that it's a group effort and those five are essentially co-equal in the billing of the Last Battle with Rand guiding the kill shot. It took me several books to realize that the girls weren't just secondary characters a tier lower than Mat and Perrin, so I appreciate the show making it clear up front that they are all important.