The Wheel of Time Re-read: The Gathering Storm, Part 3

The pace of this book in comparison to, say, the previous all of them, was definitely a not-unwelcome change. It’s a bit like sinking into a hot tub; at first you’re all “ie ie eeee” and then you’re like, “ahhhh“.
Still a bit sad it’s not Jordan, but this ain’t bad at all.
Can’t wait for some of the chapters/scenes to come.

FYI, the link to this post isn’t presently on the frontpage of the re-read.

I wasn’t so surprised by Gawyn’s behavior, I think there were plenty of indications before that this was coming. This re-read has really reduced my annoyance factor with Gawyn; his behavior from the tower coup on is bone-headedly stupid if you know what the reader knows, but if you look at what he knew his actions generally made sense (mostly-irrational hatred of Rand notwhithstanding).

I really have to lay a lot of the blame for his seeming idiocy at the feet of the Supergirls and Siuan; none of them bothered to tell him anything leading up to his momentous acts in the tower coup (which, I think, made a lot of sense), and with those actions he was solidly committed to Elaida’s side. His loyalty is clearly not fickle, and it takes a lot to cinvince him that he made a terrible mistake – not in the least because he doesn’t want to believe that killing his teachers was a mistake.

I think, however, it has been clear for a while (the last several books) that he basically is only remaining loyal to Elaida because of the Younglings and his hesitation to change loyalties period (sort of a sleep in the bed you made mentality). At least as far back as LoC he had a pretty good idea that at least some of the Tower AS are out to kill him and/or the younglings, but that really only strengthens his resolve to lead (and protect) the Younglings. It is only through long observation of the mismanagement of affairs in general and the realization that everyone he loves and respects seems to be on the other side that he comes to accept that continuing to fight on Elaida’s side isn’t just sleeping in the bed he’d made in the coup, it was continuing to make (or requiring him to make) equally bad mistakes.

He’s still a little bit of a head-desk, but not nearly as bad as my first (or second, etc.) read through impression of him.

And no, I don’t mean to imply that his stupidity is the fault of the Supergirls – just that they absolutely had a hand in setting his course through, surprise surprise, lack of communication (he’s just a man and would get underfoot, no need to tell him anything; never mind that he is in love with Eg and sworn since birth to protect El).

I guess I must have been one of the few who didn’t figure out the purpose of Avi’s punishment. I did guess that she hadn’t actually done anything wrong, but I figured that the purpose was for her to get over the mentality that she quoted in the beginning; that being too proud to ask was a Maiden thing, and when a Wise One needs to know something that she doesn’t know, she asks, toh be damned.

A few things. I’m along with the Gawyn haters … although I think characters like him, along with all the painful lack of communication in books 4-10 were necessary to not have it be all too easy. The thing I never understood is why he took so long to start thinking about switching sides after meeting Rand at Dumai’s Wells and being let go. If I were him, that would’ve immediately started those wheels turning.

As for Aviendha, my big question is why she hasn’t seemed to have ANY communication with Min. I mean they’re basically first-sisters, even if they haven’t officially gone through the process like her and Elayne … and they share the same man. She’s been away for a while, so why would she not spend a few minutes catching up with Min on how their man has been lately?

I…actually don’t have a lot to say this time. Probably a function of these being such short chapters which establish character-arc movement that is necessary and/or has been long-awaited, so they don’t prompt much commentary from Leigh or the rest of us.

I will say that I figured out what was up with Aviendha (Sanderson did a great job here mimicking Jordan’s style of having characters rhetorically contemplate and reject ideas that are, of course, the right ones–namely, that the punishment was indeed the lesson), but not how it would play out. If I’d sat and thought about what the Wise Ones are doing more, and recalled how Sevanna declared herself, I probably would have got it–but I was so eager to read the book and find out what happened that I didn’t have time for that, so it was still somewhat surprising and satisfying for me. Mostly because it made sense to me that stubborn Aviendha who had learned to obey the Wise Ones implicitly wouldn’t get it right away, and because I had to laugh at how they basically were doing their best to make her so angry she’d tell them “screw you, I’m not doing this any more because I’m better than this”…which would prove she was indeed their equal and ready to join them. It just seemed so fitting, for Aviendha herself and the Aiel overall.

As to her staying away from Rand…yeah, considering what happens to Min, probably a good idea. After all if she’d been there when Semirhage struck, she would just have been shielded and thus still just as helpless. I expect she did speak to Min off-screen, and this could explain another reason she’s avoiding Rand, and also how she got her insight into his hardness/strength dilemma.

I also never had a problem with Gawyn, at least not with how he was written. Reading him be such an idiot was annoying, yes, and I think if Jordan hadn’t gotten bogged down in the details of extended plots he would and should have progressed Gawyn faster. But in terms of Gawyn’s character, background, position in the story, and available knowledge, everything he does is logical and valid–it just isn’t right.

Which goes to show another reason Jordan, despite his occasional failings, was such a good writer–because for the most part we get annoyed, not because of how he wrote something or characterized someone, but because of how well-written characters were who annoyed us. I.e., Jordan was good at writing characters who seemed real to us, right down to their idiocies, prejudices, mistakes, and flaws. I think dlinderholm @16 explained Gawyn’s mentality and thought processes best. That’s why it was so satisfying for me to see him finally overcome his teenage boy attitude, mature, and do the right thing–mostly. I particularly enjoyed him proving Egwene wrong in ToM, not because I am an Egwene-hater but because she actually was wrong and needed to see that, particularly in light of her upcoming showdown with Rand.

I agree Jordan couldn’t have gotten it done in one book and did it justice, maybe even not in two. As for him vs. Sanderson, all I can say is while the vocabulary and syntax would have been different, and sometimes Sanderson did state the obvious or tell rather than show, I actually appreciated the difference. Jordan may have felt his readers should work for it, but after a series this long and so near the end, there’s something to be said for not beating around the bush and just coming right out and stating things. And it’s not like Jordan never used simple language or statements at the right moment to be effective. Some of the most memorable lines for me, and, I think, for many others (and note they came from the early books before Jordan got bogged down in too many plot-threads) were simple ones, like the part in TSR when Rand sat on his bed after the bubble of evil and remembered a shepherd named Rand al’Thor.

I can’t guess how many of Sanderson’s simple yet profound statements were his, how many came from Jordan, and how many were conclusions he reached after re-reading the series before writing, but I will say the two styles go together better than most people think, IMO. It’s more like Sanderson peeled away a lot of the excess verbiage and description and got right down to the essence of what was driving these characters. It’s a shock compared to what came before, and I can see why it bothers some people, but I think if you study the early books enough, you can see some of the same themes and points were there all along. They just needed to be teased out.

Would I like to see how well-crafted and complex they would have been when shown and described by Jordan? Yes of course. But it seems to me that complaining about Sanderson’s way of doing it is not only a bit silly–he’s not Jordan, no one is, and he didn’t try to be, so whining about it won’t change anything–it’s also partaking of what TV Tropes calls “They Changed It, Now It Sucks”. And all I can say to that is, since I fully believe that Sanderson has the heart and essences of these characters, events, and plots right even if he gets the description/presentation wrong (or at least, not in a style to everyone’s liking), I think it actually hasn’t been changed. What has changed is the ornamentation, the outer covering, the window dressing. Underneath, where it matters, I think the world and the characters are the same. And that is why, in the end, I can read these books and love them despite the obvious differences in style.

Lastly, the hardness/strength dichotomy. I have to wonder what Sorilea had to say about Aviendha’s comment on that–she wasn’t there when Amys spoke to her, was she? Anyway, I think ZEXXES described perfectly what Rand’s thinking should be–indeed he does need to be strong, there’s nothing wrong with strength and it can in fact be a good thing, especially in this sort of situation…but he shouldn’t be hard.

And I have to wonder if Glyph @25 is on to something. Leigh had a problem with the saidin/saidar dichotomy. Since that was also about fighting vs. surrendering, does she believe that that sort of thinking was a sign of Jordan unconsciously supporting and passing on gender stereotypes? Or was she suggesting that because of the way saidin and saidar work, people in Randland were mistakenly applying that way of thinking to gender and social relations overall? I.e., as long as the way you use the Power remains separate from how you act toward other people, there’s nothing wrong with it–fantasy literature is full of examples of ‘mental discipline’ and other ways of acting/thinking which must be adopted in order to use magic, and one can even argue that you have to think or act differently for certain roles–going to war, making decisions as a leader, and so on. Adopting that to do a task, then dropping it when you’re done isn’t a problem. What matters is keeping that separate from the rest of your life, not allowing it to color your thinking at times when it shouldn’t.

In which case, the problem with saidin/saidar isn’t necessarily that making them the way he did was Jordan reinforcing gender stereotypes, but that people (both in-universe and out-of-universe) could use them to justify the stereotypes. That Rand can think, “Well, I have to be strong/hard overall because that’s also what I have to do to master saidin,” which is a false analogy of the highest order if ever I saw one. And probably another good example of Jordan not only showing how such faulty thinking comes to be, but also leading into his point about the genders working together. Rand thinks this is how he needs to be, but the way for him to win is to be strong but not hard, to stand up against some enemies but learn to bend for others, to know when to fight and when to surrender (outside of using saidin that is)–preparing him for working with women, as he will clearly need to. Thoughts?

…and okay, I did have a lot to say after all, but I was right that it wasn’t about the chapter themselves. :P

For me, the reason it took Aviendha so long to figure it out is the structure of “toh” itself. Forgive me if I describe this poorly but it seems to me that this all encompassing set of rules and custom keeps her from questioning what’s happening to her. It is almost a strict Sociological Structural Functional world view, IMHO. She can’t think outside of the role she has always had. Her first thoughts are always “I must have done something wrong” Moving from one role to another even in our society isn’t easy, let alone a more rigid system like the Aiel.

Gawyn’s issues. Others have pointed out how all of the major characters have had growth and maturity seasoning by this point and Gawyn is lagging behind. Isn’t he the youngest of all of the group in the discussion? He’s younger than Elayne who is younger that Egwene and Rand. I don’t know about you all, but I was still a bag of hammers, as Sub so aptly put it, until 21 or 22 years old and still have lapses now at 53. I know we all mature or have our faced rubbed in it at different rates but Gawyn is not much of an outlier compared to many at that age.
Not coming to his defense so much as pointing out that youthful stupidty, usually based on misconceptions, is not that unusual. Be a Non-traditional student at a community college some time and you’ll see what I mean.

I messed up my password and registration a few months ago and can’t post “grey” at the moment. Not only has it pushed me into almost 100% lurker status, I can’t figure out what I want my new handle to be.
See, I told you I still have those moments…

@78

Because “Five” isn’t capitalized in Leight’s recap, meaning it’s not a proper noun, only a descriptor. Boom, grammar burn.

I guess 130 days is short enough that maybe Gawyn hadn’t heard, but you’d think news of someone like Niall would spread quickly. Minor point, regardless, simply something that popped out to me.

travyl@87: Fades appear to be quite skillful and certainly seem to mow through your average soldiers. On the other hand, veteran Borderlanders like Ingtar, warders, veteran Aiel and berserkers like Perrin all seem to put them in the “tough fight but beatable” category. There are couple instances where Lan and Ingtar express that the Fades they fight only get away because “they have the Dark One’s own luck”. So I don’t think they can be expected to “surpass each of the non-channelers”. Certainly I think we’re supposed to believe Lan, two-handed Rand, Galad and Gawyn would have better than even odds of beating a Fade in a sword fight.

edit to add: Fades also seem to capitalize on the supernatural fear they generate. They might well beat a more skilled but terrified swordsman.

Gawyn’s age: Of course he is older than Elayne. It’s a cardinal rule: the man must be noticeably older than his love interest, who in this case is Elayne’s age. Exceptions are few and far between: Tallanvor + Morgase, Rand + Min, Perrin + Berelain, Mat + Tylin “Mrs. Robinson” Quintara. And maybe one or more of the Aes Sedai with teenaged Warders, like Daigian + Hopwil. And notice how often Morgase, who has slowed and might actually look younger than Tallanvor, tells herself he is “too young.” Ditto Min and Rand, without the slowing.

Have to say, I agree wholeheartedly with ClintACK @21 re: Gawyn being compelled by a peddler, Mil Tesen, who just “coincidentally” happens to turn up to pass on the rumor that Rand killed both Morgase and Elayne …

It seems too neat otherwise – and we’ve already had an example of Compulsion used on his mother, and how it can cause massively irrational behavior …

Just my 0.02c

International Secret Conspiracy for the Oppression of Teddybears aka ISCOT

I don’t do wall-o-text warnings, as I figure that’s implicit in my choice of handle. But I guess I should give a rambling incoherency warning. I am not at all sure anything I say below actually hangs together.

macster@121: it is more that the very nature of the Power requires men to fight and women to surrender, something which some people (both in and out of story) can erroneously take to mean men are strong and women are weak when it’s really about different kinds of strength and different ways of thinking.

I still don’t see it. Repeating my question: “Where did we get this idea that the personality traits of hardness and flexibility are gender-linked in Randland? I don’t remember seeing any evidence of this.” I still don’t. As for characters assuming that these things are sex-linked traits, [citation needed], please. But even if anyone can find a cite, well, people in Randland assume[*] all sorts of absurd sex-linked traits, like how Nynaeve thinks that “Everyone knew that a man did not achieve his proper wits, such as they were, until ten years later than a woman.” (ACoS, Ch. 21, “Swovan Night”) Why would the reader latch onto this particular assumption and think there’s any in-world truth to it?

[*] And, by the way, when you assume, it does not make an ass out of me, only out of you. Anyone who says otherwise is too caught up in the pun to think about whether it makes any sense.

There’s of course also the matter of definition. Does hard mean tough in a survivalist sense? Aveindha and other Aiel often fear they’re becoming soft away from the Three-Fold Land; I think they mean like Spartan warriors: ability to run their ultramarathons faster than a horse and with no water stops, leap tall buildings in a single bound, etc. But when Sorilea tells Egwene that Rand has to be harder than a clan chief, and the chiefs have to be harder than the rest of the Aiel, that’s something different. I think she means emotional detachment, the ability to not let anyone thwart or manipulate you via your emotions.

Or is there a third definition? Here is something that has confused me for years: Sorilea’s statement to Cadsuane that “Strong endures; hard shatters.” (TPoD, Ch. 12, “New Alliances”) I honestly have no idea what she means. To me, it sounds like a strained analogy from the physical world, one of those things that seems profound only until you stop to think about it. The context is, of course, that Rand is allegedly becoming too emotionally detached, running a risk of breaking the Aiel more than he has to, or becoming a despot after Tarmon Gai’don, or … Cadsuane isn’t too clear about her worst-case scenario, but it is somehow Pyrrhic. But neither Sorilea nor Cadsuane explain how he would “shatter.” And indeed, while Rand will go to some very dark places in TGS, have we ever seen him “shatter”? If so, I guess I didn’t recognise it. So this third definition of “hard,” which somehow makes you shatter instead of enduring, is one I’ve never understood.

Can anyone enlighten me here? What did Sorilea mean?[*] Was it profound after all, or just something that sounded profound enough to impress Cadsuane for those crucial moments? (Whatever else they’re doing in that scene, they are definitely trying to impress each other.)

[*] Also, what did Mae West mean when she allegedly said “A hard man is good to find”? (:

By the way, I interpret Sorilea’s two different views of how hard Rand should be as, at least partly, a “be careful what you wish for” situation. Much like Nynaeve wishing the Kin would grow backbones.

On the Great Captains:
If you check ideal seek, you won’t find any references to “five great captains”. It’s always just great captain or great captains. The five is an affectation from somewhere else.

This clearly means that the number is not a part of the distinction like some sort of dream team or mythical five. Over the various small and large conflicts of the past few decades a number of warleaders have managed to distinguished themselves to be judged as great captains. That they number five just happens to be coincidence.

On hard vs. strong:
Errr.. I agree there must be a difference somewhere. Probably because hard things also happen to be brittle, which I suspect to be the point of Cadsuane’s comparison. Perhaps she means that strength encompasses other characteristics like flexibility rather than just simple hardness?
Not that she ever simply clarifies. Light forbid that an Aes Sedai speak plainly.

ZEXXES@123: I can imagine a thousand instances of hard. Stop being silly and recognize that so could you.

So, I say “I don’t understand this metaphor in general, and in particular I don’t understand what Sorilea means by the word ‘hard’, since it has been used in series to mean various different things” and your response is “There’s a thousand ways to illustrate the word ‘hard’ and you know it.” Do you see why that response isn’t all that helpful? I wasn’t having trouble imagining different ways to illustrate the word. I was wondering what Sorilea meant. How does a hard person “shatter”? Is shattering, whatever that means, something a clan chief risks when he becomes hard enough to lead a hard people, or is hard-like-a-clan-chief a different meaning of the word?

Also, comparisons such as “hard like granite” don’t illuminate the question at all. That metaphor is no easier to interpret than Sorilea’s.

alreadymad@124: Errr.. I agree there must be a difference somewhere. Probably because hard things also happen to be brittle, which I suspect to be the point of Cadsuane’s comparison.

Sorilea’s comparison, you mean, but sure … but brittle how? She seems to be saying two different things in this scene:

· Rand is at risk of “shattering” rather than “enduring”
· The Aiel are at risk that Rand will use them as a tool, with too little concern for their corporate well-being, since he isn’t invested in them emotionally

What I can’t figure out is how those two things are related. If they are. It seems to me that if Rand uses the Aiel in the way Sorilea fears, it’s not because he has “shattered” at all, but because he is still “hard.” Hence my ungenerous supposition that Sorilea’s “hard vs. strong” soundbite isn’t actually profound at all, but only sounds profound long enough to impress Cadsuane.

macster@121: By standing up to the other Wise Ones, she wasn’t saying she rejected all authority, but that she rejected their ability to specifically tell her what to do because she wasn’t an apprentice anymore.

Yeah, sorry I wasn’t clear. Obviously the Wise Ones do not reject all authority. What they reject is anyone having any authority over them. They’re definitely in favor of telling other people what to do! They just think they shouldn’t have to be answerable to anybody, ever. An idea I’m just a little too post-Enlightenment Western to get behind.

wortmauer@126:

Yeah, sorry I wasn’t clear. Obviously the Wise Ones do not reject all authority. What they reject is anyone having any authority over them. They’re definitely in favor of telling other people what to do! They just think they shouldn’t have to be answerable to anybody, ever. An idea I’m just a little too post-Enlightenment Western to get behind.

I don’t think that’s the distinction really. The point is not that Aviendha shouldn’t obey authority. The point is that she shouldn’t obey authority blindly. Note that they don’t keep giving her orders and punishments that make sense to anyone, they deliberately invent the silliest things they can come up with, until she realizes that a stupid idea from your “superior” is still a stupid idea and says so. This is very different from “don’t answer to anyone”.

If the senior Wise One tells you to do something you honestly consider pointless,stupid and unfair and you do it solely because they’re the senior Wise One, then you are not worthy leadership material and you should not be treated as such. You are behaving as an unthinking drone or in a simply spineless manner. What possible good could you do as part of the leadership group?

BillinHI @127
Did you by chance copy that exactly from some ebook? Because the way you have “Great Captains” capitalized and five in lower case kinda proves my point. Don’t have my books on hand, but I maintain the number is an accident of five having distinguished themselves sufficiently to be considered great captains.

On hard vs. strong:
Ok, I’m not sure who made the comparison, but it’s obvious Sorilea and Cadsuane somehow agree without a prior definition of terms. On the other hand, Sorilea also maintains Rand must be harder than the common chiefs, which I think means that as far as comparing to the chiefs go, the preferable aspect of strength to use(above others) is hard. Sigh. Wise Ones are almost as bad as Aes Sedai.

@122 Wortmauer

Sorry, I misspoke. I did not mean to say any characters do think that the hardness/strength thing is gender-linked. What I was trying to say was expressing a possible explanation as to why Leigh could be okay with hardness/strength being a gendered point in WOT, but (as Glyph pointed out) not be okay about saidin/saidar being a fight/surrender thing. Here is what Leigh said:

“Hardness vs. strength is a comparison that crops up over and over again concerning Rand, and in Jordan’s worldview (one which is continued via Brandon) it is no accident that it is continually the female characters who bring this issue up. (Though that is not an absolute; if I recall correctly Bashere also said something similar about Rand at some point.) This is one of the gendered points he made that I do actually agree with, conditionally.

I tend to be very leery of endorsing sweeping generalizations about either gender in terms of personality traits applied across the board, but nevertheless I do feel there is a certain germ of truth in the contention that men and women (in Western society, anyway) are… encouraged, shall we say, to have different approaches as to what constitutes ‘strength.'”

And here is what Glyph said:

“That distinction seems to be at the heart of WoT’s gender politics, written right into the fabric of the world as the yin/yang duality of the One Power (literally – even down to the use of the taijitu to represent the ancient Aes Sedai). So, the female Aes Sedai must bend with the flow of saidar in order to direct it; but the male must stand fast against the torrent of saidin or be destroyed by it.

If I’m reading your post here correctly, you tentatively agree that there is a rough split between the genders in those approaches to strength (though I’m leaving the nature/nurture aspect way over here for now). OTOH I recall you commenting angrily on the ‘men dominate, women submit’ approach to the One Power in previous posts. I was wondering where your lines lie between those two points, and how much overlap you see between them?”

It was Glyph who suggested that the two approaches to strength were related to the “men dominate/women submit” dichotomy, but this was in response to Leigh calling the distinction a “gendered point” and (I think) the fact she pointed out it was women (aside from Bashere) continually bringing the distinction up. Glyph wasn’t saying (and neither was I) that there is any evidence in the series that characters see hardness/strength as a gendered thing. Glyph was saying that Leigh seemed to think it was a gendered thing (because women kept bringing it up about Rand), and then went on to speculate what this point of hers meant IRT her feelings on saidin/saidar. I.e., it seemed odd to say she’s okay with Rand thinking he had to be hard and women telling him he just needed to be strong, while still saying it raises her hackles to have men have to fight saidin and women surrender to saidar.

I then went on to suggest that perhaps the reason Leigh sees these two things differently is because she thinks people in WOT or (more likely) people IRL will look at the ways of controlling saidin/saidar and say “Ah that proves men are strong and women are weak”. What I (and I think Glyph) was trying to hint at was that thinking this, while having no problem with Rand thinking he has to be hard while women tell him he just needs to be strong, is a bit…contradictory. Because she is bothered by the fact people could look at saidin and saidar and decide men are strong and women are weak, while at the same time agreeing that men think the only way to solve things is with force, and this is wrong, so therefore the women are right to tell Rand he shouldn’t be hard. As Leigh said herself, she usually doesn’t agree with generalizations, particulary gender-related ones, yet here she was doing so.

Glyph was asking Leigh (and I am curious myself) if her deciding that this form of gender generalization is correct would have any bearing on how she feels about the means of controlling saidin and saidar. Because if Leigh can agree that “men think the only way to win is through force/muscle/violence”, and the women in the series see strength differently and are right both in their view of it and in telling Rand his view is wrong, then why does she view the means of controlling saidin and saidar as worthy of vitriol? She agrees men think the only way to win is through force…but that sounds a lot like fighting saidin. And women view strength differently, that sometimes the way to be strong and win is to bend, to yield…but that sounds like surrendering to saidar.

So if she thinks these opposing views of strength which have been encouraged in men and women are accurate (note: not correct), why is she so upset by the means of controlling saidin and saidar, which appear to reflect these exact views of strength? Not to mention that if it is wrong for Rand to be hard (I think whatever definition we give that, we can all agree this is the case) and the women are right to tell him he just needs to be strong, and if strength can be like the willow that bends but does not break, how is this showing weakness? And if that sort of strength, the strength which comes from knowing when to surrender, is a good thing as Leigh says, then what is bad about having to surrender to saidar when that gives the same exact lesson?

Note I am not saying (and I don’t think Glyph was either) that Leigh is wrong or a hypocrite. Just that it seems odd she hasn’t noticed the parallels between these two lines of thought. Not that people are actually assuming, in WOT or IRL, that the two views of strength are sex-related, but that Leigh seemed to be saying this was the case (through her point about how men and women are ‘encouraged’ to view it in opposing ways). And I am wondering why Leigh thinks this (and for the record I think, unfortunately, we are indeed encouraged to have these divergent views) yet doesn’t like the saidin/saidar dichotomy–is it because she thinks the latter will make readers think men are strong and women are weak, something they are already encouraged to think by society?

If so, I direct her attention to Glyph’s point: that the dichotomy isn’t any different from hardness being a “male thing” and bending being a “female thing”, something she actually agreed was true. So by agreeing with the generalization she’s actually agreeing the saidin/saidar dichotomy isn’t teaching men are strong and women are weak: it’s teaching the same thing she agreed with, that men believe they need to be hard, or a weapon (because they are taught this by saidin) while women have learned (through surrendering to saidar) that not only can you often win by yielding, it isn’t weakness at all to do so.

So while I can see why on the surface the fight/surrender thing seems like gender stereotypes, I think it is actually the opposite–Jordan wrote saidin and saidar the way he did to underscore what society teaches us from birth (i.e, the means of controlling them reflects what we learn from society in the real world), then had Rand fall into the hardness trap and the women tell him he was wrong and just needed to be strong as a way of critiquing the very mindset which Leigh, it seems, believes the saidin/saidar dichotomy encourages. She should indeed be bothered by it, but for the same reason she’s bothered by society teaching men to use force and women not to, and its presence in WOT is not reinforcing a gender stereotype but merely reflecting one–one which is, through the hardness/strength divide, eventually undermined. All of this, of course, preparing Rand to work with women in order to defeat the Dark One, and for him to realize that while he cannot use the women’s method to channel, he can use it in his overall strategy and mindset, and that doing so is how he can win. In which case it is absolutely critical that saidin/saidar be written as they were, and not an icky gender stereotype Jordan shouldn’t have used.

…and I ended up rambling too, and repeating myself as well. Anyway though, to answer your original question, it is from Leigh’s commentary, and Glyph’s post, that this notion came from.

Also, to both you and alreadymad, whatever the distinction actually is between hardness and strength in Sorilea’s mind, or what she thinks the hardness of a clan chief is compared to what Rand is doing, I think one thing is clear: unless you believe she is a Darkfriend and therefore was initially trying to encourage Rand to be hard and only changed her tune later for Cadsuane’s benefit, she must have either changed her mind about it being right and necessary, or Rand somehow went beyond whatever her definition is, and that is why she says something different later to Cadsuane.

I also believe HArai gave the best explanation for what the Wise Ones are trying to teach Aviendha with their punishments, and Wetlander is right about them not actually being beyond any other authority. (They are beyond any other authority among the Aiel, but not beyond each other; I said that wrong.) That is what I was getting at when I spoke of “if I don’t believe in my own merits enough to know when to stand up to others and say they are wrong in how they lead me, how can I lead anybody else?” By rejecting the punishments, Aviendha was refusing to accept that she should follow the Wise Ones just because they were Wise Ones–and that proved she was one, since all Wise Ones must be accountable to each other, and her rejection of their punishments was in fact a form of holding them accountable.

@Wortmauer: I didn’t realize we were arguing, just debating. Or not even that; you asked a question, I answered it and then clarified my answer.

While it may not be important what Leigh thinks and why (though since this is her blog, her opinions and the reasons for them are important, and I personally give them a lot of weight), you have touched on one important thing–whether or not men in leadership bully others, Rand does. And with him being the Dragon Reborn who is the only one, ultimately, who can save the world, what he does and why is of paramount importance. The fact most Aes Sedai bully others just makes my point, I think, just in reverse…they have been going against what saidar teaches them, and have had to learn to surrender to guide Rand, with only Moiraine really getting the lesson. While Rand needs to learn that he should, in fact, go against what saidin teaches him. The point of all of this is that people of both genders have fallen into preconceptions based on stereotypes and need to change in order to work together. The fact the Aes Sedai and Rand both have it backward just shows that even in their mistakes and flaws, men and women are more alike than they realize.

Wortmauer@139:

Several of you have said, indirectly, that somebody has to be at the top of the chain of command and, effectively, above any law except their own honor and cultural conditioning. Sometimes it’s Richard Cypher, sometimes it’s the Wise Ones. Was it Plato who advocated philosopher-kings? The effectiveness of this form of government is, I guess, one area where he and I disagree.

What precisely do you believe makes someone obey a law other than their own honor and cultural conditioning? What precisely do you believe a law defines besides the lawmaker’s honor and cultural conditioning? I’m curious. And actually, now I’m really dying to know what form of government you consider to be both effective and without somebody at the top.

Wortmauer@143: You’ve just pointed out the difference between a Wise One and an apprentice. If you’re not willing to stand up for yourself against a Wise One like Sorilea, you’re an apprentice. If you are, well then you’re a Wise One. It’s a lot like child vs adult. You don’t get given adulthood. You take it.

@Wortmauer: I think HArai hit the nail on the head @144, but to put it another way–at this point here in TGS, Aviendha has learned all she needs to know to be a Wise One, all that is left is her having the confidence, pride, and independence to claim it for herself. At the point you’re quoting in TFOH, she is still an apprentice and has to learn to do what the Wise Ones tell her–partly because that’s what all apprentices do, partly because Aviendha in particular was willful and stubborn about leaving the Maidens. When you’re an apprentice (especially one as recalcitrant as Aviendha) you do what you’re told. Once you’ve learned enough to become a Wise One, then you have to stand up for yourself and say “I don’t need to be told what to do any more, I can decide for myself; you can advise me or hold me accountable, but you can’t order me any more”. In other words, you learn to take orders, until you refuse to simply accept them blindly. At that point you’ve proven you’re adult enough to give orders to others. And note that the Wise Ones don’t just give orders to clan chiefs the way they do their apprentices; they are firm, but they do couch it in terms of advice that is best for their people, clan, and sept.