This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, Mat tries to understand Tuon, Tuon employs some a’dam, and the traveling show, along with a very unlucky peddler, encounters a ghost town built on quicksand—but more important than all of that is that we, and Mat, finally learn what is in Thom’s letter, and it’s a really big deal. It’s chapters 10 and 11 of Knife of Dreams.
Mat asks Egeanin, Leilwin now, to tell him what she knows about Tuon. She resists at first, telling him his goal of marrying her is disgusting, and that he could be executed merely for wishing it. But when Mat points out that Leilwin has left Seanchan behind her, she admits that she needs to find “a new ship and a new course.” Mat leaves the conversation feeling that his future bride is as bad as an Aes Sedai and a Warder rolled into one.
He also has trouble with the Aes Sedai, who are desperate to see his ter’angreal medallion. Plus, they also figure out the loophole in his medallion and start using saidar to throw rocks or sparks or other things at him.
He has an encounter with Setalle Anan, during which he observes that Setalle knows an awful lot about the White Tower. She responds by telling him that he has made almost every misstep possible with Aes Sedai, and that half the reason she’s here is to prevent him from making all the mistakes he has made. The other half is to protect Tuon from him.
She accuses Mat of being the sort of man who is unfaithful to women, but over the course of the conversation realizes that Mat is in love with Tuon. She asks to see his medallion, and for some reason, Mat shows it to her, even lets her touch it. Seeing her face, he realizes that she used to be Aes Sedai.
“The sisters would see it if they could let themselves,” she said, as simply as if she were discussing the chances of rain, “but Aes Sedai expect that when… certain things.. happen, the woman will go away decently and die soon after. I went away, but Jasfer found me half starved and sick on the streets of Ebou Dar and took me to his mother.” She chuckled, just a woman telling how she met her husband. “He used to take in stray kittens, too. Now, you know some of my secrets, and I know some of yours. Shall we keep them to ourselves?”
Mat agrees to keep her secret if she’ll keep his love a secret from Tuon, who would gain an advantage over him if she knew the truth.
More trouble arises when the Aes Sedai learn from Luca that Tuon is a High Lady and begin petitioning Tuon to help bring about peace talks between the White Tower and the Seanchan. Things come to a head one night while Mat is visiting Tuon. Joline, wearing her great serpent ring, comes in, leading Teslyn and Edesina. Joline gives a very stern speech in which she accuses Tuon of being petulant, and declares that the war must be brought to an end before Tarmon Gai’don. She also threatens that the White Tower and every army of the continent will be thrown against the Seanchan and will surely destroy them.
At Tuon’s command, Selucia produces an a’dam and collars Teslyn. Tuon is revealed to be wearing the bracelet, and she uses Teslyn’s channeling to block anyone escaping, or entering, the wagon. Joline and Edesina are restrained with the One Power and collared as well.
Joline holds on to her Aes Sedai attitude as Tuon demonstrates what the a’dam can do, brushing off Mat’s attempts to convince her to stop. When he reminds her that she herself can channel, Tuon responds that she is different because she chooses not to channel, just as she chooses not to steal or commit murder.
When Mat still persists, he feels the medallion grow cold, and Tuon is astonished at the weaves dissolving around him. Mat releases a weeping Teslyn, who kisses his fingers in gratitude. As he moves on to Joline, Tuon complains, somewhat petulantly, that she wants the Aes Sedai to stop annoying her. Mat suggests that the women would probably agree to leave her alone after this. Teslyn and Edesina agree readily, but Joline remains stubbornly silent.
“I could let Precious keep you for a few days, until you change your mind.” Joline’s collar clicked open in his hands. “But I won’t.”
Still staring into his eyes, she touched her throat as though to confirm the collar was gone. “Would you like to be one of my Warders?” she asked, then laughed softly. “No need to look like that. Even if I would bond you against your will, I couldn’t so long as you have that ter’angreal. I agree, Master Cauthon. It may cost our best chance to stop the Seanchan, but I will no longer bother… Precious.”
Tuon hissed like a doused cat, and he sighed again. What you gained on the swings, you lost on the roundabouts.
Mat spends part of that night digging a deep hole to bury the a’dam in; he doesn’t want to risk giving anyone else the job, even people he trusts. It rains, and he gets soaked, and the dice still haven’t stopped tumbling in his head.
The next day starts better for Mat. Tuon chooses to ride next to him instead of with Selucia between them as Luca’s show travels on. When he observes a flock of ravens and tells Tuon that sometimes ravens, crows, and rats can be spies for the Dark One, Tuon accuses him of believing in children’s stories.
Eventually they come to a strange village. Mat finds it odd in a way he can’t quite identify. No one in the village acknowledges their arrival, or even notices them. As the show turns off into a nearby field, a peddler comes down the road from the opposite direction. Mat hears the hooves of the peddler’s horses suddenly strike on cobblestones, despite the fact that the road isn’t paved, and realizes at the same time that the architecture of the town is not modern, but that of the long-dead country of Shiota. He shouts for the peddler to keep going, but the man doesn’t heed him, and suddenly his horses start screaming.
The peddler starts screaming too, after leaping from his wagon to see what’s wrong. He and his horses and wagon are sinking into the earth, into the very clay of the road, and the village sinks too, as the peddler screams and the villagers remain oblivious. Tuon and Selucia stop Mat from moving his horse towards the peddler, though he knows there is nothing he can do to help as the peddler continues to scream
Mat kept waiting for him to die, hoping for him to die—surely that was better than the other—but the man kept on screaming as he sank to his waist, to his chest. Desperately, he tipped back his head like a man being pulled under water, sucking for one last breath. Then his head vanished, and just his arms remained, frantically waving until they, too, were gone. Only his hat lying on the road said there had ever been a man there.”
Everyone except the Aes Sedai remain frozen, who hurry up the road to study the area where the village disappeared. Eventually everyone begins arguing. None of Luca’s people want to cross that part of the road and instead want to turn off to find side roads or go all the way back to Ebou Dar and farther. Luca begins to talk to everyone, a showman spinning a grand image of the splendor of the cities they are on their way to, while Mat and Thom bet on whether or not he will succeed in convincing his people to keep going. Mat loses, but is glad of it, because keeping Tuon safe without the show would be very difficult.
Everyone remains terrified of crossing the space of road where the village was, racing their horses when it’s their turn to cross, though Mat forces himself to keep to a walk. Tuon and Selucia, riding beside him, remain outwardly calm; Mat is deeply impressed.
No one wants to sleep that night. Tuon turns Mat away from her wagon. He spends the night playing games with Noal, Thom, Juilin, Amathera and Olver. Domon and Leilwin also join them for a while, and Leilwin encourages Amathera to stand up for herself, even around Seanchan. Leilwin and Domon make peace with Juilin, and the four of them move to Domon Leilwin’s wagon to share a drink.
A thunderstorm breaks over them. Mat notes that Thom is rereading his old letter again, and asks him about it. Thom offers it to him, overriding Mat’s resistance and encouraging him to read the letter because it concerns Mat; Moiraine wrote it. In the letter, she predicts her own “death” confronting Lanfear and urges Thom to believe that she can predict other events as well, though she is not at liberty to explain how.
When you receive this, you will be told that I am dead. All will believe that. I am not dead, and it may be that I shall live to my appointed years. It also may be that you and Mat Cauthon and another, a man I do not know, will try to rescue me. May, I say because it may be that you will not or cannot, or because Mat may refuse. He does not hold me in the affection you seem to, and he has his reasons which he no doubt thinks are good. If you try, it must be only you and Mat and one other. More will mean death for all. Fewer will mean death for all. Even if you come only with Mat and one other, death also may come. I have seen you try and die, one or two or all three. I have seen myself die in the attempt. I have seen all of us live and die as captives.
She also claims that Mat knows where to find her, and warns them to remember what they know about the game of Snakes and Foxes.
When Mat points out that the redstone doorway Moiraine fell through was destroyed, and there is no way to reach her even if she is alive, Olver volunteers some information that Birgitte told him: that “the Tower of Ghenjei is the way to the lands of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn.” The signs that one makes to enter is the same sign that is made when beginning a game of snakes and foxes.
Noal starts lamenting the fact that Jain Farstrider never found the Tower. Noal describes its appearance, and Mat realizes then that he has seen the Tower before, while sailing with Domon after escaping Shadar Logoth. He insists that he can’t go with Thom, however, because the Eelfinn will know he’s coming. He tells everyone about his encounters with the Eelfinn and the Aelfinn, although he leaves out the answers he received and the gifts he was given.
He even removed the scarf to show his scar for extra weight, and he seldom let anybody see that. The three of them listened in silence, Thom and Noal intently, Olver’s mouth slowly dropping open in wonder. The rain beating on the tent roof was the only sound aside from his voice.
After some time to process everything that Mat has said, Noal asks to be the third man to go with them. Thom insists that he doesn’t care if they know Mat is coming, he will go anyway, and he will go if Mat refuses, even knowing that it will mean his own death.
Mat hesitates, thinking about how heroes are always pushed into doing things, and discarded by the narrative the rest of the time, and how he never really liked or trusted Moiraine.
Only fools trusted Aes Sedai. But then, if not for her, he would be back in the Two Rivers mucking out the barn and tending his da’s cows. Or he would be dead. And there old Thom sat, saying nothing, just staring at him. That was the rub. He liked Thom. Oh, blood and bloody ashes.
Mat declares that he will go, and thunder booms the same moment as the last set of dice stops rolling in his head.
Well, that was certainly an adventure. Not much action happened—even the death of the peddler was only witnessed and not participated in—but the revelation about Moiraine’s letter and its contents is such a huge plot development that it feels like we went through a lot more than we actually did. Mat probably feels similarly, to be fair.
I do want to mention at this point that, despite my best efforts to avoid spoilers, I did find out a while ago that Moiraine wasn’t actually dead. Even before that I suspected that she might be pulling a Gandalf—you know, sacrificing herself to save the hero and disappearing into what seems like certain death, only to return later having been through some incredible transformation and leveling up a bunch, just in time to be really useful in the Big Battle/s—but the way I got spoilered about her return was by accidentally stumbling across the fact that she and Thom end up together.
Because of all this, I wasn’t surprised by the letter’s revelation that Moiraine and Thom are apparently in love with each other, but I am baffled. I could probably come up with some reasons they make sense together if I really tried; Moiraine and Morgase are somewhat similar in personality, so Moiraine being Thom’s type makes sense. Moiraine and Thom both have that propensity towards sacrificing themselves for Two Rivers boys and then surviving the unsurvivable, so they could bond about that—but as far as I can recall, they really didn’t have that much time together, and even less time actually on the page talking to each other. The whole thing has just come completely out of left field, unless there were some hints in the first several books that I’ve now forgotten about—which is possible, since I did start reading the series seven years ago.
To be fair, Jordan never really writes romances unfolding. People meet, maybe there’s a scene that shows that they have some kind of spark between them, and then suddenly they’re in love and the narrative treats it like we watched both parties slowly develop feelings over weeks and months as the relationship naturally deepened. Rand and Elayne didn’t really have much more on-page time than Thom and Moiraine had, and while Nynaeve and Lan’s relationship has been very interesting, most of that development happened after they declared their love for each other. In their case I didn’t mind so much because it was the first romance of the series, and the focus of their story was not the falling in love but Lan’s whole “I’m doomed and depressed and don’t want to make you a widow” thing. Meanwhile, Min and Aviendha seem to have fallen in love with Rand solely because they were told they would—which may be the case for Moiraine, I suppose. Maybe she learned that she would go on to marry Thom if the right things happened and she was rescued by Thom, Mat, and the mysterious third man who is definitely not Jain Farstrider and is just his cousin, thank you. Maybe that was what made her think of him as a romantic prospect in the first place.
(Lan and Nynaeve were the first romance if you don’t count Rand and Egwene, that is. And while their relationship already existed before the start of The Eye of the World, it does end just as abruptly as all the other relationships start; it’s suddenly just stated that they see each other as siblings. When did this happen? Why? Nobody knows.)
Anyway, Moiraine and Thom make no sense to me but I did really enjoy everything else revealed about the Aelfinn and Eelfinn, the snakes and foxes game, and the Tower of Ghenjei.
I have to hand it to Jordan because he set this revelation up really well. I’d figured that the game of snakes and foxes had to be related to the foxy folk (Eelfinn) and snakey folk (Aelfinn), plus the fact that you can’t actually win the game. I believe at one point Mat observes in the narration that the game can’t be won except by cheating, which might point to an answer in how Mat and his friends will survive their sortie into the realm of the Eelfinn. Olver’s particular obsession with the game was a clue as well, but without knowing what Birgitte told him, it seemed to me, as it did to Mat, to be just a normal childish interest. Now, however, it’s clear that Olver has been so obsessed with the game because of the stories Birgitte told him about the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. Fortunately, those stories have given Mat and Thom the exact information they need to know how to get into the land of the A/Eelfinn.
It is Fortune indeed that had Noal and Olver and Thom and Mat all together on this fateful night. We can see perhaps why Olver and Noal were drawn, probably by ta’veren power, to Mat, so they could be there to provide him with exactly the information he needs exactly when he needs it. The fact that Jain Farstrider—I mean Noal—was able to describe the Tower of Ghenjei in a way that sparked Mat’s memory of seeing it while on Domon’s ship feels especially like the Pattern pulling Mat, or Mat pulling the pattern. And I have a feeling that Moiraine is still very important to the Last Battle. Noal, Mat, and Thom might be about to do more than save a single person—they might be about to save the world, too.
(I mean seriously, when Noal tells Mat, regarding Mat’s story of encountering the A/Eelfin, “[…] that tops anything I ever did. Anything Jain ever did, too.” Did anyone hear the “I mean anything Jain did!” in there? Or was it just me?)
The thought about Moiraine’s possible future importance reminds me of something else: We haven’t seen the conclusion of all the answers the Aelfinn gave Mat yet. They told him that he had to go to Rhuidean and that if he didn’t, he would have sidestepped his fate, but they also told him what that fate was, or part of it anyway. They told him that he would marry the Daughter of the Nine Moons, that he would “die and live again, and live once more a part of what was,” and that he would “give up half the light of the world to save the world.”
Tuon is the Daughter of the Nine Moons, so that part is clear now. I initially thought the dying and living again was his being hanged by the Eelfinn, but it probably references Mat’s death at the hands of Rahvin, which Rand reversed by shooting Rahvin with balefire. Living as “a part of what was” might refer to the way reality was altered by Rahvin being erased from the Pattern.
Or maybe it refers to something else that hasn’t happened yet—though the idea of Mat dying and coming back to life again seems a bit unlikely. (It would fit the rule of threes, though.) In any case, I know we haven’t got to whatever “give up half the light of the world to save the world” means. It’s going to be big, and we’re going to recognize it when it happens. I wonder if it might end up having something to do with Moiraine and the attempt to rescue her. I have no idea what, but I feel like it either has to be this or something that will happen during the Last Battle.
I was very happy to get the confirmation about Setalle being a burned-out former Aes Sedai. Judging by her reaction to Mat’s medallion, she was probably a Brown and burned herself studying a ter’angreal. It’s a really sad story, especially her comment about how Aes Sedai expect someone in her position to “go away decently and die.” I’ve always felt empathy for the Aes Sedai fear of being stilled or burned out, especially after Siuan and Leane went through it and we saw first hand how awful it really is. But Setalle was no criminal, no failed Amyrlin, stilled for betraying the Tower. She was just an ordinary sister, studying ter’angreal, which everyone seems to agree is important, even if it is dangerous. She had an accident, and was expected to go away and die, as the “decent thing to do.” It made me feel kind of gross about the Aes Sedai, if I’m being honest.
Not as gross as I feel about Tuon, though. I’m confused why Setalle would want to protect a woman who would so eagerly enslave Aes Sedai. I can kind of understand why she wanted to help Mat navigate a relationship with Sisters, since he is of such benefit to them, but Tuon is a leader of a civilization that enslaves female channelers and treats them like sentient animals, and Setalle just… doesn’t seem bothered by that. She may be practical enough not to actively want to harm Tuon, but to go out of her way to protect Mat, who Setalle clearly likes even though she thinks he’s a player, feels extreme.
Of course, I’ve always known that Tuon is a slave owner, and that she shares the Seanchan belief that women who can channel are lesser beings who deserve to be collared, broken, and controlled. The fact that she sits at the top of the Seanchan hierarchy is no doubt helpful in maintaining that belief even in her current circumstances: As a member of the royal family, Tuon is so high above most humans that of course it would be easy for her to feel above those her culture deems subhuman. The hypocrisy in her distinction between her ability to be a sul’dam and collared women is pretty staggering, but you can see how the Seanchan mindset gets her there.
Tuon tells Mat that she is different from the Aes Sedai because, even if she has the ability to channel, she chooses not to, just like she chooses not to commit murder. In this argument she conflates something one does with what one is, especially since we know that women born with the spark cannot stop themselves from touching the True Source even if they want to, and that young women are tested by the a’dam and collared if necessary even before they show any signs of being able to channel. This fits with the hierarchical thinking that is endemic to Seanchan culture. Even though there is some opportunity for upward mobility (and a great deal for downward) in that society, one cannot believe that some human beings deserve to stand above others or believe in a moral justification for slavery without believing that one’s right to stand above or below is inherent. This is why members of the Blood are often assassinating each other, but it is basically unfathomable to anyone that someone not of the Blood could kill one of the Blood. This is why it is unfathomable to Suroth that anyone could reach inside the Imperial family to murder any of them, even though they are often having each other assassinated.
Of course, Tuon isn’t a full-time sul’dam. It’s just a hobby for her, which means she’s linked to the One Power much less often and probably won’t ever develop the ability to see the weaves, which in turn makes it easier to ignore this aspect of herself. It could be argued that it’s a pretty small step from understanding oneself as a controller of damane to a damane in one’s own right… and a much larger one from being the heir to the Crystal Throne to a despised slave. The Empress is spoken of almost as though she is more than human, while the damane are something less than. It makes sense that Tuon’s view of herself, of what she is, can’t accommodate this new reality, and that she rejects it with much more confidence than the other sul’dam have.
However, knowing that doesn’t make it any nicer to see the way she treats Teslyn and the others. Knowing that she destroyed Sheraine Sedai, probably irreversibly, doesn’t make me like her, either. While she and Mat have had much more time to get to know each other than most of the other romantic pairs in this story, I’m not really sure what it is Mat sees in her. He likes her strength, which is fair enough, and clearly finds the game of the courtship interesting, for all his internal protests that women are a nightmare he’ll never understand. But Mat is a good person, and Tuon… well, I suppose it depends where you’re standing. She’s kind to Noal, and to Olver, and she seems genuine in her desire to care for the citizens under her rule, but not all of those citizens are deemed to be whole people, and we have seen how cruel the Seanchan can be to anyone who doesn’t measure up to their cruel, exacting standards.
On the other hand, she hasn’t been with Mat very long, nor has she seen much of the world or been exposed to many different kinds of people. Transformation takes time, sometimes even when there’s a ta’veren standing nearby. I also wonder if Tuon would change her tune if she understood that using the a’dam means that she is using the One Power herself; she is controlling the flows, even if they come from someone else. If you reach into someone’s brain and force them to kill, which of you is actually the murderer? It’s not the puppet who is to blame, but the puppeteer.
I couldn’t quite figure out why Selucia was afraid when Mat started taking the a’dam off the Aes Sedai. Maybe she was worried the channelers—dangerous and evil, according to her belief system—would strike back at Tuon once they were freed?
I can’t say that I enjoyed chapter 9 very much, but there were some bits that were quite interesting. I’m very happy for Leilwin (I see Mat’s point about the name, but if she wants to be called Leilwin, I’ll call her Leilwin.) and Domon; I think they’re very cute together. I also continue to be impressed with Leilwin’s adaptability. Her transformation was born of interacting with two Aes Sedai and seeing that they were not evil. She was quick enough to take the next logical step: If not all channelers are evil, then not all of them are, or should be, marath’damane. From there her belief in her culture started to unravel, I think, and if she hadn’t been driven from the Seanchan ranks in the way she was, it probably would have happened some other way. Maybe she would have run off to marry Domon, maybe she would have reached a point where she couldn’t ignore the cruelty of Seanchan slavery and the damane system. Maybe something else. But I believe it would have happened.
And she’s free now. Free to stop thinking of Domon as property, manumitted or otherwise, and free to make a new life for herself. She even went so far as to try to help Amathera and to rescind her judgment of Juilin as a thief for rescuing her, which showed a lot of growth.
Also, do I just have a dirty mind or did Leilwin and Domon ask Amathera and Juilin to join them for a foursome?
I can’t believe it’s taken me to the end of this post to get to the whole ghost town sinking into the bog and taking a living human with it, but my excitement over Moiraine maybe getting rescued just overtook everything. I feel like I should have guessed that something other than being frightened could come of the “ghosts” that have been showing up with increasing frequency. As a symptom of the Pattern being disturbed—maybe degrading, maybe being folded over so that places touch which shouldn’t—it had to start having real consequences, and what happened to the peddler felt thematically very much like the eruption of the bubbles of evil, especially the first one when figures started climbing out of Mat’s playing cards and reflections of Rand started emerging from mirrors to attack him.
What I really want to know is if the peddler had extraordinarily bad timing in reaching the village when he did or if the sinking occurred because something living stopped in its midst. None of the ghosts we’ve witnessed thus far have stayed around very long, but that doesn’t mean that this village from the past has to obey the same rules. Or even that there are any rules at all.
It’s been a while since I’ve complimented Jordan’s ability to paint a scene, but the encounter with the Shiotan village certainly showed his skill in the area. It was so visceral; I could see everything that happened so clearly in my mind’s eye.
A quick announcement: Next week’s post will appear a day later than usual, on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. We’ll cover two more chapters, in which I find out what Hell means in the world of the Wheel of Time and Perrin visits a tea factory.
I can’t believe Sylas doesn’t remember that one offhanded comment Min made the first time we met her all the way back in TEotW…
Ha… very technically it was a suggestion Moiraine made about knowing the face of the man she would marry, and it was in TSR, but yes it was about the viewing Min gave Moiraine back in Baerlon.
I was referring to Min’s viewing of an eye on a balance scale.
Fair enough, never mind!
After the village from Shiota, I can’t wait to see Sylas’ reaction to Hinderstap.
I share Sylas’s view of Jordan romances. Nynaeve and Lan’s is genuinely one of my favorites across fantasy, and I do think it’s telegraphed and organic in EotW. But Moraine and Thom? Just another fated bc Min-said-so thing, and that’s done too many times in this series.
We’ve also seen the Tower of Ghenjei one other time. In TSR, while chasing Slayer in Tel’aran’rhiod, Perrin follows him to the tower, and Birgitte appears and warns him not to enter it, and that it was the home of the Aelfinn and the Eelfinn. In fact it was in the chapter titled “To the Tower of Ghenjei”, just to show how significant it was.
Given the above, and Min’s various viewings, many of us had predicted the essential contents of Thom’s letter long before this book was published. RJ was a master at laying the clues!
As for developing romance, maybe not so much…
I seem to remember Moraine and Thom holding a romantically weighted conversation together in the Stone of Tear in The Shadow Rising as well as a couple comments from Thom to Rand in The Great Hunt when they reunite in Cairhien about what a “fine woman” Moraine is
There’s no question that there were hints dropped that Thom might be interested in Moiraine and vice versa, but that’s not the same as building up a romance on the page. It’s just pointing out that something is there without ever showing us how it came to be or setting it up in a satisfying way.
And I’m not sure that I would call Thom’s and Moiraine’s conversation in TSR Chapter 17 particularly romantically weighted (and I’m not sure whether they ever had another conversation on the page one-on-one with no one else around). Thom thinks she’s beautiful in his POV, but it’s mostly spent on them telling each other what they know about their hidden histories, and her promising to give him the names of the Red Ajah who had Owyn gentled. There’s nothing in there to suggest that they were both so madly in love with one another at that point that the next time they meet it would make sense that she would both bond him and get engaged to him. In fact, Thom tells her to get out of his room.
Absolutely. The hints were there
It’s crazy to think this series has been going on for 7 years. That is some serious dedication by Sylas.
Honestly aside from the charming bit between Mat and Setalle, the whole way that the despicable Tuon and her horrendous culture and her supporting cast of loathsome characters were portrayed really offended me – are these details supposed to be humanizing? Elicit blips of sympathy? Honestly, I had restrain myself from setting my copy of the book on fire.
i don’t understand the near-unanimous loathing of Tuon by the commenters here. I think she might just be the most fascinating character in the series. I think it is silly to judge alien culture our own standards, and Tuon is saturated with attitudes that have been inculcated in her since her birth. She shows early signs of growing out of a few of these and is willingly exposing herself to other cultural practices – though she is still far from major changes at this stage. I find Jordan’s attempt to write a believable slow-change process intriguing – it’s a difficult thing to do. I would not necessarily “like” a person with Tuon’s traits, but I find the fictional character one of the most interesting in the saga.
Some things cannot be excused as cultural differences. Slavery is one.
This. If every character is lovable and aligned with the same moral code, which happens to be your own, there is no conflict and no point to the story.
I seem to remember from one of rare Tuon POVs, where she muses about her siblings, she offhandingly mentions about the one being “struck off books” due to either being made Damane or being put to death due to being male channeler.
Additionally, to add a point to changes to Seanchsn culture. Currently, the tradition is that all girls between certain ages are tested first as Damane and then, if interested, for Sul’dam. Once that testing is done, it’s done and if they are not with spark and did not bother testing for Sul’dam, even if they can learn to channel, they are free to go. From now on, Forkroot tea is being used to test ALL women. Forkroot tea does not separate from those born with spark (damane potential) and those who can learn to channel (sul’dam potential), ALL will react, which means only Damane and no Sul’dam results. Unless, ONLY people from Westlands get forkroot tea testing but in Seandar old testing continues, which would result in huge discrimination where ONLY sul’dam are those who are native Seanchan. And THIS would result in major destabilization of Seanchan as Empire, alike to Fall of Rome, where “barbarians” were forced to become part of Roman Empire, but always thought down on as not “true” Romans.
Is that true? I don’t recall ever seeing anything like that. I always thought that only someone who had touched the Source would be affected, so only “learners” who had actually learned would be affected, but I don’t recall if I had a specific reason for that or it’s just what I assumed.
I certainly didn’t pick up any of the subtle hints about Moraine, but I always thought it was likely she’d be back, purely because she’s a major character, and we never see a body.