Good morrow to you, fair readers, here on this lovely week 14 of our read of The Dragon Reborn. We’re doing two more chapters this week, Chapters 33 and 34, in which Perrin grapples with questions about the nature of the Pattern and meets an Aielman in a cage, just as Min promised. But why is this stranger important for Perrin? We’ll have to read on to find out.
Chapter 33 opens with Perrin studying a strange mark, like a giant dog’s footprints, in a stone. There are no other marks in the softer ground, not the scent of a dog’s trail, although Perrin catches something sulfurous, like the distant scent of fireworks.
They are pushing hard towards Jarra, even Loial yawning in his saddle. The Ogier is perplexed by Perrin’s inability to sleep, given how worn they all are from the traveling, but even besides the danger of Perrin’s dreams and how much he doesn’t want to have to acknowledge Hopper, he’s increasingly disturbed by the affects of Rand’s passage through various towns, which sometimes results in great fortune for the people, and sometimes in disaster. An entire town burned down here, the discovery of a long-lost cache of gold there, and Rand still managing to stay ahead of them, even though they found his horse dead—and mauled as if by wolves or wild dogs—outside of Jarra and he’s apparently now foot.
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When Perrin, disturbed that a ta’veren presence could cause evil in the world, asks Moiraine about the negative effects that Rand’s presence has had on some of the towns, she explains that, while the Creator is good and the Dark one is evil, the Pattern itself, the Wheel itself, is neither, and that both the good and the bad make up the weave. Perrin finds the idea that good and bad are incidental even more disturbing than if the bad things were a deliberate choice by the Pattern.
When they reach the town of Remen, Moiraine hides her Aes Sedai face in her hood while Loial draws interested murmurs from the crowd, but Perrin is more caught up with the strange smell that he detects in the air—a wrong smell, like the one he caught in Jarra, not that of Shadowspawn but just as twisted and vile. Then he catches sight of a man suspended in a cage in the town square, sitting unmoving as children throw rocks at him. None of the townspeople stop the children either, but look on with a mixture of approval and fear.
At the town inn they discover a common room full of people in celebratory clothing, everyone—except four trading ship captains talking separately in one corner—seeming animated and excited, even the serving women. They learn from the innkeeper, Gainor Furlan, that Hunters for the Horn are in town, and that the men found adventure here in the form of a band of Aielmen, whom they fought. As the two men, Lord Orban and Lord Gann, told the tale, they and ten retainers encountered a band of twenty Aiel and fought a hard battle, with six of the retainers being killed and the rest wounded, including the two lords, while all the Aiel were either slain or fled, save the one captive now in the cage.
Lord Orban shows himself to be a disagreeable sort as he stumps around demanding “that old woman with her herbs” and complaining of his and his friend’s pain, despite Furlan’s reassurances that Mother Leich took care of their wounds and they will be fine until she returns from helping with a birth. Lan and Loial question the man about the fight with the Aiel, but Moiraine cuts Orban’s boasting off to ask about their rooms.
As he follows the others up the stairs, Perrin feels someone watching him, and turns to see a young woman with dark hair watching him. He’s too preoccupied with wondering about it to listen to the innkeeper chatting away until his ears catch the words “proclaiming the Dragon in Ghealdan.” Moiraine asks about this false Dragon being proclaimed, and they learn that no man has actually called himself Dragon, but that someone is preaching that the Dragon has returned. From the description Furlan gives, Lan and Perrin both realize that it’s Masema. When Moiraine picks up on Lan’s hints, she obliquely promises to make him “wish someone had peeled his hide to make boots,” without revealing anything to Furlan, then basically slams the door in everyone’s face.
Once in his room, Perrin avoids laying down on his bed and sits on a stool instead, pondering the mysterious woman and the man in the cage, too caught up to pay attention to Loial when the Ogier comes in to tell Perrin how the inn brought an Ogier bed out of storage that is made of sung wood. He doesn’t go down to dinner with Loial, either. He can’t figure out how the mystery girl, with all the commotion and an Ogier to keep her attention, would have been so fixed on him, and he can’t stop thinking of Min’s words about an Aielman in a cage and his importance to Perrin. He wishes he had tried to do something to stop the children from throwing rocks, even if the adults would certainly have told him to mind his own business.
Eventually he gets up, dresses, and takes his axe. Going in search of Lan he accidentally walks in on Moiraine mostly naked, and once she has pulled a robe over herself he asks if Rand is responsible for the Aielmen and the hunters. Moiraine does not think so, and she explains to Perrin that they must make a choice about which way to travel now, since they know Rand is going to Tear, but they don’t know if he will cut across country, which is the most direct route, or take a ship downriver to Illian and then catch another to Tear. The second way is faster, and Moiraine may take that choice regardless, hoping to beat or at least catch Rand.
Perrin asks if she has sensed any Darkfriends, although Moiraine corrects him that only the farthest gone in the Shadow can be felt that way, and explains about the girl watching him. Moiraine reminds him that he is a handsome man and perhaps it’s that, and then Perrin leaves, trying not to think about how beautiful Moiraine is as he makes his way out of the inn through the common room, passing a boasting Orban on the way.
Outside he has the feeling of being watched but encounters no one until he reaches the place where the cage is suspended. Perrin lets the cage down and easily breaks through the chain holding the door closed. When the Aielman doesn’t immediately come out, Perrin speaks to him, and the Aielman asks why Perrin is letting him free.
As the man gets his legs working again, he introduces himself as Gaul, of the Imran sept of the Shaarad Aiel, and Shae’en M’taal, a Stone Dog. He tells Perrin he is looking for He Who Comes With The Dawn, and Perrin, recognizing the title, tells him that Rand is on his way to Tear, which makes sense to Gaul since there is a prophecy saying that when the Stone falls, the Aiel will leave “The Three-Fold land” aka the Waste.
Just then they are spotted by Whitecloaks, and Gaul, pulling his veil over his face, takes out a dozen of them barehanded, with a little help from Perrin. At Perrin’s compliment, he tells the truth of his encounter with the Hunters, that he and his friend walked carelessly into their midst, and paid for their mistake. He wishes Perrin well and runs off into the night.
Perrin, cleaning his axe, suddenly notices a female figure in the dark, watching him. He tries to chase her but runs into Lan instead, who demands to know if the bodies are Perrin’s doing. Perrin mentions the girl but that he doesn’t want Lan to hurt her, plus there may have been other witnesses. Lan tells him they need to get out of that town and onto a boat as quickly as possible, and sends Perrin to run and find Loial.
There is so much tension building in these chapters, as the threads of the plot slowly draw our protagonists towards Tear, the Stone, and Callandor. Of course, if I wasn’t pausing every few chapters to reflect and recap it wouldn’t feel quite as slow, and I probably would have breezed through the last few sections in the White Tower in my eagerness to get some more answers about the mystery of the traps waiting in Tear, and what Lanfear is plotting. That being said, what is really fascinating about The Dragon Reborn is how much it is delving into expanding the metaphysical world of The Wheel of Time. Where the first two books took our protagonists—and thus us, the readers—out of the quaint isolation of the Two Rivers and into the wide world, The Dragon Reborn is taking our fledgling channelers (not to mention wolfbrothers and human lucky charms) and showing them what the One Power really means—what the Wheel, and the universe it creates, really means.
Between last week’s revelation that Rand’s thoughts and moods might affect how his ta’veren powers manifest and this week’s reminder from Moiraine that the Wheel of Time is not just the driving force of a particular plan but of all aspects of Creation, both good and evil, I feel like I have a much better understanding of what the Pattern really is. Like Perrin, I assumed that the Pattern’s weave was a relatively straight line towards (or rather, a Möbius strip towards) a specific good and specific order that the Creator intended for his world(s). Maybe this was an overly simplistic view, but I think it’s common for humans to ascribe a relatively human perspective to their gods, even the capital G monotheistic ones: It’s not like we can really conceive of anything else. Perrin, as a blacksmith and a creator of objects and tools, puts the concept of Creation and its purpose into the metaphor of his own smithing because that’s the only reference point he has. He can’t see the sense in having evil be part of the pattern, and therefore sees the harmful effects that Rand has on the towns as nonsensical waste within the Pattern itself. But Moiraine can see things in a more complex light.
As she tells him when he asks:
“The Creator is good, Perrin. The Father of Lies is evil. The Pattern of Age, the Age Lace itself, is neither. The Pattern is what is. The Wheel of Time weaves all lives into the Pattern, all actions. A pattern that is all one color is no pattern. For the Pattern of an Age, good and ill are the warp and the woof.”
What Perrin is dealing here is what Aziraphale in Good Omens calls ineffability; the concept that the Divine plan is so far beyond the scope of our understanding that it is impossible to understand it or put it into words. Even the best Aes Sedai philosophers (of this Age, anyway) can only come at it obliquely, the way Verin does when she tries to explain the makeup of different universes within the Pattern to Egwene. It’s possible that the Creator in these stories has a vision that “makes sense” in some way that Perrin might approve of if he could see the whole picture; it’s equally possible that it would never make sense to a human’s perspective. (In fact, there’s technically no guarantee that it makes sense from the Creator’s perspective either; maybe the Creator is just throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.)
Perrin doesn’t just want to believe that the Pattern is good, he equates the idea of “Good” with a specific kind of order and a reverence for individual life. He’s chilled by the idea that the Pattern doesn’t care about these things, but I think he is missing the fact that his caring, as a part of the Pattern—and an important ta’veren one at that—is as relevant as any of those evil bits of the Pattern. I think that without recognizing that, he is setting himself up to continue to feel like the world has no purpose, that the Pattern is disorder and pointlessness. But Perrin’s arc bends towards the good that he wants, not just balance but actual good, and towards things like control, order, and respect for all life. He looks for good in the Pattern but he can’t see his own thread within it.
Moiraine, on the other hand, is a shepherd of the larger Pattern, and her focus is very different from Perrin’s. I think both are equally important, but Perrin, like all the Two Rivers folk, can’t see that this wide view she takes is still her caring, and very much at that. I wonder if it weighs on Moiraine to be so constantly reminded of the fact that these young people see her in such a light. She may think that perspective is foolish, and she has plenty of determination and self confidence to carry her through, but she’s still human, and she has quite the capacity for love, even if she keeps it on strict Aes Sedai leash.
Following closely on Perrin’s musings about how he cares, whether the Pattern does or not, his and Loial’s discussion about the children with the rocks hits the reader with a lot of weight. Perrin is distracted trying to understand what Min seeing this Aielman means, but he later circles back around to the idea that he should have done something to stop the children.
This question—when it’s right to intervene vs when to stand aside for the sake of a larger quest—is a recurring theme within the Wheel of Time books. Back in The Eye of the Word, Nynaeve picked a fight with Moiraine for not going back to help when The Stag and Lion was being burned, and they had one of the first discussions about this concept. Moiraine pointed out that, if they went back to help and got caught, they would never be able to help anyone else, and also that Tar Valon could send money to the innkeeper for compensation and rebuilding. But Nynaeve’s pain at seeing suffering in people she had met personally, while narrow in scope, still struck me as very important. Moiraine’s view is both understandable and useful, but it’s not hard to imagine that taking the long view of the Pattern could inure one to much of the violence and suffering in the world. At what point does the wider perspective become more of a thought exercise and less of a present activity? When does the focus on the greater good leave behind too many of the very people it strives to protect? I don’t see any signs that Moiraine is in danger of this, but I’m sure it is true for some Aes Sedai.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the different Ajahs. Besides being a specialty of talents, perhaps the different Ajahs have different focuses to stop the Aes Sedai from becoming too narrow-minded or one sided in the way they view the world. We now know that the Whites are dedicated to pure logic, for example, which sounds rather like what I was talking about in the last paragraph. And now that I think about it, Moiraine’s perspective as a Blue would probably be narrower if she hadn’t gotten caught up in Gitara Moroso’s foretelling of the Dragon’s birth and eventually become one of two women who knew the truth about the Dragon’s return. She and Siuan hatched this plan, seeing it as the world’s best hope for the Dragon to survive and be ready to protect them when his time came. But as a result, Moiraine’s duty has had to take a longer and broader arc than it might otherwise have; as a member of the Ajah concerned with justice, she probably would have had a more narrow focus at times, an interest in the individual problems of towns and villages and people.
We saw her compassion for Noam a few weeks ago, and she has had other encounters in which she expressed compassion and a desire to help individuals who are not necessarily involved in her greater quest. I asked earlier if it ever pained her to know that the Two Rivers folk see her as without understanding or empathy… I think I have my answer.
In other questions I’m getting answers to this week, we now have confirmation that those hellhounds, or whatever they are, chasing Rand are real. I kept wondering if they were just in his head, but now we have the footprint in the stone, the smell of sulfur, and a mauled horse to prove their material existence. Also, I can’t figure out if that dead horse is Red or not. It’s unclear what happened to Red after Rand was separated from him in the battle at Toman Head—maybe they were never reunited. Given the gruesome fate of Rand’s mount, I kind of hope so. Maybe Red found his way back to Gill in Caemlyn somehow, Homeward Bound style.
I think I’m going to imagine it that way.
I suppose it’s no coincidence that Perrin is once again faced with the question of deciding what to do with a man in a cage, a man that others see as a savage animal. Orban and his boasting made my skin crawl for sure, and it was so obvious that he and his tale were full of it, even before we got the true story from Gaul—the rude way he talked about Mother Leich and the woman giving birth, the way he and Furlan refer to the Aiel as savages, and of course the obvious hints that he was lying about the number of the slain with all that blustering “No doubt they’re hiding their dead now; I’ve heard they do that” and “the Whitecloaks will never find them.”
I somehow missed how relatively recent the Aiel War was (only twenty years ago!) so I suppose I need to recognize that the hostility Furlan feels makes a fair amount of sense. Still, there’s no escaping the weight words like “savages” and other phrasing that indicates not just a disdain for a terrifying enemy, but a view of the Aiel as less than people. Leaving the captive in a gibbet for children to throw rocks at (ostensibly until he dies?) is a monstrous thing, and I think it shows these people’s true colors that they would treat these events as something to be celebrated with fancy clothes and parties.
Of course, we know more about the Aiel than these people probably do, having met one once before. Although the Shienarans were wary of Urien when they encountered him in the mountains looking for Rand, there was a mutual respect for fellow warriors there, I think, on both sides of the encounter as well as from Verin. (Even if Uno did mutter about “crazy bloody Aiel.”)
I also think it was clear from the moment we saw the cage that Perrin was going to do something about it, even if he was too preoccupied at first to engage with Loial’s objection to the children with their stones. He cares, as he says, and he knows a thing or two about cages. And although the narration only glances across it, his disdain for Orban shows us that his allegiance will be with the Aiel we come to know as Gaul.
I still have so many questions about the Aiel, though. Why is this desert-dwelling people described as having red hair and fair skin? What is the “sin” that they are being punished for, as Urien described it? I have to wonder if it doesn’t have something to do with the Breaking, since most of the time when a people can’t remember something that happened long ago, it’s related to the Breaking of the World, like how the Tuatha’an lost their song. And now the Aiel are searching for the Dragon Reborn, even though they don’t seem to realize that the figure they know as He Who Comes With the Dawn is the Dragon himself. But they, too, have a prophecy about the falling of the Stone of Tear, so it all does fit rather nicely. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing Gaul again, and I imagine that when we do, his respect and loyalty to Perrin for what he did will be significant to the plot, moving forward.
Of course, his real loyalty, and that of the rest of the Aiel, will lie with Rand, the man of their own people who is also the one prophesied to lead them out of the Waste for good.
But before we can get to any of that, we have to get to Tear. Moiraine was already leaning towards taking the boats, given how unlikely it is that they will be able to catch Rand, but now Perrin has forced the decision, it seems. I do wonder what Moiraine meant when she said she almost thinks that Rand has learned to Travel. Definitely a channeling thing; perhaps something like using a Portal Stone, but instead just using one’s own power, possibly for smaller distances. She doesn’t think that it’s the answer, however, because then Rand would just go straight to Tear… but she doesn’t take into account the idea that Rand may be doing these things without really understanding what he’s doing, or how to control it. It’s possible Rand is doing something with saidin to increase his speed, but he may not even know that he is doing it.
Two more chapters next week, as Perrin takes a boat and deals with a lot of different women who want something from him. In the meantime, I hope that everyone has a wonderful week, and that your dreams are more peaceful than Perrin’s.
Sylas K Barrett thinks that a man who is against cages is exactly the hero we need right now, and not just in The Wheel of Time.
I think it’s worth noting that during the middle ages in Europe it was considered good family fun to wrap up a bundle of cats and set them on fire.
Ethics are taught and learned, not innate. Much as most people were passive observers to slavery, today most people aren’t up in arms about criminal justice reform, even though we lock people up in cages and make them, for instance, sow flags until they die for pennies an hour.
I think RJ actually does a pretty good job balancing romantic empathy and realistic callousness in his characters and portrayals of the world, and you can definitely see shadows of his military service in his work.
Has anyone ever tried to throw a rock through the bars of a cage or between the rails of a fence? It is hard! In my head cannon, the kids stopped throwing because too many rocks were bouncing off the bars and hitting them.
I know it’s a long road with ups and downs for Perrin, but I think it’s important here that he does trust Moiraine to have the answers. He’ll make his own mind in his own time about things, but aside from Egwene he’s the most likely character at this point to trust his elders and seek their council.
Another thought, considering this meeting between Gaul and Perrin was ordained by the pattern, did the pattern cloud the Aiel’s senses so they would walk into the ambush? It think this is literally the only time in 15 books that Aiel scouts are caught out in the open by non-Aiel.
I had always thought that Perrin was actually looking for Moraine and that he started babbling about thinking Lan was there to cover up his embarrassment over walking in on her naked – and because he had done so because he had assumed Lan would be there and therefore it was safe to walk in. But this is now the second read through I have read and we’re 2/2 on taking Perrin’s words at face value that he was looking for Lan.
@1 This is something I have always thought was particularly impressive about The Wheel of Time and a few similar titles. I really appreciate it when an author is able to take a step back and write about morally questionable things without colouring them with a modern brush. Not because I feel that our current morals are wrong, but because acknowledging that morality isn’t only grey, but shifts and churns over time is – I think – vitally important to having a nuanced and rich world.
Oh man, how can one not understand what savage means? How can one be confused by “red-haired and fair skinned?”
Certainly not one of the posts that make me think that Sylas has to have already read the series :-/
@3: The pattern doesn’t ordain anything. It doesn’t act per se.
Oh, the irony.
In Sylas’ defense (and in critique of the author actually, though I know where this ultimately goes, so it’s okay), “fair skinned” is totally bonkers for a desert-bound society. It’s very unlikely that a society living in a desert for thousands of years would not develop higher concentrations of melanin. If I didn’t know more about the lore of the world and how it is set up, I too would be very confused by that description. Frankly I’m not entirely sure I am not still a little confused, it is odd that the Aiel remained fair skinned in such harsh conditions for literally thousands of years.
Man, I forgot just how soon Masema turned into crazy proselytizing Prophet hellbent on fucking shit up everywhere he went. I’m also a bit surprised that Sylas sailed right past that tidbit given his perspicacity on damn near every other hint scattered throughout the series thus far.
Note to moderators: typo in the paragraph where Sylas is talking about the reason for multiple Ajahs – “two narrow minded” should be “too narrow minded.”
@10 – Fixed, thanks.
@2:
I spent most of my childhood throwing things, including rocks through fences. Hours and hours of that, in fact. The group of kids wouldn’t be discouraged by it, it would become a game, where the kid who gets one through is rewarded by the admiration of his or her peers. It increases status.
@3:
It wasn’t an ambush. They stumbled upon each other. Pure accident. And yes, the Pattern at work.
@5:
Sylas didn’t seem to misunderstand why they used the word “savage.” Just that it was an awful, demeaning term. As far as why a desert folk has red hair and pale skin, a lot of people have questioned that, even knowing the “why” the story gives. There are plenty of people knowledgeable in both anthropology and genetics who say its bunk that the Aiel would still have pale skin after isolating themselves in the Waste for 3500 years. That adaptation could have transformed the levels of pigmentation in their skin after only about 500 years. And then there are others who disagree. Its not an unreasonable question.
@6:
Fans use the Pattern and the Wheel interchangeably. And they personify it, even though technically it has no agency. For instance, Moiraine stating “the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills.” I think most people don’t struggle with this sort of Personification.
@8 – it’s been ~3500 years since the Breaking, and probably only 2000 or so since the founding of Rhuidean.
Also, you’re thinking of it backwards – at one time, all humans were dark-skinned. Pale skin was an adaptive response to the colder climates of Northern Europe, and it took hundreds of thousands of years to develop. It makes perfect sense that the Aiel of WoT would still be pale if that was what the Da’Shain Aiel looked like before the Breaking. It’s only in the past <10,000 years that pale skin became dominant in Europe, and it’s primarily due to association with lactose tolerance and vitamin D synthesis. Dark skin isn’t an adaptive response to desert climates, pale skin is an adaptive response to brutal cold and resource scarcity.
Re: pale skin on Aiel. I’m not sure of the exact timeline, but I know the Aiel didn’t find the Waste right after the Breaking. It took a long journey (as see in the Way Back Machine). Let’s say about two thousand years then. Is that long enough for evolution to take place?
@12 – I’m not sure who those “knowledgeable people” are, but they’re wrong. See my comment above, but also, genetic change doesn’t happen like that – it needs a source. An isolated population like the Aiel wouldn’t have had a source of fresh genetic material to cause that adaptation. In Europe it happened over the course of several thousand years, originating in the Caucasus Mountains (I think, anyway, I might be misremembering that one.) But 500 years is an absolutely preposterous timeframe for genetic drift of that magnitude. It’s weird that they don’t get sunburns though.
@6 But the pattern does act. It spins out Taveren to adjust things. It changes the laws of probability around them. Wild coincidences happen so that Taveren have what they need. See Verin and Mat in later books. There, it was obvious the coincidences aligning to force Verin to seek out Mat. I’m just curious how the pattern adjusted probability and coincidences to make sure Gaul got caught by a group of idiot hunters.
@13, 14:
The Aiel entered the Waste during the end of the Breaking, before the founding of Tar Valon in 47 AB, and the Compact of Ten Nations, which was 200 years after the Breaking ended. Construction of Rhuidean began almost immediately.
The breaking itself took place over hundreds of years. This is the period of time we see the Aiel traveling during in The Shadow Rising. During the Breaking. Or at least, the immediate aftermath of the worst of it. And before and immediately after the year 1 AB.
https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline
@13, 15
I’m afraid many scientists disagree with your conclusion that many thousands of years are necessary for this kind of adaptation to take place. Adaptations can happen very very quickly in isolated people groups. The amount of pigmentation and melanin is not a huge genetic change. Its just a fairly specific adaptation. I’ve seen estimates as low as 500 years when there is an environmental issue at work, and no more than 2500 years naturally. Here’s an NPR article on it, specifically regarding isolated people groups with no fresh genetic material:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100057939
Since they’ve been in the Waste for 3500 years, at the very least this process would be well under way. I won’t claim to be an expert on this, but I’m also not going to argue with the current science on it. And regardless of any of it, I will reiterate that my original comment stated there were experts on both sides of the issue. I’m only saying that its not unreasonable, or idiotic, to think RJ gaffed on this.
@17 – NPR is hardly “current science”, and even the low estimate in that article is 2500 years to effect the change.
I think a large part of the problem here is similar to the one Perrin is grappling with in these chapters re: the Pattern and its overall indifference. Much like Perrin’s assumption that the Pattern shares his specific priorities, we tend to assume that natural selection operates with a goal in mind. It doesn’t. It’s just barely theoretically possible that the Aiel might have changed pigmentation in that time frame, but it’s far from a certainty. First, the change would need to be made available, either through introduction of a new breeding member with a darker skinned genetic profile or through mutation. Then that new code would have to successfully propagate throughout the entire population (easily 1 million individuals, and probably closer to two) spread in low density groups across a third or so of the entire continent. And every individual carrying that gene would need to breed before dying while living in a society of violent warriors. It would be far, far more unlikely for the Aiel to have changed their skin color so radically.
@18:
Of course its not. Its just a news service. The current science is the paper and book quoted in the article. Which granted, is 13 years old now. And here’s the quote from the article, which you have interpreted as “and even the low estimate in that article is 2500 years to effect the change”:
Now, the Aiel wear clothes, and that would certainly slow down the rate. But again, the process should be very much under way after 3500 years regardless. Which was my point. Again. That it is not unreasonable to question why they are still “pale.” Whether you think it is the “most likely” outcome or not is irrelevant to that point.
Also, that doesn’t mean they should be dark-skinned either. Just somewhere in the spectrum, rather than all the way to one side of it. The process should be well under way at this point in selecting the best adaptation for the Aiel as a people.
Even if you think it would take 10,000 years, they would still be a pretty long way from “fair skinned” after 3500.
To be fair, the Aiel are only fair-skinned where the sun don’t shine (from a description of Aviendha in the post-love making scene with Rand in Seanchen). They are described as deeply tanned.
@21:
Its the “where the sun don’t shine” skin that is currently under discussion, however.
@18, @19
FWIW, I am an actual practicing evolutionary biologist (PhD, professor and researcher at university for 15+ years, has taught evolution to thousands of students), and I always thought it odd that the Aiel were still considered to be particularly pale (the hair color doesn’t bother me as much, although the traits are somewhat linked in the population as a whole) given the amount of time they’ve spent in the desert. There is rather strong selective pressure for darker skin tones in the conditions described, and the idea that there was no variation (or has been none) for natural selection to work on seemed a stretch. It doesn’t make it impossible, for a number of reasons (not the least of which is a small-population founder effect), but felt a little implausible.
I always viewed this more as Jordan trying to upset reader assumptions in his world-building (i.e., what we assume a desert dweller would look like…you could do the same thing with a dark-skinned race of Vikings) rather than him thinking (or knowing) at all about the science.
@23 That’s more or less where I come down on the debate as well. At worst this is an instance of authorial fiat and it’s not really a huge issue either way, especially since the argument can absolutely be made that – for any number of reasons – it is possible that the skin tone remained pale. My original post at least was more in defense of Sylas’ confusion, rather than trying to point out an issue with the world building itself. It is a reasonable point of confusion, one way or the other, quite aside from whether it is feasible or not.
@23, 24:
Which is what I was trying to get across as well.
Also the degree of change will be related to the degree of genetic advantage. Melanin levels’ primary advantages are related to preventing skin cancer and desirability (we prefer our mates not be peeling). The Aiel culture and customs might mitigate both of those advantages. They are almost always fully covered when out in the sun and we know they don’t view disfigurements the same way we do.
The placement of the Aiel in the waste is also a way to demonstrate the massive migration of people that took place in and after the breaking.
There are some great moments in this section of the book. The stark, initial terror Moiraine feels when she thinks another Dragon has proclaimed himself (something she insists can’t happen now that Rand has), Perrin walking in on Moiraine humanizing her (one of the first times in the series), and Perrin’s decision to rescue Gaul.
IIRC, this is also where Moiraine makes a cryptic reference to Rand coming from a line of great runners.
I think what most of you are missing in the “fair skinned” debate is the existance of cadin’sor
each and every description of it gave me the impression of full pants and sleeves- even in the extreme heat- and it is mentioned that goign without clothing was dangerous in the Waste. If a people, even in a dessert setting with a lot of sun, are ALWAYS fully covered is there an actuall evolutionalry pressure for an increase in melanin???? I always assumed this was part of the solution.
Now for the importnat part of the post -/ Isnt it funny how Sylas is worried about Rand’s horse RED? as if that was the important horse in this story????/
I really can’t wait until Sylas gets to Shadow Rising :)
Regarding Aiel skin tone – my degrees are in genetics, so:
Either way is possible. Evolution of this sort will only happen if there is selective pressure favoring the gene. I am assuming Randland does not operate on Lamarckian genetic theory where the sun ‘makes’ them tan and then they pass that on. It is entirely possible that things like skin cancer aren’t as much of a threat in Randland, as well as their cultural practices provide enough protection from the sun. That said, just because they are light skinned doesn’t mean they wouldn’t have the alleles necessary for darker skin present…(although, depending on the makeup of the original Aiel, they might not)…but again, the selection is key.
Regarding the Wheel and Balance – I have to admit I am like Perrin in that it bothers me that it’s all so seemingly neutral. I’ve never really been totally into the worldview that good and evil are both required, or that balance (in this sense) is morally desirable. But I really, really like what Sylas says about while the Pattern may have more of a ‘longer’ view, Perrin’s caring is itself important to the Pattern.
Also: ENTER FAILE, DUN!
The aiel are good at covering up.
How long ago was the breaking? How long does evolution take?
We may have posted this to death, but it is an interesting discussion…. In such an isolated tribal population they would have to wait for random mutations to occur in the populace. They kill most outsiders… the ones they don’t, are not picked for breeding purposes… they don’t respect traders and certainly not the tinkers… My biology knowledge is old but may be relevant… sperm from old men have been considered the likely source of mutation… how many old men survive the aiel life? Some do, surely. The ones that live at the holds and aren’t in warrior societies. RJ doesn’t really go deep into widows/widowers… life after child bearing years for men… do they remarry? Do they marry child bearing age women? But any reduction in the likely-hood of mutation, will extend the time it takes for a beneficial mutation to expand into the populace. Just my thoughts…
@32 “They kill most outsiders… the ones they don’t, are not picked for breeding purposes… ”
And yet…
@32 – regarding age, that’s another good point. Not only would there need to be selective pressure, it would need to be selective pressure that manifests *before* an individual reaches childbearing age.
Can someone do the math on when we can expect the readthrough to hit Rhuidean? Because, ugh, it’s going to take forever.
“but I think he is missing the fact that his caring, as a part of the Pattern—and an important ta’veren one at that—is as relevant as any of those evil bits of the Pattern. I think that without recognizing that, he is setting himself up to continue to feel like the world has no purpose, that the Pattern is disorder and pointlessness.”
Waits for Natrin’s Barrow.
@@@@@6. Sebastian… the Pattern literally knocked Mazrim Taim off of his high horse the second Rand declared himself. Not only does the Pattern/Wheel act and intervene, the Creator never got around to installing the subtlety module.
@@@@@9. olethros6… Well, he did have help.
@@@@@27. tomas115… RJ: Well now I have a world full of interesting and unique cultures, and MOST of them can legitimately be conceptualized as PoC, but I COULD use one culture that I beat the reader over the head with the description of as white…. where can I put them that will upset expectations and actually make it interesting….
@@@@@28. H.P. Re: Line of great runners:
Tairen/Cairhein Nobles: But, my Lord Dragon, it took us three days to ride here and it nearly killed the horses. There is no way that scouts on foot can reach the city before your army does!
Aiel: We’ll post pictures of the siege on Insta before sunset.
@@@@@35. Nixorbo
I know, the Neuxue live blog may have ruined me, but after reading her experience of Rhuidean, it is the thing I wait for anytime I’m seeing someone’s reactions to WoT. That is one of the things I am most worried about the TV series getting right. A: that it lives long enough to get there without rushing it. And B: that they manage to actually capture the overwhelming emotion and Impact of all the events that we witness. I mean, it’s the history of the Aiel, technically, but we also see the planting of the seeds of almost major event in the series. Even stuff that we couldn’t possibly guess would happen at that stage, it all started (figuratively) in Rhuidean.
That’s a tall order for any director/editor/production company
When discussing skin pigmentation and evolution, let’s remember that the Waste is located to the east of the Westlands, not to the south. The desert is dry and the wetlands are wet because of weather patterns, not because of any difference in latitude. Fewer clouds should mean that a little more sunlight reaches the ground, but that effect should be small compared to the difference between the northern and southern parts of the Waste. The northern end gets about as much sunlight as the chilly Borderlands.
We know that Aiel sometimes trade with Stedding Shangtai in the south, and that they sometimes battle shadowspawn in or near the Blight. Beyond that I don’t think it’s known how they’re distributed between the northern and southern parts of the Waste.
Regarding Aiel skin color, the ancestors of the Native Americans came from Siberia something like 10,000-15,000 years ago, then settled all over the Americas, from frozen Canada to deserts in Southwestern USA or Mexico, to jungles in Central America and South America, to frozen wastes of Patagonia again. And they all seem to have a similar color.
Compare this to Eurasia, a place in which light skin was selected in two different cases 10,000 years ago, leading to two different genes causing it (one for Western Eurasians, like Europeans, and one for East Asians).
I guess the genetic bottleneck effect could make the Aiel not have dark color, since they don’t seem to reproduce with other people.
@@@@@ 38
According to the World of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time (aka as “The Big White Book” or “The big book with bad art”) the south of the Aiel Waste is called Termool, the Waterless Sands. And Aiel don’t live there.
So anything south of Far Madding seems to be completely devoid of human life in the Waste.
Interesting discussion on adaptation; I enjoyed reading it.
My question for you all, though, is about the pattern’s balance and what it says about it/human nature. So… if the pattern isn’t inherently good or evil, including both, then I wonder what it says that Ta’veren all seem to be “good”? Certainly our big 3 here fit that category. I don’t think we meet any others in the present, do we? Then you have all the Dragons being good, or the champion of the Light. (or are they really champions of the Pattern since the Dark One seeks to destroy the wheel?) Even Hawkwing, who did both good and bad (we know he was manipulated by Ishi) seems to have had good intentions/fought the dark/ counts as a “hero” of the horn which seems to make him “good”. I guess my question is, if the Pattern is neutral, why does it only seem to select “good” people as its most powerful characters? Why would “good” be given this powerful tool? I see 3 possible explanations:
1. The Pattern isn’t strictly neutral, but being set up by the Creator, does have a bias toward good and uses Ta’veren to right the ship and/or give an advantage to the Light.
2. It is meant to speak to humanities frailty and that we tend, on the whole, to become more “bad” over time without some sort of correction that the Ta’veren provide to help “good” balance the inherent slight bias toward “bad” humans have as a whole. edit(not saying I subscribe to that point of view, just saying that could be an interpretation)
3. It is meant to speak not to good/evil but order/chaos. While there is often an association between good and order and evil and chaos on the whole, they aren’t the same (as any RPG users know). The Dark One, though, represents both in that he wants to destroy the Wheel leading to ultimate chaos – no more Pattern, no more order. So, are “good” Ta’veren simply there to counteract… I guess entropy? That creation, civilization, nature, whatever tend toward chaos overtime and the Ta’veren are tools to correct that – snip the loose threads and tighten the weave, etc. edit(same note as #2)
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Please let me know if you see different possibilities and if you have any thoughts on the options I offered.
@41
I question your premise. Certainly this series has Taveren as exclusively, or almost exclusively good. But isn’t the release of the Dark One from his prison just as critical to make sure the last battle comes occurs as needed?
Isn’t Shadar Logoth as critical to the restoring of balance as Rand’s figuring out how to use it?
It’s entirely possible that Mordeth is a Taveren as well.
Also, how about a fourth possibility. The Evil power of the pattern is concentrated in the being of the dark one, while the Good power spreads itself out among more people.
Maybe it’s because this is a battle between the existence and the nonexistence of the pattern? I.e. the Pattern is trying to defend itself against an evil being, so it spuns good heroes to defend it.
One wonders if in other times we could see evil Ta’veren (that don’t try to destroy or remake reality itself) to make the world a worse place, because the 5th age or something needs to be ruled by bad guys, for example.
@13 FWIW we know from TSR that it was 15 generations from when Charn witnessed the opening of the bore to Mandein participating in the pact of Rhuidean. Aiel have been in the Waste since the end of the breaking, if not before it ended.
I cant wait for Sylas’ reaction when he finds out that // the Tuatha’an is the lost sect of the Aiel. //
“Sylas K Barrett thinks that a man who is against cages is exactly the hero we need right now, and not just in The Wheel of Time.”
Yep
@45, strictly speaking, I think it’s the other way around :-)
Poor Loial, missing a chance to sleep in a nice bed of sung wood.
I love Gaul’s amazed description of a girl he saw swimming in a pool. I know his awe is primarily about the amount of water and her perceived courage in “sporting” in it, but swimming itself is amazing to me when I think about it. And when I’m swimming.
Neuxue pointed out that Lan’s alias Andra is part of his true name Mandra goran. I hadn’t previously noticed that.
I think the genetics question is interesting, but much less of a problem than the linguistics issues in the book. If the waste is mostly northern latitudes and they didn’t have much skin cancer, there would be more pressure to keep lighter skin genes than not. However, there should be much more linguistical drift than there is in this world, and there’s an awful lot of handwaving and such by Robert Jordan to keep it from happening. But it’s still a good story.
If everyone spoke the OT in the AOL and there were no other languages it could mix with more people should be able to understand more of it without need to learn. There should be nothing special about Eg and Mat understanding some words.
@42:
Siuan interviewed Padan Fain (offscreen) in the beginning scenes of tGH. She can see ta’veren. I think she would have mentioned if the crazy man in the dungeon was ta’veren. So, at the very least, he wasn’t ta’veren then. Moiraine tells us he was already possessed by Mordeth then. Or perhaps you only mean the Mordeth of the Trolloc Wars.
@47:
Strictly speaking, there is no Aiel blood left in the Tua’thuan at all. Since the Dai’shan were both a distinct genetic people group as well as a religious/philosophical sect, and since you had to be both things to be Dai’shan, I’m not sure you can call the traveling people the “descendants” of those Aiel who split off and stole the wagons. It certainly doesn’t make them in some way more “true” Aiel than the Aiel. They are not the Jenn.
@49, 50:
There would definitely be more drift, but I got the impression that the old tongue was more of a scholarly language in the AoL, and not the language that the current common tongue is based on. That could be my brain trying to make sense of it, rather than an actual thing, though.
@51
Yes, I meant the man in the Trolloc Wars that (according to what we’ve heard) single-handedly turned a thriving nation into Shadar Logoth.
I’m going to have to disagree with the science here. I’ve read a couple of these articles and they make a crap ton of assumptions. On both sides. There are way too many variables in this regard. Assuming you can find large populations that have no introduction of foreign bloodlines, not even once, most tend to stay pale longer than they would get dark. Pigmentation is a result of the body protecting itself from the Suns radiation. As long as the population stayed clothed the body would not have reason to increase melanin. Also, one must understand that evolution can choose to meet threats in different ways. Instead of melanin it could be more hair or curly hair instead of fair. Possibly the Aeil could have been blonde of hair and now through years of living in the waste they come to be red of hair as red hair insulates and absorbs heat better than blonde hair and that’s the only consistently exposed area other than the face which by they way is where freckles come from.
Evolution is never linear, as if to say, “as it happens once, then again it shall happen”. With nature and genetics that’s simply not true. There are scorpions that live in the desert. Two in particular have drastically different ways of dealing with the heat. One pale in color hunts at night, and hides during the day under the sand. The other dark in color hunts during the day and hides at night under rocks and crevices. You’d think their coloring would be opposite at least for the pale one hunting at night. But in the desert what is better camouflage? Being the same color as everything else in the vicinity that spans hundreds of miles? Or being a dark moving shadow crawling across the desert, at night when there should be no shadows? The black scorpion absorbs heat better during the day and hunts by digging up burrows in the sand of whatever it can get its claws on. You can see that being a problem, huh? Two scorpians related so closely that they are literally split from brother sister families from the same extinct forebear. And living in the same back yard. Hunting each other at times even.
But evolution is linear? Nope. Random and nonlinear evolution. Not this silliness that people assume that since your people lived in the desert for 2000 years you should all be of brown skin by now. Nope. Not the way it works. As a person of color, it’s a highly amusing notion. We know better.
@53:
There is a thing called iterative evolution that happens often enough to a) have a name, and b) call into question the use of the term “random” for this kind of evolution, especially when we are talking about an adaptation within the same species. For instance, the curious case of the rail that twice, two thousand years apart from each other, evolved to be flightless on Madagascar after flooding had caused the flightless bird to go extinct. Evolution is certainly random on the micro level. Not so much on the macro level, where certain adaptations persist all throughout nature, because they are just better.
https://www.livescience.com/65477-flightless-bird-evolves-twice.html
@51 – The Tua’thuana are more like spiritual descendants of the Aiel. But you’re right; they share no genetic relation to the Aiel. They now consist of people from all nations who join up.
My biggest problems with linguistics in the series are basically twofold — number one, how were the Forsaken able to suddenly speak the common tongue as soon as they wake up? Lanfear specifically said she was in a “dreamless sleep” for three thousand years with no knowledge of anything at all, but suddenly she shows up in The Great Hunt able to speak so fluently that Rand doesn’t question her claims of being Cairhienin at all?
Number two, we know that Mat’s memories are all from the time between the Trolloc Wars and the war of the Hundred Years… and they’re all in the Old Tongue. So, presumably, the old tongue was still the language Artur Hawkwing spoke. And yet… the Seanchan speak the same language as Randland, despite having been isolated from them since Hawkwing’s time?
As to the Aiel and genetic drift — at one point in the series, and I honestly cannot for the life of me remember when, Aviendha specifically thinks that she’d met very few Aiel men who lived to old age, and that would lead me to believe that there’s less pressure from genetic mutation in the Aiel than there would be in other types of societies that weren’t constantly killing each other.
@56 – Really there ought to be all sorts of mutually unintelligible dialects and so on. You’re telling me that almost all the knowledge from before the Breaking was lost, people were splintered and fractured and divided everywhere, and yet language around the world kept evolving basically in lockstep so much so that the biggest regional differences are Seanchan drawls and Illianers do-being?
It’s a lot like the in-world skin color stuff in that if you think about it too much it’s very annoying, so the healthy thing to do is just accept that it’s more about narrative than realism
From the TOR Questions of the Week, via Theoryland:
WEEK 14 QUESTION
If the Forsaken were sealed away in Shayol Ghul since the Age of Legends, with no contact with the outside world, wouldn’t they be speaking the Old Tongue when they woke back up? How did they learn the Common Tongue?
ROBERT JORDAN
They still do speak the Old Tongue among themselves, but the first two who were freed, Aginor and Balthamel, had been held very near to the edge of the sealing, the reason they were so visibly affected and twisted while the rest came out whole and healthy, and they were very much aware of what had gone on in the world outside. You might say they had floated in limbo while watching three thousand plus years roll by, with the ability to zoom in. That is probably the only reason they didn’t emerge entirely mad. In truth, those two have a much better understanding of the current world than any of the others because they watched it forming. They don’t have a complete knowledge, because they couldn’t see and hear everything at once, but they have an overview that is unavailable to any of the others, excepting Ishamael to a lesser extent. But then, he’s a special case.
For the rest (aside from Ishamael), who spend those thousands of years in a dreamless sleep, the language spoken “here and now” was derived from the Old Tongue. I’ve heard the analogy used of a well-educated, highly intelligent citizen of ancient Rome needing to learn modern Italian. It would hardly be a slam-dunk, but he or she would have the roots of the language already. In the case of the Forsaken, the task is actually easier than that of the ancient Roman, since modern Italian is a more complex language than Latin, while the Old Tongue, as I have said time and again, is more complex and nuanced than the language of “today.”
https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=6
I like to imagine Ishy teaching the others to speak and read/write the modern language. Those would be interesting lessons to observe.
If the Forsaken speak the OT, how can Perrin spy on them in TAR and understand what they say?
@49
It would certainly be expected that (if they didn’t already exist) new languages and mutually incomprehensible dialects would have developed in the time since the Breaking across two large continents. I am sure Robert Jordan would have been aware of this.
However, it is fairly straightforward for a writer to recount the adventures of a single character like REH’s Conan -widely-travelled over several decades- and simply state that “he had a facility with languages” or “had picked up a smattering of Zingaran in his youth”; it isn’t possible to use such explanations in a series of books in which hundreds of characters are encountering new cultures over a span of just two or three years.
We readers simply have to suspend our disbelief. In any case, the level of misunderstanding in the Wheel of Time is great enough that additional language barriers are surely unnecessary!
@@@@@8. Jeremy M: You misunderstand evolution. a few thousand years are almost too short a time for evolutionary mechanisms, and evolutionary mechanisms work randomly, not in a direct reaction to environmental pressures. And in RL the people from Near-Eastern and Central-Asian deserts are fair skinned. Touaregs had genetic influx from sub saharan peoples, which is the reason they are dark skinned. Arabs are about as fair skinned as middle europeans if they get as much sun as them.
@@@@@12. Anthony Pero : savage has a pretty clear definition: uncultured or not from our culture. It’s not demeaning if used correctly, and here it is.
I just started a re-read of the series. I never owned the 1st 5 books (I borrowed them). I just bought books 1-6. Though I have read the books I owned (7-14) multiple times each. It’s been years since I picked one up. I like these recaps as it helps what I missed.