Hello friends, and welcome to the sixth week of the Read of The Shadow Rising. This week I would like to complain about how boring the title of this book is. Like, it’s to the point for sure. But it doesn’t intrigue me the way The Eye of the World or The Great Hunt did. Even The Dragon Reborn, while also a bit redundant, mentions a specific aspect of the book. But The Shadow Rising? I mean, yes, it has been and will continue to do so in later books.
Of course, the title really doesn’t matter once you’ve started reading a book, and the only reason I’m still thinking about it is because I have to type it out so frequently, but my dog is sick and my stitches itch a lot, so I’m feeling punchy.
Not as punchy as our lady protagonists are, however. Elayne’s love sick, Nynaeve’s pulling her braid out of her head to strangle Moiraine, and Moiraine is uncharacteristically ruffled.
Moiraine angrily declares that Rand al’Thor is a “mule-headed, stone-willed fool of a man,” giving Nynaeve the opportunity to get in a dig at her by declaring that that’s the way men from the Two Rivers are, although Elayne catches Egwene looking at Nynaeve as though she has told quite the lie. Egwene asks what Rand did, but doesn’t get an immediate answer, while Elayne notices nervously that Joiya isn’t bound. If any of the others had been so obviously off-balance, Joiya would have found some way to prod at them, but with Moiraine she is just nervous and silent.
Moiraine composes herself and tells Joiya that she and Amico are going to be sent to the White Tower in four days, and that Moiraine won’t speak to them again unless they can offer her something new, although offering something new will save her pain when she gets to Tar Valon. Moiraine has Aviendha fetch the guards, and after giving the men strict instructions about how well and heavily the two women are to be guarded, Moiraine sends them all away.
Nynaeve is upset with Moiraine, both for not helping more with the questioning as well as for sending the two away, but Moiraine tells her not to presume too far upon the authority the Amyrlin gave her. Moiraine also complains that Two Rivers folk never want to make a decision, and then the conversation gets sidelined by her observation that Elayne shouldn’t be so upset over the fact that Berelain was in Rand’s chambers. Both Moiraine and Elayne are trying to be careful of Egwene’s feelings, but Egwene whispers in Elayne’s ear that she loves Rand like a brother and Elayne like a sister, and wishes the best for her, giving Elayne a tremendous amount of relief.
Egwene, amused at Moiraine’s mistake, asks if the Aes Sedai has ever been in love, receiving the startling reply that Moiraine believes she knows the face of the man she’ll marry better than either of the girls knows their future husbands’. She deflects almost at once, however, suggesting that maybe she only meant they “share an ignorance.” Still, she makes a point of telling Nynaeve that it isn’t Lan.
Nynaeve angrily tries to steer the conversation back to the question of whether to believe Joiya or Amico, and why Moiraine would hinder their search for answers, but Moiraine points out that they should rather be asking why they were summoned to Rand. She explains everything that happened, and, when prompted, reminds them again that she cannot teach Rand to use the Power to defend himself, and that saidin and saidar are too different. She does explain her frustration with Rand, however, about how he must move instead of sitting and waiting until the High Lords get so used to his presence that they stop fearing him. Nynaeve and Egwene are horrified when they learn that Moiraine wants Rand to lead the army of Tear against Illian, but Elayne understands and explains it to them.
“The Forsaken will not stand idly and wait. Sammael cannot be the only one to have seized a nation’s reins, just the lone one we know. They will come after Rand eventually, in their own persons perhaps, but certainly with whatever armies they command. And the nations that are free of the Forsaken? How many will cry glory to the Dragon banner and follow him to Tarmon Gai’don, and how many will convince themselves the fall of the Stone is a lie and Rand only another false Dragon who must be put down, a false Dragon perhaps strong enough to threaten them if they do not move against him first? One way or another, war will come.” She cut off sharply. There was more to it, but she could not, would not, tell them that part.
Moiraine adds what Elayne left out—that this action will cement the Tairens to Rand, and the Illianers as well, and perhaps even decide the wars in Tarabon and Arad Doman, once the news of the Dragon’s victory reaches them.
“In one stroke he will make himself so strong in terms of men and swords that only a coalition of every remaining nation from here to the Blight can defeat him, and with the same blow he shows the Forsaken that he is not a plump partridge on a limb for the netting. That will make them wary, and buy him time to learn to use his strength. He must move first, be the hammer, not the nail.” The Aes Sedai grimaced slightly, a hint of her earlier anger marring her calm. “He must move first. And what does he do? He reads. Reads himself into deeper trouble.”
She explains that Rand is reading all the copies of the Prophecies of the Dragon that he can find, and trying to use them to guide him, and that they disagree whether one particular prophecy might apply to the course of action Moiraine is suggesting. Nynaeve points out that Rand is simply desperate and trying to find his way, but Moraine answers that she is also desperate, and that she might have to do something truly desperate if Rand will not act.
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She tells them of a ter’angreal in the vaults, a redstone doorway that one can step through and receive the answer to three questions. Nynaeve is quick to assert that this ter’angreal is the solution to their problems, but Moiraine tells them not to be so hasty, and that they rush ahead when they should step cautiously. She explains that the ter’angreal has rules, including that all three questions must be asked and answered before the user can exit, and that there are punishments for questions that are deemed frivolous. And most importantly, questions about the Shadow have dire consequences.
Before leaving them, Moiraine suggests that they focus on Tanchico, since stopping the plan Joiya told them about will take Aes Sedai and Warders, and since Moiraine has already sent word to the Amyrlin about it.
She leaves, and Nynaeve sits the girls down for a drink and a chat about what Elayne should do about Rand and Berelain. She tests Elayne gently, first her commitment to her feelings for Rand, and next to her continued resolve to stay on the hunt for the Black Ajah and to become Aes Sedai. Elayne toys with the idea of being forward, like the Mayeners, and just telling Rand, and although she quickly takes it back (and thinks of such actions as being a “hussy”), Nynaeve reminds her that Rand isn’t the only one whose future is uncertain.
Elayne looked from one to the other of them. “In truth, I feared you might tell me I was foolish, fretting over a thing like this when we have the Black Ajah to worry about.”
A slight flicker of Egwene’s eyes said the thought had occurred to her, but Nynaeve said, “Rand is not the only one who might die next year, or next month, We might, too. Times are not what they were, and we cannot be, either. If you sit and wish for what you want, you may not see it this side of the grave.”
I have to say, it’s fun to see Moiraine lose her composure a little, here. It makes her feel a bit more human, and therefore more likable and relatable. She got herself back together pretty quickly, of course, but it was still a nice little window into what her actual internal struggle is. We haven’t had that since her POV section back in the beginning of The Great Hunt. Now I’m endlessly curious about her comment that she “knows the face of the man [she] will marry.” Why would Moiraine get married? I’m relatively certain that she and the Amyrlin are going to have some trouble down the road, once Elaida’s done figuring out what they’re up to, so maybe she’ll be cast out of the Aes Sedai? Or stilled, even? Or will she just decide to go against custom and marry someone even though she is still Aes Sedai, and Blue Ajah? And for that matter, how the heck does she know she is going to get married someday? It’s not like she has had a lot of time to fall in love, in between being Aes Sedai and fighting the Shadow and being the the sole person tasked with spending the last 20 years tracking down the Dragon Reborn.
I have two guesses right now. The first guess is that, since we know Moiraine grew up in the Royal Palace in Cairhien and is related to the royal family (Egwene tells us in this chapter) there may be some arranged marriage or other political alliance that was intended for her when she was younger. Perhaps she hopes to use that or some similar connection in her fight to unite countries under Rand and get things ready for the Last Battle.
My second guess, and I think this is the more plausible theory, is that Min told Moiraine something. Min has been telling lots of people who they’re going to end up with, after all, so it wouldn’t be that weird, and the way Moiraine words the sentence makes the theory more likely. She specifically says that she knows “the face” of the man she will marry. Perhaps Min saw the face and for once knew what her vision meant. Perhaps Moiraine doesn’t even know who the face belongs to, yet, just knows what Min told her. Then again, the comment came as a result of being asked if she was ever in love, so it might be that all my theories above are wrong, and that Moiraine just happens to be in love with someone. That would be surprising.
I wonder if we’ll meet him soon.
I love that she made the point of telling Nynaeve that it’s not Lan. And of course Nynaeve took offense instead of taking it as a kindness. I was also amused by Elayne’s observation that she didn’t know how Nynaeve, who is not very patient, put up with Lan’s continued insistence that they can’t be together.
It is getting a little annoying that Moiraine and Nynaeve are having the same fight over and over, even though I get where both of them are coming from. I think both women are right in some ways, and being incredibly unreasonable in others. In Moiraine’s case, her need to play things close to the vest is understandable, but she must realize that it’s never going to work. However much she chastises Nynaeve and Egwene, they are never going to suddenly start following her orders without question anymore than Rand will. She’s correct in pointing out that they don’t really know what they are doing and that the girls are ready to rush blindly ahead where they should tread cautiously. She may very well be right about Rand’s indecision, too. But she knows how they feel about the secrets she keeps, and the knowledge she holds over their heads. It’s a foolish exercise, I think, for her to keep acting as though they’re suddenly going to get used to it, accept her or stop demanding answers. She needs to try another tactic if she wants to be able to have some control over what the Emond’s Fielders decide to do going forward, and that control is something she believes is imperative. She should be looking for other paths.
At the same time, though, Nynaeve made me frustrated in this chapter. As much as I have always empathized with her emotional struggle, her need to be an expert and in control while she really has the ability to be neither, the childish behavior she still exhibits towards Moiraine hasn’t evolved at all from the way she acted in The Eye of the World, which seems silly. One of my favorite chapters for Nynaeve is Chapter 29 of The Dragon Reborn, when the three girls are doing their punishments and the Amyrlin comes to speak to Nynaeve about what they’ve learned in their hunt for the Black Ajah. The Amyrlin gives her a little schooling on her judgment of Laras, the Mistress of Kitchens, and Nynaeve is also learning something about putting on a face that doesn’t match your inner feelings. She pretends to be cowed by the Amyrlin’s fake(ish) punishments, and she’s learning to keep smiling at Laras even though it doesn’t produce the results she wants. She is supposed to be learning patience, too. But none of those lessons seem to have stuck with Nynaeve, and I don’t really see why.
Well, okay, perhaps I do. I think that it’s Nynaeve’s hatred of the One Power that is holding her back. As Moiraine points out in this chapter, Nynaeve wants to learn to use saidar, but she’s less interested in understanding the One Power, and that is going to hamper both her abilities and decision-making going forward. It’s interesting that her love for Lan hasn’t softened her attitude towards the One Power even a little bit, and I wonder if she doesn’t have extra hostility towards Moiraine because she thinks of Lan as being trapped by the Aes Sedai, much in the way that she feels she and Egwene (and even Rand) are—trapped by the White Tower’s machinations as well as by the Pattern, which Nynaeve tends to conflate as being one in the same.
I’d love to get another Nynaeve POV chapter soon, and see if any of these concepts come up, but the ever-expanding roster of main characters means that we get less and less time in each person’s head, which does bother me a bit. From a purely technical standpoint, I’m starting to notice where the focus of the narrative is landing on certain plot elements and certain themes and letting other ones develop “behind the scenes” as it were. The romances, for example. When did Egwene fall out of love with Rand? How did Faile and Perrin get so close? On the other hand, we’re going to keep having the same conversation with Moiraine over and over, even though we all know how Nynaeve feels about her by now, and I suspect that there may be plot reasons for this. I’m not certain, though.
Speaking of love plots, the “love them like a brother/sister” thing always weirds me out. The suggestion that the two ways for a man and a woman to care for each other is romantically or as siblings is kind of weird, as is suggesting that a romantic love would transform into some kind of sibling-like relationship. Not that long ago, Egwene was dreaming of having Rand’s baby, and now somehow she’s thinking of him as a sibling? Why not just a dear friend? The phrasing is just… odd. I realize that it’s a pretty common expression, but it bothers me a lot because it presumes that there’s no such thing as deep platonic friendships across genders, as though a woman has to prove that she thinks of a man as a sibling because otherwise she definitely wants to have sex with him.
Of course it would be terribly hypocritical of Nynaeve not to support Elayne’s crush. (Okay, her love. I get it, the Pattern is making this stuff happen. But she is right in saying that she doesn’t know Rand very well, so the term crush feels more accurate.) She’s back on familiar ground now, advising about matters that she would have dealt with as Wisdom of Emond’s Field, and something that Egwene won’t challenge her authority on as much. The dramatic irony of them all giving so much weight to the question of Berelain and Rand is pretty hilarious, given how all of that really went down. I am a bit surprised that no one even considers whether Berelain’s trip to Rand’s chambers might have been rebuffed. Sure, it is reasonable to assume she would have to have had permission to go there, given all the guards at Rand’s door. But they all know something of her ways already, as Nynaeve shows by remarking that Berelain is “the kind to hold hard to something she doesn’t particularly want, just because someone else does want it.” They know Rand, and he’s never shown himself to be the kind of guy Berelain thought him to be. Perhaps the fact that he’s Lord Rand now, and the Dragon Reborn, is coloring how Nynaeve, and even Egwene, think of him.
They’re all making a lot of sweeping decisions in this chapter, about what men are like and what Rand is like, and I can’t decide if it’s because that’s what Aes Sedai do, or if it’s what the narrative is suggesting women do, but either way it’s a bit off-putting. I do, however, enjoy the look into Elayne’s head, and getting to see more of her perspective. In some ways, she has always come off to me as younger than Egwene, although I believe they are actually the same age. It might be because of the playfulness of her personality, which was especially visible when Rand first met her, and between her and Egwene and Min, before things in the Tower went sideways. Maybe it’s because she was initially in more of a tagging-along position with reference to the hunt for the Black Ajah.
But regardless of that impression, Elayne has a “groundedness” to her from her upbringing as the future ruler of Andor, which we’ve seen come out in various ways. She is usually more patient than Egwene and Nynaeve, and we’ve seen that she is good at viewing things from other people’s perspectives as well as being a mediator, as she’s been for Egwene and Nynaeve during their little power struggle. She’s just as stubborn as the rest of them, but she’s shown herself to be better at letting the little things go and focusing on what really matters. Now, we get the added benefit of a chapter from her point of view, which adds more color to the sense of her personality. Elayne understands the responsibility of her power because her mother has raised her that way, so being a channeler does not require such an intense perspective shift as it does for Egwene and Nynaeve and Rand. I was particularly struck by Nynaeve’s comment that she didn’t really understand what war was until she left the Two Rivers—I’d basically forgotten how sheltered the Emond’s Fielders were. It’s not just about not knowing about the One Power, or about the indulgences of High Lords and the various elite. Nynaeve, along with all four of her former charges, is still very new to things that much of the rest of the world takes for granted. Like war. Like politics. Elayne, however, is intimately familiar with both.
I wonder if she’s thinking about Lini and Lini’s sayings this frequently all the time, or if it’s just right now.
Both Elayne and Moiraine’s assessments of Rand’s situation make a lot of sense, but all I can think about is Rand’s insistence that he has to do something no one expects. The tactical move of using his authority in Tear (before the Tairen lose their fear/respect for him) to take over Illian and hopefully oust or even kill Sammael is smart, but it also seems obvious. Since the Forsaken have had forever to plan and even the ordinary people running the various countries have more knowledge and experience than Rand, perhaps he really is right that the best move would be an unexpected one, even if it’s not the most tactically sound or ultimately useful. I do think that Moiraine is right that he needs to move soon, however—we didn’t need her to let us know that things were getting weird with the High Lords, and I’m still wondering what Torean was up to, standing at the top of those stairs with his men and watching Rand’s door. I don’t think Berelain is done causing trouble, either.
And then, of course, there’s the redstone ter’angreal doorway that Moiraine mentioned. Someone is going through there before long, maybe Moiraine, maybe another character. I wonder if there is any significance to the fact that the description of it sounds similar to Egwene’s stone ring. That ter’angreal appears to be made of stone and is flecked with red and green, and shaped like a Möbius strip, while the doorway ter’angreal appears to be made of red stone and to be slightly twisted to the eye. Perhaps there is some connection to finding truth from the World of Dreams and getting the three answers. Given how fraught the experience of stepping through the three-arched ter’angreal is, I suspect that this one is going to pretty intense, too.
Next week will cover Chapters 7 and 8, and we’ll get some real answers about the differences between saidin and saidar that go beyond Moiraine’s bird and fish analogy. Also Egwene and Rand will be silly about their feelings, Rand will chat with some High Lords, and Mat will look for advice. See you then!
Sylas K Barrett is amused at the idea that telling a man you like him is some kind of horrible offense. That seems extreme even for a culture like Andor. Does the Queen need to curb her tongue until some man asks her first, too? (Ooh, that was meant to be lighthearted but considering what’s going on in Andor right now… yikes.)
Welcome back, Sylas!
followed by:
Hoo boy. Are you in for a treat.
(Yeah, yeah. I know Lini will not be a POV character, but still.)
So glad to have you back, you make my Tuesday mornings. Hope your dog feels better soon and you get less punchy.
As far as general discussion goes though, I’m really surprised that Sylas didn’t immediately pick up on the fact that Moiraine was interpreted the prophecy wrong, he’s usually so good about picking up on stuff like that.
EVERYBODY is going to go through that Red Door! Moiraine should have kept her mouth shut.
Speaking of Moiraine she is in fact dead wrong about what Rand should do next. Her concerns are legitimate but her solution is not. The simple fact is she has no more clue than Rand about how to fulfill the prophecies and she’d get a lot farther with him if she admitted it but unfortunately her training and experience demands she assume an air of omnipotence at all times. I also don’t like her opposition to Rand researching his role. Her assumption being a mere man couldn’t possibly come to a better understanding of the prophecies than her. She is trying to run the Dragon Reborn and that will totally not work.
Min obviously told Moiraine about her and Thom. At first Moiraine was no doubt taken aback, even resentful, but she’s definitely beginning to like the idea. Even look forward to it.
Personally I doubt Rand and Eggy were ever in love but they had no other model for interpreting their strong feeling for each other as they were growing up. Those feelings haven’t changed and will never change. They remain intensely important to each other but they understand those feelings better now. There is a definite sense of loss on both sides, no future together as they’d always planned and expected, but they’ve accepted it.
I believe Randland women’s rather dismissive attitude towards male intelligence and their assumption of superiority is supposed too mirror RW attitudes of men about women when RJ was young.
There’s irony in Moiraine complaining about Rand hesitating in attacking Illian. I mean, it takes him how many books to do it? The irony is more delicious for that RJ probably had no idea of how it would actually fall out when he wrote this.
There’s also irony in the fact that Moiraine herself was taking so long to make any decision at all in the last book that Rand got bored and decided to run away, yet now she’s the one complaining about Rand taking too long to make a decision.
I’m always surprised at the, well, surprise these rereads have at RJs use of stereotypes. I mean, they’re stereotypes because they are generally true within a culture. Meaning more true than not. That doesn’t mean they apply equally to everyone, and RJ in no way indicates they do. Min doesn’t view the world at ALL the way Nynaeve and Egwene do.
But, are we really surprised that the three young women think “Of course he had sex with Berelain!” I mean, I’m sure if you got 50 young women from Andor together and polled them, more than 40 would think so, even the ones that know Rand. So are we really surprised that a group of three thought that?
There is a large difference between thinking Rand wouldn’t hit on someone and try to sleep with them (which if they know him, they would know he wouldn’t do) and thinking that if the most beautiful woman they had ever seen came up to him and tried to sleep with him, he would say yes.
The problem with stereotypes isn’t that they aren’t generally true. It’s that they are not specifically and universally true, which makes applying them to any individual dangerous and irresponsible. But having a character fit a stereotype for Andoran culture (that women think a certain way about men) isn’t some sort of grievous sin. Or unrealistic. Its the opposite. What would be unrealistic is having every woman from Andor think that way. But RJ doesn’t. He gives us other characters who think differently, in both large and small ways.
And portraying the characters with the least experience as the ones most likely to fall into a stereotype, and to think about others stereotypically, is also believable. Experience is what teaches us that much of what our culture tells us about people as individuals is false.
As far as Egwene, RJ has been seeding her letting go of Rand since The Great Hunt. I’m not sure how deep her romantic feelings ever were for Rand. She wasn’t dreaming about kissing him, or making babies with him. Her vision during the testing was about having already had his baby… because the extent of her dreams prior to leaving the Two Rivers were to become Wisdom and become a mother. The fact that they were Rand’s babies has nothing to do with desire, or romance, and everything to do with the fact that their parents had all but arranged their marriage since they were little. That entire scene was about her leaving behind her old life, and her old expectations for her life. This is a continuation of that, not something coming out of left field.
As far as the brother comment… the modern world is very cosmopolitan. The Two Rivers (and the South of the US where RJ grew up) is not. The less cosmopolitan worldview that RJ was from (and by extension, Egwene) has a pretty clear hierarchy of relationships. First, your lover and children. Next, your family circle. Next, your friends. To say “I love you like a brother”, in that context of understanding, is to say “I don’t have the kind of passion for you that I would have for a lover, but I care about you enough that you are in that second circle of family.” It’s easy enough to understand if you grow up in the right context. But it’s a context our society is rapidly abandoning for both healthy and unhealthy reasons.
I don’t understand why comparing Rand and Egwene’s relationship as brother/sister is bothersome. It actually implies a closer relationship than friend. Close friendships between men are often compared to being as close a brothers just as close relationships between women are compared to sisters. It does not imply that men and women can not be friends.
In my mind, Rand and Egwene’s relationship stopped being romantic in TGH. Egwene was very bothered by Rand being the Dragon and going mad. It is very hard to keep a romantic relationship if you fear the other person. They also had the scene were they decided that it would not work between them. All it takes is a decision to fall out of romantic love.
As far as the women’s assumption that something happened between Berelain and Rand. The way I read the scene, if Rand did not think Berelain was there mostly because of her hunger for power instead of just because she liked him as a man, then something could have happened. In reality, I do think it is very hard for an unattached single man, to resist a beautiful woman’s strong advances. He has to have a reason to resist. A vague attraction to Elayne and Min is not enough. In the end, the thing that stopped Rand was Berelain’s motives. Similar to why Rand and “Lanfear” did not hook up in TGH.
Regarding the girls thinking Rand did something with Berelain it’s important to remember that Berelain is generally described as the most attractive woman in Randland. (I discount Lanfear and Graendal because I suspect they are always both cheating on their looks) Rand wasn’t just in his room with a woman, he was in his room with a supermodel.
Regarding the love them like a sibling, it may be overused as a description but it is an apt description of their relationship going forward as they do seem to have a sibling rivalry element to their relationship.
@8 – And a very busty, cleavage-y supermodel at that! Someone like Kate Upton.
Luckily, Rand chose not to do as Moiraine was telling him to act. At his current level of knowledge of the One Power and of tactical thinking, I think that even using Callandor he would have been crushed by Sammael and possibly some other Forsaken coordinating with him to bring Rand down. Besides, it would have negated Rand his most powerful allies, the Aiel, and that in the long run would have been an enormous loss to his military strength.
It is interesting how many of us approve of Rand looking to the prophecies to decide what to do instead of using tactics and logic. This would be like a Christian leader saying the world is in the end times and reading Revelations to decide what to do. I understand we are reading fantasy, but I find it interesting how people of all faiths or none seem to find this type of story compelling and right. How it seems everyone instinctively believes there is an overarching plan and purpose behind the world we live in and that we can align are actions to that plan and purpose. We actually have to fight our instincts to NOT believe.
@11 Except in Rand’s case, he’s just proven unequivocally that the prophecies he’s reading ARE applicable to him, specifically. If fire starts raining down from the sky on a regular basis, reading Revelation for guidance is no longer crazy.
@7 adjbaker
To me at least (can’t speak for Sylas), the bothersome bit isn’t the idea that someone can have friendships with a person of either gender that feel like a sibling, but that this is the only way to reassure that there isn’t a romantic relationship there. Egwene may or may not actually feel toward Rand like a sibling right now – they already don’t understand or trust each other as well as most siblings do, and that will get more true – but she assumes, correctly or not, that saying something like “I’ve known Rand all my life, he’s a very dear friend, and that friendship means a great deal to me, but I don’t want to be his lover” would not make Elayne feel better because she just wouldn’t buy it, whereas saying “brother” invokes the incest taboo and takes “lover” off the table. As has been pointed out, it’s certainly realistic for Egwene coming from where she comes from to think this. As a reader, it’s a bit uncomfortable to hear because I do run into exactly that attitude in today’s society – “oh, she’s a ‘dear friend,’ huh?” – and that makes it feel somewhat like it’s RJ buying that attitude and not just his character.
S
Many people who like reading thick books like WoT are Brown Ajah. Of course we think it makes sense to look for answers in books. The advantage from Rand’s point of view is that long dead authors won’t try to pull his strings.
Surprised nobody has mentioned the somewhat ironic typo – while complaining that the title of the book is more boring than those that have come before it, Sylas has this:
That said, I don’t disagree that The Shadow Rising is a bit more bland, perhaps, than something like The Great Hunt or The Fires of Heaven. Still, tSR is when we really start to see a lot more of the Forsaken and begin to get hints as to their overall plots and schemes, so I think it is an apt title.
@11: I deeply believe that there is no narrative nor any purpose to existence; I also actively disbelieve in any form of god etc. I perhaps do not enjoy this knowledge and belief (although I hesitate to say that I would actually choose such a reality if I could), but that is why I read fiction, in part anyway. And I trust the story to have some overarching purpose or plan or theme, or something. Moreover, in a fantasy setting, I give prophecy weight. Lots of things can be done with prophecy, but it is included in the story for a reason and it usually acts in a Chekhovian manner (I would argue that it even has to do so, except in perhaps the most and most clearly trope-breaking of stories, and even that is a bit of a stretch for my tastes – knowledge of the prophecy would have to have plot implications at the least, but we are straying now). The fundamental difference between fiction and fact is that the former has an author and the latter does not. I treat them differently because they are different, and in the single most crucial way that I can presently imagine.
@12: Agreed.
@13. Silvertip – “and that makes it feel somewhat like it’s RJ buying that attitude and not just his character.”
RJ does not portray all male/female relationships as either brother/sister or love interest. Moraine/Lan are not. Matt/Brigitte are explicitly portrayed as Matt having a best friend who is a woman. As far as the taboo incest thing, RJ even pushes that by using brother/sister terms to describes Sister Wives or First Sisters or Spear Brother relationships that are not necessarily platonic.
@12. JadePhoenix – “Except in Rand’s case, he’s just proven unequivocally that the prophecies he’s reading ARE applicable to him, specifically.”
Indeed, those who believe the prophecies will see Rand fulfilling the prophecies and being the Dragon, those that don’t believe the prophecies won’t. (such as Captain of the White Cloaks)
16. konigr – “I deeply believe that there is no narrative nor any purpose to existence; I also actively disbelieve in any form of god etc.”
The disbelief in purpose and the disbelief in God go hand and hand, just as belief in God and purpose go together. For me, my belief starts with the observation that it takes a Will/Intelligence (not chance) to create and design our wonderful technology such as a computer, and that we create for a purpose. I then observe the wonderfully designed world and life and have to conclude that there must be a Creator/Designer. I then search for and find purpose. It is that simple.
I think this may have more to do with the fact that RJ, for whatever reason, almost universally avoided writing the courtship part of relationships. Most of his relationships seem to jump from “I don’t really know/understand you” to “I pledge my undying love to you, but we cannot be together because duty” without really covering a lot of the space in between. The only examples I can think of where we really see actual courtship are Mat/Tuon and maybe Siuan/Gareth. Perrin and Faile arguably get this by the end of this book as well, but the chronology is kind of backwards because they’re already together before coming to the Two Rivers. This problem is often compounded by the fact that many of the romantic pairs spend a LOT of time apart, and when they come back together the story acts like their relationship has progressed, even though they haven’t actually interacted.
I think there’s ways that this could work better, and I’ll be curious to see how the show decides to handle this. But here’s a few ideas that I think could smooth things out…
-Have Egwene/Gawyn do some flirting in TGH or TDR. I think this should include a change in focus in at least some of Egwene’s Accepted testing to feature Gawyn. Concurrently, have Egwene feeling less attached to Rand.
-Give some time to Elayne/Rand and/or Min/Rand either at the end of TGH or the start of TDR. Actually, I personally really like the idea that Elayne’s crush on Rand eventually fades away, and that she ends up with Mat (or Aviendha in a more progressive interpretation). Rand having three romantic partners means that none of them get enough screentime with him, so I’d just drop that prophecy entirely. Honestly, dropping all romance-related prophecies is probably a good idea.
-Change the hedgehog sequence for Perrin/Faile in TDR to an adventure where both of them can contribute, and they get an opportunity to see each other’s virtues. Or just keep the entire thing on the backburner until TSR, which I think is fair enough.
-Generally try to rearrange the various subplots to keep partners together. Could Gawyn come with the girls in TGH or TDR (or better yet, send him to Salidar with Siuan)? Why not have Lan go to Tanchico and Thom come to the Waste instead of the other way around?
I’m sure there’s more rearrangements that could be made that would make these entanglements feel more natural than they often come across.
3. princessroxana &
6. Anthony Pero
Well said. I very much agree. I was already forming a similar, though undoubtedly not as eloquent, response as the ones you gave.
A very astute observation about Moiraine there. A smart person would understand their current approach isn’t working and try doing something different. I’ve heard once that true intelligence is the ability to quickly adapt to changing circumstances.
And Nynaeve’s lack of growth was indeed frustrating.
@15: The Shadow Rising still doesn’t seem appropriate, though. It’s way too generic a title. Something about the Aiel would’ve been interesting. Also, The Fires of Heaven remains my favorite.
@19: Elayne and Aviendha would be a fantastic choice for the TV show. It sidesteps the harem problem while adding some variety. Good idea.
I agree that many of the Titles are too generic. How about some of these?
The Shadow Rising – He Who Comes with the Dawn – or maybe – A Spanking in the Ways
The Fires of Heaven – Shaido Unleashed
Lord of Chaos – Dumai’s Wells – or maybe – A Box for the Dragon
A Crown of Swords – this one is ok
A Path of Daggers – The Empire Strikes Back
Winter’s Heart – The Choedan Kal
Crossroads of Twilight – Reflections on the Cleansing and Other Musings
Knife of Dreams – The Prince of Ravens
The Gathering Storm – The Trollocs Are Coming
Towers of Midnight – The Search for Moraine
A Memory of Light – this one is perfect
I always thought that The Shadow Rising title might be a homage to The Dark is Rising series of books authored by Susan Cooper.
@18 – ” I then observe the wonderfully designed world and life”
Speaking as someone whose profession is engineering design, the world and life in general are extremely poor examples of design, and any cursory examination of the vagaries of both will swiftly reveal the utterly haphazard way they have developed over time.
@22 Crossroads of Twilight – Reflections on the Cleansing and Other Musings made me laugh out loud!
I actually think most of the titles are decent. From the list you had I think Path of Daggers – while one of my least favorite books – is a great title and reflects a cool in-world saying. I also like Winter’s Heart pretty well. While I do like Knife of Dreams – I do think The Prince of Ravens is a sweet sounding title. And He Who Comes with the Dawn would be a cool title for The Shadow Rising.
@ 25. whitespine – The problem with most of the titles after the first three is that I have trouble associating them to something that happens in the books. I mean “Path of Daggers” is cool, but I have trouble associating it with anything specific that happens in the book. That title would be appropriate for pretty much any of the 14 books, the same for “The Shadow Rising”, “The Fires of Heaven”, “The Lord of Chaos”, etc.
In contrast, “Reflections on the Cleansing and Other Musings” tells you exactly what happens in that book. :)
@19 “This problem is often compounded by the fact that many of the romantic pairs spend a LOT of time apart, and when they come back together the story acts like their relationship has progressed, even though they haven’t actually interacted.”
Elayne/Rand is the most egregious example by far, after the upcoming chapters in TSR, I believe they only speak to each other TWICE for the rest of the series, on the night she bonds them, and before the last battle.
On the other hand, Egwyne and Gawyn spend a lot of time together, at least in dreams, and their relationship makes even less sense, so maybe Jordan was on to something.
24. olethros6 – “the world and life in general are extremely poor examples of design”
This opinion is not an argument against design. I can give the same opinion for many things designed by man, such as Windows 10, the English language, or my house. I can still tell they were designed, created, and modified by someone with a purpose as well as see entropy and the randomness of chance causing breakdowns and changes.
@28 An unintelligent designer would be a very unsatisfactory answer to a fundamental question.
@24, 28, 29:
Not being able to see the purpose of certain design elements doesn’t automatically mean something is poorly designed. It’s equally as likely that the person doing the observing simply isn’t qualified to judge the efficacy of the design. Especially if something wasn’t designed specifically for that person’s use or enjoyment.
@29. noblehunter – “An unintelligent designer would be a very unsatisfactory answer to a fundamental question.”
So your saying that the creators of Windows 10, the English language, my house and even life and the universe are unintelligent because someone thinks they can improve on the design?
This is similar to the battle between Rand and the Dark One. Rand tries to come up with better reality without the Dark One and … fails. Or when he is on top of Dragon Mount and considering ending existence. This is one of the reasons I love Fantasy and SF. The deep philosophical questions that are often addressed.
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The discussion of the redstone doorway and the *angreal cache got me thinking about something that, at least in my opinion, doesn’t really get enough recognition or discussion in WOT. The end of the Age of Legends/The Breaking is generally accepted as being about 3500 years ago. Does it ever blow anyone else’s mind that not only are there a relative ton of artifacts from the time of the Breaking, and some from before, that have not only survived intact but are still in regular use? And also the relatively large number of books and documents from that time period that not only have survived – holy durable paper, Batman! – but are still studied and taken as historical fact, typically without much question?
To put that in some context, 3500 years ago would be about 1500 BCE in our timeline. At this point in our history Egypt was conquering Nubia, the Minoan kingdom fell, and figures like King David or Solomon were still about 500 years from even being born.
@31 I just like slandering engineers. I suppose the more accurate point is “an imperfect designer.”
@@@@@34. noblehunter – “an imperfect designer.”
In my mind, the existence of a creator is self-evident based on observation and logic. The attributes of the creator are much more in debate and matters of faith or revelation. Is the creator all powerful, all good, all knowing, perfect, single/multiple, etc.? Totally unknowable. This is why there are so many religions and denominations.
@35
But this is very variable in the the mind of different people. Different people’s observations and logic are not all the same.
This is not the best place for this discussion as no one group of people will be able to convince the other group about fate or absence of fate.
The argument from design seems backwards to me. It says that things in nature appear to have some qualities that we normally associate with manmade things, therefore those natural things must have a designer just like the manmade things we’re comparing them to, but this ignores the fact that manmade things share similarities with natural things because manmade things are based on natural things. It is like if I looked at a painting of a field of flowers, then looked at an actual field of flowers and concluding that, because the painting was made by a painter, and the field of flowers is just as beautiful as the painting, the field of flowers must have been made by some Grand Painter of the Universe.
@36:
As long as the discussion remains this civil, I doubt the PTBs will care that we are having it. It sprung up as a relevant tangent to the post.
@33:
It is amazing, but understandable. The Age of Legends was making things with the Power, and making them to last. They also have things like stasis boxes to preserve them. One can assume the Aes Sedai still had them for a while after the Breaking.
@22 – “The Fires of Heaven.” How about, “The First Arrow.”
@39
Very good point. I think I may have phrased it poorly when I said it blew my mind; “awestruck” may have been a better way to put it. I majored in history with a minor in anthropology, so it’s incredible to me to think of a civilization having a direct tangible connection to its distant past in the way that WoT presents. What fragmentary pieces survive of our past we keep in museums to preserve them and study them, but the idea that we might actually use them falls somewhere between “baffling” and “what are you doing, stop touching that and put it down before you break it!” for me. Although I suppose if our artifacts were made of cuendillar it would make a difference.
I suppose it would also make a difference if they used the Power in some kind of way. If walking through Stonehenge let you see your history through the eyes of your ancestors, the Sphinx was a portal to a land where questions could be answered and wishes granted, and Greek amphorae amplified the One Power, the way we’ve interacted with them throughout our history would probably be vastly different.
@41 – I’m trying to visualize the situation where those artifacts were like that, with our current population and ease of travel. I guess they would probably be held pretty tightly under government control. Sadly, it is unlikely that just anyone would be allowed to hop into another world and make a deal with the ‘Finn
@42 – which is pretty much the case in ‘Randland’ (I really wish Robert Jordan had provided a name for the continent in which all the action takes place). Almost all objects of power are under government control.
The ter’angreal which is used in this book to gain access to the world of the Finn is guarded by the High Lords of Tear in their citadel, while the Aes Sedai (who are also the ‘secular’ government of Tar Valon) insist -perhaps reasonably- that all angreal should be under their control.
@41 – I have had similar thoughts, but you have put them into words far better than I might have done. All I can suggest is that as the main custodians of memory -the Aes Sedai, Aiel Wise Ones and possibly the Ogier- have a far longer lifespan than ordinary mortals, the Breaking of the World seems less remote to them than the Egypt of the Pharaohs does to us.
Contrast this with the situation in the Two Rivers, where -after only six generations- the younger folk are seemingly unaware that their homeland is geographically part of Andor!
@41 ashaman_sam:
I so want to live in that universe.
S
p.s. Gotta broaden it though, need a function for Ming vases and mesoamerican ziggurats.
The Two Rivers kids know the world from an outdated map. They should think that the Two Rivers belong to either Andor or Manetheren (but since they never heard of Manetheren Andor makes more sense).
If the Horn and the Portal Stones are really from before the AoL the history of objects that still work is still longer.
ashaman_sam @41: One big difference in the two situations is that in the WoT, the period 3,500 years ago was significantly more technologically advanced than the present WoT world, so it makes more sense that surviving artifacts would be useful.
Moderators: Two typos (one of which someone else spotted, too):
“The Shadow Rises” should be “…Rising”
“emphasized with her emotional struggle” should be “empathized…”
40. Austin – “The Fires of Heaven.” How about, “The First Arrow.”
I think you missed the point. Sylas and I are saying that the titles are too generic and should have an significant in-world reference in the book. “The First Arrow” is not really better. I think “The Shadow Rising” could be an appropriate title for 80% of all Fantasy books ever written and could have fit all the WOT books.
@46: Updated–thanks!
@37. Oddysseus – “It is like if I looked at a painting of a field of flowers, then looked at an actual field of flowers and concluding that, because the painting was made by a painter, and the field of flowers is just as beautiful as the painting, the field of flowers must have been made by some Grand Painter of the Universe.”
Seems like a valid hypothesis too me. And it can easily be falsified. All you have to do is to reproduce the flowers without “some Grand Painter of the Universe.” Just create a lab with what you think the starting environment was before flowers ever existed and show how they are naturally produced with just the right circumstances. I love science.
@47 – How is it not a significant in-world reference? It comes from one of the best parts in all of the books: when Mat discusses the battle strategy with Lan.
@50. Austin – Yes, that is a great scene and I loved how we discover who Matt is. But perhaps too oblique a reference, I know my mind did not jump to that scene when I saw “The First Arrow”. But I definitely like it better after your explanation!
@49. adjbaker
I think I didn’t express myself clearly because you missed my main point.
The reason why some people think that the similarities between manmade things and natural things suggest that natural things were designed just like manmade things is because they’re more familiar with manmade things than they are with natural things. It’s like if a person who had only ever seen sculptures of animals, never an actual living animal, suddenly saw a living animal and thought to himself “I wonder who sculpted this one”. Or, conversely, it’s like if a person who had never seen a sculpture in his life but had seen a bunch of animals suddenly saw a sculpture of a bird and thought to himself “Wow, I didn’t know clay could grow into a bird”.
Imagine a child who is unfamiliar with all mammals other than dogs. He knows that dogs are are furry things that walk on four legs, so when he sees a cat he’ll assume it’s a dog, because it’s furry and has four legs and the child only knows to associate those qualities with dogs.
Similarly, people in modern human societies are much more familiar with manmade things than they are with natural things, so when they see that natural things share some qualities with manmade things, they might assume that natural things are designed by someone, because they only know to associate those qualities with things that were designed by people.
Conversely, someone who is much more familiar with natural things than with manmade things, when he sees that manmade things share some qualities with natural things, might assume that manmade things grew up by themselves, just the same as natural things did, because they have only ever known to associate those qualities with things that grew by themselves.
@@@@@52. Oddysseus – I think scientists are pretty good at identifying what can happen naturally vs what requires a certain level of intelligence. For example, scientist are pretty good at looking at rock layers and identifying how they could have been created naturally by volcanoes, water, wind, etc. Versus a rock that has a footprint in it, an animal bored into it, or writing on it.
There are scientist looking for signals in space for signs of intelligence by looking for signals that wouldn’t happen naturally. People examine the pyramids and hypothesize that they where designed and created using technology that was very advanced because they can’t figure out how it was created but know that it was designed. Serious scientist actual consider if some advanced alien race actually created the pyramids.
When you look at the very simplest form of life, you can see all the signs of design – coded instructions in DNA, processes that create proteins, factories that fold the proteins, transportation of proteins around the cell, defense systems, etc. There is no hypothesis that comes close to explaining natural processes that could create the simplest forms of life. It’s been 75 years since the first experiments that created Amino Acids the “building blocks” of life, but there really has been little to no progress since then, but definitely more amazing discoveries of how complicated a cell is and how they can be compared to a miniature city or computer.
What “serious scientists” believe that? Von Däniken is hardly serious science. Just because arrogant scientists can’t imagine that people in the past knew some basic geometry and astronomy doesn’t mean it had to be aliens.
@53 We know how pyramids were built. I’m not saying people aren’t still arguing about the details but there’s no mysterious advanced technology required. The “serious scientists” who think it was aliens are probably just racist.
I think you’re using a different definition of “simplest form of life” than people who actually study abiogenesis
@53. adjbaker
“I think scientists are pretty good at identifying what can happen naturally vs what requires a certain level of intelligence.”
I don’t think this is helping your argument, since most scientists generally agree that the existence of life belongs in the former category, not the latter.
“It’s been 75 years since the first experiments that created Amino Acids the “building blocks” of life, but there really has been little to no progress since then”
Considering that abiogenesis is supposed to have taken place over hundreds of millions of years and even more immense amounts of gallons of ocean water under conditions we can only guess at, the fact that scientists haven’t produced new life in a miniscule fraction of that time and having to work with an even more miniscule fraction of the space can’t be used as evidence of abiogenesis being false.
“but definitely more amazing discoveries of how complicated a cell is and how they can be compared to a miniature city or computer.”
Which isn’t necessarily proof of any sort of design. You could argue just as easily that it’s proof that manmade things are also natural; that the same set of natural principles and patterns affect both in the workings of a cell and the workings of a city, so through the process of evolution they both end up with similar designs.
@54 and 55 – What “serious scientists” believe that?
Your right, I don’t think serious scientists believe aliens built the pyramids. I should not have given that as an example.
That being said, they do “consider” it and they do “consider” that life was seeded from outer space or from alien … because of the design they see.
“I think you’re using a different definition of “simplest form of life” than people who actually study abiogenesis.” No, I don’t think so. The very simplest life form is VERY complex. Below is a link to an interesting article from National Geographic.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/04/21/we-built-the-worlds-simplest-cell-but-dunno-how-it-works/
56. Oddysseus – “You could argue just as easily that it’s proof that manmade things are also natural; that the same set of natural principles and patterns affect both in the workings of a cell and the workings of a city, so through the process of evolution they both end up with similar designs.”
If your saying there is no such thing as Intelligence/Will/Mind/Creativity/Consciousness that is different from chance and natural laws, then we can go no further, because I at least need to start with the assumption of my own self/mind.
nicktherobin@43:
The BBoBA, which is an official, in-world document written during the time span of the story, or closely thereafter, refers to the continent of Randland as “the Westlands.” So, that is an official, canonical name for the continent the story takes place on.
@59 Thanks for that, AP. I’ve actually got the book, but I didn’t remember that name being used!
‘Westlands’ is a good name in most contexts (and I shall try to use it), although I doubt a visitor from the Seanchan continent would employ that term.
Here’s a question for every “intelligent design” missionary: Who designed the designer?
If life on Earth can’t exist without having been designed, then how can the designer god exist without having been designed? And who designed the designer of the designer? Is it intelligent designers all the way down?
If they’re willing to believe that an intelligent – and therefore necessarily complex – designer can exist without having been designed, then that disproves their argument that life must have been designed because it’s complex.
The simplest cell that researchers have managed to grow in a lab has very little to do with what the first life may have been like. You need to read up on the RNA world hypothesis.
A set of just two ribozymes can self-replicate indefinitely as long as the right “food” – short RNA strands – is available. This system meets some but not all of the usual requirements to be classified as life. It has reproduction and a limited form of metabolism, and it can mutate and evolve, but it’s not delimited from its surroundings and isn’t capable of homeostasis. It’s an intriguing illustration of what some of the precursors to life may have been like.
Back on topic: Rand and Egwene practically grew up together. Not in the same house, but they’ve known each other for their entire childhoods. It’s not surprising if they start to feel like siblings once they go out into the world and meet plenty of strangers. I’m pretty sure that’s an instinct that exists because it reduces inbreeding: If there is a choice between a childhood friend and a person you first met as an adult, then the latter is the better choice for a mate, because the former is likely to be a close relative.
It should be more surprising that Min and Perrin feel like siblings, rather than just friends, when they have spent just one winter in the same camp.
@@@@@61. Rombobjörn – “Who designed the designer?”
Why is this relevant to the question of whether something was designed? We know what is required to create a computer, an intelligent designer. It really does not matter if we know who the designer was or even how it was done? We recognize the information, complexity, and purpose and know it was designed.
@@@@@61. Rombobjörn – “The simplest cell that researchers have managed to grow in a lab has very little to do with what the first life may have been like.”
Imaginary simplest cells are not a scientific concept. Real science is about evidence and experiments that are reproducible. The RNA World is an imaginary place and does not help the argument because there is not a path to it from amino acids or from RNA to the real DNA world. As far as actually creating life through chance/natural processes, we are still stuck with amino acids with no path forward to additional complexity. Scientists of course can do some experiments with RNA if they remove it from already existing life, but RNA stays RNA and does not lead to DNA life as we know it. It is just a dead end.
All the experiments that start with life and go backwards such as the National Geographic article describes, show how impossible it is for life to have started as something simple. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2016/04/21/we-built-the-worlds-simplest-cell-but-dunno-how-it-works/
I missed this column!
I really enjoyed reading your takes on the different characters (and chuckled a bit in solidarity at some of your frustrations).
41. ashaman_sam
You mean yours don’t?
22. adjbaker
I’d suggest:
Crossroads of Twilight – Time Enough for Bath (with apologies to Heinlein)
A Path of Daggers – Waiting for Cauthon (with apologies to Beckett)
But seriously – there’s too much happening in each book for a specific title to reflect the action; you’d have to choose a specific plot thread at the expense of the others. It’s no wonder RJ went with vague titles.
@@@@@ 61, 62 & others Re: Design and Designer.
I think most analogies between man-made artifacts and living creatures do not give sufficient weight to the fact that living creatures reproduce themselves, whereas artifacts do not. You could look at it this way: If I see a mouse today in a world which I believe to be 4.5 billion years old, then unlike a watch coming out of a factory, this mouse is a result of a long chain of events going back billions of years. The influence of the designer must be weighed against the influence of all the decisions along this chain (unless you wish to argue that the designer predicted or controlled them all, which will make a hash of Free Will).
The purely Darwinist argument says the events influencing the links are sufficiently significant that understanding them is the key to understanding the mouse, and whether chain extends back 4.5 billion years or just 3.8 billion years, while of academic interest, is secondary to understanding the forces which influence the chain.
The intelligent design argument focuses a lot of attention on the first link of the chain, and deprecates the importance of the intervening links, perhaps because they secretly believe the chain is only 6,000 years old. And if the chain really is that short, then this attitude makes a lot of sense. But if it isn’t, then I find this argument puzzling, because seeking out a supposed intelligent creator is really only important to people who expect him to take an interest in our moral lives; but if they managed to prove, say, that the first living cell was deliberately fashioned by a juvenile astral creature 3 billion years ago as his middle-school science project, they would hardly be content with this answer, even though it fits all the criteria for Intelligent Design.
@64. JonathanLevy – Design and Designer
I purposely used the origin of life argument because it simplifies the discussion and is sufficient evidence of a designer. If life truly started by chance and nature then we would be able to reproduce it or at least understand the process. Instead we see an awesomely complex self replicating system that is beyond our engineering skills. Remember you have to have a self replicating cell before evolution can even be considered.
@@@@@65. adjbaker
Perhaps we can reproduce it, but it would take us 50 million years.
Perhaps we don’t understand the process, but we will understand it in 50 years.
Perhaps we will never understand the process, because we’re just not smart enough.
Perhaps we will never understand the process, because the origin of life was so long ago, and the evidence is gone.
Your argument boils down to an argument from ignorance: We cannot prove how this came about (by reproducing it in a lab), therefore, it must have been done by an intelligent designer.
I don’t find the irreducible complexity argument convincing, either. The argument goes: “You must have a self-replicating cell before evolution can even be considered, and the simplest self-replicating cell is too complex to be the result of chance”.
How do we know this to be true? An 80-year understanding of biochemical processes in life-forms which have 3.5 Billion years of evolution behind them. What would a cell with only 50 million years of evolution behind it look like? How much simpler might its biochemistry be? How much self-replication might be taking place outside of cells? We have no information on this, except to examine the simplest organisms around today and postulate that they might not have changed much.
If the earth were 6,000 years old, this would be a convincing argument. But to say “the simplest cell today is irreducibly complex, therefore the simplest cell 3.5 BYA was also irreducibly complex” seems unconvincing.
Why should what humans today can do prove anything? We only discovered DNA less than an century ago. There is no reason we should already understand everything there is to know about how life works. We don’t even really know what the difference between life and nonliving objects is. Before we can hope to create life we should first find out how to define it properly. Otherwise there is no way to tell if we are successful, because people can always argue that what we can do doesn’t count as real life.
66. JonathanLevy – “Your argument boils down to an argument from ignorance”
No, it is a logically conclusion based on what we know is required to create things like books and computers. We do not know that it took 50 million years to create the first single cell life. We do not know how it happened. Just like I do not know the process of how a story came to be, or who created my computer. However, I know from repeatable observation (i.e. science) that it takes design/intelligent input. It seems strange that you complain of an argument from ignorance when you invoke an imaginary simplest cell (that no scientist can imagine in detail) from 3.5 BYA. Now that is an argument from ignorance. I am using an argument based on the forces we see today.
@@@@@67. birgit – “Why should what humans today can do prove anything?”
It doesn’t “prove” anything. Just like it is not “proven” that Egyptians built the pyramids instead of aliens or some sort of natural formation. Egyptians are just the best explanation.
Intelligent design is the best explanation: the most evidence-based and logic-based explanation.
Intelligent design is a resignation to a conclusion based on lack of knowledge. Period. Faith is faith, believe what you want, but a thousand years ago the best explanation of the motion of the sun was that it moved across the Earth (round, flat or whatever). They concluded that they had watched it move and that was the end of the conversation for them.
Since it doesn’t seem like the debate over intelligent design is going to be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction in this thread, let’s leave it there and get back to discussing the topics/chapters covered in the original post–thanks.