It is now Week 19 of this read of The Shadow Rising, in which we are tackling Chapter 25 and the part of 26 that I skipped over last week. I’m very excited to talk about this segment, which may be my favorite part of the entire saga to date, at least as far as pure storytelling goes. When people enthuse about Jordan’s skill in complex worldbuilding, this is the kind of thing they are talking about.
In fact, it’s so complex, and I have so many thoughts to break down, that the initial post this week was clocking in at over 10,000 words, which is far too long for a single week, so I’ve broken things down a little further. The last three sections of the flashback, those with young Jonai, Coumin, and Charn, will be covered next time, since they all pertain to the state of the World During the Age of Legends and during the Breaking. This week will cover everything that we’ve learned about the journey of the Aiel after they left with their caravan of wagons and Aes Sedai treasures.
Honestly friends, I think I might be in mourning for the Aiel.
Rand enters the rings, the air still and cool and filled with the dazzling lights reflected by the columns. He spots another man some six or seven steps ahead of him, who he figures must be Couladin’s brother, Muradin, although he wonders why he and Mat didn’t see the man go in. Muradin is standing still and stiff, staring ahead of him with an expression like the beginning of a snarl.
Rand takes a step forward, and finds himself somewhere else. And someone else, too. He is Mandein, a young sept chief, and his wife Sealdre is telling him that he must agree to whatever the Jenn ask of him. Mandein is standing above Rhuidean, looking down at the strange, giant city that the Jenn are building. He asks Sealdre if the others will come, and she explains that she and her sisters in the dream have talked, that most will come, and that those who do not, or who do not agree to the Jenn’s demands, will die out, as will their septs. Mandein does not like the idea of her talking to Wise Ones in the dream, but he knows that their dreams are truth. He bids Sealdre to look after the hold and their children if he does not return, and goes down with some of his warriors to meet the procession.
Other men from other septs are arriving as well, some of whom are enemies, and Mandein hopes that everyone will remember that killing in front of a Jenn is almost as bad as killing a Jenn. Still, he half expects fighting to break out at any moment. His attention is also drawn to the two Aes Sedai being carried in ornate chairs. Their hair is so white it is almost transparent, and the skin of their ageless faces looks so thin the wind might tear it. Mandein wonders how old they are and what they have seen, and finds that both women look up and meet his eyes. He feels himself chosen out, although he does not know why.
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A man named Dermon introduces himself as well as two women named Mordaine and Narisse, who speak for the Jenn Aiel. None of the others like hearing the Jenn referred to as Aiel, and when Mandein asks why they have all been summoned, Dermon answers with another question: “Why do you not carry a sword?”
Mandein responds angrily that it is forbidden, but Dermon claims that they do not know why, that there is too much that they do not know. He tells them that whoever wants to lead the Aiel must come to Rhuidean and learn where the Aiel came from, and why they do not carry swords. Charendin, an old enemy of Mandein, asks whether the one who comes to Rhuidean will be made leader of all the Aiel.
“No.” The word came thin as a whisper, but strong enough to fill every ear. It came from the dark-eyed Aes Sedai sitting in her carved chair with a blanket across her legs as if she felt cold under the broiling sun. “That one will come later,” she said. “The stone that never falls will fall to announce his coming. Of the blood, but not raised by the blood, he will come from Rhuidean at dawn, and tie you together with bonds you cannot break. He will take you back, and he will destroy you.”
Mandein can see that some of the sept chiefs want to leave, but none do. They have listened to their Wise Ones, and know that they will be destroyed if they do not agree. Still, Charendin claims the Jenn’s command is a trick, to take control of the Aiel. The two women answer that they seek no control, and that a day is coming when the Jenn Aiel will be no more. Thus, the others must remember where the Aiel come from. Mandein asks why they are building Rhuidean if they know their doom.
“It is our purpose,” Dermon replied calmly. “For long years we searched for this place, and now we prepare it, if not for the purpose we once thought. We do what we must, and keep faith.”
Seeing no fear in Dermon’s face, Mandein declares that they are Aiel, and that he will go to Rhuidean as asked, even though Dermon tells him that he cannot go armed. He abandons his weapons and tells them that he will match their courage.
Rand comes back to himself, trying to puzzle out his experience being Mandein, and how the Jenn could be Aiel if they carried no weapons. He realizes that he’s farther into the columns than a single step, and closer to Muradin, whose expression has darkened further. Rand steps forward.
This time he is Rhodric, a young warrior, who keeps watch over other Aiel as they dig wells. Men on horses arrive, and Rhodric recognizes Garam, the son of the chief of the town. He greets the mounted man, and asks if the permission to take water from the land has been revoked. Garam says that it has not, but that the others have started to move, and he knows that Rhodric’s grandfather wanted to know if they did. Garam asks if they are the same people, and Rhodric explains that the others are the Jenn Aiel, and they are the Aiel. He cannot explain it further, though he does admit that he doesn’t understand it himself.
Jeordam, Rhodric’s greatfather, makes himself known, startling the other men, although Rhodric himself heard the approach. Garam tells them that the Jenn Aiel have turned east, across the Spine of the World, and asks if it makes the Aiel uneasy to travel so close to the Aes Sedai who are with the Jenn.
The Aes Sedai made Rhodric very nervous, though he kept his face blank. They were only four, not dozens, but enough to make him remember stories that the Aiel had failed the Aes Sedai in some way that no one knew. The Aes Sedai must know; they had seldom left the Jenn’s wagons in the year since their arrival, but when they did, they looked at the Aiel with sad eyes. Rhodric was not the only one who tried to avoid them.
“We guard the Jenn,” Jeordam said. “It is they who travel with Aes Sedai.”
Garam seems to accept this, but he goes on to explain that his father has a secret Aes Sedai advisor, one who claims that his people must move east, that the rains will return and that they will find a river to build a great city beside. But Garam has heard that the world used to be very different and that the Aes Sedai destroyed it. Now he hears that the Aes Sedai have found Ogier to build themselves a city, and he wonders if they shouldn’t kill all the Aes Sedai now, before they can destroy everything again. Jeordam is noncommittal in his response, and Garam mentions that the Spine of the World has another name, the Dragonwall.
Rhodric stared at the towering mountains in the distance. A fitting name for Aiel. Their own secret name, told to no one, was People of the Dragon. He did not know why, only that it was not spoken aloud except when you received your spears. What lay beyond this Dragonwall? At least there would be people to fight. There always were. In the whole world there were only Aiel, Jenn and enemies. Only that. Aiel, Jenn and enemies.
Again Rand returns to himself, puzzling through his experience and realizing that he had experienced a time before the Aiel came to the Waste, to their Three-Fold land. Again he finds himself nearer to Muradin, who looks like he is struggling to bring himself to take another step. Rand steps forward.
This time Rand becomes Jeordam when the man was younger, only 18. He is standing watch when a party of Jenn Aiel approach him.
“You have need of us, Jenn?” he called.
“You name us that to mock us,” a tall, sharp-nosed fellow shouted back, “but it is true. We are the only true Aiel. You have given up the Way.”
“That is a lie!” Jeordam snapped. “I have never held a sword!” He drew a deep breath to calm himself. He had not been put out here to grow angry with Jenn. “If you are lost, your wagons are that way.” He pointed southward with his spear.
A woman stops the sharp-nosed man from arguing further, and informs Jeordam that they are not lost. He leads the Jenn back towards his father’s tents. Jeordam is proud of his sept, which, consisting of around 200 people, is the largest of the ten camps that follow the Aiel wagons. To Lewin, Jeordam’s father, the Jenn tell their story, of how they traded with a village, only to have that village turn around and attack them, taking back what was traded for and more, including killing some of the Jenn and taking others captive.
The woman, Morin, tells how her five-year-old daughter was one of the ones taken. Lewin assures them that the Aiel will rescue those who were taken, and thrusts some spears into the ground. He tells the group that they may stay with the Aiel, if they wish, but they must be willing to defend themselves and the rest of the group. Once they take a spear, however, they can never return to the Jenn, and will be considered dead by them. The sharp-nosed man hurries away, but the rest each take a spear, including Morin.
“You do not have to take a spear just to stay,” Lewin told her, “or for us to bring back your people. Taking the spear means a willingness to fight, not just to defend yourself. You can put it down; there is no shame.”
“They have my daughter,” Morin said.
Lewin hesitates only a moment, then remarks that there is a first time for all things, and agrees. He selects men to be part of the rescue party, beginning with Jeordam. But Jeordam’s attention is caught by Morin, who is struggling with the long spear and her long skirts. When she again insists that she will be the one to rescue her daughter, Jeordam tells her he will get her some more suitable clothes, and cuts off the end of her spear to make it more manageable.
“Stab with it. No more than that. Just stab. The haft is used for blocking, too, but I will find you something to use as a shield in your other hand.”
She looked at him strangely. “How old are you?” she asked, even more oddly. He told her, and she only nodded thoughtfully.
After a moment, he said, “Is one of those men your husband?” They were still tripping over their spears.
“My husband mourns Kirin already. He cares more for the trees than his own daughter.”
Jeordam has no idea what she is talking about, and Morin explains that the Jenn carry three tree cuttings in barrels, which the Jenn mean to plant once they find a place of safety, believing that then the old days will return. She realizes that she is referring to the Jenn as “they” rather than “we” and lifts the spear, saying that she is no longer Jenn Aiel, and the spear is her husband now.
As Jeordam teaches her to use the spear, he realizes that this shorter weapon will make him faster than a man with a sword, and he misses her comment that she “saw his face in the dream” as he is caught up by the possibilities, dreams that no one could stand against the Aiel.
Rand is nearly caught up to Muradin now, whose teeth are bared as he stares ahead. Rand understands now that the columns are taking him back through the time-lost history of the Aiel. He steps forward, and back in time.
Rand is Lewin, who, with four other young men, crouches in the dark, spying on the camp of the men who had taken Lewin’s sister, Maigran, and the sister of two of his friends. They wear dustveils across their faces to protect against the dry, dusty wind, and Lewin wishes he had some water, although only children were ever allowed water between meals. He only vaguely remembers a time when there was more water, and the days and nights were not so hot and dusty.
They make a hasty plan to slip into the camp below and rescue the two kidnapped girls while the men are asleep; the rest of their people do not know they have slipped away to enact the rescue, and Adan, Lewin’s greatfather, would have stopped them if he had. His concentration is always on the preservation of the Aiel people, and the Aiel were preparing to carry on after the girls’ kidnapping, as they have so many times before. But Lewin could not let his sister go.
They make their way down, clumsy in the darkness, pebbles and sticks rolling and snapping beneath their feet, but nothing moves in the camp until Lewin finds his sister and tries to extract her from the blanket thrown over her. Then the rough men emerge from their own blankets, promising violence as Lewin urges his sister to run. But Maigran, apparently in shock, just stares at him.
As one of the men starts to brandish a knife at Lewin and Maigran, another boy, Charlin, throws himself at Lewin’s attacker, carrying him to the ground. When another pulls a sword, Lewin finds himself catching up a heavy iron kettle and smashing it into the swordsman’s head. Scrambling away from the next attacker, his hands search wildly for something to defend himself with, and he snatches up a stick, thrusting it at the man who is trying to kill him. Only then does he see that it is a spear, and he has stabbed it right through the man, killing him.
He looks around, and finds that the rest of his friends have taken out the other men, and the two girls are free. Maigran remains staring blankly, while the other, Colline, sobs under her blankets. They have killed all the men.
Lewin crawls over to Charlin, only to find that Charlin has taken a knife in his stomach. He only has time to tell Lewin “it hurts” before he dies.
Unsure what to do, they gather up all the useful possessions, things that were no doubt stolen already, as well as the knives and spears.
“When Alijha started to pick up one of the swords, though, Lewin stopped him. “No, Alijha. That is a weapon, made to kill people. It has no other use.” Alijha said nothing, only ran his eyes over the four dead bodies, looked at the spears Luca was winding with blankets to carry Charlin’s body on. Lewin refused to look at the villagers. “A spear can put food in the pots, Alijha. A sword cannot. It is forbidden by the Way.”
Alijha was still silent, but Lewin thought he sneered behind his dustveil. Yet when they finally started away into the night, the swords remained by the dying coals and the dead men.
They return to the wagons, where they are greeted by Adan, and the mothers of the two girls. They ask what happened, expressing their confusion that the boys had left the camp, and Maigran finally speaks, to tell the adults that the boys killed the bad men. At first no one believes her, but when they realize what she is saying is true, they are horrified. Adan reminds them of the Covenant, and that there is no reason good enough to justify killing another human being. He stands fast, even when they try to point out what the men did.
“There is no reason!” Adan roared, shaking with rage. “We must accept what comes. Our sufferings are sent to test our faithfulness. We accept and endure! We do not murder! You have not strayed from the Way, you have abandoned it. You are Da’shain no longer. You are corrupt, and I will not have the Aiel corrupted by you. Leave us, strangers. Killers! You are not welcome in the wagons of the Aiel.” He turned his back and strode away as if they no longer existed. Saralin and Nerrine started after him, guiding the girls.
When Lewin tries to speak to his mother, she tells him to hide his face, since she had a son once with that face, and she doesn’t want to see it on a killer. He shouts at their retreating back that he is still Aiel, and, as the dust begins to pick up again, he veils his face.
Rand finds himself almost beside Muradin now, struggling with questions raised by this strange revelation. Beside him, Muradin is in clear distress, and looks as though he wants to run. Rand steps forward.
Rand is Adan, and he is holding his dead son’s children, Maigran and Lewin, as they cry. Peering over the edge of the hollow in which they are hiding, he sees some of the wagons burning and dead Aiel scattered on the ground. The wagons that are not burning have been emptied, things that the Aes Sedai gave the Aiel to carry thrown on the ground to make room for the women that the laughing killers have taken prisoner. Adan’s daughter Rhea is among them.
The last of his children. Elwin dead of hunger at ten, Sorelle at twenty of fever her dreams told her was coming, and Jaren, who threw himself off a cliff a year ago, at nineteen, when he found he could channel. Marind, this morning.
Adan wants to rush out and attack the men, but he knows they will just kill him and take Rhea anyway, and then Maigran and Lewin would be left with no one to care for them… if the men didn’t kill the children too. So he waits, and when the men are gone he goes out among the dead, finding his wife’s body there. Another Aiel, Sulwin, asks what Adan proposes they do now, and Adan answers that they will do what they always do. Bury the dead, and carry on.
“Go on, Adan? How can we go on? There are no horses. There is almost no water, no food. All we have left are wagons full of things the Aes Sedai will never come for. What are they, Adan? What are they that we should give our lives to haul them across the world, afraid to touch them even? We cannot go on as before!”
“We can!” Adan shouted. “We will! We have legs; we have backs. We will drag the wagons, if need be. We will be faithful to our duty!” He was startled to see his own brandished fist. A fist. His hand trembled as he unclenched it and put it down by side.
But Sulwin disagrees. They are meant to find a place of safety, he says, and he remembers stories his greatfather told of when they lived in safety and people came to hear them sing. He means to refind that life. Adan reminds him that the old ways are gone, and they do not know those old songs anymore. They will not give up their duty to the Aes Sedai to chase what is gone.
But Sulwin means to, and some of his followers begin throwing things out of the wagons, including a polished doorway of red stone, emptying them of everything except food and water. Adan tells them that they are no longer Aiel. Sulwin insists they still follow the Way of the Leaf, but Adan repeats that they are not Aiel, that they are Lost. He determines that they will save as much of the discarded items as they can, although there’s no way to tell which things the Aes Sedai would deem most important. Holding his dead wife in his arms, he asks the Aes Sedai who aren’t there how much longer they must be faithful.
Rand comes back to himself, tears in his eyes, and finds himself in step with Muradin. They go forward together.
Rand is Jonai, tired and weary and mourning his wife, Alnora, without whom he hardly cares to live, and without whose dreams he hardly knows what to do next. His son, Adan, interrupts his musings over how many fewer wagons there are, how many fewer Aiel, to tell him that they have encountered Ogier. Jonai is surprised to see that the Ogier look as bedraggled and worn as his own people, and feels a flash of anger when he sees that the Ogier have been given food. He reminds himself that sharing freely is the way, but he can’t stop thinking about how many people could be fed on what fifty Ogier could consume.
One of the Ogier observes that they have chora cuttings, and Adan answers that they keep dying, but the old folk take new cuttings before they do. He himself is more concerned about people than trees, and asks how bad it is in the north. Bad, the Ogier tell him. The Blighted Lands have grown southward, and there are Myrddraal and Trollocs.
He tells the Ogier that the east is bad too, although perhaps not as bad for them. The Aiel had encountered people who took a third of their horses, forcing them to abandon some of the wagons. But he suggests that people won’t attack Ogier the same way. The Ogier seem unconvinced, and ask if Jonai has seen the stedding.
“We have run so far, so long,” an Ogier back in the huddle said, and another added in a mournful rumble, “The land has changed so much.”
“I think we must find a stedding soon or die,” the first Ogier woman said. “I feel a… longing… in my bones. We must find a stedding. We must.”
Jonai feels a great deal of grief, for the lost Ogier, for the ever-changing landscape and the Blighted Lands expanding, for the animalistic nature of the people they encounter, who don’t even recognize the Da’shain. He finds he cannot breathe, and collapses, feeling like his heart is being squeezed in a fist. He gasps out his last instructions to his son, to take the people south, to guard what they were given and to keep the Way of the Leaf.
Rand comes to himself beside Muradin, who is trying to scream and clawing at his face, leaving bloody scratches. Rand steps forward.
If there is one thing that links all those of Aiel descent, despite the ways in which their paths have diverged, it is their strong wills. From those who continued to hold the Way of the Leaf, despite all their misfortunes and suffering, to those who chose to take up spears and fight to protect themselves and those they loved, everyone in these flashbacks shows an iron will in almost impossible circumstances.
Since the very beginning of this series, we have heard many references to the dark times that followed the Breaking, but the firsthand accounts that Rand experiences in Rhuidean have a much more powerful effect than stories of half-remembered sufferings recounted by those who didn’t directly experience them. It gives me a different understanding of what the Breaking truly meant—and Rand too, I think.
One of the questions I have is whether every man who steps into the columns experiences the same memories from the exact same people—Mandein, Rhodric, Jeordam, Lewin, Adan, Jonai, Coumin, and Charn (the latter two we will get to next week). This particular bloodline seems to have been at the center of the Aiel’s experience, mostly leaders, and we know that Charn was connected to Mierin, one of the Aes Sedai responsible for the Bore, who may also be Lanfear. (More on that next week, too.) And it was Jonai who was specifically charged by the Aes Sedai with carrying those angreal and ter’angreal to a place of safety.
A place of safety. It took the Aiel many generations to find such a thing, but I suppose you could call the Waste, the Three-Fold Land, a place of safety. Not safe for people, precisely, but Rhuidean was built, or mostly built anyway, and those artifacts that the Aiel were able to keep with them are preserved there, hidden by the mists of Rhuidean, hidden from the rest of the world by the Dragonwall. But the Jenn Aiel did not survive the making of this place of safety, and the rest of the Aiel paid a very dear price indeed.
I am deeply impressed with the way this section is executed. Having been over it a few times now, I can see how meticulously all the details are laid out, with both large and small references that are woven from flashback to flashback, all of which are significant. I have a feeling I’ll find even more if I go back and read it again, but you know, I have to stop and actually write this week’s post at some point.
It’s like putting together a puzzle, each piece revealing a little more of what the completed image will look like. And while this is the history of the Aiel, it is also giving us a look at the history of the world, with glimpses into the origins of Cairhien, of the Tuatha’an, and into the lives of the Ogier after the Breaking. And because Rand is the reincarnated Lews Therin Telamon, he is not only getting the history of his father’s people, but a glimpse into the legacy of Lews Therin, sometimes called Kinslayer, and the ramifications of what happened after the taint was placed on saidin.
I guess it’s possible that the men in these flashbacks could be Rand’s actual ancestors. There’s not anything to specifically indicate that, but it kind of feels like something Jordan would do. The history is even more moving if it has that extra personal touch, and bloodlines seem to be very important to the Aiel. But if that’s the case, does that mean that Muradin is seeing the memories of his own bloodline, and not the same ones as Rand?
Also. Did… did Muradin eat his own eyeballs? I didn’t catch that on my first read but going over it again I realize that we see how he has clawed his eyes out and then immediately after there’s the mention of chewing and… Yeah, you know what? I’m going to stop thinking about it.
I had forgotten that the Longing was something that the Ogier only began to experience after the Breaking. It reminds me, of course, of the Sea-longing that Tolkien’s elves experience, but while that longing is something that was a punishment for the elves’ own sins, the Ogier seem to be innocent victims, ripped from their homes by the Breaking and separated from the steddings for so long that they became sick. The encounter with the Ogier here is chilling, but I would have loved to learn more about what stedding actually are and how they work. For the Longing to have been created, the Ogier must have had a specific connection to their lands even before the Breaking, perhaps through their cultivation of it, and the Singing they do to interact with the trees and plants? Or maybe there is another reason that we haven’t learned yet.
We do now, however, know that the Tuatha’an were once part of the Aiel, and that the Way of the Leaf comes from the Aiel’s original way of life. I had somewhat suspected a connection between the Tuatha’an and the Aiel—not this exactly, but the particular disgust that the Aiel felt towards the Traveling people seemed to have some greater power behind it than a simple disagreement about the use of violence and choice not to act in self defense. The Aiel have forgotten the true source of their disgust for the Tuatha’an, forgotten that the Way of the Leaf was not always abhorrent to them.
The Tuatha’an’s disgrace, in the Aiel’s eyes, was not keeping the Way of the Leaf, but a different betrayal, a betrayal of duty to the Aes Sedai that they all once served. Adan tells them that they are not Aiel, even though Sulwin and his followers still keep the Way of the Leaf. Indeed, one might argue that the Tuatha’an are following the way of the original Aiel more closely than that of those who currently call themselves Aiel. At this moment it’s unclear whether the abandonment of the artifacts or the abandonment of the Covenant known as the Way of the Leaf is a greater sin.
I guess that’s why I wonder about the specifics of what Muradin experienced in the columns, and what exactly drove him to such anguish. Rand wasn’t raised Aiel, and so he isn’t going to connect with the history quite as personally as Muradin does. Is Muradin destroyed because he cannot accept that the Aiel were meant to abhor and abstain from all violence? Or is he driven to despair by the guilt of realizing what the Aiel abandoned? What does it mean to see such suffering in his people? Does he agree with Lewin’s choice to choose to defend himself and his sister, or does he hate the man for sending them down this path that takes them far from the original way of the Da’shain Aiel. Which part of this story is the part that he cannot stand to see?
And with this revelation, I now understand something I questioned a few weeks back, which is the Wise One’s treatment of Aviendha. When I covered that chapter, I questioned why Aviendha must view her old possessions as trash, why she couldn’t move on from them while still carrying fondness and love for the warrior she was before. But now I get it. I didn’t understand it then, not anymore than Egwene did, or Aviendha herself, but this was not about pushing Aviendha for wanting a different fate than the one her power demanded, it was about the Wise Ones walking a path closer to that of the Da’shain Aiel, and remembering their past. I suspect that whatever Aviendha encounters in Rhuidean will be at least somewhat like what the men learn in the ring of columns, and that she will emerge with an understanding that the Aiel people were not meant to be about violence.
This whole section is actually a really beautiful examination of what traditions mean, and how their origins evolve and are lost to time. As Dermon points out, the Aiel find the idea of wielding a sword abhorrent. It is forbidden, and it’s insulting to even suggest that an Aiel might use one, and yet the modern Aiel don’t even remember why that is. The tradition is deeply ingrained in them, but is actually counter to the Way that was its origin. I wonder if this isn’t what is meant by the prediction that He Who Comes With the Dawn will “destroy” the Aiel. Will he bring the people back to the old way, to serve the Aes Sedai and follow the Way of the Leaf? Or will he change who the Aiel are and how they function just as much as the Breaking did, leading them again to become a new and different people?
I also loved seeing how the short style of the Aiel spears came from the alterations Jeordam made for Morin—also the mother of the tradition of wedding the spear—and that the custom of veiling their faces when they are prepared to kill comes from the dust veils Lewin and his friends wore, and from Lewin’s mother telling him to hide the face of a killer. Even with how the Aiel take honor and meaning from their warrior ways, the wearing of their veils comes from an origin in shame around killing.
I wonder if the origins of the ji’e’toh tradition also comes from the fact that the Aiel once practiced the Way of the Leaf. The Wise Ones tell Moraine and Egwene that “the most ji, honor, is earned by touching an armed enemy without killing, or harming in any way.” They claim that this is because it is the most difficult thing to do. “A child or a fool can kill,” Amys says. But perhaps there is also a memory there of the Way of the Leaf, an acknowledgement of a way of solving conflict that does not involve harming one’s opponent. It’s really something to think about.
And with the origins of the custom of coming to Rhuidean, we have also learned the origin of the prophecy of He Who Comes With the Dawn. I couldn’t quite figure out where the two Aes Sedai with the Jenn Aiel came from—there is no mention of Aes Sedai among the caravans before the encounter with Garam, before they crossed the Spine of the World, so ostensibly the four Aes Sedai joined the Jenn at some point after Jeordam’s encounter with Morin, but before they met the people who let them dig the wells. We know that Comran was Mandein’s greatfather, aka grandfather, and that Rhodric was Comran‘s grandfather, so that’s five generations between the Aes Sedai joining the Jenn and the beginning of the tradition of would-be Aiel chiefs going into Rhuidean. So I guess it makes sense that those Aes Sedai would seem to be pretty old. This speaks to the blood-line question as well—Mandein notes that he feels chosen out by the Aes Sedai, and I wonder if that isn’t because of his connection to Rhodric and therefore to all of the Aiel leaders we’ve been following in these chapters.
And now he is coming, and Rand’s destiny as the leader of the Aiel will be cemented. I have to wonder if some will resist the changing of their ways, just as we have seen the splintering of the Aiel throughout Rand’s Rhuidean visions. Muradin clawed his own eyes out rather than face the truths that were to be learned there, so I can imagine other changes, other revelations, might also be difficult to, um, swallow.
Okay that was gross I’m sorry.
Please join me again next week, to finish the last bits of the Rhuidean visions and to talk about how the Breaking came to pass, the role of men and women in the Age of Legends, and how excited I am to see the Green Man again.
I get, at the very least, emotional every time I read this sequence.
Just letting you all know.
Perspective on five generations: I’m in my 40s, and five generations back in my family takes us back to the founding of the city I live in, before the state I live in was officially a state.
Regarding ancestry: as we’ll learn in a week or two, the Rhuidean visions are indeed direct ancestors of the person traversing the ter’angreal. But the fact that at this point we’re something like 2,000 years removed from these events means that pretty much every Aiel alive today is descended from a very small handful of individuals, so even if there are different individuals in the visions, the events they portray are going to be largely identical.
@@@@@ 1 – you and me both. So emotional. This is one of the sequences I almost always cry over.
I noted that Rhuidean’s Ancestatron and Descendatron both go backward in time from their starting point. They only differ in the starting point’s chronological location.
Rand’s ancestors appear to have witnessed — caused, really — the origins of the Fair Daeis Mai, the Aiel spear in current use, and the face-veiling custom, among other things. Did Muradin have those same ancestors, or others who experienced parallel developments, or did he not see those particular origins? (This was probably discussed in the 240 comments on Leigh’s WoT Reread post, but I don’t have time to search them).
@@.-@ – Did Muradin have those same ancestors, or others who experienced parallel developments, or did he not see those particular origins?
Whatever he saw would have been very close to those events – we’re talking about a founding population of maybe 100 individuals that grew to something close to a million over 2000 years or so. That far back, everyone is related to everyone. Even if Muradin isn’t directly descended from the same people Rand is, he’s practically guaranteed to be descended from one of the other individuals featured in Rand’s vision. The most famous example is probably Genghis Khan – he died about 800 years ago and has something like 16 million direct male descendants.
Sylas is going to be wrecked the next time we see the Wayback Machine. Though I think the anticipation is going to kill me.
I feel like this is where WoT really levels up. Deep historical worldbuilding is a trope in epic fantasy but this sequence makes you connect to that history. Sure you might cry your eyes out and eat them but it hammers home that the epic sweep of history is just the concatenation of personal experiences.
Normally, it would be stretching the suspension of disbelief that Rand’s ancestors all took direct part in the biggest moments in the history of the Aiel. But the Wheel weaves, ya? It’s a handy little system RJ created for himself. Clever.
The Aiel are descended from a pacifist sect, but they have spent centuries murdering each other in ritualistic warfare. They invaded a country for the crime of cutting down a tree. And as the narrative points out, they refuse to carry swords while forgetting the actual reason why.
Though the narrative always favors them, I personally view the Aiel as arrogant monsters.
Rand’s specific ancestors in the Wayback machine were probably all ta’varen. We know his father Janduin certainly was one.
@@@@@ 8 – I mean, this is about as close to a sacred tree as you can possibly get. How many invasions and pogroms and mass murders have been initiated over the years because someone “desecrated” a holy place? Is this really so unusual? And in this instance, we know that Avendesora is actually magical and in some ways holy.
And the ritualistic warfare isn’t murderous. It’s the opposite, as we see in the explanation of ji’e’toh. A premium is placed on saving human lives, and there are lots of proscriptions about only harming combatants. This is FAR more honorable than the style of warfare practiced everywhere else in Randland.
And yes, over 2,500 years they’ve forgotten the reason for some of their traditions. I’d argue our collective cultural awareness of why we do certain things is way less than that.
The Aiel are certainly arrogant, but that’s in large part because they are better than everyone else around them. Better fighters. They have a more egalitarian, meritocratic society. Better educated, it usually seems (as in most of them are literate). In most ways that you can compare social groupings, the Aiel come across as far better than any of the contemporaries they come into contact with.
@8 They didn’t invade a country, they hunted down and killed the one person responsible. That country just got in the way. They just John Wicked their way through Randland.
@@.-@ and others, personally, I imagine that the other, disagreeable Aiel in the visions are Muradin’s ancestors. ;) e.g. Charendin in the first vision who thinks the Jenn/Aes Sedai are tricking them, Alijha who sneers at the command to not take the sword (perhaps rightly noting how much they are trying to split hairs).
@8 Yeah, while I like getting to know the culture, they are so wrapped up in honor (a cynic may call their version “pride”) that they often react… poorly. It reminds me of the line in Stormlight about Honor perhaps being more concerned with keeping the oath than the nature of the oath. Or the critique of Utilitarianism with its concern with doing the most good potentially allowing for atrocious things as long as the ends justify the means.
Anyway, I love this sequence!
Oh Sylas, so insightful and yet so much to learn…
@8,
There are various sects in our own world less than 2000/3000 years old who have proscriptions against consumption of beef, swine flesh and shellfish and would be hard pressed to articulate why…
The Aiel forgetting their own origin of their own cultural traditions is not altogether unrealistic
@10 andrewrn
It was a tree. The ancestors of the Aiel grasped the basic idea that people were more important than trees. This is not a hard concept, but the Aiel have a habit of forgetting what is truly important while obsessing over details. Witness their insistence that swords are bad and wrong, but murdering people with spears is perfectly okay.
While it’s obviously good that the Aiel don’t harm noncombatants, they could just, you know, not murder each other at all. There’s no actual reason why they have to keep these feuds going, when they could just imitate the Iroquois and form a Confederation that settles their disputes with more talking and less stabbing.
The Aiel are more egalitarian and meritocratic, which is good, and they’re better educated. However, they are good at murder because they spend lots of time murdering their neighbors. “Better than the Westlands” is a low bar indeed, and it’s not completely true; I suspect that the odds of a young Aiel man dying from violence are much, much higher than the odds of a random Westlands peasant dying in a war.
Ironically, despite despising the people of Cairhein as “treekillers”, they are all descended from oathbreakers. Hypocrisy, thy name is Aiel.
@11 John
They could have told everyone else, “Okay, we’re going to kill the king of Cairhein for cutting down our sacred tree.” As it was, the rest of the Westlands assumed that the Aiel were launching a full invasion, and they all went to war to avoid being overrun by barbarian hordes.
For that matter, the Aiel could have sent assassins to kill the king of Cairhein personally, rather than having to fight through half of the continent.
Lots and lots of innocent people died because the Aiel were angry at one man for cutting down one tree. If their ancestors could see them, they would be weeping.
@12 whitespine
We’ll never know what Muradin saw; personally, I think he was more horrified by the knowledge that his ancestors were Tinkers than the knowledge that his ancestors were disagreeable. Everyone has unpleasant family, but he’s build his whole worldview around the idea that Aiel are glorious warriors, and finding out that his people are oathbreakers had to be traumatic.
This is probably my favorite section in the entire WoT series, though there are some great parts in the finale of the book as well.
@15 Sure, they could have sent assassins. But then, the Dragon Reborn wouldn’t have been born on the slopes of Dragonmount. The Aiel War was a necessary Weaving of the Wheel.
@16 mp1952
I prefer to ignore the “Weaving of the Wheel” parts of the WoT, though that is rather difficult, as it gets into questions of free will and moral responsibility. If the Aiel have no choice but to go to war because the Wheel weaves it, are they nothing but puppets? Does anyone in this universe have any real choices?
It’s an interesting line of discussion, but it tends to derail everything very quickly, as we quickly sidetrack into theological and philosophical arguments that have probably been going on since the Stone Age.
I still remember where I was when reading this for the first time – it was shortly after New Year’s in 2000, and my sister was in the hospital from a dog bite (she’s fine) and we had to do a lot of waiting/sitting around the hospital. This was the book I had brought with me and I was just enraptured.
Honestly, I’ve been waiting for this since you started the read!
Interesting to think about Muradin – I always kind of took it at face value as a teenager – that he was just upset the Aiel used to be pacifists. But now, older, I can see how this is a double whammy; not only were the Aiel something they disdained, but they also have their own ‘corruption’ and failures in their past. In a way, I can relate to this on a personal level.
This was excellent storytelling, both in providing history for the Aiel and Tuatha’an, while also creating/fulfilling/setting up all of the Prophecies that need to happen for the books.
I was pretty sure that Muradin was chewing on his own tongue, and just scratched his eyes bloody to try to stop the visions (and failing, of course). Nobody goes crazy enough to eat their own eyes, right?
Are we all in agreement that the “dark-eyed” Aes Sedai who gave the Foretelling at Rhuidean regarding the Car’a’carn is also the “dark-eyed” Aes Sedai named Deindre who Foretold the Dragon’s Rebirth who was at Paaran Disen when Jonai was sent with the rest of the Aiel?
One of my sons, along with one of my cousins, has gotten interested in our ancestry . . . and I’ve given this some thought. Tracking ancestors is an exercise in “exponential growth” in the sense that your number of ancestors doubles every generation: two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents . . . ten generations back you have 1000 ancestors (1024 to be precise), Twenty generations back, you have a million. Thirty generations and you have a BILLION, but there WERE NOT THAT MANY PEOPLE ON EARTH at that time (roughly a thousand years ago),
This does not (quite) mean that everyone living on Earth in 1000 CE was your ancestor (multiple times), but it does mean that, if your ancestors came mostly from one geographical region, there is a high probability that any individual picked at random from that region at that time would be one of your ancestors.
I’m guessing that Rand and Muradin had lots of common ancestors 3000 years before their Wayback adventure(s).
@11 – Hilarious. I need to immediately see pictures of Keanu Reeves with a black veil!
@20 – That was always my assumption too. Seemed to be a rather oddly specific physical trait to note unless it was a direct callback (call-forward given the timeline in the chapter?) to that prophecy.
@17 – I know you said you didn’t want to have this discussion but it’s always something that fascinates me, the whole concept of how much free will and autonomy characters have in this universe. I guess where I always fall on the spectrum is along these lines. I always think of that saying about how technology that is sufficiently advanced will look like magic for all practical purposes to someone who is coming form a less sophisticated background. I tend to view The Wheel in a similar way. If the actions and interactions of the universe are so complicated and so advanced that a person can’t determine if they made a choice or it was made for them doesn’t that mean in effect that the person is not beholden to a “higher” power and that they have free will? Some would counter that and say, ‘well ok, that proves the person doesn’t have free will because The Wheel is pulling the strings, even though the person can’t perceive it’. But that’s my point. It is literally impossible for anyone to prove the specific workings of the Wheel. It is genuinely unknowable. If it’s impossible to prove the Wheel controls a person does it matter functionally if you have free will or not?
Going back to my comment about choice the specific textual evidence that we have about The Wheel I think you would be hard pressed to say the Wheel doesn’t allow choices. In fact we’re specifically told that in the text. Sure, you may have choices only within a certain range, but they do exist. The fact that someone in WoT basically has a menu of choices doesn’t negate their ability to make them. As the Holy Trinity once said “If you choose not to decide. You still have made a choice”
Any way you slice it, the debate around this is endlessly fascinating.
@15 Oh, I agree, I think it was the oathbreaking, seeing their former pacifist culture, etc that drove him mad. I was just making the point that my head cannon is the Shaido have always been the disagreeable ones.
@19 I also assumed he was chewing his tongue. Seemed a logical step – remove the way of getting the information, then remove the way of sharing that information.
@20 Ooh, I hadn’t made that connection, but I like it.
This is one of the three most riveting portions of this entire series and I still take a moment to sit down and marvel at how cleverly RJ wove all these perspectives into gripping little vignettes that reveal tons of information in the process, and then comes to an exhilarating conclusion.
As Leigh Butler once called it, it’s like a masterful four-tiered play on Tetris.
@@@@@ 15 – It’s a magical tree. A holy tree. Again, you act like this is some awful thing… countless thousands of humans in our world are killed in the name of “sacred” inanimate objects.
And I’m not arguing the Aiel are perfect. But it’s not like the Randlanders don’t fight over petty disputes, or honor, or anything like that. It’s just that they don’t bother to circumscribe that with injunctions about killing innocents. The argument is not that the Aiel are perfect, but that they are better than their contemporaries.
And they’re not necessarily good at fighting because they are more likely to spend their time murdering each other than anyone else. They’re better at fighting because their environment and their lifestyle encourages martial ability. Living in a arid wasteland means you have to be physically fit to survive. The Aiel, especially the men, seem pastoral, so they have to be active. They cannot afford enough water for beasts of burden, so they shoulder all those tasks themselves. All of this means that the average Aiel is more physically ready for combat than their counterparts in Randland. And yes, they raid each other for water and food, but we know that endemic violence is common to many of the political games played in the Westlands. Moreover, their moral code encourages non-lethal combat, which is inherently more difficult.
As far as the Cairhienen go… I mean, that’s living memory. You seem to have a bone to pick here. The question isn’t whether the Aiel are saints – they aren’t. It’s whether they’re better than any other culture in the narrative… which they are, pretty much without question. No slavery. Egalitarian. Focus on honor and non-lethal violence. Relatively equal gender balance.
@24 andrewrm
If I had to think of a culture in the narrative that was better than the Aiel, I’d go with the Tinkers. They give food and shelter to anyone they can help, and they do no harm to anyone they meet.
Most Randland cultures are just objectively awful. The Aiel have many virtues that they lack, but they’re also so in love with their own way of doing things that they’re unable to meaningfully acknowledge their own flaws. “Tradition” becomes an absolute justification for anything they do, a perfect circular argument that requires no thought at any time.
And yes, it is awful to kill people over “sacred” objects, in our world or in Randland.
This is just an idea (and one that everyone might strongly disagree with) but for sections like these past few weeks that Sylas feels are too long and needs to break up into multiple posts, a solution would be to not recap the chapter in quite so much detail. I don’t mean turn it all the way down to a single summary paragraph, but the recap gets so far into the details sometimes that it’s not much different from just reading the actual chapter.
@20: I don’t know who the Aes Sedai at Rhuidean was, and I wish I did. But here’s a quote from RJ saying she’s not from the age of legends (and so couldn’t be Deindre):
https://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=%27age%20of%20legends%27
(Question 24)
edited to add: ninja-ed by @28!
@20
I always wished that was the case, but RJ said several times in 1998 during signings for The Path of Daggers that No, the dark-eyed ancient Aes Sedai at the founding of Rhuidean was NOT Deindre from Paaran Disen. You can see the quotes here: https://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=%27rhuidean%27 .
Though I think that RJ may have been retconning that detail, if the Aes Sedai at Rhuidean already had “ageless” faces. That’s already an iffy proposition as Tar Valon was still being built and the text says at some point that the Three Oaths did not come about until after the Trolloc Wars. But assuming the Rhuidean Aes Sedai had taken three oaths on a binding rod, Deindre could not have lived long enough to be one of them. She would have to have been a mature Aes Sedai at Paaran Disen, survived the entire Breaking (between 239 and 344 years) and then lived another 100 years or more to the founding of Rhuidean, which is longer than the age limit the Oath Rod imposes. So I suspect RJ originally meant for that to be Deindre when he wrote TSR, but later changed his mind when he worked out the world-building implications.
On a related note, we were having this discussion last week or the week before about what would happen if a non-Aiel entered the glass columns. RJ answered this one too:
INTERVIEW: Jul, 2002
COT: ‘Glimmers’ Ebook Q&A (Verbatim)
QUESTION
Rhuarc indicates that an Aiel in Rhuidean sees the past through the eyes of one of his ancestors. Is this true for the women as well? What would a non-Aiel see, if anything?
ROBERT JORDAN
Yes, a woman would also see through the eyes of her ancestors, at least in the “forest of crystal spires” ter’angreal, and she, too, would live the history of the Aiel, in effect. Someone who wasn’t Aiel could wander through those spires forever and never see a thing except the spires. He or she might think it was a monument, or maybe a work of art. Just for a reminder, women who are chosen out to be Wise Ones have to go to Rhuidean twice, the second time for the spires and the first for another ter’angreal, one that makes her see all of the possible paths her life could take all the way to their conclusion. She can’t possibly remember all of them, of course, but some things she will remember and know that it would be very bad for her to make that particular choice when it comes, or alternatively, very good. This is the ter’angreal that Moiraine went through.
@29 – I think that RJ may have been retconning that detail, if the Aes Sedai at Rhuidean already had “ageless” faces.
I’m pretty confident that the retcon here is the effect of the Oath Rod on the users’ faces. We’ve seen repeated references to Wise Ones and Windfinders having faces like those of Aes Sedai already, but the whole Oath Rod thing doesn’t show up until much later when we meet the Kin. Short of someone tracking something down in RJ’s notes (ala the Taimandred confirmation), I remain convinced that it was originally simply channeling that caused the ageless look and the idea for the Oath Rod and the Kin occurred to RJ much, much later, well after this point in the series.
Of course, I join others in response to the praise of these two chapters as being some of the finest in all of fantasy. I think Sylas will learn that Aviendha does not experience the same thing as Rand at all, but rather something similar to the Accepted trial in that she must go through many, many possible futures and live out the consequences of each choice she makes. She will go through the glass columns when she becomes a Wise One, whereas now she is just starting her apprenticeship.
@11…..next book, people keep asking if the Aiel are back, I kinda think we’re back
A place of safety is interesting to me…….back in TEotW before they leave Emond’s Field Moiraine says that there is a place of safety. She meant Tar Valon and, like everything else she said in that book, she was sooooo wrong. But for Rand, this section is such a microcosm of the whole series for him……a search for safety in a world with none to be had
@30
I don’t think that explains it either though, as Amys and Melaine appear in this book, clearly can channel, and also clearly do not have the ageless look. The Wise Ones’ look is distinct.
@32
“A place of safety” is almost like a refrain that keeps recurring in this series, and your last sentence is a great distillation of that theme. The showrunners for the new series clearly also picked up on this, as one of the episode titles revealed so far is “A Place of Safety.”
It seems like Sylas did miss one major thing (although I guess “major” is maybe debatable since it doesn’t have any actual impact on the story) — the men who kidnapped Adan’s daughter Rhea were Andorans, part of what would eventually become the Andoran royal family, and that kidnapping raid and the resultant sexual assault of the prisoners is why the Andoran royalty has red hair (admittedly, this is only implied in the text itself, although Harriet subsequently confirmed it at a Q&A in 2010)..
@28, @29. I read his response and think it’s open for interpretation. He could be answering the middle question: Q. “Is Deindre responsible for Foretelling the entire Prophecies of the Dragon?” A. “No, she wasn’t,”. I’m sticking with them being the same Aes Sedai :)
@@@@@ 26 dptullos – the problem with the Tinkers is that they take pacifism to an illogical extreme. It is made explicit in the text that they would rather condemn existence itself to be destroyed or corrupted by the Dark One rather than betray the Way of the Leaf. I would argue that any of the horrible Wheel of Time cultures, like the Seanchan or Sharans who practice institutionalized slavery, are better than that. Yes, in the real world, where one most conquerors are indistinguishable from each other, pacifism may have its place – but in a fantasy novel where the downside is enslavement by the personification of Evil, fighting is good and submission is little better than collaboration. Maybe worse.
I don’t disagree with you that the Aiel have flaws. No culture is perfect. The question is whether their flaws are worse than anyone else’s. Other cultures are equally hidebound, even if we don’t have as perfect of a window into the why and the how. Look at the Aes Sedai, whose mission has been so corrupted by the quest for political power that a full quarter of the Tower is fighting for the enemy, often explicitly to advance worldly aims, on the assumption that Tarmon Gaidon won’t happen in their lifetimes so collaboration isn’t “that bad.”
And I am not justifying going to war over sacred objects, trees or books or otherwise. Merely pointing out that this is not the exception to the rule, in Randland or otherwise, but rather the norm. You cannot hold the Aiel to task over this while simultaneously exempting others from guilt. Again, the Aiel aren’t perfect, but they are better than the alternatives. They also seem more willing to acknowledge mistakes, even if it is within the context of their own worldview. See the comments about having toh for the method in which the dealt with male channelers, once they realize that they’ve been handing valuable weapons to the Shadow on a silver platter. We hear no such reflection from the Randland cultures over the practice of gentling men and culling the ability to channel out of the population. Acknowledged, yes, but there is no correlating assumption of responsibility.
@35
RJ was very good at Aes Sedai answers, which indeed could apply to the entry at #7 on the Rhuidean tag page, but the one just below that at #8 is more direct. Still doesn’t preclude that she was originally, but then he changed his mind.
INTERVIEW: Nov 15th, 1998
TPOD Signing Report – Michael Martin (Paraphrased)
MICHAEL MARTIN
My first question: “Was the Aes Sedai who initiated the Pact of Rhuidean from the Age of Legends?” (From The Shadow Rising).
ROBERT JORDAN
(Pause) “No.” (Pause) “No, she was not from the Age of Legends.”
MICHAEL MARTIN
My reason for asking had to do with the Oath Rod theory about agelessness and such.
@37, who’s to say which Aes Sedai initiated the pact. There were original 4 that crossed the Spine. Deindre could still have been from Paaran Disen, but another initialed the pact.
@34 you just blew my mind with that insight.
I notice that Rand sees the past of the Aiel through men’s eyes, his ancestors. We aren’t privy to Aviendha’s visions of the past but we see the possible future of the Aiel through women’s eyes, her female descendants. Interesting.
Yeah, there’s nothing romantic or glorious about surviving the aftermath of an apocalypse. Very little heroism to be found in a land lacking the resources to support even the ever dwindling population.
Regarding the Aiel war, RJ has taken parallels from real history. From the Crusades of the middle ages to the Jihad of today, from the Iran-Iraq war to the senseless rioting in India for a movie, inanimate religious places, objects, symbols and ideas (mostly irrational) have been the excuse for extreme brutality since, well, man picked up a club.
Why should a fictional human society forged in a post-apocalyptic landscape not do the same? The Utopia RJ described was in the Age of Legends, not the AIel, Tua’than, Senchan, or any of the Randlanders.
That being said, these 2 chapters are my favourite in … well, anything that can be read.
I read The Shadow Rising when it first came out, and thought it was the best book in the series so far, and that the ter’angreal sequence in Rhuidean was one of the finest things I had ever read in fiction. I was deeply moved by its portrayal of history.
According to a booklet Tor Books put out to promote A Memory of Light, Robert Jordan, Harriet McDougal, and Brandon Sanderson all thought that the ter’angreal sequence in Rhuidean was the finest sequence in the series.
I find the Aiel very interesting. Of course I find the Seanchan equally fascinating! Maybe it’s my background in anthropology but I am almost alarmingly neutral and un-judmental about cultures. Okay I think, well that’s wrong, but I don’t get worked up about it.
@25:
“And they’re not necessarily good at fighting because they are more likely to spend their time murdering each other than anyone else. They’re better at fighting because their environment and their lifestyle encourages martial ability. Living in a arid wasteland means you have to be physically fit to survive. The Aiel, especially the men, seem pastoral, so they have to be active. They cannot afford enough water for beasts of burden, so they shoulder all those tasks themselves. All of this means that the average Aiel is more physically ready for combat than their counterparts in Randland. And yes, they raid each other for water and food, but we know that endemic violence is common to many of the political games played in the Westlands. Moreover, their moral code encourages non-lethal combat, which is inherently more difficult.”
Honestly, the military prowess of the Aiel is basically impossible from a historically accurate, real-world point of view.
The problem is really the Waste itself. By its description in the books, it is overwhelmingly poor land, and would not be able to produce near enough food (and water) to support anywhere close to the number of people that live there at the population densities given. While it’s possible that the average Aiel might be more physically fit or stronger than the average Randlander (this is IMHO somewhat dubious since the Aiel would be on average much more nutritionally deprived), they certainly wouldn’t be better trained than a professional army that a rich, productive nation like Andor could field, for the simple reason Andorian soldiers don’t need to divide their time between generating food and training, whereas the Aiel warriors do. The lack of food and water would also limit their groups to very small numbers of people in one place… groups tens or hundreds scattered all over, not many thousands all together. (FWIW, basically all of the armies in Jordan’s books are about a factor of 10 too large, but the Aiel are particularly egregious in this respect).
Then there’s the problem that the Aiel lack critical military resources for the time–notably horses, effective armor, and, to a large extent, bows and arrows. They basically have to make do with nothing but light infantry, which limits their options and mobility on the battlefield. They would have a very hard time fighting armies equipped with Two Rivers longbows, crossbows, heavy cavalry, etc., even if they did have a large numerical advantage.
@46
The Waste seems like an expy of the American Southwest, if descriptions of Aiel material culture and cover art are to be believed. The hold we see, Rhuarc and Amys’, sound analagous to Mesa Verde, an Ancestral Pueblan site in Colorado. Population estimates put around 5,000 people there at it’s peak. The Aiel produce crops (tamat and zemai aka tomatoes and maize) large enough to feed the hold and many of them are pastoral. There is more than enough room for multiple holds of similar size clustered around water sources throughout each sept and clan, and over the wide expanse of the Waste and with 11 Clans, that’s a [i]lot[/i] of Aiel. Consider that the Mongolians, nomadic pastoral peoples, were able to field an army of about 100k, and steamroll over the armies of ostensibly more organized, disciplined, and outfitted nations.
The Aiel were fast, strong, and stealthy. They had reach advantage over most infantry and they used “horn bows”, aka composite bows, which gave them flexible and hardhitting firepower against opponents. Since their weaponry is specifically called out as composite, I can only assume Randland archers used either longbows or basic self-bows. The Aiel were also jacks-of-all-trades; they used knives, spears, and bows, as well as hand-to-hand combat, while Randlanders seem surprised when a soldier carries more than his particular specialization (see the reaction to Mat’s knives once he has the Ashanderei), although utility knives were common to everyone.
They didn’t have a hard time against the armies of Randland because no one HAD Two Rivers longbows or crossbows. The first needed Two Rivers folk to be effective and the second doesn’t get invented until the later half of the series. Calvary could be a problem (as Lan points out) if said calvary knew the Aiel were there and had time to set up a trap, but the Aiel also had no compunction about shooting horses and catching the Aiel unaware is hard to do. I think RJ sets up a very believable scenario for an incredibly effective warrior/pastoral nation that was also incredibly isolationist and nativist (thus keeping their proficiencies from getting out to the rest of the world). He was a student of the Citadel, after all; military history and tactics were something he was familiar with.
After reading this section, I always saw Avendesora and Rand & Mat’s direct reaction to it, as depicted in their discussion about the archetypal myth associated with it, as another deconstruction by RJ.
Given what we specifically learn in this section about Chora Trees & what we learned earlier & will learn about how Rand’s birth father (who as a Clan Chief knew the truth of Laman’s Sin) was instrumental in rousing the Clans in response to the symbolism inherent in what Laman did, we should be able to understand that the Aiel response was rooted in the Rejection of their unprecedented offer of Peace with the People of Carhien, for the sake of The Water Sharing. And that Treekiller was used as a reductive reaction to that rejection.
It has nothing to do with the fundamentalism of Defacing a Holy Artifact, but what actually lay behind Laman’s decision to symbolically reject their singular (and lucrative) international affiliation, in favour of internal political machinations.
The narrative clearly states Laman was hunted & killed as an Oathbreaker, and the Aiel quest for justice was transformed into the Aiel War by the other Nations’ misunderstanding & exacerbated by their prejudice & willful ignorance about Aiel Culture because of their ‘Otherness’.
That is not to say the Aiel themselves are not guilty of similar subsequent prejudice against Carhienin collectively, for what their King did. But otherwise, their isolationism had been rooted in the reality of the way they were treated, in their Generations long Journey to the Three Fold Land.
I have always thought it was a pity how the vastness of the evolving narrative in the later books virtually isolated the Aiel collectively & reduced their participation to Aviendha’s relationship to Rand & Elayne. In my opinion they were well established by Jordan to be Rand’s bulwark. His hard inner core, loyal to their Prophesied Savior because he was who he was, and not for what they would gain from him.
Even the Maidens were reduced to cartoonish buffoonery after ACoS. Unfortunately, so much of what is being promised at this stage by Jordan goes to waste by the time CoT was produced. Perhaps that is the cause of some of what imo, is misguided conflation in some of the comments above, about what the Aiel represent.
This section (After the Portal Stone to Moiraine’s Return from Rhuidean) is the best thing Jordan put on the page. Only Dumai’s Wells (and the leadup, starting with Perrin’s POV realisation of Rand’s kidnapping) & Tuon’s observational unveiling of the Truth of Mat, come close, in my opinion.
I tend to agree with you, that the Aiel should not be as effective as they are made out to be in the books. However, there are two things that would work in their favour: They are probably much more professional and have more experience in actual combat than most other forces in Randland. And they are supposed to be very tall, which means that they almost always have more reach and strength than their opponents and this advantage should not be underestimated.
“Tuon’s observational unveiling of the Truth of Mat…” Great phrasing to summarize a superlative set of chapters in KoD,
@46, You are absolutely right but this IS fantasy!
Have you by any chance been reading ‘The Fremen Mirage’ on A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry at acoup.blog? The blogger, a professional historian is currently exploring this very topic. In Real Life when pastoralist cultures come up against rich states they may win battle but they lose the wars. The Mongols are almost unique in their success but note they were Horse Nomads.
Wheel of Time was my reintroduction to fantasy. I was leaving for vacation the next day and wanted something to read on the beach. At the front of the little bookstore in the mall(both malls and bookstores date myself), there was a display: next in the bestselling Wheel of Time series. I think it was around the 4th book by that time. I figured bestselling might mean something, so I went and found book one from the series and gave it a shot.
I enjoyed it enough that when I got home I began catching up with the rest of the series. I think what I enjoyed was that it was simple, good storytelling. Easy to read through in a few sittings.
I did reach a point many books into it where I grew tired of the series. At some point a writer simply can’t do much more with the world and characters. Another thing I grew tired of was the portrayal of the male/female relationship. Every male was too dim to understand women, and every female wanted to “box their ears”. All men and boys were senseless and just needed to listen to the smarter and quicker-witted gals in their life. I was ok with that in the early books, but it got tiresome.
But it’s still a great series and every fan of storytelling should give it a shot. There’s a ton to learn for those learning how to craft stories. And for those hoping to learn how to introduce a fantasy world to an audience in just the right amounts. The MC begins as a young farmer with little knowledge of the world. He soon visits the local town, and we learn more. Intrigue and danger come in to hold our interest. Then, after his world is rocked by an attack, he is on the road with companions, where more and more of the fantasy world is revealed through their journey.
It’s mostly the young idiots that get that reaction from the women, I think — and mostly from the younger idiots among them, to boot. There’s a great many others with more years and wisdom to their names — Tam al’Thor, Master Luhlan, Gareth Bryne, Bran al’Vere, even Lan for all he frustrates Nynaeve until Ebou Dar — who are treated much more respectfully by the story and the people in it.
Hell, Mat’s big problem is that a bunch of the people around him still think of him as five, and treat him like it. Once he’s outside the milieu of his Two Rivers group and the people whose attitudes they influence, the reactions people have to him change dramatically. Contrast his rescue in Ebou Dar with the one from the Stone, for example.
@46,@51
The similarity between Aiel and Fremen is striking, and there has been multiple teardowns of the idea of the Fremen as a superior military force over the years.
But there are a couple of big differences between the Fremen of Dune and the Aiel of WoT:
1) The Aiel are slightly supernatural – the Fremen are not. By this, I mean that Aiel can run almost as well as horses, and are described as almost as mobile as cavalry units. This is entirely unrealistic for any large-scale infantry force, no matter their training, but we are told they can do this, and accepting that changes a lot of the equation on how well they will do.
2) Most militaries of Randland are barely “professional”. Aside from the Borderlanders and the Seanchan, the militaries consist mostly of units belonging to individual houses with vastly divergent training, ability, and leadership. And easy to break,
3) We are told several times (by Lan at least I believe before the fight with the Shaido) that the best way to fight the Aiel is indeed with cavalry. But the only large scale cavalry forces again belong to the borderlands – since fighting from horseback is considered for the nobles in Cairhien, Tear, etc.
Given all that it’s little wonder the Aiel can roll over most of Randland at will – early on at least.
I think this really falls into the discussion of the previous week’s post when it was a debated topic on the coin flip and whether it was Rand or Mat..
Rand gives his speech to newly returned Moiraine about remembering being Lews, etc. and she shoots it down and says if that was the case Mat would be the patriarch of all.. Does that not explicitly mean that some of Mat’s memories preclude even the Age of Legends?
Rand even asks her wtf, and she just says nevermind, something I’m not supposed to know..
Oh, and she had the snarky comment in that scene about if Rand’s tactic of mentioning his remembered experiences cowed others, and he remarks that it worked on Cadsuane was pretty funny!
@55 Without remembering that line perfectly, I feel like it is implying that his shared memory means he’s lived 2 lives (and one of them a Aes Sedai of the AoL long) so he’s the “oldest”. But Mat, by having all those memories has lived dozens or hundreds of lifetimes making him “older” still, through aggregate time rather than furthest back in history. That’s how I read it at the time at least, but the other reading is very intriguing.