Perhaps the most fascinating theme that I have encountered so far as I read my way though The Wheel of Time is Perrin Aybara’s struggle to understand and accept the violence that his life and choices demand of him. Running in parallel to Perrin’s personal struggle have been his encounters with the Tuatha’an, who practice a form of pacifism so profound that it transcends being a way of life and becomes an actual identity. An identity that they themselves have forgotten the full history of but which extends back to the un-Broken world of a bygone Age. An identity that Perrin admires, even envies, but cannot embrace, much as he might wish to.
Perrin and the reader first learn of the Way of the Leaf when he and Egwene meet the Tuatha’an while they are traveling with Elyas. Aram and Raen both explain the Way of the Leaf to them, describing how a leaf never harms others or fights back against its own end, but falls peacefully when its time comes, to nourish new life. This is how all men and women should be, Aram claims, while Raen adds that violence does not only harm the perpetrator but also the one who enacts it, just as an axe is dulled by the tree it chops down. These ideas intrigue Perrin, but he also finds them lacking, as he explains to Raen.
“I don’t mean to offend you, Seeker,” Perrin said slowly, “but… Well, I don’t look for violence. I don’t think I’ve even wrestled anybody in years, except for feastday games. But if somebody hit me, I’d hit him back. If I didn’t, I would just be encouraging him to think he could hit me whenever he wanted to. Some people think they can take advantage of others, and if you don’t let them know they can’t, they’ll just go around bullying anybody weaker than they are.”
In the end, I think, Perrin finds both his own point and Raen’s to be correct. Enacting violence does take a toll on him, both internally and externally. When he kills the Whitecloak who slew Hopper, Perrin suffers emotionally and begins a sequence of events that help mark him out for special attention from the likes of Byar and Dain Bornhald, which has consequences for the Two Rivers. He experiences the personal pain and guilt over the death of his men after the Trolloc ambush, and the knowledge that he has put Emond’s Field and the Two Rivers on a path that will result in other deaths before all is through.
But Perrin also holds to his conviction that someone must take a stand against the Whitecloaks who would dominate his people, and the Darkspawn that would destroy them. And he’s not insensible to the fact that there is not such a very grand difference between the two. He points out in Chapter 33 of The Shadow Rising, that as long as the Two Rivers relies on the Whitecloaks for protection against Trollocs (and spotty protection at that) then the Whitecloaks hold complete power over the people. They can do anything they want, arrest whichever innocent people they want, scrawl the Dragon’s Fang on any door they want, and no one will be able to stop them.
“Even if all it means is having to tug your forelock to every Whitecloak who comes along, do you want to live that way? Your children? You’re at the mercy of the Trollocs, the mercy of the Whitecloaks, and the mercy of anybody with a grudge. As long as one has a hold on you, all three do. You’re hiding in the cellar, hoping one rabid dog will protect you from another, hoping the rats don’t sneak out in the dark and bite you.”
The people of the Two Rivers are farmers and shepherds, not warriors, but Perrin believes with all his heart that unless they are willing to come together and take up arms, they will be destroyed. And he is almost certainly right.
I mean, look what happened to the Da’shain Aiel.
We know from the Rhuidean flashbacks that the Da’shain Aiel were primarily defined as a people by two things. Ten first was the Way of the Leaf—which is apparently so specific and important that it is referred to as a Covenant by Aiel and Aes Sedai in those flashbacks—and the second was their identity as the special servants of the Ancient Aes Sedai, close in their confidences and even beloved by them. We also know that the Way of the Leaf was regarded as a significant commitment even in a time when people had no concept of war, and that there was a lot of respect for the Aiel and their way of life.
Of the two, however, I think the Covenant was the most important. Before departing forever to lead the wagons of the Aiel through the Breaking of the World, Jonai was told by Solinda Sedai that the Covenant, the Way of the Leaf, was the most important thing for the Da’shain to keep and Jonai is shocked that she would feel the need to say such. It is self-evident to Jonai that the Covenant is the Aiel. Later generations would lose some of that certainty, however, as we see when the hardships endured by the Da’shain caravans begin to fracture the group.
Interestingly, the word “Lost” was not used against Lewin and his friends when they chose to fight back to save their sisters and to kill rather than be killed. Adan called them corrupt, but he never officially striped them of the name Aiel. Lewin’s mother told him that she no longer recognized him, that he was no longer her son, just a killer with her son’s face—but she never used the word “Lost” either. However, it is used by Adan when Sulwin and his followers break from the rest of the group. Adan sees them as abandoning their duty to the Aes Sedai when they choose to abandon the objects they are carrying, and he tells them that they are “Lost” and are no longer Aiel—a sharp contrast to the fact that he only tells Lewin and the other boys that they are no longer Da’shain.
But Sulwin holds that as long as his people keep to the Way of the Leaf, they are still Aiel. And although they eventually forget that name and become the Tuatha’an, the dedication to that way of life remains a core part of their identity. Those of their number who abandon the way are called “the Lost.”
And when Aram, weeping about how he could have protected his mother from death at the hands of the Trollocs, is given permission by Perrin to learn to use a sword, that is the word Ila, his grandmother, uses. Lost.
I have observed before that there is strong evidence that the Tuatha’an are closer to the Da’shain Aiel than are the modern Aiel. The Jenn were closest, of course, but they died out. Maybe that’s why Adan’s decision to learn the sword feels more significant, more ominous, than Lewin’s accidental departure from the Covenant, or Morin’s choice to take up the spear to help save her daughter. The significance of the spear over the sword is that a spear is also used in hunting, and therefore is partly a tool and not only dedicated to killing other humans. But the sword only has one purpose, and we have not seen any other descendant of the Da’shain Aiel choose a sword. Even the modern Aiel, who are terribly warlike even among themselves, abhor swords, even they no longer remember why.
A spear can kill a Trolloc. A bow and arrow can kill a Trolloc. An axe can kill a Trolloc. But Aram chose a sword.
Perrin feels it too, observes that there is something unnatural about a Tinker with a sword. Experiences a great sadness over his decision, one that Faile understands more than Perrin himself does. But he still responds, to Ila and to the other women who seem to disapprove, that a man has a right to defend himself. And as I remarked when I covered the chapter, I feel like what Perrin was really saying was that a man had a right to choose to defend others. When Aram picked up that sword, when he begged his grandmother to understand, he spoke of how he could have saved his mother from being killed, and Perrin thought of his own family, of being too late to do anything but sit beside their graves, and could not imagine telling Aram that he must passively accept such a fate.
Remember the first time Perrin was faced with this conflict between his desire to practice peace and his realization that he may need to choose violence? For me, it was perhaps the most affecting moment in The Eye of the World. When Perrin, Elyas, and Egwene are being pursued by the ravens, Perrin decides that, if they are caught, he will kill Egwene quickly and mercifully rather than allow her to die slowly and painfully under the raven’s horrible attack. Once the threat has passed, he finds himself horrified by what he intended to do, by the realization that he might be capable of something as dark as slaughtering his own friend. But Elyas reminds him that such an act would have been a mercy and a kindness. He points out something else, too, that it is good to hate violence, to hate the axe and what he can do with it. The time to worry, he says, is if Perrin ever stops hating it.
We have watched Perrin struggling with this almost since we met him, and his personal journey has often run alongside encounters with the Tuatha’an and discussions about the Way of the Leaf. But while Perrin may despise the violent path he has chosen, maybe even hate part of himself for it, it doesn’t rob him of his core sense of identity. He is still Perrin Aybara of Emond’s Field, even in violence, even in mistakes and the death of companions, and he recognizes that peace is an ideal that he cannot currently achieve. “Every man has a right to defend himself,” he often says, but for Perrin I think it is more than that. He respects the Way of the Leaf, wishes he could make such a choice, but he personally feels responsible to protect people, and he cannot protect people from violence by being peaceful himself.
I mean, I guess he could. He could throw himself physically in between two combatants, or use himself as a human shield to stop an arrow or a sword from striking an innocent person. But that is only a temporary solution, and one that robs him of any ability to help in the future. And there we see the difference between wanting to be peaceful—most people want peace—and having it be an identity, as the Way of the Leaf is for the Tuatha’an, and was for the Da’shain and Jenn Aiel. The difference between practicing pacifism as a philosophy and making (an extreme type) of pacifism a way of life so strong that breaking with that way of life causes one to be “Lost” to one’s own people. One’s own family.
You know, I still get misty-eyed when I think of Solinda’s description of the Aiel facing down a male channeler whose mind had been corrupted by the taint.
“Ten thousand Aiel linking arms and singing, trying to remind a madman of who they were and who he had been, trying to turn him with their bodies and a song. Jaric Mondoran killed them. He stood there, staring as though at a puzzle, killing them, and they kept closing their lines and singing. I am told he listened to the last Aiel for almost an hour before destroying him.”
And Jonai’s response to this story? That the Da’shain bought time for other people to flee to safety. It’s a beautiful moment. It shows the power of peace, not to mention the courage it takes to hold to peace when faced with violence. But despite that courage despite that dedication, in the end we see the Aiel all but destroyed by violence. The chaos and depravity of the Breaking comes at them from outside their ranks, and it slowly drives them from that path. Just as it drove Aram, by showing him that the Way of the Leaf doesn’t just mean a willingness to die in one’s time, but to allow those you love to die too, sometimes in truly horrific ways.
In the end, I don’t think that Perrin’s choice to defend those who need him is in conflict with the Way of the Leaf as much as it would first seem. Of course, one cannot practice both philosophies at once. But Perrin does not tell the Tuatha’an that they must participate in the defense of Emond’s Field in order to be sheltered and protected within it. He does not judge the Way of the Leaf, only finds it wanting for his own life. Perrin was even willing to die when he thought surrendering to the White Cloaks would save his family, which feels like a very Da’shain Aiel move. And it was a choice driven by love.
Love is also the reason Perrin is willing to fight, to accept the pain that such a fight brings to him. He loves the people of the Two Rivers, and going to war is the only way that he can see to protect them. The Way of the Leaf may be an identity, but so is love. And love can take many forms, show itself in many ways.
Perhaps Aram feels the same. In my eyes, whether or not he is lost depends on how he handles the sword he is given. Will he fight out of hate, or love? Will lose his ability to tell the difference between a fight that can be avoided and a fight that cannot, or will he choose to protect those in need, sheltering them when he can, fighting for them when he must?
Like many of you, I often look to the stories I love to guide me through my own life. I have loved Perrin since I first met him, for his gentleness, his love of his craft, for his loyalty. After the weekend that we have had in my country, I look to him now and ask, what lessons can I learn from his choices, from his strength. What Shadowspawn can I face in my own life, and what price will I be willing to pay?
Perrin is brave. We must be too.
Sylas K Barrett loves Perrin very much, and would like to give him a hug.
This is the commentary I needed to see today, in the midst of violence and hatred in our country. The choices we make define our lives. What do you stand up for? Where do you draw the line between living peacefully and choosing to protect someone else? Because sometimes you need the ax, even if you would rather have the hammer.
There exists a spectrum that is (arguably, at least) a continuum, from “Way of the Leaf” extreme pacifism to the other extreme, where the mere existence of power in others is seen as a threat which justifies violence in its elimination. It seems obvious to me that neither extreme is defensible, but if that is correct, it implies that the hard work of judgment must be exercised almost without relaxation throughout one’s life: on a case-by-case basis, when is violence justified and when is it not?
Jordan, I think, recognized this and did an excellent job of illustrating it in this series. I suspect that as a military veteran with experience in Vietnam (where sorting friend from enemy was never simple) and possessing high intelligence and ability to reflect on his experience, he wanted to stimulate readers to think deeply about the morality-of-violence issue – one that mattered to him.
I really enjoyed this. Perrin is my favorite character in the books, and his struggle is partly what gives the books so much heart.
I have often wondered if the Da’shain Aiel were moral cowards for their refusal to adapt to the changing world after the Breaking. Their society was a just and good one, and possibly might have been a light in the darkness for others to rally to. They held close connections to the Aes Sedai, and one might logically assume that some of that wisdom might have better preserved had the Da’shain Aiel been more willing to protect and preserve it, even at the cost of giving up their chosen way of life. Who knows how differently the current world might look had they been more willing to stand up for themselves.
Society, in the end, is only a choice. If you are capable, but choose not to lead, then other, less capable people will do so. If you allow this to happen, IMHO, then that is an act of moral cowardice. Like so many others, I can appreciate the way of the leaf as an abstract, but in a bloody and violent world I find it not only impractical, but somehow lacking.
Just my 2cp.
Thanks for the post. I’ve been ruminating on the Way of the Leaf – it’s virtues and shortcomings – a lot the past few days. I think my thoughts echo a lot of the discussion from Sylas throughout this read, and from @faculty guy. I think we all wish we live in a world where the Way of the Leaf was easy to live. Though, if it was easy I guess it doesn’t require much strength of conviction… But I also understand and I think even agree with the idea that Ila or her husband puts forth that violence, even justified/defensive, does harm to the one who perpetuates it. So believing that violence always does some self-harm, too, and that it often leads to escalation and vengeance, but also being unwilling to let injustice and oppression go unchecked, we have to find our own balance point. That’s something I’m still working through for myself.
Many a fantasy protagonist has moved into a life of necessary violence over the course of their story, and some feel prominently conflicted about it. But Wheel of Time devotes an unusual amount of thoughtful attention to this conflict, for individuals and and groups, and to its nuances as Sylas describes them.
I sometimes wish I could relate to Perrin’s struggle. He has weapons, physical strength, and the proven mental fortitude to not freeze, mindlessly flee, or instantly surrender when attacked. The other protagonists also have them, and/or magical powers that can be used to protect and defend.
And I continue to be amused by the flawed comparison of never-causing-harm to acting like a leaf, when the leaves of many plant species collectively have a wide array of ways to harm animals that touch or eat them. Not that I can think of any better metaphor.
@7 How about The Way of the Coconut?
The Way of the Leaf has always been something of a sore point with me as far as this series goes. And by sore point I don’t mean that I dislike it being in the narrative. I mean that I usually end up in an argument with myself where I am playing both the prosecutor and defense attorney in the trial of whether it’s a good or bad belief. I’m sure Jordan would be happy to hear that as I think he wanted this to be a conversation for people to have.
I find the pacifist belief the Tinkers espouse to be one that I find laudable and good, but like Perrin, I just cannot wrap my head around actually applying it in practice in the real world. @5 I hesitate to call them moral cowards because there is something very noble about sticking to your beliefs even when things are hard, and being faced with extreme violence and death by horrible monsters is the very definition of hard. That said, I find their unwillingness to perform any violence at all even for a Good (capital intended) reason to be unfathomable. Raen and Ila are right, violence harms the perpetrator as well as the victim. But what The Way of the Leaf fails to account for is that someone being willing and able to consciously take on that burden and self-harm for the sake of a Good reason and for protecting others should not be something scorned and abhorred. To me, that speaks to an even greater sense of bravery and dedication to a higher ideal than just pacifism for the sake of pacifism. You see that time and again throughout Perrin’s journey. He hates the violence but recognizes it can be unavoidable and when it is, he is willing to take that unwanted burden on himself in order to do the right thing.
His struggle with the Way of the Leaf is that it is an Ideal in every sense of the word. It is not attainable in a world that is not perfect.
I’m not even yet taking into account that the Tinkers’ assertion that leaves just blithely accept their fate and “fall in their appointed time” is patently false. I can rattle off probably a dozen plants off the top of my heard that are poisonous, have needles, spines, or any other number of defense mechanisms designed to protect themselves.
The fact that so many of us cannot even fathom how The Way would even work probably says a lot about the world we live in. We cannot imagine a world without someone trying to take advantage of someone else.
May I point out that Wheelie World is most emphatically NOT a place where nobody is trying to take advantage of anybody else.
@10 – To a certain degree, that’s hardwired into the DNA of every living thing – we’re all basically energy vampires when you strip away the niceties, and virtually all life can only sustain itself by feeding on other life.
This is a fantasy book, where the main villains worship a good of capital-e Evil. In the real world, where there are no Darkfriends, most people who do evil will be happy to explain how they’re absolutely doing the right thing. Plenty of them will even mean it.
There were plenty of people who chose to adapt to the changing world after the Breaking. The most violent and ruthless and lucky of them ended up as kings and lords, though they started as nothing but brigands and murderers. We know that the royal family of one Westlands realm had their beginning as common kidnappers and robbers.
The Tinkers would rather die than kill. They genuinely believe that the lives of others are just as important as their own, while the “good guys” in the WoT spend much of their time explaining how people who are different from them aren’t really people. Don’t you know that Aes Sedai are all manipulative liars and Whitecloaks are all murderous fanatics and Tinkers are thieving cowards and channelers are beasts who should be enslaved for their own good?
When you take up the sword, you start asking yourself whether someone else could be planning to take your sword from you. Your rivals become threats, your strange neighbors become suspicious, and even your friends might be scheming to take the power that is rightfully yours. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown; fear, paranoia, and violence are the companions of the mighty.
Tinkers embrace vulnerability. They live with the constant knowledge that their neighbors could just decide to murder them, but they don’t respond by trying to murder their neighbors first. They will die, as everyone must die, but they will die doing the right thing.
I’m not a pacifist. There is no philosophy more demanding or difficult than a principled commitment to nonviolence, a willingness to sacrifice your own life rather than taking someone else’s. But let’s not pretend that the ideal of taking up the sword to defend the right can’t backfire, and that the consequences of that choice can’t end in far worse places than a principled refusal to kill at all.
I always enjoy this discussion because it cuts to the heart of the fallacy of many books, especially fantasy books. All will be well when the Good Guys are in charge…but lots of people start as good guys. The Aiel started out just trying to defend themselves, as Perrin does, and now they feud and murder their own kin. They invaded a country for a crime of cutting down a tree, and they hate swords while forgetting the reason for that hatred. It was the Tuahta’an who choose to remain true, and the Aiel who chose to betray their oaths.
They’ll have to deal with the consequences of that betrayal at the end of the book, and it breaks them.
One of the many things I appreciate about WoT that is connected to what Sylas and all the other commentators are talking about is accepting the consequences of your actions.
Oh, I agree. Nature is all about fighting for survival. To live is to struggle. I am just pointing out that working against our nature and not taking advantage of others is one thing, but expecting others to work against their natures is another. We live in a world that makes concepts like The Way impossible dreams. Beautiful dreams, but also…. not going to happen.
My religious tradition has a story about a group of people who were once bloodthirsty killers, but who repented of their ways and burred their weapons in the ground, swearing an oath that they would never use them again. When they were attacked by neighbors they refused to fight back, and many died, but many warriors from the other side were so disgusted by their violence that they too repented. However, there was still many who wanted to kill these people, so eventually they sought refuge in another nation with good (but emphatically not pacifist) people. When a major war erupted years later they did everything they could to help with supplies and assistance “behind the front” (to use a modern phrase). Still they were feeling guilty about not being able to help out, and were about to forsake their oath. But instead it was decided that their young sons, who had not sworn the oath, would go to fight.
I bring this up because I think it illustrates an interesting difference. There is a difference between believing in, practicing and preaching pacifism as a global philosophy that all should adhere to, and as a personal philosophy that one adopts (particularly in light of trauma of one kind or another) as part of one’s own path. So it is with the Tinkers. Perrin NEEDS the Tinkers to prick his conscience, to give him something to think about. They in turn need him to protect them. It is a symbiotic relationship.
There is one huge difference between modern day Tinkers and the Da’shain that the Ancestetron demonstrated — the ancient Aiel neither expected, required, or thought that the Way of the Leaf was for everyone. They were set apart for the purpose of peace. And based on the strength of that genetic line, it was obviously only for their immediate family and descendants, and they didn’t seem to intermarry.
The Tinkers, on the other hand, recruit. They pick up strays. They are not genetically Aiel at all. And they refuse to recognize something that the ancient Aiel surely knew — The Way of the Leaf was a privilege granted them—or perhaps a burden thrust on them—not a philosophy of living they tried to convince others to adopt.
This has essentially been running through my mind on repeat for days given what’s happening. So many I know condemn the rioters the way the whitecloaks condemn Perrin for his violence in defense of a loved one. But I can’t bring myself to even though I would never choose that path. Which violence is worse? That done to protect or that done out of fear? What is the difference?
I think Perrin has the way of it. To like violence as fain does is Evil in it’s truest form. But defending against that Evil using violence is not. But it will always harm you. But like the way the aiel were willing to allow themselves to come to harm to protect others, sometimes some of us my have to harm ourselves through using violence to protect others. In a world with only absolute pacifism and absolute violence, violence will always win out. But we all have the potential to choose either paths to varying degrees. And through this both absolutes may exist.
But I don’t understand this:
It was mentioned that the tinkers truly believe other people’s lives as equally important to their own. But it seems that in allowing themselves to die in order to save others they see themselves as less important. Afterall, if they are equal shouldn’t they also have an equal right to survival?
Beyond pacifism is the Buddhist tale of sacrifice for others as in the story of Prince Sattva.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Sattva
Thank you for this post. My family has been a bit confused and concerned about who much I have changed in the past week. I think this will help explain it to them (at least the ones that have read WOT).
Thank you for your lovely and thoughtful post, and I hope you are safe where you are.
I have been thinking a lot about this over the coming days. One of my core tenets/driving beliefs is that of the personhood and dignity of all people, our potential for good and yes, I do believe that violence harms and fractures the soul in a real way. Cycles of revenge almost never really stop when you think they are going to.
But. True peace is not just the absence of a conflict, and it’s disingenuous to call for non violence when what you really mean is you want one side to stop being violent, but don’t have the same passion about condemning it on the other side. What does it say about us as a society where people feel this is an option – sure, some people may just be in it because they want to see the world burn, or like to take advantage of the chaos, but there’s also a great deal of woundedness and helplessness here. We can’t tell people to use peaceful means without creating a space where it is safe to do so.
I’ve also commented before that the Tinker philosophy never completely sat well with it because a)I don’t agree we’re all passive leaves, for one thing; I think we do have a right and an obligation to protect life to a reasonable extent (even though we also have to accept its transients) and b)Even if violence does harm the doer, perhaps there are times that in the same way we may risk physical harm, we risk that same emotional harm for others.
However as others have pointed out (and you point out with your example of the singers) there are still ways people can be committed to fighting for justice and the vulnerable even without doing violence. The sad thing is that usually, eventually, somebody does have to use it.
@7: Falling coconuts are more dangerous than most falling leaves. :-p
@9: Exactly. Plants can’t move like animals, but many of them defend themselves quite well while standing still. (They’ve had to get equally innovative about reproducing.)
@16: Yeah, I think it can go either way. An individual can commit to a personal philosophy and practice of zero violence without seeking to demand it of others. Or an individual can actively oppose most forms of societal violence but fight by any means in defense of themself or those close to them. I think of Barbara Kingsolver; she writes opposition to wars (including terrorism-sparked wars), repressive regimes, gun/violence glorification culture, violent crime, etc. — but when a man broke into her house and threatened her at knifepoint, she physically fought with everything she had. That might not actually be the opposite of what you describe, but it got me thinking about these different paths.
Now and in the past, I have faced feelings that I’m cowardly for declining to participate in peaceful protests or defensive violence. I’m disabled, not physically strong, and very, very afraid of being harmed by anyone (or now getting/spreading COVID-19). But most people don’t want to get harmed, yet many risk/have long risked it in opposition to the normalized atrocities of people in one demographic and/or another getting endlessly murdered just for existing.
Nice article and debate! Anyone else notice a bit of a change of tone in our blog author in the past two posts?
@23 Yes, I am well aware of that. However the popular figure of 150 per year has no basis in facts. From all I’ve been able to find, there are no reliable numbers available. It happens but is very rare.
“A coconut can fall and hit you on the head,
And if it falls from high enough can kind of knock you dead
Dead beneath the coconut palms, that’s the life for me! ” Frederick Seidel
@@@@@ 19, faculty guy
Beyond pacifism is the Buddhist tale of sacrifice for others as in the story of Prince Sattva.
Sattva’s story always struck me as nonsense.
The world loses a proto-saint. All that wisdom, thrown away. And for what?
The tiger and her cubs get a few meals. She gains zero wisdom. Then she eats her cubs and is defiled anyway.
It’s a double zero-sum game. Everybody loses, nobody wins. In Buddhist terms, Sattva lacked skillful means.
I’m glad this story isn’t the whole of Buddhist wisdom.
The Tinker defense of pacifism is the wrong one. It’s not about the moral injury to yourself from inflicting violence. Peaceful ways are better because they benefit everyone- even people who just want to make money and gain power are better off pursuing their goals in a situation without violence. And since people have intelligence this can be pointed out to them and they can be convinced and society can move towards more peace.
It doesn’t happen overnight. But over hundreds of years the amount of violence in society has decreased and I see. I reason it shouldn’t continue to do so. in the book, the thousands of Aiel who sing at the channeled fail and they all die but in real life, thousands of people linking arms and singing bought down the Soviet Union. Sometimes passive resistance fails, sometimes it succeeds. Sometimes armed resistance fails, sometimes it succeeds. Any story that suggests that those who don’t fight are always going to lose is telling a lie. A lie damaging to the fabric of our society.
I think Jordan’s intentions with the Tinkers was to present a positive view of pacifism. But in fact he doesn’t do so because the Tinkers always fail. Even just on a personal level, Jordan chooses to tell the story of a Tinker who becomes Lost. He could instead have chosen to tell the story of someone who joins the Tinkers and heals his soul, like the Hound in GOT.
In Wheelie world we’re not dealing with other human beings but with an incarnation of negativity and his created monsters. The Dark One and Trollocs have to concsiences to be appealed to. Neither did the maddened male channelers. Passive resistance can only work when the opponent doesn’t consider mass murder an acceptable solution.
As a Quaker and a pacifist, I have always felt very complicated about the way of the leaf. The Way of the Leaf is passive with no attempt to change things, just accept things the way they are and avoid conflict. I often worry that these books show only one view of pacifism.
In the pacifism I learned, you have a moral imperative to make change. We fight for justice, reconciliation and differing means of resolving conflict. It means hard work to change society. You examine structures such as prisons, schools, the banking system, policing and the military and imagine new ways society could look. On a personal level, it also means a commitment to examining the role you play in an unjust society. Do I use my privileged to help others? How do my choices affect others? It has sometimes meant putting my body between two people and de-escalating. It has meant making a human chain around a mosque and a synagogue on multiple separate occasions so worshippers could feel safe. It has also meant sitting in long difficult situations where two parties have both hurt each other and working through the tears from years of pain (that was harder than putting my body in danger). The pacifism I know is sometimes dangerous and takes a lot of work.
In Canada, Mennonites and Quakers farmed, worked as ambulance workers and built infrastructure during the wars. When the war was over, we were some of the first tor recognize PTSD for what it was and provide support to veterans and their families when the government left them to suffer.
There is a wonderful lovely little book called “Nevertheless” by John Howard Yoder on the varieties of religious pacifism. It focuses on Christianity, and you will see more way of the leaf types of pacifism, but you will also pacifism that is just damn hard work.
When I hear that story about people wanting to punch Perrin and him saying he would punch them back. My first question is why did he want to punch you? It’s very rare that someone walks up and throws a punch just because they feel like it with no provocation or without saying anything. I have watched my husband talk people down from fights on public transit with a few well worded questions. He didn’t back down, he didn’t run away, he just looked the person in the eye and said “What will punching me achieve?” “Can we help you feel that another way?” And I have seen him do this at least three times. What if we taught those skills in schools? What if we taught people better ways to deal with their anger? Walking away isn’t the only option.
I know this is a rambly comment, I just felt that this conversation needed a pacifist voice in it. Perrin and the tinkers are a bit of a false dichotomy almost. There is a spectrum between violence and non-violence that isn’t explored in Wheel of time that I think could make this conversation a lot richer.
Problem is those strategies only work if the opponents are willing to negotiate and make some concessions. Bit you’re quite right. Tuath’an aren’t interested in changing anything.
@31: “What if we taught those skills in schools? What if we taught people better ways to deal with their anger?”
Even then, you’d still run into situations where words of wisdom aren’t enough to solve a problem, either because you’re facing a tyrant who refuses to accept them or a monster who simply can’t. Something tells me that talking out your feelings isn’t the ideal tactic when confronted by Trollocs/Darkspawn/Tyranids/Reapers/Borg/et al. Violence is a tool, an instrument of policy, and like all tools, its worth depends on when and how you use it. Sometimes it only makes a bad situation worse, sometimes it’s a potential option that’s less effective than more peaceful solutions, and sometimes it’s unfortunately the only viable option left open to you. If your only choices are to fight or die, as the Two Rivers folk frequently face throughout the series, then people will most likely choose to fight as warriors rather than merely die as sheep.
@32: Agreed. Whatever methods one chooses to employ to solve a problem, eventually you have to stand your ground and face it. Simply moving on isn’t always an option, nor should it be when letting a threat go unchallenged only makes it worse in the long run. Whether one should act with peaceful restraint or drown them in blood in that moment really depends on the situation in question.
TL;DR, I’ll let Uhtred of Bebbanburg summarize my view on the use of violence for me:
“I tell my grandchildren that confidence wins battles. I do not wish them to fight, I would rather make Ieremias’s world a reality and so live in harmony, but there is always some man, and it is usually a man, who looks with envy on our fields, who wants our home, who thinks his rancid god is better than ours, who will come with flame and sword and steel to take what we have built and make it his, and if we are not ready to fight, if we have not spent those tedious hours learning the craft of sword and shield and spear and seax, then that man will win and we will die. Our children will be slaves, our wives whores, and our cattle slaughtered. So we must fight, and the man who fights with confidence wins.”
Oh Dear,
The last three Paragraphs of this Essay are like Cherry on the Cake.. simply Brilliant way to close the Essay. Lended it Completeness.
Love can take many forms and has an identity similar to the Way of the Leaf.
Amazing!!
I love Perrin as well. Gives you a grounded feeling while story moves around him. Very unlike Rand who is like Hot Fire and Passionate. Passion is the Word for Rand. Earth is the Word for Perrin.. which is nurturing. Rand also feels uprooted for the most part.. truly riding on winds of destiny.
A truly wonderful articulation in this Essay. Enjoying reading your content.
Thanks !