Well, hey-hey, gurlz and boiz. Welcome to another Wheel of Time Re-read!
Today’s entry covers Chapters 23 and 24 of New Spring, in which you can Phear my Phrench, for Reals. (No, really. Fear it.)
Also, just so you know, moving across the country SUCKS HAIRY BALLS. If that offends you, well, good, you kind of know how I feel right now. If it makes any difference to you, I am currently typing this while sitting on the hardwood floor of a completely empty apartment. This is more fun than my lower back can POSSIBLY STAND, y’all. Ugh.
Previous re-read entries are here. The Wheel of Time Master Index is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general, including the newest release, Towers of Midnight.
This re-read post contains spoilers for all currently published Wheel of Time novels, up to and including Book 13, Towers of Midnight. If you haven’t read, read at your own risk.
And now, the post!
Chapter 23: The Evening Star
What Happens
Moiraine smiles as Lan gallops away, pleased that she apparently made an impression, and heads to the roughest area of the city, as she figures Siuan’s parsimonious ways will lead her to get a room at the cheapest inn possible. At the first inn she tries, a woman tries to steal her horse, and insults Moiraine when she catches her at it; Moiraine retaliates by whacking her with Air as she stomps off. At the third inn, the innkeeper lies that a blue-eyed Tairen woman is staying there, and then tries to drug her with doctored wine.
Embracing the Source, she wove Spirit in one of the Blue’s secret weaves and touched the innkeeper with it. Slight anticipation became definite unease. “Are you certain the young woman meets my description exactly?” she asked, and tightened the weave a fraction. Sweat appeared on Mistress Satarov’s forehead. “Are you absolutely certain?” Another tightening, and a edge of fear appeared in the woman’s eyes.
“Come to think, she doesn’t have blue eyes at that. And… And she left this morning, come to think.”
Moiraine asks the woman how many travelers she’s tried to drug this way, and forces her to drink it herself. The innkeeper tries to hide before the drug takes effect, but passes out in the common room; Moiraine leaves her to her fate at the hands of her customers. The day continues like that, as she is offered drugged wine three more times and attacked by footpads twice; she drives off the latter with the fear-inducing weave she used on the innkeeper. Finally Siuan finds her on the street, amused at the assumptions she knew Moiraine made, and leads her to what Moiraine is surprised to find is a very respectable inn called The Evening Star. In her room, Siuan guesses that Averne Sahera isn’t the one they’re looking for, and reports that she’s found Ines Demain, the next name on their list, and her son seems like a very promising candidate, but Siuan can’t get to her, as she is a lady, and currently staying in the Aesdaishar Palace. Moiraine sighs that they’ll deal with that in the morning, and makes herself ask if Siuan’s heard anything more about the Black Ajah. In answer, Siuan tells her about a blacksmith who had become a motivational speaker for the poor recently, and died of a broken back a couple of days earlier.
“Siuan, what under the Light-?”
“Just listen, Moiraine. He collected a lot of silver himself, and it seems he was on his way to the guild house to turn in six or eight bags of it when he was killed. Fool was carrying it all by himself. The point is, there wasn’t a bloody coin of it taken, Moiraine. And he didn’t have a mark on him, aside from his broken back.”
Moiraine sees her point, but can’t fathom what connection a random blacksmith would have to the Black Ajah. Siuan doesn’t necessarily agree, but moves on to ask what Moiraine plans to do about the Lady Ines. Moiraine tells her, and then spends the rest of the night keeping Siuan from talking her out of it.
Commentary
Whoa, wait, hang on there, missy. Fear-inducing weave? What?
Where did this come from? And why hasn’t Moiraine ever used it in the series proper? I’m trying to think of a reason that isn’t “because Jordan hadn’t thought of it till now,” and I’m drawing an unfortunate blank, since I can come up with half-a-dozen instances just off the top of my head where that would totally have come in handy in the main series. And yet, here we are. Enh.
And also, the whole thing with making the evil innkeeper drink the wine sounded awfully… Compulsion-y, to me. Which I am under the distinct impression is a big no-no for Lightside folk. Not to mention, it doesn’t even really make sense. How does making someone scared also make them have to do what you say?
Well, I guess maybe if the weave was making the woman scared of Moiraine specifically, instead of just general terror, maybe that would make her too frightened to disobey or whatever, but if so that is reeeeally skirting merrily close to a serious slippery slope there, if you ask me.
I mean, damn, talk about your gray areas. I’m not even sure, on reflection, that there is much difference between this, and Liandrin’s half-assed version of Compulsion, which if I recall correctly depends upon manipulating the subject’s emotions as well. Gray area? Hell.
Which would explain, actually, why the Blue Ajah would keep that particular weave a secret. It doesn’t explain, though, why we’ve never seen any other Blue sister, including Moiraine herself, use it before now. (Or, technically, “after now,” chronologically speaking, but you know what I mean.) I call shenanigans, personally.
Also, all that aside, Moiraine leaving that innkeeper unconscious on the floor like that was cold. I know the woman was a bad person who had probably killed lots of people, but wow. That may have been poetic justice, but I’m not sure that it was actually just.
Chapter 24: Making Use of Invisibility
What Happens
Siuan still doesn’t like the idea the next morning, opining that Moiraine will be taking all the risks, but Moiraine doesn’t agree. She dresses in Cairhienin garb that advertises her true rank, and herds Siuan downstairs, where she hires a chair and armed guards from the innkeeper to visit a banker. They head to the bank, Siuan muttering about getting caught the whole way; Moiraine is worried about it too, but pretends otherwise. She withdraws a large amount of gold at the bank, and on the way back Siuan talks loudly enough about the Black Ajah being responsible for the blacksmith’s death to be overheard, to her embarrassment. They drop off most of the gold at the inn and take the rest to the best seamstress in the city (Silene Dorelmin), where Moiraine violates propriety by insisting that her order be ready in a day, which Silene does not care for at all.
Her voice became icy. “Impossible. At the end of the month, perhaps. Perhaps later. If I can find time at all. A great many ladies have ordered new gowns. The King of Malkier is visiting the Aesdaishar Palace.”
“The last King of Malkier died twenty-five years ago, Silene.” Taking up the fat purse, Moiraine upended it over the table in the measuring room, spilling out thirty gold crowns.
The money (and the threat to withhold the extra for delays) convinces Silene that maybe she can go faster than a month. They leave, Siuan still grumpy about the plan, and Moiraine grumpy that Silene thought she was stupid enough to believe her nonsense about the King of Malkier. Two days later, the Lady Moiraine Damodred arrives at the Palace with her maid “Suki,” and is admitted with all courtesy due her station. Once alone in their rooms, Siuan admits that Moiraine was right about her maid disguise making her invisible, but still thinks Moiraine is taking a ridiculous risk.
“I do not know why I must keep telling you. A royal palace is not an inn; ‘You may call me Lady Alys’ would satisfy no one, here. That is fact, not opinion. I must be myself. Suppose you make use of that invisibility and see what you can learn about the Lady Ines. I would be pleased if we leave as soon as possible.”
Tomorrow, that would be, without causing insult and talk. Siuan was right. Every eye in the palace would be on the outland noblewoman from the House that had started the Aiel War. Any Aes Sedai who came to the Aesdaishar would hear of her immediately, and any Aes Sedai who passed through Chachin might well come. And if this Gorthanes was still trying to find her, word of Moiraine Damodred in the Aesdaishar Palace would reach his ears all too soon. In her experience, palaces were riper for assassination than highways were. Siuan was right; she was standing on a pedestal like a target, and without a clue as to who might be an archer. Tomorrow, early.
Siuan goes out and soon returns with bad news: Lady Ines is in seclusion, mourning her husband, who “fell over dead in his breakfast porridge” ten days earlier. Moiraine opines that Ines will still see a sister, but Siuan is horrified at the notion of Moiraine outing herself both as a Damodred and an Aes Sedai. They are interrupted by a servant, who announces that the shatayan is here to escort the Lady Moiraine to Prince Brys. After the servant goes, Siuan tells Moiraine that a young footman in Ines’ entourage named Cal is hopefully waiting for “Suki,” and pushes her off to meet the prince.
Commentary
GEE, I WONDER WHO THEY’LL RUN INTO ANY MINUTE NOW.
Heh.
Moiraine has got some balls, y’all, for lack of a more gender-appropriate term, just hanging herself out there like she’s a logo for a certain megastore chain. (Pronounced “tar-ZHAY”, y’all. That’s French. *nods*)
Though I’m not sure whether I agree with her that there was no other way to get in there. I mean, whatever, it had to happen this way just so she could run into Lan again so he can be all “You!” and she can be all “YOU!”, and point in consternation and stuff. And plus this kind of Purloined Letter hiding-in-plain-sight cloak and dagger type stuff is always fun to read, so I’m not complaining, I just think Siuan probably has a point. If Elayne and Co. could figure out how to sneak into a Black-Ajah-infested Panarch’s Palace in Tarabon (avec bonus Forsaken-lurkage) without trading on her royal status, surely Moiraine and Siuan could do the same? Let’s think outside the box here, people!
(As an aside, people who unironically encourage you to “think outside the box” need to be smacked repeatedly. Just FYI.)
Anyway. I’m not sure whether the Lady Ines’ husband is meant to be a Black Ajah casualty or not (unlike the blacksmith, who totally is, get with it, Moiraine), because it’s mentioned that he was a great deal older than Ines, so I guess it’s perfectly possible he just keeled over from a heart attack or whatever. But you know what they say: once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is a blood-soaked clandestine mass murder campaign. And we’re way past “three” by this point even only counting the deaths Siuan and Moiraine are aware of. So, as far as I am concerned the late Lord Demain goes in column C.
And, uh… that’s really all I have to say about this chapter, really.
So tune in next week, kids, when we polish off this puppy, and I am hopefully sitting in an actual chair. Ah, the things we take for granted, eh? Until then, ciao!
I agree that the “fear inducing” weave should have been used in the series other than here. Sorry for your stiff backside, but thanks for soldering on for us!
edit: bad spelling…
Good luck with the move, Leigh. N’awlins FTW.
I’m not sure the weave has to be specifically “Make them afraid of me” as long as the one using it to increase fear in the subject is able to keep said subject focused on them, the subject will associate the rising fear with the channeler.
Subject
I just wanted to say that again.
-Beren
Nothing much to say on these chapters (and mucho work to do) so I’ll just drop by to offer thanks.
(And remember, Leigh, every line typed sitting on the hardwood floor is a victory over the evil Elaida. Aiel heart, Leigh, Aiel heart!)
~lakesidey
Damn Black Ajah plots anyways. They even have one going here in the states. I was reading USA Today newspaper. One of the headlines in the travel section was, “Latest BA strike threat may hit wedding travel.”
You know you are spending too much time in the WOTverse when you read that as Black Ajah
For real fun in interstate moving, Leigh, try driving (in two days) from just north of Wash., DC to the middle of Florida with an overweight cat who does not like riding in a car. Smoke would serenade me until his voice gave out, rest for 30-40 miles and start all over again.
Sam @@@@@ 5: Brilliant! :)
Good Luck settling in Leigh!
Lady Leigh making the move back to her homeland. Ah, won’t that be fun once it is over with. Welcome home. (though I am not native to Louisiana)
I really thought the leaving a woman to her fate thing would have caused more outrage. That truly wasn’t cool. But I can imagine that you have other things on your mind.
Active On apply directly to…..
back, forehead, knee, whatever.
I should get paid for that plug.
Dragon
Edit: spelling
Why didn’t Moiraine use her direwolf to scare the innkeepers? Just wondering. *ducks*
Rob
borderlanders revere wolves. :P
yay, another reread!
In the series, how often do we get inside a Blue Ajah’s head when she’s in a situation that would make the weave useful? All the supergirls are of different Ajahs, so they wouldn’t know it.
Plus, Moiraine was often described with a certain menace abour her in uncertain situations. Maybe she’s just that imposing with her maturity, but maybe she was adding a touch of emotion to the air. Once the girls got to their training and could see weaves though, this tapers off (no revealing secrets).
Add to that the whole “Grey area” thing and it’s probably a weave used sparingly by most “moral” blues.
It seems to me like the weave might have been used in Baerlon in EOTW in addition to the illusion weave.
Glad we’re back to plot progression, and done with ‘Let me show you how Moiraine and Lan were sooooooo much more immature than they are now.’ And I’m really glad that Leigh made it safely from NY (aside from her low back).
Looking forward to next week.
Glad you’re there safe and sound, Leigh, and thanks for enduring the floor. Hope your furniture arrives tout sweet ;-) Love the patois…..
I didn’t remember that “fear inducing” weave from my read long ago. Very weird we don’t see it again in the series proper. And yes, Moraine is not being very responsible here leaving the evil inn keeper on the floor. Nice town, btw….numerous poisonings, footpads. Geesh.
I hope your hometown is making a comeback and you have returned for positive reasons. Thanks again for coming through under duress.
She dresses in Cairhienin garb that advertises her true rank
It is a dress in Cairhienin style, but for a lesser noblewoman, that the seamstress in Tar Valon made for her. The local seamstress has to make a new dress showing her real rank.
You think that is bad? I thought it was poison the first time I read that scene! (It wasn’t was it?)
Let me just say, Leigh, that the fact that there is a post today indicates real dedication. Wishing you a speedy recovery from the move.
The only thing I have to say about these chapters is on the question of the blacksmith. When I read about the “lucky” man who had been killed, my first thought was, “Rand isn’t lucky, Mat is.” Then I read through the whole “lucky” = “channeling” discussion and it made sense and I figured that I was just too conditioned to associate any mention of luck with Mat. However, I don’t think a similar argument could be made for “blacksmith” = “channeling”. It makes me wonder if there is some reference in the Dark Prophesies to Mat and Perrin, and if the Black Ajah has either confused those references to references to the Dragon, or if they are smart enough to be trying to take out the Dragon’s support structure before going after him.
And so it is Lsana that is wealding the cluebat.
I so missed that.
Dragon
Leigh, thank you for the post despite your conditions. Tuesday always feels like the new Friday.
As for the blacksmith getting axed…didn’t the “Prophesy’s of the Dragon” also have references to both the Blacksmith and the Gambler? I remember both of them being mentioned in some way but I cannot remember where.
Which, of course, is going to drive me crazy until I search the FAQ to find where they were both mentioned. There goes the rest of the day.
When Elayne & Nynaeve broke into the Panarch’s palace, they were making a snatch and grab of the sad bracelets (which they’d already located in T’A’R) — or at least that was the plan. Amathera (whose rescue was not part of the plan) accepts Elayne’s disguise because the Black Ajah was holding her prisoner (and she knows this) so she can believe that a single Aes Sedai might need to be careful.
Here, Moiraine needs to have an extended conversation with Lady Ines. If she sneaks in, Lady Ines isn’t going to trust her, and successfully questioning a nobleman who doesn’t trust her might have a lot of bad consequences down the line for Moraine Damodred Aes Sedai.
The female equalient of “balls” is “ovarian fortitude”.
Just thought you’d want to know.
Sounds like a great book! I woud love to win this.
Thanks for the post, Leigh! Hope the move is completely finished soon (and that you get some furniture).
The “fear inducing weave” does seem like it was made up after the fact. Oh well. Of course, the application of that weave and some of the others does make me kind of question what AS are bound to.
For instance, if they never swear under the Oath rod to not use Compulsion, then nothing really keeps them from doing it. The Oaths don’t state that they must follow Tower Law. That falls under their own moral/ethical perspectives, I would assume.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is nothing that makes the Aes Sedai have to follow Tower Law (like, not using Compulsion). Add that to the fact that Aes Sedai have a tendency to label things “creatively” when they want (the Warder Bond appears to have some Compulsion attributes and Lelaine’s suggestion for bonding the Ashaman would’ve been very close to Compulsion as well.
As for what Moiraine did to the innkeeper, well nothing says she has to be “just.” Many AS are petty when they choose to be. And Moiraine has already shown that she can be petty and spiteful, with Lan. Is this going too far? Moiraine doesn’t know what’s gonna happen to the unconscious innkeeper. Maybe her customers will be nice, after all.
As for Moiraine’s brilliant plan to get into the castle, whatever. She got in, she’s potentially a big target, she’ll have to deal with the mess she made. Wow; I’m glad we weren’t introduced to this Moiraine in TEotW; I would have really not liked her. Now, I can’t wait til she gets back to Rand.
As for “Suki,” wouldn’t it have been funny if the footman waiting for her was named Bill? :-)
Lsana @19:
I won’t swear by this but I seem to remember the blacksmith was killed not because of his profession, but because he had suddenly come out of nowhere to become an effective speaker, union organizer and a leader of the guild. Naturally, the BA thought he was starting to show Dragon-like credentials and offed him.
What ever happened to using the term “guts” for intestinal fortitude instead of such gender based equivalencies? Everyone can have “guts” should they chose but only have the population can have “balls” let alone hairy ones that apparently some people are not interested in sucking.
As for New Spring I do not remember most of it so I have not been particularly commenty.
Hope the big move has as little difficulty as possible and that chairs are more plentiful in the future so backaches can be avoided. Desks are apparently safe on two fronts here because there is no spanking or other head desk worthy situations and there is the inherent lack of desk to headbash in any event.
Thanks Leigh, especially for managing to post during this particularly stressful time. I try to use the word sparingly, but I hate moving. Even more than mustard.
I can see why people would find it cold the way Moiraine left this woman unconcious. Maybe because we hold up Mo to a higher standard? Let us not forget that this woman was responsible for the “disappearance” of many innocent travelers. Perhaps it passed through Moiraine’s mind what fate had befallen other drugged young women there. I am pretty sure that Mrs Satarov deserved what she got.
Also I agree with drothgery @@@@@ 22. The situation in Tanchico was much different. The purpose of the visit and the situation in the city. Chaos creates opportunities.
I don’t have an issue with Moiraine’s handling of the innkeeper. It’s not as though she could have been innocent, and I suspect the Kandori penalty for drugging travelers and whatever came next would be no more lenient than Moiraine. The only objection might be that she didn’t leave it up to the official law enforcement whatever that might be, but we’ve already established she wants to avoid official notice as an Aes Sedai and how else could she explain catching the innkeeper?
Great post, Leigh… “tar-ZHAY” made me LOL!
I’m actually a little surprised you posted today… if it’d been me, I wouldn’t have the energy to do a write-up for another week. So Big Kudos to you, Leigh, and hope everything works out! (I know what it feels like to move all your stuff out and back in again; it’s draining as hell.)
On-topic: I agree that Moiraine’s fear-inducing weave is a bit out-of-place, having not been used by her any other sister in the main series. Perhaps it will be mentioned or used by her in AMoL?
Cloud @6: I’ve heard that! Try it with 3 or 4 cats sometime. ;)
RobM² @9: ROFL!! Now, now… no mixing stories! XD
Bzzz™.
First…moving is my least favorite thing ever (though I admittedly have not experienced a lot of things…but I have eaten fish eyeballs, and raw squid still filled with ink which exploded on first bite…and I have moving more than those things). So good luck, Leigh, on completing the process, and thanks for your selflessness is posting another reread post!
Second, I do wonder if, had the move not been occuring, there might have been even more…concern…over the fate of the innkeeper. As well as more outrage over what the innkeeper was doing. It seems plain to me from the text that the woman was not just drugging travelers so they could be robbed, or even killed…what immediately came to my mind, judging from the lascivious behavior of the patrons, was sexual assault and, actually, selling into possible slavery. I know, slavery doesn’t exist outside Shara and Seanchan…well, it doesn’t exist legally in the U.S., either, but it’s on the rise. Make a young woman traveling alone disappear…and all sorts of things can happen.
It’s with those kinds of horrific scenarios in mind that I can sort of stomach Moiraine’s actions, here, though reading (actually, listening to) the scene made my blood run cold. This is a look at the steely-willed Moiraine we’ll see in 20 years. This is cold. I do think it’s just, though, Leigh. Justice without any hint of mercy, which is, as we see here, crazy scary.
It does put me in mind of the observations we get earlier in this book. The Gray Ajah and the Green Ajah seek justice – the former through law and mediation, the latter through their Warders’ swords. The Blues, on the other hand, “right wrongs.” I think we now have an inkling what that means…the innkeeper was certainly perpetrating great wrongs, and it seems unlikely she’ll be in a position to do so again.
But on the other hand, it seems like there are plenty of others ready to do the same thing in her place.
On the fear-inducing weave…I too think it’s perilously close to Compulsion. Actual compulsion seems to work by creating a feeling of adoration, rather than fear, but they both work to get somebody to do what you want. I guess the fear weave doesn’t have the effect of permanently dulling your wits, as Compulsion seems to d0 (hey…maybe that happened to Elayne after Moggy compelled her! *ducks*). And it’s not the kind of thing you can do to somebody and have them forget, later, that something happened, I guess. So maybe it’s *slightly* less prone to abuse than Compulsion. Both are weaves of Spirit which affect emotion to get people to respond as you wish, though…and I agree that the similarities are probably a reason that it’s a Blue secret.
Fwiw, I pretend to myself that Moiraine does use the fear weave at times, subtly, in TEOTW…just to make it seem less jarring now. Otoh, maybe she develops scruples against its use in the intervening twenty years? Whichever, I’ve begun a reread (listening) of TEOTW, and I’ll be looking for possible places to shoehorn the fear weave in.
@@.-@ lakesidey and @5 Samadai…you make me laugh.
Btw, speaking of these Compulsion-esque weaves, I think it’s interesting that the Blue weave uses fear and the Compulsion weave uses adoration. Iirc, Verin’s Compulsion-Lite needs the subject to trust you, while Liandrin’s version needed the subject to be in some way disturbed, less than calm.
Lastly, the blacksmith is killed b/c he suddenly rose to prominence, as men who can channel are apparently wont to do.
Samadai @@@@@ 5
lol, I actually didn’t think of this, even though I have been personally affected by this 2 year-old dispute. The BA acronym suits both orgs if you ask me.
Also, I don’t think it will affect those who remained loyal in their hearts to their rightful rulers :). Any Americans travelling to see the wedding of Will&Kate, may they live forever, shouldn’t have any problems. IIRC BA managed to run their long-haul flights during the previous strikes.
The Fear weave- I will try to give RJ the benefit of the doubt. As someone already said, this is not a weave a responsible AS would use freely. Also, it’s not a common knowledge, I think, the Blues are the smallest Ajah. When the weave was used it seems no one was near enough to be aware that something unusual was going on. Plus, Moiraine was rather intimidating early on, not only to the inexperienced eyes of the younglings.
I don’t get why Moiraine didn’t just hire a couple of bodyguards instead of taking all those risks going to this part of the city alone. It would’ve helped with her disguise as a minor noblewoman, it would’ve prevented all those incidents and the need the channel and possibly gave herself away. At least she learned her lesson and hired two guards in the next chapter.
Anyway, I find it quote amusing that inns in Randland are always full and 9 times out of 10 at least some of the heroes have to share a bed. At least Moiraine and Siuan enjoy it much more than most others who were forced to do it regularly throughout the series. ;)
I’m gonna post some thoughts from my TEOTW re-read here, and hope y’all don’t mind. There seems little point to posting on that section of the reread – it’s ancient and there’s no conversation – and the TOM thread, which would also be appropriate, takes forever to load on my work computer and I don’t think it’ll load at all at home. So…
Hearing the prologue – with Ishamael confronting Lews Therin – I was struck by several things that I’ve either never noticed or forgotten.
1. It seems like Lews Therin was a political leader. I’ve been thinking of him as a general and leader of the Aes Sedai – but Ishamael mentions that he “summoned the Nine Rods of Dominion”. At the time that didn’t mean anything, but we’ve since learned that those were governor’s marks of office, right? So…that would mean that Lews Therin was over the governors. And he lives in a palace. Maybe this has all been obvious to everyone else since forever, but like I say, I’d always thought of him as leader of the Aes Sedai, who were *not* running the government, and as a leading military commander, but not also as a civilian ruler. Was he?
2. When Ishamael briefly restores LTT to sanity, Lews Therin calls him “Betrayer”. They’re speaking in the Old Tongue, of course, so he’s saying part of Ishamael’s name. Ishamael is “Betrayer of Hope”, as Sammael is “Destroyer of Hope” iirc…so when I heard this part of the recording, I had the absurd image of LTT using only part of the name…a diminutive…perhaps calling his nemesis “Ishy”. As we are wont to do?!?
Look, it made me giggle. Leave me alone.
3. Ishy (Isha?) mentions that he was named “Betrayer of Hope” by the people, even as LTT was named “Dragon” by the people. (We know that all the Forsaken were named by their enemies with the exception of Lanfear.) It begs the question…why did they name him Dragon? What did Dragon mean for them, before the Breaking of the World and the Prophecies of the Dragon being Reborn? I wonder what prophecies and ideas they had about the Dragon back then? Not that we’ll know, but I found it interesting.
4. Referring back to #1, LTT lived in a palace and wore rich clothes. And both he and Ishamael say that his fundamental flaw was pride. LTT in his horror believes it is pride that caused the Breaking…his prideful belief that men could redo the work of the Creator, and seal up the DO again as effectively as before.
I find it interesting that, for at least the latter half of the series, Rand the farmboy had become a skilled (if steadily going crazy) politician, wearing rich clothes and living in palaces. He was also full of pride, prone to entering dangerous situations alone sure that he’d win through, complaining that people questioned him or used their own judgement instead of falling in and obeying orders without question. He was prideful enough to have the ambition of not just sealing the DO away, but actually killing him.
On the other hand Zen Rand, after his experiene on Dragonmount, wears poor clothing, is capable of apologizing and of admitting uncertainty, and admitting that he needs help.
I find myself wondering how much of the Rand we’d gotten used to was actually the LTT personality, and how much of who he is now draws on the farmboy raised by Tam in the Two Rivers? I know we’ve been unsure about Zen Rand, but he says he’s a better man now, and shows it to be true, and credits his upbringing being better on this turn of the wheel. Anyway, maybe this is food for thought for those who feel like Rand isn’t Rand anymore.
5. I’d forgotten, if I ever knew, that when LTT created Dragonmount, he also diverted a river which created the isle of Tar Valon. That is thematically very interesting. And it’s interesting and ominous that the first person to step foot on that island is Ishamael. Via the Black Ajah, Ishamael has at least sometimes been the true power in Tar Valon. I wonder what he was doing during the time of the founding of the White Tower….
Edit to add: the continuing epic fails of the ‘quote’ button are getting old…
@33 Bergmaniac said:
Good question, but Moiraine at this point was getting short on money, and she’d given half of what she had left to Siuan. She could get more at need by going to a banker, but didn’t want to do so unless necessary. Doing so meant using her own name, and word would eventually get back to the Tower, which she’s hiding from. It’s only the need to get into the palace – requiring use of her real name anyway – which makes her decide to take the risk now.
Why don’t you go think outside the bleeding box. Sorry, but that always comes to mind anyone suggests thinking outside the box. As others have mentioned Elayne and Nynaeve didn’t need to interact with anyone, except possibly convince Amathera to leave with them.
@Lsana, while the blacksmith didn’t appear to be channeling, he could have been mistaken for ta’veren, which could also be used to find the DR.
Good luck with the unpacking and looking forward to Friday’s aSoIaF post, first real reading of Jon and Tyrion, two fan favorites.
My posts keep getting flagged as spam only to sometimes reappear later, which is becoming super-annoying. So I’m re-typing my last post and submitting it again, which may end up doubling up.
Thanks for posting during your move Leigh. It’s definitely one of the most stressful things you can do, so we all appreciate the effort.
Re: the Fear weave:
I wouldn’t be so quick to pronounce that such a weave has never been used in the main series. When Fain is caught climbing the walls of Fal Dara, Moiraine gets that infodump out of him somehow, and I assume it wasn’t by being kind and polite. Fain even yells “I will not be compelled” in his haughty Mordeth voice before he is dragged out by the guards – a clear sign-post that compulsion was on the table even before we know what that really means… There are probably other instances too.
Re: the innkeeper:
I’m generally not a fan of rough, eye-for-an-eye justice, but I have a fairly sinister interpretation of what was going on here that makes me pretty unsympathetic regardless. I don’t think these women were just getting drugged and robbed – I think it’s somewhat implied that there were probably an untold number of women being raped and murdered by this woman as part of a criminal conspiracy. So it’s hard to feel much for her plight here. Whatever fate befalls here her will depend on the mercies of the conspirators she chose to associate with for profit. The women she drugged had no such choice.
Having moved many many times in my life, I can empathize with you. However, look at it this way, great gumbo and poboys, so to me it is an epic win! Way better than Nathan’s.
Chaplainchris@34:
Very interesting. Thanks for posting that, as most of us here now weren’t around at the very beginning (that is a big assumption…sorry…OK..I wasn’t around then.) And the bigass prediction threads are wont to load….
I find your insights into Zen Rand being the true Rand very tantalizing….He felt more like the innocent farm boy that he used to be in ToM, and you’ve explained why. I’m not very familiar with the AOL histories. To learn that LTT was an arrogant prince certainly seems to jibe with what Rand the farm boy had become before his revelation on Dragonmount. It fits very nicely. Good insights. Thank you!
Have to agree with HArai @29 here. Going to the authorities wouldn’t have changed anything in a practical sense – they would have given the innkeeper a quick trial and then executed her by whatever method Kandoris use. (This is an old-timey setting, so capital punishment is not an issue.) Meanwhile, Moiraine’s mission – the whole saving the world thing – would have been imperilled.
Cutting corners like that is a dangerous habit to get into, no doubt… but it’s just as dangerous to play the Galad role, and never cut any corner ever, regardless of circumstances.
Dashiva uses a fear weave when Rand tries to impress Cadsuane in tPoD ch. 27:
One note which I don’t think has been mentioned yet. In the previous chapter, Moiraine was all up for fighting the bandits and taking the survivors to a magistrate for their crimes; in this one, she metes out her own form of justice without much regret for the lack of judicial presence.
Birgit @41: But it didn’t have any noticeable effect on Cadsuane. Which means that either it’s a different kind of weave, or that Cads just has iron self-control. (Or both, because the latter is obvious.) Not the slightest bit unnerved—please correct me if I’m wrong. (In fact, I think the only time we’ve seen Cads the least bit unnerved is when Rand threatens to kill her in TGS.)
Bzzz™.
Lsana@19 – hmmm your thoughts on the luck issue (either misinterpretation of prophesies or erroding support structure) are probably more on the point than mine.
reading this bit this time, where channellers seem to be associated with being lucky, I thought of the BWS quote that Gawyn is “a lot luckier than he realizes” and wondered if it may be foreshadowing that Gawyn is actually a chaneller.
I wonder how Moiraine had Oath trouble with using the One Power to immobilize the ambusher without knowing it would lead to him getting killed by her escorts, but not with using the Power to leave the innkeeper to her fate. Same thing, longer duration, and she KNOWS the likely outcome this time.
King of Malkier in town, ha ha!
sps49: I think her issue with the ambush was that she was actively holding him in place with the OP while he got killed. In contrast, all she did with the OP here was scare the innkeeper into drinking the drink. Everything that happens after is OP free. Just another example of how the 3rd Oath doesn’t really protect you from an AS very much at all.
9. RobMRobM
Shouldn’t you have signed that “Robb“? :)
Another thought – if OP use as a weapon can only be justifed as a last resort, how are the AS who know how to travel supposed to justify its use (not so much in battle but) particularly in the type of one on one or one on 10 type of situations?
wouldn’t opening a gateway and leaving be an option rather than blasting people (particularly non-chanellers who cannot replicate weaves) be a better defensive use of the OP?
RE: Moiraine’s fear weave – I read this as: 1) additional inside info about the Ajas and thier inner workings (a great aspect of this book) and 2) Moiraine narrowly getting out of a snag that she walked into through her own arrogance and youth. Unlike the Pond scene, Moiraine escapes the punishment here. Leaving the evil innkeeper for what would seem an obvious rape is pretty cold, but I’m not sure Moiraine is afraid of selling her Cairheinen soul. Is that Black evil or just Royalty?
Thanks for the Blacksmith and Lucky Man reference. Noticed the obvious BA murders but did not see the significance.
@41 great reference.
She may have used the fear weave on Joiya in TSR:
@47 – yes, of course. As eldest son of an ancient house I should not neglect my responsibilities.
I’ve done further thinking about the Fear Weave. So there are a few things we know and should consider:
1-There were just a handful of POVs from Moiraine in the main series.
2- She has “interviewed” people out of sight of other chanelers (like the SG), leaving these people clearly shaken- e.g. Joya in Tear.
3- The Fear Weave is secret to the Blue Ajah and it would not be used where others can see it.
4- Given how few POVs we’ve had from Blues we can’t expect to have seen every weave they know.
5- RJ has a massive database with huge ammount of info on WOT world. Much or most of it we haven’t seen in the books. RJ drew from it as was necessary.
6- Realistically we know of relatively small proportion of all the weaves that AS know.
In summary, IMO, Moiraine has used the Fear Weave in the series proper- e.g. Fain and Joya. We don’t know that she did so because she made sure no one knew her methods. Because she wanted to keep the Weave secret and maintain her air of mystery (for her companions and for the Readers)- very ASish. Plus she had just a few POVs.
I’m sure that RJ has enough stuff in his database that he could’ve come up with stuff we haven’t seen before for another 10 books. We know a lot about the WT and AS but the more we learn the more I realize how little we know about them overall.
RJ may retcon sometimes but I don’t think he did with the Fear Weave.
The “fear inducing weave” is a plot device, but one which may be given a pass with several logical thoughts. At this point of the story, Moiraine is still a very new Aes Sedai, and it has been shown numerous times by now that, while she is deft as the Great Game, she has much maturing left in terms of tactically thinking on her feet in untested waters. (consider her behavior towards Lan and Bukama) Now, a Moiraine twenty years later on would use a “secret” Blue Ajah weave with much greater discretion, only at much greater need, and would have an arsenal of rhetorical skills to make the need far less frequent. The second half of the device is more about demonstrating that there truly were Ajah-specific weaves with a human application (marching ants in lock-step doesn’t qualify).
Since I’ve been described as “most likely to throw gas on a fire”, I’ll go here: Moiraine doesn’t seem more upset than slightly amused and concerned when “Suki” announces her hopes for a certain footman. I would expect more reaction than that toward the love of ones’ life. All thoughts taken in context, I stand by my previous argument, that while Siuan may indeed be the person most beloved by Moiraine, it is not Eros, but a strong combination of Fileos and Agape, with some past benefits which were NOT indicative of a romantic desire to grow old together.
@21,
I know that the “light side” prophesies mention Mat and Perrin, though they are pretty subtle references that not many people seem to have picked up on. I was wondering if the “dark” prophesies might have more to say on the subject, enough that even at this stage the BA recognized the importance of hunting blacksmiths and lucky men as part of their search for the dragon.
@many,
I admit that I had completely forgotten the “sudden rise” = “channeling” justification for the blacksmith. However, in some ways, that only strengthens my argument: “Blacksmith who suddenly rises to a position of political power” sounds even more like Perrin than just “Blacksmith.” I guess we don’t know if the BA is going around killing thatchers and innkeepers who suddenly move up in the world, but none the less, it is…interesting that the two men we’ve heard about the BA killing are so similar to our Two Rivers boys.
I’m often amazed at how often, especially when it comes to Fantasy, people have a hard time imagining things outside of their own experience.
Then I remind myself of the society most of us live in. We live in a binominal world. On/Off, Black/White, Good/Evil…there’s little effort a lot of the time to acknowledge that things can exist in between.
I guess that’s why most people can’t seem to imagine the possibility that there’s more than Romantic/Platonic love.
It seems that we have a tendency to place love in neat little boxes: The love shared between friends, the passion of young love, the measured constant of love between spouses, parental love and so on and so forth. There isn’t much allowance for any of this stuff to mingle and shift and change and adapt.
Still, it is possible to have a passionate, romantic love that doesn’t automatically sweep all rational thought aside. It’s also possible to have an overwhelming love for someone that is expressed on a physical level without it meaning you’re going to automatically want to get married and share your lives together forever and ever.
In many ways Jordan was a traditionalist and he certainly exhibited binominal thinking in WoT, so I’m not sure he actually imagined Sian and Moiraine as sharing a love that didn’t actually come from a patented mold. On the other hand, maybe he has encountered two people who loved each other passionately without jealousy, accepting that their lives would not revolve around each other and retaining the ability to let the other live his/her own life without the need for the bonds of…well, anything aside from their affection for one another.
I have no idea if that’s what Jordan had in mind for Siuan and Moiraine, but that’s how I imagine it. I think that love and passion can exist without boundaries or definition, so I’ve never thought to question Siuan and Moiraine’s relationship.
But it didn’t have any noticeable effect on Cadsuane. Which means that either it’s a different kind of weave, or that Cads just has iron self-control.
Or her ter’angreal protected her. If the weave has to touch the victim directly and her ter’angreal works like Mat’s foxhead she should be immune.
I was wondering if the “dark” prophesies might have more to say on the subject, enough that even at this stage the BA recognized the importance of hunting blacksmiths and lucky men as part of their search for the dragon.
ToM quote after Epilogue
A couple of random points:
Moiraine acts like she does with regard to the law because she is a young, cousin to a King, and an Aes Sedai. She thinks she knows what is right and she has spent her entire life in places where the civil law is looked on as not applying to people like her. Her demands for justice for the people that accosted her may be viewed as her youthful idealism. A less flattering interpretation is that she wants justice, because they had the temerity to get in her way. Her treatment of the innkeeper is similar. She wants to pay the innkeeper back, but (as others have pointed out) doesn’t want to get the authorities involved at this point. She views herself as someone with the authority to meet out a punishment, not unusual in either a noble or an Aes Sedai.
On the fear weave, I would chalk it up to one part lack of other POVs in the main series, one part youth, and one part socialization. The Moiraine we see here is not just young and inexperienced; she is a new Aes Sedai. This means that she hasn’t had much time to learn how things “ought” to be done. More than the laws that govern the Aes Sedai, tradition acts as a much tighter straitjacket on them. Moiraine hasn’t been around enough to have been slapped down for being so obvious with her power. The Moiraine in the main series is likely to be much more subtle if she bothers to deal with it personally at all. She still isn’t operating completely within the Aes Sedai norm – see the comments of Siuan in TGH Chapter 4, for example. I begin to see why Cadsuane liked to be thought dead by most of the White Tower. She doesn’t play those games.
On the use of balls versus guts, the former seems to have a more brazen connotation to it, as nouns at least. That connotation is less pronounced in the adjectives, but as a noun guts has more of a passive feel to it than balls. Guts also implies more of an expectation that the object will have to bear some cost in the future, where balls implies that the cost was avoided by the action of the object.
Skip @57 – Thanks for the missive on the gonads vs ailimentary tract. That took some brass balls!
Leigh, I agree on the pronounciation of Target as “tar-ZHAY,” except in the case of the Atlantic Avenue location in Brooklyn, which I can imagine you’ve either been to or heard of. That one I think is pronounced as “TARGhETto.” Seriously, worst Target ever. (But I still shop there, of course).
On that note, NYC will miss you!
alfoss@58: lol
re: the inkeeper: I have very mixed feelings about what Moi did. It’s defniitely cold. VERY cold. And yet, I have to agree with those who’ve said that the inkeep was guilty of conspiracy to perpetrate rape and/or slavery and/or murder. Moiraine has saved many lives in the future, perhaps. Yet in an ideal world, if she had the time and all that, and could prove what the inkeep had been doing, it would certainly have been better to turn the woman in.
Is it compulsion? Enh…. borderline, but not really. Has she used the weave in other places? I think so.
Ben
LittleLady @@@@@ 59:
Oh man, that Targhetto at Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn is pretty crazy. I still preferred going there to the K-Mart in Manhattan (on 36th, I think?), though.
Others, re: The innkeeper: I’m pretty horrified at what Moiraine did to the woman. Yes, she was evil, but I certainly wouldn’t be able to lower myself to that level. And essentially, that’s what Moiraine did.
One of my favorite mottos is, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” That certainly applies in this case.
sleepinghour @50/ValMar @52: Good point re: Joiya. I’d forgotten that little “interview”. ;)
Birgit @56:
…oh yeah. The paralis-net. Yes.
Bzzz™.
lostinshadow @48 – Although some readers object to this, I think it’s pretty clear that “last extreme” does not, for many AS, mean “after having exhausted all forms of defense.” For Moiraine in the previous chapter, “last extreme” is apparently defined as “the need to defend her life.” She was actively trying to provoke the bandits into attacking so that she could use the OP against them, intending to take the survivors to a magistrate. This would imply that she expected non-survivors as well, and she quite clearly didn’t think so highly of her companions as to assume they could do it themselves. Therefore, she was obviously intending to use the OP as an offensive – and deadly – weapon, but they had to attack first. No thought whatsoever of “shields of Air” in her planning. There are quite a few other examples where AS only need to feel endangered in order to use the OP as an offensive weapon, so there’s no “last resort” in their perception of their Oath. Defensive measures need not be exhausted in order to take the offensive.
Freelancer – Yup. Good to see you!
@56 Birgit: I’m not sure – the paralis-net would actually break the weave (from what we saw at the cleansing and the capture of Semirhage) which would surely have been noticed/commented upon by Dashiva or Rand?
@48 lostinshadow: Even better option – opening a gateway through the person attacking you ;) Solves both problems – fight or flight – at once!
@34 chaplainchris: *giggle* I like it, old Chap ;)
~lakesidey
All the bad people Moiraine ran into in Chachin surprised me. I always had this borderland ideal, and this just didn’t jibe with it. Is it just city borderlanders? I know she is in a bad part of town, but from the series proper it seemed that the borderlanders were mostly about fighting shadow spawn and being honorable. I can certainly see where there might be some bad ones, but it seems everywhere Moiraine went was someone theiving or wanting to poisen her ect.
I can see what Moiraine did as just deserts, unfortunatly someone else in that establishment is going to continue what Satarov had been doing. I guess what I am saying is that I can get on board with what Moiraine did to Satarov if it stopped what happened to unweary travelers going forward, but I don’t think it did. Some else – literaly, has filled her shoes.
tempest™
Maybe, but our impressions of Borderlanders have not otherwise revolved around Kandori. We’ve seen plenty of Shienarans and Saldaeans, but not so much of Kandori or Arafellin. I can assume based on the role they played with the former kingdom of Malkier that Arafellers are ok people, but Kandori? We don’t really know, do we? What else has ever happened in Kandor besides this and maybe bits of Lan’s march to Tarwin’s Gap? Besides, there’s always bad people in large cities, regardless of their stance regarding the Big Prime Evil.
The real reason I wanted to post was to comment on the innkeeper Moiraine induced into drinking her own medicine. First, I assumed it was poison and not just roofies she was going to have Moiraine drink. Second, we’ve seen that proto-Moiraine believes very strongly in a rough kind of justice. Just a couple chapters earlier she wanted to take out the entire band of brigands rather than scaring them off. It’s completely in-character with what we’ve seen of her thus far.
Whether or not she’s using Compulsion? Well, I’m not sure. I’m not going to go back and reread the passage, but what I recall was that she made the innkeeper nervous enough that for something to do and to wet her lips, she took a drink from the cup in her hand. Granted, Moiraine did command her to do so, but I had hoped this was more power of suggestion than it was actual compulsion.
Still, if she is compelling people, so what? Is compulsion inherently evil? We think of it as evil when a Bad person makes a Good person do something they don’t want to. But now that it’s the other way around? Is it the ends or the means that we’re perceiving as evil? If you make a bad person do something to betray their wicked ways, does that make you bad for doing it? Obviously the answer DOES depend on method, since I can think of situations (like extreme torture) where that could be the case, and taking away a person’s ability to think for themselves is a fairly heinous act…but is it completely reprehensible, or just undesirable? It isn’t as if Moiraine is breaking her mind the way Graendal would.
Freelancer,
I hope that you realize that I was joking with you about that. Otherwise, I will have to start calling you Greybeard. (Oh wait, I already do!!! LOL)
Glad to see your Greek is in fine form.
Tempest, Bzzzz, Wet and Robb (hehe)
How have you guys been. Hopefully everything is going well.
Dragon
toryx@61: That makes the assumption that it IS a wrong. That’s pretty much the question, isn’t it? Is it a wrong, or not? It’s similar to an argument on capital punishment in general. You can say “two wrongs don’t make a right”, but that’s true only if it IS wrong. It’s been a while since logic class, but isn’t that a “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy? i.e. because it’s wrong, therefore it’s wrong.
windrose@65: Well, every society has it’s bad apples, and/or just desperate, poverty-stricken people in some cases. And as you said, she WAS in the bad part of town.
Ben
I was having a slow day at work, and since it has been a while I thought I would share a little story again.
Cadsuane glanced around the common room as she entered the inn. She had expected to see it full of townsfolk just in from their daily labors, what she had not expected to find was one of the few sisters that were almost as powerful as she was. Meilyn glanced up at her and nodded, her warder, Andro sat close and watched everything and everyone all at once. Why would she be coming here now of all times, she thought to herself.
“Meilyn, what a pleasant surprise!” “How are things in the tower, still a rats nest of backbiting?”
“Of course, you surely didn’t expect a difference from the last time you were there did you?” Meilyns lips quirked upward in a smile. “I thought you were smarter than that?” she said with a little chuckle.
Cadsuane arched an eyebrow at Meilyn and smiled back, It was good to be in the company of a woman who was a friend and who also was not a fool. “what brings you to Aringill Meilyn, I figured you would be stuck in the tower trying to figure out the the whole Aiel philosophy by yourself.”
Meilyn glanced around the common room and quietly said, ” I came looking for you, we need to talk, somewhere private.” Andro looked up at Cadsuane and she saw the danger in his eyes that she heard in Meilyns words.
“I have a private dining room set aside for me, lets go there. As Meilyn and Andro got up to follow her she glanced at Gavin the innkeeper and motioned for him to bring some tea. Entering the room, she glided over to the table and sat down as Gavin hurried in and set down the tea pot and cups. “Gavin, please see that we are undisturbed, would you.” It wasn’t a question. As Gavin closed the door behind him, she heard the door lock, and Androl took up the chair closest to it. Cadsuane weaved a ward against eavesdropping, and let go of Saidar. She no longer felt the desire to keep it,even though it warmed her as always.
Meilyn sat staring at Cadsuane for a moment before she began to talk. ” I just received word that Aisha, Ludice, and Valera were murdered by bandits within the past few weeks.” This is on top of Tamra dying in her sleep a while back.” “What I am about to tell you was sealed to the flame between Tamra, myself, those three, and Kerene.” You know that I would never break the law, but what I have to tell you, has to be known to someone besides us. Tamra called each of us into her office, told us that Gitara had a foretelling just before she died.” “Cadsuane, she foretold that the Dragon was Reborn. she tasked us with finding him and protecting him. I am sure you have heard of her bounty, she did it to get the names of all the children born at the time, so that we could go out and have some hope of finding him. We each have a list of names we are looking for.
Meilyn looked at Cadsuane, swallowed, and said, “I am sure now that the Black Ajah is behind their deaths, even the death of Tamra. I believe we are being searched for to find out what we know. I am telling you because you are the strongest of us. No one will know that you will be looking as well, in case things go wrong.
Cadsuane had frozen at mention of the Black, she had been searching for evidence of their existense for a while, but had yet to find proof that would stand in the hall. She finally noticed that Meilyn was scared underneath her frozen calm. “Meilyn, thank you for trusting me, I will help you, together we will find the child, and destroy the Blacks once and for all.”
“I am returning to the tower,” Meilyn said, “the Amyrlin must learn of our search and what is happening.”
“Haste and safety guide your journey, may you be protected by the light.”
It was now nearly a month later, when Cadsuane approached Canluum. She had spent the last few weeks traveling north. She had stopped in several towns and villages. Everywhere she went she heard of Aes Sedai being out, going from town to town. It was in the the first village north of Tar Valon that she had heard of the death of the first lucky man. since then, nearly every other village was talking about a death of someone. The person was always recognized to be the lucky man, or boy of the village. It was near the last village that she had finally figured out what was going on. The Black Ajah were murdering anyone who showed the slightest bit of luck. She knew why they were doing it, she had spent more time with channeling men than every other sister alive in the tower. She had talked with them, knew that they started exhibiting signs of extraordinary luck before they began to channel. She had grown to know quite a few of them, taught them that just because the power is gone, doesn’t mean that they have nothing to live for. The Black knew that the Dragon Reborn was alive, but not that he was an infant. She had to uncover them before they found out the truth.
benpmoldovan @@@@@ 68:
I didn’t think there was any question that the actions of the innkeeper, i.e. drugging unsuspecting customers and putting them in harm’s way, is wrong. Otherwise, why would Moiraine be so upset by it? If that wasn’t wrong, then Moiraine’s actions are actually doubly uncool.
For that matter, Moiraine had no actual proof of what the innkeeper did to those she drugged. Granted, it can’t be good but can it really compare to leaving a woman drugged and incapable of defending herself in the middle of an empty inn in a part of the city where people can’t take two steps without being accosted?
It seems pretty obvious to me that there’s a whole lot of wrongdoing going on from both sides.
Of course, Moiraine was raised in an environment where atrocities happen all the time. It’s not as though Cairhien is known for its benevolence.
toryx@70: I’m confused by your question. Of course it can really compare to leaving her drugged and incapable of defending herself – it’s the very same drink she intended to give Moiraine, to leave Moiraine drugged and incapable of defending herself!
Thewindrose @65 – I was pretty surprised by these chapters for the same reason – always assumed that the Borderland cities are much safer than this, especially for women. The situation in Shienar is apparently quite different than in Kandor – Uno was appalled that in Samara a woman was not safe on the streets after dark, and Nynaeve thought “in Shienar, a woman was safe anywhere, any time — except from Trollocs and Myrddraal, of course — and any man would die to see it so.”
@72
I can’t decide if this is a discontinuity or if it was intended to show the difference between what Lords and Soldiers believe and what commoners have to deal with. Keep in mind that Uno and company were in service of the Lord of Fal Dara, and Lan is the King of Malkier for all intents and purposes. Do they simply delude themselves that their towns to do not have slums where women are mistreated, because their locations shelter them from this urban reality?
This would be an interesting question to pose to Brandon on Twitter, really.
Sam @69: ::applauds:: Bravo!!
I notice you also got the ancient AS number. ;)
Bzzz™.
pwl @@@@@ 73 and others
Interesting questions. I believe you are right (@@@@@ 73) more or less. The extent to which women are iconized seems too exaggerated. Or rather too profound to be widespread to the same level outside lords’ households or maintained throughout. Lan’s view, and maybe the ones of his close associates is “text-book” level- as much and more, just to be safe.
On the other hand, I don’t think we’ve seen the sort of sinister stuff in this city so widespread anywhere else in WOT.
Sam@69: awesome, as usual.
@Sam, very lovely… It also helps to explain how ill-tempered Cadsuane can be in the main series. I mean, she’s spent 20 years looking for Rand only to find that pretty much half the world gets to meet him before she does. I would be pretty upset if I spent 20 years attempting to do something important only to find that someone else beet me to it. She’s almost like Liebniz instead of Newton or Tesla instead of Edison…there, but not quite fast enough :-)
and, yes, I did equate finding the Dragon Reborn and snuffing out the BA to Calculus and the light bulb…
Also, I think I will have to agree with Valmar and pwl that Uno and Lan may have a conflated sense of their citizenry. There are evil, greedy a**holes in every society who are willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead. Somehow, I find it more repugnant that it was a woman who was drugging other woman and selling them to into God-knows-what. I know women can also be amoral, greedy a**holes, but still…. **shudders** forced slavery is one of the worst sins I can imagine. Of course, Compulsion, in a way, in like slavery. One person is superimposing his/her own will upon another person. The compulsee looses his/her own freedom of mind and, in some cases, becomes mentally dependent upon the compulsor. Probably why Egwene and other AS have such a problem with it.
I don’t really have a problem with what Moiraine did to the innkeeper, but I have always believed that the punishment should fit the crime. What that woman was doing was reprehensible, and she got exactly what she had given to others.
I’ve yet to see anyone peg the most obvious connection between Aes Sedai and their warders, which is clearly a reference to Alfred Hitchcock and a block of sharp cheddar cheese. The best way to handle the situation with Siuan would have been to level the White Tower’s lawn and set up a croquet tournament. This would have led to a much greater level of preparation in later years when dealing with Mat’s lechery with barmaids. I realize that may be a confusing line of thought, but I’ll clarify by specifying that in no way do I think that Mat had planned on asking Tuon to the prom, even though she practically invited him to do so when she sang him that “Friday” song that Rebecca Black did a cover of recently. And I am STILL not completely certain what would happen if someone drove a forklift through the Ways. I’m really hoping that Brandon Sanderson ties that thread up neatly in AMOL, otherwise I might just have to write a sequel myself. And while it’s obvious that sequel would probably outsell every other WoT book to date (and possibly Little Women) I just wouldn’t feel right stealing all the spotlight like that. At any rate, back to Siuan. Whether or not she suspected that Moraine was in fact pretending to be a haughty Vegas showgirl really depends on your perspective of silverpike. If you feel that a pair of silverpike is worth a fox in the bush, then you’re probably lying in bed with a pair of dragons climbing up your herons (if you catch my drift). If you don’t catch my drift, I’ll spell it out for you. d-r-i-f-t. It makes much more sense if you say each individual letter. But I digress. The amount of time it took Moraine to learn to channel the proper weaves of Saidar to cook her breakfast was roughly the same amount of time that it took Lan to fix the radiator in the old Volkswagon. And speaking of Lan, I often wonder, since he’s got a “stone face” does that mean that if he were lying perfectly still on the ground, and happened to get trod on by an unsuspecting darkhound, that his face would start to smell like sulphur? I’m surely not the first person to wonder that, but I probably am the first person to realize that Rand and Padan Fain used to date the same girl in high school, which is what ultimately lead to their bitter rivalry later on. The way I understand it in TFOH, Fain was going to ask her to move in with him, but Rand was kind of like “Look buddy, I’ll take it from here” and then they moved to Florida. I would have been upset too. Probably not to the point of carrying a dagger around and charing people to pieces with it, but I probably would have posted something nasty on his Facebook page. It really says a lot that both Moraine and Siuan have had the decency to avoid blogging about any of their difficulties with the White Tower authorities, or Lan, or the Dark One. Most novices tend to over-dramatize things online, but it shows a lot of self-restraint that they only resorted to egging cars and toilet papering barns and horses. Anyway, I continue to enjoy Leigh’s commentary for the most part, with the exception of her perpetual oversight of the Forklifts-In-The-Ways topic. I don’t know if it’s because she knows it will inevitably spark a fiery debate between men and women, mostly because of the preferred color and fuel economony of the forklift, but it’s really a pretty important thing to discuss at some point, because the plot of the entire series hinges on it so much. Anyway, I’m going to go eat some waffles and gelato. I love you guys.
Jobert Rordan @78: ::blinks::
…
You need to go gray, man. We could definitely use your wit and wisdom around here more often! XD
Bzzz™.
Sam@69 – Thanks for the story; I could get behind that representation of WoT history.
Jobert Rordan@78 – I don’t think I have the words… except to say that I’ve been known to have a blindspot when it comes to considering the implications of forklifts unleashed in magical, mystical and fictional passage ways. Now, if we were talking about wrecking balls unleashed on a Skimming platform, then I’ve got paragraphs of material…
Here’s an old quote from RJ about the scene with Moiraine and the innkeeper:
I didn’t manage to comment on the previous installment, IIRC, but Moiraine’s beastly behavior to Lan never made any kind of sense to me and seemed grossly OoC. I mean yea, she was “young” (but not really _that_ young for that setting at 22) and a new AS, but:
She had a really good reason to keep her status secret and yet she flaunted it without ever thinking to herself that her hot-headedness was landing her deeper and deeper in the soup.
Also, _allergy_?!!! (sic!). I mean, that sticks out like a sore thumb. How on earth could Randlandians have any conception of allergy? They have an understanding of medicine on the level of late 19th century, no more.
It is not believable at all for Moiraine to think that status and violence could force respect.
She is not a Nynaeve, who could plausibly believe that thumping somebody with a stick would force them to respect her, she is Laman’s niece who grew up at the court of Cahirien and a WT initiate.
She herself didn’t respect numerous people (Laman, Elaida, Sierin Vayu, her Keeper, etc.) on those grounds, why should she expect a desirable warder material to do so?
Finally, as somebody who excelled at scholarship as well as channeling and who intended to travel widely even before the news of DR’s rebirth, Moiraine’s cluelessness re: Borderlander customs (not Malkieri ones specifically, those confuse even other Borderlanders), makes zero sense. They _do_ teach that kind of thing at the WT.
There were other, more in-character opportunities to show Moiraine’s inexperience IMHO – for instance she could have had more problems with travelling rough and communicating with commoners than she did. It would have made vastly more sense, IMHO.
Now, Moiraine’s misadventures in Cachin are much more fitting, they are really miscalculations that somebody like her is likely to make.
I am not sure why we are supposed to be outraged on behalf of the poisoning inkeeper anymore than on behalf of various non-DF footpads whom Mat casually kills.
I dare say the news of the event would have discouraged others in the same line of work for a time, too.
I always appreciated Moiraine’s decisiveness over milkesoppiness of SGs, who couldn’t bring themselves to kill an obvious evil-doer time after time and as a result the latter would escape and/or decent people would die. Also, as has been noted previously all her prior experiences made her think herself qualified to deliver summary justice.
The sleazy parts of Cachin demonstrate once again how out of place women’s refusal to learn to use weapons and cultural insistence against teh same really are in WoT setting ;). Also, the notion that women are less aware of their surroundings and unable to watch their backs.
Oh, and that ToM fragment with doomed but faithful warriors on the Blightborder was from Kandor, so there is little reason to think that their mainstream culture is less honorable than that of other Borderlanders.
Kind of interesting also, how the novella part of NS doesn’t jive at all with novel’s earlier declaration that Siuan was the leader of the 2 of them. And neither did their scenes in TGH, BTW. Siuan having to bludgeon everybody as an Amyrlin also kind of speaks against her being a natural leader.
As to the wisdom of Moiraine’s going to the palace as herself… hm. They do have reasons to think that finding the DR is rather urgent at this point and that boy was a very promising candidate as well as too prominent for comfort, so I’d guess that it made sense on the whole.
@leigh – I fear your proximity more than your French. Not that there is much difference, now. So now that you’re back down here do you think we can get Brandon to come to NO on the AMOL tour? No one ever comes to NO…but I bet we could get a good turnout.
@@@@@ Isilel: RJ’s comment about “the nonexistent mercies of the patrons” implies that the victim (whether Moiraine or the innkeeper herself) would probably end up raped, which is something most people would have a hard time condemning anyone to no matter what they might be guilty of.
HArai @@@@@ 71:
My question was really more rhetorical than anything else. My point is that Moiraine has more knowledge of the results of her decisions than she does about what would have happened to her. Regardless, nothing good could come of either scenario. Which I thought was rather obvious.
But let’s look at the situation: Moiraine is leaving someone unconscious in an area of the city where it’s almost certain that rape and/or murder would be the result of her actions.
Moiraine does not know what would have happened to her. Perhaps the same. Perhaps some sort of slavery (though supposedly such things don’t occur in Randland). Or perhaps something as simple as an abduction for a ransom, which certainly does happen a lot in Randland, particularly in Cairhien.
Personally, I think the inn keeper was up to much worse than abduction for ransom but Moiraine had no way of knowing for sure.
Isilel @@@@@ 82:
I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer a quick dagger thrust to the heart than to be raped, beaten and only then murdered.
Here is a the first two paragraphs from aLoM
The wind traveled down the mountain side past gaping cavern, it didn’t start on the mountain, nor will it end there, as there are neither beginnings nor endings. The wind swirled down through the blight stirring up all manner of shadowspawn. Packs of worms raced ahead of wind now, Darkhounds coursed and killed any prey that got in their way. The Last Battle had begun, the shadows creatures advanced to face the armies of light. The wind howled up through the Tarwin’s Gap, countless tens of thousands of trollocs and myrddraal. The wind continued up the gap until it came to an army of men all charging down the pass at the trolloc army. As it engulfed the men and horses, men started choking, the horses rearing and panicking, in a matter of moments the well disciplined army broke apart. Men falling of their horses, horses gone mad stampeding up and down the line. The army of trollocs charged. It was not the end one would up for.
Back in Shayol Ghul.
Demandred lets go of what looks to be a giant finger as it is pulled back through a weak spot in the pattern. “Did I do Well Great Lord?”
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA”
Don’t cramp my style SandonBranderson.
Alright, I’m going back to mopping up all this milk with a sponge made entirely out of hair and pasta. I love you guys.
Samadai@69
Another excellent piece! The problem is … I’m starting to remember stuff you’ve written as though it was part of the canon!
To all my friends on this reread: A very happy April Fools day to you! I’ve spared you any hijinks – but I did not spare my friends at the Jeep Garage forum (the other internet place I hang out.)
It’s been kind of quiet here on the reread.
Robert @78
You can’t fool me, old Volkswagen’s have no radiator! Hah!
MAT @67
Yes, I understood. Just figured I might as well own it.
@Free- yeah! IIRC Veedub’s were air cooled and whenever my friends and I would tool out to the mountains for the July long weekend, we’d see them pulled over at the side of the road, as the “air cooling” could not overcome the hot day and the highway speeds… and yes, sometimes it does get warm in Canada… at least in the summer.
Moiraine- well, good for her here. Edit-What in the nine hells just happened here?! gah! This is a prime example where vigilante justice was called for. IMHO Moiraine does mete out justice properly, my only regret is that she did not say “skadoosh” at the end. It was probably not the first time the innkeeper did what she did, and if Moiraine hadn’t laid the smack down, probably not the last.
Er… TOR techs… things seem to be working better, except for the cut and paste… there seems to be miles of space randomly inserted here. Also, when I want to go onto other pages, I sometimes have to log in again. Baffling… or bagelling, just down right confusing. But things are getting better. yay. Now how about that spell check? Edit… I take it back. Wonky things are still happening. Especially when editing comments.
What does get me is something somebody brought up on this thread- the feel of some of this is off- Moiraine does know better about decorum and such as she was raised by Cairheinien- can’t remember spelling- nobility standards. Yet Moiraine does seem to be mucking about a lot here, while Siuan is a proverbial fish out of water. If ever we want to show that Moiraine doesn’t know everything at a young and early age, her having mistrails “camping out” should be at the top of the list. Look at how the TR kids had it rough. Perrin and Egwene barely got by until Elyas showed up. Rand and Mat had a hard go of it too. Moiraine has it easy… but then again, she was riding with Lan.
@Sam, good story, full of win, just one thing tho’, I don’t think in any of the books, ever, Cadsuane actually says “thank you” to anybody. Reading it was more off putting that Mo’s magic weave… and I am not refering to her new do vs. Caddy’s net.
Woof™.
Sam@69: Bravo! Unfortunately, I’ll now probably recollect that as canon.
Sweetlilflower@77: Leibnitz vs. Newton/ Tesla vs. Edison……equating finding the Dragon to calculus and the light bulb…..LOL…love it!
Jobert Rordan@78: Very funny! Wish I’d been around on April 1st. Dang.
And another: Sandon@86: LOL. Thanks all for the laughs. I need them these days.
As for this section: I’m with Toryx here. I think Mo has stooped to the level of the evil innkeeper. She could’ve been much more creative and instructive in her punishment, rather than being as low and nasty as her potential perp.
Insectoid, BenPMoldavan, sweetlilflower, KiManiak, Sub, Forkroot, and Tek, thanks for the good words. I enjoy writing them, so I am glad you enjoy them. Tek, Forkroot, you flatter me too much but thank you. It is an honor for you to think that. And Tek thanks for liking my other piece that I wrote. ;D
Sub @91: Did you upgrade to Firefox 4? Might help.
Sam @93: Re: @86… I figured that was you. Well played! ;)
Bzzz™.
Dude, I took that upgrade before TOR took it’s upgrade, been running the beta for a few months and am now on 4.1 or 4.12… something. anyways, bottom line, there is still goat blowing goin’ on here and it is not my server. I’m sure I’m not the only one, just one of the more annoyed/annoying complaining ones here.
Woof™.
I’d like to echo Sub on the spellcheck thing. My Firefox spellcheck even works in my chat windows; I think this is the only place on the net I frequent where it doesn’t work.
Toryx@85: Here’s what I think Moiraine’s mindset would be. The person known to be the innkeeper of a inn is not only willing to have patrons drugged in her inn, but is obviously willing to do it herself. Unless you’re going to posit that she’s a moron, there are only 2 reasons why she would be willing to “crap where she sleeps”:
1) Those patrons will never be able to report this to the authorities. That is, the plan is to kill them or sell them into slavery or something similar.
2) The innkeeper is of such influence that she can do these things and the authorities won’t do anything about it.
This isn’t like robbing someone on the highway. You can’t pack up your inn and elude the patrol that gets sent for you. The only time you show your face to the abductee is if you’re going to kill them whether or not you get the ransom. None of this is going to incline Moiraine to go easy.
Why do people think my post had something to do with April Fools? This is serious business.
Alright, back to stuffing my mailbox with blocks of cheese. I love you.
@TOR People – Another thing. It would be FANTASTIC, in the conversations portion of our profiles, if the time of the last post actually linked to that post. Even more amazing would be a read/unread function but I understand that is more complicated.
Banzai!!!
Weeeeeeeeeeee! One Hunny- back in the land of the living:D
Ahem, folks do crap where they sleep, my girl just did that this morning and lemme tell you- I cannot put into words the mess it makes, so hopefully either the innkeeper did not do that on a regular basis… or if she did, it was what HArai implied and that she was a very bad woman that did very bad things. I am inclined to that theory myself, RJ seemed to be leaning towards it as he described the skeevy section of town with this inn as the center peice, so back to my idea of vigilante justice. Harsh as it sounds, the woman had it coming to her, if we were talking about putting orphans into slavery or killing puppies, I am sure no one would bat an eye for what Moiraine did- bottom line, the innkeeper was preying on the unsuspecting and the weak. Bad innkeeper, bad.
@JR- dude, what about us that can’t do the cheese thing? Come to think, stuffing my mailbox with the stuff is about all I could do with it… never mind, carry on;)
Woof™.
After waiting for the dust to settle, I felt like kicking it up again, regarding Moiraine’s “justice”.
Aside from scaring the innkeeper into not lying to her, what did she do? She made the woman drink the drink which the woman wanted her to drink. If the drink were harmless, then Moiraine’s actions caused the woman no harm. If the drink were harmful, it was the woman’s own hand which made it so. Beyond that, Moiraine “left her to the tender mercies of her patrons”. While Moiraine seems to have a good idea what that might entail, she neither had nor has proof, and didn’t stay to be given any. For all we know the patrons carried the good innkeeper upstairs to sleep it off.
Mock outrage over Moiraine allowing a fiend to take their own medicine is the only real crime, here. I cannot agree that Moiraine has “stooped” to the level of the innkeeper. If the woman had evil intentions, then it is only her own evil which befalls her. If she did not, then nothing Moiraine did harms her. Think about that, and think about the next dozen victims who won’t suffer due to this woman’s evil intentions, thanks to Moiraine.
Forced suicide is still suicide? Not sure anyone sane should agree with this point. Having someone shoot themselves instead of you shooting them does not remove you of cuplability because “their own hand made it so”. Not arguing the larger point, though.
HArai @@@@@ 97:
I can accept the possibility that Moiraine was viewing it that way. That’s a pretty reasonable way of looking at it that could well fit her personality. And I didn’t expect Moiraine to let the woman off with a slap on the wrist and a stern look as she tells the woman not to do it again.
I don’t even think it’s out of character for Moiraine. But I do think that leaving a woman to such a fate is needlessly cruel revenge and it further lowers my estimation of her.
Freelancer @@@@@ 101:
Mock outrage, huh? Well here’s how I’d put it. The author has illustrated very efficiently what a rough environment Moiraine happens to be in. He didn’t hold anything back here. I think it’s pretty naive for anyone to believe, whether it’s Moiraine in character or the reader, that the woman is going to avoid some serious bodily harm to her person as a result of Moiraine’s actions.
This isn’t about an eye for an eye. It’s about leaving someone (namely a woman) defenseless in an obviously violent environment. I don’t care how evil a woman might be, I will be outraged (nothing mock here) when anyone leaves a woman to be raped or otherwise subjected to the kind of abuse that has been pretty clearly suggested in this chapter. It will color my opinion of such a person and I can do nothing more than think that, regardless of her intent, the choice Moiraine made was an evil one.
I think you’re right, however, in using the “take your own medicine” analogy. That may well be the perspective that Jordan was intending to portray. I just don’t happen to think that this is a particularly moral or applaudable response. If I see an evil I’m going to stop it but I sure as hell am not going to emulate it in doing so.
I just happen to think that a good or righteous person will do better. Which means, quite simply, that I don’t think Moiraine is a good or righteous person.
Moiraine’s vetting of justice goes to the heart of the question of alignment in D&D terms – Good – Neutral – Evil (forget chaos vs lawfulness for now). In Randland the only discussion has been light and dark. Is there room for a neutral view.
For the AS, the view is to oppose the dark.
For the Whitecloaks – it is also opposition to darkness.
But they part on the semantics of the one power – and how justice is carried out and for what.
Any takers?
Toryx @103:
I just happen to think that a good or righteous person will do better.
Which means, quite simply, that I don’t think Moiraine is a good or
righteous person.
Well, then nobody in the books is, apart from the SGs, perhaps, who endlessly capture evildoers so that they can later escape and murder some more.
All the rest of them do kill people who attack them, even when those people sometimes “only” look to beat them up and rob them.
toryx@103: I’m curious now. What exactly do you think Moiraine should have done, given the constraints she believes her search for the DR puts on her. In other words, given she can’t go to the authorities and can’t hang around, she should have— what?
Look at Hawkwing- his justice was harsh. He was a harsh man. Just about brought the Tower to its knees. Nobles didn’t like him because he promoted people based on merit rather than lineage.The common folk loved him and you could walk from one end of his empire to the other with safety. In this instance ask yourself WWAHD? For me, I am thinking the odds of this lady living long after a trail in Hawkwing’s courts would not be high.
“‘Artur Hawkwing brought peace and justice, but he did it with fire and
sword. A child could ride alone with a bag of gold from the Aryth Ocean to the Spine of the World and never have a moment’s fear, but the High King’s justice was as hard as that rock there for anyone who challenged his power, even if it was just by being who they were, or by people thinking they were a challenge. The common folk had peace, and justice, and full bellies, but he laid a twenty-year siege to Tar Valon and put a price of a thousand gold crowns on the head of every Aes Sedai.’
Woof™.
Isilel @@@@@ 105:
As I stated before (to you @@@@@ 85, in fact) I consider leaving someone to be raped and brutalized far more cruel and outright evil than killing someone in self-defense. Death is easy and it comes to us all one way or another. What men will do to a defenseless woman in a rough part of town (in Randland and the real world) is far worse.
HArai @@@@@ 106:
Moraine neglected to turn the woman over to the authorities because it was inconvenient for her to do so (which, ironically, didn’t matter when she ended up dropping her guise eventually anyway) not because she had no other choice. If she didn’t want to do it right away she could have left the woman alone and returned later or sent someone else in her stead.
Or she could have left the woman alone completely, just as she (presumably) did the other three people who attempted to poison her. Either that, or she’s leaving a string of drugged women and men to who knows what sort of nasty fate. Which is always possible.
People assume that she just had to do something with this woman. But in one day she’s offered drugged wine four times. Taking out one person (or four) isn’t going to change anything. All it’s really guaranteed to do is give her satisfaction for the insult. Which, again, isn’t an admirable quality in my book.
toryx@108: Thanks for the reply. I guess we’ll just have to leave it at YMMV. In my opinion “Taking out one person (or four) isn’t going to change anything” is precisely what enables crimes of this sort to continue, and leaving it to continue to keep your own hands clean isn’t admirable or moral. I also disagree rape is worse than killing. While it isn’t trivial or easy in any sense, and it will affect them and others for the rest of their lives, it’s possible for a person to go on and have a life they want after being raped. It doesn’t matter how much inner strength or support you have, you can’t cope with being dead.
HArai @@@@@ 109:
Just for clarification: The reason it won’t change anything is that there’s someone else who will step right in and take the place of the first. If Moiraine actually was seeking to change something, she’d have had to do something more than simply leave the innkeeper for dead.
Secondly, in the scenario that I’ve been trying to lay out (though it’s so distasteful I don’t even want to use the words anymore) I’m also working under the belief that the innkeeper will be dead at the end of the abuse she suffers. So she’s dead either way, only the way I’m envisioning is far, far more painful.
But it does work out to YMMV. Honestly, I ordinarily might not be so bothered by this whole topic, except that the things men do to defenseless women has been in the news a lot lately and my nerves are still raw from it. I can’t imagine anyone who would even consider leaving another person in that kind of position. Frankly, it disgusts and horrifies me. And Freelancer kind of set me off with that whole “Mock Outrage” comment.
toryx @@@@@ 108, 110: Agreed on everything you said. It was revenge, not justice, and lowered my opinion of Moiraine.
Meh, it’s pretty much like the difference between Old Testament and New Testament justice.
Woof™.
Toryx @110:
The reason it won’t change anything is that there’s someone else who will step right in and take the place of the first.
Not immediately, I don’t think. I dare say that folks in the same line would be frightened for a time and desist.
It isn’t like there is an on-going demand for this sort of thing, it is entirely opportunity-based.
In fact, it is exactly what Cadsuane was warning Moiraine about, which is why I doubt that the innkeeper would be killed. It isn’t like she could accuse anybody or even know who to accuse.
Which is also why Moiraine couldn’t go to authorities – it would be her word against the inkeeper’s, as none of the clientele would testify in her support. The only way to get anywhere legally would be to out herself as an AS, which she rightly wanted to avoid, given the stakes.
Nor do I see how it was revenge in any shape or form. It may have been a bit of an Old Testament justice, sure, which is why ultimately Moiraine stopped doing such things.
But Mat killing footpads who attack him, when he could have merely disabled them, what with his magical ueber-luck and supernaturally granted fighting skills is also quite OT, no? When he is jumped in ToM (and he is actually longing to get jumped BTW – he enjoys it), he decides who will live and who will die entirely according to his own lights.
He is so much better than those muggers that he could have easily escaped them without killing anybody, but he takes it upon himself to judge and execute them.
And Toryx, if most people were as philosophical about being killed as you are, the world wouldn’t have been as it currently is. The fact is, that most people want to live and would prefer abuse to death. So, Mat’s behavior is actually quite a bit more self-righteous and vigilantist than Moiraine’s.
Sounds controversial. We’re not talking about “getting beat up” or “getting raped and left alone”. Since this is an ongoing thing needing secrecy, the choices are pretty much “sold into sexual slavery” or “raped and then killed”. It would be interesting to see how those stack up against toryx’s “dagger to the heart”. I suspect the latter would be the most popular choice…
Again, judging from RJ’s comments, what happened to the innkeeper probably included rape. When Rand sends Milisair Chadmar to her own torturers in TGS, we’re not meant to think Milisair got what she deserved; it was to show how Rand was turning into a monster. What Moiraine did to the innkeeper wasn’t any better.
Pwl @114:
Since this is an ongoing thing needing secrecy, the choices are pretty
much “sold into sexual slavery” or “raped and then killed”.
There is no need for any secrecy or murder, as the innkeeper couldn’t complain. Not only couldn’t she identify anybody because of the drug, but she was complicit in the same crimes in the past.
Sleepinghour @115:
When Rand sends Milisair Chadmar to her own torturers in TGS, we’re not
meant to think Milisair got what she deserved; it was to show how Rand
was turning into a monster.
Well, this is a bit hypocritical, isn’t it? Mat killing would-be muggers is what they deserve, but turning the spit on the innkeeper or Millisair Chadmar is monstrous?
Not that Chadmar, who was guilty of having people tortured to death, was being tortured or anything, IIRC, just held in very uncomfortable surroundings.
Of course, RJ believed that even the worst, mass-murdering/torturing female evil-doers must be treated with kid gloves by _men_ (ugh), but then, Moiraine is not a man, is she.
sleepinghour @115
The difference is, though, that Rand grew into it while Moiraine grew out of it…Moiraine became a better person while Rand did not.
Also keep in mind that what RJ knows about the fate of the innkeeper is not necessarily what Moiraine knows what would happen to that woman. For what it’s worth she might have expected the innkeeper to be roughed up and chewed out for her failing but not raped, killed or whatever-ed…
I’m referring to the innkeeper’s previous victims. The innkeeper and/or patrons would obviously need secrecy, or the victims would report them.
Isilel @@@@@ 116:
Well, this is a bit hypocritical, isn’t it? Mat killing would-be muggers
is what they deserve, but turning the spit on the innkeeper or
Millisair Chadmar is monstrous?
Where have I said anything about Mat?
Not that Chadmar, who was guilty of having people tortured to death, was being tortured or anything, IIRC, just held in very uncomfortable surroundings.
Unlike the scene with Moiraine and the innkeeper, here we actually get to see what happened to the victim and it isn’t pretty. What the jailers actually did to her is anyone’s guess–the only order Rand gave was to make sure she didn’t “suffer the same fate” as the dead messenger, which is open to interpretation: it could have meant no torture, or simply not allowing her to die as he did. This restriction would also only have lasted until Rand was “finished” with her.
This line also applies to the situation with the innkeeper. However, it’s easier to shrug off what happened to her because we never got to see any of it. Perhaps Moiraine herself would have regretted her decision if she’d actually stuck around to watch.
Of course, RJ believed that even the worst, mass-murdering/torturing female evil-doers must be treated with kid gloves by _men_ (ugh), but then, Moiraine is not a man, is she.
Putting aside whether you believe it’s right to treat women differently, how do you think most readers would have reacted if Perrin had cut the hand off a Shaido Maiden, or Mat killed the female assassin as easily as he did the men? Like it or not, Rand and Mat would’ve been seen as less heroic if they hadn’t been reluctant to hurt women.
Or for that matter, Galina tormented by a man instead of Therava would have made people a lot more uncomfortable. That’s why female evil-doers nearly always end up punished by women (Suroth by Tuon, Sevanna by Tylee) or evil men/creatures like Hanlon and Shaidar Haran.
Randalator @@@@@ 117:
Moiraine became a better person while Rand did not.
Did she? In TEotW she was ready to leave Nynaeve behind with the Whitecloaks even though she knew they’d have tortured and killed her. They would have blamed her for Perrin and Egwene’s disappearance and had her executed as a Darkfriend.
In TDR, it’s made clear that both Lan and Moiraine can be quite cold-blooded at times. Perrin says Simion knows she’s Aes Sedai, and even though Simion hadn’t done anything wrong at that point, they consider killing him to prevent him from telling anyone.
I’m curious, did you guys have the same reaction to Nynaeve leaving the two sul’dam in Falme bound with a’dams? She left them to be tortured into submission to slavery after all…
Just to stir the pot a bit more…
How does leaving the innkeeper compare with Nynaeve’s leaving the Suldam she captured held by a’dams back in tGH?
Seems a very good comparison to me.
So…
Was that justice? Does anyone think less of Nynaeve for it?
Was is better or worse that Moiraine’s justice here?
shadow_jak@122: Jinx! You owe me a beer :)
HArai @@@@@ 121: I actually thought about that scene, but it’s harder to judge in that they had very few options. The only other one on the table, as suggested by Elayne, was to kill them. They were in Seanchan headquarters and needed to leave quickly and quietly or get caught. Channeling would have been risky. So what else could they have done to make two sul’dam remain in the room without calling for help while they escaped? It was self-defense as much as punishment.
(Incidentally, both sul’dam escaped without being made damane.)
HArai@123: Missed by *that* much. Would you believe…
Nah
Oh well, Draft OK? I’ll pull one for you in the bunker.
sleepinghour@124:
Yeah. They only got demoted down to the equivalent of sweeping up the stalls. But does that make any difference?
Both Moiraine and Nynaeve left the evil doers to their just deserts. I don’t see a difference.
In fact, the Innkeeper may have woke up, unharmed in her bed. After all, she surely had a few folks about that she could somewhat trust.
As for what they could have done, a little channeling is surely common in the damane kennels when Suldam are around. So is a little screaming and begging for that matter. Don’t see a problem.
sleepinghour@124: I would say gagging and binding them would have worked. They had the option, Seta even suggests it! Nynaeve specifically said she was doing justice to leave them with the a’dam. The fact the sul’dam got away was because Rand revealed himself as the Dragon Reborn in the sky as the Heroes of the Horn attacked the Seanchan. It’s not as though Nynaeve was taking that into account. Her intention for justice was for them to be found and made damane.
“Like it or not, Rand and Mat would’ve been seen as less heroic if they hadn’t been reluctant to hurt women.”
Really? I for one have exactly the opposite view. Their reluctance to hurt women is really stupid, annoying and sexist, and the books would’ve been much better without it.
Anyway, let’s not forget that the standards for justice in Randland are way harsher than the contemporary Western ones. Even in Andor cutpurses are supposed to be executed. This innkeeper wold surely have gotten a swift execution if she was brought to the authorities. So I don’t see the big deal. I wish the SGs were more ruthless too.
Shadow_Jak @@@@@ 125:
They only got demoted down to the equivalent of sweeping up the stalls. But does that make any difference?
Not really.
In fact, the Innkeeper may have woke up, unharmed in her bed. After all, she surely had a few folks about that she could somewhat trust.
Given RJ’s comment (“Moiraine made her drink the drugged drink herself. And left her to the nonexistent mercies of her own patrons”), I doubt that.
As for what they could have done, a little channeling is surely common in the damane kennels when Suldam are around. So is a little screaming and begging for that matter. Don’t see a problem.
Keep in mind that the girls were newbies at channeling at this point. Did they even know how to tie off weaves? And channeling enough to hold two women might still have attracted unwanted attention for all they knew. Was that really a risk worth taking?
HArai @@@@@ 126:
I would say gagging and binding them would have worked.
As Mat discovered when tying up Tylin (who was even cooperating), that actually requires a good deal of work. Wasting time on that when they needed to get out as quickly as they could would have been stupid.
Bergmaniac @@@@@ 127:
This innkeeper wold surely have gotten a swift execution if she was brought to the authorities. So I don’t see the big deal. I wish the SGs were more ruthless too.
I would say there’s a big difference between handing over someone to the authorities for a swift execution, and leaving them in a helpless state among people likely to rape and beat them before killing them.
HArai @@@@@ 121 & Shadow_Jak @@@@@ 122:
Reminding us of Nynaeve’s actions with the Sul’dam is a good counterpoint. I had to think about it a little.
I think that it ultimately depends on one’s personal slide rule of tolerable offenses. I consider rape, abuse and murder to be very, very bad. I also consider the way the Sul’dam treat their damane to be very bad. Yet there pretty much was no question of the sul’dam being subjected to rape, torture and death after being found. I suppose it’s technically possible, but highly unlikely.
On the other hand, if they’d been found and the discovery was made (and could not be effectively hidden) that sul’dam are capable of being controlled with the a’dams, it would have shaken the Empire to the core and who knows what the result would have been. By the same measure, I find it far more acceptable for the Sul’dam to fully experience what they’ve done to damane than to leave the innkeeper behind for what amounts (to me) as rape, torment and murder. The scales balance out more evenly for me and I think this is much more a matter of justice than the situation involving Moiraine and the innkeeper.
sleepinghour @@@@@ 128:
That’s exactly my viewpoint on the matter, thank you.
Siuan really must be cured of that cheap streak before she gets Moiraine and herself killed hanging out in the bad parts of town. Oh boy is Moiraine ever in for a shock. Lan too to a lesser degree.