Aloha, Tor.com! Welcome to another Wheel of Time Reread Redux!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 17 and 18 of The Dragon Reborn, originally reread in this post.
All original posts are listed in The Wheel of Time Reread Index here, and all Redux posts will also be archived there as well. (The Wheel of Time Master Index, as always, is here, which has links to news, reviews, interviews, and all manner of information about the Wheel of Time in general on Tor.com.)
The Wheel of Time Reread is also available as an e-book series! Yay!
All Reread Redux posts will contain spoilers for the entire Wheel of Time series, so if you haven’t read, read at your own risk.
And now, the post!
Chapter 17: The Red Sister
Redux Commentary
Maybe it’s just because I’m in a weird mood today, but when reading this chapter it struck me that from Elaida’s perspective, it is perfectly reasonable that she should be highly suspicious of just what Egwene and Nynaeve’s deal is.
I mean, here they are, two random girls, one of whom is a wilder, from the same village as a boy she Foretold would be front and center for Armageddon, who are freakishly strong in the Power, who are obviously far too stupidly tolerant of men to ever have Red sympathies, who spirited off the heir to the throne Elaida had personally staked out as her own property responsibility and had extremely vague adventures with her, before returning with yet another village boy whom the way-too-Blue Amyrlin herself is going to be Healing for reasons no one will explain.
Basically, it would be pretty difficult for almost anyone not to find the situation at least a little hinky. For someone with a mind like Elaida’s, it’s got to be like finding photos of Obama with a birth certificate printing press. Whether the conspiracy suggested makes actual sense is irrelevant; the suggestion alone, combined with the appeal to inherent prejudices (hatred of wilders, suspicion of men, dislike of Blues) is sufficient to irretrievably cement her conviction that Evil Is Being Done.
So, like I said in the original commentary, she’s obviously trying to do the right thing. But her inherent bigotry and narrow-mindedness guarantees that what she thinks is the right thing is just about the wrongest thing possible outside of actualfacts evil.
And as we will see, it becomes something of a tossup as to whether her screamingly misguided version of “good” ends up doing more harm than actual evil people actively trying to do harm. What a legacy, eh.
Except for the most formal occasions, few Aes Sedai wore the vine-embroidered shawl with the white teardrop Flame of Tar Valon large on the wearer’s back, but Elaida wore hers, the long red fringe announcing her Ajah.
Just a short note here to mention how much I love the concept of shawls (shawls with embroidery and fringe, no less) being the Aes Sedai equivalent to uniforms and denotation of rank. Shawls are so strongly coded as feminine garments, and therefore associated with domesticity/non-professionalism/weakness, that to see them employed as emblems not only of rank but of authority, especially in the political sense, is both startling and refreshing. What a marvelously clever way to subvert standard gender roles.
“Have you forgotten,” Sheriam said in a tight voice, “that in the Tower, Healing is always done in the presence of those who bring their sick to us?”
Egwene thought that the Mistress of Novices’s stock of patience with them was about used up, but before she could stop herself, she burst out, “Then she is going to Heal him!”
“The Amyrlin Seat herself, among others, will see to him.”
OMG YAAAAAASSSS
Chapter 18: Healing
Redux Commentary
Yep, still an awesome scene. Also wonderfully described; I mentioned in the original commentary that this is one of the scenes from WOT I would most love to see on film, and this is largely owed to how vividly clear Jordan makes the scene to the inner eye. Also this time around, there was a bit of a thrill in seeing the fluted rod sa’angreal, now that I know it will eventually be put to an even awesomer use later on.
I still think it’s weird that there were no Yellow sisters present for Mat’s Healing—that we know of, anyway, since admittedly two of the sisters there were never identified. But even so, you’d think at least one of the named Aes Sedai would be Yellow, since Healing is supposed to be their raison d’être.
But then again, I guess “separating a dude’s soul from his evil magic dagger” is a bit different from dealing with, say, a broken leg, or smallpox. I’m not sure what they did here even technically counts as Healing, really, except in the sense that it saved Mat’s life, of course. So maybe that’s why there were no Yellows there. *shrug*
I’m also sort of curious about what exactly it is that they did to separate Mat and the dagger. I mean, obviously it can be shoved under the rug of “and then they did magic to it and Things Happened”, but Jordan’s magic system being a lot more mechanistic than most, it would be interesting to see whether what they did here was anything like what Rand did later to cleanse the taint from saidin, seeing as Shadar Logoth… er, residue, or miasma or whatever, was involved in both cases. Just a thought.
Suddenly Mat shouted, loud and strong. “Muad’drin tia dar allende caba’drin rhadiem!” Arched and struggling, eyes squeezed shut, he bellowed the words clearly. “Los Valdar Cuebiyari! Los! Carai an Caldazar! Al Caldazar!”
There was a ton of debate, or perhaps just confusion, in the fandom back in the day about this scene, and whether it meant that all Mat’s memories that he gets from Rhuidean later on were actually of his own past lives, or if this is the only one that’s an actual past life and the ones he gets later from the Eelfinn are just from random guys.
Personally, I always thought it was pretty clear that the latter idea is the correct one, especially since all of Mat’s pre-Rhuidean memories were solely of Manetheren, while the later ones were from all over the place. But, it was debated enough that Jordan himself later clarified it, in the interview included in the online version of COT’s Prologue. I have no idea whether that interview is still available online now, but the WOTFAQ quoted the relevant part:
Mat’s “old” memories are not from his past lives at all. The “sickness” he got from the Shadar Logoth dagger resulted in holes in his memory. He found whole stretches of his life that seemed to be missing. When he passed through the “doorframe” ter’angreal in Rhuidean, one of the things he said—not knowing that the rules here were different than in the other ter’angreal he had used—was that he wanted the holes in his memory filled up, meaning that he wanted to recover his own memories. In this place, however, it was not a matter of asking questions and receiving answers, but of striking bargains for what you want. What he received for that particular demand was memories gathered by the people on that side of the ter’angreal, memories from many men, all long dead, from many cultures. And since not everyone passing by has the nerve to journey through a ter’angreal to some other world, the memories he received were those of adventurers and soldiers and men of daring.
Jordan probably should have clarified his clarification by mentioning that at least one of Mat’s “old” memories is from a past life, namely the one in this chapter, but at least it put paid to the idea that Mat only ever got memories of his own past lives. Which would have been quite the feat of reincarnation anyway, in my opinion, considering how many of them Mat ends up with (he comments in LOC that the memories number in the thousands). Not to mention there’s at least one instance of Mat remembering dying in battle against a guy (named Aedomon), and then having a separate memory of seeing an older Aedomon die in another battle. And while it’s possible that Mat died in that first memory, was immediately reborn, and grew up enough to be in the second battle where Aedomon dies, it seems like a bit of a stretch.
And next up is Mat’s own account of this memory, which raises some other questions, but since the next two chapters really ought to go together I think I’ll leave that for next week.
So that’s our show, goys and birls! Have a week, and come on back next Tuesday!
Siuan is the one leading the circle, the others are just batteries. It doesn’t matter if they are skilled at healing.
Why is the chapter icon Rand’s sword and not Mat’s dagger?
Egwene isn’t a wilder? *checks the WoT Wikia* She didn’t start channeling unintentionally like Nynaeve, IIRC, but she had the “spark.”
Beautiful name of the day: Serafelle
Good point about Elaida’s reasoning, and I think it’s meant to show us how underhanded full of skulduggery the Aes Sedai have become, both by necessity and as a corruption of their original purpose. I think Galad and Gawyn’s reaction to all this (joining the White Cloaks and siding with Elidia) are meant to illustrate the same point, but that example is hindered by the distaste many readers feel towards the two half brothers. If Siuan had been both more forthcoming and worked to build consensus, she might have avoided her fate, but with the BA operating in the shadows, that might have been a fool’s choice. Its hard to blame Siuan too much here, as she did not have the option to do much else; it would take cataclysmic events to bring about change and reform among the Aes Sedai.
On the shawls, I don’t know that the shawl symbolizes more than two things: the status of Aes Sedai, and the Ajah affiliation of the person wearing it. I thought we were told at one point that only newly raised Sisters (for obvious reasons) and those going to formal occasions bothered with them most of the time. I’m not aware of the Shawls denoting any rank beyond that, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the embroidery and design contained secret denotations of rank within the Ajah that only other members of the Ajay could recognize, but the Aes Sedai have their strength in the One Power ranking system and have no need for a ‘uniform’ to proclaim rank, so Elaida’s insistence on wearing the shawl in the White Tower itself (where she is unlikely to be mistaken for anything but Aes Sedai) speaks volumes about her attitude and outlook. I’m reminded of her tenure as Amyrlin, where everyone wore their shawls as a matter of necessity to proclaim their ties and watch ‘rivals’ with suspicion and mistrust.
The best part imo is when Nyn says that she can hold around half OP as the circle…and then ~8 books later there is a random nanny stronger than her.Bah!
This is about the moment that Matt went from being annoying village boy to badass character.
I always assumed that “Old Blood” was a lost talent like Mins viewings or the ability to see Ta’veren. Egwene has it to a minor degree (vaguely recognising Mats old tongue) and Birgitte and Thom both mention people having their ancestors memories in the olden days.
These past nine (!) chapters are in my mind, irrefutable proof that Jordan was one of, if not the best SFF writer of women. These chapters introduce and develop close to a dozen women each with varying levels of power, agency, intelligence and personal hangups. Say what you will about how much you like or empathize with their personalities, but I will take clever women with narrative agency and strong motivations over likeable plot lamps any day. Besides, I think there’s a lot to like among these characters anyway, and certainly a lot to get you intrigued.
Also, while Egwene’s actions over the past few chapters are somewhat erratic, I think it’s important that we don’t underestimate the effect her enslavement had on her personality. It comes back again and again, finally reaching somewhat of a resolution when she fights Mesaana in TAR. I would actually compare this to Mat’s long lasting trauma regarding Tylin; his sexual abuse at her hands and her subsequent death at the hands of the gholam.
Anyway, great series of chapters. Speaking of Mat, it’ll be nice to see him come into his own soon.
Elaida being such a jerk to Elayne every time they are meet in the Tower is just so short-sighted of hers. Doesn’t she want Elayne to actually like her and be willing to work with her in the future due to the “Royal line of Andor” Foretelling? And why is she being so rude to someone who is stronger than her in the Power and one day would boss her around?
Birgit @1. I believe we can make two conclusions from the fact Siuan leads the Circle to heal Mat means two. First, she has a high degree of Healing Talent. As the series progresses, we discover that some Sisters are very good at Healing even if not a Yellow. For example, there was the Brown who was in Mayene during the Last Battle who helped with the Healing. This would seem to indicate that she was very good at Healing. Also, during the Seanchan Raid, Saerin had Yellows and Browns help with Healing at a centralized location. Saerin would not have done so if Browns generally were not good at Healing.
Second, there was no Yellow Sister she trusted enough to lead the circle. Heck, she did not even had a Yellow Sister who she trusted enough to help with the Healing.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
AndrewHB @9: Your reasoning may be correct, but it’s contradicted later on in the series. Whatever RJ was thinking at this point in time, he later decided that Siuan was _not_ good at Healing. Two quotes:
(ACoS, Ch. 12, Egwene PoV)
(KoD, Ch. 1, Siuan PoV)
It looks like this is another early-series inconsistency from RJ. (Either that, or even though Siuan uses “Heal” in her description of what they’re about to do, it’s not really Healing.)
I seem to recall Mat also yelling out an Old Tongue battle cry in TEoTW (I think just before the party retreats to Shadar Logoth, so before he even touched the dagger), and Moiraine comments on the strength of the ‘Old Blood’ in the small gene pool of the Two Rivers.
But his post-Ruidean past memories are clearly something different, though I don’t think I connected them with the Ael/Eelfinn until it was explicitly expositioned in (I think) ToM.
@2 there’s a scene in…lord of chaos, maybe? where someone explicitly tells Egwene that she’s a wilder even though technically Moiraine talked her through her first channeling. I want to say it’s Tarna Feir, but I’m not sure.
It’s kinda bullshit, of course, but from an AS standpoint it does make a certain amount of sense, especially since Egwene and Nynaeve are so strongly linked to each other.
@10, I agree with your final point. It seems to me that no matter what they call it, what they did for Matt was not traditional healing, but more of a separation of Matt and the evil of Shadar Logoth. This action probably didn’t require actual healing talent, but something else entirely.
One thing that has always bugged me is how many Aes Sedai detest wilders when it is their own damn fault for not going out into the world searching for girls with the either the spark or the ability to learn. I suspect the reason Egwene was called a wilder was only because Moiraine’s training did not come in the White Tower itself. The Aes Sedai as a group remain in my mind as very seriously flawed even into the Last Battle, although they seem to start redeeming themselves then.
Reading this in high school, I’m not sure I appreciated at the time how awesome it was that we got such interesting and varied female characters. I never thought about the shawls that way; in my head I viewed them as something like military sash so it didn’t seem especially surprising that shawls would be used that way.
Your line about Obama with the birth certificate printing press made me laugh out loud.
@14, Agreed. If they had adopted a recruiting strategy like Taim did with the Black Tower, they would have been much better prepared to face Tarmon Gai’don. I also think they would have been a stronger organization to boot. How long after the defeat of the Dark One will it take for them to go back to their old ways?
As for Egwene being a Wilder, I was under the impression that was merely Elaida’s bullying coming out. IIRC, no one but Elaida has ever thought of or referred to Egwene as a Wilder, and that was merely out of spite after she came out of the Acceptatron, not because she meets even a loose definition of the term as traditionally used.
I always thought of the stoles as the things priests wear, so I don’t associate them with female clothes. Maybe it has to do with reading the first two (English) books in German, where it is translated as Stola, not Schal.
@15, hah, I had a little of that imagery too, and it would definitely fit with some of the symbolism Jordan was going for.
@16
The minute Egwene died I cried not because I cared massively for her, but because I saw all her reforms vanishing, but on second thought, I think many will survive, because the White Tower can’t go back now.If it doesn’t change it will quickly become irrelevant.
The Kin, Wind Finders, and Wise Ones will snap up any girl the Tower rejects now that they’re not hiding from the Aes Sedai (and the Aiel are going to be policing all nations now so they’ll likely snap up the most). So by that alone the Tower will become woefully underpopulated compared to everyone else (particularly because of reasons women would want to train elsewhere: no prejudice against marriage and having a family; no oaths; living potentially centuries longer than AS; being ranked by your actual merit and initiative (and not your raw power)).
Two Ajahs are literally irrelevant: the Red and the Green, the Cleansing and the Last Battle ended their original purposes.
Three more are likely marginalized now: Greys were mediators between the nations, well the White Tower signed a Treaty handing that role to the Aiel nations. They can work with the Aiel maybe, but they’re lesser now. On the same note that Treaty required all nations to start funding public school systems, which means the Whites and Browns are going to fall to the way side as well because they’re not going to be the only ones studying math, philosophy, history, and science, straight up normal folk are (and the evidence already says normal folk are better at it since they had a funded school in Cairhein for less than a year and came up with steam wagons).
Blue’s I’m unsure of.
Yellows sound like they have the best bet of surviving, because magical healing will always trump mundane healing, except the Wise One and Kin offer that too (the Kin are even better since more of them are versed in the all 5 element healing weaves) and they move around all over the place which makes them far more accessible than the White Tower’s Yellows.
And of course that doesn’t even begin to mention any rivalry they’ll have with the Black Tower.
@20. I do not believe the Ajahs are useless or even marginalized after the last battle.
Greens: there will still be war. Remember Nicole’s Foretelling: “The great battle done, but the world not done with battle.” We do not know what will happen with the Seanchan continent. A new empire could arise that has no connections or ties to the Old Seanchan empire. Thus, it feels that it does not have to honor the Treaty that Tuon signed. Also, you still have the Sharans. Both could have channelers and the Aiel Wise Ones may not be enough.
Blues: there are always causes. Heck, they could try to abolish the damane system.
Yellows: There will always be a place for healers. The regular populace will always outnumber channelers (both Aes Sedai and non Aes Sedai). I believe that only 2-5% of the population are born with the spark or can learn to channel.
Browns: I do not believe the presence of these new schools will diminish the effect of the Browns. First, I do not believe the knowledge that the Browns learned was necessarily disseminated publicly. So they can still undertake their studies. Moreover, the new schools seem more focus on practicality and engineering. The Browns would have more liberal art knowledge.
Grays: There would still be need to address disputes. You could have intranation disputes. The Aiel are only for when the nations start to fight each other. Moreover, the Aiel would act how they see fit (by their own honor and the like). Grays may be more likely to sit in judgement as a judge would — weighing the laws of the claimants.
Whites: Same rational as with the Browns:
Reds: I see the Reds evolving. The can be the Ajah who most works with the Black Tower. Also, there are still Dreadlords who may have escaped the Last Battle. I do not believe that every Dreadlord was killed or captured. Some had to have fled. The Reds could be tasked to round them up. Likewise, just because the Dark One has been imprisoned, does not mean a channeler (male or female) will not be an evil person. In the Age of Legends, Semirhage was evil before she pledged her soul to the Dark One.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
In a Q&A now on Theoryland, RJ said that at WoT time “about 1% of the population could learn to channel, with a much smaller percentage born with the spark” and that it was more like 2-3% of the population in the Age of Legends before male channelers were weeded from the gene pool (and more female ones didn’t have children, probably). But that’s hard for me to keep in mind when so many WoT characters are channelers. (I think he said somewhere that, coincidentally, 1% of Trolloc offspring are Myrddraal. But now I can’t find that reference.)
Hi all,
Unfortunately there will be no new Redux post today. Check back next Tuesday for the next post, though!
@leigh
Thanks for the chuckle! Hope everything is OK with you!
I’m assuming you’re going to JordanCon this year…just because, you know. Care to comment?
I seem to recall the chapter with Elaida interrogating the girls came across to me exactly as was it meant to be: a red herring (no pun intended). Because as determined as she was to learn about Rand, and as firm and harsh with them as she was, her words to Elayne about her mother and her claiming she had to protect them made it clear to me she really was trying to do the right thing. And of course if she was of the Light (which her Foretelling seemed to indicate, considering it was warning against the threats to the world, rather then praising Rand for causing chaos and furthering the Shadow’s cause), she could not lie, so she had to mean it when she said she’d protect them. But as always, her means of helping are a definite case of “Stop helping me!” and “with friends like these”, and she is so close to and yet so far from understanding what actually is right. How often we encounter people like that in real life…
Still, it can’t be denied that if Elaida hadn’t done what she did, we wouldn’t have ended up with Egwene as Amyrlin, the purge of the Black Ajah, or all the rest of the awesome stuff Egwene did. So, good did come of it in the end. The Wheel, as neutral and uncaring as it is, knew what it was doing.
I do remember something odd though, which the WOT Encyclopedia notes, that here Elaida is aware of and admits the existence of the Black Ajah, but later Yukiri (a Sitter) doesn’t know Temaile was Black. So either Siuan only told select people (but why would she tell Elaida? An attempt to get her on her side?) and not the Hall (which to be fair she doesn’t trust), or somehow Elaida found out on her own (maybe because of Liandrin’s disappearance she made it a point to investigate something that could reflect badly on the Reds?) and then she didn’t tell anyone else. That latter sounds more likely to me.
The bit with Sheriam staring down Elaida and making her leave was a lot more awesome when we didn’t show she was Black. Of course considering she only became Black because she wanted power, not because she believed in the Shadow, then the backbone she shows here is pretty much the same as she would have had as an Accepted in NS, assuming she wasn’t recruited yet then. And it’s still pretty noteworthy that anyone, even the Mistress of Novices, could stand up to Elaida.
It’s odd, but I never really thought about the fact a shawl is a feminine and domestic garment but is used by the Aes Sedai to denote power and authority. It just seemed absolutely natural to me they would wear them, and that they would be signs of respect and strength. This may be because I caught the Catholic convent feel of the Tower right away and thus associated the shawls more with religious stoles and habits, or it may be that Jordan did such a great job of creating a world where women had more power that the shawl just seemed naturally powerful. Either way, that’s a wonderful point I hadn’t considered. Always great to find new depth and detail in WOT!
An interesting point about the circle Healing Mat, that we don’t learn until ACoS that Siuan is poor at Healing, so at this point her appearing in (and leading) the circle would indicate to a first-time reader she actually was good at Healing. On the other hand, once we learn the Yellows are the best Healers and none were in the circle, that would retroactively make us regard this moment in a different light even before we learn about Siuan’s Talents or lack thereof.
Personally I think it is very possible Jordan hadn’t worked out yet that there was an Ajah specifically focused on Healing, let alone that it was the Yellow, but it’s also very possible, and likely, that indeed this ritual here isn’t a true Healing at all. That could also explain why Siuan was involved, aside from her great strength in the Power–maybe she has some specific knowledge or ability we don’t know about that is proof against Shadar Logoth? That could also explain why she was involved in the temporary Healing of Mat at Fal Dara in TGH (or once she was involved there, that required her to be involved again now?). That could also explain why the specific Aes Sedai named here are present. Or again it has to do with their strength, since indeed it seems as if the process of separating Mat from the dagger is very taxing and overwhelming to all involved (plus there’s the very fact it required Vora’s sa’angreal).
Side note: I do love that Egwene had already learned of the sa’angreal and got to see it used here, as foreshadowing for what she does with it later. More set-up that tells me (not that we need any proof at this juncture) that Egwene using it to fight the Seanchan in TGS was something Jordan had planned all along, not an invention of Sanderson’s.
Anyway, the Healing has indeed always been a very awesome scene, as much because we aren’t sure what exactly is going on and why as because of the imagery and description. I remember being rather floored myself when Siuan admitted what Mat had been shouting–not that he was calling on Manetheren and her soldiers, since we already knew about the Old Blood and all, but the accusations he made against Aes Sedai. But it makes sense with some thought: we know from Moiraine’s story (and other details in the Guide) that Manetheren was betrayed, and at least partly this was the doing of the Aes Sedai because of Tetsuan’s jealousy of Eldrene, so with that in mind, anyone of Manetheren’s soldiers (let alone Aemon, if that is indeed who Mat was) would have reason to distrust and lash out at Aes Sedai.
All that being said though, the fact that somehow Mat’s past life and his present eclipsed and merged is fascinating…because until Mat gets the memories from the Finn, and Rand gets “Lews Therin”, this is the only indication people can possess, relive, and be guided by their past lives. And while the Finn and the taint (one way or another) are responsible for the memories and “Lews Therin”, this scene is apparently only due to the strength of the Old Blood. Something which Jordan seems to abandon, particularly how Egwene has it too and can “almost understand” what Mat is saying. I wonder if he dropped it because he realized how elitist and eugenic it sounded, the fantasy genre notwithstanding (certain blood is stronger/better/more heroic than others), if it was because he started working out more scientific and logical underpinnings to his world and its magic rather than just using mystical ones, or if it was something that actually got overwhelmed or overridden in-universe–namely, Mat’s memories and Egwene becoming an ever-stronger Dreamer made their Old Blood have less influence. But regardless, it is very intriguing that this “merging of the past and present” never happens again. I wonder what caused it…the dagger, since it is itself sort of part of the past, since it contains the evil will of long-dead Aridhol?
Which also leads into Leigh’s thought about how the Aes Sedai separated Mat and what it was they did. I suspect there probably was some connection to what Rand does later–except of course it doesn’t involve the taint since no saidin, and the dagger isn’t destroyed. But it is possible whatever the Aes Sedai did somehow lured or drew the Mashadar out of Mat and back into the dagger…
*chuckles* And I have to say while I understand the confusion about Mat’s memories (not helped by Jordan accidentally muddling the issue with his misstep in forgetting this scene), it would have to be the height of coincidence for every single memory the Finn put in his head to have come from one of his past lives. I think even Mat’s luck and the Pattern would be strained by that kind of contrivance. (The “dying fighting Aedomon” and “seeing an older Aedomon die” memories fall under that same sort of credulity-straining coincidence, as Leigh rightly points out.)
@1 birgit: Maybe because Mat’s past life he channels here was a swordsman, specifically a blademaster? (The sword icon is used for other swordsmen besides Rand, especially blademasters–i.e. Lan a lot of the time.)
@3 gadget: I think Leigh meant that having and wearing a shawl proclaimed you had a rank at all (i.e. you were Aes Sedai, not Accepted), as opposed to ranks within an Ajah or anything like that. You raise many good points though.
@6 Gaiazun: I’d forgotten Birgitte mentioned that (though I remembered Thom did, after the battles in TEotW where Mat shouted in the Old Tongue). What a fascinating idea. And it makes sense, especially when you consider talents like Min’s viewings and being a wolfbrother have nothing to do with the Power, so that’s how someone like Mat could have the strong Old Blood connection. Odd that Egwene, a channeler, would have it too, but then there’s nothing saying a person can’t have both channeling and non-channeling talents, and Egwene is after all rather special.
@8 Bergmaniac: Due to her personality, Elaida seems to be one of those who finds ways to work around deference as often as she can and make others do what she wants. Being a naturally bossy person, she probably figures if she can get Elayne used to obeying her now (because she was her mother’s advisor), she can get it to continue even once Elayne is Aes Sedai and she should defer to one of her strength level. Similarly, Elayne doesn’t have to like Elaida, just be willing to obey her, and Elaida can have the influence she wants and make her Foretellings come true, she thinks.
@9 AndrewHB: Good point about not having Yellows to trust. And while we know several Yellows turned out to be trustworthy (Samitsu, Corele, Doesine, Edesina, Suana, Rosil), others did not, particularly Sedore (a Sitter), Dagdara, Larissa, and Atuan. And of the two Yellows in Liandrin’s coven of Blacks, Chesmal was one of the best Healers in the Tower. So it was probably wise of Siuan not to include any, even beyond whether Healing talent was needed for Mat.
Also an interesting point about the Browns. While their use during the Seanchan attack on the Tower does suggest knowledge of Healing, if indeed this Healing of Mat is not a “real” Healing then I suspect the reason Browns were involved was because of their extra knowledge of Mashadar and Shadar Logoth. Verin at least certainly knew much about it, Adeleas knew some (since she and Vandene had some books they could share with Moiraine), and I wouldn’t be surprised if Serafelle knew too. And of course knowledge can cover things related to Healing (if for example anything relating to biology or anatomy is ever needed), so that may also be why Browns would be tapped.
@12 SunDriedRainbow: I think you’re right, since in the scene in question Tarna was trying to get the girls to trust her by showing that despite them being wilders, she didn’t look down on them the way so many Aes Sedai (especially Reds like Elaida or Liandrin) did. Considering she was one herself.
@16 Jason_UmmaMacabre: To be fair I suspect the Black Ajah did all they could to encourage this view of wilders and discourage Aes Sedai from going out of the Tower to try and find new blood.
@20 fudgyvmp: Your point about “changing or dying” very much applies to the Catholic Church too, so that is likely exactly what Jordan was getting at with the Tower. And thanks to people like Cadsuane, Leane, Pevara, Nynaeve and Elayne, the current Ajah Heads, Moiraine, and more, I think they will indeed change. As for your points about the Ajahs I have to agree for the most part, though don’t forget that Pevara’s plan for the Reds (inherited from Tarna) may well lead to them and their bonded Asha’Warders hunting down Darkfriends. And the Greens may still be needed even with the Dragon’s Peace since “the great battle done but the world not done with battle”. Grays will probably work a lot with the nations still–the Aiel are just the police force, and while they decide when and how they will act, the actual diplomacy will likely still be guided by the Grays. Blues will always have causes to fight for, and as for the Whites and Browns, if they wish to remain relevant they’ll have to work with the new schools, pooling and sharing knowledge so it can be further developed into new avenues.
And I see AndrewHB covered most of the same stuff I did, only in more detail and with a lot of the examples I would have thought of. But I am leaving my reply to bolster his, since he’s absolutely right. :)
Elaida probably found out about the BA because she was investigating El’s disappearance.
Eg does have a non-channeling talent: dreamwalking isn’t connected to the OP.
re healing: I think we need to clarify exactly what healing is. As has been mentioned, this was more of a separation of Mat’s soul from the dagger, not actual healing, therefore the weaves Suian used must have been completely different from normal healing weaves. And where did she learn how to separate a person’s soul from an evil object? I’m very intrigued that she even had the confidence that she could pull this off.
I have to imagine that Mat’s memories come from people who have gone through EITHER door, because while the “answers” door was in Mayene and then locked up in Tear, the “bargains” door has been in the possession of the Aiel and was safely in Rhuidean by the time of the first memories Mat inherits.
Though honestly I don’t see too many people being allowed to access the one in Mayene either. Though I guess it could have been elsewhere before that.