Holy homicidal hoopskirts, Batman, it’s a Wheel of Time Reread Redux!
Today’s Redux post will cover Chapters 19 and 20 of The Great Hunt, 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 19: Beneath the Dagger
Redux Commentary
People have suggested in the comments that Selene’s effect on Rand was not just solely due to the over-amped libido of a teenage virgin, but that she was actually using Compulsion on Rand (and Hurin and Loial) to woo them with her wanton wicked wiles (whoo!). I think this makes a certain amount of sense, especially when you consider that Loial should probably not find a human woman particularly attractive (what with her total lack of sexy sexy ear tufts and all), but if that was the case, I’m not sure why she didn’t go the whole hog and straight-up Compel Rand right into the sack, instead of letting him resist her.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m completely thrilled that Rand didn’t get raped (because that’s absolutely what it would have been, no matter how much he’d have thought he enjoyed it), but it just seems odd that Lanfear wouldn’t exploit that kind of weakness to the fullest.
But then again, she does more or less the same thing much much later to Perrin in AMOL, and I’m pretty sure she’s the one who gets all disdainful at some point about Graendal using Compulsion like a sledgehammer instead of with subtlety, so okay, there’s precedent. I still find her restraint a little puzzling in that case, though.
So maybe she didn’t use Compulsion. Because, it could just as easily be a pride thing, as well. I can totally see someone like Lanfear utterly rejecting the notion that she couldn’t get her Lews Therin to fall in love/lust with her without cheating, as it were. It is kind of insulting to her, when you think about it. Yeah, I could definitely see that being the case.
It was not as if he had never seen a girl’s legs before; girls in the Two Rivers always tied up their skirts to go wading in Waterwood ponds. But they stopped doing it well before they were old enough to braid their hair, and this was in the dark, besides.
I’m not sure whether I ever actually talked about this before, but I am bemused right now, reminded by this quote, at the somewhat odd juxtaposition of the mostly-flipped power dynamic between men and women in Randland with its completely unflipped clothing conventions.
I am not about to get into the history of sexism and women’s fashion, because that’s a dissertation unto itself, but suffice it to say that even though most of the women’s couture in WOT appears to avoid some of the more unbelievably ridiculous/awful fashion trends of yore (forget corsets, do you know how many women died because they wore hoop skirts?), there’s still a distinct traditionalist “modesty/beauty over utility” air to the fact that with the exception of the Maidens and, well, Min, pretty much every woman in Randland wears skirts. Which is kind of weird when you really think about it.
(I am leaving the Seanchan out of this, since they appear to torture both sexes equally with bizarre fashion demands. So, er, go them, I guess.)
Because look: I like skirts. I am a fan of long skirts, even, I wear them all the time. But I am not a farmer, or in any other job that requires significant physical labor or mobility, nor am I regularly riding horses all over the damn place. Because if I were, you can bet your ass I’d be wearing me some pants, because screw that. And not divided skirts either: PANTS.
It just seems like that in a society which has for however many centuries favored women over men, instead the other way around, that that would be reflected in the practicality of women’s clothing as well. Because, there’s the times you want to look pretty for the dance, and then there’s the times you have to go and scythe you a damn wheat harvest, and in a society where women can supposedly do what they want, their sartorial choices should reflect that. But Randland society just… doesn’t, it seems. And it’s pretty interesting to speculate on why.
Jordan’s implicit assumption seems to be that women in Randland dress the way they do not because of an externally imposed demand for women to be “modest” yet simultaneously “alluring” (because women’s fashion is allll about setting up impossible and contradictory standards, y’all) but because they themselves decided it was called for and imposed it on themselves. Which… seems a little backwards, really.
Not to mention, if you were really going to flip things around, then you would have the men’s fashions be the more uncomfortable, impractical, and objectifying of the two (or, alternately and yet simultaneously, argh, designed with an aim to “preserve modesty”). But other than Mat’s adventures with pink ribbons and Tylin, we really don’t see anything like that that I can recall. And anyway, the pink ribbons thing was only humiliating to Mat because pink ribbons are coded as female, which in Randland society should absolutely not carry the negative connotations of weakness and frivolity it does in our own. So in its way, that whole thing made even less sense than the rest of it.
My suspicion, though, for what it’s worth, is that most of this simply didn’t occur to Jordan. Or, possibly, that he just chose to ignore it. Because most people don’t really think about this kind of thing, even though they should, and therefore would be mostly confused by women in Roughly Analogous To Ye Olden Times wearing pants as a regular thing instead of skirts.
Or, you know, he just really really wanted to be able to describe dresses in exacting detail. Heh.
Chapter 20: Saidin
Redux Commentary
I think some people have quibbled about the ultimate use the Choedan Kal were put to in the series, but personally I think it worked out pretty well. Sure, it would have been awesome to have the magical equivalent of a tactical nuke on hand during the Last Battle, but cleansing the taint first was more important, and additionally could apparently only be accomplished using the giant sa’angreal. Winning a war with conventional weapons (so to speak) may be harder, but it can obviously still be done. And it was absolutely the right call that Rand’s confrontation with the Dark One required more psychological strength than magical (and that part of that mental strength was being able to voluntarily destroy the source of such Phenomenal Cosmic Power). It makes sense thematically if not strategically, if you see what I mean.
But at this point, naturally, we don’t have any idea what this thing is, only that it freaked out Lanfear, and therefore is automatically extremely worrying. I think I remember when I first read the series (which was only up to ACOS at that point) I was surprised that this particular thing had yet to come into play. But like I said, I generally approved of where it eventually did come in.
I said in the original commentary that I didn’t quite get why Rand would be mumbling the Aiel motto here, and I still think it’s rather odd. But, well, maybe it really was an ancestral memory flashback thingy, like Mat and Manetheren, and Rand just didn’t have them any other times, and then after seeing the family history in living color in the Wayback Ter’angreal in Rhuidean he just didn’t need them anymore. Maybe?
Or, he just really liked it when Loial told it to him back in Caemlyn, and it’s like that earworm song you get in your head and realize you’re humming when distracted. (Distracted by a giant Magical Tactical Nuke Of DOOM!)
I’ve probably forgotten that this was answered somewhere, but whatever: I thought, too, that we’re later told that the Choedan Kal can only be accessed via the ter’angreal keys, which Rand obviously does not have at this point, so how is he tapping into the thing without it?
Or was it that they said you couldn’t access them safely without the keys? That would make more sense. But I can’t remember at the moment.
Also, this is really minor, but:
Red shied at his cry; clay crumbled under the stallion’s hoof, spilling into the pit. The big bay went to his knees. Rand leaned forward, gathering the reins, and Red scrambled to safety, away from the edge.
I don’t quite get how Rand leaning forward here would have done anything but pitch him and his horse into the pit. And can a horse actually get up off its knees with a rider on its back? I dunno, seems wonky. And if I don’t get that question answered, the series is RUINED! FOREVER!
…except not really. Or at all. You know.
Yes, yes you do. And you also probably know (or at least agree) that this is where we stop for now. Kisses, kids, and come back next Tuesday for the next one!
That’s a good question! (And I don’t have time to go looking for the answer.)
I didn’t recall the giant, magical, nuclear thingamajig grabbing Rand’s psyche so thoroughly until I re-read this chapter. Crisis narrowly averted.
Thanks, Leigh!
The access keys were made for two reasons: the first is so the Sa’angreal could be used anywhere on the planet–no one is going to be able to haul around a giant statue.
The other reason was because it wasn’t safe to draw power directly from the statues themselves. Even the smaller (though still extremely powerful) sa’angreal Callandor and Sakarnen apparently take a toll on the users. Anyone trying to use the Choeden Kal directly would probably just get lit up like a match
If I remember correctly, it’s that the keys act as the safety buffer for the larger Choedan Kal. Accessing them directly is a guarantee burnout, while the keys provide universal access to the immovable objects and the safety to use them.
If you take Moiraine’s glimpses of the alternate futures (those she remembered and/or commented about), it is a good thing that Rand did not have sex with Lanfear. I believe it was in her letter to Rand (that Rand opened after Moiraine and Lanfear went through the red frame doorway) that she told him that had she gone away with Lanfear after the events at the dock (and presumably they became a couple), his LTT persona would have dominated his Rand persona and the world would have been doomed.
But that said, I do agree with Leigh. I believe that Lanfear thought using compulsion to get Rand to “be in her camp” was beneath Lanfear. She was so beautiful (in Lanfear’s own mind) that compulsion would not be necessary to on Rand. So long as there was not another “Sunhair trollup” around, Rand would be putty in Lanfear’s hands.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
Re: Women’s Fashion: I’ve always understood that to the extent there are pressures around women’s fashion they generally comes from other women. Men are more likely to ignore what a woman is wearing.
@5
Except for her shoes. A man should always notice and comment on a woman’s footwear.
Since no one else has made the obvious Choedan Kal joke yet–it’s kind of appropriate the the access keys are such an iddy biddy living space…
@@.-@ Andrew
You may be right, but I think Lanfear’s reservations against compulsion mostly just extend to the “completely take away the victim’s free will/turn them into a zombie” variety.
The woman has a very…challenged…moral compass. And considering that she definitely used some form of compulsion of Perrin and Gaul later on, she probably considers the far milder version she seems to be using as no different than putting on makeup and a nice dress to catch her beau’s eye.
Loial’s reaction is still the biggest red flag that the girl was not playing fair in her games of love and war.
I do not think roles are as gender flipped among non-Power users as Leigh seems to think they are. Men are still expected to be soldiers, farmers, blacksmiths and do other “heavy” work in general society (Aiel and Sea Folk are exceptions) while women are still doing knitting, waitressing and hhe like. The flipping is more at the top of society, the aristocrracy and the Aes Sedai where impractical clothing is seen as a sort of status symbol (I do not have to sully myself with manual labor, that was one reason hoop skirts were popular among upper class women). Though it does strike as strange that an Ajah like the Green devoted to messy functions does not have more practical working clothing, instead going into battle in their frilly dresses. On the other hand, the British redcoat uniforms around the time of the Revolutionary War were apparently quite complex and restrictive of movement. Fashion often does not make much sense.
First off Leigh let me say that I love your re-reads! Secondly in this endless debate about women’s clothing and fashion so often we overlook the fact that we are human animals. I think Jordan had every intention of flipping convention on its head when it comes to having women in charge and moving away from the patriarchy. The reason I don’t think he intended that it wouldn’t extend to fashion in the ways that you mentioned is because of biology. Men are visually stimulated sexual beings; and hardwired to be so. While it is certainly a fair criticism to say that civilized men should move beyond such motivations and that a woman ought to be able to wear what she wants, our social conventions are built on much lower evolutionary parts of our brain.
In short regardless of who wears “the pants” in a relationship in GENERAL women end up wearing skirts because biologically female humans are drawn to resources and physical strength and males respond to visual cues to a woman’s fertility. In the end clothing that makes improves a young woman’s genetic fitness wins out.
But then men have worn skirts in many cultures throughout history, and in some they still do (e.g., Burma). Jordan’s thesis was never that if you flip the power dynamics between men and women that everything else would flip along with it. He very much believed there were real differences between men and women and the world he created reflects that. Which is why, despite being one of the great feminist works of modern fantasy, it is so strongly rejected by people who insist the opposite is true, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. And that makes sense. Women may have political power because they can channel and men broke the world, but men are still going to be blacksmiths because they’re usually stronger.
(A better example for men’s fashion than BeEbou Dar is Far Madding.)
Speaking of Lanfear and sexual assault, I’ve always thought that she did rape him later, in the Dream World in (I think) The Shadow Rising.
This talk of clothing is amusing because I was reading a very non-amusing troll in the comments to an article Pat Rothfuss posted on FB who insisted male authors never paid attention to clothes. When someone brought up descriptions of clothing in WOT, he said “Oh, I’ve never heard of Robert Jordan but I bet he was gay then,” which filled me up with too much rage (for a variety of reasons) to reply.
Or, you know, he just really really wanted to be able to describe dresses in exacting detail. Heh.
Given how many times we hear about someone adjusting her skirts, I’m gonna go with this reason, because it sure is one of Jordan’s go-to phrases.
This has come up multiple times in this redux commentary, but just because you wish the roles of men & women to be completely flipped in Randland does not mean that they are. Or, at least not to the degree you seem to want. There do not seem to be women scything in the wheat harvest, largely, in Randland. There do not seem to be women soldiers (outside of the noted exceptions of the Aiel and Seanchen), by and large (This may change by the end of the series). Women seem to still operate in largely traditional feminine roles of hearth and home here. It is just that women have more respect and authority in these roles than we usually associate with in our historical perspective (with males or maleness being associated with the ‘Fall’ or Breaking); or they have other, co-equal organizational structures (woman’s circle vs village council). I would say the main difference is women are more active in the upper echelons of politics and influence (There are more women ruling nobles in almost all cultures than is traditional for our historical world and the Catholic Church Aes Sedai are all women). Andor has a requirement for a female ruler, and the Seanchan seem to have almost as strong a tradition for the ‘Empress’, though it is hard to say how long this tradition has been going or how deep set it is in the culture.
I would say the real role reversal, if you want to call it that, is in Far Madding. And even there, there does not seem to be women soldiers and such, it is just that men are subservient to women.
On women’s fashion, it’s not that hard to see why. It’s a world that favors men over women. A favored person or group of persons need not be practical. Quite the opposite, really. As you say, this is a society where women can do what they want, and why the hell would they want to go out and scythe the damn wheat harvest, as you put it, when they can have the distinctly unfavored and original sin-tainted men to do all that icky, sweaty work for them? It’s a perk of being the ‘superior’ sex after all; you send the ‘inferior’ to do the dirty grunt work. Skirts that are impractical to work in would them evolve to highlight this: we’re women, we don’t have to work outside like you men, we only do indoor work with no heavy lifting or sweating, etc. Even in agrarian areas like the Duopotamia, such skirts emphasize you don’t have to work outside, you sit around inside and plan out the lives of those poor, foolish men you aren’t as smart as us, or as wise as us, or as sensible as us…
And if you’re going to ask why, then, does this mean female clothing conventions parallel real life… think about it.
@@.-@ – Not to quibble (but I’m totally going to quibble), but I think that in Moiraine’s vision of the future, it wasn’t that LTT dominated Rand’s personality so much as that Lanfear brainwashed him into being the version of LTT she wanted (that loved her and failed to notice she was crazypants).
Also, I agree that it probably didn’t occur to Jordan to think about women’s garb much. I suspect it’s mostly related to the faux-renaissance time. Also if women were wearing pants, he’d have to work in comments about the women’s well-turned calves just like he did the men’s.
@14 – that’s an interesting point, about the gender roles not being flipped completely. I remember a couple of sex-related conversations that came back to this (when Logain’s Aes Sedai is blithering about how women lurve being dominated), and the saidar vs. saidin (surrender vs. conquer) contrast. I think Jordan was deliberately flipping gender roles a lot and was definitely trying to flip the roles and make a point, and sometimes he just fell back on what he knew – when he went to the Citadel and when he served in Vietnam, there were no women soldiers. The combat stuff, at least, I’ve always thought was heavily drawn from his own experiences. So all male soldiers makes sense, because that’s what he experienced. I suspect that early in the series, it didn’t really occur to Jordan to have it differently; in Randland, women do the thinkin’ and plannin’, and men do the killin’ (except for the evil women, who plan AND kill). That’s not a cut at Jordan, especially because later in the series, we do see more women in combat (Birgitte, the first female Warder, Far Dareis Mai, the Seanchan female troops).
I’m resisting the urge to make a “women in the army” joke a la Tim Hunt, mostly because sarcasm is hard to detect online.
Correction, I meant it’s a world that favors women over men. My Freudian slip is showing… XD
Isn’t there a whole blog about costuming the Wheel of Time that goes over the inspirations and specific details of who wore what?
Has anyone told “Selene” that the Horn is in a chest? She is again giving away that she knows too much.
If Fain wants to hide, why does he light a fire on a hilltop?
If the Horn is from before the AOL, why is its inscription in the Old Tongue?
Is that an LTT memory about the Choedan Kal?
@19 It’s been awhile since I read it, but I thought there was a comment that the fire was shielded from being seen from the north, but Rand’s little group was ahead of Fain to the south and was able to see the flame. I could be wrong, but it makes since to me.
Lanfear is definitely not using Compulsion here and it’s easily backed up by the fact that Rand can’t feel her channeling. It’s already been established that he gets prickly all over in the presence of female channeling, so why would Jordan leave out such a consistent detail here? It strikes me as unlikely that Lanfear would bother hiding her channeling in this mostly empty world, and she’s arrogant enough not to have done so in the “real” world when whisking Rand away to start with i.e. Verin sensed it.
I also approve of the way the Choedan Kal was used, and it’s use in TGS was… memorable, to say the least.
@21 givemeraptors
While that’s certainly strong evidence, I wouldn’t say it’s absolute proof.
It’s possible to mask channeling as you said, and the odds of Lanfear completely avoiding holding the One Power while she is in a parallel world are basically zero. The woman may be crazy, but she’s not stupid. There’s no way she was completely confident that Rand could take out several Ghrolm with a friggin bow and arrow.
Beyond that, a man’s ability to sense a woman holding the One Power is just getting goosebumps. There’s no other sensory clues.
Rand is both A. completely freaked out because of where he is (just turning his head in that world messed with his depth perception) and B. in the company of the most stunningly beautiful woman of all time–who happens to be all up in his kool-aid.
Even if Lanfear didn’t mask her channeling, there’s no reason for Rand to find goosebumps odd let alone mentally remark upon them. Considering his mental state, they should be there regardless.
OMG, Leigh…you are the best! I love the way you deconstructed the Women’s Clothing issue. And it’s all too true! What would RJ have done without “skirts to smooth”. Ha!
Loial goes all smoochy-boochy over sexy-smexy ear tufts!!! But Lanfear? Honestly, I think she had to use a bit of compulsion on Loial just to keep him in line. Otherwise, he wouldn’t think Lanfear as much as sexy as just plain annoying displaying her wiles. So, even if she didn’t use compulsion on Rand, it seems she must have done a little of Loial. Just sayin’!
I’ve always wondered why there are so many fancy clothes, long skirts and layers of clothing in fantasy novels. Considering people today are practically naked on the beach (unless, of course, they are actually naked on a nude beach), I’ve wondered how it is in fantasy that people never progressed beyond the need to cover up and appear chaste. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, especially considering how difficult it is to find material, let alone being able to pay for several lengths just to make an everyday dress! Common sense would dictate those with fewer means would do better with less clothing.
It seems to me that Rand reacted to the vibrations emanating from the Choedan Kal due to his lack of control over saidin. Once he gets his power under control (at least somewhat!), he can use a form of protection to not inadvertently react to a trigger such as the Choedan Kal. He would note the power without being dragged into the aura of it. Thankfully, there were keys that needed to be used to get the dang thing from exploding due to outside recognition. I can just see the the headlines now! Giant explosion that took out half the population of the world! News at 11.
@24. WDWParksGal
Speaking of clothing, there are several sources for material in the natural world (of course, if you have a terangral of some sort to produce sheets of material for clothing without relying on natural world materials, it’s a different story.)
There’s the animal hide and hair source. Wool is more renewable than leather: you can get wool from one sheep for much longer than leather from a cow. Not to forget, there’s silk: the caterpillars involved in silk making have only one shot at it, so it’s not very renewable either. The New Zealand Maori and the Hawaiíans also made cloaks out of feathers; a kiwi feather cloak meant you had great mana, great status.
Then there’s various plants. Cotton, linen, and the like; domesticated plants. And then there’s tapa cloth, like the Samoans, Cook Islanders and Balinese make, from beating sapling bark.
In history, clothing was dictated by what you had domesticated and what other resources you had. Ergo Papua New Guinean women had skirts made from the local long-leaf grasses, dyed to taste; or string skirts made from sapling bark rubbed into string then intertwined. Ergo Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe had woollens as the basis for their clothing, while the Indians domesticated linen and cotton.
Modern fantasy fiction is a (mostly) European and European-descent genre. And most writers don’t put sufficient thought into such questions, largely because they’ve never been in situations where such assumptions are challenged or simply are unable to form.
@22
It still seems odd to me that Rand would never shiver or rub his arms, which are his typical subconscious reactions to channeling. I believe there’s also a line later in the series where he asks her why she won’t just compel him, and she responds to the idea with disdain.
I’ll concede it’s possible she used it on Loial. However, it’s also possible Jordan just wanted to punctuate just how beautiful Selene/Lanfear was by “Even an Ogier likes her!”
@26 I think we may agree on that point more than we realized. When I said I think she used a milder form of compulsion I probably should have said I think she used something akin to a glamour charm.
It made her appear younger to Rand than when he first saw her (something he did comment upon in text ) it put him more at ease and it did…something…to Loial and Huri n too.
I absolutely agree she never used the type of compulsion where the castor gives specific orders to the thrall and causes worship and adoration. She really would think that’s beneath her.
As I said before–make up and a pretty dress One Power style.
@27
Yes! She definitely did make herself appear younger and her youth was part of the reason he found her less threatening. Although when she finally takes the glamour off (The Shadow Rising?) doesn’t he thinks she’s somehow even more beautiful? I can’t remember exactly.
It’s somewhat hilarious to me then that afterwards he divines her presence in the Aiel Waste.
Yes. Because Lanfear cheats by… making herself even less beautiful than she actually is!
Seriously, if you’ve lived all your life on the hype of being the most powerful woman in the world and being one of the most beautiful if not THE MOST beautiful to boot, then Compelling somebody to fall in love with you using the One Power would be totally beneath you. It’s totally not a point of pride.
Sarcasm aside, I thought she does eventually say outright she wants Rand to come to her of his own free will. Somewhere in the Stone of Tear around the time he has Callandor at hand.
And as for reacting to Choedan Kal. Going by interactions Rand.. if not all male channelers.. have the ability to sense an Angreal or sa’Angreal. Rand went down to the Stone of Tear’s basement storehouse and all but homed in on the fat man Angreal hidden there. In his battle with Asmodean at Rhuidean he picked up out of all the ter’angreal lying around the one that was the access key to Choedan Kal. At the end he went back to Dumai’s wells and somehow found the fat man once more. Coincidence?
@29 alreadymadwith
Who is to say all they hype about Lanfear’s beauty wasn’t propaganda spread by the woman herself?
Even if she really is that gorgeous, all of the evidence points to her having “cheated” as you say by using a weave (something I’m calling a glamour in this case because of how similar it is to glamour charms used in other series).
It’s true that she never uses a high-powered version of compulsion, but that’s because she doesn’t want a mindless zombie, Rand would be useless to her in that state. She wants the strong, brilliant Lews Therin, not a human robot that has to be told to breathe and use the bathroom.
That being said, she had to have used something.
In this case I don’t think the weave she used specifically made her look younger/less beautiful. I think it made the individual observer see whatever he needed to see in order to trust her. That’s why I called it a “glamour charm.”
So in this case: Rand sees beautiful young lady in need of rescue. Hurin sees intelligent, capable noblewoman with the brains to help his “Lord Rand” rescue their party. Loial sees…whatever it is that could possible make a human woman physically attractive to an Ogier that never before or after shows any interest in human females.
Again. It doesn’t matter if she is “the most beautiful woman of all time.” Loial isn’t human. Ogier standards for beauty are based on entirely different physiology.
What she did, what she had to have done wasn’t ordinary compulsion. Instead I think it was just a more effective variation of the secondary weave Moraine stated she put on the boys’ coins back in EoTW that was supposed to make them fall in line with her instructions. The only difference is, Lanfear’s worked.
There is no possible way that Rand–who ignores seduction attempts and/or anything that even smells like orders repeatedly throughout the entire book series, and Loial (who is a highly intelligent and learned Ogier) and Hurin (who does criminal investigation work for a living) could all three somehow be stupid enough to just accept her story point blank. Not only that but they all three start to fawn over her mouths open and drooling stupidly?
Ergo, glamour weave.
EDIT: Good point on the angreal thing. I’ve never noticed it before but Rand does seem to have some sort of natural instinct for finding them doesn’t he. I wonder if the encyclopedia will say something about that. If I were to guess, I would have to say it sounds more likely to be a talent similar to Aviendha’s ability to identify the uses of ter’angreal.
@30 – Since Rand never seems to detect Lanfear channeling this charm, I have to wonder: could a weave that subtle yet that effective be put into an article of clothing, or does it have to be embedded into a solid object such as a pendant or coin? Might not that be a way to get around someone’s detection skills?
When El puts a Finder on a criminal, she says that it will fade soon from clothes, but the metal belt buckle keeps the weave for a long time.
@30 wcarter
I think you are overthinking Loial’s attraction to Lanfear. Yes, they are different species, but Ogier are stil humanoid with two arms, two legs, two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth. There are differences, especially in the proportions of the facial features, but they still have more in common than not.
Think of it in terms of cartoon characters. We are perfectly capable of considering them attractive to the point of having some sort of crush (Jessica Rabbit anyone?), despite their “deformity”.
Planet of the Apes managed to make Helena Bonham-Carter’s character still sorta kinda attractive despite the very dominant ape characteristics of her make-up. So why shouldn’t Loial be able to find considerable attractiveness in her appearance?
Did Lanfear use the OP to make Rand and company be all over her? Very likely. But did she need to give herself a multiple choice appearance for everyone involved? I don’t think so.
In fact, I don’t think such a weave would be possible given what we know about the rules of the OP. The magic of WoT is very natural sciency, very cause-and-effect. You become invisible by bending the light around you. You change the colour of your dress essentially by putting a weave on top of it that reflects the light the way you want it to. You compell someone by tugging at the right synapses for the specific end you’d like to achieve.
But covering yourself in a one-size-fits-all glamour that makes everyone see something different yet specifically tailored to their individual needs? I think that is fundamentally incompatible with the WoT magic system.
I always thought Selene might have been using “Compulsion-lite” on Rand and the others. It’s really the only explanation for Loial’s reaction her. But this does still fit with her professed distaste with Compulsion, since she most likely means the strong, noodle-cooking form Graendal uses, and because it is light, it still allows for free will and choice. Rand (and the others) are disposed to look on her favorably, but Rand responding to her seduction and choosing to join her on his own would definitely please Lanfear best, proving she could get him on her own and that he was choosing her for herself, not because the Power made him do it. No insult, she gets to have her cake and eat it too. And what she does later to Perrin acts as further evidence of this.
I also had to laugh at Selene’s transparent “oops-I-spilled-something-on-my-dress, now-I-need-to-change-it” ploy—it’s so obvious, but also so petty and, well, human. It’s kind of nice to know that Age of Legends and Forsaken-ness aside, things haven’t changed that much.
It is odd to think about why the clothing choices weren’t flipped. But aside from the fact many people have pointed out Jordan really didn’t completely invert everything gender-related, whatever he claimed to the contrary, I suspect his Southern sensibilities factored in just as much as “he didn’t think of it”—he just couldn’t imagine women not dressing this way, as much because of his specific upbringing as the fact that sort of clothing is coded into our thinking after being exposed to it all our lives. Though the idea of him doing it just so he could describe the dresses is pretty funny!
Yeah, I too was worried the plan to get the Horn and dagger back would go wrong because it was Selene’s idea. When it worked out, I didn’t suddenly think Selene was okay, though; it just seemed like Fain being too cocky/the Shadowspawn being too stupid, or the Wheel/Pattern. And to be fair, although the plan succeeds, they do end up losing the chest again…but that isn’t Lanfear’s fault. So.
Side note: more helpful, truthful info from Lanfear, about the chest shielding the dagger, and her genuinely being disturbed by it and wanting it gone.
I think the Choedan Kal were meant to be an object lesson about the dangers of absolute power. So to have them actually be the key to stopping the Dark One would have undermined that lesson. Not to mention, they were originally conceived by Latra Posae and her Fateful Concord, and aside from the fact we know if she and the other women had joined Lews Therin’s plan the entire True Source would have been tainted, the decision to create and use the great statues turned out to be ill-conceived and ultimately useless. Of course the point could have been they needed to be saved till later, for actually fighting the Dark One, but I think I have to agree that the amount of Power they could hold was best used for something which required the entirety of the Source, or close to it. And while it was certainly possible that’d be needed to defeat the Dark One, we know for sure it would be required in order to cleanse the entirety of saidin. So it all worked out properly. (And no, while Callandor was extremely powerful and allowed the channeling of a huge amount of One Power and True Power, that wouldn’t have been enough to cleanse saidin I don’t think. Nevermind the flaws/lack of a buffer…)
I always assumed the bit with the Aiel saying was meant to be foreshadowing, not just of learning Rand was of Aiel ancestry but seeing his whole ancestral history at Rhuidean. Hence once we saw that history, such memory throwbacks weren’t needed any more. Maybe the idea was supposed to be that because Mat and Perrin were actually from the Two Rivers, and Rand was adopted, he needed to have a different kind of Old Blood memory? (Although Perrin never had any such flashes…maybe the wolves kept them out?) It is odd that he never had any more than this one, but aside from my foreshadowing theory, maybe his encroaching madness (thanks for the reminder, Loial!) interfered with it?
Anyway, another humanizing moment from Lanfear here that shows just how dangerous the Choedan Kal are/could be. (I always wondered what that name means in the Old Tongue. Think it’ll be in the encyclopedia?) Similarly her reaction to being called Aes Sedai; part of it is her thinking she’s so much better/stronger than such petty channelers, but I bet part is not wanting to be reminded she used to be one, but betrayed it after she was rejected for having unwittingly drilled the Bore (and, in her mind, by Lews Therin for Ilyena). We see this again later with her in the Tower with Mat.
I also am fairly positive the Guide said the ter’angreal statues were required to access the Choedan Kal safely (as well as without having to move the giant statues or travel to where they were), not to access them at all. The smaller size of the ter’angreal was meant to help buffer that amount of Power, not just make them portable. In which case Lanfear has even more reason to fear him channeling through the big statue directly.
The horse bit is…odd. From my experiences it is possible for a horse to get up from its knees with a rider on its back (although awkward and difficult) but I’m not sure how the leaning forward bit works. Unless it meant he bent just the small amount needed to grab the reins, rather than actually far out over the pit?
“The Nine Rings”…lovely shout-out. I wonder what the Randland adventure story it references is actually about?
@@.-@ AndrewHB: Good memory. Yup, going off with her would have been a disaster, even without Compulsion. (I always wondered why Moiraine sleeping him also would have been a disaster. Not that I wanted him to, I’m just curious. Ruining the mentor/apprentice relationship? Making her seem too human to him? Or something else?)
@7 wcarter: LOL!
Lanfear did say to Perrin in AMoL, when speaking of the Turned Asha’man, that “something is lost in the transition” and that they will never be as loyal, or as intelligent and innovative, as if they retain their free will and choose to join the Shadow themselves. I suspect this also applies to how she felt about Compelling Rand (and to a lesser extent, Perrin).
@8 Crusader, @10 Herb: This.
@12 gomiller: ….Me too.
@15 scm: Another good point.
@19 birgit: Ooo you’re right, I don’t think Rand or Hurin had mentioned that detail.
Maybe the Old Tongue is older than the Age of Legends?
I think that is indeed an LTT memory.
@25 Aladdin_Sane: Was that a reference to the ter’angreal used to make fancloth for Warder cloaks? And now I wonder if streith was made the same way, just with a different ter’angreal…
@27 wcarter: LOL! Which makes my comment on her being so human (and petty) in her seduction techniques even more apropos.
@28 givemeraptors: Well to be fair, she practically told him she was going to be in the Waste, after she gave him the idea of getting Asmodean as a teacher (she knew where he was going, or could find him with her ta’veren-detecting ability, and being so determined to use Asmo to teach him so they could overthrow the Dark One and Creator implies she was going to come after him even aside from her obsession). And I doubt she tried to hide her channeling there. The difference is apparently she hid it just enough that he couldn’t detect which exact woman traveling with them was her. So it’s less he divined her presence as he logically concluded she was going to show up again, and may have vaguely sensed her.
@30 wcarter: Very well said. I agree 100%. Also, I believe I broached this theory before, but what if what attracts Loial via this “glamour” is Lanfear’s knowledge? As just a few examples, he seems very excited to know she’s read a book he thought was lost forever, Mirrors of the Wheel, and he acts very proud and eager that she told him he was right about the mirror worlds. Her explaining even more about them, as well as the Portal Stones, also seemed to fascinate him. Loial is a scholar, so perhaps Lanfear’s weave made her seem like a great scholar to him. To go back to my suggestion for if Lanfear were a Third Age Aes Sedai, she seemed like a Brown to him (more like Adeleas than Verin’s dippy act).
@31 LFB, 32 birgit: Maybe it’s attached to her stars and moon belt? We never see her without it, and it is rather reminiscent of Cadsuane’s paralis-net…
I recall several indicators in the text which imply Lanfear was using at least minor bits of compulsion during this sequence. Let me see what I can dig up; I will be editing to skip over less relevant portions of the text, adding italics for emphasis, and inserting comments in [brackets] where applicable:
Chapter 16, shortly after meeting her: “Her expression had not changed, but her dark eyes made him feel as if he were naked. Unbidden, the thought came of Selene with no clothes.“
A couple of paragraphs later: “He shook his head to clear it of foolishness.” [Rand then states his intention to pursue his original objective, delaying his compliance with Selene’s wishes.] “For a moment she was silent, her face blank and smooth; Rand had no idea what she was thinking, except that she seemed to be studying him anew.” [Could just be normal surprise at his willfulness, but could easily be surprise at his resistance to minor compulsion.]
Another few paragraphs down: “Her hand was firm-there was surprising strength in her grip-and her skin was…. Silk? Something softer, smoother. Rand shivered.“
Chapter 17, after returning to the normal world: “Her eyes seemed as dark and deep as night, as soft as velvet. Her mouth…. If I kissed her…. He blinked and stepped back hurriedly, clearing his throat.” [This time the italics are Jordan’s, not mine. That thought is a pretty normal thought for Rand to have, but it’s also the type of thought that could easily be inserted into his head with compulsion. She again pauses with an expressionless face after he steps away.]
Near the end of chapter 17: “She touched his arm and smiled, and he found himself again thinking of kissing her.” [Again, a reasonable thought, yet one that is exactly what Selene wants him to be thinking.]
Chapter 19, 2nd paragraph: “…he told himself it was time to leave. And Selene talked of the Horn of Valere, and touched his arm, and looked into his eyes, and before he knew it he had agreed to yet another day before they went on.”
Three paragraphs later; this one isn’t an indication of compulsion, but rather a potential nod to his sensitivity to female channeling: “Shivering, he opened his eyes…. Rand rolled over…and stopped. In the moonlight he could see the shape of Selene….”
Chapter 20: “She came to him, a sway in her walk that made him feel as if he had something caught in his throat. ‘All I want is to see it in the light of day. I won’t even touch it. You hold it. It would be something for me to remember, you holding the Horn of Valere in your hands.’ She took his hands as she said it; her touch made his skin tingle and his mouth go dry…. Selene was still gazing intently into his eyes, her face so young and beautiful that he wanted to kiss her despite what he was thinking.”
Macster @34. I think the disaster that Moiriane glimpsed in the Rings had she slept with Rand was Lanfear finding out about it. In her anger, she successfully attacks Moiraine (rather than the two of them falling through the red framed doorway. Further, her anger could have resulted in her killing Rand.
Another possibility was that Rand’s sleeping with Moiraine somehow adversely affected his relationship with the Aiel. It may have been seen as some sort of great insult that causes the Aiel to leave Rand. However, I think this second option is unlikely. As it turns out, Rand had more than one love (two of which are non Aiel). The Aiel did not have a problem with this. In fact, the Aiel embraced this. Over time, the Aiel (at least certainly the Wise Ones) came to respect both Elayne and Min. In addition, Aiel culture accepts that a man may have multiple lovers/wives (as long as the women agree among themselves first to such an arrangement).
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewHB
@35. Hmm….. seems like every touch Selene gave Rand probably was combined with light compulsion on her part.
@35 – Nice analysis!
Count me as one who never saw the intent of WoT to be a complete gender role flip, although I think it DOES explore the flip of power dynamics. But that is not quite the same thing as flipping the roles – women may still have the roles we associate with women today, but those roles just may be respected more, especially given that all the baggage surrounding who is responsible for ‘the Fall’ is not present. Not to mention, that Aes Sedai are probably considered extraordinary so might not be a reflection of the roles/dynamic of ‘typical’ women anyway. But at any rate, Jordan does seem to believe that there is SOME kind of fundamental difference between the sexes (hence saidar and saidin) – but they are equal and something deeper than the typical stereotypes.
Regarding clothes choices, one thing that jumped out at me that hasn’t already been said is the idea of modesty. Is modesty always linked to (or does it always have to be linked to) sexism? In a world where women aren’t considered the reason for ‘The Fall’, could there be other reasons for modesty, but without all the hang ups we see in our world today about it? (I would say yes, but I also reject the idea that the Fall, even in Christian theology, is intended to be the sole responsibility of women, regardless of how some have taken that idea and run with it).
Hrrmmm … citation needed? No offense but a lot of times when people talk about what men and women are “biologically” hardwired to do it’s not actually based on real scientific research but on their own ideas about how things work or “something they read somewhere” and are vaguely remembering.
I find it hard to believe that men and women’s dress are biologically driven, given that there’s such a wide variety of dress conventions across different cultures (and dress conventions change dramatically over time, even over the course of decades). When something is based on biology, it tends to remain fairly uniform across cultures and time. Something that changes as dramatically as clothing conventions and fashion is almost certainly driven by cultural and societal forces and not biology.
That said, a couple more thoughts on the clothing. At the opening of WoT, there’s not a lot of cultural mixing due to the sparse population of the world and the lack of technology. Dress conventions seem to be based very much on local custom, climate and resources and the way one dresses is heavily influenced by national identity and local societal pressures. For example, the Two Rivers clothing is mainly made of wool as that is their main product. It’s unsurprising that their dress is fairly conservative and gender divided, as Two Rivers society is shown to be extremely conservative and also insular. (I think Jordan also wanted to make it recognizable as a medieval/pre-modern English village-like setting, so he kept the dress conventions of that type of setting). As soon as outsiders start coming in and introducing new forms of dress, the Two Rivers folk start dressing differently. The more upheaval and displacement hits the world, the more you also see fashions changing with people starting to ape the Aiel and Min and people adopting new forms of dress as more forced mixing happens.
Also, you forget the Sea Folk, in your exceptions. Their women wear pants and opt to go topless when they can. That one always struck me as funny, because I’m not sure how aware Jordan is of how IMPRACTICAL that would actually be for many women, especially those doing sailors’ work.
Leigh and I have a fundamental difference of opinion on the whole gender-flipping theme. Unless I’m really off base, it seems like there are as many kings as queens, equality among the sexes with regard to leading and management of countries, townships, and villages – as has been noted before – but instead of women working with men side by side, as we theoretically do in our modern world, women work with women and men work with men. In our world, our city council will be comprised of men and women, not two separate bodies. I think this doesn’t necessarily equate a gender-flipped world. There was a catastrophic disaster 3000 years ago and men broke the world, that much is true and that does count heavily in some areas where men are restricted from doing certain tasks, but that is not the whole of Randland. It is mostly because we are living in the world of the Aes Sadai that we see this as such a profound discrepancy, but in the “normal” Randland, men and women are seen as mostly equal – but very different, and having very different roles to fulfill.
re Red nearly falling off the cliff: I always pictured this scene as the horse shying away from the cliff, that the dirt was falling away from under his front left hoof and possibly his rear back hoof. Then Rand’s leaning forward as the horse was turning back away from the cliff so they didn’t fall backward into the abyss makes more sense.