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I find the Da’shain Aiel, and later Tuatha’an, “Way of the Leaf” to be equal parts fascinating and infuriating. To swear off any form of violence is, on the surface, a noble thing. It takes enormous courage to face oppression and brutality and still refuse to spill blood in return, no matter how justified it would seem. It is a kind of radical hope: a belief that suffering can be endured without perpetuating the same cycle of violence.

But the more I sit with it, the more I cringe.

Because individual people, especially women, are sacrificed at the altar of the group’s ideal. The Way of the Leaf demands endurance, not justice. It demands survival of the soul at the expense of the body. And in doing so, it allows systemic rot to fester unchecked. In a world that grows harsher, crueller, more violent by the day, clinging to absolute pacifism becomes less a courageous stand and more a death sentence; not just for oneself, but for those who cannot choose for themselves. Sometimes, a worthy stance against systemic violence means fighting back, literally. Sometimes, peace must be defended, not merely endured.

Maigran. Colline. Rhea. Kirin.

Girl pay the greatest price for the Da’shain Aiel’s stubbornness. Young girls brutalized and harmed, while the adults around them tell themselves that nonresistance is the higher virtue. And who decides this? Men. It is men who are the leaders, the ones who set the path and demand the rest follow it. It is old men who decide that young girls are not worth fighting for.

The scene where Lewin and the other boys find Maigran and Colline is chilling. As a woman reading it, the signs are immediately clear: torn dresses, bruised bodies, vacant, hollow stares. These girls were not merely kidnapped; they were sexually assaulted. And what makes it even more horrifying is the realization that the girls’ fathers have already made peace with this. They have decided, whether consciously or not, that their daughters’ suffering, their daughters’ bodies, are an acceptable sacrifice for the sake of an ideal. That preserving the Way of the Leaf is more important than protecting their own children. It is disgusting. And it is the price of clinging to a long dead dream.

How poignant than that it is young Lewin, a boy not yet fully molded by their poisoned ideals, who first dares to question what the others accepted without thought. Why should he sacrifice his sister? Why is her life worth less than an unattainable ideal? It is a simple, instinctive rebellion, born not of logic or philosophy, but of love and anger. And it changes everything. Through Lewin’s defiance, and through Morin’s later courage to break away from a system that demanded women’s silent suffering, a new path is forged. A path where women no longer endure violence in the name of ideals that can no longer be realized. A path that will one day give birth to the Maidens of the Spear.

So far, this has been Robert Jordan’s most nuanced and brilliant critique on the intersection between culture and gender dynamics: so often, female victimhood becomes the invisible backbone of cultural practice. That women’s pain is not just collateral damage, but the silent currency that traditions are built and maintained upon. A world that preaches passive endurance without accountability does not merely fail women. It feeds on them.

#I find most of Jordan’s “takes” on gender to be surface level at best #but this —#this is good!#I do wonder if it was intentional or if he stumbled upon it — I don’t trust white male fantasy authors much lmao #wheel of time #the shadow rising