#wot musing

[asha-mage]

On the subject of 'the Gray Ajah is underrated' I feel like everyone just kind skates passed the WILD implications of Beonin telling us that a big part of her duty was catching murderers.

Like obviously the diplomacy and mediation play a larger role on page given the events of the series, but you're telling me that part of the Ajah's mission statement is to solve murders Sherlock Holmes style? And we're all just gonna collectively ignore how absolutely bonkers cool that is?

[asha-mage]

Because I am coping with current world events in a completely normal manner I've been thinking a lot about how one of the tensions that underpins the whole of Wheel of Time is Robert Jordan as 'person who likes history' vs Robert Jordan as 'person who had to live through the Cold War.'

Something that can be really hard for people born after the Cold War (like myself) to grasp is that for a long time history was the ultimate reassurance against existential dread. Civilizations could rise and fall, empires could crumble, disasters could wipe out a hell of a lot of people, but human beings as a species, where never in any real danger of dying out. New countries would eventually rise out of the ashes of old ones, societies would change to be unrecognizable but they would still be there, religions, cultures ideologies etc might all die out but the people would still be around. History provided the ultimate comfort: whatever happened in our brief finite lives human beings as an group would eventually be fine.

But that changed after World War 2 and the invention of a little something called the atomic bomb. Suddenly human beings had the potential to destroy not just ourselves but all life on earth if things went wrong enough. For the first time in history their was no real guarantee that human beings as a species would make it, and in fact their was a whole lot of reason to believe based on the patterns of history that eventually that power would get used and human kind would destroy itself. That was the Cold War- two nuclear states who really really wanted to start blasting each other to pieces but couldn't without risking the end of life as we know it.

The tension between these two realities- the assurance of history that life will go on and the reality that human beings could in theory actually end the fucking world, is built into the core of Wheel of Time. The first lines assure us: time is cyclical. It's all happened before. It's all going to happen again. Human being will live out the same stories in endless variation, the same patterns will always reemerge. And the world has already survived one apocalyptic event: the Breaking, and come out the other side not doing fantastically, but still around. The world has been reshaped forever and whole eras of progress have been undone, but humanity remains.

But at the same time doomsday weapons with the potential to wipe out the species are everywhere. The Choden Kal can crack the planet open like an egg. Balefire burns apart time itself. A plague of madness is waiting for any old schmo to wander into it's den and carry it back outside so it can infect and destroy everyone. Their are all kinds of different big glowing red 'destroy humanity' buttons laying around in WoT just begging to get pressed. And in a way the Dark One is the ultimate version of that because that button has already been pressed. The Bore has been opened. Left alone humanity is fucked and everyone knows it. It can be delayed and pushed back, but never truly stopped, except by the intervention of destiny- the intervention of the Dragon. That's the core conflict of the series. Rand is struggling to stop a missile that's already been launched, prevent an end everyone can see coming. It's not just 'I need to defeat the big bad evil overlord or everything will be bad forever', it's 'I need to stop the Dark One or that's the end of human beings as an idea'.

What's especially interesting is that Jordan isn't even framing the Wheel/Pattern as uniformly good, because it's history and history is messy and complicated and full of contradictions and no easy answers. The Wheel, the Pattern, is not some force for righteousness. It's a neutral fact of existence. Not what's best or what's ideal- those are subjective and grounded in human understanding of the world- but what's necessary and what's true. To want to break free from history, to break the Wheel, is to want to break free of being human. That's what the Forsaken all truly want (as I have talked about before): to leave behind their humanity, and their willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to do it. What that looks like and what motivates that desire is different for each of them but their united in that common goal, and they all either disregard the consequences of what it will mean or don't understand them.

The story of history is one of incredible suffering and amazing triumph: it's full of heartache and joy in equal measure. It's not fair or just or simple to understand, but it is a reflection of who we all are collectively. The fight to preserve the Wheel isn't a fight to preserve what is good or ideal, it is a fight to preserve what is human. Because as long as the story can keep going, we can have hope for tomorrow.

And Jordan promises right from the offing that their will always be a tomorrow. No beginnings. No endings. Just whatever comes next.

As we enter a period of history that is the most uncertain it's ever been in my lifetime, I can't help but I think of the incredible courage and strength it must have taken be staring down the barrel of nuclear armageddon and stubbornly insist that there would be a tomorrow. The man wrote eleven of the best books ever made exploring this exact struggle- about never giving in to despair or pain, never buying into the belief that things are hopeless, that humanity sucks and we're all doomed.

And remembering that...I don't know. It makes a little easier to breath and keep walking towards tomorrow myself.

[asha-mage]

Also the confrontation is so smartly framed because it's not like it had to go this way: Liandrin very pointedly has a pretty even hand with Siuan. As others have pointed out Nynaeve's word is not ironclad proof of anything, especially for a charge so serious as being a Darkfriend. Liandrin could have kept going, kept trying to maneuver her way out of this situation. But she doesn't want too. She wants the fight. She wants the gory glory. She wants everyone to acknowledge her power. That's her driving motivation in both the books and the show: she wants desperately the power and respect to never be at anyone's mercy ever again. Deep down she is still trying to escape being the poor daughter of a fruit seller, a nobody trapped in poverty forced to pay deference to everyone else. She is still trying to amass enough power, enough acclaim, enough status, enough control that she can feel truly in command of her own life and the lives of others.

If Liandrin where a true believer in the cause she would have fought to the bitter end. She would have done anything to keep the Black Ajah's existence a secret, even sacrificed herself if necessary to prevent the truth from coming out. But Liandrin isn't a believer. She didn't join Team Shadow because she wants to break the wheel, end human suffering and the eternal cycle of history. She joined because she wants power and she wants the world to know she's powerful. So when Nynaeve walks through that door she attacks Siuan because deep down?

That's what she's always wanted to do anyways.

[asha-mage]

I don't think this line is going to make it into the final draft of the essay but I still proud of it and wanted to post it here for posterity:

It’s no mistake that the opinions of various WoT characters about nobility are all over the map, running the spectrum from Mat ‘I will treat being called my lord like a slur’ Cauthon to Elayne ‘I could be the poster child for enlightened despotism’ Trakand.

[asha-mage]

Every time I see a hot take that boils down to 'Jordan is CLEARLY a misogynist because he wrote the Aes Sedai as wracked by pettiness, infighting, and short sighted selfishness' I do a double take and have to remind myself that not everyone is familiar enough with medieval history to understand just how much Jordan direct lifted from the Roman Catholic Church in how he writes the Aes Sedai.

[asha-mage]

Something that I really love about New Spring is how it captures versions of Moiriane and Lan that are both so clearly still youths and yet already have the contours of the stone cold badasses they will become. Moiraine obviously shines the most in this regard since so much of the book is centered on her leaving various safe shelters (Accepted-hood, The Tower, Siuan, etc) but Lan also undergoes a similar arc about finding independence as he struggles to define his own identity on his terms rather than those or his various guardians (Bukama, Edeen, his dead parents).

Helping emphasize this is the opening, which I had forgotten features Lan as being so aggressively twenty five.

[asha-mage]

Something I've been thinking about today: in New Spring when Siuan asks Moiraine asks why the Sitters are bothering her Moiraine lies and says she doesn't know, which she notes is the only lie she's ever told Siuan. Later Siuan's immediate reaction upon learning the Sitters are plotting to put Moiraine on the Sun Throne is delight. She thinks Moraine would make a wonderful Queen.

And I think that is exactly the sort of reaction Moiriane was worried about. No one is more important to Moiraine at this point in the story than Siuan is, and she has incredible influence over Moiraine. Had Siuan known from the beginning she might have tried to persuade Moiraine to embrace the plan rather than struggle against it and Moiraine fears that she might have succeeded. Siuan's belief in Moiraine and Moiraine's admiration for Siuan would have been enough to push her to enter the succession.

And I think that speaks volumes to the depths of their love and bond.

[asha-mage]

The thing that's so so brilliant about the Jeaine moment is that it's EXACTLY the kind of shit Jordan pulled all the time. Using a single line to convey truly wild amounts of depth and complexity.

We're expecting something a lot simpler- vengeance and fury and spitting rage. And that would have worked and maybe even created sympathy. Instead her euphoric smile and her little "Oh yes. I can feel it." paint a completely different picture from what we're expecting and begs more questions.

That makes Jeanie something far better than sympathetic.

It makes her interesting.