untitled

the hallways of the White Ajah

[vancouver-lord-goldeneyes]

This gif really caught my eye scrolling through Tumblr and after watching a few times carefully I can explain why: I think they’re going to nail channeling, in as much as you can moving to screen from the personal subjective experience of the characters in book. Look at how the threads are coming from multiple directions off screen, showing how the Power is everywhere, look how some go directly to her right hand and others wrap around her body to get there, to show how she directs the flows, look how her left hand seems to pull a chunk of Power away from her right but she’s still holding and maintaining flows with that right hand. She’s drawing it in, immersing herself in it, guiding it to do what she needs it to do. Also: Bonus points for Lan being so in sync he rolls down to give her a clear blast and then pops up ready to fight right behind it

[jackoshadows]

Yeah, the channeling looks good.  I wonder if we will see different colors for the weaves or if it’s going to be all white. I pictured them as being different colors like differently colored threads being woven together. Saidin and Saidar could have used different colors - or maybe a blackish tinge to the white weaves to show the taint. But from what I could see in the Logain scene, Saidin weaves seem white as well.

On another forum someone reminded us that hand motions are not necessary for channeling and that the wise ones mocked the Aes Sedai for using them, but I think it is apt for the show to use these hand motions - it’s just not going to look good for a TV show if characters just stand there looking at each other while the weaving is done. In this case, Moiraine would look rather silly if she stood motionless, while attacking the Trollocs with the One Power.

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

I wonder whether this is at all what channelling looks like for the channellers. Remember the glow of saidar? Remember it playing a key role in stuff? Also, Moiraine's movements also include her trying to see where the Trollocs are and protecting herself from them. She might also want to show Lan where to go. I'm just saying, do not underestimate stuff. Yet. I also think that it would look stunning if an Aes Sedai stood still, even with her eyes closed, while causing an earthquake or a thunderstorm. We also did not see what the Aes Sedai were doing while they were sitting around Logain, so.... PoV of the same sex channeller as the one who is doing the channelling might be key, just like Rafe said on Twitter.

[faustandfurious]

One of the funnier facts about Wheel of Time is that the armies of evil are led by a bunch of ancient academics with big egos who highkey loathe one another, and honestly this also explains why they time and time again lose to a bunch of country bumpkins with newly discovered magical powers.

[asmodean-deserved-better]

apparently a lot of people love how Shara was handled and think it was well foreshadowed, and it's honestly so baffling to me. because it wasn't? like at all? it was namedropped a couple of times and that's it. this isn't how you set up a threat of this level

[amys-the-wise-1]

I’ve read the series countless times and I think I’ve picked up on what the issue is for us readers.

(This also applies for Who Killed Asmo and The Amayar)

RJ, for all of his magnificent brilliance, knew the backstories inside and out but didn’t bother to include more chapter(s) to make it where the readers knew or cared about these additional peoples. RJ was nine levels of brilliant but fell short in getting us, the readers, emotionally involved with them.

(Cough Cut back on the Atha’an Miere political dramatics Cough)

The Amayar was a huge letdown because I wasn’t emotionally invested in them. I had no reason to appreciate them since they were barely noted in the canon texts. Had we gotten a full chapter (including how they dealt with their Madmen) I might have had more reaction to them. Had we heard (yet again another tale of Jain Farstrider) I would have been better invested emotionally.

The same for the Sharans. I love how they were developed. I do appreciate how subtle it was but it also needed more exposition in the texts for it to come through as more “Oh Damn we’re f*” moment than it already is in the text.

I do love how they were brought into the text. But it would have been more impactful from a reader’s perspective if we’d had a little bit more in regards to them and their society - even if it was Rand reading a chapter out of the Stories of Jain Farstrider about his times in Shara (and lived to tell about it!)

[highladyluck]

(Book 6/9/14 spoilers ahead) In addition to not enough setup, Shara never got enough screen time or sympathetic-ish POV characters to get un-Othered the way the Aiel and Seanchan did. (And RJ spent so much time Othering and then un-Othering those two cultures, so by the end of the series you have a really good sense of what they’re about: good, bad, and ugly, what the human/plot stakes are, and how accurate your first impressions were.) They’re the last big bad, so arguably they don’t need to be humanized, but RJ spent so much energy complicating his antagonist cultures that the Sharans feel very 1-D by comparison.

The Sea Folk got more than the Sharans but also not as much as the Aiel and Seanchan, and the Amayar were a footnote. I also think you first meet the Amayar in an Amayar POV, where they are a) celebrating and b) not mentioning the horrifying part, so the horror payoff is delayed.

Who Killed Asmo was just bad writing and doubling down on it, but it does end up affecting the Shara stuff. There’s a reason everyone reading LoC for the first time thinks Demandred is Mazrim Taim- the book itself makes more sense if he is, and RJ changed it retroactively to put Demandred over in Shara.

[gunkreads]

Ok specifically regarding Taim being Demandred: I was always confused on this one. It seems like general fan consensus is that this was SUPER obvious, but I really want to know what you guys were smoking on that one. I always got the impression that Demandred was Somewhere Else™ and honestly, the way things turned out in the story was exactly how I had predicted. One day I'd actually like to see a list of points where people saw Taim being Demandred because that shit does NOT track

[highladyluck]

I don’t think I picked it up on the first read, but early fans only had so many books at their disposal and theorizing was a major pasttime. It's some combination of the way the narrative is set up and some other hints. I believe Demandred boasting about his plans bookends LoC and in LoC Taim is building an army of male channelers, which sure would be a great thing to give the Dark One. I know RJ's prologues get weird later on, but early on he does seem to have known what a prologue is for and it's less likely that it would be completely contextually divorced from the rest of the story. LoC is a stronger book if Demandred and Taim are the same person. The other hint I find the most convincing is Taim talking about "so-called Aiel" which is a phrase we only see one other person use- and that person is Moridin.

This is a website that lists stuff, it's not super convincing to me aside from 'so-called Aiel" but it gives you an idea of what the early fandom was up to: https://www.angelfire.com/ego/tzarchasm/wot/theories/taimandred_full.html

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

Let me tell you what I had noticed back then, which was mainly that book 4, books 5 and 6, this was all about people not having seen all the Forsaken yet and thinking and kind of hoping they get to uncover one... Speculation was, indeed, a great deal.

For Taim being Demandred there was, to me, the hint about the nose and the strength in the One Power, as well as the fact that Taim was ahead with his channelling, and that even for a strong channeller, they wouldn't learn that many things on their own, as we know Rand did (and even Rand had some leaking memories from his previous lifetime in his head before he found Asmodean).

A hint Shara was coming about was its huge absence, the hinted internal structure (forbidden entry and its people naming it different ways), the ways noblety is dressed in silk and people were never wondering about where and what it comes from (the Big Unseen), and the way that after having been convinced Taim is not Demandred and seeing Demandred work with the likes of Semirhage and Messaana (one - in Seanchan and one in the White Tower), that it became less and less likely he is the king of Murandy. Had he been the king of Murandy, one can figure, like Sammael, he would have centralised the power and wouldn't really have let the Aes Sedai go that easily through it. While we had Aran'gar plucking about with the Aes Sedai then, Egwene's actions and her success (because she didn't trust Delana or any of the Sitters), can be a proof that there was no other Forsaken playing a role there. While that can be attributed to Messaana still thinking Egwene has been a marionette back then, and thus having let this overturn pass (go Egwene!), we can be also sure that Lanfear, Asmodean, Moghedien, Semirhage, Sammael, Graendal, Rahvin and Osan'gar were for sure doing something else or were dead and therefore not in Murandy.

A few other ways it was foreshadowed that something was going on in Shara were the caravans getting lost, never getting to be seen again after travelling through it, the cockroaches which attacked Romanda's tent*, and, of course, the fact that after Graendal kindnapped and compelled the shbotai and shboan, there really was no way that some political crysis wouldn't have arised there.

* One might call that a long shot but, one interesting thing about the cockroaches attacking Romanda's tent while the group was discussing possible ways of breaking into/out of Tar Valon during a siege was that Tar Valon at the time mirrored Shara in the way that it was unaccessible and ruled by a tyrant. The cockroaches symbolised both the Shadow in the way that it found ways everywhere nearing the Last Battle, and Shara, in the way that they came from an unaccessible/forbidden land in a tent where people were discussing possible ways to get into one. The cockroaches tore through the floor of the tent - Siuan, Bryne and Gawin used a secret tunnel.

[nature-travel-photography]

Wild mud cracks in the American Southwest, USA, [oc][1533x2300] - Author: Awayiflew on reddit

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

Why Alviarin Wasn't so Smart and Brilliant

Alviarin had a brilliant Darkfriend carreer by her own standards and by applying continuously a few traits that she had learned and mastered. She killed a young man in her teen years which showed her ability to keep composure during stressful events/situations and this is likely what led her or was close to her beginning to channel the One Power.

Due to her ability to remain calm she had managed to survive both as a Darkfriend novice and Accepted, and as a Black Ajah Aes Sedai.

But let us compare her with a few other Black sisters.

When Liandhrin met Moghedien, she almost immediately tried to take advantage or look for a way to twist her Power against her. Liandrin was brave to use her own hatred of Nynaeve to come close to Moghedien and earn her trust, however little that means to people who serve the Shadow. Liandrin is not tempted to try against Moghedien when she was in her full wake but just and only when she saw a weakness in her composure. That is, Liandrin used her now-or-never chance. She failed because she underestimated (doh) the Forsaken's ability to channel under extreme pressure - after all, the Forsaken were Aes Sedai, for which we have some proof from Graendal's ability when she is cut during the Last Battle in her fight with Aviendha. And of course, she underestimated by a large margin how old and experienced Moghedien in fact is compared to herself .

When Alviarin met Messaana she did the opposite. She never underestimated the Forsaken and she never looked at the possibility that she could fail in her own way in terms of serving the Dark One. Alviarin was quick to discover the Forsaken was hiding among Aes Sedai and that there was no way that she herself might have matched her in a fight. But Alviarin also assumed that Messaana had full control over her environement. Messaana was a good leader and a strong administrator, but she did in fact little more than hide herself and use Alviarin to run most of her errands in the Tower. Messaana knew Alviarin was intelligent and besides teaching her a few weaves and occasionaly checking up on her, she did little but use the already-set network of the Blacks. When Alviarin ended up between her and Elaida, both irrational personalities and with a blindspot each, she was bound to fail. When Messaana was punished for not attending the cleansing of saidin, Alviarin peed her pants, not because she saw something which set her off, but mainly because she had thought of Messaana as invincible and all-knowing. The fact that Messaana felt she had enough power to ignore an order from Moridin speaks of her blind spot for the rest of the world besides the White Tower at this point. Alviarin never saw her as vulnerable or faulty. In her own thoughts, she refers to Messaana as some long-awaited teacher or leader who had come to help her. She almost relied on the Forsaken. The same way that Ishamael stretched his arm and chose her to be the Black Ajah leader, all the while, there was no way that she could have been sure there is anything more than chance behind his choice, as the Black, naturally, don't keep a record of their deeds.

Alviarin wasn't particularly smart either, when she decided to press Elaida too harshly. This did result in a near-collapse inside the Tower, but her rigid methods led Elaida to be suspicious of her enough so that Alviarin at one point later couldn't be sure anymore if Elaida had not uncovered the Black Ajah itself. Alviarin believed, knowing Elaida, that she had managed to find a way to twist her arm good, but then again underestimated the woman in this Tower who managed to usurp an entire Amyrlin Seat.

Alviarin was calm, thoughtful and emotionless, but at some point these qualities weren't enough for where she was anymore. One mistake of Alviarin's was mainly that she never gathered an acomplice during her time as a Keeper. She survived the Tower reuinion mainly because of the chance which had led Messaana to teach her to Travel. Which by itself was only due to the fact that Messaana probably only needed no more than a few errands run outside the Tower, for which she herself never thought of using another but her main and most important servant.

Had Alviarin not Travelled to Tremalking for a long period of time, would she have kept her position as Keeper? Yes, if she had managed to manipulate Elaida more carefully and not enough for Elaida to hope that she is a traitor just for the sake of losing her.

We can almost deduce for Alviarin that she was a thought-out careful planner, but her rigid actions and the fact that an unexpected change of her plans sent her to her rooms to think it through meant that she wasn't well-prepared for quick action, even if it were necessary. Compare her to some of the other Blacks, like Liandhrin or Sheriam, two other leaders among the Black, compare her even to Moghedien, she was much more set in her ways and much less flexible.

[highladyluck]

I’m pretty sure the tumblr exclusives posts know exactly what they’re doing

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

Ah. Did I do it again? Sorry. Just working on a drawing of Saroya. Dont't mind me.

Here's a glimpse:

[tanyaluca]

Paths of Life...

Tanya Luca

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

person A: what are you doing?

person B: thinking of White Ajah jokes.

person A: sorry, thinking of White Ajah what?

.

[tanyaluca]

Plenty of Petals....Tanya Luca

[gladysplummer]

Would Aes Sedai actually have to read the Terms and Conditions before hitting Accept?

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

It depends on whether or not the box says “I have read and accept the Terms and Conditions” or just “I accept the Terms and Conditions”. If an Aes Sedai logs on from someone else’s account they would not be able to agree without reading in case the box says “I have read and accept the Terms and Conditions” since the Oath against lying would hold even if the perceived speaker/author/object is someone else.

[malarkay]

I’d say it doesn’t matter, because the Oath is technically, “To speak no word that is not true.’  And since clicking on the Terms and Conditions involves no speaking, doing so without reading them would not constitute a violation of the First Oath.

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

I vow to speak no word that is not true The verb to speak in English can have more meanings than to “say something out loud” and here are a few examples that I can think of right now: “Actions speak louder than words.” “Speaking of words with many possible meanings, one must use a dictionary to make sure they understand what they are talking about.” “Using the word in that context is not, strictly speaking, correct.“ [this one is from the Oxford dictionnary ] One of the negative consequences of all Oaths is that they bind for all meanings and possible interpretations of every single word included in the Oath... Which means an Aes Sedai would not be able to point a wrong direction using her finger either, except of course for when she believes she is telling the truth. So far, the only successful way to circumvent the Oath against lying is by omission. Another example which is worth mentioning of the opposite is Siuan’s ability to create a weapon for demonstrative purposes and since she doesn’t let anyone use it to kill another person, she has no problem creating it with the One Power. And thus circumventing the Oath against creating a weapon. This all frankly is a Grey Ajah manner, since it involves interpretation of a law. But since it is a rule which holds before any possible judging is applied, and much more because most Aes Sedai do their best to circumvent the Oaths, we can iterate if we need to in the White Ajah / under a White Ajah thematic.

[gacougnol]

K. H.

[gladysplummer]

Would Aes Sedai actually have to read the Terms and Conditions before hitting Accept?

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

It depends on whether or not the box says “I have read and accept the Terms and Conditions” or just “I accept the Terms and Conditions”. If an Aes Sedai logs on from someone else’s account they would not be able to agree without reading in case the box says “I have read and accept the Terms and Conditions” since the Oath against lying would hold even if the perceived speaker/author/object is someone else.

[belugakid]

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

A thorough systematic analysis a day keeps the fatigue of channelling too much of the One Power due to irrational decision making and unbalanced planning away

[highladyluck]

Seems like it might be time for another intro post? These are so self-indulgent but that’s the name of my game!

Hi! I’m Kelly, my username is absolutely a pun on my most problematic of faves (Tuon aka Fortuona), and this blog is like 85% Wheel of Time right now.

You’ve probably found me from my WoT humor or meta, but I also write fic and occasionally filk. (Check my bio for the link to my AO3.) The rest is science fiction, whatever I’m reading or watching at the time, and weird art or whatever. I am sometimes a collage and mosaic artist, because putting a bunch of little pieces together to make a brand-new object is very fun.

I post more or less daily right now, sometimes like 8 posts a day, sometimes just one or two. Feel free to reblog with commentary, send me asks, etc etc- it’s a small fandom, let’s get to know each other!

Fair warning, I’m casually spoilery and this is probably not a safe account to follow if that’s going to be a dealbreaker. I try to tag #wheel of time spoilers or #[specific book] spoilers when it’s relevant and I remember, but I don’t always, and my meta is usually inclusive of the whole series by default.

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

<- This blog is run by a male, doesn't represent personal opinions in its main posts, and is dedicated to the Aes Sedai of the White Ajah of WoT. Its goal is to give an unbiased analysis of various Wheel of Time questions and issues by using reasearch and logic, and to combine the answers into a theme which blends with the description of the White Ajah ("things one might overhear in the White Ajah hallways").

It contains spoilers as the analyses it does have the purpose of being as exhausting as possible.

The likes that the account does are not just WoT related, though all of its posts are :)

(auxiliary blogs: urban-thinking and belugakid, old names which i wanted to keep, one used to be a lifestyle&culture blog, the other used to be my handle on twitter. The handle on twitter caught parasites and got deleteded ).

.

[gunkreads]

something something ingtar's final desperate attempt at redemption is one of those story beats that I really wish happened without any ta'veren around so I could be SURE that he was truly moved just by rand's love for his friend. I hate to live with the idea that this man wrenched himself free of the dark one JUST because rand, mat, and perrin were around.

I gotta say though I think it was an unparalleled way at explaining how so many people could serve the dark one. He wasn't mad at the light, he wasn't mad at his home, he was mad at the world for betraying his home by forgetting its purpose. and after decades of that betrayal he snapped and decided it would be better the other way.

[thoughtlessnesslessness]

You are ignoring Verin’s role in that too. Let’s not forget the chance that she may well have been aware he is a Darkfriend. One particular thing which has happened and we can be sure that it has is that she used the ta’veren pull excuse at least once to explain or hide her actions.

The odds are that she might have pressed him to do it (kill/sacrifice yourself, or I’ll do it for you), as removing powerful Darkfriends is something she has been seen to be rather interested in.

Another possibility is that Ingtar could have realised that the Last Battle was on its way and feared that he might come to a place where he would have to betray more to the Shadow than he’d ever have the guts to. He wouldn’t have been the first Darkfriend who realised they are in for more than they bargained for, or who peed their pants upon realising the Last Battle would happen in their lifetime, or that they’d meet the Forsaken.

Ingtar’s admission to Rand and revealing himself to be a Darkfriend is another story.

[gacougnol]

Peter Mathis