cannoli-reader

[cannoli-reader]

Everyone knows Brandon Sanderson saved WoT readers from having to read descriptions. And also think. In fact he actively discourages the latter.

When he thinks he is being clever, he has people worry about Draghkar flying up through a horizontal gateway and piling up corpses outside it. Because they are going to pass through the gateway, die, and then continue flying up, while dead, and then turn at a right angle so they land on the ground next to the gateway. Instead of flying through, dying as soon as their head crosses the plane, and then dropping straight back down. hE Is sO cLeVEr wItH hIs mAgIc SySteMs!

When he is trying to write normally, he has an Aes Sedai enter her tent and be surprised to find her warder in the tent. The warder then looks up and is surprised to see his Aes Sedai in the tent with him. Because A. warders are ever surprised at someone approaching them and B. the bond is not a thing? Not that we should be surprised, because it's the third book in a row where a member of an Aes Sedai-warder pair wonders what the other is feeling.

You can poo-poo the character arcs he butchered, the hideously OoC dialogue that he uses in place of narration, and say "why can't you just be happy we got the ending?" but the answer is "because the ending trilogy requires you to literally turn off your brain and pretend you never read a book without Sanderson's grubby fingerprints on it!"

When Jordan writes a character saying or doing something stupid, you are pretty sure that you are intended to recognize the diegetic stupidity. When Brandon Sanderson has a man think that a Power-made device that makes you hard to see and Power-granted physical enhancements are "not the way of the Warder," you have no idea if the guy who says this is intended to be depicted as a fucking moron, or if the author has forgotten that Warders have fancloth cloaks and a Power-made bond, that he persists in emphasizing the physical enhancements, as opposed to the knowledge of the bonding partner that takes precedence in Books 4-11.

Thinking about Avienda’s vision in the glass columns from Towers of Midnight again and I decided to double check something that seemed weird to me- the timeline for this is a complete mess.

So, Padre and her siblings are all adults when they decide to go to war with Seanchen- let’s be generous and say they’re young adults in their twenties. By this point apparently Tuon is already dead/deposed since according to Padre, Tuon was amiable to talks about returning the wise ones to the aiel but the current empress isn’t. Which means it’s not Tuon. That’s a quick turn around to begin with since Tuon is only in her early twenties when the last battle occurs. So roughly twenty years post tarmengedon Tuon is no longer Empress and either her and Mat’s daughter or some other Seanchen high blood who staged a coup is currently ruling and is far less reasonable than Tuon.

Next we see is Oncala, who is Padre’s daughter, she is also an adult which makes sense given that this is roughly sixty years after Tarmengedon, except for the fact that it’s Elayne’s GRANDDAUGHTER on the Lion Throne. Elayne like Tuon was around twenty during Tarmengedon, she’d be eighty, which may seem like a lot except for the fact that she’s a channeler who can comfortably live to one hundred with zero issues- not to mention she NEVER TOOK THE THREE OATHS, so she could comfortably live to over a thousand years old without looking a day over sixty. But we could argue Elayne might’ve stepped down to go be with Rand or smth in retirement- except why is it her granddaughter and not her daughter on the Lion Throne who would only be sixty which is young even for channeler who did take the three oaths!

Like yes we could argue Tuon’s short reign was caused by assassination since it’s so common in Seanchen, you could even argue for Elayne only ruling for sixty years but there’s absolutely no way it would be her granddaughter in that short of time.

[cannoli-reader]

It's easy to win when the author is a fan of yours and never understood your opponent.

Or memers ignore the actual text.

"Is that a tea tray? I would like some, if it's fresh, and hot. ... Rand scooped up the tray... and wafted it to the three women... He filled three (cups), replaced the teapot and waited... Annoura looked at the tray much as one might a coiled viper... Merana drew a deep breath and slowly picked up a cup with a hand that trembled slightly. Cadsuane, though, took her cup and sniffted the vaors with a pleased smile... She looked across her cup straight at Rand..."That's a good boy, she said."

This was in a room full of people yelling, freaking out and tensing for a fight, and Rand ready to kill her at the drop of a hat, after months of emotional, psychological and physical abuse at the hands of Aes Sedai, starting with Moiraine herself. There is a reason why Cadsuane specifically numbers Moiraine among "a line of sisters...who had bungled what they should have been mending." Maybe Moiraine could have kept things smooth in that situation. Maybe.

But after all her efforts to try to make Rand understand that unlike absolutely every other full Aes Sedai he has dealt with before this, she has no agenda and is unreservedly on his side, she has the following encounter in more normal circumstances.

The boy was on his feet when Cadsuane entered... He made a courteous bow, ushering her to a chair with a tasseled cushion...and asking whether she would like wine.

Cadsuane did not find Rand when he was a good-natured farmboy. She did not have the benefit of the opportunity to fake her own death and leave a passive-aggressive letter blaming Rand for it, and adding to his emotional trauma and pushing him further down the road to dehumanizing himself, and then showing up again once the damage she had helped to do had been repaired, and he was in a more conducive mood to being polite to one of his well-intentioned obstructionists. She had to walk into a bad situation and try to fix it on the fly, basically working without a net, instead of finding a blank slate and ruining it for everyone.

I know RJ's writing means we identify with the characters so closely that we vicariously HATE when they have to listen to hard truths or take their medicine. But Cadsuane built a bridge over a flood that Moiraine caused. Moiraine doesn't win, because Rand let her cross first.

Just imagine the following staredown between Moiraine and Cadsuane.

Cadsuane: I have taught that boy some manners lately.

*Momo raises an eyebrow*

Momo: Did you? Did you make him to fetch you a cup of tea? That I call teaching him manners.

*Momo drops the mic and leaves the tent*

*crickets are heard chirping in Cadsuane’s paralis net*

[cannoli-reader]

Very appropriate, because they are outdoors, while she is indoors, with her back to the window, which is basically about as good a job as she did with that role in canon.

Artwork by endave

[cannoli-reader]

I don't really think Egwene counts. First of all, there is no evidence he so much as got to first base with her. We never see them do anything more intimate or sexual than a hug or kiss on the cheek. Secondly, she more or less did the opposite of seduce him - rather than entice or persuade him, she actually manipulated him into an arranged, if unofficial, relationship via their parents.

And that's kind of par for the course with Egwene - all the burden of a commitment without the fun stuff, or even a reciprocal commitment to refrain from flirting, dancing and accepting gifts of jewelry from cute boys.

Gawyn, at the outset of their romance, offers to elope and marry her peasant ass into the royal families of two nations, and instead, she makes him jump through rather ridiculous hoops, like not confront the man he thinks murdered his mother & sister, while also not actually providing him with any of the information she has to support his innocence, like an eyewitness account of which country he was actually in when Morgase died, before he learned to Travel. Or fairly recent communications from the not-actually-dead sister.

When they have a chance to explore their relationship with no constraints, she begins by putting absurdly high demands on him that no other warder or love interest in WoT is held to, and meanwhile, manages to actually take the stupid ground in an argument about infiltrators in the White Tower in which Gawyn will actually be foreshadowing the dumb way he will die. Even when he is proved right and nearly dies saving her life, she still makes him grovel and promise her obedience. And then, she withholds the news of his mother being discovered alive until he happens to encounter her by accident at a big meeting, whose featured participant is Egewene's ex-boyfriend, current rival for power, and a man her current love interest wants dead for killing his mother - almost like Egwene intended Gawyn to be ready & willing to attack or otherwise act against Rand at this meeting, and so she didn't dissuade him of his most powerful motivation to do just that...

When it comes to seduction of Rand, with the benevolent connotation implied by including her with Elayne & Aviendha, Egwene actually makes Alex Forrest look like a more appealing love interest, is my point.

And while I'm being pedantic, Mat spends very little time with Egwene, relative to anyone else. Most of the time they spend together is off the page in a several month journey between tGS & tDR.

I never noticed before how funny it is that Perrin travels with three (!) women who tried to seduce Rand—and all three failed miserably: Breane, Berelain, and Selande.

When Mat spends time with three (!) women who successfully seduced Rand: Egwene, Elayne, and Aviendha.

[cannoli-reader]

For the record, my experience is the correct one.

“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin

[cannoli-reader]

"I can tell you one cheerful thing. I do not think Thom Merrilin is dead... Min.... sees true."

"I could wager I know the face of the man I will marry better than either of you knows that of your future husband."

"And I will see you (Thom) again. You will survive Tarabon."

Yep.

Min told Moiraine she's ending up with Thom Merrilin, didn't she?

[cannoli-reader]

Other data that might go into the calculation of the value of the al'Thor farm:

Tam was a high-ranking officer in a royal bodyguard, with a rare skillset that makes him a nightmare for someone like you would probably command a premium compensation, and was said to have taken discharge, which means formally leaving the service instead of fucking off in the middle of the night with his wife & new baby. So he was probably paid off what was coming to him (not paying troops, especially foreign troops with good leadership connections, is an invitation to regime change), which, given what Egwene noted about the pay for a basic private soldier compared to farm work, would have been substantial.

I think it's strongly inferred that Tam established the farm himself. There is nothing I recall to suggest that, like the Aybarra farm, it's been in the family a while. While Rand mentions his habit of putting flowers on Kari's grave annually, there is no mention of a family burial plot like Perrin's have.

There is also no indication of any real wealth held by the al'Thors or superior material circumstances (but then again, Tam seems rather sanguine about the probability of being able to buy sheep to start a new flock, even after a hard winter, so maybe he has some savings socked away).

Tam & Abel received a substantial quantity of gold from the White Tower when they came there looking for their sons, between tGH & tDR. Again, no other mention of it in the Two Rivers (though no circumstance would have come up, given both men were refugees and their homeland invaded twice over), but it would probably have been necessary to help them both overcome the extreme hit their income would have taken during an absence from their farms of the duration of a trip from Emond's Field to Tar Valon. That's going to be months. Maybe they could minimize it with Abel's trading skills and eye for horse flesh getting them good mounts to Aringill, and a boat to Tar Valon, but that's still a long way to go, and a long time where no one is taking care of Tam's crops at all, and Abel's rely on a middle-aged woman and two girls having to take on additional duties to their already considerable work. So all the money Leane gave the men probably went right back into recovering their expenditure on the trip, and losses from their inability to work the farms, and maybe something for the neighbors and friends who helped Natti & the girls and maybe took care of Tam's sheep and kept an eye on the house.

I realized in the back and forth with cannoli, a farm in Randland is worth ten silk dresses. This exchange rate fascinates me, in no little part because it is completely opposite from how much things cost in my world. Ten silk dresses won't even pay my rent for a month, much less suffice as down payment on real estate, even farmland. But in preindustrial society, especially with declining population, that's a perfectly reasonable pricing scheme.

[cannoli-reader]

Not only that, it's the Pattern's favorite tool, and the quality for which it selected its operatives for the climax of the Third Age. It's more or less the one thing all of the EF5 have in common, personality-wise, and the one trait specifically compared in her first encounter on page, for the sixth member of the Pattern-chosen leadership for the war against the Shadow.

I love how Two Rivers stubbornness is basically a minor super power.

[cannoli-reader]

Also, Terry Pratchett had a witch in Discworld suggest that blacksmiths are the male equivalent of witches. So, basically, he's a Wise One.

Sorliea and Granny Weatherwax would get along like a house afire.

There would be lots of flames and screams and people running for safety...

TIDBITS AND FUN № 205

QUESTION

Why do the Aiel revere and protect blacksmiths?

BRANDON SANDERSON

It has a lot to do with the fact that without the blacksmiths there can be no warriors. The blacksmiths are the ones who make the spears and who keep them going. But, in a way the blacksmiths are among those who sacrifice being able to go and fight themselves so that others can and that’s kind of a holy calling to the Aiel. There is also a lot of spirituality to it related to where they live, being in the desolate wasteland and the whole concept of being forged. […] There is a spiritual aspect to a blacksmith forging something because of the place that they live. Those are the two of the main reasons. It’s cultural which means there is going to be more than one reason that it is deeply ingrained, but those are two big ones that roll of the top that are in the notes.

[cannoli-reader]

Caemlyn is Elaida's turf and therefore Red country. Once Logain is all put away for the night, the non-Reds in his escort can kindly fuck right off out of the city and back with the armies. Basically the only sisters being allowed to operate freely in the city are those Elaida trusts. Functionally, any sister Loial might run into and offer his greeting is going to be a Red or Red-adjacent.

My private theory is that a lot of women who might incline toward the Red Ajah but with high political aspirations, join other Ajahs because that way they will actually have a chance of getting elected Amyrlin, given the apparent prejudice against Reds for the post. Thus, Sierin Vayu. And the Reds make exceptions to their "no friends from the wussy Ajahs" rules for women like this, because it gives them allies and the occasional friend in the top chair.

Additionally, Moiraine probably does not want this strange Ogier to be socializing with too many other Aes Sedai and incidentally mentioning her presence. So she phrases it that way with the mental reservation that if Elaida is letting a sister hang around in her town, such a sister in Caemlyn is going to have Red attitudes, so what she is telling Loial is for his own good and accurate - and thus, Oath-passing - from a certain point of view, as a Jedi would say.

Moiraine claims that all of the other Sisters in Caemlyn are Red Ajah, yet Logain was escorted in by Warders as well as Aes Sedai, so there are definitely other Ajahs present. Moiraine cannot speak a word that is not true, so clearly she has made a bad assumption. She also seems to discount that others would be there as part of their regular activities. Anyways. Don't know why this detail bothered me, but here we are.

[cannoli-reader]

He's in Darkfriend mode, and on some level, he knows Rand is going to save him from the Shadow.

Darkfriend-mode Ingtar is not having any.

Ingtar. Why are you so eager to kill Rand?

(It's probably jealousy, isn't it.)

[cannoli-reader]

I like this one.

I bet octopuses think bones are horrific. I bet all their cosmic horror stories involve rigid-limbs and hinged joints.

[cannoli-reader]

Oh yeah, during the time when the series was ongoing that was a really popular one. The Ishamael fandom leaned on it being his cunning manipulation, because they took his rants in Rand's dreams as sworn testimony with the Oath Rod, and attribute absolutely every inconvenient detail in the world building as his efforts at work.

Just saw a crack theory on Reddit that the peddler who told Gawyn that Rand killed Morgase was a Forsaken who compelled him, or Padan Fain, and that's why he makes such awful decisions for the rest of the story. I'm not convinced, but I read it and so now you lot have, too.

[cannoli-reader]

Gawyn has problems (the logic at work in his reactions to Old Mil Tessen is mind-boggling), but Sanderson really pulled the Main Character Syndrome out of his ass.

My own theory of his admission of that attitude in the Sanderson books, is that he is so well-trained to accept policy and alignment decrees from the Woman In His Life, that he assumes that mindset after hanging with Egwene, who, from day one, is the one who had MCS in relation to Rand.

The weird thing is that in some ways, Gawyn and Rand ARE kind of complements and mirrors, maybe as a sort of inversion of Lan & Rand. Rand is destined to be the Man In Charge, whether he likes it or not, and is (like Lan with the Malkieri) thrust to the forefront with the weight of responsibility for everyone else on his head, even if he'd rather be a shepherd with no higher aspirations that the Village Council some day when he's too old to have fun. Whereas Gawyn is raised to be a prince and political operative but also given the very specific ethos of sublimating himself to the agenda of his sister, and devoting himself entirely to her protection and mission. You don't give a gift inscribed "may he be a living sword for his sister & Andor" to the person you are raising to be the Hero of the Age. But that shows how, like Lan, Gawyn is raised to be a living weapon, but instead of the impossible task of being the embodiment of an entire people's hopes, he is being made to be the instrument of a single person's political efforts. And rather unlike Rand, who was not raised to be anything, just tapped on the shoulder and told "Oh, hey, you're a weapon now, LOL."

So if you have to reconcile Sanderson's blatant abuse of dialogue to proclaim his interpretation of Gawyn's character arc, with what Jordan actually put on the page, you could say that the MCS he develops in the final trilogy is the result of all those impossible and somewhat dehumanizing expectations causing something to snap. Part of the issue there, too, is that Gawyn & Elayne were raised to be Prince of the Sword and Queen up to a certain point in their childhoods and then Elayne's channeling ability manifested and now she was also being taught that being an Aes Sedai was her destiny. With the assumption that Queen is a long way off, Elayne dedicates her efforts to living up to the Aes Sedai part of her imposed dual vocation, but that leaves Gawyn hanging. Because there is really nothing in there for him as concerns Elayne Sedai, he is exclusively trained to deal with Queen Elayne. But one of the strongest living channelers (who has great strength in Air, which is one of the better Powers for defense against mundane threats) doesn't need a Prince of the Sword and the Warder bond seems just a little inappropriate for a brother & sister given how the series thematically associates it with marriage so much, and anyway, there are rules about that sort of thing at her rank.

Gawyn starts making his critical mistakes by trying to obey Morgase's injunction and proactively help Elayne, which, given his limited information, means fighting for the Aes Sedai who seems particularly invested in his sister, as opposed to the one who gives him the mushroom treatment, and basically dismisses his concerns and the issues with his sworn and imposed duty as trivial. Siuan is a big one for thinking that orders from a sufficiently high authority can thwart a person's self-interest or devotion to a cause, and it blows up in her face with Elayne's brothers. Galad has no particular institutional duty to Elayne, only familial and since he's been disinvited from helping in that manner, he is free to follow his conscience (and, superficially ironically, though not from a thematic perspective) doing so proves a much more efficacious path to finding and helping Elayne. Gawyn has been taught to both judge Elayne and also suspend his beliefs or preferences to support her. How the FUCK is he supposed to reconcile those mandates to make good decisions on no information when a coup is being attempted against the leadership of a critical institution in the world?

Just as Rand does a lot of stuff or thinks a lot of things out of self-loathing, because he accepts what he is told by not-as-smart-as-they-think-they-are experts, that he has to be this super-monarch and whip the world into shape, I wonder if Gawyn's illogical acceptance of suspect news from a source he has already judged as highly unreliable, of his mother's & sister's deaths, is because he has been left so badly hanging in the wind when it comes to carrying out his duty, that on some level he is basically expecting the worst, since he has been so utterly helpless to do his job and protect Elayne.

Because the guy we see after Dumai's Wells and in the village outside Tar Valon is not a man who is certain he is the Hero of the piece or who knows what he should be doing and how important he is.

In our very first encounter with Gawyn, we learn exactly what is expected of him, and how unreasonable it is, and yet so many in the fandom accuse him of main character delusion syndrome. He has *never* considered himself the main character. He is the supporting character for his sister, who *is* the main character. This is blatantly obvious in the text.

People also accuse him of wanting to stifle his sister so that he can pretend to protect her. Excuse me, what? First of all, even the most powerful Aes Sedai is vulnerable to a sneak attack with weapons. Why else do so many have Warders? And the Daughter-Heir of Andor is a target. Period. So Elayne does, in fact, require protection. What's more, Gawyn isn't trying to prevent her from doing the things she needs to do. He is requesting that she 1. Read him in, and 2. Allow him to come along. It is his sworn duty to protect her. That she won't allow him to is her personality flaw, not his.

In this very first scene with them together, he has followed her into the garden, knowing that it's explicitly disobeying the Queen's command to not see Logain. When they are before Morgase, she tells him that he is responsible for his sister's disobedience:

"Gawyn, I have thought better of you. You must learn not only to obey your sister, but at the same time to be a counterweight for her against disaster. That, Gawyn, is as much the duty of the First Prince as leading the armies of Andor. Perhaps if your training is intensified, you will find less time for letting your sister lead you into trouble. I will ask the Captain-General to see that you do not lack for things to do on the journey north."

He is told explicitly that he is supposed to argue with his sister when he thinks that she is doing something foolish, that it is his duty to convince her to choose safety, and that he will be held responsible for her actions with respect to following rules. But sure thing, go off about how entitled he is.

Many claim he is a misplaced knight. He doesn't consider himself a chivalrous knight. That's not even a concept within wot-world. He considers himself bodyguard to one of the most important people in the world. How people miss this is really beyond my comprehension. They seem to think that having a bodyguard makes a person weak. That's bullshit. You don't have a bodyguard because you're weak. You have a bodyguard because you're a target, because you're important.

Gawyn is also not the only person to have this struggle with Elayne! Birgitte has the exact same struggle, but no one is claiming that she wanted to smother Elayne as a way to grab glory for herself. Funny that they apply one set of rules to the male bodyguard and a different set to the female bodyguard. If only we had a word for that sort of sloppy analysis.

[cannoli-reader]

Dude, you've met Seluccia. She's in multiple books.

Radhannan's role in Tuon's upbringing seems to have been largely driven by Seanchan customs without a lot of personal interaction.

I kinda… I kind of want the show to let us meet the rest of the Seanchen imperial family. Like- yeah not book accurate however- I want to see the woman that created Tuon so bad

[cannoli-reader]

My theory is that the Green Man's place is akin to, or connected with, Tel'Aran'Rhiod. He tells the group that his place is where it is, implying it does not move like people say. He says that all that changes is where those who need it are. The boundary or walls of his place being a thing of Tel'Aran'Rhiod would explain how people can get to the place by the degree of their need, and in T'AR, you can't use need to find something a second time. In this particular case, the need of the Dragon Reborn, for whom the Eye was made, plus his fellow ta'veren, drew them to the place even though Moiraine no longer could find it. That was how Rand teleported to Tarwin's Gap, he was drawn to the place where he was most needed. The last articulated thought he has before he starts drawing on the Power and the Eye of the World was that he had to get away.

Rand's first battle with Elan/Ishamael/Ba'alzamon is full of oddities.

He Travels by turning, a method he will use other times, until he develops traveling by opening gateways. Now, it *could* be explained as him not noticing the gateway, but I like the idea of another, rarer form of Travel existing. Especially since he uses the stairway through the void method as well, marking a distinction between the two methods.

He feels like he recognizes some of the faces in the stones. Is it him revisiting the same place, and growing to know the faces contained there? Is it the faces of Darkfriends he's killed? People he knew in his life who died? Some other means of growing recognition? I'm intrigued.

He cuts Ba'alzamon's connection to the Dark One, much how he later cuts that of Asmodean. But Ishamael doesn't fall out of favor for the severance, while Asmodean does. Perhaps because he is not physically restrained from returning to Shayol Ghul after the encounter.

The use of Ishamael's constructed world in Tel'aron'rhiod carries more weight when you know what's going on, when you understand the stakes of being in the World of Dreams in the flesh. When everything collapses, it is a small miracle that Rand escapes and is not harmed.

And then there's the scene with Kari. Was she snatched at death, just in case she could be used? Was she a Darkfriend in life? Was the whole thing an illusion? But if so, why does she thank Rand for releasing her at the end? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE OUT OF THIS SCENE?!?!?!?!? I AM SO CONFUSED.

[cannoli-reader]

Well, he doesn't know Basel as well when he has that concern. Basel was doing it for Thom and because he's a good dude. He wouldn't let anything as superficial as the wrong color on a guy who didn't mean any allegiance by it affect how he responds to a friend. Basically, the way things were, wearing the red was a more definitive statement because it took more courage. People wore the white out of fear or ignorance. Hell, Mat actually voices the sentiments of the white-wearing faction and Gill rebukes him, but doesn't throw them out on account of it.

"It says something that he has come so far and put on the red, when so many incomers wear the white from fear." -Elayne defending Rand before Queen Morgase

Which is fucking hilarious, when he bought the red because it cost less. He wasn't acting out of fear, oh no, but out of economy. (Though at this point, he does know what it means and chooses to stick with it, even though it brings a measure of danger, so she's not completely wrong.)