#I mean Siuan's stilled

[plottingalong]

SHE GAVE UP THEIR BOND????? I AM DISTRAUGHT

[battlestarbones]

I just finished New Spring and I am verklempt about my little 20-something Moiraine and Lan!! And I am NOT ready to reenter the main storyline with LoC given how TFoH ended!!

[scarletkaoru]

I love siuan so much shes like ‘oh im stilled now? Thats fine. I can gaslight gatekeep girlboss my way out of this much better now that I can lie’

shes having a horrible time but wont let herself have a horrible time because that means giving Elaida what she wants. Shes out here picking horses based on angst factor like ‘oh Belas as shaggy and sad as i am and as ready to run you into the ground’

no wonder she and moiraine are girlfriends lol they both take every situation and go ‘welp could be worst. Manipulation time’

[moiraineology]

also: to what extent would their shared understanding of their duty render apologies unnecessary (at least in their minds)? Would they both just assume the other was prioritizing their common goal, as they always have, and leave it at that?

brainrot girlies, let me ask you this: how would the reunion between Moiraine and Siuan play out? @lakeofsilverpike and I have discussed this at some length (but not enough), and I am curious as to everyone's thoughts. Would Siuan apologize? And if so, what for? (Perhaps: not being around for Moiraine's Bad Months, for not being able to address the Bad Months adequately when they were reunited, for her reaction when she learned of the Bad Months, for her use of the Oath in forcing Mo to close the Waygate). Would Moiraine apologize for keeping Siuan in the dark and (arguably) eschewing her responsibility in favour of her pride? Would it be assumed between them that Siuan thought Moiraine was a Darkfriend, absolving her of some of the stuff listed above?

[nervouspearl]

So um...maybe I went a little unhigned after watching episode 2.07 and wrote a whole piece about how it could make sense for Siuan to believe that Moiraine (and Lan?) have turned to the dark?

First of all, I should preface this by saying that I don’t 100% believe that this is what happened, or that this is the thought progress Siuan went through, but it seems at least plausible? Many have suggested that seeing Moiraine channel is what made Siuan believe that she could be a darkfriend, and that would explain Siuan enforcing the sacred oath despite Moiraine's pleas, but it didn’t sit right with me as the only explanation because Moiraine never directly told her that she was stilled, and therefore did not directly lie to Siuan about it.

But taking a few steps back and looking at the whole episode, and even the previous episode, and considering the possibility that the seed of doubt had been sown in Siuan from the moment Lan told her Moiraine had been stilled for months, it started to make more sense to me how the episode could unfold the way it did. Maybe I’m giving more credit to the writers than what they deserve and this is not what really happened at all, but it was an interesting thought experiment to go through.

Now, starting from episode 6. Siuan has been corresponding with Moiraine for 6 months after the Eye of the World, and not once has Moiraine even hinted at being stilled. Lan then appears out of the blue one night to stop her carriage, telling her that Moiraine has been stilled ever since taking Rand to the Eye of the World.

Now, that simply does not compute for Siuan. Her and Moiraine keep secrets from everyone else but never from each other. For 20 years they have shared this mission and the Moiraine she knows would not keep something so big from her, or so she had thought. 

So what does mean for Siuan? Either Moiraine has been stilled for six months and she hasn’t said anything to Siuan about it, or something even more sinister happened at the Eye of the World and the Dark One somehow got to Moiraine.

For the first time in her life, Siuan has to seriously doubt Moiraine, and by extension she also has to doubt Lan: because why is Lan the one to tell her that Moiraine has been stilled? If it’s a lie, of course it makes sense to send Lan to tell it, because if Moiraine herself was caught in a lie, it would immediately be obvious that she has broken the three oaths.

And so Siuan arrives in Cairhien, with 14 Aes Sedai in tow, because she doesn’t know what she is dealing with and whether she is entering a trap or not. She needs to see Moiraine, alone, to determine where they stand, but she can’t go there without reinforcements and a back-up plan.

It’s telling that she doesn’t disclose to the other Aes Sedai why they are there. As she tells Liandrin: “We’ll have to wait and see.” Even Siuan isn’t sure at this point what she will need the 14 Aes Sedai for, if for anything other than show. It will depend on her meeting with Moiraine.

Then she meets Moiraine, and immediately opens with “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me you’d been stilled?” because that’s what it all boils down to.

She desperately wants to believe Moiraine and needs to hear her explain why she has not communicated this monumental thing to her before, but she finds Moiraine distant and defensive. They are alone but Moiraine isn’t talking to her. She is avoiding answering anything and is in fact countering Siuan’s questions with questions of her own (an effective way to avoid having to lie) and no matter how closely Siuan is looking (and she is looking very closely) she cannot glean the answers from Moiraine that she’s looking for.

As a last resort, she approaches Moiraine and tries to directly appeal to the love they share, the mission they share together and Moiraine visibly flinches under her touch before surrendering to it.

The change that has happened in Siuan's expression by the end of the “interview” is noticeable:

She still may not fully believe that Moiraine has pledged herself to the Dark, because that would be a huge leap, but it’s an option she now has to take very seriously and act accordingly.

Next she has to meet Rand. She is in no mood to have a real conversation with him, nor give him a pep talk like she did to Nynaeve and Egwene. She just needs to find out what she can and learn if Moiraine has actually held any part of their deal and taught him how to channel - the answer: she has not. Rand is completely useless and unprepared, which happens to be hugely convenient for the Dark One.

Siuan now knows what she must do: the Dragon Reborn must be separated from Moiraine, for the sake of the mission, if there is any chance that Moiraine is now a darkfriend (and maybe for Moiraine’s sake as well, because maybe things are not as bad as they seem and there is still something that can be salvaged) and at the moment, the best action Siuan can see before her is to fall on Tower protocol, especially, as Siuan has found during her interview with Rand, the Dragon Reborn is still weak and easy to control. They had tried their way and it now seems to have cost her Moiraine. What else is there to do now but try the other approach?

When Moiraine enters the room again, Siuan meets her, not as her lover, but as the Amyrlin: cold and detached.

When Moiraine asks “have you forgotten that day” it clearly affects Siuan. She has not forgotten. But has Moiraine?

“Of course I’ve not forgotten, but YOU were supposed to be with him”

Now, it’s unclear to me if Moiraine is imprisoned with Rand, or if she is there with him by her own will, but clearly she is at least under surveillance. Leane tells Verin not to let Moiraine get close to her, implying that Moiraine is now considered a threat. Presumably these are  instructions from Siuan.

Things are already bad, but they are about to get worse, and confirm Siuan’s worst fears which she still might not have fully allowed herself to believe.

Lanfear is on the loose, and Moiraine and Rand escape. Verin seems to be in on it too. The person that Moiraine recently spent several months with. (I’m not sure if Siuan knows that's where Moiraine was, but since she and Moiraine did correspond during those months, I assume Siuan was aware of her whereabouts.) It doesn’t look good.

Siuan rushes to find Moiraine and Rand because it’s now of paramount importance that they don’t leave the town together. The best case scenario remains that Moiraine has simply lost her mind due to being stilled, but the worst case, and now a seemingly very possible scenario, is that she could be worse than that. But still, Siuan has not let go of all hope and she goes alone to deal with the woman she loves - to try one more time to either reason with her or stop her by force.

She finds her at the waygate and arrives just in time to see that it’s Moiraine - the supposedly stilled Moiraine - who has opened it. Whatever hope she was still clinging onto is gone.

“You lied to me about being stilled.”

Moiraine denies it but what value do her words have anymore if she has pledged herself to the Dark and broken her oaths?  And she looks utterly unhinged too. This is not her Moiraine.

But also Siuan can’t play her hand and directly accuse her of being a darkfriend because what good would that do? If she is a darkfriend she can lie, so her words are worth nothing.

But there is another oath that Moiraine has made directly to Siuan. Maybe that’s been broken too, but it’s all Siuan has now.

Moiraine is begging her not to, and it’s almost enough to break Siuan’s resolve, but she can’t know anymore what Moiraine’s motivation is. Is she begging her not to enforce the oath because it’s wrong, or because it would reveal that she is no longer bound by it, or maybe there is even a possibility that she still is bound by this oath because her deal with the dark one only included freeing her from the three oaths of the Aes Sedai, and now being commanded by Siuan would simply prevent her from taking the Dragon Reborn to Ishamael?

Siuan's command works and it hurts her more than anything to watch Moiraine being moved against her will by a force she cannot resist, but maybe there’s also some relief in seeing that the oath is still in place. Maybe, just maybe, Moiraine has not turned to dark after all?

When Siuan looks at Moiraine after the deed is done, she sees  her Moiraine again and she is beyond sorry for what she has just done. There is a fleeting moment where things could have been said and misunderstandings cleared, but it's too short. There is not time, because Lanfear appears before any of those things can happen.

Siuan doesn’t have any answers yet, but one thing she knows is that she’s not going to let Lanfear go unopposed. It was a valid effort but completely useless. Siuan gets tossed aside as easily as she herself had just knocked out Lan.

Now, I don’t know how Siuan interprets the last things she sees before passing out, whether she believes now that Moiraine remains true to the mission and can appreciate the fact that Moiraine having managed to win Rand’s trust is a good thing. She is awake to see Lanfear about to attack Moiraine, and to see Rand stand between them, which should suggest that Moiraine and Lanfear are not working together, but then Moiraine does go with her to the ways, so it’s open for interpretation I guess, but that doesn’t really matter in the sense that it’s something that must be dealt with later. What matters more is what Siuan believes up until the moment she forces Moiraine to close the gate.

If this is what happened, it kind of makes sense to me. But I guess only time will tell what the real story is.

[asha-mage]

Here's what I'll say about Siuan for right now, since their are still a lot of unknowns floating in the air: I think her actions in this episode are largely in accord with her book characterization no matter which way the show breaks on certain details.

Siuan's central character flaw in the books, the thing that largely leads to her downfall, is her default response to most problems being to exert raw force and control. It was how she handled the Hall of the Tower which allowed opposition to coalesces around Eladia and Alviarain, it was how she handled Gawyn creating a resentment in him that would drive him to side against her during the coup, and how she forced Min to remain in the Tower against Min's wishes which was the catalyst for Eladia realizing she could strike against Siuan at all.

And it's what Siuan does in this episode when confronted with a problem she does not have another way to deal with. Moiraine is with holding information from her? Go to Cairhien herself and seize the tiller of events with her own hands. Rand is running wild, derelict in his duty? Take him captive and bring him to the Tower where at least he will be under her eye and safe from the Forsaken. Moiraine is attempting to abscond with him as a result? Cut off her avenue of escape by any means necessary, even if it means damaging her personal relationship with Moiraine, possibly forever.

And that's the other thing to keep in mind: Siuan, like Moiraine, fundamentally does not trust anyone except her partner in conspiracy. She can't. For twenty years she's been on a quest that will lead to her stilling and execution if it is ever discovered. She and Moiraine are each other's confidants and allies, their deepest and most important loves. But even in the books Moiraine is withholding information from Siuan out of a sense of greater good. The difference is that in the show Siuan becomes aware of it in the show and of course she begins to doubt and loose trust in Moiraine as a result.

In her mind she has gone almost at once from being a partner, one half of a team that trusted in and depended on each other, to being on her own against the storm. If Moiraine didn't tell her about being stilled, what else might she be holding back? And if she is stilled, then realistically, how much good can she do for their cause now? How can she keep Rand safe from himself and the Forsaken, prepare him for what's coming, when she might not live another year? And that agony- that pain that the person she trusts and loves most didn't just betray that trust but also might not be around long enough for Siuan to be mad even be mad at her- has to be put aside because the mission, the duty, is everything to Siuan, just like with Moiraine. The stakes are too high for anything else.

So she falls back on the safety net of the Tower's traditions and secret plans. Take Rand to the Tower, keep him safe, prepare him for what's coming and trust to the Light for the rest. Take away his agency for his own good and the good of the world (something it should be noted she's wistful for the ability to do in TSR when she wishes she could keep hiim from a learning a word of the Prophecies, which is the same scene where she outright admits to Min she intends to try and control him in), and bring him firmly under her thumb. And what does Moiraine do? Enlist the aid of one of the Forsaken to break Rand free and flee to Falme through a Waygate, which is at best an INSANELY risky and potentially very stupid play, and at worst tacit confirmation of her worst fear, that Moiraine has gone over to the Shadow, and everything is on the brink of being lost.

And where does that leave Siuan? Isolated and alone and with no other fallback by her same response: to keep exerting raw force, to pressing the spring down until it snaps.

[lakeofsilverpike]

I am not over the ramifications of aging up Moiraine and Siuan. The idea that they are a couple who were together for decades before the prophecy forced them into the world’s most challenging long distance relationship really does make sense. They maintain a commitment to each other even with little hope of being together in this life because they know each other so intimately and completely. If they’re in their 80s, that means they probably spent from the time they were teenagers to the time they were in their 60s together.

Not just in love from afar but navigating an actual day to day life together. Two women from such different cultures and classes and families, navigating those differences, loving each other for who they are and where they come from and the life they’ve chosen. Think of the actual real difficult conversations to learn each other, to understand each other, to build a life together.

It just makes it so much more poignant. They aren’t two people who fell in love as children then dreamed of a life together but never had it. They are two people who were essentially married for fifty years before the prophecy. They knew each other in and out when they parted. The pufferfish temper. Who snores. Who steals the blankets. Insecurities. And fears. And all the fights. The stupid fights. But also the big ones. The ones where you say hurtful things but work through it together. And decades of making up after. Decades of deciding against having a fight anyway. Just an “ok pufferfish” and a laugh. Because why fight if they can skip to the makeup sex?

Fifty years is ample time to see the bad in a partner. The insecurities that you soothe at first but later get so tired of. Fifty years is enough for people to grow apart, for passion to fade. Enough for a partner to see all of you, including your very worst, your most cruel, your most afraid, your most defensive. But seeing all that, Moiraine and Siuan still loved each other so much that they never gave a second thought to whether they would stay together even when physically apart.

Fifty years together and they still wanted each day together so desperately that it breaks their hearts to be apart. That there was never a question of whether they would still return to each other in this life if given the opportunity. This Moiraine and Siuan aren’t dreaming of being together in their next lives because they never had this one. They are dreaming of it because they had this life together, and the best thing they could possibly imagine is more time. More time together. In this life or in the next. Any way they can be together. Stolen moments or entire lifetimes. Because they know each other so completely, and it only makes them love each other more.

Decades apart now, and they still tease and laugh and make each other smile. Decades with hardships and separation, and they are still playful and tender and come to each other only with love and devotion. Decades apart and still they know each other completely, fall back perfectly in sync in an instant. That is an intimacy that grew from the years they spent together, from the relationship they built, the love of an entire lifetime.

[pandemoniumonwheels]

I promised more meta of why I think what happened between Moiraine and Siuan this season was Siuan's game, not an actual breaking. So buckle up, we're talking about Rand and why his moms were arguing in front of him.

I believe the meeting between Moiraine and Siuan, the one in front of Rand was staged to a certain degree. I'm not sure they were able to discuss details in the previous meeting, but the general idea of Rand not trusting Moiraine, not trusting Aes Sedai is not that hard to communicate, even if there are people that might be listening. Anyway, they made the scene quite believable, but at the same time Siuan said everything Rand was afraid Moiraine was.

To Daes Dae'Mar ot not to Daes Dae'Mar?

The moment Moiraine enters she commands Siuan (the Amyrlin Seat nonetheless) to release Rand. Siuan says "no". And then Moiraine accuses Siuan of not being able to protect Rand from the Reds. Which Siuan dodges rather unconvincingly. She starts talking about some rules they should obey. But she never specifies the rules she means. We only assume it's about caging the Dragon. And so does Rand, because that's what they were talking about, but Siuan never confirms that in any other way. I bet there're multiple rules that are equally old, like facing the Dark One's powers in the Last Battle for that matter. Which is interesting since the episode is called Daes Dae'Mar...

After that Moiraine explains to Siuan what were their tasks in a way that even someone who hears about it for the fist time would understand. Coincidentally they have someone like that kneeling on the floor, listening to the conversation. Moiraine goes to the very personal question, we can see Siuan is taken aback by suggestion she might have forgotten that day. Their argument looks quite real at that point.

Then it's Siuan's turn. She makes Moiraine vulnerable in the eyes of Rand, revealing Moiraine was stilled, and incapable of using her power on Rand. Rand that is at the very moment shielded form the One Power by an Aes Sedai who moments earlier informed him any Aes Sedai would be able to do this to him. Any, but not Moiraine.

She goes even deeper. You can't control him. You can't guide him. Everything that Rand is afraid Moiraine is trying to do to him, she's incapable of doing right now, She's no threat to him. It's no accident the camera focuses on him during this part of Siuan's speech. At that moment he realized he can actually trust Moiraine, because there is nothing she can do to him. She can't use her power to control him. And by supporting him she is going against the White Tower rules (about which he just has learned thanks to Siuan). So there is no reason for her to cage him in Tar Valon. Siuan made herself a villain, she took all Rand's fears upon herself, and left Moiraine free of them. And it works so well. Rand not only helps Moiraine to get her powers back, he stands up to Lanfear protecting Moiraine, deciding to take her with him. In exactly the same situation, before his meeting with Siuan, he dumped Moiraine and decided to do what Lanfear told him. All it took to change that was two conversations, one with him and another between Moiraine and Siuan that he witnessed.

It's in the title

Just look at it. How conveniently it all worked out at the end. Moiraine is chasing Rand all over the continent, trying to make him see reason, but he is stubborn, he does not trust her, he feels betrayed by everything she does, even if it is to help him. Then he meets Siuan in the episode called Daes Dae'Mar. Siuan that is the Amyrlin Seat. Which should make her one of the best in the game of houses. She balances on the knife for so long, she mastered the way of lying without telling a single lie. So, after a conversation with that very person, in this very episode, Rand changes his attitude towards Moiraine.

Rand needed to see that Moiraine is no threat to him, he knew her, he could believe that. He would never believe that the Tower and other Aes Sedai are on his side. But that wasn't necessary. All that was needed at that point was for Rand to trust Moiraine, to have her with him, because otherwise she would not be able to complete her part of the mission. And I do think it would be too much of a strech to assume it was all an accident, and not an actual, cunning plan of two masters of a Daes Dae'Mar.

The main post

[markantonys]

down with the fandom narrative that min and nynaeve are The Only Ones Who Still Care About Rand/The Only Ones Who Don't Abandon Him just because they're the only ones who are permitted by the plot to stay physically near him throughout the second half of the series. his other loved ones love and worry about him so much! and it's extremely unfair to say that the fact that they can't take a break from their geographically-far-away plot obligations to go be his fulltime cheerleader like min and nynaeve can means they love him less.

What happened to your hand? Light-blinded fool, take better care of yourself. -Perrin

That arm ended in a stump. The first time Mat had seen that - a few weeks back - it had shocked him. How had Rand lost the hand? The man barely seemed alive, propped up like that, unmoving. Though his lips did seem to be moving, mumbling or muttering. Light! Mat thought. Burn you, what are you doing to yourself?

"This is what it must have been like for Rand. No, worse. The stories say he was locked in a box smaller than my cell. At least I can spend part of the evenings chatting with you [Siuan]. He had nobody." -Egwene

"He is well, and he will be well," Aviendha whispered fiercely, as if she intended to assure his survival by killing anything that threatened him.

He was not exactly as [Elayne] had dreamed of him. There had been a boyishness about him sometimes, but it was gone as if burned away. She mourned that for him. She did not think he did, or could.

[pillowfriends]

in one month we will have the RosPike narrated TSR audiobook and I just realized that means in one month we will have RosPike performing Siuan and Leane being stilled. I feel physically ill 👍

[readingtheentrails]

10 characters/10 fandoms/10 tags

Tagged by @missmacfire, thank you!

Okay, let's go!

1. Larissa Weems - Wednesday (2022)

Look, I'm obviously gonna pick Larissa first because I have made some genuine friends through the Larissa/Gwendoline fandom and that means she is my #1 baby girl/Menace Principal.

2. Moiraine Damodred - The Wheel of Time (2021)

It was hard to decide between Moiraine and Siuan, honestly, but Moiraine won out just because we get so much more screen time with her. She was the reason I came back to tumblr in the first place and I have such a lovely and supportive discord community thanks to her/the show. Her dedication to the mission about all else just gets me so 🫠

3. Aloy - Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)/Horizon Forbidden West (2022)

Aloy best girl 😍😍😍 I think the Horizon series might be my favourite games of all time. They are so much fun to play, the story is so interesting and Aloy is a great protagonist. She is strong, independent and doesn't bother trying to fit in. She does her own thing and I really respect that.

4. Xena - Xena Warrior Princess (1995)

Xena was so special to me as a little baby gay. The thirst I experienced was unbelievable but because her relationship with Gabrielle was (barely) subtext, it was safe for me to watch in a conservative rural environment.

5. Utena Tenjou - Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997)

This prince saves herself! Utena is iconic and this anime is one of the first shows that ever got me thinking about gender roles and patriarchy. Utena doesn't always get it right but she does try her best to help her friends.

6. Astarion - Baldur's Gate 3 (2023)

Look, I just love him. I would let him devour me with no regrets. I'm still in Act 1 of the game and he has absolutely seduced me with his charm.

7. Nadja of Antipaxos - What We Do In The Shadows (2019)

I cannot get enough of Nadja. The perfect all-powerful absolute idiot. Her own worst enemy. My beloved girlfail queen 👑.

8. The Captain - Ghosts (2019)

I love the Captain so very much. He's from an era when he literally would have been imprisoned for being open about his sexuality so he's so repressed and uptight but we see these little glimpses that are just wonderful and he's played with such care.

9. Kassandra - Assassin's Creed Odyssey (2018)

I still can't believe there are people out there who choose to play as Alexios when Kassandra is right there! She's amazing, such a badass and I never want to play another AC game because no other protagonist will ever be as good as her (also Ubisoft is evil).

10. Tissaia de Vries - The Witcher (2019)

Look, I just obviously have a thing for teachers who are a bit mean. Sorry not sorry to be a stereotype!

No pressure tagging @dianneking @weemssapphic @h-doodles @beaujes and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it

[queenofmalkier]

Moiraine being 70 vs 40

(Alright this one took me a minute because corralling my thoughts is a challenge in the best of times.)

To begin with I will admit... I am one of the people who was indifferent towards the age change in the beginning. They're Aes Sedai, they live nice, long lives, and I wasn't like, emotionally attached to a younger, canon-aged Moiraine. It does make her early years more poignant, but I'll touch on that later.

Primed for older Moiraine, the show started and after two seasons I can safely say I am so gung-ho for 70 year old Moiraine I might actually be feral.

Here's why I, personally, think it was an excellent choice: Rosamund Pike is 44 as of writing this, so she visibly fits into the book age. As an audience nobody is really questioning her age - a few show-onlys I watched season 1 with actually remarked on how refreshing it was to see an older female character allowed to just exist and be part of the narrative without trying to sex up and/or grandma-ize the role.

Little Did They Know.

So you've got an audience that's mostly accepting of this character being in her 40s, and then you hit them with "Oh she's 70 and lets explore just how horrific that fact actually is together, it'll be fun!"

It was not fun, it was gutting.

One of my main critiques of the book has always been how we have these long-lived women, powerful women... but we never really take much of a look at the reality of that concept. Nor are we given POV characters who are really old enough to remark on it. Pevara at least thinks about her family, but Cadsuane doesn't give two figs about hers.

And here's the thing... they're Aes Sedai, but they're still human. What happens to them as they get older, but the people who fill their life are the ones aging? How does it feel to watch a mother, a sister, a child, friends, acquaintances, EVERYONE succumb to time in a way you won't for a very long time after?

That has to be impactful and I wanted to see those stories - and the show delivered. Seeing Moiraine with Anvaere? Chilling, horrifying, heartbreaking. Liandrin and her boy? A kick in the teeth. Even Alanna with her family, knowing very well she's probably the oldest one sitting at that table.

The point is, being an Aes Sedai means being powerful and respected, but it also means living through a very specific kind of suffering and trauma. They're basically vampires in terms of lifespan and we should see how that shapes them.

In regards to Moiraine being older and therefore not basically a child during the foretelling, it does change that particular hit... but by no means did the show let the viewers not understand how that moment altered Moiraine's life forever.

Instead of her being sort of an unformed girl hardened and honed by a lifetime of searching for Rand, one who never got much chance to be anything else, we get a woman who was already beginning to build her life, who had achieved the shawl, found love, and was exactly where she wanted to be.

And then all of that is taken from her.

It's devastating to watch the double-barreled whammy of Siuan and Moiraine giggling about being fishwives and walking into what was in many ways their deaths. Because the Moiraine and Siuan they were before walking into that room were gone forever. They would never be able to go back to the women they were before. They never even had a chance to mourn that loss. Moiraine went hunting and Siuan set her sights on the Amyrlin Seat.

I do understand for a lot of people her age is a sticking point, and that is completely fair and valid! It's a change that I fully agree did not need to be made... but by making that change we're given such a stark insight into the lives of older Aes Sedai who are just beginning to experience what it means to outlive everyone they know, watching one by one as cherished friends and family members pass on.

Soon all they have left are the children and grandchildren of those people, fractured mirrors that are just enough of a hint at the original that it must be painful to know them - which explains even further why so many Aes Sedai cut off contact entirely with their families. It's too painful to keep them in their lives.

[ebro-devoo]

After having some time to reflect on 2x07, I think Siuan’s actions were justified and somewhat sympathetic given the information she knew. First off, Lan came to Siuan and told her that moraine have been deliberately withholding essential information from her (the fact that she was stilled ) and was threatening to pass Lans bond which both indicated that Moraine was not in a good place mentally or physically to complete their mission (train and protect Rand/the world from Ran).

Now cut to when she meets with Ran. While we as viewers know that Ran is not evil or mad yet, from her perspective he is a nuclear bomb that could either become evil or go mad in the process of saving the world. The last dragon literally killed a ton of people and destroyed the world, and as the head of the “servants of all” it’s Siuan’s job to protect the world from Rand, and so when she sees that Moraine has no power to control him if he starts to go insane and has failed to teach him anything, she makes the decision to shield/control him, which in her mind is what’s best for the safety of the world. While we know it’s the wrong choice, I don’t think this is anything like the Seanchan who literally enslave an entire group of people while I think of the dragon more as the trolley problem (sacrifice the one to save the many).

Then in the final confrontation with Moraine and Lanfear, I think her confusion and perceived betrayal from Moraine dictates most of her actions. First she finds out that Moraine and Verrin tricked Leanne into letting them escape, then arrives at the way gate to see that Moraine has channeled, meaning that she lied about being stilled making Siuan think that she could be a darkfriend. While the using of the oath was awful and definitely violating, I don’t think Siuan felt as if she had any choice because she wasn’t going to let a suspected dark friend walk away with the dragon reborn. You could also see on her face afterwords how broken she felt in that moment.

Anyways, I think both Siuan and Moraine were trying to do what they thought was right and neither of them are villains and that’s what made this episode so hard to watch.

[deeplyridiculouslyinlove]

“I, Moiraine Sedai, do swear to honor and obey Siuan Sanche.”

Obviously I’ve thought a lot about how Moiraine changing her oath of loyalty from “the Amyrlin Seat” to Siuan opens her up to all sorts of interesting consequences (an easy one being Elaida calling Moiraine back to the Tower and Moiraine ignoring her).

But I just realized the fact that Moiraine swears to Siuan as a person and not as an Aes Sedai also would mean the oath would still be in effect after Siuan is stilled. Which I feel like could open up all sorts of possibilities if the show wanted to do something with them.

For example, what if Siuan calls Moiraine “home” to Salidar and that’s where Moiraine is going when she goes through the Red Door to her “downfall”? I’ve seen the theory she is going to Siuan when Red Door happens but how fun would it be if it’s tied to her oath to Siuan Sanche specifically. Siuan is even in full regalia when Moiraine makes the oath!

[moghedien]

so I do wonder about season 3 supposedly being book 4 pretty much entirely because we haven't really gotten book 3 yet. so i'm like thinking about what really happens in book 3, right. the main plot lines are:

Rand running away and being largely absent from the book all together

Moiraine, Perrin, and the homies chasing down Rand across the continent

the Wondergirls being recruited by Siuan to hunt the Black Ajah and being sent to chase them to Tear

Mat delivering a letter and then going rescue the wondergirls when he finds out about Rahvin targeting them

And like this all converges on them in Tear when Rand takes Callandor and the Stone of Tear falls

and Imma be honest. None of this is extremely vital to the point where it can't be dealt with more quickly or elsewhere.

The most important plot point being the Callandor thing, which probably needs to happen. And while I've seen people suggest that Callandor might be in Falme for some reason, it feels wrong if Rand al'Thor doesn't get to take the Sword that isn't a Sword from the Stone that isn't a Stone

So let's assume that it is going to happen in the show. Does it need to happen next season?

Because the only real reason why it should happen before book 4's storyline is because of the Aiel. The Aiel need to find Rand so that he can go into the Waste and all that. So Aviendha, Bain, and Chiad are in Falme. We might be able to write a way around the Aiel needing to take the Stone of Tear right now if we just have Aiel bring Rand around like "look we think this is the guy." I mean, some of the Aiel still doubted Rand after book 3, so its not like it would create conflict that wasn't there already and it might make some of the conflict make more sense.

But what about Callandor? Well, Rand does shit all with Callandor for several books, so why does he need to take it now? And given that the main point of taking Tear other than Callandor was to defeat Be'lal, who definitely isn't surviving the Forsaken purge, there's no immediate reason to take the sword, and specifically not taking it might give some people reason to doubt he's the dragon longer.

And then, speaking of Be'lal and Rahvin, we obviously don't know for sure, but most of us are working under the assumption that their roles are going to be given to Sammael. Sammael is already dealt with later in the series as it is, so why not make the time in which we deal with Sammael the time when Rand takes Callandor? The Stone of Tear falling later might solve some of the later series's lack of important feeling climaxes anyway.

I feel like it just might make sense to rearrange the plot on this but I know that people won't like me even suggesting that's what might be happening lmao

anyway, at the very least we know we're getting some plot points from book 3 because we're gonna get Faile and some other characters then that didn't show until book 3 (they have already been cast and everything so its not like they're maybe gonna be cut), so ya know. its not gonna be a straight up adaptation of TSR no matter what even Rafe says because there's gonna be at least those book 3 plot points

[longsightmyth]

WoT spoilers I really mean it

INTERESTINGLY Moiraine and Siuan move in ETERNAL lockstep??? Even outside of New Spring, where the entire THESIS STATEMENT is that they are forever together ne'er to be sundered yea verily though even distance separates them or whatever????

Like technically Moiraine does not get stilled but she does get stuck in fairyland for lord knows how long, time doesn't work the same way, and when she gets out again she is ALSO able to channel considerably less just like Siuan is after being Healed from stilling

Both are replaced in their worldsaving ambitions and never QUITE get it back (Moiraine by Cadsuane as Rand's biggest Aes Sedai influence, Siuan by Elaida) but are truly SUCCEEDED by Egwene and Nynaeve, the women they both trained and mentored (also why I don't think Egwene was supposed to or SHOULD have died).

Which really makes me feel like Siuan wasn't SUPPOSED to die in the original outline, because these characters have such similar/mirrored experiences and fates right down to banging two different former lovers of Morgase that it is TRULY difficult for me to accept that one would die so long before the other honestly to paraphrase Circle of Magic these women are the same people in a way no one else will ever truly understand in this neverending essay I will -