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ed Ajah founded by darkfriends.

by free will: 2003-11-27 | 3.08 out of 10 (12 votes)

Previous Categories: The White Tower

A 3000 year old conspiracy to destroy the male Aes Sedai and the formation of the Red Ajah.

In 47AB 12 large Ajah and many smaller ajah existed [source BWB], fifty years later the Amyrlin Seat has seven advisors, SIX of which are former Sitters for one of the 12 large Ajahs and there is ONE new one [source BWB]. I suspect that the seventh was the founder of the red Ajah and that she was really a darkfriend. Aes Sedai can Heal the madness of the taint temporarily [source Ishamael Prologue Book 1], and according to Elayne [book 1] the female Aes Sedai spent a few centuries working with the men before "giving up" (for reasons that seem vague to me). By the end of the second century all seven modern Ajahs are permanently in place and all other Ajahs are gone [source BWB].

As the reds destroyed more than half of the ajahs in existance they appeared to take control over tower policy for dealing with men who channel. The Yellow approach to Heal is stopped and the most logical solution is never even implemented. This is of course to use the oath rod on male channelers with the oath: "I will only use the One Power to test for the ability to channel and to link with women in circles lead by women" or the oath "I will not channel". I suspect that the Reds hid the oath rod until the approach of gentling as treatment and the total power of the Reds was established. During the same time period, I suspect the Reds created the culture of false dragons.

Why? Without tame male channelers (with the oath rod) then a few things happen. Thirteen is the maximum circle size so Aes Sedai power is weaker. No men scouring the country-side looking for men with the spark to find the DR, so the Shadow has a chance to find him first. No men to teach the DR except Darkfriends. False dragons and distrust of Aes Sedai in general make the DR afraid to share and make him a lone target with no friends or support, easier prey for the Dark One. False dragons and fear of them will make people value the Red Ajah, there's no praise like praise for fixing a problem that you created.

Skeptics might say that the evidence is circumstantial, that maybe me spending a few minutes thinking about the problem comes up with better ideas then thousands of Aes Sedai thinking for thousands of years, or that no Aes Sedai cared enough to really think about it. But there is other evidence of the Reds seting up false dragons, and there is the thing with Owen, and the list Ishamael gives Rand of false dragons under Aes Sedai control. Besides we know that Aes Sedai thought about these issues because Aes Sedai have brought up critism of gentling [source: see quote below].

The Shadow Rising, chapter 31 "Assurances"

"Year by year," Verin continued, "we find fewer and fewer girls who can be taught to channel. Sheriam believes we have spent the last three thousand years culling the ability [to channel] out of humankind by gentling every man who can channel we find. The proof of it, she says, is how very few men we do find. Why, even a hundred years ago the records say there were two or three a year, and five hundred years --"

Alanna harrumphed. "What else can we do, Verin? Let them go insane? Follow the Whites' mad plan?"

"I think not," Verin replied calmly. "Even if we could find women to bear children by gentled men, there is no guarantee the children would be able to channel, or would be girls. I did suggest that if they wanted to increase the stock, Aes Sedai should be the ones to bear the children; themselves, in fact, since they put it forward in the first place. Alviarin was not amused."

The quote opens up another can of worms about why Aes Sedai have so few children. Gentling limits lifespan more than the oath rod so putting men to the oath is better for breeding than gentling. I can't find the references, but I've read that Aes Sedai don't want to outlive their children and I've also read that bonded warders have increased lifespans. The bond warder weave seems EXACTLY like a weave a mother would make to protect and control and mind her child, one would think that if lifespan were the issue everyone except the Whites would bond their children and the Whites should be above such emotional attachment issues and find it unneccissary. Aes Sedai could also give children up for adoption like the Far Dareis Mai. Bonding could also have been used to control male channelers, but was probably not discovered until after the Red Ajah was established.

It's just too convient for the Shadow for no one to have thought these things through. I wonder if damane have children? And the Seanchaen execute male channelers, does that mean there are fewer damane than there used to be?
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Comments

1

Tamyrlin: 2003-12-09

I like your theory and I agree with your general premise. Here is some additional circumstancial evidence for you. Oath rods were known to the Aes Sedai before the breaking, as a tool to control the criminal population. After the breaking, supposedly there was a backlash against channelers, so the Aes Sedai voluntarily created the oaths as a means to control the suspicion from the general population? Nice spin by Ishamael, in my opinion. I believe he was instrumental in putting the oaths in place because the oaths allow the black ajah to exist and flourish in the midst of the Aes Sedai organization. Just some ideas, nice theory.

2

natas: 2003-12-09

I like the idea. But the number of channelers, both female and male, are increasing, and not by birth.

I do think that the female Aes Sedai, had thought this weeding actually limited the number channelers. But as Verin was suprised by the number of female channelers in the Two Rivers, and the shear number of men going to the Black Tower who can channel, the Aes Sedai are finally realizing that this is not the case. Especially the Red Sister, captured by Logain, was amazed by the number of men at the Black Tower. And Taim was to have enough Ash' man to rival the White Tower within a year.

I do agree that the DO had to know that the Dragon Reborn would show up sooner or later. And that there were scouts out looking for him; the Red Ajah is perfect.

3

Aelfinn: 2003-12-09

I never liked the Reds anyways. They seem a little too -- well, just a little TOO to all be sane and non-Dark! Oh, all right, people can do and believe the DUMBEST things and still not be insane or a darkfriend, but...

And no, I don't think damane have children. It's considered "mating with animals" as damane are considered animals. Animals can breed with animals, but as no male channellers are allowed to live, some guy would have to be REALLY perverted to even THINK of sleeping with a damane, much less actually having children.

4

Callandor: 2003-12-09

**Aes Sedai can Heal the madness of the taint temporarily [source Ishamael Prologue Book 1]**

We have no idea what Ishy did to cure LTT (temporarily or permenantly), or weather it requires the TP in order to do it.

5

Great Lord of the Dark: 2003-12-09

Well thought out. But perhaps the madness can circumvent Oaths on the Oath Rod. Let's say Rand swore to tell no lies, but eventually the madness causes Lews Therin takes him over. Is Lews Therin bound by that Oath also? If Rand is acting beyond what he can rationally control, channeling in his sleep say, then do the Oaths still hold. If the Aes Sedai had the Oath Rod, they probably tried it on a few male channelers, and found that madmen can find loopholes just as easily as Aes Sedai can.

6

Anubis: 2003-12-10

the shadow seems hell bent on not allowing men to channel again. im sure that there is some way to heal the taint, and the madness. Im also as sure that it is a moot point and is unlikely to be discovered. It would seem to be in keeping with the shadows plans that preventing any such discovery of said healing would be.... good.. for evil. on a further note dont stay up all night then expect to post somthing smart.

7

Dorindha: 2003-12-10

Nicely done theory and though I would need more evidence to actually agree, I like the ideas you have raised.

Just fyi, damane don't have children - it would be like sleeping with a pet dog - they are less than human. On the other hand, I've not seen anything to suggest that sul'dam don't have children - they are highly respected members of Seanchan society who carry the channelling gene.

Also, I'm not sure that an oath on the oath rod would be better for the man than gentling - he would not only know the source is there, but only be prevented from touching it by his oath, not an actual incapability - that would surely screw his mind up more than when gentled. He may even go through the pain that Zerah had when her oaths conflicted - he might have such a physical meed to channel that it kind of tears him apart.

8

WinespringBrother: 2003-12-10

Good point Dorindha. The binder was originally used to stop criminals from acting on their compulsions (such as Semirhage with her torturing her patients). It was good with behavior modification in that sense, but apparently not with preventing a channeler from touching the One Power. Semirhage was going to be stilled if she didn't agree to be bound, so apparently they didn't or can't make a channeler take an oath not to channel anymore.

9

Mairashda: 2003-12-10

"You might call it an Oath Rod," Caddar said, (...)

Sevanna's fingers touched the rod lightly. More glass than ivory, and very cool. "It only works with women?" (...) "Women who can channel, Sevanna," Caddar said, (...) "you will have to wait until you have Rand al'Thor before I give you what will control him."

(CoT, Ch.40 pp.702/3)

10

Radin: 2003-12-10

Quote:

Well thought out. But perhaps the madness can circumvent Oaths on the Oath Rod. Let's say Rand swore to tell no lies, but eventually the madness causes Lews Therin takes him over. Is Lews Therin bound by that Oath also? If Rand is acting beyond what he can rationally control, channeling in his sleep say, then do the Oaths still hold.

I think they will, because the oaths have effects on the body.

They cause the ageless look(if its 3 of them) and have an direct effect on lifespan.(requires only 1)

So i belive it would work on LTT because it is still Rands body.

But i dont believe that the oaths would stop men from channeling for the same reasons Dorindha states above.

As to why someone can channel or not, i dont think it can be due to genetics.

With AS having few children,Seanchan executing male channelers and the Aiel way of dealing with male channelers we shouldnt see the increase in male channelers.

Maybe the Wheel uses channelers the same way it uses heros and Taveren....spins them out according to need.... The last battle is coming closer, so more channelers is needed....

11

Mad Tinker: 2003-12-11

Madness would place a whole different spin on oaths not to cause harm by channeling. If a man is mad and doesn't know he's causing harm he'd be a channeling fool. Don't know how that would work saying to never channel, however.

I have always wondered how the Red Ajah expected the Dragon Reborn to make it to TG if all men who could channel were gentled. Being founded by DF would make sense.

12

Zaela Sedai: 2003-12-11

I don't think there are less male channellers than there were before. It seems like they somehow were able to hide the ability within themselves so it never came out. There were probably less males that had the inborn spark however. Most of them now are ones who have to be taught and the only people who can know if they can be are other male channellers, therefore they were never found, but still passed on their genes. As for the women, there are probably tons of them (as shown in the Kin) it's the tower's fault for not searching for girls and turning so many away. The Aiel have many channellers because they find every girl who has potential.

13

Anaiyella: 2003-12-11

This is a great theory, and when you look at the fact that Moraine, Verrin, and the Armylin are constantly talking about how they have to be carefull not to let the red ajah find him (earlier in the books) because they might get a little too hasty and gentle him. I think that this could be a plot of the DO, to have the red ajah find any male who could channel and gentle them so as to prevent the last battle from even being fought. I dont know, just a thought. :)

14

Arien Sedai: 2003-12-12

Aran'gar's being able to channel saidin implies that channeling is connected to the soul, not genetics. Also, the quote "Alviarin was not amused" implies that Alviarin, a known Black sister, had something to do with the making of the White's plan. If one of the reasons the DO wants to gentle men is to cull channeling out of humanity, why is one of his servants supporting a plan to prevent that happening?

15

heronblade: 2003-12-12

As to the black tower finding LOADS of male channelers, the reds couldn't have found those guys capable of learning to channel cause they won't have gone mad...

16

Aragorn: 2003-12-12

Nice theory. Not much direct evidence but nothing that can disprove this one. Forced gentling of all men who can channel would definatley be a boon for the DO. One reason why there are so many men at the BT is that the reds really can only gentle the men who are born with the spark, not the ones who can learn to channel which are most of the tower. As a side theory. I think that there is a very good chance that not all of those 12 major ajahs or the minor ajahs were disbanded. Only went into hiding. This would explain much of the intrigue and plots within the WT. IE. Verin's agenda and possibly Alanna's or Cads.

17

Rhodric: 2003-12-13

i like the main idea, that the red ajah was created by darkfriends. i disagree with your suggestions of alternative control methods to control mad male channellers.

did the early post-breaking AS have access to male oath rods? from Sammael's explanation to Sevanna in aCoS, it seems that the current oath rods can only be used on female channellers.

an oath of "i will not channel" would most likely work, but it is as good as gentling and male channellers would be just as strongly opposed to it.

an oath like "i will not channel unless..." would not work to control male channellers because eventually, they would go mad, and since the oaths are subjective, a madmen may believe that the "unless..." clause in the oath is happening when it actually isn't (eg. "...unless my life is in danger" a madman may think his life is in danger when it really isn't, and "wig out" and destroy everything nearby).

18

The Leveler: 2003-12-16

Yeah. I REALLY don't like "Aes Sedai" Reds especially. Besides, the order of Blacks would probably be Reds, then Whites. Rest are probably scattered equally, with perhaps slightly fewer in Brown. somebody ought to start a Faction for this.

19

brigitta: 2004-01-05

I may have some more proof: 1) in EoTW Ba'alzamon (or, well, Ishy in disguise)tells Rand, Mat and Perrin that the Tower would use them like Guaire Asalaman, Logain, etc... And that he would be behind it. I don't have the exact quote, but he said that darkfriends whispered into their ears like they did into Hawkwings ears.

2) Logain tells anyone who wants to hear how the red ajah put him up as the Dragon.

so if most of the false dragons (including Logain) were put up by the Reds and if most of them (including Logain) were put into power by darkfriends, then... The Red ajah are darkfriends. Of course some of them might not even know that they don't really serve the Light, like Elaida in my opinion, but all in all they are... well, darkfriends

20

Caldazar: 2004-01-06

Logain was not put up by the red ajah, that was a story that was created by Siuan and Leane.

21

Aelfinn: 2004-01-06

***Logain was not put up by the red ajah, that was a story that was created by Siuan and Leane. ***

Oh? Read LoC 8: 'The Storm Gathers' pg 227 in softcover.

Logain says what the Reds did to him, and nobles are being invited to hear his story like every week. Nynaeve obviously believes him (I have the book right with me).

If I remember correctly, in tSR when Siuan and Leane escape, or maybe the beginning of tFoH, Logain tells them that the Red Sisters were behind it all. Siuan only says something like, "Stay with us and we'll find a way to give you your revenge."

Sure, SHE wouldn't weep to see the Red Ajah disappear, but she isn't twisted enough to purposely START a lie that would cause it.

22

Frenzy: 2004-01-06

1) Siuan isn't above lying to get what she wants. Logain's story, i think, is Siuan's lie stumbling upon the truth. Siuan probably used Logain's history and made up the lie to fill in the gaps and garner opposition against the Red-held Tower. And, by twist of fate, her made-up stuff is pretty close to what actually happened. Why do you think the Reds are so tight-lipped about it?

2) back to the original theory, it's based on a flawed premise: that Aes Sedai knew how to Heal the Taint out of men. Aes Sedai did NOT know how to do that, Ishamael knew how to do that. And Ishamael used the Great Lord's Healing (True Power), not what one of Lews Therin's Sisters would have access to (One Power). Like using snake venom as an antidote to a snakebite, y'know?

Another thing to consider is the Oath Rod. Sammael says it'll work on women who can channel, and that he'd need to get Sevanna what she'd need to control Rand (a man who can channel). So it's safe to assume that Oath Rods only work on women, and that there is an analog for men that nobody modern knows about. Which makes sense, because you don't have many male channelers to experiment with ter'angrael, let alone an Aes Sedai who'd participate, let alone allow, such experimentation.

Oath Rods were used to bind the criminal element in the Age of Legends. The ageless face was the Scarlett Letter. And binding limited your lifespan, as Semirhage knew (and as we've seen comparing Aes Sedai to the Kin, Wise Ones, etc.). But one aspect that i think the Oath Rod also has is a reduction in fertility. After all, do you REALLY want your criminals breeding? It isn't perfect, since Aes Sedai are capable of bearing children. But considering the fecundity of Aes Sedai is FAR lower than their Wise One and Windfinder analogs, this is a plausable theory.

And if you use the male oath rod analog on male channelers (assuming you got over that male channelers experimenting with ter'angrael hurdle), it wouldn't work because you'd be trying to breed with infertile men.

The Red Ajah was one of seven factions that survived the creation of the White Tower. As in any new government (see Afghanistan), only the strongest factions will rise to the top and survive, while the others are either absorbed or eliminated. i wouldn't single out the Reds as being the only Ajah actively eliminating competition.

23

: 2004-01-06

1) Aes Sedai *CAN* temporarily remove the effects of taint.

The reference in the theory was not "Ishy did it, so all AS must be able to," it was "go read that section again, because Ishy referred to the AS ability." He tells LTT that it was too bad one of his AS pets were not around, BUT EVEN THEY COULD ONLY GIVE HIM A FEW MOMENTS OF RELIEF. It was because an AS was not present that Ishy was forced to use his TP healing on LTT.

2) Re: Red Ajah founded by darkfriends.

1) Siuan isn't above lying to get what she wants. Logain's story, i think, is Siuan's lie stumbling upon the truth. Siuan probably used Logain's history and made up the lie to fill in the gaps and garner opposition against the Red-held Tower. And, by twist of fate, her made-up stuff is pretty close to what actually happened. Why do you think the Reds are so tight-lipped about it?

2) There is just as much reason to disbelieve Sammael as there is to believe him when he says that the oath rods won't work on men. Not to put to fine a point on it, but HE is a man. He wouldn't want them turning around and trying to imprison him by it.

Also, it is pure supposition to think that the binding causes sterility. That's... that's pulled out of thin air. And it's silly.

So, to recap, the theory is based on a valid premise that AS (at least around the time of the breaking) could releave men of some of the effects of taint - at least temporarily. This points to the fact that this sort of thing must have been being studied for this sort of progress to have been made.

24

Frenzy: 2004-01-06

The quote in question:

Eye of the World CHAPTER: Prologue - Dragonmount: Tossing back his black cloak, Elan Morin flexed his hands. "A pity for you," he mused, "that one of your Sisters is not here. I was never very skilled at Healing, and I follow a different power now. But even one of them could only give you a few lucid minutes, if you did not destroy her first. What I can do will serve as well, for my purposes." His sudden smile was cruel. "But I fear Shai'tan's healing is different from the sort you know. Be healed, Lews Therin!" He extended his hands, and the light dimmed as if a shadow had been laid across the sun.



Now, if what you're theorizing is that Aes Sedai COULD heal the Taint, going by this quote it'd only give the male a few lucid moments. What good is a few lucid moments?



2) Even if Sammael is completely discounted, and that the Oat Rod goes both ways, do you think that in all the research that the Breaking-era Aes Sedai put into controlling mad male channelers that it never occured to ANY of them to try the Oath Rod? That's farther out there than my fertility theory.



Which you also think is silly. That's the strongest arguement i've heard against my theory, let me tell you. How would you explain the reduced fecundity of Aes Sedai then, hmm? Because they don't want to outlive their kids? If you use the fear of emotional attachment as birth control, happy parenting.



A few lucid moments from a Sister isn't enough to be practical. It'd be akin to living on a ventilator: a mad male channeler couldn't live without a constant influx of Healing. That'd wear out both the male and the Aes Sedai doing the Healing. Assuming she didn't slip and he didn't accidentally kill her during one of those non-lucid moments.



Your main theory is that the Red was founded by Darkfriends, Darkfriends who wanted to put an end to Male Channeling. How then do you reconcile that with this quote from Moiraine: Eye of the World CHAPTER: 43 - Decisions and Apparitions:"Some in Tar Valon," Moiraine said quietly, "claim that Ogier sanctuary prolonged the Breaking and made it worse. Others say that if all of those men had been allowed to go mad at once, there would have been nothing left of the world. I am of the Blue Ajah, Loial; unlike the Red Ajah, we hold to the second view. Sanctuary helped to save what could be saved."



The timing of this darkfriend conspiracy is a bit off, too. The Toman Calendar (AB) was adopted approximately two centuries after the death of the last male Aes Sedai. Yet the White Tower didn't organize into it's seven Ajah structure until 98 AB, 98 years after the last Male Aes Sedai died, or 2 centuries plus 98 years after he died. If the Dark Reds were trying to keep the other Ajahs from working to save Male Aes Sedai, they were at least a century late in doing so.

25

spearmaiden: 2004-01-07

Frenzy,

I tend to agree with the person who said the idea of the oath rod causing infertility is "silly," although I probably wouldn't use that word exactly. I guess I'd either say it's unlikely, or else that we just don't have enough information.

There really isn't any proof one way or another. Your only evidence is that Aes Sedai have very few children and have lower fecundity than non-AS. So what? We are told over and over that Aes Sedai never marry, and that most of them consider themselves too busy and important to have that sort of relationship. Aside from Myrelle and her Warders, and the one sister who Logain bonded, we really don't have any evidence of any AS having so much as a boyfriend, or even thinking about men. AS hold themselves apart from society. It's only natural that they wouldn't have children often, simply because it takes sex to have kids, and they don't seem to be having much of that. I think that's more a product of their isolationism and aloofness than anything else.

That isn't to say that it isn't a possible side effect. There is just no proof or even a hint of proof in the books to support that idea, IMO.

There's also the question of WHEN an AS might be fertile in the first place. Is her fertility related to her natural age, when most women stop having childred ~40 or a little older, or is it related to the age she slows to, allowing her to get pregnant much later in life? If it's the first, she'd be a novice or accepted for most of the time she's able to have kids. By the time she got to be AS, there would be much smaller window left. (of course if it's the later and her reproducing ability slows with her face, then of course her window would be much longer).

Anyway, I guess my point is that there are a lot other factors than just the oath rod that could limit AS reproduction, and they all seem more likely to me.

26

free will: 2004-01-07

How would you explain the reduced fecundity of Aes Sedai then, hmm?

---It is memtioned many times in the novels that besides the Greens (who are trying to stay battle-fit at all times) Aes Sedai hardly EVER talk to ANY man except their warders. I personally find segregation to be excellent at reducing birthrates. Besides, as the Black sisters in Tarabon pointed out; hurting the body with the power is part and parcel with talent in Healing, so a quick Delve and a trickle of the power should detect an unwanted pregnancy and prevent and unwanted birth. And I'm sure the three oaths don't prevent abortions.

2) Even if Sammael is completely discounted, and that the Oat Rod goes both ways, do you think that in all the research that the Breaking-era Aes Sedai put into controlling mad male channelers that it never occured to ANY of them to try the Oath Rod? That's farther out there than my fertility theory.

Since I believe binders work on both sexes, is is *precisely* the unbelieveability of them not trying it that makes me think they did try it. There are too alternatives, first that the oath roddidn'twork, or second that it did but that the hand of history and the ancient work of the early Black sisters has removed the evidence of this.

Besides, there are MANY ways to control male channelers. As we learn from Nynaeve's POV the first time she linked (LoC page xxx) that once linked, you can't pull out. So the strong male channellers can be kept in links all day and the weak can be kept under tied-off shields. Males can be made and kept unconcious when neither of those solutions are feasable. Besides, Egwene couldn't manipulate weather if that would cause a ship to capsize (3 oaths, one against weapon use), but non-Blacks can gentle men even when they *know* this causes the men to die? That's too hard to believe.

My whole premise is that I can't take seriously the idea that gentling is the *best* solution, so I think darkfriends. Surely men can be sent to steddings, and use a saidar well to use the power to stimulate their brain "as if" they had channeled untainted saidin. It's just like dealing with an addict. No more complicated. I agree that maybe they don't have the resources to treat all addicts, but gentling should be the least prefered solution. You could offer men a chance to spend 10 years in a stedding copulating with hot chicks while having their brains stimulated. Most men would line up to be tested hoping they could learn or had the spark because 10 years in the stedding is better than 50 outside. And the resources would be spent on the most powerful men (first to detect men who can channel from the general population, sencond to link and add power, and third to increase the size of links) to keep them in good condition through shielding, linking, unconciousness, warder compulsion, regular compulsion, oath rods, Semihurge-type conditioning, etc., etc.

I agree that the Hundred companions are a lost cause, but the rest of them should be sent to steddings (as they were), and the NEW men should be linked and healed and controlled, at least for long enough to procreate. The only reason to prefer gentling is if you want to prevent channeling offspring. Modern AS just don't like men (see part above), but the Aes Sedai during the breaking got relief from the DO and atthe same time knew that the bad things were the result of the taint (not madened people), they shouldn'thave been so quick to sell the souls of the male Aes Sedai. The Age of Legends were an enlightened time. And as Ishamael tells us the AS thought the problem was important enough to start researching at least temporary solutions. You could have rigorous psychological evaluations and euthanize/gentle if/when they fails. You can bind them (with bindersmade inthe AoL for use on channeling men) so that they can only only seize the source when linked and can never direct flows. Then it doesn't matter if they are crazy because a (hopefully) sanewomen directs the flows. But themen get the sensual experience (qualia) of channeling saidin. The point is that there are 1000s of solutions that are BETTER than gentling EVERY man ON SIGHT.
How would you explain the reduced fecundity of Aes Sedai then, hmm?

It is memtioned many times in the novels that besides the Greens (who are trying to stay battle-fit at all times) Aes Sedai hardly EVER talk to ANY man except their warders. I personally find segregation to be excellent at reducing birthrates. Besides, as the Black sisters in Tarabon pointed out; hurting the body with the power is part and parcel with talent in Healing, so a quick Delve and a trickle of the power should detect an unwanted pregnancy and prevent and unwanted birth. And I'm sure the three oaths don't prevent abortions.

The timing of this darkfriend conspiracy is a bit off, too.

I disagree. Remeber the no Aes Sedai (male OR female) lived through the entire breaking. This smacks of a cover-up to me. Like a cover-up of the effects (or existance) of binders (oath rods) to establish the supremacy of gentling as the only-right-way.

27

rubbernilly: 2004-01-08

That nameless post was me. (Rubbernilly, in case my name does not come through *again*).

If "silly" was a bit harsh, I apologize.

However, if you have read New Spring, there is considerable discussion regarding how Accepted are trained - and AS willingly choose - to live without husband and without child. No one wants to outlive their loved ones.

Greens are the exception, some apparently taking their warders to bed.

But these women are not stupid. They know their life leaves no room for a child. Neither are they so stupid to not know when and how to get pregnant. They are willingly without children, not wanting to risk them, nor to give up their life for them, nor to see them die before their own mother.

28

Frenzy: 2004-01-08

rubbernilly: apology accepted. and i too apologize for my rudeness in response. i have not yet read the new version of New Spring (bloody amazon.com....), but i can draw analogs from real-world examples. Roman Catholic Priests are celibate by law, oath and choice. Yet we're seeing multiple examples of Priests breaking their vows. Granted they don't have an Oath Rod ~making~ them keep their word, but it shows that even thorough indoctrination is not foolproof. All i'm saying is that even with culture, lack of opportunity, heartleaf tea and long lifespans, there should be more instances of Aes Sedai offspring than we've seen. So i'm looking for another limiting factor, and the Oath Rod is the obvious answer.

i concede that my proposed side-effect of the Oath Rod is pure speculation, but it isn't completely groundless. A society of 1200 (or more, as in the past) women with basically a non-existant birthrate is remarkable. With numbers that skewed, i think there's more to it than cultural practices and isolation. But that's an arguement for a different theory.

Back to the original theory: yes there are ways to control male channeling, but all of the ways mentioned so far (shielding, forced link maintenance, constant Healing, induced comas, stedding exile) are either short-term solutions or too impractical to be applied to the entire male channeling population. Female Aes Sedai during the breaking were dealing with rabid dogs causing untold damage and killing thousands of innocents. How many continents need to be shifted, how many people killed, before it's decided that there's no cure for this disease? Apparently 300 years worth, and that's more time than i think any sane person would allow.

Men in stedding using wells is also a short-term solution. Men DID flee to stedding, but they couldn't live without Saidin and every single one of them eventually left. Saidin, in this context, is a powerful addiction. Using a well to take the edge off your jonesing just prolongs the problem. and you'll have to refill the well eventually, and even the Saidin in the well is tainted, so all you're doing is prolonging the problem and delaying the inevitable.

One thing you may want to consider is that we may have information the Aes Sedai of the Breaking did not. Obviously Aginor had a firm grasp of genetics, but who knows if that was the norm or if he was a genius ahead of his time. Going by Rand's Ancestor memories, we know that even the Da'shain were tested for the Gift of Channeling, even though if they were Da'shain they weren't the offspring of Aes Sedai. Also, the Breaking-era Aes Sedai were probably not thinking of the long-term viability of the channeling ability; they were probably focused on ending the madness of the Taint and the immediate needs of world survival in the midst of walking madmen.

Yes, the AoL was an enlightened time, but the Breaking was after 110+ years of Collapse, and 10 years of world War. Enlightment probably got chucked out the window decades ago.

Yes, you would think that there are thousands of solutions that would be better than cauterizing male channelers. But none of them were implemented. You think that's because the Darkfriends suppressed them. i think it's because none of those thousands was adequate or feasible. We may have to just disagree on this, as we've both laid out our evidence and countered each others' arguements.

btw, do you have a quote that no AS survived from Collapse to end of Breaking? What about the two Aes Sedai traveling with the Jenn Aiel?

29

Elder Haman: 2004-01-09

I believe there is a middle course here. Generally Evil is not as all powerful as they like us to believe. It is very plausible that in the chaos after the Breaking that an Ajah would arise that dedicates itself to eliminating the threat of taint-maddend men. However, it would be in the keeping of Evil to see an oppurtunity to turn something natural, into something evil. By playing on the biases and pride of Aes Sedia I think it is clear that the Red Ajah has been made an unwitting ally of the Dark One. The debate over how to deal with the taint on sadain may be an early example of this. Obviously the refusal of Red's to take Warders is an example. It is very logical that Red's would need a Warder, yet they do not. Instead they've turned a nessesity, (the neutralization of male channelers), into a cause- agianst men. Reds generate an actual hatred of all men- blaming them for the Beaking, when if fact it was the women Aes Sedai's fault. (For making the Compact and forcingws Therin into his dring attack).

I can easily see Ishmael then trying to claim that he has actual control in the Tower, when in fact he only has great influence. Most likely the Reds do contain a dispropotionate amount of Darkfriends- but that is probably due to their philosiphy being more vunerable to persuasion rather than actually being founded by the Black Ajah.

30

Unicorn: 2004-02-10

I don't agree!

Ok so it is longer than that. I have just read "The Strike Shayol Ghul", and although this is purely conjecture I believe that the light and the dark was seperated pretty good back then. Of course there where spies and such but no I don't think the Red Ajah was started by a Datkfriend.

I belive that you may view the Ajahs as political parties of sorts. That there were 12 to begin with and half of these disapear and a new one crops up, well it happens i guess. I believe that the Red was founded but either Latra Posae hersef or her followers. She was head honcho in the fraction against Lews Therins plan and "author" of the socalled "fateful concord". It is said in this "text" that at some point male and female Aes Sedai did not even talk to each other. Obviosly not all female Aes Sedai agreed enough to become Red, but I believe that the more Radical elements of this movement, encouraged by the blow back Lews Therin experienced founded the Red Ajah. Perhaps not as rabid as it has become(I like to think of Age of Legend Aes Sedai as a little more cultured than the vile and unwise but not evil Elaida).

That just my opinion, to those who haven't read Strike at Shayol Ghul there is a link to it under links on this site, look under RJ's world

31

free will: 2005-06-11

WinespringBrother: "Good point Dorindha. The binder was originally used to stop criminals from acting on their compulsions (such as Semirhage with her torturing her patients). It was good with behavior modification in that sense, but apparently not with preventing a channeler from touching the One Power. Semirhage was going to be stilled if she didn't agree to be bound, so apparently they didn't or can't make a channeler take an oath not to channel anymore.

I think that you can swear not to use the power, but that you can still embrace the Source and not channel. The current oaths restrict channelling, the point of the binders were to limit channeling and you can embrace without channeling. Even so, I think the point of the threat for Semirhage was a permanent solution, that torture is so unacceptable, that wasting time on parole hearings or appeals or letting someone still embrace, it's all just not worth it for such a high crime. Restricting channelling to a being a subservient link is sufficient to stop channeling abuse in a sane woman. But severing works for insane women, women who might know people with oath rods, and women that are selected to be deterants for others considering high crimes.

32

free will: 2005-06-12

Elder Haman: It is very plausible that in the chaos after the Breaking that an Ajah would arise that dedicates itself to eliminating the threat of taint-maddend men.

Sure, but besides moving the WT to SG, what stupider or more Shadow friendly way exists to oppose taint-maddend men?

However, it would be in the keeping of Evil to see an oppurtunity to turn something natural, into something evil. By playing on the biases and pride of Aes Sedia I think it is clear that the Red Ajah has been made an unwitting ally of the Dark One. The debate over how to deal with the taint on sadain may be an early example of this. Obviously the refusal of Red's to take Warders is an example. It is very logical that Red's would need a Warder, yet they do not. Instead they've turned a nessesity, (the neutralization of male channelers), into a cause- agianst men. Reds generate an actual hatred of all men- blaming them for the Beaking, when if fact it was the women Aes Sedai's fault. (For making the Compact and forcingws Therin into his dring attack).

And by making it so that the public bears the cost for the ineffecient detection methods of male channelers, it's certain to create bad will against all channelers, which keeps female recruitment down, which leads to a vicious circle. It creates everything bad about modern Randland.

I can easily see Ishmael then trying to claim that he has actual control in the Tower, when in fact he only has great influence. Most likely the Reds do contain a dispropotionate amount of Darkfriends- but that is probably due to their philosiphy being more vunerable to persuasion rather than actually being founded by the Black Ajah.

I agree with you that maybe darkfriend numbers are down today in the Red Ajah for exactly that reason, but in the centuries that the Ajahs were forming, someone had to promote an insane bad PR bad HR bad TG solution hard enough to form an Ajah dedicated to following it. That screams darkfriend to me.

Unicorn: Ok so it is longer than that. I have just read "The Strike Shayol Ghul", and although this is purely conjecture I believe that the light and the dark was seperated pretty good back then. Of course there where spies and such but no I don't think the Red Ajah was started by a Datkfriend.

The Black had centuries before the Reds formed to get the numbers required. I'll widen the conspiracy. Men can test for other men without the other men knowing or helping. So Ishamael can create male testers (immune to the taint) that then test for other men and train them to be deadly, maybe even pretending to be newbies and sending them to sabotage other non-Red strategies for dealing with men. I'm not trying to put all the blame on sisters for being idiots. I'm saying that in the absensce of evil the Red plan is just too insanely stupid to have happened naturally, so ... darkfriends! Maybe the Reds were "founded" by the interference of male darkfriend channelers on orders of Ishamael on the other Ajahs methods for dealing with men. I'm willing to concede that possibility. My only contention was that the strategy picked by Reds is too insane to have developed without help by darkfriends in some capacity. But since men can find other men without the men's help, and since darkfriend men can be sane, and since 13 and 13 can turn other men to the dark, it's sure fire. This opens up my next theory which is "where was the male Black Ajah for the last 3000 years?"

I belive that you may view the Ajahs as political parties of sorts. That there were 12 to begin with and half of these disapear and a new one crops up, well it happens i guess. I believe that the Red was founded but either Latra Posae hersef or her followers. She was head honcho in the fraction against Lews Therins plan and "author" of the socalled "fateful concord". It is said in this "text" that at some point male and female Aes Sedai did not even talk to each other. Obviosly not all female Aes Sedai agreed enough to become Red, but I believe that the more Radical elements of this movement, encouraged by the blow back Lews Therin experienced founded the Red Ajah. Perhaps not as rabid as it has become(I like to think of Age of Legend Aes Sedai as a little more cultured than the vile and unwise but not evil Elaida).

I think you think that the Reds formed very quickly for your lack of Blacks and Latra Posae founding claims. But it took hundreds of years, more than enough time for young sisters to join or for men to mess of the alternatives. Just hating men doesn't seem to justify the bad PR and limitations that the Red strategy creates.

33

free will: 2005-06-12

Rhodric:"an oath of "i will not channel" would most likely work, but it is as good as gentling and male channellers would be just as strongly opposed to it."

I think that you can swear not to channel the one power, but that you can still embrace the Source without channeling. That's much better. And for all I know that allows you to participate in links too. And unless it is both the case that there is no genetic component AND that the AS knew that channeling has no genetic component, then they'd still rationally want to keep the men alive long enough to breed, which for a man doesn't have to be that long, but not an immediate gentling with no embrace. A harem plus embracing followed by death within a decade can compete against embrace plus channeling (or gentling) plus wasting away and being crazy. Men would cooperate. The Ayyaad seem to do a much better job than the presumably enlightend AS, hence my theory that the early AS culture was strongly influenced by Darkfriends.

Frenzy:"the original theory, it's based on a flawed premise: that Aes Sedai knew how to Heal the Taint out of men. Aes Sedai did NOT know how to do that, Ishamael knew how to do that. And Ishamael used the Great Lord's Healing (True Power), not what one of Lews Therin's Sisters would have access to (One Power)"

tEotW Prologue: "A pity for you" [Ishamael] mused, "that on of your Sisters is not here. I was never very skilled at Healing, and I follow a different power now. But even one of them could only give you a few lucid minutes, if you did not destroy her first.", so AS can heal madness temporarily, and if they can embrace and not channel themselves and thus extend links and be kept safe for breeding purposes it's better than gentling, just as a general gentle policy is bad news for the Dragon Reborn. My thesis doesn't have one single point, there is a general pattern of what looks like stupidity, and when it looks like stupidity I blame it on darkfriends.

And regarding your other points, it's not clear that you need gendered oath rods, it's just an unconfirmed possibility. Men don't have to be fertile very long to sire offspring. But AS make zero attempt to do so. At least that's consistent with AS not being concerned by and large with their own lack of children. Though maybe that attitude of unconcern is also a hold over from early Darkfriend attitudes. Since you think the Reds were a purely political group, let me remind you that it's obvious that low birth rates and a policy of gentling is bad for the last battle. And even if people agree that males are an immediate and ongoing problem, a policy of contested capture and swift gentling is a high-casaulty, minimum-benefit strategy compared to the world of alternatives like wooing the pre-mad men with harems. Since every group would recognize the stupidity, a purely political group would find compromises to satisfy others and still meet their benign agenda. Conclusion is that the Reds wanted the stupidity because they always worked for the other side. I don't see much possibility any other way. They could have had men travelling to them to see if they can "get the harem", and since it is easy to test men for the talent (and more importantly it is sensed by the proctor, not the subject, so no false positives), a man that is still too young to be mad can test applicants for the harems.

Even if Sammael is completely discounted, and that the Oath Rod goes both ways, do you think that in all the research that the Breaking-era Aes Sedai put into controlling mad male channelers that it never occured to ANY of them to try the Oath Rod? That's farther out there than my fertility theory.

Its a point that gets sour if over-used, but my whole point was that the actions of the WT are mostly politically based now, but back in the beginning when politics were more fluid, the "solution" found is plain stupid. Not just not using the Oath Rod, but being antagonistic towards men and children, it's a stupid policy to pick.

How would you explain the reduced fecundity of Aes Sedai then, hmm? Because they don't want to outlive their kids? If you use the fear of emotional attachment as birth control, happy parenting.

Mostly abstinence. Plus AS tend to channel more than Aiel or Kin, to be honest. Channeling itself could affect fecundity. Comparing AS to Damane and/or Windfinders might be a better comparison. But honestly I don't see much hard data on channeler fecundity in any tradition except the AS being lower than usual for women in their society. I think abstinence is easier when you have (virtually?) orgasmic access to the True Source at any moment.

A few lucid moments from a Sister isn't enough to be practical. It'd be akin to living on a ventilator: a mad male channeler couldn't live without a constant influx of Healing. That'd wear out both the male and the Aes Sedai doing the Healing. Assuming she didn't slip and he didn't accidentally kill her during one of those non-lucid moments.

There are many methods to deal with male channelers. Stedding, healing, shielding, partial shielding, compulsion, physical restraints, herbal restraints, etc. If you can have enough breeding and quality of life, compared to kinslaying and madness and body wasting alternatives, then the men will come to you. This whole strategy seems irrationally ignored. Hence I call darkfriend.

Your main theory is that the Red was founded by Darkfriends, Darkfriends who wanted to put an end to Male Channeling.

That wanted the Shadow to win in TG, a big difference.


How then do you reconcile that with this quote from Moiraine: Eye of the World CHAPTER: 43 - Decisions and Apparitions:"Some in Tar Valon," Moiraine said quietly, "claim that Ogier sanctuary prolonged the Breaking and made it worse. Others say that if all of those men had been allowed to go mad at once, there would have been nothing left of the world. I am of the Blue Ajah, Loial; unlike the Red Ajah, we hold to the second view. Sanctuary helped to save what could be saved."

I find it evidence for my theory. The Reds create a false dichotomy of "Stedding or Severing" with no other attempts allowed for consideration. Since it sucks to be in a stedding all the time if you already know how to channel (no embracing) then these aging male AS aren't good recruiters. You want young men having sex for years, then learning to channel enough to figure out which men get to have harems, those guys don't learn until many years later after having lots of unprotected sex with lots of women.

The timing of this darkfriend conspiracy is a bit off, too. The Toman Calendar (AB) was adopted approximately two centuries after the death of the last male Aes Sedai. Yet the White Tower didn't organize into it's seven Ajah structure until 98 AB, 98 years after the last Male Aes Sedai died, or 2 centuries plus 98 years after he died. If the Dark Reds were trying to keep the other Ajahs from working to save Male Aes Sedai, they were at least a century late in doing so.

There were darkfriend AS all the time, you surely would concede that, right? It might take centuries to convince people to tolerate outright stupidity. It took a lot of time before Ajahs even became political parties, they originally were temporary personal groups. Probably the darkfriends tried to press stupidity on the White Tower on all fronts at first and as the Ajahs formed one by one they'd reject stupidity and hence most darkfriends from their midsts, so that the darkfriends became excluded from the other Ajahs and had to found one where they were the majority.

yes there are ways to control male channeling, but all of the ways mentioned so far (shielding, forced link maintenance, constant Healing, induced comas, stedding exile) are either short-term solutions or too impractical to be applied to the entire male channeling population.

You only need it long enough to attract men to submiting to testing to get the sex instead of the madness. That's a non-confrontational way to gentle men if you do end up gentleing them afterwards. I think Reds wait to take on sparkers to arrange "accidents" for non darkfriends, to keep a darkfriend majority in power.

Female Aes Sedai during the breaking were dealing with rabid dogs causing untold damage and killing thousands of innocents. How many continents need to be shifted, how many people killed, before it's decided that there's no cure for this disease? Apparently 300 years worth, and that's more time than i think any sane person would allow.

Just because you give up on a cure doesn't mean that you decide that it's worthwhile to wait until sparkers start blitzing things and then go head to head. Compared to having men approaching you and having a few that haven't turned yet that can have a sister help them test potentials? And don't forget the benefits! Without men you can't link past 13. And the Dragon Reborn! Come on, no sane person finds the Red approach intelligent. I don't even think that you do Frenzy. I'm not saying that the Tower should be 50-50 male female or that that is possible, I'm saying that the Reds have the absolute worst possible strategy. What more evil or more stupid strategy could they possibly propose? Relocating the WT to SG?

Men in stedding using wells is also a short-term solution. Men DID flee to stedding, but they couldn't live without Saidin and every single one of them eventually left. Saidin, in this context, is a powerful addiction. Using a well to take the edge off your jonesing just prolongs the problem. and you'll have to refill the well eventually, and even the Saidin in the well is tainted, so all you're doing is prolonging the problem and delaying the inevitable.

So? If you can make the pre-learning period "worth it" then men will come to you, and you can gentle or kill or whatever them later. My theory is not that male channelers should live to be 300 years old. It's that waiting until sparkers start channeling is an insanely stupid idea. Sane alternatives of healing and stedding and sex-filled pre-learning and short term learned-but-being-a-benefit-to-society is a better strategy.

One thing you may want to consider is that we may have information the Aes Sedai of the Breaking did not. Obviously Aginor had a firm grasp of genetics, but who knows if that was the norm or if he was a genius ahead of his time.

You don't need advanced genetics knowledge, a passing knowledge of breeding and having channeling being an important trait is enough to not risk affecting it.

Going by Rand's Ancestor memories, we know that even the Da'shain were tested for the Gift of Channeling, even though if they were Da'shain they weren't the offspring of Aes Sedai. Also, the Breaking-era Aes Sedai were probably not thinking of the long-term viability of the channeling ability; they were probably focused on ending the madness of the Taint and the immediate needs of world survival in the midst of walking madmen.

The totally obvious observation that some babies are born with traits that don't allow them to grow to reproductive age indicates that some traits can belong to a child without belonging to the parents. And again channeling it important and again differenr Ajahs had different interests, so not everyone was concerned about channelers. My problem is that the evidence for my theory seems too strong, like the White Ajah should have known the Reds were insanely-evil level stupid, so did they just not care or were they Black too?

Yes, the AoL was an enlightened time, but the Breaking was after 110+ years of Collapse, and 10 years of world War. Enlightment probably got chucked out the window decades ago.

In the years where people decided to put healing first, or history first, or logic first, or diplomacy first, or battle first, in that time enough people should realize gross stupidity of this magnitude. I don't find it credible to imagine otherwise. I can't. I'm not creative enough to imagine that.

Yes, you would think that there are thousands of solutions that would be better than cauterizing male channelers. But none of them were implemented. You think that's because the Darkfriends suppressed them. I think it's because none of those thousands was adequate or feasible. We may have to just disagree on this, as we've both laid out our evidence and countered each others' arguements.

I'd be fine if you called my solutions unfeasable compared to some magical solution, but they are better than the ones that the Reds actually choose, unless Ishamael actively messed up the other attempts to make them work out worse than the Red method, which is an outright death trap for civilians and AS alike. It seems calculated to make people fear the power and AS. It's bad on HR, it's bad on PR, it's bad on logevity, it's bad on TG, it's a 100% chance of dying and having a difficult time on the way. How can any proposal be worse than the Reds. My "moving to SG" example is the only worse proposal I could come up with. I'll concede that Ishamael might have interfered with other ways to deal with men, and thus darkfriends made the Red view survive when otherwise it wouldn't.

34

JakOShadows: 2005-06-12

I agree with freewill on this theory. While some complicated solutions may not have been feasible, immediately gentling and scaring off the ability to channel from men doesn't make much sense. It does seem as if there was an outside influence involved in this. Probably darkfriends, but it could also be the division between Latra Posae and LTT if that conflict was remembered. Personally, I don't think it did, but there was a biased that interfered with this resolution because it doesn't seem like a logical step for AS wanting to cultivate the ability to channel.

35

: 2005-06-13

Free Will, your critics against the doctrine of the Red Ajah is correct from a point of view of an observer from outside, but to state that the Red solution is "obviously stupid" and couldn't be chosen naturally and must have a dark conspiracy of the Big Evil behind it, is like to state that all wars in the human history are so obviously stupid that they couldn't emerge without the direct participation of some demons. It is a brusk solution like ANY violent solution, and like any violent solution it is usually chosen by clever people in situations of emergency. Look at the situation of the Aes Sedai just after the Breaking (when the red Ajah was founded together with the other Ajahs). Male channelers caused so devastating disasters that anybody could easily forget that the last Battle could be worse. the existence of male channelers was greater danger then the danger of nuclear weapons posessed by psychically unreliable people. In the same time the Aes Sedai were few in number, poor in ressources, hated by the world's population (most of the peoples would want all the Aes Sedai dead) and with inner struggles between themselves. Usually in such situations even quite clever people tend to adopt very radical and easy solutions. The adnger is to be removed as soon as possible and to be never emerging again after being removed - this will be the most likely priority in such cases. If Aes Sedain had powerfull and well developed organization with excessional ressources, they could eventually engage six women to constantly Heal and Shield and guard every channeling man. Maybe if they wanted it very much they could risk it and try to do something with the lack of ressources they had, but it is really very difficult to risk so in cases your organization is poor and tired and desperate.

The Red Ajah is too similar to so many historical choices and radical doctrines, that I state that the occurence of such ideology is not only natural for the situation, but that it would be even unnatural if such ideology wouldn't emerge. In situation of crisis in the face of a really great danger radical and violent doctrines ALLWAYS occur quite naturally. Historically only in societies that hasn't suffered great disasters in the lifetime of the current generations such solutions to seem "obviously stupid".

I envision the Reds as the logical chioce of those who believe to be practical and instead to care about the Last Battle that nobody knows what exactly of preparations would it require, or to care about pure logic, would first cope with the greatest problem of the day. The Reds could underestimate the requirements of the Far Future, but it is not uncommon among people believing to be "practical realists". Reds could think e.g. in the manner "if we do not stop the danger of new Breaking now, we will simply not survive to face the last Battle". Again, do not forget that the first Aes Sedai feeled themselves to be in a situation equivalent to a state of war. Most of them would take it as obviously stupid to take risky solutions about the male channelers.

And I don't agree that the advantage for the Shadow from the Red Ajah is so big. If this was an Ajah found by darkfriends, then this plan of the Shadow would give too poor fruits. Distrust to channeling men? There was allway such distrust beginning with the Breaking. No men to teach the DR? And if AS kept men under control and not let them channel, then do you believe that they will be feasible teachers for Rand? Do you believe that these men will run free to seek for channelers? I'm pretty sure that Rand wouldn't cope to do what he has to do if he was under the full control of the Tower. Better policy of the Tower towards channeling men will mean much more chances for the Tower to break Rand's will and to prevent the creation of the Black Tower.

36

free will: 2005-06-13

Free Will, your critics against the doctrine of the Red Ajah is correct from a point of view of an observer from outside, but to state that the Red solution is "obviously stupid" and couldn't be chosen naturally and must have a dark conspiracy of the Big Evil behind it, is like to state that all wars in the human history are so obviously stupid that they couldn't emerge without the direct participation of some demons.

You confuse intent and method. A war can have a stupid intent or a stupid method. Stupid intents and stupid methods are different. Dealing with male channelers is not a stupid intend. But any stupid method requires explanation. Some can be attributed stupid people not thinking things through, but in this case we have thousands of intelligent people who live for hundreds of years, explaining their stupidity has to come from somewhere. I'm willing to have the influence of evil be subtle, like changing "servants of all" into an arrogant organization (Latra could be involved in that without Black assitance) that just considers themselves above everything. This cultural attitude could cause white and brown to spin away into neutrality and lead to narrow minded factions that give too much control to other groups even when it affects their doings. For instance, Browns should naturally want to avoid wars since that destroys artifacts, but if they are arrogant enough, they could decide that anything worth knowing is in the Tower library.

But since the AS were originally a force dedicated to service, yes I'll call corruption of that calling evil, and if the agenda of that evil was to form the exact Red Ajah that we see today with it's current MO, then I'll call that evil action "the founding of the Red Ajah". If you have some semantical quibble then I don't care. I'll concede bits, just not that the Reds could form from the AS without evil influence.

And if you think that means evil influence must have influenced something that influences some wars, then I'll concede that too. Once influenced or founded, one is still that way unless corrected. It doesn't require a "demon over your shoulder" the whole time. ;)

It is a brusk solution like ANY violent solution, and like any violent solution it is usually chosen by clever people in situations of emergency.

If you want to use this forum to defend war, I'll go there (in opposition to you) but it is besides the point of this theory. People choose war for the same reason that people commit suicide, because they lack the vision to choose other options.

Look at the situation of the Aes Sedai just after the Breaking (when the red Ajah was founded together with the other Ajahs).

No, the Ajahs were formed later. I have zero interest in your alternative series of books, please stick to the text RJ provides.

Male channelers caused so devastating disasters that anybody could easily forget that the last Battle could be worse.

It's not an either-or. And again, darkfriends could have made the Time of Madness worse and promoted the non-logic you spout as a literal tactic to create Ajahs (to avoid full debate on later AS tactics) and specifically the Reds.

the existence of male channelers was greater danger then the danger of nuclear weapons posessed by psychically unreliable people.

You are digging yourself a hole. If male channelers are such a problem, then why have half the tower practically ignore them and have zero say on how the other half deals with the problem. Important problems demand the best solutions. Self appointed hot heads are simply not the way to get the best solutions.

In the same time the Aes Sedai were few in number, poor in ressources, hated by the world's population (most of the peoples would want all the Aes Sedai dead) and with inner struggles between themselves.

You sure jump around a lot. The AS are not few in number or poor in resources, and assuming the inner struggles between themselves is poor rhetoric since that's the subject for debate. The full Hall could debate men and what to do about them. The orignal ajahs temporary issue based commonalities, a handful of sisters, over lapping memberships. Kinda like factions in theoryland. Darkfriends could have stirred up the contention to the point of forming Ajahs at all, and formed a Red later to beat down the smaller ones. If Red had come first, with all it's insane final costs, I don't Ajahs would have formed even with such contention. The AS already decended so low as to have strength carry rank, so they can deal with contention well since violence wouldn't actually change much politically.

Usually in such situations even quite clever people tend to adopt very radical and easy solutions. The adnger is to be removed as soon as possible and to be never emerging again after being removed - this will be the most likely priority in such cases. If Aes Sedain had powerfull and well developed organization with excessional ressources, they could eventually engage six women to constantly Heal and Shield and guard every channeling man.

If your post is satire, forgive me that I didn't catch it earlier. I'll continue in case it isn't. You are again putting outside false limits on the options. You could have 2 men that can channel. That's better than zero. They could get killed every so often. They could be picked up any time in those centuries, not right away. Those 2 men could test others for the ability, so that people can assign women to sleep with the men that test positive and others can be assigned to watch for signing of sparking, all before the men that test positive can channel. And the number doesn't have to be 2, it doesn't have to be anything. The point is that the issue is handled wrong, and debate on it is stifled and the cause has no explanation other than dark influence. No one stifles debate unless there is a secret agenda, no one.

Maybe if they wanted it very much they could risk it and try to do something with the lack of ressources they had, but it is really very difficult to risk so in cases your organization is poor and tired and desperate.

Whatever. They had the resources to build a giant phallus, they can find and use some men. They weren't poor, and they spent much more resources doing their destructive "wait until they spark" strategy. Heck, they could have had all teenage boys sent to them and only sent them home at 28 after testing negative the last time. Fear of male channelers was strong enough to allow such things to be debated. Instead debate was sacrificed in favor of having Ajah peragatives. Meaningless one for everyone else. Browns can't actually convince others to not destroy books out in the world because that gets in the way of their peragatives. It's a system of denial. Specialization is designed to not have people question how things are done. That's why specialization persists, not because it does better. Most geniuses are not specialists.

The Red Ajah is too similar to so many historical choices and radical doctrines, that I state that the occurence of such ideology is not only natural for the situation, but that it would be even unnatural if such ideology wouldn't emerge. In situation of crisis in the face of a really great danger radical and violent doctrines ALLWAYS occur quite naturally. Historically only in societies that hasn't suffered great disasters in the lifetime of the current generations such solutions to seem "obviously stupid".

If the whole Tower was convinced to take violently radical steps I'd agree that you are right, expecting a period of such tactics is par for the course. But enshrining such an important task to one Ajah and giving them all the power for that is not explainable by that. Why have different Ajahs for different tasks if the male channeler threat is so large? And if it's not so large, then why are insane solutions that create bad PR tolerated? See if the AS said that men were mad, send them to us for testing that's good PR compared to waiting until fireballs dance around and them coming and throwing some more of your own.

Waiting for sparkers and basically torturing them is the absolute worst strategy possible besides relocating to SG, which might even still be better. It's not just bad, but the worst. It's the plan you'd act out if you had no other plan. It's that bad. It's reactionary. It's labor intensive. It's risky (sisters die capturing sparking men). There is no benefit at all except to the dark. You could even just let the new men run around being mad, it's not really that much worse for the population, and then you'd have more AS for healing and the Blight and such.

I envision the Reds as the logical chioce of those who believe to be practical and instead to care about the Last Battle that nobody knows what exactly of preparations would it require,

Really? You don't think that keeping Trollocs from overunning the planet is the obvious way to prepare? That's what the Greens do, they hang out in the Boderlands near the Blight and fight.

or to care about pure logic, would first cope with the greatest problem of the day.

Refuting your points is tiring because you continue to assume the subject for debate, so it's the same point over and over again. AS in the AoL didn't belong to lifelong "Ajahs" and each had to decide what to do post breaking. You might as well have had 7 towers if that were the case. Some method had to drive such an important issue as male channelers into an Ajah and make Ajah differences so wide. Someone had to drive Browns and Greys and Whites and Blues away from caring about how the males were handled. And if the males were a big problem then everyone would want to debate it. And if they weren't so bad, then such wasteful throw away tactics would not be tolerated unless darkfriends were sabotaging the alternative.

The Reds could underestimate the requirements of the Far Future, but it is not uncommon among people believing to be "practical realists".

In 47AB, the AS were already not very much together, 12 met to discuss founding TV and the WT and it's considered a group decision, partly motivated to unify them. Now that group of 12 sister represented the large ajahs (no caps!) met to decide to work together. And some of them did work together. One of the twelve became the first Amyrlin and 6 others of the 12 became advisors to her and Kiam Lopiang, not of the first 12, was my theorized addition that was a darkfriend and a founder of the Red Ajah and maybe of the idea of the first capital Ajah period. Of course I can cast my net wider, during this same time period (47AB-100AB) the WT is being built, huge numbers of women are being stilled as well as men, men at not written as the big problem. This is 50 to 100 years since the last male AS died, the only men are sparkers who are little trained, enough to kill sisters fighting them and hurt people, but not breaking the world any longer. Who is being stilled? For instance one of the founders of TV from 47AB was actually stilled, another brought in forcibly only after the other is stilled. This isn't being distracted by male AS running amok. Women are considere the problem, and it's outright internal warfare. Why couldn't all 12 ajahs be made Ajahs? Maybe because then males couldn't be restrained to just one domain. Or maybe a severing policy was insitigated because internal AS warfare would heap benefits on those who accepted it and then it becomes more natural to accept severing for for men. The sever happy get elevated over the non-sever happy because the non-sever happy get severed themselves.

To discuss whether this is darkfriend activity or not, we have to consider what is going on. Men aren't Breaking the World anymore. No trained male AS are even alive for 50 years. Women are starting to come together to form a unified group. Now, most people would figure out how to cooperate as well as possible. And they do decide to do this. And they have resources a plenty, they are building the worlds biggest tower and the worlds most beautiful city and the worlds best library, they are loaded. They are powerful too, coming together to keep talents and weaves and such from becoming lost by sharing. Each ajah grows as people join, but they don't restrict other ajahs when they were just groups out there. When the 12 met to join together and build TV and the WT, I doubt anyone at the meeting said "Hey! Let's sever some of us and torture the others!" they talking about working together, right? 7 of those women survived in dignity, why couldn't everyone get along? We know that Bonwin tried to control the world, and Elaida is obviously power hungry, the Reds seem to have power grabbing in their blood much more than practicality. The ajahs wanted to cooperate, and if they made a common forum to cooperate and discuss then there need be no stillings or torture, the better ideas would survive because those that use them live longer or because they have effects that others see the value of or because of good open debate. That's what the Darkfriends attacked. And I don't care how many "real groups" have historically closed debate, they all had agendas, it's always for an agenda. The AS are superhuman with long lifespans and in general know better than to go after each other directly, it's totally different than real life because they have zero fears about being deposed because they power comes from the creator not from subjugation. Someone has to teach them subjugation. I've named a name of who I think that someone is. Why turn ajahs into Ajahs? Power. To have Ajahs discipline members, to avoid open public debate about how power is used, to have stable systems of alliance based on personalities instead of ideas. In short: the politics of personalities instead of the democracy of ideas. You can pass that off as "human nature" all you want, but that's exactly the people that the War of the Shadow recruited, it's exactly the touch of Shai'tan that makes people act on these things instead of them being passing fancies. It's Shai'tan that showed them through the War of the Power how to do it. And frankly it all comes down to one person, not in command of any of the major 12 ajahs being roughly 1/7th of the power base of the new Tower, a woman that wasn't keen on the idea of cooperation, that is keen on the idea of stilling some of those that were. And pretty quick about it too. Persecution of women began in just 3 short years. 3 years! One person! Come on! It's totally a power grab, in a time with good numbers (tons of female channelers), good resources (building TV and the WT), and unprecendented cooperation (the 47AB agreement), in three years this is turned into an outright power grab and you don't even suspect darkfriends? If you had doubts both ways, but 3 years! One person! All the changes in those years are about concentrating power, creating antagonism to counteract the new cooperation and to solidify some policies into the hands of a few. The reason that's always (and I don't use that word lightly) done is to create influence on those few people. Darkfriends want to do that. One person seems capable of doign that, not even a highly placed person at that. So maybe the Dark got lucky and she wasn't a darkfriend. Yeah right, so what was Ishamael distracted by then? Why can't he palce that one person? How come that person turned a mocement of cooperation and tolerance for differences into one that tolerates differences only to the point of frankly having one single Ajah (capital!) controlling all the "practical" choices. That's a terrible choice for almost everyone. If you gloss over 50AB through 100AB or all the way until 200AB then sure the Reds seem practical given a biased power structure, and sure by then the Hall's 21 sisters seems to not favor the Reds compared to a more democratic representation or a fundamentally more egalitarian system.

Reds could think e.g. in the manner "if we do not stop the danger of new Breaking now, we will simply not survive to face the last Battle". Again, do not forget that the first Aes Sedai feeled themselves to be in a situation equivalent to a state of war. Most of them would take it as obviously stupid to take risky solutions about the male channelers.<

I find your position unresearched, anachronistic and inaccurate. Do you have any textual evidence? The last male AS died 50 years prior to any of the 12 ajahs meeting to work together, way before a Red sister or a Red Ajah or any Ajah existed. There was no war, the breaking was over and the AS had resources and no enemies except far away in the Blight, until 50AB they weren't even attacking each other. This isn't Seanchan where the AS became Sorceror Queens, it's Randland, they had no enemies except those that they could hand well, it was so channeler friendly that the AS darkfriends wanted to round up unattached channelers and bind them to the group forcibly. That's an open frontier kind of setting, not a do-or-die war. Please stay focused on my theory, which isn't about the Breaking, but 50 years after it was all done. My theory says that someone stilled the leaders of ajahs and tortured others, took a group that was going to cooperate and turned it into a Monroe doctorine in policies. That a single supposedly unpowerful channeler destroyed fully half the political power of the Randland cooperative AS and brought the independants to heel. A power monger that sets up someone else to be Amyriln. Sound familiar? At all? Someone that created a system of centralized power for no purpose except to create that power, and weild that power as a Red (something they had to imagine out of the blue, since people had been dealing with crazy men for centuries, the Red is something new, someone above having her methods questioned or interfered with, who can and will still those who disagree to total and unquestioned power over the issue of men). A man hating agenda with a pencahnt for world domination (see Bonwhin and Elaida for examples). To imagine that person's lust for power not to be tapped even indirectly for the Shadow? When channelers can be turned and she wasn't part of a large ajah so she could have been captured? That darkfriends wouldn't help or assist her in these plans if she herself wasn't dark? You give me no basis for thinking why darkfriends would not be involved, and instead give me made up war stories about dangerous times. The darkfriends turned it into dangerous times. It was the best of times.

And I don't agree that the advantage for the Shadow from the Red Ajah is so big. If this was an Ajah found by darkfriends, then this plan of the Shadow would give too poor fruits.

Really? In my theory AS arrogance is darkfriend caused, that means avoided alliances for Light following channelers, non-cooperation from the public and so on. What was the Shadow supposed to do? Here you have dangerous missions in which someone asked to join teh dark can be killed off. You have fear of AS in the public fanned by sparking men. You have non debate of important topics. You have parallel information networks not cooperating. You have male channelers hate themselves, good to have the real Dragon Reborn be self-conscious, yeah! Centeralized power is easier to manipulate, predict, and spy on. If it's so bad, I want to know what is better in your mind. Mind you I don't think that there are that many darkfriends, maybe 20 years ago they picked up recruiting, but if everyone is a darkfriend in the WT then the theory looses all meaning or need. Recruiting is hard, but being able to arrange deaths of failed recruiting is essential.

Distrust to channeling men? There was allway such distrust beginning with the Breaking. No men to teach the DR? And if AS kept men under control and not let them channel, then do you believe that they will be feasible teachers for Rand?

None of those are important.

Do you believe that these men will run free to seek for channelers?

The Seekers? Sure, after you put in time with the harem, you test men to see who can replace you. If you don't then you die sooner because they aren't going to temporarily heal you and such if you aren't testing men or linking with women.

I'm pretty sure that Rand wouldn't cope to do what he has to do if he was under the full control of the Tower. Better policy of the Tower towards channeling men will mean much more chances for the Tower to break Rand's will and to prevent the creation of the Black Tower.

Sure, a non-darkfriend stilled or tortured the leaders of half the female channelers to instigate a system of hunting male channelers at great personal and public danger, only to hope that it would be inefficent enough by design so that maybe they'd be luckly and in the last minute and the DR would escape gentling and find thousands of men to be trained by Forsaken and yet come out non darkfriends. That's so plausible. If I didn't have this idea that it's totally wrong, I guess I wouldn't have posted my original theory.

At least you admit now that channeling men aren't such a huge deal to require the dangerous methods the Reds favor. Maybe someone fortold Rand being at odds with the Tower so the forteller founded the Reds to follow the Light by wasting resources in a dangerous but also inefficient manner, is that what you are counter-proposing?

The Ajahs were invented during peacetime to centralize power, and specifically to limit debate on how to deal with men. After a few centuries no one bothered coming up with other methods because it was considered the province of a single Ajah and the membership was life long for hundreds of years of only talking to people that take offense at your skepticism. The benefit to the Dark is clear to me because it prevents debate about men. The arrogance and mistrust of females and channeling is fresh every few years, and the centralization of power is easy to manipulate and manage.

If you disagree I suggest you read the sources and tell me what better the Dark would have done or was doing. Tell me what Ishamael was up to, or explain why I'm wrong that there aren't hundreds of better ways to deal with the problem. I'm not interested in your projections of wartime fervor unto a situation with zero textual evidence of such attitudes or situations. Give me facts and theories.

37

JollyW89: 2005-06-14

First off Ishmale says that the Aes Sedia's way off healing only lasts for a short amount of time. He didn't say that they could heal it totaly. If they could why would so many channelers go over to the DO. I have read severaly times in the series that the taint is one reason people went over to the shadow.

And as for why is there a Red Ajah, do u see how normal people are when they even here about a male channeler. It is only logical that they be gentled. If they weren't they could cause another breaking.

And for the fact of why there aren't as many Aes Sedia, in the AOL they activly sook out people who could channel. Now they wont accept any over 18, and they don't even look for them, and they feel bothered if a girl asks a Aes Sedia she might just say no and walk away. Now that they are looking again they are getting numbers equal to the age of legends. Both male and female.

38

Narianna: 2005-06-15

free will, is the projection of wartime fervour ; not a theory. in my opinion the evidence for this is as strong as your side of the debate.

also consider the fervour against man channelling in genearl randlanderss.

even borderlanders ,one of the toughest warriors, grow uneasy at hearing only the rumours of a man's chanelling.and this is 3000 years after the breaking, you don't have to have a great imagination to imagine the conditions then.in this context, the theory of wartime fervour being carried out injudiciously in peace time is at least feasible and almost as good as the darkfriend one.

also who thought of this grand scheme?

ishmael.heck no .at that time he was not free. and EVEN if he had left instructions for the darkfriends(??)

he wouldn't have done this. he wanted dragon reborn ALIVE.

other forsaken? imppossible.

DO himself? again impossible. the seals were pretty strong then .thus,i don't think that DO could have manipulated situation directly.

Lastly, there are many instancess in our history that radical measure once approved in wartime have a way of hanging past their initial valid time because of power thirst of groups which benefit by them in consolidating and increasing their authority.

39

JakOShadows: 2005-06-16

Narianna: I'm not going to say you are completely wrong in opinion. It is possible. But I lean more towards free wills theory because they aren't in war anymore when ajahs are formed. It is 300 years after the breaking when they can come up with a logical solution rather than a war time solution. It is possible they just didn't want risk unleashing another male channeler, but I think the red ajah became fairly powerful quickly for such a strong point of view. And like you said, war time fervor could have given them more support even 300 years later, but it just strikes me as odd that the other ajahs don't try another method considering the fact that their values are so inherently different. Either it was the scheming of the red ajah alone, or df, but something helped keep the draconian measures used against male channelers.

40

free will: 2005-06-16

Narianna: "ishmael.heck no .at that time he was not free. and EVEN if he had left instructions for the darkfriends(??)"

In Book 1, Prologue, there is a point where Ishamael is free and LTT is alive and LTT is mad from the taint on Saidin all at the same time. Hence that event occurs after the Strike at SG since LTT is mad from the taint. And thay event occurs before the date 47AB since that date is 47 years after the last male AS dies, which includes LTT (since LTT is male and an AS). Hence in 47AB Ishamael is free, this is certain. So sorry, but you are wrong.

he wouldn't have done this. he wanted dragon reborn ALIVE.

Really? I again suggest that you (re)read the prologue to tEotW. Shai'tan prefers to have Rand alive (Anginor tells us so in tEotW) but the Forsaken actually tend to worry about Rand being Nae'blis over them (Anginor's statements in tEotW again back up this claim). So I'm still skeptical of your claims. Please provide evidence for your view, since I've just done so for mine.

other forsaken? imppossible.

I tend to agree there, Bathamel gets free next and he takes thousands of years to get free, according to Agnior in tEotW.

DO himself? again impossible. the seals were pretty strong then .thus,i don't think that DO could have manipulated situation directly.

Um, in SG he could talk people, even then. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

Basically and Dark Friend could do it, either because the Dark Friend thinks that it's what Shai'tan wants, or because they get instructions from Shai'tan in SG or because they get instructions from Ishamael.

Lastly, there are many instancess in our history that radical measure once approved in wartime have a way of hanging past their initial valid time because of power thirst of groups which benefit by them in consolidating and increasing their authority.

I'm considering giving up defending my theory because I say the same things and people post the same things again and again. Each lower case ajah was independant in 47AB and not at war, the male AS were long dead and there was no war of any kind. If you disagree, then cite evidence, give quotes. Within three years Kiam Lopiang appears out of nowhere (the head of none of the top twelve lower case ajahs) and forms a 7 partite faction to raise an Amyrlin and still or subjugate half of the largest ajahs and create a centralized authority based not on common interests of freely choosen lower case ajahs, but based on a system of capital Ajah power concentration that forces lifelong obligation and commitments with a my-way-or-be-stilled attitude. Out of nowhere! One person! It's all in the BWB. I'm tired of responding to unsupported claims about there being a war 50 years after it over. I'm tired of responding to theories that this was a grass roots or widespread natural idea when the text points to Kiam Lopiang being the catalyst or the instigator and more than half of the AS being attacked to implement such a policy when there is no war and in fact there are enough resources to waste building gardens and giant towers and libraries and cities. A small group of AS influenced by one person Kiam Lopiang, are stilling sisters and gentling men, are creating a war for no purpose except to considate power and choosing to implement policies that lead to people distrusting AS and tha make TG difficult. If you don't think Kiam Lopiang is a Friend of the Dark, just because she is a clearly power crazed misanthrop who wants to undermine TG for her own pet peeves, then we disagree. But please give textual evidence. If you read the founding of the WT section of the BWB you'll see the evidence that I'm using.

41

Anubis: 2005-06-17

Its very interesting but people who havnt read the BWB have little to no idea what your talking about. I had no idea how the WT was formed untill I read some of your replies.

So based on the evidence youve presented im going to say it is deffinatly possible that Darkfriends were involved. Its not certian, weve seen some real power hungry sobs in Randland, but you raise a few good points and I wont hesitate to agree that there is something very suspicious about the founding.

42

Callandor: 2005-06-17

**Narianna: "ishmael.heck no .at that time he was not free. and EVEN if he had left instructions for the darkfriends(??)"

In Book 1, Prologue, there is a point where Ishamael is free and LTT is alive and LTT is mad from the taint on Saidin all at the same time. Hence that event occurs after the Strike at SG since LTT is mad from the taint. And thay event occurs before the date 47AB since that date is 47 years after the last male AS dies, which includes LTT (since LTT is male and an AS). Hence in 47AB Ishamael is free, this is certain. So sorry, but you are wrong.**

You have to remember that the Breaking lasted for a few hundred years (BWB puts it at 239 to 344 years long). It wasn't a quick 50 years or so. Ishamael is reported seen as much as 40 years after the Breaking, but the White Tower, and the Ajahs as we truly know them weren't started for over 100 years after the Breaking, so we are talking at least 300 years, if not 400 before the time Ishamael could've done this. The next time we have a reference of Ishamael being free, is at the Trolloc Wars.

**he wouldn't have done this. he wanted dragon reborn ALIVE.

Really? I again suggest that you (re)read the prologue to tEotW. Shai'tan prefers to have Rand alive (Anginor tells us so in tEotW) but the Forsaken actually tend to worry about Rand being Nae'blis over them (Anginor's statements in tEotW again back up this claim). So I'm still skeptical of your claims. Please provide evidence for your view, since I've just done so for mine.**

Ishamael wanted the Dragon Reborn alive. This is proven because the Black Ajah set to hunting for the Dragon Reborn to kill him in New Spring (thinking he was an adult not a baby). Ishamael was so angered over this, because they did this act without his orders, he killed the Head of the Black Ajah, Jarna Malari, and everyone on their council got at least a licking of punishment. This is when Alivarin is place at the Head of the Black Ajah.

43

Narianna: 2005-06-18

***In Book 1, Prologue, there is a point where Ishamael is free and LTT is alive and LTT is mad from the taint on Saidin all at the same time. Hence that event occurs after the Strike at SG since LTT is mad from the taint. And thay event occurs before the date 47AB since that date is 47 years after the last male AS dies, which includes LTT (since LTT is male and an AS). Hence in 47AB Ishamael is free, this is certain. So sorry, but you are wrong. ***

actually no free will. look closely at what u say.LTT was male and AS but was he last male AS??

if so then in 47AB ishy couldn't be free as his cycle of freedom is 40 years(according to all the references in BWB and the books).

second case and this is more probable

that LTT was not the last male AS.

if you read rand's POV in the tSR in the crystal columns ;by the tone and tenor of the passage it is exceedingly probable that LTT died very quickly after the strike at SG.

so he wasn't the last male AS(IMHO not by a LONG margin).

so in 47AB ishy was in the bore with the rest of his merry men ,not outside pulling strings.(another fact breaking lasted for about 200 years due to the fact that few male AS took shelter in steddings and they died LONG after the 40 years period of ishy was over)

secondly you pulled out a reference to the fact that a small cabal of AS embarked on a program of centralisation and consolidation of power.guess what, this is the established "tradition" of a coup-de-tat: a small group of people capturing power. and regarding the objections of the time lapse,consider the fact the fact that the fact that breaking lasted for 200 yrs or more and god knows that is a long time for those who initially favoured tough measures in dire conditions to consolidate their ideology and to increase their influence.also the scale of the dstruction was enough to convince at least some women AS that men were not fit to wield power EVER .

also i would like to point out that the coup which free will mentioned in his post could not be possible if at least a sizeable number of AS were its supporters passive if not active. perhaps this "coup" could have been triggered by the fact that a few of the AS may have mentioned a review of the policy at that time and the extremists could have taken that as a catalyst for the coup, convinced that these"liberals" would undermine their authority and influence in these matters an so they made the moves to lay the foundation of the present day ajah system believing that the central authority figure to keep the tower together and autonomy for the major ajahs in thair fields would be a method to keep their influence strong by appearing to the outside world as keeping another breaking away.

as the events unfolded they pushed to the background the lower ajah system (perhaps as an excuse to strengthen the central figure) and in the process evolved the present day system of almost autonomous ajahs.

and lastly plz don't stop defending your theory, it's a very good discussion.and perhaps if you can, please post in its entirety the relevant passages of BWB.

(i know it would be long but you are no stranger to long passages, no)

44

a dragonburned fool: 2005-06-18

Excuse me for the late reply and also for my previous post appearing anonymous. Your thorough and backed up manner of debatting, FreeWill was and is really a delight for me.

Our main disagreement is still unfortunately something both of us apparently are feeling to be "obvious": I am feeling it obvious that the occurence of the Red doctrine is very natural and to-be -expected thingfor the first years of the Breaking, and you are feeling it obvious that the developement of the Red doctrine is unnatural for the Aes Sedai. Nothing is so difficult to explain to others than things one feels to be "obvious". But your excellent style of debatting makes me sure that new attempts of explanation will be allways worth and that there is good hope that the argumentation will lead to understanding, after we cover morre of the aspects of the topic.

First I wanted to focus on the general mentality of the Aes Sedai of the first century after the Breaking and how much they were ready to use very harsh and radical and even ruthless methods for achieving their goals.

(b)"If the whole Tower was convinced to take violently radical steps I'd agree that you are right, expecting a period of such tactics is par for the course."(/b)

(b)"One of the twelve became the first Amyrlin and 6 others of the 12 became advisors to her and Kiam Lopiang, not of the first 12, was my theorized addition that was a darkfriend and a founder of the Red Ajah and maybe of the idea of the first capital Ajah period. Of course I can cast my net wider, during this same time period (47AB-100AB) the WT is being built, huge numbers of women are being stilled as well as men, men at not written as the big problem."(/b)

(b)"When the 12 met to join together and build TV and the WT, I doubt anyone at the meeting said "Hey! Let's sever some of us and torture the others!" they talking about working together, right? 7 of those women survived in dignity, why couldn't everyone get along?"(/b)

Actually the 12 who met to join together said something "Hey let severe those who don't want cooperate with us". The deicsion of 47 AB was not about creating of some UNO, but of building of the only legitimate Aes Sedai organization it was not a decision to enforce democracy, but a decision to put order in an anarchic world. It was not a common forum of discussion, but efective executive organization what they wanted (their decisions were executive decisions requiring a strong organization). Priority in this meeting was not tolerance but political strength and high standards. If the task of the conference was only a common forum, the wouldn't decide as tehir main two points a building of a great city and persecution of non legitime female channelers.

The campaign against the "unlegitime" Aes Sedai, you mentioned, is a good example of the mentality of the Tower of this time towards violent steps. Even if we don't know was there really huge number of women stilled, or it was only little number of them, in any way it's sure that the Tower acted very ruthless against all channelling women who doesn't obey to the official Tower. BWB says that the decision to start this campaidn against unlegitimate AS was made at the same conference 47 AB, when the decision to build the Tower was also made. Both decisions are complementary to each other, because they are only two aspects of the real task to unify all channeling women in one organization. From the decision to fight the unlegitimate (i.e. those who want not to participate the unified Tower) it's clear that the unification was not intended to be peaceful, but that said unification was rather considered to be something to be achieved at any cost. What a better indication that the Aes Sedai of 47AB (when Kiam Lopiang was still not mentioned) considered radical violent measures as appropriate for their policy even in a less critical task than the male-channelers treat.

The building of Tar Valon begun not at 47 AB, but only after 98 AB, when the struggle against the Tower apparently decided that the unification struggle is successfully completed. The name of Kiam Lopiang appears for the first time only at this 98 AB, when the great Unification struggle was finished and the building was started (and the Amyrlin Seat title became official). It is also significant that in the document from 98 AB the word "aja" is not mentioned at all, and that the Hall is called "closest council to the Amyrlin", i.e. the leading role of the Amyrlin is apparently emphasized against the power of the ajahs. there are Sitters from ajahs in 47AB and there are Sitters of Ajahs at the end of 2nd century AB, but there are neither ajahs nor Ajahs nor Sitters in 98 AB, but an autocratic Amyrlin. Exactly the time around 98 AB (when Kiam Lopiang is there) is the zenithe of the central Amyrlin Power against any ajahs and an apotheosis of non-democratic rule. The ajahs seem to become unsignificant and the Tower seems to become autocratic. The Ajahs (in capital) changed that into the current state. The Seven Ajahs were the way to keep some democracy inside the Tower, to limit the central power of Amyrlins and to ensure debates between independent peers in the Hall. In current time the role of the seven Ajahs is exactly that: they don't allow the Amyrlins become despots ruling vie simple commands and everything concerning the Tower must be debated in the Hall. The Seven Ajahs system is now the most powerfull tool of the Tower to ensure different opinions and debatting. So your statement that the Ajahs were created for centralized Power is completely incorrect. IMO the seven Ajahs were created as a resistence against the power hunger of the Amyrlins. Temporary ajahs cannot resist for long against the central Power, central power can undermine these temporary ajahs after time and demolish them. But strong traditional Ajahs can resist the central Power even of very ruthless Amyrlin, as we can see in the real White Tower. Aes Sedai have the debatting they still have due to the Ajahs system.

(b)"It's totally a power grab, in a time with good numbers (tons of female channelers), good resources (building TV and the WT), and unprecendented cooperation (the 47AB agreement), in three years this is turned into an outright power grab and you don't even suspect darkfriends?"(/b)

There was no such contrast between peacefull co-operation (there was no peacefull good-willing at all IMO) and later struggles. Again - the conference was an attempt to build official powerfull organization and not just an open forum. Struggles begun at the conference itself - some groups begun to openly disagree and leave the conference already at 47 AB. So there was no consensus from the very beginning. I imagine the 47 AB conference more like the beginning of the Salidar rebel Tower than like an UNO conference. Processes of militant disagreement are normal for the historical attempts to build an unified organization from peer initial founders. People who want tolerance wouldn't make one of their primary decision banning all those who "falsely pretend to be Aes Sedai". The decision to build Tar Valon is apparently an wish to build a visible symbol of central Power and for exclusive authority. Those who decided to meet in 47 AB were not the most peacefull, but the most militant among the Aes Sedai of the time. The founding of the Tower was an attempt to rise high standards for being an Aes Sedai and to do it by force.

Whatever we could say about the good and evil of this early Tower policy, from a pragmatical point of view it was the best solution to achieve unity by ruthless force. Without force there would be groups that would never agree to sacrifice their private interests. there would allways be egoistic channelers who want nothing but their own power. Such egoistic channelers would have advantage in fighting against more conscious dispersed ajahs, because of being just more aggressive and more concentrated on real power. If Aes Sedai who defend an ideal failed to force an unified organization, everything would end with a situation like in Seanchan before Hawkwing. In the history warlordish riots were stopped only by violent actions of a central power. Else the warlords would make their lifestyle the norm for everybody, as happened in Seanchan. Without any doubt many good and hones channelers suffered together with the egoistic ones in the 50-100 AB purge, and of course this is bad and not necessarily unevitable. But peaceful co-operation before an unification would be allway undermined by the egoistic groups who just don't care about the co-operation for the world's good. Without the forcefull unification the chances to have Light-alligned channeler organisation after 3000 years would be too bad. So the struggle between ajahs was normal reaction to the unification project and the unification project was not in favor of darkfriends, because Ishamael allways hated the strong Tower.

(b)"The last male AS died 50 years prior to any of the 12 ajahs meeting to work together, way before a Red sister or a Red Ajah or any Ajah existed. There was no war, the breaking was over and the AS had resources and no enemies except far away in the Blight, until 50AB they weren't even attacking each other. "(/b)

The Breaking lasted some 300 years, and all that time children were born and some of these children were male sparklers. The trained Aes Sedai fro the AoL caused much worse disasters then the untrained channelers were able, but wouldn't you agree that not so much skill is required for destructive actions and for causing disasters. The trained would cause more troubles than the untrained, but the untrained would cause enough trouble. We see how much troubles an untrained channeler can cause if we look at the false dragons of the later history - all of them are untrained, but all of them caused lot of harm ansd were very difficult to fight against them even for trained squads of Aes Sedai (and the general opinion in Westlands is that the national armies cannot cope with the false dragons without the Tower). The supply of new male channelers in the world is constant and all of them cause enough trouble to prevent the developement of any civilization. The Land of Madmen is the evidence that a civilization cannot exist where the male channelers are not fought by female channelers (or if they do not agree to die willingly as in the Aiel society). About the Land of Madmen it is said in BWB that practically thre Breaking never ended there. It is not the Breaking in the degree it was until the AoLer were alive, but it was disastrous enough for to be considered as still Breaking. The fact that the Westlands became to create any civilization and that they thought that the Breaking ended, means that the newborn male channelers were successfully put under control already around year 1 AB. Even well organized national armies of non-channelers cannot effectively fight even unexperienced male channelers, and everywhere the fight against new emerging males was successful, the female channelers did it. Therefore when the 47 AB conference came, the Aes Sedai already had a history at least 50 years of successfully coping with male channelers. Because no other methods of coping with male channelers except killing and stillig are known to the Tower, most likely the Aes Sedai already used the contemporary Red methods in their fight even before any Red Ajah could exist. I don't beleive that stilling channelers was a new idea at 47 AB and most likely it was already the traditional practice. The stilling of female channelers between 50 and 100 AB means that at this time the tower had no so much concerns against severing.

(b)"This isn't Seanchan where the AS became Sorceror Queens, it's Randland, they had no enemies except those that they could hand well, it was so channeler friendly that the AS darkfriends wanted to round up unattached channelers and bind them to the group forcibly."(/b)

Nope. We have a glance in the time around 47 AB in the PoV (Rhodric's PoV) of one of Rand's ancestors from the Rhuidean memories. It's the scene with the "sharing of water" when the aiels met the ancestors of the cairhienins just before to go to the Treefold Land. It is mentioned that the Aes Sedai just decided to build a great city (apparently which city). We see how the Westlanders we see there blame not only the male but also the female Aes Sedai for the Breaking an that the rulers of this time has to keep their Aes Sedai advisors in secret, and that many people think that all Aes Sedai must be killed and plans are debated to achieve that goal. It was everything but not a channeler-friendy society. The first Aes Sedai had a very difficult task to make the world's population even tolerate them. Aes Sedai were able to defend against non-channelers without much problem, but the fact that they had to think about defending themselves and that they had to deal with general intolerance against them is enough to create a group mentality of being in state of semi-war, when radical steps are applicable and "natural". the Tower-friendly Ten Nations union was created only 209 AB - after circa 150 years of energic activity of the centralized Tower.

(b)"My theory says that someone stilled the leaders of ajahs and tortured others, took a group that was going to cooperate and turned it into a Monroe doctorine in policies. That a single supposedly unpowerful channeler destroyed fully half the political power of the Randland cooperative AS and brought the independants to heel. A power monger that sets up someone else to be Amyriln."(/b)

You are supposing that there was majority of good people (including the first Amyrlin) and one power-monger who single-handedly managed to turn the minds of all the good honest Aes Sedai into an obviously evil organization? C'mon, if the original participants of the meeting were so good-willing and peacefull, why have all of them agreed with the infamous power-monger and support her policy? You mean that some low-ranked Kiam Lopiang tortured and stilled honorable members of the Covenant while the other good and honest Aes Sedai looked and that and applauded and gave Kiam a place in the inner council of the Amyrlin? If the 6 ajah heads were so far from the later ruthless policy, then why they accepted this Kiam as one of their circle? In 98 AB we see a very stronf Tower government with very autoritative Amyrlin - how can such strong government be against the mainline militant policy the Tower is following at that time? You have either to agree that the militant policy was originated by the main seven participants of the 47AB conference or that the BWB sources are totally missleading. But if the seven original leaders (the Amyrlin and the surviving 6 ajah heads) were those who enforced the policy, than this IS the policy of the emerging Tower and no separate Ajah is needed to embody it while the others would remain innocent figureheads. If it is the decision of the 7 older leaders, than it will be the mainline policy of the emerging Tower, and in this case the whole Tower would be in favour of the Shadow.

(b)"But enshrining such an important task to one Ajah and giving them all the power for that is not explainable by that. Why have different Ajahs for different tasks if the male channeler threat is so large?"(/b)

I think you don't understand the difference between Ajahs right here. The seven Ajahs are not like modern specialized departments, they don't have any exclusive rights for their dedicated tasks. The goal of every Ajah is official goal of the whole Tower. Every single Aes Sedai is supposed to fight at the Last Battle for the Light like Greens, every one will try to negotiate peace among nations like Greys, every one does make subtle and pragmatic policy like Blues, everyone like Whites will maintain the "Aes Sedai serenity" and would claim to act allways according to Reason non spoiled by any emotions, everyone like Browns is supposed to have more knowledge on any topic than any non-AS, and everyone who has any Talent to Heal is expected to Heal everytime Healing is needed. It's duty of every Aes Sedai to do the task of all the Ajah when needed. The red task is not an exception. It is explicitely said in the books, that every Aes Sedai who discovers a channeling men would do everything to capture this man and aid to his stilling. Every Aes Sedai of every Ajah agrees that the main task of Reds is also duty of the whole Tower and every Aes Sedai. The Ajahs are not "licensed" for their tasks, there is no monopoly on Ajah goals, but all Aes Sedai are officially supposed to be competent in all the seven Ajah goals. The difference of Ajahs is not matter of specialization, but matter of priority. All the seven Ajahs have as duty all the seven tasks, but every Ajah concentrates on one of the Goals first and the others are cared on demand. So the existence of the Red Ajah doesn't say that the other Ais Seadi had different view on how the channeling men must be handled. All the Tower has the same view about the importance of the Seven Goals.

You have no evidence that in the 47 AB conference there was disagreement about how to deal with male channelers. No place in the books and no interview mentions anything about debating about channeling men in this time and about disagreements about that. It is very likely that these AS spoke about dealing with channeling men, because it was still so fresh trouble for this time, but we have zero indication about disagreements about the topic. We have also no indication that any Aes Sedai of that time defended more human treating of the male channelers. In Seanchan male channelers are killed without any Red Ajah. In Shara they are also killef after some age and before being able to become significant channelers. In Aiel Waste they are encouraged to go and die before becoming to channel efficiently. Everywhere the male channelers are eliminated fast and for sure and no Red Ajah is needed for that.

The only indirect indication that there was search about another method of dealing with men are the Warder Bond and the male a'adm from Tanchiko. Sareitha, who is the source about the history of the Warder Bond explicitely said that the attempts of finding out a link to control a channeling man was completely unsuccessful and only the Bond as side-product survived. About the male a'dam Moghedien said that it makes the female leash-holders succeptible to the Taint of the leashed man. This makes me to think that a link between men and women would make the women suffer from Taint. The story about the creating the Eye is confirming that: the women participated also died because of the Taint. This is a good reason to abandon the idea of linking between men and women IMnsHO.

(b)"Someone that created a system of centralized power for no purpose except to create that power, and weild that power as a Red (something they had to imagine out of the blue, since people had been dealing with crazy men for centuries, the Red is something new, someone above having her methods questioned or interfered with, who can and will still those who disagree to total and unquestioned power over the issue of men)."(/b)

WHY is the Red Ajah new? I see nothing new in it's conception except more intensity and discipline in the practice. The usual way for people to deal with channeling man before that was to kill said men, so I see absolutely nothing making the situation worse from the Red Doctrine. And I don't see anything unique in the Goal of the red, but only in their inner rules of ascetics. The general hatred against all men is specific for the Red, but what is the fatal consequence from this trait (except for making the Red Ajah itself weaker).

(b)"In my theory AS arrogance is darkfriend caused, that means avoided alliances for Light following channelers, non-cooperation from the public and so on. What was the Shadow supposed to do? Here you have dangerous missions in which someone asked to join teh dark can be killed off. You have fear of AS in the public fanned by sparking men. You have non debate of important topics. You have parallel information networks not cooperating. You have male channelers hate themselves, good to have the real Dragon Reborn be self-conscious, yeah! Centeralized power is easier to manipulate, predict, and spy on."(/b)

I see a self-contradiction in your list of statements. One time you say that the bad thing was the central power (as if the Seven Ajahs system doesn't make the task to have centralised power extremely hard even for the strongest Amyrlin), then you say that bad is the different spying networks and lack of co-operation. Please choose one of the extremes. Ajahs have different spying networks because they strive for their autonomy from the central power, but every Ajah tries to negotiate peace and Light alliance among the nations as if they are not different Ajahs but a monolite organization. Men had reason to hate themselves even before the end of the Breaking, and my impression is that fanatical persecution like Reds do it weakens the self-hatred, because the men will rather be angry about the unjust Reds. Milder treatment aids more to self-hatred usually, that are my observations. In any case I don't see anything in the state of channeling men that the choice of policy by the Tower changed to the bad. The segregation of the female channelers from the world would be much worse if the Tower was not able to provide high discipline among AS and so to make the Tower at least reliable in a sufficient degree to be tolerated by the world. In the 3000 years the Tower usually was in the middle of the alliances against the greatest threats to the Westlands and alliances of Light followers are still associated with the Tower. The Seven Ajahs system is a good balance between the required self-discipline of the organization of channelers, the requirement of tradition, and the requirement for no falling into despotical rule by an all-powerfull Amyrlin.

(b)"The Ajahs were invented during peacetime to centralize power, and specifically to limit debate on how to deal with men."(/b)

Completely and obviously false. Ajahs are currently the greatest obstacle against the centralized power of Amyrlins and until there are Ajahs all major Tower policy will be allways fervently debated in the Hall. And we see eternal traditional debates exactly about men between some Ajahs now. The very idea that creating of several strong disciplined independent of each other orders would have aid canceling debates doesn't manifest any logic for me. Nothing aids so much edbates as strong autonomous organizations.

The seven Ajahs were for me a natural reaction of the first AS to resist the atempts of the first Amyrlin to bring all AS to full and unquestionable subjugation. But once developed they proved to be extremely advantageous for the Tower and that's why they survived until now. The Tower survived until now as a strong organization, because it has the Ajahs system. If it was a monolyte organization under unquestionable dictatorship of the Amyrlin, after some time it would suffer the decline common for historical strong monolite organizations. Members of old strong monolite organizations allways tend to become too self-confident and lazy and to bureaucratize the initial high skills and standarts and spirit until it becomes ineffective. Standard go lower and lower despite of every attempts to keep them high, because members have no motivation to improve themselves. The seven Ajahs cause permanent concurrence in the Tower and thus aid it's high standards. But the temporary ajahs like in AoL would be unable to provide the tradition to teach the new AS. AoL could have the tradition, because channelers were integrated in the whole society and the society actually provided the tradition (using also institutions like the Hall of servants and Collam Daan). Aiel and Seafolk channelers don't need Ajahs to provide tradition, because the whole society maintains the tradition. The Westlands however have no such traditional society and no unity and Westlands in 47 AB want no AS be integrated with them, so the Tower must build it's own institutions to provide tradition.

(b)"The AS are not few in number or poor in resources, and assuming the inner struggles between themselves is poor rhetoric since that's the subject for debate. The full Hall could debate men and what to do about them. The orignal ajahs temporary issue based commonalities, a handful of sisters, over lapping memberships. Kinda like factions in theoryland."(/b)

That is not exactly so. The ajahs of 47 AB were still not the ajahs from the dictionary entries. BWB explicitely said about the ajahs from 47 AB "if they still could be called ajahs", and it comments also that what was originaly temporary aparently became permanent at the time. That are still not Ajahs, they don't have the traditions and the customs etc. But they are groups that seem to already bind their members to them. They are closer to political parties than to TL factions. And the number of seven councellors to the Amyrlin in 98 AB is explicitely mentioned by BWB as significant considering the later Ajahs.

When I said that AS were poor in ressources, I meant that it was time when nobody was rich at ressources. AS were not poorer than other people on the world, but everybody was poor in that time. We have POV about that time (Rhodric the aiel) and we see a world that is extremely poor on water, that strong social communities appear too close to what we would call poverty, we have a basically still starving world. Nobody can be really rich on ressources in a starving world. Aes Sedai would able to build Tar Valon (actually Ogier did it and AS gave them full freedom of action) but it lasted more than 100 years until they built it. And even so it was the first big city in the Westlands. The fact that no big cities were complete until the end of 2nd century means that for these 2 centuries the world was everything but not prosperous.

(b)"You don't think that keeping Trollocs from overunning the planet is the obvious way to prepare? That's what the Greens do, they hang out in the Boderlands near the Blight and fight."(/b)

Fighting against Trollocs is not preparing to the Last Battle but doing something in emergency. All Aes Sedai help fighting Trollocs. The Greens are especially good for the purpose because they prepare for battle at all, but there are no Green patrols on the Blight borders, Greens come to fight only when the situation becomes critical together with akll other sisters. I don't remember any Greens hanging out in Borderlands and fight as you said. When Elaida thinks about her spy network, it appears that the Reds have eyes and ears and Sisters as if nowhere else except the Borderlands. When Pavara lost her family because of darkfriend attack, she decided to join the Red for to fight darkfriends despite her personal attitude was not in the Red manner. Why this not stupid woman choses Reds for fighting darkfriends. Because either the Reds have the reputation to center more on darkfriend fight than other Ajahs, or because Pevara have seen in the reds better opportunities to carry out her battle. It is also interesting that no Ajah has less confirmed Blacks in it's numbers until now even if it is the most numerous Ajah and the Head of the Ajah is black.

And finally, if you wanted to put the reds in connection to some metaphysical Evil, why the choice is the Shadow. There is another Evil and this other Evil is closer in it's style to the Reds than the Shadow. Reds are fanatics and are like the Whitecloaks and as such there is some ressemblance to the way Mordeth seduced Arhidol - with fanatic righteous fight for the right cause. I don't state that the reds are Mordeth influenced, but once you suppose Evil behind the Red Ajah, why do you not think also about the Second Evil?

(b)"Sure, after you put in time with the harem, you test men to see who can replace you. If you don't then you die sooner because they aren't going to temporarily heal you and such if you aren't testing men or linking with women.(/b)

First, after the Breaking how could the AS teach the first captured man how to test about other men. Nothing indicates that AS of that time knew how male channelers are tested. We don't know what are exactly the effects of this temporary Healing, but something makes me to doubt that a man in such regime of temporary be Healed could be kept for a period long enough for him to be usefull. And such practice would require first the Tower to gain enough influence over the world for to require such testing of all men. Even now the Tower has not the power to test all the girls in the world for channeling ability, and this test has not so dreadful end. But if you are a man in Westlands and you know that AS will come to test you and if you "fail" you will soon die, you will try to avoid the test (at least the majority will) and decision about the life and death of every man will give too much fearsome power to Aes Sedai over the world. In any case we just don't know whether this method is practiaclly possible and wheter it doesn't have some fatal flows. We can only speculate about the possibility of this method but we know nothing for sure about it. In any case it is not the obvious solution even as a wild hypothesis. You are the first one on the WoTology who thought about such possibility.

Another thing to have in mind is, that Aes Sedai of the 47 AB were all born in the time of the Breaking (RJ said that no AoLer AS were alive at hat time). So they grew up in a time when everybody feared male channelers more than anything else and it was a time of social chaos and violence and poverty. Having such childhood would make most of these women not very scrupulous when it comes about achieving safety and order. These women would be naturalilly biased against male channelers from their childhood when their character forms.

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JakOShadows: 2005-06-18

a dragonburned fool: I like your logic behind this. I forgot the animosity against all channeling was so rampant after the breaking. That would lead to how the tower is formed and a lot of its ideals it applies today.

46

free will: 2005-06-18

First off Ishmale says that the Aes Sedia's way off healing only lasts for a short amount of time. He didn't say that they could heal it totaly.

Neither did I. Ishamael and I have something in common, who'd have guessed?

If they could why would so many channelers go over to the DO. I have read severaly times in the series that the taint is one reason people went over to the shadow.

Got quotes? I used to think that same thing until I looked for quotes and instead found such gems as "These armies were commanded by Dreadlords -- Shawsworn who could channel-- who were most often women, many of them believed to be renegade Aes Sedai [], though there were no small numbers of male Dreadlords. Without doubt some of the men where Darkfrieds, but it is possible that some turned to the Shadow eather than face gentling or death."- BWB pg 96. Unfortunately for me, I recalled a passage where I read that even the Dreadlords of the Trolloc Wars were not given protection from Saidin. People went to the Shadow for power, glory, spite, revenge, and maybe for protection from death or madness, but you need evidence to support that because I seriously doubt it. I'm now skeptical of the claim that Dreadlords are protected from the taint, based on my inability (searched for taint in the BWB) to find a quote that claims either way.

And even worse, consider this quote: "the thirteen [famous Forsaken/Chosen] were remembered because they were trapped at Shayol Ghul, and so their names became part of that story, though it turned out that details of them, stories of them, survived wide-spread knowledge of the tale of the actual sealing itself. Just that they had been sealed away. Other Forsaken were left behind, so to speak, free but in a world that was rapidly sliding down the tube. The men eventually went mad and died from the same taint that killed off the other male Aes Sedai. They had no access to the Dark One's protective filters. The women died, too, though from age or in battle or [blah blah blah] A bleak story of people who deserved no better, and not worth telling in any detail.", if only the 7 or 8 Male Forsaken bound in SG were protected from the taint, then your claim that puny late coming dreadlords were protected has zippo credance, sorry. So Forsaken from the AoL were not spared from the taint according to RJ in interviews (tor, Q and A). And I'm not even certain that Ishamael was protected from the taint. Have we seen his body to see if it was rotting? Does he act sane? Please please please give quotes to support you view(s).

And as for why is there a Red Ajah, do u see how normal people are when they even here about a male channeler. It is only logical that they be gentled. If they weren't they could cause another breaking.

My reasoning has escaped you, my apologies. The reason people today still fear untrained boy channelers is because of the silly, ineffective, and costly strategy that was decided by the Ajah formation. It's putting the cart before the horse to claim that in 47AB people feared boy channelers, you have no textual evidence of this. It's the male AS that were feared and the boys were clearly different, enough so that an outright new age was declared. That's how different. It was so safe that people called it "after the breaking". There was so not an obvious reason for a Red Ajah because it's wasn't clear at all that there should be Ajah at all. There were 12 ajahs (lower case) that decided to form a common purpose and cooperate. Then, in three short years a person comes out of nowhere and these ajahs are being hunted until 6 are gone and a capital Ajah rises up, I claim the Red. Those ajahs were not hunted by men, but by women!

And for the fact of why there aren't as many Aes Sedia, in the AOL they activly sook out people who could channel. Now they wont accept any over 18, and they don't even look for them, and they feel bothered if a girl asks a Aes Sedia she might just say no and walk away. Now that they are looking again they are getting numbers equal to the age of legends. Both male and female.

In the tor Q and A we read "But [Shai'tan] also operates under a constraint that did not exist in the Age of Legends. At that time, about 3% of the population could learn to channel to some extent, though not all chose to -- the training program took time, and being able to channel carried with it certain obligations that not everyone wanted to undertake -- but that still meant there were, at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people in the world who could channel, and more likely millions. A large pool of possible recruits. Break a tool or decide it isn't working right and throw it out, because there is an endless supply of similar tools waiting on the shelf. That might be said to have been his attitude. In the here-and-now of the books, that figure is about 1%, and of that 1%, very, very few have any idea that they could learn to channel, much less have any training at all. Here-and-now, the pool of possible recruits is tiny." from RJ. Straight out of his mouth that it used to be 3% and now it is 1%. If you want to contradict RJ, then please prvide quotes or textual evidence. There ARE many open questions about the One Power. For instance: Healing is a common talent in Randland and Rare in Seanchan, why? Genetic influence is far from ruled out. The point of my theory is that one person destroyed half the ajahs (lower case) and founded an Ajah (upper case), and at this point a destructive policy is enacted on men, one that bodes badly for TG, one that puts men and AS and the public at risk. So it's not just the gene pool that is threatened, it's a policy that affects genes, and AS lives, and TG, and is bad PR. It's not logical. Unless you seriously expect me to take your opinions more seriously than textual evidence given to us by RJ.

Come on. The WT could outright kill men for channeling. The policy to gentle is designed not only to expose the public to risk but to cause convenient deaths of AS that might "know too much". Remember how the 13 exposed black sisters were spread throughout the Ajahs? That's to hide a pattern. The pattern needs an Ajah that can afford to recruit, and to arrange deaths for recuited that weren't willing (since turning is even more difficult to arrange than accidents), that's the Red Ajah.

47

free will: 2005-06-18

free will, is the projection of wartime fervour ; not a theory. in my opinion the evidence for this is as strong as your side of the debate.

Your claim is that there was a war mania. Your evidence is that you claim that there is a war a mania because you want there to be one because then my theory is wrong. My claim is that there is no such war mania. My evidence is that the AS have the time and patience and resources to build libraries and found Ogerier built cities and wage little wars on themselves. The meeting of 47AB is cited by me as evidence, as is the founding of Tar Valon itself and the White Tower, all in the BWB. That's evidence I give to my theory. That and the fact that all male AS are 50 years dead at that time. Please please please tell me what quote, what evidence you have. Anything, give me a single statement of textual evidence. Then we can compare whose theory is supported better. Without evidence you are comparing your opinion to my theory. And while I love to have my theory hold up, the cost isn't even fair, I beat you because you haven't tried, so please try.

also consider the fervour against man channelling in genearl randlanderss.

even borderlanders ,one of the toughest warriors, grow uneasy at hearing only the rumours of a man's chanelling.and this is 3000 years after the breaking, you don't have to have a great imagination to imagine the conditions then.


Maybe you just fail to grasp my theory, since you cite evidence for my theory to oppose it. If female AS had rounded up learners and wilders before they channeled and had three or four thousand years of not using the OP offensively against non-Shadowspawn, then things would have been forgiven by now. But as smart as that idea is, a single person came to 6 ajahs and wiped out the other six and set up on AS to rule them all and then came up with a "better" strategy which is to have people be reminded of the breaking every literal moment of their lives for the whole time as they wait for unidentified male wilders to reek havoc and remind people how (male) AS and the OP (saidin) caused the breaking. It's designed to piss people off against AS, just as Ishamael purposefully pissed off Arthur Hawking against AS. Similar goal and similar tactic is (according to my theory) the same cause, Ishamael influecning darkfriends.

in this context, the theory of wartime fervour being carried out injudiciously in peace time is at least feasible and almost as good as the darkfriend one.

Again I get the feeling that you have not recently sat down and read the BWB that describes this time period. Let's get this straight. Bore is sealed and the Shadow looses Shai'tan and (most of his) general staff (12 or 13 Forsaken/Chosen). The Friends of the Dark and the Shadowspawn and the armies of Myyrdraal and Trollocs start to fight amongst themselves as often as against the forces of the Light. But wait, then they even stop that. Even Trollocs stopped waging war to instead concentrate on survival. War itself stopped. No offense, but go read the BWB again. The world was BROKEN, all the way down to communities of refugees moving about uncertain of what tomorrow brought. Not even tribes survived, let alone nations. The Aiel were very very very special. Here's a quote: "In the end, it was the Breaking that put a finish to [the War of Power]. The growing devastation forced both the Shadowspawn and those dedicated to the Light to concentrate on the task of survival."-BWB pg 83. War ended, both sides gave up because they needed to concentrate on running and running and running to wherever appeared safe for the moment. We are talking whole sections of the world depopulated. The Land of Madmen (the continent south of Randland) is still in the pre-tribal level. This was not war, or anything even like it. It was anarchy. Completely and 100 percent totally different. The "enemy" was 100 percent not boy channelers, it was the elements and male AS. That's why when the last male AS died, the breaking was completely over and the rebuilding could begin, first tribes, and then on up from there. Boy channelers do not boil oceans to level continents. They don't. And compared to that and the indirect effects of that, boy channelers and their paltry fireballs are no worse than wolves or bears. Not to be feared greatly, but just another problem among many. What matters is what happened later, after the breaking. What people argueing against me seem to not grasp is that the 239 to 344 year breaking was 100% over in 0AB, totally over. No more. Finished. Male AS all dead. Boy channelers were not a threat, there simply were no threats to ... female AS. They had training and power and no comparable opponents. There fears where that TG was foretold and that the Forsaken would come back, so they'd like to share knowledge to keep channeling lore from dying out. To that end the 12 ajahs came together to cooperate. Then, after they agree to do that, another person comes out of no where and bam, within three years it is female AS against female AS, until a heirarchy is formed and some are kneeling to others and a plan of world domination is instead in place. And this plan includes not tracking down male channelers before they channel. And it won't take long to realize that this inflames attitudes against AS in general with people that remember the Breaking. But the person who came out of nowhere does it anyway. Why? There was no war. The BWB says so. Please come up with better explanations.

To summarize. War, then no war, then no chaos, then cooperation amid no people being scared of puny boy channelers, then BOOM an AS civil war, stillings, and deaths and kneeling completely out of nowhere instigated by a single person. Please tell me why this doesn't sound like a darkfriend to you.

48

free will: 2005-06-18

Callandor: **Narianna: "ishmael.heck no .at that time he was not free. and EVEN if he had left instructions for the darkfriends(??)"

In Book 1, Prologue, there is a point where Ishamael is free and LTT is alive and LTT is mad from the taint on Saidin all at the same time. Hence that event occurs after the Strike at SG since LTT is mad from the taint. And thay event occurs before the date 47AB since that date is 47 years after the last male AS dies, which includes LTT (since LTT is male and an AS). Hence in 47AB Ishamael is free, this is certain. So sorry, but you are wrong.**

You have to remember that the Breaking lasted for a few hundred years (BWB puts it at 239 to 344 years long). It wasn't a quick 50 years or so. Ishamael is reported seen as much as 40 years after the Breaking, but the White Tower, and the Ajahs as we truly know them weren't started for over 100 years after the Breaking, so we are talking at least 300 years, if not 400 before the time Ishamael could've done this. The next time we have a reference of Ishamael being free, is at the Trolloc Wars.


We again disagree about such basic facts that coming to and understand will be impossible unless we both agree to have open minds and listen careful to what is written rather than what we expect. So let's be clear here. Every last male AS was dead for over 40 years, even LTT, before the 12 ajahs met. You have unfortunately confused two separate issues and messed up your cognative timeline. The "AB calendar" was adopted 2 centuries after the breaking ended, not after it started, but ... this is important, the first year was not zero AB, but 200 AB. It's like if in 1977 the US decided to have a new calendar, one where the US was founded in year 0. In such a calendar system, various amendments passed after the revolutionary war would have been passed in 70AR (after revolution) but wouldn't have been referred to as 70AR until after 200AR, when the calendar was adopted.

That's where we disagree, hopefully you understand that the Strike at SG happened in year X and then somewhere in year X+239 to X+344 the last male AS died and that year was two hundred years later called 0AB, in fact it around 199AB that the "AB calendar" (Toman calendar) was universally adopted. So if the Compact was was signed in 209AB, then that was either X+239+209 in the AoL calendar, or X+344+209 in the AoL calendar, or somewher in between, call that point Y, and the essential point is that Y-209 is the year when the last male AS died, and the 12 ajahs met together in the year Y-209+47, which is 47AB. Here's the quote: "In 209 AB (After the Breaking, the Toman Calendar had been universally adopted about ten years earilier), the Compact of the Ten Nations was formed."-BWB page 95. See how the calendar was adopted centuries after the last male AS died, but that 150 years before that calendar was adopted the male AS were still dead and not alive. 1AB is when all male AS were dead. Life at that point was no longer in the breaking, but was reduced to a tribal level. There were no wars and no threats, but also there was no civilization, a blank slate. Considered tumultous, but not the breaking. We must get this clear, if you read page 88 under "Calenders" in the BWB it is quite clear that 1AB is *after* the last male AS died. *Not* when the Strike at SG happened. So since Ishamael was free during the breaking, i.e. before 1AB, he was either free *before* 47AB (when the 12 ajahs met) and therefore still free when the 12 ajahs met, *or* he was free before 1AB (and hence free before 47AB) but was somehow bound (and unbound, repeatedly) "later" as the Historian of the BWB hypothesizes. The BWB on page 52 says that Ishamael is cited as free as much as 40 years after the Bore is sealed. *Not* 40AB as you claim, because you are failing to account that 1AB is hundreds of years after the Bore is sealed.

I gotta go, but hopefully you understand the timeline:

X=Strike at SG

X+40=Ishamael sighted

X+B+1=Last male AS dies (B is between 238 and 343)

X+B+47=twelve ajahs meet peacefully

X+B+47+3=Female AS start out of nowhere attacking each other

X+B+47+3+~150=Toman Calendar universally adopted, with X+B+1 being set to 1AB

X+B+47+3+159=Compact signed

49

free will: 2005-06-19

**he wouldn't have done this. he wanted dragon reborn ALIVE.

Really? I again suggest that you (re)read the prologue to tEotW. Shai'tan prefers to have Rand alive (Anginor tells us so in tEotW) but the Forsaken actually tend to worry about Rand being Nae'blis over them (Anginor's statements in tEotW again back up this claim). So I'm still skeptical of your claims. Please provide evidence for your view, since I've just done so for mine.**

Ishamael wanted the Dragon Reborn alive.


Such is your theory, not mine. He clearly wanted LTT dead, and you don't dispute that. And I think there is much evidence that Ishamael is loony, and so his desires can be unpredicable, hence he could want LTT dead, then alive, then the DR dead, then later alive, that's totally possible and I don't dispute that.

This is proven because the Black Ajah set to hunting for the Dragon Reborn to kill him in New Spring (thinking he was an adult not a baby). Ishamael was so angered over this, because they did this act without his orders,

Quotes would be nice here, because the "without orders" part could be the only factor for displeasure as far as I know. If you look at page 52 of the BWB you get "[Ishamael] is said there to have forgotten his true name, and to be more than half-mad and less than half-human, a condition [...]" he calls himself Ba'alzamon and basically seems to consider himself the DO. We know from RJ's Q and A with Q="We've read in the Forsaken's POVs that channeling in the Pit of Doom would have some...unpleasant...effects. Is this related to the nature of the opposition of the One Power to the True Power or is it the Dark One consciously acting against the channeler? If so, why should the Dark One care?" and A="It is a matter of the Dark One consciously acting, though interactions between the One Power and him, the source of the True Power, can be unpredictable. The Dark One is not pleasant. He is also highly distrustful. He ... dislikes ... things that happen outside his control or not at his order. Call him the ur-control freak. Combine these two facts, and anyone channeling in the Pit of Doom without permission can expect swift punishment on the assumption that failure to ask permission means you intend to do something he won't like. It isn't that he believes anyone can harm him, just that he is in charge, and your failure to ask permission, your presumed intention to do something he wouldn't like, means that your faithfulness quotient has just suffered a severe downturn. Myself, I'd sell you short in a skinny minute.", that Shai'tan is a control freak. Maybe "Ba'alzamon" is a control freak too. So I need quotes, Callandor. Ishamael could be insane, or have changed his mind since 47AB or he might just have been offended at the sisters daring to not ask permission.

he killed the Head of the Black Ajah, Jarna Malari, and everyone on their council got at least a licking of punishment. This is when Alivarin is place at the Head of the Black Ajah.

We know have another RJ interview quote "[the Forsaken] still think of people in the here-and-now as primitives, and their attitudes filter through to the Dark One, who believes that his people from the age of Legends are in all practical ways better -- for which read better trained, more capable, and thus better able to serve him efficiently and effectively -- than the people of the present time. And he is right. In a way. They are certainly better trained, with a much wider knowledge, at least in some areas.", so Ishamael might sometimes know that he isn't Shai'tan and in those moments he might want the glory for capture or killing of the DR to go to "him" not to a pathetic worm-like "girl-child" member of the Black Ajah. He might want Rand dead or captured but he might want "the scoop" to get involved more personally, maybe he even wanted the near misses to attract the DR's followers. If they suspect that he has followers, assistants, Light supporters that know about him, then flushing them out might be a goal. After all, you don't want to turn him just to have goody goodies turn him back to the Light, talk about a let down. Could be strategic or insanity. Either way, it is not a clear case that in 50AB he or another darkfriend did not want the DR dead or gentled. It's not clear, and it's not proof. Please give quotes and better support if you wish to make it so. Even so, my theory would work with a Friend of the Dark that wasn't Ishmael. Maybe an Ogier from before the Strike at SG survived that long and recruited an AS to the dark side and gave her that task because he operated on old orders of "kill the Dragon" and heard about the prophecies that the Dragon will be reborn and figured the new 47AB unification of AS could be turned into a WT capable of having a Red Ajah that could accomplish this task openly and be cheered. My theory never hinged on Ishamael, and your proof that Ishamael in 47AB did not want the DR dead is not air-tight. Please strengthen you claim or even better just admit that my theory doesn't need that datum and just move on.

50

free will: 2005-06-19

***In Book 1, Prologue, there is a point where Ishamael is free and LTT is alive and LTT is mad from the taint on Saidin all at the same time. Hence that event occurs after the Strike at SG since LTT is mad from the taint. And thay event occurs before the date 47AB since that date is 47 years after the last male AS dies, which includes LTT (since LTT is male and an AS). Hence in 47AB Ishamael is free, this is certain. So sorry, but you are wrong. ***

actually no free will. look closely at what u say.LTT was male and AS but was he last male AS??

if so then in 47AB ishy couldn't be free as his cycle of freedom is 40 years(according to all the references in BWB and the books).


On page 52 of the BWB it specifically says that 1) cycles of influence of multiples of forty years were considered and that 2) no such pattern was detected. And honestly I didn't think anyone seriously thought that Ishamael was bound and unbound repeatedly throughout history. That seemed to me like a transparent fairy tale believed by people that wanted to believe that Ishamael was bound when he was never bound at all. The same Historian is apparantly too naive to figure out that Ishamael is/was Moerad, I see no concrete textual evidence that Ishamael was bound *ever*, not even for one second.

Here's a timeline for you:


Year X: Strike at SG

Year X+40: Ishamael maybe sighted

Year X+A: Ishamael confronts LTT

Year X+A: Dragonmount is formed, LTT dies

Year X+A+B: Last male AS dies

Year X+A+B+47: 12 ajahs meet

Year X+A+B+50: 6 ajahs are hunted (by Kiam Lopiang?)

Year X+A+B+98: Elisane is already Amyrlin with Kiam Lopiang as "an advisor"

Roughly Near Year X+A+B+200: Toman Calendar adopted, White tower construction done, Compact signed, etc.

We know that A is less than 345 and that the sum of A and B is greater than 238 and that, the sum of A and B is less than 345

second case and this is more probable that LTT was not the last male AS.

if you read rand's POV in the tSR in the crystal columns ;by the tone and tenor of the passage it is exceedingly probable that LTT died very quickly after the strike at SG.

so he wasn't the last male AS(IMHO not by a LONG margin).


Sure maybe A is much smaller than A+B in the above time line. I fail to see how this affects my theory. If you seriously think that the seals were placed at Year X and that Ishamael was free at X+40, then I fail to see why you conclude ... anything. Obviously at any point he could run into a darkfriend and give them orders to found the WT as an agency to hunt boy channelers.

I really can't figure out how your talk about times is even related to my theory, maybe you should try explaining it again.

so in 47AB ishy was in the bore with the rest of his merry men ,not outside pulling strings.(another fact breaking lasted for about 200 years due to the fact that few male AS took shelter in steddings and they died LONG after the 40 years period of ishy was over)

40 years is enough time to give instructions for future events, like if AS ever cooperate, be ruthless and start a faction to hunt channelers and centralize power. And if you go with the theory that Ishamael is out for 40 years then sealed, i.e.

Year X: Strike at SG

Year X+A: Ishamael confronts LTT

Year X+A: Dragonmount is formed, LTT dies

Year X+40: Ishamael maybe sighted

Year X+A+B: Last male AS dies

With A greater than or equal to zero and A+B between 239 and 344 inclusive, then to know if Ishamael was out in the Year X+A+B+47 we need to know how

A+B+47 compares to the period of Ishmael's releases. But Aran son of Malan son of Senar was born in the Year X+A+B+50, so if Ishamael was free between X and X+40 but then not free again until X+A+B+40 then when Aran is looking though *historical* records confined to the diaries of AS alive between X and X+A+B then he's not going to see anything except that first appearance, because the second appearance is contemporous to Aran, not in his past and so not noticed. In fact Ishamael might well have killed Aran before toodling off. And I still have zero idea what this has to do with my theory. I never claimed that Kiam Lopiang was Ishamael, and Ishamael could have left instructions that Kiam Lopiang picked up, so none of this matters as far as I can see.

secondly you pulled out a reference to the fact that a small cabal of AS embarked on a program of centralisation and consolidation of power.guess what, this is the established "tradition" of a coup-de-tat: a small group of people capturing power.

No, you failed to understand my point 100 percent. It's not a small group, it's 51% of the AS seizing at most 6/7 the power. Why? If 51% stole 100% that makes sense. If 0.05% stole 100% that makes sense. But there were 12 ajahs, 6 surived, 6 died terrible deaths three years after everyone became friends and Kiam Lopiang came out of nowhere (with no major ajah behind her) to then become number 7 in power at the smallest. From nowhere, all the way to number seven or higher! Against a unified peaceful cooperative front, and with no support, Kiam Lopiang does it alone! That's astounding in my opinion, and I can't figure out why the same conclusion doesn't leap out at you when you read it yourself.

and regarding the objections of the time lapse,consider the fact the fact that the fact that breaking lasted for 200 yrs or more and god knows that is a long time for those who initially favoured tough measures in dire conditions to consolidate their ideology and to increase their influence.also the scale of the dstruction was enough to convince at least some women AS that men were not fit to wield power EVER.

This is this pervasive weird idea that I can't figure out where it came from. With all due respect, what on earth are you talking about? Year X all hell breaks loose. Year X+A+B, all hell is gone. Year X+A+B+47 a new age of happy cooperation arises. Year X+A+B+50 a new age of half the AS being attacked and killed by other AS begins with, in my opinion, Kiam Lopiang, a person from no where with no support or faction or resources behind it all. Where does the length of the Breaking come in here? It's irrelevant. 5 years, 500 year, a trillion years. It doesn't matter. It doesn't affect my theory in any way.

I love your quote "convince at least some women AS that men were not fit to wield power EVER" because the Red strategy is EXACTLY to wait until men weild the power openly and without female AS to mitigate their wildness BEFORE doing squat. The EXACT stupidest strategy imaginable. Such AS that abhor a man channeling have to accept that this Red strategy allows wilders to exist and to channeler before they are dealth with. What are the options? To keep all men beaten into unconsciousness and "pump" the men by hand (or with the power) to then manually deposit seed to insure a new generation? Or can unconsiousness be stimulated physically to sire offspring. Because if you let men grow to maturation, then some of them will be sparkers and the Red strategy does nothing to stop it, pruposefully does nothing. Not to prevent, not to mitigate, not to track, nothing but waiting until it's already happened. There is no getting around it, or is there?

But thank you for such an image, because it made me realize yet another "better than Red" strategy, which the AS should have and could have done. Simply put, confine all mature men to Stedding. Permanently and universally. Only women can leave stedding. Any man that leaves is killed on sight if ever seen again. If all men are kept in Stedding then they never can channel, ever. I wonder what happens if you have the spark and live in a stedding for 30 or 40 years and then step out, do you instantly sense the source? And before you say that this is impractical, these are men. Women can do all the work, and life free of the taint forever and a many baby boys die and a few grow up to be studs in steddings. The fact that this wasn't proposed by the allegedly man-hating Reds is again further proof that they weren't trying to help society or prevent male channelers. The Red "strategy" is to *let* the men channel in flambouant and destructive manners and only later gentle them (after women that "know too much" can conviently die). Those opposed to male channelers should propose that men are sent to stedding before they reach 16 years of age. That works fine to prevent that. Waiting for men to channel and then gentling them does *not* do that.

also i would like to point out that the coup which free will mentioned in his post could not be possible if at least a sizeable number of AS were its supporters passive if not active. perhaps this "coup" could have been triggered by the fact that a few of the AS may have mentioned a review of the policy at that time and the extremists could have taken that as a catalyst for the coup, convinced that these"liberals" would undermine their authority and influence in these matters an so they made the moves to lay the foundation of the present day ajah system believing that the central authority figure to keep the tower together and autonomy for the major ajahs in thair fields would be a method to keep their influence strong by appearing to the outside world as keeping another breaking away.

I simply have trouble imagining that Kiam Lopiang becomes so influential so fast. If a new person hadn't appeared out of nowhere to surpass the leadership of half the former AS, then I'd go with your theory that it was natural. But Kiam Lopiang gains way too much power way too quickly. Seems like in three years she's displaced fully half the AS if not more.

as the events unfolded they pushed to the background the lower ajah system (perhaps as an excuse to strengthen the central figure) and in the process evolved the present day system of almost autonomous ajahs.

Fully half the ajahs displaced by a nobody? That's your theory? Hey, if that's what you believe, that a nobody in three years can turn half the alliance against each other without help from the Shadow, then I guess there is nothing that I can say. I'm a terrible typist and long passages might violate copyright, so I'm not going to post the relevant passages in their entirety. In the book it has a section on after the breaking, reading the section on the calendar and the section on the formation of the tower, plus things I have posted should be fairly complete.

51

Narianna: 2005-06-19

thanks for such a detailed analysis.

my point was essentially that ishy couldn't be free at council of AS in 47AB.but i think u agree with this no.

52

Callandor: 2005-06-19

**I'm now skeptical of the claim that Dreadlords are protected from the taint, based on my inability (searched for taint in the BWB) to find a quote that claims either way.**

That's not even what they were saying. The person said that the taint was a reason why people went over to the Shadow -- why? For possible protection. It seems to be reserved for those of high enough esteem, but when you're faced with a chance of getting protection versus eventual madness and death, a lot of people will take the chance.

**And I'm not even certain that Ishamael was protected from the taint. Have we seen his body to see if it was rotting? Does he act sane? Please please please give quotes to support you view(s).**

There's two explanations and they aren't mutually exclusive in anyway:

1. Ishamael got the filters, is half mad anyway, and what you call degredation of him, is sufferance from wounds.

2. Ishamael is a True Power user, and didn't use the One Power, but the True Power makes you half-mad anyway.

** You have unfortunately confused two separate issues and messed up your cognative timeline. The "AB calendar" was adopted 2 centuries after the breaking ended, not after it started, but ... this is important, the first year was not zero AB, but 200 AB. It's like if in 1977 the US decided to have a new calendar, one where the US was founded in year 0. In such a calendar system, various amendments passed after the revolutionary war would have been passed in 70AR (after revolution) but wouldn't have been referred to as 70AR until after 200AR, when the calendar was adopted.**

No, I know my calander systems, and do not know where you are getting your sources from and using them.

Lews Therin did not die at the end of the Breaking -- but Ishamael was able to meet him. He was out on one of his forty year cycles, presumably starting when he was partially sealed at the Strike. Forty years goes by -- still Breaking. Next time Ishamael is referenced to be free is in the Trolloc Wars.

**I gotta go, but hopefully you understand the timeline:

X=Strike at SG

X+40=Ishamael sighted

X+B+1=Last male AS dies (B is between 238 and 343)

X+B+47=twelve ajahs meet peacefully

X+B+47+3=Female AS start out of nowhere attacking each other

X+B+47+3+~150=Toman Calendar universally adopted, with X+B+1 being set to 1AB

X+B+47+3+159=Compact signed**

See, this is funny that this is exactly the timeline I was refering to, yet you seem to be thinking it works for you.

And that X+40 year is the time Ishamael was last seen before the Trolloc Wars. Please, provide the evidence that shows he was active before or during those other 200 odd years of Breaking, and then the time until the founding of the Ajahs.

53

Callandor: 2005-06-20

**He clearly wanted LTT dead, and you don't dispute that.**

And where are you getting this?

1. Ishamael fought as hard to get Lews Therin to turn to the Shadow as he did to defeat him.

2. If you mean in the Prologue in The Eye of the World, I cannot see at all how you are drawing this conclusion, since Ishamael went there to tempt and taunt him (hence why he Heals him, hence why he laughs so vicously, hence why he says Lews Therin can have Ilyena back).

**Quotes would be nice here, because the "without orders" part could be the only factor for displeasure as far as I know.**

I'm not going to quote the Black Ajah starting the hunt for the Dragon Reborn, because that is the entire premise of New Spring, drilled into your head if you've read it even once, and outright stated at the end of the book -- you don't know it, you haven't read it. If you haven't, I will quote it though, but until then, it's a known fact.

**TITLE: Crown of Swords, CHAPTER: Prologue - Lightnings

"The interview was coming to a close—they never lasted longer than for Alviarin to report and be given her own orders—but she had a question yet to ask. "The Black Tower, Great Mistress." Alviarin wet her lips. She had learned much since Ishamael appeared to her, not least that the Chosen were neither omnipotent nor all-knowing. She had risen because Ishamael killed her predecessor in his wrath at discovering what Jarna Malari had begun, yet it had not ended for another two years, after the death of another Amyrlin. She often wondered whether Elaida had had any hand in the death of that one, Sierin Vayu; certainly the Black Ajah had not. Jarna had had Tamra Ospenya, the Amyrlin before Sierin, squeezed like a bunch of grapes—obtaining little juice, as it turned out—and made her appear to have died in her sleep, but Alviarin and the other twelve sisters of the Great Council had paid in pain before they could convince Ishamael they had no responsibility for it. The Chosen were not all-powerful, and they did not know everything, yet sometimes they knew what no one else did. Asking could be dangerous, though. "Why" was the most dangerous; the Chosen never liked to be asked why. "Is it safe to send fifty sisters to deal with them, Great Mistress?"

Now, again, unless you have not read New Spring at all in any form you won't be able to completely get this, but it should be more than obvious even if you haven't. Alviarin is refering obviously to the Vileness -- the hunt for male channelers and gentling them without proper judgement (it's a crime only sentenced and carried out in Tar Valon).

Jarna was, as Alviarin says, the head of the Black Ajah and she tortured the then current Amyrlin Tamra Ospenya -- again, obvious events in New Spring. This was just after Gitara Moroso had the Foretelling that the Dragon Reborn was alive in front of her, as well as Moiraine and Siuan (once again, all very clear in New Spring). Jarna got the information out from her, but the Amyrlin was able to hold some of it back -- she gave the impression that he was an adult, while it reality he was just born.

And so, Jarna set the hunt for the Dragon Reborn at it's course -- once again, in case it hasn't been fully said enough, this is all clearly shown in the events of New Spring. They were seeking early signs of possible male channelers -- extreme luck or a sudden rise in prominence.

Then what do we have? Ishamael killing her for what she started. Hmm, seems he was a trifle upset. Why? Once again, obvious:

Ishamael wanted the Dragon Reborn to turn to the Shadow -- that was his motives for the first 3 books.

Why didn't he give orders for it? Most obvious answer: he was sealed up at the time, and only released a few years later.

**so Ishamael might sometimes know that he isn't Shai'tan and in those moments he might want the glory for capture or killing of the DR to go to "him" not to a pathetic worm-like "girl-child" member of the Black Ajah.**

Then why didn't he do it right away in The Eye of the World? He wanted to turn the Dragon -- not kill him.

54

Narianna: 2005-06-21

in general ishy wanted to turn rand/LTT.

but at some nexus points in the pattern, like when rand might proclaim himself or claim callandor thus showing the world that he was the dagon reborn,

ishy tried to kill him.The descriptions of the ends of the 2 and 3 books clearly show that in order to prevent rand from claiming callandor ishy was prepared to kill him.So there ARE limits to the length ishy was prepared to go to turn rand.

in some cases rand's death was preferable.

NOTE: can some elder plz explain to me where the fiight at the end of tGH was fought.

in TAR ? then why it was visible to all the people in falme.

in real world? then how come they were floating in the sky.and how come ishy survived a fatal wound in the real world.

plz respond.

55

a dragonburned fool: 2005-06-21

***"The reason people today still fear untrained boy channelers is because of the silly, ineffective, and costly strategy that was decided by the Ajah formation."***

This statement isn't psychologically realistic. You mean that people fear channeling boys, because an obviously too much fanatical group known as Red Ajah, a group who never cares about it's PR image and that is disliked by everybody except the reds themselves, is practicing hunt on male channelers and is doeng obvious overplaying in this task? The psychology of people has the trait, that if such unpopular organization practices so blattant persecutions, people usually distrust the organization and feel sympathy to it's victims (even if the victims have their own flaws). So the Whitecloaks have widespread persecutions and propaganda against every kind of possible channelers, but that doesn't add mistrust to local Wisdoms as the Whitecloaks would want. Where Whitecloaks appear people became rather to feel sympathy to Whitecloak's targets. The Tower's propaganda may have added to the fear against male channelers, but unlike the other Ajahs the Reds are surprisingly incompetent in propaganda, PR and subtle manipulation. But more important is that the Tower doesn't need any efforts to create distrust against male channelers - this distrust existed before the Tower existed and it does still exist, because people just cannot forget about the Breaking.

***"It's putting the cart before the horse to claim that in 47AB people feared boy channelers, you have no textual evidence of this."***

There is textual evidence. It's Rand's ancestor who lived in this time (Rhodric), in who's PoV we have a not bad in other aspects local man (ancestor of the Cairhienin) who very explicitely blames all the channelers both male and female for the Breaking, and who argues that all channelers must be killed for to prevent another Breaking. But I'm wondering, how could you believe that normal people of times when Breaking is very fresh in population's memory, how could these people think that male channelers are not so dangerous? It is like if somebody would believe now that certain fanatical militant religious organization cannot inflict serious harm. If you barely escaped death in fire, you would not need propaganda to be suspicious about any fire, right?

***"The meeting of 47AB is cited by me as evidence, as is the founding of Tar Valon itself and the White Tower, all in the BWB."***

As I said in my previous response to you, the meeting of 47AB was NOT a pacifist and tolerance-wanting forum, but a meeting dedicated to forcefull unifying all channelers under a single authority. Look at the nature of their decisions and on their deeds exactly after the meeting and it becomes hard to think about them as about peaceful tolerance-willing persons.

***"The "enemy" was 100 percent not boy channelers, it was the elements and male AS. ... Boy channelers do not boil oceans to level continents. They don't. And compared to that and the indirect effects of that, boy channelers and their paltry fireballs are no worse than wolves or bears."***

Please, do provide some serious evidence (you will find no such evidence though) about this claim, that untrained boys were harmless. In the Land of Madmen your innocent untrained boys were and still are able to effectively prevent the developement of any civilization. Who cares that these men do not block the weather and do not rise new mountains, they do sufficiently much harm to keep the population in primitive state. Bears and wolves do not stop the grouth of civilization but channeling boys do stop it. No beast and even no army can do so much harm as a single untrained channeling boy. Channeling men don't need much skill to cause disasters. Destructive use of One Power is just really easy. Your claim that being untrained makes these boys a normal treat is blattantly false.

***"What people argueing against me seem to not grasp is that the 239 to 344 year breaking was 100% over in 0AB, totally over."***

And why it was not so over in Land of Madmen? Because there the female channelers failed to find effective way to fight the male ones. In 0AB the Breaking was over only because the Aes Sedai became effective in their fight against the channeling boys and maybe because they managed to kill the last male Aes Sedai. The Breaking ended because control over the emerging channeling boys was established.

***"War, then no war, then no chaos, then cooperation amid no people being scared of puny boy channelers, then BOOM an AS civil war, stillings, and deaths and kneeling completely out of nowhere instigated by a single person."***

First end of Breaking was not end of chaos, because in the 40th years AB nobody except the future Cairhienins even allowed the peaceful Aiels to take even some water from drilled by the aiels themselves wells. THis indicates a very high degree of hostility among people in this 47 AB. And nothing strange in that. After devastating wars, when there is no strong winner to control the territory, usually there is a very unprleasant period of post-war chaos in the affected lands. Devastating wars cause lot of bitterness in hearths of people, and this bitterness continues to show up after the end of the war.

Second, please stop to speak about Kiam Lopiang as if you proved her role to be what you are claiming. Kiam Lopiang is never mentoned in 50 AB, but for the first time she is mentioned in 98 AB. You cannot be even sure whether she was even born in 50 AB. And civil wars are never caused by a single person, this just doesn't happen.

Third, the 47AB meeting was not co-operation, but attempt of obligatory and forcefull unification, an attempt to establish order and authorities, and there is noting more likely than a civil war in result of such attempt.

56

free will: 2005-06-21

** You have unfortunately confused two separate issues and messed up your cognative timeline. The "AB calendar" was adopted 2 centuries after the breaking ended, not after it started, but ... this is important, the first year was not zero AB, but 200 AB. It's like if in 1977 the US decided to have a new calendar, one where the US was founded in year 0. In such a calendar system, various amendments passed after the revolutionary war would have been passed in 70AR (after revolution) but wouldn't have been referred to as 70AR until after 200AR, when the calendar was adopted.**

No, I know my calander systems, and do not know where you are getting your sources from and using them.


Read page 88 including the section marked "Calendars", then read page 95. 1AB is the first year where there were no living male AS except maybe Ishamael.

Lews Therin did not die at the end of the Breaking

And I didn't say that he did, and again it doesn't matter. We agree that Ishamael was out after the Strike at SG, so either he was out in 47AB as well or he he got bound later. I didn't realize that anyone really honestly actually took at all seriously the idea that Ishamael is bound at some later time. Sorry. I can't predict what theories you hold, so please just read what I write. In this case I wrote that Ishmael was free at some point after the Strike but *before* the end of the Breaking. That's all I said, and to prove that I just need to assert that LTT was male and was an AS and that Ishamael was free when LTT was both alive and mad and hence Ishamael was free after the Srtike at SG and before the end of the Breaking.

but Ishamael was able to meet him. He was out on one of his forty year cycles, presumably starting when he was partially sealed at the Strike. Forty years goes by -- still Breaking. Next time Ishamael is referenced to be free is in the Trolloc Wars.


I hear that you believe that Ishamael was bound in cycles. How does this affect my point. If he had 40 years, he could pass along instructions. If he couldn't or didn't, then another Friend of the Dark could assume that the Shadow wanted the DR killed or gentled. Thus my theory is saved.

**I gotta go, but hopefully you understand the timeline:

X=Strike at SG

X+40=Ishamael sighted

X+B+1=Last male AS dies (B is between 238 and 343)

X+B+47=twelve ajahs meet peacefully

X+B+47+3=Female AS start out of nowhere attacking each other

X+B+47+3+~150=Toman Calendar universally adopted, with X+B+1 being set to 1AB

X+B+47+3+159=Compact signed**

See, this is funny that this is exactly the timeline I was refering to, yet you seem to be thinking it works for you.


Yes, it is humorous that you believe in cycles and think that Ishamael couldn't talk to people. Yes, it is humorous that you think that it doesn't just strengthen my theory if Ishamael could not or did not give instructions because as you say from New Spring, without instructions to the contrary the Friends of the Dark will attempt to kill the DR, and about all that is known about him is that he will channel and be male. My theory is strengthened either way. It's called a robust theory.

And that X+40 year is the time Ishamael was last seen before the Trolloc Wars.

So therefore Ishamael must have used illusion or compulsion or only talked to Friends of the Dark or must have been bound or otherwise kept to himself or must have became a historian and destroyed documents. That affects my theory how?

Please, provide the evidence that shows he was active before or during those other 200 odd years of Breaking, and then the time until the founding of the Ajahs.

Why? My theory doesn't require it. Some person wondered who would organize the Friends of the Dark and claimed that Ishamael couldn't. I quibble because he might have, and he might have deputized someone and I say so. You ask for quotes and I point out that I don't care because my theory is fine either way. I just don't care. If you think it matters then you don't understand my theory. I theorized that Kiam Lopiang was a Friend of the Dark. I don't have to get specific and say that Kiam Lopiang was or was not Ishamael or that Kiam Lopiang was or was not following orders from Ishamael, because it doesn't matter to my theory.


**He clearly wanted LTT dead, and you don't dispute that.**


And where are you getting this?


tEotW Prologue. He wanted LTT to be sane when he killed him.

1. Ishamael fought as hard to get Lews Therin to turn to the Shadow as he did to defeat him.

That's right, Ishamael isn't insane, he works hard doing what Shai'tan tells him when Shai'tan tells him. Did Shai'tan give instructions to Ishamael about the DR? If you believe so, give evidence.

2. If you mean in the Prologue in The Eye of the World, I cannot see at all how you are drawing this conclusion, since Ishamael went there to tempt and taunt him (hence why he Heals him, hence why he laughs so vicously, hence why he says Lews Therin can have Ilyena back).

Ishamael wants LTT to regret choosing the wrong side, to regret not admitting that Ishamael is "the bigger man", he wanted LTT to grovel for him. And then he was going to kill him. But since you think Ishamael was bound in 47AB, why does this matter to you. Any Friend of the Dark could assume that Shai'tan wants the DR dead or gentled. Any Friend of the Dark could assume that Shai'tan and/or Ishamael would want Black sisters in the WT and therefore any Friend of the Dark could set up the Red Ajah to handle the boy channelers and recruit the Black sisters. Anyone. It doesn't have to be Ishamael.

**Quotes would be nice here, because the "without orders" part could be the only factor for displeasure as far as I know.**

I'm quoting myself because I read your post and you ignored it. Ishamael is insane. He can change his mind and he might just object to not being informed and you didn't provide any evidence to the contrary. I hear that you think I'm stupid, but why can't you get that opinion out of your system and instead just talk about my request for quotes that Ishamael told the Friends of the Dark in 47AB not to kill or gentle the DR. That's what you claimed.

**so Ishamael might sometimes know that he isn't Shai'tan and in those moments he might want the glory for capture or killing of the DR to go to "him" not to a pathetic worm-like "girl-child" member of the Black Ajah.**

Then why didn't he do it right away in The Eye of the World? He wanted to turn the Dragon -- not kill him.

Why did Grendael send Trollocs and Myyrdraal into the Stone of Tear? Ishamael follows instructions. I think it's reasonable to infer that Shai'tan wanted Rand turned (and by "reasonable" I mean that I anticipate that you will agree, not that you are unreasonable if you don't). So, did Shai'tan give Ishamael instructions to turn the DR before 47AB? If so, did Ishamael have time to get these instructions out to female AS that were friends of the Dark? If so, then please explain New Spring. If not, then stop talking about Ishamael's attitudes towards the DR as if it affects my theory.

57

Narianna: 2005-06-22

free will. a small nitpick.

semi sent the trollocs at the stone of tear at the specific orders of DO as he didn't want rand to die YET.

also in new spring the events unfolded without the permission of ishy.that is why he punished BA head for gross voilation of his orders.

also, as adf pointed out kiam lopiang is mentioned in BWB in 98AB only. can u please quote some reference to point out the involvement of her in the 47AB conference?

58

free will: 2005-06-22

also, as adf pointed out kiam lopiang is mentioned in BWB in 98AB only. can u please quote some reference to point out the involvement of her in the 47AB conference?

No I can't, and I don't have to, because I never claimed that she was involved in that conference. That conference had twelve groups, Kiam Lopiang is involved in a a splinter of that group of 12 that destroyed half of the 47AB group of 12, as well as many other channelers.

59

Narianna: 2005-06-23

then how come she is responsible for the decisions that i thought you are pointing out to be the darkfriend's work which were taken in the 47AB conference.

60

Anubis: 2005-06-23

**He clearly wanted LTT dead, and you don't dispute that.**

And where are you getting this?

tEotW Prologue. He wanted LTT to be sane when he killed him.

... no. Ishmael wanted LTT to be sane so he could know and understand that he had killed his family and that he had lost and Ishmael had won. Simple fact is Ishmael is a major asshole and wanted to brag, at that point he didnt care if LTT lived or died because it didnt matter. Note that Ishmael didnt kill LTT, or even attempt it. Or even do anything harmful to him.

61

Anubis: 2005-06-23

**Ishamael wants LTT to regret choosing the wrong side, to regret not admitting that Ishamael is "the bigger man", he wanted LTT to grovel for him. And then he was going to kill him.**

Half right. Think about it. Its not Ishmaels MO. Since when has Ishmael ever killed anyone to punish them? Hes killed darkfriends in a rage but they dont count. Lanfear he mindtraps. Bors he kills the mans family and lets him know its his fault. Jain Farstrider, "paints like a fool" sends him to a steadding thinking he was free. Its not Ishmaels style. He would MUCH rather have an opponet alive and knowing he had been defeated, then dead and peacfully in the grave.

62

JakOShadows: 2005-06-23

freewill: I do see what you are saying. It seems unnatural for such a draconian type faction to have so much control in the starting of the WT. But looking at all your evidence I believe it is hard to prove that it was BA that did it. I do believe it was a power grab or something of a forceful solution, but there is not enough evidence to say who did it or why it was done. And you also have to remember that at that time there were no three oaths and anything like that. That only started after the trolloc wars, so they didn't have the structure set up to prevent a power struggle like this yet. I think we'll never know who did it and why.

63

free will: 2005-06-23

then how come she is responsible for the decisions that i thought you are pointing out to be the darkfriend's work which were taken in the 47AB conference.

I think it's obvious that something changed between 47AB and 77AB, I blame Kiam Lopiang for the change. I suspect that somethign changed in much much less than 20/30 years (there is an iconsistency in the Historians math), maybe even less than 3 years, since the Historian says that about 50AB to about 100AB has female channeler on female channeler violence, without mentioning of a sudden change, so it appears that in 47AB an agreement was reached without Kiam Lopiang, and by around 50AB there was a new M.O., I blame Kiam Lopiang for the new M.O., which is the one I believe that the modern WT and modern capital Ajahs decend from. So I don't think there was Friend of the Dark action going on in 47AB, but I do think that there was between 47AB and 77AB, and most likely between 47AB and about 50AB.

64

free will: 2005-06-23

JakOShadows: "I think we'll never know who did it and why"

I agree that I think the detailed truth will never be known for certain. But I'm frustrated that again and again, the priciple data is not even mentioned. The principle data is how one person gained enough power in about three years to successfully challenge more than half the female channelers, in a world coming out of a dark age, when that one person had no faction whatsoever behind them. The insanely swift rise to power, to me, is the sign of a Friend of the Dark, in fact to me it's a sign that the Black Ajah already existed, didn't like the WT agreement of 47AB and so bestowed a new ajah unto Kiam Lopiang that had the power to break the agreement of 47AB and instead make the WT that we know and love today. When you disagree with me, you don't ever even attempts to explain how Kiam Lopiang amasses so much power from nowhere (which would be the case with no Black ajah or Black Ajah) in such a short time (around three years, maybe 30 tops). Anyone can make theories by ignoring data and not explaining or even addressing it. If you think Kiam wasn't a Friend of the Dark, then that's a tall order to place on one person's shoulders, are you suggesting Kiam was a ta'veren? I'd accept that as an alternative theory, then saying that the form of the modern WT was basically the will of the Wheel, seems a bit strong handed and artificial, but it's possible and believable that at the end of the dark ages the Wheel would weave out maybe even a hero to make the modern WT.

The irony is that I'm willing to accept Kiam as a Friend of the Dark mastermind, or as a ta'veren Hero of the Horn, pretty different options, but they both go with my assessment that what Kiam accomplished seems hard to fathom and difficult to beleive.

65

Anubis: 2005-06-24

**When you disagree with me, you don't ever even attempts to explain how Kiam Lopiang amasses so much power from nowhere (which would be the case with no Black ajah or Black Ajah) in such a short time (around three years, maybe 30 tops).**

I just love the implications here. I have a theory and if you disagree with it then you are ignoring this evidence which I have interperted in a way that supports my theory. By your logic, Artur Hawkwing was a darkfriend. Unless you want to explain his sudden and rapid rise to power. Also, Elidia is a darkfriend. How do you explain her instantinious rise to power? The simple fact of the matter is that I cant explain anyones rapid rise to power because there is no evidence. You make the assumption that darkfriends are involved.

66

a dragonburned fool: 2005-06-24

***But I'm frustrated that again and again, the priciple data is not even mentioned. The principle data is how one person gained enough power in about three years to successfully challenge more than half the female channelers, in a world coming out of a dark age, when that one person had no faction whatsoever behind them. The insanely swift rise to power, to me, is the sign of a Friend of the Dark, in fact to me it's a sign that the Black Ajah already existed, didn't like the WT agreement of 47AB and so bestowed a new ajah unto Kiam Lopiang that had the power to break the agreement of 47AB and instead make the WT that we know and love today.***

I'm still waiting for your response to my (stated in 2 previous posts) counteraruments against what you are calling her "a principle data". You are stating that a single person (Kiam Lopiang) gained swift rise in power and completely changed the situation in the Tower from peacefull and tolerate forum into a civil war. I'm stating against you, that your claim is not supported by the text and that the text rather supports another interpretation about the 47 AB conference. Excuse me for repeating myself, but here goes:

1. I disagree that the 47 AB conference was an open forum of good will and toleration. It is never said that these Aes Sedai at 47 AB had any relation to toleration and pacifism. Them being an open forum is just your unsupported by any text suggestion. BWB said about them only that the Aes Sedai decided to unify and to buuild a grandious new city, and also that serious conflicts between the Aes Sedai begun already at the 47 AB conference (please, pay attention to this second fact) - some participants of the conference expressed their strong disagreement and declared heir will to leave the conference. Also we know the first known thing the Tower did after the conference - it was not the building of Tar Valon, that started only after 98 AB. It was the campaign against those, who claim to be Aes Sedai without the "right" to be such. In other words it was a campaign against those channelers who were not willing to participate in the 47AB conference and who don't submit their conventions. You are stating that this campaign was initiated by a person who was not there in 47AB, but I find this statement not supported by any textual source. The book said only that such a campaign begun and it doesn't indicate anything about a policy change. And state, that the two known facts about the 47AB-conference support the theory that there was no change in the policy at all and that the campaign between 50 and 100 AB was a logical consequence from the very own decisions of the conference.

What means the decision to build a splendid grandious new city (the only known decision and goal of the conference)? It was an world where there was no city at all but only villages and tribal strongholds. When Tar Valon was build 150 years after the conference, it was still the first large city in Westlands. They decided to build a splendid city in a land that had no other remarkable cities more than 150 years later! They deicded to build this city as the official place of all Aes Sedai. Note they doesn't build a net of local Aes Sedai chapters but a singular grandious central city on a place where nobody lived earlier. Briefly the Aes Sedai decided to build the capital city of the world. When similar decisions to build a city that will be uncomparatively greater than any existing city, and that will be build on empty place, it was allways a mark of somebody's attempt to create a strong centralized government. Why to build such great central city (with special accent of it being unbelievably great) if not for this city to manifest a centralized power? If the will of the AS at 47AB was to create a decentralized federation, they would rather build regional chapters for different ajahs or a Great Arena. But they decided to build the Tower. Federal capitals are not build with the intention to be greater than anyhting else, but imperial capitals did. The decision to build Tar Valon speaks for the will of those who met in year 47 to create a centralized power obligatory for every female channeler. And project to create great centralized power allways meet harsh resistence. Usually groups that begin projects for things greater than anything else are also agreeing to use force against the harsh resistence. Especially in periods of still not completely developed civilization.

Book evidence from around 47 AB (Rhodric's PoV in tSR) speaks about general mistrust among the common population to any channeler, while the decision to build a city means that Aes Sedai want to constitute their presence in the world to be official. Wish to become official in such a situation requires some norms of self-discipline - because every official institution is prone to abuses if it has no interior discipline. But how to convince to act according to the discipline those who want not to co-operate (and such persons are allways to be found)? The history doesn't know other means to do it except the forcefull way. So their obvious wish to make the AS organization offitial already implies agreement to act forcefully.

So most likely there is no change in the Tower's policy between 47 and 50 AB. For me apparently for the persecutions between 50 and 100 AB the main responsibility is of the 7 ajah Sitters who met in 47 AB and who survived until 98 AB. And especially it is responsibility of the one who later became the first Amyrlin.

2. Kiam Lopiang is first mentioned in 98 AB as one of the 7 closest councellors to Amyrlin. THis is the only fact about Kiam we know. There is zero evidence about Kiam's involvement in any events in 50 AB or in 77 AB. No Kiam is mentioned in 50 AB nor in 77AB. She could be even still not born in 50 AB, who knows. Who knows, she could came to her high position only in the same 98 AB. Everything about Kiam's involvement in the events of 50 AB is simply a suggestion. You say that she had too swift rise in power for only 3 years, but the books show only her rise in power for 51 years and it is a quite moderate speed for career. 51 years are more than enough a period for a new person to appear in the top levels of power. Kiam's rise could appear in 48 AB or in 98 AB - we don't know when, but only her 98 AB position is confirmed and about her early activity we have even no a single hint. The only special thing about Kiam is, that she is the only one named in 98 who is not also named in 47 AB.

Your explanation about this new name is that she emerged in the first three years after the conference and that she is responsible for everything in Tower's policy that would be new against the conference. I have a better explanation about Kiam. Let return to the 47 AB conference - participants were 12 named Sitters - "everybody for her ajah" and also "some others", who remained unnamed. These "some others" leave the way open for Kiam actually participating on the conference as one of these "some others" who had not so numerous followers as the 12 named leaders. But let assume that Kiam was not among the "others". 12 Sitters means 12 ajahs large enought o be mentioned. One of them are the immediate followers of the first Amyrlin. All other 6 Sitters who survive until 98 AB have their own followers who are not directly followers of the later Amyrlin. Allisune Tishar (I'm not sure about the spelling of the name) becoming Amyrlin means that she has to be the strongest leader. Now what happened with her original ajah in the years between 47 and 98? Her followers were not members of the conference because she was the only Sitter for her ajah. But do you believe that the immediate followers of the strongest among the 12 leaders will dissipate and become followers of the others. Most often the group of the immediate followers of the "first among equals" only becomes more numerous and prosperous with the time on cost of other groups. So what if Kiam was Allisune's closest assistant in Allisune's original ajah? When Allisune became Amyrlin and thus a supreme ruler over all ajahs, wouldn't she want the ajah of her most immediate supporters to be also represented in her closest council? I see the most likely explanation for Kiam to be Allisune's second-in-rank in her formal ajah.

67

free will: 2005-06-24

By your logic, Artur Hawkwing was a darkfriend. Unless you want to explain his sudden and rapid rise to power.

Are you suggesting that Kiam Lopiang was a ta'veren? Didn't I specifically mention that? Didn't I say that that's exactly the kind of thing that seems to be required if Kiam wasn't a darkfriend?

Also, Elidia is a darkfriend. How do you explain her instantinious rise to power? The simple fact of the matter is that I cant explain anyones rapid rise to power because there is no evidence. You make the assumption that darkfriends are involved.

I have different threads of evidence that all point to darkfriends. Threads such as the centralized power that makes Ishamaels control and spying possible, the Red structure that allows recruiting of new black sisters, the sudden rise of a single person to destroy or subjugate more than half of all female channelers, the Red structure that allows the future DR to be held coersively, thus helping the Shadow, the Red structure that creates and continues bad PR for female AS. It's not an assumption out of nowhere, it's a theory that explains many things. It's an assumption on your part to just say that Kiam isn't a darkfriend. And your theory that Kiam isn't a dark friend would have to explain the same things that my theory explains. And Elaida did have assistence from the Black Ajah, good choice there.

68

free will: 2005-06-24

A dragonburned fool, I've been sitting on this for awhile, I don't like my own tone (nor that of the two other replies to you that I'm sitting on), but I'm not sure I have the time to edit it that drastically to give you what you deserve, so if you read it as rougher and harsher than I intended then I can post it now and you don't have to wait so long for replies from me.

Our main disagreement is still unfortunately something both of us apparently are feeling to be "obvious": I am feeling it obvious that the occurence of the Red doctrine is very natural and to-be -expected thing for the first years of the Breaking,

I think our disagreement is more fundamental. You see, the breaking was long done and over when the ajahs met in AB47. So what was expected two or three hundred year previously when the breaking first happened is 100 percent irrelevant to my theory. I think that's where we disagree because there seems to be an widespread misconception in theoryland members about when the breaking started. It's like if someone had a calendar based on when Jesus died, and jesus lived between 239 and 344 years. It doesn't much matter what life was like when Jesus was fifty, because we are discussing events 50 years after Jesus's death. (Jesus is the breaking here, I'm using it for familairity with the AD calendar common in large parts of the world today

and you are feeling it obvious that the developement of the Red doctrine is unnatural for the Aes Sedai. Nothing is so difficult to explain to others than things one feels to be "obvious". But your excellent style of debatting makes me sure that new attempts of explanation will be allways worth and that there is good hope that the argumentation will lead to understanding, after we cover morre of the aspects of the topic.

I love your optimism. But you should realize that that the insanity of the Reds is simply a brick in a giant wall, one that also has the improbability of Kiam Lopiang's rise from obsurity. The nastiness of the inquisition of 50AB to 100AB, and the rise of Ajahs and Amyrilns themselves, not just the Reds or there, "let's let men run around and channel because it makes us look important when really we make things worse and yet we get to take credit for protecting the world from the terror we unleashed on them by seizing power and coming up with the world's stupidest strategy". Which I will stick by as being a tale-tail since of the Shadow that is merely what motivated me to research what happened that uncovered all the other bricks in my wall. So good luck!

First I wanted to focus on the general mentality of the Aes Sedai of the first century after the Breaking and how much they were ready to use very harsh and radical and even ruthless methods for achieving their goals.

Thank you for this time getting the centruy correct. Assuming you DID mean the first century after the END of the breaking, which IS the time that I'm talking about.

(b)"If the whole Tower was convinced to take violently radical steps I'd agree that you are right, expecting a period of such tactics is par for the course."(/b)

(b)"One of the twelve became the first Amyrlin and 6 others of the 12 became advisors to her and Kiam Lopiang, not of the first 12, was my theorized addition that was a darkfriend and a founder of the Red Ajah and maybe of the idea of the first capital Ajah period. Of course I can cast my net wider, during this same time period (47AB-100AB) the WT is being built, huge numbers of women are being stilled as well as men, men at not written as the big problem."(/b)

(b)"When the 12 met to join together and build TV and the WT, I doubt anyone at the meeting said "Hey! Let's sever some of us and torture the others!" they talking about working together, right? 7 of those women survived in dignity, why couldn't everyone get along?"(/b)

Actually the 12 who met to join together said something "Hey let severe those who don't want cooperate with us".


What others? Those 12 ajahs were pretty much everyone. Hence my point that Kiam Lopiang came out nowhere.

The decision of 47 AB was not about creating of some UNO, but of building of the only legitimate Aes Sedai organization it was not a decision to enforce democracy, but a decision to put order in an anarchic world. It was not a common forum of discussion, but efective executive organization what they wanted (their decisions were executive decisions requiring a strong organization). Priority in this meeting was not tolerance but political strength and high standards. If the task of the conference was only a common forum, the wouldn't decide as tehir main two points a building of a great city and persecution of non legitime female channelers.

You have missed my point. If Kiam Lopiang were present for such a meeting in 47AB, then I'd agree with you. She wasn't. If you read the text on page 92 of the BWB, it says "Once the decision [of 47AB] was made to build Tar Valon and consolidate Aes Sedai power, those same [12 ajahs] initiated and carried out, between roughly 50AB and 100AB, an extremely vigorous campaign against women [opposed to the centralization]", but somehow in 77AB, just 30 years into this centralization, at least two of the twelve end up on the "wrong side" of the persecution, and by 98AB it appears that fully 6 are gone, when it seemed like the 12 were targeting outsiders. And the six are replaced by a newcomer, Kiam Lopiang. That's the crux. How did that happen?

The campaign against the "unlegitime" Aes Sedai, you mentioned, is a good example of the mentality of the Tower of this time towards violent steps. Even if we don't know was there really huge number of women stilled, or it was only little number of them, in any way it's sure that the Tower acted very ruthless against all channelling women who doesn't obey to the official Tower.

Again, you are missing the whole point about the changing targets and the newcomer. It a gang up on the others power grab has turned into a civil war with a faction that appears out of nowhere. I call the new faction the Black Ajah because it likely was an organization that pretended not to be an organiztion. I then say that when the 12 form, it realizes it has to join too,and it's too late, so it starts idelogical war but can't openly campaign for Black, so invents Red out of whole cloth in the most destructive and self-serving manner ... for the Blacks, a new agenda, one against men, but in a way that endagers sisters, which can aid later recruitment.

BWB says that the decision to start this campaidn against unlegitimate AS was made at the same conference 47 AB, when the decision to build the Tower was also made.

Unfortunately you overstate what the BWB says. In 47AB, the 12 major ajahs decided to build TV. No mention is made of a decision to be the WT or to go after illegitimate AS in the BWB in 47AB, you claim so, but the book doesn't actually say that. It seems that a goal on not just founding a town, but unifying the 12 ajahs in a group was likely, as is stated by the book. The shortest summary of the decision by the book is "the decision [ ... ] to build Tar Valon and consolidate Aes Sedai power".

Both decisions are complementary to each other, because they are only two aspects of the real task to unify all channeling women in one organization. From the decision to fight the unlegitimate (i.e. those who want not to participate the unified Tower) it's clear that the unification was not intended to be peaceful, but that said unification was rather considered to be something to be achieved at any cost.

I'm deeply frustrated by your weaving around my entire thesis. You and I seem to agree that the 12 ajahs agreed to unify. But you neglect that the illegitimate AS apparantly included fully half of those that made previously "agreed", which is a verys strong sign that something important happened after 47AB, in my theory that something important has a name, ... Kiam Lopiang.

What a better indication that the Aes Sedai of 47AB (when Kiam Lopiang was still not mentioned) considered radical violent measures as appropriate for their policy even in a less critical task than the male-channelers treat.

Your timing is now very much off, and it's crucial to my theory. Illegitimate channelers are considered targets in roughly 50AB, and in 77AB definately include large sections of the 12 ajahs that agreed to unify. In 47AB the 12 ajahs were obviously not targeting each other, right? So something happened in short period, in about 3 years, Kiam Lopiang comes out of no where and blackballs a fully half or more of the alliance of 12. That's essential to my theory, and I can't tell if you are sweeping it under the rug on accident or if I'm reading you badly, because I didn't think your debating style includes sweeping that under the rug on purpose just to argue.

The building of Tar Valon begun not at 47 AB, but only after 98 AB

I quibble on that too. Construction of the town of TV began in 98AB, but prior to that farms and labor could be gathering, and the alliance turning against each other. The decision to build the town was made in 47AB, but by 68AB the name "White Tower" was in use, so between 47AB and 68AB a plan to build a physical Tower was made. Just as between 47AB and 77AB a plan to still people who'd already agreed to join the town and unity of 47AB was made because such was done in 77AB. All signs point to something happening after 47AB, something important. Something I call Kiam Lopiang.

when the struggle against the Tower apparently decided that the unification struggle is successfully completed. The name of Kiam Lopiang appears for the first time only at this 98 AB, when the great Unification struggle was finished and the building was started (and the Amyrlin Seat title became official).

You again are reading much into the data that is not actually there. Note the passive voice of the "is shown as" and "had been chosen" and how about the bold and outright "title [of Amyrlin], one she apparently had held for several years", clearly the document of 98AB is a document. And the Amyrlin was raised earlier than 98AB, so likely Kiam Lopiang appeared earlier than 98AB and likely the decision to attack half of the alliance of 12 was made earlier. In fact if you read on, the BWB says that in roughly between 50AB and 100AB many AS were "'forced to kneel to the Amyrlin Seat and the White Tower'", do a little reality check on that quote and the time period involved. Physical construction of TV began in 98AB (that's exact, the quote is "Construction on [ ... ] Tar Valon [ ... ] did not begin until 98AB"). Since a physical Tower is part of the city, presumably that didn't begin until then either. And a later quote from the document of 98AB says "though the White Tower itself would not be finished for another hundred years" which is enough evidence that I grant that we both may assume that physical WT construction began in 98AB at the earliest, just like the city. So from roughly 50AB to 98AB who were these AS being forced to kneel to? And what WT? My theory is that there had been plans for a physical WT in sometime maybe as earlier as 47AB, definately for years before 98AB which is when construction started. Similarly for the town. But I don't think half of the ajahs decided to call themselves illegitimate and demand that the others hunt them. So I think something happened after 47AB, probably very very shortly afterwards. I think it's clear that half the ajahs were outlawed after but not during the 47AB meeting. I think it's obvious that they were destroyed completely by around 100AB, and the roughness of the 100AB date is an indicator to me that they were probably crushed before 98AB and that the construction was held off while they waited for final unification to be unchallengable in the form that those in power wanted.

It is also significant that in the document from 98 AB the word "aja" is not mentioned at all, and that the Hall is called "closest council to the Amyrlin", i.e. the leading role of the Amyrlin is apparently emphasized against the power of the ajahs.

I'm disappointed dragonburned fool. Very much so. The Hall is called "closest council to the Amyrlin"? The BWB does *not* say that! The Hall had already been choosen by 98AB, and the Amyrlin was closely advised not by the Hall, but by seven advisors. Six of whom represented six of the seven largest ajahs of 47AB and one of which was Kiam Lopiang, who lead *none* of the largest ajahs in 47AB. The Hall was not those seven people. The key part of the document is how 6 ajahs lost power and 1 person, Kiam Lopiang gained it. This point is further spelled out on the next page where we hear about what specifically was happening to the 6 ajahs that did not make it into the inner circle. They were forced to kneel, they were killed, they were stilled, they were tortured. And thus is the crux of my theory. Kiam Lopiang took the power of fully half the alliance of 12 during the same time that everyone not in the original 12 was subjugated. An amazing feat that happened before 77AB, maybe as soon as 50AB or even earlier. Plus you claim that the Amyrlin's power is emphasized over that the ajahs, yet also claim that ajah isn't mentioned, plus you gloss over the fact that it is the word Ajah that happens to be absent, not neccessarily the word ajah. This is also an important distinction in my theory.

there are Sitters from ajahs in 47AB and there are Sitters of Ajahs at the end of 2nd century AB, but there are neither ajahs nor Ajahs nor Sitters in 98 AB, but an autocratic Amyrlin.

You infer much that I contest. Sitting does not make one a Sitter, so there is no evidence of Sitters in 47AB. You claim that there are now Sitters in 98AB, but this is not explicitly stated, and in fact there is a Hall, and there are those that sit in the Hall, Sitters. Who they sit for is more unclear, as are their numbers or their freedom. You dispute this unclarity, but the text is unclear and wishing does not not make it clear.

Further, you give much independance to the Amyrlin that again is not stated. "Closely advising" could very well mean "strong figurehead in public" and "taking orders in private", there is really no sign of autocracy, what is clear is that leaders of some ajahs that agreed to unify were stilled and others forced to kneel and Kiam Lopiang gained much power. That's the clear part and it's the only part I base my theory on. My theory is that Kiam gains power before 98AB and that 6 ajahs lose power between 47AB and 98AB (many in less than 30 years (20 if you trust the Historians apparantly shaky subtraction skills)).

Exactly the time around 98 AB (when Kiam Lopiang is there) is the zenithe of the central Amyrlin Power against any ajahs and an apotheosis of non-democratic rule.

Zenith? Hardly any evidence for this, just your speculation. What exists in 98AB is a plethora of paperwork as the physical construction of TV begins, no more and no less. The Amyrlin was raised earlier, former ajahs were subjugated earlier, and female AS civil war is wrapping up. Hardly a zenith, more of a transition from housecleaning to management if anything special at happened in 98AB except construction.

The ajahs seem to become unsignificant and the Tower seems to become autocratic.

Please share your support for you claims. Nothing "seems" to indicate such things to me at all. I see 6 ajahs very much signifigant and 6 very much insignifigant. I see one person coming out of a 47AB nowhere to have already become signifigant. For autocracy I see zero evidence either way. Definately some ajahs are in favor, others are not. And that's my point, that Kiam surplanted 6 whole ajahs.

The Ajahs (in capital) changed that into the current state. The Seven Ajahs were the way to keep some democracy inside the Tower, to limit the central power of Amyrlins and to ensure debates between independent peers in the Hall.

I couldn't disagree more. The Hall limits the Amyrlin. And the Hall has limited debate, but the Ajah structure does the opposite. The Ajahs are autocratic on their members, lifelong bindings obligations. And the Ajahs avoid debate on their little spheres. The anti-thesis of open debate. The Ajahs destroy cooperation and democracy. Plus you imply that Ajahs exist in 98AB and they change things. Far from it, it seems more likely that the Hall was democratic to begin with and the 7 advisors invented Ajahs to coopt the procedures for installing Hall members to being puppets of their choice exactly to avoid debate on issues like how to deal with male channelers.

In current time the role of the seven Ajahs is exactly that: they don't allow the Amyrlins become despots ruling vie simple commands and everything concerning the Tower must be debated in the Hall.

Again, I disagree totally. The Hall balances the Amyrlin, and debates some things. But the Ajahs moderate and limit that debate. There are thousands of things that "concern the Tower" that are not debated. For instance, the secret weaves and procedures of the Ajahs, and the way that Ajahs select their Sitters and leaders and act within their spheres. These are simply not debated because the Ajahs took over the Hall. And the point of Ajahs in my theory is to avoid debates about these exact things. To cover up fatalities in the Reds as they recruit Black sisters without non-Reds butting their noses in. To avoid debates amongst the full tower about how to deal with boy channelers. To have secrecy in general that allows the movements of the Balck to go unnoticed.

The Seven Ajahs system is now the most powerfull tool of the Tower to ensure different opinions and debatting.

Again we disagree completely. The way one encourages differing opinions is by allowing freedom to disagree, not to have secret cabals that put taboos on open debates of some topics. Consider the policy of gentling. It's a Red policy. It's not up for debate, and different opinions are not tolerated. The Ajahs made it that way. Not the Amyrlin, and not the Hall, the Ajahs.

So your statement that the Ajahs were created for centralized Power is completely incorrect. IMO the seven Ajahs were created as a resistence against the power hunger of the Amyrlins.

It's frustrating to me that each contrary poster against my theory has their own place where they first assume something and then they rail against my theory. You apparantly assume that Elisane Tishar somehow declares herself Amyrlin all by herself and goes on a lone killing, stilling, and making people kneel spree, and that the survivors decide to reward her with a balance of power with the Hall instead of killing her. I find such an assumption implausible. If we disregard such a theory, then we have 12 ajahs that somehow later have an Amyrlin and a Hall, but with 6 ajahs (and Kiam Lopiang) in power and the rest very much not in power. We can ask how that happens instead of assuming how it happens or what the power arrangements are. My theory about how that happens is that Kiam Lopiang is a black sister. That the Black Ajah was the first capital Ajah with lifelong membership and autocratic rule. That it was not one of the twelve and was about to be squeezed out of possibilities for power and instead choose to squeeze others out. It created a new ajah (not openly black but one that would allow recruiting of new members) that helps the Shadow win TG and to make room for it to be powerful initiates a sweep against half of the alliance. Sure, other theories are possible. But at least I'm explaining what happened from 47AB where everyone agree to get along, to 77AB when some of those same people are on the wrong end of the stick. At least I'm theorizing a transition from what we know happening in 47AB to what we know happened later. As opposed to my opponents who appear to assume things like Ajahs or autocratic Amyrlins fully in power and then theorize from there. If you want to attempt to even compete against my theory you have to explain how 12 ajahs that met and agree to work together became against each other and into 7 lifelong autocratic Ajahs. Just assuming that the Creator raises an Amyrlin is not a competing theory, just as assuming that seven capital Ajahs appear out of nowhere is not a competely theory, those are merely assumptions.

Temporary ajahs cannot resist for long against the central Power,

Temporary ajahs didn't even survive as long as 47AB, read the BWB more carefully next time.

But strong traditional Ajahs can resist the central Power even of very ruthless Amyrlin, as we can see in the real White Tower.

Particular autocrats can keep other particular people from seizing or excerising autocratic power, yes. Rather much like burning your cross can keep them away from your enemies or how killing youself can prevent your enemies from killing you. Quite true, but meaningless nonetheless. You assumed Elisane was autocratic when she had 7 advisors as well as a Hall. And the Ajahs are autocratic themselves, so I fail to see your point.

Aes Sedai have the debatting they still have due to the Ajahs system.

You mention many times that the Ajahs instill debate. I see the opposite. So please give evidence. Where are the debates about male channelers? The end of those debates seem to coicide exactly with the formation of the formal 7 Ajahs. So where's your contrary evidence? There was clearly debate in 47AB, the text is clear that 47 is a debate. And presumeably a debate where everything is up for debate, anything at all. No capital Ajahs exist then, though the Historian thinks that the ajahs at that point are permanent groups, no longer temporary. Debate occured, and then policies changed, again debate seems possible, and no capital Ajahs to be seen for a while yet. In fact the Ajahs don't seem to appear until debat about the issues claimed by the Ajahs has stopped. Probably people debated until agreement was reached and then things were pulled of the table into the group as a permanent concession. So as the debate lessened, the ajah became and Ajah exactly because it's domain was no longer subject to full debate. Eventually they can organize themselves as they wish and appoint Sitters as they wish and operat in their domain as they wish, no matter how dangerous their operation is, not matter if it let's insane boy channelers walk freely before being captured.

69

free will: 2005-06-24

Anubis: Half right. Think about it. Its not Ishmaels MO. Since when has Ishmael ever killed anyone to punish them? Hes killed darkfriends in a rage but they dont count. Lanfear he mindtraps. Bors he kills the mans family and lets him know its his fault. Jain Farstrider, "paints like a fool" sends him to a steadding thinking he was free. Its not Ishmaels style. He would MUCH rather have an opponet alive and knowing he had been defeated, then dead and peacfully in the grave.

We are talking about LTT here, not an average person with an average grudge or situation. It's personal. In the War of Power Ishamael tried as hard to turn LTT as to defeat him, so says the BWB. Turning. And killing. Ishamael had a pet philosophical theory that LTT's soul had turned to the Shadow in previous turnings of the Wheel, and that LTT had been defeated in pervious turnings. He didn't seem to much care which happened based on him putting equal efforts into both attempts, so if we assume that he was rational (big assumption) it seems that he preferred to do whichever was easiest at the moment. When alone with a man more powerful than you, killing the other one is easiest. The only reason he didn't do it right away is, as I said, because he wanted LTT to regret not turning when he had the chance. But I'm honest and I'll admit that Ishamael might not have been trying to do Rand in at that moment, maybe you have to be sane to be turned, not that I saw a double circle anywhere nearby in the Prologue.

70

Anubis: 2005-06-24

Elaida had more non dark help then she did dark. Your rebutal is pathetic. So the Red Ajah is a bad idea. So was LTTs sealing of the bore, but it seemed like the only choice at the time. I dont see how you couldnt understand someone being hell bent on stopping male channeling mere years after they destroyed civilization. Paniced people do stupid things.

71

clarkkd: 2005-06-25

The founding of the white tower:

I. Aes Sedai met in 47 AB

A. Those present:

1. Elisane Tishar

2. Mitsora Caal

3. Karella Fanway

4. Azille Narof

5. Saraline Amerano

6. Dumera Alman

7. Salindi Casolan

8. Catlynde Artein

9. Biranca Hasad

10. Mailaine Harvole

11. Nemaira Eldros

12. Lideine Rajan

13. Several other not mentioned

B. Possible goals:

1. To build a new city centralized power base

2. Unification of all Aes Sedai

II. Progress as of 98 AB

A. Planning stages only

1. The name "The White Tower" as the central structure of Tar Valon had been in use for 30 years. There for around 68 AB.

2. Elisane Tishar the first known Amyrlin Seat, and had been for sometime.

3. The First known Hall of the tower.

a. Mitsora Caal

b. Karella Fanway

c. Azille Narof

d. Saraline Amerano

e. Dumera Alman

f. Salindi Casolan

g. Kiam Lopiang

III. Standing policies from 50 AB thru 100 AB.

A. Campaign against women "pretending Aes Sedai"

1. Known resistors:

a. Lideine

b. Mailaine

2. consequences

a. Lideine was stilled.

b. Mailaine submitted to the Tower.

3. rough time frame given 77 AB

B. Other groups and what happened

1. some where stilled

2. large numbers joined the tower and thus accepted as Aes Sedai

The above was taken from the BWB pages 91-92.

in 47 AB there is no mention of Kiam Lopiang, why? It seems to me that in fact while not mentioned she was in deed at the meeting in 47 AB as a member of the 13th group, to small to be mentioned with the other 12 groups. I also see from 47 AB that the decision to build a grand city was made, and that Lideine Rajan, and Mailiane Harvole did not agree with this. In fact I would go so far as to say that they took there two groups and left the delegation.

Maybe more followed suit but at least 7 of the original 13 stayed the course. At least half of the original delegation formed the core of today's Aes Sedai. Because I do not know what 4 of the original delegation decided I will set them aside for now and will deal with the 2 factions that walked out.

Lideine and Mailaine as seen from the BWB where strong enough to hold out against the "White Tower" until 77 AB. I would guess that the reason they where able to hold out for so long roughly 30 years was because of their numbers. I would also say that in this time the power struggle was much like that in Sanchen.

Lideine's army was crushed in a decisive battle by the Tower and that the survivors where brought back and stilled very publicly. Mailaine's army decided to give up and keep their ability to channel over what happened to Lideine.

With these two adversaries crushed the Tower turned on the lesser groups using their previous victories to fan the flames of their reputation as coming down hard on non channelers.

I believe that suggesting Kiam Lopiang of some sort of power grab is a little short sided. It would seem that she was one of the original participants of the meeting in 47 AB. She is not mentioned because she did not represent a large enough body as did the other twelve that where mentioned by name.

It is obvious that she had influence as she was nominated to the post of advisor to the Amyrlin. However it is a fallacy to say that she showed up and started some sort of coupe in 98 AB, stilling women and so forth seeing as how this policy was in effect in 50 AB, 3 years after the 47 AB meeting.

I believe that the meeting in 47 AB was to first and for most to consolidate their power base. If they did not centralize I think that it would have been only a matter of time before a group like the white cloaks came along and wiped out the individual sisters.

I think that this is why The Tower Flowers where so aggressive in stopping individual channelers. Purely a survival mechanisim.

72

Narianna: 2005-06-25

free will , you haven't still explained the points raised by adf.

as he and many others have stated many times there is no evidence that kiam was involved in the 47AB conference or its aftermath.

and please note that the intention of building a huge city, the only stated aim of the conference is a natural on e for a group that wants to be official and united, no matter if some of its constituents don't favour it.

can u present evidence that kiam was involved in the aftermath of the conference? can u present evidence that kiam lopiang has a SUDDEN rise in power? can u deny the fact that kiam's name is mentioned only as the advisor of amyrlin in 98AB?

so is it far fetched to suppose that kiam's rise was a smooth one over the period of 50 years?

73

Anubis: 2005-06-25

So what if Kiam was Allisune's closest assistant in Allisune's original ajah? When Allisune became Amyrlin and thus a supreme ruler over all ajahs, wouldn't she want the ajah of her most immediate supporters to be also represented in her closest council? I see the most likely explanation for Kiam to be Allisune's second-in-rank in her formal ajah.

74

Anubis: 2005-06-25

oops tam, hope you didnt post my previous.

**Also we know the first known thing the Tower did after the conference - it was not the building of Tar Valon, that started only after 98 AB. It was the campaign against those, who claim to be Aes Sedai without the "right" to be such. In other words it was a campaign against those channelers who were not willing to participate in the 47AB conference and who don't submit their conventions.**

You say all this like its a bad thing. I believe that Aes Sedai had nightmares in a world in which every Aes Sedai went their own way. The knowledge of Traveling was lost, the only way that Aes Sedai could have been stopped from setting up their own personal Feifdoms was strong centralized power. Look what happened in Seanchan. Aes Sedai free to go their own ways created a hellish land of murder death and mayhem that paved the way for the Seanchan Empire.

**They decided to build a splendid city in a land that had no other remarkable cities more than 150 years later! They deicded to build this city as the official place of all Aes Sedai. Note they doesn't build a net of local Aes Sedai chapters but a singular grandious central city on a place where nobody lived earlier. Briefly the Aes Sedai decided to build the capital city of the world. When similar decisions to build a city that will be uncomparatively greater than any existing city, and that will be build on empty place, it was allways a mark of somebody's attempt to create a strong centralized government.**

Local Chapters = Seanchan. As I mentioned before. You say that Tar Valon was intended as a world capital. When has that ever been the case? Tar Valon has always been an independent City-State. And about the size and grandness of Tar Valon. They wanted a return to the glory of the Age of Legends. They wanted to be a shining example for the world, and they were.

**Allisune Tishar (I'm not sure about the spelling of the name) becoming Amyrlin means that she has to be the strongest leader.**

No, Amryllins are chosen for numerous reasons. Look at Egwene.

**So what if Kiam was Allisune's closest assistant in Allisune's original ajah? When Allisune became Amyrlin and thus a supreme ruler over all ajahs, wouldn't she want the ajah of her most immediate supporters to be also represented in her closest council? I see the most likely explanation for Kiam to be Allisune's second-in-rank in her formal ajah.**

Mere supposition.

Heres my theory, and since you have the BWB and I don't feel free to debate it. The division was caused by the decision to use the Oath Rod.

75

Anubis: 2005-06-25

**We are talking about LTT here, not an average person with an average grudge or situation. It's personal. In the War of Power Ishamael tried as hard to turn LTT as to defeat him, so says the BWB. Turning. And killing. Ishamael had a pet philosophical theory that LTT's soul had turned to the Shadow in previous turnings of the Wheel, and that LTT had been defeated in pervious turnings.**

He wants LTT to live. He wants him to suffer. That was the whole point of Healing him. He knows LTT is not a threat. It was a Statment. Your sealing the bore did nothing. "I win again Lews Therin".

76

Anubis: 2005-06-25

Here, "Elan Morin grimaced. "Look at you," he said scornfully. "Once you stood first among the

Servants. Once you wore the Ring of Tamyrlin, and sat in the High Seat. Once you summoned

the Nine Rods of Dominion. Now look at you! A pitiful, shattered wretch. But it is not enough.

You humbled me in the Hall of Servants. You defeated me at the Gates of Paaran Disen. You humbled me in the Hall of Servants. But I am the greater, now. I will not let you die without knowing that. When you die, your last thought will be the full knowledge of your defeat, of how complete and utter it is. If I let you die at all."

77

free will: 2005-06-25

I dont see how you couldnt understand someone being hell bent on stopping male channeling mere years after they destroyed civilization. Paniced people do stupid things.

Maybe you just missed my point again. The Red Ajah is not hell bent on protecting the world from boy channelers. Quite the opposite. They actually are exposing the world to more saidin tainted craziness than any of the reasonable solutions. The Reds don't send boys to stedding before they can channel. They don't cull men in general to change the "male wilder to innocent civilian ratio". They don't even put the age range where sparkers develope unders special scrutiny. No Oath Rods are used. No man that is found running around sparking is used to first run around and declare other men "unable to learn" to give those men clean slates. The Reds are not even close to being hell bent on stopping boy channelers, the only thing they are hel bent on is preventing other ways of dealing with boy channelers. Cause they must have intended the bad PR from destructive boy channelers on the loose. Cause they must have intended to loose sisters, and in fact use that risky exposure to cover up their recruitment of black sisters. Cause they must have intended their inefficient "wait until he sparks and hurts people, then close your eyes and say nah nah nah nah and pretend that he can't help you find more like them before those more can hurt anyone" strategy would take huge resources, thus preventing the WT from doing much else, so that it requires huge man power so that the black dominated Ajah can be the majority ajah and thus have a fair amount of power for their numbers. Come on, look at New Spring, the black have no trouble being in the Red Ajah and are pretty biased by Red philosophy instead of more pratical rational thinking.

It's like if you had a garden and someone had the brilliant idea to only go after weeds that had gone to seed and insisted that the seeded weeds can't be the same species as the younger unseeded versions even though as a group you know that isn't true, but the Red Gardener Ajah says that it's their business, and you can pull up seeded weeds, but that you can't compare that plant to others because that's a misuse of the seeded plant which has to be ritualistically ignored while it's waiting to be destroyed in a giant ritual that serves little to not constructive purpose.

78

free will: 2005-06-25

"I will not let you die without knowing that. When you die, your last thought will be the full knowledge of your defeat, of how complete and utter it is. If I let you die at all."

So Ishamael doesn't want anyone to kill the DR without Ishamael first getting to rub in the DR's face how much better Ishamael is. It's not clear that he objects to the DR dying. Not clear at all.

79

clarkkd: 2005-06-25

The definition of “ajah” through the years.

I. Up through 50 AB:

A. In the old tongue, it is defined as an informal and temporary group of people gathered together for a common purpose or goal or by a common set of beliefs.

1. Proof is found in 23 page dictionary from circa 50 AB

B. In 47 AB...

1. There are 13 groups of ajahs.

a. the first 12 groups have their leaders spelled out by name

b. the 13th group has no common purpose and thus no leader by name.

II. The change from ajah to Ajah:

A. In the first century AB with no specific date given the meaning and spelling changed

1. ajah: informal, temporary group, held together for a common purpose, goal or common set of beliefs.

2. Ajah: A sisterhood of Aes Sedai.

a. known from a surviving dictionary circa 200 AB.

III. Direct quotes about the council to the Amyrlin Seat.

A. The Hall of the Tower had been chosen by 98 AB

1. only six of the seven sisters where listed before in 47 AB

2. the council was know as “closely advising the Amyrlin Seat”

a. found on page 91 paragraph 4, sentence 3 of the BWB

IV. The breaking

A. two dates given for the start of the breaking

1. The major destruction caused by LTT

2. as much as 10 years later.

B. Civilization maintained cohesion for many years after the Strike at SG

1. Shadow span was priority number one at this time

a. Latra Posae, led the strike against the armies of the dark.

b. The shadow's backstabbing made Latra's task easier.

C. the devastation of the breaking finally ended the war against the shadow.

1. Physical survival for both sides became more important.

2. The breaking lasted anywhere from 239 to 344 years.

a. Defined by the major geological and climatic upheavals.

b. Within a few years of the discovery of the taint Male channelers entered Stedding.

V. The calendar system's

A. LTT goes insane, the official start date of the Breaking.

1. The breaking lasted as long as 344 years.

a. The land finally stopped shifting.

b. The last male channeler from the AOL died.

B. The AB calendar started.

1. This calendar did not come into effect until 200 years after the last male died.

2. The date 1 AB was assigned arbitrarily as no records survived or where kept of when the last male died.

C. The FY calendar started.

1. The AB calendar survived until the end of the Trolloc wars.

2. The date was again arbitrarily assigned as records where lost/destroyed.

All information above copied straight from the BWB.

There is a time when male channelers are not a serious threat to the current society. As such the Aes Sedai combated the shadow's armies. During this major blows to the shadow where dealt whether from Aes Sedai or from internal struggles. Only when larger numbers of Male Channelers started going insane did the fight against shadow spawn stop.

The male channelers caused destruction on an unimaginable scale. They changed large land masses into oceans, in other instances they raised contents from the depths of the sea. The killed or attacked anything or anyone that they saw. The taint it seems caused intense visions, so much so that the channeler lashed out.

This kind of destruction would be like an iron worker being seared to the bone. Or a car accident victim freezing when they hear tire screeches. The only choice is to overcome that fear, or to remove it.

There was around 300 years of fear! With the potential of more destruction if male channelers where allowed to wield the one power. I don't see a problem with the Aes Sedai, deciding to gentle men for all eternity at this point.

It would be reasonable to assume (< -- Some day I'm going to get in trouble using this word.) that a large percentage of women channelers had been alive for most of if not all of the breaking. As such they where able to realize that there was no immediate cure for the taint. We know this from the use of the bowl of the winds “If you must know, it was the problem of men who can channel that drew them to it. The Breaking of the World was a living memory to some, then. I don't suppose even very many sisters remember...”. ( TPoD: The Breaking Storm).

By taking the information from the BWB we see that There was around 300 years of geographical rearranging, at some point the last male channeler died, many events take place and 200 years later a calendar system is worked out. The inventor of this calendar works backwards and assigns dates to specific events like a large group of Aes Sedai meeting, well let's say that was 47 AB. In other words there is obviously overlap in the death of the last male channeler and the early events of the first century AB.

If real world examples are going to be used that could potentially tick some(me)one off, I would appreciate it if people would use correct times, dates, and life expectancies! Jesus' ministry lasted at most 4 years. Teachers/leaders did not gain credibility until age 30, therefore Christ died at the age of 34, NOT 50! The calendar we use was not put into devised until 1582 AD, and put into use until the 18 th century. The parallels between the Wheel of Time AB calendar and the Real World calendar is annoying. The only thing that comes close is to state that there is probably errors in both systems. Our calendar is off by about 5 years, How far off is the Wheel of Time AB calendar?

80

free will: 2005-06-25

Narianna: you haven't still explained the points raised by adf.

as he and many others have stated many times there is no evidence that kiam was involved in the 47AB conference or its aftermath.


How many times do I have to say that I never claimed that Kiam was at the 47AB meeting or even thought the agreement was acceptable? 5? 1000? 10^6? Something happened between 47AB and 77AB, right? You don't seriously think the 12 ajahs univerally agreed to outlaw half of their members, do you? So something happened. The records arent' very clear about what happened when, but from about 50AB to 100AB, women were attacked. Nothing special is mentioned about which women being targeted changing, so it's a fairly safe bet to say that it was the same tactics for the entire apprximately 50 years. Since we know that women in the 12 ajahs were targeted, these women were targeted for the entire period. Since they wouldn't have agreed to target themselves in 47AB we conclude that a change happened between 47AB and about 50AB. We don't have direct evidence about who gained power between 47AB and 50AB, but we know who gained power and lost power between 47AB and 98AB, so that's all we got. I don't understand what is considered controversial about this theory. Something happened, some people lost power, one person gained it. For some reason stupid strategies are accepted as good, even though the only people is helps are balck sisters. What's so controversial about putting that all together?

so is it far fetched to suppose that kiam's rise was a smooth one over the period of 50 years?

What's far fetched is to claim no darkfriend involvement. There are so many signatures of darkfriend involvement, that's why I made that the title of the theory. Kiam may have been a Light fearing dupe, sure. Maybe her personal rise to power wasn't so swift. The point is what agency made stupid strageies seem wise? What agency destroyed half the acceptability of AS in under three years? What agency made the Reds the perfect tool for the Black Ajah? If you don't take the obvious answer of "Friends of the Dark" then you have some explaining to do. It's that simple.

81

free will: 2005-06-25

clarkkd: The founding of the white tower:

I.A. Yes, those channelers were present.

I.B. BWB page 90 says "When in 47AB the Aes Sedai decided to build a new city as a center of their power," so it's a stated opinion from the man who actually read the document, not "a possiblity".

II.A. BWB page 91 says "Construction [on TV] did not begin until 98AB", so it's not merely at a planning stage.

II.A.2 It doesn't say first known, it says first already Amyrlin and first one with that title. If there has been another with that title between 47AB and 98AB, those present would have remembered. It does not rule out a Tamyrlin between 47AB and 98AB, if there was a coup of that magnitude, they just selected a new name and pretended that the other organization had never occured.

II.A.3 All incorrect. You have listed the seven advisors to the Amyrlin, it is not stated that any of those seven people are in the Hall, that's something you made up just now and pretended that these people were in the Hall.

III.A. Forgets to mention that the BWB says on page 92 that it is those same 12+ women that started the campaign, thus obscures the fact that a change occured between about 50AB and 77AB, and more likley between about 50AB and 67AB. Also the roughness of about 50AB and about 100AB are neglected.

III.A.3. No, the letter is from 77AB, the author clearly thinks that the events happened before 67AB.

in 47 AB there is no mention of Kiam Lopiang, why? It seems to me that in fact while not mentioned she was in deed at the meeting in 47 AB as a member of the 13th group, to small to be mentioned with the other 12 groups.

There is no mention of 13 groups. There are 12 ajah heads, and some others, there is not even a mention of a 13th ajah you are making stuff up. Kiam might have been present, I can't tell because the Historian is a jerk and won't put a close quotation mark even though obvious his voice appears in the next paragraph at the latest. He seems to "infer" that there are other ajahs present, but the fact that he says "doubtless" instead of just stating it, exactly makes me doubt it, because he doesn't hesitate to make concrete claim elsewhere like saying that they agreed to found the town.

I also see from 47 AB that the decision to build a grand city was made, and that Lideine Rajan, and Mailiane Harvole did not agree with this.

Yes, it is clear that you have a different edition of the BWB than I do and read many things that I don't. I see no quote that says that Lideine Rajan disagreed about founding TV. I see no quote that says that Mailiane Harvole disagreed about founding TV. In fact I see the historian claim that both were present and claim that an agreement was reached to found TV. You'd think he'd say "when in 47AB the Aes Sedai DID NOT decide to build a new city" if there was not an agreement reached. But he didn't. You are just making up that they disagreed. I'm frustrated that no one seems to care that I go to great effort to say what comes from the BWB and what is my theory. I wish others would try as hard.

In fact I would go so far as to say that they took there two groups and left the delegation.

And you wouldn't alone in thinking that the writer of the BWB was a stupid lying ninny, but for those who believe the writer of the BWB we have to go on the fact that the said that the surviving partial minutes claim that speak of women "threatening to walk out", but it doesn't say that they left, which would have been something to mention had it happened. It does say that a decision was made, it says people threatened to leave, it doesn't say that anyone did, and it could have said that, but it didn't.

82

free will: 2005-06-25

clarkkd: Maybe more followed suit but at least 7 of the original 13 stayed the course. At least half of the original delegation formed the core of today's Aes Sedai. Because I do not know what 4 of the original delegation decided I will set them aside for now and will deal with the 2 factions that walked out.

Lideine and Mailaine as seen from the BWB where strong enough to hold out against the "White Tower" until 77 AB.

Actually, if you believe the Historian of the BWB (HotBWB), there is no sign that anyone walked out and an decision was reached, and those same 12+ people went after other women and sometime before 67AB (not 77AB) those two had already be turned against and defeated. "Holding out" against your allies for almost 20 years isn't usually a feat worth explaining, compared to why your allies turned against you at all.

I would guess that the reason they where able to hold out for so long roughly 30 years was because of their numbers. I would also say that in this time the power struggle was much like that in Sanchen.

In Seanchan, everyone lied about everything. There was a decision and starting about 50AB, those same 12+ women were consolidating power. Within 20 years, those who didn't speak up when the alliance came after others found out that they were on the wrong end of the stick now. That's a bit similar to Seanchan in that the 7 ajahs that won were big fat liars like the Seanchan AS were. But it's different because they didn't turn on it each other totally, in fact they started actual construction on TV in 98AB.

Lideine's army was crushed in a decisive battle by the Tower and that the survivors where brought back and stilled very publicly. Mailaine's army decided to give up and keep their ability to channel over what happened to Lideine.

Skipping over how they go on the wrong side of the war after first fighting against "those pretending to be AS".

With these two adversaries crushed the Tower turned on the lesser groups using their previous victories to fan the flames of their reputation as coming down hard on non channelers.

Totally incomprehensible, and by that I don't mean that I understand and disagree, I don't understand. The 12+ attacked stragglers first, only later did the 12 turn against each other. And what do non-channelers have to do with this.

I believe that suggesting Kiam Lopiang of some sort of power grab is a little short sided. It would seem that she was one of the original participants of the meeting in 47 AB.

To you it seems that way. But you don't even mention any reason. You postulate a 13th ajah, which at least tHotBWB also suspects. Then you specifically postulate that Kiam was in charge of one of them. If you are going to put so much faith in the opinions of tHorBWB, then you can't pick and choose, so if that were the case, then Kiam's ajah wasn't just small or unmentioned, it was TOO small to be SIGNIFIGANT. Hence a change to 1 of 7 is a BIG change, exactly like you claim didn't happen and which I claim did happen.

She is not mentioned because she did not represent a large enough body as did the other twelve that where mentioned by name.

If you are going by tHotBWB opinions, it's so pathetically small that it's insignifigant. Which is what I've said all along, she was a nobody with no power. Thank you.

It is obvious that she had influence as she was nominated to the post of advisor to the Amyrlin.

Obviously she had gained power between 47AB and 98AB.

However it is a fallacy to say that she showed up and started some sort of coupe in 98 AB

Good thing I never said that. Just like I never said she was present in the meeting of 47AB.

stilling women and so forth seeing as how this policy was in effect in 50 AB, 3 years after the 47 AB meeting.

We know that in 47AB there is no evidence that anyone left. And there was evidence that likely would have said that, had it occured. So I infer that no one left. We also know that a decision was reached. We also know that these same people targeted those who were "pretending to be Aes Sedai", and we know that some of the ajahs who went in on all this were themselves destroyed. This indicates that someone gained power and someone lost power. Who lost power is mostly obvious, and who gained power is against mostly obvious, Kiam Lopiang. We have no evidence of anyone else that wanted to do in half the female channelers. No one else is know to have benfited, and indications are that it took less than 20 years to finish crushing some of the ajahs, so it must have started earlier. Since Kiam's rise to power started at some point, what's so outrageous about looking for connections? And if we ask what the Friends of the Dark wanted (and there were Friends of the Dark after the Breaking) they'd want a Black Ajah, they'd want to be able to recruit, and they'd like the WT to be controllable if unified and divided against the non-channelers if possible, they'd want the modern Ajah structure specifically with the modern Red Ajah. Seeing as the Black dream became real it's reasonable to assume that they actively encouraged it. Since we don't see the Friends of the Dark founding WTs in other continents then it's not that unreasonable to assume the Black Ajah wasn't at the meeting of 47AB, that they had to hijack that decision and turn it into what it became. One theory hangs together, one theory fits all the data without loose ends. That theory is that Kiam Lopiang was a Friend of the Dark.

I believe that the meeting in 47 AB was to first and for most to consolidate their power base. If they did not centralize I think that it would have been only a matter of time before a group like the white cloaks came along and wiped out the individual sisters.

Like what happened to the Sea Folk, and in Shara, and in Seanchan, yeah, they'd be wiped out. Sure.

I think that this is why The Tower Flowers where so aggressive in stopping individual channelers. Purely a survival mechanisim.

That totally explains why the AS in Randland are the only channelers alive today. No Kin, no Wise Ones, no Windfinders, no one channels in Shara or in Seanchan.

83

free will: 2005-06-25

Anubis: So what if Kiam was Allisune's closest assistant in Allisune's original ajah? When Allisune became Amyrlin and thus a supreme ruler over all ajahs, wouldn't she want the ajah of her most immediate supporters to be also represented in her closest council?

I admit that that is possible, but I'm not sure how it changes anything. A change happened between 47AB and 67AB and many lost power. Kiam still gained power. And the Tower allowed boy channelers to go sparky. And the Tower allowed the blacks to recruit within the Red Ajah, and so on. Someone needed to aquire the power to do that and have the motive. Maybe it wasn't Kiam Lopiang acting alone. My original theory is merely that Friends of the Dark were involved. I don't know why people think that the Black Ajah got their dream fulfilled without any effort on their part.

84

free will: 2005-06-26

clarkkd: The definition of "ajah" through the years.

Once again, you come close enough to possibly fool people into thinking that the BWB says something other than what it says.

I. Up through 50 AB:

A. In the old tongue, it is defined as an informal and temporary group of people gathered together for a common purpose or goal or by a common set of beliefs.

1. Proof is found in 23 page dictionary from circa 50 AB


Actually, the BWB says that in the AoL, the AS were organized by "a vast sea of ajah, all constantly shrinking, growing, dividing, combining, melting away only to be reborn in some new guise and begin the process once more" which is when the term in your dictionary was valid. In the 47AB the ajahs that met were described as "ajahs, if they still can be called so as they are" which implies that somewhere between the AoL, then nature of the ajahs changed.

II. The change from ajah to Ajah:

A. In the first century AB with no specific date given the meaning and spelling changed


The BWB says "In the first centuries after the Breaking, the nature of ajah or Ajah changed.", that narrowes it down to between 1AB and 200AB, not to the first century like you claim.

1. ajah: informal, temporary group, held together for a common purpose, goal or common set of beliefs.

That is the AoL definition, already outdated by 47AB.

2. Ajah: A sisterhood of Aes Sedai.

And that's the definition from about 200AB.

III. Direct quotes about the council to the Amyrlin Seat.

Your heading implies that you think the council and the Hall are the same thing. Whereas we actually don't know if any member of the council is a member of the Hall. The BWB says "A Hall of the Tower had been chosen, but a council of seven was recorded as 'closely advising the Amyrlin Seat.'" That council could be a proper subset of the Hall, as you suggest in multiple posts, or it could be completely separate.

1. only six of the seven sisters where listed before in 47 AB

There was around 300 years of fear!

Again, there is no evidence that anyone lived through 300 years of fear. Not a single person.

With the potential of more destruction if male channelers where allowed to wield the one power. I don't see a problem with the Aes Sedai, deciding to gentle men for all eternity at this point.

And why don't they gentle all male mammals too? Since your thesis involves blaming a larger class (male channelers) for the actions of a few (the male Aes Sedai). So why not blame all the male mammals? It's just as rational. So why didn't that happen? Actually, there was 300 years of tainted saidin and not a single example of a non-Aes-Sedai boy channeler hurting anyone. And in fact, the second the last male Aes Sedai dies, the Breaking was over, imagine that, many boy channelers were still alive, but the Breaking was over, it's almost "as if" the Breaking were caused by male Aes Sedai, and not male mammals in general.

It would be reasonable to assume that a large percentage of women channelers had been alive for most of if not all of the breaking.

Maybe reasonable if you haven't read the BWB, but on page 89, the Historian of the BWB (HotBWB) says that the events up to the Breaking "suggest that no Aes Sedai alive at the end of teh Breaking had survived that entire span, or even a signifigant portion of it. The one possible exception may be the Aes Sedai who were involved in the building of Rhuidean, in the Aiel Waste.", in fact the HotBWB mentions that in the first century AB there were "already" many forgotten talents, lost abilities and that a vast amount of knowledge of the One Power was lost. These were lost because the people who knew them had died without teaching anyone. Every indication points to the fact that every Aes Sedai at the 47AB meeting had been born during or after the Breaking. So no, I do not think it is reasonable to randomly just assume otherwise for no purpose other than to disagree with my theory.

As such they where able to realize that there was no immediate cure for the taint.

I don't know what you mean. Temporary healing of the taint was known for the first 10 years of the Breaking at least. And it took a lot of time for the female Aes Sedai to give up treating the taint, I thought Elayne mentioned it in tEotW, but I've apparantly misremembered which book, so I'll have to wait until I read the series again to quote it for you.
By taking the information from the BWB we see that There was around 300 years of geographical rearranging, at some point the last male channeler died, many events take place and 200 years later a calendar system is worked out. The inventor of this calendar works backwards and assigns dates to specific events like a large group of Aes Sedai meeting, well let's say that was 47 AB. In other words there is obviously overlap in the death of the last male channeler and the early events of the first century AB.

That is NOT what the BWB says. You neglect that in 1AB the last male Aes Sedai was already dead. It doesn't matter than they couldn't assign 1AB to be the exact moment he died. He might have died in Shara or Seanchan or the Lands of Madness or the Sea Folk Islands, the calendar actually set 1AB to be the date when the Breaking stopped, so no male Aes Sedai AND the climate and the continents settled down. So surely something that happened 46 years after the last male Aes Sedai was known to be already dead did NOT happen at the same time as a male Aes Sedai was running around. It didn't.

But I'm going to assume that you missed the simple basic facts. Which is this. The Toman Calendar was universally adopted about 500 years after the Strike at SG and if you think otherwise you misread everything. 300 years of breaking, followed by 200 years before EVERYONE in Randland used Toma dur Ahmid's calendar. No one used Toma's calendar during the Breaking. Some people used other calendars as late as 200 years after the Breaking, but basically stopped when negotiations for the Compact started. For all I know Toma made his calendar the first day he noticed no more breaking and then revised it each time he got a report of more Breaking going on somewhere until he eventually for the reports older and older and less and less reliable and so stopped revising it. If so, it could have been totally fixed by 47AB, just because a few people in Randland weren't using it yet doesn't make it inaccurate. And there were definately no male Aes Sedai running around in 47AB, I think you are incorrectly thinking that the calendar was (universally) adopted 200 years after the breaking STARTED instead of correctly thinking that the calendar was (universally) adopted 200 years after it ended. That's what my example about a fictional Toma version of thr AD calendar was all about, which I think you failed to get since you so failed to get the WoT Toman Calendar.

If real world examples are going to be used that could potentially tick some(me)one off

Jesus is attributed with mentioning many many events that never happened, farmers with debts, all kinds of things that never happened. We don't know anything about what happened 2000 years ago because everyone who wrote things down wrote them much later when ideological wars were going on, so every and everything was biased. Roman records are the best ones because they didn't particularly care. And if the HotBWB were talking about our world, he'd mention the Roman calendar for those times, and then he'd mention which Roman year corresponded to which Gregorian year, we didn't have Trolloc Wars or a Breaking of the world. If you read my text then I say it's like or it's as if. I wanted to help people that were having trouble relating and I wanted round numbers, your objections aren't even clear to me, whereas hopefully I've made it clear how you insulted me by claiming that my wrongness was "obvious" to everyone, including me all along.

I would appreciate it if people would use correct times, dates, and life expectancies!

You claim you would appreciate it, but can you even do so yourself?

Jesus' ministry lasted at most 4 years.

You just said "at most" implying that it might have been less than 4 years.

Teachers/leaders did not gain credibility until age 30, therefore Christ died at the age of 34, NOT 50!

You just insisted that you KNOW that he died at exactly 34 years of age. Actually, if he started at 30 and had less than four years in service he might have been less than 34 when he died, so you aren't up to your own math standards. And you didn't say that people HAD to start at exactly age 30 or that they wouldn't be ALLOWED to minister and/or teach, so he COULD have waited until he was 34 to start and then been 38 when he died you don't have any firm evidence that you are citing, but you are making it clear that you "don't appreciate" the standards that you hold yourself to. You clearly missed the whole point of my post which is that the Compact happened closer to 500 years after the Strike at SG than to 200 years after the Strike at SG, that's the fact that many many people seem to get wrong.

The parallels between the Wheel of Time AB calendar and the Real World calendar is annoying.

You are annoyed. That's the only thing that is clear. The point was to take people semi-familiar with the modern calendar and CONTRAST it with the AB calendar. It didn't work since a bunch of people said "no it isn't" and I had to go and quote the BWB to prove my point anyway.

The only thing that comes close is to state that there is probably errors in both systems. Our calendar is off by about 5 years, How far off is the Wheel of Time AB calendar?

Off from what? Maybe a male Aes Sedai lived in the Island of Madness until 400AB, so maybe it's off by 400 years. But it was people in Randland that made the AB calendar (Toma dur Ahmid to be exact) so surely he had records of their being no climatic changes for the last 200 years and no male Aes Sedai running around Randland for the last 200 years and so he called that moment 200AB, and that's ALL we care about because it tells us that there were no male Aes Sedai running around Randland in 47AB, which is what some people want to wrongly claim and what I dispute. Since Toma dur Ahmid was HONEST about his calendar being arbitrary and because he was CONSERVATIVE in having there be no records of any Breaking happening in 1AB or afterwards, his calendar is fine for his purpose. Amount of time between the start of the Breaking and TG could be between roughly 3000 and 4000 years. You can add up all the uncertainties to get something more precise, but who cares? Toma dur Ahmid doesn't claim that his calendar can tell for sure when a male Aes Sedai died on another continent. It works to tell us that there were no male Aes Sedai at the meeting in 47AB.

85

clarkkd: 2005-06-26

In response to free will from my post dated 2005-06-25

I was presenting the information that seemed to be in question. Therefore when I said progress as of 98 AB, I meant that jack was being done from 47 AB to 98 AB except for the planning, which is stated in the BWB to include excavation and other material gathering necessities. Seeing as how the thing wasn't started until 98 AB what else do consider planning?

Quote: "Elisane Tishar is shown as the Amyrlin Seat, the first to bear that title, one she apparently had held for several years at this point. A Hall of the Tower had been chosen, but a council of seven was recorded as “closely advising the Amyrlin Seat.” These women were Mitsora Caal, Karella Fanway, Azille Narof, Saraline Amerano, Dumera Alman, Salindi Casolan, and Kiam Lopiang."

I said the first known Amyriln the book says first to bear the title what is the problem or difference?

Why are you pulling from thin air a supposed Tamyrlin? There is no evidence of such a person in the time frame in question.

Tamyrlin is a ring worn by the leader of the Aes Sedai, not a title!

Quote:

1. Other fragmentary documents found with the letter, which speak of various women threatening to walk out of the meetings, also strongly suggest that what occurred here was a meeting of independent groups.

2. one cannot reasonably doubt that the decision was reached by negotiation between independent groups.

3. Once the decision was made to build Tar Valon and consolidate Aes Sedai power, those same Aes Sedai initiated and carried out, between roughly 50 AB and 100 AB, an extremely vigorous campaign against women “pretending to be Aes Sedai.”

4. Later events strongly suggest that while the decision to build Tar Valon was an outcome of the conference, the true goal may well have been to unify these separate entities

End quote

While the above is plagiarized from the BWB I don't think that it is in order.

First and foremost of the 47 AB conference was to unify the separate entities of Aes Sedai. Various women threaten to walk. The decision of unification led to the extremely vigorous campaign against women "pretending to be Aes Sedai."

Later we see two of the original 13, brought to heel. I don't see why it is too hard to say that "threatened to walk" turned into actual walking.

About 50 AB The White Tower Aes Sedai, start their stilling/ bring to heel campaign. Heck maybe it took 3 years of "aggressive negotiations". The ones that made the decision started the campaign.

Again I copied word for word the BWB, what it says to me is that the ones that made the decision started the campaign. Show me where it says 12? Or do you mean this quote

"Among those listed at the meeting that reached the decision to build Tar Valon were Lideine Rajan and Mailaine Harvole. While the text is not conclusive, it is certainly suggestive that these two names should be linked in this manner less than twenty years after that meeting."

Those two where at the meeting but I fail to see where it says that they agreed to the decision?

making stuff up?

Quote: "Twelve women, not to mention “several others,” doubtless representing groups too small to be significant, each sitting for her ajah! Not yet Ajah, but the “if they still can be called so as they are”.

Twelve women representing their ajah, plus several others to small to be significant!

The 13th group was too small as to have a named person to represent them, maybe I should have said to diversified?

from my post on clarkkd

2005-06-25

A. Those present:

1. Elisane Tishar

2. Mitsora Caal

3. Karella Fanway

4. Azille Narof

5. Saraline Amerano

6. Dumera Alman

7. Salindi Casolan

8. Catlynde Artein

9. Biranca Hasad

10. Mailaine Harvole

11. Nemaira Eldros

12. Lideine Rajan

13. Several other not mentioned

Do you see my topic header those present? Look at item 13 "Several others not mentioned"

and later when I said

clarkkd

2005-06-25

in 47 AB there is no mention of Kiam Lopiang, why? It seems to me that in fact while not mentioned she was in deed at the meeting in 47 AB as a member of the 13th group, to small to be mentioned with the other 12 groups

When did I say ajah?

What I see is that majority rules in every society, and that 2 of 13 is not enough to stop a decision from being made. Now what I think happened was that these two disagreed with the policy of unification not the building of Tar Valon and left.

you're frustrated that no one seems to care that you go to great effort to say what comes form the BWB and what your theory is. You wish others would try as hard?

You're kidding right?

I'm not alone in thinking that Robert Jordan wrote the BWB with intentional errors which makes the whole damn thing questionable. It should be used lightly and to not make points with out everyone having their own opinions!

My attempt at comparing Sanchean and the Aes Sedai of the main continent was thus the use of the one power to kick the crap out of your opponents, that's it.

I'll try again so that you might understand.

13 groups meet, 2 groups don't like what they hear, those two leave, the others decide to "unify" and attack those that don't agree with them. The first to fall was Lideine. Mailaine wanted no part of such a public "execution" and surrendered, and became a White Tower Aes Sedai.

Now whether or not they where attacked first and then the smaller groups, or the other way around doesn't matter, what matters is the end result: The white tower now has a reputation to squash those that "falsely" claim the title of Aes Sedai.

non channelers was a typo that's all.

all I ever said about Kiam was that she was a member of a 13th group, not ajah. I do not say that she was in charge of one of them. I say that she was a member, or a participant nothing more nothing less.

What I mean is that the 13th group had no cohesion it had no one purpose what I mean is that this group is the exact definition of ajah is supposed to be. A temporary alliance, unlike the main 12.

No group 13 is so piece meal that it doesn't deserve a named leader.

you infer no one left, I do the opposite. I make a link between threatened to leave to actually leaving. No there are no quotes to support this: Either way.

Sea Folk: survived by using the one power to help control the weather at sea, thus channelers have high honor.

Shara: The Aes Sedai took over the entire government, and have strict laws and procedures about channelers.

Seanchan: Before Hawkings son arrived they attacked each other, after words all channelers are subdued.

My statement is a valid one. If the main continent channelers did not unify, as did the Aiel, the Sea Folk, and the Sharans, then I'm pretty sure that they would have died out or ended up like the Seanchan.

86

Anubis: 2005-06-26

Wow. You quoted me, quoting you, and said that I had a good point. In the future, dont misquote me.

87

Anubis: 2005-06-26

Free Will: There are 12 ajah heads, and some others, there is not even a mention of a 13th ajah.

Free Will: To you it seems that way. But you don't even mention any reason. You postulate a 13th ajah, which at least tHotBWB also suspects.

88

Anubis: 2005-06-26

"The Reds don't send boys to stedding before they can channel. They don't cull men in general to change the "male wilder to innocent civilian ratio". They don't even put the age range where sparkers develope unders special scrutiny. No Oath Rods are used. No man that is found running around sparking is used to first run around and declare other men "unable to learn" to give those men clean slates."

1. Is there any gaurentee that they would stay in the steadding? No. Did any of the male channelers who stayed in the steadding stay and live out their lives? No.

2. Cull men in general? What does that mean? They did cull men in general by removing the strongest male channelers from the population.

3. Put the age range in which sparkers spark under special scruteny. Sure, they had the rescources to put an Aes Sedai in every village in Randland. Which is what that would have required.

4. Oath Rods dont work on men according to Sammael. You would need a binding chair and the Aes Sedai didnt have one. Not to mention the logistical nightmare that would have entailed.

5. How are men going to test other men? There is noone to teach them how. All the male Aes Sedai are dead. That leaves females.

89

clarkkd: 2005-06-27

Free will said: Actually, the BWB says that in the AoL, the AS were organized by "a vast sea of ajah, all constantly shrinking, growing, dividing, combining, melting away only to be reborn in some new guise and begin the process once more" which is when the term in your dictionary was valid. In the 47AB the ajahs that met were described as "ajahs, if they still can be called so as they are" which implies that somewhere between the AoL, then nature of the ajahs changed.

The term ajah was defined as what you say until about 50 AB, from about 50 AB to date the meaning changed. That is all I said. I didn't comment on the meaning physically changing at 47 AB conference, only that the term was changing in this time frame.

Free will said: "The BWB says "In the first centuries after the Breaking, the nature of ajah or Ajah changed.", that narrowes it down to between 1AB and 200AB, not to the first century like you claim."

Free will said: "That is the AoL definition, already outdated by 47AB."

It was on the way out the door, but the definition was still valid, thus the confusion on the historians part.

Free will said: "That council could be a proper subset of the Hall, as you suggest in multiple posts, or it could be completely separate."

Up to this point I've had 2 posts, I agree it could go either way.

Free will said: "Again, there is no evidence that anyone lived through 300 years of fear. Not a single person."

OK it doesn't say that the were fearful for three hundred years, but the following quote does show that there where Aes Sedai, that lived through the Breaking.

“The Breaking of the World was a living memory to some, then. I don't suppose even very many sisters remember...”. ( TPoD: The Breaking Storm).”

I would still say that living through 300 years of Crazy Male channelers, would be enough of a fear motivator.

Free will said: "And why don't they gentle all male mammals too? Since your thesis involves blaming a larger class (male channelers) for the actions of a few (the male Aes Sedai). So why not blame all the male mammals? It's just as rational. So why didn't that happen? Actually, there was 300 years of tainted saidin and not a single example of a non-Aes-Sedai boy channeler hurting anyone. And in fact, the second the last male Aes Sedai dies, the Breaking was over, imagine that, many boy channelers were still alive, but the Breaking was over, it's almost "as if" the Breaking were caused by male Aes Sedai, and not male mammals in general."

Since the term Aes Sedai means “servant of all”, I don't think insane Aes Sedai, whom happen to be men, should be considered Aes Sedai anymore. Thus my use of male channelers.

Free will said: "Maybe reasonable if you haven't read the BWB, but on page 89, the Historian of the BWB (HotBWB) says that the events up to the Breaking "suggest that no Aes Sedai alive at the end of teh Breaking had survived that entire span, or even a signifigant portion of it. The one possible exception may be the Aes Sedai who were involved in the building of Rhuidean, in the Aiel Waste.", in fact the HotBWB mentions that in the first century AB there were "already" many forgotten talents, lost abilities and that a vast amount of knowledge of the One Power was lost. These were lost because the people who knew them had died without teaching anyone. Every indication points to the fact that every Aes Sedai at the 47AB meeting had been born during or after the Breaking. So no, I do not think it is reasonable to randomly just assume otherwise for no purpose other than to disagree with my theory"

It suggests that no Aes Sedai lived, yet I have a quote from the main books that says otherwise:

The Path of Daggers chapter 5

"That is ridiculous." Exasperation dripped from Sareitha's voice. "If you must know, it was the problem of men who can channel that drew them to it. The Breaking of the World was a living memory to some, then. I don't suppose even very many sisters remember—it hasn't been part of the required instruction since before the Trolloc Wars—but men can be brought into a circle, too, and as the circle doesn't break even if you go to sleep. . . . Well, you can see the advantages. That was an utter failure, unfortunately. More to the point here, I say again that it is impossible to force a woman into a circle. If you doubt, try it yourself. You will see."

Living memory to me says that they lived through it, unlike today when talking about the civil war, it's all past tense.

This quote doesn't say when they stopped trying just that it didn't work.

It may have been known but it wasn't effective was it? A few Lucid moments what a waste of time and effort.

Since the Breaking of the World, three dating systems have attained enough popular appeal to become standard calendars. The first to come into use after the Breaking was known as the Toman Calendar, so named for its creator Toma dur Ahmid. It used the delineation AB for After the Breaking, and began with year 1 AB. Because of the tumult of the period, this calendar was not actually adapted until some two hundred years after the death of the last male Aes Sedai (which officially ended the Breaking). Even then, owing to the total chaos during the Breaking and its immediate aftermath, its starting point had to be arbitrarily assigned. The Toman Calendar was in use until the end of the Trolloc Wars.

My objections of using Jesus as an example are explained this way, anytime you bring in a religious argument you are going to tick someone off.

You used 50 why I don't know, I know that it is wrong as he did not live past 34. If he did not live past 34 then he obviously didn't make it to 50. This was my point.

Christ was born in about 5/6 BC, he started his ministry in about 26 AD, he was crucified about 30 AD. He was either 31/32 when he started his ministry. He died at 35/36 years of age. So he minister at most 4 years.

You feel insulted, and? I didn't even use you or your quotes or even imply anything towards you, until you brought religion into it. At this point my anger rose and I let you know it.

I was still closer to following my standards then you.

Free will said: "It doesn't much matter what life was like when Jesus was fifty,"

And why my ire went up and why I asked you to get your facts straight.

Free will said: "And if the HotBWB were talking about our world, he'd mention the Roman calendar for those times, and then he'd mention which Roman year corresponded to which Gregorian year, we"

Well, I don't know when the Roman calendar went out of style. I do know that the Gregorian calendar wasn't invented until 1582 AD, and not put into use until the 18th century.

http://www.sevenspokes.com/ these guys do an excellent job of combining data from all the books and interviews, from what I see I think that it explains better than I.

90

free will: 2005-06-28

(b)"It's totally a power grab, in a time with good numbers (tons of female channelers), good resources (building TV and the WT), and unprecendented cooperation (the 47AB agreement), in three years this is turned into an outright power grab and you don't even suspect darkfriends?"(/b)

There was no such contrast between peacefull co-operation (there was no peacefull good-willing at all IMO) and later struggles.
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So you honestly think the alliance of 12 formed with the intention that in 30 years that half of them would be bound, stilled, or dead? Why do you think that?

Again - the conference was an attempt to build official powerfull organization and not just an open forum. Struggles begun at the conference itself - some groups begun to openly disagree and leave the conference already at 47 AB.

I'd like to continue and point out for the readers how you blur the text with your own theory. The text says that people threatened to leave, you claim that people did leave. Why do you believe that people did leave?

So there was no consensus from the very beginning.

I disagree: there was an agreement reached in 47AB and saying that people threatened to leave but not saying that they did is tantamount to saying that they didn't leave, so it's fair to infer that all 12 reached an agreement. Consensus is hard and painful to reach. I have experience building consensus myself (not in theoryland obviously, in my personal life), it's hard but the advantage is that everyone is behind it.

I imagine the 47 AB conference more like the beginning of the Salidar rebel Tower than like an UNO conference. Processes of militant disagreement are normal for the historical attempts to build an unified organization from peer initial founders. People who want tolerance wouldn't make one of their primary decision banning all those who "falsely pretend to be Aes Sedai".

You are jumping time frames and making connections beyond what is in the text. Consolidation and founding a town were decided in 47AB. The war on illegitimate AS targeted people that had been at the meeting, half the ajahs fell to such strife. I don't think they agreed to target themselves in the meeting of 47AB, so the decision to target them happened later, and also later a person with no power became powerful. You ignore my points and my data and the whole basis for my theory over and over again and it's annoying me greatly. I go by the text and try to figure out what else is logical. It's not logical that half the women their agreed to call themselves illegitate AS. It's not logical to pretend that they didn't agree to found TV.

The decision to build Tar Valon is apparently an wish to build a visible symbol of central Power and for exclusive authority. Those who decided to meet in 47 AB were not the most peacefull, but the most militant among the Aes Sedai of the time.

More conjecture. Those who met in 47AB were the 12 largest ajahs, nothing else was said about them compared to the other AS or other ajahs. It's your theory that they were the most militant and you provided no data comapring them to other ajahs, of which we have zero information other than that the other ajahs were smaller in size. Please stick to data or theories, it makes my replies long and the debate needlessly slow. It's easiest for us to agree on the facts, then debate the inferances and deductions based on those. Debating the facts is tiring and pointless. The text says that they were the largest. The text says that they agreed to found TV. I theorize that they didn't agree to attack each other. You theorize that they were hyper militant. Those theories may or may not be true, and I think mine is fairly obvious, and since yours is less than obvious to me, I'd like to see the additional evidence you used or the line of reasoning you used. Go slowly for me please.

The founding of the Tower was an attempt to rise high standards for being an Aes Sedai and to do it by force.

High standards? Explain why Kiam Lopiang came to power. Did Kiam exemplify high standards even though she had no large ajah to back her? Why would 12 ajahs agree to standards that half of them don't meet, seems insane and illogical and outright suicidal. I think such assumptions demand explanations, so please give explanations.

Whatever we could say about the good and evil of this early Tower policy, from a pragmatical point of view it was the best solution to achieve unity by ruthless force.

You haven't explained what this policy is. You allude to "high standards" which apparantly mean outlawing the very AS that agreed to found the town. That's both vague and illogical, so I can't see why you call it a solution or even what "the problem" is supposed to be that it solves, it's all too vague for me to follow, please try again to explain your idea to me.

Without force there would be groups that would never agree to sacrifice their private interests. there would allways be egoistic channelers who want nothing but their own power. Such egoistic channelers would have advantage in fighting against more conscious dispersed ajahs, because of being just more aggressive and more concentrated on real power. If Aes Sedai who defend an ideal failed to force an unified organization, everything would end with a situation like in Seanchan before Hawkwing. In the history warlordish riots were stopped only by violent actions of a central power. Else the warlords would make their lifestyle the norm for everybody, as happened in Seanchan. Without any doubt many good and hones channelers suffered together with the egoistic ones in the 50-100 AB purge, and of course this is bad and not necessarily unevitable. But peaceful co-operation before an unification would be allway undermined by the egoistic groups who just don't care about the co-operation for the world's good.

If the consensus is to have a neutral safe haven where all can learn, then that can be defended universally against all egoistic channelers that oppose it. If the consensus is instead for value X, then again value X can be defended universally against all egoistic channelers that oppose value X. There is no call for heirarchy when you have consensus about what to do. Those that insist on heirarchy promote the fantasy that heirarchy is required, but the myth has no basis in reality as is proven by the thousands of non-heirarchical organizations that use consensus. And my point is exactly that the capital Ajahs do not agree to sacrifice their private Ajah interests for the good of the whole. It's my exact point that Kiam Lopiang is an egoistic person wanting power just to have more personal power than before. The exact things you say the Tower is "supposed" to prevent is what I see it doing between around 50AB and the formation of the capital Ajahs. It's like we disagree about absolutely everything. I never said not to unify. They had unity in 47AB and then around three years later decided to instead have a civil war first followed by unity later. Your theory ignores that and hence fails to explain what happened after the 47AB meeting or why it happened. Something happened. Something important. My theory says that Kiam Lopiang entered the group and upset the balance of power tremendously trying to bring her blacks into the group and had to create Ajahs and Reds specifically in which to recruit and in which to hide her future recruits. And if it's not in the best interest of the Tower to do that, that's not a mystery if she's Black, then she didn't care about the WT because her loyalty was first to the Shadow, and second to the Tower. My theory addresses the facts and explains them. Please do likewise with your theory.

Without the forcefull unification the chances to have Light-alligned channeler organisation after 3000 years would be too bad. So the struggle between ajahs was normal reaction to the unification project and the unification project was not in favor of darkfriends, because Ishamael allways hated the strong Tower.

I see no evidence that Ishamael hated a unified tower as long as it was heirarchical so that he could control the puppet strings. What Ishamael hates is the Blues, women that freely work together on projects without heirarchical control or rigid rules that Ishamael can control and instead there is a general framing that allows effective cooperation amongst willing actors motivated by their own conscience, the exact framework that tyrants and manipulators everywhere and throughout the ages hate and have hated and sometimes feared.

Are you sure Ishamael isn't opposed to a strong tower when he's not in control and in favor of it when he is? That's a historically common point to waffle on.

(b)"The last male AS died 50 years prior to any of the 12 ajahs meeting to work together, way before a Red sister or a Red Ajah or any Ajah existed. There was no war, the breaking was over and the AS had resources and no enemies except far away in the Blight, until 50AB they weren't even attacking each other. "(/b)

The Breaking lasted some 300 years, and all that time children were born and some of these children were male sparklers. The trained Aes Sedai fro the AoL caused much worse disasters then the untrained channelers were able, but wouldn't you agree that not so much skill is required for destructive actions and for causing disasters.


You could guess that I don't agree. Boy channelers don't raise volcanoes, or boil seas, depopulate regions or affect continents. Boy channelers are bad PR and general nuisances, but there is a reason AB is called "After the Breaking" and that is simply because there was a total literal *world* of difference between a boy channeler and a male AS.

The trained would cause more troubles than the untrained, but the untrained would cause enough trouble.

Not enough to call their actions "breaking", or even enough to distract AS from attacking each other. Or even enough to take steps to avoid them from channeling like to move teenage men to stedding.

We see how much troubles an untrained channeler can cause if we look at the false dragons of the later history - all of them are untrained, but all of them caused lot of harm ansd were very difficult to fight against them even for trained squads of Aes Sedai (and the general opinion in Westlands is that the national armies cannot cope with the false dragons without the Tower).

Apples and Oranges. A false dragon is dangerous because they attract people to their causes, it's a general rebellion type problem. And over thousands of years we hear about a handful that were big problems.

The supply of new male channelers in the world is constant and all of them cause enough trouble to prevent the developement of any civilization.

Wrong on both counts. The supply of new male channelers is not constant at all. In fact it appears that ages start and end at or near high points. An interesting fact. And civilization began rebuilding as soon as the last male AS died, even though boy channelers still lived and roamed.

The Land of Madmen is the evidence that a civilization cannot exist where the male channelers are not fought by female channelers (or if they do not agree to die willingly as in the Aiel society). About the Land of Madmen it is said in BWB that practically thre Breaking never ended there.

The BWB actually says "The natives apparantly never recovered from the Breaking and never managed to reestablish order", if you read the text for what it says instead of your premise that boy channelers are as dangerous as male AS then you find that the Breaking's geographical basis is present still today in that location. Earthquakes, volcanoes, and super violent storms are constant, even with no super-powerful male AS to cause them. So life is still the mob rule of refugess tied to no people or place because no place is safe. Geography and climate affect cultures without high technology. Male AS affect geography and climate and hence caused the breaking. When geography and climate were suitable (boy channelers affect neither of those) civilization began. This never happened in the Land of tha Madmen, so they haven't recovered. You go too far to say that the Breaking is still happening because there are no male AS, but there is still the bad geography and climate that make civilization hard to build.

After all, the AS could have sent ships there to bring them to heel with their strong women channelers and anti-boy-channeler strategy. They didn't for reasons of geography and climate. It's simply not a nice place.

It is not the Breaking in the degree it was until the AoLer were alive, but it was disastrous enough for to be considered as still Breaking.

Please provide a source for your claim. When I read the BWB it says "not recovered from the Breaking" not what you claim it says that is is "still considered part of the Breaking", if you continue to insist that, then give quotes.
The fact that the Westlands began to create any civilization and that they thought that the Breaking ended, means that the newborn male channelers were successfully put under control already around year 1 AB.

So you theorize. Or we can read the BWB and say that the last male AS died by 1AB and that that is the reason civilization could rebuild, just like page 88 of the BWB says happened. That's what I think, personally.

Even well organized national armies of non-channelers cannot effectively fight even unexperienced male channelers,

Do you have a quote? And I'd like to apologize for the harshness of my replies, I really would like quotes for your positions, I'm fine with disagreement based on source material, just not opinions that contradict the hard work I put in to make theories that are based on the textual evidence.

Therefore when the 47 AB conference came, the Aes Sedai already had a history at least 50 years of successfully coping with male channelers.

Yes they did. And as Elayne tells us in tEotW (IIRC), the AS of that period had many many attempts and methods for dealing with boy channelers and they all worked well enough to allow civilization to rebuild. Exactly my point. The Reds weren't required or even a sensible way to deal with the situation.

Because no other methods of coping with male channelers except killing and stillig are known to the Tower, most likely the Aes Sedai already used the contemporary Red methods in their fight even before any Red Ajah could exist

I'm going to have to buy tEotW or get a premium account to get a quote for you. But since I can't find Elayne's quote to disprove you I'll concede that I might recall incorrectly, so how about you provide quotes for your claim to get me over to your side, OK? But I'm very concerned that you think the Red tacitcs are different than they are and that that is your basis for thinking that the tactics aren't insane. The Reds don't kill boy channelers. Guess what doing that means over time? Well, non channelers don't kill channelers so it appears that channelers can't be killed by non-channleres, maybe not at all, except by gentling. In Seanchan they don't have this problem, everyone knows that a sword through the head or belly kills a boy channeler, so everyone and anyone raises their hand to help do so if and when they find one. The special "gentle in the Tower" tactic that is unique to the Reds, not only endangers the civilians and the Red sisters, but it castrates civilian and temporal authorities possible responses by falsely pretending that only Aes Sedai can handle boy channelers. Which causes the attitude that boy channelers are so dangerous whch causes distrust of Aes Sedai and the One Power in general.

I don't beleive that stilling channelers was a new idea at 47 AB and most likely it was already the traditional practice. The stilling of female channelers between 50 and 100 AB means that at this time the tower had no so much concerns against severing.

You again are jumping around the time line. My thesis is and has been that in 47AB you had no Red Ajah, no capital Ajah, no Amyrlin, and full agreement and cooperation between at least 12 ajahs. Three years later you have Kiam Lopiang, and sever happy civil war against the *very same people* that just agreed to cooperate. This demands an explanation. I've given my explanation that Kiam Lopiang is and was a darkfriend. What is your explanation? Please don't give the "there were always sever happy people" or "there were always a Red Ajah" or "there was always an Amyrlin" lines. Or if you do, then at least give quotes to support your claims. If you think those things were always there, then I agree you won't like my theory. If you wonder how a consensus of 12 can turn into a severing based attack on each other in the blink of an eye as Kiam Lopiang rising to power out of nowhere, well, then you'll like my theory.

(b)"This isn't Seanchan where the AS became Sorceror Queens, it's Randland, they had no enemies except those that they could hand well, it was so channeler friendly that the AS darkfriends wanted to round up unattached channelers and bind them to the group forcibly."(/b)

Nope. We have a glance in the time around 47 AB in the PoV (Rhodric's PoV) of one of Rand's ancestors from the Rhuidean memories. It's the scene with the "sharing of water" when the aiels met the ancestors of the cairhienins just before to go to the Treefold Land. It is mentioned that the Aes Sedai just decided to build a great city (apparently which city). We see how the Westlanders we see there blame not only the male but also the female Aes Sedai for the Breaking an that the rulers of this time has to keep their Aes Sedai advisors in secret, and that many people think that all Aes Sedai must be killed and plans are debated to achieve that goal. It was everything but not a channeler-friendy society. The first Aes Sedai had a very difficult task to make the world's population even tolerate them. Aes Sedai were able to defend against non-channelers without much problem, but the fact that they had to think about defending themselves and that they had to deal with general intolerance against them is enough to create a group mentality of being in state of semi-war, when radical steps are applicable and "natural". the Tower-friendly Ten Nations union was created only 209 AB - after circa 150 years of energic activity of the centralized Tower.


That fails to explain the fundamental fact of my theory, that half of the alliance of unity is destroyed merely so Kiam Lopiang can have her day in the sun. If protecting AS is such a big deal, then why attack those who just agreed to unify? What *did* change between 47AB and 50AB in your theory? If AS are needed to protect each other, then why waste them on gentling men? Why were the other attempts to deal with boy channelers dropped when the Ajahs finally formed? These are outstanding facts in your theory.

(b)"My theory says that someone stilled the leaders of ajahs and tortured others, took a group that was going to cooperate and turned it into a Monroe doctorine in policies. That a single supposedly unpowerful channeler destroyed fully half the political power of the Randland cooperative AS and brought the independants to heel. A power monger that sets up someone else to be Amyriln."(/b)

You are supposing that there was majority of good people (including the first Amyrlin) and one power-monger who single-handedly managed to turn the minds of all the good honest Aes Sedai into an obviously evil organization? C'mon, if the original participants of the meeting were so good-willing and peacefull, why have all of them agreed with the infamous power-monger and support her policy?


Those that were stilled or otherwise forced didn't go along willingly, I never claimed that everyone went along willingly, far from it.

You mean that some low-ranked Kiam Lopiang tortured and stilled honorable members of the Covenant while the other good and honest Aes Sedai looked and that and applauded and gave Kiam a place in the inner council of the Amyrlin?

Jumping time frame again. In 47AB there was no Amyrlin. I think Kiam Lopiang came up with the idea of having an Amyrlin. Maybe those that went along with Kiam first were those that thought that this newly proposed (lifelong!!!) position would go to themself. And maybe Kiam had a huge backing appear out of nowhere and in diverse places as she tapped the black sisters in the other ajahs or ones not in ajahs. In my theory the Black Ajah exists long before any other capital ajah. And Kiam Lopiang was involved in the Black Ajah in my theory. As for how to convince more Aes Sedai than just the power hungry ones, most Light fearing AS won't do "whatever it takes" to accumulate power, but Kiam Lopiang would be willing to help the Shadow in order to acquire power. That's a huge advantage for Kiam Lopiang, because if Shadowspawn eliminate those who oppose Kiam Lopiang or innocents happen to die so that Kiam gets power, well that's just so unfortunate. It's exactly the difficulty or improbability of Kiam Lopiang getting power that made me think Kiam had help, secret help, that made me think that Kiam was a Friend of the Dark. There is a less sinister interpretation which is that Kiam was Elisane's deputy for Elisane's ajah. I find it strange that a a leader would be advised by a former underling (unless that underling was a Friend of the Dark), or that Elisane would so quickly distance herself from her old ajah in such formative times. I has favored the idea that Elisane dissolved her ajah, whose memebers joined the other seven newr proto-Ajahs, making the seven larger and stronger for shouldering the five doomed ajahs into the grave. So I think Kiam was an outsider and the efforts involved speak to outside help which indicated being a Friend of the Dark.

If the 6 ajah heads were so far from the later ruthless policy, then why they accepted this Kiam as one of their circle? In 98 AB we see a very stronf Tower government with very autoritative Amyrlin - how can such strong government be against the mainline militant policy the Tower is following at that time? You have either to agree that the militant policy was originated by the main seven participants of the 47AB conference or that the BWB sources are totally missleading.

There were 12 leaders in 47AB, that's the whole point. If there were 7, or if there were twleve that then had 5 walk out, then I'd have no theory. But there were twleve that agreed to work together and then 5 got the shaft while Kiam got the gold. The point is that the 12 obviously didn't sit down and all agree to beat up on 5 of their own members. Something happened outside of the meeting of 12. I call that thing Kiam Lopiang. And I think Kiam Lopiang was ruthless and quick and decisive and smart enough not to shoot for Amyrlin so that the survivors considers Kiam the lowest of the inner circle and that they gained, when really all went to Kiam's plan. I say that Kiam had the resources from the Black Ajah to perform such a coup in such a short time. Within a few years it started in earnest.

But if the seven original leaders (the Amyrlin and the surviving 6 ajah heads) were those who enforced the policy, than this IS the policy of the emerging Tower and no separate Ajah is needed to embody it while the others would remain innocent figureheads.

The purpose of the Red Ajah is to be a front for the recruitment of Black sisters and the hunting of the DR without full tower oversite. Men are gentled and not killed so that the DR can be leaked out prior to death. Men are left free to spark rather than be watched because this is dangerous and allows AS who "know too much" to suffer convient accidents. And the sparking is calculated to keep the population afraid of the DR and against AS in general, because that's what Ishamael likes. The Red Ajah didn't form in 47AB or in 50AB or in 77AB or in 98AB. The Black formed before 50AB in my opinion, but the Reds not until later, when the Ajahs formed. The point of the change between 47AB and 50AB is to show us that Kiam is a Friend of the Dark, so that we can see her hand in the formation of the Shadow-loving Red Ajah 150 years later.

Kiam wanted a centralized and powerful yet controllable Amyrlin. Just as Kiam wanted a Red Ajah that is not answerable to the Amyrlin regarding the operations deisgned to recruit darkfriends and arrange the escape of the DR. Kiam was willing to wait for the second because Kiam first got the second, and yes in getting the first Kiam arrange to neuter anyone who might stop the eventual implementation of the second. It's a two part two stage step that only someone with unsual support (Black Ajahs) could arrange. It's also my theory and it might not be true. I haven't seen anyone else explain why men aren't sent to stedding, or why Ajahs agendas aren't up for debate or how Kiam cam to power. Only my theory explains those things that I know of.

If it is the decision of the 7 older leaders, than it will be the mainline policy of the emerging Tower, and in this case the whole Tower would be in favour of the Shadow.

You missed to whole point of creating a covering for the Black Ajah. The Black Ajah is centralized. So the Blacks needs centralized AS so that if one (black) sister dies another can be sent without people being suspicious of blacks being involved per se, just that the WT is involved. The blacks need Reds to hide the deaths caused by failed recruitments. The whole point is to hide in broad daylight, to do that the Friends of the Dark need misdirection, not huge numbers of dark friends. So not everyone would be a Friend of the Dark, but they would have to sacrifice power to those who could be Darkfriends to get their power, and the term is called "collaborator", someone that acts against their own side for personal benefit.

(b)"But enshrining such an important task to one Ajah and giving them all the power for that is not explainable by that. Why have different Ajahs for different tasks if the male channeler threat is so large?"(/b)

I think you don't understand the difference between Ajahs right here. The seven Ajahs are not like modern specialized departments, they don't have any exclusive rights for their dedicated tasks. The goal of every Ajah is official goal of the whole Tower. Every single Aes Sedai is supposed to fight at the Last Battle for the Light like Greens, every one will try to negotiate peace among nations like Greys, every one does make subtle and pragmatic policy like Blues, everyone like Whites will maintain the "Aes Sedai serenity" and would claim to act allways according to Reason non spoiled by any emotions, everyone like Browns is supposed to have more knowledge on any topic than any non-AS, and everyone who has any Talent to Heal is expected to Heal everytime Healing is needed. It's duty of every Aes Sedai to do the task of all the Ajah when needed. The red task is not an exception. It is explicitely said in the books, that every Aes Sedai who discovers a channeling men would do everything to capture this man and aid to his stilling. Every Aes Sedai of every Ajah agrees that the main task of Reds is also duty of the whole Tower and every Aes Sedai. The Ajahs are not "licensed" for their tasks, there is no monopoly on Ajah goals, but all Aes Sedai are officially supposed to be competent in all the seven Ajah goals. The difference of Ajahs is not matter of specialization, but matter of priority. All the seven Ajahs have as duty all the seven tasks, but every Ajah concentrates on one of the Goals first and the others are cared on demand. So the existence of the Red Ajah doesn't say that the other Ais Seadi had different view on how the channeling men must be handled. All the Tower has the same view about the importance of the Seven Goals.


I disagree. The Reds do say that only their method is allowed for dealing with their domain. They decided that men are gentled and brought to the tower to be so gentled (so that the Shadow can rescue people en route and so that women how know too much can conviently have accidents). They brought that law up and they got it passed because it was in their domain. And no Aes Sedai ever turns around and starts practising Blue policy because any more than any sister would ever stop her task to advance the cause of logic instead because an astonding possibility came up to champion logic. The Blues and Whites are just too small of Ajahs to have that kind of power. I never claimed that Reds had a monopoly of dealing with men. They have extreme power on determining the entire Tower policy on dealing with boy channelers.

And the tower has many more than seven goals: recruiting new AS is an example, as is teaching, or taking care of the town of TV. And no AS is ever punished for breaking Tower law for ignoring a cause that is championed by some blue when she encounters it in the world, never ever ever. Reds set the policy for boy channelers because they narrowed their focus to that issue. Greens have many issues so they have less policy impact, whereas Blues have almost no power on Tower policy. The whole Tower political system is set up to give the most power to Reds to preserve their methods that were designed to help darkfriends. The original coup likely didn't recognize that that was the case, only seeing what the costs and benefits to themselves were, but that doesn't mean that Kiam didn't set that up on purpose.

And since you think all Aes Sedai have a unified policy, consider:

THE GREAT HUNT: chapter 4 THE SUMMONING (page 49)

"Mother, I cannot understand this apparant alliance between the Greens and the Reds. Their beliefs, their attitudes toward men, their views on our very purpose as Aes Sedai, are completeley opposite. A Red and a Green cannot even talk to each other without coming to shouts."

Note that their views on the purpose of Aes Sedai are completely opposite. The Red strategy is opposed to preparing for TG. The Greens are for nothing else. The Red even undermines preparation for TG. The two philosophies are completely and totally at odds. You claim otherwise, so I provided quotes. You should provide quotes for your claims if you still think that every Ajah opinion is a universally shared WT opinion.

You have no evidence that in the 47 AB conference there was disagreement about how to deal with male channelers. No place in the books and no interview mentions anything about debating about channeling men in this time and about disagreements about that. It is very likely that these AS spoke about dealing with channeling men, because it was still so fresh trouble for this time, but we have zero indication about disagreements about the topic. We have also no indication that any Aes Sedai of that time defended more human treating of the male channelers.

THE GREAT HUNT: chapter 24 NEW FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES (page 303

"Do they always have to be gentled?" she asked. Elayne stared at her, mouth agape, and she quickly added, "It is just that I'd think the Aes Sedai would find some other way to deal with them. Anaiya and Moiraine both said that the greatest feats of the Age of Legends required men and women working together with the One Power. I just thought they'd try to find a way."

"Well, do not let any Red sister hear you thinking it aloud. Egwene, they did try. For three hundred years after the White Tower was built, they tried. They gave up because there was nothing to find. Come on. I want you to meet Min."


Elayne makes it clear that in 98AB when the White Tower wasn't even done being built, that it wasn't yet decided that gentling was "the only way", and obviously killing doesn't have to be "vileness" it could be a more efficient means than gentling, so there are alternatives to gentling. Stedding, oath rods, monitoring and gentling or killing after a few years but before madness sets in, and pretending that these didn't exist is a clear cover up. Men could be used for breeding or for finding sparkers before they spark or for helping women. And it could be done in a way that is less dangerous and less costly than waiting for men to spark. The Reds had to have centuries to cull the other options through sabotage and propaganda, and then millenia of propaganda to cover up that any of those methods ever worked. It was up to people like Kiam to set up a framework in which the Reds could form as an Ajah and eventually control what was considered acceptable.

In Seanchan male channelers are killed without any Red Ajah. In Shara they are also killef after some age and before being able to become significant channelers. In Aiel Waste they are encouraged to go and die before becoming to channel efficiently. Everywhere the male channelers are eliminated fast and for sure and no Red Ajah is needed for that.

So why wait until they spark and then try to take them alive, transport them thousands of miles and gentle them? If they are dangerous why aren't the they killed? If they are valuable and therefore taken alive, why are they gentled instead of used?

The only indirect indication that there was search about another method of dealing with men are the Warder Bond and the male a'adm from Tanchiko. Sareitha, who is the source about the history of the Warder Bond explicitely said that the attempts of finding out a link to control a channeling man was completely unsuccessful and only the Bond as side-product survived.

Can you provide quotes? Because you also claimed that no one tried any way besides killing or gentling since 47AB, when things were concerned for centuries after the White Tower was built, so I'm skeptical of your claims that there are "no indications of a search for other methods", there is even mention of the stedding being used in the Breaking itself? This didn't work for male Aes Sedai since they wanted to touch the source and remembered the source, but what about sending the male children of sparkers to steddings before they could even learn to touch the source? If the oath rod didn't work, that could have been mentioned. If stedding didn't work, that could be mentioned. But I don't even understand why gentling is preferred over killing. Seems like a big excuse to give the Black opportunities to kill black rejects and provide a cover so that the Shadow can turn the DR or recruit dreadlords from men that "get away".

About the male a'dam Moghedien said that it makes the female leash-holders succeptible to the Taint of the leashed man. This makes me to think that a link between men and women would make the women suffer from Taint. The story about the creating the Eye is confirming that: the women participated also died because of the Taint. This is a good reason to abandon the idea of linking between men and women IMnsHO.

Again, if that were the reason, the books would say so. They'd say that linking with men is forbidden because it exposes females to the taint. The leash has two women because an a'dam is link a special kind of linking, like a circle. And a man has to lead in a one man one woman link. So you need two women in a link for the women to lead. But the problem could be caused by trying to have two women leaders, it might not be related to the taint at all. And if you only need the man to perform those "greatest feats" then you can have him sit alone mad and leashed and then when you've rounded up men to test and/or have a task where you need him, then you can use Healing to give him temporary lucidity and use him. If this is done properly it could be much more effective than gentling sparker because you can catch sparker before they spark. Think of how many women it takes to capture a sparker. Now imagine that you add a few more to control just one man with oath rods, a'dams, shielding, stedding, and Healing and use him to capture 20 men before they spark. That's much safer and more efficient.

(b)"Someone that created a system of centralized power for no purpose except to create that power, and weild that power as a Red (something they had to imagine out of the blue, since people had been dealing with crazy men for centuries, the Red is something new, someone above having her methods questioned or interfered with, who can and will still those who disagree to total and unquestioned power over the issue of men)."(/b)

WHY is the Red Ajah new? I see nothing new in it's conception except more intensity and discipline in the practice.


As the quote by Elayne makes clear, the Red agenda of "only gentle" was not "the only method" in 47AB, it took an entire Ajah centuries to sabotage and mess up all the alternatives and expunge the records of what was tried so that over thousands of years no one would come up with "new ideas" to try. By pretending that all methods were tried and "didn't work" you can avoid debates. When then doesn't work, you can become the largest Ajah and have hissy fits at mere mentions of alternatives. And being the largest Ajah can be acccomplished by having inefficient means of finding and dealing with boy channelers, which is exactly what the Reds do, people will see the need and so join in large numbers because they wrongly think it requires a huge Red Ajah to protect the world. Never mind that the Sea Folk are safe, that the Aiel are safe. Logic is ignored in the giant cover up.

The usual way for people to deal with channeling man before that was to kill said men, so I see absolutely nothing making the situation worse from the Red Doctrine.

Yes, the Reds do make it worse. They expose civilians and sisters to danger by transporting men caputred alive back to the Tower. I theorize this danger is a cover to kill attempted black recruits that didn't actually want to join. But otherwise it's irrational and dangerous to everyone.

Reds foam at the mouth at the mere mention of genetic factors, so they avoid letting any Aes Sedai take precautions with relatives of sparkers. Reds don't even bother to use all the ter'angrael that detect saidin. Using them would help to find men before they are a danger, but the Reds act like thye want danger. And I think, in order to cover up failed recruiting into the Black, that the Reds as an Ajah do want danger. Then there is the whole "doing permanent disabling things" rather than temporary things like drugging men. A temporary thing can leave a man capable of beign revived if and when they run across the DR. Gentling or killing is naive and stupid for a society that has known valid fortellings that the Dragon will be reborn and will channel saidin.

And I don't see anything unique in the Goal of the red, but only in their inner rules of ascetics. The general hatred against all men is specific for the Red, but what is the fatal consequence from this trait (except for making the Red Ajah itself weaker).

That sister die bring shielded men back for gentling, oro in trying to take him alive. That all benefits for bringing a man back alive are wasted by not using him or putting temporary restraints (like stedding confinement) that preserve him for later in case they need the man. It's irrational to waste those reasources for nothing. And it's a danger not only to the gene pool and the sisters en route, but for the civilians en route.

For instance, a'dams, they can be used to find sparkers before they spark. But does anyone use them for that? No.

(b)"In my theory AS arrogance is darkfriend caused, that means avoided alliances for Light following channelers, non-cooperation from the public and so on. What was the Shadow supposed to do? Here you have dangerous missions in which someone asked to join teh dark can be killed off. You have fear of AS in the public fanned by sparking men. You have non debate of important topics. You have parallel information networks not cooperating. You have male channelers hate themselves, good to have the real Dragon Reborn be self-conscious, yeah! Centeralized power is easier to manipulate, predict, and spy on."(/b)

I see a self-contradiction in your list of statements. One time you say that the bad thing was the central power (as if the Seven Ajahs system doesn't make the task to have centralised power extremely hard even for the strongest Amyrlin), then you say that bad is the different spying networks and lack of co-operation. Please choose one of the extremes.


Please don't tell me to "pick an extreme", this is a complex system. The public is put against the Aes Sedai by the Aes Sedai not finding sparkers before they spark. The public is put against Aes Sedai by the Aes Sedai feeding a myth that civilians can't take down boy channelers. The Aes Sedai have an Ajah system designed to let a minority of Aes Sedai set Tower policy on some issues, so that the black can control the Red to have Tower policies that help the black. The Shadow wants to avoid the Light winning. One way is to have a heirarchical structure with Black sisters able to influence polciies that go against Black interests, another is to fragment power into different areas so that Black sisters can control the particular areas that are most important to the Shadow, which are the Red, Green, and Grey ajahs in that order. The shadow doesn't care that you think the shadow should choose either a totalitarian dictatorship or a totally egalitarian system. The shadow does what works for thier size and abilities.

Ajahs have different spying networks because they strive for their autonomy from the central power, but every Ajah tries to negotiate peace and Light alliance among the nations as if they are not different Ajahs but a monolite organization.

Not at all. See my quote that Greens and Red disagree about everything. Not monolite at all. Aes Sedai defer by power to make it appear to outsiders that all Aes Sedai agree. The entire WT agrees on the issues that the Black Ajah wanted them to agree on, like to transport and gentle men. Otherwise the Tower doesn't agree with itself.

Men had reason to hate themselves even before the end of the Breaking, and my impression is that fanatical persecution like Reds do it weakens the self-hatred, because the men will rather be angry about the unjust Reds.

You oversimplify to the point of missing my point entirely. Male Aes Sedai knew that Saidin could do good things. If nothing else, finding other men and taking them to stedding before the boy can embrace the source for the first time is a wonderful use of saidin. But Reds falsely pretend that no use of saidin is useful, and they devalue finding men that could be dangerous in favor of waiting until some men are dangerous. This feeds an idea that all men have to be dangerous. Even if you went to a stedding as a ten year old, the Reds would still remove you to take to the Tower, by law, if they found out that you could channel. When you were no threat to anyone! Men simply don't find Reds unjust because the Reds bought the PR machine to vilanize saidin beyond what it deserved. In fact, the Reds had to vilianize saidar doing the things saidin could do, just to make saidin seem useless. That's why the Reds don't demand all ter'angrael that detect male channelers.

Milder treatment aids more to self-hatred usually, that are my observations.

Do you have any evidence to support your claim?

In any case I don't see anything in the state of channeling men that the choice of policy by the Tower changed to the bad.

They eliminated discussion of how to identify and deal with the DR. They culled the gene pool. They exposed countless lives to unnecissary risk. There is a reason that the Reds and Greens disagree about everything, not just how many warders to bond.

The segregation of the female channelers from the world would be much worse if the Tower was not able to provide high discipline among AS and so to make the Tower at least reliable in a sufficient degree to be tolerated by the world.

Why is indentifying men and sending them to stedding a lack of disclipline? Why is exposing people to risk for a formal gentling rather than a local death something that opposing or even discussing against something makes you unreliable?

In the 3000 years the Tower usually was in the middle of the alliances against the greatest threats to the Westlands and alliances of Light followers are still associated with the Tower. The Seven Ajahs system is a good balance between the required self-discipline of the organization of channelers, the requirement of tradition, and the requirement for no falling into despotical rule by an all-powerfull Amyrlin.

In 47AB there was no Amyrlin, so stop pretending that the formation of the Reds was a response to fears of an out of control Amyrlin despot. And even so, closing off even debate of how to deal with boy channelers when the FATE OF THE WORLD rests in the hands of a future boy channeler is STUPID. Why is 7 ajahs better than 12? Why were some 47AB ajahs attacked? Why are important topics that the fate of the world depends on not up for discussion? Why are so many sisters wasted on creating pagents of gentling when local authorities could kill men and it would be AS irreversible?

(b)"The Ajahs were invented during peacetime to centralize power, and specifically to limit debate on how to deal with men."(/b)

Completely and obviously false. Ajahs are currently the greatest obstacle against the centralized power of Amyrlins and until there are Ajahs all major Tower policy will be allways fervently debated in the Hall.


Once again I have zero idea what time period you are talking about. In 47AB there are ajahs, no Hall, no Amyrlin, and no Ajahs. Why are Ajahs that entirely oppose in EVERY aspect the preparation for TG (the Green agenda) tolerated as anything OTHER than Darkfriends protectors?

And we see eternal traditional debates exactly about men between some Ajahs now. The very idea that creating of several strong disciplined independent of each other orders would have aid canceling debates doesn't manifest any logic for me. Nothing aids so much edbates as strong autonomous organizations.

Where in those 3000 years do you see anything other than Reds stifling debate about boy channelers? I never read that anywhere. Please give quotes. I can't follow what you are saying when you claim that an organization devoted to not debating somehow encourages debate.

The seven Ajahs were for me a natural reaction of the first AS to resist the atempts of the first Amyrlin to bring all AS to full and unquestionable subjugation.

You make if sound like the 6 ajahs that fell where the ones that became the seven ajahs. It seems like the ones that supported a powerful Amyrlin beat out the rest and that the reason Amyrlin didn't become powerful is because the king makers wanted to share the power amongst themselves. This is common in feudelism, those that create the figurehead create the layer right below it. Traditionally the Amyrlin was old and didn't last long. That's mostly figure head position. Enough power to shake up bottle necks and get things flowing, not enough to change the balance of power, and some Amyrlins were strong and others were weak. I really suggest you note that those who opposed lost, it's wasn't a stalemant victory.

The Black ajah created the position of Amyrlin in my theory. Just like the Ajah system to replace the ajah system. The point of both was to avoid democracy and the free flow of information except for the Black Ajah. Ajahs avoid debates of topics important to the Black once the Black wins their agenda. Ajahs relegate many non-black sisters into areas that don't concern the Black ajah. Amyrlins avoid demoncracy as do Ajahs and thus make the WT easier to control by Friends of the Dark.

But once developed they proved to be extremely advantageous for the Tower and that's why they survived until now. The Tower survived until now as a strong organization, because it has the Ajahs system. If it was a monolyte organization under unquestionable dictatorship of the Amyrlin, after some time it would suffer the decline common for historical strong monolite organizations. Members of old strong monolite organizations allways tend to become too self-confident and lazy and to bureaucratize the initial high skills and standarts and spirit until it becomes ineffective. Standard go lower and lower despite of every attempts to keep them high, because members have no motivation to improve themselves. The seven Ajahs cause permanent concurrence in the Tower and thus aid it's high standards.

Why is democracy and/or cooperation under a shared founding value system not an option in the Wheel of Time? Why have a lifelong Amyrlin appointment at all? You keep assuming structures of the later WT as already existing in 47AB. There was no Amyrlin in 47AB and they could have made her appointment temporary. My point is that someting happened between 47AB and 77AB, that the Red Ajah wasn't finished making their stupidity manadtory and not up for debate for a few centuries, but the wheels were started rolling by those who didn't find it stupid, the Black Ajah that is helped when sisters suffer "accidents".

But the temporary ajahs like in AoL would be unable to provide the tradition to teach the new AS.

Novices and accepted are taught by all Aes Sedai that want to teach them.

AoL could have the tradition, because channelers were integrated in the whole society and the society actually provided the tradition (using also institutions like the Hall of servants and Collam Daan). Aiel and Seafolk channelers don't need Ajahs to provide tradition, because the whole society maintains the tradition. The Westlands however have no such traditional society and no unity and Westlands in 47 AB want no AS be integrated with them, so the Tower must build it's own institutions to provide tradition.

The 12 ajahs already agreed to that in 47AB. The 12 ajahs didn't agree to lay waste to half their members in 47AB and they didn't decide to have seven ajahs in 47AB. In 47AB they agreed to have a common society in the same town. You don't have to have a specfic seven ajah system or a lifelong Amyrlin or even a powerful Amyrlin for that, leadership in war and tie breaking powers are enough for a central figurehead. And the Aiel did not keep their traditions from the AoL intact and neither did the Sea Folk, so I really don't know what you are talking about. Those societies choose to let the larger community be involved in their operations, that was the difference. That's what Friends of the Dark don't like. That's why I doubt that many Friends of the Dark are in the Windfinders or Wise Ones. In the Westlands the Aes Sedai decided in 47AB to set themselves apart as a different society of channelers. They did not decide in 47AB to attack half of themselves. Something happened after 47AB.

91

free will: 2005-06-28

Tamyrlin is a ring worn by the leader of the Aes Sedai, not a title!

It's still a title. The BWB says "Lews Therin Telamon, who was then First Amongst Servants, wore the ring of the Tamyrlin and summonded the Nine Rods of Dominion.", it's doesn't say "wore the Tamylrin Ring" or "wore the ring known as Tamyrlin", there are many many people that read that grammar as to say that there was a title of Tamyrlin that LTT held that entitled him to wear that ring.

Later we see two of the original 13, brought to heel. I don't see why it is too hard to say that "threatened to walk" turned into actual walking.

The BWB says that the SAME 12+ groups agreed to campaign against women "pretending to be Aes Sedai", so something ELSE happened for those two ajahs to be targeted. This is again the issue that those that disagree with me sweep under the rug.

About 50 AB The White Tower Aes Sedai, start their stilling/ bring to heel campaign. Heck maybe it took 3 years of "aggressive negotiations". The ones that made the decision started the campaign.

The same 12+ that met in 47AB made the decision in 47AB, so those same 12+ made the campaign about three years later. That's what the BWB says.

Again I copied word for word the BWB, what it says to me is that the ones that made the decision started the campaign. Show me where it says 12?

I thought I already spelled out that the text says people threatened to walk but doesn't say that they did. To me that is strong evidence that they did not leave. Those they agreed to the decision. You don't attend a meeting where people discuss stilling you and just sit there and agree to it or even hang around, so they did not agree to target themselves then so something happened between 47AB and 77AB, that something is entirely what the first part of my theory is about.

Those two where at the meeting but I fail to see where it says that they agreed to the decision?

You think they sat through a meeting that was deciding to still them? I can't figure out any sensible theory that has two ajahs sitting a meeting that is discussing how to still them.

I'm not alone in thinking that Robert Jordan wrote the BWB with intentional errors which makes the whole damn thing questionable. It should be used lightly and to not make points with out everyone having their own opinions!

I agree that the veracity of the BWB isn't total. I know that people have specifically requested that I post the passages from the BWB that I used to support my theory and that since I type so badly I didn't want to attempt to do so and end up typing it wrong, regular novels I don't mind posting because if I happened to mess up people own the novels, but the people who wanted quotes didn't own the BWB and I was concerned that people would think that your contrary theories were coming out of the BWB. I don't want to mislead people into thinking that the BWB says things that it doesn't That's why myself I try to say what the BWB says and then show my reasoning. I think that is failing, so I'm no longer so unforgiving of other people, yourself included. I objected to your making it appear that the BWB stated your theories and opinions, but now I think people miscommunicate anyway so maybe it doesn't matter as much as I thought it did.

13 groups meet, 2 groups don't like what they hear, those two leave, the others decide to "unify" and attack those that don't agree with them. The first to fall was Lideine. Mailaine wanted no part of such a public "execution" and surrendered, and became a White Tower Aes Sedai.

I agree that that is possible, I think the records would have showed those women leaving if they left so I don't agree with you. I objected so strongly before because you made it seem like your theory was the only theory that the BWB allowed. The BWB allows also that noone left and that agreement was reached, just that it was reached by independant groups.

you infer no one left, I do the opposite.

We infer many things differently. You image a group with a named leader, and I imagine a lone woman that is known to represent many people. It's fine to disagree when we agree on the evidence and the evidence is not conclusive.

Seanchan: Before Hawkings son arrived they attacked each other, after words all channelers are subdued.

My statement is a valid one. If the main continent channelers did not unify, as did the Aiel, the Sea Folk, and the Sharans, then I'm pretty sure that they would have died out or ended up like the Seanchan.


I don't even know what you are saying. The Seanchan discovered or remembered how to make ter'angrael. The Seanchan killed all the shadowspawn in their blight. What exactly does it mean to "end up" like them?

92

free will: 2005-06-28

This post ends with a quote from Anubis:

I don't recall postulating a 13th ajah. I think that there were at least 12 ajahs and that each of those twelve had at least one Aes Sedai at the meeting.

Re: Red Ajah founded by darkfriends.

Free Will: There are 12 ajah heads, and some others, there is not even a mention of a 13th ajah.

Free Will: To you it seems that way. But you don't even mention any reason. You postulate a 13th ajah, which at least tHotBWB also suspects.

Anubis, 2005-06-26

reply

93

clarkkd: 2005-06-28

The black ajah did not exist until way after the tower was finished.

TITLE: Eye of the World, CHAPTER: 43 - Decisions and Apparitions

"Is that what they told you? Two thousand years ago I took my Trollocs across the world, and even among Aes Sedai I found those who knew despair, who knew the world could not stand before Shai'tan. For two thousand years the Black Ajah has dwelt among the others, unseen in the shadows. Perhaps even those who claim to help you."

The BWB says that those that made the decision also started a campaing. It does not say the 12 ajahs made this decision and then opend a can of whoop***.

This is a big point THOSE THAT MADE THE DECISION. Or those that stayed, those that didn't leave.

The book doesn't say people left nor does it say that people stayed, It leaves a big whole for all of us to walk through.

If I was there at this meeting and the majority of those present wanted to bind by any means necisary and I didn't agree I would have bolted.

You seem to think that all 12 sat around the coffee table talking nicely and all 12 came to a unaminous decision.

I think things got heated and I think that some of the folks get ticked and ran. Once this happpened the remainder came to the severing decision, they mobilzed and took out those that they didn't like.

94

Callandor: 2005-06-29

**It's still a title. The BWB says "Lews Therin Telamon, who was then First Amongst Servants, wore the ring of the Tamyrlin and summonded the Nine Rods of Dominion.", it's doesn't say "wore the Tamylrin Ring" or "wore the ring known as Tamyrlin", there are many many people that read that grammar as to say that there was a title of Tamyrlin that LTT held that entitled him to wear that ring.**

To clarify, no, Lews Therin was not the Tamyrlin -- he was the First Among Servants.

**TITLE: The World of Robert Jordan's the Wheel of Time, CHAPTER: The Age of Legends

"The Hall of Servants regulated the Aes Sedai, setting and enforcing the rules that pertained to channelers. Since Aes Sedai of this time often worked in teams, detailed rules of contudct and procedure were essential to the guild. Little record survives to detail the actual bureaucracy, save that the individual Aes Sedai who was elected to head it was usually styled as "First Among Servants," and sat on the High Seat. There are records that, toward the end of the Age, Lews Therin Telamon, who was then First Among Servants, wore the ring of the Tamyrlin and summoned the Nine Rods of Dominion. The description of the ring and exact nature of the nine rods have been lost, but it seems clear that the Aes Sedai, through the Hall of Servants, weilded great power and were accorded a very high level of prestige and respect."

You didn't quote the entire part.

95

Anubis: 2005-06-29

**I don't even know what you are saying. The Seanchan discovered or remembered how to make ter'angrael. The Seanchan killed all the shadowspawn in their blight. What exactly does it mean to "end up" like them?**

You have got to be kidding me. How many times has Seanchan been refered to a nightmaresh land of hell, where no man could close his eyes knowing he would wake before Hawkwings armies took over? This was caused by Aes Sedai vieing for power. Congrats to them for eliminating shadowspawn, they created something worse.

96

free will: 2005-06-30

Anubis: 1. Is there any gaurentee that they would stay in the steadding? No. Did any of the male channelers who stayed in the steadding stay and live out their lives? No.

Is there any evidence that all mammals stayed in stedding during the breaking? No, in fact some male Aes Sedai that just so happened to be mammals, left the steddings. Since men also don't just stay still for gentling, this is irrelevant, as is comparing male Aes Sedai to boys who could learn to channel but have never touched the source.

Don't use male Aes Sedai to blanket infer things about boy channelers or even worse about boys who could learn. You can force people to stay in a stedding. Heck if you put a bond on a boy before he embraces the source then his Aes Sedai can compel him to stay in the Stedding. That works for as long as she lives.

4. Oath Rods dont work on men according to Sammael.

And in reality do they work? Maybe Sammael just didn't want someone to turn around and use it on him right away. Sammael never swore on an oath rod to tell the truth.

You would need a binding chair and the Aes Sedai didnt have one.

I'm not certain that binding chairs would work on a channeler. Especially if your theory that oath rods are gender specific is correct.

Not to mention the logistical nightmare that would have entailed.

How is it supposed to be worse than waiting for men to spark and then trying to capture them alive at great risk to transport them at great risk to do something irreversible that would make the Shadow win TG that ends up making him die with no benefit to anyone anyway?

5. How are men going to test other men? There is noone to teach them how. All the male Aes Sedai are dead. That leaves females.

The Historian of the BWB knows how, so that implies that documents survived that describe it. Besides it's not that different than what women do so some experimentation can recover it quickly. One of them could go through the doorway ter'angrael in Mayne and ask how men can do it. Or send a man through to ask. How about using the doorway to ask how to hold off the taint, how to make ter'angrael to bind men, how to make ter'angrael to find male channelers, etcetera? How about using the dream rings to send people into T'A'R then imagining a doorway like the one in Rhuidean and going thorugh to get wishes to be shielded from the taint? Or what about the Tower of Ghenjei, never a household name, but not unknown, it could be used for questions and/or wishes. The outright arrogance and/or naivety of these people too insane and huge to be unbelievable. It has to be darkfriends. No one can be that dumb and be so arrogant to say that in thousands of years no one will consider things that they did not. No one.

And your other comments that generally portray that the Red strategy of endangering civilians and sisters is more effecient than anything else because you discount the effor that the Red strategy takes and ignore that non-sisters can do the task of many of the alternatives. In just a few centuries the sister's gave up looking for herbs that prevent sparking, non-sister's could have done that work? In just a few centuries the sister's gave up creating settlements inside stedding for men of the certain age to be sent (sent by non-sisters since a non-sister can tell how old a boy is)? In just a few centuries the sister's gave up on say using the power to push someone's brain in a way the prevents channeling but is reversible, i.e. can be healed? In just a few centuries, the sister's gave up on things that it takes me just a few seconds to propose? And are so sure that there investigations were exhaustive that they gentle rather than kill for no particular reason? Please explain why you think the Red tactics aren't obviously insane. I've mentioned how they risk many lives for no particular purpose. You don't have a response that I've seen, Anubis.

97

free will: 2005-06-30

Me: "Again, there is no evidence that anyone lived through 300 years of fear. Not a single person."

clarkkd: OK it doesn't say that the were fearful for three hundred years, but the following quote does show that there where Aes Sedai, that lived through the Breaking.

"The Breaking of the World was a living memory to some, then. I don't suppose even very many sisters remember ...". ( TPoD: The Breaking Storm).


You claimed that someone was alive before the breaking, lived through the whole entire Breaking, saw the end and then had the whole thing as a living memory. I claim that maybe a few Aes Sedai with the Aiel did that, but that the evidence is uncertain. You then provide a quote about someone born during the Breaking that was still alive when it ended. Such a person has a part of the Breaking as a living memory. That's simply not evidence to support your claim. I suggest you just retract your claim, it's likely wrong and I'm not sure it matters to either of us and I'll continue to argue on principle that no one in 47AB or 98AB was there near dragonmount sharing a living memory of the entire Breaking with the Aes Sedai and no Aes Sedai there had such a living memory of the entire Breaking. Probably all the important people there remembered at least the end of the Breaking.

I would still say that living through 300 years of Crazy Male channelers, would be enough of a fear motivator.

But no one has an example of a fearful person that lived through 300 years of Crazy Male Aes Sedai (and many many people have lived through 300 years of crazy male channelers, like most Ogiers and many Aes Sedai).

Me: "And why don't they gentle all male mammals too? Since your thesis involves blaming a larger class (male channelers) for the actions of a few (the male Aes Sedai). So why not blame all the male mammals? It's just as rational. So why didn't that happen? Actually, there was 300 years of tainted saidin and not a single example of a non-Aes-Sedai boy channeler hurting anyone. And in fact, the second the last male Aes Sedai dies, the Breaking was over, imagine that, many boy channelers were still alive, but the Breaking was over, it's almost "as if" the Breaking were caused by male Aes Sedai, and not male mammals in general."

clarkkd: Since the term Aes Sedai means "servant of all", I don't think insane Aes Sedai, whom happen to be men, should be considered Aes Sedai anymore. Thus my use of male channelers.

The Breaking ended when the last male Aes Sedai died. The female Aes Sedai weren't running around "serving all" so your distinction is irrelevant and useless. A dead person doesn't serve either, but you don't refer to Aes Sedai post humously as "channelers" as some kind of distinction. The Breaking ended when boy channelers were still alive and free and running around channeling, confusing that issue confuses everything to the point where there is simply not point in bothering to try to communicate.

clarkkd: It suggests that no Aes Sedai lived, yet I have a quote from the main books that says otherwise:

The Path of Daggers chapter 5

"That is ridiculous." Exasperation dripped from Sareitha's voice. "If you must know, it was the problem of men who can channel that drew them to it. The Breaking of the World was a living memory to some, then. I don't suppose even very many sisters remember—it hasn't been part of the required instruction since before the Trolloc Wars—but men can be brought into a circle, too, and as the circle doesn't break even if you go to sleep. . . . Well, you can see the advantages. That was an utter failure, unfortunately. More to the point here, I say again that it is impossible to force a woman into a circle. If you doubt, try it yourself. You will see."

Living memory to me says that they lived through it, unlike today when talking about the civil war, it's all past tense.


To most people "Living memory" just says that someone is alive that remembers part of it. So pre-statehood Hawaii is a living memory, but that doesn't mean that there is some 1000 year old human around that remembers when Hawaii was first occupied. The Breaking was a living memory until the last person that remembered any part of the Breaking was dead. Your quote simply never says that anyone remembered the entire Breaking. Living memory just means that there are orally accessible primary sources. Once living memory is passed, the best you have if primary documents, and direct physical evidence, secondary documents, etc. Your source just doesn't say that the beginning of the Breaking was a living memory, not matter how much you wish or pretend that it does, it just doesn't. And funny that I have quotes from the BWB that says that the Beginning of the Breaking was not a living memory at the end of the Breaking except maybe in a stedding to an Ogier or in the Aiel Waste to some Aes Sedai. Since my quote say that no Aes Sedai lived except maybe some in the Aiel Waste.

This quote doesn't say when they stopped trying just that it didn't work.

The Red Ajah could require instruction in vague lies for a long time to cover up anything they want. Reds could sabotage attempts. Besides, these quotes don't even say what went wrong, the arrogance to assue that no one else could fix the problem is simply unbelievable, that's why it says to me that Friends of the Dark were involved.

My objections of using Jesus as an example are explained this way, anytime you bring in a religious argument you are going to tick someone off.

Anything can be religious to someone. Jesus isn't religious to some people, and any event or object or relation or process can be religious to someone. You apparantly what me to act a certain way, without even telling me what treatment you want.

You used 50 why I don't know, I know that it is wrong as he did not live past 34. If he did not live past 34 then he obviously didn't make it to 50. This was my point.

You miss my point entirely. The Toman calendar isn't precise relative to the death of the last male Aes Sedai, since that Aes Sedai may have been on a different continent, but the the date it was adopted was not year 0 or year 1 on the calendar. I compared it to a fiction calendar based on Jesus to make the Toman Calendar more accessible to people that just plain didn't understand that in 200AB there has not been a single male Aes Sedai anywhere nearby for centuries. This fictional calendar could assign the year 50 FC (fictional calendar) to the event when the Roman records claim that Jesus died. If the calendar also claims ARBITRARILY (because it lacks good records of this event) that Jesus was born on 1FC, then that's just a problem of the calendar, not some issue for you to be offended with me about.

Christ was born in about 5/6 BC, he started his ministry in about 26 AD, he was crucified about 30 AD. He was either 31/32 when he started his ministry. He died at 35/36 years of age. So he minister at most 4 years.

So say the sources that you trust. You missed my point entirely. Do you realize that by 200AB everyone in the Westlands used the Toman Calendar? Do you realize that the Toman calendar says that 47AB happened after 1AB and that if any documents or memories had indicated that any male Aes Sedai were alive in 47AB that 47AB wouldn't have been given the date 47AB? My only point was to demonstrate against some very confused people that there were no male Aes Sedai running around in 47AB. I proposed a calendar similar to the Toman calendar to help people understand the calendar, and similar to the modern calendar to aid that understanding, but it was obviously a different calendar. And obviously if it is based on a death and adopted at a time when records aren't clear about the birth, then a partly arbitrary year could be assigned to that death event.

You feel insulted, and? I didn't even use you or your quotes or even imply anything towards you, until you brought religion into it. At this point my anger rose and I let you know it.

Hey, if you can't be bothered to even explain why you think that my post has anything to do with any specific religion, then you don't care about me as a person and are merely making personal attacks. You are angry. You surely have a reason. You won't explain it to me and instead make straw men claims that I claimed that Jesus was 50 when died. Obviously you didn't understand my post.


Free will said: "It doesn't much matter what life was like when Jesus was fifty,"

And why my ire went up and why I asked you to get your facts straight.


Oh no, my "facts" aren't straight when discussing a fictional calendar (the FC calendar) whose sole purpose was to explain a more popular fictional calendar (the Toman calendar) by analogy. I better ask you what the "real facts" are regarding my *fictional* calendar. There were thousands of people named Jesus. I never said Jesus of Nazareth, your desire to get offended put those words falsely into my mouth. I never said Jesus Christ, your desire to get offended put those words falsely into my mouth. Get your own facts straight and actually pay attention to the fictional calendars I described instead of falsely assuming that I was trying to offend you. You don't even know what calendar preceded the Gregorian calendar and yet you thought I was trying to describe the Gregorian calendar. You don't even realize which calendar was most similar to my FC, and as far as I can tell you don't understand that my calendar WAS a fictional calendar. And you don't get that my assigning a vague name was on purpose to be similar to the AB calendar. And I still can't tell if you understand that the year 1AB was hundreds of years after the Strike at SG.

Well, I don't know when the Roman calendar went out of style. I do know that the Gregorian calendar wasn't invented until 1582 AD, and not put into use until the 18th century.

I'm not even sure what counts as a "roman calendar". In many countries a calendar starts with each new ruler, with year one being the begining of his or her rule. If the Historian new which years in two calendars mathced up, he'd say so. If he has a range, he'd say so. The calendar I described was not the Gregorian calendar, which has a different number of days than it's predeccessor, which makes things even more complicated, so if you go back enough solar years, the calendars will disagree how many calendar years had passed.

98

clarkkd: 2005-07-01

From free will

""It's like if someone had a calendar based on when Jesus died, and jesus lived between 239 and 344 years. It doesn't much matter what life was like when Jesus was fifty, because we are discussing events 50 years after Jesus's death. (Jesus is the breaking here, I'm using it for familairity with the AD calendar common in large parts of the world today.""

Jesus is attributed with mentioning many many events that never happened, farmers with debts, all kinds of things that never happened modern calendar and CONTRAST it with the AB calendar.

Hey, if you can't be bothered to even explain why you think that my post has anything to do with any specific religion, then you don't care about me as a person and are merely making personal attacks. You are angry. You surely have a reason. You won't explain it to me and instead make straw men claims that I claimed that Jesus was 50 when died. Obviously you didn't understand my post."


First, what I see in your post's are angry and unfortunate.

Second the modern calendar is based off the life of Jesus. Therefore a rational person would link the name Jesus the phrase Modern Calendar, and any future reference a normal person would think hmmm He must mean Christ. This Jesus is also a religious leader. Religion is a topic that will tick people off, if you want people to argue your theory then leave all religious references out, or we can spend wasted space on ticking each other off, and leave your theory alone.

Yet maybe that is what you want. Lets not bother arguing your theory because it has holes in it, but lets argue about anything and everything else, that way my theory will not be touched?

Now then so that I won't be accused of hijacking your theory:

1. When did Kiam first appear? (year, and place)

2. What was her goal?

3. What evidence do you have that says word for word that all 12 groups agreed to build the tower?

4. Why would anyone pick an imprisonment/concentration camp styled life over free will?

5. Explain why darkfriend Aes Sedai, would have this plan?

6. Explain Ishy didn't start a Black Ajah until 2000 years before Rand was born?

7. Explain why when other people have valid points we are accused of “not understanding your posts”?

99

clarkkd: 2005-07-02

The Aes Sedai, gave up on trying to cleanse the taint. They did this not because of some Darkfriend plot but because of simple patients and ability. The only healing that they might have been able to do was only temporary, it would take consistent vigilance to keep this up. Monitoring and healing day and night until the man died, its just not going to work. The potential losses of Female Aes Sedai, is not worth the risk.

By suggesting that Male channelers be sent to steddings you are trying to change the main continent into Shara.

I'm beginning to believe Sammeal when he said the oath rod won't work on a man. The oath rod was available to try and get them to work on men. Why would they not have tried this? It seems that they tried everything else. They tried linking which sped up the process of going mad and rotting. They investigated all possibilities up until the Trolloc Wars.

Aes Sedai where not trusted they where blamed for the breaking. They would have had to have an army and enforce testing for channeling. This would have led to them being wiped out. Or the regular people would have been, and then we're back to the main continent being Shara.

Other possibilities are if you restrict Men to being in a Link the taint might backlash into the Female and make her as crazy as gonzo.

I would like to see the date when the oath rod was first introduced, you stated that the reds hid the thing and leave it at that, I request a quote to show this.

The theory also states that darkfriends would have to teach the dragon reborn how is this possible? Are you proposing a secret sect of men that have been held in reserve for the last 3000 years?

It's not about you spending a few minutes and coming up with better ideas, it's about the Aes Sedai tried for three hundred years or more, and came up with nada.

Free will said: "The bond warder weave seems EXACTLY like a weave a mother would make to protect and control and mind her child"

To bad if the mother dies prematurely and the child dies from the shock.

100

clarkkd: 2005-07-03

TITLE: Great Hunt

CHAPTER: 27 - The Shadow in the Night

"Reluctantly, Rand formed the void. Saidin shone at him, pulled at him. Dimly, he seemed to recall a time when it had sung to him, but now it only drew him, a flower's perfume drawing a bee, a midden's stench drawing a fly. He opened himself up, reached for it. There was nothing there. He could as well have been reaching for light in truth. The taint slid off onto him, soiling him, but there was no flow of light inside him. Driven by a distant desperation, he tried again and again. And again and again there was only the taint."

To show that it is holding the one power not channeling the one power that causes madness.

101

Anubis: 2005-07-05

**Is there any evidence that all mammals stayed in stedding during the breaking? No, in fact some male Aes Sedai that just so happened to be mammals, left the steddings. Since men also don't just stay still for gentling, this is irrelevant, as is comparing male Aes Sedai to boys who could learn to channel but have never touched the source. **

What do mammals have to do with this? i never mentioned mammals so of course they have nothing to do with this. and you ignore the fact that aes sedai had no way of finding male channelers before they touched the source.

**don't use male Aes Sedai to blanket infer things about boy channelers or even worse about boys who could learn. You can force people to stay in a stedding. Heck if you put a bond on a boy before he embraces the source then his Aes Sedai can compel him to stay in the Stedding. That works for as long as she lives. **

The warder bond can NOT be used to compell male channelers. this is the cornerstone of the alanna rand relationship. not to mention that steddings are huge, unwalled, essentially nature reserves. leaving is just a matter of a walk, unless your going to suggest 1. that the aes sedai could stop people inside the steadding and 2. that the ogier would let them.

**I'm not certain that binding chairs would work on a channeler. Especially if your theory that oath rods are gender specific is correct. **

its not a theory, sammael said it and noone disputed it, spoken or otherwise. morridin who was watching would have commented.

Me: Not to mention the logistical nightmare that would have entailed.

**How is it supposed to be worse than waiting for men to spark and then trying to capture them alive at great risk to transport them at great risk to do something irreversible that would make the Shadow win TG that ends up making him die with no benefit to anyone anyway?**

You dont understand how reacting to the few individual sparkers might be easier then putting aes sedai in every town village and farmstead to find every male channeler? think about it.

**The Historian of the BWB knows how, so that implies that documents survived that describe it. Besides it's not that different than what women do so some experimentation can recover it quickly. One of them could go through the doorway ter'angrael in Mayne and ask how men can do it. Or send a man through to ask. How about using the doorway to ask how to hold off the taint, how to make ter'angrael to bind men, how to make ter'angrael to find male channelers, etcetera? How about using the dream rings to send people into T'A'R then imagining a doorway like the one in Rhuidean and going thorugh to get wishes to be shielded from the taint?**

knowing and being able to are two very different things. and we dont even know if you can go from tar to another dimension not to mention the fact that the Aes Sedai DID NOT HAVE ANY DOORFRAME TER ANGREAL. later in this paragraph you mention the tower of genji. all evidence points to it being different and MUCH more dangerous then the doorways. all but impossible to leave said briggite.

**In just a few centuries the sister's gave up looking for herbs that prevent sparking, non-sister's could have done that work?**

i found a herb that prevents channeling, its called... oh lets say thyme. how am i going to test it?