Not so much. It refers to the precautions against Aran’gar’s depredations. Before she started murdering deadweigh…I mean, Blue sisters, they maintained the perimeter to avoid contact with the soldiers. Most recently, they have been afraid of Aran’gar. Making a perimeter to keep out warders, even Asha’man warders, goes in the face of their behavior in the Hall when Merise & Narishma came. If they are keeping the men out of the camp, it is by the individual order of the bond-holding sisters themselves, and not a policy for the whole camp. It strains all credibility to assume that EVERY sister to bond an Asha’man is of the mindset of Varilin & co. With two dozen sisters (or up to twice that number) drawn from a pool of six different Ajahs, there is going to considerable variation, and it is impossible to believe that they screened their pool of under 300 Red-hating sisters to get 20-47 women who fear and mistrust Asha’man but would be willing to bond them.


Or another eye injury, or something worse.

That’s a bit of a stretch to read into it, considering we should know better from KoD. The Empress is dead, and the woman who made the arrangements for the last one has fallen. Do you really think the coronation of a new Seanchan empress happens without immense formality, pomp and pageantry? Give them a few minutes to get settled in – recall from her very first chapter that Tuon has an agenda regarding Rand: Even if she would not be receptive to a truce, she should at least be open to establishing contact with him.

Regarding Rand, though, not her. I think it portends his paranoia and negativity more than any real problems from her. Remember too, there might be a great deal of significance in her attire, which has nothing to do with what Rand may believe. She is Seanchan, and appears to retain their beliefs about omens at least. For all we know, her dress color might have been significant for her activity according to Seanchan customs, and the significance could be completely different from what someone from the Real World or the wetlands might think it held.

Don’t you have any self-respect? I never took you for one of those women who think it is just fine to be threatened with death by her own parents, and quelled with an all-but-unnoticeable facial tic.

Seriously though, maybe you’re just growing up. I found it to be consistent with her behavior previously.

And note that Cadsuane does not demand it of Nynaeve. There is a purpose to her demands, and it has nothing to do with her ego.

I think he needs to get better in his head first. When you are properly morally centered, you don’t have these sorts of confusion inhibiting you.

Have you even been reading the books? You might recall that such a course of action would be entirely contrary to her promises and expressed intentions to him.

You would not be teaching him anything, and would only make him more paranoid, untrusting and inclined to see the worst than he already is. There’s more to Cadsuane’s method than simply smacking him down when he goes wrong – she is trying to give him a sister he can genuinely trust…not to be a lickspittle or weapon, but to have his back and do what’s right and most important, be someone he can trust with important things without his control. Having someone he IS able to trust is an important step to making him trust people again. If he doesn’t trust ANYONE, then it is only a short step to seeing everyone as an enemy, and an even shorter step from there to seeing them as legitimate targets. If he can come to accept that Cadsuane has no higher agenda or ulterior motive, and will not go behind his back or screw up or evade his wishes, he can open himself to trusting her. Once he trusts one person, it makes trusting others who are worthy of his trust exponentially more likely. Compare his thoughts about Nynaeve in the last few books and now this one… He trusts Nynaeve more than any other sister in WH, but even she…blah, blah, blah. He spared no thought for her in CoT, but KoD was full of observations over how infuriating and obscure her behavior and mannerisms are, and in TfS, his brief reflections on her suggest she is dangerous, but dangerous to those who go against him too. His opinion or perception of Nynaeve has gradually shifted over the last few books to where he could conceivably come around to being as suspicious of her as of anyone. His last few expressions of trust in Nynaeve have seemed almost desperate, as if he was desperately trying to hold onto those reasons and could feel his good will towards her evaporating.

I saw that as being both practical and evading sinking to their level, while coming up with a reason to justify her decision to their distraught victim to prevent Egwene from performing any atrocities.

I doubt it. She was constrained with Moghedian by circumstances. I think she’d have no problem ordering Moghedian’s execution, or sitting in judgment of her at a formal trial and condemning her to death. She was even in the pro-torture lobby, and this is not a sign of “darkness.” Even in the real world, contrary to the moral teachings of the screenwriter’s guild, that is EXACTLY the principle under which torture is legal – if they do it, it can be done to them. The Geneva Conventions ONLY apply to signatories thereof. The falsely clean reputation of the Wehrmacht in WW2 has a lot to do with the fact that most of their atrocities were performed against the USSR, which never signed the Geneva Conventions, and thus were legal. A self-confessed Forsaken is beyond the pale, as far as rules go, and the willingness to do anything with a legitimate purpose to her indicates absolutely nothing other than a desire to carry out that purpose.

I thought you wrote that part when I read it.

All Rand. He’s going paranoid. It is not necessarily anything to do with her.

You are such a chick. He needs to suck it up and stop feeling sorry for himself. All his vaunted hardening is just a way of hiding from the pain. He has to toughen up for real. Remember, Cadsuane and Sorilea’s preference for his condition over mental & spiritual hardness is NOT softness, it is strength!