And that was slapped down by someone pretending to be Egwene. In any event, yes, people don't change overnight, and if there are half a dozen Reds willing to entertain a positive attitude towards bonding Asha'man (and to ask in a reasonably civil manner), they no doubt have their share of counterparts among the rebels, who would be among the sisters who sought an Asha'man warder. They are still Aes Sedai, and since the rebellion is, like the rebellious nobles in Tear & Cairhien, all about the privileges of their class, they would not be willing to force a sister to undergo a lifetime commitment to having a potential madman in her head unless she was willing, and especially if there was some eager young Green bouncing on her tiptoes to volunteer. Of course, the bit about Myrelle shortly before the Hall sat to receive the proposal might indicate a sea change in that attitude as well... but from where I stand, locking their new Warders out of the camp strikes me as uncharacteristic, and actually, rather short-sighted. You claim they are suspicious of the Asha'man and seek to control and train them above all else, but they are willing to let them out of their sight? The attitude you describe might be indicated by a cordoned-off section WITHIN the sisters' camp, but not with them simply locked out.

Actually, that was a reference to similar comments you made about me in an argument about Elayne's alleged possessiveness of Rand.

She was not doing that to humiliate Rand, but to chastise him. His "humiliation" went unnoticed by anyone but female channelers and Min. Min, Nynaeve and Alivia would not turn on Rand over that, and the Aes Sedai were bound to him beyond any effect their opinions could have. She could have chosen any number of highly visible ways to humiliate him if that was really her goal. A way that passes unnoticed by the nobles in the room is not exactly one that aims at humilitation. She tells Nynaeve to shut up, because Nynaeve's words are wrongfully reinforcing Rand's dick attitude. Nynaeve was basically telling them to be careful lest they make Rand angry. What kind of leadership is that? All it does is make him seem like a monster who must be placated and appeased, lest he lash out. Moral implications aside, while fear can be a useful tool for a ruler, underlings should fear his justice if they do wrong, not his wrath if they err in their initiative to serve him. There is a story that a public building in Moscow had two wings, built at the same time, that were completely mismatched styles of architecture. The reason for this absurdity was because they came up with two alternative plans for the building, showed the plans to Stalin, and when he misunderstood that they were two different choices, and said "Yes, do it that way," no one was willing to point out his error. Stalin was well-known for his irrational and undeserved punishments, so no one wanted to bring themselves to his attention. This is the sort of leadership Nynaeve's comment following Rand's outburst was pointing at. For Rand's own POLITICAL benefit as well as moral good and character improvement, Cadsuane was right.



They say one reason to reverse a fall is to hit rock bottom and bounce...

I am not a WoT male. You'd stub your toe on my big brass ones.



Except Cadsuane is not like any other Aes Sedai we've seen. Just as one example, where almost everyone, including the women sworn to Rand and possibly Egwene, and maybe even his channeling girlfriends as well, was horrified on behalf of the sisters Rand stilled, Cadsuane was the one who regretted the effect on Rand.

And such an action as you suggest would in NO WAY meet her promise that whatever she did would be SOLELY for Rand's benefit, even over the Tower or her own good.

Except she can't lie.

So you think it's a good idea for her to permit and by silence encourage them acting like dogs marking their territory? You might recall, that Logain, hostile and a reluctant follower at best, came strutting in flaunting his rank to try impressing Rand, and it was promptly deflated by Cadsuane. He then lured Rand into a pissing contest, which can only be to the benefit of the rebellious underling if it is a case with a clear-cut rightful leader. Rand is the Dragon Reborn, period. He does not need to establish his rank with Logain, and stooping to assert his personal dominance only boosts Logain's credibility. And worse, there is the chance that Logain could come away winning the pissing contest, and even if he never gets the right to command Rand, can get the moral authority such as Egwene did in her abuse of Nynaeve in T'A'R. Even short of that, Logain could still embarass Rand by luring him into responding to this sort of thing and encouraging backtalk to Rand. Cadsuane not only pulled the rug out from under him, she did so in a way that protected Rand from further such challenges, and in a way that did not make it look like he was hiding behind her skirts. By phrasing it that way, she makes the Asha'man look like jerks for getting Rand in trouble.

She is not smacking him down when he does what she does not want him to do, but when he does stuff where he really needs someone to tell him "no." He needs someone who will give it to him straight. Who else would have told him that his treatment of the Sea Folk was unjust and wrong? Most of his followers, seeing it as their duty or as a way to ingratiate themselves with him, would have set about facilitating his violation of the Bargain. The consequences Elayne fears of breaking the Tower's bargain with the Sea Folk can apply to Rand as well, with more devastating results - HE does not have 3,000 years of ingrained obedience, or Oath-Rod supported denials countering the bad press of Sea Folk spreading the tale of his reneging on a deal.

She is NOT setting him up for a leash - you do that by going along with the subject, as Elayne did with Mat's soldiers in LoC, and rapidly subverted the noble-hating, Aes Sedai-mistrusting Vanin, and Moiraine was having success doing with Rand in tFoH.

No, you establish moral supremacy. Cadsuane has only done so in situations where he has clearly been wrong.

It is also how women expressed offense at the actions of men, before they started demanding federal protection and filing law suits.

That is true, but you have to control the circumstances and environment for that sort of thing to work. And that involves real punishments. A slap on the face does nothing more than get the subject's attention and establish the limits of what one is willing to tolerate. Slaps are NOT about establishing the right to command, but about signaling a transgression of propriety. She slaps Rand to get his attention regarding his use of a dangerous weave that threatens the Pattern (and for the sake of a woman who was not in all that much danger - recall your position previously on Rand's irrational approach to women being harmed: endangering the Pattern over a not-immediate threat to a woman is not a proportionate response. It might be comparable to whipping out a canister of anthrax to ward off a wolf-whistle), and when he disrespects her femininity and age by cursing in front of her. From a certain perspective, she showed a great deal of forebearance by letting him get away with one shot with only a warning. It is not as if she is any different on this issue from any number of women in the series, including Nynaeve. Moiraine and Egwene might play it too cool to be upset by such bourgeoisie notions of gender respect, but neither is Cadsuane alone in her attitude. Of what do you think the Shienarans were so wary when Nynaeve expressed displeasure with their language? There has to be a middle ground between ineffectual words and facial expressions and abuse of the One Power.

Not his superior, except possibly socially (a situation that will not ever change, re: respective genitalia of the persons in question). She is establishing the limits of acceptable behavior. If she was blasting him with ter'angreal-induced pain, or depriving him of something or imposing more severe corporal punishment, that WOULD support your contention. You, however, are taking the position akin to those who oppose all spankings, by protesting any slight against Rand's fragile little ego. Being the Dragon Reborn is not an excuse to be a pig or a boor, and he has no reason for it anyway. Or do you think the Marines & co are silly and controlling for settling as an ideal that their leadership be gentlemen?

Not as a superior, but as someone who can and will stand up to him. If words alone sufficed, she would have contented herself with them. She is establishing herself as someone for Rand to take seriously, and not shove in a corner to play with her wagonloads of trinkets like Moiraine was in tFoH.

Except there is no indication of that. She is teaching him to behave, not to fear her disapproval. If that WAS her intention, she would be finding reasons to punish him so as to continually reinforce the lesson. This goes along with what I have been saying about the White Tower's brainwashing efforts on their initiates. The ones who are best able to think outside the box at the end of it are those who can accept the limits and restrain themselves. Those who need repeated visits to the MoN ARE conditioned against going their own way. Look at Siuan's reaction to Moiraine cleaning the ink from her dress in NS. Knowing them as we do, Siuan was almost certainly the more headstrong and defiant of the pair, as Moiraine herself characterizes her, and thus received the most smackdowns. Moiraine, who was better at adhering to imposed limits of her own free will, was better able to think for herself when the time came. The Seanchan do something similar, and that was what Bethamin was prescribing as the last resort for Teslyn - dish out punishments at every opportunity, even without just cause, and that breaks the will of the subject and has them fearing the displeasure of the bosses over anything else. In military basic training, one technique employed is for the DI to place the trainee in a spot where no matter how he answers, the DI can take offense and dish out punishment. People who are trying to train someone to obediance SEEK OUT excuses to impose the punishment for disobediance, they do not express internal satisfaction over the subject behaving properly without too many instances of correction required.

That would probably be because she is NOT aiming at the goal you attribute to her.

No, that was the reason for his willingness to let her take over the security - he feared she would leave him if he ordered otherwise, and it was not worth challenging her over yet.

Then her course of action should be reversed. Fighting this losing battle against his manners is exactly the sort of fight Elayne avoided picking. She should be letting him go on his way and only opposing him on the big stuff. If Rand knows he can get what he really wants without her interference, and only her support and cooperation if on her terms, he is not as inclined to run everything by her. Cadsuane is basically trading her support on the big & important things in exchange for his adherence to her standards on the little & personal things. Elayne was letting them run free, but giving orders on the big issues, where she knew they were already going to do it, whether out of inclination or necessity. If she WAS playing that game, she would have been urging Rand on at the Cleansing, and talking him "into" his courses of action. She would be ordering him on how to go about opening communications with the Seanchan, and testing Algarin and forbidding him from allowing any harm to come to Semirhage - all orders that he would be carrying out on his own, and would not refuse to follow. She would be patting him on the head for every act of courtesy, applauding his charity to the Tairen orphans, praising his tactical successes and so forth, so that, like Pavlov's dog, he would come to associate good actions with her praise and begin seeking that praise.

Ding ding.

To teach him about limitations. That is the essential concept Rand has to grasp. There are limits to what he can do, and he has to accept that, and let the rest go. There are limits to how far the Dragon Reborn can get away with stuff, and beyond those, he will become what he fights. There are, or should be, limits to his power and authority. You can draw a line and say "this far and no further," without imposing your domination on what the other party does while still on his side. Like the poem "Mending Wall" says: Good fences make good neighbors. Cadsuane is building fences to show Rand where he is trespassing. In a way she is freeing him. The saying Elayne's guard quotes is that "What is not forbidden is allowed," and that sums up the whole concept of limitations. When Rand gets in the habit of being polite, he no longer has to worry about keeping his dominance and acting in the right manner to stay in charge and keep people guessing - by sticking to an established code of courtesy, his actions are recognizable and acceptable to all, and manners do not preclude self-defense or polite refusals to cooperate. Just as a reasonable social preservation measure, violent cultures adopt elaborate systems of etiquette. In one of his Conan works, Robert Howard said that barbarians are more polite than civilized men, because civilized men did not usually risk having their heads split open for being rude. We see this reflected in WoT in the Borderlands and among the Aiel. Two characteristic Dain Bornhald notes among the Two Rivers people is their stubborness and refusal to submit, and their courtesy even while stubbornly refusing to give in. Being polite and courteous does NOT nueter Rand, it does NOT hem him in and prevent him from fighting, and does NOT break his will to resist.

If that's the case, she's never going to get there. There is simply not enough time for such a long program to work.

It's because you are taking her slaps as more extreme deterrances than they actually are. They are warnings and signals that he has crossed a line, not intended to do more than get his attention. Make no mistake - Cadsuane is never going to be his buddy, even if their relationship has time to blossom to its ideal fruition. He doesn't need that from her either, so the distance between them is no worse than that of any other elderly woman and a young man she respects as much as she is capable of respecting someone so young, inexperienced and clueless. Try to recall that she was the first Aes Sedai to ever offer a positive assessment of his character if you become to concerned over that old-lady-superiority position. Name another sister who gave him as personal a compliment as "There's good metal in the boy." Especially after leaving a meeting where he exploded at her, shouted and threw a teapot around.

There is a substantive difference between a random Aiel warrior and any proven Darkfriend, let alone one of the Forsaken.

Hence the value of Elayne. For ego reasons if nothing else, she cannot let the Prince-Consort of Andor and father of the Daughter-heir be subjected to a foreign authority. And with all these conveniently located Asha'man who are specifically trained in One Power combat, and tend to look for excuses to prove their equality or superiority to Aes Sedai, and who probably crave acceptance in society on the level Aes Sedai enjoy...well, any overt action on Egwene's part against Rand would be to the cause of the nations freeing themselves from White Tower hegemony as the expedition to seize the powder at Lexington and Concord was to the American cause of independence. I think that is the purpose of Egwene - however she might agree with the idea, she will prevent the Tower from doing this sort of thing, and preserve it from overreaching. And she'll get the credit from her fans here for her moral stance, when in truth it is simply recognition that she can't get away with it.

That's what my pastor used to say.


Except Rand is not a terminal patient on a hospital bed, he is the only one who can bring the plane in for a safe landing, and he is becoming hooked on morphine, and has moved on to seeking stronger drugs which will distort his reflexes, perceptions and bodily functions, and cause him to do something stupid, crazy or indifferent to collateral damage. Like maybe cause a loss of cabin pressure, because he's so high he misses the warning lights, and as a result, safely lands a plane full of bodies.

That is exactly what Rand is doing. Maybe not physically, but that is what his hardness is. He is emotionally and spiritually curling in a ball in response to all the betrayals, losses and letdowns he has experienced. Moiraine, Liah, Somera, Galina & Katerine, Desora, Rahvin's lightning trap, the dead girl in the Stone, Mangin, the Battle for Cairhien, Morgase, Ingtar, his true parentage, the taint and the madness, Lews Therin in his head, the Altaran campaign & Adley, Fedwin Morr and Fain in the Two Rivers. These are all slings and arrows striking him, and rather than push forward into the storm and carry on, he is getting fetal and whimpering and crying. He can't fight them off or duck and evade, because he is reacting to what he has suffered, rather than take it and move on.

Yeah, in circles.

Like a little kid who won't take his hand off the cut to let anyone put peroxide in it...

Except she's crossing her legs as tightly as she can, rather than taking up arms to defend herself, and incidentally the next victim of the gang. Rand isn't offering a noble sacrifice, he's looking for an easy way out. He has to confront that Dark One to prevent him from destroying the world, and he has shown more interest in getting it over with than actually protecting the world. His whole attitude that everyone can go f*** themselves once he's dead is completely against the spirit of what he has to do. Aridhol might have turned themselves into a rabid beast to fight the Shadow, but Rand is simply going to let the Shadow kill him for the same reason - neither can stand the price that is needed to keep up the fight. Do you think the men of Manetheren marched to the bank of the Tarendrelle thinking "Thank the Light! We can finally get killed and give up all of this marching and fighting and eating crappy food and taking injuries and losing friends and doing strenuous physical labor and living in squallor to protect people who mock us for going out of our way to do what is right instead of what is most advantageous for us!"

You cite the problem - Rand's life is a burden. Giving up a burden is not a sacrifice, and he cannot sacrifice what he does not value. You can't buy the salvation of the world with a bad check. Cadsuane & Sorilea want to put something into his account before it bounces.