A note on Lan and his women - Edit 3
Before modification by FanEditor10 at 05/06/2010 03:50:45 AM
Lan starts out his sexual adult life with Edeyn, A fierce woman with raven hair and big beautiful eyes. Her seal is a crouching lioness ready to spring pressed in blue wax. And Lan thinks to himself, "she is a lioness.." (from New Spring)
Edeyn wants to marry him to her daughter and he resists. Presumably, he would also have resisted marrying Edeyn herself had he been given the chance.
After his last romp with Edeyn near the end of NS, he spends the next twenty years as Moiraine's warder, with whom he has no romantic relationship, and then falls in love with Nynaeve. That is not to say that he had no other sexual encounters, but presumably none meaningful.
Although you never get to read from Lan's perspective while he and Nynaeve are doing their delicate dance of romance, you DO read from his perspective with Edeyn, and when the idea was first brought to him, he "saw no way to avoid" marrying Iselle. Had she not been tragically killed, he may have had to go through with it.
Eventually he ends up being bullied into marriage by Nynaeve, in a split-second-decision wedding performed by the Sea Folk (of all people, surprising given Nynaeve's conservative Two River's views). Nynaeve, a beautiful Lioness with long raven hair and big beautiful eyes...
We know that Lan loves Nynaeve and did not love Iselle or Edeyn, so the situations are admittedly different, but I find it interesting that he keeps getting romantically and sexually entrapped by these fierce, dark, commanding beauties. I don't think the similar character descriptions are coincidental.
Edeyn wants to marry him to her daughter and he resists. Presumably, he would also have resisted marrying Edeyn herself had he been given the chance.
After his last romp with Edeyn near the end of NS, he spends the next twenty years as Moiraine's warder, with whom he has no romantic relationship, and then falls in love with Nynaeve. That is not to say that he had no other sexual encounters, but presumably none meaningful.
Although you never get to read from Lan's perspective while he and Nynaeve are doing their delicate dance of romance, you DO read from his perspective with Edeyn, and when the idea was first brought to him, he "saw no way to avoid" marrying Iselle. Had she not been tragically killed, he may have had to go through with it.
Eventually he ends up being bullied into marriage by Nynaeve, in a split-second-decision wedding performed by the Sea Folk (of all people, surprising given Nynaeve's conservative Two River's views). Nynaeve, a beautiful Lioness with long raven hair and big beautiful eyes...
More importantly, we don't know that Ilyena had all these qualities, or that she was even a channeler. LTT loved her, and a man who's totally in love with his woman describes her as having all the best qualities. Remember in TEotW, when Lan pledged his troth to Nynaeve (while simultaneously rejecting her)? He didn't mention that she was a petulant bully who couldn't stand not getting her way even when she didn't know what she was talking about. Lan of the Many Nicknames just said she was "a lioness..."
--darius_sedai
--darius_sedai
We know that Lan loves Nynaeve and did not love Iselle or Edeyn, so the situations are admittedly different, but I find it interesting that he keeps getting romantically and sexually entrapped by these fierce, dark, commanding beauties. I don't think the similar character descriptions are coincidental.