What devastates people more? Knowing exactly how their ancestors died or knowing how their immediate and future descendents are going to die? Would the fact that there was a genocide fifty years ago trouble your thought more than the knowledge that there could be one in the future?

This isn't about prosperity or success. It isn't about them being kings or not. Some of those descendents showed clearly that they misused their association with the Dragon Reborn. This is the complete eradication of a people.

The viewings of the Aiel of the past were bearable because even though it was sad that so many of them died and the changing world forced them to give up their beliefs and principles in the race for survival, in the end, its fine because they adapted to changes and continued on strong, if in no way similar to their life before. What we see in the future is a proud people brought to their knees, and then kicked down even further till they aren't there at all. Whatever one thinks of the Aiel, it is true that they are a proud people who have managed to build a fairly stable and honest society in the worst of conditions. I fail to see how it is not sad that they did not adapt to the changing times again, and instead were reduced to begging for food, forgetting all they were, and in the end, eradicated.


Simple. It is an entirely normal instinct to want your progeny to survive and drive. It goes even beyond emotion, being hard-wired into our brains and is the very basis of evolution. Why else do you think so many people are so passionate about global warming? Why do you think people care about preserving the world for the future generations?

So, when you read a character's PoV, and place yourself in their position, seeing all their progeny utterly destroyed is sad. The wonder is you think this is something weird. It seems entirely natural to me.


Absurd vanity it may be, but it is also instinct. Most people will tell you that they would like for all their descendents to be happy, and they won't even think long about it. Look at the constitutions of great nations and you'll always see talk of a stable, long lasting society, with generations of our children living in peace and harmony and justice and so on. Like I said, it is only natural.

As for the future world existing because of Rand... that's the point. He ended up fighting and sacrificing for a world where his descendents are eradicated.


Don't be silly. No one is mourning that all of Rand's descendents aren't top dogs wearing silk coats and living in bid palaces. The issue is that not one of them survives. And while that is, eventually, likely true of many people, it isn't a fact that anyone knows like Aviendha does. That is what causes all the emotion.


But that is a very mechanical thought process. I'm not saying that I disagree, or that I blame Rand or Aviendha for the failure of their progeny. But why on earth would you think this is about responsibility or blame anyway? This is about empathy. I feel sad when I see poor woman on the street, begging for money to feed her malnourished child. And she isn't even my responsibility. The best I can do for her is try to vote for a government that isn't incompetent and corrupt. But that doesn't stop me from being sad.

Now, seeing that happen to my descendents will make me at least equally sad. And that is the kind of sorrow and horror Aviendha feels. As a reader who is invested in her PoV, that makes me sad too, though the degree is obviously lesser, this being fiction.


Likely outcomes elicit less emotion? That's absurd. I watched my cousin die of cancer. I knew he was going to die, I could write a 50 page thesis on the molecular and cellular mechanisms that caused his death, I was intimately aware of what was coming. I can assure you, at no point did I react with "duh". While this is fiction and one obviously feels far less, the principles are the same. That the Aiel, if they fail to adapt to the changing world, will be eradicated is not surprising. Doesn't stop it from being sad.


Bah. You claimed that the Aiel would loose as they are to the Seanchan as they are. Given how long and how successfully the Aiel fight them in the future, your arguments look even more silly now.