The Seanchan plotline had a huge amount of potential. They started out as simple two-dimensional villains, before filling out into interesting and human characters with culture and stereotypes and disagreements of their own. But there was always that one insurmountable stumbling block to them being proper 'good guys', as it were - their leashing of channelers.
(in fact, their keeping of slaves is abhorrent generally, though no one - in the books, or here - seems to care about the ordinary da'covale.)
Elayne's plan to capture sul'dam, teach them to channel, and send them back to Seanchan was a good one. Done publicly enough that the Seanchan powerful couldn't cover it up, it could have torn their society apart, and would certainly have toppled Fortuona, a sul'dam herself. But neither RJ nor BS seem to have taken that route, despite the fact, as we saw in ToM, that at least one sul'dam has been convinced. Elayne seems to have forgotten them. Even Egwene, leader of the Aes Sedai and knowing personally the horrors of living as damane, seems to spend no time thinking of how to exploit this huge weakness in her greatest (non-shadow) enemy.
Between Tuon, Tylee, Egeanin and the three sul'dam, there have been plenty of opportunities for the Seanchan to be forced to confront their own hypocrisy. As yet, it has not happened, and if it happens in the final book it can only be a rushed and unsatisfying conclusion to a plotline that's been building since Great Hunt. In addition, even if the Westland-Seanchan do accept that change is necessary, it won't effect the majority of Seanchan still living on the other side of the ocean.
I am disappointed. I had imagined, back in the days PoD and WH, that the Seanchan and the Aes Sedai would both curb each other's worst excesses, with the Seanchan forced to admit that channelers are human and equal, and the Aes Sedai forced to acknowledge that their power must have some limit, and that they should serve others intead of just themselves. Apparently not. Sigh.
The Seanchan
24/11/2010 03:04:21 PM
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I agree
24/11/2010 04:38:34 PM
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Guns
26/11/2010 07:30:12 PM
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What, there's some unique and dastardly way the Seanchan use guns? *NM*
27/11/2010 01:08:20 AM
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no, its just that aludra made canons, the seanchan did better and made guns
27/11/2010 03:09:31 AM
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