Seriously framed comments usually prompt responses in kind. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 06/12/2010 10:16:24 PM
Of course, if it's clear you're being clumsily sarcastic the response may be more deftly sarcastic.... 
yeah.
It would be just stupid if they weren't Aiel but... something else.
Of course, that just raises other questions, more interesting ones, IMHO (first and foremost being WTF happened to these Aiel... ).
For starters they had dark eyes. My point here is that they could be any number of things! Some kind of Shadowspawn, men from the Isle of Madmen, Aiel who have somehow been corrupted etc...
We have a one-sentence description that seemed to make us want to think they were Aiel, but the dark eyed oddity makes me question what we think we saw.
For starters and enders one of them had dark eyes, which doesn't necessarily mean he's anything more uncommon than a rare but inevitable dark eyed Aiel. Removing his veil and then killing is far more significant, because we've been repeatedly and reliably told no Aiel kill unveiled. They COULD be anything, since we've not been told what they are; Shadowspawn, Madmen, renegade Confederate soldiers sucked through a wormhole and randomly deposited in Randland. Of course, there's no REASON to believe they're anything but what they appear, apart from removing the veils and one statement by a teenager largely unfamiliar with Aiel at the time.
I find the implications of that one sentence far less significant than the implications of the other, since 1) the former is from a narrator so unreliable he also says no Aiel have the pale skin as common among them as blue and green eyes and 2) the latter is corroborated by a wealth of other sentences throughout the series. Nowhere but a single comment by Rand soon after meeting the Aiel does anyone say NONE of them have dark eyes, but it's common knowledge that the short hafted spears, veils frequently donned and removed as combat dictates and characteristically low long strides are distinctively Aiel.
*shrugs* If you want to believe they're the Mechwarriors of Pern and just LOOK like Aiel, no skin off my nose. I think the smart money is still on them being Aiel warped by the Shadow or something else (the Car'a'carn brings change, and some have interpreted that in decidely disturbing ways...
), but time will tell. If I'm going to play a long shot though I'll stick with Be'laim and Darkfriend Sorilea; not only would those provide far more stunning exploitations of what people THINK they know, there are so few people betting on either that the payoff's a lot higher. If I'm to confront the strong possibility of a crazy theory leaving me with egg on my face, it might as well be my own crazy theory. 
I don't understand why it's so important to people that these guys aren't Aiel.
yeah.
It would be just stupid if they weren't Aiel but... something else.
Of course, that just raises other questions, more interesting ones, IMHO (first and foremost being WTF happened to these Aiel... ).
For starters they had dark eyes. My point here is that they could be any number of things! Some kind of Shadowspawn, men from the Isle of Madmen, Aiel who have somehow been corrupted etc...
We have a one-sentence description that seemed to make us want to think they were Aiel, but the dark eyed oddity makes me question what we think we saw.
For starters and enders one of them had dark eyes, which doesn't necessarily mean he's anything more uncommon than a rare but inevitable dark eyed Aiel. Removing his veil and then killing is far more significant, because we've been repeatedly and reliably told no Aiel kill unveiled. They COULD be anything, since we've not been told what they are; Shadowspawn, Madmen, renegade Confederate soldiers sucked through a wormhole and randomly deposited in Randland. Of course, there's no REASON to believe they're anything but what they appear, apart from removing the veils and one statement by a teenager largely unfamiliar with Aiel at the time.
I find the implications of that one sentence far less significant than the implications of the other, since 1) the former is from a narrator so unreliable he also says no Aiel have the pale skin as common among them as blue and green eyes and 2) the latter is corroborated by a wealth of other sentences throughout the series. Nowhere but a single comment by Rand soon after meeting the Aiel does anyone say NONE of them have dark eyes, but it's common knowledge that the short hafted spears, veils frequently donned and removed as combat dictates and characteristically low long strides are distinctively Aiel.
*shrugs* If you want to believe they're the Mechwarriors of Pern and just LOOK like Aiel, no skin off my nose. I think the smart money is still on them being Aiel warped by the Shadow or something else (the Car'a'carn brings change, and some have interpreted that in decidely disturbing ways...
), but time will tell. If I'm going to play a long shot though I'll stick with Be'laim and Darkfriend Sorilea; not only would those provide far more stunning exploitations of what people THINK they know, there are so few people betting on either that the payoff's a lot higher. If I'm to confront the strong possibility of a crazy theory leaving me with egg on my face, it might as well be my own crazy theory.