Thanks to the predominance of feminist ideas among the alienated elite who dictate the trends of popular entertainment, a phenomenon has arisen, whereby women, especially if they are attractive, get a pass on their exercise and use of power. Because of the shallow perception of strength in a character, writers take the easy way out and give their female characters power, rather than personal strength. They make them exercise that power as proof of their strength, rather than show emotional or mental strength in the overcoming of adversity. All a woman has to do to be hailed as strong is defeat an enemy by using some form of force, whether physical, military, authoritarian or magical, and no one will question whether or not there is a better way, or if her enemies deserved it. It’s all about the gratification of a woman with power, because that is theoretically something novel after millennia of sexism. Yet, because they don’t know any better, any more than Dark Rand knew the difference between being strong and being hard, the female characters, or the whipped men who write them, settle for the easiest path and show strength by overcoming opposition, regardless of whether or not the opposition had a point. In fact, if Our Heroine does so in defiance and contradiction to masculine advice, contradiction or opposition, so much the better, because she is now proving that she is Strong and that she Does Not Need Anyone To Tell Her What To Do. Just like Dark Rand.

This happens over and over again, and the readers swallow it whole thanks to the point of view trap with such characters as Egwene, or Daenerys in SoI&F and it will go on happening as long as authors take a shallow and politically correct perspective on their female characters that embraces their empowerment as an end in and of itself, with no concern for how well those characters use their power. Unfortunately, Brandon Sanderson is not even able to violate political correctness to retain the WoT practice of referring to men and women and “men” or “women” since his take on Jordan’s gender-themed work suddenly has begun largely replacing those terms with the abused and ubiquitous “person.” If Sanderson cannot break the cultural taboos sufficiently to have people in an archaic setting use appropriately gender-specific terminology, how can we expect him to critically examine the use of power by women, when political correctness dictates that the mere possession and exercise of power by women is a good in and of itself?

I bring all of this up, because I find myself falling into a pattern once again, that usually involves me being called misogynistic because I criticize women with power (I’ll criticize an unjustly praised male ruler just as soon as RJ or B-Sand bloody well writes one) only this time with a character of whom I was one of the relatively few defenders. When it came to assessing Elayne, I have often felt like the voice of one crying in the wilderness in opposition to all too many who felt no need to examine her beyond applying the trope of “spoiled princess” and operating on the assumption that her actions and motivations were all covered by that prejudice. Now, with Elayne fully come into her own rule & authority and the latest book showing her amassing power beyond even what might have been expected earlier in the series, the typical corruption of power has begun to exert itself upon her, even as the author and many readers succumb to admiration of power and applaud each step she takes to consolidate her power toward absolutism. In order to stay true to my principles, such as the one that demands I call a spade a spade when any character starts abusing the moral principles I hold important, I have to turn on my previous support and put her in her place. For some readers, the line is seeing a character get raped, even when it is being portrayed as an evil act by an evil character. For me, it’s seeing a so-called hero be given a pass for tyranny. For a long time Egwene was the sole exemplar of that (along with the mainstays of the old regimes, like Siuan, Morgase, etc), as the male characters treated their power or authority as nothing more than an unwanted means to an urgent and immediate end, and earned what power they did gain through action or ancient prophecies (and thus servicing the traditions of the people he exercised authority over), rather than technicalities (i.e. abuse of the spirit of the law) or the intercession of an elite class.

Now Elayne got off to a good start. She took the throne of Andor in accordance with tradition and law, and earned it through action as well, by making necessary preparations for the upcoming Last Battle which also stood her in good stead against would-be usurpers, whose own actions in attempting to take the throne proved their unworthiness to hold it. There were warning signs, but given the predominance of the Aes Sedai, it seemed that Elayne’s first real violation was one of those things that cannot be helped – she used her authority as an Aes Sedai to give permission for the combined armies of the Borderlands to pass through Andor, despite it being made explicitly clear that she had no authority to do so deriving from any Andoran law or practice. Rather, the only right she called upon in giving that permission were the privileges arrogantly and unlawfully usurped by the sisters and the Tower to do as they wished in defiance of the natural rights of people and states. Any decent patriot, especially as the faction of Andoran nobles which includes Ellorien has been portrayed, would NEVER be silenced by Elayne’s claiming such authority as she did to grant passage to a foreign army. Rather than subsiding as Ellorien does, a decent Andoran should have tried to execute Elayne as a traitor to Andor right then and there – by asserting the primacy of a foreign power over the sovereignty of their nation she HAS committed treason. The best defense here is that she was merely making excuses for a practical concern – not getting the country into a war it did not need to fight, against an adversary with urgent business elsewhere. Would that an Aes Sedai had been around to do the same with Germany and Belgium in 1914, and much of the horror of the 20th Century might have been averted. What is more, the undue power of the Aes Sedai is a de facto state of affairs which they can hardly be faulted for accepting.

But you can only violate principles in the name of practicality for so long before you get into trouble, and that is where Elayne goes wrong. By the end of ToM, she is in a position to be the most powerful ruler outside Seanchan and second to the Dragon Reborn. She rules two significant and powerful countries and has access to the highest levels of available military technology and working relationships with the two best trained and organized military bodies in the world, according to the BWB, the Children of the Light and the Band of the Red Hand. What is more, neither commander is ever likely to automatically side with the Aes Sedai against her. She even has begun an association with another channeling organization, which, given the commercial focus established at the outset, is almost certain to make it surpass the White Tower in efficiency and practical skill of the services provided. With the White Tower’s rules against sisters interfering with one another, plus the worldly power available to her, Elayne is in a unique position to defy the White Tower’s interference in her country’s affairs, and even expresses an intention to do so earlier in the series. Unfortunately, when it really, absolutely matters the most, when the White Tower moves to block the Dragon Reborn from carrying out his plan to face the Dark One, Elayne drops everything and leaves her country undefended to go to the aid of the Amyrlin Seat, blindly agreeing with an 18-year-old figurehead with absolutely no technical competence to pass judgment on the actions of a Pattern-guided prophesied savior, and who does not even offer an alternative plan or rational justification beyond “I want” for bringing absolutely EVERY soldier available to an argument, aside from inflating her own ego by proving that she can call upon those resources. Hopefully this will turn out to be a situation like the First Crusade where the soldiers shame their leaders into following the proper priorities, but it’s a pity that Elayne will apparently have to be one of them.

Okay, fine. Elayne was raised by an emotional woman who massively overcompensated for her own failure to become a sister by knuckling under to her Aes Sedai advisor. Between that mother and advisor, she had excessive loyalty to the Tower beaten into her along with the rest of her training as a ruler. We have to take that as a given, and make allowances, like Tuon/Fortuona’s attitude towards damane (which is a much more healthy one for her subjects – screw over 1.5% of the population for the protection of 97%, as opposed to screwing over the entire country on behalf of the agenda of an organization of less than 1,000 or so of the most wealthy and secure women in the world, many of whom were raised in inimical nations or cultures). On the other hand, we have her actions as a ruler and the limits she apparently will not shy away from violating in her efforts to extend that rule as far as possible.

In order to retain a means of power for her faction in her efforts to claim her throne, she surrenders territory to a foreign commercial power which will undoubtedly use that land and the accompanying benefits granted by the crown to gain advantages over Andoran traders and merchants. Andor reaps no ongoing benefit – the land went to pay for reinforcements for Elayne’s own campaign for the throne, said reinforcements having already departed Andor once her claim was secure – but this was an "acceptable" compromise that Andor is going to have to live with. Oh, and the people who happen to live on the land that now belongs to the Sea Folk? What do they have to say about this? They live in another country now, one governed by Sea Folk customs and practices which are obnoxious and upsetting in the eyes of every Andoran character exposed to them so far. "Yes, peasant scum, I hated having to live with them as my guests, when I had the upper hand. You will now have to live totally under their authority and rule. Their rules are strange to our people, they have scant respect for ignorance of those rules, and whip people who don't obey fast enough. Sucks to be you, but I'm the Queen, so you get to be Sea Folk subjects now, because I needed a temporary transportation advantage." Who cares if their families have been loyal subjects of Andor and have lived there for longer than there has been an Andor? And given the requirements for the donated land, the only suitable places are those on the border of Cairhien, Andor’s long-standing archenemy. These people are not backwater hicks removed from the problems and international affairs of Andor, they have had to be loyal in the face of military threats from Cairhien, and they are almost certainly involved or affected in some way by the river trade. This situation means that they both deserve the loyalty of the crown, and that their lives WILL be affected by the transfer of land, even if the Sea Folk make no changes in the day-to-day affairs of their new subjects and merely content themselves with new trade laws and tariffs.

Once again, this might be explained by the exigencies of her situation, but the fact is, of all the transfers of land and authority Elayne effects in her short reign, this is the one she appears to regret the most. You could say that in light of the urgency of Tarmon Gaidon, she had to make sure someone capable and on the right side won the throne of the largest country in the wetlands. But this is the one transaction she regrets, in spite of the urgency, while showing no remorse for others lacking that same immediacy. Later on, when it comes time to seize the throne of Cairhien, she makes the rise of a foreigner acceptable to the powers in Cairhien by trading land with the agitators against her rule. Once again, she is selling out her people for her ambitions. Maybe Elenia Sarand is a witch, maybe Arymilla Marne is an incompetent suzerain, but the men and women on their estates, and the lesser lords who do them fealty, do so for the same reasons as all those nice people who showed up in Caemlyn for Elayne in KoD. That same book shows that an incompetent or malicious overlord can be replaced by a more intelligent or reasonable heir in one generation, in the case of Sylvase Caeren. Only now, all the people who are as loyal to House Marne or Sarand as Elayne’s vassals have been to House Trakand, are now placed under the authority of Cairhienin asses whose singular common defining trait has been their disloyalty to Elayne and the Dragon Reborn, combined with a total lack of any sort of principles – whatever their reasons, they were willing to put them aside for increased riches. Either they opposed her for self-serving reasons, or they opposed her for good and admirable reasons, and sold out for increased estates in Andor. Which type of scumbag would YOU want to live under? It doesn’t matter, if you’re a loyal Andorman and a hardworking peasant who eschews political involvement – you just got handed over an aristocratic family from a nation infamous for their aristocrats’ arrogance and adherence to laws and practices that permit the mistreatment of commoners (many of those who opposed Rand in Cairhien did so because he repealed the laws permitting those abuses). But it’s okay, because it allows your queen to take on a whole new set of duties that will divert her from her birth-obligation to rule Andor!

Remember back in tFoH, when this was such a big issue? The Tairens who marched out under the Dragon Banner to rescue Cairhien from their own internal warfare and the chaos into which their leaders had delivered the nation, and to feed the destitute and starving Cairhienin peasants were portrayed as the villains for assuming they would get to reap the rewards of their mission by claiming new lands from Cairhien. Sure it’s avarice on their parts, but when you get right down to it, they would only be “stealing” those lands from rulers who had more than amply demonstrated their own unfitness to administer the lands and protect the inhabitants.

The whole concept on which the feudal aristocracy rests is that the nobles get to claim land and service and and a cut of the produce of the people who live on those lands, because they protect those people and those lands and provide for them in times of need. That's also how you get the idea of conquest - the incoming power proves his superior ability to militarily occupy those lands and thus claims the position of owner/protector. Objectively speaking, the Tairens had better proven their worth to hold those lands than the Cairhienin who held the pink slips.

Yet on the basic principle that people deserve to be ruled by their own countrymen, Rand forbids the Tairens to claim Cairhienin lands, and specifically rules that no one can claim such lands without marrying into a Cairhienin family. Only to have the God-Empress Elayne come along and start taking land and handing estates out to the worst Andoran nobles! As consolation prizes for losing the war against her! Do Dobraine, who went up against renegade Aiel and Elaida’s followers, not to mention rescuing prisoners from Cadsuane, or Semaradrid, who faced Sammael and his armies in obedience to Rand, get Andoran estates as their prizes? Do Lord Astoril who came out of retirement to support Rand & his steward in Tear (and whose daughter follows Perrin & Faile, and prospective son-in-law is one of the top generals of the Band of the Red Hand), or Tolmeran who followed Rand to Illian, or Rosanna who actually put her own ass on the line in combat, get any of those Cairhien prizes or consideration for the throne of Tear? No. That throne all goes to Darlin, who comes across as an aristocratic asshole when fighting Mat and opposes Rand because his ego was not properly stroked, and the plundered foreign estates go to the people who plotted to subvert Rand’s designated successor in Cairhien. There has been no talk of rewards for Dyelin or Conail or Catalyn or Branlet who followed Elayne when her cause was at its nadir. The rewards, the profits and the glory all goes to people who opposed or interfered with Rand or Elayne.

By the looks of it, the smart play in any crisis is refuse loyalty to the worthy side, hold back, preserve your strength and bargain for a big payoff to do your duty when it’s really important. Funny how Elayne has no problem recognizing that same principle and acting on it when it comes to mere commoner mercenaries. When Bakuvun asks for a reward for his critical intervention with a handful of men that saves the gate her enemies hoped to take by treachery, she blows him off on the grounds that he was just doing his job, and what he was already paid for. All he did was fight and bleed and lose friends when he could have made a fortune taking traitor’s gold with his colleagues; he did not hold back and be cautious and husband his own resources for a better bargaining position. Kind of like that original gang of Tairens who marched along with the High Lords Rand sent to Cairhien – they fought bandits and Cairhien renegades, and held the city against the Shaido, and then got sent down to hold the line against Sammael, face saidin in battle and hunt more Shaido in Illian. Meilan and Gueyam and Araconn might be the face of that group, but not every single Lord of the Land or lordling fighting beneath them was an irredeemable traitor or reprobate, or would not have been loyal to Rand given the chance. Or even if they are jerks, that does not mean they deserve the shaft, which was another principle expressed in tFoH when Nynaeve and Elayne repaid the smuggler for confiscating his cargo to make room for the refugees. Yet, they are all denied any recognition or profit from their service, while the malingerers are rewarded for selfish behavior and bribed to do what the others have already done. And since in this economy, land equals wealth which always equals power, those who were quick to answer the call and stay loyal from the first will find their own power diminished and their position weakened relative to their greedier and self-serving countrymen.

Elayne might deplore the extent to which the Great Game has taken root in Andor, but she is only furthering it, by rewarding disloyalty with profit and power and repaying loyalty with smiles, friendship and hollow words that will not turn away the knives from their backs when her enemies grow bold with their increased power, and seek to strike at rivals for her favor. You know that's coming too, because for craven & selfish types, even if they will support Rand or Elayne because that's who is giving out the rewards, their mindset will aim at the quickest way to power: kissing up to Rand or Elayne, the source of power and wealth. And there are two ways to rise in their favor, perform best in their service or see everyone else go down so you look better by comparison. Since they are already established as the type who would prefer not to do the hard work, they are probably going to trying backstabbing the real loyalists. And they have the wealth and resources to make life miserable for the Dobraines and Dyelins, now, thanks to Elayne's generosity!

And finally, we have the easiest offense to embrace, and also the easiest to overlook, thanks to the involvement of the PoV characters – Elayne’s usurpation of the Two Rivers. Because we have 11 books of her mostly behaving as a responsible ruler, and Perrin’s craven acquiescence from a sympathetic perspective, we shrug off the settlement and disposition of the Two Rivers like it’s a good compromise all around, but in reality, it is a compromise that should not have to be made. Elayne has no right to the Two Rivers, so a compromise that seems to acknowledge her right by pretending she is the one who authorized the arrangement is just as wrong in principle as an outright conquest. At least in the latter scenario, there would be a de facto basis for her rule.

All in all this Two Rivers stuff might seem like a moot point of semantics, since all Elayne does is codify what already exists in the Two Rivers and shut down the potential internal complications it could cause in Andor… but this is the same woman who tore down Rand’s banner and drove his people out of Caemlyn over a point of semantics. If Rand cannot say that he will give Elayne the throne of Andor, then Elayne has no right to make similarly empty statements implying her own rulership of the Two Rivers.

Despite her actions indicating ideals and principles when she was acting to get power, Elayne's performance WITH power suggests she is turning into a typical proponent and propagator of Daes Dae'mar. Like so many others before her, she seems to have started out but good intentions, only to become captured by the system and carrying out the motions of what was done before. The faces may have changed, but Elayne, Egwene, and Darlin seem to demonstrate that it is NOT a new day in WoT.