Of such things is the road to hell paved.

Don't worry about. I started it.

Duh. Should I not have been more clear? And I don't mean with the character of Egwene (though that's a whole other can of worms), but with the office of the Amyrlin Seat.

But she is in the best position of any ruler since Hawkwing to be able to do without those good relations. She is a position of real or potential power such as has not existed since one of the most powerful ta'veren in history sat on a throne, with her alliances, military capabilities and proportion of the world under her control. It could be said that if Tarmon Gaidon were not on the horizon and occupying all other attention (and the White Tower were not presuming on her good will when considering the state of the nations), the Tower might need her help to keep its own influence more than she needs their support to keep her power.

I understand the situation with the influence and authority of the Tower all too well. My problem is that Elayne had the best chance to do something about that, and in the Merrilor invite, an urgent reason to do so, but passed it by.

And it's as much for the well-being of the Tower as anything else that I wish she and Nynaeve would buck the system more - unlike most other Aes Sedai with independent worldly power apart from their position in the Tower, Elayne has had the least training and indoctrination, and thus has the best chance to do what is right rather than what serves the benefit of a too-powerful multinational corporation. Make no mistake - Nynaeve's test all but explicitly demonstrates what has been suggested throughout the series: the Tower's primary focus is brainwashing devotion and obedience into their initiates, and flat-out murders those who retain too much independent thought! That was the crux of the debate following Nynaeve's test - they wanted to murder Nynaeve for demonstrating her adherence to morality over blind directives of the Tower, and were disgruntled that her out-of-school experience prevented them from succeeding.

Agreed. I think I conceded as much. This was just a quarrel I had over a technicality, and so was getting out of the way early.

It's not like they could be a real problem for him anyway.
Agreed, but what I suppose I have issues is not that Elayne acted as she did, but the implication that any Aes Sedai could have done so.

Whoa, hold up! How is this ironic? What I find ironic is YOUR defense of a multinational corporation exerting influence on the governments of nations and the selection process of heads of state! This is campaign finance reform writ large.

If you find my position ironic due to my Catholicism, you grievously misunderstand my religion and my beliefs. If I were merely an historian or history bluff sympathetic to the role played by the Church in the affairs of the world and history, then I could be expected to similarly endorse the Tower assuming a comparable role. However, my adherence to and advocacy of the Church is nothing of the kind, it is informed by my belief in and acceptance of its teachings on faith and moral. Specifically, I believe, in the words of the Nicene Creed, in ONE, holy, Catholic and Apostolic church. I believe in ONE baptism, and the communion of saints in the Mystical Body of Christ. My support for the Church's role in world affairs (to the degree that I do) is predicated on the absolute faith in its possession of those marks. When the White Tower gives the slightest indication of possessing any of those characteristics, I might reconsider, but until then, my view of the Tower is more closely analogous to the International Criminal Court or the United Nations or any similar pernicious infringement of national sovereignty.

Growing up, the family cars had St Christopher medals on the dashboard or visor, but they also had "Get US out of the United Nations" stickers on the bumper. Third generation Roman Catholic, but also second generation John Birch Society.

I don't get the "rather than" of that statement. I recognize no difference between those two concepts. St Thomas More, patron saint of politics, drew a distinction between the temporal and spiritual power of the Pope (and as the two keys on the Vatican flag attest, they ARE two distinct and separate things, even if the Church does legitimately possess both). It was Henry VIII who rejected that distinction. I think you can guess whose side I'd take in such a debate.

I disagree. Her duties to Andor supersede those to the Tower, as they will remain for the rest of her life, whether or not she holds the throne. Her duties to the Tower are both imposed by force thanks to an non-permanent characteristic (channeling) and her own choice, which was not legitimately hers to make, since she had those aforementioned superior obligations to Andor.

If Elayne ever loses her ability to channel, all the ties to the White Tower are severed, the Tower will turn it's back on her, and embassies to Andor will be complicated by no sister wanting to be in the same room with her. But she will still be a queen, with all the obligations to the good of Andor that is entailed by that title.

What exactly ARE the rights of a sister from the White Tower that are mentioned at any point in the series? Aside from an exorbitant stipend Elayne probably doesn't need, merely the right to tell other sisters to fuck off and get their noses out of her business. All I want is for her to exercise that right. On the other hand, the rights of the Tower's leaders seem to extend as far as the sister will let them get away with. Again, hence my problem with Elayne. Look at Faile's litany of the experiences of other sisters who have held political positions or connections, and how they were all forced by the Tower to betray those outside interests. That is the practical experience of the rights of Aes Sedai when the Tower has a political agenda to enact. Even in these latter days, Moiraine's only recourse was to flee the reach and attention. The queen of two nations cannot rely on that tactic.

That makes it worse, not better. By going along, she makes it harder for any other nation to refuse the next such command performance.
Invading Poland did not go as well for Hitler as he expected. Did not make it right, or even a thing to be applauded.

It may be that Andor might have suffered for her absence, but if the Tower turns on Andor, who does it have left? The Borderlands who are otherwise committed when it comes to foreign affairs? The nations controlled by Elayne's lover or his vassals? The Seanchan, ruled by the wife of one of Elayne's military allies?

And it's a bad thing that she has this status, and Elayne is in the best position to destroy that status, but is pissing away her chance over a schoolgirl friendship.

WHAT are those? As far as the traditional view of the Tower seems to go, and as far as Egwene acts, the flow of duty between sister and Tower is a one-way street! Why have the other sisters been so eager to have a sister on the throne of a country? Are they so eager to burden the Tower with an obligation to a single country? Is it REALLY possible that none of them have considered all the ramifications the whole organization has been chortling over since Elayne manifested her spark?

They do when they conflict.
Actually, she tore down Rand's banners to make it explicit that her duties to Andor come first (while she knew that there was no conflict, due to his own lack of interest, she was prepared to contemplate fighting his people to preserve her right to the throne and maintain her de jure independence). Her personal distaste for Mat was sublimated to the military advantages brought on by a working relationship between the two of them.
Who says? Where on Earth do you get obedience to moral strictures laid down by Divine Authority for the conduct of one's life to the self-serving regulations of an organization? And just what ARE those principles Elayne must follow? The Tower has absolutely no moral guidelines ever expressed in the series, merely technical rules, like "no torturing initiates - torture is exclusively reserved for traumatizing petty felony suspects".

I don't care if Elayne lives up to the Three Oaths (well, I do, because they're bullshit, hypocritical and immoral, but that is for the person, not the queen), I care about her ruling Andor in a way that puts outside interests ahead of her nation, especially outside interests which have in almost every example shown in the series, proved inimical to the nations or individuals involved, and serving the expansion or security of Aes Sedai power first and foremost. I am talking about things like Siuan's interference with Morgase & Gareth Bryne defending their country and people from foreign criminals, in order to further a White Tower scheme to put a criminal on the throne of a neighboring, and traditionally hostile country.

Elayne's placing her duties to the Tower on a par with those to Andor is not like Kennedy governing by Catholic principles (as if that was ever an issue for him either! ), it is like Kennedy putting his duties to his Knights of Columbus chapter, or Bush placing his obligations to Skull and Bones (or his oil company employers) on a par with his duties as President. Siuan's interference in Andor's affairs is akin to say, Pope Benedict forcing Acting President Biden to call off the DEA's prosecution of a Mexican drug lord caught in the US, because the Pope had a plan to make that same guy President of Mexico one day!

Yes, it is. The Tower wants everyone going their way, and fuck anyone who has the moral or natural right to do something differently, is their view.

The Tower has an agenda, and even if right at that moment, it is not in conflict with Andor's, it might, so anyone with responsibilities to Andor, has no business entertaining conflicting interests. It is as simple as that. That's the point of the whole concept of conflicts of interest!

Sometimes, the Tower wants a particular puppet ruler on the throne in Murandy, and will intrude on Andor's own affairs to make that happen, regardless of who gets hurt. Even if the decision is in Andor's best interests in the long run, that's not Siuan's call to make, or the Hall's or anyone else's. That call is Morgase's, because she was chosen by Andor's equivalent of the electoral college to be the queen. The Great Houses did not choose Siuan and she would have been a remarkably poor choice by any standard, having no experience of the world beyond the slums of a fishing district, and the byzantine internal political schemes of an insular organization; certainly nothing that renders her fit to pass judgment on the best interests of the Andoran farmers being robbed and raped, or the people of Murandy who would have to live under the central rule of a thief, despite a thousand years of expressing a preference for more localized government.

No, my hatred of Egwene is informed by my distaste for tyranny and her preferred affiliation with practicing institutions.

But she will at first. There was a dream about that.

Drang nach osten exploded spectacularly in Hitler's face, but that does not excuse Stalin for his initial support of that course, even though it was in his best interest at the time.

We can hope.
Two problems - 1. the implication of a unified male-female organization. Bad. Even with the men running it. The more discrete channeling institutions to check each other's power, the better. 2. Logain's an asshole. He's not much better than Egwene, except that his own self-serving ambition puts him fortuitously in opposition to a bad guy (much as Egwene's did back in LoC, except Taim is worse), and he's next on my list of people who are way too inclined to coddle and protect Aes Sedai and give them a pass for crap.


Ironically, I'm going to go with Egwene's dream, which seems to imply a false and hollow glory of which Logain seems all to aware, but accepts anyway. I am thinking it will be something like his being given credit for what Rand does, and the lie having to be upheld to maintain unity or support for Rand's agenda or plan.

I would hate such a scene, as it would imply she is a character for whom we should have sympathy.

There is no indication that she was aware of it. She certainly never made any reference to any such precedent, which she would have when she recognized the disadvantages of surrendering Andoran territory.
I'm no happier about Rand, but he's pretty much the only character or institution in the series for which you can claim anything like the transcendent authority of the Catholic Church, which you tried to attribute to the White Tower above.

It would seem to be inherently non-transferable. Once Elayne surrenders her authority over those people, they have no further obligation to support her deal. Fealty is NOT supreme authority anyway, it is more a mutual security agreement, with one party making the decisions. It is NOT outright ownership, as the limitations of Rand and Egwene over their vassal sisters should demonstrate.

The benefit of the Aiel deal was in its exclusivity. Elayne has no guarantee of exclusivity with the Sea Folk, who will have similar deals with Bandar Eben, Illian, Tear & Cairhien. So where are they really going to bring their goods? One of the great port cities in the world, or the shitty little colony so far from the salt on the Andoran riverbank? According to you, Elayne was aware of and stealing the idea for Rand's deal, so then she had to know there was no real exclusive advantage going into it.

I would still like to know what leverage she has, exactly? She can't control what they do on their square mile, so she can't stop them from using it as a trading post of their own or a transhipment point. Unlike Rand's deal which did not specify water access, hers did, so other traders can land river boats on the bank or docks of the enclave, deal direct with the Sea Folk, and totally cut Andor out of the equation. The enclave is on the river, by the very wording of the deal, and thus Elayne cannot stop the Sea Folk from coming and going to and fro, like Rand plans to. His own description of the deal says that because they don't have to give the Sea Folk water-adjacent enclaves "they can't be too arrogant," which by extension means that if they DO have water access, they CAN be arrogant. And they can be arrogant because they have the control and are subject to no other pressure. Rand's ports force the choice of following their rules to reach the enclave, or not using it. Elayne has no such option.

My whole issue is with a monolithic power bloc controlling the channeling. The coincidence of its location and personality of the people in charge are immaterial. I don't care how nice the tyrant is, my issue is with tyranny.

And I don't see how contact with the Sea Folk specifically allows her to give them an end run around the Tower's acquisitive tendencies. Especially as she seems to be giving far too many indications of falling into line with the Tower, and you seem to be arguing that she has an obligation to go along with their principles, one of which is "we get any and all female channelers we want, and no one else does unless we feel like it."

And give the devil her due. Egwene's replacement deal with the Sea Folk, on which she brought in the Wise Ones, allows her to circumvent the bargain Nynaeve and Elayne made, which gives the Sea Folk all the protection they need, while forcing nothing onerous on the Tower (unless you subscribe to their position that everything the Tower wants is theirs by right, and letting people keep what they have had without causing a problem for 3000 years IS too much to ask of the Aes Sedai). Egwene now has the ability to tempt young and impressionable women who have not put down roots and might be inclined to wanderlust, with positions of power instead of service, and ease and luxury instead of discipline and the rigors of a water-extreme environment, and the Wise Ones and Windfinders got suckered into it. Elayne can't do crap about it anymore.

But they are losing a noble family with long-established ties. Sylvaese demonstrates how a bad noble can be succeeded by a better from the same House, as does Elayne herself. And the customs and practices of the families are familiar to the common people, and at least they have their common national frame of reference. That frame of reference generally trumps tyranny, as tyrants through the ages have known, and acted.

That is a good point too. She does have a chance to keep an eye on them and keep them off balance, I suppose. Also, the more sensible will have to adapt to their new supporters' expectations, in the way we see the servants and their expectations influencing Elayne's day-to-day lifestyle.

See, I think we have philosophical differences on government coming into play here. I know, shocker, right? By assuming the monarchy, Elayne become part of the social compact, and bound by the laws and systems. As an outside conqueror, Rand is bound only by might makes right, and thus has the right to order the administration of his new territory however he chooses, even if he does choose to throw them some bones by retaining much of the old power structure.

Of course, as a practical matter, a ruler can get away with more by binding herself to an institution or set of rules, so while they might resist changes from Rand against whom they have no recourse, they will allow Elayne to get away with the same, despite the negative aspects, because they believe they have more checks on her. That is the same reason why the Tower has the Three Oaths, after all. I was making a point of principle, however, not pragmatic agreements, the latter of which I conceded these acts to be acceptable examples thereof. As I said originally, my concern is her ongoing disregard for important principles, which is a really bad habit to be getting into so early in her reign.

A nation is a particular group of people with common practices, ideas, etc. The Aiel clans were always a single nation even if they had no common state. The Two Rivers are a nation within the Andoran state, as the Amayar were among the Sea Folk. The Tinkers are nation without a state. Even if Elayne formally merges the governing apparatus and military and all the rest into a single institution and combines the crowns of both countries, it will not make the Cairhienin Andorans or vice versa. She might forge them into a single state, but making them into a single nation will take some more time, maybe even longer than even her lifetime.

I don't see the consolidation of power in an absolutist monarch as a good thing at all, no matter how admirable the character of this particular monarch. If nothing else, the idea that Rand's children will be as responsible and dutiful as their parents, or loyal to their parents' principles, should have been thoroughly debunked by ToM.

Bullshit. Statutory neglect. Their right to independence was morally affirmed by their defense of their homes (and incidentally Andor) from the Trollocs and Andor's own neglect of its obligations. Governments are instituted among men to secure the rights of life & liberty, against which the Trollocs sought to infringe. When any government becomes destructive of those ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to choose whatever ruler or leadership that they think will be most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Claiming sovereignty over lands they neglect to defend, and opposing, even if only verbally, the right of the people to defend themselves, and to select leadership to fill the void left by Andor, IS destructive of the ends of securing their rights to life and liberty and effecting the safety and happiness of the Two Rivers.

She relinquished nothing she had a right to, and far less than Rand did when he offered to give her the throne her mother failed to keep and hold, in the city he had to recover from the Shadow. Elayne had the moral obligation to not stand in the way of people doing what they have every right to do, and she long forfeited any right of authority over the Two Rivers. Inheriting the benefits the prior queens of Andor kept and held by maintaining the power of Andor, also means inheriting the consequences of their neglect of their duties. Andor failed the Two Rivers, Andor has no claim on the Two Rivers. Otherwise, Elayne had better get down on her knees to Fortuona, the rightful heir of Artur Hawkwing, and make humble apologies for her ancestor's rebellion and transgressions against her line.

It is the same principle under which she claims Rand had no right to give her the throne of Andor, when he was the one exercising the moral duties of a ruler in Andor. The power over the Two Rivers was not hers by right. She and Andor forfeited all those rights years before, and only retained de jure authority because it was uncontested. Once the Two Rivers made up their minds about the matter, their decision was the only one that counted.


Yeah, he behaves the way he thinks will impress an audience. When dealing with people he doesn't think are important, we get "You will honored to die by my blade, peasant" and outrage when the man who's life he threatens talks back. When he's trying to impress the woman he wants to marry, he's all friendly egalitarianism, and giving Rand and Min the horses (hey what about the two poor bastards he made walk back to camp in a foreign wilderness - they had unattractive faces, so I guess they count less then the kids whose cousin he wants to bang - lovely leadership there), and boasting to Rand about sending food out to the poor during a siege. Of course it never occurred to him that the rebels whose bone of contention was aristocratic privilege and superiority over the common scum, might not let the food reach the common scum, but hey! He figured out after only three or so attempts what should have been obvious beforehand!

The sad thing is, even with her nascent tyranny, Elayne seems to be a definite step up on the rest of the bozos Rand seems content to let run the world in the near future.

Egwene has taken just as many baths as Elayne over the course of the series. In one, we see her relaxing in her bath as the climax of a sort of montage of vignettes of the real brains of her faction all running around dropping hints and nudging people into following her agenda. By contrast, Elayne's bath scene had her returning home from a business trip, get hit with work from the moment she walks in the door, be forced to conduct policy during her walk to her room, with a long full day of more work ahead of her, a bunch of uninformed idiots restricting any enjoyment out of her diet (and she's the one character most portrayed as a gourmand in the series), and the one pleasure or bit of relaxation she has to look forward is this bath. Which is conducted every bit as much for an audience as any other public appearance, with her still receiving briefings and updates in the bath, and being interrupted by an ambassador demanding an important territorial negotiation on a moment's notice. The whole point of the bath scene was to illustrate just how much privacy, freedom and leisure she had sacrificed to her duty, when one book before, one of her closest friends had characterized her occupation as "lolling around" and "playing politics." RJ seemed all too aware of the perception of the mechanics of ruling and privileges of being a ruler, and made an effort to demonstrate how for someone as responsible as Elayne it is an enormous burden, hardly repaid by the nice clothes she gets to wear. And of course, almost no one seems to have caught the point, preferring to complain about having to watch the spoiled princess take a bath.

On the contrary, her quick cup of coffee in the Tower would have hardly been sufficient for that. More likely, she was only pampered to the extent of the quality of food, fabrics and furniture to which she was exposed. She is certainly better at domestic labor than most of her commoner friends who can't cook or sew as well as she, and I have a hard time believing a girl raised by Morgase, Gareth Bryne, Elaida and Lini had any sort of an easy childhood. We see her recollections jibe with Moiraine's assessment of Morgase as using Elayne to compensate for her own shortcomings. Morgase failed to reach the shawl, so Elayne is going to the Tower if Morgase needs to sic the army on her own people who are less than enthused about another generation being indoctrinated to abandon national defense for the international schemes of a Tairen fishwife. Likewise, she came to the throne untrained and unprepared, so mother-daughter relations probably meant endless drilling on the art of ruling. We know that Elaida's method of helpful teaching is to drive her favored and prized students hard enough to force Aes Sedai brainwashers - the kind of women who put you up for a month of punishment for disagreeing about historical causality - to step in and go "hey now, lighten up." Gareth Bryne (who, fortunately for Elayne and Andor, seems to have made more of an impression in imparting his style of leadership than the women) might have been the closest thing to a father she knew, but her quick relationship with Thom strongly indicates she has felt a lack in that department, and his behavior since breaking up with her mother suggests his own affections for her were solely due to banging her mom. Of course, there was always Lini, and who better to relate to a kid than someone old enough to have raised her grandmother? Egwene or Nynaeve show more signs of childhood pampering than Elayne.

A good character in a ruler is not necessarily proof against tyranny and excessive expansion of power. While there are few characters I would rather see holding power in WoT than Elayne, respecting the limitations is the most important part of holding power. I felt that this was a concept she paid excellent lip service to on the way up, and on which she has fallen far short since gaining the throne.

On the other hand, that before and after also encompasses two different writers. I can't help but wonder if RJ would have written it in a way as to make clear that she was not all about simply gaining power, and to maybe split the differences to provide acceptable rationales for her heretofore atypical handling of authority. B-Sand has already shown marked deficiencies in comprehending some subtleties, so it is entirely possible that he saw nothing wrong with what she was doing, and did not feel a need to justify it.