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I'll respond to the rest of your quote at a later time, but the compulsion thing is simply a matter of statistics.
Are you insane? How can a sister falsely swear fealty? Or do you mean Black, specifically?
I'll respond to the rest of your quote at a later time, but the compulsion thing is simply a matter of statistics.
Sure, she knew a sister who used a logical metaphor for serving Rand. Sure, she herself knew the influence of his ta'veren nature. Sure, she knew there would be some untrustworthy sisters who might swear fealty to him to get close to him and then betray him.
The problem comes when more than 30 sisters, from different factions, all find some reason to swear fealty to him, over time. Ta'veren doesn't work like that. Egwene doesn't even know there was a time when both Tower and Rebel emissaries were in the same place at once (Dumai's Wells), and even then Rand's ta'veren only affected the Rebel sisters.
If Egwene doesn't know so many of those details, how does she know about more than 30, from different factions? It didn't affect the Tower sisters as far as we know, because he didn't ask anything of them. There is no reason to suppose it would not also affect the Tower sisters, or that it would not work on more than one occasion.
Egwene is absolutely right to suspect Compulsion. What's more, she was perfectly right.
Oh really? Then why don't you list the Compelled sisters who were negotiating on Rand's behalf? The only ones actively serving him were part of his personal entourage, or the sisters restored by Flinn who were in Cairhien.
The only thing is, Rand wasn't the one doing the Compulsion, it was Verin. And secret Light-sider within the Black Ajah is a little out there, as theories go.
Since it was true, and the subject of fan theories going back decades, it is not so out there as the idea of Rand raping multiple women. The point of this is not being wrong on Compulsion, but Egwene thinking it of Rand. She might have thought someone else might do it, but that Rand would order it or allow it, much less the Wise Ones is worse than absurd. But she has no problem going there.
From a distance, the sisters certainly looked like a bunch of people who were Compelled, and the simplest explanation was Rand, since he stood to gain from it, and had potential access to them to do the compelling.
She doesn't think "someone is up to something to cause uncharacteristic behavior among the sisters," but "RAND is using the most vile means imaginable of coopting sisters." What is more, the uncharacteristic behavior that absolutely cements in her mind that these women MUST be compelled, because they would NEVER go along with this otherwise, is negotiating an end to a rebellion against the Dragon Reborn. If Egwene is right at this being unthinkable behavior without Compulsion, that says something much worse about the Aes Sedai, and nothing good about her that she would defend them against Rand.
But Egwene doesn't outright blame him. She specifically says that even the thought of Rand knowing the weave is something she doesn't want.
Because she doesn't want him to know or do anything. She is appalled at even innocuous things like restoring the fountains of Rhuidean or creating stedding.
But she is very clear in never stating definitively that he did, just that she needs to consider the possibility and use it however she may.
Wait, "This is proof" is not a definitive statement that he did?
that's the last we see of her wondering about the means by which sisters came to swear to Rand.
Right. She avoids wondering, because she has her mind made up to believe the worst.
Put simply, this is far from the kind of paranoid certainty of Rand using Compulsion that I would expect if Egwene were forced to distrust him. It sounds more like someone forcing herself to face the facts over what the evidence shows. And let me repeat again: she was absolutely right, as was Siuan. It WAS Compulsion that resulted in both Rebels and Tower loyalists swearing fealty to Rand.
But not Rand doing it. And she was also making that assumption based on the aid given him by women who were not even Compelled. Even strangers realized after a few weeks of observation that Rand was incapable of harming a woman. But someone who has grown up with him can assume he can do the worst thing possible, short of murder, based on second-hand reports in a series that is constantly drumming home the point that the truth gets further lost the more hands it passes through?
Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
Excusing Egwene
- 06/06/2016 04:49:00 AM
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The compulsion thing:
- 07/06/2016 12:50:23 AM
1523 Views
Re: The compulsion thing:
- 07/06/2016 11:35:34 PM
1175 Views
Also, do you really want a list of all the other ways Egwene thinks ill of Rand without cause?
- 07/06/2016 11:37:17 PM
880 Views