An Enemy Spy Reads The Wheel of Time III: Something's Fishy in the White Tower

[Traab]

Spoiler

Show

I mean, Moiraine figured it out, and was doing a decent job of it before Lanfear happened.

Spoiler

Show

Yeah, like 6 months after he took over Tear then headed for the aiel wastes. Even then it was part of her efforts to guide him. She learned she couldnt boss him around so she was going for the softer touch. To cajole or convince him rather than to command. Seriously, like the entire main cast of the dragon crew either wanted little to do with rand like matt or perrin running off to do their own thing, or try to at least, or wanted to tell him what to do to achieve their goals rather than help him be a good ruler or leader or whatever. Im surprised he did as good a job as he did.

[Gnoman]

Spoiler

Show

So yeah at best a year of roaming the world before declaring himself the dragon reborn

Spoiler

Show

Even less, in subjective terms. He lost something like four months when he used a Portal Stone to travel to Toman Head.

[An Enemy Spy]

Chapter 38: Maidens of the Spear

Oho! More Aielves! And Team Magikarp? This chapter might just reach AES annoyance critical mass.

It turns I've done been tricked. What I thought was a brigand was in fact an Aielf spear woman, so if she were to kill our three heroes I'm sure the text would assure us that it was a noble and honorable act in accordance with ancient tradition the western swine have forgotten. But I may just be projecting here.

She is Aviendha of the Nine Valleys sept of the Taardad Aiel, Far Dareis Mai, a Maiden of the Spear. She recognized from their rings that Team Magikarp are Aes Sedai. One of her companions is badly wounded and she wants them to Heal her. Nynaeve agrees to it and two other spear maiden appear out of hiding and lead them back to their dying friend. We learn some Aielf culture along the way. Spear Maidens are wed to their spear and forsake having a family and they don't fight against each other even when their clans do, but Aviendha's companions Bain and Chiad are from two clans who hate each other, so they reinforced that bond by going to the Wise Women(Aieves' analog to the Aes Sedai) and became First-Sisters which basically makes them life partners.

They get to the Aielf camp and Nynaeve gets to healing Dailin, the wounded woman. She took a sword wound from a Cairhienian soldier who thought she was a bandit(he must have been the finest warrior in the land to scratch an Aielf, and likely used dirty tricks as well, the decadent heathen). Nynaeve rightfully(see, I can take her side sometimes) gives them the business for moving a badly injured person, but Dailin wanted to die in sight of the river.

More Aielf exposition: They have a rule against killing woman who are not "wedded to their weapons" though they would still beat the hell out an armed woman who attacked them, just not fatally. They would never attack an Aes Sedai though even if she used her magic against them, as the Aielves failed them in some way that's been long forgotten so now they apparently owe them for it. If they fail the Aes Sedai again then they'll be destroyed for it.

She mentions the word "balefire" and Egwene asks what it is. Aviendha doesn't know, but she knows that it's strong and scary and it will definitely be used by the end of this book.

Nynaeve finishes Healing Dailin and the chapter ends.

[The New Bruceski]

Minor name correction, unless I've forgotten something from the book it is Bain who became first-sisters with Chiad.

[An Enemy Spy]

Ok, fixed it.

[Gnoman]

Spoiler

Show

Am I the only one who is finding the whole "I arbitrarily decided to hate the Aiel, and I need to make things up to justify it" thing really, really annoying?

[An Enemy Spy]

Spoiler

Show

Am I the only one who is finding the whole "I arbitrarily decided to hate the Aiel, and I need to make things up to justify it" thing really, really annoying?

You don't like the way I react, tell me. Don't hide it behind a spoiler. Spoilers are for talking about the plot without ruining it for those who don't know it, not for talking behind my back.

And no, this doesn't mean I read all your spoilered comments, I just had a moment of brief curiosity here.

[Gnoman]

Fine. Your constant Aiel-bashing is extremely annoying, and it is extremely obvious that you are not basing it on anything in the books other than your initial arbitrary reaction. Nobody states that "You need to be the greatest warrior in the world to have a chance against an Aiel." Just you. Nobody says that anybody who beats an Aeil must be "cheating." Just you.

All of the "amazing Mary-sue feats" you've called out so far have been things that you wouldn't even have thought odd if Rand, Mat, or Lan had done them. You're projecting your own assumptions that the Aiel over what the books actually say, and are judging them by that framework instead of the actual one. You decided that they were terrible Mary Sues, so you'll twist any and every scene they appear in to make them be terrible Mary Sues. This isn't quite Miko-level "The Order of The Stick are the Bad Guys!" jumping to conclusions, but it comes close.


There's worthy things to criticize them for, but you haven't even encountered them yet.



EDIT: For clarification, I spoilered the other post because I wanted to vent a little without starting something. All I really want is for you to judge what's on the page, not the somewhat different construct you've obviously come up with.

[Otomodachi]

Fine. Your constant Aiel-bashing is extremely annoying, and it is extremely obvious that you are not basing it on anything in the books other than your initial arbitrary reaction. Nobody states that "You need to be the greatest warrior in the world to have a chance against an Aiel." Just you. Nobody says that anybody who beats an Aeil must be "cheating." Just you.

All of the "amazing Mary-sue feats" you've called out so far have been things that you wouldn't even have thought odd if Rand, Mat, or Lan had done them. You're projecting your own assumptions that the Aiel over what the books actually say, and are judging them by that framework instead of the actual one. You decided that they were terrible Mary Sues, so you'll twist any and every scene they appear in to make them be terrible Mary Sues. This isn't quite Miko-level "The Order of The Stick are the Bad Guys!" jumping to conclusions, but it comes close.


There's worthy things to criticize them for, but you haven't even encountered them yet.



EDIT: For clarification, I spoilered the other post because I wanted to vent a little without starting something. All I really want is for you to judge what's on the page, not the somewhat different construct you've obviously come up with.

I mean we're in subjective territory, here, but FWIW I definitely tend more towards AES's interpretation of the Aeil. I think their characterization is one of the weakest parts of the series, which is a shame in light of the very powerful, emotional scene where we find out WHY they are who they are. Still doesn't change the fact that their warriors, fighting as described, should not be able to do what they do. It is telling vs. showing.

[Tvtyrant]

You don't like the way I react, tell me. Don't hide it behind a spoiler. Spoilers are for talking about the plot without ruining it for those who don't know it, not for talking behind my back.

And no, this doesn't mean I read all your spoilered comments, I just had a moment of brief curiosity here.

I'm on your side here. The Aiel are in just about all ways super human, few of the more egregious examples have shown up so far.

I find it entertaining thus far :)

[Gnoman]

Let me put it this way. I don't think the view AES has expressed of some of the characters (Mat and Nynaeve , in particular) is entirely fair, but those don't annoy me because his interpretation of the characters is an entirely reasonable one based on what the book so far has shown. The views he's shown of the Aeil do annoy me, because it comes across as "These are just reskinned elves! I'm going to assign all of my prejudices against fantasy elves to them!"

The key point here is that, if Rand let Lan in a cage, a dozen Whitecloaks attacked them for it, and the two won the resulting brawl, AES would probably find it entirely plausible (because it IS a plausible result - the Whitecloaks are not good at fighting, just bullying). But when it it Perrin and an Aiel, the only possible conclusion is "they won because Mary Sue powers".

[Saph]

I'm on your side here. The Aiel are in just about all ways super human, few of the more egregious examples have shown up so far.

The thing is, they're not, not really. They're more skilled fighters than the armed forces of the nations we've met so far, so they look really good when they're up against Whitecloaks or random soldiers/bandits, but when they go up against more serious opposition they stop being invincible really fast. As far as pure military power goes, the Seanchan outclass them by a fair bit.

[Tvtyrant]

No, it is because they all have those powers. Lan is canonically the greatest sword fighter alive, Perrin is a child of prophecy, and every single Aiel is depicted as being capable of fighting dozens of trained human soldiers. Including Borderlanders, whose society is at least as militaristic as the Aiel.

Spoiler

Show

And then there is them having more casters then the far larger population of Westros combined and a larger combined army despite living in the desert.

The thing is, they're not, not really. They're more skilled fighters than the armed forces of the nations we've met so far, so they look really good when they're up against Whitecloaks or random soldiers/bandits, but when they go up against more serious opposition they stop being invincible really fast. As far as pure military power goes, the Seanchan outclass them by a fair bit.

Spoiler

Show

The Seanchen are great because they have a professional army. Their soldiers don't get touted as being inherently more athletic and talented then others, they don't have way more people and casters then they demographically should, and they aren't a bunch of unstoppable tribesmen despite lacking organization.

The Seanchen win on using casters in tandem with their armies where everyone else trains them separately (including the Aiel, Aes Sedai and Ashaman) and using a menagerie of monsters that invalidate specific tactics (cat beasts that scare off horsemen, flying scout monsters, etc.)

[tonberrian]

Eh, I don't mind the Aielf bashing. Though I am curious about what AES's opinions are going to be after he reads *SPOILERS*.

[Gnoman]

Spoiler

Show

And then there is them having more casters then the far larger population of Westros combined and a larger combined army despite living in the desert.

Spoiler

Show

The Aiel find all their potential channelers, while the "wetlanders" do not. Look how many girls they pull out of the Two Rivers even before Egwene eliminated the age restriction - just because nobody'd bothered to look. That's kind of a major plot point. As for having a larger army, I don't recall that being established, but their entire society is geared toward producing warrors, while the "wetlander" societies are not. That could explanably offset the population difference.

[Tvtyrant]

Spoiler

Show

The Aiel find all their potential channelers, while the "wetlanders" do not. Look how many girls they pull out of the Two Rivers even before Egwene eliminated the age restriction - just because nobody'd bothered to look. That's kind of a major plot point. As for having a larger army, I don't recall that being established, but their entire society is geared toward producing warrors, while the "wetlander" societies are not. That could explanably offset the population difference.

Spoiler

Show

I no longer have my books, but I'm reasonably sure the Shaido field 100,000 soldiers as a single tribe when they invade Carhein. The Borderlands are similarly militaristic, have a better environment and manage to field armies smaller than that when they abandon their countries to talk to Rand (which they state strips them of their capabilities.)

And Tear has a population of millions and falls to what? 1,000 Aiel?

I don't hate the Aiel but I appreciate the jokes about them.

[Gnoman]

Spoiler

Show

I no longer have my books, but I'm reasonably sure the Shaido field 100,000 soldiers as a single tribe when they invade Carhein. The Borderlands are similarly militaristic, have a better environment and manage to field armies smaller than that when they abandon their countries to talk to Rand (which they state strips them of their capabilities.)

And Tear has a population of millions and falls to what? 1,000 Aiel?

I don't hate the Aiel but I appreciate the jokes about them.

Spoiler

Show

Looking it up, it was about 160,000 Shaido, but these were not all warriors - nor were they all Shaido, as a great many of the Brotherless wound up joining them. Still, you are right that this is a very high figure.

As for Tear, that was a commando raid on the Stone rather than an invasion. They took the active garrison (which pretty small, from what we see) by surprise, and they didn't have to fight most of Tear's force (which would have easily annihilated them) because all the fighting ended when Rand took the Sword and killed "Lord Brend". It wasn't 1000 Aiel wiping out Tear's army in battle.

[Sapphire Guard]

We've seen very little of the Aiel so far. Most of their feats are offscreen such as the Aiel War, which we never saw and don't know how it happened. Aiel feats on page so far amount to that one Perrin scene (which was honestly too much, 12 on 2 is too poor odds, six would be a lot more tolerable.)

All that said, this is the thread for AES to give his reactions, so we can't really complain about his reactions.

[Douglas]

Spoiler

Show

I no longer have my books, but I'm reasonably sure the Shaido field 100,000 soldiers as a single tribe when they invade Carhein. The Borderlands are similarly militaristic, have a better environment and manage to field armies smaller than that when they abandon their countries to talk to Rand (which they state strips them of their capabilities.)

And Tear has a population of millions and falls to what? 1,000 Aiel?

I don't hate the Aiel but I appreciate the jokes about them.

Spoiler

Show

It's been a while, but I think the Borderlanders brought over 200,000 when they went looking for Rand, and while that may have been a large portion of their total force it definitely wasn't everything, because they're not so stupid as to leave the Blight completely undefended.

And yes, they have a better environment and are at least in shouting distance on cultural military emphasis, but they also have a much smaller total land area. The Aiel desert covers an area similar in size to half of the entire Wetlands, and they brought everything to answer the call of He Who Comes With the Dawn.

[Malak'ai]

No, it is because they all have those powers. Lan is canonically the greatest sword fighter alive, Perrin is a child of prophecy, and every single Aiel is depicted as being capable of fighting dozens of trained human soldiers. Including Borderlanders, whose society is at least as militaristic as the Aiel.

Spoiler

Show

And then there is them having more casters then the far larger population of Westros combined and a larger combined army despite living in the desert.

Spoiler

Show

The Seanchen are great because they have a professional army. Their soldiers don't get touted as being inherently more athletic and talented then others, they don't have way more people and casters then they demographically should, and they aren't a bunch of unstoppable tribesmen despite lacking organization.

The Seanchen win on using casters in tandem with their armies where everyone else trains them separately (including the Aiel, Aes Sedai and Ashaman) and using a menagerie of monsters that invalidate specific tactics (cat beasts that scare off horsemen, flying scout monsters, etc.)

Spoiler

Show

I think that you're forgetting that the Aiel population is mostly made up of warriors. Somewhere around 60-70% are full time combatants.
Twelve full tribes, if we're taking the Shaido as an example (including the Brotherless) is 1920000 people. If only 60% are combatants then that's still 1152000 warriors, so the demographics are about correct.

[georgie_leech]

I think that you're forgetting that the Aiel population is mostly made up of warriors. Somewhere around 60-70% are full time combatants.
Twelve full tribes, if we're taking the Shaido as an example (including the Brotherless) is 1920000 people. If only 60% are combatants then that's still 1152000 warriors, so the demographics are about correct.

Spoiler

Show

Dude, spoiler things. Also, you can't count the Shaido+Brotherless as the default tribe population, the Brotherless came from the other tribes. For every Brotherless the Shaido gained, another tribe lost.

[Malak'ai]

Spoiler

Show

Dude, spoiler things. Also, you can't count the Shaido+Brotherless as the default tribe population, the Brotherless came from the other tribes. For every Brotherless the Shaido gained, another tribe lost.

Sorry, was on my phone. The code didn't work for some stupid reason.

Spoiler

Show

It's true that the Shaido gained via the Brotherless, but they also lost about as many to the Societies of the other Clans when Couladin was proven false at Alcair Dal.
And the Bleakness or what ever it's called hit them just as hard as the other Clans, so in the end they came out about even.

[georgie_leech]

Sorry, was on my phone. The code didn't work for some stupid reason.

Spoiler

Show

It's true that the Shaido gained via the Brotherless, but they also lost about as many to the Societies of the other Clans when Couladin was proven false at Alcair Dal.
And the Bleakness or what ever it's called hit them just as hard as the other Clans, so in the end they came out about even.

Spoiler

Show

Every clan lost people to the Bleakness, so I'm not sure that's really compelling. If anything, I suspect the Shaido had fewer losses due to them having a claim that the inciting incident was a false one. So I especially don'tthink they lost enough warriors either due to the Bleakness or through warrior societies that it would outweigh the potential gains from 11 other tribes.

[dps]

AES, there was a good bit of spoilered discussion of the Aiel earlier in this thread, and FWIW I think most people who posted have an opinion of them more in line with yours than not.

[georgie_leech]

AES, there was a good bit of spoilered discussion of the Aiel earlier in this thread, and FWIW I think most people who posted have an opinion of them more in line with yours than not.

Chiming in here, the Aiel strike me as kinda super-race ish, but it has a lot more to do with the quality of their opponents and the fact that pretty much any Aiel you meet in Randland is going to be a well seasoned veteran, and this is a world with... well, sort of the military tactics equivalent of Amlncient Greek philosophy. Plenty of thinking warfare is just like so, without any, you know, bothering to actually check. So pitting them against a foe that is skilled at guerrilla warfare and travelling across country rather than using roads and trying to capture territory and the like is... almost kind of unfair. Which, considering some cultural elements, is kinda ironic.

The Aiel are kind of a mix between the Zulu in the 1800's and Elves. Turns out if you remove the technology advantage of the British and give them some physical buffs, the a British get completely stomped in every battle instead of just some early parts.

[Ninja_Prawn]

For the record, I'm with AES too. The way the Aiel were written annoyed me when I read the books. Events later in the series didn't change my mind.

[solidork]

My reaction to the Aiel was basically "Sounds fake, but OK" and then just moving on. In general I found it interesting how different they were, culturally, from everyone else.

Obviously you react how you're going to react, but dedicating yourself to resenting them every time they appear is just going to lead to a lot of frustration.

[The New Bruceski]

Yeah. The Aiel may not be QUITE as OP because most of their opponents are the equivalent of the American Revolutionary War British in red coats and tight formations marching around chanting "shoot us, shoot us", but they're still better by the nature of being Aiel. Even when they get more humanized later that persists.

[Gnoman]

Obviously you react how you're going to react, but dedicating yourself to resenting them every time they appear is just going to lead to a lot of frustration.

I think this sums up what I was going for in the first place.

[lord_khaine]

I do agree on that a large part of why the Aiel seems OP is that their opponents are generally glorified militia with incompetent leaders fighting trained veterans.
Of course another part is how generally useless armor is in the world of RJ :P

Spoiler

Show

I think i mentioned this earlier, but Mat did show that all it takes is decent leadership to fight back the Aiel with regular troops