The Future of The Black Tower? (Probably spoilers for entire series)

[Red Eagle]

I agree completely (About the Asha'man becoming more risk averse, in a post-LB world),

I just don't think people give the lifespan differences enough weight.

 

Checking the Companion, I discovered I was WAY OFF on maximum, not-subject-to-Binder-Oaths potential lifespans for strong channelers. 

 

Logain can be expected to live 825 years, with 850-875 being our equivalent of being in one's late eighties/early nineties, and 900 being like living to be 100-103.

 

Despite the overall strength difference, women near or at the female maximum, like Alivia, Talaan, Nyneave, or Sharina Maloy can be expected to live a bit longer than male channelers (IF Unbound/Not-Oathbound).

 

The WoT Companion also has hard data on the effects of the Oaths. Information that's posted on the Wiki. 

 

(1st Oath) Chops an Aes Sedai's lifespan in half. If she would have lived 650yrs (Reasonable for an Elayne/Egwene-strength female channeler), death would likely arrive at 325yrs. EXCEPT:

 

(2nd Oath) Reduces lifespan by a further 10%, and:

 

(3rd Oath) Reduces lifespan by a final 10%,

 

An Egwene-strength Aes Sedai who could "naturally" expect to live 650 years, will, subject to the Three Oaths, live to be about 263, or about what we see for the strongest Aes Sedai in the series. (Romanda, Lelaine, Cadsuane)

 

Look at the way Cadsuane looks at everyone around her like they're children. The Pattern being balance, it would seem they have a dose of that medicine coming to them, from still-vigorous 550-600 year old Asha'man. 

 

 

Edited October 15, 2022 by Red Eagle

[Stedding Tofu]

On 10/15/2022 at 5:25 AM, Red Eagle said:

I just don't think people give the lifespan differences enough weight.

 

I think the increased lifespans was a mistake and one that RJ and BS avoid the implications of for this reason.

 

In general terms it makes any wielder of the one power superhuman, not just by virtue of the power they wield but the length of life they have to live.  Traditionally, superheroes don't have other halves or children for precisely this reason, they would otherwise become a hereditary caste.  If the one power is not hereditary and anyone can either have the innate ability to channel or can learn it then we step around hereditary castes but run into the lifespan problem. 

 

E.G. Elayne as Queen of Andor will rule for 250 years.  Entire generations of Andorans will be born, live and die while this superhuman being reigns over them.  If her children and grandchildren and so forth for generations can't channel they will live and die while she reigns.  What does that do to her emotional and psychological health?  If they can channel then they become a superhuman hereditary caste.

 

The discrepancies between male and female lifespans based on strength in the power might not matter that much.  Once you have a vastly extended lifespan how many centuries you have might not matter, you're still part of the club.  Where it matters is where a 100 or 200 year old takes orders from an 18 year old but we've seen that play out with Egwene, Elayne and Nynaeve so it's already part of the system. 

 

Aes Sedai follow strength in the power rather than age in establishing hierarchy so that seems the potential issue with the Asha'man, men being more powerful than women on average.  Ideal scenario is a long period of building relations and trust and the eventual merger of the two orders but, power structures and personal ambition being what they are, it's quite possible they will remain separate and argue over roles and compete for influence.  The older Aes Sedai in particular cannot be expected to embrace unity with the Asha'man and it might take centuries.  Change will come with the young and new channelers growing up in the new age.

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

14 hours ago, Stedding Tofu said:

Aes Sedai follow strength in the power rather than age in establishing hierarchy

In the era of the books certainly but that is after 1,000 years of the three oaths, when it has been taboo to mention the age of a sister due to the life shortening effect of the oaths.  It is also worth noting that some of the strong young sisters feel that this system is wrong and would work to change it.

[Stedding Tofu]

6 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

In the era of the books certainly but that is after 1,000 years of the three oaths, when it has been taboo to mention the age of a sister due to the life shortening effect of the oaths.  It is also worth noting that some of the strong young sisters feel that this system is wrong and would work to change it.

 

The Aiel and Windfinders show us different systems but both are equally rigid - the Aiel being based on age iirc, the windfinders on the ship they serve on and there place in the hierarchy rising and falling accordingly.

 

It's clear that raw power alone does not make one suitable for leadership but I'm not sure that any of the "strong young sisters" are against this, relying on their relative power to boss other Aes Sedai around.

 

Replacing power with age really tends to instability as you appoint leaders who are at the end of their life span - tri-centenarians or octo-centenarians rather than octogenarians - not to mention your best and brightest would have centuries of tea-making and shawl-fetching, or at least of subordination.  And older people tend to be resistant to change.  Magnify that three- or ten-fold and the conservatism or stagnation would be stifling.

 

The increased lifespans are a bad idea all round.

 

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

3 hours ago, Stedding Tofu said:

I'm not sure that any of the "strong young sisters" are against this, relying on their relative power to boss other Aes Sedai around.

Nynave is the strongest wearing the shawl at the end of the series and she directly states she does not agree with the system.

 

3 hours ago, Stedding Tofu said:

the Aiel being based on age iirc

The Aiel system appears to be based on the accumulation of "ji" or avoidance/meeting of "toh" which among the wise ones (and clan chiefs) appears to largely equate to personal stubbornness.  

[Stedding Tofu]

19 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

Nynave is the strongest wearing the shawl at the end of the series and she directly states she does not agree with the system.

 

True but Nynaeve holds herself aloof from other Aes Sedai.  There's not much she likes about or wants from them.  She spends a great deal of time in the books bemoaning that her lack of an Aes Sedai's ageless appearance or any grey hair cause people to dismiss her because of her youth so I don't see her agreeing to an age-based system.  She acknowledges the flaws in the hierarchical system but she has never been good at taking orders from anyone so would likely ignore whatever system was put in place - unless she was at or near the top.

 

19 hours ago, bringbackthomsmoustache said:

 

The Aiel system appears to be based on the accumulation of "ji" or avoidance/meeting of "toh" which among the wise ones (and clan chiefs) appears to largely equate to personal stubbornness.  

 

Ok, so a true meritocracy?  Seems like proto-politics without any institutions or coded rules whereas the Aes Sedai institutionalised and codified things with the Ajahs and The Hall of The Tower.  Maybe keep The Hall but change to a meritocratic not power-based approach to regulating intra- and inter-Ajah relations?  Bad news about that is it's a lot more politics and a lot more uncertainty in who defers to whom if there's a disagreement on who gets their tea poured first and who pours it 🙂.

[JyP]

I don't remember clearly, but I think maybe a third of all full Aes Sedai die by the end of the Last Battle ? Combine this with the explosion of Novices and Accepted done under Egwene, the Kin, Aes Sedai being already not able to absorb such a volume of novices (with Sharina Melloy in the background clearly doing what would have been the Mistress of Novices job)...

 

I guess the Ajahs will not be able to tightly rein in new Aes Sedai as well as they have done before, or even to remain as conservative as before about the "old ways". The White Tower will be an unruly place even with Cadsuane in the lead (who is more a loner by temperament and does not display enough leadership qualities compared to Egwene or Sharina).

 

Egwene played her cards right by saying the tower should be a place to teach the One Power (and no longer the place to rule the world in the shadows). Maybe her legacy would be the Blue Ajah in disarray while the Red Ajah will prosper (if the faction about bonding Ashamans and being bonded back displays extraordinary powers).

[DojoToad]

1 hour ago, JyP said:

I don't remember clearly, but I think maybe a third of all full Aes Sedai die by the end of the Last Battle ?

Not sure of the percentage, but does that include those purged by the rebel Aes Sedai?

[Stedding Tofu]

At one point Taim and Rand discuss how many Aes Sedai there are.  Rand estimates about 1,000 and Taim says not so many (inside info from Black Ajah I guess) so I reckon about 900.  About 1/3 of those seem to be black ajah and you have to figure they lose half their remining strength in the Seanchan Raid, initial catastrophic Sharan ambush and to Demandred/Taim/The Sharans on The Field of Merrilor.

 

It's carnage.  Only good news is Egwene removed the age restriction so they can replenish from a larger pool but that still needs time for training - a minimum of ten years seems the norm and fifteen more usual to go from novice to full Aes Sedai.

[JyP]

by going through an old topic : around 1200 Aes Sedai in the first books, and 40 (!) novices. So newly raised Aes Sedai are not able to resist peer pressure (hence each Ajah having high control on new sisters)

 

After the Seanchan Raid, the discovery and purge or escape of more than 210 Black Ajah Sisters, only 650-700 living Aes Sedai remained under the leadership of the Amyrlin Egwene in a White Tower reunited.

 

The White Tower loss during the Last Battle was heavy, more than 250 sisters were killed

 

=> so about 400 - 450 remaining Aes Sedai at the end of the Last Battle - and 1500 new novices, which are only the tip of the iceberg as any woman can go to the White Tower now.

 

If 20% of these novices attain the shawl, you would see around 300 new sisters in 15 years : definitely a new generation, we can expect some big shifts.

Edited October 20, 2022 by JyP

[Stedding Tofu]

3 hours ago, JyP said:

=> so about 400 - 450 remaining Aes Sedai at the end of the Last Battle - and 1500 new novices, which are only the tip of the iceberg as any woman can go to the White Tower now.

 

If 20% of these novices attain the shawl, you would see around 300 new sisters in 15 years : definitely a new generation, we can expect some big shifts.

 

I think fewer surviving sisters (I take the lower estimate of <1,000 as a starting point) but that only magnifies the impact of a large number of new sisters coming through.  Good point on the number of novices, that's going to have a huge knock-on impact. 

 

Assuming Cadsuane doesn't have a long lifespan left to her we're looking at a new Amyrlin in a few decades.  Obvious candidates seem Elayne and Sharina Malloy as well as the existing Ajah Heads and Sitters.  It would be fascinating to see what direction Cadsuane and then her successor would take The Tower in.

[Red Eagle]

I don't think RJ and BS tried to do away with the lifespan idea at all,

There was constant conversation between Egwene and her closest intimates, once they learned the Oaths were shortening Aes Sedai lifespans. 

 

Don't get me started on literally NO ONE bringing up the ridiculous situation the 2nd Oath has become, though. Hundreds of intelligent, capable, strong-willed women, and they're all swearing away 10% of their lifespans to Prohibit them from doing something NONE of them have known how to do since sometime early in the Trolloc Wars!

 

Elayne kept taking the position that the Oaths don't accomplish their intended function, and that's fair, they don't. The existence of the 1st Oath has literally made the Aes Sedai the most famous deceivers on the continent. A common saying being: "The truth an Aes Sedai tells, is not necessarily the truth you believe you hear."

 

The 3rd Oath is conditional enough, that any Aes Sedai in an atypical neurological state can apparently convince themselves to see a target as belonging to a group they're allowed to weaponize the power against. Elaida's famous beating of Egwene being Exhibit A. 

 

Egwene finally decides that "Because Tradition" is the deciding factor on keeping the Oaths as-are. Something which really disappointed me at the time. 

 

The musical Amyrlins was another place Jordan commented on the Aes Sedai lifespan. The reader learns all those Amyrlins were murdered by the Black (Or the Red, manipulated by the Black), but the canniest, most experienced Aes Sedai enmeshed in White Tower politics apparently found nothing amiss with four women not even a century and a half old all died suddenly due to natural causes. (I guess the White Tower doesn't have a ranking Yellow doing frequent fitness-Delvings on the Amyrlin, the way we do Presidents med. exams.)

 

Even in a Memory of Light, Rand brought it up to Aviendha, while shower-weaving the both of them. That they used the power for so many things people would consider frivolous in the 3rd Age, because the long peace gave anyone interested the time to turn their hand to acquiring whatever knowledge they desired. He thinks to himself that Lews Therin was very much one of those people. He'd learn how to do something just to know how, then not actually use a specific bit of knowledge for decades. 

 

Elayne did bring up the point to Egwene that the Wise Ones and Windfinders weren't going to be binding themselves any time soon. That's when Egwene started putting forward her "Well, maybe sisters could retire into the Kin, and be freed from the Oaths."

 

I don't know how THAT would be supposed to work, since as recent as twenty years ago the White Tower destroyed the Channeler Coterie a couple Accepted began. (The Daughters of Silence). How women with Aes Sedai training, who would go merrily on outliving the women "Still in harness" would continue to see women a third their age as their nominal organizational superiors strikes me as a bit...problematic. 

 

Again, to say nothing of the men. We're clearly meant to think the male channelers have a significant future going forward. Min's Viewings of Logain, the Prophecies declaring Jahar Narishma the one to "Follow After the Dragon" etc etc. The saved refugees assuring Logain they'll send their sons to the Black Tower to be tested "To see if they have the gift."

 

It wasn't an issue swept under the rug, so much as left a little out of focus.