Rebels and Elaida

[aburuq]

So I've been wondering ... from the perspective of the Salidar / rebel Aes Sedai, on what basis d id they see Elaida as a usurper, and why did they think (initially, before the Logain/Red Ajah stuff came out) she is bad enough to break the tower over? Yes, as readers, we know that Siuane was doing the right thing in seeking out Rand to guide his steps to becoming the Dragon Reborn, etc, and we know Elaida is an unhinged and incompetent power-tripping megalomaniac... But from the perspective of the rest of the Aes Sedai, they know nothing of what Siuane was up to, don't approve when they do find out, and it is always made clear that Elaida followed the bare requirements of the letter of the law in deposing Siuane, with the approval of the Hall, etc. So how do you understand why so many sisters did what has never been done in the history of the white tower (which has seen a number of deposed Amyrilins), left the tower, declared Elaida a usurper, and rebelled? 

[DojoToad]

I don’t think they truly rebelled until they set up Egwene. They needed time to think and took it. But in the end I think the rebels were able to do the bare minimum from their perspective to take the leap. Not saying they were right, but they rationalized enough…

[bringbackthomsmoustache]

Also it is not the case that it had never before occurred that the AS were divided and the Amerlyln or even the hall of the tower were deposed by the general body of sisters, it is only the case that the other occasions are sealed to the flame/hall/shawl/ring and not generally known to the nations.

 

[Stedding Tofu]

The Hall is 3 Sitters from each ajah = 21.  A quorum of 11 (>50%) is required for the Hall to sit.  If an Amyrlin is to be deposed neither she, nor the ajah she was raised from are informed, but all other ajahs must be represented by at least one Sitter.  The Greater consensus is required to depose her = the vote of every Sitter present.

 

Technically, Elaida met those conditions by persuading 11 Sitters from the other six ajahs to meet and depose Siuan.  There is a strong argument all 18 Sitters (the Blue alone excluded) should have met and in this case the motion would have failed, the greater consensus not being met.

 

The motion to depose her is controversial - she is as good as named as a Darkfriend - and once it's published Hammar and Coulin lead the warders from the blue and green to rescue her.  We're also told that Elaida didn't wait to see if The Blue Ajah would stand for Siuan and that every Blue sister who was in Tar Valon at the time either fled or was killed.  For supporters of Siuan from other ajahs that must have been abhorrent and represented a real danger - even if they towed the line they would be suspect and they could easily have been dragged into the fighting.  E.G. when Min returns to The Tower she sees three Aes Sedai together and knows they will all die on the same day, which turns out to be the day of the coup, and those three aren't all blue.

 

Once they have fled the way back is difficult and Elaida's behaviour is hardly conducive to reconciliation.  They of course procrastinate horribly until Siuan's ruse with Logain and Egwene's impetus.

[Red Eagle]

The story about the Red Ajah setting up False Dragons.

That would have had a significant impact among that body of Sisters who were neither initially Loyalists or Rebels.

 

No one knows how an Aes Sedai can make the truth sit up and beg like another Aes Sedai, but by the same token, a Sister knows that when another Sister makes a cut-and-dried statement of fact in an unequivocal manner, there's none of the normal doubting a person might experience, because of the First Oath.

 

Remember that only a very few Aes Sedai caught wise to the fact Siuan and Leanne had been freed of the Oaths by their Stilling. Siuan took a great deal of pleasure in telling damaging lies about Elaida she knew others were taking for truth because they believed her bound by the First Oath. 

 

If the members of other Ajahs accept the proposition that Logain was induced to declare himself a False Dragon by the Red Ajah, and they seemed to take the charge seriously, given how they questioned him in such detail not only about his own experiences as a False Dragon, but about what Logain allegedly heard Reds say about this practice of setting up False Dragons being a long-running plot of the Red Ajah, well...

 

It becomes not merely a specific instance of the Reds betraying the Tower, but a historical series of centuries-long betrayals. 

 

That's the kind of thing that has Sister's asking, "Did we really only have to cope with the War of the Second Dragon, Hawkwing's pogrom, and then the Hundred Years War because the Red Ajah has been regularly stabbing us in the back over the past thousand years?"

 

The same period where the two times Red Sisters did ascend to the Amyrlin Seat, calamity followed.

 

Edit: Finally, remember the Red Ajah had just recently (In the view of time of Aes Sedai) been caught engaging in a conspiracy to Gentle men who could channel, without returning them to Tar Valon for trial first, as Tower Law demanded. 

 

A conspiracy that reached from the Highest of the Red Ajah, to their Sitters, and down to dozens of the Ajah's members that either participated in "The Vileness" personally, or became accessories (Like Elaida) due to their willful blindness. 

 

An Ajah that will flout Tower Law en masse about the reason for their Ajah to exist, may break the Law in any # of ways, might have gone the thinking.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Red Eagle
Additions.

[wotfan4472]

On 9/1/2022 at 9:55 PM, Stedding Tofu said:

The Hall is 3 Sitters from each ajah = 21.  A quorum of 11 (>50%) is required for the Hall to sit.  If an Amyrlin is to be deposed neither she, nor the ajah she was raised from are informed, but all other ajahs must be represented by at least one Sitter.  The Greater consensus is required to depose her = the vote of every Sitter present.

 

Technically, Elaida met those conditions by persuading 11 Sitters from the other six ajahs to meet and depose Siuan.  There is a strong argument all 18 Sitters (the Blue alone excluded) should have met and in this case the motion would have failed, the greater consensus not being met.

 

The motion to depose her is controversial - she is as good as named as a Darkfriend - and once it's published Hammar and Coulin lead the warders from the blue and green to rescue her.  We're also told that Elaida didn't wait to see if The Blue Ajah would stand for Siuan and that every Blue sister who was in Tar Valon at the time either fled or was killed.  For supporters of Siuan from other ajahs that must have been abhorrent and represented a real danger - even if they towed the line they would be suspect and they could easily have been dragged into the fighting.  E.G. when Min returns to The Tower she sees three Aes Sedai together and knows they will all die on the same day, which turns out to be the day of the coup, and those three aren't all blue.

 

Once they have fled the way back is difficult and Elaida's behaviour is hardly conducive to reconciliation.  They of course procrastinate horribly until Siuan's ruse with Logain and Egwene's impetus.

There exists one other point, that the books point out. Because the Black Ajah were present in that quorum, and the bare minimum was present, it was an illegal vote, and one that was manipulated by Mesanna behind the curtains, so to speak. Later scenes show that. It also shows there existed no clear way of dealing with that issue of infiltration.

However, what Egwene did in taking the Three Oaths and retaking them, I actually wonder if the Hall will impose that step in critical votes in the future, on top of what Egwene insisted on.

That a full meeting of all Hall Sitters and Amyrlin  be present, even in debates of whether or not deposing an Amyrlin should be done.

[Elendir]

The breaking of the White tower is done by Black Ajah. They are main factor in creating two opposite sides. Blue Ajah were persecuted so they go with rebelling fast.
None of the other aes sedai would establish rebel fraction. However, when rebel fraction exists, question of legitimacy of Elaida`s steps was on table.

[Sabio]

Three things played a part in this.  Black Ajah + Eladia's ambition and hatred for Siuan and the Red's open dislike of Blues.   Elaida started the ball rolling when she approached Alviarin.  The Red's anger about no Red being Amyrlin for a long time meant they blindly accepted any reason to topple a Blue and have Red put in the position.   

[Stedding Tofu]

On 9/6/2022 at 2:51 PM, wotfan4472 said:

There exists one other point, that the books point out. Because the Black Ajah were present in that quorum, and the bare minimum was present, it was an illegal vote, and one that was manipulated by Mesanna behind the curtains, so to speak. Later scenes show that. It also shows there existed no clear way of dealing with that issue of infiltration.

However, what Egwene did in taking the Three Oaths and retaking them, I actually wonder if the Hall will impose that step in critical votes in the future, on top of what Egwene insisted on.

That a full meeting of all Hall Sitters and Amyrlin  be present, even in debates of whether or not deposing an Amyrlin should be done.

 

I agree that Black Ajah Sitters and Mesaana were involved but the impetus came from Elaida and the majority of her supporters were not black.  Indeed the Aes Sedai in general are in denial about the Black Ajah and so the Black Ajah's involvement does does not play a factor in the opposition to Elaida. 

 

On a tangent, I think the Black Ajah were mishandled in the story.  At the start they are a secret society whose existence is rumoured but has never been discovered or any individual sister's allegiance proven.  E.G. Elaida and her supporters seem completely unaware of the existence of the Black Ajah until Seiane and Pevara (using the oath rod) uncover Talene (a Green Sitter) and Seaine actually misunderstands her orders from Elaida who simply wants her to provide a pretext for removing Alviarin rather than hunting the Black Ajah.  As the story goes on we learn they are organised in to hearts, groups of three, with each knowing only the identity of one other sister outside the heart. 

 

This seems fine for a small secret society hidden in The Tower but the final revelation in the last few books that there are hundreds of black sisters, and that something between one in four and one in three Aes Sedai are really darkfriends is too much.  Did none of those hundreds ever utter a lie, however trivial, in the hearing of another sister, in the three thousand years The Tower has stood?  I mean look at how easily Verin revealed herself to Egwene, intentionally of course but it shows how easy it is to slip in a little white lie in an unguarded moment, or how Galina lied to Faile in attempting to escape Thevara.

 

Egwene's procedural changes are smart and add stability but she is only able to do this as a "strong" Amyrlin at the peak of her powers after her inspirational defence of The Tower against the Seanchan.  The Aes Sedai are revealed as intensely competitive, ambitious and jealous of their own prerogatives, and Tower politics to be a petty, dangerous and backstabbing morass at the best of times, so it's also easy to see a future Hall taking back powers and prerogatives from a future Amyrlin (not Cadsuane, though!), particularly as the Black Ajah is believed annihilated.

[wotfan4472]

On 9/19/2022 at 9:07 PM, Stedding Tofu said:

 

I agree that Black Ajah Sitters and Mesaana were involved but the impetus came from Elaida and the majority of her supporters were not black.  Indeed the Aes Sedai in general are in denial about the Black Ajah and so the Black Ajah's involvement does does not play a factor in the opposition to Elaida. 

 

On a tangent, I think the Black Ajah were mishandled in the story.  At the start they are a secret society whose existence is rumoured but has never been discovered or any individual sister's allegiance proven.  E.G. Elaida and her supporters seem completely unaware of the existence of the Black Ajah until Seiane and Pevara (using the oath rod) uncover Talene (a Green Sitter) and Seaine actually misunderstands her orders from Elaida who simply wants her to provide a pretext for removing Alviarin rather than hunting the Black Ajah.  As the story goes on we learn they are organised in to hearts, groups of three, with each knowing only the identity of one other sister outside the heart. 

 

This seems fine for a small secret society hidden in The Tower but the final revelation in the last few books that there are hundreds of black sisters, and that something between one in four and one in three Aes Sedai are really darkfriends is too much.  Did none of those hundreds ever utter a lie, however trivial, in the hearing of another sister, in the three thousand years The Tower has stood?  I mean look at how easily Verin revealed herself to Egwene, intentionally of course but it shows how easy it is to slip in a little white lie in an unguarded moment, or how Galina lied to Faile in attempting to escape Thevara.

 

Egwene's procedural changes are smart and add stability but she is only able to do this as a "strong" Amyrlin at the peak of her powers after her inspirational defence of The Tower against the Seanchan.  The Aes Sedai are revealed as intensely competitive, ambitious and jealous of their own prerogatives, and Tower politics to be a petty, dangerous and backstabbing morass at the best of times, so it's also easy to see a future Hall taking back powers and prerogatives from a future Amyrlin (not Cadsuane, though!), particularly as the Black Ajah is believed annihilated.

 

I agree with the Black Ajah's use in the books. All it would have taken was the Aes Sedai acknowledging it in the Tower, among themselves, while denying it to the world. That would have kept up the issues plaguing the Aes Sedai.

As for Verin, remember the lie she told Rand in The Great Hunt we all missed because we thought we imagined it.

All it takes is one of those kinds of lies, and add in the Aes Sedai fully denying, and it is soo simple in its execution in the books. We saw through Galina, because we all hated her already. Faile's reaction is ours with Verin, which makes it all so interesting.

 

The Hall may crawl back some authority, but it will be very slow, because of Egwene's laws. It will take ages, because they have to do it in the Amyrlin's face. It will be all but impossible for them if Cadsuaine not only agrees with Egwene on the Hall, but doubles down on her positions. We see her POV state that on a few occasions with her when she sees how the Aes Sedai are handled by the Wise Ones, and actually agrees independently with what Egwene says, and we get hints that she might go further than Egwene did.

I could see her ordering all the Accepted declared ready to be raised be trained with the Wise Ones and Sea Folk for a decade before being raised. Just to be sure all the bad habits were expunged, so to speak.