Seanchan vs All Other Channelers

[JimmyCruce]

Is it worth reading? I am thinking about reading it.

[Aan-Alone]

On 1/9/2023 at 10:53 AM, Scarloc99 said:

now that Men are at no risk of going mad they can also now be R

The Domination band might be just what it takes to force change in the Empire after all. I'm sure the Sul'dam have a pecking order or hierarchy, just like every other social organization in Randland. All it takes is for one/more of the highest Sul'dam to be dominated by a collared man into channeling themselves while describing what they are doing, and having this happen in a very public venue.

[Samt]

21 hours ago, Aan-Alone said:

The Domination band might be just what it takes to force change in the Empire after all. I'm sure the Sul'dam have a pecking order or hierarchy, just like every other social organization in Randland. All it takes is for one/more of the highest Sul'dam to be dominated by a collared man into channeling themselves while describing what they are doing, and having this happen in a very public venue.

Does the domination band work for a man to control a woman?  I assumed it only worked as woman controlling man. This would be a result of the fact that men can't start a circle and the domination bands (and a'dam) are just circle forcers.  

 

That said, a regular a'dam should be sufficient to make any of the Sul'dam channel so long as any channeling woman is holding the leash.  I don't think the domination band needs to be involved.  

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

As I remember the flaw of the domination band was that while it gave control of a man, over time that control would waver and eventually give control of the link to the man, the in-story explanations only allowing for the slowing of this process and not its prevention (sharing the bracelets etc) . 

[Aan-Alone]

4 hours ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

As I remember the flaw of the domination band was that while it gave control of a man, over time that control would waver and eventually give control of the link to the man, the in-story explanations only allowing for the slowing of this process and not its prevention (sharing the bracelets etc) . 

This is where I was going with my idea. The way I read it, [or remember it working], was that over time the man could gain control of the link. So, in essence, eventually it would be fight of wills as to who controls the link. And men in the WoT are known to be stubborn and mule-headed, especially the Two Rivers variety. According to Nynaeve anyway.

[Bugglesley]

 

    On 2/9/2023 at 12:59 PM, Scarloc99 said:

    I always wonder what happened in the age of legends to get rid of simple guns. You have what I guess are lasers and fire canons etc, and sword fighting. But what about a good old pistol, that could have done for all the forsaken one at a time lol. I guess it’s the same reason as why Harry never took a handgun to the Voldemort fight, or why dr evil never let his son just shoot Austin Powers in the head, just not the way things are done :).

[Click and drag to move]

 

The thread's already been necroed so I just wanted to jump in with some ideas about year-old arguments--

guns are totally useless without a massive industrial base to support them. "Gun" (cannon made by bellmaker) is not remotely comparable to "gun" (M16 with literally infinite refills from the quartermaster). In real human history it was centuries from one to the other, and the distinction is not "people wanting guns" but the gigantic industrial capacity required to manufacture precision rifling in the first place, consistently manufacture functional drop-in replacement parts, and manufacture ammunition.

 

Ok, so the Breaking is happening and you have a "good old pistol." Where do the bullets come from? When the firing mechanism breaks where are you getting a new one? I'd also argue that it probably wouldn't do for the Forsaken at all--one would imagine weaving a shield of Air around you would be standard operating procedure where slugthrowers were involved. This is possibly why they were using "shocklances" in the first place in the AoL.

 

To the further point; a gun is really, really not "cannon but smaller," and people tend to vastly overstate the impact early firearms had on warfare upon their invention. It was gradual, incorporated into tactics over actual literal centuries and took those centuries to develop the tactics, innovate the material weapons, and develop the industrial backing to make their widespread use in warfare practical. The Seanchan have a vast, dictatorial empire, sure. You can go ahead and ask any of the vast, dictatorial empires of the 19c (Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, Qing Empire) just how easy it is to snap your fingers and industrialize and massively overturn your feudal landowning structure to accommodate the logic of industrial capital. If there is going to be a Randland Industrial Revolution I'd put it in the Two Rivers; access to coal and iron from the Mountains of Mist, influx of new urban workers from refugees, newly centralized but concept-of-nobility agnostic leadership in Perrin Goldeneyes, relatively easy access to explicit innovations in the Caemlyn University, a flexible fighting force used to ranged combat and innovation. It's just fantasy England.

 

Finally; anybody expecting "and then the whole world watched the Dark One go down and all took hands together and danced in a circle and the Seanchan voluntarily gave up their slave culture of a thousand years and the Aiel became pacifists again and the Aes Sedai took their noses out of the air and all the nobility of Randland voluntarily gave up Daes Dae'mar and their exploitative hereditary privileges forever and there was a peaceful whole-world democracy and everything was good forever and ever amen"... was reading different books than everyone else??

 

There is nothing, no reading possible of this series that implied that all of humanity would be made perfect, somehow, much less even better, by Rand's sacrifice or by the defeat of the Dark One--only that we would be allowed to keep trying at all. That's uplifting and hopeful in its own way! I think that's the central hope peeking through all of our characters' responses to the grim possibilities they see in the various magic peeks forwards--that we as humans can keep trying and make a world that is better than we found it. A saccharine, everything's tied up and every problem has been solved ending was never in the cards; that's just not how this world (or any realistic world!) works.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

I always thought that was the bittersweet thing about the books. Given the cyclical nature of the world - not matter how perfect how heroes managed to make the outcome, it only made the fall to come worse. Which is of course is how our history has played out as well - but well it was not inevitable by definition in the same way.

 

The industrial revolution occurred due to Britain's unique qualities - large high-quality coal reserves near the surface of the earth, an island so-shaped so that no point is more than 80km from the sea, and a coast where you are never more than 20km from a deep water harbour (compared to for example France's 5 over thousands of kilometers of coast). The Two Rivers does not have any of this, let alone being placed in the very important trade routes from the Baltic.

 

The issue of guns - yes, I totally agree they are not some amazing anti-channeler device (though they would be a lot more effective than archers) but tactic-wise, they would have a huge impact, relative to conventionally armed troops. Also Jordan uses a huge conceit that he has Aludra make cannons that took the real world centuries to develop. Her dragons appear to me to be close to the firearm development of the Baker Rifle. So adding in the thought of firearms in the Wheel of Time does not seem entirely unfair (indeed, Jordan himself does in Aviendha's visions within a short period of time). (Likewise Jordan's inclusion of a late-stage steam engine without any of the real world catalysts or commercial development, that springs from the mind of an individual, shows again a conceit, or a lack of appreciation of the real world conditions that brought about the Industrial Revolution).