Potential fix for the overpowered Moiraine issue:

[Shawlee]

25 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

My main objection to that scene is that moiraine was not in danger from the ship and should not have been able of using the power as a weapon, at all.

 

You see I didn't have any problems with that, as suroth is a dark friend and the damanes under her control (probably some were her property too), were direct weapons wielded by Issy through her.

 

So I think I can see how "moiraine" (Rafe actually) justifying this: pulling on a loose interpretation of the 3rd oath. 

 

Considering the tv Seanchen are more of a weapon for Issy. Hear me out! Unlike the books where he was in the shadows maneuvering, and he is directly involved with them in the show. (Like how Semirhage is later on). And when turak died, suroth becomes the highest authority of Seanchen army on this side of the areth occan, and her master is a forsaken. So by extension the Seanchen army(including the damanes) are fighting for the dark.

 

Also her being exposed like that on the beach and being attacked on, albeit not by the people on the ships, but the foot soliders of the same military body, gives her the "I was trying to defend my life and my warders" excuse. I would further argue Lanfear intentionally dropped her off their, so Moiraine can have that excuse. And have a front row seat to see the dragron rise. 

 

That's  my two cents, what to you think? @king of nowhere i would love to hear your point on my speculation. 😊

 

 

 

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Shawlee

[Elgee]

49 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

My main objection to that scene is that moiraine was not in danger from the ship and should not have been able of using the power as a weapon, at all.

 

This.

[Elgee]

26 minutes ago, Shawlee said:

You see I didn't have any problems with that, as suroth is a dark friend and the damanes under her control (probably some were her property too), were direct weapons wielded by Issy through her.

 

I disagree. Even if Moiraine knew that Suroth and (some of) her Damane were darkfriends, she could not be 100% certain that they were on that ship, and she could definitely not be 100% certain that every single person on that ship was a Darkfriend. Ergo, her Oaths would physically prevent her from attacking the ship, as at the point of her attacking, they were not attacking her.

 

The fact that Rafe, or whoever, are not aware of this or don't care, is ... the problem, not the answer? LoL ... don't know how better to put this.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

I am probably misremembering this but I always thought the third oath only mentions shadowspawn (nothing about darkfriends or even the Forsaken) and in the last defense of their lives, or another Aes Sedai (not even other Gaidin). 

 

So while I get the show has wiggle room to talk about defending the dragon, and the fate of the world, or fighting Ishamael, the oaths really don't care about that. It is only in the last immediate defense of their lives they can use it as a weapon. 

 

But I can see why the show is maybe being a bit loose with this, as it is pretty counter-intuitive. (Edit: like when the Reds ride off to battle with a false Dragon, we don't really want to think about the fact that they are really limited in what they can do, except to those directly attacking them. The books to are pretty loose about what is using the power as weapon really entails). Though I do think this is more Moiraine acting like the powerful wizard is meant to in fantasy stories, and not as an Aes Sedai. Which I am sure she would be very happy about herself 🙂 

Edited October 31, 2023 by HeavyHalfMoonBlade

[Elgee]

27 minutes ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

I am probably misremembering this but I always thought the third oath only mentions shadowspawn (nothing about darkfriends or even the Forsaken) and in the last defense of their lives, or another Aes Sedai (not even other Gaidin). 

 

You are quite correct! I should maybe pay more attention to what people post and what I reply ... I'm a BAD Mother 🤪

 

The Three Oaths

    "Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I vow that I will speak no word that is not true."
    "Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I vow that I will make no weapon for one man to kill another."
    "Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I vow that I will never use the One Power as a weapon except against Shadowspawn, or in the last extreme of defending my life or that of my Warder or another sister."

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

4 minutes ago, Elgee said:

I'm a BAD Mother

No, you are not *snuggles*

 

*blushes, curtsies, and snuggles again*

[Elgee]

Lol *snuggles back*

*Stops hijacking @Shawlees thread*

You're welcome to get a snuggle too, Shawlee!

You'll have to go to the Red Ajah if you want proper snugglebites, though 😛

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Shawlee said:

 

You see I didn't have any problems with that, as suroth is a dark friend and the damanes under her control (probably some were her property too), were direct weapons wielded by Issy through her.

 

So I think I can see how "moiraine" (Rafe actually) justifying this: pulling on a loose interpretation of the 3rd oath. 

 

Considering the tv Seanchen are more of a weapon for Issy. Hear me out! Unlike the books where he was in the shadows maneuvering, and he is directly involved with them in the show. (Like how Semirhage is later on). And when turak died, suroth becomes the highest authority of Seanchen army on this side of the areth occan, and her master is a forsaken. So by extension the Seanchen army(including the damanes) are fighting for the dark.

 

Also her being exposed like that on the beach and being attacked on, albeit not by the people on the ships, but the foot soliders of the same military body, gives her the "I was trying to defend my life and my warders" excuse. I would further argue Lanfear intentionally dropped her off their, so Moiraine can have that excuse. And have a front row seat to see the dragron rise. 

 

That's  my two cents, what to you think? @king of nowhere i would love to hear your point on my speculation. 😊

 

 

 

 

The third oath says you can use the power to harm "in the last extreme in defence of your life", or "against darkfriends".

Moiraine could definitely defend herself against the soldiers on the beach (conveniently placed to give lan something to do). I can see a loophole there maybe, in that the oath does not specify you have to channel against those attacking you. Not a great argument, as the oath specifies "in defense of your life" and sinking distant ships was not in self-defence, those ships were not paying her any attention, she was even too far to be seen.

 

Second condition of the oath, shadowspawn and darkfriends. By the way, the wording we are given do not mention any of that, but many aes sedai in the books speak of those exceptions.

Well, seanchan are not shadowspawn, especially without rakens. Darkfriends? Suroth is, but the damane certainly are not. However, moiraine has no idea who those people on boats are. She does not know suroth. She only heard vague tales of invaders in the west. Can she strike if she does not know if one is darkfriend? If she could, she could reasonably strike anyone.

Can she strike on a reasonable suspicion? Can she strike a whole boat full of people because one is a darkfriends, and the others are collateral? 

Maybe. Not convincing, but maybe.

 

So, there are arguments there to be made, but they are very tenuous at best. In the books, any interpretation of the oaths was more solid than that.

I still consider the whole thing a plot hole

[BookMattBetterThanShow]

31 minutes ago, Elgee said:

 

You are quite correct! I should maybe pay more attention to what people post and what I reply ... I'm a BAD Mother 🤪

 

The Three Oaths

    "Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I vow that I will speak no word that is not true."
    "Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I vow that I will make no weapon for one man to kill another."
    "Under the Light and by my hope of salvation and rebirth, I vow that I will never use the One Power as a weapon except against Shadowspawn, or in the last extreme of defending my life or that of my Warder or another sister."

I thought it was the following from the books, but I could be wrong:

• Spoiler

  • • To speak no word that is not true
  • • To make no weapon with which one man may kill another
  • • Never to use the One Power as a weapon except against Darkfriends or Shadowspawn, or in the last extreme defense of her life, the life of her Warder, or another Aes Sedai

[Elgee]

2 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

"against darkfriends".

 

Against Shadowspawn, not against Darkfiends (see my post above)

[Elgee]

I'll go double check this tonight.

[BookMattBetterThanShow]

I normally go to wheeloftime.fandom.com to check myself: Under the TV Three Oaths they have this comment: The Three Oaths are an adaption of the oaths of the same name which is a link to were I got the ones above. So they may be wrong, will need to check the books again

 

 

[SinisterDeath]

21 minutes ago, Elgee said:

 

Against Shadowspawn, not against Darkfiends (see my post above)

@Elgee is correct about the Book Oaths.

I just checked New Spring where Moiraine took the Oaths and that's what it says.
I checked the appendix of Shadow Rising and Crown of Swords and they state Shadowspawn, not Darkfriends.

So the "wiki" here is wrong.

https://wot.fandom.com/wiki/Three_Oaths

That said. The oaths as we know of them in the show, omit any mention of the word shadowspawn. 

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

From the TV show page of the fandom, Three Oaths

 

Quote

The oaths have some slight differences:

Person - In the books, the second oath is "one man" rather than "one person".

Shadowspawn - In the books, the Third Oath includes the exception that Aes Sedai may use the one power against Darkfriends and Shadowspawn. However, Robert Jordan did not explicitly mention this prevision in the earlier books, either.

As the show third oath makes no mention of Darkfriends or Shadowspawn, according to this page.
So it looks like this was something RJ changed as he realised how limiting it was.

[SinisterDeath]

I did a little more digging.
The line "weapon against shadowspawn and darkfriends" comes from the Wheel of Time Companion.

The last book to have a Glossary entry on the Three Oathes was New Spring, which was published after a Crown of Swords.

New Spring came out between Path of Daggers & Winters Heart.
Canonically within the books, Moiraine spoke her oath to say "shadowspawn" she did not say dark friends.

So canonically she is bound to the limits of the wording she used on the oath rod, which means she can't use it as a weapon except in the defense of her life or against shadowspawn.

It's possible some other Aes Sedai included the verbiage "and dark friends" and RJ later retconned this in his later novels as he realized he done messed up.

[Shawlee]

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

very tenuous at best.

Completely agree with all your points. The whole idea of my speculation post was to just discuss plot holes and loopholes. So, this is great. 😁😁😁

 

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. 

 

One thing though, why did you specifically mentioned the Rakens here? What am I missing? Again, I have not been in the community, all my 'knowledge' is my own interpretations of the story. Is there anything that you guys know that connects rakens to shadowspawns? I mean i thought rakens and to'rakens are just animals from the portal world, like the grolms. I always compared it with The Witchers merging of spares (😅😅), only thing i could compare it with my little knowledge. I thought people might mistake rakens as draghkar. But that was it.

 

Can you expand on that?

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Well, seanchan are not shadowspawn, especially without rakens. Darkfriends?

 

Edited October 31, 2023 by Shawlee
I forgot how to punctuate apparently 😑

[Storeebooq]

Here's my thinking, besides them stretching things a bit for plot point (which we have already seen them do). 

 

1. Moraine convinced herself that so long as Rand is shielded, he is in danger of dying, and therefore, ALL of the world is in danger of death. No Rand, No Dragon, means end of the world and the Dark One wins. It's a stretch, but I think Mory is quite capable of mental gymnastics to accomplish this. The explosions were focused on the ships and, though also a stretch, she may have reasoned folks had a chance to save themselves. 

 

2. She isn't over powered, because it looks like her weaves were quit big and took quite some time to gather up. She may have been right at the edge of her power level and straining herself. I think the "dragon" later was a mix of fire and illusion, which probably wouldn't require as much one power as a true fire dragon. 

 

I'm not confident she had the angreal any longer. 

 

 

But again I think they ramped things up a bit for plot and effects. Including the cheesy dragon at the end. lol Not as bad as they did for Season 1 finally, but close. 

[Shawlee]

18 minutes ago, Storeebooq said:

No Rand, No Dragon, means end of the world and the Dark One wins.

 

You got me hooked one the first point !

[king of nowhere]

7 hours ago, Shawlee said:

One thing though, why did you specifically mentioned the Rakens here? What am I missing? Again, I have not been in the community, all my 'knowledge' is my own interpretations of the story. Is there anything that you guys know that connects rakens to shadowspawns? I mean i thought rakens and to'rakens are just animals from the portal world, like the grolms. I always compared it with The Witchers merging of spares (😅😅), only thing i could compare it with my little knowledge. I thought people might mistake rakens as draghkar. But that was it.

 

Can you expand on that?

 

rakens and other seanchan special animals have nothing to do with shadowspawn, but a lot of randlanders who never saw them mistook them for shadowspawn. so it would be possible for an aes sedai to mistake them for some new shadowspawn, jump to the conclusion that the seanchan using them are darkfriends, and use the power over that misunderstanding. it would have been by far the most acceptable option.

but since they removed all those beasts from the show (so far, i really hope they include the rakens, they are an important part of seanchan military), this possible save isn't available

[Yamezt]

10 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

It's possible some other Aes Sedai included the verbiage "and dark friends" and RJ later retconned this in his later novels as he realized he done messed up.

 

I would say it was an error on RJ's part to miss out dark friends since the Aes Sedai had to battle dreadlords before.

 

In the TV series, when Moiraine recited the 3 oaths to Egwene S01e02, it does not include the exclusion to both darkfriend or shadowspawn.

 

Moiraine:Exact verbiage. Words are important, and how we use them is important.

Egwene:I don't know.

Moiraine:One, to speak no word that is not true. Two, to make no weapon with which one person may kill another. Three, never to use the One Power as a weapon, except in the last extreme defense of her life or the life of her Warder or another Aes Sedai. These oaths are bound by the One Power itself. It's not that we do not break them, it's that we cannot break them. I did not kill that ferryman. He wasted his own life on a foolish cause.

Transcript copied from: https://wheeloftime.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow's_Waiting/Transcript

 

Granted, she may have missed the exclusion in error, but it is rather odd to talk about "exact verbiage" and then miss a very important exclusion.

 

11 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

Can she strike on a reasonable suspicion? Can she strike a whole boat full of people because one is a darkfriends, and the others are collateral? 

Maybe. Not convincing, but maybe.

 

12 hours ago, Elgee said:

she could definitely not be 100% certain that every single person on that ship was a Darkfriend

 

There is no exclusion to harming collateral though. Scene with the ferryman returning to his vessel being sunk and he died in the process established that to some extent. In the books tGH, it was perfectly fine for Aes Sedai to summon the wind to speed their ship down the Erinin and cause floods & damage crops along the way. Maybe RJ pictures floods differently or the types of floods he experienced in his geographical location were different from where I live. Where I live, floods from rivers kill even when the weatherman predicts the flood, much less one where Aes Sedai makes an impromptu trip down the river.  

 

I do agree it isn't particularly convincing about why Moiraine was able to sink the ships - sure there are a number of explanations and possibilities, and I accept a number may at a stretch be plausible because it all depends on Moiraines point of view as to what breaks her oath, but they don't feel satisfying to me as a viewer. If they explained it in S3, great, but it isn't a particularly big deal to me if the show does not explain it either.

 

[Elgee]

14 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

I just checked New Spring where Moiraine took the Oaths and that's what it says.

 

Thanks! I was so tired last night I went to bed at 8pm - didn't get a chance to check.

 

14 hours ago, SinisterDeath said:

So the "wiki" here is wrong.

 

I've noticed them to be wrong in quite a few places, so no longer really use them for reference.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

On 10/31/2023 at 4:19 PM, SinisterDeath said:

It's possible some other Aes Sedai included the verbiage "and dark friends" and RJ later retconned this in his later novels as he realized he done messed up.

I just happened to listen to Nynaeve's testing for accepted today, and lo and behold, Sheriam tells Nynaeve that the oaths (when describing what a ter'angreal is) include the exception of shadowspawn and darkfriends, and this is in The Great Hunt, so pretty early in the series. So I don't really know what that means. True, this is not a quote of the oaths but a paraphrasing, but unless to Sheriam (who surely isn't using her ability not to tell the truth on such a mundane point) thinks shadowspawn also covers darkfriends it does not make a lot of sense. Is it really an inconsistency, or is it some subtle difference in perception? It seems to vary too much to make sense either way.

 

I'll just try and keep an ear out during this listening, but I am already trying to keep a note of so many things I'm not sure I will be able to pay attention to them all. 

[Shawlee]

1 minute ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

Sheriam (who surely isn't using her ability not to tell the truth on such a mundane point)

 

We need to take whatever Sheriam says with a grain of salt. She is afterall a black sister. The three oath doesn't apply to her.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

16 minutes ago, Shawlee said:

 

We need to take whatever Sheriam says with a grain of salt. She is afterall a black sister. The three oath doesn't apply to her.

True, most true. But Sheriam is not the outlier that contradicts everything else. Some of what she says in that section is either unreliable narrator or RJ tweaked the lore later, about the timings of when the oaths were adopted. But it does not really make sense that Sheriam would deliberately lie about this, not to a Novice who could easily report the lie to someone else in a class, for example, about the three oaths. It is just all so confusing.

[Shawlee]

1 minute ago, HeavyHalfMoonBlade said:

True, most true. But Sheriam is not the outlier that contradicts everything else. Some of what she says in that section is either unreliable narrator or RJ tweaked the lore later, about the timings of when the oaths were adopted. But it does not really make sense that Sheriam would deliberately lie about this, not to a Novice who could easily report the lie to someone else in a class, for example, about the three oaths. It is just all so confusing.

 

I know, I was just being a little shit, still kinda hurt by the fact that she of all people was one. I think I kinda feel like Egwene when it comes to the white tower. 🤔