Things I wish were different in the Stories: complete spoilers for those who haven't read the series

[Godoggo]

So I'm on my 3rd reread of the entire series (I've probably read the first four books at least 5 times.  Just finished the Gathering Storm.  One of the things I hate is the impression I get that the authors approve of the Seanchan society.  I don't get it.  They recognize that they enslave women that can channel, but there seem to be a lot of references to their good government and efficiency.  Also, one thing that always amazed me was that Egwene didn't issue an immediate attack on the Seanchan.  Gateway directly into the room she was imprisoned in with linked sisters.  Freeze anybody in that room and destroy the building with any and all people in the building.  

[Samt]

6 minutes ago, Godoggo said:

So I'm on my 3rd reread of the entire series (I've probably read the first four books at least 5 times.  Just finished the Gathering Storm.  One of the things I hate is the impression I get that the authors approve of the Seanchan society.  I don't get it.  They recognize that they enslave women that can channel, but there seem to be a lot of references to their good government and efficiency.  Also, one thing that always amazed me was that Egwene didn't issue an immediate attack on the Seanchan.  Gateway directly into the room she was imprisoned in with linked sisters.  Freeze anybody in that room and destroy the building with any and all people in the building.  

I actually love the moral ambiguity around the Seanchan.  It adds depth to the world and raises questions about the degree to which the ends justify the means.

 

As to why Egwene doesn't attack, I would assume the 3 oaths come into play.  They can't use the one power to attack.  And considering the Seanchan are pivotal to helping the forces of light win the last battle, it's good that she didn't.  

[Elgee]

Further to what Samt said, I think the author was quite realistic in writing the Seanchan society.

No society is perfect. Most have at least some good or bad points. And just because the Powers That Be decide on / implement something, does not mean that every single person who lives in that society is pure evil / pure good.

 

[Temeraire64]

IMO there has to be way more corruption going on underneath the hood of Seanchan society than we see.

 

Take the Seekers, for example. They're a secret police with arbitrary powers to arrest and put people 'to the question'. Trying to resist them or to escape them is considered a crime. There don't seem to be any limits on who they can arrest, they can use torture to get confessions that are considered valid evidence, and there don't seem to be any limitations on who they can torture (e.g. they don't have to have other witnesses present during the torture, nor do they have to have even circumstantial evidence to justify torturing someone).

Consider all the abuses and corruptions real life secret police got up to. There doesn't seem to be anything stopping a Seeker from, say, grabbing some random noble, torturing them into making a false confession of plotting against the Empress, and then collecting the reward from a grateful Empress.

 

Or what about the damane? The word of a damane (or da'covale), according to the Companion, has no legal weight. Thus any accusation by a damane (or da'covale) of mistreatment by anyone will automatically be ignored. Combine that with how much power a sul'dam has over damane (and the ability of a sul'dam to cause a damane as much pain or pleasure as she wants without leaving any physical sign) and you've got a recipe for massive abuse. Especially since, according to Tuon, there are men who rape damane. Imagine what a sul'dam with Semirhage's tastes gets up to in her free time. Or a sul'dam who's willing to sell sexual access to damane to men in exchange for money or political favors.

People also tend to gloss over just how awful it is to be da'covale. I think this bit from the Companion illustrates just how bad it can get:

Quote

What happened to one’s blood relations and/or allies could also affect one. For example, having one’s son or daughter, brother or sister, or any relation declared covale (property) resulted in a loss of face. A rather nasty trick sometimes played, although considered a cliché, was to introduce a female covale into a man’s house as his asa (concubine), asa not being covale; when one or more children were born, and had been acknowledged as was customary, the situation was revealed. The asa/covale reverted to her owner, of course, and because condition followed the female line, so did the children.

And this is done often enough to be considered a cliche.

 

I also wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the High Blood are seriously messed up psychologically. Especially the Imperial Family. You can't grow up in a family where you're encourage to fight against, and kill, your siblings for your mother's favor without getting seriously messed up in the head. I mean, it's canon that two of the Empress's children were arrested and tortured, into making confessions that resulted in them being made da'covale, and their mother thanked the Seeker who did it.

Edited May 9 by Temeraire64

[DojoToad]

They enslave way more than women who can channel.  Many people and Ogier are considered property.  I never got that the authors approved of slavery, but when they are telling a particular chapter from the perspective of a Seanchan then it makes sense to look at from an approving angle - the character approves of Seanchan society which includes slavery.  The books would have been less realistic if all the Seanchan were secretly abolitionists.  Of course, they may have been more realistic if there were a few Seanchan characters that pushed against the idea of slavery/property.

[Samt]

I agree that the efficiency of the Seanchan government and society feels unrealistic.  Slavery is a part of that, but mostly it's an issue of the deceit and manipulation that seem to be standard operating procedure.  It's quite unbelievable that their power structures remain intact and continue to be able to do much of anything.  Everywhere else in Randland power structures seem to deteriorate and fracture while the Seanchan royalty are able to maintain absolute control over an entire continent while also backstabbing and killing each other every other Friday.  

 

On that subject, I also question that ability of the Aiel to be so prolific.  They live in a desert and spend a huge portion of their resources and effort on continuously fighting (mostly each other).  Regardless of how hardened and resilient the people are, I tend to doubt that there would be very many of them.  They are to some extent patterned after the Fremen who had a similar ability to reproduce like rabbits in a desert, but at least there you could chalk it up to them having technology that arguably violates thermodynamics.  The Aiel are just able to be very successful in the desert because they are super 'tough.'

[Bugglesley]

59 minutes ago, Samt said:

I agree that the efficiency of the Seanchan government and society feels unrealistic.  Slavery is a part of that, but mostly it's an issue of the deceit and manipulation that seem to be standard operating procedure.  It's quite unbelievable that their power structures remain intact and continue to be able to do much of anything.  Everywhere else in Randland power structures seem to deteriorate and fracture while the Seanchan royalty are able to maintain absolute control over an entire continent while also backstabbing and killing each other every other Friday.  

 

On that subject, I also question that ability of the Aiel to be so prolific.  They live in a desert and spend a huge portion of their resources and effort on continuously fighting (mostly each other).  Regardless of how hardened and resilient the people are, I tend to doubt that there would be very many of them.  They are to some extent patterned after the Fremen who had a similar ability to reproduce like rabbits in a desert, but at least there you could chalk it up to them having technology that arguably violates thermodynamics.  The Aiel are just able to be very successful in the desert because they are super 'tough.'

 

These both bothered me as well, but I've got some justifications. As much as Seanchan seems like it shouldn't last a week, I think RJ both acknowledges and explains how they can remain relatively stable. Ways include:

 

a) The social science answer: Above all else, as in many slaveholding societies, members of the slaveholding class deeply understand their class interest. Much as business owners will compete viciously to drive each other out of business but suddenly close ranks and support each other implicitly when a worker starts talking about a union, upper-class Seanchan seem to implicitly understand that upholding their central myths--the positive moral necessity of slavery chief among them--is their first and foremost survival need. And with that comes upholding the institutions that create and allow and operate the slave system, i.e. the Imperial Family and the Crystal Throne. They might kill each other for who gets to wear the boot, but questioning the boot is immediate cause for a real nasty execution.  You can see this even in actual darkfriends.

b) The fantasy universe answer: The Crystal Throne is a ter'angreal that does some kind of mind control. You'll notice that all of the murder and scheming amongst Tuon's siblings is over the heir. The Empress herself is also clearly the target of schemes and rebellions, but less so from those with the access to do real harm. It's something like an Ottoman situation where yeah, the harem is a never-ending viper's pit of schemes and child murder, but hey at least the Sultan is secure in his power and the provinces are run in a relatively consistent way by the enslaved managerial-soldier class (Jannisaries/deathwatch guards).

c) The lateral thinking answer: Seanchan isn't actually all that stable! The Return is made up of hardened, veteran soldiers from an Empire that's been unified for centuries. Those things can't both be true... unless, as is text canon, the army is constantly putting down violent rebellions and uprisings against the status quo. I don't have an exact quote for this but I'm pretty sure it's established that damane have experience fighting other damane, which means we're not just talking slave revolts but members of the nobility, with sul'dam in tow,  rising up against the Throne. The last nail in the coffin here is that Semirhage assassinating the Empress after preparing the ground for no more than a few years is able to completely throw it into chaos. To be clear, there is nowhere in Randland targeted by a Forsaken that does any better by any means, but that Seanchan does not do better does say something.

 

When it comes to the Aiel, it's a lot tougher. Two thoughts here:

a) The social science answer: Their population density is low, but the waste is very big. It's nearly as big as the rest of Randland put together. When the Aiel are on the move in the books, it's basically every single living member of their society not too young or too old to leave the holds (which again skews the numbers because everyone who fits that description is ready to pick up a spear and fight). If you put everyone matching that description in Randland in one place, you'd probably have much larger numbers, but that never happens. This is complemented with:

b) The fantasy universe answer: This is pushing conjecture, but everyday Aiel life is way more actively integrated with channeling than wetlander life is. Imagine if Aes Sedai were actively involved in irrigation, mining, and industry--there's an incredible amount that would be accomplished. That level of involvement lets the Aiel survive in numbers in an environment real life humans could not, as they have someone to heal deadly wounds with magic or find and productively employ the tiniest trickle of water with magic or know where to find animals to hunt with magic or exploit the tiniest veins of ore without digging a huge open-pit mine to look. With magic! It's really clear that Aiel as a society spend very little time on agriculture relative to what they should, or what Wetlanders are shown to; either RJ really didn't think this through (more likely let's be real, they're Fremen like you said) or the Wise Ones advantage means they can achieve bonkers yields with very little work. There's also a level of how the whole gai'shan tradition means that, like a lot of clan-based warring societies in North America or sub Saharan Africa, you have a lot of wars but not a huge amount of death, and the Wise Ones again mean that these wars can be ended when they risk getting out of hand by wizard-politicians who can negotiate over any distance or disputed territory in their dreams.

 

 

[Temeraire64]

5 hours ago, Bugglesley said:

I don't have an exact quote for this but I'm pretty sure it's established that damane have experience fighting other damane, which means we're not just talking slave revolts but members of the nobility, with sul'dam in tow,  rising up against the Throne.

In KoD Tylee mentions a battle to put down a rebellion where there were 300 damane on each side.