I think I’ve identified the point at which I began actively disliking the Super Girlz

[Mailman]

10 hours ago, WoTwasThat said:

LOL you’re still doing it! I wonder if maybe there is a language barrier causing this confusion. As I have said so many times, the relative importance of the Bowl versus Andor is irrelevant. Conceded: the Bowl was more important. Not the issue. Red herring argument.

 

The question is whether Elayne was in any way necessary to find the Bowl. And best you can muster is that she was a second set of eyes that saw the building in TAR - as if Nynaeve’s eyes weren’t enough.

 

That doesn’t seem like a very good reason to leave Rand tied down in Andor and Cairhien, but you go ahead and believe what you want.

 

Finally, your “Elayne was uniquely qualified to find the T’A” and “Elayne was uniquely qualified to use the T’A” arguments are completely unsupported and, in fact, disproved by the books.

You saying something is a red herring does not make it true.

You can continue to ignore the facts that 

 

Elayne was the most gifted Aes Sedai with Ter'Angreal making her a valuable component to a mission to locate and possibly use one.

 

Elayne was one of only two people to have seen the location of the bowl. Nynaeves eyes were enough? It's a bloody city not a one tavern backwater hamlet! Just imagine trying to search any city by yourself on foot with barely any landmarks to work from. Doubling the ability to search is a major advantage.

 

Elayne could have gone to Camelyn at any point prior to Egwenes arrival but was not being allowed to by the Rebel Tower. Could have Travelled there after Egwenes arrival but was still being prevented by the Tower and herself considered locating the bowl to be more important. So in fact all this conversation about her going to Andor at this point is actually irrelevant.

 

On a final note I am not going to get into a back and forth with insults, you have started your last two posts with insults about my comprehension, I responded to the previous one which I am sorry for, please cease this.

 

Edited September 22 by Mailman

[JyP]

If I recall correctly, having seen the Bowl in Tel'aran'rhiod can be an argument - Ebou Dar is a labyrinthine city, what about seeing something in it through the world of dreams. So it's one argument for Elayne going, and we can say it's a joint decision between the wonder girls. 

 

At this time, Egwene has no power upon the other Aes Sedai, she is seen very much as a figurehead : so she is effectively deploying her strongest assets - the 2 other girls which are also the strongest in the One Power - against the biggest issue at the time - the unending summer.

 

On the other hand, both Elayne and Nynaeve are described as foolish in Ebou Dar, what with antagonizing Mat, being seen as Accepted by the other Aes Sedai, using foolish disguises, negotiating with the Sea Folk... but they have their big time to shine afterwards

[Loose Theremin]

On 9/21/2025 at 11:31 PM, WoTwasThat said:

Agree that Nynaeve is growing on me during my re-read, at least up through Crown of Thorns so far. She’s pretty funny.

 

I think you’re being a little charitable about Jordon’s treatment of Elayne LOL. God she is just an insufferable personality, her “love story” is beyond contrived, and her storylines are tedious. 

 

True enough. Elayne was the standard beautiful princess 'falling in love instantly with the handsome hero' trope. No argument there. But early on Elayne had some intelligence. In Tear when she was advising Rand on statecraft and earlier slapping Egwene's face when she went too far in her bitchiness towards Nynaeve.

 

But later Robert Jordan had her fawning over Thom which was kind of odd. And after she got pregnant her brain seemed to turn into goo.

[HeavyHalfMoonBlade]

Too much of the romances were driven by Foretelling, which skipped the whole building the relationship stage. Even with Aviendha, where there was groundwork it was just her trying to get away and then giving into her womanly passions. I don't think the way Rand is portrayed is love is particularly convincing either. 

 

It just seemed to me Jordan didn't have, or want to give at least, the pages to develop proper romances. He had the three women at his funeral pyre but then never found the room to properly develop the idea. 

[WoTwasThat]

On 9/22/2025 at 5:32 AM, JyP said:

On the other hand, both Elayne and Nynaeve are described as foolish in Ebou Dar, what with antagonizing Mat, being seen as Accepted by the other Aes Sedai, using foolish disguises, negotiating with the Sea Folk... but they have their big time to shine afterwards

And there’s a point early in Path of Daggers where even Elayne is getting impatient and acknowledging she has wasted wayyyy too much time in Eboni Dar and it’s gonna make her job in Caemlyn so much harder. Kinda my entire point.

[Tovya]

But also wasn't Elayne's whole thing that she didn't want to be seen to be 'accepting' the Lion Throne from Rand? Which is what being escorted by the Band (seen by most as Dragonsworn) would have done. And in the end a lot of her support came from Dyelin, who admitted that she wouldn't have supported Elayne if she had accepted the Throne from Rand rather than by taking it in her own right. Even if she tried staking her own claim after arriving, the fact that her arrival would have been facilitated by Rand would have made it harder for people to accept that she was being independent. 

 

Not to mention that Nynaeve couldn't reliably channel at the time they were sent to Ebou Dar, so sending her on her own would have been silly. Egwene did not have many true allies at that point, and the Bowl was one of the most important things in the scope of the world at the time, so of course she'd send her two most trusted allies after it. 

[Bodewhin]

37 minutes ago, Tovya said:

But also wasn't Elayne's whole thing that she didn't want to be seen to be 'accepting' the Lion Throne from Rand? Which is what being escorted by the Band (seen by most as Dragonsworn) would have done. And in the end a lot of her support came from Dyelin, who admitted that she wouldn't have supported Elayne if she had accepted the Throne from Rand rather than by taking it in her own right. Even if she tried staking her own claim after arriving, the fact that her arrival would have been facilitated by Rand would have made it harder for people to accept that she was being independent. 

 

Not to mention that Nynaeve couldn't reliably channel at the time they were sent to Ebou Dar, so sending her on her own would have been silly. Egwene did not have many true allies at that point, and the Bowl was one of the most important things in the scope of the world at the time, so of course she'd send her two most trusted allies after it. 

 

 

All of this. 

 

Elayne is very dogmatic about not accepting the throne on Rand's terms, because she's just going to look like a puppet ruler of the Dragon Reborn. With how the Game of Houses is played is really valid. Let's remember the mess Rand made as early as The Great Hunt with politics in Cairhein. It was in Rand's nature to want to hand over the throne to Elayne but it was simplifying the complexity of the what comes along with assuming the Lion Throne.

[WoTwasThat]

19 hours ago, Tovya said:

But also wasn't Elayne's whole thing that she didn't want to be seen to be 'accepting' the Lion Throne from Rand? Which is what being escorted by the Band (seen by most as Dragonsworn) would have done. And in the end a lot of her support came from Dyelin, who admitted that she wouldn't have supported Elayne if she had accepted the Throne from Rand rather than by taking it in her own right. Even if she tried staking her own claim after arriving, the fact that her arrival would have been facilitated by Rand would have made it harder for people to accept that she was being independent. 

 

Not to mention that Nynaeve couldn't reliably channel at the time they were sent to Ebou Dar, so sending her on her own would have been silly. Egwene did not have many true allies at that point, and the Bowl was one of the most important things in the scope of the world at the time, so of course she'd send her two most trusted allies after it. 

First, Elayne didn’t need to be escorted. They already knew how to Travel by then. She could have the left the Band in Salidar or done whatever.

 

Second, nobody ever argued that Nynaeve should have gone to Ebou Dar alone. The question is only whether Elayne needed to accompany her when she had a different task - taking the thrones - that only she was capable of. 

[Tovya]

But Mat had made a promise to Rand to see Elayne to Caemlyn, so if they'd managed to dodge him, he would have taken the Band right after her which again puts her in the position of looking like she's taking aid from the Dragon. The girls specifically talk about how dogged Mat is in his promises, so then the Band wouldn't have been around for Egwene to use in her manipulations. 

 

Elayne was frequently mentioned as the expert on ter'angrael, so she was needed as the most likely to figure out how to make the Bowl work. They didn't start off with the plan to involve the Sea Folk, so it would have been on her to figure out the workings as the Aes Sedai who also has some experience in Weaving the Winds on a Sea Folk level. 

 

Who would you have sent with Nynaeve and why? 

[chiamac]

So kind of doing this in real time as I'm going through the audio books. 

I'm at the point earlier in Towers of Midnight where Rand meets Egwene in the Tower. Anyway, yeah I can see why she was setup to do that, and why we needed some time with her (although maybe not that much) to get to that point. Her relationship with Rand as a person was a big benefit to that meeting. 

I've mentioned it before, the Sanderson books seem to put together RJ's notes (I assume, when Sanderson is really on that those are outlines or notes), and it kind of then makes sense with the earlier books as a way to close things out. RJ at some point in book 2-3 realized he'd need more time, started to take that time, went off the deep end in taking time, and then pulled things back together.