Where does the Aes Sedais absurd ranking system come from?

[hapazard]

^

Not so...

 

I think that when interacting with a member of from another group the status of that person within her group will decide which level of respect will be granted. Of course the status of the groups will also be a deciding factor but not the forth most. This is especially clear when the strength of the groups are near equal.

 

To put it this way: a leader from a small country and a leader from a great will both be treated with an (almost) equal level of respect when on a state visit. The defence minister from the great country will get less honour than the small country’s prime minister even though having more influence on the matter at hand.

 

Thus the inter person ranks in inter group meetings will be based on the in group rankings of the persons involved.

 

This is interesting as it do provide an explanation to the talking about another’s strength taboo:  If, for reason of distrust, the pre tower ajahs were unwilling to expose their internal ranking system when negotiating and instead setting up puppet rulers then how to know which level of respect would be appropriate in a two person meeting? The face rank could be used but only at the risk of antagonizing someone whose actual rank might be higher than your own, antagonizing a person who someday might rank above you. The solution would be to guess the rank of the person in question, by the behaviour of other persons in the persons group when interacting with her and by the strength of that person!

 

Once set in place such a system would be quite hard to shift. To reveal that one knew that the other person has a true rank at odds with her apparent rank would make that person lose face. Not good in sensitive negotiations and the taboo would in time follow. Easier just to nod and smile and try to reach the ones with real power in other ways.

 

Later when the membership of a certain ajah grew to be less important than being a member of the Aes sedai as such the whole system for inter person ranks might easily get carried over to the new organization.

 

 

[Luckers]

To put it this way: a leader from a small country and a leader from a great will both be treated with an (almost) equal level of respect when on a state visit. The defence minister from the great country will get less honour than the small country’s prime minister even though having more influence on the matter at hand.

 

You mean like how Berelain nearly had to whore herself out to the Tairens?

 

Thus the inter person ranks in inter group meetings will be based on the in group rankings of the persons involved.

 

A person from one group would not be subserviant to a person from a completely seperate group based on their rank system--its their rank system.

 

We arn't speaking of degrees of respect between ranking leaders of different groups anyway, we are speaking of lines of authority. You would not see the vice president of America being subserviant to the Queen of England simply because her rank exceeds his.

 

It's as simple as that--ranking only occurs in a unifed whole, and one groups rank system would not be influential over another group, even if they utilized the same rank system themselves--and there is no evidence that they did. Group politics would rule, and it would mean that weaker women of stronger ajahs would have by far more influence, power and presitige than stronger women of weaker ajahs--which directly precludes the possibility of establishing a wide-based strength ranking system.