Ask A Simple Question, Get a Simple Answer (No AMoL Spoilers)

[yoniy0]

When Rand roams the palace in Cairhien after the attack, Cadsuane passes him by. Interesting. Her ter'angreals should tell her that Rand is around. Do you think this is an erro?

Did she seem surprised to see him?

No, he hid himself with a MoM.

She was running, though, so perhaps that's why she didn't feel her ornament vibrating?

[Lacanos]

When Rand roams the palace in Cairhien after the attack, Cadsuane passes him by. Interesting. Her ter'angreals should tell her that Rand is around. Do you think this is an erro?

 

We're never told whether Cadsuane's ter'angreals can detect multiple men channeling and locate them all. Remember, Rand was using as little of the power as possible at this point, and there were a fair number of channelers all over the palace holding saidin/saidar, either hunting Rand or to defend themselves from the attackers.

[Luckers]

Her two angreal that are capable of detecting Rand both revolve around movement, vibration and shifts in position--easily missed when one is walking.

[csarmi]

Well if she can't spot Rand while moving, she's not using them very well.

[yoniy0]

She uses them when she needs to, like when she was hunting men who could channel or at the Cleansing. Otherwise, they hang from her hair.

[ironisles]

What is the "gasp" moment in KoD?

[Suttree]

What is the "gasp" moment in KoD?

 

The mass suicide of the Amayar.

[ironisles]

What is the "gasp" moment in KoD?

 

The mass suicide of the Amayar.

 

 

Hm.. did anybody actually gasp about that? Since they barely had any onscreen time I didn't really event think much about it.

[Suttree]

What is the "gasp" moment in KoD?

 

The mass suicide of the Amayar.

 

 

Hm.. did anybody actually gasp about that? Since they barely had any onscreen time I didn't really event think much about it.

 

Mass suicide of an entire race of people? I personally thought it was pretty heavy and Logain's reaction was very well done. Her is what RJ had to say concerning fan response:

 

From RJ's blog 24 September 2005 "THE GASP MOMENT"

 

[see Jason's ComicCon report below if you want to know what RJ's talking about. - Terez]

 

I’m not going to reveal what the “gasp” moment is [this was revealed to be the Amayar suicide - Terez]. I certainly won’t be putting any spoilers here. But I have read the reviews, both spoiler and non-spoiler. For those who have read the book and believe you have identified the “gasp” moment, congratulations. For those who have read the book and still don’t know what the “gasp” moment is, my sympathies. I mean that in all truth. You failed to see something that really should have made you gasp. I think I am fairly hardened, but occasionally something happens that makes me mutter, “Where are you, God? Are you sleeping? Are you blind?” This is fiction, but even so, I had to pause a couple of times in writing about it. Of course, I get deeply immersed in my work so that it becomes real to me while I am writing, but I hope to pull the reader into that level of realness, too. Either I failed completely in this instance, or some of you have become way too hardened. Too much on the evening news, I suppose. It’s just today’s hurricane, today’s tsunami, today’s Armageddon. I wonder what’s coming up at eleven?

 

RJ's blog 28 September 2005 "THIS AND THAT"

 

I didn’t put the whole onus for failing to see the gasp moment on the fans. If you read my post, I said that either I had failed completely in making you have the same sense of realness in the books that I do when writing or else….I do think there is a hardening to many people, though, through being inundated with images of hurricane victims, tsunami victims, people starving because of famines, suicide bombing sites etc. There was a time that the splattered blood of a suicide bomb site would have been considered too graphic and violent for the evening news. Now, it is an appropriate thing to show while people are having dinner. It won’t spoil too many appetites. I noticed one or two posts of comments to spoiler reviews where the gasp moment was revealed and some people seemed to find it funny. That’s somebody who probably makes Darfur jokes.

Edited August 19, 2011 by Suttree

[yoniy0]

Just to put another point of view on this - I didn't gasp at that scene. It was sad the way that all scenes leading to TG are sad, but not particularly for the Amayar. This is fantasy, TG is coming, and we've seen our share of killing before. Did we gasp at the realization that whole cities were BFed in the past?

 

It's natural that we'd - some of us at least - only care for the characters we know. In fact, I'll go as far as to claim that saying it's not so in real life is naive. People die in numbers all around the world. Usually we don't break our supper for it, like it or not. When it hits us closer to home, though...

[Terez]

Someone at Theoryland actually guessed before KOD came out that it would have to do with the Amayar reaction to the statue melting. He didn't predict mass suicide, though...I forget what his ideas were specifically. But most people agreed that it was anti-climactic.

[Puny]

Im rereading KoD and at the same time reading Leighs Wheel of time Rereads. Anyways, I was reading the part where Faile finds the oathrod and Rolan is there and says he wants to take her with him when he goes back to the Three-Fold Land, and Leigh talks about rape in our world vs Randland. One of the comments to that post was among other things this:

"I don't think its fair to say that rape doesn't exist in the WoT world. Rather, it's just not something focused on as there are bigger, more pressing matters at hand for the characters who get the most screen time.

 

Going by the 'rape isn't sex it's power, control, and humiliation definition used in the above recap there are many instances of rape or attempted rape in Randland:

 

EVERY damane ever, including Egwene"

 

Is he/she talking about actual rape or the mental process of violating/breaking someone?

[capuga]

Im rereading KoD and at the same time reading Leighs Wheel of time Rereads. Anyways, I was reading the part where Faile finds the oathrod and Rolan is there and says he wants to take her with him when he goes back to the Three-Fold Land, and Leigh talks about rape in our world vs Randland. One of the comments to that post was among other things this:

"I don't think its fair to say that rape doesn't exist in the WoT world. Rather, it's just not something focused on as there are bigger, more pressing matters at hand for the characters who get the most screen time.

 

Going by the 'rape isn't sex it's power, control, and humiliation definition used in the above recap there are many instances of rape or attempted rape in Randland:

 

EVERY damane ever, including Egwene"

 

Is he/she talking about actual rape or the mental process of violating/breaking someone?

 

Most likely the latter, since the Seanchan we have seen seem to view sleeping with a damane as the same as sleeping with a dog.

[Majsju]

Im rereading KoD and at the same time reading Leighs Wheel of time Rereads. Anyways, I was reading the part where Faile finds the oathrod and Rolan is there and says he wants to take her with him when he goes back to the Three-Fold Land, and Leigh talks about rape in our world vs Randland. One of the comments to that post was among other things this:

"I don't think its fair to say that rape doesn't exist in the WoT world. Rather, it's just not something focused on as there are bigger, more pressing matters at hand for the characters who get the most screen time.

 

Going by the 'rape isn't sex it's power, control, and humiliation definition used in the above recap there are many instances of rape or attempted rape in Randland:

 

EVERY damane ever, including Egwene"

 

Is he/she talking about actual rape or the mental process of violating/breaking someone?

 

Very strange comment. Was someone in those comments trying to argue that rape did not exist in Randland?

[Puny]

Im rereading KoD and at the same time reading Leighs Wheel of time Rereads. Anyways, I was reading the part where Faile finds the oathrod and Rolan is there and says he wants to take her with him when he goes back to the Three-Fold Land, and Leigh talks about rape in our world vs Randland. One of the comments to that post was among other things this:

"I don't think its fair to say that rape doesn't exist in the WoT world. Rather, it's just not something focused on as there are bigger, more pressing matters at hand for the characters who get the most screen time.

 

Going by the 'rape isn't sex it's power, control, and humiliation definition used in the above recap there are many instances of rape or attempted rape in Randland:

 

EVERY damane ever, including Egwene"

 

Is he/she talking about actual rape or the mental process of violating/breaking someone?

 

Very strange comment. Was someone in those comments trying to argue that rape did not exist in Randland?

 

Mark Grayson; Yeah I was thinking along the same lines. Cause I know how the Seanchan would feel about damane.

 

Majsju: I really don´t know. I know someone argued that in a world where women had the power and the Power rape would be a uncommon thing and maybe Jordan saw it like that also. By the comment below s/he seems to say that there is not alot of physical rape going on, but alot of mental one; the damane being forced to obey, maybe Tylin/Mat, Valda and Morgase, numerous forceful spankings and so on.

Leigh also saw the rape that the Myrddraal perform as "in character" for them, that it´s an act so dark that only those in the service of the Dark perform/condone it. That could´ve been a reasonable explaination except that none of the male/male Forsaken has had that kind of punishment, not even hinted at by what I recall.

[Din]

I'm reminded of a passage from tEotW.

 

"I have almost forgotten the pleasures of the flesh." Aginor's tongue crossed his withered lips, sounding

like stone on rough leather. "But Balthamel remembers much." The laughter of the mask seemed to grow

wilder, and the wail that left Nynaeve burned Rand's ears like despair ripped from her living heart.

[contempt]

I was just wondering if anyone has updated the WoT army map to the way things stand at the end of ToM.

[ironisles]

Is the female Choedan Kal still usable without the access key?

[csarmi]

It melted when Rand + Nynaeve cleansed the source (and that cause the Amayar to mass-suicide).

[ironisles]

It melted when Rand + Nynaeve cleansed the source (and that cause the Amayar to mass-suicide).

 

 

I thought it was just he key that melted.

[csarmi]

We know the sa'angreal itself melted too. See KoD,Ch22.

[ironisles]

We know the sa'angreal itself melted too. See KoD,Ch22.

Oh.. well haven't read that yet just got it today heh.. thanks.

[yoniy0]

it's an act so dark that only those in the service of the Dark perform/condone it. That could've been a reasonable explaination except that none of the male/male Forsaken has had that kind of punishment, not even hinted at by what I recall.

Yeah, I don't think that's it. We have instances where rape or rapers are mentioned with no apparent connection to DFs:

Beside the wide arched gate into the city, a long platform displayed, on spikes twenty feet above the ground, the tarred but still recognizable heads of over a dozen men and two women who had fallen afoul of Seanchan justice. Above them hung the symbol for that justice, a headsman's slant-edged axe with the haft wrapped in an intricately knotted white cord. A placard below each head announced the crime that had placed it there, murder or rape, robbery with violence, assault on one of the Blood.

Quite aside from all the sunken ships and dead, freeing damane was another death penalty charge, and disgusting besides, in the Seanchan view, as bad as rape or molesting children.

[Puny]

it's an act so dark that only those in the service of the Dark perform/condone it. That could've been a reasonable explaination except that none of the male/male Forsaken has had that kind of punishment, not even hinted at by what I recall.

Yeah, I don't think that's it. We have instances where rape or rapers are mentioned with no apparent connection to DFs:

Beside the wide arched gate into the city, a long platform displayed, on spikes twenty feet above the ground, the tarred but still recognizable heads of over a dozen men and two women who had fallen afoul of Seanchan justice. Above them hung the symbol for that justice, a headsman's slant-edged axe with the haft wrapped in an intricately knotted white cord. A placard below each head announced the crime that had placed it there, murder or rape, robbery with violence, assault on one of the Blood.

Quite aside from all the sunken ships and dead, freeing damane was another death penalty charge, and disgusting besides, in the Seanchan view, as bad as rape or molesting children.

 

Seems not. And tbh I find the point odd that in a female dominated society there would be no rape/rape attempts. I don´t think that was RJ´s point.

[LemonPastie]

I haven't seen any asmodean threads in a long while - are people still debating the how of the murder? or has it finally dropped to the wayside? or is it a rule of these forums to not mention his name?