The Aiel Thing in the Epilogue

[FarShainMael]

They go to the Blight, to fight the DO or die.

[Mats Spare Hat]

How far-fetched do you guys think it is to wonder if the what-looks-like-Aiel could be Fain-ized Shaido? I don't think we've seen Fain on-screen between Winter's Heart and ToM, and after Malden we only know Thevara intended for them, the Shaido, to return to the Waste...Seem's geographically possible, and we know Fain somehow got to the Blight - So it's also possible to suppose his converto-Aiel would be able to follow as well.

 

Whoooo knoowwwsssss

[Durinax]

How far-fetched do you guys think it is to wonder if the what-looks-like-Aiel could be Fain-ized Shaido? I don't think we've seen Fain on-screen between Winter's Heart and ToM, and after Malden we only know Thevara intended for them, the Shaido, to return to the Waste...Seem's geographically possible, and we know Fain somehow got to the Blight - So it's also possible to suppose his converto-Aiel would be able to follow as well.

 

Whoooo knoowwwsssss

I dont think its possible. when we see fain resurect the dead they are zombies, they drool and are all distorted and move sluggishly, and the 'aiel' are described as moving sleekly.

[Mats Spare Hat]

How far-fetched do you guys think it is to wonder if the what-looks-like-Aiel could be Fain-ized Shaido? I don't think we've seen Fain on-screen between Winter's Heart and ToM, and after Malden we only know Thevara intended for them, the Shaido, to return to the Waste...Seem's geographically possible, and we know Fain somehow got to the Blight - So it's also possible to suppose his converto-Aiel would be able to follow as well.

 

Whoooo knoowwwsssss

I dont think its possible. when we see fain resurect the dead they are zombies, they drool and are all distorted and move sluggishly, and the 'aiel' are described as moving sleekly.

 

 

Yeeaah, my mind went to the Shaido as being more of a sort of on-hand larger source of unaccounted for Aiel, that could have been messed with, as opposed to theories of turned aiel male channelers who had gone to the Blight...That and Fain wouldn't have to resurrect someone for them to go looney - Mordeth/Mashadar flipped Aridhol on it's head, and I'm assuming they weren't zombie-fied for that to happen. Thereagain, who knows...Meh

[moratcorlm]

The Whitecloaks Fain affected became sullen and slovenly, but not zombified; the same goes for Toram Riatin. That's a different thing from, and predates, his Mashadar Trolloc zombification powers, though we haven't seen it used in a while. The Red-Veils could be under his spell.

 

'Course, I don't think they're Aiel at all, and I find the Fain hypothesis unlikely, but less so than a number of others.

[Durinax]

The Whitecloaks Fain affected became sullen and slovenly, but not zombified; the same goes for Toram Riatin. That's a different thing from, and predates, his Mashadar Trolloc zombification powers, though we haven't seen it used in a while. The Red-Veils could be under his spell.

 

'Course, I don't think they're Aiel at all, and I find the Fain hypothesis unlikely, but less so than a number of others.

yes but the whitecloaks didnt abandon their uniforms or changed htem other than not maintain them. Nor did they participate in self mutilation (which grinding their teeth into points would most likely be)

[Mats Spare Hat]

Well, hopefully it'll all be a satisfying twist. If it ends up being Fain than alright, it was guessable and if it's done out nicely than I'm fine...There's that nagging feeling though, that since it was so obvious and on-screen what you saw Fain was responsible for with the Trollocs, that a reader would want to apply that sort of circumstance unto something they see later on...And what gets me is I really want to think yeah, it's Fain that warped them.

 

Then, I start second guessing because it seems a convenient way, having read through the Trolloc zombie part & and then the part in the epilogue, for an author to be just straight up messing with you. Making a reader think one way because of what you've seen early on, then being led on down supposition lane, because now something else a little strange and unexplained comes up, but sort of fits the creepy feeling you might get from Resident Trollocs(Evil) that you had earlier on.

 

I BETTER NOT SEE THE EXPLANATION COMING, SANDERRRRSSOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNuh! *shakes fist

[Yates_]

What about Myrddral descendants? In one of the earlier books, it was mentioned that the Myr like to "play" with female captives before turning them over to the trolloc cook pots. This could mean torture, but I took it to mean Rape. So we know that the Fades have working naughty places.

 

Are they Sterile? Can they not breed? Never mentioned.

 

This ties back to the Aiel. I am not sure of the exact timeline, but we can assume by the start of the Trolloc wars, barely 1000 years after the breaking, the Aiel have already formed themselves into the elite fighting force they are today. By that I mean they have already developed their martial arts, weapons, and training. We all assume that at least some of them went to the waste as darkfriends, both channelers and non-channelers, men and women. So they have had ample time to breed over the last 2-2.5 millenia (since breaking).

 

If you are Ishy, and you run a "city" in the Blight, what better training style for your "citizens" is there than the Aiel? Regardless of the original origin of the Darkfriend, once in the blight they would eventually have kids, and it only makes sense to impliment some sort of Aiel based combat training regimen. And the Aiel don't use swords, so that is a non-starter.

 

Priority for the breeders would be pairing up channelers. One of the problems with the WT is that they have culled the human race of channelers. The Blight would not have made that mistake. But you want those Channelers to be weapons. Weapons that will follow orders and not get uppity, which is probably the major failing of the forces of the Dark. What better way than to raise them as soldiers, giving them the type of training the Aiel have developed. That way, they all have some combat use, even the ones who cannot channel, which can't be determined until they are teens or later. Of course, the "Blight Aiel" would not have maintained their ethnic purity mania, and would have bred with all races, creeds, and colors, since the vast majority would have been men, and would have had to breed with captured women from Raid, most of whom had dark, borderland coloring. Eventually, the Dark coloring would have worn out, since we know the filthy ginger Genone to be a recessive trait.

 

To tie this back to the fades, IF they can breed, why not breed them with women, and descendants of Aiel, which further explains the eyes and coloring. Who knows what the mix would result in? Humans with greater speed and reflexes, but with higher reasoning skills than trollocs, but probably with some of their tendancies, which leads back to the manic eyes and filed teeth. Again, trained as Aiel. The Spear/Sword separation would isolate these Blight Aiel as the special forces, or scouts, of the Forces of Dark.

 

Just a rambling opinion.

[Sharaman]

What about Myrddral descendants? In one of the earlier books, it was mentioned that the Myr like to "play" with female captives before turning them over to the trolloc cook pots. This could mean torture, but I took it to mean Rape. So we know that the Fades have working naughty places.

 

Are they Sterile? Can they not breed? Never mentioned.

 

This ties back to the Aiel. I am not sure of the exact timeline, but we can assume by the start of the Trolloc wars, barely 1000 years after the breaking, the Aiel have already formed themselves into the elite fighting force they are today. By that I mean they have already developed their martial arts, weapons, and training. We all assume that at least some of them went to the waste as darkfriends, both channelers and non-channelers, men and women. So they have had ample time to breed over the last 2-2.5 millenia (since breaking).

 

If you are Ishy, and you run a "city" in the Blight, what better training style for your "citizens" is there than the Aiel? Regardless of the original origin of the Darkfriend, once in the blight they would eventually have kids, and it only makes sense to impliment some sort of Aiel based combat training regimen. And the Aiel don't use swords, so that is a non-starter.

 

Priority for the breeders would be pairing up channelers. One of the problems with the WT is that they have culled the human race of channelers. The Blight would not have made that mistake. But you want those Channelers to be weapons. Weapons that will follow orders and not get uppity, which is probably the major failing of the forces of the Dark. What better way than to raise them as soldiers, giving them the type of training the Aiel have developed. That way, they all have some combat use, even the ones who cannot channel, which can't be determined until they are teens or later. Of course, the "Blight Aiel" would not have maintained their ethnic purity mania, and would have bred with all races, creeds, and colors, since the vast majority would have been men, and would have had to breed with captured women from Raid, most of whom had dark, borderland coloring. Eventually, the Dark coloring would have worn out, since we know the filthy ginger Genone to be a recessive trait.

 

To tie this back to the fades, IF they can breed, why not breed them with women, and descendants of Aiel, which further explains the eyes and coloring. Who knows what the mix would result in? Humans with greater speed and reflexes, but with higher reasoning skills than trollocs, but probably with some of their tendancies, which leads back to the manic eyes and filed teeth. Again, trained as Aiel. The Spear/Sword separation would isolate these Blight Aiel as the special forces, or scouts, of the Forces of Dark.

 

Just a rambling opinion.

 

Fades are sterile - confirmed by RJ quotes - which Terez or Barid Bel or Luckers or somebody will pull out of the theoryland archives http://www.theoryland.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=372

[A Rant Lord]

Maybe worth for something: In the book The world of RJ's wheel of time by theresa patterson & Robert Jordan it says that Sharan's dress pretty similar to Aiel and also veil their faces, at least when seen by outsiders.

[Val Mickey]

I posted this on another thread, but I'll put it here so you guys can give it a good smashing.

 

Taim was trained in the Blight clan.

 

1. Suspect History - The guy has no backstory. Bashere never mentions anything about Taim's early days.

 

2. 'So-called Aiel' - This quote is truly one of the most puzzling stuff in the series. Is Taim a Forsaken? Or an overeducated Borderlander? A Chosen-trained Dreadlord? Well, I say we add this one to the list - If he is Blight clan trained, well they would consider the Three Fold Aiel as false, wouldn't they?

 

3. A disdain for swords - Aiel. Aiel. Aiel. Tinker? Naah.

Add to that a Warder's grace, and a poise of constant readiness to explode into attack. Aiel. Aiel. Aiel.

 

4. 'I have been in the Blight.' - Taim does not have the bow legs of a horse rider. Which incidentally is Saldaea's idea of soldiering. And who else goes into the Blight? Wood cutters?

 

5. 'You took the Stone with your Aiel.' - Sounds innocous the first time. Shouldn't that have been 'the Aiel'? Pretty much every other character refers to them as 'the Aiel in Tear.' On the other hand, this is also suggestive of Taim being a 3rd ager or Chosen-trained, where Aiel were servants to the Aes Sedai.

 

6. Indifference to heat or cold - Another suspect point, but a trick essential to live in the Blight. It's bloody hot there. It is likely that the Blight Channeling School would luck on to that early on.

 

7. Demira's spearing - Black eyed Aiel. Under the command of a Dreadlord. (The guy who smiled.) Who in turn is under the command of a Dreadking. (Yup, made that one up.)

 

All this is under the assumption that those are really Aiel.

[Durinax]

1. Suspect History - The guy has no backstory. Bashere never mentions anything about Taim's early days.

bashere likely doesnt know everyone in Saldaea, most likely not even all the minor lords, since he was too busy marshalling the defence against the blight.

2. 'So-called Aiel' - This quote is truly one of the most puzzling stuff in the series. Is Taim a Forsaken? Or an overeducated Borderlander? A Chosen-trained Dreadlord? Well, I say we add this one to the list - If he is Blight clan trained, well they would consider the Three Fold Aiel as false, wouldn't they?

All nobles are expected to know some of the old tongue, and since taim would have likely been born/taught the old tongue about the time of the Aiel War it would likely be an source of inspiration on words he would like to be taught. Plus if a people have a name that means dedicated I would be a tiny bit curious and wonder if they truly where dedicated

3. A disdain for swords - Aiel. Aiel. Aiel. Tinker? Naah.

Add to that a Warder's grace, and a poise of constant readiness to explode into attack. Aiel. Aiel. Aiel.

common affliction for someone that can channel (they think its the be all end all)

As for the warders grace it could be because he was a soldier (archer or infantry most likely, although could have been a calvalry man doing a conscription term, not long enough to develope saddlelegs

4. 'I have been in the Blight.' - Taim does not have the bow legs of a horse rider. Which incidentally is Saldaea's idea of soldiering. And who else goes into the Blight? Wood cutters?

alraedy refered too in the last point. besides we dont know much of saldaeas tactics and such, all we know is they have awesome calvalry (and bashere did help set up the legion which is all infantry)

5. 'You took the Stone with your Aiel.' - Sounds innocous the first time. Shouldn't that have been 'the Aiel'? Pretty much every other character refers to them as 'the Aiel in Tear.' On the other hand, this is also suggestive of Taim being a 3rd ager or Chosen-trained, where Aiel were servants to the Aes Sedai

I think this is a thing of semantics, since taim is directly referring to rand and the taking of the stone (epecially since by the time he learns of events everyone knows the aiel are with rand)

6. Indifference to heat or cold - Another suspect point, but a trick essential to live in the Blight. It's bloody hot there. It is likely that the Blight Channeling School would luck on to that early on.

actually indifference to heat or cold would be a very useful aspect everywhere, especially in the borderlands where temperatures can dip very low (and I am assuming very high). He could have reverse engineered it from AS doing it if he really wanted too.

[Ozzie_aiel]

If they're channelers, they're not very good ones, considering they used a knife to kill that guy..

 

Just because they use a knife to kill someone doesn't automatically make them bad or non-channellers. Look at the description, he wanted to feel the visceral pleasure of yanking a guys guts out by hand. There are many sereal killers out there who don't use objects in their work to kill people.

 

 

I'm under the belief they were once aiel, caught and twisted by the DO. If he can turn Fain into a hound that can follow Rand and Co, can sense them from any distance, then I'm sure turning Aiel into crazy, blood-thirsty psychopaths would not be overly difficult. Many of them would be male channellers, caught and turned (don't need to hold them for a long time, you only 1 df channeller to shield, 1 to hold him down with the Power, and one to send for the rest, it'll be a day at most.)

 

They remove to viel to show the filed down teeth to make the fear stronger, making the kill that much sweeter, the power over your victim that much greater. And yes, they probably would've eaten him afterwards.

[moratcorlm]

It would be very easy for the Dark One to convert Aiel to crazed bloodthirsty (literally?) Darkfriends by one means or another; we all agree. But you have to propose a mechanism for the change in eye color which apparently accompanied it.

 

The only thing we've seen in the series to date that effected that sort of change was Perrin's metamorphosis into a Wolfbrother. Hmm... actually it would make a certain amount of sense if they were Darkhound-brothers.

[Durinax]

It would be very easy for the Dark One to convert Aiel to crazed bloodthirsty (literally?) Darkfriends by one means or another; we all agree. But you have to propose a mechanism for the change in eye color which apparently accompanied it.

 

The only thing we've seen in the series to date that effected that sort of change was Perrin's metamorphosis into a Wolfbrother. Hmm... actually it would make a certain amount of sense if they were Darkhound-brothers.

haha theres my super crazy idea :p. its due to myrrdraal soul swaps. The DO is too good at it for soul transfusion to be instantaneous. And it would be a good way to test it out, on captive Aiel channellers

[Ananta]

I'm with the people who say they are Aiel. But I have yet to decide which camp I'd go with of the following two:

 

Aiel from a mirror world that has fallen for shadow. This would definitely explain where Demandred has been, why the other Forsaken are ignorant of his whereabouts and how he has been able to gather an army when there really aren't any armies left for taking.

 

 

Then again, I also think that Fain could be behind them. Transforming the remaining Shaido into something horrible. He was described "turning" Trollocs into something even more fearsome in the prologue, so I suppose it would make sense that he can transform Aiel too. Would be fitting that only times he/his doings were described were in Prologue and Epilogue.

 

 

 

 

Just because someone said "These weren't Aiel. They were something else. Something terrible." doesn't mean they aren't Aiel.

 

I mean, people do say in real world that "They weren't human" or something similar to that, when describing something rather sick and/or weird.

[Blackhoof]

You have a point, anata, but people wouldn't look at a bunch gleeful, knife-wielding psychopaths coming at them and say 'they weren't human. they were something worse.'

 

people would usually use the term 'not human' when describing an action. like 'those men went crazy and began acting like animals.'

 

thats why i dont think they are aiel.

 

i reckon they are sharan. sharans seem meanish, and certainly aren't aiel.

[mossman87]

I don't get why people are so hung up over the dark eyes. This has been going on for 3,000 years in the Blight, I'm sure there's much interbreeding.

 

Edit: And the taking the veils off to kill is the exact opposite of the regular Aiel, which would make sense if they were twisted, dark Aiel and enjoyed in killing.

[Blackhoof]

perhaps, but maybe they took the veils off because they are evil sharan cannibals and they wanted their victim to see their fearsome teeth.

[mossman87]

perhaps, but maybe they took the veils off because they are evil sharan cannibals and they wanted their victim to see their fearsome teeth.

 

lol

[Guest davidq]

Brandon could take this into any direction. The dying man did say that they were not Aiel.

 

When I first read that passage, due to the mention of sharp razor teeth, I thought maybe somehow these were Eelfinn (foxes) that had made it out of the tower. Mat's escape would have provided a path for them to exit. However, the darkfriend Aiel theory makes more sense.

[horus17]

i havent any evidence about the file-teethed guys at the end, but the vibe i got when i read it was that they were NOT aiel of any sort. dont know why, but i got the feeling they were the Sharans coming out to play.

[Beidomon]

I think others have already noted this, but I thought I'd add my two cents.

 

I'm doing my first re-read of the series, and I'm on The Shadow Rising right now. I remembered this being my favorite book, and the re-read only confirms that this is probably the high water mark of the series to date. Anyway, I just got to the mention in TSR Chapter 35 about the male channeler Aiel and it immediately made me think of those veiled sharp-toothed things at the end of Towers of Midnight (dontcha love how so many new things are still being introduced with one book to go?)

 

The excerpt is:

Men who learned they could channel faced a grimmer fate; they went north to the Great Blight and maybe beyond, to the Blasted Lands and Shayol Ghul. "Going to kill the Dark One," they called it. None survived long enough to face madness.

 

These new creepies (I'll call them "Evil Aiel") are also likely connected to Jordan's BLANK in the Blight, which either refers to the Evl Aiel themselves, or a city of them. With only one book to go, it seems highly likely that these two new Blight-related things must be related.

[Muad Cheade]

The male channelers are a possibility but how many have gone to the Blight in recent years? Can't be a huge number.

Unless the Shadow has put them in stasis boxes or they have a connection to the Dark One allowing them to channel pure saidin and live elongated lives, the number of male Aiel channelers has to be low.

[mossman87]

The male channelers are a possibility but how many have gone to the Blight in recent years? Can't be a huge number.

Unless the Shadow has put them in stasis boxes or they have a connection to the Dark One allowing them to channel pure saidin and live elongated lives, the number of male Aiel channelers has to be low.

 

 

 

Well they'd live 600 or so years if we assume they're protected by the Taint. Plus there'd be breeding which will produce even more channelers.