Aram

[DigitalSoul]

Its intesting how he changes over the course of the books. When Perrin and Egwene first meets him, he is described as being handsome,

Egwene dances with him alot and so on. After his parents gets killed he picks up a sword and follows Perrin around.

There is alot of viewings about him, the tinker carrying a sword, and u get the impression that he will be very important.

Maybe showing a new path for some of the tinkers, or becoming some sort of dreadlord (he was kind of creepy).

But then he is kind of dropped dead by RJ, he is simply killed of. I pity IMO.

[sandoz12]

Someone had to die sometime. People already complain about the lack of deaths but then when RJ killed people off there are always complaints that the character should have been kept alive.

[DigitalSoul]

Someone had to die sometime. People already complain about the lack of deaths but then when RJ killed people off there are always complaints that the character should have been kept alive.

 

I dont complain about him dying, but about that his demise was so boring =)

[sandoz12]

Someone had to die sometime. People already complain about the lack of deaths but then when RJ killed people off there are always complaints that the character should have been kept alive.

 

I dont complain about him dying, but about that his demise was so boring =)

Fair enough his demise did feel anti-climatic.

[Terez]

I think that everyone got the impression that Aram himself would do something important, so we felt like something had been left hanging when he died. But I think that Aram was very important in that the Way of the Leaf will have a huge importance in AMOL. Aram has shaped Perrin's views on this over the course of the entire series, and it's obviously one of those details of Perrin's plotline that was intended from the beginning. Min's viewing of trees flowering all around him is probably tied into it somehow, and Aviendha's visions of the future will certainly be relevant. It's probably the most important theme of Perrin's plotline, his relationship with violence, his fear of his own anger, his fear of losing control. His trial in TOM. We're not sure what it is yet, but Aram taught him something important which will no doubt come into play in AMOL as Aviendha tries to fix the future of the Aiel.

 

It's something to think about. What did Aram teach him? Certainly not that abandoning the Way of the Leaf was a good idea for Aram...but Aram's family thought that he had always found the Way of the Leaf a hard way, because he was passionate, and that passion could sometimes be violent. In the end, it turns out he had tendencies toward being a bit rabid, like Byar, or Masema himself. So it's hard to make an example out of Aram in that way, because he was never quite right in the head, and the deaths of his parents put him over the edge, much like Masema was put over the edge to a degree with the Aiel War, and later when Rand abandoned them in the Mountains of Mist after Falme. So, in that way, Aram was not much different from Rand's ancestor Lewin, the first to take up a spear - or at least, the main difference is Aram's susceptible personality.

 

But Perrin always hotly defended Aram's choice to pick up a sword, and in the end, he doesn't seem to have really changed his mind on that much. In his mind, though he wished that the world could support the Way of the Leaf, he felt Aram had a right to want to protect his family, and while Perrin always objected to Aram protecting him, he didn't mind so much Aram's protecting Faile; Aram was one of the only people who made Perrin feel that Faile was safe, at least before he really started smelling strange toward the end.

 

Anyway, I think it's probably no accident that Perrin's best friend these days (aside from Faile) is Gaul, and Gaul has been by his side since TSR, and Bain and Chiad with Faile. Because of this, both of them have learned a great deal about Aiel ways, and even more so since they began traveling with Wise Ones, and fighting the Shaido, etc. Perrin knows as much about the Aiel as anyone, though he doesn't understand why the Aiel don't like the Tinkers. (Even the Aiel didn't really understand it until Alcair Dal, and Gaul and Bain and Chiad didn't learn of that until Caemlyn in LOC.)

[brolie]

I remember gasping a bit when he gets revealed trying to kill perrin. yeah, i saw it coming, but at the same time i was like "oh no!" sure he didn't have a HUGE death scene, but it was enough in the chaos of the Malden battle that I felt it was okay. He was still a minor character. If was Grady gone darkside, I would have expected more of a big deal, but he's always just kind of been a filler character to me.

[spoke]

Aram was very important to develop Perrin's Character, and more so, his death lead Perrin to take the final steps in coming to terms with being a wolfbrother, and finding his balance. So his death wasn't anti-clamatic, it just seems that way until TOM, where it plays a very important role.

 

 

as a side note, Min's viewing of seeing trees flowering around him, has already been fulfilled. Re-read TSR, there is a scene where Perrin is standing under the apple trees where his family was buried, the trees around him are flowering just like Min's viewing.

[DigitalSoul]

I just think that it was a big difference between Aram in EOTW and Aram in later books. In EOTW he was a more urbane character than Perrin.

He was a better dancer than Perrin, having seen much more of the world and so on.

In later books he became more of Perrins weird little brother IMO.

[Terez]

as a side note, Min's viewing of seeing trees flowering around him, has already been fulfilled. Re-read TSR, there is a scene where Perrin is standing under the apple trees where his family was buried, the trees around him are flowering just like Min's viewing.

We don't need to re-read it; we know the scene. Most people don't believe the viewing refers to that, and I tend to agree.

[mb]

There is alot of viewings about him, the tinker carrying a sword, and u get the impression that he will be very important.

More accurately:: 1 Viewing (tinker with sword) and 1 Dream (being important).

 

 

When I first read Aram's death, I was not bothered that he died or even how he died.

Still am not bothered.

Not sure why I wasn't/aren't bothered.

[Thor]

I actually thought it was well handled that Perrin didn't split his head with the hammer personally.

[Stitch]

I think the fight itself was OKish... but Aram as a lens (to examine the Aeil, Tinkers and violence in general) was under utilised IMO