Moiraine and Lan didn't find Rand odd in EOTW???

[Thrasymachus]

Seeing as she went to the Borderlands first, and the thing begins literally months after the Aiel War, it seems likely Moiraine would have met one or two Aiel stragglers making their way back to the Waste. Besides, you'd think the Tower would teach their initiates some basic ethnic differences between the peoples of Randland, just so that, when they're someplace like Lugard and they see a Saldean they know what they're seeing. Rand's Aielishness does stick out enough that Moiraine makes a subtle reference to it, as Xo Meltdown oX notes, so she clearly knows enough about them to make such an observation. But she also clearly doesn't recognize the significance of this ethnic heritage in terms of the Prophecies, and as much as Lan knows about the Aiel, he apparently doesn't know enough about the Prophecies to help her connect the dots.

[Lisa Campbell]

Not arguing with the main argument that it is strange she didn't recognise Rand as Aiel (or of royal Androran line) but stragglers from the war? They would have been killed by prejudiced people before Moiraine had a chance to speak to them. New Spring indicates Moiraine went directly to the Borderlands upon being raised, the Aiel weren't there, they were at TV.

[jsbrads]

Moraine knew Rand was the one* on the first night as they fled Emond's field. She observed that Egwene's horse was already washed of tiredness before she got to it, relation between Rand and Egwene... put two and two together... and that is if she didn't know earlier. She could not leave mat and perrin behind, even if she was only protecting them by taking them out of TR and didn't actually need them to fight DO.

*Also you have to put in context, Moraine has been chasing leads for the last twenty years, when she arrived in Emond's field she was looking for a child who was born on or near Dragonmount, she had no idea she found the "one," even if she suspected rand to be the latest lead and not the two other boys that doesn't make him the "one"

 

Moraine recognized Rand Aielness, just like Gwayne did, educated in the court, tho neither saw one in person. Gw too young, Mor wasn't let out of TV until after the war was over, no reason to believe there were stranglers.

The Royal house of Andor had reddish hair and pale eyes but didn't have the same look that was so consistent amoung the Aiel, so much so that Perrin and Mat see aiel in TGH and say they look like his cousin, and those aiel weren't related to Rand. Gwayne had no common ancestors with Rand, Galad shared a mom with Rand, but looked like his father.

 

As to Moraine knowing Aiel are the people of the dragon, I don't see why she should place the aiel in a prophetic context. Also remember Aiel were seen as barbarians for all of history. then they gave Cairhein a tree of life and opened trade route without explaining themselves. And ended the peace abruptly again without explaination.

 

Aiel had no reason to place a prophetic importance to the loss of Rand in the war, people died, the Aiel didn't even know he survived until the dreamers told them to go find Rand. They may not have even known who Rand was, who his dad was, at this point, tho it is obvious that shortly after meeting Rand that they knew he was the son of the maiden and the chief, by the older people like Rhuarc recognizing his face and the features of his mom and dad.

 

Generally there is a seemingly accepted belief that the fate of all is determined by the happenings in the "civilized" part of Randland, a discussion between Greandel and Sammael, talking about other nations/lands being unimportant. Tho it is obvious that those nations can impact the future of all, they can only do so by entering the map, no events of consequence happen outside the map...

[Pinzarn]

Good point. And as far as reason why the aeil shoild have been on the top of the list is bc how many women would have been on the side of the dragonmount durring a bettle? Obviously its possible that it was non-aiel female (which of course it was in another context) but if i was the one looking for a baby born on the bettle fiels aiel looking baby would be def number 1 priority.

 

Did you forget about the thousands of camp followers? I forgot the exact Foretelling, but it wasn't that it is a baby born on a battlefield. The baby was taking it's first breaths on the slopes of Dragonmount. Based on the armies that were present around Dragonmount at the time and the Aiel were leaving, I find it very doubtful that looking for an Aiel baby would have been at the top of anyone's list.

[dexterryu]

I think Moirianne & Lan had a good idea that it was him. At the end of the EotW, she even said that she suspected it was him. That said, Mat spouting out Old Tongue & Perrin talking to the wolves (both oddities) could also have given both her and Lan something to think about.

 

When it comes down to it, when your talking about the fate of the world you can't blame her for wanting to be 100% sure. All 3 of them are VERY important. Imagine if she only took Rand.

[thisguy]

We don't know if Lan or Moraine found that Rand was "odd" in the setting we found him in. We don't know everything that every character feels and thinks. And, like someone else pointed out, they weren't looking for an aielman just someone of a certain age.

[Maleshub]

Just astounding that there are some hints in this discussion that Gawyn Tarkand is more knowledgeable of the world than Moiraine Damodred.

[jsbrads]

Just astounding that there are some hints in this discussion that Gawyn Tarkand is more knowledgeable of the world than Moiraine Damodred.

 

Absolutely not, sorry if my post was a little wordy, but moraine was raised in royal house and educated just like gwayne

[1Brotherbill]

Why was Lan and Moiraine even in the Two Rivers looking for the Dragon? After all doesn't she say in the second book that she just found out that Tam was enlisted in Aiel War?

 

It really isn't discussed on why they were in the Two Rivers in the first place. She might have been giving coins out to every boy she came across who was born between such and such a day. She might have been just grasping at straws when they went into the Two Rivers. Of the old blood raised by the old blood. Kind of a difficult thing to go by. Figure in that nobody ever leaves the Two Rivers how could the Dragon Baby get there from the slopes of Dragon Mount? Tam was the strange one who left the Two Rivers. Nobody else in the Two Rivers left to fight the Aiel War. Once there were Trollocs running around the Green then she might have thought that this might be a good place to find the Dragon.

 

And even after all of this she wasn't really sure why the DO wanted the three boys until they were in Caemlyn anyway. Not until the boys told her about the dreams and the Eye of the World.

[Barid Bel Medar]

They were looking for the Dragon Reborn. Have you read New Spring? It explains a lot about Moiraine.

 

But in general, I'm still not sure what the problem is here. We have no idea what Moiraine or Lan thought.

 

We have no indication, and just because she didn't expressedly say so like Gawyn or Loial, there is no reason to suggest she was ignorant.

 

The most probable explanation is that she suspected, but didn't want to tell Rand that he knew nothing about who he was, that he was in fact from a race of people on the other side of the world who are supposed to be savage cold-eyed killers. I can see that going down well. Look how well he responded when Loial and Gawyn did. Moiraine and Lan are simply smarter than that.

 

As well tell the three boys when she first met them:

 

Hey guys, I know you think you are just simple village boys, but actually Dark One wants to kill you, you are something called Ta'veren, which bends events around them and gets you into all sorts of trouble. Oh, and also one of you will start to channel, you know, one of those men in the stories that go mad and destroy everything with the OP before being gentled or waste away dying a horrible, horrible death. Oh, also, Rand, you are not actually from the Two Rivers, your father is most likely not your father, and you are actually an Aiel, those who live in the Waste and stab anyone who intrudes, who invaded Cairhien and laid seige to Tar Valon.

 

Sooooooo, shall we get going then?

 

Makes perfect sense.

 

 

Or, she - like she did with almost everything else- kept her suspicions to herself and decide what would be safe for them to know without having them freak out and get themselves killed by Shadowspawn.

 

His heratige had nothing to do with her mission. She couldn't care less if he was Aiel, Sharan or Seanchan. All she cared was that he was the Dragon Reborn, someone that the DO wants to kill. Apart from wanting to know if he was born around Dragonmount, why would she want to make things worse and try and tell him what race he was?

[Maleshub]

Just astounding that there are some hints in this discussion that Gawyn Tarkand is more knowledgeable of the world than Moiraine Damodred.

 

Absolutely not, sorry if my post was a little wordy, but moraine was raised in royal house and educated just like gwayne

Just astounding that there are some hints in this discussion that Gawyn Tarkand is more knowledgeable of the world than Moiraine Damodred.

 

Absolutely not, sorry if my post was a little wordy, but moraine was raised in royal house and educated just like gwayne

 

Your previous quotes weren't really what made me post that sentence. But the last part of your reply is an example of what I find strange: comparing Gawyn's knowledge of the world to Moiraine. Saying that Moiraine was raised in a royal house and educated just like Gawyn makes Gawyn set the standard. While I do not lessen Gawyn's education at the hands of the best that Andor has to offer, Moiraine was raised in the only Kingdom that was allowed to travel across the Waste and trade with Shara. She was a teenager when the Cairhienen still traded with Shara. And she was trained in Tar Valon, where knowledge is much more abundant than in Andor.

 

Anyways, this is just a minor point that I wanted to clarify.

 

As well tell the three boys when she first met them:

 

Hey guys, I know you think you are just simple village boys, but actually Dark One wants to kill you, you are something called Ta'veren, which bends events around them and gets you into all sorts of trouble. Oh, and also one of you will start to channel, you know, one of those men in the stories that go mad and destroy everything with the OP before being gentled or waste away dying a horrible, horrible death. Oh, also, Rand, you are not actually from the Two Rivers, your father is most likely not your father, and you are actually an Aiel, those who live in the Waste and stab anyone who intrudes, who invaded Cairhien and laid seige to Tar Valon.

 

Sooooooo, shall we get going then?

 

Makes perfect sense.

 

Exactly! She made incremental progress with the 3 ta'veren as well as Egwene and Nynaeve without scaring them bloodless or scaring them away. She's been searching form them for 20+ years. After finally finding them, she is very careful in how she handles the situation. And she is also lacking in the knowledge of how to handle the Dragon Reborn. So, it is clear why she was so careful and calculating as well as close-mouthed and secretive throughout TEotW.

[1Brotherbill]

They were looking for the Dragon Reborn. Have you read New Spring? It explains a lot about Moiraine.

 

I only read New Spring once and I don't recall Moiraine knowing all that much about Rand. She just had a list of potential babies that were born in one of the soldier camps on Dragon Mount as far as I remember. And from the Great Hunt as I recall she really didn't know all that much about Tam before she got word in Fal Dara. Unless she lied to Siuan and Verin. So it would be assumed that Tam and Kari were not on the list she compiled in New Spring. Because Kari didn't give birth to Rand. So why did they go into the Two Rivers again?

 

Towards the end of the EotW she states that "Almost all of these young people are from the Two Rivers". So she has an idea that at least one of them was born outside of the two rivers. But at that point it is just a guess at which one it is. Not until the battle at the Eye does she know for sure. And once she knows for sure then she starts connecting the dots of where Rand is from and what he looks like.

[TristanWebb]

She explains that she heard a tale of a baby born on Dragonmount and carried off by a soldier didn't she?

[jsbrads]

Theodril: I made my statement in response to someone indicating Gawyn knowing more tahn her about the aiel, to which my response was no she didn't know any less than him (or at least that was what i was trying to say. I won't try to convince anyone she knew much more because of how private the Aiel were, never came out of 3fold land, so she would have stayed in cairhein and never met one... would she have met people who had first account stories, definitely, but back to privacy... those people would not have known much, and most of it wrong, see Elaynes idea of relationships amoung the aiel.

 

Benevolent: definitly, I saw that too

[Barid Bel Medar]

I agree with Benevolent and jsbrads here, I remember it happening, however, RJ also confirms it in a quote. One of the prequels that RJ had planned to write was going to be about how she found her way to the TR. Tam was on her list (early versions of NS, I think the novella, had this in it).

 

INTERVIEW: May, 2001

Marcon Report - Sorilea (Paraphrased)

 

QUESTION

Any chance of another short story like New Spring?

 

Definitely a possibility. I have two ideas about other novellas. One would be about how Tam ended up finding the child on the mountainside, and why he decided to return to the Two Rivers. The other would be about how Moiraine and Lan wound up in Emond's Field just in the nick of time.

[Maleshub]

Theodril: I made my statement in response to someone indicating Gawyn knowing more tahn her about the aiel, to which my response was no she didn't know any less than him (or at least that was what i was trying to say. I won't try to convince anyone she knew much more because of how private the Aiel were, never came out of 3fold land, so she would have stayed in cairhein and never met one... would she have met people who had first account stories, definitely, but back to privacy... those people would not have known much, and most of it wrong, see Elaynes idea of relationships amoung the aiel.

 

Benevolent: definitly, I saw that too

 

We do not have the details of how Cairhienen caravans were "secured" in the Waste. And we don't know if they were allowed to trade with the Aiel. But if Kadere's wagons were any indication, then Cairhienen caravans would have had to have the express permission and protection of the clan chief of the area they're crossing to go through the Waste. That means direct contact with Aiel. Add in 500 years of that contact, and you can bet an Andoran gold crown that most Cairhienen knew fairly well what Aiel look like.

[jsbrads]

Theodril: of course that is what we are all saying.

 

FYI, just read TFoH, and siuan knew aiel were ppl of dragon, she read it in a book somewhere (did she convey that to moraine?)

(btw can we just call the books by number, every time i see TDR or TLoC, I spend 37 sec. trying to figure out what it stands for and my brain begins to cook a little, and as the joke says, a brain that has never been used is worth more