the Tower Split; what would you choose

[Sabio]

Egwene's death was necessary, after all it was her death and talking to Rand that saved him.  I always felt the way she died was too much of a push to make her the best Aes Sedai ever sort of thing. 

 

Reds and Greens need to change.  Both really have no purpose.  Greens I could  see adapting to say preparing for the time the Seachean break the treaty.  Someone needs to be ready or prepared to counter channelers in battle.

 

I think the BT being a force the Aes Sedai can't simply destroy like Elaida tried to do will also help in forcing change.  With so many now bonded to men that can channel the Aes Sedai are basically forced to deal with them now.  Another reason Cad being the amyrlin is a good thing is that being around Rand she is pretty comfortable and use to the Asha'man.  So she would make a good  start in paving the way for white tower/black tower relations.

 

But would be fun to see in the future if a Red ever becomes Amyrlin again, after all I believe every Red Amyrlin has been removed.  If the Red ajah even survives.

[Azrayne]

I suspect that the Red Ajah will actually thrive, after a difficult period of re-adjustment, and we've already seen the groundwork laid for this with their bonding of/to Asha'man. I mean the Red's have always been the Ajah which 'dealt with' male channelers. When Saidin was tainted, that meant the distasteful but very necessary task of hunting down and gentling men born with the Spark, both for their own good and the good of the people around them (however much gentling and a slow death by depression and suicide must suck, rotting away and going insane while destroying all of your loved ones around you would suck harder - although I think they would be doing the men a kindness to kill them painlessly instead). And we know they perform this task well. If they've grown somewhat arrogant and callous in their work, they're no worse than a lot of law enforcement officers become after a few decades. And unlike cops, Red's count their career in the centuries.

 

Now the Taint is gone. Their 3000 year beat no longer needs policing. But there are still male channelers who need to be dealt with, just dealt with in a different way - through teamwork, connection, mutual trust. After all, we know the most impressive feats of the AoL involved the combination of both sides of the OP. The way I see it, the Reds will shift into the Ajah which specializes in working with the Black Tower and experimenting on the whole new field of male/female channelers working together which has suddenly opened up. It's going to be a difficult period of re-adjustment for the old guard, but I think they'll be much better off than the Greens, who don't really have somewhere to immediately shift their attention.

[Sabio]

Yes but probably wouldn't sit well with the BT if Reds decided they needed to track down and deal with male channelers.  The BT can handle that  function.  Imagine how the Aes Sedai would feel if the BT felt they needed to hunt down and deal with female channelers.  I just see the Bt wanting to be the ones wanting to deal with any males who might be wasting away because they reached the age to touch the source.  I just can't imagine male channelers taking it too well if the Red decide to roam about and deal with men.

 

On area they might be needed for is with male channelers not using an oath rod, reds might be needed to deal with a male who can channel and he decides to start using his power for bad stuff.  Their experience would come in handy there.  Not to mention like the BA I can't see every shadow asha'man having been killed.  So still could be some bad channelers roaming about.  Also the Shara issue will need to be dealt with, think it was Rand's vision or maybe Avi's we there was a scene of Aiel walking about with new rifles on their way to peacekeeping operations in Shara.  Sure they still have some channelers, especially males who need to be handled.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I don't see a continuing separation of male and female channelers. they're all aes sedai.

[Azrayne]

I'm not talking about them having anything to do with male channelers independently, without the Taint there's no need for that, the Black Tower can handle their own. I'm talking about them being the WT's link to the Asha'man, the Ajah which specializes in working with them to rediscover all the cool new stuff that can be done working Saidin/Saidar together.
 

I don't see a continuing separation of male and female channelers. they're all aes sedai.

 

Not really. Just because that's how it was in the AoL doesn't mean that's how it will be in the Fourth Age. Aes Sedai has meant "female channeler from the White Tower" for 3000 years now, I don't see that coming undone, and I don't see either Tower agreeing to merge with the other. Do you really see Logain signing up to move into the WT and obey Cadsuane? Or the Aes Sedai accepting Logain as an equal authority to Cadsuane?

 

If they ever do merge, I'd imagine it will be in the fairly distant future, and under a new name and new organizational structure.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I see all the interbonding and the huge loss of life in the last battle and the relearning of how

much stronger they are together and the cyclical

nature of the wheel leading exactly there.

 

there is no logical reason for separation any longer.

 

it may take

some time for people to change but change they always do.

[Azrayne]

How do you see such a merger happening? Logain and his Asha'man rocking up at the White Tower and asking to be taken in? That wouldn't happen in a million years. And there's no way they would adopt the title of Aes Sedai, one they've learned to fear and distrust their entire lives.

 

You can't just undo 3000 years of such deeply imposed separation and go back to the way things were in the (barely remembered) AoL. The AoL setup wasn't perfect either, as the events surrounding the sealing of the Bore by Lews Therin showed. They were breaking along gender lines even before the Breaking took place. For them to all just get together again and unite as Aes Sedai specifcally out of nowhere is a pipedream, and would be a regression, not progress. Logic is one thing, but names and reputations and images and history and stories and folklore and so forth have meaning - they didn't build their own identity as Asha'man just to be subsumed into the White Tower, and I don't see either Tower yielding to the authority of the other anytime soon. To the people of the Westlands, an Aes Sedai is specifically a female channeler of the White Tower now, and has been as long as most of their cultural memories go back. I think after 3000 years of being cursed with the Taint, the male channelers will have to forge their own identity and their own unique culture and organizational stucture, and the Aes Sedai will have to revamp their own deeply flawed and outdated organization and adapt to a new era of co-operation.

 

Logic will have to wait a whole pile of centuries for old prejudices to fade away.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

you just spent weeks arguing that the white tower should ignore 3000 years of status quo because you didn't see the sense in it.

 

I'm not arguing. that's my opinion about how the future will play out.

 

you are welcome to your own.

[Sabio]

It might happen but it would take a lot of time to occur.  Right now if they merged they would have to be equals which would mean a man might lead the combined tower.  The females especially I couldn't see going for that right now.  Maybe a few hundred year will go bye and it will seem stupid to have two towers and the idea of men following a female leader or female following a male leader won't seem so strange.  I see a slow buildup of trust over many year until the idea of a unified tower would be accepted.

 

@Az I thought you meant the Red's going about looking for men who are possibly suffering from the touching the source the first time not going very well.  But now that I think about it pretty sure when that happens they just die.  I misunderstood what you were saying.

[mb]

bad channelers still roaming about?  If any, they would be Black Ajah.  Duhara; and possibly some whom the rebel Aes Sedia sent to bond Ashamen.

All others of the Shadow's channelers (that were from either Tower) I take are either dead or captured.

[Sabio]

My guess is a few had to of escaped, but who knows.  One of those we just have to wonder type of things.  Just seems would be a bit convenient if every BA or shadow asha'man was captured or killed.  I would imagine a few would of had no problem running for safety.  Especially the Asha'man would be unknown unless Taim kept a list of everyone who was turned or willingly sided with the shadow. 

[Azrayne]

@Az I thought you meant the Red's going about looking for men who are possibly suffering from the touching the source the first time not going very well.  But now that I think about it pretty sure when that happens they just die.  I misunderstood what you were saying.

 

 

The Black Tower seem to have a handle on that. I don't see people dying of the Spark because nobody offered them training being a thing that really happens moving forward into the Fourth Age.

 

you just spent weeks arguing that the white tower should ignore 3000 years of status quo because you didn't see the sense in it.

 

Completely different arguments.

[jack of shadows]

@barid bel medar,

to say that rand was a better war time leader is simply not true,no one cared or did more

than him for the welfare and future of randland:

1.declared general amnesty for male channelers and founded the black tower,initially as a

fighting unit but changed his mind later and gave them freedom to choose and shape their

own destiny "men have a choice in their fate,and weapons do not".

2.founded the cairhienin academy in an effort to recover some of the lost knowledge from

the age of legends,and ordered the rulers to open similar academies in each capital,fully 

funded and with doors open to those who wish to learn(part of the dragon peace).

3.rand created(more by accident than design,but in my opinion it counts) a lake of sweet

water three miles long in the aiel waste,although 11 clans followed rand to the wetlands,

there are still a considerable number of aiel living in the waste and not all of them are shaido.

4.the cleansing.the most important part of rand's legacy,even more than the dragon peace,

as a by-product of the cleansing rand also destroyed shadar logoth.

5.rand had to make several political concessions during his meeting with an  incredibly myopic 

seanchan empress"the world is your charge dragon not mine.i care for my empire",to achieve

a hundred years peace treaty with the seanchan empire.

(nobody told the seanchan empress and her ever victorious army that the only thing standing

between them and total annihilation is the dragon reborn.)

6.dragon peace.rand's political pinnacle,sure,he used the last battle and himself as a leverage 

to force the dragon peace through,but the treaty itself was about the future.

it was extremely disappointing to hear moiraine denigrate rand's peace efforts after so many troubles:

"the dragon does not bring peace,but destruction,you cannot change that with a piece of paper".

during rand's last meeting with lanfear,he bared his soul to her"she saw his motives,his desires,his

wishes for mankind-to leave a better world than he had the last time".

[Azrayne]

I think it's impossible to really say with Rand, right from the moment he accepted his role as the Dragon Reborn, most of what he did was either directly or indirectly motivated by his role in the fight against the Shadow and his presumed knowledge of his fate. He cleansed the Taint because he couldn't afford to have his Asha'man (or himself) keep drifting towards total insanity before the Last Battle, he started creating the schools because he wanted to leave something behind other than the destruction and death the prophecies predicted, Rhuidean was as much a coincidence as anything, he didn't see the Aiel and say "hey, these people need a lake, I'm gonna sort that out," the Seanchan treaty was because he couldn't fight a war on two fronts, etc etc etc.

 

He was so defined by his role as the Dragon Reborn that there's no real way to guess what he would have become without it. The closest we have is his Portal Stone visions in TGH, and in most of them he suffered the usual fate of male channelers and never really amounted to anything much on the global scale. Iirc the most he ever did was become an officer in the Andoran guard or somesuch and channel secretly during battle, dying half mad when the Trollocs overran Caemlyn.

[Sabio]

@jack, Part of Tuon thinking she could go it alone if Rand failed was the exotic animals they had supposedly cleared their empire of Shadow spawn.  The BWB describes the Seanchan exotics as "descendants of beasts brought back from parallel worlds, via portal stones,  during the first thousand years after the breaking probably in an attempt to find aid against the real shadowspawn.  While the creatures effectiveness was not recorded, it was during this same period that all remaining Shadowspawn on the continent were eradicated."  So it was reasonable for her to think they could do it again after Rand forces weakened the Shadows Army.  Of course we know they would of failed as the shadow would of used the same tactics on her army that they tried on Rand's.  Using compulsion on generals, using the ways to move troops (unlikely the Seanchan understand the ways), etc,  Also she had to consider that if Rand's forces did beat the shadow army they would be extremely weakened, so maybe then her army could pounce on them.  That was one of my issue with the last battle, was seemed Mat was holding of Dem even without the Seanchan, they simply seemed overpowered and not needed.  So it did seem sort of dumb for her to think she could go it alone, it also wasn't that far fetched to simply think let Rand weaken then and we can finish them off.  She didn't have a good understanding of what she was going to be facing. 

[jack of shadows]

@bfg,

"nyn is independent of all these groups,although she initially chose salidar as well".

yes,nynaeve joined rand on her own initiative,but in my opinion,salidar was just a phase

in her long journey,she didn't choose it,i.e.i don't believe she even knew then what she wanted

to do with her life beyond the immediate need to fight the shadow.

it took nynaeve a long time to evaluate her priorities in life,but eventually all the pieces of her 

personal puzzle did fall into place after her white tower testing "i realized that if i had to choose

between becoming an aes sedai and going with lan, i'd choose lan",nynaeve also openly defied 

the sitters regarding balefire" what if i were to get to shayol ghul and discover that,without balefire,

i could not help the dragon stop the dark one?"

after the battle against mesaana nynaeve (presumably) returned to tear to resume her primary duty

as rand's counselor.

during the field of merrilor meeting she declared her independence from  the white tower when she entered the

pavilion alone and wasn't part of egwene's five,not to mention openly supporting rand.

post last battle,she accepted and wore the malkieri crown as another declaration of independence (rand 

made it official,nynaeve was not just married to a king anymore,she became a queen in her own right).

[Egwene's_Warder]

I chose to go with the Salidar Aes Sedai mainly because of Egwene though I was kind of split between the Salidar Aes Sedai and Cadsuane's group. While the Salidar Aes Sedai are trying to restore the White Tower for the Last Battle which is absolutely essential, Cadsuane is trying to prepare Rand for the Last Battle which is also absolutely essential so it was a tough call, I guess it comes down to where you can do the more good. Also to the people arguing the future of the White and Black Tower I think a merger is inevitable but not for some time. I believe that there will be a time where the two groups will compete for power and influence but eventually after a generation or two the stigma of male channelers will disappear and the White Tower will reunite with both male and female channelers.

[Elsalvador]

I'd be inclined to go either toward the Dragon Reborn or Salidar. There'd be no way of reasonably remaining within The Tower under Elaida.