It's Friday again, and that means Fan Art!

I'm not sure this is necessary at this point, but there are spoilers for probably the whole series ahead.

Cadsuane Melaidhrin by Jieroque

This week's topic happened accidentally. It was originally going to be all about Cadsuane, because she's my favorite and if I could pick one character from any book to be, it would be her. As I started to write, however, I realized that I couldn't write about Cadsuane without comparing her to Moiraine. It's hard to find art depicting the two of them together, however, since they have almost a The Notebook thing going on, but without the letters to each other and me falling asleep in the middle.

Moiraine by Francesca Resta(niji707)

Most of my comparisons come down to how I feel they did strictly in their advisory roles, and how at odds their approaches were. It naturally made me wonder what it would've been like if they'd both been active at the same time. In talking to my best friend, (Shall we say first-sister here? Yes? Good.) we got to talking a bit about how Moiraine and Cadsuane as rivals would compare to pairs who actually are rivals with each other at the same time.

Hawk Hunting Falcon by fee-absinthe

And so, we come to our topic for the week: Frenemies'.

As much as I hate the term itself, it's in our lexicon for a reason.

Temptress - Berelain sur Paendrag by endave

If there was ever a pair who embodied the term 'frenemy' it was Berelain and Faile. I'm not even sure I need to say anything else about this, except that pretending to be besties in front of your soldiers while also trying to keep the same man in your bed is the most classic example in any work of fiction. It became even more obvious when they purposely decided to and agreed to pretend to like each other in public.

Nynaeve al'Meara by ShinJei

To be honest, there are a lot of these relationships in The Wheel of Time; you could literally just connect any two Aes Sedai or any two Forsaken to each other and they'd fit the term. But some of them are a little more subtle than a Falcon vs Hawk cat fight. Yes, I really did just say that. I'm not taking it back, either. You can just let that phrase rumble around in your brain for a while.

Egeanin and Bayle Domon by Coplins

I always felt like the beginning of the relationship between Nynaeve and Egeanin fit the bill. I've never really bought into the subterfuge aspect. I see 'frenemies' more as being people who don't really like each other, but put a good face on it anyway for the sake of working together on a common goal--while both keep in mind that that could end the moment one of them finds an opportunity in which they no longer need the other. I have no doubts that Nyneave, at least, would've ditched Egeanin at the first opportunity, and I think if Egeanin could've done so without leaving Elayne behind, she would've done the same. In the end, they formed an actual friendship, which blurs the line more.

Al'thor by AlaisL

Men are no exception to this concept; there is usually just less hair pulling. Rand and Asmodean had a very similar relationship to that of Nynaeve and Egeanin. Working together because they had absolutely no one else to rely on for various reasons, and as we saw, it didn't take much for the whole thing to be forgotten. Asmodean's disappearance was barely a curiosity to Rand by that point in the series.

Asmodean by Shorelle

Asmodean is Forsaken. The Forsaken are the masters of being frenemies.

Some other pairings tossed out in a general poll among my friends: Cadsuane/Sorilea,  Logain/Taim, and even Thom/Moiraine.

What do you all think? Let me know in the comments if there's a pairing I missed, or you disagree with any of my choices.