They say you "lose a bit of your soul" if you enter TAR in the flesh. Though what that means, how they know, and if they are correct in that belief is never really expanded upon. And if it is right, nor does it ever discuss what that means for Rand, Egwene and Perrin who all do it, iirc. I guess you could hold up the Forsaken and Slayer and say "see?", but why would the Forsaken want to lose their souls? What is evil about losing your soul? Will you turn into a Grey Man? It is one of the hand-wavy moments that hints at a lot of things, has an effect on the story, but also doesn't actually stop anything happening. Good story telling, I guess.

I do not remember this. Which procedure is this exactly?

I think I remember this one. Not quite exactly. The hand is meant to be the surgeons. I don't remember why. Were they shipwrecked and ate each person's hand so they wouldn't starve and no one would lose too much? And the surgeon did the operations on the understanding he too would cut his hand off at a later date. Gentleman's agreement and all that. Not a lot of eating in a hand though and why were the people all at the same address and yet not expect the surgeon to turn up in person?... Maybe it was a botched surgery that lost someone a hand? Something involving a verbal agreement, presumably backed up by the threat of force. Anyway, that is why he bought the hand, why it was manicured and cleaned, and why the people threw it away. They only wanted to know the hand had been amputated, they didn't actually want it.

Experimental treatments are rapidly progressing for all sorts of diseases, but I don't think such "what if" scenarios are very comforting. I don't know how it would have been different, but it definitely would have been. Not to disparage Sanderson any, but there were many topics that Jordan left no notes about, and for all his skills I don't think Sanderson was able to conjure up the dead to discuss plot points. Characters like Androl would not have existed, and I personally doubt that all the shenanigans with Gateways would have either (I've not read any Sanderson outside of WoT, but that kind of playing with parameters seems to be completely in character, whereas Jordan had a more plausible structure plastered over with a pleasing hand-wave to remove any hard edges approach to magic). Not that it matters but I guess the biggest loss isn't the "true" ending, but everything else. The Seanchan trilogy, the years of questions and answers about the story. So much so sadly taken away from the world, and even that pales in comparison to what his loved ones lost.

Ah no. I mean at the final battle he is about to bale with his Asha'man but then some refugees are in danger (or something like that, I've not read the ending very often). He saves them and then finally receives the admiration and love that he thought would be his when he really thought he was the Dragon and was going to save the world. And if I recall correctly this something of a turning point for him as he was headed somewhere fueled by bitterness and this drastically changes his outlook. I hope I'm not misremembering too much.

You can find them if you look about online, such as on Etsy. Though the Sword is silver, the Dragon should be red and gold, but obviously you might not be talking about the Black Tower pins and the is of course up to you anyway. (I wear two steel Great Serpent rings, not one gold one, for example).

I think Logain is heading to a dark place and at first is only trying to survive the Black Tower. Is an interesting point of discussion about what place does simply human evil have in the story rather than the cosmic evil of the Dark One. He obviously resists the Shadow, yet isn't in a good place either. But the ending where he receives the admiration of the children I think is meant to mark his redemption. Personally I would have liked to see him square off against Taim but obviously that was not meant to be.

I like the concept of ta'veren, it gives plot armour and nonsensical coincidence an actual meaning that fits with the lore and helps create a unique atmosphere. But yes, the Pattern in general cannot be looked into too far, imo. Because obviously people cannot have free will, they are woven in the Age Lace, not free to run amok. And while obviously there is some wriggle room, the Pattern is about balance. If one person chooses to be a Darkfriend and do many evil deeds, the Pattern must have balance, other must do good to even it out. I suppose you could see it as people pushing and pulling at the warp and weft of the Pattern, trying to be good or evil, and the Pattern either resists or gives way, depending on what everyone else is doing. Too many turning to the Shadow, the Pattern limits people's choices and successes in that. People finding the Light and having a love fest, much more room to commit evil acts. So maybe your will is your own, but your success in your choices limited. Like maybe you become a Darkfriend - or resist that choice - and then fall down the stairs the next day and break your neck, whereas someone who made the opposite choice lives into old age, spreading the Shadow or Light as you failed to do.

They also all had to do what they were told, and be careful not to step on anyone else's toes among the Chosen. The main seemed to be trying to do whatever they were doing undetected. Sammael and Rahvin seemed to have solid plans, but they were obvious targets for the other Chosen and the forces of the Light.

You can search in the Search Bar in the top right of the webpage, here, The Search Bar will on "This Topic" as default but you can change that via a drop down menu.

This is the thread where you can sign up for the White Tower and Warder Yard Social Group. Or er, Community Organisation. Depending on who you ask 🙂 This will open the doors to advancement either to der'Manshima in the Tower Guard, or to Aes Sedai in the Tower itself.

The flaw though is to look at it through the eyes of someone that doesn't have faith. The the idea of if a God is real is a matter of evidence. And also we can make predictions based on what we would expect to see if a God was real (answered prayers, sick people getting better, etc). But by definition, none of that has to do with faith. Faith is something outside of the experience of someone without it. It is not belief without evidence, but belief despite no evidence. As I say I'm an empiricist, but faith is completely different than empirical investigation. It could be argued it is necessary to find meaning in our lives, empiricism does not care a lot for meaning at all.

The Welsh/English (not British, we Scots never used the longbow, and suffered from it often enough) bow was a fearsome weapon. It was not as powerful as crossbows, but much more accurate in skilled hands and with a much greater rate of fire. And as issue at several battles, it was much easier to keep a bowstring dry in an oiled pouch (and have back ups) than it was to keep the crossbow strings of Genoese mercenaries that the French employed in the Hundred Years War. The skeletal remains of archers found buried in France show that men shooting the bow were literally deformed by the development of the muscles used to draw the bow. Modern competitive bows do not have to be held at full draw to aim - they have some sort of pulley system of counter balances or some such (stop me if I'm being too technical, lol) but a simple bow has to be held on muscle power alone. The main draw back was the skill needed, archers had to train a lot. Not comparable to crossbows or muskets. And this is why there are still bylaws in England that demand every man practice archery for two hours on a Sunday. That and the need for arrows, which were bulky, fragile and labour intensive to produce.

Yes, I think around there it also explains how Perrin and Rand got their bows when only Mat had taken one from the Two Rivers (what wood it was made of) also possibly if I remember right around the Gathering Storm, Mat buys a wooden staff to turn into a bow that would also shed light on their construction (and uses it as quarterstaff to protect Tuon, iirc).

Is this not one of the several women (or two?) who had no flaw, except an overabundance of bosom? I think I might be rather worried about what SkyNet would come up with. Certainly, I cannot add to it. My last artistic endeavour was to draw Berelain. Was not happy with the results at all. I even used references and really really tried. Still was awful.

The bows are, to my knowledge, clearly long bows styled on the Welsh/English bows of the First Age. The length of them unstrung and their shape does not seem to leave any doubt about that, and I'm fairly sure even their construction is touched upon in the books (and possibly it has been confirmed elsewhere).

I think he doesn't want his role in the grand design, but he simply cannot help himself. Admittedly, it is possible he would have been a gambling drunkard without the effects of being a ta'veren correcting his path, but we will never know. And I think like Suian's uncle, Mat would always brave the flames to save the children. Though he might move to village where there are no children just to decrease the likelihood of that happening *shrugs"

Not all things are equal. Is it wrong to have faith in your friends when you don't have evidence they will be true or will succeed? Is it wrong to have faith in yourself? I'm an old-school empiricist, so I very much believe in relying on your own direct experiences. But you cannot base your entire life on that, you must at times induce to solutions, take other people's experiences on trust, accept personal beliefs that you cannot necessarily defend empirically. Tolerance is just as necessary as critical inquiry, and consensus as important as individualism. And BTW, welcome to the forums, Caelan 🙂

I think some of it is a little heavy handed, like Nynaeve's instance on stout Two Rivers woolens, giving way to a more luxurious and revealing style, but I think the themes in general make sense. Clothes aren't just extensions of the body, and given the vast diversity of the cast in the Wheel of Time, from foppish nobles to hard working stable hands to displaced people coming together say at the Black Tower, from prudish Andorans to sultry Domani to shameless Mayeners, clothes are important, and the cultural clashes and contrasts more so. Choices about packing reveal character development. And it would be something that would be genuinely important to the characters. Are they going to meet the Amyrlin Seat? Are they going to be trudging through the wastes? Their past experiences will shape them. So no I don't think it is excessive. I do think sometimes Jordan's dealing with characters being "feminine" can be a bit full-on, but not enough to pull me out of the narrative or feel the characters were not believable. All of course in my most humble opinion.

The Pattern shouldn't create Heroes. It should create protectors of Balance, not those that fight for the Light. It is, in my humble opinion, one of those parts of the lore that doesn't quite make sense.

I have no idea why you are spending so much time discussing ordinary people and that they appear in the story in a way that touches on nothing that I said. Also, I'd recommend you look up what arbitrary means, it would help the discussion. My reading comprehension is just fine, thanks. Complementary gender roles are not somehow a gold standard, nor does it make them any more admirable, in the real world or in the Wheel of Time. People being true to themselves and complementing each other is admirable, not forcing people to act contrary to their own natures and their own benefit.

There are two different ways - there are the Social Orgs including the White Tower where you can be entered into the Novice and eventually be raised to Aes Sedai. The Social Orgs are RP-lite where we are ourselves, more or less. Or you can join the RP section with a totally invented character, like my Kaylee Tammuz, a rather violent leather worker from Illian. Once the character has been approved you can jump into RP sessions with them and develop their skills and personality. Though RP is rather quiet at the moment. Which totally isn't my fault, it is a coincidence that everyone I RP with disappears. A complete coincidence 😬

Back in the day, I didn't like the Great Hunt much or the pre-Tear Dragon Reborn. I'd often just read the Eye of the World (sometimes just stop there, I really enjoyed it) then jump forward. Now I find it is one of the most enjoyable reads, perhaps as it is "newer" to me, or perhaps because I wasn't being fair to it when I was younger.

I disagree, his argument was that "gender roles make us whole", and the evidence he supported this claim with was not, for example, how amazingly happy the men in Far Madding were, fulfilling their enforced gender role, but his evidence was how individuals complement each other. Individuals who were all very individualistic and did not follow set gender roles for their society but were free to live their lives as they chose. Jordan's gender roles were arbitrary and entirely invented and I don't see how the Sea Folk or Aiel argue anything about gender roles, except they are relative to culture which would seem very much to back up the conclusion that they are not in anyway innate - otherwise how could they be relative? I'd say Jordan himself was in favour of gender roles given the way he treats the Seanchan - there seems to be an uneasiness about their nearly perfectly gender blind society. I have read that this was a criticism of Soviet society on his part, but I could not comment. The rigidity of his gender roles is also notable, but I found little in the books that seemed to argue that this was a good thing, rather than just a feature of those roles. Also for all his "experimentation" with gender roles, I cannot think of a time when we see a nuclear family, be it in the Borderlands, Andor or the Seanchan settlers, where we don't see plump women with flour caked hands and aprons herding naughty children while skinny taciturn men mend fences or whatever. I don't remember a lot of variation in those settings, but maybe I am misremembering.

So sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. Ouch, unexpected cat attack. Who is "the rest of us"? Who exactly elected you as their spokesperson? I presume your answer means that you don't have any reply to my point about pervasiveness of people misunderstanding things and not knowing half of what they thought they did. A spurious claim to the rest of us, and claiming that you speak for Jordan are not ringing endorsements of a good argument. You claim the story argues for gender roles - while they are completely arbitrary, which the book makes entirely clear. You try to back this up with claims that individuals - all of whom don't adhere to arbitrary roles forced on them by society, but live their genuine personalities and meet other individuals that complement them - apparently completely unaware that this evidence all points to the utter stupidity of forcing people to follow gender roles that they don't want to. Your claims are ridiculous. Individuals complementing each other, say nothing about rigid inflexible gender roles that everyone must follow regardless with no autonomy. It is almost like you have approached this with your own views instead of anything from the books.