Is Beslan gay?

 

I know this sounds silly but I was re-reading Winter's Heart and when Beslan is talking to Matt about helping him leave he says:

 

"My mother won't be pleased if she learns I am helping her pretty leave Ebou Dar, Matt.  She will marry me to someone with a squint and a mustachelike a Taraboner foot soldier."

 

I was thrown a little, unless he simply meant that she would find some woman with facial hair and a squint.  But it occurred to me that he might have been talking about a guy!!

Think it's just his fears of married off to an ugly woman.

Beslan does after all fight duels after having affairs with women.

Unless that's sort of complicated over-compensation and he doesn't seem such a complex character.

In The Great Hunt, when they are chasing Fain and the Horn of Valere from Sheinar, and after Rand, Hurin, and Loial accidentally use the portal stone. They don't have Hurin to track the Trollocs so Perrin has to be a stand-in sniffer. So, everyone in that party-- Mat, Verin, and a few random Shienarians-- knows that his sense of smell is somehow enhanced, if not the full extent of his abilities.

Other than that... idk, can't think of a time when it's mentioned explicitly.

 

The few random Shienarians included Masema BTW - one reason why he probably thought Perrin was Shadowspawn (along with yellow eyes).

Wait, what's to debate? The Horn of Valere is a tool of the Pattern, and will follow the horn-sounder whoever he/she may be, good or evil, balance. Then there is the Dragon and the Dragon Banner; the Pattern's Champion takes precedence over the Pattern's tool and so the Heroes will either fight for the horn-sounder if the Dragon is not present or fight for the Dragon if he is there. (Ohh wait, you guys all think the Dragon is the Creator's Champion...)

Hawkwing says they've also fought against the Dragon - presumably when the hornsounder is on the opposite side to the Dragon. So there is something to debate. RJ made a puzzling statement in this context about how legends change, etc., which doesn't really clarify anything. 

Apparently, they also need the Dragon banner, from what Artur Hawkwing said about 'somethng holding' him.

It's been hotly debated and disputed on one of these forums as to whether that flag is always necessary. Among other reasons given because Hawkwing says he's fought against Lews Therin in the past.

However, the point is, the hornblower's opposition is unimportant - the heroes will fight against anyone.

If Hawkwing was alive, he wouldn't come when the Horn was blown. Only dead heroes are raised by the Horn.

The Heroes of the Horn must fight for whoever blows the Horn.

The Seanchan Empress is a direct (as far as we know) descendant of Hawkwing through his son Luthair.

Be'lal, Demandred, Sammael all fought on the same side as LTT before they switched allegiance to GLoD.

Belal (which means "child-less"="sterile" in several languages) was probably a friend before the War of the Power because he refers to learning- adapting the sword from a toy to a weapon with LTT.

And of course Mierin was more than a friend.

LTT definitely consorted with some very shady people.

Why do 2 Kings (Lan & Hawkwing & later Rand) have power wrought swords

with no herons?

I'm curious as to why a King would hold a "common soldiers" sword and not a heron mark.

Lamon's sword was a heron mark, why aren't Lan's & Hawkwing?

I can't help thinking there is some significance to this.

well for lan I could see him wanting a plain blade because heron marks attract quite a bit of attention, Hawking probably wasnt a blademaster, and Rand's final one he isnt a blademaster anymore because he lost a hand

Rand has never considered really himself a blademaster - he has a conversation with Nyn as they're heading for Falme to Tuon. He says nobody actually saw him kill Turok so he isn't a blademaster.

Lan may not be a blademaster for the same technical reasons as well - even if he's a better swordsman than most. Don't think Lan gives a rat's behind whether he's entitled to use a heron-marked blade or not.

Lan inherited a "plain soldier's sword which had become something more" (TGH). Presumably the first king of Malkier rose from the ranks, or there's some other story to it.

As to Hawkwing, we don't know. 

Interesting. But it's just been 48 hours or slightly less since the raid.

Travelling immediately would have been impractical because 1) the kidnapped AS would have been in motion and Travelling to an unknown moving target seems a stretch.

2) Only an exhausted Egwene, Meidani  and a (mysteriously invisible) Beonin know Travel for sure in the Tower (Maybe Adelorna since she saw the weave and Nicola+ other novices, who saw the weave several times). 

Post-reunification, Egwene may consider Travelling to free the kidnapped AS.

We also don't know exactly how Travel works

a) you can go to an unknown location by just saying "Caemlyn Palace",

b) you can go to a unknown-unknown location at random Aviendha to Seanchan,

c) you seem to be able to go to an unknown location where somebody you know already is - Rand Travelling to Mat's camps.

d) Logain found Rand in Tear (KoD) by using Warder "triangulation" to locate the AS with him.

But Cadsuane couldn't find Perrin's Camp. Maybe Rand's Taveren connection with Mat was important in his being able to find him and it can't just be done by a random person saying "Take me where Perrin is". 

In this instance, assuming some of the kidnapped AS had warders, the Logain-style triangulation works. The warder says " She's South-west of us", the rescue party Travels, the Warder says "now they're NE" and they Travel/ skim again, etc.

Moiraine wasnt desperate to seduce Rand, she was desperate to get him ready to fight the Dark One. In the possible futures she saw she had tried to get to that end by seducing him, and that was disastrous. Seducing him was never her main objective. She knew how important Rand was and knew that if it came down to something like seduction, she'd take one for the team if it made Rand fight the Dark One. Just like she said she'd kill Rand Mat and Perrin if it was necessary to stop the Dark One from getting what he wants.

The conversation Alligator refers to (Chpater 6, TSR) is before Moiraine's gone through the Tear door and long before Rhuidean.

Pretty sure its to seduce him.

 

Ewww.... shes like, 60... Ewwww....

Moiraine is early 40s.

She's the same age as Suian.

Pretty sure its to seduce him.

 

Wait... really?

Much more likely she thought about bonding him.

Based on

1) Moiraine has very little or zero experience of male-female relationships.

2) If she's trying to control a guy, the bond would be the more obvious possibility

3) She says in the same scene that "she wagers she knows the face of her future husband, etc" which suggests that she already somehow knows she will have a relationship with Thom  (It would have to be a Min vision).

But whatever you think, it's still a guess at this stage.

Rand has much the same thought when he Travels to Abou Dar. The thing is, the Seanchan only seem to bring justice and peace. In reality, their culture encourages slavery and oppression. Things might seem nice most of the time, but the one time it doesn't work that way, your life as you know it would be over (if one of your family members starts channeling, or if you accidently stare into some noble's eyes and get declared da'covel, for example).

Plus, the lands they've taken so far were weak, with no real sense of nationalism. You can't see an Andorean/Shainari soldier fight for the conquerors of his nation, do you?

This is debatable. The Seanchan have a very rigid code of law which also applies to nobles, unlike places such as Tear and Carhein  in Randland where a noble was beyond the law until Rand changed it. Also Seanchan society actually allows people to rise on merit - it promotes good soliders to noble status Again, not so easy in many places in Randland, where you must be born noble to ever be acknowledged as noble. So the Seanchan code doesn't encourage oppression though it does have slavery.

To answer the original question @Kathleen, Rand cannot afford to let the Seanchan take over all of Randland because for one, there are large chunks of Randland which won't let it happen without a fight regardless of what Rand would like.

Rand doesn't speak for the best soldiers East of the Waste - the Borderlands for one. Nor would either Egwene or Elayne allow it to happen on the Seanchan terms. Even the Aiel who follow Rand might jib at bowing to the Seanchan and getting their WO's collared.

So his best chance of a temporary unification that doesn't waste resources (get soldiers killed unnecessarily) is an alliance between him personally and the Seanchan.

In KoD, he explains that he expects to die during the last battle and once he's dead and GLoD is beaten, the alliance could break up for all he cared.

"A truce," he broke in. "And a truce with the Dragon Reborn will last only as long as the Dragon Reborn. When I die, everyone will be free to go to war with the Seanchan again if they wish." (KoD Chapter 18)

But he cannot afford to let the Seanchan fight it out all over Randland before the last battle. 

The exact quote you're referencing is (KoD Chapter 18) " 'The north and the east must be as one. The west and the south must be as one. The two must be as one."

Cadsuane's thought about the BA date back to the NS era, just after the Aiel War finished in 978-79.

They "slipped away from her like smoke" and it was only much later that she figured out what "Caraline Damodred's cousin (Moiraine) was doing in the Borderlands".

At that time, Alviarin wasn't head of the BA.

Alvi became head of the BA circa 982 after Ishamel killed Jarna Malari (for killing the Amyrlin Tamra Ospenya)

We've never seen a Cadsuane PoV where she suspects Verin.

Roedran has been mentioned in this context - with both pros and cons.

There are several Demandred threads on this board where the topic has been discussed with much enthusiasm.

There is also the chance that Dem, if he's working with proxies, will take pains not to seem remarkable.

Note that the poor Fade can't shut his eyes to cut off the glare because he doesn't have eyelids, in fact he doesn't have eyes.

It doesn't matter why Fain did it, it's still torture - some creatyre is chained down within the glare of brights lights.

Classic technique.

the trollocs and myrdraal helping  mordeth was because he tortured the one myrdraal until it agreed to help him

The only instance of Fain tortureing a Myrhdral was in the Great Hunt, fleeing from Fal Dara with the Horn, to assert his authority over both the Darkfriends and the Trollocs with him. Is there any actual Fain PoV of that ?

 

EDIT: I'vejust reread Fain's PoV at the end of Book 4. Yes there's a Myrhdralk with him, not too happy, but I don't see anything implying Fain tortured him.

TSR

The Myrddraal began to sweat as Fain talked about agreements and accords - he'd tied it spread-eagled in a pool of light.

LoC Chapter 28:

" A rustling caught his ear, and he glanced toward where the Myrddraal sat waiting his pleasure on the far

side of the room. It did not try to meet his gaze; he had broken it of that long since.

He tried to return to his contemplation of the blade, to the perfect beauty of perfect death, the beauty of

what Aridhol had been and would be again, but the Myrddraal had broken his concentration. Spoiled it. He very

nearly went over and killed the thing. Halfmen took a long time to die; how long if he used the dagger? As if

sensing his thoughts, it stirred again. No, it could be useful still."

You don't think torture is implied at the sweating?

He must have used kindness and patience to break the Fade of trying to meet his gaze?

And chaining something spreadeagled tight in a pool of bright light is gentle treatment? 

"The renegade Fain" as Moridin refers to him, is definitely on GLoD's hit-list. He's also smart and fast with strange powers of his own - nobody called Mordeth an idiot.

Some people believe the DarkHound pack in CoT were after Fain - it's a reasonable assumption but not proved.

Fain himself believes he's dead meat if any of the Chosen ever find him and Slayer has standing orders to off him on sight.

That was simply and exactly why I asked. But is there any proof of that it is possible?

Yes RJ said 1) some AoL channelers knew this trick of partial masking. 2) As Sedai don't know its possible. The cited example is usually Lanfear pretending to be Else Grinwell in TDR. It is as valid for Mesaana. 

Some admin pulled an April Fool by running a script that transforms RaT to RR.

How nice! 

We have a dozen AoL channelers including the AS-in-Chief, LTT himself.

No mention of any such notation, which by analogy with professional musicians, they would read and write at sight. 

If it had ever existed.

We have an entire body of women who are dedicated to remembering whatever scraps they can of OP.

Their knowledge is enough to tell them that there are lost Talents like Travelling, etc.

Again there's not even a hazy memory that some form of notation existed.

Also, no attempts to even create such a secret code intra-ajah.

Post-Breaking, they didn't lose written language and some records have come down.

Again no mention that any OP-related notation existed.

Ergo it didn't exist.

One of the things that always irritated me: Why did a highly post-literate society like the AoL, with its multitudes of research geniuses, and so dependent on the OP, never work out a notation for weaves? Dammit, they had schools where AS of both sexes were being tested at age 10 up!

It sounds from the descriptions as though it would be highly possible and maybe not more difficult than scoring a multi-instrument symphony once you had the conventions for annotation.

Even an Indian music-style notation where you give the key melodic strains of a raga would have worked.("Start with Earth and then add a spot of fire and a little spirit" kind of thing)

So instead of all these, " I don't know the weaves, must puzzle out the weaves", business, there would have been all the scores for major weaves (Saidar and Saidin) stored in the 14th Depository and in the Stone of Tear, Carhein library and Rhuidean, etc.

I assumed that Tuon meant that she told the AS who knew healing (Sherian-Mylen?) to demonstrate the weaves in front of other damane. That would be enough to teach them. Once the damane knows, the sul'dam can just tell her to heal when necessary.

Yes, but that would imply that sul'dam usually tell damane what to weave rather than weaving themselves, thus explaining why the a'dam can't be used to make an AS into a weapon. That's not the same as using an AS's ability once she becomes a part of a circle.

 

'we know Nynaeve channeled through Moghedien'

 

At that point, Nynaeve hadn't taken the oaths. I don't think she has yet.

Yes, yes. The issue is not whether Nynaeve acted against the Oaths, but rather whether a sul'dam directs her damane to do as she wishes or simply guides the weaves for the circle.

We can find conflicting evidence for this.

There's the verbal instructions Egwene receives (heat the tree till it explodes). She's been told what to do, not weaves woven by sul'dam using Egwene's saidar. 

There's the non-verbal instructions coupled to verbal instructions Tuon gives Joline.

There's Nyn doing the weaving herself with Moggy's saidar.

There's also the point that Nyn can weave if she has saidar.

Sul'dam can't weave at all until they've used the A'dam for a long time, even then, not really.

Logically from what we've seen in battles and other situations, experienced damane and Sul'dam don't need to verbally communicate. Experienced sul'dam give non-verbal, telepathic instruction, which experienced damane immediately perform if they know the weave. We know of the telepathic link. Tuon uses telepathy while talking to Joline, (pleasure, cutting off source, etc). Egwene is punished by telepathy. Nyn also uses telepathic punishment.

I don't think the damane can do new weaves without either puzzling it out, or demonstration.

That is, I don't think Tuon could simply tell a damane "Ok, heal!" and the damane would be able to, without having seen healing weaves or taking time to work them out herself. A gifted and powerful damane (Alivia) might do it one-shot but still some familiarity would be required or she'd need time to think it through.

"Travel" is a good negative example. Seanchan know Travel is possible but they need a damane who has the weaves; the sul'dam can't simply order a damane to Travel though perhaps, they could (before capturing Elaida) have set up a task-force of smart sul'dam and strong damane to experiment with the idea. Egwene worked it out, some Seanchan damane may have. 

Another thing, can damane-suldam enter T'ar? Nyn and Moggy came there separately. is it possible for a damane-suldam pair to use a ter'angreal (2 ter'angreal?) to enter T'ar? In the flesh, by opening a Gate, surely. But in dreams? 

A few issues.

First, the chocking isn't just the effect of conflicting Oaths. See Siuan in NS, she starts saying something (about not squealing quite so hard when she was a novice) and is cut short. The same with Beonin when Egwene confronts her after they meet in the Tower (KoD).

The choke happened when they were speaking a lie. They may not choke but simply be unable to perform a non-verbal action which is against the oaths.

Second, I take RJ's response to mean a sister wouldn't be able to join a circle if she suspected she might be used in a way that contradicts the Oaths. However, the thing with damane AS does seem to support what you're suggesting. But perhaps, most sul'dam use the a'dam to force damane to form the weaves rather than weave them their selves (what I remember of Egwene's capture seems to support this), and this of course can't be done with AS (you can't use punishment to make them ignore the Oaths). Actually, this issue is important, and we seem to have contradictory evidence. On the first hand, we know Nynaeve channeled through Moghedien, and that every sul'dam can prevent threads from being formed. On the other, Tuon thinks about having taught the weaves for Healing to her damane, implying even other sul'dam could now direct them to Heal (i.e. Tuon didn't simply learn the weaves herself). I'd love to hear your opinion on that.

RJ's remark could also be interpreted to mean that if they had already joined a circle voluntarily and then discovered the oaths were being violated by the circle, they would not be able to channel.  The sul'dam-damane circle is forced and it can't be expanded apparently. Above we were discussing voluntary circles that can. There may be differences 

I assumed that Tuon meant that she told the AS who knew healing (Sherian-Mylen?) to demonstrate the weaves in front of other damane. That would be enough to teach them. Once the damane knows, the sul'dam can just tell her to heal when necessary.

Third and last, we have a lot of cases where a damane/sul'dam dies and the other doesn't, that doesn't seem to harm the one left standing (I'm offering this as examples of how circles behave when a member gets killed, albeit forced, and degenerated, circles).

True but that may not hold true in a case when several women are channeling in a voluntary circle and one is suddenly removed.

Also, if someone dies in a sul'dam- dmanae circle, the circle automatically breaks. Does a multi-member circle stay up even if  one (or more) members die? Like I said above, this must have happened during battle especially in AoL.

Would the three oaths affect asha'man channeling while linked to aes Sedai?

RJ stated this:

Q:  Would an Aes Sedai who has sworn the Three Oaths be able to link into a circle, but not lead it, that would be used to kill someone (not Shadowsworn or attacking)?

RJ:  No, an Aes Sedai wouldn't be able to join the circle or participate in any way with anything that was against the Oaths.

This suggests that the Oaths would interfere with a circle should the leader intend violence (whether the Aes Sedai was aware of it to begin with), which is supported by the fact that RJ stated that Aes Sedai damane are useless as weapons, despite the fact that we see Nynaeve channel Moghedian's power without her permission. The Oaths bind the channeling, not just the channeler.

Clear enough. But in that case, if she can't leave the circle voluntarily, as per your statement below, will the circle collapse? Or will the power continue to flow through her, with her contributing zilch but keeping her connection open because she can't exit?   

In a voluntary circle, can one party (not the leader) unilaterally exit without permission from the person controlling flows?

No. This is made clear several times.

References please?

 

If not, she would have to rationalise and tell herself it wasn't her fault, etc, or she'd choke to death.

 

The 'choking' is the result of conflicting oaths. This is not what's at play here--the weaves would simply not form, whatever the leader intended. This does raise the question: does the Oath impinge on others in the link--as in whilst linked to a bound Aes Sedai one cannot make weapons unless threatened--or does it cause a break in the link--'no power supplied by this person can be contributed to this weave'

Yes, same as if she's Ko-ed. Or dead. Thing is, in analogy with electric circuits, does she continue to be a conductor even if she ceases to be a power source.

Also what happens if one person in a circle suddenly dies/loses the source for some other reason such as being hit on the head?

 

I don't know about what happens if they're unconcious--asleep Aes Sedai can still power a shield, though that is Spirit--but if they die their power disapears from the link. The link doesn't dissolve, they just lose the strength of the dead person.

Is this referenced from the WH cleansing at Shadar Logoth? Kumira died in Verin's circle and Eben in Daighan's.

But whatever happened to the circles , happened offstage. Or is there any other reference to this ? It's kinda important if there are circles on a battlefield and must have happened many time in both AoL and later.