I'm At The Box.

I'm at the Box.

Ominous enough for people without context but I'll go ahead anyway.

I made a joke that Rand laughs every time something horrible happens to him, and I was thinking that was hyperbole, that he was in so much pain and trying so hard to avoid crying out that he wasn't laughing this time.

But here he is, laughing in his box. How fucking ominous must that feel if you're one of the Aei Sedai watching him and his box? You've just bundled him in there for six days of travel, only taking him out to give him water at dawn and dusk, he's delirious from the heat and sweat, he's just killed two warders in a fit of rage over Min's capture and has been beaten for that so severely that he lost his vision temporarily and appears to have completely disassociated from his body, and you've just shown him off to the aiel who you're almost entirely certain will try to steal him from you. He must be utterly hopeless. Nobody's coming to save him. After this he will only be taken out of that box to be beaten by the other aei sedai.

And he's chuckling like a loon in his little box.

I honestly don't remember how he comes back from madness during Dumai's Wells on this re-read. If it were me, no Aei Sedai would be allowed into the same room as me except to pledge their total obedience and fidelity to me. The fact that Cadsuane, the most Aei Sedai of Aei Sedai to ever Aei Sedai, is introduced AFTER Dumai's Wells feels insane to me. AFTER he has been magically violated by Alanna, after the Salidar Aei Sedai did their silly little pageantry and subsequently grew to 13 members by accident (admittedly this was a manipulation by the Black Ajah). And obviously after Dumai's Wells and the Box, caused by the Tower Aei Sedai. There is no way that Rand has a drop of trust or friendliness for Aei Sedai left in him after all that. Cadsuane barging in and demanding to be treated with respect should've had her thrown out by a gang of Ashaman and Aiel.

How the hell did we get back a Rand who went back to trying to scare off women by channeling around them so he can intimidate Cadsuane, instead of what would be more realistic, a Rand who surrounds himself with Ashaman and obedient Aei Sedai and threatens to kill Cadsuane if she ever comes near him without bending the knee to him. I think I need to keep reading a little more to puzzle it out, but I think Robert Jordan wrote himself into a corner with the last chapter of Lord of Chaos here and just decided to walk back a bit of his character development because he realized he'd need an old Aei Sedai to advise Rand. Rand should be downright hostile to any Aei Sedai who come near him without his permission. Murderous even.

Also after Lord of Chaos we get into the swing with Mat and Ebu Dar. I fucking hate the Ebu Dar arc. Hate it so much for so many reasons.

Gestation Basically

Bonus: First worm meme I sent to my friend who recommended it to me

I'm up to chapter 40 of book 6, and I've looked through the replies here a little. For clarification, yes, Egwene does indeed reveal that she was accepted, was dreamwalking when she wasn't supposed to after being injured by lanfear, and that she was intending to do some evil shit by entering the dream in the flesh. And even though her initial thought was that she'd be able to escape punishment by fleeing to Salidar at the first oppertunity, she does do the right thing and delays her trip through tel'aran'rhiod in the flesh so she can meet her toh to the wise ones. She even considers her toh towards Melaine and Rhuarc, and how she'll meet it with them.

However. She doesn't apologize to Nynaeve once for her actions in tel'aran'rhiod. The next time Nynaeve even sees Egwene, it's when Egwene has just been announced as Amyrlin.

Imagine you've been having this crisis of, lets call it authority. Crisis of authority, where you've been approaching your life since you left the two rivers as if you were still the Wisdom of your village. Falling back on that kind of knowledge and training. Egwene, not as your equal, but your eventual successor, suddenly treating you as if you're an empty headed girl of equal rank, if not lesser. You resolve to set this upset right, bare some vulnerabilities for lying to Egwene about something absolutely irrelevant, and she uses it as a tool to belittle and threaten you further, abusing your trust and honesty. You avoid her and tel'aran'rhiod, to the point that perhaps Nynaeve forgot some of the more essential aspects of the world of dreams, like being able to simply will yourself out of almost any trap someone else puts you in, like being bound up as a human pretzel. Not something easily done when you've had your willpower so shaken. After all of this that I won't retread, she's been bullied and insulted by the Salidar Aei Sedai (who aren't really helping with breaking her block tbh, it's not their fucking responsibility to pile on to it, or threaten to take control of her therapy.) even after all the discoveries and advancements she's made. Even discovering how to heal stilling/gentling/severing, something that was not even possible in the age of legends, something that instantly prompted skepticism and derision from the rest of the aei sedai in the room btw. They instantly started talking about how they could do something they thought was impossible better, and all after they had insulted and bullied her to force her to channel. Getting off topic, but it all contributes to a level of simmering rage and injuries to Nynaeve's ego that would honestly leave me ready to rip heads off of the next Aei Sedai to overstep around me.

And then Egwene shows up as Amyrlin. Crisis of Authority over, but not because it's resolved. It's over because Nynaeve completely loses all authority entirely. If she challenges Egwene on anything, or even remembered to ask her about why she was so cagey with dreamwalking, it would undermine her authority when she, Eleyne and Egwene are all relying on it to keep them alive and politically relevant, especially once they start getting near to Rand and the White Tower, and being able to set out and get the bowl of the winds.

I do love Egwene, but there are many things she never answers for.

kinda fucked up how egwene destroyed the confidence and social standing (between themselves) of a woman whom she trusted and respected, to the point that nynaeve has a massive crisis of self-confidence that may have contributed to her being beaten by moghedien, the whole deal with birgitte, and her decision to take the group to salidar and hand over her responsibilities and the threat of the forsaken in tel'aran'rhiod (though smart) in the hands of strange aei sedai who might not even support rand.

all so egwene can avoid punishment by the aiel for dreamwalking when she shouldn't be, because they would cease teaching her as per their threat, and rightly so. iirc she only ever decides that she needs to apologize for misleading them on being a full aei sedai (which is a pretty fucked up thing when everyone assumes everything you say is the whole truth, though the fact that egwene helped rand blow shit up at cairhien should've clued the aiel in that she's not bound by the three oaths like all tower trained aei sedai, and I am certain moraine must've brought that up at least once.) and only ever gets punished for her specific toh in that moment.

it is never reconciled, never apologized for, never explained, and egwene belittles nynaeve twice for almost revealing to the wise ones that she's dreamwalking. i don't think they see eachother again until egwene is in salidar and she is then raised to amyrlin seat, and then egwene places special emphasis on nynaeve not undermining her while she leads the rebel aei sedai.

worse still is how egwene's brow beating worked in preventing nynaeve from figuring out that egwene is hiding something from the aiel wise ones, especially after the blowup from egwene in front of amys, who egwene should really trust with anything said in tel'aran'rhiod, and nynaeve and elayne, who already know she's dreamwalking into elaida's study. its really emphasized a little later when nynaeve gets to salidar and shows that she's an incredibly smart person when she's not being rode over and bullied, and figures out the entire scheme between siuan and leane, something they're keeping from the salidar aei sedai so they can continue to manipulate them, practically instantly.

fucked up. sorry if anyone likes egwene particularly and is defensive regarding her, i like her too and she has many redeeming qualities and as many amazing accomplishments, but this is one of the many things that she's never apologized for. it shows more and more that her story is about a complete abandonment of emond's field to become the most aei sedai she can be, and she's certainly adopted bullying and brow beating to get her way in a topic she knew she shouldn't have gotten her way, but valued knowledge acquired through any means necessary over her personal relationships. the aiel aren't spared here either. she ferrets out their secrets, pushes dangerously far beyond what they've taught her and almost damages her relationship with them too when it becomes impossible to continue the lie.

she doesn't even reveal that she's an accepted until she's no longer going to be in the wise one's camp to learn from them, summoned to salidar, at which point there's no real punishment she can suffer from them, short of death, since she'll have learnt everything she can out of them and won't be able to learn anymore anyway, and despite all her talk of acting like an aiel and fulfilling her toh, I seriously doubt she would've calmly accepted death as her punishment if that was what the wise ones decided, even though any other aiel apprentice would have.

anyway, I know I'm not doing a liveblog, I'm just re-reading the wheel of time books and I'm almost finished with the fires of heaven (book 5). wanted to get this thought out there.

Brian definitely. Its part of his carefully casual macho aesthetic to wear 'masculine' animals and black/grey muscle T-shirts.

I agree that Rachel would not go out of her way to buy one, but would accept it as a gift and (depending on who gave it to her) would become a treasured item (from Taylor).

Theo might wear it but it's because Hookwolf gave him it (to 'toughen him up') and he burns it in a trash barrel with absolute contempt before he leaves for the Chicago Wards (He cannot risk losing or destroying it beforehand in case Bradley asks about it).

Hookwolf in theory, but he does not wear shirts. Crawler, also in theory, but he cannot wear shirts anymore.

The funniest answer is Siberian, but no pants. It's a little ripped up from the battle going on. Manton is playing Animals by Maroon 5 on his radio loudly.

Armsmaster.

In response to this post

Which character from Worm--or from anything Wildbow--would wear a Three Wolf Moon T-shirt?

the look they give brian and lisa when they tell them they've maimed hookwolf and have restarted the gang war by rescuing puppies.

girls with big brown eyes

creep is such an amy dallon song idk if anyone else has said it here

it's actually so on the nose that it might swing back around to not fitting at all

"I don't care if it hurts, I want to have control - I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul." yeah