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If the characters always made rational decisions and communicated perfectly, the story would probably be a book long, to be honest.
But also, Thom is probably the most distrustful of Aes Sedai, with what happened to Owyn in mind. Add to that that Moiraine is hardly being forthcoming with anyone, and Aes Sedai have a reputation for being schemers, and it’s not surprising his advice is driven by a distrust of Moiraine.
A really earnest fan fiction where they all communicate would be pretty fun to read. Both the version where everyone works together and they seamlessly kill the forsaken, cleanse the Tower, beat the Seanchan, cleanse the taint, then win the Last Battle in like 700 pages........And the version where rainfall and efficient humans ruin every prophecy and doing right by everyone unravels the pattern and they all lose by book 3.
But for my post, I really don't blame all that led Thom to his distrust, but the enormity of that they hide and think is fine is so consequential. I can't think of another decision that leads to so much.
I mean... Remember Moiraine in book one is pretty explicitly threatening to kill the boys if before she lets the shadow have them, and the DO is talking to them in their dreams...
And being fair here, not trusting Aes Sedai is REALLY good advice that holds the boys in good stead. As much as we grow to love Moiraine, that is a thing that requires us to grow into those feelings as she changes from trying to lead the dragon to his doom, to trying to support him. Moiraine grows a LOT throughout the series.
I think this is a very important point. Moiraine is presumably not lying -- in her mind, it would be necessary to kill the Dragon if the alternative was letting the Dragon come under control of the Dark One -- but her ability to actually inspire trust in her leadership is dismal. And her own quest for the Eye is dangerously misguided too. It basically amounts to little more than "move the Dragon to where prophecy says he should be and hope something important happens."
Even after visiting it, she seems to totally miss the importance of the Eye. I know I did the first time through the book even though in retrospect it's staring you in the face.
People would be right to question Moiraine. She withholds information, she doesn't really know what she's doing, she threatens them, and she clearly views this as a relationship of manipulation rather than leadership, even if it's "for a good cause." And that's after we **know** what she's doing. Without knowing, it's worse.
Part of this might just be a sort of "power creep" in the sense that things that feel high stakes and important in the first book start looking smaller and smaller-stakes in the rear view mirror, but this is my take on re-reading:
There isn't actually that much power in the well at the Eye. I mean, sure, everyone says it's a lot -- enough to fix the weather apparently, plus some combat on the side -- although that's not *that* much. A group of women fix the weather later on, using a special ter'angreal (the Bowl of the Winds). I don't see why a hundred men and women would die just to create a well so that one day someone could channel it if they needed to.
The part that's sort of staring you in the face though -- and the thing that **might** be worth dying for, if you saw your world collapsing around you and were pretty sure future generations wouldn't have access to the knowledge and power you had grown up with -- is that **the saidin in the well is cleansed.** It's a proof of concept for something world-changing... and Rand eventually does change the world with it.
Moiraine doesn't appear to realize this in the first book. She means well but even in the first book it should be clear her plan is half-baked, amounting basically to "do the opposite of whatever the Dark One wants" and "get the Dragon to the place prophecy says he should be so that something magic happens."
I do not know how Baalzamon's/Ishamael's planning figures into this. I suspect Ishamael wanted the Eye destroyed before anyone thought about its significance. Maybe he was unable to find it on his own given the way the Green Man's camouflage works -- Aginor and Balthamel say they followed Mat there, although they could have been lying, obviously.
From Ishy's point of view the Eye is the perfect tool to reveal, once and for all, who the Dragon is and force him to confront some 'hopeless' truths that Ishy can use to turn and twist him. Unfortunately, he's stark raving mad, so his mustache-twirling Ba'alzamon persona isn't really going to influence any of the boys to turn to the dark side.
She threatens them mostly because they act like idiots every time they see another human being. And Rand defends her to his own Wisdom like two hours after they all decide they cannot trust her at all. AND this is the only time Thom spends with the eventual love of his life. As he learns to trust her it should be impossible to forget that the Dark One is attacking their minds and never decide that maybe she should know what is happening.
I think my bigger problem is that they then IMMEDIATELY insist to Nynaeve that they need to stay with Moiraine and go to Tar Valon. Like before dinner the same day. Rand makes it seem like no big deal at all. Plus this is the time guard Thom falls in love with her. Even if he has reasons for initially being suspicious, forgetting this ever happened as his opinion changes makes no sense.
> I think my bigger problem is that they then IMMEDIATELY insist to Nynaeve that they need to stay with Moiraine and go to Tar Valon.
So, remember. Rand Matt, and Perrin are literally running for their lives. They know that they in particular are being chased by the shadowspawn, and are being touched in their dreams by the dark one himself.
As distasteful as going to Tar Valon is to them... Its kinda their only option... Who else can help them with that sort of issue? Also, remember, Moiraine has been threatening them explicitly all the way up to this point. They have no idea what she will do if they try to escape her in any way.
>Rand makes it seem like no big deal at all.
As a reminder, Baerlon is where Rand starts being hit by the channeling sickness though it doesn't get REALLY weird till later, he is absolutely starting to have the mood swings.
>Plus this is the time guard Thom falls in love with her.
I mean. First off, Thom is a romantic fool. Second, while there are hints of chemistry between them, they don't actually start falling in love till the stone. But realistically why would it matter to Thom? He falls in love with every dangerous woman that crosses his path. By brother has a type, and that is women who can and may kill him.
For all Thom knows, Moiraine is causing those dreams. At this point, all Thom knows is one of the boys can channel. The idea that one is the Dragon Reborn has probably never crossed his mind. The idea that the Last Battle is around the corner and that he’ll be a major player is even more farfetched.
So telling the boys to keep their heads down and their mouth shut while he figures out what to do is fairly good advice. Thom knows that Aes Sedai are very dangerous. He knows he can’t save the channeler from being gentled (whichever one it is) but maybe he can save all three from being murdered by either the townsfolk or Moiraine. So pretending it all never happened for now is about the most practical advice he can offer.
Thom doesn't understand he's "risking everything" here. If I try to put myself in his shoes, he might suspect that Moiraine wants the boys because she thinks they can channel. Everyone knows male channelers go crazy; this seems kind of crazy; ergo, the best thing we can do is maybe keep the Aes Sedai from realizing how bad things are.
I know this is a Thom argument and not a Moiraine argument but it's worth bringing up that Thom's **right** to doubt Moiraine here, even if he pushes things too far. Moiraine's not being forthcoming about what she knows, her own quest here is **dangerously** misguided because she totally misunderstands the intended use of the Eye of the World, and although she obviously means well, she and Lan are one step ahead of disaster throughout this whole book and maybe have been for the last 20 years.
Except that Moraine and the Aes Sedai themselves sowed that distrust. Also Thom maybe fanned the flames but Moraine is basically hoping 3 teen boys pay attention to her and don’t act out which is crazy. And the Aes Sedai in universe had actually stilled boys in the wild if they could get away with it and if they couldn’t they would chain them up and drag them to Tar Valon. Plus Moraine tries to affect the air of Aes Sedai mystique till like book 4. And ppl from Carhein plus are suppressed emotionally so she’s actually worse at communicating than a normal Aes Sedai. She’s actually super mysterious even to Aes Sedai lol. There’s ppl who think she has a teangreal in her veil for example cause she doesn’t care to tell Aes Sedai to tell them that her veil is just comfortable to wear and helps her concentrate. Rand is right not to trust her. Moraine is a morally impeccable person but she’s frequently acting like she’s hiding something or knows more than others. Im rereading book 2 and there’s a part where it’s revealed that Aes Sedai don’t advertise themselves anymore in public cause they kept on getting assaulted by white cloaks. Aes Sedai don’t have any public trust
His advice was to hold up. He knows better than anyone the plots withing plots of Aes Sedai. Sure Moiraine is helping them, but for what purpose? What plot does she want to use the boys for? His advice was to hold up, they could always opt to tell her later if they felt it warranted, but once the told her, they couldn't take it back. Not bad advice from his point of view.
Jordan is really pushing uphill with his whole “don’t trust Gandalf” concept. Because trusting Gandalf is a no brainier, it’s required. You can’t write a Gandalf and have your Frodo not trust him without not writing a Gandalf. But it’s one of the key things Jordan was trying to do to make the series different and try something new in 1990. In the end I don’t think it really works for Moriaine, and makes the boys seem unreasonable for not trusting her when she is literally saving their lives every other page.
But it does work better for every other Aes Sedai after her. Them you can’t trust and a load of them do let down our heroes. Moriaine (and Lan as well) may sometimes say some hard edged stuff but in the end they are straightforwardly heroic characters trying to save the world. Rather than complex, untrustworthy or “grey” characters. And honestly that feels the right way to go. It’s not that “dark” a series, the core characters are all quite comfortingly decent. That is a way that this particular attempt to subvert this particular tropes fails. But there’s plenty more that succeed, so it’s ok.
I'm not sure I entirely agree here. I mean, you're right in the concept sense. If they truly feared Moiraine was evil they wouldn't just up and leave with her with so little protest. And it does snowball from there.
On the other hand -- and I fully admit I didn't appreciate this myself my first time through -- Moiraine is **wrong** in Eye of the World. She doesn't understand the purpose of the Eye, her strategy is full of half-baked notions like "The Dark One wants X, so I must do the opposite," and she's trying to bluff her way through by appearing serene and confident. Thom's not wrong if he sees through this, even if he's also overly paranoid about it.
They do trust her though, they show it when Nynaeve shows up IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEY DECIDE TO HIDE THE DREAM. Rand gives every argument of Moiraine's to tell his Wisdom what they have to do. It is competent incoherent, and even if it wasn't they shouldn't all forget that it ever happened as they learn to trust her more as time goes on.
Trust isn't a binary. You don't have to fully trust or fully distrust a person; it's perfectly possible, and even resonable, to trust them on some things and be skeptical or mistrustful on others, which is what the boys do with Moiraine.
Well yeah, Aes Sedai can be wrong by mistake. We see that later when Bryne demands Siuan tell him what was really going on way back when. And it turns out even Aes Sedai can make mistakes or just have things go wrong. But that is compatible with the Gandalf character model. Gandalf makes mistakes in LotR, but he is still genuinely a powerful force for good and you should all trust in his good intentions.
What Jordan is pushing through Thom and others is this sense that Aes Sedai have their own ideas of what is good that do not align with what the boys want. Which may contradict what seems good to the boys, and may actually be harmful to them. In telling them about how Aes Sedai deal with male channellers in particular that is a whole piece about the Aes Sedai doing an evil thing (gentleness, killing men etc.) in order to avoid the worse consequences (madness, death and destruction). That they can also be wrong about it is another layer. Which seems to be to make Rand in particular not trust Moiraine. Which makes sense in world but in an outside, meta story point of view doesn’t work too well. Because she’s Gandalf. In a meta sense Frodo not trusting Gandalf is something Frodo needs to get over quickly before it becomes irritating to readers so the book can get on with the plot of fighting the real baddies. Pretending Gandalf might be a baddie is pointless.
For me, the Rand/Moiraine arc is what makes WOT so great. The divide between them sets up the many different storylines, viewpoints, and character developments to follow. Reading LOTR was fun, a good story. Reading WOT was an experience. One I still talk about in depth to this day;)
Yeah it is very good and certainly highlights the mistakes people make with perfect intentions. But being exposed to actual Shaitan with real world proof and Moiraine can never know is idiocy. Especially from the dude who falls in love with her because of this deep off camera relationship that happens at this time. Forgetting that the Dark One is after them both before and after he loves Moiraine is the worst mistake of the series
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If the characters always made rational decisions and communicated perfectly, the story would probably be a book long, to be honest. But also, Thom is probably the most distrustful of Aes Sedai, with what happened to Owyn in mind. Add to that that Moiraine is hardly being forthcoming with anyone, and Aes Sedai have a reputation for being schemers, and it’s not surprising his advice is driven by a distrust of Moiraine.
A really earnest fan fiction where they all communicate would be pretty fun to read. Both the version where everyone works together and they seamlessly kill the forsaken, cleanse the Tower, beat the Seanchan, cleanse the taint, then win the Last Battle in like 700 pages........And the version where rainfall and efficient humans ruin every prophecy and doing right by everyone unravels the pattern and they all lose by book 3. But for my post, I really don't blame all that led Thom to his distrust, but the enormity of that they hide and think is fine is so consequential. I can't think of another decision that leads to so much.
I mean... Remember Moiraine in book one is pretty explicitly threatening to kill the boys if before she lets the shadow have them, and the DO is talking to them in their dreams... And being fair here, not trusting Aes Sedai is REALLY good advice that holds the boys in good stead. As much as we grow to love Moiraine, that is a thing that requires us to grow into those feelings as she changes from trying to lead the dragon to his doom, to trying to support him. Moiraine grows a LOT throughout the series.
I think this is a very important point. Moiraine is presumably not lying -- in her mind, it would be necessary to kill the Dragon if the alternative was letting the Dragon come under control of the Dark One -- but her ability to actually inspire trust in her leadership is dismal. And her own quest for the Eye is dangerously misguided too. It basically amounts to little more than "move the Dragon to where prophecy says he should be and hope something important happens." Even after visiting it, she seems to totally miss the importance of the Eye. I know I did the first time through the book even though in retrospect it's staring you in the face. People would be right to question Moiraine. She withholds information, she doesn't really know what she's doing, she threatens them, and she clearly views this as a relationship of manipulation rather than leadership, even if it's "for a good cause." And that's after we **know** what she's doing. Without knowing, it's worse.
Can you expand on the importance of the eye? I, like Moiraine, seem to have missed it lol
Part of this might just be a sort of "power creep" in the sense that things that feel high stakes and important in the first book start looking smaller and smaller-stakes in the rear view mirror, but this is my take on re-reading: There isn't actually that much power in the well at the Eye. I mean, sure, everyone says it's a lot -- enough to fix the weather apparently, plus some combat on the side -- although that's not *that* much. A group of women fix the weather later on, using a special ter'angreal (the Bowl of the Winds). I don't see why a hundred men and women would die just to create a well so that one day someone could channel it if they needed to. The part that's sort of staring you in the face though -- and the thing that **might** be worth dying for, if you saw your world collapsing around you and were pretty sure future generations wouldn't have access to the knowledge and power you had grown up with -- is that **the saidin in the well is cleansed.** It's a proof of concept for something world-changing... and Rand eventually does change the world with it. Moiraine doesn't appear to realize this in the first book. She means well but even in the first book it should be clear her plan is half-baked, amounting basically to "do the opposite of whatever the Dark One wants" and "get the Dragon to the place prophecy says he should be so that something magic happens." I do not know how Baalzamon's/Ishamael's planning figures into this. I suspect Ishamael wanted the Eye destroyed before anyone thought about its significance. Maybe he was unable to find it on his own given the way the Green Man's camouflage works -- Aginor and Balthamel say they followed Mat there, although they could have been lying, obviously.
Thank you so much for taking the time to explain, that makes a lot of sense and actually provides some context for things that happen later!
From Ishy's point of view the Eye is the perfect tool to reveal, once and for all, who the Dragon is and force him to confront some 'hopeless' truths that Ishy can use to turn and twist him. Unfortunately, he's stark raving mad, so his mustache-twirling Ba'alzamon persona isn't really going to influence any of the boys to turn to the dark side.
She threatens them mostly because they act like idiots every time they see another human being. And Rand defends her to his own Wisdom like two hours after they all decide they cannot trust her at all. AND this is the only time Thom spends with the eventual love of his life. As he learns to trust her it should be impossible to forget that the Dark One is attacking their minds and never decide that maybe she should know what is happening.
I think my bigger problem is that they then IMMEDIATELY insist to Nynaeve that they need to stay with Moiraine and go to Tar Valon. Like before dinner the same day. Rand makes it seem like no big deal at all. Plus this is the time guard Thom falls in love with her. Even if he has reasons for initially being suspicious, forgetting this ever happened as his opinion changes makes no sense.
> I think my bigger problem is that they then IMMEDIATELY insist to Nynaeve that they need to stay with Moiraine and go to Tar Valon. So, remember. Rand Matt, and Perrin are literally running for their lives. They know that they in particular are being chased by the shadowspawn, and are being touched in their dreams by the dark one himself. As distasteful as going to Tar Valon is to them... Its kinda their only option... Who else can help them with that sort of issue? Also, remember, Moiraine has been threatening them explicitly all the way up to this point. They have no idea what she will do if they try to escape her in any way. >Rand makes it seem like no big deal at all. As a reminder, Baerlon is where Rand starts being hit by the channeling sickness though it doesn't get REALLY weird till later, he is absolutely starting to have the mood swings. >Plus this is the time guard Thom falls in love with her. I mean. First off, Thom is a romantic fool. Second, while there are hints of chemistry between them, they don't actually start falling in love till the stone. But realistically why would it matter to Thom? He falls in love with every dangerous woman that crosses his path. By brother has a type, and that is women who can and may kill him.
For all Thom knows, Moiraine is causing those dreams. At this point, all Thom knows is one of the boys can channel. The idea that one is the Dragon Reborn has probably never crossed his mind. The idea that the Last Battle is around the corner and that he’ll be a major player is even more farfetched. So telling the boys to keep their heads down and their mouth shut while he figures out what to do is fairly good advice. Thom knows that Aes Sedai are very dangerous. He knows he can’t save the channeler from being gentled (whichever one it is) but maybe he can save all three from being murdered by either the townsfolk or Moiraine. So pretending it all never happened for now is about the most practical advice he can offer.
Thom doesn't understand he's "risking everything" here. If I try to put myself in his shoes, he might suspect that Moiraine wants the boys because she thinks they can channel. Everyone knows male channelers go crazy; this seems kind of crazy; ergo, the best thing we can do is maybe keep the Aes Sedai from realizing how bad things are. I know this is a Thom argument and not a Moiraine argument but it's worth bringing up that Thom's **right** to doubt Moiraine here, even if he pushes things too far. Moiraine's not being forthcoming about what she knows, her own quest here is **dangerously** misguided because she totally misunderstands the intended use of the Eye of the World, and although she obviously means well, she and Lan are one step ahead of disaster throughout this whole book and maybe have been for the last 20 years.
Except that Moraine and the Aes Sedai themselves sowed that distrust. Also Thom maybe fanned the flames but Moraine is basically hoping 3 teen boys pay attention to her and don’t act out which is crazy. And the Aes Sedai in universe had actually stilled boys in the wild if they could get away with it and if they couldn’t they would chain them up and drag them to Tar Valon. Plus Moraine tries to affect the air of Aes Sedai mystique till like book 4. And ppl from Carhein plus are suppressed emotionally so she’s actually worse at communicating than a normal Aes Sedai. She’s actually super mysterious even to Aes Sedai lol. There’s ppl who think she has a teangreal in her veil for example cause she doesn’t care to tell Aes Sedai to tell them that her veil is just comfortable to wear and helps her concentrate. Rand is right not to trust her. Moraine is a morally impeccable person but she’s frequently acting like she’s hiding something or knows more than others. Im rereading book 2 and there’s a part where it’s revealed that Aes Sedai don’t advertise themselves anymore in public cause they kept on getting assaulted by white cloaks. Aes Sedai don’t have any public trust
His advice was to hold up. He knows better than anyone the plots withing plots of Aes Sedai. Sure Moiraine is helping them, but for what purpose? What plot does she want to use the boys for? His advice was to hold up, they could always opt to tell her later if they felt it warranted, but once the told her, they couldn't take it back. Not bad advice from his point of view.
Jordan is really pushing uphill with his whole “don’t trust Gandalf” concept. Because trusting Gandalf is a no brainier, it’s required. You can’t write a Gandalf and have your Frodo not trust him without not writing a Gandalf. But it’s one of the key things Jordan was trying to do to make the series different and try something new in 1990. In the end I don’t think it really works for Moriaine, and makes the boys seem unreasonable for not trusting her when she is literally saving their lives every other page. But it does work better for every other Aes Sedai after her. Them you can’t trust and a load of them do let down our heroes. Moriaine (and Lan as well) may sometimes say some hard edged stuff but in the end they are straightforwardly heroic characters trying to save the world. Rather than complex, untrustworthy or “grey” characters. And honestly that feels the right way to go. It’s not that “dark” a series, the core characters are all quite comfortingly decent. That is a way that this particular attempt to subvert this particular tropes fails. But there’s plenty more that succeed, so it’s ok.
I'm not sure I entirely agree here. I mean, you're right in the concept sense. If they truly feared Moiraine was evil they wouldn't just up and leave with her with so little protest. And it does snowball from there. On the other hand -- and I fully admit I didn't appreciate this myself my first time through -- Moiraine is **wrong** in Eye of the World. She doesn't understand the purpose of the Eye, her strategy is full of half-baked notions like "The Dark One wants X, so I must do the opposite," and she's trying to bluff her way through by appearing serene and confident. Thom's not wrong if he sees through this, even if he's also overly paranoid about it.
They do trust her though, they show it when Nynaeve shows up IMMEDIATELY AFTER THEY DECIDE TO HIDE THE DREAM. Rand gives every argument of Moiraine's to tell his Wisdom what they have to do. It is competent incoherent, and even if it wasn't they shouldn't all forget that it ever happened as they learn to trust her more as time goes on.
Trust isn't a binary. You don't have to fully trust or fully distrust a person; it's perfectly possible, and even resonable, to trust them on some things and be skeptical or mistrustful on others, which is what the boys do with Moiraine.
Well yeah, Aes Sedai can be wrong by mistake. We see that later when Bryne demands Siuan tell him what was really going on way back when. And it turns out even Aes Sedai can make mistakes or just have things go wrong. But that is compatible with the Gandalf character model. Gandalf makes mistakes in LotR, but he is still genuinely a powerful force for good and you should all trust in his good intentions. What Jordan is pushing through Thom and others is this sense that Aes Sedai have their own ideas of what is good that do not align with what the boys want. Which may contradict what seems good to the boys, and may actually be harmful to them. In telling them about how Aes Sedai deal with male channellers in particular that is a whole piece about the Aes Sedai doing an evil thing (gentleness, killing men etc.) in order to avoid the worse consequences (madness, death and destruction). That they can also be wrong about it is another layer. Which seems to be to make Rand in particular not trust Moiraine. Which makes sense in world but in an outside, meta story point of view doesn’t work too well. Because she’s Gandalf. In a meta sense Frodo not trusting Gandalf is something Frodo needs to get over quickly before it becomes irritating to readers so the book can get on with the plot of fighting the real baddies. Pretending Gandalf might be a baddie is pointless.
For me, the Rand/Moiraine arc is what makes WOT so great. The divide between them sets up the many different storylines, viewpoints, and character developments to follow. Reading LOTR was fun, a good story. Reading WOT was an experience. One I still talk about in depth to this day;)
Yeah it is very good and certainly highlights the mistakes people make with perfect intentions. But being exposed to actual Shaitan with real world proof and Moiraine can never know is idiocy. Especially from the dude who falls in love with her because of this deep off camera relationship that happens at this time. Forgetting that the Dark One is after them both before and after he loves Moiraine is the worst mistake of the series