Wheel of Time letter No. 12: Are all of these threats really necessary?

Gotta put a big TW here: Suicidal ideation, rape, torture, domestic violence, hazing, etc. This letter was from October 12, 2020.

Dear Robert,

I’m 5 hours from the end of A Crown of Swords and here’s what’s happening (it’s a lot, so bear with me -- sorry this is long:)

Mat tells Birgitte that he saved Nynaeve and Elayne from the Black Ajah a few books ago. Mat and Birgitte also are both aware that they both have some weird memories from other heroes in the past. Both Birgitte and Aviendha agree that Nynaeve and Elayne owe Mat an apology and a debt of gratitude, even though he behaves like a tool, so they try to be nicer to him. 

They go to Mat’s inn and apologize to him. After they leave, Mistress Anan, the owner of the inn, intercepts them and takes them to a “circle” of secret Aes Sedai, called the Kin. There are a whole bunch of odd threats the women make to each other before the woman agrees to take Elayne and Nynaeve to the hideout of the runaway/failed Aes Sedai hopefuls. There, they are threatened some more. The leader of the Kin, whose name I forget, tells Elayne and Nynaeve that they will only help them find the bowl of the winds if they go to a farm to work for a while. They also don’t believe that Nynaeve and Elayne are Aes Sedai and insist that they will refuse to help them unless they stop lying. They also say that if Nynaeve and Elayne refuse to go to the farm and work their way up the hierarchy of the Kin, the Kin will circulate descriptions of them and tell everyone that they’re criminals or sluts or some nonsense. It’s an impossible situation, where everyone is awful to each other. 

It’s here, also, where most of the awful stuff I’ve already ranted about happens. Morgase is tortured by the leader of the questioners for the Children of the Light, then raped by Eamon Valda, the new captain-commander of the Children. The Seanchan invade the fortress and say that if Morgase doesn’t hand control of Andor over to the Seanchan, she’ll be a slave. Then, they make the former Panarch of Tarabon, Amathera, dance for Morgase and Suroth (the Seanchan leader). Morgase contemplates suicide and then resolves to abdicate the throne of Andor.

The Queen of Ebou Dar rapes Mat, and it’s played as a joke. Then, Mat goes to a costume party with Bergitte, the queen’s son, and a bunch of other people. You already know how I feel about this.

Then, Elayne receives a letter from Jachim Carridin, saying her mother is alive and in the fortress for the Children of the Light. This section, again, shows how slowly information travels in this universe when people can’t just converse instantaneously with each other. By the time Elayne receives news that her mother lives, she’s already almost accepted that her mother has died. Even the information Carridin sends Elayne is wrong, as he has not yet received word that Pedron Niall was assassinated. The weird thing that happens in this scene is that Elayne pulls together the Kin and the Aes Sedai from Salidar, and they all blindly listen to her, even though she’s a teenager and they’re centuries old. Elayne promises that the Kin will be welcomed back to the tower under Egwene’s leadership. Earlier in the book, Siuan was telling Egwene that the Aes Sedai can sense the power in each other, and will naturally defer to those stronger in the power like a weird hive-mind, and this is what happens here. 

We find out that Moghedian has been mentally imprisoned by Arangar and then by Mordrin, who is actually Padan Fain in disguise. She tries to kill Nynaeve by using balefire on a boat she’s on. Nynaeve almost drowns, but Lan saves her and they have a very dramatic reunion where Lan behaves like a stoic zombie and Nynaeve slaps him around before telling him they’re going to get married. It would have been sweet if not for the domestic violence committed in broad daylight. 

Rand and Min talk about how they had sex. Rand is like, “I’m a horrible monster” and Min is like, “Nah, it was consensual and we’re adults.” Rand tells Min he loves her with the caveat that she accepts that he’s in love with two other women. Rand is just not interesting enough for Min to have to tolerate this! Min is actually a really interesting character, and I hate to think she’s selling herself short. I feel like I harp on this a lot. It’s just when a male author feels the need to attach his female characters to men, as he did with Gawin and Elayne and Nynaeve and Lan, it shows he doesn’t think that women are fully able to live without men!

I’ve been thinking about whether or not I want to continue with this series! I just found some of the plot points in this so distasteful and insensitive. Not just that, but I feel like Robert Jordan is near incapable of writing realistic women. I have the next couple books to go, at least. Perhaps after either this book or the next one, I’ll listen to something else as a kind of intermission. I do have some more modern scifi/fantasy I could listen to.