Wheel of Time letter No. 6: The weirdest spanking

Dear Robert,

I'm about 12 hours from the end of Lord of Chaos and here's what's happening:

Rand sends Mat to Salidar, along with Aviendha, to capture Elayne and bring her back to Caemlyn so she can take her rightful place as queen of Andor. 

Meanwhile, after Egwene admits to the Wise Ones that she was lying about being Aes Sedai, she says she has “toh” to them. It’s part of the Aiel’s system of ji’e’toh, a sort of way of keeping track what sorts of “honor” everyone is owed, and admitting when you’ve erred so that you can make amends. Some of the Wise Ones whip Egwene with a belt, a scene that is supremely messed up. Again, Robert Jordan does not describe the beating in detail (it’s his strategy with rape and torture as well,) but he alludes to various details after the fact. There’s something ultra weird about a teenager (it’s later revealed Egwene is “not yet 17”) asking for corporal punishment, getting it, and then telling the people who just beat her that she’s grateful for their teaching and she’ll miss them when she leaves, and everyone acting like nothing had ever happened. I’m going to admit that I was extremely disturbed by this! I’m really hoping that when the new co-author takes over later in the series, he is not nearly as obsessed with spanking teenagers. The violence the women show in this book to other women, while complaining from time to time about how violent men are, is really bizarre.

Egwene then travels through tel’aran’rhiod in the flesh to get to Salidar and meet with the Aes Sedai. There, they appoint her Amyrlin Seat. Egwene’s initiation to Amyrlin Seat was disturbing because A LOT of women stripped to the waist to “prove” they were all women. The degradation at the hands of the Wise Ones, and then the Aes Sedai, was just gross and weird coming from a male author. It was pretty clear that the group of Aes Sedai wanted to remain equally in power and simply have Egwene act as their puppet and scapegoat if something goes wrong. Instead, Egwene shakes things up a little by refusing to recite the speech they write for her in full, and elevating Elayne and Nynaeve to full sisterhood, despite Nynaeve being unable to channel without anger. Egwene also learns about Elayne and Nynaeve holding Moghedian prisoner.

I’ve always found the female perspectives in this series more interesting, simply because more STUFF happens, and it’s less about military planning. But man, this stretch of Egwene stuff was really hard to listen to.