History Headscratchers / TheWheelOfTime

*** You need to take this one step farther. The fact of the matter is that if Mat really wanted to not have sex with Tylin, he could have kicked her behind on the spot, even if she had a knife and he was naked and unarmed. It isn't the sex that Mat is finding objectional. It is the fact that a woman wants to have sex and is actively presuring a man into having sex that offends is very provincial and sexist notion that men should be the ones initiating a sexual relationship and not the other way around.
*** AuthorAppeal up the ''everything.'' Just like Perrin and Faile, Mat and Tuon, Nynaeve and Lan... okay, anyone and anyone--the "moral" is that all successful relationships involve bondage and submission. Are we sure Jordan didn't ghost-write {{Gor}}?
**** Actually Nynaeve and Lan are a pretty bad example for this since Lan after all could (and sometimes makes use of this) controll Nynaeve in privacy.

**** An interesting mind-game: Whenever you get a "What the hell!?"-reaction to what someone does in this series, go back, invert gender roles and re-read. For example, consider the role of men in Altara. Women treated the way Altaran men are in a fantasy setting wouldn't have recieved nearly as much flak. Also, consider when Mat and Juilin break Elayne and Nynaeve out of the Stone of Tear to rescue them from Be'lal? Would Elayne's and Nynaeve's reaction have been similarly unreasonable if they had been two powerful male magic users who were being busted out of the dark wizard's castle by two women without magical abilities? Considering that the debate has been pretty heated, I would like to point out that this is not a catch-all explanation, but it IS an interesting comment on perfunctory, unaware sexism in our society.

*** I suppose 'dominance' might have been too strong a word. Both genders in Wheel of time 'dominate' each other in different areas. Men definitely still have the market cornered on fighting and military tactics. (Makes sense, thanks to the No-One-Power-As-A-Weapon clause of becoming an Aes Sedai). And this certainly does not mean that "only" women can be rulers, or that "only" men can be generals. (Banner-General Tylee of the Ever Victorious Army would like to see you!) It just means that women are less likely in the WoT-verse to back down and be submissive, and that their society is less likely to find this strange.

** It should also be noted that the colors of the Yin-Yang Taoism symbol are irrelevant. The representation is purely related to the 'two halves of a whole' and 'everything has an opposite'. As according to traditional Chinese beliefs, Jordan ''did'' get it wrong, but why does it matter? For that matter, considering the symbolism of ''Saidin'' and ''Saidar'' (the former being associated with madness and chaos and the latter being associated with stability and apparently wisdom/mysticism) we can simply chalk this up to a case of ColorCodedForYourConvenience - since western readers associate Black with evil and White with good, the author is simply following the RuleOfSymbolism.

** It should also be noted that the colors of the Yin-Yang Taoism symbol are irrelevant. The symbolism is purely related to the 'two halves of a whole' and 'everything has an opposite'. As according to traditional Chinese beliefs, Jordan ''did'' get it wrong, but why does it matter? For that matter, considering the symbolism of ''Saidin'' and ''Saidar'' (the former being associated with madness and chaos and the latter being associated with stability and apparently wisdom/mysticism) we can simply chalk this up to a case of ColorCodedForYourConvenience - since western readers associate Black with evil and White with good, the author is simply following the RuleOfSymbolism.

** I am fairly certain this is another example of Jordan playing with the idea of the passage of time causing stories, beliefs, myths, and legends to change and completely twist what actually happened centuries before. It is very clear that our world is meant to be a future Age of the Wheel of Time where there is no One Power (or no knowledge of it at least). That being the case, Jordan would be implying that the people of our Age discovered the old Aes Sedai symbol but didn't know what it meant, so gave it their own meaning, or misunderstood (possibly willfully so) which half aligned with which gender. This would have been helped along by old memories and stories of how awful the women were in the Third Age, and how men (once the taint was cleansed) helped save the day, so that the men would be associated with the light half and women the dark. So it's not an indication that Jordan DidNotDoTheResearch, it's that he deliberately changed the meaning both to make his world different and to suggest how the meanings of things change over time.

** I suppose if you put your mind to it you could make a decent fist of besieging the place even without Channellers on your side, like Artur Hawkwing did, but I think the city containing hundreds of sorcerers who, if memory serves, can wield their power in the defence of their lives, is probably enough to dissuade most from attempting it. Sure, enough mundane soldiers could probably do the job, but it would be over the bodies of 90% of their fellows, and they would likely break before that. As such, Tar Valon has usually been a safe haven from all the strife that seems to have been going on intermittenly for 3000 years, so people have flocked to it. It is therefore large, with control over villages serving it for some distance I would guess, and a good place to trade safely because of the security of the Aes Sedai. The city becames rich by default and the Aes Sedai take a piece of that (we're told there are no footpads in the city, or were not until Elaida messed everything up, and that kind of protection is worth a moderate tax).
** Some of this is due to the Aes Sedai tampering with the history books. For example, at some point it comes up that the tower itself was breached during the Trolloc Wars, but only the very few with access to the secret histories can know that. As for income, perhaps having a near-monopoly on Foretelling makes the Tower a powerhouse in the stock market?

** Except that Mr. Jordan [[WordOfGod has gone on record during interviews]] to say that he doesn't consider the women in his series to be obnoxious. He instead claims that they are 'strong'. SoYeah...

** There are societies with male leaders such as Tear or Illian. Of course those leaders aren't shown as being very good leaders {{so yeah}}. That also leaves the question of how few female military leaders there are.

* Rand has TWO memories, remember? And Lews Therin is even crazier than he is... SoYeah.

Two Rivers tabac is world famous. It's even known in the Aiel Waste. It fetches a premium price everywhere except the Two Rivers. I can understand why the peddlers and merchants that visit don't like to mention it, as it keeps their costs down, and they can make a pretty nice profit. I'd even bet that they buy the wool and other stuff just to keep the Two Rivers folk from finding out. Probably dump it in a heap in Baerlon. You never hear anything about Two Rivers wool being famous, just the tabac. This explains the peddlers and merchants, but what about the queen of Andor? I get that Morgase was busy solidifying her control for a few years after she took the throne. That makes sense. Before her, I've got no idea, as RJ hasn't really given us much to work with there. Maybe they were all busy, too. But with Andor experiencing a nice decade or so of stability under Morgase, and this region producing a famous and valuable resource, why didn't she appoint a lord to the area, send some guards, and start collecting taxes? Hell, she could have sent someone she trusted to go to the region and raise a lord locally.

Two Rivers tabac is world famous. It's even known in the Aiel Waste. It fetches a premium price everywhere except the Two Rivers. I can understand why the peddlers and merchants that visit don't like to mention it, as it keeps their costs down, and they can make a pretty nice profit. I'd even bet that they buy the wool and other stuff just to keep the Two Rivers folk from finding out. Probably dump it in a heap in Baerlon. You never hear anything about Two Rivers wool being famous, just the tabac. This explains the peddlers and merchants, but what about the queen of Andor? I get that Morgase was busy solidifying her control for a few years after she took the throne. That makes sense. Before her, I've got no idea, as RJ hasn't really given us much to work with there. Maybe they were all busy, too. But with Andor experiencing a nice decade or so of stability under Morgase, and this region producing a famous and valuable resource, why didn't she appoint a lord to the area, send some guards, and start collecting taxes? Hell, she could have sent someone she trusted to go to the region and raise a lord locally.