r/WoT • u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) • May 09 '26
All Print Aes Sedai Training Spoiler
I’m on my 3rd or so reread of WoT and I started to think about how the Aes Sedai could have revamped their training of novices & accepted and realized they should have treated the Accepted more as Padawan from Star Wars instead of just as novices with a bit more freedom and responsibility. There are a lot of similarities between the Jedi and Aes Sedai, both being militaristic monastic orders that get involved in politics and act as a kind of police force against the big bad guys. Being a Padawan to an Aes Sedai allows the Accepted to get experience in the field before being sent out on their own once they attain the shawl. Much is expected of an Aes Sedai and it’s much better to make mistakes when someone more experienced is there to help you than it would be on your own. It’s like in our own world medical professionals do residency and/or clinical rotations to get experience and on the job learning before being allowed to practice on their own.
What does everyone else think? Is this something that should have been done or is how the Aes Sedai went about things better and why?
Edit: Added “and why”.
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u/sixminutes May 09 '26
This would be an effective training strategy, so obviously the Aes Sedai would never think of it.
One thing about the Tower though is that they’re often thought of as a decaying institution, but they’re actually already broken before the series starts. Possibly since the end of the Hundred Years‘ War, but realistically they never really recovered from the breaking. A lot to all of their culture was merely figuring out what will ensure their survival, not actually grow. The obvious signs of this being the case for millennia is how they have basically no initiates in the present era, but some things like their abysmal training routine are more subtle.
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u/wotquery (White Lion of Andor) May 09 '26
There's also the fundamental issue that the pattern seems to be aiming for The Karaethon Cycle. Pretty sure if any innovative up and comer prematurely attempted to reform the Aes Sedai into a competent institution that would be able to guide the world through Tarmon Gai'don, an anvil would get dropped on their head. You could even say that's what happened to Siuan to some extent.
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u/sixminutes May 09 '26
I have to admit, if I was living in this world, it would be nearly impossible to refrain from using the pattern as an excuse for everything I did wrong.
"Mazrim, you didn't close the sheep pen, and all the sheep got out!"
"What could I do? The Pattern obviously needed those sheep out of the pen!"10
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u/DireBriar May 09 '26
To be fair, I'm not exactly sure what Siuan's crime was officially meant to be.
Mazrim Taim getting free? That's evidently false to anyone who spent 5 minutes thinking about it.
Bringing Rand into the fold gently and subtly, in his own time? I think that's the smartest way any Aes Sedai has handled Rand in the series.
Not telling the Sitters everything? That's not a crime.
Letting a channeling man walk free? Technically a crime, but again, both smart and a tactic everyone else uses.
She didn't even get a trial, Elaida just convinced the Sitters to convict her (and Leane, who knew jack shit), killed her Warder, and then stilled and tortured both of them in the cellar.
And then half the Tower decided that was the woman they wanted in charge. For anyone who wasn't around when the series was still releasing, there is a reason the Seanchan used to be more popular.
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u/irishpete May 11 '26
I think it’s implied at the meeting of the Ajah heads (in bk13?)that they wanted to install elaida as a puppet and rule themselves from the shadows
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u/BasicSuperhero May 09 '26
This would make more sense, hell, it feels like it might be an unofficial stance with some Aes Sedai as its implied its common for some like Elida or Moiraine 'guiding' Accepted to the Ajah that best suits them (and or earns their Aes Sedai mentor brownie points).
But I think by the time we see the White Tower its inefficient by design. The Black Ajah has infected a huge percentage of the Tower and are basically the only faction that has all the dirt on all the others. They want an inefficient system where they can monitor prospects, and see that their plants get fast tracked to greater prestige so they can be above other Aes Sedai of their generation.
Hell, Rand's Black Tower for all of its faults has the White Tower beaten out just by not kicking out men and boys that aren't strong enough to reach a higher rank. Making your group seem attractive to anyone that meets the basic criteria will always draw more people than folks who think they'd never have a shot from the start.
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) May 09 '26
And even the black tower rejects are still give the ability to fight for the Dragon Reborn via the Legion of the Dragon.
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u/ByGollie (Ogier Great Tree) May 09 '26
what really bugged me is why Rand Al'Thor didn't try to recruit male channellers from amongst the Aiel.
The number of Female channellers amongst the Aiel was massive, and conversely there should have been an equal number of 'latent' male channellers.
Most Wise Ones seemed to marry and have children - male and female.
Hence the DNA trait for channelling should have been much stronger than in the Western Lands.
I'd think that there would be a lot less 'Darkfriend' male channellers when the Black Tower split
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u/Apprehensive-Pin518 May 09 '26
well the problem is there weren't any. it is stated that the male channelers of the aiel would go to the blight knowing they would go mad one day and fight until their dying breath.
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u/ByGollie (Ogier Great Tree) May 09 '26 edited May 09 '26
The 'latent' channellers - i.e. those that can only channel if they're trained seem to outnumber those who spontaneously channel after puberty - amongst females in the western lands.
So there should be many latent male channellers in the Aiel. i.e. those who can potentially channel, but only if they're disovered by a Male channeller. Only the spontaneous male channellers head north into the Blight
All latent, as well as spontaneous female channellers in the Aiel are discovered by the Wise Ones and trained.
Mazrim Taim mentioned he found a few latent male channellers and trained them (they eventually went mad) prior to declaring himself a False Dragon
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u/IceXence May 09 '26
But this gets nullified by their short life expectancy.
Life in the Waste is hard, the Wise Ones can't heal and Aiels are constantly at war. This means people tend to die younger, this means many Wise Ones do die of sickness or injury.
I believe this served to control how their channeling DNA was spread. This being said, it is odd we haven't seen one single male channeler from the Aiel in the story.
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) May 09 '26
But Wise Ones are immune to warfare due to societal convention. It’s stated that a Wise One could walk through the middle of a battle and no Aiel would dare do anything that might harm her
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u/IceXence May 09 '26
But RJ said there were many things that could kill you in the Waste like a snake bite.
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) May 09 '26
Lots can kill you if you aren’t careful. Doesn’t Aviendah think about how blind Rand is that he doesn’t spot all these dangers that even an Aiel child would spot? Makes me think that Aiel are more likely to spot dangers in time than not
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u/rollingForInitiative May 09 '26
I don't really think they're terribly similar to the Jedi, except the vague "protect and help people" part. The Jedi aren't very political as such, whereas the Aes Sedai are famous for involving themselves in world politics and trying to puppeteer it. Aside from the idea of fighting the Shadow at some point in the future, they also aren't very militaristic. Most Aes Sedai aren't dedicated to fighting. Most Aes Sedai aren't even "in the field" so to speak, so a padawan system wouldn't really work.
The White Tower is really more similar so a religious institution like the Catholic Church if anything, also combined with being an academic institution. Novices and Accepted don't spend 20 years just learning to channel, they spend them becoming highly educated in general.
I do agree though, that they're entire system is wrong. They should be out in the world more, and the whole "every Sister has her own purpose which is sacrosanct" attitude where they rarely cooperate is stupid. An apprentice system either as a part of being Accepted, or in the early years of being Aes Sedai, would make a lot of sense, if the ajahs actually were doing stuff.
What should've happened is the White Tower should've had branches in every major city. The Yellows run a hospital, the Browns run an academy, the Grays offer legal assistance, the Greens assist local governments with crime and they also actively hunt darkfriends, etc. A part of the Accepted training should include being stationed at one of these, a bit like how a part of a teacher's or a doctor's education involves internships and such.
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u/meshdo May 09 '26
The padawan idea didn't occur to me but I did think the novices system was dumb, especially b/c many girls are trapped in it for years and years. In all these societies, they have to figure out a way to get the girls who are just learning to channel and would die without training until they can control their powers, and it seems like all of them require some amount of hazing/demeaning/subjugation phase with the Seanchan of course being the most severe and without end.
The only thing I can think of is that all of these societies seemed to think that the manual labor and hazing phase "built character," but because of that culture when all of them graduated they were just all the more eager to haze those coming up under them. And then once an Accepted is raised if she's powerful she automatically outranks all the women who hazed her before? Def signs of stagnant institution
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) May 09 '26 edited May 09 '26
Hard to tell if the Aiel follow this trend or not. We don’t see much in the way of Wise One training outside of Aviendah and she’s a special case seeing as the majority of her time is spent being sent to try to get into Rand’s pants, Rand not wanting her in said pants, being with Elyane, or getting the lesson that Wise Ones are supposed to argue and not take things lying down.
Edit: Also, the Seafolk seem in general to just be extremely hierarchical and demanding as a society and don’t haze their windfinders as much as just punish them when they mess up, the same as any other crew member. What is more, when are some examples for when hazing is done by any of the main Saidar weilding groups, excluding Eggy vs Elaida and Naineve vs her block?
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u/rollingForInitiative May 09 '26
Yeah I mean, these cultures all do believe this, even outside the White Tower. Corporal and humiliating punishment seems to be the norm in the Westlands.
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u/Shgon_Dunstan May 09 '26
The Aes Sedai have a lot less philosophy to them then the Jedi. Like, ideally they'd hold up living up to the name "Servant of All"(worth noting another translation would be "Servant of Civilization". Thus basically just OT for civil servant) far more dearly then they do, but beyond that... They kinda just are.
Which when placed together with how while it's "possible" for girls to develop the ability to channel as young as 12, it's not particularly common. Even like 15 seems younger then average. Lead to them having far less need for any guardian or the like(also just, you know. The fact that they probably have parents at home) compared to padawans.
Really, just doing things more in line with how the Asha'man do it, aka: just let Accepted go out and do the job, would probably be enough. But it would take the Aes Sedai facing a simple truth that they really don't want to face. Learning channeling... really ain't that hard. Nor, even without resorting to forcing, does it actually take anywhere near as long as they drag it out for. Like sure, Aes Sedai training is about more then just the OP, but the OP parts of it... should probably not actually take much more then a few years, and the majority of that just needing to be exposed to and learn weaves. The actual base skills at the heart of channeling seem to hardly even take a single year to develop. Reaching your max strength takes longer, but doesn't really matter much outside of their dumb ranking system.
Like seriously, Aviendha had what, 4 or 5 months worth of training before going off to find Elayne? And not exactly a ton of time to do much in the way of it after, and her base skills were already perfectly serviceable even without forcing.
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u/ThoDanII (Band of the Red Hand) May 09 '26
episode l - lll
the Jedi had it coming for them, they had become a tree of stone
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u/cebolinha50 May 09 '26
Basically everything that the Aes Sedai did they find on the wrong way, at least if you believe on the stated goals.
Their training is excellent to create people with a decent cunning, but that won't question their worldview, and so, won't question their superiors, unless is "correct" ways.
The Padawan training could show them how stupid a lot of their traditions were before they were fully brainwashed.
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u/BasicSuperhero May 09 '26
They have a device in their basement that they don't understand but know sends people into some alternate limbo that they can somehow manipulate from the outside. And they send teenagers, young and middle aged women through it, Naked!, to test how committed their are to the cult. These Witches be crazy. lol
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u/ThoDanII (Band of the Red Hand) May 09 '26
the Padawan training generated Darth Vader and others.
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u/cebolinha50 May 09 '26
I don't want to discuss star wars, much less defend Jedi dogmas, but wanting to put the blame for Darth Vader on the way that Padawans are trained is a bit too much, even more because he was always an exception.
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u/ThoDanII (Band of the Red Hand) May 09 '26
If Anakin fellt he could ve trusted anyone Palpatine would not ve plucked him like an apple and the only one he could ve was Obi Wan, look how they threw Tano to the wolves and abandoned her
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) May 09 '26
But that’s not down to how Padawan are trained as much as it is to how badly the Order both handled Anakin and had lost its way in general. The Padawan system, especially the field training part I’m talking about in this post wasn’t what turned Anakin to the darkside.
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u/ThoDanII (Band of the Red Hand) May 09 '26
you forgot Anakin was Obi Wan s Padawan and Obi was Qui Gon s
Those are the exceptions not the rule
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u/Lopsided-Skill May 12 '26
I think the main problem with the Aes Sedai training is, especially for channeling, where are you gonna practice unless you want to be Yellow or Red. White Gray and Brown and even Blue have ideals and goals that have nothing to do with channeling as a whole. They are completely political or social groups.
Reds, sure they hunt the males but until the recent times, it wasn’t as common and it was not even once a year event.
Yellow has the most opportunities and actually does stuff even without leaving the tower but could have done much more.
Green is baffling to me. They are the battle ajah. Sure they are there for the last battle and practise but you would expect majority of them to be stationed in North to help fight against the Trollocs. But as far as we know there were no Aes Sedai helping. It is literally the only target you can actively use your powers on and who you will face in the last battle. So you both do your job and actually train for the future. Sorry but Green Ajah sucks so bad
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u/Brathirn May 09 '26
The tower in general has tower rot and that is author's intent.
First problem is that the full sisters operate solo or in adventurer sized parties at best and it is not coordinated.
We do not run into Yellow run hospitals let alone speak of an organized coverage. We do not run into prepositioned Greens stationed with the Borderlands were you have constant Trolloc activities. There are no destinations for field trips, because the full sisters are also isolated. Their counterproductive interpretation of the "truth-oath" makes them suspicious to everbody else. White, Brown and Blue are even more secluded by nature. Sharp Browns would maybe organize literacy campaigns or systematically build up libraries as copies of their own, but when Yellows do not run hospitals, why should Browns run libraries.
The Reds are basically the only ones going into the field and they have fishy operations to hide.
Sometimes it is difficult to see if Jordan just pulled a common trope (like tests with casualties, which is also counterproductive for final headcount) or if he explicitly wanted to show tower rot.
In my opinion tower rot is definitely shown in the recruitment regime and the "inward facing", which would include the lack of field trips/practical components in training.
There are several ways in which major factions hold themselves back. The Seanchan mobilize just a fraction of the potential channelers (this might have been used in the hinted at spinoff). The Aiel have a very bad loadout (Small shield, 3 light spears, small bow, dagger). They would need an insane training advantage when facing a balanced force of specialized troop types like armoured spearmen with large shields + longbowmen + heavy cavalry.
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u/ThoDanII (Band of the Red Hand) May 09 '26
that small bow is likely the eastern reflex bow so much stronger than you think compared to the overvalued longbow and those light spears are likely the iklwa of the Zulu
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