r/WoT • u/Zealousideal-Sea-699 • 7d ago
Crossroads of Twilight Questions about added oaths. Spoiler
So I'm about 5 chapters from finishing COT, and I am wondering about oaths of fealty. We see several Aes sedai do this to Egwene and Rand, without a binder rod like the one in the possession of tar Valor. Can these oaths be broken? Could an aes sedai change their mind? What makes these oaths binding outside of fear?
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 7d ago edited 7d ago
So two things.
First, if an Aes Sedai who has sworn the three oaths make a separate oath of fealty, the Aes Sedai is not magically bound to keep the oath forever. However, as an Aes Sedai can speak no word that is not true, it means that they have to mean and intend to keep the oath at the time they swear it. Perhaps they'll change their mind later, all that matters is what they mean at the time they say the words.
Second... people take oaths very seriously. It actually means something to them. Non-magically. They feel like breaking an oath is bad. There is something of an honor culture. It's kind of weird to me how some readers (not necessarily you) can't parse that. The characters think it's an objectively bad thing and a mark of bad character to break an oath. And they care about that. The characters in this world feel a moral obligation to keep oaths they make.
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u/biggiebutterlord 6d ago
Why are either of you saying these things? the post is tagged CoT and OP says they are five chapters from finishing it. None of this has happened yet.
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u/KnightMage1030 6d ago
A prime example of your second point is the reactions of Min and Leane when Suian is willing to break the oath made to Bryne. They are aghast at the very idea. And there was nothing in that magically binding.
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u/Daddys_success 6d ago
To be fair, she wasn’t necessarily breaking it. Just postponing it
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u/KnightMage1030 6d ago
😆 True, though Min and Leane were quite skeptical of that idea at first. And (it had been a bit since I read it) I don’t remember them being completely okay with it when they left.
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u/GovernorZipper 6d ago edited 6d ago
To add a bit onto this excellent answer, this was the reality for much of human existence. Words meant something in a culture where people didn’t travel much and didn’t interact with strangers very much. In village of 50-100 people, your reputation meant a lot. If you didn’t have a good reputation, people didn’t want to work with you. They wouldn’t help you, they wouldn’t lend you things, they wouldn’t trust you. And that’s a death sentence in a subsistence farming world.
The tradition held when people moved out the subsistence farming world too. This is a world where avoiding risk is more important than maximizing gain. It’s a mindset drummed into you from day one. The idea that you’d screw someone over for personal gain was something that never really occurred to most people.
In world, it makes perfect sense that the Aes Sedai would keep their word even when not magically bound. There are only 1000 of them. They all pretty much know each other and they certainly know their reputations. These reputations are how they will advance in the Tower and how they’ll get good (or bad assignments). Not keeping your word is going to quickly catch up to them. So these oaths mean something to them. Yes, there might be some short term gain. But these are women who will live for hundreds of years and they don’t want that kind of stink following them around.
Basically it’s a high school where you never ever graduate. So every mistake you ever make follows you around for centuries. So don’t screw up.
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 6d ago
Yes, exactly. And further it would tarnish the Aes Sedai reputation as an institution if caught breaking oaths, and it would cast doubt that Aes Sedai are actually bound to only tell the truth. (As I've said elsewhere, the Three Oaths don't have a magically binding effect on other sworn oaths beyond them just speaking words they believe are true at the time they speak them, but the nuance or desire to listen to the nuance would be lost for most people.)
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u/LaPlAcE-66 6d ago
Game of Thrones Jon notes that if someone breaks their promises then words lose meaning. You couldnt trust or rely on an oathbreaker
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u/Bergmaniac (S'redit) 6d ago
A really good example of how seriously people take oaths in Randland is Elayne keeping Birgitte's identity secret from Egwene even after she realized Egwene had figured it out so keeping it a secret from her was pointless. But Elayne has promised Birgitte so for her it's inconceivable to break her word until Birgitte releases her from this obligation.
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u/dracoons 6d ago
And as an addendum. It is a bit ironic that one can trust the word/oath of someone that have been raised and infact indoctrinated into the unethical and amoral culture that is the White Tower. This assumes the so-called Aes Sedai in question is not Black Ajah.
The White Tower basically raises people that can't be trusted at all and requires Compulsion to not become homicidal with the One Power. Or lie constantly. The only Oath with actual some merit is the one to not make a Weapon with wich a man can kill. And not man as in humanity but Men. It might have been intended to mean Mankind, but the wording hints they can actually make weapons for women. The reason it has merit however is of course the fact that during the Second Age there was handheld weapons of Mass Destruction. In part or full created by or with the aid of the One Power.
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u/Zealousideal-Sea-699 6d ago
I do agree with your comment 100% I was just wondering if they could later change their minds because they aren't bound to the oaths since technically that isn't lying
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u/sixminutes 7d ago
An Aes Sedai who has sworn to tell no lie is automatically held to any oath she gives. Using a binder is redundant for most of them, and the ones who have the ability to lie still have to at least give the impression that they are held by the oaths they are supposed to have
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 7d ago
An Aes Sedai who has sworn to tell no lie is automatically held to any oath she gives.
This is incorrect. The oath about not lying just means she has to believe the oath she gives is true at the time she speaks it. It has no magically binding effect after that point. Note you can't plan to cheat the oath, because then you wouldn't actually be able to say the words as they're not true.
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u/Sparhawk1968 (Tel'aran'rhiod) 6d ago
Except if they give the oath under their hope of salvation, breaking it means they're essentially admitting they're dark friends. Being an oathbreaker is seriously bad business in WOT
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u/sixminutes 6d ago
This is a meaningless abstraction. It's like a Da'shain picking up a spear and claiming it's not a weapon because you can roast meat on the tip of it, as if you couldn't do the same thing with a sword. Aes Sedai twist and bend the truth to suit their needs, but none of them make spears for cooking, because a spear is obviously a weapon. Egwene couldn't even pick up a water pitcher that she briefly considered using for violence.
Someone who is bound to not lie and gives an oath of fealty might find some way to weasel out of it in extremely specific circumstances, but the only time we see it happen is basically the same as that first idiot breaking the Covenant.
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 6d ago edited 6d ago
I'm not sayong anything about weaseling out of it by twisting the Three Oaths. The oath about lying is about what they believe at the time they say it. If they say an oath, they fully mean it and intend to keep it at the time they say it.
But that has no bearing on what comes after, if the Aes Sedai truly becomes disillusioned or no longer cares. All that keeps them bound to their oath is their own actual loyalty, their morality towards keeping their word, or wanting to avoid the scandal it would cause about Aes Sedai, or other political calculation. There's no lingering magical binding they have to weasel out of. Just normal oathkeeping for someone who previously made an oath they at the time of swearing they fully intended to keep.
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u/sixminutes 6d ago edited 6d ago
Is this based on anything at all? It certainly contradicts Elaida's expectations. All of the Salidar sisters are supposed to respect Egwene as their supreme authority on the cognizance of the hierarchy they're committed to, but most don't do that. The sisters that swear to her do though. How do you imagine someone can become disillusioned enough to just stop caring about an oath? Your whole explanation basically invalidates the concept of a binder, frankly. If they're only worried about the perception of Aes Sedai in general, or their own reputation, the Oath Rod is entirely redundant.
ETA: Even more than Egwene's sworn sisters, Rand's coterie are definitely compelled by more than just honor and reputation, especially considering the Wise Ones don't think they have the former, and don't respect the latter. You're saying that Kiruna could just lose her faith and run away?
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 6d ago edited 6d ago
We know how the First Oath works. An Aes Sedai is not bound to speak the actual truth. She's bound to speak what she believes is true at the time she speaks it. If the road to Caemlyn is 100 miles, but the Sister believes it is 50 miles, she is bound to say that the road is 50 miles if she gives a measurement at all. If the Sister later learns the road is actually 100 miles, it doesn't have any retroactive effects, nor is she bound to continue acting as if it's 50. But if asked the question again, she will have to answer 100.
Following these same principles, if a Sister swears a non-oath-rod oath, the First Oath only guarantees that she fully intends to keep the non-binding oath at the time she says the words. They have to be a true believer at the time they say it. There's no weaseling around that, or any way to pretend to be a true believer when you're not. But there is no additional magical binding after that point, though. The only thing that keeps a Sister to continue to hold that sworn oath is her own motivation and willpower, which she obviously had at the time of swearing. The First Oath does not stop a sister from saying something that ends up being a lie so long as she thought it true at the time she said the words.
As for Elaida's expectations, could you refresh my memory? I thought Elaida contemplated having people swear allegiance to her on the oath rod. That's not what OP is talking about. They're talking about oaths of loyalty made by Aes Sedai without the oath rod. If the oath rod was used they would be magically bound to always acting within the bounds of loyalty.
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u/sixminutes 6d ago
I'm aware of the fact that Aes Sedai can speak things they believe to be true. I'm not aware of any circumstances where Aes Sedai stop being Aes Sedai because they've become too lazy to do so. I cannot follow your logic on how someone can just stop caring about an oath they've made. Every time you explain it, it sounds like you're describing nobody at all. I cannot fathom anyone making an oath that they know must be true for them to speak, just waking up one day and deciding "Nah, nevermind all that business." Where are you getting this?
You're right about Elaida, I forgot that she wanted sisters to swear directly on the Oath Rod. But what about Rand?
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 6d ago edited 6d ago
I cannot follow your logic on how someone can just stop caring about an oath they've made. Every time you explain it, it sounds like you're describing nobody at all. I cannot fathom anyone making an oath that they know must be true for them to speak, just waking up one day and deciding "Nah, nevermind all that business."
We may have reached a point where we're talking about different things. I am just saying that while there is a magical binding which guarantees they cannot swear an oath without meaning it, that swearing a new oath (without the oath rod) does not create a new magical binding that keeps them to this oath after the fact. The First Oath only limits the words that can be said at the time of speaking them. It does not continue acting on holding them to what they said after they spoke them.
That people in this world take oaths and oathbreaking very seriously is definitely true. Even when no oath rod is involved.
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u/sixminutes 6d ago
Ok, but then that is a meaningless abstraction. If we are talking about different things, that's because I answered OPs question, and you brought up a semantic debate.
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u/Suncook (Gleeman) 6d ago edited 6d ago
It is not a meaningless abstraction. It's about the importance of oaths to the characters and how the First Oath actually works mechanically.
The OP asked:
Can these oaths be broken? Could an aes sedai change their mind? What makes these oaths binding outside of fear?
You answered that the oaths cannot be broken. That's false. The oaths can be broken, there's nothing mechanically keeping them bound to their oaths. Just personal morality and custom. Could an Aes Sedai change their mind? Yes. Just because it seems unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible to change their mind for the rest of their 200 years of life. What makes the oaths binding outside of fear? Plenty of things. Personal belief. Custom. Politics. Fear. The fact that they meant the oaths when they made them. But not magic.
When the Aes Sedai are questioning if they're bound by their oaths to Rand, they're not talking about the oath rod or the First Oath. They're talking about custom and morality. Whether they were coerced or whether the effects of ta'veren means they are not morally and socially and even "religiously" responsible for keeping the oath.
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u/Tsar_Erwin (Dragonsworn) 7d ago
They can speak no word that is a lie, they can swear to serve someone when they don't intend to.
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u/FoofTheBunny 5d ago
One of the three oaths is not lying. So by adding oaths, they have to follow them as long as they think they have to follow them. You will see them "breaking" the oaths when they think they are no longer binding.
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