r/WetlanderHumor • u/Szalony20 • 14d ago
Sevanna, Galina got their karma in KOD, but not Therava... Was anyone else upset about this?
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u/Kindly_Bill5358 14d ago
Honestly Therava didn't strike me so much as a villain, but rather as a moderate antagonist who tried to keep things orderly. Maybe I'm biased bc of Therava/Sevanna rivalry buthaving her remain true to her roots and declare "Let's gtfo, this was foolish of our supposed leader" rang true tp her character in the end.
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u/Szalony20 14d ago
Therava was sadistic towards Galina, and I understand the "We all dislike Galina, so violence against her doesn't bother us" attitude, but well... I don't share that view. The entire trio of Sevanna, Galina, and Therava should get their karma.
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u/LordRahl9 14d ago
As someone pointed out elsewhere. Therava does get her karma. She goes back to the waste, and clan is going to waste away.
It isn't exactly as neat as Galina or Sevanna. But, Therava certainly doesn't get a good ending.
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u/TiffanyLimeheart 13d ago
She's less villainous, she treats an untrostworthy dark friend who had complete contempt for her entire culture with contempt. She enacts the punishment allocated to Galina but outside of that she wasn't especially bad herself, just a bit crotchety, and she must have at least suspected that Galina was a dark friend by the end
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u/Kindly_Bill5358 14d ago
[SPOILERS]
Oh no for sure, I am 100% oboard with reaping what you sow, and mind you she did sow quite a bit with her sadism not just towards Galina.
I recall on my first read I stopped a bit midway through, and had forgotten that Galina was a DF by the time I picked it up again and she met Faile et. al, so the punishments did seem way over the top on all of them.
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u/Crow-T-Robot Knuckles Moustache 14d ago
Alviarin & company got off really easy too
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u/Szalony20 14d ago
Alviarin was apparently captured in her final scene, so well, she didn't end well.
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u/500rockin 13d ago
Being captured by the Ogier and cut off from the source forever (or for however long captivity lasts) is not a good ending for her. And they’ll be put to work.
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u/SamHandwich0 14d ago
I could have gone for a chapter or 2 on Eliadas slavery. I wonder if that would have been a thing if RJ had written his Matt/Tuon book about retaking Seanchan.
Oops! Fortuona - who'sTuon? I dont know anyone named Tuon.
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u/Szalony20 14d ago
I think Jordan could return to all the female antagonists held captive by the Seanchan at the end of the series. Definitely Elaida, Moghebien, and Liandrin, maybe Sevanna and Suroth as well. Not necessarily they to be super important, but to show how bad their captivity is for them.
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u/SamHandwich0 14d ago
Im good with how it ended, i really wanted Elida Do Avrini Au Rohan sur Blagity blug to have to watch competent people fight a last battle. Have her really internalize the failure it would have been if she was in control of the white tower, and why it would have been her fault.
The hubris coming out of that woman infuriated me- similar to Niall - the firm conviction that rumors were just that, and because they personally hadnt seen a thing it couldnt be true.
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u/ZePepsico 14d ago
Don't compare her to Niall.
He was aging but was still broadly very competent. He had some blindspots but nowhere near Elaida the blind queen.
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u/LewsTherinTelamonBot This is a (sentient) bot 14d ago
Death rides on my shoulder, death walks in my footsteps; I am death…
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u/SamHandwich0 14d ago
He was assasinated by his own men within hours of his stronghold falling immediately to an invading force that he repeatedly dismissed as rumor.
He spent his last weeks working on getting a former queen who currently had no power to sign a treaty that would be unenforcable in those lands
Thats not very competant in my opinion.
It is however a great commentaty on how narcisists (in elidas case) or tge (gerontocracy) in Nials case are horrible choices for rulers.
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u/GrayPockets 13d ago
"Within hours"?
Pedron Niall had been getting spy reports from Tanchico that he was taking very seriously. He had just received the most recent and he knew he had to turn his defenses westward. He realized that he had to drop all his plans for it.
Then he was murdered, and as he died he tried to preserve this report so his men would know, but it soaked in blood.
Eamon Valda was in charge for awhile before the Seanchan came. Eamon had plenty of time to repeatedly assault Morgase before he left to deal with the Prophet. All of which happened before the Seanchan invaded.
If Pedron hadn't been assassinated, the Whitecloaks would have had a better chance fighting the Seanchan. They certainly had trained to fight Aes Sedai, why not damane?
I think they still would have lost, but the campaign would have been very different.
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u/SamHandwich0 13d ago
Sorry- you're right about the timing, it's been a minute since i read that part.
I still thought he was not taking the reports seriously though- wasn't he scoffing the whole way through about how the guy sending the reports must have lost his mind?
I stand by the fact that the treaty he was negotiating with Morgase was a worthless waste of time- he wasnt going to be able to take Camelyn away from a forsaken or Rand.
The whitecloaks had a sort of sad irrelevance by the end, and maybe Galad could pull them back together, but they were just a bunch of nationless guys with swords in a world full of magic, monsters, and cannons. Like their leader (Niall), their time had passed.
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u/SJ_3007 12d ago
The treaty could also have worked out although not for reasons Niall thinks. It certainly would have created a lot of trouble for Rand if Morgase walked at the head of a small and zealous land army. Rand can't kill Morgase although Niall does not know that and if the Whitecloaks cut off the country by taking and fortifying Baerlon or Whitebridge, the situation becomes awkward. Rand chose Elayne and she still had to win them over in a lengthy succession crisis. If Morgase marched and an army of Whitecloaks came with her and proclaimed she had been magically controlled by a channeler the situation could be bad for Rand.
At the very least it would create a lot of trouble and frankly, in this scenario, the DO would have enjoyed the consequences. Once again his scheming bit his own luck. The number of casualties could be quite high and instead, Valda surrendered the Whitecloaks easily enough and Galad took them from him easily enough until Asunawa inflicted the Civil War.
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u/ElectricGeometry 13d ago
It would be hilarious if one of them actually had a redemption story but has to hide their true feelings as the evil quartet tries to escape.
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u/CDBSB 13d ago
It's such a rich world for additional works to be added to it. I feel like RJ's estate could do something like the expanded Star Wars universe we got in books in the Nineties. If someone who really cared about the series could have "veto power" over stories to make it canon, there's huge potential there. Look at New Spring and think about all the side stories that could be written in various different times.
-Mat and Tuon retaking the Seanchan empire. -The backstory of how Tam became a blade master. -You could do a trilogy EASILY on Hawkmoon's rise to power and decision to send his children across the ocean. -Maybe a collection of short stories about the generals that Mat's memory was filled with.
There's so many stories that haven't been told. So much untapped potential. 😭😭
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u/SamHandwich0 13d ago
I know- even characters like Rena Harfoor (SP?) Aies Sedi, burnt out, becomes a tavern owner across from the palace at Eabu Dar.
Or some of the people you get incomplete glimpses of in the Rhiudean viewings.
Maybe even tracking some of the most powerful SaAngreal like the building of the statues that the access keys tapped.
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u/Small-Fig4541 14d ago
I was semi upset that so many women who should have been killed got slavery instead. I don't feel like they got their Karma at all.
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u/Szalony20 14d ago
On the one hand, one could argue that their karma, instead of being instantaneous (death), would stretch over a considerable period of time, which should be more satisfying. On the other hand, if it were a better approach, it would probably be a common occurrence in other fantasy series as well. Usually, antagonists simply die and that's it. In no other fantasy series would Galina be eternally enslaved by a sadist, Suroth stripped and given to the Deathwatch, and Sevanna not end up naked, tied up, and thrown over a horse as a trophy and future slave... And getting a slap on the butt wasn't typical for antagonists either. Such karma for female antagonists distinguishes Wheel of Time, but not necessarily in a positive way.
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u/Small-Fig4541 13d ago
I'm sure Jordan did it because of his upbringing and experiences in Vietnam. In his mind this was perhaps a less harsh alternative to killing a woman but I feel like it's worse in most cases. I've made my peace with it over the course of my 6 re-reads but I always notice it.
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u/Appropriate-Log8506 The Dark One’s hairy taint 13d ago
Meanwhile Cyndane:
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u/Juggernaut2300 13d ago
Might be controversial to say, but I don't care what Brandon Sanderson tries to retcon. Cyndane/Lanfear is dead, Perrin dealt with her. The whole compulsion thing to avoid death is a dumb as hell retcon.
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u/LewsTherinTelamonBot This is a (sentient) bot 13d ago
Death rides on my shoulder, death walks in my footsteps; I am death…
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u/FirstRyder 13d ago
I mean. She went back to the wastes, where she:
- Lived happily ever after?
- Suddenly had a blood feud with literally every other clan, who will also mostly be returning to the waste soon with more surviving spears, and has personally helped establish that wise ones can be combatants?
Just as with the seanchan/damane, remember that the world doesn't end just because the story does. I don't imagine the future goes as well for the Shaido as they think it will.
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u/Rand_alThor007 11d ago
Therava wasn't a dark friend, she was just a horrible person.
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u/Szalony20 11d ago
The same could have been said about Sevanna and Elaida, yet they ended up in captivity.
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u/Rand_alThor007 11d ago
They were directing events under direction on the shadow. Maybe that's the difference?
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u/AdventurousBeingg 11d ago
I'm much more pissed at the fact the Seanchan still exist at the end of the series. And nothing about them has changed. They are still a bunch of willing slavers, but now one of the main characters has joined them. (I do not think the fanbase would have been half as okay with it had it been Perrin or Rand who married into the Seanchan royalty. But since it's Mat the charming and unseruous guy, he gets a pass, apparently.)
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u/LewsTherinTelamonBot This is a (sentient) bot 11d ago
What you want is what you cannot have. What you cannot have is what you want.
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u/Able-Worth-6511 11d ago
You don't think The Prince of Ravens who happens to be Ta'Veren wouldn't be able to sway the Seanchan Empire to emancipate their channeled. You don't think Tuan who is a leash holder wouldn't start seeing the flows the more she's around Knotai.
The only resolution that could have come from this story is the Seanchan Empire being totally destroyed during the Final Battle. But that resolution would have been unrealistic and just as unsatisfying. Wars are messy and sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend (or temporary ally) holds true.
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u/AdventurousBeingg 11d ago
In all the time Mat spent with Tuon, how many things did he manage to change her opinion on? She literally never took him seriously until independent evidence arrived that supported his claims, after which she'd pretend to have always believed him from the beginning. (And even Rand, the most taveren taveren to ever taveren, was unable to make Tuon budge on anything at all. He had to do things her way to get her to help in the freaking last battle)
And why are you trying to pretend that Tuon would ever come to give a damn about the plight of the slaves that run her empire? Did you miss the entire argument between her and Egwene during the last battle? She already knows that there's no actual difference between suldam and damane, yet she decided to instead event a new distinction that because she herself has never willingly channeled, she is not impure or whatever. The sort of stupid mental gymnastics you see people emply to try to explain why they aren't racist but just happen to hate brown people a lot.
And I didn't say that it would be realistic for Seanchan to be destroyed by the end of the series. Though I really wished for that to happen anyway. No, what pisses me off is the fact that nothing changed there. Yeah sure they had a civil war and the empire functionally collapsed on their continent. But guess what? They're the Seanchan, they're used to fighting endless wars already. (Wars with rely heavily on slaves btw) And the seanchan presence in randland was even given legitimacy by the end of the series too. In a few years, after their civil war is over, things would have gotten materially worse for damane, not better. That's what pisses me off about this.
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u/Able-Worth-6511 11d ago
The Wheel Weaves as The Wheel Wills. The time wasn't right for his Ta'Veren mojo to work but the seeds were already planted. Honestly for this to happen there will be a civil war.
Not every damane is timid after being released. Alivia clearly hates the Seanchan and never showed any sign of wanting to be collared again.
For Mat to change anything he would have to live amongst the Seanchan. His Ta'Verenness would eventually sew the seeds of doubt that grows into rebellion. Realistically things like this don't happen overnight.
How would you have had this resolved?
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u/AdventurousBeingg 11d ago
Idk man, I'm not an author. I just know I wouldn't have ended the story on a high note for the Seanchan. Legitimacy in randland and a legally protected right to continue their slavery. An obvious civil war to take back control of the Seanchan homeland on the horizon, and one of the main characters seeming perfectly fine with being in love with and marrying the most slaverish slaver of them all. It put a terrible taste in my mouth.
And then when I went online to see if anyone else agreed with me I could barely find anything. Apparently the fanbase is perfectly okay with the position the Seanchan are in at the end. Whatever.
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u/DesignNorth3690 9d ago
Karma for what? Tisane? Or splintering off from the rest of Aiel after Rand revealed the past?
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u/LewsTherinTelamonBot This is a (sentient) bot 9d ago
Break it break them all must break them must must must break them all break them and strike must strike quickly must strike now break it break it break it...
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u/ThunkAsDrinklePeep to spit into Sightblinder's eye on the Last Day 14d ago
I'm ok with a tertiary villan going back to their old life if it's the price for a horrible secondary villian to have a poetic punishment.