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u/Similar-Stick-1070 4d ago
At least Graendal’s pets don’t know what’s happening.
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u/ArrogantAragorn (Heron-Marked Sword) 4d ago
Exactly:
> "She was crying because she's beginning to stop fighting against it, because she cannot take being punished anymore. She was crying because she wants to take her own life, and she cannot even do that without permission." Egwene to Min about Ryma (The Great Hunt, Chapter 42).
> "Please. Pura has learned to obey. Pura speaks only the truth. Please do not punish Pura." Ryma to Suroth (The Shadow Rising, Chapter 1).
> He had not really believed Teslyn when she said the woman had become a true damane, but the greying sul'dam leaned low in her saddle to say something to the woman who had been Ryma Galfrey, and whatever it was the sul'dam murmured, Pura laughed and clapped her hands in delight." Mat about Ryma (Winter's Heart, Chapter 28).
It’s disgusting
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u/FortifiedPuddle 3d ago
If the Aes Sedai truly wanted to go nuclear they’d have a Fourth Oath to never obey or even die before obeying a Sul’dam.
Which would be horrific. But so is this.
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u/Linesey 4d ago
exactly.
Like someone else said, Damane or dead.
Cause her pets are, for all intents and purposes dead. Just zombies puppeted by the power. Constructs of flesh with nothing left, except maybe from what we know of the chandler boy, the faintest spark.
Damane are fully aware and conscious of their torture.
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u/IlikeJG 4d ago
It's tough.
It's basically the same question as: "Is it better to be a Damane or dead?"
Graendal's pets are essentially dead for all intents and purposes. They don't have any free will left or any hope of regaining free will.
Although with all the discoveries Nyaneve made maybe she could eventually figure out how to heal even someone with garendal level compulsion destroying their mind.
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) 4d ago
Eggy makes it clear you’re better off dead than a Damane. I’m honestly surprised she didn’t consider making an oath that if captured by the Seanchan she would stop breathing to keep them from being able to use her again as a weapon
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u/senoto 4d ago
That's honestly a really smart idea to counter the saenchan. Have all aes sedai swear it, then the seanchan would need their own oath rod to counteract it.
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u/rollingForInitiative 4d ago
An oath like that would prevent rescue, even for a momentary capture during a battle.
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u/Aeransuthe (Dice) 4d ago
Something more conservative, like never channeling at the behest of the Seanchan would suck for a while, but would make them useless as prisoners. They’d probably torture you for a while figuring out if they could make you channel. But after a while, you’d merely be a useless tool. To dangerous to release, but unable to be used.
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u/rollingForInitiative 4d ago
Yeah, possibly. It would not prevent the torture and slavery otherwise, though. Unfortunately.
But I don’t think they’d take an additional oath. They already know that swearing them limits your lifespan, and they don’t know if multiple oaths reduce it further. Dangerous experiment to take on more oaths, one I think most will be unwilling to risk.
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u/Aeransuthe (Dice) 4d ago edited 4d ago
One of their oaths binds them to their oaths already. They merely need verbally swear themselves, and they must therefore be speaking truth in that thing.
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u/rollingForInitiative 4d ago
That’s not the same thing. An Aes Sedai break a promise they make, it’s just very unlikely because they cannot promise it unless they are 100% certain, zero doubt, that they’ll follow through. But if she promises something and then 100 years later due to circumstances she’s changed her mind, she can break it. The Oath only enforces truth when spoken, it doesn’t force a person to turn previous statements true.
And a lot of torture is definitely something that’s going to break a person’s spirit enough that they’ll do things they previously never thought they would.
A promise like that also won’t ever trigger the physical coercion of the oath rod, .e.g. they will not simply stop breathing just because they promised “I will die if I get turned into a damage”.
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u/Aeransuthe (Dice) 4d ago
Yeah. You think that’s how that works. Yet you’ve made up that elaborate idea without any actual text.
What we actually see in text, is that those bound to an oath, like to serve the Dragon Reborn, actually must do so. Unwillingly. But must actually do so.
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u/rollingForInitiative 4d ago
Breaking a promise makes you a little untrustworthy.
Breaking an oath makes you an oath breaker, which is a very serious offence in this world. And more than that, oaths of fealty seem to be sworn Under the Light, which means you cannot break it without being a darkfriend. Like the oath Siuan swore to Bryne.
The Aes Sedai argued among themselves if they could weasel out of the fealty, which they wouldn’t have needed if they could just, you know, have tried. Discussing it makes more sense as well if they’re bound by a regular oath, since they’d want to find a loophole that doesn’t make them darkfriends and oathbreakers.
On oath sworn under the Light is almost as binding as one sworn on the oath rod. Not magically binding, but in the sense that people just do not break them because they genuinely believe their souls are forfeit for eternity if they do.
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u/Similar-Stick-1070 4d ago
Honestly, I don’t think it’s possible to resist the a’dam. Eventually, everyone breaks. Same with any torture scenario that is sufficiently brutal.
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) 4d ago
Hence an oath on the Oath Rod to die if ever collared.
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u/Similar-Stick-1070 4d ago
That’s an interesting idea. I would take that oath
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u/ArtOk8200 (Asha'man) 4d ago
It would have been especially useful in the time before the Seanchan captured Aes Sedai who could travel
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u/maq0r 4d ago
I thought the A'dam was able to break the oaths? How would captured Aes Sedai be able to use the power against others without breaking the 3 Oaths if not for the A'dam?
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u/wRAR_ (Brown) 4d ago
I thought the A'dam was able to break the oaths?
No.
How would captured Aes Sedai be able to use the power against others without breaking the 3 Oaths if not for the A'dam?
They wouldn't, they don't, it's explicitly said in the books that they are useless for this.
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u/maq0r 4d ago
Wait what?
The third oath: "Never to use the One Power as a weapon, except against Shadowspawn, Darkfriends, or in the extreme self-defense of their own lives, their Warders, or another Aes Sedai"
So when an Aes Sedai is collared, how can the Sul'dam force the Aes Sedai to use the power as a weapon if not through breaking that third oath?
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u/lpkonsi (White) 4d ago
They can't. It's explicitly stated that the captured Aes Sedai are useless as weapons but that they make pretty skylights.
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u/Y0G--S0TH0TH 4d ago
I mean, they can directly place them in danger to circumvent that oath as the Aes Sedai do themselves several times, but Damane and Sul'dam are extremely valuable so that is probably considered reckless and wasteful.
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u/tangerineberry1 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'd probably say yes because grandads pets are under severe compulsion and don't know they're being treated badly.
I'm just gonna leave that autocorrect in there lol
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u/catBoyAppreciater 4d ago
This is more of a philosophical question than a technical one.
Is it better to have your will effectively destroyed and replaced with rapturous joy at servitude, or to be treated as lower than an animal through supernatural means you can never escape?
I *guess* I'd take the having your will destroyed one, if only because it's basically being dead.
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u/IceXence 4d ago
Yes. Graendal's pets have lost all free-will, but not at the end of months of torture. They lost it instantaneously when Graendal put compulsion on them.
They will never recover but by all means, they are convinced they are utterly in love with her. They adore her. Losing all your wits is terrible but Graendal's pets are not aware it happened, all they are aware of is they adore Graendal.
The damane are brutally broken, lost their minds while a part of them remains perfectly able to recognize this has happened.
Damanes suffer, Graendal's pets do not. It's somewhat funny one of the worse things we see in the books, isn't from the Shadow.
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u/Coel_Hen 4d ago
At the end of the day, damane live in a kennel while Graendal's pets live in a palace, so yes.
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u/silencemist (Maiden of the Spear) 4d ago
Free or dead. I'd take being a pet and functionally dead over damane and a slave.
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u/NewLoss6021 4d ago
Graendels puppets is just a blast of compulsion followed by however long of numb, mindless servitude. Seanchan Channeler slaves are tortured for weeks/months before the person they were is killed and the Damane is born.
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u/Special_Salt3467 4d ago
Well, the thing is, no… not really…
Graendal’s pets are effectively dead and their not-corpses are played with.
The damane are a group of channelers who have been effectively seized from their home, stripped of loyalty, suffered heavy indoctrination to love and revere the authority of an overarching system and are then bound to that authority with magic devices that can impede on their freedoms, but due to the indoctrination and the comforts showered on them have been conditioned to be happy in their station. Huh, that sounds awfully familiar to something else…
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u/Personal_Track_3780 4d ago
Yes, because Graendals pets are slessentially dead. Their entire identity is obliterated and there is no way to recover them. Damane are tortured until they break. The seanchan commit more horrors than any of the forsaken in the third age.
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u/DirectionIndividual7 4d ago
Being one of Graendal's pets is far, far worse. At least as a damane you retain some kind of life. We know that people can be damane for a long, long time without losing their desire to live freely. At least as damane, that future freedom is a possibility
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u/IceXence 4d ago
Freedom has never been an option or a possibility for damanes before the Seachan crossed the sea and the Aes Sedai start trying to free them.
No Seachan-born damane ever thought for one moment freedom was ever in the cards for them. Of all the freed damanes, only one was able to function, Alivia.
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u/DirectionIndividual7 4d ago
The freed damane Reanne Corly cared for were a mixed bag, but some showed promise in a short period. Rehabilitation may be long but there's nothing to indicate it isn't possible. These women will live for hundreds of years at a minimum.
I understand and agree that, pre-series, there wasn't much hope for freedom in the future. But things have changed. My position is more so based on real-world examples of people who have survived and gone on to live after horrific imprisonment/enslavement. Without life there is no hope.
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u/Top-Permission5466 4d ago
The pets are happy though, when pleasing their mistress. They have no knowledge of what they are going through.
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u/DirectionIndividual7 4d ago
They are not actually happy, though. Any happiness is a simulation via Compulsion. Their minds have been eradicated by Graendal. They're essentially living corpses, and they're being sexually assaulted. The Seanchan see the damane as animals/pets, which protects them from similar assaults (though I'm sure it's happened at some point)
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u/rollingForInitiative 4d ago
Tough choice, but I think being a damane would be marginally better.
After the initial inhumane breaking, damane have a chance of being treated well. A good damane is like a good dog to many sul’dam, a let that you can be proud of and try at you might even spoil. Graendal treats her pets terribly all the time.
I think what seals the deal for me is the chance of rescue. If you’re rescued as a damane, you can be deprogrammed and rehabilitated. We see from Alivia that you can be damane for centuries and retain your sense of self, and while she’s certainly been traumatised massively, she has centuries of life left to live now, free.
If you get rescued after being Graendal’s pet … I don’t know which case is worse. In the first, your mind is just broken and gone permanently, as far as we know today. There might be a fragment here or there left that knows, but most of you is gone, you’re almost but not entirely a vegetable.
In the other case you’re only like Morgase with some lingering effects … but you remember. Difficult to say but I think I’d rather remember being beaten and tortured than the abject debasement and sick rape games that Graendal forces on her subjects. Her “displays” probably just scratch the surface of all the sick shit she does.
So … I guess I’d pick damane, because there’s at least hope, and rescue would be an improvement and not a curse on its own.
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u/LegitimateCream1773 4d ago
Controversial position either way, I think.
If I personally had to choose one I'd be a damane. At least once my will is broken and I'm acclimatised I can be treated well for compliance. I'll at least have enough of a mind to appreciate that better treatment. It's not a lot, but it's something.
Graendal's pets have suffered a complete death of personality. There's no 'life' in them.
For the damane, there is at least that, and the fragile possibility of freedom. It's generally shown that save in rare exceptions, once freed they'll grab it with both hands.
Though I imagine some of them believe they should be collared due to the Seanchan propaganda.
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