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IDK if it actually has dialectical roots Cannoli Send a noteboard - 16/08/2019 12:38:24 PM


What do I mean by that title for it sounds like gibberish. I meant the power of narrative and stories and how we can create binary stories that are true, but not the best way to describe the truth.
That's sort of accurrate, although in WoT, there is an objective truth, it is simply that no one has the whole thing and getting the whole truth is not a goal, it's doing the best you can with what you do you. It's there in Pedron Niall's rules of information and what Lan tells Rand when he decides to leave Far Madding. It's also sort of there in Bashere's advice to Rand to break off the campaign against the Seanchan. Bashere didn't know everything, namely the fact that Rand had a plan for dealing with the Seanchan if they bunched up in reaction to his tactics (which is rather impressive regarding his development as a military mind, that he was a step ahead of a Great Captain), but Rand also didn't know everything, such as the conditions near Ebou Dar, or the flaw in Callandor. And he succeeds at his objective and never learns, because he's so fixated on his own personal success. The Seanchan are beaten and cowed against further moves against him.
Hegelian Dialectic comprises three stages of development:

1st) a thesis or statement of an idea (this is the side of the Good, the Light), which gives rise to a second step,
2nd) a reaction or antithesis that contradicts or negates the thesis (this is the side of Shai'tan, the Dark One),
3rd) the synthesis, a statement through which the differences between the two points are resolved. (it is resolved via one side obliterating the other, or via a new formulation that is seperate from A and B.)

But in WoT, it's not really a dialectic. There is a way things are supposed to be, and a violation of the proper order. The Dark One has no business contributing to the synthesis. This might make more sense to describe the workings of the human conflicts, but not on the metaphysical levels.
That is what we are sold in the first book, the Eye of the World. This is going to be a battle between Good and Evil and once side will win, and the world may be destroyed in the process, but then a new order will be created after the world surviving or being destroyed in the process.
And that's what happened.

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But what we learn through the books, is what side is the Light and what side the Dark is a narrative created by society and it becomes the dominant narrative for it is a self reinforcing story in a binary fashion. It is only two ways to look at the world the Thesis point of view and the Antithesis point of view.
But that's not wrong. Most people aren't defining what the Light is, or what the good side is, there is the Shadow, and for the most part, it and its components are correctly identified, the Children of the Light being an aberration in their attempts to narrowly define the Light and assign Shadow affiliations to things that are not.
But there are dozens of other ways, lots of "grey" ways as well.

Again, not in regards to the conflict with the Shadow. There is only one way to look at the Shadow and the narrative does not support or reinforce any way other than adamant opposition as being correct.

Actually, you have the dialectic a little backward. The way it plays out, the Shadow is the thesis, the idea introduced into the world, and the way things are going, the default outcome of events. The antithesis is the opposition to the Shadow, the rejection of the Shadow by everyone who is good or presented as having an acceptable point of view.


And in the end it is only through the union of opposites, but creating a new union that is different than the A and B we were presented in the first 6 or so books that victory is obtained.
Rand's specific act of channeling is an aberration and not something new. He turned the power of the Shadow against it. The True Power is gone with the Dark One, and there is no new power, no new ways of doing things. There are still just saidar & saidin at the end. The Black Tower and the White Tower are going forward more or less as their old selves, with some hope for improvement. There cannot even be synthesis in the politics of the world, rather we have a sort of Cold War established, between the absolutely antithetical perspectives of the Seanchan Empire and the rest of the world. The patch of the Dragon's Peace with the Aiel as enforcers is just that, and not a true synthesis of ideas or ways of doing things. The Aiel are still the Aiel, and the alliances are part of the old ways of thinking. Arguably, the politics are regressive, moving "backwards" from the nationalistic outlook of the Renaissance-era societies, to personal unions, and agreements among charismatic rulers and warlords. The Pact of the Griffin rests entirely on the personal connections, inheritances and relationships of Perrin & Elayne and their own, personal, agreements.
And the victory is not the type of victory that we expected in Book 1.
Eh, pretty close, considering we lacked the information to anticipate the political outcome.
Pretty much the Wheel of Time deals with Naivety and how Naivety is both a function of the individual growing up for Naivety is a lack of experience.
No, Naivety, unless you mean something else by that term with the caps, is actually rewarded by the narrative. Characters get away with a lot of revolutionary activity, precisely because they are relatively naive, because they don't know how things really work and because they attempt things the sophisticated "know" to be impossible. That's the point in Tel'Aran'Rhiod, where you are limited only by what you impose on yourself and what you "know" you can do actually holds you back.
But Naivety is also caused by a false experience being foisted upon you that is not the best way of navigating the present, these false experiences are given to us by our elders, our sages, our teachers, our society and they honestly think they know best, it is experience they think is helpful that is bound out of self truth, truth even compelled by oaths yet this truth may not be helpful.
Actually, that sort of truth is nothing more or less than collective experience. And it's useful, because while no one knows exactly what anyone else knows, or knows the whole picture, that kind of broad & general collective knowledge is very helpful as a substitute or stopgap for self-obtained knowledge, which has its own limitations, courtesy of human frailty. In fact, in the story, tradition and common sense are often rewarded and the right way to go. The mistakenly imposed self-truths, are institutionally imposed, like most of the White Tower's errors. Their traditions are pretty good, it's the facts they incorrectly assume without testing that trip them up.
It is about forming a way of rebellion yet the rebellion is not a complete rejection of the false experiences that people try to force upon you. It is about finding the middle way, the third way, whatever you want to call it that creates a new synthesis separate from the first two presented.

That's true in places, but it's also basically just compromising. But the story is very firm on the point that compromise is not the be-all and the end-all or a superior way. Sometimes it's necessary, but there are also points on which you should not compromise, and it's not just with the Shadow. One reinforced theme is the equation of accomodation and compromise with loss of self and defeat. Another point is there is no hard and fast rule, and what we call wisdom, is arguably the quality of success in choosing the right times and places for compromise or intransignence.

This is the main theme of the books.
No, the main theme of the books is that perception distorts communication and influences knowledge. The stories about what happened change, and as they change, so does peoples' understand of those events and the way the act in reaction to said events. But what actually happened does NOT change. The Tinkers' understanding of their history, and the Aiels' as well as their perception of one another as Lost, are shaped by their recollection of history and their experiences and reactions to their experiences. These perceptions are real to them, and their actions taken in regard to those perceptions have real consequences, but their beliefs are not true. They are BOTH lost and both retain part of their heritage, and the perceptions are both wrong. There is an objective truth about what the Jenn Da'shain Aiel were and the Aiel & Tinkers are both wrong about their purity of heritage. People do things because of what they believe about Rand, and his legend has a life of his own, regardless of what he does or does not do, and people have to cope with that. As one example, Elayne has to deal with the fact that people believe, with varying degrees of approval, acceptance or opprobrium, that Rand killed her mother. In other stories, that might involve decisively proving his innocence, but not in WoT. In WoT, you have to forge ahead with what you have. Elayne is initially unconvinced of her mother's death, and turns out to be right, but for several books, she is forced to act as if the death was the reality, and if she had spent her arc from tPoD through KoD insisting that Morgase was alive, it would have been a disaster for her country and reign, and to no practical point, as Morgase was too badly compromised to rule effectively. It would have been a similar mistake to try to persuade the realm of Rand's innocence, so she rolled with it. But that does not change the fact that Morgase did not die and Rand did not kill her.



Who knows if the TV show will have a satisfying experience no matter what they do, no matter if they stay true to the dozens of the themes in the book. If you were to ask 11 other RAFOites and Dragonmount people (Is Dragonmount still a thing?) what the main themes of the book are you will get completely different answers.

I don't know. Miscommunication is a pretty strong one, identified by the author himself. Gender differences is another. You aren't going to find too many people making a credible case against those or too many other themes that are as significant as they. Another very strong recurring motif is balance, and in a way, balance is anything but synthesis. Synthesis is a combination of concepts, while balance arguably requires its components to be seperate and a relationship or proportion maintained, rather than merging together. That's what saidar & saidin are all about. They don't come together or produce anything new and you can't makes something out of them both, the best you can do is use them concurrently to support or reinforce one another. There is no solution that has the benefits of saidar and saidin, and trying for an alternative is what destroyed the world in the first place.

Cannoli
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” GK Chesteron
Inde muagdhe Aes Sedai misain ye!
Deus Vult!
*MySmiley*
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