I wonder how they raised people in the AOL? Rand refers to himself being properly raised.
That Lews Therin was apprenticed to Lanfear?
She was a full fledged Aes Sedai researcher when he was a promising student
The story line is that LTT and Lanfear dated while they were young students "just learning about their abilities".
LTT was a world leader and broke up with Mieren because she loved his position more than she loved him.
Actually, it's extremely unlikely Mierin was still LTT's lover when he rose to a leadership position, given his age at the Sealing. A woman as ambitious as Mierin would long have forced LTT to marry her if they were together for decades or centuries (neither of them really sound as if they're a real old couple, beside. It's rather all very "adolescent". It's even that appearance Lanfear used to approach Rand at first, the way she looked in her youth, when she dated LTT)
The way LTT spoke of the relationship, it began and ended in their youth. Lanfear latched on the strongest man of his generation, and eventually he realized she was not loving him for himself, but saw only his strength and skills as tools to make herself the greatest AS of the Age (and her career suggests strongly that despite her strength Lanfear didn't have the talent and human skills, and the dedication to work hard to get what she wanted probably, nor the mentality for selfless service that was a way to climb socially in the AOL, to become of the great AS of her Age). So LTT put an end to the relationship.
When LTT said Mierin loved power, he seemed to speak even more of the OP than social/political power. That makes sense, because this remains the obsession of Lanfear's life. The strongest man of the Age, her obsession with this new source of power, her obsession in the series with the CK and san'angreal etc. Lanfear was a middling scientist among geniuses as the most advanced research center. She didn't seem interested one bit in politics. She's not Barid Bel Medar. Her obsession with power is more a god-complex.
Many feel LTT was the bad guy in this, but now that we know his age, there seems to be another story there. LTT was deeply in love with Mierin, and realizing she didn't love him but was using him broke his heart. We can't know for sure, but what happened with Lanfear seems to have driven him away from (at least serious) relationships, until he met Ilyena centuries later. Until Ilyena, he may have feared the Mierins/Berelains too much to let himself fall in love.
That may be what spited Mierin so much: his loneliness pleased her ego, as he had never replaced her, until he finally met Ilyena and married her 50 years before the WOS.
I'm not so sure about that. Graendal mocked Lanfear by saying that when Lews Therin said carpet, she'd throw herself down and he'd squash her little tantrums. I'd be surprised if Graendal was referring to a relationship 350 years before that. It seemed almost recent.
And to be honest, I don't think even a psychopath like Lanfear could carry around centuries of lusty angst. That would burn out even the worst stalker. I tend to think that he dumped Lanfear about ten years before he met Ilyena, or something to that effect.
How long could Lews Therin really have been powerful enough to attract Lanfear? We know that Aes Sedai younger than 200 were considered young, and I doubt that he was successful for his whole life. IMO its most likely she started with the heavy flirting when he started to become a prodigious Aes Sedai, perhaps at the age of 300 or so, about 50 years before the Collapse started. To that end I also can't imagine him dating her for longer than a year (at the most). Her lust for power is not subtle at all.
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Fan of Lanfear
Fan of Lanfear
Nynaeve's stupidity and the test for Aes Sedai
- 07/12/2010 08:27:05 PM
4596 Views
Way to totally misunderstand the chapter
- 07/12/2010 09:39:08 PM
1885 Views
I second this
- 07/12/2010 10:10:24 PM
1548 Views
your bold is stuck. *NM*
- 07/12/2010 10:21:22 PM
669 Views
On the whole, the test is innappropriate IMO
- 07/12/2010 09:40:08 PM
1665 Views
nice post
- 08/12/2010 09:20:02 AM
1444 Views
Isn't it implied
- 08/12/2010 02:16:58 PM
1223 Views
no they were students together
- 08/12/2010 05:33:17 PM
1159 Views
No, Lanfear was older than Lews
- 08/12/2010 07:21:45 PM
1382 Views
Where on earth did you get that from?
- 08/12/2010 08:41:16 PM
1308 Views
Re: Where on earth did you get that from?
- 09/12/2010 10:27:20 AM
1325 Views
Re: Where on earth did you get that from?
- 09/12/2010 03:56:32 PM
1432 Views
I always got the impression that they were together for quiet some time
- 09/12/2010 04:34:23 PM
1354 Views
Re: I always got the impression that they were together for quiet some time
- 09/12/2010 05:43:40 PM
1318 Views
I think skill with Saidar is easy enough to judge as it's a simple matter to see the skill
- 08/12/2010 05:37:27 PM
1242 Views
I think the greens should have been on Nynaeve's side as well
- 08/12/2010 06:18:16 PM
1345 Views
Problem is they are Aes Sedai and thus more likley to be political rather than rational! *NM*
- 08/12/2010 08:52:00 PM
908 Views
Re: nice post
- 09/12/2010 01:23:50 PM
1443 Views
On the matter of strength
- 09/12/2010 08:51:36 PM
1253 Views
Strength was "prized" in the AoL ... but lack of strength was not a negative
- 12/12/2010 01:41:08 AM
1215 Views
Yes. How dare she not conform with every other fucking mindless stupid WT Aes Sedai *NM*
- 07/12/2010 11:36:52 PM
740 Views
Status is not an end in itself. *NM*
- 07/12/2010 11:52:37 PM
622 Views
They're not really stupid...
- 08/12/2010 01:00:20 AM
1343 Views
Not saying they are. It's just that most AS that we've come across
- 08/12/2010 02:20:05 AM
1046 Views
They're constantly outsmarted by a teenage girl that has spent most of her life in a damn farm.
- 08/12/2010 10:32:50 AM
1301 Views
Bah...
- 09/12/2010 10:56:24 AM
1346 Views
I did not say all Aes Sedai are stupid, I said all WT Aes Sedai are stupid.
- 10/12/2010 09:19:52 AM
1311 Views
You are not only wrong in your call,
- 08/12/2010 04:39:44 AM
1554 Views
Re: You are not only wrong in your call,
- 08/12/2010 09:13:37 AM
1555 Views
if that is the purpose of the test
- 08/12/2010 01:34:45 PM
1248 Views
minor disagreement
- 08/12/2010 05:27:51 PM
1348 Views
Yes, but you can be not-panicked and not calm of body
- 08/12/2010 06:38:56 PM
1180 Views
not really the same thing as what the AS are getting at though
- 08/12/2010 09:02:05 PM
1822 Views
that's retarded, imo
- 09/12/2010 12:21:27 AM
1341 Views
Oh it's totally stupid!
- 09/12/2010 04:37:14 PM
1303 Views
No I know why she took the job. I just don't understand why she got it
- 09/12/2010 04:52:34 PM
1249 Views
I think Elaida just smarmed up at the right time, Morgase was very young then
- 09/12/2010 05:52:29 PM
1355 Views
Oh. Well, I'm sorry then.
- 08/12/2010 06:48:50 PM
1289 Views
I think it has already been established that the purpose of the test is to ensure that
- 08/12/2010 09:59:18 PM
1050 Views
Yeah, but how does that work?
- 08/12/2010 10:24:35 PM
1191 Views
Somewhere in the sub-conscious they know what they're doing is important to them.
- 09/12/2010 12:20:47 AM
1322 Views
Even so, it wouldn't work.
- 09/12/2010 03:32:55 AM
1238 Views
I think if this thread has established anything it's that the test is severely flawed. *NM*
- 09/12/2010 09:24:48 PM
606 Views
Another headless chicken example.
- 09/12/2010 12:30:02 AM
1218 Views
the headless chicken is just such a lovely metaphor for panic
*NM*
- 09/12/2010 04:48:11 AM
549 Views
*NM*
- 09/12/2010 04:48:11 AM
549 Views
Re: Oh. Well, I'm sorry then.
- 09/12/2010 12:07:15 PM
1293 Views
You seem to have no grasp of the difference between "politic" and "right"
- 09/12/2010 02:59:50 AM
1396 Views
Re: You seem to have no grasp of the difference between "politic" and "right"
- 09/12/2010 09:26:21 AM
1259 Views
That's not the dilema
- 09/12/2010 05:23:19 PM
1462 Views
One of those few times where I completely agree with Cannoli. Give over Sidious. You're wrong.
- 09/12/2010 09:55:20 PM
1238 Views
That's not what it's really about
- 10/12/2010 05:44:12 AM
1215 Views
This test, even by its usual abysmal standards, was idiotic. It bordered on being evil.
- 09/12/2010 03:46:31 AM
1253 Views
Re: This test, even by its usual abysmal standards, was idiotic. It bordered on being evil.
- 09/12/2010 09:40:09 AM
1307 Views
Re: This test, even by its usual abysmal standards, was idiotic. It bordered on being evil.
- 09/12/2010 02:04:02 PM
1615 Views
Re: This test, even by its usual abysmal standards, was idiotic. It bordered on being evil.
- 09/12/2010 11:26:40 AM
1313 Views
One of those few times where I completely agree with fionwe1987. Give over Sidious. You're wrong.
- 10/12/2010 03:53:25 PM
1321 Views

*NM*