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Data Graham posted:I always thought the "you will marry the daughter of the nine moons" thing turning out to be just "oh here is a character whose literal honorific/title is Daughter of the Nine Moons" was just utterly I thought it was funny, making the prophesy sound like an inscrutable riddle but it turns out it was quite straightforward, just no one had met the person in question yet.
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Sep 26, 2023 15:09
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CainFortea posted:They weren't born free, and conditioned by literally everyone that *if* it comes up, they pose a danger to themselves and their family. American slaves literally had entire religious dominations created to reiterate their subhuman nature. Black people are still dealing with the awful propaganda of their supposedly inevitable violent nature, and you can bet that it was a thousand times worse during slavery.
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Sep 26, 2023 15:13
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Shageletic posted:That depends. I know Libyan, and Egyptians that are plenty black by our western notions. But it's different out there, in a very complicated fashion.
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Sep 26, 2023 15:43
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Shageletic posted:I've never been comfortable with how slavery is portrayed in the WoT series. Slaves don't uniformly accept their fate by being "broken". They fight back and escape, thru antiquity up to 1865. And slave owning societies are constantly floundering due to the intrinsic instability of trying to keep their control. Something we don't see in Randland and apparently Seanchan. I think having a magical collar that literally forces you to do your masters will or extreme pain is easily applied helps in Randland. They literally can’t touch their own “leashes.” Your sul’dam can also tell your feelings and if you’ve tried to channel while they were away.
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Sep 26, 2023 15:51
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KilGrey posted:I think having a magical collar that literally forces you to do your masters will or extreme pain is easily applied helps in Randland. They literally can’t touch their own “leashes.” Your sul’dam can also tell your feelings and if you’ve tried to channel while they were away. We also know that rebellions are a *constant* in mainland Seanchan. What we're seeing isn't the empire in normal operation, we're seeing the militarized front line.
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Sep 26, 2023 15:58
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th3t00t posted:The US Census classifies people from every Northern African and Middle-eastern country as white. Are there minority racial groups that would be considered black in those countries? Certainly. But the majority are white. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure we're discussing skin pigmentation, not the modern construct of race and how the US Census categorizes it. I live and work in MENA and I can assure you there's plenty of folks here that aren't just "tanned white people", including those of Arab and Azamigh descent.
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Sep 26, 2023 16:06
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th3t00t posted:The US Census classifies people from every Northern African and Middle-eastern country as white. Are there minority racial groups that would be considered black in those countries? Certainly. But the majority are white. I was just saying that I personally know Arabs that would classify as black here in the States and nothing more, I'm not looking to get into a larger racial discussion in a thread about a series of fantasy novels considering how deep the whirlpools of that discussion go, esp the argument of whether Arabs count as white or not. KilGrey posted:I think having a magical collar that literally forces you to do your masters will or extreme pain is easily applied helps in Randland. They literally can’t touch their own “leashes.” Your sul’dam can also tell your feelings and if you’ve tried to channel while they were away. Yeah along with CainFortea's points, these are just in story justifications for painting half of a fantasy world's setting with a lot less nuanced and authentic feeling brush than Jordan usually painted with. This society depends on slaves, who never revolt, in an existential manner, where someone deciding to put a leash on leash bearers neck, can knock it all down, and this hasn't occurred publicly for a thousand years. There's no real world analogue to this, where alot of Jordan's strength comes from pulling from history, like the struggle between aristocratic houses, and philosophy, i.e. eastern beliefs regarding reincarnation and Ying yang. It just feels kinda weak.
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Sep 26, 2023 16:06
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Shageletic posted:This society depends on slaves, who never revolt, in an existential manner, where someone deciding to put a leash on leash bearers neck, can knock it all down, and this hasn't occurred publicly for a thousand years. Well, that's what the slaveholders keep saying. We know a lot of received wisdom in the Empire is not actually true.
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Sep 26, 2023 16:13
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It is supposed to be ahistorical. The world is broken not just geographically. You see this in lots of other cultures. look at tear. They're in the same kind of unsustainable culture that has lasted far longer than it ever should have given historical references. The aiel are also stuck. And it takes a truth coming out from the shadow to break them of it. I think it's just a geopolitical play on the theme that is so common in the books. There's plenty of people for example Rand who react poorly to trauma and just keep doubling down on it. They often times can't heal because they can't move on.
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Sep 26, 2023 16:14
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I always took the damane vs sul’dam as a commentary on how history treats mental illness and different special populations more than the generational slavery. You grow up, maybe go to war, have horrible ptsd, and some people “spark/snap” and become a danger to their community so we confine/commit/leash them. It just seemed more of a fit for RJ’s lived experience. It can also be a commentary on the horrors of slavery.
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Sep 26, 2023 16:15
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:We also know that rebellions are a *constant* in mainland Seanchan. What we're seeing isn't the empire in normal operation, we're seeing the militarized front line. Yeah it's not extremely prominent but the seanchan army povs generally mention that all the fighting they've done prior to the randland invasion is in the form of rebellion and uprising suppression.
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Sep 26, 2023 16:17
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Well, that's what the slaveholders keep saying. We know a lot of received wisdom in the Empire is not actually true. I mean, true. We do get a skewed view. I'm just basing off my analysis on that since we don't get anything else. E: rebellions are alluded but iirc it was damanes themselves rising up never was mentioned. Shageletic fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 26, 2023 |
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Sep 26, 2023 16:23
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Shageletic posted:I mean, true. We do get a skewed view. I'm just basing off my analysis on that since we don't get anything else. the one PoV we get from a damane who hates the seanchan also didn't rise up because it couldn't have worked.
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Sep 26, 2023 16:41
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i got the impression the seanchan empire was written militarily/politically to be similar to the late roman empire. ostensibly a monarch with absolute sovereignty and domination over a huge land mass covering many different cultures who were then pulled under the "Roman" umbrella, but with the imperial core slowly losing its grip over the further out cultures, who are constantly rebelling and setting up their own governments. they probably had their own version of hadrian's wall, and i bet if jordan had gotten to make a seanchan book we would've seen more direct references to that sort of thing. relatedly why the seanchan empress had chosen that time for a huge military adventurism campaign
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Sep 26, 2023 16:55
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withak posted:I thought it was funny, making the prophesy sound like an inscrutable riddle but it turns out it was quite straightforward, just no one had met the person in question yet. Didn't Turak mention the court of the nine moons to Fain in tgh? Or maybe Suroth at one point to someone else?
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Sep 26, 2023 17:49
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silvergoose posted:Didn't Turak mention the court of the nine moons to Fain in tgh? Or maybe Suroth at one point to someone else? Yes. We find out about the Nine Moons even before Mat receives the prophecy. You might not know that it's a direct reference to the Empress, but if you've been paying attention you do know it's got something to do with the Seanchan.
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Sep 26, 2023 17:53
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Plus when Mat gets that prophecy they're telling him all kinds of poo poo to get him to leave. They're basically at the "her name is Sarah, she lives at 109 west beltline, please gtfo" stage with him
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Sep 26, 2023 18:08
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Also it's very common throughout the books that prophecies are useless. This one is just useless in a weirder way.
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Sep 26, 2023 18:08
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My read on the whole collars on sul'dam thing was that it may have happened accidentally from time to time but there's just so much cultural inertia around the damane that it gets quickly buried for another century or two. It's been a while but iirc the sul'dam that it happens too goes back and forth on if she should just die with this knowledge instead of revealing it and potentially destabilizing the empire. It wasn't until Tuon's guard/interrogator guy basically stumbled on to her that it finally leaked.
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Sep 26, 2023 18:15
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KilGrey posted:I think having a magical collar that literally forces you to do your masters will or extreme pain is easily applied helps in Randland. They literally can’t touch their own “leashes.” Your sul’dam can also tell your feelings and if you’ve tried to channel while they were away. Yeah, if we want to compare Seanchan slavery to real-world slavery we should be comparing the "mundane" slaves they also keep, who are bound by nothing more than social norms and fear of punishment. They're not shown as thoroughly broken to the core the way damane are.
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Sep 26, 2023 18:18
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Killer robot posted:Yeah, if we want to compare Seanchan slavery to real-world slavery we should be comparing the "mundane" slaves they also keep, who are bound by nothing more than social norms and fear of punishment. They're not shown as thoroughly broken to the core the way damane are. Did a Google search for slavery in ancient Rome, and other than the expected slave rebellions there was also this quote:Running away was less dangerous than rebellion, but it was still a hazardous enterprise. Slave-catchers apart, Roman law forbade the harbouring of fugitives, so slaves on the run were always in danger and if caught could be savagely punished. To many therefore it must have made sense not to risk life and limb by running away, but to carry out acts of wilful obstruction or sabotage that harmed slave-owners' interests at minimal risk to themselves. https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/slavery_01.shtml#:~:text=Top-,Slave%20rebellions,one%20point%20threatened%20Rome%20itself. A society where slaves gladly and obediently accept their lot, as a whole, has no counterpart historically. Their societies always teeter on their resentments and resulting reprisals by the slave owning caste.
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Sep 26, 2023 19:38
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It's probably also worth noting that one of the most prominent Damane in the books, who was born and raised in Seanchan and on the leash, is Alivia. She loving hates everything about the Damane system, never fully broke after 400 years, and wants to kill all the Sul'dam. Add that to the constant references to rebellions and the Super Inquisition they operate to try and enforce the weird social morays, and its pretty easy to see that the image the Seanchan present of a unified empire with a uniformly broken slave caste of both channelers and non-channelers is a lie.
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Sep 26, 2023 20:07
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Shageletic posted:Did a Google search for slavery in ancient Rome, and other than the expected slave rebellions there was also this Yep, exactly. There's a reason why the empire that's ruled a unified continent for 200 years has not just an elite imperial guard and an expansive secret police, but also a massive army full of seasoned veterans. And it's right in the text why it's not just a well-backed but fundamentally green expeditionary force crossing the ocean: the Seanchan Empire is in the business of regularly crushing uprisings, some of them large and bloody.
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Sep 26, 2023 20:45
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Yeah that all makes sense. I just wish we got a better sense of it occurring based on their slavery practices. Or just a deeper dive than what we got. What we get in the text is whole hearted acceptance of slavery by Seanchan slaves and damane, and even those sufficiently "broen", to the extent we have multiple PoVs where people are sadly telling the main character there was no point in rescuing them. It takes away their agency, and doesn't ring true. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
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Sep 26, 2023 21:02
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There's also the literal suicides when their master died.
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Sep 26, 2023 21:04
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silvergoose posted:There's also the literal suicides when their master died. That's some weird poo poo. In the absence of historical examples of similar behavior I'm a gonna blame systematized compulsion of some kind.
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Sep 26, 2023 21:15
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I think it was supposed to evoke seppuku, maybe? Their honor tied to their masters life. It kinda never came up again though after tgh so idk
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Sep 26, 2023 21:16
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The Seanchan storyline is always going to feel bad because it's incomplete. The end of the series is a geographically divided land with one half a free people and another half a slave state. A loose confederation of states brought together for common cause against a greater threat. It's setup a lot like America was post revolution and feels like a reckoning was due, but will never see it through now due to Jordans death. I think if Jordan lived we would have seen the end of the damane, but now all we can do is speculate.
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Sep 26, 2023 21:25
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silvergoose posted:There's also the literal suicides when their master died. Literally a thing that happened in Japan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junshi
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Sep 26, 2023 21:41
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Shageletic posted:Yeah that all makes sense. I just wish we got a better sense of it occurring based on their slavery practices. Or just a deeper dive than what we got. What we get in the text is whole hearted acceptance of slavery by Seanchan slaves and damane, and even those sufficiently "broken", to the extent we have multiple PoVs where people are sadly telling the main character there was no point in rescuing them. It takes away their agency, and doesn't ring true. Leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Sanguinia posted:It's probably also worth noting that one of the most prominent Damane in the books, who was born and raised in Seanchan and on the leash, is Alivia. She loving hates everything about the Damane system, never fully broke after 400 years, and wants to kill all the Sul'dam.
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Sep 26, 2023 21:48
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:That's some weird poo poo. In the absence of historical examples of similar behavior I'm a gonna blame systematized compulsion of some kind. I believe there was an Indian practice of widows voluntarily immolating themselves on their husband's funeral pyre. Humans do all sorts of weird hosed up things to themselves because of social conventions.
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Sep 26, 2023 22:07
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The books show a caste system with the ability for advancement unless you happen to be one power adjacent where you will always be desired only for your labor. Services under the blood (capital) are always demonstrating force or status. The population at large does not need to give a gently caress and has stability compared to the rest of Randland which is the miss from Jordan, but is a good representation of the liberal. The various dark friends (terrorists) are also a population that rejects their status quo. The future books planned really would have only been a referendum on the one power aspect. I don't think the systems of indentured service in Randland are really different, except for the aiel
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Sep 26, 2023 22:11
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silvergoose posted:There's also the literal suicides when their master died. There's a pretty clear divide between being a SLAVE and being a DAMANE in Seanchan society. Damane are treated as animals, no different from a horse except in their relative value. Da'covale, on the other hand, while still chattel, can enjoy a certain degree of privilege and even deference from free people depending on the rank of the master. That's not even taking into account the Soh'jin and the Deathwatch Guards, who are basically a parallel noble class despite also being slaves. Jordan mashed together American Chattel Slavery, Ancient Roman slavery and the Ottoman devsirme system that led to the creation of the Janissaries, plus a bit of that thing in ancient China where the Emperors would employ eunuchs to be their bureaucrats on the theory that they would have less ambition without the ability to have children. In reality, of course, all these systems were horrible in unique ways regardless of whatever perks certain specific individuals or even groups subjected to them managed to acquire, and so it is with the Seanchan's amalgam system. Regardless, the point is that there are tiers within the slave population, so radically different behavior by different individuals is to be expected. I don't think any Damane ever killed themselves just because a Master died, although I do remember some of them being freaked out over the prospect of freedom because they'd internalized that they were dangerous beasts or because they'd been infantilized by their sul'dam to the point of never developing any kind of emotional maturity or self-care skills.
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Sep 26, 2023 22:16
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DTurtle posted:Just wanted to point out that the text does not only show that whole hearted acceptance. Freed by an opposing army before evincing any independence. Again lacking agency and historical verisimilitude.
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Sep 26, 2023 22:54
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Shageletic posted:Freed by an opposing army before evincing any independence. Again lacking agency and historical verisimilitude. Lacking agency, okay. But are you trying to claim there is no history of someone who was enslaved and released by their enslaver's enemies?
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Sep 26, 2023 23:05
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CainFortea posted:Lacking agency, okay. But are you trying to claim there is no history of someone who was enslaved and released by their enslaver's enemies? No. My point only was that Jordan's writing of the Seanchan and their broad lack of slave agency or interest in achieving their own freedoms as we see in the text doesn't ring true or reflect how slavery was in the real wirld.
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Sep 26, 2023 23:11
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Shageletic posted:No. My point only was that Jordan's writing of the Seanchan and their broad lack of slave agency or interest in achieving their own freedoms as we see in the text doesn't ring true or reflect how slavery was in the real wirld. in the real world mind control bracelets that made you pass out if you tried to touch them were made of steel, not cuendillar
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Sep 27, 2023 00:38
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Colonel Cool posted:I believe there was an Indian practice of widows voluntarily immolating themselves on their husband's funeral pyre. Yes, sati. It still happens occasionally.
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Sep 27, 2023 01:11
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Jedit posted:Yes, sati. It still happens occasionally. I gather usually it's more "voluntarily" than voluntarily. Though was ritual suicide by Seanchan slaves a thing after those two personal attendants or whatever in TGH? I don't remember it as an ongoing thing.
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Sep 27, 2023 01:21
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Killer robot posted:Though was ritual suicide by Seanchan slaves a thing after those two personal attendants or whatever in TGH? I don't remember it as an ongoing thing. After Turok, how many Seanchan nobles die on-screen?
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Sep 27, 2023 01:38
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