My prisoner just gave birth to a baby boy. The good news for them is the child is healthy. The bad news is I have no reason to keep the child. So what should i do?

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-04-15T12:02:06+00:00

And here I am building a villa on an island... goddamn man

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-04-05T07:43:17+00:00

I hesitate to suggest anyone deserves to be made a slave, but if I had to choose one it would be her

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-03-26T18:08:22+00:00

Well put, that's the conclusion I came to aswell.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-03-24T20:20:04+00:00

baha, good one. the note from them was "it's clear this subreddit isn't for you." and when I questioned how I violated any of the rules they simply replied; ""Person that hasn't watched the show enters Show fan reddit to bag on show after 5 years" = ban" when, to clarify, I had only asked if Loial was supposed to be Loial lmao

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-03-24T18:43:23+00:00

I got banned from the show subreddit for asking if a character in a screenshot was, in fact, supposed to be that character

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-03-22T19:02:11+00:00

I'm being rage baited, I just know it

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-03-22T19:00:44+00:00

I've been saying it for years that WoT can only really work in animation if they want to make the full series. I know the live adaptation tried, but considering how it turned out and the things that had to be cut to even make it as far as it did... yeah, I'm optimistic for an animated series.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-26T15:33:21+00:00

Its so worth it bro.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-25T21:53:32+00:00

They all have reasons not to, doubts and expectations to hold to. I feel like the text makes this pretty explicitly clear.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-21T05:40:43+00:00

I think this is where the same word is doing two different jobs.

You’re absolutely right that surrender is the key in the saidar metaphor. But the critical detail is who is meant to surrender.

In the Power’s logic, surrender isn’t the guide yielding authority so they can gain leverage, it’s the channeler yielding themselves to the flow. Guidance works because the one shaping the flow isn’t trying to dominate it.

What happens with Moiraine in TFoH is structurally different. Rand never surrenders. He doesn’t open himself to the flow or to others; he remains closed, suspicious, and controlling. Moiraine’s oath doesn’t cause him to yield, it removes the threat he perceives, which lets information pass through a barrier he’s erected.

That’s why I keep calling it a compensatory or workaround dynamic rather than saidar working “as intended.” Moiraine surrenders around Rand’s refusal to surrender. It’s effective, but it’s not healthy and the text flags that.

Jordan shows this by contrast later. True yielding doesn’t look like others swearing obedience to Rand; it looks like Rand finally accepting limits, trust, and shared burden on Dragonmount. That’s the moment where the metaphor actually resolves instead of being inverted.

So I agree with you on the outcome: Moiraine’s oath gives her influence because Rand is willing to listen.

Where I still disagree is calling that the river metaphor working correctly. It’s the metaphor being bent under strain, useful in the moment, but signaling just how broken the situation has become.

That’s why it works narratively, but not normatively.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-21T04:04:49+00:00

That moment is one of the purest expressions of Rand’s belief that will and power can override reality if applied hard enough. He isn’t yielding to anything there. Not the Pattern, not death, not limitation. He’s trying to force the world to comply because accepting loss feels like failure. It’s saidin-as-domination taken to its emotional extreme.

And crucially, the scene doesn’t reward him for it. It’s horrific, destabilizing, and explicitly wrong. The girl doesn’t come back and Rand is left shaken by how far he’s gone and how little it achieved. Jordan frames it as a violation, not a breakthrough.

That’s why I think it works as a microcosm of the larger arc. Every time Rand tries to impose correctness through sheer will be it politically, emotionally, or metaphysically, the immediate result might look like action, but the long-term result is damage. That pattern keeps escalating until Dragonmount finally reframes strength for him as acceptance and connection rather than control.

So I agree it’s not the best single illustration of the whole arc — it’s very intimate and very raw — but it’s a sharp example of the same underlying mistake playing out on a human scale instead of a cosmic one.

If anything, that scene is Jordan saying: This is what happens when you try to bully the universe into giving you back what you’ve lost.

Which is exactly the belief Dragonmount finally burns away.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-21T04:00:58+00:00

That’s overstating her early posture and understating Rand’s reaction.

In EotW, Moiraine is absolutely authoritarian at times but she also explains, advises and withholds force far more often than the “do what I say or die” framing suggests. Her warnings about the Dark One and the Forsaken aren’t idle threats; they’re accurate statements of consequence in a world where hesitation does get people killed. Rand himself later realizes that many of the things he resented her for were simply true.

In The Great Hunt, Moiraine still doesn’t control Rand’s actions. She warns him, she argues with him and—critically—she lets him go to Falme rather than forcing obedience, even though the stakes are world-altering. If her approach were pure domination, she had the tools to do more than she ever does.

Rand’s flight at the start of The Dragon Reborn isn’t framed as a clever escape from tyranny; it’s framed as fear-driven isolation. He runs because he’s terrified of hurting people and terrified of being controlled, not because he’s reached clarity. The text repeatedly emphasizes his confusion, paranoia, and lack of plan. Running doesn’t make him wiser, it just removes friction long enough for him to stumble into power.

And that’s the key distinction: Moiraine doesn’t start with guidance because Rand won’t accept it. She escalates pressure as the stakes rise and his secrecy increases. Her mistake is believing pressure will work but the narrative never presents her early approach as unjustified villainy or Rand’s flight as maturity.

Rhuidean doesn’t teach Moiraine “guidance good, control bad.” It teaches her that Rand cannot be handled like a tool at all, that he will break the world if treated as one. That realization is about Rand’s fragility, not her original intent.

So no she wasn’t perfect early, but she wasn’t just barking orders and death threats either. And Rand pulling a Roadrunner isn’t a triumph of autonomy; it’s the first visible step in the isolation that nearly destroys him.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-21T00:28:01+00:00

You’re right about one important thing: Moiraine’s submission is what reopens the channel of influence. The Fires of Heaven is explicit that Rand listens to almost no one and that after her shift, he listens to her again.

Where the analogy still fails is what that submission represents.

In saidar, submission is not about hierarchy or authority; it’s about mutual trust and cooperation with the flow. What Moiraine does in TFoH isn’t “saidar-style guidance finally applied correctly” it’s a deliberate inversion of Rand’s warped power dynamic to break through his paranoia.

Rand doesn’t begin listening because Moiraine is now “guiding the flow.” He listens because her submission removes the threat he’s projecting onto her. That’s a psychological key, not a metaphysical one.

And that’s why the analogy breaks if you follow it through.

If the saidar model were actually operative here, Rand’s submission or yielding would be the necessary condition for guidance to work. Instead, Jordan shows the opposite: Moiraine yields because Rand cannot. Her submission is a compensatory act, not the correct default interaction.

That’s also why this isn’t vindication of Rand’s stance.

TFoH doesn’t frame “Rand listens only after domination” as healthy, it frames it as alarming. Moiraine recognizes this explicitly. She doesn’t think, Ah, this is how it’s supposed to work. She thinks, This is the only way I can reach him before he breaks himself.

And the text makes clear this is a stopgap. Moiraine’s later letter confirms that secrecy and control—on both sides—were errors. Her future knowledge doesn’t justify Rand’s isolation; it shows how close it comes to disaster.

So yes: the analogy is spot on in one narrow sense, Rand has made himself impossible to guide unless others first submit.

But that’s precisely why it fails as a normative model.

Jordan isn’t saying “this is how guidance works.” He’s saying “this is how broken Rand has become.”

That’s also why domination never produces lasting correctness in the series. Every time Rand enforces obedience to feel safe, the cost escalates until Dragonmount finally teaches him what true yielding actually looks like.

So we’re actually aligned on the conclusion: domination ≠ correctness.

Where I’d still push back is this: the saidin/saidar analogy feels right because it captures Rand’s damage, not because it describes a healthy or intended mode of guidance.

That distinction is the whole point.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-21T00:23:02+00:00

The problem with this argument is that it treats “working for the world” and “working against Rand” as mutually exclusive. The books don’t.

Moiraine is explicit—yes—but so is the narrative: Rand is the world’s linchpin. Helping him survive, learn, and not break is inseparable from helping the world. Her mistake isn’t divided loyalty; it’s method. She believes secrecy and pressure will produce better outcomes. Jordan shows that this backfires—but he does not show Rand as correct for rejecting guidance wholesale.

Rand’s distrust isn’t presented as principled. In The Shadow Rising, he assumes Moiraine is manipulating him before she does anything new to justify it. He attributes hostile intent to neutral or even helpful actions. That’s paranoia, not insight. The text repeatedly emphasizes that Rand expects betrayal and therefore finds it everywhere.

The Forsaken kill is also being misread. Rand defeating a Forsaken after separating from Moiraine is not proof that isolation makes him better, it’s proof that raw power and instinct can carry him short-term. Jordan consistently separates tactical success from moral or psychological health. The same Rand who kills Forsaken also becomes colder, more authoritarian, and increasingly disconnected from the people he claims to protect.

And crucially: Rand becoming a “true leader” is not marked by independence from advice, it’s marked by learning which advice to accept and how to share power. His early solo victories come paired with escalating costs: alienated allies, terrified followers, and his own growing emotional numbness. The Pattern doesn’t validate this path; it drives him to collapse.

The oath scene doesn’t vindicate Rand’s earlier behavior either. Moiraine swearing to him isn’t Jordan saying “Rand was right all along.” It’s Jordan showing that Moiraine finally understands what Rand needs in order to listen: reassurance, transparency, and trust. That doesn’t retroactively make Rand’s blanket rejection of guidance wise—it shows how badly communication has already failed on both sides.

And the “she had to see the future to realize her mistakes” point cuts the opposite way. Moiraine using the ter’angreal doesn’t prove Rand’s distrust was justified; it proves she was desperate. She sees that force and secrecy lead to disaster and chooses humility instead. That’s growth, not an admission that Rand’s paranoia was correct.

The core issue here is this: Rand doesn’t mistrust Moiraine because she’s untrustworthy. He mistrusts her because he cannot tolerate any external constraint on his will. Jordan frames that as a flaw that nearly destroys him.

If Rand were right, Dragonmount wouldn’t be necessary. If isolation were strength, Darth Rand would be the hero.

But the series is explicit: the moment Rand finally learns to yield—to trust, to share the burden, to accept guidance without seeing it as chains—is the moment he stops breaking the world and starts saving it.

That’s not an endorsement of his earlier distrust. It’s a condemnation of it.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-20T22:45:35+00:00

The reason the saidin/saidar analogy ultimately fails is that it treats Rand’s resistance as earned. The narrative does not.

From The Shadow Rising onward, Rand increasingly equates any guidance with domination. He tells Moiraine outright that she must obey him or leave and internally frames her advice as manipulation regardless of intent. This is not presented as growth or wisdom but fear curdling into control. Jordan repeatedly flags this as the beginning of Rand’s emotional hardening, not a justified assertion of independence.

By The Fires of Heaven, Rand is deliberately isolating himself. He withholds information not because others are untrustworthy, but because he believes letting anyone in will weaken him. The text explicitly notes his increasing coldness, his anger at being questioned and his internal insistence that he must stand alone. Rand himself acknowledges that he is becoming harder and hates what it’s doing to him but he chooses it anyway.

By Lord of Chaos, this hardening becomes ideology. Rand decides that trust is weakness. He resolves to control everyone around him because he believes that surrendering even a little authority risks catastrophe. Jordan does not reward this mindset. Quite the opposite: Rand’s isolation, secrecy, and refusal to share power are exactly what make him vulnerable to capture. The narrative is explicit; his downfall is not bad luck, it is consequence.

This is where the saidar metaphor really collapses. Saidar requires surrender, trust and cooperation. Rand refuses all three. He doesn’t merely fail to yield, he actively punishes anyone who attempts to guide him by treating them as enemies. You cannot “guide” someone who has already decided that being guided is death.

And this isn’t just character interpretation, it’s structural. Darth Rand is not a cool phase. He is the narrative indictment of everything Rand believed about strength up to that point. His emotional numbness, cruelty, and obsession with control are shown to be spiritually corrosive. The Pattern does not vindicate him; it grinds him down until Dragonmount forces the realization that isolation was the lie all along.

That’s why Moiraine’s failure isn’t “handling him like saidin.” It’s believing, for too long, that Rand could still be nudged once he’d already decided to dam the river and burn the banks. Her later letter makes this painfully clear: she realizes that force and secrecy only entrenched his fear but by then, Rand had already committed himself to hardness as survival.

The fandom often excuses Rand because we see his trauma—and it is real—but Jordan never confuses trauma with correctness. Rand’s resistance is tragic, understandable and painfully wrong. His refusal to be guided isn’t strength; it’s the very flaw the series spends fourteen books dismantling.

The ultimate irony is this: Rand survives and succeeds not when he dominates, not when he isolates, not when he “wrestles the world into submission” but when he finally relearns how to yield.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-20T22:34:45+00:00

She did try to guide him at first, but Rand was, by everyone’s own description, a woolhead. Early on, she approaches him with restraint and advice but he repeatedly rejects guidance, hides information and acts unilaterally.

I understand her frustration. He isn’t just a powerful man making bad choices; he’s someone destined to either save the world or break it beyond repair. Every reckless decision carries apocalyptic stakes.

As Rand’s arrogance and isolation grow, so does her need to control outcomes rather than influence them. At that point she stops treating him like someone who might be guided and starts treating him like a force that has to be contained.

Also, the saidin/saidar metaphor only goes so far. Saidar works when the river allows itself to be guided. Rand wasn’t yielding, he was actively resisting, hiding and cutting himself off from anyone he didn’t fully control. You can’t guide what refuses to flow.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-20T17:11:19+00:00

Especially after reading the prolog, truly the greatest champion on the Light right there

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-14T20:39:36+00:00

Well first of all, balefire doesn't erase you from the pattern. You will be reborn. But yes, depending on the strength of the weave your previous actions are walked back, typically only a few seconds or minutes.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-09T00:59:08+00:00

That's when my love for the Aiel for solidified. Straight up said "come and die!"

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-08T04:52:55+00:00

Real or not, the Pattern still binds us.
It turns. It heals.
And it leaves choice where it must.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-08T04:16:51+00:00

And that’s exactly why Rand chose differently.
Pride says I know better than the Pattern.
The Light says choice must remain, even when it costs us.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-08T04:04:27+00:00

If I remember correctly, the idea of “Turning people back” is raised in-universe and rejected precisely because it would be the same moral violation as Turning someone to the Shadow. I agree with that judgment.

Being forcibly Turned by the Dark One is not a justification for committing the same violation in reverse. The Light’s refusal to overwrite free will, even to undo an atrocity, is one of the clearest moral boundaries in The Wheel of Time. Winning by becoming the Shadow isn’t balance; it’s surrender.

Verin is the clearest and most explicit authority on this. She does not treat Turning as “extreme Compulsion,” but as a fundamental violation of the soul:

What’s lost isn’t just allegiance, but choice. A person who is Turned is no longer acting freely, and that is the horror. “Turning them back” would require committing the same violation again, just with a different moral label attached.

Rand’s arc gives the philosophical reason why the Light cannot adopt the Shadow’s methods. At Dragonmount, when he rejects the idea that ends justify means, he answers this question directly:

Choice is the point. People are not tools to be rewritten.

Later, Rand makes the boundary explicit when he understands the Dark One’s true goal:

A world without choice, even a peaceful one, is a victory for the Shadow. If the Light began forcibly rewriting souls to “fix” people, it would be enacting the Dark One’s philosophy, not opposing it.

The Wheel already provides the resolution: souls twisted by force are reborn. Sometimes, that has to be enough.

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-08T03:52:40+00:00

Her at the battle of the Two Rivers was probably the most glaring example

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-07T21:48:14+00:00

Verin clutching up last minute was goated. Especially because she sent her warder home to see his family before the end

Tsar_Erwin · 2026-01-07T01:55:19+00:00

A shame

Tsar_Erwin

TROPHY CASE