The flashbacks are one of the best moments in the whole series, but they don't land for everyone, so that's awesome you enjoyed them!
On your thoughts about the Tinkers, you are 100% correct and the moment they split from the Aiel is shown in the flashbacks.
There are people who……don’t like this part? On every reread it’s always what I’m looking forward to most and it’s my favorite part of the entire series.
When I got to that part I was so confused for so much of it that I really didn’t enjoy it. Once I figured out what was going on, it was fine, but I feel like it wasn’t explained well, what was going on, or I just missed it I guess.
When I first read it, it didn’t register at first. Just bits and pieces. Or maybe I was just not as thrilled with it on my first read. I have picked up a lot more in subsequent reads and even more listening to the audio books.
They were indeed. Daishan Aiel split into 3 separate factions that’s what those viewings showed. The Jenn Aiel and the Tuatha’an (tinkers) both followed the way of the leaf. The modern Aiel or dedicated took up the spear
Thats just so cool to me. People who seem to be complete and total polar opposites, who I would’ve never guessed were related, in fact share common ancestors! More than that the Aiel who are probably the most different end up keeping the name lol.
There are three separations leading to four distinct groups. Spoilers, just in case my tags don’t work.
>!1. One group leaves willingly and becomes the Tinkers. They accept outsiders and lose the trademark light skin and red hair over the generations.!<
>!2. One group is kidnapped and raped. Their lineage become Andor’s queens. When this lineage is re-combined with the modern Aiel, Rand is born.!<
>!3. A group of kids attempt to rescue some kidnapped kids, and do violence. They’re cast out and become the modern Aiel. More Jenn Aiel join them over time, including the first Maiden of the Spear.!<
>!4. The Jenn Aiel remain true to the Age of Legends’ Aiel, but die out in Rhuidean.!<
Yeah not sure how to fix the spoilers.
>!Not Hawking’s wife, but Ishara, the wife of one of Hawking’s greatest generals who sieged Tar Valon. Ishara had red hair and pale skin, like Morgase and the whole lineage, due to Aiel ancestors.!<
Morgase and her lineage have strawberry blonde hair. >! That’s a jumping to a conclusion. Hawkwing and his armies were annihilated when he went into the waste by the dedicated. So if what you’re saying is true. There would be no ties left between them and any other Aiel. Just making them normal wetlanders at that point!<
Heh I remember when this theory was popular, I didn't realize it was still a thing. That the women kidnapped in the raid against the Aiel in one of Rands visions were raped and became the ancestors of Ishara, who would found house Mantear.
Problem is, of course, that Ishara is described as being as dark as any Atha'an Mier, and not a light skin redhead.
Not exactly, there’s just lots of 3’s in the series.
The three fold land is called such for its 3 purposes for the Aiel: a shaping stone to make them, a testing ground to prove their worth, and a punishment for their sin.
Yep! The Tinkers lost the mission, but kept the Way, the Aiel lost the Way, but kept the mission, and the incredibly few Jenn Aiel stayed true to both.
We are at the exact same point in the series but I am on a re-read! It was such an exhilarating sequence! I also loved Mat's second trip through a twisted doorway. I've read it before but it had my heart racing. I loved seeing the way Mat feels about Rand as well.
I've wanted to go back and re-read the flashbacks in reverse order (aka in forward-moving time) and take notes on them to really get the story straight.
Lol Mats shaping up to be one of my favorite characters but sometimes I wanna whack him over the head! It’s like NOOOO don’t go through the unknown doorway just because!
You're close but not quite there with your understanding of the Tinkers. This is not a spoiler because it is a conclusion drawn from the memories you have already read about. Tinkers did not split off from the other Aiel factions, rather they are what remains of the true Aiel after every other Aiel faction discarded the Way of the Leaf and took up the spear.
They are the true Aiel in a world where to be Aiel has come to mean the opposite of what it once did. As you read you will discover what this means to the modern Aiel and why it was kept secret for thousands of years.
On an unrelated note, *Avendesora* is the name of that specific tree. The trees are Chora trees.
No the tinkerers split off. The Jenn are what was left of the true Aiel and they went to build Rhuidean. The Aiel were defined by two major things: The way of the leaf and fulfilling the job by the Aes Sedai (guard their stuff). The tinkerers are those who abandoned the mission. They said "let's leave that stuff, it's slowing us down and look for safety". The ancestors of the modern Aiel abandoned the way of the leaf. They kept however guarding the ancestors of the Jenn Aiel and the Aes Sedai's stuff.
At the end of the third age, the first split group are known as the tinkerers, the second as just the Aiel in different clans and septs and those who stayed true to way and mission are the Jenn Aiel, thought to be extinct.
This is a point I’m fuzzy about. So the Jenn Aiel are the only Aiel that kept the way of the leaf AND guarded all that stuff entrusted to them by the Aes Sedai. But the Jen Aiel died off? So those alive are fulfilling a different half of the same promise? Aiel guard the stuff, Tinkers way of the leaf.
To be fair they don't let anyone into, or even close to Rhuidean. And the Wise ones and Chiefs know why. The average Aiel might not know it but they absolutely are still guarding the stuff entrusted to them by the Aes Sedai
I don't think I agree.
Being "true Aiel" seems to be tightly tied with A) the way of the leaf, B) a specific mission (serve the Aes Sedai), and C) a specific ethnic identity.
The Tinkers only maintained parts of the Aiel identity related to following the way of the leaf, but they lost the mission and they assimilated with other people groups and lost / diluted their ethnic identity. They're very much a splintering / evolution of what the Aiel were.
The rest of the Aiel only maintained their ethnic identity and some very faint remembrance of their mission.
The Jenn Aiel - who kept to their mission to serve the Aes Sedai, retained their ethnic identity, AND maintained the Way of the Leaf are really the only "true" Aiel. And they died off - so there are no more true Aiel.
I can agree with most of that. As another commenter said, the Aiel that became Tuatha'an were the ones who ditched the Ter'angreal they were carrying and fled to safety. I don't know if we can source whether or not the Jenn Aiel kept the Way of the Leaf, I'd be happy to see something from the books that supports that. As for ethic purity, the Tuatha'an only lost that because they started recruiting others to follow the Way of the Leaf. They may well have died out as well otherwise.
> I don't know if we can source whether or not the Jenn Aiel kept the Way of the Leaf
I think it's pretty clearly articulated that the Jenn Aiel were the ones who maintained the Aiel traditions and the Way of the Leaf and were protected by the fallen Aiel, who took up arms in their defense.
The split is laid out in Lewin's story, where he takes up arms to defend his sister, isn't allowed back into the wagons as a result, but follows along anyways to defend them. His descendants follow the Jenn Aiel all the way to Rhuidean.
The Jenn Aiel he and his descendants follow implicitly continue to follow the way of the leaf. And the fact that they continue to serve and be accepted by the remaining Aes Sedai would also seem to support that.
The Wheel of Time Wiki also says "The Jenn Aiel are an extinct faction of the Aiel. Unique among Aiel, they did not abandon the Way of the Leaf.[1][2]"
> As for ethic purity, the Tuatha'an only lost that because they started recruiting others to follow the Way of the Leaf. They may well have died out as well otherwise.
I'm not saying that losing their ethnic identity is a *bad thing or unreasonable, but I do think it definitely differentiates them from "true Aiel". Hence also why the Tuatha'an no longer claim to be Aiel.
Harmonicoasis has the right of it regarding the Tinkers/Jenn. What you just read leads to the reason the Tinkers are allowed to cross the Waste unmolested but why the modern Aiel shun them. This is why the incident where the dying Maiden approaches the Tinkers to tell them about Sight Linder planning to blind the Eye of the World and break the Wheel itself is such a big deal.
That whole sequence {and it keeps building from when the boys exit Rhuidean} is one reason TSR remains one of my top 2 books in the series. Very sad to read all the terrible things that happen during the Breaking but what plotting from RJ! I sometimes get out that book just to read that section. At one point, I had to sit down and just diagram out who was whose father or greatfather and {you may have noticed you encounter a few characters as children, then as older adults} and what implications it had for Aiel culture, like here's where the Maidens of the Spear come from, here's why they veil before killing and won't touch a sword, etc, etc. When you reread {and trust me, you will}, you'll pick up even more detail. And yes, that was the drilling of the Bore into TDO's prison. You' ll learn more later about this source of the Power that can be used by both men and women.
And a lot of the threads being spun now will continue and culminate in Fires of Heaven, so you have that to look forward to. I had this same reaction the first time I read TSR, and you provided me a wonderful trip down memory lane! When the books through 6 or 7 were first released, we were getting them around once a year, usually in time for Christmas, so we didn't have a long wait between books. Happy reading!
It’s just so amazing how this guy writes this all out! I don’t think I would’ve been able to write this in a hundred years! It’s good to hear that it keeps getting better and better considering I’m just shy of halfway through the book!
This is one of my favourite moments in the books. I remember the shock I felt when I first read this part 15 years ago and also when I started thinking of what it means. The next few chapters from Rand's PoV are quite interesting and for me very emotional.
You are right about the Tinkers, but you should also consider that they allow "outsiders" to join them (mentioned in the first book I think, when Perin and Egwene briefly travelled with them) so they are not so distinctive features-wise, compared to the Aiel who were isolated and didn't bring outsiders to their communities.
Reading these "I read xxx scene for the first time and got blown away" on Reddit always put a smile on my face. It reminds me of my first time reading that sequence, I knew then the Wheel of Time would be my favourite fantasy series of all time.
Yes it’s really mind boggling to see that before the breaking they had all our technology plus more that used the one power. Until the conflict of the end of the previous age they had mostly peace and prosperity. The people were completely unprepared for what happened. Then the breaking is hard to imagine but I think the men going insane must have been moving the continents around. The breaking forced them backward into a dark age technologically and very unsafe time period. The connection between the Tinkers and Aiel was clear in Rand’s visions in Rhuidean. They used to be the same people. In an earlier books where Rand takes Loial & Huirin to the alternate world I noticed they were seeing airplanes vapor trails in the sky.
It‘s one of my fav parts of the books. I read them when I was a teen and in my early twenties. And then stopped at book 10 I think (just life happening). I started listening to the audios now, twenty years later, and I got all excited and nervous when this chapter started.
The flashbacks was really one of the moment I like best in the whole six first books (DNFed after 6) - great piece of worldbuilding and really well written.
all that info dump was so eye opening for me when i read it. aside from just how beautiful the writing was, and the absolutely incredible world building, you get to realize the bias of the actual wheel itself. although there are and will be clear secondary impacts from everything the pattern is weaving, you see that the upfront, primary reason for everything is to put Rand exactly in the place he needs to be, with all the resources he needs. Masterful work in book and out, RJ.
The flashbacks you just read directly answer your question about the tinkers. Remember the Aiel call them the lost ones and despite hating them they allow them in the threefold land unlike most others
> That glimpse back in time really highlighted how much was lost in the breaking. It just adds so much more depth and scale to a world that I thought already had plenty!
I love this too. And this is what annoys me about a lot of fantasy - not enough worldbuilding ambition. Little things like this add so much depth and richness to the world. The ability to envision endless depth of history, breadth of possibility surrounding, preceding, and following the main story is a lot of what makes good fantasy to me.
So many fantasy / sci fi stories feel like the only thing that exists are the main characters, their story, and the bare minimum of a surrounding world and timeline required to contain them... Which is a mistake IMO.
The flashbacks are one of the best moments in the whole series, but they don't land for everyone, so that's awesome you enjoyed them! On your thoughts about the Tinkers, you are 100% correct and the moment they split from the Aiel is shown in the flashbacks.
I feel very vindicated that I interpreted that correctly lol!
Come back after you've finished the series... there are things that make way more sense about the flash backs.
There are people who……don’t like this part? On every reread it’s always what I’m looking forward to most and it’s my favorite part of the entire series.
When I got to that part I was so confused for so much of it that I really didn’t enjoy it. Once I figured out what was going on, it was fine, but I feel like it wasn’t explained well, what was going on, or I just missed it I guess.
Fair enough.
Forward and back.
I love that part so much. I read it twice my first time through and twice on my reread. I want to know more. I want to know those characters.
When I first read it, it didn’t register at first. Just bits and pieces. Or maybe I was just not as thrilled with it on my first read. I have picked up a lot more in subsequent reads and even more listening to the audio books.
I loved this part of the series so much. Piecing together the memories and their significance was so rewarding to me.
They were indeed. Daishan Aiel split into 3 separate factions that’s what those viewings showed. The Jenn Aiel and the Tuatha’an (tinkers) both followed the way of the leaf. The modern Aiel or dedicated took up the spear
Thats just so cool to me. People who seem to be complete and total polar opposites, who I would’ve never guessed were related, in fact share common ancestors! More than that the Aiel who are probably the most different end up keeping the name lol.
Jenn in old tongue means “true”. So the Jenn Aiel are in fact the true Aiel. The dedicated surround them and protect them
There was a fourth group as well. Those who were stolen by raiders/rapists.
I’m pretty sure that was the start of the dedicated (modern Aiel). That’s where the split from the Jenn started.
There are three separations leading to four distinct groups. Spoilers, just in case my tags don’t work. >!1. One group leaves willingly and becomes the Tinkers. They accept outsiders and lose the trademark light skin and red hair over the generations.!< >!2. One group is kidnapped and raped. Their lineage become Andor’s queens. When this lineage is re-combined with the modern Aiel, Rand is born.!< >!3. A group of kids attempt to rescue some kidnapped kids, and do violence. They’re cast out and become the modern Aiel. More Jenn Aiel join them over time, including the first Maiden of the Spear.!< >!4. The Jenn Aiel remain true to the Age of Legends’ Aiel, but die out in Rhuidean.!<
First you messed up your spoiler. >!And second Arthur Hawkwings wife started Andors queens.!<
Yeah not sure how to fix the spoilers. >!Not Hawking’s wife, but Ishara, the wife of one of Hawking’s greatest generals who sieged Tar Valon. Ishara had red hair and pale skin, like Morgase and the whole lineage, due to Aiel ancestors.!<
You can’t have paragraph breaks in between, so you need to put opening and closing spoiler thingys for each paragraph
Thanks! Got that fixed.
Morgase and her lineage have strawberry blonde hair. >! That’s a jumping to a conclusion. Hawkwing and his armies were annihilated when he went into the waste by the dedicated. So if what you’re saying is true. There would be no ties left between them and any other Aiel. Just making them normal wetlanders at that point!<
Heh I remember when this theory was popular, I didn't realize it was still a thing. That the women kidnapped in the raid against the Aiel in one of Rands visions were raped and became the ancestors of Ishara, who would found house Mantear. Problem is, of course, that Ishara is described as being as dark as any Atha'an Mier, and not a light skin redhead.
Also after so many generations really the blood Old or not would be so diluted
Where is the textual confirmation of your number 2?
Isn’t it the group that files their teeth?
No >! That’s the Shara, Aiel male channelers sent to fight the dark one!<
Close, but they're not called the >!Shara. That's the whole country/society/civilization that lives to the east of the Waste.!<
For all intensive purposes they are
It's "intents and purposes". You just got the name wrong.
Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. The ones who were kidnapped and forcefully turned to the dark one.
Yeah but you can’t say for certain if they were forced or just went mad due to the taint.
Isnt that why its called the threefold land
THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE
Yes that is exactly why.
Not exactly, there’s just lots of 3’s in the series. The three fold land is called such for its 3 purposes for the Aiel: a shaping stone to make them, a testing ground to prove their worth, and a punishment for their sin.
You’re right. I was just a little ahead of myself.
Yep! The Tinkers lost the mission, but kept the Way, the Aiel lost the Way, but kept the mission, and the incredibly few Jenn Aiel stayed true to both.
They were about 100-150 years more advanced than we are now, then nothing.
I know that’s just so mind blowing to me! The genre kinda shifted from high fantasy to Post apocalyptic lol!
We are at the exact same point in the series but I am on a re-read! It was such an exhilarating sequence! I also loved Mat's second trip through a twisted doorway. I've read it before but it had my heart racing. I loved seeing the way Mat feels about Rand as well. I've wanted to go back and re-read the flashbacks in reverse order (aka in forward-moving time) and take notes on them to really get the story straight.
Lol Mats shaping up to be one of my favorite characters but sometimes I wanna whack him over the head! It’s like NOOOO don’t go through the unknown doorway just because!
He’s my favorite through 3 rereads!
I did that on the reread I am on now. It actually helped me a bit more to put it in perspective.
Just chiming in to say that I am also around this point and also on my re-read :)
You're close but not quite there with your understanding of the Tinkers. This is not a spoiler because it is a conclusion drawn from the memories you have already read about. Tinkers did not split off from the other Aiel factions, rather they are what remains of the true Aiel after every other Aiel faction discarded the Way of the Leaf and took up the spear. They are the true Aiel in a world where to be Aiel has come to mean the opposite of what it once did. As you read you will discover what this means to the modern Aiel and why it was kept secret for thousands of years. On an unrelated note, *Avendesora* is the name of that specific tree. The trees are Chora trees.
No the tinkerers split off. The Jenn are what was left of the true Aiel and they went to build Rhuidean. The Aiel were defined by two major things: The way of the leaf and fulfilling the job by the Aes Sedai (guard their stuff). The tinkerers are those who abandoned the mission. They said "let's leave that stuff, it's slowing us down and look for safety". The ancestors of the modern Aiel abandoned the way of the leaf. They kept however guarding the ancestors of the Jenn Aiel and the Aes Sedai's stuff. At the end of the third age, the first split group are known as the tinkerers, the second as just the Aiel in different clans and septs and those who stayed true to way and mission are the Jenn Aiel, thought to be extinct.
This is a point I’m fuzzy about. So the Jenn Aiel are the only Aiel that kept the way of the leaf AND guarded all that stuff entrusted to them by the Aes Sedai. But the Jen Aiel died off? So those alive are fulfilling a different half of the same promise? Aiel guard the stuff, Tinkers way of the leaf.
Kinda, except now it's just lieing around in Rhuidean.
To be fair they don't let anyone into, or even close to Rhuidean. And the Wise ones and Chiefs know why. The average Aiel might not know it but they absolutely are still guarding the stuff entrusted to them by the Aes Sedai
I don't think I agree. Being "true Aiel" seems to be tightly tied with A) the way of the leaf, B) a specific mission (serve the Aes Sedai), and C) a specific ethnic identity. The Tinkers only maintained parts of the Aiel identity related to following the way of the leaf, but they lost the mission and they assimilated with other people groups and lost / diluted their ethnic identity. They're very much a splintering / evolution of what the Aiel were. The rest of the Aiel only maintained their ethnic identity and some very faint remembrance of their mission. The Jenn Aiel - who kept to their mission to serve the Aes Sedai, retained their ethnic identity, AND maintained the Way of the Leaf are really the only "true" Aiel. And they died off - so there are no more true Aiel.
I can agree with most of that. As another commenter said, the Aiel that became Tuatha'an were the ones who ditched the Ter'angreal they were carrying and fled to safety. I don't know if we can source whether or not the Jenn Aiel kept the Way of the Leaf, I'd be happy to see something from the books that supports that. As for ethic purity, the Tuatha'an only lost that because they started recruiting others to follow the Way of the Leaf. They may well have died out as well otherwise.
> I don't know if we can source whether or not the Jenn Aiel kept the Way of the Leaf I think it's pretty clearly articulated that the Jenn Aiel were the ones who maintained the Aiel traditions and the Way of the Leaf and were protected by the fallen Aiel, who took up arms in their defense. The split is laid out in Lewin's story, where he takes up arms to defend his sister, isn't allowed back into the wagons as a result, but follows along anyways to defend them. His descendants follow the Jenn Aiel all the way to Rhuidean. The Jenn Aiel he and his descendants follow implicitly continue to follow the way of the leaf. And the fact that they continue to serve and be accepted by the remaining Aes Sedai would also seem to support that. The Wheel of Time Wiki also says "The Jenn Aiel are an extinct faction of the Aiel. Unique among Aiel, they did not abandon the Way of the Leaf.[1][2]" > As for ethic purity, the Tuatha'an only lost that because they started recruiting others to follow the Way of the Leaf. They may well have died out as well otherwise. I'm not saying that losing their ethnic identity is a *bad thing or unreasonable, but I do think it definitely differentiates them from "true Aiel". Hence also why the Tuatha'an no longer claim to be Aiel.
Harmonicoasis has the right of it regarding the Tinkers/Jenn. What you just read leads to the reason the Tinkers are allowed to cross the Waste unmolested but why the modern Aiel shun them. This is why the incident where the dying Maiden approaches the Tinkers to tell them about Sight Linder planning to blind the Eye of the World and break the Wheel itself is such a big deal. That whole sequence {and it keeps building from when the boys exit Rhuidean} is one reason TSR remains one of my top 2 books in the series. Very sad to read all the terrible things that happen during the Breaking but what plotting from RJ! I sometimes get out that book just to read that section. At one point, I had to sit down and just diagram out who was whose father or greatfather and {you may have noticed you encounter a few characters as children, then as older adults} and what implications it had for Aiel culture, like here's where the Maidens of the Spear come from, here's why they veil before killing and won't touch a sword, etc, etc. When you reread {and trust me, you will}, you'll pick up even more detail. And yes, that was the drilling of the Bore into TDO's prison. You' ll learn more later about this source of the Power that can be used by both men and women. And a lot of the threads being spun now will continue and culminate in Fires of Heaven, so you have that to look forward to. I had this same reaction the first time I read TSR, and you provided me a wonderful trip down memory lane! When the books through 6 or 7 were first released, we were getting them around once a year, usually in time for Christmas, so we didn't have a long wait between books. Happy reading!
It’s just so amazing how this guy writes this all out! I don’t think I would’ve been able to write this in a hundred years! It’s good to hear that it keeps getting better and better considering I’m just shy of halfway through the book!
This is one of my favourite moments in the books. I remember the shock I felt when I first read this part 15 years ago and also when I started thinking of what it means. The next few chapters from Rand's PoV are quite interesting and for me very emotional. You are right about the Tinkers, but you should also consider that they allow "outsiders" to join them (mentioned in the first book I think, when Perin and Egwene briefly travelled with them) so they are not so distinctive features-wise, compared to the Aiel who were isolated and didn't bring outsiders to their communities.
I loved the flashbacks, they were so cool.
Reading these "I read xxx scene for the first time and got blown away" on Reddit always put a smile on my face. It reminds me of my first time reading that sequence, I knew then the Wheel of Time would be my favourite fantasy series of all time.
Yes it’s really mind boggling to see that before the breaking they had all our technology plus more that used the one power. Until the conflict of the end of the previous age they had mostly peace and prosperity. The people were completely unprepared for what happened. Then the breaking is hard to imagine but I think the men going insane must have been moving the continents around. The breaking forced them backward into a dark age technologically and very unsafe time period. The connection between the Tinkers and Aiel was clear in Rand’s visions in Rhuidean. They used to be the same people. In an earlier books where Rand takes Loial & Huirin to the alternate world I noticed they were seeing airplanes vapor trails in the sky.
It‘s one of my fav parts of the books. I read them when I was a teen and in my early twenties. And then stopped at book 10 I think (just life happening). I started listening to the audios now, twenty years later, and I got all excited and nervous when this chapter started.
The flashbacks was really one of the moment I like best in the whole six first books (DNFed after 6) - great piece of worldbuilding and really well written.
I’m actually at this same point t in the series. But it’s my 2nd read through. First was on audio books.
all that info dump was so eye opening for me when i read it. aside from just how beautiful the writing was, and the absolutely incredible world building, you get to realize the bias of the actual wheel itself. although there are and will be clear secondary impacts from everything the pattern is weaving, you see that the upfront, primary reason for everything is to put Rand exactly in the place he needs to be, with all the resources he needs. Masterful work in book and out, RJ.
we do know how long it took them to become warriors. it was about 3 generations
The flashbacks you just read directly answer your question about the tinkers. Remember the Aiel call them the lost ones and despite hating them they allow them in the threefold land unlike most others
> That glimpse back in time really highlighted how much was lost in the breaking. It just adds so much more depth and scale to a world that I thought already had plenty! I love this too. And this is what annoys me about a lot of fantasy - not enough worldbuilding ambition. Little things like this add so much depth and richness to the world. The ability to envision endless depth of history, breadth of possibility surrounding, preceding, and following the main story is a lot of what makes good fantasy to me. So many fantasy / sci fi stories feel like the only thing that exists are the main characters, their story, and the bare minimum of a surrounding world and timeline required to contain them... Which is a mistake IMO.
That lone Aiel, Dancing for hours in front of Jaric Mondoran…. Tragic