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- Oct 30, 2012
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:rofl
One thing to keep in mind is that these women are much more matured than their ages, everything they are going through and accomplishing just wouldn't be compatible with another 20 something guy.
Just reverse the concept. This is how bad ass an accomplished a guy has to be for an Aes Sedai to notice them.![]()
What gets me is it should be the other way around given 1) Aes Sedai effective don’t age, wouldn’t they want a guy who’ll be around for anwhile?
I must say though, Morgase and Tallanvor took me a bit to get used to, but it ended up being one of my favorite relationships in the series once I got used to it.
I don't see the big deal? Even in our life there are numerous cases of older men with younger women and the opposite applies as well. You like who you like. Period.
Excellently put, Bracken.This defense makes sense in real life where people make decisions and connections for their own reasons, but IMO it fails as a reason to not think or talk about why it occurs in a piece of fiction, where characters do things because the author wants them to. If the author's good, those things are consistent with their established character, but all the same, the author is God in that space, so it's not beyond us to question why they made the choices they did.
That's the same reason I question the "it's historical" defense -- there are a lot of deviations from the historical in WoT, so the author's choice to keep this element shouldn't be dismissed as meaningless. That's not to say I necessarily have a problem with the way relationships are in the books ... just that "because it's historical" doesn't make a lot of sense as a justification for it.
Are Sedai training and the early lives and responsibilities of the Two Rivers women forced them to grow up very fast and develop a lot of maturity before their time. I think I accepted that they would prefer older men because those were the men who were comparable to them in their understanding of necessary sacrifice and in their experience of struggle and loss.
This defense makes sense in real life where people make decisions and connections for their own reasons, but IMO it fails as a reason to not think or talk about why it occurs in a piece of fiction, where characters do things because the author wants them to. If the author's good, those things are consistent with their established character, but all the same, the author is God in that space, so it's not beyond us to question why they made the choices they did.
That's the same reason I question the "it's historical" defense -- there are a lot of deviations from the historical in WoT, so the author's choice to keep this element shouldn't be dismissed as meaningless. That's not to say I necessarily have a problem with the way relationships are in the books ... just that "because it's historical" doesn't make a lot of sense as a justification for it.
Also, large age differences in marriage were more common in the 19th century. In the Middle Ages, marriages were most commonly between women in their late teens and men in their early twenties. It was actually pretty rare for women to be married very young to much older men, even with royalty. Often children were betrothed to each other and then officially married in their teens. There were about as many marriages of much older women to much younger men as vice versa.