Tar Valon Log In

Basic Info

Ruler

Amyrlin Seat Elayne Trakand

Allegiance

The White Tower

Description

A city on an island in the River Erinin. The west and east branches of the river are called the Alindrelle Erinin and the Osendrelle Erinin respectively. Six great bridges span the rivers and there are small villages at the base of each, Jualdhe, Darein and Alindaer (the Alindaer Bridge) to the west and Luagde, Daghain and Osenrein (the Ostrein Bridge) to the east. There are other small villages nearby on the mainland such as Dorlan and Eldone Market. The city is surrounded by tall white walls known as the Shining Walls. Most of the city was built by Ogier. Even inns and shops look more like palaces. Many buildings are artfully designed to look like breaking waves, shells and other designs that all fit together as a whole. There are many open squares with fountains and trees. Tar Valon is the center of Aes Sedai power, and the location of the White Tower.

Interviews (7 Total<)

Question	Action
It seems that Elaida, leading the Sitters who arrest Siuan Sanche, must be a Sitter herself, yet she was just a few months returned from her position in Caemlyn. Was she actually a Sitter and if so when was she raised? Can you also clarify her change of heart on the Black Ajah from warning the three girls about them in The Dragon Reborn to violently denying their existence in later books? Elaida wasn't a Sitter when she led the arrest of Siuan, but she had organized it, managed to arrange for a rump Hall of the Tower to vote on deposing Siuan and raising her in Siuan's place. By the time Siuan was arrested, Elaida was the "legal" Amyrlin Seat, so of course she was leading the Sitters. As for her change of heart of the Black Ajah, she bounces on whether or not she believes in their existence. When she has convinced herself that they do exist, she is vehement on the subject, but uneasy over Darkfriend sisters, and so manages to convince herself that she was mistaken, whereupon she becomes vehement about their non-existence. But then she becomes uneasy over the possibility that they do exist after all and convinces herself that they really do after all, whereupon…. I have even had a character in the White Tower comment that sometimes Elaida doesn't seem to know from one day to the next whether or not she believes in the Black Ajah. ----Corrected version---- CORRECTION: Answering these questions, I have always taken the assumption that I knew the books well enough that I did not need to refer to my notes. My answer for the Week 20 Question showed that I was mistaken. I said that Elaida was never a Sitter, but no sooner was that answer posted than my assistant Maria, who also is a fan, came to me with the relevant passage where Elaida is mentioned as a Sitter. I went to my notes, and after a lot of checking, I found the following in a file working out exactly how some points were to be structured and making sure that I had all the details covered. Somehow, I had never incorporated it into the base notes, perhaps because it seemed such a small matter, Elaida having been a Sitter for such a short time and then only as prelude to replacing Siuan as Amyrlin. “Returning to the White Tower, Elaida quickly became convinced that Siuan and Moiraine were engaged in a scheme that involved Rand al’Thor. Indeed, she had suspicions of this before departing Caemlyn for Tar Valon. Moiraine’s presence in Tar Valon had not escaped her, nor that Moiraine had been seen with Rand. If, as seemed the more likely, he was simply a man who could channel who Siuan and Moiraine intended to make use of as a false Dragon, then it was a scheme that was extremely dangerous to the Tower. Revelation of such involvement could easily shatter the Tower’s prestige, and with it the influence that was the primary cornerstone of the Tower’s influence in the world. And if he was indeed the Dragon Reborn, Elaida certainly had no confidence in Siuan’s ability to handle the him, as surely the Dragon Reborn would need to be handled, guided and directed, not to mention controlled. Helped by her long-standing personal animosity toward Siuan and Moiraine, Elaida came to the conclusion that Siuan must be removed for the good of the Tower. This was not something that could be accomplished by an ordinary sister, however the stepping down of a Red Sitter (Amira Moselle) gave her an opening, and she managed to get herself chosen as Amira’s replacement in the Hall of the Tower. In large part this was because of Galina Casban’s support as head of the Red Ajah, Galina having her own reasons to take any chance to pull Siuan down and, of course, favoring anything that would give the Amyrlin Seat to the Red Ajah again after so long. Galina made no attempt to attain the Amyrlin Seat herself because she knew she had little or no chance of being raised. Elaida, who had been so long away from Tar Valon and thus remained out of the political currents of the Tower, not to mention the favorable mention she had received for her guidance of Queen Morgase and Andor, was another matter. Once Elaida had a chair in the Hall, it was a relatively simple matter to identify the Sitters who seemed most likely to stand for deposing Siuan, since a number of Sitters were uneasy at best about what Siuan was up to. Her support in the Hall had eroded sufficiently by The Great Hunt that she had opposition to her journey to Shienar. As a Sitter, Elaida was able to call a sitting of the Hall while making sure that only the Sitters she wanted to attend actually received notification. Elaida is a forceful and effective speaker, and her arguments to this bare quorum in favor of deposing Siuan were also her campaign for being raised to the Amyrlin Seat herself, so the vote to depose Siuan was followed immediately by the vote to make Elaida the new Amyrlin. She did not expect the violent reaction that would come from this. She had not had access to the secret histories for very long at this point, so her view was that of most sisters. The Tower had always acceded to the will of the Hall however sisters might grumble. Like many others, she was blind-sided by what she thought she knew.” So there it is. I offer my apologies for giving an erroneous answer. From now on, I’ll be sure to check my notes.	View More Details
Speaking of the Breaking, how did Dragonmount survive all that rearrangement of geography? Well, the Breaking had different effects in different areas. Some areas were raised up, others lowered, others moved around... but the effects were relatively mild in some areas; Dragonmount was one of them. Note that Shayol Ghul used to be a subtropical island. The Tar Valon area was moved, but as an entire piece, so the mountain, the island, and the river stayed in the same places relative to each other.	View More Details
Is the top of the White Tower steepled or flat? If it's flat, what is on the roof? The top of the White Tower (that is, the top of the main tower, since the wings of the Tower along with their much smaller towers must be considered part of the White Tower also) is flat, and surrounded by a solid wall about waist-high on a woman. There is nothing there except a door flat in the surface for getting onto the top of the Tower. Aes Sedai of the present day occasionally use it for observation of events in the vicinity of Tar Valon, such as the progress of the Blood Snow, but it isn't used now on any regular basis. At various times in the past, there has been a garden there, but the sisters inevitably found ground-level gardens more convenient and much more easily maintained.	View More Details
Why doesn't Egwene just Travel her troops to Tar Valon? She needs the time to be in control. Otherwise she'd just be a puppet to others needs.	View More Details
What is the currency break down for Wheel of Time? How many coppers make up a silver penny? How many silver pennies equal a silver mark? How many silver marks make up a gold mark? This varies from country to country, along with the sizes and weights of the various coins, the reason that bankers and others - such as Bran al'Vere - use scales for comparing coins. The heaviest coins in weight of precious metal come from Andor and Tar Valon. For the coins of those two, the scale is very simple. Ten copper pennies = one silver penny. One hundred silver pennies = one silver mark. Ten silver marks = one silver crown. Ten silver crowns = one gold mark. Ten gold marks = one gold crown. As an example of other countries' currencies, the scale for Altara, where the weight of silver or gold in larger coins is less than that in Andor or Tar Valon, is this: Ten copper pennies = one silver penny. Twenty-one silver pennies = one silver mark. Twenty silver marks = one silver crown. Twenty silver crowns = one gold mark. Twenty gold marks = one gold crown.	View More Details
Why did turning the Tar Valon harbor chains to cuendillar help? You would think a chain made of cuendillar would be flexible because it is in separate pieces. No. As I showed you in one of the scenes where they are learning to make cuendillar, they had two items touch each other when they were turning it into cuendillar and they fused to one another. So what you have is a series of chains where each link is fused to the next, so in essence what you have is one solid piece of cuendillar.	View More Details
How big are the cities in the Wheel of Time? Tar Valon has 500,000 people and cities like Caemlyn and Tear are around 300,000 or so. I've envisioned a seventeenth century society and you've got to remember that for those times 300,000 would be huge. Some Asian cities of that period had populations near one million but nothing in Europe was even close.	View More Details