the happy novice days :')

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"Moiraine could not help smiling back. Siuan had that gift, making her smile when she wanted to frown and laugh when she wanted to weep."

— New Spring, Robert Jordan

I love your art soooo much! Would you mind possibly doing some more Moiraine as the Sun Queen, please? That AU gives me so much life, I love it so much. ❤️❤️

Moiraine defeating Lord Galldrian of House Riatin in a battle for the Sun Throne

Posting a WoTCCG card a day until Amazon drops literally any WoT s2 info - Day 4 (1x06 anniversary bonus card): Get Dunked On, Perrin

Siuan and Egwene’s relationship has become my favourite in the books. They are both hard as diamond, but also that hardness obviously is a support for the other woman to lean on, and it makes their moments of vulnerability and camaraderie all the more poignant.

it's interesting that in the coup it's framed largely as the young trainees taking elaida's side vs. the older warders taking siuan's (though i'm sure there was some mixing and it wasn't a 100% clear-cut division, especially since plenty of older warders would've sided with elaida because their aes sedai did). the ages feel significant to me, because it feels like the kind of thing where the younglings are doing what's right in a by-the-book way (upholding tower law by preventing the jailbreak of a legally-deposed* amyrlin) because they are too young and too inexperienced with the world to be ready to question authority or see potential nuance in a situation. it's the older warders who are able to think "hmmm, this may technically be legal but it still doesn't feel right" because they have the life experience to know that tower law and aes sedai are not infallible and can make mistakes or act out of shady motives. whereas the younglings are still in the early phase of trusting the tower as an institution 100% no matter the situation (which we see later on too, when gawyn is growing disillusioned with elaida/the tower but knows he can't voice this to any of the other younglings because they'd kill him for being a traitor to the tower).

this makes me curious about the novices and accepted. i think some fled with the rebels since i remember nynaeve and elayne needing to teach classes in salidar, but how did that happen? was it only a small minority of blue-leaning students who went, or was it a more even split? i suppose that aes sedai students may have had more direct interaction with siuan and/or elaida and more opinions on the blue and red ajahs than warder trainees and so maybe they were more likely to have personal reasons for choosing one side over the other, while the warder trainees kinda defaulted to Tower Law As Written since they were pretty far removed from the politics & emotions of elaida deposing siuan (bar gawyn who did have plenty of direct interaction with both, which made him predisposed to trust elaida and distrust siuan).

*siuan was not legally deposed, but i don't think anybody fully realizes that until much later when they find out that some of the sitters who voted against her were black ajah. on the day of the coup, most inhabitants of the white tower have little to no reason to doubt the legality of the deposition; at most they would have a Bad Feeling about it but no real evidence that it was illegal.

siuan sanche, woman of all time for the fact alone that she got all the way to leading the aes sedai - an institution famed for preferring aristocratic novices, turning away the poor when they don't already have impressive amounts of power - while still serenely making her fish puns and weaponizing reminders of other women's noble backgrounds to make them seem smaller

Having a fascinating conversation with @markantonys and @butterflydm in notes about the Tower Coup (& how it will go in the show) and I need to take my thoughts to a post, in roughly this order:

How did it START in the books vs how did it END?

What changed along the way and where did that work/not work?

With the benefit of hindsight, how could the show make this arc more coherent?

How it started vs how it ended

The Tower Coup starts in the books as a pretty clear moral issue: Siuan is deposed on the sketchiest of pretenses, she and Leane are tortured and stilled immediately, a lot of people die, and Elaida dissolves the Blue Ajah (basically all our friendly Aes Sedai up until this point are Blue). That's a lot! Then the Tower faction, on Elaida's orders, also kidnap and torture Rand. By the time Egwene is raised as Amyrlin we're fully ready to get behind her taking names and kicking Elaida's ass. Elaida is doing nothing to help her own cause, instead descending into paranoia and tyranny with nobody at the Tower doing anything to stop her.

And then...from ACoS on it becomes clear that there's plenty of Tower Aes Sedai who are good people (the Black Ajah Hunter plotline), and also that the Black Ajah and the Forsaken are working both sides of the conflict to keep it as amped up as possible. However, at the same time the Tower is collapsing into conflict, the Salidar camp under Egwene is rewriting the rules in a way that the books make clear offer the Aes Sedai as an institution new relevance and scope, by opening the novice book to all who wish to apply. Meanwhile, the Seanchan return and the seams of the Pattern start to fray because the Last Battle is getting real close now. By the time Egwene is kidnapped by the Tower, her mission becomes to negotiate the Tower Aes Sedai as a group (rather than Elaida, who is too far gone) into dealing with the real existential problems the Tower faces - the Seanchan and Tarmon Gai'don - rather than 'winning'. Once we hit the Sanderson books we're fully into 'the Tower is fine, it just needed to have the right person leading it', Gawyn's storyline is revealed (charitable) or mildly retconned (uncharitable) so that the Warders attacked first and he and the other Younglings were arguably justified in fighting them, and Egwene ends up demanding that the Salidar Aes Sedai apologise for their rebellion before the Tower is reunited under her.

Was this a change of direction? How well did it work?

I would argue that in general scope the Tower arc was always meant to end with a reconciliation between the two sides in order to face down the real enemy - Elaida literally Foretells this very early on in the piece, and it's signalled frequently that besieging Tar Valon with an army, even if it feels like the only option, is playing into the hands of the Shadow and supported by Darkfriends within the Salidar camp. There's also a strong theme throughout the final RJ books of our heroes having to make their peace with people they are fighting in order to effectively confront the Shadow. E.g., Perrin is rewarded for his truce with the Seanchan by getting Faile back. So I'm pretty sure the plan was always for Egwene to reunite the Tower by winning the respect and allegiance of crucial people within the Tower faction, rather than military action, and for the conflict between the two sides to be decisively derailed by a Seanchan attack.

HOWEVER.

I also feel pretty strongly that the way that arc finally ends feels like a weird and hard swerve towards 'rebelling was wrong actually' and ignores the extremely real grievances that caused the Blue Ajah and their allies to gather in Salidar in the first place. Despite the Ajah Heads' plotting there is never any viable path to negotiation presented to the Salidar faction - yes, some of this is down to the work of the Black Ajah but like. Tarna Feir wasn't Black! Elaida wasn't Black! None of the non-Red Ajah Heads were Black! The Tower as an institution is pretty fundamentally broken and instead of a renewal and a vision of what it could look like in the future, what we get in the last two books is kind of...a return to BAU except Egwene is in charge now...? and also we stop checking in with all the Aes Sedai we know in favour of charity namedrops, yes I'm still mad forever thanks. I think some of this is exacerbated by Sanderson but I do also think it's the result of RJ having a pretty sketchy idea of how the post-unification Tower was going to look or act except knowing there were crucial plot points to hit in terms of the conflict being derailed by the Seanchan attacking the Tower, and Egwene and Rand clashing before the Last Battle.

In addition, for me personally, Elaida in TGS is also almost a parody of her original self - she's a sexual harasser, she's physically violent - in a way that sure you can write off as the influence of Padan Fain but feels cartoonish. I think this is somewhat of a minority opinion but this makes Egwene's whole Reason You Suck speech very unsatisfying to me! None of it engages with why Elaida was able to become Amyrlin in the first place. It's not a tragedy, it's a farce.

Anyway, it's all a bit unsatisfying and the big question I have is...

How could the show do it better?

The show 100% has the benefit of hindsight and being able to simplify down its story instead of try and tie up ALL the dangling threads - it can just not weave those threads in to start with! - so I think it has huge potential to make this arc more elegant plot-wise and emotionally. For me there's three key ways it could do this:

Make Elaida a charismatic leader (to start with) Largely due to the books/RJ wanting the coup to come as a shock, we have very little insight into how Elaida persuades the Hall to take down Siuan and we never see Elaida as a genuinely charismatic leader people might want to follow. Coming after Siuan, sure - why choose her as leader? If the show can demonstrate why people follow her, it will make the Tower faction seem more reasonable to start with. And there's endless material to mine from the books in terms of her slide into tyranny as a more subtle and tragic arc.

Give the Salidar Aes Sedai a genuine chance to back down I don't think it's bad for readers' expectations to be challenged, but through the books it's really hard to see what other genuine options the Salidar Aes Sedai but particularly the Blue Ajah actually had. Elaida never resiles on her proclamation disbanding them; that's cataclysmically bad given how the structure of the Tower traditionally works. Frankly it should have made a lot more Tower Aes Sedai (and independents) turn against her! For the Salidar Aes Sedai to have any genuine apology to make at the end, they need to have a choice to reunite that they could take...and not take it. I think it's obvious in her later appearances that Tarna Feir was meant to be a 'Worst Person You Know Has A Point' character but that's left on the table for a loooooooooooong time through the Slog.

Show how the Tower has changed for the better Egwene's demand is part and parcel of her fairly sudden change into an Amyrlin who is basically happy with the Tower running as it always has, but with her and her people in charge now. Let's see how the post-reunification Tower is a genuinely different place which has learned from its experiences! Let's see how the influx of novices and new organisational systems, as well as the new engagement with the Windfinders and Wise Ones, are requiring Aes Sedai to contemplate new ways of doing things! Let's see Egwene leave a goddamn legacy that will outlive her. Going out in a blaze of glory is all well and good but that's what makes the Tower Coup arc have meaning. The Tower broke but wasn't defeated.

Anyway, that's enough brain-dumping - interested in what other people have to say about this!

Anaiya nodded. "We understand your reasons for disliking Elaida, even hating her. We do understand. But we must think of the Tower and the world. I confess I do not like Elaida myself. But then I have never liked Siuan either. It is not necessary to like the Amyrlin Seat. There is no need to glare so Siuan. You have had a file for a tongue since you where a novice and it has only roughened with the years. And as Amyrlin you pushed sisters where you wanted and only seldom explained why. The two do not make for a very likeable combination."

-The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 27: The Practice of Diffidence

Re-reading The Fires of Heaven has made me increasingly confident in the show's read of Siuan's character being book accurate (an opinion I originally articulated here). I always encourage re-reads of the books, but I would very much encourage re-reading The Shadow Rising and The Fires of Heaven specifically if you are doubting the choices the team made in episode 7.

Cause the thing is, Siuan's central character flaw- the one Anaiya is trying to gently cite above, the one on heavy display all throughout both books via Siuans treatment of those around her, is her complete lack of trust paired with a willingness to force and browbeats others into doing what she thinks is best.

It is, ironically, a trait she shares with Rand- both are unafraid to use their power (physical, magical, political- what have you) to make others obey, and both also are unwilling to demonstrate trust and good faith out of a fear of showing weakness. It's something born inherently of their shared insecurities about their respective positions of power- Siuan's young rise to the Seat and the fact that she is carrying on her conspiracy with Moiraine and Rand's belief that he isn't strong enough/good enough/hard enough to be the Dragon Reborn alongside the tendency of the people he cares about to get hurt or have their lives ruined by simple proximity to him.

Throughout both The Shadow Rising and The Fires of Heaven Siuan uses primarily tactics drawn form the same playbook that would later also lead Rand to disaster in the back half of the series: she comes to view those under charge more for their value to her agenda then as people she should be looking after, forcing Min to remain in the Tower against her will, refusing to make any effort to console or reassure those who care about Elayne (Gawyn, Galad, Morgase) that she is well, and engaging in many actions because their are expedient without regard for their moral implications (ordering Mazrim Taim's execution without trial, lying about Logain being set up by the Red Ajah, manipulation Logain so he has no choice but to follow along with her plan). And I don't think it's a mistake that many of those actions either lead to, or directly follow, Siuan's downfall in the Tower.

In fact, Siuan begins to make the turn in her character after encountering Mistress Tharne, which largely sets in motion Siuan's character arc for the remainder of the series: realizing that she can not force the word to conform to her will, not least of all because she is no longer the most powerful woman on the planet, but more over because it's wrong. Mistress Tharne's rough treatment of Siuan, her complete lack of respect or deference, is a wake call to Siuan that gives her empathy and understanding of the way she treated others when she held power. Much of her arc there after is about emphasizing that point, first as a stilled woman serving Aes Seadi, then as a restored but drastically weakened Aes Sedai.

In this way Siuan gets a taste of what it's like to be on the other side- forced and expected to obey, constantly fighting against a system rigged against her from the start, meant to keep her out of circles of power and away from the ability to make decisions as a woman who can not channel, and then as a Aes Sedai who does not stand high enough in the hierarchy. More over it gives her perspective on why things like the Oaths and the Tower's traditions matter- on the ways the Oaths protect ordinary people and the way Tower traditions like 'staying out of the business of other Aes Sedai' and 'respect secrets of individual sisters and Ajahs' help keep Aes Sedai working together and functional. But it's really her friendships, which she is able make on now even terms, with Nynaeve and Egwene, that help her gain empathy and understanding, and in particular allows her (via her mentorship of Egwene) to try and positively influence the Tower's future via reforms to make it more equitable, less mired and fractious and cracked.

As Amylrin, we're told, Siuan ruled by playing one faction in the Tower against another, widening the cracks between Ajahs and within them so that no one was able to effectively oppose her and her agenda- that is until someone came along who could rally support, to take advantage of those simmering frustrations and angers in order tear her down. But that person, Elaida, shared many of her faults and few of her virtues- instead of playing one faction against and brow beating, Elaida (with the Shadow's help) turned the Tower into armed camps ready to lash out at each other. Siuan's tendency (often cited by even herself) to send sisters to do penance on farms for opposing or annoying her, became Elaida using the same tool to humiliate and punish her enemies and using edicts to demote them to Accepted for being weak, and Siuan's precedent for keeping secrets and working around the Hall became Elaida plotting to kidnap Rand and 'make him supple' via Galina's embassy.

And it's a neat closing of the circle, the kind Jordan really likes to play with, that Siuan's redemption for this is her training of the woman who will replace both her and Elaida. Someone who will actually fulfill both women's ambitions of leading the Tower in the last battle- Egwene. Siuan's justice against Elaida is to help prepare an Amyrlin that will be more then either she or Elaida ever could- someone who will be free of their faults, who will be able to unite the Tower as both women dreamed of doing but never could- who can guide Rand and bind the nations to him, who can serve as a general of the Light strong enough to balance the worst of the Shadow. Siuan teaches Egwene how not to do the things she did, to fall into the traps that brought her down- the arrogance, the pride, the domineering, the compromises with her own morals- and it's that teaching which, in part, gives Egwene the ability to persuade the Tower that still saw her as a Novice....to raise her to Amyrlin of it's own accord.

Siuan still should have been allowed to kill Elaida though instead of the Suffa stuff, I will die on that hill.

Egwene and Being "Ignored" in the Tower

SOOOOO.

I actually have a lot of thoughts about this and I think this is a very good instance of Egwene being an unreliable narrator in terms of what she thinks is happening and what is actually going on. (I was reminded of wanting to go on a tangent about this by a recent post.)

For starters, Aes Sedai are all very, very good at manipulation. We're not supposed to know in the beginning just how invested in Scheming they are, even though the text and to some extent the show tells us over and over. We're supposed to believe it's an exaggeration, playing on our own knowledge that woman are generally painted in a bad light when they have power. It's wickedly clever.

They're all a lot older than Egwene and have seen a lot of things. From the moment she put on that novice dress it was easy to peg her as someone who not only wanted to be one of them, but also had an instinctive need to be noticed. That shaped how they were going to train her.

Now wanting to be seen? That isn't a bad thing! Everyone likes to receive praise! But this is the tower. Part of their training is to break down the girls who enter and rebuild them into the image of an Aes Sedai and Egwene's obvious pride and need for praise are easy targets for them to start doing just that.

You can't tell me they don't have plans for her and you can't tell me any part of her novice training is unintentional.

For starters, as a fairly new novice she's cleaning the Amyrlin's study. I think this is a subtle way to remind her of her goals and aspirations, to see what she could be if she applies herself. This also allows Siuan to keep an eye on her - even when she's away from the Tower, Siuan naturally has other means of doing this through Leane or her personal staff.

Which Leane is doing. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but did she really need to carry that cup around just to toss it in Egwene's bucket? We see cups left all over the place throughout the episode, yet Leane makes a point to take hers to Egwene.

That she ignores Egwene while she tosses it is classic Aes Sedai behavior. Think back to the books - Moiraine conditions the boys after they've been away from her for too long by getting them to do chores until they don't question it.

By ignoring Egwene, Leane is able to both check on her and also help work on breaking her down a little. It's not malicious - it's just how they operate. Had she remained by the time she was Accepted she would have craved their approval and notice, and would be very loyal to the tower. That's just how conditioning works.

Madeleine Madden does a great job of showing all of this on her face and with her body language. She's a kicked puppy, arms crossed, curled in on herself. This isn't what she wanted at all. Why don't they notice her? Didn't Moiraine say she was special? She needs to work harder. Do better.

We next see her in Alanna's room, basically being treated as if she's invisible. On the one hand, it's shocking to a fairly sheltered country girl (Which Alanna very much knows - she tells us later she wants to get Egwene to be less uptight later in the weird meeting they have after the kitchen scene), but again, it hurts her feelings and sets her off-balance. Alanna does give her some notice, but Egwene is so uncomfortable she books it.

The first clue for the audience that she's missing out on the subtle ways she very much is being watched is after she passes the novices watching the warders. There's two blue sisters just casually talking in the hallway. As a viewer you might think that's normal, but why are they there? There's plenty of places to post up and they just happen to be in Egwene's path? Both of them take notice of her immediately, and presumably begin discussing her once she passes.

To Nynaeve she defends the Tower policy, even if she doesn't believe it, she's trying to believe it. And naturally all the spies in that kitchen happily report that back. (Liandrin later actually gives away the game, though Egwene is too upset and angry to realize Liandrin is saying outright she's being watched.)

Another way they're trying to break down Egwene is by using Nynaeve as a really big convenient stick. I dislike the term break because I feel like it comes off as negative, but I don't mean it that way.

To be an Aes Sedai she needs to be able to control her emotions, to hide what she's thinking. Right now she's too obvious and that's a weakness. (Although I think they want to break down her pride so another reason - she needs to accept that she's a baby compared to them and has a lot to learn. She doesn't have anything to be proud of just yet in their eyes.)

So, yeah. I don't think Egwene is nearly as invisible as she thinks she is to the women in the tower, she's just too young and not really away of the games going on around her yet. And I like that she doesn't notice, because she shouldn't. Not at this point in her life.

baby fishwives🤏

prints available here!

My headcanon is that Siuan is very handy with a needle. However, Cairinhean patterns are very hard to get a hold of - you wouldn't want random people knowing where the weak spots in your armour are, so to speak. It takes her a while, but Siuan finally gets her hands on a single pattern such that she can make Moiraine a dress. She sews the white one when they are novices. It's tricky, and she doesn't quite get the hang of it, but Moiraine loves the first draft so much she wears it to sleep every night. When they're raised, Siuan makes her the blue one off that same hard-won pattern. She's had much more practice now and it comes out as fine as you'd find in any dressmaker's shop. Just with quite a bit more love sewn into the seams.

no one asked but guess what. this is my blog I can be self indulgent. one of my million Moiraine WIPs is a post-Tower of Ghenjei fic and it’s kind of experimental and without further context here’s a snippet. I think it will hit harder in the context of the fic but stands well on its own too. thoughts?

I am named Moiraine and I used to be in love with a girl named Siuan. She had dark skin and dark curls and she liked to kiss me in the quiet alcoves of the Tower and whisper scandalous things in my ear. Siuan and I signed the Book of Novices on the same day. Our souls were tied together. My body invented new kinds of love for her, love that made me soft and ruthless and hopeful and afraid. She is likely dead now.

Not gonna lie. The more I think about it, the more I like how ruthless Siuan is in s2e7 😅. Sure, using Moiraine's oath this way is shitty (although she never asked Moiraine to swear such an oath in the first place), but compared to book-Siuan? Book-Siuan sent three Accepted to hunt for the Black Ajah, she put an 18 years old on a very unstable Amyrlin Seat just because she thought that'd give them bonus points with the Dragon Reborn and that it'd be ready to manipulate her, and she casually offered to assassinate a Novice that is causing Egwene troubles. She's a lot more morally grey than we saw in s1, and even if I'm still cautiously waiting to see how Moiraine and Siuan's journeys will go during the full show, I'm glad they're establishing that she isn't just someone following whatever plan Moiraine wants to do. She has her own agency, and if that leads to bad judgement calls, well... At least it'll leave her some space to grow.

Okay so I’m still thinking about Moiraine. This time I’m over analyzing the show’s costuming choices.

We learn in New Spring during her Aes Sedai test that Moiraine has taken to wearing her hair down in the tower, even though she pins it up in Cairhien. (“Once she was dressed, she began to feel every inch the Lady Moiraine Damodred. Only having her hair arranged in elaborate coils on the side of her head could have made it more so. When had she begun wearing her hair loose?”) This sounds awfully like how the show has Moiraine’s hair pinned up in 01x06 when she’s running around Tar Valon.

We also know that Moiraine’s kesiera is associated with Cairhien, particularly since she has to stop wearing it when she gets to the tower and is a novice and then accepted. (“She had regretted not being able to wear that here, but even after six years her hands remembered how to weave the thin gold chain into her hair so the small sapphire hung in the middle of her forehead. Studying herself in a wall mirror with a scroll-worked wooden frame, she smiled. She might lack the ageless face yet, but now she looked like the Lady Moiraine Damodred, and Lady Moiraine Damodred had navigated the Sun Palace where hidden currents could pull you under even at fifteen or sixteen. Now she was ready to navigate the currents here.”) Again, we see her wearing her kesiera in 01x06 once she’s off the road and back in Tar Valon/the tower.

Specifically, both of these things make her feel like “the Lady Moiraine Damodred.” So in 01x06 she gets to Tar Valon, immediately dresses up like Lady Moiraine Damodred, and starts really walking around like she owns the place and speaking in Aes Sedai (but also Daes Dae’mar) riddles. The general presentation she is trying to give off in Tar Valon is that of Lady Moiraine Damodred. Maybe this is to make her feel stronger, competent, and sort of hype herself up in a dangerous place and situation - ready to navigate the currents like when she first earned the shawl. Maybe it’s to emphasize her noble background that it seems she and Siuan likely used in staging their “breakup.” It’s likely a combination of many things.

But the viewer can see that she hasn’t gone fully Cairhien or Lady Moiraine Damodred. She is still wearing her bolero that is part of her traveling look. She also unpins her hair when she goes to meet Siuan 🥺 There are times in the tower she needs more armor than just her birthright (so she dons the bolero) or less (she’s safe as just herself with Siuan).

Then in season two we actually see Moiraine in Cairhien. She’s wearing a dress that sounds like how Cairhienen fashion is described in the books (“their dark skirts were so wide they would have had to turn sideways to pass through any doorway narrower than those of the manor”) and she’s sometimes wearing the kesiera - but notably her hair is always down. Maybe fashion has just changed, but Anvaere wears her hair up still. Moiraine is back home, but what is her role here now? What would it mean to be Lady Moiraine Damodred in Cairhien?

We see how this version of herself that brings her strength in Tar Valon and the White Tower is more complicated here. It doesn’t seem to fit as comfortably. Even with the Damodred name vastly improved, Moiraine is seemingly holding back. She could have been queen of this city, and while it’s one thing to draw strength from that knowledge in another city far from home, think how complicated it would be to know that when actually in the place you turned your back from. AND she can’t channel. She isn’t fully herself anymore, as an Aes Sedai or a Cairhienen, and we as viewers can once again tell.

Ok I just need to come here and say: got costumes were not that great. They were showing off with the embroidery, but it was made purposefully “rustic” which contributed to it looking unprofessional, and made Cersei look like an idiot. The embroidery was very detailed, true, but you couldn’t see it while watching, it just looked like a blob usually.

The colours were dull, and most of the costumes were not well thought through. And also I don’t really think they fit that well? what looked great on Lena, looked very questionable on Sophie, which was not supposed to be happening. I’m not even going to discuss the jewelry.

Wot costumes are much better, are clearly comfortable for actors to be in (remembering Sophie again and how awkward she moves in the dresses sometimes, and like compared to the way Madeleine and Zoe look and move, even though they have spent most of the second season in uncomfortable clothes), show status clearly without the insane classism of got “you are either wealthy and beautiful or literally live in a pigsty” and are weather appropriate. And they embody the “early 90s late 80s fantasy looks” much better than got. So in my book wot is definitely much better.

Sorry I’m the costume rant anon. Wanted to add that a lot of costumes in got and wot have a similar silhouette and the difference in quality is like. Obvious. I know it’s subjective but like. I think we have been gaslit that got costumes are THAT good

iiiinteresting! i only know GOT costumes from seeing them around social media, so i can't weigh in here since i haven't seen them in context while actually watching an episode, so it is interesting to get a perspective from someone who's watched both shows! (and who knows stuff about costumes and how to judge quality - i don't at all haha i just go "oh that looks pretty, i like it!")

but i definitely agree that WOT costumes look generally pretty comfortable in the sense that i buy real people would actually wear these clothes day-to-day (i mean, except for statement pieces like lanfear's TAR dominatrix outfit or siuan's ceremonial attire). one that jumps to mind right away is one of alanna's s2 outfits - super pretty, but also looks quite cozy for just a normal day at the tower teaching novices!

and that's a really great point about how status comes across in WOT costumes. here, we can obviously tell that moiraine is upper class and egwene is a humble villager, but egwene's outfit is still pretty and well-made and colorful and clean, just simpler fabric & style than moiraine's (and she gets to wear jewelry too despite being a humble villager, just simpler jewelry than moiraine. and her skirt is a cute plaid pattern and she has a nice dash of simple, handmade-looking embroidery on her top - perhaps she added that embroidery herself to jazz up her Best Feastday Shirt!)