[CAVEAT: This one isn't quite as funny as the last one, I'm afraid. I always thought the Whites were definitely the silliest Ajah, because if they did ANYTHING useful with their free time - such as leaving the Tower to interact with normal people occasionally - we sure didn't hear much about it. But it's not meant to be taken dead seriously, either :) ]

EGWENE: Sit down! Tell me, what does your Ajah do to justify its existence?

GRAY: Well, Mother, we dedicate ourselves to negotiation and diplomacy. We are often chosen to represent the Tower as advisers and/or ambassadors to other nations, and we often try to use diplomacy to prevent conflicts between other lands as well.

EGWENE: Yes . . . and how have things been going lately?

GRAY (sighing): Well, Mother, the coming of the Dragon Reborn has caused terrible damage to all our plans. He's such an impetuous young man, and what makes it unfair is that he's ta'veren and gets away with things that no sane political strategist would contemplate! We blame him for the War of Succession in Cairhien and the subsequent Shaido invasion of that war-torn land; the way Almoth Plain became a charnel house; the recent Tear/Illian war, the way the Shaido septs are now scattered across the map, and probably for -

EGWENE (sympathetically): Must be nice to have an outsider you can blame all your troubles on . . . but until he came along, how do you feel your Ajah had been doing?

GRAY: Oh, we were doing splendidly, Mother! I cite the evidence of the Domani/Saldean conflict of the eighth century, the second Civil War in Illian, back around 750 NE; the attempt of the Amadicians to eliminate the Tinkers from the face of the earth in the fourth century of this Age . . .

EGWENE (raising a hand): One moment, daughter. I don't recall hearing about any of those wars in the history lectures when I was a novice.

GRAY (very earnestly): Of COURSE not, Mother! They never happened! That's the POINT!

EGWENE (blinking several times and rubbing her aching head): Er . . . run that by me again?

GRAY: The supreme triumph of diplomacy, Mother, is to PREVENT wars from ever getting started - except in those few cases where there is a genuine menace to be dealt with, as quickly and efficiently as possible. But most wars are exercises in needless stupidity, and if we can help both sides see that BEFORE the bloodshed begins . . . we win!

EGWENE: Just for the record, how many wars do you calculate would have happened without your timely intervention?

GRAY (eyes wander as she tries to add it all up): In the thousand years since the beginning of the New Era calendar . . . about 139. That's not counting the occasional coup, rebellion, annexation, and the like, all of which might have been rather messy on a small scale.

EGWENE: So you feel you've been successful in preventing wars?

GRAY (seeing the trap): Well . . . frequently, but not ALWAYS.

EGWENE: Do you Grays consider the First Treaty of Falme as a job well done?

GRAY: Well . . .

EGWENE: Of course, it WAS followed by a war, in due time. The Second Treaty? The Third? The Fourth? What about the Fifth? I hear you were very proud of the Fifth at the time it was signed. That was only a few decades ago, and it must have lasted for, oh, at least three years - long enough for both nations to increase their armies and plan bigger and better campaigns for the NEXT struggle over Almoth Plain . . .

GRAY: Special circumstances . . . we had no way to enforce the treaty, did we? Getting the leaders of Arad Doman and Tarabon to sign it at all was quite an achievement!

EGWENE (sweetly): Not if they never meant to keep the treaties, anyway, but were only pretending to be "reasonable" in hopes of causing the other side to relax its guard. Do you REALLY prevent any wars that national leaders are determined to begin, or do you just postpone them for a year or two? What about the endless series of struggles between Tear and Illian? Did the Grays ever manage to achieve a LASTING treaty between those great nations?

GRAY: Er . . .

EGWENE: Or perhaps we should consider the chaos that has been the norm in Altara AND Murandy ever since those "nations" were formed a thousand years ago . . . what have the Grays done to bring peace and stability to those regions? I recognize that one can only do so much in a mere ten centuries, but still . . .

GRAY: We've TOLD those petty warlords that they would all be much better off with strong central governments instead of constant internal feuding. If they refuse to listen, it's not OUR fault!

EGWENE: Ah! Now I see! So whenever a really nasty war DOES break out, it's not your fault in any way; but whenever you claim to have prevented a war that never actually happened, it goes on the scoreboard as a great victory? In that case, it seems to me that the total score of your "victories" would only be limited by your own imaginations.

GRAY: Mother, I'm afraid you haven't studied enough history yet (being so young and all that) to properly appreciate how badly things COULD have gone if we hadn't -

EGWENE (overriding her): Setting aside the question of whether or not you have ever "prevented" a war for more than, oh, a couple of years at best, let's discuss the other aspect of your duties: maintaining good diplomatic relations between the Tower and the various other governments between the Dragonwall and the Aryth Ocean.

GRAY (resignedly): Yes, mother.

EGWENE: Tell me - BEFORE the Dragon Reborn began to mess everything up, how were we doing, politically speaking?

GRAY (cautiously): The Tower was known and respected across the land, Mother.

EGWENE: For the past thousand years, ever since the Whitecloaks became the real rulers of Amadicia, any Aes Sedai detected within that nation's boundaries has been attacked with lethal intent. And sometimes they come outside their boundaries, looking for us. We even lost an Amyrlin to Whitecloak aggression . . . What have the Grays done to improve our relations with Amadicia during those ten centuries?

GRAY: Er . . .

EGWENE: The Tairens are almost as bad.

GRAY: Um . . .

EGWENE: Nearly EVERY nation has proverbs about Aes Sedai being untrustworthy, about them saying things that don't mean what they seem to mean, about how Aes Sedai don't CARE about the life of the common man, and only obey the laws of the nations they are visiting if it seems convenient . . . as our principal representatives abroad, don't you feel a certain obligation to try to correct this bad publicity somehow? At the very least, don't you feel CONCERNED that there are so few people who would feel any obligation to assist the Tower if we ever needed their help?

GRAY: It IS a pity, Mother . . .

EGWENE: And how long had the Sea Folk been refusing to grant us passage - us, and ONLY us, whenever they felt like it?

GRAY: Ah . . . er . . . ever since the Breaking?

EGWENE: That's right. For over 3000 years the Sea Folk made it well known that they could tolerate anyone BUT us on their ships, and what did the Grays do to improve our image with them?

GRAY: But mother, how were we supposed to GET at them? If they didn't want to talk to us, they could just sail away, faster than any other ships we could get our hands on, and trying to land on their home isles would be taken as an act of war!

EGWENE: In three thousand years, an ingenious negotiator would have thought of a way. Written messages, perhaps. Sending one of our Sea Folk Sisters to negotiate with her own kindred. Other possibilities.

GRAY (resignedly): Perhaps we were too caught up in events closer to home, Mother.

EGWENE: How well did your negotations with Artur Hawkwing go?

GRAY (sullenly): He was ta'veren also, Mother. He CHEATED!

EGWENE: Amyrlin Bonwhin decided to send emissaries from the Tower to three other nations, persuading them to invade young Hawkwing's homeland of Shandalle, didn't she? Gray Sisters must have carried out her orders in negotiating with his enemies, instead of digging in their heels and warning her of the dangers? After Hawkwing defeated the invaders and went on to conquer most of the known world, Gray Sisters were probably "negotiating" with him, trying to appease him, right up to the point where he got so angry he besieged us for 20 years?

GRAY: Er . . . we always did our best to represent the policies agreed upon by the Amyrlin and the Hall, Mother. We did not MAKE foreign policy, we only enacted it.

EGWENE: Well, you certainly won't be making it from now on. For the next five years, if I need any ambassadors I'll pick them out myself. I'm probably going to reassign you to duties as schoolteachers, as part of my new Public Education program. If you Grays actually PROVE, under carefully monitored conditions, that you can keep the peace among dozens of squalling children, THEN I will consider the possibility that you are not totally incompetent at the geopolitical level. In the meantime, you are dismissed. On your way out, send in the Yellow Sister waiting to see me, will you?

[NOTE: The information about the Tower being responsible for three other nations banding together to invade the nation of Shandalle, which Artur ruled by birth, is only found in "The World of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time," also known as the Guide. Amyrlin Bonwhin was responsible for this catastrophic piece of foreign policy (she didn't like Hawkwing at all), but it seems reasonable to assume that Gray negotiators would have been assigned to persuade people to do her dirty work for her. And after that, they would have been assigned to make peace with Hawkwing when he won anyway, and to try to convince him that the Tower was officially neutral and awful sorry that anybody have ever attacked him. Clearly, it didn't work very well. Bonwhin, a former Red, was the second Amyrlin in history to be deposed and stilled, after the Tower came to blame her for the fact that Hawkwing surrounded their island with a huge army for twenty years.]

Raina's Hold / Raina's Library / Other People's Humour / Renovating the White Tower