Talk:Malkier

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I keep hearing that Lan would have been the next king solely due to the fact that his father was king before him. In New Spring he speaks with Lady Edeyn Arrel his excuse for not claiming his right (to lead an army for Malkier) is because the Great Lords have not cast the rods. This would seem like the monarch is voted into power (therefore Lan would not necessarily inherit the throne). Is this not the case?

SilverFox 01:26, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

It is hard to speculate on is how important that little ceremony was. Mere formality? Solid campaign like the one the Queen of Andor faces? Or somewhere in between? My personal guess is that because the Borderlands has a high purpose to stand guard against the Blight, such duty weighs heavily against the ceremony being anything except ceremonial except in the most dire of circumstances. On top of that, the display of loyalty all Malkieri show Lan whenever they meet leads me to believe that he would have been a shoo-in for King. Finally, in New Spring, Lan was looking for excuses to refuse Lady Arrel, IMHO.Pedantic 18:18, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

An update: I looked up al'Lan Mandragoran in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time and it describes him as "its [Malkier's] Uncrowned King...son of the last reigning king, al'Akir Mandragoran, and heir to the lost throne..." (p. 247, box). This doesn't completely answer SilverFox's very good question, but it comes close. --Pedantic 19:00, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

I feel that the casting of the rods was important. After all, competency is very important on the blight border. Cairhein can survive an incompetent king but Malkier can't.

As for Lian, I thought he took 5 thousand lances into the blasted lands. Am I wrong?