Novices
From A Wheel of Time Wiki
Novice is the first level of an initiate of the White Tower.
Traditionally the White Tower only accepts girls for training who are between sixteen and eighteen years old, though the rules are bent sometimes for a novice of great potential. Becoming a novice is known as being "put in white", because they are held to a strict dress code - white dresses, stockings, shoes, and even hair ribbons.
Recently among the rebel Aes Sedai in Salidar the age restrictions have been lifted, and there are novices of all ages, even as old as grandmothers. This is causing consternation among some traditional sisters, but most are happy that the number of Tower initiates has ceased dwindling.
[edit] Discipline
Novice life is deliberately harsh, in order to prepare them for the difficult life of an Aes Sedai. When a girl becomes a novice, she is required to burn the clothes that she arrived in, in order to symbolize a break with her past ties and build dependance on the Tower. Her room is tiny, the bed uncomfortable and hard, and she must wake every day before dawn to scrub the floor and sweep the room. Meals are taken in silence and are extremely brief, so the novice must eat quickly or go hungry. She will have lessons and classes; some on learning to channel but just as many on history, the Old Tongue, geography, politics and philosophy - to all of which she must pay strict attention or face punishment. However, most of her day will be taken up with such chores and duties as labouring in the kitchens, scrubbing floors, doing errands for Aes Sedai, and working in the gardens.
Novices are not permitted to channel except when supervised by an Accepted or Aes Sedai (though many do so anyway in secret), and must do all their chores by hand. The idea is that the hard work builds character, though it is likely that there is a desire to keep them too busy, and too tired, to start playing around and experimenting with the One Power. Novices are strictly confined to the Tower grounds, and there are no days off, except for occasional freedays.
Novices are subject to strict discipline, decided and handed out by a sister appointed to the post of Mistress of Novices. She is both disciplinarian and confidante, punishing those who have broken the rules and providing a shoulder to cry on as life as an initiate is very hard. It is she who decides when a novice or Accepted is ready to be tested, or if the girl will be put out of the Tower for good. Punishment ranges from a lecture to a severe switching, and extra chores are usually involved. For all that Aes Sedai act like they rule the world, within the Tower there are hierarchies and rules, and discipline and obedience are instilled from the earliest days. In addition novices are carefully cloistered from men. It isn't that the Tower disapproves of intimacy, but that they don't want their novices thinking too much about hearth and family. If two novices form an intimate relationship, known within the Tower as 'pillow friends', the Mistress of Novices will usually turn a blind eye.
Understandably some novices find the pressure too much, and resolve to run away. They rarely get away with it, usually being caught and returned. Life for a captured runaway makes ordinary novice life look pleasant, with anything less than perfection being swiftly and harshly punished. The reason given is that a half-trained channeler is a danger to herself and those around her, which is not untrue, but it is also the case that the Tower considers itself to have absolute right over all channelers, and does not permit them to leave until it is finished with them.
The novices studying under the rebel Aes Sedai have been arranged into "families" of seven or eight women, making them much easier to organise and also establishing close friendships that help novices to get through the day. This new development has meant that this faction has almost no runaways to deal with.
[edit] Advancement
The expected time spent as a novice for most girls is ten years. Those showing greater potential might be raised Accepted after five or six years, and there have been cases of novices being raised after only three. When the Mistress of Novices decides that a girl is ready, she arranges for her to face the Arches.
To advance from novice to accepted, a novice must pass a test which involves passing through a ter'angreal that makes them face her fears. They must face them three times, For What Was, For What Is, and finally For What Will Be. What happens in this ter'angreal may not be real, no one is sure. But injuries can be taken inside that are fatal, as well as the fact that some novices never come out. Novices who refuse the test three times are put out of the Tower, as are those who stop once they begin the test.
