The Aiel in The Wheel of Time are a hardened desert people with many grim rituals, but the casualness with which they approach death shocks even the toughest visitor. At one point in season three, “Dragon Reborn” Rand al’Thor visits their home and connects with Alsera, a little girl fiercely determined to become a “Maiden of the Spear,” one of the Aiel’s top warriors.
Later, the village is attacked, and while Rand can bring down an entire house on the enemy general without so much as looking, he, too, doesn’t know everything—like that Alsera was sleeping on the second floor of said house. As soon as he sees her little hand hang out from beneath the rubble, he and all onlookers know: Alsera is dead.
Before Rand can so much as sniffle, however, one of the other maidens, Aviendha, immediately recites an Aiel saying: “Life is a dream we all must wake from… before we can dream again.” She says it so calmly, the words can only come from someone to whom death has been ubiquitous all their life. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, there is no sadness in Aviendha’s voice. She knows all Aiel must pass on one day, and no matter how ill-timed any one clan member’s departure, they do have a new dream to look forward to, the Aiel believe.
If you look at it from the right angle, there’s a beautiful optimism in the Aiel’s last goodbye to the departed. Life is a dream, and in our dreams, we can do anything. To dream is a privilege—and yet, no dream lasts forever. Our time is limited, so while we have the power, we must dream up all we can.
Alas, nobody knows the secrets of the universe. How will our imaginations turned reality find their way back to the people mingling in the forests, cities, and, yes, deserts of the Earth once we’re gone? No one can say for sure, but it makes for yet another beautiful vision, doesn’t it? The idea that we all may dream again once more, if perhaps in a different form.
For all their roughness and tough talk, beneath the Aiels’ hard shells lie soft hearts, it seems. Who else would choose such a euphemism? Life is a dream we all must wake from… before we can dream again.
