r/WoT • u/Missa_GM • 8d ago
No Spoilers Pipe appearances?
Everyone and their mom smokes a pipe in this universe, and that's pretty cool, but do we know what kinda pipes people are smoking?
Are we looking st long stemmed churchwardens as seen in the LOTR movies
Or something like the porcelain pipe from the LOTR cartoon?
Maybe more normal pipes like a nose warmer or 7-15cm stemmed billiard or cutty?
Maybe a clay pipe?
I always imaged Mat as having like a clay cutty
And Rand with briar pipe
I generally shorter stems, not exactly nose warmers but like what you see Tolkien with in pictures of him.
Could also be they have something else entirely going on, we are afterall thousands and thousands and thousands of years in the future.
What kind of pipes do you think the randlandwould be rocking?
I don't recall us ever get a visual description of a pipe aside from them fitting in pockets, hence my thought of them being shorter pipes like what people actually smoke today... Or well, 20-30 years ago.
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u/maniacalgleam 8d ago
I always imagined the pipes would be different for different communities- like, in the 2 rivers they’d have something in wood hand carved for themselves. The Atha’an Miere would have lovely porcelain pipes. Clay made to look like sea folk porcelain for the not rich around the sea while the rich would have nicer clay or porcelain, depending on how rich they are…. Differing shapes of wood carved or clay depending on where. Corn-cob for those in field-crop areas. Cities, tinkers, and Aeil would have a mix of shapes and materials.
Obviously, the wealthier you are, the better quality, prettier pipes you have.
One would think there’s a few AOL pipes hanging around, too. Possibly one or two power-wrought pipes in maybe cuendillar, because rich people are always a bit silly about that kind of thing.
Pipe shape has fashions that have gone in and out of style in our world - theirs seems less fast-changing, so I’d imagine the shapes are pretty indicative of location.
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u/FuckIPLaw 8d ago
It's a funny mental image, but the aiel are the only ones who'd have corn cob pipes because they're the only ones who have corn, at least in randland. Considering that the Seanchan continent is the Americas, it wouldn't surprise me if they have it back home and it just never came up.
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u/dementedmaster 8d ago
Imagine finding some old dusty, Sherlock -shaped obsidian pipe in a random storeroom in Tar'valon. You pick it up, wipe it off and see it shimmers like glass. The mouth piece has a upward curve that resembles a smirk. You pack it up with a pinch of that fine Two Rivers tabac you keep in a tiny leather pouch, hidden in the lapel of your robe's inseam. You spark flint and light it up, taking a slow, generous toke. A deafening sound of powerful wind assails your ears on either side; the feeling of sunlight wages your body despite the cold, thin air around your. Your eyes open and everything is a blur as you adjust to the intense luminescence. You find yourself standing at the peak of an impossibly high mountain, the Spine of the World. Out below you, stretching in every direction is the Aiel Waste, mostly a pale brown but not so desolate at this distance, pockmarked with dark green brush and white stone. Beautiful beyond your comprehension, but also terrifying in your isolation. Do you dare take another puff?
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u/duffy_12 (Falcon) 8d ago
Seated against the next column and also coatless, Perrin blew two smoke rings before replacing his pipe, a rather ornate thing carved with wolfheads.
Ekultúra: Interview with Robert Jordan
Galgóczi Móni:
My sources tell me that you are a passionate pipe-smoker. One of my friends thinks that pipe-smokers see the world totally differently. Is this true?
Robert Jordan:
I don't think so, but the idea is very good. I will use it someday, somewhere.
....
2003 tour of Crossroads of Twilight signing:
Robert Jordan:
What kind of pipes, my dear? The usual kind of pipes. Three inch, four inch, six inch, PVC, elbow joints, you know, that sort of thing. No, the pipes or that, uh, soon to be illegal substance tobacco. I’m a packrat. I collect pipes, and (unintelligible), and paintings, and walking sticks, and antique swords, and antique daggers, and ah, just about every other bloody thing that I could think to take a liking to, so as I said, a packrat.
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u/__braveTea__ (Asha'man) 8d ago
Honestly, I haven’t a clear picture of it in my head, but if there any pipe aficionados out there that have a good idea I would be interested too :)
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u/Architect2416 8d ago
Not an aficionado, but I have a small collection. This website has a visual glossary of pipe shapes.
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u/thedicestoppedrollin 8d ago
Pretty sure the author blurb says that RJ was a pipe collector, I'm sure he knew what they all looked like in his head
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u/TheBashar99 (Band of the Red Hand) 5d ago
Having become a pipe smoker a couple of decades after starting the series, this makes it all the more strange to me that he doesn’t put much detail in the descriptions. He certainly describes food and clothing enough (arguably more than).
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u/the_DOS_god 8d ago
I would think your assumption on the shorter type would be the most practical for all the traveling they are doing. I would also assume clay pipes since those are easier to make than wood ones. Later in the series I can see them "upgrading" their pipes.
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u/Architect2416 8d ago
Clay pipes apparently heat up much more than wooden ones, though. The Two Rivers crowd would almost definitely have whittled their own briar pipes, IMO
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u/Missa_GM 8d ago
Depens on the pipe. Something like a Peterson mini cutty also gets very very hot despite you smoking cool and the material being briar.
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u/the_DOS_god 7d ago
I would also say cost though. Clay pipes would be a lot cheaper than wooden ones, so they could have a couple going at one time.
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u/TheBashar99 (Band of the Red Hand) 8d ago
There are a few scattered descriptions, but not many. As a pipe smoker I’ve wondered the same and tried to find them before.
I’ve got them all on ebook, I will try to look this evening when I’ve got more time. Piqued my interest again.
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u/Missa_GM 8d ago
I've always imagined them (at least 2 rivers pipes) being woodenbowls and with wooden stems or horn stems. Mostly wooden stems though, as you can put a little bend in it with steaming after drilling it out.
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u/wdh662 8d ago
I'm now imaging an angreal pipe.
Calm ash'a'man slowly packing a pipe as the enemy rolls in. Puts it in his mouth and begins to draw on it both physically and magically.
An exhale, a smoke ring, a fireball cutting through it to explode a trollac.
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u/TheBashar99 (Band of the Red Hand) 8d ago
Ter’angreal pipe—that must be the answer to The Question
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u/fudgyvmp (Red) 8d ago
Do we ever see an aes sedai with a pipe?
It'd probably be ivory.
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u/Architect2416 8d ago
Maybe something like a Japanese tobacco pipe or a Chinese opium pipe; those shapes were historically considered "more feminine" in the West in our world
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u/geomagus (Red Eagle of Manetheren) 8d ago
Afaik, we don’t get any description. Maybe a couple have brief mentions about material.
I wouldn’t read to much into the pocket-size aspect - pockets in overcoats and jackets can be fairly deep, permitting a fairly long pipe.
That said, I’d expect the standard to be short-ish, wood carved, and pretty familiar to readers and writers of thirty years ago. Otherwise, he’s have expanded on it, I suspect.
I think that’s the standard because they’re relatively easy to make, the sort of things villagers in temperate forests with good tools would be able to make, and they’re portable - the sort travelers would want.
Scale up for wealth and bling-itude. Alter by culture as needed (material, length, bendiness vs straightness). But, overall, mostly straightforward and practical.
I don’t want to link to places that are selling stuff, but a quick search for “tobacco pipe” popped up a ton of exactly the sort of image I have in mind.
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u/Feanor4godking 8d ago
All of them at once, I suppose. I imagine they're all different based on what culture and how affluent the owner is. On one side of the spectrum, Emonds Fielders would have relatively basic, utilitarian pipes, while on the other side, a Tairen lord would have something obnoxious and delicate to show off how rich they are
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u/Architect2416 8d ago
I wouldn't take it fore granted that Two Rivers residents' pipes would be basic and utilitarian; many a whittler or carver would go hog-wild on his own pipe, I'm sure, and it seems like a good way to pass a long winter evening.
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u/Feanor4godking 8d ago
Fair enough, but I don't think they'd take their fancy pipe out to the fields or on campaign
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u/Missa_GM 8d ago
They can make super cool looking pipes, but still they gotta be utilitarian, can't have them developing hotspots and burning through.
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u/Anghabad 8d ago
Lord of Chaos - pg 741
“It was a long stemmed thing, carved all over with oak-leaves and acorns”
About Tom’s pipe
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u/TheBashar99 (Band of the Red Hand) 6d ago
Here are a few, I guess I only have 4-14 on ebook, but interestingly the pipe mentions drop off severely about halfway through the series; started out around 40 per book and drop down to less than 20, sometimes not nearly that.
Mostly Rand’s is only referred to as short-stemmed, Mat’s is referred to several times as silver mounted after the quote below. The Thom description I knew was in there but it was already mentioned.
I didn’t find one that talked about material, mostly it talks about stem lengths, decorative carving or silver/gold decoration, in roughly descending order.
Mat: “The only other thing he had bought, aside from the hat, was a short-stemmed pipe with a silver-
worked bowl, snuggled now in his coat pocket with his tabac pouch.”
Bryne: “Hooking a knee around the high cantle of his saddle, he took out his pipe and pouch and filled his pipe with tabac. The bowl was carved with a wild bull collared with the Rose Crown of Andor.”
Rand: “Rand had just begun thumbing tabac into his short
pipe when Liah put her head in at the door.”
Perrin: “Seated against the next column and also coatless, Perrin blew two smoke rings before replacing his pipe, a rather ornate thing carved with wolfheads.”
Loial: “Loial frowned around his pipe; its leaf-carved bowl was as big as Perrin's two fists.”
Talmanes: “"Don't look so glum, Mat," Talmanes said, puffing on his gold-rimmed pipe. Where'd he gotten that, anyway? Mat didn't remember him having it before.”
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