Despite having been given glimpses of Moiraine and the Amyrlin Seat’s secret plans back in Chapter Four of The Great Hunt, I think this week’s chapters have given me the best example of Aes Sedai double-talk thus far in the read. What I enjoyed most about this week’s read was also the thing that had me grinding my teeth the whole time; because we got the section in which Liandrin used channeling to exert influence over Lady Amalisa, the reader knows more about Liandrin and her evil ways than Egwene and her friends do, and therefore has a much greater reason to be suspicious of her motives. In knowing that she is a Darkfriend (I feel quite safe in calling this one) I had the opportunity to examine the ways in which she avoided answering questions, or responded in such a way that convinced Nynaeve and Egwene of her sincerity without Liandrin actually speaking any falsehoods. Of course all Aes Sedai seem to be fairly adept at speaking guarded and concealed truth, but any member of the Black Ajah would have to be especially skilled at such duplicities.
Still, I feel like if the Aes Sedai took the prospect of the Black Ajah seriously, they could ostensibly ask a question that could not be gotten around; “Have you sworn allegiance to the Dark One, answer yes or no,” would probably do it. I bet Moiraine wishes she could walk the halls of the White Tower asking the other Aes Sedai that… and everyone would probably be super offended.
More on this later, but let’s get to the recap first.
Chapter 38, aptly titled “Practice,” opens with Egwene in her room in the White Tower, practicing channeling by juggling small orbs of light. She isn’t supposed to channel without at least an Accepted to keep an eye on her, but she has found that she can’t help but do it anyway. Her need to channel—even though she still can’t always touch saidar when she wants to—frightens her, but not so much that it can stop her from giving into the desire, just like the fear of being caught channeling without guidance can’t stop her.
She isn’t too worried about being caught, safe in her own room with Min sitting nearby and Nynaeve (technically an Accepted, but not yet allowed to teach) pacing the small space, lost in her own agitated thoughts. The only reason they all have time to be there is because it’s a freeday.
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Min brings up the fact that she’s seen Else mooning after Galad while he was practicing in the training yards with the Warders, flustering Egwene. Although Egwene initially protests that the fact is of no interest to her, when Min apologizes for teasing her, and points out that even full Aes Sedai (mostly Greens) and the kitchen staff take an interest in watching Galad, Egwene softens. The two giggle over his good looks for a moment, then Min admits that Galad was not interested in Else’s presence and asked after Egwene instead.
Just then the door bangs open, startling Egwene, but it is only Elayne, who tells them that she just heard that Galldrian is dead, and there is a war of succession in Cairhien.
Min snorted. “Civil war. War of succession. A lot of silly names for the same thing. Do you mind if we don’t talk about it? That’s all we hear. War in Cairhien. War on Toman Head. They may have caught the false Dragon in Saldaea, but there’s still war in Tear. Most of it is rumors, anyway. Yesterday, I heard one of the cooks saying she’d heard Artur Hawkwing was marching on Tanchico. Artur Hawkwing!”
Min continues to tell how she ran into Logain sitting on a bench, and that he was crying, and ran away when he saw her. She feels sorry for him, and although Egwene points out that it’s better Logain be crying than everyone else, Min says that she knows what he was and isn’t anymore, and that she can still feel sorry for him.
Talking about Logain makes Egwene think of Rand, and how she is no longer having the kind of intense dreams that she had about him on the River Queen, although Anaiya keeps having her write down her dreams and has them checked for signs. She feels guilty for noticing Galad, but reminds herself that if Rand had been caught and gentled, she would have heard something about it.
Elayne asks why Nynaeve is in such a state, and Min explains how Nynaeve struck another Accepted who insulted her, and was sent to Sheriam’s study. Min’s trying to keep her voice down but as she remarks that Nynaeve has been impossible to live with since, a gust of wind bangs the door open and knocks Min off her stool, though it doesn’t touch anyone else in the room. Nynaeve looks immediately chagrined as Egwene checks to make sure there was no one around to see.
Nynaeve apologizes to Min, admitting that her temper gets the better of her and that she shouldn’t have done that, even going so far as to tell Min that she will understand if Min wants to report her to Sheriam. Egwene, knowing that Nynaeve doesn’t like having observers for her emotional moments, returns to her channeling and is quickly joined by Elayne, the two girls passing the glowing spheres around like jugglers. Using the One Power fills her with life and heightens her senses, her distraction making it easier to hear the quiet apologies Min and Nynaeve make to each other. Then Nynaeve snaps at Elayne and Egwene for channeling when they aren’t allowed and threatens to report them.
When the younger girls protest they need to practice, Nynaeve tells them that she wishes they were more afraid, the way she is. She reminds them that she knows what they are experiencing, that she too feels the urge to draw on more and more of the One Power, even though she knows that it would burn her out. Egwene counters that she is afraid, and Elayne agrees after a little pushing. She points out that “a man who drove his oxen as hard as they drive us would be shunned,” and admits she is exhausted all the time, and afraid that she will slip and channel too much of the One Power. Egwene knows, because there is a secret small hole in the walls between their rooms, that Elayne has cried herself to sleep more than one night. Egwene has, too.
Elayne asks Min what she sees around them, whether they will be Aes Sedai one day, or novices washing dishes forever, or something else. Min admits that she doesn’t like to do readings for friends, because it colors what she wants to say or believe about what she sees, but as she squints at the three of them, she realizes that something has changed, that there is a suggestion that they are in danger, or will be very soon.
Attempting to switch to a less fraught subject, Elayne teases Min about her choice to always wear men’s clothing. Just then, the door opens, and Liandrin enters, shocking all of them—if an Aes Sedai needed to speak with a novice or Accepted, she would be sent for, not visited. Liandrin questions Nynaeve’s presence in the room of a novice, but as she needs to speak with Nynaeve as well as Egwene,she doesn’t make a deal out of it, dismissing Min and Elayne perfunctorily.
Liandrin confirms that they are from the same village as “the boys who traveled with Moiraine,” and then tells them that their friends are in danger. Despite Nynaeve’s questions, Liandrin does not give much of an explanation besides stating that Moiraine worries about the girls’ well-being, and that of the boys. She repeats that they are in danger and asks if Nynaeve and Egwene are willing to help them. Egwene is quick to answer yes, while Nynaeve is more skeptical.
When Nynaeve continues to press, Liandrin explains that the danger comes from Shayol Ghul, and that the boys are being hunted. She insists that, though she cannot tell them how, some of the dangers the boys face might be eliminated by Nynaeve and Egwene coming with her now, to Toman Head.
“We will come,” Egwene said. Nynaeve opened her mouth again, but Egwene went right on. “We will go, Nynaeve. If Rand needs our help— and Mat, and Perrin—we have to give it.”
“I know that,” Nynaeve said, “but what I want to know is, why us? What can we do that Moiraine—or you, Liandrin—cannot?”
The white grew in Liandrin’s cheeks—Egwene realized Nynaeve had forgotten the honorific in addressing her—but what she said was, “You two come from their village. In some way I do not entirely understand, you are connected to them. Beyond that, I cannot say. And no more of your foolish questions will I answer. Will you come with me for their sake?” She paused for their assent; a visible tension left her when they nodded. “Good. You will meet me at the northernmost edge of the Ogier grove one hour before sunset with your horses and whatever you will need for the journey. Tell no one of this.”
She reiterates again that they must not tell anyone, saying that there are Black Ajah walking the halls of the White Tower. Despite the fact that most Aes Sedai deny the existence of the Black Ajah, Liandrin says that the time for such denials is past. She insists that the Black Ajah, if they knew of this plan, would never let them go to the aid of their friends, reminds them of where to meet, and commands that they do not fail her. Then she leaves.
Nynaeve and Egwene discuss what they think of Liandrin’s motivations, how she’s Red Ajah and that could be dangerous for Rand, how she forestalled them asking anyone for advice by warning of the Black Ajah, how (as with all Aes Sedai) the truth in her words might not be the truth they thought they heard.
Min and Elayne, having heard everything through the secret hole between the rooms, return and declare their intentions to go to Toman Head as well. Min insists that she has just been waiting for a reason to leave behind the Amyrlin and Brown sisters’ constant questions and demands for demonstrations of her abilities, while Elayne insists that this is her last chance to have a real adventure, and she won’t stay behind to scrub floors and do dishes and get yelled at by the Accepted while the rest get to go off and see something amazing. She tells Nynaeve that the danger is no more than that of the Black Ajah being in the Tower, and that the only way Nynaeve can stop her from coming is to tell Sheriam about it, and since Nynaeve can’t do that, the matter is closed.
Min adds that she can read the danger around all of them more clearly now, which she suspects has something to do with the fact that they have all made up their minds. Elayne, she thinks, has some connection to the boys as well, as much as the rest of them do, and that seems to make Nynaeve capitulate.
Nynaeve begins to make a plan for how they will get out of the Tower unnoticed and what they will need to bring, and Egwene listens as she silently worries about Rand and promises that, somehow, she will help him.
According to Nynaeve’s plans, the girls dress in normal clothing and try to pass as petitioners to the White Tower, which is easy enough to do, given the volume of women who have come to seek an audience with the Aes Sedai, as long as they don’t run into anyone who knows them. Dressed in their best traveling skirts and nicest cloaks, they don’t look like residents of the Tower, and they manage to dodge those who might know their faces. Only Min hasn’t changed her clothes, and carries all their bags so as to pass as a servant.
They spot a group of Aes Sedai who know them but Nynaeve manages to turn down a hallway in time, and Egwene remembers that adventures don’t seem nearly as fun when you’re in them as when you remember them afterwards, although some part of Elayne still seems to be enjoying the excitement. They make it to the stables, where Nynaeve convinces a reluctant stablehand to saddle their horse by flashing her Serpent ring. The stableman had only been given orders for two (and Egwene feels silly for not considering that Liandrin would have made arrangements for them to get their horses) but Nynaeve’s firm assumption of authority convinces him enough to get all four horses saddled.
When they were mounted, Nynaeve addressed herself to the stableman again. “No doubt you were told to keep this quiet, and that hasn’t changed whether we are two or two hundred. If you think it has, think about what Liandrin will do if you talk what you were told to keep quiet.”
As they were riding out, Elayne tossed him a coin and murmured, “For your trouble, goodman. You have done well.” Outside, she caught Egwene’s eye and smiled. “Mother says a stick and honey always work better than a stick alone.”
They have an easy time leaving the city—the guards are there to keep unwanted guests out, not the other way around—and make their way through a city crowded with every type of person imaginable. They all keep their eyes peeled for Aes Sedai in the crowd until they make it to the Ogier grove. It is a beautiful place, to Egwene’s eye neither like a garden nor a wild wood, but more like “the idea of nature”—a perfect forest of oaks, elms, leather-leafs and firs with Great Trees towering above them. They discover that even being just inside the grove makes it feel like they are miles from civilization.
Liandrin arrives, mounted and leading a packhorse carrying lanterns, enraged that Nynaeve and Egwene apparently told their friends after Liandrin commanded them not to. Elayne cuts in, as respectfully as she can, to explain that they overheard, and that they want to help Rand and the others, too. After a moment, Liandrin admits that she had arranged to have the two of them taken care of; it’s well known that they are friends of Egwene and Nynaeve, and Liandrin suggests that the Black Ajah would have been quick to pounce on them if the two Emond’s Field girls suddenly disappeared.
“… Do you not think there are those who would question you when they are found to be gone? Do you believe the Black Ajah would be gentle with you just because you are heir to a throne? Had you remained in the White Tower, you might not have lived the night.” That silenced them all for a moment, but Liandrin wheeled her horse and called, “Follow me!”
Liandrin leads them deeper and deeper into the trees until they come to a fence with a big lock. She produces a key and leads them through, and just as Nynaeve starts complaining that they need to be heading towards a bridge or a ship, not deeper into the wood, Liandrin points out a tall slab of stone that Nynaeve and Egwene instantly recognize as a Waygate. The two steel themselves by remembering that they made it safely through once, and so can again, but Min and Elyane are awed and hesitant until Liandrin offers to let them wait there for her to return, or for the Black Ajah to find them first. They both protest that they never said that they wouldn’t come, and Liandrin urges them all into the gate, looking back the way they came as though worried that some kind of pursuit might appear at any moment.
Egwene gives Bela a kick, forgetting in her determination that time and distance move differently inside the Waygate, but she and Bela manage to keep their footing as they come shooting out the other side of the barrier. She waits in the blackness, watching through the doorway as Nynaeve insists that the lanterns be passed around and lit before she follows after Egwene. She and Egwene joke about Egwene’s mistake, then the rest of the women follow, Liandrin not even waiting for the gates to fully close behind them before leading them away. They follow the bright white line to a Guiding, where Liandrin consults a parchment to decide which way to go. They travel down, Egwene and the others realizing that the next Island they stop at must be directly under the first, although Elayne points out that Elaida, the Aes Sedai who consults for her mother in Caemlyn, explained to her that the normal rules of nature don’t apply in the Ways.
Liandrin pushes them hard, and as they ride Egwene notices that she is not only still aware of saidar, but that she is also aware of the taint of the Ways. Although it is faint, she has the feeling that “that reaching for the True Source here would be like baring her arm to foul, greasy smoke in order to reach a clean cup,” and for once she has no trouble resisting the desire for saidar. Eventually, they stop to eat and sleep, Liandrin waiting for the others to bring her meal to her, and sitting apart from them while they eat.
Egwene asks what they will do if they encounter the Black Wind.
“Moiraine Sedai said it could not be killed, or even hurt very much, and I can feel the taint on this place waiting to twist anything we do with the Power.”
“You will not so much as think of the Source unless I tell you to,” Liandrin said sharply. “Why, if one such as you tried to channel here, in the Ways, you might well go as mad as a man. You have not the training to deal with the taint of those men who made this. If the Black Wind appears, I will deal with it.” She pursed her lips, studying a lump of white cheese. “Moiraine does not know so much as she thinks.” She popped the cheese into her mouth with a smile.
Egwene and Nynaeve discuss their dislike for Liandrin, and Min asks what the Black Wind is. When Elayne has explained what she learned from her mother and from Elaida, Min shudders and remarks that “the Pattern has a great deal to answer for,” and that she isn’t sure any man is worth such danger. Egwene points out that Min didn’t have to come, that she could have left the White Tower anytime she wished, but Min answers sarcastically that it would have been as easy for her to wander off as for Egwene or Elayne. The Pattern doesn’t care what they themselves want, and she asks Egwene what she will do if someone else—perhaps Min or Elayne, or some woman Egwene doesn’t even know—marries Rand instead of her. Egwene deflects, pointing out that Aes Sedai seldom marry, and that Rand himself probably won’t. But if he does, she wishes his future wife the best.
Elayne doesn’t buy it for a moment, though, and adds her own observations about how interesting of a man Rand is, and that she just might go for him if Egwene doesn’t, but that she knows Egwene won’t be so silly. Elayne decides Egwene will become a Green and make Rand her Warder, since sometimes Greens have only one Warder and marry them. Egwene jokes that if she becomes a Green she will have ten Warders, and Min watches them talk while Nynaeve thoughtfully watches Min.
Sleep came slowly to Egwene, fitfully, and it was filled with bad dreams. She did not dream of Rand, but of the man whose eyes were fire. His face was not masked this time, and it was horrible with almost healed burns. He only looked at her and laughed, but that was worse than the dreams that followed, the dreams of being lost in the Ways forever, the ones where the Black Wind was chasing her. She was grateful when the toe of Liandrin’s riding boot dug into her ribs to waken her; she felt as if she had not slept at all.
Liandrin continues to push them hard, and Egwene loses track of the days as they pass through the timeless dark, the twisting ramps and bridges broken up only by the Islands with the Guildings on them. Only Liandrin seems to be unwearied, and she keeps her parchment away from the others. And then at last she turns away from a Guiding and leads them down a white path, and they realize that they’ve reached their journey’s end. Liandrin removes the Avendesora leaf and the Waygate doors swing open.
“We are here,” Liandrin said, smiling. “I have brought you at last to where you must go.”
So Galldrian’s dead, is he? I foresee some trouble ahead for everyone’s favorite mustachioed gleeman; either Thom managed to assassinate him, which I would not put past Thom’s abilities at all, or Thom didn’t kill him but is going to get accused of it by somebody at some point. I have to wonder if the deaths of Galldrian and Barthanes aren’t related in some way; the deaths of the two most powerful men in Cairhein so close together seem like they should be connected, although there is Barthanes’s Darkfriend connection and Thom’s revenge plans to explain them. As was mentioned by a few commenters last week, it seems that Rand’s presence has had quite an effect on Cairhien, whether he intend it to or not. Perils of being ta’veren.
Speaking of intended and unintended consequences, I’m starting to think that Logain may still have a part to play in this story, besides reminding Egwene of the threat to Rand’s safety and freedom. I’m not sure I understand why the Aes Sedai are keeping him in the Tower; ostensibly it’s to keep him from killing himself? But honestly I wouldn’t think the Aes Sedai would care very much what happened to a False Dragon after the threat of his power was removed, unless there is some knowledge they expect to gain from him. Elayne’s sympathy for Logain seems important somehow, and I feel like someone would have asked Min to do a reading on the man. I wonder what she would see.
Logain’s despair and sorrow certainly speaks to my understanding of channeling ability as an essential part of a person, something that, if denied, makes them less than whole in a very meaningful way. It is part of their identity; no doubt any channeler would give up a limb or their hearing or their sight before they would allow themselves to be gentled or stilled. Egwene and Nynaeve’s explanations of how they are drawn to channeling also reminded me of some of the suggestions I’ve gotten in the comments about how the hunger for the One Power can be likened to addiction. I don’t see it so much as relatable to a chemical dependency-type addiction, but what I am starting to notice is the way that it seems like an addiction to, and hunger for, power. For folks like the False Dragons and Liandrin, the One Power is a tool that can be used to bend people to your will, gain support and followers, achieve prestige, and rise above non-channelers and those with lesser abilities. And for people like Egwene and Nynaeve, and Rand too, I think, channeling saidin and saidar is like glimpsing the universe. After all, the One Power is literally the mechanism that turns the Wheel of Time, and no doubt there is an intoxicating aspect to being so close to creation. But these people are only human, they are not the Creator, and there is only so much of Creation that a mortal being can handle. Thus, like villains from Indiana Jones, some channelers can’t contain their lust for power or for knowledge, and they just keep drawing on more and more screaming “I can see!” or “It’s so beautiful!” until their heads catch on fire and explode. I was thinking last week that this factor must make being someone like Verin very difficult; as a Brown, knowledge and learning is very important to her, but she seems very aware of and strict about her limitations. I’m sure she’d love nothing more than to be able to use a Portal Stone herself, but she knows trying would kill her.
The way Elayne and Min tease Egwene is really sweet to me. Like the boys teasing Loial in the stedding, it’s one small bit of normalcy in lives that are otherwise quite difficult and dangerous, and it’s nice to see the girls actually being friends with each other. Sisters-in-arms is great and all, but there’s more to close bonds than fighting the Dark One, and I think it helps to be reminded that this is also what it was like for Moraine and the Amyrlin, as was mentioned back in Chapter Four. Since we get so little from their perspective (so far, at least) seeing how the younger women hold each other up during their time in the Tower helps paint a more complete picture of Moiraine, as well. I anticipate that these four will continue to be a team going forward; we’ve already seen how Elayne and Nynaeve can compliment each other, for example, with the way they handled the horseman in the stable. Nynaeve could certainly use a diplomat around her.
It was a little hard not to get annoyed that Nynaeve and Egwene weren’t more suspicious of Liandrin. I tried to remember that I have more information than the girls do about this particular Red sister, and of course they’re right that they really are stuck between a rock and a hard place; either they risk trusting her or they risk trusting someone else, and they really have nothing to go on. Liandrin has the perfect leverage to drive their decisions. I still can’t help feeling that this is one downfall of the Aes Sedai training method though; because of the way novices are trained, they probably don’t see much difference between Liandrin’s attitude and treatment of them and those of every other Aes Sedai. As I observed in an earlier post, it’s probably very difficult to build cross-generational trust and alliances among the Aes Sedai, because memory of harsh treatment will linger, even if it is understood and forgiven.
Still, there are several tip-offs in Liandrin’s explanations that she is hiding something important from the girls. The first is the fact that she has apparently been reading Moiraine’s letters. While there’s no real reason for Nynaeve and Egwene to find this suspicious, the reader well knows that Moiraine hasn’t trusted anyone but the Amyrlin with information about the Emond’s Fielders, and she certainly wouldn’t be communicating to Liandrin about them. Liandrin never answers as to why she is involved in helping the boys, and her explanation that she can’t tell them all the details only comes after Nynaeve repeatedly asks for it. If she was being honest, it’s much more likely that she would have offered that information up front. She clearly hoped that no one would ask for details, and wanted to avoid the question if at all possible. Liandrin deflects every question, and although there are lots of reasons for an Aes Sedai to play things close to the vest, I think the fact that she doesn’t demand that Nynaeve remember the proper honorific shows just how desperate she is for them to agree to come with her. And that desperation is definitely a red flag.
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And then to top it all off, she has the perfect weapon to put Nynaeve and Egwene in a position where they really have no choice but to follow her: the threat of the Black Ajah. Nothing quite so dramatically ironic as a Darkfriend using the threat of other Darkfriends to drive her victims right into her clutches, I suppose.
Speaking of Darkfriends and the Shadow, Liandrin’s confidence in the Ways seemed a bit odd. Of course it could easily have been false confidence, and Liandrin was merely trusting to luck the way Moiraine once did and Verin meant to, but she certainly seems to be implying that she knows how to handle the Machin Shin. I don’t think it’s likely that the Dark One or his followers can command the Machin Shin, but it’s a little easier to believe that they perhaps found some way to shield themselves from the Black Wind’s attack. After all, Trollocs have been traveling in the Ways for some time, and although they are pretty expendable, it’d certainly be preferable to have some way of protecting traveling troops. And while Machin Shin itself is not of the Dark One, it was created by the taint on saidin, so it would make sense if it was easier for Darkfriends to learn to defend against it than for followers of the Light.
Min’s comment that “the Pattern has a lot to answer for,” and her explanation that she is no more free from it than Egwene or Elayne, got me wondering about how she feels about the Pattern and the destiny it weaves. Not everyone believes in the Pattern the way the Aes Sedai do; it’s not like you hear farmers or merchants talking about the Wheel weaving as it wills. How much knowledge did Min have about the way the Pattern worked before she got involved with Moiraine and the Aes Sedai, and are her viewings actually connected to the Pattern itself, or is it something else? She seems convinced that she is tied to the fate of Rand al’Thor, which is ostensibly because she saw herself being with him when she did her reading of him. And apparently for her that makes the thing definite.
She still doesn’t have all the information, though, and she can never get quite the answers she wants from Egwene as a result. Because Egwene might be in love with Rand, she might be grieved that she can’t be with him and even jealous of any other girl who would try to be, but at the end of the day, Egwene is most worried about Rand either being caught and gentled, or going mad and probably dying. Her evasive answers about not intending to marry and not thinking that Rand would marry either are about that secret, rather than some other more delicate affair of the heart. Min won’t understand that for a while, unless she read a lot more from Rand than I think she did.
It’s probably a really good thing that Elayne and Min decided to go with Nynaeve and Egwene, though. Those “arrangements” Liandrin made for the two of them were definitely not anything good. Kidnapping by Darkfriends maybe. Or just straight up having them killed. Whatever bad things lie ahead for the four (and boy, are they ever bad) at least they are together. They stand a chance. I just don’t think it’s going to be the kind of adventure Elayne was hoping for. That last line, “I have brought you at last to where you must go,” might be the most ominous line to date, and I thought that even before I started reading for next week and found out what was waiting for the girls on the other side of the Waygate.
No doubt you all know too, but in any case, the most horrible bit of the book is right around the corner. I’m sure I’m not the first reader to have a hard time with the damane and the sul’dam; but we’ll leave all that for when we cover Chapters 40 and 41. I’m taking a break for Christmas day next week, but will be back with a new post on January 1st. Until then, see you down below!
Sylas K Barrett doesn’t mind washing dishes, but really hates laundry. A novice’s life sounds tough.
Heh.
Setup. All setup. In two weeks, the climax begins. One thing I will say is that rereading through The Wheel of Time this year, I’m noticing the seams in the first three books more than I did ten years ago. They are still well written, and accomplish multiple things, but they don’t flow as organically as future books do. You can see the Narrative (or, I guess, the Pattern in this case) pretty clearly forcing things for the sake of getting all the pieces to the right place on the board to end the book. I realize there’s an in-world mechanism to explain this, but its not as seamlessly assembled as Books 4-6.
Logically speaking, if one were to join the Black Ajah, there is probably a way to get around the no-lying restriction, otherwise there would be too great a chance to get caught, even if someone wasn’t actively looking for Darkfriends. So I wouldn’t put my store in anything a suspected Black Ajah Aes Sedai says.
@2… I wonder if that is just part of the writer worrying. He plans and he writes… Maybe his pace is too fast (pause for laughter!) in the early books… He’s a little sloppy because as a writer he’s in a hurry… or He’s racing in the joy of the story… and once he’s established the series, he slows down during the meat of the story. I was going to say that speed of publishing may have had something to do with it, but he may have had the first several books almost done when Tor published the first one…Just speculation…
Best line. “Nynaeve could certainly use a diplomat around her.” And that doesn’t change… yet we love her more and more as the series continues…
To me, the magic of Jordan is that each of the main characters, the girls and boys from Emond’s field, Moraine, Lan, and future characters we meet, could have been the lead in their own trilogy.
Great read as always, Sylas. So frustrating to end here, though! Just as it was getting…not good, but at least eventful.
As has been pointed out, the Black Ajah obviously has to be able to lie, so any Aes Sedai who lies is black…
Saidar is the female half of the power and Saidin is the male half. I look forward to these posts every week and happy holidays.
I wonder if I saw through Liandrin the first time I read this. I mean, obviously Sylas did because it’s pretty obvious if you’re paying attention but I can be very oblivious when reading (and not just to people trying to talk to me). One of the disadvantages of having such an attentive person doing the first time read is that it doesn’t capture the experience of a more average first time reader.
MDNY@5
Although it also follows that a Black Ajah member will rarely, if ever, tell an actual lie. And never about anything casual.
@8 // Until she feels the need to comment on the color of your dress. //
@@.-@:
I think its more of a structural thing. In the first three books, RJ has // separate plot lines, but they all converge in time and location for the finale. // Its not an uncommon structure (Lord of the Rings — which was written as a single book, and is about the same length as these — does it flawlessly, for instance), and it largely works in The Eye of the World, which was written and rewritten a lot over the space of five years before publication. But books two and // three are an order of magnitude more complicated both structurally and thematically // than book 1.
This structure is abandoned in // book 4 //, when we are allowed to have // three separate plot lines that don’t intersect in location //. Instead, they roughly intersect in time, and are thematically linked. It works a lot better comes together more seamlessly. Books // 5 and 6 // are also structured this way, where the separate plot lines correspond and connect in time, and in theme, but not in // location //. In books // 7-10, things start going off the rails a little bit, and we lose the connective tissue of theme, and eventually, even time, with the various plot lines //. The books are weaker as stand alone entries for this lack of cohesion, but when read as a single, long story, // books 7-10 are really not that bad //. As a group, they have cohesion of theme and time, so when you can just read straight through them, its fine. But having to wait 2-3 years made those books very disappointing to fans reading along with the publication of each volume in real time.
I whited some of this out. I don’t think its spoilery from a plot standpoint or character standpoint, but I’d eventually love to get Sylas’ analysis of this stuff without my bias inserted in.
EDIT: I will say that // The Dragon Reborn // handles this better than The Great Hunt. By that I mean, it seems less forced to bring // all the characters together // for the finale. Perrin is chasing // Rand // to begin with. Mat is chasing the // girls //. The girls are — again — // manipulated into a trap //, but at least they know it this time going in, and are acting with some agency in hunting // the Black Ajah //. It might be that agency, and // the Netweaver // living up to his name and // drawing them to him intentionally // that makes it work better for me, and seem less contrived for plot reasons. But the seams still show.
I think the reader is supposed to be shouting, ‘No, Egwene! No, Nynaeve, don’t believe her! But of course in story it is perfectly reasonable that they fall for Liandrin’s story. Novices and Accepted are supposed to do as Sisters say, and Liandrin’s acting like she’s in Moiraine’s confidence. We know that’s not true but there’s no way the girls could know it.
@7 I was suspicious of her in my first read, because she briefly tortured Rand (Chap. 6), but I did not know what was normal behaviour of Aes Sedai… Medieval times… torture for the truth was common (or just for fun!)… so in my mind, she was rooting out the truth or trying to, at that point of the story… She’s a red and we were told there are factions within the tower… different philosophies… But Jordan layered every meal with distrust… I didn’t trust Moraine until the end of EotW. So Liandrin was just a little more direct…uses powers and words to beat it out of you… Moraine just uses words…
But Liandrin showing up at the tower and appears to be on the side of the Emond’s fielders… was hard to reason out…
//I can’t see how Jordan could have readily worked this in without getting spoilery and ruining the pace, but I really wonder what is going on with Min emotionally and psychologically at this point. I don’t think it makes sense that she is actually in love with Rand at this point. Not only have they never spent any meaningful amount of time together (unlike later in the series, where she’s the only one of Rand’s girlfriends who I buy as a lasting love story instead of a mostly physical thing), but Min doesn’t really talk like a woman who is currently in love with her friend’s ex. She comes off as resigned and rather bitter. I’m not even sure that she’s particularly physically crushing on Rand this early. We know from her later POVs that he isn’t even her type AT ALL, and that she has a clear idea of “her type”. (I do wonder if, implicitly, she isn’t a virgin. Her morning-after attitude towards having friendsex reads to me as “experienced” rather than “lost virginity to love of life”. It feels very different to the way Jordan writes Rand/Elayne, which is a “losing virginity” scene, and indeed to the way he writes Rand losing his virginity with Aviendha.)
So what’s going on with her in the last scene of TGH? Trying to cope with a viewing about herself, for the first time in her life, and sort of working her way through a fatalistic emotional mess of “I’m not actually currently in love with this guy, but I know that I will be in the future and I have no way to change that, so maybe start acting the part to make growing into it less weird”? That would have been some potentially fascinating character writing if her POV wouldn’t have wrecked so many other things at this stage.//
Moderator, error in text:
“And while Machin Shin itself is not of the Dark One, it was created by the taint on saidir,”
Should be saidin, not saidir.
On a different note, I have to confess that I started giggling when I read //“…I’m starting to think that Logain may still have a part to play in this story…” Maybe just a smidgen, a teeny-tiny part lol.//
Good decision. Christmas day is not the right day to discuss the horrors of a’dam.
@14 – Fixed, thanks!
I don’t want to spoil anything, but I think assuming that a member of the Black Ajah can be identified as easily as asking them directly is not giving the dark one very much credit.
@10… Well I can’t really argue too much about it… It is a touch clunky… using the lines of If to make time pass… \\Time has to pass for things to transpire in the other plotline…\\ I didn’t see it in the first read… It was like being fed steak and potatoes… I didn’t really care how it got on my plate… just keep bringing it from the kitchen! Need more! MORE! I’m jealous of the new readers. They get to read the whole thing one after another…the waiting periods for each book were painful.
@18:
I agree. That’s why I crossed out better and replaced it with more seamless. It’s not necessarily better. There are things about the early books I enjoy more. But I can see the individual pieces now more greatly than the whole.
Looking at Liandrin’s dialogue in these chapters, one wonders if Jordan had been less blunt about how she’s a terrible person, then what happens in the next chapter would come more as a surprise. I mean, her dialogue here is not that different from “wise mysterious mentor that comes to tell heroes about incredible mission they’re destined”, like Moiraine. “Come, it’s foretold you could happen save the world / your friends, don’t ask questions” is something lots of mentor figures tell young men / women in movies, books and comics. And in these stories we, readers or watchers, tell the protagonists “go now, it’s your destiny! stop moping about it! get on with the story!”. He kind of lost a chance to make a surprise here with the Liandrin character.
I wonder if the TV adaptation will be so blunt about Liandrin. If they don’t show her scenes with the Shienaran women and Rand, or show it very differently, then a surprise factor could arise.
She could even use the “Moiraine sent me” line Verin uses.
@2 — I can see what you’re saying. Looks like you explained what you were saying more in another post, but yeah. Early on, things can be almost kind of stand-alone (obviously you need to read Eye of the World to understand the early parts of The Great Hunt, but when Rand/Mat/Perrin/Ingtar go one way and the Aes Sedei in training go another way, it’s easy to pick up on the gist of what both groups are doing) where you have a beginning, a middle and an end, with all the main characters winding up funneled to The Eye/Toman Head for that ending. Where at times, it feels very natural and organic and other times, it feels like “I gotta get these guys halfway across the world and don’t have many pages to do so…uh, time to break out the Waygates again!!!!” But as the series progresses, the characters get more independence from each other, so there isn’t that pressure to have those definite beginnings, middles and ends and plot points can simmer (sometimes painfully so) so that others can have the more immediate importance.
Kind of essentially like reaching that point of “we’re in for the long haul, guys!”, where Jordan realized this was going to be a really long series and that, unless the books were going to be 1500 pages each, you couldn’t have neat little conclusions to each one, such as in Eye of the World, where Aginor, Balthemel and the Big Guy all get dispatched efficiently and you get this nice little “things might not be over yet, but our heroes will get to chill a bit” conclusion.
Mods, two typos in the paragraph beginning with “Liandrin pushes them hard…” Both instances of saidin should be saidar.
@22 – Fixed, thank you!
Yes. She could truthfully say that “some dangers may be averted” if she takes the girls to Toman Head…possibly meaning the dangers the girls might pose to her Black (or Red) Ajah endeavors. Though I’m not sure how dangerous she thinks they are at this point.
///She wouldn’t need to twist the truth. But she could.///
@13: ///Min tells Rand after their first sex that she had never “gone to bed” with a man before, “and don’t think I wasn’t tempted.” So it wasn’t her first opportunity to have sex, but the first time she chose to do so.///
I feel like Jordan was blunt about Liandrin on purpose in an attempt to set readers up to think that evil people in the story will be easy to spot. That makes revelations about other characters later in the series a bit more surprising.
I find he kind of did the same thing with the Red Ajah in general. All RA Aes Sedai we see initially seem to be, if not evil, mean and arrogant beyond normal AS standards. It takes a good while to learn that they aren’t all this way.
“I still can’t help feeling that this is one downfall of the Aes Sedai training method though” Some moderate spoilers up to book 7 ahead. //This is one of the more frustrating aspects of a lot of the characters/groups in WoT to me, and as far as I have gotten (book 7) it hasn’t gotten better. So many of them are 100 percent into this beat discipline into your subordinates mindset, and to them everyone is their subordinate. The Aes Sedai, the Wise Ones, The head Emond’s Fielders, and a large number of individual characters, they all have a brutal, abusive way of looking at other people they consider lower than them, and it is treated in the narrative (so far) as being pretty much fine. People grumble about it, then fantasize about doing the same when they get into power. They aren’t murdering servants that look at them funny, but it is pretty bad regardless. It’s entirely possible that by the end of the story all of this will have been revealed as being looked down on by the overall narrative, but the way almost every character is really cool with corporal punishment, including very severe forms, makes me worried.//
@24 // I think the danger to Liandrin was what would happen if she didn’t fulfill the orders given her by Ishy at the Darkfriend Social. The consequences of failing to deliver the two Two Rivers girls in particular were no doubt severe.//
I agree that the theme that @26 is noticing is extremely prevalent. However, I would argue that, eventually, it plays a central role in terms of plot and larger themes, as opposed to just being an endless annoyance.
//Obsession with hierarchy for hierarchy’s sake does not serve characters well, overall. Examples: Elaida’s pathological obsession with outdated levels of performance of dominance by Aes Sedai over others and by higher-ranking Aes Sedai over lower; Rand’s critical failure to understand that it is not useful for the Dragon to be a singular overlord (and his observation that LTT fell victim to the same problem to an ever greater extent); the disconnect between the Green Ajah’s elaborate internal system of honorific roles and their relative ineffectiveness in combat; even the cultural obsession with the idea of the “Great Captains” that nearly causes their talented subordinates to neglect the evidence that they are making poor strategic choices. I think this eventually ties in very well with a series where the most serious moral evils–such as Compulsion, forced bonding, rape, and the cosmic removal of free will–are offenses against individual autonomy.//
@26: RJ’s undergraduate days at The Citadel are strongly influential, IMO. Pat Conroy’s stories of life there are interesting.
@28, I’m glad to hear that the narrative is going somewhere with that, I can live with it so long as Jordan has a plan with some depth to it. On a related, but even more spoilery note (seriously, do not read the spoiler unless you are at least through book 6) //Faile’s behavior towards Perrin in later books is really frustrating. She is outright abusive, emotionally and physically, and with even less indication that there is anything wrong with it. She beats and cuts Perrin, and emotionally manipulates him more often than not, with some near-gas-lighting thrown in for good measure. Don’t really have a point here, just venting that I really don’t like Faile, and am hoping Jordan has a plan here too.// I really have been enjoying the series, but without knowing the end I can only hope that my concerns have a solid endgame planned.
@29: Agreed, but I don’t read the text as suggesting that Jordan uncritically accepted all aspects of military school culture as inherent goods.
@@@@@ 2 and 4 maybe others! I believe RJ sold the series to the publishing company as a trilogy, but then blew them away with the Hunt and how much culture could be developed! After our 3rd installment of WoT I think he was given more free reign to take time to develop the world, thus the 1st 2 books don’t really have the continuity like later books in WoT
One of the best quotes I remember from this series is one that seems rather appropriate with the current worry about fake news and obscured truths:
I can’t remember from which book it comes, or who says it to whom. I suspect Lan, but I’m not sure. There’s also another great one about the difference between men and women as it relates to their ability to forgive and forget something, but it doesn’t relate to this specific moment.
@30 That particular issue frequently comes up on “worst WOT moments/plotlines” lists. If that tells you anything. I don’t want to give actual spoilers, especially since it’s been years since I read the books.
@33 That quote is much older than WoT! You see it attributed to darn near everybody, but it appears nearly verbatim in Poe’s story about Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether.
S
Agree with @34 that the issue you have raised has not gone over well with the fandom, overall. There are some complexities added eventually having to do with both characters you mention working through some massive culture norms differences, but there is quite a lot of cultural relativism rather than condemnation of the character you don’t care for. However, the character does undergo fairly substantial growth.
Problems, however, remain. WoT has several serious flaws, and I agree that your issue is one of them.
@34 @36, thanks, I do appreciate that others have bumped on that as an issue too. Like I say, I quite like the books but that thought has been nagging at me for awhile, mostly just needed to vent lol. I look forward to getting a better idea of how the fandom feels about all of this once I finally finish the series, all y’all in the comments here have been great.
@10 Anthony Pero
That is obviously debatable… when I last read through the Wheel of Time I skimmed large parts of those books and outright skipped one of them (you may guess which one).
The problem is that these books not only do not work as single volumes, they have so many completely unnecessary an simply boring plotlines that they become next to (and in one case completely) unreadable to me.
@40:
Point taken. Its obviously a matter of preference. Nevertheless, they were “interesting” enough that we’ve debated about them on this site for a decade. I’ve read hundreds of fantasy novels that I’ve never even talked about because I lacked the interest to do so. I’ll take this over that every time.
I will also say that it helps if you care what happens to the characters. By the beginning of book 7, I’d grown to care very deeply for even // Faile //, and certainly for // Elayne //, so its easier for me to read through those storylines because what happens to them matters to me. It wasn’t well-written, but what came before sustained my interest, enough at least, even on subsequent re-reads. I mean, if someone doesn’t care for the characters of a particular storyline, that storyline is already going to be viewed with hostility, even if its relatively good. But I never developed the hate for certain characters that others around here have.
@41: I absolutely agree that Books 7-10 are far, far better read back to back then with maddening multi-year gaps between them. I was as fed up with //Crossroads of Twilight// when I first read it as every other fan who survived reading during publication–and I only started in 1997 when, haha, I thought that A Crown of Swords was the end of the series, joke was on me. When I got up the courage to introduce my partner to WoT with, true story, a full-length read-aloud (it took several years), I was worried that I was going to lose them, and possibly lose my own patience, with that book. Actually I blazed through that whole storyline and was amazed by how well it hung together when I could just grab another volume without waiting 2 years!
Spoilers that @39 shouldn’t read. I’m glad that the fandom is acting as a good reading group for you, @39! Loving WoT does kinda involve a certain amount of “this is really maddening but overall I love this series”. I don’t think I’ve ever met a single fan who doesn’t have at least one pet peeve with it. :)
Plus, one of the things that actively makes me love WoT is actually, oddly enough, that sometimes the characters drive me bonkers! It makes them feel like real people in a way that isn’t the case in just about any other traditional epic fantasy (yes, including Sanderson–I love his characters, but they aren’t as spiky and uncompromisingly mundane as the WoT cast).
//I’m also on Team I Don’t Actually Hate Faile. I agree that there are some problematic elements in Perrin and Faile’s relationship mixed up with all the “It’s implicit that this couple is into consensual spanking and verbal insults, but it’s maybe a little too implicit rather than clear that they are both consenting”, but overall I find her a strongly written, believable if not always likeable, character. And I do think that the Perrin/Faile romance has some interesting things to say about the experience of entering a marriage with major cultural differences and only really understanding how profound they are after the wedding (because people don’t always understand that the norms they were raised with aren’t universal, and the story is depicting a fairly brief courtship even by in-universe standards and no cohabitation).
And by the end, I absolutely LOVE the way that Faile’s arc comes full circle from her running away from boring supply chain work as the lady of a wealthy noble trading house to become a Hunter of the Horn to. . .her saving the Horn from the Dark One by means of her expertise at supply chain logistics. It’s beautifully constructed, and I think it represents her personal maturation very well without gutting her nonconformism and sense of adventure to the core. And like AnthonyPero, I cared very intensely about Faile by the end. If she had been Really For Real Dead I would not have been OK emotionally.
Elayne drives me more significantly nuts, but I do care about her at the end as well. And, ironically, Sanderson does make me buy Rand/Elayne romantically where Jordan didn’t.//
Interesting enough 10 isn’t my last favorite book that honour goes to book 8. (A Path of Daggers)
About arogance, for Aes Sedai the most screwup is that later books prove that the power doesn’t die out, Aes Sedai are just bad at finding chanellers and good at driving them away, see Kin see older women.
Re Red Ajah, the fact that out first 2 were Elaida and Liandrin (who isn’t even red) showed them in a very bad light, those aren’t the nicest representants.
Just a quick note on the chronology here, which always blows my mind — these two chapters (along with the chapter immediately following which Sylas has already read) take up two days of in-universe time; perhaps three, since it’s difficult to precisely match time flow in the Ways and in the regular world. //These two days are the only on-screen appearances by anybody we get during the entire four months and ten days that Rand and his party spend in the weird Portal Stone loop.// By comparison, //four months and ten days is the same amount of time that passes between Dumai’s Wells, and Rand using the True Power to kill Semirhage — in other words, the ENTIRETY of books 7-11 and half of book 12. Here, it gets three chapters. This is a big part of the reason why the later books can seem like such a slog; there’s a lot more detail in minutia because not as much time is passing in the physical world.//
But then the series would wind up being almost 15 books long!
10. Anthony Pero
Very interesting thoughts.
13. mutantalbinocrocodile
// All her life Min has seen other people manipulated by the pattern. They try to escape, but never can. Then she sees herself doomed to love a man she hardly knows. That’s hard enough to swallow. She also sees she’s going to have to share him. That is absolutely galling. Then she discovers he’s in love with a fourth girl, who wasn’t even in the viewing. Two of these girls are her friends. So now she’s got a painful set of choices. She has an advantage over the Elayne and Aviendha (still unnamed). She knows she’s going to love Rand, but doesn’t know what he will feel for her, if anything. She accepts her fate, unlike Aviendha. But does she try to weasel her way into Rand’s heart, and be first amongst equals? Humiliating to consider, but being relegated to third-tier status is just as bad. And Elayne and Egwene are her friends. She’s afraid of losing that friendship if they start squabbling over Rand. Argh!
The hope she clings to is that Rand will love her back, and that her friends will not reject her when she winds up with him. That’s at the root of her teasing Egwene here – she’s trying to figure out how much of a b*tch Egwene is going to be when Rand gets a new girlfriend. We see her take another step in this direction later on when she takes seduction lessons from Leane. //
25. KalvinKingsley
Interesting idea re: Liandrin
42. mutantalbinocrocodile
// The main problem with Faile was the Plotline Of Doom. And it made Perrin so annoying. //
@43 // 8 and 10 suffer from the same problem IMO, in that they both feel like the first half of 9 and 11. I feel like 8-9 were outlined as one book and 10-11 as one book, but as Jordan’s writing style became more expansive they grew too big. //
46. John
I believe I read an analysis somewhere, possibly in the FAQ, that // books 5 and 6, if taken together, followed the structure of the previous books taken independently. //
10. Anthony Pero
Ok, I’ve been thinking about that all day. I wonder if // throughout TGH, Jordan wasn’t kicking himself for not having placed Shienar and Malkier in the west instead of the east, or possibly having finished TEOTW in Saldaea instead of Shienar. From a plot-building perspective, when Moiraine and Rand exit the waygate in TEOTW, they’ve got to go somewhere close to the blight, because the climax of TEOTW is centered around the blight (the Green man, the Eye, the battle at Tarwin’s gap), but there are no other constraints. Tarwin’s gap could easily have been moved west, and then in TGH, Rand could have strolled leisurely southwards without having to contrive teleportation mechanisms to get from Cairhien to Falme. Because the climax of TGH has to be on the western shore, because Hawkwing’s armies can’t come back by sea and arrive in Cairhien.
So as it is, the means he uses to get from Fal Dara to Falme are a bit contrived, as you said, especially when taken in whole. Moiraine says the horn has to go to Illian for no good reason (the legends connect it to Ilian, as if Aes Sedai routinely make crucial political decisions based on legends). Fain continues south for no clear reason. Fain goes to Toman Head for no clear reason. (Yes, it’s mentioned in the prophecy in chapter 7, but Fain has no role in this. Does the shadow know the Dragon will proclaim himself on Toman Head? Better take the Horn somewhere completely different then, no?) Anyway, Fain has to explicitly instruct Rand to follow him to Toman Head, because there’s no other reason for him to go there. The black wind tracks people in the real world even though it’s in the Ways. And he needs a time warp using the portal stones to get the chronology right. And the only reason Fain doesn’t blow the horn is because he can’t figure out how to open the chest, and doesn’t think to get the trollocs to smash it to pieces. And afterwards Turak opens the chest easily, but over several months Fain still can’t get his hands on the horn, nor even on the dagger, which is what he really wants. Jordan has to use Ta’veren and The Pattern over and over again to explain these.
That said, Jordan makes the best of difficult plot constraints to indulge in worldbuilding. He gives us a glimpse of Cairhien, which will be important later. He weaves Thom back into the narrative, and uses him for a brief infodump. We see darkfriends at the highest levels, foreshadowing Ingtar. We meet Aiel and Ogier. And we get the lines-of-if scenes, which give us glimpses of other possibilities, and a few big hints (“he lived and died an Aiel”). These could not have been done so well on the West coast. (The character development of Perrin and Rand could have.)
I think the final scenes at Falme are very good, and are unequaled until midway through TSR. I also wonder, when Jordan was writing the Wayback scenes in TSR, how much of the quality of those scenes may be attributed to having written the lines-of-if scenes a few years before.
//
@47 // I would say Books 4 & 5 fit my “meant to be one book” perspective rather than 5 & 6 //
@10 & @47
I really enjoyed reading through your lines of thinking – both ‘what’ and ‘if’ successively.
//Once the publishing process caught up to Robert Jordan – by the time LoC was originally due to be published – and he started writing in real-time, the structure of the books changed into a function of a peak in demand versus being able to complete something that resembled a narrative arc.
Everything that’s been covered up to this point and through most of LoC, has the hallmarks of a writer working with a comfortable head start. Given what was said in the interviews about the Finishing Process required to finally get LoC published, that kinetic dynamic RJ & Harriet had to establish – although beneficial (in my view) to what remains the best conclusion of any books in the WoT series – was anathema to Jordan himself as it took so much out of him, and especially to Harriet, notwithstanding her role as Editor and how successfully the everyday urgency was translated into a complementary spectacular ending on the page.
IIRC, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ was the particularly pervasive potent refrain i read, in the interviews & anecdotes of that time.
The ending for tGH in my opinion, remains the second best realised conclusion in the series, not least for the assuredness with which it wraps up this section of the narrative arc and introduces us for the first time to what ‘Peak Performance’ might be required in The Last Battle, not to mention character wise, with the easy familiarity of the Heroes of the Horn, who ‘…know Lews Therin even if he does not know himself’.
Where Anthony Pero sees seams, I see necessary wrinkles to create gaps in the narrative for our heroes to gain commensurate experience, separately. It’s not until the end of Book 7 where a change in real world circumstances for the author cause the double stitching to be felt, both in the perennial deus ex machina of ‘Tavere’en-ness’, followed by the blatant cop-out conclusion, which I think unhappily marries an inability from RJ to satisfy the anticipation of the buildup to Rand’s ‘PLAN’, along with an unwillingness to write the obvious in a capricious attempt to render Sammael “worthless’.
Books 8-10 just magnify what was first made explicit here.
Given how GRRM has been left to go about it, discussions like these lead me to futilely wonder what might have been if RJ had been allowed to complete respective narrative arcs pos aCoS. We at least may never have seen CoT & its lazy gimmick at all.//
However, it is what it is and banal as that may be, WoT will remain for me, a world rich in (and of) memory.
@9 One of my favourite moments in the entire series, glad someone else remembers.
@47, // As we see later Aes Sedai make political decisions based on legends all the time. Reasonable enough in a world dependent on prophecy.//
Can we do a spoiler thread similar to when leah was reading ASOIAF?
@47:
Moiraine told her plan to Siuan before the Horn was stolen: She was sending the Horn to Illian because she intend Rand to be the one to deliver it. She thought she could use the situation to make Rand King of Illian and give him a power base.
51. princessroxana
// Ok, I’ll grant you that’s a valid argument in the general case, but can you really imagine them giving up a priceless artifact based on a legend? When Moiraine got her claws on the Rhuidean cache, she didn’t start looking up legends to see who should get what, she just took everything she could to the tower //
@10 Anthony Pero
A few more thoughts. // Books 5 and 6 did come together in location, after a fashion. Nynaeve winds up in Cairhien with Moghedien, just in time to play a crucial role in Rahvin’s demise, and in LoC Perrin chases Rand all the way to Dumai’s Wells. What we don’t get is all three Ta’veren together in the same room.
//
@53
Couldn’t that apply equally to almost every other country?
@55, Jonathan Levy, // Illuan seems to have a special /ie to the Horn. Bringing it there would have an impact unlike any other nation //
//It is never explained why Illian should be connected to the Horn. In Tarmon Gaidon it has nothing to do with Illian. It is just the place where the Hunters take their oaths.//
@57, 56 // I think Illian had a really good PR department. They used the legends about the Horn to come up with a semi-regular tourism boost. //
I think //
Moiraine’s plan to take the horn to Illian is about as well-grounded as her plan in TSR to attack Illian.
As ISAM put it:
Moiraine: My brilliant theory about The Prophecy of the Dragon is that you need to wage war against Illian, because ‘The People of the Dragon’ obviously are the people of Tear. Also, you need to wear a yellow pointed party hat, because that is my understanding of the line “He will bring war.”
//
Regarding Moiraine’s plans and Illian // I think it was a politically opportunistic plan to gain quickly a power base for Rand based on the PR mercantile opportunism of Illian which tied itself to the Horn. RJ might have drawn inspiration from Medieval religious tourism- like the seven heads of St Anne or the three magi being buried in Milan, of all places… etc etc.
If there was more to Illian’s claim the Horn, I’m sure one of the commenters would’ve mentioned it by now//
Excited to catch back up with this.
And, yes I would love to see what Min would see about Logain :)
@9 – hah. Probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire series.
I actually don’t hate //Faile. I know she’s annoying and problematic, but she also feels like a realistic, flawed, passionate person and, like Nyneave, I appreciate a female character who can be flawed and still have agency and growth.//
““Have you sworn allegiance to the Dark One, answer yes or no,” would probably do it”
^^ I do not think that Sylas yet realizes that the Aes Sedai Three Oaths are undone and replaced for members of the Black Ajah (and possibly other Darkfriends? I cannot recall). I know that it has not been explicitly revealed yet and I cannot remember what I thought about it at this point, if anything, but it never particularly surprised me that they could lie. I think that most of the fandom realized that they could lie by TFoH at the latest, because certain characters were suspected of being Black by that point due to apparent discrepancies in what they said and what we knew, but it might not be entirely clear yet. On the other hand, I swear that Sylas has been tiptoeing around this point for the entirety of this book, although I am now wondering whether he realizes the possibility fully, so it is really frustrating (in the good, well-wishing way) that he sometimes gets so close or maybe even spot-on and then forgets it later! xD
Two guards bar your passage. One always tells the truth and the other is able to speak freely. You may pass only if you identify them correctly. How do you tell which is which?
In WoT, for certain characters (Ooh Ooh!) especially, this is not a mere hypothetical or logic riddle. The fate of the world literally rides on its solution.