Swords in fantasy are as old as time itself. From Gilgamesh and Enkidu slaying the demi-god Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven (spoiler: doesn’t end great for Enkidu as it turns out) to Susanno, a kami (a spirit possessing holy powers) who slays Yamata no Orochi, an 8-headed serpent (hiding a few swords within its coils) to Beowulf, swords have been there from the beginning. While some of those swords were named, in the Arthurian mythos we begin to see swords choosing their owners, and in that choice, granting “Chosen One” status upon them.
Tolkien really ate that up in his own works, with Narsil not content to be just the Sauron-killer, but waiting for Isildur’s heir to reforge it (bigger and brighter) as Anduril so Aragorn could be recognized as the King of Gondor. Tolkien, being the sometime (but not the ALL) father of fantasy, heralded in a golden era of magic swords. They often function as the blazing “Chosen One” symbol, from Gonturan choosing Harry in The Blue Sword to By the Sword by Mercedes Lackey and beyond.
The Wheel of Time has its own Chosen One (several, in fact) plucked from another fantasy favorite: prophecy. But swords serve a different function in the world Robert Jordan created: they are the Great Leveler. They don’t choose their owner (despite what Callandor would have you believe, that was about a sa’angreal not a sword), they don’t convey special powers, and they don’t make someone a badass the instant they touch the hilt of one of Jordan’s characteristic, long-hilted, single-edged, katana-like blades.
Don’t believe me? Look no further than Mr. Dragon Reborn himself. Rand picks up his father’s blade in the opening sequence of The Eye of the World but has no idea how to use the damned thing, as we see time and again. He clumsily uses it in life and death situations; his ta’avern abilities step in where his skills with a blade fails him. In fact, despite having the world’s greatest swordsman, al’Lan “Lan” Mandragoran for a teacher, an incredible work ethic, and fate of the world as incentive to get better yesterday, Rand doesn’t really begin to be able to hold his own among competent swordsfolk until the end of The Great Hunt (where the opening sequence is Lan putting him through his sword paces and giving him grief for even attempting to learn something that takes years to get better at). It’s really only in later books that Rand becomes worthy of wielding a heron-mark blade—a mark indicating the bearer is a blademaster.
Blademasters aren’t invincible, though. Time and again throughout The Wheel of Time we see the truth of that. Rand kills a Seanchan noble who bears a heron-mark blade, but he only does so by the skin of his teeth and is wounded in the process. We’ve already talked about Lan’s badassness, but Lan isn’t invincible either. Far from it. In New Spring he is nearly killed several times over and even meets a swordsman better than himself. Lan is marked for death… until Moiraine steps in with her magic to save the day. He’s not a Chosen One, but Lan has powerful friends and luck at just the right time. Even with those friends and his skill, he is wounded many times over throughout the series and we’re never quite sure if perhaps this fight won’t be the time he Sheathes the Blade—sacrificing himself to ensure the Light triumphs over the Dark One.
Another example of the deadliness of swordplay comes through in the pivotal scene when Galad Damodred becomes Lord Commander of the Whitecloaks by challenging the current Lord Commander in a trial by combat. Only Valda, the Lord Commander, is a blademaster and Galad—who we’ve previously seen effortlessly break an entire mob single-handed with just his sword—has to rely on luck and subterfuge to win… because in an out-and-out skill-based fight, he was outclassed. Despite those disadvantages, Galad eviscerates Valda, proving the sword doesn’t care about status, nor always skill—merely who has won and who has lost.
Everyone I’ve just mentioned is either a Lord or King or becomes a Lord or King, and swords in The Wheel of Time are very much a noble person’s weapon… until they aren’t. Aram is a Tinker—a group of people who follow The Way of the Leaf, a belief that the principle of nonviolence is absolute. Because of this, they’re very naturally a target for those who believe violence and power entitle them to do as they wish and this has forced them into a nomadic life where they never tarry long in one place for fear of violence. The Tinkers aren’t cowards though, and Robert Jordan shows us several times where they show incredible bravery to save children and others from everything ranging from Whitecloaks to brigands (are those different from Whitecloaks?) to Trollocs.
When Aram’s family is murdered he snaps and takes up arms to fight those who would harm others. Specifically, he takes up a sword, and in so doing reveals another way in which swords are used as levelers within The Wheel of Time: they allow social mobility in ways that aren’t possible through other methods. In taking up the sword and fanatically devoting himself to becoming proficient with it, Aram transforms from an itinerant young man into something more. A bodyguard, a soldier of fortune or an outright soldier: the options are many. Aram the Tinker had a societal ceiling placed upon him that Aram the Swordsman does not.
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It’s Tam, Rand’s father, who supplies Rand with his own sword and here again is another example of how that sword changed Tam’s place in society. Tam of Emond’s field is a simple farmer, but Tam who picked up a sword and went away to learn its art became Second Captain of The Companions in the Illian Army. The Companions were an elite unit and the personal guard of Illian royalty. Tam is the same man in both instances, but with a sword in his hand his place in society is much more fluid than a simple backwoods farmer’s is. It would be remiss of me not to note that swords don’t grow on trees in Randland… there are many reasons why of the three farm boys who set off in The Great Hunt only one of them has a sword (inherited from Tam). That is something that becomes more available as war(s) begin to break out and that seems to be how Tam got his originally, but there are definitely financial prohibitions in place.
Alright, I’ve just spent loads of time talking about swords as the Great Leveler with all manner of dudes… but what about genders other than men? Gender in The Wheel of Time is a whole article unto itself. A whole series of articles. Some folks love the way Robert Jordan sets up his societies and the roles gender plays and others hate it, but what seems to be true at the start of the series is that generally the main cultures at play have women in political and mercantile leadership roles, but leave swordplay (but not all combat: see Min, Maidens, Birgitte, etc.) to the men, with one giant exception: the Seanchan Empire.
Gender roles seem much more fluid within the Empire and a few prime examples of this are Tylee Khirgan and Egeanin Tamarth. Tylee is a Banner General in the Ever Victorious Army. Each time she appears, she plays a minor, but often pivotal role and each time there is blood involved. First, partnering with Perrin to destroy rebel Aile which earns her a promotion to Lieutenant General, and then fighting Trollocs which grants her a title of nobility in the Low Blood. While she’s a general, she has scars on her face, and when the Trollocs ambush her, killing her second in command, she draws her sword and leads the charge. It’s by both her brains and her blade that Tylee carves her own path through society. Egeanin Tamarth is another such woman. Captain of a Seanchan ship and a swordswoman, she captures several key vessels which gain her promotion along the lines of Tylee to the Seanchan Captain of the Green, which is analogous to Banner-General, and is also raised to the Low Blood.
One of the themes in The Wheel of Time is progression: the wheel of history constantly grinding as it turns in a circle and civilization with it, rising and falling as it traverses the circular path set before it. As the series progresses, we begin to see that change in gender roles as well. Both with magic, suddenly available to men, and with the sword. Faile creates her own personal bodyguard and spy network known as Cha Faile, led by Selande Darengil, a would-be Maiden of the Sword who oversees the women (and a few men) who make up the group. Interestingly, many of these are former high-ranking nobles and taking up a sword here is actually lowering their place in society. When Elayne Trakand takes the throne of Andor she creates a personal bodyguard of all women, several of whom carry the sword. Yurith, who teaches the sword to her compatriots in particular is commended by several warders, masters of the sword in their own right, on her skills.
The blade as an engine of change, conferring both a measure of status and opportunity regardless of birth or gender is yet another way in which The Wheel of Time stands out in epic fantasy and a reminder of the myriad layers Robert Jordan created within the world. In a series where magic can literally shatter the world into pieces, the introduction of swords as an equalizer is a deft touch.
Ryan Van Loan is a debut Fantasy author who served six years as a Sergeant in the United States Army Infantry (PA National Guard) where he served on the front lines of Afghanistan. His forthcoming novel, The Sin in the Steel was purchased by Tor Books publication as a series.
Great article, Thank you!
Interesting, thanks for the article.
The Seanchan are definitely an interesting contradiction in the way their society is structured.
Two of my favorite characters that are sword masters from RA Salvatore are Drizzt and Artemis Enteri that was a great article thanks
Swords are very much a status symbol in the Wheel of Time. Tam’s sword is a significant part in Rand being mistaken for a lord in the first two books. This is also seen when Birgitte becomes Captain-General of the Queens guard in Andor many nobels, including Elayne, keep questioning her about her lack of a sword. Birgitte in turn keeps saying that there are other weapons and that every time she has used a sword it has ended in disaster. In a Memory of Light, as she is losing more and more memories, she starts wearing a sword and is eventually killed in battle. I have always found this a very interesting plot line. Birgitte clearly values the sword as a weapon, Elayne’s all female body guard are all trained in using a sword, but is just not her weapon.
Loved the article! Thank you.
Just giving a shout out to Harimad-sol!
Loved that book as a kid.
As interesting as the article is, I don’t necessarily know that I agree. One of the commenters claims that Rand’s sword causes him to be mistaken for a lord in the first two books, but that’s really only in the second. In the first book, the sword marks him out as a target. Thieves want to steal it, and his enemies find the incongruity of an ordinary teenager carrying such a distinctive weapon an easy way to mark him out. He feels compelled to conceal its distinctive marks when he arrives in a big city, and when he finds himself facing a queen’s judgment the discovery of his sword’s nature is the greatest moment of peril, because it casts doubt on the innocence of his actions. Rand feels he has to learn to use the sword to survive the hostile attention that comes with it, but cannot bear to give it up altogether (though he would hardly be defenseless without it – he is an excellent archer and it’s implied he knows his way around a quarterstaff, Tam being the second best man in the village with that weapon). It’s because the sword belongs to the father he loves that he hangs on to it, not least because the night he took it up for the first time, he also discovered a hint that he’s actually adopted and is terrified of losing the relationship with his father.
The sword does represent power with regard to Rand. Some of the peril the sword brings him is due to people considering him a threat they must preempt (such as in the Andoran royal court), and when the coincidental similarity of his name to local conventions of royal nomenclature causes commoners to treat him as a noble and nobles to receive him as an equal, and a manipulative Svengali-esque figure swaps out his clothing for an aristocrat’s wardrobe, his sword is the icing on the cake that makes people treat this putative noble as more than just the callow rich kid they would otherwise assume him to be.
But for Rand, whose role as the Chosen One represents both destruction and salvation to the world, power is as dangerous as it is useful. Beyond the sword bringing him more danger than it protects against in the first book his sword skills lead him into greater and unnecessary perils as the series goes on. When he loses his sword at the moment of his revelation as the Chosen One (a whole other essay unto itself), but grows in his magic, a more powerful enemy points out that his go-to move of conjuring a magic sword to defend himself is a mere fragment of what he is capable of. His sword skills are actually preventing him from doing as much as he could and growing his other skills. He spends a considerable part of a major battle running around fighting foes hand to hand through the halls of a giant fortress, until that fact is pointed out and he finally takes him a magic device that is emphatically Not a Sword, and instantly kills all the foes and ending their murderous rampage. How many innocents died while he wasted time on the dead end of his swordsmanship, instead of embracing the full scope of his powers?
A conflict with his would-be mentor and thematic antagonist shortly afterward is whether or not to go to war against a neighboring evil sorcerer-king. Despite his lack of real mastery over his magic, Rand is told that with the magic Sword he drew from the Stone to prove his claim to be the Chosen One, he could mop the floor with the enemy. Yet, he resists, sticks the Sword right back where he found it, sends the kingdom’s armies off on a humanitarian relief mission and turns his back on the power represented by his magic sword for the obligatory Ordeal in the Desert. It’s there that Rand comes to grip with his heritage as a scion of a race of famously deadly warriors who are noted for their refusal to wield swords, a last vestige of their former pacifistic ideology that proved untenable to their ancestors. As if to resist being subsumed into their culture, Rand makes a point of practicing his swordsmanship and retaining the dress of the culture in which he grew up. And it is during this interlude among the anti-sword people that he defeats a dangerous enemy and obtains a magic teacher, one who is unwilling but devoid of other options. He finally brings his antagonistic counselor to heel, and prevents her from manipulating him or subverting him to her own goals (though as an apparent servant instead of an antagonist, she is better able to pour poison into his ear, figuratively speaking), but then he has to leave the desert, and as soon as he does, he is given a magic-forged sword blade that is a replacement for Tam’s now-lost sword.
Upon regaining a physical sword, Rand promptly decides to engage an enemy leader with much more experience and undoubtedly greater skill, in a single duel, for his personal satisfaction. His own bodyguards and friends have to form a human wall to make him forgo this unnecessary risk, when the world depends on him staying alive for a future fight.
His attachment to that sword (via the woman who gave it to him; as with Arthur’s actual Excalibur, he does not draw it from a stone, but is given to him by a woman with water associations) will later represent a danger to him, as he is unwilling to leave a place of danger if it means leaving that sword behind. In a later event, he will be taken captive. He attempts to break out and his skills have grown to the point he is able to kill an elite guard with his bare hands, take up the man’s sword and mortally wound another, in the seconds it takes the 3 dozen witches around them to magically freeze him in his tracks. And because those two dead men were magically bonded to one witch who is now in pain from it, torture becomes a feature of his captivity as well.
Not long after he escapes that captivity, Rand is “undercover” and “infiltrating” an enemy encampment, hoping to sway the enemies to his side. His ruse lasts exactly until he actually meets the first person from the camp, who sees right through it, but covers for him anyway. He has surprising success winning over two of the leaders despite his ineptitude at covert ops, and then attempts to win over a third with a display of swordsmanship in a sparring contest. When a supernatural menace attacks and scatters the camp, Rand, rather than use his magic to escape instantly, decides to stick with his new friends and walk out, after all, the menace proves vulnerable to steel, and Rand has just demonstrated his superb competence with a blade…what could go wrong? Except yet another enemy was lurking nearby and when Rand wanders into reach, is able to strike him down with a cursed dagger that creates a wound full of evil the way mundane wounds are full of pus. Rand only survives because ANOTHER evil wound from yet another attempt on his part to bring a sword to a magic fight, can be diverted so the two evils in his body fight each other, rather than him. Another instance of his own confidence in his swordsmanship causes him to linger in a city where he is unable to use his magic, hunting down other magic-using foes, certain that without magic creating so many options, he is absolutely their superior with just swords. Things go bad again, and he undergoes yet another traumatic captivity. When he is finally free, he compares his feelings toward the city to a sword’s feelings toward a forge fire. The clear implication of this comparison of himself to a sword is meant to be ominous.
Rand also founds an organization of magic-wielding soldiers, whom he orders their teacher to make them into weapons. The symbol of their achieving a degree of proficiency is a sword-shaped pin for their collars. Later on, the most prominent of these men betrays and tries to assassinate him. Rand’s description of the event is later “sometimes a sword turns in your hand, but I still need a sword” while warning those he loves to avoid anyone wearing the distinctive uniform of his human swords.
And remember that magic Sword with which his false mentor tempted him to attack powerful enemy wizards? When he finally takes it up again, he massacres his own soldiers along with the enemy, and too late, a real expert advises him that it is flaw, that it distorts the judgment of the man using it, and the only way to safely use its magic powers is to surrender control of one’s magic to a pair of women.
And it goes for other characters as well. Wise and experienced warrior figures repeatedly dismiss swords. One, on being told to give up his sword on visiting a strictly regulated city, just shrugs and says “swords only become useful when wits fail”. Tam, upon showing Rand his sword for the first time says that he paid too high a price for it. When Birgitte’s rank as a general is questioned because she does not carry a sword, her defender quotes one of the greatest living generals alive as saying “An army is a general’s sword and a general who uses another blade is mistaking his job.” The climax of the book where that remark is uttered will see the leader of an organization decide to forgo leading from an office, inserting herself as the front-line operative in a crucial mission, only to get capture and doom her cause. Eamon Valda is rated by his commanding officer, another great general, as among the worst battle commanders of his organization and he is probably the finest swordsman of his peers. Galad and his half-brother Gawyn are considered among the finest swordsmen in their training class, mentored by elite warriors, only for them to get a much needed lesson in humility when a malnourished peasant takes them on simultaneously with a quarterstaff and batters them both unconscious before either can score a single touch with their blades. Davram Bashere, yet another genius general and voice of reason and common sense, disparages Rand’s obsessive training in swordsmanship. Even Aram the Tinker Swordsman goes bad in the end, and the first step in his corruption is clearly his taking up the sword.
The funny thing is, swords do represent a lot of the power and class issues alluded to in the essay. Robert Jordan is undoubtedly aware of all this, and yet, it seems like he went out of his way to tear down the fantasy archetype of the master swordsman who can do anything. In almost every significant duel the more skilled swordsman loses. Rand vs Turak, Lan vs Ryne, Rand vs Bel’al (okay, Rand didn’t exactly win it, but he was the one still alive at the end), Galad vs Valda, Gawyn vs Hammar, Lan vs Demandred. And in many of those fights, the superior swordsman had other resources, other options at his disposal, but chose instead to fight his quantifiable inferior, who won through character, determination, cleverness or dumb luck.
TL;DR? Rand accomplishes almost NOTHING GOOD with a sword. His use of a sword generally brings about pain, pain and more pain. The best way he can use the Sword that is a symbol of his role and his power is to not use it at all. Swords are a thing, but they are dangerous and not to be taken up lightly. I feel the article seems to be ignoring that aspect of their portrayal in Wheel of Time, seeing only the potential utility.
On more tangential thing about WoT and swords: One of my frustrations with Brandon Sanderson’s butchery handling of the series finale is how thoroughly he ignored all the established thematic content with regard to swords and instead wallowed in fan service.
Rand killed a blademaster and so “qualified” for blademaster rank himself, in Book 2. Somehow, Robert Jordan managed to write nine more doorstopper-length novels in the series without ever addressing or directly resolving the issue of Rand’s formal status, almost like he didn’t think it important or was trying to make a point that it was not important. But Sanderson had Nynaeve, a character who really does not give two shits about combat or martial posturing, suddenly become fascinated with the subject and be the one to point out that Rand is truly and legitimately a blademaster. Because the “rules” say so, so she gushes about his qualifying. Funny, when Robert Jordan wrote that same character, Nynaeve “did not care much for rules, at least for other people’s rules – other people rarely saw the situation as clearly as she, and thus made stupid rules.” But Sanderson has to have someone make the all-important point that Rand is officially a blademaster, and because he abuses dialogue to deliver exposition, he forces a practical Healer who loathes violence, to have this out of character discussion about the technicalities of what she would, in Jordan’s hand call “fool men’s” rules, and lauding a man for killing another.
Another gratuitous failing of Sanderson in this regard was to turn Gareth “a general who uses a sword is mistaking his job” Bryne into a blademaster, who leaves his army when a battle is being fought in sight of it, to lead a small commando raid. With no adverse consequences. Later on, it turns out said commando raid was ill-advised and the political leader he answers to castigates everyone involved in planning and ordering it… except Bryne, with the narrative thus supporting his actions.
In all of Jordan’s books, leaders are constantly being admonished to do their job and lead instead of fighting directly. Rand, Elayne and Perrin are warned about this more than once. Mat is generally smart enough to get it on his own. Egwene’s cause is placed in the greatest danger by her forgetting that concept. The last chapter of the last book Jordan wrote has the best general in the setting quote an historical military genius, their equivalent of Sun Tzu or something, saying “A general who draws his sword has put aside his baton and become a common solider.” But Sanderson is all about the generals and high-ranking officers fighting. The execrable short story that was eventually removed from “A Memory of Light” and featured here on Tor.com (A Fire Within the Ways) features yet another small unit operation, which includes the liege lord of Ghealdan & the Two Rivers, and consort to the secondary heir to Saldaea, leading a force of 50 men, including the supreme commanders of two national armies and two major independent forces on a dangerous frontline mission involving no strategy or tactics.
Similarly is his handling of the Warder bond. In Jordan’s books, the primary purpose of the bond is for the bondmates to get greater insights into one another’s thoughts and feelings and emotional states. Sanderson repeatedly ignores this input between bonded partners, and even forgets about it to the point of having bonded characters speculate or even wonder about the other one’s feelings or emotions when they are in close proximity! In Jordan’s books, almost no attention is given to the physical effects of the bond on the warder. The only time they are directly relevant is when Birgitte’s life is saved by being bonded. But as soon as Gareth Bryne is bonded, he starts fan servicey giggling over his new physical superpowers! The absolute nadir of Sanderson’s warder bonds is when Rand and Elayne manage to sneak up on and surprise each other in the same scene, but the focus on combat enhancements to the detriment of character insight is in keeping with his treatment of swordsmanship and basically a synecdoche of his weakness for the whole project.