Good morning everyone! So I’ve now read Chapters 24-26 of The Shadow Rising and well, wow. It’s a lot! There have been enough hints about the Aiel that I had guessed a little of what Rand gets to learn in his journey through the heart of Rhuidean, but I was (perhaps naively) unprepared for the manner in which this information would be imparted to us, not to mention its level of detail and the emotional resonance of having Rand so intimately connecting with the people who experienced it. I’m not sure how to feel, really, because it was so deeply moving watching the Aiel people being slowly rebuilt as Rand stepped further and further back into the past.
However, before I wax too poetic on that subject, that’s not what we are here for this week! Instead, we’re going to cover Mat’s experiences in Rhuidean—all of Chapter 24 and then the end of 26, once he and Rand are reunited and have to fight off some dust monsters. Heads up—I am feeling punchy today, so let’s gooo!
Mat and Rand reach the mist surrounding Rhuidean, completely dehydrated, sunburnt, and faint from the heat. Mat has spied Aviendha running naked, but Rand doesn’t really believe the claim so he lets it go. And as much as Mat doesn’t ever want to contend again with something that has to do with the Power, he also doesn’t particularly relish the idea of hanging out in the Waste after dark.
Still, Rand counters by asking Mat if he’s sure he wants to go through with this, to go into Rhuidean where he might die, or go mad. Mat responds that he has to go, and points out instead that Rand being the Dragon Reborn is enough, without needing to be an Aiel clan chief too. When Rand answers that he, too, must go, Mat suggests that maybe the “snaky people” tell everyone that they have to go to Rhuidean, and that it doesn’t mean anything. But Rhuidean was never mentioned to Rand, and Mat, realizing he’s outed himself, on that front, gives in—though he is already thinking about how those people owe him more answers, somehow.
After stepping through a mist so thick that Mat almost loses his bearings, both of them emerge into an orderly city made up of huge towers and buildings made of marble, glass, and crystal. For all its magnificence, however, it also appears unfinished, and the city is empty and silent. Rand discovers water, however, deep below the earth, and uses saidin to bring it to the surface until it comes bubbling out of one of the huge ornate fountains. They both have a good long drink and wet themselves in the water, even though Mat is uneasy when he realizes that Rand used the One Power. Then they continue on, towards the center of the city.
Mat wonders what he is supposed to do here, if just being in Rhuidean is all he needs to do to avoid the death the snaky people saw for him, and how he will know if there’s something more. He feels an uneasy prickling at his back, and the half-finished stonework almost seems like it could be watching him, or hiding something sinister. He wishes that he had kept some of his knives, but the Wise Ones were too much like Aes Sedai and he didn’t dare lie to them. Again he wishes he could be free of the Aes Sedai forever.
After a mile of walking, they come to a plaza, at the center of which stands a huge tree. Nearby is a series of concentric rings made up of glass columns, while the rest of the square is filled with statues of various sizes as well as many other artifacts—hundreds or maybe thousands of artifacts that Mat realizes must be ter’angreal, or at least something related to the Power. He notices Rand stoop momentarily over two small statues, one of a man, one of a woman, each holding aloft a crystal sphere.
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They step closer to the tree, Mat feeling more and more uneasy as they get nearer to the columns. He’s certain they, also, have something to do with the Power. Then Rand stops abruptly, and Mat stops too, and sees that the tree has the trefoil leaves of Avendesora, the Tree of Life. Sitting beneath it, Mat immediately feels at peace, contented, and even in less physical pain.
Rand sat down cross-legged nearby. “I can believe the stories. Ghoetam, sitting beneath Avendesora for forty years to gain wisdom. Right now, I can believe.”
Mat let his head fall back against the trunk. “I don’t know that I’d trust birds to bring me food, though. You’d have to get up sometime.” But an hour or so would not be bad. Even all day. “It doesn’t make sense anyway. What kind of food could birds bring in here? What birds?”
“Maybe Rhuidean wasn’t always like this, Mat. Maybe… I don’t know. Maybe Avendesora was somewhere else, then.”
“Somewhere else,” Mat murmured. “I would not mind being somewhere else.” It feels… good… though.
Rand seems to drag himself back to the task at hand, quoting his “duty is heavier than a mountain” phrase. Mat is ready to follow him into the columns, but Rand stops him, insisting that he must go alone. Entering the “heart” means you come out a clan chief, go mad, or die. There are no other choices. Mat flips a coin to decide, but when it lands on its edge he realizes that Rand is using the Power on it. He agrees to stay behind since Rand wants it so badly. He does insist, however, that he won’t come in and rescue Rand, or wait forever for him.
“I wouldn’t think that of you, Mat,” Rand said.
Mat stared at him suspiciously. What was he grinning at? “So long as you understand I won’t. Aaah, go on and be a bloody Aiel chief. You have the face for it.”
“Don’t come in there, Mat. Whatever happens, don’t.” He waited until Mat nodded before turning away.
He seems to vanish as he steps into the columns, and Mat walks around the area, keeping well clear of the columns themselves as he tries to see where Rand ended up. He continues to try to convince himself that he won’t go after Rand, that he should just leave, and also to ask himself what he is meant to do in Rhuidean until suddenly he catches sight of a twisted redstone doorway, exactly like the one he accessed in the Stone.
Mat walks around it, ascertaining that every detail is the same—or at least, every detail except for the three triangles, which point down. He can’t remember if the other doorway had those markings or not. He decides it must be the same, and while he couldn’t step through that doorway again, perhaps this one would be different. Thinking that he can give himself, and Rand, an hour, he decides he might as well try one more time, and steps through.
He finds himself in a different place than the one he had visited before, a star-shaped chamber of dusty stone. Clearly no one has been there in some time, but as he’s turning back to the doorway he hears a voice.
“A very long time.”
Mat spun back, snatching at his coatsleeve for a knife that was lying back on the mountainside. The man standing among the columns looked nothing at all like the snaky folk. He made Mat regret giving up those last blades to the Wise Ones.
The fellow was tall, taller than an Aiel, and sinewy, but with shoulders too wide for his narrow waist, and skin as white as the finest paper. Pale leather straps studded with silver crisscrossed his arms and bare chest, and a black kilt hung to his knees. His eyes were too big and almost colorless, set deep in a narrow-jawed face. His short-cut, palely reddish hair stood up like a brush, and his ears, lying flat against his head, had a hint of a point at the top. He leaned toward Mat, inhaling, opening his mouth to pull in more air, flashing sharp teeth. The impression he gave was of a fox about to leap on a cornered chicken.
After ascertaining that Mat doesn’t have any iron, instruments of music, or devices for making light, he agrees to take Mat to where he can find what he needs, and Mat, encouraged by the fact that the being asks the same questions and seems to be tasting his experiences the same way the others did, follows. The room he arrived in seems to follow him down all the corridors, much like the spires outside the windows of the other place, and the being keeps giving Mat a toothy grin that makes him vow never again to leave all his knives behind. He bluffs, telling the man not to think that he has “caught a babe in a snare” and that if he tries to cheat, Mat will make a saddlecloth from his hide. This backfires a bit.
The fellow started, pale eyes widening, then shrugged and adjusted the silver-studded straps across his chest; his mocking smile seemed tailored to draw attention to what he was doing. Suddenly Mat found himself wondering where that pale leather came from. Surely not… Oh, Light, I think it is. He managed to stop himself from swallowing, but only just. “Lead, you son of a goat. Your hide is not worth silver studding. Take me where I want to go.”
Mat has no idea how long or far they have walked, but they eventually reach a door, and his escort seems to disappear, leaving the hallway empty. When Mat steps through the door he finds himself in another star-shaped chamber, and he notices that it smells like a wild animal’s lair. Each of the eight points of the star has a pedestal rising from it, but there is no one there. He turns to find the doorway gone, then turns back to find the pedestals occupied.
They look very much like the guide, the women in white blouses with lace necks and ruffles, the men in studded straps, armed with bronze knives. They order him to speak, the agreement to be made according to ancient treaty, but when Mat starts to question them about his predicament, even to demand their answers, he receives only silence. He continues to elaborate.
“I have no intention of marrying. And I have no intention of dying, either, whether I am supposed to live again or not. I walk around with holes in my memory, holes in my life, and you stare at me like idiots. If I had my way, I would want those holes filled, but at least answers to my questions might fill some in my future. You have to answer—!”
One of the men answers him then, with a single word “done” that Mat doesn’t understand. Frustrated, he proclaims them as bad as the Aes Sedai, and declares that he wants to be free of the Aes Sedai and the Power, and to be away from them and back in Rhuidean, for them to open a door.
Again he is interrupted with that single word, “done” and, still not understanding, hurls insults at them. He receives some in return.
“Fool,” a woman said in a whispered growl, and others repeated it. Fool. Fool. Fool.
“Wise to ask leavetaking, when you set no price, no terms.”
“Yet fool not to first agree on price.”
“We will set the price.”
They declare that what was asked will be given, and the price will be paid, and a confused Mat feels darkness close around him, and something around his throat so that he cannot breathe.
Later, after Rand has had his own trip through the looking glass, he finds a shape, a man hanging from from a pole laid across two branches of the Avendesora tree, a rope around his neck.
With a wordless roar, he ran for the tree, grabbing at saidin, the fiery sword coming into his hands as he leaped, slashing at the rope. He and Mat hit the dusty white paving stones with twin thuds. The pole jarred free and clattered down beside them; not a pole, but an odd black-hafted spear with a short sword blade in place of a spearpoint, slightly curved and single-edged. Rand would not have cared if it was made of gold and cuendillar set with sapphires and firedrops.
He lets go of the Power and, finding no heartbeat in Mat’s chest, rips open his shirt, tossing aside a silver medallion he finds there. He works on pounding Mat’s chest and breathing into his mouth, the way he once saw Master Luhhan revive a boy who had been found drowned, back in the Two Rivers. Remembering the girl he had tried to bring back to life with the Power, he doesn’t dare use saidin—he wants Mat to live, not be a puppet like Rand briefly made the girl into.
Suddenly Mat jerks and coughs back to life, and when he’s somewhat regained his breath he gasps out what happened to him, that he’d found another redstone doorway, and the folk on the other side had tried to kill him. Confused but intrigued, Rand asks if they answered questions—he has so many answers that he needs now.
“No answers,” Mat said huskily. “They cheat. And they tried to kill me.” He picked up the medallion, a silver foxhead that almost filled his palm, and after a moment stuffed it into his pocket with a grimace. “I got something out of them, at least.” Pulling the strange spear to him, he ran his fingers along the black shaft. A line of some strange cursive script ran its length, bracketed by a pair of birds inlaid in metal even darker than the wood. Ravens, Rand thought they were. Another pair were engraved on the blade. With a rough wry laugh, Mat levered himself to his feet, half-leaning on the spear, the sword blade beginning just level with his head. He did not bother to lace up his shirt or button his coat. “I’ll keep this, too. Their joke, but I will keep it.”
Rand doesn’t understand, not even when Mat recites the verses written on the shaft of the spear:
Thus is our treaty written; thus is agreement made.
Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades.
What was asked is given. The price is paid.
Rand cannot read the words himself, and cannot understand why Mat can, but the empty doorways of Rhuidean seem to mock him, to suggest that there are worse secrets hidden there, and he decides that they need to leave, even if it means crossing the valley at night. Mat agrees, as long as he can stop for a drink, first.
They make their way slowly, Mat hobbling and using the spear for a walking staff, and Rand feels so uneasy, so as if there were murderous eyes boring into his back, that he embraces saidin. Everything appears peaceful to the eye, until Rand realizes that there is no wind causing the swirling ripples of dust that are beginning to rise around them. Mat observes that trouble is always what he gets for hanging around with Rand. Rand asks if he can run.
They run, and Rand knows that the dust isn’t just dust, but another one of those bubbles of evil, rising up to seek out ta’veren. He summons his saidin sword, and when a solid, clawed figure coalesces, he cuts through it at once. But more clouds of dust keep coming together to create more solid figures, and as fast as they both fight them off—Rand notes that Mat wields his new weapon as though he’s always used it—more keep coming, and they’re both bleeding and panting before long.
Remembering what Lanfear told him about not knowing his true power, Rand uses saidin to send whirlwinds into the shapes, bursting them apart and showering himself and Mat with dust. Mat asks why Rand didn’t do that in the first place, but before Rand can answer, the dust begins to ripple again. He commands Mat to run.
They race away, striking at or kicking any close shape that seems close to coalescing, until they make it to the mist, passing through, and finding that nothing is following them. Or can follow them.
Mat notices that it is dawn, that they were in there all night, much longer than they thought they were. Rand tells him quietly that they should go back up the mountain, as the Aiel will be waiting for them.
Okay, so at this point it’s probably painfully redundant to keep pointing out Mat’s utter recklessness, right? We all know what we’re in for, and I’m sure there are those of you (all of you?) who are shaking your heads at me right now thinking oh, Sylas, you naive little butterfly, you think this is impetuous? Wait until you get another few books under your belt, then you’ll see what kind of mischief Mr. Matrim “Grabby Hands” Cauthon can really get up to. I mean, this is a man who has spent most of the story, especially in the last few books, desperately talking and thinking about what he wouldn’t give to get away from the One Power, only to jump into the very next ter’angreal he saw. I’ve remarked before that Mat protests too much, but honestly, you have to laugh.
Rand, Perrin, and Egwene have all received scoldings at various points about throwing themselves into things they don’t understand, about trying to run before they could crawl, so to speak. Hopper was always telling Perrin that he was too young to be traveling so deeply in the Dream world, and Egwene has had similar warnings from Amys, as well as the more general scoldings she, Nynaeve and Elayne periodically receive from Moiraine for presuming too much upon their authority from the Amyrlin. And Moiraine is constantly accusing Rand of running blindly ahead and making rash or foolhardy decisions, basically every time he so much as moves. And every time he doesn’t. But everyone seems to take it for granted with Mat.
Maybe it’s because no one is particularly concerned with his importance to the world, since he’s not a channeler (Moiraine was only mildly interested in Perrin, after all) or the Dragon Reborn. Mat is the only one who can wield the Horn of Valere, but those who know about that mostly seem to regard it as an annoying accident. And even more than that, I think, Mat’s generally reckless nature and tendency to trust to luck has just been… accepted. By everyone. Mat, the one who is a flight risk. Mat, the one who is careless. Or selfish. Or stupid. Just Mat, who everyone scolds but no one gives enough credit to to expect change.
And yet, if you stop and pay attention—and we the readers have the benefit of perspective here—Mat is just as pushed along by fate as anyone, and just as punished by it. Indeed, perhaps he is more manipulated by the Pattern than anyone else besides Rand.
I think it’s easy to miss Mat’s desperation, and I have overlooked it in the past. I recognized that Mat is a chaos entity, a Loki-like trickster, but there is a difference between being impulsive and trusting to luck and just, you know, blindly running around throwing yourself at things. Or into doorways. Mat demands everything to make sense to him, for reasons I cannot fathom. Why expect that just because the doors look the same, or at least similar, that they should take you to the same place? And once you’ve ascertained that it isn’t the same place, why would you assume that the rules would be the same? Mat spent his trip through the first doorway yelling at the beings on the other side for following the exact rules he was told they would follow. On this trip, he yelled at different beings for not following those same rules, which in this case were never stated or even implied.
It’s not Mat’s impulsiveness that is his true problem, I think. It’s the fact that he so easily lets his frustration get the better of him. His desperation is understandable, especially since he has less direction offered to him than the others do, and the holes in his memory make it harder still. But he gets so upset, so easily, and he doesn’t stop to think. We know that Mat is a very clever fellow, when he wants to be, and when he was trapped in Tar Valon he even made a point of trying to think logically and thoroughly the way his dad does. He is capable of it, if he wants to be.
That being said, Mat’s luck has still held, despite his rashness. It appears that the “foxy” people are somewhat similar to the “snaky” ones, but where the others answer questions, these seem to grant wishes. Mat’s demanding of things may have been foolhardy, but it came out as three wishes, and one was to get back to Rhuidean, which seems to have been the only thing that prevented him from being trapped forever.
If the “price” can be negotiated ahead of time, that suggests that death isn’t the thing these beings actually want, or at least not the only thing. Since it’s suggested that they, too, might feed on experiences or feelings, perhaps strong emotions and sensations—or even negative ones—are more appealing to them. They may have created the circumstances of Mat’s hanging in order to have him experience certain extreme sensations that they could enjoy.
I gotta admit, from the description of these beings, I kept imagining the Kaminoans from Star Wars, only with red horse manes and in fetish gear. It made it a bit harder to take them seriously. Still, they seem more malevolent than their counterparts, to whom they are probably related in some way. At the same time, though, they have power to grant wishes, which seems to be a more intense ability than the “snaky” people—unless of course the snake-like people have such an ability as well and simply chose not to use it.
I don’t always catch, and indeed, am sometimes not particularly interested in, the references to modern times or our own mythology, but it’s impossible to miss all the references to Odin here. And the points become even more relevant since I’ve noticed Mat’s similarities to Loki back in The Dragon Reborn. Here Mat is hanged on Avendesora, the Tree of Life, from a spear, the price he pays for the things he obtained from the people on the other side of the doorway. Odin also sacrificed his life for knowledge and power, throwing himself on his own spear and hanging himself from the tree of life, Yggdrasil. Like Odin, Mat actually died on the tree, before he was brought back to life by Rand’s use of CPR.
And then there is the medallion with the two ravens on it. Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, or “Thought” and “Memory,” and one of Mat’s “wishes” was to have the holes in his memory restored. I suspect, therefore, that the medallion is intended for that purpose.
This makes me suspect that I know the meaning of another part of the answers that Mat got from the snake people. They said he would have to give up “half the light of the world,” which might very well be a reference to losing an eye, another sacrifice Odin made to gain wisdom. I remember all the way back in The Eye of the World, Mat had a dream about his eyes being taken—perhaps that has nothing to do with this, as I believe either Perrin or Rand also dreamed about birds pecking their eyes, but you never know. In any case, I think it’s a pretty good guess.
(Also, I caught another reference here this week, also pertaining to gaining wisdom by way of a tree. Ghoetam sounds like a reference to the Buddha, aka Siddhārtha Gautama, who is said to have meditated under the Bodhi tree for 7 weeks, or 49 days, and gained enlightenment. It’s a nice reference to another way of gaining wisdom, and particularly potent, I think, in a section that also goes back to the pacifistic and peaceful origins of the Aiel.)
I wonder what Mat will be like with his memories intact? I assume it will include the memories of his other life which surfaced during his healing in the White Tower. I also expect that his mastery of the Old Tongue will now be complete—perhaps even to the point where he will know when he is using it and when he isn’t—just as Odin gained the understanding of the Norn runes after his sacrifice on Yggdrasil.
This is quite a level up for our young mischief maker, but lest we think Mat has changed too much, his immediate response to the new bubble of evil is to blame Rand for always bringing trouble, again, as though Mat weren’t the one hurling himself blindly through magic doorways at every turn. Still, Rand seems to recognize most of Mat’s bluster and complaining as just that; we see his amusement when Mat claims he won’t wait for Rand if he takes too long inside the columns, and I don’t think Rand believes for a second that Mat would abandon him. Mat doesn’t run away anymore. He runs forward.
The moment with the coin flip and Rand’s apparently unconscious use of saidin to affect the outcome struck me as incredibly significant. Of course it shows that Rand is protective over his friend, and also that Rand is protective over his own destiny. But more than that, it is a moment where the two men’s different powers are put against each other. Mat is playing his ability with luck and then Rand pits his own instinctive use of saidin against it. And wins.
I mean, I have to assume the coin would have landed against Mat going in anyway, since it was obviously not the right choice for him. Come to think of it, could Mat’s luck have been in play to the point of affecting Rand’s accidental use of his power? Oof. I think I just gave myself a headache. Speaking of headaches, next week we’ll go back to Chapter 25 as well as the parts of 26 that we skipped over this week, and if I’m complaining about analyzing Mat’s experience, it’s going to be twice as bad going through everything Rand learns about the history of the Aiel and of the actions that led to the Breaking. I’m not even sure where to start with that. Good thing I have a whole week to ponder it. I look forward to seeing you all then!
Sylas K Barrett had to call upon some of the wisdom of the Buddha to get this done while there was construction going on right outside his door, but he managed it. Hurray!
Well that’s it. Kaminoans with red horse manes and fetish gear is officially the best mental image of the Eelfinn.
“I wonder what Mat will be like with his memories intact? “
Expecting wishes to be granted in exactly the way they were intended? You know better than that, Sylas :)
Loved the recap and the analysis of Mat’s parallels to Odin. Good stuff. Definitely stuff I missed when I first read it as I didn’t know as much Norse mythology back then. It’s fun to see how much stuff Sylas gets right(like the Odin analysis and eye prediction) and that happens so often it’s fun something is predicted wrong. Like, as @2 mentioned, how the memory is restored – or that it will only be from his “other life ” emphasis on the singular. Also, that the medallion will be the key point of it. Oh the medallion.
@moderators, please point out to Sylas that it’s the spear that has the two ravens on it, not the medallion. That definitely needs clarification to him as the medallion has nothing to do with his memories. The medallion has the profile of the fox head on it.
I never got the impression that Rand used the power on Mat’s coin flip; rather, that was just Mat thinking Rand used the power rather than an understanding of his own luck and the Pattern. Maybe I’m wrong?
@5
I always assumed it was Rand’s ta’veren nature that made the coin land on its edge, like all the extremely improbably events that happened in Tear when he was there to claim Callandor.
@5 and @6 Agreed, the Power didn’t keep the coin on edge. I’m kind of surprised whenever Sylas just “goes along” with whatever the PoV character thinks is going on. He’s in book 4 now, he should know that just about everyone gets things like this wrong due to making assuptions.
I was also interested to see that Sylas didn’t connect the “snaky people” and the “fox-like people” to the game of Snakes and Foxes. Maybe it’s just so obvious that he didn’t feel the need to mention the connection?
@5 and @6 why are we assuming it is Rand at all? Since it is Mat flipping the coin to make a decision about what he should do, it is more likely, IMO, that Mat’s ta’veren nature affect the coin flip. Like it does every other time he tosses a coin and it stands on end.
To be fair, Mat has long since been described as someone who doesn’t run from danger or heroism, only from responsibility. The Amyrlin compares him to her uncle (or some other relation) who wants to gamble and womanize all day, but died saving kids from a fire without a thought to his own safety.
That’s Mat to a T. If you give him a series of choices, he’ll always choose right. If you try and force him to do what’s right, he’ll run from it instinctively.
@7, I didn’t make the connection either, but then Sylas is smarter than I am
@8 – That’s what I was saying.
“I suspect, therefore, that the medallion is intended for that purpose.”
Not exactly, Sylas. Not exactly.
After all, you did miss a wish in your commentary.
@8 and 11
Mat usually feels it when his luck is in effect strongly enough to make weird things happen, like 5 dice all showing the same side, or a single die somehow balancing on its corner. He doesn’t feel anything here, or at least the narrative doesn’t tell us that he does. That’s why I assumed it was Rand. I also took Ran at his word that he didn’t channel to do it. Rand is the most powerful ta’veren since Artur Hawkwing, maybe ever. I think his ta’veren trumps Mat’s ta’veren.
At least, that’s how I always interpreted this scene. I could be completely wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My compliments, Sylas, on your strategy of re-organizing your review/commentary of the three chapters, combining material into “Mat’s” and “Rand’s” experiences. There has been a good bit of fan speculation about how the chapters should be handled, and your solution is, I think, brilliant.
I always took the coin landing on edge as Rand’s ta’veren chance asserting itself against Mat’s. It’s also another instance of the hilariously unreliable narrator that is Mat. Mat loves to ascribe sneaky ulterior motivations to his magic wielding friends are around and his luck runs against him. It just adds another funny layer of Mat feeling like he is the most put upon character in the series. Makes for entertaining reading, that’s for sure.
As for the Snakes and Foxes reference I feel like it’s a bit subtle at this point. I did a really quick check and I don’t think the game is specifically name dropped until a couple chapters from now when Hopper stops Perrin from chasing Slayer in T’AR. Even so, Jordan didn’t really start beating us over the head with that particular cluebat until Olver shows up in LOC. It got relentless around CoT between Thom pining over Moiraine’s letter while playing the game with Olver. Made me want to scream at the book and tell Mat to just ask about the letter so I could see the scene I had been waiting 5 books for. lol
@7/10 – has the game even been mentioned more than once thus far? I don’t remember it being featured much until Olver shows up.
Just pointing out to the mods that this post is again not listed in the series tab
Thanks @17. This has been fixed.
“Just pointing out to the mods that this post is again not listed in the series tab”
@17: I blame the Dark One’s for removing this “thread” from the Pattern.
@16 I believe it gets mentioned soon, when Perrin chases Slayer to the Tower of Ghenjei and Birgitte stops him.
Some of this stuff has such far reaching consequences, I love it.
And really good insights on Odin; I knew most of this from other discussions but I didn’t know about Odin being able to read runes which is another fun parallel.
RE: Snakes and Foxes.
Yep, that’s my recollection as well. No Snakes and Foxes game mentioned until AFTER this chapter.
My read on it is that the Ael’finn and Eel’finn are new creations for this book, to get the plot moving and out of Tear. And then RJ changed his intentions regarding Mat’s memories, moving his level-up from regaining ancestral memories, to getting the memories of hundred of soldiers over a 200 year period during the Trolloc wars. Which is a much more powerful (and specific) than giving him the memories of one Warlord from that time period.
Gaining access to ancestral memories (through the “Old Blood”) would give you LOTS of experience to draw from, but it would be wildly general, due to all the different things your ancestors had done. See Dune for an example. Getting memories of all your past lives may be interesting, but it’s still YOU, the whole time. Like with Rand and Lews Therin.
Where RJ went with Mat is MUCH more interesting. He get specific memories from archetypes of people who were just like him: risk-takers and warriors and war-leaders from the Trolloc Wars. It’s a very specific, very potent, and very distilled gift that the ‘Finn have given him. It allows him to absorb the memories as if they were his own, without losing his core identity, or making him brilliant at everything.
But you’ll notice that everything regarding the ‘Finn is introduced in this book. The doorways, the Tower, the children’s game and rhyme. All of it. That, combined with the fact that this chapter overrides a previously-introduced mechanism for Mat’s battle memories and Old Tongue knowledge, lead me to believe that RJ came up with the idea while planning this volume, or late in drafts of Book 3, when it was already too late to seed any of it in.
@22 Mat’s memories cover a lot more than 200 years. His earliest memories are from the 10 nations, at the start of the Trolloc Wars, but his latest are from Artur Hawkwing’s time, over a thousand years later.
Sylas picks up on lots of stuff, but I’m wondering if he’ll pick up on the big thing that EVERYONE missed, which was from this chapter.
When Sanderson was going through RJ’s notes in preparation of writing the conclusion, he commented that there was “something major from the middle books that everyone in the fandom missed” and there was all kinds of speculation about what it could possibly be. In retrospect, it’s obvious — I started following WOT fandom in 1997, and from that time until Towers of Midnight came out absolutely nobody ever asked why Mat was given the Ashandarei. In retrospect it’s blindingly obvious — Mat asked three wishes (to be free from Aes Sedai; to have the holes in his memory filled; and to be back in Rhuidean), and was given three things (the medallion; the memories; and the Ashandarei). But nobody, in the decade and a half of fandom I read leading up to Towers of Midnight, ever made the connection between his third wish and his getting the Ashandarei. Kind of wild that something so obvious could remain secret for so long.
I always through the edge coin flip is because it doesn’t matter.
Mat’s destiny is to become the great general. If he goes into the columns he’ll gain all the memories of the past Aiel lives and come out a clan chief, commanding the Aiel as a great general. If he does not go into the columns he goes into the red door, gets memories from adventurers, and gets his own mercenary company is a great general.
So all this choice really means is which military unit he gets in Fires of Heaven.
So destiny wise, the choice doesn’t matter, he’s going to the same place regardless and that is what the edge flip is telling him.
Then Rand tips the coin and makes a choice for him.
@3 The Odin parallels here are quite apt. Odin is, among other things, a god of War.
Only one piece remains to be claimed…
@25 You might be on to something, but I don’t think the columns would have shown Mat the Aiel history, he doesn’t have Aiel ancestors, as far as we know. I think he would have seen the history of Manetherin, and gotten more of the memories that started to surface during his healing in TDR.
@24: Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe the “big thing everyone missed” was the fact that Mat’s death reset the Horn of Valere, which turned out to be really important in the Last Battle.
Though I suppose Ashandarei being a “key” was pretty important too.
Also, I’ll second @14: this method of splitting Mat and Rand’s stories was quite wise. This is exactly the kind of thing a great editor would do with the original work.
@28 – There was considerable debate amongst the fandom at the time as to whether the hanging or lighting strike in Caemlyn counted as Mat’s “die and live again” so I think it was pretty safe to assume the Ashandarei was the reference BS was making.
@24, @28
The Big Unnoticed Thing (BUT) was the Ashandarei. Brandon confirmed it at some point, I’m near positive, when Towers of Midnight came out, not A Memory of Light.
@25, @27
I don’t think the glass columns would have shown Mat anything. The key is having Aiel ancestry to see through. So either they have no effect, or if you buy the old Wise Ones’ tales, you get driven mad or die. But the fact that Aviendha tries to go in a third time, which is outside the protocol, and it has no effect at all leads me to believe it would just be ineffective.
So the coin flip definitely matters. Which is a point Sylas got wrong, amidst all the other stuff he got right. Mat’s ta’veren nature would NOT have advised him against going in. He HAD to go in or he would have sidestepped his destiny. The Eelfinn doorway is the whole purpose of him going to Rhuidean – to level up. Getting the memories filled is only part of it. If he doesn’t have the medallion, he dies a hundred times over in the future, and so does Elayne I think (I’m not thinking that through too hard, but I think so). If he doesn’t get the Ashandarei, he doesn’t save Moiraine, and Mat and Thom both die in Sindhol. Which means a permanent rift in the pre-Last Battle negotiations, and total defeat there. Not to mention Rand then dies from a Black Ajah dagger in the Pit of Doom.
@23:
Ah, that’s right. I’d forgotten that he’d “seen Hawkwing’s face”
@29
Word of the Creator confirmed it was the lightning that fulfilled that prophecy. But Mat doesn’t remember the lightning, only the hanging. I think RJ felt Mat needed to believe that his “mulligan” had already been used up, otherwise he would have acted even more recklessly than he did (à la Elayne’s false sense of security). And then Artur Hawkwing confirmed this in text.
@29 and others
hawkwing confirms it was the rahvin kill of Mat that broke his link, think it’s in MoL after the heroes are called.
I always liked this one better for it given the balefire effects of erasing the past as if it never existed, but it’s a small complaint.
@32, 33 – The problem with the hanging was that Mat was only mostly dead. With the lightning strike, he was dead dead. Also, the ‘Finns said something about living again a part of what was, or something like that.
@34
True, true. And as we know, mostly dead… is slightly alive.
Mat didn’t know any better though, which is why I like the elegant solution RJ came to. Mat (and the first-time reader) think that this was it. Then when it happens later, it’s like a bolt from the blue that knocks you right out of your shoes. Literally.
@34 Well you’ve convinced me!
*liar!!! Liarrrr!!!!* Max’s wife
Funny thing, as I was reading this, I was trying to figure out if the asherendai was part of it. So is the Asherandei really the answer to the wish (as it is a ‘way out’) and the hanging was just the price?
@37 – I’ve always wondered about the hanging, myself. It does seem to be the price, but I don’t know what they got out of it.
Here’s the text, it’s a fun argument.
“Well, I want a way to be free of Aes Sedai and the Power, and I want to be away from you and back to Rhuidean, if you will not answer me. Open up a door, and let me—” “Done,” another man said, and one of the women echoed, “Done.””
no mention of a way to open the door, or a way to be away from them. Straight action requests
The Ashandarei is the third boon, and the hanging is the price. What they get out of it is they get high on experiencing the distressing emotions (cf. the “half of the light of the world” scene). Pretty creepy elves, if you ask me. Tolkien’s are much nicer.
@39, technically he did not ask for a way to open a door, true, but I see it as the Eelfinn chose to construe “away from you and back to Rhuidean” and “Open up a door” as one lump request, not separate ones. Probably they had that spear lying around for eons and they’re like, “Finally, we can get rid of this thing and fulfill a boon at the same time! F*&king A!”
@39 But the request to be free of the Aes Sedai is also an action request – to which he was given a medallion. So, the Asherandei being the response to the other action makes sense. Otherwise, him getting the staff is really weird. @37 and 38, I took it to be what what Sylas posited – the hanging was the price in that all the emotions and experiences and pressure of the hanging brought them what they fed on/wanted.
@41
It’s pendantic, but he says ‘a way to be free of Aes Sedai’ and they give him an item. He says ‘away from you…open a door’ he asked for a onetime thing. If he had said ‘a way free of you and away from here’ I’d like it better
@22 The Tower of Ghenjei is first seen in book 1, during their time aboard Bayle Domons ship. It’s very clearly foreshadowed.
I’d like to know what Mat currently deems “his vilest oath,” which he “bit back” here.
So, if some Two Rivers boy hadn’t almost drowned in the Waterwood years ago, Mat would have died here, and that would have been a Big Problem for the world. It seems the Pattern provides…
Er. Unless Rand could and would have revived Mat with the One Power if he didn’t have an alternative option.
@43 – I would call the Tower of Ghanjei’s appearance in tEotW foreshadowing in the slightest. Jordan began the series with the intent of making it a trilogy (hilarious in hindsight) and when he wrote the Tower I’d be willing to stake a fair bit of money that it was nothing more than a colorful bit of scenery to help highlight the lost wonders of the AoL. Seeing the tower sparks Domon to rhapsodize about all the weird old things he’s seen, furthering RJ’s intent of showing the boys (and reader) that world is older and stranger than they know.
It was likely only later when the series began expanding that RJ probably sparked on utilizing the Tower as an entry point to Sindhol and essentially retconned a cool non sequitur into the grander story he was now telling. After all, it’s probably easier to use something already appearing in the story rather than shoehorning in something else later. There’s nothing about the Tower itself in that first appearance that would connect it with the ‘finn. If he had planned fro the Tower up front to have the role it did I would expect to have seen a reference to the ‘finn, Snake and Foxes, or something similar in the first three books.
My real point is this. RJ was a genuine MASTER at creating a layered story that has a crazy amount of foreshadowing. What I find infinitely interesting is trying to understand the process of how he did it in a way that you don’t see the author’s fingerprints all over those instances. I bet the guy was kickass at putting jigsaw puzzles together without looking at the box.
I’m almost certain that the coin landing on edge was simply ta’veren shenanigans. The coin then falling over to show the face that said Mat shouldn’t enter? *That’s* Rand, and it’s wholly intentional channelling, not accidental.
Specifically, the sequence is, Mat flips the coin, it lands on edge, and he asks of Rand: “Do you do this sort of thing on purpose? Can’t you control it?”, to which Rand simply says “No.” Which could be a reply to either or both queries.
*Then* the coin falls over and Rand says, “It looks like you stay out here, Mat.” Mat *again* asks if Rand did that, but trails off, because he comes to the conclusion that Rand *had* done it, by channeling — which is specifically noted here but not about the on-edge hit. And Rand doesn’t, in fact, deny that. Or in fact reply at all until Mat’s said his piece about not going into the Aielmaker.
This keeps on being brought up and it’s just factually incorrect. Jordan’s very first deal for WoT before a single page had been written was for 6 books. The first book was supposed to encompass all the story that ended up taking three books to tell and given Jordan’s style of discovery writing he was basically working on all three at once. It’s also why the first 6 books came out in just under 5 years, because that six year span from signing the deal to the publication of Eye of the World built up most of the groundwork for those books.
@47 – The six book contract was done by Tom Doherty, not Jordan. Jordan approached Doherty with the trilogy concept and Doherty said sure, but I know you and three books ain’t getting it done.
@12, to be fair, around 99% of the fandom missed that too.
@45, agree about the likely retcon of the Tower of Ghenjei, though RJ was certainly not above completely inventing a whole new thing with zero foreshadowing late in the series (see: Far Madding)
We don’t find out that the medallion blocks the One Power until the next book, right? When Moiraine tries to heal Mat?
Typos:
· “wax to poetic” sounds odd. Was it supposed to be “too”?
· There’s a stray quotation mark in “swallowing, “but”.
· “to sends” → “to send”
And the ravens are on the as-yet unnamed weapon, not on the medallion, but that’s more than just a typo.
@JimIII (24):
It doesn’t seem that obvious to me. Thinking about it now, and considering Sylas’ guess about the medallion, it seems more logical to think that the ashandarei with its verse and ravens is connected to the memories.
@anthony Pero (31):
That one can be explained without any foreign memories, because Mat saw Hawkwing at Falme.
Bah! My comment didn’t show up for several minutes, so I concluded that the submissioin had failed. I submitted it again, and then the first one showed up!
@51, 52 (lol) – Mat has memories in his head of Hawkwing and not from Falme. I’m not sure where Anthony got 200 years from. It was established in the books just how long Mat’s memories spanned.
Typos fixed (and double post unpublished)–thanks!
I always wondered why Mat’s last 2 wishes were construed as one. Technically he asked to 1) be back in Rhuidian and 2) get away from them and open a door. Its not one wish, one gets him the spear which he uses to open the door in Tower of Genaj 9 books later and another puts him back in Rhuidian (where he also pays the price by being hanged) in the next chapter of this book
@56
I think that was a nod to Matt ‘cheating’ by getting more than 3 wishes (like he got more than 3 answers earlier). The only way to win with the snakes and foxes is to cheat.
I love that this reminds me of my late 90’s Wotmania posts, and, well, that feeling is alot of fun!
@@@@@ 57 What was your screen name at Wotmania?
@58 honestly, I don’t remember what I used for that site back then
@54:
Anthony got 200 years from misconstruing the “couple hundred years before the Trolloc Wars” to a “couple hundred years during the Trolloc wars” and then not being corrected on it for two decades, lol. It happens. I’m all fixed up now.
@59 I was damookster.
@Masha (56):
The eelfinn say “done” three times. If it had been uttered four times, then I would agree that Mat had four wishes granted.
@62
he clearly got more than 3 wishes granted. That IS THE CHEAT! three ‘dones’ with 4 wishes granted.
if they just said ‘done’ four times, it’s not cheating it’s incompetence.
wishes granted: 1 holes in memory filled. 2 Way to be free of the power. 3 away from you and back in rhuidian. 4 open a door
[this is so much fun]
@57 @58 There are still Wotmania fans here?
@29, 30, 32, 33, 34 and 35:
Wow, totally forgot about Rahvin’s erased lightning. And isn’t that ironic ;)
That definitely makes more sense given the wording of the prophecy Mat heard. Thanks for the correction!
@64 well I’m still here…
@61 mine was probably willow or Warcraft 2 related. Maybe both?
@41 now here is where it gets crazy!
he says (from his perspective) I want away from you and back to Rhuidean.
what if the listener ‘Finn heard this as ‘a way’ from you?
@64
I lurked on Wotmania. Man, there were some crazy theories there!
@63 I want to be Away from you and back to Rhudiean wouldn’t an actual request. The doors were set up with certain restrictions on them. It wouldn’t make sense that the ability to leave had to be one of your three requests every time. They say he was wise to ask for a way out because they know his future and that it will be needed by him in his next visit, when he doesn’t come through the door and isn’t afforded a way out by the customs of the doorways.
This is all just a misunderstanding in the translation.
We’re reading the books in English when in fact Mat and the ‘finns have been speaking in the Old Tongue, which is far more nuanced, and “away from you” can also be translated as “a cool weapon”. Easy mistake to make.
Not everyone can be as methodical as Tolkien has been when he’d translated Bilbo’s book into English for us. It’s perfectly understandable that RJ might have some inaccuracies in his translation of these historical documents. It’s impressive enough as it is that he’s managed to find a copy of the Karaethon Cycle from a past Age and has managed to translate it into English.