This week in Reading the Wheel of Time, we’re covering Chapters 35 and 36 of The Dragon Reborn, in which there is a girl who calls herself Falcon and a woman who calls herself Daughter of the Night. Perrin learns that he can (at least sometimes) dream without Dreaming, and we return to a dreamscape we saw once before, long ago in the early days of The Wheel of Time. Will Perrin decide to trust Faile? What does Moiraine think of Perrin’s Dreaming? And can a wolf learn to fly? Read on to find out.
Lan and Perrin make their way back to the inn, careful to move normally as they pass through the common room. Orban is still telling and retelling his story of the Aiel encounter. Perrin avoids hearing whatever Lan is telling Moiriane in her room and hurries on to Loial’s. He is struck by the beauty of the wood-sung bed Loial told him of earlier, and by the Ogier-sized chair Loial is sitting in, but there’s no time to admire anything. He tells Loial, who is writing in a large cloth-bound book, that they are leaving at once, and to take the back stairs so as not to be seen departing. He promises to explain later and hurries away to his own room, where packing is a quick affair—he hadn’t so much as put water in the basin or lit the wick on the candle—and he thinks that lately he never seems to leave behind any mark of his passing.
He’s the first to make it to the stables, although he can’t convince the stableman to get the horses out in the middle of the night until Lan arrives with a gold coin and stern command. As they hurry through the streets, Loial remarks to Perrin how it’s just like “old times… Sneaking away in the night, with enemies behind us, and maybe enemies ahead, and danger in the air, and the cold tang of adventure.” Perrin remarks that Loial must be crazy to like adventure, but the Ogier counters that he is putting himself in the right frame of mind for his book. And yes, he thinks he might be coming to like adventuring.
Lan buys them passage on a ship called the Snow Goose, and Perrin stays near the bow as the ship casts off, even though the others have already gone down to their cabins. Just as they’re about to push away from the docks, a girl comes hurtling out of the darkness, leaps onto the deck, and immediately begins haggling with the captain for passage downriver “as far as he is going.” Meaning Perrin, of course. When she is done with that, she makes her way over to him.
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She observes to Perrin that she never expected to be going back to Illian so soon, and tells him that he and the Aielman left behind quite a mess, and that the uproar was just beginning when she left. Orban was complaining loudly that his wounds would stop him from tracking the Aiel personally. Perrin observes that Orban would probably soil himself if he ever saw an Aiel again, but she counters that she has seen him fight four men together, kill two and make the other two yield, which shows that he knows what he is doing, even if he did start the fight. Then she asks if Perrin has heard of the Great Blackwood, or Forest of Shadows, which Orban apparently has “peculiar ideas” about.
Perrin is more interested in knowing why it is she is following him. She answers that the rest of his companions are clearly what they are—an Ogier, an Aes Sedai (she got a better look under Alys’s hood that Orban did) and a Warder—which leaves only Perrin as the mystery. She doesn’t like things she can’t account for.
Once again he considered tossing her over the side. Seriously, this time. But Remen was now only a blotch of light well behind them in the darkness, and no telling how far it was to shore.
She seemed to take his silence as an urging to go on. “So there I have an”—she looked around, then dropped her voice, though the closest crewman was working a sweep ten feet away—“an Aes Sedai, a Warder, an Ogier—and you. A countryman, by first look at you.” Her tilted eyes rose to study his yellow ones intently—he refused to look away—and she smiled. “Only you free a caged Aielman, hold a long talk with him, then help him chop a dozen Whitecloaks into sausage. I assume you do this regularly; you certainly looked as if it were nothing out of the ordinary for you. I scent something strange in a party of travelers such as yours, and strange trails are what Hunters look for.
Perrin catches the emphasis on that word, but when he exclaims that a girl can’t be a Hunter, she steps back and flourishes two knives, “as neatly as old Thom Merrilin could have done it,” and makes them disappear just as easily. She tells Perrin that nimble fingers and nimble wits can take one farther than swords and muscles. She assures him that she has taken the oath, and that while she has her own idea of where to seek the Horn, no Hunter can pass up a strange trail. The Horn will certainly lie at the end of a strange trail, and she’s never seen one stranger than that which Perrin and his party make.
Still, he presses her on her idea of where the Horn is, and she thinks that the Horn might have belonged in Manetheren, and might now be hidden somewhere in the Mountains of Mist. Unless it’s wherever Perrin and the others are leading her.
Wanting to throw her off, Perrin tells her cautiously that he has heard stories of “something,” a great treasure of some kind, hidden in the mountains, and suggests that she better get there and start looking before Orban and Gann find the Horn instead. But she isn’t put off, and tells him he’s lucky they aren’t following him too. At least she won’t get in the way, try to take over, or pick a fight with the Warder.
Frustrated, Perrin insists that they are just ordinary travelers, and asks her name, only to be startled into laughter when she responds that she calls herself Mandarb. She’s offended, and then embarrassed, as he points out that the Old Tongue word meaning “blade” she chose for herself is also the name of Lan’s horse. She tells Perrin that she was born Zarine Bashere, but that it isn’t a good name for a Hunter. She looks so upset about it that Perrin tells her he thinks it’s a good name and that it suits her, but that only seems to make her angry.
Telling her that it’s late and he wants to sleep, Perrin turns his back on her, although he feels apprehensive doing so, and heads to the hatch to go below decks. Just as he reaches it, she calls to him that her father used to call her Faile, which means ‘falcon.’ Perrin goes cold at the word, although he tells himself it must be coincidence.
He pokes his head into different cabins until he finds an empty one, pondering the “coincidence” and also the question of Elyas Machera, who had found a way to keep his human mind while happily living alone with wolves—not that Perrin wants to live with them as Elyas had been when they met. When Perrin reaches out, he can only find the most distant sense of wolves; even they can’t keep up with the sweeps driving the Snow Goose downriver. He lies down, realizing he forgot even about the Aiel and the Whitecloaks for a while, and curses his axe as he falls asleep.
Perrin finds himself in a mist so thick he can’t see more than a few feet in front of him. Alarmed at what might be out there, just out of sight, he reaches for his axe and finds nothing there. Then Hopper emerges from the mist, with silent eyes that urge Perrin to follow him, and silently. Perrin puts his hand on Hopper’s back, and the fur between his fingers feels real.
Hopper guides him as the mist thickens and thickens and finally becomes a black nothingness that Perrin can’t see anything more in than he can see with his eyes closed. He’s not even sure he can feel anything under his feet, but Hopper’s rough fur is still there. Eventually they stop and Perrin finds he can look down—as if he’s suspended in mid-air and his and Hopper’s bodies are invisible—at a scene like thousands of mirrors hanging level with each other, and a group of people standing in the middle. They’re all in various states of undress and babbling about how they’re asleep, until one figure, shrouded in darkness, begins to address them.
Perrin sees the flaming gulfs of his eyes and mouth and knows that it’s Ba’alzamon. Ba’alzamon addresses the assembled people, telling them that they all have been given tasks, but some have failed, and such failures cannot be forgiven. He singles out one man for allowing “the boy to escape Tar Valon,” and somehow thins him out to nothingness as the man screams. After telling the others assembled that what happens in this dream is real, and that the selected man will never wake, Ba’alzamon sends the rest of them off.
A moment later, a woman in white and silver stands before Ba’alzamon, and Perrin is shocked to recognize her from his earlier dream. She sits down in an ornate throne and remarks that he makes free use of her domain. Ba’alzamon asks if she claims it as her own then, and no longer serves the Great Lord of the Dark.
“I serve,” she said quickly. “I have served the Lord of the Twilight long. Long did I lie imprisoned for my service, in an endless, dreamless sleep. Only Gray Men and Myrddraal are denied dreams. Even Trollocs can dream. Dreams were always mine, to use and walk. Now I am free again, and I will use what is mine.”
“What is yours,” Ba’alzamon said. The blackness swirling ’round him seemed mirthful. “You always thought yourself greater than you were, Lanfear.”
Lanfear calls out Ba’alzamon for spending “three thousand years and more” of planning and pulling strings like an Aes Sedai, and yet the Dragon is walking the world again, uncontrolled and unturned. She claims he was once hers and will be again. Ba’alzamon again asks her if she serves only herself, if she is abandoning her oaths to the Great Lord of the Dark, but again she insists that she serves, standing tall and defiant before him.
Blackness rolls over the mirrors, and Ba’lazamon and Lanfear vanish. Perrin can’t understand what he saw, how Lanfear seemed to defy Ba’alzamon; Perrin knows that defying the Dark One lessens his power over you, but he hadn’t thought it possible for a Darkfriend to do it. He also doesn’t know why Lanfear frightens him more than Ba’alzamon does.
Eventually they walk out of the darkness, back through mist, and to a grassy hillside in daylight. When Perrin asks what he saw, the wolf communicates that it was what Perrin “must see” but that Perrin must be very, very careful, like a pup hunting a porcupine, because Perrin is too young, too new. He insists that what Perrin saw was real.
Perrin asks how Hopper is there with him, since he saw the wolf die, and Hopper shares that “all brothers and sisters” are there. He shows Perrin how he can now soar like an eagle, as he had once wished to do, and leaps up, flying higher and higher until he is lost to view. Perrin finds himself overcome with emotion that Hopper can now do what he always dreamed and has to rub tears from his eyes.
Looking around, he finds that the scenery has changed; now he stands on a shadowy rise, and Rand stands below him. He’s surrounded by Myrddraal and people whom Perrin’s eyes seem to slide right past. As Perrin watches, Rand strikes out, fire and bolts of white light flying from his hands, and lightning striking down form the sky, killing all of them. As Rand sinks to his knees, panting, Perrin sees more coming from over the rise and calls out to warn Rand, but doing so prompts his friend to lash out at him, and with a flash of light and searing pain, Perrin wakes.
He finds a burn on his chest when he comes to in the little cabin, and decides that this is important enough to tell Moiraine about. But as he waits for the pain to subside he falls asleep again, this time dreamlessly. When he wakes, it’s morning, and he has proof that, when the wolves are gone, he can have a normal night’s sleep.
He goes to Moiraine’s cabin and tells her everything, even shows her the scar. She watches him silently and carefully through the whole tale, until he demands to know if it is important or not. She, in a typically round-about Aes Sedai way, tells him that there are women who would try to gentle him if they heard this story, but that he does not have the ability to channel and should not worry about that. Still, he must be careful, as Hopper suggested; some might kill him before they realized “there was nothing to gentle” in him.
She also tells him that his dreams are not what she expected, and that Dreamers have written of wolves but this is much more. Perrin tells her that he is certain his dream was real, and insists she tell him what she is going to do about Lanfear, but Moiraine will not stand for his tone; she repeats only that she is still going to Illian, in the hopes of beating Rand to Tear, and that she will not even Heal his burn. She hopes it will remind him to be careful.
As he’s leaving, Perrin asks if the name Zarine would mean anything to her if she heard it, admitting that there is a girl on the ship with that name. Moiraine answers that a Saldaean mother would give her daughter such a name if she was expected to be a great beauty, and to lie about all day on cushions surrounded by servants and suitors. She observes that Perrin might really have to be careful, if there is a Zarine on board.
Perrin leaves with at least the question of why Zarine doesn’t like her name answered, and passes both Lan and Zarine on his way across the deck to stand in the prow of the ship.
Meanwhile, Rand wakes abruptly, his side aching and his fire dying as he tells himself that it was really Perrin, not a dream, and that he could have killed his friend. He has to be more careful; he can’t afford to make another mistake. He’s about to stoke his fire when a woman on horseback, accompanied by a group of men in armor, rides up into the light. She looks like a merchant to him, a merchant with guards, and she asks to share his campsite. Rand responds carefully, stepping towards her as they talk, and then, when he’s close enough, creates a heron-marked blade of fire and cuts her head from her body.
With the most dangerous one taken care of by the element of surprise, he dispatches the guards, flowing through the forms Lan taught him so easily that he almost tries to sheathe the fire-sword as though it’s a real one. He takes the woman’s horse, and then, when he’s mounted, he finds himself channeling, not really understanding how he’s doing it except that it feels right and works, and lifts the corpses, rearranging them until they’re all kneeling with their faces (those who still have faces) in the dirt. Bowing to him. If he really is the Dragon Reborn, then that is right, isn’t it?
He lets go of saidin, reminding himself of the danger of the taint, and notices that there is one more body in the line than he thought there should be, a man without armor but clutching a knife.
“You chose the wrong company,” Rand told that man.
Wheeling the gelding, he dug in his heels and set the animal to a dead gallop into the night. It was a long way to Tear, yet, but he meant to get there by the straightest way, if he had to kill horses or steal them. I will put an end to it. The taunting. The baiting. I will end it! Callandor. It called to him.”
I wonder how many times in his life Rand will tell himself that he’s going to “end to it,” only to realize that there is always more to this journey waiting just beyond the current trial. No doubt as time goes on, he’ll look back at some of these early struggles as so simple and easy compared to what he is currently facing. He may be growing in strength now, but he is still a little fish in an impossibly big ocean, and doesn’t have really any notion of the fight he’s actually up against. But then, how could he?
I’ve gone back and forth on whether or not I trust Rand’s judgment on his view that he is being relentlessly pursued, although things like the confirmation of the giant hound that left its paw print in the stone certainly prove that it’s not all in his head. Perrin also witnesses the assault of Myrddraal and Gray Men on Rand in his dream. I also wonder how he is so certain that it was really Perrin in his dream and not some kind of trick, when he couldn’t tell as much about Egwene when she visited his dream. Was it only his emotions clouding his judgement, or is there something more about Perrin that stands out as obviously different than the disguised assassins that Ba’alzamon keeps sending Rand’s way? Maybe something wolfish?
Looks like there was a Gray Man in the midst of that company Rand killed in the real world, too, so he was right to sense danger. And probably they were all dangerous, darkfriends assigned by Ba’alzamon to track him down. But there’s a chance they weren’t, too; what if the Gray Man among them was the only one with ill intent, and Rand had it backwards when he told his corpse that he chose the wrong company? Maybe it was the company that paid with their lives, rather than the other way around. And Rand making all the corpses bow to him doesn’t exactly speak to him being clear-headed, either. That action is a far cry from him thinking only a little while ago that he only declared himself out of a sense of duty, but that it doesn’t mean he is the Dragon.
I’m intrigued by what Perrin saw of Ba’alzamon in his dream. We’ve been in this mirror place before, way back in Chapter 24 of The Eye of the World; Rand found himself there after he escaped the dream maze by declaring it to be a dream.
Rand turned about in one spot, staring. Staring at his own image thrown back at him a thousandfold. Ten thousandfold. Above was blackness, and blackness below, but all around him stood mirrors, mirrors set at every angle, mirrors as far as he could see, all showing him, crouched and turning, staring wide-eyed and frightened.
A red blur drifted across the mirrors. He spun, trying to catch it, but in every mirror it drifted behind his own image and vanished. Then it was back again, but not as a blur. Ba’alzamon strode across the mirrors, ten thousand Ba’alzamons, searching, crossing and recrossing the silvery mirrors.
He found himself staring at the reflection of his own face, pale and shivering in the knife-edge cold. Ba’alzamon’s image grew behind his, staring at him; not seeing, but staring still. In every mirror, the flames of Ba’alzamon’s face raged behind him, enveloping, consuming, merging. He wanted to scream, but his throat was frozen. There was only one face in those endless mirrors. His own face. Ba’alzamon’s face. One face.
Perhaps those mirrors are used, somehow, to create the dreamscapes Ba’alzamon (or Lanfear, or whoever else) desires, to create those traps Ba’alzamon kept setting for the boys in The Eye of the World. It’s even possible that, while Perrin saw the “true” area, the people trapped there with Ba’alzamon were seeing something different, although that one man did see his repeating reflection, so maybe not. It’s also possible that these mirrors represent the other worlds, reflecting reality over and over and over again, and in the Dream World, which Verin hypothesized to be somehow laid overtop of the alternate reality worlds, you can see them all laid out.
And then there’s Lanfear showing up and calling the World of Dreams her domain.
The argument between Lanfear and Ba’alzamon is an interesting one. Of course poor Perrin doesn’t have enough information to make sense of it, but we can see how, since Lanfear knows who Ishamael really is, both of them are vying for control while not being able to say certain things. Ishamael can’t demand that she serve him, not directly, because then he would actually be usurping the power of the true Dark One, to whom they are both sworn. Instead, he asks again and again if she is abandoning her oath to the Great Lord of the Dark, implying that her defiance of himself is somehow related to abandoning that oath. But Lanfear is confident in replying that she is loyal to the Dark One, to her oaths to him, without giving any ground to Ishamael. Perrin can’t make sense of it because he sees her as defying the Dark One, while she is in reality defying a fellow Forsaken, and one with whom she perhaps has a long rivalry.
And who knows. In the end, maybe she will prove the more dangerous of the two, as Perrin seems to sense. I love the power move of making herself a throne, that’s for sure.
Still, it is probably pretty arrogant to claim Tel’aran’rhiod as her domain. I suppose the Dark One would claim it as his, as he would claim all things, but it can’t actually belong to him anymore than the rest of Creation does. These things exist outside of anyone who attempts to control them. If anything, maybe the World of Dreams belongs to wolves. Wolf heaven, as it were.
And while we’re on the subject, I’ll freely admit that Perrin wasn’t the only one tearing up when Hopper showed how he can fly now, either. My wolf-loving heart was all a-quiver.
I think Hopper’s comment that Perrin needs to be so careful because he is “too young, too new,” is an important one to mark. Like everyone else—like Rand in his fledgling power, like Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne stumbling around as the Amyrlin’s Black Ajah hunters when they’re not even full Aes Sedai yet—Perrin is being flung into the deep end by his abilities and situation far before what he can even understand it, nevermind be ready for. Still, we’re starting to see him get a handle on himself, and his attitudes and actions are reflecting a man who is growing steadily more capable of facing the challenges of his life. He certainly is much more adept at handling things than he was in the last book, or even the beginning of this one.
For example, when they’re leaving the inn he notices that he doesn’t make much of impression anywhere he goes. He’s aware now that this is a long journey with no foreseeable end, and he knows his passage is temporary and has developed a habit of not settling anywhere, even for a moment. While it’s rather sad to think that he’s always being pushed on and can never rest or think of home, I can’t help but be reminded of a roving wolf, traveling in search of food or sport, who may have a pack territory but whose true home is his pack, not a place.
Perrin is also adjusting to the violence of his new life. It still disgusts and upsets him, but it doesn’t linger after the fact the way it used to. He pushed the Whitecloaks he killed from his mind easily enough, although he still cursed his axe when he remembered it again. On the other hand, his instincts now are to reach for it, not just in battle but beforehand, seeking the reassurance of knowing he can defend himself in violence if he needs too.
He’s also developing more techniques for engaging with Moiraine. Through his reliance on her knowledge and his struggle to understand his wolf brother nature, he’s become used to being more open with her. He recognizes the value of her knowledge; he is less afraid of her, and more cognizant of how his fear of other things rules him. He is more thoughtful about what he shares and what he keeps back, and why he makes those choices; they are based less in fear and more in strategy now.
I can’t blame him for his reaction to their conversation at all. I think telling Moiraine of the dream was the right choice—she needs to know these things and be prepared—but when she tells Perrin that she didn’t expect this, she really means that she doesn’t know what to tell him. She’s mentioned before that little is known about the wolf brother phenomenon, but I don’t think Perrin quite gets it. He still thinks of her as this incredible all-knowing Aes Sedai, hardly human if the stories are to be believed, and she’s certainly not going to go so far as to shrug and admit how little she really knows about what she is doing. What does Perrin expect her to do about another Forsaken being loose, anyway? Challenge Lanfear to a wizard duel? Even if Moiraine knew how to locate her, it’s pretty clear who would win a fight between a member of the Forsaken and a modern Aes Sedai.
I wonder what Moiraine makes of the conversation between Ba’alzamon and Lanfear. She probably doesn’t know what to think, anymore than she knows what to think, or do, about Perrin. I’m sure she expected to feel overwhelmed and in over her head in her quest to find and guide/manipulate the Dragon Reborn, but I wonder if she expected so much of her troubles to come from outside sources. She knew Rand would be a problem, but she didn’t expect Perrin. And did she suspect that the “boy who escaped Tar Valon” was Mat? Bit of a stretch for her to make that connection, but she knows Mat is there. What other boy in Tar Valon could be of such interest to the Dark One as Matrim Cauthon?
Makes me wonder if the Gray Men in Tar Valon where just there for Mat, or if they have other plans, too.
It’s interesting that, despite everyone being separated, all the members of the original party have ended up on the water at the same time, except Rand. There are other parallels too, such as both Rand and Ba’alzamon laying their hands over their wounds from the battle at Toman Head, but the ships thing seems particularly significant me somehow. Moiraine, Lan, Loial and Perrin are on their way to Illian on the Snow Goose; Mat and Thom are sailing from Tar Valon on the Grey Gull; and next week we’ll see Egwene and company on the Blue Crane. Three birds, even. And our new friend the Falcon makes four.
I understand Perrin’s reluctance, but I think he’s being foolish, after all this time, still thinking there’s such a thing in his life as coincidence. Hopefully he’ll stay on his toes around Zarine, either way.
I did think it was sweet that Perrin wanted to reassure her about her name, even though he was irritated with her and even though it backfired. He has a few moments like that in these chapters, such as when he works to soothe the horses as they are being loaded onto the ship. Perrin’s gentleness and loving nature haven’t been lost yet, despite all the violence he has had to commit. It was smart of him to ask Moiraine about the name; Zarine has had a few one-ups on him, but now it’s his turn to have a little extra information about her. She seems like a clever one, too. She’s seized on the importance of Manetheren to the story of the Horn, even if the truth is much more complicated than she can possibly guess. And her suggestion that Perrin is the true puzzle of the party speaks not just to intelligence but to imagination as well. I think she sees more than even she realizes, which is appropriate in a character that reminds me a little bit of Min, at least in attitude. I’m inclined to trust her, I think, possibly because when Egwene dreamed of the hawk and the falcon on Perrin’s shoulders, only the hawk was trying to put him on a leash. Still, she seems impetuous, and her judgement of character seems more based on an appreciation for valor than anything else, if her assessment of Orban is anything to go by.
We’ve learned a little more from her about how the Hunt for the Horn works, too, from Zarine’s description of it.
“I took the oath and received the blessing in the Great Square of Tammaz, in Illian. Perhaps I was the youngest, but in that crowd, with all the trumpets and drums and cymbals and shouting… A six-year-old could have taken the oath, and none would have noticed. There were over a thousand of us, perhaps two, and every one with an idea of where to find the Horn of Valere.”
The scope of the Hunt for the Horn is somewhat bigger than I realized, and I wonder if this oath is considered to be binding in both directions, that is to say, if it constrains the people of Illian, like Zarine’s parents or other Hunters, from stopping anyone from going once they have taken the oath.
We’re back to Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne next week when we cover Chapters 37-39, and we’ll get to meet some more Aiel, and ladies this time. I’m looking forward to that, but in the meantime, I’ll leave you with my final thoughts on this week’s chapters.
- The townspeople think Gaul chewed through the chain or broke it with his bare hands. That’s hilarious.
- I wasn’t sure why Zarine was defending Orban. I think she was just saying he was good in a fight, not that he’s an honorable person or anything, but I’m not sure about her judgment in the matter, really.
- “Does he always look like that, or did he eat a rock for his last meal?” is a fantastic description of Lan and I love it.
- Perrin being truly nervous Zarine was going to knife him in the back. He calls himself a fool for thinking it, but I wonder if he wasn’t picking up on a very real danger; not that she would stab him, there on the deck in front of people and over something so small, but just that she is in fact, capable of being that dangerous and possibly deadly.
- I’m still wondering if Ba’alzamon’s eyes and mouth do that because of something outside his power, or if it is an affectation.
- Rand made dead people bow to him oh my god.
Sylas K Barrett wonders if maybe Hopper is the reason that some people can fly in their dreams.
With all those hunters and the rumors out of Falme, why is there not a swarm of adventurers seeking descriptions of everyone remotely involved in that battle? We see several hunters in passing, but the one place in-world where there are rumors about heroes appearing and fighting none of them seem the least bit interested.
Obviously a lot more to come on Faile. I think Sylas is going to like her, She’s pretty much an empowerment fantasy at this point.
Rand making dead people bow to him has always struck me as a weird byproduct of the fact that Jordan didn’t realize how long the series was and so was portraying Rand’s madness as being more far gone than it actually ended up being. I think it was even subjected to a soft retcon later in the series, I can’t remember.
LOL at “wizard duel”.
@2: Someone made reference to this in one of the earlier comment threads, but one theory for why Rand was so “mad” at this point in the story is that Ishy (edit: @5 – oops I meant Be’lall, thank you) is pulling him into nightmare dreamshards any time he tries to sleep, and so he effectively hasn’t gotten any sleep in weeks, and has been chased by all manner of Darkfriends and Shadowspawn while awake as well. That would make anyone a bit crazy, taint or no.
@@.-@ I believe it’s Be’lal tormenting Rand now, not Ishy. His whole plan is to drive Rand alone and exhausted to the Stone, get him to take Callandor, and then kill him and steal it. Which considering the power of Callandor means he really needs Rand to not be on top of his game when he arrives.
Oh, the joy. Sometimes, it’s the little offhand comments that really get me. I guess it depends on how Moiraine would fight, and on which Forsaken is dueling which Aes Sedai?
@6 “I guess it depends on how Moiraine would fight, and on which Forsaken is dueling which Aes Sedai?” (Or Accepted)
It’s always weird to read this chapter and see Rand kill a woman so easily and with little thought. I’m guessing RJ hadn’t come up with Rand’s sexist OCD thing about women yet.
@6 Wizard duels in WoT aren’t usually that interesting. It seems to come down to pure strength or a sucker punch. And balefire makes for one hell of a sucker punch.
@6 – It helps that the Forsaken are the worst/dumbest antagonists in all of literature!
@2, @@.-@, @5:
I think TBGH is right — Be’lal is hounding Rand in T’A’R, and Ishamael is behind those hunting him in the waking world. I do wonder — Shadowspawn can’t pass through a regular Traveling Gateway — but can they pass through a gateway into T’A’R? Could Be’lal be sending actual Shadowspawn, in the flesh, at Rand in T’A’R?
As to whether its a retcon or not… I’m undecided. But the fact that the majority of Rand’s scenes are in other people’s POV is a dead giveaway that the author intended us to not know exactly how crazy Rand was going. Which leads me to lean towards the belief that he never intended this to be Taint madness, at least not in the final draft. He just wanted us to worry about it.
@9:
I dunno, the ones that Rand has been in are plenty interesting. I think it’s just the way the women fight. They mostly try to use Spirit on each other. But the men seem to go ballistic with Fire, Balefire, all kinds of crazy weaves.
@1, if the heroes have appeared, then the horn has been sounded, and then it can’t be claimed by any of the hunters. Therefore, the rumors of the heroes must be false, and intended to lure the hunters to Falme as a trap.
Or at least that’s how I imagine the hunters would think about it.
@13 Considering the level of morality we’ve seen displayed by hunters throughout the series, I’m amused at the notion they would stop if they thought someone else currently had possession of it. Remember the linkage between the sounder and the horn is not commonly known.
@8 – I’m pretty sure this incident combined with the taint madness and a couple of upcoming traumatic experiences are what caused Rand to go apeshit on that particular topic. The other two guys are nowhere near as insane about it.
It is interesting that the whole “don’t hit women” thing is so prevalent in Randland across a wide variety of cultures despite the fact that in most of the ones we see women are by far more politically and socially powerful than men. Chalk it up to Jordan wanting to flip social stereotypes but also having a blind spot I guess. See also the lack of sexual agency Lan and Mat have later on in the series.
@15:
It’s prevalent because socio and political power is not physical power. And regardless of the disparity of other types of power, beating on someone who is physically weaker than you are is abhorrent to any reasonable and sane person. Since the majority of women are physically weaker than the majority of men, that particular stigma would still carry through.
Unless, of course, the woman is armed, and a trained soldier, and such things are within your cultural understanding, i.e. the Seanchan and Aiel. However, trained women fighters are far, far outside the cultural understanding of the Two Rivers, and most of the Westlands.
@6
Well they do have kind of a a wizard’s duel a few books down the road.
Although I don’t know if duel is the right Word for it.
@16 – Rand doesn’t care respect even female warriors (Aiel women are added to his list). The problem is that Rand gives women no AGENCY! He doesn’t respect their wish to fight and possibly die for the Light (or the Dark, for that matter). All because he views them as a weaker sex in need of protection. Or as a superior sex that are too holy and precious to die. Either way, he doesn’t respect them as he should.
@1: I literally cannot imagine anyone liking Faile, but to each their own I suppose.
The scene with Rand killing the woman without a second thought and making all the corpses kneel to him really, really, REALLY sticks out as something that Jordan probably would have gotten rid of if he’d had a chance to retroactively go back and edit this book after five or six more books had been published. It’s super-weird in light of his later thing about killing women; it’s super-crazy and makes Rand’s madness seem far more off-the-deep-end than he actually is at this point (or really any other point before Winter’s Heart to be honest); and it just sticks out like a sore thumb as a super-obvious example of Jordan not really knowing how long the story was going to be at this point. It reminds me of how, decades after the fact, Stephen King went back and edited a few scenes in The Gunslinger because, in retrospect, he wanted Roland to appear a bit more “heroic” than he had at the time he originally wrote the book.
@6: Moiraine killing Bel’al is really more of a fluke than anything else. Bel’al is, all things considered, pretty terrible at being a Forsaken, and the way Moiraine is able to defeat him makes me wonder how the dude ever survived at all in the War of Power. It’s also strange looking at the Companion to see that Bel’al was weaker in the one power than Narishma. He’s definitely up there with Aran’gar and Asmodean for “worst at their job” among the Forsaken.
@18:
That’s not my argument. My comment was specifically in response to @15’s comment that they didn’t think the whole “don’t hit women” thing made sense in the context of women having more socio and political power than men on average in the Westlands. That the world building seemed off.
I pointed out that I don’t believe a stigma against abusing people who are weaker than you physically has anything to do with whether or not those same people are stronger than you socially or politically. That is the only context for my comment. Anything else you may be reading in to the comment is exactly that — you reading into it. I wasn’t talking about “the List” at all in my comment @16.
@19:
I like Faile just fine. She’s 17 years old. In that context, I like her just fine.
As far as killing the woman here, don’t forget that the List doesn’t happen until after LTT’s memories start bleeding into his head (although before he schisms them into a separate personality). We don’t know how much of that is LTT and how much is pre-LTT Rand.
Also, whether or not this is Taint madness, he absolutely IS going crazy here, if only temporarily, from the interruption of his REM cycles. He’s not in his right mind during this scene.
Whether the first draft of this book was written with the intention of Rand going off the deep end of Taint madness or not, by the time the final draft was turned in, they had already expanded his contract to 6 books, so this scene was not even the halfway point. He likely knew by the last round of edits on this book that Rand wasn’t going mad from the Taint yet.
I never thought about the coincidence of everyone being on ships at the same time, but I think it’s just about them getting to Tear, a major port city at the mouth of a big river, all at the same time for this book’s big story explosion.
@6: Sylas would have owed me a new keyboard if I had been drinking anything when I read that.
@@.-@, @5
I love the idea that it’s Be’lal behind the dream assaults on Rand. Makes sense on a lot of levels and also makes Be’lal slightly less incompetent.
@11
I think any gateway will kill Shadowspawn. That’s why Death Gates work, even though they aren’t really Traveling gateways. Also, if it were otherwise, the Shadow could have moved unlimited hordes of Trollocs through T’A’R instead of through the dangerous Ways, and much earlier in the war.
@18
Agreed. Madness, like communism, was a red herring. RJ just wanted us to worry about Rand to increase the narrative tension. In this book anyway. Later it’s a whole different ballgame.
I don’t think having context for being awful excuses it. There are a lot of really awful people in real life I wouldn’t want to read about either, it making sense doesn’t make it enjoyable.
@16/20 – That’s not really what I was aiming at. I just thought that it was interesting that Jordan was perceptive enough to slip the political/social power dynamic but kept the physical prohibition intact (in one direction only, as we see multiple times throughout the books). We see a lot of reversals/questioning of “traditional” social mores in the saga, but the ones we don’t are pretty telling, I think, about Jordan’s own. Specifically the “don’t hit women” one, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when, for example, they’ve got a knife to your throat, along with Jordan’s celebrations of polygamy and lesbianism with no acknowledgement or mention of sexual relationships with multiple men involved. We see something similar with the handling of rape too – when done to women it’s offscreen and portrayed with the requisite amount of horror but when done to men it’s treated as comic relief.
@18 – Yeah, that particular dynamic becomes a pretty big deal in Rand’s relationship with the Maidens a few books from now.
@23 – LOL love the Clue joke.
Oh, the irony.
Lanfear says Trollocs can dream. The Forsaken might be using sleeping Shadowspawn, not sending them through a gateway into TAR.
Moiraine’s reaction here to Perrin confiding in her shows why the boys don’t tell her anything any more. Her AS instinct to be mysterious instead of admitting that she doesn’t know everything makes them decide that there is no point telling her anything.
Regarding Rand’s ‘women thing’, I think that’s the point Anthony Pero and others are making – it’s mostly due to Rand’s taint/memories/etc, not some cultural thing. Sure, there may be a general cultural prohibition against hitting women since, on average, they’re physically more vulnerable (especially in cultures like the Two Rivers where they’re not warriors or channelers)…but Rand obviously takes it way, way, way to an extreme (and yes, it is incredibly irritating and sexist), so I don’t think it’s a fair representation of Two Rivers cultural attutides.
As for Faile, I have a soft spot for her too :) She’s definitely rough around the edges but I think she has a lot of good, resourceful qualities. I’ll be interested to see what Sylas thinks of her as the story goes on.
@29 I think it’s part of RJ’s deconstruction of gender roles. Rand’s prohibition on hitting women is explicitly part of his madness. It’s not a particularly subtle criticism of that attitude. Nor is it the best way to express that criticism. One of the interesting things about how WoT engages with gender is that although RJ was obviously aware of feminist criticisms of epic fantasy, his responses weren’t always well executed. He’s also not as direct about it as, say, Mercedes Lackey, which produces its own problems. And retro progressivism is just weird.
“You are too young, too new…” – truth, but they are all power leveling and racking up the XP quickly.
It’s pretty clear from both Mat and Perrin that the taboo on violence against women holds strongly across the Two Rivers, or at least for the Emonds Fielders. Hesitation to strike at a woman is a pretty significant point in Mat’s story at a few points, and much of Perrin’s marital tension with Faile is a result of related attitude of self-imposed mildness/deference, for example.
But literally just about anyone else from anywhere else in the world who hears that they’ve got this deeply ingrained ideal thinks they’re nuts, and Rand’s sexist attitude toward the maidens in particular is repeatedly called out by the Aiel around him. Overall, I would say it’s very clearly presented as being a character limitation that they all three need to overcome, rather than some anachronistic sexist feature that Jordan imposed upon the entire world. It’s definitely connected to the deep seeds of their sense of what is honorable and right, and there’s little doubt that the series plays their Two Rivers upbringing as crucial to the Pattern as a whole, but that specific aspect is hardly glorified.
Yay! He met Faile! She’s one of my favorite characters so I’ve been looking forward to this. She has SUCH a good arc. One of the things I love about her is that she’s one of the only character who we get to see her have a true self-reflective moment toward the end of the series when she’s like “wow thinking back on how I behaved when I met Perrin…I was SUPER childish” and I just LOVE that, even though she’s kind of bratty when we meet her, she matures and grows so much and gains a lot of wisdom and understanding of self. I think a lot of people who read this series like to vilify her for being childish when we meet her and like to ignore the MASSIVE growth that she undergoes over the series (and a lot of people vilify her for the way PERRIN behaves regarding her…like as though his decisions are HER fault).
Sylas has been really good so far at analyzing characters and empathizing with them. He is good at going “ok this character is doing something annoying, but you know what? Given [x, y, z] in their past etc. it makes total sense that they’re doing this” and he’s really good at seeing the HUMAN in all these characters and I’m looking forward to his continued thoughts on Faile!!
Yeah, that Rand passage was way too creepy. I remember being so disturbed that I honestly considered him becoming a villain in the story, and the others would have to find a way to stop him. There’s probably some good fanfiction about that alternate reality.
@28: Moiraine’s reaction here to Perrin confiding in her shows why the boys don’t tell her anything any more. Her AS instinct to be mysterious instead of admitting that she doesn’t know everything makes them decide that there is no point telling her anything.
Great point. This is one of my main beefs with the AS, how they’re so desperate to give off the impression of wisdom even when they have no idea what they’re talking about. But this is very true to life. I know more than one person like that. Needless to say, they aren’t good company.
Sometimes, the wisest thing you can do is admit your own ignorance. Otherwise you’ll remain ignorant.
@34 That’s funny because through two books I was worried Mat would become a villain
@21 “book’s big story explosion.” I see what you did there :)
“Rand made dead people bow to him oh my god.”
*Waiting for Natrin’s Barrow intensifies*
I feel like The List and don’t hurt womenfolk are two of the more confusing plot/themes in WoT as RJ conceived it. I feel like The List especially was a mixup of the gender issues with the Borderlands and Mantheren, Rand’s and LTT’s madness, and their desire to be the hero/savior. Which is why no one can really get a handle on what RJ was doing with that overall. I think Leigh talked about how it was partially about always wanting to save everyone, then revising that down to “okay, I’ll just save innocents”, or “just women” or “just children” then going all Natrin’s Barrow and full blown nihilism by the end.
The Mantheren / Borderlands don’t hurt womenfolk kind of bleeds over into it, but it was originally part of the fallout of the Trolloc wars, etc., that got carried over into very strong customs in some areas and got completely ignored by the other places not hit by those wars. Except for the Aiel who are always their own special case anyways. And maybe Saldea’s approach was closer to the Aiel than the other borderlands. Overall, I think RJ could have ditched this and not lost very much, but there were a few areas of personal character growth in the superboys by the end of the story, so that’s something.
Still loving these recaps! Gonna be fun seeing the reaction to Moiraine’s cool stuff in this book, and futher down the line!
For folks trying to figure out how to get Shadowspawn into TAR via gateway, etc – there’s no need. If you pull someone into your dreamshard, you can just imagine the trollocs, fades, etc and make them appear real. This can even happen in regular TAR as we see when the little tower folks get sucked into the nightmare.
I was a little confused by @25 “We see a lot of reversals/questioning of “traditional” social mores in the saga, but the ones we don’t are pretty telling,[i.e.] Jordan’s celebrations of polygamy and lesbianism with no acknowledgement or mention of sexual relationships with multiple men involved.”
We do see at least one instance of polyandry–Myrelle Berengari (Green of course) is thought to have married her three Warders, though this is “in defiance of all custom”–and late in the series two fine older men are identified as gay: Algarin Pendaloan (Emarin) and Lord Baldhere, Queen Ethenielle’s swordbearer. OTOH, Algarin’s sexual ID isn’t mentioned till sometime in the last three books (IIRC), and I don’t remember when Lord Baldhere’s sexual ID was mentioned by Lan–might have been in the last three books too. So unless it was in the notes RJ left, our male gay heroes come to us courtesy of BS. Better late than never.
Rand’s (literally) insane need to not harm women is very obviously presented as an extremely negative thing, and blows up into a full-blown obsession due to the fact the has the soul of a man who viciously murdered his own wife and children.
His attitude, guilt, and reluctance to be involved with the Asha’man is obviously coming from a similar place as well – LTT obviously feels a deep responsibility for the harm his actions caused, and that bleeds over into Rand as these weird moral event horizons.
They don’t make sense. They are never presented as positive or noble or righteous. They are incredibly obviously detrimental throughout the story.
It blows my mind that anyone thinks RJ presented this as some kind of virtue.
Something for everyone to remember about the forsaken, they do have infinitely more knowledge than anyone from the current age, but that makes them arrogant and foolhardy, they believe they don’t have anything to worry about and noone can hurt them. They do become a bit more savvy as the series progresses.
Anthony Pero @20
LTT’s memories have been bleeding into Rand for a while now. Since the first book in fact.
It’s a bit more subtle at this point, but how do you think he was able to pull off looking like blademaster just by standing there? Be seen as enough of a threat that an actual blademaster had to physically impose himself between Rand and the Queen of Andor?
Because he is subconsciously aping the correct stance and bearing and people are picking up on it. Heck it’s how he was able to progress so far that he was actually dueling a real blademaster strength for strength at Falme.
At this point I would say he is subconsciously drawing on a trick LTT used back in the day to identify Darkfriends. He just doesn’t know how he’s doing it, but he knows to trust what he knows.
@41
I’m pretty sure people just see it as a sign of Rand’s fraying stability and sanity.
@moderators
Oops, I think that the next chapters being covered are supposed to be 37-39. At the very least I don’t think that we’re jumping to 40 yet.
@40 – Myrelle’s relationship is left vague and it is never even remotely implied that the Warders are involved with each other, which is not at all the way some Aiel poly marriages are depicted. With a few exceptions in the Red Ajah and Shaido, all examples of lesbianism are portrayed as temporary “any port in a storm” relationships rather than authentic preferences (think pillow friends like Moiraine and Siuan, or the Sea Folk/Cairhienin noblewoman sneaking around mid-series). And those authentically lesbian characters are invariably evil, much like Baron Harkonnen in Dune. In fact, the general treatment of homosexuality/polyamory in WoT is pretty similar to Dune. The only mentions of male homosexuality were wholly Sanderson’s creation.
Jordan pretty clearly was deeply uncomfortable with same sex attraction but willing to countenance and even fantasize about it so long as it was multiple women who were definitely really also into men. Not very unique for his generation, but definitely a thing in the series when viewed through the lens of today.
I can’t remember the minutia of the series, but was it shown or implied that the Aiel women were into each other as well as their husbands?
There were definitely a few more subtle hints that some of the Aiel marriages were more truly polyamorous rather than being Big Love type of scenario. They could probably just as easily be interpreted as platonic friendship though. Rather similar to the debate under another article here about Good Omens.
@47 – I always had the Big Love impression. It felt like the Aiel wives were more sister-wives, IMO. I just didn’t get that poly vibe. I did get a big impression of lesbian eroticism between Elayne/Egwene & Aviendha, though. I think that was intentional on RJ’s part.
I enjoy Faile as a character, though I probably wouldn’t have gotten along with her in person. She’s so brash and confrontational here, and I would have trouble responding to that from someone of any gender.
“I have to like it if I wish to write of of it.” *snort* I don’t think most other authors impose that rule on themselves, Loial.
“I don’t seem to leave any mark behind me, of late.” Except, you know, the occasional pile of corpses. Perrin’s requisite Fantasy Hero Body Count is rising, and he hates it.
“Only Grey Men and Myrddraal are denied dreams. Even Trollocs can dream.” Lanfear, would you please tell me everything about your investigations into Shadowspawn dreams and lack thereof? No? Phooey. You’e as stingy as your author.
“And if trollocs can dream does that mean Narg could of possibly of been a dreamer and new that Rand would come back home in TEotW.” — Reread commenter. That’s a fun idea. *grin*
Either Perrin doesn’t intuit that “the Great Lord of the Dark” refers to the Dark One, or he thinks Ba’alzamon is talking about himself in the third person and Lanfear is responding in kind.
Hi friends! Little error at the end there: Next week will cover Chapters 37-39, not 40-42 as was originally stated. Sorry for the confusion, and happy reading!
– Sylas
Well, it is a question without an answer. Rand’s worry about women dying… Certainly could be related to LTT memories trickling in… I just wondered if the loss of Rand’s surrogate mother at the tender age of 3, might have some influence over his restraint…
Faile – the most homophonally apt character name in the series.
@52:
It’s pronounce Fi – eel, not fail.
Austin @46
It’s implied that some were more into each other, but not all.
@53
It’s fa-YEEL.
Rand’s obsession with not letting women die has a satisfying conclusion, to me at least, in that when // Egwene dies (the very first women he was so obsessed with protecting) that could have been the straw that broke the camels back but instead he showed character growth and accepted that it was her right and choice to die fighting the good fight.//
In my head it’s Fay-lee, but I’m not know for looking at the actual correct pronunciations in the glossary.
@54 – Was that the Bain/Chiad thing? Honestly, I still don’t understand what was going on with the whole Bain/Chiad/Gaul thing.
@55, to quote Egwene’s spirit ‘Don’t I get to be a hero too?’ which leads to Rand finally realizing how he’s diminished both the women and the men who follow him by assuming responsibility for their lives and ignoring their choice to be where they are and doing what they do.
Faile will always be fail to me, first because I didn’t know the correct pronunciation, now out of pure spite. I’m very curious to see how Sylas reacts to Faile, especially once we start getting to her really bad personality ‘quirks’, maybe he’ll change my mind. I like Nynaeve quite a bit more than I used to thanks to his analysis, we’ll see about my actual least favorite main character (tied with Tuon maybe).
Moiraine could just // Push her off a cart //
Just read the other post BTL and realised a load of others also noted this point too.
@54:
When I listen to the audiobooks, I hear Fi-eel when it’s Michael Kramer narrating. The pronounciation is almost identical to Aiel. But everybody has different aural tolerances depending on the region they grew up in, so I’m not questioning you. Maybe I just can’t hear the difference.
My opinion of those who habitually abuse social and economic power tend to be abusive in general within all aspects of their lives. Those lacking those two outlets will likely and have been shown to physically abusive if the opportunity presents itself. With the exception of women. Lacking the inherent physical strength of men, women tend toward verbal abuse instead. They will even use more underhanded actions as substitute, often times being more destructive towards their focus as a result. My opinion of these variations of abusive behaviour is that the only reason women aren’t notably physical with abuse is that lack of physical advantage. It has been plainly shown many times in young children just how physically abusive girls can be towards their own sex and boys. What’s more disturbing is how verbally and mentally abusive girls and young women can be. As for, not wanting to strike a woman? It’s a contextual feeling. I am very much the same as Rand. I’m literally horrified at the thought, but won’t think twice to kill one that wants me dead. Especially if she shows up with a group of guys in tow too. If she were alone, I’d do my best to constrain her if I have the ability and opportunity. But I’d kill her lacking it, just as quickly under the right situations. It’s contextual and situational. As abhorrent the thought of harming a woman is, I’ll not lose sleep defending myself. That aspect is not that complicated and perfectly reasonable.
-Z
@61
Not surprising. From the looks of it the ‘a’ in Faile is intended to be a ‘schwa’ sound. That truncated vowel sound that is variously spelled with an a, u, i, o and even an occasional e in the English language. It may even be the sound you have in mind, but ‘fi’ to me sounds a bit like ‘fye’ which is way more distinction than it’s intended to have for me.
@62, I agree with you entirely, Zexxes. I am not sentimental about my own sex. Some of us can be downright vicious.
I’m afraid Faile will always be ‘Fail’ to me.
@63:
My point is that the early books had pronunciations all over the place, and RJ eventually corrected the pronunciations to his satisfaction, and both Kramer and Reading started pronouncing them the same way by book 5 — the way that RJ intended them to be pronounced. So what Kramer is saying is correct. I’m handcuffing my surety that I’m right with the undeniable knowledge my Wisconsin upbringing may have left me unable to distinguish some of the nuance of the pronunciation.
Lord knows that happens all the time between me and my wife, who is from Western Ohio, lol.
“That’s not how that word is pronounced dear.” Pronounces word “correctly.”
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you said [insert word here]”
“That sounds exactly the same!”
“No it doesn’t! Its completely different!”
I’ve probably had that conversation 40 times in the past decade, lol. We have the exact same conversation regarding shades of colors.
@65 – my husband (who is from Minnesota. I’m from Michigan, and we both live in Wisconsin) constantly argue about how to pronounce ‘milk’ and bagel’. He says ‘melk’ and so does my six year old! Argh!
@66:
Do you say “It’s milk!” and then they say “Yup, that’s what I said. Melk.”
Ugh.
@66 YESSSSSSSS!
Athough once my six year old actually came up to me out of the blue and asked why I can’t pronounce ‘milk’ right, lol.
I will never understand why there is so much hate for Faile, and so little for Aviendha. For me it’s definitely the other way around. No one on the side of the light is as self-centered as Aviendha. While everyone else is saving the world, all she cares about is ‘meeting her bloody toh’.