I’m doing my “Robert Jordan loves dramatic irony and so do I” dance this week, as Perrin and his party run into Morgase and hers. But of course, Morgase isn’t going to trust some random stranger, or even one Master Gill knows… especially when he turns out to be an ally of the Dragon Reborn.
Note: The analysis section of this post contains discussion of sexual assault and forced marriage.
In Ghealdan, Perrin covertly studies the town of Bethal through a looking glass. He needs to decide how best to approach Queen Alliandre. The country has been ravaged by the Prophet’s followers, bandits, and Whitecloaks raiding across the border from Amadicia, and Alliandre is touring around to remind people they have a queen. Perrin wishes he could ride down to meet Alliandre himself, but knows that it’s not the best course of action. Faile, Berelain, and Seonid all believe they should be the ones to go, but Perrin has to make the decision. He tells Berelain that she and Annoura, along with Lord Gallenne posing as Annoura’s Warder, will go.
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He watches the three approach the gates and be ushered inside quickly by the guards; Perrin wonders if they are worried about who might be watching and might possibly recognize an Aes Sedai. They head back to camp, Perrin’s mind preoccupied with Faile, thinking about how he usually loves her quicksilver nature but often can’t figure it out. He expected her to be angry when he chose Berelain, especially since she knows that Perrin doesn’t like to send her into danger. But she only became angry with him after he tried to apologize. And he knows from past experience that trying to ask for an explanation will only result in sarcasm or evasion from her.
Suddenly, Aram calls his attention to an abandoned farmhouse, where a group of people is trying to defend themselves from a group of rough-clad attackers. Seonid advises him to ignore it—the attackers are clearly the Prophet’s men, and killing his people isn’t going to make dealing with him easier. Perrin has no intention of killing anyone if he can help it, but he isn’t going to leave people to be killed either. He asks Edarra if the Wise Ones can use the Power to frighten the men off, and they ride down on the attackers to the accompaniment of saidar-powered thunderclaps and then a floating wheel of fire.
The leader of the attackers tries to keep his men together but they scatter quickly. The defenders are frightened as well, and Perrin has to ride down one woman who tries to gallop off. He apologizes for scaring her and promises that he means her no harm.
Seonid’s warder, Teryl, brings back the leader of the attackers, explaining that it’s always best to hear both sides of the story. The man insists that they were doing the Prophet’s bidding, protecting Maighdin from the man who was chasing her. He tells them that the Prophet will have their ears for this, and Maighdin insists that the leader mistook what he saw.
Perrin is shocked when he sees that the Wise Ones have actually gagged Seonid for speaking out of turn, and he notes the expression on Maighdin’s face as well—she is a woman who knows an Aes Sedai on sight. But they’re all distracted when Teryl produces a cord of severed ears that he found lying where the captured man might have dropped it. The prisoner insists that the trophy belongs to one of the other men, and screams that the prophet will hang them if they touch him, but Perrin is too furious to care. He gets up in the man’s face.
“I’m Perrin Aybara, and your precious Lord Dragon sent me here. You spread the word. He sent me, and if I find a man with… trophies… he hangs! If I find a man burning a farm, he hangs! If one of you looks at me cross-eyed, he hangs! And you can tell Masema I said so, too!”
He has Teryl let the man go, and he runs off. Perrin feels a little disgusted with himself for losing his temper, but the obvious pride on Faile’s face eases the feeling. He can tells Seonid has something she’d like to say to him, and the Wise Ones look disapproving as Teryl casually brings up that the original plan had been to keep their arrival secret until they were able to reach Masema, lest he hear of their coming and avoid the encounter.
“I’m supposed to stop… that,” Perrin said, gesturing angrily to the rawhide string on the ground. He had heard the rumors, and done nothing. Now he had seen. “I might as well start now.” And if Masema decided he was an enemy? How many thousands followed the Prophet, out of belief or fear? It did not matter. “It stops, Teryl. It stops!”
The Murandian nodded slowly, eyeing Perrin as though seeing him for the first time.
Maighdin finally speaks up, telling Perrin they will accept his hospitality after all. At the same time, Perrin realizes he recognizes two of the men with her—Lamgwin and Master Gill of the Queen’s Blessing. Perrin wonders if it’s just chance, or ta’veren work, that he should run into them here.
Perrin’s camp really consists of three camps—Berelain’s Winged Guards and the Aiel each have their own separate area. Perrin reflects on how they all travel with him, all seem to be following his orders, and yet everyone has their own personalities and agendas. Perrin catches sight of Masuri stirring stew up by the Wise Ones camp. Meanwhile, Maighdin seems not to be paying attention to anything, but Perrin can see her eyes widen at the sight of the Mayener guards—another thing he wouldn’t have expected her to recognize on sight. Lini and the man Talanvor stick close to her, as does a birdlike little fellow called Balwer. Balwer’s attitude reminds Perrin of a wolf testing the air, and he smells no fear from the man, only impatience and irritation.
Perrin is greeted with shouts by the Two Rivers men, and servants from Lord Dobraine’s estates come to take their horses. He’s frustrated to see the Red Eagle of Manetheren flying next to the Red Wolf banner—no matter how many times he orders the men to put those banners away, they are quickly raised again. Perrin can just imagine what Alliandre would think of that banner, given that what is now Ghealdan was once part of Manetheren. Maighdin observes them as well, and remarks that she has heard that these same banners were raised in the Two Rivers by Andormen rebelling against their lawful ruler.
Perrin replies that the Two Rivers doesn’t know much about lawful rulers, and that he supposes that Morgase was a good queen, but they had to fend for themselves, and so they did. At the same time, he realizes that Maighdin reminds him of Elayne. He wonders if Maighdin might be Andoran. He tells her that things aren’t as bad in Andor as she might have heard, that Caemlyn was quiet the last time he was there and that the Dragon Reborn intends to put Elayne on the Lion Throne.
Far from being mollified, Maighdin rounded on him, blue eyes blazing. “He intends to put her on the throne? No man puts a queen on the Lion Throne! Elayne will claim the throne of Andor by her right!”
Perrin wishes Faile would intervene, but instead Lini upbraids Maighdin for her behavior towards a lord and demands that she apologize. Perrin is surprised when Maighdin does, asking his pardon “humbly,” though she looks and sounds as proud as an Aes Sedai. He gives it, and thinks that he can hear her teeth grinding.
Faile starts to take the women off to get cleaned up, and Perrin reveals that he knows Master Gill. This startles everyone, and Gill pretends that he’s just recognized Perrin in turn. Lamgwin greets him as well, and tells Maighdin that he believes she can trust Perrin with anything she’d like to tell him.
Perrin takes him to sit under a large tree, hoping to put Gill at ease, but he’s unable to make much headway in casual conversation, especially when Lini joins them and starts lecturing Gill about giving too many details. Glaring at her, Gill explains that he had a business opportunity to import wine and went to Lugard, along with Lamgwin and Breane. They ran into Mistress Maighdin and her party on the road near Lugard. Lini interrupts to explain that they all worked for the same noble house in Murandy, until bandits burned the manor and their lady couldn’t afford to keep them. Gill continues to explain that the wine merchant had left for some reason, and because of all the trouble in the world they keep running from one danger to another, and always driven farther from Caemlyn.
Perrin considers to himself that this could be the truth, but also might be a lie, then grows frustrated with how suspicious he has become.
Why on earth would Basel Gill, of all people, lie to him? A lady’s maid, accustomed to privilege and fallen on hard times; that explained Maighdin. Some things were simple.
Gill continues to babble anxiously, but when he mentions the Seanchan taking Amador, Perrin stops him, asking if this is just rumor. Gill insists it’s true, and that he saw the soldiers and their flying creatures with his own eyes. He promises Gill that he will get them to Caemlyn eventually, and Lini decides that he seems like a good man.
She explains the tension between Maighdin and Tallanvor, how Maighdin keeps running from him because she’s afraid of her own heart. She tells Perrin to marry the two, and that they’ll both thank him for it. Alarmed and bemused, Perrin excuses himself, leaving Gill and Lini shaking fingers at each other.
Perrin returns to his tent, passing by Faile’s Tairen and Cairhien attendants, the ones who are trying to act like an Aiel society. Inside he finds Faile and Maighdin talking. Faile offers Maighdin and her friends a place in her service, and after a moment’s thought, Maighdin accepts. She leaves, and Faile tells Perrin, delightedly, that she likes Maighdin’s spirit. Perrin tells her of Lini’s request, and Faile thinks that it might be a good idea.
She’s not as worried about the Seanchan as Perrin is, confident that Perrin can deal with them when the time comes and that Rand already knows that they are in Amador. She even assures Perrin that Rand knows best how to handle the Seanchan.
When Perrin brings up destroying the Manetheren banner, however, Faile advises against it. If people believe he is trying to resurrect Manetheren—something that happens from time to time—they will not see what else Perrin is up to. Perrin is impressed with her logic, and agrees that the banner will stay.
That night, Faile leaves the tent, very careful not to wake Perrin. She makes her way through the camp quietly, passing sleeping men and Maighdin’s party talking quietly around a fire. She finds her people waiting for her in a small clearing, some of those who call their society Cha Faile, the Falcon’s Talon. Faile sent them into the town to scout around, and they have returned now to make their report. They also show Faile a map they made, on her instruction, and assure her that no one searches wagons that leave the city. Faile praises their work, and begins to give them more instructions.
Maighdin, for that is her name now, lies awake, unable to sleep. Tallanvor comes up to kneel beside her, asking why she took service and that he doesn’t believe for a moment that it’s in service of making a new life for herself. She angrily reminds him that the Dragon Reborn has plans for Elayne, and that the Light must have brought her to one of the Dragon’s henchmen for a reason. Tallanvor is angry about this, reminding her that Elayne is safe in the White Tower and that there is nothing “Maighdin Dorlain” can do about the Amyrlin Seat, the Dragon Reborn, or the Lion Throne except get herself killed.
“Maighdin Dorlain can watch!” she broke in, at least partly to stop that awful litany. “She can listen! She can…!” Irritably, she trailed off. What could she do?
She composes herself, and tells him that she will do whatever she can do, and when the chance comes to help Elayne, she will take it. Tallanvor tells her that is a dangerous decision, reminding her of how Perrin threatened to hang anyone who looked at him the wrong way. And Balwer might betray her. Contemptuously, she tells Tallanvor that if he is afraid, he should ride on.
“Ride on if you wish, you say. Once, there was a soldier loved a queen from afar, knowing it was hopeless, knowing he could never dare speak. Now the queen is gone, and only a woman remains, and I hope. I burn with hope! If you want me to leave, Maighdin, say it. One word. ‘Go!’ A simple word.”
She opens her mouth to say it, but no matter how she tries, she can’t get the word out. She expects him to laugh, but instead he leans in and kisses her eyes, and tells her that if she had told him to go he would have given up all hope, but would never have left her side.
Once he has gone, she lies awake still, furious at Tallanvor for being right when she doesn’t want him to be, worrying over being caught and used against Elayne instead of gaining the chance to help her, and upbraiding herself for not being able to let go of her old life.
In the back of her head, a small voice laughs at her for trying to continue to affect things, despite the ruin she has made of everything so far. She tries to ignore it, but when she finally falls asleep, she can still feel the touch of his lips on her eyelids.
One of the consistent themes throughout The Wheel of Time is lack of correct information. From the way news travels and gets distorted over long distances, to the personal misunderstandings between men and women, or the clashes between people from different cultures, many of the conflicts in the story either arise from, or are made worse by, misinformation. Rand, of course, is a nexus for people’s incorrect assumptions about the Dragon Reborn, and is often blamed for the evil acts of others, such as the Seanchan, Whitecloaks, or the Forsaken (see: the Dragon Reborn killed Morgase). And even his allies misinterpret his actions, seeing him as arrogant or wondering if he’s going mad. Sometimes they’re right, of course, but other times if they only knew what Rand was thinking, they would realize that something very different was going on.
I see a lot of that Rand in Perrin in these chapters. His rage reaction to the injustices committed by the Prophets’s men, and his frustration that he didn’t do anything about the rumored horrors until now, feels very Rand. And his speech to the captured man reminded me very much of Rand’s speech to the Aiel chiefs in The Fires of Heaven.
“If any man takes a penny more than the fifth, or a loaf of bread without payment, if he burns so much as a hut because it belongs to a treekiller, or kills a man who is not trying to kill him, that man will I hang, whoever he is.”
Perrin doesn’t believe that he is a leader, or that he wants to be a leader, but this moment shows otherwise, even if he doesn’t realize it. He takes personal responsibility for the actions of the Prophet’s men, and believes with his whole heart that he needs to stop it. But these men aren’t acting in his name, aren’t from his home or even his country, and aren’t hurting anyone he knows or is responsible for. And yet, he wants to come in and change things. He does it because it’s right and just, and that is something Perrin believes in. But his instinctual move to take charge shows that he has the instincts of a leader, and sooner or later he’s going to realize that he only has the power to enact this sort of change because he is a leader, and one that many people are willing to follow.
Perrin’s journey in this is also very similar to Rand’s—Perrin is just less far along that path, and has a little more room to continue to protest. Neither man is a simple shepherd/blacksmith anymore, but Perrin has a lot more wiggle room to remain in denial than Rand has.
And just as Rand’s anger in the face of injustice is often misread, we see Perrin being misread here by Morgase and her party. Tallanvor believes that Perrin really would hang someone who looked at him the wrong way, and doesn’t seem to consider the qualifier that Perrin’s rage was in response to seeing the necklace of ears. Of course, since Perrin is one of Rand’s agents, he is bound to be viewed with the same suspicion and fear that Rand is. The fact that he has mysterious yellow eyes is going to alarm people as well—usually a blend of man and beast aspects marks Shadowspawn, hence the Aes Sedai thinking that wolfbrothers are darkfriends.
But we can see the difference between how Morgase and the others interpret Perrin’s actions without all the facts and the way Faile, who knows Perrin, reads the situation. Tallanvor’s read of Perrin is fairly understandable, given the little Tallanvor has to go on, but it’s significant to note that neither Tallanvor, nor Morgase, nor any of their companions—except possibly Balwer—seem to consider why Perrin became so enraged, or to take that into account when evaluating him.
There is also much more to Perrin’s struggles to be understood than yellow eyes and association with the Dragon Reborn, and I think his conversation with Morgase about the “rebellion” in the Two Rivers really highlighted the reason why. Perrin isn’t just a blacksmith turned hero, he’s from a part of the world where even the concept of nobility and rulers is little more than a story. He isn’t going from being the servant to the served, he’s going from a place where there were no servants to suddenly having to command them. In becoming a leader and a de facto noble, he is being asked to learn an entire culture from scratch. And I don’t think that is something that Faile understands; when she sees him push back against behaving like a lord, she probably understands that Perrin has come up in the world and is uncomfortable with it. But she might not realize exactly how alien the whole experience looks and feels to him: If he had been a servant himself, he would at least understand what that experience is like and it might help direct him, even if he still didn’t like being the one to give orders. But he doesn’t.
Faile also doesn’t understand Perrin’s modesty, or his discomfort with being a leader, because that isn’t the kind of men she’s known growing up. Saldean culture between husbands and wives is very different from Andoran relationships, as we’ve seen, and Faile was raised in a noble household, so of course she’s accustomed to men with a certain kind of ambition—men who are raised to govern and taught to lead from a young age. And modesty doesn’t seem to be very prized in Saldaea, while it is in Andor.
Elayne and Aviendha have had some similar difficulties, actually. The Aiel’s ideas about what strengths and weaknesses you can and can’t show, what actions are shameful and which bring honor, are very different from the Andorans. There is a lot of overlap, of course, but the type of humility Elayne often displays is very puzzling for Aviendha, as is the fact that certain physical weaknesses (like Nynaeve’s seasickness) are not considered embarrassing to display.
But Aviendha and Elayne are better at communicating about these than Faile and Perrin are. Although Aviendha has some very particular and painful issues around how she is changing, she is also eager to learn more about Elayne’s attitudes and the culture she comes from. Elayne, in turn, is adopting certain Aiel ways, going so far as to choose to adopt aspects of ji’e’toh to please Aviendha. Perrin and Faile, however, are yet to make many attempts to meet in the middle. Perrin is treating Faile the way he would be expected to treat a Two Rivers woman, and then is surprised when she wants something different from him. And Faile reacts to his blunders as though he were a Saldaean man, without seeming to consider that the Two Rivers might have different customs, that it isn’t reasonable to interpret Perrin’s actions through a purely Saldean lens or to expect him to know what she wants him to do. Indeed, as we’ve seen, his attempts to ask for clarification are always rebuffed, for some reason that isn’t entirely clear to me.
Few people in this story have very forthcoming natures, but Perrin is actually better than most, despite the reasons he has to hide. He is so practical and straightforward as a person that he has to recognize that communication is necessary to solve interpersonal problems. Unfortunately, his wife isn’t meeting him there, and it’s really frustrating to read. And I wonder where they will end up when all is said and done. If they settle in the Two Rivers, Faile will need to understand and adopt at some Andoran attitudes, at least in public. Otherwise she might very well look like the bad guy to Perrin’s people, as she can occasionally to the reader.
This problem with Faile is one of the reasons I appreciated the time these two chapters spent reminding us why Faile and Perrin love each other. This is especially significant in the section from Faile’s point of view, which allows us to understand her actions and motivations, rather than to remain puzzled and frustrated alongside Perrin. We see her determination to protect him, her respect for his gentleness and kindness, her admiration for his deliberate, penetrating intelligence. And I especially liked the moment when she told him off for indirectly calling himself a fool.
“And don’t call yourself an idiot, Perrin t’Bashere Aybara. Not even sideways, like that. You aren’t, and I do not like it.” Her scent was tiny spikes, not true anger but definitely displeased.
I relate a lot to Perrin. I see myself as someone who is slower and more deliberate in thought, not as quick as my partner or friends. And while I know I’m still very intelligent, I can sometimes find myself falling into the same trap that Perrin does, contrasting myself against those quick people I love and admire, and worrying that I am, in fact, stupid by comparison. I’d be lying if I claimed that my partner has never told me off in a very similar way that Faile does here.
Though he can sometimes benefit from a gentle push, Perrin’s deliberateness is a strength, not a weakness, and you can see how well he and Faile’s different natures complement each other. It’s only when the culture clash comes up that they fall out of rhythm, and I’m really hoping that they’ll be able to make some progress on this matter soon.
There are many characters who are misjudged, even by their allies, in The Wheel of Time, and many people around whom there is misinformation and misunderstanding that leads to suffering for both them and their friends. But perhaps the most painful situation, even more than Rand, is Morgase’s. After all, even she doesn’t have all the information about how she ended up where she is, and she is still paying the price for what she believes is a mistake that she made, when in fact she was a blameless victim of Rahvin’s Compulsion.
I really don’t like the relationship between Morgase and Tallanvor. I want to like it, what with the chivalric romance vibes and everything, but given Morgase’s situation and treatment by everyone around her, I just can’t. For one, Tallanvor is, or at least was, one of the people who hold Morgase’s actions while under Rahvin’s spell against her, believing that she failed in her duty as Queen, abandoning her subjects for careless and foolish reasons. This isn’t his fault, since he doesn’t know who Lord Gaebril was—again, that lack of information hurts our heroes—but since the reader knows that Morgase isn’t at fault, that tension is hard to stomach. Much worse, though, is the fact that Morgase has been raped both by Rahvin and by Valda. She doesn’t fully know that the experiences with “Gaebril” were non-consensual, of course, but given that she was basically magic-roofied, her mind and body are still going to understand the experience as rape, if only subconsciously. And even aside from sex, consenting or not, Morgase’s last experience of being “in love” with a man led to her being betrayed, usurped, and forced to go on the run in disguise. Seeing herself at fault is only going to make her even more apprehensive of any romantic feelings that she experiences going forward.
The narrative also dwells on her feeling of being exposed when she realizes she’s sitting beside Tallanvor in nothing but her shift. Jordan often lingers on descriptions this way—he does it two more times in this chapter alone, with Faile and with the female members of her little spy group—for the reader’s enjoyment. But all I could think of was that Morgase’s experiences with Valda were still very recent, and perhaps it’s too early for people to be pushing her to think of anyone in a sexual way. Of course, Morgase blames herself for that too, and she hardly received any support from Lini.
Lini, who is urging Perrin to marry Tallanvor and Morgase more or less against her will. That was a difficult bit to read, I must say, especially when Lini ended with the claim that Morgase will be happy about it eventually. Morgase’s agency has been deeply eroded since Rahvin arrived in Caemlyn, and in a myriad of ways, including sexually. And now a woman who is supposed to love and protect Morgase is asking yet another man, one Morgase is afraid, or at least wary, of, to make the decision for her, against her stated wishes and every action she’s taken (she literally ran away from Tallanvor!) because Lini claims to know that Morgase really wants it.
And the kicker is, I don’t think the narrative is aware of the problems here. I could be wrong, but I get the sense that we are supposed to believe Lini, that the narrative concurs with her assessment of the situation. The text isn’t unsympathetic to Morgase’s difficulties, and it doesn’t dismiss her conflicted nature as being stupid or weak, necessarily. But women have been married off, and women have been raped, “for their own good,” often enough in real life that I found Lini’s claim intensely disturbing. Unless we later get some big turnaround where Lini and Tallanvor acknowledge how they are treating Morgase, I think that Jordan has really missed the mark in this section.
And to top it all off, Tallanvor’s conversation with Morgase at the end of Chapter 8 is mostly trying to convince her that she’s helpless and can’t do anything. I understand that he’s worried for her safety, but even when Perrin was trying to keep Faile out of harm’s way he was aware that it was for his own sake more than hers, and he never called her helpless. What is it that Tallanvor loves about Morgase, anyway? He loved her “from afar” when she was a Queen, but he barely knew her. Now that she’s “just a woman” he mostly has been angry with her for messing up her queenship and for trying to still do things. Jordan kind of likes to let the falling in love parts happen off screen, but I think he should give us a little bit more than this, especially given everything I said above.
Well, sorry to end this post on a rage note, but I guess the way Morgase’s story has been handled is my cord of ears. Next week we’ll cover Chapters 9 and 10, and there will be a lot more discussion of culture clashes, this time focused on the wetlanders vs the Wise ones vs the Aes Sedai.
Sylas K Barrett is on book eight of the series and has definitely looked at the maps plenty, but he was still today years old when he realized that the country is called Ghealdan, not Ghealda.
