Hello hello, and welcome back once again to Reading The Wheel of Time! After two weeks away, I am very excited to be starting Lord of Chaos. Which has oddly lost the “The” that has been in every other title thus far in the series, and which I find oddly irksome for some reason. I guess it’s fitting that a book about a Lord of Chaos would dispense with the orderly nature of previous books, but as a result I can only hear the title in the voice of Jeff Goldblum, like the way he says “Lord of Thunder” in Thor: Ragnarok.
More to the point, I’ve been getting some tutoring in summaries from Tor.com’s own Emmet Asher-Perrin, and I’m going to start running those sections very differently. I mean, you all have read the books, you don’t need an extensive blow-by-blow from me every week! And what better time to test my newfound skills and resist my completist tendencies than with this immensely long slog of a prologue that opens Lord of Chaos. We’re going to ease in by covering half of the Prologue, up through Elayne’s section.
Are you ready? I’m ready. Let’s do this thing.
Demandred steps out of a gateway and onto the slopes of Shayol Ghul. He reflects that the area used to be an island in an idyllic sea, and stops to watch a forger—a large not quite alive being that makes swords for Myrddraal—quench a blade and drag prisoners inside its workshop. A Myrddraal interrupts his thoughts to escort him to the Great Lord, naming itself Shaidar Haran. Demandred follows the Myrddraal to the entry in the mountain, a tunnel with jagged spikes hanging from the ceiling. Normally, these spikes descend to brush the head of whoever is descending into the mountain, a reminder from the Dark Lord. But the Myrddraal is given space between itself and the spires, and Demandred takes note of this. They reach the Pit of Doom.
Even after all his visits—and the first lay well over three thousand years in the past—Demandred felt awe. Here he could sense the Bore, the hole drilled through so long ago to where the Great Lord had lain imprisoned since the moment of Creation. Here the Great Lord’s presence washed over him. Physically, this place was no closer to the Bore than any other in the world, but here there was a thinness in the Pattern that allowed it to be sensed.
He dismisses the Myrddraal but it ignores his orders. Then he hears the Dark Lord in his head, a voice that crushes his brain inside his skull and fills him with rapture. He gives his report, but finds that the Dark Lord knows more than he does, including that Rahvin has been killed with Balefire by the Dragon. The Dark Lord implies that Demandred could be Nae’blis, the one who stands first below the Lord himself, and gives Demandred his instructions.
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The Eye of the World: Book One of The Wheel of Time
Nynaeve chides Siuan and Leane for fidgeting while she tries to study their stilling. She is using the bracelet and collar to control Marigan, who is really Moghedien, and channel through her. Nynaeve notes that there is something torn or cut in the women, and Moghedien observes that it was called “severing” in her time. Nynaeve has Siuan and Leane try on the bracelet, and everyone, even Moghedien, is shocked when they can feel her through the connection, though they still cannot touch the Source. Nynaeve is convinced that this means there is something in the women to heal; Siuan gets upset but Leane seems hopeful.
Elayne bursts in, complaining furiously that she’s been denied a place in the embassy to Caemlyn. Siuan points out that Sheriam will never let the Daughter-Heir fall into the Dragon’s hands, even if neither Elayne nor Siuan believe that he really did kill Morgase, as rumors say. They argue, Leane pointing out how Rand is gathering power too quickly, and Siuan reminding them that she is still trying to make sure Sheriam and the others support Rand at all. Nynaeve realizes that Siuan knew about the embassy before now. Siuan mentions that Min is also going. Elayne apologizes for interrupting them and leaves.
Siuan and Leane leave too, despite Nynaeve’s protests, leaving her with nothing to do but question Moghedien again. They have learned a lot from her, some of which they keep to themselves but most of which they have passed on to the Aes Sedai as “discoveries” they have made in their practice. Nynaeve feels guilty for keeping so many secrets, but it’s too dangerous not to.
Elayne passes Birgitte in the hall, trying not to think about her mother. She passes Gareth Bryne, who has been cold and distant with her despite how long they’ve known each other, and is stopped by Anaiya and Janya Sedai. Janya, a Brown, rambles on about the discoveries Nynaeve and Elayne have made, while Janya compliments her work and tells her that she should be proud of herself. Elayne is deeply uncomfortable being praised for things that come from Moghedien.
She finds Min sitting with her back to a tree by the river, away from the Aes Sedai and Warders. Min tells Elayne that Siuan wants her to spy on Rand and send messages back to Salidar. The two discuss their shared feelings for Rand, and their fear that it may eventually disrupt their friendship, despite their promises to each other. Min promises to carry a letter to Rand for Elayne, and Min promises not to tell Rand about her viewing that she, Elayne, and another woman are all going to be in love with him and tied to him forever. Elayne regards the cloudless sky and tries to use saidar to find a bit of rain. Min points out that Rand is doing well, killing Forsaken and gaining control of more lands. She tells Elayne that they are winning.
Releasing the Source, Elayne sagged back, staring at a sky as empty as her mood had become. You did not need to be able to channel to see the Dark One’s hand at work, and if he could touch the world this much, if he could touch it at all… “Are we?” she said, but too softly for Min to hear.
I had to really search my memory, but I don’t believe we’ve met Demandred yet. He has been name-dropped a lot, however, even back in The Eye of the World. Also his name sounds too much like he’s related to Moiraine, but I’m trying to accept the realism of Jordan’s naming systems. After all, in our world there are people who share names despite not being related, and many names that are similar to many others. It’s not Jordan’s fault that I couldn’t decide for a hot minute if Demandred was one of Moiraine’s uncles or Galad’s dad. I also briefly thought he might be Luc Mantear before I went back and checked the names. Jordan must have had some kind of chart to keep all these characters straight. But yeah, all that being said I’m excited to meet Demandred since his name has cropped up so often.
As always, Jordan’s descriptions of place and landscape are enthralling, and I absolutely love that we opened with finally getting to see Shayol Ghul. I’d say it lives up to the hype, so to speak. I’m fascinated by the concepts of the forgers being animated beings but not alive. This makes sense, of course, since the Dark One can’t make life, but it makes me wonder how these creatures work and where they come from. As the series progresses we learn more about the origins of Shadowspawn—later in the prologue we find out that it was the Forsaken, not the Dark One, who made Trollocs and Myrddraal, for example—so I have to wonder if the forgers are animated by the Dark One’s power, by the weaves of Darkfriend channelers, or by something else. And I guess the forging of a Myrddraal blade includes getting human blood on it? Or maybe it’s the act of taking a life that seals the blade. Either way, it’s upsetting to realize that this is what happens to many people taken in the Borderlands; the nations there have so much strength to stand against the encroaching Blight, but I doubt they know about this particularly nasty fate.
And speaking of Myrddraal, it seems like Shaidar Haran is a very special one. I was very much reminded of the Mouth of Sauron as soon as we learned that his name means “Hand of the Dark.” And it comes from the Old Tongue, rather than the Trolloc language? This Myrddraal is definitely going to continue to be significant to our story in some way that the others haven’t been. Maybe they’re evolving, becoming more powerful or more human as their master gets closer to freedom. Or maybe Shaidar Haran was just made for some special purpose.
It was fascinating reading the experience of communicating directly with the Dark One. The fact that there is an aspect of ecstasy to experiencing his voice inside your head adds more complexity to the experience of being a Darkfriend. Yes, they are motivated by things like greed and power-lust and a desire for immortality, but the experience of giving yourself over to the Dark One comes with other sensations and rewards. It’s also reminiscent of how channelers feel when they get close to drawing too much of the One Power; the sweetness is so intense it becomes painful, and even knowing that it could destroy them, they are still always tempted to take more anyway. The pain of the Dark One’s presence becomes sweetness in its own way, and is clearly desperately intoxicating.
One of the constant questions voiced by the characters in The Wheel of Time is how much of the Pattern the Dark One can see or touch, how much knowledge and influence he has on the world. In The Eye of the World Moiraine was appalled at the suggestion that the Dark One could reach into Perrin, Mat, and Rand’s dreams (though fortunately that turned out to just be Ishamael, not the Dark One himself) and wondered at times if it was the Pattern or the Dark One’s Hand directing their path. Certainly the long winter that didn’t fully break until after Rand defeated Ba’alzamon at the Eye was a sign of the Dark One’s power, as is the continuing summer heat and drought that began in The Fires of Heaven. But even the Forsaken don’t know what the Dark One can do and what he knows, as we see here when Demandred observes that he’s been as surprised by what the Dark One seemed not to know as what he did know.
The Dark One almost seems to have a bit of a personality here; he sounds frustrated or angry when he mentions not being able to step outside of Time. One wonders how such a being experiences emotion, being so different from anything within the World, and how that emotion and “speech” is being translated for Demandred’s comprehension. When Rand and the others still thought Ba’alzamon was the Dark One himself, I figured that the person they saw was only a shadow, an emissary, or a figure representing the being called the Dark One, and even now I expect this ecstasy and pain inspiring voice must be created in order to interact with humans closer to their level. It will be interesting if we see more of this going forward, more little clues about where and what the Dark One really is.
I’m not even going to pretend to understand the metaphysics of the Bore being somewhere else, but the Pattern being thin so that it’s felt specifically at the Pit of Doom. It’s a cool concept though.
Moiraine has explained the problem with Balefire, but Demandred having been there when it was used during the War of Power makes the dangers feel much more real. The fact that even the Dreadlords would elect not to use it, that Demandred himself was so reluctant as to actually hesitate in his answer to the Dark One tells you a lot. I suppose even the Dark One wouldn’t want the Pattern to unravel. If it did, he’d have no Creation left to remake in his image or whatever. I wonder what the Dark One even gets out of remaking Creation, anyway. Like is he going to stick his fingers in his ears and blow raspberries at the Creator? Watch all the little people suffering like it’s his own little ant farm? I know that Dark One isn’t a human, but he is bound by Time, and that’s probably true even if he escapes his prison. So he’d have lost the only purpose in his life and he’d just be… pointless.
A lot of the section between Nynaeve, Siuan, Leane, and Moghedien is recap, but it does contain some helpful information. We can see that Siuan and Leane’s manipulation of the Hall at Salidar has been going well, and that they make a good team—they flawlessly support each other while arguing with Elayne, no doubt just as they did when convincing Sheriam and the others of the plan in the first place. Siuan still has most of the power in her situation with Nynaeve too, as she shows by leaving the session abruptly while Nynaeve was trying to threaten her over upsetting Elayne. But you can also see moments in which Siuan is vulnerable; she’s clearly afraid to let even the slightest bit of hope in about having her stilling undone, which makes sense. She has enough purpose in her life, and enough stubborn drive, to keep going despite her loss. But that emptiness and loss is so strong, and if she were to get her hopes up only to have them dashed, it would probably be an unimaginably painful experience.
I, on the other hand, fully believe that Nynaeve is going to figure out how to Heal stilling. Moghedien doesn’t believe it can be done either, but she doesn’t know everything about what was possible in the Age of Legends, and has professed to know very little about Healing in particular. It’s even possible, though probably unlikely, that Nynaeve might discover an ability that didn’t exist during the Age of Legends. After all, just because that time was glorious doesn’t mean they knew everything, and just because some old things are coming back (like being a wolfbrother) doesn’t mean that new things can’t be born. Nynaeve is stubborn enough to manage that, I think.
Both Nynaeve and Elayne are very preoccupied with how much subterfuge they’re employing at Salidar, which I found interesting. They both have a strong moral objection to the kinds of lies they’ve been telling, and both are very concerned that Moghedien isn’t being brought to justice as long as they refrain from turning her over to the Aes Sedai. The latter belief is interesting, especially because Moghedien is literally bound by the collar, which is a pretty horrific type of imprisonment and slavery. Nynaeve is very conscious of feeling dirty using such measures, of course, but there is also a sense that keeping Moghedien a prisoner is keeping her away from the punishment (death) that she deserves.
I do feel for Elayne. She has done what no other Aes Sedai in her time has done, learned how to make a ter’angreal. But so many of the discoveries that she is being credited with aren’t hers, it must make her feel like a fraud, robbing her of the pride she should have in her accomplishments. She’s not wrong that she’s the person who should go to Rand, either—he’s never going to trust the women they send, but what’s more, the longer she’s kept from Rand the longer the truth of what actually happened to Morgase stays hidden. Yes, Rand thinks Rahvin killed her, but he also knows that Gaebril was Rahvin in disguise, and that could go a long way in clearing up the distrust that Morgase’s nobles and followers have developed towards her. It might even start to clear up things with Gareth Bryne. But I have a feeling that it’s going to be a long time before the truth comes out that Morgase is alive and that the way she seemed to turn on her friends and abandon her people wasn’t her fault. And I expect to be very frustrated about it.
Indeed, I get the sense that much of this book is going to be about the problems of communication, whether they be from lying and secrecy or just the inability to get the right facts to the right people. It’s certainly noteworthy that Elayne is observing so much obfuscation among the Salidar Aes Sedai, the way she’s realized that even the sisters don’t share everything with each other, that some, or even many, have secret weaves. How many other secrets do the sisters have from each other, even before you get to the Black Ajah.
Is it just me, or did everyone kind of forget about the Black Ajah? Neither Siuan and Leane, nor Nynaeve, nor Elayne seem to be thinking of that at all. Are they just assuming that the Blacks would have stayed with Elaida? That seems terribly short sighted. Every time any Aes Sedai talks to them I’m wondering if she’s Black. And sooner or later, one of them is going to turn out to be.
Moghedien’s answers have cleared up a few questions I’ve had about the Forsaken and the One Power, though. This section confirmed what I’ve always suspected must be true, that you can hide your ability to channel and make weaves invisible even to others of your gender. With all the Forsaken running about that had to be possible. Moghedien’s presence around Nynaeve and Elayne on the boat and then around the Aes Sedai in Salidar confirmed that even before now, but I’m happy to have it stated officially. I’m sure we’ll soon be learning more about inverted weaves.
It’s good to see Elayne and Min continuing to work on their friendship, despite all the drama with Rand. We can see how Rand’s ta’veren power is working on both of them, how trapped they both feel even despite their love for him. Elayne worries that Rand will be upset if he suspects that it’s the Pattern forcing them to feel a certain way, but they’re both also worried that they won’t be able to govern their choices, to resist him if he calls, and that I think has more to do with Rand’s power than their love. After all, we’ll see Perrin struggle the same way when we finish the Prologue next week.
Perrin is finally back! I’m so excited my dears, I can’t even tell you. But we’ll have to wait until next week to talk about him, and Faile, and Gawyn, and some Black Aes Sedai on Elaida’s camp, and, well, some reincarnated Forsaken. They warned us the Dark One could do that, so I suppose I shouldn’t be very surprised to see it.
Have a lovely week, and don’t forget, my reviews for Episode Five of The Wheel of Time TV show goes up Saturday at noon!
Sylas K Barrett is really invested in everyone’s clothes this week, and hopes Nynaeve will be able to get out of that Accepted dress soon. At least Min’s back in her usual wardrobe.
By “book,” we mean “series.”
I wonder if Sylas picked up on where Elayne got the silver for the A’dam…
I always loved the first glimpse of Shayol Ghul, and the increased Forsaken POVs we get here. As a certain visitor to Egwene noted, “The Dark One is the embodiment of paradox and chaos, destroyer of reason and logic, breaker of balance, the unmaker of order.” A lot of the metaphysical aspects of it are deliberately paradoxical. The Bore is neither here, nor there, nor everywhere. It is vast and minuscule. Outside time & space and bound by it.
Calling it a “him,” and ascribing to it “purpose,” and a “life,” is…. cute.
I never really understood the metaphysics of a lot of things that happened in the series. Like, how exactly did LTT seal the DO? Where were the Forsaken when they were sealed and how did they get caught up in it? Were their bodies just lying in a heap in Shayol Ghul? How was Ishamael partially bound? At the end of his 40 years, was his body sucked away into another dimension or something?
@@.-@ – What I would give to have seen exactly what happened there… I’ve thought about it a lot, and there just aren’t any clear answers. I think partly for storytelling reasons and logic (i.e. RJ wanted some mysteries; also the survivors were no in condition to report accurately, and the trapped Forsaken had no reason to think back on it).
But one way I’ve visualized it personally is by thinking of the Bore as a black hole, which is in keeping with some of the time dilation and suction effects seen in AMoL. The Bore isn’t physically in the Pit of Doom, but can be sensed there. So somehow LTT and the Hundred Companions are all individually channeling to basically wall off all of reality within a certain “event horizon.” Remember too that they cannot link to do this, as they are all male. But they manage to contain it and shove the Forsaken in with the Dark One and they are caught between worlds, in the sealing. OR they get sucked in as the Bore is being sealed. Because there’s not actually a “hole,” they just kind of fade away from sight, trapped between the weaves of the 7 seals. I don’t think they could have been in stasis lying by the lava lake, because if their bodies were in the world they would have aged and become decrepit, even more than Aginor and Balthamel, who are somehow just barely outside of the world in the sealing on the Bore.
No idea about Ishamael. I have no conception of how his deal could have worked with the odd cycle of being trapped and released.
It’s exciting to get, for a few weeks at least, both the book and show! I wonder how fast the show will move and if when/it will outpace the read along (and how much it will spoil as I expect many things will still be surprises in the book).
One of my favorite Nyneave moments (with Logain) is coming up in this book and I hope the show doesn’t jump ahead too much lol.
Yay, I finally caught up to Reading WoT! Been following for months and here I am at the start of a new book. Looking forward to participating in discussing Sylas’s uncanny insight into this series.
@@.-@ & 5: I figure the Bore is essentially a fourth-dimensional structure. If the Dark One is outside of time then that would make him extra-dimensional in a sense, always at all points next to the Pattern and always totally beyond reach. But the Bore created a place where that metaphysical “turn” into the next dimension is possible, but a “place” in this context is meaningless to our 3-dimensional understanding. Shayol Ghul is just the place in the Pattern where the event occured that caused the Bore, so it is the area where the Pattern was most messed up by it and where the Dark One has the strongest influence.
@@.-@
They had intel that all the forsaken would be meeting at ShayolGhul. It is why LTT did not want to wait on the other plan the forces of light were begining to gain momentum in the war effort. He wanted a decisive victory to end the war in one fell swoop. The plan was to use the Chodan Kal to essentially seal off ShayolGhul from reality until they could figure out what to do. But I think either they were not quite finished yet or the access key was intercepted as it was being smuggled out of Forsaken Controlled territory.
One note that the Mods should pass on to Sylas – his predecessor Leigh Butler used to refer to this book by the fun name of Load of Choss. No real reason, no logic, just for fun.
Edit – see the post for ch. 3-4 (explaining that Load of Choss was the term employed by her six year old cousin to describe the title, triggering giggles from Leigh and her sisters) and ch. 5-6 (with the incredibly amazing coincidence that “choss” is an actual term used by characters in WoT, believe it or not….).
@8 – Yeah, I know. The question was where were the Forsaken physically while they were sealed away. For that matter, where did they pop out when they returned? Just like, out of thin air? Ishamael was only partially sealed. How did that work? Did he just pop out of existence when his time was up? Pop back into existence when it was his time again? Was he, like, mid-stride when he popped out and in, and was suddenly walking on a paved road when it was dirt a second before? How did LTT and the Hundred Companions seal the bore? Did they just fire weaves into the sky? How did they know what weaves were needed?
@10 – I believe the answer you seek to those questions is “magic”. Lol
Seriously though, there are some half answers you can get from the text to some of those. Many are open to interpretation though. I’d try to dive in on some except I’m posting from my phone.
Mods: “After all, in our world there are people who share names despite being related” . . . I think “not” should follow “despite”?
@2: Jeez, never thought about it. Where *did* Elayne get the silver for the A’dam?
@12 – That does seem to make more sense! Fixed, thank you.
@7: That actually made sense to me. Thanks. Fourth dimensional beings could indeed be everywhere and nowhere at once from the limited third dimensional perspective. Supposedly, of course.
About Demandred, this marks one of the biggest and clumsiest retcons I’ve ever seen in any work.
Tel’aran’rhiod. Birgittes arrow
THE FIRES OF HEAVEN ch 36 A New Name
Neither man said anything while she settled her skirts; then Juilin looked at Thom, who nodded, and the thief-catcher took something from the ground and held it out to her. “I found it where she was lying,” the dark man said. “As if it had dropped from her hand.” Elayne took the silver arrow slowly. Even the fletching feathers appeared to be silver. “Distinctive,” Thom said conversationally around his pipe. “And added to the braid . . . Every story mentions the braid for some reason. Though I’ve found some I think might be her under other names, without it. And some under other names with.”
@16 – Huh. All these years, I always took that to mean that it was painted silver.
I love Demandred’s visit to Shayol Ghul, and Neuxue’s humorous commentary on it is entirely excellent.
Here we’re told that Myrddraals’ names are usually in the Trolloc tongue and this one is unusual for having a name in the Old Tongue. Just to remind me of my irritation with Ba’alzamon and Trolloc band name translations being included in the Old Tongue to English dictionary — much as I like to see them translated, it’s the wrong flaming language.
IIRC, someone in an earlier book said “the Dreadlords” created Trollocs and other Shadowspawn during the War of the Shadow. (The term “Dreadlord” was actually coined during the Trolloc Wars, but people in-world sometimes confuse them with Forsaken.) And the early glossaries say Trollocs are blends of human and animal stock, and Draghkar were made by twisting human stock. But the LoC Prologue is the first time we’re told that Aginor led the creation of Shadowspawn. I thought I had learned this fact before I read LoC for the first time, but that was 16-17 years ago so I don’t really remember.
About Gareth being cold and distant. He could be projecting his anger at Morgase onto her daughter but I think it’s most likely that he’s distancing himself to keep the AS from getting ideas of using Elayne to control him. Remember the really, really bad rep the Sisters have as merciless manipulators. Rand is far from the only man to assume Bad Faith from the AS.
@@@@@ 18 – Even though “Dreadlord” may be the Third Age usage, I think it applies well enough to the Second Age Darkfriend channelers. We know that the Forsaken were not the only 13 Aes Sedai/channelers who turned to the Dark One, merely that at the moment the Bore was sealed, they were the 13 most prominent and powerful, and (presumably) because they weren’t killed or dealt with in the aftermath, they lived on in the imagination of the common person as the biggest of bads, despite the fact that the strong implication is that aside from Ishamael, there was something of a rotating cast of were top dog in the Shadow’s heirarchy.
All of which is to say, calling them “Dreadlords” may be a bit of an anachronism, but is also pretty accurate, since the channelers fighting for the Shadow in the Age of Legends were far more numerous than just the Forsaken. It’s not even technically inaccurate to say they created the Trollocs, since it seems hard to believe that Aginor did all that alone and without any assistance (like a lab tech or something, c’mon!), while it’s totally in character for him to take all the credit, even if he had help.
Just my headcanon!
@15
Are you referring to the later revision of Demandred’s identity? Otherwise I’m not sure what retcon is present here.
It’s kind of a gray area IMO anyway. There’s clearly proof that RJ initially had a different idea of who Demandred was, but nothing in the actually published books is contradictory on that front. Just misleading.
My question about the Forsaken coming out of their stasis is how they found anything. Presumably, since the geography of the world is completely changed from when they knew it, they couldn’t just ‘walk around’ and figure it out. They had to be as lost as Columbus was in 1492. (unless Ishmael helpfully left a coffee table full of guide books for them that they could peruse before they headed out from Shayol Ghul, but that seems out character for him )
@21. I remember discussing that theory in the old newsgroup for years.
I wouldn’t say there was clearly proof that RJ changed his set up between Lord of Chaos and Winter’s Heart.
Part of the theory saying Taim was Demandred was the argument that we had seen other Forsaken posing under Randland aliases, so Demandred *had* to be somebody we had met. I always found that to be a non-argument.
@24 RJ also strongly implied, or maybe said outright, on several occasions that Demandred was somebody we had already met.
While RJ did not write in anything that directly contradicted his original Taim/Demandred plot, his original clues were pretty evident and it made the retcon pretty clumsy. For instance:
– Bashere shows up, chasing Taim. At the same time, Ashmodean is killed, “You? No!”
– Taim officially shows up right after this, in the beginning of LoC.
– Taim makes a “so-called Aiel” comment.
– LTT goes absolutely berserk whenever Taim is in Rand’s presence.
Those were off the top of my head.
There may not be public proof, but someone who has seen RJ’s notes has said that it was clearly stated there that Taim was originally Demandred. And as other people have pointed out, the clues in-text, while circumstantial, are pretty strong. There’s no doubt in my mind that RJ changed his mind on this one.
I wish Sylas would re look at his ideas of wha is being said when the word “Patern” is being used with a capital letter “P”. He says “Elayne worries that Rand will be upset if he suspects that it’s the Pattern forcing them to feel a certain way” he almost is giving the Pattern some kind of agency of personality and it is a person making people do something…it is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY more impersonal then that…it is just the way the world is, the same with ta’vreen…it is an inevitability to who and what they are . There is no one making anyone do anything, just things happening as they are supposed to . it is sort of a philisophical way of looking at predetermination…it isnot so much as you dont have the choices it is just that the world exists in such a way as the choices you make are completly inevitable
I don’t know which is more hilarious, the image of all the Forsaken as a pile of fallen bodies inside the Bore (and Ishamael constantly popping in and out of reality mid-step), or the idea of Ishy leaving a coffee table of guide books for the Forsaken to acquaint themselves with the Third Age lands. On that second point, while it might seem out of character for him to be helpful, the Dark One does want his lieutenants in places of power to aid in his victory at the Last Battle, so even if Ishy isn’t normally particularly forthcoming, I can see the Dark One ordering him to update the Forsaken on modern information they’d need to know once they escaped the Bore. Just…reluctantly, as “I have to play catch-up for the lesser minions? Oh fine–it’s not as if it matters, when they’ll all be nothing after the Dark One unmakes all of reality. Here!” :D
As for the first point, as humorous as the image is, I’ve always thought (and to build off of the black hole imagery) that the Forsaken were basically frozen in place, kind of like the temporal stasis spell. *shows off his D&D cred* If the Bore works like an event horizon, then the seal would have kept them far enough inside that due to relativity effects, they would appear as unmoving statues. Whether they could still move inside the Bore, I don’t know, but for all intents and purposes they would be frozen to all onlookers. Aginor and Balthamel would have been on the very, very edge of the Bore (perhaps they were tardy–Aginor just couldn’t be torn away from his Shadowspawn creation until the last minute? And Balthamel couldn’t cease the lechery until he absolutely had to?–so they had just entered the cavern of the Pit), and that’s why they were still affected by the world and its aging. So maybe they would have still appeared to move to onlookers, just in very slow motion.
As for Ishy, the only thing I can think is that somehow, either by his own power or the Dark One’s, he was able to break out of the Bore, but there was still a “gravitational” effect of the sealing (the BBoBA did say something about him being “drawn back” in), and this “gravity” would suck him back into the Bore. Just very slowly (due to the time differential effect). Which does provide the amusing image of him being literally dragged back across the landscape to Shayol Ghul, but since the Bore is “everywhere”, perhaps he really did just fade from sight wherever he happened to be when the “gravity” got strong enough and his time was up. That said, once he figured out what was up, I imagine he arranged to be somewhere unpopulated when the suction happened, so if there was anything beyond fading from sight, no one would see it. :P
I don’t understand why Jordan’s change of mind about Taim /Demondred rouses such anger. Personally I think the Big D hanging out in Shara and bringing a near deal breaking fresh army to the field is a much better idea, enlarging rather than shrinking the world.
@29:
It was something of a “You had to be there” situation. The WOT was one of the first books/media properties to gain a large, active online community. And Jordan clearly was building in a lot of clues into the story. Book signings, which were WELL attended, often became cat-and-mouse sessions between avid readers with carefully worded questions and Jordan, who delighted in teasing information out.
But Jordan also had an irritable side, and it seemed that he definitely did NOT like being outguessed by readers. His refusal to divulge the identity of Asmodean’s killer to readers before dying – going so far as to tell readers it was “obvious” who did it (when it was anything but) – was indicative of his being somewhat combative about the “secrets” he baked in, and about letting them out on his timetable.
As pointed out above, LOC’s text is nearly drenched in clues about “Taimendred” – from speech to attitude to ability in the One Power, etc. – including that we see “coincidentally” Taim and Demandred onscreen for the first time in the same book. As someone who was part of the Jordan newsgroup at the time LOC was published, and as someone who attended multiple book signings for the WOT books, I can say that it sure as heck seemed like Jordan retconned Demandred’s Third Age alter ego in response to people “figuring it out” too quickly.
That, combined with the weird pettiness he displayed re: Asmodean’s killer, “roused” anger because the fans had, up to that point, felt like they’d been treated with respect rather than contempt or competitiveness.
@30 – Also, what else rubbed me the wrong way was how he co-opted a fan’s theory about the killer. The story goes that he printed out a very well thought out, detailed fan theory about why Graendal (sp?) was the killer, and wrote on the paper, “This is it!” and underlined it.
To answer @29’s question, I can’t answer for the community, but for me, the issue was that he cheated the fans. We had reasoned out the twist and he changed course because of it. I don’t think an author should change their story just because fans caught on to a twist you were planning. Especially since he had Verin’s twist in his back pocket! In all my time in the fandom, I never saw anyone theorize that Verin was secretly a triple-agent Lightfriend. The concept of a Lightfriend is so obvious in hindsight, and that’s what makes it such a great twist. Jordan shouldn’t have felt irritated enough to change the course of his story. Fans are going to figure stuff out. Fact of life.
@23 and others
It’s as much proof as you’ll get, but presumably if you visit the College of Charleston Library and look at the James O. Rigney papers in their Special Collections, and open up Box 55 you’ll see it for yourself. Terez of Theoryland and Jason Denzel of Dragonmount reported this, and they’re more connected to WoT than anyone outside of Team Jordan. At least as of the writing of LOC it was true.
The full story here, and more discussion here.
Not sure what the environment was regarding the publication date of Lord of Chaos in the USA, but diehards who had pre-ordered it here in Australia experienced multiple delays starting at the end of July, when the original Release Date of August was changed to September, then delayed again, then completely withdrawn, so that by the end of October Book Retailers would just shrug when you asked, if they didn’t curse you and the horse you rode in on, for being the 100th person to ask them that day.
I bought it on January 6, 1995 in Trade Paperback from a Chain Store because I just saw it on prominent display having heard nothing about the status of my Hardcover Pre Order from my Local SFF Specialty Bookstore.
Until then, we had become used to clockwork yearly releases without exception. As I write, I have a feeling that maybe the delay was exacerbated here in Australia and that the USA release was more or less on schedule. I do clearly remember reading published correspondence about the hectic finish to the writing process for RJ & Harriet, followed by her vow that she would never let him go through that again.
I say all this as a long-winded preamble to emphasising, this is basically the book where everything that was good about the Series for Dedicated Readers changed.
Straightforward interactions with the author devolved into Cat & Mouse exchanges.
Gaps between books became longer and longer.
Content in the books became more & more mired in muddy minutiae and less & less a conduit to plot advancement.
And the books themselves became shorter and shorter… And worse, truncated; arbitrary, with the confected convolution evident in the TV Show so far with this ‘Who is the Dragon Reborn?’ misappropriation.
And it was the Taimandred retcon that started it all… and directly affected the way the other vexing question of the moment – ‘Who killed Asmodean?’ – was answered.
Given the first extended deviation from the established yearly publishing schedule, came between LoC and A Crown of Swords, fans had that much more time to eat up and analyse all the breadcrumbs RJ had sprinkled to that point.
Only to have it all cheekily laced with the laxative of authorial caprice… Which unfortunately transmuted into the ultimate contempt.
In the end, it seemed to me that RJ was more fixated on rekindling a ‘mystery’ whose solution by readers irritated him to the point, where he sacrificed the tenets which had burnished the success of the books until then, and made so much of what plot evolved between aCoS thru CoT so calcified with the rigor mortis of his obsession with being obtuse.
The continued prevarication about Asmodean. The Demandred retcon. The cheap Sammael confrontation and demise. These were just the beginning of almost a decade of stagnation before Knife of Dreams went a long way to making the beginnings of an ammends… without admitting the truth of the problem though.
And for me, the truth of the problem was this:
The greatest success in RJ’s work came not in what was hidden in subtext but when the characters in-story finally caught up to what was obvious to readers.
These narratives were, from the beginning, written so compellingly and laced with fully fleshed possible alternatives so engagingly (which were not cheap red herrings but rich, eventually intrinsic narrative expansions) that even though they ended up exactly where you had thought they were going, both the journey AND the purported misdirects enriched your reading experience.
Once the Taimandred retcon started, that peak result for readers was imo, irrevocably lost. And worse, deliberately disavowed by RJ himself.
After all, fans can’t outguess your authorial intentions if they remain mired in disingenuousness… with the only goal being the obfuscations and not the outcome.
That’s often what it felt like reading Books 8-10 for me, along with the ending of Book 7.
It’s a shame a great work devolved in this way. And it feels eerily familiar watching the TV Show make, what to me, feel like similar mistakes.
@32 – thanks for the links. I’m a long time fan of the series, and I didn’t know about that.
@33 – well put.
Frankly, I’m really wondering what Sylas will make of The Slog. Books 8-10 (especially 9 and 10) are absolute chores to get through. And TBH, I didn’t find 11 to be a huge improvement. It’s hard to believe that the same author who wrote the absolutely stunning and powerful climaxes to books 3 and 6 also wrote the end of Book 11. It’s a HUGELY important event, but the writing is muddled, too much happens offscreen, and there’s weirdly no energy or excitement to the writing.
@33 – that’s an interesting musing. I didn’t really get into the fandom until Path of Daggers was out (and I didn’t have to wait too much longer for Winter’s Heart, which came out during my senior year of high school) so I missed some of that initial frenzy, but I wonder if it does mark the wider trend (including in other fiction) to care more about the surprises for the surprises’ sake – even if to make the surprise, you have to pull stuff out of nowhere – as opposed to just a satisfying conclusion, even if you’ve predicted it.
I think in some ways Game of Thrones (the TV show) fell prey to this too – obviously there are some brilliant twists/subversions but eventually the showrunners focused on the shock itself instead of the story.
I feel like I would enjoy this series if it wasn’t for the gender aspect of it. A story where only women can safely do magic doesn’t sound like a fun read for a man. The story apparently has a city where women are given knives during their wedding to stab their husbands if he angers her, but the husbands aren’t given the same knife to use against her. You have warders where the woman has at least partial control over the man who is the warder. And there is even a tribe in the foreign lands where men are enslaved and used only for breeding.
Imagine how people would react if the genders were reversed and only men could safely do magic. I don’t think a book like that would ever get famous. Or at the very least, it would be very controversial. Why is Wheel of Time treated differently?
Forgive me my thoughts if they’re a bit scattered. I’m drunk af rn, and amused thinking about how it would feel to be drinking buddies with Birgitte and Matt for a spell in the Old Tongue.
@33 some intereting thoughts.
I myself really enjoyed pieces of books 7-11 after LoC. Some really good scenes (and Verin being sneaky sneaky IIRC in PoD was a treat!). But the books standing alone individually really disappointed me at the time of release. Like absolutely nothing momentous to the main overarching plot happened in CoT except in the prologue (hinted that the seals were stolen and replaced with fakes as revealed in aMoL, great foreshadowing and a twist I really didn’t see coming), and the Epilogue in which Egwene is captured *yet again*. #sigh.
At least she got out of Salidar with their ridiculously boring (IMO) and overbearing amounts of posturing and useless internal politicking with SO MUCH screentime, to instead win over the Elaida’s sect of Aes Sedai from within. Loved that. Also Silviana’s whole arc with Egwene kindof brought me to tears at times. Silviana and Pevara showing how there were many light side reds (who I’d previously lumped together as stupid bad guys/antagonists with Elaida, even if they weren’t Black Ajah) with amazing hearts makes me tear up rn not lying 😂😭.
That being said for the plot and individual books, if you unstring the story arcs of each character from how they’re laid out in book publication order (heresy, I know) with the exception of Nynaeve and Rand, since they’re mostly seperate from each other and don’t intersect til around KoD/aGS, and read those arcs each on their own groupings of characters, with some website POV order research over at http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/books and clicking into each book to see their POV charts there. I truly loved re-reading so many pieces of the story like that in a method that something that works surprisingly well narratively (for me).
I had a blast reading Matt’s story and his courtship of Tuon, so fascinating to see him stumble his way into omen after omen as Tuon sees it. Hilarious too 😂. All the buildup to the Tower of Ghenjei and all the hints of Thom reading Moiraine’s letter!!
Perrins plotline of doom read altogether (knowing it takes place over the course of IIRC a few weeks or so in the timeline) actually worked well for me. It just sucked strung out over what…4ish books and soooo many publication years IRL.
And the isolated discovery of Black Ajah among the WT sisters desperately trying to survive while piecing out who was lightside or darkside the best they could, and discovering how Black Ajah were able to lie, while they simultaneously tortured BA sister(s) for information was intense and soooo creepy to read, and yet their arc endeared me to the White Tower loyal lightside Aes Sedai sect in a way I never considered I’d feel previously.
Anywho, carry on with LoC, some great stuff here, and the beginning of Min and Rand getting closer – one of my favorite things is her loving him during and through all his deteriorating madness, while determined to be useful to the world in whatever way she could by researching the seals, Callandor, etc. I loved and cried for her a lot during their arc in those books.
@@@@@36 Hibernia86:
Well most of our history IRL has been like that. Horrific power abuse by males subjugating women and minorities in their regions. These books were intentionally a flipping of that history and power dynamic between genders. I found seeing power structures upended, and all the ethical considerations it brought with it fascinating.
I guess I see why fans following the series resented the switch but I still think Demondred in Shara is a better story. I didn’t read the series til all the books were out and available in my local library so of course I didn’t experience the frustration of long time fans. Possibly that’s why I quite like Lord of Chaos? But certainly things do start to drag afterwards!
@37. Your opening comments reminded me of this: Mat’s bar pickup line, “I’m skilled with the Old Tongue.”
Other commenters have already explained it far better than I ever could, but yeah, I meant Taimandred.
For the record, I’m not angry about it. I wasn’t even a part of the fandom back then, since I only started reading these books after I finished ASOIAF, looking for something to keep me entertained while GRRM finds new ways to entertain himself and not finish his magnum opus.
But even I could tell Demandred was supposed to be Taim. At least in this book. Otherwise this prologue (and the epilogue later) would make no sense. Why Jordan changed his mind later on, I don’t know. There could be any number of reasons, including the fact that people had figured it out at the time.
Or maybe he thought that sending Demandred to a place we never even see in 14 books, with people we never get to meet, and having him return with a bunch of channelers in the last book was a better story than Taimandred. I suppose that’s also possible.
And it was his prerogative. As the author, he could change his mind about whatever plotline he desired, for whatever reason. The problem with doing it in a long-running series is that you can’t rewrite published works to reflect your change. They’re done. The ink is dry.
I can’t think of a better example to illustrate Death of the Author. The text speaks for itself. Whatever the author decided later, it didn’t affect this book. And in this book, Demandred is Taim.
@37 – please don’t include KoD as being in the slog. KoD is made of awesome in wrapping up all of the extent plots and serving as an appropriate ending on a high note for RJ. 7-10 or 8-10, sure. Too much damn time with annoying characters for relatively little payoff (Sevanna, Faile, Berelain, the Sea Folk, Tylin!!!!!) put a serious damper on the great stuff within each of these books (except for Crossroads – I still can’t remember anything of consequence that happened in it).
Ah, yes. The Taim Demandred kerfuffel.
I remember when RJ explicitly answered this by saying that Demandred had never posed as Taim.
My response was “so you’re saying there are no portraits where Demandred is depicted as Taim…”
RobMRobM @@@@@ 42
KoD was a great return to form indeed. Frankly, when people lump it in with the books immediately preceding it, it makes me doubt if their arguments are made in good faith. Even if one doesn’t like the book it wouldn’t be for the same reasons as the previous ones. For me personally, the change in pacing from the preceding books was a little jarring. But this is an additional fault with books 7-10.
Rant over :)
@37 Loialson
Thanks for the shout-out. We’re coming out with a new version of our website soon, which will make navigating the POVs a bit easier. Instead of going out to the POV chart each time, you will now just be able to click the “Follow” link at the end of the POV and it will skip ahead for you.
@45 – I love your site so much, and reference it quite frequently. I used to read through the summaries in prep for a new book when I didn’t have time to re-read the books. Are you going to finish the AMOL summaries/cross references?
@45
Encyclopaedia-WoT is still the best, most comprehensive reference site out there! Looking forward to the new version and hope to see the AMOL summaries some day. The new “Follow” feature is already pretty cool.
@40 mp1952 😂😂😂. That is ironic in ways y’all have NO idea about. Little ol me was at a bar with uber social anxiety bc I knew NO ONE and it was packed. If Mat had come up and said that to me I’d have been best friends with him for the night.
@42 RobMRobM Good point there. KoD was definitely the best of that era. I felt the exact same thing about it being a true return to form on my original read, but alas, I was too drunk to remember that while inebriated typing out my first post on my phone at some ungodly hour.
@45 Gary Kephart OMG you and your team on the site my HEROES. Bound to the Horn. Done. I have spoken.
I took a break so I could come back and consume these in big chunks, like I have for most of your read.
I hope you don’t actually change your summaries, nobody was reading this as a refresher, more like a react video on YouTube. The fun came from seeing how you felt about what was happening, what stood out to you, and where you guessed it was all going.
It does seem like Taim was meant to be Demandred, but I think the story works a lot better if he isn’t. It’s much better if Taim is a parallel to Demandred, to show how Rand could have gone the way of Lews Therin, which in and of itself makes for a thematically better story given what happens on Dragonmount.
Taim shows up, an “almost-Dragon,” wanting a partnership of equals with Rand. Who says no. And if you read their interactions from Taim’s perspective, it isn’t unreasonable to take the view that Rand consistently belittles, ignores, and undermines him. He gives Taim his Sword and Dragon pins, and says “he was second”. An honor, in Rand’s mind… but an insult to Taim. Ditto Demandred, who resented Lews Therin “giving” him honors he’d earned. Rand’s unwillingness to appreciate the work Taim was doing, all of that snowballs and culminates in him turning, just as Demandred did.