Welcome back to Reading The Wheel of Time and the last week of Lord of Chaos! It’s just the epilogue this week, which is remarkably short by Robert Jordan standards. Still, we get some tasty little teasers of what’s to come in the next book. I must confess, I did not expect Moghedien’s escape!
Falion receives a note that Nynaeve and Elayne have somehow slipped out of the palace again without any of her spies seeing. She had all but given up searching for the cache of angreal that Moghedien had insisted was somewhere in Ebou Dar, but Elayne and Nynaeve’s presence has changed her mind. She thinks that the pair might lead her to the cache, and even if not, Moghedien would certainly be pleased to have the two captured and brought to her.
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In his study, Herid Fel is killed by a gholam that squeezes under the door. Later, Idrien finds his remains and faints at the sight of a body, which has been torn limb from limb.
A Seanchan rider leaves Ebou Dar. He is one of the eyes for the Return, and he is pleased to have discovered that the Ebou Dari will certainly resist being conquered by the Seanchan, which means the Blood will allow looting after they are subdued.
Perhaps that fellow’s comment had been an omen. Perhaps the Return would come soon, and the Daughter of the Nine Moons with it. Surely that would be the greatest omen of victory.
Moghedien is in her tent, thinking about how much worse Egwene is than Nynaeve and Elayne had been, and worrying over what might happen to her if Egwene ever passed the bracelet to Siuan or Leane. Suddenly Halima comes into her tent, and Moghedien’s protests die on her lips when the woman addresses her by her true name. She’s even more shocked to see the woman channeling but not be able to sense saidar—Moghedien realizes that somehow, impossibly, the ball of light Halima is channeling must be saidin.
Halima tells Moghedien her name is Aran’gar, and that she has come to free Moghedien. She tells her that once freed, Moghedien will vanish quickly and silently, or else she will die right here. She also tells her that Moghedien is summoned to Shayol Ghul. When she touches the a’dam she flinches slightly, though touching the necklace should only hurt a man who can channel, and then it is off and she slips it into her pouch.
Egwene searches Moghedien’s tent, having felt the pain of a man who could channel brushing the link the a’dam made between her and Moghedien. She tells Chesa that Moghedien has run away, and privately muses that surely Logain wouldn’t have come back to free Moghedien. He couldn’t even have known she was there.
Demandred knelt in the Pit of Doom, and for once he did not care that Shaidar Haran watched his trembling with that eyeless, impassive gaze. “Have I not done well, Great Lord?”
The Great Lord’s laughter filled Demandred’s head.
I was actually really upset when Fel got killed. I liked that old scatterbrain. But he’s clearly too powerful for the Dark One to let him live. The last we heard from him was the note he left for Rand about how you have to “clear rubble before you can build,” which I assumed had something to do with Rand’s questions about breaking the seals on the Dark One’s prison. If Fel has hit on something important here, it makes sense that the Dark One and his followers would want to get rid of him as quickly as possible.
Of course, on the surface, breaking the seals seems like it would be the opposite of what the good guys would want—after all, the Dark One has been breaking them from his side, and once he breaks all of them he’ll ostensibly be free and the Last Battle will commence. But Rand clearly feels that breaking the seals might be necessary—he had the instinct to break the one Taim brought him, and although he restrained himself, he has clearly decided that that impulse might have something more at work than taint-induced madness (either his or Lews Therin’s).
Granted, it could have been the madness. But I do see the strategic logic in the idea of making the definitive move towards Tarmon Gai’don on Rand’s own terms. This gives him more options in dictating how the fight unfolds, and means that he might be able to strike before the Dark One is fully ready and all his plans are in place. If Rand waits until the seals break on their own, that might very well mean that the Dark One’s forces have grown too powerful to overcome.
It’s the same strategy Gandalf urges on Aragorn and the other leaders in The Lord of the Rings. The forces of men and elves are far too small and weak to face Sauron at the height of his strength—it is only by striking before he is ready that they stand any chance at all. (And by relying on the strength of two hobbits, of course.)
We know that Fel believes that, as the Dark One’s prison must have been whole when it was made, so must it be whole again by the time the Third Age comes back around. He doesn’t know when or how the prison will me made whole again, but although he was initially shocked by Rand’s suggestion of breaking the seals, he perhaps has come around to the idea, or at least has come up with a plausible answer to Rand’s question of “can you think of any reason to break the seals.” His suggestion here is that breaking the seals, getting rid of them, is the only way to seal up the Dark One’s prison properly. I think we could even go so far as to suggest that “before you can build” is a reference to remaking the prison as though the hole had never been made, rather than putting on a new patch. Fel said “build” not “repair.” This would solve the apparent contradiction he was wrestling with earlier, and it would also mean that the Dragon is capable of creating something as good as what the Creator made, which Fel doubted when he was first asked about it. (Interestingly, if it is possible to remake the prison as it was originally, that would mean that Rand, coming from a comparatively primitive time, would have to figure out how to do something that Lews Therin, a Dragon from the Age of Legends, did not know how to do.)
In any case, if Fel really has come to the conclusions I suspect and is right about them, this is a very dangerous situation for the Dark One. He would want to keep such information from Rand at all costs. Though how he knows about Fel’s discovery is anyone’s guess—it’s not as though the man talks to a lot of people, so either someone knew enough to already have Darkfriend spies on him, or Fel said something he shouldn’t when he was inspired to “go fishing” after Min’s visit. Also, since I have no idea what a gholam is in Jordan’s world, right now I’m picturing a creature made of wet clay that can smoosh itself down so it can slide under doors and stuff.
I’m not sure I approve of Jordan reinventing the golem, a creature in Jewish tradition whose existence is specifically tied to providing help and protection to imperiled Jewish communities, into a creature of the Shadow. If it turned out that anyone, good or evil, could make and control a gholam, that might be okay.
I had completely forgotten about Falion and Liandrin and the rest. Jordan must have had such extensive notes to keep track of everything! (This is a joke, I know he did.) I do remember when the Black Ajah seemed like such a big deal, though. Now, compared to all the Forsaken we’ve just met, Liandrin and co. don’t really seem that scary or impressive. That doesn’t mean they can’t cause problems for our girls, though! And it’s even more dangerous now that Moghedien has escaped. I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming, to be honest. Narratively it doesn’t make a lot of sense for her to just stay there, statically. And she’s kind of too interesting to kill off too quickly.
I mean, I’m still mad about Asmodean getting killed off so fast. That guy was so entertaining, and it was cool having a Forsaken whose motivations were so much less power-hungry and blood-thirsty than the rest. He just wants to be an immortal musician! And speaking of Asmodean, are we ever going to find out who killed him? Was it Demandred? Seems like he might have been pulling a lot of strings in this book, but I have no idea which ones, or if we’ve seen him in disguise in any of the other scenes besides the ones he’s actually named in.
In Chapter 6, Sammael reflects that “events to the south” have Demandred’s mark all over them, but as he’s in Arad Doman at the time, there’s kind of a lot south of him, much of it chaotic. Sammael also reflects that Demandred likes to use proxies, so it may very well be that we haven’t seen Demandred “on screen,” so to speak, in any kind of disguise.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone that I hate what Jordan is doing with Aran’gar. The presentation of this character is very in line with the false and dangerous rhetoric that transwomen are men in disguise, who can infiltrate female-only spaces as dangerous predators. I can’t help thinking of the scene of Egwene’s confirmation as Amyrlin, during which all the Aes Sedai had to present their breasts for inspection, to prove their womanhood. Aran’gar would pass such a test, would pass any test given to her. Female channelers can’t sense the channeling of saidin even the little bit that men can sense the channeling of saidar, it seems, so Aran’gar can keep hanging out with Aes Sedai and channeling freely.
Even the sentence about how “Halima” looks like a woman who was designed by a man plays into this trope. If this is just Moghedien observing how voluptuous and beautiful the body Aran’gar was given is, that’s some weird lady-on-lady prejudice. If it’s more to do with how “Halima” carries herself, then we’re back to the suggestion of a man who is aping femininity, an accusation that’s often leveled at trans women and drag queens, especially those who don’t achieve a specific level of what society considers “natural” or “modest.” Back in Chapter 44, Mat observed that Halima almost seemed to be testing how he reacted to her and her body, which also plays into this trope of duplicitousness and a man “play acting” as a woman. Jordan may not have been aware of the specific gatekeeping and accusations I’m talking about here, but it’s definitely built into the narrative dichotomy of men vs. women on which so much of The Wheel of Time is built, just as it is in our own culture. It’s really a shame.
You know, I don’t think I realized when I read Chapter 44 that Halima still channels saidin, not saidar. Or at least I’d forgotten about it. But if it was Halima who channeled at Mat, that means that the foxhead medallion works against saidin as well as saidar. Which I suppose makes sense—the foxy people are accustomed to dealing with an order of Aes Sedai that includes both genders, and wouldn’t have assumed or guessed that Mat was only thinking of women. It’s a neat little detail, and I hope it comes up again soon.
I’m quite curious about what answer the Epilogue title refers to. The Dark One’s answer to Demandred’s question of how well he did, I suppose. I suppose he wouldn’t laugh if he was displeased, so I guess that’s a yes, of sorts. For anything more we’ll have to wait until next week, to start A Crown of Swords. Judging by this epilogue, I imagine we’ll see some more of the Seanchan than we did in Lord of Chaos. Hopefully we’ll also get the overthrow of Elaida, and Rand and Egwene will find a way to come together about the future. And we’ll see if it’s Logain or Taim who cause Rand the most trouble.
Also, I’m really wondering now who the Daughter of the Nine Moons is. The name always sounded important, but the Epilogue has lent it even more significance.
Finally, I want to take a moment to thank all of you for continuing with me on this journey. It’s been quite the ride, and we started it together all the way back in February of 2018! Our world was pretty different back then. I guess it’s sort of fitting that Rand’s was too.
Sylas K Barrett is kind of excited to go back to a title with “The” at the beginning of it. Lord of Chaos not having one was always kind of confusing. And he always typed it wrong.
