So it’s official friends: I totally ship Nynaeve and Lan. I was pretty much on board with it before now, despite being cross with Lan for his rather selfish handling of the situation. But if I was at all on the fence, Moiraine’s observations about them in Chapter 22 have sealed the deal for me.
As those have been following this read know, I have a lot of empathy for Nynaeve, particularly for her insecurities and the often terrible way she handles them. Though she is someone who really struggles to control her temper, she is also in many ways a very repressed person–in fact I believe the latter trait actually informs the former. This repression is due in part due to her unconscious suppression of her channeling abilities, but also is due to her intense sense of duty towards those in her charge. As a healer, Nynaeve must always face the fact that failure, be it her fault or entirely unavoidable, can mean loss of life for those who rely on her and for whom she cares. After all, her first instance of channeling came about when she couldn’t face (what she thought was going to be) the death of Egwene, and we’ve seen her get angry to the point of irrationality when faced with the inability to protect the people she wants to protect. Granted, she’s channeled all this into her unfair and unhelpful hatred of Moiraine, but the human impulse to turn one’s inner frustrations outward is a flaw I think many can emphasize with.
After all, it’s far easier and less painful to be angry at someone else than it is to deeply examine one’s own feelings of vulnerability or guilt, and the people who feel the most deeply are often the most likely to have developed some less than perfect coping mechanisms. The world, be it Rand’s or ours, is not often kind to the sensitive sort. And the fascinating thing is that this same struggle of deep emotion and sense of duty is also an intrinsic part of Lan’s character. It’s no wonder they are drawn together.
But I can tackle those thoughts after the recap, and after we also tackle Chapter 21 and poor Rand’s slightly uncomfortable stay in The Nine Rings.
Entering the common room of The Nine Rings, Rand finds a group of men drinking and playing dice and another sitting alone eating, and although they don’t wear any armor or weapons, the read to Rand as soldiers, and they all take notice of him when he comes into the room. The innkeeper comes up to him, introducing herself as Maglin Madwen, greeting Rand and Selene as Lord and Lady, and, unfazed by the presence of the Ogier, asking Loial if he is from Stedding Tsofu. He tells her that he has come from the Borderlands, and after being similarly questioned, Rand explains that he is from the Two Rivers in Andor and that Selene is from Cairhien. Mistress Madwen starts to talk to them about their rooms and asks if they are hunting the Horn, startling Rand. He quickly corrects her, and they sit down for a meal. Madwen is apparently surprised that Hurin speaks freely around Rand and Selene and that he sits down to eat with them.
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Rand is pleasantly surprised how good the food, pork served with peppers and vegetables he doesn’t recognize, tastes, and eats with relish, as do Hurin and Loial, although Selene picks at her plate. Madwen asks if Rand will allow “his man” to play the flute she spotted among their belongings, but is surprised and apologetic when Rand explains that he is the one who plays. She hastily withdraws the request, saying that she meant no offense and would never dream of asking Rand to play somewhere so common.
Rand hesitated only a moment. It had been too long since he had practiced the flute rather than the sword, and the coins in his pouch would not last forever. Once he was rid of his fancy clothes—once he turned the Horn over to Ingtar and the dagger over to Mat—he would need the flute to earn his supper again while he searched for somewhere safe from Aes Sedai. And safe from myself? Something did happen back there. What?
Rand has Hurin hand him the flute, thinking that it is actually ornate enough to be played by a Lord if that were a thing that Lords did, and begins to play. Everyone enjoys his music, the soldiers stopping to listen and even to sing along, although they know different words than Rand does. Selene seems perplexed by Rand.
When the soldiers, laughing and teasing each other, finish singing, the officer sends them away abruptly, and comes over to Rand to apologize for their conduct. He introduces himself as Captain Aldrin Caldevwin, and Rand notices the man’s careful interest in the heron-marked blade. His accent reminds Rand of Moiraine’s and he cautiously gives Caldevwin a description of them, but the Captain doesn’t recognize it.
He does ask Rand’s name, and Rand gives it, along with where he is from. Caldevwin is interested, mentioning how good Andormen are with a sword, and that he once met the Captain-General of the Queen’s Guard, though he cannot remember the man’s name. Rand, feeling like he is being purposefully questioned, answers that it is Gareth Bryne. When the Captain asks Selene’s name, the conversation is suddenly interrupted by one of the serving girls crying out and dropping a lamp. The girl and Mistress Madwen quickly put out the small fire, and she responds to Madwen’s scolding for carelessness by explaining that she had a sudden twinge in her arm. Madwen apologizes for the commotion then, and Selene abruptly asks to be shown to her room, saying she doesn’t feel well, though to Rand she appears fine. She also insists on having a room to herself, surprising Mistress Madwen.
Once they are gone, Caldevwin apologizes to Rand for staring at Selene, and Rand tells him he took no insult, then asks about the crystal he saw in the pit.
The Cairhienin’s eyes sharpened. “It is part of the statue, my Lord Rand,” he said slowly. His gaze flickered toward Loial; for an instant he seemed to be considering something new.
“Statue? I saw a hand, and a face, too. It must be huge.”
“It is, my Lord Rand. And old.” Caldevwin paused. “From the Age of Legends, so I am told.”
Rand felt a chill. The Age of Legends, when use of the One Power was everywhere, if the stories could be believed. What happened there? I know there was something.
“The Age of Legends,” Loial said. “Yes, it must be. No one has done work so vast since. A great piece of work to dig that up, Captain.” Hurin sat silently, as if he not only was not listening, but was not there at all.
Caldevwin explains that the king has commanded that the statue be brought to the capital, and he has men at work excavating it and then will have it taken there. Loial observes the immense difficulty of such a task, and Caldevwin grows a little testy, saying that the King has commanded it, and so it shall be done.
Finding that Rand and his company are leaving for Cairhienin the morning, the Captain “offers” some of his men to travel with Rand, saying that they were being sent that way anyway and then leaving before Rand can have a chance to decline the offer. Mistress Madwen arrives to tell Rand that Selene is settled, and to cautiously advise him that, while he may think that his Lady his angry and never wants to see him again, Madwen suspects that if Rand knocks on her door and says it was all his fault, whatever happened, she will forgive him and let him in. Rand flushes at the thought, then thinks of Egwene and feels guilty. He thanks Mistress Madwen as neutrally as he can and asks that he, Loial, and Hurin be put up in one room.
Once they are alone, Rand asks if the others have any idea why Caldevwin seemed so suspicious of them.
“Daes Dae’mar, Lord Rand,” Hurin said. “The Great Game. The Game of Houses, some call it. This Caldevwin thinks you must be doing something to your advantage or you wouldn’t be here. And whatever you’re doing might be to his disadvantage, so he has to be careful.”
Rand shook his head. “ ‘The Great Game’? What game?”
“It isn’t a game at all, Rand,” Loial said from his bed. He had pulled a book from his pocket, but it lay unopened on his chest. “I don’t know much about it—Ogier don’t do such things—but I have heard of it. The nobles and the noble Houses maneuver for advantage. They do things they think will help them, or hurt an enemy, or both. Usually, it’s all done in secrecy, or if not, they try to make it seem as if they’re doing something other than what they are.”
Loial adds that as an Ogier he doesn’t really understand it, and that humans are odd, but Rand is more concerned with whether the soldiers that Caldevwin is going to have escort them are part of the game. But neither Loial or Hurin can answer that, and Hurin advises Rand to ask Selene in the morning.
But in the morning, Selene is gone. Mistress Madwen brings him a sealed message, repeating that Rand really should have listened to her and knocked on his Lady’s door, but the message that Rand reads merely explains that Selene felt there were too many people around, and that she did not like Caldevwin. She tells Rand that she will meet him in Cairhienin, and that he should never think that she is far from him. He will be in her thoughts, as she knows that she is in his.
Outside, Rand finds an escort of fifty armored soldiers and a junior officer who Caldevwin introduces as Elricain Tavolin. Rand pretends to be glad to accept the escort, and Caldevwin’s sharp eyes note Loial’s chest and the fact that Selene and her mount are nowhere to be seen. Rand explains that she had to leave quickly during the night, which surprises Caldevwin greatly. As he has a hurried, quiet conversation with his officer, Loail remarks that the inn must have been watched during the night, and Caldevwin doesn’t understand how Selene got past his men undetected.
Rand mounts, thinking that Selene has now ensured that Caldevwin will be suspicious of them, and muttering to himself about how there will be even more people in Cairhienin. “Nothing is happening the way I expect,” he tells Tavolin, when the man asks him to repeat himself, and they ride off down the road to Cairhienin.
Meanwhile, nothing is happening the way Moiraine expects either, as she mutters to herself while going through a mess of brooks and scrolls. She tells herself there is nothing to do but to clear her head and start over.
Moiraine and Lan are hidden away in the house of two Aes Sedai, who live on the edge of a small farming community called Tifan’s Well. Since the villagers have no idea that the two women who live there, Adeleas and Vandene, are Aes Sedai, and since they have lived there in voluntary retreat for so long that even most in the White Tower have forgotten about them, it was the perfect place for Moiraine to hide away for a while. But she can’t find the piece of information she needs.
Turning to Lan, Moiraine asks him if he remembers how they met. She’s carefully watching him so she can see the slight shift of expression that means he’s surprised by the question; they rehash that early meeting together, how Moiraine, young and threatened by the large Borderman, tried to separate Lan from his sword, resulting in him dumping her in a lake. How she didn’t want to tell him that she was Aes Sedai, thinking that he would be more likely to open up to her if he didn’t know, how she got back at him every night by dumping the lake on him, sending ants after him, and other torments. Moiraine asks if, in the weeks that followed their meeting, Lan ever suspected that she would ask him to bond with her. He says he had not.
“And does your bond chafe after all these years? You are not a man to wear a leash easily, even so light a one as mine.” It was a stinging comment; she meant it to be so.
“No.” His voice was cool, but he took up the firetool again and gave the blaze a fierce poking it did not need. Sparks cascaded up the chimney. “I chose freely, knowing what it entailed.” The iron rod clattered back onto its hook, and he made a formal bow. “Honor to serve, Moiraine Aes Sedai. It has been and will be so, always.”
Moiraine sniffed. “Your humility, Lan Gaidin, has always been more arrogance than most kings could manage with their armies at their backs. From the first day I met you, it has been so.”
Lan asks why she is suddenly bringing up a past they never speak of, and Moiraine explains that she made arrangements before they left Tar Valon so that, should she die, his bond will pass to another Aes Sedai. She explains that she wants him to know ahead of time, so that when he finds himself compelled to seek this Aes Sedai out, he will not be surprised. Lan, clearly angry, responds that Moiraine has never before used their bond to compel him to do anything, that he thought Moiraine disapproved of such things. Moiraine explains;
“Had I left this thing undone,you would be free of the bond at my death, and not even my strongest command to you would hold. I will not allow you to die in a useless attempt to avenge me. And I will not allow you to return to your equally useless private war in the Blight. The war we fight is the same war, if you could only see it so, and I will see that you fight it to some purpose. Neither vengeance nor an unburied death in the Blight will do.”
Lan asks, his voice and expression one that Moiraine is accustomed to seeing when he was on the edge of violence, if Moiraine has made some kind of plan, without telling him, in which she foresees her own death. She answers that she always sees her death as a possibility, given the path they follow, and Lan admits that he never considered that he might outlive her, but cuts himself off in the thought ask, if he is to be passed off like a pet lapdog, who he is to be given to.
“I have never seen you as a pet,” Moiraine said sharply, “and neither does Myrelle.”
“Myrelle.” He grimaced. “Yes, she would have to be Green, or else some slip of a girl just raised to full sisterhood.”
“If Myrelle can keep her three Gaidin in line, perhaps she has a chance to manage you. Though she would like to keep you, I know, she has promised to pass your bond to another when she finds one who suits you better.”
“So. Not a pet but a parcel. Myrelle is to be a—a caretaker! Moiraine, not even the Greens treat their Warders so. No Aes Sedai has passed her Warder’s bond to another in four hundred years, but you intend to do it to me not once, but twice!”
“It is done, and I will not undo it.”
“The Light blind me, if I am to be passed from hand to hand, do you at least have some idea in whose hand I will end?”
“What I do is for your own good, and perhaps it may be for another’s, as well. It may be that Myrelle will find a slip of a girl just raised to sisterhood—was that not what you said?—who needs a Warder hardened in battle and wise in the ways of the world, a slip of a girl who may need someone who will throw her into a pond. You have much to offer, Lan, and to see it wasted in an unmarked grave, or left to the ravens, when it could go to a woman who needs it would be worse than the sin of which the Whitecloaks prate. Yes, I think she will have need of you.”
Although Lan, as always, keeps his face stoic, Moiraine knows him well enough to see how shocked and off-balance he is. He starts to ask another question, but Moiraine cuts him off, asking again if his bond chafes him, pointing out that he could end up with anyone, with someone who he hates or who doesn’t care about his skills, and he can have no more say in it than the parcel he compares himself to. He asks if that’s what this is all about, if it is some kind of test to see if she can make him resent the bond they’ve shared all this time. Moiraine says that it is not, that she spoke plainly, but that after Fal Dara, she began to wonder if he was fully with her, and asks why he taught Rand the way he did, to come before the Amyrlin Seat with talking and acting like a Border Lord and soldier. Lan, clearly not expecting that this was the question she was going to bring up, answers that it felt right, comparing Rand to a wolfhound puppy that must know how to act in front of the wolves.
“Is that how you see Aes Sedai? The Amyrlin? Me? Wolves out to pull down your young wolfhound?” Lan shook his head. “You know what he is, Lan. You know what he must become. Must. What I have worked for since the day you and I met, and before. Do you now doubt what I do?”
“No. No, but….” He was recovering himself, building his walls again. But they were not rebuilt yet. “How many times have you said that ta’veren pull those around them like twigs in a whirlpool? Perhaps I was pulled, too. I only know that it felt right. Those farm folk needed someone on their side. Rand did, at least. Moiraine, I believe in what you do, even as now, when I know not half of it; believe as I believe in you. I have not asked to be released from my bond, nor will I. Whatever your plans for dying and seeing me safely—disposed of—I will take great pleasure in keeping you alive and seeing those plans, at least, go for nothing.”
This explanation mollifies Moiraine somewhat, being reminded of Rand’s ta’veren nature points out to her how tentative her control over any of these events truly is. She tells Lan that she will not be unhappy to see her possible death thwarted by him, and then asks him to leave, so that she can be alone to think. As he leaves, she thinks to ask him one last question, if he ever dreams of something different. Lan responds that all men dreams, but that he knows the difference between dreams and reality, touching his sword to indicate what reality actually is. And then he is gone.
For a time after he left, Moiraine leaned back in her chair, looking into the fire. She thought of Nynaeve and cracks in a wall. Without trying, without thinking what she was doing, that young woman had put cracks in Lan’s walls and seeded the cracks with creepers. Lan thought he was secure, imprisoned in his fortress by fate and his own wishes, but slowly, patiently, the creepers were tearing down the walls to bare the man within. Already he was sharing some of Nynaeve’s loyalties; in the beginning he had been indifferent to the Emond’s Field folk, except as people in whom Moiraine had some interest. Nynaeve had changed that as she had changed Lan.
Moiraine is surprised to find she’s jealous of this connection. She’s never been jealous of women who showed interest in Lan before, but she has shared a deep connection with him for a long time, and they had both been married to their battle against the Dark. Now Moiraine sees a different future for Lan, and she wonders how it will change him. Wonders when he will decide to ask her to release him from his bond, and what she will do when he asks.
Vandene, the Green Aes Sedai who lives in the house with her Brown sister, comes in with tea. She observes that she would have had her own Warder, Jaem, bring the tea for her, but Lan’s presence seems to have inspired him to remember that he is a swordsman, and he is out practicing. Vandene asks Moiriane if she has found what she is looking for and Moiraine admits that she doesn’t even know what she is looking for. Vandene observes that, judging by the multitude of different books on different subjects, that Moiraine doesn’t even know where to look. She starts to ask more, then remembers that Moiraine asked for privacy.
But Moiraine stops her as she goes to leave, and asks if Vandene can answer some questions. Vandene seems pleased and tells her to go ahead.
Moiraine’s first question is that if there is any link between the Dragon and Horn of Valere, to which Vandene replies that there is not, except the Horn is predicted to be found before the Last Battle which the Dragon will fight. Moiraine’s next question, if there is a link between the Dragon and Toman Head, yields more results, as Vandene explains how a difference in translation may suggest that the Dragon will appear over Toman Head; a translation she believes to be correct but that Adeleas, her Brown sister, does not. Moiraine also asks if Vandene can think of any reason that a Fade would take carry away an item that belonged to Shadar Logoth, to which Vandene replies certainly not, citing the knowledge that Moiraine already has, the history of Mashadar and how it will destroy Shadowspawn as eagerly as anyone else. Finally Moiriane asks about Lanfear, someone who Vandene knows no more about than any novice, but thinking of Lanfear’s link to the Dragon prompts her to ask if Moiraine has had some clue about where the Dragon will be reborn, or if he has been reborn already.
“If I did,” Moiraine replied levelly, “would I be here, instead of in the White Tower? The Amyrlin knows as much as I, that I swear. Have you received a summons from her?”
“No, and I suppose we would. When the time comes that we must face the Dragon Reborn, the Amyrlin will need every sister, every Accepted, every novice who can light a candle unguided.” Vandene’s voice lowered, musing. “With such power as he will wield, we must overwhelm him before he has a chance to use it against us, before he can go mad and destroy the world. Yet first we must let him face the Dark One.”
At Moriaine’s surprised look, Vandene points out that she knows the Prophecies as well as anyone. She knows as well as Moiraine that the seals on Shayol Ghul are weakening, that the Hunt for the Horn has been called, that there are more and more false Dragons. She knows that the Dragon must be reborn soon, which is why she feared that Moriaine had seen some sign of him.
Vandene starts to go, then stops to add one more piece of her mind, that Moiraine should do something about Lan. She has noticed that Lan is “rumbling inside worse than Dragonmount” and will eventually “erupt.” She suggests that perhaps he has finally started to see Moiraine as a woman, as well as an Aes Sedai, to which Moiraine replies that Lan still sees her as what she is, and hopefully as a friend.
“You Blues. [Verden replies] Always so ready to save the world that you lose yourselves.”
When she has gone, Moiraine gets her cloak and goes out to the garden, struggling with the sense that there had been an important hint in something Vandene said, an answer to a question Moiraine hadn’t even thought of yet. Lost in thought, she is caught unawares when something comes up behind her; she turns, thinking that it’s Lan, only to find herself staring at Draghkar.
She opens herself to saidar, but it’s too late to stop the croon that the Draghkar makes, a sound which saps her will and leaves her only with a vague sense of sadness as it comes nearer, knowing that it will suck the soul and the life from her. The Draghkar is bending its head down to give her that deadly kiss when suddenly a sword stabs over Moiraine’s shoulder and into the Draghkar’s chest, followed swiftly by another sword over the other shoulder.
Lan and Jaem are there, pushing the Draghkar away from her with their swords, and for a moment they have it before it begins to croon again, this time to the two Warders. Moiraine is gathering herself, ready to touch the Draghkar so as to kill it with saidar, but at that moment Lan shouts “Embrace death!” and Jaem echoes the shout as they drive their blades home. The Draghkar goes down, buffeting Jame with its wings as it falls, and the two men sag, Jaem going to one knee.
Vandene and Adeleas appear to investigate that noise, shocked to find the body of the Draghkar. Moiraine, as Vandene feeds her strength through saidar, assures them she was not touched by the Draghkar and they turn to see to Jaem.
Adeleas asks how a creature of the Dark could get so close without any of them sensing it, and Moiraine says that it was warded. And given that only an Aes Sedai could do such a thing, she says the words they are all thinking. The Black Ajah.
The sound of villagers coming to investigate the racket prompts them to focus on the moment, Adeleas sending Jaem to stall the villagers while they hide the body of the Draghkar.
Adeleas turned to study the Draghkar as if it were a puzzling passage in one of her books. “Whether Aes Sedai are involved or not, whatever could have brought it here?” Vandene regarded Moiraine silently.
“I fear I must leave you,” Moiraine said. “Lan, will you ready the horses?” As he left, she said, “I will leave letters with you to be sent on to the White Tower, if you will arrange it.” Adeleas nodded absently, her attention still on the thing on the ground.
“And will you find your answers where you are going?” Vandene asked.
“I may already have found one I did not know I sought. I only hope I am not too late. I will need pen and parchment.” She drew Vandene toward the house, leaving Adeleas to deal with the Draghkar.
Rand’s conduct while staying at the Nine Rings once again throws into relief the discrepancy between how he sees himself and how others see him, and also suggests the way in which his own understanding of himself is going to change going forward. He is still fixed on the idea that, once his task with the Horn and the dagger is done, that he will return to a simpler life, and that he will be able to get away from the Aes Sedai and from people that he might someday hurt. But he is also starting to realize, even if he hasn’t acknowledged it yet, that this prospect is not such an easy one. His encounter with the strange orb on the statue has clearly shaken him, and reminded how little control he has over his use of saidin, even in his choice of whether or not to touch it. In the questions he is starting to ask himself, he is already beginning to acknowledge that the simple idea of running away is not perhaps, so simple after all.
The Shienarans thought Rand was a Lord because of his name, others take him for a Lord because of the clothes he wears or the sword he bears, but although Rand still thinks of these things as coincidental or deceptive trappings, he is already making them a part of himself. He doesn’t think so much about the coat, he wielded the heron-marked blade against the Trollocs in Fain’s camp like a true swordsman, and he has learned to speak like a leader from Lan, from necessity, from a sense of duty. The more he wears these traits the more they will stop being a guise and start being a part of him. I think he will hang onto his identity as a shepherd who likes to play the flute and has no desire for power and fame, but I think the other part will become intrinsic to him as well.
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I wonder if that is what Selene is seeing in him as she watches him play the flute. She has just witnessed the incident with the orb and no doubt had at least some idea of what was happening to Rand with saidin, and now she is seeing that same man perform on a gleeman’s instrument in the common room of an inn. No doubt these two things seem impossibly incongruous to someone as haughty and power hungry as Lanfear. But for myself, I find I have never liked Rand more than I do in this chapter. He feels calm and in control, he’s not being gross about Selene as he has been in the last few chapters, he’s not as ignorant as he was in The Eye of the World and yet he retains some of that innocence and naivete. I guess… he kind of reminds me of Tam, and suddenly I can imagine Rand like his father, having finished his adventures and gone home to be a simple shepherd, maybe with a family of his own, maybe living by himself but coming into town to play at the inn and tell incredible stories based on his adventures (but with himself carefully edited out). It’s unlikely that fate will be so kind to him as that, even if the Dark One is defeated and Rand somehow finds a way to control or get rid of the taint (Bilbo rather got his happy ending but Frodo could never go home again), but it’s a nice thought all the same.
Even if Rand does get a happy ending twelve and a half books from now, here in this town he’s starting into some proper political intrigue that is no doubt only the beginning of much worse things to come. I wonder if King Galldrian has any idea what the statue really is and what it can do, or if this is a show of power based solely on the fact that the thing comes from the Age of Legends and is so huge that moving it and being in possession of it is quite the feat. Caldevwin’s consideration of Loial suggests that perhaps he thinks Rand has brought the Ogier for his knowledge of old things. Perhaps the King has an Ogier or an Aes Sedai nearby who could also give him information about the statue.
Also, it’s amusingly hard not to think of Game of Thrones whenever someone mentions the Game of Houses. I’m not up on my George R.R. Martin knowledge, but maybe he’s a The Wheel of Time fan.
And of course, Selene isn’t really who she says she is so she had to avoid answering Caldevwin’s questions, by using her power to make the serving girl drop the lamp. The mistress of the inn wouldn’t know every noble family in Cairhien, but someone like Caldevwin certainly might.
That’s sneaky Selene. Very sneaky.
Is it just me, or does the way Lan and Moiraine met make their early relationship sound a little bit like the rocky start Nynaeve got with Lan? Because I can totally imagine Nynaeve being stubborn or sneaky and getting tossed in a lake for it, then using her abilities to punish that person not just once in retaliation, but every night for an entire journey. I can imagine the Benedict/Beatrice style arguments as they travel, and the swift way that irritation turns to respect to the point where after a few weeks Lan is ready to bond himself to her in a profound and lasting way. The difference lies in the fact that the bond between Lan and Moiraine is forged from their common battle against the Dark, whereas the bond between Lan and Nynaeve is born from a commonality of spirit.
Moiraine is just as duty-focused as Lan and Nynaeve, but for her it is a practical thing, a commitment she made long ago and will follow to the end because it is what she chose, and because she is perhaps more aware than anyone of exactly what the danger of failure truly is. Hearing the foretelling of the birth of the Dragon set the entire course of Moiraine’s life, and no doubt she sees this as the will of the Pattern. But if it hadn’t been she and Siuan who were with Gitara Moroso, Moiraine’s life could have been very different. And I think she does view this destiny as a choice she has made, a burden she has taken up because she was the only one who could. I don’t think ideas like nobility or heroism even enter her thoughts when she thinks about where her duty lies.
Nynaeve on the other hand, has a strong sense that duty is not just what you do, but how you do it. Nynaeve’s anger at the burning of the inn at Baerlon, for example, and the resulting argument, shows the difference in their perspectives. Of course, Nynaeve is quite naive (say that three times fast) in comparison to Moiraine, and has never had to make the sorts of hard choices that by now are as familiar to Moiraine as the presence of saidar, but I think that even after she has been in the game for a while, Nynaeve will always struggle with the idea of the ends justifying the means, of choosing the lesser of two evils, of accepting the burden of being the one who puts other’s lives in danger to save the world.
And then there is Lan, who has that strict Borderlands nobility about him that we saw was so prevalent in Shienar. There are rules to things, proper etiquette that must be followed, deeds that cannot be noble no matter your motivation. This is one of the things that sticks for him when Nynaeve confesses her feelings; he cannot fathom that turning her away might be a worse or more cruel act than accepting what they both want, even in the face of the fate he fears for the relationship. It is not right, not done, no matter how it might hurt Nynaeve or how she might profess that she doesn’t care about those risks. For Lan, this is beyond a choice for either of them, and I think it is very telling that it is this, rather than his bond and duty to Moiraine, that he focuses on. And it is clear that he feels the pain of the decision very deeply, although Nynaeve is too wrapped up in her own feelings to see it. Where she reacts by throwing her pain outward in the form of anger and disdain, Lan keeps everything he feels tightly inside, behind the wall that Moiraine describes so eloquently in this chapter. But through Moiraine we get to see more of the true Lan; she knows him despite his walls, and in this chapter breaks them down enough to get an even better sense of what he is feeling. Lord Agelmar also gave us a glimpse of the depths of Lan’s emotions back in The Eye of the World, when he told Nynaeve the story of Lan’s heritage, and one can see how much Lan’s life pre-Moiraine was shaped by a sense of duty he felt to a kingdom and a people that no longer existed. It must have been such a relief to allow himself to be bonded to Moiraine and to be given a new purpose, a reprieve from the feelings of duty that drove him uselessly into the Blight every day.
So, yeah, I guess that pretty much sums up how full of feelings I am for Al’Lan Mandragoran. I really want him to end up with Nynaeve. Now that Moiraine has made all these plans for what will happen to Lan when she dies, Chekhov’s-bond-transfer basically guarantees that she will, in fact, die. Such are the rules of storytelling. Maybe Lan’s bond will eventually get transferred to Nynaeve, and she’ll choose Green and they can get married. (People keeps saying the Greens are the only ones who marry.) That would be kind of amazingly romantic. Not that I want Moiraine to die, mind you, but given that she’s the Gandalf of these stories I have a feeling that she’ll come back from death stronger than ever. Just like I am still waiting for Thom Merrilin to do.
Next week is a doozy of a section, as I’ll be tackling Chapters 23 and 24, and learning all sorts of things about the White Tower that I’ve been itching to learn. Not really looking forward to figuring out how to recap it all, but I am very much looking forward to analyzing it, and if I thought I’ve had a lot to say about Nynaeve now…. Well. You all know.
For now, I’ll leave this post with two questions I haven’t figured out how to answer yet. The first; who are the “watchers” are in Chapter 22? Is that a reference Adeleas and Vandene, with the complete history of the Age they are writing? Or is it whoever sent the Dragkhar after Moiraine? Someone else? The second; what is the question and answer that Moiraine almost found in her discussion with Vandene? My best guess is it’s something about Mordeth, given the fact that the chapter icon is the dagger, but that’s all I’ve got.
Sylas K Barrett is a believer in true love, and he’s only slightly embarrassed to admit it.
Yeah – Lan and Nynaeve – ship away. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that you’ll get tired/annoyed of her ways in the middle books before she comes into her own later in the story.
Yes, George R. R. Martin is a fan, and in fact has a couple of shout outs in “A Song of Ice and Fire.” The first is House Jordayne of the Tor, whose sigil is a quill pen. The second is Maester Rigney (Robert Jordan’s’ actual name is James Rigney) who theorized that time is like a wheel.
Great job. Getting into a groove with the analysis, Sylas. When you started this it was about 50/50 and now it is hitting close to one hundred. you are picking up on stuff that I and probably most everyone else missed first time through. Except for the Lan/Nyneve arc, that has blinking neon all over it.
I was not expecting to have dad!feels about Tam at this point in the story. That’s really quite inconvenient.
GRRM has also been very forthright about how important the blurb that Jordan gave to The Game of Thrones was to the series. GRRM had won awards but Jordan sold far more books at the time.
Watchers refers to Watchers over the Waves, Darkfriends including Black Ajah, and even Moiraine
It’s nice to remember when Nynaeve’s //personality had real texture to it, and her sharp edges made sense with where she was in her character development. There was a long static period in the middle books when she seemed to me quite lazily written as a real caricature of obnoxious lack of self-awareness, to the point that I found her ultimate stepping up as awesome hero/warrior/fitting-partner-to-someone-who-has-been-awesome-all-along unconvincing (albeit awesome in itself). YMMV. But at this stage in the story she’s a deeply convincing and human character. //
S
The term “Game of Houses” definitely predates “Game of Thrones”. GRRM didn’t begin writing A Game of Thrones until 1991. The Great Hunt was published in 1990. That said, Jacqueline Carey probably owes some influence to GRRM, since she also uses the phrase “The Game of Thrones” (Kushiel’s Dart first publication 2001).
The Moiraine does research chapter was one of the most thoroughly examined of any in the first two books when everyone was busy theorizing about future volumes. I think in one reread you captured just about everything people got in six months of discussion.
Also, welcome to Daes Dae’mar. I look forward very much to your discussions on it as it comes more to center stage.
Okay, I’m convinced: Sylas has the gift of Foretelling. But he doesn’t always understand his own foretellings. ;-)
A note about names: The Cairhienin are the people of Cairhien. The city is Cairhien without “-in”, and so is the country. You called the city “Cairhienin” four times in this post.
I agree that Caldevwin purposefully questions Rand. Caldevwin sees an Aielman with a sword claiming to be from Andor, dressed like a lord but not behaving like a Cairhienin or Andoran lord would. Obviously that man is pretending to be something he’s not, so Caldevwin probes to see whether Rand knows Gareth Bryne like an Andoran lord would. He probably only gets even more confused when Rand answers correctly.
Cairhien is a VERY trying place to visit because nobody will believe a word you say but look for hidden meanings and intentions. Have Fun, Rand.
Of course nobody believes Rand when he explains he isn’t a lord or a leader anyway so boo. It really sucks to be Rand.
Selene might as well hang a sign around her neck ‘Evil Temptress, beware’ she is that obvious. Thank goodness for male hormones.
What Moiraine does to Lan is really sketchy and he has every right to be outraged BUT she is trying to save his life, better still she is trying to save him for Nynaeve – which makes him even angrier since he’s all into noble self sacrifice mode re. Nyn. Lan, don’t tell a woman what relationship risks she can or should take. That’s HER call.
As readers of New Spring know and is hinted here Moiraine and Lan had a very fraught introduction complicated by the fact both were young, proud, and somewhat parochial. By the time we see them here they are still proud but no longer either young or parochial and they’ve been closer than lovers for twenty years. There isn’t anything Moiraine doesn’t know about Lan. And there isn’t anything about Moiraine Lan doesn’t know. Up to now they have been united in their goals and at least in rough agreement about means. Now Moiraine senses Lan moving away from her emotionally and is surprised by her own jealousy. She’s never been interested in him romantically but he’s been hers for twenty years. Giving him up even for his own happiness, and she does care about that,isn’t going to be easy.
In the meantime denial is Lan Mandragoran’s middle name. He refuses to admit that anything has changed in him or between the two of them so there, Moiraine! Fun times ahead for all.
Very good synopsis and thoughts. I believe the Watchers mentioned are the society spoken of in the chapter when Moiraine questions Vandene about Tolman Head. As to what the question is Moiraine had at the edge of her mind, I’m not sure.
@10
I agree that Caldevwin was suspicious and purposely questions Rand in a veiled manner to ascertain his story, but I don’t think he had any real doubts about Rand’s Andorean claim, particularly after the questions, he was just getting a feel for Rand in the ‘Game,’ so to speak, and trying to ascertain his ‘real’ purpose. I highly doubt he thought of Rand as Aiel, the concept as an Aielman dressed as a nobleman from this side of the Dragon Wall would have been quite alien to him.
Hopelessly spoilerish question:
//Was there ever any consensus on whether it was true that King Galldrian was a Darkfriend, or whether the letter to Bayle Domon implicated him falsely? It would bring a nice sense of balance if, given the frequency of Darkfriends at all levels of society, there was one national ruler who had a Friend of the Dark membership card. It would also raise some VERY alarming questions about whether Ishamael told him at the Darkfriend Social to begin the excavation, and why. The timing seems about right, given the degree of progress relative to the statue’s size.//
@10… If Caldevwin had thought Rand was an Aielman, he would have attacked him with his entire command… Caldevwin seems old enough to have been alive during the Aiel War or even saw some action during it… No way he would have tiptoed around a wolf in sheep’s clothing….
@13… Good Question…\\ Doesn’t matter really… Thom would say, “Some men just need killing.”\\
@13 It was never stated yea or nay. In the end it didn’t matter. However, I don’t think he is, because // Barthanes is outed as one, and they are very opposing forces. It seems like it would be a waste to have two DFs at the top like that. I always read it as Barthanes was generally the one behind anything that “Galldrian did” that was outright evil. Galldrian is just a fool, much like Laman was. //
Yeek. ///“Never think that I am too far from you. You’ll always be in my thoughts, as I know I am in yours.” Coming from Lanfear, or any of the Chosen, that’s a most threatening statement.///
I loved this intro to Adeleas and Vandene — two true-sisters pretending they’re not Aes Sedai Sisters, living in a rural house with rooms that “seemed made of books,” healing and helping the locals while trying to write a history of the world since the Breaking and possibly before.
“…the Last Battle is coming. I may never finish my history.” *gigglesnort*
No comment on the Dragkhar? Feh. I’m not surprised. Nobody comments on them. People doing the various WoT rereads I’ve encountered either say nothing or say “Eh, they’re basically vampires” and move on. So it’s time for my Dragkhar Rant.
No they flaming aren’t vampires. They share some traits, but Trollocs share some traits with Orcs, and while many readers say Trollocs are “basically Orcs,” some readers (aside from me) do have further questions and commentary about them and other Shadowspawn. But nobody ever asks about Dragkhar; I know because I thoroughly searched Theoryland. So what the flame. Yes, Dragkhar are fanged, bat-winged, nocturnal humanoids that kill and feed on humans in a parasitic manner. But they don’t drink blood. They don’t even bite, despite their fangs. They’re not undead, but very much alive (or dead). As far as we know, they can be killed by anything that would kill humans and not by anything that wouldn’t.
And these differences give me, at least, many questions. Do they subsist entirely on souls and life-force, despite being flesh-and-blood animals? If not, what else do the eat? If so, how does that work, and why do they have fangs — for self-defense? Either way, what/who do they feed on when not being sent to assassinate people? How does their life-and-soul-sucking work? How does their song work? As flying presumably-mammals, how do they breed? How do they survive in the Blight despite their relative physical frailness? What are their minds like, apart from unintelligent and hungry?
Sigh. All I can do is headcanon, headcanon, headcanon. I’d like to headcanon that Adeleas and Vandene did a necropsy on this one before disposing of it, so at least they might know more than I do, but I suppose they didn’t have time for that if they had to immediately “hide” it.
Did Rowling think of Draghkar when she created Dementors?
The New Spring prequel is an expansion of the story how Moiraine and Lan met (or two expansions, one shorter story and one longer novella).
@17 I’ve never actually thought that Trollocs were all that similar to Orcs, except in terms of their narrative function (epic fantasy regularly calls for a species that fits the description of “totally amoral so you can kill them in a war scene without questions about the morality of war getting intense, just scary enough in the singular that it’s impressive for your hero to kill one of them, but since your untrained hero CAN kill one of them, they eventually end up only being scary in the aggregate”). If anything, it feels to me like //Aginor created them out of cultural memory of Orcs, not dissimilar to the memory that gives the Nine Rings its name, but did a fairly crappy job of it except for the genetic sport that created Myrddraal, which are so much scarier than Nazgul it’s not even funny//. Orcs (in Tolkien, as opposed to in Peter Jackson) are intelligent, selfwilled, inventive as long as the inventions are weapons or instruments of torture, and materialistic. Trollocs (as much as we all love Narg and his one line) are big dumb animals who often can’t be trusted to maintain a competent battle formation without being linked to a Myrddraal. They’re scary because they set off disgust reflexes and don’t really call for more characterization than that.
And likewise, I agree with you that Draghkar aren’t very close analogues, either biologically OR in terms of story function, of vampires. As for their biology: fun headcanon, do they normally eat Trolloc souls, while leaving the Trollocs ambulatory? Is that the mechanism by which some Trollocs are intelligent enough to speak, write, and organize their own fists, while others are so dumb that they can only be used in battle through the strategic risk of linking them? To a certain extent, though, I think the Shadowspawn are scary because they make so little biological sense that the overall effect is eerie. My personal vote for Jordan’s best scare moment (even worse than the Rat Dream) is when Mat sees the whatever-it-is living in one of the Seven Lakes and realizes that it’s far, far too big to be living in a body of water that size. Gut-punch creeps.
//The song seems like it might be a preprogrammed version of the technique that we see Semirhage using to directly stimulate brain pleasure centers. Does it operate by the Power? If so, does that make a Draghkar a living ter’angreal, like a Shadowspawn version of the Nym? After all, both sing and evoke responses in the surrounding world by doing so.//
@18 As far as I know, Rowling doesn’t actually read a great deal of fantasy. I think it’s convergent evolution.
Is the Draghkar’s song related to Loial’s Treesongs? Both influence living beings.
@22 Well that’s a thoroughly unpleasant thought.
@18… That is not that surprising… Rowling wrote wonderful books, but as magic systems go… not inspiring to me…
@19: I agree that Trollocs are quite different from Orcs, but some people don’t. (Incidentally, I love what Brandon Sanderson did with this “evil monster horde” trope in the Stormlight Archive series).
I also headcanon that Dragkhar feed on Trollocs, but don’t link that to the differences in Trolloc intelligence, as I expect they usually consume the life-force as well as the soul. Trollocs have tiny souls ///according to Machin Shin///, but plenty of life-force.
///RJ has said that no Shadowspawn can channel, so the song wouldn’t work precisely like Semirhage’s pleasure-stimulation or the Compulsion that is reminds me of. And while some prey (e.g. ecstatic-faced Chion) appear to find some part of the process pleasurable, Moiraine feels only a “vague sadness” when paralyzed by the song. ///
I’m sure we’ll get more thoughts about the warder bond and how it can be used later….as well as what the ‘passing/recovery’ process is like.
As for your thoughts on Rand’s ultimate ending…well….RAFO. //Honestly, her prediction might not be too far off the mark ;) //
@princessroxana (#11)
I view what Moiraine does to Lan in (and just prior to) Chapter 22 as an Intervention. Interventions being one of the very, very, very few things that don’t require Consent, I don’t think it can qualify as being sketchy at all, to be perfectly frank.
I don’t blame Lan for being angry but I also don’t see what else she can do if she wants Lan to survive her. As she points out letting such an able and useful man throw his life away for nothing makes no sense. And why is he so set against being happy for a change?
Yeah, even though I get where the problematic implications come in, in this specific scenario, I don’t fault Moiriaine or her motives. At the risk of sounding like somebody I’m not (but without the time to fully elaborate as I am about to board a plane) there are very few things in life that are a 100% good. So even though consent/autonomy is definitely a fundamental good, there are specific circumstances where it may take back seat to something else. Obviously we will see ways this can be abused (and people who use the bond in horrific ways), and ways such justifications can be stretched, but here, at least, I think Moiraine is taking a tough situation and doing the best she can with it, including the best for Lan. He might be upset, but at least he’s upset and alive and able to move on and grow.
IMO Lan’s opposition isn’t very rational. Why is he fighting a chance to live and be with Nynaeve? Because it would force him out of his comfort zone of self immolation? He really thinks a pointless death alone in the Blight is what his parents wanted for him? What the oath they took on his behalf was supposed to mean?
@26, 28 // Lan’s autonomy/agency will be compromised with Moiraine’s death anyways. She’s just making sure it will be compromised constructively rather than leaving Lan to go spit in the Dark One’s eyes. //
On the morality of the passing of Lan’s bond (with spoilers)
//Given that Moiraine knows that Myrelle will force Lan to have sex with her, I don’t agree that this falls into the category of “intervention”. IMHO, that’s an infringement of autonomy that can’t be justified, regardless of the reason; autonomy and authentic sexuality are just too closely connected. If there had been another candidate who had developed an effective method of keeping “orphaned” Warders alive without, to be blunt, using the bond as a means of rape, then that is at least a somewhat less distasteful option. However, given that the intimacy of the mental bond is so intense that forced bonding is explicitly described as ipso facto tantamount to rape, I have to conclude that this is one of Moiraine’s indefensible decisions, regardless of the positive outcome. Lan isn’t an absolutely unreasonable man, but Moiraine still doesn’t make the slightest attempt to try to persuade him to consent to the idea, or give him any choice of future Aes Sedai.//
Just a reminder that everyone is welcome to disagree with other people’s readings or interpretations of the text, but don’t be dismissive or make personal judgements based on those opinions. Be civil and respectful–which means avoiding language and commentary that is phobic or prejudiced. Our guidelines are here.
@2,@5,@8 game of thrones or game of houses phrase origin is actually far older, and I believe a variation of such aka “Game of…” dates from medieval West European history.
The Watchers //in the Karatheon Cycle are the Watchers of the Waves on Toman Head. See the end of the book.//
I still don’t get why Lan is not allowed to have agency over his relationships, but I’m glad that you now understand his reasons, at least.
I still think one of the Cairhienin officers should be called Talmanes Delovinde. Don’t really know why, I just like the name.
New Spring shows the meeting of Moiraine and Lan is nothing like Nynaeve and Lan. But Moiraine had a bit of Nynaeve in her, in the beginning.
You’re forgetting the Wheel and the Pattern here. Moiraine was there because her life was woven that way. She very much took up the burden because there was no one else, but that makes it specifically not a choice.
Not remembering the Pattern is fine now, but I can guarantee that you won’t like the series if you don’t remember in later books.
Fine job again, keep it up.
Note: message edited by moderator to white out spoilers.
@29: Yes that is exactly what their oath in his stead means. I can’t really understand how someone can see that differently. And you, too, act as if Lan has no right to say no to a relationship. He is entitled to his priorities, he is entitled to his feelings, and his own judgements. The woman isn’t automatically the right one in relationships.
He doesn’t want to take on the relationship because it will steer him away from what he sees as his duty. He can’t see a way for the relationship to hold more than a short time, before he will die. He rejects it because it would push his lifes work to the side, and he doesn’t want a doomed relationship. And if one can not accept a persons reasons for their actions, and their right to agency, that one should take a hard look at oneself.
@35 – let’s have the Mod white out the spoilerrific – albeit accurate – first two lines of the above post. Thanks!
He asked. I checked. So unspoiler?
@32
I think you make a good point that the //‘sexual healing’ nature of Myrelle’s bonds (which is itself a double standard that we’ll have to unpack when we get there) does add a more sinister (even if unintentionally so) flavor to this whole thing. Honestly, I kind of forgot about that in part because the books kind of gloss over the whole thing (which is maybe part of the problem, and definitely part of this series that has not aged well. I don’t even want to get started about Tylin…). I can understand Moiraine’s motivations in wanting to make sure he doesn’t succumb to a debilitating depression that strikes Warders when their Aes Sedai dies. And maybe that’s the kind of thing that you can argue was Lan’s choice and risk, and I think there are parallels to be drawn between Lan consenting to this type of bond with Moiraine not meaning it can be transferred to anybody, as that is not specifically what he consented to (even without the weird sexual aspect). But the fact that the author also writes it such that this is ‘the only way’ raises its own questions…there’s nothing analagous in the real world where the choice is to let somebody die or to have them go through some kind of sexual encounter…
Still, I can see why Moiraine – even knowing this – may have chosen to do it even while also generally respecting and caring for Lan. It is certainly a fraught area.//
That’s why I said it was sketchy. She is violating Lan’s autonomy and dignity and he has every right to be upset. She is doing it to save his life. Does she have the right? As an Aes Sedai she would say of course she does.
Down in spoiler-land. . .
//Since we’re now onto New Spring, the story, especially in its longer form, adds another major layer to “does Lan have control over his relationships? The younger Lan seems to have been raised with the cultural baggage that the answer to that one is a hard no. As far as we can tell, a traditional Malkieri man cannot refuse a sexual proposition from a woman, at least not without being extremely rude. I think that this was probably a subtext that RJ had already worked out: Nynaeve thinks that Lan is “shaming” her by putting her in a position of openly admitting that she wants to marry him, but her speaking out is exactly what he’s been raised to believe is appropriate for women. He’s the one who is pulling against his cultural heritage in telling her “no”, and by being quite so forceful with the signet ring.//
@39: Yeah, please let’s not even talk about that. Several years off, thank the Light.
@princessroxana (#29)
I’d say death wishes — as well as things similar to what’s Lan’s doing which is more the abandonment of Life as opposed to a wish for Death — are always irrational. That’s why they require Interventions, so as to stop people’s convictions from causing irreparable harm to themselves (and others, too).
@mutantalbinocrocodile (#32)
//Just goes to show how incredible vague Jordan was with everything regarding sex. Some people accuse him of “hiding his lesbians” due to the fact that people that want to ignore the fact that gay couples exist in The Wheel of Time can just say that the term “pillow friends” means really close friends, or even that thing that TVTropes describes as “Romantic Two-Girl Friendship” — but really, it’s just that Jordan was always extremely circumspect about the subject of sex. My point with this being: when I first read the series, I never even noticed that Myrelle had sex with Lan, and now whenever it comes up I always tend to forget it was a thing.
At any rate, the fact of the matter is that the method of an Intervention is really quite irrelevant in whether or not it qualifies as an Intervention or not. The only thing that decides the qualification is if that which needs to be prevented is serious enough that it warrants the circumspection of Consent. Whether it warrants the method is irrelevant; that only decides how good the Intervention is, not whether it qualifies as an Intervention in the first place.
So, why does it qualify as an Intervention?
You see, I really don’t think Lan actually does know the difference between dream and reality. And at the very least, he doesn’t understand that if you don’t dream, you can’t create a better reality for yourself or for others. His upbringing, and having had to live with that sword for literally all his life, has made it impossible for him to see any other way of living for himself. In other words: he can’t see any way of living other than to inexorably march to his own death. And that is basically the definition of a situation that qualifies as warranting Intervention. And, since the situation warranting Intervention and the solution being taken out of the hands of the person in whose life the Intervening is needed are the only 2 things that make an Intervention an Intervention, what Moiraine does unquestionably qualifies as an Intervention.
I will give you this, though: I was too hasty in declaring Moiraine’s actions completely free of shady shit. Because, after all, one Intervention is not the same as another Intervention. And given the sex thing you mentioned, this definitely fails to qualify for the “all is good, all is well” class of Interventions.
The final question is whether or not it is justified what Moiraine did. Moiraine, of course, didn’t know of any other options besides Myrelle at this point. If Moiraine had known that Cadsuane was still alive, maybe she could have given Lan to her. After all, Cadsuane has an abnormally high success rate in keeping Stilled male Channelers alive; maybe she could have done the same for Warders who had lost their Aes Sedai. But that was not an option at this point, so it is moot. And failing other options being available to Moiraine at this point, the question at the start of this paragraph becomes a truly gruesome one. If at least partially forced sex is the only thing that can keep a person alive, is it justified? Due to the irreversibility of death, and due to there being no good reason for Lan wanting to die after Moiraine went through that Archway, I am, in this particular case study only, and with GREAT trepidation and reluctance and icky feelings at myself and at even having to make such a judgement, leaning towards “justified”. Just barely justified, and with the caveat of this being truly horrific in every way, but justified all the same.
But, given the subject matter involved, I also completely see, and maybe even agree with, the opposite argument.//
@@@@@Sebastian (#36)
Do you know what an Intervention is? And I would like a very explicit “yes” or “no” answer to that one.
Because the entire point of an Intervention is that a person is destructive enough to themselves and to those around them that it warrants the removal of their agency. You see, it all depends on the context. And thus: yes, there are indeed specific situations where someone simply can’t be trusted with their own agency.
As I explained in my previous post, there might be reasons why the method of this particular Intervention is problematic with regards to Lan’s agency; but the fact that an Intervention was warranted (i.e. that Lan could not be trusted with his own agency) is pretty much without question. A textbook case, if you will.
@@@@@(#38)
Speaking of people not understanding things very well…. if a blind reader (or watcher if it’s on YouTube, for that matter) asks a question, that doesn’t necessarily mean they want an answer. That’s one of the fundamental tenets of the “blind reaction” idea. You can discuss the answer, usually, but only if you have a way of it not being readable to the author / video creator / whatever. Here on the Tor website, that would be whiting out text. Old RSS forums used rot13, and I still occasionally use it myself on YouTube and a few other places.
I don’t know what you mean by Intervention. Is it a religious term or an American legal term for taking care of mentally handicapped people (that’s my two guesses about possible meanings, both don’t really fit Lan)?
I always enjoy Moiraine’s POV segments, they are few and far between. It says so much about her as a character and how she sees the world.
It also emphasises how tight Jordan’s 3rd limited is in this series.
@44 Yes. But I have the feeling you would say no, since I don’t see why the intervention is warranted. If Lan needs one, every character in the books should have one. Moiraine might well die on her quest, // Rand values creations existence more than his love life, Perrin becomes a lord without giving people representation, Mat is a mercenary captain who does what he wants, Egwene puts the Towers wellfare over creation, Verin does impermissible things for her lifes work, and so on.// Modern RL sensibilities can’t be transfered to this world. In RL the universes existence doesn’t depend on human action, we see human life and plurality as essential and of the highest value, honour is something that is problematic at least.
Bottom line, Lan gave his Agency away when he willingly and knowingly entered in to a magical contract with a with a Wizard where he has to do what she says, and if he doesn’t, said wizard is granted both the right and ability to compel him to.
This isn’t a matter of agency. Lan willingly entered into a relationship that makes him effectively a slave to this woman. He has granted her both the means and the right to do this thing.
@48: We’re talking about the relationship between Nynaeve and Lan, with Moiraine arranging for // Lan to end up with Nynaeve.// Since he didn’t enslave himself to every woman, didn’t enslave himself to Nynaeve, your argument isn’t very on point (a soldier who gives oath to follow orders and uphold the law of his country doesn’t follow every order from every person, for example). And calling Moiraines actions an intervention… Well, sometime in the future, maybe, Lan will be forced to something. That’s not really an intervention. Maybe, someday is death to interventions.
But your point is kinda what I’m talking above with modern RL sensibilities. In WoT ability to do something and following ones honour, duty, responsibility is reason enough to do something. In RL we have rule of law, checks and balances, separation of powers and so on, to counteract this.
And the Bonds ability to enslave in every regard and situation isn’t really part of the contract between Aes Sedai and Warder. That facet is never mentioned in the oaths we hear about. Accordingly, Lan balks at Moiraine arranging the transference, but not at the possibility of forcing him in matters pertaining to the Quest. He says she never compelled him, but one gets the feeling he would have been ok with it, if it was about their Quest.
@45
The term is usually used in the context of addiction and is basically the people who care about someone forcing that someone to sit and listen to them talk about how their addiction (or other destructive behavior, but in real life it’s almost always addiction) has harmed both themselves and their loved ones.
Here’s a not very realistic example from The Sopranos.
My personal feeling .and I think the reaction Jordan was going for, is that Moraine is way out of line here but she has a sympathetic motive.
It’s worth mentioning that Lan has an out, he can ask Moiraine to release his bond. She expects him to do this and isn’t at all sure how she will react but apparently he never does. It’s like he wants to be handed over to Nynaeve by Myrelle because he can’t vring himself to rethink his life and priorities and choose her for himself.
@birgit (#45)
I don’t live in the States, nor have I ever lived in the States, so it’s not an American term. In fact, now I’m beginning to doubt if it’s as much a common thing that people should know exist in English-speaking countries as it is in the Netherlands, where I live… Oh well.
.
At any rate, an Intervention is when a person’s behaviour or mental state is a significant danger to themselves, and usually also to others, and their family, close friends, spouses and/or Social Care professionals decide that something needs to be done without the person in question having any say over it.
Usually they’d try and explain that this is happening to the person in whose life they are Intervening, hoping that said person will not resist so much that it becomes impossible for those setting up the Intervention to get it done by themselves. However, for pretty much all Interventions that happen in the real world, there is usually a Legal framework behind them that allows, as a last resort, a Court Order to be obtained to force the person to accept the Intervention. This is a heavy measure, though; so as I said, the Legal System only gets involved as a last resort.
A typical example of where this might happen is an addict of hard drugs, who is so much affected by said drugs that they withers their life away, they keep borrowing money from thier parents *or from other family, or from friends) only to buy more drugs, and that they become destructive not only to themselves but to those around them as well. Another typical example is someone who’s in danger of committing suicide; those people might get put on what’s called Suicide Watch, which is basically 24-hour surveillance — but in a Mental Care setting rather than a prison setting, obviously — until the risk of suicide is over.
Lan is determined to die, because he can’t see any possibility of ever being able to live a meaningful life. He also doesn’t really care who he hurts in his path towards his own self-destruction. That’s textbook Intervention-warranting thinking and behaviour, that is.
@Sebastian (#47)
No, you see, that’s not what an Intervention is. An Intervention is not about a person doing things during which they might die; and Intervention (at least, an Intervention that prevent death) is about people who active seek out death. Not just situations that could lead to their death; they need to be actually determined to die.
In case I’m still not making myself clear enough for you: it’s about the mindset of a person, not just about their actions. Otherwise, everybody in the military would warrant Intervention, or people who do dangerous sports, and that’s not what happens in the real world. Because their intention isn’t to die. Lan’s, obviously, is; and that’s why his case warrants Intervention while all the others’ you mentioned don’t.
Seriously, go look it up on Google, because you seem to be genuinely confused about this.
//The only other person in the story who qualifies is Rand. And Rand….. is a much more complicated story. On every level. As I’m sure you know.//
//I for one am slightly puzzled by all the references to Jordan being circumspect about sex. He uses the “fade to black” technique, but there always seem to be more than enough character reactions and double-entendres to make it very, very hard to argue that anything but sex happened during the fade-out. I remember reading somewhere that Harriet, as his editor, encouraged him to use “fade-to-black” rather than writing an explicit scene because she thought, based on the scenes in his pre-WOT books, that he was really terrible at writing sex. Kind of an amusing situation for a couple who are both husband/wife and author/editor.//
Ok, leaving the white-out for some discussion that Sylas can actually read, that’s relevant to both Rand’s reactions to Selene (I read the modded comment, which took issue quite harshly with Sylas finding Rand’s inner monologue about her “gross”) and to his perceptive discussion of Nynaeve’s character. I think we can say straight out, based on the very traditional early modern European-style culture that was on display in the Two Rivers and the totally chaste nature of Rand and Egwene’s prior relationship: the Two Rivers is a place where premarital sex is extremely socially unacceptable. With the result that, at this point in the story, all of our Duopotamian characters of both sexes are still virgins. So, in modern terms, Rand is roughly like a high school senior or college freshman who still has his virginity when he’s interacting with Selene and her OMG-how-obvious-can-you-be seductress act.
And likewise, Nynaeve, as a young teen, entered a profession where she expected to be unable to marry, and now is in her mid-twenties, is still a virgin, and clearly is interested in everything that would normally come along with marrying Lan: she’s not asexual. I think that Sylas is spot-on in saying that the majority of what she’s struggling with repressing, with the result that the intense emotions often come out as anger, is an incredibly intense compassion for hurting people and loyalty to “her people”. However, it’s reasonable and realistic that, at this point in the story, there are some less G-rated feelings that she’s repressing as well, at an age when the majority of English-language readers have had some experience, to judge by statistics.
@jadis666, I respectfully disagree with your carefully reasoned argument in the white-out, but it’s a well-written counter-argument.
Sebastian@48:
Well, I don’t know why you’re talking about that. Because that’s not what happened. It says right in the chapter we just read that Moraine made these arrangements with Myrelle before leaving the Tower. The last time Moiraine was in the Tower was before she set off for Emond’s field. She didn’t know Nynaeve existed.
Moiraine most definitely did not set all this up so Lan could end up with Nynaeve. She did it solely so that he would not go off and get himself killed pointlessly after she died. She now sees that this may be a way for Lan to end up as Nynaeve’s Warder, but // at this point // Moiraine has no particular reason to suspect that she will die, // not until she goes to Rheudian //.
@54:
Having participated in a number of actual, formally staged interventions that were planned by family members and psychologists (alchohol and drug addiction is a bit common in my family), that is most definitely NOT what an intervention is about. Its about trying to get through to a person who doesn’t understand, or doesn’t admit to themselves that the behavior they are engaging in is self-destructive. Its more commonly the latter. The point is to try to get them to realize a) they need help and b) get them to seek that help.
What Moiraine does is not an intervention, period. At least not in the way modern psychology uses the term. Because the point of an intervention is to get the addict to seek help. That is not what Moiraine is doing. She is forcing Lan to get help (Myrelle is experienced with this exact trauma and has successfully brought Warders back from the brink before) and not giving him any choice in the matter. That works in this context, but would never work in the real world, because a) Lan is not an addict and b) addicts have to actually make the choice themselves to get help before any intercession will work.
@54: So how does Lan qualify? If he was actively seeking death he would go to the blight and not plan to return from a campaign. Even before he met Moiraine //he didn’t seek death, he just expected to not return from an excursion, sooner or later.// If Lan was a death seeker, every firefighter, soldier, policeman in a dangerous place (like the US, Middle and northern South America, or similar) and bodyguard would be a deathseeker, but I don’t think that everyone of those needs an intervention. To me it feels like this need for him to get an intervention is because he isn’t playing doormat to a woman who wants a relationship with him, and even has the audacity to have his own goals, priorities and conditions. That his priorities carry the risk of him dying doesn’t warrant an intervention, so what does? And another point, if the roles were reversed, if the woman had kinda stupid reasons to not have a relationship, would she still be right? This discussion kinda feels that way.
@56: Potato, potato. She set it up and now she thinks it will lead to him ending up with Nyneave. I said she set it up so he might end up with Nynaeve. Same difference, I just didn’t explicitly mention all the steps. And I don’t see how the timing has anything to do with what we’re talking about. We were still talking about the relationship between Nynaeve and Lan, and that I don’t understand why he has no right to not want a relationship under these circumstances. Of course, I slowly realize that his honour isn’t something people like, which means people don’t accept his reasons for not wanting a relationship. Makes me wonder why Lan is liked at all, his honour and sense of duty is THE thing about him. And I realize that this talk about interventions led away from the point I wanted to make.
To clarify, I think he should let the relationship happen, happiness for a short time is better than no happiness. But this level of pragmatism just isn’t a thing in Randland, or at least among the Westlanders we call main and secondary characters. And, like I wrote in my first post, I’m happy that Sylas now understands his reasons, even if he still doesn’t accept them as justifiable reasons to not have a relationship.
@55: I’ve been saying this since… a long time. It’s so important that readers get that most of the characters are young, naive, inexperienced and so on. Otherwise they seem like idiots. I’m quite sure, if Mr. Jordan hadn’t planned for //relationships and sex//, he would’ve made the characters even younger, since in our world this level of immaturity is already well on its way out at that age. The men being able to survive and get through what they go through also is a reason to not just make them 13, I guess.
@57 What Moiraine is planning seems more like having someone involuntarily committed. // I assume that’s what happens to Warders who’s Aes Sedai die under normal circumstances, since having a berserker running around is usually a bad plan. //
@anthony Pero (#56)
I always read that as her having briefly visited the Tower before visiting Vandene’s and Adeleas’ farm. Especially since I don’t think she’d keep this from Lan that long. Of course, I might have thought that while forgetting that //Travelling and Skimming// don’t exist yet.
Do we have any direct information confirming that she definitely didn’t visit the Tower off-screen since leaving Shienar?
@noblehunter (#60) @anthony Pero (#47)
Yeah… I think I’ve now reached the conclusion that there is a language barrier here.
In the Netherlands, we use Interventions not just for drug addicts, but also for people who risk engaging in self-harm or suicide attempts. And, perhaps more crucially, involuntary commitments are very often put under what might be called an “umbrella term” of “Interventie”, which directly translates as Intervention.
I should have heeded the possibility more that different countries might have different, or more narrow vs. more broad, definitions of equivalent terms. I failed to do so, and for that I apologize.
@Sebastian (#58)
What part of “Lan intends to die; while firemen, soldiers, and policemen in even the most dangerous of places do not intend to die.” do you not understand?
Also, why is it so hard for you to grasp that Lan might simply be wrong? For example, that fulfilling his duty might — notice how I said “might” there — actually possibly not lead to his death? //Of course, if you’ve read to the end of the series, you’ll know that it is indeed the case that Lan fulfils his duty of avenging Malkier without actually dying. And, thus, that I’m ultimately proven correct. What I’m saying is, that Lan should have given some thought to the idea that, with Tarmon Gai’don fast approaching, the ancient wisdom that the Blight never lets anything go might not be valid for very much longer.//
Of course, if he was right about his duty requiring his death, then dying for a lonely war that will help literally nobody is really kinda selfish if you think about it. Or maybe just delusional. And the “delusional” part is what Interventions are for.
Actually, come to think of it, that’s the real point, in the end. Soldiers, firemen, policemen and others who do dangerous shit are fully aware of what they’re doing, and are willing to take the risk of dying. But because Lan is not just taking the risk of dying, but being convinced that he will die, and that there is nothing he or anyone else can do about that, he is being delusional. Where, again, all the real-world examples you listed aren’t being that.
@63: What I don’t understand about that is why your opinion should be right while I can’t find that anywhere in the books. And why my interpretation that he expects to die, but doesn’t seek to die is so preposterous in your eyes.
And people who won’t die by unnatural causes have to enter every relationship they can?
//Where does he avenge Malkier? Did he get the people who betrayed Malkier? Or at least their last descendant? No. Did he track down the shadow army and kill them? He kills enough, but who knows if he kills any of the army that destroyed Malkier. I fail to imagine other ways to avenge Malkier, but I guess he’s not done them either. That is the point of his end, he lets his war go (although it would have been hard to pursue, with such a total defeat for the Shadow). Light, he repeats that he can’t fulfill his oath, again and again, IIRC.//
His duty, as he sees it, will lead to his death, quite possibly soon, since he can’t really fulfill it, and it’s very dangerous to do what he can do. Where do you read that he thinks his duty is to die? And I get that dying for an ideal is hard to understand to someone of today. But are things like the Alamo, defending the Rock, other last stands, martyrdom in most religions, the pacifists who went to their deaths under oppressors just as selfish and delusional?
Soldiers, firemen, policemen and others who do dangerous shit don’t expect to do the dangerous shit until their lifes end. Lan doesn’t plan for retirement. And then it is unlikely that he will die from other causes.
Personally I think Lan is awfully rigid and pretty much the definition of honor before reason but I like him anyway.
I note again he does not try to escape the fate Moiraine has designed for him. Is it possible that under his rigid conditioning he wants to live, and the chance to be with Nynaeve? Is it possible the only way he can let himself be happy is to be able to claim he was forced into it?
Not to derail the great commentary, but there are three egregious copy-edit errors that really should be corrected:
“yeild” should be “yield”
“sighting” should be “citing”
and (one of my personal bugaboos, and the reason why I’m actually posting this rather than just ignoring it like I probably should)
“unphased” should be “unfazed”
@66 – Fixed, thanks!
@61
There’s definitely not time for Moiraine to have visited Tar Valon here. She left the Amyrlin’s traveling party in Shienar, and then went directly to Tifan’s Well in Arafel, the next Borderland over //secretly followed by Liandrin.//. If she intended to stop off at Tar Valon, why leave the party early? She could get there much faster by boat. She left to strike out overland towards Arafel (and the draghkar attack is 10 days later, according to Steve Cooper’s timeline which is as close to authoritative as it gets).
I think it is interesting and hard to hash out what is going on in this bond conversation… We never get Lan’s POV… so we are interpreting it from Moraine’s POV…. At this point in the story, \\ We don’t know the consequences of the bond breaking through the death of one of the participants, we get that incite after the tower breaks from Siuan. Lan avenging Moraine’s death would be a natural reaction to having a life long friend being murdered… and Lan’s previous blight smashing quest is his old quest, another thing he would naturally do… We really don’t know that the bond is life changing…. that your emotional state is forever damaged after the bond breaks… more fun… I never saw Lan believing that Moraine was aiming for Nynaeve… even if he reacts for a brief moment that it might be a possibility… Moraine crushes his thought by telling him that it could be a White or a Brown who would have no real reason for his skills…\\ She does it for one reason, to make him so off balance that he will angrily answer her question about why he helped a shepard become a wolfhound when meeting wolves.
@Sebastian (#64)
Except that it actually isn’t preposterous in my eyes.
Rather, my point is first of all that actively seeking death is not the only thing that can warrant people having their agency taken away from them. What Lan is doing is more like passively “seeking” death (it’s not really seeking), by refusing to accept the possibility that he might live, and as long as he’s still doing that, while he might survive for a while longer, he will never really live.
In fact, I don’t think there has been any point in Lan’s life where he could genuinely said to have been living. Moiraine, having known him for 20 years now, is deeply saddened by this, and because there is no reason for Lan to be this way other than a delusion on his part caused by his upbringing, she resolves to teach him the value of living. //Or, rather, have Nyneave do it for her.// And in that, she is fully justified (again, because of the whole “delusion” thing).
As for “dying for a cause”…. Well, if it could be said that it would actually be beneficial to any living person after the death, then maybe I could see it. Depends on the case. We get a very good example of that, actually, in the first book, where Moiraine tells the story of Manetheren’s last stand and how they basically won the Trolloc Wars by doing that. Now that was a heroic sacrifice worthy of reverence. Here, though? Lan’s just doing it for himself, basically; or maybe for the parents he never knew. Both cases would be classic signs of some kind of mental block.
//Finally, as mentioned in my previous point: with Tarmon Gai’don approaching, and Lan having known it was approaching for 20 years now, the only valid reason I can imagine that he has never considered the possibility that he might actually not die — and indeed, in the end it turns out he doesn’t die, which (again, again) proves my point for me — is that he is so obsessively set in his ways that he has lost the capacity for reason. Thus, his hand needs to be forced so that he doesn’t do anything that would ruin not only his life, but the lives of many around them, as he very obviously can’t be entrusted with that himself. I mean, just to give a not-even-that-relevant example, can you imagine what would have happened if Lan hadn’t survived until the Last Battle to take down Demandred? The more relevant point, of course, is what he meant, means and will mean to the other members of the cast, most of all Nyneave.//
@@@@@jadis666 I feel it’s weird that Lan living his life this way hasn’t any worth in your eyes, seeing borderlanders reactions to him. And that Lan is ready to die for his causes (first his war, then Moiraines survival) doesn’t ring like a deathwish to me. And lastly, Lan being entitled to not want a relationship under these conditions, seems obvious to me.
I guess we have to agree to disagree.
@Sebastian
Indeed, we will agree to disagree.
However, I would like to end our conversation by quoting the Character Seven of Nine from Star Trek: Voyager (one of my favourite Characters ever. from one of my favourite shows ever), because I think the quote perfectly encapsulates what I mean, and specifically why I don’t find any worth in the life Lan is living.
Here’s the quote:
And it doesn’t matter how badass with a sword you are or how many Trollocs (or Borg drones, for that matter) you take out. If you’re merely surviving, but are refusing to live, that is insufficient. And unlike the situation in Voyager, Lan isn’t even committed to surviving!
@39 You got me thinking of Pon Far in Star Tre
New question prompted by reading more. Is there any time that a person can willingly choose to die?