Reading The Wheel of Time: Egwene Confronts Darkfriends and Rand Confronts Borderlanders in The Gathering Storm (Part 26) - Reactor

This week, Reading The Wheel of Time is covering chapters 43 and 44, in which Egwene confronts Darkfriends, Gawyn, and a difficult decision, while Rand goes to meet the Borderlanders, only to be confronted by an old ally and the memory of a not so old trauma. Nynaeve does her best to protect people from Rand and learns the whereabouts of Perrin and his company. Without further ado, let’s get to the recap.

In her tent in the rebel camp, attended by Chesa, Egwene thinks about her failure to defeat Elaida. She is angry at her followers for disobeying her orders, but she is also aware that she herself may have been able to do better. She wonders if she was too secretive, and considers that she should have shared more with Siuan.

Egwene is now realizing that her assumptions were incorrect; Kings and Queens and Amyrlins are also tossed about by the storms of life. The only difference is that they are skilled at projecting calm and control in the face of life’s chaos. She realizes that in some ways, the Amyrlin does have more control than most people. While she still needs to adapt to the needs of the moment and the changes of the Pattern, she also has the knowledge and skills and power to shape the world in turn.

Egwene decides that she cannot wait for negotiations, not with the threats of the Seanchan and the Last Battle looming. Her army is fresh and ready, while the Tower forces are exhausted and demoralized. Now is the time to strike. She hopes that history will forgive her.

She is startled to find Gawyn outside her tent. He tries to talk to her, telling her that he needs to know where they stand and how she feels, but Egwene cuts him off, upbraiding him for ruining her work in the White Tower. He replies that he and Siuan were worried about her.

She tells him that while Egwene the woman understands, Egwene the Amyrlin is furious with him. She also realizes then that he doesn’t see her as the Amyrlin, and points out that this uncertainty in Gawyn undermines their relationship. She agrees to talk to him about it later.

In the White Tower, five Ajah heads—Jesse Bilal of the Brown,  Adelorna Bastine of the Green, Ferane Neheran of the White, Suana Dragand of the Yellow, and Serancha Colvine of the Gray—have gathered for a secret meeting. Tsutama hasn’t been included, since she wasn’t yet the Highest of the Red Ajah when the the Ajah heads of the White Tower came up with a scheme to heal the division in the Tower and to rule the Aes Sedai themselves by using Elaida. 

The Ajah heads discuss the fact that their plan to wield power through Elaida has failed, as has their plan to reconcile the division in the White Tower. Their election of Sitters who were too young for the job made other sisters suspicious. They hadn’t anticipated Elaida’s instability, and never have anticipated how effective the rebel leadership would turn out to be. To herself, Jesse also thinks that letting Elaida disband the Blue was the greatest mistake; without that dishonor, the Blues might not have dug in so hard, keeping the rest of the rebels from returning.

With their plan to lead the White Tower themselves no longer viable, and with Elaida beyond rescue, conversation turns to the election of a new Amyrlin. Each woman suggests a member of her own Ajah, arguing for why their particular skill set is most needed. The talk rises to arguing… and then Adelorna suggests Egwene.

There is resistance at first, but as they all discuss Egwene’s ability to resist Elaida, her effectiveness during the Seanchan attack, and the fact that her appointment would bring the rebels back to the White Tower, they realize that she is the best, and the only, choice. They also realize that their dreams of leading the White Tower themselves will never come to pass, as this time they will be setting up a strong Amyrlin.

Siuan waits under a tree outside the tent where the Hall is meeting. When Bryne joins her, they discuss what punishment Egwene might mete out to Siuan. He asks if the risk of rescuing her was worth it.

Bryne tells her that she is a woman of honor, and that he understand her now: She is able to break oaths or shrug off orders when she deems it necessary because no oath is as heavy or as binding on her as the responsibility she has already put on herself. When she asks when he will tell her what the other condition is, he admits that he intends to demand that she marry him, but only after the Last Battle is over. His hope is that after Siuan has given everything for the world for so long, she will be willing to take a life for herself, with him.

Inside the tent used as the Hall, Egwene faces a dozen Sitters. Each Ajah has one missing, as they were sent as part of the envoy to the Black Tower. Sheriam is with Egwene, and has a bandage on her hand, which she won’t let anyone look at or Heal. 

Having already had the youngest member weave a ward against eavesdropping, Egwene embraces the Source. She produces the Oath Rod and swears the Three Oaths before the Hall, telling them that they can no longer claim that she has the ability to lie, or that she is not fully Aes Sedai. She then explains that a sister came to her while she was in the Tower and admitted to being a Darkfriend. She announces in plain words that she herself is not Black Ajah, then explains that each of them will be required to remove and then retake their Oaths and declare they are not Darkfriends, just as Egwene has done.

Sheriam tries to embrace the Source but Egwene is ready and shields her. She tricks Sheriam into saying a falsehood by asking her a series of rapid-fire questions, then tells her about Verin’s confession, the giving of Sheriam’s name, and how Verin got around the oaths by taking poison. Sheriam admits that this was clever; she could never bring herself to do anything similar.

When Egwene mentions that there were many other names given, including those of Sitters, Moria jumps up and runs for the door. She is shielded immediately and bound with Air. One by one, the rest of the Sitters release themselves and then retake the Three Oaths, declaring themselves not to be Darkfriends. Egwene then tells them her plan to bring the rest of the Aes Sedai into the Hall in groups, under the guise of telling everyone something important that must not be overheard by the soldiers in camp. Armed with Verin’s list of names, the Sitters will be ready to capture everyone on that list, and anyone else who is revealed when Egwene demands they all go through the same process of removing and re-swearing the Oaths.

Egwene also declares that once the job is done, they will attack the White Tower. Romanda agrees that this is what must be done, formally putting forward a motion to follow Egwene’s plan. It is unanimously agreed upon.

Accompanied by Aiel, Narishma, and Naeff, Nynaeve and Rand ride to a meeting with the Borderlanders. They discuss where Rand will fight the Last Battle. Nynaeve insists that Tarwin’s Gap is the perfect place for Rand to fight, but he disagrees. He intends to take advantage of Lan’s presence there as a distraction; the Dark will think Rand is there too, and move its forces there, at which point he will Travel in to strike at Shayol Ghul itself. Nynaeve has attempted several good, rational arguments, but none have worked.

She attempts to argue further, but Rand shuts her down with that soft, dangerous tone he has developed. She falls silent, musing on how she can change this outcome, worrying over how Lan will die at the Gap, his forces overrun, and how the Shadowspawn and the Seanchan will sweep across the lands, trampling innocents in their wake. She asks Rand if he knows where Perrin is, and Rand mentions that he is connected to Perrin, and to Mat, but won’t explain further.

They reach the rendezvous, but the Borderlanders are not there. There is only one man, who Nynaeve and Rand both recognize as Hurin. After Rand tests the man’s memory of their time together in order to prove he is who he seems to be, Rand asks Hurin what is going on.

Hurin explains that he was sent to discuss terms. The Borderlanders want to meet him in Far Madding, inside the protection of the Guardian. Rand cuts off anything else Hurin is going to say, and opens a Gateway back to a familiar stretch of road, and then to a place outside Far Madding. They can see an army camped around the lake, outside of the island city but within the reach of the ter’angreal that prevents men from reaching the Source while in its boundaries. Rand tells Nynaeve that the army will have seen him arrive, and that they want him in their box.

He pulls the access key to the Choedan Kal. Nynaeve is dismayed when she sees the globe on the key begin to glow. He mutters about how they need to be taught to obey him, how they captured and beat him in Far Madding once already. Nynaeve reminds him that the city isn’t full of Graendal’s mind-controlled slaves, that they are innocent people. Rand responds that he isn’t going to hurt the city, but that the army deserves to experience fireballs, or perhaps lightning.

She tells Rand that if he does this, there will be no turning back, but he counters that he was never able to turn back; his feet were set on this path the moment Tam found him as a baby. Still, Nynaeve persists, telling him that he doesn’t have to kill anyone today.

Rand stops channeling, ordering Hurin to carry a message to the Borderlanders that the Dragon Reborn is riding to Shayol Ghul. If they wish to return to their posts and serve with honor, he will provide them with a gateway. If not, they can stay here, hiding, and they can explain to their children and their grandchildren why they were far away from their duty when the Dark One was slain and the prophecy fulfilled.

They return to Tear. As Nynaeve is dismounting, Rand tells her that Perrin is camped in the shadow of an enormous statue that looks like a sword stabbed into the Earth. When she asks why he told her, he replies that he owes her a debt for continuing to care, even when he cannot.

Nynaeve goes to Cadsuane, finding her with her usual group of Aes Sedai. Min is also there. Nynaeve approaches Cadsuane respectfully, but holds the information about Perrin hostage in an attempt to make Cadsuane tell her the plan. She does tell Cadsuane about the meeting with the Borderlanders, and how she only just stopped Rand from raining down fire on the army. She worries that it’s getting too late to do anything to change him. Cadsuane declares her determination to teach Rand to laugh again.

Corele interrupts, pointing out that many of Min’s visions have to do with events that are clearly going to happen after the Last Battle, which proves that they are going to defeat the Dark One. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter whether they are able to intervene with Rand or not. The Pattern has already decided that he will be successful.

Min counters that this is wrong, because if Rand loses, there will no longer be a Pattern.

Nynaeve, realizing she can’t hold back the information about Perrin if she wants a chance to help Rand, tells Cadsuane about the statue of a sword stabbed into the ground. Cadsuane, who recognizes the description at once, knows where Perrin is. She declares that they will leave at once, and admits to Nynaeve that it is not Perrin who is important to her plan, but rather one particular person who is with him.

Trying to make sense of fate and predestination in this universe is enough to make anyone’s brain melt and pour out of their ears. I really love that Min has become a philosopher/scholar about these things, because it gives the narrative more chances to get into the themes of fate and prophecy, and also because Min’s power (and therefore Min as a character) becomes less passive as a result. Her viewings are an active ability she understands and can use, rather than only being able to offer them to others for them to understand and use. Her correction of Corele, for example, shows that in this she is an authority who can participate equally in a conversation between Aes Sedai. Cadsuane seems a little surprised at the insight, but she doesn’t stop or correct Min for joining in. Min has come a long way from playing Elmindreda the fool and spying for Siuan.

I do think I understand Min’s point about her visions. If the Pattern were ever to come to an end, she wouldn’t be able to see it, because it wouldn’t be the end of a straight line, cause and effect leading to a single finality. Rather, the Dark One’s victory would result in the destruction of a never-ending circle. You couldn’t see it on the circle.

The key here, I think, is how one thinks about time. In our own world, physicists know that time exists in relation to the three dimensions of space, which is why we have the term spacetime. I once watched a video in which an astrophysicist explained why it doesn’t make sense to ask the question of what existed before the Big Bang. Time, and therefore concepts like “before” “during” and “after,” only exists because the universe exists. There was no “before” the universe, because there is no time without it.

That can be a mind-bending concept for beings who exist inside of time, but it does once again raise the question in my mind of how the Dark One himself relates to time. From everything we’ve seen, it appears that he is restrained by time, in some way, since he cannot access the souls of his followers who have been removed from the Pattern via balefire. However, he does not appear to be affected by linear time, as we saw that those Forsaken who were trapped inside the Bore with him did not age, though those closest to the “outside” or “surface” or whatever you want to call it were not fully protected from the ravages of time. (See: Balthamel and Aginor.) One might almost deduce that the Dark One exists outside time, but is somehow imprisoned by it. Perhaps by the Pattern itself.

In any case, Min is great and I am proud of her, as well as worried about her relationship with Rand. The two of them need a serious long talk, maybe over wine, but I don’t think they’ll be able to get that while Rand is in his current condition. I am now confident in my prediction that Cadsuane’s plan is to bring Tam to Rand, since she told Nynaeve that there is one person in particular, who is with Perrin, who is vital to her plans.

We know that Rand is still in there, under the paranoia and trauma and the hardness he has built around himself. In a way, he is imprisoned by these things just as the Dark One is imprisoned. The only difference is that Rand’s prison is one of his own making, while the Dark One was (presumably) imprisoned by the Creator.

I suppose it’s rather fitting that Rand would end up in a metaphorical prison due to the corruption of the taint. As the soul designated to fight and repel the Dark One (I don’t think it’s possible for Rand to kill him, but more on that later), he acts basically as a parallel to the Dark One, perhaps even more so than the Creator might be said to be. The Dark One is a being outside of the Pattern, unconnected to the world and its consequences, with no aim other than to bring about nothingness. Rand, in contrast, is human, inside the Pattern, a part of the World. He brings about good and ill, change and evolution—all the consequences of time and existence. Perhaps most importantly, Rand is a being who has choice. He can bend the Pattern to his will, both intentionally and unintentionally; he can choose how he wants to live his life and fight his battles.

Egwene also muses on this when she considers whether or not the Amyrlin is immune to the dictates and storms of the Pattern. Initially she thought someone so powerful would be, but now she understands that everyone must weather what the Pattern throws at them, and that no one can change or anticipate what the Wheel might weave. At the same time, she is also aware that the Amyrlin’s position of power gives her more ability than most to affect change in turn, and to direct the path the world takes.

But Rand doesn’t see things this way. He sees himself as more trapped than the average person, and his fate as a never-ending cage of pain and being hated. We have seen this multiple times, most recently in his conversation with Lews Therin in chapter 44.

We also see him refer to Lan’s probable death as “finding peace,” showing just how little love Rand has for life. Of course he’s willing to kill anyone these days, if he sees death as bringing peace to a beleaguered and suffering humanity.

We can’t know anything, really, about how the Dark One thinks or acts; this is all supposition and musing on my part. Still, if the Dark One exists outside of time, that suggests a lack of ability to change or make choices. He is what he is and that’s it. As a prisoner with a single-minded existence, it makes sense if he wanted to delude and trap the soul designated to fight against him, both to cripple and demoralize him, but also to inflict his own state upon his enemy.

The tragedy of that is that Rand has decided he has no choice, no free will, not in this life or in any other. However, Rand exists inside time, even if it is cyclical rather than linear. He should have the ability to choose. He chose to listen to Nynaeve, after all, when he did not attack the Borderlander army. He is considering options about where he starts his assault during Tarmon Gai’don, implying choice there, as well. He also has the choice of whether or not to cut himself off from his emotions, whether or not becoming hard and unfeeling is really the direction he wants to take his life.

He has the ability to choose to feel, to love, and to laugh.

We know the old Rand is still in there somewhere. He was grateful to Nynaeve for caring about people’s lives when he felt he could not. He listened to her. If that meant nothing, he would not have stayed his hand or offered her information about Perrin to discharge a debt he felt he had incurred. He still feels pain and grief over what he has become, and he still attempts to control his anger and violence. Nynaeve worries that it may soon be too late to reach him, but it does not appear to be too late yet.

I do think the Borderlanders are being rather silly. I can absolutely understand their concern that they have been left out of the dealings that the Dragon Reborn has had with the rest of the world, but just marching around with their full armies and all their rulers does seem really ridiculous. They could have sent envoys, or designated one ruler to negotiate for all of them, or any number of other plans. Heck, they’ve spent months (or more; I really don’t know how much time has passed in the series) wandering around, traveling in winter—a difficult and impractical thing to do, as Hurin pointed out—hoping they can find Rand and mostly failing. They’re only getting a meeting now—or would have, if they hadn’t gone to Far Madding—because Rand finally decided to seek them out.

It kind of makes you wonder if there is something else going on, some pull on them by the Pattern or Rand’s ta’veren nature. Why that would be, or whether it will turn out for good or ill, remains to be seen, of course. The Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, and it weaves in mysterious ways.

Also, I love that Hurin has reentered the story! He’s a really fun character, and I’m very interested in his weird ability to smell violence. I assume what he smelled around Rand was the taint of the “True Power.”

He describes it as similar to violence and death, but darker and more terrible, which makes sense. Violence and death are bad, especially from a human standpoint, but they are still part of the world. The power of the Dark One is not actually death or violence but an absence of creation; death and violence are just the closest analogies for beings existing within creation. We see this same translation of the Dark One’s essence whenever he is connected with carrion eaters, insects, rodents, and decay. These things are not actually unnatural, but they represent the sorts of things humans associate with the Dark One. 

As Nynaeve observes, it must have been quite a shock for Hurin to experience this version of Rand, which is so very different from the one he knew. I would love to hear his report to the Borderland rulers, and maybe learn what he thought and how he interpreted Rand’s actions.

Meanwhile, Egwene is making some bold choices and actions of her own. The parallels between the two continue to the point where they are starting to get a bit obvious and tired, but it remains true that Egwene’s approach to making hard decisions is very different from Rand’s. In this chapter, she has to confront the members of the Black Ajah among her own followers, including women she respected and thought of as friends. Sheriam being one of these, one can appreciate how calm and even-tempered Egwene was during her conversation with her former Keeper, and when Moria tried to escape. I have no doubt she will be able to keep her composure when confronting the rest of the Black Sisters, both for her own sake and for the sake of her followers.

A big part of Egwene’s journey as Amyrlin has been figuring out how to bring the rest of the Aes Sedai to trust and believe in her, both in the sense of trusting Egwene’s judgment and the path she has chosen for them, and in the sense of believing that Egwene has the strength and ability to execute her plans. She doesn’t know it yet, but she has succeeded on both counts with the Aes Sedai of the White Tower. Things might have gone differently if Elaida had not been captured, but with the space opened up, the confidence Egwene inspired in the Ajah Heads allowed them to see the other merits of installing her, especially the fact that it will allow them to reunite the White Tower.

It’s actually startling to realize that the tragedy of the Seanchan raid is in some ways a good thing for the Aes Sedai. Not for those who were captured or killed, of course, but Elaida’s capture allows everyone to sidestep the messy business of trying to decide whether she should be deposed and then actually having to go through with it. Elaida being removed by a third party means that the Aes Sedai who stayed loyal to her can save face; they don’t have to denounce her or claim to have made a mistake. Both sides now can agree on how to move forward without having to litigate out whether anyone needs to be sanctioned or punished for what happened in the past.

Adelorna asserts that Elaida deserved to be captured, since she ignored Egwene’s warnings and insisted that the Seanchan were not a threat. While I don’t believe anyone deserves the horrors of being a damane (and I think Egwene would agree with me) it does feel very symbolic that Elaida was captured. Not just because she was almost willfully ignorant about the Seanchan threat, but because she wanted to elevate herself to a position of importance even greater than your average Amyrlin. She moved herself to the highest part of the Tower, setting herself apart from the other Aes Sedai, which put her directly in the path of the Seanchan raid.

Elaida’s fate is an interesting one. She isn’t just a bad person who came to a bad end. She is someone whose ambitions of greatness contributed directly to her own destruction. She’s a very Shakespearean character that way. I have to admit that I really enjoyed seeing her story play out, even though it’s awful that anyone at all was collared.

We now also have an answer for why both the rebel Hall and the White Tower Hall have a contingent of Sitters who are too young to have been normally elected. I find it rather hilarious that the Tower Hall chose women who were too young for the job in a bid to control them, only to have it backfire spectacularly, just as the rebel Hall had the raising of Egwene to Amyrlin backfire on them. It also makes perfect sense to me that Beonin wasn’t the only spy among the rebels, and that the Ajah Heads would be much more involved in trying to fix the division than Elaida herself was.

It will be interesting to see how Egwene and Gawyn navigate their relationship. I had a thought about Min’s visions concerning the two of them as well: Perhaps the vision that Min had of Gawyn either kneeling to Egwene or causing her death had something to do with his love for Egwene the woman vs. his inability to accept her as Amyrlin. I have no doubt that Egwene would never accept Gawyn as a lover, a Warder, or any kind of companion, unless he was willing to fully dedicate himself to her identity as Amyrlin. She will do whatever must be done, no matter how painful it is to herself; her personal life will never be even remotely as important to her as being Amyrlin and taking care of the Aes Sedai and the world. So I guess time will tell how that will work out.

Siuan and Bryne are very cute here. I believe that last week I accidentally included this week’s exchange and talked about it; I had already read chapter 43 and forgot what happened when.

I am quite confident that Lan isn’t going to die in a futile attempt to hold Tarwin’s Gap. I’m expecting it to be a sort of Helm’s Deep situation, and if Rand isn’t going to come riding (or Traveling) to his aid, someone else will. Maybe Egwene? It would be really thematically beautiful if the White Tower were to arrive just in time to prevent Lan and his Malkieri followers from being overrun by Shadowspawn; after all, they were unable to prevent the fall of Malkier because they could not travel fast enough to reach that land before it was too late. They have Traveling now, so that limitation no longer exists. Maybe Lan can get some kind of closure in more ways than one.

Rand using Lan’s fight at the Gap as a distraction from his own strike at Shayol Ghul also reminded me of Lord of the Rings. In The Return of the King, Aragorn, Gandalf, et al. ride to the gates of Mordor to challenge Sauron to battle. They are hopelessly outnumbered, and know that they are all likely going to die, but they are willing to sacrifice themselves in order to draw Sauron’s gaze and hopefully give Frodo and Sam a chance to finish their mission while Sauron is distracted by the King of Gondor showing up with an army. Lan is an Aragorn parallel in many ways, but Frodo didn’t decide to sacrifice his friends without even letting them know about it, which is what Rand is doing. I really like the compare/contrast of these two moments, given how much the early books of The Wheel of Time were inspired by Lord of the Rings.

We’ll be continuing on to more Egwene stuff next week, and I’m very excited to report that both chapter 45 and 46 are hers. The Wheel of Time has always moved from POV to POV, but I much prefer a few chapters in one head before moving on to someone else, and then to someone else, rather than the hopping back and forth that the narrative has been doing lately. And boy, are there some big things coming for Egwene and her Aes Sedai. I enjoyed the dramatic irony of Egwene being angry over losing her place in the White Tower right when she was about to win, and angsting about having to lead her army against Elaida’s after all, when I as the reader knew that she is going to be offered the Amyrlin Seat, and reunification, by the Tower Hall. We’ll see how that goes next week. In the meantime, all my best to you, dear readers. See you again soon!