I have returned! This week, Reading The Wheel of Time is going to tackle chapter 24 of Knife of Dreams, in which Egwene wages war against Elaida from inside the White Tower. Although not much technically happens, it’s an incredible chapter that, I think, shows us Egwene’s quality and strength of character even better than the chapters in which she learned to be Amyrlin. I am so ready for this, so let us dive into the recap.
Egwene endures her first punishment from Silviana by trying to embrace the pain the way the Aiel do. After letting herself cry and scream, she finds that she recovers quickly once the punishment is done. As Egwene leaves, she doesn’t curtsey to Silviana, earning herself a second penance. She considers leaving it alone, then decides to tell Silviana that the Amyrlin Seat curtsies to no one, and receives a third.
Outside Egwene passes Alviarin going into Silviana’s study, and Egwene hears her shouting. She wonders why Alviarin is undergoing penance.
She returns to her rooms, trailed by her two Red Ajah guards, and makes sure she looks as calm and cool as she feels inside before going to breakfast. All the novices fall silent when she enters, and one sticks out a foot to trip her as she passes. Egwene catches herself and turns, calmly asking the novice’s name.
“Alvistere,” the young woman replied, her accent confirming her face. “Why do you want to know? So you can carry tales to Silviana? It will do you no good. Everyone will say they saw nothing.”
“A pity, that, Alvistere. You want to become Aes Sedai and give up the ability to lie, yet you want others to lie for you. Do you see any inconsistency in that?”
Alvistere asks who Egwene is, to lecture her, and Egwene responds that although she is a prisoner, she is also the Amyrlin Seat. All the novices in the room are shocked that she is sticking to the claim.
After breakfast she is given a dose of the weak forkroot tea and sent to a novice class, where the Accepted instructor, Idrelle, attempts to humiliate her by ordering her to make a ball of fire. Since Egwene can only channel a small amount, the ball of fire is very small, but she begins to divide the flows, channeling different colored balls of fire and making them dance around each other. Idrelle orders her to release the source, but Egwene ignores her, even after Idrelle makes a switch of Air and hits her with it. She only stops once the Reds in charge of guarding her order her, twice, to release saidar. When she doesn’t run as instructed, Katerine strikes her with blows of air until the other Red, Jezrail, stops her.
Egwene is sent back to Silviana so often that by the end of the day Silviana decides that Egwene must receive Healing, though she warns Egwene that she’ll hit her harder to make up for that momentary relief.
This pattern continues in the Accepted classes, so it is decided that Egwene will have one-on-one classes with Aes Sedai instead.
Egwene visits Leane, who is also being given forkroot, though she is shielded as well, according to custom. Egwene tells Leane her plan to undermine Elaida from inside the Tower. Under Egwene’s direction, Leane starts challenging the other Aes Sedai who visit her. Egwene herself tells a Brown named Bennae about the secret histories in the Thirteenth Depository, though only Amyrlins and Sitters are supposed to know about that. She also talks about times Amyrlins have been controlled or deposed by the Hall, bluntly planting a seed for the idea of overthrowing Elaida.
She makes other forays, some seeming more promising than others, and continues to work on embracing the pain as she is sent to Silviana multiple times every day. After being told that she is now to receive Healing twice a day and that Silviana is going to start using the strap, Egwene finds herself smiling.
She had realized how to welcome the pain. She was fighting a war, not a single battle, and every time she was beaten, every time she was sent to Silviana, it was a sign that she had fought another battle and refused to yield. The pain was a badge of honor. She howled and kicked as hard as ever during that slippering, but while she was drying her cheeks afterward, she hummed quietly to herself. It was easy to welcome a badge of honor.
Things begin to change with the novices as well. Nicola and Areina are spreading tall tales about Egwene, and a few novices try to emulate Egwene’s behavior, though trips to Silviana quickly set them straight again. This increases their sense of awe around Egwene, and she begins giving individual lessons and advice. She also offers comfort when novices see the dead or realize that the interior of the Tower has changed.
The rest of Egwene’s time is spent on chores, but she never stops looking for opportunities to slip in a comment about Elaida’s handling of the White Tower and of Rand.
One day while working in the gardens, Egwene is approached by Alviarin, who alludes to being willing to help Egwene escape. She continues to approach Egwene every few days after, making the same offer, and getting frustrated when Egwene replies, continually, that she is content with her situation.
She also has an encounter with Mattin Stepaneos, who is being “escorted” by a Red sister named Cariandre. After being approached by the King, Egwene disabuses him of the notion that he was in danger from Rand. She tells him the truth about Colavaere’s death and the attack on the Sun Palace, and explains that Morgase was murdered by Rahvin, not the Dragon Reborn. She also points out the way the Reds have been handling him, and the conflict between the Ajahs.
When Egwene sees Beonin in the Tower, she assumes that this betrayal means that Beonin is Black Ajah, and accuses her. Beonin takes Egwene aside and explains that she swore to obey Egwene as Amyrlin, and held to it for as long as Egwene was Amyrlin. Egwene isn’t having it, and deduces guilt in Beonin’s desire to explain herself. She learns that Beonin has given Elaida the names of the rebel sisters in the Tower, and orders her to warn them.
After some back and forth, Egwene cows Beonin into agreeing to do as Egwene orders. After telling Leane everything, Leane deduces that Beonin must have been a spy for Elaida all along. Egwene is relieved to learn that sisters are still asking Leane to teach them Traveling, which means that Beonin hasn’t told anyone how to make that weave.
On the ninth day of her captivity, Egwene manages to have a conversation with Silviana. After one of her visits, she asks about Shemerin, an Aes Sedai who was reduced back to Accepted by Elaida and later fled the Tower. Silviana admits that while there is no provision for taking away the shawl, there is no actually prohibition, either.
“The problem was that Shemerin accepted it. Other sisters told her to ignore the edict, but once she realized pleading wouldn’t change the Amyrlin’s mind, she moved into the Accepted’s quarters.”
Silviana explains that some of Shemerin’s friends tried to talk sense into her, while others tried to force her to see sense by sending her to Silviana. Silviana herself thought Shemerin should be behaving as an Aes Sedai and treated the visits as a private penance. Silviana trails off as she begins to compare Shemerin’s fortitude with Egwene and sends Egwene to breakfast, but Egwene is elated to have made this progress.
All the Novices stand when Egwene enters the dining hall, and one of them runs into the kitchen to bring Egwene’s tray out for her. There is a cushion on her seat as well, although Egwene moves it before she sits down. The Novices themselves only sit when she has begun to eat, and she finds honey in her tea—something Novices only get on special occasions.
She has to fight a smile. The sisters she has begun to sway are more important than the Novices, but this is yet another sign that she is winning her war.
I’d like to thank Robert Jordan for specifying that the conversation with Silviana about Shemerin and the incident of the standing Novices occurred on the ninth day of Egwene’s captivity, because I would otherwise have thought that these events took place over a few weeks at least, if not a few months.
In general, I find it a bit baffling that the whole series takes place over so short a timeframe. It’s a bit like in superhero and action films, where the main character has a training montage where they go from zero to hero in, like, a week or two? Not all movies do this, but so many of them do, and it never makes any sense to me. If you’re having a montage, you can say it took as long as you want, months or years even, without having to make real time pass for the audience. And in the process you could actually make the transformation of the protagonist somewhat realistic.
The same issue applies to The Wheel of Time, in my opinion. There is no compelling reason I can think of that the development of our heroes’ abilities and the massive change that has come upon the world needs to take such a short timeframe. I don’t think it increases the urgency or the power of the story to say only two or three years pass rather than seven or eight or ten, and it does make the reader wonder at how quickly the Two Rivers kids and their allies are transformed.
But while I might make an argument for a slightly longer timeline feeling more realistic, Jordan does provide reasons for the quick advancement of our heroes’ skills and powers. Egwene’s forcing, for example, both through her time wearing the a’dam and at Siuan’s direction. The fact that Perrin, Mat, and Rand are ta’veren and that Egwene, Elayne, Nynaeve, and Aviendha often seem to be having a similar effect on the people around them as the boys do, especially Egwene. And of course, the mere fact that they are all some of the most powerful channelers born in several generations can explain a lot; the most powerful channelers seem to be designed to learn quickly, like the way they are usually able to recreate a weave after only seeing it completed once. Sometimes they’re even able to weave instinctively, even if they have never seen a particular weave before, such as the first time Aviendha made a gateway. Talents in general seem to help speed the learning process quite a bit; again, Aviendha’s ability to know what a ter’angreal does simply by holding it for a while is a prime example of a Talent overcoming a huge logistical hurdle in a very simple and quick fashion.
So, as much as part of me is tempted to dismiss the speed with which Egwene is making inroads with Elaida’s followers as a poor pacing choice, I’m also aware of how much precedent there is in this story for events to move so rapidly. And as Egwene herself points out, the decay and disarray of the White Tower makes her job a lot easier. She isn’t coming up against Sisters who believe in Elaida and convincing them that they are wrong, she is coming up against Aes Sedai who are already deeply disappointed with Elaida and feel disconnected from the White Tower because of the separation and mistrust between the Ajahs. Sure, they are going to hang onto tradition and appearances, perhaps harder than ever, but as Egwene pushes them to admit the truth of the problems in the Tower, she is also poised to offer them an alternative.
However radical it might seem to long-standing sisters, Egwene has a strong vision for the White Tower and the will to make that vision a reality. She also has a sense of how she wants to handle the Last Battle, and is connected to Rand al’Thor. Elaida can offer none of these things, not a sense of unity, nor a vision for the future that takes in more than her own grandeur, nor a way to work with the Dragon Reborn—a need all but the most prejudiced sisters must eventually recognize as necessary.
Throughout this chapter, I couldn’t stop thinking about how similar Egwene and Rand’s journeys are. Nynaeve, Elayne, and Aviendha have all grown rapidly in skill and power as channelers, but only Egwene’s incredible transformation can really rival Rand’s, in my eyes. And though there is plenty of trauma in everyone’s journeys, Egwene and Rand are specifically both haunted by their time as prisoners—Rand because of the torture he underwent at Galina’s hands and Egwene by her time imprisoned as a damane.
Actually, now I think about it, Egwene’s time wearing the a’dam has probably served her in more ways than rapidly advancing her ability to channel. Being a prisoner of Elaida is certainly no picnic, with the near-constant corporeal punishment and the derision that many sisters (and Novices, and Accepted) are sending Egwene’s way. But when compared to being a slave, to being designated as less than human while having not only your body but your very thoughts magically controlled, it really isn’t that bad. Egwene is being treated like a particularly stubborn runaway, but she isn’t being told that she’s an animal or having every scrap of her autonomy of thought taken away from her. She can still reach friends through Tel’aran’rhiod, and visit Leane, and even chat with Aes Sedai occasionally. It’s enough to plant her seeds of doubt and change, at least, which one could never say about any damane’s treatment.
There is a reason so much of Egwene’s focus is on learning to embrace pain the way Aiel do. She never worries about breaking under the derision of the Accepted or the disapproval of the Aes Sedai. She knows her sense of self is more than strong enough to withstand other people’s judgments of her. Her sense of who she is wasn’t destroyed by the Seanchan, so it certainly won’t be by some random Red sisters. She is less confident in her physical prowess, though. She experienced beatings when she met her toh for lying to the Wise Ones and was sometimes given pain through the a’dam, but she has little experiencing resisting the kind of punishment—torture, rather—that the White Tower is trying to use to break her of believing herself to be the true Amyrlin.
Her eventual conclusion about how to welcome the pain made so much sense to me, and was so powerful a moment that I’m actually considering employing it in my own life. Not to cope with torture, of course, but as a tool to reframe struggle and conflict. Egwene is taking her suffering and holding it up like a symbol, like a talisman, because it is proof of her own strength. Every time she receives punishment, it is because she refused to yield, and every refusal to yield is a victory. Once she knows that the beatings won’t force her to give in, she has nothing left to fear from them.
Rand has had his own journey in embracing pain, both physically and emotionally. Physically he seems to repress his awareness of the pain as much as possible, making me wonder what would happen if he were able to bring in a little Aiel philosophy. Would embracing the pain ease his suffering? Could he feel a little better about those unhealing wounds if he considered them a mark of his triumphs, proof of his own strength and resilience? Proof that people cared for him when he was sick and worked to save him?
And maybe he could apply that same thinking to the emotional wounds, too. Instead of self-flagellating over the death of every woman, perhaps he could take comfort in the fact that he still cares about the people around him. That he has allies, and that the fight for the Light isn’t his alone.
That would require a few other perspective shifts, of course, but Cadsuane is coming for that.
Anyway, to get back to Egwene, it’s interesting to see how her journey parallels Rand’s, especially now that she is getting closer to becoming the Amyrlin of a reunited White Tower. As the Amyrlin Seat in her full power, she will be the counterpart to Rand, the leader of Black Tower. I find myself wondering how they will eventually make their own alliance, given Rand’s continued suspicion of Aes Sedai and the fact that Egwene does believe many of the Aes Sedai precepts calling them the true leaders of the world.
That reminds me of Elaida’s Foretelling, which occurred way back in the Prologue of A Crown of Swords. I had to look it up again, so here it is for anyone else who doesn’t remember it exactly.
“The White Tower will be whole again, except for remnants cast out and scorned, whole and stronger than ever. Rand al’Thor will face the Amyrlin Seat and know her anger. The Black Tower will be rent in blood and fire, and sisters will walk its grounds. This I Foretell.”
Elaida took this to be confirmation of her own coming victory, both in uniting the White Tower and in tearing down the Black Tower, but even then it was clear to the reader that she was misinterpreting her own vision. The Foretelling mentions the Amyrlin Seat but says nothing about who will be the Amyrlin Seat when the Dragon Faces her. It certainly doesn’t say who will reunite the White Tower and make it strong again, nor does it specify who will rend the Black Tower in blood and fire.
Sisters are already walking the grounds of the Black Tower, if the Foretelling is referring to those who were Bonded by Asha’man. But even if it’s not, some Aes Sedai will be bonding Asha’man as Warders and traveling there to meet them, which would also fulfill that part of the Foretelling. Or maybe it just predicts a truce between the two, and lots of visiting.
I think it’s pretty obvious that the White Tower is going to be stronger than ever because of the changes Egwene is bringing, the relationship to the Kin, and the opening of the novice book to those of all ages. We’ve already seen how many more women with high potential there are among the older novices in the rebel camp, after all, and ties to the Kin, the Wise Ones, and maybe even recruits from the Seanchan will practically remake the White Tower, I think. Those “cast out remnants” might refer to a few sisters who can’t accept the new order, or possibly to some Black sisters who might escape once Egwene is filled in on the Black Ajah’s doings by Seaine and the rest.
But the part of the Foretelling that I find the most intriguing, and which I as yet have no answer for, is that the Dragon will face the Amyrlin and “know her anger.” This seems to portend a fight between Rand and Egwene, and it made me think of Lews Therin and Latra Posae, and the conflict between the male and female Aes Sedai that resulted in only men attempting to seal the Bore and the taint being placed on saidin in the process.
We can’t know for certain what would have happened if there had also been women channelers with them, if the Hundred Companions would have been more successful, or if saidar would have been tainted alongside saidin. But thematically speaking, the division between the Aes Sedai in the Age of Legends made things worse for the side of the Light. The division between male and female channelers of the current Age is a constant wound on the world, and division in general (between allies, between families, within the heart of the White Tower itself) seems to be one of the Dark’s greatest weapons. Given all that, and given that we know there is some kind of confrontation between Rand and Egwene, the Dragon Reborn and the Amyrlin Seat, coming, I can’t help but feel that this is going to be a pivotal moment for the series, and for the future of mankind.
Rand isn’t exactly one for compromises, but I don’t think they’ll be able to face the Last Battle either entirely on his terms or entirely on the Tower’s. Only through understanding each other and being able to truly work together as allies will the Black and White Towers be able to find victory against the Dark. After all, as we are constantly reminded, when saidin and saidar are wielded together, they can perform feats that neither can accomplish alone.
Speaking of Black sisters in the Tower, I’m very relieved that Egwene isn’t buying what Alviarin is selling, both because it isn’t what she wants but also because her instincts are warning her against trusting the former Keeper. Alviarin does seem a little desperate, which might just have to do with everything she’s been through, and the weight of expectation after Shaidar Haran marked her. But I’m wondering if maybe she was ordered to help Egwene escape. In order for the Shadow to kidnap her, maybe? We know Halima’gar was supposed to keep her close, and even if the Forsaken don’t know what she’s up to or expect her to succeed, they clearly know she’s important.
I’m also intrigued by Silviana. She’s been described once or twice as harsh but fair, and if she is coming around to Egwene, I can imagine a lot of other sisters following suit. It’s a bit like Verin’s cobbled-together version of compulsion—you can convince people to see something your way, but they’re still going to do it for their own reasons. Silviana might respect Egwene’s strength. Beonin just wants to stick it to Elaida, as possibly many of the other sisters do. Doesine perhaps.
And then there’s sisters like Jezrail, who are hardly on Egwene’s side but might end up even less on the side of the others. If Katerine’s overzealous attack on Egwene prompted the other Red to interfere, when else might she do so? Who else might finally object to how often Egwene is beaten, or to how much extra work she is given, or to the fact that she is already more powerful than most Aes Sedai and yet is being kept as a novice?
I think, ultimately, that what we saw from the Novices at the end of the chapter is what we are going to see from the rest of the White Tower, sooner or later. Nicola was hardly a fan of Egwene’s when they were both in Salidar, and now she is calling her “Mother” and encouraging all the other Novices to look up to her. The way she uses logic against Alvistere is, after all, very similar to the way she imparts the secret information from the Histories to Bennae, or deduces Beonin’s guilt, or eventually finds a subject that persuades Silviana into conversation. Egwene thinks like an Aes Sedai; she knows how to use their customs, their logic, and their drives to her own advantage. There are already Aes Sedai who have developed a grudging respect for Egwene. How long, especially with Leane and possibly Beonin’s help, will it be before that respect turns to support? And after that support is gained, it will no doubt spread.
Next week Egwene will attend Elaida, and then we’ll be heading back to see what Tuon and Mat are up to, something I am especially excited for since we are going to finally get a section from Tuon’s point of view! See you then.
“She only stops once the Reds in charge of guarding her order her, twice, to release saidin.”
Mods, that should be saidar.
Corrected, thank you.
Great analysis as always! No notes.