Welcome back to Reading The Wheel of Time, my friends! This week we’re covering Chapters 44 and 45, “The Dark Along the Ways” and “What Follows in Shadow”. It’s been a bit since The Eye of the World heavily reminded me of its The Lord of the Rings homaging (other than all the innkeepers, but that appears to be a continual adventure all on its own). But we definitely get a bit of that “mines of Moria” feeling this week. I compared Shadar Logoth to Moria before, and I think that there is certainly a comparison to be made between Mashadar and the Black Wind, although the Black Wind seems to be at least a somewhat sentient entity, rather than the mindless force of Mashadar, which makes it even more dangerous. Mashadar can’t chase you deliberately, but Machin Shin will, apparently, delight in it.
Chapter 44 opens with Master Gill taking the party out of the inn through the kitchens (the cook and her team are perturbed until Master Gill says something soothing, then they continue on like nothing happened). He leads them out into the dark stableyard, so dark that Rand observes that he has to trust Master Gill’s knowledge of his place, since he literally can’t see where they are going, and Loial complains about not using a lamp.
In the stable, all their horses are waiting, including new ones for Rand and Mat and a giant horse for Loial. Mat and Rand have a whispered conversation about the changes to Perrin; at first Rand is worried that it is the dagger making Mat suspicious, but it’s just an ordinary observation of Perrin’s subdued manner and the change in his eyes. Rand assures Mat that Moiraine knows about whatever it is, and she says that Perrin is fine. Master Gill’s stablemen open a hidden door in the back of the stable which leads them out into a little run between the buildings, and they set off, with Loial leading, following some sense or instinct toward the Waygate.
They travel as quietly as they can, nervous of being noticed by the Whitecloaks watching the inn, and then, as dawn begins to approach, by any morning traveler. One man does get startled by the over-large shape of Loial at the head of the group as they made their way through the streets and alleyways, and Rand begins to think that they must get out of sight soon or be discovered. Just then, Loial stops in front of an inn, still closed for the night, and declares that the Waygate is underneath it.
They find a cellar entrance and are fortunate enough that the doors that open outward are wide enough to allow the horses in. Moiraine taps the lock with her staff and it opens, and everyone is able to disappear into the empty cellar and shut the doors behind them. Inside the mostly empty cellar, they find a wall that is different from the other three, intricately carved stone showing the pattern of leaves and vines, with a center even more beautifully carved than the rest. Moiraine finds a single leaf amongst the design, an avendesora leaf, and although it seems as much a part of the wall as any other bit of carving, she takes it out and puts it back in a slightly lower position, and the stone wall splits and swings open into a doorway, showing a dully reflective surface in between. Loial makes a comment, half frightened, half sad, about how he has heard that the entrances used to shine like a mirror, and that the ways were once bright with the sun and the sky. But Moiraine reminds them again that time is short, and Lan leads his horse in first.
Rand follows after Loial, afraid but forcing himself to walk through, a strange cold sensation sliding over his skin and then suddenly gone, and on the other side he finds total darkness, only the light of the lamps they brought struggling to keep it at bay. Looking back at the others he finds they seem to be moving very slowly, and Loial explains that time moves differently, faster, inside the Ways. They watch as one by one the rest come through, Moraine following last and moving the leaf again so that the doors swing closed behind her.
Rand observes that the darkness seems more oppressive each time they add another light, as though it were pushing back against the intrusion. They all are drawn to huddle together, comforted by each other’s presence in the unfamiliar darkness. They follow a white line running away from the Waygate into the darkness until they come to a slab of stone, which Loial calls the Guiding, and although the stone is pocked and broken in places, he can still read the swirling Ogier script that tells him where to go next. Loial leads them on, over bridges that stretch off into the darkness, and although Rand cannot figure out what holds them up, he’s made nervous by the pitted and broken areas of stone, which look to him like acid rain or like the stone is rotting. The network of bridges and ramps leading in different directions and connected by spaces that Loial calls Islands also seems slightly familiar to Rand, although he decides that it is because his mind is desperate to find something familiar in the intense unfamiliarity of the place.
They eat lunch in the saddle, which improves Rand’s mood enough that he starts to think that maybe the Ways aren’t really that bad. Just then, the bridge they are crossing ends abruptly, broken off in a jagged gap
Rand edges his horse up to the edge to look down; if there is a bottom, he can’t see it, but he can see the other half of the bridge on the other side of the broken gap, and he gets an answer to his question about what holds it up. Nothing. Abruptly, the stone under his horse’s feet feels “as thin as paper.” He backs away carefully, as Nynaeve starts to complain that Moiraine has wasted their time taking them all here, only to have to return to Caemlyn. Loial, meanwhile, is faintly panicking, worried that the Ways might be collapsing around them. Moiraine reassures them both, telling Nynaeve that there is more than one path to get where they need to go and assuring Loial that, while the damage may be unsettling, it is clearly old and that the Ways aren’t collapsing quite so rapidly as that. Loial is reassured, but also suggests that he could lead them more quickly and easily to Tar Valon or to his own Stedding Shangtai, but Moiraine insists again on Fal Dara.
Loial leads them back to the most recent Guiding and finds a new path, although he’s still wistful about taking the bridges to his home. Wanting to comfort him, Rand suggests that when everything is over, he and Loial can show each other their homes, Rand visiting the stedding and Loial coming to see the Two Rivers. But Loial’s answer is a somber one.
“You believe it will ever be over, Rand?”
[Rand] frowned at the Ogier.
“You said it would take two days to reach Fal Dara.”
“Not the Ways, Rand. All the rest.” Loial looked over his shoulder at the Aes Sedai, talking softly with Lan as they rode side-by-side. “What makes you believe it will ever be over?”
They make a camp on one of the Islands, cooking with a small stove that Lan says Warders use in the Blight, and Loial talks about the green grass and fruit trees that used to grow there. Nynaeve asks if Moiraine will set any wards around the camp, but Moiraine explains that the taint is so strong in the Ways that she doesn’t want to use the One Power unless she has to—anything she did would certainly be corrupted. Noticing how gloomy this makes everyone, she offers a piece of good news to cheer them up. Moiraine doesn’t believe that Thom Merrilin is dead, despite the story of what happened to him with the Fade, because the people of Whitebridge would certainly have told her if a gleeman had died in their town. She says that Thom’s fate is bound up with theirs, that he is too important now to be lost so easily.
Rand asks if she knows this because of what Min saw, which Moiraine demures from by explaining how little she, or even Min, understands of Min’s visions, though Moiraine insists that, whether it be a new talent or one brought back from older times, what Min sees is true. Mat comments that Min spent more time seeing Rand than anything, and Egwene asks suspiciously about what that means. Rand tries to get out from under the question, but it is Perrin who deflects, pointing out that Min was “just somebody who worked at the inn in Baerlon.… Not like Aram.” This leads to a short conversation where Perrin prods Egwene about dancing and she abruptly decides to go to sleep. Mat brings up Else Grinwell, the farmer’s daughter, and Rand also is suddenly ready for bed. The rest of the party follows suit, but they find it difficult to drift off with the darkness all around them, thinking about the men who made the Ways and the taint that suffuses it. It is only when Moiraine comes around to whisper in each of their ears that they start to relax.
To Rand she whispers; “Even here, your destiny protects you. Not even the Dark One can change the Pattern completely. You are safe from him, so long as I am close. Your dreams are safe. For a time, yet, they are safe.” And although Rand wonders if it could be that simple, if Moiraine thinks it is that simple, he does relax and fall asleep.
In the “morning” they start off again, eating breakfast in the saddle, but it isn’t long until Lan announces that someone is follow them. He can’t tell if it is a servant of the Dark One or not—others protest that what else but evil could be in the Ways, and Lan points out that they are there, after all. Lan believes that whoever it is possibly isn’t trying to catch them. Because of that, Lan wants to circle around and try to catch their lurker instead, but Loial assures Lan that, even if the Warder can read Ogier script, he could never find his way back to them or through the Ways by himself—no one but an Ogier can. Moiraine urges them on again, deciding not to trouble whoever is behind them as long as the lurker does not trouble the travelers.
They press on, but a new danger rears its head immediately when they encounter the next Island and Guiding. Moiraine and Lan see heavy, chiseled lines purposely cut in the guiding and become instantly alert, ready to attack or be attacked. They circle around the group in ever-widening spirals, looking for something. Moiraine tells the others that the lines are Trolloc runes; they, and perhaps the Fades, have learned how to use the Ways. There is at least one Waygate in the Blight, she explains, and they must have moved through the ways to reach the Two Rivers, as well as to gather their forces near Caemlyn without drawing any attention from the armies of the lands in between. But, she continues, they must not know all the Ways, or they would have gone right into Caemlyn through the gate the party used to sneak out.
Just then Lan calls out that the Trollocs do not use the Ways easily, and they ride over to see that he has discovered a bridge where many Trollocs have brutally died, consumed by stone that seems to have bubbled up and made them a part of it, swallowing them down or leaving them half-consumed and swollen into pitted stone themselves, horrified screams frozen in their faces. Mat throws up, and Egwene and Rand draw close together holding each other. Nynaeve is horrified that the same could happen to the party, but Moraine thinks that it is more likely that the male Aes Sedai laid traps for Trollocs to protect the Ways. In any case, they must hurry on.
Even though Moiraine doesn’t think any of the traps are set for them, she checks each bridge Loial indiates before the party steps onto them. Rand watches for Trollocs to emerge from the darkness, but the journey returns to its earlier monotony, through lunch and beyond, and Rand’s mind begins to drift a little. It is then that he feels the wind. For a moment all he can think about is how nice it is to feel wind again, when suddenly he remembers that there is no wind or rain in the Ways, and asks Loial about it.
Loial pulled his horse up just short of the next Island and cocked his head to listen. Slowly his face paled, and he licked his lips. “Machin Shin,” he whispered hoarsely. “The Black Wind. The Light illumine and protect us. It’s the Black Wind.”
“How many more bridges?” Moiraine asked sharply. “Loial, how many more bridges?”
“Two. I think, two.”
“Quickly, then,” she said, trotting Aldieb onto the Island. “Find it quickly!”
Loial reads the next Guiding quickly and they race ahead, galloping, no longer checking for traps. Two bridges later and they have found the white line that stretches from Guiding to Waygate and they follow it swiftly, but when they reach the vine-carved gate the key, the Avendesora leaf, isn’t there. Loial howls in despair, Mat curses, and Egwene clings to Rand’s arm, but Moiraine raises her staff and uses the flame that flies off of it—not white and pure as it had been before but sickly yellow and giving off a foul smoke—to begin to cut through the stone. The others huddle close, desperate, beginning to feel the wind stirring their cloaks.
Moiraine cuts a crack through the stone, an arch that once broken through will be big enough for them all to pass through, and then Lan and Mandarb knock it down with a shoulder-check move usually used by horses in battle, flying through the hazy doorway and into the morning light on the other side. Rand immediately pushes Bela’s head towards the opening and slaps the horse to get her to move, Moiraine shouting for everyone to follow.
She turns and shoots flame out into the darkness, and Rand can hear voices crying out in pain, in rage, promising horrible things to them as they scramble towards the exit. They plunge through the cold barrier, and Rand wonders, as he hangs suspended for a moment between the Ways and the regular world, if the wind could catch them like that. Then he is through, and though Lan is ready to ride back in for Moiraine, she backs out just behind them, her staff still pointed into the darkness. Darkness and the wind press up against the dull barrier of the Waygate, and they can hear the voices in it, hungry for pain, eager to inflict pain and hear them scream, to tear off their skin and plait it into strips, dark and hungry but unable to reach them, finally dissipating, leaving the mirrored opening as it was before.
They all relax, with even Lan slumping visibly in the saddle, as Moiraine breathes in relief that she had hoped the wind could not pass the gate and throws her staff down in disgust, more than half of it now tainted with black char. Nynaeve asks what it was, not its name (which Loial reminds her of) but what it actually was.
“Something left from the Time of Madness, perhaps,” Moiraine replied. “Or even from the War of the Shadow, the War of Power. Something hiding in the Ways so long it can no longer get out. No one, not even among the Ogier, knows how far the Ways run, or how deep. It could even be something of the Ways themselves. As Loial said, the Ways are living things, and all living things have parasites. Perhaps even a creature of the corruption itself, something born of the decay. Something that hates life and light.”
“Stop!” Egwene cried. “I don’t want to hear any more. I could hear it, saying. . . .” She cut off, shivering.
“There is worse to be faced yet,” Moiraine said softly. Rand did not think she meant it to be heard.
Moiraine observes that the open gate is very dangerous, and that when they reach Fal Dara they must have men sent to wall it up and guard it. And then they turn away, towards the towers rising to the North.
The pacing of this section is really beautiful. After the huge amount of information imparted to the party and the reader in the last chapters, it’s nice to take a breath and take in the surroundings again, even if the surroundings are incredibly creepy.
Actually, it’s nice possibly because it’s incredibly creepy. I’ve mentioned before that I find Jordan’s sweeping descriptions of large areas hard to follow, like during Perrin and Egwene’s travels across the hilly lands with Elyas. The description of the layout of the inner city at Caemlyn also didn’t really do it for me, but the way he sets up the look and feel of the Ways was incredibly evocative, and I found my mental image of the action quite vivid. For example, Rand’s observations that there appears to be space behind the Ways as you look back at the gate after stepping through, and Loial’s resulting explanation that you could go behind them and not be able to see them, but that he wouldn’t advise that because he’s pretty sure you could get lost and never find your way out. Or the manner in which the narration describes the darkness as pressing close, that it might as well have been a stone tunnel they traveled through, which gives such a specific feeling of a darkness; very different from the darkness of your bedroom in the wee hours, or a lonely country road on a cloudy night. The darkness feels more like a solid thing, more dark than dark, like a black cloak wrapped around you, closing in as you travel. It’s a great contrast to the blackness of the early morning when the party leaves; where the dark protected them from the eyes of their enemies, instead of threatening them with unseen horrors.
The description of stepping through the Waygate reminded me of the stargate in the movie Stargate and the early seasons of Stargate SG-1, a sort of bubble that you break the surface of, that is cold, and that you travel though in what feels like a single stretched out moment. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine that perhaps the Waygates are a kind of portal or wormhole-like transit system leading to another world, or even dimension, that is geographically far away from the one that humanity currently inhabits. It’s even possible they did not create the ways from scratch but found an empty place to lay them out within. No one living knows, not the Aes Sedai nor the Ogier, so anything is really possible, and it’s great fodder for the reader’s imagination.
I did notice a few odd descriptions in this section. The stone is described as being irregularly pitted, as though by acid rain. Why would Rand know what acid rain is? Of course, in a world haunted by Ba’alzamon and the taint, acid rain doesn’t seem like something it couldn’t have, but the reader’s first association with acid rain is of course going to be pollution as it was known from the Industrial Revolution up to the modern day, which Jordan’s world doesn’t match. Also describing the journey is the sentence “The horses might have been walking a treadmill for the change around them.” This struck me at first as possibly anachronistic for the world, but I looked it up and the treadmill, or treadwheel, was actually invented way back in Roman times, and were commonly used in the 1800s to harness human or animal walking power to run machines, usually mills, and sometimes as punishment for prisoners sentenced to hard labor. So I learned something today, thank you Mr. Jordan. And Google.
Rand’s use of the candle and void trick that Tam taught him also caught my attention this week. It’s come up a few times before now, and I definitely expect it to be increasingly important. Perhaps he will use that skill to keep Ba’alzamon out of his mind. Perhaps he will be able to keep himself safe from the taint of saidin somehow. Or perhaps it will be some other danger that I haven’t thought or learned of yet. Who knows? (I mean, you all do, obviously. Now hush.) But it definitely reminds me of the way warrior characters often have some kind of meditation ritual, like the Litany Against Fear in Dune.
My favorite line of all in this section, and possibly in everything I’ve read so far, though, happens when they encounter the mutilated Trollocs on the bridge that leads to Tar Valon. Egwene hangs onto Rand for a while, and when she eventually lets go, Rand wishes she hadn’t “…and not just because it had felt good having her hold onto him that way. It was easier to be brave, he discovered, when someone needed your protection.”
One of my favorite aspects of epic fantasy quest stories is how they engage with the idea of what it means to be a hero, and what it means to be brave. From the fact that only Frodo is naturally selfless and unambitious enough to resist the corruption of the One Ring long enough to get to Mordor, to Taran in The Chronicles of Prydain, whose journey teaches him what a true hero is, that there is more honor in a plowed field than one soaked in blood, and that “every man is a hero if he strives more for others than himself alone” to the myriad of tales that explain how courage is not the absence of fear but perseverance in the face of it, epic fantasy quests often teach their young heroes, and therefore their readers, to dispel the traditional notions of heroism and bravery for a more complex, and ultimately rewarding, narrative.
As someone who is drawn to the protector figures in every story he reads, I was especially moved by this little lesson Rand has learned, and from a thematic point of view it’s probably the most important lesson for the Dragon to understand, since his entire existence is basically about serving the world as he stands against the Dark One on its behalf. (I’ve made the comparison to the bodhisattvas of Buddhism before, and I think it continues to serve well here.) I think this is a lesson Nynaeve also understands to some degree, and perhaps that is one of the reasons she continues to be so harsh with Moiraine, and why she gets a bit whiny when things go wrong; Moiraine and Lan are the leaders, who must be brave for everyone else, and so Nynaeve doesn’t have that need for outward courage spurring her on in the same way. It may also be, in her leadership role as Wisdom, that she’s not accustomed to having other people put on that brave face for her, which is why she is constantly misinterpreting Moiraine’s calm as foolishness or indifference.
So their mysterious follower in the darkness is probably that persistent crazy beggar, who is probably Padan Fain, who is currently playing the role of the Gollum of this book. I don’t know if the power of Mat’s dagger could be felt over the taint and evil of the Ways, but I suppose he could probably stay close enough to follow the lights without being seen, given how closely the darkness presses. But then, how does he see where he’s walking? Now that we know that the Trollocs and Fades got to the Two Rivers by the Waygate that used to be in Manetheren, the only question remains is how they knew to go there, and since Padan Fain is still the only link that I can see, I’m going to stick with that guess. If it was he who led the Dark One’s forces to Rand and Mat and Perrin, then perhaps he already has some knowledge of his own that is helping him navigate the Ways and follow the company?
Despite all that we learned in Chapter 42, there are still a lot of questions to be answered and I hope that Lan catches that beggar soon. I have a feeling even the Black Wind won’t stop him from chasing Rand, although it would not shock me if even the servants of the Dark One might not be immune to whatever that power is. Moiraine’s suggestion that it could come from the taint is an obvious one, and in that case the Machin Shin probably would leave the Dark One’s servants be, but if it comes from somewhere else it might have more of a mind of its own, a new evil changed by or perhaps grown in the ways, unforeseen and unknowable, in which case probably servants of Light and servants of Darkness are equally fair game to it, like they were for Mashadar. Perhaps Machin Shin is even outside the traditional sense of good an evil, in a way; if it is born out of the Ways somehow it may have no concept of the sort of life humans represent, and have no real concept of how they experience what it is doing to them. Perhaps from it’s perspective what is happening is only play, and it is only the human (or Trolloc) perspective that makes it so horrible. Either way, I’m sure Trollocs can scream just as well as humans or Ogier can.
Brr, I freaked myself out a little just by typing that last sentence! And did enjoy the scare I got from this chapters, particularly the really good one liners, like the bit I quoted at the end of the recap, in which Moraine says there is worse than the Black Wind yet to come. And even more than the relics of bygone Ages that are scattered around this world, I think the Ways are a really fascinating example of how much knowledge has been lost to the Aes Sedai since the Breaking; Moiraine knows something about the Ways, she knows how to open them and can probably make some educated guesses about the manner in which certain things work, like the traps laid for the Trollocs, but she has little idea how the Ways were created or what side-effects could come from them. I did notice that Nynaeve, at least, can also feel the taint of One Power around them, the way Moiraine can, if not as keenly.
I hope you all had as much fun as I did this week! Next week we move on to Chapters 46 and 47, which is another big dump of information as the story coils itself like a spring for the climactic showdown and the reveal of the titular character, The Eye of the freaking World. Brace yourselves for reveals about my Padan Fain theories, more information about Lan and his Aragorn-like badass-ery, and Loial continuing to bemoan the situation he’s gotten himself into, even as he delights in all the new sights and adventures.
And speaking of badass-ery, that war-horse shoulder check was a thing of beauty. Moiraine was great too, fighting off the Black Wind with her lightning staff like Gandalf against the Balrog. I laughed out loud when she left the tainted staff behind; you all told me it was going to go away soon but I thought maybe that just meant that Jordan decided against keeping it as a device. Silly me, not giving our storyweaver enough credit!
Sylas K Barrett would not like to go into the Ways but he would like an Ogier guide. It’s quite clear that the Ogier tell the best stories, as long as you’ve got four or five hours to spend listening to them. I’m kind of in love with Loial, too, he’s so big and knowledgeable and impressive to Rand, but you know the other Ogier and their Elders think of him like Curious George.
I’ve been waiting for this section. I love The Ways and Shadar Logath. Even just a description makes my hair want to stand on end, what with stuff like Machin Shin or Mashadar lurking just around the corner.
I did notice a few odd descriptions in this section. The stone is described as being irregularly pitted, as though by acid rain. Why would Rand know what acid rain is? Of course, in a world haunted by Ba’alzamon and the taint, acid rain doesn’t seem like something it couldn’t have, but the reader’s first association with acid rain is of course going to be pollution as it was known from the Industrial Revolution up to the modern day, which Jordan’s world doesn’t match. Also describing the journey is the sentence
What about a vulcano? Dragonmount is a vulcano after all. Gleemen and books could give descriptions.
Even though it was almost 30 years ago, I still remember how creepy this was the first time I read it. And that despite the Moria with Gollum following familiarity. I think it was the voices in the Black Wind that maximized the creepiness. I also loved the imagery of Moiraine’s fire from her staff buring dirty like an oxy-acetylene torch with the oxygen turned down too low. I agree tool it’s very cool that Mandarb is as bad ass as his owner.
I know it’s not the focus of this article but… Loial is supposed to be nearly ten feet tall, right? The “large horse” he’s riding must be enormous. I don’t remember whether Master Gil just had a spare XL horse around for him or if that was the horse he rode to the inn.
Re the “acid rain,” I envisioned this as Rand speculating it had literally rained acid. Not that this world had air pollution issues.
In case no one mentioned it, acid rain is also caused by natural causes, such as volcanoes, an abundance of vegetable decay (the Blight anyone?), I assume mass casualties and the resulting emissions of decaying unburied bodies could also cause it. Lord knows this world has seen famine and death on that scale, not to mention whatever happens in the Blight, which may be a topic to better left for two weeks from now.
And of course, while such causes are isolated to small areas, prevailing winds would carry the rain and storms to much of the continent, not just the area affected.
I’d never noticed before that the place felt “familiar” to Rand. The only thing this could relate to that I can think of at this point in the story is Rand’s interactions with Ba’alzamon in Tele’ron’rhiod. He hasn’t been to a Portal Stone world yet.
It was at this point I started getting annoyed. ‘The Eye of The World’ felt like a diversion from the real issue ie: what’s going on with Rand. I was impatient to get to Tar Valon for answers.
@7 Absolutely //Rand (and the other boys) are taken to the Ways in their dreams by Ba’alzamon, though in the “dreams” the ways aren’t (as) corrupted. They aren’t green like Loial describes, but aren’t dark yet.//
I always noted the similarities between Aragorn and Lan myself. But in my opinion, Lan is head and shoulders the greatest Warrior Hero of all the books that I’ve read. All of the tropes just seem to bounce off of him. The Stoic, Iron hearted, Chiseled face, Master swordsman, Tortured soul….all of it. He has all of it and then he speaks these truths not at all like what was done before. He doesn’t lead by example. He just does his duty and expects you to do the same and if you don’t know how? He dutifully takes the time to show you the way. Duty before all. Honor after duty. And nothing stands more Paramount except Love. I’ll get spoilery if I go further.
After Matrim, Lan is easily my favorite character in this series.Why? Because he’s not THE Hero, he’s just one of many. But his Awesome Sauce Power Level is Stupidly High. The term BADASS can’t possibly do him Justice. Perhaps if he had a Badmuthfuckah wallet!
7. Anthony Pero
Yeah, I remember noting that as well. Warfare also causes Acid rain especially when large amounts of debris and smoke is lifted into the air. The Breaking of the World and the War of Power could easily have caused Acid Rain. And as far as the War of Power is concerned, Raining Acid as a weapon could have truly occurred. Also, as you noted, Volcanoes can cause Rain to be so acidic with sulpher that it can literally start burning organic matter immediately after contact.
The reason Rand felt the Ways were familiar is the dream he had of Ba’alzamon chasing him on ramps and platforms in open darkness. While climbing onto a higher ramp, it seemed like he was right above where he had been on the lower one with nothing to support any of it. Also,Moiraine knows from their dreams and the prophesy of the Dragon that they HAVE to to Eye before going to Tar Valon to help Mat and get some answers.
@10 Could not agree more. Mat is my favorite,but Lan every thing you said and then some.
@10 @13 Is it odd that I consider saying Mat is your favorite character a spoiler? lol Book 1 Mat just isn’t Mat to me.
@12:
Yes. My spoilerish point I was hinting @7 was that since we know that Ba’alzamon was pulling the boys into T’A’R (or at least his own personal version of it, just like he does at the Darkfriend Social and later with other minions) the Ways likely exist in T’A’R, or at least in their own bubble dimension made from T’A’R. That’s the sense of familiarity Rand feels. I don’t think Ishmael pulled them into the Ways. He created something that was similar to the Ways, perhaps, in his little dream bubble. Its fascinating to think about. And if that’s the case, these metaphysical things weren’t made up on the fly, they existed in the very beginnings of the story.
@14:
Well, from a certain point of view, Book 1 Mat isn’t Mat. If we are the combination of our DNA and our experiences, then Mat post-Rhuidean isn’t really Matrim Cauthon of Emond’s Field at all. Not by a long shot.
@16 Good point about post-Rhuidean but I was thinking more about Mat not being himself until the dagger cleanse. The fight two on one in the White Tower is when Mat first comes alive to me.
@17 A large reason that Mat doesn’t come alive until then is we don’t get a viewpoint from him until right before then. We’re just getting to actually know him.
I think you misinterpreted that passage. As I read it, Mat worries that the dagger is making him overly suspicios, so he asks Rand, and Rand confirms that Perrin really is behaving oddly, so Mat isn’t just imagining things.
@10 you perfectly encapsulated my feeling on Lan. Badass doesn’t even begin to describe him, take any Warrior Hero from any story, turn them up to 11, and they’re still no where close to Lan Mandragoran.
It’s a shop, not an inn.
Loial didn’t bring the horse. He would prefer to walk.
While there might be some similarities to Moria, the Ways don’t serve the same narrative purpose — splitting up the team, as you noticed back then — as both Moria and Shadar Logoth do. Significantly more importantly (perhaps), I don’t think Moria had any Escher-ian or otherwise Impossible Geometry, whereas I always felt that the Ways most definitely do have that.
Although, of course, the way the entrance to the Ways is enscribed with intricate carvings of lavish flora and Moiraine’s stand against Machin Shin bookend the Ways in almost identical manner as the entrance to the Mines and Gandalf’s stand against the Balrog bookended the Moria section in The Fellowship of the Ring, so it’s not like there are no similarities at all [which would be why I opened with that, of course].
As already noted, treadmill and acid rain aren’t really anachronisms, but even if they were, I don’t think they technically would be. After all, this world is the future and past of our own world/age, so can you even have an anachronism? I don’t remember the book, but if you watch closely, you’ll even see a Mercedes Benz symbol pop up as an ancient artifact.
Note: message edited by moderator to white out spoilers.
All I have to say about this section is that it’s great writing. And that you should definitely listen to the audio book version just to hear this chapter.
Has anyone else ever thought it odd that saidar is corrupted in the Ways? I didn’t think about it when I first read the series, but upon reread it really ups the scary/unnatural factor of the Ways. They definitely don’t lose their power to terrify upon reread; if anything, it is enhanced.
Reading your synopsis makes me remember how much I enjoyed devouring the Wheel of Time theories about what-in-the-world was going on at any point in the books in Theoryland.com. A person could dive down that rabbit hole and not come up for days…
The pits in the rock may just be the effects of how the trollocks died. Padin Fain’s days of appearing Golumish are soon over. Lan is a huge bad-ass, but others will grow to be just as bad-ass. Keep your eyes open for the clues, for there are twists and turns a plenty as you delve deeper into the Wheel of Time.
The first time I read this series, I got so caught up in it I went back to the book store three times in one day so I could keep reading (called in sick to work). I burned through over 1500 pages that day. There are some similarities to Tolkien’s work, but I think you will find that they are not as similar as you think.
Relating to @Uvadoc06 (#23)
As I am usually found trolling YouTube Reaction channels being just about as strict and anal about not posting Spoilers as it is possible to be, I really HATE being the “But is it really a Spoiler….?” guy I seem to be turning into for this read-through. Yet……
It’s Chapter 4 of The Eye of the World where Tom Merrilin (with some help from Egwene) mentions “the Giants Mosc and Merc, with their Spears of Fire and their war with Elsbet, Queen of All”, “The 1000 stories of Anla, the Wise Councillor”, “Lenn, who flew to the Moon in the belly of an Eagle made of fire; and his daughter Salya, who walked among the stars” and finally “Materese the Healer, Mother of the Wondrous Ind”. I don’t think there are clearer references than those in the entire series, apart from possibly //the Mercedes-Benz symbol, which I agree should be whited-out (as I’m doing right now)//
And then there is the opening to Chapter-freaking-one, where (at least the first part) of what Uvadoc wrote is written as clear as day….
In the end, though, it’s still up to the Moderators’ discretion whether or not to un-white it again. But nevertheless, I found it important to at least make my case.
@10, Lan is Aragorn with more angst and less hope.
@28:
And, again, it seems for the purposes of this read-through, the litmus test is not “has it been revealed yet” but “did Sylas figure it out yet.” The vast majority of people don’t figure that out on their first read-through. Kudos if you’re one of the few who did, but a lot of the fun in this particular blog is seeing when the OP figures things out.
@29:
That pretty much sums up the difference between 1954 and 1990.
@anthony Pero (#30)
I could go on about how the litmus test for Spoilers should be neither “Has it been revealed yet?” nor “Has [the reader / watcher] figured it our yet?” but rather “Would leaving the information in black text increase [the reader / watcher]’s enjoyment of the series; or — literally — spoil it?”.
But, instead, I’d like to focus on another thing I asked previously. What would be the point of commenting something for the purposes of having Sylas read it if he had already figured it out? I can’t think of any answer to that question other than “none”, and unless someone can come up with one, it would automatically follow that if whether or not Sylas has figured things out yet is to be the litmus test of Spoilers vs. non-Spoilers, we might as well just turn off the entire Comment Section on this read-through blog as no in-depth discussion in non-white would be possible any more.
Which would be why I am fully, unquestionably and unconditionally against such a definition of what constitutes a Spoiler.
Now that I think of it, Sylas also doesn’t have the benefit of having multiple read-throughs; especially not for this blog. That means that if something is, as you yourself pointed out, very unlikely to be picked up on by a first-time reader, we would be doing Sylas a disservice by avoiding mentioning it in ways he can read about it. And, honestly, I care more about Sylas’ enjoyment than I do for my own or any of you guys and gals’ — it’s his blog after all — and so the enjoyment we followers-of-the-blog would get out of him figuring things out on his own is not exactly the most forefront in my mind when considering these matters. Although that does get back to the first paragraph, and I kinda promised I wouldn’t do that in this post…… oh well.
@jadis:
Oh I get, but we have managed to comment on here just fine up to this point, and as we go deeper into the series, it opens up more to discuss, and when we want to discuss something that Sylas maybe shouldn’t see, we can, by taking an extra 5 seconds and whiting some stuff out.
Its not like having a Mod come through and white out stuff is penalizing the person who got whited out. They aren’t being censored. No one’s keeping score or thinking, “Boy, so and so is a naughty person and got whited out by the Mods!” Its not a black mark against the person. No one is mad, that I’ve seen, yet. Although I’m sure that will happen eventually. This is the internet after all. You can’t participate in anything without someone getting ragey eventually.
None of the things I was referencing are ever actually covered in the books, and things like the true meaning of Thom’s stories had already been discussed in the comments, so i thought I was ok. IMHO I think they fall under the category of Easter eggs and not spoilers, but that’s fine. I can see that others would disagree. Personally, I never picked up on any of these Easter eggs until I stumbled upon the Tor reread after finishing the series, so I needed to be “spoiled”.
@28 (and others), forgive my poor memory, but what/who is referenced by “The 1000 stories of Anla, the Wise Councillor”? The rest are either easy to figure out, or been discussed to my memory, but I have been wracking my brain over this one.
@35:
http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Anla_the_Wise_Counselor
There’s also a section on all of this in the WoTFaq, which is here:
http://www.steelypips.org/wotfaq/
Treadmills may not be technologically out of place in this story’s world, but I wondered why a farmboy from an isolated town would have encountered them.
I liked the descriptions of “surfaces pitted as if the rock had the pox,” darkness that might as well have been the walls of an enclosing cave, the broken bridge portions jutting “like a giant’s broken teeth” and an atmosphere like “the heavy feel in the air before a storm.”
Trees and grass that flourished in darkness? Nifty magic.
“Don’t surrender until you’re beaten, Ogier.” Thanks, Lan. I needed that. Really.
Eyeroll at the kids twitting each other about the people they supposedly flirted with. That’s the kind of attitude I encountered from elementary through high school, and I was amazed at college when people in relationships were congratulated for it instead of teased, proud instead of embarrassed. Mph.
*scowl* Fain will never be Gollum to me. Gollum is semiaquatic and wonderful and I adore him beyond all reason. Fain is terrestrial and not at all wonderful and I don’t love him one bit.
///Granted, I would have liked more Fain POVs from his extensive time hanging out with various Shadowspawn. But I would have preferred POVs from the Shadowspawn themselves. That flaming miser Jordan barely gave us any of either.///
///@Kelsey: Hahahaha, well, no, Shadowspawn in general (or at least Trollocs) are not immune to Machin Shin. But Fain is.///
@37:
What Rand has not encountered in real life, he may have in books. Much like all of us.
@anthony Pero(#37)
I wasn’t talking about something being a mark against a commenter. I was talking about something else entirely.
If “What Sylas has figured out already” is to be the litmus test for Spoilers, then as far as I can see there are only 3 types of comments (or sections of comments) that are possible:
1. Good job on the writing Sylas!
2. I agree with your conclusions on [this and that], Sylas!
3. White text.
This means that there are two alternative questions, the ‘alternative’ meaning that you need to provide an answer to exactly 1 of them if you want to adequately address this matter. The first is this one: if those are indeed the only 3 options for comments on this blog under the criteria for Spoilers you propose, how are we to have meaningful discussions with Sylas? Because it’s ridiculous to only have in-depth discussions that leave Sylas out of them: as I alluded to before, if that were to be the goal, we might as well close down this entire comment section and start a subreddit [for example; I’m sure that many other options are available for commenting comments discussing this blog without those comments being actually located on this blog] dedicated to this blog where we can discuss to our hearts’ content. The result would be the same, after all.
Alternative question: or am I wrong, and are there other options for things-to-be-discussed-in-comments available under the Spoiler-criteria you propose? If so, which ones are they? Because, I mean, there is always the possibility that I am wrong on just about anything — but I know from experience that simply telling me that I’m wrong won’t suffice to convince me of that. Rather, what is required is telling me how I’m wrong and what it is that is in fact correct. Oh, and also why and how the correct thing is correct. So, I always consider the possibility that I might have overlooked something; but if I have in this case, then I’m going to need you to tell me what the options are that I have overlooked. And for you to be specific about them. That, too.
@39:
I’m sorry that I don’t have specifics for you. Many people are managing to comment just fine without pointing things out that the OP missed. And there isn’t much you CAN discuss directly with Sylas, if that is your aim. I don’t know that that is the primary goal for many of the commenters on here. If its your primary reason to be here, you may be very unsatisfied with your experience. And as far as having the discussion here rather than somewhere else, I don’t see why we WOULD have it somewhere else. Is whiting out potential spoilers really such a difficult thing? I find it amusing. I’ve made a game of it, to white out as few words as possible. Making lemonade out of lemons, as it were.
This isn’t Tor’s first rodeo either, with this type of series. Leigh Butler’s A Read of Ice and Fire was the exact same thing, and people managed to do just fine commenting on that for five years. But again, Leigh rarely commented herself, and I’m not even sure she read the comments every week. Certainly not all of them. That wasn’t the point. Getting her perspective, and discussing it with the community, was the point.
And my point isn’t to tell you you are wrong, or that how this is being managed is the best way to do it, or anything like that. You are entirely entitled to your opinions. And you may be completely correct! I just think its time to move on from questioning what is being constituted as a “spoiler” in the context of this series. Its obvious. And it still leaves plenty to talk about, since there are still plenty of comments. And it isn’t going to change.
Either way, I hope you are enjoying Sylas’ posts as much as I am. And since I don’t want to dampen any joy you might have in reading this series, I’m not going to comment about this stuff anymore. If you choose to keep commenting on what should and shouldn’t constitute a white out, that’s up to you. If they start taking away from my joy in reading the series, I’ll just skip them.
I have to admit, I read The Eye of the World much more slowly than the other novels in the series the first time through. The prologue sucked me in, but after that various parts of the novel did not keep me enthralled in the same manner. Shadar Logoth pulled me back in for a while. The Ways really mark where Jordan hooked me for years. The creepiness factor was interesting and was not something I had seen a lot of in fantasy novels at that point in my life. I could really feel the oppression and the tension that the characters were feeling. Though it did mirror Moria in a lot of ways, the creepiness really made this section standout.
Also, Sylas mentioned the Acid Rain thing, which others have pointed out is not really anachronistic. I would be curious to see if anyone has ever found something in the books written solely by Jordan that is a legit anachronism. None really come to mind. Jordan’s dedication to keeping to form on this is impressive in my opinion.
On the Wheel of Time there can be no anachronisms. Everything is in the past and in the future.
What about the anachronism where Mat wished for a Humvee and some Xanax?
@anthony Pero
Well, the thing is that I am not so sure if your interpretation of what the Moderators, and Sylas, constitute as a Spoiler is the one that’s actually being used. In fact, I’d love it if either Sylas or the Moderators could give some definitive and clear-cut answer to this, and for the motivations behind the choice.
The reasons for this are as follows:
As far as I am aware, you are the only person on this blog who feels that Spoilers should be defined in such a way or are defined in such a way for the purposes of this blog. Maybe I’m wrong, but can you name at least 1 person who agrees with you? And by that I mean: someone who has explicitly stated that they agree with you.
Furthermore, the many interesting back-and-forths that have happened with Sylas himself over the past few weeks, and the fact that Sylas has stated numerous times — perhaps even nearly every week — that one of the primary draws for him of doing this blog is to be able to discuss the series with us [he even ends many of his posts with a paragraph that involves some variation of “See you in the comments!”], leads me to believe that this is actually not the Spoiler policy that is being implemented here. And I am desperately trying to keep it that way, because otherwise interaction with the writer of the blog would become impossible, and that would kind of defeat the purpose of having a blog where such interaction is made available.
Also, I get the feeling that Sylas himself would not want to cut off in-depth, meaningful discussion between himself and his readers — though, again, since this is my interpretation, I would LOVE to hear from Sylas himself how he feels on these matters.
As for why we might as well move to another site…. I would ask the opposite question: why wouldn’t we move from this site and platform where the author of the blog can easily see the comments we make to another site / platform where he can’t if we set ourselves a policy that forbids meaningful interaction with said author? What would the this Comment Section add compared to other means of creating discussion among ourselves?
It’s not about how difficult it is to white out text. I never mentioned that in any of my posts on this matter. It’s that a policy like the one you propose would destroy the entire purpose of this Comment Section, and in turn arguably the community that has evolved and continues to evolve in said Comment Section; and, ultimately, might (just might) actually destroy the purpose of the blog itself. THAT is my worry. It’s pretty much the most fundamental worry it is possible to have on a project like this.
The reason nobody else answers is probably that we are tired of your endless arguments that your interpretation of spoilers is the only right one when the way it is done works for the rest of us.
@birgit(#46)
Me or Anthony? I’m thinking me.
If so, then you may have misunderstood me. I am not claiming that any interpretation of Spoilers — whether mine or otherwise — is “the only right one”. Instead, I am claiming that a particular interpretation of Spoilers — an interpretation that, so far, I’ve only heard Anthony defend — is categorically a wrong one. There’s a difference there, mainly in the neutral position on all the interpretations that lie in between my preferred one and Anthony’s preferred one.
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And the reason that I keep banging on about this is that I genuinely fear for the future viability of this project if a definition as the one Anthony proposes — and of which I am still not quite sure if you agree with him on or not; as you have not said one way or the other explicitly — were to be adopted.
I also have the distinct impression that, so far, such a definition was not adopted, so I’m merely trying to prevent 1 (or 2, possibly, depending on where you fall) people in these comments from convincing the Mods of something that could prove to be absolutely disastrous in every imaginable way. Of course, maybe I’m wrong and such an interpretation is being implemented here. Notice that in my previous post I specifically asked for clarity on this from either a Moderator or Sylas himself. That’s because they are the only ones who can settle this debate once and for all.
It might come as a surprise to you, but I actually care about people other than myself. I care about every single person providing insightful comments, whether on the book(s) or on the meta-level of the nature of the blog itself, in the Comment Section(s) of this blog [and, yes, that does very much include you and Anthony, in case there was any doubt about that :D]. More importantly perhaps, I also care about Sylas. I want him to have the best experience possible in taking on this project. In part because I generally want everybody to have the best experiences possible, and in part because this project is going to take long enough as it is…. if the experience is hampered in any way, this will be a looooong road for everybody involved. A road which, then, we may never travel to the end of. And, if we do, it could reasonably quickly become quite the dreadful task — and I mean “dreadful” literally here: something to dread coming back to every week — for everybody involved. And, because you and Anthony both implied something in that direction before: no, I don’t mean just for myself. I do quite literally mean everybody, or at least almost everybody, involved.
I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want this experience to become something the readers of this blog come to detest. I most certainly don’t want it to become something the author of the blog comes to detest. It would devastate me, emotionally, if it did. So I cannot abide when I see this Community going down such a destructive path. And, thus, I won’t.
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But, again, the only way this debate can be settled is by direct input from a Mod or from Sylas himself. What do you say me, you and Anthony start a concerted effort on tomorrow’s post to get some clarity on this subject once and for all?
Re: Spoilers–for anyone who missed it, Sylas left a comment on the most recent post addressing the issue of spoilers and information/connections that he might have missed in a given chapter, which I will post as the final word here, as well. I will also add that the moderators will continue to err on the side of caution when it comes to whiting out material that seems to be spoiler-y or spoiler-adjacent — as people have pointed out, this is not a punishment of any sort, and we’re not interested in debating the details of potential grey areas. Whiting out is simply the best way to play it safe when dealing with information that may be considered spoilery by some and not by others, without bringing the discussion to a grinding halt or getting completely off-topic.
From Sylas:
Hi friends!
So we’ve been getting questions about pointing out things that I may have missed in the chapters. I say go for it! We’re doing our best to avoid spoilers, but as long as it doesn’t give away future events that Jordan later explains clearly to the reader, I’d love to have your input. It’s one of my favorite parts of doing the read, actually, when someone points something out in the comments and then we can chat about it.
Just a reminder while we’re here (although y’all have already been doing a great job with this). Feel free to have spoilery discussions in the comments section as well, just make sure to hide anything that would give too much away to me or any other first time readers that may be following along. Make whatever portion of the text that might contain spoiler white, and put the little // secret secret, look how wrong Sylas was in that guess, haha // around it so other commenters know where to highlight over to read your thoughts.
Thanks!
Thank God that didn’t carry on into the next post. Smh. The whole thing was asinine at best.
Some of my favorite atmospheric writing. :)
I can’t wait to see your reaction to the end of the book (and later books). :)
Hey guys, where can I get my hands on on Ravens and all other stuff out there (besides New Spring)? I didn’t even find much on Amazon
Anthony Pero – You handled it like a pro. Kudos