Good morning and welcome to week 22 of the Read of The Dragon Reborn. This week, Thom is a stubborn ass for no reason, Mat seeks a remedy and finds the thing he was searching for all along, and Perrin starts to make some choices about his abilities and what they can be used for.
Chapter 52 opens with Mat making the decision to take Thom to a Wise Woman, as the gleeman’s cough has gotten so bad that he can barely get out of bed. Mat feels a little guilty for not noticing how bad Thom was getting during their search, and covers the feeling by giving Thom, who is resisting the suggestion that he needs any kind of medicine or help, a hard time.
“So I am supposed to do all the work while you take your ease?” Mat said lightly. “How can I find anything without you? You learn most of what we hear.” That was not exactly true; men talked as freely over dice as they did while buying a gleeman a cup of wine. More freely than they did with a gleeman hacking so hard they feared contagion. But he was beginning to think that Thom’s cough was not going to go away by itself. If the old goat dies on me, who will I play stones with? he told himself roughly. “Anyway, your bloody coughing keeps me awake even in the next room.”
He has to help Thom to stand, and the gleeman needs his cloak despite the heat as they stagger through the common room of the inn and out into the street. Much to Mat’s dismay, they have to cross out through the gate and back into the muddy section of the streets, but when he sees the house he’s been directed too, he realizes that he remembers passing it on their way into the city. He also notices the tracks of horses and wheels in the mud—a wagon or carriage, he thinks—and is momentarily puzzled, since he hasn’t seen any horses pulling wagons, and no carriages outside the city.
He pushes it from his mind and goes to the front door, despite being told to use the back, and knocks. He has to knock a few times and has almost decided that there must be no one home when the door suddenly opens, just a crack, and a gray-haired woman tiredly asks what they want.
Mat, inwardly annoyed at encountering another hopeless-sounding person in Tear, puts on his best grin and explains the situation, and Mother Guenna invites them in with a heavy “I suppose I can still do that, at least.” Mat and Thom follow her through the front room and towards the back of the house, Thom wheezing complaints all the way.
In the kitchen, Mother Guenna mixes some herbs and has to physically hold Thom down and pour it into his mouth to get him to take it. Mat, meanwhile, notices some well groomed horses tethered outside, and is perplexed at the idea that someone of Mother Guenna’s station would own one, never mind several, expensive-looking animals like that. He shakes the thought away, though, reminding himself that he doesn’t care about horses.
Mother Guenna gives Thom instructions on when and how to take the tea as well as some salve for his cough, threatening to tie him down in a bed upstairs if he doesn’t agree to follow her instructions. Thom seems cowed by her threats, but Mat feels the need to smooth things. He’s noticed that both Mother Guenna’s attitude and her accent remind him of the Amyrlin, and uses that to start a conversation.
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“I knew a woman once who talked like you,” he said. “All fish and nets and things. Sounded like you, too. The same accent, I mean. I suppose she’s Tairen.”
“Perhaps.” The gray-haired woman suddenly sounded tired again, and she kept staring at the floor. “I knew some girls with the sound of your speech on their tongues, too. Two of them had it, anyway.” She sighed heavily.
Mat felt his scalp prickle. My luck can’t be this good. But he would not bet a copper on two other women with Two Rivers accents just happening to be in Tear. “Three girls? Young women? Named Egwene, and Nynaeve, and Elayne? That one has hair like the sun, and blue eyes.”
Mother Guenna doesn’t recognizes the names, but she admits that she suspected that the girls hadn’t given their real names, and Mat recognizes her descriptions of them. But he’s confused when Mother Guenna tells him that she’s sorry that they are the girls he knows. At first, she won’t even tell him where they are. She mentions the High Lords, that he doesn’t understand, frustrating Mat but making Thom frown consideringly through his coughs. Eventually, after Mat offers her money for the information, she explains herself.
Mother Guenna glared at him. “I do not take money for…!” She grimaced fiercely. “You ask me to tell you things I have been told not to speak of. Do you know what will happen to me if I do and you breathe my name? I will lose my tongue, to begin. Then I will lose other parts before the High Lords have what is left of me hung up to scream its last hours as a reminder to others to obey. And it will do those young women no good, not my telling or my dying!”
Mat swears that he will never breathe a word of her name, and something in the oath or maybe his desperation reaches Mother Guenna. She explains that he cannot do anything in any case, that he came too late. They have been taken to the Stone, sent for by Lord Samon and collected by Aes Sedai. She admits her puzzlement at that, since use of the One Power is forbidden in Tear, and although Mother Guenna has nothing against Aes Sedai herself, she cannot believe that even the High Lords would break this particular law, or allow it to be broken.
Mat is initially relieved, hearing that the girls were collected by Aes Sedai, but Mother Guenna insists that the women were not their friends, that the three fought “like lionfish in net” and that “friends do not give bruises like that.”
He felt his face twisting. Aes Sedai hurt them? What in the Light? The bloody Stone. It makes the Palace in Caemlyn look like walking into a barnyard! Burn me! I stood right out there in the rain and stared at this house! Burn me for a bloody Light-blinded fool!
“If you break your hand,” Mother Guenna said, “I will splint and poultice it, but if you damage my wall, I will strip your hide like a redfish!”
He blinked, then looked at his fist, at scraped knuckles. He did not even remember punching the wall.
Mother Guenna takes his hand and looks it over carefully, her gaze tender as she apologizes again, but Mat tells her not to be, and gives her his last two Andoran gold crowns as well as a kiss on the cheek. After all, all he needs to do now is get them out.
She touches her cheek, startled, and seems perplexed by the money and by Mat, who just cavalierly declared he was going to get them out of the Stone. Then she seems to come back to herself and tells him off for reminding her of her husband, “a headstrong fool who would sail into the teeth of a gale and laugh, too. I could almost think you’ll manage it.”
Hearing Thom coughing, Mat asks if Mother Guenna will keep an eye on him until Mat gets back. Thom protests, of course, insisting that Mat doesn’t know what he’s doing and won’t be able to get anywhere without Thom, but Mother Guenna is able to keep him in his chair with a single hand on his shoulder, so he doesn’t really have a choice.
Mat grinned at the white-haired man. “I have enjoyed knowing you, Thom.”
As he hurried out into the street, he found himself wondering why he had said that. He isn’t going to bloody die. That woman will keep him alive if she has to drag him kicking and screaming out of his grave by his mustaches. Yes, but who is going to keep me alive?
Ahead of him, the Stone of Tear loomed over the city, impregnable, a fortress besieged a hundred times, a stone on which a hundred armies had broken their teeth. And he had to get inside, somehow. And bring out three women. Somehow.
With a laugh that made even the sullen folk in the street look at him, he headed back for The White Crescent, uncaring of mud or the damp heat. He could feel the dice tumbling inside his head.”
Meanwhile Perrin has been putting in more hours at the smithy, and has even been able to make some ornamental work to go over the gate of some country lord. As he’s walking back to the Star, Faile observes that the blacksmith had been astonished by Perrin’s statement that he would not make anything if it was for one of the High Lords—he explains to her that he didn’t want any of his work ending up in the hands of one of the Forsaken. He can’t quite make up his mind about the girl he still calls Zarine, who he’s come to think of as pretty enough that she might be the beautiful woman Min warned him of. He also feels awkward around her, and wishes she would find something else to occupy her time with besides watching him. Seeing her shiver at the mention of the Forsaken, though, he apologizes.
“I did not mean to frighten you, Fai—Zarine.”
She smiled broadly, no doubt thinking he could not see her. “You will fall yet, farmboy. Have you ever thought of wearing a beard?”
Frustrated, Perrin thinks that it’s bad enough that he she’s always mocking him without him also being unable to even understand what she’s talking about. But his thoughts are interrupted as Moiraine and Lan meet them at the door to the inn. Moiraine announces that Rand is in Tear, which confuses Perrin because he doesn’t believe they have seen any signs of that, no wells drying up or unexpected weddings.
“Don’t you listen to rumors, blacksmith?” the Warder said. “There have been marriages, as many in the last four days as in half a year before. And as many murders as in a whole year. A child fell from a tower balcony today. A hundred paces onto stone paving. She got up and ran to her mother without a bruise. The First of Mayene, a ‘guest’ in the Stone since before the winter, announced today that she will submit to the will of the High Lords, after saying yesterday she would see Mayene and all its ships burn before one Tairen country lord set foot in the city. They had not brought themselves to torture her, and that young woman has a will like iron, so you tell me if you think it might be Rand’s doing. Blacksmith, from top to bottom, Tear bubbles like a cauldron.”
“These things were not needed to tell me,” Moiraine said. “Perrin, did you dream of Rand last night?”
Perrin answers that he did, describing how he has dreamed of Rand in the Heart of the Stone holding the sword, and Faile, shocked, admits that she has had the same dream. Moiriane adds that she has heard the dream spoken of a hundred times in a day, and that it has more traction even than the nightmares brought on by Be’lal. She laughs, remarking that the people say that the man in their dreams is the Dragon Reborn, and that he is coming.
When Perrin asks, Moiraine says that she will deal with Be’lal, and allows Lan to correct the statement to the two of them, rather than Moiraine alone. She declares that Faile, Perrin, and Loial are to go to Tar Valon until all this is over, prompting annoyance from Perrin, who remarks that the Ogier—currently upstairs, either in his room or perhaps their private dining room—will have plenty to say in his book about them running away.
“I will find him,” Zarine announced. “I have no shame in admitting I will be glad enough to run from this fight. Men fight when they should run, and fools fight when they should run. But I had no need to say it twice.” She strode ahead of them, her narrow, divided skirts making small whisking noises as they entered the inn.
Perrin follows her, his ears picking up murmurings about the Dragon as he passes through the common room, and as he mounts the stairs he hears something else, a soft thump as of something—or someone—falling to the floor in the private dining room. He goes to the door, calling “Zarine?”… and then, as his worry mounts, “Faile!”
He catches sight of her, lying prone on the floor, and is just about to rush in when Moiraine stops him. With an effort, Perrin obeys her command to move away, as she and Lan cautiously approach down the hallway.
In agony he stared at Zarine. At Faile. She lay there as if lifeless. Finally he made himself step back from the door, leaving it open, standing where he could see her. She looked as if she were dead. He could not see her chest stir. He wanted to howl. Frowning, he worked his hand, the one he had used to push the door into the room, opening and closing his fingers. It tingled sharply, as if he had struck his elbow. “Aren’t you going to do anything, Moiraine? If you will not, I am going to her.”
“Stand still or you will go nowhere,” she said calmly. “What is that by her right hand? As if it dropped from her grip when she fell. I cannot make it out.”
Perrin looks, and identifies the object as a small hedgehog, carved out of wood. Moiraine muses aloud, trying to connect the dots, a hedgehog and the flows of Spirit in the weave of this spell. She knows that this is some kind of trap, one set for her since she would have been the first in the room if Faile hadn’t rushed ahead. A conversation with the terrified innkeeper reveals that two Ladies who wished to leave “a surprise” for Moiraine came by and left the hedgehog.
“He knows I am here,” Moiraine told the Warder, “and he has found someone of the Black Ajah to set his trap, yet perhaps he thinks I am caught in it. It was a tiny flash of the Power, but perhaps he is strong enough to have sensed it.”
“Then he will not suspect we are coming,” Lan said quietly. He almost smiled.
Perrin stared at them, his teeth bared. “What about her?” he demanded. “What was done to her, Moiraine? Is she alive? I cannot see her breathe!”
Moiraine confirms that Faile is still alive, but deeply asleep, as though in hibernation, and that Moiraine suspects that she is no longer in her body, but trapped in a dream, perhaps even the World of Dreams itself. She remembers reading of the hedgehog, a ter’angreal that was studied by Corianin Nedeal, the last Dreamer in the White Tower. Moiraine’s talents do not lie in Dreaming, but she knows that it is bad that all of Faile is in the dream—a Dreamer only sends part of herself, but if Faile is not returned to her body soon, she will die.
Perrin demands that Moiraine do something, but the Aes Sedai answers that she can not enter that room without falling under the same spell, into the same trap, and that she has other work to do.
“Burn you, Aes Sedai! Burn your work! This World of Dreams? Is it like the wolf dreams? You said these Dreamers sometimes saw wolves.”
“I have told you what I can,” she said sharply. “It is time for you to go. Lan and I must be on our way to the Stone. There can be no waiting, now.”
“No.” He said it quietly, but when Moiraine opened her mouth, he raised his voice. “No! I will not leave her!”
The Aes Sedai took a deep breath. “Very well, Perrin.” Her voice was ice; calm, smooth, cold. “Remain if you wish. Perhaps you will survive this night. Lan!”
They depart without another word to Perrin, but Loial comes by soon after, telling Perrin that Moiraine mentioned something of what happened. Perrin—thinking of the wolf dreams and wondering if his budding plan might work—explains in greater detail, and is surprised by the vehemence of Loial’s response.
“No! Perrin, it is not right! Faile was so free. It is not right to trap her!”
Perrin peered up at Loial’s face, and suddenly remembered the old stories that claimed Ogier were implacable enemies. Loial’s ears had laid back along the sides of his head, and his broad face was as hard as an anvil.
“Loial, I am going to try to help Faile. But I will be helpless myself while I do. Will you guard my back?”
The Ogier, his normally careful hands clenching into fists, declares that not even Myrddraal or the Dark One himself will get past Loial while he is alive. Perrin nods and, after only a moment’s hesitation, hurls himself through the door, his hand reaching for Faile. He thinks he might have touched her ankle before he passes out.
Perrin doesn’t know if he is in Tel’aran’rhiod, but he does know that he is in a wolf dream, standing on rolling hills with deer and other animals browsing around him. He is dressed in a blacksmith’s leather vest and bare-armed, but he’s surprised to realize that it’s not his axe but the smith’s hammer hanging at his side. But still, it feels right.
Again you come, like a fool. The sending was of a cub sticking its nose into a hollow tree trunk to lap honey despite the bees stinging its muzzle and eyes. The danger is greater than ever, Young Bull. Evil things walk the dream. The brothers and sisters avoid the mountains of stone the two-legs pile up, and almost fear to dream to one another. You must go!
“No,” Perrin said. “Faile is here, somewhere, trapped. I have to find her, Hopper. I have to!” He felt a shifting inside him, something changing. He looked down at his curly-haired legs, his wide paws. He was an even larger wolf than Hopper.
You are here too strongly! Every sending carried shock. You will die, Young Bull!
If I do not free the falcon, I do not care, brother.
Then we hunt, brother.
Noses to the wind, the two wolves ran across the plain, seeking the falcon.
I have chills, my friends. Seeing Perrin embracing his abilities this way, seeing him assert himself to Moiraine and Lan over something that is truly important to him? Yes. I am here for this.
I’m also here for Mat embracing his abilities and true nature. It’s really funny to realize how much has changed in the way I see Mat from his first few chapters to now, but it’s not really unexpected. We are finally getting to know him, and he is finally getting to do more than be possessed, or unconscious, or both.
I had completely forgotten that he saw Mother Guenna’s house when he and Thom arrived off the boat. Although I don’t think I commented on it at the time (probably forgot to write it in my notes) I remember enjoying the irony when Mat said there was no way the girls would stay in that area, but I think I glossed over that actual description of her place, with the herbs in the windows.
Lightning streaked across the sky, three jagged bolts together, casting a stark light over a narrow house that seemed to have bunches of herbs hanging in the windows, and a shop, shut up tight, but a potter’s from the sign with its bowls and plates. Yawning, he hunched his shoulders against the driving rain and tried to pull his boots out of the clinging mud more quickly.
“I think I can forget about this part of the city, Thom,” he shouted. “All this mud, and that stink of fish. Can you see Nynaeve or Egwene—or Elayne!—choosing to stay here? Women like things neat and tidy, Thom, and smelling good.”
“May be, boy,” Thom muttered, then coughed. “You would be surprised what women will put up with. But it may be.”
Thank you for that dramatic irony, Jordan. I love it.
It’s so interesting to watch Mat figure out his new abilities (would you call them powers? I’m not sure). He learned in Chapter 49 about the randomness aspect, that he can’t work to any kind of pattern, either in games or in other aspects of his life, such as in the search of the inns. Now we see how chance incidences might also be guiding him, such as the lightning showing him Mother Guenna’s place before he was even actively looking for Elayne and the others at all. But despite that realization, it hasn’t yet occurred to him to question his other random observations, such as noticing the three horses outside Mother Guenna’s when he is, in fact, looking for three travelers. Of course, there is nothing odd about him noticing them, since they are something out of place, as were the hoof prints and wheel tracks in the mud of the street. Any observant person might have noticed them too. But at the end of the day, it’s still Mat’s luck that led him here, and it seems likely that learning to pay greater heed to his observations, to count them as a sort of honed instinct, will serve him well going forward.
I had to laugh at Mat’s decision to use the front door, despite being prompted to go to the back. It seems like—probably because of the mud—everyone uses the backdoor in the Maule area of Tear, except for people of status. Mat’s definitely got an egalitarian streak in him. He refuses to think of lords and queens as better than him or deserving of any more deference than that of common courtesy. We’ve seen him speak to Elayne and even Morgase in a very familiar way, although in the latter’s case, his fear of Gaebril had him adopting the persona of a deferential and loyal subject. Mat doesn’t stop to consider the reason behind the injunction to go to the back door—he thinks only of how he needs to get out of the mud.
I kind of love this about Mat. The Wheel of Time is very hierarchical in its setup, as most western-based fantasies are. There are good rulers and bad rulers, sure, and plenty of institutions that are not regarded as morally good by the narration at large, but the concept of rulers isn’t questioned much. (So far anyway. Who knows what will come in later books? Well, I guess all of you do! Enjoy that.) There is a sort of divine-right aspect to the Dragon’s position in the world, and indeed to that of other channelers. The Aes Sedai and the Forsaken make few qualms about acting as though their abilities put them in a station above others. The closest we get to seeing a true belief in equality is the idea that the Wheel spins everyone into the Pattern and that everyone is equally relevant within the Pattern, but the sort of “everyone has a place” line of thinking is still inherently hierarchical. We have a line of duty amongst the Shienarans, for example, that extends all the way down to the last person, and although the Aiel seem to have a somewhat egalitarian society where positions of authority are based on age and experience, they also have the Wise Ones over them, and seem to be destined to fall under the control of the Dragon and give up their way of life in service of him.
Most of our main characters either are already amongst those in power—Moiraine, Lan, the Amyrlin, Morgase—or are shaping up to be—the Two Rivers kids, Elayne, and possibly Faile. Perrin is reluctant to take a leadership role, but you can see his destiny taking him there. Elayne is meant to be Queen of Andor; Egwene and Nynaeve are supposedly going to be some of the most powerful Aes Sedai this Age has seen. All the other Two Rivers folk, even Perrin, chafe when they are treated as though they are of a lower station than where they see themselves, but that ire is still about placement and rank. Mat, on the other hand, just doesn’t want to deal with the concepts at all. It’s really fun to have that fresh perspective, and I think it shows the Loki-like chaos entity that he is becoming. After all, random chance is basically the opposite of socially-ordained, or even Wheel-ordained, hierarchy.
My heart went out to poor Ailhuin when she gave Mat that defeated answer: “I suppose I can still do that, at least.” Oh, my heart. She is such a lovely character and good person, and it shows in how she treated the girls as well as in how she treated Mat. Nynaeve said that she knew Ailhuin would have done something to help them if she could, and it was absolutely true.
Thom, on the other hand, is getting on my nerves. I mean, his complaining about “foul smelling concoctions” fits the standard way men are said to act around their health in the Wheel of Time-verse. We’ve seen several women, including Nynaeve and the Amyrlin, complain about the phenomenon, after all, and Thom is also a cantankerous old coot who has trouble with any woman who claims any kind of expertise or authority over him. Still, he’s being stubborn for no reason. I was kind of hoping that an older man with more experience in the world—and a traveler to boot—might prove the stereotype wrong. Like, I get it, men are children. But he’s not actually a five year old.
On a similar note, and this is maybe just a Sylas thing, there’s this trope in fiction where people injure themselves without realizing it when they are upset. Like digging their nails into their palms until they bleed, or punching something without knowing they’re doing it. To me, it comes off as unrealistic. I’m not even sure if it is unrealistic or not, but it’s used so frequently and feels so cliché. It’s not like Mat watched the girls die or something and is overcome with grief. It just seems like a weird short-hand trope to let us know when people are upset.
With Jordan’s increasing fondness for repetition, I’m starting to have to reevaluate whether or not I think something is relevant foreshadowing or just worldbuilding. Mat’s interest in Elayne has come up a few times now, and then Mother Guenna makes the comment “It seems you care for them. One of them, at least, I suppose it is,” and it made me wonder if there is something brewing between them that might eventually come to some kind of fruition. I know Rand is supposed to end up with basically all the ladies, but it is still an interesting speculation for me to play with.
Then again, this is probably more to do with Mother Guenna’s general assumption that traveling young people are looking for their lovers, as she did with Nynaeve and the others, too.
There is an interesting parallel developing between Mat and Rand and the way they seem to be pushed along by their developing natures. Perrin also struggles with this, but his push-and-pull with the dreams and his wolf-nature feel more even, somehow. More grounded. With Mat, and what we’ve seen of Rand from his pov sections in the beginning of the book, it feels more like he’s being born along by something that is almost outside of himself—the external force of luck for which he has now become some kind of focal point or prism. It reminds me of the way that the One Power can overtake a channeler, and the descriptions we’ve gotten from Rand about how that feels.
Speaking of Perrin, I am excited to see him embracing more of himself, both in the smithy and in the dreams. I wonder if Perrin finding a way to feel more like himself may make the wolfbrother nature easier to acclimate to. The fact that he is carrying the hammer in his Dream, rather than the ax, seems so pointed and important; if Perrin can tie the idea of the wolf to the parts of himself that he likes, rather than the aspect of his life that feels foreign and bad, it might help him feel more comfortable letting the wolves in. It might help him keep his sense of self within the wolfbrother identity.
I also liked seeing him stand up to Moiraine. Back when I was still reading the comments, a few readers pointed out to me how one of the themes in the Wheel of Time is showing how the White Tower is run in a very militaristic fashion. Indeed, the Aes Sedai are technically a military body which does many other things but is also, and perhaps foremost, there to oppose and fight the Dark One. Moiraine’s attitude towards Faile’s plight is consistent with what we’ve seen from her throughout the series: She is not without compassion, but she does prioritize her duties very specifically, and she does not show emotion over things she cannot change and people she cannot help.
Objectively, I know all this, and I respect her so much. But subjectively I found myself almost as frustrated as Perrin was. Just answer the question, Moiraine! Getting her to admit what she knew and what she didn’t was like pulling teeth, and although it’s understandable that she would emotionally distance herself from a problem she had neither the time nor the skill to tackle, she didn’t need to be so stubborn about telling Perrin what she knew. This isn’t one of those “there’s no time to explain the complexities of the Shadow” situations.
Perhaps she was trying to spare Perrin—trying to get him to distance himself in the same way by not giving him more information to think about than just “she’s gone.” But if so, it was pretty unrealistic for her to think that would work. Perrin is very loyal, and although he hasn’t understood that he cares for Faile until this moment—seriously, Perrin, you feel awkward around her because you like her—Moiraine must have noticed. I guess maybe she had too many other things on her mind.
Like, I don’t know. The Forsaken. Not to mention Rand.
So I should cut her some slack. But I think the time is coming when Moiraine is going to have to start viewing her companion’s usefulness in a broader way. Loial may be a font of knowledge, but when given the opportunity—such as when he, Rand, and Hurin ended up in the mirror world, or here when Perrin needs someone to watch his back—he has shown himself to be a hardy presence with overlooked depths of resolve. I’m not actually sure why she keeps Perrin around, but she doesn’t seem to think he is useful for much. She certainly doesn’t look to him as a confidant, even though he has abilities that she does not, such as being able to enter Tel’aran’rhiod and being ta’veren. Even with Lan, probably the closest person to her in the world, she is quick to push away as soon as things get too dangerous, more concerned with his usefulness in the fight at large than in assessing what he might be able to bring to her encounter with the Forsaken.
In any case, I am so here for Perrin’s rescue attempt, and I’m seeing another parallel here with Two Rivers folk and their friends springing traps. Nynaeve, Elayne, and Egwene set out to spring the Black Ajah’s, got caught in it, and now need Mat to rescue them. Faile accidentally sprang the trap left for Moiraine, and now Perrin has deliberately rushed in to get caught in it as well, in an attempt to rescue her. It’s kind of brilliant.
Oh, and then there’s Loial being amazing. He is so perfect I want him to come over to my house. I’ll buy a giant chair just for him.
I am so full of feelings this week, and that is not going to change next week when we move on to tackle the last three chapters! I hope you all are ready, because I am definitely not.
My final notes:
- I guess Perrin is going to grow a beard at some point.
- That bit about “the First of Mayene” is deeply upsetting. Is this political haggling or are they forcing her to get married or what?
- Ugh, I’m still such a sucker for the bonded relationship between Aes Sedai and their Warders. Every time Moiraine calls Lan “my Gaidin” I just die.
- Some beautiful descriptions this week. I particularly liked “Moiraine’s voice was like cold, unfeeling music.”
- A special thank you to those who pointed out that Lord Samon’s true name is spelled Be’lal, not Bel’al. I can read great, but spelling is not my forte. Cheers!
Sylas K Barrett would very much like to know if all wolfbrothers get to go to “Wolf Heaven” in Tel’aran’rhiod with the other wolves. That seems like a pretty sweet deal.
Oh no. Now I want all my fandoms to have Warder AUs. That’s unfair.
“Oh, and then there’s Loial being amazing. He is so perfect I want him to come over to my house. I’ll buy a giant chair just for him.”
Right!?
Loial raised those huge hands that held books so carefully, and his thick fingers curled as if to crush stone. “None will pass me while I live, Perrin. Not Myrddraal or the Dark One himself.” He said it like a simple statement of fact.
Chills! If nothing else this moment has endeared me to Loial forever.
Mods – I think Ailhuin is supposed to be Mother Guenna in the above paragraph. Or Mother Guenna should be Ailhuin in the rest of the post! :)
Oh man, Sylas. Where did the thing about Berelain being forced to marry come from? There is no indication of that in what Moiraine says. Where you looking for something like that and the woman submits to a mans will was enough? Not all interactions between men and women is about mating. Both are people, too. Sorry for the rant :-)
Also it’s curious that the fabled Aes Sedai mysteriousness doesn’t even occur to him. Moiraine has been Aes Sedai for 20 years and the mysteriousness is just her Modus Operandi.
Very nice overall. Although every week I’m disappointed that we still don’t see Aiel. This is going sooo slow :-)
Perrin embracing his wolf-brother-ness? Hoo boy!
It’s also possible Moraine expected Perrin to jump in the room and save Faile but felt it was better if it was his choice.
@2 man you ain’t kidding. I just can’t with these two children and their wild emotions
Silas, the trope of hurting oneself when upset is totally a real thing, esp with people that manifest their frustrations as a means of punishing/blaming themselves. And it’s not just a thing that emo kids do, it’s not a fad or a culture. I def will hurt myself deliberately when frustrated or casually when exercising. In both cases it’s not because I’m trying to get any attention from friends or family, I would only share this info here with strangers. Nor because I want to injur or disable myself but because self harm is actually a stress relief and I’ve seen this happen to others irl
@8 Particularly as a younger person. In my youth, I punched many a wall in times of stress. Now, as I am entering my dotage, not so much. It hurts a lot more.
OP:
There, fixed that.
OP:
The problem is that Moiraine doesn’t want Perrin taking any action based on knowledge that she knows is incomplete. So she doesn’t want to give him any. Because what she knows is not knowledge, its fragments of speculation. But when they come out of her mouth, they come with the full weight of the White Tower behind them. Moiraine doesn’t want to pass along information irresponsibly either, to someone who is a juvenile, yet perhaps necessary to save the world.
Perrin, being ta’veren is much better off making the decision on his own. While Moiraine struggles with letting go and letting the Pattern do its thing in general, she isn’t specifically attached to Perrin, like she is to Rand, so she has na easier time of it here than in the future.
OP:
Yeah, but that is not normally a romantic relationship, and Sylas hasn’t found out about the icky side of it yet, like where you give consent to the bonding, and in reality, you are giving consent to pretty much everything else that will happen in your life for all of time. “My” in this case, signals ownership as much as it does attachment.
EDIT: Although it’s still less icky than Logain’s reverse bond.
@5:
Lan’s answer is in the context of Perrin’s question about marriages. I can see how someone would read that into what Lan said about the First submitting to the will of the High Lords, given the entire context. And not having any other context regarding Mayene or Tear’s relationship to fall back on.
How does Jordan fit so much awesome into just 4 words? My emotions are wrecked.
I don’t think that was the trope in question. The trope in question was hurting yourself, and then not realizing until later that you had done it. In this case, it wasn’t Mat slamming the wall and hurting his hand, it was that he doesn’t have any recollection of doing it. Mat whited out in his anger and slammed the wall. He doesn’t remember doing it. That’s the trope.
@15 oh I see. yeah I can actually attest to hurting myself and not really realizing until later because I was so involved in what I was doing, see the example I made with casually hurting myself during exercise. happens all the time actually, I pull off my socks and shoes from a really long run and find blisters or pull my boxing gloves off and find bloody knuckles
@8, 9, 15
I’ve experienced not realizing I was hurt until later. Mostly that was in sports, though. I’ve personally never been so overcome by emotion that I black out and can’t remember my actions. But then, none of my life has had life-or-death stakes riding on a particular moment.
From accounts of people that have been in combat, loss of short term memory due to high adrenaline is absolutely a real thing. It may be overused, but then the characters we read about have much more intense lives than we readers do, and it is an effective way to show a level of emotion that most of us have never experienced.
OP “He shakes the thought away, though, reminding himself that he doesn’t care about horses…”
Is that in the actual text? Incredibly ironic if that is the case given Mat’s path over the second half of the series (and his father’s occupation). .
thanks for the read![.](//s04.flagcounter.com/mini/Jkzv/bg_FFFFFF/txt_DEDEDE/border_FFFFFF/flags_0/" width="1"/>)
@18 I’m sure he meant that he didn’t care at the moment, not that he didn’t care in general.
Moderators, I’m pretty sure this should be part 22, not part 21.
@21 – Fixed, thanks!
Find it funny that Sylas refers to “flows of Spirit in the weave of this spell.” Like, you’ve got the actual word right there in front of you! I know it hasn’t been specifically defined as such yet in the text.
Unless I’m forgetting something, this is the last time Moiraine and Faile are ever onscreen together in the series.
The thing about Tom is that he believes that he knows better than everyone else about everything, and for the most part he’s usually right.
Exactly right! And it’s a satisfying character arc. Only thing is, it’ll take TEN MORE BOOKS.
S
Oh Sylas, don’t you worry about the First of Mayenne. You might however spare some concern for the High Lords of Tear….
Oh, and Mat is going to do so MUCH better than a mere Queen of Andor. ;-)
@21 mathbard, it’s hilariously ironic that your comment was also #21.
Moderators – just bringing your attention to my comment @@.-@ – I think there’s a couple instances where Sylas calls Mother Guenna Ailhuinn.
Loial, actual teddy-bear that is also an actual bear
It’s really funny to realize how much has changed in the way I see Mat from his first few chapters to now.
No kidding. I hated Mat in the first few books, and now he sits so deep in my heart only a handful of other characters (not limited to WoT) do. Talk about character growth and getting to see inside their heads.
Rage is a funny thing. It’s why seeing red is a thing. Under stress people do lots of things without knowing it. Sometimes those things can be quite violent. Hurting oneself while distracted by grief, hurt, despair is very common. So common that to call it a trope is not just ignorance, but an outright lie. Just like a lie, Everyone does it. The only reason one knows that they’ve done so is if they REMEMBERED doing so afterwards. Which is the point. You see it so much because it happens to be a particularly human way of expressing emotions when stressed. Like absently kicking a stone while frustrated, rolling ones eyes, slamming the door by accident, accelerating in your car like a mad man until your passengers tell you to slow down. Or pounding the wall when a important moment was lost and can’t be recovered. I can go on and on. We’ve all done it. A trope? No Sylas. It’s just being Human.
Speaking of tropes, and so-called tropes, men acting like babies when they are sick is not a trope. My wife, my daughter, and any other woman I know who has a man in her life would absolutely confirm this. We men argue that it isn’t so but in our heart of hearts, we admit to it.
“I’m sorry MATT; the princess(es) are in another castle.” Next week; player 2 (PERRIN) has a go.
Behold ‘I don’t stick my neck out for nobody’ Mat Cauthon heading for the biggest, most heavily defended stronghold in Randland to rescue three women he professes to find annoying if pretty. And sweet, scholarly, Loial showing the other side of Ogier nature.
@@.-@, 27 – I believe Ailhuin is Mother Guenna’s first name?
@33 The biggest, most heavily defended stronghold in Randland, and knowing that the Black Ajah and one of the Forsaken are there. I love the part later when Birgitte and Aviendha find out what Mat really did here and how the girls treated him afterward.
@35 Lara
My favorite is much later in the books when Mat is going to save the woman who happens to not need saving at all. The way it comes about, from hearsay, of reputable source of course, spurns the most outrageous rant out of Matt as well as the most outrageous and insane plan to saving said woman, which ends up being abandoned for something even more insane and so that much less expected, so much so, that even the damsel who’s not in distress has to give props to the audacity. That’s why he’s my favorite and I know I’m not alone. Of all time too, IMHO. Kvothe stumbles about a little too much. Kaladin is clueless most days. Legolas as bad ass as he is, is well, still an elf and so ummm racist?. Maybe Raistlin? Nahhh. He screwed it all up at the end. Anybody think of anyone better?
-Z
“God made man, but Sam Colt made him equal.”
And that’s why they have a hierarchical society and not an egalitarian one. Giving peasants a weapon through which they could kill a Lord with a (relatively) small amount of training showed the blue blood could be spilled as easily as any other.
Like one of the final scenes from The Last Samurai.
@37
Do you think firearms will have the same effect in a society with channeling?
Yep it will. Guns are a lot easier and quicker to make than a trained channeler.
@33 I remember the first time I read the later chapters about Mat being upset they never thanked him for coming to rescue them that I thought he was being a little childish, but in subsequent rereads he, by himself, intended to sneak into a fortress that had never been taken, filled with soldiers, Black Ajah and Forsaken, prior to most of his level ups, with no idea that Rand, Lan, Moraine and a host of Aiel were all converging on the Stone at the same time. He absolutely deserved more appreciation for his actions than he received.
In hindsight, Mat and Elayne would’ve been far more interesting than Mat and Tuon or Elayne and Rand.
I’m not sure how the Seanchan plotline would’ve progressed, though
@41 – I agree. I have a lot of issues with the Mat and Tuon relationship. But a Mat and Elayne pairing would have been a hoot and a half. Talk about opposites attracting! Mat’s issues with nobility, the Band of the Red Hand conflict, etc. It would have been delicious. Oh well.
I don’t know if Silas reads these comments because a while ago he said you could put spoilers in them, but I want to ask what did he think about Perrin’s mental shift to call Faile by her chosen name rather than Zarine?
@37,39
China had firearms for centuries and remained a dynastic empire until just recently. Also, crossbows are little different from early guns in terms of a killing-power-to-training-required ratio and they existed for even longer than guns and exist in randland.
@31 I agree with the idea that grown men still do act like children quite frequently (well, I suppose all adults do, but it does seem like men have a special talent), but one example I’d add is that my father-in-law, well into his 50’s still tries to hide and delay getting a haircut every time.
@41 Landstander
To me, that sounds like a fanfic opportunity for somebody :)
@45 LOL. Tell him if he behaves, he can sit in the fire engine chair and the barber will give him a lollipop when his haircut is over.
Heh. Injuring yourself and only realizing it later is a real-life thing, but it can feel like a trope. I once got lost while hiking on a mountainside in Maine,* losing the poorly-marked trail among identical-looking trees in the dusk, and frantically blundered downslope until I reached a path that ran along the mountain’s base. After I got home, I discovered that my ankles were bleeding from the prickly fallen spruce branches I’d been wading through, and thought: “Whoa, I got injured without noticing it, like a characrer in a book. Badass.”I’m rather sensitive to pain, so not noticing it when its cause behan was unusual. (Also, a bee somehow got in my sock along the way and stung me after I got home and started removing the sock, but that was different.)
*Pemetic Mountain East Face Trail in Acadia National Park. One of the park’s few trails I’ve hiked but wouldn’t recommend.
The trope Sylas is referring to isn’t “character gets injured without realizing it during a time of emotional stress.” It’s “character is so upset xe takes an action whose sole result is self-harm, with no memory of deciding to take–or of actually taking–that action.”
@@@@@ 45 – maybe your father-in-law isn’t acting like a baby so much as a grown adult male who doesn’t want to get his haircut but also isn’t interested in dealing with (his wife, presumably?) nagging him about it? Sounds much more like a woman treating an adult man like a child regardless of his wishes.
#40 and #33 – IIRC It’s not just that the women don’t “thank” Mat for his attempt to save them, they actually ridicule and demean him for his effort. I’ll be really interested to see what Sylas thinks of the relationships after the events at the end of TDR.
@30:
But Mat DOESN’T seem to remember doing it. So I’m either misunderstanding you, or maybe not seeing your point. The trope, again, isn’t hurting oneself without realizing it — it’s not even remembering the incident that caused the hurt in the first place. It’s not that Mat doesn’t realize he punched a wall until afterwards — it’s that even afterwards, Mat can’t recall doing it.
And it does happen in real life. I’m not saying it doesn’t. I completely whited out during one fist fight in high school. I have no recollection of taking a swing at the kid that was bullying me, I have no recollection of hitting him, or breaking my hand, or rupturing his ear drum. I remember getting incredibly mad, then I remember being down on the ground, outside the classroom, with three guys on top of me, including a teacher. Scared the crap out of me, and it was the last fight I got in.
But the fact that it does happen in real life doesn’t mean it isn’t a trope. A trope is just something that is overused by writers in fiction. It’s the overuse of the thing that makes it a trope, not how accurate or inaccurate it is.
@36:
Better than Mat Cauthon? How about “equally as good”?
Harry Dresden.
@51, Exactly. To the Supergirls’ credit they were working hard on rescuing themselves but they hit a stonewall and failed. They would not have gotten out if Mat hadn’t been there and I think they resented needing a mere man’s help, being all powerful Aes Sedai and all.
@53:
And even if they had managed to completely rescue themselves prior to Mat’s arrival, he still did all that for them.
@52 – I, too, had a fight in high school when I blanked out and don’t recall anything. In my case, I challenged a bully to fight after school. We showed up in the locker room after school, I suggested we go to the weight room to avoid getting in trouble (which probably would have happened anyways), I turned around at my locker to take off my watch and glasses, and he punched me in the back of the head. That’s the last thing I remember before I came to, a coach pulling me off of the guy. I realized I was screaming and cursing. Pretty crazy stuff.
But I think the trope Sylas is describing is the cool one, where a character shows his thoughts regarding a person by absent-mindedly displaying an angry reaction to the though of someone in trouble or hurt. When done well, it works like a charm! I know I found the Mat moment to be pretty cool.
I always assumed that Moiraine wrongly ascribed Berelain’s capitulation to Rand. I would have thought Be’lal knew the weave for compulsion…
@@@@@ 30 – A lie is a deliberate untruth. If someone’s only encountered something as a literary trope, not as a facet of real life, then for that person to call it a trope isn’t a lie, it is ignorance. Saying something you honestly believe to be true is never lying.
Just as the Three Oaths don’t prevent an Aes Sedai from saying something that’s untrue as long as they believe it to be true.
@44 I believe hes referring to colts particular innovations, not firearms in general.
@58
That still doesn’t make any sense. The western world had been trending towards egalitarianism since before Colt was even born. That’s not to say guns–Colt’s or otherwise–didn’t help the shift towards egalitarianism, but boiling down the lengthy and complex societal processes involved in the change to “because guns” is a gross simplification of history.
@59:
To be fair, any attempted explanation of history that would appear in an internet comment section is bound to be a gross simplification, because, you know, most books on historical topics are gross simplifications.
Ugh Berelain. She is hands down my least favorite character in all of Wheel of Time (maybe outside of Elaida, but you’re supposed to hate her). Faile is a peach, compared to her ;)
@61 Lisamarie
I actually like Faile. Fierce. Not easily cowed. Wants great things for herself and more so for her mate. She tirelessly has Perrin’s back. Will work for him even behind his back, doing what needs to be done, knowing that he will not. She is capable. Intelligent. Formidable and fearless. I can’t think of any other woman like that in the books other than Moraine, which is probably why they clashed at times. She’s basically Moraine without being Aes Sedai.
@57 Muswell
A lie is a lie. It’s why we are having the problems with the TRUTH that we have today. It matters not that you knew what was said was a lie. You could logically call it being mistaken. Because what was said was not true. If one deliberately speaks a lie one is maliciously or otherwise, being deceptive. If one mistakenly tells a lie, meaning a lie was told to you and you in turn proliferated that lie, then you’ve told the lie in ignorance. But it’s still a lie. There is no telling a lie without knowing it after that. You essentially have to make it up and that IS a lie by definition. Intent is moot. Only the action counts in judgement.
@63: Generally, yes. But with regard to what the Three Oaths allow Aes Sedai to physically do, Jordan has explicitly said* that an Aes Sedai can say anything she believes is true. Or a deliberate untruth that’s meant sarcastically, or jokingly, or rendered non-literal by hyperbole, such that a listener would know it was untrue. Intent is literally magic in WoT.
* Examples at https://www.theoryland.com/intvsresults.php?kwt=%27three oaths%27
@62/63 –
Actually, I have a huge soft spot for Faile as well, for exactly those reasons. I think she would be very aggravating in real life, and of course some of the relationship dynamics she brings in are really unhealthy, but I do find her a complex and nuanced character and I think she partially gets a bad rap due to the PLOD and her association with it (although her behavor in the Ways, if I recall, doesn’t endear her). But I find there almost NOTHING redeeming about Berelain, except perhaps for the fact that she’s a young woman ruler of a small country that has to continually defend itself against stronger countries that want to take advantage. I still find her an utterly reprehensible character though.
Regarding lie – see, to me, the very definition of a lie includes intent. I don’t think you can “lie” accidentally. You can certainly say that it’s objectively an untruth, but if you repeat false information you think is true, you’re not lying, you’re just spreading misinformation. To me lying also has a moral component/implication so will is a part of it.
@5 Sebastian
You know I’ve always wondered how the High Lords intended to enforce any such treaty with Mayene. Marriage may be an out there suggestion, but in this era of dynastic marriages, it is one of the most basic ways of tying one realm to another. Particularly one whom High Lords are considering making a vassal out of.
@@@@@ 63 ZEXXES – No. Repeating someone else’s lie in the belief that it is true is not lying. If you haven’t taken the time to check whether it’s true or not it might be irresponsible, but if you genuinely believe that what you say is true you are not lying. You cannot lie unintentionally. You cannot “tell a lie in ignorance”. That is not what the word means. Lying is by definition deliberate. Saying something that is not true is not always lying.
You can’t just change the meaning of words, or words lose all meaning. Which is just as bad for the purposes of spreading the truth as lying is, as it prevents people from communicating effectively.
Spreading falsehoods is bad, but it’s also not necessarily lying. If you stuff all untruths under the label of “lie” you risk ignoring all the negative parts of communication these days that aren’t lies, by either the actual definition of “lie” or the meaning you’re choosing to give the word, and that is dangerous.
To say nothing of the fact that accusing someone of lying will often put their back up and make them cling more tightly to their mistaken opinion, whereas “I’m sorry, I think you’ll find that actually…” followed by the actual truth has at least a small chance of correcting the mistake.
67. Muswell
You leave a large umbrella for ignorance and liars to prevail. I know of many, who purposely stay ignorant so they may continue a lie that is more convenient. Many times even when faced with the truth, they choose to believe either their own lie or the creation of some other. So is this ignorance that you state not qualify as Lie because their ignorance makes it not deliberate?
That’s nut’s! I get what you are saying. Telling a lie takes thought you must put forth from personal knowledge and then submit it as fact. Except it is not your knowledge, it is someone else’s. Meaning you did not understand the meaning of what was told to you. If you did, you would have known it to be untrue. If someone tells something untrue, they are unwise for believing it. For they did not know from evidence (ignorance), meaning they did no research to ascertain what they have said or heard is true. If they heard untruth from someone who is trusted source of information, they still did not do their own diligence to confirm truth. What they do is purposeful, they believe the lie because it is convenient. So too their ignorance is just as purposeful. In an age where Truth is challenged as lie and lies are known to be pounded into ones head daily, ignorance is as unforgivable as the lie itself. Especially when you then perpetrate those lies abroad.
I no longer accept ignorance as an excuse for a lie told. You did not educate yourself to know enough that either your guess, ignorance, or thrall allowed you to be a tool of a lie. In my book, given the times, you are one and the same. As much a liar in ignorance, as is the source.
While I understand you conceptually, I refuse it actively, because it is that kind of protection that allows and powers the chaos we face today.
Ignorance is not (always) a moral failing. There IS such a thing as willful ignorance, I think, but that’s just one side of the spectrum.
@68:
The English word ‘lie’, when used to denote falsehood, most definitely requires intent. According to every English dictionary I have access to. That’s why we have so many words for things that are untrue, because of the nuance associated with falsehoods.
So, if you want to blame someone for leaving a “large umbrella for ignorance and liars to prevail,” I’m afraid you’re going to have to point that finger at Western Society as a whole, rather than @Muswell. Because Western Society pretty firmly believes there is a large ethical and moral difference between saying something that you believe to be true, and yet isn’t true, and attempting to deceive someone with a falsehood.
As always, we ask that you keep the discussion here both constructive and civil in tone. When unresolved disagreements start to turn snide, dismissive, heated, or personal, it’s time to agree to disagree and find another topic to discuss–thanks.
Yes they all do go to wolf heaven.