This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, Mat contends with the dubious relief of telling Elayne the truth about him and Tylin, is named a “worthy subject,” and finds a new use for the foxhead medallion. It’s Chapters 37 and 38 of A Crown of Swords!
Mat hurries out of the Tarasin palace, anxious and uncomfortable under the knowing stares of serving women, and out into the stable yard. His men, as well as the red-belted Wise Women, are waiting by the coaches. Mat hears Elayne talking to a few of the Wise Women, including Reanne Corly, and pauses out of sight for a moment to listen. They are talking about ages, and Mat hears Elayne say that “no Aes Sedai since the Breaking has lived as long as any of you in the Knitting Circle claim.” This elicits gasps from the women, but their conversation is cut off as Mat comes around the corner.
When Mat learns that Thom and Juilin, along with Birgitte and Aviendha, are going to spend the day watching Carridin instead of accompanying them to retrieve the Bowl of the Winds from the Rahad, he insists that they don’t have time to worry about Carridin, they’re going to get the Bowl and leave. Elayne counters that they can’t leave until they have figured out how to use the Bowl, which might take half a week or more. Near panic, Mat tries to convince her that she can use the Bowl anywhere, reminding her about going to Caemlyn, but before Elayne can respond, a servant arrives with a basket of food for Mat, sent by Tylin. Mat retreats to one end of the coach, only to find Beslan there, along with Nalesean.
Buy the Book
Untethered Sky
Nynaeve finally arrives, and Mat is shocked to see Lan on her arm. He’s even more surprised to learn that they are married. In the coach, Lan tells him about Moghedien’s attack and the death of his men.
Mat finds a note in the basket from Tylin, telling him that she’s having his things moved into her rooms and that when he returns she will be having him measured for some new, Ebou Dari-style clothes. Seeing everyone watching him, Mat tugs his hat down over his eyes and pretends to nap, thinking that he has more protection against Moghedien, wearing the foxhead medallion, than he does against Tylin.
When they reach the river, Mat wants to give Nynaeve a piece of his mind for trying to keep the news about Moghedien and the death of his men from him, but with Lan there he thinks twice about that. He catches the tail end of a discussion between Nynaeve and Elayne about some custom the Sea Folk demanded—catching sight of them Nynaeve starts stammering an apology to Lan, who merely tells her that she may say whatever she wants in public, and offers to escort her to the ship.
Before Mat can say anything to Elayne, though, she starts upbraiding him for “forcing” himself on Tylin—she figured out the symbolism of the flowers on the basket he was sent. Mat finally loses his temper, dragging her aside to a more private place and angrily explaining that Tylin “won’t take no for an answer,” “chased him down like a stag” and even threatened to have her serving women undress him. Elayne appears shocked for a moment, then is clearly trying to stifle amusement, and even teases him about it.
She hurries off, clearly holding back laughter and muttering something about “a taste of his own medicine.” Furious, Mat thinks he should have known better than to expect sympathy. Still, he follows her, and when he catches up he slips off the foxhead medallion and tries to hand it to her, insisting that he wants it back as soon as they leave Ebou Dar. Elayne appears shocked, even when he explains that he knows about Moghedien.
“Do you have any notion what I would have done to have this for study?” she said quietly. “Any notion at all?” She was tall for a woman, but she still had to look up at him. She might never have seen him before.
Elayne tells him to keep it, and apologizes for laughing at him, telling him that he is a worthy subject.
As they travel across to the Rahad, Beslan and Nalesean complain that they will be bored—apparently having a Wise Woman with you is guaranteed protection even in the Rahad, and Beslan insists you could go so far as to slap a man and he would just walk away. Sure enough, though the Rahad is everything Mat remembers, they are all given a wide and respectful berth. Children are even sent out from doorways with cups of water to offer to the Wise Women, while men and women offer directions or services. They appear hostile towards the men in the group, but no one bothers them.
“What a pleasant walk,” Nalesean said dryly, “with such interesting sights and smells. Did I tell you I didn’t get much sleep last night, Mat?”
“Do you want to die in bed?” Mat grumbled. They might as well all have stayed in bed; they were bloody useless here, that was for sure. The Tairen snorted indignantly. Beslan laughed, but he probably thought Mat meant something else.”
They finally stop before the building Mat visited the day before, and Nynaeve and Elayne both repeat “six stories” with evident satisfaction and relief. Mat insists on sending his Redarms to examine all the side entrances and hallways, and Nynaeve is irked to learn that Lan told Mat about Moghedien. Elayne is more concerned with the Bowl and heads up the stairs, followed by Vanin and most of the Wise Ones.
Suddenly, Mat’s medallion goes cold as he turns to see Aes Sedai standing in the doorway, along with a group of big men with clubs. Nynaeve desperately starts telling everyone that these are Falion Bhoda and Ispan Shefar, two members of the Black Ajah, and that they have shielded her. The other two deny the accusations, claiming to be from the White Tower sent to bring Nynaeve and Elayne back, warning Nynaeve’s companions to disperse and not to meddle in the affairs of Aes Sedai.
Lan moved. He did not draw his sword, and against Aes Sedai he should have had no chance if he had, no chance in any case, but one moment he was standing still and the next he had thrown himself at the pair. Just before he struck, he grunted as though hit hard, but he crashed into them, carrying both Black sisters to the dusty floor. That opened the sluicegates wide.
Mat prevents one of the men following the Black Sisters from clubbing Lan while he’s down, and the fight begins in earnest, two dozen against Mat, Lan, Nalesean, Beslan, and five Redarms. The tight quarters help even the odds, as Nynaeve asks in vain for the two Wise Women to help her fight the two Black Sisters. After a moment she warns Mat that she can feel channeling upstairs, begging him to go up after Elayne.
He finds that Elayne and all the Wise Women are down while Vanin is bleeding and trying in vain to get to his feet. The only standing Wise One, Janira, is suddenly grabbed from behind by a man who breaks her neck with one swift motion. Mat launches himself at the man, but he seems to move unnaturally smoothly and swiftly, grabbing Mat’s spear and tossing Mat aside. Nalesean appears as Mat draws his knife, but the strange attacker just slides around Nalesean, grabs him by the neck, and rips his throat out. The stab of Mat’s knife seems to go unnoticed—the man actually smiles and tells Mat that “He wants you dead as much as he wants her,” and reaches for Mat’s head.
Mat knows he is about to die, but when the foxhead medallion slips from his shirt and hits the man’s cheek he screams and throws Mat away. The medallion leaves a brand-like mark. The attacker pulls the knife from his own body and hurls it at Mat, who catches it out of the air—and is dismayed to see that there’s no blood on the blade.
Meanwhile, groups of men are coming out of the doorway carrying bags and boxes and random items. Mat considers trying to follow them, maybe with Vanin, when he sees Elayne stir and move. The mysterious attacker sees as well. Mat pulls off the medallion and whirls it in the air, and the strange attacker retreats. Mat follows him into another room only to find the place empty, despite the fact that there is no doorway or window. He returns to Elayne, who groggily thanks him.
Nynaeve comes up and is dismayed when she sees the dead and injured women strewn about the floor. She immediately starts checking them over, looking for those who are still alive that she can Heal. When Lan and Sumeko come up right behind Nynaeve, Sumeko runs to Reanne and begins to Heal her—she apologizes to Nynaeve over and over for learning, but Nynaeve urges her to continue and expresses interest in what she’s doing.
Nynaeve sends Elayne to look for the Bowl while Ieine comes up holding Ispan’s arm behind her—Mat assumes she must be shielded, and Ispan is weeping and terrified. Beslan comes up, followed by a few of the Redarms, all of whom have apparently been Healed of injuries by Nynaeve. Slowly the Wise ones get to their feet as they are Healed, but there are still two Wise Women and six Redarms lost, killed by a man who moved like a snake and whom the One Power will not touch.
Elayne emerges, triumphant at having found the Bowl. Nynaeve and Elayne load everyone down with other items taken from the room while Reanne goes out to find men to carry the dead, and then they leave. Mat doubts that anyone in the Rahad has ever seen such a strange procession, or one that moved so quickly.
Man, Mat is just so good in these two chapters. In the last several books Jordan has maintained a very consistent and subtle narrative with him that I find really appealing, especially in the way he often has the impulse towards doing the right thing, and even towards self-sacrifice, and yet tries to pass it off as something else, even to himself. I wasn’t as surprised as Elayne when he offered her the medallion, but I was pretty surprised—Mat must feel naked without the thing at this point, and he’s making himself very vulnerable to Elayne and Nynaeve, never mind any other Aes Sedai or channelers. That’s no small feat.
Do we know if the medallion works on saidin as well as saidar? I don’t think Mat’s ever had that situation come up yet.
Every time Mat has an impulse to protect Elayne, he thinks in his own head about the promises he made to Rand. Those promises are very important to Mat, but I fully believe he would have all the same impulses even without them.
I got actual chills when Mat put himself between her and the… whatever it was. The strong fast Shadowspawn guy. Mat was the Pippin of the group back when it was just the four Two Rivers folks, Moiraine, and Lan. But the way the moment played out, and what Mat said, gave me real Sam-Gamgee-defending-Frodo-from-Shelob energy.
Sighing, Mat tucked the useless knife into its scabbard. “You can’t have her,” he said loudly. Promises. One jerk broke the leather cord around his neck; the silver foxhead dangled a foot below his fist. It made a low hum as he whirled it in a double loop. “You can’t bloody have her.” He started forward, keeping the medallion spinning. The first step was the hardest, but he had a promise to keep.
Just… perfect. Mat is really coming into his own as a character, becoming more interesting and complex as the story goes on, and I really love him.
So, I figured Falion and Ispan were going to show up and try to make trouble again, but I didn’t expect them to so nearly get away with it. The new type of Shadowspawn—at first I thought it was a Gray Man, but I don’t think those can talk, and there’s no evidence that the One Power doesn’t work on them—tipped the balance in their favor. With Elayne separated from Nynaeve, and taken out by a channeling-resistant monster of some kind, Falion and Ispan were able to make the fight two on one, though it appears that Nynaeve was either able defeat them both or to persuade Ieine and Sumeko to help her fight them.
Sumeko’s ability as a Healer shows once again how much the Aes Sedai might be able to learn from other non-Aes Sedai channelers, and how limited Aes Sedai training can be. Between the myriad of strict rules and the tradition of secrecy between Ajahs—and between individual sisters, for that matter—the Aes Sedai haven’t had as much of an ability to grow as they might have if they shared information more freely and allowed for more experimentation. The idea that strength in the One Power dictates (with a few exceptions) one’s ability to achieve authority in the Tower also limits them—there might be many sisters with valuable minds and insights who could help advance the Tower’s understanding of channeling, like how Dashiva helped Flinn developed his Talent for Healing.
The discussion around how long the Kin live is another reminder of limits placed on Aes Sedai that aren’t carried by other female channelers. The oath rod seems to limit their lifespans as well as to physically bind them to whatever oaths they swore, though why it would do such a thing I can’t fathom. I also find myself wondering how many conditions in the White Tower have been affected by the workings of the Black Ajah. The more recent effects are obvious enough, as the Black Ajah starts being discovered and as everyone’s plans ramp up in preparation for the Last Battle, but it’s possible that the Black Ajah has been active in the White Tower for some time, or even since the beginning, slowly working to undermine the trust between Ajahs and to weaken the Aes Sedai in any way they could. The suspicious isolation Seaine notes in the sisters she passes on her way to visit Pevara are the result of Alviarin’s machinations, but other, more subtler machinations were probably paving the way towards this for some time.
I’m terribly curious to know what the Sea Folk made Nynaeve and Lan do during their wedding. Get married topless maybe? That would certainly fluster Nynaeve, and probably amuse Lan. It’s so funny to watch Mat be confused by their relationship—Elayne and Egwene knew a lot more about what was going on there, but of course Mat was out of the loop. Still, given that Nynaeve and Lan are behaving exactly as I would have expected, Mat’s bemusement is pretty funny, as is the fact that he keeps having to say “but not Nynaeve though” when he complains about the women.
What’s less funny is Elayne’s reaction to learning the truth about Tylin’s interest in Mat. I was pretty shocked when she accused Mat of forcing himself on Tylin. For one, the idea that Tylin, a Queen and an Ebou Dari woman, couldn’t contend with unwanted attentions from a man is pretty ridiculous (and even if she was assaulted, why would she send that person flowers and food?). For the other, I can sort of understand why Elayne and Nynaeve are still stuck on the idea that Mat is an irresponsible child, since he was one once, but for Elayne to believe that Mat was a rapist is quite another thing. True, she hasn’t known him as long or as well as Nynaeve has, but still.
And then, after being so disgusted by the idea that Mat forced himself on Tylin that she would pull her cloak away from touching him, Elayne finds out that it’s Tylin who won’t accept a no and thinks that is funny. She sobers a little once confronted and admits that she has a duty to protect him, but I was pretty surprised at this evidence of Elayne’s poor opinion of Mat. I knew she (and Nynaeve, and Egwene) looked down on him for being a ladies’ man, and of course the Andoran attitude towards casual sex, or any sex outside of marriage, would disapprove of Mat’s skirt chasing and any woman who wanted to chased. But there is a difference between that and being a sexual predator, and I wouldn’t have expected Elayne, and definitely not Nynaeve, to leap to such a conclusion based on some symbolic flowers.
Though I would also like to know exactly what those flowers meant.
Now, of course, it is relevant that this book takes place in a different time, with different ideals around gender expectations and sexual norms. It’s also relevant that it was published in 1996—our cultural vocabulary and ability to talk about social issues has advanced a lot since then. But I can see that Jordan is trying to explore the subject of male rape and domestic abuse—though the latter is mostly allegorical. And I just wish it was a little clearer in the narrative what exactly the narrative is trying to say, even if it is only asking questions it can’t answer. Especially in a high fantasy story like this, in which the struggle between Good and Evil is the crux upon which the whole series turns, clarity in these moments is crucial.
The narrative gives us a beautiful and complex clarity from the exploration of what it means to take a life, be it directly through one’s own weapon, by generals directing armies, or rulers deciding when someone must be sacrificed for the greater good. Rand’s continually growing distress over “becoming hard” has already been revisited many times within the series, and reflected in the journeys of other characters, especially Perrin. The narrative has also been clear in showing how other people, especially the women in his life, interpret, or misinterpret, Rand’s struggles. For example, he is often viewed as being arrogant or self-centered in moments when he is actually putting on a mask in order to emotionally survive the decisions he has to make.
And I would really like that same clarity here. Wherever Jordan lands on the issue of male rape and how it should be treated as a moral issue, or even if he himself is undecided or lands somewhere in between “the rape of men should be given equal weight to the rape of women” and “people with penises can’t be raped” I need more of an impression of that judgment. Because even if I set my own judgments aside for a moment, I need to know how he intends for me to take Elayne’s amusement over Mat’s predicament, and what it says about her as a person. Is this supposed to be taken as just another example of the ways women are kind of mean and haughty towards men? Or are we supposed to get a sense of a large flaw in Elayne, either because of her views about men or perhaps her views about class power imbalances—she has a lot more in common with Tylin than she does with Mat, after all, and she also has the Aes Sedai authority and power added on to her authority as a (future) Queen.
Granted, I haven’t finished the book yet so I may get some answers to these questions. But based on what I’ve seen so far, I anticipate being left unsatisfied.
Speaking of not having finished the book yet, I can’t believe that we’re so close to the end of A Crown of Swords already! There will be no post next week as I am going away to visit my grandma, so I will see you all on May 2nd, to finish up the book with Chapters 39–41!
But until then, I leave you with a few final thoughts and favorite moments from this week’s section.
- Mat noticed, without understanding it, that Elayne seems to have a personal anger towards Jaichim Carridin. There’s a nice bit of dramatic irony in that Elayne knew immediately that Carridin’s message is a trap, but specifically because she believes that her mother is dead. In fact, the part about Morgase being alive is the only part of the missive that’s true! Though I’d like to think that Elayne’s too smart to be fooled by the suggestion that the Whitecloaks would want to, or could be trusted to, help either Morgase or Elayne.
- I was very moved by the death of Nalesean, and the way it was foreshadowed and set up throughout the two chapters, with the way Nalesean hoped there would be some of Beslan’s kind of “fun” to make up for the fact that he was roused from bed. I wasn’t particularly attached to Nalesean as a character, but the way it was handled added a nicely tragic and personal element that made me feel it more, and feel Mat’s pain more, as well.
- I also really enjoyed the description of how the people in the Rahad react to seeing the Wise Women. This passage was particularly evocative:
Women, sometimes with as many scars and always eyes to make Tylin flinch, curtsied awkwardly and breathlessly asked whether they might supply directions, had anyone made a bother of themselves to bring so many Wise Women? If so, the strong implication was, Tamarla and the rest had no need of troubling themselves if they would just supply the name.
Sylas K Barrett assumes that we’ll learn more about the strange One Power-immune Shadowspawn soon, and possibly who sent him. Which of the male forsaken would particularly be after Elayne? Sammael, presumably, since Graendal suspected that he had found a really good stasis box.
Ducking gholam.
This was a really good summary.
Lots to talk about – but I’ll focus on one point. Six Stories. I don’t think Sylas picked up on the longstanding debate over how many stories were in the building housing the Bowl of the Wind that they saw in the “need” vision in LoC.
We do, but you have to be paying really close attention to catch it.
@2 – And I should note that Elayne won this particular competition.
It stands to reason that it would work against both. Matt’s request was to be free from Aes Sedai. Since he didn’t specify, to the Foxy Folks, that would have meant both men and women.
@@.-@ I don’t think we get explicit confirmation about that until Last Battle
@7 Halima tries to channel against Mat in Salidar.
I think we’ve already heard the explanation for Lan and Nynaeve’s married dynamic – I think in Shadow Rising we hear that whoever obeys in public, commands in private.
And while Sylas is doing justice to Mat, and recognizing what a blight it is on the Supergirls’ character that they continually degrade him… he’s also giving them too much credit, still. All three of them continually shit all over Mat. Egwene and Nynaeve have some experience with him, of course… but they also know his positive qualities, which they consistently ignore. And Elayne, who doesn’t have years of dealing with Mat’s roguish nature, is still continually inclined to accept the worst about him! All of this is coming mere days after they were all forced to confront the fact that Mat had performed arguably one of the most heroic feats of all time in order to rescue them from the Stone (when a literal Hero of the Horn says “whoa, I wouldn’t have done that” it’s pretty serious stuff) and that they treated him like dogshit for absolutely no reason as a result, you’d think they’d be primed to believe that just maybe they need to evaluate him differently. But nope, nothing doing! After being chastised for their dismissive and insulting attitude… they pick up right back where they started: we’re right, Mat is wrong, and it is a literal impossibility that anything else could be true
Elayne’s behaviour when she learned the truth about Mat and Tylin and right before that, when she accused Mat of “forcing his attentions” on a ruling queen right in her own palace, feels really out of character to me. Her initial reaction to Tylin’s gift is completely ridiculous. Why would she think Mat forced his attentions on Tylin in her own palace, the servants and attentands are aware of this and seem to approve? It just makes no sense. Then, after Mat told her what is going on, she laughed and asked him whether he practiced smiles to attract the attention of royals. Which is completely out of character for her, because throughout the series she’s been on the side of commoners in such situations and very careful not to abuse her royal powers herself. And to top it off, 5 minutes later she had a change of heart and apologised to Mat and offered to help him deal with Tylin.
The ‘You can’t have her” sequence is one of my favorites in the series.
@9 They never really accepted that he had done a very heroic feat for them. They only apologized because they wanted the respect of Aviendha and Birgitte. At most they acknowledged that they had been a bit unfair to him.
In any case, I read this scene as this very famous phrase: Just look at what she is wearing, she was just asking to be … . Obviously with a different gender. Basically Elayne belives he had been asking for it, because of how she thinks he acts normally. Remember, she thinks he is a womaniser.
@9 and 10,
I don’t think the term “forcing his attentions” on Tylin means rape. I don’t think for a second that either one of them believes that Mat is an actual rapist. I do think they believe that he is an aggressive flirt who might attract Tylin with (in the words of Cogsworth from Beauty and the Beast – a 1991 movie) “the usual methods; flowers, chocolates, promises you don’t intend to keep…” I think it’s more in character for Elayne to assume that handsome Mat is emotionally manipulating a lonely widow to “shoplift the pootie” (in the words of Jerry Maguire – a 1996 film). I don’t think you can discount the fact that Tylin and Morgase are fairly similar, especially when Elayne has just been confronted with her mother’s death. Then she turns around here here is an upjumped commoner doing the exact same thing to Tylin that Gaebril did to her mother! No wonder Elayne disapproves.
Once she finds out the truth, Elayne’s response is absolutely common – even today. I do think it’s worth pointing out that Nyneave is the one who confronts Tylin about Mat. For all her faults, Nyneave still views herself as the protector of the boys. She believes Mat when others don’t.
I think the relationship between Mat and the Supergirls suffers from RJ’s uneven success at playing with gender roles. With Perrin focusing on gender and cultural expectations in marriage and Rand being subsumed in the Dragon Reborn and his triad, Mat’s the only avenue to keep poking at misapprehensions between men and women. That doesn’t mesh well with Mat and Tylin situation which needs responses to be clear to keep reader sympathies in the right place. Instead, the screwing around with gender muddles things.
@@@@@ 13 – I think comparing Morgase and Tylin is an interesting idea, one I had never thought of. However, that kind of works against the point your making. Elayne has spent her whole life watching various men flirt with her mother, and for all of that, Morgase has firmly had the upper hand in every relationship. It is always clear who has power and who doesn’t, and as Thom points out, the only men who attract Morgase’s attention are those who don’t care about the power, and see the woman beneath.
So even if Elayne is subconsciously making that comparison, why would her reaction be “Mat is at fault”? If anything, she of all people should understand that Tylin has all the power in that relationship, and Mat none, and that if Mat was the person meting out unwanted advances, there isn’t a chance in hell he’d be getting a gift basket from the Queen. Which is why her reaction is so, so, so shitty. She of all people knows that even a weak Queen like Tylin doesn’t have to take shit from a random commoner such as Mat, let alone that there is a way for him to compel her to do anything. And yet… it’s still his fault.
Once again, the women are so enamored with the smell of their own shit that they’ve stuck their head so far up their ass they can’t see an obvious truth staring them in the face. They’d rather believe the worst of Mat, a person who has gone to extraordinary lengths to accommodate them, including submitting to rape, than revisit their assumptions. As a previous commenter said… they don’t even really acknowledge his heroism in their service; even their apology for their treatment of him is explicitly for the purpose of gaining something for themselves (Aviendha and Birgitte’s respect) rather than, you know… actually wanting to thank him.
The humor in these two chapters deserves special appreciation. RJ continues to use comic irony to emphasize how totally people fail to understand where their interlocutors are coming from. For instance, when Mat is urging Elayne to cut short their stay in Ebou Dar, he tells her “‘Blood and ashes, you know you want to reach Caemlyn quick as you can so Rand can give you the Lion Throne.’ For some reason, her face grew darker almost by the word . . . He would have said she was indignant, except of course she had no cause.” As we know (but he does not), Elayne hates any implication that the throne of Andor is Rand’s to award rather than hers by right.
Also noteworthy is Mat’s hilarious reaction to Lan’s announcing he’s married Nynaeve. There’s a nice buildup—Beslan’s polite good wishes, Nalesean’s almost wordless disbelief—followed by Mat’s “Lan married to Nynaeve? The man was mad. No wonder his eyes looked so bleak. Mat would as soon have stuffed a rabid fox down his shirt”—which is one of my favorite lines from the whole WOT.
It’s terribly funny, but the brief passage again has extra resonance because of the cluelessness it reveals: Mat has no idea what causes the new bleakness in Lan’s eyes, to which Mat refers several times.
In the next chapter, Mat assumes “someone in the [palace] kitchen” had been too rushed to remember to cook the oysters that are in his basket (we know, of course, that the rawness has erotic meaning). Later, after Elayne apologizes to him for making fun of his situation with Tylin and offers to intervene, he is so rattled he says first no, then yes, then sputters, “Oh, kiss a flaming goat if I know what I mean . . . Sheep swallop and bloody buttered onions!” Whereupon Elayne reacts oddly: “Her lips moved, and for an instant he had the strange impression that she was repeating what he had just said. Of course not. He was just imagining things, that was all.” We know, but Mat does not, that Elayne is entranced by profanity (this must be based on the behavior of someone RJ knew).
Later on, Mat is startled by Elayne’s “Oh, blood and bloody flaming ashes!”: the words “seemed peculiar, as if she knew the sounds but not the meanings. Somehow, they made her sound younger than she looked.” (I remember being that young and trying to master four-letter words. . . .)
On the medallion, Mat felt his medallion go cold after passing Halima in Salidar. She obviously tried channeling at him.
And I’d like to add that even while Nynaeve often berates Mat on his womanizing while talking to Elaine, both Egwene and her (reluctingly) admit that in all cases he does it with women who do not seem to mind. So I would not call Mat’s action here rape.
I agree with @13’s interpretation of “forcing his attentions.” If Elayne thought for a second that Mat had actually raped Tylin then her reaction would have been a lot more severe than the stern talking-to she gave him. It would be more like commanding Vanin and the Redarms to put him in chains to await trial for rape (and maybe also treason*).
All that said, playing Tylin’s rape of Mat for laughs obviously falls flat today. Not that this makes it OK, but attitudes in the ’90s to female-on-male rape ranged from “it’s impossible” to “he must have enjoyed it.” I don’t think that RJ intended Elayne’s reaction here to be any kind of comment about her character specifically. Her reaction is probably how lots of Randlanders (or Americans) of their respective eras would react.
*Legal digression: Rape of a queen by her subject being definitely treason because it puts the succession into question. Arguably Mat is not a subject of Altara, but in which case he might have been tried for treason under Andoran law because the act could be construed as an act of war of Andor against Altara.
@9. As I’ve noted before, Elayne’s attitude towards Mat shows real growth—including in this chapter, where she apologizes to him twice. The first time it’s for laughing at him about Tylin. It’s much better than her previous apologies. For one thing, she’s speaking on her own hook, not prompted by Birgitte or Aviendha; the apology’s also not particularly stiff. She does insist on the status difference between herself and Mat—she the ruler-to-be, he the subject (though a “worthy” one).
The second apology comes after Mat saves her (and the rest) from the gholam attack, when she says, “Thank you, Mat. I apologize for everything I ever did or thought . . . I keep building up toh toward you.” Nothing about him being a subject there, though she doesn’t entirely let go the idea (see next chapter).
Then comes the fubar departure from Ebou Dar, and Elayne and Mat don’t see each other for a long time. By the time they next meet, in Towers of Midnight, Elayne has evolved some more. She greets Mat politely and negotiates with him respectfully about the terms of her support for developing Aludra’s dragons. Nonplussed, Mat asks himself, “How had becoming Queen made Elayne less high-and-mighty? Had he missed something? She actually seemed agreeable now!” And finally (with one rough spot) they get along fine during the Last Battle.
Unpopular opinion alert, and not one that I think I actually subscribe to, but this weeks discussion had me playing a sort of devil’s advocate in regard to how Nynaeve and especially Elayne treat Mat. A lot of the things we as readers take for granted about him come because we get to see his thoughts and perspective on his own actions. But in a series that is very much about unreliable narrators, should we believe Mat so much about his interactions with women? He claims he doesn’t chase women who aren’t interested in being chased, but are we actually sure that’s true? I just want to throw that out there, mostly because to any character in the books, it probably doesn’t look that way.
By the time Mat starts actually being the lady’s man he now is, he is basically an envoy of the most powerful and important man in the world, perceived ad a lord despite his disdain for them, and an incredibly strong ta’veren in his owneight. Is it really that crazy that Elayne and company might think he’s forcing his attentions on women, even a queen? Turning him down might seem scary or literally be impossible due to ta’veren effects (we actually do see a number of women turn him down, but that’s probably not how it looks to others most of the time). In this very book, Perrin in the same basic position gets a queen to swear fealty to him, and he wasn’t even trying to do that. Mat does try (to flirt, not to dominate or assault), and Tylin is barely in a stronger position than Alliandre, so it’s not crazy that from Elayne’s perspective he could be forcing things in one sense or another, with Tylin putting a different public face on it for appearance’s sake. It takes awhile for Elayne to understand the truth, and I am not sure it’s fair to blame her for that.
@@@@@ 21 – Except this whole analysis breaks down when we think about it for five seconds. Why is Elayne predisposed to think Mat is a rogue? Because Nynaeve and Egwene tell her so. And yet, we have zero evidence that Two Rivers-era Mat was a particular womanizer. He was a trickster and a handful, sure… but we’re given zero evidence that he was involved with women in even a remotely inappropriate way, and we do hear about some of the “ladies men” of Emond’s Field and the surrounding area, and the fallout from their dalliances. Elayne, and frankly Nynaeve as well, have zero experience of “Mat the womanizer.” His time in the Stone is spent gambling with dissolute nobles. He’s barely in Salidar long enough to make an impression. When they encounter him in Tar Valon, he’s in his sickbed. There isn’t a single moment of experience, for either Nynaeve or especially Elayne, which should lead either of them to think “he’s forcing his attentions on women.” So claiming that they only see his actions, and not the underlying decency of his interior narrative, doesn’t actually buttress the point you’re trying to make. Because they don’t see him acting like a cad.
When it comes to something like appreciating his generalship, I agree that they have no reason to trust him on that, because they don’t know what’s in his head (though… the evidence that the Band is a nearly unbeatable force that chooses to follow this random commoner is evidence enough). But this is a situation in which if we assume that you’re correct, then we have to say that Jordan fell down hard in his worldbuilding, in forgetting that none of the characters involved have the slightest reason to think Mat is a flirt, let alone anything more than that. Frankly, he’s scrupulous to not flirt with Elayne, or Nynaeve, or Aviendha, or Birgitte; he’s extremely standoffish for good reasons.
We understand that the events under discussion can bring up strong feelings and a fair amount of frustration, but at this point we need to request that everyone take a minute and do their best to respond in a more measured, civil tone, going forward. Even if emotions run high, please consider the tone of your comments, and let’s try to maintain enough distance that the discussion remains civil and respectful toward everyone. Thanks.
The Mat and Tylin situation is a thorny area to wade through. Usually, I try to steer clear of such topics because I know the discussion tends to get too heated for my tastes. However, Sylas made an interesting point at the end there, which made me think about the difficulty of trying to decipher what (if any) message the author intended to express.
My initial gut feeling is that what happens to Mat wasn’t meant to be a model example for all female on male abuses. Based on other character’s reactions, I view it as something specific to Mat. Elayne is simply the latest, in a long line of people who are familiar with Mat and his history with women, to react with lines like “a taste of his own medicine.” If the abuse happened with another male character, I believe the reaction would’ve been different. Possibly less tone deaf.
Granted, I don’t particularly remember Mat being so predatory in his approach to women who spurned his advances. So the message gets a bit mixed in the telling. But that’s my interpretation of the situation. What the author intended isn’t nearly as important as how readers react to the words. Death of the Author and all that.
As an aside, I don’t much care for the idea of using one character as a stand-in for their entire group (whatever that group may be). But I understand it cannot be helped sometimes. Especially when there are no other examples. I see this often in works where there’s only one representative of a group, which could easily be solved by increasing representation.
@16: These intricate details are what made me love this series. How characters play off each other in such fascinating ways, and how Jordan managed to keep it all so consistent. Conversely, that’s what I felt was missing in the last books when Sanderson took over. Nothing against him, of course. He finished the series with remarkable efficiency. But the change was obvious.
@@@@@ 22
Again, are you sure about that? I agree he’s not described as much of a womanizer before Tear. But after? Look at how Perrin thinks about him when he’s thinking about how Mat would deal with Faile: “with a pinch and a kiss and a remark that made her laugh”. He’s playing what he thought was a kissing game with the Maidens. He tries to flirt with Berelain, and when he’s rudely ignored he thinks about how there’s a cook’s helper named Dara who likes a cuddle he can console himself with. When Perrin goes back to the Two Rivers he tells generic stories about what Mat’s up to, and it’s “gambling and carousing in taverns and chasing girls” and there’s no indication that floors anyone from back home.
And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with any of that, but that’s just in the first couple chapters of TSR and there’s plenty of other evidence that he’s chasing women any time he’s in a town and has downtime throughout the books. He gets busy once he’s hale and come up in the world. And then there is the issue you acknowledge, that the info Elayne has on Mat is all from Egwene (who continues to be around Mat in Cairhien for awhile) and Nynaeve (who is a prude and definitely slanders him). Those couple weeks in the Stone alone are probably enough to cement the narrative she’s being fed.
I despise Tylin and I will leave it at that. There’s a kind of chill dread in reading Mat’s POV in knowing that he can’t really escape, that he has to always look over his shoulder, wonder what people are saying, the blithe way his things are moved into somebody else’s room, etc.
Regarding Jordan himself, I agree with 25 in that I do not think any of this necessarily represents any of Jordan’s opinions, and if I did have to venture, I would say that it – and Elayne’s response – are intended to get you thinking about it from the opposite point of view. All of the WoT characters have flaws and blind spots even when they are generally on the side of good. Even if it is ‘played for humor’ I think the point of that humor is to make you think and consider something from another perspective. Just because Elayne says something, doesn’t mean Jordan ‘approves’ of it, or that it is any type of message. Jordan, I think, is mostly concerned with his characters interacting in ways that make sense for those characters, whether or not it is right or wrong. And as much as it sucks, that IS how somebody might react to something like that. I do not believe his characters are ever intended to be ‘authorial stand ins’ or anything like that. They may all represent certain storytelling or mythic tropes but the characters themselves still react in human (and flawed) ways to things.
The gholam has literally given me nightmares just from reading about it. If we ever get this far in the show, I will be really interested to see how they pull that off.
Interview: Jun 21st, 1996
ACOS Signing Report – Brian Ritchie
Robert Jordan
RJ wrote the Mat/Tylin scenario as a humorous role-reversal thing. His editor, and wife, thought it was a good discussion of sexual harassment and rape with comic undertones. She liked it because it dealt with very serious issues in a humorous way. She seemed to think it would be a good way to explain to men/boys what this can be like for women/girls, showing the fear, etc.
Rereading my posting-to-be, I see I’m telling a tale of two retcons: Mat the skirt-chaser and Mat the keeper of promises.
First, I agree with Constantiv’s excellent comment (@26). I don’t recall skirt-chasing being listed among Mat’s sins in the first couple of books. There are plenty of others—lying, petty thievery, laziness, snark, irresponsibility, stubbornness, foolhardiness, a fondness for unkind practical jokes—that amply explain Egwene and Nynaeve’s jaundiced attitude towards him.
The womanizing theme starts to emerge, in a small way, in book 3 (The Dragon Reborn). For example, when Mat meets Morgase in chapter 46 he thinks it would be fun to dance with her and “steal a kiss in the moonlight.” The morning after the Stone falls, he tries to put the moves on Aviendha, Bain and Chiad and is puzzled by his failure with B&C in particular.
As Constantiv says, there’s a fair amount about Mat-as-womanizer in book 4, The Shadow Rising. Thom is already aware of it in chapter 4, and Egwene wakes up to it in chapter 8 (when Mat comes for advice). On the road to Rhuidean Egwene may have noticed Mat’s many attempts to woo Isendre. And she could hardly help hearing about his affair with Melindhra in The Fires of Heaven; the Aiel love gossiping about people’s sex lives.
I do wonder if the unveiling of this trait of Mat’s isn’t a bit of a retcon. RJ didn’t originally expect WOT to run more than two or three books, right? And once RJ realized he was going to have a lot more pages in which to play with his themes of gender-identity swapping and of character development under duress, I can see him deciding it would be helpful to make Mat a ladies’ man. Among other things, did RJ foresee the problematic Tylin episode—or something like it, for the purpose birgit discusses in @28—as far back as book 3?
Another important retcon involving Mat hasn’t been mentioned yet, but it bears noting. Mat wasn’t originally portrayed as someone who sticks to his promises through thick and thin. In The Dragon Reborn (chapter 28), when the Supergirls worry whether he’ll really deliver Elayne’s letter to Morgase, he exclaims, “I’ll take it to her. I said I would, didn’t I? You would think I didn’t keep my promises.” The looks he gets from Nynaeve and Egwene remind him “of a few he had not kept.”
I don’t think the Mat-keeper-of-promises business appears till the “Possibilities” chapter of book 6 (Lord of Chaos), where Mat is determined to take Elayne back to Caemlyn because he’d given his word to Rand that he would. Mat’s need to keep this promise gives rise to his trip to Ebou Dar, his inability to escape Tylin’s attentions, and his heroism in the deservedly praised chapter we have just been discussing. As a retcon, it’s amply justified. And the other retcon works out too.
In the first books Mat is too much under the influence of the Dagger to interact much with other people. He only becomes himself after he is Healed in the Tower.
Late to the party on this one, but I always took Nynaeave and the others grumbling about Mat being a womanizer in that Nynaeave has had a poor opinion of him for years. Now that he’s hitting a point that you could call successful (or at least has enough money to be considered well off), she needed something to complain about. The Two Rivers had the surface impression of being very reserved about sex (Rand remembers several boys being afraid of what would happen if people found out what they were doing with the girls they intended to marry). So, if Mat is hooking up at all, Nynaeave is going to gripe about it. And she’s going to influence the others, even if they don’t want to admit it. Take that and these female leads see Mat having the tables turn, they’re going to enjoy it a bit.
The whole Tylin thing didn’t land the way intended originally. But the reactions are consistent behavior for several characters.
Maybe I’m retreading what’s already been said; sorry, I scanned through kinda quick on a Monday morning.
Did something happen this week?
As Sylas mentioned towards the end of this post, he’s visiting family so there won’t be a new post today. The next post will be published next week, Tuesday May 2nd.
@29
Jordan’s original contract was for six books – something most unusual at the time, and even more so now.
The story goes, and as it is affirmed by both writer and publisher we must consider it true, that Robert Jordan back in 83-84 when pitching the outline of the story thought he could be done in two or three books, but Tom Doherty found that unlikely and made it an “up to six books” contract instead, and by the time the first volume was published six years later (with second well on the way, and a third soon to follow, being released 10 and 22 months after the Eye of the World respectively) it was clear to them that it would be “at least six” instead.
Yep! Sylas is visiting Grandma this week, back in business on the 2nd.
@28: Thanks for sharing that.
See, that’s why I prefer to follow Death of the Author when analysing works of fiction. Sometimes, knowing what the author intended just makes things worse.
@37 – why does that make it worse? To be clear, I get if it just fell flat or wasn’t executed properly, but I don’t see an issue with the intent. To me it vindicates it a bit; the point of the comedy is to point out how ridiculous our double standards/assumptions are. I don’t think it’s mean to literally mean, ‘yes, this is actually hilarious when it happens and we should definitely derive mirth from Mat’s (or anybody else’s) predicament’.
That said, I do enjoy dark/subversive comedy that plays with taboos so…maybe that’s just also my spin on it.
@@@@@ 39 – I think that if someone treated a woman being assaulted in a “comic” manner, there would be hell to pay. Sexual assault is sexual assault, and making a joke out of it isn’t right. A scene where a man holds a knife to a woman’s throat, and proceeds to cut off her clothes and molest her… maybe I don’t have the imagination, but it’s hard for me to picture any author who ever lived turning that into a comic moment and having it be accepted.
I get the “deal with a serious issue in a humorous way,” but sexual violence against men is already treated as more or less a laughing matter, there are tons of examples of it being treated as a joke, so saying “what this very serious crime needs to fully understand it is a comical tone” is missing the point entirely. I know that on my first few reads as a much younger person, all of the inner dialogue that Mat has about feeling trapped and hunted went straight over my head, because the comedy is emphasized to the point that it drowns out the message. Treating the entire scenario more seriously might have done a far better job in pushing across how horrifying it is to be completely at someone else’s mercy, with effectively no choice but to submit. The fact that Mat eventually decides to just sort of sit back and make the best of it, and then regrets it when his abuser dies (explicitly in the sense of mourning their relationship, not just “people dying is bad”), sends the opposite message, that men really can’t be assaulted, that it’s just them not understand that they’re getting free sex and that must be good.
Ah, interestingly, I do feel like Mat’s unease really came through as a juxtaposition with the tone but maybe I was already predisposed to see it, and not really the person who needed the ‘lesson’. But I do agree with you about how the conclusion of it wasn’t really followed through with, especially as it pertained to Tylin’s ultimate fate. I think what might have been interesting is if it did start off comic and then got progressively darker. I absolutely agree it IS a topic that society in general does need to take a little more seriously and discussed more openly. I was also not super happy with how the arc concluded.
I actually could imagine a kind of dark/absurdist humor with the opposite gender but again, the point would be the juxtaposition so it wouldn’t…really…be funny. But even so…I can see why it might fly better with the gender swapped as part of the way humor works (for me) is that whole flipping of power structures/dynamics/taboos and all that. To me ‘comic’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘ha ha’ jovial humor but a more…absurdity? Ridiculousness? I don’t know. But I definitely do have a darker sense of humor so I’m sure that plays into it. And for what it is worth I am not saying everybody HAS to find it funny or feel it worked for them.