Welcome back to our regularly scheduled Reading the Wheel of Time. After a brief foray into essay mode, we’re back to cover Chapters 36 and 37, in which Aviendha is really annoying, and we meet some peddlers who set off Rand’s alarm bells… and mine. I have to admit, it’s been a while since I’ve been as tempted to take a spoilery peek ahead as I am by the arrival of Kadere, Keille, and Isendre. Also, I take a lot of umbrage at the way Keille is described by the narrative. Oh and also Trollocs again. Fun times!
The Aiel break camp before dawn, traveling in three separate parties, Rand and Mat with Rhuarc and the Jindo while Egwene and Moiraine travel with the Wise Ones. Their group sets themselves between the Jindo group and that of the Shaido, who are also traveling in the same direction, and Rand rather suspects that the center group is the only reason that the Shaido don’t attack, even though the peace of Rhuidean is supposed to extend until travelers reach their own hold again. Rand notices that middle group watching him, and seemingly discussing him, too.
Aviendha, who has been at his side since he awoke that morning, abruptly interjects over his thoughts to tell him that Elayne is the woman for him, lecturing at length about his “treatment” of her and how he belongs with a wetlander, one of his own kind. She even begins to describe what Elayne looks like naked, shocking and confusing Rand. Aviendha insists that Elayne has bared her heart to him and that she meant everything she said in her letters, but this only furthers Rand’s confusion, as the letters were contradictory.
Rand is sure that the Wise Ones sent her to spy on him, and that he isn’t supposed to realize it. But he can’t figure out why she is wearing a skirt and blouse now, or why she went to Rhuidean. When he finally gets her to stop talking, she continues to stomp along at his side and stare at him.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he demanded.
“I am listening, Rand al’Thor, since you wish me to be silent.” She smiled around gritted teeth. “Do you not enjoy having me listen to you?”
Mat, meanwhile, is avoiding looking at Rand and Aviendha. He, too, is aware of the Wise Ones watching Rand, although it rather feels like they are watching him. He thinks that, if he had any sense, he would leave—he went to Rhuidean as the “snake folk” had told him he must. Still, trying to find his own way out of the Waste is a daunting prospect.
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One of the Maidens—Dorindha, one of the ones he played Maiden’s Kiss with—comes over to deliver news to Rhuarc, and the clan chief announces to them that there were peddlers’ wagons approaching. Mat is surprised at how grim the Aiel look as they approach the wagons, since he had heard that peddlers, gleemen, and Tinkers were the three people welcome in the Waste. “Peddlers and gleemen are welcome,” Heirn corrects, but Mat sees little welcome in the Aiel. Rand intercedes when he tries to ask about the Traveling People.
Rhuarc and Heirn, Mat and Rand (and Rand’s escort of Jindo protectors) go forward to meet the peddler, and Couladin comes over from the Shaido party. Moiraine starts to come as well, but the Wise Ones stop her. The wagon drivers are rough looking men, but they still seem anxious at the approach of the Aiel. The peddler, a heavy-set muscular man in a wide-brimmed hat, introduces himself as Hadnan Kadere and claims to be looking for Cold Rocks Hold. Rhuarc tells him that he is nowhere near Cold Rocks Hold, and asks why he doesn’t have an Aiel guide. The man nervously insists that he has traveled openly, and thought perhaps there were no guides this far south.
“There are always guides,” Rhuarc said coldly. “You have luck to have come so far without one. Luck that you are not dead, or walking back to the Dragonwall in your skin.” Kadere flashed an uneasy, toothy smile, and the clan chief went on. “Luck to meet us. Had you continued this way another day or two, you would have reached Rhuidean.”
The peddler appears quite alarmed by that, insisting that he had no idea, and Rhuarc tells him that he may travel with the Jindo back to Cold Rocks Hold. Couladin protests that by custom, the peddler should travel with the more numerous party, the Shaido, and Rhuarc reminds him that he is not a clan chief, and that the peddler said that he seeks Cold Rocks Hold specifically. Couladin backs down a little, but reminds Rhuarc that He Who Comes With The Dawn concerns all the Aiel, not just the Taardad.
Kadere just seems relieved that the Aiel aren’t going to kill him. He is told that he can trade when they stop for the night, but Mat rides closer and remarks that he’d give a gold mark for a hat like the one the peddler is wearing. A woman’s voice calls out “done,” and a very large woman with a “hatchet-like” nose emerges from one of the wagons. Her voice is husky and melodious, which Mat finds very at odds with her unfortunate appearance. Despite her size, she does seem to move with a great lightness.
“A good offer,” she said in those musical tones. “I am Keille Shaogi, peddler.” She snatched the hat away from Kadere and thrust it up at Mat. “Stout, good sir, and nearly new. You will need its like to survive the Three-fold Land. Here, a man can die…” Fat fingers made a whip-crack. “…like so.” Her sudden laugh had the same throaty, caressing quality as her voice. “Or a woman. A gold mark, you said.” When he hesitated, her half-buried eyes glittered raven black. “I seldom offer any man a bargain twice.”
The peddler hardly makes a complaint as Mat decides that the hat really is worth the money and hands over the coin. He finds that the hat fits, and is nice and shady. Keille tries to trade with Aviendha (calling her a pretty child) and Rand, before Kadere interrupts her and tells her that the trading is done for the night. She returns to the wagon, ordering him not to keep “these good sirs” standing there. Mat and Rand both catch sight of a gleeman in her wagon.
Rand tells Mat that Kadere is a dangerous man, that he acted nervous and sweaty but his eyes never changed. He warns Mat that you have to watch the eyes, then turns and begins studying the landscape, murmuring about how time sets snares, and how he has to avoid theirs while setting his own. Mat presses for answers, and Rand leans in and tells him that they are riding with evil now. Mat asks if he thinks Kadere is evil.
“A dangerous man, Mat—the eyes always give it away—yet who can say? But what cause have I to worry, with Moiraine and the Wise Ones watching out for me? And we mustn’t forget Lanfear. Has any man ever been under so many watchful eyes?” Abruptly Rand straightened in his saddle. “It has begun,” he said quietly. “Wish that I have your luck, Mat. It has begun, and there is no turning back, now, however the blade falls.” Nodding to himself, he started his dapple after Rhuarc, Aviendha trotting alongside, the hundred Jindo following.
Mat follows too, thinking that it had started in Rhuidean, or a year ago on Wintersnight, and wondering if Rand was approaching the edge of madness now. He needed to get out of the Waste, perhaps with the peddler’s wagons, if it wasn’t already too late.
As they near Imre Stand, Rand notes that the Wise Ones aren’t watching him, for once—they’re all walking with Moiraine looking at something shiny she’s holding in her hands, and Lan is riding back with the packhorses as though they sent him away. Somehow this makes him as nervous as when they’re watching him, and he wonders if he can still trust Egwene. He chuckles bitterly to himself, attracting Aviendha’s attention. When she begins to upbraid him again, Rand tells her that if she has no respect for He Who Comes With The Dawn she could at least show some for the Car’a’carn. Rhuarc tells him that the Car’a’carn is not like a wetland king, and anyone can speak to him. He agrees that some do push the bounds of honor, though, and Aviendha falls back into an angry silence.
A Maiden comes to Rhuarc with a message that there is trouble at Imre Stand, and that there appears to be no one there. Rhuarc sends her to inform the Wise Ones, but that group already seems to know. Rand has to press Aviendha, but eventually she informs him that this most likely means that there was a raid, and that the goat herds and gai’shain are probably miles gone by now. And they can’t spare anyone to go recover the herd because they have to look after Rand. But when they arrive at Imre Stand—the Aiel veiled and Rand following cautiously, not wanting to fall into a trap—they find a few goats still there, grazing, as though the herd had just been left to wander away. Aviendha tells Rand that raiders would not have left any animals. And then they look inside the buildings, and find that they have been ransacked, and everything is covered in dried blood.
“When he realized what it was, he jerked back, the Power-wrought sword coming into his hands before he even thought. Blood. So much blood. There had been slaughter done here, as savage as anything he could imagine. Nothing moved out there except the goats.
Aviendha backed out as fast as she went in. “Who?” she demanded incredulously, her large blue-green eyes filled with outrage. “Who would do this? Where are the dead?”
Mat says it looks like Trolloc work, but Aviendha retorts that Trollocs don’t come into the Three-Fold land, not more than a few miles below the Blight. Aiel hunt Trollocs, not the other way around.
The Aiel and the wagons are brought in, and for a while everything is a bustle of activity, setting up camps and gathering water from the tiny spring. The peddlers set up on the edge of the Jindo camp, and at one point a woman in a red silk gown and an opaque veil descended out of the wagons. Rand watched Kadere take her to see the blood-stained room, and afterwards deems her theatrical shudder to be fake. She comes over to greet Rand, the one the Aiel call He Who Comes With The Dawn, and tells him that she’d thought he would be handsomer.
Once she has gone back to the wagons, Kadere apologizes, saying that Isendre is too forward sometimes, and remarks that he has heard that Rand is also the man who took Callandor from the Stone. Rand notes to himself that if the man knows that, then he knows that Rand is the Dragon Reborn, and a channeler, and yet still his eyes don’t change. Rand answers obliquely, and Kadere expresses the hope that they will have another chance to talk
Before he’s gone more than a few steps from him, Aviendha once again starts hounding him about Elayne, and how he will look at any woman, and would he look at her if she was so scantily dressed. When Rand tries to stalk off, she follows him, so Rand goes to Lan and asks him to watch him work the forms, hoping that the Aiel hatred of swords will drive her off. He tries to lose himself in the work, but the hot sun and Aviendha’s watchfulness keep him distracted, and Lan notices. They talk about the importance of concentration, and then Rand asks how the Aiel fight, and for some tactical advice, including how you might fight against them. Aviendha interjects that Lan’s tactics won’t work and asks why Rand wants to fight Aiel when he is meant to lead them.
“It has worked well enough with Bordermen from time to time.” Rhuarc’s soft boots made very little sound on the hard ground. He had a waterskin under his arm. “Allowances are always made when someone suffers a disappointment, Aviendha, but there is a limit to sulking. You gave up the spear for your obligation to the people and the blood. One day no doubt you will be making a clan chief do what you want instead of what he wants, but if instead you are Wise One to the smallest hold of the smallest sept of the Taardad, the obligation remains, and it cannot be met by tantrums.”
Rand feels foolish for not recognizing that Aviendha has changed her clothes and manner because she is going to become a Wise One, and wonders if she can channel. He thinks about how Min is the only woman in his life who can’t.
Rhuarc offers to teach Rand the spear, and although Rand is already exhausted and really wants to go lay down, he can see that all the Aiel are watching. And they are his people, who had just watched him practice with a weapon they despise. So he agrees, telling himself that Aviendha watching has nothing to do with it, that it’s just because of the others.
Mat, meanwhile, has bought himself a mug of ale and is sipping the unfortunately warm beverage as he leans against a wagon wheel and watches the Aiel trade with the peddlers. Mat finds it interesting watching what sells and for what price, and notes that the Aiel are canny traders with a good sense of the value of things. He catches sight of one of the traders offering a fancy gold crossbow, and his mind wanders, thinking about the tactical advantages in arming men with such a weapon for battle. Then he catches himself, frustrated that such a train of thought has happened again.
He thinks about the things he obtained on the other side of the redstone doorway—the silver foxhead medallion, the black-hafted spear with the blade marked by two ravens, and the new memories filling in the holes that had been there before he went to Rhuidean.
Waking dreams, or something very like. It was as if he could remember dances and battles and streets and cities, none of which he had ever really seen, none of which he was sure had ever existed, like a hundred pieces of memory from a hundred different men. Better to think of them as dreams, maybe—a little better—yet he was as sure in them as in any of his own remembrances. Battles numbered the most, and sometimes they crept up on him in a way, as with the crossbow. He would find himself looking at a piece of ground and planning how to set an ambush there, or defend against one, or how to set an army for battle. It was madness.
He can also read the old tongue perfectly now. The gleeman overhears Mat mutter a phrase to himself and remarks that Mat must be a scholar. Mat insists that he only knows a few phrases that he’s picked up here and there during his travels. The gleeman introduces himself as Jasin Natael, who remarks how interesting a life Mat leads, traveling with Aiel and Aes Sedai and He Who Comes With The Dawn. Mat assumes the Aiel have talked about it with the strangers, and tries to get the gleeman to go bother Rand instead, but instead Natael gets him to talk about his experience in Rhuidean, claiming he wants to make a song about it. Mat leaves out the doorway and the bubble-of-evil dirt monsters, but ends up talking at length about the trip through the mist and what he saw on the other side, urged to greater and greater detail by Natael.
Keille appears suddenly to ask what Natael is doing, and the two have an argument about it, with Natael apparently browbeating the woman into silence, eventually. Mat is relieved when she leaves, though his thoughts turn to Isendre and how for her, he’d tell everything about his adventure, and make himself sound like a hero.
He eats dinner at Rhuarc’s fire with Heirn and Rand. Aviendha and the peddlers are also there, and when everyone is finished eating the Aiel ask the gleeman for a song. Natael fetches his harp and sings an old war song set in Manetheren. As he sings Mat remembers the battle, and what was different about it than the song tells. When Natael is done he asks if Mat disliked the song. Mat covers, saying that he isn’t sure it’s wise trusting to the generosity of one’s enemies (a move that paid off in the song, but not in the real battle Mat remembers), and asks Kadere what he thinks.
The peddler hesitated, glancing at [Isendre] clinging to his arm. “I do not think of such things,” he said at last. “I think of profits, not battles.” Keille laughed coarsely. At least, until she saw Isendre’s smile, condescending to a woman who could make three of her; then her dark eyes glittered dangerously behind those rolls of fat.
And then the Trolloc attack comes, led by Myrddraal. Mat finds himself hard pressed, but with the aid of the Aiel around him and the memories that make him proficient with his new spear weapon, he survives. Rand comes over to check that Mat’s okay, along with Aviendha, who has found a spear and buckler somewhere. Rhuarc reports that another group of Trollocs attacked the Wise Ones’ camp, and a smaller group attacked the Shaido, almost as though they were just there to prevent anyone from coming to their aid. Rand tells him to remember that he brings enemies with him.
The peddlers and Natael emerge from the wagons, unhurt even though some of the wagons have been set on fire. Mat calls the decision to shelter inside foolish, but Rand points out that they are all still alive. That’s what’s important, because just like dice, you can’t win if you can’t play.
When Moiraine does make it over, Rand lets her check on him, even though he hadn’t been injured. There are too many hurt Aiel for her to spare Healing to wash away his fatigue, but she makes sure to point out that this attack was meant for him. Egwene comes next, telling him sharply to stop doing whatever it is he is doing to upset Aviendha, before stalking off again. Rand thinks that she looks silly with her beribboned pigtails before stumbling off to his tent, feeling more tired than he ever has before. Even the flame sword had almost not come, and it was the one aspect of channeling that he has never struggled with before, the one thing that had always come almost without thought. He tells himself it is just the tiredness. Aviendha follows him to his tent, and is still there outside, sitting crossed-legged, in the morning.
Rand finds that he’s glad to see her—at least he knew who she was and what she thought about him.
Oh Mat. The peddlers were perfectly safe in their wagons because they are Darkfriends. They probably knew the attack was coming, and I’m sure the Trollocs purposefully set fire only to the wagons those folks weren’t in.
So this felt like a weird section to recap because of the way that the narration handles how Rand has changed. I’m not sure if this is supposed to indicate something about his mental state under the taint or if it’s merely a narrative choice to increase suspense, but I find it a bit odd. We’re so used to having a tight pov on whichever character is the focus, to understanding most of what is going on in their heads, that this shift to distance and mystery with Rand feels jarring. Of course, Jordan has used the technique before, having characters vaguely think about “the plan” or something like that, in order not to give too much away—he’s done it with Moiraine a few times, and it’s common when we’re in the head of one of the baddies—but not to this extent. It kind of makes me feel distant from Rand, like I can’t connect to him the way I can with Perrin or Mat.
The threat of the taint madness is ever-present, but like the characters, I can’t even begin to tell if it’s starting to come upon Rand yet. Mat (and everyone else, really, but especially Mat) tends to assume anything Rand says or does that doesn’t have an obvious explanation means that he’s losing it, which is rather extreme. I understand how their suspicious are motivated by their fear and knowledge of the inevitable, but I tend to assume that most of them are overreacting due to that worry. And as for Rand, well… Would the narration really be able to communicate his deterioration? Would he be able to know that he was losing it? Ordeith Fain is aware of his own madness sometimes, so maybe?
In any case, I think this might be one of those problems that are a result of the artificial pacing imposed by this read: Normally I’d be tearing ahead rather than stopping and musing every other chapter, which does interrupt the flow of the book at times. Maybe I’d be less frustrated if I was reading at a traditional pace? But then again, maybe not. I mean, what’s the point of a close third person in every other major character if we’re still going to feel like we’re held at arm’s length from our hero?
Holding people at arm’s length from their own thoughts and feelings is what the folks of the Wheel of Time do best, though. From Rand’s (quite justified, really) fear that both Moiraine and the Wise Ones want to use him, to Mat’s secretiveness about everything, to whatever bee has got into Aviendha’s bonnet, it can be frustrating, even aggravating, to watch all these people dislike and mistrust each other when they are supposed to be on the same side. I mean, they have Aviendha spying on Rand (can you even call it spying when it’s so completely obvious?) and Moiraine is doing her listening trick with her little jeweled pendant to eavesdrop on everyone’s conversations. I wouldn’t trust them either! They’re all convinced that Rand needs aid and guidance, but they haven’t even attempted to reach out to him with an honest offer of help.
I’ve observed before that mistrust is a weapon of the Shadow, but I also think that a lot of this comes back to this theme of manipulation. The concept has popped up in every society we meet, in a multitude of ways, from gendered power play, to the Game of Houses, to the way the Wise Ones punish people with humiliation and the Aiel in general punish people with forced nudity. You know, I really miss Shienar right now. No one is perfect, but they were so much more straightforward and refreshing to deal with. Even logical, plain speaking Perrin is caught up with Faile and her games now. I just feel like these people must be so tired all the time.
And what is Aviendha’s deal, anyway? I mean, I think I have a pretty good guess—she hasn’t said what’s bothering her, but her emotions around it have been far from subtle. I think Aviendha is going to turn out to be the third woman who is supposed to end up falling in love with Rand, the last face from Min’s vision that she didn’t recognize. If the three rings that the women in Rhuidean go through work about the same way as the three-arched ter’angreal that the White Tower uses in the raising of Novices to Accepted, then perhaps Aviendha faced a trial or trials that are very similar to what we saw Egwene go through. And perhaps she saw a possible future for herself in which she was in love with or married to Rand.
It would make sense of how she reacted to the Wise Ones’ command to stay near and listen to him. Her objection was intensely personal, that she didn’t like him, that she hated him. Since the Wise Ones also know the true history of the Aiel and the prophecies of He Who Comes With The Dawn, it’s easy to assume she’s objecting to Rand because of that new knowledge. But if my theory is right, she’s not just objecting to her shifting duty and the loss of being a maiden, but to a more personal future that she can’t fathom wanting, and probably feels even less necessary to her duty than giving up the spear.
If I’m right, it would go far in explaining why she’s harping so much on this idea that Rand has betrayed or hurt Elayne. Rand can’t figure out what she’s talking about because the thing Aviendha is angry about hasn’t happened yet. And Aviendha might not just be angry at Rand—she might also feel guilty at the thought that she might one day betray Elayne. Min’s vision (and doesn’t it seem like an awful coincidence that Rand is suddenly thinking about Min for the first time since their paths parted) said that Rand would have three women attached to him, but Aviendha may very well have only seen her own future. And I mean, that whole “you need to marry a wetlander, stick to your own kind” spiel seems like a pretty big giveaway.
And I get that the whole thing of describing Elayne naked is mostly just a narrative moment to make Rand uncomfortable and give the reader a chuckle at his expense, but it just comes off badly, especially with how nudity seems to be a form of punishment for the Aiel. They’re always talking about stripping people naked and running them off their land, and then there’s Amys turning Egwene upside down so her nightdress falls down around her armpits and exposes her body. Not to mention the fact that women are required not only to get naked before going into the ter’angreal, but to go all the way to and from Rhuidean for some reason? There is no logic in this—why not just take your clothes off and leave them at the base of the rings before you go in? I feel like this is just done so the reader can picture Aviendha and Moiraine naked.
It is, however, very interesting to me that the Wise Ones use a similar type of ter’angreal as the Aes Sedai of the White Tower. As far as I have seen, there is no reason to believe that these ter’angreal were used for rite of passage purposes in the Age of Legends, so how did these two cultures end up in such a similar place? Why make seeing your own future a trial, rather than something that is only attempted at need by the already adept?
As for Kadere and company… they have to be Darkfriends, right? I would even go so far as to say they’re Forsaken in disguise, at least some of them, but the cover seems too ignominious. Would those haughty Forsaken stoop to present themselves as anything that wasn’t a high born lord or lady? I suppose it’s a question of whether their need can trump their pride (and there’s always the chance the Dark One commands them to do something). We have seen Lanfear pass herself off as an ugly old lady in Tel’aran’rhiod, and she seemed to just find it amusing.
Even without Mat’s warnings about Kadere’s unchanging eyes, there is something really ominous about the main three (I’m on the fence about the gleeman). Rhuarc points out that it is improbable that they should have made it so deeply into the Waste without encountering any Aiel and obtaining the required guide, and it seems far too coincidental that they claim to be on their way to Cold Rocks Hold when they are in fact making a straight line to Rhuidean. They also really do know too much. Couladin says the title He Who Comes With The Dawn in front of Kadere, but why should the peddler or any of the others know what that title means? How does Kadere recognize Rand as the man who took Callandor? It’s not like the average citizen of Tear knows what he looks like (he enjoyed riding out of Tear with the Aiel because he wasn’t particularly remarkable in comparison to the others) and if Kadere was close enough to get a look at Rand while he was staying in the Stone, I think Rand would’ve known about it.
Natael is the only one who didn’t do anything particularly suspicious, as far as I can tell, but he did get a lot of information out of Mat, which is worrying narratively (what happens in Rhuidean stays in Rhuidean, Mat!) even if it makes sense that a gleeman would have such an interest. At least Mat doesn’t know what Rand or Moiraine knows. I also noticed that, while Keille seems to be the boss of Kadere, Natael is able to “browbeat” her into silence after she tries to stop him from talking with Mat. That was a surprise and I don’t really understand how it happened, but I am quite suspicious about it.
Of course we can’t talk about Keille without addressing the fatphobia in the room. I get a very Baron Harkonnen of Dune vibe off of the way she is described here, and although the narration has occasionally mentioned that someone has girth or made a point of stating that someone’s size is mostly muscle, this is the first time we’ve seen such a focus on someone’s weight, and how that weight hangs on her body, how her clothes are stretched across her bulk, how the fat obscures whether or not her eyes are tilted which… I mean I’ve been glossing over the whole using the term “tilted eyes” to suggest someone’s origin thing, because what is there to say besides that it’s kind of racist? But seeing the two here in conjunction really made me uncomfortable.
There’s also a focus on the apparent incongruity of her voice (and why should a big woman not have a lovely voice?) and the gracefulness of her movements (again, same) which makes me think that the manner in which she is fat is supposed to be a clue of some sort. She’s clearly canny and in charge, at least of the business end of things (Isendre seems to condescend towards her, and there’s the aforementioned altercation with Natael) which is why I’m feeling the Baron Harkonnen comparison. The fatness is there either to communicate something to the reader, or to hide something from Rand and the others… or perhaps both. That doesn’t make it okay, though.
If peddlers and company are there to spy on Rand, then Isendre is the honeypot. She hasn’t done much besides walk enticingly and wear slinky clothing, but Mat sure has noticed her, and she is definitely interested in Rand. It’s a more obvious move than Lanfear’s alter ego in Selene, appealing directly to his sexuality rather than trying to appeal to his manly heroism (and then his sexuality), and it’s unlikely to work on Rand. He’s noticed how she seemed to be faking her reaction to seeing the blood left by the Trolloc attack, for one, and for two, he doesn’t like the direct approach. Lanfear could tell Isendre that, since pushing that angle was one of the things that led to the Selene persona not working.
I feel like I’ve listed a lot of things about this section that I don’t like. One thing I loved, however, is getting to find out what’s going on with Mat. And it is fascinating. Apparently when he asked for the holes in his memories to be filled, the foxy people gave him memories of his previous lives rather than filling in what actually happened in this one. But it’s less clear right now what two items they gave him are for, so let’s break it down.
Mat asked for three things, although he doesn’t realize that was the bargain he was making until after. He says “If I had my way, I would want those [memory] holes filled,” and later says “I want a way to be free of Aes Sedai and the Power, and I want to be away from you and back to Rhuidean”. The back to Rhuidean thing is apparently the only reason Mat is still alive—the foxy people would have killed him on their side of the doorway instead of his if going back hadn’t been part of the deal (“Wise to ask leavetaking, when you set no price, no terms,” they told him, “Yet fool not to first agree on price.”) Because he was returned before he was hanged, however, Rand was able to save him.
An aside: I wonder if that is what the snake folk meant when they said Mat had to die and live again. I had interpreted it that way, Mat had stopped breathing and Rand had to resuscitate him—that’s basically dying for a second. But Mat seems not to see it that way, and I don’t imagine the narrative would be doing that for no reason. Unless it’s a setup to have Mat worried and anxious for a while and then to have Rand be like, “but you already died and I brought you back so you’re fine now”? I’m honestly not sure.
So the first thing he wanted was the holes in his memory filled, which was done. The last was to be returned, which was done, and the spear is part of that. “Their joke,” Mat said, although I wonder if there is something more to the point of the spear than just a clever way to write their little poem. It’s of Aes Sedai make, after all, well made and engraved with ravens for some reason (I get that it’s another Odin reference here, but what’s the in-world significance?). It seems like an odd thing to part with for no reason, though I suppose it’s possible that the snake people don’t have any attachment to such things, Power-wrought or no.
Now that just leaves the middle “I want” which was to be free of Aes Sedai and the Power. The foxy medallion must have something to do with that. Mat is still traveling around with Moiraine and other channelers, and still seems to be held by Rand’s ta’veren power. The only clue I can see is that the medallion seems to grow cold during the fight with the Trollocs—at first I had wondered if it wasn’t sort of like the Sting from The Lord of the Rings, with the blade that glows when orcs are close. But warning Mat of nearby Trollocs, while useful, doesn’t have anything to do with getting him away from Aes Sedai and the Power. Maybe it’s an Aes Sedai detector? Feeling cold while channeling occurs nearby has been set up as far back as the race to Taren Ferry in the beginning of The Eye of the World, and Egwene, Moiraine, and Rand would all have been channeling during the battle. So it’s possible that the medallion is warning about that. Seems like it should do more than just let him know when channelers are near, though.
Next week we move away from hanging out with Rand and the Aiel and make our way to Tanchico, where Elayne and Nynaeve are headed, and where there are apparently Seanchan waiting. The Seanchan are currently fighting the Whitecloaks for the title belt as my most hated bad guys, so it’ll be interesting seeing how that goes. Come back next week for Chapters 39 and 40, and keep an eye peeled on the site for more Wheel of Time content!
Sylas K Barrett learned his lesson from The Wheel of Time early. You never trust a peddler.
Ooooh soo much! The fulfillment of Mat’s wishes is one of those juicy bits for the next few books (with a payoff for the spear coming at the very end!) and your thoughts on the peddlers are so close and yet so far in some ways :) I am not a fan of body shaming or fat phobia either althugh in Keille’s case there IS a narrative reason for it. (Perhaps still a bit insensitive by today’s standards, but Lanfear is basically purposefully using the trope).
Are tilted eyes racist? Not being snarky, I just figured it was a way to describe an epicanthic fold in a non-technical way. I suppose in our own culture it has been used as a slur but I didn’t see it as one within this context, but just…a descriptor.
As for the povs, and the questioning, and the lack of communication and trust, oh, you are in for a ride :)
And yeah, Aviendha is not exactly subtle :)
Sylas forgot our warning about paying attention to the chapter icons, it appears… this chapter was the whole reason for that warning. H
So much more observant than I was the first time through. But then I plowed through this entire book in about a day and a half (if I remember correctly) the first time.
I do object to the idea that describing someone as having tilted eyes is racist. Noting differences is not in and of itself racist. I would not be offended if someone of Asian ancestry described a westerner as having too-large eyes for example. It’s only when you conflate that difference in appearance with an assumed negative trait that it becomes objectionable, e.g. “The slanted eyes of a dishonest man.” Or “The overly-large eyes of the simple minded.”
Most of the cultures we deal with in the USA on a day-to-day basis are like our own despite our ease of travel. When the cultural taboos are as severe and differentiated as seen in Randland it’s essential for people to know whether they’re talking to a Shienarin, someone from Cairhien, or someone from Ebou Dar.
Point the First: Simply noting that a character has “tilted eyes” should be no more racist than noting that another character has curly hair. Or is a blonde, brunette, or redhead. Describing a trait is not racist. Saying that trait is indicative of racial inferiority IS. Also, nobody seems to care about race in this universe, only nationality.
Point the Second: This the book series that says “never trust a skinny innkeeper” and somewhat regularly describes females as “pleasantly plump.” Just because one character is described as being utterly repulsive (and fat) doesn’t mean it’s “fatphobic.”
Point the Third: “Why shouldn’t she have a melodious voice?” Dunno. Go ask all the people who were surprised Susan Boyle could sing that well.
“Natael fetches his harp and sings an old war song set in Manetheren”
Feels a little questionable that he would know such a song, and I don’t mean Mat.
I’m trying to remember the real identities of these darkfriend peddlers. I remember Asmodean and Lanfear but the others escape me. I feel like I fuzzily remember Sammael being one…or are they just generic darkfriends along for the ride? It’s been a while since I’ve read the Shadow Rising. I’m doing a reread and I just got to this book!
@5 – I imagine he studied up before making his move, for the very reason of not appearing suspicious. Plus, he’s a musician and he just might enjoy new (to him) pieces of music and so sought them out.
RJ was a little heavy-handed with the fat description. He clearly wanted to emphasize it for the later reveal, but he probably went a little overboard with it (which is surprising, as he is the master of the little subtle clues).
@1 – It feels like a huge spoiler to me to even mention a payoff. Like literally no one picked up on that for decades.
@6 – Generic darkfriends. Asmodean (Natel) and Lanfear (Keille) were the only Forsaken there.
>RJ was a little heavy-handed with the fat description. He clearly wanted to emphasize it for the later reveal, but he probably went a little overboard with it (which is surprising, as he is the master of the little subtle clues).
But this is actually good work on his part; Lanfear is the sort of person who goes overboard a lot. (C’mon, how many of you were wildly suspicious with her first try as Selene? Lanfear trying to be subtle is like the moon trying to be invisible; it just doesn’t work very well.)
@10 – I don’t know about anyone else, but I knew that both Selene and Keille were Lanfear within like a page of them first appearing.
@11, I think that’s Tony’s point. Her “disguises” match her nature which is to do something to the extreme.
Anyone know of a resource that breaks down the whereabouts and plot involvement for each forsaken on a book-by-book basis? I think it would be interesting to understand their individual plans by building a picture from their perspectives. There’s so many moving pieces that it makes it hard to remember each Forsaken’s goals, alter egos, and traps.
@@@@@ 10 & 11 – it’s also in keeping with her character from both a Watsonian & Doylist perspective. We have strong reason to believe that she might have asked the *Finns to be the most beautiful woman alive, and her comments to Rand always touch upon how plain or ugly or common his three lovers are in comparison to her. When she appears as Selene, she does so as a stunningly beautiful woman, and as we hear from her later, she specifically chooses an ugly disguise because she her ego about her looks is so legendary that it seems most people wouldn’t conceive that she would ever deliberately “dress down” for any reason whatsoever.
@10 — And yet, compared to many Forsaken and/or Darkfriends in general, she’s the definition of subtle. But I agree with the overall point. What some consider fat-phobic, I looked at as the super-beautiful Forsaken going way undercover and overdoing her disguise in a “no one would EVER think this is me now!!!!!” way where you could imagine Lanfear spending hours staring into a mirror and thinking, “No…my nose just looks like a wider version of what it usually does…better do something else with it…” until she’s gotten her disguise perfect.
@8
A couple books ago, Sylas stopped reading the comments and declared the comments to be a spoiler zone.
@2, @11
I know, the moon-and-stars should have given it away! It did for me too, my first time.
@13
I don’t know of anything specifically tailored to the Forsaken, but http://encyclopaedia-wot.org/ has pages for every character (including them) and it has references to everything they ever did or had said about them. It’s just a shame they gave up on AMoL.
@14
I don’t think Lanfear could have asked the Eelfinn for any boons in the past. By the rules of the redstone doorway, if she had been through it once before, she should not have been able to enter it a second time (i.e. later with Moiraine).
The character summaries on encyclopedia WoT list every appearance of all characters by book and chapter (although AMoL never seems to have been finished) http://www.encyclopaedia-wot.org/characters/index.html
Lanfear is always giving herself away by talking too much and being too obvious in her disguises. She is no Moggy who actually knows how to hide in plain sight.
In this case, I think being unable to discern Keille’s eye shape indicates uncertainty about whether she’s Saldaean like Kadere. As far as I recall, Saldaeans are the only Westlands people who categorically have “tilted” eyes.
But I’m also irked by the seeming incongruity of a fat woman having a beautiful voice, though I’ve sure I’ve read examples elsewhere of otherwise-“ugly” people having suprisingly beautiful voices.
Someone needs to explain to Aviendha that, by Wetlander standards, Elayne doesn’t have any claim on Rand. He is not required to return Elayne’s feelings (even if they had been stated as clearly to him as Aviendha seems to think). I realize part of her harping on this point is because she feels friendship for Elayne and is uncomfortable with her own feelings for Rand. But, those are Aviendha’s feelings.
I can’t help thinking how obnoxious it would be in our culture if Aviendha were a guy following around a young woman yelling at her the whole time that she was only allowed to date the guy’s friend. The friend had clearly stated his feelings and that means she’s obligated.
The WoT Spoilers podcast theorized that Lanfear might have a Ter’Angreal or some sort of inverted weave that she uses 24/7 that makes her look like the most beautiful woman in the world, or possibly just makes men THINK that’s how she looks, and she’s really quite plain.
One thing that is impressive is that Lanfear is able to maintain an illusion that is so distinctly different than her actual body which is I believe said to be difficult
@20 I believe Lanfear is just always cheating and using a form of compulsion. Rand noticeably stops thinking about her being so beautiful around this point as he is no longer as easily susceptible to this trick
I think the easier explanation is the right one: Lanfear is just naturally beautiful. Like in the highest tier of a general consensus of what human beauty is. RJ does, after all, make a point of the same, almost supernatural beauty being applied toward Galad.
Moderator, the part where Sylas puts “Next week we move away from hanging out with Rand and the Aiel and make our way to Tanchico, where Elayne and Egwene are headed, and where there are apparently Seanchan waiting.” should say Elayne and Nynaeve instead of Elayne and Egwene. Egwene is in the Waste so couldn’t possibly be in Tanchico.
@19: I wonder if that’s another example of WoT gender-flipping a situation to deliberately show us our own double standards.
@24: Updated, thanks!
@23
And it’d make the most sense if I’m correctly remembering that in one of the fifth book’s first instances of Forsaken Social Hour, whomever was getting the POV for it (Rahvin?) had a thought to the effect that compared to Lanfear, Graendal was simply “plumply pretty” or something like that. Because I’d think if anyone wouldn’t be fooled by Lanfear using compulsion or an illusion to be super-beautiful, it’d be the male counterpart to her/Graendal — especially considering how he also is VERY fond of compulsion.
I never saw anything racist about the occurrence of tilted eyes. It’s just one of the many details that show that there are different ethnic groups in this world. It keeps the reader from assuming that all the characters look the same.
Those ethnic groups can’t be mapped to our world by the way. The features are mixed differently. See for example the combination in Kadere and in Faile of tilted eyes and a large nose, which is not common in the real world.
In-world racism exists. Various Westlanders call the Aiel savages. Then we get to see the Aiel society and find out how utterly wrong that prejudice is. Right here in the latest chapter Jordan points out that the Aiel are competent traders, and literate, to show that they are not savages. Once you start looking for these details, it becomes clear that this series is very thoroughly un-racist.
That’s Rand who says that, not Mat. Rand hasn’t had memories of battles implanted, but he has a good deal of common sense.
That’s far from the first time. Being handed over from Egwene to Elayne also made him think about Min, and Min also appeared in Rand’s dream while Berelain was sneaking into his bedroom.
“Oh, so I’ve already used up my extra life? That’s a releif.”
Regarding Lanfear, she may well use some weave at times to boost her sex appeal (not necessarily Compulsion), but not all the time. As Selene she used a Mirror of Mists to look younger. In Rand’s room in the Stone she dropped that weave and revealed her true face. It’s clear to me that her actual physical apperance really is very beautiul. This beauty might be natural, but I suspect that she used some magic plastic surgery during the Age of Legends to permanently improve her looks.
[Edit: I had noted my opinion on the titled eyes, but after reading the comments, it was well covered, so I’ve redacted mine.]
Noting this for later. I don’t know exactly when Mat mentions that some of his memories overlap in men who lived at the same time, but he does. He remembers one time fighting on both sides in the same battle. It’s an easy thing to assume here, though, given the previous (and abandoned) ‘Old Blood’ memory he had while being Healed.
I don’t think Sylas has twigged to the implications of the way time in this cosmology works yet—distorted legends of Rand, Mat and Perrin made their way from the previous Third Age to our Age and that’s where our legends of Norse Gods come from. It’s not a reference to Odin, not like the Mercedes Bens hood ornament or Mosk and Merk—we are seeing the seeds of the Odin myth being planted for the next turning of the Wheel.
It’ll be interesting when we meet Chel Vanin in a book or two.
Moderators: In “she’s not just objecting to her shifting duty and the loss of being a maiden”, “maiden” really needs to be capitalized to capture Sylas’s intended meaning. (The lowercase version of the sentence will also apply; it just won’t happen for a while yet. :-))
This might be the first time Shadowspawn attack out of nowhere with no explanation ever given. So I’ll rant about it here.
How did they get there? Shadowspawn can travel extensively (if riskily) through the Westlands via the Ways, which could explain the attack early in TDR, among others, though I don’t know how they sometimes manage to do it without human (or whatever-Fain-becomes) supervision. And they can travel cross-country in less-populated parts of the Westlands. But the WoT Wiki lists no known stedding or non-stedding Waygates in the Aiel Waste, Shadowspawn don’t do well in the Waste, and now these show up “where they shouldn’t be, not by some two hundred leagues.” All I can think of is the possibility of an unknown Waygate in this vicinity. Ditto for Cold Rocks Hold later on.
Why did they attack Imre Stand? Moiraine says the second attack was aimed at Rand, but which Forsaken wanted that,and why? In this chapter’s summary, Encyclopaedia WoT says: “Did Asmodean learn something from Mat that caused him to instigate the attack? If so, that does not explain the earlier attack on Imre Stand.”
How the flame did they get procured? Glorious imaginings of ShadowEx* notwithstanding, I’m really baffled at the way Forsaken sometimes seem able to have whatever Shadowspawn they want rapidly delivered to wherever they want, even when the target is traveling. I noticed this more strikingly when Asmo has Trollocs (sans Myrddraal somehow?) and Draghkar sent to attack Cold Rocks Hold although it doesn’t seem like he was absent from our group for very long. Forsaken can Travel wherever they want, but exactly where can they go to stock up on Shadowspawn?
*Eternal thanks to AndrewHB for that notion.
Non-Shadowspawn things:
I wondered if the Aiel Waste was in the rain shadow of the Spine of the World, given the sharp difference in climate. The WoT Wiki entry on Shara says “it can be guessed” that the Aiel Waste is actually in the rain shadow of the Cliffs of Dawn, and the mountains east of them, dividing the Waste from Shara, which it said could explain Shara’s lower population density (compared to the Westlands) if it causes heavy rain and rainforest in Shara.
I eyerolled at Rand thinking Aviendha had changed into skirts in order to seem just an innocuously pretty woman to him.
Aviendha likened Elayne’s lips to “loveapples” (or “love-apples”; I don’t remember). I wonder what those are. I’ve read that the French call(ed?) tomatoes “pommes d’amour,” meaning “apples of love,” but Aiel appear to call them “t’mat.”
The name “Shaido” always sounded sketchy to me, containing “Shai” as it does, though I don’t really know what it means.
“Lose [concentration], and that is the day you die. And it will probably be a farmboy who has his hands on a sword for the first time who does it.” Given that Rand killed a charging Trolloc when he was a farmboy wielding a sword for the first time, that could happen (but doesn’t).
“You always have to watch the eyes.” And I can’t, because I’m too nearsighted to see anyone’s eyes at all, let alone whatever expressions they’re allegedly able to convey, unless they’re inches away from mine. Thanks for the reminder that I’d be in trouble in these situations.
Mat probably shouldn’t have told that “gleeman” everything about Rhuidean…
@28: When Rand “loved other women, married other women” in some of his portal stone alternate lives, Min was among them.
Sigh. It’s unusual for a WoT character to feel pleasantly “comfortable” around someone they’re attracted to. These people appear to exemplify Terry Pratchett’s claim that “Ninety percent of true love is acute ear-burning embarrassment.”
@@@@@ 32 – We know from later books (I think TOM) that Shadowspawn can travel via Portal Stones, given a channeler with enough power to bring large enough numbers through to make a difference. We also hadn’t heard the bit yet about Shadowspawn not being able to Travel yet, so none of this raised any hackles. I’m not sure we even have a good concept of where Rhuidean is in the Waste. My guess is that Lanfear or Asmodean (or any Dreadlord, really) spends a couple hours importing Trollocs and then hides them somewhere. That may be the reason for the attack on Imre Stand – after all, a bunch of corpses is basically foraging for supplies for Trollocs, while the wait to hit Cold Rocks Hold.
Moreover, as is made clear, the Aiel are no less suffering from a sense of complacency as some wetlanders. It’s been so long since Shadowspawn have come south of the Blight that its possible small groups could very well have snuck in – after all, it seems unlikely that the Aiel have an institution similar to the Borderland watch towers, given how their society is organized.
@34: I forgot about that. And there is the Portal Stone near Rhuidean, though I don’t know where they would enter the system now and don’t remember where they started in ToM if we’re ever told that. I still want to know where and how they originally got the Shadowspawn, and I never will.
And now the next part of the journey begins.
Everyone has (or soon will) established their staging area for where they will conclude their assigned tasks for this book.
Elayne & Nynaeve have long ago setup their hierarchy for Tanchico. Last time we saw Perrin, he was The Hunter of Trollocs & defacto Leader of the coalescing Coalition of Two Rivers. Now Rand is slap bang in the middle of the dynamic that will define his initial journey as Car’a’Carn.
I was bemused that Sylas was so sensitive to what (as has already been noted) are fair & non-gratuitous descriptions of characters’ appearances, especially given how matter of fact and non-judgemental the narrative is about them.
As has already been noted, ’tilted’ could easily have been replaced by ‘slanted’ if there was racist intent. And we are seeing this through a character’s eyes which requires at least some imaginative empathy.
For me, the incongruity POV characters see in Keile for example, enhanced the emphasis of her morbid obesity and added a dimension to the conclusion I came to, about which peddling protagonist was Lanfear. Was it the obvious analog Isendre, or was it the obvious bluff Keile… Or was it a double-bluff?
And given that morbid obesity, you would expect someone to be surprised how spry & unencumbered both her voice & movement are… Especially after a long hot journey in a closed wagon, in the hot Waste. Even in benign conditions, I’d expect such a morbidly obese person to be breathless & wheezy. I guess that’s why I was so comfortable going along with the observations anyway.
A big reason why I love these rereads & the comments is they trigger memories I hadn’t really revisited for awhile. And even more fun, wake me up to something I had been complacent about, or hadn’t considered at all.
Thank You Aerona Greenjoy @32 for raising the now stupefying (to me) circumstance of how enough Trollocs were able to get to, commit heinous murder, then stay in, that part of the Waste, so they could sack Imre Stand, then attack Rand’s party when they finally arrived. All without inspiring an Aiel attack? Even though the Jindo Tardaad at least would have come that way 2 weeks, 3 weeks earlier, when they made the journey to Chaendaer & Rhuidean?
Did they travel with the Darkfriend Wagon Train? Were they shipped to a Portal Stone we don’t know about by whichever undercover Forsaken is travelling with the wagon train, then left under the command of a Myrddraal? I’ve just gone along with it EVERY TIME!
Anyway… This was great fun.
One: That’s how WoT rolls. Lots and lots of POVs, major and minor.
Two: The other major characters are heroes/protagonists, too, though this may not yet be clear to readers. Rand may be the deciding factor at the heart of the cosmic conflict, but the story’s plot spreads far beyond him, even beyond his closest friends. As he (is it him?) will say in that beautiful AMoL passage describing a number of them, this is also their fight and their story.
@38:
I agree – this is a feature, not a bug. Moving the story away from Rand allows us to remain unsure of Rand’s mental stability for a long time. And part of why Rand is keeping his thoughts close even in his own POV is, at this point, he still hasn’t learned to shield his dreams. He’s actively obfuscating the “plan” even in his own mind, lest he give it away to the agents of darkness whom he knows spy on him in his dreams from earlier books.
And he really doesn’t know what the Forsaken are capable of yet. For all he knows, they can read his waking mind as well.
@39 – Sorry, but that makes no sense. How can Rand come up with a plan without thinking about it! RJ wanted an air of mystery around Rand, and when it’s limited POV, it gets kind of clunky. Reminds me of the Dresden Files series, which is even worse because it’s a first person POV. In that series, in order to hide the twist, Butcher would literally write something like “I told him the plan,” and leave it at that. RJ isn’t nearly that bad, but I personally find it to be clunky when even Rand’s thoughts are hidden from the reader.
@32 & 34
Good thoughts on the Trolloc movements, and good point about Aiel complacency. They are used to dealing with Trollocs and Myrddraal and know what they are capable of… but they are not used to dealing with the Forsaken. The Forsaken have a whole other level of skills and strategic thought, not to mention motive to try to smuggle in Trollocs to deal with Rand in the Waste. Whether it’s Portal Stones, or whether they just took the slow road from the Blight and used the Power to hide their movements, there’s ways it could happen.
My only real quibble here is that the most likely Forsaken to have been involved in this movement of troops would have been Asmodean, as he was “unattached” and we have no knowledge of what he was doing before this; thus he had the opportunity. RJ described him on his blog as an “effective governor and administrator” so maybe he could pull that off, though his characterization doesn’t really make him seem like the military strategy type. But maybe Lanfear put him up to it, and checked in on their progress from time to time when she wasn’t busy creeping on Rand in the Stone.
As I’ve said before, when a young woman expresses passionate hatred for a young man who has given her little or no cause for such revulsion she is probably covering up a very different emotion.
Several people, including Rand and Eggy explain to Aviendha that Rand is in no way committed to Elayne, but she refuses to listen. As we will learn Aviendha’s feelings for Elayne, and vice versa, are deep and important to her, she won’t risk losing Elayne and the Aiel solution, sharing Rand, doesn’t seem to be an option. Of course the poor girl is a mess.
Rand on the other hand is beginning to recognize he has very real love for three different women and this is totally unacceptable to him morally. Anyway as the Dragon Reborn he’s got no future and no business in having a relationship with anyone. He is no longer in love with Egwene, if he ever was, but he continues to love her, and she him, under all the tensions and mistrust that builds between them over the series. Eggy still wants to help Rand, and protect him from other AS and her death in the final battle hits him incredibly hard. ‘No, not her! Anybody but her!’. And it’s Eggy’s ‘Dont I get to be a hero too?’ that makes him finally understand that the other people fighting for the light have made their own choices and their deaths belong to them not him and that his guilt is not merely misplaced but insulting to them.
Ah, yes, the chapter we learn just how foolish Asmodean is. While other Forsaken are worming their way into power in various places (Be’Lal, Sammael, Rahvin, Demandred, Semirhage, Mesaana, Graendal), spying on everyone else from the shadows (Moghedian) or figuring out a way to get close to the Dragon Reborn (Ishmael, Lanfear), what does our favorite musician do, he memorizes long ballads so he can perform them.
@32, 34, 35, 41 – Just an unrefined thought here brought on by your observations, and one that can probably be easily countered, but…
I never had this thought before, but has it been ruled out that Shadowspawn cannot pass through a Gateway made from the True Power? That would be a plot vehicle to allow for them to pop up anywhere.
@44 – If Shadowspan could move through gateways, even ones made from the True Power, the Dark would have won a long time ago. It’s a problem I think RJ recognized.
It is more realistic that characters don’t think about all the details of their plans all the time. Explaining the world by having characters think about things that should already be obvious to them doesn’t really make sense. It’s just the only way to describe things when you are telling the story through the eyes of characters without a narrator.
If Lanfear already sent Asmo to the Waste when Rand was still in the Stone, how did she know where he was going next? Does she have Foretelling?
Of course Asmo is more interested in catching up on music than in doing something useful. Having forever to become a famous musician was his reason to turn to the Shadow.
@38
I agree with that. Rand’s POV being kept vague in that “I have plans and you (the reader) will find out when my enemies do!” works very well to me. Both in how it keeps him from overshadowing the other heroes simply due to being the chosen one and in how it really does a great job of showing how being the Dragon Reborn serves to isolate him from even his closest friends, with the point being that no one truly knows what he’s thinking. If we do as readers, it detracts from that growing sense of isolation he feels. Not to mention helping keep his mental state more questionable.
Yes, occasionally…
@40:
Super easy. Barely an inconvenience.
But seriously, he came up with the plan offscreen. I neither said nor implied that he didn’t think to come up with the plan.What I was trying to say was that after he’d come up with the plan to “chain the Shadowsworn to his will, from the city, lost and forsaken” (while still in the Stone of Tear), he then chose to not speak or even think about that part of his plan, at least consciously, so as to limit the amount of information that might spill over to Lanfear and Asmodean (who had already visited him in his dreams earlier in the book) through either dreams or means he is unaware of.
You are absolutely entitled to your opinion. I would never argue with that. However, I don’t find it clunky, especially in Dresden, because Harry is narrating the books as a storyteller. You are not experiencing the story from Harry’s perspective as it happens—he’s telling you about it afterwards. Hence the use of past tense rather than present tense (like Hunger Games.) I find nothing clunky about a story teller choosing to skip over part of the story to keep the tension and suspense in the person they’re telling the story to.
So, I don’t find the choice of the narrator to skip over sections clunky. However, in your particular case, not telling the audience the plan is a dead giveaway that the plan will work. If they sit there and tell you the plan, you know it’s going to go spectacularly wrong. I’m not sure what better choice there is for an author. You can’t always make the choice to have the plan go wrong.
@45:
But likely not until after this scene. There’s still a limit to how useful that would be. We see Egwene move an army around later, but that’s with circles. My conjecture is that RJ came up with the limitation less to make it harder to move Shadowspawn armies around, and more to give a good reason for the very cool scene where they are Traveling the Ways and Loial has to close the Waygate. That has thematic resonance in that storyline and is a far more likely candidate for Jordan’s inspiration that cold, hard world-building.
@46:
Remind me where the text says that again? Or was this a rebuttal to a different comment? If it doesn’t say it in the text, what makes you think Lanfear sent Asmodean to the Waste ahead of time? I took Asmodean’s preoccupation with Rhiudean (prior to Rand’s Portal Stone Journey) as a sign that he had learned it’s true purpose, and lusted after the objects of the Power inside of it — but he was still too timid to just go there without confirmation.
We find out from Kadere (I think) later that Lanfear and Asmodean just scooped them up after Rand’s disappearance from the Stone and Traveled their wagons into the Waste. As for how she figured out where Rand went…we find out later that the Forsaken can constantly track him because he’s ta’veren. It apparently doesn’t take them very long to locate him either.
@43 and @46 Asmo wasn’t all that stupid. If he managed to get his hands on the Choedan Kal access key, which he almost did, then all the other Forsaken’s machinations and connections wouldn’t have done them any good.
That’s what my comment refers to. If it took a long time to move the Trollocs the Forsaken must have known where Rand is going early enough. Maybe the time Rand and Mat spent in Rhuidean was long enough that they could get there if Lanfear saw Rand leave Tear.
It was ten days. I can’t remember how long it took them to travel back out in tFoH.
It seems an intentional balancing act that Shadowspawn can’t Travel by gateway… if they weren’t prevented, they’d just be everywhere all the time. Being otherwise limited by either the Ways or trying to secretly travel overland, or in a handful of cases taken by Portal Stone… which requires both convenient stones and a top-tier channeler but otherwise seems pretty straightforward.
The attack here doesn’t seem all that mysterious… Forsaken Traveled in with their wagon train, brought in a Fist or three of Trollocs by nearby(ish) Portal Stone, took out Imre Stand to further cover/confuse their backtrail, take a couple runs at the Dragon as he travels, meanwhile trying to figure out Rhuidean and the treasures therein.
@54:
Except they aren’t “taking a couple runs at the Dragon”–Lanfear brought Kadere and the merchants out to the Waste as cover for Natael to try to insinuate himself in with Rand.
So either a) the Trolloc attack is intended to further those goals, or b) someone is going rogue and not sticking to the script.
I think it’s B. Asmodean really doesn’t want to participate in Lanfear’s plans, and tried to get rid of Rand early and often.
There’s precious little to go on as far as the behind the scenes dynamic of Lanfear and Asmodean’s little team-up here, but it definitely seems like they’re using the time as much to pursue independent aims as whatever joint manipulation Lanfear persuaded the man into joining.
But Lanfear also seems to be trying to push Rand toward using the Power more, likely trying to make more chances for Lews Therin to slip out. Ironically(?) actually a pretty effective play.
@40: we didn’t get Rand’s thoughts about the travelling
salesmenForsaken because each time Rand has said something which indicates that he’s thinking in that direction, we’ve been in someone else’s head – mostly Mat’s which is why Rand appears more insane in these scenes than when we’re riding behind his eyes. In Tear we saw him devising the plan through Egwene’s, Moiraine’s and Elayne’s eyes who all had their own feelings of frustration (and infatuation for Elayne) which got in the way … and also Mat & Perrin who were both too wrapped up in their own thoughts to be too observant – and both of them tend to take everything at face value, with Mat’s predilection for seeing shadows behind every odd mannerism of Rand’s on top of that.@32: I think I decided on a previous reread that the attack on Imre Stand wasn’t by Trollocs at all, but Graendal and/or Asmo covering their tracks after accidentally stumbling over the site – and perhaps making a point to Kadere & Isendre that it would be unwise to attempt a mutiny. Though now I don’t think that makes much sense – Kadere says later that he doesn’t know who Keille & Natael were, just that they were (much) higher up the darkfriend food chain than he. Either way, this group of shadowspawn are obviously not the same group as the Trollocs, Myrddraal, Dragkhar & Darkhounds which attack Cold Rocks later, and I don’t think I’ve ever come up with a reasonable explanation for how either group came to be there. ShadowEx seems like the best available explanation.
@@@@@ 45 – Even if Shadowspawn could move through use of the True Power, I think that still allows for narrative continuity. Obviously having Trollocs move through gateways is a win button for the Dark One, but I’m not sure that follows for the True Power.
First off, extremely few people have access to it. Trollocs are great but the amount of time and effort it would take to move the tens of thousands of Trollocs necessary to fight even medium sized battles, let alone apocalyptic ones, would be prohibitive. Second, the few people who can channel it would probably view themselves as above the task as glorified transport – even Graendal doesn’t personally get the Trollocs to attack Perrin in TOM, she orders a Dreadlord to do it. And third, even if able and willing to engage in such a mundane task, the people with access to the TP are almost completely unwilling to use it for anything but minor tasks or dire reasons due to it’s impact on a person’s sanity. Ishamael/Moridin is the only one who really uses it, and others comment on how dangerous that is.
In other words, I think it makes sense that Shadowspawn can move through Gateways made of the True Power. It’s just that of the less than a dozen people capable of channeling it, none of them have the humility to use it in that manner, or the desire to use it in that amount, that would make it a potent military tool