Welcome back to the Read of The Great Hunt! Today is the last day of The Wheel of Time’s second novel, and although the climax is over, there are still a few gaps to fill in, and a few choices left to make. Also, Moiraine is here, Gandalf-ing back into Rand’s life now that all the dangerous things are over, to explain (somewhat unconvincingly, I might add) that she’d been doing her own important stuff all this time.
Chapter 48 opens with Min struggling to make her way through crowds of people, some of whom are running in panic while many more remain frozen in place, uncertain if it is more dangerous to stay or to flee. She can’t find Nynaeve, Egwene, or Elayne, but she can see Seanchan ships burning in the harbor, and the Spray beating out to sea. She doesn’t blame Domon for leaving; if anything, she can’t believe he waited for them for so long. She also can’t quite believe her eyes as she sees the mounted figure of Birgitte ride across the water to put a flaming arrow into the one Seanchan ship that had managed to put out the first round of flames. But as much as Min can’t quite believe her own eyes, she also thought she saw Artur Hawkwing—and in either case, she has other things on her mind.
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She can feel herself being pulled, as if there was an invisible string tied to her, through the streets of Falme towards something. Or someone. Eventually she reaches a specific house and knows that what she’s looking for is in there. She goes through into the garden and finds exactly what, or rather who, she knew she would.
Rand lay sprawled on his back under an oak, face pale and eyes closed, left hand gripping a hilt that ended in a foot of blade that appeared to have been melted at the end. His chest rose and fell too slowly, and not with the regular rhythm of someone breathing normally.
Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she went to see what she could do for him. First was to get rid of that stub of a blade; he could hurt himself, or her, if he started thrashing. She pried his hand open, and winced when the hilt stuck to his palm. She tossed it aside with a grimace. The heron on the hilt had branded itself into his hand. But it was obvious to her that that was not what had him lying there unconscious. How did he come by that? Nynaeve can put a salve on it later.
She looks him over and finds the wound in his side, which has cauterized itself, but even more alarming is how cold he feels. Min drags him inside, complaining to her insensible companion about how he just had to be so tall and heavy. Still, she manages to get him into a bed and light a fire in the room; when even that fails to warm him, she climbs under the blankets to in an attempt to share her own body heat.
For a time she studied his face. It was only his face she saw; she could never read anyone who was not conscious. “I like older men,” she told him. “I like men with education, and wit. I have no interest in farms, or sheep, or shepherds. Especially boy shepherds.” With a sigh, she smoothed back the hair from his face; he had silky hair. “But then, you aren’t a shepherd, are you? Not anymore. Light, why did the Pattern have to catch me up with you? Why couldn’t I have something safe and simple, like being shipwrecked with no food and a dozen hungry Aielmen?”
Just then Egwene appears in the doorway, and Min awkwardly explains that she’s trying to keep him warm. Egwene says that she felt him pulling her, calling to her, and that Elayne did as well. She thought it had to do with “what he is,” but Nynaeve didn’t feel anything. She asks Min if she knows what Rand is, understands that he can never marry and that he is dangerous to all of them—Min responds that of course she knows, that Egwene can speak only for herself on the safety issue, and in any case, since Egwene “cast him off” in favor of the White Tower, it should make no difference to her if Min snatches him up. Egwene just stares at her for a long time, then declares that she will go get Nynaeve and leaves the room.
Min wanted to call out, to go after her, but she lay there as if frozen. Frustrated tears stung her eyes. It’s what has to be. I know it. I read it in all of them. Light, I don’t want to be part of this. “It’s all your fault,” she told Rand’s still shape. “No, it isn’t. But you will pay for it, I think. We’re all caught like flies in a spiderweb. What if I told her there’s another woman yet to come, one she doesn’t even know? For that matter, what would you think of that, my fine Lord Shepherd? You aren’t bad-looking at all, but… Light, I don’t even know if I am the one you’ll choose. I don’t know if I want you to choose me. Or will you try to dandle all three of us on your knee? It may not be your fault, Rand al’Thor, but it isn’t fair.”
“Not Rand al’Thor,” said a musical voice from the door. “Lews Therin Telamon. The Dragon Reborn.”
Min looks up to see an absolutely beautiful woman in a white dress and silver jewelry standing in the doorway that Egwene just vacated. She comes in, brushing a hand through Rand’s hair as though Min wasn’t even there beside him, and remarks that Rand knows, but doesn’t yet believe. She says that she has guided him, pulled and pushed and enticed him—he was always stubborn, but in time she will “shape” him. Ishamael thinks that he controls events, but really, she does.
She draws what appears to be the Dragon’s Fang on Rand’s forehead, causing him to stir for the first time since Min found him, and Min demands to know who the woman is. But she is horrified when the woman gives her name as Lanfear. Min tries to deny that one of the Forsaken is in the same room as her, but Lanfear only tells her that Lews Therin is hers, and instructs her to take good care of him until Lanfear comes to claim him. Then she is gone, leaving Min to hold Rand close and try not to wish in that moment that he could protect her.
Out on the plains, Byar gallops away on his errand to tell Captain Bornhald’s son and Pedron Niall of the death of Bornhald and the destruction of the legion. It’s a destruction that Byar believes can have only one explanation: that they were betrayed by Darkfriends like Perrin of the two Rivers. But more than that, he has something else, something even more dire, to tell the Lord Captain Commander about: what he witnessed in the skies above Falme.
Rand wakes underneath a tree, wrapped in blankets and bandages, and finds Min sitting on the ground beside him. He struggles to remember what has happened, is aware of a pain in his side but not its cause. Min tells him that she came from Falme, that she and Nynaeve and Elayne were all there, and that they freed Egwene. They’re five days east of Falme now, and Rand has slept the whole time. Rand, confused but relieved that Egwene is free, asks where she is, and Min explains that everyone, Egwene, Nynaeve, Mat, Hurin, and Verin, have all left to go back to the White Tower, taking the Horn of Valere with them. Nynaeve and Egwene are returning to their studies, Mat is going to have the Aes Sedai take care of the issue with the dagger, and Hurin had been very reluctant to leave Rand. Rand is upset that Egwene didn’t wait for him to wake up. Min’s face reddens, but Rand is distracted by noticing that there is now a heron branded into his left palm as well as his right, and actually cries out “No!” when he remembers the words of the prophecy: Once the heron to set his path; Twice the heron to name him true.
Rand tries to examine his side next, but Min discourages that. She explains that there is something wrong with the wound—Verin tried healing it but it didn’t work the way it should, and while Moiraine thought that Nynaeve must have done something to prevent him from dying of the injury in the time it took to carry him to Verin, Nynaeve admitted that she was too scared to use saidar at all. In any case, Rand will have to wait for it to heal naturally.
“Moiraine is here?” He barked a bitter laugh. “When you said Verin was gone, I thought I was free of Aes Sedai again.”
“I am here,” Moiraine said. She appeared, all in blue and as serene as if she stood in the White Tower, strolling up to stand over him. Min was frowning at the Aes Sedai. Rand had the odd feeling that she meant to protect him from Moiraine.
“I wish you weren’t here,” he told the Aes Sedai. “As far as I am concerned, you can go back to wherever you’ve been hiding and stay there.”
“I have not been hiding,” Moiraine said calmly. “I have been doing what I could, here on Toman Head, and in Falme. It was little enough, though I learned much. I failed to rescue two of my sisters before the Seanchan herded them onto the ships with the Leashed Ones, but I did what I could.”
Rand remarks that Moiraine sent Verin to shepherd him, but that he is no sheep, and that since Moiraine said that he can go where he wants, he is going to go away from her. But Moraine only answers that she did not send Verin, and points out that Rand is of interest to many people.
Then she asks about Padan Fain, and Rand admits that he never found him. He remarks disparagingly about his worth as a hero—he couldn’t save Egwene, and Padan Fain threatened the Two Rivers, which is now in danger because of Rand’s failure to show up to the rendezvous. But Moiraine replies that it is probably for the best, and explains that Padan Fain, with his soul belonging to the Dark One, encountered Mordeth in Shadar Logoth. Mordeth tried to take over Fain’s body by consuming his soul, but since it had been directly touched by the Dark One, the end result was neither Mordeth nor Padan Fain, but some combination of the two, more evil than either on his own. Rand would probably have died in the encounter with him, or worse.
Still, Rand is more focused on preventing harm to the Two Rivers, and fumbles for his sword, only to find the blade melted. Memory comes back to him, and he murmurs that he killed him. This time he really killed him.
Moiraine put the ruined sword aside like the useless thing it now was, and wiped her hands together. “The Dark One is not slain so easily. The mere fact that he appeared in the sky above Falme is more than merely troubling. He should not be able to do that, if he is bound as we believe. And if he is not, why has he not destroyed us all?” Min stirred uneasily.
“In the sky?” Rand said in wonder.
“Both of you,” Moiraine said. “Your battle took place across the sky, in full view of every soul in Falme. Perhaps in other towns on Toman Head, too, if half what I hear is to be believed.”
“We—we saw it all,” Min said in a faint voice. She put a hand over one of Rand’s comfortingly.
Moiraine takes out a parchment and shows Rand a drawing by a Falme street artist, depicting Rand, surrounded by clouds and lightning, wielding his sword against a figure with a staff and flames for a face, with the Dragon banner unfurled in the background. Horrified, Rand asks how many people have seen the drawing and urges her to destroy it, but Moiraine assures him that there are hundreds more drawings, and that the story of the Dragon appearing over the skies of Falme is being told everywhere.
Min squeezes Rand’s hand, sympathetically, as Rand wonders if this is why Egwene left. He thinks she was right to do it.
“The Pattern weaves itself around you even more tightly,” Moiraine said. “You need me now more than ever.”
“I don’t need you,” he said harshly, “and I don’t want you. I will not have anything to do with this.” He remembered being called Lews Therin; not only by Ba’alzamon, but by Artur Hawkwing. “I won’t. Light, the Dragon is supposed to Break the World again, to tear everything apart. I will not be the Dragon.”
Moiraine replies simply that Rand is what he is, and that he is already affecting the world, including sparking civil war in Cairhien, with Arad Doman and Tarabon not far behind. Rand insists that he can’t be blamed for that, since he did nothing in Cairhien. But doing nothing, as Moiraine explains, has always been a ploy in the Great Game, and that Rand’s presence was the spark that ignited Cairhien. And now with the news of his battle in the sky, men will be more ready than ever to declare themselves for the Dragon. And then there is also the bundle that she drops in his lap; not one, but two more broken seals from the Dark One’s prison.
Min squeezes Rand’s hand again, this time looking for comfort rather than offering it, as Moiraine explains that this brings them to three of the seven seals being broken—the one she had plus these two which she found in the High Lord’s house. When all seven are broken, or perhaps even before then, “‘…the patch men put over the hole they drilled into the prison the Creator made will be torn asunder, and the Dark One will once more be able to put his hand through that hole and touch the world. And the only hope of the world is that the Dragon Reborn will be there to face him.’”
Rand declares that he needs to walk, and gets up despite Min’s protests. He looks at the broken remains of the Heron Marked Blade and takes a moment to let go of his last shreds of hope that Tam really is his father. It hurts to admit the truth, but it doesn’t change how he feels about Tam or the Two Rivers, and Rand’s only interest is in stopping Fain and protecting the only home he has ever known.
Min and Moiraine help Rand walk down to where some campfires are burning, and he finds Loial and Perrin as well as Lan and the rest of the Shienaran company. In the middle of the camp, the dragon banner is flying. Rand is upset that it is out where anyone can see it, but Moiraine tells him it is far too late for Rand to hide. Still, Rand doesn’t see the point in putting up a sign so anyone and everyone can see where he is.
He thanks Loial and Perrin for staying despite the knowledge of what he is; Loial answers that Rand may be even more ta’veren than he knew, but that he is still Loial’s friend, and he hopes he is still Rand’s. Perrin replies simply, resignedly, that the Wheel weaves them all tightly into the Pattern. As they are talking, the Shienarans are gathering around them, and then they all fall to their knees, Uno declaring that they would like to pledge themselves to Rand. Rand protests, insisting that their loyalty is to Ingtar and Lord Agelmar. He adds that Ingtar died well, sacrificing himself so that they could escape, and doesn’t add anything about his being a Darkfriend, only hoping privately that Ingtar found his way back to the Light.
“It is said,” the one-eyed man said carefully, “that when the Dragon is Reborn, he will break all oaths, shatter all ties. Nothing holds us, now. We would give our oaths to you.” He drew his sword and laid it before him, hilt toward Rand, and the rest of the Shienarans did the same.
“You battled the Dark One,” Masema said. Masema, who hated him. Masema, who looked at him as if seeing a vision of the Light. “I saw you, Lord Dragon. I saw. I am your man, to the death.” His dark eyes shone with fervor.
“You must choose, Rand,” Moiraine said. “The world will be broken whether you break it or not. Tarmon Gai’don will come, and that alone will tear the world apart. Will you still try to hide from what you are, and leave the world to face the Last Battle undefended? Choose.”
They were all watching him, all waiting. Death is lighter than a feather, duty heavier than a mountain. He made his decision.
The story of what happened in Falme spreads rapidly, the details muddied or changed and often exaggerated in the retelling, but one part remains consistent—whether the forces riding from Falme are Artur Hawkwing’s armies, or the heroes of the Horn, or a thousand Bordermen, there is a man at their head, whose face was seen in the skies above Falme, and they ride under the banner of the Dragon Reborn.
I really enjoyed having a chapter from Min’s point of view. Due to her unique ability, her observations on events—her observations on the Pattern—are different than any of the other characters’. Moiraine and the other Aes Sedai have studied and been trained in understanding the Pattern—they believe in it fully. Meanwhile, most of the less knowledgeable characters may be generally aware that the Pattern directs their lives, but they can’t actually see it happening, so in some ways it might as well not exist. Because Min can read parts of people’s destinies, can actually see some bits of the Pattern, she has no choice but to recognize its influence on her life. She’s not Moiraine, lecturing Rand on how he cannot stop being what the Wheel has made him, but neither is she able to be like Rand, willfully resisting the truth of her own destiny.
I have to say, it’s pretty understandable that Egwene feels a little frosty towards Min (and whoever else might end up romantically fate-tied to Rand). She can’t see the inevitability like Min can, and even if she could, in some ways being denied someone she loves because the Pattern dictates it might hurt more than if it was just Rand’s choice, or even Egwene’s own. I bet she and Min get past it eventually, but Rand’s duty, his fate, is not the only one that is a heavy burden.
Egwene seems to think that the pull that she, Elayne, and Min felt towards Rand couldn’t be because of his ta’veren nature, or else Nynaeve would have felt it too. But she is discounting the fact that Rand did not need Nynaeve in that moment. Even Verin couldn’t do anything for his injury, so Nynaeve certainly couldn’t have (she’s amazing, but even she needs some more training). The pull was felt by the women who are or will be important to Rand emotionally. Makes me wonder if Lanfear was only there because she was keeping particularly close tabs on him, or if she felt some kind of pull too. Just because she’s bad news doesn’t mean she’s not important to the Pattern, too, and I noted something symbolic in the way she smoothed Rand’s hair back in such a familiar gesture after Min had just done so for the first time.
The way Min talks about the Wheel and the Pattern, and how she talks to the unconscious Rand, is really fun. There’s something delightfully humorous about her grumblings, and she seems to frame the pain of inescapable fate to herself in a comedic way, no doubt as a coping method. She’s going to be an important person in Rand’s life; perhaps he’ll pick up the habit and the Dragon will be wandering around muttering sarcastically about why the heck Ba’alzamon had to make things so difficult and complicated all the time.
Speaking of Ba’alzamon, last week’s theories have born out, now that Selene/Lanfear has name-checked Ishamael. Her attestation that she is the true driving force behind events, not him, is rather in keeping with the general state of gender relations in The Wheel of Time. The Village Council may think they run Emond’s Field, but the Women’s Circle is the real driving force of decisions made in the town. The Dragon’s enemy may think he is the one directing Rand’s fate, but in fact it is his old girlfriend who is really in charge. Granted, we have only Lanfear’s word for that—as far as what the reader has actually seen of her, she has not really had much success in directing Rand’s choices. But she is playing the long game, and just because she’s been frustrated by Rand’s stubbornness doesn’t mean the general arc of Rand’s life and development isn’t still going exactly in the direction Lanfear wants it to.
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And I kind of love the arrogance of Lanfear just ordering Min to look after Rand for her, like she’s some kind of babysitter or stand-in Rand’s real soulmate. Or whatever it is that Lanfear thinks she is to Lews Therin Telamon.
I’ve mentioned this before, but I still can’t help getting stuck on this insistence on everyone’s part to refer to Rand as Lews Therin, as though Lews Therin is the name of the Dragon in all his lives, instead of just the penultimate one in a long line of reincarnations. While I think my theory about Lews Therin being particularly relevant because of the incident with the sealing of the Dark One’s prison and the taint on saidin still applies, having both Lanfear and Ishamael present now provides another explanation for the instance on calling Rand Lews Therin. Both Ishamael and Lanfear are still in the same lives that they were in when Lews Therin lived. It isn’t that Lews Therin is the proper name for the Dragon, it’s that it’s the name of their Dragon.
I recently went back through the glossary of The Eye of the World, which helped me piece together more of the story of Lews Therin’s attack on Shayol Ghul. I’m not quite sure how much of the details were given within the body of The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt that I missed, but it’s certainly easier to see the information all in one place.
The story as I understand it goes like this. The Dark One was sealed in Shayol Ghul by the Creator during the creation of the world, but during Lews Therin’s lifetime some of the most powerful Aes Sedai ever known, who turned to the Dark One in a bid for power and his promise of immortality, made an attempt to free him. These betrayers became known as the Forsaken. Lews Therin led a group of male Aes Sedai directly against Shayol Ghul in order to reseal the prison, but because the leaders of the female Aes Sedai disagreed with his plan, there were no women channelers present when Shayol Ghul was closed up again and the Dark One managed to reach out and taint the power that was being used. The taint on saidin was, of course, a tragedy that instilled madness in all the male channelers in existence and resulted in the Breaking of the World, but the venture was still successful in so far as the Dark One was sealed in again. The Forsaken were trapped inside with him, with the exception of Ishamael, the Betrayer of Hope (and possibly Lanfear?).
Now that the seven seals that Lews Therin used to close up the prison are starting to break, the patch on the prison is weakening, allowing some of the Forsaken, such as Aginor and Balthamel to escape. Presumably more will be able to get out as more of the seals are destroyed.
Having finally put all this information together in the correct order, I had another revelation this week. I hadn’t understood that the seals were never physically attached to the Dark One’s prison. I had assumed that the two seals that Turak had—the one he acquired from Captain Domon as well as one he already possessed—were already “broken” in the sense that they had been removed from the prison itself. But now that both of Turak’s seals have apparently broken during Rand’s confrontation with Ba’alzamon, I realize they must be seals on the channeling (I don’t think you would call it a spell, but I haven’t yet seen another word used to describe the result of a use of the One Power) that closed the prison. Lews Therin and his companions probably intended to put them somewhere safe and guard them against harm or interference, but then lost them during the Breaking, save for the one seal that someone was smart enough to hide in the Eye of the World. And yet it still broke, which suggests that one doesn’t have to act directly onto the seal; rather, the pressure to break the confinement is coming from somewhere else and channeling into the seals until they break.
Come to think of it, since only men were involved in the sealing of the prison, the cuendillar seals are probably not as strong as they could be, since the best works are always made by men and women channeling together. Perhaps if the female Aes Sedai had gone with Lews Therin and his friends, the seals on the prison would be stronger and not breaking yet. On the other hand, if they had been there, perhaps the Dark One would have been able to taint saidar along with saidin, which would have been even more catastrophic.
But getting back to the chapters at hand, I love the way Moiraine shows up after everything that happened and explains everything and where the heck she has been this whole time. It’s so very Gandalf. It’s completely fair that Rand’s a little pissy about it, although I’m not sure he appreciates the oxymoronic nature of his anger towards Moiraine—he’s always swinging back and forth between being angry that she’s interfering with his life, then angry that she isn’t helping him, and then angry again that she has come back. But there’s also a really important revelation here in the matter of Verin’s lie that Moiraine sent her after Rand and Ingtar’s party.
This is not a case of the truth you hear versus the truth that was told. Verin directly told Ingtar “Moiraine Sedai sent me,” and “She thought you might need me.” So despite being a fully-fledged Aes Sedai, Verin is able to tell lies. It is possible that she is Black Ajah and there is something in the contract with the Dark One that breaks the oaths they swear. It’s also possible that there is another reason; the Aes Sedai are schemers, after all, and I’m sure that Moiraine and the Amyrlin’s plans are not the only secrets even among the “good” Aes Sedai. Perhaps Verin was secretly exempted from the oaths for some reason, or perhaps she is just so clever that she found a loophole of her own. I suppose we have to wait and see, but I’ll certainly be keeping a wary eye on her, and I hope Moiraine does, too.
As Uno, Masema and the other Shienarans swore their allegiance to Rand as the Dragon, I was reminded of Rand’s conversation with Ingtar, so long ago, when he told Rand that if anything happened to Ingtar, the lances would follow him.
“If I go to the last embrace of the mother, the duty is yours. You will find the Horn, and you will take it where it belongs. You will.” There was a peculiar emphasis in Ingtar’s last words.
Ingtar, of course, had no idea that Rand was the Dragon Reborn. He did believe that Rand was a lord, despite Rand’s denials, and even more importantly, Ingtar believed in Agelmar’s orders (no doubt Moiraine was actually responsible for the decision). Ingtar was right that Rand would do his duty, more right than he could possibly have known, and now those words are coming true, applied in an even greater frame of fate and duty than Ingtar realized. The concept of the Dragon breaking all oaths is an interesting one, and I wonder if that isn’t the first step of him Breaking the World again. The Dragon’s fight, after all, is not one of nations against nations or even ideologies against ideologies. It is a fight there can only be two sides to, and it makes sense that by the time the Last Battle arrives, allegiance to the Dragon and the Light is going to be the only allegiance that matters. It makes me wonder how literal the prophesied re-breaking of the world is going to be—there’s nothing to say that has to be lots of death and the destruction of the land itself, is there? Perhaps what he is going to break is old systems, old allegiances, and old ways of life.
It’s kind of beautiful that the first host to swear allegiance to the Dragon Reborn are a group who knew Rand before they were aware of his true identity. Sure, Masema never liked him until he knew that Rand was the Dragon, but these are still men with whom Rand has a common bond. They have ridden together, under Ingtar, on an important and difficult mission. Rand is a part of the Shienaran company, not just the Dragon to whom all men must eventually swear fealty, but a companion in their hunt. No doubt many more forces will be following the Dragon banner before long, but it’s fitting that these friends are there first.
Next week I am going to do a retrospective looking back at both The Great Hunt and The Eye of the World, with a focus on reexamining the character of Ba’alzamon now that I know he is really Ishamael. I am also going to explore the heron imagery and its association not just with swordsmanship but also with Rand himself. Until then, I leave you with my final thoughts.
- Mat can call the heroes whenever he wants; there’s no apparent limitation on how frequently the Horn can be used. Will Artur Hawkwing, Birgitte and the rest be recurring characters appear in the upcoming books, or is this the last we’ll see of them until A Memory of Light?
- I wonder if the Dark One is mad about Ishamael pretending to be him, but I note that Ba’alzamon is not the most important, the true, name for the Dark One. Calling himself Ba’alzamon is a far cry from calling himself Shai’tan. Then again, perhaps this deception is part of the Dark One’s plans. There could be a variety of reasons for it, including that it makes it look like he is free from his prison already and able to touch the world. Seeing what is apparently the Dark One in the skies certainly has shaken Moiraine, and she can’t explain how he could be there and yet still be trapped. So it’s not a bad ploy.
- Rand’s totem has been the heron-marked blade, but it is destroyed now. Will it be replaced, perhaps with the Dragon banner, in a symbolic representation that this is the identity he now most associates himself with?
- Where is Elayne? Obviously she must have gone back to the White Tower with Egwene and Nynaeve, but her name is conspicuously absent from Min’s list of names and where those people went. Did Jordan forget about her or what?
- Why is chapter 50 a page long? Seems silly to make it separate. Just finish off Chapter 49, or do it as sort of an afterword. Although I guess it’s nice to have the good round number at the end of the book.
See you in the comments!
Sylas K Barrett recommends that if you love epic fantasy with complex world building, you should check out his review of Jenn Lyons’s The Ruin of Kings later today on Tor.com!
I’m glad you are doing the recap. I think it will be helpful moving forward. You said you wanted to go back to all the Ba’alzamon references and scenes in the first two books, now that you think you know Ba’alzamon is really Ishamael. If you haven’t considered it already, you might want to go back and look at all the Ishamael references throughout the first two books as well, since you think they are the same person.
With respect to heroes turning up in the story and interacting with our protagonists prior to the last battle – well conjectured.
Ah, but you didn’t even consider the other side of the coin. What if Moiriane was lying?
Elayne is just some princess he met once. He didn’t know she was there at this point having just woken up and to include her name in the list at this time would have complicated the scene by forcing Rand to ask a bunch of questions. Easy to see why Jordan didn’t have Min mention her right now.
@3 Or what if Verin believed Moiraine sent her. It’s not a lie if you believe it.
@@.-@:
Not to mention Min may have more personal reasons for not wanting to // draw Rand’s attention towards Elayne. // So there may be character reasons as well as narrative ones.
@3
Dun Dun Dun!!
Oh, //Masema. If only things had gone differently for you//….
Note: message edited by moderator to white out potential spoiler.
@8 // But if things had gone differently for Masema then Perrin wouldn’t have been dispatched to deal with him and we wouldn’t have the PLOD //
Just to continue with the devil’s advocate theme (Shai’tan’s advocate)? Re Verin and lying. Yes, Moiraine sent me sure seems an obvious lie. But what if the full sentence in her head went like so, “Moiraine sent me (a lovely card when I was ill last month). Or, “Moiraine sent me (out for coffee the other day). Or even, “Moiraine sent me (over the moon when we were pillow friends).
The real Verin question: // Will Sylas remember this scene when it becomes relevant again? IIRC, Verin doesn’t do much alarming for a decent while after this. Keeping an eye on her is a laudable goal but there’s going to be a whole lot more going on than some mousy little brown showing up where she isn’t supposed to. //
@11:
To answer the question, yes. There’s a whole lot of suspicion for // Verin from Egwene and Nynaeve in the next book during their Black Ajah hunt, and Perrin is very suspicious of Verin in the fourth book, where she is central to his storyline. There’s plenty of reasons, relatively soon, to solidify this scene in Sylas’ mind. //
Sylas, concerning your final thoughts.
…
RAFO ;)
@12 // I don’t remember Verin actually doing anything suspicious, at least not on the level of “Moiraine sent me.” I seem to remember it just being generalized distrust of Aes Sedai/potential BA rather than specific to Verin.// I guess we’ll find out. The pace of this read is going to be increasingly painful. I want Sylas to be finished the next book now.
RAFO for books I’ve already read. What is the world coming to?
@14:
The point isn’t her actively being // suspicious. Its the characters constantly thinking about how they don’t trust her. But even with that, there is plenty in TDR where she is acting suspiciously. Giving Egwene the dream ter’angreal, not telling her about parts of it, then thinking to herself about those things, not mentioning the obvious connection of the ter’angreal stolen with Coriannen Nadeal, which the girls comment on, etc. Its all meant to remind us that Verin isn’t to be completely trusted. //
This is an interesting thought, and I can argue it either way having read the series twice and currently listening to it my 4th time. Truth is probably a bit of both. Lanfear has grown on me with each telling of the Wheel I listen to. She’s not simple in any way, and her motives get more exploration than other antagonists… making her another character I care about in a series filled with them. It seems to me being ta’veren is just that, a state of being, and it’s not going to discriminate good thread v. bad thread when weaving the whirlwind around Rand. In two books we’re going to have to revisit this idea of Rand’s ta’veren being and its effect/lack of effect on Lanfear. // She presents options to Rand that no other character in the series – good or bad – can, and given the acceptance of multiple realities within the Wheel’s universe, I’ve often wondered if it was ever viable for Rand to first sever Lanfear from the Dark One, then use the Choeden Kal with Lanfear to cleanse Saidin, finally use the Choeden Kal to defeat and seal away the Dark One. It seems the two of them would have been powerful enough in raw terms to do so; however, the fact Rand is who he is kind of makes this a tedious though exercise. It seems the pattern wove Rand “of ancient blood raised by the old blood” so he could grow up on a farm miles outside a backwater village purposely. A place where everyone knows everyone for miles. A place where Rand comes to manhood in as pastoral a scene a possible because his road to the Dragon is the most jaded one imaginable. It is always the rock of the Two Rivers, his friends, and Tam that can ground Rand in his worst depths of nihilism. This farm boy could never be corrupted enough to lay with Selene, Lanfear, or Mierin Eronaile because the farmboy was too well built into Rand before he became the Dragon. //
Note: message edited by moderator to white out spoilers.
Moderator please white 16 out
I’ll be referencing the above again later I’m sure.
Very good analysis! Moving forward, I highly recommend you continue your current practice of avoiding the index until the end of the book. A lot of things hinted at in the story are spelled out there as you’ve seen. And occasionally something is revealed there that is revealed nowhere else.
It is so true to human nature that even after he has all sorts of proof that convince everyone around him, Rand keeps on denying he is the dragon. I know many who found his struggle in this regard annoying, but I think the series would have been worse off without it.
I don’t think this is a spoiler, it probably has been said by now in the books, but whiting out just in case. //A ‘spell’ in WoT is usually referred to as a Weave.//
Egwene has been fixated on Rand since she was nine or so, she’s considered him her property for a long time. Her head knows that the future they planned together is never going to happen but it’s taking her heart awhile to adjust to the reality. Rand’s too.
Moiraine is – annoying. I understand that she has dedicated her life to finding the Dragon Reborn and helping him fulfill his destiny. Unfortunately she sees her role as directing and controlling him, not guiding and certainly not LISTENING to him and addressing his concerns. She’s always so cool and detached with Rand… is she afraid of getting attached to him knowing what he must face? Or is it just she put her emotions on ice two decades ago to focus on her quest and doesn’t know how to relate to anybody except coolly and at a distance?
Min is justifiably annoyed with Destiny. Rand has even more reason to resent and fear it. Something nobody seems to be effectively addressing. And for the Creator’s sake somebody make the boy understand the being he keeps killing is NOT the Dark One! If it was we wouldn’t have twelve more books ahead of us!
So a couple of things: “Even Verin couldn’t do anything for his injury, so Nynaeve certainly couldn’t have (she’s amazing, but even she needs some more training).” // LOL. Just, seriously, LOL at this. Does Nynaeve ever receive ANY training in healing throughout the entire series? I know that she has lessons, but I seem to recall them just consisting of sisters berating her for not doing things the way they’ve always done them. //
Your take on how exactly the sealing-the-dark-one in thing went is largely correct, but there is another document outside of the series that actually explains this in detail. From what I recall, Robert Jordan got tired of people asking him the mechanics of the Bore-sealing, and so he wrote a short story — the only canonical Wheel of Time short story he ever wrote, outside of the series itself — called “The Strike at Shayol Ghul,” explaining exactly how the sealing of the bore went down. It’s very short, about ten pages, and I don’t really believe it contains any spoilers — it was released right around the time of Lord of Chaos, as I recall, so maybe hold off on reading it until you get to that point? But it is out there if you ever feel the need to get the specifics down.
Also, with respect to the “Moiraine sent me” thing… I’m honestly blown away that you picked up on that on a first reading. It absolutely slipped below my radar, but you’re definitely a more perceptive reader than I was when I first read these when I was 15 or so.
@11: With respect to Verin, // this instance was the only time we had clear proof that Verin wasn’t bound by the oath rod, but she does sneaky stuff CONSTANTLY throughout the series, that had people convinced that there was something seriously weird going on with her. The prevailing theory was that she was “purple ajah,” an indepedent ajah on its own outside of both the Black and the rest of the White Tower, and… that kind of ended up being true in a way? But think about it: conspicuously failing to give Egwene Coreanin Nadael’s notes; talking about Perrin choosing between the Hammer and the Axe (when, at that point, we had only heard dark prophecy and Foresaken make that reference to Perrin); the weird mental gymnastics she used to use compulsion on other sisters in Path of Daggers; the fact that she was about to poison Cadsuane to death in… WInter’s Heart, I think? Basically every time Verin shows up in the series, she is doing something weird and sneaky.//
Also, Sylas: “It makes me wonder how literal the prophesied re-breaking of the world is going to be—there’s nothing to say that has to be lots of death and the destruction of the land itself, is there? Perhaps what he is going to break is old systems, old allegiances, and old ways of life.” I mean… why limit yourself? Although I will say that, as you’ve already seen, “lots of death” is pretty part-and-parcel of this book series. How many people do you think died in the battle of Falme here? Certainly thousands; perhaps ten thousand? Counting at least a thousand White Cloaks, plus the Seanchan forces, plus civilian casualties from having a giant magical war in the middle of a city. But the Dragon Reborn certainly brings along more changes than just death, as the Sheinarans here foreswearing their oaths to their homeland show.
@19: One of the major downsides of reading the books through audiobooks is that the audiobooks don’t include the glossaries. I originally read the books in paper form, but most of my re-reads — and at this point, I’ve re-read the series at least a dozen times, including three full re-reads since A Memory of Light was published — have been through audiobook listenings. Aside from the fact that it let me know just how badly I was mispronouncing things in my head — I’d always thought of Nynaeve as “NIN-uh-vuh,” for example, before I listened to the audiobooks — it made me miss out on a lot of important stuff. That ranges from basic things, like understanding how copper pennies and silver coins and gold coins exchange to one another, along with things that created some confusion (like how a week in Randland consists of ten days, which caused me a bit of confusion at points until I realized it), on up to major things, like // how the person who killed Asmodean wasn’t explicitly made clear until its inclusion in the glossary of Towers of Midnight, although it’s at least heavily implied by Shaidar Haran earlier in the text of that book. //
@21, “Moiraine is – annoying. I understand that she has dedicated her life to finding the Dragon Reborn and helping him fulfill his destiny. Unfortunately she sees her role as directing and controlling him, not guiding and certainly not LISTENING to him and addressing his concerns.”
I feel like Jordan was doing a deconstructed Gandalf with Moiraine, all of the enigmatic, mysterious mentor, far less of the wisdom and compassion. Gandalf as a fallible human, instead of a pseudo-angel. It’s frustrating, but to me it’s an example of Jordan making his characters so human that they make mistakes that we as readers just aren’t used to. The success of this style varies //I still despise Faile, and to a lesser degree Nynaeve, for instance// but it feels very Jordan, and sets him apart from a lot of fantasy writers, including the ever present Tolkien.
@19, @24:
Its also completely realistic that the 40+ year old former // princess // and current political savant wants to make sure the 18+ year old boy who is prophesied to both destroy and save the world has someone guiding and leading him. Moiraine NOT trying to control Rand would be the crazy and unbelievable thing.
As John points out @5, there isn’t any particular reason to consider Verin’s statement a lie.
It wouldn’t even be a particularly impressive case of Aes Sedai misdirection.
All that is needed is for Moiraine to have said something that Verin interpreted (correctly or incorrectly) as wanting Verin to follow Rand etc. but without directly specifically telling Verin to follow them.
This seems MUCH more plausible than Verin lying casually about something that could actually be contradicted.
On a completely unrelated note, I recently read The Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time, and… man, was it terrible. I cannot remember ever reading something that was so lifeless and boring. How you make a story with a plot that interesting into a book that boring is just beyond me. The purposefully anti-modern nature of it — every character is an archetype; everything is telegraphed; there’s virtually no nuance to anything — is fine for what it is, kind of a 20th century story told in the manner of Beowulf. But oh my GOD, I had absolutely no idea that the prose was so dry and dusty! How can he have such exciting scenes going on where it sounds like it’s being conveyed to you by a librarian bored at having to repeat something for the 10,000th time and wanting to get it done as soon as possible without ever lingering on any details or luxuriating in language at all?
I’m pretty sure that I’ve never been as disappointed in my life by any book I’ve ever read. The expectation going in was high, but the end result was absolutely unreadable — like it was written by somebody whose day job is writing owner’s manuals for Hyundai.
What you do with the One Power is make a weave. You weave one or more of the 5 elements into some combo. The weaves are Earth, Fire, Air, Water & Spirit.
One of my favorite lines in all the books is the casual way that Lanfear tells Min who she is. It was straightforward yet frightening at the same time.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
Min has always been my favorite character from the series. She recognizes the absurdity of her fate, but she is still willing to commit to it.
@austin (#3)
I would also like to add a theory that was floating around about this particular matter back when the books were still being released (or, more specifically, anywhere after The Great Hunt came out but no later than the release date of A Memory of Light). Now, I’m not saying anything about whether this theory is actually true or not, of course. But I think it’s enough of an interesting one to be worthy of Sylas’ consideration.
Essentially, the theory posits that if we had been privy to Verin’s thoughts when she said those things to Rand and company, it would have read something along the lines of this (with spoken words written in normal text and thoughts written in italics for this occasion): “Moiraine send me for a sandwich. Which I got for her. She also thought you might need me.” The specifics might have been different (e.g. not having included a sandwich), but you get the idea.
I mean, Aes Sedai are masters of using statements which seemingly can only mean one thing, to then mean something completely different. Granted, Verin would have had to twist her words and her accompanying thoughts more than even the average Aes Sedai does to say what she said and still not have it so that either she or Moiraine were lying, but that only proves that Verin is more sneaky than (even) the average Aes Sedai.
It doesn’t (at least when going by this theory) necessarily prove that either she or Moiraine isn’t bound by the First Oath.
@27:
Taste is a… variable… thing. I read it at least once a decade. I love it.
Except Tom Bombadil.
@25, yeah, that’s also very true in-universe. Seeing from Rand’s POV biases us towards trusting him, but from Moiraine’s perspective there really isn’t any reason to think he is as capable as he is. //Well, as capable as he is against the relatively minor threats he has fought so far (other than Ishamael).//
@27, of course every character will be an archetype! Consider when LOTR was written. A huge majority of our current fantasy tropes have their foundation in that series. The Hobbit was published in 1937, LOTR in 1954, and those two books basically kick-started the fantasy genre in general.
@31: See, everybody warned me about Tom Bombadil and how annoying he is, without saying that he only appears in like two chapters. Nobody warned me that Tolkien’s writing style was the literary equivalent of trying to eat a bucket of raw corn starch.
@30: I think that theory got lent a lot of credence through Verin’s // POV in the prologue to Path of Daggers, where she goes through absolutely ludicrous linguistic gymnastics to say things that are technically true without actually being remotely truthful. //
@28: I don’t know if that’s already been brought up in the text, although it probably has. Either way, it’s certainly minor enough to not count as a spoiler at all, although // one of the very first ways we learn that Lews Therin is slipping through into Rand’s consciousness is when he starts thinking about “spinning a web” rather than creating a weave.//
@29: Min has always generally been one of my favorite characters as well, even though she was caught up in my third-least-favorite plotline of the series, // that being Siuan and Leane trying to outrun Gareth Bryne and find Salidar, which slots in behind everything having to do with Morgase and the Plotline of Doom in terms of “Wheel of Time things I can do without.” //
@Jamill (#27)
I agree with you, but it also pays to remember that Tolkien basically invented the Fantasy-genre (at the very least High Fantasy; one might consider Alice in Wonderland, say, Fantasy too, and that came out before The Hobbit and LotR, but it’s very different from what we usually expect from Fantasy nowadays), and that it was released all the way back in 1954. This goes a long way in explaining why it might be hard to get through for modern readers like you or I, but also why it was nevertheless absolutely revolutionary and just about the most thrilling story ever told back when it first came out.
@25, yes but did Moiraine have to be so ham-handed and obvious about it? Dictating to Rand from a great height is exactly the WRONG WAY to handle any traumatized teen/Messiah. IMO the first step should have been making Rand believe that she is totally on his side and not using him for her own ends or the Tower’s. Which in fact she is not. Second step let Rand feel he is in charge of his own fate – nobody reacts well to being a puppet. Third step, let him lead. He’s the Dragon Reborn not you. Give advice sure but LISTEN to him as well. ‘Rand I believe this is the best thing you could do. What do you think?’
Also the more I think about the Oaths the more utterly useless and counterproductive they seem. I know the given reasons for them but the loopholes are so massive you could hurl a lightning bolt through them.
@33: The vast, vast, VAST majority of books I’ve read were published long before Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings. And, for the most part, everything written after about 1550 has fully-fleshed out characters. Leopold Bloom is probably the single most fully formed character in literature, and Ulysses was published in 1922. Hamlet was published almost 300 years before Tolkien was born. The Count of Monte Cristo has some of the best characterization in literary history. There’s a long, long, long tradition of having multi-dimensional characters in literature that vastly predates Tolkien. Tolkien went out of his way to hark back to an earlier era of literature to create characters who were one-dimensional and without any kind of nuance or interesting differentialization, in a way that’s typical of medieval literature, from Beowulf to Thomas Malory to Dante to the Pearl Poet, but which fell out of fashion basically forever after the Renaissance. Tolkien embraces that ancient “characters only exist in service of the plot, which only exists in service of whatever moral metaphor we’re trying to establish” spirit wholeheartedly. It lends the entire trilogy something of a feel of a fable rather than a proper novel, and it’s an interesting choice. I feel like it could have worked better if Tolkien’s prose was remotely engaging.
@35: Tolkien in no way invented the fantasy genre. There’s not a huge amount of space between Tolkien’s writings and earlier fantasy texts such as the various Arthurian legends, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Nibelungenlied, Beowulf, the Tain Bo Cuailnge, or certain parts of the Decameron. Going back as far as you can go, there’s a pretty clear link between Tolkien and Gilgamesh. Tolkien really just updated a much, much, much earlier literary tradition into modern language; for the most part, there’s absolutely nothing other than language and the existence of fireworks that separates The Lord of the Rings from something that could have been written 700 years earlier.
Tolkien’s prose is fairly uninspiring. Fortunately I had no problem in totally focusing on the plot as a thirteen year old first time reader and subsequently my inner academic has run riot with the complexity and detail of the setting.
@31 Anthony Pero Oh but Bombadil is wonderful, magic, unexpected – there is so much depth there that we are only able to guess at –
@31 Speaking of different tastes… I actually quite enjoyed Tom. :)
Ohh, we are talking about LoTR now! (I apologise greatly for contributing to this off-topic discussion) Only really want to say that I may be somewhat old-fashioned in my tastes, but I do love LotR (read it once every three years or so?) and I can honestly say that I adore Tolkien’s prose. Not sure what that says about me, but to me…his prose simply sings. It speaks to my heart.
Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale.
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains,
Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart,
as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him.
For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end
the Shadow was only a small and passing thing:
there was light and high beauty
forever beyond its reach.
or…
‘Then you think that the Darkness is coming?’ said Éowyn.
‘Darkness Unescapable?’ And suddenly she drew close to him.
‘No,’ said Faramir, looking into her face.
‘It was but a picture in my mind.
I do not know what is happening.
The reason of my waking mind tells me
that great evil has befallen
and we stand at the end of days.
But my heart says nay; and all my limbs are light,
and a hope and joy are come to me that no reason can deny.
Éowyn, Éowyn, White Lady of Rohan,
in this hour I do not believe that any darkness will endure!’
And he stooped and kissed her brow.
And so they stood on the walls of the City of Gondor,
and a great wind rose and blew,
and their hair, raven and golden,
streamed out mingling in the air.
And the Shadow departed,
and the Sun was unveiled,
and light leaped forth;
and the waters of Anduin shone like silver,
and in all the houses of the City men sang
for the joy that welled up in their hearts
from what source they could not tell.
@36, for sure, I totally agree. That’s one of my frustrations with the WoT in general, characters have the worst communication skills I have ever seen. They just browbeat each other over and over, actually listening and talking is so rare.
EDIT: Especially Aes Sedai.
I think it’s worth noting that, unlike Ba’alzamon and Lanfear, the heroes stop calling Rand “Lews Therin” as soon as he tells them his current name.
I think it’s fitting to have it separate. I guess it is a kind of epilogue, although it has a chapter number. Other than the “The Wheel of Time turns” passages, I think that chapter is the only part that is told by a narrator and not from any character’s point of view.
@John (#4):
In the translation I have, Min does mention that Elayne was involved in rescuing Egwene, although she doesn’t say where Elayne is now. It surprises me a little that Rand doesn’t show more surprise at hearing about the Daughter-Heir, as he had no idea that Min knew Elayne, or that Min knew that Rand had met Elayne. Well, I suppose Rand has too many other things to be surprised over at that moment.
Lan is sharpening his sword when Rand walks into the camp, at least in my book. At the beginning of the book Lan told Rand that both of their swords are power-wrought blades that don’t need sharpening. Author oversight? Translation error? Or has Lan lost his faith in his indestructible sword now that he has seen the stump of Rand’s sword?
As Anthony Pero says in @31, taste is different for everyone. I absolutely love Tolkien’s prose. To me, he is responsible for some of the best writing that I have ever read. I do find Frodo and Sam’s journey through Mordor to get a little tedious sometimes, but there is little other than that that bothers me.
@38 In another example of differing opinions, I despise Ulysses and find nothing to enjoy in it. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, after all!
Another excellent summary and analysis by Sylas.
My feelings about Moraine and the way she handles things changed quite a bit over the series. //At the beginning, I found her high-handed and annoying. At a certain point, I become more sympathetic to her and saw some of Rand’s reactions as less than helpful. After her sacrifice, and after reading New Spring, I had a much more sympathetic view; after all, she has spent most of her life searching for the Dragon Reborn.
I think both of them have completely believable and reasonable reactions to each other. He is a teenager who finds out that he is a feared mythic figure, and she is someone who comes from wealth, nobility/royalty, and the strict structure of the White Tower, and who has devoted herself to finding this kid.//
And yes, Min is wonderful!
@43 Sonofthunder @46 ladyrian
YES EXACTLY it’s some of the best prose in the whole of English literature!
Ladyrian: // Oh Rand is absolutely less than helpful, not to mention rational. He is obsessed with the idea that women who can channel will try to use him. A fear unfortunately Moiraine reinforces. But once she shows vulnerability and lets him be boss he is putty in her hands. Rand has been socially conditioned to be protective of women and respectful to his elders. There were ways of using that that Moiraine completely overlooked.//
@46 ladyrian
I have found that, as I get older, the more I sympathize with Moiraine and Nynaeve :D
Although I always thought Nyn was amazing, tbh
I think Nynaeve is totally hilarious but when self awareness was handed out she was busy hitting somebody with a stick. Over on http://neuxue.tumblr.com/WoT-liveblog; Lia, the blogger, describes Nynaeve as// ‘Queen of Denial, Self Deception and Malkier’ //which is hysterical and so true!
Sorry, I can’t seem to make that link work right.
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@48 //True, but considering Moraine’s background and some of her flaws, I think it is not surprising. Others certainly should have learned from her example once she realized how to actually work with him, though.//
@49 I initially disliked Nynaeve, but she quickly became one of my favorites. She might be on the top of my list.
Ha, yes, I feel like that is true.
@50 Yep, she is absolutely hilarious! and Nexue/Lia is great.
Thank you, Moderator. It never even occurred to me that of course that was a spoiler!
@50 princessroxana Nailed it :D
Count me as one who never understood the love for LotR. The original OP was right in that his prose is dry and dusty. I forced myself to finish it (because it’s basically a requirement as a fan of the fantasy genre) but it was torture. Robert Jordan was infamous for his long, detailed descriptions of clothing or bathing, but Tolkien would drone on endlessly about the landscape. Get on with it!
Yes, the Professor did go on about the landscape. Some people really enjoy that. I’m not one of them myself. Tastes differ.
jimii@39
LoTR invented the fantasy genre in two separate senses:
1) The commercial success of LoTR is directly responsible for there BEING a fantasy genre as a separate marketing category.
2) LoTR is THE most important single influence on the development of modern fantasy (partly as a result of #1), especially the subgenre of “epic fantasy”.
I love purple prose, especially in landscape descriptions. (I used to write “stories” that consisted entirely of landscape descriptions). Gollum is the fictional love of my life, and I like some other LotR characters, including Tom Bombadil, the sort of person who attracts me in real life. But most of Tolkien’s monsters don’t fascinate me the way Shadowspawn do. In that regard, Jordan hit the sweet spot as few authors do, giving just the right amount of information to keep me pondering and wondering since 2004.
Lanfear “remarks that Rand knows, but doesn’t yet believe.” I hadn’t though about it, but that’s a great turn of phrase. We are (at least I am) accustomed to saying “I believe ___ , but I don’t know for certain.” Knowledge would seem to require belief. Yet it may indeed be possible to deeply know something and strenuously refuse to actively believe it, an affliction of multiple Wheel of Time characters.
///Actually, Sylas, Mat will do most of the “wandering around muttering sarcastically about why the heck [people who don’t include Ba’alzamon] had to make things so difficult and complicated all the time.” ////
The Seanchan are satisfyingly routed. ///Too bad they’ll be back. Too bad for the people of this continent, I mean. As I don’t mind their return to the story. ///
///Don’t worry, Min. Egwene will befriend the “third woman.” ///
///How did Lanfear just disappear? Some invisibility weave? ///
@45 In My Book Lan Was Sharpening His Belt Knife, Not His Sword; I’ve Only Read The Series On Ebook Though.
@@@@@ 4, @@@@@45, and @@@@@58
The sword/ belt knife was a deliberate change made for later editions. Rober Jordan acknowledged that it was a mistake. Lan would not need to sharpen his sword.
It would be amusing if Elaine was originally mentioned, then removed in a second printing for the reasons John stated, and then Sylas got upset that RJ forgot her.
I have been excitedly following this series from the beginning, as I happened to start reading these series for the first time right as this reading was getting going. I am about 200 pages from finishing book 9 now – its so hard not to read straight through! But at my pace and with all of its complexity, I am also really grateful for these summaries by Sylas – this series is really worthy of multiple re-reads and I find myself getting a bit lost when a character who hasn’t show up for 2 books and frequently has a name that is really similar to another character suddenly shows up for several chapters in a sitaution I don’t remember lol.
I will eagerly be awaiting the rest of this read through! As a fellow first time reader with no exposure to the fandom at all, its really existing and fun to see someone else’s similar experience and thoughts.
My copy of TGH was printed in 1992, two years after initial publication. In it, Lan is described as sharpening his sword. It also has Min stating that Elayne was in Falme and had helped rescue Egwene, but then she omits Elayne when listing those who are travelling to Tar Valon.
Given that I had completely misremembered key planks in the conclusion to this book and reconstructed it in my head with conflations that just didn’t happen, it was almost a relief (added to the recurring pleasure) to read Sylas’ Recap & Analysis.
I suppose reading the series this way will help, but nevertheless I admire how you wrap your mind around moments I glided right past, Sylas.
Given how we were introduced to the Keeper Leanne earlier in this book, both in the course of the unfolding action and through Perrin’s reminiscences, I felt a more fleshed out echo in Min’s POV here at the end. Unlike the big3 Girls, Min is unencumbered in her self-awareness by expectations, upbringing & ambition. For me, this made her a joy to read & experience from go to whoa… Notwithstanding certain developments.
Speaking of Tastes, LotR certainly has never been to mine. I could irredeemably waste words and approach hyperbole to satisfactorily describe my dissatisfaction, but I’ll leave that to Tolkien.
Looking forward to your summation Sylas.
grl
JImll@38:
Well, that certainly tracks with Tolkien’s stated intent — to write a myth for the English people, whose own myths were destroyed and subverted by wave after wave of Saxon invasion, domination, and cultural erasure.
He is dealing in archetypes because that was the purpose of what he created. He was trying to recreate Homer for the English people, not Dumas.
As far as how his style of prose works for you (or doesn’t, in this case), that’s not something anyone can debate, or should even want to. Its subjective to your own preferences.
@55:
Seeing as the Lord of the Rings is most definitely a travelogue as well as a quest epic, its unsurprising that he took the time to describe the land they traveled through. Its 50% of the point of a travelogue. Its why the movies are so long, even the theatrical releases. Just watched through them with my kids the past two weekends. There is literally 40+ minutes of nothing but aerial shots of the Fellowship walking and running through the country side in each movie. Its spectacular, and I wouldn’t want to do without a second of it, but you have to like that sort of thing for it to work. A non-insignificant portion of the population does like that sort of thing, as you pointed out.
Re: LotR and Tolkien – I remember being really, really impatient with the travelogue and landscape descriptions when I first read the books long ago. I wanted the action to MOVE. But subsequent readings, with foreknowledge of the major events, was more relaxed, and I even learned to enjoy (and pay attention to) the scenery.
As for the characters – this was not Tolkien’s emphasis, nor his strong suit, yet I did feel that there was enough development/description to make me “care about” what happened to them. But I admit that I have NEVER been able to stay with Tolkien’s OTHER novels (e.g, The Silmarillion) very long. In those, the “characters” never develop beyond cardboard figures – mere names which I can’t seem to even remember and about whom I cannot care.
For LOTR, and even more with things like the Silmarillion, it helps me to think of it like reading a history book. The emphasis in a history book isn’t the people, but the events that shaped nations. The people are mentioned because that’s who did it, but the focus is always what happened, how, and why. The Silmarillion especially takes this approach. The LOTR has more detail and more character focus, but in my head I imagine this is a story being told by a historian (who also likes traveling). That gives the narrator a certain perspective and voice that lets me better connect with the text.
While we’re digressing, I’d just note that the Silmarillion isn’t a novel, and–if we’re adhering to the root meanings of the terms–LoTR itself is much more in the mythic register of a medieval romance, in terms of both prose and archetypes, than the more human/realist concerns that came to define the novel as a (if you’ll pardon the pun) novel literary form. Whether Tolkien’s approach to plot and prose appeals is endlessly individual, but I think it’s clear he knew what he was doing, and did it well. (Personally, I love Tolkien’s writing on a sentence-by-sentence level. It may be lofty and purple at times, but the craft is so clear I’m happy to take my time. But if you’re expecting it to read like a modern novel, well, that’s not what he wanted to write.)
To hopefully make this comment somewhat on topic, I think the ability to combine close narration and introspection–the hallmarks of the novel, when it was first defined–with mythic depth, archetypes, and adventure is largely why WoT hit the genre with such force and endures still, even as that combination has become so ordinary as to be assumed. Jordan certainly wasn’t the first to do this, but his ambition and skill still stand out these years later.
You managed to gather a lot of information from the glossary regarding the Age of Legends and the opening of the bore but missed on a few things.
//Prior to the bore being opened nobody in that age even knew there was a Dark One. There was no such thing as war. It was a utopian Age. This has happened before in some turnings of the wheel. The ones who became Forsaken were Aes Sedai who became aware that there might be an even stronger Power that could be channeled. The means to access that power was to to open this bore. It’s likely that the Dark One somehow revealed the existence of this new Power, I don’t think we ever discover that, but once the bore is opened the Dark One begins touching the world, eventually some Aes Sedai turn and become Forsaken and the War of Power rages for 100 years. //
I don’t think any of this is spoilery since it’s a clarification of what Sylas has already learned. Plus it’s all ancient history and I avoided touching on any individual characters and how this history influences the present.
Note: to play it absolutely safe, we’ve whited these potential spoilers out.
I think right here at the end of the book, is when I started to absolutely love Min. Before this she was charming, right now she is looking her fate straight in the face and accepting it. grumbles and all!
Now that the word is out via Dragonmount’s Twitter…
If you want to watch yet another first-time WoT reader publicly flip out over everything, with lots of capslock and emojis, go on Facebook and search for #firstwalkthroughrandland. You might need to join the group he’s posting in, “Screw you all, I love Wheel of Time.” He has a doting audience.
Maybe others and Sylas picked up on this as obvious, but I think from these snip-its it’s clear that Lanfear healed Rand (at least partially) when she touched him. Verin couldn’t, Nynaeve said she didn’t but Moiraine is convinced she did:
“(Lanfear) draws what appears to be the Dragon’s Fang on Rand’s forehead, causing him to stir for the first time since Min found him…”
“Verin tried healing it but it (the wound) didn’t work the way it should, and while Moiraine thought that Nynaeve must have done something to prevent him from dying of the injury in the time it took to carry him to Verin, Nynaeve admitted that she was too scared to use saidar at all.”(
Lanfear definitely has a different agenda than Ishamael. But it’s interesting that //he will save Rand’s life when it suites his needs, too, in Shadar Logath.//
@68:
I’m almost positive much of what you are “clarifying” has not been presented in the text of the first two books, or the glossaries of the first two books either, but I could be wrong. I’m pretty sure most of that is first presented to the reader in // the flashbacks in TSR // and much of the rest in the short story “The Strike at Shayol Ghul” which wasn’t published until shortly before Lord of Chaos was released.
Note: message edited by moderator to white out potential spoiler.
@72 I think you missed a white-out in the middle there.
@73:
Which is pretty embarrassing given the context of my post :/
@74, it happens, I wouldn’t worry too much about it, it’s a pretty mild spoiler.
Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn’t it?
Sylas, your analyses are fascinating to read. I was particularly intrigued by your thoughts on the next Breaking. Also a good observation that Ba’alzamon and Lanfear call Rand Lews Therin because that’s the name they knew him as in the last age. And as @45 pointed out but I hadn’t noticed before, the Heroes are more respectful and switch to calling Rand by his current name once they learn it.
Count me among those who absolutely love the prose and landscape description of Lord of the Rings. It’s what got me into fantasy in the first place. I appreciated it at 12, and still count it as my favorite. Lord of the Rings is as much a love-letter to the lands of Middle-Earth (which is to say our Middengeard, our Midgard, our Earth) as it is to the English language itself, of which Tolkien was a devoted scholar. He makes you feel like you are on the same treks as the archetypical heroes and going on the same long and lonely journey.
On a related OT note, I work for an arts organization, and just this week one of the front-line staff told me out of the blue that one of the organizations’ patrons was on the phone with her about tickets and quoted an entire poem in Elvish to her for no obvious reason! I can only assume it was the Quenya “Ai! Laurië lantar lassi súrinen…“
Bwahahahaha! I love the questions you ask. Can’t wait until you discover the answers.
21. princessroxana
Moiraine, Rand… Maybe she sees the Dragon as a really powerful and slightly dangerous ter’angreal she’s been waiting for years to get her hands on.
But to be fair to her – listen to Rand? He’s what, 17? How many 40-year-olds – never mind Aes Sedai 40-year-olds – have met a 17-year-old who was worth listening to?
Okay, @25. Anthony Pero said it better.
@27. JimIII
The nuance you expect is the result of a 50-year journey on the trail Tolkien blazed. Successive Gandalfs and Frodos could not be made as archetypal as the original, because that would be derivative, so each of them was changed in some way. You – and all the other readers, myself included – have gotten used to this, so now the original seems two-dimensional. Try to imagine what it was like to read about Gandalf when he was fresh out of the box. His archetype resonated with readers like a pure crystal.
And 33. Caddan got there first. And 35. jadis666
@34. JimIII
I thought that was when he was // buried in the Can Breat //
36. princessroxana
Pretty much what she did in // TSR. She described it as ‘remembering how to control Saidar’. //
39. JimIII
Ok, I see your point is deeper than what I had first understood. But there are considerable differences between Tolkien’s work and the more ancient works you quoted. First, the lack of an explicit religious element makes a vast gulf between Malory’s Arthur, or, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. One might say that Tolkien transported the ancient tales across the chasm of the Great War. Beowulf served as inspiration for certain themes, but its idea of heroic leadership is so alien to LOTR that they are very different works. Beowulf has the strength of 30 men, and boasts of his prowess. Frodo is as humble a hero as you could imagine.
The moral theme of Tolkien’s work could be stated as, ‘Good and Evil still exist without God; one may struggle for Good without being a Hero’. He used elements of ancient tales in his work, but in the end he did forge something new, for a world which was different from all those which preceded it.
To be fair, I got stuck halfway through The Two Towers on my first attempt, when I was 16 or so.
41. zdrakec
Hahaha!
43. Sonofthunder
The criticism is not that Tolkien’s prose lacks any beauty; it is that the beautiful elements are scattered between multitudes of dusty pages. He can wax biblical at times.
45. Rombobjörn
I think I remember reading in the FAQ that the sharpening swords was corrected in subsequent printings. Perhaps that was another scene, however.
And again, 59. Kyle has it right.
50. princessroxana
Ha!
I really can’t think of anything WoT related here to say aside from rubbing my hands gleefully and anticipating your reactions to future things. As usually your insight is really fun to read, and I’ll echo my love for Min and her general common sense. And ah, yes, here we go, the (all too realistic, sometimes) lack of good communication/trust between main characters.
As for Lord of the Rings:
When it comes to my specific position, it’s probably my favorite books of all time, and one I still re-read (and get new things out of) as an adult. It’s what really pulled me into fandom/nerddom when I read it as a middle schooler/high schooler. I actually think the prose is gorgeous and evocative, but that’s a matter of taste.
I wouldn’t say Tolkien ‘invented’ fantasy by any means (and I don’t think he would have said that) and he definitely had a particular style and intent. I wouldn’t say his characters are ‘flat’ per se (and in fact, I think the Silmarillion characters are more complex/flawed) but he’s definitely not interested in a tight internal POV that focuses on character study. And that’s fine. What I do mind is people purposefully acting like they’re dropping some truth bomb by declaring how much they hate the work with an air of how enlightened they are for not liking it.
JonathanLevy @78 – I really would not agree that is the main moral theme of his work. He does take care (purposefully) to not include outright religion/references, and so yeah, God doesn’t really come into it in LotR even though one does exist in his cosmology. But that’s not because he was trying to make some point about being good without God. He’s stated himself that his themes are about the sanctification of the humble (so, yes, great good can come without being a ‘hero’ in the traditional sense), about the danger of the ‘machine’, and about providence/grace/mercy, and hope in the face of despair. Tolkien might agree (I don’t want to speak for him) that you can certainly be good without religion and discern objectively what is good (natural law, that kind of thing) – but even so, ‘goodness’ itself would originate from God in his worldview so I don’t think he would agree with that statement as worded as such.
@Mods “Chapter 27 opens with Min” CHAPTER 27???!!!
@80: Er, Chapter 48–updated!