It’s week 24 of my read of The Great Hunt, and so much happens in these two chapters (44 and 45) that I don’t know where to start. It’s fascinating to see all the strings being pulled together. Here Nynaeve and the girls are on their own rescue mission so close by to Rand and Ingtar and the rest, both brought to someplace they never thought they would be by rather remarkable circumstances, at odd times that just so happened to perfectly coincide. And meanwhile the Children of the Light are stumbling around, thinking they’re in charge of everything when really they have no idea what they’re actually on the edge of. Geofram Bornhald seems convinced that he’s going to die, though, so maybe he does have some inkling of what is truly at stake in Falme and on Toman Head.
The Wheel is certainly weaving this week.
Chapter 44 opens with Perrin, Hurin, and Mat scouting a village. They’re dressed in what local clothing they could scrounge from the abandoned village they’d been in before, but Perrin can see that they aren’t really being noticed as much as they are being studiously avoided. Half the village is preparing carts to leave, and like every other still-inhabited village they’ve seen, these people are being careful not to pay any attention to strangers, even those who are obviously not Seanchan. Mat is eager to get back to their horses and get out of there, but Hurin is transfixed by the blackened circle where, according to him, all the village council and their families were killed by the Seanchan about six or eight months ago. Despite the distraction, Hurin is still certain that Fain came through, and probably alone.
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They hear a commotion in a distant part of the village and decide that it’s time to go, running back to where they’d tied their horses behind an abandoned house. As Perrin looks back over his shoulder, he sees that the new arrivals are not Seanchan but Whitecloaks, and they hurry out of the town. Perrin feel especially anxious as he remembers his last encounter with the Whitecloaks and the two men he killed.
Unable to tell if they’ve been followed, Perrin reaches out to the local wolves, who aren’t much interested in any two-legs who can’t talk to them, but reluctantly go down to check, enabling Perrin to tell the others that the Whitecloaks haven’t followed them. Mat asks how he could know that, but Perrin merely insists that he does. It’s agreed that they will try to follow Fain’s trail a few miles, since they don’t want to bring Ingtar and the rest of their force back to the village only to get into trouble with the Whitecloaks.
Meanwhile, Geofram Bornhald is peering up the streets of the village, having just seen a broad-shouldered man dash out of view, a man who reminded him of the young man he once met who claimed to be a blacksmith, although Bornhald can’t remember his name. Byar arrives to tell the Captain that the village is secure. Looking around, Bornhald is glad to see that the villagers have no interest in resisting him, and orders Byar to lock them up in the inn with food and water, and to make them think that there will be soldiers left to stand guard. He is confident that it will take the villagers two or three days to muster up the courage to break out and find there are no guards after all.
They have already faced some skirmishes with Seanchan forces, and although the Children had emerged victorious, Bornhald is aware that the Seanchan had not been expecting a fighting force so much more deadly than the terrified villagers. And even with their advantage of surprise, Bornhald was struck by the ferocity of the Seanchan forces, as well as by the fact that they apparently had Aes Sedai fighting for them.
Making a decision, Bornhald tells Byar that the other man will not be included when they engage the main Seanchan forces, but rather that he will watch from a distance and carry the information of what happens to Bornhald’s son. Bornhald feels certain of his own death, and in addition to charging Byar with this duty, he orders him to take information to Amador to be delivered to Pedron Niall, the Lord Captain Commander. Byar is to tell the Lord Captain Commander what they have learned about the Seanchan, and how the Aes Sedai have been seen going into battle for them.
That last was the most important of all. They had to know under the Dome of Truth that for all their vaunted oaths, Aes Sedai would march into battle. It gave him a sinking feeling, a world where Aes Sedai wielded the Power in battle; he was not sure that he would regret leaving it. But there was one more message he wanted carried to Amador. “And, Byar… tell Pedron Niall how we were used by the Questioners.”
“As you command, my Lord Captain,” Byar said, but Bornhald sighed at the expression on his face. The man did not understand. To Byar, orders were to be obeyed whether they came from the Lord Captain or the Questioners, whatever they were.
Bornhald suddenly remembers Perrin’s name, muttering it out loud, and Byar recognizes it as belong to “the Darkfriend.” But Bornhald is not so sure, although he can’t imagine that a man who seems to have wolves fighting for him could be anything else. He explains to Byar that he thought he saw Perrin in the village, but that the man, whether Perrin or another, is unaccounted for among the prisoners. Worried that he might carry notice to the Seanchan, Bornhald orders the legion to mount up and continue on, but he fails to notice the dark shape circling far over their heads.
While the rest of the company wait for Perrin, Mat, and Hurin to return, Rand is practicing his sword forms. He doesn’t want to think about anything, and Hurin and the others should have been back by now. Of all the party, only Verin seemed unconcerned either by the lateness of the scouting party or by the possibility of encountering the Seanchan; instead she is sitting by herself writing in the dirt with a stick and periodically erasing it.
Ingtar, sitting nearby Rand and sharping his sword, observes that Rand shouldn’t be bothering with Heron Waiting in the Rushes, since it leaves you completely open in battle. Rand answers that Lan told him it was useful to learn balance, but Ingtar’s point is that if Rand practices the move too often, it will become instinctual, and he will use it without thinking.
“… You will put your sword in the other man with that, if you’re quick, but not before he has his through your ribs. You are practically inviting him. I don’t think I could see a man face me so open and not put my sword in him, even knowing he might strike home at me if I did.”
Rand repeats that the form is only for balance, then promptly loses his and gives up, putting his sword back in its scabbard and pulling on his disguise cloak. He wishes that the others would return, and just then Uno lets them know that there are riders approaching. The scouting party arrives, eagerly telling them how they found the trail and followed it almost into Falme. They also warn Ingtar about the Whitecloaks, but the Shienaran decides that they will not bother the Children if the Children do not bother them, and hopes that the Seanchan might be distracted, making the attempt at the Horn easier.
Ingtar apologizes to Verin, since the Horn was in fact in Falme after all. But Verin only replies that the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills, especially with ta’veren involved, and that it has no doubt put them when and where they need to be. Now, however, they should make plans. Ingtar points out that the Seanchan don’t seem to care who comes or goes in Falme, and that he intends to take Hurin and a few others into town to follow Fain’s trail. Verin scrubs out a wheel she had drawn in the dirt and instead draws two connecting lines. When she confirms that Mat will go as well, since he can sense the dagger, she adds a third line. Rand says he will go also, as this is why he came; to help Mat find the dagger and Ingtar find the Horn. He keeps thoughts of Fain to himself as Verin adds a fourth line.
“And who else?” [Verin] said softly. She held the stick poised.
“Me,” Perrin said, a hair before Loial chimed in with, “I think I would like to go, too,” and Uno and the other Shienarans all began clamoring to join.
“Perrin spoke first,” Verin said, as if that settled it. She added a fifth line and drew a circle around all five. The hair on Rand’s neck stirred; it was the same wheel she had rubbed out in the first place. “Five ride forth,” she murmured.
Loial and Uno ask to be included, but Verin tells them that they are being silly. There is a limit to how many people can enter Falme before the Seanchan take notice, especially soldiers, and as there are no Ogier on Toman Head, Loial will also attract too much attention. She cannot go either, since the damane would be able to detect her use of the One Power. She adds that they could even detect a man, pointedly not looking at Rand in a way that makes him, Perrin, and Mat all uncomfortable.
Ingtar points out they have enough problems without adding things like men channeling, but says that he would like Verin there in case they encounter any problems. But Verin cuts him off, declaring that the five of them must go alone. She scrubs at the wheel she drew with her foot, partially obscuring it as she repeats “Five will ride forth.”
As Ingtar starts preparing everyone for the quest, Rand stares at the wheel and the one spoke that Verin wiped out with her foot, and feels unsettled by it. He sees Verin watching him, but she tells him that he is “letting fancies take him.” Verin can’t do anything if she isn’t there.
As the sun rises in Falme, Nynaeve, Min, and Elayne are in position for Nynaeve’s plan, set in different locations nearby to the damane houses. Privately, Nynaeve thinks of them as her army. She sees a sul’dam and damane exit the houses, yawning sleepily, and stretches, a silent signal to Min, who returns it with a signal of her own, tossing aside the plum she is eating and leaning back against a doorpost. The way clear in both directions, Nynaeve can see both Min and Elayne moving nervously. Nynaeve thinks that she will wallop both of them if they give the game away, but in truth she knows she could just as easily make the mistake that ruins the plan. Having told the other girls to run if anything goes wrong, she resolves again that she will somehow pull attention to herself so that Min and Elayne can escape. She doesn’t know what she will do next, but she won’t let them take her alive.
When the two women are between the bracket of Nynaeve, Elayne, and Min, Nynaeve recalls everything she made Min tell her about how the a’dam work and what the sul’dam do with them. She suspects that Min kept the worst of it from her, but what she told is enough to heat Nynaeve’s blood with the rage needed for her to access saidar. As soon as she draws upon the One Power it draws both the sul’dam and damane’s attention, but it’s too late for them to stop her as Nynaeve lashes out with a narrow whip made of saidar—with a snap of it, the collar falls open onto the cobblestones.
The sul’dam stared at the fallen collar as if at a poisonous snake. The damane put a shaking hand to her throat, but before the woman in the lightning-marked dress had time to move, the damane turned and punched her in the face; the sul’dam’s knees buckled, and she almost fell.
“Good for you!” Elayne shouted. She was already running forward, too, and so was Min.
The damane takes off running, Elayne calling after her that they won’t hurt her, but Nynaeve redirects Elayne’s attention to the task at hand, subduing the sul’dam and not being noticed. They stuff rags into her mouth and pull a sack down over her head, and despite the commotion, the local people seem to be sticking to their system of ignoring anything to do with the Seanchan, and are leaving the street rather than getting involved with anything to do with sul’dam and damane. Nynaeve had been counting on this, and she hopes that it will take a while for the witnesses’ whispers to make their way to the Seanchan.
They wrestle the woman down an alley and along to a small abandoned stable that they had scouted out earlier, Elayne reluctantly picking up the collar end of the a’dam only after Nynaeve snaps at her to do it. After Nynaeve removes the bracelet from the sul’dam‘s wrist, they pull the sack off her, undress her, and leave her tied up on the floor in her underthings. Nynaeve is the only one who can really wear the sul’dam‘s dress, so she puts it on and then puts the bracelet on her wrist, while Elayne is told to get into the clothes they had dyed to look like the damane‘s dresses. Elayne is reluctant, though, afraid of how the collar will feel while she is pretending to be a damane, and so, to ease both their minds, Nynaeve tries putting it onto their captive.
Neither Min nor the sul’dam expect the a’dam to work, but Nynaeve is instantly aware of how the other woman feels, physically. She tells her captive that she won’t hurt her if she answers their questions, but the woman only sneers contemptuously at Nynaeve—right up until Nynaeve imagines adding something to the sensations she can sense from the sul’dam, which immediately has the woman crying out and trying to get away, trying to raise her bound hands to ward something off.
Nynaeve gaped, and hastily rid herself of the extra feelings she had added. The sul’dam sagged, weeping.
“What… What did you… do to her?” Elayne asked faintly. Min only stared, her mouth hanging open.
Nynaeve answered gruffly. “The same thing Sheriam did to you when you threw a cup at Marith.” Light, but this is a filthy thing.
Elayne gulped loudly. “Oh.”
“But an a’dam isn’t supposed to work that way,” Min said. “They always claimed it won’t work on any woman who cannot channel.”
Nynaeve replies that she doesn’t care how it’s supposed to work, and then turns her attention back to the sul’dam. She explains that, if she doesn’t get her answers, she will make the woman feel “like I have had the hide off of you,” which, she is horrified to realize, the woman believes she can do. Nynaeve realizes that this is because the woman knows it is possible, that this is what the a’dam are for, and she has to take firm hold of herself to keep from clawing the bracelet off her wrist and to keep her expression severe. She finds out that the woman’s name is Seta, and realizes that she can never make Elayne wear the collar. Instead she decides that Seta will be their Leashed One, even as Seta offers gold for her freedom and expresses her terror at being seen wearing the collar. Nynaeve is unmoved.
“As far as I am concerned, you are worse than a murderer, worse than a Darkfriend. I can’t think of anything worse than you. The fact that I have to wear this thing on my wrist, to be the same as you for even an hour, sickens me. So if you think there is anything I’ll balk at doing to you, think again. You don’t want to be seen? Good. Neither do we. No one really looks at a damane, though. As long as you keep your head down the way a Leashed One is supposed to, no one will even notice you. But you had better do the best you can to make sure the rest of us aren’t noticed, either. If we are, you surely will be seen, and if that is not enough to hold you, I promise you I’ll make you curse the first kiss your mother ever gave your father. Do we understand each other?”
Seta swears her obedience, and after they dress her in their substitute damane clothes, Elayne makes a bundle of everything else so that she can pass as a peasant carrying something for a suldam and her damane. Elayne tries to joke, but they are all very aware of the danger they are about to step into.
“Where are you… we… going?” Seta said, quickly adding, “If I may ask?”
“Into the lions’ den,” Elayne told her.
“To dance with the Dark One,” Min said.
Nynaeve sighed and shook her head. “What they are trying to say is we are going where all the damane are kept, and we intend to free one of them.”
Seta was still gaping in astonishment when they hustled her out of the shed.
Meanwhile, on his ship, Bayle Domon’s crew waits nervously, afraid of being noticed by the Seanchan and unsure about their captain’s plans. But Domon keeps them in line; they will wait for the woman unless soldiers come right to the docks, and every man must look like he isn’t doing anything of importance while being ready to cut the lines at a moment’s notice.
As the sea breeze passes Domon and blows up into the town, Rand keeps his cloak closed tightly around himself; he hadn’t been able to find a villager’s coat that fit him, so he must keep the cloak covering the silver herons on his own coat, as well as the attention-calling heron-marked blade. He and his four companions enter Falme at paced intervals, and then join up again after leaving their mounts in the horse lots. Rand notes how little Ingtar looks like a lord in his peasant’s disguise, as well as the feverish look in the Shienaran’s eyes. For his own part, he struggles with whether or not to leave the Dragon Banner in his saddlebags—he brought it along to keep it away from Verin, but he’s not comfortable carrying it on him, so he leaves it with Red.
Despite how early it is and the fact that there are five of them, the group draws little attention as they wander up and down the streets of Falme, following Hurin’s nose. Ingtar grows impatient with the lack of direction, but since Fain has been all over Falme, and recently, it’s difficult for Hurin to pinpoint where the man might actually be. Eventually, however, they pass a large manor, fronted by soldiers and flying the banner of an eagle clutching lightning bolts in its claws. Rand and Hurin are shocked to see that the Seanchan have grolm under their control, but it is Mat who suddenly senses the dagger, and he nearly gives them away to the soldiers trying to turn back toward the front door. Ingtar isn’t very interested in Mat’s need for the dagger, but Rand reminds him that Fain is probably not far from the dagger or the Horn—if the dagger is in the manor, the Horn must be too. He suggests that they wait to see if Fain comes out and then go back to Verin to make a plan, but Ingtar does not intend to wait for Verin—he means to have the Horn today.
He drags them around back of the manor, through the alleys, until they come to the wall surrounding the manor’s back garden. He climbs up onto the wall, and, seeing only one guard on duty, orders them to count to fifty and then follow, dropping down on the other side before Rand can say anything.
“Where is the guard?” Rand whispered.
“Dead,” Ingtar said. “The man was overconfident. He never even tried to raise a cry. I hid his body under one of those bushes.”
Rand stared at him. The Seanchan was overconfident? The only thing that kept him from going back right then was Mat’s anguished murmurs. “We are almost there.” Ingtar sounded as if he were speaking to himself, too. “Almost there. Come.”
Ingtar has Mat take the lead, and they all creep into the house. They don’t run into anyone except one of the nearly-naked serving girls (who doesn’t spot them) as they make their way up a winding staircase and through a hallway, until at last they come into a room where Mat senses the dagger. Ingtar leaps through the doors ready to fight, but there is no one there, only more painted screens, a cabinet, and a single chair facing a small table. And on that table sits the Horn of Valere and the ruby-hilted dagger. Mat snatches up the dagger, while Ingtar goes to read the script on the Horn and breathes that he is saved. Meanwhile Perrin, Rand, and Hurin are more concerned with what comes next, and how to get out again without being caught.
As Hurin and Rand check on the soldiers through a front-facing window, Rand looks across the street into the garden of another house and sees various sul’dam and damane walking about. One leashed woman looks up and even though she is too far away for Rand to see her face clearly, somehow he knows that their eyes have met and that he recognizes her.
“What are you talking about?” Mat said. “Egwene is safe in Tar Valon. I wish I were.”
“She’s here,” Rand said. The two women were turning, walking toward one of the buildings on the far side of the joined gardens. “She is there, right across the street. Oh, Light, she’s wearing one of those collars!”
“Are you sure?” Perrin said. He came to peer from the window. “I don’t see her, Rand. And—and I could recognize her if I did, even at this distance.”
But Rand is sure, and starts desperately trying to figure out how he will get to Egwene when suddenly a voice interrupts him. It is Turak, who declares that he expected to find Fain in the room, rather than five strangers. Ever since Huan died, Turak has been suspicious of the man, and Fain has always wanted the dagger.
As he is talking, Turak is undressing, a servant stripping off his robe and another handing him a sword. He declares he will kill one or two of them for disturbing his morning and then the rest of them can tell him who they are and why they have come. When, at Turak’s word, a soldier steps forward to take the Horn, Mat slashes his hand with the dagger and the soldier jumps back with a curse. Suddenly, his hand begins to turn black, and the soldier screams as his body convulses and blackness and rot spread from the cut up and over his body until he finally dies, his body “black as putrid pitch and […] ready to burst at a touch.”
Everyone is horrified, including Mat and even Turak himself, but Ingtar takes the opportunity to attack, his cry of “Shinowa!” and “Follow me!” drawing Hurin after him. Perrin and Mat also enter the fray, the soldiers falling back especially from Mat’s deadly dagger.
Rand finds himself left alone, facing Turak, who remarks that he expected it to come down to the two of them, and that he is ready to see what is required to earn the heron on this side of the ocean. Rand realizes that Turak’s sword bears a heron as well, and Rand is facing a true blademaster. He wants to seek the void, knowing he’ll need every edge against such a foe, but is afraid of the temptation to use saidin, since any channeling will bring the attention of the damane.
They fight, but Rand can tell that Turak is only testing him, and the High Lord is clear about his disappointment. He asks where Rand found the blade, or if such a sword is truly awarded to those with no more skill than Rand. He tells Rand to prepare to die, and as he attacks in earnest, the void envelopes Rand. Suddenly he can recognize the forms that Turak uses, only slightly different than the ones Lan taught him, and he is one with everything, including the High Lord himself. He sees Turak’s annoyance change to surprise and then concentration, but even with the void Rand knows he is only barely managing to hold his own. He needs to end the fight, and he can’t use saidin.
Having only been defending, Rand suddenly changes to attacking, desperate to reach Turak with his blade, forcing the High Lord to defend himself. He switches moves abruptly, cutting under Turak’s guard, and the High Lord goes down, the sword falling from his hand. Rand knows it is over before he even looks to see that Turak is dead.
The void shook. He had faced Trollocs before, faced Shadowspawn. Never before had he confronted a human being with a sword except in practice or bluff. I just killed a man. The void shook, and saidin tried to fill him.
Desperately he clawed free, breathing hard as he looked around. He gave a start when he saw the two servants still kneeling beside the door. He had forgotten them, and now he did not know what to do about them. Neither man appeared armed, yet all they had to do was shout…
They never looked at him, or at each other. Instead, they stared silently at the High Lord’s body. They produced daggers from under their robes, and he tightened his grip on the sword, but each man placed the point to his own breast. “From birth to death,” they intoned in unison, “I serve the Blood.” And plunged the daggers into their own hearts. They folded forward almost peacefully, heads to the floor as if bowing deeply to their lord.
Rand stared at them in disbelief. Mad, he thought. Maybe I will go mad, but they already were.
Ingtar and the others return, and Mat informs Rand that when the other servants saw the fighting, they never tried to help the soldiers or raise the alarm, only fell to their knees and put their hands over their heads. Mat can’t fathom it, although Rand is just relieved that they didn’t all kill themselves.
“I would not count on them staying on their knees,” Ingtar said dryly. “We are leaving now, as fast as we can run.”
“You go,” Rand said. “Egwene—”
“You fool!” Ingtar snapped. “We have what we came for. The Horn of Valere. The hope of salvation. What can one girl count, even if you love her, alongside the Horn, and what it stands for?”
“The Dark One can have the Horn for all I care! What does finding the Horn count if I abandon Egwene to this? If I did that, the Horn couldn’t save me. The Creator couldn’t save me. I would damn myself.”
Ingtar stared at him, his face unreadable. “You mean that exactly, don’t you?”
Just then Hurin warns them that someone has come up to the front door, that the soldiers outside are stirring. The officer runs inside, and Ingtar orders them all to go. Mat snatches up the Horn before Ingtar can, and the Shienaran reminds Rand that he can’t save Egwene if he stays to be killed. They all race out of the house and back through the garden. As Rand follows the others over the wall, he promises himself that he will find a way back to save Egwene.
If I’m being perfectly honest, I’ve been so emotionally caught up by Egwene and the damane that it was hard for me to care much about what the boys were up to, even though it’s actually quite suspenseful too. I’m intrigued by how so much of the Seanchan brutality is alluded to rather than stated outright, such as the blackened circle that makes Hurin feel so sick. Instead, the suspense and fear around the Seanchan is built up through the way others react to them. The way all the local people studiously ignore not only the Seanchan but any strange person or circumstances illustrates just as well the terror they can rain down if they so choose—or perhaps better: I seem to remember complaining a few weeks back that yes, we know Fain likes to feed Darkfriends to the Trollocs, big deal. Even the methods of their Seekers of Truth—who sound very much like the Whitecloaks’ Questioners, by the by—are more alluded to than stated outright, while little details such as how the Empress chaining men to her damane to see if they both die as a form of entertainment offer us plenty of imaginative fodder to make up the difference. Indeed, the sul’dam and damane relationship is the one horror of Seanchan society that is fully explored in the narrative, and although it was invented by an Aes Sedai rather than a Seanchan citizen, you can see how the structure applies in other ways. I have no doubt at all that the extreme discipline within the ranks of Seanchan servants is created in a similar way, although probably less violence and pain is needed since your average lower-class Seanchan doesn’t have the kind of power that a marath’damane has. Still, the way that Renna instructed Egwene about her place, how a damane is like a useful tool rather than a person, fits with the way Turak’s two servants apparently saw their existence: They were there to serve him, and when he was no longer alive, there was no reason for them to be alive either. It’s very chilling.
I was actually worried that something similar might happen with Nynaeve’s plan to separate Seta from her damane. If the damane in question had been a Seanchan herself, or even just had been a captive for a long time, she might have exhibited a Stockholm Syndrome-like behavior towards her sul’dam, might have truly believed that she was meant to be a leashed tool who served only as her sul’dam commanded. Separated from that purpose, she could have killed herself as Turak’s servants did, or fought back at Nynaeve’s attempts to subdue Seta. I was also a little scared that she might be so afraid of being recaptured that she used her one moment of freedom to kill herself rather than return to being leashed. So that punch really was a relief.
Going back to the top of the chapter for a moment, I have a feeling that there are some bad things coming for Bornhald and his legion. They are on the edge of all these things that are happening, but they don’t know much even about the Seanchan and who they really are, never mind the truth about damane or how many Dragon Reborn shenanigans are happening just on their periphery. I suspect that when everything comes to a head, the Whitecloaks are going to get caught in the crossfire.
I mean, they don’t even realize that the Seanchan are spying on them right now. Someone needs to get Legolas to come shoot that thing out of the sky.
Truthfully, if the commenters hadn’t clarified for me, I still wouldn’t understand that the first Bornhald we met back in Baerlon was Geofram’s son, even now that he’s been mentioned. I do imagine, knowing what he was like in that one confrontation with Rand, that he’s not going to take the news Byar brings him with any kind of measured calm or thoughtfulness. Byar, meanwhile, is kind of reminding me of Ingtar back when we met in The Eye of the World; he’s being sent away from where he perceives both his duty and his honor to lie, and that feels poignant right now, given how close Ingtar seems to be to going off the rails.
In all the commotion of other bad guys and other prophecies, I’d forgotten that I was initially suspicious that Verin might be a Darkfriend. Since Ingtar has been behaving so suspiciously, I’ve started to suspect that he was in some way involved in the Dakrfriend attack on Fal Dara and the loss of the Horn, so most of my Darkfriend suspicions have been focused on him. Verin, meanwhile, has been functioning largely as an expository character, helping Rand figure out his powers, reminding the party that the Pattern is in charge of their destiny, and muttering occasionally about prophecies. Rand is still suspicious of her, but she’d largely blended into the background for me until this chapter, which in itself is deceptively simple.
I had initially remembered the “five will ride forth” quote as belonging to the “Blood calls blood” dark prophecy, and had to go back and look to remember that it was actually part of a quote that Vandene gave to Moiraine from the Prophecies of the Dragon “Five ride forth, and four return. Above the watchers shall he proclaim himself, bannered cross the sky in fire… ” Valdene believed that the “watchers” were meant to be the Watchers Over the Waves, which is a reference to the people of Toman Head. Verin seems to have a similar idea about the prophecies, and is actively working to shape their actions to fit. She knows that five will ride forth and four will return (which means someone is going to die) and ostensibly she knows that Rand will declare himself over Toman Head. I’m wondering if the the “bannered cross the sky” is poetic or literal, if only because Rand ended up in the sky at the end of the last book. Although I’m not sure if that was “real” either, in the strictest sense. It seemed more like a supernatural plane than the actual sky.
Verin literally treats the five who ride forth like spokes of a wheel, or perhaps the Wheel, which brought me back to my old question about how much free will there actually is in this universe. She prompts for a volunteer to bring the number from four to five, then stops Loial or anyone else from going into Falme with the others, so clearly she is actively working to make the prophecy come about. This is something we’ve seen in Aes Sedai before—it’s basically Moiraine raison d’être. So the Wheel might direct events and the Pattern might use ta’veren to drive people and circumstances where they need to be, but the future isn’t inevitable, even without the Dark One getting his hands on the Pattern.
It was pretty chilling when Rand saw that Verin had wiped out one of the spokes on her little wheel doodle. Someone isn’t making it back out of Falme.
I was so impressed when Nynaeve just cracked open the a’dam like that; it’s been built up as being so impossible that it felt like a truly stunning move, although I don’t know that a’dam are necessarily supposed to be irremovable once placed around a woman’s neck. I always like reading about Nynaeve using saidar, and I’m always struck by how the flower she pictures sits on a thorny branch. The choice represents how Nynaeve specifically feels about saidar and her identity as a channeler, but I think it’s a good reminder in general of the nature of the One Power and how it can be just as dangerous to those who wield it as to those it is wielded against. Nynaeve’s flower image is beautiful and potentially very dangerous, just like the Power itself.
Nynaeve’s extreme distaste at wearing the a’dam even as a disguise was a relief. Part of me had worried that the a’dam would have some kind of corrupting power over it’s wearer, like evil jewelry often does, or the way the Sarcophagus in Stargate SG-1 causes repeat users to become cruel and monomaniacal. But also, having been faced with narration detailing Egwene’s pain and suffering, it feels vindicating as a reader to have Nynaeve be as disgusted by the device and its purpose as we are, even outside of its use on her friend. It just goes to show that the monstrosities that regular people can be capable of are much more alarming than the taint of Evil.
I loved the speech she gave to Renna—it’s like if Steve Rogers were an angry, vindictive lady. Nynaeve has never struggled to articulate threats in a creative way, as we’ve seen when she’s threatened to feed Egwene or Elayne disgusting potions to make them stop being silly and lovesick, and “I’ll make you curse the first kiss your mother ever gave your father” is an absolutely sick threat. I really wanted to high-five her.
There is no longer any doubt in my mind that something is going on with Ingtar. The narration is being more generous with its hints, now, allowing Rand and others to observe when he says or does something out of character, and noting little details such as how his eyes “have a feverish intensity.” He’s being increasingly reckless too, although I was amused when Rand thought that Ingtar, not the Seanchan guard, was being overconfident. It’s not overconfidence, Rand. It’s desperation. Given how Ingtar’s acting, I think it’s just as well if he doesn’t get to hold the Horn: Finally Mat’s grabby impulses are serving a useful purpose.
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The Ruin of Kings
And then comes the fight with Turak. I was never under the impression that this chapter’s title, Blademaster, referred to Rand, and as it seems late in the day to introduce a whole new important character, I kind of figured it was going to be Turak. This is a different kind of confrontation than Rand has seen before. It’s not a Darkfriend or Shadowspawn, or some kind of grand metaphysical struggle with Ba’alzamon. It’s just normal sword-on-sword conflict, but it’s what Lan has been training him for, and I was pleased to see what Rand can do with a sword and the Void and not involving saidin. Plus Turak was pretty yucky and I wasn’t sorry to see him go. It is interesting how much the way Rand thinks of saidin is changing. It’s already more normal, even rote, to him now. He considers it as a viable option in times of trouble, and although the taint is still a factor, it isn’t in his mind at every moment. Perrin is similar: Now that he’s speaking to the wolves, he’s becoming more accustomed to the idea of what he is, and more accepting, even if it still makes him nervous and needs to be hidden from his friends.
Rand also gets to parallel Perrin in this chapter, as he has to face the first time he’s killed a man. It’s a really nice touch.
And in the end, we see the downfall of the super-strict class and role hierarchy the Seanchan ascribe to. It reminds me of back in the beginning of the book, when Ingtar explains to Rand how the Shienarans view their duty.
“When we Shienarans ride, every man knows who is next in line if the man in command falls. A chain unbroken right down to the last man left, even if he’s nothing but a horseholder. That way, you see, even if he is the last man, he is not just a straggler running and trying to stay alive. He has the command, and duty calls him to do what must be done.”
The Seanchan have a strict code of duty too, but there is no room for advancement, adaptability, or change. Turak’s servants belonged to him so firmly that his death meant their death. The others had no place in the affairs of warriors or the Blood, so they removed themselves from the situation so far that they could not even think of helping those they served or calling for help. And this may be the way the Seanchan lords want it, but it’s going to allow Rand and his friends to escape. The consequences of that will be much father reaching than any Seanchan lord can yet fathom.
And speaking of those consequences, we’re going to run into them next week. Chapters 46 and 47 are the big ones where most of the climactic action happens, so we may get them both at once, or I may break the posts down into one per chapter, depending on how much I find I have to say. Until then, I leave you with a few random thoughts, and await your comments below. See you soon!
Thought 1: Wolves have have their own formal greetings! You give an image that is your name and your scent. It’s like the wolf version of kissing on both cheeks. I love it.
Thought 2: Rand keeps thinking that if an Aes Sedai isn’t right on top of him, she can’t be affecting anything. That’s pretty naive of him. Although I can understand the impulse to just ignore his identity in the hope that it won’t be true, there is no reason to think that just because an Aes Sedai let him out of her sight, she isn’t still trying to direct him. Also, I feel like his struggle with where to leave the Dragon Banner is a really fun physical representation of his inner struggle with accepting his identity.
Thought 3: Fain killed Huan, just like he said he would. I bet that was horrible.
Sylas K Barrett really likes herons, and in all honesty would probably enjoy wearing Rand’s black and silver coat. Maybe to a concert or something.
I definitely had to suspend some disbelief here that Rand could beat a Blademaster, but these were two really good chapters. I feel like Bornhold’s POV shows that even as misguided as he is, he is an honorable character at his core. Definitely a lawful good character – though he is following a distorted law.
Great recap and insight. Love these chapters. Love this book, in spite of the fact that you can see the seams in the narrative in this book pretty clearly. It still pretty much defines “epic” for me.
Not much else to say, except maybe you should have tried to guess who you think of the five would die, and why you think that. That would have been interesting to read.
@1:
Bornhald is a character that people definitely ague about. The fact that he has good qualities does not make him a good man. And the fact that he is better than those around him by comparison doesn’t make him one either. Bornhald has less excuse than your basic Seanchan soldier for what he does. Its not like the culture in Randland is pro-Whitecloak. He’s not a product of his environment. And he surrounds himself with people who will do the dirty work so he can keep his own hands clean. That’s pretty much the worst kind of person, in my opinion.
But that discussion is probably better served waiting for The Fires of Heaven.
@1 // I think once Rand assumes the void he is tapping into his Lews Therin memories and that makes him a better fighter. There is no textual confirmation on this as far as I know, but that’s my head cannon on it //
@3 // Why Fires of Heaven? Do you mean The Shadow Rising when the Whitecloaks are in the Two Rivers? //
@@.-@:
// I mean its easier (and more interesting) to talk about individual Whitecloaks as good or bad once Galad becomes one. //
The key to Rand being able to defeat Turak is the section Sylas paraphrased where Rand not only became one with the void, but also one with the sword and one with Turak. Also just a little bit of foreshadowing there.
@3: He’s not a product of his environment.
While the culture in Randland generally isn’t very pro-Whitecloak, the culture in Amador very much is, and it seems safe to assume that Amador is where clan Bornhald originated. So he, and his son, are likely very much products of their environments. Not that that excuses any of their bullshit, but it’s akin to saying that Avon Barksdale wasn’t a product of his environment because heroin is illegal in the US.
On another note //HAHAHAHAHA VERIN HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I’m going to be giggling about her for however many years it takes this blog to get there//
Also, I could have sworn that this was the chapter that explicitly revealed the nature of the sul’dam/damane dynamic. Guess that’s next week.
We see how damane are conditioned to accept pain as punishment and avoid it at all costs. This probably begins before they’re found and collared, with the culture’s general view of damane. I wonder if any conditioning is ever needed for sul’dam to give that pain. Even if they truly think it’s no worse than whipping a disobedient horse — or maybe better, when it doesn’t actually injure — some girls may have been reluctant to harm “animals.” Aes Sedai also have corporal punishment of girls in the White Tower, but not all of them personally administer it.
How does a collared woman change clothes when someone is wearing the bracelet? Can their dresses be unlaced far enough to step in and out of, instead of being pulled over her head?
Heh, Rand thinks the group looks like “villainous beggars”…while tracking a villainous sometimes-beggar.
Heh, the observation that “the guard isn’t even wearing his helmet.” Makes him sound like a reckless bicyclist.
Dudes, you should have just grabbed the stuff and run. Though I don’t know if that would have worked.
I like herons too. I just got a Christmas gift of a shirt with a silkscreen picture of herons, or possibly egrets. :-D Got a silver heron-shaped hair clip years ago, but it wasn’t the precise size needed to hold my ponytail.
///Rand, Egwene will never be very “safe” again. And she won’t want to be safe. She has Things To Do.///
Bornhold… not a good guy…definitely is Lawful… Despite the Questioners running over his position, he still lived with his orders to let them… he does complain about it… so Lawful. He might be Evil/Neutral though. It is hard to equate it… his culture is evil… but the religion, under which Bornhold resides obscures any truth.. well, we follow the light… so we cannot be wrong… and if you oppose us, you must be a darkfriend!
@1… Blademaster… so I have a theory… did Turak have any scars? I don’t think so…. //So nobody touches the blood in Seanchan… Turak is a black belt in practice, but he has never met a Blademaster who was out to kill him… I don’t discount the theory that Lews Therin’s muscle memory is tickling the edges of Rand’s skill as well… // Rand has the void, desperation and youth to help as well…
One could argue that Rand has a natural talent at sword fighting (he is the Dragon, after all) that was augmented by weeks of practice with a blademaster. Still, it probably does defy belief a little that he was able to best an established blademaster. Even with that, though, it was still a freaking cool moment of awesomeness.
Turak was good at attacking, but it seems that his skills at defense were severly lacking.
“The Dark One can have the Horn for all I care! What does finding the Horn count if I abandon Egwene to this? If I did that, the Horn couldn’t save me. The Creator couldn’t save me. I would damn myself.”
Maybe the best line delivered by any character, in the entire series.
@7:
Why?
@12 “What does it profit a man to gain the world, but lose his soul.”
I agree, this is one of the best lines of the series // especially considering the story of Lews Therin and Ilyena //
@13
Because that’s where most of the CoL are from. I meant Amador the country, not Amadicia the city, it’s been a while. Outside of //Galad// we don’t see anyone from outside that country join the Randland KKK, and their general unpopularity in every country we visit in the series is a pretty strong indication that the vast majority of their recruiting happens in the country they rule. In the case of the Bornhalds, that becomes even more likely because of the generational nature of their enlistment. One random guy from Tear or wherever enlisting, sure, but his son also joining up makes it extremely likely that they’re natives and did in fact grow up in a culture in which the CoL are not just generally approved of but are basically the military junta ruling the entire country.
Basically, unless we’re specifically told otherwise, the best course is to assume that any member of the CoL is from somewhere in Amador.
Note: message edited by moderator to white out potential spoiler.
@15:
Yeah, I’m not sure that’s the case, but your guess is as good as anybody’s.
We are not told that ANY of the Children of the Light are from Amadicia. They are headquartered there, but that would be like assuming Catholics are Italian.
//Late in the series, isn’t there one of the Children with an Illianer accent?//
I like how Elayne says they are going into the lion’s den when the lion is the royal symbol of Andor. Elyane is accustomed to viewing the lion as a noble and righteous creature. I would have never that she would have associated a lion with her enemy.
Thanks for reading my musings.
AndrewHB
aka the musespren
@15 – Can you white out the spoiler name you use as a counterexample? Sylas won’t know that yet.
Both of the Bornhald’s speech patterns led me to assume they were from Tarabon. With the distinctive “yes?” they would add at the end of sentences. Not that significant since I don’t believe their country of origin had any bearing on their actions.
@20 It looks like you are indeed correct! For what it’s worth, I just checked and the Companion states Dain is from Tarabon, though it does not give a nationality for his father. I don’t recall if this is ever explicitly mentioned in the text.
@anthony Pero re #2.
I think it’s going to be Ingtar. I know there’s something going on with him, am suspicious that he may either be/have been a Darkfriend or at least had something to do with the attack on Fal Dara. His feverish need to reclaim the Horn, (“I must!”) has already had me thinking along those lines for the past few weeks, and I think that perfect quote from Rand (“What does finding the Horn count if I abandon Egwene to this? If I did that, the Horn couldn’t save me. The Creator couldn’t save me. I would damn myself.”) and Ingtar’s reaction to it is a particularly pointed piece of foreshadowing.
My initial read on Ingtar back in the beginning of the hunt to reclaim the Horn was that he felt dishonored that the Horn was lost while under his/Fal Dara’s care, and that he needed to prove himself by finding it again. This tracked with what I knew of him from The Eye of the World. But there’s been a fear in him that seems to have risen over the course of the story and subsumed any talk of honor or Shienaran determination, and his focus on finding the Horn has always been on himself. He never once, for example, expressed fear that the Darkfriends might use the Horn, or that there might be consequences that cause the Light to lose in the Last Battle.
For a while I thought maybe he was truly just a Darkfriend, and his concern for recovering the Horn was because Fain had taken over, and the Horn wasn’t being taken where Ba’alzamon wanted it. I thought perhaps Ingtar was concerned that he might be punished for this. But that didn’t track either, and there is too much nobility and goodness in Ingtar for me to feel like it is quite so straightforward. I also don’t see much power-lust in Ingtar, which so far has been the hallmark of the worst of the Darkfriends, as far as I can tell.
Now I suspect that Ingtar got tangled up with the Dark or Darkfriends, possibly a mistake made under duress or in an attempt to do something good through the wrong means. We know that the Shienaran fight against the Blight is one that they are slowly losing, and we’ve seen despair in Ingtar before, so I could see him having made some kind of mistake, maybe even back in The Eye of the World when all of Fal Dara’s forces thought they were riding to certain death in the Gap. Probably his desperation to regain the Horn has something to do with regaining his place in the Light.
Ingtar was so struck by Rand’s words, I imagine there will be some kind of redemption death for him, in which he’s injured or chooses to sacrifice himself to save the Horn/the rest of the company. I think Rand’s choice will have reminded him of who he is and where his duty lies, and that his redemption is something he can earn by being a good man and by doing his duty, as he once urged Rand to do. He doesn’t need the great deed of recapturing the Horn to bring him back to the Light, only himself.
Given that it’s really too early to kill off Perrin or Mat or Rand, the only other choice would be Hurin, which wouldn’t serve any narrative purpose other than making the reader sad, so I think even if some/most of my assumptions about Ingtar’s exact motivations are off, I’m probably right in at least a general sense.
@22 Sylas, all I can say is, excellent analysis. You will get your answer very soon.
AeronaGreenjoy @8,
How does a collared woman change clothes when someone is wearing the bracelet? Can their dresses be unlaced far enough to step in and out of, instead of being pulled over her head?
I have actually thought about the same thing, but I always assumed the same that you propose, or that the sul’dam just takes the bracelett off for that moment (given as the damane cannot go anywhere with the bracelet undone anyway).
Also, on the topic of Rand defeating Turak, on my first read, it bothered me, too, that he seemed to defeat a full Blademaster a bit too soon after holding the sword for the first time. But it did not bother me so much on the reread. I took it as an indication of his natural talent (the Dragon!) combined with Lan’s teachings, as has also already been said by others, and I think that Rombobjörn @11 makes an excellent point about Turak’s lack of defensive skills. And it really was bloody awesome.
@24:
Turak definitely seemed interested in testing himself. Which would make sense if his skill was all practice with no actual danger. He would be hungry for it.
@olethros6(#15) @RobMRobM(#19)
Yes, I agree with Rob here. That name should be whited-out.
The dress swap doesn’t really make sense. If only Ny can wear Seta’s dress, why can Seta wear El’s?
Seanchan Aes Sedai were Seanchan citizens //(or rulers)//, too (before they became damane).
Just movie knights who can’t obscure the actor’s face.
He doesn’t have to defend himself, no one may spill the blood of the Blood, as Turak explained to Fain. That is a big advantage in a sword fight against someone who accepts those rules. And Turak’s nails should be a problem.
@16 – that would be like assuming Catholics are Italian.
More like assuming that members of the Italian military are Italian, I think. Apparently someone on the internet is certain enough that the Bornhalds are from Tarabon, but given its proximity to Amador I’m sticking with my initial assumption under the belief that linguistic quirks don’t obey political boundaries, much like French and German overlap in Alsace.
Sylas, just curious, but do you really not read ahead? You read the chapters for your next post and that’s it? If so, that’s some strong willpower…
@27: a sul’dam dress presumably is supposed to be well-fitted. That need not hold for a damane dress.
@28
Except those linguistic quirks are so very obviously used by Jordan to help define where his characters originated. Bayle Domon is from Illian, Suian Sanche is from Tear, Liandrin is from Tarabon. But because it fits your original assumption Bornhald is going to buck that trend?
Alsace often changed between being in France and being in Germany.
Why shouldn’t there be Whitecloak families in many countries? This isn’t an Eddings book where everyone in a country is the same.
@27 if only Nynaeve can wear Seta’s dress, but Seta can wear Elayne’s, presumably Nynaeve and Seta are both more slender than Elayne. Seta can wear a dress that’s too big for her; Elayne can’t wear one that’s too small.
@28:
It wasn’t “someone on the internet”, they got it out of the Companion, which is published by Team Jordan and Tor.
olethros6 @28: Re-read RobbyFriedlander @21. It’s not “someone on the Internet”; it’s straight from The Wheel of Time Companion, which is canonical. Here’s the exact quote:
As RobbyFriedlander @21 said, Geofram’s nationality is not stated in the Companion, but given his speech patterns and the fact that his son is Taraboner, it seems almost certain that he is as well.
Edit: Ninja’d by Anthony Pero!
The bottom line regarding Whitecloaks is that they come from everywhere. Their headquarters are in Amadicia, but they are not an Amadician organization. Its possible that more Whitecloaks come form Amadicia than from any other nation, maybe even likely, but they are tied to Amadicia by happenstance, not culture. We learn more about the origins of the Children of the Light in The Shadow Rising and The Fires of Heaven from // Galad’s recruitment //.
Not only that, I suspect Geofram Bornhald is upper class/nobility from Tarabon. He has the “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, yes?” construct like all Taraboners. But he does not say things like, “The clothes, they are dirty,” or resort to choice insults with the “You X you” construction. (e.g. “You great pig you!”). The latter two are things that we see lower class Taraboners say, like Aludra and Liandrin.
AeronaGreenjoy (#8) and Celebrinnen (#24):
I think stepping into and out of a damane dress is the only plausible solution. We know that a damane is allowed to wash herself (as long as she can avoid thinking about the pitcher as a potential weapon). She must therefore be able to undress, but she can’t lift the bracelet even briefly to pull it through the dress. No sul’dam would behave like a servant, helping a damane dress and undress. The damane must be able to do it on her own without moving the bracelet.
@austin (#29) Yes, I only read enough for the next post. Since this is a read and not a reread, I don’t want to have any knowledge of later events that color my analysis. Sometimes by the time a post goes live I’ve started on the next one, so I might be a chapter or two ahead of what’s gone up, but not this week. I just finished reading Chapter 46 this evening, so I’ll start writing up next week’s post tomorrow and see how long it ends up before I start on Chapter 47. (I usally feel safe reading two chapters at a time, but these are the big ones.)
Re: Bornhald’s nationality
I think you guys are looking at this the wrong way. The CoL are Templars, not KKK. They’re a righteous military organization, heavy emphasis on the military part. While Amador is a base of operations, like a Jordan style cross between Rome and Holy Roman Empire, it isn’t out of place to assume that Children legions get “stationed” outside of Amadorian borders, and not just sent on patrols, and that they recruit this way, too. Bornhald Jr. is a military brat, and Bornhald Sr. is the Reasonable Authority Figure / Father to His Men who got commissioned (probably because of his noble status, as someone else posited) and married a woman he met while he was stationed outside Tarabon. He recognizes the flaws in his own organization and pushes back against zealotry within the structure of his chain of command, but he’s also bound by the structure and refuses to violate it. If anything, his contempt of the Questioners seems to stem from the fact that they view themselves as outside the structure, themselves, or above it at least. I see the Children as Jordan’s critique of both his own religion and his military service.
You first-read bloggers are such noble culture-gladiators. Not only do you battle and writhe with emotions and ignorance in a vast public arena for our viewing entertainment; you have to keep stopping where no one else would, suspended in suspense and required to make long-standing statements with your incomplete experience before moving on to relief or more torment. You are the lights of my social life.
@Sylas: First, thank you for doing this! :)
Second: I can’t wait to see you reaction to how the book plays out.
Everyone: I can’t believe how much Sylas is seeing! Granted, I read the books as a teenager, but Ingtar’s revelation was a surprise to me, and quite a goosebump-inducing moment. Was I just naive, or did others not see the Darkfriend revelation coming?
@22 and 23 no for how specific all those predictions are you definitely know what happens and it’s reither a spoiler of a kind or diversion, I know which so I won’t spoil it but I have read the whole series at least 20 times .There is a lot of hidden gems but there is also A LOT of dissembling and diversion that gives no direct hints to form such a sure prediction, taking Jordans writing style into account you csn assume he is trying to get you to think it’s so obvious that it can’t possibly be just to make you believe both and none, you also have to think about just how dynamic ingtar is and how much you see his character evolve just between starting off from fall Dara to reaching toman head. It also highlights the fact that the horn will make people act out of desire/lust for GLORY this is going to be worded wrong since it’s off the top of my head and I am currently on book 5 (21 st time through the series and I still notice something new every time) but “let he who sounds me think not of glory, but his salvation”. It clearlydirectly almost throws it in your face that one of the evolutions and sturggles ingtar faces is his realization that his desire for the horn to bring his salvation is a morphed lust for glory .Sooooo much foreshadowing.
(catch the //aiel seefolk and tinker connection yet that in these two chapters aline and hint that the seanchan are how they all tie together?) World and time without end.. shade of my heart.. and all is well and all manner if things is well. Think about the vaired skin tones and physical traits of the sheanchan then the aiel appearance and traits now the seafolk. And then last the tinkers seemingly lack of and also over abundance of their defing traits, making them seem to stand alone but so do the seanchan.. aiel customs but I don’t think we know what gai’shain are yet but look how the aiel are towards tinkers, lost ones they call them. Think back to the tinkers aiel story with Perrin and Egwene in book one with Elys Machura . And remember what the green man called Rand at the eye of the world.//
Note: message edited by moderator to white out potential spoilers.
@22 very insightful speculation tho that definitely falls right into all the adjacent relevant context up to this point in the book but some of your points are not yet as defined and evolved into that firm of defiing factors. Self preservation and greed are more so the mainly highlighted and thrown in your face traits as more so than lust. Lust seems very secondary at this point and not commonly shared. Think of peitar in market Sheeran mat and Rand book one. He is very timid but expresses he has to do it it wasn’t his idea but he is alone . self preservation is definitely his trait .There hasn’t been very many interaction with devolped characters know at this point as dark friends .and you could also argue the most prominent one, Padan Fain, is driven by desire for revenge and self preservation. He wants nothing more than what will make him whole again the dagger(self preservation), and the death or end to influence to the ones responsible for that Rand Mat Perrin and the dark one (revenge).
If anything I think subconsciously somewhere something that is from later on was noticed by your mind and helped influence you to take that stance. Very fortuitous either way. Perfect diversion or spoiler that could really be either, and with Robert Jordan it can just as easily be both. Will the portal stones become more prominent and other world’s with them? What about what ingtar saw of his alternative life’s in their journey to toman head by portal stone? So many possibilities of weavings for the pattern was what they saw somehow altered or effected due to the presence of not just one but two ta’veren and ta’maral’ailen? Or is that what spun it together so seemingly randomly but also very timely and purposeful so that’s where you start to go crazy and can’t decide if it’s the ta’veren make the weave of the moment it just sets it since technically all is by and of the pattern the wheel makes the ta’veren by making it ta’maral’ailen so does the pattern set the weave of the ta’veren instead .or is this effect that fact that both really are true. Ta’veren are woven more tightly than other threads but they pull threads to themself and that alters the course. So was the course meant to be altered? So why then the need for ta’veren to affect the pattern, both or neither? Lol I say both because neither, that’s a Jordan pardox I would say.
I think Rand winning against Turak has got to be because earning the herons is just a bit easier in Seanchan, especially for a High Lord, given Turak’s initial dig. That and the fact that Rand wasn’t just trained by anyone let me let that win slide.
It would be interesting to know how Jordan thought about the fight between Rand and Turak. Jordans descriptions of sword fights were always fun to read but never felt like real fighting to me – too much formalism and too little wild desparation. All those “sword forms” seem to me like things one uses to teach and train but which get absorbed into a more cohesive fighting style in real combat. In the actual fight it is clear that Rand must win for plot reasons alone – against a truly experienced sword fighter his chances should have been very low, he could win against one, but only by accident (grave errors by the opponent, dumb luck).But it has been rightly pointed out that we do not know if Turak actually is an experienced sword fighter. He might never have seen real combat, might not even ever have fought in a dual with real blades. Beeing technically proficient with a sword and aquiring the – possibly very formal – title of Swordmaster does not count for much in this case. And he does not show the absolute determination and need to win, which is Rands greatest edge here.
Last week was week 23: https://www.tor.com/2019/01/08/reading-the-wheel-of-time-whats-in-a-name-egwene-the-damane-in-robert-jordans-the-great-hunt-part-23/
So this is actually week 24…
// Also, part 22 has no number in the title (https://www.tor.com/2019/01/01/reading-the-wheel-of-time-a-variety-of-villains-in-robert-jordans-the-great-hunt/) //
@44, Potential spoilers in there.
wrt Rand Vs. Turak, I subscribe to the idea that Turak as a member of the blood has never been at real risk in his own sword training. I also wonder how much Rand picked up from the portal stone journey to Falme. We know that their journey took a finite amount of time (circa months – as noted by the change in season). During the journey he lived ‘other lives’, and in some he was a soldier, general, etc. Is it possible that experience from those other lives (including sword fighting) might have rubbed off on him?. I always wished that we had viewed some of ‘other lives’ experience by other characters who made the trip with him.
//We certainly know that this is possible. “Thought is the arrow of time; memory never fades”//
As always Sylas, thanks for your insightful commentary. Its a pleasure to re-experience this world through your eyes.
@Emily Wyman:
Reading a book one or two chapters a week, by having the audio book read to you, then rereading through them in ebook or physical form, then thinking about them deeply and writing down your thoughts, is a completely different experience then sitting down and reading a story.
Reading at that pace, and reading through everything more than once, and thinking deeply about it before moving on allows you to see most of what the author is laying down: especially when you have deconstructed stories before, and know how they work on a technical level, rather than just the instinctual level most readers bring to a story.
Everything Sylas has figured out has clues already laid down in what has already been written. They are very difficult clues to suss out on a typical first read, or any read that isn’t intended to be analytical. But they are really obvious clues in hindsight, and can be picked up on when reading at the pace Sylas is reading at. And Sylas has been wrong at times.
I totally understand your skepticism. But what it boils down to for me is I have a choice between a) believing that something I recognize is possible is true, or b) choosing to believe the worst about someone I don’t know.
A has the benefit of allowing me to enjoy this blog series. B doesn’t have any such advantage, and it is the opposite of how my mother taught me to approach people in harmless situations.
Zero_G@50:
That’s one theory. Another is that, like with the One Power, // Rand has LTT’s skills and memories locked in his brain. This might include muscle memory. Or at least enough to give him a big head start. Rand is also learning from and practicing against the greatest swordsman in the Westlands. // And old stone-face, who doesn’t express much, is expressing (what is for him) a great deal of surprise at how quickly Rand is learning the sword at the beginning of this book. That is before the Portal Stones.
@49 – Fixed, thank you!
Andrew HB @@@@@ 18 – The lion is a royal symbol in both England (three lions passant-guardant) and Scotland (lion rampant). And referring to the enemy’s stronghold as “the lion’s den” is perfectly standard English vernacular, even in the upper classes.
@52, I would rather ascribe Rand’s seemingly ‘uncanny’ swordmanship to the flame and the void that we know he has been practising since he was a child (though for archery rather than swordplay), his superlative teacher, the fact that Turak has potentially never fought anyone trying to harm (and / or kill) him //I doubt Seanchan power games are so lacking in subtlety as to permit straight up duels between members of the blood jockeying for position// and the most obvious of all reasons, Narrativium (with thanks to Pterry), which has a named in-world equivalent, Ta’veren – he won because the pattern wouldn’t accept him losing.
//we also know that seizing Saidin or Saidar enhances your senses, but there is not indication he is touching the source here, on the contrary he is fighting to keep it at bay//. Living his ‘other lives’ and //his submerged LTT memories / muscle memory// are a little more ‘out there’ and we’ll never have a definitive answer.
I alluded to this point in an earlier comment, the statement in the text that Rand became one with the void,
one with the sword, one with Turak. What’s the significance?
// Think about the three duels Demandred fought in AMOL. He killed Gawyn fairly easily, even with Gawyn using a Bloodknife ring. When fighting Galad, Demandred commented he was better than his brother (even without a ter’angreal to make him fater) but he tells Galad that he still isn’t one with his sword. Last fight? Lan. Rand’s teacher. Lan achieves the oneness, and kills Demandred despite the fact Demandred was better. Sound familiar? // Anyway, that’s my opinion.
@@@@@ Emily Wyman: There are many reasons someone might lust after power: greed and a desire for self-preservation are two good ones. I realize that there must be a variety of reasons, some very complex, others perhaps more simple, that people become Darkfriends. But when I think of what I’ve seen of the Darkfriends in the Prologue (which, granted, are only the more high-ranking Darkfriends) I do see power-lust. The man who called himself Bors specifically thinks about how he will supplant those Darkfriends above him, and his disgust at having to deal with certain other types of people feels like the kind of self-superiority which has always gone hand-in-hand with the desire for power when it comes to fantasy baddies. And it seems like many of the upper echelon of Darkfriends are after that promise of eternal life, which is more than just self-preservation. That’s self-extension, and the main reason to want that is a sense of superiority and self-entitlement. (Obviously there’s also plain-old fear of death, which I realize might happen to anyone, but generally speaking most people who want to live forever want it because they think they’re so great and special and deserve it.) It was certainly what was going on with Gode back in The Eye of the World. The narration straight up says it. “‘….Think of it. Life everlasting, and power beyond dreams.’ His voice was thick with hunger for that power himself.” (Chapter 32) So that’s where I’m getting my analysis from.
I’m curious as to what influence the Dark One can wield on behalf of lesser-ranking Darkfriends. Since it’s said that he can’t touch the Pattern (or at least couldn’t until very recently), it’s not like he can change events in someone’s favor. There’s no selling your soul in exchange for having someone fall in love with you, or to win the lottery. But with the Shadowspawn to act as his agents, he could have money given to people or perhaps have other Darkfriends give them favors or raise their status in some way. I’d love to learn more about what advantages being a Darkfriend has in this life; honestly, who have we met who actually profited by it? Seems to me like it’s a lot of work and mortal fear of failure.
As for my predictions about Ingtar, I think that I laid out enough evidence from the earlier chapters to show where my conclusions came from. Jordan does a lot of work on building his themes and setting up his foreshadowing, and it helps that this is a fairly standard, Boromir-style redemption story. One doesn’t have to read ahead to put those clues together; based on what Jordan wrote, it’s the most obvious choice.
Sylas@57:
Think back to the young darkfriend in The Eye of the World who tries to casually chat up Rand and Mat on the road to Caemlyn. He’s about as low as they come, right? So, how would someone like him even get recruited? He can’t really be useful to anyone but even he had heard about Mat and Rand, if only in sketches and third-hand.
If you think of Friends of the Dark as a long-standing religion (it has lasted more than 3000 years, after all) rather than something like Scientology, then the recruitment issue becomes more believable. Some people are actually recruited for their position and authority. But the vast majority of people aren’t recruited — their born into it, or brought into it by a close relative. And like any religion, there are the true believers and the masses who don’t really think about it much–they’re just staying in it because leaving means losing their family or social circle, or the small status they have amongst the group.
That is, until a Fade shows up on your doorstep and starts requiring you to fulfill your obligations, as we saw in The Eye of the World with the small town farmer hunting for them.
Bottom line, Darkfriends are likely bred as much as or even more than they are recruited.
@57 Sylas, I think you touched on something very interesting there. “I’d love to learn more about what advantages being a Darkfriend has in this life; honestly, who have we met who actually profited by it?” It seems like, for a lot of rank-and-file darkfriends, there doesn’t seem to be much benefit to it. Paitr Conel — the darkfriend who met Rand and Mat in The Eye of the World at the inn in Market Sharon — seemed to just be a scared kid alone in the world. Or for Padan Fain, who, before the events of the series, was a darkfriend for decades, and had gotten out of it… what, exactly? He was just a peddler; what benefits had he gotten out of his decades of service to the Dark One? It seems like very little reward to become a member of an organization that will get you killed if anybody ever finds out you’ve joined it. I think it has a lot to do with the central Manichaeism at the heart of Jordan’s world, where some people are just, by their nature, inherently evil. Even evil people who aren’t actually aligned with the Dark One — such as Mordeth, or, later, //Sevanna, Therava, Elaida, and Masema// — are still pretty clearly just pure evil. So I think for the most part, people who become darkfriends are just… naturally drawn to it, despite whatever justifications they may make to themselves, and the simplest outlet for their evil nature is to become darkfriends.
On a separate note: I’ve always wondered at what would have happened if Verin hadn’t stepped in to cap the party at five members. Like, if Uno had tried to join them, would the “five ride forth” prophecy have meant that he’d have immediately fallen and broken his ankle if he tried to go?
Also, //man oh man if only Perrin had been a little quicker in ducking around that corner so that Geofram hadn’t seen him there; he could have saved himself a TON of headache later on in the series.//
@59:
But that’s what I’m saying @58. If they’re born into it, it isn’t about what they get out of it, its about what it costs them to leave. Maybe people who have grown up in religious families will understand this a little better than others. And in the case of darkfriends, the pressure to stay may be more than just social stigmatization. There could be actual physical consequences.
The example you give, Paitr, is an example of this. // We later see him in Amadicia, and his uncle is also a darkfriend. // He’s not just a scared kid alone in the world. He was // raised a darkfriend by that uncle . //
On becoming a Darkfriend: //In addition to being inherently evil or being socialized into a group, I think we see numerous instances of a fundamentally “good” person making a single very bad decision in a moment of weakness. Then they find themselves committed to a status with consequences they had not imagined! It’s a one-way street, with no going back.//
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@60: I don’t know that //we have any reason to believe that the other man was actually Paitr’s uncle. Paitr was lying to Margase about a lot of things; no reason to think he was telling the truth about that.//
On the subject of what would happen if Verin hadn’t forced the group of five, I always figured that that was looking at it backwards. The prophecy says that there would be five because Verin kept the others from going. Sure it’s circular logic, but the way I see it is the Wheel works that way sometimes.
Nothing really significant to add other than this chapter was when I first fell in love with Elayne of House Trakand, right at the moment she exclaimed “good for you!” when the newly freed damane socked her former captor on the jaw.
@52. Anthony Pero
// Note that in TDR, Be’lal is disappointed in Rand’s skills, and comments (calling him Lews Therin) that he was once better. //
I think that we’re reading too much into it. Rand is the Jaime Lannister of WoT, so to speak. A natural swordsman. // He fights against five in TFOH and almost wins. //
@WhiteCloak recruitment.
I always saw Whitecloaks as sort of a Foreign Legion. Anyone can join.
63. doombladez
Or maybe they would have started arguing for half an hour, until Ingtar lost his patience and decided on the first five who volunteered. Or maybe they would have snuck off while the others were arguing. Or maybe….
As I see it, one of the mechanisms by which the Pattern shapes events is to put the right causes in place to cause the right effects, and a prophecy can be part of a causality chain just like anything else can. In this case it was necessary for five men to ride into Falme. The Pattern required it. This necessity caused somebody in the past to have a foretelling and say “Five ride forth, and four return.”, and those words were written down. Verin read the prophecy, and that caused her to control the number of men who went.
It’s not exactly circular logic, or circular causality. The event itself didn’t cause a foretelling. Rather, the necessity that the event must happen caused a foretelling that indirectly caused the event that must happen.
If Verin hadn’t capped the number at five, then a larger group would have ridden into Falme, and events would have gone off the rails – but that didn’t happen because somebody had a foretelling which was included in a prophecy that Verin read.
Slight quibble–this isn’t the first time Rand has killed men. He lightning bolted a few guys while on the road to Caemlyn, though that was more instinctual.
@65
Perhaps I’m being too kind to Rand, but I didn’t hesitate to go along with his victory over Turak. My instinctive response was that Rand achieved peak concentration right when Turak broke his own. The timing more than anything else, combined with Rand’s belated commitment to going on the attack created the opening for The River Undercuts the Bank to cut through.
//When he fights Bel’al, Rand has improved markedly but, despite being ensconced in The Void, it is Rand whose concentration is dulled & distracted – by weariness, Bel’al’s taunts and Callandor itself.
He fights halfheartedly & uses The River Undercuts the Bank as a goto move, somewhat complacently – which almost sees him beheaded by Bel’al’s sharp, anticipatory counter.
It actually does seem to remain a favourite move of Rand’s, if we recall his duel at the start of LoC.
Nevertheless, my memory of reading both those swordfights is the contrast of Rand achieving peak sharpness in concentration against Turak right when he needed it, and being nowhere near it on encountering Bel’al. Of course Bel’al would be comfortably superior to Turak given the sliding scale of what was lost after The Age of Legends ended.//
@67:
He also lightening bolted himself and Mat. The lightening hit the bars on the window. While the people may have certainly died, Rand doesn’t know that for sure, and do we ever even get a scene where Rand thinks back and realizes he channeled there? At this point, at least, that event is not associated in his mind as something he did.
…But Deain was a Seanchan citizen. She wasn’t an Aes Sedai, neither a modern nor an ancient one. Calling herself that doesn’t make her one. The Whitecloaks and the Seanchan equal female channelers with Aes Sedai, the reader should know better.
I’m interested to know if you think all class systems are enforced by torture. I think convention and the stability they bring make the people in these societies conform to the system, instead of every member being tortured until they follow the norms.
The Watchers over the Waves are a specific organisation, keeping watch for Hawkwings returning army. Their seat is in Falme. IIRC Vandene explains that when she mentions them.
I think it’s more that Verin is terrified of what might happen if they don’t follow the prophecies, since they at least give an inkling of what might happen. Moiraine is the same.
I’m looking forward to see if you will still begrudge Ingtar everything when it is revealed what is going on with him, or if you will feel for him, like most people do.
Why do you think there is no room for advancement in Seanchan society? Up to now you only had superficial glimpses of Seanchan society.
As always, sorry for pointing out what I see as errors. Obviously I like your articles, or I wouldn’t read them.
//Deain was AS. The Seanchan AS obviously weren’t part of the White Tower, but they were also calling themselves AS like the AoL AS. Renna explicitly says that Deain called herself AS. Why should Seanchan post-AoL AS not be “real” AS but those in the White Tower count although neither are “Servants of All” any more?//
@70:
Probably because every real-world example of societies that had both nobility and rampant slavery weren’t exactly known for their social mobility. For societies like that, you can move up within the confines of your class, but as far as changing your class goes, the only direction is down.
// Now, of course, you actually CAN move up to the Blood in Seanchan society, based on performance and deeds, but its perfectly reasonable to assume that is unlikely based on what we’ve been given so far. //
Regarding the chapter name “blademaster”: it is worth remembering //how you get that title. There are two ways:
– recognition of skill (through a process I don’t remember the details of); and
– killing a blademaster in a duel.
Rand is now a blademaster. The chapter title did refer to him. :)//
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Deain was a Seanchan citizen in a time in which Seanchan culture was much different from what we see in the books. According to the Seanchan themselves, they were ruled by channelers who called themselves Aes Sedai. The Aes Sedai term comes from the Age of Legends, when the whole world was united. Who gets to say which Aes Sedai are real Aes Sedai? The Forsaken always call the current Westlands Aes Sedai “so called Aes Sedai”, for example, to show how little they think of this new thing called White Tower compared to what was in the Age of Legends. And if you get to it, Lews Therin was an Aes Sedai and he ruled all the world, sorbeing rulers actually is something the Aes Sedai were used to do in the Age of Legends. The Seanchan Aes Sedai at least didn’t mark their faces as criminals using the OAth rod as the Westlands did.
@72, Ancient Rome? Rampant slavery and a noble class and a remarkable degree of mobility, all the senatorial class authors complained about it.
Re: slavery in Seanchan;
// I think the confusion comes because there’s 3 levels of slavery in this society – chattel slavery, when it comes to the Damane, which is very much a “People as animals” style of slavery – not only are they owned, they are no longer even really people. Then there’s a kind of indentured servant/greek style slavery (da’covale) , in which people are considered property, but there are ways that you can become a free person – as a result you’re still sort of considered a person. Then the final case ,the so’jhin, who are still enslaved persons, but hold positions of power, many of whom would not choose to become a free person.
We really only have an intimate understanding of the chattel slavery that that applies to the Damane at this point in the text – we have no insight into the inner lives of da’covale or so’jihn. ll
Of course, the role that the seanchan play at this point in the text are of terrifying alien invaders, who have cultural practices that are practically an existential threat to the main cast, so we don’t get any of that. It’s only later that we get to delve into the little details… // since we gotta reconcile them as allies for the final battle //
@73:
// How you become a Blademaster // is not revealed until much, much later. Book 7 at least.
@75:
Roman slavery was more like indentured servitude than the slavery we’ve seen prominently from the Seanchan thus far. @76 says it best.
@78, I don’t agree. While manumission was certainly a thing there was no requirement for it and we know there were laws limiting how many slaves could be freed. We know that slaves could be killed at whim and of course sexually abused. Skilled slaves did have a pretty good deal. They were allowed to keep a portion of their earnings and could buy themselves free. But they were far from the majority. Freedman status really was like indentured servitude, you still owed your former master loyalty and service – forever. But your children were not obligated and your grandchildren could rise to senatorial rank.
Slavery is an existential evil. A slave is always a wronged person no matter how privileged they may be. How bad the experience is can vary but the essential evil never changes.
@79:
Existential evil doesn’t carry the same weight for me as more visceral forms of evil. And a society containing existential evil doesn’t automatically make those participating in said society evil people, either, in my opinion. YMMV.
At any rate, this has drifted far from my point, which was that I don’t find Sylas’ assumptions to be unreasonable. Further discussion of the Seanchan culture would probably be more fruitful when its less spoilery.
I agree with you. What the Sul’dam do is awful but they’ve been taught all their lives that it is necessary and honorable. Families who lose daughters and wipe their names from their records grieve but they too believe it is right and necessary that their daughters be collared for their own sake as well as everybody else’s. Similarly everybody believes slavery is right and necessary. They need to be taught better but not condemned for believing what they’ve been taught all their lives.
@81:
To be clear, I don’t view what happens between damane and sul’dam as existential evil. Its viscerally evil. The // other forms of slavery in Seanchan? // Not so much for me. But we have only peripherally been exposed to them at this point in the narrative, so its premature to discuss them. But I’ll probably have unpopular opinions when we get there. I sure did last time, in Leigh’s re-read.
The focus on Damane as opposed to the plight of the far more numerous da’covale has always bothered me a little. Can’t we be outraged over both?
@83:
You can certainly be outraged over it. I wouldn’t blame you or think you are wrong, or foolish.
In many cases the da’covale’s life is improved by their newfound “position.” So its tough for me to get overly worked up about the specifics. All societies have their forms of this kind of thing. In the US, its more of an economic issue. We have the illusion of mobility and freedom, and the occasional case of people escaping the situation they were born into, but those anomalies prove the rule. The system is (unintentionally, in my opinion) kind of rigged to keep people in their place. I don’t have the energy to get worked up over this type of thing in real life — I’m too busy trying to overcome my own circumstances and give my kids a better shot at a more successful life. Its tough for me to get worked up over it in a fictional setting.
I don’t have any particularly intelligent things to say about it, but it is interesting to consider the distinctions and similarities between rigid class systems, non-chattel slavery systems and even our own system of what can be termed ‘wage slavery’ in very low income areas. I can easily imagine in my head both good and bad versions of those systems. Chattel slavery though, is, as Anthony Pero says, a much more obvious/visceral evil.
Anyway – again, really looking forward to the payoff for all of this.
Do we ever find out who the damane was? Because I also imagine that had they been born and bred Seanchan, they either would have been frozen in fear/indecision, or outright have helped their sul’dam (perhaps out of “loyalty” but also to get praise/reward). Likewise, a captured one may also, as Sylas states, have killed themselves if they didn’t think they’d be able to truly escape, given how many other sul’dam were in the area. I’d kind of like to know her story – if she was a native Seanchan she would have a ton of grit and a strong personality, depending on how long she’d been leashed.