This week in Reading The Wheel of Time, Nynaeve and Elayne encounter a secret signal meant for the Yellow Ajah, almost get kidnapped, and learn a valuable lesson from the experience. We the readers learn a lot too, including that there is a tea that can inhibit one’s ability to channel and that the eyes-and-ears networks of the Aes Sedai aren’t always as competent and cautious as one might wish. Also, Elayne is apparently trying to get with her mother’s former lover?
Nynaeve is pleased with the campsite Thom and Juilin find, hidden from the road by trees and with a stream nearby for fresh water. Thom has gone into town, after winning the duty in a coin toss with Juilin, to buy their supplies, with coins Nynaeve fished out from the secret compartment under the wagon seat where she hid the jewelry and coins that the Panarch had given to them. Also hidden in that compartment are the two dream-related ter’angreal they recovered from the Black Ajah, as well as one of the seals to the Dark One’s prison—the seal they discovered in the Panarch’s Palace. Carrying this is the reason Nynaeve’s in such a hurry to get back to Tar Valon.
She thinks about how she left the Two Rivers to protect the young people who left with Moiraine, how she continued on to the Tower in the hope that she could shelter them and also perhaps get revenge on Moiraine. But the world has changed since then, or perhaps she now sees the world differently. She tells herself firmly that it is the world that has changed, not her.
Now it was all she could do to protect herself. Rand was what he was, and no turning back, and Egwene eagerly went her own way, not letting anyone or anything hold her back even if her way led over a cliff, and Mat had learned to think of nothing but women, carousing and gambling. She even found herself sympathizing with Moiraine sometimes, to her disgust. At least Perrin had gone back home, or so she had heard through Egwene, secondhand from Rand; perhaps Perrin was safe.
Nynaeve believes in the importance of the Black Ajah, but the real reason she stays, keeps trying to use the Power even through her block, is because of the prospect of learning to Heal. In the same way that gaining power and recognition as Wisdom of Emond’s Field had been gratifying but less important than the ability to use her knowledge and herbs to cure illness, so too is the prospect of getting to Heal with the Power even more alluring to Nynaeve.
Nynaeve approaches Elayne, trying to talk to her as she washes her face in a bucket of water from the stream. She tries to discuss the rumors of overthrow of the king and Panarch in Tarabon, although Elayne is frosty towards her, and more interested in talking about the possibility of the Black Ajah following them. Elayne relaxes a little as they discuss the possibility of Moghedien, obliquely so that Juilin, resting nearby, won’t know what they’re actually discussing. Nynaeve has her turn to wash, and Thom comes back with the supplies, and with news. He tells them that the town is suffering without the trade from Tarabon, and that there are Whitecloaks everywhere. He can’t figure out why Pedron Niall is pulling so many of the Children into Amador, and it clearly bothers him. He also mentions that it is the King’s Tax that is paying for the food being sent into Tarabon, and that the people aren’t happy about it. Nynaeve, however, is more interested in how few vegetables Thom bought, and asks Elayne if she wants to go into town to see if they have better luck finding some.
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She tells the men they will be fine without an escort, and as soon as they are away from the camp Elayne asks what it is that Nynaeve needs to talk about away from the men. But Nynaeve isn’t trying to talk about Moghedien anymore—she wants to talk about Elayne’s behavior towards Thom. Elayne denies it at first, and when Nynaeve points out that Thom is old enough to be Elayne’s father, she snaps that he is not her father, that her father is Taringail Damodred, a Prince of Cairhien and First Prince of the Sword of Andor. Nynaeve reminds herself to keep her temper as she presses the subject, and Elayne admits that she is worried about Rand being so far away. She wishes she had made sure he knew how she felt, and observes that Min must have had a viewing about it, because she always used to joke about having to share Rand. Nynaeve is vaguely horrified, though she has heard from Aviendha about the Aiel custom, and although she recognizes that, in a way, she shares Lan with Moiraine.
Rather than tell Elayne that Thom is too old for her (Lan is quite a bit older than Nynaeve, after all) Nynaeve points out that Moiraine sent Thom, and that he is a man with secrets, more than just some country gleeman.
“He was a great man,” Elayne said softly. “He could have been greater, except for love.”
This is finally too much for Nynaeve’s temper, and she forcibly points out that Thom doesn’t know what to do with Elayne, and that if Elayne’s mother heard her talking this way, she’d have her back in the nursery with Lini. But Elayne counters that she is not a child anymore, and that she is as much a woman as her mother is. After a little frosty silence from Nynaeve, Elayne turns the subject to the lack of vegetables in Thom’s haul from town, and the two talk about the foibles of men as they walk. Nynaeve is reminded of how much she likes Elayne, how much she seems like she could be Egwene’s sister, and thinks that Thom could just put a stop to Elayne’s behavior if he chose to.
The town is as depressed as Thom described, and there are plenty of Whitecloaks about. Nynaeve is nervous, but there is nothing to draw the Children’s attention, so she and Elayne try to focus on hunting for vegetables. They aren’t finding much, causing Nynaeve to wonder how the people of the village will survive the winter.
And then Nynaeve sees a particularly tied bundle of small yellow flowers hanging in the doorway of a seamstress’s shop, and she pulls Elayne aside. Pretending to adjust her shawl, she tells Elayne that it is an emergency signal for the eyes-and-ears network of the Yellow Ajah—not the sort of thing Nynaeve should know, but she spent a great deal of her time in the Tower talking with Yellows.
“One of them told me. She did not think it too great a transgression, since she was sure I’ll choose Yellow. Besides, it has not been used in nearly three hundred years. Elayne, only a few women in each Ajah actually know who the Ajah’s eyes-and-ears are, but a bunch of yellow flowers tied and hung like that tells any Yellow sister that here one is, and with a message urgent enough to risk uncovering herself.”
Elayne asks how they are going to find out what the message is, and Nynaeve is pleased with Elayne’s backbone. She leads Elayne into the shop, hoping desperately that Shemerin has told her everything. They find two women inside, a younger girl and a middle-aged woman who is clearly the seamstress. They seem shocked that anyone would be coming into the shop, but the seamstress, who gives her name as Ronde Macura, greets them cordially. Nynaeve asks for a dress with yellow roses, but no thorns, as she doesn’t heal very fast. The words “yellow” and “heal” are the signal of who she is, and Mistress Macura quickly sends the girl, Luci, into the back to make some of the best tea for the two ladies. She also makes a sign with her forefinger and thumb to indicate the great serpent ring, and Nynaeve and Elayne return the signal.
But Mistress Macura seems very nervous, and even with Luci out of the room is extremely reluctant to tell her Aes Sedai visitors what the message is. Despite Nynaeve’s attempts at reassurance and Elayne’s commanding tone, she babbles on about how they can talk over tea, and how good the tea is, how they used to get Taraboner tea and also news through the town. Nynaeve has to be firm to get her to escort them back into the kitchen where Luci has the tea ready.
“The message?” Nynaeve said as the woman sat down across from them. Mistress Macura was too nervous to touch her own teacup, so Nynaeve stirred a little honey into hers and took a sip; it was hot, but had a cool, minty aftertaste. Hot tea might settle the woman’s nerves, if she could be made to drink.
Elayne compliments the tea, though Mistress Macura won’t tell them what kind it is. Finally they get her to tell them the message; “All sisters are welcome to return to the White Tower. The Tower must be whole and strong.”
Nynaeve is surprised that the dire message should be so simple, and presses to know if there was anything else. But she also notices that she’s feeling very sleepy, and Mistress Macura is watching them both carefully as Elayne’s head begins to nod. Nynaeve’s follows, and she demands to know what Mistress Macura gave them. But the seamstress only watches with satisfaction as Nynaeve loses control over her body and then falls into blackness.
Elayne wakes up to find that she’s being carried upstairs by the two women, but although she’s aware she has no control over her limbs, and even her brain feels heavy and fogged. Luci, supporting Elayne’s legs, is alarmed and frightened to see that Elayne is awake.
“I told you not to worry.” Mistress Macura’s voice came from above her head. “She cannot channel, or twitch a muscle, not with forkroot tea in her. I discovered that by accident, but it has certainly come in handy.”
Elayne finds that this is true; she can sense the True Source but her attempts to touch it are clumsy and useless. She panics, wondering if these women mean to turn her over to the Whitecloaks, or, more likely, the Black Ajah, and she realizes that she is trying to scream. She tells herself off for useless panicking and tries to focus on embracing saidar, even though the usually simple act feels impossible.
They dump Elayne on a bed and return later with Nynaeve, whose eyes are glittering with tears of rage. They also bring up the teapot and a funnel, as well as an hourglass, and Mistress Macura gives Luci specific instructions about how often and how much tea to give the prisoners. She intends to give them just enough to keep them incapacitated, but awake enough to walk when they need to be moved. Luci is terrified, and keeps complaining about the Aes Sedai looking at her, but Mistress Macura assures her that they cannot channel and are “as helpless as kittens in sacks” before heading off to arrange for messages to make some arrangements. Luci goes downstairs to make more tea.
Elayne watches the sands of the hourglass fall as she tries over and over again to touch saidar. When the hour passes and there’s no sign of Luci, she begins to get a bit of control back, even managing to raise her hand before Luci bursts back in, panic stricken, and forces both of them to drink more tea through the funnel.
The whole process repeats itself, with the hourglass running out and still no sign of Luci. Elayne is desperate for Nynaeve to stay strong, frustrated that she doesn’t feel as strong as the other woman—she who is supposed to be Queen of Andor one day. But she keeps trying, and when the hourglass is empty she starts having a little bit of success again. She even hears Nynaeve muttering to herself.
The door crashed open once more. Elayne lifted her head to stare at it despairingly—and gaped. Thom Merrilin stood there like the hero of one of his own tales, one hand firmly gripping the neck of a Luci near fainting, the other holding a knife ready to throw. Elayne laughed delightedly, though it came out more like a croak.
Nynaeve manages to tell Thom that it was another woman who drugged them, not Luci, and gets him to help her walk around to work the tea out of her system. Thom asks if the one who got away will tell others, but Elayne is certain she won’t—the Whitecloaks would be as much of a danger to her as to them. Thom explains that Juilin followed them into town, and when he didn’t come back Thom went to find him, discovering him ready to break into the seamstress’s shop. Sure enough, Juilin arrives a few minutes later with Mistress Macura, whom he’d caught coming back in after her errands.
Mistress Macura looks terrified, of Juilin’s knife perhaps, but mostly of Elayne and Nynaeve. As Juilin helps Elayne walk, she insists that she only did what she did because she had orders. She doesn’t want to tell them anything else, but Nynaeve threatens to let Juilin torture her, and Juilin, wickedly, assures them that some rags for a gag, cooking oil and salt, will make her talk. Mistress Macura spits out the name of her contact in the Tower, Narenwin Barda, with whom Nynaeve and Elayne are vaguely familiar. But when they are accused of working for the Black Ajah, both Luci and Mistress Macura are horrified, insisting that they walk in the Light and that Mistress Macura serves the Yellow Ajah. Nynaeve asks why she tried to kidnap them, then.
“It was her,” the seamstress replied, nodding at Elayne. “I was sent her description a month since, right down to that way she holds her chin sometimes so she seems to be looking down at you. Narenwin said she might use the name Elayne, and even claim to be of a noble House.” Word by word, her anger over being called a Darkfriend seemed to bubble higher. “Maybe you are a Yellow sister, but she’s no Aes Sedai, just a runaway Accepted. Narenwin said I was to report her presence, and that of anyone with her. And to delay her, if I could. Or even capture her. And anyone with her. How they expected me to capture an Accepted, I do not know—I don’t think even Narenwin knows about my forkroot tea!—but that is what my orders said! They said I should risk exposure even—here, where it’d be my death!—if I had to! You just wait until the Amyrlin puts her hands on you, young woman! On all of you!”
She admits that she was going to send them to Tar Valon in a cart, repeats her threats about what the Amyrlin will do to them, and tells them that the message she gave was, in fact, the real message. They tie the two up and then the men help Elayne and Nynaeve downstairs. Nynaeve asks Juilin what he was going to do with the salt and the cooking oil, and Juilin tells her that he doesn’t know, that it was just a trick to get the woman’s mind to conjure up its own terrors.
Downstairs Nynaeve is looking through cupboards, though Elayne still needs to sit. Everyone is shocked when Nynaeve thanks Thom and Juilin for coming to their aid, admitting that she is starting to see why Aes Sedai have Warders. She begins to make up a bundle of Mistress Macura’s various herbs as Elayne asks what the message from the Tower could mean. They also wonder at why the Amyrlin could possibly have given such instructions regarding Elayne, although Juilin is confident that Mistress Macura was telling the truth.
Nynaeve comes up with a plan to use a herb called white henpepper to die Elayne’s hair black, and for the two of them to take dresses from the shop so they can pass as two ladies traveling with their servants. She sends the men back to fetch money from the wagon so they can buy a coach.
A man named Noy Torvald, who Mistress Macura was sending to Tar Valon, arrives with his wagon just in time to see two women come out of the seamstress’s shop and leap into a waiting coach. Two Whitecloaks come over to speak to the strangers, but the coachman cracks his whip and shouts for them to make way for a lady, barreling off before anyone can learn her name. The Whitecloaks are upset, but they decide not to report the incident to their captain, not wanting to look foolish or to be sent to fetch the coach back.
Noy goes upstairs to find both Luci and Mistress Macura sound asleep in bed, then realizes that the money he was given for the journey would now allow him to get away from his nagging wife and mother in law, and decides to take his cart and ride to Altara or Murandy. Much later, Mistress Macura makes her way to Avi Shendar, the man who lets her use his pigeons to send messages. She sends one off to the Tower, then a copy off towards the west. When she’s gone, Avi comes in and holds the other strips of parchment up to the light, reading what she wrote and then sending another pigeon off in yet another direction.
I was quite impressed with Nynaeve’s ability to calmly and sincerely thank Thom and Juilin for their help. As Elayne observes, so much of Nynaeve’s abrasiveness and hostility comes from her dislike (Elayne doesn’t call it fear, but I certainly will) of being even slightly vulnerable, either by needing help, not knowing something, or making a mistake. It’s always interesting to see when Nynaeve is able to overcome her instinct to cover that insecurity, especially when we’re not seeing the moment from her point of view. I’d love to know exactly what Nynaeve was thinking when she thanked them, apparently un-begrudgingly. It might be simply that her relief over not being turned over to the Black Ajah was so great that she has no space left for peevishness. Perhaps she’s soothed and emotionally bolstered by her acquisition of all of Mistress Macura’s herbs. Or, maybe it has something to do with the fact that Nynaeve is adjusting to the idea of becoming an Aes Sedai. In Chapter 9, she acknowledges herself the reasons that she went to the White Tower—to protect Egwene, and perhaps to get revenge on Moiraine—are not the primary reason she stays. She wants to become Aes Sedai because of the ability to Heal.
To Heal with the One Power… She had done it, fumbling, curing what her other skills never could. The joy of it was enough to bring tears. One day she meant to Heal Thom and watch him dance. One day she would even Heal that wound in Rand’s side. Surely there was nothing that could not be Healed, not if the woman wielding the Power was determined enough.
It’s a very moving paragraph, and particularly poignant coming on the heels of some of Rand’s thoughts from the previous weeks. We’ve also seen him grapple with the feeling that he could Heal anything, even Death, if only he could channel enough Power. Granted, his baggage is different from Nynaeve’s, and his issues with the allure and addiction to the One Power are different as well—we’ve seen some of the consequences of it in the dead little girl he tried to reanimate. But there is another side to this longing, which we see in Rand and Nynaeve as well as in Egwene and Elayne. This new generation is coming in with more strength and power than has been seen in channelers for a long time. They’re bursting with new ideas, with hope, and with power. They’ve been told again and again how much potential they have, and they’ve also been told of the miraculous things the Aes Sedai of the Age of Legends could accomplish. No wonder they’re dreaming big, and that’s not even taking into account that these big dreams are their only hope of surviving what’s coming. There’s Tarmon Gai’don, for one. And there’s the taint on saidin for another.
Egwene has thought within the narrative about how the taint might be healed, and Nynaeve has as well. I don’t think Nynaeve’s ambitions as a Healer will ever be sated; perhaps she will be the one who finds a way to cure the madness of the taint on saidin, or to figure out a way to shield someone against it. After all, we know that the Dark One provides a protection against the taint for his own male followers. And we know that the saidin in the Eye of the World was somehow filtered by the men and women who created it. Perhaps that skill will be rediscovered by Nynaeve or Egwene or Elayne. Perhaps one or all of the girls will learn how to link with Rand and work in tandem channeling both saidar and saidin at the same time. What might they accomplish then? What old weaves might they rediscover? What new weaves might they create?
Of course, that doesn’t mean they aren’t susceptible to all the silly and stupid mistakes young and inexperienced people make. Granted I have a lot more knowledge than Nynaeve and Elayne do about what’s going on with the Aes Sedai, but the way Mistress Macura harped on that tea was an instant red flag. I rather would have thought that Nynaeve especially would be at least a little on guard—or does her suspicion and distrust of the Aes Sedai not extend to the Yellow and their informants? Is it unfair of me to expect them to distrust someone who is supposed to be part of an eyes-and-ears network for the Tower?
I mean, seeing what happened at the end of Chapter 10 gave me a whole different level of mistrust for the eyes-and-ears network anyway. Ronde Macura may serve the Yellow and not the Black, but she’s also careless. Just because she doesn’t know the relevance of information she sends to Narenwin doesn’t mean it isn’t sensitive information. And even though she is certain that her contact in the Aes Sedai isn’t a Darkfriend, how is she not suspicious of someone else who wants to know what the Aes Sedai know? Whoever is getting that westward-bound pigeon could easily be a Darkfriend, or worse. And then there’s Avi, patiently waiting to find the evidence she carelessly left behind and sending off more information to yet another interested party.
I do appreciate Thom and Juilin getting their due. In general the weird gender divides of The Wheel of Time make the interactions between the four of them awkward and weird, whether it be from Juilin’s womanizing ways making Elayne uncomfortable or from random additions to judgments about the opposite sex, like the assertation that men don’t eat vegetables unless forced, which sort of comes out of nowhere here. It’s not surprising exactly, but it kind of piles up with all the other classic “men are from Shienar, women are from Arad Doman” stereotypes that we often see in these books. I feel like Nynaeve and Elayne have enough complicated, character-driven strife with Juilin and Thom that the rest isn’t needed.
Speaking of strife with Thom, though, I can’t really figure out what is going on with Elayne. At first I assumed her attentions to Thom were more because she saw him as a pseudo father-figure, as a connection to her mother and to her own past, and that Nynaeve was misreading that connection. I thought the whole thing was pretty funny, actually. But Chapter 10 seems to contradict that reading and suggest that Elayne is actually taking some kind of romantic interest in Thom, which is a bit squicky, really. A daughter going after her mother’s lover is certainly a thing that happens, especially if she is young and the relationship between mother and daughter is strained, but this really does seem to come out of nowhere. One moment she’s appalled at the idea of her mother being a sexual person at all and angry with Thom for leaving when Elayne was a child, the next minute she’s… whatever this is.
Then again, perhaps there is a safety in flirting with Thom—he’s obviously not thinking of Elayne that way at all, as Nynaeve points out, so maybe she just wants the ability to relax and act a little silly without consequences, like the ones she experienced with that server at the Three Plum Court or the ones she fears from Juilin. She has an awful lot of responsibility on her shoulders; we see her frequently upbraid herself for not being tough, determined, or wise enough for the future Queen of Andor, even though she is one of the most self-possessed characters in the series and is always acting with bravery, integrity, and determination.
It’s agony to see Nynaeve and Elayne get this tiny little clue to what’s happened in the Tower in their absence. It’s not enough pieces for them to put anything together, though the meaning is so clear to us, the readers. Even the possibility of the Amyrlin being overthrown would never occur to them, because that kind of event is so rare and also because of their impressions of Siuan. Even people who know much more about the Tower would be shocked at the thought, as we’ll see from Gareth Bryne next week. But the clue of the Amyrlin wanting Elayne back by any means necessary is so simple to understand if only someone could fathom the idea of a different Aes Sedai being on the Amyrlin Seat. After all, Elayne’s absence from the Tower—and Nynaeve and Egwene’s, for that matter— is a mystery to everyone, and the girls are both aware that there could still be Black Ajah in Tar Valon.
I have one more thought for this week before I wrap things up, which is that the last few mentions of the seals on the Dark One’s prison have finally prompted me to stop and make a list of how many have been found so far and which ones are still intact. The fact that Moiraine found one in Rhuidean and Nynaeve found one in Tarabon basically at the same time feels significant—it’s kind of like they’re being found at a faster and faster rate. So for those who are reading along and trying to keep account, here is a list.
– The first one was found inside the Eye of the World along with the Dragon Banner and the Horn of Valere. It was broken when they found it.
– The second was owned by Bayle Domon, and then taken and given to Turak. Turak also had one in his possession (though neither man knew what they were). Both of these were found by Moiraine, broken, after the battle at Falme.
– Moiraine found one in the Stone of Tear, and one in Rhuidean. They are both still intact, packed away on Kadere’s wagons, but the one from Rhuidean is extremely fragile, and might break at any moment, it seems.
– Finally, there’s the one Nynaeve found in the Panarch’s Palace, which is also still intact.
So that’s a total of three broken seals, three seals that are still whole, and only one left unaccounted for. I kind of missed that we were so close to having them all already. A full three are broken, which I assume accounts for how many Forsaken are now free. They were all sealed in there with the Dark One by Lews Therin and the Companions, and I’m guessing that there are cracks or spaces that open up with the failing of each seal.
Next week we catch up with Siuan, Min, and Leane, and have another chapter from Gareth Bryne as well. I am rapidly becoming quite invested in Morgase’s former advisor, and can’t wait to find out what part he’ll have to play in Siuan’s journey towards reuniting the Aes Sedai.
Sylas K Barrett has spent a lot of this past week hiking with dogs. He hopes you’re having a good week, too.
Moderators: “Thom” was spelled “Tom” multiple times.
@1 Fixed, thanks!
Based on Sylas’ math, which seems sound, the last seal will be delivered when Mazrim Taim arrives to meet Rand in the palace in Andor.
Good seal talk. I approve.
I can’t believe Sylas underplayed the enormous humor in Julian’s torture techniques, including his prior “figs and mice” story. Ah well.
I also was hoping Sylas would try to get at where all the pigeons were going at the end of the chapter. We know more than Sylas based on what comes later but the westward pigeon should be to the Seanchan and the final pigeon likely went off the the Whitecloaks, but I could be wrong about that.
I hadn’t realized so many of the seals had been found so early.
I’m pretty sure this is the first place I saw the figs and mice school of interrogation but it’s one of my favorite tropes. I wonder if it’s as unreliable as actual torture.
Some of Nyneave’s musings here about healing are why, even though she’s abrasive and flawed, she’s one of my favorite characters. I love that she’s so determined and ambitious and that’s not a bad thing in the narrative.
It’s interesting that when the seal the girls have breaks, sometime between here and Salidar, there don’t seem to be any obvious consequences. The seal in the Eye released Aginor, Balthamel, and Lanfear, and the two on Toman Head seems to have released the rest of the forsaken, but the 4th seal doesn’t seem to matter all that much.
@7 – I think the effects of the rest of the broken seals are more evident in the DO’s touch on the world getting progressively stronger as the series goes on. His unending summer heatwave comes to a head in the next two books followed by people seeing ghosts beginning in The Path of Daggers, and the general breakdown of reality that begins to accelerate at a rapid pace especially beginning in Knife of Dreams.
@7
What @8 said. But also, the key reference RJ is making with the seals is to the seven seals from the Book of Revelation. The first four seals release the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (the Forsaken anyone?):
We don’t know exactly when Moridin (Death) first resurfaces, but that seal breaks before the girls arrive in Salidar, and we first see Moridin in ACoS. Nothing in WoT is a one-to-one reference, but this one I think is apt.
@7 JadePhoenix The timing of that seal breaking and Shaidar Haran introducing himself to Demandred at the Bore are very close to one another. Elayne and Nynaeve arrive in Salidar toward the end of tFoH and Demandred’s Bore meeting with SH is in the prologue of LoC. SH could have been the result of the seal breaking.
Sylas was impressed when Nynaeve thanked Thom and Juilin. I darned near dropped the book in shock! Pity the reasonable mood doesn’t last.
I think whatever is going on with Elayne is a combination of her awkwardness at putting herself out there personally, and relatively sheltered life to date not giving her much experience in making connections with other people. She also didn’t have much experience with her bio-father and aside from Gareth Bryne, who’s sort of on a pedestal to her, doesn’t really have a father figure. But she also doesn’t know how to approach Thom to make that relationship, after she lied about remembering their conversation. Remember, she also had no idea how to approach Rand either, but she felt powerful when her “seduction” moves got Rand to kiss her and say he likes her. She’s really afraid of being vulnerable, so she doesn’t want to put herself out there and have Thom dismiss her or blow her off, so she’s trying an indirect approach, but she’s conflating it with a romantic one. She’s trying for that same feeling of success and being in control of the relationship, rather than helplessness and awkwardness.
Of course, it’s dumb, but she’s more of a kid in some ways, despite being more sophisticated than Egwene & Nynaeve in others. And in WoT, keeping back information is usually a bad idea, while frankness and honesty are often rewarded in relationships. This is one such result, Elayne not wanting to reveal her knowledge of the conversation with Thom, not wanting to admit her vulnerability, so she’s being deceptive about making a relationship with him, and it has her acting foolish.
Also, it’s worth remembering the content of the message they got from Ronde, especially considering some of the things that will be claimed by the rebels about Elaida. The Tower conflict is not nearly so black & white, good guys vs bad guys, as the PoV characters believe, and I think Jordan is really shading a lot of stuff in there to make us see this as another one of those unnecessary and distracting petty conflicts for power that are diverting the world from uniting to face the Dark One.
And regarding the Seals, what I always thought interesting was the geographical symmetry of the places they were found. Rhuidean in the far east, and one came in High Lord Turak’s collection, from Seanchan in the far west. One was found in the Eye of the World, in the Northeast, while Bayle Domon obtained another in Saldaea in the Northwest. The girls found on in Tanchico in the Southwest and there was one in the Stone of Tear in the Southeast. I was expecting the last to turn up somewhere in the center of the continent or else from the Sea Folk (far south) or be found in the Blight or Blasted Lands, maybe even Shayol Ghul (far north).
@12: The Tower conflict is not nearly so black & white,
Sure it is. The entire thing was engineered by the Black Ajah specifically to weaken the good guys. Hell, Elaida went along with the entire coup after Siuan announced to the Tower that the Dragon was reborn and the apocalypse was imminent. Her entire justification was that Siuan had conspired with the literal prophesied savior of the world and that this was somehow inappropriate. The fact that the Black had agents on both sides of the divide is immaterial. A White Tower undivided in its support for Elaida would have been far more disastrous than the civil war.
noblehunter@5:
I wonder if it’s as unreliable as actual torture.
I’d think so, and for the exact same reason — false positives. The issue with torture isn’t that you can’t get useful information out of it, it’s that people being tortured will say anything to stop the torture. If they KNOW what you want, and you break them, you are likely to get the truth, since if they knowingly lie, they realize you’ll be back, and likely do worse to them. At least in situations where both parties know the information is verifiable.
The problem is there are almost no situations where you can be positive you have the right person — which means torture is more likely to give you a false positive. Someone will confess to something they didn’t do, or just make up information to have a break in the torture.
What Juilin does would have the same effect on people who are susceptible to it — make them say anything to avoid the torture.
@7:
How can we possibly know that? We don’t know when that seal broke, but Aginor and Balthemel were out of their imprisonment before Rand drew on the Eye. There is no direct correlation in the books between the Seals breaking and any major events, with the exception of Rand’s Ta’R battle above Falme.
Events aren’t breaking the seals. The Dark One is breaking the seals. Or at least weakening them. Like a rat gnawing on the inside of a wall until it makes a hole.
And the Forsaken are getting loose regardless of the Seals. After all, at this point in the story, we know that Aginor, Balthemel, Samael, Semirhage, Lanfear, Be’lal, Ravhin, Messana and Graendal are all released. There’s no reason to assume that they all aren’t already released at this point. They were likely all released by the end of The Great Hunt.
Any connection between the Seals and the Forsaken are thematic, at best, rather than textual or metaphysical. They are story mechanics, not actual mechanics.
@14:
Yes, The Hall considers that inappropriate, at the least. As in, it’s not her job to conspire on matters of such importance behind the backs of the Hall. It doesn’t matter in the least who she’s conspiring with. It’s a political argument, not a moral one. The Hall (or at least the members of it that convened) is saying that the Amyrlin has overstepped her authority. You can certainly argue against that, that it is indeed the Amyrlin’s job to do such, but that’s not a black and white argument. That’s an argument for lawyers to hash out. There will be good people who think they are right on both sides of such a conflict. Hence “not black and white.”
@16, There are certainly sisters who sincerely believe that Elaida is in the right and Siuan was dangerously wrong. The truth of course is Elaida is not acting in good faith but from ambition and personal Animus. This makes her easy for the Black Ajah and Mesaana to manipulate. Elaida starts out in the wrong and proceeds to get worse and worse. She a power hungry megalomaniac with no ability to rule. She thinks keeping her subordinates in terror is appropriate. She’s a disaster.
I think the fourth seal breaking is what gives the dark one the ability to bring souls back. It is after this that not only is SH first seen but also Aginor and Bathemel are first seen again in different bodies.
There’s definitely a continued escalation of the Dark One’s power over the world as the seals break. Things move along a pretty smooth learning curve from lesser to more competent Forsaken, and eventually more direct conflict with the Dark One, as Rand’s powers develop.
Nynaeve’s particularly renewed levelheadedness once she’s got a stock of herbs to hand is an impressively subtle piece of characterization to pick up on. Likewise that even this demonstration of instrospection and maturity doesn’t mean she won’t have plenty to learn, mostly side-by-side with Elayne still, from a variety of mentors over the remainder of the series.
Pretty sharp of Sylas as well to pick up on Nynaeve’s prospects for healing the taint, both curing the madness and removing it entirely. Just about all of that speculation was spot on, kind of surprised they didn’t make the connection to the Choedan Kal already too. Or to healing Siuan and Leane’s stilling. Am looking forward to seeing how early he picks up on what Callandor’s main special power really is, considering how close he came to making some connection between Rand’s lack of control with the girl in the Stone and the magnification of the taint. Though that’s not called out as explicitly until after the next time he uses it.
Will also be interested to see if Sylas gets as invested in the saga of Morgase as he now is in her former advisors/lovers. And all the rest of the ballooning cast of characters that is about to explode into exponential ranks of nobility and military and darkfriend/black ajah hierarchy, as soon as Rand crosses back over the Dragonwall. I think this has got to be the last book where the focus remains even remotely tight.
@16: The Hall (or at least the members of it that convened)
Over half of whom were Black Ajah working with the head of the Black Ajah to weaken the Tower and depose the lawful Amyrlin, whose only crime, I repeat, was assisting the literal savior of the world.
The coup against Siuan was just barely legal by Tower law and only made it that far because of how deep the corruption of the Black Ajah had spread, and even with that thin veneer of legality they still managed to make it wholly illegal by killing Warders and stilling Siuan & Leane without trial. Hell, Egwene successfully makes this very argument when the Tower is reunited. Elaida’s coup was 99% illegal and 100% evil. It’s not a matter for the lawyers to settle, it’s explicitly decided in the text of the series.
@20 – One of the voting members in the coup was literally one of the Forsaken, no?
Of course Eg says Elaida was wrong. What else could she say? That doesn’t prove anything.
How much power the Amyrlin and the Hall have depends on the individuals in those positions, not fixed laws. The winners interpret the laws their way.
@14”A White Tower undivided in its support for Elaida would have been far more disastrous than the civil war.“
I could make the argument an undivided tower in support of Suian would also have been more disastrous than the civil war. The civil war allowed for the following:
Rand to operate more freely to accomplish what he was meant to rather than what they believed he was meant to
Black Ajah to be discovered and expunged
Various other power wielding factions to be more closely tied to the tower and the discovery of a lot more stronger powered novices
The Black Tower to flourish ( although there were negative consequences Rand needed them for stuff)
Egwene Elayne & Nynaeve to advance more quickly and therefore the freedom to fulfill their roles in Rand’s success
@21
No, Danelle was not in the Hall of the Tower. She was just one of Elaida’s co-conspirators, some of whom were Sitters and others who were not.
Ronde Macura seems to know a lot about the effects of different doses of forkroot and how long the effects last. I wonder what happened to the channelers she experimented on. Did they all die from overdoses, or did they agree to keep the drug secret for some reason?
No, Noy isn’t there, only the coach which he has sold to Thom. Ronde was sending Therin Lugay to Tar Valon, but he arrives later.
@24 – Ah, right, she just brought in the mercenaries. Thanks.
@21: There’s at least one known Black Ajah member in the form of Talene. The squad that came to imprison Siuan had Mesaana and Alviarin on it, but neither was a Sitter.
I can’t recall offhand if Egwene is the only one to point out that that made Eladia’s coup even more illegal, or if the Tower hunters realize it as well.
The issue is not if Elaida was good or bad, it is whether or not Salidar’s response is warranted. Siuan is acting just as much out of personal animus as Elaida. Siuan might be a better person, but she’s just as incompetent at being Amyrlin, just as arrogant and just as blind to anything outside her own view. The difference is that the Wondergirls were not emotionally invested in Elaida’s side, so she didn’t have them to break her and teach her her proper place.
Even at the outset, Moiraine was keeping things from Siuan because their quarter of a century friendship/love affair told Moiraine that Siuan could not accept some things, that Siuan was arrogant enough to believe she could control everything. Hell, this is the woman who told Rand to his face that he existed to be her tool. Siuan might not have been panting after her own glory and her name being in the history books, but whatever the motive, the outcome is the same, a drastically inexperienced and unqualified person taking on herself the right to decide what to do about the apocalypse. Note that even the leaders of the rebellion, while decrying the way Elaida and company dealt with Siuan’s activities, affirm that she was, in fact, guilty of the major accusation. Elaida is a hypocrite in that she proceeds to do exactly what she pulled Siuan down for, but Siuan is just as hypocritical, turning around to destroy the Tower in the name of her revenge. Oh, she says differently, because no one admits they are a villain, but she’s reacting to Elaida cracking the Tower, by fully breaking it.
The point I made was that there were other options open. The rebels could have gone back to the Tower without punishment, eaten some humble pie and actually been in a position to intervene with Elaida’s lunacy. More than a few of the saner heads among the loyalists quickly became disenchanted with Elaida, but felt that acting against her was tantamount to approving of the rebels’ methods, that they would be vindicating the use of armed force to resolve Tower disputes. If Sheriam et al had been in the Tower, proving that they were capable of putting aside their grievances and working for the greater good, Seaine, Saerin and Yukiri and maybe even Pevara might have been receptive to replacing Elaida.
According to Jordan, the initial outrage over Elaida’s rise was not about her personally, or pro-Siuan, but because she tried to be a dictator right out of the gate (showing her perception of the office is not dissimilar to the Wondergirls’), instead of making concessions and tossing bones to the opposition, which was customary. The flight and gathering at Salidar was intended to be more of strike than a rebellion, sort of like remaining in their seats during the first round of voting, even if they are probably going to go along with the consensus anyway. It was Siuan who introduced the idea of actual rebellion.
People love to cite the role of the Black Ajah in Elaida’s takeover, but they also played a big part in the Salidar campaign. Siuan’s whole program, adopted by Egwene, is simply carrying on the Shadow’s work. Siuan seems to think that the Black Ajah was after her personally, that they saw her as a threat, and so her own schemes in Salidar were acting against the Shadow, but the real goal of the Shadow was disunity and division and Siuan’s fall was simply collateral damage. Her follow-up plans took the ball from Elaida and really ran with it. They are both star players on Team Shadow Dupes. Sheriam was the head of the Salidar Council, Moria proposed the most divisive measure, with the most chaotic effect on the Hall, and Delana was a critical vote in granting Egwene dictatorial powers. Delana clearly did not support it personally or want to stand for it, but was being made to by Aran’gar. The Forsaken were Egwene’s biggest fans when Egwene was operating by Siuan’s playbook.
Siuan won’t admit it, but she’s got just as much of a grudge from the events of New Spring. Jordan even seeded a little hint how much Siuan and Elaida are alike with his comment right before her deposing, that Siuan was at first surprised that Elaida proposed something she wanted to do, and only later realized it was a natural thing for a Red to suggest.
All the leadership south of the Borderlands is rotten, all the leaders get replaced. This is not an accident, and Siuan is not some innocent victim. She’s part of the problem and she had to go. Hell, the woman’s first words in private to Moiraine are an explanation of how much worse the world has become under her administration. The unrest Rand encounters in Caemlyn can best be extrapolated as the fruits of Siuan’s absurd little Murandian plot. She brought the Black Ajah in to Fal Dara because she needed to micromanage the whole Horn/Dragon thing. Her arrogance finished the job Moiraine began in destroying any chance Rand would trust Aes Sedai or the Tower. Her policies were just plain stupid. Siuan knows that the Black Ajah is aware of the Dragon Reborn, and yet she still keeps the news secret, effectively giving them a head start on everyone but Moiraine & Cadsuane. Basically, Siuan was only keeping the news of Tarmon Gaidon and the Dragon’s Rebirth a secret from the good guys. Even in little things – she sends Else Grinwell away from the Tower, despite suggesting she was strong enough to be a sister. One book after Vandene tells Moiraine the Tower is going to need every novice who can light a candle unaided. The whole reason she got deposed was because of her tunnel vision focus on the Black Ajah, and letting the threat paralyze her. Unless you are reading a book and know Nynaeve, Egwene and Elayne are protagonists, sending them after the Black Ajah was a massively stupid move, and her “plausible deniability” with Elayne is additionally stupid and eventually bites her in the ass with Gawyn thwarting her rescue.
See in Wheel of Time, openness and honesty and frankness is rewarded! For all the Wheel of No Communication jokes, the lack of communication drives the conflicts and honesty resolves them. Siuan and Morgase are, if not villains, antagonists, because they don’t get this, because they keep secrets, and ration out information as they think best, to achieve their own ends. When the good guys are honest, or even when they are just stressed out and blurt their intentions to potential allies, they tend to get better results than with all their political theater and posturing. And Siuan never learns that. Moiraine needs her sojourn with the ‘Finn to learn it. Cadsuane, on the other hand, is brutally frank with Rand right out of the box, saves her life by being honest with Verin and ultimately loses Rand’s trust by trying and failing to control a situation without consulting him.
Elaida might be bad, but it does not make Siuan good. Even Egwene takes much longer to learn that lesson than she should have.
The issue in no way involves White Tower machinations at all.
If the split had not happened at all as a result of Elaida’s ascension, nothing would have changed. Even if Siuan had never been deposed, and what Moiraine said to the Wise Ones in the sweat tent had proven true, Rand’s return from The Waste with the Aiel Nation, both in circumstance and reality, would have rendered any Aes Sedai intervention irrelevant in and of itself, or because nations like Andor & Illian already had fallen under Forsaken sway.
It is an inserted plot device to diffuse the narrative and give the prominent female characters something seemingly substantial to do, once Rand Levels Up enough. And shrewdly, Jordan makes it something apparently meaty, that only peripherally involves Rand, but beyond being used as a pretext, is never actually about him.
At the same time the unfolding story makes it clear that while engrossing in & of itself The Tower Plot, from The Shadow Rising to The Towers of Midnight has no influence on the wider politics of Randland.
All the intelligent conditionals being posited here about motives, influence & opportunity, demonstrate how successfully Jordan hid the ultimate irrelevance of organisational Aes Sedai involvement, in what Rand actually achieved.
He was already too powerful for the political influence of either a Split or United White Tower to come to fruition for him or against, before any National Leader was aware, let alone credulous of any apparent Split.
What Rand spat at Moiraine & Egwene early on in FoH in anger, proved ultimately to be the fundamental truth. With the Aiel Nation behind him, they accepted his peace and he wasn’t buried in the Can Breat.
Individual Aes Sedai are key components in Rand’s situation at various times post Tower Split, but either as Independent Advisors who happen to be what they are, or as loyal vassals who have sworn fealty to him in contravention of custom or expectations.
Sure, even followers as steadfast as Bashere invoke organisational Aes Sedai support as ideal. However, the unfolding narrative continually contradicts them, directly and indirectly, while making the most of personality clashes that are ultimately completely irrelevant to Rand’s success.
Even something as organisationally drastic as Rand’s kidnapping is resolved in less than a book, in terms of ultimately lacking influence on what Rand achieves politically in the wider world, or is prevented from achieving because Aes Sedai organisational authority (be it Tower or Rebel) explicitly opposes it.
In its own microcosm the entire Tower Plot is interesting. Outside it? It’s moot.
Very nice analysis of the Tower split and it’s place in overall events, Elaida, and Siuan. Thanks guys
While we recognize real-world examples can be helpful in illuminating the text/characters, we’d ask that you try to avoid bringing current politics into the conversation, as these examples tend to quickly derail the thread (at least, at the current moment).
This is a really interesting way to think about it, William (and Gregor) – I guess I never thought too much about the whole coup aside from the plot device and more or less took for granted that the ‘good guys’ were on the Salidar side.
But now that I do sit and think about it, I do think we have something that is comparable to a Clone Wars scenario – an engineered conflict in which both sides are ultimately pawns of some darker force, where neither of them are really ‘right’. I’d still rather have Siuan than Elaida (and they are likely correct that her rise was un-lawful) but I think you are likely on to something that the continued rebellion is just as much a tool of the Dark as Elaida’s coup was.
Of course, it’s from that that we get Egwene as Amyrlin so in the end the dark sows the seeds of its own destruction (I think there’s a Tolkien quote about that “oft evil will shall evil mar“.
@35
I get what you’re saying, Lisamarie, about preferring Siuan to Elaida but for me, the Event Horizon was her deciding to murder Nicola and Areina for absolutely nothing remotely resembling a good or righteous cause. Setting aside that Nicola has done nothing beyond Egwene’s moral envelope for, as Egwene observes, similar motivations as Egwene, there is also the fact that by taking such absolute authority over the novices and their lives, the Tower and the Aes Sedai undertake an equally absolute duty to protect the novices at all costs. Murdering a novice is like murdering a gai’shain to the Aiel. It’s like murdering a child, absolutely inexcusable and all but unforgivable.
Even contemplating the murder of Nicola clearly and absolutely renders Siuan unfit for leadership of any Aes Sedai. One of the trouble signs about Egwene’s leadership of Salidar and her quest to dethrone Elaida is that someone like this is her closest confidante.
Whereas Siuan never has to deal with what Elaida does as Amyrlin. Do you really think Siuan would have behaved much better at being ignored in her own study? Egwene certainly doesn’t, fuming when Romanda and Lelaine argue with each other instead of making cases with Egwene, when there is no reason to, because Egwene has no real power and was selected to be a figurehead. Do you think Siuan would have tolerated the denial of the Tower Aes Sedai regarding the situation in the world and their refusal to face up to the reality of what Rand meant? Between Padan Fain’s affliction and a Forsaken-backed Alviarin, Elaida never had a chance and a lot of the Watsonian demonization of her is over things for which she was not actually responsible, and which she herself recognized as problems and undesirable, such as the divisions among the Ajahs, the decree about the Dragon Reborn or the refusal of the Tar Valon citizens to pick up their own garbage.
And yeah, you’re right with the thrust of the Tolkien quote. The Shadow does a lot of that. Rahvin seeds his own downfall with his treatment of Morgase, just as Mesaana & Alviarin do with Elaida. Lanfear’s blandishments inspire Rand to obtain a teacher his own way and help him find the Choedan Kal keys. I think the theme is that evil can only do so much to you unless you let it, and that people with Sorilea’s and Cadsuane’s preferred brand of strength with bounce back stronger than ever.
18@makloony:
The problem with that theory is that even though the don’t appear onscreen until Book 6, we know that the Dark One had to snatch their souls pretty close to the time of their deaths, because Robert Jordan told us so there was a clock on how long the DO could pull that trick. It’s been almost two years between Book 1 and Book 6.
Gregor@31:
With all due respect, there is one huge difference that matters to the plot. Without the Tower Split, Egwene doesn’t become Amyrlin, has no ability to build up the respect of the Aes Sedai, and would not be holding Vora’s Wand during the Last Battle.
Which means the cracks in reality she healed would have destroyed the Pattern.
The prophecy of the Dragon set forth the conditions that need to happen in order for The Dragon to succeed. It doesn’t mean he will succeed, but the prophecy must be fulfilled in order for it to be possible. Therefore, the Tower had to be broken in order for Rand to defeat the dark one.
“The unstained tower, broken, bends knee to the forgotten sign”
@39 / @40
I can’t stand the last two books published in the WoT Series on the whole. Each of ToM and aMoL contain moments, but to my mind they are poorly executed, even when I find their developments apt. Repeating something I’ve noted many times before, serves no purpose beyond emphasising what follows should be taken with a grain of salt – because I’ve only read aMoL from cover to cover once and subsequently only ever gone back rarely, to reread the few parts of it I can stand.
As a result, I have to accept I could be conflating moments to suit myself. I trust anyone reading this will let me know, respectfully, or otherwise…
So…
Egwene cleaning up her own mess doesn’t seem to me to be a sufficient rebuttal of the premise I posited.
It is an apt completion of Egwene’s Arc but again, ultimately unnecessary plotwise had she been willing to cooperate with Rand instead of going out of her way to impose her will on a situation he should have control over.
Plotwise, had Egwene not become Amyrlin, either Siuan would have remained so and completed her & Moiraine’s quest.
Or, Elaida would have been Amyrlin and the Seanchan would have obliterated what would have ended up either, a fractured Tower, or an outwardly whole but weakened Tower (with the reintegration of the Salidar Rebels) vulnerable thanks to Elaida’s ambitions, blindspots and petty grudges. This then splits authority over the Light-Side Channeling World equally, between the Seanchan & Rand – the unstained Tower broken, its surviving Remnants not captured by the Seanchan, bending the knee to the only surviving authority prepared to leave them unleashed.
Egwene not becoming Amyrlin does however raise interesting possibilities. Would she have ended up in Salidar anyway? If not, would she ever have confessed her indiscretions and met her toh to the Aiel? Would the delay of that character building development have caused her to flame out even more quickly & less constructively than she actually did?
If Salidar never existed because Siuan retained the Stole, would the Supergirls have ended up back in Tar Valon? Would they have covered themselves in Glory helping Siuan root out the Black Ajah? Would their role have ensured Siuan raised them to positions of authority, instead of just employing them as convenient canaries in the coalmine? Would Siuan have used her success to try to control Rand, or would the depth of the Black Ajah penetration being revealed, lead to the remnants of a broken White Tower to seek to align themselves with an ascendant Dragon Reborn?
Given Rand’s state of mind at that time, what’s most likely to be his condition for that alignment? The process of the Tower breaking & bending knee to the forgotten sign was inevitable, once the existence of the Black Ajah was acknowledged.
Would Moghedien have followed Nynaeve to Tar Valon instead of Salidar, if that’s what their destination had been? How would her presence there have changed Mesaana’s machinations, if at all?
Within the microcosm of the Tower Plot story Arc, these possibilities are genuinely engrossing. Ultimately though, in the wider scheme of things, still moot, because of the Power & Influence Rand independently acquires thanks to his correct interpretation of the Prophecies, something the Aes Sedai organisationally failed to do.
Not to mention the failure of even the two Individual Aes Sedai, specifically tasked with making use of the immediate knowledge of The Dragon’s Rebirth, in order to find him.
If nothing else, the WoT as a whole is a successful metaphor for Institutional Decline and the ultimately ineffectual participation of established Powers, in the Victory at the Last Battle. It seems to me, those who played the most constructive role were those who represented, embraced and/or worked within the new order.
Gregor – you’re not alone. I read the Sanderson books when I’m doing a re-read of WoT, but purely for completion’s sake. Never quite looking forward to them. Curious – you didn’t mention TGS as being one you’re not fond of. Are you happy with that one?
@42
Sonofthunder – The way Mat is written makes being happy with tGS impossible for me.
However I found it a more careful and less ambitious entry in the series. Actually maybe careful & ambitious are the wrong words… On reflection, it seemed more focused and less scattered by the need to draw enough threads together for conclusion.
For me, Egwene & Rand’s Arcs are written and developed well enough to put this book… if well below the Top Tier of Jordan’s works, comfortably in the middle… and the big moments they are involved in are so satisfying for me, I prefer it to every book written by Jordan after aCoS ( if pushed, I would even rate it above both aCoS & tEotW) except KoD.
ToM & aMoL were torture to read, mitigated by moments, but in the case of aMoL not quite enough, to read it again from start to finish. Not sure if I’ll ever bring myself to read it again before Sylas gets to it in this Read.
I find both concluding volumes badly written overall. Poorly edited. And the invented contrivance in the plotting is… The only words that would be sufficient to express my disdain would probably get my comment removed for moderation purposes.
However, the poor writing & editing stem largely from the strain the intense focus on Rand & Egwene in tGS puts on the remaining works to conclude the story. That is exacerbated by the heinous underdevelopment of Demandred post LoC, to protect RJ’s Taimandred retcon as much as possible.
Having said that, Demandred in aMoL is also a particularly notable example of the discontinuity & shoehorning that characterise the overriding failures of both ToM & aMoL to me.
@41-43
So glad to see someone else here has that opinion of Sanderson’s books. I read them when they first came out and have not been able to bring myself to pick them up again. I have read Jordan’s books enough that I just skip the summations on blogs like this, because I know them that well, but a second attempt at Sanderson is just so unappealing. When I heard he was going to finish the series, the only adult books he had published were Mistborn, so I tried to read that but could not get deep into it. Sanderson’s strengths as a writer, I think, based on praise given him, is coming up with concepts and developing magic systems. And those were things WoT did not need, because RJ had done all that. What WoT needed was someone who could understand the characters and setting, who could get in their heads and carry on their stories, and Sanderson sucked at that.
Also, his ways of writing were so different that I could not tell what things were supposed to mean. When Rand sometimes thought of channeling as spinning, instead of weaving, it meant LTT was getting stronger. But in tGS, when everyone started calling Rand “the Dragon” instead of “the Dragon Reborn” or “the Lord Dragon”, did it mean people were coming to see him differently, that they were losing sight of Rand al’Thor and seeing him as a symbol of destruction? Or was it just a mistake by Sanderson, possibly out of reluctance to take the trouble to type an extra word in all his dialogue?
A more striking example is Egwene’s self-glorifying recollection of her actions fighting the Seanchan. NO ONE is Wheel of Time thinks like that, except for some of the villains, like Elaida or Valda. No one is ever so self-congratulatory about the aftermath of a battle. Now was that deliberate? Were we supposed to see this as a problem? Or was it just Sanderson doing fan-service? Because he does a lot of that. Jordan let badass moments stand on their own merits, describing them in an almost understated way, often with the hero not having a clue what he or she did. Or else the “camera” would pull back with a simple declaration, like after Dumai’s Wells. Sanderson, in the words of another reviewer I saw once, “abuses dialogue to carry the exposition.” Big fan of telling instead of showing, except he thinks it’s okay, because the characters are telling you, instead of the narration.
And Sanderson is awful at the political stuff that made up so much of Egwene’s story. The clever, insightful, relentlessly logical White Ajah we saw having highly rhetorical arguments when Alviarin was wandering the White quarters, or Egwene was visiting Leane in jail or that we got in Seaine’s or Sarene’s PoV chapters, were reduced to the freshmen year debate club Egwene cracks walnuts for. And there was the stupid line with Egwene thinking walnuts look like small animal brains. Except they don’t, as anyone who has dissected a small animal knows. They only look like brains if you are looking at a modern anatomy diagram. The inaugural speeches Egwene gives at the end sound like a generalissimo or dictator rallying the troops, as well as being largely contradictory. If Egwene showed some awareness of this, it could be a point about her political tactics. If Jordan had been writing it, we would have seen the changes from her early days, when she made her inaugural speech in Salidar, chopping out most of the rhetoric in the pre-written version and keeping it short and sweet. Or when she made her case for declaring war, and kept strictly to the facts, eschewing emotional appeals. But that was almost the entirety of her speeches to the Hall and to the returning rebels in tGS and arguing for her proposal in the Hall in ToM.
What was worse was the plotting. Egwene’s proposal in ToM is a huge win for her, so much so that it strains credibility that the Hall would blindly surrender so much power and authority to her, especially the way it was scripted with the last few needed votes coming by accident and the Sitters realizing a hair too late the ramifications for the new spheres of influence. After something like that, any executive who managed to sneak such a self-serving piece of policy past the legislature would be lucky not to be impeached or voted out of office on the spot, but instead Egwene actually has the audacity to propose yet another major change that again curtails the Sitters’ power, relative to both the Amyrlin and the Ajah Heads. And the thing is, I’m not 100% sure Sanderson himself is aware of the ramifications of her reform about limiting when the Hall can meet or the mandatory attendance. It read like the author believed this was a genuine reform of Tower practices for the better.
Politics involves tradeoffs. People need reasons to go along with a political agenda, and Egwene’s political agenda as written by Sanderson is “I am a great and wise saint, and doing whatever I want is clearly in the best interests of the Tower and the world, so get on board.” Some might say that has always been the core principle of her political vision, but the tactic she used was to convince the Hall that they were not being taken seriously and had to act in order to prove themselves. That makes sense. You can see why Sitters would vote for that, especially too-young Sitters at odds with the more established elders. There is no reason why they would just vote ‘yes’ because they walked into the room and someone said “something important” is being voted on.
Another issue is why the Sea Folk agreed to walk back the deal they obtained from Nynaeve and Elayne in favor of a much worse deal on all particulars, just because Egwene promised to let them keep a couple ter’angreal. Even if those were valuable, they are among the few types that we know for sure can be made, and Nynaeve’s & Elayne’s bargain gave the Sea Folk the right to learn how to do make them. Are we supposed to suddenly believe they are so stupid they can’t figure out as well as Egwene that possession is 9/10ths of the law? No, Sanderson was just pandering to the fans (possibly including himself) who hated that the Sea Folk had the upper hand over the point of view characters.
There were so many oddities, like Suana’s retcon of the Yellow Ajah’s purpose, which completely went against all Nynaeve’s experience as well as Romanda’s political position; the pointless descriptions of Meidani’s furnishings and her OCD labeling of all her trophies; Egwene telling the Aiel they needed to get over their fear of water, when from the first conversation she had with the Aiel, she knew that they coped with and overcame their fears of water quite effectively; a whole army jumping out of a forest to ambush a Trolloc horde; Aiel referring to their homeland as “the Waste”; a mysterious woman appearing out of nowhere to lead Aviendha through a tedious Socratic dialogue for the purpose of teaching her a notion … that Aviendha herself had already articulated way back in The Fires of Heaven.
I have to stop, I’m getting mad all over again.
@44
I am curious how many of these changes can be attributed to the use of balefire and the resultant ripples in the pattern, or even the influence of fain or the dark ones touch on the pattern & main characters. Egwene spent a lot of time with fain in tGH after all.
@45
I used to like that theory. It was my own idea why Egwene goes from hugging Rand & saying she doesn’t care he can channel at the end of EotW, and one book later, when it is revealed he’s the Dragon Reborn and is an exception to the usual peril of a male channeled, she’s trying to warn Min off him. It would explain her pathological need to bring the ta’veren face to face with Fain, even though hiding Rand in the (occupied & guarded) dungeon is maybe the dumbest plan in the series, and she sees how bad Fain reacted to Rand, so bringing Mat & Perrin would be a worse idea… unless she’s under Fain’s influence.
Except it’s apparently in RJ’s notes that Fain only gained his powers upon taking the dagger from Mat. That apparently also freed him of his compulsion to follow them. If he was unable to pause for physiological necessities during his pursuit even after Shadar Logoth, there is no way he should have been able to move away from them as he does through the majority of tGH. But the dagger gave his Mordeth aspect more control over his Fain-hound aspect.