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Reading the Wheel of Time: Two Faces of Temptation in Robert Jordan’s The Great Hunt (Part 9)

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Reading the Wheel of Time: Two Faces of Temptation in Robert Jordan’s The Great Hunt (Part 9)

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Reading the Wheel of Time: Two Faces of Temptation in Robert Jordan’s The Great Hunt (Part 9)

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Published on September 25, 2018

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I’m really loving my title for Week 9 of reading The Great Hunt. I also really loved the chapter titles for the this week’s section, Chapter 15 “Kinslayer” and Chapter 16 “In the Mirror of Darkness.” I get some of my questions about the ‘if’ world answered this week, and more questions are raised about Lews Therin Telamon and his ongoing battle with the Dark One. Obviously Lews Therin is a very significant Dragon because he lived during the Age of Legends and because he and his fellows were responsible for the Breaking of the World. He’s also going to be foremost in the minds of the people Rand encounters because he was the last known Dragon. But Ba’alzamon focuses on that identity a great deal in his most recent visit to Rand, and I found that curious.

Rand also makes another new/old friend this week in the form of Selene, who is the most immediately suspicious character we have encountered thus far in the read. Like there is no way she isn’t at least an agent of the Dark One, and she is very probably also Lanfear. Not much to guess at there, though unfortunately Rand and company aren’t nearly as suspicious of her story and motivations as I am.

In the other world, the world of “if,” Hurin is continuing to sniff the trail of the Darkfriends, as he, Rand, and Loial all do their best to ignore the strange way distant objects shift in their periphery as they travel. The find the land burned in strange long swaths that taper to a point, reminding Rand of strokes of a painter’s brush, and despite the fact that the damage seems old, Rand sees that the land has not made any progress in reclaiming the damaged area with new growth. Rand also notices that there appear to be no animals anywhere, not even insects, and everything has that same pale, bleached-out look “like clothes too often washed and too long left in the sun,” and even the water they drink from the rivers tastes flat. Twice, Rand sees strange wispy streaks in the sky, too straight to be natural cloud formations, but he doesn’t mention it to the others.

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After they have ridden for a while, Loial stops and dismounts, and Hurin and Rand watch and listen in awe as he sings to one of the trees, using his rare ability to sing himself a staff that separates itself from the rest of the tree, leaving a new branch sprouting in its place. Hurin and Rand are stunned, and Rand thinks that not all the surprises he has witnessed are bad ones. But that feeling fades quickly, as Loial explains that he could feel the land somehow wanted the weapon to be made, that it was glad of it. Ogier are not often moved to violence, but the land’s desire for a weapon is even more alarming that the Ogier’s need for such security.

Hurin, alarmed, starts reciting a sort of catechism invoking the protection of the Light, while Rand continues to put on a confident demeanor, knowing that one of them must appear sure, or fear and uncertainty will overcome everyone. His apparent confidence and attempts at jokes lighten Hurin’s mood a little, but not Loial’s. Nevertheless, they keep moving, until Hurin stops and expresses concern over the trail. Rand tells him there’s no disgrace if he has lost it, but that isn’t the problem. Hurin can’t explain what exactly the problem is; only that it’s not the faintness of the trail that bothers him but some other quality, some sense that he feels like he’s remembering the trail, rather than smelling it. But as he continues to try to explain about the scents of violence he can smell everywhere, he only muddles himself and decides that it’s merely the strangeness of the place that is confusing him. But he can still follow the trail, and they continue on.

They continue for the rest of the day without seeing any sign of their quarry, not so much as a hoofprint or a bend blade of grass, and make camp in a stand of trees. Rand puzzles over the fact that whenever he thinks of the Darkfriends they are chasing, he thinks of them specifically as “Fain’s Darkfriends.”

It seemed odd to him that he had begun to think of them as Fain’s Darkfriends, Fain’s Trollocs. Fain was just a madman. Then why did they rescue him? Fain had been part of the Dark One’s scheme to find him. Perhaps it had something to do with that. Then why is he running instead of chasing me? And what killed that Fade? What happened in that room full of flies? And those eyes, watching me in Fal Dara. And that wind, catching me like a beetle in pine sap. No. No, Ba’alzamon has to be dead. The Aes Sedai did not believe it. Moiraine did not believe it, nor the Amyrlin. Stubbornly, he refused to think about it any longer. All he had to think about now was finding that dagger for Mat. Finding Fain, and the Horn.

It’s never over, al’Thor.

The voice was like a thin breeze whispering in the back of his head, a thin, icy murmur working its way into the crevices of his mind. He almost sought the void to escape it, but remembering what waited for him there, he pushed down the desire.

Instead of seeking the void, Rand practices the various sword forms that Lan taught him, which stills his mind for a while but doesn’t provide any lasting relief. No one else seems any happier or calmer, and they sit in silence until nightfall, when Rand takes the first watch. The night is ominous and empty, and Rand finds it difficult to believe that there is anyone else except the three of them in this whole world. He tries to play a little on Thom’s flute, but even played softly, the instrument seems too loud in the empty world and Rand puts it away again.

Late into the night, Rand doesn’t notice the first arrival of the fog that he suddenly becomes aware of, covering the ground and the sleeping forms of Hurin and Loial. It hides distant everything from his sight, even shrouding the moon, and he is touching his sword, aware that anything could come up on them unseen, when suddenly he hears a voice.

“Swords do no good against me, Lews Therin. You should know that.”

Rand turns, drawing his sword and calling up the void in the same time, as out of the fog steps the shape of a man, dressed in black with gloves and a silk mask, carrying a black staff and shrouded by darkness like a huge black shadow on the fog. For a moment his eyes seem to glow with flame.

Rand recognizes Ba’alzamon immediately, and insists out loud that he must have fallen asleep and be dreaming, but Ba’alzamon only laughs “like the roar of an open furnace” and tells “Lews Therin” that he always tries to deny, but that it does no good. Ba’alzamon can always touch him, everywhere.

Rand insists that he is not the Dragon, stopping himself just short of telling the figure his name, but Ba’alzamon tells “Lews Therin” that he already knows the name he goes by now, that he knows every name he used in every Age, long before he was the Kinslayer. He tells Rand that they are tied together like two sides of the same coin, that ordinary men can hide in the Pattern but that ta’veren stand out in it like beacons.

Rand calls him Father of Lies, reminding Ba’alzamon that Rand walks in the Light and that if Ba’alzamon could take him, he would have done so already. He’s desperately hoping that he is dreaming, that even if Ba’alzamon is back in his dreams he isn’t really physically there, standing in front of Rand, and notes that the fog doesn’t move as Ba’alzamon passes through it.

Ba’alzamon, observing the sleeping Hurin and Loial, notes that “Lews Therin” always finds odd followers, like “the girl who tries to watch over” him. Rand, confused as to whom Ba’alzamon means, again calls him a liar.

“Do I, Lews Therin? You know what you are, who you are. I have told you. And so have those women of Tar Valon.” Rand shifted, and Ba’alzamon gave a laugh, like a small thunderclap. “They think themselves safe in their White Tower, but my followers number even some of their own. The Aes Sedai called Moiraine told you who you are, did she not? Did she lie? Or is she one of mine? The White Tower means to use you like a hound on a leash. Do I lie? Do I lie when I say you seek the Horn of Valere?” He laughed again; calm of the void or no, it was all Rand could do not to cover his ears. “Sometimes old enemies fight so long that they become allies and never realize it. They think they strike at you, but they have become so closely linked it is as if you guided the blow yourself.”

“You don’t guide me,” Rand said. “I deny you.”

Ba’alzamon continues to insists that their fates are tied together, that the Last Battle is coming, that Rand will serve him or die, and that this time instead of being born anew, the Cycle of the Dragon will end and the Wheel will be broken, that the world will be remade. He demands that Rand serve him, serve Shai’tan, or be destroyed.

With the utterance of the Dark One’s full name, the shadow around Ba’alzamon seems to thicken and grow, and Rand feels engulfed by icy cold and unbearable heat at the same time. Rand calls upon the Light, which dispels the feeling, and Ba’alzamon asks if Rand wants to see his face. Rand vehemently does not, but Ba’alzamon pulls off the mask.

The mask came away. It was a man’s face, horribly burned. Yet between the black-edged, red crevices crossing those features, the skin looked healthy and smooth. Dark eyes looked at Rand; cruel lips smiled with a flash of white teeth. “Look at me, Kinslayer, and see the hundredth part of your own fate.” For a moment eyes and mouth became doorways into endless caverns of fire. “This is what the Power unchecked can do, even to me. But I heal, Lews Therin. I know the paths to greater power. It will burn you like a moth flying into a furnace.”

Rand insists that he will not touch the power, but Ba’alzamon points out that he is linked to that Power even now. He tells Rand that he can teach him how to control the Power so that it does not destroy him, reminding him that there is no one else alive who can teach him that; all Rand has to do is utter the words “I am yours, Great Lord,” and he will have all the Power he could wish.

Rand again denies him, again insists that Ba’alzamon cannot touch him. Ba’alzamon declares that he can consume “Lews Therin” and with his words, flames blossom in his eyes and mouth and grow until they are brighter than the sun. The sword in Rand’s hand grows hot, burning Rand’s hands until he drops it, and the fog itself catches fire.

Yelling, Rand beat at his clothes as they smoked and charred and fell in ashes, beat with hands that blackened and shriveled as naked flesh cracked and peeled away in the flames. He screamed. Pain beat at the void inside him, and he tried to crawl deeper into the emptiness. The glow was there, the tainted light just out of sight. Half mad, no longer caring what it was, he reached for saidin, tried to wrap it around him, tried to hide in it from the burning and the pain.

And then suddenly the fire is gone, Rand’s clothes and hands are unburnt, and he believes for a moment that he imagined the whole thing. Believes it until he realizes that the heron mark has been branded into his palm. He hastily wraps it with a kerchief, and is tempted to seek the void to escape the pain, but he decides not to. He’s aware that he has twice now, once on purpose and once without even realizing it, tried to channel the One Power while he was in the void. That is what Ba’alzamon, what Moiraine and the Amyrlin seat, all want of him. And he is still determined not to do it.

The next morning, Hurin genty scolds Rand for staying up all night, worried about the consequences of their leader overtaxing himself. But Rand insists that he needed to think, and avoids letting Loial look at his injured hand by being snappy with him. They head out, having breakfast in the saddle.

Rand is still disturbed by the lack of track or hoofprints on the trail Hurin is following; he checks their own trail and sees evidence of their passing, but none of Fain’s Darkfriends ahead of them. After a short time, they see a spire up in the distance; Hurin suggests it perhaps is this world’s monument to Artur Hawkwing’s great victory over the Trollocs, but Loial points out that it should be still three or four days ahead of them, and that it makes little sense for their to be a monument at all in a world that seems to have no people. They debate whether or not to avoid it, but Rand decides to stay on the trail, at least for the time being.

They ride on, eventually close enough to the spire that Rand can see that the top is carved like a bird, which Rand takes to be a hawk. Excited, he declares that it is Hawkwing’s monument, and decides to gallop the rest of the distance to see the fabled statue that in their world has been long gone. Hurin is excited too, and they take off, heedless of Loial’s attempt at a warning. But as they get closer their enthusiasm dies; they can see that the monument is not Hawkwing’s at all, but a Trolloc monument, carved with the symbols of the varios Trolloc tribes, the top not a hawk at all, but a raven.

Loial tells Rand that he tried to warn them, and explains that he believes he has figured out where they are. He repeats the bit of script from his own book “From Stone to Stone run the lines of ‘if,’” and suggests that this is a shadow world that shows a different outcome, one in which the Trollocs won the war instead of Artur Hawkwing. He suggests that is why the world seems so hollow and washed-out looking, because it is only an ‘if,’ a ‘maybe’ and when Rand questions why there are no Trollocs, Loial suggests that perhaps after they killed all the people, they killed each other, since killing is all that a Trolloc really is.

While they are contemplating a world that has essentially killed itself, Hurin suddenly exclaim that he sees something moving. Rand turns to look but there is nothing there. Hurin says he thought it was a woman, and maybe something else, but he talks himself out of it after a moment, deciding that it’s just the eriness of the place playing tricks on him.

Turning back to the matter at hand, Loial points out another strange thing; the mountains that, like the spire, they will reach much sooner than they should, based on the location and distances in their own world; Rand suggests that this place might be like the Ways and instantly regrets giving everyone yet another reason for alarm.

Rand does his best to bolster the frightened Hurin when suddenly they hear a woman scream. Hurin thinks that it must be the woman he saw after all, but the screams are coming from a different direction. Without thought, Rand kicks his horse in the direction of the terrified screams, heedless of Loial’s shouts that they just decided that they need to be more careful. But the terror in the woman’s voice drives Rand on, and he finds her standing in a stream with a horse, backed up against the bank and using a branch to fend of a giant creature. Rand dismounts and quickly strings his bow, shooting the creature, which turns to run at him. It has three eyes and he hears the woman calling that he must shoot it in an eye to kill it. Rand seeks the void, not for saidin but for the purpose Tam taught it to him, to shoot, and sinks an arrow into the center eye of the beast, killing it.

The woman rides over to him, surprisingly calm given her ordeal, and compliments him on his shooting, adding that “few men would stand to face the charge of a grolm. Looking at her, Rand finds her impossibly beautiful, comparing her in his mind to all the beautiful women he knows, and finds himself beyond breathtaken. Hurin and Loail join them then, and she, calling Rand lord, asks if they are his retainers. He corrects her, introducing his friends, and is embarrassed when Loial speaks aloud of the woman’s beauty.

“I have never thought of it before,” Loial said abruptly, sounding as if he were talking to himself; “but if there is such a thing as perfect human beauty, in face and form, then you—”

“Loial!” Rand shouted. The Ogier’s ears stiffened in embarrassment. Rand’s own ears were red; Loial’s words had been too close to what he him- self was thinking.

The woman laughed musically, but the next instant she was all regal formality, like a queen on her throne. “I am called Selene,” she said. “You have risked your life, and saved mine. I am yours, Lord Rand al’Thor.” And, to Rand’s horror, she knelt before him.

Rand struggles with his desire not to be treated as a nobleman with his desire to impress her, the worlds that come out of his mouth sounding first too formal, then too casual, until he finally settles uncomfortably on “It was my honor.” He feels naked under her gaze, a sensation which prompts him to imagine what she looks like naked, and desperately tries to distract from his discomfort by asking Selene where she is from, and if her village is nearby. She replies that she does not live in this world, that there is nothing living here except for the grolm and a few other creatures. She tells them that she is from Cairhien, and that her reason for being in the place is suspiciously like theirs; she took a nap by a big stone and just woke up in the other world.

“…. I can only hope, my Lord, that you can save me again, and help me go home.”

“Selene, I am not a… that is, please call me Rand.” His ears felt hot again. Light, it won’t hurt anything if she thinks I’m a lord. Burn me, it won’t hurt anything.

“If you wish it… Rand.” Her smile made his throat tighten. “You will help me?”

“Of course, I will.” Burn me, but she’s beautiful. And looking at me like I’m a hero in a story. He shook his head to clear it of foolishness. “But first we have to find the men we are following. I’ll try to keep you out of danger, but we must find them. Coming with us will be better than staying here alone.”

Selene tells him that she likes that he is a man of duty, and asks who they are following. Hurin is quick to tell her everything, including about the Horn of Valere, and Rand has sense enough to regret the breach of secrecy. He asks Selene to keep the secret, which she agrees to do, but then continues to talk about how she has always longed to have the Horn in her hands, and to urge Rand to let her hold it. He deflects by remarking how they have to find it first, and they all mount, Hurin leading them on the trail once again.

Selene rides first by Rand’s side, and he struggles with whether or not to tell her that he isn’t a lord, uncomfortable with the silent deception but also worried that she won’t pay him such attention if she knows that he is only a shepherd. It doesn’t help that Selene keeps talking about what a great man he will be once he finds the Horn, that he must want such greatness, because every man wants that. She notices his hand and insists that he let her treat it with an ointment from his pack; a salve that works so well that it reminds him of how Nyneave’s sometimes work. Selene tells him that it is better to choose greatness than to have it forced upon him, because men who are forced must dance on the strings of those who forced him.

Her comment sounds so much like Moiraine that Rand forgets her beauty for a moment and jerks his hand away, asking her if she is Aes Sedai. Selene responds with derision for the Aes Sedai and their limitations, serving where they could rule, although she never denies having the Power. She touches his arm, then drops back to ride with Hurin. Rand is relieved not to be under any more of her questioning, but he’s also jealous of her attentions to the others as she rides first with Hurin, then with Loial. He is trying to ignore the feeling, watching for grolm and pondering the fact that the approaching mountains show that they have covered over a hundred leagues in two days in this world, when Loial suddenly speaks beside him.

Loial, as enthusiastic about Selene’s extensive knowledge as Rand is about her beauty and far less shy of admitting it, tells Rand that he was right to compare this world to the Ways.

“The Aes Sedai, some of them, studied worlds like this, and that study was the basis of how they grew the Ways. She says there are worlds where it is time rather than distance that changes. Spend a day in one of those, and you might come back to find a year has passed in the real world, or twenty. Or it could be the other way round. Those worlds—this one, all the others—are reflections of the real world, she says. This one seems pale to us because it is a weak reflection, a world that had little chance of ever being. Others are almost as likely as ours. Those are as solid as our world, and have people. The same people, she says, Rand. Imagine it! You could go to one of them and meet yourself. The Pattern has infinite variation, she says, and every variation that can be, will be.”

Rand asks how she could know so much more than Loial, who is more well-read than anyone Rand has ever met, and Loial reminds Rand that she is from Cairhien, which has one of the greatest libraries in the world, perhaps second only to that in Tar Valon. He mentions that the Aiel spared the library when they burned Cairhien, and Rand interrupts, not wanting to hear about Aielman. He says instead that he hopes only that she read how to get them home, and she interrupts at that moment. Rand says he wishes she would ride with him some more, and she asks Loial to excuse them.

Rand rides in silence for a while, enjoying her presence and indulging in fantasy, until she remarks about his talent with his bow. Rand explains the trick Tam taught him about the void, about its uses in shooting and in Lan’s sword lessons. Selene understands at once what he is talking about, calling it “the Oneness” and that she has heard that the best way to learn the full use of it is to wear it all the time. Rand is reluctant to agree with such a suggestion, even going so far as to get snippy with her, and question how she could have so much knowledge, knowledge that even Loial does not have. Selene reacts in a haughty, affronted manner, and when Rand presses, she cuts off the conversation by pointing out the direction back to the Stone she woke up beside.

Rand is reluctant to abandon the quest for the Horn (and reluctant to have to try to channel again) but Selene presses, promising him that he will find his legend, and Rand points out that if she used the Stone before she can use it again, without him. Selene insists that she has never read anything about how to use the Stone, and that if she did anything, she has no idea what it was.

Rand studied her. She sat her saddle, straight-backed and tall, just as regally as before, but somehow softer, too. Proud, yet vulnerable, and need- ing him. He had put Nynaeve’s age to her—a handful of years older than himself—but he had been wrong, he realized. She was more his own age, and beautiful, and she needed him. The thought, just the thought, of the void flickered through his head, and of the light. Saidin. To use the Portal Stone, he must dip himself back into that taint.

“Stay with me, Selene,” he said. “We’ll find the Horn, and Mat’s dagger, and we’ll find a way back. I promise you. Just stay with me.”

“You always.…” Selene drew a deep breath as if to calm herself. “You always are so stubborn. Well, I can admire stubbornness in a man. There is little to a man who’s too easily biddable.”

Those words remind Rand of Egwene, somehow, which softens him further toward Selene, but before he can make a decision, they hear a grunting bark from the distance, and then more answering it. Looking back, they can see five shapes in the distance, bounding towards them.

Grolm,” Selene said calmly. “A small pack, but they have our scent, it seems.”

 

Ugh, the way Rand is thinking about Selene makes my skin crawl. There is probably some sort of glamour or other use of the Power at work, and if Selene is really Lanfear than there may also be some kind of past-life sense-memory thing where a piece of Rand remembers her as a lover, but the lust she arouses in him (and seemingly Hurin and Loial too?) is just gross. Even if she is just really really beautiful, his reaction speaks of something more, especially in the moments where he feels almost compelled to kiss her, and when he randomly starts thinking of her as a desirable wife. Yet when she says something that reminds him of Egwene, he’s put off.

In these two chapters, we have a really clear example of the two basic faces of Evil Temptation. First, Ba’alzamon comes to Rand doing his usual intimidation thing, where he goes on and on about the way their fates are tied together and how Rand’s doom is inevitable, throws around some fire and end-of-the-world catchphrases, plus some “better to be the right hand of the devil than in his path”* kind of stuff. Then Selene/probably Lanfear arrives, being beautiful beyond reason and buttering Rand up with her feminine wiles, fawning over his skill while encouraging him to embrace a desire for power and fame, neither of which are likely to lead Rand anywhere good. I wonder if Lews Telamon was a prouder and more vainglorious man on whom some of her suggestions might have had more effect, or of if this is just a generic temptation she hopes will drive Rand to embrace the One Power and push him along his journey to becoming the fully-realized Dragon, who can then maybe go mad and definitely be used for nefarious Darkfriend purposes.

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The Ruin of Kings
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The Ruin of Kings

(Note: There is of course a possibility that Selene is not Lanfear, but I’m confident enough in my educated guess to analyze her as though it’s a sure thing. Aside from the narrative sense it makes, and how unlikely it is that Lanfear, former lover of Lews Therin, would be so prominently mentioned only to have an entirely new sexy interest show up a few chapters later, her abruptly cut-off line “You always…” is particularly telling.)

It’s possible that Selene has an ability similar to the one Liandrin used on Amalisa, except she uses her attractiveness to get her hooks into people instead of fear and alarm. Rand does clearly feel a pull to impress her, given how easily he accepts being called Lord by her even though the title has galled him through the entire book. The little things that would normally bother him don’t, and it’s only when Selene touches on something more important that he starts to resist. And he’s actually surprised by his resistance, rather than the other way around, which is interesting too.

If Selene is actually Lanfear, I really wonder how she ended up in this world. The most likely explanation is that she pulled Rand and his friends into it somehow in order to get some time with her ex-boyfriend away from Ingtar and the rest, but there is a small part of me that wonders if she wasn’t sealed up with the other Forsaken but maybe has been a prisoner here for a long time. What if she really is trapped in the ‘if’ world, and has lured Rand in somehow to get his assistance in escaping, and he eventually will return her to his world to cause mayhem? She did vanish the two times Uno thought he saw her in the other world; I imagine a powerful channeler could manage that in a number of ways, but perhaps what Uno saw was only an echo if her, something that belonged to the real world but was trapped in another. That would certainly be interesting.

Wherever Selene came from, there is a theme here as Rand is encountering people (or whatever you would call Ba’alzamon) who knew him in at least one of his other lives. I’m interested to see how that knowledge of Lews Therin might serve them, and more interested to see how that knowledge might actually be a hindrance to their manipulation of him; how they might misread his desires and intentions, how they might drive him the wrong way because they expect him to react like Lews Therin Telamon and not like Rand al’Thor.

Speaking of acting differently, I have a lot of questions about how Ba’alzamon is acting in this most recent visitation. Generally his threats to Rand this time around are about the same as they were throughout The Eye of the World; he goes on and on with his same rant about how he and Rand are connected, etc. But this time it struck me how interesting that comparison is, coming from a being who is supposed to be some sort of god of Evil. Assuming for a moment that the Creator is a much bigger/more powerful/more omnipotent being than the Dark One—more or less in line with the difference between the Christian God and Devil—that would still put the Dark One on a scale of existence beyond that of even the most powerful human, even the Dragon. After all, the Dark One exists outside Time, or so he says, and he holds domain over some aspect of death itself. So for him to define himself and the Dragon as two sides of a coin seems off somehow. And it’s different now than it was in The Eye of the World, where he made mention of that connection but was generally was much more about Rand being a bug to be squashed, one who has cowered before him and served him in a bunch of his past lifetimes. This time he’s more about how well he knows Rand, how he can touch him, which maybe is just because his first ploy failed and Rand is now growing in power and becoming more of a threat.

But there is also something in the narrative that very gently suggests that it is odd to have his face be a man’s face; and not just the image or simulacrum of a man’s face but one that appears to have real skin on it. It reminds me of Bors’s surprise when, back in the Prologue, he sees Ba’alzamon present himself as a masked man. It feels like there is something missing in all this, some significant reason for how human-like (I mean, flame eyes and furnace mouth, so it’s all relative) Ba’alzamon’s appearance is. Bors even thinks for a moment that it isn’t Ba’alzamon at all but one of the Forsaken… which I don’t know what to make of, if I’m honest. Maybe it’s nothing, but then again, maybe it’s something. Also significant, I think, is the way Ba’alzamon saying the name Sheitan seems to have an effect; like if he’s already there why would saying the name summon himself? But this human form has to be some kind of vessel or projection of a small part of him, so that would explain it, I think.

Maybe Ba’alzamon chooses to refer to Rand as Lews Therin as a tactical measure, one designed to remind Rand of the Dragon he knows the most about, thereby forcing Rand to consider and maybe acknowledge his own identity. But Ba’alzamon could have chosen any of the Dragon’s former names; he knows them all, and somewhere along the line there must have been a first one, too. I guess it doesn’t make much sense for Ba’alzamon to use a name Rand wouldn’t recognize, but Ba’alzamon is making a big point of how he knows all of those names and identities and it might make the point rather well. I wonder if there is any part of Rand that is capable of holding onto memories of his past lives, even little things like the instinctual draw to Lanfear that I was positing earlier. For that matter, I am still curious about all the rules and ways regeneration works in The Wheel of Time, including the question I posited way back in the early days of reading The Eye of the World, which is whether the Dragon is the only person who gets reincarnated, or if it’s some other people, or even everybody. And how does the Dark One being the Lord of Death fit into all that?

This is another one of those sections that, when you step back and look at it, is quite an info dump, but when you’re reading it there is enough suspense that you don’t notice quite so much. Selene’s all-too-convenient knowledge of this world aside, it is interesting to learn how the ‘if’ world works, and most of my guesses about it weren’t too far off. I’m still confused as to how the reflected world counts in comparison to the other one, though; the idea that the one Rand comes from is the central one makes the ‘if’ world seem appropriately not ‘real,’ but apparently it’s real enough to have people in it, and so are others that are even more like Rand’s than this one. Do those reflected worlds also generate their own mirror-universes? Or does Rand’s, as the core world, still function as the most real, the one with which the Wheel is concerned, the one with which the Dark One is concerned? This sort of thing makes me wish I knew more science.

Two more chapters to come next week, and we’ll finally get Rand back to the real world. And, after a lot of talk about Tar Valon and the White Tower, we’ll actually get there. And see just how dang creepy it is.

*Yeah, Sylas K Barrett quoted The Mummy (1999) for you. You’re welcome.

About the Author

Sylas K Barrett

Author

Sylas K Barrett is a queer writer and creative based in Brooklyn. A fan of nature, character work, and long flowery descriptions, Sylas has been heading up Reading the Wheel of Time since 2018. You can (occasionally) find him on social media on Bluesky (@thatsyguy.bsky.social) and Instagram (@thatsyguy)
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6 years ago

As ever Sylas your insights are very good. Without confirming or rejecting any of them specifically i’m certain that you’ve noticed or picked up on things I undoubtedly missed my first time around (and probably second!).

Again, thanks for doing this read through. Its a pleasure to see the world of the Wheel of Time anew through someone else’s eyes!

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6 years ago

Some very, VEERRRYYY insightful comments there. That’s all I’m gonna say about that.

//Question which I’m not sure has ever been answered: is it actually true that there has always been a Dragon and an opponent to the Dragon? Or even that there were Dragons before Lews Therin? Our only source for that cosmology is Ishamael, who does seem to be committed to a more extreme fatalist construct of the world than we are obligated to believe. It has always struck me as immensely suspicious that Rand never has a memory leak through from a Dragon personality other than Lews Therin, and that even with the use of parallel worlds Ishamael can only torment him with alternate versions of Rand al’Thor as Dragon, not other Dragons. So are we reading a legit authorial statement that the Dragon is constantly reincarnated as the Dragon, or is that an imaginative theory that Ishamael created out of a combination of absolute cyclical-time fatalism and his interpretation of the Fisher gamepiece as a symbolic object?//

 

P.S. If you want some fun with multiple first-time read-alongs, the actor Anthony Rapp is doing one of TEoTW on his blog/Twitter at the moment.

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6 years ago

An all-white comment this time (except for this first sentence I suppose)

//there is a small part of me that wonders if she wasn’t sealed up with the other Forsaken but maybe has been a prisoner here for a long time. What if she really is trapped in the ‘if’ world, and has lured Rand in somehow to get his assistance in escaping, and he eventually will return her to his world to cause mayhem? She did vanish the two times Uno thought he saw her in the other world; I imagine a powerful channeler could manage that in a number of ways, but perhaps what Uno saw was only an echo if her, something that belonged to the real world but was trapped in another.//

//That has always been my interpretation too. My Headcanon is that Lanfear was caught in the middle of trying to escape to Tel’Aran’Rhiod when Lews Therin and his Hundred Companions finalized the Seals, and was thus trapped in a faint mirror world (the one Rand, Loyal and Hurin found her in, that is) instead of in the Bore itself.//

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6 years ago

Fun and clever analysis again, Sylas.

I always like this section of TGH… Rand thrust into the leadership role and sliding naturally into it… like his first assistant manager job on the closing crew of a fast food restaurant…. or maybe his first time as Senior Patrol leader in a small scout troop…

The troop aspect works really well when Selene arrives… “Oh look, a girl!”

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6 years ago

@mutantalbinocrocodily

Given the clear indications established in Chapter 4 of The Eye of the World that the Age before the Age of Legends, often called the First Age, is our own Age; and given {Spoilers for the entire series} //Rand’s countless and horrendously blatant similarities to Jesus (which, by the way, should clue anyone that isn’t entirely blind to those similarities in on how the story is going to end)//; I feel very confident in saying that //Jesus himself// was an incarnation of the Dragon.

Similarly, //Tamyrlin, after whom the Amyrlin Seat is named, and who discovered the True Source// is likely one as well. I’m not sure if the following is confirmed or just a very strong theory, but it is widely believed [Again: at least by fans. Possibly by in-Universe Characters too but I forgot if that was actually the case or not] that this person started the Age of Legends, which given the Dragon’s inclination of ending / beginning Ages would be further evidence of //Tamyrlin// indeed being another Dragon incarnation. Of course, that means that the person I mentioned in my first paragraph started the Age we ourselves are living in (and, given the History books and our own Mythology and Culture and such, there is little denying that this is indeed the case), and also that the Age of Legends started / will start exactly //3000 years// [I forgot if we already have means of calculating how long an Age lasts at this point in the books, or if writing that in black would be a Spoiler, so I decided to be safe about it] after that person.

 

//Ishamael// certainly believes that the Dragon’s Dark Equivalent is also Reborn each time, and while some underneath these posts have questioned his conclusions, I myself see no reason whatsoever to doubt him on this particular issue.

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6 years ago

Insightful analysis as always!

“Ugh, the way Rand is thinking about Selene makes my skin crawl. There is probably some sort of glamour or other use of the Power at work, and if Selene is really Lanfear than there may also be some kind of past-life sense-memory thing where a piece of Rand remembers her as a lover, but the lust she arouses in him (and seemingly Hurin and Loial too?) is just gross.”

Not really seeing anything here other than teenage (or just out of teenage) boy with little experience with women (“I wish Mat/Perrin was here, they are so much better with girls than I am“), being completely bowled over by the hottest hottie he ever saw.  Cliche and somewhat bugs bunny? Yes, but it still works.  Mostly.  Kind of.

@2

// We are lead to believe through the prophecies themselves, not just Ishmael’s word, that the Dragon is a reoccurring persona that comes to relieve the world when the DO threatens it.  Also, Rand’s epiphany on Dragonmount explains why everyone, not just the Dragon is reborn over and over again.  Plus I think the Rand does briefly gain memories of all his former incarnations at this time.   Though I do agree that Ishmeal’s view of his own role in Pattern to match the Dragon is a bit suspect and perhaps self-inflated. // 

@3

// This is patently not true, as we are told outright that Lanfear was sealed with the other Forsaken in the Bore, which see herself admits when she confronts Rand in The Shadow Rising. She can get in and out of the Worlds of IF as easily as any other Powerful and superbly trained Aes Sedai from the Age of Legends could.  //

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6 years ago

 I just thought of something: Selene’s effect on Rand, Hurin and Loyal in these chapters is pretty much identical to what the sight of Helen of Troy did to men in the Iliad by Homer. Given the fact that //Lanfear// is described as the most beautiful woman to have ever lived, I am starting to get a sneaking suspicion that this may not have been accidental on Jordan’s part.

//Which would also mean that it likely has nothing to do with the Power, but is simply caused by being more beautiful than we readers can imagine.//

Would love to hear some thoughts on this.

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@OP:

Assuming for a moment that the Creator is a much bigger/more powerful/more omnipotent being than the Dark One—more or less in line with the difference between the Christian God and Devil—that would still put the Dark One on a scale of existence beyond that of even the most powerful human, even the Dragon.

I’m pretty sure that assumption has already been directly refuted in-text by Moiraine/Thom/Others. The Dark One exists outside the Pattern. The Creator creates the pattern and everything in it. The Dark One is not a creation of the Pattern, or the Creator. As opposed to the Christian Devil, who was created by God, therefore is subject to Him like everything else. The Dark One and the Creator can be viewed as co-equal in a way that Satan and God just can’t. One creates and one destroys. They have agency, but are as much forces as they are individuals. Life and Creation vs Destruction and Entropy. Death itself is a force of Creation, and the Father of Lies is well named, as Moiraine has said.

@OP:

For that matter, I am still curious about all the rules and ways regeneration works in The Wheel of Time, including the question I posited way back in the early days of reading The Eye of the World, which is whether the Dragon is the only person who gets reincarnated, or if it’s some other people, or even everybody. And how does the Dark One being the Lord of Death fit into all that?

Haha, I’ve always wanted to say this: RAFO. Although, Pirate’s Code definitely applies to any answers you may or may not receive.

 Also, is it a spoiler to point out that there was a big, big miss here? One I’m surprised Silas didn’t pick up and /or comment on? I’m whiting that out anyway, just in case. But the whole “Is Verin a Darkfriend?” really picked up steam because of this scene with Ba’alzamon.

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@3: What mechanism would trap her? And how did Rand free here? And why did Egwene dream of a woman standing over Rand and Loial while sleeping next to the stone just a few chapters back, stating that she felt like the woman standing over them was about to spring a trap?

@5: That is most definitely an unconfirmed fan theory. Most of it, at least. The problem being that we learn in-text that the Age of Legends had no memory or legends or even myths about the Dark One, so the Dark One’s prison had been sealed, without him having the ability to touch the world or influence minds and events, for several Ages prior to the Age of Legends, at least. So, no Dark One in our age (the First Age) therefore, no battle with the Dragon. (We’d need a freed Dark One to have a battle with the Dragon, and a freed Dark One in the First Age would have left legends of the Dark One in the Age of Legends. People would know about evil, and the Dark One, in the Age of Legends if he was freed in the First age, according to the text at the beginning of every single first chapter of every book.

So, Jesus? In the cosmology of the Wheel of Time, Satan and other religious myths about the Devil, along with the various savior myths of various religions (including Christianity) would have been exactly that; myths remembered from a previous Age that were applied to the story of Jesus by the Apostles and Gospel writers. By the Age of Legends, those myths had been forgotten.

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6 years ago

Great job as always, Sylas. Your batting avg. is pretty high with few strikeouts in your analysis. As far as inducing lust goes, most people react to encountering  beautiful people and even more so when they are nice and flattering to them. As is pointed out, Selene is about as beautiful as it gets to the point that an ogier suggests perfection. With straight peasant men running into her, it is no wonder they react like they do. Hurin (being married) does everything he can for her (platonic)          while Rand has his (natural) thoughts and reactions to her, especially if she is Lanfear.

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6 years ago

(#6)

//Yes, but if you read my little theory carefully, it doesn’t actually contradict the statement that she was sealed with the others in the Bore. At least, not if you interpret that statement as “Lanfear was present in the Bore when Lews Therin and the Hundred Companions sealed said Bore”. It’s just that, according to that theory, after the Seals took effect, Lanfear’s current activity at the moment the Bore was sealed made it so that the location of her actual prison ended up not actually being the Bore.//

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@11:

// I would love to hear you explanation of the mechanism of the prison there. The whole point of the DO’s prison is that it exists outside of Time. That’s how the Forsake survived for 3000 years. They were outside of Time. The World’s of If are part of the Pattern, and exist inside the flow of Time. Even if the Seals could somehow keep Lanfear in the Mirror world, how did she survive? Without aging at all? And the other Forsaken got free because the seals weakend enough for them to slip through. How does that mechanism square with Lanfear needing Rand to release her? //

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@RE: Selene’s effect on Rand, Hurin and Loial,

// Read A Memory of Light again. She uses the same glamour on Perrin throughout the book. Its a bit more heavy handed there, but obviously the same thing as here. //

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John
6 years ago

@13 // Yeah Lanfear definitely uses compulsion on everyone.  I actually question whether she is objectively beautiful.  In 4 & 5 whenever Rand encounters her, he rarely reflects on her looks the way he used to, as he is no longer susceptible to her compulsion.  //

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6 years ago

Pero (#9)

Great questions. Of course, I have given this some thought since I first read The Great Hunt, and I do have some answers. How satisfying those answers are, I’ll leave to you.

 

By what mechanism did she get trapped?

//By some arcane, unspecified interference effect that occurred between the Weave that created / constituted the Seals, and whatever Weave she was using (likely a Portal) to get to Tel’Aran’Rhiod. Perhaps the closing of the Bore redirected the Portal, and the Binding element of the Seals contained her in that world? Something like that?//

 

How did Rand free her?

That one’s easy. //The Seals only bind the Forsaken, not Rand. So it stands to reason that him activating the Portal Stone would be able to get him out, and because Portal Stones have this Area-of-Effect type …well…. effect, Lanfear was able to hitch a ride and escape her prison. And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she knew Rand activating the Portal Stone could free her, and that is why she forced him to do it.

Speaking of which: if Lanfear wasn’t trapped there, why was she so insistent Rand be the one to use the Portal Stone. Why didn’t she just transport them out herself? At the very least it would have proven her worth to Rand. Unless, of course, she was unable to leave the mirror-world by her own actions.//

 

And why did Egwene dream of a woman standing over Rand and Loial while sleeping next to the stone just a few chapters back.

//You do remember, I hope, that Dreams don’t necessarily show what’s going to happen in a literal sense. Take the Dream that showed the Seanchan attack on the White Tower, as a famous instance of that. So there is no reason to assume that Lanfear was supposed to be literally standing over them.//

 

stating that she felt like the woman standing over them was about to spring a trap?

I’ll be honest here, I was always confused about that part. Or maybe my memory is just hazy, in which case I hope you can remind me. So take this as a genuine question, as opposed to an attempted rebuttal at your scepticism towards my Headcanon: does Egwene actually state that it’s the woman in white who will spring the trap? Or could the trap come shortly after the business with  the woman in white had concluded? //In which case, the trap may have been the Seanchan suddenly returning to terrorize what I, in World of Warcraft style, shall dub the Eastern Kingdoms (aka Wetlands, Aiel Waste and eventually I presume Shara)?// Again, I honestly want to know, due to a personal lack of recalled knowledge, if there is anything in the text that explicitly states that the woman in white is supposed to be the one that springs the Dreamed trap.

Back to rebuttal, however: //Even if Lanfear was the one Egwene Dreamed would spring the trap, wouldn’t her luring Rand to the world she was trapped in (perhaps even drawing him in herself; after all, the idea that she can’t leave on her own accord doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be able to force others into her “prison”) so that she could free herself, most definitely count as springing a trap?//

 

You don’t have to accept it as true (that’s why it’s a Headcanon after all), but I’ve been considering this theory for long enough that I think I have all the potential in-text contradictions or unexplained aspects ironed out by now. Then again, I always look forward to being surprised, and maybe you’ll be able to come up with something that I hadn’t thought of before and which will completely shatter this little theory of mine. I do hope you keep trying (if you have any ideas in that direction, that is), if I’m being perfectly honest.

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6 years ago

TBE

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6 years ago

Pero (#12)

Now, see, there’s something I hadn’t thought of. I’ll have to give it some thought, and come back to you at a later date. I hope that’s okay with you.

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Austin
6 years ago

Guys, //Lanfear was sealed in a dreamless sleep outside the Pattern, just like all the other Forsaken (other than Ishy, who was partially trapped and able to pop out for 40 years at a time, or something like that). At this point, all the Forsaken are free.//

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6 years ago

//Lanfear complains later that she didn’t even dream when she was trapped in the Bore. She wasn’t awake in some other world.//

dwcole
6 years ago

@5 I really don’t buy the randland is our world theory that seems to be so popular with other people.  Yes the age of legends had similar technology but I don’t think that it was our world and Jesus being a dragon just makes no sense as we have no sealing of the devil in that story.  Have we ever gotten authorial confirmation of this as intent?

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6 years ago

@20 All but. 

//http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Talk:Real-world_references?useskin=oasis

Go specifically to the section labeled “To Our World”. My personal favorite is the Mercedes Benz ornament that Nyneave finds //

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@20:

Its not really a theory, there are numerous references to it in the first few books, and RJ has confirmed that this story takes place both in our past and in our future. His words are “Their myths are our reality, and our myths are their reality.” That’s taken from the Audiobook interview, but there’s a whole lot more.

Specific references to our world that we’ve already encountered up to this point in the story:

Elsbet, queen of all (a reference to Queen Elizabeth)
Anla, the Wise Counselor (a reference to Ann Landers)
Materese the Healer (Mother Teresa)
Lenn flying to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire (John Glenn and the lunar landings)

Then, there are the more famous ones later in the story (whited out)

 

//

Mosk and Merk fighting with spears of fire (Moscow and America in a Nuclear war that, thankfully, appears won’t happen, but when this stuff was written in the 80s and 90s, that wasn’t such a sure thing)

The Mercedes-Benz logo in the Tanchico museum in The Shadow Rising. Is the one that gives it away for good. That’s a tangible artifact from our present that shows up in a museum in Randland.

//

Its not that the Age of Legends is our Age, its that our Age exists sometime prior to the Age of Legends (and of course, after the Age of Legends). Most people think it was the First Age. I do not. I think we’re the Fourth or Fifth Age, personally.

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Austin
6 years ago

@22 – Don’t forget that the //Mercedes-Benz logo radiates pride and vanity :P//

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@20 re: Jesus:

Like you, I do not believe that Jesus Christ is meant to be an incarnation of the Dragon in the cosmology of the Wheel of Time, for the same reason – the Dark One’s prison had to be whole. I don’t believe that the Dark One has a hole drilled into his prison in any age other than the Second Age. How does that happen twice in the same turning? That wouldn’t even make sense.

Most likely, in the cosmology of the Wheel of Time, the stories and miracles applied to Jesus are half remembered myths and legends of the previous Dragon that the Apostles and gospel writers adopted. After all, Christianity has a rather long history of adopting the myths and legends of other cultures and applying them to their own religious figures and ceremonies. Much of the imagery and language surrounding Christ in early writings is extremely reminiscent of Egyptian religious practices circa 2000-1000 BCE. Which isn’t surprising given how influential Egyptian thought and history is on that entire region of the world.

I think the thought behind RJs world-building is that Ancient Egyptian worship and practices reflected myths and legends regarding the previous cycle of the Wheel and battle with the Dark One, and Egyptian culture transmitted much of that thought throughout the Pagan world, first influencing the Minoans and later the Greeks and Romans, and then finally the Saxon and Viking cultures thousands of years later. Along with that would have been Christianity borrowing all of that and applying what fit to a carpenter from Galilee.

So, in short, using the cosmology of the Wheel of Time, I would think that the myths attached to Jesus were half remembered legends and myths from a previous Last Battle that had been transmitted through time and altered and applied as needed after the Crucifixion. That eliminates the need to try to fit the Dark One’s imprisonment, release, and re-imprisonment into a story that can’t possibly contain it.

I think there’s just one Last Battle every turning of the Wheel. I think the Dark One is unknown come the First Age, rediscovered in the second Age (through the drilling of the Bore), allowed to touch and influence the world for a time, the Bore is temporarily patched by the Dragon, the world is broken physically, and then the Dragon is reborn, the Seals weaken, and the Dragon Reborn faces the Dark One and does – something – to permanently seal the Bore good as new.

We then go on with the turning of the Wheel, and eventually, modernity comes, and these are half forgotten legends and myths. We (the modern reader) remember the Age of Legends as Atlantis, or as Aliens building Pyramids and bringing culture to savages, or any of a thousand other ways. We rediscover the Stars, then something catastrophic happens (like the global Ice Age we started to thaw out of 400,000 years ago that didn’t totally end until 17,000 years ago, and had a quick revival 11,500 years ago), and we are reset to zero. The First Age comes again. We rise out of the mud with only the myths and stories we tell ourselves. We rediscover how to Channel. The second Age comes, and we build a Utopia, but then do something that opens us up to the Dark One’s touch, and again, we need the Dragon.

The counter to this is that Thom tells Rand that the oldest stories he knows come from the Age before the Age of Legends. I personally think that statement is taken too literally, and there is absolutely no way for Thom to know when they come from. For instance, if that statement could mean that they were first codified in the Age before the Age of Legends. But the actual events of the stories could be much older. For instance, Homer supposedly composed the Illiad between the 10th century and the 9th century BCE, and the Illiad was written down in the 7th century BCE, but the events of the story take place in the 13th century BCE, and references mythological beings who predate that by two thousand years. There’s no way for Thom to know when the reality behind the stories he is telling actually take place, only what people believed, and possibly when they were codified.

 

rhii
6 years ago

Loial’s reaction to Selene always reminds me of Gimli’s reaction to Galadriel. I think the parallel is too closely drawn to be accidental. The member of the race that doesn’t view things in terms of human beauty is struck by something startling/otherworldly and is moved almost to poetry by it. 

Although, I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to say that the moment is less pure and sweet here.

Landstander
6 years ago

I enjoy following this read, but the comment section is always a chore. It’s either filled with people patting themselves on the back for knowing more about the story or entire spoiler conversations whited out. I’m not sure how any of this helps someone who hasn’t read the whole thing yet.

Sorry if I came out overly negative. I usually avoid reading the comments, so it doesn’t bother me that often. I guess this time I was just too curious.

And I honestly don’t have a better solution. Though I remember when Leigh Butler was reading A Song Of Ice And Fire there was a separate thread for spoiler conversations. Which, again, I’m not sure is a good answer. 

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6 years ago

Regarding Selene, I definitely agree with the Gimli/Galadriel comparison, though of course Ogier are a fairly unique mix of elf and dwarf tropes… but //It is absolutely canon that Lanfear uses low-grade Compulsion pretty much constantly, at minimum//

And it continues to be interesting to see untainted speculation on the magic/cosmology as bits and pieces are revealed. There’s definitely a confusing sort of wishywashyness about the alternate worlds and mirrors of the pattern and variations of fate that Sylas has had some interesting insights on, such as the applicability and existence of the Dark One across worlds //that won’t even start to be answered until we get to the next book and explicit exposition about the slightly less wishywashy magical Aether that is Tel Aran Rhiod//

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Kyle DeBlasio
6 years ago

Really people – Occams razor – the simplest solution tends to be the right one.// Selene/Lanfear used the portal Stone to transport Rand, Loial, and Hurin to the “world of if” and she could have left anytimeshe wanted…she is creating MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF BULLSHIT to swell Rand’s head and force him to use the One Power.  She goes on and on leter who she cant really be with him unttil he is almost equal to her.  Stop trying to give her more complex motives and figuring out when and if she is lying in each sentence…Do you know how to tell when a Forsaken is lying? Thier mouth is moving! all she is doing is goading him to use his power//

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Chad
6 years ago

@24 You have tons of spoilers in your comment not whited out — specifically related to //the bore and the second age//.

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6 years ago

Nice evocative description of burns like the marks of “a monstrous brush of fire.”

“Always something new, always something I didn’t expect, and sometimes it’s not horrible.” That’s the best a fantasy adventurer can hope for. :-p

Given the pervasive feeling of deadness despite the greenery, I was surprised the tree responded to Loial’s song.

I was always dubious that Trollocs alone could extinguish all other creatures. They could kill all the humans, and other relatively large animals, and then each other. (They didn’t kill each other off in the Blight of the current world, but they had other things to eat and Myrddraal might have controlled them somewhat. Maybe Myrddraal never existed in this “if world,” though I don’t know if Trollocs could then have stayed disciplined long enough to form humanity-destroying armies). But insects? Not likely. Speculation: ///Maybe the Dark One’s taint grew to be the equivalent of the poisons with which Earthling humans could destroy all life, a possibility evidenced by the Blasted Lands, but elsewhere it lends itself to virulent life, including insects.///

@7: I never understand what it means for someone in a story (here and elsewhere, e.g. the Tolkien legendarium) to be “the most beautiful woman who ever lived” or suchlike, given the subjectivity of beauty ideals. I consider some people more visually-attractive than others (and I’m attracted to multiple genders), but can’t recall thinking anyone was the “most” beautiful/handsome person I had ever seen. And that’s just according to my personal tastes, which are probably different from many other peoples.’ I can’t imagine how someone could be objectively designated the most beautiful ever. 

Controversial opinion: /// I really liked Hessalam’s Compulsion of Rhuarc, because it showed how Compulsion works. We can easily imagine beauties like Lanfear, Graendal, and Rhavin seducing people with a bit of magic to cement the target’s focus. But Compulsion works just as well with an ugly person. The target doesn’t actually ‘see’ the Compeller’s appearance as different than it is, but they think those characteristics are irresistibly alluring. This book hints at that, with Selene’s beauty amazing Loial despite her undersized ears and other non-Ogier traits.///

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6 years ago

@26 Sorry that the comment section isn’t very helpful for you, are you also a first time reader? If so you I’d love to read your thoughts and comments :). 

 

@27 jdfs can you point me to where it shows that that is canon? I know it is a popular theory but I don’t think there’s direct evidence for it in text? 

 

Silas, like always, great job, and it is always fun to see what guess you make correctly, and where you are way off course ;). Of course, we can’t tell you which is which. 

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Maria Taslitsky
6 years ago

#24. Consider this, the oldest calendar in use is Jewish calendar which is around 5700 -5800 years, that roughly 2 Ages. Before industrial age and advance of archeology, most people believed that Earth was created 6,000 years ago, dino bones found were fire breathing dragons. And even now, most of archeologists find before is pure speculation on their part often disputed by other experts. Imagine someone finding some stone writings from 3rd age, 6000 years old referring to Dark One and the Dragon, they would assume it refers to two rulers of two rival civilizations or some natural catastrophe. No one would believe there is actual Dark One. that’s even if they can find way to read it.

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6 years ago

//How many people have at least one person in their life who they secretly believe to be the owner of that particular Mercedes-Benz?//

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Maria Taslitsky
6 years ago

@28 I agree. Lanfear goals are pretty simple, // she wants Lews Therin to be back and only love her. She got nothing for Rand, she wants him to learn to use One Power faster so that he would become as powerful as Lews  S.he wants Lews Therin without his baggage and their history.. Till the point she tries to kill Aviedha and Egwene,// that’s her only goal and that’s why she helps Rand and manipulates him.

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@32:

An Age being 3000 years really shouldn’t be treated as a fact, unless the new Companion book has explicitly made that statement. The 3rd Age is roughly 3000 years, but that doesn’t mean all Ages are. For all we know, the cycle ends with a planet killing event, and the First Age is 4 million years as life evolves again from the mud.

@29: I’ve tried to go back and fix it a dozen times. I can’t get the changes to save after I’ve whited something new out.

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6 years ago

@27: there’s plenty of evidence in text, although you do have to draw inferences. // Most of this is a repost from a discussion on the Reread Redux.  To my reading, all of the passages below imply Lanfear was using at least minor bits of compulsion during this sequence.

I will be editing to skip over less relevant portions of the text, adding italics for emphasis, and inserting comments in [brackets] where applicable:

Chapter 16, shortly after meeting her: “Her expression had not changed, but her dark eyes made him feel as if he were naked.  Unbidden, the thought came of Selene with no clothes.

A couple of paragraphs later: “He shook his head to clear it of foolishness.” [Rand then states his intention to pursue his original objective, delaying his compliance with Selene’s wishes.]  “For a moment she was silent, her face blank and smooth; Rand had no idea what she was thinking, except that she seemed to be studying him anew.”  [Could just be normal surprise at his willfulness, but could easily be surprise at his resistance to minor compulsion.]

Another few paragraphs down: “Her hand was firm-there was surprising strength in her grip-and her skin was…. Silk?  Something softer, smoother.  Rand shivered.

Chapter 17, after returning to the normal world: “Her eyes seemed as dark and deep as night, as soft as velvet.  Her mouth…. If I kissed her…. He blinked and stepped back hurriedly, clearing his throat.”  [This time the italics are Jordan’s, not mine.  That thought is a pretty normal thought for Rand to have, but it’s also the type of thought that could easily be inserted into his head with compulsion.  She again pauses with an expressionless face after he steps away.]

Near the end of chapter 17:  “She touched his arm and smiled, and he found himself again thinking of kissing her.”  [Again, a reasonable thought, yet one that is exactly what Selene wants him to be thinking.]

Chapter 19, 2nd paragraph: “…he told himself it was time to leave.  And Selene talked of the Horn of Valere, and touched his arm, and looked into his eyes, and before he knew it he had agreed to yet another day before they went on.”

Three paragraphs later; this one isn’t an indication of compulsion, but rather a potential nod to his sensitivity to female channeling: “Shivering, he opened his eyes…. Rand rolled over…and stopped.  In the moonlight he could see the shape of Selene….”

Chapter 20: “She came to him, a sway in her walk that made him feel as if he had something caught in his throat.  ‘All I want is to see it in the light of day.  I won’t even touch it.  You hold it.  It would be something for me to remember, you holding the Horn of Valere in your hands.’ She took his hands as she said it; her touch made his skin tingle and his mouth go dry…. Selene was still gazing intently into his eyes, her face so young and beautiful that he wanted to kiss her despite what he was thinking.” //

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6 years ago

@20, @24 and others

//Guys, I really think that any and all references to Jesus should be whited out. Any connection we talk about between Jesus and the Dragon will imply to Sylas that there *should* be a connection, and he will start to look for other clues prematurely, maybe even theorizing about Rand’s death and “resurrection.” Something which is still in doubt until the very Epilogue of the last book. To this point, the Dragon is viewed more often as a destroyer than a savior. Jesus tilts the other way. We’re feeding Sylas info that he doesn’t have given how we know it ends, which is a spoiler. 

AP, I think most of your post @24 should be whited out as a result. If you are unable to do so yourself, perhaps self-flag so a Mod can do it?//

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6 years ago

Ah yes, the most unconvincing ‘Wounded Gazelle Gambit’ in literary history. Selene is no actress. Fortunately she’s got male hormones on her side. Though the fact she affects Loial suggests we got some magic going on here.

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@38:

Exactly, although Loial’s interest isn’t sexual. I’m not sure that Hurin’s is, either. But they are all attracted to her in their own way. Rand’s way being a typical 19 year old hetero way. 

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6 years ago

@20

 For the record, here is what RJ said, verbatim: 

//INTERVIEW: Jun 27th, 1996
AOL Chat 1 (Verbatim)
SCOTTY1489
Is our earth a future or past turn of the wheel?
ROBERT JORDAN
Both. The characters in the books are the source of many of our myths and legends and we are the source of many of theirs. You can look two ways along a wheel.
 
Source: https://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=67
//

@28

THIS. Exactly this. If no one else brought up Occam’s razor, I was about to.

@30

//Tolkien wrote poetically, and from an omniscient 3rd person POV, which is especially obvious in the Silmarillion. The narrator frequently would comment on historical superlatives like “most beautiful ever,” and that makes sense if the narrator knows all that was and would be (although he’s still expressing his opinion, omniscient though he may be). This to me was a giant red flag: that in RJ’s 3rd person limited world, Selene/Lanfear was basically compelling everyone to think “this is the most beautiful woman that could ever possibly be,” precisely because it’s an unnatural thing to think or to quantify for any non-omniscient person. //

@32, @35

Maybe someone can find the source, but I remember RJ saying at one point that the ages could have wildly varying lengths. We do have this from Theoryland’s database:

INTERVIEW: Oct 24th, 2005
KOD Signing Report – Kevin Dean (Paraphrased)
KEVIN DEAN
I then asked, “Other than the Third Age, obviously, what events signal the end or the beginning of other Ages?”
ROBERT JORDAN
He explained that SOME call the “current” Age the Third Age. He made it very clear that not everyone does, or has. He then said that Age ending events don’t fit a certain set of criteria, but “you’ll know it when you see it.”
 
//Which is why I think it’s anyone’s guess as to what age the story is “really” in, or how many times a Dragon might be spun out during a 7-age cycle. Let alone why the “Last Battle” would occur at the end of the supposed Third Age.. I do like the idea that perhaps the 7th age ends with a major cataclysm and near-extinction/population bottleneck, and that the “1st Age” lasts for 5-6000 years. At some point all knowledge of the One Power also has to be lost, by the time our age comes around// 

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6 years ago

I have gotten burned with unintentionally posted spoilers, so I might white out even things that do not need it, but better this way than the other way around.
I don’t believe I caught who Selene really was at my first read, but I sure was very annoyed by her. Major dislike.
And can anybody tell, what’s with the //plane tracks in the sky in the empty mirror world where no-one except grolms have (apparently) survived//? That’s what these are, aren’t they?

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DzOnIt88
6 years ago

(#15)

I’m not entirely sure what you are trying to say here. Are you implying that she would have used a Portal Stone to access Tel’aran’rhiod? Because why would she need a Portal to do that?

 

And I personally think you are grasping at straws trying to imply that it happened by some “arcane, unspecified interference”.

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6 years ago

@41 I don’t think they are ever really explained. Just there to make it seem strange. 

 

\\with the grolm, it is very likely that they didn’t survive here. They are being brought in and controlled by Lanfear using portal stones to pressure Rand into going a certain direction, and eventually channeling his way out of there.\\

 

@36 I agree entirely that \compulsion\ is the most likely reason, I just didn’t think we ever saw a POV of \lanfear\ thinking about it or had it confirmed by Jordan/Sanderson. 

 

 

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

@43:

We get Perrin breaking through her compulsion as he snaps her neck in A Memory of Light. That was really all the confirmation I needed.

@41:

That what I always took them for, and no, we don’t get any confirmation. I would imagine they are caused by the same thing that burned the earth though.

rhii
6 years ago

@27 jdfs re: Selene/Galadriel //I think this is an intentional inversion of the relationship betewen Galadriel and Gimli. The compulsion is pretty clear in that scene, where it’s equally clearly a surprise to Galadriel that Gimli reacts the way he does, Lanfear wants to be admired and desired by *everyone* and is casting her net wide. Lanfear is an anti-Galadriel. She plays out what Galadriel could have been if she’d accepted the lust for power…. Beautiful and terrible, all shall love her and despair.//

Anthony Pero
6 years ago

Its official! Amazon picked up the series and ordered actual episodes. This is actually going to happen!

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/wheel-time-fantasy-drama-nabs-amazon-series-order-1148488

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6 years ago

Well in light of my previous post, at least some of my questions were addressed – although I find the comments about all the Dragon’s different names interesting. //Is the implication that the Dragon is reborn even in the non Age of Legends/current age? I thought that Lews Therin is the Dragon in the Age of Legends, who is only reborn in the current (Rand’s) age.

Or does he mean his name throughout previous turnings of the Wheel? And this kind of goes into the question of how similar/different the other turnings were – apparently he wasn’t named Lews/Rand, but what other differences were there, I wonder?

The question of Jesus is an interesting one – maybe he was a Dragon, but it was a different turning of the Wheel, so the Dragon/Dragon Reborn saga played out a bit differently? Or at the very least, some kind of powerful ta’veren meant to foreshadow/represent the Dragon.//

As to Sylas, I’ll just say you’re on to some meaty stuff regarding Ba’alzamon and while it seems inconsistent, it’s not a flaw of the writing. You ARE on to something and it is leading somewhere :)

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MaxDuo
2 years ago

I always kind of hated that they even mentioned Lanfear in this book.  It makes Selene pretty much 1 of 2 things –

1) A ridiculously obvious Lanfear…..

2) A ridiculous red herring.

 

Maybe mention her in book one briefly and then never again.  Selene is suspicious enough without the reader having to immediately be like: “This has to be Lanfear.”