Hello and welcome back to Reading The Wheel of Time. It feels like it’s been an Age, doesn’t it? I hope the new year finds all of you at least a little bit more rested and rejuvenated; I myself am ready to dive back into The Fires of Heaven and Rand’s Couladin problems. Come on, let’s get to it!
Chapter 20 opens with Rand urging Jeade’en up into the foothills of the Jangai pass, as the Dragonwall looms above them and dwarfs all the other mountains. Rand has heard that any man who tried to scale those mountains was forced to turn back, overcome by fear and unable to breathe. Looking at them, he can well imagine that climbing so high might make a man so afraid he couldn’t breathe.
He’s trying to ignore Moiraine, who is riding beside him and lecturing him on how to get Cairhien on his side and how to be a good ruler. She will talk to him like this all day, whenever he will let her, as though trying to give him the education of a noble. Sometimes she gives him startling information, like when she told him not to trust any woman from the Tower except herself, Egwene, Elayne, and Nynaeve. Or when she told him that Elaida is now the Amyrlin Seat. She refuses, however, to tell him where she got this information—Rand suspects the Wise One Dreamwalkers found out, and wishes he could make them swear the same loyalty oath that Moiraine has sworn to him.
But Rand doesn’t want to think about the Wise Ones, or about Moiraine’s lessons. He wants to study the path ahead, the strange remnants of what looks like old buildings and a dock, that must have been from before the Breaking. He can also see a huge image carved into the mountain, a snake entwined around a staff, that must have been a monument or ruler’s mark in some long-lost nation. At the base of the relief is Taien, a walled town left over from the days when Cairhien traded with Shara. He can see what appears to be birds circling the town, and Moiraine notices that his attention is trained elsewhere.
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“Are you listening to me?” Moiraine said suddenly, reining her white mare closer. “You must—!” She took a deep breath. “Please, Rand. There is so much that I must tell you, so much that you need to know.”
The hint of pleading in her tone made him glance at her. He could remember when he had been overawed by her presence. Now she seemed quite small, for all her regal manner. A fool thing, that he should feel protective of her. “There is plenty of time ahead of us, Moiraine,” he said gently. “I don’t pretend to think I know as much of the world as you. I mean to keep you close from now on.” He barely realized how great a change that was from when she was keeping him close. “But I have something else on my mind right now.”
“Of course.” She sighed. “As you wish. We have plenty of time yet.”
Rand picks up the pace, the wagons struggling to keep up. Rand has given Asmodean a banner to carry, bearing the symbol of the ancient Aes Sedai. It is the sign that the Dragon is prophesied to conquer under, and Rand thinks perhaps that it will scare people less than the Dragon banner he left flying over Tear.
When they get closer to the walls of Taien they discover dead, decomposing bodies hanging by their necks all around the town, ravens and vultures picking at the corpses. The gate stands open to show ruin in the town, and Rand has a thought not his own, that it reminds him of Mar Ruois. He knows that it must be Lews Therin’s memory, and reminds himself firmly that he is Rand al’Thor—he is determined that if he dies at Shayol Ghul, it will be as himself.
Rand thinks about the lead that Couladin has on them, and how much damage he will be able to do before they can catch up to him. Then Lan warns him that someone is watching them from the rocks, and Rand is glad he left the Aiel back at the mouth of the pass, since the sight of them would no doubt terrify any survivors. Two men and a woman emerge and approach them hesitantly, and quickly identify Rand as the leader. One of the men clings to his stirrup and thanks him for coming, calling him “My Lord” and describing how “those murdering savages” came in the night and attacked before anyone knew, killing anyone who resisted and stealing everything in sight.
Mat, standing and looking over the town, asked why they didn’t have sentries to sound the alarm, since they live so close to their enemies. He points out that even the Aiel would have a hard time coming at them if the town had kept a good watch, prompting Lan to give Mat an appraising look. The townsman replies that they had only a single watchman at each gate, since they haven’t seen any of “the savages” in years. He thanks Rand again for coming and introduces himself as Tel Nethin, the woman as his sister, Aril, and the other man as her husband, Andor Corl. They tell Rand that the Aiel stole people, including children, calling them “guy-shan” or something and stripping them naked before hauling them off.
Moiraine puts her hands on Aril and heals her, startling the woman. And then Andor recognizes the marking on Rand’s belt buckle and gasps, telling him that the leader of their attackers had the same markings on both his arms, the sleeves torn off so that they showed visibly. Rand is careful not to move, lest his own sleeves ride up and show off his dragon markings. He learns that the attack was six days ago, and that the townsfolk were too afraid to take the dead down from the walls. The leader told them not to touch anything.
“A message,” Andor said in a dull voice. “He chose them out to hang, just pulling them out until he had enough to line the wall. Men, women, he did not care.” His eyes were fixed on Rand’s buckle. “He said they were a message for some man who would be following him. He said he wanted this man to know… know what they were going to do on the other side of the Spine. He said… He said he would do worse to this man.”
Suddenly Aril’s eyes widen as she catches sight of Aiel coming up behind Rand. All three townspeople run off screaming, only to be caught by more Aiel rising from where they were hidden in the rocks.
Rand turns and see Rhuarc coming towards him, accompanied by Dhearic, the leader of the Reyn Aiel. He knows from communications between the Wise One Dreamwalkers that the Miagoma, Codarra, Shiande, and Daryne are all also following, but the Wise Ones don’t know those chiefs’ intentions. Rand asks Rhuarc if frightening the survivors was strictly necessary, and Rhuarc points out that the Aiel remained hidden as Rand asked until it was clear there was no one around to fight. And after all, these are only Treekillers.
Rand thinks about the conflict between the Aiel and Cairhien, the one the nations call the Aiel War but the Aiel saw merely as the execution of an oath breaker, and tells them sternly that these people broke no oaths. He gives instructions for the survivors to be rounded up, and to be treated gently. He also asks the two chiefs what they think of what Couladin did here. They’re disgusted by Couladin’s decision to kill more than necessary, and appalled by the idea of taking wetlanders as gai’shain.
“It cannot be so,” Rhuarc said at last. “If it is… Gai’shain is a thing of ji’e’toh. No one can be made gai’shain who does not follow ji’e’toh, else they are only human animals, such as the Sharans keep.”
“Couladin has abandoned ji’e’toh.” Dhearic sounded as though he were saying stones had grown wings.
Some of the Maidens come up to join them, and Rand decides that they will set up camp for the night, based on Lan’s point that Couladin could easily lay traps for them in the pass. Rand also sends the Water Seekers to scout ahead, and notes the looks the Maidens are giving him—he suspects that they’ve noticed his desire not to send them into possible danger if it can be avoided. He gives instructions for the survivors to be fed, and the bodies to be cut down and buried.
The camp goes up quickly while Moiraine and Lan go down to see to Kadere and his wagons. Rand notices that the Wise Ones’ tents are being set up in between his tent and those of the clan chiefs, and is surprised to see Melaine among the Wise Ones, since she married Bael, and became first-sister to Dorindha, only three days ago. He’d been surprised that the sister part of the ceremony had seemed just as important as the marriage, which had seemed to shock, or maybe just anger, Aviendha.
Rand wishes he had a way to keep Aviendha and Egwene from seeing the bodies in the town, and is surprised when neither woman has to run off to be sick. Aviendha, he realizes a moment later, has seen death often enough, but he’s struck by the pity in Egwene’s eyes as she comes over to console him, reminding him that this isn’t his fault. Rand assures her that he knows.
“Well, just you remember it. It was not your fault.” She heeled Mist on, and began talking to Aviendha before she was out of earshot. “I am glad he is taking it so well. He has the habit of feeling guilty over things he cannot control.”
“Men always believe they are in control of everything around them,” Aviendha replied. “When they find out they are not, they think they have failed, instead of learning a simple truth women already know.”
Egwene remarks that she thought they would find him heaving somewhere, and then they move out of earshot. Rand feels foolish for eavesdropping on them, but he still doesn’t like them talking about him behind his back. Then he catches sight of Mat, squatting by his horse with the black-hafted spear across his knees, peering at the town. It’s clear to Rand that Mat is studying Taien, not just staring, and he wishes that Mat was willing to open up about his experiences in Rhuidean. Mat still claims nothing happened, despite the spear and the fox-head medallion, the scar around his neck, and the strange things he has been saying since their first trip into the city. He also wonders if Mat knows that the Maidens are betting on whether or not Melindhra will give up the spear for him, or if they will teach him to sing.
The sound of music draws Rand to Asmodean, who complains about having to carry Rand’s banner and asks why Lan or Mat weren’t given the thing.
“You carry it because you were chosen, Master Jasin Natael.” Asmodean gave a start and looked around, though everyone else was too far away, and too busy, to be listening. None but they two would have understood, anyway. “What do you know about those ruins up near the snow line? They must come from the Age of Legends.”
Asmodean replies that changes to the world happened after he “went to sleep” and that for all he knows, this could be the city he was born in. Rand tells Asmodean he is too tired for one of their “discussions” and that he will see him in the morning, with the banner. Asmodean asks if Rand will be putting any nets of fire around his tent tonight, or if Rand has finally begun to trust him, and Rand answers that he trusts him like a brother… until the day Asmodean betrays him.
But Rand does set wards around the camps, making sure to include every tent, not just those in the pass, and he notices how much stronger he is getting through Asmodean’s teachings. The wardings will warn if any Shadowspawn cross them, while the Aiel watch for human enemies. He meets Aviendha at his tent and gets upset when she shows him a bloodsnake she killed. He feels like she takes unnecessary risks, and asks if she ever considered using the Power instead. But Aviendha answers that the Wise Ones have told her that it isn’t good to use the One Power too often, and that it is possible to draw too much power and harm yourself. She’s put off by Rand’s concern for her, and he lies and tells her that he wasn’t any more concerned about her than anyone else.
In the tent she brings up the debt between them again, ignoring his continued protests that there is no debt, and tosses a bundle at his feet. Rand is shocked when he unwraps it and finds a jewel-encrusted sword. It’s so elaborately decorated Rand deduces that it was never made to be used, only to be looked at, and thinks that it must have cost Aviendha a fortune. But she tells him that it didn’t.
“It was the treekiller’s sword. Laman’s. It was taken from his body as proof that he was dead, because his head could not be brought back so far. Since then it has passed from hand to hand, young men or fool Maidens who wanted to own the proof of his death. Only, each began to think of what it was, and soon sold it to another fool. The price has come down very far since it first was sold. No Aiel would lay hand to it even to remove the stones.”
Rand thinks the sword is ridiculously gaudy, though he tells her that it’s beautiful. However, when he looks closer he finds a heron-mark on the blade. Suddenly he is certain that this is a Power-wrought blade like the one he had from Tam, and after using it to slice through a pillow, he tells her that he will take the blade to cancel their debt, but that she must keep the jeweled scabbard and hilt. She accuses him of trying to put her back in his debt, but Rand points out that he never accepted the scabbard so it is still hers, and that he doesn’t accept the hilt either, so that is also still hers. She sulkily summons a gai’shain to clean up the pillow and the two eat dinner—Aviendha seems a little disappointed that Rand isn’t put off to learn that their stew was made form the bloodsnake she killed.
As they get ready for bed, Rand does his best to keep his back turned and ignore the sound of Aviendha undressing. He asks about Melaine and Bael’s wedding, including about the meaning of the segade blossoms Melaine put in the bridal wreath. He remembers that he sent the same kind of flowers to Aviendha.
She answers that the flowers signify Melaine’s prickly nature, and that she intends to keep it, but she also tells Rand that he doesn’t need to know all the flower meanings. He will never have an Aiel wife.
Finally, Rand asks what “teaching a man to sing” means, and Aviendha correctly deduces that he is thinking about Mat.
“Sometimes a man desires a Maiden who will not give up the spear for him, and he arranges to be taken gai’shain by her. He is a fool, of course. No Maiden would look at gai’shain as he hopes. He is worked hard and kept strictly to his place, and the first thing that is done is to make him learn to sing, to entertain the spear-sisters while they eat. ‘She is going to teach him to sing.’ That is what Maidens say when a man makes a fool of himself over one of the spear-sisters.”
She’s clearly falling asleep, but Rand presses to know who gave her the necklace. She tells him again that it is a gift from a friend, and Rand isn’t sure why it bothers him so much. He falls asleep dreaming of Aviendha and scenes from Melaine’s wedding.
I have to admit, I started out this section a little annoyed with Rand. His attitude towards Moiraine is a bit patronizing, I think, more than is warranted by their relative changes in authority. Sure, Rand is the Dragon Reborn, and fast coming into both his power and his authority. It makes perfect sense that his feelings about Moiraine should change, and it’s nice to see him thinking of her as an ally rather than a boogeyman puppet master. But while Moiraine’s oath has helped Rand to trust her, I’m not sure how much he respects her right now. There’s almost a parallel between Moiraine and Asmodean now—both have been bound to Rand in ways that they would like to have avoided, and both are serving as almost passive vessels of knowledge, into which Rand dips when he chooses, and not at other times. And while I don’t think it’s wrong for the Dragon Reborn to feel protective of people, the way Rand sees her as being small and lesser grates on my nerves somehow.
And it’s not just Moiraine who’s being patronized in this section. Rand is also keeping the Maidens out of danger, so much so that he’s worried that they are going to notice. Rand seems to have a very strong protective instinct towards women (we see this in Mat as well) and it’s hard to say what is just intended as a sort of “period correct” chivalry and what is a specific character trait. But Rand is headed for a confrontation with the Maidens if he keeps this up. No doubt they will remind him that their honor is at stake, but I’m not sure Rand will care. He’s broken enough traditions and doesn’t understand most of the Aiel mindset anyway, and I think he’s liable to put his own feelings before theirs. It’s an incredible disrespectful attitude to take, especially given how much more Maidens have to sacrifice than the men they fight beside.
There’s a lot of sexism in the way Rand views the Wise Ones as well. When the Aiel make camp outside of Taien, he notes that the Wise Ones have set their tents so that “anyone coming up from the hills to him would have to go through or around their camp to reach him.” It’s a sort of visual representation of Rand’s earlier irritated thoughts about the Wise Ones, when he wished that he could get them to swear Moiraine’s loyalty oath. He observes that “they interfered between him and the chiefs continually, as if they wanted him to go through them to reach the chiefs,” but doesn’t seem to acknowledge that this is the way Aiel hierarchy and culture work. The Wise Ones are supposed to be guides and leaders for the Aiel, and while it’s understandable that they and Rand are going to butt heads a lot, he basically spends these two chapters wishing he could remove all the Aiel women from the equation.
Even Egwene and Aviendha are subject to Rand’s patronization, although the narrative attempts to even the playing field by having it go both ways. When he is worried about Egwene being upset by the dead bodies, she is in turn worried about his constitution and guilt complex. Rand has a pretty well-developed guilt complex, as we well know, but the whole section really just comes off as another one of those moments in The Wheel of Time when men and women seem to view each other as perplexing children, even though the reader can easily understand the characters’ reactions and emotions. It’s kind of funny, in a way, and also kind of annoying; I remember a time not so long ago when Moiraine kept having to tell the Emond’s Fielders to think with their heads and not their hearts while they accused her of being cold and calculating, but now it seems like each of the kids believes that they are the only one who has learned that lesson.
On the other hand, Rand has a lot of legitimate reasons to be holding both the Aes Sedai and the Wise Ones at arm’s length. His biggest conflict with both Moiraine and the Wise Ones is the fact that his very existence is intended to break the establishment, and they are the establishment. And especially when it comes to Moiraine, I understand Rand’s impatience. He’s right in thinking that he’s not going to win the world, or Tarmon Gai’don, by her playbook. I think all that Cairhien nobility education probably is wasted breath, and I’m reminded once again of what Moiraine told Siuan about trying to guide someone so strongly ta’veren; it’s like trying to guide a log down a river, a log that is pushing back and a river that is getting ever stronger and more rapid.
Moiraine mentioned that surrender is how she can control things, but I wonder if it is going as well as she hoped. In addition to the secret urgency she feels over her impending death I wonder if she isn’t pushing all these lectures because Rand isn’t asking for advice as much as she hoped he would. I also remember that she was using her stone to eavesdrop on Rand, and she might know a lot more about what’s going on than he, or we, realize. She may even know the truth about Asmodean.
So yeah, I really understand where Rand is coming from. And certainly it’s easy for me, the reader, to sit back and see all the things he’s missing. I can wish that he would make more time to understand Aviendha and Moiraine, or wish that he would to try to find compromises with the Wise Ones and understand that they are only trying to protect their people, because I don’t have the fate of the entire world resting on my shoulders. That sort of thing takes up a lot of space in one’s brain, and there’s no way Rand’s going to be perfect, or even good, at everything. But from a narrative standpoint it does feel like we’ve run again into the problem of the gender divide as it is set up in The Wheel of Time; we’ve encountered a group of women who are said to be in control, to have more access to power, authority, and knowledge than the men of their nation, and yet when push comes to shove it is the men who are useful and the women who are in the way.
All that being said, I will also admit that Aviendha’s comment about men always thinking that if they can’t control everything they have failed certainly applies to me, so maybe I’m just cranky at being called out.
I feel like I write the words “there are some interesting parallels” a lot in this read, but we’re just going to have to blame Jordan for that one, because it is something he is really good at. This week we see Rand reevaluating the power dynamics in his relationship with Moiraine just as we saw Egwene do a few weeks ago. We also continue to see the parallels between Rand and Mat, and how they are both struggling with the heritage of their previous lives and the intrusion of those memories. This passage from Chapter 20 caught my attention particularly.
Mat guided Pips closer, using his knees. He had never been more than an indifferent rider, but sometimes, when he was thinking of something else, he rode as though born on a horse’s back.
This feels a bit like how Rand has leveled up so quickly as both a channeler and as blademaster. Of course we know that powerful channelers do learn quickly—Egwene, Nynaeve, and Elayne have all demonstrated the ability to replicate a weave after only seeing it once, as well as sometimes making their own, instinctually. I imagine the same is true for Rand, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if some of Lews Therin’s memories are helping him out from time to time. And there’s nothing about channeling that guarantees becoming a master swordsman, so I feel pretty confident that Rand’s ability to attain blade-master status after only a few years is due in part to the fact that he was one before, when he was Lews Therin.
Rand’s concern about past-life memories is more pressing in some ways, since he has to worry about the taint taking over his mind, but Mat has so many and they are entirely present within him all the time, as far as we can tell. It’s not clear to me if Mat understands that these memories are his, albeit from previous lives, or if he thinks that they are just random people’s. Rand, similarly, seems uncertain if he’s remembering real memories or just having hallucinations naming themselves for the previous Dragon. In some ways I think he believes it’s both at once.
But it makes me wonder how different someone is from life to life. The clearest example we have of reincarnation is Lews Therin to Rand, but even most of what we know of Lews Therin’s personality comes second-hand from people who hated him (or from Lanfear, whose judgment is even more clouded) so it’s hard to say how similar the two men actually are to each other. Mat does seem to have been a gambler and a strategist in every life, including this one. These little tidbits don’t tell us how much of a person is a core self, that travels from life to life, though. How much can one’s personality change with each incarnation? And for that matter, what does the “soul” of someone bound to the Wheel look like when it’s not in a body? I have been assuming that the soul we know as Birgitte appears in the guise of her last life, that this is her most recent persona, but I guess I don’t know that for sure.
Speaking of things I don’t know, I’m really curious about the name of Lews Therin Telamon. Whenever he is referred to without his surname, it’s always by his first and middle name. It’s Lews Therin, and never just Lews. I wonder what the naming convention behind this is, and if it has some particular significance from the Age of Legends. It’s interesting to speculate on these things now; compared to a few books ago, I know have a lot of information on the history of this world and the Age of Legends, but really only enough to make vague guesses. (Which is kind of what it’s like to be our heroes, maybe?) For example, the Aiel men don’t sing except in battle or at a funeral. Is this to make those moments more special? Is it a machismo thing? Or is it, perhaps, a remnant of the Da’shain Aiel, who would sing to make the crops grow. The Aiel don’t remember that history anymore, but perhaps the respect for singing has translated down the years into Aiel men having these specific customs.
But we did finally learn what it means for a Maiden to teach a man to sing, and I thought that was pretty funny. Putting aside my ongoing complaint that male warriors can have families at home and women can’t (why shouldn’t a man be allowed to give up the spear and become a roof-husband or whatever they’d call it?) the whole thing is a pretty funny picture. And while the Maidens might view such a man as being foolish, it might be nice to take a break from the warrior’s life and learn to sing for the woman you love.
I’m also curious if Rand’s certainty of his own death is affecting his decisions, and how. He does seem very convinced of it, even though a prophecy of blood on rocks is pretty ambiguous. It’s often the case in fiction that characters confronted with certain death find a certain clarity of focus, but it’s also true that, with no future to protect, one might be overly reckless. Either way, the fact that the thought keeps coming up in the narration shows how much it is ever-present in Rand’s mind.
We’ve spent so much time with the Aiel that I almost forgot about how the rest of the world sees them, but it only took one encounter with folks from the west to be reminded. I would hardly expect the people of Taien to say complimentary things about the Aiel after what they’ve been through, but the word choice here “savages” is a loaded one both in our world and in theirs. In their world it evokes memories of the Da’shain Aiel and their exploitation after the Breaking, of the dichotomy of how the Aiel view weapons and killing, and even of the prejudice leveled towards the Tinkers. I very much appreciated how the narration addressed this, with Rand’s thoughts turning towards the culture clash of the Aiel War and how little the Aiel perspective is understood by those on the other side of the Dragonwall. It will be interesting to see how Rand uses the Aiel once he gets into the Westlands and takes care of Couladin. He intends to threaten the other nations into submission, relying on the Aiel’s well-deserved reputation. But in the long run, I imagine he wants to heal this breach—unless he hasn’t thought that far ahead yet.
Sylas K Barrett is still worried about Moiraine, and thinking about the way each protagonist carries their own burdens, secret from everyone else, and what might be different if there was more sharing. Sylas is also thinking about the leftover eggnog in the fridge. It’s a complicated dance.
Rand’s hang up about women is definitely shaped in some ways by his own culture/upbringing but there are also some pretty character specific reasons that will be come apparent.
Regarding men/women/control I read an interesting reflection awhile back about how women (cis women, for the purposes of this essay) do tend to be more aware of this truth in part because even our own bodies aren’t totally within our control – from a young age we’re dealing with periods and all that entails, and then possibly pregnancy, childbirth, etc. Not saying this is superior or inferior or anything else (or that every single woman experiences life this way), but it’s kind of already baked into our existence that we don’t have as much control as we would like.
Very glad to see the series back, happy New Year Sylas!
Sylas still thinks Mat’s memories are of his past lives :D
Though, to be fair, that’s how it reads at this point in the series and RJ apparently changed his plans and sort of rectonned the memories thing.
Interestingly I didn’t see Rand as being patronizing towards Moiraine but unexpectedly gentle and considerate now that he feels he can trust her. He clearly doesn’t understand her urgent need to pour information into him right this minute, and she doesn’t tell him she’s working under a time limit.
Rand’s protectiveness towards women is in part cultural, Mat and Perrin have it too, but the obsessive character seems to be unique to Rand. We eventually learn it’s become a sort of fetish to him because he’s trying to hold on the the shepard boy from Two Rivers and protecting women is the rock he’s chosen to stand on.
We also eventually learn that the Wise Ones have positioned themselves between Rand and the chiefs in order to run interference and smooth down the hackles Rand raises. The fact that he assumes the WOs are working against rather than for him is a symptom of how distrustful he’s becoming.
He is especially distrustful of Aes Sedai, not without reason. The AS have a completely deserved reputation of being manipulative and working towards their own ends. The WO as female channelers are tainted in Rand’s eyes by his fears of the AS.
Eggy turns out to be dead right about Rand’s hypertrophied sense of responsibility. A good trait taken to extremes it becomes a serious issue as the series progresses. Sometimes you want to shake Rand until his teeth rattle. You’re the Dragon Reborn,not the Creator!
@5 princessroxana, I couldn’t agree more. Rand wasn’t being patronizing towards Moiraine, just re-evaluating their dynamics. I would submit that Rand’s obsessive protectiveness towards women is also likely enhanced due to the way he ended his past life: by killing his wife and family in madness; that’s got to leave deep physiological scars, even if he can’t quite consciously remember or acknowledge it.
@3 I see no reason to think that RJ “retconned” Mat’s memories, though it is reasonable assumption for a reader to make initially that his memories are of past lives. The ‘Finn could give Mat access to memories of people who visited them, which were people who tended to be adventurous military types. It does seem that RJ abandoned the whole ‘ancestral memory thing,’ where as recently as The Dragon Reborn, we see him experiencing a memory of a past life/ancestor in the battle for Manatheren. I’m not sure that one needs to infer that the Finn memories need to be a retconn though.
His annoyance at the Wise Ones “interfering” between him and the chiefs also comes from his Two Rivers upbringing, where the polite fiction of “men’s business” and “women’s business” being completely separate was ingrained in his head…but he was never allowed to partake in either before he left, so he doesn’t even understand the reality of it in the Two Rivers.
Sometimes the tight third-person narration makes us forget how young and ignorant most of these characters are. RJ is really masterful about that, to the point of annoying readers who are less discerning of such things.
Once again, a lack of communication leads to distrust and misunderstandings… Moiraine doesn’t mention her time limit, or that she knows about Asmodean. Rand doesn’t tell anyone about Asmodean. The Chiefs are direct and up-front with Rand about their positions, concerns, fears, etc… the Wise Ones are intent on political maneuvering and manipulating the situation.
@2: I find this to be an interesting take, since a large percentage of my past female romantic partners were very control focused. Within the construct you presented, perhaps its to control what they can to make up for the things they can’t? Or, maybe I just have a type? But it does speak to the textual theme that we all experience reality a different way, and that so much of truth is in the voice of the narrator eye of the beholder. I’ve found the women in my life to be more focused on controlling the world around them (like the way the Wise Ones position themselves to control the camp situation), whereas you’ve found the opposite. It’s interesting if nothing else.
@5 I do view Rand’s thoughts about Moiraine as patronizing, but with a ton of rereads under my belt retroactively view such thoughts as bleed over from LTT. There are moments elsewhere in the narrative where Rand calls Third Age Aes Sedai little sisters or similar, which is clearly from LTT influence. Whenever we see the thoughts of an Age of Legends channeler concerning “modern” Aes Sedai they tend to be condescending in this way because of the great gap in knowledge and power. So I don’t think feel negatively about Rand about it, but it still counts as patronizing to me.
I don’t think Rand himself is being sexist here, in response to Sylas, at least regarding the Wise Ones. I think the reader is meant to notice how the gendered division of power in Aiel society (and generally in all societies in the books) can produce screwy dynamics. And I think Rand is justifiably annoyed at the Wise Ones trying to play middleman with the clan chiefs. He’s leading the Aiel to war, and it’s the clan chiefs who will be prosecuting that effort. The Wise Ones pointedly do not fight, they are sticking themselves in this business because they have a goal to make him see the Aiel as his people and for the remnant who survive the upcoming trials to be as large as possible…so I don’t think it’s Rand that’s ignoring the way Aiel society works. The Wise Ones are interfering. Perhaps ironically this does highlight his sexism regarding the Maidens (who will be fighting in these wars), which is real.
Regarding Mat, I remember thinking the same way as Sylas, and was fairly floored when it first became explicit that the Finn had given Mat memories of random people they had encountered in the Tower. I always just assumed they were all past lives of his, which I think comes heavily from what goes on in the EotW. In retrospect, I think it makes a lot more sense to work the way it does, but the idea never even occurred to me originally.
I can’t remember if it has been mentioned at this point that AoL people earned their third name…
Could the mountainside carving of a staff with a snake around it be the Rod of Asclepius? I wonder if this is another first age reference made by Jordan. Like could it be a World Health Organization sign that somehow merged into the stone during the breaking? Or do we have any monuments with this symbol that Jordan could be referencing?
Whether it be correct or not, my opinion of Rand and his overprotectiveness of women is a combination of cultural upbringing (rural farm town where his pals, particularly Mat, also really struggle with the “harming women” thing and the majority of the region seemed to subscribe to the “women do the thinking, men do the doing” thought process) and having Lews Therin in his brain (guy who regularly talks about how he deserves eternal damnation for killing his wife while insane). Basically his natural belief augmented by the voice in his head to turn it into an obsession. So that where Mat’s issues tend to mainly come up when he personally is in a tough spot with a woman, Rand’s are a constant thought running through his mind to the degree he mantras every single one dead whom he has even the slimmest connection to.
I think trauma of having his brain picked loose from the Dagger definitely shook loose some of Mat’s past life memories which may have been close to the surface anyway given his spouting of Old Speech. However the memories from the Finn definitely come from other men.
I’m certain that at some point it’s mentioned that Mat remembers being on both sides of the same battle. While this doesn’t disprove the Ancestral Memory theory, it would put to rest the Past Lives theory.
@12 – Your comment about LTT’s torment sparked an old memory. I never really saw the fanbase discuss something that I thought was very odd: LTT never once meaningfully mentioned his children. I think most people, at least the parents I know, would be more eternally damned over killing their children. But then again, RJ himself never had children, so…IDK, it’s just weird.
Interesting how sure Sylas is over the past-lives thing for Mat. He’s had some really perceptive conclusions books before I would have thought there was enough evidence, but this one is just… speculation, and he’s making inferences and identifying parallels on top of that speculation. Which in this case could be a problem if he doesn’t re-evaluate both the assumption and the conclusions later on when Matt more clearly states his thoughts on the Finns and where his memories came from.
I also don’t think the “3 names” thing is ever made clear in the main series – I think it’s entirely from one of the companion pieces. But if you haven’t read those, it’s not really a spoiler to reveal that a third name is earned through some great work – he would have been born just “Lews Therin”, and later earned “Telamon”. I don’t think there’s anything really deep to learn about when people use 2 of his names instead of all 3.
I also noticed the bit about becoming breathless on the dragonwall – which Rand assumes is due to fear, but gives real-world readers a reference for their height – high enough that you need to bring supplemental oxygen.
I think most cultures have a “bias” of protecting women, and one can suspect a biological basis. Most of human history has been lived in small groups – cities came with agriculture less than 10000 years ago. The survival of these groups at a given time depended on producing children for the next generation, and this was limited by the number of women: the maximum reproductive rate is roughly one child per woman per year. Men, OTOH, are not required in large numbers for this: one man can father many children in a year. (Remember I am speaking BIOLOGY here, not cultural norms or morals.)
So it makes sense that there might evolve a cultural (if not genetic) tendency to value the lives of women (at least until the end of reproductive years) more than those of males.
This is speculative, but for more I recommend Matt Ridley’s THE RED QUEEN’S RACE: SEX AND THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN NATURE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Red_Queen:_Sex_and_the_Evolution_of_Human_Nature
There’s no retconn regarding Mat and his memories. He’s dealing with two different phenomena. Firstly the bleed through from what is heavily implied to have been the last king of Manetheren (he commands the Heart Guard in his memory after healing from the dagger, a continuation of his use of Aemon’s personal battlecry during the flight from the Two Rivers). Secondly the Finn memories for which we have Jordan himself stating during a Q&A that they are the memories of random adventurers.
@15, Austin, I wonder is LTT so fixated on the killing of Ilyena because he can’t bear to even think about the murder of his children?
Huh. Re-reading this part:
““Sometimes a man desires a Maiden who will not give up the spear for him, and he arranges to be taken gai’shain by her. He is a fool, of course. No Maiden would look at gai’shain as he hopes. He is worked hard and kept strictly to his place, and the first thing that is done is to make him learn to sing, to entertain the spear-sisters while they eat. ‘She is going to teach him to sing.’ That is what Maidens say when a man makes a fool of himself over one of the spear-sisters.”
Which is an aspect of Aiel culture (which I generally disdain as a rule), made realize that this was a hook for the future Rolan/Faile plotline. Pretty sneaky, RJ.
In this and other sections, I always loved Rand’s time with Asmodean in this book. That’s partly because it was so unexpected the first time. Our protagonists first knew of the Forsaken as near-mythical monsters. Then Rand encountered some of them as his terrifyingly powerful sub-archenemies (the Dark One is his archenemy, I guess, but doesn’t yet interact with him) who chased him across the world and alternate dimensions, intent on killing him or forcing him to serve them, human-seeming only when hiding their identities. Other characters’ experiences with them have not been much different from that, at this point. We’ve started seeing them for the petty and fallible humans they are, via their own POVs. But before it happened, I never imagined that Rand would knowingly live and casually converse with one of the Forsaken, learning from him, treating him as an ordinary and unique human — a dangerous human with ancient knowledge and a history of atrocities, forced to help and serve him, but still a human. I seldom see this precise dynamic in fantasy, and I love it.
@22: The parallels between Moghieden and Asmodean between this and the following book are by no means coincidental, either. This is the first book where we *really* start to see the Forsaken as the completely ordinary, petty people that they are. Some of them are clever, and they’re all reasonably skilled with the One Power (although some have much worse showings than others), but they aren’t the mythological figures that their hype would have people believe. Most of ’em are high on their own supply in that regard, too.
As far as Rand’s obsession with keeping women safe, in one sense it is born from the Two Rivers culture in general; Mat and Perrin both have it at some level as well. But…
… Mat flat out assassinates a fleeing woman and is entirely comfortable with encouraging, for example, a damane rebellion, and Perrin’s perfectly willing to put people in harm’s way, man or woman. He regrets it, but he has the support and help in Faile in working through his grief over the deaths under his leadership even of people he knew growing up. But Rand has nobody, because he can trust nobody around him except Mat, and Mat’s not really a great emotional sounding board.
We saw in the last book that while the people of the Two Rivers formed up their battle line “conventionally”, the women and children being protected and set to evacuate while the men fought, when that fell through and *everyone* came to the palisades, there isn’t any space given to recriminations or regret or forging a soul in the pain of failure or so on.
Rand is unique in this regard, and it gets far, far worse as the Lews Therin persona develops.
While journeying to Tear, he nearly kills Egwene and *did* kill another woman, without hesitation if not without regret. But as we can see, coming up, he’s totally unable to bring himself to do even try to do anything about Lanfear.
I attribute it to Lews’ suicidal guilt and despair bleeding through.
Typos:
“Andor” → “Ander” (twice)
“have a avoided” → “have avoided”
“she would” → “he would”
“Brigitte” → “Birgitte”
Sylas seems to still be stuck in the rather USA-specific custom that everybody has a first name, a middle name and a last name. I suppose he hasn’t been given enough hints yet to figure out that “Telamon” means “the Dragon”.
@24: The typos should be fixed, now!
HeavyMountain@8:
On that note, a desire for control is at the root of worry. So, gender aside, if you see someone who is constantly worrying about things, they have control issues. Worry is just a more passive way to express that than the more aggressive anger that you see from alphas.
@15:
Since Lews Therin was over 400 years old, he may have sired many children that had already died of old age, if they didn’t inherit has ability to channel. He may be inured to it. But, I think you’re right, the author never had children of his own, and may not have recognized how strange that is.
I always imagined Lews Therin was particularly focused on Ilyana because that’s the only death he was lucid enough to actually SEE (when Moridin gave him back his sanity, in the EotW prologue), immediately before his suicide. Or were other family members in that scene and I’ve forgotten? (don’t have my copy with me to check)
FirstRyder @16:
I think you’re right; an IdealSeek search for “third name” has it come up only in The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. (Of course, IdealSeek doesn’t include AMoL and is not perfect even on the rest of the series.) None of the occurrences of “earned” outside of the ones above refer to third names. I didn’t check every occurrence of “third” (because of the sheer number of “Third Age” references), but in order for it to have been missed in the first search the IdealSeek cut would have had to be between “third” and “name”, which is possible but unlikely. I don’t think there’s any phrase to search other than “third name” to get this information, so unless someone else can find a specific reference in the series proper, I agree with you.
RJ’s story generally doesn’t have children in it, not ones younger than teenagers. Olver is the stand in for all children (and even he is probably very close to being a teenager, if an undersized one). Now, war and battle is no place for young children, so I get it that they aren’t going to be prominent in those parts of the story, but it is very odd that NONE of the rulers we meet in RandLand have young children. Not one. In fact, most of the rulers we meet fall into two categories. 1) Unmarried women who are either widowed with no intention of marrying again with adult or near adult children OR who are not yet married but may be seeking that; or 2) older men who have grown up children and, in some cases, grown up grandchildren. It’s just odd that no-one is in their 20s or 30s, recently been married and started a family.
I thought in the prologue it did mention the bodies of his children somewhere but I’d have to re-read and check.
@23
I felt Perrin was the most “equal rights” when it came to death, if only because he was constantly worried about Faile to the degree his POVs are obsessive over her, whether it be “did she get away?” during the battle for Two Rivers or the “NOTHING ELSE MATTERS BUT HER!!!!!” attitude during Malden. He might have had the same general attitude towards women in general, but he was so tunnel-vision’d on Faile at all times that it was hard for anyone else to really affect that mindset.
Mat was more complex. Like you said, he did order the death of an attempted escapee (reluctantly, had nightmares about it) and he did set up the damane rebellion (to keep a promise to other women, had a reaction to the aftermath along the lines of “I guess I knew it wouldn’t be peaceful, but this??…”) and he’s not as extreme as Rand about it, but it gets pretty obvious that a certain event happening to him later in this book did have a profound effect on him. I’m a little ways into Knife of Dreams in my re-read and in the chapter where his, uh, guest wanted to experience a charming sort of tavern known as a “Hell” in one town, he had to be saved during a fight because he was attacked by a woman in it and refused to do more than try to defend himself because he didn’t want to kill her. Basically the pure melee (and less dramatic) version of what happens to Rand later on in this book.
@28 –
If I’m not mistaken, this may very well be the only mention of Lews Therin’s children in the entire series.
@27 – That is a reasonable explanation. Though I think the fact that he killed his children would override any inoculation from watching previous children die from old age. It’s not the fact that they died but that he killed them himself. Just very odd that he only ever mentions his despair at killing Illyena.
@29: I *distinctly* remember one of the Forsaken being mentioned as being tetchy that they didn’t get a third name but Lews Therin did, and, if I’m not mistaken, during the flashback sequence in TDR, Rand’s Age of Legends Aiel ancestor thinks that Mierin’s upcoming attempt to harness a power that both men and women could use equally would earn her hers.
The part about the dolls now reminds me about how they portrayed that in the Billy Zane version, lol.
Forsaken who got a third name: Aginor, Asmodean, Be’lal, Demandred, Graendal, Ishamael, Sammael, Semirhage
Forsaken who didn’t: Balthamel, Lanfear, Mesaana, Moghedien, Rahvin
That fits what we’re told of their backstories. Moghedien was an investment advisor who came to be notorious for keeping a low profile in her work for the Dark One, Mesaana was deemed “unsuitable for research” but acceptable for apparently-less-honored teaching work (I can relate), Lanfear didn’t manage to get such recognition for “great social sevrice” and didn’t like that, Balthamel was a historian distracted by gambling and womanizing, and nobody officially knows what Rahvin did with his life (apart from womanizing, presumably) before becoming Forsaken. By contrast, the rest were famously accomplished in their specialties before they began to openly serve the Dark One.
The Big Book of Bad Art mentions that Balthamel “…was unable to distinguish himself enough to earn the coveted third name“…
Can we get to the chapter This Place, This Day already?!? This is probably my favorite book of the series because the reader sees Matrim level up like crazy!
Presumably Mierin thought her research into this new energy source was what would have earned her her third name. And in a way it did.
Son of Battles, Trickster, Gambler. This is who Mat is, his archetypal identity and a role he has played over and over again through many lives. The Finn know him, maybe some of those Finn given memories are his, the Heroes of the Horn know him having encountered him in their own multiple lives. Perrin’s other lives don’t intrude,he has enough trouble being a wolf brother. Eggy is the only other Emond’s Fielder to recognize Old Speech though she can’t quite understand it. I like to think she’s Latra Posae Decume, returned like Lews Therin because she wants to fix what she did wrong, but blessedly she doesn’t know it. I suspect the large number of strong channelers of both sexes born at the end of the Third Age is due to channeler’s from the Breaking being reborn. Ilyena is almost certainly among them. Elayne or Aviendha perhaps?
I do wonder if Lews Therin’s children were actually children anymore though. I don’t know the timeline, but I presume from marriage to Illyena to her death was decades and the War of Power lasted decades right? Do you really think Lews and Illyena were having children during the War of Power? it seems odd to decide to bring children into the world when the world literally is going to Hell. (yes, yes Rand impregnates one and possibly two women during a similar period, so obviously it does happen). We know from the scene quoted above that that he had 4 children at least (sons and daughters), but couldn’t they all be grown? And that could be a reason that he is more horrified to his wife’s death, rather this grown children.
@41 – The passage I quoted says “sprawled like broken dolls, play stilled forever.” That doesn’t sound like grown children.
I loved what Barret writes about the Moiraine-Rand dynamic. It started off reading like every conventional take on Rand failing to respect and appreciate Moiraine, but then brought up the very salient points that Moiraine doesn’t have a lot to teach him, and her Cairhienin political knowledge is not going to be very useful in the big picture. Her comments to Siuan in tGH are very on point (and her private assessments of Siuan apply to herself as well).
Another factor is that Moiraine’s plans increasingly suck and Rand is not unobservant. He has noticed Moiraine’s tactics for trying to control him & his friends by keeping things back and not showing her cards. The bit where she calculated shares her certainty that Thom is alive at the moment when she decides the group needs a pick-me-up is what sticks in my head. And in the last couple books, she kept him penned up in the mountains instead of going to help people, assuring him that it was for his safety, that surely the authorities were going to crush any group he was with. Then when the Tinker brings word that debunks her prediction, she switches to the notion that he has to hide in the mountains to be kept safe from Shadowspawn killers who are picking off guys who look like him. And then that night their so-safe camp gets hit by Trollocs and Myrrdraal. So Rand decides fuck it and goes to Tear on his own. Then he handles the politics his own way, while Moiraine is clearly grasping at straws to convince Rand to do what she wants, while being visibly irritated at his attempts to educate himself and trying to control his clandestine advice from Thom. Moiraine’s own condescension means that even after she notices that Elayne has a good political sense, she thinks the two of them are only kissing and not actually conducting political lessons. Then she is disparaging toward Rand’s plans, which achieve the end she hoped for in keeping the nobles busy and establishing his authority, while providing humanitarian relief to Cairhien and creating a relationship with Illian and Mayene based on trade and exchange of services, rather than conquest and force. She’s still disparaging Rand’s orders to feed people early in this book, and according to Mat, was trying to persuade Rand against taking the Aiel to protect Cairhien from Couladin. Rand was born to save people and at every turn, Moiraine is trying to argue against that. And her reasons are increasingly thin and devoid of substance. Notice that she had no rebuttal to Rand’s declaration of his intent to use the Aiel to end the infighting and division among the nations. Because he was right. It would work. And she knows it and it also means that Siuan’s whispering campaign – intended to give the appearance to the rulers that she’s the one in control and basically do with the rulers, what the Wise One’s camping arrangements do with the chiefs – make them come through her to get to him- is doomed. No one is going to care about the subtle levers of political influence and favors when they are staring down the spears of an Aiel army three times the size of the one that fought the combined nations to a draw. Except one of the largest & wealthiest nations is on Rand’s side, too.
Rand knows all of this. This is why he doesn’t treat Moiraine with more reverence. And while he (and Barrett) might not yet know it, this is the same woman who was raised in House Damodred, whose seminal political education included justifications and rationalizations for that family’s ruling style and policies that gave them what Moiraine calls a “deservedly” unpleasant reputation. Even though she’s now an adult with a more objective view of her uncle’s rule and their ancestors before them, at a fundamental level, her view of political ethics is compromised. When confronted with the idea of ruling Cairhien herself, she is horrified because she honestly believes the evil methods of her family are necessary to do the job. And now, years later, despite a firm rejection of House Damodred and its actions and the evil they have done, Moiraine is still firmly arguing against Rand doing good and helping people. She doesn’t see it that way, but from what Rand can see, she tries to frustrate every one of his good intentions.
Can you imagine if down the road, it turned out that the Forsaken Moiraine wanted Rand to attack, despite his vast ignorance of the One Power, was a military expert and a master of defensive tactics? Or that the weapon she intended him to use as a compensation for his ignorance, Callandor, was not a cheat code after all, but had hidden dangers that could be found out with some proper research that a young Aes Sedai simply doesn’t have time for when she is spending 19 years running around the continent asking about children’s ages? That would be pretty embarrassing to her, wouldn’t it? Or what if Rand knew she was eavesdropping on his & Asmodean’s lessons, but instead of offering her help with the oft-discussed critical lack of female aid in the training, she kept her mouth shut so she could spring her knowledge at a time and in a way best calculated to make her seem smarter than she is? Even if she doesn’t want to reveal to Asmodean that she knows who he is, if she tells Rand, she can at least help him figure out what questions to ask and be someone he can use to check Asmodean for truthfulness.
As WoT goes on, we see time and again, that candor and openness are the way to get people working together. We’ve already seen the pitfalls for Nynaeve of pretending to be more than she is, and affecting a state of knowledge and awareness she does not possess, merely for the benefit of her pride. Moiraine is doing the exact same thing with Rand that Nynaeve does with Elayne, Egwene & Melaine. Even Thom & Juilin, though Elayne is complicit in that one as well. I was shocked in this book when I realized they had not told the men about Moghedian in Tanchico. Even with Mat. His knowledge could be extremely useful to Rand, but not if he keeps insisting he does not have it. You can’t really blame Mat too much, because his struggle with his new memories is akin to Rand’s struggle with the things from Lews Therin, as I believe Barrett observed.
One of the things I recall a lot of fans being frustrated over during the series was the refusal of the ta’veren especially to just Answer the Call already, to stop resisting and embrace their powers and become the badasses whose potential we see. But central to those powers are threats to their identities and self-conceptions. Robert Jordan once answered a question about why are people in WoT afraid to die if they are going to be reborn, by pointing out that all their memories and personal experiences and everything that makes them who they are will be gone. That they have died before and don’t remember, so death is the same for them as it is IRL. That their soul keeps going isn’t much of a consolation. The idea of losing their minds, their will, their agency to a wolf, to a long-dead adventurer or to a prior incarnation is horrifying, and except for Egwene, none of the characters know they have plot armor, so they use those powers as little as possible, while fighting to preserve their senses of self.
And that, of course, is what is going on with the Aes Sedai when confronted with the Dragon Reborn. Sure, following him can save them from the Shadow, just as the abilities of a wolf, the memories of a general or the powers of the greatest Aes Sedai in history can save the ta’veren from the crisis of the moment. But at what cost to the Tower, to the world the Aes Sedai have spent building and guiding? If Rand changes it beyond recognition, did he really save the world as they knew it? Same thing with the Aiel. Hell, his girlfriend grapple with the same issue concerning their respective relationships with him. “Who am I, if I do something so outside my prior identity to pursue this relationship? Am I still me, if I trade pants for dresses and ‘waste’ time on my appearance? If I make the trade of a spear for a man I have scorned others for making? If I act like a ginormous slut to get him to notice me?” They seem like silly concerns to a casual reader, but issues of identity and knowledge and agency are what make this more than just a pulp adventure series, they are at the heart of Wheel of Time.
Of course, the other thing that frustrated even the casual fans was the utter lack of communication and honestly even between people on the same side. There, they were a bit more justified, as the narrative does tend to reward honesty and openness between characters, but Jordan does an amazing job of making the obstacles to it plausible and understandable. And also feel more earned when they do happen (ie Ingtar), because the characters had to work to gain trust or take a risk to give it. Reading them vomit exposition all over each other was a significant problem for me in the final trilogy.
Some interesting discussion about LTT’s focus on his wife, despite the clearly documented in-world reality that he also killed his children… Never Mind the narrative reinforcement of his murderous profligacy while in the grip of madness, with the nickname Ishamael first uses in the Prologue – Kinslayer.
Could it simply be that even in the grip of that madness, there is a level of self-preservation at play? An innate sense that in order to remain functional – and no matter how insane he is as a result of the Taint and thousands of years of guilt – LTT is never depicted as anything less than a superior badass when he engages with the situation at hand – he cannot go there.
Could it simply be that LTT doesn’t acknowledge any death beyond his wife’s because to do so would render him inert?
Is that what the narrative is implying?
Or, is it simply a case maintaining as much focus as possible, while emphasising parallels and feted destiny between AoL and Current Events, like Elayne/Ilyena, that would otherwise be diluted if LTT’s expressed grief was spread more evenly between his kin?
It seems to me it could be both.
foamy @34: I was sure going into my search that I would find the reference, but as I outlined @29, I couldn’t. The phrase “third name” appears nowhere in the main books (unless, as I said, IdealSeek cuts it between those words, which is possible but unlikely). You may be remembering the passage Joakim B @37 quoted (which is what I think I was remembering).
And I just skimmed through the Wayback Machine sequence and I don’t see anything about Mierin’s third name there.
@45: You’re correct, but I’ve never read the Companion but I know of the third name thing, so it must have come from *somewhere* in the main books.
45/46.
The only place it might be mentioned explicitly outside the Big Book of Bad Art, might be in the Sanderson books, which are full of perceived fan-Service non-sequiturs and less than incisive insertions in the name of attempted shoehorning, but because of my disdain, I haven’t read them enough to be sure.
In the Jordan books, I suppose it can be easy to conflate the fact of the 3 Names, with the significance of it, given the context in which they are used.
Starting with Lews Therin Telamon and Elan Morin Tedronai.
Then we get Joar Adam Nessossin.
Then Tel Janin Aelinsar.
Lastly Barid Bel Medar… who is explicitly described by Messaana as the AoL equivalent of a ‘nearly Man’ who, if it weren’t for LTT, would have been the most acclaimed man of that Age.
And this is where I think that conflation may come into it.
Acclaim.
All of those I’ve listed are described in-world as leaders at the pinnacle of their particular specialty. So we’re conditioned as readers to associate 3 names with excellence of some sort. However, I don’t remember anywhere it is specifically stated how 3 names have any significance beyond an assumed naming convention of AoL.
For mine, explicating the origins of The Forsaken is a redeeming feature of the BBoBA. Perhaps the only one, given I had already read the Strike At Shayol Ghul online before the book was published.
And that is the only place I can remember the 3 Name issue being addressed, in the process of filling in those Forsaken backstories.
Not even Loial, when asked by Moiraine to fill her in on Bel’al in The Dragon Reborn, mentions his name before he became Forsaken.
As an interesting aside, did you also notice that in the Main Story in Jordan’s books, we only learn the original name of one female Forsaken – Mierin?!
And not even a hint of a 3rd Name amongst the female Forsaken at all!
Per Encyclopedia WoT, Semirhage and Graendel had third names, and Mesanaa was always resentful that she hadn’t earned one. Query whether that is from the Big Book of Bad Art or somewhere in the next of one of the books.
48/ Rob, it’s not in the Main Story at all, at least in Jordan’s books. As I said. The only name we learn is Mierin.
Definitely in the BBoBA.
Can’t remember if it’s in the Sanderson books.
My instinctive memory is, No.
But I’m just not sure.
@49 – thanks!
On new names, there’s an article on the Thirteenth Depository website which goes through all of the Forsaken and gives all of their AoL names (Graendal as Kamarile Maradim Nindar, for example). Not sure what the source is for a lot them, though, if they don’t actually appear in the book
https://13depository.blogspot.com/2002/03/names-of-shadow.html#graendal
@51: Thanks for sharing! It’s cool to learn the real-world inspirations of namedls. I think the birth names of the Forsaken are all in The World of Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. Even if not, I’m sure they’re in the The Wheel of Time Companion, though I haven’t read it.